RE: [DL] Too easy!

[Brett Dixon <balance@tubas.net>]

On Fri, 8 Mar 2002, coyote wrote:

> Make them spend those chips on non-combat stuff. Sounds like you're not
> throwing much in the way of social challenges at them. Make them use those
> chips on extraneus rolls like dickering over the price of a box or cigars or
> the cost to have a horse re-shoed by the town furrier. Also, use the
> environment, my players are always at odds with brutal weather, a night out
> in the cold windswept prairie is sure to eat up a few chips or the players
> are gonna be hurting for Wind later. To me it sounds like your posse are a
> bunch of chipwhores, meaning they've figured out that Chips equal
> invulnerability that's why they hoard  their chips so what you need to do is
> provide them with challenges that require them to spend chips to succeed.
> Barring this, my only other suggestion is to take more chips from the pot
> when you start the game, usually one per posse member is sufficient. Also,
> use Overawe, Ridicule, and Persuasion to break the characters thus getting
> more chips for yourself. Look at the odds, you have four posse members with
> 10 chips apiece versus your three chips unless you take some steps to even
> things out you're badguys, no matter how nasty are gonna get their @sses
> kicked every time.

This has some very good suggestions I'll be using. Thankfully I have
several players who are either heavily or moderately weighted towards
social roleplaying as opposed to combat. At the moment, they are in
'freindly territory' and it's easy to stomp over the populace when you
have the town mayor and a deputy in the posse.

They'll be leaving town next session, so I will be throwing the harsh
realties of traveling from Kansas all over North America at them.

The thing that's bothered me is how the black hats, who acted mostly
sanely, got in trouble so easily. I think I may stage 'part two' of that
confrontation in a similar way. They did act intelligently, and the
player's didn't. Here's what went down:

After tracking the bad guys to the farm house they were holed up in, they
decided they had found the right place when a rifle bullet nearly took the
face of their gunfighter (bought off with a couple of chips)

Question: Can you use multiple chips on a single wound?

They then decided the situation was unfriendly and acted accordinglt. they
traded rifle shots with the sharpshooter as the gunfighter and the martial
artist walked towards the house... They had about 80 feet to cover. During
this time, they bought off some more attacks, and finally, as they got
close, they managed to hit the sharpshooter in the arms.

Note to self: i need to re-read most of the combat chapter. Especially how
to handle cover, etc.

THey got a justifiably great damage roll. (Hey, Rifles hurt, a lot) but
were now at a range that the gang's leader started adding in pistol hits.
Unfortunately he's ridiclously inaccurate, so the gang's crazy gunman
charges through the door, with both pistols blazing. This was almost the
most useful attack.

They managed to take him down, however, and my three measley chips did
nothing to save him. I actually spent some: I'm correcting my habit of
hoarding chips, which does nothing, since I've assumed the GM can't keep
chips between sessions.

They also took out the leader, usign their Blessed as a medic to keep him
alive (I was glad they did this... besides making sure they were still
alive to cause trouble later, the blessed healing anyone was very in
character.

The next time they encounter part of this gang, they'll have to deal with
an even more fortified position. I'mt hinking of having them recruit a few
more gunfighters and setting up an even better location to lead them to...