|
I had a fellow player (I was not DMing) who kept a private journal of a general nature but often wrote about tabletop games in it. I only saw in it once and only saw one sentence, but it was priceless: "Calvin [note: I am not Calvin] continues to be a dick about the potion thing" That is burned into my brain until the end of my days even though I don't know what it's in reference to. It's the "noodle incident" of D20 based role-playing, and further sweetened by the fact that the meme "noodle incident" comes from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes.
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 02:22
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 21, 2024 16:50 |
|
|
chitoryu12 posted:Something I wanted to do for a Supernatural-inspired monster/ghost hunter game was to use Google Docs or something to create a digital "journal" of all of the information that the party comes across, like what monsters are vulnerable to and their notes on the individual case. https://www.obsidianportal.com works great for things like this and the in-character journal entries.
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 02:24
|
|
|
One person ( who lives at the house we play at ) has quit our game. It has actually made the GM apologize and pull back some of his home brews that made literally no sense other than it messed with his own personal concept of the game. However, we ended up going up against some remorhaze(sp?) in the game. My character who has sold out alot of utility/damage to grapple better, goes to grapple it. He hasn't looked it up so he goes to see if they get some special abilities for grapple. Well, lo an behold, they have a special descriptor that makes them excel as such. Well, not really. Not only do almost no npcs/monsters in the book have any bonus to athletics/acrobatics (5e) but, I literally used that same creature a few weeks earlier in my own casual gaming group I DM and it has ZERO information on their "superior grappling abilities". But, he does a charade of looking at the book and pretending like he located it in the book. Nowadays almost every creature we face is either extremely strong or extremely dexterous and can evade grapple. Until recently unless I roll a 13+ it's almost certain it will fail.
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 16:16
|
|
|
Smash it Smash hit posted:But, he does a charade of looking at the book and pretending like he located it in the book. You need to privately confront him about this and tell him he's about to lose another player with his bullshit. Unless, of course, you're going to continue eating his garbage. Edit: I skimmed your post history in this thread because I remembered you telling a story about your grappler being too good (because of DM houserules). You're going to quit this campaign anyway, why not leave now? This guy is loving awful. He's a railroading house-ruling idiot and I gotta say your best move is just to walk away and spare yourself the frustration. Megaman's Jockstrap fucked around with this message at 17:00 on Nov 20, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 16:54
|
|
|
Smash it Smash hit posted:My character who has sold out alot of utility/damage to grapple better, goes to grapple it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 17:01
|
|
|
Smash it Smash hit posted:Nowadays almost every creature we face is either extremely strong or extremely dexterous and can evade grapple. Until recently unless I roll a 13+ it's almost certain it will fail. I hate that! When I DM a crunchy combat game I expect that the players will be able to dismantle my encounters in exacting fashion. What's the point of classes having abilities if you're just going to take it away from them?
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 17:01
|
|
|
I remember in a campaign that I played during freshman year of college, my roommate was playing a tiefling wizard and he was in a constant arms race with the DM. After a certain point in the campaign, literally every fight would be built to be immune to the spell that he spammed to destroy the last fight. And then every fight started to include invisible teleporting sneak attack demons that would immediately target him, so he started stocking up on defensive spells to make those guys obsolete. By the end of the campaign, the DM was poring through splatbook after splatbook to find monsters with flat +12 bonuses to all saves and laundry lists of arbitrary immunities to everything. During the final battle, said wizard realized that the only enemy he could really hurt anymore was the lich who served as the campaign's main villain, and he was like "You know what, this has all been incredibly frustrating to deal with, but I'm totally fine with having a mage duel in the sky with the final boss"
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 17:18
|
|
|
Megaman's Jockstrap posted:You need to privately confront him about this and tell him he's about to lose another player with his bullshit. Unless, of course, you're going to continue eating his garbage. Yeah, no youre right. The campaign is wrapping up soon supposedly and I would rather keep the friendship and deal with his antics than to quit. It sucks because he does do this stuff because he literally thinks he knows what we want more than we do and he genuinely thinks he is doing a solid. Honestly, the whole group is kinda weird. I joined this group after being out of DND for like ten years (I was 16) and I put the blinders on for awhile because I like gaming. Like I said, I have another group of mostly new players that are so much more fun to play with, I am just going to muscle through this campaign. Funnily enough the guy who quit wants to play my game. But, I do enjoy playing overall, I focus more on the negatives obviously because it is more interesting. It's not a bad game he just does some bonehead stuff often in a comical way. Just for fun I will share a bit about the other gamers that makes this whole hodgepodge amazing: One we have a player that absolutely can not handle in game tension. He regularly walks out the room when things are looking bad. Honestly, the DM has pulled a bit of punches that would have otherwise probably killed his character. He just gets some really bad rolls sometimes and gets it in a row. Last game he went unconscious and was freaking out. The DM added a pretty neat concept that if you want to resurrect anyone then you have to roll a chart that gives you some crippling disadvantages. He rolled a 1 which meant he would get two of the chart but, they backed down from that. Then he rolled to lose ability points in his main casting score. Backed down. Finally settled on loss movement speed. But, he is a good roleplayer for sure and adds good character and flavor to the group. Then we have the caster. Its a fun game between him and the DM, he lobbies for things like a headband that allows his wizard to quicken a spell that he did not prepare for the day. Also a necklace that prevents him from having mind altering effects. Changes a feat so he can do two concentration spells at once (5e) and then, the DM complains when he is too powerful. When he was playing by the rules with various spells he felt like he was underpowered (as a wizard). As I said, I DM another game so I am a bit more familiar with the 5e mechanics and system. Well break enchantment is not in the game but somehow he had it on his spell list, when I said it wasnt in the game he was befuddled and backtracked. And overall his character is fun and plays a bit of the straightman to a group of knuckleheads. Probably my favorite player to play with, doesnt get to play much because he works late on that day. But, great person, fun characters and rolls with the punches so well no matter what. His only problem is that he often doesnt cast spells as a bard. Instead he often uses his house designed crossbow for less than spectacular damage. But, other than that he is great. He plays a female character that my character is hopelessly inlove with and the back and forth banter is great. That leaves me which I have a problem with rule layering, admittingly. I look over the rules and basically feel like the game should be played the way it was designed since altering rules makes other rules get unbalanced in the process. I have to catch myself sometimes in the middle of the game from going, " Well in the book it says.." and when I do it is usually greeted with a "I dont want to argue about it, this is how it is for now". Meh oh well. Maybe I will write a bit more about my other group but, that group is mostly fun and I feel like the fun stories are less interesting than the cat piss ones.
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 17:56
|
|
|
The first time I was ever a PC I played as a psychic character with teleportation powers and I used one specific at-will power to telefrag some zombies in the next fight. Literally every single enemy from that point until the end of that character's time as a PC was capable of teleporting, no matter who they were.
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 19:54
|
|
|
Smash it Smash hit posted:One person ( who lives at the house we play at ) has quit our game. It has actually made the GM apologize and pull back some of his home brews that made literally no sense other than it messed with his own personal concept of the game. However, we ended up going up against some remorhaze(sp?) in the game. My character who has sold out alot of utility/damage to grapple better, goes to grapple it. He hasn't looked it up so he goes to see if they get some special abilities for grapple. Well, lo an behold, they have a special descriptor that makes them excel as such. One of my players is playing a lizardfolk (modified dragonborn) brawler fighter. Brawler fighters emphasize grappling like no other class, which presents a bit of a problem: since grappling was, prior to the brawler's introduction, mostly something that monsters did to PCs, very few monsters have any actual defence against grappling (you use athletics/acrobatics vs fort or reflex to get out of a grapple in 4e, and few monsters have skills besides stealth). When the player was making his character, he asked me how strong his grapple was roughly versus low-level enemies, and now he's requesting that I start giving MM monsters athletics and acrobatics to give them a >10% chance of getting free from him. Smash it Smash hit posted:That leaves me which I have a problem with rule layering, admittingly. I look over the rules and basically feel like the game should be played the way it was designed since altering rules makes other rules get unbalanced in the process. I have to catch myself sometimes in the middle of the game from going, " Well in the book it says.." and when I do it is usually greeted with a "I dont want to argue about it, this is how it is for now". Meh oh well.
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 20:05
|
|
|
Well I usually go both ways too towards my credit. I am the first one to speak up if something is ruled wrongly in my favor. Hell in 5e, the grappled creature can still use two handed weapons when grappled, I had to remind him this multiple times. I also have to constantly remind him when he forgets to attack with a monster that is facing me. Last session I told him and then the monster double critted me haha.
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 20:56
|
|
|
alcharagia posted:The first time I was ever a PC I played as a psychic character with teleportation powers and I used one specific at-will power to telefrag some zombies in the next fight. I think along with talking to the player about how their power is messing up encounters, you should try to do a power removal in-character for the sake of the story. Like if I convinced you to give up the teleportation power for the sake of being overpowered, I'd write it in as an in-character sudden loss and try to tie it into the quest or the PC's own personal development (like maybe their power was stolen). And then you let them get it back right at the end so they can be a badass.
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 22:12
|
|
|
Relin and I once drove 8 hours total to Maryland to play a Call of Cthulhu game with a mutual friend (and goon) who was DM'ing. Relin and I both did some research into the time period and made characters beforehand copasetic with the time period and our setting. The DM had a few of his friends from college coming to play who have never played before and who he was going to show the rules. Fine, that all sounds good, Call of Cthulhu's fun and not really that hard to learn. Unfortunately, he didn't really do that whole explanation for the game, and he also didn't say no to any of their friends who wanted to play. Result: We had 10 people, not counting the DM, playing with only 3 of us (me, Relin, and one other guy) having any experience at all in playing. The afternoon start time turned into 8 PM, no one really had any idea what was going on, and everything plot-wise from the DM had to be repeated 5 times because of the bad table setup. The worst part though was the guy who rolled a wrestler-type character who kept trying to do dumb poo poo like headbutt a widow at a funeral. He thought he was hilarious, and everything stopped while he led police through his hilariously kooky! poo poo. The DM would just roll his eyes, then indulge the guy, and everyone just seemed to get bored. I think I maybe made 2 rolls in 5 hours.
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 22:13
|
|
|
chitoryu12 posted:I think along with talking to the player about how their power is messing up encounters, you should try to do a power removal in-character for the sake of the story. Like if I convinced you to give up the teleportation power for the sake of being overpowered, I'd write it in as an in-character sudden loss and try to tie it into the quest or the PC's own personal development (like maybe their power was stolen). For any further adventures my group has in the world in which this took place, no Psions are allowed to take Dimensional Scramble because it's that character's specific move now (because it's overpowered,) which I think is pretty cool and I am proud of this fact.
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 22:23
|
|
|
Before adding houserules, how hard is it to say "Hey [whatever] is a bit too gamebreaking, so maybe we agree not to abuse the poo poo out of it except for comedy?" : Captain Bravo posted:Someone link the post about the Call of Cthulhu game with Dr. Headbutt. First page silentsnack fucked around with this message at 23:22 on Nov 20, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 23:07
|
|
|
HobbitGrease posted:The worst part though was the guy who rolled a wrestler-type character who kept trying to do dumb poo poo like headbutt a widow at a funeral. He thought he was hilarious, and everything stopped while he led police through his hilariously kooky! poo poo. The DM would just roll his eyes, then indulge the guy, and everyone just seemed to get bored. Someone link the post about the Call of Cthulhu game with Dr. Headbutt.
|
|
#
?
Nov 20, 2015 23:14
|
|
|
Ohh, the adversarial DM. Mine isn't quite as bad, especially since I wasn't even there for it, but: It was a Dresden Files campaign based in Pittsburgh. I can't remember why, but, the pub that was the local Neutral Accorded Territory was for sale. Obviously, the group wants it, because every team ever needs a base of operations. So, turns out that the Granddaddy of the Celtic pantheon also has his eyes on the place, for reasons. So, the party starts doing everything they can to outbid a God for this property. The party's catgirl (Descendant of Caith Sith) makes a steep bargain with Cait for funding, the pure mortal stage magician takes out as many loans as he can, everyone who was present does everything they can to get this place. Now, the DM didn't want them to succeed. He had some plot reason for the pub needing to go to the Celt God. But, they weren't going to give up, and eventually he relented and said they bought the place. But now, they had to keep it afloat. With no staff. And oh yeah, the place is no longer Neutral, you've got to reapply for that, but if the bar isn't doing well enough, they won't see a reason to approve the application. Naturally, all of the groups attempts more or less failed. Ad campaigns did nothing, staff that got hired was never any good. The only one who had any luck in what he was trying to do was the Scion of The Morrigan, who was played by some 16 year old kid who thought it would be monkeycheese random and hilarious to spread a rumor that the bar was a great place to do drug deals. Of course, that rumor spreads like wildfire, so now they're getting all sorts of unsavory customers showing up and drawing a lot of police attention. I tried buying in when I made it to the next game, but the DM shot me down, saying that since my character was the Autumn Knight, I wouldn't be able to be part owner of someplace that was supposed to be Neutral. Conflict of interest and whatnot. Never mind that our catgirl was an active agent of the Winter Court. Not long after, maybe 3 or 4 sessions, we ended up wrapping up the campaign, so the whole "trying to run the bar" thing got dropped quickly anyways, but the constant fuckery soured a lot of people on wanting to play in his games anymore.
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2015 01:01
|
|
|
Ah the Dresden Files. I played in a game of that once with a group of good friends. Everyone else had read the books and was very clear on the setting, and I had not. So naturally, I played a 20-something cat burglar/minor talent with powers that focused on luck named Felix who had just stolen a relic called the Cloak of Tyr. He was going to be the very sneaky second-story guy who could get the rest of the party places that they couldn't be, but because of my lack of setting fluency, turned into a genial, bumbling moron who only got by because of magic, a cheery demeanor, and a consistent habit of politely offering his services to fae. Other players included:  A changeling whose father was some sort of big player in the local Unseelie court. Powers included super speed, guns, money, and a decided lack of appropriate timing. Once shot her car up and stabbed herself while we were fighting a scorpion demon so that the cops would think that we were attacked by a gang. Another changeling whose player was definitely going to pick human when the time came. Then amassed a faerie army and attempted a coup. I lived in the closet of her dorm room since I had offhandedly mentioned that I was in her service, and also accidentally destroyed my apartment with magic. Doctor Johnson, a professor who was secretly an Einherjar, and also Felix's best friend. Doc Johnson neither agreed to this nor believed it, but Felix knew he cared.Highlights of my lack of setting fluency getting Felix into trouble: 1: Accidentally killed a mortal with magic. It's a tabletop game, I'm a wizard, I take an attack spell, right? I name it "Huh." and flavor it as something unlucky happening to the target. Some vampires hired a biker gang to kidnap Felix in his apartment, Felix panics, casts Huh, my dice roll wild, and a wall falls on one of them. First session, too! 2: In order to be polite to a local head of the Winter court for allowing me to stay with , the local university being a prep school for the Winter and all, I said "Hey, I really appreciate you being cool with this. If you need anything, let me know!" This led to a gratitude/debt/payment/gratitude cycle that essentially enslaved me to the Winter. Felix didn't mind, he liked having friends.3: Felix getting into a Demolition Derby race in the Faerie to try and win the Holy Grail, which some NPC said we needed. The NPC was a fae of some sort, and said that Winter was demanding I participate in the race, so Felix said sure, why not? The GM expected Felix to tell him to pound sand and then steal the Grail. Basically, Felix was that one kid that you could talk into anything. On the plus side, all of his idiocy wound up protecting him from himself. While trapped in his Winter Debt Cycle, the Greycloaks couldn't get at Felix, and when they had opportunities, Felix's obliviousness wound up with him managing to just slip their grasp. Kinda like Baby's Day Out, but with magic and endangering your soul. While he wasn't quite the luck wizard I'd envisioned at the beginning, I got to play "lucky idiot" to the hilt and just rolled with my lack of setting knowledge, and it was a ton of fun.
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2015 13:16
|
|
|
Yawgmoth posted:Even without the stupid "let me pretend to look this creature up while I bullshit up some bullshit" antics, this is an rear end in a top hat thing to do. If a PC devotes significant resources to being good at a thing, you let them be good at that thing. I don't understand why so many people have difficulty with this concept especially given that you are presumably playing with people you are friends with, or at least like. Also nerds are terrified of actually talking to each other etc. All that said, the "Hmm hmm 'checks book' oh hey he totes has super grapple defence" move is the worst possible way to deal with this. If you can't think of a way to unfuck the fight just let the guy annihilate the random encounter and work out the long term solution afterwards.
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2015 14:45
|
|
|
I think of this anytime someone mentions the Grappling Rules. This Comic and and this one.
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2015 17:56
|
|
|
I played with a Roll20 group through the slaying stone last night and had to share the character artwork made by a group member Haldo the Executioner, lawful good and the first to decide to be a cop  Joan the Paladin  Nando the tank Wizard  Vladek the Warlord  Varun the Ranger Highlights include: Two of the group sneaking into the town while the other two intimidate their way past the goblin guards as cops with a search warrant. Murdering everything in the library and taking it as our Police Station while citing the goblin with vandalism and destruction of property. Placing a human we found into witness protection with the local slum living kobolds under his new name Click-Clack. Diplomatically allying ourselves with an Orc who during the final battle attacked and distracted the final boss' drake. Saving a kobold woman from constructs then setting her up with Click-Clack. Poisoning the ceremonial wine in the temple which dazed the elite in the group for the encounter. He was subsequently knocked prone, crushed under the wine container, interrogated, and finally killed. Trying to get the Dragonborn to hit on the Brass Dragon living in the city. During the climactic final showdown it was discovered that I based max hp on con mod, not con when I nearly died twice. Then several failed heal checks led to the paladin expiring while Nando the Wizard charged in and tanked the last enemy alive.
|
|
#
?
Nov 21, 2015 21:40
|
|
|
Splicer posted:It's a dick move, but not necessarily the move of a person who is a dick. Reliable grappling can be, depending on the system, an at-will daze/immobilise/stun. If fights are being trivialised by a character's gimmick the knee-jerk reaction is to shut it down so everyone else (GM included) gets to have fun too. Which is bad, because almost any other possible solution is preferable, even if it's "Sit down with the player and ask them to use a different gimmick because the game and/or GM can't handle it". D&D and its relatives tend to encourage the "shut it down" mindset though, since the entire game engine is built around a "works/doesn't work" resolution system and the in-game tools for these situations are mostly things like "Wizard trivialising encounters? Use an anti-magic field to turn off the Wizard!". Compromise is not really part of the design ethos. Oh I agree but this is not the case where the grapple rule is dominating any way. At worst I am immobilizing one creature during the fight. Basically my premise is that my character isolates one mob and beats it with his head/hands/feet in a very reckless way (including jumping off cliffs holding them and just eating the fall damage) or I cast an aoe thorns spell and drag me and the mob through it and eat the damage. Or hold a story character from escaping. It's an annoying mechanic but nothing compared to the wizard that gets every teleport/invis/fly spell that leverages us to just teleport place to place instead of travel.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 01:26
|
|
|
High level Wizard: I'm going to cast Meteor and destroy this army. High level Cleric: I'm going to cast Earthquake and destroy this castle. Any level Fighter: I am going to try and immobilise myself and one target. It might not work though.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 01:48
|
|
|
Skellybones posted:High level Wizard: I'm going to cast Meteor and destroy this army. In theory, the difficulty of keeping a wizard/cleric alive long enough is supposed to offset their eventual power level. As far as adversarial DMs go, I was in a game of Dark Conspiracy. I got some really lucky rolls and ended up with a broken military character for whom a 9mm shot to the head would leave him at the scratched damage level. But, hey, the DM approved the character for play. My character then spent every session getting shot in the head with progressively larger weapons, which he would survive, albeit more and more injured. (This became so common that "head shot!" became a regular thing in the FLGS newsletter's Notable Quotes session.) Then he finally threw something at us called something like Bhuta, Devourer of Souls, a psychic powerhouse. Which promptly uses it's enslaved minions to harmlessly entangle the rest of the party while my psychically helpless character is drawn to it. Finally it encoils my character in it's tentacles and starts pulling him into it's maw, still just blocking the rest of the party. Mind you, I managed to knock the beast down to 25% of it's HP as it was eating him. So, this time I roll up a psyker. During an encounter with mortar armed militia members, somehow they roll a critical hit on the center car in the convoy... Yeah, the one with the psyker in it. Well, that was the last time I played with that ref...
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 02:44
|
|
|
Yesterday's game of Troublemakers was excellent. It's a game of kid adventure, so I whipped up a Thanksgiving idea in a few minutes. Kids Annie (Fix-It) and Chester (Chip) heard a rumor about gangster treasure on Annie's grandma's farm. Their actions led to Chip and Annie's sister Jess drinking ancient moonshine, them finding guns and tearing up the barn, and the farm being saved from foreclosure. Also Chip's older sister was there. She texted her way into a date with her ex's best friend.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 06:01
|
|
|
Sounds like wholesome family fun.
|
|
#
?
Nov 22, 2015 06:09
|
|
|
Yawgmoth posted:Even without the stupid "let me pretend to look this creature up while I bullshit up some bullshit" antics, this is an rear end in a top hat thing to do. If a PC devotes significant resources to being good at a thing, you let them be good at that thing. I don't understand why so many people have difficulty with this concept especially given that you are presumably playing with people you are friends with, or at least like. I absolutely agree, but would qualify the "let them be good at that thing" as not just letting them automatically do whatever they want with it. I think players still want to be challenged on their character's good and awesome thing. As an example, I played in a D&D game with Jeff, the GM who liked helping his players. I made a backwoods, feral Elf archer who didn't speak Common and was being introduced to civilisation by an amused Half-Elf Paladin (another classic duo filled out by my buddy Mal). I'd constructed him as being basically useless at any kind of diplomacy, and had no real understanding of how people interacted with each other. He was, however, spectacularly good with a bow. Despite some meetings with dignitaries and dealing with local enforcement, my Elf's deficiencies didn't seem to hurt the situation, as everyone immediately cut him ridiculous levels of slack. Mal was waiting to step forward with his Paladin and promise to be responsible for and watch over me, and we could play up that relationship, but that was never necessary. I was just another welcome visitor to the city. The first combat of the game, I was allowed to set up a sniper nest and start making called shots. As a ridiculously good archer, I slaughtered a whole bunch of melee enemies before they could even close, also taking out the heavily-armed and -armoured leader of the villainous knights who basically only got to yell threats at us for a couple of rounds. I was fully allowed to be good at the thing I was good at (and nothing I was bad at), but with no challenge or sense of a possibility of failing, the game was ultimately dull. I think quite a few GMs sort of understand the needing to provide challenge (with the good point made earlier that they want to have fun too), but some forget that if you make it too challenging, you actually stop them from being good at that thi- Oh my god. I just had a flashback to a painful Fading Suns campaign. I don't know if I want to tell that story and dredge that up, but it involved a subconsciously emotionally manipulative GM, a desire to tell "dark" stories, and people's characters being slowly warped to fit a narrative that no one realised they'd signed up for.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 02:28
|
|
|
If you're good to tell it, we're good to hear it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 03:00
|
|
|
Coward posted:people's characters being slowly warped to fit a narrative that no one realised they'd signed up for. So, basically this? 
|
|
#
?
Nov 23, 2015 03:00
|
|
|
Coward posted:I absolutely agree, but would qualify the "let them be good at that thing" as not just letting them automatically do whatever they want with it. I think players still want to be challenged on their character's good and awesome thing. The party is a Dragonborn [I forget what base] Crusader, a Dragonborn Goliath Fighter/Barbarian, and my Cansin Warlock. I'm based on using Hideous Blow with the longsword from the Brand of the Nine Hells (Bel) feat and Mark of Avernus to ready action -> HB for great damage. I just used my lv3 feat for Knowledge Devotion for more hit/damage. I also picked up some hide/move silent because I'm basically a rogue who make a hasty deal with Bel and became a warlock. We're going through this temple in the desert, and we find a sphinx sleeping with a treasure chest behind it. I sneak in and "pick" the lock by using an oil of corrosive weapon and melting the lock & hinges off, then carefully lifting off the lid to get the +1 weapon out of it and sneak out. Then I found the floor plate that would have triggered the classic falling blade trap. But my real crowning achievement was the boss encounter, 3 demons with dual scimitars and whirlwind attack. Decent AC, pretty painful damage, but I got a nat 20 on my KD check and so I rolled in with a +5 insight bonus to hit & damage. This added with my +2d6 damage to demons from my sword makes me a pretty beefy threat to demons. The 3 of them were beating on us pretty harshly... and then I started rolling crits. Crits that auto-confirm from the Mark and landing on really high numbers. My last attack did 54 damage, splitting one of them perfectly in half before igniting it. It was a good day to be a demonslayer.
|
|
#
?
Nov 24, 2015 19:59
|
|
|
So last night was the end of what constitutes the first real 'adventure' of my new L5R campaign. It's the sequel to my previous campaign, and both are detailed here. Along with house rules and new mechanics, for anybody interested in that sort of thing. The PCs are a magistrate and his four assigned yoriki, and consist of: Shiba Hakumi is a naive young shugenja from the Isawa, studying divination at the Imperial Academy. She's pretty absurdly beautiful, too, and very Crane-like, with the white hair. Shosuro Shinju is an ice cold Bayushi duelist who won the Topaz Championship three years past and then entered the Third Imperial Legion. Her last significant duel was an exhibition against Asahina Shinichi, the Topaz Champion of two years past, which she won. Agasha Yuugure is another Bayushi duelist, rather more aggressive than Shinju, largely towards genius shugenja. She's studying Engineering and Sadane at the Imperial Academy (and secretly is majoring in explosives at the Hidden Academy.) Tsi Yoshiharu is the son of the head of what was, a hundred years ago, the most prominent line of Tsi Smiths. He's studying Weaponsmithing and Military Science at the Imperial Academy. Nagare is a drunken, tattooed Mantis sailor and courtier, and is the star of a pillow book, "Captive of the Pirate Captain", in which he is the titular captain. Nobody is sure why he was appointed as an Emerald Magistrate, but that's politics for you. Their first assignment took them to the Crane/Lion border, at the south end of the Kintani river valley, investigating the area's slightly depressed production, because the Emerald Magistrates are much more proactive in this particular reality. They happened upon some well organized bandits robbing a grain caravan, drove the bandits off, and escorted the caravan on across the border into Lion lands. Their natural assumption was that the Lion were behind things, because Lion just love disguising themselves as bandits, right? Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, they did some investigation in the Lion border village, had a friendly duel with the local daimyo for entertainment, got wined and dined, and came to the conclusion that he, at least, was on the up and up. Then, Nagare's spy network came through for him. The grain caravan that they had rescued did not exist in any official Crane records, nor did the money it represented, so wherever it was going, it wasn't being sold and skimmed. Alarmed, they took off after the caravan, which had headed north for Shiro Kyotei. They caught up with it just in time to prevent those same bandits from attacking it AGAIN, but since it was already twilight, opted wisely not to pursue bandits in the dark into what could easily be an ambush. After a tense night of careful watch, they had a powwow in the morning and, with a bit of aid from the air kami, started putting together what they knew of the area's history, and came up with the following: 1) A hundred years ago, just before the second day of thunder, a Lion army took Shiro Kyotei and murdered the entire Tsume family, in retaliation for their murder, a generation earlier, of the Damasu family. 2) The local lord on the Crane side of the border had at least one significant Tsume ancestor in his family tree, concidentally about a hundred years ago. From this, they concluded that everything they had found out made a great deal of sense if the bandits were not, in fact, bandits, but were actually a deniable cover for a minor Crane daimyo supporting some Tsume on the side. Worse, their intervention in the area, and investigations, may have triggered something catastrophic. They backtracked the Tsume to their base, a small village that was well hidden, but couldn't really support the number of people living in it, and worse... it was mobilizing for war. They knew they needed to keep a war from breaking out between Lion and Crane, and were a bit short on ways for five samurai to stop a hundred Tsume samurai and two or so times that many ashigaru. They needed a plan. A plan with mysterious explosions. So that's why the village's grain storage exploded and lit a bunch of secondary fires. The whole village turns out to fight the fires, and then the group just walks right into the village, and I'm like "They uh... they don't seem to notice you, because they're busy fighting a fire. A guy comes out of the second biggest house and starts giving orders that actually get obeyed, and he is probably the leader." They don't say anything for a while... and then a couple of them speak up and start helping fight the fires. And then Shiba Hakumi fires off an Extinguish, and suddenly there's a bunch of people who are getting ready for war surrounding them and wanting to know what they hell they are doing in their secret village. So they start a dialogue with the leader, who is functionally the Tsume daimyo, and go into his house to make nice. He really doens't want to bring down the imperial hammer by killing an emerald magistrate who has hinted he's already reported on the situation, so he's kind of in a bind, and they're trying to convince him that getting vengeance for his ancestors is really not the best course, and he gets exasperated and finally just says "Then stand aside, Mantis, and let us do our duty, or die trying. If you must have something for yourself, name your damned price." This does not go over terribly well with Nagare, who is, naturally, Brash, and just as naturally flubs his roll, then explodes a bunch and backhands the guy out of nowhere for a crapload of damage, and says in response, "Do not insult me. I came here to give you a chance to examine your actions, ensure they were honorable, and explain yourself. You have done nothing but insulted, foamed at the mouth, and wallowed in fear and regret." This is completely loving awesome, and I think it over for a moment and call for Courtier(Manipulation)/Awareness, which gets blown away, and he basically hits this guy so hard he has a life changing revelation, gives a full proper apology with tears and groveling, and begs for help finding a path to regain his family's honor. At which point they start pitching the idea, more or less out of nowhere, for the Tsume to tell the Crane to gently caress off and go find another clan that will actually stand beside them against all comers. There just happens to be a minor clan who gives no fucks about provoking anybody, and also has no name, so they take the Tsume back to Otosan Uchi, pull a bunch of strings, and that's how how Tsume Akumetsu came to marry Minako, the Mantis clan champion, and the Mantis gained themselves a family name for the first time since the disgrace of the Gusai, and now Nagare, the magistrate PC, is Tsume Nagare, and is the next best thing to KOS in Crane lands. I did not expect things to turn out this way at all, not even remotely, but it sure gives me good feelings about this campaign.
|
|
#
?
Nov 25, 2015 19:23
|
|
|
This post in the GM advice thread reminded me of one of the best bits in a really long Dark Heresy campaign. We had spent way too long in a space hulk, experiencing betrayal by some companions and a lot of running from and fighting ghosts and dark eldar and worse. We were battered as gently caress, having barely escaped our last engagement and losing a PC in the process, but were on the last stretch before we could get to our ship with our objective, a mysterious book, retrieved. Then, suddenly, a portal emerges in front of us in the hallway and something small flies through, landing in front of our point man. He kicks it straight back and there's a quiet "oof" from the other side before the portal closes. We continue on, with the portal reappearing after some jogging and the same device being hurled through with considerable force. With an impressive roll, the same guy manages to catch and throw it back again. This time there's definite cursing from the other side before the portal closes again. This continues for a couple of times more, with the portal switching positions around the party to try to gain an advantage: the ceiling, the wall next to us, behind everyone. Every time someone manages to instantly return it and every time the voice on the other side seems more pained and annoyed, until the portal finally materializes several metres ahead of us and the object is launched through with incredible speed. It embeds itself in the floor ahead of us and reveals itself to be some kind of a communicator with an incredibly annoyed dark eldar commander on the other side. He was tired of spending resources hunting a bunch of stupid rats (us), when we clearly had no chance of escape: his ship was outside and set to vaporize us the second we lifted off. He merely wanted the book we were carrying, and would let us go if we just threw it into the portal. As the party face I requested some time to decide on what we would do with the book. The elf magnanimously gave us some time "to develop rudimentary intelligence". We had a definite feeling the elf could see what we were doing so we huddled together and used a sort of a sign language to really quickly formulate a plan: I had been holding the bag I was carrying close to me every time anyone mentioned the book, so we were reasonably certain the elf would think the book was in there when in reality it only contained some random low value junk and a change of clothing. One of the group volunteered that he was still carrying a pretty powerful melta bomb and could rig it to explode when my bag was opened. Using the team huddle to obscure what we were doing from the communicator and pretending to discuss the merits of surviving wihout the book versus dying with it, we rigged the explosive and then turned around to demurely offer the bag to the portal. The communicator link was still active when the elf opened the bag. There was a sudden explosion and static. Their ship was nowhere to be seen when we lifted off, and I lied to the inquisition about the value of the personal stuff in the bag I had sacrificed and got (poor) compensation.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2015 12:55
|
|
|
At a local con, and played my first ever game of Fiasco. Hoooo-ly poo poo that was fun. Threw together the Western and Lovecraftian playsets:
Need: Get Even With The Town Started off with a dynamite-related bank heist failing to actually detonate, went via some flashbacks to various murders of previous parental figures, plunged through a full-on Mexican standoff as everyone has reason to doubt everyone in Snake Valley, and culminated in Doris revealing herself as an Elder God using the town's prosperity as the foundation to her own cosmic power. Dusty had already signed a deal with her, Four-Fingers talked himself into getting shot, and Shirley succumbed to the temptation of Power (and some juicy blackmail) in the last moment, leaving the Sheriff with finally not one single hold keeping him even vaguely moral - so he got the heist-dynamite out, went into the mines underneath, and blew up the loving town. I'm really happy about this loving game.
|
|
#
?
Nov 29, 2015 02:32
|
|
|
A Twelve Foot Flaming Celestial Porpoise So I've just started up a new campaign of 3.5 with my regular saturday group where we're playing an all dwarf party, for this session we had a cleric, a mage, a sorcerer, a barbarian and myself a ranger. We started off in an underground cavern system escorting a supply caravan to a neighbouring dwarven settlement when we took a detour on the request of a dwarf prisoner we rescued from a band of orcs. Injured and in desperate need of supplies after slaying said orcs the prisoner said he knew a shortcut to an above ground outpost were we could resupply (the prisoner was also extremely keen to go to the outpost). We followed him delving deeper into the caverns seemingly rather counter productive until he led us to an old abandoned mine with a set of mine cart tracks running throughout it. Overall it was going rather smoothy up to this point, until we found out that the mine was now being used as a base of operations for a necromantic cult. We had to cut our way through some undead ogres and nasties, notable that our mage failed to successfully cast any of his dispute of dismiss undead spell but still had the most zombie kills because he'd just wade in and crit one after one after one. After a while we made our way to a vast cave where the mine cart tracks stopped, looking upwards we could see that there was a hole in the ceiling roughly over hundred and fifty feet in the air leading to the outside world with a pulley system elevator to move mine carts to above ground. We had bought the supply caravan with us (along with a horse that had been lamed in the fight against the orcs) and the elevator couldn't support the weight of all of us at the same time so we agreed to do it in three trips. First up was the cleric with the caravan, he made it about half way up when an unseen glyph shoot forth a raging fireball towards him. He was fine but we were told that it'd made quite the noise. The cleric made it safely to the top and we just had to fight off some alerted undead ogres, no biggie. Next up was me, the sorcerer who had one spell left for the day and the horse. Right, now here's where it starts to go off the walls. Me and the sorcerer where about two thirds of the way up when a trio of necromantic cultists entered the cave and started off by paralyzing the barbarian. The barbarian started to rage from this (the whole table then took turns to imitate what a raging paralyzed barbarian would look like) while the mage started to summon a dire rat for aid. Me and the sorcerer where taking pot shots downwards trying to pick off cultists when it then came to the clerics turn.  : Alright cleric what do you wanna do? : I can cast a summoning spell at range right? Think so. And how far up is the elevator right now then? About hundred and thirty feet in the air.: Right, I'm going to summon a celestial porpoise underneath the elevatorGroup: What? So the cleric couldn't actually do anything above ground, he didn't have any ranged options (even if he did nothing that could reach done that far down) so why the hell not? He could summon a porpoise from that height and just hope it lands on one of the cultists, so he started to summon it. Meanwhile the barbarian was still going mental unable to move, the mage had summoned his dire rate and got stuck in fighting with the cultists. Now it was my turn, we had actually moved out of range of any of our ranged weapons so I improvised with a makeshift oil bomb, aiming at a cultist and chucking it downwards. I got a one. So what happened then is that the Cleric successfully called forth a celestial porpoise only for it to immediately get dosed with flaming hot oil from my bungled throw. Then it was the sorcerer's turn. He spent his last spell of the day on enlarging the porpoise. It was now twelve foot, covered in scorching burning oil, and was hurdling down towards the collective brawl underneath it. Only one person managed to notice the falling mass of blubber, flames and holy energy coming down on them. The paralyzed barbarian. The overall collective death toll when it made contact with the ground was the barbarian, the mage, the dire rat, the three cultists and of course the very confused porpoise. I think this is the closest we've gotten to reinacting a scene out of Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, only with more fire. Blooming Brilliant fucked around with this message at 20:21 on Dec 3, 2015 |
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2015 15:24
|
|
|
Blooming Brilliant posted:I think this is the closest we've gotten to reinacting a scene out of Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, only with more fire. That poor whale is exactly what I was thinking throughout this story. That reminds me of a running gag we had in our game group in college. The idea was that all conjuration spells took their subjects from one of two types of places: another place in the Prime Material Plane, or from a plane composed entirely of the summoned creature. Going to cast "Mount?" Get ready to place a collect call to the Elemental Plane of Horse. Just a roiling mass of horseflesh hurtling through the multiverse, neighing and snorting like crazy. God some spells to be able to survive in the Elemental Plane of Water? Good for you. Try getting kicked in the head constantly and forever by angry, confused horses. You can breathe underwater? Cool. Can you breathe in horse hair and horse poo poo? Didn't think so. Still, it's better than the Elemental Plane of Geese. ~Or~ Going to summon a dog with "Summon Nature's Ally I?" Get ready to snatch some poor little dog away from his owner, right in the middle of playing at the dog park in suburban Cleveland. You steal little Buzzy away from the middle of a perfectly good game of frisbee, and then drop him into a mortal combat with a gang of orcs. When the summon's duration ends, the poor thing is shunted back to it's home, battered and bloodied from god knows what. Conjurers: history's greatest monsters.
|
|
#
?
Nov 30, 2015 22:49
|
|
|
I guess since there's been some recent talk of Fate/Stuff games, I should relate some tales of my groups Fate/Stuff game, which was actually completed, with (I think) no hard feelings all around. We had a DM and four players, with three masters being NPCs. God bless our DM for having the patience to do all this, because the PCs were Masters, so he had to roleplay our Servants and the enemy Masters and Servants. The system we used was one adapted from Shadowrun, not changing too many rules, but stripping out the more cyberpunk elements because Fate/Stuff is a relatively current setting as far as time frame. The PC cast was such: Matou Takumi: (My character) a member of the Matou clan from the anime itself, and its last male member to possess his own Magic Circuit. Classic mage through and through, however he did use a few modern technological gimmicks to gain an edge such as healing stim patches and tasers. This character was educated about the Grail War, and was mostly there as a stabilizing factor for the game overall, as a couple of the players had only watched a few episodes of the shows but really wanted to play. He was hardline lawful evil in his dealings. The Servant he summoned was none other than Oda Nobunaga as Archer, with a Noble Phantasm that allowed him to ignore Divinity effects and deal extra damage to Divine artifacts and such. Also because he was such an instrumental part of Japan's medieval history, he had a skill called Pioneer of the Stars, which in effect boils down to "occasionally you can ask the DM how to win a fight" Katla Larchica: A twelve year old Russian girl who wanted her family to become a high class mage family. She was also very lawful evil, and rarely left her mansion, preferring to use subterfuge to undermine the other Masters. This went at odds with the Servant she summoned, Roland, Paladin of Charlemagne, as Berserker. Her Berserker constantly wanted to fight the other Servants, especially since one of them was another of Charlemagne's Paladins. Katla, however knew the rules of the Grail War, and that outsiders shouldn't ever be allowed to know that it was going on, so she for the most part held back his involvement until the very end. Ian Skye: A college student who had no idea that magic was real until a Servant manifested herself in front of him and started calling him Master. This was none other than the Caster Morgan Le Fey. He was good natured and wanted no part of the war, she was incredibly evil and wanted the grail for undoubtedly nefarious purposes. They had a lot of friction, and I'm light on the details for this description because the best moment involved Ian and he'll be talked about plenty. Alan Walker: A church executor who was involved in the Grail War to monitor its progress, as there were a number of unknown factors involved, because the Grail War had been moved to New York. His skill set was not magical, he was a capable melee combatant with tonfas and other tricks up his sleeve. He got Astolfo as Rider the other aforementioned Paladin. Astolfo controlled a number of mythical beasts, including a Hippogryph and a legendary horse that could walk on water. The NPCs included an older man from the Einzbern family, a young woman from the Tohsakas, and an unknown entity to anyone before the War, an assassin who hated Mages and simply wanted to create as much chaos as possible. Some highlights from the game: Takumi had a condo overlooking Central Park, but that had been blown up by the assassin, with my character barely escaping, so I had to get a hotel room for a while. Turns out my room was a few doors down from where the Church Executor was staying. Our Servants discovered each other, and so Nobunaga and Astolfo begin fighting. Being a classic mage, Takumi erected a magical barrier and his room and contented himself with observing the fight and issuing commands as needed. The Executor, being the more hands on type, was trying to get into my room to fight me directly. Unable to due to the barrier, he commands Astolfo to use one of his many summonable creatures, a huge monstrosity known as the Giant of the Nile. This thing is as tall as our three story hotel, and begins smashing his way into the hotel directly with Astolfo directing it via glowing chains on its back. Nobunaga pops a few shots off at it with Tanegashima, but isn't really making progress, when the giant destroyed enough of the hotel to make contact with my barrier. It nearly shatters instantly from a grazing hit, so I book it out of the ruins of the hotel, using a Command Seal to position Nobunaga to catch me so I don't fall to my death or serious injury. As we're trying to run away, Nobunaga notices through Pioneer of the Stars that the chains binding the Giant are divine in nature, so he reveals his Noble Phantasm and declares himself the Demon King of the Sixth Heaven, and fires at the chains, destroying them instantly and releasing Astolfo's control of the Giant. It proceeds to yank the Paladin of its back and slam him to a pulp with its massive club, then chases the other thing it sees, the two Masters and Servant. The Executor wants to call a truce and get my help to get the giant under control, but Takumi simply says "You summoned it," then proceeds to hop into Nobunaga's arms so he can carry him away from this place. The thing knocks the Executor aside and tears through several buildings chasing us before finally running out of mana to manifest and disappearing. Takumi was nearly exhausted at this point, and had been using stim patches to keep himself awake from the toll of using magic (which was something he didn't want the Executor to know and hence his lack of enthusiasm for helping) and broke into a car to drive a good distance away and get another hotel room into which he took two steps and passed out for over half a day as the the stim wore off. One of the many moments Ian Skye had was the culmination of many events. He had a girlfriend who happened to be the daughter of the Einzbern Master, and when Einzbern discovered this, he called for an alliance with Ian, which went swimmingly until Einzbern tried to destroy most of the other Masters in one fell swoop with a gala in Madison Square Garden rigged with several bombs. The side benefit of this would be a huge amount of lives killed to enrich his Servant with mana so it would be stronger. After this was foiled, Ian went to Einzbern's mansion to confront him and get his girlfriend out. The Einzbern Master unfortunately had Saber, and it was the legendary Siegfreid, more than a match for a Caster with the Saber class's innate magic resistance. Ian was undeterred however, and thanks to Morgan Le Fey's ability to grant someone the status of the Green Knight, he actually stood toe to toe with the strongest martial Servant as a normal college student, and with some clever thinking from Caster, targeting a set of Mana Generators, causing a huge explosion in the mansion and forcing Einzbern to withdraw. In the fray, Morgan teleported herself and her Master to safety, but they had neglected to retrieve Ian girlfriend. Ian demanded to go back and get her, but Morgan refused, stating that the whole place was on fire and it was too dangerous. This forced Ian to use his last Command Seal, which meant that technically he had no further control of Caster, but she promised him that if he could get more Command Seals, she would happily form a new contract with him. Unfortuanately for Ian, he was unable to obtain any more Command Seals in the time given, and Morgan Le Fey, having had time to analyze the Mana Generators the Einzbern Master was using, had found a way to allow herself to manifest indefinitely. This was not known to Ian until he tried to negotiated more time with her, at which time she revealed her plans to him and told him that she had no interest in a Master anymore, but she would graciously allow him to serve her while she consolidated her power and gathered the necessary army to do what she could not finish last time she was on earth in physical form. So Ian, having had an eventful day already in which he had formed an alliance with myself and the unknown assassin to take out the Einzbern Master, realized that the group had not used the duffel bag full of C4 they had planned to destroy Einzbern's Sercret Evil Guy Bunker with, and retrieved it, then went back to Morgan, told her he had a gift for her, and proceeded to detonate it before she could react, taking her out for good in a blaze of self sacrifice.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2015 00:30
|
|
|
Railing Kill posted:Conjurers: history's greatest monsters. I've always been a bit curious about how summon vs gate vs etc works. I seem to remember reading something about each caster making some kind of pact with a specific summonable creature, so you summon the same one every time, and it goes back where it came from if it "dies" or the spell duration runs out, in the condition they left in? This is something I've never, ever seen played out in any group I've ever been in, and I can't for the life of me remember where I read it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2015 04:06
|
|
|
TheRagamuffin posted:I've always been a bit curious about how summon vs gate vs etc works. I seem to remember reading something about each caster making some kind of pact with a specific summonable creature, so you summon the same one every time, and it goes back where it came from if it "dies" or the spell duration runs out, in the condition they left in? This is something I've never, ever seen played out in any group I've ever been in, and I can't for the life of me remember where I read it. I like the idea of summoning from the Elemental Plane of Geese better, though.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2015 04:22
|
|
|
I like the idea of a wizard summoning fictional characters onto the battlefield using a book or DVD.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2015 04:51
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 21, 2024 16:50 |
|
|
drat, all these Fate stories really make me want to play it. Is it an actual published system? Or homebrewed? Or what's it play off of? Once I go through my notes, I need to do a writeup of VtM larp from the other night. It was pretty interesting.
|
|
#
?
Dec 1, 2015 06:06
|
|