Help with a Grim Survival DF Setting

[DAT]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

You could definitely run the initial insertion as a con game. Give everybody pre-generated characters, half with light armor and half with heavy. Drop the number of players down to no more than 10. Note that encumbrance affects how fast a character can move to reach the pile of weapons -- which is 25 yards from the insertion point.

Race to get there and grab a weapon before the white tigers attack. Do the fast, lightly-armored guys make it, or do the slower armored guys survive long enough, only to find the fast guys grabbed all the decent weapons, and all that's left are daggers and broken spears to fight with? Alternatively, do the the players with fast guys get to the pile, grab two weapons each, and then run back to hand one to an armored guy, and fight alongside him or her?

Throw in just enough terrain to make tactical choices meaningful (a few pillars and stalagmites, and maybe a stream with steep sides), and then run that baby!

For Con games, I normally try for some closure within a four-hour session. Let me walk through a session with the setting:
Start with the players arriving in the holding cell in the castle, and let them role-play meeting the informant, meeting each other, and getting the journal pages.

After being fed and watered (maybe given simple cloth armor and a few wooden shields), they would then be marched to the well chamber, and watch the different items (food, weapons, bags of armor, torches, etc. (some Per rolls to identify what)) be loaded onto baskets and lowered down on the chain, followed by baskets with the trustee guards, and a baskets with the Brothers. Then the Redeemers are brought up, given a brief chance to lash themselves to a hook (knot-tying rolls) on the chain, before being lowered down.

On the way down, will have a chance of 1d6-1 bodies (fewer if the PCs spread the information from the Journal pages before the Well) falling down (6 or less to hit another Redeemer, 9 or less to hit a PC), with Redeemers and PCs given a chance to dodge the bodies. Any who don’t, take slam crushing damage, and have to make a ST or DX roll (+5 for being tied to the hook with the cord) to avoid being knocked from the chain and becoming another projectile for those below. Towards the end of the decent, the 6 burning hay bales will come down (9 or less to hit a Redeemer above the PCs, 6 or less to hit a PC), with similar dodging chances, but 1d-1 burn damage.

The first cargo basket will set down and the chain will start swaying and laying down in a big spiral arc (outer radius ~30 yards). I'll put a few features in the spiral loop as suggested. The PCs will need to make Per rolls to spot the weapon bundles in the last few yards above the ground, Knot-tying/DX rolls to release from the cords, and Acrobatics/DX rolls to maintain their feet as they step from the chain.

As soon as PC touch the ground, I’ll roll 3d6 for the seconds until the first White Tiger appears (as suggested by Varyon back in Post #23), and run the initial White Tiger fight.

After the fight, the survivors will have some roleplaying chances to lead the group, or persuade a NPC leader to do whatever actions they want to do.
I see the above taking close to two hours.

[The Benj]

If you start them off before they go down the hole, I think you'll be fighting hard to stop them trying to escape that fate.
I think it may avoid that frustration and flow better to jump straight to the descent and do the previous stuff in flashback.

[DAT]

Originally Posted by The Benj

The high mortality rate and replacement characters could certainly be less of a pain with lots of pre-gens.

Less of a pain for the players, but I'll have to generate 20 PCs ... :-)

Lets see ...
an Agent (Bard)
an Apprentice (Demonologist)
an Apprentice (Elementalist(Aeromancer))
an Apprentice (Elementalist(Generalist))
an Apprentice (Elementalist(Pyromancer))
an Apprentice (Necromancer)
an Apprentice (Wizard)
an Archer(Elven)
an Archer(Human)
a Brute(Dwarf)
a Brute(Half-Ogre)
a Brute(Human)
a Cutpurse(Halfling)
a Cutpurse(Human)
an Initiate (Druid)
an Initiate (Shaman)
a Killer (Assassin)
a Sage (Artificer)
a Skirmisher(Martial Artist)
a Skirmisher(Elven(Swashbuckler))
a Skirmisher(Human(Swashbuckler))
a Sorcerer
a Squire (Holy Warrior)
a Squire (Knight)

That is 24. Maybe a little magic-user heavy.

[The Benj]

In my experience, it's much easier to make characters myself than have players make them. :)

[DAT]

Originally Posted by The Benj

If you start them off before they go down the hole, I think you'll be fighting hard to stop them trying to escape that fate.
I think it may avoid that frustration and flow better to jump straight to the descent and do the previous stuff in flashback.

I go back and forth on that. A couple things they can do in the holding chamber and well chamber will help them later, but they will pretty much be on rails until they hit the ground in the Underdark.

At the start of the session, I'll give them background that the Light knows how to handle captured prisoners, and they have seen hundreds of escape plans attempted, and all of them end with the would be escapees dying horrible painful deaths.

[The Benj]

Originally Posted by DAT

I go back and forth on that. A couple things they can do in the holding chamber and well chamber will help them later, but they will pretty much be on rails until they hit the ground in the Underdark.

So do those things in flashback. If they pull them off in the flashback, it helps in the present.

At the start of the session, I'll give them background that the Light knows how to handle captured prisoners, and they have seen hundreds of escape plans attempted, and all of them end with the would be escapees dying horrible painful deaths.

That's a synonym for "thrilling adventure". Either you explicitly tell the players that the characters are not going to escape (in which case they're just going to feel like they're being railroaded) or their attempts to escape will be the story. Better to skip that frustration.