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Re: [HoE] My players derailing the campaign yet again
>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):
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>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.
>
IMO, that would fall under the heading of, "Don't bother drawing, just give
them a War-type mutation on general principles." for me. ;)
Ritter's map that they apparently have does have Burke's place located a bit
more specifically, so finding it the second day doesn't seem that tough.
It's not exactly a conspicuous location...
One wonders how they got along with Burke, given their "diplomatic" reaction
to Dupre.
>2. When they arrived in Rock Springs they did not possess the homing key,
Given their version of "diplomacy," that's not too surprising. Just out of
curiosity, did they kill Burke, retreat in the face of superior robotic
firepower, or just fail to get it after talking with him (I could understand
why... ;) ).
>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.
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Well, the opposition is supposed to go up as more and more robots get the
idea that the party is in town. While I don't believe the module states
exact numbers, I would have thrown some pretty substantial numbers at them.
Since you said "Finally" I assume they had several battles? I hope that
last one was pretty tough...
Since the point of the adventure is more to defeat the evil types than find
Ritter's sword (which is more of a player reward + McGuffin than anything),
I would have "guided" them towards the warehouse before letting them find
him.
>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:
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>Me: Okay, you've found Ritter's body and the sword. What do you do?
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>Player 1: We leave town.
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>Me: What? What about the giant robots wandering town? Aren't you going
>to investigate them?
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>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?
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>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.
>
Well, since Ritter _died_ as a templar fighting them, and (I think) his
journal entry pretty much clarifies what the robots are up to (assuming they
found his journal at the water tower), this seems a rather odd
interpretation. Besides, with all these fights they've been picking for the
blue chip, haven't they _already_ "bugged them" enough to come out of town
after the posse?
While players, I've found, can pretty much justify anything, this seems a
bit of a stretch. They don't want to investigate/no-combat because they're
afraid that the robots will be "bugged," but aren't worried about all the
combat they've already done that probably _has_ bugged the robots?!?
I would've pointed that out, and then started sending the robots out after
them, giving them at least one more in-town robot battle and made sure they
saw the "bugged" robots behind them if/when they got out of town.
Remember, the Rock Springs facility is supposed to be chugging out
_thousands_ of robots. The final encounter seriously downplays that,
failing to give the players a good impression of the menace that awaits. I
wouldn't feel too bad about playing that up a lot more if I were in your
position.
>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
>
>
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>
---
Steve Crow
"Worm Can Opener Extraordinare"
Check out my website at: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Stargate/4991/
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