PC Fail

[subplotkudzu]

Amusing bit from the last two Arabian Nights D&D sessions.

So in the last session of the Captain Fasaad game the good captain and crew had been made aware via a recovered ship's journal that the wrecked ship to the north of the lost island they were approaching was populated by some sort of noctournal monster. Being smart people they explored the ship during the day (making copious use of water breathing spells) and located the waterlogged but curiously intact corpses of the crew floating intert in one of the rooms. They left them there and looted the ship of all the masterwork weapons and other items, making sure to be well gone before sunset.

Naturally, the corpses of the crew, followign the dramatic rules for undead pirates, starting hunting after them, but the players didn't figure on this. (when I explained the turn of events to another GM [who happens to be one of the player's wives] she confirmed that I was entirely within my rights here.)

In yesterday's session they made there way to the island's souther peninsula, where the native tribes maintain the wall that protects them from the dinosaurs to the north (yes, this it he Isile of Dread from the D&D Advanced set). Meeting with oneof the villages they inadvertantly offend one fo the four tribes who make up the village (the whole community has 4 tribes represented in each fo the 7 villages - it is a taboo to mary inside your tribe inside your village, or ourside your tribe outside your village) by being Muslim and therefore not wanting to eat the boar that was about to be roasted for the feast in their honor. To make up for this affornt they gifted that tribe with...one of the masterwork weapons from the ship. of course they then had to make similar gifts to the other three tribes during their time there, giving each fo the tribes some weapons or gold from then ship and thus spreading the curse around a bit.

The village's Zombie Master/Spiritual Protector knew the PCs were carrying some sort of curse and that was threatening the town and was spenging all of his energy maintaining an anti-ravening undead barrier. Eventually the PCs approached him in the woods to find out what all the chanting was about and learned what he know, put it together with what they knew and realized what was going on. So fasaad had to row back to the ship and dig deeply ito the ships trading stores to come back and offer even _better_ gifts to the four tribes to get the cursed weapons back - they were successful enough to get the weapons abck, but the depth of the cultural faux pas was enough to get them banished from the village anyway, burning all the good will they'd been building up to get help for going through the wall.  

They then decided to throw the cursed weapons overboard for the pirate zombies to reclaim (and hopefully dissade them from swarming Fasaad's ship). The zombie pirates claimed their treasures and started walking back to their ship, but since Fasaad didn't know what they were after large swaths of the pirate ship bootie are now littering the sea bed near the village.

Vaue of items tossed back over to the zombies: -6000 GP. Total net loss from ships stores for raiding the pirate ship? -2,000 GP. Looks onthe players faces when they realized what was goign on? Priceless.

The PCs are now in foul enough moods - and have enough awareness of the culture - that they just stored into the village near the wall, overrode the local matriarch to offer steel weapons to any of the village warriors who would follow them past the wall and made their pick of the dozens of young, couragous and slightly foolheardy respondees to act as native guides. Then when one of the chosen ones gave Captain Fassad lip about why he was in charge he pummeled the them four on one, then told them to be ready the next morning.

Next Month? trek through dinosaur infested jungle!

Comments

[mneme]

Hee!

Could they have taken the zombies mano a mano had they been willing to risk it? Or were there Just Too Many Zombies?

[brianrogers.livejournal.com]

That's a harder call. It was technically a CR 8 encounter (so challenging) but it was 6 aquatic ghasts vs. 3 or 4 PCs + a companion. Fighting them underwater gives them movement avantages, fighting them above watermeans their stench would be in place. Combine the stench and the paralysis and all the saving throws might work against them. Odds were in the PCs favor, however.

Somehow I had made them look really dangerous, and the players just didn't want to fight them.

On the other hand, the rules of the genre mean that all of this has to ultimately rebound to the PCs benefit - Captain Fasaad bent ove rbackwards to do the right thing and not leave the village to be slaughtered by the powerful undead trying to reclaim their stolen grave goods. That's a pretty clear sense of "Mercy Works", so a some point the villagers (or one of their agents in the shape fo the druid matriarch or the wizard zombie master) will have to take some direct action to repay the PCs for their actions, even if the town is currently holding them in low esteem for violating taboos regarding trade rules.