Wonderland tasks

[Sitrein]

So I'm running a 1 shot tonight where the players get trapped in the Nevernever and have to find their way out. I'm thinking of doing this with 3 or 4 basic tests or tasks to complete. I want them to be light-hearted, if perhaps oddly sinister, in an Alice in Wonderland fashion. Death should be a very real possibility but, seeing as a lot of my players are new to the game, the difficulty curve shouldn't be too high. They're all 6 refresh teenagers more or less modeled after the pregen characters in Night Fears.

Now for my question, does anyone have any ideas for things that might happen here? Tasks they may need to complete or anything like that? So far I'm thinking that I'll start it out like Night Fears with a haunted house and quickly skip ahead to characters falling asleep. From there, they wake in the Nevernever. Obviously this is the "Down the Rabbit Hole" act. From there the characters will meet someone they can't understand very well, who will probably speak either cryptically or, alternatively, only in riddles (though, depending on what the characters say, riddles can be hard to come up with on the fly). This character will, through the riddles, lead them to the three tasks which, upon completion, allow the characters back home. I'll have 7 players, none of them really "in the know" so there should be the "this isn't real. I'm clearly dreaming" feeling. When they escape from the Nevernever, it should be done by going to sleep in the Nevernever and waking up back in the haunted house making them wonder if it was all just a dream... except that they all dreamed the exact same thing...

Anyway, I'll be sure to post notes after the game but any ideas will be greatly appreciated. Right now my imagination is running a bit dry (at least on quick ideas for a 1 shot. Everything I can come up with would be better spaced over a campaign).

~Sitrein

[Haru]

There was a similar thread a while back, maybe that will get you started:
http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,25092.0.html

[HobbitWarrior]

To me, this smacks of one of the Sidhe having some fun.   Sanctaphrax has an npc write-up that would be perfect.

Ancient Sidhe Trickster (In A Submarine)

High Concept: Ancient Trickster Faerie
Other Aspects: Scary As F**k, You Cannot Trust Your Eyes, Faerie Court Jester,
Skills:
Fantastic: Deceit, Intimidation
Superb: Presence, Performance
Great: Lore, Empathy
Good: Rapport, Conviction, Empathy
Fair: Contacts, Alertness, Stealth
Average: Endurance, Investigation, Craftsmanship, Burglary, Scholarship
Stunts:
Wearing An Extremely Trustworthy Face (Deceit): As long as you are in a certain form, +2 to Deceit.
Founded Upon Lies (Deceit): +2 to any roll in which you tag or invoke an aspect created with Deceit.
Scary As F**k (Intimidation): Intimidate attacks inflict 2 extra stress.
Subtle Menace (Intimidation): Don’t need context of power to use Intimidation.
Polite Threats (Intimidation):  May use Intimidation without being rude or directly threatening someone.
Jester (Performance): +2 to Performance to make jokes and generally be funny.
Pointed Performance (Performance): May use Performance to create specific aspects.
The Opinions Of Humans Are Irrelevant To Me (Presence): Armour 1 against social attacks from humans.
Shield Of Lies (Deceit): Use Deceit, unmodified, to defend against everything in social combat.
Powers:
Marked By Power [-1]
Greater Glamours [-4]
Unseelie Magic [-4]
True Shapeshifting [-4]
Modular Abilities 3 [-5]
Total Refresh Cost:
-26
Refresh Total:
-6

Stick him in the guise of their tour guide, let them find that out and have him be the big bad.  He's a bit high refresh for 6-refreshers, but if you want to have some fun with them.  After they wake up thinking it was all a dream, have just one of them look back at the house and see him grinning back from one of the windows.  Or make it a bit more surreal.  Have the stone fountain in front of the house just happen to look like him.  Maybe something they missed in the night.  Some of the lands they end up in from the nevernever could be landscape paintings from the walls turned nightmare. 

[Sitrein]

Thank you both for the ideas! I've decided that I really like the Sidhe Trickster as the guide or "Cheshire Cat," if you will. I'll have him offer the party two choices as consequence for trespassing in his demesne. Either A) they submit to him (he can eat them, enslave them, do whatever really) or B) they can complete 3 tasks for "his amusement" at which point he'll send them home. With the intimidation and all, they're pretty much assuredly going to go for the B option.

For the first test I'm going to drop them in the water world given as an idea for the islands campaign thread. Basically they'll have to find out the hard way that they can breath under water, and then complete the task. Note that they can breath and see but not speak. The players will have to complete this task without use of words. The task will be to grab a pearl from an underwater ruin. This should play out like a puzzle but they might find some baddies (think Ursula's eels from The Little Mermaid). The baddies will be there primarily as a cause of urgency for the players. Depending on how dire things become I'll either have them ported to the next place when the whole party touches the pearl or immediately upon any of the PCs picking up the pearl.

Next I'll have them standing on a cloud for a moment with the jester explaining that now they must get him a map from a sky captain. This should cause some confusion and probably any explanation I give them will only cause a heightened confusion (entirely intentional). Regardless of whether or not they're ready, the party will suddenly find the clouds not so solid and they will fall from the sky onto the deck of an "airship." Sure, the hull is really just built on the back of some strange winged life form allowing for flight but still. Totally an airship. Anyway, the crew are NOT pirates (Thought about it and decided against it). Anyway, there will be any number of ways for them to get this map. Either they can try to steal it (their presence on the ship will not go unnoticed seeing as they'll drop loudly out of the sky onto the deck of the ship, in broad daylight, in front of people), try and bargain for it, or even offer up a gamble or game with the map as the prize should the party win.

Upon obtaining the map they'll be given the third challenge which I haven't figured out yet. I'm thinking it should be something that they might not want to complete and as such could be compelled to try and try their luck fighting the Trickster instead.

If they fight the trickster then, should they put forth a "valiant effort," seeing as a group of 6 refresh characters with no formal training could never really hope of defeating him, he'll play dead and let them go (world disappears around them and they all wake up in the "haunted house as if it was a dream). They'll then find him not so very dead as they're leaving the haunted house and someone sees him grinning in the window, or something like that, during the aftermath (that was a great idea! Thank you again HobbitWarrior).

However, if they do take up the challenge, I don't know what the third and final challenge should be. Anyone have any ideas? I know this is kind of pathetic of me as a gm but I'm cutting this game deadline really close >.<

~Sitrein

[Darkshore]

Perhaps a game of living checkers or chess? Where the Trickster either makes them use themselves as pieces or he uses some sort of human thralls. Make the game dangerous and have them either want the human thralls to live or just save their own skins if they are the pieces. You'd have to work out the specifics, but the idea seems to fit your theme.

[Richard_Chilton]

Have you seen the Sci Fi's channel's reworking of Alice and Oz - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_%28TV_miniseries%29 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_Man_%28TV_miniseries%29 for more on them.  Both had more adult features (including death being possible) but both borrowed from the whimsy of the originals.

It's been a while since I've seen either, but there is one thing about Tin Man that has stayed with me: the Flying Monkeys were stored as tattoos on the Evil Sorceress when they weren't out there flying, and the tattoos were on the upper part of her cleavage.  One of the funniest parts of the movie was seeing the Flying Monkeys flying out her chest.

Also, here's an IoP I did up for character named Tommy the Conjurer.  You might like it and as a Iop it's relatively cheap:
Item of Power: The Rabbit's Watch
Many years ago a man named Charles Lutwidge Dodgson devoted himself to researching the Nevernever.  A World Walker and a founding member of the Society for Psychical Research, Charles Dodgson explored areas of the Nevernever that few have ever seen.  While most searched the Nevernever looking for ways to increase their own powers or for threatens that need dealing with, Charles Dodgson explored with whimsy in mind.
Not that whimsy is always safe.  Indeed, Charles Dodgson would have died several times over if not for a gift presented to him by a talking white rabbit.  The creature's only price was that Charles Dodgson spread his tale among the mortal lands, which Charles Dodgson conscientiously did - mentioning it in a book where he described some of the more whimsical places he had been.
While the watch was designed with survival in mind, it is survival as seen by a rabbit.  The ability to sneak through darkness.  The speed needed to out run predators.  The fortitude to survive attacks.  As for its weakness, have you ever seen a wet rabbit? No, rabbits don't like water - and talking ones like it even less.  It spoils their waistcoats and it takes forever for the fur to dry.
But exploring the Nevernever is a young man's game.  When Charles Dodgson no longer felt he needed the protection of the watch he passed it on, but the 1863 diary which would have recorded who he gave it to is missing and presumed lost to the ages.  Some speculate that he gave it to Alice Liddell, the daughter of one of his friends who people claim he was close with, but there is no proof of that.
After being missing for over a century it finally surfaced in the hands of a minor practitioner named Maxwell.  Maxwell didn't have the power to join the White Council but the watch kept him safe - at least from external threats.  After Maxwell's fatal heart attack, the watch dropped from sight.  Its whereabouts are currently unknown.
[-1] Cloak of Shadows
[-2] Inhuman Speed
[-2] Inhuman Toughness
[+1] Catch: Water.  When he is soaking wet or water is used against him Timmy is as vulnerable as a normal boy.
[+2] IoP
Net: [-1]

Tommy (and other cute characters) can be found at http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,25470.msg1081135.html#msg1081135

Richard

[Sitrein]

Perhaps a game of living checkers or chess? Where the Trickster either makes them use themselves as pieces or he uses some sort of human thralls. Make the game dangerous and have them either want the human thralls to live or just save their own skins if they are the pieces. You'd have to work out the specifics, but the idea seems to fit your theme.

Ooo I like that! It's better than what I was thinking of with just stealing a bit from Sucker Punch:

(click to show/hide)

have them air dropped onto a castle with goblins and knights or whatever and have to infiltrate the dungeon to get to a sleeping baby dragon, slice it's throat open and remove a fire spewing gem. After that, make their way back out to be picked back up. Oh, and do all of this without attracting the attention of the mother dragon. These would of course be dragons entirely unlike that which we've seen in Dresden thus far but this is a one shot that probably will never be revisited and past that, it's easily explained by saying that all of this is just a product of the demesne the Trickster created.

Either way, killing a baby

(click to show/hide)

dragon

and being in that much danger, they may well think their chances better with the Tickster.

Still, that seems a little... I don't know? Forced? Great for an action movie or D&D but not so great for this. Still, I think I may well use that idea. Thank you very much. Any other ideas are always appreciated even if I don't use them. Just for future reference (I love sending my players to play in the nevernever.

[Sitrein]

@Richard_Chilton : I had heard of Tin Man (it's in my instant queue but I haven't seen it yet) but I hadn't heard anything about Alice. I'll probably watch both of those sometime next week if I can. Thank you very much for the information.

As for your IoP, That's amazing. I love the detail. It's really not very powerful but, at the same time, I can see very easily where a clever player could get a LOT of fun out of it. I think I may use that in the next campaign I run (Just 1 shots from now until halloween then I can finally start my campaign). Also, I love the cute characters thread. That's amazing. Thank you very much =D

[Richard_Chilton]

If you dig around a bit you'll find other IoPs posted on this forum - most have a good level details.

And no, it's not that powerful, but it's a good survival package.

Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (aka Lewis Carol - he who wrote the Alice stories) was actually a founding member of the Society for Psychical Research - one of the many weird facts about his life.

Richard

[Sanctaphrax]

Cool. People are using something I wrote.

There's an Item of Power list on the Resources Board, if you're interested.

PS: You might be surprised at how well a Feet In The Water group could do in combat with that faerie there. Depending on your PCs, they might actually have a good chance of winning.
PPS: If this bugs you, remember that he can run away very effectively.
PPPS: One of the two Empathy skills on his sheet should be Discipline.