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mindflenzing — RPG Teamwork, Deadlands Style
Published: 2009-10-14 15:56:15 +0000 UTC; Views: 6040; Favourites: 22; Downloads: 31
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Description
R.P.G. (Ransack People's Gold) is the tale of four D&D/Star Wars/RPG players and their DM, who wishes he were a player. These intrepid players are, from left to right:Kenneth, the over-achieving, yet under appreciated DM.
Adam, the guy who has a theater background but needs a girlfriend.
Barry, the munchkin power-gamer with a bad case of arrested development.
Josh, the straight-laced guy who just wants to play the game.
Kassi, Josh's homicidally-minded younger cousin, whom he regrets inviting.
Yes I know, those are D&D minis etc on the table but with only one Deadlands joke in the queue right now I decided it was not worth the trouble of making a Deadlands table setup. That and there aren't official Deadlands minis or a Marshall Screen.
The original event this is based on was the old Canyon o' Doom module which I adapted for the Savage Worlds version of Deadlands. A member of the party burned down an entire forest in Nevada and thereafter became my first player kill. Last week I got my second player kill. So far I have only killed characters the party did not like and for their own stupidity but I'm starting to like it. Mwa ha ha ha ha!
*Edit* It seems that Reaper Miniatures now has a line of Deadlands minis.
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Comments: 55
And lets not forget the dragon who wishes to eat them both. Thus the circle of life turns.
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Sounds like Deadlands. Only thing it's missing is a total party kill.
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It got dicey for the rest of the party but I make it a general rule to not perform public executions in batches, as it tends to reduce their value as object lessons.
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Pity the writers never seemed to figure that out.
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Maybe not, but the party got the message loud and clear.
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Well, most of the party. The guy who lost his last character to karma decided he should take the road just traveled with his next character. The group broke up due to scheduling issues before we could see just how far he wanted to travel into the danger zone.
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Glad you like it. I was a little sad about not finding images to make deadlands minis/books/marshal screen but having only played a little Deadlands and most of it with a group where the average age was twice mine (and I already get cheap car insurance...) all the material I have for this strip was from running an adapted module from the pre Savage Worlds version of Deadlands with my normal group.
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I have my own way of policing the gaming group.
I let the player DO his stupid actions, and then let him experience the full repercussions of his actions. BUT I make sure that it makes the rest of the party suffer for it too. It's a bit rough on your group, but in no time the other players are policing the stupidity on their own initiative. It builds your player's character, not just their character's character, if you know what I mean.
I do this for two reasons. First is that it also helps build a teamwork dynamic which is essential to survive the crap the posse eventually gets into. The second is that if there's work to be done that I don't have to, I would rather them do it. Deadlands is made so the Marshall has to do the least work of the group, excepting for telling the story. It's not laziness, it's me devoting energy to making a better campaign, I swear! God's Honest!
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I agree. In my game the rest of the party was making toughness checks for smoke inhalation for the next few days and then again when they chased rumors of Indians into the same forest that was already burning from their activities that week.
Same thing happened when I gave this same group's wizard in D&D 3 warnings about explosives in an airship engine room. After that, they started accumulating failures and having to make acrobatics checks to keep on their feet as the ship began to nosedive towards an active volcano. I do distinguish between stupid "eff you" moves and "so stupid it might work" tactics, but I get almost entirely the former and not the latter.
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That's kinda sad. I'm sorry to hear that happens to you.
It proves that people use "Common Sense" as a dump stat.
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What's sad is that I've made the proclamation that I only give three warnings and then I hose the entire party and have done so several times. Yet, nobody stops at warning two or three and says, "Maybe we shouldn't." Its more their loss than mine since I love to punish players for dumb decisions (like splitting up in a horror game to track down a werewolf that devastated the entire party and a room full of armed guards in the very first fight).
My parties put all their stats into Bravado, Hubris, or Chutzpa. As munchkins that is understandable; except for the part where they know their DM is a top notch munchkin power gamer, tactical munchkin, and devious megalomaniacal SOB. I'd have thought my 16 CLs worth of specialist melee combatants decimating their 24 CLs of hero in two rounds of combat would have proved that to them but no it did not.
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Hm, sounds like the games of Deadlands I participate in. There are several members of the party that completely ignore the other party members and make stupid moves. One of the characters that would've died just complained about how it was unfair, then once the GM decided not to kill him he tried doing the exact same thing. -_-;
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As a GM I have learned the hard way that "no good deed goes unpunished". I now use a "three warnings and then your character dies" method of adjudicating stupid player behavior.
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Hmm...that's not a bad rule. I may have to suggest that rule to the GM of our game.
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It only takes a couple of character deaths before the players wise up.
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The first guy to burn to death in a fire he started is merely coincidence.
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For some reason I end up running for fantastically dysfunctional parties.
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Hey, I'd like to come to one of your fantastically dysfunctional parties.
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Yeah, just remember BYOB (bring your own baggage).
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Oh God, divine punishment for Jake and Bob is starting to make you like killing people? Please tell me you intend to keep the player killing to those morons...
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I only kill player characters when they deserve it and I don't think they will be missed. I've fudged rolls to not kill players before or been very generous in allowing allies to do something to keep the character alive. I don't like arbitrarily killing characters, it makes for bad storytelling. But without a death penalty some players never learn how to behave themselves.
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Just so long as you never get so energized by player killing that you start deciding people deserve it for smaller and smaller offenses.
Jake totally did ask for it.
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You have no idea how many times I should have let the dice stand and killed the party. I had a 25% chance of a total party kill in that last fight.
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I know. I actually spotted one of your fudges in one of the earlier campaigns; I was looking at one of those tables on your GM screen and the die landed on a 20 right up next to it, and you did your dramatic "Augh, I missed" thing 'cause we were getting the crap kicked out of us. I do appreciate it. I just give you a hard time. You do the same to us, so I think it evens out, more or less
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I try not to make them obvious because that robs players of their sense of accomplishment and sometimes best stories are things that I engineered (provided I do them rarely enough).
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Yeah, I know. You do good, oniichan
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Like most DMs who claim to be a-holes, my record proves that a lie.
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BTW, did you get my email?
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Yeah, I just got back from the Delirious? farewell tour concert.
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Wow, you're all going out and having fun while you don't have to work... XD
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I wouldn't say all out but its too depressing to spend all day job hunting.
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I said "all going out" not "going all out." Technically where I inserted the "all" is nonsensical but if you say it out loud it makes sense.
And I completely understand. *shudder*
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I'm thinking I may contact my last employer. They said they may take some of the people they had to let go back as on call temps. If I'm going to school full time I don't want to work very many hours a week anyhow.
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I have a friend that has managed to start a serious fire in EVERY game we've played in. Regardless of campaign or genre. He burned down an entire Ghost Town and wound up in hell for his efforts. Worst part of that was.... he wasn't even dead.
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Anybody who likes burning things that much probably has it coming.
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hey i love burning things!!!!
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Which is fine assuming things do not include the room's atmosphere, the entire battlefield, 1/6 of the state of Nevada.
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Fine fine. I won't burn those things. But everything else is free game.
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I think out of ALL the fires he only intentionally started 2
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Unless everybody else unintentionally started a lot of fires I don't think it's the DM to blame.
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The DM legitimately gave him numerous opportunities to stop each fire.
Well, except that one where he burned down a country. He was unconscious after I tried to bandage his wounds.
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One fast way to stop firebugs is to make the entire party suffer for their impertinence. This generally takes to form of endurance/vigor checks for smoke inhalation damage, and the hidey holes catching fire along with the squishy characters. I give players two warnings about flammable environments (one in the flavor text and one in a very low difficulty skill check) and then punish the hell out of them if they ignore me. Generally lightning damage is in the same boat as fire since is generates massive quantities of heat also. Just to mix it up I should make an arcane hazard where psychic damage bounces about the battlefield but I don't think I have any PCs with psychic damage. Poison, Acid, Thunder, Force, and Cold are harder to do (though cold + water can make for interesting effects).
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