So, the story.
Players are scouts on a secondary planet in the system with the scout base, ship in the repair bay, but currently have access to a pinnace. As they head home a local scout type asks them to drop off a small package to a friend, a retired scout on the main planet. Obvious adventure hook, right ? Okay, I was short of ideas, I admit.
They agree, good so far, and the friend, turns out he’s moved away from the port, to a farm out in the boonies, with only a local hamlet as an address.
there at 10am
Okay, good enough. They load up and fly to the local town, intending to find him from there. They arrive, land the ship, and walk into the townette ; and here is just possibly where the problems started . It’s an Ag backwater, tech 5-8. I probably did too good a job of describing it as a scene out of firefly – a western frontier town, new buildings, prefabs, lots of wood frame quick up style buildings. Dirt streets, boardwalks, etc. Now, add in the bunch had most recently been playing LOTS of D&D…..
So, at this point, with a tech 12 pinnace, on a tech 8 planet, and with tech 15 odds and ends -they decide the way to find their man is to.... ask a few passers by. They get a vague notion that yes, he lives a way out, sometimes is in town, but quiet like, just picks up some supplies or something; perhaps the post office could help ?
So, sure, they go there – it’s closed, (Sunday or somesuch) (FYI, yes, I did want them to deliver it in person.). So, stumped, they go next door to the local saloon to “gather information”. They bug the few people there at 10am about where the farm is (“about 50 miles North o’ here”) and the postmaster (“grumpy guy, private, never around when ya need him”). So they become obsessed with finding out where he is, where he lives, etc. Finally, the Bartender says:
“ Ya know, ya’ could use the payphone”
and points to the dandy tech 5 phone booth outside the door.
So, after staring at each other and me for a minute with “Oh Yeah” looks on their faces, they troop over, look up his number and call…and get an answering machine. Not expecting this, they they panic, argue about what to say, and hang up.
Then they try again, get distracted (what was his name ?), and hang up again.
So, thus far defeated by the answering machine, they bravely try a third time, and leave a long meandering message before they get hung up on.
Call again, finish the message. Hang up.
Realize they forgot something, call again.
This time they get a very annoyed postmaster having (apparently) been prankcalled out of his bath.
They then proceed to demand he come into town to take possession of the package, so he not too politely tells them to stuff it and wait for tomorrow, leave it at the door of the office, or deliver it themselves. So they argue some more, hang up.
Call again, get the answering machine, and give up.
They argue, decide to hand deliver it, and get ready to head out to the farm by heading over to the general for supplies for the trip out to the farm. This they do, and as he rings them up and takes their CRimp cards the clerk asks
“So, doing some camping ?”;
“No, headed out to the Terwilliger farm. “
(puzzled) “Are you camping there ?”
“No, just visiting the owner; it’s fifty miles out of town, right ?”
….long pause. “So, the ship ya came in is broken ?”
…. longer pause. “Yes. Yes it is. It needs to…. cool it’s….reactor… down…more”
“ah…….Tod at the bar could prob’ly give ya’ll a ride over on his raft.”
“Raft….”
“Yeah. Grav Raft. Parked out front….”
(I had mentioned it as they went in, and as they were using the phone)
“Just a minute, excuse me, would you ?”
“….Hey guys.”
“what ?”
“We have a ship, right ? With comm. Gear, and a computer with a link to the planets databases, right…? Do we have to look for clues at the tavern ?”
“Oh hey, yeah ! This isn’t Dodge city ! ”
“Or Blackmoor”
“Maybe we should use it ?”
Clerk (who has wandered outside with a big box of camping supplies on a grav lifter):
“Well, boys, it might help, I suppose; course its not like you’ll be attacked by apaches if ya walk, and especially if you fly. By the way. No refunds or exchanges. ”
Puts box down, walks inside, closes door.
The punchline: When they got there, the recipient was dead. Having been given three weeks vacation upon return, they decided to wait until afterwards to drop it off. By which time, events had transpired. “Defeated by an answering machine” was the watchword for that campaign.
