Takedown Rifles (1990s)

[Icelander]

... They ended up not taking the time to find the cache, dig it up, ready all the gear for use and the risk being arrested with unlicensed firearms,

Entirely reasonable, motivated by a healthy fear of legal consequences and completely out of character for nearly all PCs, even those who are not Murder Hoboes.

Now the PCs are in another world where the locals seem to have TL0, there is a wrecked TL4 sloop and while they PCs have scavenged some archaic weaponry, they'll run out of lead for shot and powder to fire it quick.

[Rupert]

Well, as they say, they made their bed, now they get to lie in it.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Well, as they say, they made their bed, now they get to lie in it.

The funny thing is, if they'd armed up when they first suspected the presence of dangerous people who might try to steal the McGuffins with violence, maybe they'd have considered trying to defend themselves from the commandos who arrived in Zodiac boats, instead of playing supernatural Russian roulette by tearing a hole in reality with ancient artefacts during an occult storm and leaving our world.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Icelander

The funny thing is, if they'd armed up when they first suspected the presence of dangerous people who might try to steal the McGuffins with violence, maybe they'd have considered trying to defend themselves from the commandos who arrived in Zodiac boats, instead of playing supernatural Russian roulette by tearing a hole in reality with ancient artefacts during an occult storm and leaving our world.

So, the players had their characters try to 'play it smart' at exactly the wrong time, which lead them to needing to make a desperation play? Oops.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

So, the players had their characters try to 'play it smart' at exactly the wrong time, which lead them to needing to make a desperation play? Oops.

Indeed.

In a way, they were just unlucky. They correctly estimated that the highly professional security personnel escorting one potential buyer would not break the law and they also correctly evaluated some of the lesser parties as not capable enough to require the use of weaponry to avoid.

They just missed the presence of a professional intelligence officer representing a nation state and directing the use of special operations forces. Which is not really something they could have foreseen, as governments in the setting are, to the players' knowledge, almost never aware of the existence of the occult and thus cannot be expected to be interested in ancient artefacts with esoteric origins.

It was supposed to be a short prequel campaign with different PCs working for the same employers as the main campaign, set in the past, and predicted to end either with the successful acquisition of the McGuffin or perhaps a crazy firefight using cached weaponry of very 80s and 90s movie vintage.

Now, it's a much longer-running campaign that is set in some wacky fey fantasy world, with almost no modern technology available to the PCs, which is certainly not a campaign prospectus I would have offered to run...

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Icelander

... They ended up not taking the time to find the cache, dig it up, ready all the gear for use and the risk being arrested with unlicensed firearms,

Entirely reasonable, motivated by a healthy fear of legal consequences and completely out of character for nearly all PCs, even those who are not Murder Hoboes.

Now the PCs are in another world where the locals seem to have TL0, there is a wrecked TL4 sloop and while they PCs have scavenged some archaic weaponry, they'll run out of lead for shot and powder to fire it quick.

An outstanding reminder to everyone reading of one very important rule of GM'ing - no plan survives contact with the players...

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Varyon

An outstanding reminder to everyone reading of one very important rule of GM'ing - no plan survives contact with the players...

Heh.

I wouldn't so much say it was a plan, so much that from prior experience of some of the players, I was fairly sure that they'd ask their employer for a way to get their hands on weaponry if they saw any hint of danger.

Which... turned out to be true, in a way, in that they explored the possibility, just when they were immersed in events on the island with the luxury resort, they didn't want to take several hours out of their day to sail to the next island and obtain weapons. Especially not if that would expose them to legal risks if the police came over, as some players were contemplating calling the cops.

But it is a good reminder that if you want to have coherent worldbuilding whereever the players choose to focus, you need to prepare a lot of stuff that never gets used.