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MizPiz
May 29, 2013

by Athanatos

FourmyleCircus posted:

Dizzy Funboi is a horrible excuse of a human being.

Why didn't this guy get his rear end kicked? "Being true to the game" or any other grognardy bullshit is no excuse to do something that brings up a player's traumatic experience, especially when you're blatantly doing it on purpose. It actually makes me think less of you that this evidently didn't affect your friendship with him.

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Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


Piell posted:

Counterpoint: Evil tongue studs and nipple clamps.
Are there Good tongue studs and nipple clamps? It's funny they consider those things unerringly evil.

LornMarkus
Nov 8, 2011

Tekopo posted:

Are there Good tongue studs and nipple clamps? It's funny they consider those things unerringly evil.

No, but if I recall right the ones described in BoVD were along the lines of: corrupts the thing that wears them, slowly transforms their tongue into a forked demon tongue that drips acid, yadda yadda yadda.

Funny story, I don't think anything brought up in that book was ever presented as simply being evil because it was. Except maybe diseases, but there's already a debate to be had about the inherent evil of a disease that blanks out a person's face and immediately turns them into a berserk killing machine upon infection.

FourmyleCircus
Sep 15, 2013

MizPiz posted:

Why didn't this guy get his rear end kicked? "Being true to the game" or any other grognardy bullshit is no excuse to do something that brings up a player's traumatic experience, especially when you're blatantly doing it on purpose. It actually makes me think less of you that this evidently didn't affect your friendship with him.
Because...

Green Intern posted:

Fourmylecircus, you should have said it was an online game right away. I was wondering why nobody had punched the GM in the dick. And then shouted "Happy Halloween."
Yeah. It was an online game. I tracked his rear end down(Through IM and chats) the next day to ask why the gently caress he thought any of this was okay. I was polite about it because, at that time in my life, I still thought that if I showed even the tiniest amount of anger, I'd end up killing someone. And I had two people who pushed the magical reconciliation poo poo.

It never occured to him that the people that signed up for his IRC All Flesh game, with his server full of character sheets for us to grab and go, might never have heard of the game Zombie Apocalypse. So he couldn't see why we'd have a problem. "Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride", in his words. Never said we were still friends, just that I talked to him about it like a rational human being.

Haven't talked to him since, and the Nickname came from the fallout of this disastrous event. If you thought I was playing with him again because "Here's hoping this year is better"... no. It's just I've had some lovely experiences on Halloween.

The only good thing is that I weeded out more assholes from my circle of acquaintances by finding people who actually supported him. Three people I thought were decent were "Well, if you want to get offended and leave, more power to you, but if it was in the source material, he's in the right, no matter what you felt" group. Dropped their asses like a ton of pbricks

Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!

Piell posted:

Counterpoint: Evil tongue studs and nipple clamps. Lichloved (aka Skill Focus: loving the Zombie)
Like I said, there's a lot of dumb poo poo in that book that I will not defend. Lichloved is one of those things (because it is both really dumb and also mechanically lovely).

Swags posted:

The one I always liked was Crushing Fist of Spite. It was like on of the Bigby's spells on steroids. You summon a huge gently caress off fist of hatred in the air that just keeps punching the ground, and it's about the size of a semi truck. And each round you can direct it to a new area to punch. You level up to be a wizard casting 9th level spells just to punch poo poo to death. I've always wanted to kill a boss monster with that ridiculous spell.
One of the PCs in a game I'm in plans on learning that spell when we hit the right level. There's a ton of spells in that book (many blatantly plagiarized from Call of Cthulhu) that are just incredibly flavorful. Ever wanted to explode someone's eyes by turning their ocular fluid into much-higher-pressure acid? Can do! Kill someone by magically eviscerating them and absorbing said innards to gain power? Why not! No-save damage to the target's most loved one? Oh yeah, we got that.

There's a ton of really fun stuff in there, you just have to dig past about as much dumb poo poo to get to it.

LornMarkus posted:

Funny story, I don't think anything brought up in that book was ever presented as simply being evil because it was. Except maybe diseases, but there's already a debate to be had about the inherent evil of a disease that blanks out a person's face and immediately turns them into a berserk killing machine upon infection.
In the BoED the overriding theme is "if it's dirty/gross/common phobia, it's Evil with a capital E!" with a plate full of "X is always evil, so here is Y; Y does the exact same thing in an arguably more brutal manner with the same mechanics, but it only hurts non-good targets and is pretty, so it's good."

BoVD at least had some good ideas in it. BoED is almost entirely terrible since it's a big book of "ways for your murderhobo players to justify their methods while keeping the cleric and paladin from falling".

Agrikk
Oct 17, 2003

Take care with that! We have not fully ascertained its function, and the ticking is accelerating.

Piell posted:

He's pretty clearly not worth his salt considering he's using the BoVD.

This reminds me of one group I thought I'd join in a local gaming shop.

So I walk in and there's three guys and a girl sitting around a table, getting gear out and goofing off. They're all washed and trimmed and otherwise normal-looking so it looks promising.

But then I see that the GM sitting at the head of the table is talking about, and leafing through the Book of Erotic Fantasy. Apparently he'd just picked it up and was talking about introducing some of the feats and classes into their game.

I walked past them, thumbed through some comics at a nearby rack for about five minutes to make sure I was sure about what I heard, turned around and left the store.

...Verifying what was mentioned a few posts up about pickup groups in gaming stores.

MizPiz
May 29, 2013

by Athanatos
Ah, now I got it. Sorry for assuming you were friends with this guy.

Doomsayer
Sep 2, 2008

I have no idea what I'm doing, but that's never been a problem before.

Whelp, just when I thought I walked out, they pulled me back in. I had a couple of bites to my Dungeon World game, and I just saw on the forums one of the OG club founders is doing "DM lessons" to make up for their dwindling number of DMs. I sent a perhaps-too-happy and upbeat email to him explaining that I would be more than happy to run different systems on Club Days in order to try and bring back players (who have gone sprinting into the night) and bring in new ones. I explained that I had heard that several players were interested in alternate systems, and I would be happy to provide.

If 3rd Ed. is the One True God King of RPGs, then they have nothing to fear, right? Why not expand the club, let people try other games, and then inevitably return to 3e? Seems reasonable to me.

Or perhaps now I've made myself a complete pariah :ohdear:

Green Intern
Dec 29, 2008

Loon, Crazy and Laughable

Doomsayer, you're threatening to topple their "ownership" of the club. People get so controlling over these sorts of things.

Doomsayer
Sep 2, 2008

I have no idea what I'm doing, but that's never been a problem before.

Green Intern posted:

Doomsayer, you're threatening to topple their "ownership" of the club. People get so controlling over these sorts of things.

Don't I know it. That's why I tried to be super, super nice and added about a thousand "But if you don't want to it's totally cool! :ohdear:" qualifiers.

But I have to try dammit! I cannot stand idly by while good, decent, kind-hearted folk are held hostage by grogs!

Unless this doesn't work. Then I'm fine with standing idly by. gently caress it.

LornMarkus
Nov 8, 2011

Yawgmoth posted:

In the BoED the overriding theme is "if it's dirty/gross/common phobia, it's Evil with a capital E!" with a plate full of "X is always evil, so here is Y; Y does the exact same thing in an arguably more brutal manner with the same mechanics, but it only hurts non-good targets and is pretty, so it's good."

BoVD at least had some good ideas in it. BoED is almost entirely terrible since it's a big book of "ways for your murderhobo players to justify their methods while keeping the cleric and paladin from falling".

Mmm, probably that then. It's been years since I was bored enough to look at it, and I only even had it because I was a jobless high schooler and grabbed a torrent of basically all the books.

Doodmons
Jan 17, 2009

Doomsayer posted:

Don't I know it. That's why I tried to be super, super nice and added about a thousand "But if you don't want to it's totally cool! :ohdear:" qualifiers.

But I have to try dammit! I cannot stand idly by while good, decent, kind-hearted folk are held hostage by grogs!

Unless this doesn't work. Then I'm fine with standing idly by. gently caress it.

This is kinda funny because the other day someone posted a relatively groggy post on my university's RPG society's facebook page about how he had a level 2 bard and was looking to play 3rd Edition D&D. The conclusion was that there's literally not a single third ed game running this semester - there's a couple of 4th, an AD&D and I think one Pathfinder that was full. It was a weird experience - my local club's actually awesome.

Zereth
Jul 9, 2003



Yawgmoth posted:

There's a ton of really fun stuff in there, you just have to dig past about as much dumb poo poo to get to it.
In the BoED the overriding theme is "if it's dirty/gross/common phobia, it's Evil with a capital E!" with a plate full of "X is always evil, so here is Y; Y does the exact same thing in an arguably more brutal manner with the same mechanics, but it only hurts non-good targets and is pretty, so it's good."
That's where the "All poisons are Evil: Here are things which are exactly like and use the same rules as poisons but are not poisons so they're Good" came from, right?

Punting
Sep 9, 2007
I am very witty: nit-witty, dim-witty, and half-witty.

Zereth posted:

That's where the "All poisons are Evil: Here are things which are exactly like and use the same rules as poisons but are not poisons so they're Good" came from, right?

Yup! They called them 'Ravages', if I remember correctly, which hilariously makes them sound far more sinister than poisons.

Kerzoro
Jun 26, 2010

Yawgmoth posted:

There's a ton of really fun stuff in there, you just have to dig past about as much dumb poo poo to get to it.
In the BoED the overriding theme is "if it's dirty/gross/common phobia, it's Evil with a capital E!" with a plate full of "X is always evil, so here is Y; Y does the exact same thing in an arguably more brutal manner with the same mechanics, but it only hurts non-good targets and is pretty, so it's good."

BoVD at least had some good ideas in it. BoED is almost entirely terrible since it's a big book of "ways for your murderhobo players to justify their methods while keeping the cleric and paladin from falling".

I seem to recall there's a level 0 spell or something that gives you the equivalent of a paper-cut in your tongue. That one struck me as a funny spell.

The rest of the book... meh.

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

Punting posted:

Yup! They called them 'Ravages', if I remember correctly, which hilariously makes them sound far more sinister than poisons.

Ravages were poisons Except Good, and Afflictions were Diseases except good. Both of them only affected Evil Creatures, and actually dealt more damage the more charismatic the target was, or if they were undead or an outsider.

BoED had some really screwed up stuff, like the spell that traps the soul of an evil creature inside a diamond and forces them to 'find the spark of good within themselves' over the course of a year. At the end of that year, hooray, they're forced to the Caster's alignment and become sanctified.

The justification for all these things was basically "Well we wouldn't have to do these horrible things if they'd just stop being evil now would we?"

Opinion Haver
Apr 9, 2007

Perhaps the Book of Exalted Deeds is the real Book of Vile Darkness... makes you think.

Tekopo
Oct 24, 2008

When you see it, you'll shit yourself.


I bet there's some grog out there that defends that stuff by calling all criticism of it 'moral relativism' and 'cultural marxism'.

Punting
Sep 9, 2007
I am very witty: nit-witty, dim-witty, and half-witty.

Kurieg posted:

Ravages were poisons Except Good, and Afflictions were Diseases except good. Both of them only affected Evil Creatures, and actually dealt more damage the more charismatic the target was, or if they were undead or an outsider.

BoED had some really screwed up stuff, like the spell that traps the soul of an evil creature inside a diamond and forces them to 'find the spark of good within themselves' over the course of a year. At the end of that year, hooray, they're forced to the Caster's alignment and become sanctified.

The justification for all these things was basically "Well we wouldn't have to do these horrible things if they'd just stop being evil now would we?"

Pretty much, yeah. Biggest problem, though, with the BoED is that, honestly, it's not so much the Book of Good Alignments as it is the Book of Lawful Alignments. It's absolutely bloated with harsh, overblown spells and feats and items and other horrors designed to violently and mercilessly punish targets for the crime of having a 'bad' alignment.

Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!

Punting posted:

Pretty much, yeah. Biggest problem, though, with the BoED is that, honestly, it's not so much the Book of Good Alignments as it is the Book of Lawful Alignments. It's absolutely bloated with harsh, overblown spells and feats and items and other horrors designed to violently and mercilessly punish targets for the crime of having a 'bad' alignment.
Exactly this. There's so much stuff in there that's given the [good] or [exalted] tag for no apparent reason other than they needed to fill a quota of alignment tags. Some stuff like the aforementioned "trap the evil soul and abuse it into to being good" spell and the Nemesis feat (I hate this race so much I get even more benefits against them!) really strike me as evil. But hey, it's D&D alignment; it's never going to make sense, internally or otherwise.

Doomsayer
Sep 2, 2008

I have no idea what I'm doing, but that's never been a problem before.

Doodmons posted:

This is kinda funny because the other day someone posted a relatively groggy post on my university's RPG society's facebook page about how he had a level 2 bard and was looking to play 3rd Edition D&D. The conclusion was that there's literally not a single third ed game running this semester - there's a couple of 4th, an AD&D and I think one Pathfinder that was full. It was a weird experience - my local club's actually awesome.

Guys I am.... I am astounded. He emailed me back and said he'd be willing to schedule a meeting to talk about 4e! He has some stipulations, like I have to use pre-written modules, must print up "certs" as the end of the game which states what items everyone got so players don't cheat (I'm hoping to bypass this by just doing Inherent Bonuses and saying magic items don't confer math bonuses. Boom, problem solved), and everyone has to be in the same campaign setting, but still! Something not-3rd edition! :toot:

Mr. Maltose
Feb 16, 2011

The Guffless Girlverine
To be fair, that sounds like the sort of thing an organized games club would want if they were trying for a local RPGA light.

Doomsayer
Sep 2, 2008

I have no idea what I'm doing, but that's never been a problem before.

Mr. Maltose posted:

To be fair, that sounds like the sort of thing an organized games club would want if they were trying for a local RPGA light.

That was my assumption too, but as my earlier posts show, it's like pulling teeth! From a bear!

...a dire bear, maybe.

EDIT: Oh, you mean the certs stuff. Yeah, I understand the concerns, but really considering the actual frequency and consistency that people can show up at a student tabletop club, they're pretty much non-issues. If someone shows up with a character full of +11 Swords of Bullshit, just call them nerds and push their chair over.

Also, I'm hoping that 4e can use a different campaign setting than the club one. Or at least they won't mind if I just start arbitrarily shoving poo poo in there but call it a different continent or w/e. Their setting has no warforged, aasimar, dragonborn, or really any of the cool 4e races and frankly that just will not stand :colbert:

Admittedly I'd still rather be running Dungeon World or something consistently but meh, c'est la vie.

Doomsayer fucked around with this message at 17:36 on Oct 30, 2013

actually3raccoons
Jun 5, 2013



Doomsayer posted:


Also, I'm hoping that 4e can use a different campaign setting than the club one. Or at least they won't mind if I just start arbitrarily shoving poo poo in there but call it a different continent or w/e. Their setting has no warforged, aasimar, dragonborn, or really any of the cool 4e races and frankly that just will not stand :colbert:

Admittedly I'd still rather be running Dungeon World or something consistently but meh, c'est la vie.

Well, 4e Eberron is pretty cool (assuming the surprise, Dragonborn! don't bother you), maybe you can do that?

I've never been in any sort of gaming club, so the idea of being told "You can only run this campaign setting" is positively alien to me.

Doomsayer
Sep 2, 2008

I have no idea what I'm doing, but that's never been a problem before.

Oh no, I'm saying I normally run a homebrew campaign that ends up just being a mismash of the raddest poo poo we can think of. You come from a city full of rear end in a top hat Wizards that supply magical shotguns to the rest of the world? Boom, canon. Earlier campaign ultimately ended up fighting a Final Boss who assassinated all the gods to absorb their power? Time for the PCs to become the new gods of the setting! etc.

I agree, having a campaign with, like, "rules" and "backstory" is a weird thing to me. Backstory is something you make up on the fly when they're fighting Lizard Golems on top of a magic-fueled zeppelin. I have, like, five campaign settings that I call "Circadia" (the name of the first one I made up in high school) that we just freely rip apart, shove new things into, combine with other settings, etc. I mean I have my own DM notes and stuff, sure, but what the players want take precedence, and I certainly wouldn't expect them to, like, read that poo poo ahead of time (unless that's what they're into, and admittedly some are).

I mean I get the idea of having a shared campaign setting all 30 group members can participate in and shape, but it should be a lump of clay you mould, not a book you add footnotes to.

actually3raccoons
Jun 5, 2013



Doomsayer posted:

Oh no, I'm saying I normally run a homebrew campaign that ends up just being a mismash of the raddest poo poo we can think of. You come from a city full of rear end in a top hat Wizards that supply magical shotguns to the rest of the world? Boom, canon. Earlier campaign ultimately ended up fighting a Final Boss who assassinated all the gods to absorb their power? Time for the PCs to become the new gods of the setting! etc.

I agree, having a campaign with, like, "rules" and "backstory" is a weird thing to me. Backstory is something you make up on the fly when they're fighting Lizard Golems on top of a magic-fueled zeppelin. I have, like, five campaign settings that I call "Circadia" (the name of the first one I made up in high school) that we just freely rip apart, shove new things into, combine with other settings, etc. I mean I have my own DM notes and stuff, sure, but what the players want take precedence, and I certainly wouldn't expect them to, like, read that poo poo ahead of time (unless that's what they're into, and admittedly some are).

I mean I get the idea of having a shared campaign setting all 30 group members can participate in and shape, but it should be a lump of clay you mould, not a book you add footnotes to.

Very cool!

The shared/persistent world thing can be tough. I'm doing that for two groups in Forgotten Realms right now (one Pathfinder, the other about to be converted over from 3.5) and even that's tough to keep in order at low levels. To make it even better, one group plays at my place, and the other is over Roll20, since they're all over the US. I can only imagine how many crossover games will happen when both groups have teleports... :psyduck:

FourmyleCircus
Sep 15, 2013

Doomsayer posted:

I mean I get the idea of having a shared campaign setting all 30 group members can participate in and shape, but it should be a lump of clay you mould, not a book you add footnotes to.

It can be both. I mean, if you don't have to use Their Setting or a Book setting, I've had good luck with both Microscope and Lexicon. Lexicon has the advantage of being something that can run in the background while you're running the campaign itself, where as with Microscope, it's a session itself, and you have to pull the deck back out whenever someone wants to add a detail in the timeline.

Doomsayer
Sep 2, 2008

I have no idea what I'm doing, but that's never been a problem before.

Good news! Turns out the guy I was talking to wasn't the president, but the ex-President now returned. We had a chat and he said if someone told me Friday was only for 3.5, that was absolute bullshit. The club is and should always be for all games. They just want a structure to it, so DMs can rotate and all be on the same page. We talked about the certs thing and I said that using Inherent Bonuses would fix that, and he agreed. He said 4e shouldn't use the same campaign setting as the 3.5 group, so we're going with a base of Eberron with Scales of War stacked on top for a club "Campaign Path".

As of next Saturday, 4e will be a staple of the Friday meetings. :toot:

FourmyleCircus posted:

It can be both.

Haha, nah, I was referring to the current club setting where nothing of consequence happens to the setting, ever. It's like Forgotten Realms with more homebrew prestige classes.

Doomsayer fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Oct 30, 2013

Green Intern
Dec 29, 2008

Loon, Crazy and Laughable

Congrats, Doomsayer. You've navigated petty politics! Keep us updated on how things go. Remember: even if the groggy leadership hates your style, if the players are into it then you've basically won.

Keiya
Aug 22, 2009

Come with me if you want to not die.

FourmyleCircus posted:

Bad zombie game

Jesus loving christ, what the hell? This is the sort of poo poo 'trigger' refers to, not stubbed toes and missed homework, and he didn't even mention it ahead of time when specifically told someone at the table had a very good reason that such things would cause significant trauma? If he'd explicitly said that the thing was heavily sexual and gross at the start I'd see his point about you just getting what you signed up for (though I'd still walk out in disgust, mind), but what the hell.

Doomsayer posted:

...I have to use pre-written modules...
I never understood the point of prewritten modules, they take away a lot of the fun of letting the players guide the story. At that point I might as well just read a book or play a video game, yknow?

Golden Bee
Dec 24, 2009

I came here to chew bubblegum and quote 'They Live', and I'm... at an impasse.
Not everyone has the 3 hours a week it takes to make a good module. If you buy a bookfull, you know every week that you'll have X, Y, and Z as NPCs, and players can form attachment to a setting that is there for you at 7pm Saturday.

Glagha
Oct 13, 2008

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAaaAAAaaAAaAA
AAAAAAAaAAAAAaaAAA
AAAA
AaAAaaA
AAaaAAAAaaaAAAAAAA
AaaAaaAAAaaaaaAA

Keiya posted:

I never understood the point of prewritten modules, they take away a lot of the fun of letting the players guide the story. At that point I might as well just read a book or play a video game, yknow?

Eh, they have their place. Sometimes they can be really really good, better than what you could come up with on your own, or sometimes you just need a little filler. Also great for when you're new to the game and you want something to hold your hand through GMing it for a group of people. Mr. Bubbles was great for that when I was just starting playing Paranoia. That being said, nothing beats doing your own thing.

Echophonic
Sep 16, 2005

ha;lp
Gun Saliva

Doomsayer posted:

He said 4e shouldn't use the same campaign setting as the 3.5 group, so we're going with a base of Eberron with Scales of War stacked on top for a club "Campaign Path".

As of next Saturday, 4e will be a staple of the Friday meetings. :toot:

Scales of War is pretty awesome, Eberron is also awesome, good call. Heroic in SoW is a pretty kickass set of adventures.

mmj
Dec 22, 2006

I've always been a bit confrontational
Mentioning mr. Bubbles reminded me, I meant to post this earlier. On Saturday I ran my group's first Paranoia game using that module. It was me as GM (first time doing anything with Paranoia) and five players only one of which had played before. It went really well even though I stumbled a few times and am still figuring out what I'm doing. The highlight of the night had to be when one of the players got an insanely good roll trying to use regeneration (he had a power rank of 17 and rolled a 2) and basically went from near death to back in the fight in seconds. After the fight before anyone else had a chance he accused himself of being a dirty mutant, found himself guilty and executed himself on the spot out of loyalty to friend computer. I promoted him for that one, clearly friend computer could trust him after all.
The best part of the whole thing was that almost everyone had fun and asked me to tell them when I planned to run another game so this might become a semi-regular event. On that note I don't think I'm anywhere near ready to design my own missions, does anyone have a good resource for more ready made adventures until I'm prepared to make my own?

Deltasquid
Apr 10, 2013

awww...
you guys made me ink!


THUNDERDOME
So I've gotten into D&D with some friends, and it seems to be heading into the right direction.

First, I did a oneshot microlite D20 campaign with my two best friends one evening in summer, where I was GM.

While it was very improvised and we stumbled with the dicerolling, we got the hang of it near the end of the session.

The most memorable part was the boss fight; they spent the entire session looking for the underground crime lord, the magnificent king pin, the legend himself: Jamal. That's his name. Just Jamal. They had to find him to find out where they're hiding the wares his goons robbed from the honest merchants entering town.

So most of it was the ranger and rogue sneaking around and finding thugs, and roughing them up to help their diplomacy skill checks to find out where Jamal was hiding. Then, the entire party, being those two plus a druid and paladin, went down the sewers and found the bandit hideout. They promptly cleared it by murdering everyone on sight.

Then, they crashed into Jamal's office. We were comfortable with roleplaying at this point, so I felt comfortable giving him some personality.

:rant: Who the hell are you guys, and what the gently caress are you doing in my office?
:smug: We don't give our names, just take 'em and cash in our paycheck. But first, we've got some questions you need to answer for us, or our wizard will burn this entire place down.

Of course the paladin's bluff check rolls a 1.

:rant: A wizard, you say? Good thing I've got these anti-magic potions.
:smugjones: Well that went well. Guess we'll just shank him.

Now the thing is, we houseruled that rolling a 1 meant you fumbled, dropped your weapon and spent the next turn picking it up. Apparently Jamal's office was just a massive vortex of suck because he dropped his scimitar no less than three times, and the rogue and paladin dropped the ball as well. Additionally, everyone rolled too low to actually hurt the other.

However, at one point the paladin just critted Jamal and then everyone got some good hits and dropped him. I told the players that he fell to his knees and surrendered, at which point they all agreed to just lob his head off.

:raise: Are you sure? Your Paladin is lawful good, and you kind of need to-
:smuggo: My paladin isn't a very good one.
:raise: Fine.

So they roll a 20 and murder this defenceless, surrendering man. Then they figure out that, poo poo, they kinda needed info from him. So the roll a few bluff checks and manage to get through all the guards who wondered what was going on, by holding Jamal's decapitated head around corners and imitating his voice.

So at that point we called it quits, but Jamal, his amazing nervous breakdown and following rounds of suck after suck became an in-joke.

Now, fast forward to my new group, which has one of those two friends. I'll make Jamal make a cameo for him, but my new group's pretty good too:

He plays a tiefling Rogue who swipes everything that's not nailed down and spent the first battle against some thugs missing every single attack until he critted one and took him down in one shot.

One guy, a pretty nice guy, plays a dwarf cleric and acts as tank and healer. He's pretty witty and a good sport.

Another friend is more of a gamer than roleplayer, but he has a lot of fun roleplaying his elf wizard as she throws people around and acts as crowd control and some damage. She's just pragmatic and is with the group to become stronger.

And lastly this one, sort of odd guy we don't know very well is playing too. I knew he was into gaming and stuff because I know him at my university, but he isn't really a friend. At first I was afraid his odd sense of humour and awkwardness would turn it into a cat piss story, but he turns out to be legitimately awesome. He's playing a bard, some eastern prince who wants fame and money to reclaim his rightful throne. He's a terrible, terrible poet, but somehow managed to deal hilarious amounts of damage in combat every single round.

So far, this group has:

- Sung a horrible, horrible song that attracted 6 thugs who attacked the bard to shut him up and maybe steal his "sweet harp, yo" (quoted by the Prince himself)
- Catapulted one of these thugs onto a roof
- mocked another one so hard he literally died of shame
- made the local gentleman's club their headquarters
- cheated while playing poker in that same gentleman's club, and gotten into a bar brawl with dashing, dapper gentlemen
- suplexed one of them into a table another one was standing on, knocking them both out
- Stunned one of them in a corner while the bard was shredding the best solo he's ever shred, drat it
- thrown one of them into a wall so hard he crashed through it

And all of this happened in about 2,5 hours of playing. This is going to be good, despite my lack of experience as GM and their lack of experience as players. By next session, they'll have rulebooks of their own so they can plan their turns in advance and the whole thing will go smoother.

Edit: also the bard's character portrait is literally just a picture of Prince.

Deltasquid fucked around with this message at 02:12 on Oct 31, 2013

Volmarias
Dec 31, 2002

EMAIL... THE INTERNET... SEARCH ENGINES...

Deltasquid posted:

- mocked another one so hard he literally died of shame

Ice burns so sick nasty that they can kill should be a staple of any bard's repertoire.

the_steve
Nov 9, 2005

We're always hiring!

Volmarias posted:

Ice burns so sick nasty that they can kill should be a staple of any bard's repertoire.

Bigsby's Fattest Mama Joke

Whybird
Aug 2, 2009

Phaiston have long avoided the tightly competetive defence sector, but the IRDA Act 2052 has given us the freedom we need to bring out something really special.

https://team-robostar.itch.io/robostar


Nap Ghost
The thing to remember with Paranoia is that you can lock the PCs in a room with a piece of string and providing their secret societies disagree over what to do with the string, fun will happen.

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

mmj posted:

Mentioning mr. Bubbles reminded me, I meant to post this earlier. On Saturday I ran my group's first Paranoia game using that module. It was me as GM (first time doing anything with Paranoia) and five players only one of which had played before. It went really well even though I stumbled a few times and am still figuring out what I'm doing. The highlight of the night had to be when one of the players got an insanely good roll trying to use regeneration (he had a power rank of 17 and rolled a 2) and basically went from near death to back in the fight in seconds. After the fight before anyone else had a chance he accused himself of being a dirty mutant, found himself guilty and executed himself on the spot out of loyalty to friend computer. I promoted him for that one, clearly friend computer could trust him after all.

This is the best kind of Paranoia story where the illogic of the setting is taken to it's logical extremes.

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pawsplay
Jul 12, 2011
D&D 3.5. I really didn't mean to almost kill the party. The party consisted of a human barbarian with a pegasus cohort, a goliath cleric, a human wizard, a dwarf scout, and a human sorcerer. They were infiltrating an enemy fortress located just inside a pocket dimension. I had set up a gatehouse, which I thought would provide a very straightforward, even simple encounter for the PCs, who were all of mid-level. I want to use ogres, but since ogres were too weak, I decided one of the ogres was an ogre barbarian (the one statted in the MM). I figured most of them would be fodder, while ogre barbarian would bring the noise before getting shut down when he got ganged up on by the PCs.

What actually happened: The PCs stuck their heads around the corner, basically, and identified the ogres. They then decided to start debating tactics. Abruptly, someone said, "You know what? They're just ogres." The phrase "they're just ogres," was seconded and then passed unanimously by the party. Things they did not do: make use of unlimited magesight, cast any buffs whatsoever, plan any sort of ambush. They just sort of popped out. The wizard, not deigning to actually cast a spell, used a charge from his wand of fireballs; on 5d6, he rolled, I think, 9 damage. The barbarian charged, electing not to use her rage and become fatigued. The scout actually shot and finished off an ogre, I think. The sorcerer then closed in an used her breath weapon to kill two more, leaving one ogre and the ogre barbarian standing.

What happened next: The ogre barbarian attacked the human barbarian with its Large morningstar, power attacking, and rolled a critical hit. Pink. loving. Mist. "What about my rage?" Too late for that, Sheera. The wizard sensed things had perhaps gone a bit wobbly and took up a defensive position, but tried the fireball wand again. This time damage was average, but not quite good enough. The goliath cleric moved into position to position to try to quick rez the barbarian next turn. Other stuff happened. The next turn, the ogre barbarian tried to sunder the goliath's 100k gp healing stuff, but failed, and hit the goliath cleric, hard. The wizard wised up and used an empowered magic missile to do some actual damage, taking out the spare ogre. The scout delivered some hurt to the barbarian chieftain. The sorcerer tried black tentacles, but it just wasn't the right answer against a large, raging barbarian. Rather than risk doing the rez, or retreating, the goliath cleric decided to heal himself. Next round, ogre barbarian sunders the staff; when it fails, he tries again, and succeeds. No more staff. At the point, the wizard uses glitterdust to try to blind the ogre barbarian, but succeeds instead at blinding the goliath cleric. The sorcerer cancels the tentacles because they have started to constrict the goliath and are winning... Next round: The ogre barbarian puts the cleric down, and because he's in a bad mood, kicks him while he's down, killing him. The scout and wizard finally finish the ogre barbarian off.

After the session, the goliath cleric's player accuses me of playing "unfair," a charge which encompassed not only using the sunder action and unconscious foes, but using custom monsters who are much deadlier than usual. I hold up the Monster Manual and show him the page with the ogre barbarian on it. "Well, why didn't we see the magic aura of his equipment?"

"Because you never bothered to look."

Dumbfounded silence.

One group member: "I hereby strike, now and forever, 'They're just ogres,' from the list of phrases I will use."

I've rarely, if ever, seen such naked incompetence, especially from a seasoned and normally clever group, turning a few mediocre rolls into a death pit. It was among my worst experiences in a lot of ways, as it was frustrating to watch, and my gaming group were not happy with me for some time after. But it was also kind of hilarious to watch their parade of utterly terrible decisions put two party members and a valuable staff in the grave from an encounter that wasn't even worth an "average" award for them.

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