Sun 19 Jul 2020, 06:51
I've started running this with some players of mine who have played Hope's Last Day and Chariots of the Gods. They seem to be enjoying this the most so far, and I'm only about half way or so through Act 1, though I've had to make some changes of sorts based on how things played out:
At first, things played out as largely intended. They went to the Spaceport, initially randomly drew Conner to interrogate, didn't work well, and then did better and found Luke. Before it felt natural to spring Wright, they had enough of a lead to go to San Rocco.
Once they got to San Rocco, it was a little awkward because the module states the bay door is locked where the doctor and Carvahlo are, and that the doctor will tell the players to go away. The module seems though to imply that the players are ultimately meant to talk him down and get distracted with talking to him outside the bay so that Carvalho locks himself in the bay room again? as he attempts to take the Chestburster out of him. As it was, Chaplain had legit reasons and skills to "help out" and the other players were more wary of the doctor who I had threaten to shoot them. I was going to initiate combat with the doctor but Chaplain had the first move and went to Carvalho so it seemed that should be the AWOL's cue to try breaking away, though Chaplain successfully grappled him. The other players decided to help hold the AWOL still after that, and so that seemed like it had to go Chestburster mode at that point, which played out fine enough (it actually put up way more of a fight than I expected since it rolled well and the PCs not so much). After all that, they successfully manipulated the doctor and then discovered the other insurgent in the hospital (after saving him) into giving information about Wojcik and the Compound. While they got the hint that something was connected with the oil refinery as well from Carvahlo's dying ramblings, the info they got made it too clear to them that the compound was the place to go.
The compound itself seemed to go mostly as intended, though the insurgents really didn't stand a chance and the PCs were more of a danger to themselves than anything, having opted to use the dropship method. Once inside, Wojick initially started succeeding with the gaze to try and escape but the PC playing as Hammer went into Overkill from a failed Wits roll and immediately brought her into the Bodyburster mode. Due to not-as-great rolls from the Bodyburster and better rolls from Hammer and Zmijewski, it actually went down fairly quickly with not too much hassle. I also may have dropped a hint about Dante's chestburster too soon at this point because Dante's player immediately then wants everyone to go back to the hospital to check themselves out in case the bodybuster "infected them" somehow. And that's where the session stopped for now.
At this point, I'm unsure if I should play the hunt for the other AWOLs fully before Act 2 or start bleeding/kicking that off sooner since they already did what was intended as the "climax" of Act 1. I'm also unsure if I should contrive some method of Dante not being able to find out and/or extracting the chestburster at this point or not especially since Act 3's agenda depends on it.
My thoughts so far: definitely seems the most fun of the cinematic scenarios so far, and it being the most dense, easily feels like a short campaign in its own right to me and my players. Especially compared to HLD and CotG, DoW seems way more empowering to the players, which makes sense at least at this stage since they're marines with lots of weapons and haven't come across anything /too/ threatening at this point. I imagine Act 2 and moreso Act 3 will feel more like the other cinematic scenarios with fatalities and whatnot. I still feel like I'll need to make my own rough map(s) of a street location or two for Act 2 since I really don't see what would motivate the PCs to go anywhere except attempting to go back to Fort Nebraska, with the only exception being the Spaceport if they are looking to escape or help the colonists escape.