Notable Gaming Experiences: The Gospel According to CobiWann's DM

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Beardless: Aug 12, 2011; I am Centurion Titus Polonius. And the only trouble I've had is that nobody seem to realize that I'm their superior officer.

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.

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

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.

# ¿ Feb 18, 2012 21:41

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# ¿ Apr 30, 2024 22:16

Beardless: Aug 12, 2011; I am Centurion Titus Polonius. And the only trouble I've had is that nobody seem to realize that I'm their superior officer.

DivineCoffeeBinge posted:

A whole shitload of awesome stuff that I wish I could have been a part of.

OH GOD WHAT HAPPENED NEXT! :suspense:

# ¿ Mar 18, 2012 18:14

Beardless: Aug 12, 2011; I am Centurion Titus Polonius. And the only trouble I've had is that nobody seem to realize that I'm their superior officer.

DivineCoffeeBinge posted:

A bunch more awesome stuff.

You should run a PbP here on SA. And have you ever tried GURPS?

# ¿ Mar 19, 2012 21:53

Beardless: Aug 12, 2011; I am Centurion Titus Polonius. And the only trouble I've had is that nobody seem to realize that I'm their superior officer.

I honestly thought that when you said that Endor had gone very differently and a mysterious Dark Jedi showed up that you would be fighting Darth Luke.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2012 20:03

Beardless: Aug 12, 2011; I am Centurion Titus Polonius. And the only trouble I've had is that nobody seem to realize that I'm their superior officer.

IT isn't a tabletop game, but this past weekend I was introduced to Arkham Horror by my uncle, who. I was having fun, and in the second game we played my character had an item that allowed me to rack up something crazy like 18 or 20 sanity by the time that the Elder One showed up. Unfortunately, the Elder one in particular was Nyalathotep, and if your character doesn't have any clue tokens he devours you right off the bat. So while my character didn't go insane at the sight of the unnatural horror from beyond time and space, it didn't do him much good. It's a wicked fun game.

# ¿ May 17, 2012 04:01

Beardless: Aug 12, 2011; I am Centurion Titus Polonius. And the only trouble I've had is that nobody seem to realize that I'm their superior officer.

Yawgmoth posted:

FYI you can't go higher than your max sanity in sanity points. Same for health. Arkham Horror is a drat fine game, though.

The item in question was the Healing Stone, and my uncle told me I could. :iiam:

# ¿ May 17, 2012 04:16

Beardless: Aug 12, 2011; I am Centurion Titus Polonius. And the only trouble I've had is that nobody seem to realize that I'm their superior officer.

PunkBoy posted:

Please tell me this is going to be a plot hook that leads to an alternate Starfighters of Adumar.

Only if they get to hang out with Wedge, Hobbie, Wes and Tycho.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2012 03:31

Beardless: Aug 12, 2011; I am Centurion Titus Polonius. And the only trouble I've had is that nobody seem to realize that I'm their superior officer.

Axelgear posted:

I've got a new and memorable list of experiences, both from DMing and from playing. I suppose, if I'm going to start sharing anywhere, it should be from DMing.

My local group has started Mutants and Masterminds. I had the books, everyone likes superheroes, seemed a natural combination. However, this was also the group who solved the union dispute with crucifixion so I expected odd things.

So here's the player roster:

-The Imperturbable Phil, a giant, tomato-red man who gained super strength and resilience after a freak ketchup-related accident. His most useful skill is being able to be used as a projectile.

-Kyle, the psychic hobo. He frequently wakes up in places he does not recognize with a washing machine on his head. He's a bit off-kilter but he can crush armoured vehicles with his mighty hobo brain and his tinfoil hat picks up NPR, so he's worth keeping around.

-Shandri, a cat who was exposed to radioactive chemicals, and is now able to turn into a person. She's gained human-level intelligence and has cat-related superpowers, but she's still incredibly naive about human experience. As such, she's a bit of a derp.

The setting is Chicago, circa 2034. The city has grown so much that it now extends to the eastern seaboard. Technology has advanced greatly but not nearly so much as people might think. Overpopulation and increased access to luxuries has left those with wealth utterly apathetic, those in authority complacent, and those without access to either utterly dispossessed.

This is why, when a group of borderline-functional heroes decide to register with the police department of metahuman tactics, they are directed to Officer Radnar, a robot police officer, literally welded to his desk, whose only programmed emotions are bitterness and sarcasm. Stuck dealing with the D-list of metahumans in the city, he gives them a quick and simple case to deal with.

They are tasked with finding the Muffin Man.

The entire session starts out with them, having spent some time developing backstories and character quirks and undergoing a psych test (I wrote out a questionnaire and had them all take it to determine what sort of tone to use for this), running around the city and asking random strangers "Do you know the Muffin Man?"

Eventually, using Shandri's unusually capable nose, they sniffed out the Muffin Man. The Muffin Man is a former pastry chef, now driven mad by a kind of schizophrenia that developed after an underused section of his brain overdeveloped, simultaneously granting him the power to animate pastry. He is hiding in an abandoned warehouse in the bakery district, now empty and largely forgotten after the Great Bakery Collapse of 2029 (known colloquially as Golden-Brown Tuesday). He and his assistants, Yeast, Dough, and Crust, are making large amounts of dough and pouring it into an immense casting mold, while his animated doughboys patrol the perimeter.

Phil, taking the lead, rends down the door to the building, dives at the Muffin Man, and tackles him, putting him in a chokehold. Kyle, following suit, levitates all the doughboys in the room to keep them from attacking. Shandri turns into a cat. She does cat things.

Before he passes out, the Muffin Man makes a cryptic remark, touches the casting mold, and awakens what is inside. It instantly cooks to perfection. The air is filled with tense fear and the delicious smell of rising pastry. Airy, baked to perfection, and filled with unimaginable menace, the beast emerges from the mold: A Breadnought.

Enraged to see Phil tackling its creator, the Breadnought sprays butter everywhere in rage, then smacks Phil like a hockey puck across the room. Shandri finally decides it's time to go and do something. She looks for a water main to cut open and soak the creature, weakening it. Sadly, she can't distinguish between gas and water pipes and soon the room is flooding with gas. She proceeds to trot to the bar next door to retrieve a matchbook.

Kyle, seeing an opportunity, lifts Phil with his mind, then hurls him as a projectile back at the Breadnought. The two start hugging each other in an attempt to crush one another. Shandri returns with the matchbook. She leaps to the Muffin Man's unconscious body (they were asked to bring him in alive), throws the matchbook to Phil, then jumps out again. She and Kyle flee as Phil lights a match and turns the entire factory into one enormous, buttery-scented conflagration and launches himself into the sky.

As it turns out, the Breadnought is stronger than thought. It emerges, on fire but "alive". Kyle, floating nearby, decides the best course of action is to just throw a nearby storage shed at it. The Breadnought is squished, though someone's treasured baby clothes are sacrificed to end the threat.

And that was their first adventure.

That was great. Please tell me that the abandoned warehouse was on Drury Lane. :downsrim:

# ¿ Jun 15, 2012 21:51

Beardless: Aug 12, 2011; I am Centurion Titus Polonius. And the only trouble I've had is that nobody seem to realize that I'm their superior officer.

Nucular Carmul posted:

Protoman was just observing and wasn't really sure what Skalhor was doing, so he just said "Skalhor, what are you doing, you are not a fish, get out of there." in this super monotone voice which really enhanced the hilarity of what he was saying.

Monotone warforged are the best warforged.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2013 05:25

Beardless: Aug 12, 2011; I am Centurion Titus Polonius. And the only trouble I've had is that nobody seem to realize that I'm their superior officer.

OneThousandMonkeys posted:

This encounter was the basis for Ballad of the Wyrm Berets that I posted in the 4E thread.

I'm gonna need a link to this ASAP.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2013 02:16

Beardless: Aug 12, 2011; I am Centurion Titus Polonius. And the only trouble I've had is that nobody seem to realize that I'm their superior officer.

Honestly, as much as I like guns I don't think they need to be included in D&D style fantasy games. Between the high fantasy tone and the prevalence of magic, there's just no real need for it. In a more renaissance or pirate sort of game, sure, bring on the flintlocks, but not in a dungeon crawl.

As for stories, I just finished the first session of an Eberron campaign, set during the Last War. We didn't get very far, but next session, we're going to be jumping out of a moving lighting train, sneaking into a besieged city, and freeing a captured general. Eberron is the best.

# ¿ May 15, 2014 06:51

Beardless: Aug 12, 2011; I am Centurion Titus Polonius. And the only trouble I've had is that nobody seem to realize that I'm their superior officer.

Arivia posted:

D&D isn't really high fantasy normally, or even very fantastic. D&D is pretty mundane, really. And I think your two statements sort of go together - there's absolutely no reason why guns can't fit into D&D, but a reductive view of that is exactly why Eberron is appealing. It isn't necessarily "the best," but it does allow you to break out of the boundaries you've set for yourself. Guns would fit very well into Eberron (think of Cannith Wand Adepts.) The question is, why don't you use them? If you're getting stuck on guns not being right for D&D but dragons and warforged are, the issue is probably with you.

...Yes it is? I mean, we may be using different definitions of High Fantasy, but D&D definitely fits. I don't know where you're from, but dragons and elves and magic aren't really mundane to me. It's kind of the definition of fantasy.

Arivia posted:

D&D isn't really high fantasy normally, or even very fantastic. D&D is pretty mundane, really. And I think your two statements sort of go together - there's absolutely no reason why guns can't fit into D&D, but a reductive view of that is exactly why Eberron is appealing. It isn't necessarily "the best," but it does allow you to break out of the boundaries you've set for yourself.

And as for "No guns in D&D", like I said, IMO magic takes the place of guns, both in and out of character, if you will. Again, this is assuming the standard sort of Hundred Years War tech level*. If you want guns in your D&D games, I'm not going to tell you to stop, it's just not what I prefer. I mean if they fit into the setting then sure, in modern-set games I'll sperg about guns all day.

Arivia posted:

Guns would fit very well into Eberron (think of Cannith Wand Adepts.)

I don't think they would, because things like readily available wands would render them pointless. Why make a matchlock musket when you can have a wand of Magic Missile, which always hits, and won't misfire or blow up? Why bother with a cannon when you can use a scroll of Fireball, which won't blow you up and will probably be more effective than any primitive cannon anyways. And why would House Cannith, or any of the others, make something that they can't monopolize? Guns aren't magitech, so any old artificer would make the, dragon mark of not. That's not the kind of thing the houses want.

Arivia posted:

The question is, why don't you use them? If you're getting stuck on guns not being right for D&D but dragons and warforged are, the issue is probably with you.

In traditional settings (IE high fantasy or sword and sandal type of stuff), I feel they're out of place technology wise. In Eberron, I fell like they're not really needed, wands and magitech devices take their place. In a more renaissance-y game, then I absolutely would include guns. And I 'm not exactly sure what you're trying to get at with that last part.

*Yes I know that the British used some primitive cannons at Crecy. That's beside the point.

# ¿ May 15, 2014 15:54

Beardless: Aug 12, 2011; I am Centurion Titus Polonius. And the only trouble I've had is that nobody seem to realize that I'm their superior officer.

Mehuyael posted:

This gun talk is pretty interesting, because I have an idea for a campaign that was originally based on generic D&D trappings, where dragons rule the world, and the players along the campaign help develop stable firearms which finally give the humanoid races a way to fight off their oppressors, which are generally resistant to magic and such.

I guess if D&D is so adverse to guns I could just switch it to some other system. It's only out in a really basic form so I can still make drastic changes like that.

See that sounds cool to me, and I would say go for it. The only thing I'm objecting to is dropping guns into a Conan or Lord of the Rings style fantasy world without any real explanation for it. But your idea sounds like a good way of introducing them. Not that some random goon's approval means much.

# ¿ May 15, 2014 16:12

Beardless: Aug 12, 2011; I am Centurion Titus Polonius. And the only trouble I've had is that nobody seem to realize that I'm their superior officer.

I think the point I'm really trying to make is that you shouldn't just drop firearms into a game without considering the effect they'd have on the world. Firearms had a profound effect on warfare in real life, and the same should be true to at least some extent in game worlds.

# ¿ May 16, 2014 05:00

Beardless: Aug 12, 2011; I am Centurion Titus Polonius. And the only trouble I've had is that nobody seem to realize that I'm their superior officer.

I'm pretty lucky with my FLGS. They have more gaming space than actual store space, and they cater to everything. Magic, tabletop, wargames, boardgames, you name it and they'll let you play it there. The staff are friendly, and happy to stock stuff that they themselves aren't into (Which did kind of bite me in the rear end when I ordered some miniatures and they got the wrong ones, but what can you do).

# ¿ Jan 6, 2015 01:06

Beardless: Aug 12, 2011; I am Centurion Titus Polonius. And the only trouble I've had is that nobody seem to realize that I'm their superior officer.

MohawkSatan posted:

Alternatively, GURPS, which is actually kind of tempting.

I have to say, rules aside, the rulebook itself is really well done.

# ¿ May 11, 2015 18:11

Beardless: Aug 12, 2011; I am Centurion Titus Polonius. And the only trouble I've had is that nobody seem to realize that I'm their superior officer.

drat, reading all this Vampire LARP stuff makes me glad that I stick to boffer larps. There's still the usual assortment of grog and socially maladjusted nerds, but at least if they annoy you you get to hit them.

# ¿ May 27, 2015 15:18

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# ¿ Apr 30, 2024 22:16

Beardless: Aug 12, 2011; I am Centurion Titus Polonius. And the only trouble I've had is that nobody seem to realize that I'm their superior officer.

Yawgmoth posted:

I love the idea of a pack of goons going around to different LARPs and just destroying everything everywhere.

The only two Goons I've ever met IRL where both LARPers.

# ¿ May 27, 2015 15:40

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