D&D One-Room Sessions: The Unstoppable Depredations of Darkroast McFanticide

Hurricane 75 doesn’t even have a character ready and is burning daylight hmmming and umming through his decades-old knowledge of D&D character classes, so I make him an Assistant Crew Leader.

His character’s task? Track down Darkroast McFanticide, the hulking, rust-armored Butcher of Hasbronia.

The room: Long and rectangular, a dais or something at the far end that, for some reason, displays a single flask that has the character’s picture on it.

He announces that he’s going to break the flask, but we’re not doing any of that because the knives are starting: “More knives than you’ve ever seen in your life.”

First plot point: Determine how many of the initial volley of flying knives hit the Assistant Crew Leader. It’s something like eight.

“This seems pretty bad,” I tell him.

“Well, it doesn’t seem like I get to do much. It’s been all you so far.”

“Bro, do you even like D&D.”

I roll a quick grapple/surprise check for him, which he fails. Darkroast McFanticide has embraced him from behind in an adamantine grip and a wave of necrotic gum tissue odor. Darkroast is upset because not enough of the knives are going into the Assistant Crew Leader’s mouth, so I tell Hurricane 75 that Darkroast stretches his character’s mouth out so more knives go inside his mouth. He gets a three.

At this point, Hurricane 75 is starting to check out on the whole experience, but I tell him he’s doing fine because we still have to do the eye check. Darkroast now wants more of the nonstop flying knives from the far wall to go into the character’s eyes.

“He’s stretching my eyes out,” he says glumly.

“Yeah. Let’s do a d6 to see how many knives go in your eyes.” It’s a six.

“Great.”

“I made an eye hit placement chart. Do you want to figure out where the first knife hits.”

“Sure.”

Oof. Right in the lacrimal caruncle. Rough. I plot out the remaining five eye hits for him so he can learn more about eyes.

There’s one piece of detailing at the end that finally engages him: Rolling a d20 to see for how many minutes Darkroast McFanticide holds the Assistant Crew Leader aloft, shaking him and gurgling in triumph. 12 minutes. We both collaborate to sketch out the scene, which is wet and crunchy because I’m a good DM and I like players to have fun.

Anyway, for all you DMs out there refining your worldbuilding and agonizing about plot and interesting NPCs: you’re overindulging your players. Boil the process down to the fundamentals. Wipe these sons of bitches off the map so you can play something else.

There is some post-session nitpicking from Hurricane 75 about Darkroast’s prowess because the flying knife trap did all the work, and some speculation as to whether my villain is a bitch. He sort of has a point, so I’m working on a different session: It’s an elegant skyship, where Darkroast will slowly work the player character into an approximate ball shape using just his hands. I’m going to also design an option where the character gets to say something before they’re fatally compressed.

Keep your eye on Breakup Gaming Society to see what thrilling duel erupts next; wherever Darkroast McFantide appears, fun is sure to follow.

Preview photo is a detail of the Sin Eater character from the Trench Crusade tabletop game, which is supposed to jump off on Kickstarter in Oct. 2024. It’s actually more horrifying than this post, check this out.