And sometimes they do something completely unexpected... okay, not sometimes, they ALWAYS do something unexpected...

So we went on quite the little adventure last night, and tried out the modular (but not yet modular enough) dungeon.

You can read my DM notes here:  Good Goblins Notes

There aren't any monster stats, because I made them in Combat Manager, and they were pretty tweaked to suite our rather over-equipped party.  Which would be my other note:  I tend to be overindulgent in the loot.  I blame WoW.

So I stole Sandpoint from the Pathfinder universe, and moved it into mine, because we started out there (via the newbie box).  Ameiko (from Pathfinder), the owner of the local Inn and fellow adventurer had gone missing.  My players decide to go rescue her.  So the gang wandered Sandpoint looking for clues, which suggested that Ameiko had gone south to investigate rumors that local farms were being raided by goblins.

So they jumped on their horses and ran south, to discover a kind pair of young goblins working on a farm that they'd bought fair and square from some lying and duplicitous humans.  surprisingly (to me anyway) they didn't automatically cut the goblins down, but actually talked nice to them, and managed to avoid any bloodshed (and in fact got a goblin escort into the goblin lands for the price of a shiny dagger.)

The gang fighting some random thugs  in the forest

The gang approaches a completely normal, functional farm

They also checked on another farm, and tried to make nice with an Ogre that had taken up residence there, but he was having none of it.  Despite our fighter going blind for half the fight (yay critical hit deck), they still managed to survive the day.  And kill the ogre.

Die Ogre Die!

 On the way to the goblin fortress they ran into a goblin watch, which was basically a wizard.  They also negotiated with him successfully, but he still made them fight his pet Fire Elemental.

Sad fire elemental can't cross the stream.

Finally they reached the goblin fortress.  The wizard had graciously given up the password, but the guards inside still recognized human voices, and wouldn't let them in.  Instead of trying to sound like goblins (which is what I'd anticipated) they managed to convince the guards they were goblins from the far away tribe of "Farmountain.)  A ruse they managed to keep up even AFTER the goblins had opened the door and seen the party... dumb goblins (and lucky dice.)

Modular dungeon!  I actually set each piece on the table as the group "discovered" it, which was easier and cooler than I expected it to be.  They're held together with lego technic pins.

The modular dungeon design worked really well.  My next step is to make more "hallway" pieces.  I think if I do it right I can make almost any size hallway or room with pretty minimal effort.  (slightly more than drawing, but about the same as tiles.  I think.)

The gang meets the Goblin King!  

 The team found Ameiko hanging out the goblin king (King Fatmouth the Goblin Slayer, taking credit for the gang's actions during the starter box adventure), planning a sting to find out who is really causing the tension between Sandpoint and the goblin kingdom.  Our thief was (finally) able to sneak up and hear the conversation, which allowed our group to, again, diplomacy and bluff their way through, avoiding any combat.

The gang escorts a "caravan (aka the king's carriage ambush toy)  through the forest.

 Our rogue did her best to make sure that the carriage arrived at its destination empty of valuables, but only slightly avoided getting caught by the NPC guards, then got distracted by a "goblin" attack.  The gang beat the halflings-in-bad-goblin-costumes into the ground, and managed to get the caravan to the next (yet-to-be-named, bad DM!) city safely.

Some notes:  The players really liked having more role-play options.  Being able to talk your way through or completely avoid encounters was definitely appreciated.  

A few high HP bad guys are way more fun than a bunch of low hps ones.  I had more fun playing them, and the players got to roll more dice (instead of waiting for me to roll them), so that's definitely the way to go, at least until the pcs level up a bit and have a quicker ways to deal with hordes of minions.

Two bards in a party is a pretty sick.

Rogues like stealing stuff.  Who knew?  

The highlight of the night?  Finding random pickles on a random farm.  DnD can be wierd...

If you DM or play and read through my adventure notes, and have any suggestions for improvement, leave me a comment, I'm new to this, so would love some feedback!