Re: [HOE] Demo game

[J23junior@aol.com]

for quickness sake- avoid anything that involves fighting a squad of 
blackhats or roadgangers.  Putting anyone through a couple hours of combat is 
usually a great way to get people to not by a game- because it usually 
highlights all the flaws (real and/or perceived) in a system. My belief is 
that the best demo adventures introduce the posse to a broad picture of the 
setting and unique archetypes, the general rules of non-combat tests, and a 
very simplistic combat setting.  I'd also recommend an adventure where the 
Posse can afford to get lost and screw around- since it is usually improper 
to herd the posse through 3-4 chapters of a story just to get to the end.  

   I'd recommend that you simply place them in a small survivor settlement 
that is expecting the convoy to show up in the next few days and deliver 
badly needed supplies.  A murder occurs in town and the posse has to figure 
out who did it.  You can lay out a few suspects and let the posse eat up all 
of the time interacting with the wasters until you feel the posse is getting 
antsy to get going- and then you can pretty much drop a bloody glove in front 
of them so they can run off and wack the werewolf/cultist/grey 
hat/harrowed/Shane Hensley that offed the victim.  As far as dime novel 
adventures- I think virtually all of them tend to be too complicated for 
demos.  While I know this seems untrue- by the time you get done explaining 
characters to folks and showing off the general rules more time has gone by 
than you thought would and the players still only know 1/2 of what they need 
to know.