RE: [DL] Dead Presidents Comments <SPOILERS>

["Roy Spence" <roy.ster@virgin.net>]

> At 02:31 PM 7/26/2001, Roy "The Shooter" Spence wrote:

"The Shooter"!?!! :)

Yet more Dead Presidents thoughts and spoilers...
& still pretty long.
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>          DL writers all bring an individual perspective to
> their works, and
> mine has been shaped by Hammer Horror films (I dedicated
> Horrors of the
> Weird West to Christopher Lee, in fact). To wit: a group of
> 19th-Century
> people will be very genteel to each other, before spilling
> litres of blood
> in gorgeous Technicolor at the climax of a scene.
>          Such is the rather warped perspective that gave birth to the
> Slaughterhouse scene. It creeped *me* out as I wrote it, and
> I have high
> hopes it will affect Posses in a similar fashion.;-)

If it makes you feel better the Slaughterhouse scene creeped me out as I
read it, it half crossed my mind that I might not make the scene quite as
graphic when I come to run it - however fortunately I realised that doing
this would probably ruin the scene.

I've been considering just what atmosphere to use to set a Back East
Deadlands campaign, and you know, I might just have found it.  Cheers  (now
how to fit a Mr. Christopher L. McGlothlin in as an NPC - it's only fair
that the people on the list get our own back you know)

>          You'd have to ask Shane about that. In my version,
> Dr. Nick throws
> the bokkor out for so much as *suggesting* his mechanical
> panacea for all
> mankind could be used in such a fashion! That's a lot truer to how I
> conceived of Nick as a character, and left the voodooists to do their
> bloody job with knives.

Sha... nah it's alright, I'm big enough and ugly enough to make up my own if
I want them, I was just being lazy. :)

>          As I said before, Chapter Three of DP as I wrote it
> may well have
> sucked, but (questions of contradicting BE:TS aside) I still
> feel the Posse
> should have been given a chance to either save all of
> Richmond, or destroy
> all of Richmond. Automatically obliterating half the city
> just isn't as
> satisfying for the players, who have already been railroaded
> quite harshly
> in previous parts of the adventure.

This is more in keeping with how I tend to run my games, with the resulting
destruction dependent on how well the group does.  They've managed to blow
up parts of Lost Angels and the City O'Gloom so why not Richmond
(eventually).  I guess when you run it you just need to be a little careful
that the railroading doesn't come across too strongly, make them think they
have options.

>          That said, Shane knows far better than I what Big
> Events need to
> happen in DL, and for what reasons, so I trust absolutely
> that, while it's
> not something I'd have chosen myself, Richmond's Apocalypse-by-half
> ultimately sets up something way cooler than anything I could
> conceive of.
>          Like The Game, Shane IS "Just that d@mn good."

Actually this is something else, I meant to ask, is there something in the
works that covers just what happens as a result of the adventure? (as is
implied above).  The South seems to be in pretty dire straights as a
result - especially as the initial bokkors spell took out the cabinet (as
per the errata), so this must have major ramifications for both the South
and the war.

>          The Doppelganger kept Varina and her children alive
> because it had
> plans of establishing a frequently heavy-handed autocracy
> from the start,
> and was canny enough to realize that a charming First Lady
> and clan of
> smiling children could be used as effective distractions in
> the court of
> public opinion, when needed.

Thanks for the thoughts, it just fills in a few holes in my thinking - I
kind of expected Varina to come from a powerful family - but being UK based,
my knowledge of American history is sketchy at best.  I expect that when
Varina appears at functions, Winnie is kept "safe" back at the ranch.  I
tend to like characters to have reasons for their actions, even if my posse
never manage to figure them out.

> However, if the President's lovely family dies, John Q.
> Confederacy (as
> well as Varina's very rich and very powerful family) starts
> to wonder if
> something's rotten in Denmark...or Richmond.

That wouldn't be the Danish Dr Zachariasen again would it? :)

Cheers



Roy