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I was roped into the very worst D&D 3.5 game I ever played yesterday, and I'm including the times we attempted to play straight through the Diablo II-based hack and slash campaign and the time one player halted the game by having something of a breakdown. We were told to make PHB only characters for a very combat-heavy adventure to the tune of 7-8 encounters, which was fine with me for a one-shot. Made a rogue and figured I'd be a melee damage dealer. I'd have to set up a lot of flanking but that sounded like the right kind of light tactical play I thought this was going to work out to be. We did play the whole seven encounters over something like 11 hours and here's how often I did get to use the one thing I'd be able to do in combat: exactly once. Flesh Golem. Undead enemies. Enemies with displacement. Plant enemies. On one of the two occasions there were in fact enemies on the board that could, in principle, be sneak attacked in the first place, I got charmed before I got into position and missed any chance at it. It's not like the other characters fared any better between magic immune enemies and the ones with 50% concealment - no other system, I think, does "something exciting happens, PSYCHE NOTHING HAPPENS" as well as D&D 3.5 - but I did feel the rogue was in his own special circle of hell there. To wrap it up, the last encounter of the night was a rugby game in which we would, as explained by an NPC in advance, not allowed to attack any opponent directly or manipulate the playing field, which amounted to "basically don't cast any spells at all" which thrilled the evocation-focused sorcerer to no end. That one could have been fun but the DM opted to not tell us the actual rules by which we'd simulate a game of rugby and left us to figure out things on the fly. We went in with no idea what kind of action any rugby-related move might be or indeed what good tactics would be (if we were into sports we wouldn't be playing D&D I guess). The DM had it all worked out of course and the opposition steamrolled us with great tactics, at least until 1-2 rounds in when the DM lost track of her initiative system. It went on for two more hours after that. Basically the climax of the session was a whole different game from what we sat down to play that happened to use some of the same stats and whose rules we weren't allowed to stray from without being told what they actually were. And this was the same DM who as a player regularly grinds my game sessions to a halt when there's a combat but she doesn't want to play a combat right now and tries to do something "outside the box" to avert it, and when that doesn't work there are complaints about being railroaded. loving never again will I play this barely baseline functional mess of an RPG system nor any combat-heavy one-shots under this DM.
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Nov 3, 2013 21:55
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My Black Crusade group had managed to piss off an entire village and were facing an angry mob on the town square so they decide to make their getaway in their "unremarkable civilian vehicle" which everybody agreed on was a space-Fiat Panda. Turn 1, the Heretek and the Renegade open the doors and move the front seats forward(two door car) while the two Psykers horribly fail their rolls to calm the crowd. The next turn the Psykers get into the back seats and pull the front seats into position, giving the Heretek and the Renegade the opportunity to get in as well. The the next turn, the crowd closes into melee range while the Heretek rolls a 100(d100 roll-under system so crit fail) to drive through the crowd and the engine shuts off again. The Renegade rolls down a window and has a sword fight with somebody outside while the Psykers try to help by compelling random attackers to push into the other direction and firing pistols through the windows. The Heretek gets the car working again and then they realize that their Fiat Panda is not design to run over a crowd of angry frontier worlders so they've basically manoeuvred themselves into a little defenceless box while buckshot and axe blows rain from all directions. Then the Renegade has a brilliant idea: The Heretek is to spin the car around in an as tight as possible circle while the Renegade sticks his chainsword out of the window  .The Heretek agrees and between their Operate(Surface) and Weapon Skill rolls they end up with 6 degrees of success, resulting in a lot of mauled villagers and the party escaping safely. I originally had planned for the angry mob to try to drag people out of the car but after that display of awesomeness I let them get away and the Renegade and Heretek got some extra Infamy out of it as well.
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Nov 4, 2013 00:34
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My Lovely Horse posted:loving never again will I play this barely baseline functional mess of an RPG system nor any combat-heavy one-shots under this DM. After an experience like that, combined with your comment about him on the other side of the DM screen, I wonder why your statement isn't simply 'loving never again will I play with this guy'.
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Nov 4, 2013 00:37
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To be fair, swearing never again to play 3.5 is a good addition to never playing with them again. As a sort of baseline, you know.
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Nov 4, 2013 03:47
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During a discussion of Extra Life, I briefly explained FATAL to my Sunday game-mates. We play 3.5, RIFTS and GURPS, and odder things have never seen these tables. 'Is it worse than Palladium?' the GM asked. 'Palladium doesn't have an algorithm for determining the circumference of your stretched-out bumhole,' I replied.
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Nov 4, 2013 03:57
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FATAL is some sort of RPG shibboleth/thousand-yard-stare combination. Every now and then I think 'yeah, it could be amusing to run a piss-take game of it' then I re-read the writeup and it goes away.
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Nov 4, 2013 04:21
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My Lovely Horse posted:I was roped into the very worst D&D 3.5 game I ever played yesterday, and I'm including the times we attempted to play straight through the Diablo II-based hack and slash campaign and the time one player halted the game by having something of a breakdown. This is pretty much 3Erogues.txt. If you broke down the number of monsters in the system that are immune to sneak attack, it would probably be around 2/3rds, especially considering the prevalence of undead. As such, basic 3E rogue optimization (i.e. making sure you're potentially useful in every situation) typically involves pretending you're a wizard. When this further involves a subsystem where you use a skill to convince a magic item to work, it ends up more degrading than being a strict warrior class. I'm not sure I ever even bothered playing a rogue-type class ever in 3E, as your alternate methods of effectiveness, hide/move silently and charisma skills, typically end up involving mother-may-I with the DM. Also, your DM is all kinds of terrible.
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Nov 4, 2013 04:43
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I had my first ever attempt at a RPG today - D&D4E with a couple of good friends. It was an absolute riot and a lot of fun. We have a wood-elf ranger, a kobold shaman and a tiefling sword-mage. Highlights include: - Generally bad rolls on anything but my ranger's perception checks, which succeeded marvelously. This starts off with her trying to be intimidating, but winding up giving an NPC the equivalent of an angry puppy look. - In an attempt to avoid bandits, my ranger spies an alternate route. We take some sand skiffs down a rocky, boulder filled crevice, much to the dismay of the 'shady in a used car salesman way' handler who brought us along. - While attempting to survive the descent, one skiff bounces gracefully off a boulder and lands safely at the bottom. The other skiff has multiple attempts at doing the same, which fail. - The tiefling aboard the safe skiff attempts to throw her sword with an encounter power, hoping to knock it into safety. "I have a +7 to hit, the worst I can roll is 8!" they say. And of course they roll 1+7. - The skiff then tips, spills its contents, lands at the bottom and then explodes cinematically once the occupants have picked themselves up. - We hear hounds searching for us, and try to sneak into a nearby cave to hide. The tiefling clumsies it up and drops her books everywhere, before deducing that "This is indeed a cave." To quote the kobold player: "So the party is: a kobold who talks to smoke, a clutz against nature, and a lady with the hubble space telescope embedded into her retinas." It was amazing and I can't wait for more.
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Nov 4, 2013 05:29
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Just got through the 4th Session of my group's 13th Age Game, which I'm GMing. I called it "Assault on Orc Mountain" because... well that's what it was. (Oddly enough, they were mostly fighting Goblin mooks, with only a few orcs making an appearance). Anyway, highlight of the session was definitely an attack by Wizholm Glyphweaver, the group's sorcerer. He had been rolling pretty crappily all night, which kind of sucked. Anyway, the group gets to the final encounter, which was a group of goblin mooks (all the encounters had 8 goblin mooks, since they were raiding what was basically an army HQ), a shaman who was the leader of this particular orc horde, and a big ogre he kept around as a bodyguard. The group's doing all kind of crazy things, including the tiefling fighter deciding to parkour onto the ogre's back by turning her arms into swords (it's part of her OUT). Anyway, Wizholm tried one of his daily spells earlier, Breath of the Grave (basically a giant fuckoff ice spell), but didn't roll too hot, which sucked. So, anyway, a few rounds in, the Sorcerer succeeds on the roll to reuse Breath of the Grave (it's part of the spell, you see). He then rolls to hit the ogre and the shaman. He crits the ogre, which thanks to our Dwarf Cleric, means his daily spell deals triple damage. The shaman is killed, and the Ogre has half of his HP taken out in one go. I narrated it as his breath briefly assuming the form of the Lich King before the Orc Shaman's skeleton tore itself out of his body, killing him, and one of the Ogre's arms rotting off in the span of a few seconds. Considering that I had the players roll their Icon relationships at the end of the session and that the Lich King came up twice, this next session should end up being interesting.
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Nov 4, 2013 07:47
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My Lovely Horse posted:To wrap it up, the last encounter of the night was a rugby game... It was probably because of the "make the rules as you play" thing...my rogue was a point scorer, and at the time at like three different free movement abilities. (Tumble! Teleport! Swashbuckle! AAAAND MVP!)
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Nov 4, 2013 08:22
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We did win the rugby game. Eventually and after two hours of actually being sick of it and pondering to just suggest to call it a night. The sorcerer actually fried four opponents with a lightning bolt specifically so the referee would take her out of the game. Last time we played a combat one-shot in this group constellation the DM specifically said "don't play rogues, they're not banned but I really don't recommend it if you catch my drift." This time she said no such thing, so I thought, alright, this time it's fine then. Actually I even asked before the game and she said "well, there are undead, but there aren't only undead, you'll be alright." Turns out she'd, for example, forgotten all about concealment negating sneak attacks. I probably could have dealt even with sneak attack-immune enemies in every encounter but there were only sneak attack-immune enemies in nearly every encounter.
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Nov 4, 2013 08:51
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Really the moral of that story is just never play 3.5.Bieardo posted:During a discussion of Extra Life, I briefly explained FATAL to my Sunday game-mates. We play 3.5, RIFTS and GURPS, and odder things have never seen these tables.
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Nov 4, 2013 09:41
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Chaltab posted:Really the moral of that story is just never play 3.5. I am surprised at this point that there isn't a "Why you shouldn't play 3.5" post in the style of the Debate & Discussion Paulbomb.
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Nov 4, 2013 09:47
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So is the guy who was involved with DnD: Legends of the Hidden Temple, willing to go into a bit more detail on how it worked? Cause I have my players on a jungle plane and I think this would be hilarious to have one of the many ruined temples and buildings they visit and explore be that.
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Nov 5, 2013 03:09
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masam posted:So is the guy who was involved with DnD: Legends of the Hidden Temple, willing to go into a bit more detail on how it worked? Cause I have my players on a jungle plane and I think this would be hilarious to have one of the many ruined temples and buildings they visit and explore be that. Okay, so I asked him. The whole thing actually started as several sets of exploratory adventuring teams representing different guilds all trying to claim the temple for themselves to explore. Cue a lot of bickering and drawn weapons until a giant talking stone head was awoken and suggested that they pass the trials of physical aptitude, knowledge, puzzle-solving and, in the actual temple run, speed of thought., for the right to the treasure instead of being a bunch of robbers trying to pillage a proud set of ruins. Physical aptitude basically involved "who could get at least two of their party across or over to the next checkpoint". This was followed by a short quiz about the history of these ruins. Unlike the show, Olmec doesn't tell you the story: you were expected to take notes and listen to the people who hired you when they lectured you on this particular temple. Puzzle test was simple: a temple guard blocks a door, and your objective was to open the door. Bonus points for getting the temple guard to open the door for you, whether through charms, diplomacy, scaring it enough to open it to flee, or using misdirection to make it check on the other side of it. In the end, whomever did the best of three had up to two pendants, as the puzzle solving test was worth a full pendant, but you lost half a pendant if you attacked the temple guard, thus meaning if you had a full and used violence you had a half pendant and someone with a full gets to go instead. If there's a tie, one last quiz question for the tie breaking pendant half. Olmec gives you a few minutes to choose two people to send in after the treasure and consider the paths he suggests, as well as cast any buffs you want to put on your runners like Haste. Once you're ready, the gate lowers and you have an hour and a half (or one hour for killing a temple guard) of REAL-TIME, not in-game time, to solve the various rooms, grab the treasure and make it back out. The temple guards warp you away to a chamber on a successful touch attack, which unless you have Blur or something is something they can do on a natural 2. As for actual rooms, they made up the gimmicks of the rooms as they went along. For instance, the King's Storeroom had the issue that some of the pots were made of particularly hard substances that needed shattering either by high strength checks or slamming them against something harder, like the sealed door to the next room. In general, look at a room from Legends, then find a twist to trip up people who know how the room went in the show. Once the treasure has been nabbed, make the temple start to rumble and cause complications on the return trip. Rocks fall and block doorways, or a spider creature from the pit is awoken and now is after you. Also, remember that the other players involved are NOT worthless. They can attempt to bargain for more time in a pinch from Olmec, yell out ideas for solutions, and, if they succeed at a sleight of hand check or other stealthy thing, can attempt to use magic to subtly alter the dungeon or the puzzles in favor of their runners. Remember all this and it should result in a pretty good experience. Also, don't forget to disallow teleportation effects while in the temple.
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Nov 5, 2013 04:30
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That does sound like a pretty sweet one-shot, even to a Brit who never had that show growing up. I'd consider stealing the idea with the Brit equivalent for my own group, but... the DnD movie already had Richard O'Brian running a maze of challenges with a crystal as a reward. It's one redeeming feature, really.
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Nov 5, 2013 11:12
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My Lovely Horse posted:To wrap it up, the last encounter of the night was a rugby game in which we would, as explained by an NPC in advance, not allowed to attack any opponent directly or manipulate the playing field, which amounted to "basically don't cast any spells at all" which thrilled the evocation-focused sorcerer to no end. That one could have been fun but the DM opted to not tell us the actual rules by which we'd simulate a game of rugby and left us to figure out things on the fly. We went in with no idea what kind of action any rugby-related move might be or indeed what good tactics would be (if we were into sports we wouldn't be playing D&D I guess). The DM had it all worked out of course and the opposition steamrolled us with great tactics, at least until 1-2 rounds in when the DM lost track of her initiative system. It went on for two more hours after that. Curiously, my GM once had us resolve an encounter in a sports game. The difference tho? We were basically playing tabletop BLOOD BOWL, so it amounted to kicking the other team's rear end and running away with the ball.
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Nov 5, 2013 15:47
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I started a playing in an M&M campaign with my group. Everyone made kind of grim heroes, like a silver surfer ripoff, a mimic assassin, a strung out supersoldier, a frozen iceman, and a sadistic pokemon trainer. I ended up making NOLAD, the Nonlethal Animatronic Discobot, which is a cyborg whose purpose in life is disco. His powers include fascinating people with his radical disco dancing, spinning, enlongating limbs, mind control stereo that can only order people to dance with him, and a discoball head that flies off of his body and starts shooting disco lights everywhere. First mission we end up in a Xmen-esque training room, and Discobot immediately begins dancing and dazzling everyone in the room with his lights. A grabber claw tries to grab him, but he sensuously gyrated out of the way, a couple of laser turrets popped out of the ground but he blinded their sensors, causing them to being shooting wildly around the room, and the thug punch-robots ran up to him and he told them to get down, where he began spinning in a circle and tripping them. The rest of the party was busy flailing around and getting their asses kicked while Discobot had a party in the arena. This was going to be the trend of the game. Next we're sent to stop a bank robbery in progress, and the bank robbers have a lookout and hostages. Our mimic mind reads the lookout and finds out everything going on, but it isn't subtle and the guy realizes that his mind is getting cracked into. He freaks out and tells his pals that there are supers outside, and they all start to get on edge. Discobot runs out into the middle of the street and begins dancing. I target all the policemen, hostages, and robbers that can see me, and all of them fail to pass the check to not be fascinated by the dancing disco robot. The shootout stops, everyone just sits there staring at the Discobot, and I walk into the bank and climb up onto the central table in the bank while the party manuevers around to get the people out safely. I then declare "PARTY QUOTIENT NOT HIGH ENOUGH. COMMENCE PARTY STIMULUS." I mind controlled everyone in the bank to dance with me, which also hit all the hostages, and started a conga line out of the bank with the civilians. The rest of the group rampaged into the bank and beat up all the robbers while I lead the conga line into the crowd of onlookers and policemen, forcing them to also join in the Disco robot's antics. We find out that it is the Riddler who is at the bottom of all of this, and begin going on a riddle/clue hunt throughout the city, finding bank upper management strapped to various things with bombs. One guy is strapped to the top of a sky needle with a bomb, and he was panicking while the silver surfer and mimic assassin spy were trying to disarm it. The SS used fearsome presence on him and he rolled a one, so he started actively trying to fight back against him to keep him away while the bomb was ticking down. Queue the Disco Robot arriving via news copter, hanging off of the helicopter's foot with his robo noodle appendages, and he begins dancing while hanging from the chopper. The news people and banker get fascinated with him as he gyrates and spins, allowing the group to successfully disarm the bomb and get the next hint. Our clues take us to a small warehouse, where there is a steel door with a giant questionmark on it. I used a heropoint, took 20, and used my quickness to smash through the steel door with no superstrength or anything, while declaring, "WELCOME NOLAD TO THE DISCO WAREHOUSE." Hostages were being held in the center of the room, and the Riddler gave us the "What has a million eyes but can't see, and a million eyes but can't hear?" Frostguy says, "gently caress this." and builds and igloo around the hostages, and NOLAD answers, "ANSWER: A FIELD OF CORN AND POTATOES. DISCOBOT'S TURN. WHO IS A ROBOT AND LOVES TO DANCE?" I then went on top of the igloo and started spinning around on my head, using my enlongating limbs to randomly trip people while telling them to get down, blinding them, and deflecting bullets from the igloo. My other riddle that obviously stumped the Riddler was, "RIDDLE TWO: WHO IS THE BEST ROBOT AT DANCING?" He never answered them because he was too busy screaming stuff at us and his minions, so I obviously won that contest.
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Nov 5, 2013 18:56
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masam posted:So is the guy who was involved with DnD: Legends of the Hidden Temple, willing to go into a bit more detail on how it worked? Cause I have my players on a jungle plane and I think this would be hilarious to have one of the many ruined temples and buildings they visit and explore be that. That reminds me of the first time I DMed D&D. It was a one-off where the party was hired to raid an old temple called the Shrine of the Silver Monkey. Though in this case the Silver Monkey was a transmogrified evil Monkey God. At the end of the dungeon they met a genie named Olmec who says he'll grant them one wish. The Swordmage says, "I don't suppose we can wish for more wishes." And Olmec is like, "Eh, sure, why not. I've been asleep for a long time; no need to be stingy." So they wished for a scrying pool, scryed to find out that the guy who hired them intended to use the Silver Monkey for evil, and used their remaining two wishes to transport all the man's evil artifacts to the surface of the sun, and to free Olmec. Needless to say, the man did not pay them for services rendered.
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Nov 5, 2013 19:23
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Commoners posted:Sheer Brilliance I'm at work trying so hard not to laugh while answering the phone. Bravo
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Nov 5, 2013 19:55
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Commoners posted:Discobot I nearly choked while eating, you magnificent bastard! This is amazing.
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Nov 5, 2013 20:11
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Commoners posted:
My coworkers just gave me an odd look, since I was giggling out loud from this. This sounded like an amazing session.
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Nov 5, 2013 20:24
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Commoners posted:Discobot It's stories like this when I wish my group wasn't so serious about our games and had the time/desire to play one-offs more often. Content: I recently found an old AD&D character sheet for a half-orc fighter/assassin and was reminded of that campaign. This was one of the many urban-adventuring games we played using the City State of the Invincible Overlord resource books and there were three of us playing: the GM, me playing "James", the half-orc Fighter/Assassin, and Sam, playing "Jake da Roach" a human Assassin. Our goal was very simple: We wanted to get as rich as possible without earning a single XP (nevermind the original rule about one gp recovered = 1 XP earned) so cut to the following scams: - We buried some gold pieces in horse poo poo and started a rumor that copper pieces buried in horse poo poo on Temple Street were turning to gold. We then dug through all the piles of horse poo poo to recover buried copper pieces. (I think we barely broke even.) - We "convinced" Warner Nitwit, the local imbecile, to enter into the gladiatorial games, pumped a zillion gold-worth of potions into him to turn him into a super-soldier, but forgot about the potion miscibility table. After schilling the audience and driving the odds way against (I think they hit 20:1 against), we dumped poor sick-to-his-stomach Warner into the ring and bet all of our money on him. He brought the local champion down to 4hp before getting knocked out, loosing us all our cash. Only after did we realize that since he was fighting bare-handed he got two attacks a round and would have won. Sadly out of funds from the previous plot, we had to resort to doing actual work for a change so we started robbing manor houses (and actually gaining XP - gasp!). In one such random house Jake da Roach found a bright orange turban that enhanced latent psionic ability. We rolled on the psionics table in the appendix of the original PHB and, incredibly, Jake was a psionic. Since psionics were horribly broken in AD&D, suddenly Jake had the ability to mind control people, teleport and psionic blast them into jelly. Before we as players moved on to something else, Jake and James had mind controlled just about everyone we could get his mind on and had a small army of people out plundering and looting the houses of people we hadn't mind controlled. For a few hours we had people piling up "wealth" at the entrance to our inn, forgetting to specify what wealth actually was. Chickens, cows, pigs, tableware, pictures, furniture, clothing all started appearing. Our GM basically rolled d100 for every item in any AD&D book available and had it appear in the square in front of the inn until the effects wore off and an angry quarter of town started looking for us. So we teleported away to another town, which curiously enough was the other Judge's Guild resource, the City State of the World Emperor... Agrikk fucked around with this message at 21:23 on Nov 5, 2013 |
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Nov 5, 2013 21:21
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Commoners posted:Discobot Discobot is my new favorite superhero.
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Nov 6, 2013 16:28
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Golden Bee posted:"First I was holding a beer. Then I was holding a gun. Then I was holding two guns. Then I was holding two beers."  I love fiasco stories
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Nov 6, 2013 18:45
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Everybody wants to kill Magos Luna Welp that was a bit of a stupid session of RT, partly bad, partly good. At least it meant that the worst heretic/potential TK-master of the team got smashed. Our regular crew of two Heretek Explorators, Ork Weirdboy /w retinue, noted Tau fanboy Missionary and False Man Seneschal were exploring an old Yu'vath complex crawling with horrifying sort of lizardy xenos called Rak'Gol - they love poo poo like radioactive weaponry, technological implants and being horrible killing machines. At the beginning of the session we ran into a group of Eldar fighting against a force of Navy troops and being sensible not at all insane assholes we helped the Eldar instead of the humans, something that our Missionary did not really like too much, even if he totally broke the Navy's morale by strolling in dressed up in his power armour and shouting about death and damnation directed at the Navy. Actually, that possibly directly influenced his intense uncomfortability at the situation - everyone else was pretty much on board with the Eldar alliance except for him, but since everyone else was on board he just sorta muttered curses under his breath. He also wondered aloud that were we dismissing our very humanity, which was quickly answered by a chorus of "Yo, Psyker Explorator is more machine than woman, the Genetor is basically a Tyranid monstrosity, the Ork is an Ork and the False Man is a False Man". Missionary threw his hands in the air and dropped the subject. Despite being a bit of a Tau Loyalist, butchering navy troopers to get Eldar to help figuring out what the hell is going on in the ruins felt a bit questionable. Probably doubly so because he still had a mission to not do deals with Eldar, something that he probably has failed by now since this is the third group of Eldar we've been on friendlyish terms with. We do make a little concession though, the Eldar split into two groups and one comes with us and we take the group with no Eldar psykers because the Missionary would probably try to murder the psykers as soon as he got the chance otherwise. The Eldar leader was sort of pissed off at our Eldar hostage after he/she said that he/she had decided to 'go on an adventure'. Not at us though! Progress towards friendship between the races! We lost our hostage though.  Soon we heard weird machinery and came across a chamber crawling with Rak'Gol and at the other end of it was an ominous huge door and a giant plasma drill the Rak'Gol were using to try and get through it. Combat started pretty soon, but we had the jump on them at least. Magos Luna AKA Psyker Explorator and over all a horrible person decided that she was going to use her Psychic power granted by a Chaos artifact she'd planted inside of her as soon as she would get past a Psychic barrier the Rak'Gol had set up, and she warned us about this as well. Still, our Missionary was frenzied so he followed her since she was running in to a big bunch of Rak'Gol. Most of the fight before this had been a bit clownish with the Rak'Gol loving up most of their rolls, one hilarious part being when their bosses got hosed up by hallucinogen grenades with one of them starting to chase after random visions and the other thought its (many) hands had turned in to tentacles and was shrieking at them angrily. The second really funny part was our Ork Weirdboy with his minderz just using a bunch of Grabba-Stikks to, well, grabba-stikk one of the nastier Rak'Gol monsters, stun-locking it until it died horribly. Grabba-stikks are ridiculous when there are a big bunch of them. But anyway, our Missionary and Psyker Explorator were right next to a bunch of Rak'Gol and she rolled a Psychic Phenomena... which turned into Perils of the Warp... which was mass possession. Oh and he did a massive amount of damage to our Missionary and the Rak'Gols. The next few minutes were everyone battling against attempts by Daemonettes to possess them, which everyone succeeded at as the Daemonettes were really bad at rolling. Of course this little gently caress up had some 'minor' consequences: Literally everyone in the room wanted to murder Magos Luna now. Rak'Gols, Eldar and the rest of our crew all directed most of our efforts to killing this obviously dangerous sorcerer - a Rak'Gol even helped our Missionary to get bonuses to hit Luna because, as mentioned, everybody wanted to kill Magos Luna. The Eldar leader was screaming quite a bit at Luna, but he wasn't alone in that since everyone else was doing that as well, he just managed to be louder at it than anyone else, although the Missionary sure did try. Now, in Rogue Trader you have a certain amount of Fate points you can use the reroll things and get some other advantages as well - when you take fatal damage you can burn it to either just survive the encounter or to keep on fighting. Luna had 4 Fate points. She burned three to keep on fighting and used the last one to just survive, at which point a recurring villain basically recruited her/kidnapped her to be a torture toy. One or the other. Or both. Of note is that our Missionary burned a Fate point of his own to do max damage to Luna. With a Thunder hammer. That was Fate number 1, the second came from the second Thunder Hammer hit immediately after that, and the last two came from Luna rolling another Perils of the Warp and exploding herself with warp energy. Twice. Everyone congratulated each other on a job well done and then we and the Eldar turned our attention towards the few remaining Rak'Gols and killed them in short order even if we found out that some of them had plasma bombs attached to their necks, and a few exploded themselves with very little damage done to us. There was some mutual cursing of Luna all around post-combat, the Eldar leader commenting that normally the Eldar would execute anyone dealing with Chaos sorcerers, our reaction of extreme hatred towards the the Psyker after the thing with the demons convinced him that we were trustworthy. Plus we'd been pretty efficient at murderin' the Rak'Gol, even if the Eldar leader kill-stealed a couple of bigger mooks. The Eldar warned us that a big group of humans were coming and that based on our descriptions they thought it was this "Hadark Fel" guy we'd talked a lot of poo poo about. And that he'd be upon us in about an hour with a small army. Turned out he'd found the rest of the Navy guys wandering around in the catacombs and convinced them that we'd betrayed the Imperium and murdered a bunch of Navy dudes to aid the Eldar (please note that Fel did not know that we'd betrayed the Imperium by murdering a bunch of Navy dudes to help the Eldar. Fel is an rear end in a top hat). My Genetor even got Peer(Eldar) with the xp from the session since for several sessions she'd tried to be friendly with the Eldar and had tried to generally speaking get that Peer-talent - because she loves Eldar weapons. And getting Eldar contacts is really hard, and they are super valuable. The session had its ups and downs, and when we got rid of Luna it was basically a turning point for our group and its probably gonna steer us towards a more Imperial mind set again, even if we are going to have another Ork PC since Luna's player is gonna start using his old Ork Kommando. Who, it turns out, had secretly been following us all the time and was suddenly going to appear to aid us! He was also around back when the old PC group pissed Fel off so he actually knows why Fel is mad at us. Other fall out from the session included our Missionary player having had a bit of a bad time since he had to also burn two fate points because of Luna shenanigans, although he was still somehow at 3 Fate points. His character is pissed off at most of the rest of the group, with the surprising exception of my Genetor - the Tyranid-Hybridization is offset by the fact that the Genetor is basically the only one trying to keep the team together and is friendly towards everyone else even if she is a horrible person who hears voices in her head and has a habit of biting people she doesn't like, the friendliness and open behaviour just makes the Missionary trust her. Ork Weirdboy and the False Man are just something he doesn't like at all. The IC relations took a hit this session after last session's team building, and the Missionary didn't really have much fun because of getting hammered by a Psychic Hellscream from Luna, and it doesn't help that he's gonna be at just three hit points during next sessions fight against Fel and Co, and he promised he was not gonna do anything substantial during the fight, a promise he's probably gonna break once he's gotten over the bad blood over the Psyker Explorator's stuff. The character was sort of a problem since Luna was doing pretty much everything well AND she was a danger to everyone around her with her Hellscream psychic power that she couldn't really use when in close proximity to most of us, plus the whole "corrupted by a Chaos artifact"-thing - group couldn't really talk to any psykers ever in a civil manner with both of our Explorators looking weird for Psykers. I dunno how things are gonna go from now on, but Luna's departure was ultimately for the best and Luna's player had fun even though his character got shat on - he was fully aware that his character deserved every bad thing that was gonna happen to her after the near mass possession and near murder of the Missionary. Post-session talk also had talk about how our Orks should PROBABLY get the Sanctioned Xenos trait at some point, followed by jokes that the remaining Explorator probably needed that too. Also personal note: Rak'Gol's have bullshit armor and toughness, gently caress all Rak'Gols forever. It just takes so much damage to take down even a Rak'Gol mook. At least our GM has absolutely horrendous dice luck so the fight didn't end up being that hard, most of the damage anyone got was from our Psyker Explorator actually...
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Nov 8, 2013 00:01
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I wasn't sure about posting this, but it certainly fits the thread, so, here goes. How a Paladin railroaded a Dungeon Master into breaching his code Alright, so this was quite a while ago, in a Pathfinder Gestalt game with a group I played with. It’s worth noting that the group doesn’t normally have much, if any sexual content in games. If someone goes off with a wench, or home to visit their spouse, it’s usually just a fade to black, maybe with a roll if it’s requested or funny. Once during a year period of downtime, the party bard/fighter decided that his character was trying to have a child with his wife, the DM did some rolls, and the bard had a daughter who started to manifest sorcerer abilities as she grew older. The group has three female players, and people are generally comfortable. There’s never anything explicit, with the exception of the story below. In this adventure, a divination had revealed an unknown threat to an all-female order of the God of Brewers, who ran a roadside inn/ tavern connected to their temple. They frequently held evening gatherings, during which townspeople and wanderers from all walks of life would come together and exchange stories, or just hang out. We checked the place out, and found that a group of the wine bottles had been marked, by having an extra grape drawn into the artwork. Investigating them further, we found that they were infused with a slow-onset, but long lasting sleeping poison. The bottles were from the stock normally used for the gatherings, and divinations revealed that the markings had been made by a man. We neutralized the poison, but we still needed to find out what the threat to the priestesses(they were not clerics or casters by and large) was, so we decided to stay overnight, and set up a sting, obviously, someone meant to come in while they were passed out. Only women could stay on the premises overnight, so that meant I could stay, with my rogue/sorceress, the sorc+monk/ Paladin could stay, and a barbarian/druid being played by one of the guys could stay, but that character hardly becomes relevant. What mattered was that we had half the party on the inside, and half the party on the outside, guarding the perimeter. The Paladin’s IRL husband’s character was among the dudes camping in a hidden shelter outside. We all either went to bed, or pretended to, and waited. Eventually, the Paladin got a listen check, which she passed. DM:“Alright, so you hear someone messing with the lock on your door.” Paladin:(the Paladin)“I’m lying face down, acting like I’m asleep.” DM:“someone comes into your room. You hear footsteps approaching the bed, they’re heavy, and sound like they belong to a man.” Paladin:  “I stay still.”DM:“Someone pulls back your blankets, you can feel a presence standing over you.” Paladin: “Okay.”Right here, I’m going to note that this DM would never have a character raped, and that the subject would hardly be more than alluded to. I’m entirely certain that even if we hadn’t found the poison, the paladin would have roused somehow, by this point, even if it meant a divine feeling from her god or something. A scene like this would never be role-played, except for the fact that the DM was expecting the Paladin to do something, and wasn't going to railroad her character. DM:“... um… you hear a man speaking quietly, to himself, ‘oh my, yes my pretty, what fun I’ll have with you’ he says. He sounds lustful and perverted. What do you do?” Paladin: “I stay still, like I’m still asleep.”DM:“...” Paladin: “What happens?”DM:“You still had… like... spells left,right? And your sword is with your haversack? Its… like… nearby, just so you know, I’m gonna say, like, you had them by your bed, okay?” Paladin: “Okay.”DM:“...”  The DM was obviously confused, and looked around at everyone in the room, especially the other girls, and especially her husband. The Husband was trying, and failing, to suppress a huge poo poo-eating grin. The Paladin’s player was doing a much better job of keeping her face straight, and appreciating the role playing experience. Paladin:“...” DM:“He... umm… the man fondles you some.” Paladin:“Are his hands calloused?” DM:“What?” Paladin:“Are his hands calloused, Like from using weapons or riding a horse?” DM:“Yes… yes his hands are calloused, you can tell he probably does those things.” You could see wheels turning in his head, as he tried to figure out what the player/character was up to. Paladin:“What does he smell like?” DM:“... what do you mean? He smells like a man? He’s a little sweaty… I guess.” Paladin:“Does he smell like he has nice soap, like a noble, or does he smell like a peasant, or what?” DM:“Aha! Yes, he smells like a noble, you can smell his fine soap, and the fine leather and fabrics of his clothing. What do you do?” The DM had seemed to work out that she was trying to collect salient details about the man, but still seemed confused as to why she didn’t just turn over, or engage him or something. Paladin:“I still act like I’m asleep. What does he do?” DM:“... he fondles you some more…” Paladin: “Okay, then what?”The Paladin’s husband was much bigger, and far better built than the DM, in fact the Paladin her Husband are both the most athletic, and most “normal looking” members of our group, and the DM is the nerdiest. The DM was giving the husband one of the bro looks that says “please sir, I’m not trying to mess with your lady” or whatever. The husband had straightened out his face a bit, but was still grinning, and just told the DM to go on. DM:“He touches you… all over… like a lot.” Paladin:“Then what?” Everyone else in the room was just staring at the paladin in rapt attention, mostly unable to believe what she was doing. Reading it, you might think that she was either playing chicken with the DM, or trying to teach him a lesson, but, by her tone, she most definitely was not. DM:“He touches you… um… everywhere.” The DM gestured awkwardly with his hands, to try to make sure that the Paladin understood what was happening in game, and to see if she was going to do something. Paladin:“Is he strong?” DM:“... he has like… an 18 strength, so,yeah he’s really strong. Alright, so, it looks like he’s going to have his way with you.” Paladin:“I’m still wearing my underwear though.” DM:“Okay… he takes hold of them, and starts to take them off. What do you do?” Paladin:“I stay like I’m asleep.” DM:“... he takes them off, and you hear him unbuckling his pants…” Paladin:“My legs are still together though.” Her husband started laughing, and she punched him in the leg to shush him. DM:“Okay... well, he goes to grab your legs, it provokes an AOO” “He moves your legs apart, and you feel him on the bed. It’s like he’s about to have his way with you. You’re sure in fact! What do you do?” Paladin:“I don’t move, and I act like I’m asleep.” DM:“...” Paladin: “What happens?”DM:“He gets even closer! He’s gonna… you know… consummate.” Paladin:“What does he do?” DM:“... he has his way with you, and he leaves,” Paladin:“Well, wait, how did he do? You should roll.” The DM seemed to just grab whatever dice behind his screen and roll them. DM:“He did pretty good I guess. He got a 17 plus whatever.” Paladin: “Okay, cool.”The next morning, the Paladin doesn’t say anything, and no one even knows, in character, if anything even happened, so we end up staying another night, to see if we can catch the culprit. The DM tells the Paladin that she should probably do something, but she says that she has a plan. There’s another evening meal, and the DM tells the Paladin that one of the noble’s voices sounds familiar. He gives her a perception roll, and tells her that it’s definitely the same guy. Paladin:“Is he handsome, or like, an ugly brute or something?” DM:“He’s pretty handsome, he’s got, like a 16 charisma.” Paladin:“Okay, does he have any scars though? He probably does.” Her husband chuckled The DM rolled a die, and said that the noble had a large scar on his cheek. Paladin:“Okay, cool. I eat my dessert slowly, but I don’t meet his gaze if he looks at me.” DM:“Are you trying to make him guilty, or intimidate him or something?” Paladin:“No, I’m doing it seductively, but just a little,” It got confusing, especially for the DM, but we worked out that the paladin was being coy, and playing the ingenue. So, the Paladin ends up making a bunch of rolls to stealth seduce this noble, playing up her holy vows, and her innocent maiden status while keeping his attention focused on her, and acting completely oblivious to him. She rolls really well, and the DM tells her that the noble seems totally into her. Soon, as the gathering is winding down, the noble reaches way back, for one of the marked bottles, and goes around the room refreshing everyone’s drinks, pouring just a bit into each cup. The Paladin makes a note of finishing her drink before he gets to her, and when he does, he fills her cup basically to the brim, emptying the bottle. He proposes a toast to the service of the gods, and everybody drinks. Paladin:“I make eye contact with him, and I drink the whole cup.” DM:“Are you trying to intimidate him or something now, or let him know you know what he’s up to?” Paladin:“No. I just act like it’s good wine, and I say all the wine is going to my head.” DM:“Umm… roll bluff?” Paladin:“Well, you said it was good wine, right?” DM:“Okay, whatever.” So, we have our suspicions about the noble IC, but not enough to accuse him. We know that the sleeping potion wasn’t in the wine, so we figure we’ll just have to see if anything happens in the night. We mostly go to bed as normal, and the night is the same as the first, except this time, the DM turns to me. “Dr. Jamming, roll listen.” “33?” He got this look of “Oh thank god,” and said “You you hear the distinct sound of lockpicks coming from the direction of the Paladin’s room, your training as a rogue makes it unmistakable. I was sorely tempted to just let her have her fun, and say that I wait for her to call for help or something, but I went ahead and stealthed over anyway. The noble was still just ogling her, so I figured that was enough evidence to cast hold person. My spellcasting “woke up” the Paladin, and I decided to search him while he was paralyzed. DM:“You find lockpicks, potions of invisibility, vials of sleeping poison.” Paladin:“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would he be carrying those on him?” “You know, she does have a poin…” DM:“He has them.  The ruckus has woken up the Barb/Druid, and everyone around the inn, and they all come to the room.”So the noble is caught and confesses, and, the Paladin, having leadership and also being party leader, has him put in her custody, and taken to her keep, to be guarded by her followers. He is never heard from again, although the occasional joke is made whenever the paladin goes home. The DM has no idea what the hell has just happened, and likely still doesn’t. There were elements that could have veered into worst for some, or best for others, but, as far as I’m concerned, it was certainly notable. There were other notable events, especially around the Paladin and her husband, but this was the biggest standout. Too Long? Didn't Read?: Paladin backs the Dungeon Master into roleplaying her ravishment fantasy. Her husband looks on approvingly. Dr. Jamming fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Nov 8, 2013 |
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Nov 8, 2013 03:17
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The actual end of the story is that you never played with them again, right? Jesus christ.
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Nov 8, 2013 03:23
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Wow. Even if her husband was okay with it, that was not cool of the Paladin player. Only a loving rear end in a top hat would force an unsuspecting person into their sexual roleplay.
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Nov 8, 2013 03:23
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I really don't get the DM's side here, like okay yeah taking off the blankets fine but by the time you realize you've entered the other sort of fantasy just have the guy try to take her poo poo or stab her. Sex Brinkmanship is a strange recourse.
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Nov 8, 2013 03:27
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What the gently caress?
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Nov 8, 2013 03:29
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Were you all friends? Like, really really good friends that play incredibly awkward and excessive pranks on each other? I'll be honest, I know I've kept hearing in this thread that shutting down the players is usually a recipe for a poo poo game but I would have made some sort of excuse about the noble accidentally drinking his own sleeping potion pretty early in the scene.
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Nov 8, 2013 03:33
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Mr. Maltose posted:I really don't get the DM's side here, like okay yeah taking off the blankets fine but by the time you realize you've entered the other sort of fantasy just have the guy try to take her poo poo or stab her. Sex Brinkmanship is a strange recourse. I get the feeling the DM just flat out didn't realize it until it later and was too worried about the husband going after him.
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Nov 8, 2013 03:36
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Lemme get the facts of this story right: DM writes a scenario where a dude is raping random women. One of your players decides to take the scenario further into creepy rape-ville. Several minutes of awkward gameplay. ??? Fun? I don't get it. 
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Nov 8, 2013 03:38
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I don't condone that story, but the entire setup for that read as a juvenile sex comedy anyway. Nobles spiking the wine of the all-female convent of the god of beer? Are you kidding me?
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Nov 8, 2013 03:39
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Mr. Maltose posted:I really don't get the DM's side here, like okay yeah taking off the blankets fine but by the time you realize you've entered the other sort of fantasy just have the guy try to take her poo poo or stab her. Sex Brinkmanship is a strange recourse. The DM was very good about not railroading, and "say yes" DMing within the rules. He pretty much let the players do whatever they chose, and had NPCs react according to their own plans and motivations. Robindaybird posted:I get the feeling the DM just flat out didn't realize it until it later and was too worried about the husband going after him. ^Pretty much this. He was definitely waiting for the Paladin to grab her sword, cast a spell, or just use kung-fu, and didn't realize where she was going with it. His main worry about the husband seemed to be in communicating "Dude, I'm not trying to rape your wife in my game," and "Where is she going with this/ What is going on". He could be a bit fixed on having NPCs "do what they would do", so he probably felt pretty committed to his course, as the scene wore on. He often let dice fall where they may, but, to be fair to him, in a scene like this there was no way he would have forced the Paladin to be raped. The Noble wasn't a match for any one of us, and the DM was thoroughly waiting for her to "spring the trap". OneThousandMonkeys posted:I don't condone that story, but the entire setup for that read as a juvenile sex comedy anyway. Nobles spiking the wine of the all-female convent of the god of beer? Are you kidding me? mmj posted:Were you all friends? Like, really really good friends that play incredibly awkward and excessive pranks on each other? I'll be honest, I know I've kept hearing in this thread that shutting down the players is usually a recipe for a poo poo game but I would have made some sort of excuse about the noble accidentally drinking his own sleeping potion pretty early in the scene.
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Nov 8, 2013 04:08
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Jesus Christ, I would never play with those people again. That's awful for the chick to do, and it's awful for the DM to even allude too. At first I thought it was a "The Chick is trying to show the DM how uncomfortable rape overtones are," but all in all that was just terrible. Funny, hilarious, but terrible.
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Nov 8, 2013 08:30
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Frat boys the RPG! Tune in nextweek as the brave adventurers stop a panty raid at castle kappa delta!
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Nov 8, 2013 12:37
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Guarded by actual Kappas, I hope? Cucumber jokes ahoy...
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Nov 8, 2013 12:47
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| # ? May 14, 2024 00:28 |
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I think that I misinterpreted this. The way it was written I thought that the DM, alluded to as being nerdy and the couple being athletic and more traditionally socially at ease, was kind of having the piss taken out of him by the couple. I thought that the point was that he was uncomfortable with this and the couple was "railroading" him because it was funny to see him get so discomfited, but it looks like I was well off-base.
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Nov 8, 2013 16:22
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