starblaze Posted April 4, 2009 Report Share Posted April 4, 2009 Hi, Just started running this adventure to re-kick start my pulp hero campaign last night. So far I have been doing pretty good with it. So I was just wondering if anyone else on these boards have played this adventure as well and how it went? So far I find myself liking it mainly because as an adventure it is more open-ended than linear. It gives you some encounters to present to the players but pretty much leaves it in the hands of the GM as to how he wants to present things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roter Baron Posted April 4, 2009 Report Share Posted April 4, 2009 Re: Trail of the Golden Spike I ran it in a Pulp campaign about 12 years ago and it ran flawlessly: I liked the villain and his minions best since here you have a pretty ordinary guy with a cool name and a super-villainesc stick. Be sure to dust of the vehicle rules and give your players a nice battle in the skies (or strafe the hell out of them if they don't like twin-planes!). Great adventure! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kharis2000 Posted April 11, 2009 Report Share Posted April 11, 2009 Re: Trail of the Golden Spike I've run it several times, and while no one's actually *failed* the scenario, there were some spectacular near misses, including (my favorite) a player just beating the stuffings out of the mine owner's daughter when they caught her snooping around in a cap and jacket after dark. In general, I've had great luck with the scenario, although I have noted that it requires some adjustments when you have more than 2-3 players, just due to the PC tendency to try and be in more than one place at a time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Long Posted April 12, 2009 Report Share Posted April 12, 2009 Re: Trail of the Golden Spike it requires some adjustments when you have more than 2-3 players, just due to the PC tendency to try and be in more than one place at a time I've found that tends to be a problem in virtually any mystery scenario. Most published mysteries involve a single protagonist, or at most a duo; it's hard to deal with a whole group that's able to be many places at once and keep an eye on lots of things and people simultaneously. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Shadow Posted April 13, 2009 Report Share Posted April 13, 2009 Re: Trail of the Golden Spike It's a problem, but not really a huge one. It just requires that the villian be willing to sacrifice some mooks to draw the heroes away from his true objective. In this way the villian accomplishes what he needs to accomplish, while you keep the heroes busy by giving them someone to fight/save. It's also a good idea to have the mooks drop a clue of some sort before they bite it. Sometimes a genuine clue, sometimes just a red herring. But it should be something that will keep the players busy investigating. The worst thing to happen in a mystery is for everyone to just sit still. Clues to be followed up, damsels to be rescued, and mooks to fight keep things moving along. The real trick is to tailor the clues so that there's something for everyone to deal with. By the way when I ran this one, about 10 years ago, I had Truck Fight from the Raiders soundtrack playing in the background during the aerial battles. I keyed the nazi parts when I was describing what the Condor's planes were doing, and Indy's parts for the PCs. It really brought things to life. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manic Typist Posted April 13, 2009 Report Share Posted April 13, 2009 Re: Trail of the Golden Spike including (my favorite) a player just beating the stuffings out of the mine owner's daughter when they caught her snooping around in a cap and jacket after dark. Alright... at first, I had this image of the character finding her and proceeding to slap her around while she´s crying. Please tell me he just noticed that SOMEONE was sneaking around, and got her with one good sneak attack before he realized who she was. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kharis2000 Posted April 25, 2009 Report Share Posted April 25, 2009 Re: Trail of the Golden Spike That was how it started, yes: he makes the PER roll by enough to tell someone's there, but not by enough to tell that it's a girl. (IIRC, I told him it was "a small guy, shorter than ") He leaps to the conclusion that it's one of the enemy pilots scoping the group out and jumps them... and then proceeds to ignore all the clues I toss out that he's in a fight with someone that's really not up to the task. He stunned her with the first blow (she never recovered from that, and was stunned each time he hit her after that), failed to generate knockout damage but did do real BODY thanks to her unimpressive PD, and then hits her three more times before it dawns on the player that his opponent not only isn't fighting back, but isn't even trying to crawl away any more. I couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry when he pulled the watch cap off and all her hair spilled out, he realized what he'd done, and looked at me to announce, "Ha! I found the Condor's spy!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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