This is a fuller recount of the events of the recent Game Day than I've given before. Beware spoilers!

June 15th. D&D Game Day. Vault of the Dracolich. Leading up to the event, I really didn't know that much about it. I'd read that it was something like a Lair Assault, but I really hadn't done that much research on it. It was late on June 14th that the actual package arrived at my FLGS and I was first able to peruse it.

This was *not* your normal D&D adventure! Instead, Vault of the Dracolich was designed for 3-49 players! Forty-nine players? How does it do that? Well, not with everyone on the same table. Instead, Vault had a number of different groups investigating different parts of the dungeon at the same time. So, from one to seven tables could be playing at the same time, with 3-7 players and a DM at each one, and one further person would act as the event's co-ordinator, making sure everything worked smoothly and triggering the big events that affected several tables at once.

The accompanying notes recommended that the DMs get the adventure a week before running it. You may note that the date we got the adventure and the date the adventure was run was not quite a week. (Wizards Australia needs to work on getting event material out in a timely manner). It was pretty obvious that I was going to have to act as the event's co-ordinator rather than as a DM, which would be my normal role. Thankfully, I had a D&D game that evening with two of the potential DMs for the Game Day, so I was able to hand Paul and Josh copies of the adventure, 23 hours before it started.

Our third DM didn't know that he was DMing until the event began. Thankfully, Callan stepped up, and ran a fantastic game.

June 15th was also slightly complicated by the presence of the Star Wars Card Game Regionals earlier in the day, so we were running the Game Day in the evening, from 6.30 pm. (I also played in the Regionals. Thankfully, it ended up being a very small event!)

I got up early in the day to organise as much as I could of the event. This meant printing out copies of the Bestiaries for the DMs, (as monster stats aren't in the module), extra sets of the pregenerated characters, and gathering together miniatures for the players to use and all the monsters they might find. My many years collecting D&D Miniatures gave me enough that I needed very few proxies (naga instead of large snakes, etc), and I was very happy to have big minis for the hydra, treant and dracolich in the adventure.

So, as the evening began, I had enough miniatures for everyone – depending on how many people actually turned up. That total was nineteen which divided into three tables of five with a DM each, and then me overseeing the entire thing.

Coordinating the event was fun. I got to see the entire thing; having a view of the game that the individual players and DMs didn’t have. I did miss small details, and the progress of individual combats, in particular, was something I didn’t follow closely. However, the overall experience was positive. One particular role I enjoyed was giving rules help to the DMs so they didn’t have to look it up themselves. I also did a very little amount of DMing, when one group got split up, as detailed below.

The basic goal of each of the groups was to find three idols – the number scaled based on number of players – which would allow them to reach the final encounter. Here's a few of the details I can remember!

Paul’s group entered through the lizardfolk and troglodyte tunnels. After slaying the first group of lizards, they made friends with the trogs, only to walk right past the idol they sought as a result!

Callan’s group went in the front entrance and discovered cultists. After slaying the first lot, they attracted more attention banging on a portcullis. At this point they fast-talked their way past. “What are you doing here?” asked the cultists. “Investigating the noise.” “Why are there dead people here?” “They must have killed them! You must find them.” And the cultists left them in peace.

Josh’s group were in the wet part of the caverns; they fought snakes and found the first of the teleporters; alas! They didn’t go through. Instead they found a trap, which dropped Shane from full to 0 hit-points. That was fun!

As it happened, Josh’s group were the first to find one of the idols, after a tough fight with hydra. I made the announcement to the other tables: the first idol was found! And, a few minutes later, placed the Dracolich on Josh’s table.

One of the nice bits of stuff Wizards had given us was a poster map and stickers. As the groups moved around the map, I moved their tracking stickers. Now, with the dracolich on the map, so it went on the poster. Fun!

It got even better as Josh’s group ran into Callan’s, with the Dracolich in pursuit. Josh had the Dracolich breathing on the groups and the poor cultists in the way. Thankfully for the longevity of the night, the dracolich proved to be a magical construct which vanished after a few seconds, but not before giving the players a scare!

A few minutes later, Callan’s group found the second idol, opened a door, and found the dracolich looking right at them. The group split up; those winning initiative running through a portal, the others fighting! The dracolich knocked one of the group unconscious before it vanished again. The survivors rested, and wondered where their friends had gone, as I’d taken the other members of the group aside. They’d ended up in the area where Paul’s group had been, and so, as I knew what Paul's groups had done, I had them meet the troglodytes. Chris showed some great roleplaying; escorted before the chief, who boasted of his possession of the idol, Chris boasted himself of possessing a great magic that could protect against all evil, which he would trade for the idol. After some roleplaying, Chris just leaned forward and touched the chief on the shoulder. “You now have the magic!” Would the chief fall for it?

I instructed Chris to make a skill check, and he aced it with a roll of 25. The chief handed over the idol and was very pleased with his new invulnerability! Hehe!

Paul’s group had meanwhile reached the area of the fourth idol. They triggered an attack by wraiths… and the wizard then knocked himself unconscious by triggering a trap. They managed to hold out long enough for Callan’s group, now back together again, to come by and reinforce them.

All the idols had been found, so it was time for the final encounter. Cleverly, this was done with each table dealing with its own task: one deactivating wards, another protecting the other groups from undead, and the final team fighting the dracolich. We let the players decide amongst themselves who would do each task, whilst I conferred with my DMs about how to run the final fight.

Of these groups, the one fighting the undead had the easiest time; with a lot of clerics, the undead weren’t much of a threat, and it was something I would have redone if I’d been able to. The groups fighting the wards and the dracolich had a harder time of it. Two characters were dead by the end of it all, but the final result was a convincing win to the party. Kiana was the one to slay the Dracolich in the end, recovering from her dragonfear to return and slay it with a magical flaming sword she’d found. It was a good end to the night.

I’d have probably done a few things differently if I’d had more time to prepare; I certainly wasn’t as familiar with the adventure as I would have like to have been, but the game was great fun nonetheless. The aspect of all the groups working together to a greater goal made it a lot more than previous ‘small-scale’ games, and I really hope to see another game like this one.

So that was our D&D Game Day. It really was fantastic. Thanks greatly to Wizards for providing it to us, and to the writers and developers for putting the adventure together. It was something quite special, and I’m delighted that we were able to get three tables of players, here in Ballarat, to play the adventure.