December 7 2016

Agenda: Carmilla Sanction 1948 #1: The Mountain

Banter whose context I forget:

Vito: Joyce, you were _never_ optimistic.

Joyce: I was less pessimistic.

Isabella: People ask why I've never been to America.

Joyce: Why do mountains keep trying to kill me?

Vito's player specified that Vito would have told Martin All About the 1940s adventure because he figures Martin's his go to guy for all supernatural, mythos, and occult stuff, including vampires.

Martin's Player: oh dear Lord. Well, now Martin knows vampires exist. That'll be interesting.

Joyce said, "You told the person who --" only, I don't recall exactly how she put it. The point is that Martin has very strong reasons to want immortality for himself and his lover, and he's now been told that vampires exist.

We started in medias res as the group was climbing mountains in Styria, trying to do a sneak attack on Carmilla's schloss. Out of character, folks knew that the PCs would wind up in Vienna, of course, but no one knew that in character.

Folks tried to ask around the local village -- was there a local village? How did folks in the schloss get, you know, food and supplies?

These are reasonable questions, but I cannot tell from the scenario how far the nearest town or village is. I settled on saying that the folks in whichever it was had pretty much no contact with the schloss, which was in a hard to reach location on purpose, after all. Sure, someone from the schloss came out every so often to buy food -- I mean, there are non-vampires living there, and I presume they'd need to eat actual food, right? But there's absolutely no information or help to be had from the nearest place about the schloss.

At least, I think that's the case -- given that one way to leak information about Carmilla's path if everything goes south is to have the PCs learn that her car was last seen heading towards Vienna. But, this is not a clue a GM can supply at the beginning of the scenario, as if you do this, the players will avoid the schloss except maybe to blow it down or up. (Yes, you can make it hard to destroy, but there's no real purpose to that.)

At the last minute, I crammed in Trevanian's _The Eiger Sanction_, and I'm glad I did. The story as a whole is okay, but the mountain climbing section is harrowing and hammers home a combination of the dangers and the terminology. I was also surprised to learn that all of the historical stuff the author mentions about the Eiger is pretty much true.

And I'd focused on preparing mountain and schloss, so I knew what I'd spring in terms of the mountain. The idea there is to make the climb feel sufficiently dangerous, and to have the potential for the PCs getting battered and arriving at the schloss after sunset and other very real consequences that are not dire enough to end the game before the actual adventure begins.

On the plus side, I think I kept in enough to make the climb matter, but not so many as to get annoying -- you know, 3, maybe 4 of the suggested situations. But, I didn't do a good job of keeping things from bogging down into meta-analysis.

The first Athletics test had two or three folks miss their roll, and I explained they had a choice: Lose one hour or someone who'd failed the roll would take -1 damage.

Time was a factor, as arriving in the daylight gave them an advantage. Sure, I'm not using burned-by-daylight, but a vampire's powers are weaker during the day, and that is when they tend to sleep. The default, which I don't think they players start off knowing, is that they'll arrived 5 hours before sunset.

So, first, I think, I explained things less than clearly. And then, there was some time spent trying to min max in ways players do -- in ways _I_ totally do when I'm a player -- but which their PCs wouldn't because it's "did X happen or did Y happen", something over which the PCs have no control. And, after a few minutes of this, I did say, explicitly, not to overthink.

Group consensus was that Karin's player should make the call on the grounds that Karin was the local guide, and as the argument was in character voices, that was a reasonable way to get back on course. Karin decided to push for speed.

So, the next question was: Who would take the -1 damage? This was resolved quickly, with Vito's player volunteering. And, that made sense -- Vito lost an arm from about the elbow down, give or take. Granted, in 1948, prosthetics are better than they were in 1938 and 1940, but we've always stretched credibility for what Vito with his hook hand can do, and things like this happening once in a while are good pay offs.

Vito slammed into the side of the mountain, taking maximum damage, aka 5 points. I decided that this meant he'd bled, which meant that one of the schloss's inhabitants would be awake when the group arrived. I decided that this would probably be the vampire Carmilla had created to replace her mother-figure (who died in 1894), and reserved the option to change my mind and make it the sorceress who'd been with Carmilla for centuries. As it turned out, this didn't come up.

Later, Karin managed not to slip on a bad patch of ice despite being more focused on advising people (i. e., the player did well on a Sense Trouble roll).

Some time later, Hedy, who was perhaps more aware of telluric currents because she's a mechanical / electrical genius, felt a sudden electrical charge pass through her body as if she'd stepped on a live wire. She made her Stability roll, however, which meant that no one else in the schloss was awakened.

Finally, the group encountered an icy, slick rock chimney. Taking this route would potentially gain 2 hours' time, but would also be quite risky. This time, Karin elected to go around, even though that cost the group 2 hours.

Still, that meant they arrived at the schloss with about 3 hours of daylight left, and only one person awake. Also, awake does not mean long-range telepathic. I wasn't sure how aware of the intruders the awake NPCs were supposed to be, especially as the scenario does not seem to have them waking up anyone else in the schloss. So, I assumed that "Mama" was awake and might have a feeling that someone unfriendly might be coming -- or might not.

The PCs studied the schloss and planned their approach as the players decided it was time for TFFBs, aka Tactical Fact Finding Benefits.

My notes say that Joyce used "HumInt", but I think I meant Human Terrain, to get a 3 point pool of Infiltration.

Vito, aka Major de Genarra, used Military Scicne to get a 3 point pool for General Skills.

Karin used Architecture to get a 3 point pool of Sense Trouble.

Isabella used Tradecraft to get a 3 point pool of Sense Trouble.

Hedy used Vampirology and, after some discussion, we decided that this would give folks a -1 to the Hit Threshold of vampires in the schloss. I am not sure how problematic this is for NBA, as it turned out to be not hugely relevant.

Now, folks knew OOC that the second part of the adventure would take place in Vienna, but of course, they didn't know IC. So, when discussing the best way of entering the schloss, Hedy was partial to blowing it all up or burning it all down. However, folks noted that if Carmilla weren't inside after all, this would destroy any clues that would tell them where she was.

(This brings up an interesting issue I've noticed with NBA, at least, at convention one-shots. There are very few locations that hold vampires and their minions that it is not best to take out by destroying the location completely. Sure, that will destroy any clues in the location -- but, in Gumshoe, the GM has to give the PCs the core clues anyway. (See http://site.pelgranepress.com/index.php/the-dexcon-sanction/ and http://site.pelgranepress.com/index.php/nights-black-agents-dexcon-tournament-winner/ for an example of this. I was on team The Italians, aka The Team That Blew Up the Hospital aka The Team That Set the Ammo Dump On Fire.)

Logically, there's good reason to just blow up the schloss. Sure, the PCs don't know they missed Carmilla, but hey, the GM has to make sure they learn, right? After all, otherwise, there's no adventure.

Folks eventually decided on sliding down a line to the roof, which was appropriately cinematic. From there, they started searching the schloss. As they were going from the top down, that meant they'd hit the two Renfields on the top floor first.

I assumed a) they'd be sleeping and b) each had his own room. So, the group encountered one first and overpowered him. I had expected them to kill him, but Joyce decided to take him prisoner and ask him where Carmilla was.

This boggled me. I mean, okay, he doesn't have "Renfield" tattooed on his forehead. But, this is someone who is in Carmilla's home, clearly not a prisoner. I don't recall whether they checked to see if he wasn't a vampire, but assuming they did, I still don't understand why one would think a member of Carmilla's household would voluntarily answer that question. I also didn't get why one would interrogate a member of the household staff in the schloss itself, but that's probably a minor point.

The player said she was willing to make a Spend to get the information. Indeed, the scenario has this as one way to get the clue -- a 1 point Spend of Vampirology + a 1 point Spend of Interrogation. I had three problems with this.

The first is that Carmilla being in Vienna smacks of Core Clue. I mean, if that's not a Core Clue, what is? And if it's a Core Clue, why the heck is any Spend required?

The second, more pertinent, is that this is intended for "The Mop Up", i. e., the end, not the beginning, of the break in. This is part of why I have my first objection -- the player was offering a Spend to get the most important piece of information right at the beginning, when it would save the group a lot of trouble, which is very different from requiring it at the end. But, I didn't want there to be no trouble whatsoever, and having the man say that Carmilla was in Vienna pretty much meant that the PCs no longer had a reason to stick around.

My third objection was that it doesn't really sit right to say that you can Spend a couple of points to get a loyal-unto-death-and-beyond minion to spill the most important secret of his mistress vampire. This is what Matt Weber described as "leverage".

Of course, all of this is heavily context dependent. A group that had been very battered on the mountain in a slot where I was prepared to move the action to Vienna that night would be a very different matter. In terms of the context we actually had, what was missing was, well, a fight. So, I allowed the Spend after a delay.

Joyce had uttered dire threats before removing the gag from the man, and made no bones about carrying them out when he yelled for help and thrashed, trying (futilely) to free himself. That is, she hamstrung the man and repeated the question.

Man: You will never find her! The mistress is too clever! You will never find her among her shadows in Vienna!

This, of course, was the Core Clue.

And, at this point, I called for a Sense Trouble roll, which I think Karin made handily. There's good reason to use TFFBs for pools of Sense Trouble!

So, the group had a bit of warning that they'd be having company soon. They killed their prisoner, covering him up, and got into position. It started to resemble a scene from _The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles_.

• Joyce was to the side of the wardrobe.
• Vito was under the bed.
• Isabella was on the ceiling.
• Karin was by the door, where its opening would hide her from anyone entering.
• Hedy was lounging on the bed (next to a fresh corpse) in plain sight.

Three men with shotguns eased into the room.

Hedy: Hello!

As the three men gaped at Hedy Lamarr draped on the bed in front of them, the intruders sprang into motion. Joyce shot at the men. Karin leapt from behind the door, I think wielding a sword. Vito sprang from under the bed, garotte in motion. Isabella leapt down on them. The men fired, wounding both Vito and Karin.

The next round, Hedy pulled out a very ladylike gun and shot one of the men, just like Joyce had taught her, felling him, I think, despite the man's not entirely human stamina and toughness.

Joyce (proudly): I gave her that. It was her first gun!

Now, the original plan, which I made when the prisoner screamed, was to have the three men, who were Renfields, come in to soften folks up, by which point I could bring in "Mama" and perhaps one of the other heavy hitters.

What I had forgotten as a player and never quite realized as a GM is just how tough standard NBA Renfields are. Fortunately, I had also forgotten some of their default abilities (i. e., Regeneration of 2 Health per round, and for that matter, that they had Health 9 instead of Health 8). But, the one I remembered was Unfeeling. "Unfeeling" means:

• Never becomes Hurt by physical attacks
• Automatically makes all Consciousness checks
• Can still fight while Seriously Wounded

Or, to put it another, way, there were three foes who each had to be brought from 8 to -12 in a situation where they were not likely to retreat.

At one point, Hedy tried to invent something on the fly to mess with the Renfields' telluric fields, I think, using her MOS of Mechanics. Obviously, it succeeded, but she did a mere 1 point of damage. I ruled that this removed the target's Unfeeling advantage, at least for long enough for the others to finish him.

My tally of the Renfields as they were slowly whittled away. Okay, not slowly in game time, as we're talking 2-3 rounds, but you get the idea.

3 Renfields at 8 with shotguns:

• 1: 8-) 5 -) 2 -) -3 -) -1 -) X
• 2: 8-) 7 -) 1 -) -5 -) double damage: 2d6 -) X
• 3: 8-) 3 -) -2-) -3 but Hurt -) -9 Seriously Wounded

X = dead

The double damage was someone criting, I think Karen?

As I said, I had planned to have more people coming in after the group once all the shooting started, but I realized:

1. This one combat was taking long enough that wrapping after it was finished was fine.

2. Default Renfields are very, very tough, even when the GM forgets Default Renfields can regenerate and that they have an Aberrance score.

3. As I told the players, "You have the crucial clue -- before, yes, blowing up the whole building was a problem because if she wasn't inside, you wouldn't know where to find her. This is no longer an issue." Hedy wanted to blow things up. Hedy REALLY wanted to blow things up!

So, as the last Renfield fell and folks caught their breath, the room began to darken. As you may recall, the group arrived about three hours before sunset, and... it was still an hour or two before.

Folks decided to beat a hasty retreat and blow up the schloss with explosives. Isabella, who can ride, suggested they go to the stables. There, they found out that Carmilla had been, ah, experimenting with the horses. I noted that the text specified that these were vampire horses, and that Hedy had used a TFFB with Vampirology to impose -1 to any vampires they fought at the schloss.

But, it was late, so we did a fade out montage of the group setting things on fire and blowing things up, and noticing that Carmilla had taken a car, a black Alpha Romeo sports car. Hedy sighed with regret, rather fancying that kind of car, but managed to kludge up a vehicle from various spare parts. The group drove off to the sound of screaming horses and exploding buildings.

CORE CLUE: You shall never find the mistress amongst her shadows in Vienna! She has laid her plans too cleverly!