One Shot Microlite D20 5E Write-Up

There is not really much to say about my one-shot. So I’ll combine this and make another post with an explanation of how I comb and use FFG’s Star Wars and Genesys rules to build playable alien species.

So, I decided a good palate cleanser after the end of my Stormbringer/Wolves Upon the Coast campaign would be a Microlite D20 5E-based game.

MicroliteD20 being an extremely cut down RPG based on D&D 3E and Adamantine Edition is a complete 5E-based clone. Coming to about 17 pages.

So it took a bit longer than I thought it should to make characters. The players seemed tied to the tyranny of the Character Sheet. That is, even in a book that was less than 20 pages long, they started with the character sheet and worked down from there, never being able to find different sections in the rules because they were skipping from section to section, ignoring text that didn’t have the keyword and so never understood the rules. When reading from the beginning to the end would have taught them how to play and fill out the character sheet.

The module was from GM Binder, a well-received five room dungeon called The Delian Tomb, for 1^st level players. I used my setting from my Worldbuild24 writing, so all the references are from the Adventia section.

The party was:

Death - Dragonborn - Fighter - Soldier - Drinking to forget the Anarchy

Fabian - Human - Bard - Magic Student - Sanctaphrax-trained and not doing well there

Face-eater - Elf - Druid - Hermit - Infiltrate and destroy human society

Joy Blithe - Tiefling - Mage - Positivity coordinator emphasizing peaceful state for other mages

Yers-Tuah - Dwarf - Fighter - Hermit - Seek the Holy Grail (Turned up late)

While drinking in the Green Dragon Inn, the party were interrupted by the blacksmith running in and shouting that the goblins have kidnapped his daughter. Death was being anti-social while everyone was smirking at Face-Eater failing to disguise himself as a 0 CR Human Commoner (a humorous misinterpretation of Wildshape).

Exploring the smithy and tracking the goblins through the Boar Wood and to a bare patch of hills. Attacking two goblins on patrol revealed that Sleep was as always, a good spell but Microlite D20 Adamantine Edition doesn’t properly list the specifics. Which was a black mark against it because I had to look it up.

They attacked two more goblins guarding an entrance to a tomb, one managed to get inside before dying so the next room contains some 6 goblins who were ready.

Sleep dealt with many but amid the hacking and slashing, a critical hit sliced Death, well, almost to death. He didn’t need to pass a Death Save because the Face-Eater cast cure wounds. They were a little warier then.

Next, they came to a pressure plate and by studying it, they realised it could be lifted and disarmed. But only Death had a sword, so only he tried to disarm it and failed. More damage.

Busting into the shrine, they saw the goblin shaman preparing to sacrifice the little girl to desecrate the shrine and reconsecrate it to the goblin gods. They also saw the bugbear in the corner and an extra goblin because the last player was nearly done creating a character. While the shaman went down quickly, Fabian the Bard had his head pulped by the bugbear. So much damage that it triggered 5E’s instant death rule. The other goblin sent Death back to death saves again, though he got through them. After slaying the monsters (sleeping the bugbear) rescuing the girl and looting the place. The last goblin flees and is killed by Yers-Tuah who was following the trail in. They realised there was a riddle on the statue of the deceased knight, whose tomb this is. Unable to immediately comprehend the riddle they go back to the village.

They are feted and rewarded. A petty dispute causes Death to declare that another party member did nothing and was a big coward. This started legal proceedings where no one backed Death’s version of events, followed by a Reeve deciding that they could just fight it out for being disgraceful. This somehow ended in Death committing ritual so the opponent wouldn’t win.

The sort of disruption is not uncommon to the player but amplified by the one-shot nature of the session.

No one really wanted to keep going and since everyone was more comfortable with BRP. I decided to play Dragonbane next game. After umming and ahhing over adapting D&D adventures, I decided to just play Dragonbane’s Misty Vale campaign, as it was written and has art.