Spoiler Warning: Contains unmasked spoilers for the first encounter of The Longnight Before Krampus
My sister-in-law and niece are staying with us over the holidays, and truth be told, we don't reeeaaaaally have the space to house guests. We just have the most space of anyone in my partner's family. Partially because of this (and partially because the next generation of my partner's family is entirely comprised of only children who have apparently finally started to reach the "WTF is 'sharing'" phase of being only children), there have been some conflicts between the chilluns under my roof this week, particularly when it has come to unstructured play.
So, I thought, maybe tonight was the time to bust out some structured, non-denominational, solstice-adjacent winter holiday themed play! I had The Longnight Before Krampus printed off and ready to go and asked the wee warriors if they wanted to roll some dice. With the other adults in the room busy with holiday baking (I'm off of food prep this year, due to everyone else using my kitchen), and having shouldered more of the youngun refereeing than me (I was out all afternoon running errands), I didn't think anyone else would have the bandwidth for a game, so I thought it would be a relatively rigid affair. You know, the kind of thing that I could control to the point where two pre-teens would tolerate it, because someone was actively entertaining them, but stay in their lane, because I'm a large, loud guy who's often quick to say 'no'.
So anyway, the party of 5 walk into the inn on a cold, dark, storm winter's night, and both kids immediately start to shout over me.
Well... shit.
"I put out a cup and start painting a picture!" cries out the visiting kid, playing a wild order woodland elf druid with an art degree.
"I put out a cup and..." my step-son -- playing a storm order woodland elf druid -- yells his attempt at further mimicking his older cousin cut off by the big, mean game master.
"What are you painting on?"
"I don't know. The wall?" she says, almost confused by the question.
"You see the innkeeper approach quickly. She has a stern, if somewhat surprised, look on her face."
"Uhhh, I meant a piece of paper."
"I put out a cup and start doing magic card tricks!" my step-son yells out again, trying to assert his copy-cattery.
"Do you cast any spells?"
"No."
"Both of you roll perf..."
"I come over and start playing my lute," interjects the bard, played by the older child's mother.
"Ok, I'll need performance checks from all of you," I inform them as I secretly roll a d10. The first pages of the adventure introduce a bevy of triggers for the first encounter, the suddenly most appreciated one being "if no one triggers it within 10 minutes". A mixed set of performance rolls nets them a couple of coins, and nets me one step-son asking every 30 seconds if he can re-roll his failed check.
The adventure actually prompts the GM to hand out hero points after each encounter, so I didn't start the party with any (thinking they'd have one in short order, and that it would feel better getting one as a victory prize). It was around this point where I started regretting that decision.
While the merry band of uninvited buskers do their thing, the party's Oracle -- played by my partner, and the mother of the mother of the already tilted younger druid -- decides to talk to the innkeeper. She orders a drink and starts to ask her a question when the elder cousin suddenly screams out, "I seduce the innkeeper!"
With seemingly everyone else in the room distracted, the Rogue Thief does a circuit around the room, easily picking every pocket they come across.
I roll the d10 again. It comes up as a 3.
The Bard, suddenly freed from her sense of obligation to spotlight her little one, looks around the room and sees the innkeeper's son looking longingly at the ever shortening candle on the fireplace mantle, as he waits for the moment where he can open the mystery boxes under the ~~Christmas~~ Longnight tree. So, using her foot, she slides one of them across the room to him.
"Oh thank the gods," I think to myself. Touching one of the presents is an encounter trigger.
"I need everyone in the room to give me a perception check," I inform them. Most of them roll pretty low. Meanwhile, the evil poppet inside the box rolls a massive deception roll for their initiative, and looks like a regular windup toy to everyone. Only the thief takes notice of it at all, amused by how it seemingly is heading back to under the tree, where it just was.
I turn to my step-son and ask him what he wants to do. His cousin excitedly leans in front of him and starts yelling again, but I cut her off and inform her that it's not her turn yet. I repeat my question.
"I go over to [Bard] and point the toy bear out to them," he says.
"Ok, that's your first action. What else do you do?"
"Wait, we're in combat?"
"No, but we are in encounter mode. All that means it that the order in which everyone does things matters. You have two actions left."
He spends another action pointing the walking doll out to everyone else, and then finishes his turn off finally re-rolling for his card trick.
The Oracle goes next, but she pays little attention to the transpiring events. Instead, she spends an action to talk to my step-son, and to drop a silver coin into his cup, before turning back to the inn keeper to ask her about renting a room for the night.
Next, the Rogue starts investigating the doll. A middling crafting check informs them that this thing doesn't look like something that should be able to walk on its own. Also, who wound it up? They pick the bear up, only to have it squirm out of their grip. The Bard comes over to try grabbing it, and rolls high on their grapple attempt. They look closely at the bear and discover that it spells of black powder, and seems to have ill intentions.
The elder druid throws her dagger at the bear -- and her mother -- landing a critical blow. She then walks over to the window and opens it.
The bear tries to break free, but fails its saves.
Now the younger druid, who I foolishly allowed to have a jezail because I'm that dumb, turns his rifle on the bear -- and the Bard. At this point the Rogue -- his other bio parent -- points out that someone is holding the bear, and that he'll end up shooting them, too, he instead turns to them and says "I'll shoot you, then".
Nice, quiet, structured play. That's what this'll be.
They did, eventually, win the encounter. And somehow, no one got shot, despite multiple threats -- it turns out the over-tired ten-year-old competing for the spotlight is very sensitive to being told he'd have to relabel his character as chaotic evil if he shot any of his teammates. But yeah, gonna keep a closer eye on that one before he succeeds in Marty Jannettying someone through a window.