RE: [DL] Night Train

["Jeff Yates" <jyates@primaryfunction.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-deadlands@gamerz.net 
> [mailto:owner-deadlands@gamerz.net] On Behalf Of Jason Young
> Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 4:20 AM
> To: deadlands@gamerz.net
> Subject: Re: [DL] Night Train
> 
> 
> 
> --- "Everett E. Proctor" <spiritmast@globaldialog.com> wrote:
> > 
> > On Wed, 01 May 2002 05:17:01 +0000
> > "Dom Gallegos" <stylenz@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> > > This is my rant and rave about the adventure so players get out!
> > > 
> > > S
> > > P
> > > O
> > > I
> > > L
> > > E
> > > R
> > > 
> > > S
> > > P
> > > A
> > > C
> > > E
> > > 
> > > B
> > > Y
> > > E
> > > 
> > > <big snip> The mad
> > > scientist realized what they were fighting, saw how to 
> kill them, but
> > didn't
> > > say anything! Once the adventure was done did he finally 
> comment on
> > what
> > > they should of done. My posse is pretty smart but totally 
> fell apart
> > on this
> > > one. The gunslingers were the worst and felt that since they 
> > > couldn't
> > be
> > > hurt by bullets it wasn't worth their time. Hopefully they get it
> > together
> > > before the Devil's Tower trilogy. Any comments?
> > 
> > That's pretty much how it went with my group.  I even created a 
> > written clue about how to stop them, but the one character 
> who found 
> > it kept it to himself and didn't figure out the clue until 
> after the 
> > creatures left.  Then he pulls out the piece of paper and says 
> > something like "Ohhh. . . I think this may of helped."  At 
> that point 
> > one of the other characters shot at him for nearly getting them all 
> > killed.  The resulting gunfight only had one survivor.  So much for 
> > that party.
> 
> It's going better for me. My posse's halfway through it -- 
> they survived the town raid by locking themselves into the 
> jail cell. You shoulda seen their faces when the creatures 
> started pulling on the bars -- and pulling them out of the floor!
<SNIP>
> I should point out that this particular posse is a bit ad hoc 
> -- we played Night Train on the spur of the moment, so they 
> made up characters that a) they wouldn't be too upset if they 
> died and b) were tuned pretty well to deal with <something> 
> horrible. I think that gave them a bit of an edge. Well, that 
> and knowing Night Train is very deadly. With no preamble, 
> they would have all died. Except maybe the preacher.
> 
> Jason
> 
> =====

My posse did alright in this adventure (except for the Curious Muckraker
-- wandered off by himself, has little combat ability... I brought him
back as a PC Vampire as an experiment.  He died in a posse created
fireball/explosion later.  And when they decided to destroy the train,
but that's been in other posts!)  They mostly worked as a team, the
gunslingers had lots of ammo, and could stun a baddie with a bullet or
two, then shoot the next one.  The Chinese M.A. had a sword, and learned
that cutting off the head seemed pretty effective.  So he ran around
town making called shots to the head to the stunned baddies the gun
bunnies had shot.  (I ruled that while non-weakness damage wouldn't kill
the baddies, it could stun them.  All I had to do was roll a Vigor check
for the wound's TN to get back up.  I hate my dice, I rarely rolled high
enough!)

As far as the posse unity problem, I think all posse's have bad days.
Hopefully they'll not be too turned off to not play Deadlands because of
one bad yarn.  Just keep dropping the hints when you need to, and maybe
try pointing the hints out after the fact when they didn't catch on.
"Endeavor to persevere!"

Jeff Y.
Marshal for the Dynamite Gang