I play D&D with my friends about once a month. We have been maintaining this schedule for a decade and counting and though some faces have changed it is a true blessing that we can get together and have some fun. We play campaigns that span several years but sometimes drop in a "one shot" game when someone's schedule prevents them from making it to game night.
We found ourselves in just such a situation. One of our friends has some family commitments and is unable to make it to game night for a bit. Slotting in a few one shot adventures felt like the right decision to pass the time rather than continue a campaign with a character missing. I ran the first one of these one shots this past week and crafted an adventure running Daggerheart and set in a Wild West themed world. I had great fun throwing this one together and I used the opportunity to try some new ideas. This is the first "GM Journal" piece I am writing on this blog and I am going to cover how I conceived the adventure and how it played out at the table.
Building the Adventure
I am no pro at making tabletop RPG adventures but a healthy imagination has helped me make adventures that my friends have enjoyed across several games. This time, I knew I wanted to step away from the typical fantasy setting and I decided to try my hand at a Wild West setting. Beyond that, everything was on the table. Strange creatures, magical spells, and impossible abilities were all under consideration. Ultimately, what I ended up with was fairly down-to-earth and classic Western.
The Premise
I needed an inciting incident that would make my players engage with the story and knew it was going to start with a town in trouble. That town was Whistler's Rest and the inciting incident was a bandit gang invading the town, killing some deputies, and kidnapping several women and children. I knew I wanted this to happen before the players arrived because I didn't want them to be able to stop the gang straight away. That would make for a short night.
I decided to put the players in the role of hired security for a cattle drive. The head cattle driver, Jerome "Cog" Coggins, suffered a loss on the job when his son, Joseph "Junior" Coggins, was killed by water moccasins while crossing a stream. If you ever watched Lonesome Dove, you know where I got this idea from. This tragedy occurred just prior to the start of our game. The reason I included it was so the players had sympathy for Cog and when they arrive in town and he asks them to help track down the bandits they would be more than willing.
Scene 1 - Bugboar Encounter
I wanted to give the players the general direction to go in and have them work with me to tell the story of how they tracked the bandits. The first encounter I planned was a pair of Bugboars (Daggerheart Hope & Fear page 62) unrelated to the bandits and while I expected it would lead to combat I was prepared to explore the idea of the players trying to reason their way past. Again, I left this one up to the players to decide.
Scene 2 - The Sheriff and The Deputy
After the Bugboar encounter, I wanted the players to find the bodies of the town sheriff and a deputy. I felt that this would be an opportunity to refocus the story on the bandit tracking, make the bandits appear more dangerous, and allow for a space where the players can find pipeweed to restore a stress slot and a drink to restore HP.
Scene 3 - Bandit Battle or Cliffside Ascent
Further along, I planned for the first encounter with bandits. The players would reach a bluff with a trail heading up the right side. The bandits were patrolling this trail. This would almost certainly lead to a battle but I had also prepared to utilize the Cliffside Ascent environment (Daggerheart core page 244) in case the players wanted to try and climb the bluff. I never used environments before (though I did sort of create one during the Daggerheart play test without realizing it) so I thought it would be a fun way to try using one.
As for the bandits, I created a group of them using a Jagged Knife Lieutenant, two Jagged Knife Bandits (both in Daggerheart core page 213), and two Jagged Knife Snipers (Daggerheart core Page 214). The snipers were changed from using short bows to rifles. I also planned for a d6 countdown timer that would tick down throughout the battle. If the Lieutenant and at least one Bandit or Sniper was still alive at the end of the countdown timer the Lieutenant would send one of his gang members to head for the bandit camp and alert them of the players' presence. If the players could neutralize this bandit patrol before the countdown timer expired then they would get to use the Ambushers environment (Daggerheart core page 243), giving them an advantage for their assault on the bandit camp.
Scene 4 - The Bandit Camp
The players would approach the bandit camp either through battle with the patrol or climbing the bluff in the previous scene. I had a lot of ideas for this part of the adventure and I left much of those ideas on the cutting room floor due to concerns over time constraints, overwhelming the player characters, and generally making this scene too complex. I kept it on the simple side.
The bandit camp was an old, dilapidated shanty town for a mining company. I intentionally wanted it to be small so it focused the inevitable combat. I placed two more rifle-wielding Jagged Knife Snipers on the first two buildings heading into the camp. Jagged Knife Bandits would be hanging around in the center of camp if the Ambushers environment was in play, otherwise they'd be hiding behind building until the players approached. Finally, the leader of the gang, Big Boss Vanderall, a Giant that I based on a Jagged Knife Kneebreaker (Daggerheart core page 213) would be at camp regardless of the players' approach. Vanderall would explain that they captives are being sold off to slavers, heightening the need for the players to succeed here.
The battle itself was planned out to be a fairly standard affair. Defeat the adversaries and free the captives. I did plan one final twist, however, and that was a plan to spend a Fear when Vanderall was low on HP, escaping to the stables where he would jump on a horse and try to escape. The players would begin a chase, catching up to Vanderall based on successes on a d6 countdown timer. What actions the players would take would be up to them.
Running the Adventure
We played the adventure this past Thursday evening. We originally had three players but one had to bow out making it just myself as GM and two players. This did not impact the design of the adventure though it certainly added more pressure on the players during battles.
One player was a Human Brawler Juggernaut who was a pro wrestler and the other was a Firbolg Ranger Wayfinder who was adept at tracking and quite the sharpshooter. This was a great contrast of characters and abilities. Daggerheart characters start with two Experiences but I asked the players to only start with one. When we began the adventure, I had Cog ask the players to tell them about memorable moments on the cattle drive. Narratively, it was to help Cog take the loss of his son off of his mind and add to our story. Mechanically, it was an opportunity to have the players describe an experience and make their second experience out of that. It came unexpectedly and I don't think the players were quite ready for it. It was an experiment, though, and I was curious to see what would happen.
Once we got into the town and the players realized the situation they wasted no time heading out to find the bandits. The ranger went right to work to look for tracks and I provided details like several horses and wagon wheels heading into a direction that the ranger was familiar with. This led them to a wooded area where the Bugboars were. I wasn't sure how this was going to be approached. Run up and fight? Try to sneak around? Attempt to talk to them? The players decided to talk to them! The Bugboars weren't very bright but they sure did like bright things! The players offered up a gold coin and a metal frying pan and a successful Presence roll from the ranger was enough to convince the Bugboars to accept their new treasure and let the players pass unharmed.
We moved on to the violent scene where the sheriff and deputy were slain. Not much to say about this one other than the brawler, who only was armed with his fists, became worried when he realized all the wounds on the sheriff and deputy were gunshots. Would he be in greater danger? One action that I found very clever was the players took the badges from the bodies in case they needed to trade shiny objects with more bugboars.
Next up was the base of the bluff where the bandit patrol was waiting on the path. Here is where I made a mistake. I neglected to properly hint that climbing the bluff was a possibility and the opportunity to use the Cliffside Ascent environment went unnoticed. That was my fault. The battle played out well. The brawler approached the bandits while the ranger hid in the tree line, ready to fire. The players made quick work of the bandits, though not quickly enough, as the Lieutenant sent one of the Bandits to camp to warn the others. The players did not come out of this unscathed but patched themselves up a bit before approaching the camp.
Vanderall and his gang were waiting, of course. Negotiation proved to be futile and a classic western stare down and quickdraw in the street kicked off the action. This battle went well and I had fun seeing how it all played out. There was a lot of shooting. There was moment where the brawler pile drove one of the snipers through the rickety building he was perched on, killing him instantly. The ranger had Vanderall marked and the head of the gang tried to flee he was rammed off of his horse, totally preventing the escape. Ultimately, Vanderall did get on his horse and try to run but the ranger aimed his rifle and hit Vanderall with a slick trick shot, killing him, and stopping the gang's plans.
Final Thoughts
This was the first time I ran Daggerheart in quite a while and had a great time with it. My players did, also. I didn't use all of the ideas I had planned but I was pleased to find that the players put their own mark on this story. Running a Wild West adventure wasn't all that different from a classic fantasy story but it was fun to change things up.
I need to play more Daggerheart. Thankfully, I will get that opportunity this coming Thursday! This time, however, I will be a player. I haven't played Daggerheart as a player with our group before so I am very excited for it. I will write up a Player Journal post after that game to share my thoughts.
This was a long one. Thanks for the sticking with me. Hopefully, you found it informative, helpful, or just good fun to read.
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