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

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the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

https://twitter.com/MemesDnd/status/1631572965329338370?t=L0wbr_MLWam9wkBmlXoZwQ&s=19

I feel like the OP here would have some horror stories for us.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2023 18:07

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 11:51

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

Cooked Auto posted:

Sounds either like a jaded DM who has had past terrible experiences with wildshaped druids, or just an rear end in a top hat one.

I'm leaning towards the latter.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2023 18:19

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

Preechr posted:

It always seemed to me like you could game that system by believing in Ao, whose core tenets are: nothing.

Isn't the fact that Ao even exists a...well not a secret, no one is trying to hide the fact...it's just really obscure knowledge since he does stay so very hands off with the world and makes absolutely no effort to advertise himself in any way shape or form.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2023 23:41

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

Prism posted:

There really should be. You telling me that rear end in a top hat apprentices wouldn't come up with that day one?

I'm picturing some scenario where the BBEG is about to complete the incantation to their doomsday ritual, only for PW: Minor Inconvenience to force them to bite their tongue mid-sentence, ruining the cast.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2023 02:33

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

Sometimes I read stuff like that and I think There's no way they were unironically running something that hosed up. It has to be some sort of petty "I didn't actually want you to be invited and this is my way of getting rid of you" attempt.

I mean, I know that people do legitimately run creepy massive red flag poo poo in their games because they're into that poo poo, but surely some of them are just putting on an act to get out of letting someone new into the group that they didn't actually want.
Which is still a lovely thing to do, mind, but at least you know you didn't actually need to douse yourself in bleach when you got home.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2023 00:47

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

CobiWann posted:

According to my DM, there is a non-binary sexual demon called a Fuccubus.

I thought Fuccubus was the new inclusive term to replace succubus and incubus

# ¿ Apr 9, 2023 02:40

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

CobiWann posted:

What would be the four elements? Whiskey, Rum, Vodka, Tequila?

The fifth one is heart.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2023 16:25

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

Cooked Auto posted:

Even better, it's a tome you can pull out swords from, a different sword per page.
Turns out he found a cursed weapons catalogue.

As long as he doesn't immediately start ranting about how he's going to become the Wizard King.

# ¿ May 4, 2023 16:11

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

Railing Kill posted:

So our 7th Sea group managed to fumble the bag pretty hard the other day. Despite every player being veterans of the hobby for 20-30 years, we committed the cardinal sin of splitting up the party.

There are five characters in the party, all of whom have recently joined a secret society called Die Kreuzritter:

Kristjana: A Vesten/Ussuran (Scandinavian/Russian) huntress and rune sorceress. Laconic and private, her closest friend a steppes horse. (My character)

Helgi: A Vesten whaler-turned-monster hunter. A soft-hearted gentile giant, rapidly becoming the party's moral core.

Viktoria: A Ussuran shapeshifting noblewoman. ~~Betrothed~~ Recently married to a Vesten Jarl, a bit of a romantic to Kristjana's hard-nosed naturalism.

Mandelos: An Aegean (Greek) demigod. A cocksure jock forever seeking opportunities for heroic escapades. An odd couple-type rival to Kristjana.

Evelien: A Vendel (Danish) polymath, an anthropologist by trade. Circumspect widow to a Vesten, dedicated to stemming the Vendel/Vesten conflict.

Now let's talk about hubris. The rewrite of 7th Sea that we're using slightly alters the first edition hubris mechanic. Basically, they used to be optional, or you could take a virtue instead at a cost. Almost everyone took a hubris, though, for cost reasons, and they're more interesting anyway, so I made them mandatory in the rewrite. So all of these characters have a fatal flaw. The only two hubrises that are pertinent to this story are Mandelos (Reckless) and Kristjana (Proud).

The group receives intel that something weird is going on out in the Ussuran tundra that might be Die Kreuzritter's concern. One traveler has returned from the tundra saying that several of his buddies fell into a chasm formed by a glacial runoff stream that ought not be there. He wants us to find his friends (or their things, if they are dead, because there were some valuables). Die Kreuzritter has taken up his plight because they suspect his group may have inadvertently found some spooky poo poo they ought not to know. So the order sends our party to investigate.

The GM establishes a minigame using several of the game's skills. We are trying to go as quickly as we think we can afford, pushing the limits of our travel speed and the effects of the extreme cold of the Ussuran tundra. Helgi and Evelien are not suited to many of the rolls, so they set a reasonable pace. Viktoria promptly takes the form of a snow leopard to stave off the cold and sets a slightly faster pace. Kristjana is the most skilled in these rolls (Survival, Tracking, etc.) and she is mounted, so she sets a fast pace to act as a trailblazer and forward scout. She makes an effort to mark her trail for the others to follow, and Evelien is making an effort to cover the group's tracks in bringing up the rear.

And then there is Mandelos.

Despite being poorly acclimated to the tundra, he leans on his sheer physical prowess to set a pace to match Kristjana. He is racing a loving steppes horse across a tundra over multiple days. He is reckless, so this makes sense.

But Kristjana is both his rival and is herself proud. She cannot allow him to win this race that she now finds herself in. So she continues setting as rapid a pace as she can, expecting Mandelos to fall back at some point. She is also using rune magic to make their camp warmer during rests, so she can do this essentially forever. But failing survival checks or getting battered by the cold doesn't slow a character down (yet) in this minigame. You go at whatever pace you want, and that pace sets the difficulty of things like survival and tracking. The penalty for failure are things like damage and exhaustion penalties. Mandelos is failing these checks all over the place and getting worn down by everything, but his superhuman physique is still letting him keep pace, and that's all he cares about.

After three days of this, both of the players begin to realize that we have left the rest of the group behind. Kristjana originally intended on setting a fast pace for a day and then just staying a bit ahead of the group before letting them catch up. But her idiotic race with Mandelos has continued to stretch that lead so far that it would take the rest of the group multiple days to catch up even if she stops right where she is. The players notice this but the characters are in a hubris-driven death drive and will not stop. I ask for checks to notice things that might snap Kristjana back to a more reasonable pace, but I fail. (For example, making a medicine check to notice that Mandelos is literally killing himself in slow motion). She does not notice, so on we go.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group has failed a check or two to cover their tracks. They begin hearing hunting horns from a great distance. It is behind them, and it is getting closer hour by hour. Helgi makes a lore check to identify that these are the hunting calls of frost giants, who tend packs of wolves for their hunting expeditions. This group picks up their pace, but th8ey are basically choosing to do so at the cost of their health. They are not as skilled as Kristjana (and are not mounted), and they are not demigods like Mandelos. But they do not want any part of those frost giants before the group is reunited. So a new race begins.

It has been five days. Finally, after the other group has been hearing the hunting horns for two days, they have gotten close enough that Kristjana hears them from a great distance. She and Mandelos have no idea what they might be, but it sounds bad. She assumes Cossacks or something of that ilk. It doesn't matter what it is: it is far behind them, and it will catch up to the slower group first. This finally, finally allows me an excuse for her to halt.

"Mandelos," she says. "I... we have been foolish and deluded. We need to turn around." I deliberately paraphrased a Winnie the Pooh line that I had just read to my son before game.

"So you give up, then?" Mandelos says.

"No. This is over and it has nothing to do with either of us. Our friends may be in danger. We need to turn around."

Mandelos grins smugly, but finally says, "Yeah. We can settle this later."

We turn around and head backward in double time. At the end of day six we arrive just in time. The rest of the party has exhausted itself and is hunkered down, partly to rest and partly to form a defensive perimeter for what they now assume to be an inevitable attack. The horns are now virtually on top of us and cannot be more than a couple hours away.

"Evelien, come here," Kristjana says during this brief rest. Despite being Vendel and not Vesten, Evelien has a runic shield. It was her dead husband's, himself a Vesten warrior. It has the Elska ("Love") rune on it. Kristjana has noticed this before but hasn't been a jerk about it. She herself is a rune sorceress and is kind of prickly but isn't a total rear end in a top hat. However, as a rune sorceress (and whose player knows the rules a bit better), she knows something Evelien does not.

"What is it, Kristjana," Evelien says as she comes over for a sidebar. She is keeping her voice down, expecting the worst from this interaction.

"Do you know what your shield can do," is all Kristjana asks.

Evelien says in narrative terms what her player says in mechanical terms: that it can buff a character in a few different skills.

"It can also affect the weather, Evelien. It can make it snow. Rain and snow are the love of the gods come to Theah. That is what we need right now." Mechanically, there are a number of runes that add buffs but can alternatively be used to affect the weather: wind, temperature, precipitation, etc. Kristjana had been using one for days to make it warmer at camp. Elska can increase precipitation, and Evelien's player didn't realize that, or forgot. "It may not be too late to lose the hunting party. If you can make it snow, I can cover our trail. We may have just enough of a lead to leave them behind."

Evelien is stunned. The shield is her most precious item, the only keepsake she has of her dead husband. Finally, she steels herself and says, "Show me how."

The Vendel and the Vesten get to work covering the trail and Kristjana begins barking orders to break camp. We will probably end up in a ptiched battle with some frost giants, but we might give them the slip. We're going to find out first thing next session.

Never. Split. Up. The. Party.

The way I read this, Evenlien had to think about whether or not she wanted to use the shield.
Does using the rune use up or destroy the shield or something? Or am I just reading too much into it?

# ¿ May 29, 2023 15:31

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

Ominous Jazz posted:

Those minis are fresh as heck

# ¿ Jun 19, 2023 06:24

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

CobiWann posted:

According to my DM, Banishment will not take the target to Detroit.

Well sure, there's evil and then there's Evil.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2023 23:42

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

CobiWann posted:

BRB, asking my DM if I can play a Tortle in the next campaign.

*shrugs shoulders*
Tortle Tortle

# ¿ Sep 8, 2023 21:58

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

Railing Kill posted:

In the aftermath, during OOC table talk, Mandelos' player reveals that the Rival background that Kristjana has for Mandelos isn't actually on his character sheet. It never was. Apparently Mandelos just considers her his close friend. He is just so self-assured and dumb and competitive that he only seems to be trying to compete with her. To her, he is a rival. To him, he wonders why his closest friend is such a Grumpy Gus.

There is something so...pure and wholesome about this paragraph that I can't articulate into words.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2023 16:03

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

I remember either waaaaaaaaay the gently caress back in this thread, or even further back in a previous iteration of it, someone had talked about their character who was evil, but in a revenge-based sort of way. Like, they were generally chill, but if someone did anything to cross them, they'd do everything in their power to ruin that person's life utterly and completely.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2023 06:34

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

Agrikk posted:

This was my campaign and I wrote about it in storybook form over a long series of posts rather than talking about it.

The character was the son of a tribal chieftain. The chieftain was murdered and the PC was betrayed and sold into slavery by his “best friend” so his mom could take over.

The character was later bought by a master who recognized his latent magic ability and an adventuring career began, but he never forgot from whence he came, eventually becoming powerful enough to return to his village, call lighting down to slaughter half of them, then reanimating the dead as undead to murder the other half. He then turned the air into salt, destroying the land with a thunderclap of imploding air for hundreds of yards in all directions before leaving the undead as a permanent “guard” for the area.

He then went back to the tower of magic and murdered his one-time mentor for dealing in slavery.

But then he went back and saved the world from the attempted ascension of an evil demigod. So it balances out I guess…?

gently caress that campaign was awesome. Some of my best work, I think.

Oh yeah, I followed that story with great interest, loved every bit of it, but no, the post I'm referencing predates that story by a number of years.

Hell, it's not even the first time I've mentioned it in this thread, if you look at my post history in here, lol.

the_steve posted:

I think it was in the previous thread, back when Good and Cat-piss were separate threads, someone mentioned an evil character concept I liked:

The character was a decent person, friendly, helpful, but if you wronged him, he would do everything he could to utterly destroy you, even if it were a trivial thing that was done to him.

Which doesn't sound as good when I type it, but I remember the original post being better worded about it.

JFC, I repeat myself a lot in these threads.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2023 09:47

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

CobiWann posted:

Everyone rips off everyone, so go nuts!

Fourth campaign, actually. COVID hit in the middle of the second campaign and was still going on when the third started. I wasn't in the mental headspace to take notes and write anything up, plus half the fun of the recaps are the terrain and figures/minis, so I fell off it.

Re-energized, though, as is my DM. He's been itching to switch to Pathfinder since the OGL mess.

Pathfinder 2e is a fun system, and they just did a soft reboot of the core rulebook/GM book in order to get away from anything that's too close to WotC.
I really like how they do crit success/fails on skill checks and saving throws and the like.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2023 22:46

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

CobiWann posted:

According to my GM, I am not allowed to put a Ring of Feather Fall on a chicken just to see what happens.

It'd be like the chickens in Ocaraina of Time. You can use them as a short-distance glider.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2024 07:11

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

Cooked Auto posted:

Oh yes, I'll admit I've missed these a bit.

Hard agree

# ¿ Mar 2, 2024 18:12

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

By popular demand posted:

give them a link to the massive Mesopotamian/Biblical CYOA that's been running on these very forums for over a decade.

You mean this one? :everstrike:

# ¿ Mar 10, 2024 14:34

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

CobiWann posted:

According to my DM, there is no such spell as Summon Candleja

It took me a second to realize you weren't using the Final Fantasy spell naming convention.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2024 11:26

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

I'm not into Warhammer, but apparently Games Workshop released or stated that there was some unit or faction that has ladies in it where previously it was assumed they did not, and needless to say, there is a veritable forest of catpiss to be seen from people who are very angry that women can also be grimdark.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2024 02:11

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 11:51

the_steve: Nov 9, 2005; We're always hiring!

Lord Awkward posted:

Having seen the first couple pages of replies to the tweet ("...[T]here have always been female Custodians."), I would describe it as more of a deep and turbulent sea of cat piss filled with writhing, incredibly mad assholes.

edit, a sampling of the piss, skipping the ones with wild slurs

I went with forest because I would not have forgiven myself if I didn't go for the Whizzard reference.

Some dipshit named Mark Kern or something like that seems to be leading the charge, if you really want to just hop into a black hole of catpiss with a heaping side of grift.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2024 15:40

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