Re: [DL] Are We Doing It Correctly?

["Nick Zachariasen" <zacharin@pluto.dsu.edu>]

>    We're new to Deadlands and after a recent combat are a bit concerned. I
> was the Marshal and had created an NPC which should not have had any
> problem getting away from the PCs. He could become mist, etc.. But when
the
> PCs got in a fire fight with him, he was unable to even get an free action
> because one of the PCs went first and wounded him badly using open-ended
> rolls for damage. He was stunned and, using open-ended rolls for Wind, was
> heavily Winded. It got to the point where he needed four Aces in a row in
> order to have a hope of becoming unstunned. So the PCs killed him where he
> lay.
>    Does that sound right? It seems quite...extreme.

That's why you fudge rolls.  If the players complain, tell them it's to
advance the story.  For instance, when we first started playing, I had a
player's Monutie's enemy Huckster casting tricks and hexes willy-nilly.
Thep layer asked if I was drawing for these, and I told him no, I'm just
saying he's succeeding in order to advance the plot and make an interesting
story.  If he could catch the guy he's after right away in the first
adventure, that wouldn't make for a very good story, now would it?  He
agreed, seeing my point.  He was O.K. with it when I told him that if he
wanted to catch Croûte de Geniteaux (the Huckster), he'd have to buy off the
Enemy Hindrance.  He understood because sometimes the GM had to fudge things
to make the night enjoyable rather than having the plot just go all to Hell.

The same player once had us in a D&D game where we were in a train engine
and we were allowed a draw from a Deck of Many Thing, but the result would
apply to the whole party.  Well, one of us was a Wild Mage, who had a 50%
chance of controlling the draw.  Of course, he kept making his roll, and by
that time we'd all gone up about 4 levels before the DM just scrapped the
idea because we had caused his entire idea to burn down, fall over, then
sink into the swamp.  Had he just fudged things and said that it was a
*SPECIAL* deck that the Wild Mage couldn't control, we could have had a full
adventure instead of a munchkinry fest.  I'm not saying your players are
munchkins, but 'm just saying that sometimes you just have to ignore certain
rules just so the story can advance in a satisfactory manner.

Nick Zachariasen