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The Star Wars stories did, alas, end with our successful conquest of Coruscant. There was talk of continuing the game afterwards but between scheduling issues, game stores closing down, and general Holy poo poo We Have Adult Responsibilities Now bullshit it proved impossible to make happen. I was notified via Steam that some dude in a random Discord was posting the stories to share them around and that it was apparently something that was still bringing them joy, which I think is pretty sweet for stuff I wrote eight years ago now
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May 6, 2020 23:10
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| # ? May 17, 2024 09:29 |
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Krugg, Quinn, Kone, and Escor previously fought a demon. We're level 4, excited to start using +1 weapons. The demon is level 7 or 8, able to cut off our escape with Dimension Door. He hits every party member but Krugg on anything but a nat 1, and he only misses Krugg on a 4. His attacks include a lingering poison. His AC is high enough that we need to flank him to hit on a 16. Both the encounter designer and our GM are assholes. Thanks to clever use of Invisibility, we managed to retreat from a curbstomp without losing anyone. We retreat to our low-level town to start brainstorming for ways to tip the battle in our favor. We start the session by blowing at least 90% of our gold on a magic shield for Krugg and wands for Kone and Quinn. We're in better shape mathematically, but not exactly tactically. Our strategy still relies heavily on lucky rolls to overcome his good stats. We need an ace in the hole. Quinn manages to not harass the librarian long enough to look up information on the kind of demon we're fighting. He's resistant to non-magical damage (not a huge deal, now that we have magical weapons) and fire (there goes the "drown the cave in molotovs" plan), but he's weak to Law or Good. That's our in. Quinn approaches the town council and asks for help. Are there any clerics that could give us aid? The town has no churches and only really worships two gods. The artisan guild has a priest of Shelyn, the goddess of art, beauty, music, and love. The bars tend to attract patrons of Cayden Cailen, god of freedom, bravery, ale, and wine. SIDE A Quinn the bard goes to the artisan guild. He sees the statues of Shelyn, always depicted as a beautiful young woman, and decides to press his luck. He drops pickup lines, strikes flirty poses, and tries his damnedest to seduce a goddess. He rolls well enough that the priest of the artisan guild is impressed. After receiving pointers from the priest, Quinn asks to trade his cooking skills for vials of holy water. He prepares a grand feast - seasoned roast pig, steamed vegetables, and artisanal bread - to impress the artisans, and they agree to give him 4 exquisite, handcrafted vials of holy water. SIDE B Krugg travels to his favorite bar and tries to convince the bartender and the patrons to throw a righteous kegger in honor of Cayden Cailen. Being a smelly, ugly, exceedingly-frustrated goblin who has punched at least half of the patronage in the face, no one is enthused. Until Escor offers to pay for 12 kegs in the name of this holy booze ceremony. The bar instantly becomes the town's newest church, as citizens pour in to drink to Cayden Cailen. Six bottles of beer are tucked into the chandelier for safekeeping, and Krug decides to augment the ale and wine worship with some bravery by turning the center of the bar into a wrestling ring. Half the town beats itself senseless, drinking and singing and fighting. In the morning, the few able to function through their hangover discover that the six bottles of beer hidden in the chandelier are now holy booze, capable of damaging a demon. We're finally properly equipped to face our enemy.
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May 8, 2020 06:31
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This is rad. None of this “do I got other church and buy holy water” nonsense but “think outside the box to figure out a way to get holy water”.
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May 8, 2020 14:58
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In our first encounter with the demon, he demanded we offer him tribute. He wanted Krugg's magical striking knife that teleports back into his hand, so Krugg "gave" it to him by throwing it at his face. We barely escaped thanks to rapid use of Kone's Invisibility and the demon's tendency to ignore a target downed but not dead. Quinn used a divination spell to find out that if we offer him a tribute of Definitely-Not-Holy Beer, the result would be positive. Our current plan is for someone who didn't throw a magical knife at him to grovel at his feet and give him an offering of beer that absolutely will not hurt him to drink. Then, when it burns him from the inside, we retreat to the tiny tunnel where we rigged a trap to drop as much holy water/beer onto his back as possible. Then, an invisible Krugg uses both Invisibility and his extensive barfight knowledge to break a bottle of holy beer over the back of the demon's head. Between flanking and maybe a bonus for surprise, this actually might work. LawrenceFriday fucked around with this message at 04:50 on May 10, 2020 |
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May 9, 2020 04:58
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Agrikk posted:This is rad. Yeah, it's great, especially since "realistically" speaking, different Pathfinder gods absolutely have different ways of blessing things, so Cayden blessing a 12-pack after a big party is absolutely plausible.
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May 9, 2020 18:18
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According to my DM, there's a big difference between "A Rodian comes through the door with a blaster" and "Rodan comes through the door with a blaster."
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May 11, 2020 13:51
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Man that must be a giant rear end blaster if Rodan can use it.
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May 11, 2020 14:04
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Strap a blaster cannon to his beak maybe?
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May 11, 2020 16:04
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Yes, but what about Rodin?
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May 11, 2020 16:52
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Bieeanshee posted:Yes, but what about Rodin? The French sculptor?
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May 11, 2020 17:38
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Bieeanshee posted:Yes, but what about Rodin? 
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May 11, 2020 18:01
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Ilor posted:I dunno, lemme think about it. 
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May 11, 2020 20:54
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The Korvin Rebellion Chapter 1 https://tinyurl.com/KorvinChapter1 It is the year 3000 by the Searian calendar, the era of Sear Reckoning. But not everyone follows the reckoning of the lost city-state. For others, the calendar is based on more recent events, the founding of a kingdom, and rise of a people... dates based on the pride of a nation. But not everyone clings to that spirit of patriotism, even as the masses begin to rally behind successive victories in a sudden, but not unprecedented war. Seawn is once again standing in pitiable defiance of High King Ducaid Thrainvolk. A mere ninety years ago, a campaign to expand Korvis northward was pushed back by the sudden appearance of catfolk forces from the east, their navy's surprise involvement weakening the Kantrev's hold on the seas. This time, however, things seem different. The war is waged primarily on land, and Korvis is winning. Unlike so many times in the past, the Grand Duchy of Seawn has not called upon the Kaerns of the paladin-kings for aid; and the theocracy has not volunteered its help. While the navy maintains defense of the eastern coast, the High King's armies have already taken the border towns and cities that serve as Seawn's first line of defense, and the capital city of Highspire is under siege. With victory comes an economic boost, and the people look to the High King to share those gains, bringing a new era of prosperity to the much-maligned Korvin people. His heralds speak of the coming of a golden age, and the populace, often motivated more by fear than loyalty, are looking to Ducaid with the beginnings of a new admiration. But not everyone is so easily fooled by the High King's propaganda. Even as the much-touted prosperity looms on the horizon, the seeds of rebellion grow. It is said that Ducaid cannot be slain so long as he is without an heir, and he has worked to ensure that those circumstances do not come to pass. Whether it is a truth of prophecy or more of the High King's propaganda, his apparent immortality has not, however, eliminated dissent... eliminated hope. If he can not be slain, he can at least be dethroned, perhaps even imprisoned in Catra'zal, the threat that has long kept the masses in line under the oppression of the devil-king's iron grasp. While victory blinds many with talk of an optimistic future, there are plenty that will not so easily overlook the centuries of subjugation and tyranny at Ducaid's hands, who seek to forge a better future with their own hands. Even now, on the High Kingdom's most holy day, they gather in secret, hoping to harvest the chaff of discontent lingering in the hearts of a nation to sow a new dawn in the light of a world without the cruelty and despotism that have become synonymous with the name of their nation.... It is the 1st day of Nephradem, Caradaen, the year 686 Raven's Deeming The 366th year of Ducaid's Reign; Caradoc's Day on the High Korvin Calendar The twentieth week of the Campaign for Korvin Expansion X X X X X The Grey Orc Inn is closed for the day, as most of those who would normally patronize the tavern are within the city walls of Kantrev Kronus, capital city of Korvis, watching the military parades being held in celebration of Caradoc, God of War and Conquest. Therefore it is the perfect location for those opposed to the High King to meet. As one enters the tavern, they are seated together via drawn lots to organize them into cells, able to act in concert with each other while not putting other members of the rebellion at risk. The characters at the center of our story, therefore, come together by random chance… Zinnia, a halfling whose leather jerkin is covered in bows and ribbons, devouring the offered food and drink with gusto, a painted leather case for selling knives on the table before her. Ole Reppi, a black kobold of advanced age, even for his kind, holding a quarterstaff that is more of an eighthstaff compared to him, in sackcloth robes and sitting on a book nearly the size him in order to reach the table. Viktor, a quiet, unassuming human who acts as if he isn’t even there, sipping on wine and not making an attempt at interaction. Nuriel, a tall female Ancelyn, a race of evil elves allied with Korvis, who clashes somewhat in her expensive skirt and white blouse, but clashes even more from her friendly smile, a contrast to the “we are going to eat you” smile normally associated with the Ancelyn. Kalena, a human in black monk robes with a mask covering her facial features, studies the party members while not touching the food on the table. And Ransom, a tiefling whose pink skin tone comes with golden freckles, a sword and dagger hanging from her hips. Three individuals stand on the stage moving back and forth - a human female, a tiefling male who would be quite handsome if not for his pure infernal malice, and a human male of noble descent known to most in the tavern as Aldric Stahlgarde, brother of the High King’s Master of Whispers. The human female chimes a bell to quiet the room, allowing the tiefling male to begin speaking. quote:We stand in a nation celebrating war, a war that will create heroes, a war of expansion under the auspices of an unjust god, a war that stands for nothing but conquest to feed the hunger in the gut of a despot. Our kingdom celebrates strength as the most important of virtues. But strength can not be found in the teachings of a tyrant. Those gathered here at the true strength of a nation. Heralds preach of our freedoms but they are more of the High King’s lies. We are not free and to change an unfree world is to become so free that our existence is an act of rebellion. Wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn to protect the rights of my comrades, there I will stand. Before he could continue, a sudden rushing sound precludes the walls of the inn catching fire. As people begin looking for the exits, the doors burst open, revealing the Iron Guard, the city guards for Kantrev Kronus. The insurgents rush for the doors, causing a bottleneck as they fight and push against the guards, while Kalena and Nuriel gesture for the party to head for the back hallway. Reppi is the first to move and discovers the source of the flames - a goblinoid, its skin peeled off, fingernails and eyes black as pitch, laughing maniacally as it sets more of the inn on fire. Random is one of the last to slip out of the main room, however before she does, the male tiefling slips something into her money belt before telling her to run. The party manages to slay the weird fire creature and slip out a side window, making their way between several abandoned builds towards one of the lower-class neighborhoods. Attempting to catch their breath, Zinnia climbs up on the roof of an abandoned chapel and informs the party that an Iron Guard patrol is coming their way. Inside the church, the party slips underneath the narthex to hide, where Reppi discovers what appears to be the entrance to a kobold bolt hole, one of dozens built across the city by the industrious creatures. The ladder leads down into a lightless cavern. The party slips away as the sounds of the Iron Guard trampling through the church are heard overhead. Zinnia takes the lead, slowly moving forward to put distance between the party and the hatch, when a spear zips past her head and a voice screams in Draconic before leaping forward. The party defeats the attacker, a kobold that Reppi refers to as a ‘Dragonshield Kobold,’ blessed by a red dragon. Runes have been crudely carved atop its scaly flesh, but less in ritual ceremony and more in imitation. Deeper in the tunnels are more kobolds and more traps. The central cavern is home to a large pile of junk. Atop the pile on a makeshift throne sat a golden kobold with armor made from trash and a staff bristling with deadly silverware. Next to the throne was a rock surrounded by a ring of straw. As the party burst into the cavern, the kobold got to its feet and smacked its staff on the ground. At the foot of the junkpile, a broken cart righted itself, flipping onto its wheels and charging Random and Kalena. A fight ensued as the ranged party members dealt with the junk shaman while Ransom and Kalena dueled the cart. quote:DM - You land a solid blow. The cart is on its last wheels. Ransom eventually brings down the junk shaman by burying a thrown dagger between its eyes. Atop the junk pile in the circle of straw is a red dragon’s egg...however, it’s glowing a very faint blue. Also on the pile are five scrap planks of wood that upon further investigation appear to be a diary of sorts regarding the discovery of the egg. “Finally found egg of good dragon here before went to fight in the wars. Egg may be corrupted by bad dragon. Glow is wrong color. Will wait to see if ‘good dragon’ or ‘bad dragon’ when hatching.” Reppi believes that the egg has been altered, but not through dragonic or kobold magic, but from long-term exposure to another plane of existence. Some members of the party wish to keep watch over the egg because a dragon would be a powerful ally to the resistance in the long run. Some members wish to keep watch because of the magical ramifications of such an egg. Kalena suggests destroying the egg because who knows what might hatch from it. During the discussions, something begins vibrating in Ransom’s coin purse. It’s a golden coin, with an unfamiliar figure on one side and a gold dragon stamped on the other. As Ransom holds the coin, a deep, steady voice speaks directly to her. quote:Voice - Watchdog to Red Riot, are you there. Watchdog to Red Riot, please respond. After a long rest, in which the party discussed possibly turning the kobold bolt hole into their own bolt hole and Viktor offering to stay in the bolt hole or to squat in the ruined church, the party attempted to leave the bolt hole. It took Zinnia some effort to open the hatch, as some debris had collapsed onto it during the night. Debris that had fallen when the Iron Guard decided to burn the entire neighborhood to the ground. CobiWann fucked around with this message at 13:49 on May 14, 2020 |
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May 13, 2020 16:40
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Aw yeah, right there is the good stuff.
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May 13, 2020 18:07
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So I posted a couple of stories from my last campaign a while back and how fun it'd been, but a couple of weeks ago that campaign ended with every player save one deciding on their own that we'd reached the point of "no D&D is better than bad D&D". This one's just sort of a litany of red flags and some generally petty stuff that we kept overlooking until so much of it had stacked up it couldn't be ignored anymore, though I'll fully admit there's a part in this where I don't do the sensible thing and am kind of an rear end in a top hat out of frustration. For context, when I posted about that campaign where we accidentally exploded a miniboss, that was about two sessions before that portion of the campaign ended. We'd accidentally gotten pulled into the feywilds early due to some unlucky rolls, and after that our DM started canceling on a near-weekly basis, usually about 45 minutes ahead of time, for health issues. This went on for weeks on end until she suggested that we start the campaign over fresh, and told us that she'd actually been canceling because she didn't know how to get us back out of the feywilds and just didn't want to continue it. We all figured that was pretty fair, and that the reluctance to just tell us that was her being nervous as a pretty new DM to admit she didn't know what to do, so we agreed to start again. We had a session... minus one? A session where we established what we were wanting as players from the campaign before the characters were even rolled up, and one of the biggest things we'd asked for was more focus on our character motivations and some more things that were directly relevant to them, instead of being "bodyguards" to a level 20 DMPC who absolutely did not need us and having our goals dictated to us through NPC characters regardless of what our characters wanted to do. She agreed readily and welcomed that feedback, we're all a little more optimistic about this attempt, and so we get going. We rolled up new characters, started with a new premise, and played a couple of sessions that included some really fun stuff from one of our party members named Gravemaw, including him falling off a ship's mast, using hunter's mark on a sleeping man, and busting a hole in a roof which he accidentally fell through and knocked himself out. I ended up rewriting a character I already had from the ground up, keeping her name and theming but with an entirely new backstory and personality as a feral woods child who had needed to adjust to city life to fit with the setting, which becomes important later. We've never really been a serious group and we all had a great time. I ended up becoming friends with that person outside of the game, so we decided to work in some backstory stuff between us while it was still really early on since those kinds of ties had been an explicit request from the DM, since our premise was that we'd all worked for a Thieves' Guild for several years and would have known each other. Between he and I, we came up with a pretty decent backstory where the two characters were dating as a way of explaining the chemistry they'd had during the actual sessions, and we let the DM know and she signed off on it, just told us to keep it to subtext which was our plan anyway. I didn't know it at the time, but this was where the problems began. Over the next four sessions: -we're forced to hand over a plot-relevant item to the DM's best friend, also a player, who is the generally untrusted newcomer to the guild in character -that character stows the plot-relevant item in an unlocked drawer in an inn where foot traffic is constant and untracked, despite that we were told to give it to our boss and were heading to meet up with her immediately after -we successfully track down the person who inevitably stole the thing from us as an increasingly frustrated DM put more and more obstacles in our path to prevent us from doing the sensible thing our characters would do -we go to a casino where, due to being thieves and all, we make a lot of money but learn absolutely nothing from the person we're supposed to be talking to because DM's best friend is the only one who gets to talk to the NPC -we take a detour to a warehouse for a meaningless encounter so we can introduce a new player, and are informed that the character I had backstory ties with is no longer welcome back when I ask why we need a 7th player in the party -we're forced to sit there for an hour while DM's best friend finds a courier to send money to her character's wife and they roleplay between themselves -we're asked about introducing yet another player on top of the replacement and DM is unhappy when the response is that it's already hard enough to get a word in edgewise, at which point she blames the quietest players for "not taking the chances I've given them" Our first campaign had some of these same issues, where the DM's best friend had her character's plot tied directly into the main plot and we got all of the relevant information filtered to us through her character while two of the players were relegated to basically NPCs, one player whose character we really loved was kicked for reasons beyond any of us and replaced with a weird dude playing a sex paladin (his first onscreen action was to buy a bedroll and ask the woman who sold it to him to "test it out" with him. There was roleplaying and rolls involved for like half an hour. He was mediocre, but accidentally rolled a nat 20 perception instead of performance so the joke to ease the weirdness was that he perfectly recalled every detail of how mediocre it was), and I was only really spared any of it because I was the party face. Those four sessions took months on end with frequent cancelations due to illness, which everyone was understanding about until it was pointed out the DM was more than happy to show up on time, get on a call with everyone on canceled days, and shoot the poo poo for hours on end about all the amazing stuff her character had done in the 7 hour session the day before with her other friends, and sometimes about how excited she was for the session that would be held the day after. And to some degree that was fine too, because being a player is a lot easier than being a DM, but this is someone I'd known for years. She loved to brag about the time she got to platinum in League playing with a broken wrist and follow it up with a comment about how if she wants to do something, nothing will stop her from doing it. Add on to that the previous use of illness as an excuse when she didn't want to continue the campaign, and a couple of the players more or less gave up trying to get invested right then and there. Not me though, even though I really should have bailed then. I was always trying to specifically involve them and help them get invested in what plot there even was while the DM pretty much forgot they existed. That fifth session at least gave me some hope that she might have gotten some of what we'd tried to tell her at the start since it'd been us as a supporting cast to the best friend's one note character until then. Since the character mine was dating, Gravemaw, was no longer in the story but had made plans to meet up later, I figured it was pretty straightforward for her to go to meet up with him only to get ghosted. Someone (I think it was DM's best friend actually, who I don't hold at fault for any of this stuff and is actually very nice) suggested that since Gravemaw was a vigilante, maybe he'd gotten arrested and that it might make for an interesting subplot for my character to try to bust him out of jail. The party readily agreed that it was better than just un-personing him, so I got to have a nice moment of using my Scout Rogue's investigation and survivalist skills to look for clues as to what happened, though it was slightly overshadowed by some prohibitively large skill checks and a palpable urging for me to get it over with already from the DM. This I think is maybe where what happens next starts to be partially my fault too, because it's a fault of mine that I try to stay true to my character even when I really shouldn't. I always have a plan in mind for what my character is trying to get, and with this, it was very very clear that my character wouldn't just give up on someone she's in a relationship with and has been for some time. I'd even included as one of her Bonds, "She considers the thieves' guild her family and would do anything to help them," so she would have been doing something similar, though to a lesser degree, with anyone else in the party as well. I managed to get together some evidence and then contacted the rest of the party, as well as the guild, to get assistance on tracking his whereabouts, and that's where the session ends. I told the DM afterward that I was really excited about this, that it felt like something that a thieves' guild would do, that I thought it was going to open up a lot of really interesting avenues for development, and would be a great way for the party to start to trust the newcomer who thus far hadn't helped much before we got into the main plot. I also dropped a line to Gravemaw's player and let him know what we were doing with his character to send him off, and he seemed equally excited to potentially do a guest spot when they found him. Months more of canceled sessions, more of the same runaround about an illness that at this point she'd been claiming to have for like a solid year, but we finally got to that 6th session and the start of the subplot, so I thought. This is where all the frustration starts to spill over and I don't exactly handle it in the best way. The session starts up and I asked her, having heard a couple of comments in his direction that struck me odd, where we'd left off. Her summary and notes included everything except the subplot, which when got into the table on Roll20, which she had open, was sitting there in the chat clear as day. So I reminded her about it, because I was excited about getting into it, and she gave me some line about how it must've gotten lost but at this point in the excuse making I was already fed up, so I reminded her where everyone was, and that the very last thing that had happened was my character getting people together to go with her on this journey to find Gravemaw. The DM was very not happy with this and it was obvious from the way that she pretended she forgot the name 'Gravemaw' and at one point muttered on a hot mic that, "That's what he gets for pissing off the wrong people". But I'm not budging on this storyline, and especially not after that type of jab, because that fault of mine is rearing its ugly head and there's a 0% chance that I'm going to have my character act out of character even if it avoids the conflict I know is coming. This is the part where I'm definitely being an rear end in a top hat. What ensues is the DM taking every chance she can get to drag us away from my character's goal and back toward the plot hook she wants us to take, and me dictating right back to her that my character is absolutely not going to be dissuaded or distracted by anything from going to go get her boyfriend. DM asked us to keep it to subtext, so when I'm getting questions about why this dude is so important to her, I make it clear and overt what her motivation is by having her tell everyone directly, "I was going to marry that man, and no prison is going to keep me from him." When DM tried to get us to delay our departure, I had her declare in no uncertain terms that we're not leaving at noon tomorrow, we're leaving now, because our first stop was only a few miles down the road and the longer they wait, the less time they have to get to him before he's in a royal dungeon and out of reach forever. DM told us that renting a cart would be pretty expensive in the middle of the night, so I reminded her that I had 890 gp on hand from winning at the casino, so money was no object in getting it done on whatever timescale I wanted. The exact moment when I realized there was zero chance of ever getting to enjoy this plotline and campaign, though, I couldn't have scripted if I tried. We had the city walls in sight, where we'd meet up with our first contact to see where Gravemaw had been taken, when we spotted movement off to the side of the road. We'd been apprised that small skirmishes were breaking out between two kingdoms nearby and that the roads could be somewhat dangerous since this was the prelude to them going to war, and it just so happened that we were passing by one of these fights in a clearing nearby. DM's best friend suggests that we should check it out, to which I had my character, with the first step toward her goal within spitting distance, hop down off the wagon and inform the rest of the party that she didn't have time to waste on some war she has no part in, so they can do whatever they want but she's going to the city. One of the other party members cottoned on to what was happening faster than my frustration allowed me to and quickly in character informed me that they could handle it and move on without much trouble since it was only three scouts, not heavily armed or armored, which is what alerted me to what was going on. So I had my character begrudgingly instruct them to make it quick and storm her way over. DM's best friend tries to sneak up and listen in, but at this point I didn't care about whatever was happening with this encounter, so I channeled my inner Gravemaw and had my character walk straight out in the open and fire an arrow into one of the three enemies, heedless of the consequences and not content to sit around waiting. We wipe the encounter in like 2 turns because there are seven PCs for some reason, at which point the scout we saved recognizes DM's best friend's character and is asked to carry a message back to her wife. The DM tells us, "Remember that name, it'll be important later," regarding said wife NPC and I am absolutely about as done as I can be. I couldn't think of a better way to describe how it felt to be in those campaigns than knowing the central motivations of my character were less important than an NPC introduction. I just hung up the call the instant session ended. I wish I'd stayed though, because the DM chose this moment to announce that best friend was no longer a best friend, but a girlfriend, and the moment I was told later it suddenly made so much more sense why this wife NPC was so important. A few hours after that session, I get a message from Gravemaw's player. He'd shot a message to the DM asking how things were going because he'd offered to guest play his character when we caught up to him and hadn't heard anything back. According to him, she'd gone on a tirade about how she hates my character's focus, how broadsided she was by the fact that our two characters had backstory ties (she was explicitly informed about this and told us to keep it subtle), and that the end point of the subplot I'd told her in no uncertain terms I was excited about was that Gravemaw would not be guested by his player and instead they would fail to release him, Gravemaw would break up with my character, and then be executed. It was anger to the point that she said she had to get up and walk around or she'd scream. Some of that I get, I was definitely not being a cooperative player that session, but I got a screenshot from months before that showed this had always been the endpoint of the plotline before any of the stuff in that session happened. She was going to punish me for making her think about a person she didn't like, and the reason she didn't like him? He missed 3 sessions in 3 unrelated games, while she blew us off for months at a time. Tell me if this sounds familiar: the DM's best friend had her character's plot tied directly into the main plot and we got all of the relevant information filtered to us through her character while three of the players were relegated to basically NPCs, one player whose character we loved was kicked for reasons beyond any of us and replaced with a weird libertarian who was missing half the sessions and didn't understand even basic concepts of how to play D&D, and only the party face was spared any of it. We hit the same issues as the first campaign to a T. I mentioned to another player that I was thinking about dropping, hadn't decided yet and was going to wait and cool off, and she left the game because she was dreading game nights and lamenting the waste of her time when she might as well not even be there for all the times she got addressed. I left after that. Then without a word beforehand, a third player saw that we'd left and also did because she'd been NPC'd harder than anyone else (the DM would make a joke about her character, then run that joke into the ground and reduce the actual character to only that joke). Libertarian guy had faded out quickly because, who would've guessed it, throwing a far right guy into a game full of transwomen and lesbians wasn't a great mix. Last was the party face, who told me after she left that it was because she felt distinctly uncomfortable with getting special treatment and no one else getting spotlight, and that she could get away with doing things that if anyone else tried were disallowed from doing. DM shot me a message asking why I'd dropped and tried to blame Gravemaw's player for it, which I put a stop to immediately. I told her in no uncertain terms that I felt I would never get to play my character the way that I wanted, that communication at any point even if it was just to say that she didn't want to run the subplot would have solved this problem before it started, that if my character's motivations took her by surprise it was because she'd actively avoided looking at my character sheet and never bothered to ask me about it or pay attention to the way I characterized her, and that I wasn't enjoying being in the game when it felt like I had no agency in my character's story and would only ever get drug along by the nose to her gf's plot. She fired back in less than a minute, less time than it would even take to read what I'd written out given that I was actively trying not to be a jackass about it and kept including generous conditionals about how it might be health issues getting in the way or whatever, "Your character wasn't even made for the campaign so it's whatever". I said that's about what I expected. If she'd at any point in months upon months asked about or looked at my character, she'd have seen plain as day that she was built from the ground up in everything but name and her overall bird theme. She grasped for the first excuse to make it not her fault and all it did was confirm what I was saying, that no one else but her best friend/now girlfriend mattered. Thankfully, this story has a happy ending. It wasn't two weeks before one of the former players invited the rest to do a Ravnica campaign that's just had an awesome first session! I'm playing a Selesnya Order Cleric, formerly of Boros, who we lovingly refer to as "God's special idiot". If things keep going the way they're going, I'll probably have some nice stories to share with the thread instead of all that bullshit up there since we've already adopted a goblin from Krenko's gang named Sleve (his parents forgot to cross the T and it just stuck) who converted to Selesnya after we captured his boss, on account of the calling down holy fire on them and making our Boros Minotaur absolutely untouchable for like 7 straight rounds with Heroism... until she dipped to 1 HP on a crit. Level 1 is risky biz.
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May 13, 2020 18:08
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Lmao that's the kind of clusterfuck story I enjoy. You're right that you should have peaced out a long time ago but I'm glad you've found a better and more fun game now!
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May 13, 2020 19:06
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Yes! Right in the vein. In the ongoing saga of the two thieves and MoanHowlMoan the Air Elemental I discovered something. It's totally okay to lead twelve-year olds by the nose through a plot. I had a murder mystery planned for the players, and it was going nowhere. It was completely my fault as I overestimated the storytelling ability of twelve year old boys. What I had planned, in pictorial form:  This proved far, far too complex for the players and so I had MoanHowlMoan show up and literally drag them though the adventure. What twelve year olds want, in pictorial form:  Ahah twelve year olds. See monster. Fight monster. Kill monster. Get loot. Repeat.
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May 13, 2020 23:38
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Blaming you for everything seems to definitely fit the character of a person who allowed things to get to the point where their entire group (minus one) simultaneously decided to dump the game.
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May 13, 2020 23:40
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I've played in games with 20+ year olds who want that. Applies to the two posts above me. 
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May 14, 2020 00:05
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Syrian Lannister posted:I've played in games with 20+ year olds who want that. Same. Admittedly sometimes that's what I want, too. The ability to turn off my brain for a bit and just fight stuff. That said, even in that state I can usually handle walking through a dungeon, since "pick a direction and maybe a door" doesn't require much effort.
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May 14, 2020 01:20
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senrath posted:Same. Admittedly sometimes that's what I want, too. The ability to turn off my brain for a bit and just fight stuff. That said, even in that state I can usually handle walking through a dungeon, since "pick a direction and maybe a door" doesn't require much effort. For me, I think it depends on the DM. Like, if I had CobiWan's DM, dearfuckingchrist, give me the fancy map with all the fixins. If I had someone who was closer to my skill level at DM'ing, give me the easy babby map.
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May 14, 2020 02:38
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the_steve posted:For me, I think it depends on the DM. That’s one of the things I miss right now - Roll20 is good and all however those figures and terrain just sitting on the shelf...
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May 14, 2020 02:47
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This hits at least 2/3 of the roll20 groups I have attempted to be in. I say "attempted" because I felt about as much a part of the game/story as you did in your group. The other third were "hey this game is moderately fun and people show up on time, oh hey guess what GM is gonna just drop off the face of the earth and delete the game and all accounts we know about. Cool and classy."Emery posted:Thankfully, this story has a happy ending. It wasn't two weeks before one of the former players invited the rest to do a Ravnica campaign that's just had an awesome first session! I'm playing a Selesnya Order Cleric, formerly of Boros, who we lovingly refer to as "God's special idiot". If things keep going the way they're going, I'll probably have some nice stories to share with the thread instead of all that bullshit up there since we've already adopted a goblin from Krenko's gang named Sleve (his parents forgot to cross the T and it just stuck) who converted to Selesnya after we captured his boss, on account of the calling down holy fire on them and making our Boros Minotaur absolutely untouchable for like 7 straight rounds with Heroism... until she dipped to 1 HP on a crit. Level 1 is risky biz.  Here's hoping! Ravnica is a great setting.
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May 14, 2020 03:11
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CobiWann posted:That’s one of the things I miss right now - Roll20 is good and all however those figures and terrain just sitting on the shelf... I'm glad my players are cool with me using my IRL dice instead of digital rollers.
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May 14, 2020 03:18
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My husband and I use physical dice when we game with our online friends because we can literally see each other. At first some of our players tried complaining about unfairness and bias because my husband rolled really, really well- then he started using the same dice roller they were using and kept rolling really really well. They stopped complaining when he went back to normal dice and now even ask him to roll their characters attributes for them because somehow he defies luck and rolls way higher than average. I think I'm married to the Anti-Wheaton.  I use a deck of critical hit effects, last session he punched another player (The other player non-lethally punched first under the guise of "Random Combat Training") so hard he developed a new accent until he got healed, and the session before that he was attacked by an assassin in the night and ended up blasting them through a wall with a crit that gave a free attack which then also crit into a knockback effect. I trust him completely because I watch his dice and he rolls a pretty fair amount of lower numbers too, but he just seems to defy logic and be lucky no matter what dice I give him or what roller he uses.
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May 15, 2020 03:20
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It's called confirmation bias.
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May 15, 2020 08:24
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Fumbles posted:I use a deck of critical hit effects, last session he punched another player (The other player non-lethally punched first under the guise of "Random Combat Training") so hard he developed a new accent until he got healed 
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May 15, 2020 15:45
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BabyFur Denny posted:It's called confirmation bias. Sometimes you just get (un)lucky for a stretch.
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May 15, 2020 17:46
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Yawgmoth posted:Not always. The first combat of the current game, my players were rolling for poo poo and one player took all the rolls of the game (which we had because we all use the roll20 bot) and graphed them out. PCs rolled more 2s and 4s than all other numbers combined, and their average was somewhere around 6-7. Meanwhile the enemy rolls were a pretty expected spread with an average just over 11. Definitely would have been a TPK off poo poo luck if I hadn't altered the encounter a bit mid-fight. Yeah a stretch which is not your entire life.
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May 15, 2020 19:14
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According to my DM, there's a difference between "coming out of the darkness like Michael Myers" and "coming out of the darkness like Mike Myers."
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May 15, 2020 19:38
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CobiWann posted:According to my DM, there's a difference between "coming out of the darkness like Michael Myers" and "coming out of the darkness like Mike Myers." Somebody once told me...
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May 15, 2020 20:31
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CobiWann posted:According to my DM, there's a difference between "coming out of the darkness like Michael Myers" and "coming out of the darkness like Mike Myers." It sounds like “Rodan comes through the door with a blaster in his hand” is the solution to either of these situations.
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May 15, 2020 21:30
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CobiWann posted:According to my DM, there's a difference between "coming out of the darkness like Michael Myers" and "coming out of the darkness like Mike Myers." I mean, I really don't want either situation to happen to me
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May 15, 2020 21:59
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Preechr posted:It sounds like “Rodan comes through the door with a blaster in his hand” is the solution to either of these situations. 
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May 16, 2020 03:25
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My current game, the one where they stole the papacy, recently had one of those odd sessions where I did hardly nay actual GMing and mostly just sat back while things unfolded. I sometimes worry that it's boring to just let them argue amongst themselves for a whole session, but they seemed to have fun? And that's what counts. Due to various hijinx the party in general, and Theresa the Plutomancer in particular, are currently all over the news as homeland terrorists. There was a shoot out with a SWAT team, a nurse got taken hostage, a large amount of semtex was found, and discussions about blowing up the Golden Gate bridge were overheard by innocent bystanders*. Y'know, standard stuff. The party has enough mojo that most of them can disguise themselves to avoid the heat - Lacey and Amber both have spells which allow them to look like other people, Theresa can look like anyone for 24 hours at a time if she writes their name in a special notebook using a fountain pen full of their blood. Ray opened a briefcase which contained $500,000, a set of fake documents, and an enchanted latex mask which makes him look exactly like the woman in the documents. (He doesn't know it yet, but that stuff is all a loan, one which will be called in in a few sessions.) But there are two issues with them all just spending their lives in disguise. For one, Theresa used a Major charge to give herself an aura of richness, such that people just give her poo poo for free if it costs less than $1000. But that only works if she looks like herself, not when she's in disguise. And for another, Marcel, the party gun mage... is an FBI agent. He's been keeping the agency at bay so far while they go on their cross country chaos trip, but he really can't make these charges go away. So Marcel calls up his boss, rolls really well to persuade her that they aren't all terrorists, there's more going on here than it seems. She agrees to call in some favours, shut down federal pursuit of them. But that can only last a few days, and she can't do anything about local PD. They need to turn themselves in, explain everything, get stuff worked out. Marcel tries to persuade the rest of the party to head to the nearest field office and get things sorted. They aren't so keen. Theresa points out that sure, the semtex and the bridge and the dead SWAT officers, there are reasonable explanations for all of those things. But there's no explanation for her being caught on camera holding a gun to a nurse's head. And even if they can explain everything (their planned excuse is "There are other, real terrorists, they've infiltrated everything, they're manipulating us and you, but we can bring them down,") the FBI aren't just going to give them a pat on the back and say "Cool, thanks for the heads up, go have fun chasing terror plots." They'll be held for extensive debriefing, there'll be investigations, lots of time consuming stuff. And the party does not have time. Cue an hour of arguing between the party over what should happen. Eventually I decide to intervene, try to break them out of the argument rut. 20 odd sessions ago the party followed some clues and found a cache of strange magical trinkets in a storage locker at Grand Central Station. One of the things in there was a mysterious egg, about the size of an ostrich egg. They never did anything with it, and I honestly didn't have anything planned for it in particular, I just figured I'd run with whatever came up and made sense. So now seemed like the time for that to be relevant. Their argument is interrupted by a sudden shrieking from upstairs. They all rush up to find the egg hatched and a tiny little man roaming around the desk. He's a perfectly proportioned adult human, but 3 inches tall. And the only thing he seems to be able to say is "AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHH". There's a lot of freaking out, they catch him in a glass like a spider, do some research. Turns out he's a newly made homunculus. More research suggests there's two things they could do with him - he could be soul bound to Amber, the epideromancer, and then used for charges. Any injuries she inflicted on him would count as inflicted on herself. A powerful source of magic. Only she's understandably not comfortable with torturing a little sentient creature. The other thing they could do is raise the homonculus up to be a clone of Theresa, and then hand it in to the FBI, let it serve out Theresa's jail time. But a lot of them also aren't comfortable with that. Cue another solid hour of bickering over the right thing to do. Along the way Ray, the entropomancer, gambles everyone's lives with his terrible driving, earning himself a major charge. The session ends with each of them giving their opinions on whether or not to send an innocent homunculus to prison. Theresa, Marcel, Lacey, and Ray are all fine with it. Everyone turns to Amber who says "I don't feel okay-" and that's where we end the session. I've agreed with Amber's player that where we pick up next session will be with "No, I don't care about the homunculus, I mean I don't feel okay," before she temporarily winks out of existence. *The party didn't actually want to blow up the Golden Gate bridge, they were being threatened by a powerful NPC. But then they gave him the Pope's soul, so that's not an issue any more. Back when they were still planning for it, their genius idea to minimise casualties was to organise flash mobs at both ends of the bridge in order to block traffic, and set off the bombs when it was empty. "It's 2008," one of them said, "everyone still loves flashmobs!" Exculpatrix fucked around with this message at 16:06 on May 16, 2020 |
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May 16, 2020 16:04
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The number of times I read 'major charge' in that update was both terrifying and absolutely hilarious.
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May 16, 2020 16:15
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Bieeanshee posted:The number of times I read 'major charge' in that update was both terrifying and absolutely hilarious. They're a handful of sessions from the end, I'm making sure everyone gets a chance to play with one before things wrap up. That said, the party Kleptomancer Lacey has been particularly remarkable in her talent to collect them. Including the time she accidentally stole something worth a major charge, then destroyed it on a lark with Ray. Theresa, who could have also gained a major charge by selling it for cash, was very very unhappy. She went into a self-destructive spiral that ended up in a cocaine habit, two dead cops, and a massive medical insurance bill.
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May 16, 2020 16:43
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What is a ‘major charge’?
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May 16, 2020 16:44
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Agrikk posted:What is a ‘major charge’? In Unknown Armies, mages fuel their magic with "charges," which they earn by doing things that are directly or symbolically linked to their magic. These charges come in three sizes: minor, significant, and major. Major charges are a big drat deal. So, for example, the UA wizards called Dipsomancers gain charges by drinking booze. To get a minor charge, all they have to do is drink enough to get a buzz going. For a significant charge, they have to drink enough to get a buzz going, but they have to drink it out of a historically meaningful drinking vessel; the coffee cup that JFK drank out of during the Cuban Missile Crisis, for instance. And to gain a major charge, they have to drink "a unique liquor," something like "whatever is left in the last bottle Elvis drank out of" or "the cask of Amontillado from Poe's story, which wasn't fiction." Some mages have an easier time getting major charges than others, but the point is, they're rare and powerful, and most mages will never get their grubby little mitts on one. A dipsomancer can use a major charge to, for example, forcibly exchange bodies with someone else (preferably someone who still has a functioning liver), which is the kind of poo poo they could never get up to using their minor or significant charges. Even though it's really not an accurate comparison, it can be helpful to think of major charges in UA as roughly akin to a Wish in D&D - they're powerful, they're rare, they can potentially break the game if you're not careful, and they exist essentially entirely at the sufferance of the GM, who reserves the right to hand them out, or not, as they see fit.
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May 16, 2020 18:06
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| # ? May 17, 2024 09:29 |
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The Plutomancer literally never has to pay for anything that costs less than $1000 again, ever. That's what a major charge can do. You can break down big charges into smaller ones, but barring a possible change to the game world that happens in one of the premade adventures, you can't combine minor charges into significant charges and you can never combine significant charges into major ones. There are extremely closely guarded rituals (rituals are complicated, but the gist is they just work and most aren't sure why) that can generate charges, but nothing for a major charge. The only way to get a major charge is to perform the most extreme acts of commitment to your particular form of magic. Generating a charge has to be done completely free of magic - absolutely no magic help is allowed, no matter what, and every Adept has a Taboo that will take all their power if they break it. Importantly, charges can be transferred from person to person if you know how. Things you can do with a major charge: Bibliomancers (book magic) can discover or obscure any fact. Want to get rid of nukes? No one remembers how to build them and can never figure it out again. That murder? Never happened. I hope you can get your hands on The Actual Necronomicon, because that's how a bookworm gets a major charge. Cliomancers (belief magic) can change history. More precisely, they can change what everyone in the world believes happened, as long as it is remotely possible. You can't make people believe Hitler won the war, because it's too obvious he didn't. Cliomancers get charges by visiting important places, and all the known major charges have already been harvested. Feel like a trip to the moon? Dipsomancers (drunk magic) can switch bodies as previously mentioned, or can teleport people across the world, or raise the dead as an army of zombies. (Dipsomancy is kind of all over the place.) Entropomancers (risk and probability magic) can actually change history. That lotto ticket you bought last week was a mega-millions winner. The further back you are trying to change history, and the more drastically, the harder it is. (You can't make Hitler win the war either.) To get a major charge, they have to deliberately risk the lives of at least 10 people including their own. Epideromancers (body shaping magic powered by self-harm) can completely redesign their body or another's however they want, become younger, or permanently become able to shapeshift at will. Keep in mind that getting a major charge is on the level of cutting out your own eye. An epideromancer who gets their hands on healing magic that doesn't use up their own power can do incredible things. (Do not let them do this unless you want the hulk in your game, because significant epideromancy can give permanent stat bonuses.) Mechanomancers (magic gadget makers) can create life, or craft immensely intricate constructs powered by otherworldly forces. You only have to forget your spouse to get the charge to bring them back. No one knows how Narco-Alchemists generate major charges, they're kind of new. Their Significant magic is all bound up in the permanent effects of their magic drugs, so their Major magic would be too, as their Great Work allows them to transcend the base limitations of humanity in a perfect union of body and spirit. Personamancers (acting magic) can make an act real - even for someone else. By the way, Personamancy is completely horrible and they should all be killed on sight. They can force someone to be an Avatar (this is really bad) or they can create a mask for their spirit to inhabit after death (which they will use to posses whoever wears it, and then turn that person's body into their own.) They gain a major charge by convincing tens of millions that they are a major public figure - the example given is a fake presidential broadcast. You can't use magic to charges, so I hope you look and sound like the president. Plutomancers (money magic) gain charges by receiving money. Lump sums of dollars, not simply things that are worth that much, but electronic transfers are fine. A major charge takes $100 million. They can get anything into their possession (suitcase nuke, anyone?) or dictate the world economy for a day (let's make Amazon employee-owned!) or get themselves into the presence of anyone alive (punch _____ right in their stupid face, no matter how many guards they have.) Pornomancers are depressing - they are specifically imitating the Naked Goddess, a historical figure. They can't have sex outside of their charging method without losing their power. Their magic mostly revolves around affinities and manipulating other magic, and with a major charge they can undo any spell or attain instant global fame. Urbanomancers (city magic) gain a major charge by getting a city (a real one) named after them, or by changing it on the same scale as the Great Fire of London - getting a public transit system built would also work. Their major magic would let them pick the mayor, or create a new building out of thin air. And that's just what specific adepts can do in their specialties, there are others I didn't feel like looking up. There's also random or gutter magic - which is usually weak and unreliable, but not when you have the juice of a major charge backing you up.
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May 16, 2020 19:23
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