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Luigi's Discount Porn Bin
Jul 19, 2000


Oven Wrangler
My players went berserk on a setpiece the other day. They're private investigators hired to solve a murder in Waterdeep, and they've stumbled across a Skull & Bones style fraternity of bored, decadent old-money heirs that has slowly morphed into a cult of Tiamat-worshippers. The PCs managed to sneak and bluff their way into an Eyes Wide Shut kegger in a secret party tomb underneath the city's necropolis, in search of clues - unfortunately, it's pledge week, and to become full members, the new recruits had to grab some poor rando off the street, get them liquored up, and sacrifice them to the five-headed dragon goddess. The players figured this out surprisingly quickly and immediately set about trying to get as many of the frat bros blackout drunk as possible to try and save this poor halfling woman - the monk and rogue incapacitated a good four of them with some high rolls in games of Ale Pong and Evil Quarters, and the Paladin just carried around a tray of shots and intimidated the bros into knocking them back.

By the time the ceremonial gong rang and the sacrificial chamber door opened, half the partygoers were in the fetal position puking into braziers or passed out in the chill-out room. The battle that followed was an absolute slaughter and I'm still trying to figure out how a good half-dozen Waterdeep old money families are going to take having their sons and daughters bludgeoned to death by bumbling private eyes in a party tomb.

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Emery
Feb 8, 2012
The plague demon shakedown needs a little backstory that's equally worth telling, so strap in!

The characters at play here are myself, party face and local punch sorcerer, Aine our rogue, Blair the bard, Mia the warlock, and my favorite boy TONK DU STRONK, the half-orc half-ogre cleric who uses the door of a tavern called the Glorious Cock as a shield. There's also the DMPC we stole that druidic focus from in our first session, Eliana, but she's mostly here to propel the plot.

We took a contract in our starting town from Eliana to escort her to the big port town about a day's trip away, Dolmar. Along the way, Tonk decided to become a cook and gave everyone food poisoning, and we almost died to wolves, but that's a story for a different time. Basically, as soon as Dolmar came into view, it was extremely clear that something wasn't quite right, even if the shipment of military requisitions we were escorting let us know that trouble was on the horizon beforehand. For one thing, for a bustling trade hub, there wasn't a soul around, not even the town guard. For another, the gates were wide open and there was a pile of bodies in the street. Typically not what you'd call an auspicious introduction to a place, yet Mia and Tonk urged us to hop down off the carts to check it out, which didn't seem like a bad idea to everyone but me. As a joke I said hey, I'm not about to get fantasy black death, and I hang back at the cart while the rest of the party checks it out.

The first house they come to, Tonk decides he wants to take a look inside. Nobody had a good perception roll so he figured, what's the worst that could happen, right?

Tonk has an intelligence score of 8. There are some plants out there smarter than Tonk. Tonk should not be allowed to make his own decisions. He pokes his head in, sees bloody bandages and a visible miasma in the air, takes a deep breath, and gets asked to make a con save, which he passes. Tonk lets them know, as only a barely verbal giant can, that there's something in there that smells bad. Mia takes this as her cue to follow the lead of the big guy and also go into the poison house. Make a con save, she fails hers, and almost immediately her skin starts to get this hideous red rash. Tonk as well, though he's faring much better.

Beating a hasty retreat, we decided maybe the plague district isn't the best place to enter Dolmar. Following the road around, we get to the clean ward, where the healthy citizens have gathered, having no recourse in dealing with this plague which we learn very quickly has no cure and spreads like wildfire. Tonk and Mia just... cover their obvious plague rashes, and we resolve to deal with this problem at the root, lest people we actually know suffer some sort of consequence for their actions.

Before we do that, two things happen. One, Aine and I do a heist, where we get a great haul we share with absolutely no one else. The other, we commission a piece of armor for Tonk at the blacksmith. Tonk was absolutely overjoyed with his new piece of shiny metal, and so gave the blacksmith a nice, big hug. A nice big hug with his plagued up arms, covered in the plague that spreads by touch.

poo poo popped off extremely quickly after that with people getting infected all over. We 'commandeer' a bunch of supplies, learn of the torrid love between the blacksmith and his boyfriend the town guard we lovingly call Hoarse Shoutsman, figure out where the plage is coming from, and venture once more into the condemned district, making our way to the epicenter, an old church to a sea god that the first victims were taken to.

The first thing we do is debate whether we can just light the thing on fire and call it done for about 10 minutes until our very patient DM asks, "Are you trying to set the church on fire or not?" We say yes, definitely, and she half shouts, "IT'S MADE OF STONE GO INSIDE." Which, you can't really argue with. There's nothing but darkness when we open the doors, but by sheer happenstance, every person in our party except Tonk has Darkvision, so we instantly see these disgusting little creatures skittering about. Roll initiative, we kill two of them in the surprise round. Eliana goes first and does some sort of light arrow thing that I still don't understand and vaporizes three more. That just leaves one minor plague demon which immediately flees to a corner and hopes not to be noticed.

He is, in fact, noticed, and we surround him. Mia conjures up a flame, intuiting that they don't like light from the dingy, dark church they holed up in. The DM asks what we want to do, and I ask her, "What language do these things speak?" She pauses, looks it up, and tells me, "Infernal." Aine, our dear rogue, is half-elf, half-tiefling and gets that right out of the box. I learned it to interpret the various swears and curses Aine hurls at me frequently.

"How much is your life worth?" is how we started out in a language it hurts to even hear. Mia waved her flame closer, a clear threat even though she has absolutely no idea what's happening.
"I can give you information in exchange for my life!"
"Oh sure, we'll get to your boss and this disease. I'm asking how much coin is your life worth."
"I... I know of a stash here in the church, belonging to the dead and taken as tithe?"
"How much." Another wave of the fire and a soft whimper from the demon.
"Enough to make it worth your while!"
"We'll see about that, won't we?"

Aine then binds the demon to herself temporarily, forces it to lead us to a hidden stash with about a hundred gold in it, give or take, we wring out of it that the big daddy plague demon is causing all this and we really just have to kill it, and then we turned it loose. Let it never be said we're not mercenaries of our word.

This was followed immediately by walking out the back door, getting a surprise round on the big daddy plague beast, tallying three crits, and killing it instantly. Eliana, in the meantime, got snatched by a Fey through a glowing purple portal that everyone except Mia failed to see somehow, and we immediately lay claim to her flying sword rather than questioning what happened to her. It's now Aine's main weapon.

JBP
Feb 16, 2017

You've got to know, to understand,
Baby, take me by my hand,
I'll lead you to the promised land.

Luigi's Discount Porn Bin posted:

I'm still trying to figure out how a good half-dozen Waterdeep old money families are going to take having their sons and daughters bludgeoned to death by bumbling private eyes in a party tomb.

This is awesome and it's definitely time to introduce some kid's extremely powerful (and super loving angry) mum/dad and friends. Have some blowback for the players too. Kill someone they like (or take their poo poo if they're just psychotic magpies).

Agrikk
Oct 17, 2003

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

JBP posted:

This is awesome and it's definitely time to introduce some kid's extremely powerful (and super loving angry) mum/dad and friends. Have some blowback for the players too. Kill someone they like (or take their poo poo if they're just psychotic magpies).

This is the best kind of city adventuring. Have the players show up to the town and do A Thing that pisses off tons of important people. Then sit back and let the campaign run itself.

Agrikk
Oct 17, 2003

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

The Invincible Overlord pours himself a glass of water from a pitcher and continues, “The Exile seeks to free the Daughter of the Night from her prison. As Raknian said, the ulgurstasta is an apostle to the Queen of Chaos. A harbinger of the Daughter of the Night. The Deceivers have played Loris Raknian beautifully: enticing him to summon the ulgurstasta and become a Death Knight created an explosion of necrotic energy that has weakened and tainted this City’s defenses and made her liberation possible. Besieged in Overwatch these long years, I am not able to intervene directly as I might and I need to understand the manner of her return and any methods available to prevent her escape. I need you to fetch some objects that have been stolen from people who stole it from a person who stole it from their rightful owners. These objects will help you get the attention of and subsequently meet the one who knows the most about the period of time when the Daughter was originally imprisoned.”

“What about our friends?” asks Snakeeyes.

“They are safe. I am able to discern the locations and health of every living being in this city and your friends are holed up in their guildhalls and in the depths of the sewers and will be fine unless further disaster strikes. Your friend Allustan has fled the City and was heading East before he was out of range. The Exile has shielded herself from me but I now know where she is though her proximity to her Lieutenants. Marjah and the Black Adders, my secret police, have been hunting her minions though the streets and now her fortified guild house is lightly guarded.”

“Excuse me m’lord,” says Rennida the elf. “We are but simple mercenaries with bows for hire. We have no desire to seek out more trouble than we have already found ourselves in since coming to Thalos.”

“Nor I,” says Khellek. “Auric and I came for the Games and now Auric is a pile of half-digested bones in a city of undead! Please, sir, let me be.”

Van Neuman pauses, idly stroking his chin. “No, my lovelies. You are late arrivals to a game that does not concern you.” He gestures to us four. “When our guests leave the City, I can take you with them and you can go your own ways. Until that time, though, please consider yourselves guests of Overwatch. But you are all weary and I have business to which I must attend. You will be escorted to your chambers where you may bathe and rest. Feel free to roam the halls when you are refreshed.”

Slab Squatthrust
Jun 3, 2008

This is mutiny!
So I'm just going to pop in here and gush about Forbidden Lands a bit. Forbidden Lands is a game by the same company that did Mutant Year Zero, and it's got that same sort of roll dice and look for 6's system. In this case, the setting is a fairly gritty, low-fantasy setting that really focuses heavily on exploration and that old-school feel of early DnD. The players aren't heroes so much as people looking to make money exploring ruins and taking things, resources like food/water/travel are used without being totally miserable to manage. It also leans heavily into the "fighting is really scary and dangerous" angle, and encourages the players and GM to not just dive into combat headfirst always. The setting and encounters do a good job of driving home the feel of the world as larger than yourselves and full of really weird poo poo. And it goes full 80's fantasy weirdness, with demons that just hide places pretending to be people doing weird poo poo, elves are immortal and have giant rubies embedded in their chest, halflings and goblins are the same race, etc.

So for example, one encounter we ran into was an Ogre walking along carrying a big-rear end sack with an obviously struggling something inside it. Now, notable in this setting is that Ogres are the weird hybrid-vigor resulting offspring of Dwarves and Humans, so while they're monstrous, they aren't monsters. And this big dude, while carrying the sack, is just singing a bit of a trail tune in a voice that I can only describe as "Little John from Robin Hood Men in Tights but if he were 16 feet tall".

Well, being the concerned bastards we were, our halfling minstrel decided to ask the Ogre what's up with the sack. We expected maybe he'd claim it was an animal or something, or try and lie about it somehow, you know the usual poo poo-i-just-got-caught-carrying-a-guy responses. But this dude? Nah, big guy just flat out tells us it's a Rust Brother (creepy faction of assholes that worship the god Rust and also the demon-sorceror that hosed up the entire region) in there, and that he's gonna rip his arms and legs off to cook him later.

"Oh. Uh, well then, have a nice day!" says the halfling, and with a tip of his nonexistent hat, he gets back to strolling past the Ogre. Who quickly shrugs and gets back to walking as well. The rest of the party is sharing looks of mixed horror and amusement. Cause, on one hand, gently caress that sounds like a pretty brutal way to go and you hate to let that happen to a guy. Buuuuut on the other hand, gently caress the Rust Brothers. And really, we told ourselves, it's not like either one probably had any money to take even if we did rescue the guy. Guessing he did not end up having a great day.

Another time, we ended up in a town full of slaver assholes and ended up killing a bunch of them, triggering a crazy power struggle between factions in the town that resulted in the death of the slaver leader and several others, stole a demon-touched puppy that's now being raised by our Dwarven thief, and managed to (barely) survive the fallout and skip town with the help of the head of the rival faction to the slavers. Managing to hide out overnight, inside his house, with our horses and all certainly did wonders for our image and dignity.

Basically, the game is crazy and leans hard into the sandbox style of play and has a lot of good tools for doing that. There's some rough edges but less than most systems I've played, and the setting is just off-center enough from the standard fantasy tropes that I keep feeling surprised and interested in all kinds of things.

Agrikk
Oct 17, 2003

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

A ghostly specter of a fair man in plate armor arrives and bids us to follow him, and the nine of us and three flesh golems are taken up several floors to a suite of chambers. They are lush, roomy and richly furnished and we collapse into our rooms to emerge several hours later fed, bathed and refreshed.

Marja and the specter summon Severance, Ospar, Snakeeyes and I into a gigantic library that she calls the Map Room and she speaks, “We have delayed long enough. It is time to strike at the Deceivers and recover what we need from them.”

She gestures to a giant map of Thalos spread out on a platform. It is maybe ten feet on a side and beautifully drawn. It is eerily precise with building footprints represented to a detail that would make any second story man weep with joy.

She indicates a building on the border between the Nobles Quarter and the Merchants Quarter and says, “Captured Stranglers have indicated that this is the building serving as the current stronghold for the Deceivers. You will infiltrate the Strangler Stronghold and retrieve two items for us: The Ebon Stone and the Heart of Light.”

She describes to us the Heart of Light as a polished diamond the size of a child’s fist and the Ebon Stone as a similar-sized sphere of polished obsidian.

“Be careful handling these two objects. The Heart will attack anyone with evil in their heart and the Ebon Stone will destroy enchanted items and damage those of noble spirit.”

Ospar asks, “What is the point of these objects? Who would make such silliness?”

Marja replies, “The intent and owner are not necessary to know just yet. I will say no more on the subject until you have recovered them. Ready yourselves. We cannot portal within Overwatch so I will take you out the back of the keep and you will cast your portal into Shadow Thalos from there.”

We follow her and I cannot help but notice Snakeeyes’ muteness. He has said very little since coming to Overwatch but I cannot ask him for fear that it is about reconnecting his mother’s body to her spirit.

We follow Marja outside into the courtyard of the keep and she says, “I am going to make a hole in the wall of the keep. I fear to keep it open for too long lest undead or demons discover the breach and attack so you must hurry through and cast your portal into the Shadow. From there you can make your assault against the Deceivers, but be careful. Archmages and their minions are actively patrolling there now.”

She casts some kind of spell and a perfect hole opens though the wall of Overwatch and we rush through before closing it behind us. We are standing in the abandoned wreckage of the market plaza, with carts overturned, vendor stalls smashed to splinters and the splatter of gore everywhere. The normal din of the City is muted dramatically but in the distance are howls and screams of the purest hatred I have ever heard.

Ospar looks at the ruin. “This place would be a scavenger’s dream,” he says as he toes a pile of broken wooden cutlery from one of the stalls.

“But they would die before recovering it,” says Snakeeyes curtly. “Let us get on with it.”

Severance opens a portal and we enter Shadow Thalos, shifting from the world of color to the plane of shadow once again.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer

Agrikk posted:

This is the best kind of city adventuring. Have the players show up to the town and do A Thing that pisses off tons of important people. Then sit back and let the campaign run itself.

I look forward to them burning Waterdeep down to the bare entrance of Undermountain.

Luigi's Discount Porn Bin
Jul 19, 2000


Oven Wrangler

Bieeanshee posted:

I look forward to them burning Waterdeep down to the bare entrance of Undermountain.
Honestly, it's not far from happening. Their apartment in the South Ward was torched by a corrupt cop and they've joined a gang of adorable anarcho-syndicalist sewer kobolds who were framed for the original murder. They are about one argument with a snobby city official away from commissioning a guillotine at this point.

masam
May 27, 2010
Please, they're PC’s. They’ll burn the underdark too.

Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!

Luigi's Discount Porn Bin posted:

anarcho-syndicalist sewer kobolds
If this didn't spawn at least one Monty Python derail I would be loving floored.

CobiWann
Oct 21, 2009

Have fun!
Last night at our Mage LARP the smug Christian cultist preacher who has been beguiling our Mages and taking over the town found out the hard way that there ARE such a thing as Buddhist celestials ("Devas" is the catch all phrase) and you should never piss off a Buddhist Akashic PC that knows the Spirit rote "My God Can Beat Up Your God."

Hate-O-Tron
Apr 1, 2007
TL;DR - I spent 20 years playing RPGs with right wing survivalists, aunt-fuckers, gun nuts, hentai loving potheads, and assorted cat piss.

Okay, I've been holding onto these for a while, but I have 15 some odd years of cat-piss stories to throw around that I've been suppressing and the lull in that ammonia-scented stream is something I guess I'll contribute too.

I started gaming when I was 11, hanging around with my older brother's friends. This was early 90's, so I started out on 2nd edition. It wasn't until my late teens and early 20's that the cat piss became noticeable. By the time, it was a pretty wide array of characters.

Brian - My friend to this day, Brian started out as a libertarian right gun nut pervert that loved porn. He had a literal mailbag full of porn mags that he bought in bulk. He's since chilled out to be a leftist gun nut pervert trapped in a loveless marriage, but that's neither here nor there. Brian got a Masters degree in History and incorporated a lot of his own perversities and historic fact into the games. Which got kinda "DARE YOU ENTER THE ENCHANTED PISS-FOREST?" at times, but made for interesting games.

Tex - Tex was our primary DM through the longest running campaign we had, a 2nd edition AD&D campaign set in Waterdeep. Tex was kinda strange. He had a libertarian streak, but he never got too far into politics before he disappeared. In hindsight, I think he might have been a bit on the autistic side because he was a math/programming genius and obssessed over the details of the campaign with binders of character sheets for practically every NPC we ever met. He sorta hobbited up and cut contact with everybody, then moved out to California and as best I can piece together, he became estranged from his family after he started having an affair with his aunt (by marriage) while his uncle was on his deathbed. I am friends with him on social media, but I rarely hear from him. Seems he's gone super catholic late in life.

Jesse - I could write a book on Jesse all onto himself. I may very well might anyway if he ever snaps and goes on a killing spree, assuming I'm spared a bullet. He was the son of an evangelical preacher/Nam Vet. He is a bona fide crypto-fascist nutcase, but was my best friend for 10 years. I ended up living with him for a few years before my filthy leftist politics were too much for him. He was a survivalist and avid right winger, and later went on to become a prison guard in one of the most notoriously corrupt and violent prisons in the US. He was full on frenemies with Brian, and when they split I had to listen to him complain about the guy for years afterwards. Jesse lived in a dilapidated 2 story duplex that he bought from his parents for the longest and it looked like the Paper Street House from Fight Club. It served as the primary setting for most of these stories.

Willie - Willie looked like an Albino Brian Posehn with a Lazy Eye, and lived in abject poverty because his deadbeat brother would mooch off of him (and probably still is, last I checked). Willie got brought to the table by Brian, when they both worked in the mail room of the local newspaper. Despite being dead broke and working his rear end off, he would never miss a game. Unfortunately, Willie had the lowest common denominator tastes and very little creativity despite being fairly smart. Most of his characters were pastiches of something he saw in a Vin Diesel movie or read in a D&D novel. He also had a habit of punctuating his sentences with "Dang Heck.", something that got him mercilessly ribbed in the time we played with him.

That's the primary cast, but I have a god awful amount of stories with others littered here and there. I'll throw one out here and then just list summaries and I'll let whoever gives a poo poo pick.

GENOCIDE IS UNIVERSALLY TABOO, WILLIE!

Brian was running a game of Birthright in which we all played mercenaries working black ops intrigue for a Thieves Guild master. Birthright was a setting that was a mix of Highlander, classical Tolkien fantasy, and Crusader Kings, in which normally the players would play regents of countries or leaders of a sect of a faith or so on. Most of the campaign was spent doing assassination/theft/false flag operations, all sorts of skull duggery. I was playing an Arabic-sty;ed Wizard/Thief that was playing double agent after getting ahold of a paladin's holy, intelligent scimitar. Jesse played a Cleric of the God of Conquest with a 19 strength, an 7'6" goliath that was all Blood for the Blood God. Willie was playing an evil fighter that had a skull helmet styled after the Lieutenant in Willow. Most of the campaign was me steering them towards something to act as a distraction while I skulked around.

By the time this adventure came around, my character learned we were working indirectly for the Gorgon (The Big Bad of the setting) to destabilize the continent for easy conquest, hence my double-agenting to minimize damage and gathering resources/allies for counter-espionage. This adventure had us go into Bin-Sada, which was the western most country of the Arabic/Middle-Eastern region. Primarily Bedouin-style horse nomads, they have massive castle stronghold that they commissioned a dwarven country to make for them and then stiffed them. We got hired to help them steal the gold and just wreck their poo poo. And of course, being PCs in an evil campaign, we obliged them. We murdered and divested (stole their divine power) the royal family save for the Queen, poisoned their wells, raised their dead from the family crypts (Via NPC Necromancer) and just went ripshit riot.

In the chaos, I decided it was time to cut my losses as this was a bridge too far, so the moment I was alone with the NPC Necromancer, I ran him through and killed him with a backstab, sent a warning to a nearby order of Paladins and tried to escape. Only the sword took me over (cause I did some pretty horrible poo poo, as a spy is wont to do) and made me turn myself in (Fuckin bastard sword). I ended up escaping my jail cell thanks to a blood ability to turn into a bird, but Jesse and Willie both got beheaded. Willie himself was cornered by a group of Paladins, wearing a blood-drenched skull helmet and black spiked armor, the bodies of palace servants laying at his feet, and he uttered a line which was infamous in our group for years to come.

"I am a stranger to your lands, I know not the ways of your people. Dang Heck."

After a moment of stunned silence from the rest of us, Brian replied, "Willie, genocide is universally taboo."

The campaign fell apart after that, and Jesse was pissed over the betrayal for years, but it was fun while it lasted.


Other Stories
-----------------------
Scum and Villainy: Tales of the Coruscant Steamer
Me & Willie in Cat Piss Hell
Moratorium on Human Jerky
UN Marshals vs. Apes on Drugs
Vasilee Strangles Puppies Every Morning
White Phosphorous is the Quicker Fixer Upper
Paranoia with a Pederast

Synthbuttrange
May 6, 2007

Emery posted:

supposed to be a recurring miniboss character

death flag

Preechr
May 19, 2009

Proud member of the Pony-Brony Alliance for Obama as President

Absolutely this. In my groups, mini bosses get turbomurdered and the one ordinary mook who got away evolves into the big bad.

Agrikk
Oct 17, 2003

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

Preechr posted:

Absolutely this. In my groups, mini bosses get turbomurdered and the one ordinary mook who got away evolves into the big bad.

We had a Harnmaster campaign in which we abducted a random street urchin to get him to tell us about the goings-on. We tortured and interrogated him and had him suspended above a chasm by a rope and when we were done interrogating him we simply cut the rope and let him fall into the abyss. The GM was put out by our abhorrent behavior and the random urchin survived the fall and became the Greasy Kid. The Greasy Kid would plague our steps for years. For so long, in fact, that he actually graduated to become the Greasy Adolescent.

I love sandbox gaming.

Agrikk
Oct 17, 2003

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

We enter Shadow Thalos and the fact that it is intact is in stark contrast to the current state of the actual City. We press on though streets uncluttered by barricades, wreckage and corpses towards the building that van Neuman identified as the Deceiver base of operations.

As we approach, the target building is readily apparent due to the number of Red Eyes standing grim and motionless around the perimeter. After some debate on how to proceed against eternally-aware, supernatural spirits of shadow with incredible flight-based mobility, we decide the direct approach would be the most effective so Severance and I unleash a barrage of fire and ice against the guards in front of the building and follow behind Snakeeyes and Ospar as they cut their way through and into the building.

What ensues is a running battle against Red Eyes and undead wights as we head into the building and up the stairs towards the room most likely to be used as a treasury or vault. The presence of wights actually works in our favor as Ospar and I seize control of several each to use as shields against the other wights. We fight our way to the target room and I create a portal back to Thalos and we send our wights through, following close behind.

Our target room turns out to be a sitting room and not any kind of treasury, so we begin a room-to-room search of the place, battling crazed stranglers, zombies and wights. The wights behave in a coordinated fashion similar to our own and we quickly are beset by the undead controlled by the Exile’s Lieutenant- the greasy-haired human that we first met at the Red Axe Inn. It is our undead against his undead, our spells against his spells and we finally cut him down with the rest of his Deceivers even as they scream at us about the Age of Chaos approaching.

We do manage to clear the floor of undead that are actively trying to kill us and are able to locate a vault. Ospar manages to get the lock open on the door and in addition to a small amount of gold, silver and gems are two stout boxes of iron sitting on a shelf. Severance and Ospar grab a box each and as they pull the boxes off the shelf there is a spark and a puff of smoke and an acrid smell that Severance recognizes instantly.

“Alchemical fire! Let’s go!”

I quickly whirl and throw up a portal near the doorway, neatly slicing a zombie with an edge of it as it flashes into existence and we pile through into Shadow Thalos.

The explosion throws debris and fire through the portal and we avoid most of the blast by diving to the side of the portal and out of the immediate way of the blast, but Ospar catches a flaming spar across the back and he is sent sprawling. We are immediately beset by the remaining minions of the Shadow Guildhouse and we have to battle our way out of the building all over again.

Tears streaming from soot-filled eyes and reeking from the toxic smoke of the explosion, we reach the street and flee from the undead mob. We enjoy a game of cat-and-mouse with our pursuit until we thin their numbers enough to finally shake them and reach the market plaza in front of Overwatch. A quick portal and we are back in Thalos and though the gates and safety, reeking of chemical smoke, death and bloodshed.

The_Final_Stand
Nov 2, 2013

So cute and cuddly

Preechr posted:

Absolutely this. In my groups, mini bosses get turbomurdered...

Can confirm.

I had an Oni leading a group of ogres ambush the party while they were asleep in the forest. Initially it all went well, they sneaked up on the druid and grabbed her from behind. What I they forgot is that druids have a nasty habit of turning into bears, which this one did, and she roared to awaken the rest of the party.
Battle was joined, and though the druid went down (two ogres and an Oni surrounding and beating on you will do that, even through bear form), the party managed to fight off most of the ogres. Seeing the battle turn, and having taken a bruising herself, the Oni turned invisible and started fleeing.
Naturally, at that very moment, the Wild Magic sorcerer had procced the result that lets them see invisible creatures, and further, they had a Wand of Magic Missiles they _just_ brought. One expenditure of all the charges later, the Oni is dead on the ground, much to my frustration.

EthanSteele
Nov 18, 2007

I can hear you
Gotta be all about the Factions and Fronts from pbta

JustJeff88
Jan 15, 2008

I AM
CONSISTENTLY
ANNOYING
...
JUST TERRIBLE


THIS BADGE OF SHAME IS WORTH 0.45 DOUBLE DRAGON ADVANCES

:dogout:
of SA-Mart forever

Hate-O-Tron posted:

TL;DR - I spent 20 years playing RPGs with right wing survivalists, aunt-fuckers, gun nuts, hentai loving potheads, and assorted cat piss.

Okay, I've been holding onto these for a while, but I have 15 some odd years of cat-piss stories to throw around that I've been suppressing and the lull in that ammonia-scented stream is something I guess I'll contribute too.

I started gaming when I was 11, hanging around with my older brother's friends. This was early 90's, so I started out on 2nd edition. It wasn't until my late teens and early 20's that the cat piss became noticeable. By the time, it was a pretty wide array of characters.

Brian - My friend to this day, Brian started out as a libertarian right gun nut pervert that loved porn. He had a literal mailbag full of porn mags that he bought in bulk. He's since chilled out to be a leftist gun nut pervert trapped in a loveless marriage, but that's neither here nor there. Brian got a Masters degree in History and incorporated a lot of his own perversities and historic fact into the games. Which got kinda "DARE YOU ENTER THE ENCHANTED PISS-FOREST?" at times, but made for interesting games.

Tex - Tex was our primary DM through the longest running campaign we had, a 2nd edition AD&D campaign set in Waterdeep. Tex was kinda strange. He had a libertarian streak, but he never got too far into politics before he disappeared. In hindsight, I think he might have been a bit on the autistic side because he was a math/programming genius and obssessed over the details of the campaign with binders of character sheets for practically every NPC we ever met. He sorta hobbited up and cut contact with everybody, then moved out to California and as best I can piece together, he became estranged from his family after he started having an affair with his aunt (by marriage) while his uncle was on his deathbed. I am friends with him on social media, but I rarely hear from him. Seems he's gone super catholic late in life.

Jesse - I could write a book on Jesse all onto himself. I may very well might anyway if he ever snaps and goes on a killing spree, assuming I'm spared a bullet. He was the son of an evangelical preacher/Nam Vet. He is a bona fide crypto-fascist nutcase, but was my best friend for 10 years. I ended up living with him for a few years before my filthy leftist politics were too much for him. He was a survivalist and avid right winger, and later went on to become a prison guard in one of the most notoriously corrupt and violent prisons in the US. He was full on frenemies with Brian, and when they split I had to listen to him complain about the guy for years afterwards. Jesse lived in a dilapidated 2 story duplex that he bought from his parents for the longest and it looked like the Paper Street House from Fight Club. It served as the primary setting for most of these stories.

Willie - Willie looked like an Albino Brian Posehn with a Lazy Eye, and lived in abject poverty because his deadbeat brother would mooch off of him (and probably still is, last I checked). Willie got brought to the table by Brian, when they both worked in the mail room of the local newspaper. Despite being dead broke and working his rear end off, he would never miss a game. Unfortunately, Willie had the lowest common denominator tastes and very little creativity despite being fairly smart. Most of his characters were pastiches of something he saw in a Vin Diesel movie or read in a D&D novel. He also had a habit of punctuating his sentences with "Dang Heck.", something that got him mercilessly ribbed in the time we played with him.

That's the primary cast, but I have a god awful amount of stories with others littered here and there. I'll throw one out here and then just list summaries and I'll let whoever gives a poo poo pick.

GENOCIDE IS UNIVERSALLY TABOO, WILLIE!

Brian was running a game of Birthright in which we all played mercenaries working black ops intrigue for a Thieves Guild master. Birthright was a setting that was a mix of Highlander, classical Tolkien fantasy, and Crusader Kings, in which normally the players would play regents of countries or leaders of a sect of a faith or so on. Most of the campaign was spent doing assassination/theft/false flag operations, all sorts of skull duggery. I was playing an Arabic-sty;ed Wizard/Thief that was playing double agent after getting ahold of a paladin's holy, intelligent scimitar. Jesse played a Cleric of the God of Conquest with a 19 strength, an 7'6" goliath that was all Blood for the Blood God. Willie was playing an evil fighter that had a skull helmet styled after the Lieutenant in Willow. Most of the campaign was me steering them towards something to act as a distraction while I skulked around.

By the time this adventure came around, my character learned we were working indirectly for the Gorgon (The Big Bad of the setting) to destabilize the continent for easy conquest, hence my double-agenting to minimize damage and gathering resources/allies for counter-espionage. This adventure had us go into Bin-Sada, which was the western most country of the Arabic/Middle-Eastern region. Primarily Bedouin-style horse nomads, they have massive castle stronghold that they commissioned a dwarven country to make for them and then stiffed them. We got hired to help them steal the gold and just wreck their poo poo. And of course, being PCs in an evil campaign, we obliged them. We murdered and divested (stole their divine power) the royal family save for the Queen, poisoned their wells, raised their dead from the family crypts (Via NPC Necromancer) and just went ripshit riot.

In the chaos, I decided it was time to cut my losses as this was a bridge too far, so the moment I was alone with the NPC Necromancer, I ran him through and killed him with a backstab, sent a warning to a nearby order of Paladins and tried to escape. Only the sword took me over (cause I did some pretty horrible poo poo, as a spy is wont to do) and made me turn myself in (Fuckin bastard sword). I ended up escaping my jail cell thanks to a blood ability to turn into a bird, but Jesse and Willie both got beheaded. Willie himself was cornered by a group of Paladins, wearing a blood-drenched skull helmet and black spiked armor, the bodies of palace servants laying at his feet, and he uttered a line which was infamous in our group for years to come.

"I am a stranger to your lands, I know not the ways of your people. Dang Heck."

After a moment of stunned silence from the rest of us, Brian replied, "Willie, genocide is universally taboo."

The campaign fell apart after that, and Jesse was pissed over the betrayal for years, but it was fun while it lasted.


Other Stories
-----------------------
Scum and Villainy: Tales of the Coruscant Steamer
Me & Willie in Cat Piss Hell
Moratorium on Human Jerky
UN Marshals vs. Apes on Drugs
Vasilee Strangles Puppies Every Morning
White Phosphorous is the Quicker Fixer Upper
Paranoia with a Pederast

I just wanted to say that I enjoyed this, in no small part because I am incapable of playing a genuinely bad/evil character both IRL and elsewhere. Please post the rest of your stories eventually (but not all at once)

Golden Bee
Dec 24, 2009

I came here to chew bubblegum and quote 'They Live', and I'm... at an impasse.
Sometimes, dice beat genre.

We were in a noir mystery one-shot. I was the arrogant criminologist, paired with the reformed thug. Across town, the cop trying to make a difference got a confession out of the chief, proving deep corruption and ties to a state senator.

Across town, we visit Mr. senator, using his secretary as a contact. Closed the door... and hit him with the facts. He had commissioned murder for hire to keep a local mine running... then killed the family of the man who knew about it.

We read the evidence… Put a knife to his throat… And then rolled four dice, none of them a five or higher.
Somehow we had failed the interrogation.
We coldcock the guy, claim he was having a heart attack, and drag him to the 'hospital', a.k.a. a room with a bare hanging lightbulb.

Where we roll again… And have just as bad results.

Seven dice, all 1-4.
Damnit.

Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Aug 15, 2023

Cassius Belli
May 22, 2010

horny is prohibited

Golden Bee posted:

Sometimes, dice beat genre.

We were in a noir mystery one shot. I was the arrogant criminologist, paired with the reformed thug. Across town, the cop trying to make a difference got a confession out of the chief, proving deep corruption and ties to a state senator.

Across town, we visit mr. senator, using his secretary as a contact. Closed the door... and hit him with the facts. He had commissioned murder for hire to keep a local mine running... then killed the family of the man who knew about it.

We read wthe evidence… Put a knife to his throat… And then rolled four dice, none of them a five or higher.
Somehow we had failed the interrogation.
We coldcock the guy, claim he was having a heart attack and drag him to the 'hospital', a.k.a. a room with a bare hanging lightbulb.

Where we roll again… And have just as bad results.

Seven dice, all 1-4.
Damnit.

So what you're saying is that your characters forgot that Mr. Senator first entered politics campaigning on his record as a local boy turned tough-as-nails war hero.

Tunicate
May 15, 2012

He played college ball, you know.

CobiWann
Oct 21, 2009

Have fun!
In last night’s Marvel Superheroes RPG, my PC managed to successfully land a Quinjet during combat without crashing it.

Cooked Auto
Aug 4, 2007

CobiWann posted:

In last night’s Marvel Superheroes RPG, my PC managed to successfully land a Quinjet during combat without crashing it.

Did it explode afterwards?

DivineCoffeeBinge
Mar 3, 2011

Spider-Man's Amazing Construction Company

CobiWann posted:

In last night’s Marvel Superheroes RPG, my PC managed to successfully land a Quinjet during combat without crashing it.

If your GM doesn't have every single Avenger not already being played by a player rush up to them afterwards demanding to know how they did it, I will be disappointed

I'm picturing the Wakandan Design Group all looking at each other going "We didn't even give the thing wheels, we knew they'd always be crashing! How the hell did he pull it off?!?"

CobiWann
Oct 21, 2009

Have fun!

DivineCoffeeBinge posted:

If your GM doesn't have every single Avenger not already being played by a player rush up to them afterwards demanding to know how they did it, I will be disappointed

We're Avengers-in-training - think Avengers Academy but done in the style of the early 90's so tons of jokes about pouches/shoulder pads/female posture/issue covers that lie/SO MUCH loving ANGST! - so we've already made jokes about getting back to HQ and Jocasta telling us that every time they tried to recreate the landing in the simulation room everything exploded. Everything.

Aniodia
Feb 23, 2016

Literally who?

CobiWann posted:

We're Avengers-in-training - think Avengers Academy but done in the style of the early 90's so tons of jokes about pouches/shoulder pads/female posture/issue covers that lie/SO MUCH loving ANGST!
So, MSH meets B.L.O.O.D.P.O.U.C.H., huh?

DivineCoffeeBinge
Mar 3, 2011

Spider-Man's Amazing Construction Company

CobiWann posted:

We're Avengers-in-training - think Avengers Academy but done in the style of the early 90's so tons of jokes about pouches/shoulder pads/female posture/issue covers that lie/SO MUCH loving ANGST! - so we've already made jokes about getting back to HQ and Jocasta telling us that every time they tried to recreate the landing in the simulation room everything exploded. Everything.

Waiting for Tony Stark to corral the Quinjet pilot and offer them "literally more money than you can spend in your entire life, kid, just walk me through how you did it" only to be shooed out of the room by Captain America

CobiWann
Oct 21, 2009

Have fun!

Aniodia posted:

So, MSH meets B.L.O.O.D.P.O.U.C.H., huh?

My DM didn’t know this was a thing.

He now knows this is a thing.

Golden Bee
Dec 24, 2009

I came here to chew bubblegum and quote 'They Live', and I'm... at an impasse.
Diplomacy was difficult this week in fellowship. The elf drew a dragon out of a thundercloud, but instead of using his talk to monsters ability, the harbinger attacked it with a venomous spit. He went down hard, which teaches the lesson not to get into a spitting match with a dragon.

The giant threw the kobold onto the dragon... But the latter fell off, instead of intimidating it with a spear to the neck.

After that, the giant dragged it out of the sky and killed it, which enraged its followers. But, being a giant of legend, he wrestled the creature's soul back into its body. At this point, the elf asked the dragon to either help out or return to the ocean, which it did.

Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 04:04 on Aug 15, 2023

Ichabod Sexbeast
Dec 5, 2011

Giving 'em the old razzle-dazzle

Golden Bee posted:

After that the giant dragged it out of the sky and killed it, which enraged its followers. But, being a giant of legend, he wrestled the creature soul back into its body. At this point, the elf asked the dragon to either help out or return to the ocean, which it did.

*gets stone cold stunnered back to life from the top rope of the astral plane*

"Yeah, I'm just going for a swim now. Need to clear my head."

Aniodia
Feb 23, 2016

Literally who?

CobiWann posted:

My DM didn’t know this was a thing.

He now knows this is a thing.

:unsmigghh:

You're very welcome, and also I'm sorry for what's to come.

Magical Dolly
Nov 27, 2015
The following letter was received by our DM after she tried talking with a problem player. It came from the problem player's other DM.

someone who should have never gotten involved posted:

To Whom it May Concern,

You may refer to me as Critical 20. I have received a copy of the “Contract” you are putting on your players and see a few discrepancies. I have been a DM for 5 years and have been in party run by a DM with ten years under his belt. I have witnessed sessions by DMs who have been going at it for at least 30 years or more as well, so I feel as though I have some authority to speak on the matter. I have had to learn many things the hard way. I have learned that D&D is not simply a game but an experience. I think that many of the things on your contract are going to restrict the players severely.

My first point of concern is that by definition a contract has to be agreed upon by all involved parties. I have been told otherwise. Forcing rules on your players without them seeing why you have enforced them is dangerous and can lead to a party disbanding and the closure of a campaign. I have seen this before. Players have left due to a rule change I have made. It is a very dangerous path to go down and implementing so many rules at once is dangerous.

First let me start off by saying what I agree with in your contract. Unannounced die rolls should always be rerolled. That is a good rule to implement and to hold onto for as long as possible. It is good to split treasure between the party; however you cannot force this and have to let players keep what they find. They will not want to part with that one magic item they have found even if it benefits another party member more. Often they will use that as leverage over the other party member. You need to let them do that. Also, when they have decided, you should not use your power to overrule it.

Secondly, I must go into what I disagree with in this contract. Die rolls against PCs should be allowed as it allows for more character interaction even if that action is hostile at the time. It will also let your players stay in character more than they normally would. I have found that some people are better at staying in character than others. Some simply need a spark to trigger their role-playing. Rolls against other players can often be this “spark”. Along with this, is player vs player or PVP combat. You cannot force a party to get along, but after many sessions and adventures together. After they have saved even the party members they hate most, they might get along. You must remember, however, that you cannot force it and must let it go by its due course. By forbidding PVP you can save someone from an additional character creation session, but you may also forbid them the opportunity to learn from it. As I said before, D&D is an experience and not simply a game.

Next I would speak about your words on player discomfort. Most players, when they feel uncomfortable will not share this knowledge, and if they do they will not wish to announce it to the party. I have found the best way to deal with this is to let the session play out and invite the players to speak with you afterwards in private about what made them uncomfortable and then to not implement that in the future. Keep in mind though, using plot that makes a player or two uncomfortable or that they feel strongly about is a good way to pull players into the game. I do this sometimes as one of my specialties is “Lines of Morality”. By implementing the individual players’ lines of morality I can pull any of them into the story at any time. I can move the plot in whatever direction I choose. I could even steer the players away if need be. Times when players are uncomfortable are the times they will remember more.

I would also like to address the issue that is the conundrum and primary discrepancy of this document. “Character Party Fit”. I will start by saying that no alignment should be prohibited. My father, who has played D&D since a year after its creation, once had an evil party member. Please keep in mind that his campaigns were 10 years long. The PC in question kept going behind the party’s back and making things harder for them while not appearing to be evil. They only found out once he was turned to stone. My father remembers this because the evil PC was played well and fit the party. I have had multiple evil PCs who have directly gone against the party and then made a new character. It helped the party grow closer together. I also have a concern about to the two other rules that make this one obsolete. I refer to “Honor Amongst Thieves” and “Murder Hobos”. These two rules and your clarification on them allows an entire party to become evil, let alone a single PC. With honor amongst thieves I again restate that you cannot force your party to trust each other as it will tear them apart; and with Murder Hobos… I greatly disagree with the allowance of this rule. D&D is an experience so by removing consequences, you have removed a great deal of the experience, and a chance for players to realize that every decision that they make bears meaning.

Though this may seem off-topic it in fact is not. My favorite game in the world is Mass-Effect 2. The combat system is terrible. The world is usually quite strange. So why do I love it? Everything you do has meaning. If I were to kill someone in Mass-Effect 1, they would not be there in the second, or third game. Each and every decision you make carries over to the sequels. That is why the game is amazing. If you take away that weight, you might as well have another rail-roading first person shooter like Halo. Halo is still fun, but it’s simply not the same. The difference between D&D and murder hobos can be summed up in one word, Munchkin, as that is why Munchkin was made.

Lastly, I would discuss your policy on rule debates. As a rules traditionalist myself, I know what you speak of personally. However, I have come to disagree with you on this matter. Sessions take a long time, and the flow may not always be perfect. However, the players need to understand those rules. That is why they ask. D&D is a very balanced game. I understand house rules and all that, but house rules are meant to be permanent. A single rule clarification that would take only a few minutes to look up could change the course of an entire session. Therefore, I would recommend that you look up the rules as they are brought into question

Remember that the DM is simply a narrator. The term of DM and GM give a much larger sense of power than is intended as the word “master” is often deceiving. Gary Gigax, co-creator of D&D meant it to be called “The Narrator” thereby limiting the power of the DM. When I DM, I view it as a service to my players and am glad that they wish to explore the world I have made. Though I do jokingly refer to myself as “a cosmic force” I, in fact let the party influence the story more than I influence it. While I know that they will not question my decisions all the time, I usually make sure that they do not have to. I allow them to do things that are not necessarily by the book even though I am a rules traditionalist. Let me also just say that, as a prospective author, my campaigns would be very different if I had written them as a book instead of a campaign.

In short, Just consider your part in the campaign. Would you change your plot due to the actions of the party? Would you put the party before the world you have labored over tirelessly week after week and year after year? If you answered no to either of these, then your priorities are misaligned.

In closing, I have been asked to invite you to one of our sessions. They take place on Fridays at 6pm and usually go till 11. This request was made so that you might see how I DM. I do not say this in arrogance, only in difference of experience.

Critical 20



P.S. If you choose to take everything I’ve said with a grain of salt, then it is up to you. Just remember that I’ve been where you are, and I offer only my advice and experience.

What sort of person has to run to another DM to try to influence their current game?

Ewen Cluney
May 8, 2012

Ask me about
Japanese elfgames!

Magical Dolly posted:

The following letter was received by our DM after she tried talking with a problem player. It came from the problem player's other DM.


What sort of person has to run to another DM to try to influence their current game?
I think if I got this message I'd just reply "oh my god shut up"

Lemniscate Blue
Apr 21, 2006

Here we go again.
Ten bucks says that's the problem player sock puppeting.

Falstaff
Apr 27, 2008

I have a kind of alacrity in sinking.

I read all that in the nerdy GM's voice from the Dead Alewives sketch. It made it almost bearable.

Aniodia
Feb 23, 2016

Literally who?

Lemniscate Blue posted:

Ten bucks says that's the problem player sock puppeting.

That's a sucker's bet.

quote:

"I have been a DM for 5 years and have been in party run by a DM with ten years under his belt. I have witnessed sessions by DMs who have been going at it for at least 30 years or more as well, so I feel as though I have some authority to speak on the matter."
"My father, who has played D&D since a year after its creation,"
"Please keep in mind that his campaigns were 10 years long."
This alone smacks of "please suck my incredible nerdcock, of course i know more than you you filthy pleb." Is this some veiled way to try and make it so you don't just immediately discard the whole poo poo since you didn't even ask for this chode's opinion?

quote:

"Oh, you should have PVP, D&D is an ~-=*eXpErIeNcE*=-~"
gently caress outta here. It's entirely within reason to not want people at each other's throats all night. Besides, for all his bellyaching, Baracus still got on the drat plane. Having some in-character disagreements is fine, as long as you realize that you're playing with other people, and your enjoyment shouldn't come at the expense of someone else's.

The absolute worst part that stuck out to me, though, was this:

quote:

Most players, when they feel uncomfortable will not share this knowledge, and if they do they will not wish to announce it to the party. I have found the best way to deal with this is to let the session play out and invite the players to speak with you afterwards in private about what made them uncomfortable and then to not implement that in the future. Keep in mind though, using plot that makes a player or two uncomfortable or that they feel strongly about is a good way to pull players into the game. I do this sometimes as one of my specialties is “Lines of Morality”. By implementing the individual players’ lines of morality I can pull any of them into the story at any time. I can move the plot in whatever direction I choose. I could even steer the players away if need be. Times when players are uncomfortable are the times they will remember more.
To me, that reads as "gently caress your players' feelings", and yeah, no. If I have someone feeling uncomfortable to the point where it's effecting the game, they'll get pulled aside, I'll ask them privately if they'd rather I move on, and if so, we move the gently caress on. I wanna play and run a game where people are having fun, not some kind of weird torture-porn LARP where I'm secretly jacking it under the table.

Synthbuttrange
May 6, 2007

These two need more swirlies

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senrath
Nov 4, 2009

Look Professor, a destruct switch!


Honestly if I received such a letter my immediate response would be to boot the player from my game. They're already a problem player, after all.

Lemniscate Blue posted:

Ten bucks says that's the problem player sock puppeting.

Almost certainly, but it's even if it's not it shows that the person is always going to be a problem, if their response to being asked to stop doing something is to get someone else to write a long winded piece of crap about how actually they should be allowed to do whatever they want.

senrath fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Sep 5, 2019

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