I ran “The Dare” but not for the intended group.
So if you saw my last post I said I was going to be running this scenario for my boss and friends. This is still going to happen, but that is not who I ran it for last night.
My family went to Wales for the weekend and were disappointed that I was not able to join them and said we could have had a game if I was able to join them. Being keen to play again, I suggested that we play it virtually with me GMing from mine and they all play from Wales. My dad took his laptop and a screen and we had a video call over Discord.
Over all it was a good night, every one had fun. The biggest issue was that his mic is a bit shit. Most of the time when they were talking to each other, the mic wouldn’t pick them up, so were constantly having to repeat themselves. Might have to buy another cheap mic from Amazon to be used!
So how did it go?
In the original scenario, the kids are there for a dare to prove themselves. I made the change that they were locked in the house by the bully to give them motivation to explore, rather than to hang out in 1 room so they know nothing happens… This change while I think is better for the narrative, it did backfire a little. This could just be down to the mentality of the players and how they approach the game but I can see why what happened did.
I think the other issue I am facing with this group of players is their insistence to stick to each other and go everywhere holding hands. While I completely get that as normal as this might be in real life, it really restricts some of the events and feels like it slows the game down quite a bit. I managed to force them apart a couple of times which I was able to capitalize on for the most part. But it was soon all back together and the same restrictions came back.
The Breakdown of events
I am going to try and recall the events and what happened over the night as they happened and think about what I would do to change it slightly if needed.
Getting the kids in the house
I opened the scene with the kids standing in front of the gates to the house mid trick and treat session. I gave them a run down of the house, rumors and a general feel of what the scenario was about. I asked if anyone wanted to prove they weren’t scared by the rumours and go knock on the door. 3 of them went up while the other 3 stayed at the gate. This caused the first problem and was probably the only time I didn’t want them to split up… I had a plan in the back pocket in case this happened, but running it felt a little wooly. I had Roger and 2 of his friends appear from up the road and confront the kids standing at the gate, take them up to the house and force them all in. As I was narrating that Roger and his friends were marching these 3 kids up the driveway, I realised that the other 3 were then just standing there doing nothing. I ended up saying that they didn’t do anything because they saw who it was… which just felt urgh and icky.
I was hoping that they would all go up together, or none of them would go up. This way I had control over them all at one time. Like I said, the only time I didn’t want them to split and they do!
Ideas for next time
I think when I come to run this next time for the Boss, if they split up, I will make Roger and his mates be up at the house and only focus on those who are at the house. This way maybe any that are left at the gate will come up to investigate, if not I will have the ones in the house locked in the house leaving the other outside. While I can’t necessarily force any left outside to go up to the house afterwards, that will be the hope and I can use Roger and his mates again to grab them and put them into the house. 2 ways I can do this, first being unlock the front doors and lock them back in, or I could use the coal shoot at the side of the house and force them down there and securing that from the outside. I may even use this to split them up if one of the kids acts up or something right at the start.
Trapped!
The biggest change I made was to lock the kids in the house by the bully from the outside. I then narrated that he threw the key into a room upstairs from the outside. This caused my players to have a single focus, go upstairs and find the key. Ok I should have seen this one coming. My intention for this action was to give the kids a reason to go looking around… But didn’t properly think about how they would have reacted, making them basically focus on 3 rooms. They didn’t enter a couple of rooms upstairs, because they had no reason to. They went to the rooms at the front, looked, didn’t find anything and made the assumption that the key could have fallen through the floorboards to the downstairs.
They did make their way up to the Cupola, and due to other events, I had the terrible bat thing awake and ready to attack. This thankfully gave them a room, which could have contained the key that they didn’t want to go back into. That gave me sort of an out on that one thankfully.
With the lack of motivation to really look anywhere other than the obvious, this left a couple of rooms unsearched. The burnt room and the bathroom were just ignored and the only reason they went into the girls room was because that they thought that was the front of the house, not the back. In the basement, they never went into the coal room, which had a coal shoot in they could have tried climbing out of. Then to top it off, with the way they proceeded through the first floor of the house, they went down the stairs, right into the parlor, back into the lounge, then back into the parlor, over into the dining room and through to the kitchen. They never made their way around the back of the stairs where there was another door. Ok the door, was going to be locked, but it was completely overlooked.
What to change for next time
So the biggest problem was the reason to explore. I can see why the focus was squarely placed on finding that key which logically could only be in a limited area. Next time I am going to have the bully keep hold of the key, I am going to frame it that he has hidden a second key somewhere inside the house. This gives the kids a reason to go everywhere in search for it. I am picturing that I have the key attached to the cats collar, that way if they disturb the cat in the lounge, they might notice it and have a goal rather than aimlessly wandering. This also gives a hook to go into the hole in the basement and be lead to Evelyn, as that was another issue I had which I will explain more of in a moment.
Those fucking firecrackers
My god, I love my brother, but of course he was the prankster with the fire crackers. He wanted to use them every bloody where. He had to be talked out of it a couple of times and thought he would have been able to use them to create a molotov cocktail. They did come in handy though, the first moment was with the doll. He was the one to walk into the sewing room first and see the little doll of himself. One thing I forgot to do was to ask them what they were dressed as, so it was a little less impactful… whoops. Anyway, his first thought was to shove a fire cracker into this doll and blow it up… Not sure what would have happened if I did make it a voodoo doll and he then just blew up… but it was within the first hour of play so felt a little rough to do. It did help in one way though, the noise woke the terrible bat thing up in the Cupola, so when a couple of them went up there, they came face to face with it and was attacked.
There were a couple of other instances where he tried to use a firecracker for the shits n giggles, but the last place he used them was quite clever. I had the kids basically cornered and had the cat and a swarm of bats and rats coming towards them while they were at a dead end, he used the rest of his cracker to scare them all off, which saved them a little fight, but it didn’t get the kids moving anywhere. More to come on that.
Going into the basement
The players did make their way into the kitchen, picked up a few bits and I was given the perfect time to get the kids into the basement. One of my players had had a couple of mental breaks, one of them in the kitchen, I made her run down into the basement. At this point, I thought I was home and dry, I would be able to get them down into the tunnels below and facing Evelyn… WRONG!
It was getting late and we had been at it for about 3 hours at this point and I could see a couple of them maybe getting a bit restless and bored, which is another problem with everyone sticking together, there is a lot of focus on 1 person doing one thing, everyone waiting then someone doing something else when they are all at a different point and everyone else standing around with their thumb up their ass. Anyway! I figured this was a good chance to lead them to the end fight. I took the time to let everyone have a break and go toilet, get some food etc while I made another drink and took a toilet break. When we came back, I opened the scene with Roger burst through a door, claiming he found another way in after he saw the terrible bat thing fly out of the Cupola, he didn’t want to be the reason they died after all wink wink. I was going to have him lead them into the tunnels and right to Evelyn.
BUT OF COURSE THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN
The players decided to take this moment to jump Roger as he turned away and managed to kill him. They were convinced he wasn’t real and had no problem killing a kid, the fact he was a skin suit puppeteered by bugs is irrelevant. Ok, no problem, I made sure I mentioned the hole in the floor right at the start so they knew they could go down there as a way out. No they decided they wanted to explore more of the basement. For another 30 minutes they didn’t go down into the tunnels. Eventually they got down there, but boy it was a real push.
Ideas for next time
When I thought about the second key idea, I thought about having the key at the bottom of this hole, if they looked down it they could see a glint from the key as they shone the light down there. But that leads to a possibility of only one of the kids to go down and probably come back up. So the cat to the rescue. If the key is attached to the cat, they can watch it dive down into the hole and can be lead to where Evelyn is that way. They will go into the hole and see the shine of the cats eyes in the dark towards Evelyn and boom! Final fight. That is the hope anyway!
In the Tunnels
Once the players had entered the tunnels, I figured that we were about to wrap up and the final fight was about to go down. The map was partially covered, and other than the main room, all you could see was the a sliver of the offshoots to the other areas. Unfortunately, for the tunnel that leads to a trap door to the outside, there is a big letter E near it, which the players assumed was E for Exit… It isn’t but coincidental. But off they went, up this tunnel offshoot and came across this trap door. They managed to boost a couple of the players up and out of the tunnel.
Great they were split up, but the ones left in the tunnel were just going to stand there waiting for the other 2 to find something to help them out. Which is fine, but now they are not doing anything and standing there with their fingers up their ass again. Ok let us focus on the other 2.
They were outside now, and they knew there was a shed they could look in. At this point it was about midnight and everyone was ready for this to end, they just wasn’t helping us get there. In the shed were some tools they were able to use to open the lock on the front door. There was a chain listed being in there too, which could have been used for the others to climb out, but then there was no climactic end and no fight with the witch.
This is where the rats, bats and cat came back in. I was hoping I would be able to get the critters to loop round and force the kids back into the main area where I would have Evelyn waiting for them. But no… firecrackers were used to scare them all off. RAGEEEEEE. Ok, next plan. I gave the 2 that were out and easy way to break the lock off and were able to get back into the house, they decided to go wait by the hole and I reminded the others it was an easy climb back up.
Finally a way to get the others to go back into the main area. I got them facing the witch at last and the fight started. Three of the kids were immobilized with the grandmother visage and one of them went to attack. Didn’t do much, and unfortunately, the witch was not able to grab hold of them. At this point it was questioned why the other 2 didn’t come down to help. I had to remind them that they wouldn’t know what was going on, but still no one thought to shout to them or anything… So I had to make them roll luck and that caused the other 2 to hear the commotion going on and come down. The session needed to end quick because of how late it was and how tired we all were. So I gave them an easy time escaping, except one… they were grabbed as the witch lunged forward and she just got devoured, I call that retribution!
What I need to take away from this
There are a couple of things I need to take from this. Firstly, my ideas to give a more credible reason need to be thought through more. Like I said, the kids being locked in makes more sense to me, but having that key thrown into the house, the kids know it has to be in a certain area, this doesn’t actually give them a reason to explore all the places. The hook needs to be more solid.
I think I need to explain to the players, outside of the game, that while yes, sticking together is the smart choice, having them split up isn’t going to kill them. It will make things slightly more dangerous for them yes, but it means that things move a little quicker and is going to be a touch more engaging for everyone and they wont be standing around watching someone do something. Don’t get me wrong, I like that they want to be smart and stay together, but it makes things difficult for me trying to engage everyone and it slows things down because no one is looking around at anything else while someone does something.
I need to get better with sanity breaks. I had one player loose 1/5 of their sanity mid way through, but I completely stumbled on what should be happening with them… Entirely a lack of preparation on my part, but something I need to fix.
I need to do better at controlling situations and the flow of the game. I need to work out a way of juggling things, giving the player of focus something they are doing which will keep them occupied for a few moments so I can put some attention on the others not doing anything. I had a couple of opportunities, one which I scuppered and one I should have taken more advantage of.
Let me cover the one I should have taken advantage of first. One of the kids separated themselves by climbing up into the small crawl space from the Master Bedroom. They went up alone by choice, but I focused too much on that, explained what they saw and found, then gave them the opening to then get out again. What I should have done though was to leave them up there by saying something like “As they rummage though the boxes, the rest of you are doing what?” give them a chance to break off and maybe look around the room a bit more. Try to get more openings to have the players split up a bit, if they don’t then not much more I think I can do. I could make one of them hear something, but I have a feeling they aren’t likely to break off to investigate and will stay where they are until they are all together again. Might be worth the try though.
The one I missed an opportunity on though was when they went up into the larger part of the attic. They shined their flash light around, but because I mentioned they needed to be careful and make some luck rolls if they decided to walk about, the player decided to not bother looking around, they assumed they wouldn’t find the key because there was no windows and they wouldn’t have heard it if it landed in here. Aside from the hooking issue and causing the players to focus on just finding this key, I think this leads into the last thing I need to take away.
I have a tendency to just say everything. By this, I mean, when a player walks into the room, I just say they see this and they see that. They go to the draw and find this and that. There is no real exploration moments, I don’t get the players saying where in the room they are going to, asking them where they look. Are they looking under the bed, under the sofas etc. I just say that in the boy’s bedroom, they see a rats nest under the bed… This leaves out chances to take advantage of a player going to a particular part of the room, or inadvertently disturbing rats hiding. This also doesn’t really help train the players to think about what they want to do and vocalise their actions. I say there is a desk in the room with a locked drawer, they say they want to pick the lock and we roll. What I think I need to steer it more towards is this; You enter the room, and you see over in the far corner a desk, a bed against the back wall and some broken chairs. Tell me what you where you go and what you want to do. Ask them if they want to look under the bed, open the closet door etc. Get them to explain to me how they investigate the desk.
Plans for next time
Other than trying to make these changes I have mentioned, I think my planning needs to be better. I was pretty lazy and just copied verbatim each of the areas into individual documents for easier navigation. I think I need to take the words, and rather just read off what the scenario says, break it down and say “the room contains XYZ” under the bed is this, walking to the desk consider that. Use the text to help guide my players into investigating the room, rather than using them to tell them everything in the room as soon as they enter.
Anyway, this is a very long post now. I am going to have another chance to enact these changes and run the scenario again.
I will see if the changes make a difference into the over all game.
Until then,
Much Love <3