I created a scenario where the party was leaving one town (no ale or adventure to be had) and headed to another (Brymassen from AA1). As part of the opening description I told them a crazy old hag was at the gate and warned them that the road was dangerous. I didn't say anything else but they right away jumped into the role playing and decided to engage the hag in conversation. She told of people disappearing along the road and rumors of a haunted graveyard. They asked her if she knew where the graveyard was but I decided she didn't know. Then they asked if anyone else might now and so I added in a guard at the gate.
While they were talking to the guard our thief decided he wanted to pick the guard's pocket. Since he would need to roll a 30, I added in that the rest of the party could see in his eyes that he was about to do something stupid so our MU added in that he tripped the thief with his staff. Fantastic.
Anyway, I wasn't expecting them to jump right in like that. I figured they would just head out of town and come straight to the graveyard senario and that would be that.
In the graveyard, they examened the stones, etc and at the base of one of the graves they saw something shiny and of course our thief couldn't help himself and had to pick it up. When he did a ghoul reached out of the grave and grabed him by the arm. He missed his saving throw and ended up paralyzed while the others were fighting the ghoul which eventually they defeated (but there is another one ...
) There is also a partial dungeon map of Brymassen in the treasure of the ghouls if they find it.evil laugh
That is where we left off and all that in just half an hour! I think I am going to try and do a hybrid game with some post to play via email for the exploring town part etc. so we can use our short sessions for the fun stuff.
If anyone is interested, I would be happy to share my graveyard scenario. It seemed to make a good start to the adventure.
Thanks again!