It's been almost a week since I ran the scenario in question, an interesting look at the direction the Society is heading in, and I thought I would tell you all the story of a group that truly earned the title of Murder-Hobo. I was GMing our area's first (as far as I know) open playtest. A few groups have done home games, but I was running the first game for our lodge. I got there early, provided the pregens and miniatures, since I had actual models for all of them except Fumbus. I had been a little worried, because only one person signed up for the game, but expected walk-ins. We ended up with four players, choosing the characters of Valeros, the fighter, Seoni, the sorceress, Amiri, the barbarian, and Fumbus, the alchemist. They received their orders from Venture-Captain Valsin, and chose to begin with Puddles, hearing a plea about a missing person. After the initial introductions, they found themselves at the manor, and went in. Very quickly, Amiri and Fumbus took exception to the building, Fumbus because Amiri tried helping him up the steps, and ended up aiding him in performing a face-plant into the wall after a failed Fastball Special (she failed at her aid another, he failed his Acrobatics check to get up the stairs). Karma had it out for Amiri, who tried climbing up the termite-ridden stairs, failed multiple acrobatics checks, and ended up losing a quarter of her HP through putting her legs through the floor. The things trying to kill her didn't do as well at injuring her as the house did. After finding a few clues, and overlooking the treasure, they filed out of the house, and Fumbus, being a proper lil' goblin firebug, decided to hurl a fire bomb into the house as they left. Amiri, who had been trying to tempt Seoni towards similar pyromantic endeavors earlier on, decided this was her chance, took the torches she came with, and started running through the Puddles, hurling lit torches through various windows, likely ensuring that what could have been a reasonably easily contained fire would expand in a similar manner as the Great Fire of London. I believe the comparison was actually brought up at the table. They found the woman who had asked them to look into a disappearance, started telling several different versions of the story at once, before calmly suggesting she may want to see about running. Slightly later, they repeated the performance of giving contradictory stories to Valsin, who came to the decision that since, A, they had started a fire that threatened to burn down at least one district of Absalom, B, they were such terrible liars about it, and C, they were only pregens, that they should be turned into the guard and quickly executed, except for Valeros, who quietly left the group as they went on their rampage. After all, they were supposed to catch the Rose Street Killer, not top his score. So, in my report to the Society, I have to say that this is what comes of bringing goblins in. Should have kept it up with the kobolds.
Sounds more like what comes of bringing players who are more concerned with disruptive gameplay, possibly due to nothing being at risk (pregens) than they are to focusing on either experiencing a story as intended by the author or field testing the rules so they could provide meaningful feedback to the design team. Course this is just speculation based simply on the descriptions of the GM.
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Actually, on reflection, I realized that it was prime roleplaying. After all, Amiri's backstory, she was so enraged about being made fun of she slaughtered a number of tribemates. And goblins, according to Paizo, are, as a race, a little crazy and like fire. Not to mention the incident with the Eye of Vecna. So when the house insulted their honor by nearly beating them with stairs, it actually fit. Except for Amiri taking her rage out on the whole town. Besides, I spent about 10-15 minutes laughing til I couldn't breathe. Not saying I had a problem with it, I just couldn't figure a way to end it except for executions all around.
None of my playtest tables at GenCon went the Paranoia route.
Some really went off the rails... but no clones.
Greetings, I was the player in charge of Amiri the Barbarian.
I mean, after the fire with the first house started I kinda figured we had come so far we might as well have kept going. Besides, the killer was probably in one of those houses, so we did the city a favor in disposing of the killer and getting rid of the rather drab Puddle district.
This is what happens when you give me and my family Chaotic characters, it doesn't end well.
Something else that is funny is I usually play Paladins or Paladin like characters, so you see what that Lawful Good alignment holds back...
I figured it was more in revenge for getting beaten by the house.
I'm a little worried about meeting this house now.
I have to say, I was iffy about the new rules, but I had fun running it, to the point of already seeking out the opportunity to run another demo game.
I mean, the puddles did have a serious rodent infestation, we did the city a favor.
We got rid of both the rats AND the kobolds in the sewers!
Casualites are to be expected in the war on crime.
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