[Games] Zombie Run Finale

[jordangreywolf]

Zombie Run Session #9 (18): The Battle for Phoenix

(23 Jul 2011)

Note: This would be session #9 of our take on "Zombie Run," but it would be session #18 if we count the sessions we spent going through Chapter 1 of "War of the Dead" first.

The Protagonists:

• Dominic Gaston Gerard: Confidence artist and rogue (played by “JZ”).
• Todd “T-Man” Burton: Professional parkour runner and reality show star (played by “SV”).
• Jacob Stormcloud, AKA "Chief Red Mist": AWOL soldier (played by “Digital_Rampage”).
• Greer: AWOL soldier (played by "HZ," JZ's son).

The Extras:

• Angelina Hawke: Athlete, reality show contestant, and girlfriend to “T-Man.”
• Bernard: Well-trained dog, loyal to Dominic.
• Raven: An injured raven that Jacob picked up, nestled in the back of the technical truck, but which didn't really do much of anything this session.
• Rhiannon Stormcloud: Jacob’s little sister, blinded by a strain of the virus, but gifted with an uncanny ability to sense things others can’t.
• Teenie Mae Mathis: Former(?) cannibal, pressed into service as a gunner by Jacob.
• Betsy Savage: A survivalist picked up by Greer.

GM Note:
At the end of the last session, we spent some time working out battle plans for the defense of Phoenix from the Flagstaff raiders, though it was somewhat abstract since I didn’t have detailed maps and was largely going by my faulty memory of what the downtown area of Phoenix looked like. This time around, I printed off some blown-up maps of the downtown area, on four sheets of copy paper taped together, with a grid overlay. I marked the positions of the two tallest buildings in the Phoenix downtown area (the Chase Tower and the US Bank Tower), since those would likely be of particular interest to plans of the PCs involving setting up spotters/snipers at the highest locations. I also marked the route of the light rail (forming an “L” shape that ran north and east from the downtown area), as well as the defensive perimeter that had been set up along highways 10 and 60, as they boxed off the downtown area - with special markers to indicate major un-cleared traffic jams (effectively blocking easy access for vehicles except for small maneuverable vehicles such as motorcycles), and the four maintained “gates” at the compass points.

The bulk of this session was taken up by a Mass Battle, and I’m pretty clear that I ran things incorrectly. Still, there were some flukes of the dice that contributed heavily to the outcome, and even though things went ridiculously in the favor of the PCs here, if they’d rolled differently it would have swung just as harshly the other way (at least for all the NPCs).

Last-Minute Preparations:
The heroes did not know how much time they had. T-Man had organized a few hobbyists, along with several civilians who honestly had nothing better to do in the preparations for war, and they sent up remote-controlled aircraft with cameras for aerial reconnaissance, to keep an eye out on the major approach routes for any sign of enemy movement - or that of large hordes of zombies (since, given their luck so far, he was half-expecting a zombie horde to “just happen” to pop up about now).

Greer had his hands full with setting up the “mini-nuke” landmines in kill zones outside the main gates. Although initial plans had been to put most everything at the north gate, he changed his mind after, midway through the work, coordinating with a group of truckers who’d gone on a reconnaissance-and-sabotage mission to use some trailers to create obstructions on highways 17 (coming through the mountains to the north) and 87 (coming from the northeast). While the mission on highway 17 was seemingly successful, they had their doubts about the effectiveness of the blockage on highway 87; there, any convoy could simply back up, take highway 188 as an alternate route, and then approach Phoenix from the east, on highway 88. Neither 188 or 88 offered any easy points to create a significant blockage with the remaining resources they had, and keeping in mind that they might be ambushed at any moment - and that the enemy had helicopters.

Greer privately decided to split the mines differently, putting 3 each at the south and west gates (just in CASE something tried to ram through, in the hopes of making an impression and leaving the attackers wondering if there were more), and splitting the remainder evenly across the north and east kill zones, rather than loading up the bulk of them just to the north. Fortunately for him, nothing attacked in the middle of his delicate work, and he had teams of nervous defenders keeping watch for him, guns at the ready, in case something ambushed them outside the walls. Aside from a few gratuitous zombie scares that were quickly dealt with, the operation was thankfully uneventful. Debris was set up to block line of sight in makeshift barricades so that it wouldn’t be so patently obvious that there were mines lying on the road.

Dominic rode with a patrol team on Highway 10, manning a machine gun mounted on the bed of a pickup truck, seeing no action initially save for the usual occasional zombie sighting. No hordes, and no raiders, so far.

Betsy acted as a scout in the US Bank building, along with a team of others, while Teenie Mae took up training in the use of firing Stinger missiles, having to waste a few as part of her training exercise.

GM Note: At the close of the last session, I did my last random roll to see if the NPCs advanced, and it came up a “6,” so I told each player that ONE of his follower Extras could get an Advance. Digital_Rampage chose to give Teenie a d4 in Knowledge (Missiles), but I still ruled that the training process would involve firing off a few for practice.

At T-Man’s suggestion, the Chase Bank Tower was largely abandoned, save for one “lucky” lookout (working in shifts, so they’d rotate periodically) who was tasked with keeping several kerosene heaters burning in an attempt to “light up” the building to any enemies with infrared technology as occupied, and thus (it was hoped) make it a first target for any incoming attacks, buying time for the Stinger missile team in the US Bank Tower.

Jacob wasn’t doing so well. He passed out at one point, and then woke up to find himself broken into the refrigerated container housing the meat that had been salvaged from the military base, having gorged himself to the point of pain. His body felt like it was burning up, and he was loathe to leave this refrigerated respite (especially with all this meat here). His teeth had grown back in as pointed fangs, and he knew that he had to keep himself away from other people; he would be in danger of having to repeatedly resist the urge to sink his teeth into them - and eventually, he’d falter.

Rhiannon somehow found him. She couldn’t technically see the monster he’d become, but she could somehow sense him. She somehow understood his condition and accepted it with only mild disappointment. She still had the pistol with the silver bullets, and Jacob instinctively knew that, sight or no, she’d be able to find her target if it came to that. Fortunately, despite the urges to bite anyone he ran into, something in Jacob told him instinctually that Rhiannon would taste bad, so he was able to keep his destructive instincts in check.

Extra Friends:
Spotters sighted a small convoy coming in from the southeast, and they were able to confirm by radio that this was a convoy from Ft. Drake: the Tohono O’odham survivors who had relocated to the base. Responding to Jacob’s request, they had brought the automated defense turrets, and intended to help, in reserve, to deal with the Flagstaff raiders in the hopes of dealing with a common enemy once and for all.

Jacob was too far along in his deterioration to respond personally, so Rhiannon mediated for him, explaining that Jacob was in the middle of something dangerous, preparing for the battle. With the help of the Tohono O’odham, defense turrets were set up at the east gate, to further create the illusion of manned defenses outside the “mini-nuke” minefield.

Delays:
GM Note: I decided that with the barricades set up, the Flagstaff forces would face a Driving check to get past the obstacles. After all, I’d already decided that they’d have some large vehicles as part of their convoy intended to be able to ram through barricades, and they might simply find an alternate route. I rolled collectively for the convoy … and it came up snake-eyes. I decided this meant that the convoy was going to be forced to take the highway 88 route, after initially coming along highway 17 and finding the way blocked - this would mean a significant delay to reorganize that large of a convoy, and buy the heroes a whole lot more time before ground forces hit … but there was just no way the helicopters were going to take a detour, too!

Come nightfall, the tower lookouts were equipped with nightvision goggles in passive mode only (i.e., not shining a “spotlight” of IR light, since it would have insufficient range to be of much use, and would only serve to give away their positions if an enemy was using nightvision goggles). This allowed them to notice the approach of two Apache AH-64 attack helicopters, as the aircraft were equipped with active nightvision, and were sweeping the area with IR spotlights to look for targets.

The word went out, and several citizens equipped with lasers (laser pointers, classroom lasers, etc.) and radar guns pointed them in the reported direction of the helicopters, sweeping the sky in a crazy gambit to fool inexperienced pilots into thinking they were being targeted by anti-aircraft defenses. One of the pilots evidently was sufficiently spooked, as he immediately launched chaff and flares. The other, however, was unimpressed, and immediately targeted the Chase Tower, ripping through the top floors of the tower with several FFAR rockets. For the moment, the US Bank Tower was untouched; the decoy had worked.

GM Note: I treated the “fake aircraft defense” gambit is a Smarts-based Trick. Getting a mere success would be pointless (who cares if the helicopter is at -2 to Parry?) but a raise could cause a Shaken result for the pilot and buy some time (as well as potentially get him to waste his countermeasures).

At this point, however, we ran into a problem. The Stinger missile stats just didn’t make sense on this scale: they have a maximum range in Zombie Run of 320 game inches (640 yards, or 1920 feet, or .36 mi). Back in the real world, we should be looking at an effective range of something closer to 3 miles (circa 1984), up to somewhere near 12 miles maximum physical range. At 320 game inches, according to the scale of my map, the Stinger operator would basically be required to wait until the helicopter was right on top of her before firing.

I tweaked that, and changed it to a minimum lock-on range of 1 mile, “short” range of 1-2 miles, “medium” range of 2-4 miles, and no long range, as a quick house-ruling. Correspondingly, however, those Apaches would have weapons with ranges measured in miles, too, and THEIR targets weren’t necessarily mobile or small (i.e., the towers, once they figured out where the enemy was).

Greer by this point was up in the tower, and had been woken up (he’d been working all day on landmines, after all) to take his place alongside Teenie Mae. They launched their missiles. Teenie Mae’s missile damaged the tail rotor of the helicopter that’d just blasted the Chase Tower, causing it to spin out of control, and prompting its pilots to put down somewhere in the urban sprawl outside of the defensive perimeter. Greer’s punched right through the cockpit of the other helicopter, blowing it out of the sky spectacularly.

T-Man was aroused from sleep, and he wasted no time in rushing out with Angelina on a motorcycle to try to intercept the fallen helicopter in the hopes of making sure it stayed on the ground, rather than popping back up to continue blasting the city. Dominic was right behind him, also on motorcycle, though he had a harder time driving through the ruins at night.

T-Man and Angelina were on the scene first, abandoning their motorcycle a distance away from the landing site and approaching the remaining distance on foot. The pilots had evidently heard the noise of a motorcycle in the distance, and had their weapons at the ready, but, unlike T-Man, they didn’t have nightvision goggles as personal gear. A quick battle ensued, as Angelina and T-Man flanked the helicopter in the darkness, then sprang forth, avoiding wild shots made in the darkness - Angelina pegging one of the crewmen with an assault rifle and making sure he didn’t reanimate via the bayonet - T-Man making use of his “trademark” gaff hook to take down the other.

Dominic arrived on the scene only after the action was over, while T-Man was trying to figure out how to best destroy the craft. Dominic came up with the crazy idea of actually trying to fly the thing back into the defensive area, possibly to see if they could make use of its missiles. T-Man would have no part of it, so Dominic lifted off, leaving his motorcycle behind - and somehow managed to limp over to a cleared-out area near the shantytown in the rail yards.

He also tried using the radio, calling upon his conman skills to pass himself off as the pilot of the helicopter, making up a fake report that defenders with Stinger missiles had been taken out, and the downtown area strafed with 30mm chaingun fire and rockets, but that he’d had to put down to enact emergency repairs after damage from a near-miss from one of the missiles. He made up a false (?) report about how the Phoenix defenses were mostly concentrated on the north side. (The trouble was, this was actually true, and once the others found out about it, they were beside themselves with frustration.)

T-Man, once he got back and heard about Dominic’s “report,” organized groups to set up piles of tires and other debris to start fires to back up the tales of “heavy destruction,” in the hopes of misrepresenting to the attacking forces just how much damage they’d managed to deal against the defenders.

Unwanted Offer:
Come morning, a single heavily-armored truck drove up toward the north barricades, and a man with a megaphone in the back broadcast a message to the Phoenix defenders that there was “no need for hostilities,” and that anyone who surrendered would be allowed to leave Phoenix peacefully, and possibly even be welcomed into the Flagstaff community, etc., etc.

T-Man delivered a defiant speech in response, and squelched those who were eager to snipe the enemy spokesman. In the end, the messenger was allowed to peacefully leave, though it was clear that the convoy would be coming soon, and in force. Lookouts had already spotted the convoy arriving en masse along highway 88, making its way toward the east entrance to the downtown area, while a smaller band of motorcycles, dune buggies and other more maneuverable vehicles was breaking off to make some sort of flanking (or decoy?) move toward the north gate.

GM Note: I saw this as a Mass Battle with two fronts - I would be rolling battle rolls for each “front” (north and east) separately. However, I’d be giving players a chance to play their individual roles out, and their success or failure would impact the final score positively or negatively. The attacking Flagstaff forces would have a +3 bonus because the defenders had never learned their secret battle plan. The helicopters had been eliminated, and weren’t accounted for as “tokens” - but hadn’t done significant damage to the city’s defenses, either.

Even though, on the east gate, we had a d8 for Maxis’s Kn (Battle) roll, and the defenders had only a d8 Kn (Battle) roll from an Extra, somehow I managed to roll consistently high on the defenders’ d8, and poor-to-middling on Maxis’s roll, throughout the entire battle.

Emergency repairs had been enacted on the Apache AH-64. Its maneuverability was still severely limited (GM Note: -2 due to “wound” penalties, but the turning issue had been fixed), but Dominic was able to get Greer to help him out as navigator/gunner to fire the missiles, while he would pilot the thing and operate the chain gun. The helicopter had been relocated outside of the town before sunrise, and once the convoy rolled in, it popped up and moved into position to “assist” the convoy, firing missiles into town toward unoccupied sections in order to keep up the ruse. Dominic used his advantageous position to scan the incoming convoy to try to identify vehicles that presented a special threat - such as the military vehicles equipped with rocket launchers. Then, at the right moment, coordinating with Teenie Mae, he launched a surprise attack on the convoy, while Teenie Mae launched Stingers (turning off the guidance system so she could fire the missiles as “dumb” rockets at ground targets) to add to the mayhem.

Then, two large semi tractor-trailers with heavily-armored cabs barreled forward, toward the barricades. (One of the cabs looked familiar, suspiciously like the one that had attempted to run the group down outside the Tohono O’odham lands.) Teenie Mae and Jacob were suddenly overcome with a sensation of a host of voices screaming in their skulls, and a dark whispering voice urging them to kill and devour those around them. Fortunately, they didn’t give in, but that kept them occupied for a bit … until the trucks hit the barricades and then the mini-nuke mines behind them.

GM Note: One of Jacob’s many problems with his “transformation” was that, when in the presence of the undead, he was particularly susceptible to “The Moan,” but also to urgings to engage in zombie-like behavior. Basically, since he’d been making so many high Spirit checks to resist giving in to zombie nastiness, I gave him a “racial template” for this scenario that gave him many of the benefits of being a Feral, but offset by a large number of Hindrances - most of them involving frequent Spirit checks to NOT behave like an undead monster - which basically acted like a Benny drain over the course of the session, with enough Spirit rolls called for.

At around the same time, the raiders at the north entrance broke through the outer barricades, and they too ran into the mini-nukes. However, this particular band seemed to consist of drug-addled blood-hungry maniacs who feared nothing and pressed on regardless.

In the ensuing battle, Teenie Mae used up the last of the missiles, while Greer and Dominic wrought havoc upon the enemy convoy from above and with relative impunity. With further harassment from the Tohono O’odham forces camped outside the main defenses, it was a complete rout for the main body of Flagstaff’s forces, and Dominic showed no mercy even once they began to retreat.

The Northern Assault:
The northern exit, meanwhile, was relatively under-protected, as the ability of the motorcycles and dune-buggies to break through the defenses was underestimated. Some of them managed to navigate through the side-streets, despite the traffic jams and barricades, to get up onto Highway 10 - effectively the outer “wall” of the defensive perimeter. This brought the battle to the defenders of the north gate. Jacob was draped under a canopy on the back of his technical, manning his .50-caliber machine-gun, while Rhiannon hid in the presumed safety of the cab. T-Man and a couple of other defenders (proxies for JZ and HZ, since their PCs were in a helicopter routing forces to the east) manned a barricade, while Angelina provided cover fire with a gun rear-mounted on the Frankencar in a parking garage overlooking the north overpass entrance.

Battle raged as the defenders had figured out NOT to drive right through the mini-nuke minefield (and past a certain point there just weren’t that many mines left anyway to cover the road), and instead rushed the defensive positions set up on the highway. As several motorcycle gun teams (each motorcycle having one driver and one passenger with an assault weapon), one armored dune buggy and a “battle wagon” (a trailer with makeshift armor set up around it, forming a platform for gunners to fire from, behind partial cover) converged upon Jacob’s defensive position, outside of the firing arc of his mounted Browning.

Jacob decided to throw all caution to the wind, tossed the canopy aside, and lifted the Browning from its mount. His body had been so contorted by the transformation into a “Feral” that he could no longer wear his Kevlar body armor, but was still clad in oversized camouflage garb Rhiannon had procured for him from a “big-and-tall” specialty store with a mind for hunters.

GM Note: I know a Feral doesn’t have a Size increase, but I figured that depriving him of normal-sized armor, without a corresponding increase in Toughness, would be another Hindrance I could apply to the “Feral” package for balancing purposes. Plus, the “feral soldier” miniature I found for him was a bit on the large size. Since he had invested his last Advance in an increase in Strength, and this was the last game, I figured - hey, why not? So I let him treat a Browning as a 2-handed weapon with a Snapfire penalty.

Angelina had to spend some time moving the Frankencar to another level of the parking garage to get to a more advantageous position from which to snipe the attackers, as they’ve moved underneath her effective firing arc (which had been optimized for sniping enemies as they came toward the “gate”), but once she did, she took out a few motorcyclists with sprays of lead. T-Man “clotheslined” another motorcyclist with his gaff hook, causing a pile-up when the motorcyclist right behind him failed to turn in time. The other defenders laid down burst fire, similarly cutting into the attackers.

The trouble was, the dead didn’t stay down, either here, or elsewhere on the field of battle at the north gate. Soon, the air was filled with “The Moan” from assorted points, and Jacob leaped down from the truck bed and howled in anguish. Angelina saw him and didn’t recognize him, lining up for a shot (thinking him to be intentionally joining in with “The Moan”), but Rhiannon’s “danger sense” kicked in, and she opened up the side truck door, smacking Jacob in the back-side and warning him to drop to the ground just in time to avoid a spray of bullets.

Jacob tore into zombies that lumbered up toward the meager barricade set up around his truck, and while he was occupied, one of the surviving raiders crept up to the driver’s side of the truck, picked the lock on the door, then slid in. Rhiannon, occupied with her brother, and already overwhelmed by the sense of danger all around her, didn’t manage to distinguish the danger immediately present behind her, in the cab, as she crawled back in and closed the door. She soon figured out her mistake when the raider grabbed her and pressed a gun to her side.

T-Man single-handedly cut through zombies that, for whatever reason, converged upon the site even from other parts of the battle, supported by his small team of defenders picking off stragglers from behind the barricade.

GM Note: Another “Hindrance” I added to Jacob’s package was that “the zombies are out to get you, if you’re not on their side.” Basically an excuse for every Living Dead in the vicinity to make a beeline for him unless it directly encounters another viable target first.

Jacob, after ripping the head off another zombie and resisting the urge to stop to make a snack of a freshly-killed raider, heard the truck start up. He turned in time to see the struggle inside, and the passenger side door still ajar. He lunged forward, growling, and, with the adrenaline rush, had to momentarily suppress an irrational urge to tear into Rhiannon rather than her attacker.

GM Note: More Spirit-checks-not-to-do-something zombie-ish, burning off his last Benny when he didn’t make the roll.

The raider, seeing Jacob as a monster, and not figuring it to see Rhiannon as a hostage rather than an appetizer, pulled the gun away from her to shoot at Jacob. It would have hit, save for Jacob’s increased reflexes as a result of his heightened metabolism. He reached in, snarling, and grabbed the raider’s arm, then tore it off, gun and all. The raider screamed, slamming on the gas pedal, as the truck lurched forward, tearing away from the makeshift barricade, with Jacob clinging onto the side.

Amidst panicked gunfire from Angelina (fortunately failing to find its mark), Jacob first reached in and grabbed Rhiannon, and stuffed her into the back extension section of the cab. Then he reached in and grabbed the screaming raider, slamming the would-be carjacker into a signpost as they careened by. As the truck sent sparks flying, skidding against the side-rails, Jacob squeezed into the now-tight confines of the cab, sticking his head up through the top-mounted hatch, and steered the truck away from Angelina’s spraying gunfire. Rather than turning back and trying to explain anything, he just plowed through every motorcycle and raider he found along the way, as he made his way to the exit ramp and barreled on out of town.

Meanwhile, the AH-64 came about, having unloaded its missiles upon the convoy, but still having a few rounds left in its 30mm chain-gun, which it used to tear apart zombies.

The Flagstaff attack force was no more.

Aftermath:
Jacob and Rhiannon were never seen again, and Teenie Mae mysteriously vanished shortly after the battle.

Jacob drove off with Rhiannon, and somehow Teenie Mae, following a peculiar sort of sixth sense, managed to find them. Jacob was convinced that he had somehow contracted the curse of the “wendigo,” but so far he was still able to resist the call of the force he thought of as the “Dark Spirit.” Perhaps there were others like him, like Teenie Mae, who could resist the urge to turn entirely into monsters. Regardless, however, if they were to find a life, it would be in the wilds, away from the pockets of civilization found in the survivor communities.

So, Jacob drove off into the sunset.

GM Note: No, this doesn’t follow the prescribed Feral progression as detailed in War of the Dead, but then, I didn’t precisely follow the infection procedure either, and any advantages he got in his new form were heavily offset by Hindrances anyway.

Dominic learned from interrogating prisoners (survivors of the invading force) that, as he suspected, Flagstaff’s defenses were woefully undermanned right now - but the prisoner claimed that Flagstaff had an alliance and a trade agreement with another settlement, in Colorado - “Helltown,” led by the “warlord” Hell Fuerrie. Dominic, filled with a desire for vengeance, began to make plans to make a journey to Colorado … and without Jacob around to nay-say the idea, he just might have to make a visit to Ft. Drake to pick up a special “gift” for Hell from the bunkers there.

In the midst of the celebrations in Phoenix after the stunning victory, T-Man got some unexpected news from Angelina. She hadn’t wanted to tell him before the battle, since she didn’t want it weighing on his mind … but he was going to be a daddy.

Greer accepted a change of fortunes, celebrated as a war hero now, rather than just being another AWOL soldier fleeing the madness of the zombie menace. He felt a certain duty to join Dominic on his quest to rid the world of the menace of Helltown (since surely they’d come calling eventually) but for now, he was content to join in the festivities. On the morrow, he was going to join an expeditionary force to head to Flagstaff to begin negotiations for a peace treaty between Phoenix and what remained of Flagstaff’s forces, with the stern message that lawless raids upon survivors to steal their supplies would no longer be tolerated - but if they could work together in peace, perhaps they could find a better way to prepare for tomorrow, through agriculture, and rebuilding the ruins of society.

And so, our heroes managed to help a fledgling survivor community hold off attacks from the Flagstaff raiders, and establish a foothold for the effort to recover from the zombie menace and build an oasis of civilization.

GM Wrap-Up:
So, that’s it for zombies for now!

Anyone familiar with Zombie Run or War of the Dead could see that I took immense liberties with the material, so this isn’t really a fair representation of how either game would play out. I may get a chance to revisit WOTD in the future, to follow Father O’Shaughnessy’s adventures (Chapter 2 onward), but JZ is most definitely not interested, so I’d probably have to recruit a different group for that.

(I’m entertaining the possibility of picking it up as an Armadillo Games campaign, after I finish with a run of Pirates - but that shouldn’t be anytime soon, since I’ve got plenty of Pirates material to go through.)

“Zombie Run” presents a lot of great ideas, and I think the size of the campaign is just about perfect, though I have some disagreements with certain elements of it. I think I’ve already covered most of those in the notes.

I think the “mini-nukes” were a bit over the top, too; I really should have replaced them with some other modern experimental technology (there are some fairly interesting alternatives to minefields in the works), or just indicated that they were really effective explosives and made it clear that, regardless of the damage rolls, no “technical” truck is going to survive rolling over one of them.

“War of the Dead,” while its intended adventure line didn’t quite work out perfectly for my particular group past a certain point, has some pretty workable mechanics for a variety of Living Dead. The Shambler and Sprinter stats are what they should be, I think, presenting the heroes with a threat that they can deal with (each individual zombie isn’t unbearably superhuman and inescapable), but which still deserves a healthy respect (because even one Shambler COULD get a lucky hit in, and once he gets a bite on you, that’s it … and if you keep fighting lots of Shamblers up close and personal, odds are at least one of them’s going to get lucky).

There are a lot of calls I made that I would have done differently the second time through, and outright mistakes on my part I wish I could undo. There are also areas where I would have put some more work into planning things out (if I had the time), but I suppose the bottom line is that the players enjoyed it.