Last night saw a moment that I dream of as a GM, and I didn’t even plan it out. I’ve followed the monster sets Hank suggested for Dyre’s gang. The mooks are tactless gunfighters on their own, but paired with a Smoke lieutenant giving sensible orders, they turn into a battery of focused fire.
So this same Smoke fellow had harassed the PCs for three deadly encounters before they arrived at Buckskin. He kept escaping on the wind. Somewhere along the lines my players figured this fellow was a BIG BAD. So finally in Buckskin, through some smart use of Treats and sheer luck, the Gambler managed to dramatically take out this Smoke in a single point blank shot right in the center of town, surrounded by twenty gangster mooks. The players took advantage of the situation and tried to intimidate the rest, claiming their leader was dead.
Silence… then one gangster started to chuckle, then another, and before long the whole lot of them were guffawing their lungs out. Finally one gangster said, “Him? You thought he was the boss? That’s rich! Hey Dyre! They thought Sal was the boss!” Heretofore unseen, Dyre made his first appearance, emerging from his armored stagecoach.
The look on my players’ faces was priceless.