Three drunken halflings
Apr. 17th, 2026 09:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baroque_mongooseI've been trying to decide what to do about tomorrow's D&D session all week... well, in fact, longer than that, because it's postponed from last Saturday. One of our party had some unexpected travel that weekend and couldn't attend, so I said, fine, we'll postpone, not a problem, I've had a bit of trouble preparing anyway due to the funeral. This turned out to be an excellent idea, because of course this time last week I was suffering grievously from an overdose of assorted Burger King trimmings, so I was in no state to do any preparation (or pretty much anything else) on Friday.
I have probably already mentioned some of this, but I'll just recap. Lord Smallpiece of Ashwood has hired the party to find his missing Great-Uncle Algy, who's a vampire (so far, this is identical to the starting premiss of the first book, but it diverges very quickly, as the party in the book is at least 20th-level, whereas our current gallant band is only 4th-level, so obviously both the challenges and their solutions have to be very different). They have successfully discovered that the kidnappers went east, and the latest piece of information they've obtained is that there are three of them, they're all male, and they stopped at an inn called the Oaken Staff. So our party naturally will be going there tomorrow to try to find out which way to proceed. What they don't yet know is that the Oaken Staff stands at a crossroads; so, very roughly speaking, you can carry on eastwards, or you can go north or south. So they need to know which way Uncle Algy and his coffin were taken.
I thought "ah, fun could be had with unreliable witnesses here," and this rapidly crystallised into an actual logic puzzle. There are three drunken halflings in this inn, who arrived at the same time that the party with the coffin left, so they know which way they went. These three are brothers who own a farm, so they stop at this inn regularly on their way to market, and therefore the innkeeper knows them. Their names are Mott, Cott, and Stott Barleyfield, and by the time our party arrives, they've had fifteen flagons of ale; however, they have not had five each. One of them has indeed had five, but another has had three, and the other one has therefore had seven. It's not possible to tell who has had how much from their general demeanour, as they're all a bit slurred. However, in the grand tradition of logic puzzles, the one who's only had three flagons recalls everything accurately; the one who's had seven gets everything muddled and therefore makes no true statements at all; and the one who's had five will get it right about half the time. Needless to say, they disagree about which way the coffin went, and so our party is going to have to unscramble their tipsy ramblings to get to the truth.
I'm really not a high-combat DM. Obviously I'll do some combat some of the time because everyone likes it a bit and some people like it a lot, but if you have nothing but combat it gets a bit samey. I like to switch things around, and to this end I don't simply give XP for combat. You manage to recapture all the baby owlbears without either them or anyone else getting hurt? That's worth good XP in my book. You solve the drunken halfling logic puzzle? Ditto ditto.
Now I just have to write it. I expect I'll be reporting on the results later, but I do know one thing: I can make it quite hard. This party is bright and should never be underestimated!
I have probably already mentioned some of this, but I'll just recap. Lord Smallpiece of Ashwood has hired the party to find his missing Great-Uncle Algy, who's a vampire (so far, this is identical to the starting premiss of the first book, but it diverges very quickly, as the party in the book is at least 20th-level, whereas our current gallant band is only 4th-level, so obviously both the challenges and their solutions have to be very different). They have successfully discovered that the kidnappers went east, and the latest piece of information they've obtained is that there are three of them, they're all male, and they stopped at an inn called the Oaken Staff. So our party naturally will be going there tomorrow to try to find out which way to proceed. What they don't yet know is that the Oaken Staff stands at a crossroads; so, very roughly speaking, you can carry on eastwards, or you can go north or south. So they need to know which way Uncle Algy and his coffin were taken.
I thought "ah, fun could be had with unreliable witnesses here," and this rapidly crystallised into an actual logic puzzle. There are three drunken halflings in this inn, who arrived at the same time that the party with the coffin left, so they know which way they went. These three are brothers who own a farm, so they stop at this inn regularly on their way to market, and therefore the innkeeper knows them. Their names are Mott, Cott, and Stott Barleyfield, and by the time our party arrives, they've had fifteen flagons of ale; however, they have not had five each. One of them has indeed had five, but another has had three, and the other one has therefore had seven. It's not possible to tell who has had how much from their general demeanour, as they're all a bit slurred. However, in the grand tradition of logic puzzles, the one who's only had three flagons recalls everything accurately; the one who's had seven gets everything muddled and therefore makes no true statements at all; and the one who's had five will get it right about half the time. Needless to say, they disagree about which way the coffin went, and so our party is going to have to unscramble their tipsy ramblings to get to the truth.
I'm really not a high-combat DM. Obviously I'll do some combat some of the time because everyone likes it a bit and some people like it a lot, but if you have nothing but combat it gets a bit samey. I like to switch things around, and to this end I don't simply give XP for combat. You manage to recapture all the baby owlbears without either them or anyone else getting hurt? That's worth good XP in my book. You solve the drunken halfling logic puzzle? Ditto ditto.
Now I just have to write it. I expect I'll be reporting on the results later, but I do know one thing: I can make it quite hard. This party is bright and should never be underestimated!
