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hito posted:"I rolled a 20, and crafted a baby saddle." I went into this story expecting  .What I got was  .That is an awesome little moment.
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Feb 17, 2012 16:53
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glitchwraith posted:I went into this story expecting Okay that guy owns, baby saddle owns. Everything everywhere owns.
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Feb 17, 2012 18:14
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glitchwraith posted:I went into this story expecting
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Feb 17, 2012 18:40
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I love how the story sets that up too. Long haired metal dude with beard, very quiet and stoic, never talks unless he absolutely has to. Plays a Centaur. "no one rides me..."  *hijinks with babby and of course all of us who've been reading these stories is immediately expecting the worst, will he kill it, will he eat it? oh god the suspense.  "I craft a baby saddle" baby rides the centaur for a chunk of the campaign. Sometimes scary metal dudes can have a heart. 
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Feb 17, 2012 21:50
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How someone responds in a game when presented with a baby seems to be a pretty good metric for how insufferable they're gonna be. Don't think I've posted this one anywhere before. My first try at D&D passed kinda uneventfully with me trailing everyone who knew how to play learning the quirks of the system like how lashing alchemist's fire to arrows doesn't make you Rambo and using stoneshape to collapse a mine on somebody inconveniences them less than just hitting them with a sword. I figured I had the whole thing pretty well worked out and was pretty psyched for the next campaign the group was starting, finally I could build a character that'd contribute and do cool things. First session starts with an hour of everyone gathered around the table, sitting in silence rolling up their character sheets. The way they did it, which I gather was houseruled, was to roll each of your stats in order with two extra dice, discard the two lower numbers - don't recall exactly what I got, but I wound up with my highest stats being barely-above-average intelligence and wisdom, and for everything else... I recall a lot of 8s. So I tell everyone to go on ahead with the game while I spend an extra half hour or so trying to use my hazy grasp of the mechanics to devise a first-level character built around staying as far the gently caress away from physical threats as possible while still technically participating in the game, wind up statting up a kobold sorceror with a crossbow and halberd, all ranged and ambush specialties. I haven't been completely following what's been going on in the story so far, but I show the GM my character to announce I'm ready, and the GM introduces me by dropping me in the middle of a graveyard full of rising skeletons. Alone. Rest of the party's off a couple blocks away at a bar. I win initiative, use my first turn to scramble up a tree and jab my poky stick at anything without a pulse that comes too close. Skeleton warrior gets the next turn, uses it to shamble over and oneshot me into the negatives. I bleed out before the rest of the party even realizes I'm there. I politely declined to stat up a new character, and that was my last experience with D&D :I Tubgirl Cosplay fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Feb 18, 2012 |
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Feb 18, 2012 21:17
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Tubgirl Cosplay posted:How someone responds in a game when presented with a baby seems to be a pretty good metric for how insufferable they're gonna be. Honestly, that sounds like a good way of making an interesting character from lovely scores, and the DM was kind of lovely for doing that to you.
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Feb 18, 2012 21:41
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You DM was a dick and the other players didn't call him out on this dick move... why?
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Feb 18, 2012 23:05
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That is a pretty lovely thing to do to any player, newbie or pro. Why drop them in the middle of a situation like that without help? Heck, I'm starting to read Dark Heresy and the intro campaign doesn't pull a stunt like that, and we're talking about 40K here.
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Feb 18, 2012 23:14
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My first thought was the DM was doing some malformed pity thing. Obviously you can't let a player fudge a score because my verisimilitude, but getting rid of the ad character through some twisted Kevorkian style mercy killing and letting Tubgirl Cosplay roll up another dude could work. Then I realized that's arguably even worse than the DM being a dick
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Feb 18, 2012 23:31
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Dr Pepper posted:You DM was a dick and the other players didn't call him out on this dick move... why? They all demanded to see my sheet so they could find out what I did wrong, and dropped it when nothing obvious sprang out. I think it was just accepted as how the game was supposed to be played in that group, I think I set a record with the one-turn wonder there but I recall at least one player's character dying during opening exposition in the first game, when he mouthed off to the questgiver who was also the GM's character from an earlier game and a wacky >9000-level magic dude. The GM probably had some really specific idea he never expressed about how poo poo was supposed to go down in the graveyard, either with the other players saving my rear end or me at least taking more than one hit to eat it or who knows what, and just wasn't about to contradict the dice when they said I was dead. Funny enough I tried a Call of Cthulhu oneshot with the same group and their take on the arbitrariness of mortality didn't pan out much better there, though at least that time I stayed in the game a hell of a lot longer. Tubgirl Cosplay fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Feb 18, 2012 |
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Feb 18, 2012 23:40
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Tubgirl Cosplay posted:They all demanded to see my sheet so they could find out what I did wrong, and dropped it when nothing obvious sprang out. I think it was just accepted as how the game was supposed to be played in that group, I think I set a record with the one-turn wonder there but I recall at least one player's character dying during opening exposition in the first game, when he mouthed off to the questgiver who was also the GM's character from an earlier game and a wacky >9000-level magic dude. The GM probably had some really specific idea he never expressed about how poo poo was supposed to go down in the graveyard, either with the other players saving my rear end or me at least taking more than one hit to eat it or who knows what, and just wasn't about to contradict the dice when they said I was dead. No, your DM was simply being a gigantic rear end in a top hat who wanted you dead for some arbitrary reason. There isn't any other way of slicing it.
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Feb 19, 2012 01:24
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Last night was a mediocre 4e session with some fun parts. We're trying to stop some cultists from unleashing The Chained God, and we tracked the guys who stole whatever artifact they need through a forest last session, to an elf village. This session, it turns out they burned the village down, and ruined whatever magic wards the elves had in place, so it was full of orcs who we killed. The cultists were after The Sword Of Avandra, which the village lost years ago, and which will definitely gently caress up their ritual if someone found it. Since it wasn't there, they torched the place and headed off to their mountain to summon their god. Of course, we found out where the sword probably was, and went off to get it. It was in The Dread Valley, where we suspected there was a dragon. There was. We met it near its hoard. I was all for just fighting it, but the others wanted to negotiate. The DM all but said "this is a combat encounter", but people were foolish, so I went along with it to see where it would go. I offered to leave my sword for the sword we needed, then after we'd used it, I'd bring its sword back and it could keep both swords. Dragon said my sword wasn't very nice, and anyway it didn't believe me. The warlock tried to engageit in a riddling contest, but it said it didn't riddle with inferior intellects. Then it told the fighter that it would trade the sword for his armour. In spite of my protests, he stripped his armour off, and the dragon attacked him. I (ranger) snuck/ran around to the hoard and found the sword while the cleric and warlock frantically tried to defend the fighter while he put his armour back on (he didn't manage it). I got the sword, got grabbed up and carried into the air, broke free, activated my bracers of defense, fell without taking much damgage, hit the dragon as hard as I could and ran away. I forgot we were on a plateau and I couldn't eaily get down. A hard combat ensued. I was pretty awesome, but only because our cleric's really good at her job. Warlock did well too, and fighter mostly just stood there taking damage, which I guess is his job anyway. I went down 3 times and got to feel awesome getting a heal, popping back up, and smashing the dragon, getting hit again, popping back up, etc. We eventually drove the dragon off, and the fighter convinced everyone that we should spin his idiocy into "took my armour off to prove to the dragon that I wasn't scared, and then beat it easily". It should be fun when he tries it, since I'm planning to let everyone know what really happened. Oh, and the sword's poo poo anyway, unless it has some sort of hidden power. So, not a great or a lovely experience, just notable for the actual story. On a major upside, the DM is finally listening to me about MM3 stats being better. Edit: I'm expecting the dragon to come back as a recurring villain. Since there are only two sessions left before it's my turn to GM, perhaps I will get to use it. Should be fun, especially i I can convince the fighter to take off his armour again. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Feb 19, 2012 |
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Feb 19, 2012 02:08
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Nostalgia4ColdWar fucked around with this message at 00:54 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Feb 19, 2012 04:06
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I always find it vexing how much the goodness of a game depends on the GM *and* the players not being fundamentally asshat-tastic, given how much time it takes to set up a game and meet together.
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Feb 19, 2012 04:11
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I don't want to be the broken record, but that's a large part of what balance can be so key. In a properly-balanced system, the DM wouldn't have been able to pull a bullshit move like that without going so far out of his way to obviously do so. You make it so the player can't utterly gently caress his character through no fault of his own, and make it so the DM can't just "accidentally" one-shot your PC with level-appropriate mobs, and things like that become much more rare, although probably not ever stopped completely. Sure, nothing's ever going to stop the guy from just declaring "I'm the DM, and so I say a greater bone dragon swoops in and one-shots you with his Fuckoff Dragon Laser Breath", but at the very least it doesn't give them that annoying veil of semi-legitimacy to hide behind.
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Feb 19, 2012 04:19
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The thing is there is a way. It's called point buy and has been in D&D for a long while. Basically unless it's a joke one shot if you hear "Random rolling for stats" stay far away.
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Feb 19, 2012 05:10
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Two good stories. One: There was a really boring GM at the local gaming meetup, so this week I decided not to play with him. Life's too short, and no gaming is better than bad gaming. But even better than that is running yourself. So this week, I decided to run a Paranoia adventure. I pre-generated sheets, bought some d20s, and thought up a few adventure hooks. I also created secret mission objectives. The ostensible mission was to test drive Andy-Roid, the Stealth Car. 2 of the six players were (secretly) tasked with stealing it, two with protecting it, and two with destroying it. Our players were Jean Jeany (Happiness Officer) Melvin (Loyalty Officer, first timer and player of the game. Female.) Frgh (also Loyalty, not his first time playing Paranoia) Name-Not-Found (Team leader, devious nuclear engineer & MF'er) Lee (Equipment, faded into background) Patron (Team Leader, Hygiene, master of disguise). Now, because I was having trouble gathering 6 people, I had to rewrite the secret missions. Everyone had to kill at least one other player and protect one other. All I had really planned out was "A loop-de-Loop, and general Test-Track style shenanigans." I also scribbled down "commies on horses." That was it. Tips for future Paranoia GMs: Give your players grenades. They may not use mutant powers, they may not get their character sheets at first, but God-drat if they don't appreciate how to use a grenade. Put them on the spot. It works for debriefing, but it also works for R&D. I decided I wanted to have an old fashioned net-gun in the party. I asked someone for an adjective, then another one for an adjective. I got "Boring" and "red hot". I then gave the equipment officer a burning, hole-creating net gun. Because of the constant switching of # of players, I got some odd situations: For example, N-N-F has to kill Mel, who is trying to protect him. Once the players got to the car, I asked them where they wanted to sit. Everyone fought for shotgun, leading to two people playing grenade hot potato. They both lost, and their next clones fought over the seat, hand to hand. Melvin had the special skill "Spit & Duct Tape", which she used to duct tape herself to the bumper of Andy-Roid. N-N-F immediately threw the car into reverse, smashing it against the back wall of the garage and nearly killing Mel. This infuriated the car, who used his ejection seat, sending N-N-F into the roof of the garage. (This led to the start of a feud that lasted all session; who's actually driving the self-driving car?) Jean-Jeany, obsessed with pills, took the seat. He peeled away, leaving N-N-F on the roof and Mel on the bumper. Before the Loop-De-Loop, NNF jumped off and tackled Mel. They both slid off, injuring each other further, before J-J looped around...and tried to run them both over. This was only fueled by Mel using empathy. In an amazing bit of roleplaying, she appealed to the better nature of a speeding automobile. This led to Andy-Roid ejecting Jean Jeany. The second test for the car was the Heat Room. What's a pleasant heat test to an automobile, though, is searingly hot death to troubleshooters. They surprised me by: *Turning on the air conditioning *Fighting over where the vents are And then *Using a mutant EMP blast to disable the car. Unfortunately for the EMP blaster (N-N-F), it also disabled the heat lamps, and everyone survived. Eventually, they were able to jump-start the car and move on to the second test, the winding desert canyons. This is when things started to go off the rails and become classic Paranoia. Figh decides to take a grenade, take out the pin, and leave it in the car. He exits. N-N-F escapes the car, and shoots it with a boring red-hot net gun, doing some severe damage. Lee tries to kick it, but fails. Patron is able to kick it. The car is safe (for now). The group is then attacked by Commie Mutants on horses! The driver sideswipes a horse. The riders decide it'll be much easier to attack the people on foot. Frgh steals a horse. The other two are slain by cattlemen. After the canyon, the group approaches a shady neighborhood. (Frgh, trying to catch up to them on a horse, while getting ragged on by the population, was an awesome scene). They all turn on each other, try and frag each other, and Andy Roid has had enough. He's looking for a chop shop. The group make it to the chop shop and immediately start loving around. One imitates a mechanic (in order to pay for the repairs). NNF hacks the ATM. Mel hacks the ATM, only to find out it's empty! NNF keeps the receipt and later tries to frame Mel. For the time being, he found a vat of radioactive waste and poured it, gatorade style, on Mel. The group was able to pay off the mechanic, and fled in the car. One teleported in, and the rest stole motorcycles. (One disguised himself as another mechanic, then used his touch-of-death mutation to keep the entire thing a secret). Andy-Roid then went to the drive through, where Mel tried to poison Figh with an arsenic laced milkshake. Unfortunately, Lee requested the milkshake, drank it, and died. Someone (probably Figh) planted a second grenade in the car, killing everyone but himself, and thoroughly wounding himself. He had succeeded in stealing the car, and drove himself to the hospital. Andy Roid demanded to be taken to the DMV, since he forgot to self-register. Later on, Mel was sneaking into the DMV, and N-N-F followed her to the bathroom. He used outdoor life to create a vine-trap, which Mel fell for. Unfortunately, she was so slippery from the toxic waste that she slipped out, N-N-F tried to spit into her eyes. I decided to do something I've never done before: Get others involved in PC stakes. Specifically, by "blind betting." I said that Mel and N-N-F were in a contest, and who was spending for whom? I think I got 20 perversity points, with a net -2 going to N-N-F, making him fail. When Mel refused to shoot him point blank, I declared her Morally Superior and refused to let N-N-F continue attacking her in that instance. Meanwhile, Patron dressed as a DMV worker to expedite paperwork. At the hospital, Frgh was getting himself patched up when the rest of the team blundered in. Frgh hid under a sheet. Mel disguised herself as a nurse and gave Frgh a poison injection, soon smothering him with a pillow. N-N-F created a bomb out of medical waste, hid it in the ER, and called all nurses in before detonating it. One of the best kills of the game. Figh's next clone stole the car, with Patron as an accomplice. I wrapped up the mission with them headed toward a checkered finish line...that was above their clearance. Figh activated stealth mode, and got it to work. At debriefing, everyone turned on everyone. People planted evidence and N-N-F, who had done very well, put his foot in his mouth enough for two executions. Everyone revealed their skullduggery and Mel was voted player of the game. I converted four non-RPG players to the game and am gonna run something again next week. Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 06:55 on Jun 19, 2019 |
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Feb 19, 2012 08:22
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Golden Bee posted:Everyone revealed their skullduggery and Mel was voted player of the game. I converted four non-RPG players to the game and am gonna run something again next week.  Stories like this are why I love Paranoia. It's like one long, drawn-out, slightly demented Spy vs Spy (vs Spy vs Spy vs Spy...).
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Feb 19, 2012 21:06
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50 Foot Ant posted:I shall avenge your little guy, and introduce an NPC based off of him! He shall be redeemed! Please name them Tubtub. :3 (I THINk that's what Kobolds do, right? Repeat syllables for their names?) If not, I guess 'Thubgurl Khosplae' is an alternative!
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Feb 20, 2012 02:38
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Golden Bee posted:Put them on the spot. This is brilliant, Mad Libs Paranoia would be terrifying and glorious. Could probably build a whole adventure around that. Relaps posted:Please name them Tubtub. :3 (I THINk that's what Kobolds do, right? Repeat syllables for their names?) If not, I guess 'Thubgurl Khosplae' is an alternative! IDK what the name should be but it needs to be followed by his/her formal title, a Wizard of Goatse Also drat wasn't expecting that story to make that much of an impression, I'll have to see what else I can recall. Tubgirl Cosplay fucked around with this message at 05:30 on Feb 20, 2012 |
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Feb 20, 2012 05:23
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Tubgirl Cosplay posted:when he mouthed off to the questgiver who was also the GM's character from an earlier game and a wacky >9000-level magic dude. The GM probably had some really specific idea he never expressed
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Feb 20, 2012 12:32
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Tubgirl Cosplay posted:I recall at least one player's character dying during opening exposition in the first game, when he mouthed off to the questgiver who was also the GM's character from an earlier game and a wacky >9000-level magic dude. I was thinking "maybe the GM accidentally put you in a situation over your head and isn't willing to fudge the dice," until I got there. If the GM is using one of their old characters as an NPC, run as fast as you can.
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Feb 20, 2012 18:00
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So I'm coming up on what may be a strange (read: awful) experience. I game with a great group of people, and I've truly enjoyed my time with them, but there are a few things about this next game that's being set up that I'm not looking forward to. We're playing a zombie apocalypse game, and everyone has relatively normal Los Angeles-based charaters: a movie star, a tourist, a doctor, a meth head, and a dog. Wait, what? That's right, one of our players is playing a dog. Now I don't know why this got approved (I'm sure it's for the DM's own amusement), but one of the guys is playing a dog. Not a talking dog, or something equally hilarious, but a non-speaking, non-tool-using, nothing but attacking dog. I swear to god, the minute he tries to communicate with barks and whines IRL, I'm shooting his "character" in its little doggy face.
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Feb 20, 2012 18:00
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Ashdesert posted:I was thinking "maybe the GM accidentally put you in a situation over your head and isn't willing to fudge the dice," until I got there. If the GM is using one of their old characters as an NPC, run as fast as you can. Well, it can be done properly. I'm going to be running a game pretty soon here and it'll have characters from the pathfinder game I play in (we're all level 2 in that game so they aren't ridiculous world-ending soul destroyers) It's when they're central characters that it causes a problem.
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Feb 20, 2012 18:33
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Eox posted:Well, it can be done properly. I'm going to be running a game pretty soon here and it'll have characters from the pathfinder game I play in (we're all level 2 in that game so they aren't ridiculous world-ending soul destroyers) I made one of my old PCs of an evil game into a BBEG for another game I ran. He was a lich who had turned an entire country's coins into phylacteries, so I figured he'd be a recurring villain. Instead they did some digging into the lich ritual, then what he used for the 120k in materials (120,000 gold coins), and then convinced the kingdom to switch to printed currency and smelt the coins into bars. Made him go from a constant threat to their lives to being the target of their hunt before he could make another phylactery, was pretty impressive.
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Feb 20, 2012 19:11
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If I was going to include an old player character as an NPC, I wouldn't hesitate to make them something like how they were played in the campaign they came from, but the heroic spotlight has been taken off them and onto the new NPCs, so they'd be less overwhelmingly powerful and influential. So an old fighter who'd adventured in his youth and become a powerful baron would still be a powerful baron, but he wouldn't have his Sword of Everythingslaying +99 and his Obliterate Enemy daily power - he'd just be a NPC authority figure with an interesting history. That way you can still have continuity and do callbacks to old player characters if your players enjoy that sort of thing, but you're not making them a special snowflake DMPC. 
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Feb 20, 2012 19:17
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Yawgmoth posted:
Wow. That is one hell of a group. I'd never even think that you could go for an economic victory against a Big Bad villian. "TREMBLE YOU FRETFUL CHAMPIONS AT THE MIGHT OF MY ULTIMATE SUMMO..." "Yeah we switched from the gold standard before we set off for you about a month ago. You probably only have about 5gp worth of stuff there now." "Awww. Fine. Suck bee!"
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Feb 20, 2012 19:42
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areyoucontagious posted:So I'm coming up on what may be a strange (read: awful) experience. I game with a great group of people, and I've truly enjoyed my time with them, but there are a few things about this next game that's being set up that I'm not looking forward to. We're playing a zombie apocalypse game, and everyone has relatively normal Los Angeles-based charaters: a movie star, a tourist, a doctor, a meth head, and a dog. It sounds to me like he's doing some sort of grimdark Scooby-Doo parody. I say roll with it and don't worry about it. SirPhoebos fucked around with this message at 23:27 on Feb 20, 2012 |
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Feb 20, 2012 23:23
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I took over DMing for our group part way through an adventure path. Our DM had just moved away and my PC was recently retired. Well, sent to jail by the other PCs for his antisocial behavior. I used him as a henchman in the final dungeon of the module and the other player's enjoyed killing him.
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Feb 20, 2012 23:29
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SirPhoebos posted:It sounds to me like he's doing some sort of grimdark Scooby-Doo parody. I say roll with it and don't worry about it. It's eerie how well it fits. (I'm assuming the genders match the characters) Movie star = Daphne, tourist = Fred, doctor = Velma, Meth head = Shaggy. Sounds like a fun game if anyone else picks up on it.
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Feb 21, 2012 01:59
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Yawgmoth posted:Agreed. I've had characters of mine in games that I run, but they were more "here are some NPCs you might meet and they might get involved if it makes sense" than "this is the guy I played before I started running this game, look how awesome he is!" Yeah, I've done this sort of thing a few times, and it does work if you do it carefully. It's just that it's not usually done carefully. Two examples that worked: In my very first 2nd edition campaign, I used my old Ranger guy from a friend's campaign as one of the main antagonists. He was killed in the previous campaign, but was raised by a necromancer, became the necromancer's apprentice, and constantly harassed the party. The had a pretty  moment when they realised who he was. I think they ended up throwing him off his own tower. In my second Hackmaster game, the surviving PCs from the first campaign owned a little pub in a town that the new PCs were using as a base. They were all hacked up, missing limbs and stuff (hence the new campaign), and they'd spend their days serving booze, drinking booze, and telling everyone stories about killing orcs and beholders and saving the kingdom and stuff. Their magic weapons were all hung up over the bar, and the severed head of the first campaign's primary antagonist was preserved and hung up on the pub sign (the pub was called The Villain's Head). The fighter, who still had all his limbs but went mostly insane, ran a little warrior training school out the back, called Crazy (someone's) School Of Valiant Heroes.
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Feb 21, 2012 02:06
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Wow, I didn't even think of that. Minus a few gender switches, it dots perfect!
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Feb 21, 2012 03:38
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One of the best campaigns I was ever in had the heroes mentored by the ghosts of the PCs from our last game, which was a 3.0 game (the current game was 4th). Eventually we got tired of being told completely wrong tactics and told them to go away. They were eventually bound to a lich we fought, under the assumption that the noble band of adventurers would never attack their mentor figures. Pretty dumb for a lich, I guess.
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Feb 21, 2012 03:51
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Ashdesert posted:I was thinking "maybe the GM accidentally put you in a situation over your head and isn't willing to fudge the dice," until I got there. If the GM is using one of their old characters as an NPC, run as fast as you can. Same group, separate GMs. But yeah pretty much. Fortunately it didn't escort us around anywhere, and pretty much just popped up once at the very beginning to get the group together, send us on our way, and sort of menace us about what'd happen if we went off the script. I was more put out that my awesome mine-collapse idea didn't work. What the hell are Druids good for? Mr. Maltose posted:One of the best campaigns I was ever in had the heroes mentored by the ghosts of the PCs from our last game, which was a 3.0 game (the current game was 4th). Eventually we got tired of being told completely wrong tactics and told them to go away. They were eventually bound to a lich we fought, under the assumption that the noble band of adventurers would never attack their mentor figures. Pretty dumb for a lich, I guess. So did they try to fight you using 3.0 mechanics? I'm picturing a barbarian dude trying to work out how to punch someone from a universe with no strong nuclear force and a couple extra dimensions. Tubgirl Cosplay fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Feb 21, 2012 |
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Feb 21, 2012 05:53
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Some years back I was helping a friend by playtesting his homebrew, skill-based system. These were coworkers and good guys, and though I hadn't gamed with them before I was reasonably confident it would be an entertaining excursion. I came out of it with a few good stories, though some are less climactic than others. For the sake of clarity, let's name the group: DM: The creator of the homebrew system. Pretty patient fellow and an experienced DM. James: The first of the three warriors, this one a stubborn and proud member of the strong, huge ogre-like race. Always willing to hit something with his giant greatsword. Normally a soft-spoken fellow, but when he set his mind to something there was no stopping him. Sam: Warrior number two, of an agile bird race. The most practical of the lot, preferring the longsword as his weapon. Very much a man of action. Me: Warrior number three, mucking around with the lion-like race. Keeping things by the book, my weapons of choice were the traditional armblades, and I was also a faithful of the god of the Dead which allowed me to see spirits. Toby: The odd man out, Toby's elf character was first a ranger before he grew tired and a little frustrated with the system's ranged combat rules and switched to the quite complex magic system. Toby tended to be interested in making full use of the systems he played with (or to put it succinctly, min-maxing.) Use What's Handy The four of us had ventured down into a dungeon and been through a number of typical warm-up encounters when, at the end of a corridor, we found a peculiar room. The floor was covered in tile, unlike the rest of the place, with skeletons littering the floor. Conspicuous holes ran along the side walls. At the far end, a small chest sat on a pedestal. Our goal became clear: we had to get across that room. We put pressure on one of the tiles with a sword, leaning away from the door, and sure enough it depressed and bolts came shooting out from either side of the room. All the traps we could see were real, and we doubted the lifelessness of the skeletons as well. James, Sam and I started taking stock of our possessions to see what we could use to surmount this obstacle. Toby, on the other hand, took this opportunity to corner the DM's attention again about the magic system. See, the homebrew system used a word-based magic system. You'd have the word for "fire," for example, and then by learning and investing in other words like "ball," and "propulsion," when combined, might give you the fireball spell. This meant that it opened up all manner of possibilities for Toby's style of play, and he'd come up with many spell effects he wanted to create. The point of contention this time was a recreation of D&D's Tenser's Floating Disk, except with levitating a table. He argued with the DM about which magic words would be strictly necessary to get this to happen. The DM listened patiently, but the constant speculation left the rest of us on our own. We quickly came to realize that we didn't have anything we could reliably use to see if those skeletons were undead. Nothing we owned was heavy enough to set things off, and tossing small pebbles and the like proved fruitless. We didn't wear much armor, and if the bolts were poisoned, none of us could stand against anything for long. But we did have rope. "Hah, maybe we should throw the elf in," one of us quipped. Chuckles slowly faded as we looked at Toby with calculating glances. He hadn't blinked an eye; the argument was his world. Wordlessly we agreed to this plan, but not without giving him a chance to react. Comments such as "Do you think the elf is heavy enough?" and "I think we'll be able to pull him back before the skeletons get him," were bandied about at regular speaking volume right next to him. Nothing. But the DM started to get a twinkle in his eye... Me: I tie the rope around the elf's ankle, nice and tight. DM: Okay. Toby: Look, it should only be four words-- Sam: We pick up the elf. Toby: ...wait, what? Me: We toss him in the middle of the trap room and yank him back as fast as we're able. DM: All three of you hauling him back? Toby: WHAT?! Sam: Yeah. James: Yeah. DM: As the elf lands in the pile of skeletons, they spring to their feet! Bolts slam into them as the bait is dragged back to the entrance-- Toby: --SCREAMING PROFANITIES-- DM: --and arrives at your feet unscathed. Toby: You bastards! We picked up our weapons and defended the indignant elf from the newly-risen undead, then made our way across the floor once we'd methodically exhausted the trap of bolts. As I recall, the reward wasn't really worth it. But Toby's reaction was payment enough. Three Questions During our excursion in this dungeon we gradually became aware that we were trapped in the place. In order to get out, we had to assemble a key. We'd found a few parts by the combination of dumb luck and taking everything that isn't nailed down. (In fact, Toby had managed his floating table, and it looked ridiculous with all our adventuring crap and treasure on it. It was upside down with its legs in the air.) In our exploration, we happened upon a chimera statue. DM: A voice echoes in the chamber, originating from the chimera statue. "Ask me three questions and I will answer them truly. If you ask a fourth, however, we will fight." Oh, and from now on, everything you say will be in character. If you absolutely must say something OOC, raise your hand and announce it first, but only if you must. The room went silent. We stared at each other like deer in the headlights. The normal atmosphere of our game was a casual one, where RP lines would be tossed out in the middle of our many discussions about TV, games, and work. The OOC/IC line was very blurred, and though we'd all established who our characters were, we hadn't done a whole lot of speaking as them. The discussion began tentatively. Each of us were excruciatingly careful in what we said as we sussed out the first two questions. They were relatively easy, asking specifically how to get out of the dungeon and where the remaining pieces of the key were. But after getting satisfactory answers to those and thus having all the information we needed, we then started talking about information we wanted. Suddenly, the table wasn't nearly so agreeable. We all warmed to our characters as the discussion heated up. We all wanted different things. I can't recall the specific line of thought that the third question was leaning towards, but I do remember I didn't like it, and my protests to the contrary were being summarily ignored. I was truly into my character by this point and not paying nearly as much attention to my phrasing... and thus forgot that I tend to argue in the interrogative. Finally frustrated, I growled, "Don't I get a say in this?!" I immediately realized my error. My eyes widened. So did Toby, who looked across the table at me with equal worry. "No," he snapped quickly, and we both dove back into the argument with furtive glances back at the DM. Our other two party members hadn't noticed the third question. Neither, it appeared, had the DM, but he was the sort to keep things under his hat. I couldn't be sure. But I'm also not the sort of person who plays tabletop games to win or be right, so instead of informing my partymates of my error, I continued with the argument. We eventually settled on the third question and asked it. I braced for the chimera to come bounding off its pedestal. It calmly answered the third question and went silent. Our group left the chamber, the DM told us we'd done well, and he left the room for a drink. Toby and I dissolved into laughter and explained the situation. Sure enough, as we learned when he came back, the DM hadn't caught it either. Kinda wish he had, on some level, but I wasn't going to raise my hand and inform him of it in the middle of a heated debate, either.  Chair Tag A little background is necessary on this one. My character, as mentioned, was a faithful of the god of the dead, and had a rather morbid outlook on what happens after you die. She obviously believed in spirits as she saw them in her everyday life. James' character, in contrast, believed as his people did -- when you died, you went to the Hall of Heroes, a Valhalla-like party. Hanging around after you were dead was stupid. Our characters argued about the afterlife any time there was a spare moment, and as a result had a rather dim view of one another's understanding of how death worked. Well, one day my character saw a little girl ghost take refuge in the big strong ogre man. She didn't possess him, just occupied his form. When I informed him of this, he scoffed at the notion. "There isn't a girl in me," he grumbled. "That's ridiculous. You're seeing things. I don't feel like a girl." She would occasionally poke her head out, and though I'd mention it to James, he'd just roll his eyes and reiterate that there was no way some girl was inside of him. Souls couldn't occupy other bodies, and he knew about souls, dammit. Largely this was uneventful... until we found spectral spider webs, and spiders deeper within. James picked up his sword and charged in... DM: Cyster, as he charges in, you see the girl cringe in pain and hear her cry. Me: Augh. James, stop! The webs are hurting her! James: Hurting who? Me: The girl inside you! James: I'm NOT A GIRL! Me: NOT YOU. The ghost girl inside you! James: Doesn't exist! I charge into the webs. DM: Her cries are getting fainter as he works deeper into the lair. Me: Get out of there, drat it! James: I ignore the crazy lion lady and attack the spiders. DM: You can't see or hear her anymore. She's gone. And so passed a strange, innocent little ghost girl whose host didn't believe she existed. When I informed him that the ghost girl was gone after his spider killing spree, he agreed with me, because she had never been there in the first place. And so we proceeded to one of the places the chimera had indicated: a secret room he called the Queen's Rest. It was a bedroom with a bed, desk, bookshelf, and a chair in the corner. Something hazy and indistinct hovered over the chair. With my spirit sight, I could see it was a crying woman spirit. We searched the place from top to bottom with the exception of the chair -- even they could see that something was up with it. All the furniture came up empty. It slowly dawned on us that "Queen's Rest" was rather literal. I tentatively approached the sobbing queen (with James scoffing in the background) and asked her why she was crying. She wailed in response that her little daughter, the princess, was missing. Her daughter. poo poo. I turned to launch an accusatory salvo at James when the wail became a little bit louder than my poor brain could handle and I was knocked unconscious. The queen was also apparently a banshee. They dragged me away and helped me back to the waking world. We stood on the other side of the large room, staring at the banshee and the chair. It was painfully clear to us players that the "proper" solution to this puzzle was to reunite mother and daughter and let them both go off to their eternal rest. Too bad the daughter was a little too dead. Over the snarling of James and I we came up with an extremely shaky plan B. The key piece had to be in that cushioned chair somewhere. The banshee was clearly interested in remaining on the chair. But maybe if we were quick about it and organized the group just so, we'd be able to get the key without falling prey to the banshee's wails. We agreed on the plan. Each group member moved to their position further down the hall, with Toby remaining in the doorway of the room and I slowly creeping to the chair. The DM stared at us like we were nuts. I snatched up the chair and hurled it across the room to Toby. Predictably, I was knocked out for a few rounds by her indignant screech, but Toby was far enough away. He took off running down the hallway, fumbling through the chair's cushions as best he could. The furious banshee pursued him through the walls. As she edged close, he tossed it to the waiting arms of Sam, who fled even faster. The key piece was dislodged just before the handoff to James, and as it clattered to the floor the group reversed. Sam swept around and tossed the chair to Toby, and Toby skidded back into the room and tossed it to my barely recovered self. I set the chair down in its spot and scrambled away as the perturbed banshee came back to rest and shrieked her heart out. The DM, who had been slowly losing his composure, collapsed in fits of hysterical laughter at our chair tag solution. And the group got the hell out of that dungeon.
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Feb 21, 2012 09:01
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So here's my next story from my 3.5 group. It's short but funny, maybe in a "you had to be there" way but. Just bare with me. So we had just been cornered by a pair of Dire Wolves and their Orc handler. Who was carrying a giant club. Which was actually just a tree. I was trying to climb up the chimney, leaving my partners to face the fight without me. So everyone is getting their poo poo ready, and we're just waiting on the DM to start the encounter. Finally he has the Orc speak  Hey, you guys took care of those snakes. Thanks.Everyone:  Well, lets go back to the nice part of the castle, there's probably more around over here. So turns out that we just happened to (well not really) find a 2000 year old Orc Wizard. He's not interested in fighting, and was just checking out what the commotion was in his house. So we're talking to the Orc about the artifact we were given, the Vorpal blade that the Merchant was making, various world building things, when the pirate decides to ask if the Orc had any weed, because his character is a stoner. Well, DM rolls some dice and has the Orc grab "a dusty old leather sack" and toss it to the pirate. Turns out to be some of the Orc's father's stash. DM: Roll a constitution check Pirate: 18 Dm: Nope, you take one huff and start tilting backwards, hitting the ground with a nice dull thud and releasing a cloud of smoke as you hit. The funny bit was what happened right as our DM said that. See Davy, the pirate, skypes in to our group and we have him on a big screen with a web cam so we can see him. Right as our DM said he had passed out from the weed Davy's webcam and skype decided to poo poo themselves. Pirate: Oh well that SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKVBVBVBVBVBVBBVBVBVVBVBVBVBVVBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZz So our now passed out pirate is up on a big 40" HDTV turning into a human Skrillex performance as the video feed starts to de-interlace and slowly split appart, finally just cutting to a weird rainbowy static a minute later. We pretty much called it for the night there since 1) we couldn't stop laughing for a good 10 minutes and 2) Our pirate couldn't really play anymore. Also our DM wanted to make sure it wasn't his computer that hosed up.
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Feb 21, 2012 17:40
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When a wizard offers you a hit of something, Ray, you POLITELY DECLINE!
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Feb 21, 2012 18:19
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Last night I played a Pathfinder game where a DMPC Wizard completely outshone the party while we were defending the Keep on the Borderlands from troglodytes. We fought like 10 guys while he summoned an ettin and killed hundreds. Way to make us feel heroic. 
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Feb 21, 2012 18:45
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GaryLeeLoveBuckets posted:Last night I played a Pathfinder game where a DMPC Wizard completely outshone the party while we were defending the Keep on the Borderlands from troglodytes. We fought like 10 guys while he summoned an ettin and killed hundreds. Politely tell the DM that you play DnD to go on heroic adventures with the other players, and that moping up an NPC's left overs is neither heroic nor fun. Then politely leave if there isn't an immediate improvement.
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Feb 21, 2012 19:42
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Cyster posted:
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Feb 21, 2012 22:01
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