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<     Episode 2592: I Think it’s Time to Torch This Place; Now the Girl’s in Overdrive

Episode 2592: I Think it’s Time to Torch This Place; Now the Girl’s in Overdrive

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One interesting type of trick you can have in an adventure is the thing that seems to do nothing, but actually does something the players just don't realise yet.

Consider a dungeon room with a lever in it. Being as curious as cats with a deathwish, most adventurers will try pulling the lever. It does nothing. They might move it back and forth a few times. Still nothing.

Nothing obvious, that is.

The lever actually controls something in a different room. Maybe it lowers a portcullis. Maye it sounds an alarm. Maybe it floods the upper level of the dungeon with water. Maybe it releases the bound spirit of Baxoprul, the demon-lord who constructed this dungeon millennia ago.

While this is somewhat interesting, it gets better when the players can somehow discover what the thing does. You can have them pass into the lever room via an entrance, but when they try to go back out, if the lever is moved, the entrance isn't there any more. Maybe the room has rotated, or descended, or shifted to another plane of existence. They need to work out what to do to move it back. Which might be as simple as moving the lever back to the initial position... or it might be something else altogether.

Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)

Wait, so they really did just hyperjump through the space leech? Just when I think I've worked out the whole modulator thing being real or not.....

Also, wow the GM is being ruthless here. Why so many piloting penalties, I wonder? At the very least, flying into something trying to eat the ship seems less challenging than dodging through a forest of stalagmites. Can't say I'll miss the overwhelming green in the next comic though!

Transcript

GM: Two PIEs are still chasing you.
Finn: We went to lightspeed inside the glacier. So the modulator is still working.
Chewbacca: What are you suggesting?
Finn: Fly into the mouth. The PIEs will follow. Hyperspace jump inside the leech.
R2-D2: Can I put some sort of containment field around my storage tank? Preferably gravimetric?
GM: You mean completely surround it with something that generates gravity?
R2-D2: Yeah.
GM: Like... mass?
R2-D2: Uh...
GM: You can close the lid.
R2-D2: ... Why would I not have the lid closed?
GM: Did you say you closed the lid?
R2-D2: Oookay. I close it.
Poe: Chewie! Punch it!
GM: Piloting at -8!
[SFX]: Whoooosshh!!!
R2-D2: Crisis averted. No universe-destroying space-time leakage.
Chewbacca: Cool. Let’s hope this wasn’t one of those “critical in ways you don’t realise yet” errors.


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Published: Thursday, 06 March, 2025; 01:11:16 PST.
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