In parallel with my Strangers on a Train game, I’ve also been running Nightmare Over Ragged Hollow by Joseph R. Lewis. It has been refreshing to run Nightmare, as a change of pace from the relatively high-concept Strangers premise, because the idea is straightforward: The local temple is mysteriously surrounded by a golden dome, trapping people inside. The PCs are locals who need to figure the problem out. A small adventuring region around the town provides different opportunities to tackle the problem. Classic fantasy adventure stuff.
In the first session of the game, the PCs decided to make some money by clearing vermin out of the local tailor’s basement. If you’re already groaning, you’re familiar with the rats-in-the-basement cliche; an RPG trope in which novice PCs are given a trivial, one-dimensional fight against low-HD monsters to kick off the game.
Tropes have their place, though. “You meet in a tavern” is another cliche, but it is a cliche because it gets the PCs together and into the action quickly. “Rats in the basement” provides an immediate problem with a straightforward solution that PCs can solve quickly without taking up much session time.
But there are both good and bad ways to run a rats-in-the-basement scenario. A few details can make all the difference. Here’s how I ran this scenario.
There’s a reason for the reward. One of the players quite reasonably asked why a tailor was willing to pay 100 GP for someone to clear vermin out of his basement. I decided that he had an order from the nearby kingdom for some elaborate finery (something like the “London Season” in England in the 19th century, which fueled much of the textile industry at that time). He needed to retrieve the raw materials from his basement in time to complete the work. That was reason enough to justify the reward, and also did a bit of background worldbuilding.
The situation is at least somewhat unknown. The vermin in the basement are not ordinary rats, but spider-rats, and they have some great art (below, by artist Li-An). Always show the players the art! Mechanically, the spider-rats are not too different from mundane rats. But they feel different. Just like the rattagator and the doom cow, the spider-rodents are mechanically ordinary, but the players don't know that, and they are flavorfully evocative enemies.
Something is at stake beyond HP. After the lead PC failed a roll to start the encounter, I ruled that a spider-rat would drop from the ceiling and crawl into his clothes. So when the resulting fight broke out, there was also a non-combat situation (spider-rat in clothes) with a non-combat goal (eating the PC’s rations). This was simple and low-stakes, but it made the situation feel three-dimensional instead of two-dimensional.
There is an x-factor. The encounter describes the webbed nest of the spider-rats, which serves as a visual reminder that these aren’t ordinary rats (even if they are ordinary rats in terms of mechanics). The web is ultimately harmless, but the PCs don’t know that, and not knowing makes the fight more interesting.
Tactics are weighed against risks. The PCs decided that igniting the nest would be the fastest way to deal with the spider-rats… which might be true… but it would also be the fastest way to destroy the fabrics that were the reason for the job in the first place. A terrible roll nearly lit the tailor’s precious fabrics on fire, and only some quick thinking on the PCs’ part saved them.
There is a choice. The spider-rat that started out in the PCs clothes was the last one left at the end of the fight. The PCs decided to spare it and gave it a nickname. The spared spider-rat goes in the bag of threads, where it can get tangled up with other threads, and potentially reappear later in the game. Players love callbacks like this for multiple reasons, not the least of which is that it shows that choices they made changed the world, are remembered, and come back in unexpected ways.
No comments:
Post a Comment