Have You Seen the Butterman?!
TTRPG War Stories: 12/08/24; Gus_the_Unglued
We're doing a series of stories from our games and playtests where things went “off book” to some degree or another; primarily due to player hijinks.
We also try to extract some nugget of wisdom from these stories of player shenanigans.
Although it's more of a 70-30 split on that. In the main, a lot of these will mostly serve up a delightful dose of schadenfreude (with a little bit of advice to cap it off).
Feel free to enjoy our pain XD
Written by Douglas Niles, Cover art by Tim Truman
The Adventure
Ages ago, in the murky history of 2017, I ran my adaptation of a classic adventure module N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God.
If you aren't familiar with it, it is a classic AD&D module and was one of the first (if not the first) to have the action and adventure start in the town; to bring the danger of the wilderness into this dwindling point of light.
The gist of the adventure is that a cult is slowly taking over the town via the magical brainwashing of its figure of adulation, the naga Explictica Defilus.
The Heroes find out about this influence either slowly over time through rumors and ubiquitous "strangeness" of the denizens, or alternatively they can be ambushed by the plot via an abduction attempt.
It is also notable as it had more pointedly social and investigative threads than most modules of its day. In an era of dungeon delves, this was a mystery.
While many dungeon delvers of yore could initiate roleplaying with factions and generally poking their noses into every rumor they came across, this module is the first that brought what we would now consider standard pillars of play into the fore.
Don't get me wrong, it does still have its quirks of the time.
A number of NPCs are more briefly described than would be expected today.
There is a lot more word count dedicated to the stuff that an enterprising Thief character can steal than would be present in adventures today.
There are elements of monster selection that seem out of place: either a function of ecological dungeon design (in an adventure with a very definite theme of reptiles and cults) or a relic of some of Evil's most fleshed out abilities pertaining to undead.
The encounter design can be a bit lopsided at times. A wight against low level players is pretty harsh.
All that being said, it is overall a pretty solid adventure whose bones are worthy of adapting to the fantasy adventure system of your choice.
Setup to Lunacy
Now back to 2017 and the circus that was about to be my campaign.
The party approached the declining village of Orlane from the West, and after giving them some fluff about how the village looks like it has seen better days; I described how the first building is a farmhouse where a young maiden is churning butter.
As the party approached the building, the young maiden rushes into the farmhouse and a grizzled farmer came out to politely (but tersely) deal with whatever these strangers wanted.
The party asked about happenings in the town, and the farmer said that strange happenings have been going on but he tries to keep out of it.
The party tried to press for more information. The farmer said they can kindly leave his farmstead, go bother drunkards at the inn if they want loose rumors. He then went inside.
This sequence was mostly to indicate the general paranoia of the town, and that something was afoot.
"Dairy-Based Vandalism"
The party's rogue (let's call him John) was miffed at the lack of acquiescence to their demands, and proceeded to steal a sizeable hunk of fresh butter from the churn and wiped a portion all over the farmer's door.
On their way to the town's inn, the party encountered Old Ma (named Vilma in the original module). After cursory introductions, John asked "Have you seen the Butterman? He has been committing a spree of dairy-based vandalism."
Mind you, John currently has butter smeared into some pouches hanging from his utility belt. In a few hours, they'll start to smell a bit off.
Luckily for the party, Old Ma was a bit eccentric and didn't really see all that much wrong with his behavior. (Old Ma could be summed up as a kind, kooky grandma with a lot of cats in her herb garden).
The party then proceeded to go to the town's inn, guardhouse, and the Mayor; inquiring about the town and any recent troubles. They met some somewhat sketchy people (cultists of the Big Bad, Explictica Defilus) and a lot of fearful citizenry who just wanted things to go back to normal.
In each instance, the conversation would start with the question:
"Have you seen the Butterman?"
So in an adventure all about sussing out who to trust and who can aid the heroes, they started off each and every interaction with such a ridiculous opening that things went a bit screwy for a while.
If this adventure was a mystery, my players were Scooby and the Gang.
Most thought that they were troublemakers (kinda accurate of many parties if we're being honest). Many thought they were a little unhinged (also fair). In essence, none of the potential allies of the party (with the exception of Old Ma) considered the party as viable friends or allies. But then again, their secretive foes didn't think much of them either.
One upshot of this deeply unserious behavior is that the main antagonistic force in the adventure module, the eponymous Cult of the Reptile God, didn't consider the party to be much of a threat.
This party had the same weight of gravitas as the Benny Hill theme song.
Luckily, like most adventuring parties; they did eventually stumble their way ass-backwards into success. By this point, they were motivated to find their favorite NPCs (Old Ma and her famous butter cookie recipe must be rescued!)
They dove headlong into the final dungeon, got cornered, almost died to a horde of troglodytes and cultists. But they eventually triumphed with some clever ploys and quick thinking.
It is a story that my players still talk about fondly, even "dairy-based vandalism" aside.
Art by Tim Truman
The Nugget
This campaign (and this story) was a prime example of how the intended story/themes of a TTRPG scenario can go completely insane, totally off the rails; yet still be a blast to play (and sometimes to run as well).
KILL YOUR DARLINGS:
This classic writing advice is almost more applicable to TTRPGs, because the players (and more often than not their characters) have explicit agency.
Don't expect things to go according to YOUR plan. If are married to a certain outcome or path to an outcome, it will not go as planned 9 times out of 10.
PLAY TO YOUR AUDIENCE:
No matter how wacky the players make the story, your players can/will have fun if they have buy-in with that lack of seriousness. As long as everybody agrees about the game they want to play, then play on.
Related Links
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