My first actual session, plus help me with 'overbearing' pla

[Uratoh]

Well I had my first session running Little Fears, and had the 'monster in the septic tank' bit ruined when they poured 4 things of bleech down the toilet and literally flushed him out...then it kind of turned into a slugfest thanks to one player refusing to back down, and he kept passing fear checks too....he didn't kill it but he gave the other kids time to construct a flamethrower with a can of spraypaint and a lighter...I barely managed to get it away, it managed to slip into the sewer system just before burning up....

I need help 'getting' the player who turned it into a slugfest...I'm thinking turning his dad (a hell's angels biker) against him with help from Lammathshu...but I'm looking for suggestions, I'm not sure I wanna involve the kings so early.

I did manage to get some fear on someone for a reason totally unrelated to the monster...they made a racket so this old lady sticks her head out the window to yell....well one kid's afraid of 'the old lady down the street...she's a witch!!' so he failed a spirit quiz, and rolled a six :smile:

[Fabrice G.]

Hi Utaroth, well i think your first session might have gone better than you seem to think.

Let's see...
Now there a monster in the sewer, and every single house is connected to it. So it can potentialy find it's way into anyone's house...what about some strange tales among the neighbourhood speaking of strange noises, maybe a few disparition. Now, the monster can be depicted much bigger.
This way you can turn a "stolen" victory in something that much creepier.
You can even describe how the monster seems not to feel the bite of fire anymore.
There's always something to fear this way, and your players might well reconsider their course of action for the next time.

well, that's just a few ideas.

For your bold player, you can confront his character with "real" threats, aka adults. But i think you might as well take him apart and talk to him about the way in witch you want to play the game.

Well, i hope this helps.
Fab.

[Fabrice G.]

oups uratoth not utaroth, bad bad bad me !!!!!
Hope you're not mad at me or anything !

Fab.

[Uratoh]

Don't mind the name misspelling....When I origionally designed the guy I figured the only real way to kill him was to shove him into a swimming pool full of chlorine (blasting him, with a hose doesnt really HURT him, but you can shove him around)

I was giving him effective scores of 3 (for hands, feet etc), I suppose now that he's got access to a whole SEWER full of, err, crud, he could be raised to 5 for the return....

I, of course, can't just sic him on them again, I need a good intermitent problem or two. I'm thinking of introducing them to Ajora and 'Stan'. Ajora's an 8 year old albino girl with a belief of 10 (and a destiny to get hyper-aged by the ghost of her mother into one of those poor saps who never lost innocence), who's haunted by Stan, a shadelike fellow who lives in her shadow. He REALLY wants to be one of the 7 kings, but he's quite incompetent about it. Anyone ever play Okage? :smile: Her story revolves around how her father brutally murdered her mother right before her eyes, and instead of being horrified, she just....shut off. She hasn't really been the same since...I'm contemplating trying to pass her off as some sort of monster or vampire at first...she'd be nigh impossible for them to actually kill, since her belief power is that her 'good friend Stan' will protect her...he hates it when he's just compelled to help her :smile:

[mahoux]

I totally agree.  Not with the name thing, but the meaty post.  It really looks like you got the better end of this battle, having a monster in the sewer.

I haven't picked up my copy of Little Fears yet, although I'm just dying to.  I even started a game scenario from a short piece of fiction I found online.  This being said, I don't have a lot of authority to back me up on the whole game post here, but from looking at pieces of the game, now you have this monster that survived, and it's got the potential of pumping up its rep due to more kids to choose from... AAAND you can start a little dissension within the ranks of your kids because the one child didn't finish it off "and now it may come back for us."

As far as dealing with your problem kid, without the book I'm useless.  But it sounds like terrible fun so far.

[Joe Murphy (Broin)]

I don't have the game - yet - so I can't really respond with in-game examples.

But I wouldn't tackle this problem with in-game examples. :smile:

I ran a Mage game where one character lost an arm. A leg. Injured the other leg. And turned out to have a parasticial monster imbedded in his back, which unbeknownst to him acted as his familiar. *Most* of these events were down to bad rolls. Well, apart from the parasite. That was just nifty.

The player still hasn't really forgiven me (3 years on) for picking on his character. He's fairly sure I was trying to 'keep his character down' somehow and that i was trying to counter his successes with 'bad karma'.

I would feel that your problem player would have a similar reaction if you threw bigger and tougher bad guys at him. The only natural reaction he can have is to fight back using the same tools, and whether he makes those rolls or not, he hasn't learned anything.

Take the guy aside. Explain how you found his gaming difficult to GM for. I'm terrible at this, because initially, players are *incredibly* touchy. They're playing the only way they know how, and it's possible he just has a style of playing that jars with you.

If at all possible, p'raps you could ask the player what he'd do in a similar circumstance? Here's hoping he's empathic. =)

And you should also consider your GMing style. :smile: Why did you want to let the beastie escape? Did the beastie really matter to the ongoing story? Would the monster have had a tougher, pissed-off older brother? If the characters had killed the monster quickly, what's wrong with giving them a little success once in a while? :smile:

Joe.

[GreatWolf]

I don't know.  From your description it sounds like a reasonable outcome to the scenario.  Is there more that we're missing?  Or were you counting on a particular ending to the scenario that didn't happen?

[Mike Holmes]

I think that what we may have here is a classic GNS problem. I'm guessing that the player in question is playing gamist, whereas the GM wants something either Simulationist or Narrativist.

What was "wrong" with the player in question no backing down, and coming up with creative solutions to the problem? If the character kept making rolls to supress his fear, then the player was just doing what the system allowed. My guess is that the GM felt that the player was playing in Pawn mode and that the more reasonable response would be to retreat when directly threatened, no matter what the rolls said. Or something like that.

Am I close? If so, it sounds like the player was responding in a Gamist fashion, simply using the game resources given him to overcome the challenge presented. Does this make sense? Or was there something else that you, Uratoh, did not like about the player's play.

There are lots of potential solutions to the problem, but we have to really identify the problem first.

Mike

[Uratoh]

I've come up with the idea for their next opponent...a babysitter, who's influenced by Tittania. unconsciously of course...Has anyone here ever seen the movie, 'The Guardian'? If not, the jist: A woman has her life tied to this tree, and she goes around kidnapping children under her care to sacrifice them to the tree and water the ground with their blood...She wants children less than 4 weeks old, before the blood changes, but that could easily be adapted to 'before the darkening sets in'. I need to make this more of a mystery, could someone give me tips to help me make it suddle who's responsible for this, to keep the babysitter angle secret? Also, while the babysitter will have stats like any adult (and roll 2d6), she cannot be hurt unless the tree is damaged, and it's deep in the woods. I can have FUN with em in the woods, even if there's nothing there :smile:

[Mike Holmes]

The first thing in keeping the fact that the sitter is the villain is, of course, to have other suspects. Some Red Herrings that seem more likely. In fact, you an go for what I call the Boo Radley effect. Have a really spooky neighbor with a frightening appearance. Then later have this character turn out to be helpfull to the characters and otherwise harmless.

To really make the sitter seem unlikely, when you introduce her make it seem like an improv. Set up a situation where the children are together but their parents are going out. Make it seem as though the scene is about abandonment or some other issue. Then "remember" that they wouldn't leave the kids entirely alone and pretend to "create on the spot" the babysitter character. "And they call...um... a sitter, or whatever. Ah... a woman from the neihborhood. She arrives a while later and introduces herself as... um... Jillian." Then write down the name like your making a note so you won't forget the "throwaway" NPC you just created. Leave her description and such unstated, and make up such details as needed to further the illusion that the NPC was made up on the spot.

When she finally does come for the characters, they will be astounded that it's just some NPC that you made up. If they don't catch on to the deception, they'll be scared of everything that you make up from then on, too, which is neat. It helps to counter that, "Oh, that's not a main character, they can't be dangerous" syndrome. Again this works best with a Red Herring to make them think that they know where the danger lies.

Mike

[Grumbleputty]

Brilliant and devious, Mike! Here's something I suggest to build on the idea:

The babysitter arrives and the evening begins fairly normally.  Soon, however, a shadowy figure is seen lurking in the bushes outside- or was it a trick of the light?  Then the phone calls start- if the kids answer, they'll hear nothing but raspy breathing before the line goes dead. If the babysitter answers, she'll go pale at whatever is said to her and slam the receiver down, but will be reluctant to call the police ("it's probably just some kids playing pranks"). Let the atmosphere build until the babysitter is fleeing through the house with the players, trying to escape from the mysterious figure chasing them- armed with a butcher knife!

The awful truth about the shadowy figure could be this: he's a parent whose once hired this babysitter, which cost him his kids, his wife (through suicide) and his mind. He's watching her and the players, torn between his desire to save them and his need to catch her in the act and prove to the world that his suspicions were correct, while learning once and for all what happened to his own kids.

Here's where you might be able to teach that "overbearing" player a lesson. If he goes for the bait and takes on the shadowy stalker, he'll be removing what could have been a useful ally when the babysitter shows her true nature later on! Oh, and the battered corpse of a knife-wielding "intruder" will fit perfectly into her planned alibi!

[Uratoh]

Hmm, a red herring...sounds like a good excuse to introduce Ajora and Stan :smile: I'd appreciate some input on if the two of them sound stupid or a good idea...I posted about them earlier on this topic.

[Mike Holmes]

I like Ajora and Stan well enough. They're interesting NPCs. How do they fit in with what your PCs are about, though? Will Ajora just be introduced as a classmate or something?

Mike

[Uratoh]

Ajora's rather young and sheltered, most of her education comes from private tutors, because she can't easily go outside and to school with everyone else. She'll probably make an introduction by staring intently out a second story window.

BTW, how harsh should I be on children with the law? I dont wanna have legal reprocussions, but they DID hit an old lady in the kneecaps with a baseball bat...then they claim since they ran to this one kids house (who has some very loose parents, athoritywise) theyll get away with it...I'm thinking if they try that AGAIN the police should be over em, but am I being harsh? I mean, whats the best way to fit juvinile discipline into the game? hints? :smile:

[mahoux]

oh by all means, show them that there are repercussions to their actions.  Bring in the cops and play them straight or as some kind of villainous characters– and maybe have them talk with the parents, mentioning calling in Child Protective Services or something.  Then you could play the parents as well.

Real world stuff can help to add to the tension.