Many of the revealed adventures for Dungeons & Dragons give attention to epic fantasy, tasking gamers with preventing historic necromancers, rampaging demons, or invading armies to be able to stop some nice calamity. However the stakes don’t should be so excessive to have an awesome session, and a bit of caprice can show simply as memorable as a dramatic battle. That’s why one among my favourite adventures from Wizards of the Coast is a foolish fairy story impressed by Hansel and Gretel.
“Baker’s Doesn’t” was revealed in 2024 as a part of Dragon Delves, a group of 10 dragon-themed adventures for the brand new 2024 ruleset. Many of the ebook’s adventures are the usual heroic fare, with gamers rooting out Orcus-worshiping cultists or dealing with a strong white dragon whereas coping with feuding frost giants. However in “Baker’s Doesn’t,” you’re attempting to rescue a rambunctious wyrmling named Briochebane who’s been captured by a hag.
The journey could be dropped into just about any settlement close to the woods and kicks off with a fireplace in a sweet retailer. The confectioner Edith Applegarth suspects her rival, the baker Fill Flourforge, is responsible of arson. However Fill reveals the wrongdoer was his younger ward and assistant baker Briochebane, who has since disappeared.
Following Briochebane’s path leads the gamers to a sweet cottage the place they face all kinds of goofy threats. In the event that they don’t wipe their ft on the doormat made from fruit leather-based, it would attempt to smother them. There are chocotrices – cockatrices whose chunk will flip enemies into chocolate statues. Bugbears make saltwater taffy and can attempt to entangle heroes of their gear.
There are additionally a number of alternatives for characters to be remodeled into sweet creatures. This has no significant mechanical impact. It’s simply an excuse to inform your gamers they’ve been flattened right into a cookie by stumbling right into a rolling pin lure.
Every little thing about this journey is lovely, from the names, to the artwork, to the negotiation alternatives. Its most fearsome monster, a assemble that wields a lollipop like a greatclub, could be bribed by gathering sweet from different sources. This favors some intelligent plots, like distracting the chocotrices to steal their eggs or having a druid allure the dryads, who will solely give their candied apples to youngsters and animals. The ultimate boss is the hag Uncle Nibblecheek, who has charmed Briochebane. Fortunately gamers can bribe the younger dragon with Fill’s cinnamon buns to keep away from getting breath weaponed.
Find out how to run Baker’s Doesn’t
I can’t suggest this journey sufficient. It’s designed for degree three characters and could be simply run in just some hours, making it good for a meetup or an introductory session. It encourages creativity, not simply fight ways. It additionally has a fairly twisted conclusion. Edith is in league with Uncle Nibblecheek. She gave him her personal brother, Asger, as a captive in alternate for a relentless provide of sweet to make use of at her store. However a couple of key modifications could make the journey much more enjoyable.
Within the journey, Briochebane is a gold dragon and Fill is a former brigand who stole the egg he hatched from. The ebook mentions Fill is afraid that the townspeople would attempt to slay her, so he’s been maintaining her presence a secret. As a substitute, I took a web page from the comfy fantasy ebook Legends & Lattes and made Fill a former adventurer and dragon slayer who was attempting to boost a child pink dragon to be good.
Bizarrely, the ebook means that when you confront Edith about promoting her brother for sweet, she’ll repent and deal with him going ahead. How might you belief her? I made a decision to make her a extra classically depraved fairy-tale villain who doesn’t repent and needs to be arrested or run out of city whereas Fill adopts Asger into his odd discovered household.
One other situation is the gingerbread individuals guarding Asger. I like the concept of them, however the stat block the journey suggests utilizing are simply piles of hit factors with none notably enjoyable or scary talents. It makes the combat towards them right into a slog. Be happy to decide on a extra difficult humanoid to show right into a cookie, or candify your favourite low-level monster. Then choose up a bag of sweet to reward gamers for finishing encounters and put together to deal with them to a deliciously foolish journey.