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

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Notable Gaming Experiences: The Gospel According to CobiWann's DM

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Sometimes they will try and figure out how to steal the ground, too.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2012 00:48

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# ¿ May 1, 2024 01:35

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Cyster posted:

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."

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.

Emphasis mine. You didn't ask the Chimera a question, you asked Toby('s character) one! :eng101:

# ¿ Feb 21, 2012 22:01

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Rules as written, monster knowledge checks are just a free action, but you can't retry them if you fail.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2012 02:08

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Clanpot Shake posted:

Flying through the sky (realm of the air elementals) in transportation fueled by elemental slaves sounds like an exceedingly bad idea.

Slaves? Pfft. I bargained for the service of these elementals with the Four Great Lords of the Air fair and square. :smug:

Now if you'll excuse me, I must make it to where the sun sets so I can forge the metal of this fallen star into a sword which can defeat the evil which rules the mortal realm and bring freedom to all humankind.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2012 01:40

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Demon_Corsair posted:

How does one make a lazylord? If I ever end up playing 4th ed, I must play as this.

Take all the powers which let you jsut give other people attacks and poo poo. Never actually attack personally.

# ¿ May 11, 2012 00:15

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

TWorlock posted:

http://imageshack.us/f/191/theflightofbigben.jpg/

Don't use image shack here. Try imgur or something.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2012 09:46

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

DivineCoffeeBinge posted:

Yeah, this story basically means "my players are familiar with Amber." A free spikard? poo poo, that's gotta be a trap, right? Heh.

For the unfamiliar, Amber DRPG is built on a point-buy system; spend points, get powers. However, there are many ways for characters to basically cheese out powers they've not paid for; the books encourage GMs to allow this, but to ensure that each of these 'free' powers has strings attached that will bite the player in the rear end down the line. This is because the books were written as a masterpiece of adversarial GMing. Erick Wujick is apparently one of those dudes who looks for opportunities to twist the knife at every opportunity.

They also tell you to screw over players who paid up during chargen with their precious points for things in exactly the way the actual chargen rules tell the players they won't be. I think one of the examples in maybe the supplement brags about how he once screwed over a PC who took a good chunk of "bad stuff" (point-debt, which makes you less "lucky"), and then screwed over the other PC who took a good chunk of Good Stuff (the opposite) even harder.

I would not call this a "masterpiece".

# ¿ Oct 22, 2012 15:25

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Start a new campaign, invite everybody else but not the current GM. Something simple like Apocalypse/Dungeon World or Octane, maybe.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2013 23:06

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

I think even in 3e you were supposed to give out XP for alternate solutions to fights, such as that.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2013 01:43

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

It was the very first adventure ever for 3e, and yes it was just one dungeon. I don't remember how much XP it dropped if you murdered everything in it and looted it dry, though, but there was a lot of random rear end poo poo in it to stumble on. Like a troll hiding in a sarcophagus in a secret room. (I think it was a weaker than normal one because it was all starved so it wouldn't automatically murder the Problaby-level-1 party, but it was tough.)

# ¿ Feb 8, 2013 01:54

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

ElegantFugue posted:

Revenge of the Robot

"Once per day, when you die, just go possess convenient robot body and keep on truckin'"

# ¿ Feb 19, 2013 08:02

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Huszsersvn posted:

It's things like this that make me realize that a "points of light" campaign is necessarily offset by impenetrable darkness.

Obvious Points of Light group motivation: Your home village is surrounded by dangerous hostile things. Go cause death to keep it safe. ... Preferably not your own but beggars can't be choosers when you live in the middle of a howling wilderness full of things that can and will kill you.

(Paragon tier motivation: Turn your home town into the capital of an empire and bring peace to the world. The peace of the protection behind the shields of your legions or the peace of the grave in front of them, you will get peace either way. :hist101:

)

# ¿ Feb 24, 2013 03:29

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Captain Bravo posted:

Some day, I want to do a points of darkness campaign. Build a utopia, a world where everything is perfect and nothing is every wrong or dangerous. Stick the PC's in it long enough to drive them bugfuck crazy. (Probably ten minutes?) Laugh maniacally as they tear the whole loving thing down.

Obviously the followup campaign to mine is freedom fighters against the oppressive Hometownname Empire.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2013 03:40

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

the_steve posted:

The malkavian looks to me and says: "Ah yes, Mr. Appleton told me of you. Do you prefer Mr. Whom or Mr. Concern?"

You should roll with this. Your character's name is now Mr. Concern.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2013 14:41

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Mendrian posted:

So when he floated the idea past the elder - who was also Storyteller - the guy breaks character and has a heart-to-heart with my friend. "Dude, you aren't playing Tremere right", he says. "We're here for magic and research. If you want to be political, maybe you should play a Ventrue."

... I... you don't turn your entire magical order into loving vampires because you're in it for pure research. You do it for loving power. :psypop:

Barudak posted:

hetero* women.

... where's the other end of this footnote? :confused:

# ¿ Mar 5, 2013 17:40

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Agrikk posted:

If I'd known that I would have totally gone for the Errol Flyn dual-wielding paladin, maxed out in acrobatics and seduction. Instead I have a horribly sunburned drow with penalties for operating in daylight who hates boats and open spaces. Ooops.

If your GM is nice enough to let you buy some sunscreen and sunglasses to deal with the mechanical penalties, playing a character who absolutely hates the place they're stuck in could be fun too.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2013 05:12

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

From a party optimization point of view you're probably better off going a Leader of some kind, maybe a warlord. I see two Defenders and three Strikers.

I think you can get most of the "turn into a bear" stuff, and be a pixie, while being a Warlord, though.

Plus, you know: Pixie Warlord. :black101:

# ¿ Apr 5, 2013 05:30

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

... What about Every Brawler Fighter Power? :confused:

# ¿ Apr 5, 2013 05:46

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

TalonDemonKing posted:

The Avenger is actually a Paladin , so we have 3 defenders running around. I'm sort of filling the leader role with judicial use of Lay on Hands, and it's been working so far, despite our best attempts to steal everything not nailed down to the ground.

I'm not a very good paladin.

I was more thinking of the Warlord's ability to buff attacks/damage and provide more attacks. :black101:

# ¿ Apr 5, 2013 14:37

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

God Of Paradise posted:

Dude died at one of the climaxes of our game. In reality, I took him into the other room and talked to him, and made sure he was cool with his character dying. I told him he can be cloned for a fee and come back just losing a level. He said he was wanting to make a new character anyway.

I thought it was pretty obvious I was joking around on this thread.

You are not very familiar with the tabletop roleplaying community then.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2013 22:29

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

NGDBSS posted:

That was the old thread, locked because someone's personal information came up. The new one's here. It's about showing off terrible TG opinions, though I agree with Jonny Angel that it's not a substitute for Bad Gaming Experiences.

No, that thread was the second one, and it got vanished and is no longer where we can see it.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2013 16:34

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

~~I thought the name was "thermal".~~ Never mind!

# ¿ Sep 25, 2013 22:04

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Yawgmoth posted:

There's a ton of really fun stuff in there, you just have to dig past about as much dumb poo poo to get to it.
In the BoED the overriding theme is "if it's dirty/gross/common phobia, it's Evil with a capital E!" with a plate full of "X is always evil, so here is Y; Y does the exact same thing in an arguably more brutal manner with the same mechanics, but it only hurts non-good targets and is pretty, so it's good."

That's where the "All poisons are Evil: Here are things which are exactly like and use the same rules as poisons but are not poisons so they're Good" came from, right?

# ¿ Oct 30, 2013 13:07

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Well, an Explorator attached to a Rogue Trader is going to be a little more... flexible about what counts as heretek than most Magos even if they're otherwise loyal. If they were a hardliner they'd be on a Mechanicus ship.

Or become so after the third or fourth time they have to hack together Imperium systems with some alien poo poo to save the day.

# ¿ Dec 1, 2013 18:55

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Hey, that's a dumb way to deal with a Chaos chest full of awesome loot.

You should've taken off and hit it with a lance strike from orbit. :colbert:

# ¿ Dec 1, 2013 19:55

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Barudak posted:

He's also really high level and outlevels the Gods. Because a) Gods have levels and b) The God's levels are whats listed in a rulebook despite it being your own setting and c) That somehow doesn't make him a god himself.

In 3.x being a god is a specific thing which has an ECL on it, basically.

I forget how the actual abilities compare to just piling on more epic spellcaster poo poo, though.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2014 23:36

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Opinion Haver posted:

the Mortiverse

As a standard action at will, the Mortiverse may generate 52,818,775,000,000,000,000,000,000,000d10 spawn statistically equivalent to itself, only the spawn lack the ability to generate other spawn.

:staredog:

# ¿ Jan 3, 2014 17:22

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

darth cookie posted:

I personally have no problem with having guns in a Pathfinder game thematically, (though I know others do), its more to do with the fact that RAW, they are terrible, as are the classes that are designed to use them.

Which I'm pretty sure is in fact intentional.

# ¿ May 15, 2014 00:18

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

CobiWann posted:

Yeah, we don�t melt our own musket balls. We either travel in one character�s INSANELY posh ship, or his INSANELY posh carriage (he has them stashed all over Theah), or by walking through HELL when we�re in a hurry.

The mixing rock salt into molten lead�that is a good idea. I went with the Jeweler�s Guild because my character has an �in� with them, but now someone has to get to know the Blacksmith�s Guild. Thanks for the tip!

There's probably somebody on the ship's crew who makes musket balls, it's mostly just pouring lead into a mold. Tell them to mix some salt in a few batches and see how it works.

Getting holy water in will be trickier, of course. Maybe see if you can get a priest to bless some molten lead before it's cast into balls?

# ¿ May 21, 2014 18:31

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Coward posted:

getting us to play a cabal that ran a city.

the protection rackets that passed for our merchant economy

If you're actually in charge, where's the line between a protection racket and taxes, really?

# ¿ Sep 8, 2014 01:08

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

HebrewMagic posted:

His consciousness was attached to a sparse few meat bodyparts slammed in a steel killhouse of a body, & lashed in with Satanic magics.

He was playing a Cyberzombie?

Why was whoever owned him, body and soul, letting him run around with a bunch of random runners? Cyberzombes are expensive, and require expensive ongoing maintenance. :psylon:

# ¿ Jun 10, 2015 11:44

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Yawgmoth posted:

Ah yes, the much loved "roll to not be an incompetent moron" rule. That's an awesome rule because you very quickly discover who is and is not worth playing with in any capacity.

It's a videogame, so I'm assuming you have to manually tell the character to open a potion, then drink from it/use it, then close it again, rather than just :rolldice:

"nope you forgot to close it"

Which is almost worse, really.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2015 22:39

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Clearly you threw 20 gold on the counter and demanded the finest donut the shopkeeper had.

The fact that the shopkeeper did not have an unusually fine donut did not stop him from taking the money.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2015 10:24

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

thespaceinvader posted:

You can definitely preserve cartilage long-term, I have a shark jawbone on my windowsill to prove it. Wouldn't be practical to scrimshaw though.

Clearly it's the skull of a dire hammerhead shark. Much stronger and capable of smashing rocks to pieces.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2015 07:11

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# ¿ May 1, 2024 01:35

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Skyscraper posted:

So unless the guy is using "I dreamed it" as a euphemism for "this happened and I don't want to incriminate my friends who are of the catpiss", it's all just somebody's idea and it never went catpiss, it never went anything.

I think that's an in-character report from a large group play organization.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2015 19:00

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