Picket Line Tango Advice
I'm planning to run this as the second adventure for my players in a campaign setting and >!am treating it as a Kobayashi Maru since it is, as written, impossible. From what I've read people like it, but most groups either pull out early or stick it out until the end and die. So far I've put together a pdf contract to try and give them some hints so that they know to leave on day 6.!<
>!The setup for my game is that that their captain is a smuggler and the one providing arms to the colonists / bringing the shipment. They are going to dock at the top of the elevator, I'll play sfx of an old printer for the fax coming in outlying their role/responsibilities as strike breakers and that 'descending the elevator constitutes accepting the job'. Technically they can just put the delivery on the elevator and leave. The first big moment should be when the party has the supplies the colony desperately needs but hasn't "earned" yet. The plan is to have their hypnotized NPC captain disappear to go delivery supplies before returning to the ship. I already laid out the murders in the order/days I want to have some sort of escalation. I'm going with 1 murder per day by random colonists instead of named so that 2 aren't effectively taken out with each killing. I also decided the entire colony is on a small moon and traversing the colony end to end takes about 30 minutes.!<
>!If the players stick out to the end, my planned ending is that their captain crash through the dome in an attempt to save them, hypnosis triggers and they try to run someone over and get injured in the crash. I didn't want it to just be a strict deus ex machina.!<
>!My biggest concern, really, is that from what I gather players tend to get stuck on a solving murders treadmill without uncovering the root cause. I also don't want to just hand the solution to them by making it really obvious.!<
If anyone has any advice, I'm all ears.