The Shock of a Home Game

Now that GenCon 2015 is sadly over, I am back to running Hoard of the Dragon Queen for my home group. Holy crap was I not ready.

Don’t get me wrong, I prepped the story. I had the locations ready. I even leveled up some of the villains that I expect were not supposed to survive this long.

It was the players I wasn’t ready for.

In our group the GM is the host and provides the meal and the game. We rotate about every four or five weeks so nobody has too much of a burden. I was just not ready for the small talk, the extra table distractions, and the monkey wrenches. Hoard of the Dragon Queen is fairly rail roady – the players are move from location to location – but there is “some” leeway on how they move. The group chose a sea voyage as opposed to following a caravan on the road (again – not my favorite part of the adventure). It was cool, some great role playing was had, I got to incorporate some player backstory and some faction interest. However, it meant that there would be little to no fighting, and I would have to improvise some of the aspects of one of the locations. The combat monkeys got restless, the phones came out, it was hard to keep the focus. We ended with a short combat, but I could tell that the murder hobo urges were not satisfied.

After the focus and get things done attitude of GenCon – it was different. Good, but different. Going to have to settle into a more social gaming style – at least until the next GenCon.

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