The Sweet Spots and the Trouble Spots: Running a game of LW

[Zipp]

Hey all! As you might know, I've been running LW again as a single player live adventure, mostly using my rules from the female lone wolf campaign. Anyway, as I've run this campaign twice now, I've noticed some re-occurring spots that players always fight against, and a (good) GM has to be prepared for them to go their own way. There's also, of course, plenty of spots where what the player asks to do is written almost directly like that in the book.

Texan Kai, if you see any of these during your MSN game, please chime in! Or anyone else who read the books and felt maybe hamlined into doing something they didn't want to, or spots where they were given EXACTLY the choice they wanted.


Book 1:
Book One doesn't have too many spots, I think mostly because it's (a) pretty open ended and (b) there's a really strong reason for everything you do (REACH THE CAPITAL AS SOON AS POSSIBLE) that a good roleplayer is not going to pass up.

Book 2:
Book two on the other hand, has quite a few places! Maybe because it's one of the more linear stories. Both my players struggled with the assassination attempts, especially when it came time for the driver to die, and in the inn scene shortly after (the big confrontation). You can all read what female lone wolf chose to do there (spoilers: she escaped). But Kavan (my new player) made a really interesting choice. He chose to team up with the brothers of the white mountain! They all escaped from the inn together, with the brothers pledged to be his protectors. Ganon was killed in the subsequent Helghast fight, and Dorier had to be left with the guard at the watchtower in order to heal. At this point, Lone Wolf continues on alone!

But anyway, no one seems to like to be forced to be inactive while the assassin continues their murderous attempts. So GMS should be ready for players to be proactive in those scenes, and give them options for moving past them in various ways!

[askhati]

Welcome back! Glad to see you are still testing the system to breaking point

[egleris]

Honestly, I wouldn't expect anything less from Zipp - when one is as skilled at directing a game as Zipp is, finding ways on how to do it better is pretty natural, I think.

Also Zipp, I think you know how bad I am at following the script, so you can take it with a grain of salt, but I have a couple more things that I'd like to have had the chance to do in Fire on the Water:

1 - In Ragadorn, I always thought that it was weird you couldn't attempt to find a passage via ship. Yeah, I realize that would have cut into the risks of the travel, but from a sensible standpoint: it's a port, sea travel is faster than land travel, and Lone Wolf is on a run. Why must the carriage be the only way to Port Bax?

2 - The "Game Over" situation with the lack of the Seal of Hammerland. I think I remember somebody (maybe even yourself?) saying at some point that really, one should not be able to continue without the Seal, but I do feel that, when you lose it, then retrieving it is really left to luck in the book. As such, I think it's something everybody endeavouring to GM the boos should plan for - either forcing the player to retrieve the Seal, never having them lose it in the first place, or giving them a way to prove their own identity without it. Sounds like a troublesome spot to me.

I can't think of anything else right now, but if I can figure something more, I'll be sure to point it out - assuming you still think it might be useful, Zipp - I do realize this thread is a couple weeks old by now.