Part two of my Call of Cthluhu story, this all happened yesterday, which was a week after the original session. I thought that the previous session would have taught some lessons or at least helped, but as you'll see, it didn't. At all.
Escape from Innsmouth Part 2
The PCs, Jango, his Manservant, and the Spy had just discovered a diary which had a combination to the safe which Brian, the guy they were trying to find, had tried to open before he was taken by the Innsmouth residents and imprisoned. They head to the safe and find a fortune hunting Mercenary there trying to open the safe (another PC played by a player who had joined that session). The Spy shoves the Mercenary out of the way, opens the safe and grabs the Book of Dagon and everyone heads off to the jail to bust out Brian. The reason I mention it was because how funny I always found the "you look trustworthy" method of recruiting other PCs. In this case, that was completely skipped over and PC hive mind was employed ("Hey there, you already know everything we know, let's go"). It wasn't worth arguing, so they arrive at the jail. They pull out their guns and get ready to kick in the doors and start shooting. I remind them that they can't really justify killing officials to bust someone out of jail. After talking to them for a while, they decide to go around back and realize, "Hey, we could pop out these grates and get the prisoners out." They also find the two characters that they had previously lost in Innsmouth in another cell. They spend about ten minutes arguing on a plan that, knowing the Innsmouth residents, wouldn't really work, but I certainly wasn't going to say anything at this point as I had found it quite amusing. Here was the plan:
The PCs gathered all of the dynamite they happened to have between them, 8 sticks (I think that only two characters explicitly said they had dynamite before then, and I had to argue everyone down to only carrying two sticks, but whatever), and gave them to Jango who strapped seven to his chest and put one in his pocket. He was then going to run around and pull the suicide bomber feint in order to distract the police so the others could get Brian out (they decided to leave behind the other two PCs as they weren't important, despite Jango's main character motivation being to save his son, one of the PCs). That was the plan, and failing to plan more than that lead to the following events:
Jango runs around to the front and says, "Okay I have my gun in one hand and the detonator in the other." I ask him what detonator he is talking about and then inform him that there would be no way that they would actually have a detonator between them. He improvises and pulls out a lighter which he holds near, but not near enough to accidentally light, one of the sticks of dynamite. He runs in and says, "I start yelling a mix of German and English, but enough English so they know what I want," (he was a German bounty hunter). I tell him to make a language check, to which he responds "I don't have that, but I'm from Germany," and I tell him to roll a language check for English then. He decides to just yell in English with a German accent. I ask him what he is yelling and he says just to distract them and stuff. "Yes, but what exactly are you saying/asking/demanding?" I ask, and eventually, after a puzzled look get a, "I tell them to drop their weapons." At this point he asks the other players if they are going to pop the grate, to which I tell them to make listen checks. They all fail. I tell them that they don't know that Jango has started and therefore can't be sure the constables are distracted. Jango, meanwhile notices that the two constables (hereafter, Smart and Stupid, as one was a buff fishman who was less than intelligent) exchange a look and then draw guns. Jango makes a failed shot as he starts running (realizing that nothing was happening that he had expected), but gets shot twice in the back. This all happened quickly and the player gets mad remembering that there were three more people in the jail who could have told the PCs, demands they get listen checks. I thought it was legit, and didn't really want to have to kill Jango so they rolled and succeed and we rework the last 20 seconds or so. They get Brian out and Jango is able to run out and duck into an alley next to the station.
Here's the situation: All of the player's current PCs are in a car with Brian (who immeadiately insists they go get his girlfriend and out of town) and drive to a street north of the police station and about a block away, except for Jango who is hiding in the alley next to the police station. The two constables (hybrid Deep Ones, if you didn't know) run out of the station and split, going in opposite directions. The Smart One fails to spot Jango and runs down the street popping onto the street the car is waiting on, two buildings down the street. Jango claims they had decided where to meet up when they made the plan and says he runs there. He is running down an alley, and can see the car, when the Stupid One (who had doubled back and run around the other side of the police stations) shoots at him from behind, missing. This is happening at the same time that the PCs in the car see the Smart One come around the corner ahead. Jango's Chinese Criminal/Manservant/Driver sees this and decides to run the Smart One down. There is a lot of arguing as the player playing Jango realizes that he won't be able to get in the car then and all his character would see was the car pulling away, presumably ditching him. After heated discussion I remind them that it is the Manservant's decision, and to think about what his character would do. He decides to run the guy down (which myself and the Spy thought was while not the best decision was reasonable), much to the anger and outrage of two of the players. So Jango sees the car pull off and decides he'll pop around the corner and shoot the Stupid One point blank. We look up point blank rules and finds it double hit range. He gets annoyed as he had 99 pistol skill to begin with. I had already decided, out of personal interest that the Stupid One would pick up a 2x4 since he had a 2x4 skill listed and it statistically did more damage (and had better hit chance) than his gun. He comes around corner, and gets shot by Jango. He swings the 2x4 and hits Jango for 7 damage, reducing him to 7 HP. Jango shoots twice more the next round while the Spy says he is going to get out and go help Jango to which everyone else tells him not to and they'll just turn the car around and pick up Jango. Figuring that the Model-T would not be too maneuverable, I say it will take two rounds to get back. The Stupid one swings again, impales and hits Jango for 19 damage. This gets Jango angry and he gets mad at the Manservant who he insisted he had told to wait for him and that it was all his fault he died. There's general yelling and various things and eventually they decide to break out the other two PCs since they killed the two constables. Here's where things get good:
They succeed and Boba goes to retrieve weapons from his father's corpse (which he knows is there for some reason), and the Mercenary walks with him. Boba's player eventually convinces the Mercenary's player to tell him what happened so he will have justification to kill the Manservant (which he said he was going to do as soon as Jango died). The Mercenary tells him that the Manservant had been a moron and pulled off before Jango could get in, resulting in his death (which wasn't entirely true as Jango could have run down and gotten in the car). The PI (the first character from the guy who played the Manservant) got in the car and the Manservant pulled the car out to the street to wait for everyone to get in so they could head off. Brian, sick of everything and having to wait to get his girlfriend, runs off to get her. The PCs don't care at this point (even though he was the person they were supposed to be investigating and eventually rescuing), and he leaves, presumably to get killed. The Spy, who realizes Boba's intent doesn't get in the car and walks up to the street behind. They are all standing on the street when Boba walks to the passenger side, and shoots the Manservent. He isn't killed and hits the gas, driving off with the getaway car. At this point the player playing the Mercenary had to leave and turned his character over to Boba's player, letting him know that his character was pissed enough now to kill the Manservant. So the Mercenary and Boba start shooting at the fleeing car. The Manservant's player and the player of Boba/Jango start arguing at the table, talking about who's actions were justified in what situations (talking about leaving Jango, shooting the Manservent, etc.). It is now the Spy's turn, and sick of the absolute mental breakdown that is happening in the street of the hostile town, tells me, "I'm dropping my last grenade and running." This was very amusing to me, as with all of the arguing at the table, I was the only one who heard his action. I move to next person and the Mercenary and Boba take more shots at the car before it goes out of range. I then tell the players that the grenade goes off and the Spy rolls damage, killing both the Mercenary and Boba. Boba's player is really annoyed now and demands to know what grenade and claims, "I didn't know about it, I would have done something." "Exactly," I said, "you were too busy trying to kill the Manservant and shooting at his car you failed to notice the grenade dropped behind you."
There were several points at which I thought about adding some fishmen to try and help them team up again, but then I realized that the players were doing just fine killing themselves...
