[DL] Your stories

["Glenn Connot" <glennconnot@hotmail.com>]

Listers,
One thing I haven't seen so far on the mailing list that I expected was a 
lot more player/gm stories.  I'm interested in hearing about what other 
people are running/have run as it gives me ideas, and hell its pretty damn 
entertaining to boot.

I will post my favorite Deadlands bloopers and greatest sessions this 
evening, as I am about to get off work and don't have time now.  But for 
starters, here's one:

Last Christmas when I was back in my hometown I ran several Deadlands 
sessions with the local group, since they seem to want me to GM whenever I 
return.  Anyway, we had a lot of newbies and I wasn't too keen on running a 
session for 6+ players, so I decided I would slim things down a bit by 
placing the posse at odds with each other.  This sounds like a bad thing, 
but most of the younger newbies had made disposable characters anyway, and 
it was merely a diversion for most of them.  Don't worry, this was is by no 
means the standard when I run anything.

Anyway, due to some rather strange decisions on their part, I ended up with 
two hucksters, two bounty hunters, three federal marshalls ("Hey, we could 
be marshall's <together>!"), and a gunfighter.  I loathed the mix, but it 
didn't really matter much.  Anyway, coming up with the plot on the fly (my 
prepared story only involved the two hucksters and one of the bounty 
hunters, and the preacher they had who was out of town), the Federal 
Marshall's were sent to capture/dispose of an AWOL Union Cavalry Major, who 
had taken 30+ cavalrymen with him and set up a bandit fort in a Nevada 
canyon.  The bounty hunters, too, had been hired for this purpose, but by a 
seperate agency.  The hucksters came along for the reward money, as did the 
gunfighter.  Anyway, the first night in town about 20 cavalrymen came into 
town to whoop it up and watch the variaty show at the saloon/auditorium.  
The cavalrymen were breaking the town ordinance of 'no firearms in public', 
but one of the federal marshalls (who were all given direct orders to keep 
their identities secret) had earlier tried sneaking into the saloon with a 
hogleg and was given a night in jail for it.  Since the town law dogs were 
powerless to stop the cavalrymen, they enforced the ordinance until the 
cavalrymen came.  Later that night the gunfighter, who had gone immediately 
to sleep when they arrived in town, woke up and went downstairs to see the 
entire bar filled with drunken Union soldiers, occassionally shooting off 
their guns (which is what woke him up).  Looking to make a buck, he struck 
up a bet with one of them: I bet you I'm a better shot than you are.  Well, 
the drunk cavalryman (named Slim, of course) took him up on this bet, and 
immediately decided they should use the grandfather clock by the door as 
their target.  The gunfighter agreed, so the cavalryman started with his six 
shots first.  The ruckus was pretty much ignored as gunshots were going off 
from time to time anyway.  Anyway, Slim didn't do too bad with his shooting, 
but with the last shot he missed entirely and the bullet flew out the door, 
which was followed by a loud whinney then a thud.  Slim handed the to gun to 
the gunfighter and ran outside to check and see what happened.  The 
gunfighter, knowing that Slim had shot a horse, laid the gun on the bar and 
ran back upstairs and hid in his room.

Well, the cavalrymen were pretty pissed after this since apparently no one 
knew who the horse-killer was, and those in the know (including the 
bartender) weren't keen to start pointing fingers.  One of the federal 
marshall's decided that the way to get to the Major was by killing 
cavalrymen (or atleast I can only assume so), so he came up with a plot to 
kill one.  He paid a saloon girl $10 to coax Slim around back behind the 
saloon.  There he planned on shooting him.  As she took the money and went 
off to sweet-talk Slim, the Fed slipped back behind the saloon to ambush 
him.  Once he stepped out the back, though, he saw a cavalryman puking his 
guts out by a rain barrel a 1/2 block away.  So what did he do?  Shot him, 
of course.  The man immediately dropped from wind loss, and Slim came 
rushing out the back to see who had been shooting.  When Slim stepped out of 
the door, the Fed plugged two rounds into him.  Thats when all hell broke 
loose.

Slim went down with a yelp and then all the cav's in the saloon jumped up to 
see what was going on.  Three made it out the back quick enough to see two 
of their comrades bleeding on the ground while a man with a Peacemaker in 
his hand beat hell down the alley.  They let off a couple shots, including 
one lucky shot (which the fed paid-off in chips), then chased after him.  
The Fed slipped into the livery stable and grabbed the first horse he found. 
  Since I told him he would have scant time to put a saddle on it (which he 
was surprised at), he untied it and rode bareback outta town.

Of special note: One of the bounty hunter PC's, a Mr. Schlitz, had spent the 
extra dinero to start the game with a unique horse.  His name was Glueboy.  
This name was chosen due to the horse's mean temperment and tendency to be a 
right pain in the arse, since the PC had purchased a surly horse.  This just 
so happened to be the horse that the federal marshall stole, since it was 
the farthest back since it was the last one in the stable.

The horse took Mr. Fed about a 1/2 mile out of town then bucked him clean 
off, then spun around and ran back to town.  The Fed then came up with an 
ingenious plan.  He threw his gun away, then started rubbing dirt all over 
himself and tearing his clothes.  When three cavalrymen caught up to him, he 
told them a tragic story of how the horsethief had nearly run him over, then 
stole his stuff, then rode due west.  Despite clear evidence to this being a 
bogus story (how did he know there was a horsethief? why in the hell did a 
horse just come running back to town? etc.), I let him roll his Bluff (he 
had to default), which he promptly failed with no modifiers.  The Cav's 
roped him and dragged him back to town.  He was thrown in jail and a trial 
was held the very next day.  The Charges: 2 attempted murder charges 
(neither of the cavalrymen were actually killed), one charge of Horse 
Thieving, one charge of killing another man's horse (he got blamed for 
Slim's bad aim), and carrying a firearm in a no-firearms area, and a few 
others.

I won't go into the trial that was held, or how the Marshall was only saved 
by virtue of a telegraph identifying him as a Federal Marshall on a mission 
for the Union (much to his superior's dislike).  I will, however, tell you 
all the story of how the two other Federal Marshalls and a bounty hunter 
were stymied by two thugs with rifles, and the daring 12-hour standoff in 
the canyon which resulted in the bounty hunter shooting one of the Federal 
Marshall's horses to get him to stop.  But I will save that for another 
time.

Glenn
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Quit??? Did Rommel quit before sacking the Kremlin??
-Dave Bozwell, KODT

Damnit! I wanna roll some dice.
-Brian Van Hoose, KODT


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