Re: tactics + spoliers

From: Tim Ellis <tim_at_...>
Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 12:12:21 -0000

The Tongue, The Dragonsnail and the Party....

Firstly, the GM obviously doesn't want to give away the fact that the Tongue is trying to escape (unless he is in plain view of the party) since that will obviously make a difference to their actions. So he would describe the event something like

"You make your way down the strangely smooth tunnel, your
torches glistening of the damp surfaces and pools of water when suddenly a huge slimey pseudoped rears up in front of you as a Dragonsnail slithers in out of the pool - what do you do?"

At this point the party have 3 basic choices - Fight it, run away, or try and get past it. If they run away then the Tongue will be able to get away unopposed. If they try and get past it then a simple contest would seem the best way to go about it - If they succeed they get past it and may be able to catch the tongue - base this on the level of success they get. If they fail then they are unable to evade the snail and must come up with some other plan.

If they fight it you have a number of options

  1. Run it as a simple contest - the level of victory/defeat is used as a bonus/penalty on the tongues "Escape" roll

2)Run it as an extended contest, and count the number of rounds fought - the Tongue escapes after a set number of rounds

3) Run the Tongues escape as a seperate extended contest - give him a target AP to beat based on the PC's actions - each round he gets to roll his escape against a target again based on the PC's actions or successes that round. If he
"wins" before the players defeat the Dragonsnail he has
escaped. If the players win his AP are start at his current total. If he is defeated then the players will catch him once they get past the snail ...

  1. might leave the adventure feeling a bit "flat" if the tongue escapes unless you have an altenative climax
  2. is a bit tricky as a HW round isn't a set period of time, but is probably the easiest to manage
  3. involves a bit of handwaving and "finger in the air" guesswork to set the totals, and could be a bit of a logistical nightmare to actually run, but does capture the feel, I think. (Imagine it as a movie or TV show with constant cuts between the Heroes fighting the snail and the villain running down the (same bit of) corridor as the music swells towards a climax...

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