The occasionally embarrassing adventures of Witsen, gnome bard and scholar

For the last few months, I have been playing Dungeons and Dragons, 5^th edition. My group has been playing through the 'Tyranny of Dragons' official campaign. I play a forest gnome bard, Witsen.

Described by my dungeon master as "a vicious little gobshite" due to my tendency to roll high on damage, leading to a succession of ruthless dispatches of Witsen's foes via aggravated rapier-stabbings (who knows what the DM expected me to do with the rapier instead—maybe he should consider not attacking my character all the time), Witsen is clever, skilled and loyal, but somewhat lacking in common sense and rather fragile.

Our party was led by a tiefling paladin noble with a superior attitude, followed by her squire (tiefling fighter), her confessor (human monk), and her advisor (human wizard). Witsen was tagging along, ostensibly as the paladin's herald, but basically dragged along by a kind of social inertia.

Our party had already assisted the nearby village of… Greenvale? As a typical player of a pen-and-paper roleplaying game, I of course lack any ability to remember the names of anything the DM tells me about. In any case, Greendale was being attacked by raiders, assisted by kobolds and a bloody great adult blue dragon. We fought multiple skirmishes against the raiders, rescued some villagers trapped in their homes and escorted them to the nearby keep. We then helped the guards at the keep fend off the dragon…

Well not really. What is meant to happen, at least according to the campaign-book, is that the heroes run out onto the battlements as the dragon begins to attack in a heroic attempt to fend it off; the heroes should focus their attacks against the dragon until about 24 hit-points of damage are dealt to it, at which point the dragon should withdraw. In the meantime, the dragon will focus its attacks on the hapless guards, not the player characters (who would otherwise die quite quickly). The fewer guards savaged or electrocuted (blue dragons breathing lightning, not the traditional fire, don't you know), the more experience points then awarded to the player characters.

What actually happened is that our adventurers, being played by veterans of previous editions of D&D, all stood back out of reach of the dragon, waiting for the obvious 'cut-scene' to end. I mean, it's an adult blue dragon. We were only level 2. It was virtually impossible to defeat the dragon, and it could easily slaughter us in a single round of combat if it wanted. We clearly couldn't possibly be expected to actually fight the beast, so get on with the plot.

As such, quite a lot of guards died before we half-heartedly came out of hiding and shot at it a few times with our bows and slings for want of anything better to do (we were not awarded any bonus experience for our heroics). After the dragon left, we sortied out one more time into Greenwood to rescue some more villagers; we had the paladin's squire duel the mercenary leader (a blue half-dragon fighter; the paladin wasn't feeling well and stayed in bed), whereupon the squire was thoroughly thrashed, though Witsen did the commentary. We then watched the raiders withdraw from Greenford with their loot, and then followed behind at a safe distance to find their camp.

Having infiltrated the raider camp (Witsen set it on fire and the monk found and proceeded to infuriate the half-dragon and lead him on a chase through the burning camp; also we'd rescued some prisoners), we then had to investigate an adjoining cave system for more clues as to what the raiders' leaders were planning. After bumbling along for a while, fighting some kobolds, some ambulant mushrooms (yeah, this is D&D alright) and some leftover mercenaries, we finally found our way, battered but steadfast, to the heart of the caves. Therein we found our good friend the half-dragon, who, along with a couple of frothing-mouthed berserkers, proceeded to kick the crap out of us again.

This all culminated in the heroic (and wholly accidental) sacrifice of the monk, who drew away the half-dragon by taunting him (again) and then running straight into a kobold ambush (I believe his intention was to escape). This however provided the rest of us with the opportunity to pick up our wounded and make our escape from the caves.

But not before I'd claimed the treasure! My daring gnome leapt forward and grabbed the chest in the corner whilst everyone's attention was elsewhere… triggering a trap and flooding the room with acid. Which then proceeded to react with the air and let off noxious gas.

So cutting to the chase, we picked up the acid-burned wizard from the ground and the remains of our plucky band hightailed it out of there. We'd escaped, our pride (and flesh) injured, mourning the loss of our brave monk, who claimed to be a coward but demonstrated his heroism at the very last with his noble sacrifice.

Next week... will we return to finally defeat our half-dragon nemesis? Will there be enough of the monk left to raise from death? Will the DM finally realise his cherished desire to murder us all (especially me)? Who can possibly predict?!