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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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| # ¿ Apr 30, 2024 22:26 |
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