Re: [DL] The Scart Table

[Brett Dixon <balance@tubas.net>]

On Wednesday, April 16, 2003, at 08:51  PM, Jim Burzelic wrote:

> I use the Scart Table from the Marshall's Screen. Unfortunately, my
> posse doesn't like to play Deadlands the way I do and we have a hard
> time compromising. I like a "darker" deadlands where things are really
> scary and the posse has to use wagons full of ingenuity to beat the
> baddie. They like to be classic western heroes who don't get scared of
> anything and bull-head their way along, being as stoic against a group
> of banditos as much as a horde of zombies. This discrepancy makes the
> Scart Table hard to use. They would rather play their fear as
> motivating them to defeat the villain and I'd rather use the table as
> is, to make it harder. I hates me posse, I does!

A good compromise might be to do as some people have suggested and run 
several 'mundane' adventures for every 'weird' adventure... So they get 
to do the hero schtick overawing bandits, starring down gunslingers, 
and similar, but when a monster comes along, they aren't so tough. It 
might be genuinely scarier for the group... If they don't know if the 
'bad guys' are bandits in funny costumes scaring the townsfolk, a 
merely amazing gunslinger, or an undead abomination that eats souls for 
dinner, they might be a bit more scared.

Of course, if they want to be the kind of hero they seem to want, the 
characters should be paying for Sand, Nerves o'steel, etc... It'll help 
them ignore the Scart table for the most part, or at least minimize it.