Ex Bibliotheca

The life and times of Zack Weinberg.

Sunday, 23 June 2002

# 6:40 AM

Another week, another game session. The PCs are trying to rescue a whole bunch of kidnapped children from a farm. The kidnappers, you see, have holed up on this farm, taken the farmers hostage, and are threatening to kill everyone if they don't get given safe conduct out of the country. The farm, incidentally, is guarded by barghests — not because the kidnappers brought them along; they belong to the farmers. So however they get in, they can't let the barghests notice, or they'll strike up a howl and alert the kidnappers (and likely maul the PCs to death too).

The players devoted the entire session to planning. Frankly, I like having players that would rather spend that long making plans than risk getting any of the hostages or kidnappees killed. Or the kidnappers, for that matter. The PCs have already once been forced to trek to the land of the dead to interview an adversary who inconveniently killed himself before he could be questioned; they're not going to get themselves stuck in that situation again.

It does, however, mean that we made no use whatsoever of about half the background detail that I worked up, that being the half that only becomes evident once they get on-site. (Oh yes, it gets even hairier.)