[HOE] Unity, big question and the fake box

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SPOILER




SPACE...




(By the way, Rosebud is a sled)


>Sorry, but A) they don't really havea  choice, and B) not a >single playtest 
>group had that happen.

>>>Shanester


--- 
   I disagree.  The party has a very large choice of the matter.  They can simply... not take the box.  Or, if 20 Question time doesn't give them answers that satisfy them, they can throw it away.  I've seen parties do that with an item that the Marshall wont tell them anything about. (If you've seen the movie 'Ronin', you know why).
    I know it didn't happen in the playtests.  Most parties are not critical thinking enough to really doubt what an NPC tells them.  However, as the adventure goes on, and the stakes get raised higher and higher (and this adventure raises the stakes higher than any I've seen), good roleplayers will begin to ask themselves "What are we risking our necks for?".  It may not have happenned in the playtests, but it's not an unreasonable possibility.  (That's the #1 question for a Templar).
    This item is the lynchpin of the adventure.  And, as written, not even The Marshall knows anything about it.  If someone were to tell you "I have Elvis imprisoned in my basement", you would not believe them.  Even if you saw them drag a man of the right age, who looked like Elvis, into their basement, you would say "You have someone imprisoned in your basement, but they're not Elvis"
    Likewise for the box.  At BEST, a thinking party would say "There probably is a spirit trapped inside this box, and it probably looks ghostly with a Scythe, but these guys are a dime a Dozen in the Wasted west, and, imprisoning Death.. er.. we'd need a little more to belive that. and other than the words of a guy we met today, we have no reason to believe anything else is in here either".    
     It's a tough pill to swallow, and it speaks well for the playtesting Marshalls that they got their parties to swallow it.  It does seem logical though, that in that Unity Engine room, one party member would ask the question "What are we doing this for?  Just because some brain in a glass case said we should?"  (I'd give him a big 'ol fate chip if the Syker said it). 
    And that's the problem.  In the end, the only reason that the party is doing any of this stuff, is because, a brain in a glass case, in a short meeting, told them to.