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So I'm glad the good and bad experiences threads were merged, because I honestly can't decide which one this story fits under. But it's certainly my most memorable, and whenever the old group gets together we inevitably bring it up in awed tones, just generally going "what the gently caress was THAT all about?" The old group I'm talking about is one I gamed with a long time ago, when a perfect storm of circumstances landed me and a few of my friends with five like-minded people that all liked to game. We ended up with this D&D supergroup that was just all kinds of awesome. We had nine people altogether, more people than I had ever gamed with before, and our DM, in addition to somehow working nine of us into one plotline, also helped us all come up with our own INDIVIDUAL plotline for each of our characters. It was awesome, and I might get into some of those stories later, but that's not what I want to talk about now. I want to talk about Derek. Derek was one of three teenagers in our group, and easily the most annoying. He showed up dressed in a full length leather trenchcoat despite it being something like a hundred and two outside, and the first thing he said when he found out we'd be gaming with D&D 3.5 was that it was a lame idea, because "there's no point to being anything other than a monk." Because we were all incredible nerds, we actually got bogged down into a three hour argument with this guy over this. It was like trying to knock down an elm tree by banging your head bloody against it. To him, there was no point in playing any other class besides the one that was the "best", and since the monk was the "best" class, all the other ones were for suckers. For some reason, we let him play anyway, and he ended up playing a spellscale sorcerer because, obviously, if he played a monk the game would be too easy. We all kind of rolled our eyes and just got on with the game. Now, since there were nine people all trying to game at once, it was obviously pretty hard to get us all in one place at one time, the end result being that we were split up into two groups. My group started earlier, and Derek's group came in after the first group had actually progressed in the plot a bit. At the time Derek's group started, my group had been trapped in this giant, empty city. There was a similarly giant, haunted citadel in the middle of the place, but the real suspense came when night fell. The first night, my character gathered everyone up and set them up in an abandoned bank to sleep, reasoning that if something horrible came out, we could all hide in the vault. My character draws first watch, and to his horror, soon after the sun sets, he hears the entire CITY come alive. Footsteps, detached conversations from things that don't know they're dead, and...SOMETHING sniffing at the door. The DM tells me that it sounds like there are thousands of somethings out there. Terrified, I wake everyone up and silently move them into the vault and spend the rest of the night waiting for the sun to rise while clenching my sword in a white-knuckle grip. When day comes, the sound vanishes, and sure enough, when we go outside, the city is just as empty as it was before. Anyway, fast forward a bit. I forget how, but our group had figured out that a) the city was alive with goddamned skeletons and ghosts and more skeletons and skeleton ghosts every night, and b) there was this narrow spit of grassland along the wall that the undead couldn't cross. Since they seemed to be homing in on the bank already on the first night, our second day in the place was spent gathering crates and blankets and making a crude shelter inside the restricted area. We figured the undead couldn't sense us if we were inside that area, so as long as they also couldn't SEE us, we'd be safe. This is where Derek's group comes in. They all get thrown into the giant haunted city with us, and sure enough, as soon as out groups meet up, he starts throwing orders around. I spend literally THE ENTIRE DAY, in game time, trying to reason with him that there are thousands of undead in the city. They can't sense us in the shelter we built. No, I don't know if it will work for sure, but they almost found us the first night. Yes, there's room enough for all of us. No, I don't think we can kill an entire city of undead by ourselves. Will you please stop calling me a pussy and get in the loving shelter now? So night falls, and thankfully Derek has come around to my thinking and is hiding in the shelter with us. As the sun sets, the DM starts with the suspense. "When it gets dark, the silence of the city is suddenly replaced by sound. You can hear footsteps and voices, what sound like one-sided conversations. The noise is everywhere. It's like being in a busy marketplace, but something is very wrong with what you hear." Me: "Okay...I pull aside a corner of curtain and risk a peek outside." DM: "Right. You see what can only be described as a HORDE of skeletons. Thousands of them, all milling about, some of them on errands, some of them merely watching. A few are just vacantly staring at walls, waiting." Me: "Creepy." Derek: "Okay. I'm going to run out of the shelter." Me: "...WHAT?" The DM looks startled, with a kind of deer in the headlights look. Derek is grinning at all of us like he just pulled the trump card, and I desperately try to reason with him. Me: "Dude, there's...there's like thousands of these loving things." Derek: "So? They're just skeletons. Like level one poo poo." Me: "...WE'RE ALL LEVEL ONE, YOU loving DUMBASS." Derek: "Whatever. I'm walking out." The DM actually gets a panicked look on his face, and I tell him I try to grab Derek's character. Derek says I need to roll, so I do, and botch it. SO DO THE OTHER SEVEN PLAYERS that try to stop him. It's like the God of Jackasses was watching over this guy. I tell the DM "I'm quicksaving. F6, man." End result, he walks out of the shelter and just kind of stands out there, about fifty feet from cover. That was his whole plan. DM: "As you stand there, one of the skeletons suddenly notices you, then all of a sudden, they ALL do. They stop whatever they're doing and begin watching you with their dark, empty sockets." Derek: "Uh...hi..." DM: "They begin picking up the cobblestones at their feet and chucking them at you. The rain of stones knock you on the ground and soon your battered, lifeless body is..." Derek: "Wait, they don't have to roll or anything?" DM: "There are hundreds of cobblestones coming at you. No, I don't have to roll." He turns to the rest of us. "With the spellscale dead, the skeletons turn their attention to your crude shelter. The barrage of rocks do little to damage the crates you're hiding behind, but that doesn't matter. They're just trying to keep you inside. Before long, the skeleton mages show up." We all sit in stunned silence, letting the TPK that just hit us sink in. Then I timidly speak up. "Um...quickload." DM: "...okay. You're all inside the shelter. There are thousands of skeletons outside." We all breath a sigh of relief. Derek: "Okay...I got it figured out. I'm going to go outside again." Thankfully, we managed to beat him into submission and made it through the night. That was the first time his character died. What makes this one of my best experiences roleplaying is the other two times his character died, but this post went on longer than I thought, so I'll post them up later.
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Feb 23, 2012 21:46
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| # ¿ May 21, 2024 11:03 |
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