Convergence DM Log - Session 8 - 1/12

 Preamble

I try when I set up to run a game to have a rough idea of my goal for the night.  Is it set up the players up with some quest items?  Is it to have a really interesting combat?  Is it to get to a particular point in the story?  Basically I don't want to sit down at the table and say "so what do you want to do?" only to hear back "we don't know."

For this session I had one real goal:  Let the players meet Tedophilise or "Ted" and understand what the role of the convergence shard could be in starting to restore the multiverse to its infinite possibilities.

The Plot Hole

As I sat down to play that afternoon I realized I had one unanswered question, a plot whole of epic proportion in my mind.  I had no idea why Ted would entrust the party with his knowledge.  I had the power point ready to go.  I had the entire Ted Talk scripted.  I knew that the party had access to the shard he wanted and I knew that he had to show them some respect for managing to sneak into his lair.

Now the original plan for the story had been that they were going to fight their way, dungeon style, through the mall.  The gnolls were set up as sufficiently evil enough to warrant a good fight.  They weren't to be reasoned with.  They weren't to be talked to.  They were evil through and through.  Ideal enemies, I thought.  The party would set out to purge them from the area, fight their way back to the movie theater and find Ted holding out there trying to figure out where his layer of protection had gone.  Actually in the original writing, he hadn't sent anyone for the shard.  I was just banking on the players stumbling up that way with it.  

My solution to the plot whole was to create the cost of dealing with his somewhat eccentric obnoxiousness.  He was going to talk down to them a bit but in my brain that was a small price for them to pay for the opportunity to restore the universe (if his plan worked of course).  Their reason for trusting him was minimal, except that he had the research and the notes to back it up.  He had spent years working on his theories and for that I had expected a certain amount of "okay, he's a jerk but he's a smart jerk and we can deal with a jerk if that's the price of saving the universe".

The plot whole was filled.  A little "you'll be my minions" and they get all the goodies to be the ultimate heroines.

And down the plot hole we fell

As a rule, women are not strangers to being dismissed or talked down to.  About every woman I've met can recount at least one instance where they had made a proposal, had it dismissed and then had a male colleague make the same proposal to accolades and acceptance.  A diminutive man telling four women that they should be good little minions and listen to his plan was a set up for failure.  I should have seen it coming.

Next up on the missed cues from the DM was the dismissal of Ted as a crack pot.  Sure he held sway over a sprawling complex of blood thirsty gnolls, but he was just a little wizard with some magic and some gizmos.  They had seen behind the curtain and rather than being impressed at what he had done from there, they dismissed him and his experience.  As soon as Molly's character Sam started insisting that she could figure out the trappings of convergence shard just as easily as Ted had, I should have realized this was going down a bad road. 

Of course there's a precedent for this in cinema:

Han Solo: Well that's the real trick, isn't it? And it's gonna cost you extra. Ten thousand, all in advance.

Luke Skywalker: [shocked] Ten thousand!? We could almost buy our own ship for that!

Han Solo: But who's gonna fly it, kid? You?

Luke Skywalker: You bet I could! I'm not such a bad pilot myself. C'mon, we don't have to sit here and— [Ben calms down Luke]

Ben Kenobi: We'll pay you two thousand now, plus fifteen when we reach Alderaan.

 Though in this case there was no Obi Wan who had decided the cost was worth it.  Instead there were four Luke's all sure that they didn't need a lick of help.  

Who's story is this anyway?

What started off as a snarky exchange escalated as the players became less and less inclined to be diplomatic, and the NPC, rightly so became less and less inclined to give his secrets away.  And there was a point combat was indeed the only logical choice for the scene.  There was no reason for Ted not to push his fail safe and head for a hidey hole while the gnolls outside were drawn into a fight in the dark hallway of the abandoned movie-plex.  Maybe the party would make it out the way they came, maybe not.  But in either event, this plot arc was ended and a new plan for unlocking the secret of the shard would need to be hatched.

We agreed to a time out to hash out where the scene was going and if we were all okay with that.  We had some time to recap what we had seen play out, what the logical consequences of those things would be, and what options all of the characters (NPC's included) had in front of them.  I'd prefer to not have had to have this kind of talk but at the same time we needed it because the truth was that no one was really comfortable with the story twists.  And when we paused no one really saw ways forward.  The best part of that conversation was a chance to put options back on the table.  We could see where this was going, could go, and how we might proceed.

A point raised by the party was the idea of who the protagonists were and what kinds of prices they should be expected to pay to advance the story.  In an RPG video game, for example, quest givers don't have the option to not give you a quest.  And if they don't give you the quest, you can kill them for XP.  And killing them or not you can break all of the pots in their house to see if there's any spare change in them.

Sidebar:  In the game Skyrim I really really don't like looting the bodies or the urns in the crypts.  I feel like it's no my place to take the possessions of the dead nor to disturb the offerings left to honor them.  

I had, as DM, I think underestimated the way the PC's would approach paying prices for advancing the story.  And I had set the price very very high for them.  Agreeing to the title of "Minion" was a price too high, despite how adorable they were in the movie "Despicable Me" (and subsequent films).  

Gnolls are people too

Of all the surprises of the night, this one hit me the hardest, oddly.  When theorizing that it was possible to return piece of a reality to it's original whole, Ted suggested that they try first with the piece that brought the murderous cannibal gnolls to Reality Prime.  

And then Sam was worried what would happen to them.

They attack with little to no provocation.  They have undead minions in the form of those gnolls who died through infighting.  They drag humans away to feast on their flesh.  But we should really try not to kill them while restoring the universe.  So much for the guilt-free enemy.

Of course, part of the reason the heroes are the heroes is that they pause and ask these very questions. What price should be paid to save the world?

Looking Ahead and Back and Around

One thing that remains unaddressed that cannot be that way for long is the relationship the party has with the leadership in the Empire.  A point that came up more than a few times in the discussion with Ted and the negotiation for his knowledge was that the party had the option to return to the Imperial City of the Straits and get information there.  Their new friend Helena had contacts that could help, right?

Only the party also was spotted in possession of the convergence shard, something that the Empire was willing to kill for to get back.  They then scammed the Imperial troops with an illusion of the shard to appear they had turned it over and keep for themselves.  More than likely they are wanted within the Imperial City.

And that assumes that just because a version of a person in another reality had relations with you, the person in this reality is sworn to full loyalty.  It is not out of the realm of the possible that Helena is far more foe than friend under the circumstances.  In truth, Ted is the only entity that the party has found since leaving Oxford that is not connected to a group that either has attacked them or threatened them or plans to kill them.  Helena's connections may be in question, and while Ted was "the god" of the gnolls, there is room to wonder how much control he had over them, or how connected he is to their actions.  

After all, he did give them free will.

What lies ahead maybe more direct.   Get to the Arbor of Ann, get the particle tunneling device, and maybe a power source for it, get back to Ted and save the world.  Easy Peasy.

Conclusion:

Then of course there is one more factor to consider:  The ability to return a convergence event is incredibly powerful.  It's the sort of power that would drive a nation to war.  It's the sort of power that gets men murdered in their bed.

And right now the party has a major component, a major tool, a person with the knowledge to use both, and is on their way for the final piece needed.

Who else is ready to make war for that power now?

Watch session 8 here: