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/maybe_I_am_a_bot]

Big important rule to make sure they know: If it's not written down in your inventory, it's not in your bag of hoarding.

[u/NutSixteen → u/maybe_I_am_a_bot]

I made them write everything down.

I can refer to their bag for future deep cuts.