[HoE] My players derailing the campaign yet again

[Ralph Dula <rdula@ezonline.com>]

Hi, all.

Despite the fact my gaming group wasn't supposed to meet for several weeks
I ended up running HOE last night.  We played the much-maligned (mostly by
me) adventure Something About A Sword.  We set this adventure shortly after
"The Destroyer" adventure debacle in my campaign, with the premise being
the posee was looking for Ritter to let him know what happened in Boise.
My lovely players totally messed up the adventure.  Among the highlights
(with Spoiler Space for those who haven't been through the adventure yet):












1.  Self-Righteous Glory Dupre so angered one of the posse members with her
attitude and demand of them helping her with the packaging of toothpaste
she got into a fight with Dupre, killing her.  After drawing cards to see
if they had started down the path of Servitorhood (sadly none drew the
Black Joker) and hiding her body under a pile of toothpaste tins, they
snuck out of the compound, and began wandering the wastes looking for
Burke's house, having only the map Ritter had to guide them.  I ruled the
Gas N Go was destroyed in the mutant attack.  To repesent the search for
Burke's home with no assistance I had the posse make Incredible (11)
search, trackin', and survival rolls each day of the search, and amazingly
they did it on the second day of the search.

2.  When they arrived in Rock Springs they did not possess the homing key,
and took to aimlessly wandering the streets, thus drawing the attention of
the combots.  One of the posse members is blessed by Doc Norman, though she
lacked a blue chip to use his power to get a nudge in the right direction.
To get such a blue chip the posse decided to wander through Rock Springs
raising a ruckus, hoping combots would attack them.  "Why," you might ask?
So that they could go through the action deck in hopes of getting a Red
Joker, and thus a draw of a chip.  They also Bluffed for chips many times,
just for a chance at a blue one.

3.  Finally they got their Blue Chip, which I let them use to get a lead to
Ritter's body.  After finding it and his sword they decided to leave town.
The following was the conversation:

Me: Okay, you've found Ritter's body and the sword.  What do you do?

Player 1:  We leave town.

Me:  What?  What about the giant robots wandering town?  Aren't you going
to investigate them?

Player 2:  No.  We came looking for Ritter and we found him.  Now we leave.

Me (To Player 1):  You're a Templar, how can you let those dangerous robots
roam free?

Player 1:  They've never been seen outside the town, so I'm guessing
they're just guarding some old army base or research facility.  If we bug
them they might come out of town after us, and maybe hurt innocents.  No,
we're going to leave the town and let the robots alone.

Of course my player never encountered the mutants and thus allowed the Cult
O Doom/combot alliance to take place.  Somebody mentioned in a post
regarding the last time my campaign went way off track that the posse would
become more feared than the abominations that roam the west, and I think
they were right.

Anyway, I thought all of you might get a kick out of the continuing
screw-ups of my posse, so you know yours isn't too bad

-Ralph