Joe monsters

[ulrik]

What the heck was that war thing that was squishing us like bugs?  I'm just hiding in the woods from now on when I see a Joe-shaped monster.

[Nezz]

that is probably the best post i've ever seen.

[larisa]

Dan and I had to leave before that mod...situation, whatever, wrapped up--which is a good thing because I was getting quite bored and frustrated (yeah, sometimes I just want to kill stuff.  Sue me.)  I don't know if maybe we had been there earlier in the event and gotten a description/been involved in the plot I would have understood it more.  All I knew was that whenever I beat on it, it smashed me down (which was a very difficult IG situation to deal with, considering which character I was playing).

I assumed it was an Orc, because of what people had said.  But, I guess I hadn't asked for a description.  It just seemed like no one knew what was going on, so maybe being there to see the first part of the mod wouldn't have helped.  Don't know.

[MaramonJ]

I gave a description to anyone who asked.  I usually consider asking out of game to be the same as taking the time to look closely at something in game.  Hopefully all the facepaint I was wearing made it clear that it wasn't an orc.

You guys very nearly took it down, for the record, in a single flurry of attacks, twice.  After the second time, I had (if I remember correctly) 18 body left after the more concentrated assault you made.  It was all offense with a few defensive tricks, but you definitely had the firepower to take it down if that had been your objective.  Of course, that would have taken the story and your relationship with the faction it represented in a different (not necessarily bad) direction.  The way you handled the situation did impress the creature.

As far as knowing what was going on, the people who were paying attention and bothered to interact with the creature did get a lot of information, and pretty well had the thing nailed from the very beginning, as far as what it was, what its motivations were, and even how to defeat it.

[MaramonJ]

I think the thing that made it so formidable, aside from the heavy cannon (and I could hardly say the tagline with trying to learn the new system) was bluff and bluster.  He had everyone intimidated into backing off.  Which is kind of what PCs have to do.

He was really designed as a roleplay encounter.  He would only hit people when one of two conditions were met.  And like I said, the PC(s) who bothered to talk to him had him figured out ahead of even the morning "mod."  If they'd had some back up, the encounter would have been quite straightforward.

But sometimes things don't go as planned, and the encounter goes into "it'll never happen like that" territory.  As plot, you have the choice to either go Deus Ex and force things to happen the way they were "supposed to" and bring in something to change the circumstances (thus rendering what your players do irrelevant) or you have to ask, "well, if this happened, what would these NPCs do?"

In that case, that's exactly what happened, and instead of a group of PCs getting some easy cool spirit marks to start them on a path to aligning to what I think is an interesting faction, a bunch of goblins got it instead.  So, since that happened, what are the goblins going to do?  Well, since Vlaad issued a challenge, they're going to come answer it.  If he hadn't issued the challenge, they would have done something different.  I understand that PCs didn't plan to make the plot respond like that, and didn't have a lot of control over many aspects of the situation, but the story wasn't "scripted" in any way, especially to be punitive.  The characters were set up, and then they were played true to character.  In some ways, the consequences were unfortunate, but enough players persisted with the fight that rewards (significant for what you faced) were earned, and hopefully you learned something about the opposition (or is it on your side now?).  Now that at least some people know more about that character, he will be easier to deal with and even manipulate... or kill... in future encounters.

Hopefully the goblins will be too.

[Mathias]

I figured out his motives and how to not get beat down... What got to me was all of the stupid running around to try and get the goblins to fight. I couldn't handle a WAR CHAMPION, but I'll rumble with some goblins. I know goblins are sneaky and ambushy, but I eventually did what all good halflings do, eat and take a nap...

[HelenJames]

Something alike was discussed on the ask.com,i can give someone a link if anybody need it