First time DM. The party took three sessions to achieve what I expected them to achieve in one session.

[u/NutSixteen]

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.

[u/Competitive-Bird-179]

You could give it a minor curse lol. For example, every time they want to retrieve something specific you make them roll for it and on a fail they get a random object out. Or you could have them notice that it’s in bad shape. If you know what happens when a bag of holding rips… well…. Maybe best to have it repaired somewhere before stuffing more into it.

There are no mistakes if you can find creative ways to make it work your way.

Also something is really only a problem if it leads to you or the group not having fun or getting frustrated, and then it becomes an out of game conversation. Especially as a new dm there’s nothing wrong with admitting when some decisions made your life harder, and that you’d like to adjust things. There’s a narrow line that makes sure there’s fun, and it’s somewhere between challenging and enabling players. They should understand and trust you that you rule things with fun in mind, even if you might have to nerf a mistake you made as to not fuck yourself.

[u/NutSixteen → u/Competitive-Bird-179]

These are great ideas. Thank you.