Dm advice needed. Not for players

[Dareoon Dalandrove]

I ran my first d20 mod game last night and I think that things went ok. Everyone seemed to have fun and everything progressed rather well (aside from a few quick rule look ups and an initiative error). I tried to be as prepared as I could. I tried to get info on all the characters before hand (overall a failure, people just procrastinate too much). I had pics of some Npcs and the mooks and main baddy were all done up on index cards.

So the situation is this. A group of agents from a top-secret organization have to raid a drug den in Columbia. They are to obtain sensitive data that the main bad-guy has and then take him out. Coming down on them is the us military, so they’re working on a time limit. They get in and have a shoot out and things are going ok. I had planned on them fighting more people but I don't think they can handle it, so I lessened the number that they will encounter. One player took a good hit and was knocked unconscious. That leaves three others to go on, all unharmed. I planned out a big chase scene modeled after Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Arc. The part when they’re driving down the road Nazis are jumping on the truck and Indy ends up going underneath the truck. So with a player out I may have to cut it short. We had to stop short because of time, so right now were in the middle of a battle. The main villain is getting low on hit points but I don't feel that I've pushed the group enough to deserve the xp that they will get. There is still plenty of mooks and the us army so if he dies there is still more that they can do.

So I'd like some advice on how to handle the player that is down and also how do you avoid rooting for your villains. They are sort of your characters and I want it to be fun and a good story so in the future villains will comeback even though the group thought they were dead. I have no problem with the main baddy ending up face down. I just want it to be a good fight and have the group earn it. So when it's all over everyone limps away thankful that it they took him or her down and really enjoyed themselves. My two focuses are to really have fun and make it a good story. I want the players to get loud, laugh, be worried and just really have a good time.

 

[Piratecat]

Congratulations! I'm glad to hear it was fun. Sounds like you did good prep-work as well; D20 Modern is a game that lends itself to cool handouts and NPC pictures. I think it's good that you adjusted the number of bad guys on the fly. That helps make the game challenging and fun, without letting it bog down into boring deaths or dice rolling.

Since you have a player down, consider giving one of the bad guy's lieutenants to the player! It makes it fun for him, and takes some of the work out of your hands. Keep the main bad guy for yourself, though, just to be safe.

In order to avoid rooting for my villains, I always ask myself "what's coolest for the PCs?" Sometimes that means that the truck goes off the cliff in a spectacular fireball, instead of them picking away at his hit points. Remember, even when the PCs easily paste a supposedly tough villain, it's still fun for them - and that means everyone is having fun.

Anyways, it sounds to me like you have it well in hand. Don't forget to ask for written feedback, asking what people liked and what you could improve. That's incredibly helpful.

By the way, it's "Colombia." I lived there for a year back in high school, so I'm sensitive about it.

 

[WayneLigon]

Re: Re: Dm advice needed. Not for players

myself "what's coolest for the PCs?" Sometimes that means that the truck goes off the cliff in a spectacular fireball, instead of them picking away at his hit points. Remember, even when the PCs easily paste a supposedly tough villain,

Also, if you do it that way, it's easy for him to come back to plague the party again. If you don't have a body, it all becomes easy Just five or six sessions down the road, they are brought to the penthouse office of the Big Boss at gunpoint.

"These are the guys that have been snooping around the warehouses, boss. What should we do with them?"

The high-backed chair turns around, revealing the Colombian Bad Guy, one side of his face hideously fire-scarred.

"Leave them to me. We have old times to.. (pulls out the knife they saw him flay a guy with in a previous episode) ... talk about."

Just don't do it too much, or the players will feel that they never accomplish anything.

 

[s/LaSH]

If things are too easy, there's a few ways you can pep it up.

I second the idea of the villain going over a cliff in a fireball. However, if you simply use his hp as a guage for how close the truck is to the cliff, and tell the players that their attacks are largely ineffectual (simply distracting him from the road), they get to feel special about 'tricking' this tank and get to tell stories about it later.

Where is the unconscious PC's body? On the truck? Stowed in a tree somewhere? It could be fun to pull some tricks with that - a rickety truck careening along a clifftop road would jerk someone's body around if they weren't buckled in (or even if they were), so if all else fails you can allow the player to take certain actions at huge penalties even though he's unconscious. (Although it's pushing the envelope a little...)

Consider turning up the number of mooks, possibly to unfair levels. However...

You could even have an attack helicopter come in and strafe indiscriminately. It's good for cutting down on seemingly overwhelming odds. (It never has to attack the PCs, though.)

Anyway, that's a few ideas, some pretty bad. Hope it's helpful.

 

[megamania]

Above ideas are all good. Other thoughts may include misused or poor grade weapons and ammunitions going off. Explosions surrounding the battle are always fun.

Depending on your long range goals- introduce a third party that hit and runs but PCs spot a design, badge or flag. After this is done, they could be perplexed to discover whom this new force is. Sometimes just keeping players on their toes is enough...

 

[Dareoon Dalandrove]

I set things up so that they're doing "the pilot episode". I made it more geared towards combat and mechanics so we can test things and if someone finds that they really don't like their character they can switch.

The current situation is this. The group is in one room 40'x40'. The downed player is in there with two of the other players. The only furnishings are three large tables for the drug processing. The leader has fled to another room with similar dimensions. A player who likes to fight in melee is perusing him. I've been a little free with the AoO with him and firing while in melee. I'm more going with what he would do rather than using the rules. I'm trying to be free and loose. One player blasted him with a grenade though and that really took some wind out of him. So I’m trying to get him away into a smaller room where I've placed an automatic weapon. That way he can spray them down and make them fight the mooks and use cover to an advantage. In the complex they must get a flight data recorder. The chase scene isn't necessary but I thought it might be cool.

One other thing that I've told them is that I'm going to be awarding hero points for cool and exciting things. So if a player performs some amazing stunt I'll throw award them a hero point. I thought that it would inspire that sort of movie insanity.

Sometimes just keeping players on their toes is enough...

That is one of the things that I want to do. I have to be a little vague because some of the layers do visit here so. I have this idea where I'm going to send them emails from anonymous people that will leak info to them. Some will be reliable some will not. I primarily want to use it as a story hook based around their character histories. One character is a Monroe (I know that is spelled wrong It's late and the good Dr. name eludes me) so I thought that it might be good to have an organization looking to get their hands on her to further their own experiments with genetic alterations. A problem here is dealing with capturing a pc. I want to set out to capture a pc and make the others go and rescue them. I don't really know how to deal with this. I thought that I could have the player just make a temp character, but I don't want to give any hints and I don't want to leave them out either.

By the way, it's "Colombia." I lived there for a year back in high school, so I'm sensitive about it.

Sorry I guess that the spell checker didn't catch that one.

 

[Dareoon Dalandrove]

bump