WW D&D Game Day – 4 hours for 1 encounter
As previously stated here, Worldwide D&D Game Day is the one time a year, this online DM can get out of the house to play some face-to-face D&D. Babysitting arrangements were made, wife tucked in to bed after working night shift. Its all good. I even emailed my FLGS a few weeks ago to reserve my spot.
I walked in to the store and saw 7 people seated at the table all looking over char sheets – well one of them was the DM. ..it wasn’t looking good as there were only 5 player slots available to begin with. The store manager greets me and says I’m an hour late to which I nicely reminded her of her email stating it was to begin at noon. After verifying the email, she asked one of the participants to relinquish her character to me – something I really wasn’t comfortable with. Instead, the DM stated he could throw in some extra monsters and accommodate everyone.
7 PCs, 1 DM. Duplicate characters were the barbarian (I took one), and the Bard Gnome. What happened then was something I’ve never experienced, and hope I never do again.
The first encounter of the adventure took -FOUR- hours to complete.
I only had babysitting coverage from 12-4. In fact, at 3pm, 3 people in the party said suddenly “Oh..we gotta go for a bit to go look at a house we want to buy.” And they packed up their dice and waltzed out. After some questioning, it turns out the house is 40 minutes away round trip plus the time it takes to ‘look’ at it. Lovely. Thanks folks.
Please understand that I’m not upset at my FLGS. They admitted to their mistake and ensured I had a spot at the table. The DM did his best to not only run an adventure with 7 PCs but also finished the encounter with 3 people leaving very well.
I’m looking forward to Free RPG Day and returning to play the 4e adventure they`ll have there but in all honesty, I really didn’t have that much fun today. In fact.. I’m a little bit cranky. 
Wow. Four hours? What happened?
Was it due to GM inexperience? Overcomplicated encounter? Player inexperience?
Do tell. I’m sure lessons can be learned from this.
I’ve heard all over the place that Wizard’s adventures and modules for the RPGA and for events are laden with absurd and horrid encounters. Which is why I feel all the better not buying into modules and just doing my own stuff.
Ours didn’t take four hours, but it did take two hours, so with intro and the skill challenge afterward I had to leave before finishing the last 2/3 of the module. It was disappointing.
Our first encounter would have taken 4 hours if not for the fact that I left after an hour.
Yikes, that sucks!
I just got back from gameday. We did the whole adventure in 4 1/2 hours. That’s with none of us reading anything before sitting down, including the DM! Granted this was with 5 PCs. I had an absolute blast!
Ours took about 5 hours to do all 3 encounters and that skill challenge in the middle, including about a half hour break for drinks/snacks run at nearby 7/11.
WotC has issues making modules that don’t suck. Witness keep on the Shadowfell. All I hear is about how long combat took. That’s a bad thing when faster combat is one of your key sell points on the new edition.
We took 2.5 hours to get through encounter 1. We had a blast. That said if this was ’supposed’ to be a showcase, all I got showcased was a Bard and a Gnome. Not denying we had fun. Not denying I’d do it again in a stone cold second but it did run long.
Vulcan Stev´s last blog post..World D&D Day 2009 at The Core
This is sad, and I keep reading similar reports all over the net. Something wasn’t planned right at the highest level.
Daniel M. Perez, The Gamer Traveler´s last blog post..RPG Blog Carnival: St. Patrick’s Day – Round-up
Although my game got off to a slow start, once we got more familiar with the character we were able to pick up the pace. Although it took over 5 hours for us to complete the module no one felt like they were just sitting there doing nothing while they waited for their turn.
Perhaps in your case having more than the intended 5 players is what threw a wrench into the works. Although I’ve never played a game with more than 6 PCs I can see how the mechanics of 4e would grind to a halt in that circumstance.
Ameron´s last blog post..Worldwide D&D Game Day 2009
Well..here’s some more details now that I’ve calmed down a little. The DM was very fast when it came to looking up answers to rules questions. I don’t think he was the problem. There were a couple of new players but they asked good questions.
Simply put, it was too many PCs and too many baddies on the map at once. You’d take your turn, then have to wait for 7 other people to go (including the DM with multiple baddies) which would take eons. During that time, some players would get distracted by people walking by, grab some snackies, what not. “Dude its your turn”, “Huh? Me? Oh.. okay” and they’d start their planning when they about 15 minutes to do so since their last turn ended.
First encounter ended up being 4 Trogs, the Dire Bear, and the Quickling.
I guess it appears my experience was not unique. We took four hours and did not complete the adventure. We made it about two thirds of the way through before I had to leave.
Still, I had a great time, hopefully WOTC will iron out the wrinkles before the next WWGD.
Resurrected Gamer´s last blog post..We Came, We Saw, We Almost Conquered!
I, too, thought my experience as unique as it was unfolding in front of me at the table.. “Oh man everyone else is having a stress free time!” . Ha nope
We had a 2-hour slot but we managed to get 2 encounters done and dusted. Unfortunately, like many others, we had to call it time before the ultimate encounter. I’m sorry that you had such a bad time, but I agree that the adventure was sub-par. At least my group was allowed to keep their minis.