Thu 09 Dec 2021, 01:46
I have now run it. It fit in well with another mission my players were on: to recover a valuable item from an airfield overrun by marauders. I placed the burnt town about a klick away from the airbase and had the marauders be one and the same -- in other words this town is just one place they have been raiding to maintain their hold.
Key to running it successfully, for me, was disavowing a lot of details and abstracting them with a light touch. I decided that for a lot of the stuff, I'd figure out the answer if/when the players did, or cared to start asking about it. They essentially perceived the town as a distraction from their mission, but were torn about whether they should try to help, or if the town could offer intel that would help them. One character entered the town alone, attempting to suss out the situation. I had him see the many dead and wounded civilians. The sense that many of them were panicked and wanted to leave. A few men with guns standing guard. Signs of more, out within the town, doing hard labor. My take on the situation was that only Captain Ostrowski and a handful of others had any idea where the tunnel cache was -- half of those people were now dead, and the tunnels themselves had been rendered inaccessible due to the fire. The PC met with Kostancja but failed to impress her. She gave up scant details that the Captain had lost his mind and was going to get them all killed, the marauders did this but they couldn't have done it alone, etc. The PC confronted Ostrowski, rather aggressively trying to help, but did so in a way that didn't exactly go over well. Almost got himself beaten or shot, instead simply detained in the church back with Kostancja. He made a better case after meeting the Captain, but couldn't offer a concrete means that would help the civilians. Learned that the marauders would be back to collect on the treasure hidden in the vault in 4 hours -- or otherwise finish the job.
The character managed to climb/fall/escape from the church steeple and return to the group with all the intel. In the end they concluded that they didn't trust the Captain, couldn't handle a fight with 10+ marauders, and had said all they could to try to convince some of the civilians to try to flee. They decided to use the return of the marauders to the town as the cover they needed to make their way to the airfield. They later heard the sounds of gunfire from the town. The story of Roman and Radomila never came up. They never found out what might be in the vault. They didn't save the town or anyone in it. But they mostly played according to their moral codes, they took some licks in the process, and they turned it into an opportunity. Hard choices were made and it was a pretty rewarding session overall!
Author, Central Poland Sourcebook -- now available on DriveThruRPG