Previously in Chatty’s Game:
Our heroes entered the Well of Demon. After dispatching some underdark predators, the party faced some gnolls and had no trouble dealing with them. They found the wayward Dire Boar they were looking for but were having trouble calming the pain-crazed creature that had been tortured by the sadistic gnolls.
We had to push our usual bi-monthly game by one week to account for my son Nico’s ear surgery (everything went fine and Nico’s doing great!). After three weeks without any D&D and going through the stress of having a child operated on, needless to say that I was really looking forward to our game.
We all gathered together at Math’s at around 5 PM. The group had to get over the deception of not having received their copy of Players’ Handbook 2 when Stef told is that Amazon failed to deliver them in time for the game. (Amazon may be cheaper than your local gaming store’s price, but you’re not guaranteed quick delivery for hot items, still 26$ beats 43$ by a lot!).
We got around to playing in the hour that followed, once the social energies of the group dissipated and that we all had had a beer to relax. As expected, there was some discussions on Watchmen, Franky loved it, Stef was unimpressed, I have yet to see it although I’ve read it 10-15 years ago.
When we finally got around to playing we started off where we left off. I started by telling Franky that his initiative in the last game (asking the old Dwarven merchant for an item that the lost Dire Boar would be familiar with) should have won him the Skill challenge to calm the crazed beast. So I told him that the challenge had been won and the beast would stay with the party for the time being, acting as a Beast of Burden.
Franky thanked me, saying that was more in line with what he expected when he showed the Boar it’s feed bag. So with that resolved, we moved on.
The party had 3 different paths they hadn’t’ explored in the dungeon. After some checking, two of those paths merged and into a corridor leading westwards. They decided on going the other way south-eastwards.
This brought the PCs into a an area where all floor tiles had a Minotaur effigy stamped on them. Two closed doors and a corridor going south were the choices they had. I could feel that my players were spoiling for a fight. When Rocco the rogue when down the southern corridor and saw two Tiefling adventurers lounging at a table, looking bored and checking their Fellberry PMAs (Personal Magical Assistants), he attacked immediately.
As soon as the rogue charged, both Tiefling got up from the table and retreated, saying ‘Woah, woah, whoa there! We mean no harm. We just want to talk!” When the rogue calmed down and the rest of the party arrived, the two Tiefling launched into a text-book selling pitch where they offered the party maximum adventuring performance with minimal investment and competitive treasure sharing options.
You should have seen my players faces when I played the NPCs like that. It was priceless.
What the hell is this Phil? Are you playing the Jade Pair again? (The Jade pair were a duo of 7th level poser adventurer for hire trying to sell their service in Union, the Epic Handbook’s multiplanar metropolis where even the guards are level 22).
When the party understandably threatened the two overzealous salesmen, they let out that they were waiting for the Gnoll’s second in command’s answer to their offer. Said gnoll was waiting behind the first door.
The party told the Tiefling that this dungeon’s was already under their care and that they had a no outsourcing policy. The pair left rapidly, bemoaning how hard it was to eke out a living in such a middleman hostile economy.
When the party barged into the gnoll’s room, they were once again faced with a peace-seeking NPC.
What? Another, are we going to fight anything tonight Phil?
Yes, all in good time.
Long story short, the gnoll second in command was a worshipper of Asmodeus (instead of the Demon Lord Yeenoghu). He wants his ‘boss’ to take a fall, hard. He offered the party the info and some yet undefined help if they agreed to blow the bosses’s ritual to turn this dungeon to Yeenoghu in its face. In return, the second in command would seize the ritual, substitute the 2 slaves for 2 other sacrifices from the nearby denizens and let the PCs go do whatever it is that PCs do once they leave a dungeon.
Not really interested, but sensing that I didn’t want to make this encounter into a fight (I didn’t), the PCs accepted, picked up one of the 4 McGuffins needed to open up the Well of Demons’ Inner Sanctum and moved on.
Shortly thereafter, they reached the dungeon’s central area, a bloodstained series of room and corridors covered in runes, skeletons and colored pools. Before they managed to explore, a trio of ghosts: a brash, loud Human Cleric, a gruff, paranoid Dwarven Paladin and a haugthy female Elven Wizard, materialized in front of the PCs.
After a brief exchange of pleasantries, the ghosts dumped some background info about what to do with the retrieved McGuffins, and let the PCs go on their way. That encounter was supposed to be a skill challenge where the PCs had to convince the ghost, with no tangible way of proving it, that they were here for a good cause. At this point of the evening, I didn’t feel like playing it and the players were really itching for a fight. So I gave them the info that was tied to a partial success of the skill challenge (which was a hefty, pre-errata 12 success to 6 failures)
From this central location in the dungeon, the PCs had 4 exit they could take, one north, 2 west and one south.
They started with the exit to the north.
They arrived at a door that opened up on a 10’X10′ space, with the left, front and right “walls” delimited by black velvet drapes. When the PCs entered, Rocco went to the left curtain, moved it aside, looked behind it and then to the right…
…and disappeared.
Franky went to see what happened, look in front of him (saw a wall) and to the right (Saw a…)
He vanished too.
How’s that for a cliffhanger?
Part two tomorrow.
Wow… hardcore cliffhanger man.
I dont understand how you refer to a McGuffin as a collectible item though. I thought a McGuffin meant like a plot device, used to motivate people.
As you say a McGuffin is a plot device… it can be a physical object, a piece of information, or whatever. What it is, or how it works specifically, is unimportant other than the fact it’s a plot device. He’s referring to the keys to the gates as Mcguffins because (presumably) their is no real in game mechanical explanation for what they are or how they function. “Random objects 1-4 that open the gate”
Actually, all 4 ‘keys’ can be used but each have significant drawbacks that makes them unsavory, hence me calling them McGuffins.
The quest is a small scale variation of ‘get the 7 Whatevers to open the mystic door’.
Hey, it’s Paper Mario 4e! 🙂
Doesnt the critical D20 on intimidate of my dragonborn warlord had any impact on the decision of the 2 Tiefling into leaving, Chatty? 😉
That was a good session… cant wait for part two 🙂
For sure! By the time you were done with them, they were already back in the Seven pillared Hall, crying for their mothers.
🙂
The McGuffin is the story element that sets the scene and brings the characters together. The bank robbery and stolen money in Psycho is the McGuffin. It’s not the plot, it’s a “thing” that lets one introduce the plot with all the characters in place with clear initial motivations.
Hitchcock considered it important to separate the two, to make his movies seem all the more like an extraordinary event in the lives of ordinary people.
The keys you’re making players gather are, well, railroad tracks. Fit tab A in slot B. Making sure the players see everything you’ve taken the time to make, and no more.
You’re right. It’s a checkpoint to have the PCs go through planned encounters and impose the challenge within them.
It’s not my usual way of planning adventures, look up my Primal/Within report, that’s stuff I made up according to my own style.