Re: [DL] two general questions

["Ben Rasmussen" <nyddoybdyle@hotmail.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff Shoffner" <shoffner@esper.com>
> I've been meaning to ask these two questions for some time, but keep
> forgetting....

Don't know what the 'offical' stance is, but here's what I use...

> First, if a person rolls a high enough Quickness roll to get say, six or
> seven cards, granted he can only have five, but is he allowed to take all
> seven & drop the lowest two, or just take the first five?

Players may always draw up to the maximum for their quickness roll, or they
may draw fewer if they so choose. They however may only keep a maxium of 5
cards (supernatural aid not withstanding).

Thus if you draw 9 card,  draw all 9 or only 5 or heck only 2 if you want.
Greater # of cards raises the odds of the black joker. Many times my players
have been bitten by the draw 7 and get the joker.

BTW if you get the joker, it's automatically 1 of the 5 you have to keep, so
you end up keeping only 4.

> Second, if a player makes a Tale Tellin' roll, does he have to tell the
> complete truth?  A 'fer instance' there, we dealt with a band of CSA
> soldiers that had been killed, raised up as walkin' dead, & terrorizing
the
> locals.  Now, could our tale tellin' player just tell the townsfolk it was
> just a band of CSA deserters, & we settled their hash, & just leave out
the
> "dead" part?

This depends on what the locals (realitive term) think the problem really
is. Tale Tellin' lowers the peoples fear. Any tale that does that should
suffice IMHO.

If they're scared of a pack of CSA deserters who have been simply throwing
their weight around and harassing the area then simply tellin' a tale about
a lone scraggly band of heroes who outfight a whole regiment would suffice.

But if this CSA regiment had something obviously 'off' about them, like
eating brains or or the ability to shrug off wounds, the tale should take
that into account. And this does not have to be the whole truth either.
Maybe they eat brains due to the fact they picked up an old aztec ritual
they thought worked. The ability to keep fightin' better have lots of
mention of how good a shot the posse is or how much lead was flyin'.

But woe to the posse that lies and get's caught. I'd make any future tale
tellin' harder, even it was the truth. If it was simply an 'omission' and
the truth got out the fear level would probably rise back up.

Posse kills regiment of undead CSA and tells the townfolks they were regular
soldiers. Town seems relieved and things get a little less scary. Someone
else pokes around and discovers the CSA fellers were undead and the town
gets wind of it. They get scared again cause undead just ain't natural and
even though the posse killed them, they didn't allay the fears of the
undead.

This is why both goverments are so grumpy about keeping things underwraps.
Bad tale tellin' can really open a can of worms and it's so easy to do. Too
bad it's one of the best weapons folk's got.