The Perils of Paranoia
In which a Matter of $100 Causes a Total Party Kill.
This is the tragic story of how a matter of 200 Credits caused a total party kill in my friend Casey's game... the moral: picking "paranoid" as a disadvantage is not a good idea. Maybe there's another moral, but if so I missed it.Bryce : hi
habnabitmkiii : Hi.
Bryce : One of my friends tried his hand at GMing. I played in his game... it was very interesting.
habnabitmkiii : Ah.
Bryce : Our party had four PCs: CJ, the human soldier; Ngekh, the Space-Gnome X Mole-Person Bright/Preacher; Randy, the Pickle-head Soldier; and Sora, the Human X Vulpinian Rogue.
We went to some desert planet, killed ewoks (which I guess were evil... to be honest it wasn't exactly clear if they were evil or just in our way), and got some kind of artifact that was part of a larger set. Somewhere around this time, CJ searched the body of an opponent during combat and found 200 Credits but did not have enough actions left to actually collect them. Ngekh, standing nearby, collected them on her turn.
habnabitmkiii : Hah!
Bryce : This started a bitter feud... little did we know at the time that this matter of about $100 would escalate into a inter-party combat that brought a dramatic and fatal end to my friend's campaign.
habnabitmkiii : Figures.
Bryce : Yeah. So, CJ was miffed at Ngekh. Ngekh was a very paranoid person and she quickly decided that CJ was out to get her. (This didn't stop her from pickpocketing 11000 credits later after Sora gathered them from a corpse... hehe) Which, incidently, Sora did not notice for the entire game.
habnabitmkiii : HAh.
Bryce : Anyway, a few hours later, Ngekh tried to heal the growing rift by paying back CJ (since she was now LOADED from stealing from Sora, 200 credits was nothing), but he refused and continued to dislike her.
habnabitmkiii : Very nice.
Bryce : Yeah, that convinced Ngekh that it was him or her. Ngekh recruited Randy to be on her side (he liked money, you see), and CJ recruited Sora. When they got to the planet, both groups went different ways on the pretense of doing different shopping, and then actually mutually ditched each other. (I didn't know that we had also been ditched until after the campaign was over.)
CJ and Sora went to Gnomistan (the planet of Gnomes, naturally) and hired Space Gnome mercenaries. Ngekh and Randy went to the hardware store and bought rat poison to kill the others with, if needed, then went off after the second artifact themselves. (On the planet, so they didn't notice that the others had made off with the ship.)
Long story short, Ngekh and Randy found the other artifact but were accosted by Mission-Imposssible ceiling-descending attack wookies of some sort and captured. They were held up for a few days and then released. (I think that may have been a ploy to resyncronize the game's time since the others took four days to get to Gnomistan and back.)
habnabitmkiii : Heh. Space travel has its flaws. :P
Bryce : Yeah :) So anyway by the time we got back the distrust of the two groups had festered into full-fledged antagonism despite neither one realizing that the other had ditched them! Both sides fought over the loyalties of a 5th player character, which eventually went to Ngekh and Randy's side. The fifth player character was an android explorer, which is important later on... hehe.
The groups reluctantly reunited after it became clear that only one was going to be given the artifact by the representatives of the Mission-Impossible-Style ceiling descent attack wookie squad, and the other would have to follow if they were going to keep up with the quest. So, the two hostile factions went to sleep... with the more paranoid types (aka Ngekh) setting traps in their rooms and sleeping in shifts. {This pattern of behavior was sufficently memorable to be named after Ngekh when invoked by players in later sessions.}
Suddenly... around 4 AM... it began. Dun dun dun! The android (named Elo) woke up Ngekh and Randy. Ngekh used her psionic powers to haste herself and her companions to absurd speed (Haste is a little broken... we had 29 actions per turn between the three of us.). The threesome stealthily snuck through the ship to CJ's bedroom. (Being the nominal captain, he took the captains quarters and slept alone there.) Elo picked the lock, and they got in without awakening the doomed captain.
Gory story abbreviated: the captain took five energy bolts to the head and was stabbed an _awful_ lot. Unfortunatly for the assassins this made noise and woke up a couple people. They had to think fast... what would someone be legitimatly up at this hour for? Going to the bathroom! Quick, Elo's haste hasn't worn off, we'll send her to pretend to have been going to the bathroom:
GM: Okay, she made he stealth check... Trinakah seems to think that she came out of the bathroom rather than the other door. Elo: "I was just going to the bathroom." Trinakah: "But you're an android." OPPPS.
habnabitmkiii : Hahahahahahaha.
Bryce : It seems very funny in _retrospect_ :)
habnabitmkiii : So what happened?
Bryce : Elo claimed to be a cyborg. Trinakah (an NPC) bought it (thank goodness for tiredness) and went to go back to bed, but the commotion also roused one of CJ's gnomish hirelings. This gnome went to CJ's quarters, where Ngekh and Randy were hiding. Ngekh was under the bed and Randy was still standing over the mutilated, charred and dismembered corpse of the former captain:
Bang bang.
Gnome: "You okay in there sir?"
Ngekh (whispers) "Pretend to be him!"
Randy (pretends to be CJ): "I'm okay! Everything's fine!" (fails disguise check)
Bryce : The gnome didn't buy this at all, and demanded to be let in. Of course they didn't let him in, so he got a wookie NPC to bang down the door. Which he does. The light falls into the darkened room and onto the sundered carcass of CJ: "Oh my hairy wookie gods!"
So, anyway, combat ensued. Ngekh killed one of the gnomes and injured another with Flaming Death, but Randy was caught in Ngekh's fireball and died; One of those mercenary gnomes then found Ngekh hiding under the bed and killed her. Sora switched sides; Elo killed the wookie before being killed by Trinakah. It was down to Sora vs the five remaining NPCS - one step away from a total party kill. Knowing he was all but defeated, the rogue cried out "For Great Victory!" and (having defeated the interlocks) pulled open the ship's (non-airlocked) hatch. The remaining combatants were blown into space and died.
The end!
habnabitmkiii : Nice. So, did that end the session?
Bryce : Yeah... dramatically :) Well, a few of us stayed to make new characters or help others do so. And thus my friend Casey learned the truth of his (also a GM) brother-in-law's words: "You really can't predict what gamers will do."
habnabitmkiii : Yeah, really.
Bryce : So, who do you think my character was? And who was Josh?
habnabitmkiii : Hmm. From the names, I'd guess you were Sora, or Ngekh.
Bryce : I was Ngekh.
habnabitmkiii : Ah. Yeah, I thought so, since rereading you said Sora didn't notice the pickpocketing. Hmm. Was Josh Randy?
Bryce : Nope, Randy was his brother though :)
habnabitmkiii : Ah. CJ, then?
Bryce : Nope. It was Sora :) He actually managed to out-live all the other PCs! ... and then kill himself.
habnabitmkiii : Hah! I should've guessed with that last line.
Bryce : heh. In fairness /I suggested that particular course of action, so// I am to blame //for that/ :)
habnabitmkiii : Ah.
Bryce : Anyway, if I may misquote a great warlord: There is nothing more satisfying than defeating the other player characters, seeing the campaign in ruins, and hearing the lamentation of the GM. :D (I jest, of course)
habnabitmkiii : Hahaha. It must be satisfying regardless. :
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