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Volmarias posted:I'm kind of curious how best to handle this. The game is supposed to have weight limits, and currency itself has weight so that if you have literally millions of copper pieces, it presents an interesting logistical problem. Most of the games I play don't even keep track of ammo, though, let alone people's weights and such. Penalizing her for not eating lunch is kind of stupid (it should be a "don't forget to tick off a ration in your inventory!" sort of thing, not a "ha ha, you forgot to eat, stupid!" kind of thing), but I really feel like the inventory management adds an interesting dimension which usually gets ignored for convenience. Typically I tend to handwave it, because keeping track of 'how much does a copper weigh' and 'do you have enough iron rations' is.... you know, boring. I assume that the PCs stop at moneychangers whenever possible to cut down on weight and they re-up on their food and so on and so forth; I only bring it up when it is too big an issue to ignore. That is, I don't give a drat about the encumbrance value of your coins if you make change for a gold piece; I do if you're looting a dragon's hoard. I don't give a drat about food levels when you're in a forested area with a ranger, who it can be assumed is hunting and/or finding berries and nuts and stuff; I do if you're prepping for a two week trek through the desert. It should only matter when it has to matter. Basically, I defer to the Rule of Cool. You know what's cooler than dying of dehydration in the middle of a dungeon before you reach the dragon encounter? Not dying of dehydration in the middle of a dungeon before you reach the dragon encounter, and then having said dragon encounter be fun and memorable. That being said, as noted... some games call for that sort of thing. Games where resources are scarce should make resource management more of a thing; games where 'gritty realism' matters should include the grit. It's just... most games don't call for it unless you're trying to be kind of a dick.
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Nov 5, 2012 05:46
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Nostalgia4ColdWar fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Nov 5, 2012 05:49
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Yeah I gave up trying to keep track of D&D arrows even before I gave up on D&D, when I realized every enemy needed like ten of them to go down. What, am I gonna keep a loving tally? If it's one properly placed arrow per rear end in a top hat and you're only seeing a few assholes a session that'd be another story entire, then the emphasis is on 'don't miss', but if the average load between supply runs is dozens or hundreds of combat rounds nnnnope. What I remember as really sticking out though was looking at the spell material components requirements in D&D early on and wondering who on Earth actually tracks those. Campaign ends abruptly as party wizard leaves for another continent in search of special batwings, 'oops your sulphur supply ran out looks like you can't cast Fireball anymore'. Tubgirl Cosplay fucked around with this message at 05:57 on Nov 5, 2012 |
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Nov 5, 2012 05:53
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My group is tracking arrows for the rogue, but ignoring spell components for my mage. I can't tell if this is groggy or not.
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Nov 5, 2012 06:04
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Tubgirl Cosplay posted:Yeah I gave up trying to keep track of D&D arrows even before I gave up on D&D, when I realized every enemy needed like ten of them to go down. What, am I gonna keep a loving tally? If it's one properly placed arrow per rear end in a top hat and you're only seeing a few assholes a session that'd be another story entire, then the emphasis is on 'don't miss', but if the average load between supply runs is dozens or hundreds of combat rounds nnnnope. I actually played in a game where we declined adventure hook after adventure hook; one of our first adventures involved us finding a cave system infested with bats, so we reasoned that there was no further need to go out and kill things when we could just set up a guano-gathering operation and reap the rewards from all the wizards who needed fireball fuel. Our DM couldn't decide if we were being assholes or not.
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Nov 5, 2012 06:14
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Nostalgia4ColdWar fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Nov 5, 2012 06:21
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:I actually played in a game where we declined adventure hook after adventure hook; one of our first adventures involved us finding a cave system infested with bats, so we reasoned that there was no further need to go out and kill things when we could just set up a guano-gathering operation and reap the rewards from all the wizards who needed fireball fuel. You say this and all I can think of is The Campaign Trail, where the party also did this.
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Nov 5, 2012 06:25
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:Our DM couldn't decide if we were being assholes or not. This always happens when I GM Hackmaster. They'll decide that the neverending pool of acid is a neverending pool of money. Or that the Mines Of Madness should be turned into an actual working mine that they now want to administrate, complete with union-busting side plots. Or that they're sick of adventuring and want to run a tavern instead. Or that it's way more efficient, instead of exploring new dungeons all the time and taking only the most valuable stuff, to hire some peasants with oxcarts and take literally everything out of just one dungeon, lampholders, furniture, cut stone wall facings and all. I always just roll with it. They usually shoot themselves in the foot somehow and end up arguing for hours with little input from me, and I arbitrate any disputes and write the next game. Strangely, if you put them in a 4e game where they're supposed to be big drat heroes, they're big drat heroes - they forget about tracking arrows and loading carts efficiently and compete to see who can selflessly sacrifice themselves for the good of humanity the hardest. It's like no matter what you put in front of them, they go at it with 100% effort without too much regard for stuff like "all pulling in the same direction" but they don't deviate from the agreed spirit of the game. Gaming with them is awesome.
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Nov 5, 2012 07:42
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AlphaDog posted:Gaming with them is awesome.
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Nov 5, 2012 07:50
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Really an adventure campaign that's just 'running a tavern where all these loving adventurers keep showing up' would work pretty well. You just stay in place, all the horrible things come to you, you worry a bit more about keeping the place from burning down rather than how best to burn it all down, and instead of a treasure chest at the end it's revenues and tips from patrons who don't carry change in denominations smaller than a fist-sized diamond.
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Nov 5, 2012 07:51
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You know, any big city would have a designated "Adventurer's Tavern" that was built like a loving fortress. Actually no. It would just be a small fortress. With an army of bouncers and a squad of countermages and holy poo poo this sounds awesome.
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Nov 5, 2012 08:37
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AlphaDog posted:This always happens when I GM Hackmaster. They'll decide that the neverending pool of acid is a neverending pool of money. Or that the Mines Of Madness should be turned into an actual working mine that they now want to administrate, complete with union-busting side plots. Or that they're sick of adventuring and want to run a tavern instead. Or that it's way more efficient, instead of exploring new dungeons all the time and taking only the most valuable stuff, to hire some peasants with oxcarts and take literally everything out of just one dungeon, lampholders, furniture, cut stone wall facings and all. That sounds completely wonderful  I actually have one player who is exactly like the first part. IRL the man is genuinely passionate about his accounting job and generally greatly enjoys planning and efficiency. This sounds like it would lead to horrible sperging, but he's self-aware enough that his characters are typically way over the top about it, and often well-appreciated for running the logistics of our enterprises. He generally isn't much for pulling the plot weight of a campaign, except in one memorable campaign where we played WHFRP and he rolled a corrupt merchant. We were his retinue and most of the plot hooks revolved around overly-complicated schemes for insurance scams, extortion, money laundering, forgery, buying noble titles and so on. It was beautiful. Tubgirl Cosplay posted:Really an adventure campaign that's just 'running a tavern where all these loving adventurers keep showing up' would work pretty well. You just stay in place, all the horrible things come to you, you worry a bit more about keeping the place from burning down rather than how best to burn it all down, and instead of a treasure chest at the end it's revenues and tips from patrons who don't carry change in denominations smaller than a fist-sized diamond. You know, one of my "want to run it but never got around to it" concepts is a one-shot, or possibly a mini-campaign, directly based on 'Allo 'Allo. WHFRP, during the Empire-Bretonnian wars, where the players run a tavern in occupied territories and deal with corrupt Imperial officers, an overly serious Witch Hunter, and an undercover Sorceress who involves them in their schemes, but only explains them once.
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Nov 5, 2012 11:41
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Tollymain posted:You know, any big city would have a designated "Adventurer's Tavern" that was built like a loving fortress. Actually no. It would just be a small fortress. With an army of bouncers and a squad of countermages and holy poo poo this sounds awesome. This guy. This guy knows where it's at. Colon V posted:My kingdom to play Paranoia with you guys. While I appreciate the compliment, I'm not sure someone else would enjoy it that much. The core group has been gaming together since 1993-94 or so, so it's a bit in-jokey. Our success at gaming (I believe) has far more to do with being friends outside of gaming and knowing what other group members find funny/fun than it does with any objectively good adventure design or group play. Four of us now do BJJ together once or twice a week, and that's just as fun. So would... I don't know... polo, or illegal street racing*, be if we did it together as a group. *We'd be the guys with the hippy painted Kombi van.
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Nov 5, 2012 13:33
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So some of my laser tag/drinking buddies decided they wanted to learn to play D&D on Friday instead of playing board games. By the time I got all the characters printed out and a few encounters plotted, I came back into the dining room to realize that half of them were well and truly smashed already. This was not a good sign. So I have the barest of plots fleshed out, it centers around "Oh no, kobolds have tunneled under the town, what are they doing down there?!?" The larger plot is that most of the great evil has been vanquished from the world due to the heroics of adventurers, but now the civilized races have begun to turn on each other without a greater enemy to face. Not in war or anything, but just commonplace evil like thievery, murder, like just being foul to one another. I ask where they want to start and the drunks declare the tavern. They immediately start trying to get their characters as drunk as they are in reality. I tell them how the tavern is abuzz because one of the great heroes is passing through and staying the night, but he's an old man now. The monk immediately says he's going to look for the old man's room, finds it and knocks on the door. It opens after a bit and the old paladin stares at him expectantly. "WHAT THE gently caress ARE YOU DOING HERE?" yells the monk. The paladin is perplexed, explains he's passing through. "NO I DON'T GIVE A gently caress THIS IS MY TOWN AND YOU'VE GOT PEOPLE ALL RILED UP. YOU NEED TO GO." The paladin shrugs and says he'll be gone in the morning after dressing down the monk. Another party member comes up and uses his diplomacy to smooth it out and sends the monk on his way. When they come back downstairs, they notice the bar tender is trying to shush the crowd and listening to his basement. They run over to the trap door and listen to hear some Draconic voices babbling at each other. None of them speak Draconic, so they convince the Paladin to come downstairs and translate. He says they're probably kobolds but doesn't know what they're doing here, they don't nest anywhere around the town. They light a torch and go down into the cellar and want the old man to follow. He declines, so the monk tries to force him down, rolling a natural 1 and getting pushed down the stairs by the paladin. Then the Avenger tries to lasso a rope around him to pull him down, but rolls like a 9 total and the paladin just brushes it off. At this point, half of the party is yelling at the other half, one side keeps saying to press on, the others are like "NO THIS OLD gently caress IS COMING WITH US." I had expected the beginning RP to take around 5 minutes, it has gone on for an hour and a half. They finally reach the first encounter, where they find the two kobolds arguing because they screwed up and didn't mean to tunnel into the inn. They bum rush them because it's just two, but then 14 little ones pop out of the woodworks. Half of them want to run, but the other half are boxed in by the swarm, so they continue fighting, but it's obvious the two sides are trying to screw the others over. The monk keeps using a Close Burst attack that hits everything around him, even allies, and drat near kills one of the Fighters after she gets hit for 16 by one of the Kobold Cutthroats. The cleric is only healing people she agrees with, and the Avenger is using her as a human shield. They finally kill them all and find the map the kobolds were arguing over, the monk picks it up, then the rogue Thieveries it out of his hands, but won't let anyone else look at it. The map essentially shows them digging under the town and planting explosives at key locations. At this point we've been playing for 5 hours and have had one encounter. However, they all apparently had a lot of fun because they want to play again. I'm thinking that the old paladin is behind it all, as he alluded to other towns that he's passed through having issues once he left. He feels the world is descending into darkness because there's no need for heroes anymore, so he will create strife and suffering to force heroes to arise. I guess because there's no evil overlord, he will become one. They already despise him for some unknown reason, so I have a feeling that they can be united through their hatred of this misguided old man.
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Nov 5, 2012 16:12
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If you'd spent hours coming up with something then that would suck - as it is that'd kind of cool. You threw something together, everybody had fun even if they were wasted, and hopefully you didn't have to put too much effort into keeping everyone going/not hurling.
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Nov 5, 2012 16:40
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Those Kobolds aren't undermining the town, they're Guerrilla Sanitation Engineers, building a sewerage system so that people stop polluting the river they use for drinking water downstream.
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Nov 5, 2012 16:44
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The way I handle rations depends on where my Rogue Trader players are and what they are doing. Lost in the underhive? Better remember where you noted down your Survival skill. Somewhere in the upper spires? Expensive restaurants or meeting with nobles at dinner parties every evening.
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Nov 5, 2012 18:10
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AlphaDog posted:This always happens when I GM Hackmaster. So they play it exactly like the Knights of the Dinner Table would? Complete with the inevitable foot-shooting? Sounds like it's working as designed.
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Nov 5, 2012 21:28
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Since I don't want to create a whole new thread on this; What game system do you guys think would serve a Venture Bros. style campaign? We currently have access to the Paladium system of Heroes and Ninja's and Super spies and while it fits thematically the game system itself is a nightmare. If there is another option that would be great.
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Nov 6, 2012 07:26
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Excelsiortothemax posted:Since I don't want to create a whole new thread on this; Honestly? Probably Risus or PDQ. I wouldn't want something with a lot of rules getting in the way for running a game like that, and those systems have the upside of being highly flexible and cinematic.
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Nov 6, 2012 07:46
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I'm not sure, but you better tell us all about it when this game starts going down. I'll throw the sort-of-cop-out option of FATE.
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Nov 6, 2012 08:07
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Punting posted:Honestly? Probably Risus or PDQ. I wouldn't want something with a lot of rules getting in the way for running a game like that, and those systems have the upside of being highly flexible and cinematic. PDQ. Now there is something that would easily build on the theme, style and action without a hundred different rules. I'll suggest that to my DM. Thanks goons. I shall also keep you informed.
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Nov 6, 2012 08:13
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FredMSloniker posted:So they play it exactly like the Knights of the Dinner Table would? Complete with the inevitable foot-shooting? Sounds like it's working as designed. That's how they play any fantasy RPG when not given a strong structure that interests them. I'm sure if I set up a Hackmaster game with a fairly rigid, compelling, story then they'd follow the story, but there are better systems than Hackmaster for that. The attitude probably comes from starting on OD&D/AD&D where "dungeoncrawl or sandbox/hexcrawl" were pretty much the only options presented in the books. So unless there's a dungeon entrance or obvious quest-giver, like, right there, it's straight off the rails and into whatever madness they think will be amusing. So yeah, working as intended. Edit: Not exactly like KoDT, because I don't actively try to gently caress with them. It's more fun giving them a sandbox with some interesting looking stuff in it and watching chaos unfold. For example, if the party has a Paladin, I wouldn't put in an NPC who "hates paladins" as a roadblock - after a few sessions the PCs will undoubtedly have given a number of people a reason to hate not only this specific paladin, but paladins in general, the whole church structure, the god involved, and the concept of religion. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 10:26 on Nov 6, 2012 |
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Nov 6, 2012 10:21
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Colon V posted:Survival works well where it's a core point of the game. Like, if you and your group were playing a STALKER tabletop game, tracking rations and ammo and water and weight would make perfect sense. I really like the system Dungeon World uses for this. Your character can only carry like a dozen things, including weapons, armor, and notable loot, but there's a lot of bundling. 1 weight carries 5 "adventuring gear" - when you need something special, mark off a use. 2 weight carries a bag of books - when you need a reference, mark off a use. Ammo works similarly, but you only mark it off to turn a partial hit into a full hit. Rations are the only way to heal "naturally" in the wilds. It's super stripped-down, and everything serves a clear mechanical purpose.
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Nov 6, 2012 16:58
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Glazius posted:I really like the system Dungeon World uses for this. Your character can only carry like a dozen things, including weapons, armor, and notable loot, but there's a lot of bundling. 1 weight carries 5 "adventuring gear" - when you need something special, mark off a use. 2 weight carries a bag of books - when you need a reference, mark off a use. Ammo works similarly, but you only mark it off to turn a partial hit into a full hit. Rations are the only way to heal "naturally" in the wilds. Yeah, DW does a great job of balancing "I want to have the risk of running out of X" with "I don't want to have to keep track of every arrow and every bandage in my kit."
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Nov 6, 2012 18:25
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Excelsiortothemax posted:Since I don't want to create a whole new thread on this; You want to pick yourself up a copy of Don't Rest Your Head and apply this hack to it: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?412782-DRYH-Venture-Brothers-Can-t-Best-Your-Dad
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Nov 6, 2012 19:32
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Brand the Mage, Part 2: This can only be described as divine retribution. Or a flaming owlbear. Those both work. So, after I torched a poo poo-ton of goblins, our DM led us to a cave. I don't even really recall why we went to this cave, though "the DM hates us" is a pretty good guess, for reasons that the title may hint at. There was a brief segment of the cave where we could all walk freely, but then a really tight passageway formed. Cord, our rogue, was on point for some ungodly reason, so he got to look in there. He proceeded to make an rear end of himself, making poo poo-tons of noise and causing something very large and very angry to begin growling at him. He failed a listen check, so he did not hear the big angry thing growling at him. Drusilla, our paladin, was in front of me and also failed her listen check. Brand, the mage I was playing, succeeded. By a lot. Because my mage does not like big angry things, due to a strong dislike of the idea of getting torn apart horribly, he shoved Drusilla aside, ran up to the passageway and yelled "CORD! GET OUT OF THERE!" This was a bad idea. Cord got out quickly; the problem is the creature followed him. The DM made us roll to see if we knew what it was. I failed and Drusilla failed, but Cord and Steve (our halfling cleric) recognized it for what it was: a big loving owlbear. A big loving pissed off owlbear. Keep in mind we're all level 1. We bolted like all hell, but the owlbear kept up with our pace and closed in fairly easily. We had to come up with a plan, fast. I resorted to an old standby. I cast Grease on the exact spot the owlbear was standing, and Cord set it ablaze with his torch. We expected it to at least do bonus damage, since owlbears are typically flammable. Nope. All the burning grease did was make it so we had an even angrier, flaming owlbear to deal with. If it hadn't failed several dexterity checks trying to chase us, this would have been a total party kill easily. However, it tripped on rocks and flopped on its rear end, then was completely unable to get up, so Drusilla and Cord were able to start hacking at it while Steve and I continued bolting like hell due to not being terribly fond of death by flaming owlbear. The session ended there, however; we'll have to see how things go tomorrow night for the exciting conclusion.
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Nov 8, 2012 04:18
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Last week in the game I've been running, I had an experience that I considered notable. It's pretty small in terms of some of the stories in this thead, but it was unusual for our group and made me happy, so I thought I'd share it. The members of my group enjoy being in character, but don't tend to try for much more with their roles than 'badass heroes who find the bad guy and beat him up in the most efficient manner possible'. So, while it's usually pretty fun, I don't often get the feel of fully-realized human beings from the PCs. So recently I backed the Kickstarter for Tenra Bansho Zero, which is a game that takes place on a planet settled by humans who develop a society that mirrors the Warring States period of Japan's history, except with mythological creatures and fantastic devices. The high technology that exists is almost exclusively for war, and the net effect is something like the Samurai Warriors series of video games with giant robots and cyborg ninjas in the mix. Anyway, one of the player's characters is Takatsune, a vassal warrior who has been given the task of restoring normal operations at a strategic mining operation that is being targeted by guerrilla raids. A ninja clan had been hired by an enemy nation to perform these raids, and were attempting to disguise their attacks as coming from a village of Oni living in the nearby forest. (The Oni are the original inhabitants of the planet Tenra, who have not been treated well by the human society that has developed there.) Anyway, as the PCs are tracking these ninja into the woods, trying to find their camp, the ninja are trying to make it seem like the trail leads to the Oni village, whom they hope the PCs will fight. Takatsune has been displaying more and more apprehension as they get closer, and tells the group that he's going to "scout ahead" while they rest. When he reaches the village, he's confronted by a large, angry Oni. This is the part that I really enjoyed, because Takatsune's player looked at us and asked if it would be a cool idea if the Oni was actually mad at Takatsune because he had fathered a half-oni child with a woman there and hadn't been around for a while. I ran with this as best I could, and we had some really great scenes of interaction between Takatsune and the illegitimate daughter he rarely gets a chance to visit, along with the other NPCs in the village, all of which took on a new life due to the interesting complication in Takatsune's life that the player had come up with. It also has fun implications for the rest of the story, as the enemy's army is about to invade, and the group will have to decide on their priorities about what they want to defend. Takatsune's attachments are sure to continue to provide great drama for the story's finale. All it took was one nice detail from a player who's usually content to hang out and roll dice, and the whole session was livened up and made more interesting. Another notable event that session was due to the player of the Onmyouji (basically a sorcerer who summons spirits to do their bidding). He wanted to get up above the trees to try and spot where the ninja camp was located. In order to do this he asked the mercenary character with cybernetic arms to fling him upwards. Once aloft he wanted to summon a flying spirit to carry him higher to get a better view. I should mention that there are two ways to summon spirits: One allows you to customize the summons's abilities, while the second makes you roll for them, with the benefit of possibly getting something much more powerful. The player was adamant about always using the random method, and so elected to take his chances while trying to save himself from a 30-foot fall. On the first roll, the spirit got poisonous attacks. Not useful, but there were still more rolls to do. On the second roll, he got the worst possible result: a Chimera. Chimera get a fixed set of fairly good combat stats and some special abilities, and want nothing more than to hunt down and brutally murder the sorcerer who summoned them. But they do get flying! So we have the Onmyouji frantically scanning the horizon for traces of the ninja camp while he's being carried away by a monstrous bird spirit. He was rescued in short order, but we all had fun with the ridiculous situation. So, we've all been having fun playing Tenra Bansho Zero, and I've beeen pretty impressed with the way the mechanics work to encourage scenes of characters interacting in interesting ways and building relationships. Given the subject matter, I wasn't expecting the game to be so good at creating interesting stories and drama. It may not be the greatest story, but for me it was a notable experience, as I felt like it was the most successful session of an RPG that I've ever run, and it seemed like everyone else had a lot of fun and got involved as well, and that's a good feeling.
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Nov 9, 2012 09:00
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How not to join an adventuring party: From a skype session. Names have been changed to protect the innocent, but 'Dave' had been bugging the GM for a while about joining in here. Eventually, he gave in, and here we have Dave's introduction. quote:Adam: (Yes, we can.) As the group approaches the farm, they pass a figure leaning against one of the buildings, twirling a gun and wearing a stetson cap and that was the last Dave posted. and yes, it's a Final Fantasy setting.
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Nov 9, 2012 11:50
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Elfface posted:and that was the last Dave posted. Oh god, poor Dave. I can only imagine the terrible boredom that Choose Your Own Adventure books provided as a child. " Pg. 93 Come, great adventure awaits through the portal, if we are quick then perhaps we can still save your friends! To enter the portal of Adventure - pg. 302 To go home and not Adventure - pg. 10" "Pg. 10 You go Home. The End." 
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Nov 9, 2012 14:47
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Yeah, no, that sounds like Dave quickly realizing just what he's gotten into, and beating a quick retreat. "Hey guys, I'm a cool gunslinger who's here to kick rear end and kill monsters." "Awesome, we're going to pick some corn." "Is... is that a euphamism for killing monsters?" "Nope!" "Well... can we kill monsters after we pick the corn?" "Not really, the other clans in town keep the monster killing to themselves, we mostly just pick corn." "Alright then, nice to meet you, have fun picking that corn."
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Nov 9, 2012 14:51
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GimpInBlack posted:You want to pick yourself up a copy of Don't Rest Your Head and apply this hack to it: Of course Bailywolf had already made this game. Of course!
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Nov 9, 2012 15:54
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Captain Bravo posted:Yeah, no, that sounds like Dave quickly realizing just what he's gotten into, and beating a quick retreat. Dave: So you guys do anything fun or interesting or exciting? Group: Nope! We pick corn and breed chocobos and do all those boring side quests you usually only do when the other option is staring at a wall for an hour.
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Nov 9, 2012 17:09
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Just played Basic D&D again. The guy running it hadn't touched those red books since 1991, when he was 12. It was awesome. A huge pile of pregenerated character sheets, a dungeon that can't hold more than 4 PCs (conveniently, the number of players) at a time without everyone being crippled by nausea, and one houserule, which was "When you die, grab the next character sheet in this pile of random pregens. Name your new PC and roll for hit points, then roll 1d6. Your new dude arrives in that many rounds". It was wonderful. Dudes fell in pits and died, dudes were turned to stone and died, dudes were eaten by gelatinous cubes and died, and dudes were pulped by living statues and died. My first dude was carrying all the loot (on the grounds that he was the only one who hadn't been hit or fallen into anything deadly yet), and read a scroll that "turns everything you are holding and wearing into dust". He picked up a broken board, continued adventuring naked, and lasted a surprisingly long time. The highlight was a magic door that claimed we were trying to log in as "Bargle" and asked for the password, and then asked us "security riddles" after someone said "password reset". We got one of the riddles eventually, after getting a lot of electric shocks from the door. The DM later informed us that the password was "password" and that saying "log in as admin" or using one of the pregens that could cast Knock to cast Knock would also have worked. We failed in the end, by running out of pregens before we ran out of dungeon. The two newer players in the group both said that they'd "be a lot more enthusiastic about D&D if it was always like this" (not that they dislike D&D, they just prefer Dread and Everyone Is John). Everyone laughed a lot. Next time there will be booze.
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Nov 10, 2012 13:08
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Tyndolionel posted:So, we've all been having fun playing Tenra Bansho Zero, and I've beeen pretty impressed with the way the mechanics work to encourage scenes of characters interacting in interesting ways and building relationships. Given the subject matter, I wasn't expecting the game to be so good at creating interesting stories and drama. It may not be the greatest story, but for me it was a notable experience, as I felt like it was the most successful session of an RPG that I've ever run, and it seemed like everyone else had a lot of fun and got involved as well, and that's a good feeling. Yeah, Tenra is almost ridiculously good that way. It might be my new favorite game, since it lets me scratch my gonzo fun and story focus itches at the same time.
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Nov 11, 2012 00:07
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I'm sorry for the length of this, but reading some of these stories reminded me of my own experience with gaming. This is a story of my first - and last - time playing Warhammer 40K. When I was fourteen I had a friend named Dan. He was an odd guy and your stereotypical young nerd: Wolf/dragon shirts, long greasy hair, always wore some kind of "fancy" hat like a fedora or a pageboy, and most of the time didn't bathe. But, with me being shy and a little antisocial, he was one of my best friends at the time. We loved swords, magic, all that kind of stuff, and played D&D every once in a while. One day when we were hanging out after school, he brings a codex over for us to look at. His uncle had given it to him for his birthday a couple of days before along with a starter set and Dan had been pawing through it fervently ever since. Once he showed it to me I was hooked. The artwork in it was amazing and everything in it was badass. You can have sword guys in powered armor beat up on demons?! What's better than that? We bought every book about Warhammer 40K we could get our hands on with our allowance and read through each of them multiple times. Needless to say, we really wanted to learn how to play. Dan's Uncle owned a local appliance repair business and during a housecall managed to find out that one of his clients had a son who was willing to teach us. With that news, we were elated and quickly arranged a time during the weekend through Dan's uncle as he didn't like giving out clients phone numbers. We learn that the man teaching us is named Michael and he's apparently won a few tournaments in WH40K. I remember grinning like a madman hearing that news. The day arrives and Dan's parents dropped us off a little bit early, so we took the time to sit on Michael's front porch and look at all the little space marine miniatures that we had haphazardly painted the day before with spray-paint and the shakiest hands ever. "These guys are sooooo BADASS!" Dan told me, while pretending his hands were guns and shooting them at a stray cat that had wandered up to us. The color scheme we picked, looking back on it now, was atrocious. We had painted "badass" motifs like bloody skulls and crossed swords onto armor that we had mostly painted a violent shade of orange. The cat wandered off, bored with us, so I looked at my watch and knocked on the door. We were still a little early, but I was getting impatient. An old woman answers the door and offers us some snickers bars. "You must be the kids playing that game with Michael today." she tells us, "I'm Martha, please come in!" She leads us through the house and it's full of the typical grandma-style decorations: plastic over the furniture, flowery beige wallpaper, and lots and lots of family photos. At least until she leads us downstairs to the basement and knocks on the door. We hear a muffled "Come in," and Martha opens the door. Dan and I shuffle into the room only to be welcomed by the most horrendous stench I've ever smelled. Martha tells us to have fun and closes the door behind us. The basement is Michael's domain and he is king. To say that Michael's room reeked would be an insult to bad smells. Empty food containers and chip bags were strewn about the room mingling with what looked like piles of wet laundry. What little we could see of the floor was covered in brown stains, dust, and hair. The only clean corner of the room contained a bookcase crammed full of different Warhammer and WH40K miniatures immaculately painted. In the center of the room was a card table set up with different sets of terrain, a few rulers, and a massive Necron army with Michael sitting in a ripped leather recliner behind it. He was about forty years old, immensely fat and looked like he hadn't left that recliner in years. He didn't have 'chins', just a sack of fat hanging down onto his food stained what-was-once-white ripped shirt. His receding hairline was pulled back into a messy ponytail that draped over his shoulder like a greasy pet. He was also constantly eating from bags of chips that he had by his side. Being too polite and more than a little intimidated to just say "gently caress this" and leave, Dan and I introduce ourselves and sit down at the table. I don't remember the specifics of what happened next. Michael seemed normal despite himself and we get going learning the basics. He's more than a little impatient with us, glowering and getting a little red whenever we do something dumb or forget a rule, but we're learning at a fairly brisk pace and everything seems to be going smoothly. That is, until Michael wants to have a two-on-one battle with both of us facing his massive Necron army. We really had no hope of winning and we didn't really expect to, but we agreed anyway. Michael gets an amazingly intense look of concentration on his face as he sets up his army and refuses to talk to us as he's doing it. In very short order, Michael is crushing our squads with his and we're losing pretty steadily, but Dan and I are having fun. I manage to maneuver one of my squads near one of his Necron Lords and with a few lucky rolls manage to take it out. I'm amazed and laugh a little because that was one of the few units we were actually able to take out but Michael's face slowly contorts into a look of confusion and rage. His face goes beet red and he explodes at us, screaming at the top of his lungs how we're terrible players, how we're wasting his time, that we should crawl back into our mother's womb because we're utter children, etc. He just keeps screaming at us and we're sitting there absolutely stunned. Right in the middle of a sentence, Michael begins drawing very rapid breaths and clutching his chest, groaning in pain and slumping over in his seat. Dan and I look at each other and share a moment of silence together, then ask Michael if he's ok. He only moans in response so we get up and take a look at him. He's breathing hard and pale as a ghost. Being fourteen, we panic, and run up the stairs screaming, surprising Martha. We hastily explain what happened and Martha dials 911. The paramedics come and take Michael to the hospital, while Dan and I quietly cry and everything to the police and Martha. We go home emotionally drained and we both swore off and tabletop games for a while. A few days later we hear that Michael had a heart attack but is in recovery and doing better. Dan and I sent a get well card to his hospital room but we didn't dare show up in case he became enraged just by the sight of us. As the years pass we didn't hear much of Michael after that, but I did eventually learn that Michael used that experience to lose a lot of weight and take anger management classes. So at least there's a silver lining to all of this. TL;DR: A fat nerd gets so angry at kids that he has a heart attack and then uses the experience to better his life.
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Nov 11, 2012 00:49
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Holy gently caress man that's awful.  At least there was a silver lining to it.
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Nov 11, 2012 01:30
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Side Effects posted:TL;DR: A fat nerd gets so angry at kids that he has a heart attack and then uses the experience to better his life.  If that had been me in that situation I probably would have quit all games forever. At least he learned from the experience.
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Nov 11, 2012 01:32
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That's hilarious and sad. Unfortunately it also describes quite a lot of the people I played with when I played Warhammer for ~6 months.
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Nov 11, 2012 01:38
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| # ? May 8, 2024 08:28 |
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Side Effects posted:TL;DR: A fat nerd gets so angry at kids that he has a heart attack and then uses the experience to better his life. You made the guy ragequit living.
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Nov 11, 2012 01:49
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