The little encounter thread

[Gustav]

Everyone needs small encounters to fleshen out their scenarios. It can be anything from roadblocks to rivercrossings and dug in positions that must be passed.

I thought it might be a good idea to post ideas of these kind of encounters so everyone can use them. Also reports from how the players did when facing a specific encounter will be of interst. Some encounters are easy to come up with but there is always another way of setting up a roadblock or a defense of a bridge.

If you think this is a good idea start posting and I'll try to write down some of my ideas later. (some may even contain booby traps )

[countrysamurai]

nice thread idea. For those of you who haven't read it, Donar's Hammer has a couple of these in it. Gustav is right, these can be very useful in a campaign.

[Gustav]

Encounter of the day: "whitness"

I want the players to feel that they are only a small part of a much larger operation and also give them difficult choices.

In this type of encounter the character spots from afar a carefully hidden axis position waiting to ambush the advancing allied force. The ambush will most likely result in a massacre of the allies but the players have no means to contact the advancing allied unit, nor attack the axis position without dangering their own mission.

They can either sit idle and whatch the advancing allies become pinned down and overrun or try to help, revealing their own position. With the right kind of talents this might not be much of a problem, teleporters might be able to warn the advnancing units without much risk, so plan according to the talents' abilities.

The axis position might be heavily camouflaged AT-guns, 88s, PAK40s or selfproppeled Panzerj‰gers or StuGs opposing a group of advancing halftracks and shermans, or it might be heavy mahineguns and mortars opposing advancing infantry.

Seeing a lot of allied armour be shot up during a few seconds might call for a will loss.

[Gustav]

The well known roadcrossing.

In almost all WWII films there is a crossing of a road that might or might not be covered by enemy fire. So what can be done to spice up this classic moment?

Make the players fear road crossings by having the enemy react different each time. In the end the characters may spend valuable time trying to avoid crossing a road with no enemies around. The germans often used enfilade fire to cover a great lentgh of the road, stream or open area.

You can play it in the traditional way. Just letting the enemies roll a sense+sight roll and then open up on any character that tries to pass.

The more cunning enemy might deliberately hold his fire until the third or so character pass. An excellent way to split the group. With a sense+sight roll for the enemy soldiers to spot the characters this might even turn out to be undeliberate.

There might be a reason for the characters not beeing spotted (sleeping soldiers on post, to much wine available or whatever). This might cause the players to believe that they unopposed can cross the road on their way back.

[Gustav]

Minefields, I just love minefields (as a GM, not in real life)

In the same way as with booby traps I want my players to fear mines for every step they take. Not that I want my players to just blow up randomly on unmarked minefields, that is boring to me and my players.

Once in a while you can always do this, having someone step on a mine and putting the others into the trouble to carry their bleeding friend out of the unmarked minefield. This might result in paranoid players always looking for mines.

The germans often placed mines of obvious observations points, places where officers or NCOs would likely stop to survey the battlefield. This might be only a few mines but sometimes they are not detected until long after the area has been secured.

The marked minefield can act as a barrier, having the players to chose another, less deadly? route or the possibility to save some time at a risk if they are in a hurry. Hard decisions. The marked minefield might even be fake with no mines.

I am mostly looking to have my players aware of the dangers of mines, marked minefields are just one method. The effect will perhaps be more obvious if someone the characters observes steps on a mine close to them. This might be a friendly or enemy soldier, a civilian or even cattle. Sometimes soldiers herded goats or sheep in front of them through minefields. Hoping that the cattle would trigger any mines.

And don't forget AT-mines. The germans sometimes burried AT-mines beneath loosly packed dirt so that the first few vehicles wouldn't trigger the mine. To conseal mines under the surface of a road they somtimes used a dismounted wheelaxis to make tire tracks.

[Gustav]

Another idea.

While the charcter advances over an open field they suddenly comes under MG-fire. The only available cover is a heap of rocks not far away, collected from the field by the farmer. Diving for cover behind those rocks the charaters find out that this is where the Germans put all their mines...