Racing Through a Darkened Forest

#1

Ahoy, Shield Wall! The next section of my home game has a driving mini game in it, so I thought I’d share it with you all. It’s rough, and this is my first time using it, so I’m going to consider this play testing, haha.

Players are driving to a city across a dangerous countryside in an armored wagon that’s not unlike a small train car. Along the way, the road has given itself to a darkened forest as they trundle along. The blackness between passing trees is threatening in its subtle, quiet menace. The inside of the cabin rocks back and forth as the whirring of the engine keeps the quiet away. Charms hang from small leather cords on a hook, the hopes of superstitious Hunters made into silver and tangible. They jingle softly with every bump in the road.

The patience of the black forest ends, and the echoes of shrill, ragged shrieks rip through the silence outside. A loud bang against the metal roof causes the Hunters inside to jump! Claws drag down the sides of the armored wagon from the outside as it picks up speed. The creatures outside scream and scramble as they swarm the party, their black and rotten tendrils trying to pry open the gun-shutters on the sides of the vehicle.

Rounds are chambered, steel is drawn. If the wagon breaks down, they’ll surely die to the swarm outside.

Mini-game time!
While a driving game is going on there will be fierce combat happening in/on the wagon.

  • The creatures outside are working to destroy the wagon. The wagon is built using the “Chunks” method. Any damage the wagon takes will go towards disabling it.

  • The driving portion is to determine how quickly and defensively the driver was able to navigate the challenges of the road while under assault. If the driving portion isn’t “successful,” the vehicle will take additional damage. Totaled with the damage from the combat, it might be enough to disable the vehicle and leave the Hunters to the swarm.

The wagon has a few stats that govern how well it manages under different driving elements. At each point on the map the driver will need to roll the vehicle’s Effort and keep a running total against a “completion” of 2 Hearts (Effort as a Timer). If the driver can fill up the Hearts with Effort before the end of the road (a fairly easy task) it will be a “success.” If it’s a failure the vehicle will take an additional 1Heart of damage. Depending on how the combat part of the encounter goes, that could make or break it for them.

It’s quick and clean with opportunity for players to upgrade their vehicle with milestones and such. Feedback/inspiration would be appreciated since this is so basic, but I’m hoping basic means easy to keep track of, haha. :smiley:

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Scenario Complete! Copyright Issues?
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#2

Its quite nice. Basic is best, you can complicate things later if the need arises, so don’t worry about it.

#3

Those trinkets should be real — like play it off as a superstition but make them a treat against the monsters if the players can figure it out.

(+10) health if worn — like an invisible shield or something against those specific monsters.

Or maybe they attract the monsters on purpose and are more like bait — throw them off and the monsters go after them instead of the wagon for 1d4 rounds. Find out later that they weren’t supposed to work like that but that’s what happens when you hire a hedge wizard!

Explosions are always cool.

Giant repeating crossbow that takes a round to reload but kills 1d6 on a DEX roll (or time ultimate if you decide to use the swarm from core) - hard roll if the driver fails their check.

Make the driver always go first to determine the TN - start it at 10. For every fail it goes up by 1? The driver can intentionally take cart damage to lower the TN if it gets too high.

Players can perform repairs against the wagon.

Use the swarm from core 2e — not sure what you were thinking on monster stats. Those are no joke!

And the map is rad!!!

#4

@BigGrump you beat me to characters repairing the wagon - there’s an awesome tension to have to choose between fighting the beasts vs. pounding the axle back into place…

Also, reversing the wagon control at some point could a nice switchup, i.e. they aren’t trying to keep it going, but having to slow it down. A downhill stretch to a cliff dropoff means they need to switch to the brakes or else…

Other than that, it’s a nice open scenario. Keep it loose - your players will derail your plans anyway, so painting with broad strokes is fine…

#5

Oh man — make one of the chunks the supplies for repairs!

They use that chunk to patch up the damage and once it is gone, they have to take points from other chunks — narratively if they are out of supplies it would be “I rip up a floor board and nail it to the side rail!” (Take hp from one chunk and switch it to another).

When performing a repair with supplies, reduce the chunk by the amount of effort done to fix something else. Supplies can also take damage like normal - you hit a bump and the supplies go flying!

Want to fix the damaged wheels? Ok - who is going to lower them down the side of the wagon to do it?

Chunk suggestions:

Wheels
Horses
Extra armor
Supplies
Side rails
Flooring

Gives you a 6 Heart wagon. I personally have only GM’d chunks in space combat but it was super fun. Most of the ideas happened live from the players so you are not wrong in keeping it vague.

I would suggest assigning the damage rather than letting the players pick what got hurt. I have seen people let players pick where the damage from an attack gets assigned which totally works too but for this concept, I think it would be best to control where the hits are done to make the players respond to difficult fixes. Maybe when damage is done by the driver’s failed roll, they get to distribute the damage to the wagon?

A wagon run sounds way fun!

#6

You all have some awesome ideas. I’m going to draw up this wagon in chunks and see what we get!

#7

I love this idea. I may have to steal it for my table. And repairing as you go is genius.

One question: is it 2 HEARTS of completion per section on the map? Or 2 HEARTS for the whole map?

One suggestion: personally, I would not damage the wagon on a failed drive roll. The absence of progress on a failed roll means longer exposure to the monsters, which will damage the wagon. I do, however, love @BigGrump’s idea of adjusting the TARGET based on the drive roll. You could even up the ante by having the swarm increase in strength every round. I did this recently with a swarm of xenos: each round the swarm gained one HEART and got a bonus to WEAPON of+1 for each current HEART.

#8

You could also give the driver the option to make a HARD roll. If successful, the driver gets an additional non-driving action that round. That gives the driver some tough strategic choices to make as things get hairy.

#9

2 Hearts is for the whole trip through this stretch of the forest. Success is nearly guaranteed on the driving portion because I’m treating it like a tutorial for further development of their new battle wagon. They aren’t making driving checks at each point, they’re simply rolling Effort to show the progress of the race, so it isn’t a case of the poor getting poor-er, haha. After the “race” is completed, they’ll compare their total Effort against 2 Hearts. This will be their second outing in the wagon, and the first in which they actually control it, so I don’t want to wreck it too bad for them, but the possibility is certainly there.
(Their first outing included being chased by assassins on horseback equipped with “Ghostwalk Engines,” tinkering and alchemy fueled machinery that can turn an operator ethereal for a short time. It was a real hit with the party, so I figure we’ll make the battle wagon a regular cast member of the game.)

Now, adjusting the combat TN based on a separate driving TN sounds pretty awesome: how well the driver handles the vehicle will inform how well the players can perform. I dig that big time.

This wagon is a kind of steampunk thing: armor plating and engines with gun ports and upgradable elements. While I like the idea of repairing and having a Guns of Icarus kind of repair role, I also want to keep the action focused on the fury of fighting for their lives. It will be a short jaunt through a dangerous section, so I want it to be as breathless and immediately threatening as it can be. I’m definitely going to be thinking about that for some vehicular combat/race later though when the timetable might be a little extended. I really like the idea of a “repair supply chunk” as a resource, and will likely use that in an upcoming werewolf encounter… :smiley:

#10

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Battle wagon token! :smiley:

#11

This is an absolutely fantastic encounter you have going! The best part is I have a similar one planned for my group, so you have significantly cut my prep time. Thank you sir! My scenario is more of a chase though, using a stage coach to chase a group of undead bandits who kidnapped some townsfolk who will be “conscripted” into the lord of the gallows’ army (executed and reanimated) if the players do not stop the enemy wagon on the way to the skeleton’s hideout… an old decrepit, abandoned prison

#12

Heck yeah! That sounds awesome!!

#13

I’m thinking of running a whole session like this using Dread. With Dread I wouldn’t have as many crunchy options, but I could emphasize the narrative tension of it all. I think I might make a dozen event cards, like “They’re on the roof!” or, “Save the horses!” Shuffle them and draw one per round. If not dealt with that round, BADNESS happens.

#14

I’m not familiar with Dread, but it sounds awesome, and I’m sure you can find some way to make it crunchy!
The cards telling a dynamic story of situations is awesome though, I might try that out in a future game with a prolonged encounter like this.

#15

Whew! This was a ton of fun to put together. I tried Ingrid’s pen trick (after two drafts in pencil) and found the experience very rewarding. I took some creative license with The Collector, and I’m thoroughly freaked out by it. I can hardly wait to unleash this on my players :smiling_imp:

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#16

YES!
That rocks so hard! Thanks for sharing that, I love all the details.
Bonus points for the Darkest Dungeon pull, I love that game.

#17

I kicked off Dread October last night by running this game for @Peterfromfargo and other friends. It was awesome! Three of six players survived, and even managed to keep their Madman alive despite missing his pineal gland, thanks to a liberal application of ether from the Plague Doctor. We had some tense PvP as PCs fought for control of the stage coach. The Collector hounded them all the while. As the lights of Hamlet washed over the survivors, the Collector faded into the forest with three new darlings, and a long memory.

@Chaologic, thanks so much for the original inspiration! I highly recommend this style of scenario. It can make for a whole night of tense play.

#18

That sounds like a great game! Thanks for letting me know how it went, I’ve been interested to hear about it. :slight_smile:

#19

It was a lot of fun! I like the added twist of the stress points, especially when it caused my character to become irrational. Suddenly I turned on the party and ended up trying to lead us to the monster which culminated in an intense battle with one of the other characters. It was really fun a few turns later when my character snapped out of it and rejoined the party we were able to claim victory

#20

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This is the little player aid I made for the encounter. With only 8 stops I imagine 6 HEARTS will do the trick for now and encourage them to upgrade their wagon. :slight_smile: