We Play Dark Ages OSRIC - Season Finale, Peek Inside

I try not to give specifics of what happened in game for two reasons - one, I hear that actually writing about what happened from a character's POV can bore people to tears and two, I'm trying to get the players to share what they encounter - I don't want to do it for them.

Well, there are two logs now up on the campaign wiki from Tuesday's game:
"Inn it to win it" and "One Million Goblins" - you get the sense from reading them that the players were indeed up to their eyeballs.

From a sandbox creation perspective, the "Big" events that happened were 90% reactions to player interaction/disinterest. I read a lot about other DMs who put a lot of time into plots, stories and flowcharts which eats up a lot of prep time. I'm finding that just being a "Big Picture" DM and letting the players directly drive the plot makes for a fascinating game.

Some examples:

"Earlier that day Anya and her thugs were paid to visit New Hope, a city to the South that is believed to be lost to mankind."

Some background - Anya and her "thugs" are a group of NPCs and hirelings that various groups have hired over the previous months. She's a babe in leather, tough with a sword and crossbow and has flirted with several of the adventurers over the campaign. Lately, there's been a hook I've dangled for the players to take a commission to go investigate the abandoned settlement of "New Hope". The players didn't take it, so Anya and the NPCs did. It'll be interesting to see if the players care or not - when this rumor was first announced, there was a lot of shoulder shrugging. Hopefully Anya and Co. don't disturb anything.

"On the way there, an impossibly rare and disturbing earthquake shook the earth. It brought with it feelings of despair and fear. "

This is the only thing I manufactured, but it was related to a further encounter later on - the floating tower.

"Climbing high into the tree tops Dul surveyed the area looking for the origins of the strange whistling to witness a Crystal Tower floating high above the tree tops"

There's been another rumor and a lot of hooks about a "Striped Mage" who passed through Enonia some time ago, looking for a tower reputed to be in a lake (Crystal Lake) in the Dalewoods. The party hasn't found the lake although looking for it at one point. It seems that he found the tower, as it's now floating above the Dalewoods.

Could the party have encountered the Striped Mage and prevented the tower from rising? It's possible, like anything else - but the world is going to move on and now something has occurred. One could say that this is story or plot, but I think of it more as the world continuing on, indifferent to the players unless they directly intervene. Regardless, now things are occurring that the players are aware of.

"The Children of the Troll found us; they were entranced by Izil’s horn, and delighted by the candy that I gave them with the stipulation that some was for their Father. They shared with us what they knew of the Crystal Tower ... and showed us The Dark by means of a visual hallucination. The Dark was their name for a hideous creature with bony plates on its head and tentacles where its face should be that they promised would soon arrive to our world. "

The "trollkin" are a bit of whimsy I injected into the campaign and they've turned out to be just that - wise beyond their apparent years, in touch with the woods and nature and life far beyond what the players expect. I rolled a random encounter and took a bit of GM fiat to allow that since they'd passed close to the troll bridge, the trollkin would see them. The trollkin have a signal whistle that a group gifted to them - and in exchange for the gift of candy ("MAGIC!" according to the lil guys...) they showed the group a vision of things to come.

Side note - I need to find tiny (28mm sized) trollkin miniatures.

The party moved in with confidence as goblins that they encountered put up a resistance to claim the inn as their own.
...
To my surpise, the goblins showed military sense, and had posted sentries armed with shortbows.

Heh. I'm doing Tucker's goblins.

The "Inn" is the abandoned Wayfarer's Inn on the road between Enonia and the great abandoned city of Irecia. It was razed, but the cellar was still intact. It was originally ignored by the kobolds and goblins, but that has changed. The players assisted the Marshall (Lord of Enonia) to a treaty with the goblins. The players have also cleared out a former stronghold of the kobolds. The goblins think the kobolds are weakened AND they feel confident that with the treaty, the humans will stay put. Hence, we have war.

The Inn has become a hard-fought objective for the goblins and they were investing in it - a large raiding party had taken to the cellars and the players walked in. Dynamic dungeons FTW!

The goblins are no dummies and used the 4 way intersection to their advantage. It was a close thing, 3 out of 8 players were down and the rest were on their way to getting chewed up. The death of the leader caused a serious loss of morale and the goblins fled.

I just realized that not once in both major combat encounters - one on a set of stairs into a room, and the other in a series of rooms with the 4 way intersection as the center - did we use miniatures. These players are really good!

Making it back to town the commission reported their findings to the lord and were paid for their efforts.

And now the Lord (and the King) will know what is going on, causing further reactions.

I love discovering the story along with the players or the result of dice rolls. I have the big picture of what is going on in the world in my head, but the details - the things that the players will do - that's their domain. I can't wait for Sunday to see how the finale concludes!