Editing User:Bill/Thunderspire Mountain Enhanced (section)

===Session 3 - June 8, 2011===
This week saw five players at the table. Bruce, Jason, Paul, Thomas, and Rachel. Bruce is new to 4e and indicates that he hasn't played D&D in about 30 years. Rather than proceed to the next encounter in the published adventures, I randomly selected the Goblin Thieves encounter. This encounter featured more monsters than the typical D&D encounter; a goblin underboss, two goblin hexers, two goblin skullcleavers, five goblin warriors, and an ogre savage. The DMG suggests only have two to three types of monster on the field at any given time. And while that's good advice, I wanted to mix things up and try the group against a larger mob of monsters. I am learning the ins and outs of the game myself, so developing a better understanding of the powers available to the common monsters is important.

The players, having elected to use the enthralled NPC hobgoblin that Thomas's character, Rook, acquired during the first encounter did not wait for Bennik to introduce them to Terrlen. This may become problematic next session as the players must struggle to navigate the Labyrinth unaided. The hobgoblin died when struck by a goblin warrior. And, while Rook was able to enthrall an ogre during this encounter he will be unavailable for the next several weeks due to a work commitment.

The players who have been able to attend more than one session are beginning to better understand their characters' abilities. Had I chosen to use few enemies they would have probably mopped them up with some haste. The overall tone of this encounter, which lasted almost three hours, was better than the first one in my opinion. Cleitemnestra, Rook, and Sarsariel were all bloodied at one point or another. While I don't really want to kill player characters in every encounter, I want the threat of death to be present and real for the players. It will inform their actions and change the course of an otherwise simple encounter. One of my greatest complaints about RPGs is that the frontal assault so often becomes the preferred strategy when a less bloody option would work. Establishing a potential consequence of death effectively counters that impulse and results in highly creative play, in my experience.

Rachel, who has played D&D only once or twice prior to this game, is having difficulty communicating the strategy that she wishes to employ to the rest of the group and she is reluctant to just cut loose with her characters' abilities out of fear for harming the other player characters. Once this issue is resolved combat will begin to speed up considerably as Seleme possesses a number of area attacks. The remainder of the group has similar communication issues, but are able to function effectively independent of the group because their abilities only target one or two enemies.

I'm not sure how to effectively foster tactical collaboration among the players other than by offering them the opportunity to play on a regular basis. Perhaps I can review the available abilities, establish some effective synergies and construct puzzles that can only be solved by performing the correct coordinated action. It smacks a little of pixel-bitching to me, but it could be fun.

It has also been brought to my attention that one of the gentlemen who ran the previous season of Encounters has started his own campaign on the same night. While this reduces my established player base by forcing the existing regulars to choose between Encounters and his game, I wish him luck. Ultimately Encounters is geared for folks with limited experience or opportunity to play. It is a great way to learn the game and meet other players. Once those two tasks are accomplished though, it's probably best that folks start up their own group. Really, if I were running Dark Legacy of Evard as it came from WotC, they'd all be level one characters with no opportunity to advance beyond third. Only due to my own initiative and effort is the game anything else.