(This is a log of my players run through the Out of the Abyss campaign (After a brief dabble with Harried at Hillsfar first. Spoilers abound, though it’s likely the team won’t play the module in the way you, the writers or sanity intended).
The party had been thrown together by happenstance and helped some of the people of Hillsfar. But now, they were captured; descending down in to the depths of the earth.
Our heroes had been ambushed by the Drow and were being led into the Underdark for a lifetime of slavery. The adventure started with the party captured so there was no description of how they got into this predicament. That said, if the previous sessions were anything to go by the battle would have been comprised of friendly-fire, accidental property damage and dozens of casualties among the innocent bystanders.
After a long march the Drow stopped at a small outpost and locked their prisoners away to await the arrival of their new owners. As the first duty of any prisoner is to escape the team wasted no time in looking for a way out.
The party weren’t the only ones in cells. There was a motley crew of reprobates in there, including Buppido, a chatty Derro; Eldeth, a female Shield Dwarf; Stool a talking mushroom and Shuushar, a pacifist Kuo Toa.
The party members with some social skills managed to get some key information from most of the other prisoners, including how the Drow priestess in charge had painfully demoted her previous guard captain and was terribly paranoid about her sub-ordinates acting against her.
Eldeth was the last person to chat to.
Aiyu: “Let me do the talking.”
Targen: “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Do you remember the last time?”
Aiyu: “They’d have gone to war anyway. I want to make sure the dwarf is going to help us escape.”
Targen: “Really, I’m not sure….”
Aiyu, to Eldeth: “Hello. I’m Aiyu. How long have you been here?”
Eldeth <Looking him over warily>: “A week or two I’d guess. It’s hard to keep track of the time here.”
<Pausing to look over the party> “I saw you come in with the last group of slaves. What do you want?”
Aiyu: “To get out of here before we go to whatever fate they have planned for us! Can you help? And can you fight?”
Anastasia to Targen: “He’s doing fine, you worry too much!”
Targen: “He’s got a poor charisma stat, his bonus is pretty low and he has no ranks in diplomacy!”
Anastasia : <Confused> “What? What does that mean?”
Targen: “Err, I worry too much.”
Eldeth: <Excited> “Aye, I’ll fight with you. What’s your plan?”
Aiyu: “I don’t know. We’ll make something up.”
Targen: “And here we go.”
Eldeth <outraged>: “What? The Drow will kill us all! Lots of these people can’t defend themselves!”
Aiyu <flustered>: “Well, we’ll try and save who we can! You look good in a fight, you’ll probably survive, right?”
Eldeth: “Get away from me!”
Aiyu, returning to the party: “As you let me talk to her you’re all partly responsible for that.”
DM Note: I try and minimise the effect of luck in D&D. If the player says something that should work, it'll probably work. I may ignore the roll or give them a big bonus. Especially (like this) if it's which a character who could be quite important. However, if the player _insists_ on doing / saying something bananas, I roll and let the dice fall where they may. "Are you sure you want to do that?" "Yes, absolutely, I've never been surer, it's the perfect plan" <Roll> "Why did nobody stop me?" Was a fairly common occurrence 😀
Herring's Fishbait 