The Haunting ending a let down

[irondawn]

Has this ever happened to anyone?

I was finishing up with running the Haunting and the PC's are trying to break through to where Corbitt is hiding. He toys with them for quite a while with his Dominate spell by getting them to shoot each other but the game is getting monotonous and Corbitt is running low on magic points so what the hell, he decides to throw the Dimensional shambler at them. He summons it just fine but rolls a 99 to bind it. The PC's just hear horrible screaming and "Stay back, stay back", and then silence. It almost would have been better to massacre them than to have such an unsatisfying ending!! They made it to Corbitt's chamber but found nothing but some summoning circles and symbols o the ground. It just seemed so anti-climactic but if a villain is going to throw something like that at the players there ought to be risks. Next time, for the sake of the cinematic I suppose I should have had them break through just in time to see Corbitt finish the casting so they could lose SAN from him and the shambler. I've been doing this for a long time but I feel like a made such a rookie mistake it was embarrassing, but I got so into Corbitt's mind set and his desperation to survive that, in the heat of the moment, I overlooked the fun aspect. I mean, the guy has nothing to do but lie around all day and think what he will do if attacked!

So what do you all do? Do you fudge your keeper rolls in the player's favor, or in favor of the most interesting story outcome or do you you fudge them at all?

[JonHook]

Have the old house start to shudder, and then begin to collapse. Calculate the investigator's movement rate versus distance to the nearest exit, and have them do Dodge or DEX or Luck checks to avoid being smashed and trapped by the debris as the house falls down around their ears.

Could be fun, and even veteran players wouldn't see it coming.

[Utech]

As far as I'm concerned, this is the RPG Prime Directive: Everyone has a good time.

All game mechanics, plot points, laws of physics, the caprice of random chance, and the commitment to roleplaying are rigorously held to . . . unless they interfere with the prime directive.

If a 99 destroys the prime directive, do something about it. JonHook had a great suggestion. You could also have two more dimensional shamblers pop out of the space between spaces. Or have the dimensional shambler sweep the entire house into another dimension - perhaps the Dreamlands. Or you re-roll. Or something else. The point is that if you don't keep your eye on the prime directive, your players won't come back and you won't feel like running a game anyway.

[Mr. Bill]

Everything above. And a suggestion: the Shambler doesn't necessarily have to just grab Corbitt and pull him screaming into its own plane. It would actually be kind of awesome to have the PCs break through the wall to find the Shambler standing over the torn-apart but bloodless corpse of the withered old man. They fight the shambler and if they happen to kill it (or if mid-fight it feels threatened or bored and just grabs a PC and leaves, as they're wont to do), the surroundings should be enough to establish the room as Corbitt's resting place, and the diary reveals the rest (including that he'd toyed with summoning things from other dimensions, since the Dimensional Shambler spell is in the book). As a bonus, it would be a pretty cool introduction to Mythos magic in that it will make the players very leery of toying with reality.

[Mulciber]

Pretty much what everyone has said above.
Giving the players a good time and enjoying running the game should be the main goal, surely? I would suggest that dice rolls should never get in the way of that by providing an unsatisfactory climax to a scenario.

[The_Tatterdemalion_King]

I'm surprised you rolled to bind.

[Uuklay]

This brings up the concept of whether or not fudging rolls is fair to the players. I'm going to share something with you: I haven't been honest about a roll years. I've already decided the outcome of a roll before the dice even hit the table. If my players are mocking a crime lord and he pulls a gun on them, he's going to hit them no matter what. I roll for posterity's sake, but it's rare that I actually use the result.

There are those who would say that I am treating my players unfair and that the odds are stacked against them, but I do it in their favor as well. Unless a lesson needs to be taught or the story demands it, I always ignore an impale on the NPC's part. In my opinion, it's neither good story telling nor good fun if a random cultist in the warehouse kills one of the PCs. Now, if that PC chooses to hang back and take on 10 cultists to make time for the others to escape, then I will let the dice talking.

This method has worked really well for my players and me, and we have a great time every game. It might not be as pure as some people would like, but I'll be damned if we don't have fun.



(Also please don't tell my players that I do this)

[Sir Wulf]

It's very destructive to suspense for the players to conclude that you're fudging die rolls to manipulate how the scenario plays out. They may decide that whatever they do, you're not going to kill them. Conversely, they may fear that you're going to maul them whatever happens. That's why I often roll my dice in front of the players. They know that in the "heat of battle", I'm not going to pull any punches. I don't want to massacre them, but I avoid changing their fate.

Having said that, I will sometimes fudge details to make the plot interesting. If the PCs blow the rolls needed to understand what's going on, I may give another clue in a different area or provide a dying cultist who can gasp out a few hints as he threatens revenge.

Under the circumstances given, I've skipped the binding roll. The binding happens off-stage, in a situation where the players would have a difficult time telling what really happened. Also, it made the scenario's finale confusing and anti-climactic. It's best to avoid such an ending.

On the other hand, if I wanted to make Corbitt's botched binding part of the plot, I'd bring the incident "on stage". Perhaps those whom he has Dominated that day share a mystical link with him, sensing as the undead wizard begins his summons (Kiss a couple of SAN points goodbye...). They somehow feel as his undying mind reaches through the dimensions. He draws forth bits of alien matter which quickly extrude limbs and tendrils, swelling into shambling bipedal shapes. Corbitt's whispered incantations hiss through the house, growing louder and more strident as the summoned beasts refuse to bend to his will. The investigators sense this titantic struggle of wills going on beneath their very feet. As Corbitt loses control, dimensional shamblers manifest in several locations in the house, their limbs inscribing strange glowing patterns across walls, windows, and doorways. (How many shamblers? That depends how many the party could hope to survive against.) The shamblers attack the investigators only if they are themselves attacked or disturbed in their work, but items that touch the patterns are drawn out of our reality, vanishing into some strange alien dimension. Characters that touch them must succeed on a strength check or be lost forever. Each of the patterns slowly spreads, drawing in walls and furniture as it grows to join other glowing sigils. The investigators must battle their way out of the house before this spreading effect engulfs the exits and the place collapses into another dimension.

[ScS]

He summons it just fine but rolls a 99 to bind it. The PC's just hear horrible screaming and "Stay back, stay back", and then silence. It almost would have been better to massacre them than to have such an unsatisfying ending!!

I say unto you again: Do not call up that which you cannot call down.

There's no reason to believe that such is the end. Oh no, in the world of Lovecraft, such may only be the beginning of the madness. Kurson in Case of Charles Dexter Ward may have made a similar error, and called down a power that he could neither command, nor survive. Yet, he lived again.

[irondawn]

Thanks for all your suggestions!

I suppose there is always a chance that Corbitt could make it back home again by summoning another shambler to return him to Earth. Upon reflection, the Dimensional Shambler's attack of choice is not much of a threat to someone with the summon/bind Dimensional Shambler spell. How could I make the return of Corbitt interesting and not just more of the same?

[Gaffer]

When I ran the scenario not so long ago, I required that Corbitt's dagger be thrust into his heart (impale roll) to kill him utterly. Otherwise, when his body is killed/destroyed, his wandering spirit possesses another body (after a POWvPOW contest.

In my case, he inhabited an unconscious (friendly fire) investigator and later walked him out of the hospital for parts unknown.

[Halloweenman33]

Since Summon/Bind spells are listed as a single spell, I always assume that the binding automatically succeeds if the summon succeeds.

[nclarke]

It's variable. Sixth Edition states p245 "As the Keeper wishes, the thing arrives bound or the Keeper may ask that the remaining magic points of the caster and those of the thing be matched on the Resistance Table. With a success the thing is bound; with a failure it attacks the caster, then returns from whence it came."

On page 244 under the sidebar "Separate Binding" it states "If a monster arrives unbound or is come on unexpectedly, it may be bound on the spot." This takes a game round of chanting and a check on the Resistance Table.

The implication is that unless the Keeper wishes to screw with player summonings or a NPC/BBEG is interrupted during a summoning and the plot requires it to be unbound the creature arrives bound when summoned.

[Shimmin Beg]

Thanks for all your suggestions!

I suppose there is always a chance that Corbitt could make it back home again by summoning another shambler to return him to Earth. Upon reflection, the Dimensional Shambler's attack of choice is not much of a threat to someone with the summon/bind Dimensional Shambler spell. How could I make the return of Corbitt interesting and not just more of the same?

Well, the first thing that strikes me is that Corbitt's lair is now known, and he is (narratively, forget the mechanics) now 'awake'. No more lurking in a house feeding on fear and blood. He might well still want to keep to the shadows and prey on the unsuspecting, but he can pick a new haunt and perhaps be a bit more mobile - or even active - about it. What was Corbitt's goal, anyway, beyond undeath? The Church still has unattained goals, and there's the matter of the missing Reverend who Corbitt might well be able to trace...

[PhoneCallOfCthulhu]

[...] I haven't been honest about a roll years. I've already decided the outcome of a roll before the dice even hit the table. I roll for posterity's sake, but it's rare that I actually use the result.

There are those who would say that I am treating my players unfair [...]

Personally, as a Keeper, Game Master, Dungeon Master, etc... I like to be surprised by the game. I don't consider my role as being just a story-presenter but also as an active participant to the story that has to react to what the players and the vagaries of the dice bring to the table.

In past years, I used to fudge more to achieve the story that I wanted but now this has become anathema to me. I've never had as much fun as a GM as when the dice surprised me and I had to improvise something to make it fit and "roll" with it. Using the dice as they lay on the table is also a big part of RPGs being a game to me. Otherwise I might just as well tell my players that we are doing improvisational storytelling with me as the main storyteller.

Of course to each his own as long as everybody has fun.