Back in September of 2023, we released an episode entitled “Tribute to the Greatest Game In The World: The 3 Wise DMs Share The Lessons Learned From Running A 12 Player D&D Game”
The synopsis of the episode was this: 12 players. 2 DMs. 6 dragons. Tiamat. 2 birthday cakes… and a whole hell of a lot of fun!
For DM Chris’ birthday game that year, DM Tony reached for something that he had never done before – running an epic-level one-shot with twelve players and two DMs that tied together several loose threads from multiple campaigns.
Not to be outdone, when it came time to plan the second of my girlfriend, Bonnie’s, birthday games, I had to challenge myself (and my fellow Wise DMs) with something that was completely new to us.
Enter in the birthday one-shot that would be run in 3 separate acts by 3 separate DMs! To make the challenge more interesting, we decided to span levels, as well as game systems, to act as a tie-up to our recently ended Dragonlance campaign, as well as serve as a sequel to last year’s epic birthday game.
The Tie In
Similar to our Curse of Strahd campaign, our recent Dragonlance campaign tied up all of the characters stories… except one! Our Kender Rogue, Mikros, was formulated with a backstory that she was, in some mysterious way, tied to Little One, our gnome Artificer, from our Strahd campaign.
I immediately imagined that this dovetailed into our growing 3WD multiverse that spanned different campaigns and possibly different game systems. My original conception was that this Little One/Mikros tie-in was related to the Graygem of Gargath, a legendary artifact from the world of Krynn – and something that allowed for complete chaos, being the prison of Chaos itself.
Building this story out during the campaign, I quickly realized that, much like the final story arc for Fenriz, our Tiefling Cleric from Curse of Strahd, I was going to be unable to complete the story arc for Mikros during the actual adventure.
Enter in the Birthday game which coincided perfectly with the finale to our Dragonlance campaign. My wheels began turning thinking that we could develop an epic one-shot that did something that none of us had done before… run a game in 3 acts with 3 separate DMs!
The Premise
In our Dragonlance campaign, Mikros had come upon an amulet that resembled the Graygem. During their adventures, she realized that by looking through the amulet in a certain realm (The Gray, in our campaign), a map was revealed. Further Secrets & Clues led her to understand that this was a map to the fabled Isle of Gargath, home of the Temple of Gargath, the last known home of the legendary Graygem.
I brought the idea of having the Birthday one-shot be the Dragonlance party sailing to the Isle of Gargath to complete Mikros’ arc and deepen the lore surrounding our growing multiverse. My fellow Wise DMs and I, through much brainstorming, settled on the idea of each DM writing and running one of the acts that would culminate in the final reveal and the tying up of Mikros’ story into the wider multiverse concept.
Splitting the Workload
By having each of us write and run one of the acts, the workload was drastically reduced (which is something you want to have if you’re trying to recruit others to create part of your adventure for you!)
Going with the idea of the Graygem housing Chaos itself, we fell back to a favorite adventure of DM Tony’s, Castle Greyhawk. The complete absurdity of that module was a great starting point. Our overall premise remained the same, with the ascent upwards in the Tower leading to the final act that would serve to tie up the concept of this multiversal character.
However, eeach DM was free to develop their part of the adventure in whatever way they saw fit.
This had me beginning the adventure with the Dragonlance party (plus some NPCs to fill out the 8 players that we would have at the game), sailing west towards the Isle of Gargath, and entering the Temple of Gargath. A quick encounter where they would once again face Lord Soth (to give him his due screen time!) would lead the characters to the second level.
Here, DM Chris would write and run his portion of the adventure, with him tying in our Marvel Super Heroes universe by building off the Doctor Who/She-Hulk adventure from last year.
Finally, as the players ascended to the upper levels of the Tower, DM Tony would deliver the final act through an epic level encounter featuring high-level characters from every campaign that we have played in! Knowing his audience, DM Tony decided to build an encounter that would have the characters fighting off villains from the board game Villainous, knowing how much we enjoy that series.
Final Thoughts
Challenging yourself by attempting something you’ve never done before, but maybe always wanted to, only serves to improve your DMing skills. Our specialty of running Birthday One-Shots for the player in our gaming group is a perfect time to let loose and really test the breaking points where your imagination runs into the game mechanics.
The writing and running of this game was a masterclass in one of the most important skills for DMs and players alike: the importance of giving up control and trusting others to deliver the goods! We’ve said on many occasions that it’s important to trust your DM to bring you home in the story, and this was an example of that cubed!
Until next time, Heroes… LIVE THE ADVENTURE!
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