My frist run.... Help and Advice please.

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VR Dragon
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My frist run.... Help and Advice please.

Unread post by VR Dragon »

So I am running my first game in a long time for some friends. Trying to run a standard rules game, nothing too out there.

So my first adventure I roll out with is a simple delivery mission with a generous payment upon completion. So the Captain and his crew travel to the destination planet and complete the delivery. They meet a group of armed people at the clearing for the delivery. The leader of the group thanks them for the donation of their ship and goods and tells them they can start to unload things now.

The group is a band of well outfitted pirates who took over the small outpost colony and are holding its settlers hostage and forcing them to mine some valuable minerals in a underground cave complex nearby. 2 other transport ship captains have also been captured and forced to work as well and the pirates plan to keep their ships.

One player is a hostage of the pirates who is rigged with a bomb likely to kill him if he doesn't do as he is told. The other hostages in the cave a similarly rigged to explode.

So a brief combat ensues where the PC hostage gets freed from his bomb setup and all bad guys get killed.

So it should be a simple solution but things go were I never had thought they would take it.

The PC Captain starts by instantly claiming the other ships as his now by salvage rights because they were "derelict" in his opinion. And demands the captain either pay him salvage value to keep their ships or they will scuttle 2 of the other ships and put everything of value onto one of the other NPC ships and their own ship. The NPC captains refuse this agreement and one NPC is so angered that he goes to punch the PC Captain out of rage.

Things goto hell from here. Now PC captain is unprincipled, so is one of his hired crew who has the control device for the explosives still attached to every single hostage and the hostage NPC Captains and their crew. The PCs have made no effort to turn off the bombs and none of the hostages have any weapons on them at all, not even the NPC ship captains and their crews.

PC with the bomb control uses empathic transfer on the attacking NPC and the NPC halts his attack, instead he gestures his crew to board their ship and make ready to leave.

PC Captain blows NPC captain's leg off and another PC cuts the same NPC Captain's hand/arm off.

The crew who are boarding their ship freak and run onto the ship and get some weapons.

PC with bomb controller starts pressing the trigger switch killing people trying to get lucky and blow up the bombs on the defending NPC Crew members. There are a 150 settlers in the mines with no clue what is going on when suddenly people start exploding (each wore a small bit of C-4 like explosive around their neck in a collar). The former hostage PC is down in the caves alone retreaving his own gear that is held down their and sees people around him exploding. He is Anarchist alignment and also a completely new to gaming player.

So trying to avoid a drawn out combat situation again I simply rule that they eventually kill off all the 150 settlers and the 8 or 9 other NPC captains and crews.

I detail what they are able to loot of value.

PC Captain still wants to strip the other ships of valuable components. I tell him that will take about 10 weeks time to do properly.

So they decide to stay and strip the ships. PC Captain does call the local galactic police and tell them they found the scene of a mass murder massacre.

They then stay around to strip the ships.

7 weeks later the Police show up and 3 heavy armed ships land.

The police catch them in the middle of stripping the other ships still.

The police then tell them they will question them. They do so 1 PC at a time. The police use empathy/telepathy to ensure trustfulness of the answers given.

PC captain fails 2 saves vs. psi and is found to be lying. He is set aside under watch of the like 30+ other Cops.

PC 2 (Bomb happy boy) is questioned. He has mind block AD and they ask him to lower it so he can be questioned. Even though the PC was using MA to invoke trust and tells the cops he will answer some questions, he refuses to lower his mind block. So they set him with the PC captain.

PC 3 (Who cut off the NPC captain's hand/arm) states he will not answer any questions at all. So off to sit with the other 2.

PC 4 (The former hostage) declares he ain't talking to no curse word loaded cops. Then tries to invoke intimidation by using his MA on the cops questioning him. A bunch of weapons start training on him in response.

We ended it their for the night.


I informed the 2 unprincipled players their characters acted in ways someone of their alignment would not have done and told them their alignments shifted to miscreant because of their actions.

The player of the Captain says he was playing within the bounds of his alignment and the other guy pushing the bomb trigger said I forced his hand. Captain guy says the hostage captains had no rights and should have consented to his demands.

I'm still new at GMing and I am open to admit I likely made some mistakes and I am not holding any hard feelings about how they went about the adventure. I left it open ended without a set path or course. I had thought they would simply kill the pirates and free the hostages and collect their contract for delivery and even been rewarded for saving the people.

I would really like to hear from others with more experience than I seem to have.

Advice or anything please.
dreicunan
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Re: My frist run.... Help and Advice please.

Unread post by dreicunan »

Yeah, you are completely correct that they did not play within unprincipled alignment. If I had players state that they were going to do that, I'd have given a warning and a chance to change their actions. If they persisted, I would definitely have lowered their alignment.

When the captain and the one triggering the bombs are certain to be executed one the truth comes to light if death sentences ate.an option in your game world, and when they are executed remind the players that it is their own faults. They chose to call the cops.and try to get away with their mass murder; their gamble failed and now they die.

Now, I would definitely have played out the combat situation, because that is also their fault. I would have given those victims every possible chance to fight back and save their lives. Those characters would be hounded to the end of their lives by vengeance seeking family members of the people that they mercilessly killed (except now that they called the cops, logical consequences follow). The player who used the trigger to kill all those defenseless victims did not have his hand forced. He could instead have chosen to do nothing or to have stood up to the other PC and not stood for this attempt to steal those ships from the captains. What they both did may be closer to Diabolic than Miscreant.
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Re: My frist run.... Help and Advice please.

Unread post by Glistam »

I agree wholeheartedly with the forced alignment change. From HU2:

An unprincipled character will ...
3. Not kill an unarmed foe (but will take advantage of one).
4. Never harm an innocent.
14. Have a high regard for life and freedom.

Their actions violated/ignored those three points. Meanwhile for the Miscreant alignment:

A miscreant characters will ...
3. Kill an unarmed foe as readily as he would a potential threat or competition.
4. Use or harm an innocent.
14. Have no respect or concern for the lives or welfare of others.

As for the rest of their actions where they were selfishly trying to loot all the ships and were distrustful of authority/refusing to cooperate, that could fit both within Unprincipled and Miscreant. But it's the indiscriminate killing of innocents that pushes them into Miscreant versus Unprincipled.

I already feel like this might be unsalvageable. They seem to want to be Murder Hobos in a campaign where actions have consequences. Here's two thoughts I have for where you could go forward from here:

1. Escape. It's only a matter of time before the police realize the players should be arrested for the massacre they caused. As self-serving miscreants, how can they get to freedom? Bribery, threats, whatever. Turn the next game into dealing with this. Just give them ways to deal with it. Acting this way is obviously the way they want to play the game, so let them play that way. They'll basically become space pirates if they succeed in escaping, wanted by intergalactic law and living life as they wish - violently and consequence-free.

2. Repentance. If they understand how they violated the Unprincipled alignment and if they really do seem to want to be able to go back to Unprincipled and "try again" then work with them to fast forward through a speedy arrest, trial, conviction, and prison sentence. Then have them either serve a commuted sentence and be released, or a benefactor of some kind can work to release them early so they can work for him/her. Either way, restore alignments with the excuse of "time has passed" and they essentially start over, but this conviction may haunt them occasionally.
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VR Dragon
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Re: My frist run.... Help and Advice please.

Unread post by VR Dragon »

Well the settlement is totally gone. No one survived so no one alive knows anything and on this point they are likely to get away with the evil act.

Same goes with the other ships. But all ships involved have security/surveillence systems and events are likely to have been recorded.

But they waited around so the cops arrived and that cut down their likelihood of getting away with things.

Their unwillingness to not work with the cops who they called decreased their odds of not getting implicated.

I gave them plenty of warnings and chances to back off so I gave in and let it happen.

I'm not sure how I am going to go from here when we pick back up.

Its likely going to be them fighting to escape from the cops.

And once they bring in a investigation team with psionics and magic the PCs are going to get fully blaimed.
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Re: My frist run.... Help and Advice please.

Unread post by Hunterrose »

I think the first thing you and your players need to do is to agree on what kind of game you're playing. As Glistam said, if the players want to be "murder hobos", let them, but create consequences.

This seems like the perfect set up for a fantastic Space Pirate Adventure. So your players are bad guys, that just took down and took over a group of Organized Criminals. Who did those Pirates do business with? Who are they indebted to? Who's looking to profit on the hole created by this gang being wiped out? The other Hostages likely had Contacts, contracts and Families. Now everyone that was aiming for the original Pirates should be gunning for your Murder Hobos. Especially if your players are flying around in stolen ships.

Be firm in your re-assignment of Alignments, but ultimately, Alignments don't mean much. If your characters are going around acting like Space A$$holes then make everyone else react accordingly.
Look into some mobster movies or shows. There's always a bigger (space) Mob looking to create trouble with the protagonists.

EDIT: Your specific immediate issue could be a daring prison break.
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Re: My frist run.... Help and Advice please.

Unread post by Shadowknight »

NO, I would change their alignment to Aberrant not Miscreant. Here's a few things on your consideration.

1. depending on the world but Psionics can't be the only proof of someone innocence or guilt. While it can be used as an investigative tool, it can't be used as the sole means of conviction of a crime.

2. While I'm not a lawyer but from what I know of the law, a decent lawyer could easily argue that they didn't put the bomb on the people True and the bombs might have gone off in a matter of a dead man switch False but hard to prove that's a lie. But it definitely sounds logical and it's something Pirates would use to stop the prisoners from escaping or killing their captors. Which gives them a ready made excuse for their deaths.

3. Anyone who studies forensics can tell the sooner you get to evidence the more reliable it is. 7 weeks later that a lot of decomposing bodies add the fact of the bomb damage and stripping the ships of parts and valuables no way is a conviction happening short of a confession.

4. That doesn't mean the PC get off Scott free, at the very least their names will be blackened with this planetary police force and most multi-juristictional police force also. Depending on how sensational the trial was and whether it's a slow news week they could also suffer a variation of the O.J treatment. Which means the family of the crew members will take them to court to recover damages. Even if they win court cost and lawyer fees will reduce significantly the cash haul they receive from their salvage of the 2 other ships. Lets not forget they're now in the cross-hair of the police who now believe they got away with murder, from now on they won't get the benefit of the doubt any encounter even against villians the police will assume they're in the wrong and try to arrest them unless they can prove they are innocent.

5. Lets not forget their were over 150 people on that mining planet plus pirates who died, at least 1 person if not more had relatives with deep pockets and even less morals. There's nothing to stop them to hiring supervillian for hire to go after the PC to kill them or frame them for some other crime where the rest of their life in jail. Remember the police will already see them as people who got away with murder, it's unlikely the police will look a gift horse in the mouth if they come across evidence that these P.C are guilty of a frame job even though they might actually be so. Look no further than O.J who was convicted of kidnapping, robbery and sentence 9 to 33 yrs in prison. Whom many legal scholars admit he was over-charged and convicted manly because he was O.J this is furthered by all his accomplices were either found not guilty, given substantially less prison time or given probation. Yet O.J never bought the gun nor held the gun to the victim yet the person who did got probation. It just goes to show you reputation has a lot to do with how the law and the justice system treat you.

6. Given how the PC act you can easily role-play at least a dozen adventures of them vs the police, them vs the relatives of the victims, them vs the pirates friends and family, them vs hired super villains.
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Re: My frist run.... Help and Advice please.

Unread post by dreicunan »

Shadowknight wrote:NO, I would change their alignment to Aberrant not Miscreant. Here's a few things on your consideration.

1. depending on the world but Psionics can't be the only proof of someone innocence or guilt. While it can be used as an investigative tool, it can't be used as the sole means of conviction of a crime.

2. While I'm not a lawyer but from what I know of the law, a decent lawyer could easily argue that they didn't put the bomb on the people True and the bombs might have gone off in a matter of a dead man switch False but hard to prove that's a lie. But it definitely sounds logical and it's something Pirates would use to stop the prisoners from escaping or killing their captors. Which gives them a ready made excuse for their deaths.

3. Anyone who studies forensics can tell the sooner you get to evidence the more reliable it is. 7 weeks later that a lot of decomposing bodies add the fact of the bomb damage and stripping the ships of parts and valuables no way is a conviction happening short of a confession.

4. That doesn't mean the PC get off Scott free, at the very least their names will be blackened with this planetary police force and most multi-juristictional police force also. Depending on how sensational the trial was and whether it's a slow news week they could also suffer a variation of the O.J treatment. Which means the family of the crew members will take them to court to recover damages. Even if they win court cost and lawyer fees will reduce significantly the cash haul they receive from their salvage of the 2 other ships. Lets not forget they're now in the cross-hair of the police who now believe they got away with murder, from now on they won't get the benefit of the doubt any encounter even against villians the police will assume they're in the wrong and try to arrest them unless they can prove they are innocent.

5. Lets not forget their were over 150 people on that mining planet plus pirates who died, at least 1 person if not more had relatives with deep pockets and even less morals. There's nothing to stop them to hiring supervillian for hire to go after the PC to kill them or frame them for some other crime where the rest of their life in jail. Remember the police will already see them as people who got away with murder, it's unlikely the police will look a gift horse in the mouth if they come across evidence that these P.C are guilty of a frame job even though they might actually be so. Look no further than O.J who was convicted of kidnapping, robbery and sentence 9 to 33 yrs in prison. Whom many legal scholars admit he was over-charged and convicted manly because he was O.J this is furthered by all his accomplices were either found not guilty, given substantially less prison time or given probation. Yet O.J never bought the gun nor held the gun to the victim yet the person who did got probation. It just goes to show you reputation has a lot to do with how the law and the justice system treat you.

6. Given how the PC act you can easily role-play at least a dozen adventures of them vs the police, them vs the relatives of the victims, them vs the pirates friends and family, them vs hired super villains.

I'm curious as to why you think aberrant fits better than miscreant
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Re: My frist run.... Help and Advice please.

Unread post by Glistam »

VR Dragon wrote:Well the settlement is totally gone. No one survived so no one alive knows anything and on this point they are likely to get away with the evil act.

Same goes with the other ships. But all ships involved have security/surveillence systems and events are likely to have been recorded.

You're the G.M.. Either they were recorded, or they weren't. Don't be wishy-washy on this. Make a decision and then move forward with it.

VR Dragon wrote:But they waited around so the cops arrived and that cut down their likelihood of getting away with things.

Agreed. It was way stupid of them to call the cops before they were getting away. Now they have to deal with the consequences of being implicated in an investigation.

VR Dragon wrote:Their unwillingness to not work with the cops who they called decreased their odds of not getting implicated.

Yet the cops still need evidence. If the PC's just don't talk then there's not going to be much of a case for the cops to build. Even with psionics and magic, on a Galactic Scale how major of a crime scene is this one relative to all the other crimes in all the other planets the police need to patrol? I don't even understand why so many cops arrived when it took them 7 weeks to care enough to show up in the first place.

VR Dragon wrote:I gave them plenty of warnings and chances to back off so I gave in and let it happen.

I'm not sure how I am going to go from here when we pick back up.

Its likely going to be them fighting to escape from the cops.

Sounds like a reasonable direction for them to go from here. Just make sure you aren't playing your cops and omniscient and omnipotent. They are a fallable organization, subject to bribes, laziness, and all manner of corruption. Or go the Keystone Cops routine on them.

VR Dragon wrote:And once they bring in a investigation team with psionics and magic the PCs are going to get fully blaimed.

I'm curious from a game mechanics standpoint as to what psionic abilities and magic spells are going to so clearly reveal the PC's as the culprits in this mess when the PC's aren't there to interrogate?
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dreicunan
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Re: My frist run.... Help and Advice please.

Unread post by dreicunan »

Psychic abilities that could be used to assist in determining guilt off the top of my head.

Object read the detonator if the PCs still have it. That should bring up the scene of the player using it to slaughter over 150 innocent people.

Get a warrant to mind bond with one of the players.
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VR Dragon
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Re: My frist run.... Help and Advice please.

Unread post by VR Dragon »

Well the othet star ships have camra surveillence systems that cover external of the ship. Part of the advanced sensor package.

As to why it took 7 weeks? The planet is rather distant and factor speeds are not star trek warp speed.

It took the PCs 54 days to get there and they had a shorter distance.


Also the PCs put the explosive trigger back on the corpse of the pirate gang leader... who died from having him spin broken and skull crunsh by stomping.

Most of the pirate crew died of extreme damage blunt crushings.

And the police force uses psionics and as a trusted police tools.
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Re: My frist run.... Help and Advice please.

Unread post by Shadowknight »

VR Dragon wrote:Well the othet star ships have camra surveillence systems that cover external of the ship. Part of the advanced sensor package.

As to why it took 7 weeks? The planet is rather distant and factor speeds are not star trek warp speed.

It took the PCs 54 days to get there and they had a shorter distance.


Also the PCs put the explosive trigger back on the corpse of the pirate gang leader... who died from having him spin broken and skull crunsh by stomping.

Most of the pirate crew died of extreme damage blunt crushings.

And the police force uses psionics and as a trusted police tools.
You 're missing your own point.

1. They've been stripping the ships for 7 weeks no way is the police going to find recoverable evidence after so much time. Specially evidence that a good attorney won't easily be able to poke holes through it.
2. It's your world and universe but no way would I ever allow Psionics or magic to be the end all of someone guilt or innocence. Like I said before it can be a Valuable investigative tool but there must be supportive evidence, and unfortunately after 7 weeks of stripping ships and decomposing bodies it will be far from complete. PSionics or Magic can be considered a supernatural version of a lie detector machine, it would subject to challenges. Even suppose pure science as bloodwork, DNA and forensic science and been proven faulty yrs later due to incompetent lab techs, Forensic scientist more interested in securing a conviction than the truth. Add the fact that some cops & DA have been caught in testilying a slang term of Police Perjury( for example Mark Furman in O.J & some Chicago cops a more recent example) no way are they getting convicted.
3. It doesn't mean the Police or the courts will think they're innocent, it just means they won't have the means to convict them. For example: practically all of Chicago knew Al Capone was a murderer and bootlegger for yrs but they could never prove it. The federal Gov't finally got him convicted on income tax evasion not the myriad murders he committed over the yrs in his rise to power. In a like manner whether you like it or not from what I know of law the PC will get off as well, at most you can get them with destruction of evidence of a crime but that's it.
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Re: My frist run.... Help and Advice please.

Unread post by Shadowknight »

dreicunan wrote:Psychic abilities that could be used to assist in determining guilt off the top of my head.

Object read the detonator if the PCs still have it. That should bring up the scene of the player using it to slaughter over 150 innocent people.

Get a warrant to mind bond with one of the players.
All those thing can do is shown what might have happened not what did happened. Which is a subtle but important difference.

a. You need supporting evidence or a confession which I don't see the PC giving.

b. Read the Psionic power OR it gives brief snippets of information of the owner. The PC weren't the owner the Pirate Leader was no way is a PC holding on to the detonator for at most 10 minutes is going to leave the same psychic residue ad the Pirate Leader would have the object in his possession for months if not yrs.

c. Mind Bond is a better power for investigative purpose. Nevertheless I doubt judges are going to give willy nilly court orders to dig into private citizens mind, even in the most repressive countries there's some right to privacy. I can easily see a case where there's a law against self incrimination which would include refusal for a Mind bond. And what happens even after obtaining a court order the person refuse to MB either by force or a Mind Block. While you can say the person is guilty, but it might be the person is afraid of revealing he cheated on his taxes, wife, stole from his job or any of another myriad reason, No way is a refusal of a Mind Bond automatically implies he's guilty of the crime he's accused of. But IMO beyond that it would be subject to challenge among them supporting evidence and the Mind Bond user credibility, competence and true recollection since the knowledge only last 3d4 hours. This is what happens in trial specially when it's 1 expert opinion against another. Ask yourself which is more likely to be believe by a jury? A group of PC who until now had no known trouble with the law or a bunch of pirates who had people under pain of death as virtual slaves killed the 150 people in a firefight. Any halfway competent lawyer will easily have the jury or a judge believing the pirates set off the bombs
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Re: My frist run.... Help and Advice please.

Unread post by dreicunan »

They already know that the captain is lying. Get a mage or two who know Words of Truth and have them each do multiple castings and ask each character about what happened.

We don't live in a world with magic; I'm pretty sure that the law would accommodate that in a world that did have it.
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Re: My frist run.... Help and Advice please.

Unread post by LeeNapier »

Oof. I hate when a campaign goes off the rails like that. Only once have I had to call a complete mulligan on a game, and that was due to player intransigence - they player refused to have their character do literally anything. Hopefully you're not there yet, but keep the option in your back pocket.

Couple things.

Firstly, the police have several options here for evidence collection, even using only current police/forensics procedures. The trigger mechanism itself will show whether it was a dead-man's switch or a standard trigger (and I'd rule that if no one said specifically that they were destroying evidence, then they didn't), and it will have the fingerprint of the murderer on it. Given standard bomb-making procedures, even if the trigger was disassembled, police would still be able to recover parts (and identify such reliably by testing for explosive residue) and determine the type of trigger mechanism. This happens all the time.

Mines extract valuable materials from the ground, and there are often security measures in place, like hidden cameras, to protect against theft. As a GM I'd have determined such before the campaign began - as it is now it'd be a bit of a retcon, but I'd keep it in my back pocket if necessary.

I agree that a world where magic and psionics are recognized would account for such in their laws, and the death of 150 people would certainly leave, in my estimation, a strong enough psychic residue to show up on object reading. Ultimately, it would be VERY difficult to prove innocence if you're guilty, with the array of psionics and magic available in the rules. The PCs best chance is escape. A trial will do them no favors.

One thing I've seen in games before when characters act drastically different from their alignment, is that the psychological trauma causes an insanity. You could rule that, along with the forced alignment change, that all those who were complicit need to roll on the insanity tables. The death of 150 innocents should provoke at LEAST that consequence. Those who were not complicit might want to rethink their association with murder hobos. (Totally stealing that term. LOL)

Going forward, should they escape, another unforeseen consequence of their actions will happen once the police's wanted posters go out, and they become known everywhere as "The Butchers of [X]". Where X is the name of the mine or the planet or whatever. 150 is a LOT of people to kill - word of that is gonna get around, and given the cops have their pictures now, it's gonna make their day-to-day very difficult.

Good luck with all that.
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Re: My frist run.... Help and Advice please.

Unread post by Glistam »

dreicunan wrote:Psychic abilities that could be used to assist in determining guilt off the top of my head.

Object read the detonator if the PCs still have it. That should bring up the scene of the player using it to slaughter over 150 innocent people.

Get a warrant to mind bond with one of the players.

Object Read is not the perfect tool it's presented to be. First off, there's a percentage chance for each aspect of it to even work. Then, those aspects are only minimally useful.

Impressions all tie back to the the object's last "owner." In this case, the PC's used the detonator but they took it from the pirates to use it. Who should be the last owner out of those two? The one who held it last, or the one who held it longer? Regardless, none of the information this aspect of the power provides really helps the case in any way.
  • General alignment of its last owner (good, selfish, evil)
  • General emotional state of mind (anger, happy, sad, hate filled, confused, etc.)
  • The object's general purpose (what it is used for)
  • Whether or not the last owner is living or dead
  • Whether the item has been used with/by magic or supernatural forces.
  • Conclusively indicate whether the item is currently enchanted or contains a supernatural force/entity (as well as its alignment and emotions). Though if the item is is possessed, an object read makes the reader totally vulnerable to possible psychic attack (no bonuses to save) from the force contained inside it.

Images are slightly more useful, but many of the images received also tie back to the object's last "owner." Also, there's little context to these images. They are brief snippets of isolated events surrounding the previous owner and others close to him/her. Yes, "Traumatic and emotion filled events/images" are the easiest to see, but traumatic for who? The "owner?" I don't believe in the instances/events being discussed that killing 150 captives was especially traumatic or emotional to these characters. Information received with the images includes:
  • approximate age, height, weight, build, race, sex, sometimes occupation, hair color and length of the last owner.
  • Special facial or body features, such as a scar or tattoo or beard (very often the exact facial features are out of focus, blurred or obscured) of the last owner.
  • The object's use/purpose
  • Some special event, usually very traumatic, important or happy. Often the event image will be fragmented as if it was a piece of movie film edited by a crazy man. The event will always be one in which the object was involved in some way.
Again, the usefulness of all this depends on how "owner" and "traumatic" is defined here. Remember too that once an object has been read it cannot be read again by the same psychic, regardless of what rolls the psychic passed or failed. Sure, other phychics can try but how many psychics are there, anyway, to devote to this task?

Based on what's been described, and assuming all rolls are successful, here's how I would see a successful Object Read going down when used on the detonator:

Note: The PC Captain is the "last owner" for purposes of this Object Read performed 7 weeks after the incident. This is because he laid claim to all this salvage and strongly believed he had the right to keep it. Especially since he spent 7 weeks exercising that right. At this point, any equipment and ship parts would all reveal the PC Captain is the "owner" unless any of the other PC's specifically claimed that item - then that item would reveal that PC as owner. Only equipment untouched by the PC's and ignored for the last 7 weeks would register their previous owners, but it doesn't sound to me like there's much of that, if at all, here.

Impressions
  • Last owner is evil
  • Last owner is angry and confused
  • It's designed to remotely detonate explosives
  • Last owner is living
  • The item has not been used by magic or supernatural forces
  • The item is not enchanted or posessed

Images
  • Approximate age, height, weight, build, race, sex, hair color and length of the PC captain.
  • Special facial or body features, such as a scar or tattoo or beard, if such features exist. In this case, the PC Captain was so certain he had the right to "own" these items that his exact facial features are visible (they are not out of focus, blurred or obscured).
  • The object is designed to remotely detonate explosives.
  • A series of fragmented images involving the police arresting the PC Captain and confiscating the detonator. This was a very traumatic experience.

Like I said earlier, most of the objects will register in a similar way (though their purposes will be different, obviously, anything about the previous owner will be the same stuff about the PC Captain).

Another G.M. can look at what this power reveals and make a different series of rulings, but this would be how I adjudicate that power in this instance. Any N.P.C. Psychics who wish to use this power should also be wary - if 150 people were killed violently, and magic and psionics are a known quantity, then the Psychic should be worried about entities and possibly even possession. Especially if the objects being viewed are suspected to be related to the murder.
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Shadowknight
Dungeon Crawler
Posts: 213
Joined: Sat Feb 21, 2015 10:56 pm

Re: My frist run.... Help and Advice please.

Unread post by Shadowknight »

dreicunan wrote:They already know that the captain is lying. Get a mage or two who know Words of Truth and have them each do multiple castings and ask each character about what happened.

We don't live in a world with magic; I'm pretty sure that the law would accommodate that in a world that did have it.
You're missing my point. No one doubts that the police will believe they 're lying. The problem is proof & conviction. I'm not a lawyer but my nephew is in the Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office as an assistant DA and contrary to police procedure shows, many people get away with murder. Nationally 1/3 of murders goes unsolved in the U.S, in Chicago only 26% of murders were solved by police in 2015. Detroit & New Orleans solved less than 30%. Lets be clear solved in police jargon means someone gets arrested, it doesn't mean conviction. There's also cases were the murder was “cleared exceptionally,” which means police know who the shooter is but are unable to make a case to bring charges; the state’s attorney wouldn’t bring charges; a victim refused to testify after identifying a shooter; or the offender was dead.
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