Runaway Minecart

Whether you just watched Temple of Doom or you took a trip to Congo Bongo Island with the DK Crew, sometimes your players need to get thrown in a ramshackle cage and be shot over infinitly deep cracks in the dark.

The Cart

The only thing keeping our heroes from an ignoble fate at the bottom of a dark hole is a rickity box on wheels and the mad scramble to keep it running. The shape, construction, and propulsion of the cart all offer unique benefits and challenges, but crucially should only offer the characters a sense of safety in comparison to the alternative.

The cart should have three operating speeds: Slow, medium, fast; the speed of the cart dictates the difficulty of any ability checks, with a high speed generally making checks more dificult, and a slow speed making things easier, but this may not be the case for jumps and evasions. A DC array of 10/15/20 relating to speed is an easy solution, and can be tailore to reflect specific threats and party level.

The characters may or may not control vehicle the speed, but their actions and the environment should influence the cart's momentum, augmenting the challenges they face and when and how they escape.

The Track

Let's face it, if this was going to be a smooth ride we wouldn't be here. The track should usually present some form of ability challenge every turn, or inflict ongoing effects that the party needs to work together to fix, but blissfully calm stretches are a godsend if the party is too far back on its heels. Between maintaining the cart, watching the track, and beating back the threat, every party member should have something to do.

Sample Challenges Strength: Tilting/jumping the cart, power-breaking, attaching/detaching carts, clearing obstacles, resisting environmental hazards Dexterity: Hitting Switches, clearing obstacles, rope tricks, moving between carts on a train, resisting environmental hazards Constitution: Shoveling fuel/manual locomotion, resisting environmental hazards Intelligence: Juryrigging, map reading, directing cave-ins, investigations, resisting environmental hazards Wisdom: Treat detection, orienteering, directing pack animals, resisting environmental hazards Charisma: Tricky, but a crafty bard can usually figure something to seduce.

The Constant Threat

In addition to frequent and varied skill checks from the track, there should be a pressure applied to the players that keep them from simply dismounting and safely navigating by foot. This can be natural disasters like falling rocks (DM's classic) and lava flows, pursuing creatures, or a situation in the cart itself such as a dying character in need of constant care.

The looming threat chasing your players should not be something that can be quickly alpha-struck dead, controlled away, or convinced to leave on its own. A smart party that immediately disrupts the track behind them, or causes a cave-in on their pursuer can take the teeth out of a setpiece.

Consider this! Depending on the threat posed, this could result in a campaign ending party kill if the players are not able to navigate this encounter successfully. Consider allowing a threat to evolve; falling rocks could dislodge a now enraged bulette or purple worm, so an unexpected bossfight could be the result of player failures instead of death.

The Pursuit

Depending on the level of abstraction at your table, there are several methods to represent the speed and distance of your players, the cart, and the dangers around them.