Depravities of the Dinosorcerer: Lessons from Playtesting

Earlier this week, I finally ran not one, but two playtest sessions of the adventure I've been writing, Depravities of the Dinosorcerer. Both took place with two players due to scheduling and connection shenanigans, but I expect the Thursday sessions to continue for the foreseeable future. 

This won't be a full report like I usually do, more of a summary plus what I learned from playtesting. The dungeon is meant for a level 3 party to start. The first group was level 3, the second was level 5 and 6, since they were imported from my CX campaign, but they still provided plenty of useful testing information.

Party 1: Thursday

Kel, Dwarf Fighter

Lishan, Druid

And their entourage of fighters and a lightbearer

• Kel and Lishan arrived in the jungle village of Dewhill following rumors of raptors, and another adventuring party who had disappeared. They entered the dungeon, and were perplexed by a riddle on a bust which commanded them to 'speak the name of magic.'
• They explored to the west and south, encountering a large, vicious chicken with teeth feeding on the carcass of a cow. A raptor! They tried to befriend it with rations even as it warned them away, and got ambushed by two more of them. They took serious damage, but managed to kill one, and drove the others away.

• Following the raptors, they crossed a geyser-filled hallway, and located a secret chamber filled with empty chests and sacks, and a single sapphire ring. They were immediately suspicious, and cast Detect Magic, and noticed that it was in fact a magical item. However, on approach, a microraptor jumped onto the pedestal, snatched it, and ran down a spiral staircase.
• They found the raptor lair, but they weren't alone. A wild-eyed bandit that the raptors seemed to obey, Maxim, offered his hospitality. He had kidnapped the village priest, stolen cattle and jewelry, and offered an alliance with the party to fence off his stolen goods in town, passing them off as dungeon loot, and splitting the profits.
• Not confident they could take Maxim and his flock on, the party agreed. He showed them the loot, told them how much he expected it was worth, and escorted the party back to town. He released the priest, Bartleby, into their care, with the promise that the priest would not breathe a word of the truth to the townsfolk.
• Bartleby told the party that Maxim was a were-raptor, makes the party promise to kill him, and gives them a silver dagger. The party rests for a week, during which they sell the loot and give Maxim his cut. They end up with the minority of it, but enough to hire some henchmen and get started. 
• They returned to the dungeon, this time exploring to the east, discovering signs of another party's passing through, plus a binding ritual gone wrong, which they left alone. The body of a wizard wearing a full helm was discovered, with a massive bite mark in it and a bloody trail leading away. 
• In a parlor, they found an iron cage with a pixie inside it. Maxim mentioned this one, and said the pixie had a pouch of fairy gold they could split. Instead, the party let the pixie go, with the promise he will return to them when the time is right to take down Maxim. 
• A walled garden outside had several large amber blocks containing prehistoric creatures. The party followed the blood trail to a fogged-up greenhouse. They entered and found a number of very odd plants, plus a locked alchemy cabinet. The party was haunted by their own voices speaking out in the fog, and a giant toothy maw appearing from nowhere and almost biting their heads off. They ran like hell, and schemed how to destroy the greenhouse and the spirit within.

Party 2: Friday

Boroth, Human Fighter

Corby, Human Cleric

And their entourage of crossbowmen and a fighter

Taking place in an alternate universe of our Castle Xyntillan game

• Boroth and Corby traveled to the southern jungles in search of Idred, who had been investigating an old wizard's abode there before disappearing. They left behind their halfling companion due to his hangover, and arrived with their own hirelings. They quickly deciphered the meaning of the riddle, with Corby yelling out Abracadabra! and opening the eastern door.
• They checked the west, and their hireling said he saw a colorful chicken eating the carcass of a cow. The party decided it must be a cockatrice, and decided to avoid it for the moment. They explored to the east, finding Idred's signature in a guest book, and the failed demonic binding. With the book that contained the binding spell nearby, they fixed the ritual and forced the demon to manifest. They asked it where they might find Idred, and it gave cryptic answers before disappearing. 
• They found his bloody corpse in the next room. 

• They immediately followed the blood trail outside to the greenhouse, discovered a number of very odd plants, plus a locked alchemy cabinet. They were creeped out by hearing their own voices speaking out from the fog, and they sent their hirelings outside while they tried to speak with the presence. It attacked from the fog, and they fled. 
• They put their heads together, and decided that the best approach was to smash the greenhouse to pieces and pull the cabinet outside so they could loot it. This worked quite well, and the fog spirit was forced to follow them outside, where it lost its invisibility. The fight was tough, and it chomped one of their arbalists in half, but it was soon slain, and the party collected valuable potions and reagents.
• In the parlor, they found the pixie in the cage, and after some questioning, let it out. As part of their deal, it would return to them if they called.
• They returned to the site of the supposed cockatrice, and found that it was instead three raptors, which they utterly crushed. They navigated the geysers beyond and were received by Maxim, who offered them his hospitality. Seeing that he was a bandit (and, they assumed, a wizard) who had kidnapped the priest, the party elected to kill him. They managed to surprise him and his raptors, and turned the tide of the battle with a Hold Person spell. From there, the raptors were swiftly destroyed, although one got away.
• They restrained Maxim and released the priest, who informed them that Maxim was a were-raptor. They found a pagan lizard idol on his person, which Boroth removed, but was not taken in by the idol's magic. Corby, being a sixth level cleric, had the option of simply casting Remove Curse, and Maxim was reduced to a pathetic, ordinary bandit, begging not to be returned to town for judgement.
• That was not the end of the adventure. Boroth and Corby explored the southern area, found a secret door hidden behind a sarcophagus, ran away from poison gas, and found the hidden tomb of the wizard Khorbus, although they elected not to break down the amber tombs without proper mining equipment. Then, they descended to the next floor.
• In the second floor, they found a looted treasure room, incinerated a pack of undead circus monkeys, played peekaboo with a gargoyle, and met a squadron of lizardman soldiers who took them to meet their religious leader. My session plans effectively fell apart there, so the sessions concluded nicely.

Playtesting notes

The first room, containing a bust, a riddle, two doors and an ankylosaur skeleton, worked pretty well. It set up what needed to be set up. I'm surprised that neither party took a closer look at the skeleton, though.

The second room was less of a hit. It was also empty of traps or monsters, but had some flavor text which was meant to build tension and give a sense of the dungeon's history. A guest book contained names from seventy years ago, plus a recent signature from the last party to pass through. That part worked, but it also contained a bunch of glass spheres hanging from the ceiling with dead fireflies in them. It's an evocative image in a visual medium, but in narration it turns out to be a very fiddly concept. Gonna be changing that one.

The third room, which was a mimic fountain in the original draft, was the changed at the eleventh hour and became a failed demon binding. That was better, but when both parties searched the surroundings, I realized something was missing, so I added a book which gave more information on the nature of the binding. The second party took this in an interesting direction by completing the binding, which I hadn't even considered before. Good direction, going to clarify the room more, and probably going to put the book elsewhere in the dungeon.

The fourth room is, again, empty, but builds tension with the wizard's corpse and foreshadows the monster in the greenhouse. This room doesn't do much heavy lifting, but it also doesn't take up much space or time, so I'm keeping it.

The fifth room, with the pixie, the sunroof and the secret door, works pretty well. I'm going to rework the pixie encounter a bit to emphasize the fairy gold, in order to more effectively tempt parties.

The sixth room, a hidden fossil storage, was discovered by both parties in short order, which I like. The monster encounter here was hobbled by trying to make it into a reference, which none of the playtesters got, so I'm changing that one around.

The walled garden worked decently as a connector between many other rooms. However, there was one big issue. As soon as I described the amber blocks containing preserved prehistoric creatures, both parties immediately observed that, yes, sixty tons of amber ought to be worth a lot of money. As a GM, I cannot help but agree, and would be disappointed if my players did not notice this. However, as a module designer, I cannot help but scream that such a thing would utterly destroy the XP/gold progression of the dungeon. Even if my designer-self were to specifically include a note such that the blocks would be worth much less, or could not be removed or sold, my GM-self would recognize this as petty revisionism and would likely ignore that instruction at the table. Gonna change something here, don't know what.

The greenhouse worked very well. There was a change in tactics as soon as it hit the table, since the fogling was supposed to try to lure a PC or hireling away into the fog before beginning its attack, but in practice there's no way to do that. A few creepy exchanges with stolen voices works just fine, and has a great effect. Smashing up the greenhouse was also a solid tactic.

The cattle pen with the hidden raptors worked as expected, though I need to work on the order of my narration. That's staying.

The geyser-filled corridor is a neat idea, and it served as a solid obstacle, but I'm falling out of love with it. It may stay, it may go.

The velociraptor lair worked pretty well, no complaints. Need to work on my own narration.

The room filled with empty sacks and chests didn't work. I had an image in my head like an Indiana Jones movie, with the party approaching the ring on the pedestal, only for it to be stolen by a magpie dino. It just doesn't work in play. Also, why is there a whole room of looted stuff, except for one valuable item, in the open, not hidden, directly across from a bandit's hideout? Seriously past me, what the hell?

The room with the demon sarcophagus worked well, though I need to rework the trap to look more urgent. 

The fourteenth room wasn't entered by either party, and I think I might rework it along with room 12 into something more coherent with the rest of the dungeon.

At multiple times in the sessions, I said out loud, this is why we playtest. I've already reworked a goo amount, and this floor is the smallest section of the dungeon. I can scarcely imagine how much playtesting must go into big products like WOTC adventures. I'm suddenly a lot more understanding about logic errors in adventures.