I had originally intended to take the party to the Mad House, while there I was going to hurt them. A sadistic Doctor treating them as guests for a day or two, but then suddenly deciding that they should be patients. He would put them through treatments that are torturous that are intended to drive the characters mad.

This would had been a really tough game to DM, as players really hate to be contained and kept prisoner, and it’s very hard to do! There was a lot more involved, and my intent was to target my newer players whom now get the mechanics behind the game, but are not ready for the next step, which is role-playing. My logic is that I think that it would be easier to roleplay madness then the tough guy that all new players want to play.

This is what I prepped for, but this isn’t what happened. Instead, two days before the game I learned that I was getting 2 more new players. Players that didn’t cut their teeth on 3rd edition and have never played a game before. THIS WAS NOT THAT GAME!!!! So instead of heading to the Sanitarium, mindless hack and slash was called for! This actually turned out for the best, as it forced me to up my timeline and explore a new route.

On Game day, the two guys which I was going to target with forced roleplaying called in, which really hurt the game. I had believed that I set my monsters to high for 4 players to deal with, but as it turns out I really didn’t challenge them enough.

Well, the newbies were challenged! My new players are Raiden whom is playing an ex-soldier, and Kim who is playing a Detective. Raiden originally wanted to play a Spell-caster, however those things are WAY to hard for novice players so I restricted him from doing that. Yes our party really could use a Wizard, however not at the expense of a new players experience with the game. I believe that your first character should always be either a Fighter or a Thief. If you are a book worm and really push the issue, then I’ll let you cut your teeth with a Priest. I find Wizards take a lot of experience with the game to really keep alive, and even then there is a healthy dose of luck involved! Maybe that is just me being unfair?

Anyway, I wanted to return to the isle of Dread and say goodbye in style. I designed one hell of a fight! When the party shot off their flare gun to alert their ship that they were ready to go, they alerted the surviving members of the “Six-Fingered Hand” to their location, and also caught the attention of a wandering T-Rex, a 30th level monster which can swallow anything whole with an attack roll of 19 or better.

The first on the scene was the Hand, their party was now only 2. The Voodoo Queen, and the Beetle. After a couple of rounds the T-Rex showed up, my intent was to force both parties to unite, except for The Voodoo Queen whom was attempting to dominate the creature and use it as a weapon. Spells take longer to cast in this world, all cast times are doubled, but I fudged the rules, She would get the creature after 3 rounds. The problem was that the party was still firing on her, completely ignoring the T-Rex until it entered the melee, and then they left it to the Sharp Shooter to take out with called shots. Of course the Detective pulled off a miracle shot on the thing and took out 35hp in one round (we’re playing with guns, all 6’s rolled are counted and then re-rolled) It only took one called shot from the Gunfighter to bring that mammoth down. This made the Voodoo Queen a tad angry, and behind the screen she had died 3 times, however I needed her to tell the story. She is ready to cast a no good spell but right when she was ready to set it off, BANG! The Beetle shoots her in the back of the head and reveals that he is Mr. Black, the mole on the inside that’s been feeding them information.

The Beetle knows where the last piece of the Artifact is, which was enough leverage to force the party to work with him. Their ship rescues them from the island, however all is still not well. In the time that they were away, most of their food supply has been found to be rotten, the ships engine broke down and requires a part, forcing the ship to rely solely on the sails, which are also in short supply. And to top it all off, the ship has been hassled nightly by the ghost of “Queen Anne’s Revenge”.

Blackbeard had two purposes, the first was to acquire the pieces of the artifact and deliver them to the Si-Fan whom have been lurking in the distance waiting for somebody to do the hard work for them. He was also suppose to destroy the parties ship and sink her into the Atlantic Ocean. He didn’t get any of this done, it was exciting! An undead pirate crew trying to take the Embargo, she shot down her masts and crippled her, then the crew of the damned boarded, slaughtering all of the crew without remorse. Blackbeard boarded, and got to have some fun, however Misty, with the help of the Artifact was able to turn him, and the rest of the party shot him down and saved the ship.

They had enough masts on board to quickly fix the problem, and made their way to Florida where they discovered that they were flat broke. I WAS able to take all of their money! And as a reward for good playing, they were unable to pay the crew to take them to Germany, however they were able to sell the ship for a nice big chunk of change.

From Florida they caught a ship going to Germany, where Beetle led them to the Safe House of the Six Fingered Hand which the last piece of the artifact is being kept, the abandoned home of Dr. Frankenstein.

Of course I couldn’t make it THAT easy. Upon their arrival, they discover that all of the men there are dead, and the artifact has been stolen. They conducted an investigation and found evidence that it was the Si-Fan, and found a letter from Fu Manchu directed at them, taunting them to find him in his lair in London.

This marked the end of our little thrown together adventure. They actually moved faster then I thought that they would, but this one was designed to teach them the different mechanics involved. I did start off the new players at 5th level, which I feel kind of bad for. Before game day Shannon had ran them a quick mini-game, but I read that Gygax had very strict rules about inducting new players. They were to be run one-on-one at 1st level, I wish that I could had made this happen, but this game is more difficult then your average D&D game. I think that both of them still had fun, and are looking forward to the last phase of the game before we start our brand new campaign, which I must admit to really be looking forward to. It will be nice to get back to Pulp Fantasy, of course I’ll still keep my elements of horror in as that is my style, but I am anxious to get back to the games roots of Swords and armor. That, and I really enjoy DM low level characters! I know that a lot of DM’s hate it, but perhaps that is fodder for another post.