Deadlands RPG: Afterword

And so, after a two year run, the Deadlands game came to a sputtering close. The first was in game session 31 when the GM introduced the newspaper man O'Malley and Hellstromme. She made it seem that Pike’s sister had come out west, had met the now manitou-insane Pace and was in his company. The GM should have known that this would make Pike act in a precipitous manner, i.e. attempting to kill Hellstromme immediately.

There is some backstory to the backstory. Many years ago, I was in a "Vampire: The Masquerade" game wherein I had a mage character. That character's backstory had his girlfriend being a werewolf. She was a police officer and vampire hunter in Ukraine so she might be called upon to provide some information about vampires but she was far removed and thus should not have had any direct impact on play.

That is, until the GM had her step off an airplane with a daughter. The GM had set up a situation where she was in trouble and came to my character for help. Firstly, I was bothered because I had created the character mostly as backstory. I had written a few stories with this character because I liked the interplay between my mage and the were and though it fleshed things out. The GM had read these stories and should have known that she was a very independent person and would not have come to the mage for help.

What the GM didn't count on was that I would act so in character. Since the werewolf girlfriend was running from trouble in Ukraine, they would be going back to sort things once and for all. This would force my character out of the game for a while which is no way to run a role playing game. But what pissed me off the most is that, as I was working on the story to explain what was happening in Ukraine, it became clear that my werewolf girlfriend would have to die. It's just the way the story was playing.

In the end, when my character returned to the game, he was easily more angst ridden than any of the other vampire characters. And for good reason. Not only had the character lost someone important to him but I, as the player, had been forced to kill one of my characters because the Gamemaster wanted to plot hammer me.

So, here it is nearly 20 years later and my Deadlands GM was doing the same thing. I had created the character of Hannilore West as part of a writing exercise. I didn't want to write in third person, and writing a first person journal narrative didn't sound in character. Having Pike write to his sister, however, would allow me to create a good narrative while attempting to employ period language. I was inspired by Nikola Tesla's relationship with his older brother Dane. Nikola adored his brother, who was considered the genius of the family, and was devastated when his brother died in an accidental fall. I created Hannilore to hold a similar role.

But here was the GM bringing this character that I had created only as a writing tool into the game, likely to be used as a plot hammer. Want the characters to go somewhere specific? Have a report that Pace and Pike's sister had been seen there. To say I was incensed was a bit of an understatement. As a character, Pike would be terribly upset about his sister being in any sort of danger and would be ruthless in pursuit of her safety. As a player, I was upset that the Gamemaster was using my own creation to manipulate me and my character.

Before I had Pike set off his exploding hat, I told her; "Remember, you asked for THIS."

Afterwards, even as she expressed her surprise at the audacity of what I had done, I made it clear that I had done exactly what my character would have done and was unhappy about having to do so. I reiterated to her why I had created the character of Hannilore West and that, if she was going to use her as a perpetual plot hook to drag us around, I was going to leave the game. It was as simple as that.

She very quickly back-pedaled and, by the next game, re-created the letter that O'Mally produced making it clear that Pike's sister was still safely in Massachusetts. She tried to make it seem like it was her plan all along but the chaos of the previous game and the look on her face made it clear that she had re-evaluated her plot.

But that was only one straw. Over the years, all of our characters have become very powerful. Legendary, by the Savage Worlds game standards. It made it hard to give us a challenge when the bullets start flying. Because of this, the GM would plot hammer frequently. In this past game, Hellstromme was going to escape no matter what I did. The propensity of Hellstromme's automatons to explode was specifically to keep me from collecting anything useful from the wreckage. There were similar challenges in attempting to counter Tobin's mystical powers and exceptional gunfighting skill. As a roleplayer, I’m used to some amount of this. Sure, the villain has to escape, just like Bloefeld’s escape in any Bond film. But you don’t ignore a character’s capabilities.

What broke the camel's back was in the last game session (not chronicled) the party was driving across open ground in steam wagons and the GM initiated a surprise attack by bombs dropped by gyrocopters in spite of there being nowhere for them to hide and Tobin had a danger sense edge that would afford him at least a chance of not being surprised. The gross disconnect between what the GM wanted to happen and the likelihood of such a thing happening under game terms and even real world parallels lead to an argument and, finally, the GM quit.

But that was not all. Some time later, roles changed and Tobin’s character was picked up by the gamemaster and the player running Tobin took on the gamemastering role. We rebooted the game a bit and tried to continue.

I won’t go into details of that debacle but half the party died. There was plenty of acrimony to go around.

Some critiques that might have saved the game. First, of course, is don't drag backstory characters into the game. At least, not those in which the players have invested a huge amount of attention, such has having written letters for two years.

I know that the published module had the boss in the underground train scenario as Darius Hellstromme but, given our past history, the GM should have realized that we would not allow him to just walk away. Really, the GM could have just made the character some other rail baron without changing the plot, thus taking away our incentive to destroy everything and everyone in sight.

Next, don't plot hammer. I've run games and know how difficult it can be to guide the characters down a certain plot path when they are intent on something else. The key is having a non-linear plot. If the game relies upon then going down a certain tunnel to move the plot, simply make it so that whichever tunnel they choose they will end up where you want them. It is the illusion of free will. And, should they refuse to follow the plot line, have another plot line ready or throw in a random encounter to hold them till the end of the gaming session. Let them leave that loose end. Have it come back to bite them later.

When the players know the rules better than you do or if they challenge you based on reality, accept it. If you've forgotten that a character can't be surprised or at least has a chance to avoid surprise, let them make the roll. Don't try to come up with some excuse for denying them their character's abilities. And, if their ability messes with you plot, well, next time come up with a better plot.

Ultimately, it's not the GM's job to kill or even challenge the characters. It is to create a story in which the players can have fun. Sure, overcoming challenges is fun but, if you have to cheat to come up with challenges, then eventually you're going to get caught plot hammering, and that's not fun. We, as a group, had already realized that our characters had become almost too powerful and that it was becoming more and more difficult to come up with equal challenges. Maybe we were past due to be  moving on. There had already been some moves to create minion or sidekick characters that could take over at a lower, more manageable level. It would have been easy to just retire the characters and start brand new characters but if the GM had said, "OK, this next game session, we're going to have the big, climactic finish and I'm planning on killing all your characters," I think we would have accepted that as well.

So, finally, the tale of the mad scientist comes to an end. This is not, of course, the end of Zebulon Pike, however. Pike was always two different characters, the inventor madman in the RPG and the persona I wear when I'm dressed up and at conventions or on steampunk discussion groups. That persona based on a hero of dime novels now deserves some attention. There was talk of running another game so that I could have that Vitruvius Pike develop but I turned that idea down flat. A character in a role-playing game develops according to someone else's plot and I would not want that.

That would be worse than a GM taking over a backstory character.