My very first experience at being a DM (Dungeon Manager) was a one-off called “Baby Tiefling Candy Shop Heist”. It was not my original work. To the best of my knowledge, a group of people made it up on Tumblr. The seaslesbian account appears to the the one that created the rules.
How much chaos could four orphan toddler Tieflings create in a candy store?
I decided to start with this one-off for two reasons. One, I wanted to see what it was like to DM for a group of players, and a one-off seemed manageable. Two, our regular DM doesn’t get nearly enough time to just play a game, and I wanted him give him an opportunity to do it.
What follows is a little background about what I did to build up the one-shot:
I created some characters to populate the candy store. The Shopkeeper was a human named Felix Cooper, who runs the Cooper’s Candies shop. It is a family run shop that has been around for decades. Felix only speaks Common.
There was a worker in the shop, named Waverly. She is a teenage Half-Elf whose job it is to clean the shop. She does things like sweep the floor, and sometimes ring up purchases on a very old mechanical cash register. Waverley spent a lot of time looking out of the front window of the shop. She speaks Common and Elvish.
There were three other characters who didn’t get introduced until later on in the one-shot.
I provided a description of the candy shop to my players. There are shelves across two of the walls of the store. The best candy is in one-pound jars on the top shelves. Lower shelves have a somewhat lesser quality of candy and a smaller jar. The bottom shelf is where the least expensive candy is displayed.
There is a counter toward the back of the store. It has a mechanical cash register on it (with a handle) and is bolted to the counter. Off to the side, there is a garbage can. There is a door leading to the back room. I left it to the players to decide if they wanted to explore the back room.
Player Characters:
- Penny – Glasya Tiefling (coppery) that can cast minor illusion – Played by Io
- Levi – Levistist Tiefling (blue) that can cast ray of frost – Played by Crash
- Muu -Variant Tiefling (calico) that has a non-prehensile fluffy tail – Played by Archbeth
- Orixori – Zariel Tiefling (lavender) that can cast thaumaturgey – Played by Ellie
Starting the game:
I started the game by reading out the rules from Tumblr. In short, each player’s character was a Tiefling toddler, and each had to pick a sub-race of Tiefling. This enabled me to keep track of them and to decide if they could use a special ability that was intrinsic to them based on what sub-race they selected.
All the stats were 10 – and players should apply their racial boosts. Each toddler Tiefling has four hit points (5 if they had the Constitution boost). If a toddler Tiefling reaches zero hit points, they fall unconscious. We don’t want any toddler deaths. Your only abilities are your racial traits.
You have broken out of the orphanage, have no money, and seek a treasure trove of candy from the store. How you retrieve this candy without being apprehended is up to you.
The candy store has gumballs, lollypops, and chocolates.
I gave my players a choice: Do you want to start by breaking out of the orphanage? Or do you want to start having done that? They chose the second option.
To be honest, as the game went on, I was pretty loose about adhering to the original rules set. There is a concept that our group often uses that can be described as, “No, this is funnier!” I also allowed the players to work together to gather up at least a pound of candy. Or, they could gather it alone.
Overall, I believe it is ok to slightly alter the rules in order to make the game more fun for everyone.
How did it go?
To my surprise, the game was super fun for everyone. I highly recommend giving this one-shot a try, even if you are a first-time DM.
The three characters that were introduced later made their appearance towards the end of the one-shot. I was holding them back so the players would not only have a surprise, but also opportunity to end the story in a satisfying way.
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