You Are Gollum

[Arthur Fisher]

My players decided they wanted to hunt down The Bloody Ghost that has been haunting the good Woodmen of Mirkwood.
I saw a few thread with some good suggestions, but I wanted to know:
If you were Gollum and were being hunted by a foursome of adventurers(Barding, Hobbit, Elf and Dwarf) and they were hot on your heels, what would you do?

[Deadmanwalking]

Vanish.

If statted as an adversary (which you likely should), Gollum should have an Attribute of 4-5 (or maybe a 3 if he's got Denizen of the Dark...I'd go 4 with Denizen, probably) and Favored Movement at 5 or 6. If he's brought to battle by more than one foe, he should have high-ish Parry, Snake-like Speed, and possibly Deadly Elusiveness, and should immediately use his action to flee, an action he is almost certain to succeed at given the aforementioned Movement skill.

If they're unusually persistent at following him, he'll lead them through areas of great danger. Orc encampments and the like. Not that he's friendly with orcs, but with Stealth at the level noted above, he sneaks through casually, something few PC groups can manage. He may lead them into natural hazards as well, false trails leading to deadfalls and the like. In rules terms, I'd have them auto-trigger an appropriate Hazard (either combat or something that causes Endurance loss and injury) per Travel check, plus another if anyone rolls an Eye as long as Gollum is aware of them and leading them into trouble.

Speaking of Hazard equivalents, Gollum might well also resort to sabotaging the PCs stuff, ruining (or worse yet, subtly posioning) their food and water, stealing any clothing they leave out, throwing their cold-weather gear in the fire during winter, and the like.

If that doesn't work, he may also come for them in the night and attempt to kill one of them in their sleep if they don't keep good watches. Especially if they have been injured in the aforementioned hazards. Killing injured people in their sleep is well within Gollum's bailiwick, after all.

[spivo]

I had one of my players see him as a hazard (1 shadow to see such a wretched creature talking to himself), and when my player lifted his bow I said a very gentle force restrained him a bit, but he could shoot if he wanted.
He decided to let it go and not speak of it to the others, and so I gave him back 1 hope for showing pity.

[Arthur Fisher]

I've got all the stats and game mechanics worked out. There were quite a few posts on that in the past. I don't need to know what you, the LM, would do playing Gollum.

What I want to know is, what would you, the person, do if you were Gollum and were being chased by a foursome of hunters?
What insidious and tricksy plans would you come up to fool the stupid men and kill the nasty hobbitses?

[Glorelendil]

I've got all the stats and game mechanics worked out. There were quite a few posts on that in the past. I don't need to know what you, the LM, would do playing Gollum.

What I want to know is, what would you, the person, do if you were Gollum and were being chased by a foursome of hunters?
What insidious and tricksy plans would you come up to fool the stupid men and kill the nasty hobbitses?

Great existential question, and totally unanswerable. It's like asking, "If you were the opposite gender of what you actually are, how would you feel about gender issues?" We're not, so how could we know?

At most what we could offer is what we would do as LM playing Gollum. But since you are very specifically not interested in that I'll check out another thread.

[Deadmanwalking]

I've got all the stats and game mechanics worked out. There were quite a few posts on that in the past.

Okay. I wasn't really suggesting stats, though, just noting what the implications of the stats he should probably have would be. The two are somewhat different things.

I don't need to know what you, the LM, would do playing Gollum.

Okay...the thing here is that, as Glorelendil notes, saying what we'd do as an LM is about as close as we're gonna get to what you're asking for in many ways. I mean, maybe it'd be phrased differently, but the content isn't gonna change.

What I want to know is, what would you, the person, do if you were Gollum and were being chased by a foursome of hunters?
What insidious and tricksy plans would you come up to fool the stupid men and kill the nasty hobbitses?

Well, as Gollum, my goal is to survive and find my precious. Nothing else really matters.

So plan number one I'd have in his lack-of-shoes is run and hide, since confronting these people is risky and gains me nothing. If that doesn't work on its own, leading my pursuers into dangerous situations, setting traps, and the like would definitely be plan number two. Followed by sabotage and possibly murder as plan three (if I can accomplish those without too much risk).

Specific plans would depend heavily on circumstances and how the pursuers behave...something you haven't given as information, and may well be impossible to give.

[Arthur Fisher]

Great existential question, and totally unanswerable. It's like asking, "If you were the opposite gender of what you actually are, how would you feel about gender issues?" We're not, so how could we know?

It doesn't seem unanswerable to me at all. After all, as role players we inhabit the roles of people we aren't all the time.
Even though I'm not the King of the Elves of Mirkwood, I have to make decisions as to how Thranduil responds to questions and actions of my characters, even if I don't have stats and figures for that as a LM.

Loremaster suggestions are helpful, but I've already got all the stats and special abilities I need. And most of that is pretty wrote anyway. If my players are going to meet such an epic character as Gollum, I want it to be truly original and memorable.

Deadman's suggestions are really good ones and stuff I'll use. But folks here have been playing a while and are unknowably clever so I wanted to know if anyone else had something particularly cunning or nasty in mind were they put in the same position as Gollum.
For instance, I might kill a bunch of cattle in the night and leave track for the adventurers to follow, setting them up to take the blame. But that's just my mundane idea. I want to know what other folks might think of.

Traps are, of course, something he'll try. So, what kind of traps would you use were you a Shadow crazed ex-halfling being tracked through the forest by folks surely bent on your demise?
Would you have made allies amongst the spiders? Wargs?
Which creatures would you lead them into the lair of?

If folks would like more details about the particular circumstances of the world or the characters, please feel free to ask and I'll be happy to oblige.

[zedturtle]

Right. It is a tricky question... I've actually avoided the Bloody Ghost from showing up in my games, just because he's so difficult to do right (getting the right feel for Gandalf is also tricky, but I really thing Gollum is more difficult). I'm sure if the situation arose in one of my games, Gollum would do some clever and quite likely despicable, in order to escape the heroes. But I'm not too likely to know what that is, until (and if) it shows up.

I really, really, try to avoid gruesome stuff in my games... I'm not interested in the grimdark of Middle-earth (or anywhere else)... so Gollum's antics (for example, killing or severely endangering children in an effort to get the heroes distracted or falsely accused) would not be something I really wanted to dig into. Sorry.

[Cawdorthane]

Like the best horror/sci-fi movies of the 50's and 60's, a foe that is never seen is by definition far more mysterious, scary and, well, villainous - with a canonical villain like Gollum, who the Companions really should have no chance whatsoever of killing or capturing, that is definitely the way I would go. Lay some false leads if your players are too savvy too quickly as to who it is and I personally would try to leave them guessing in the end. Gollum would not hesitate to lead pesky persistent trackers into an Orc den or a spider nest etc.

But whether you play up the grim horror, the tragic despair or even the comedic aspects of Gollum, or a cocktail thereof (which would be my preferred approach), that depends very much on your own group and what works for it. Tolkien never hesitated to use a heavy dollup of horror and tragedy in his stories where necessary, so do not be too afraid to use it. The darkness of Middle-earth was just as much part of Tolkien's scheme of work as Hobbit humour and Elven song. However, as few of us are master story tellers like him, I tend to err on the side of caution when using such darker elements, as usually a little goes a very long way and most players with good imaginations will be able to join their own dots.

cheers
Mark

PS Although I confess that I did like what Spivo did!

[Glorelendil]

Great existential question, and totally unanswerable. It's like asking, "If you were the opposite gender of what you actually are, how would you feel about gender issues?" We're not, so how could we know?

It doesn't seem unanswerable to me at all. After all, as role players we inhabit the roles of people we aren't all the time.

We imagine we inhabit those roles, which is very different from inhabiting those roles. The point being, what we would do as a Loremaster or Player is as close as we're going to get.

Unless maybe you're suggesting that what we'd do as a player is actually different from what we'd do as LM, and you want the former. For me it would be pretty much the same thing, but maybe others would answer that differently, in which case your request would make more sense.

Or, maybe...are you saying that the set of actions we might contemplate as LM/Player overlaps with but is not identical to the set of actions we might contemplate if were not doing so in the context of a roleplaying game? That we might consider options/strategies that would be unfair or against the rules or simply not appropriate to a game? Like the aforementioned "baby-killing as psy-ops". I would definitely not do that in a game, as either LM or as "Player Gollum". But if I really were Gollum, in real life?

Not even sure how to answer that.

Gollum....