Re: [DL] Need a nightmare to run someone through...

[Allan Seyberth <darious@darious.com>]

Mild spoilers



Well - for starters there isn't anything that says you HAVE to run the
nightmare right away.  It never hurts to have a player sweat a bit while
waiting for the hammer to fall. . . 

So. . . what you have is a purty gambler who is afraid of immortality.

Take a page from the Greeks - they had a legend about someone who wished
for eternal life, but didn't ask for eternal youth. . . 

Setting = A poker game.
Stakes = years of her life.

As she loses, she gets older - but she knows that there is no death from
old age here.
And her opponent - cheats.
Does she cheat?  Does she call the other guy a cheat?  How does she handle
the continuing losing streak, as her hands develop liver spots, and grow
wrinked and palsied.  What of her reflection in the bar mirror and the hair
thins, and the wrinkles develop.  (Her opponent casts no reflection, nor
does any light touch the area around him.  All she sees is spectal hands
dealing cards and raking in chips)
How does she react to the crosses that go up outside the window - friends
of her's who do die of old age during the course of the game.

It can't just be the poker game though.  That's pretty dull.
Start the session as if it was a normal game - allow the other players to
"participate", though all they are is puppets in the nightmare.  (Once they
realize that everything they do has no effect, and that they are dying left
and right - except the gambler - they'll catch on.)
hmm. . .
Start the entire posse off at the edge of a deserted western town.
Occasionally they will hear a clicking sound  that echos from nowhere.
(That if the gambler thinks to ask, it is the sound of poker chips being
tossed into the pot.).
The posse knows that they have to go through the town, and get to the other
end - where the saloon is.
Everything that the posse does - except the gambler - is useless.  During
the trip through the town everyone but the gambler will die.  
The gambler will experience periods of gradual weakness.  As each PC dies,
or is saved by the actions of the gambler, she will gain strength for
awhile.  Just remember, that each PC will end up dead.  Some of the deaths
should be part of the nightmare checks.  Things like if the character is
loyal, she will be forced to choose between saving one companion leaving
another to die.  

A classic touch would be to throw some references and/or clues to the
upcoming adventure here.  

Make certain that the ones the gambler saves then end up dying after
everyone else has died.  It will temporarily give the perception that the
tests depend on the ones that she saves.  Then the rules change and the
ones she saved die anyway - keeps the horror pattern of tension - release -
tension and keeps the player a bit off balance.
After killing each player in a fashion designed to reflect the character's
perceptions of the posse member - (outlaw gunslinger gets hung, mad
scientist burns in the wreckage of his machinery, Shaman's spirits desert
him leaving him helpless in some danger), have the player who is feeling
weak and one other posse member arrive at the saloon.   Just in time to
have the last posse member die.  :-)

As the player steps into the saloon, she sees  - herself - trade in a
figurine that looks like the final posse member into the dealer, and get a
pile of chips in return.  Once that happens, the player feels a surge of
strength and suddenly finds herself sitting at the poker table, with the
new pile of chips in front of her.

Now run the final tests during the poker game for years of her life.



>Dirk
>
>P.S.  If you have ever created your own hex, please send it to me!
>Thanks in advance!
>
>Napoleon48@aol.com wrote:
>
>> Hmm...
>>
>> Spoilers(if your posse reads this list)
>>
>> Well, if he has a Deathwish and a fear of Immortality, why don't you kill
>> him? A cow lands on him or something. The catch is, he still perceives.
He'll
>> lie there, watching people drag his body out from under the cow, he'll
watch
>> the mortician do his mortician thing. He'll watch his own funeral. And then
>> he will lie there in his Grave, alone and in the dark, waiting to
>> decompose.(if your really mean, you could have him watch as ghouls ate his
>> corpse, etc...).
>> Just an Idea. There would have to be a lot of roleplaying and\or inner
>> meaning, because the fight for dominion would not involve combat. (that is,
>> if this is a Harrowed Nightmare. If its not, you don't have to worry
about a
>> battle for Dominion.)
>>
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>
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-------------------
Allan Seyberth
darious@darious.com

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Eeyore:
If it did.  Which I doubt.  Not that it matters.