Re: [HOE] Coup questions

[David R Goecke <mightygecko@juno.com>]

On Thu, 09 Oct 2003 23:01:40 -0400 Aaron Chusid <aaron@to-the-point.org>
writes:
> Hi all!  
> 
> Don't know if this counts as spoilers, but it's talking about some
> potentially behind-the-scenes stuff, so consider yourself 
> warned....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> .....
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ......
> 
> 

>         -A really nice, super friendly young woman who everyone 
> loves; no one's
> figured out she's Harrowed yet.  Worse, she's mildly radioactive, 
> and has a
> nasty habit of killing all the crops in any town she vists.   
> Accidentally,
> sure, but Famine doesn't care about her motives, really.

I'd have to disagree with this. a servitor is someone who willingly does
evil and gives themselves over to a reckoner mind body and soul and
embraces the horror that they become. She sounds like a neat character,
but jsut not servitor material.

> If they survive that, I figure they'll be ready for Los Diablos.  If 
> they can handle those, I'll run the Unity.  Meantime, I'm having
trouble
> thinking of appropriate weaknesses and coup for these fine 
> upstanding survivors.

It seems you've got 3 steps to your campaign before you close the door on
a lot of HOE possibilities.
conquering 4 servitors, facing los diablos, heading off to Banshee in The
Unity. There is a LOT more you can do in between. such as the Boise
Horror, the Destoryers, and all the other fantastic adventures that lead
up to the unity. You seem to be starting a bit big don't you think?

> 3) One of my players has said the dreaded to me.  "It doesn't seem 
> scary; it just seems like rolling a lot of dice, to me."  Given, I'm
new at 
> this and have been overusing the Scart Table and Guts checks, but I'm 
> still not happy with this.  How do you create horror, fear, and terror
in an 
> RPG?  My prior experience is all with fantasy and swashbuckling RPG, so
this 
> is new to me.

You're probably running it like a fantasy/swashbuckling RPG. Deadlands is
more moody... or rather needs to be more moody in order to get its full
force. When you Marshal, don't think of it as being a game master. Don't
tell them that there are Walkin' Dead infront of them and start drawing
cards. It isn't a bunch of dice rolling. Think of being a Marshal as
telling a spooky around the camp fire with a few dice rolls to see if the
teens in teh car get away from teh escaped lunatic. Describe the
shambling footsteps in the dark and the disgusting odor or rotting flesh
before the half eaten human corpses turn the corner and fix their pale
eyes on the posse. then roll guts. Sounds better than "3 walkin' dead
with clubs appear, roll guts. now quickness." You've got to put some of
the fear in the playters as well. Guts checks or fine, but the player
will be more nervous if while the zombie is appraoching his character,
the character is on teh ground vommiting from fear and disgust and can't
fight back. And if they no they can't just go to the temple and get
reserected by the 20th level cleric.

speaking of walkin' dead, maybe I'm reading this wrong but it sound like
your starting these folk at the top of the food chain. your character
should have gone through hell with lots of simpler things before tossing
a servitor at them and expecting them to win. they should have at least 3
grit before they meet a servitor and that 3 grit should take them 5-6
adventures to get there. Think about it; would you send a level 2 party
or dungeon crawlers against an eldar black dragon, or a 20th level
anti-paladin and expect them to live?

Just my two cents.

Dave

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