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General Tabletop Discussion
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Do you ever use "expendable henchmen"?
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<blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 3855055" data-attributes="member: 1465"><p>Sometimes I want to drop a monster with a very scary special ability or otherwise a wicked trap into an adventure. The problem I often have is that I want the thing to look deadly and gory, and sometimes I really really want the players to "preview" it <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool :cool:" data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /> </p><p></p><p>I've seen it done in some movies: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, final "dungeon" with the traps. The first trap is scary because you can feel it being triggered (a faint wind starts blowing the giant webs all around) but you hardly see the trap springing, just the head of the unlucky character go off. In the movie the "preview" is achieved by having the evil guys force one anonymous henchmen to "test" the trap. Then of course Indy is the next sent into it, but being the main character he gets the trap right and beat it. Still, it was a nice idea to show the trap in full effect.</p><p></p><p>How often do you use this idea of sacrificing some NPC to scare off the players? I don't know how to actually call them, so I just call them "expendables" <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue :p" data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> I've done it a couple of times with animals (but I'd rather target normal animals like horses or mules, not animal companions or familiars) but usually our group tends not to bring henchmen along, just to avoid the mess during combat. Also, important NPCs or cohorts of course shouldn't be expendables.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, I just wonder if other gamers find the idea good or bad/boring/cliche.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Li Shenron, post: 3855055, member: 1465"] Sometimes I want to drop a monster with a very scary special ability or otherwise a wicked trap into an adventure. The problem I often have is that I want the thing to look deadly and gory, and sometimes I really really want the players to "preview" it :cool: I've seen it done in some movies: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, final "dungeon" with the traps. The first trap is scary because you can feel it being triggered (a faint wind starts blowing the giant webs all around) but you hardly see the trap springing, just the head of the unlucky character go off. In the movie the "preview" is achieved by having the evil guys force one anonymous henchmen to "test" the trap. Then of course Indy is the next sent into it, but being the main character he gets the trap right and beat it. Still, it was a nice idea to show the trap in full effect. How often do you use this idea of sacrificing some NPC to scare off the players? I don't know how to actually call them, so I just call them "expendables" :p I've done it a couple of times with animals (but I'd rather target normal animals like horses or mules, not animal companions or familiars) but usually our group tends not to bring henchmen along, just to avoid the mess during combat. Also, important NPCs or cohorts of course shouldn't be expendables. Anyway, I just wonder if other gamers find the idea good or bad/boring/cliche. [/QUOTE]
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Do you ever use "expendable henchmen"?
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