Hi all. Due to the Australian game designer series I have not really had the time to be able to give an update for this game recently. Due to sickness there have only been two games of it run so it should be relatively short an update. Last night actually saw to the end of the first run that occurs in the Queen Euphoria module for those that know it.
Rather than go piece by piece through what the players got up to I will make a broad statement. I had to throw out everything in the book and make it all up. The players refused to do what is seen as the common plot line and so I refuse to force them to. Rather than kidnap Euphoria low key in her apartment they do it on the main thoroughfare into downtown Seattle pretending to be police. And despite one of the stipulations being that she was treated with kid gloves they forced her vehicle into a plasticrete barrier and dragged her practically lifeless body from the wreckage and fled to one of their street docs (Bertha) in the hopes she could repair the damage in time for the end of the weekend.
This is so not the plot of the adventure, but it is the plot of our adventure and this is all about learning where or what the story is with this team. The other side that I noticed about this is the players are personalizing everything in the game. At one point they decided they were going to kill their fixer (even though they were the one that threatened her) and decided that when Pride found Euphoria (this happened at the hospital) the fixer had obviously hired a separate team to kill them…
In fact, we ran through to the meeting with MagnaMedia, the start of the next run. When they listened to them and found out that it was not all about them and their now dead fixer was blameless they felt a little let down that it was not all about them. I kind of had a moment of pride because one of the things I can sometimes struggle with is having the world moving independent of the players and I feel that I have done well here. I am actually thinking that some of the other stuff that I run (Pathfinder Adventure Paths?) must make this mistake also. Everything is about the players and they are generally right.
So, the update is basically that the professional team are actually doing quite well. They do miss the reality of the plots around them, but they are capable and doing a good job. The group does tend to escalate things and I need to keep them focused and interject at times to actually get them moving forward rather than stagnate. Last night one of the players wanted to fake all of their deaths, others were certain that there was an ambush around every corner for them – they even began to attribute some form of intelligence to one of the biggest idiot NPC’s I used in the campaign (Vernon Gruder was the sap that thought he was a major spy when in fact he was nothing more than a wage slave with a simple courier job).
I am enjoying these games a lot. Loads of funny stuff in them and I look forward to the interaction. But the planning scenes. Oh the planning! I actually had to tell myself to stop looking at my own phone last night as it just seems to wander a bit. Still, we have an interesting way to go now. Especially as the players are a bit antagonistic of Euphoria now (who ratted them out to the news) and are forced to work toward saving her though I am fairly certain that two of the four in the party would be more than happy to see her with a bullet in her head for the difficulty they now find themselves in, being some of Seattle’s most wanted at this point.
How this fact will actually measure out with the end of this module and the effect it is meant to have will be very interesting and I can’t wait to see how it all pans out in the end. Until next week, keep rolling!