I was stressed. Like, stomach making noise not because I’m hungry but because I’m anxious kind of stressed.
Session One of The Chronomancer’s Gambit felt slow in the moment. The players were cautious. Syb’l, our lovable con man, was not warmly received. I genuinely considered ending the session early out of sheer frustration. But it worked. Talking to folks after, they were so immersed in the world they “didn’t even notice” the things I thought had gone off-script. As if I forgot ten years of DMing experience. Serves me right for trying to script anything.
Our story opened with short roleplay scenes of how the party met and were recruited by Dalton Marius Pennison the 100th (the Chronomancer in the campaign title). Some were poetic. Some were one-liners.
The most memorable? Gruff, the lower-plate orc barbarian, comes home from a long day of work to find Dalton Marius climbing out of a portal into his one-bedroom flat. The rogue Chronomancer accuses Gruff of being late. Gruff, without blinking, offers him tea. Dalton, tired, against better judgment, sits. They share Gruff’s tea and then Dalton conjures a meal. The Discord call went quiet, the kind of quiet that happens when two tired souls meet after long days and just sit. No need to fill the air.
Another highlight came from Lynn, the Monarch elf plate-one bard. Her encounter with Dalton was brief (he interrupted her on the way to freshen up during a private performance), but Lynn took it as a challenge. She ‘booked herself’ for the funeral of the century, botched her first roll, snuck into the private party of First Oracle Nero. Nero is a sequined, wine-loving Goliath Diviner with brilliant orange hair who found himself intrigued by Lynn when she nailed her check when she found him gazing off into the distance on his balcony mid party. Now she’s got a parade slot, and the player’s dead set on dragging the party to see it. Convenient, since I’ve got plans for her set at the Stairs of Allegiance that now the player will push the party to ensure they attend.
After five more introductions, the party gathered at Grent and 227th. The time was marked for 5:00 AM. Everyone arrived by 7:00. Groundwork for the loop laid.
Then came Syb’l, glass elf, lower-plate, wizardball pitcher. I’d imagined a charming Artful Dodger. What I got was a diplomatic blockade. The players did not trust him. To be fair to them, I designed him to not be trustworthy! Why didn’t I foresee this problem? It took him walking away to get them on board. But once they agreed to his task, the session clicked.
His pitch? Retrieve a “reality anchor” from a “Mind Goblin” disgused as an elf in the Heroes’ Feast Hotel. The players, of course, were right to be skeptical. But isn’t that half the fun?
They explored the hotel, overpopulated with barely-sketched NPCs, and made it sing. They treated the Mind Goblin threat with wild contrast: one player fixated on “nuts,” while others took a forensic approach. They refused to wake a sleeping halfling concierge, just in case they might want to impersonate him later. They fell in love with the twin halfling bouncers, too stubborn to walk around a corner and speak to each other directly.
The last NPC I added was just to fill space in the entryway. In the entry to the hotel. You know, the first place the players step into.
“Can I roll History to know why they might have a hazmat suit?”
Of course. I still hear that internal voice saying “I have no idea, let’s move on.” So we silence it and lean in.
“Her protective gear is a clear sign of working with the Unraveling hands on, which shouldn’t be something that happens in this part of Plate Three or frankly, plate three at all.” They don’t wake her, the investigation continues. But now she might be central. Could be a thread tied to the unraveling in Plate Three. Or maybe, if she’s forgotten long enough, she’ll be our Citizen-X.
Funny how fast filler becomes foundation.
Session one didn’t go how I planned.
If you’re actually reading this and made it this far, drop a comment or a discord DM. Let me know how you would have handled Syb’l being rejected by the party or them poking at the sleeping Aasimar. If you see this before next week, suggest an NPC for one of the rooms by the “Mind Goblins” and maybe I’ll weave them in.