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I've waited a few days to tell this story just to be sure it was as great as it was. My players all seemed to have a great time, but I as DM felt most rewarded with a few things they did. tl;dr - my players make twitter accounts for their characters, updating their status during the climactic battle (somehow) The party was closing in on the BBEG who was responsible for starting a coordinated ghoul outbreak and partially destroying a dwarven city for some purpose as well as previous orcish raids. This enemy was also the sworn foe of one of the players, a min/maxed avenger that had sworn a vow of silence until she killed the BBEG as her scream of terror had resulted in a parent and mentor getting killed while trying to protect her. (Sidenote: I was very, very concerned at the start because the player is very good at optimizing and a mute character was really, really setting off alarms. I discussed this with the player, got some assurances, and my fears have since proved to be unfounded. The player doesn't abuse the extra fighting prowess and has managed to integrate well in the group and roleplay despite being mute. Anyway...) They're closing in on BBEG under-under-underground lair, blasting ghouls with radiant energy and turning them to ash, working as a team and being badass, when I start with the whispers. Each of them gets sent telepathic messages expressing doubt, rousing suspicions of the other PCs, or claiming that they will be the ones to betray the party or be possessed by the BBEG. The players all play it out spectacularly, and the confident group starts fraying at the edges as their battle prowess suffers. They struggle through to the final battle, and they kick things off by rolling an alchemical barrel engraved with explosive runes into the room, completely surprising the lich and the Big Bad, setting them on fire and giving acid damage. When they close for melee combat through the fog of corrosive vapors, the avenger gets a critical hit with the first blow, shrieking her fury and unleashing ten levels' worth of pent up expression. The other players hold off the baelnorn lich sidekick (temporarily banishing him to another plane, save ends) and start setting up more explosions to take out whatever bizarre experiments he's conducting. When the next round comes around, the avenger gets ANOTHER critical hit! Though the Big Bad technically had 50 hitpoints left I killed him off with suitably dramatic parting words through the blood bubbling to his lips before slumping into unconsciousness. I thought that was a cinematic point to end the encounter and a good end to a character arc. The players finish their preparations, set off a chain reaction, and get the gently caress out of dodge. The last player to leave manages to see the lich pop back into existence just in time to realize how hosed he is. A quick skill challenge later and they've escaped the massive explosion and returned to the city to see the ghoul infestation dissipating into random monsters fighting each other. This is where the players surprise me. They had made twitter accounts for their characters and were updating them throughout the battle. The jokes wouldn't translate without a lot of backstory, so just imagine incredibly funny references and sick ice burns going back and forth while they're fighting off undead hordes. The messages later change to personal ones of doubt, paranoia, suspicion, and accusations against the other PCs. Finally, there's rage and anger during the final battle followed by fear during the escape followed by jubilation and triumph at their victory, as well as a little melancholy for the avenger. They finally linked me to them towards the end, and it was a struggle to remain serious when I really just wanted to crack up laughing. The mental image of these PC badasses clicking away at whatever a smartphone equivalent would be made me laugh my rear end off, as did the comments themselves. I have the best players  (Some things that didn't go so great - they definitely felt the encounter was a little underwhelming since the barrel bomb + banishment + double-critical from the avenger really did a number on the bosses, and with the quick resolution I wasn't able to bring the other preparations to bear. I also had a DMPC they hated - and before I get chewed out, it's because I went too far the other way and made him too useless. He wasn't even going to be there originally, but the players were stuck at one point and I threw him in to provide direction. After that, he wasn't weak enough to get killed and the players weren't going to kill him, so he just kinda tagged along. He did non-combat stuff like illusions distracting the giant troll while the party was fighting other monsters and holding the pocket dimension trap together long enough for them to escape, but it just became too much fun to hate on him I guess)
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Jan 20, 2012 18:43
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Speaking as an engineer, this is absolutely true. I have to consciously suppress that part of my brain, same as when I watch action movies. When I played games with my cousins, one of whom was also an engineer, we would wreck entire sessions if we weren't careful. If either of us started metathinking the other had an obligation to call out "fudge factor!" (an engineering joke) to get the other back on track. Had a really fun session with my players last night, they took things in an entirely different direction than I was expecting. They spent most of the session roleplaying their preparations for a ball/audience with the king and coming up with contingency plans while fretting about being presentable. How to get the elf's Fullblade in without contrasting too harshly with her dress was a particularly big problem. Leave it to the players to take a ten minute tableau and blow it up into a two hour session. I ended up just running with it and making the whole thing much more important than I was planning, though there were a few growing pains. At the end, I had to say "You all begin to wonder why you were invited in the first place," to which they responded, "That's exactly what I was just wondering!  "It's all good though, they're approaching it as a mystery, which gives me time to fake a reason for next session 
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Mar 5, 2012 23:59
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I was reminded of that South Park episode where Kenny's spirit is exorcised from Cartman and, lacking a "victim chile" was bonded into a pot roast. I'm pretty sure they did the "soul food" joke at some point, though.
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Mar 14, 2012 15:49
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JustJeff88 posted:13. Cross to Bear This is a small wooden cross that fits comfortably in one hand. Once per day, you can change it to a small wooden figurine of a bear. It has no other properties.
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Apr 4, 2012 21:58
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The irony about "children are always innocent" is that many philosophers argued the exact opposite, that children are absolute tyrants and would terrorize everything around them if they had any power. Augustine of Hippo specifically talked about how willful a child was and how demanding they were until adults or civilization taught them better, and used that as evidence of original sin. I always get super annoyed by people trying to game their abilities for extra power, especially for thing their class is supposed to be bad at. Let other players have a chance to shine instead of doing your contrived bullshit. Quantum Mechanics, really?!
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Apr 5, 2012 16:02
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Doesn't BT have an incredibly complex character sheet too? Something like hundreds of tiny boxes and lots of stats and minutia? It seems like it would be really frustrating to do all that bookkeeping and documentation only to blow up in a little mushroom cloud and have to redo it all.
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May 11, 2012 04:32
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Malachite_Dragon posted:Jerk Syndrome. First guy to show them anything resembling affection or niceties, so they cling to them like glue. I saw more then a few of my friends go through this in high school  It sounds like that girl may be reaching the end of her tolerance of that assclown's behavior, at least.
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Jul 15, 2012 18:23
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Holy poo poo. I was going to say I'd had a similar experience with tons of carded armies attacking Kamchatka peninsula from Alaska, but that racist outburst takes the cake. We still tell stories about the "Kamchatka Special Forces" holding off enemies outnumbering them 20:1 though.
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Aug 1, 2012 17:59
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AlphaDog posted:That sounds awesome. As a player, I know the recurring sticky situations each time I resisted using the ring would have cemented the idea that it was a trap. As a GM, I totally agree with the idea that no matter what you originally intended the players ALWAYS make the correct decisions, at least for heroic type games. There might be consequences, it might not be the easiest path, but their choices always get them on the desired path.
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Oct 17, 2012 17:13
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Oh god, Captain Bravo's group was the one with the Rat Pope? No wonder your game is so amazing.
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Oct 22, 2012 15:13
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Communication can never hurt, as long as people are open and honest. I may be entirely wrong, but it seems like they were trying really, really hard to bring you into the game (by doing the exact thing that was kicking you out of it). Maybe they were being more antagonistic than came through your description, what with the sighs and eye-rolling and all, but they were giving you the spotlight and focus of the session, which for them is reward and encouragement. The further you shrunk back from the attention, the harder they tried to drag you into it. I imagine if you can all get together and explain yourselves you can work out an amicable solution, but you will have to decide what degree of hamming it up you're comfortable with and they will have to decide if they're willing to play to that level. If you can talk with everyone there, and preferably well before the next session, I think you'll get it worked out. And remember, no gaming is better than bad gaming.
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Dec 4, 2012 23:32
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Zoness posted:Well it is bullshit - you should never get something that can screw you over completely like that unless every player thinks it's okay and the Deck of Many Things just features in too many bad stories - positive results could have been gained by trying for them without risk of negative consequence and negative results can outright destroy characters.
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Feb 5, 2013 18:15
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Easy, Mr. Whom is your name, Mr. Concern is your alias 
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Feb 27, 2013 01:58
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That is awesome, and much more climactic than the similar experience I've had recently in my game. The players are level 14 and have been mopping the floor lately, so I decided to give them a challenge. I statted up a hard fight several levels above them, and threw in a few extra bits as a reserve if they still managed to dominate the fight. In the setup I had really hyped some of the enemies, based off the Human Blademaster monster. It's a level 13 elite, but I threw in a bunch of them as "minions" and gave them a few stat bonuses. Long story short, they didn't hit the party once, even though they had appropriate attack bonuses. I honestly thought I had a chance of killing the PCs, but I just could not roll above a 6. They ended up calling them "failmasters," and at the end I gave them a level for their trouble. I did at least get them to exhaust all their dailies and encounter powers, though. It's not the first time they've been able to completely neuter a fight. One of my better players has constructed a fearsome elven avenger that has multiple ways of going speed 8, flying, insubstantial, etc., and the build can do a lot of crit-fishing. There've been a few fights where she will just go straight through all the monsters and defenses to the leader and decapitate them.
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Mar 26, 2013 19:43
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The only thing I could think when reading that was "Super-Man"  Great story, and quite creative. Also I might end up stealing some elements from that.
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May 26, 2013 03:26
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Bieeardo posted:I never cease to be amazed at how little communication goes on over IRC. A chaotic evil catboy child. Someone who self-admittedly plays against the party to punish other players. A GM who lets the paladin powerpose their way into wrecking the adventure, the player of which was almost certainly operating with a grudge. Nobody in this story comes out smelling like roses. (I'm sure you're aware of that, but that story just really illustrates how a "Hey man, you're kinda screwing up the game doing that, is that what you want to do?" could have stopped the problem before it started.) A funny story I just remembered: I accidentally derailed a friend's game I was observing on IRC. I had jumped in just after a battle, and they were going to cross some river when they're accosted by a Naiad, a female water spirit. After the GM's lovingly detailed description of her physique and how she reacted to my friend (a social character), I messaged him on AIM that I thought it was kind of weird; all I could think about was a bunch of sweaty dudes sitting around their computers hanging onto this description of the sultry Naiad. Shortly afterward, my friend's character knifes her in the side until water starts pouring out! When the other players express their shock and anger, he just said, "Oh come on, you know she was just trying to mind control me!" 
DarkHorse fucked around with this message at 22:51 on May 27, 2013 |
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May 27, 2013 22:46
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| # ¿ May 6, 2024 15:18 |
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Agrikk posted:This was one of the rules that was houseruled away in our group, because really.
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Aug 8, 2013 02:46
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