What is it boy? Is Timmy stuck in a well?: One Shot D&D b/x / LL game

On Saturday, I ran a short session of D&D b/x + Labyrinth Lord + LL Advanced Edition Companion. The idea was to try a different type of game than a hex crawl, to see if that, in part, was our difficulty the last time and to get Lady Shadowmoss's character, a race-as-class elf named, Euphrates some experience and back story prior to arrival at the town where the "real" game will begin.

This is a session summary, so as always, please skip if this sort of thing bores you.

The scenario idea - a boy in a well - came from the Secret Santicore 2011 PDF.

I didn't want to force her character onto any adventure, so I created multiple scenarios and she could ignore any or all of them ,but she would only get them one at a time, i.e. to get the second she had to either pass over or complete the first. Thus, the boy could have died in the well had she refused to take the bait (and of course the character would never know).

Which as it turned out, almost happened.

Approached by a yapping dog, Euphrates quickly climbed a tree (in fact, she said "I run into a tree" which stopped the game a good two minutes while we laughed and she clarified her meaning). 

Imagine if you will, this exchange of real-life play had been provided in the rules for your game of choice:

Lady Shadowmoss (playing Euphrates): Does the dog look magical?
DM: What? No. It looks like a dog.
LS: I don't know. I'm suspicious.

Were it not for a heroic effort of the dog - an unheralded master of pantomime - to persuade the elf to come down from the tree and follow him, little Timmy may have died in that well.

At the well, and still terrifically cautious, Euphrates lowered her rope to the trapped child and hoisted him out. 

Not exactly the gallant hero type, she was ready to send the lad off on his own in spite of his broken leg and the fact that someone or some thing had pushed him into the well. Only after the boy whined did she reconsider.

His claim that ghosts had done it was not too far off - crossing through woods towards the boy's home, 2 men, dressed in black from head to toe, attacked (ninjas!!! well, b/x thieves wearing black but still). Although she was surprised and then lost initiative on the first round, the thieves gained nothing.

She dropped the boy (after a five minute long debate about whether or not she could throw the boy in the air, cast Sleep and then catch the boy. I had visions of her throwing the child in the air and firing spells at it, like cowboys do in cartoons with tin cans and six-guns) and I ruled that dropping wasn't movement per se and she was able to cast. As it was, the boy's dog had latched itself on to the boot of one of the ninjas and was knocked out too.

This did not please the young lord, who thought his doggie was dead, and Euprhates had to explain quickly that it was just sleeping.

One assailant down, one sobbing child momentarily comforted, she won initiative and then Charmed the 2nd thief.

After questioning, she sent him on his way, but not after forcing me to improvise a whole big story about who they were. They were, as events had it, members of the the Guild of Shadow Warriors - identified by the cool tattoos on the backs of their hands - hired to kill the kids. Lady Shadowmoss pursued that idea with the tenacity of a baby going after the TV remote.

We may have a story line now of her character pursuing membership in the aforementioned Guild. Which could be kind of cool.

In any case, the boy was delivered safely, a reward given by the grateful father, including lodging for the night and a possible future ally/employer gained.

It was a great time and I'm more and more excited to try and run at least a mini-campaign of some kind.