I’m the forever-GM for our house. The kids prefer for me to GM and I don’t know anyone in person who can match my schedule for a regular game and who wants to take on the GM responsibilities. When one of my players from last week’s New Gamemaster Month game wanted to host their own game, I jumped at the chance to be a player. Also, I wanted to repay their kindness for being in my game.

I don’t know why, but ever since my first game (and I think the only other time I was a player) I’ve been attracted to the bard class. I also thought this would be a smart choice knowing this would be a level 1 one-shot. Many classes, like the Wizard, don’t truly come into their own until level 3. Also, since it was a one-shot I went with the recommended stats, talents, etc from the Player’s Guide, allowing for creativity in the lineage and heritage. I went with a kobold because I figured that wouldn’t be a typical lineage for a bard. It also gave my character an adventuring motivation. Most kobolds (especially in Kobold Press’ Midgard campaign setting) are expected to work in mines or be tinkers. Scrabble would not fit in and would want to prove himself in the world to show other kobolds that there are other possible careers. Here’s my character sheet as it appears in FoundryVTT (where we played the game):

My Experience

For this post I’m going to do the opposite of my usual and post my thoughts first, followed by an in-game narrative of the adventure.

As I mentioned above, one of last week’s players was the GM. Another player, the one who played the pacifist last week, was in this game as well. The other four players were a group that already knew each other pretty well. This would turn out to be a multi-layered learning event for me. It was only my second time as a TTRPG player, my first time as a ToV player, my first time as a player outside my family, and my first time coming into a pre-established group. I wasn’t nervous, but I hang out a lot in various D&D Subreddits and there are often posts about issues that happen when introducing a new person to a pre-existing group. I’m happy to report that things went well - at least from my perspective. (Can’t speak for others)

I was impressed with the roleplaying the others did as well as the voices they adopted for their characters. Unfortunately for our more peaceful character, the others, particularly the one playing Ghada had a character background with an extreme hatred of goblins. So there wasn’t much room for peace - although (and I’ll get to it in the next section) there was a minute where it seemed things might go in the more peaceable direction.

I had a real blast playing my bard as a support class. With only 8 HP, I truly had to try to stay out of the thick of things. Luckily, my vicious mockery made up for it by being a 60ft distance spell. Unluckily, both my attempts at Hideous Laughter failed (the enemy won their saving throws). I tried not to meta-game since I knew the broad outlines of the adventure (our GM did have a few surprises - partially because there were 6 of us adventuring). Instead I tried to think as an experienced adventurer might.

Even though it was just a simple one-shot without any emotional scenes, it really got itself deep into my head because that night every time I woke from a dream, I was dreaming from the point of view of my character.

In-Game Narrative

Scrabble

• Lineage: Truescale Kobold
• Heritage: Fireforge
• Background: Artist
• Class: Bard
• Age: 20
• Height: 4ft
• Weight: 70 lbs
• Eyes: black
• skin: Blue and Orange
• Hair: None
• languages: Common, Goblin, Elvish
• favorite instrument: Bagpipes

Backstory

Scrabble grew up in the Kobold ghetto in Midgard. His family ran a tinkers’ shop, but Scrabble always had a love of music. He saved up to buy a flute and set of bagpipes and set out to play for the world.

Adventuring Motivation

Scrabble wants to travel the world to learn new songs and spread his talents. He dreams to become famous and let people know that kobolds are more than just dragon-wannabees who tend to explode when their experiments go awry.

Allies and Organizations

Scrabble is a member of the Kobold Bardic Guild. Admittedly, he is currently the only member.

The Session

Scrabble and the others (Ghada, Achi, Sir Gryffion, Hendrian, and Sono) have been visiting the Alderman of the tiny town of Roccosia every morning, hoping to get set on an adventure. Horace Knottwhistle has mostly been sending them on various jobs for the village related to peat in the nearby bogs. They are tantalizingly close to Trombeii, but they haven’t proven themselves enough to get work there as true heroes.

While waiting in line, the heroes see a battered dwarf and elf who come into town and tell about some goblins who have created a ramshackle fort that is blocking commerce from moving along the road to Roccosia. The mayor asks if the party will help and they agree to do so. They do a bit of light shopping for rope and pitch before heading out.

The next day they arrive at the goblin “fort” and find a goblin outside playing with warg pups.

Some of the adventurers stealthily circle the area for recon. Eventually Achi, a small kobold with one wing, tries to parley with the goblin (using Scrabble as an interpreter). The goblin runs inside the fort while the warg pups attack. Scrabble, who is here to gain content for his songs (meta: when he has more HP he might feel more comfy as a warrior. Right now he knows he is weak relative to his companions), backs up behind the wagon. He grants Bardic Inspiration to one of the fighters. He then begins to concentrate on a spell to create an unseen servant. This causes him to miss many of the details of the fight, but he does know that he’s far enough away not to be affected by the wailing of the wargs. Achi feels bad for the pups and casts sleep. He then ties them up so that they won’t need to be killed.

Before the party can decide what to do, Ghada is filled with a rage (her family was murdered by goblins) and burns the wagon down. Eventually they make their way down underground.

As the party talks over each other, Scrabble mishears the request made by Hendrian for a light. Scrabble casts light on Hendrian’s armor and makes him glow purple. The party makes their way to some barrels and decides to light them on fire and roll them towards the goblins. Scrabble’s unseen servant is destroyed when it attempts to help Sir Gryffion to retrieve what he THINKS is a tapestry sacred to his temple (meta: he rolled a 1 - it’s just a dirty cloth) Scrabble stays back, casting Vicious Mockery, Hideous Laughter, and Bardic Inspration from a safe spot. This means that he misses a great deal of the details of the battle. (Meta: because of fog of war for my character, I really did not see most of the battle) Eventually the battle ends with Dib (the goblin leader) and another goblin escaping. The party was saved by judicious use of cure wounds, bless, and bardic inspiration.

The party loots the corpses and the lair. (meta: our GM had a really cool plugin for FoundryVTT for splitting the loot) They get some of the items that the goblins had stolen from wandering caravans. They go back to town, return the loot, and decide to adventure together. (Although maybe not Achi)

Conclusion

I cannot overstate how much fun I had playing with these folks. This group is going to meet up again in a month and so I hope I can join in then (schedule allowing).

• Tales-of-the-Valiant