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Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!

gradenko_2000 posted:

Okay, so what was the non-core class, and what was the question about this guy's homebrew?

I'm sure the latter isn't as amazing as hope it will be, but I can just imagine someone plugging the plug on their LAN cable in a cold sweat and a mad dash when you pipe up about elves or something.
The non-core class was dread necromancer. It started as a rambling screed about how in his Original Setting Do Not Steal (it was the imperium of man from wh40k bolted onto an otherwise generic not-greyhawk) that I would be hunted and persecuted, that I'd have to do this that and the other just to exist, etc. that mutated into full-blown tantrum when I asked if I could swap out a few of the class features to get advanced learning every other level, or just get the ability to pick a few of my own spells instead of WotC's mediocre list. (you'd recognize the homebrew, I suggested my spells known thing limited to the DN magic schools instead of the fixed list.) According to him, familiars are actually the most powerful class feature in the game and I am clearly a powergaming munchkin who only likes big numbers for not seeing it. Then he sent me another giant screed that was probably about a page in Word that I didn't read because gently caress that guy.


The other dude's homebrew was that old scab everyone picks at, crafting. You're right that it isn't amazing, because there was practically nothing there. It was "you can gather materials and make magic items! You make more powerful things by leveling up my custom crafting skill, which can only be brought up by making things!" Which okay, I'll bite, questing for materials to craft The Obituator is a classic prompt. So I ask for the details on this system of his, using a lesser rod of empower spell as an example item to be crafted. "Well that would be a level 5 item, so you'd have to build up your skill first." Okay? But this is an example. What does level 5 even mean in this context? Is that a lot? Level 5/10? /20? /100? What kind of materials are we talking, in terms of quantity, expense, rarity, and difficulty to obtain? I'm looking for the actual mechanics here, guy, numbers and such. You said you had a system, I'd like to see it.

He drops from the skype call. About an hour later, he deletes the campaign from roll20 and (I find out from one of the other players) blocked each of us from skype and roll20. :shrug:

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Kwyndig
Sep 23, 2006

Heeeeeey


That second one... I have no idea what could have been going through their head other than "I'll just BS this entire thing and people will love it" which of course is not something that happens at all, so when you called him out he panicked and just dropped everything in a mad rush to cover his tracks.

Which is funny in and of itself, because unless he was trying to charge you money, who gives a poo poo.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
Oh god, I thought Ms. Rawmeat was part of a traditional tabletop game, the kind where you can actually take someone aside. Yeah, eff all of that noise. If you're experienced enough to sign on for something like a Roll20 game, you're experienced enough to know better.

I'm still weirded out by the guy who went nuts because her dragonborn had hair. Usually they lose it over the presence of tits.

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

Kwyndig posted:

That second one... I have no idea what could have been going through their head other than "I'll just BS this entire thing and people will love it" which of course is not something that happens at all, so when you called him out he panicked and just dropped everything in a mad rush to cover his tracks.

Which is funny in and of itself, because unless he was trying to charge you money, who gives a poo poo.
Hmm... I could tell him it's a work in progress and I'd appreciate feedback OR *rips network cable out of the wall, starts spraying gasoline everywhere*

Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!

Splicer posted:

Hmm... I could tell him it's a work in progress and I'd appreciate feedback OR *rips network cable out of the wall, starts spraying gasoline everywhere*
Or even "I would like to do something like this but I don't have anything beyond a bare framework, session 0 should be sorting out what homebrew we want to use."

But no, much easier to lie about it and then vanish at the first question that exposes said lie.

OmanyteJackson
Mar 18, 2012

by Nyc_Tattoo

Yawgmoth posted:

I would be hunted and persecuted, that I'd have to do this that and the other just to exist, etc.

I hate when DM's do this, you could just be honest and say, "Hey, necromancy is of the table." That way you don't have to pause the game every npc interaction to remind that player that they are a target of a cosmic hate boner just because the DM doesn't like elves or wizards or whatever. It's more work as a DM, it's no fun for players, it just takes the game off the rails. I don't get it.

Bieeardo posted:

I'm still weirded out by the guy who went nuts because her dragonborn had hair. Usually they lose it over the presence of tits.
That surprised me too. He was laser focused on the hair though I was baffled by the whole argument. He demanded she change her art, ranted about monotremes for a while, and when challenged that dragonborn don't exist, thus can look like whatever you want them to, said it would be impossible for him to ignore that one drawing and it ruins his immersion making it impossible to have any enjoyment in the game about assassinating werewolves or whatever.

Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!

OmanyteJackson posted:

I hate when DM's do this, you could just be honest and say, "Hey, necromancy is of the table." That way you don't have to pause the game every npc interaction to remind that player that they are a target of a cosmic hate boner just because the DM doesn't like elves or wizards or whatever. It's more work as a DM, it's no fun for players, it just takes the game off the rails. I don't get it.
I don't have an intrinsic problem with the concept since playing "guy who uses Forbidden Magics™ for reasons" is one of my specialties, but this guy definitely gave me the impression that every NPC would somehow just know that I was a necromancer, that no matter what my undead would have all illusions on them pierced and undead I left alone would end up mysteriously destroyed, etc. You know, all those typical rookie GM mistakes. He obviously had a story in his head complete with characters that he wanted to write, but needed a few people to watch him write it and maybe provide dialogue.

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

from hell's heart I cast at thee
🧙🐀🧹🌙🪄🐸

OmanyteJackson posted:

ranted about monotremes for a while
...monotremes have hair though?

Tunicate
May 15, 2012

OmanyteJackson posted:

That surprised me too. He was laser focused on the hair though I was baffled by the whole argument. He demanded she change her art, ranted about monotremes for a while, and when challenged that dragonborn don't exist, thus can look like whatever you want them to, said it would be impossible for him to ignore that one drawing and it ruins his immersion making it impossible to have any enjoyment in the game about assassinating werewolves or whatever.

But dragonborn aren't even natural reptiles, they're other species dudes who got transformamatized into dragon guys through some ritual.

Carebearz
May 6, 2008

CARE BEAR STARE

:regd10:

OmanyteJackson posted:

I hate when DM's do this, you could just be honest and say, "Hey, necromancy is of the table." That way you don't have to pause the game every npc interaction to remind that player that they are a target of a cosmic hate boner just because the DM doesn't like elves or wizards or whatever. It's more work as a DM, it's no fun for players, it just takes the game off the rails. I don't get it.

That surprised me too. He was laser focused on the hair though I was baffled by the whole argument. He demanded she change her art, ranted about monotremes for a while, and when challenged that dragonborn don't exist, thus can look like whatever you want them to, said it would be impossible for him to ignore that one drawing and it ruins his immersion making it impossible to have any enjoyment in the game about assassinating werewolves or whatever.

One time I was gonna join up a Deathwatch game as a Space Wolf Assault Marine and go Chaplain (Wolf Priest) until the DM said he'd go out of his way to gently caress with me because the hates the Space Wolves a.k.a the Best Space Marine Chapter. I politely declined the offer to join the game after that.

senrath
Nov 4, 2009

Look Professor, a destruct switch!


Carebearz posted:

One time I was gonna join up a Deathwatch game as a Space Wolf Assault Marine and go Chaplain (Wolf Priest) until the DM said he'd go out of his way to gently caress with me because the hates the Space Wolves a.k.a the Best Space Marine Chapter. I politely declined the offer to join the game after that.

You did the right thing.

OmanyteJackson
Mar 18, 2012

by Nyc_Tattoo
Look... i don't know. Going back through the discord he stops ranting about hair halfway through and just starts demanding that fantasy has to be realistic, argues the definition of the word fantasy, insist that yes this is a big deal, then ...starts accusing the everyone of of being furries?

huh i forgot that part.

Carebearz
May 6, 2008

CARE BEAR STARE

:regd10:
I think my actual response was "I'm sorry you hate the best and most heavy metal Chapter ever, have fun without me"

Kaza42
Oct 3, 2013

Blood and Souls and all that

Carebearz posted:

I think my actual response was "I'm sorry you hate the best and most heavy metal Chapter ever, have fun without me"

Pretty sure the Iron Hands are literally more heavy and more metal

Carebearz
May 6, 2008

CARE BEAR STARE

:regd10:

Kaza42 posted:

Pretty sure the Iron Hands are literally more heavy and more metal

lol, You know what I mean goddammit.

Kavak
Aug 23, 2009


Carebearz posted:

One time I was gonna join up a Deathwatch game as a Space Wolf Assault Marine and go Chaplain (Wolf Priest) until the DM said he'd go out of his way to gently caress with me because the hates the Space Wolves a.k.a the Best Space Marine Chapter. I politely declined the offer to join the game after that.

I didn't know Magnus DM'd.

Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!

OmanyteJackson posted:

Look... i don't know. Going back through the discord he stops ranting about hair halfway through and just starts demanding that fantasy has to be realistic, argues the definition of the word fantasy, insist that yes this is a big deal, then ...starts accusing the everyone of of being furries?

huh i forgot that part.
Seems like an entirely reasonable fellow who is definitely not ranting at a dumpster about squirrels working for the NSA at this very moment.

Cpt_Obvious
Jun 18, 2007

OmanyteJackson posted:

Thanks everyone for the advice and most importantly, the reality check. I sent her a message telling her she's been kicked from the game after kicking her from the discord. Not going to bother with warnings or anything because I doubt telling somone "be less of a creep" would lead to an improvement, also not my job to teach social edicit around strangers

The Golden Goose is dead, and we have killed him.

the_steve
Nov 9, 2005

We're always hiring!

Seems like this thread needs some sort of...Judas Goat, I guess?
Someone to deliberately seek out lovely catpiss games and harvest them for our enjoyment.

Sure, epic and good games like CobiWan's campaign scratch an itch, but, we need that good schadenfreude sometimes too.

SirPhoebos
Dec 10, 2007

WELL THAT JUST HAPPENED!

the_steve posted:

Seems like this thread needs some sort of...Judas Goat, I guess?
Someone to deliberately seek out lovely catpiss games and harvest them for our enjoyment.

Sure, epic and good games like CobiWan's campaign scratch an itch, but, we need that good schadenfreude sometimes too.

In other words, you're suggesting that we get someone like Grover interested in RPGs.

the_steve
Nov 9, 2005

We're always hiring!

SirPhoebos posted:

In other words, you're suggesting that we get someone like Grover interested in RPGs.

The Sesame Street puppet?
Sorry, I must be missing an in-joke here.

Lunatic Sledge
Jun 8, 2013

choose your own horror isekai sci-fi Souls-like urban fantasy gamer simulator adventure

or don't?
I wish I could help out, but all of my cat piss stories are pretty tame, and my current campaign is quickly becoming my favorite ever. I'm finally getting to run an insane rear end Virtue's Last Reward style brainfuckery campaign with players invested enough to care what's going on.

girl dick energy
Sep 30, 2009

You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?

Lunatic Sledge posted:

I wish I could help out, but all of my cat piss stories are pretty tame, and my current campaign is quickly becoming my favorite ever. I'm finally getting to run an insane rear end Virtue's Last Reward style brainfuckery campaign with players invested enough to care what's going on.
Good Game Stories are just as fun!

Lunatic Sledge
Jun 8, 2013

choose your own horror isekai sci-fi Souls-like urban fantasy gamer simulator adventure

or don't?

PMush Perfect posted:

Good Game Stories are just as fun!

I could type up what's been going on, but it might take me a bit. The weird poo poo has some setup to it, and I won't get to totally blow my party's minds until this Sunday. They're all already in deep enough that I'm probably going to get poo poo thrown at me when I drop the bomb on them, though. I haven't been this excited about DMing in years, no joke.

Kwyndig
Sep 23, 2006

Heeeeeey


I'm almost willing to take up bad gaming just to have some gaming at this point, but I keep reminding myself that it's not worth it even for the schadenfreude.

Lunatic Sledge
Jun 8, 2013

choose your own horror isekai sci-fi Souls-like urban fantasy gamer simulator adventure

or don't?
So, a little bit of backstory. Modern fantasy not-quite-Tokyo. Alien invasions, demonic incursions, and giant monster attacks are all standard fare. You might share a seat on the subway with a 9 foot tall oni. Most major corporations are employing at least one psychic. Your mailman has a cybernetic arm and it's no big deal.

Mirai Medical is a relatively small pharmaceutical company. Publicly, they're responsible for some common but not top brand drugs. Arthritis pills, asthma medication, poo poo like that. Privately, they're knee deep in fringe science. They've cured alien diseases and developed a drug that grants telepathy. Most of their poo poo never sees the light of day because of production costs or horrific side effects. Most people see them as one more faceless laboratory in the middle of a residential district; behind the scenes, they're on the cutting edge of paranormal phenomena, or at least as much as they can be for what little resources they have. Notable NPCs:

Wakamae, lead scientist of Mirai Medical. Tall, thin, human redhead. Dry, domineering, and any humor she exhibits is both rare and dark. Has no time for bullshit. The lab's interns believe she's part demon. Shows little consideration for human life, seems more interested in diseases than she is in curing them. Usually the one telling the party when poo poo needs to be done.

Dr. Kogga, kooky and (allegedly) brilliant. Old, bald, human with a metal jaw. Once worked for a larger corporation, and helped develop some of the biggest, most important drugs on the market today. Now he spends most of his time in his office doing god-knows-what. Says insightful and mind blowing poo poo when he actually appears, but is usually too lazy to even keep up with what's going on.

Zelo One, alien engineer. Bright red, 6 foot tall octopus with a huge moustache. Not a doctor, and in fact understands nothing about medicine or anatomy of any species. Knows how to build a bunch of weird alien poo poo, which Wakamae has him do constantly. Maintains the bizarre technology that lets the lab do what it does. Drinks two cups of coffees and smokes three cigarettes while he's building, like, a shrink ray or a machine that separates blood from the body or whatever. In addition, Mirai Medical employs a bunch of nameless interns that hate their jobs.

The actual party:

Toshiro was a totally normal guy once. Then he got possessed and killed his family. The stress of that, plus the ensuing prison time, brought out his latent psychic power. Mirai Medical eventually proved in court that Toshiro didn't act under his own volition, and they got him out of prison--the trade off is that now he works for Mirai Medical. Having a powerful telekinetic on your staff is real handy when you need dirty deeds done. Toshiro is bitter, cynical, and wholly subservient to the lab. He's depending on Wakamae and Dr. Kogga to help him find out what possessed him so he can exact his revenge; every day that he's not moving one step closer to the truth is a waste of his time.

Seras is a genetically engineered angel, a bioweapon cloned by the military. The project that spawned him was shut down pre-emptively, and Seras was purchased at a discount by Mirai Medical. He's reckless and naive, mentally programmed to be a master of all things combat but having no context outside of it. 100% guaranteed to do something incredibly dumb at almost every opportunity, then kung fu his way out of the problem he's caused. Simultaneously the party's greatest asset and its biggest weakness, depending on whether or not the answer is fighting.

Eleanor was raised in the woods or something. Sort of a druid, in tune with nature. Has vivid dreams about all terrible things to come. Not as worldly as Toshiro or as combat savvy as Seras, but somehow has more common sense than both of them. Doesn't actually work for Mirai Medical in any capacity, but joined up with them during the first game and has stuck with them since. Might be out of morbid curiosity, might be because they're connected to some strange prophecy she has. Can turn parts of her body into stone, usually uses this to punch people. Most of the party is Jipponese; Eleanor is not, and that's maybe the only thing anybody knows about Eleanor.

The first couple of sessions were intended to do two things: get everyone acclimated with each other and the setting, and establish the idea that Mirai Medical is doing some shady poo poo. Case in point: Mirai Medical is having illegal supplies brought into the city via a local crime family. When some of those crime guys went missing--mainly, the head of the family's favorite crime guy, Shiryu--the supply route was cut. No amount of gunfire or manpower could subdue whatever horrible monster was living in the sewers, picking off crime guys, so the head of the family brought the problem before Wakamae. "Y'want yer supplies? Lend me a couple o' ya boys. I know you got some kinda, uh, freak show goin' on here." So, Toshiro and Seras were dispatched to the sewers. If they can't bring back Shiryu alive, then The Crime Lord at least wants the body. "Shiryu deserves a proper funeral, y'know? He's earned that. He's earned... at least that."

Meanwhile, Eleanor has spent the last few weeks tracking a tribe of Samebito. Samebito are big, brutal shark men. When Samebito establish a proper colony, they start by having one of their shaman conjure an eldritch abomination. At the center of any Samebito civilization is a writhing, madness inducing tentacle monster. So, Samebito wandering around the city is no bueno. If they've not started poo poo yet, they're going to. Eleanor tracks the roaming band into the sewers, where it turns out some local mermaids have established a cute mermaid hotel / museum. Just some place nice where visiting merfolk can stay and feel at home among their kind. The Samebito absolutely ravage it, murdering a bunch of mermaids and ripping the faces off the paintings and defacing the statues and otherwise turning the place into a nightmare. They've also been picking off anyone who wanders by their new HQ, including certain members of a local crime family trying to smuggle goods into the city. Many of these merfolk and criminals, respectively, are sacrificial fuel to help bring this tribe's new Lovecraftian centerpiece into reality.

Eleanor meets up with Toshiro and Seras at the entrance to this whole thing, and together the three of them sneak past, fight through, or frantically run from various hoards of savage shark men. They nearly drown a couple of times, they mess around with weird mermaid technology, they have a few laughs. They even manage to free some of the captive merfolk, and find out that Shiryu (the guy they're trying to save) is to be the last sacrifice to summon Something Bad. Notable event that comes back to haunt them later: Seras is in one room, smashing up sharks. Toshiro and Eleanor are in another room across the hall, discovering some sort of horrific, ever-mutating blood sword embedded in the concrete floor. This Samebito tribe's shaman is cultivating a weapon via weird magic, and plans to present it to the tribe's best warrior. Eleanor wisely advises that they do not tell Seras about this at all, because they've been around him just long enough to know that he'll take the sword, use it with wild abandon, and probably inherit some kind of awful blood shark curse. Seras' player, out of character, loudly announces "Yeah, you're fuckin' right I will. Don't tell me about the sword." They do not tell him about the sword.

At last, the party reaches the final room--a massive art gallery, mostly submerged in water. Shiryu, the man to rescue, is suspended from the ceiling by some terrible body horror contraption that is slowly drinking his blood. At the back of the room is an ever shifting portrait, uncomfortable to be around and impossible to stare at. A tentacle thing is probably going to burst out of it at any second. At the front of the room, atop the balcony the party has entered upon and overlooking the water, are: Fleshripper, the Samebito shaman; Bonebreaker, the tribe's greatest warrior; and about six regular shark dudes with bone spears and jagged swords. Now, I didn't design this pseudo-dungeon or the final encounter to be that difficult. However, the players are new to the system, and still learning the mechanics. They're still discovering neat and helpful ways to use their powers. They've made some poor decisions on the way here, and rolled some bad dice. The party is not ready for this fight.

I anticipated one of two outcomes. The party has about four rounds to either kill Fleshripper, or get Shiryu out of the machine. The fight starts and the party splits. Seras flies up to the machine and starts to mess with it, but he's not technologically savvy and can't figure out a way to get Shiryu out safely. Eleanor fights the squad of shark mooks. Toshiro goes toe-to-toe with Bonebreaker, who is 10 feet tall and built like Brock Lesnar, but Toshiro keeps him at bay by telekinetically hurling statues from the gallery at him. No one goes after Fleshripper, even when Fleshripper starts chanting and poo poo. About halfway through the third round, Eleanor is the first to come up with the worst possible solution: "Guys. Uh... I don't think we're gonna beat this. Shark God is almost here, and we're all almost dead. We... don't have to bring Shiryu back alive, right...?"

Seras responds with a loud "Hoooly poo poo," and Toshiro is already uttering "No, no, that's not an option, we're not doing that." Toshiro is dedicated to Mirai Medical. He wants to do this job right. He's also probably the only one in the party that's ever actually killed someone, and did so while possessed; he doesn't want to do it again. All the Samebito they've fought up to this point they've either knocked out, or Toshiro has used his telekinesis to imprison them with whatever was available. Toshiro doesn't want blood on his hands. He argues with the party, all while they're thoroughly getting their asses kicked. At the start of the fourth round, Seras takes a spear to one of his wings, dropping into the water below. Toshiro could theoretically try to dismantle the Blood Machine with his TK, but he can't get enough focus on the intricate parts while Bonebreaker is taking him to suplex city. Eleanor can't fly and doesn't know poo poo about machines. Toshiro has the last initiative count on the fourth round, and Sharkthulhu is coming through the portrait at the start of the fifth.

Toshiro sighs, his player staring at me in silence for a good, long minute. "I snap Shiryu's neck." I don't even make him roll. Toshiro kills the target, preventing the sacrifice from going through. The city is saved, and the team psychic feels like poo poo. The party spends another handful of rounds trying to finish off the sharks, but they're running on fumes. Toshiro finally rips Shiryu's body out of the machine. Seras fights off Bonebreaker while the other two escape, and Toshiro uses his TK to collapse the entrance so they can't be followed. Seras barely makes the roll to slip through the falling rubble to join the rest of the team. Everybody makes it out, at least everybody with a player behind them.

I didn't plan on the two main Samebito surviving the fight. I really didn't plan on the blood sword being left untouched. The party pretty much pieced together what that meant: the next time they fought the shark boys, the big guy was going to have a new toy. Toshiro sank further into a deep, angry seclusion, and Seras began training. Training to fight sharks. Training to beat the ever living poo poo out of sharks. Eleanor deepened her communion with nature, trying to keep tabs on what the Samebitos' next move would be--she couldn't afford to let them find a new sacrifice, but once word got out in the criminal underworld that no one should pass through that part of the sewers, the sharks' opportunities to pick off stragglers would dwindle. Eventually, the sharks would have to go on the move. Come to the surface. Hunt for a sacrifice. The crime family that set all this up established a new, less safe route to smuggle through; Mirai Medical was charged a little extra, but they had their supplies again. Shiryu got a proper funeral, which none of the party attended.

That was the first game. I was getting texts from the party all week. Questions. Plans. Ideas.

I didn't need more ideas. I had ideas. Awful, dirty ideas. But oh, lord, did they give me more ideas anyway.

girl dick energy
Sep 30, 2009

You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?
This is what the good stories are made of. :suspense:

Falstaff
Apr 27, 2008

I have a kind of alacrity in sinking.

I'm curious, what system are you using?

Lunatic Sledge
Jun 8, 2013

choose your own horror isekai sci-fi Souls-like urban fantasy gamer simulator adventure

or don't?

Falstaff posted:

I'm curious, what system are you using?

What, why yes I will take an opportunity to shamelessly plug my game system

Gratuitous Anime Gimmick.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
I've mentioned this one old DM of mine before, a true lord of catpiss. He'd do everything in his power to humiliate or kill the PCs, and only succeed about half the time even with 'fudged' rolls because he was incompetent.

He tended to run campaigns starting at mid level or higher, and had the most amazingly cack-handed approach to distributing starting magic items, involving randomly selected sourcebooks, and items randomly selected from them. Minor artifacts showed up with startling regularity. Weird poo poo too, all of which he'd promptly forget about until a player pulled it out as an ace card.

This one dungeon was like a knockoff Grimtooth's: each and every door was locked and trapped, and each and every trap was the same injected-instant-onset-death poison dart trap, because he clearly wanted PCs to die early and often.

He didn't remember rolling up a shield +1, protection from normal missiles for my best friend's character.

"Hours" of "work" were apparently undone by said character going up to a door, jiggling the handle until the trap went off, and letting the dart bounce harmlessly from his shield.

It probably failed an item save vs. a fireball the next session.

Lorak
Apr 7, 2009

Well, there goes the Hall of Fame...

Bieeardo posted:

I've mentioned this one old DM of mine before, a true lord of catpiss. He'd do everything in his power to humiliate or kill the PCs, and only succeed about half the time even with 'fudged' rolls because he was incompetent.

He tended to run campaigns starting at mid level or higher, and had the most amazingly cack-handed approach to distributing starting magic items, involving randomly selected sourcebooks, and items randomly selected from them. Minor artifacts showed up with startling regularity. Weird poo poo too, all of which he'd promptly forget about until a player pulled it out as an ace card.

This one dungeon was like a knockoff Grimtooth's: each and every door was locked and trapped, and each and every trap was the same injected-instant-onset-death poison dart trap, because he clearly wanted PCs to die early and often.

He didn't remember rolling up a shield +1, protection from normal missiles for my best friend's character.

"Hours" of "work" were apparently undone by said character going up to a door, jiggling the handle until the trap went off, and letting the dart bounce harmlessly from his shield.

It probably failed an item save vs. a fireball the next session.
Clearly the only proper escalation is to have had the rogue acquire control over some sort of construct and have that jiggle all handles in the future. Especially if it makes a satisfying "plink" sound every time said dart bounced off of it.

Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!

Bieeardo posted:

the most amazingly cack-handed approach to distributing starting magic items, involving randomly selected sourcebooks, and items randomly selected from them. ... Weird poo poo too, all of which he'd promptly forget about until a player pulled it out as an ace card.
I do this more often than I should admit. :v: But that's more because I think giving weird poo poo out as loot is more fun than Yet Another +1 Sword.

Dareon
Apr 6, 2009

by vyelkin

the_steve posted:

Seems like this thread needs some sort of...Judas Goat, I guess?
Someone to deliberately seek out lovely catpiss games and harvest them for our enjoyment.

Sure, epic and good games like CobiWan's campaign scratch an itch, but, we need that good schadenfreude sometimes too.

Well, I'm heading off to PaizoCon this week! :v:

SirPhoebos
Dec 10, 2007

WELL THAT JUST HAPPENED!

the_steve posted:

The Sesame Street puppet?
Sorry, I must be missing an in-joke here.

I mean SA poster Grover of Groverhouse fame.

Sadly, I don't have a link to the thread chronicling his attempts to build his own house. I do know the phrase "load bearing drywall" comes up at some point.

:grovertoot:

CobiWann
Oct 21, 2009

Have fun!

Bieeardo posted:

"Hours" of "work" were apparently undone by said character going up to a door, jiggling the handle until the trap went off, and letting the dart bounce harmlessly from his shield.

This happened during our last session - our GM was all set up for a huge knock-down drag-out fight against a giant warped and twisted by Wild Magic...

Varis: I cast Hold Monster from the Staff of Power.
GM: Wait. It has that power? *shows him the card* Huh. I completely forgot about that.

Ended up cheesing the fight because the giant had a crap Wisdom save and being Held counts as Incapacitated which means auto-crits. The GM just shrugged and rolled with it. It just meant we fought the adult red dragon a session earlier than he planned.

A good GM rolls with stuff like that. Magic items SHOULD cheese an encounter or two, or else why have them?

susan
Jan 14, 2013

CobiWann posted:

This happened during our last session - our GM was all set up for a huge knock-down drag-out fight against a giant warped and twisted by Wild Magic...

Varis: I cast Hold Monster from the Staff of Power.
GM: Wait. It has that power? *shows him the card* Huh. I completely forgot about that.

Ended up cheesing the fight because the giant had a crap Wisdom save and being Held counts as Incapacitated which means auto-crits. The GM just shrugged and rolled with it. It just meant we fought the adult red dragon a session earlier than he planned.

A good GM rolls with stuff like that. Magic items SHOULD cheese an encounter or two, or else why have them?

*nods* Sometimes your players decide to orbitally bombard your final encounter. As a GM, that's fine and cool, and the Players should be rewarded for creativity and initiative. In fact it's important to occasionally have these cheese moments to remind players that they're badasses. It's then on the GM to come up with a logical reason why the players need to go into the next Boss Encounter (hostages, information, need to take them alive, etc), instead of nuking it from safety if you want to have a "Hard" encounter.

Harrow
Jun 30, 2012

susan posted:

*nods* Sometimes your players decide to orbitally bombard your final encounter.

That happened to me once in a Savage Worlds game. I was a young, inexperienced GM at the time and did not take it well. I've probably posted this before so apologies if anyone's read it already:

I figured out a cool "boss fight," as much as you can really have one in Savage Worlds. It involved several rooms full of traps and a really mobile boss, a former adventurer named Jack, and he'd try to use traps against the players and they'd try to use traps back at him. My plan was for the boss to surrender once he was down to his last wound so that he could reveal a ~*~plot twist~*~ to the players. Planning that sort of thing was the first mistake I made. The second was having the players encounter Jack earlier in the dungeon and get in a little skirmish with him--it got the players in a fightin' mood and sent the message that he wasn't in the mood for talking.

When the party got down to the final floor of the dungeon, they looked around the corner and saw Jack looking at the magical device they'd all come to fight over. His back was to the party (my third mistake). So the group's murderhobo urban ranger guy, named Unbru, decides he's going to get the drop on Jack, get revenge for that last scuffle. He casts the burrow power, burrows under the ground, pops up right next to Jack and makes a called shot at his (unarmored) head with a bow.

Long story short, he rolled two misses and rerolled each with a benny, and on the last roll he succeeds with a raise (if you're unfamiliar with Savage Worlds, it means he beat the target number by 4 or more and gets to roll a bonus damage die). So he rolls damage and maxes two of this three damage dice. In Savage Worlds, that means he aced those dice and gets to roll them again and add the damage to the total. And then he aces both of them again and rerolls them. And then aces one of them another loving time. After all the damage, he'd done about 12 wounds' worth of damage to Jack. Four would've been enough to kill him, and even if I spent every GM benny I had on soak rolls it was mathematically impossible to get that number down below four.

I called for a break after that to sort of collect myself because I was pretty pissed, but it was fair play, so even though Unbru's player offered to give me a mulligan on it I figured I'd let it stand. Just said Jack had a diary in his pocket that outlined the plot twist he was going to tell them about.

I did sort of luck out, though, because the plot twist led two of the party members (Unbru and another) to disagree on what to do next so violently that they fought each other and made use of all the traps I'd set up while the other two party members begged them to escape the collapsing dungeon. Neither died, thankfully, but it was a pretty badass fight, so I ended up leaving the session happy.

oriongates
Mar 14, 2013

Validate Me!


I've got tons of stories like that. Savage Worlds has that issue a lot (YMMV as to how much a problem it is), where players in my Deadlands game would casually one-shot a lot of powerful bosses due to some lucky explosions. Really had to go all out on that campaign's final boss...several heads each statted as individual characters with free soak roll against most attacks supported by a horde of respawning demon extras. Ended when the hobo-with-a-steam-chainsaw who had been smuggling quite a lot of dynamite finishes making his way across the battle-map on donkey-back, tricks the boss into eating him and then detonates...rolling about 10 dice for damage, and in Savage Worlds you know that's a hell of a lot. Wiped out the boss but the hobo had Very Hard To Kill, so no matter what he got a 50/50 chance of survival...which he made. Bastard got eaten by a giant demon, blew up their Ye Olde Suicide Veste and still was the last one standing.

Worst boss anti-climax was a Pathfinder/Eberron game I was running focusing heavily on the warforged and their origins. PCs make their way to the bottom of a warforged research lab in the mournlands and come face to face with a pair of Warforged Dragons, which I statted up as constructs and then basically applied the same living construct rules to them as warforged. Lots of HD, powerful attacks and the ability to spend hp for an electrical breath weapon, ready for a good fight.

The problem is that the party sorcerer (who has kind of a "gray necromancer" thing going on) knows the Phantasmal Killer spell. Now, that's not normally a big deal. The sorcerer's player is far, far from a "optimizer" and just picks out spells that appeal to them at the time. They've killed the occasional mook with it but Phantasmal Killer is a pretty hard spell to abuse...the problem is that the living construct rules mean the dragons aren't immune to mind-affecting spells...but since they've got all construct HD (rather than class levels) they have no good saves at all! Fortitude and Will are both trash and that results in a one-spell KO on both of them.

susan
Jan 14, 2013
I've had a few lovely incidents like this before. With a Rogue Trader group, there was an incident that led to the affectionate term "firing plasma torpedoes at the plot", that stemmed from a rescue mission aboard a space hulk. The Players realized that the derelict ship was crawling with Tyranids (think Xenomorphs, only psychic and with assault cannons that shoot acid and metal-eating scarabs), and decided (much to my chagrin) that the Tyranids were scarier than the survivors aboard were important, so they vaporized the entire ship. Including a very, very plot important psyker with a vision about future events. This group also once faced some extremely scary Chaos Space Marines (think Hill Giants in Power Armor that can carry mini-rocket launcher machine guns as a standard sidearm). I thought this fight would be hard, until another Psyker in my group realized that their version of Hold Person, while only a temporary reprieve usually, was pretty dangerous when the target of the spell was flying with a jetpack over a city. Cue me looking up falling damage rules, and...

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Tunicate
May 15, 2012

susan posted:

I've had a few lovely incidents like this before. With a Rogue Trader group, there was an incident that led to the affectionate term "firing plasma torpedoes at the plot", that stemmed from a rescue mission aboard a space hulk. The Players realized that the derelict ship was crawling with Tyranids (think Xenomorphs, only psychic and with assault cannons that shoot acid and metal-eating scarabs), and decided (much to my chagrin) that the Tyranids were scarier than the survivors aboard were important, so they vaporized the entire ship. Including a very, very plot important psyker with a vision about future events.

Sounds like standard imperium doctrine to me.

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