See part 1 here.
(Note this game was played 2 weeks ago… I kept no notes, so details will be sketchy)
Being Deadly Cool on a Mound of Corpses (Continued)
As the party schemed, hidden behind a pile of warclank spare parts (i.e clockwork mechas) near the gigantic pile of humanoid corpses, the ghouls and blasphemes continued their Dance Macabre. The ghouls were trying to snatch pieces of relatively fresh “meat” from the pile while the reconstructed undead kept them at bay with beams of death-laced energies.
While I fully expected my players to charge the pile to recover the dead agent’s body, they totally surprised me instead. After planning for 10-15 minutes, they came up with the following:
Mike: Vorian (Githzerai Monk) slowly sneak up on the pile by crawling on the corpses, laying near-motionless, creeping slowly to the agent. Then the rest of the party will be ready to support me if we decide to trigger an ambush. They’ll be hidden just there, behind those tarps.
I must say that this was ballsy and cool. There were 6 monsters on the pile (all non-minions) and 6 ghouls around it. I explained the rules of engagement if things went south along with how the Ghouls would likely react (go for corpses or the PCs). Then I asked Mike to roll a first stealth check, ignoring all opposed check rules that the PHB2 has. This was pure ‘Mouseguarding it” against an unerrata-ed “moderate” level 14 DC (and much faster to adjudicate).
He aced it.
Chatty: Slowly, inexorably, you creep toward the dead agent as the surrounding undead walk by, sometimes even stepping over you as they move around about their grisly business. Still, you finally reach your goal unnoticed…
Mike (and others): Yes!
Chatty: Only to find out that the agent’s watch arm has been hacked off! You see no watches lying around.
Mike: No freaking way?!
Chatty (Smiling): Yeah… how ’bout that? What now?
Mike: I guess my Monk returns back.
Chatty: Play another stealth check.
Mike: I miss…
Chatty (Smiling that evil DM smile players HATE as I went into ‘plot twist’ mode): As you slowly crawl down the pile, one of the blaspheme disciples steps on your hand and looks down, eyes growing wide. Roll initiative.
Party: Awwwww man!
Mike won initiative, got a well earned surprise round and pulled another one on me.
Mike: So, there’s a lot of noise here with those Frankensteins fighting and these huge chainsaw clankers right? I mean there”s a lot of action going on all around us?
Chatty (Warily): Yea…?
Mike: Then I use my power that teleports me and an adjacent enemy to bring us here…
“Here” being right in the middle of the rest of the party, all waiting behind a series of obstacles, within line of sight of the monk… but exactly out of sight of all other monsters.
Suffice it to say that I eventually ruled that the monster was killed, hooligan mob style without the monsters noticing anything. I would be lying if I said I didn’t resist the idea a little bit (old habits die hard after all), but the Rule of Cool won out.
This is the kind of brilliant play I love having players surprise me with (once I recover). Yes, I ”lost” a combat scene, but all the elements I prepared for this encounter made it into this scene… except the stats, which I can always recycle.
The Factory of Improvised Scenes
The other PCs were already moving behind the clockwork meat wagons to see if the arm was in it. Being very careful to stay out of sight. They didn’t find it. A series of rails (I mean, actual rails for the wagons) led into the main factory. My players decided to follow them…
(Ha! Talk about subversion)
(Also, by some byzantine law of the state of Maryland, I must warn you that the above link leads to the TV Tropes Wiki, you have been warned).
As the players entered the factory, I described how the rails led to another area where the body parts were dumped, sorted and ministered to by those stitched-up sentient undead constructs. All around the party stood floors over meshed floors covered with automated manufacturing lines stretching over several football fields’ worth of area space and rising several stories high.
(I was basically describing one of those camera shots that go slowly backwards to show just how damn big an area really is)
The southern space was devoted to making blasphemes, those Frankensteinian humanoids while the northern part was making autoclanks. Over all, 60-80′ up stood a central command centre, on a mezzanine, where a 9′ tall cupola-like structure of orange-white crystal.
Everywhere, deafening noise, choking smoke, the tear-inducing acrid smell of acid and explosives…
Everywhere, hundreds and hundreds of completed “units” standing to attention, motionless, menacing.
Franky: Whoa… where the hell do you get all those ideas man?
Ya know? There are many reasons that make me love GMing so much. Those exact moments are way up there. 🙂
Cya soon for part 3.
This is really great!
The Rule of Cool ruins so many carefully laid plans, but it does generate some really satisfying moments for players!
.-= Mike Watts´s last blog ..Advertising =-.
Definitly satisfying! You should had seen the look of Chatty on his face when i describe the teleport move of my monk with his target right in the middle of the rest of the party. Priceless 🙂
Oh, a big high-five for Mike on the Teleport move. I love the entire scene, the stepping on the hand, eyes widening, and then the grab-BAMFF-kill. Instead of a grindy, gritty battle, it turned into a beautiful moment, something that’ll be told a hundred times over.
Hey, I’ve got another hand. A big high-five for Chatty for letting it happen. Rule of Cool rules!
So the Agent’s arm w/watch got made into something mean, didn’t it? The PCs are gonna have to fight it to get the watch, aren’t they?
Good move with the monk teleport-gangbeatdown. 😀
Nice scene!
Don’t we just love a DM who can take this unexpected stuff and make it look good through the frustration of having his plans destroyed?
A cool, impromptu movie scene.
Good show Mike and Chatty 🙂
.-= Eric Maziade´s last blog ..StartCraft – The Board Game =-.
First reaction? COOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!
Lol. That’s seriously really great DMing there. You’re sacrificing some of the challenge by the books, obviously, but what you gain is a great experience for your players, which in the end is the major priority. And I love the evil little twists you throw in there.
.-= Andy´s last blog ..Take Two: Interview with the Revenant =-.
Very glad you let the monk get away with it, I’ve had several very similar situations in my last few adventures that led to some great, classic D&D moments despite any differences in the “cool PCs” vs. “evil DM” stereotypes that classic D&D might have. Good moments of RP are what it’s all about to me, and for many of my players they enjoy those moments best when they really don’t know what’s going to happen next and still get out of it in a cool way.
Don’t believe what Dave tells you about Maryland Law and TV Tropes. I think thats a law unique to communication with him.
TheMainEvent: It was probably me that Chatty was referencing with that, I yell at him every time he links to it because I end up reading the site for ~1 hour and my day is pwnt. I know it’s not his fault, but yelling at him is SO much fun! 🙂
Hey everyone. Sorry for not chiming in sooner. Seminars and the choppiest of net connections ever…. you’d think I lived in some backward country like Canada or something.
@Mike: My plans were there to be ruined. None of the scenes I had created were forcefully combat scenes… the corpse mound scene was the most likely to go to combat and had the most “‘readied’ features for sure but as soon as I went with Mike’s proposal, I felt that it was the right move all along. So yeah, the Rule of Cool was invoked and rewarded.
@Dixon: This scene was a perfect use of 4e powers for non-combat purposes. While it was an action scene and we used minis, it was all skills, descriptions and last minute (or so I assume) inspiration. Thanks for the kudos.
@Sian: One of the things I failed to mention to keep things shorter than usual is that many of the decisions as to ‘where’ and ‘how’ stuff would be found or presented was based on how I felt when the scene played out and what would bring out the best overall reaction in players. The hand (and the role that the was the bio-constructs) were the adventure’s only Schrödinger’s railroads (i.e. a plot elements that the DM changes on the fly based on player choices to give them the illusion of choices). It’s a trick I do not pull often, but in this case, I was going to use the hand as the McGuffin long as it motivated the players.
When the players decided not to shakedown the agent more in the 1st scene, I decided that they would get a chance to find the agent in the corpse pile and that if they found it, they would find that the arm was missing (it was an important secondary plot point after all)… I had vague plans for where the hand was but I kept my options open for whatever would come next.
@Eric: Yes… it was really too good a setup to play otherwise. I’m glad I did so. And what came next made how we played that scene all the better.
@Andy: Plot twists is what makes the game exciting. As long as you don’t use them to prevent players from reaching their goals passed the highest point of tension they can bear. Turns out we did all right.
@The Main Event: Bartoneus is right… this line was me pulling a CYA after he screamed in his menacing 20 something architect’s voice that I was making him less productive or something. 🙂
The Rule of Cool and the ability to let go off pre-made combat and complications in favour of my PC’s Role Playing was an epiphany for me awhile ago, although i do like to give my combat scenes a ‘paint job’ and throw that at my pc’s later.
Great scene, the idea of going into that manafacturing plant would terrify me as a player… that place was brilliantly designed, looking forward to part 3 as always.
Finally, i believe Schrodinger’s railroads aren’t necessarily railroads as such. More the plot sculpting itself as ideas are made by players! mind you i say this because i’m very guilty of it at times, haha.
Scott