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Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!

senrath posted:

The amount of pushback against taking 10 I've seen over the years with various GMs confuses the gently caress out of me.
I tell you guys to take 10 all the time and y'all hardly ever do it. :colbert:

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darnon
Nov 8, 2009

Agrikk posted:

Off topic: where is a good online place to buy fantasy lead figures? I want to start building a collection. Heroes and undead to start with for a campaign I’m starting up but eventually I want a deep bench.

Reaper Minis is a great place to start to looking and has just about every base covered as far as traditional D&D monsters. Their bones line of plastic minis are also pretty affordable especially for things that'd weigh a ton in pewter like dragons.

Cool Mini or Not also has a pretty good selection of resin minis from their various game products as well.

senrath
Nov 4, 2009

Look Professor, a destruct switch!


Yawgmoth posted:

I tell you guys to take 10 all the time and y'all hardly ever do it. :colbert:

I'd take 10 more if I wasn't rolling after others that did better than I could with a take 10 :v:

Golden Bee
Dec 24, 2009

I came here to chew bubblegum and quote 'They Live', and I'm... at an impasse.
Amazing session of monster of the week tonight.
It was day of the dead in San Diego, and a Mexican Mob queen use the opportunity to kill and bury her (secret) twin sister. Unfortunately for all involved, the player characters interfere.

Although they managed to secure the body, the newbie investigator gave it to the crooked funeral home owned by the mob. They followed the hearse back to the parlor, and in the ensuing gunfight ended up with:
-4 dead hoods
-a splattered twin corpse, launched into a brick wall by the hearse;
-none of the Navy munitions that were being sold confiscated
-no arrests
-several injuries, with one investigator almost been crushed to death by the hearse.

The real monster: incompetence.

Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 08:36 on Aug 22, 2022

Guildencrantz
May 1, 2012

IM ONE OF THE GOOD ONES
For those of us who aren't familiar with D&D/PF, what's "taking 10"?

gradenko_2000
Oct 5, 2010

HELL SERPENT
Lipstick Apathy

Guildencrantz posted:

For those of us who aren't familiar with D&D/PF, what's "taking 10"?

A skill check is when you roll a d20, add your ability modifier (such as Strength +2), and add your skill modifier (such as Swimming +3) and try to meet or beat the target number (called a DC, for Difficulty Class) set by the DM.

In 3rd Edition D&D, they introduced the mechanic of Taking 10: if the character is not in any immediate danger, then they can invoke this mechanic and assume that they rolled a 10 instead of a random result on a d20.

If you have a Dex of +2, and an Open Lock skill of +3, and the Lockpicking DC is a 15, then you Take 10 and "automatically" pass it.

This is supposed to mechanically and diegetically justify the DM not asking you to roll for things if you're not in danger nor under time-pressure, because you'd invoke Take 10 and pass it anyway.

If you were in the heat of battle, then the DM might ask you to make a roll for every single separate attempt, since it actually matters how many times it takes before you roll a 10 or higher.

There's also "Taking 1", which is when you'd pass even if you rolled the worst possible result on the die.

Finally, there's also "Taking 20", which is when you can assume that you rolled the best result on the d20, but at the cost of the task taking 20 times as long.

For example, a lockpick attempt is supposed to take 1 round, or 6 seconds. If you're not in danger, you can invoke Take 20 at the cost of spending 20 rounds, or 120 seconds, or 2 minutes.

If you have a Dex of +2, and an Open Lock skill of +3, and the Lockpicking DC is an 18, then you can Take 20 and pass it (where a Take 10 would have been insufficient). It simulates the player just sitting there rolling the dice until it comes up as a 20 because there's nothing in interrupt them anyway.

Since D&D also assumes that you'll check for random monster encounters once every hour (or so), then using this mechanic is supposed to interact with that to introduce a cost - you're now 2 minutes closer to the next encounter check.

All in all, these things end up giving out "good GM advice" in a round-about way. Instead of telling the GM "don't roll when there are no stakes", it gives the players the tools by which to "skip" the roll.

gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 11:07 on Oct 27, 2017

Prism
Dec 22, 2007

yospos
That said, there are other rules that interact with it, so it's not just giving DMs hidden good advice (just mostly); high-level bards and rogues can take 10 on any skill check under any circumstances, for instance (including mid-combat if they like) and there are a bunch of abilities or spells that give you more specific take-10 rules.

MelvinBison
Nov 17, 2012

"Is this the ideal world that you envisioned?"
"I guess you could say that."

Pillbug
I recently got to play Secret Hitler on an actual board game (instead of Tabletop Simulator), as a friend's SO (referred hereafter as SO) wanted to get to know our usual circle of friends better.

For those who don't know, Secret Hitler is sort of like Mafia, only with Fascists and Liberals, with one Fascist playing Hitler. Players take turns acting as President, nominating a Chancellor, and the other players either voting for or against the Chancellor. If the vote passes, the President and Chancellor secretly put either a facist or liberal policy into play. If not, the next player becomes President and the cycle continues. The Fascists win when either enough Fascist policies are passed or Hitler is elected Chancellor after a certain number of Fascist policies are in play. Liberals win when Hitler is killed (the President gets to kill a player when enough Fascist policies are played) or enough Liberal policies are in play.

During that evening, two games stick out in my mind:

The first required me to play Hitler, and around the third or fourth turn, the other Fascist (the SO) had her turn to be President, and nominated me Chancellor. Remember I said a certain amount of Fascist policies had to pass before electing Hitler as Chancellor was a win condition? I didn't, as I hadn't played in a while. So the vote passed, and just blurted out, "We win. :downs:" Not only did I have to be corrected in a really awkward moment, but we somehow still won that game through election since they somehow thought I was only a Fascist and not Hitler. :v:

The second was the last game of the evening, and requires a bit of backstory about some of the players. First, SO is an experienced roleplayer, and really good at Secret Hitler to boot, managing to stay off everyone's radar and win in every game she was Fascist. Second, there was "Bill." Bill is the roommate of SO's boyfriend, and a consummate troll. As such, every game that night had him insisting he was Hitler and doing everything in his power to pass enough Fascist policies to get us to the assassination parts of the game. So for that last game, SO was noticeably nervous. She acted more paranoid of the other players than previously that it was apparent to everyone else she was a fascist. During all this, Bill kept insisting he was Hitler and we should kill him first chance we got. This time, we actually obliged him.

And he was right.

SO freaked out, as she was the other fascist and didn't see anyone else raise their head at the beginning of the game when the Fascists get to identify each other secretly and was constantly worried something went wrong. Bill's response?
"I told you I was Hitler." :smug:

Everyone had a good time and we agreed we couldn't top that game so we called it a night. There are plans for SO to run a DnD game with both her group of friends and ours so we can all meet each other. I have nothing but high hopes.

MelvinBison fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Oct 27, 2017

Splicer
Oct 16, 2006

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

MelvinBison posted:

There are plans for SO to run a DnD game between her group of friends and ours so we can all meet each other. I have nothing but high hopes.
I hope you mean between them as in two competing adventuring parties seeking The Trophy of Friendship

MelvinBison
Nov 17, 2012

"Is this the ideal world that you envisioned?"
"I guess you could say that."

Pillbug
I hadn't thought of that, but it sounds amazing. :getin:

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

I haven't painted a figure since middle school but now that I'm playing D&D I'm sort of itching to paint up a figure for my character. Where's the best place to look? Can you customize parts to get the "right" equipment and such? I'm just a human fighter with a longbow so nothing too weird.

Freudian
Mar 23, 2011

Baronjutter posted:

I haven't painted a figure since middle school but now that I'm playing D&D I'm sort of itching to paint up a figure for my character. Where's the best place to look? Can you customize parts to get the "right" equipment and such? I'm just a human fighter with a longbow so nothing too weird.

https://www.heroforge.com/ this is absolutely your poo poo

girl dick energy
Sep 30, 2009

You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?
Doesn't Bones do some pretty good minis?

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

Freudian posted:

https://www.heroforge.com/ this is absolutely your poo poo

None of the parts ended up working out, and since it's 3d printed everything has to be really blocky and thick :(
I know I saw some simple cheap D&D figs at a game store but I can't find the drat things online. There was a simple "human ranger" that almost worked perfectly. Just need a dude in a hood/robe with a bow and I'm set. But I know there's a million fantasy figure brands out there so I'm totally overwhelmed searching.

Eox
Jun 20, 2010

by Fluffdaddy
My group has always used lego for minis. If you want a fully custom job, Bricklink let's you order individual parts and there's 3rd party stuff like Brickforge/Brickarms for more unique pieces.

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

Eox posted:

My group has always used lego for minis. If you want a fully custom job, Bricklink let's you order individual parts and there's 3rd party stuff like Brickforge/Brickarms for more unique pieces.

That's a really good idea. I should bring my huge cube of lego figs to the next game and let everyone go for it.

Falstaff
Apr 27, 2008

I have a kind of alacrity in sinking.

Baronjutter posted:

None of the parts ended up working out, and since it's 3d printed everything has to be really blocky and thick :(
I know I saw some simple cheap D&D figs at a game store but I can't find the drat things online. There was a simple "human ranger" that almost worked perfectly. Just need a dude in a hood/robe with a bow and I'm set. But I know there's a million fantasy figure brands out there so I'm totally overwhelmed searching.

I feel like this was already recommended to you recently (possibly in another thread? or maybe I'm getting posters mixed up), but Reaper has a figure finder feature for that sort of thing.

JUST MAKING CHILI
Feb 14, 2008

Baronjutter posted:

None of the parts ended up working out, and since it's 3d printed everything has to be really blocky and thick :(
I know I saw some simple cheap D&D figs at a game store but I can't find the drat things online. There was a simple "human ranger" that almost worked perfectly. Just need a dude in a hood/robe with a bow and I'm set. But I know there's a million fantasy figure brands out there so I'm totally overwhelmed searching.

ILLYDIA MAETHELLYN is an elf ranger in the monster menagerie... close enough?

Eox
Jun 20, 2010

by Fluffdaddy

Baronjutter posted:

That's a really good idea. I should bring my huge cube of lego figs to the next game and let everyone go for it.

The design can be a little busy, but I highly recommend Brickwarriors if you want a more fantasy-lookin dude.

No Luck Needed
Mar 18, 2015

Ravel Crew
Some stories from AD&D2e

My buddy Alex hadn’t played a full campaign with me as DM, we had done Reverse Dungeon and they defended the goblin lair from low level adventures and we had got about 25-30% through Paladin in Hell when they all died to the two-head black dragon. So we start a full campaign and Alex makes a good aligned battle cleric, able to use swords and stuff. Well everyone in the party went evil so they could do whatever they wanted. Alex didn’t know that was an option and transitioned into an evil character. Alex started by killing a ranger for the ranger’s magic spear (+2) that he then used to kill a paladin of his same faith for the paladin’s magic sword (+4). So I sent down the avatar of his god and beat him in a duel and took his divine power and allowed him to become a fighter and progress in the game. Cut to sometime later and the party is sneaking into the dungeon of an evil wizard. The party splits up to cover more ground and Alex and the thief find their way to the first level of the wizard’s tower. As they overcome the magic locks and enter a room I describe, “you see an angel bound to the wall by chains that radiate magical energy.”
Alex, “I rape the angel”
Me, “it is a dude angel not a lady”
Alex, “I don’t care I already said I was doing it”
That made us all laugh and we still tease him about it to this day

`````

The thief character, Richards, set up a spy network, a pirate operation, a fake church, and some legitimate businesses. There was a local wooded area with old growth trees and sought after trees that could produce dark wood that was sought for magic items. So Richards leads some forays into the woods and defeats several waves of goblins and secures some loot and trade goods. So the goblin king sent an assassin with some dust of chocking and sneezing, because at this point in the game even backstabbing one of the PCs for say like 4x damage probably won’t kill them so I wanted some one-hit killer poo poo to go down. The PCs are hanging out doing one of their favorite things, pretend holding court and ordering their henchmen around to do side activities. See at this point the PCs each had several henchmen and would send the henchmen on their own adventures because even if one PC went with the hench then the hench would only get 50% experience but if they sent only henchmen I would award the henchmen 100% experience. So they are holding court in a bar and I decided that several new NPCs would approach seeking employment. A dwarf fighter/thief, a monglerman bard, an orc barbarian, a human wizard (secretly a necromancer), and a goblin thief all came looking for employment. So I figured each PC would take the NPC that was most like them but nope, the PCs wanted to round out their own henchmen with some new talents. So I was hoping Richards would take in the goblin thief and the thief would bust out the dust of chocking and sneezing and get some revenge. Nope, Alex the pervious cleric now fighter takes the goblin thief and proceeds to get the dust in the face and straight up dies. Richards see this and defeats the goblin and gets a few pinches of the dust for himself. By this time in the game the PCs had gained the favor of an evil god and the god brought Alex back to life but made Alex have to do dirty work for the evil god.

So later in the game, Richards needs to find the location of a demon summoner NPC that I had as a recurring villain. The demon summoner would show up, summon demons, make a speech that this time he would kill them, and then teleport away. So Richards the thief was needing a way to get some information on the demon summoner because he was getting tired of being jumped. So in their adventures they had ended up in Azzagrat and learned that this demon city was a great place to get items and information but at a price. So Richards loaded up a grippli thief (his favorite henchmen) with the dust of chocking and sneezing and sent him out to Azzagrat on an astral skiff that he had traded an effriti for. So while exploring around the demon city the grippli comes across the battle arena and learns that whomever wins the next tournament will get a chance to ask Graz’zat for anything they wish. So the grippli enters the tournament and works his way up the ranks. The last fight is against a babu and Richards was scared to lose his magic weapons to the babu’s demonic acid skin. The fight starts with the babu taking flight and taking a position over the battlefield to start using its magic. Richards then has the grippli use it’s frog/toad legs to make a mighty leap and use the dust of sneezing and chocking. The babu has one chance to save and nope straight up dies chocking to death. So the grippli gets an audience with Graz’zat and makes a deal for the location of the demon summoner if Richards will bring back the demon summoner so Graz’zat can feast on his soul.

So because of this public meeting the demon summoner learned that there is a conspiracy out to get him so he sends his apprentice to defeat the grippli before the grippli can make it back to his astral skiff. So on the shores of the River Styx the grippli is attacked. I figured the apprentice would capture the grippli and use it as bait to lure the PCs out and into the Abyss where the demon summoner would be even more powerful. But nope, Richards had loaded up the grippli with a vorpal sword and a natural 20 straight up cut the head of the apprentice off. I was not prepared for that but that is what is fun about D&D.

Eventually that grippli thief would be sent on a mission to negotiate with the witch Baba Yaga to have the witch train one of Richards other henchmen in the dark arts. But Baba Yaga does not take orders from anyone and infected the girppli with slaadi eggs and made Richards favorite henchmen into a nice NPC threat.

````

When the PCs first meet Baba Yaga, when they were pretty low level, they were all scared and all but one refused to drink her tea that she offered. Only Sean the fighter drank the tea and Baba Yaga would have some influence on him because of that. I didn’t do anything to malicious but use Sean’s eyes to spy on the party and only once did Baba Yaga show up and steal the big magic mcguffin they were after and only got a chance to see her flying away on her magic cauldron just when they thought they had reached the end of the quest but nope, Baba Yaga beat them to it and stole the magic item thingy. So time goes on and the PCs head to a foreign port city so Richards can attempted to take over the local church and spread his fake church. Sean the fighter is caring a two-handed sword, armor, and bow & arrow set. The local guards demand 25gp per item he wanted to take in the town, so like 75gp total. Sean had hundreds of gold on him but refused to pay so the guards attacked him and Sean killed the guards. This leads to the local governor asking the local wizard to capture Sean. So the wizard shows up and Hold Person captures Sean. Sean is hung in the public square as a warning and then his body is dumped in the ocean a week later, after the birds eat away his flesh. Sean was pissed but I told him he had a secret benefactor so not to worry. Sean was forced to play I think like a month of adventures as his henchmen until the party learns that Baba Yaga had found Sean’s body, resurrected him, and turned Sean into the witch’s own party boi. The PCs then had to sneak into Baba Yaga’s hut and find Sean’s soul and defeat the powered up Sean so Sean could gain his character back. That was pretty fun and everyone seemed to like that Sean was the only one to drink Baba Yaga’s tea and Baba Yaga always favored Sean.

No Luck Needed
Mar 18, 2015

Ravel Crew
on the thread topic of cat-piss people; my local game store, the Arean, in Salina, KS I have played in some release events for Magic. Most recently Modern Masters 2017, Eternal Masters, and a pre-release of Ixalan there have been no women players. And in the Ixalan event I played against two dudes who I think part of the win strategy was too smelled so bad that I would not want to lean over to read their cards. But I do see women/girls playing in the Pathfinder league and the D&D game a guy named Wendel runs. But it has been many moons since I saw a female magic player; could be that I only do limited events there but I think that dudes down there still call things gay and smell probably scared off the ladies.

Space Kablooey
May 6, 2009


The catpiss is coming from inside the thread

sirtommygunn
Mar 7, 2013



No Luck Needed posted:

Alex, “I rape the angel”
Me, “it is a dude angel not a lady”

:wow:

Ilor
Feb 2, 2008

That's a crit.

No Luck Needed posted:

Alex, “I rape the angel”
:yikes:

kaffo
Jun 20, 2017

If it's broken, it's probably my fault

kaffo posted:

Elendor part 3 will be a while goon friends
I'm on holiday until Wednesday next week, but I'll be sure to :justpost: when I'm back

I've been busy as gently caress, but I'm gonna try to write Elendor part 3 soontm
That said, I'm a bit hazy on what happened next, and I even got in touch with the fighter dude to see if he remembered better.... turns out he remembered worse. But at least he agreed while it was awful at the time it is hilarious to look back on
It also turns out the party found Elendor years later after I stopped playing... But we've yet to get to Elendor's fate in my recounts yet so I'll get back to that

some FUCKING LIAR
Sep 19, 2002

Fallen Rib

No Luck Needed posted:

Alex didn’t know that was an option and transitioned into an evil character. Alex started by killing a ranger for the ranger’s magic spear (+2) that he then used to kill a paladin of his same faith for the paladin’s magic sword (+4). So I sent down the avatar of his god and beat him in a duel and took his divine power and allowed him to become a fighter and progress in the game.

You are a lovely DM. Nobody deserves a DM as lovely as you.

quote:

Cut to sometime later and the party is sneaking into the dungeon of an evil wizard. The party splits up to cover more ground and Alex and the thief find their way to the first level of the wizard’s tower. As they overcome the magic locks and enter a room I describe, “you see an angel bound to the wall by chains that radiate magical energy.”
Alex, “I rape the angel”
Me, “it is a dude angel not a lady”
Alex, “I don’t care I already said I was doing it”
That made us all laugh and we still tease him about it to this day

I take back the last sentence. Your friends are sick fucks and they don't deserve to have any fun.

quote:

[I didn't read this block of crap; your first anecdote was plenty.]

girl dick energy
Sep 30, 2009

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

Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!

No Luck Needed posted:

Alex, “I rape the angel”
Me, “it is a dude angel not a lady”
Alex, “I don’t care I already said I was doing it”
That made us all laugh and we still tease him about it to this day
Haha, yeah just a little rape joke between friends, so funny! :dogout:

BadSamaritan
May 2, 2008

crumb by crumb in this big black forest


Ew.

sirtommygunn
Mar 7, 2013



Yawgmoth posted:

Haha, yeah just a little rape joke between friends, so funny! :dogout:

It's pretty incredible though how each line reveals even more awful poo poo. After the first line, you know they think rape jokes are funny, ok that's a pretty standard level of dumb and lovely, but what's this? Line two, apparently only women can be raped or would be the only understandable targets of rape, that's a pretty impressive jump in shittiness. Line three, ohoho, it is a humorous subversion of your expectations that I would want to rape regardless of gender! Line four, not only is this story remembered fondly, it is still brought up because lol gay rape. This is poetry that reveals so much about the author and has so many poo poo layers to it, it deserves to be placed in a garbage museum.

No Luck Needed
Mar 18, 2015

Ravel Crew

some loving LIAR posted:

You are a lovely DM. Nobody deserves a DM as lovely as you.

I wonder why you think this. I believe that in a roleplaying game anyone should be allowed to have all the options open to them. The PCs evil actions have more ramifications then say in good aligned games. Killing that paladin brought the retribution of both the god and later for having possession of the paladin's sword lead to his death at the hands of the paladin's order. The ranger was introduced as an NPC ally that Alex turned on, do you keep your players on rails? I think it can be great fun when a game goes off the rails and see where things end up at instead

some loving LIAR posted:

I take back the last sentence. Your friends are sick fucks and they don't deserve to have any fun.

ok fair but sorry 15 year old stories of stupid kids playing a genocide game upset you all. After 2 games of D&D I realized the one of the differences between elf & dwarf and goblin & orc is that D&D otherizes the enemies. Goblins and orcs are slavers, rapists, and pillagers so it is fine to kill them on mass. Why does the old AD&D2e monster manual have stats for things like juvenile orcs and giants? Because your elf role playing game is a game of genocide for murder hobos.

girl dick energy
Sep 30, 2009

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

No Luck Needed posted:

ok fair but sorry 15 year old stories of stupid kids playing a genocide game upset you all. After 2 games of D&D I realized the one of the differences between elf & dwarf and goblin & orc is that D&D otherizes the enemies. Goblins and orcs are slavers, rapists, and pillagers so it is fine to kill them on mass. Why does the old AD&D2e monster manual have stats for things like juvenile orcs and giants? Because your elf role playing game is a game of genocide for murder hobos.
What I love about this is that you're right, D&D rules-as-written is basically a game about genocidal murderhobos once you think about it. But instead of responding like a sane person and saying "That's hosed up, maybe I should take a look at running the game in a way that minimizes that", you instead responded by saying "That's hosed up... Let's use it as an excuse to rape an angel."

Edit: Seriously, the level of creepy edgelord on display here is actually kind of impressive.

girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Nov 2, 2017

Serf
May 5, 2011


No Luck Needed posted:

ok fair but sorry 15 year old stories of stupid kids playing a genocide game upset you all. After 2 games of D&D I realized the one of the differences between elf & dwarf and goblin & orc is that D&D otherizes the enemies. Goblins and orcs are slavers, rapists, and pillagers so it is fine to kill them on mass. Why does the old AD&D2e monster manual have stats for things like juvenile orcs and giants? Because your elf role playing game is a game of genocide for murder hobos.

a fine realization if you then realize that it is hosed up

Freudian
Mar 23, 2011

It's not even novel. Trying to gay-rape an angel was the sin of Sodom.

No Luck Needed
Mar 18, 2015

Ravel Crew
I am sorry for being an edgelord and making light of rape and homosexuality, I was trying to tell what I thought were funny stories of players making bad decisions. I don't mean to upset people about things I have no experience with in real life: rape. That is not the hill I want to die on. The hill I would defend is that in a roleplaying game for funsies to allow players freedom to make bad decisions. Failure is a path to improvement. In my failure of communication and empathy I didn't take into account that I would offended people and that was not my attempt.

girl dick energy
Sep 30, 2009

You think you have the wherewithal to figure out my puzzle vagina?
I'm having a really hard time telling if you're being sincere, sarcastic, or just facetious and over the top.

No Luck Needed
Mar 18, 2015

Ravel Crew

PMush Perfect posted:

I'm having a really hard time telling if you're being sincere, sarcastic, or just facetious and over the top.

yup communication is tricky

MelvinBison
Nov 17, 2012

"Is this the ideal world that you envisioned?"
"I guess you could say that."

Pillbug
An apology is still an improvement over the people who double down on defending their catpiss.

No Luck Needed posted:

My buddy Alex hadn’t played a full campaign with me as DM, we had done Reverse Dungeon and they defended the goblin lair from low level adventures and we had got about 25-30% through Paladin in Hell when they all died to the two-head black dragon. So we start a full campaign and Alex makes a good aligned battle cleric, able to use swords and stuff. Well everyone in the party went evil so they could do whatever they wanted. Alex didn’t know that was an option and transitioned into an evil character. Alex started by killing a ranger for the ranger’s magic spear (+2) that he then used to kill a paladin of his same faith for the paladin’s magic sword (+4). So I sent down the avatar of his god and beat him in a duel and took his divine power and allowed him to become a fighter and progress in the game. Cut to sometime later and the party is sneaking into the dungeon of an evil wizard. The party splits up to cover more ground and Alex and the thief find their way to the first level of the wizard’s tower. As they overcome the magic locks and enter a room I describe, “you see an angel bound to the wall by chains that radiate magical energy.”
Alex, “I rape the angel”
Me, “it is a dude angel not a lady”
Alex, “I don’t care I already said I was doing it”
That made us all laugh and we still tease him about it to this day

Still quoting this in case you delete it though because Good Lord, learn your lesson.

BadSamaritan
May 2, 2008

crumb by crumb in this big black forest


I’ll take it at face value.

Although I’ll disagree with a previous poster that letting a player choose to have their paladin character fall to join the rest of the evil party was necessarily bad DMing. It’s fine to let a player make that choice as long as the consequences don’t totally blindside them? It’s better than stubbornly requiring that they fight the rest of the evil party for the remainder of the character’s existence.

Granted, I don’t agree !at all! with how that evil party played, but giving the player an ‘out’ from a restrictive class in order to play with the group is a fine option. (I probably wouldn’t have done a whole DM duel thing and instead get the character set up with an evil god to continue being a nasty paladin, but whatever).

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Ilor
Feb 2, 2008

That's a crit.
OK, time for Moral Relativism 101 (Evil in Theory and Practice):

Something I see all the time in games where people decide they want to play as "evil" characters is that the resulting characters are cardboard caricatures. Their actions and motivations tend to be flimsy at best, and they do "edgy" stuff because, well, it's "eeee-vil!"

The real world doesn't work that way, and if you're at all concerned with verisimilitude, a fictional world shouldn't work that way either. The concepts of good or evil are rooted in subjective value judgments. But what is incredibly important is that in both cases, those value judgments are based on an internal logical framework that flows from a series of (usually fundamentally unprovable) assumptions. The crusader carrying the sword of god against the heathens is a scion of holiness to people who share his worldview, but he's a gods-damned heartless butcher to people who don't.

I don't have any problem with people playing character who are cruel, or callous, or greedy, or malicious, or vindictive, or any of a number of other personality traits that modern western civilization views as "bad," so long as those character traits are consistent and arise from the character's internal belief system. "Evil" people don't perform "evil" deeds "because they are evil." No, the true terror is that "normal" people perform "horrible" deeds "because they think they're justified." And usually, unless said "evil" act is of some tangible benefit to the person doing it, they won't. Because even "evil" people just look at some stuff and go, :effort: It takes work to be nasty all the time, just like it takes work to be good all the time.

And if you're going to play one of these characters, it helps to keep this internal justification in mind. When contemplating your potential character actions, go back to first principles and decide if whatever reprehensible thing you're about to do makes sense - because if it doesn't, you're just being an edgelord and you need a good smack.

I've run "evil" games before. One of my favorites was a long-running medieval fantasy game where the PCs were all members of the same Thieves' Guild. The character types were exactly what one might expect - pathological liars, con-men, vindictive burglars, and unpredictably violent thugs. They were a group of utterly reprehensible people doing some really awful things. But really? Mostly they were just trying to get ahead. And while they did so, they exhibited a lot of other traits as well - mercy, loyalty, camaraderie, sacrifice, and filial duty. They didn't do bad poo poo because that bad poo poo's inherent "evilness" was their end goal, they usually did it because they felt it was the most expedient way to achieve their real goals (which themselves were often motivated by greed or anger). "Hey, maybe if we just messily and publicly kill one of these dudes, the rest of them will quit loving with us and we can all get on with our lives." That game was fantastic because the characters were well-rounded, everyone was caught up in the unfolding story (essentially a gritty crime-drama), and no one was out to demonstrate just how "evil" they were.

You can be nasty without being cat-piss.

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