I killed a character this weekend. I haven't done so in a while - at least not to a character that wasn't in a one-shot. Every so often we head down to Portland for the weekend to visit friends, and recently that's involved some D&D-esque gaming. We've been using Savage Worlds instead of D&D, but working to make it feel like an old school 1st Ed AD&D campaign. While starting Savage Worlds characters are pretty robust (especially compared to 1st-level D&D characters), I feel it's necessary to have PC death loom as a serious specter in a game that's mostly dungeon a romp. I play the monsters to their abilities and intelligence, never fudge the dice and rarely pull my punches. It's mostly balanced for the player's stats, but there's some sandbox elements and the players ran smack into them this Saturday.
Long story short, the PCs ended up in a significant battle. I'd statted it out, but didn't expect to actually have them encounter the big bad (a Medusa) until the next session - I was just dropping some foreshadowing. The players, bless their heroic little hearts, dove right in and chased after those hints. They found the back door escape route that the Medusa would have otherwise used if she were badly pressed, and cut straight to the big encounter. They traipsed in, using polished shields as mirrors, and making zero efforts at stealth or concealment.
Out pops the Medusa, her mate (based on the Maedar from an old issue of Dragon magazine) and two blind Grimlock bodyguards. They caught the PCs on a bit of narrow terrain in the old sandbox. The good news was that view to the Medusa was partially eclipsed by the guards. The bad news was that the PCs couldn't flee (or get to her) without taking opportunity hits. Things went south pretty quickly. First I thought it was going to be a TPK. Then I thought one PC would escape. Then that PC went back into the fight, and it looked like a TPK again. In the end, though, the big armored fighter held his ground and made every roll he needed to resist poison and petrification, so only one of the three PCs died. Not that there weren't ramifications for the other two, however - one PC ended up with a permanent -1 Charisma disfigurement - her facial muscles frozen in a horrified expression.
Instead of making up whole new rules for petrifying gaze, I just used the existing Terror / Fright Table rules, but suspended the "Becoming Jaded" portion. Everytime they attacked her, they'd have to make a Guts check. Averting your eyes could give you a bonus on the guts check, at the cost of the same penalty to your other actions and parry. Partial cover (on either end) also provided a bonus on the PCs rolls. It was simple and easy, amounting to just applying "trappings" to the guts check - if you died of a heart attack (a roll of 21+ on the Fright Chart) you'd turn to stone, the "Mark of Terror" result was a partial petrification, etc. It worked like a charm - constant danger, plenty of guts checks (which is an otherwise underutilized skill), drained several bennies, and yet was never actually lethal.
The actual kill ended up being when the Medusa got close enough to do poison bites - which I treated as a single mundane venomous snake attack but with +2 on the Fighting Roll to represent that there were a dozen snakes. A bad vigor roll took down the PCs healer. Let that be a warning to those who play Savage Worlds - the venomous snake entry is surprisingly potent.
Showing posts with label medusa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label medusa. Show all posts
Monday, August 17, 2009
Friday, October 19, 2007
Paralysis Sucks
In case there's anyone out there that hasn't figured this out yet: Paralysis sucks! 
The Scion game system is packed with powers that paralyze, delay, or limit actions. Serpent's Gaze, Overt Order, Charmer or Center of Attention can be taken by any PC for approximately 1 session's worth of experience. They're just as acccessible to the NPC badguys, but be careful. Here's a precautionary tale of powers gone bad...
In an early session of my Scion Campaign, my PCs fought a Medusa. In Scion, Medusas don't turn you to stone when you look at them, but they do cause supernatural fear that can paralyze you or make you flee. I didn't think it'd be a problem, 'cause the fight was planned to be staged in a multi-room suite, and making someone flee to the next room or stay transfixed till the Medusan left the room would be no big deal. But instead, the players didn't really understand the power being used against them, so they slammed the doors between the rooms closed and barricaded them. Which left a paralyzed PC in the same room as the monster. He was effectively out of the game for over half and hour because of the other player's tactical decisions, but for the most part he took it very well.
"I'll never let that happen again," I said loudly at the start of the next session. "If I ever use a paralysis -based power again, I'll make sure there's an easy way out, like spending a willpower to cancel it." (Such a provision is written into the default rules of Scion, by the way, but it's specifically overruled in the write-up for Medusas - you can only spend the Willpower if you beat the Medusa's roll). I gave him an XP bonus for taking it so well that night.
Several sessions later, the PCs were up against Chupacabra, and thier boss the Luchacabra.
I gave the Chups the Serpent's Gaze power, which captivates and effectively paralyzes a PC while the Chupacabra is looking at them. However, a PC can spend a Willpower point to break out of it after missing a single action. (That rule is NOT overwritten in the creature I made). PCs usually start with around 8 WillPower, and have a few ways to get WP back in middle of combat, so it shouldn't have been a problem.
There were two chupacabra encounters set up: one against a lone chupacabra, and one against a group of them. The first was a test - if it went poorly I'd trim the second encounter back significantly.
Chupacabra pops up, zaps a PC. Before that one action has gone by, the other 2 PCs throw everything they have into killing the Chupacabra. It dies in 3 ticks, without the "affected" PC every actually missing an action, but of course I'd narrated that he'd looked hypnotized for a moment. In fact, since initiating the Serpent's Gaze had cost the chupacabra an action, it really was the same effect as if the PC had stunned the chupacabra and not the other way around.
Later, the 2nd Encounter happens. 10 chupacabra vs 4 PCs and 6NPCs. The PCs were sure to break free easily (and breaking free makes you immune vs that chupacabra), and since it took an average of 2 attack rolls (not 2 hits, 2 attacks) to kill a chupacabra, it should have been fast and painless. The idea was that the Chups would look really scary for about 5 ticks (ie: 1 action or 1 round of combat) and then as soon as I prompted a PC that they could spend a willpower to be immune, the tension would go out of the scene.
Paralyzing for 1 action cost the chupacabra an action and 1/4 their Legend resource. Mathematically, the only way the PCs could be out of the fight was if 8 out of 10 chupacabras managed to make eye contact with them in succession and the PC never did anything to gain Willpower, and that wasn't going to happen since 5 out 10 chups were busy holding the NPC followers hypnotically hostage.
No real danger. A slaughter, but in a good way: The PCs couldn't lose that fight.
It was going to be fun.
Instead, I had a rebellion on my hands. Players actually said "we should just quit for the night and go home" and that wasn't a strategic statement of what their characters should do. Fear of the unknown just jumped in. No matter what I said, they seemed to assume the scenario was rigged to kill them.
What blows my mind, is this wasn't a random convention game. These were people who've played my campaigns for years. I rarely kill characters, less than one a year on average, and when it happens it's due to major plot points not random mooks. I've never "scored a TPK". And we were playing a game that's mostly about making the PCs look hot. They should have trusted me. Worst case scenario, if the dice had hated them, would have been waking up later in a cage the chupacabra had built and having to figure out how to escape.
I just don't know what happened. Suddenly, I was paralyzed. It got so out of hand I actually shouted "I need to take a 5 minute break right now or I'm going to start killing characters!" I don't say things like that, not in the last 10 years anyway. I felt like I'd fallen through a rift to 1987 and was gaming with my fellow 13-year-olds from across the street. There's some serious soul-searching ahead of me, I suspect.
To my friends: I'm sorry I over-reacted. Sometimes I get too invested. This was one of those times. But sheesh, next time, please try to lighten up too. I'm not out to kill your characters, I'm out to make them look good. It is Scion, after all.
The Scion game system is packed with powers that paralyze, delay, or limit actions. Serpent's Gaze, Overt Order, Charmer or Center of Attention can be taken by any PC for approximately 1 session's worth of experience. They're just as acccessible to the NPC badguys, but be careful. Here's a precautionary tale of powers gone bad...
In an early session of my Scion Campaign, my PCs fought a Medusa. In Scion, Medusas don't turn you to stone when you look at them, but they do cause supernatural fear that can paralyze you or make you flee. I didn't think it'd be a problem, 'cause the fight was planned to be staged in a multi-room suite, and making someone flee to the next room or stay transfixed till the Medusan left the room would be no big deal. But instead, the players didn't really understand the power being used against them, so they slammed the doors between the rooms closed and barricaded them. Which left a paralyzed PC in the same room as the monster. He was effectively out of the game for over half and hour because of the other player's tactical decisions, but for the most part he took it very well.
"I'll never let that happen again," I said loudly at the start of the next session. "If I ever use a paralysis -based power again, I'll make sure there's an easy way out, like spending a willpower to cancel it." (Such a provision is written into the default rules of Scion, by the way, but it's specifically overruled in the write-up for Medusas - you can only spend the Willpower if you beat the Medusa's roll). I gave him an XP bonus for taking it so well that night.Several sessions later, the PCs were up against Chupacabra, and thier boss the Luchacabra.
I gave the Chups the Serpent's Gaze power, which captivates and effectively paralyzes a PC while the Chupacabra is looking at them. However, a PC can spend a Willpower point to break out of it after missing a single action. (That rule is NOT overwritten in the creature I made). PCs usually start with around 8 WillPower, and have a few ways to get WP back in middle of combat, so it shouldn't have been a problem.
There were two chupacabra encounters set up: one against a lone chupacabra, and one against a group of them. The first was a test - if it went poorly I'd trim the second encounter back significantly.
Chupacabra pops up, zaps a PC. Before that one action has gone by, the other 2 PCs throw everything they have into killing the Chupacabra. It dies in 3 ticks, without the "affected" PC every actually missing an action, but of course I'd narrated that he'd looked hypnotized for a moment. In fact, since initiating the Serpent's Gaze had cost the chupacabra an action, it really was the same effect as if the PC had stunned the chupacabra and not the other way around.Later, the 2nd Encounter happens. 10 chupacabra vs 4 PCs and 6NPCs. The PCs were sure to break free easily (and breaking free makes you immune vs that chupacabra), and since it took an average of 2 attack rolls (not 2 hits, 2 attacks) to kill a chupacabra, it should have been fast and painless. The idea was that the Chups would look really scary for about 5 ticks (ie: 1 action or 1 round of combat) and then as soon as I prompted a PC that they could spend a willpower to be immune, the tension would go out of the scene.
Paralyzing for 1 action cost the chupacabra an action and 1/4 their Legend resource. Mathematically, the only way the PCs could be out of the fight was if 8 out of 10 chupacabras managed to make eye contact with them in succession and the PC never did anything to gain Willpower, and that wasn't going to happen since 5 out 10 chups were busy holding the NPC followers hypnotically hostage.
No real danger. A slaughter, but in a good way: The PCs couldn't lose that fight.
It was going to be fun.
Instead, I had a rebellion on my hands. Players actually said "we should just quit for the night and go home" and that wasn't a strategic statement of what their characters should do. Fear of the unknown just jumped in. No matter what I said, they seemed to assume the scenario was rigged to kill them.
What blows my mind, is this wasn't a random convention game. These were people who've played my campaigns for years. I rarely kill characters, less than one a year on average, and when it happens it's due to major plot points not random mooks. I've never "scored a TPK". And we were playing a game that's mostly about making the PCs look hot. They should have trusted me. Worst case scenario, if the dice had hated them, would have been waking up later in a cage the chupacabra had built and having to figure out how to escape.
I just don't know what happened. Suddenly, I was paralyzed. It got so out of hand I actually shouted "I need to take a 5 minute break right now or I'm going to start killing characters!" I don't say things like that, not in the last 10 years anyway. I felt like I'd fallen through a rift to 1987 and was gaming with my fellow 13-year-olds from across the street. There's some serious soul-searching ahead of me, I suspect.
To my friends: I'm sorry I over-reacted. Sometimes I get too invested. This was one of those times. But sheesh, next time, please try to lighten up too. I'm not out to kill your characters, I'm out to make them look good. It is Scion, after all.
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