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Exculpatrix posted:Oh, and our pilot is presumed dead. Fixed that to follow one of my favorite rules bits in Lady B :p Lady B does seem to easily generate cool play. I recently got my first game in, and after rescuing the Lady, the player running Cyrus made a big reveal (while the Hand of Sorrow was in mid-mutiny chaos) -- he was Uriah Flint in disguise! Pretty sure LB is going to be my go-to for new groups/quick games at this point.
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Apr 18, 2012 12:02
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Tsed posted:Fixed that to follow one of my favorite rules bits in Lady B :p Hah, that's a pretty nice twist to spring. I've been enjoying just how simple and elegant the LB system is, and the use of Keys. I've been running a 7th Sea campaign for a while now, inspired by the writeup over in the FATAL and Friends thread, and we've just switched system mid-campaign to use LB instead. 7th Sea is a wonderful setting but not so great as a system. Also, here's a story from a different game to keep the thread going. It was a two-part filler game as a break from our main campaign while one of the players was away. The set-up was Extreme Psychotherap, solving mental illness through superior firepower. A little bit Inceptiony, the group went inside the minds of clients and helped them out by shooting the manifestations of their problems. They've gone to help a guy with a gambling addiction and found the problem a lot bigger than they expected. Intstead of just one target to shoot as the manifestation of the problem they've got an entire twisted dream version of Las Vegas. In the first session they have a flashback to "The Georgia Job", a mess up where they went to cure someone's fear of birds and accidentally killed his kindness and empathy too. This becomes important later. In the second session they meet with the embodiment of the client's desire to get over his addiction, who takes the form of a dog with the hands of a man, calling himself the General of the resistance against this city. Around this point I figured they'd probably decide to try blowing up the whole city or something and spend the session getting a nuke. Oh no. Instead they decide to go to Town Hall. They've decided the dream-logic way to shut down the city is to meet the mayor. So they turn up and find the town hall is a huge gothic cathedral, empty except for a complex network of pipes converging in the middle, running through and around the mayor's twisted old body. The mayor begs them for death. Unsure of what will happen if they kill the mayor they come up with an alternative plan: The mayor controls the city, so if they implant the desire to get over the addiction into the mayor's brain then he'll turn the city into something that isn't Vegas, solving the problm without bombs. A plan summed up by the line "Look, we can fix the pipes if we put the dog in the mayor!" So they build a replica of their dream machine inside the dream and go deeper. Inside they find a psychiatrist's office and note adressed to them. "Hello, do you like this little trap I prepared for you? I hope you die screaming." Signed by the customer from the Georgia job. Apparently that's why the addiction was so much more complex than anything they'd seen before, it had all been set up to lure them here and get them trapped in someone's head until they died. At this point, two things I didn't expect. The player of the dog asks "So, if this whole brain is a trap, and I'm part of the brain, does that make me an element in the trap? Maybe bringing me in here is the trigger for it." That seems to make sense, so sure, this player has just become the boss fight I guess. As they fight the party tech freaks out. "This whole thing is a double layered trap? Do you know how hard that would be to do? Do you know how many people in the world could set this up? Only me! Wait... did I set this up?" And so it was agreed that yes, in return for having his family looked after he'd set up this brain trap and come in with the others to ensure they died. It was far too good a revelation not to use. So yeah, I managed to run a game where no one saw the twist ending coming, including me.
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Apr 18, 2012 14:10
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That is an amazing concept. Totally going to steal that, FATE Inception here we come!
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Apr 18, 2012 16:17
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I have no idea what I just read, but it sounds awesome.
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Apr 18, 2012 21:39
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What system did you use to run that? Because that owns.
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Apr 18, 2012 22:24
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LB is "Lady Blackbird." The techniques described could be used in a lot of games, though. Which is why I want to comment.Exculpatrix posted:So yeah, I managed to run a game where no one saw the twist ending coming, including me. Ughhh, I've tried to explain this is possible so many times to so many unbelievers. Sometimes they get outright hostile at the suggestion. Thank you and congratulations for having an awesome direct experience of it.
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Apr 18, 2012 22:35
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Doc Hawkins posted:Ughhh, I've tried to explain this is possible so many times to so many unbelievers. Sometimes they get outright hostile at the suggestion. Thank you and congratulations for having an awesome direct experience of it.
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Apr 18, 2012 22:46
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Doc Hawkins posted:Ughhh, I've tried to explain this is possible so many times to so many unbelievers. Sometimes they get outright hostile at the suggestion. Thank you and congratulations for having an awesome direct experience of it. I have a similar story, though it was more about a pre-planned ending changing than about not knowing what the ending was at all. But anyway, I should probably mention the time my players accidentally created God. Naturally, this was Mage. While on the trail of an unrelated investigation, my players unwittingly took part in a ritual that transported them to a near-abyssal realm. The body of the sacrifice who died to complete the ritual (a mastigos) was transmuted into a twisted mockery of the watchtower of the Iron Gauntlet (which governs mind and space. This is gonna be important in a second). My memory is a bit fuzzy, but I know that there was a similar reflection of the watchtower of the golden key, along with a central black tower place in a way that suggested that the five towers were meant to ring it. While the tops of the watchtowers could be seen, the black tower just extended upward into the black, stormy ocean that comprised the sky- the abyss. Now, here was my plan before the players did what they were about to do: their central antagonist was The Dragon, an enormously powerful abyssal entity who could act only through granting the wishes of others. The watchtowers were part of a ritual to fulfill a wish by The Gate, who had grown weary of holding back the abyss for so many eons and wished only for an end. That black tower was essentially The Gate personified. The Gate's suicide would essentially allow an abyssal incursion on a scale never before seen, so obviously the central thrust of the remaining story would be the players stopping the ritual. All that was supposed to happen at this point would be that the players wander about for a bit and get to have a chat with The Dragon, without necessarily divining his true nature or intentions, before being returned home. Then it got complicated. Out of curiosity, one of my players climbed the force/prime tower and cast a simple light spell. I didn't have anything specifically planned, so basically just for the hell of it I said something like "okay, it works, but the light is so bright you can see the outline of your finger bones through closed eyelids when you raise it to shield your face. So, of course, one of my players with a penchant for throwing a monkey wrench into things announces that he's going to climb the mind-affiliated tower and cast create consciousness. At this point I pretty much had to call for a break in the session just so I could figure out what the gently caress they just did. Finally, I decide that they ended up creating a self-contained consciousness of indefinite duration that was immeasurably smarter than all of them. Then, they used the prime tower to give it an indefinite-duration phantasm for a body. Then they had it sign its name to the watchtowers. So, fast forward, the players are back in the real world along with the newly-named Adam, who has busily read several libraries and also the internet. Though he has no actual capacity for magic, he has developed a way to mathematically model it and can comprehend and analyze things like complex rituals and Atlantean (which probably doesn't TECHNICALLY work, but who cares). Eventually, the players discover that the rest of the towers are going up very soon, so soon that they'll need to split up to stop them all. Adam is troubled by the runes recovered from the previous tower rituals that he's analyzed and asks to go along with one of the teams: though he's figured out some basics of the overall ritual, a significant portion of the runes appear to be 'junk data' whose purpose he can't figure out without access to another set. It's important to note, incidentally, that Adam is essentially benevolent. He views the characters and humanity as a whole as his parents, and helps them out freely. This is starting to drag a bit, so to make a long story short(ish): they stop the rituals, but discover a sort of failsafe that would allow the overall ritual to continue without those individual sites, so long as the caster is able to substitute a release of energy about on par with a hydrogen bomb. Adam takes out some chalk and begins frantically scribbling on the last ritual circle, and then the world stops. The bomb has gone off, or rather, is going off. The players have been piggy-backed onto the ritual, essentially, and they look on the skyline of their city midway through a nuclear detonation. Feeling a rather obvious spike in power on their unseen senses, they walk into the blast, passing through the initial pressure wave where there are gaps immediately after building's silhouettes. Then I handed them Adam's character sheet which basically consisted of filling in every dot (plus a powers/gnosis section) and told them that, as a member of the group, his actions would be decided by group consensus in the coming fight. Obviously, this has already strayed a lot from the initial plan I had of stopping the ritual, but the real change comes when they come face-to-face with the Dragon again. He reveals that he is serving the wish of many for power, by constructing the ritual in order to send himself back in time to lead humans to Atlantis and ensure their fall. The players decide that they want to try to change the past, and they throw down with the Dragon. On a side note, the fight was explicitly designed so that the players wouldn't feel excessively overshadowed by Adam, even if they were controlling him. The false reflections re-emerged and could be used as they were previously, though in the second half of the fight they had to be destroyed to put actually make the Dragon stay dead. So, they've killed the Dragon, history is going to change. But the portal the ritual created is still open, and will still take exactly one person back to the time before Atlantis. They choose to send Adam, believing that he can guide humanity on a better path. Then, they basically sit down and wait for themselves to have never existed. Nothing changes. Another portal opens, and they follow it to the near-abyssal realm in which they created Adam. The reflected watchtowers are smashed, but the central watchtower remains. In fact, stairs began to emerge spiraling up around its outside, and the abyss seems to part around it, making way. The characters ascend. Halfway between the material world and the supernal realms, surrounded by darkness, the tower opens up into a dais containing several pillars that hold up the remainder of the tower. Most are simple, uniform pillars, but at the center is one that more resembles a throne. Seated in it- in point of fact, merged with it for uncountable aeons, having made its body a seal on the abyss when it failed to stop its creation, is their good friend Adam. And that's how my players created The Gate. e: also, it bears mentioning that the throne aspect was somewhat borrowed. I apologize for nothing. Androc fucked around with this message at 02:28 on Apr 19, 2012 |
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Apr 19, 2012 00:16
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A smug sociopath posted:I thought I'd share my most bizarre RPG:ing session. I think Shroom just GMed you guys through an Aristocrats joke 
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Apr 19, 2012 00:35
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Androc posted:which probably doesn't TECHNICALLY work
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Apr 19, 2012 00:39
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Alright, so I'm attempting to make this sound as epic as it was when I played it. I don't know if I'll succeed, but here it is. This happened about a few days ago in the Mistborn RPG by Crafty Games. For those unfamiliar with the setting, it's a setting where essentially the world is totally hosed and is ruled by a God-King and his bureaucratic Steel Ministry. There are 3 different magic systems, Allomancy, Hemalurgy and Feruchemy. In Allomancy, you consume flakes of metal and 'burn' them to give yourself a temporary boost to your attribute. In Feruchemy, you store your attributes in chunks of metal in order to give yourself boosts to them later, at a 1:1 ratio. In Hemalurgy, you kill someone with metal spikes to steal a part of them, which you can then stab into yourself to give yourself the stolen piece. Also drives you insane. So I'm playing a Feruchemist, and it's the end of the current story arc. We've been causing havok in one of the provinces of the Empire and inciting rebellion. However, the ringleaders(not us) of the rebellion have been caught and there's a public execution ready to be staged. Everyone is more or less required to attend. So we head to the execution square and lo and behold, 4 Steel Inquisitors- essentially some of the strongest enemies in the game- show up and start doling out executions on the 600 or so people that have been captured. Now the DM is about halfway through his description of the executions when a flash of brilliance overcomes me. I check what my stores are at, and tell the GM to hold on. I turn to our pewterarm (allomancer that burns pewter to gain strength and speed) and I tell him to throw me straight up. Everyone looks at me confused, and I repeat my request. I turn to the DM and this is sort of what happens in the conversation. <me>: I start storing 90% of my weight, dropping me to 20 pounds. I get near Myk (our pewterarm). <Myk>: Okay... I flare my pewter and throw him straight up into the air. <DM>: Alright, you throw him about 500 feet into the air. Rasher is now decending to the ground below at a rapid rate, the Steel Inquisitors have taken note and are somewhat confused by the man that just went flying straight up into the air. Looking coldly at the decending man, they start to push on the metal bands on his arm. <me>: I tap all 130 charges of my Iron, increasing my weight by about 25 thousand times. <DM>: Wait, what? <me>: Rasher is about 200 pounds, so that puts me at about 5 million pounds of weight flying down to the square at terminal velocity. <DM>: *Dead silence for about 30 seconds* The Inquisitors attempting to push on you are thrown prone against the square, you come flying down right on top of them. On impact, a large shockwave erupts from the epicenter, throwing hundreds of people away. A giant cloud of dust and debris is flung up from the impact site. When the dust settles, there is a small crater, there is no sign of either you or the 4 Inquisitors anywhere inside the crater. You can presume that everyone that was located in the crater is probably dead. *He turns to the others* What do you guys do in the aftermath? There are a lot of injured people from the impact. I talked to him after, he really wasn't expecting anything close to that. He was considering letting me live, but he figured that nothing would have really been able to survive that impact. I agreed, and I figure it's a great way to end a character who, for the most part, hadn't been really all that combat oriented. So that's the story of the 5 million pound living meteor. It's not much, but I can say that I don't think I'll ever be able to pull off anything similar for a fairly long time.
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Apr 19, 2012 07:23
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I was half-expecting depopulation due to nuclear winter as a sort of 'rocks fall, everyone dies' writ large, and I'm not sure whether that would have been better or not.
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Apr 19, 2012 07:46
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berenzen posted:So that's the story of the 5 million pound living meteor. It's not much, but I can say that I don't think I'll ever be able to pull off anything similar for a fairly long time.
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Apr 19, 2012 07:48
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I would have thought 5 million damm pounds would have created more of an impact. And killed all the hostages anyway.
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Apr 19, 2012 07:59
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Breetai posted:I was half-expecting depopulation due to nuclear winter as a sort of 'rocks fall, everyone dies' writ large, and I'm not sure whether that would have been better or not. a 5 million pound impact isn't even a megaton, not exactly the stuff of dinosaur apocalypse.
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Apr 19, 2012 11:37
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Colon V posted:I think the problem is that it's really hard to do well. A lot of goons hear "creator doesn't even know what the twist is going to be" and they immediately think Dominic Deegan. Though, in most cases, the only difference between it, and regular GMing is that you're being more up-front about not knowing what's going to happen next. The nice thing about Lady Blackbird (AW does this too, I think, but I haven't tried that yet) is that it kinda forces the GM into that position by default, with pretty clear instructions for you not to plan. That, and the attitude of "ask questions" makes it clear to the players that you haven't planned, and I think that helps gives them the "permission" to surprise you. The reassurance that no, you're not loving up the game by going against the plan, because the plan is something that never existed. That, and failures generate escalation means the GM is encouraged by rolls to break off from any plans that might've been forming.
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Apr 19, 2012 12:07
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I've got slightly mixed feelings about my first RP campaign. There have been some amazing incidents, like a story I posted in the best experiences thread about encasing a dwarf in a hollowed-out wheel of cheese and rolling it down a hill, but a couple of doubtful things as well. The system is a grognardy OD&D homebrew, and the GM is big on random tables for partying in town. That's where the cheese rolling came in, but there were a couple of awkward incidents. One night the party threw a giant feast where random people could come along and eat some lovingly detailed meals. There's an elf in the party played by my girlfriend, who's really quiet in the game. The GM decided to have some creepy elf dude flirt with her during dinner, and later leave weird love notes in our room at the inn. She was kind of weirded out and didn't really respond to it, so fortunately that whole thing kind of went away. Another time, during the cheese roll incident our human fighter rolled "drinking buddy" on the carousing table, which the GM interpreted to mean that he had the opportunity for a one night stand with a woman from the town. There wasn't any graphic description, it was just a fade to black, but it was kind of awkward because the player's wife was in the room waiting for him to finish so they could leave for dinner - and she's kind of opposed to gaming in general so I'm sure that didn't help. Most recently we've basically cleared out the dungeon we've been working on, which was the former home of an order of monks that fell to corruption and greed. The monks were mostly killed when their god smote the monastery with lightning but there were still a bunch of undead in the catacombs and some goblins had set up shop there as well. There wasn't really a Big Bad at the end so much as a huge skeleton army that we fought a fairly epic battle against, and immediately ran back to town to get help for our hireling who nearly died in the fight. The clergy in the town, who sort of worship the same god as the corrupt monks, somehow found out that we had destroyed the skeleton army and insisted on coming to the catacombs the next day to do cleansing rituals and whatnot. We went in ahead of them to secure everything and tie up a couple of loose ends, so I was hoping we'd get some good loot. However, the GM had the high priestess send her captain of the guard along with us to make sure we didn't loot the catacombs, so we've already missed out on some nice stuff that was lying around. I hope we can find a way to distract him or bribe him or something - we haven't found much magic loot so far in this campaign and it would be a shame to miss out. Luigi's Discount Porn Bin fucked around with this message at 13:55 on Apr 19, 2012 |
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Apr 19, 2012 13:53
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My story is from a few years ago, it was Shadowrun 4e. I love cyberpunk, and I love the idea of infusing computers with magic. So I created a technomancer character, but I had an idea for a character, I talked to the GM during character creation, to get a custom Negative Quality set up, we looked through the book and didn't find one based on having a morality system. I had pacifist too but we thought having a total moral character would be an interesting character concept. Our first mission was to kidnap a teenage girl and to bring her to a Johnson. I knew this was bad in character but I kept quiet, though it itched in the back of my character's head. The characters were actually enjoying having a moral character in a world of amorality, and once we found her, we took her into our custody and we had an incharacter discussion that amounted to: "I don't like this, let's bring her back to her parents" "No, we won't get creds for that, its dumb" "Well...what if we ransom her to them for the same amount, if she is such an important figure to kidnap surely they would pay it back" "What if they don't pay" "Well...I will concede" That last one was of course a lie, my character would not betray his morality. So we contacted the parents and made the ransom and they agreed to it. Before showing up, I made sure there were no police in the area on the matrix and made sure all cameras were off. We delivered the girl, they got the creds and once they left heading east out of seattle, we realized how big of poo poo we were in. Our Street Samurai had his cybereye webcam and recording device in his ears hacked and the megacorp that hired us watched and listened. An hour later on the Runner boards were a bounty for our heads. We had to get the hell out of dodge. With my black market connections we managed to procure a way of getting out of Seattle. Only problem was; we left to go to Hawaii. There a lot of the story picked up, from magic storms, to vampire hunting, to stealing a warehouse the Megacorp we screwed over owned and converting it to our own base, to my character dying while protecting the street mage from a gun shot. The game stayed purely in Hawaii and it was one of the most fun campaigns I have been in.
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Apr 19, 2012 15:04
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Nice thread we have here. I have two rather short stories, one of which was a personal experience while the other came from someone else I don't remember very much about. This was in a kinda freeform 3.5e game where rule-of-cool took priority.  : Okay, I'll hit the guard in the neck with the flat of my Vorpal Sword. : Sure, roll to hit. : *rolls a 20* : Um. *pause* Yeah, it goes straight through. The guard no longer has a neck, and his head plops to the ground. : But he was trying for non-lethal dama- : I'm okay with this. :  ---- My other story was just some quick role-playing in 4e where we needed to get a glassmaker's help for whatever reason. He was away for the day talking to a group of children about his profession (some sort of show-and-tell thing I presume), so we needed to fill in for him to get his assistance. Somehow we end up telling a version of The Gingerbread Man with glass bunny rabbits. We spent about five or ten minutes just giggling as we took turns inflating how ridiculous the story was before the DM finally put us back on track.
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Apr 19, 2012 16:30
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Warning:  I play a lot of L5R; usually running the games, because the system is relatively easy, but the canon/background is plentiful, and intimidating. Recently, I've had the opportunity to play in a few games, some good... others... less so. The in-game story has taken a turn for the stupid lately, with the the Shadowlands horde becoming a focused clan (good) who were then granted Great clan status by the Empress. (stupid) Keep in mind, I say this as a what I thought was the world's biggest Daigotsu fanboy. My character is a ronin for the game in question. And when I say this, I mean ninja. Kolat ninja. For context: Ninja in Rokugan are thought to be fairy tales. If they did exist though, they would be executed on sight as assassins, spies, or agents of Nothing. (complicated) Kolat are people who believe that human kind would be much better off without Celestial interference, and try to overthrow or subvert that influence. Also: Killed on sight. So, my character is a dishonourable scumbag, pretending to be a ronin, but there IS one thing worse than me. The taint. The taint essentially transforms people into deadites. People go nuts, become cannibals, sacrifice themselves to demons, or to become demons, and just kinda go FUBAR. The DMPC in question is Daigotsu, the scion of this taint, and subsequently, this setting's hell. Daigotsu has been statted up before. Last time I checked, he's a rank 12 shugenja (wizard), who breaks the fundamental rules of the game, and breaks most of them over his knee. In D&D terms, he'd be Wizard 35/Super Bullshit Fighter Prestige Class 5. He's that powerful. Naturally, when he shows up with his entire clan, defeats the big bad of the story, and regulates us to background scenery, I get pissed. In and out of game. My character, while a complete scumbag, has also risen to the status of Master Jade. Essentially, my secret group of subversives watches the watchmen, and when something gets too tainty go nuts, they send someone like me to make it dead. Daigotsu with a Black Scroll containing the power of a god? I can't allow that, no matter the cost. And the group is dead, or near dead. Daigotsu is just tired enough for me to grab the Black Scroll (Macguffin of no-no power) he's using, run like gently caress while he's hurt, and use my amazing stealth roll to hightail it back to Rokugan proper. It WOULD be an amazing story, but the DM wants Daigotsu to be able to show the Empress how amazing his clan is, and get Great Clan status, so the chase is on. Problem is, I'm human. The DMPC's are the entire Spider clan, now. My character is designed to stealth, and putting arrows into things, rolling on average 70+ for both. 50+ is considered legendary. Naturally, the Spider are not only tracking me perfectly, but seem to cut me off at every possible junction. Long story short, (too late, I know) I make it back to civilization, turn over the Macguffin of power to nearly uncorruptable forces, and then I LIE. I LIE hard. "Nope, the so-called Spider clan didn't help at all. It was the Seppun Magistrate's plan that took down the big bad, my Empress." Thing is: The Empress is a world champion bullshit detector, given Celestial powers. Her right hand man is a former clan champion who literally used to turn into a Dragon, and is half god. They know I'm lying. I'm not even good at it. But it makes NO god drat sense to give the Spider credit for anything if they don't have to. And now, they don't. How it should have gone down: I'm taken into a backroom by the powers that be, congratulated on helping protect human kind, and put down as a double mega ultra traitor. How it went down: Pissed off that I ruined his plans with smart play, the GM decides I am now a largely forgotten part of the Seppun family. The Spider become a clan anyway... but I do get to assassinate the corrupt Emerald Champion as a reward, after the credits. For some reason, the Empress is cool with this, knowing what I am.
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Apr 19, 2012 17:18
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7th Sea, aka Disney's "The Three Musketeers meets "The Pirates of the Caribbean." The Big Bad in the canon setting is Giovanni Villanova, who is one of the Seven Merchants Princes of Vodacce (think the Italy of the Borgias and Mediccis). Basically, Villanova is the smart villain who is evil for the sake of his own power, and anyone bearing his family name, even if they are not evil like him, is given wary respect. When you hear the word "Villanova" in 7th Sea, you quietly panic. Our group consists of... Myself - Vendel (Dutch) mathematician and astronomer of the "Lord Byron" type Javier - Castillian (Spanish) historian who was thrown in jail for "subersive activities against the church," after being ratted out by his fiancee. He acts paranoid, sleeps with his back against the wall, and has shivs hidden everyone on his body. Bianca - Montaigne (French) noblewoman who was forced to leave her country during the Revolution. Concerned with shoes, dresses, parties, and society. Has a small dog (Pomeranian) named "Coco" who we've ended up having legit conversations with that suddenly end with, "why am I talking to you, you're a dog." "Ruff!" Valentino - Vodacce Swordsman who possesses True Faith and a holy sword. May also be the bastard son of Giovanni Villanova... Three of us have played 7th Sea for years. Bianca's player hasn't. Our party is attending a masquerade ball on Villanova's island, because Villanova's sister is one of our party's patrons (long story short, the campaign is 7th Sea meets "Call of Cthulhu" and the GM is doing a KICKASS job freaking out out while letting us get our hero on). I'm arguing with an academic rival, Valentino is talking to a family member, Javier is enjoying the free food. Bianca? "I'm going to explore the villa!" So the GM runs us through our quick little one-on-one scenes, before turning to Bianca. She describes the grandeur and spectacle of a palace that's ostentatious, but tasteful. It's very easy to see that a man of wealth and power lives here. At one point, Bianca comes across a sculpture, and as she's studying it... "What are you doing?" ...says a man in a mask. Bianca and this man start talking art. And Bianca's player was an art major and a graphic designer, so she's pulling it off without making any dice rolls. More importantly, she starts talking about her three travelling companions and the troubles they've gotten into...which the man listens to with great interest. Eventually, the man asks her to dance. So they go to the ballroom floor...and everyone quietly slides away, leaving just her and the man there. It takes a while for the three of us to notice this, but we all turn to see Bianca dancing BEAUTIFULLY with this man. The scene is being roleplayed out in a great, flirting, witty manner by the GM and Bianca's player, and we're enthralled. The song ends, and the man bows and kisses her hand. "I must see you again," the man says. "Will you and your friends come to dinner tomorrow evening at my villa by the sea?" "But of course! I'll need a new dress and shoes, of course. But how will I know how to find you? I never got your name," Bianca says. "How rude of me. My name is Giovanni Villanova." Everyone reading this post figured this out already. NONE of the three male players did. Our jaws hit the floor in stunned silence...as Bianca's player, who has NO CLUE WHO THIS IS, says "Well, I look forward to getting to know more than your name, Senor(sp) Villanova." "And I look forward to getting to know all about yourself and your three colleagues." Javier's player said it best, mumbling quietly as he stared at the floor, head in his hand. "We're so screwed." CobiWann fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Apr 19, 2012 |
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Apr 19, 2012 18:54
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berenzen posted:So that's the story of the 5 million pound living meteor. It's not much, but I can say that I don't think I'll ever be able to pull off anything similar for a fairly long time. Oh gently caress yes, this was awesome. I love the Mistborn setting. You should type up any other good moments from this game that you remember.
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Apr 19, 2012 21:03
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Should I or should I not tell the story of tentacle monsters, DnD4e and Blood Bowl?
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Apr 20, 2012 12:13
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Manic_Misanthrope posted:Should I or should I not tell the story of tentacle monsters, DnD4e and Blood Bowl? Is it really a question at this point? Tell us!
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Apr 20, 2012 13:18
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I just doubt I have the ability to convey how awesome the whole encounter was. Setting: DnD 4e, we have Goatface DMing, Shogunate playing Ick-ee a Thi-kreen Cleric of Palor who introduces himself like a senile old vicar at every occasion, Waffleman as Waflus: a human wizard who would just rather get drunk and is well aware how poo poo his luck is. Luquos is Billy Rotten: an undead Dwarf (revenant) Ranger serving the raven queen. A non-goon friend of mine playing Sharana: An Eladrin Swordmage who wishes untold misfortune against everyone except her and finaly myself as Optima Primo: A Deva Ardent who thinks he is a Warforged. So quite the crew. We had managed to orginize a parade at the request of the King, who seemed to want to celebrate his daughters birthday: the Princess of course is 5 years dead at this point, but regardless of crazy gardeners, giant gerbils that explode into tentacles and beholders in a child's psyche. We manage to get everything rolling for the big day. Although there seems to be something going on with a bunch of Masked men, passing around weird spellbooks and jokes filled with racist jokes about everything. And I mean everything. On the day the Queen (who is a dwarf) is kind of worried, as mysterious metal cubes start showing up around the city, most notably in the palace courtyard where the parade ends, only knowing that simmilar things happened before a Dwarvern city collapsed. But anyway: The Parade! It all seems to go rather smoothly, no brawls break out, bards are singing, people are drinking and all in all it's a nice time had by all until the King makes his grand appearence on the stage outside the main palace building, with everyone in the courtyard including nearly every NPC we had met up to that point, with the exception of people who just went batshit bonkers because of some far-realm force. Then the King speaks: Shogunate: "I roll perception to listen intently to the speech *rolls 1* I am bored shitless!" and eventually he manages to insult the entire population at the same time, except for Optima and Billy. Because the two of us didn't identify with our own races (Deva and Revenent respectivley) all we heard was gibberish, while everyone else heard a joke about their race from the book of racist jokes. Figuring that there's definitely something more at play, we rally the group to the VIP area to find the Hierophant who we had assisted with the previously mentioned Beholder in the Kid's mind. He appeared to be drugged, looked as though he had been compelled to listen as the Princess stepped up to the stage. Or what looked like the late princess at least, who's laughter sounded like shattered glass. Then the battle started, a guard moved with inhuman speed into the VIP section, and on a clear day a bolt of black lightning struck him causing him to explode violently, a second one doing the same thing to where the Queen and the Viceroy were sitting as the thing that looked like the princess caused the King himself to float out away from the stage, emmitting an un-earthly glow. We were too far away to get to the stage in one round (with the exception of Billy) so I thought we needed a distraction so we could get close, fortunatley I saw a few Halflings we had met at a birthday party for a talking horse and their Treeman buddy. Thinking on my feat I rolled diplomacy to yell at the Treeman "TTM!" getting 30 on my check the Treeman picks up a Halfling and throws him right onto the stage, complete with Blood Bowl style rolls for throwing, scatter and landing. Buying us some more time as we all banded onto the stage while the last guard tried to deal with the Halfling. Ick-ee managing to bash the Guard so hard with his cleric powers that he started to puke a weird black liquid and no longer attacked us. Unfortunatley by the time we got around to fighting the girl it was two late, a final black bolt struck the king in mid-air, causing him to explode and a vortex to appear in it's place. The girl dying along with it while the crowd flees except for the Treeman. Also, the cube springs to life, growing metal legs and arms and a face, heading towards the Vortex while it yells at us "Protect me!" before several tentacle monsters start pouring out of the thing, and several masked figures emerge from the fleeing crowd. While we attempt to dispatch the first wave of monstrosities, the masked men attempt to swarm us, forcing the group to use every daily we had giving us all +4 to all defenses and +1 attack at the very least, Shanara even dropped a wind blade that gave us all combat advantage as long as a foe was adjacent. A different type of tentacle beastie emerges which I kill before it can even get an attack in, fully abusing their weakness to Psychic damage until 3 more, much tougher villains appear. Dazing our party and pulling Waflus into the portal, I rallied the Treeman to pull him out while I did clean up, Waflus and Shay coming close to dying while I and Ick-ee healing everything in sight. Before too long we were down to one thing left which team heal-bot chased into a corner to stop it feeding off everyone and regaining so much health while the cube managed to get the portal shut. Just in time for a small Beholder to slip through. Depleted of our dailies we had to fight a rematch of the same thing we fought the previous session where although we had fewer members we still had everything we could throw at the drat thing. However with the assistance of the Treeman who we kept encouraging to not turn and flee, we pin him down for long enough for me to finish killing the tentacle beast, charge back and kill it with a well-timed Crit. It was probably the best thing I've ever done in DnD Manic_Misanthrope fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Apr 20, 2012 |
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Apr 20, 2012 15:49
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Manic_Misanthrope posted:It was probably the best thing I've ever done in DnD Exquisite. So, if the Treeman knew what the phrase meant... they're part of an actual Bloodbowl team. Derail the campaign, become Blood Bowl players.
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Apr 22, 2012 03:23
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Colon V posted:
We are contemplating making a Blood-Bowl based 4e campaign. No idea how it would work though.
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Apr 22, 2012 08:38
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A high powered Laweful Evil Whatever has been convinced to give up his conquest of Insert Homeland Here if his forces are beaten in Blood Bowl? Or, in the sense of working it into a full length thing instead of a glorious oneshot?
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Apr 22, 2012 09:23
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So I've been running a 4E Eberron game for almost a year now, and damnit, my party is full of  . Rollcall is;Firesoul Genasi Bard, Higgins Da'Bwave. Randy, smarmy Bard who loves to Adventure.(And teleporting people) Elf(Half Dwarf) Ranger, Vrendrath. Drunk, angry, hairy Elf who was raised by Dwarves.(Also shoots things) Half Elf Fighter, Lucan. He's the new kid to the party, and is usually the voice of reason.(He's dead now) Warforged Warden, Animo Malifacto. Angry, hammer toting nature warrior (who's angry as poo poo) Tiefling Rogue, Jiem. Suave, cynical grifter with a love for loving women.(KIA now.) Human Paladin of Dol Arrah, Alek The Strong. Gritty, no-nonsense Guard Captain who has a history with the party. (Replacement for the Fighter) Pixie Witch, Maliciaa. Power obsessed ex-noblewoman, seeking to retake her political power. (Replacement for the Rogue) The idea was for this to be a semi serious campaign, full of high adventure, traditional Good versus Evil, and the party ridding the land of a corrupt order of Paladins. Everything was going fine, until the first actually serious battle. Ranger, Fighter and the Rogue were tied up and faced with 3 higher level assassins. What does the Ranger do in this situation? Waits until they attack and flings a bedsheet onto them, which proceeds to blind them for more than half of the fight, leading to the assassins deaths. A drat bedsheet. Later, the entire party managed to piss of an order known as the Holy Order of Saint Cuthbert. Who are policing a city state. The following chase was the party escaping in the Bards war-lizard drawn wagon, flinging magic, alchemical explosives, and arrows at said order, who were following on horse-back. They also managed to take out a few canons and trebuchet's they Pallies had set up for them, then managed to escape on a funking airship, to another continent. While on said other land, Xen'Drik, they; Convince a group of goblin bandits they they were holding a treasure belong to desert vampires who only hurt every 16 years, and on that very night. They drink age and sanity from their victims, and then rape them. Thanks Bard. The Fighter defeats shadow copies of the entire party, including the Warforged, who had just wrecked the unliving balls off of a Dracolich that was twice his level. Said Warforged jacks a gorram Dracolich, and is now wearing its skin. The Ranger is a Worg, and the Bard Dueled a Lich. Warden literally made someone poo poo themselves out of fear. And most recently, they encountered the campaigns "Big Bad". A Drow Warlock/Necromancer. The Warden? He pile drived the Big Bad. Off of his Red Dragon. Which resulted in him being snatched up by the dragon, and hurled like a meteor across the city. While this was happening, the Bard and his War-Lizard rode through town killing off the hordes of the undead and rescuing women. The Ranger did likewise, head-shotting a funking War-Ghoul, and the Fighter took down a Flesh Golem with the help of a Plot NPC. The Warden, however, brushed the attack off, and used a nifty spell to make himself a whirling storm of shrapnel-like debris, and proceeded to turn the zombies into an actual slurry, saving random civies as he went. Best part? He uses Storm magic. He turned into a Storm Atronach. After all of this, they escaped on their airship, which was being torn out of the sky by the dragon, and the Fighter did a Heroic Sacrifice, and nothing else extraordinary has happened since. HnK416 fucked around with this message at 17:49 on Apr 22, 2012 |
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Apr 22, 2012 10:45
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HnK416 posted:The idea was for this to be a semi serious campaign, full of high adventure, traditional Goof versus Evil, Your typo betrays your true heart's desire, granted by your players. Piledrivering anything is always a good sign. (So is headbutting dynamite). Also, 4th Ed Wardens have more hitpoints than fighters, on top of being CON secondary half the time and using their primary for their AC. The jerks. No story behind that, just bitter when I realized that in a half played oneshot that never went anywhere. Section Z fucked around with this message at 12:08 on Apr 22, 2012 |
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Apr 22, 2012 12:05
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Colon V posted:
Dr. Forest Stump Sr. PhD was indeed a bit of a bowler in his youth. Of course he gave all that up when he graduated and settled into his career as Lecturer in Historical Literature at the College of Gruumsh. Mr Ned is his research student. The halflings are a mix of old BB buddies and undergraduates. This is now campaign canon.
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Apr 22, 2012 15:27
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goatface posted:Dr. Forest Stump Sr. PhD was indeed a bit of a bowler in his youth. Of course he gave all that up when he graduated and settled into his career as Lecturer in Historical Literature at the College of Gruumsh. Mr Ned is his research student. The halflings are a mix of old BB buddies and undergraduates. So... is there a 50/50 chance he doesn't show up to teach classes in the morning?
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Apr 22, 2012 16:13
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CobiWann posted:7th Sea, aka Disney's "The Three Musketeers meets "The Pirates of the Caribbean." I love hearing about 7th Sea, it's so easy to imagine as a sweeping Three Musketeers-esque movie.
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Apr 22, 2012 18:22
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BlackIronHeart posted:I love hearing about 7th Sea, it's so easy to imagine as a sweeping Three Musketeers-esque movie. I also love the fact that that is the entire point of it. Though I still don't know how L5R and 7th sea were ever supposed to go together.
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Apr 22, 2012 18:50
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Josef bugman posted:I also love the fact that that is the entire point of it. They weren't. L5R connects to Legend of the Burning Sands, which has !Romans in it. If L5R and LBS connect to 7th Sea at all, they're way in 7th Sea's past.
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Apr 22, 2012 18:56
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NinjaDebugger posted:They weren't. L5R connects to Legend of the Burning Sands, which has !Romans in it. If L5R and LBS connect to 7th Sea at all, they're way in 7th Sea's past. Thats weird, I thought they were meant to go together, though I haven't heard anything about Burning Sands (though I have heard about the !Romans) can you tell me more?
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Apr 22, 2012 18:58
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Josef bugman posted:Thats weird, I thought they were meant to go together, though I haven't heard anything about Burning Sands (though I have heard about the !Romans) can you tell me more? That's probably because LBS wasn't actually an RPG until late 3e L5R, when it finally got a book. Before that, it was just a (failed) CCG. One with an interesting single-turn mechanic, too. I'm told the current L5R CCG arc involves Rokugan invading the setting and dividing up some of the main countries, and they've just now come into contact with the first real opposition, who are the !Romans... and are invading from the other direction. On the other hand, at least it's not yet another world shattering event driven by the forces of darkness and/or nonexistence.
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Apr 22, 2012 19:14
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NinjaDebugger posted:On the other hand, at least it's not yet another world shattering event driven by the forces of darkness and/or nonexistence. They really do need to let those world crushing evils lie fallow for a bit longer, otherwise it just gets dull, with people starting to ask questions about where the hell these samurai keep coming from? Though I will admit the second day of thunder and the war against the darkness are very cool, its just that I would have waited 100 years between each one.
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Apr 22, 2012 19:17
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NinjaDebugger posted:That's probably because LBS wasn't actually an RPG until late 3e L5R, when it finally got a book. Before that, it was just a (failed) CCG. One with an interesting single-turn mechanic, too. I'm told the current L5R CCG arc involves Rokugan invading the setting and dividing up some of the main countries, and they've just now come into contact with the first real opposition, who are the !Romans... and are invading from the other direction. They aren't invading Burning Sands, they're invading the Ivory Kingdom, which is west of Rokugan and South West of Burning Sands. The !romans are sweeping through Burning Sands into the Ivory kingdoms and, blah blah blah. L5R actually does have a Renaissance Europe continet, Merinae, and another ones who name I forget. You can, in theory, replace Merinae with 7th sea, but the Mechanics don't really work well together - 7th sea is swashbuckling cineam, l5r is Kurosawa with just a smidgeon of Wushu.
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Apr 22, 2012 19:21
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| # ? May 15, 2024 14:36 |
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Alright, Ive got a tale for you all. this has easily become the worst DnD experience I have had: So in recent months, I started my first ever sessions of Pathfinder, Overall, the system isnt bad, but I prefer 4e. The group is kinda huge, like 8-9 people including both DM's. Yes, we had 2 dms, Why? because this group loved to split the party, a lot. So we begin this tale with a quest a lot of you pathfinder vets might know, the "Trial of the beast." For those that dont, Ill fill in with what I do know. Basically, in a nut shell, you have to gather evidense that proves that a flesh golem didnt commit a murder, burn down a building, and steal from a university. theres a lot that happens, but Im going to skip to a more recent event and go from there. So we finally finish the third and last trial, me (a Half-Elf lvl 5 bard, dressed like a musketeer and going by the name of Varsisco) and the other bard (a halfling) used our amazing role playing abillities (and the 10+ bonus to our diplomacy) to basically wiped the floor with the prosecution despite having no solid evidence that the flesh golem was innocent. We celebrate, grab our reward, and head out to the empty manor of the recently deceased Doctor. In the middle of this escapade (aka between sessions) the main DM (lets call him "chuck") thinks that it would be cool to have a plot where 2 bards are absolutely needed to succeed. Now, I'm not sure about you guys, but this just screamed "doomed from the start" when I heard my only friend in the group tell me this. (the group has a bunch of people I am fairly cool with, but otherwise feel very detached from, and due to some....drama....involving Chuck having a crush on my friend [lets call her katie] and her-telling-him-no-but-he-doesnt-get-it-kinda-drama, I had been considering leaving for a good while) So I miss the first part of this "bards quest" due to sickness, and come in the following week. The second DM, (DM2 for the sake of easy names) begins explaining that I wake where I slept, only to find that everyone is gone. I head back into the manor, follow the marks and notes left for me, and end up in this library of space time distortion stuff. In the middle of it, is the groups old friend NPC, Fistindontilous (fist-in-don-til-us) however he is quite old for some reason and seems to have a children's book. As he begins reading I somehow slip into a black void and pop out in the middle of a really weird world where buildings are bending in MC Esher esque ways. I see i nearby fight going on and try to ask people whats going on, the fight was broken up by guards and every citizen treated me like a second class citizen, surprise, surprise, its because Im not a human. I ask the guard if hes seen my adventuring party and explain the members in as best of detail as possible. He states that I should head to the recruitment office because "If they were smart, they would head there." Now, my group isn't stupid, but they aren't exactly known for being smart, in fact, 99% of our problems, is the group itself, So of course, I figure that if anything, they might of been smart enough to do this. Might. Now, let me give you guys a small backstory to this world, Chuck's "Genius" idea was to have two sides of grey, the Military town Im in was supposed to be "Extreme rules for the greater good and safety" while the outskirts were supposed to be "primitives who want equality and freedom without rules, but ultimate are hypocrites because they cant get along with other tribes." The idea was that one bard goes into the base, and the other goes into the outlands, both find a way to unite the parties and create a utopia or something. HOWEVER, it seems details fell through the cracks, because this whole thing from second 1, was nothing but irredeemable. DM2 guides me through this line of people to this portal, now, note that every normal being is using this portal, normal everyday people, and they all appeared on the other side without a scratch. I get up on the stand and say the name of the base provided to me. DM2: roll a will save my first thought is "um, ok, but you do realize that everyone else is using this too right? including guard captians, recruits, and basically everyone?" *rolls* Me: 14 DM2: you feel this pressure surrounding you, and when it feels like it should let up, it doesnt, and before it feels like its going to crush you, it releases, and you take 5 damage as you appear at the base. Look, maybe im nit picking, but when you create a portal that (as stated earlier) EVERYONE using and without issue, why is it that I have to roll a save? With that said, lets continue. So I appear at the base, I take a seat in a new line, and our monk goes, hes in a jail cell, bound and gagged, and he awakes to find guards coming to drag him off, DM2 comes back to me. DM2: You finally hear your name called, and you go inside the main office, the captian is sitting there working on papers and beckons you over, as you move towards him, a guard walks in with a prisoner who is cloaked from head to toe, and places him in front of you a good 15 feet away. the Captian steps up, and draws his sword, he puts it to the mans neck and pulls off the hood to reveal the monk. the guard looks at you and says 'Give me a reason not to kill him.' at this point, my brain is calling bullshit on the size of the plot hole being placed in front of me. The guard who I mentioned told me to come here, was the only one I told about my group, and even so, the DM specifically stated that the guard had gone further into the town to continue patrol, so unless he somehow magically called him, there was no way to link me with the monk in anyway. Never the less, I try my best to understand whats going on. (quick FYI on Varsisco, Hes very serious about respect, being disrespected is something he cannot tolerate unless its something trivial like a snide remark. He also is very true to his beliefs, even if it kills him he would fight a losing battle over bowing to someone who doesnt deserve it. He also doesnt approve of dishonesty to those who dont deserve it. and Lastly, he does not sneak as he sees it as cowardice, this may seem odd to mention but its relevent.) the coversation Ill keep short, but overall I try to ask the monk what happened, and the captain pushes his sword closer to his neck. turning to the captian, I try to convince him to let him go in exchange for gold, we leave, and we all act like it never happened. now despite getting a 21-24 roll, he wasnt even budged, and threated more. the Monk makes a desperate move of trying to acrobat out of the swords range in chains and bounds, he critical fails, and falls INTO the sword, causing him to cut some of his jugular and somehow not die. Using his bluff, he tries to play dead, everyone but the captain believes his folly. the captain once again, threatens. At this point, Varsisco has seen his friend get slaughtered, and he isnt going to put up with that poo poo. I take staying in character seriously, even if it kill me. DM2: you see the monk on the floor and you believe him to be dead, how do you respond?: Me: I draw my Shock Rapier out slightly, enough to cause some sparks to fly and the blade to glow and with a stern look in my eyes I say "From the moment I have reached this place I have been treated with nothing but disrespect and have been greeted with nothing but out right racism, I come here wanting nothing more than to find my companions and Im greeted with a sword to the neck of a ally, slandered with insults, and refusals of cooperation. But worst of all, you killed my friend, and I wont stand for it, I will kill you for that or die trying." The Dm is somewhat dumbstruck, as for some reason, he expected me to do anything else, he tells me to roll intimidate anyways and I get a 32, but even a 32 has NO EFFECT on the captain. the other guards loving poo poo themselves, lvl 20 guards, making GBS threads themselves, but this guy? pfft, whatever. The captian tells me that he wont bother with me and that he could have me fight one of the guards instead. varsisco was furious, as that was the heaviest blow to his dignity yet, and he fully draws his blade and points it to the captian. Once again threatening him and reminding him that he has nothing to bargin with but a "corpse." nothing, no effect. Varsisco sheaths his sword out of loss of hope, as there seems to be no other option but what the DM wants. In case you cant tell by this point, I have been railroaded this entire session. Everything I do and everything around me means I have no choice but to do this little dance for the DM and his rediculous plot, even the guards are too high to resort to outright fighting, as Im supposed to use my words to solve ALL my problems. I have no idea why they chose my character to do this side of the quest, as everything about him screams that this was the outcome, but I doubt the other side was any more fun. Also fun little note, Chuck was DMing the other side. Why? because he specifically wanted to (like every session before) DM for katie, and because he sees me as a threat because I am a friend of hers, he sent me to the other side of the table. I wont bother explaining the rest, as literally nothing happened but wandering around with no leads to anything about a secret generator that Im supposed to somehow find. and sneak to, when I made it quite clear in other sessions that I dont sneak as its against my character. I refuse to go to another session after that.
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Apr 22, 2012 22:23
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