Night of a Thousand Screams
is the sort of adventure that How to Use This Book is all about. The adventure
begins with a good concept meant to teach important techniques for gamemastering
Legend of the Five Rings. Rather than the preceding "Intrigue" series,
it's meant to be an action-packed thrill ride, a sort of Tokugawa-era Run,
Lola, Run that shows off ways to have a combat-heavy adventure without,
as it says, "slaughtering players like sheep."
Now that I look closely at the adventure's introduction, it should probably read "slaughtering player characters like sheep," but we get the picture.
Ideally, the adventure's copious gamemastering advice regarding each scene and character keeps it smoothly choreographed, and once the McGuffin is found and the main bad guy defeated, it takes you to the epic conclusion with a cast of thousands and the potential to wreck the city. As an added bonus, it throws in sequel ideas, shows off the City of Lies set, and is a precursor to the Tomb of Iuchiban.
Ideally.
The big question is, how does it work at the gaming table?
Considering there aren't any playtesters listed in the credits of the adventure, I consider the authors to have planned for a reasonable amount of chaos, whatever the design circumstances may have been. Night of a Thousand Screams can be pulled off, but there's a disparity between the movie in the authors' minds and what it looks like under the swords of surly PCs, so let's get to it.
What We Learned About Pacing
If the name is any indication, Night of a Thousand Screams is an exercise in blitzkrieg GMing. The handy timetable of events says the adventure starts for the characters at six p.m., and by four in the morning, the craziness comes to a climax. A useful set of notes in the City of Lies cover exactly how long it takes to run from one part of town to another. Our heroes are going to have to make decisions based on who and what they can reach when, so that Athletics skill and the Hiruma Scout character will finally have their time to shine.
Enthused, I sat down in a hotel room at DragonCon with the adventure, grabbed some friends, and let fly.
My players, three of whom are regular gamemasters in their own right, were quite willing to go along with the conceits of the adventure. Having only four of them, I was set for a night of fun, since so few players tends to speed up the game. I ran it as fast as possible...the first night.
The second night, we got a little tired.
Somehow, even with cutting out two of the superfluous combat scenes, we still managed to fill up the third night -- a fifteen-hour car ride from Atlanta to Baltimore with nothing else to distract us -- on the singular plot of this adventure. Thus, from this point on, when I use the term "combat marathon," I don't use it lightly.
This was interesting from a game designer's perspective. Every gamemaster I know who uses published adventures agrees that nearly every single time, they take more sessions than anticipated. The authors of the adventure deliberately made a well-described, reasonably logical combat-fest once you figure out the back-story, but unfortunately, they have run into the limits of the human voice and, dangerously, the limits of dramatic pacing.
If you count the five individual bandit chases as a single "fight scene," there are nine in the adventure and another moment where an oni-spawn can be spotted following the player characters, which I'll count as a combat prompt since some dice rolling will probably result. If the player characters go goofy and smack someone they're not supposed to, such as the ronin guard Gate, add another one on top of that total.
Depending on how you count it, that's nine to fifteen combats to get the feel of a high-pressure action movie.
Do you know how long combat actually lasts in real-time?
When we plan tournaments for conventions, the slots are in four-hour rounds, and we have to schedule combat appropriately. Given the time for description, decisions, and dice-rolling, an average combat with six attentive players takes at least half an hour, just for the description, the realization of violence, decision-making, and dice-rolling. It can easily last longer if there are multiple opponents, extra NPCs along with the party, villains with a high TN to Be Hit, or the villains try to run away.
In other words, all of Night of a Thousand Screams.
Patch #1: If you want to get this over with in one evening and are an experienced gamemaster, consider running the adventure diceless. While I'm not a fan of diceless systems, the technique itself cuts down combat time significantly.
If they aren't magistrates (e.g. a ronin game) you will have to rely upon the goodness of their hearts or sense of duty to risk their lives over a dozen times and never decide "Hmm, I think I'll get out of this city, there are demons and evil cults in it."
So play magistrates.
A medieval cop squad has always struck me as a good concept for player characters in L5R, because it is the duty of the samurai to defend their peasants and lord. In return they get fed, armed, and honored. When an enormous oni busts down the walls and starts killing, they are honor-bound to stop it and probably have the moral character and skills to give it a very good try.
However, while City of Lies has an enormous Charter of the Emerald Magistrate that specifically mentions Shadowlands incursions are their duty, it doesn't point out the two main catches with running a law enforcement game.
When I was growing up near Washington, D.C., the police were informed of a house where five armed robbers were thought to be hanging out. This sort of situation, with the PCs as cops or as robbers, happens fairly often in RPGs. Gamemasters, how many cops would you say surround the robbers? A dozen? Players, how many cops would you consider fair before you think the GM is out to kill you? Twenty?
'Cause the real D.C. police department sent sixty.
In Night of a Thousand Screams, it makes perfect sense for the PCs to try a similar tactic by requesting high-ranking bushi or shugenja assistance the instant something bad goes down. If Shosuro Jocho cares about his city at all, it's not even unreasonable to have him take over the oni hunt the moment he hears about it, give the PCs a tiny bit of Glory, and boot them off the case.
The adventure has a sidebar about the authorities on p. 23, but delivering it could be trouble. It recommends that Oruku, the voice-in-the-party NPC, counsel against bringing in "inept police who would only get themselves killed." The problem with this is that the PCs can ignore Oruku, especially if they're Scorpions themselves and don't believe their "corrupt" clan won't stick together in the face of a demon.
The PCs can also yell, "You! Peasant boy! Get me some cops!" If so, try having the cops drag their feet and send back runners with questions instead of showing up themselves. A few more can also say "We'll keep an eye out," and never show up.
I've found players with a more submissive method of play, that is, the pessimistic players whom I unkindly referred to in Bearers of Jade as "sheep," prefer the incompetent NPC scenario. Too much of a villain and they will skip town, but watching other people be more foolish than them keeps them participating in the game. With optimistic, active players (a.k.a. "samurai"), I go with making the villain seem tougher, because I have faith they'll rise to the occasion. Which brings us to...
This principle is universal: the PCs will follow the plot because the plot is the only way to destroy the antagonist. The Oni is a nonesuch; it and the sword are two halves of a ritual, inextricably linked, and they are the only thing that can destroy one another. With literally only one way to waste the Oni, the players will find that way, and other cops coming to help will only get themselves killed. While for some groups, the printed oni's stats may tend in that direction, our game indicated otherwise.
Normal weapons do one-quarter damage to the Oni no Chizaro. That, in my book, is too much. A mass of Bayushi bushi can still riddle it with arrows and see they're making progress. Worse still if a PC yells "use jade" and makes a Sincerity roll.
If the National Guard can kill Godzilla, there's no need for the heroes.
While Night of a Thousand Screams says that "not everyone who opposes you is your enemy" and suggests scenarios of bad guys surrendering or fleeing, the PCs are far from likely to let any of them go. For starters, there's the basic principle of player psychology: if someone hits their character, they will want to hit them back, preferably two or three times as hard.
Secondly, their entire motivation
is to save innocent people. Are they really going to let any of the Minor
Oni go after they've seen one rip apart a Crane maid just to look inside
her? No. Their first response is going to be to kill the unambiguous evil,
and if they can't do it, they'll call for someone who can. Honorable samurai
may also be aware that if the oni kill anyone Glorious, it is not out of
line in Rokugan for guardians to commit seppuku in atonement. While this
may not play out in the game, it's been my experience that quite a few
players are motivated as if failure equals death.
As a rule, the players will try for combat.
And they're gonna get it.
While there is a rationale for why Night of a Thousand Screams chose this as its opening scene, and it runs far better than it sounds, the fight does require a little juggling. Ideally, the Oni no Chizaro shows up and involves the characters by trying to kill some helpless people in front of them. Because the heroes' weapons and spell scrolls are half a room away, they get the impression that the monster is nearly unstoppable and a great threat to the city, but neither it nor they kill one another.
All together now...
"Ideally."
Our group, on the other hand, had a Kuni shugenja with the Innate Ability of Jade Strike, which changed the odds immediately. In the first round of combat, the Hida bushi occupied the demon and the Kuni Raised to hit it for forty-eight Wounds.
This changed the oni's attitude significantly.
The second round, when it whipped out two minor oni, he Raised to hit all three of them for thirty Wounds, killing the small ones outright. Then one of the Dragons threw the Hida bushi her hammer -- a 4-point Inheritance made with jade and Immortal Steel. Oni no Chizaro decided play-time was over, and the Kuni chased it out the door. If he'd had a line of sight on the thing, he would have blasted it unmercifully with his last Jade Strike, TN 10, with a Free Raise.
Not bad for Rank 1, freshly-created PCs.
This changed my attitude towards oni significantly, and it's one of the reasons the creatures in Bearers of Jade have the tricks they do. Some of them have phenomenal Wound levels or armor, play dead, are immune to jade, or heal with every victim they bring to Down, Out or Dead, because as soon as an oni is identified, all rules of bushido and fair combat leave. Give it stats and the PCs will kill it.
But that can be fudged. The players don't know the Chizaro's numbers, and adding on another 50 Wounds just requires a pencil. You can even do this as you mark down the previous damage, to convince the players you are dutifully keeping track.
The real dramatic thorn came in the aftermath. In our playtest group, we had only one character with the Path to Inner Peace, a Scorpion shugenja with Water 2. Seeing a hurt Crane and a hurt serving girl, she immediately assisted them before they bled to death...and was out of healing magic with eight to fourteen combats to go.
Meditation, if you recall, takes two hours of game time.
Patch #2: A few basic statistic requirements make the adventure play much smoother. If all the PCs have Earth 3, they will be spared many collapsing or dead teammates. The Path to Inner Peace is required reading for all shugenja, and a combined Water of 4 or 5 for the necessary healing will keep it down to a maximum of one meditative break.
He's got no stats, which I suppose I should quibble over for completeness' sake, but he doesn't really need them. Oruku's duty is to provide exposition, soak up damage when the heroes are in trouble, and whack a bad guy every now and then.
Soon an eta boy warns them that bandits are robbing the bodies of the Cranes who just died, which is suspicious enough to get them to dash off to the crematorium. They chase down the bandits, which works out reasonably well, though the dialogue may not.
Patch #3: I have found players smile more when the bandit who says "The city will hear the echo of a thousand screams!" delivers the line in a really cheesy B-movie accent, you make lightning and thunder appear in the sky for no apparent reason, and Oruku holds out his hand for raindrops that never fall. Make this a running gag.
This is where my players started counting screams in sarcasm. We finished with only 668, but I don't think the Cult of Lord Moon gives refunds.
Coincidentally, this is when an ise zumi, Togashi Ikyoto, is creeping around. He drops a knock-out tsangusuri in the Crane house. The PCs are supposed to fall asleep for a little time as he escapes and gets the sword to his friend Whisper, and provide the heroes with a rationale for another fight scene, in which they wake up and the oni are searching for the missing sword. Then the PCs see Ikyoto getting away with the Blade of Secrets to draw the connection clearly in their mind, but to any GM who thinks he can escape as the plot suggests, a brief word.
Twang.
It's entirely likely the PCs will have grabbed their bows after the bandit chase scene, and they have no reason to suspect Ikyoto is anything other than a thief to be shot. Even if he explains himself, I'd like to point out that making the guards fall asleep results in the Oni killing one or two of the Crane servants. That's magical assault, theft, and assisting a Shadowlands creature in murder.
Shwack.
Patch #4: To shorten and simplify the adventure: Whisper has gotten his hands on the blade before the players got here. The first thing they see when approaching the little walled enclave are the Cranes outside, barricading the place off and leery of entering, because the oni is loose indoors. The yojimbo did their duty and got most of the household away once they realized the oni can't be hurt, but no one wants to be the first to go in. When the PCs look inside, the oni gets away as usual, and Doji Tsumetsu shows up with his news as everyone picks up the pieces.
Patch #5: The Go game is superfluous. Drop it. The parade information you will have already gotten across by now by describing the revelers everywhere. The golden fruit tsangusuri is a godsend, and a lone, thankful Asahina shugenja with the Path to Inner Peace will probably not be cursed and booed by the players. It's not a bad idea to have Tsumetsu explain the real core info (the oni is hunting Whisper, Whisper found out, Whisper has the sword, hey, he lives around here) to cut down play time.
The second creates some trouble if the PCs charge in and are ready to die, but that's mostly staging. Ten bad guys instead of fifteen is permissible, and this is one place where the heroes can call on the cops and surround the warehouse. Mention it if you like.
If so, I'd say everyone will come out except the three guys by Shosuro Chizaro, the demon-summoner. The authors have thoughtfully put Chizaro in an invulnerable magical shield generated by the Plot Device, which is the only reason on Earth that they won't whack his head off right there.
Soon after, Togashi Ikyoto follows the heroes, trying to be cryptic. The adventure does a better job than most in giving an idea of his dialogue, but here is a large nit.
If the PCs stayed awake to see him at the Doji place, they probably think he's a thief and want him dead. If you point out he no longer has the sword they want, they'll want him dragged down to Pitiful, the city torturer or other time-wasting activity.
If the PCs fell asleep and only saw him escaping with the sword, they may not have a clue Ikyoto is important. If you made it clear the oni was looking for a sword, make sure the connection is drawn between Ikyoto escaping and the oni searching. Otherwise, the players will say "A riddling tattooed guy is following me? Wow. I guess they're like the street mimes of Rokugan or something. Hey, Inky! Smeg off! I don't have any change!"
Patch #6: The function of the minor Oni is to keep the heroes busy so they can vent some frustration and know it's been here. All you need is one.
Whack. Mask. Diary. We're out.
Hey, Officer, Gimme Yer Gun?
On Teardrop Island, a ronin called Gate polishes the swords of samurai who enter the island. This would work very well in a movie. Not an interactive medium.
Gate is modeled on the character of Rick in Casablanca: someone everyone respects; a neutral party who has information for everyone, doesn't stick his neck out, but does help whomever comes his way. It makes sense that all the locals think a former Akodo ronin is the best guy for the job, and he makes no exceptions for the local magistrates to bring weapons onto the island. A fair number of deadly brawls must have happened in the past here since the sake is flowing and the geisha are plying their affections. Thus, Gate doesn't trust anyone to bring a sword on the island, period.
This will not convince players in the least.
Gate's a ronin.
The players are probably Emerald Magistrates. Like Gate, they are not influenced by clan loyalty. Unlike him, they report to the Emerald Champion and the Son of Heaven, especially when they're chasing a demon.
Out of my way, heimin.
What's Gate going to say? "Sorry, officers, I think you're lying about a Shadowlands incursion that you reported to the Thunder Guard five hours ago as part of your plot to bring swords onto this island to commit homicide over the affections of a geisha?"
Shwack.
At about this time, the characters are followed by a minor oni that will attempt to flee. Though the adventure does not say so directly, this is (thump) good evidence to wave in front of Gate a la Will Smith's "authorization" into Area 51 in Independence Day.
Patch #7: Let them bring their swords onto the island. If you've made the oni as nigh- invulnerable as the adventure concept says, their weapons are just crutches anyway. If this is for campaign play, be sure to have patrons of Teardrop Island back away from them fearfully so they know they can't bring the blades every time.
While this played out fine, and my wounded heroes took down the beast in a climactic fight in which one of them only lived because his ise zumi tattoo preserved him, the fact that the oni blocks the door once again bypasses the authors' original idea that PCs can avoid many of the combat scenes.
Then we come to the use of the Blade of Secrets and its corresponding abilities, which annoy me. If the PC makes Raises when hitting the oni, he begins to pay a price in Void points.
The blade is probably only going to be used on this oni, and the chances that a PC will voluntarily Raise the TN beyond the 30 already needed to hit it is slim. But if it does occur, it will probably do so when the PC needs repeated high-damage hits in order to kill the creature...i.e. when the sword is truly his only hope and most of his friends are Down or Dead. If he realizes how cool the sword can be and lays into the monster, he falls unconscious.
Isn't this kind of antithetical to the adventure?
Then the text suggests that he has nightmares of Things Samurai Were Not Meant to Know, and the GM should "feel free to impart any other vile effects upon him...he's earned them."
Why? For defending the city? For following the script? For aiming at an invulnerable demon's soft parts rather than the bumpy ones?
Patch #8: If the cursed sword is meant to teach a lesson, have it punish him if he uses it against anything other than the oni. Like the golem of legend, it is meant to be used in time of great need and then put away. If he cuts down a peasant with it, add in the Raises based on how high his attack roll exceeded the TN to Be Hit. The slightest cut suddenly has extra damage dice to roll and keep, but sucks away his Void, Earth, and sanity as every death widens the conduit to vile images.
Zombies, see, were described in the basic book. Some of them had Shadowlands Lore. "Well," they said, quite logically, "the bad guys need bodies. I say we stake out the graveyard."
Meishozo made some more noises about finding responsible parties.
"They need bodies," my players insisted. "They're gonna hit the graveyard."
Patch #9: Since I didn't want to chuck the climax of the adventure out the window, I delayed them and then had them arrive too late. Here's how.
Meishozo asked to be filled in on the plot. As they recounted their story, he reminded them there was a whole shipment of party masks stolen. The Moon Cult obviously smuggled in the evil porcelain kind. It was time to find that Shinjo character, since he might know something.
They did (p. 39), and he led them to a prisoner, who can be interrogated to reveal that yes, there is a Crab merchant connection.
The players dashed off to Yasuki Nobuko, who's the only real one out of the four who is at all necessary for the players to see, just so she can hint that she's meeting with an important Phoenix, who is really the cult leader. Without this touch of foreshadowing, the players won't know or care who he is.
Then they ran off to the graveyard.
There were two eta graveyards, I assured them. I did not tell them, however, that whichever one they ran to was the wrong one.
The Inevitable Ending Blowout
There are some scenes here about
Kuni Ryo and maho-tsukai caught in the act at the graveyard, but my players
were sick of the combat marathon, and had guessed what the climactic scene
was going to be, so it was time to cut to it. They got to the graveyard.
The corpses were gone.
They had a brief breather, deduced where the parade was going to end, and brought the Thunder Guard to the Temple Quarter to lay an ambush for whomever would reveal himself and his evil deeds. They briefed the Scorpions on how to fight zombies, got ready with arrows and zipwires and Evil Wards, and the big bang commenced.
Hundreds of people dressed like zombies surrounded each of the real undead, but the Evil Ward knew the truth. The magistrates didn't know or care who Isawa Orinomo was, but when he brought out the Earthquake, the Hida charged through the zombies to take him on. As the parade with an enormous Togashi float came inside to circle around the holy globe of Amaterasu, the Dragons hacked up every zombie who went for it. Seriously outnumbered and barely able to walk between wounds and the quake, the heroic Dragon bushi, still half-dead from the oni, knew that the Dragon Globe was going to fall.
So he let it.
He pushed the burning Togashi float over to catch the sphere in a ten-foot-high cushion of papier-mâché. He "died" again in the flames, but had the Great Destiny advantage as well as the Crane tattoo, and thus survived a second wound that would have killed lesser men.
To round off the night, the Hida samurai-ko went out, got Doji Oruku drunk, tossed him in a carp pond, and had her way with him until they killed the fish.
The other conclusion is that when a fifteen-hour drive to the gaming con is in front of you, screw yelling "punchbuggy."
In a car, you have short rest breaks, food, a tape player for sound effects, and three players in the back who give you their undivided attention. Isn't this what gamemasters love?
The GM gets the shotgun seat where she can roll all the dice. The character sheets are managed by the three in the back. The driver pays attention to the road except for a comment or two. The time will fly away...and best of all, you'll know where it went.
Count some screams for me.