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red-justice · 3 months

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Out of the Abyss: Session 1 Retro

TL;DR: A retrospective on my first Out of the Abyss session, detailing what I prepped for session 1 + the campaign in general, what happened, and what I learned as a DM.

Table of Contents:

How I Chose Out of the Abyss

My Prep Process

Running Session 1

Retrospective

Conclusion + What's Next

How I Chose Out of the Abyss

Let's start at the beginning. I've been feeling itchy to run more games, and been playing with the same groups of people more or less for the past few years. My Friday Planescape game just wrapped up after 3 years, my Thursday campaign is coming up on 3 years, and I just started a new Sunday Auroboros campaign with my husband and some friends I know well. I need fresh meat players. So I turned to /r/lfg, as one does.

The group I found wanted to play an existing module, preferably one that was dark and difficult, in line with Curse of Straud, which they had just finished. I offered them Tomb of Annihilation, Descent into Avernus, Out of the Abyss, and Dungeons of the Mad Mage. They chose Out of the Abyss.

This is the first time I've actually ever tried to run some written module or adventure, so I've got a lot to figure out, and one of my goals with this game is to learn how I can most effectively use and adapt pre-written content to my games.

My Prep Process

I started where I usually start, which is the Table of Contents. Out of the Abyss is an older adventure, and has absolutely zero context. Each chapter is simply its own adventure arc. So I pulled up /r/OutoftheAbyss for some help and skimmed through some of the pinned resources to get a feel for the big picture considerations other DMs called out (such as having TEN NPCS TO RUN all game as they accompany the PCs everywhere).

I used that to create my usual Campaign Overview Doc for the players. I separately discussed some of the potential content warnings for this campaign to ensure everyone was onboard. After that, I started my normal campaign prep process (creating tables of potential monsters CR 0-4, creating rollable tables, collecting encounter and location ideas, identifying thematic treasures, etc). More on that another time.

THEN I actually started reading the campaign book.

Chapter 1 opens with- your players are captured by drow and want to escape the outpost they are in. The area seems fairly self-contained and like it might take a few sessions to escape, so I did not bother reading any further ahead.

Some things I picked up on from reading through the book + the posts on reddit from other DMs (in no particular order) were:

I need to get players to roll for resources based on the days they've been here at the start.

I need to review the NPCs and decide who I might want to get rid of quickly, and who I want to keep.

Other DMs pointed out that the chapter gives good background on the drow drama at the outpost, but it was hard to incorporate that into play.

Other DMs pointed out that the included map wasn't a good scale for a battle map at all.

Other DMs pointed out it can be quite deadly to start at level 1 as suggested, given how the area is designed and that the players start out with no weapons, armor, or magic.

There were some high level suggestions, but not a lot of help from the module on how to run the chores the players need to do as prisoners for RP interactions and seeing the outpost.

I ended up spending way more time than necessary creating a Map of Velkynvelve for session 1 because the few maps I could find weren't quite my map style (and it's kind of like the thing in school where if my blue pen ran out of ink half way through my lab report I had to rewrite everything in black ink from the start because I can't stand to have mismatched ink colors, nor can I stand to have non-consistent map art aesthetics don't come for me).

You may notice I did not bother making all the rooms in the Stalactites. I could not be bothered to make more bedrooms.

I told my players they could start at level three, because you're supposed to hit level three once you escape anyway, and even with their gear it would be a deadly series of encounters for them.

I also went through the NPC descriptions and other DM comments about them, and decided that Ront, Eldelth, Sarith, and Shuushar could go unless the players really glommed onto them for some reason.

I had already taken care of monster stat blocks previously but had to do a bit of a day-of scramble to upload the token art (this always happens to me) for the players and the monsters and the NPCs. However, with Token Maker + google, it wasn't that bad.

I also tried feeding ChatGPT the descriptions of each area, and asking it to create read-aloud text for me to give the players, which I placed on the GM layer of the map in Roll20 (more on that later in another post, I think).

Running Session 1

(Yes, we did my normal session 0 first).

I started by having each player roll the dice to see how many days they had been there, as the adventure module suggests, and had them introduce their characters (appearance + explaining how they got captured in that order). I added them to the Roll20 map as they were introduced, and then described the overall outpost (high up on the wall of a larger cavern, made of pocket caves and hollowed out stalactites, only accessible via the elevator basket which they were brought up in). From there, I described the cave they were being kept in, and the magical wards.

I then transitioned to "present time" in game, with the arrival of the daily serving of mushroom soup. It was a game time decision to say that Ront likes to push and shove everybody else out of the way to be in front of the line, and my brand new player (who never played any TTRPGs before), latched on. Ensue "Soupgate":

Soupgate (as explained to a friend):

The players and a bunch of NPCs are prisoners of the drow in a filthy cave, deep in the underdark. They are fed once a day a small bowl of mushroom broth ladeled into clay pots and passed through the bars to the prisoners. Renfri, a female high elf wizard with 4 arms (don't ask), got in a shoving match with Ront, a male orc who always bullies everyone and pushes to the front of the line. Miraculously she won and got the first bowl.

In a fit of petty bullying in response, Ront then proceeds to steal the bowl of soup from Stool, a baby miconid who is also imprisoned with them. Stool cries about it because he is hungry. Ront dares anybody to do anything about it. Renfri manages to swipe both bowls back from Ront with a lightning fast Sleight of Hand check (is now holding 3 bowls of soup), and before Ront can react, Caladan, a tall human bard with curly blond hair and unsettling blue eyes, intervenes. They get in a shoving match, and Anders, a white-haired male Aasimar fighter, and Prince Derendil, a quaggoth convinced he is secretly and elf prince who was polymorphed, join in. Everyone is throwing unarmed strikes, except Derendil, who has fucking claws and teeth, and manages to shred through 21 points of Ront's HP in a single round.

Ront runs away from Derendil as the drow captors intervene. Ilvara, the drow priestess asks Caladan who should be fed to the spiders in punishment. Caladan points at Ront, who has been paralyzed from crossbow bolts coated with drow poison when the guards broke up the fight, and he is unceremoniously dumped into the webs of the giant spiders the drow keep at pets outside. The players give Stool Ront's soup and everybody watches as Ront is eaten alive.

After this, I realized I had fucked up, as I had not had any of the players roll to see what goodies they had found in their time at the outpost, nor had I really mentioned or set the scene for the various chores and other areas of the outpost. I plopped them straight into the cave where they were being kept as prisoners (with dynamic lighting, so they couldn't see the rest of the map). I told the three players who had been there the longest they could roll to see if they had snagged anything, and they came up with: 1 gold coin, 1 living spider the size of a tarantula, and a piece of flint that could be used as a makeshift knife. The players also had two crossbow bolts that had been shot into the cave at Ront to paralyze him with the drow poison. So they were feeling optimistic about what they had!

They began to plot about how to escape at this point, and I had a few of the NPCs interact with them a bit more (I'd already had Jimjar make bets with people about the outcome of the fight with Ront, and Eldeth threw out a few comments about Ront as well) to give some suggestions about what was going on at the outpost and discuss the relationship drama between Jorlan, Shoor, and Ilvara (key drow NPCs).

I then followed it all up by saying that a few hours later, the drow on duty showed up again and called two NPCs and one PC, Esme, to clean up the kitchen. This happened to be the player with the spider (she decided the spider was chilling in her cleavage lol), and one of the other characters told her to "find more spiders". She took this literally and found two more spiders in the kitchen, but did not even think to try to steal any kitchen knives (LOL).

Meanwhile, the other players concocted a plan to have Renfri try to steal a key from the guard when they brought back Esme from the kitchen. The backfired spectacularly when the Sleight of Hand check, and then the Performance check to pretend it was a shove from another prisoner, got a 4 and a 6. The guard called for help, and now there are orders to be extra vigilant when opening the gates to the cave.

Realizing that I had fucked up the outpost interactions and not wanting the players to be stuck in the cave for several sessions, I had Jorlan, who one of the NPCs had previously told the players about, escort a PC to empty the chamber pots at the waterfall (this is the point where I remembered to tell the players there was a waterfall... whoops). The player took the bait and made a sympathetic comment about Ilvara and Shoor, who Jorlan has relationship drama with. I skipped straight ahead to Jorlan offering to break the characters out, as is suggested as an escape route option.

As soon as they were all reconvened, the plotting began in earnest for the next day's prison break. The players were primarily scared of the Giant Spiders outside, and spent a good amount of time debating the wisdom of jumping into the webs and then into the water below. They discussed the "whistles" the drow used to call them (I made this up in response to a player question about how the drow control the spiders), and decided they wanted to steal one and have the artificer enchant it to emit the sound so they could throw it in the opposite direction as a distraction. It seems like a decently good idea to me.

Roger the Pocket Spider

Because players, however, they decided they wanted to test if the Giant Spiders would respond to their "pocket spider" touching the web. I told them they could make an Animal Handling check to shoo their spider through the bars on the gate towards the giant webs outside, and with a roll of 16, that was successful. THEN they wanted to call the spider back. I told them it was a DC 20 (Esme had a +2), and to my surprise, she passed the check. Pocket Spider has been named Roger. The other two spiders have not proven their loyalty and are therefore not deserving of a name, but the players have vowed to put them to the test soon.

I called it there at just under 4 hours, and told the players next session they would initiate the prison break!

Retrospective

All in all, I think it went pretty well, but I had some frustrations and disappointments.

Firstly, I think I would have benefited from a bullet-point list flow of session plan. I tend to do this for logistics-heavy sessions with a lot of downtime, or at the start or end of campaigns. In this case, I would have done the following:

Have each character roll a d10 for days since arrival.

Have players introduce themselves in order (appearance and how they were captured) and roll a d20 to see what they've found in their time here.

Description of the outpost.

Scene 1 with NPCs (insert details I should have planned here).

Scene 2: split players into groups for labor around the outpost (insert details I should have planned here).

Return to cave and give players time for planning/discussion. NPC interaction as warranted.

Optional NPC scene ideas (insert details I should have planned here).

Close when players are about to initiate prison break.

Secondly, a narrative flow plan like the above reveals where I may need to do a bit of extra planning or description. Soupgate was pretty good, but unintentional. It was a riff off an idea I read on the subreddit where someone suggested having Serith stand up for Stool to Ront's bullying, because I realize I had nothing prepared. I wish I had planned a few interactions to show off the other NPC prisoners as well as lay the ground work for the relationship drama between the drow (versus what happened with Buppido just "telling" the characters).

I mentioned above I forgot to tell the players about the waterfall, because I didn't write out an outpost description ahead of time and was scrambling to put one together on the fly. This is a KEY FACT because the players need to use the water to safely escape 100+ feet down the cliff without use of the elevator into the pool below.

Thirdly, the players missed out on opportunities to explore the outpost and find more resources as a result of my lack of planning. As an alternative (and maybe even in addition) to having better scenes planned to explore, I wish I had set up with map WITHOUT dynamic lighting and left the tokens on the GM layer so they players didn't know where the enemy was. I'm finding with heist adventures (and that's what this is), giving the players the whole map is really helpful as a tool to encourage creativity and facilitate player (not character) planning.

I do think I did a good job letting the players know during character creation and in Session 0 that they would not have access to their equipment and magic in the opening sessions. I am glad I did this all ahead of time above table as it prevented people from feeling disappointed, frustrated, or upset they couldn't do stuff, and the players were focused on creative problem solving about escape, because they knew it was the focus.

I also successfully killed one of the NPCs I had flagged, and hope to kill the rest in the escape.

Conclusion + What's Next

All in all, I think it was a successful session and the players had fun! They are looking forward to next week, as am I, and there were two really standout moments of Session 1: Soupgate + Roger the Pocket Spider.

I ended up spending a lot of time rereading the material in the book however, and it didn't stick very well or get translated fully to the right tools I needed. This included the read aloud text I had on the map which was NOT helpful - I want to make a separate post about that entirely.

I want to continue to improve on my ability to skim and translate the key information I need from the module into the best format for me.

I need to sort out the best format for myself for NPC reference info. I found a great NPC summary sheet I actually really liked and referenced a lot during the game from /u/PurpleVermont on reddit, and I want to try that out for my NPCs in some of my other games to see if that's the right info amount for me.

I should probably learn how to do voices at some point. At least a little bit.

#learn to dm #ttrpg #dnd #dungeons and dragons #dnd5e #dungeon master #mypost #dm life #out of the abyss #campaign stories #retro

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