[UA] Coup de Comte

[Peter Hindman]

   I certainly prefer the 'can't die, nope, sorry, thanks for playing'
option, but it can be difficult to pull off that kind of deus ex machina
without the trap door and wires showing and spoiling the effect.  Subtle
is good.  If subtlety isn't an option, oblique is good.  If subtlety and
obliqueness aren't options, creepy and/or surreal are both good.  In that
light, here are a couple of alternate approaches for airbrushing some of
the worst GM cheese out of the picture:

   The PCs have the Comte tied up in an abandoned warehouse in downtown
Detroit.  It's 3 am, nobody's going to bother them. *Nothing* can stop
them from executing the Comte.  Nothing, that is, except GM smoke and
mirrors...

   Scenario 1:  The 'guy comes through a door with a gun' scenario.  
Nearby, a truck driver ferrying a load of used tires has been awake for 60
hours, and has just fallen asleep at the wheel. "CRASH!" I suddenly yell
at the players--startling them if I've built the mood well enough--"the
far wall of the warehouse EXPLODES!  QUICK, what do you do?"  Unless one
of the players specifically and immediately states that she's keeping her
attention focused on the Comte and ignoring this obvious threat to her
life and safety, well, the Comte gets to play Batman and vanish.
   Why this is better than everyone's guns mysteriously failing to work:
It puts some distance between the moment where you trick the players and
the moment they realize they've been tricked.  
   Instead of:

   'I shoot him.'
   'Your gun jams.'
   'GRRRR...', 

   we have

   'LOOK!  LOOK AT THE SILLY MONKEY!'
   'SILLY MONKEY SILLY MONKEY AIE SILLY MONKEY'
   (time passes...)
   'Hold on...where's the Comte?  AUGH!'

   Both are 100% Real GM Cheese, but the latter is (in my experience)
somehow less annoying to the players.  It's not at all subtle, but it *is*
indirect.


   Scenario 2:  The 'Like-a-Looks' scenario.
   The players kill the Comte.  They've executed a man in cold blood.
Play this out.  Savor it.  Don't forget the violence checks.
   Then the players leave the warehouse.  And they see the Comte, asleep
under some newspapers in an alley.
   They approach him, and near the Comte, further down the alley, is the
Comte.  Actually, two more of them.
   In fact, every homeless man within two miles (and this is downtown
Detroit, so that's a pretty large population) is wearing a black suit and
is wearing makeup of professional f/x quality that makes them look like
the Comte.
   The players either run away and never come back, or return to the
warehouse. If they return to the warehouse, they discover that the man
they shot in cold blood was wearing makeup too, or they discover that the
body's been dragged away leaving long smears of blood on the concrete, or
they discover...no trace at all.  This depends on how much OtE you like in
your UA, of course.

   Why this is better than everyone's guns mysteriously failing to work:
Like the truck scenario, it puts some distance between the trick and the
moment the players realize they've been conned.  It's also a creepily
unnatural pattern of mundane facts, which is a quality that I try to aim
for in my UA games.


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