WWYCD Fantasy HERO Edition #1: The Princess Shell Game

[Marcus Impudite]

Having done a bunch of WWYCD threads for supers in the Champions forum, I decided to do one here for the fantasy genre:

Your character and his/her party have been hired by the king to rescue his daughter, Princess Holly the Helpless, from the vile Dirk Darklord. After a long journey and battling Dirk's flunkies, you reach Dirk's castle only to find Dirk is long gone (parts unknown). You finally find your way down into the dungeon where he's imprisoned her royal highness. But now comes the puzzle, ready? You find that all 13 cells in the dungeon are occupied by young women who match the physical discription of Princess Holly, and each of them claims that she is the real princess. You hear evil laughter and then an illusion of Dirk Darklord appears before you...

Dirk: "Greetings! My, my, you've been quite a thorn in my side. Well, if you're that determined to rescue Princess Holly, perhaps I should let you have her...always assuming you can figure out which one is really her. Of course, if you pick the wrong one...Well, why ruin the surprise? Mah Ha Ha Ha!!!! Good Luck fools, you'll need it."

With a final mocking laugh, the illusionary Dirk vanishes. From what you know of the fiendish Dirk Darklord, the fake princesses could turn out to be anything from mere illusions to some vile, wicked creatures in disguise... or possibly something even worse than that. How do you determine which is the real Princess Holly and which are the fakes? WWYCD?

[Lawnmower Boy]

Monsters=melee=XP. Or loot. Stupid Hero with its session awards. Anyway, the key thing is to make sure that the last one released is the real Holly, so you get all the encounters.
Hmm, that might require some thought...
Nah, thought hurts. We kill stuff.

[Blue Jogger]

Holly1: "Why thank you, you're so.... " GAAACCK!
Me: "Don't worry, she's not the real one."

I kill ALL of them. After all, if you're going to make 12 monsters that look and act like Holly the Helpless, why not make 13?

[Old Man]

"All right, who here wants a cut of the reward? Raise your hand. Okay, you. We'll take you back to the castle and tell the king you hit your head and won't ever be the same. That should hold us for a few days. After a fortnight you sneak us into the castle and up to the king's chambers, and we'll do the rest. We'll just take all the loot in the castle, you can have the kingdom. My queen."

[DrunkonDUty]

It seems there's much more vile folk than simple old Dirk Darklord about.

Me, I'd either use a glass slipper, or if I don't have one handy, a stack of mattresses and a pea. Mmm, that could pose logistical difficulties.

My only ever fantasy hero character was a not too bright half giant. Once tried to head butt his way through the city wall on a dare. He'd eenie-meenie-mo his way through this test. Eventually he'd get the right one, the one that doesn't try to eat him. The rest he'd just leave in their cells.

[Ocelot]

Kill 'em all, wait for the illusion to fade, resurrect the real one. (Magic in the campaign I play in is pretty high, and it's a pretty Machiavellian group.)

[Mister Trent]

Hit on them. The one that rejects your advances is the real princess.

[Curufea]

Sir Miles Furmenglaive isn't the smartest knight, but he is wise enough to know this. His brother Milton, the wizard, would be best to handle this situation if he could contact him.

But if left to deal with this situation by himself (sans retinue or lieges) he would release them all into the one room and see what happens - if there was some kind of illusion disguising monsters or undead, then the one not attacking is the one he'll rescue as soon as he was able. Preferably he would release them all into a nice plain in the sun, just in case he needs a good runup with horse and lance and a quick getaway.

[The Weapon]

Well we got down to the dungeon and we're not dead but we are detected. Logically there's only one way out and we lack the capacity to make a new one (otherwise we'd have ignored the door and gone straight in).

So either can simply kill us one by one as we come out of the corridor into an ambush zone or he can't. This is assuming he can't just block the passageway and leave us to starve. If he can do either there's no point finding the real princess except as a witness to our heroic deaths. There's no point bringing back a fake princess since whatever it is it's the last thing the king wants brought into his castle/presence/kingdom.

If he can't stop us getting away the situation is entirely different. Since he can't stop us when we're in a disadvantagous position he obviously can't stop us when we're not. Simply go up the stairway announcing that the castle is being occupied by representatives of the King as punishment for kidnapping. Demand the occupants surrender assuring them that they will keep their positions. If they refuse, fight you'll probably win, if you don't you'd have lost anyway. Try not to kill the servants though.

When you win send a messanger to the king (and anyone else you think might be able to help) detailing the situation. We make it clear that we did not set out to annex Darklord's property but since we were authorised to use force (and we were) we are therefore authorised to take military positions. The King has the option to let Darklord have his castle back but we recommend doing so only after the daughter is identified and retured. In fact we recommend Offer people a slice of the gains for determining the right princess, provisional on the king rewarding you. Make the 13 beings in the dungeon as comfortable as possible in the meantime. Pray hard that Darklord isn't coming with reinforcements faster than the king is.

[teh bunneh]

Chrissie Rocks (my Bard GMPC): She pulls out her guitar, strums a chord, and announces to all the princesses, "I am going to play a magical song, a song of such beauty and joy that will delight anyone with a good heart, but will cause agony to creatures of evil."

She would then stand in front of each cell door and play her tune (1/2d6 RKA, NND (not vs. creatures with good hearts), Does BODY). The one that doesn't wince in pain is the princess.

[sbarron]

Having done a bunch of WWYCD threads for supers in the Champions forum, I decided to do one here for the fantasy genre:

Your character and his/her party have been hired by the king to rescue his daughter, Princess Holly the Helpless, from the vile Dirk Darklord. After a long journey and battling Dirk's flunkies, you reach Dirk's castle only to find Dirk is long gone (parts unknown). You finally find your way down into the dungeon where he's imprisoned her royal highness. But now comes the puzzle, ready? You find that all 13 cells in the dungeon are occupied by young women who match the physical discription of Princess Holly, and each of them claims that she is the real princess. You hear evil laughter and then an illusion of Dirk Darklord appears before you...

Dirk: "Greetings! My, my, you've been quite a thorn in my side. Well, if you're that determined to rescue Princess Holly, perhaps I should let you have her...always assuming you can figure out which one is really her. Of course, if you pick the wrong one...Well, why ruin the surprise? Mah Ha Ha Ha!!!! Good Luck fools, you'll need it."

With a final mocking laugh, the illusionary Dirk vanishes. From what you know of the fiendish Dirk Darklord, the fake princesses could turn out to be anything from mere illusions to some vile, wicked creatures in disguise... or possibly something even worse than that. How do you determine which is the real Princess Holly and which are the fakes? WWYCD?

Are you sure this isn't for Champions?

[Marcus Impudite]

Why was this thread moved? I see no logical reason for this.

[Curufea]

Why was this thread moved? I see no logical reason for this.

No, it seems odd as it's definitely FH related.

[teh bunneh]

I'm curious about that myself. I'll find out.

[Zeropoint]

I don't really have any fantasy characters to respond to this, but my personal response would be to secure the castle and send for experts. AT LEAST twelve of the "girls" are fakes; all 13 could be. The place could be rigged so that releasing a fake princess kills the real one. The princess could be disguised with a shape-changing spell. (the one who looks like the real princess could be Dirk Darklord himself!) Better to let some royal wizards with better analytical magic deal with the situation.

Chrissie Rocks (my Bard GMPC): She pulls out her guitar, strums a chord, and announces to all the princesses, "I am going to play a magical song, a song of such beauty and joy that will delight anyone with a good heart, but will cause agony to creatures of evil."

She would then stand in front of each cell door and play her tune (1/2d6 RKA, NND (not vs. creatures with good hearts), Does BODY). The one that doesn't wince in pain is the princess.

You're assuming that the fakes are evil (and that the princess ISN'T). This may not be the case. What if NONE of the girls wince in pain? Or all of them? Still, I guess it's worth a shot.