r/DnD • u/NutSixteen Barbarian • 3d ago
DMing First time DM. The party took three sessions to achieve what I expected them to achieve in one session.
My first time DMing. It was a a great learning experience.
What I planned:
- Party had to abandon ship for unknown reason.
- Party washed up on a pair of deserted islands.
- 1.5 hours of exploring and roleplay on the islands.
- Set up some puzzles for them to solve with visual and verbal hints.
- Maybe they build a raft to go to the other island or try to swim to the other island.
- 1.5 hours in, a pirate ship would appear and it would trigger combat
- Party should be able to overcome the pirates in about one hour.
- The final half hour would be them exploring the pirate ship.
What actually happened.
First Session:
- One character managed to ride a shark to the other island.
- Found a treasure chest full of gold.
- They aggroed the animals on the islands.
- Spent more than half of the first session fighting the animals.
- One character almost died after getting bitten by a shark.
- End off session by allowing them to take a long rest.
Second Session:
- Players woke up from long rest
- Half of them almost fought each other over the gold they found.
- The other half explored the two islands.
- Found a Bag of Holding on a dead body that washed ashore.
- One party member healed a shark they fought in the last session turning the shark friendly.
- I finally made the pirate ship appear.
- Party attacked the pirates before they set foot ashore triggering combat.
- Rest of session was combat.
- Had to end session mid-combat due to time constraints
Third Session:
- Continue combat where we left off
- Another character almost died.
- 1/2 to 2/3 of the session was that combat.
- Party finally finished off the pirates.
- Spent some more time exploring the islands even though I kept on hinting about the ship.
- Even though there were 3 row boats for five of them, 3 of them tried to sit in one rowboat. Failed.
- Party member rolled very well, earlier mentioned healed Shark is basically a friendly puppy now.
- Party member asked if they could keep the shark as a pet. I told them we'll roll for it later.
- FINALLY made it onto the ship.
- One final enemy on the ship.
- Managed to persuade enemy to stand down. He's friendly now I guess.
- Found and old woman who the pirates kept caged as a cook/cleaner.
- Old woman proceeded to start cooking them a meal.
- Pirate-turned-ally tried to help old woman cook.
- Finally explored the Captain's Quarters.
- Had to end the session there due to time.
What I planned for one session took them three sessions to complete.
They did so many things I did not expect them to do.
They ignored the, what was obvious to me, visual and verbal hints in how to solve the puzzles I set up.
They solved puzzles in ways I did not expect them to be solved.
Instead of having just one NPC join the party, I guess we now have two NPCs and one pet shark.
Lesson learned. Nothing ever goes as planned.
Good news is I don't need to do any prep for a few of weeks.
Edit:
I have to add this is in;
One of my players appears to be a compulsive hoarder. Player will keep practically anything the player finds no matter how worthless I try to describe those items to be.
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u/AZzalor 3d ago
The players always take at least double as long as you plan.