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I might be playing the NPCs to easy, but I feel like my players would rather make Plugg and Scourge like them rather then piss them off. I am not sure how to make the PCs hate them so that they want to mutiny. So far they are only 8 days into the adventure so I might be jumping the gun a bit.
I know how to get one of the PCs to hate them, but the others I am a bit worried about. What are some things you did that got your players really saying: "Man I hate ___"?
I haven't gotten much farther in with my group than you (we're currently on hiatus) but I think the best way is to play Scourge and Plugg to the hilt as vindictive, brutal bullies and Harrigan (to the lesser extent of interaction the PCs have with him) as a cruel, ruthless b@stard. This AP gives the DM a rare opportunity to really dump on the PCs in a situation where they can (initially, at least) do little or nothing to respond. Take advantage of that. Make it plain by his actions that Plugg resents and dislikes the PCs (perhaps seeing one or more of them as competent threats to his position onboard ship) and wants to see them fail in their duties or be otherwise humbled. Scourge is Plugg's dog and is in a position where as the cowardly bully he is he can lord it over others without fear of reprisal (he thinks) and can carry out Plugg's every wish, so play that to the max .... have Scourge or his toadies make the PCs' lives misearble by sabotaging their daily work (an "accidentally" spilled bucket of tar on just-cleaned decks, loosened knotwork after the PCs have secured something, and so on....) all of which leads to Bloody Hour. It doesn't have to be major but it needs to be consistent and ongoing, and it shouldn't be too hard for the PCs to figure out who's ultimately behind it, and why.
Harrigan is a little tougher to make hateful, as the PCs don't personally interact with him much. Your best avenue there is through stories of experiences with the man told by Fishguts or Sandara Quinn, or by Knowledge:Local checks by the PCs to recall anything they may have heard about Harrigan's exploits. This is mainly hearsay, though, so you may find it necessary to add in a chance for Harrigan to show his true nature in some direct way, perhaps by casually butchering another prisoner or a NPC crewman who seriously displeased him in some way.
As to the mutiny, make it clear that Harrigan completely backs his officers - an attack on them is an attack on Harrigan - and let the PCs know that Harrigan is high enough level to chop them all into mincemeat without even breaking a sweat. Use Fishguts and Sandara to counsel patience until the time is right to act, but let the PCs plot and plan to keep the idea of mutiny on a low simmer so that once they are out from under Harrigan's direct control they'll be ready to act. Keeping that balancing act going without the PCs saying "F**k it" and acting too soon is tricky and is the primary challenge you face as DM in the first book, but the tools are there for both sides of the balance for you to use.
Good luck, and sorry for the Wall O' Text. ;D
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Thanks Fitz, I especially like your advice about sabotaging the PCs work. I had not thought about doing this, and it would definitely help with giving them some one sided beatings that they will want to inflict later.
I plan to definitely punch up the hate from Plugg and Scourge next session. So far the PCs were whipped once for being late and that is it.
I am curious how others dealt with the PCs dropping after getting lashed. Seems to me a couple good hits will drop a character to unconscious pretty quickly. So far I have mitigated this by stopping the beatings until the next day. When you rack up 12 lashes with the cat, you have quite a few days of lashing to look forward to.
I could possibly supplement this by saying if you pass out, you don't get food. This could cause some good hatred for Scourge who might seem to be really putting his back into it when whipping people. Then I could use the starvation rules and the players would try to smuggle food for their comrade, which would be like getting caught with extra rum rations. Heh, I am liking this idea.
I could possibly supplement this by saying if you pass out, you don't get food. This could cause some good hatred for Scourge who might seem to be really putting his back into it when whipping people. Then I could use the starvation rules and the players would try to smuggle food for their comrade, which would be like getting caught with extra rum rations. Heh, I am liking this idea.
That sounds good. :)
In addition, don't be afraid to kill of some NPC's. Play up one of the named NPC's, get the PC's to like him/her, and then have Scourge whip the poor bastard to death.The biggest danger with Plugg/Scourge is the standard PC-attitude: 'If we meet it, we can fight it'. I warned my players before the campaign started that they would encounter bigger fish, and that I would not pull punches. Some players, even with this warning, will not tolerate abuse, and will go for Plugg first chance they get. Drop them!! Don't hold back!! Attacking an officer is a capital offence, and should be treated as such. At least, it worked at my table, but gaming groups might differ.
Re: Convincing the PCs that they can't take Harrigan.... (snip)
That is very, very good, FM. Consider it "Yoinked"! ;D
As to "saving" lashes, there is actually some "real world" historical basis for this. While some punishments were truly horrendous (like the Royal Navy's "lashing around the fleet", in which the subject would receive a certain number of lashes from every ship in a given fleet and which could easily result in being beaten to death) it was not unheard of for punishments to be deferred or postponed until the subject was sufficiently healed to survive the remaining lashes.
Although there certainly were captains (and particularly pirate captains) who might lash offenders to death, it could be more practical from both a morale and practical standpoint to severely punish an erring but useful crewman but to spare his life "until next time". There was even a phrase for this - "keep one for the captain" - which meant the last lash of a beating wasn't given but was held back to be administered at the captain's pleasure should the crewman deserve it at a later date. That's a rather brutal way to attempt to keep someone in line, but apparently an effective one judging by historical accounts.
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I love all of these suggestions. There are a lot of days that get skipped over for action in the AP. I will probably move some of the events around so the PCs have gone through boarding training and have their weapons at least before being attacked by the giant crab-opus. Or possibly a werewolf the officers intended on press-ganging until the full moon brought it out. That way they know that they are severely outclassed without handicap and Harrigan is the quintessential beast on the ship as he slays the creature in one or two hits.
I Almost killed Fipps Chumlett because he was caught with 4 rum rations in his footlocker. Next time he gets out of line I think I might just finish the job. Perhaps before that Scourge and Plugg will have a conversation with him trying to "get to the bottom" of why he had those rations. Then the PCs will see that they begin to favor Fipps. After a couple more days of Fipps getting treated unfairly, Scourge and Plugg will throw him overboard for no good reason and just keep on sailing, and they will make sure the PCs see it.
I also like the keeping one whipping for later, this will allow me to keep fear over the head of my PCs. One just fell asleep on the day of the storm, Pretty sure he can't take 6 lashes of the Cat. Going to dole out enough till he drops, then hold food until he takes the remaining save 1. Then the captain can dole it out at his will.
Holding back lashes can be practical since as Harrigan said, the crew level is low. If too many are killed, the ship goes dead in the water.
Make sure you read Pluggs character in the NPC's section.
He's a complete ****, if you're better than him at anything he hates you!
Toadies to those above him (at least until he can stab them in the back), steps on anyone below him.
A petty, hateful man who makes life a misery for everyone.
My crew kept him alive when they took the Mans promise, just so they could take their time and make him suffer as he died.
DBH
When I played through this, it was Scourge who they truly hated. Plugg was a little more nuanced. Some things I did was ham Scourge up: I did a voice for him that was reminiscent of Cobra Commander. He made a real show of the bloody hour. Also, at the point in the AP where unfriendly NPCs become unreachable make it clear why. I had them tell the PCs that Scourge had told them that the PCs were talking ill about them. For instance I had one NPC who was chosen to help catch the reefclaws tell the PCs he was mad at them because Scourge told him that the PCs said he fled from the reefclaws instead of helping fight them.
I made sure my PC's could see the chain of command.
Scourge was hated, Plugg was hated even more as Scourge was his lackey and did everything Plugg told him to.
Harrigan ended up being hated by default, for letting things go on like this, just as long as he had a crew.
DBH
Plugg, I believe, is a fairly good example of The Neidermeyer.
Yep. Plugg can't figure it out that he needs a crew to keep going and reign in his impulses. Harrigan,(if we go by the cursed clock that people like) has something over his head to make him act like that.
Sandara was my solution to the whipping. She'd channel below decks and get everyone who was beaten unconscious at least back to positive hps. Since I had that worked out, I pretty much flogged PCs constantly, so that by day three they were plotting mutiny. My players may be a little more proactive, but I had to have pretty much every friendly NPC trying to rein them in by the time they met the other ship.
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Had my second session and now the PCs sufficiently hate Plugg and Scourge. All it took was them starting to butter up one of the hostile pirates and messing up their day jobs. Now they have tried to weave a story of the black spot and they want to make it appear like Scourge has it so that a slot opens up for a new officer. Sandara asked them who they think would get put in that officer position. They immediately thought about it and decided it might not be the best of ideas.
I also made them face the Kraken (not a full combat, just some tentacles). When the Captain made 3 attacks in 1 round, they got the idea not to mess with him.
So they have not mentioned mutiny yet, but I think I will be able to push them to that conclusion.
I used the cursed clock. When no pc failed a check I had Plugg beat Tilly for virtually no reason. Before the end of that Blood hour there was an unconscious pc who one hates plugg and two will be pluggs future target.
To impress the danger on the PCs :
Used a weapon training session, to "assess" their relative combat strengths and uses ( third day in ). Players were matched up with other pirates and told to do non-lethal damage, base attack + INT test for seeing opponents relative skill at combat.
Scared the hell out of them, once they compared notes after. Especially when their barbarian, after beating six opponents, wen up against Harrigan for some assessment, and was knocked out straight with one non-lethal (feinted) sneak attack ) whoch still almost killed him. Changed Harrigan though (along those lines posed in the forum here some months ago), but a common full attack would have sufficed as well.
On the other hand, there was a lot of lashes specificially if a character defaulted at something visible (say, like almost dropping out of the rigging)... "pour encourage les autres".
Other gaming group : GM went heavy on the tamping (without good reason most of the time) to enliven his group.. at leas once per character/ day. Sometimes with sneak damage hidden in - especially against unwilling females who caught his fancy. Unconscious chars...
Seemed to have worked very well. They did some pretty unspeakable things to Scourge once they mutinied.
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I'm running two S&S pbps at the same time, and while we're still only in Day One, it doesn't really seem that hard to garner PC hatred for either.
Specifically in one of the campaigns, a PC has already earned bilge duty and three lashings at the Bloody Hour for speaking to and trying to lie to the Captain (it didn't go over well) after he lied and told M. Scourge that he was 'friends' with the Captain. Another PC got whipped in the neck for not climbing when they were told to and got rat-catching duty. This is before all the jobs have even been assigned.
In the other campaign, not much ire has been earned thus far, though the cook's mate is getting caught trying to steal from Kroop. Still trying to figure out if Kroop would give a freebie in terms of not reporting it (one and only one!) and just threaten the PC or what.
On a related note, has anyone else felt bad for all the crap that they know they'll be putting the PCs through? Trying to see if it's just me.
I'm on day four and my PCs are ready to mutiny. Not that they have had any interaction with the Captain. But they already hate Plugg and Scourge. And just want to get rid of these two.
Before jobs where given out, my lone female PC tried to seduce Plugg. When she failed horrible he had her tied to the main mast for the day.
And after he sent his goons at them on day two, all hell started to brake loose! They set up a trap for Fipps by planting stolen items in his locker and by messing with Grok store so a search would be done.
Fipps was caught "red handed" and keelhauled on day four!
I'm going to have the framing of Fipps turn one or two extra crew members against the PCs,(even though the NPCs can't prove it was the PCs) or else Plugg and Scourge will have no one for the next sixteen days.
So in regards to all the bad stuff happening to the PCs, I think its already become a natural escalation of two factions working against each other.
I think Harrigan should put his CMB +15 to good use and pick up one of the PCs by the neck Darth-Vader style if they piss him off.
In the giant octopus scenario mentioned earlier-how would xp work for that?
Anyone know?
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Luckily for me it was easy. We had a character who was out for a couple nights, but was fine with us continuing anyways. So, I had him kidnapped on the Wormwood in the middle of the night. I gave him a Perception check in the dark room he was in, to see if he heard Scourge and Plugg talking about their plans (the one time he rolled awful, but he at least recognize who was speaking, and before that they thought Scourge and Plugg hated each other).
Of course, him being dragged out was one of the several times I had to give my Ifriti player a silent head shake "no, you don't want to do that" when she set herself on fire, looked to the group, and said "I hope you guys can swim...".
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Audio only I'm afraid, but there are over a thousand sessions stored on that site available for free.