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Gilgameshback posted:What's the significance of the Akubra hat in Australia? Is this like a cowboy hat, or some kind of fedora? I imagine it's more the suit all year round that is relevant to Australia. Akubra hat is kinda a cowboy hat I guess? It's a valid hat in many circumstances but it should never be paired with a suit.
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Apr 10, 2013 12:09
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Karandras is on the money - it's the all black suit, black shirt, black shiny shoes, black tie and black Akubra all year round, rain, hail or 45° sweltering bloody heat. Akubra is actually a brand rather than a style, while not as well known these days, they were much more iconic previously, however Ed's is now a bit battered over the sweat-soaked years. He wears something like the Bogart, pictured here http://www.akubra.com.au/fashion.html . I've been trying to work out how to phrase it, but unfortunately I can't even begin to put into words the sheer drudgery and agony of having to game with Ed. crowtribe fucked around with this message at 13:48 on Apr 10, 2013 |
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Apr 10, 2013 13:30
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so an almost but not quite a fedora. He does sound like a misery to know.
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Apr 10, 2013 14:44
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TombsGrave posted:The Ghostbusters franchise is set up in Fairfield, a generic midwestern town; more specifically, it's set up in a college. The three characters are: A midwestern college town called Fairfield? Please tell me that your campaign was set at the Maharishi University of Management.
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Apr 10, 2013 17:21
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That sounds like a guy to not play with. I'm in a SW Saga game with a guy who just can't A) Accept we're staying as far away established poo poo as possible. There's like 3500 year gap between the last stuff from KOTOR and the movies, and we're taking place in that, totally disconnected from established stuff because it's unnecessary. He keeps bringing up details or ancillary, non-SAGA books of history or details to stuff that doesn't matter, and when it does matter, it's maybe just fluff. We don't know the name of various blaster weapons and poo poo because Blaster Rifles are just Blaster Rifles, 3d8 for damage. On the upside, one of our players is a wookie, who has communicated solely in Wookie, on paper, or in a monotone robo voice as he now has a datapad with text-to-speech.
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Apr 10, 2013 17:56
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SpookyLizard posted:On the upside, one of our players is a wookie, who has communicated solely in Wookie, on paper, or in a monotone robo voice as he now has a datapad with text-to-speech. "I. am. gOIing. TO. teAR. yOUr. arms. OFf. now."
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Apr 10, 2013 18:03
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SpookyLizard posted:
Bonus points for using the text to speech thingy found on macbooks. Extra bonus points for using the female voice.
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Apr 10, 2013 23:06
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Our campaign rotation ended up with my group playing the campaign my barbarian character is in last night, and it was pretty fun. The DM for this campaign is a major jokester who rivals me in many ways, although he tends to go with crude humor where I make stupid pop culture references. We're terrible people and I definitely acknowledge this, but we have fun anyway. So we're tasked with attempting to get a known trickster mage named Artemis Gage to help with the army that is being amassed to try to stop Ragnarok (or at least fight it back for a while, it's a pretty desperate situation over all) We're forewarned that he is an incredibly playful guy who loves pranks, and we should expect to be hosed with on the regular when we contact him. We get to the tower this guy lives in, and enter. Inside the lobby is a pedestal with several magic items of great worth, and a large bunch of bananas, with a sign saying "Pick one, choose wisely and go forth." My character immediately starts to grab the bananas, but the ranger stops him. The ranger is the party leader for the most part, and my barbarian has developed a sort of Wrex/Commander Shepard style relationship with him at this point. I point out that we're dealing with a joking mage, and he'll probably make us fight an army of dudes that can only be defeated by tripping them on the peels or some crazy poo poo. This point is considered, and taken, and we proceed, bananas in hand. We get through a series of hilarious traps, including a bucket of semen on top of a slightly open door, a pinata full of undead bees, and another door that would only open to a song. We actually sang Rick Astley to the door, the whole table joined in, it was amazing. The floor before the top, we walk into a large room, and there is what is described to us as a very large dire gorilla. Not a dire ape from the monster manual, he says, it's way worse. So we offer the bananas to the gorilla, and slink around and up to the top while it eats them. We ended up getting all of the magical items from the pedestal for thinking on our feet and being good sports about the traps. Later we travel back to a town we had been in previously. The ranger had invested a large chunk of money in the local inn to improve it because it was a terrible shithole and the only real place for travelers in the area to go. The innkeeper's ex-wife had taken all of his money previously, which was why the place was so run down. Upon our return, the inn is in pristine condition, but in the ownership of the ex-wife. Turns out the woman was the daughter of the mayor, who was corrupt as hell and had repossessed it to give to her. The ranger wouldn't stand for this, so we march to the inn to talk to the woman. We find out that the only reason she wanted the inn now was because it was a nice, respectable establishment. Upon hearing this, I yell "FOOD FIGHT!" The DM asks me, "Do you really say that?" and I said "Hell yes. And I grab the nearest food and hurl it at random patrons." A massive brawl ensues, two people get thrown into the music box (my fault), someone gets hit with a table (also my fault), someone gets bashed in the nuts with a mage staff (not my fault), alcohol gets thrown chaotically (also not my fault), some of the alcohol is drank mid-flight (that one was me). The bar level of the inn is totally wrecked, and the woman abdicates ownership once again. We're probably going to deal with the mayor soon, the ranger is Lawful Good and probably not going to let this go, but like Wrex, my barbarian will continue to follow Shepard as long as there are good fights to be had.
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Apr 11, 2013 00:11
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echopapa posted:A midwestern college town called Fairfield? Please tell me that your campaign was set at the Maharishi University of Management. Alas I did not know of this place. Man, let me tell you, they would not be big fans of some of the alumni setting up nuclear-powered facilities storing the unquiet dead. Or, for that matter, carrying around an endangered extradimensional specie like an adorable pet/kid sidekick, but that's further down the line. Next part coming soon!
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Apr 11, 2013 01:01
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Nucular Carmul posted:Inside the lobby is a pedestal with several magic items of great worth, and a large bunch of bananas, with a sign saying "Pick one, choose wisely and go forth." My character immediately starts to grab the bananas...The floor before the top, we walk into a large room, and there is what is described to us as a very large dire gorilla. Not a dire ape from the monster manual, he says, it's way worse. So we offer the bananas to the gorilla, and slink around and up to the top while it eats them. We ended up getting all of the magical items from the pedestal for thinking on our feet and being good sports about the traps. I'm pretty sure you just avoided a fight with Dire Donkey Kong.
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Apr 11, 2013 01:29
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Cornwind Evil posted:I'm pretty sure you just avoided a fight with Dire Donkey Kong.
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Apr 11, 2013 06:50
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Kobold posted:Just reading that reminds me of when I had a Half-Demon gorilla serving as both guard and librarian to a lich's library. And was armed with a Barrel of Returning. Mostly got ticked off when people weren't quiet when in the library, but was pretty peaceable otherwise. Did it get upset if someone calls it a Monkey?
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Apr 11, 2013 07:06
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And does it ride a motorcycle with it-hanger handlebars?
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Apr 11, 2013 16:50
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kizudarake posted:And does it ride a motorcycle with it-hanger handlebars?
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Apr 11, 2013 18:43
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Which one was more fun, the gorilla, or the barrel?
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Apr 12, 2013 09:15
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Funny and semi-bad experience I had just this afternoon. The game is Battlestations, a board-RPG crossover game that's basically a board game version of FTL. You have a full tactical hex map for starship combat, but you also have a grid map of the ship and each play a crewmember - so you can get into fights against boarders, have the engineer running around upgrading modules, etc. We're playing one of the published campaigns called Bot Wars. The background is that the UREF (ie, the Federation or generic spacey good guys) decided to mine a planet for rare crystals that could make intelligent technology. Unfortunately, turns out that the crystals are sentient and evil - they completely infest one of the UREF's large warships and start to remote-control every robot in the galaxy into a crazed killing machine. The players' mission is to blow up a bot factory on an orbital platform - that's not the important bit, though. What's important is that there's a chance, on any given mission, of the infested ship (Central Intelligence) showing up. If it does show up, all it does is run away, but the PCs get to take a few blasts at it as it leaves, and to win the campaign the players have to gradually whittle it down over multiple counters. After each mission, the bots may get upgrades based on how they and the players did in the mission. Because of that, they start quite weak: it's a 2D6 based system so small numbers matter, and at the start of the campaign the highest skill the bots have is a 3. To fly a ship in Battlestations, you have to roll 2D6 plus your Piloting skill, and the target number is the Size of your ship plus its Speed. If you're a professional pilot you get to reroll one of the D6s. Making the roll lets you make one manoeuvre, which can be speeding up or slowing down or turning (which is an annoying bug - there's no reason to ever slow down before you turn, because slowing down will be just as hard) The players arrive, and the random chance indicates that Central Intelligence is indeed present at the mission. The mighty ship, menacing and gleaming with black crystal, exits orbit to warp away from the sector, firing long-range cannons as it goes... And then we remember that per the campaign specs above, the pilot of Central Intelligence is a bot with Piloting 3.. flying a Size 9 dreadnaught. Needless to say the scene was somewhat less impressive when Central Intelligence fender-scraped the planet it was leaving, jolted and jarred and went into out-of-control spins twice even though it was just trying to thrust away - the second spin so significant it actually broke part of the crystal hull. The engineer managed to hyperspace it out before the pilot actually wrapped the thing around a lamppost but it was a fairly close call. This caused some hilarity amongst the players, especially when they realised that the size of generic enemy ships in the missions is based on the size of the players' own ship. So they immediately wanted to buy the biggest ship they could, so that the bots would have big ships too, and wouldn't be able to fly them. But, dang. FTL the board game, screwed up by execution. That's a downer.
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Apr 14, 2013 05:03
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You could just houserule the bots into having skill 6 at piloting their mother ship or something...
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Apr 14, 2013 13:44
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Hmmm... I've posted a lot across the last two pages, so hopefully I'm not boring too many people. But, instead of a stupid game/person story, I'll tell you one of the best ever games I played. So I had joined a new campaign with a few members of my old group, and a veteran GM called Mike. Now, Mike was an albino, blind as a bat, and had an insanely good memory. You could walk past him on the street and say hello and he'd need to get REALLY close to see who you were - he had free public transport for life as he was legally blind. I'm not sure if it was related in some way that he couldn't participate in a whole lot of other activities, but he was about 40-45 and had played or run just about every edition of DnD and it's alternate settings. So, we were running a 3.0 D&D game in Faerun. We specced up some awesome characters, me as a druid, G as a wizard with an 18 CON, and someone else as a paladin, I believe. G usually played utter combat beasts, but decided to 'ave a laff and rolled up a human wizard with a huge CON instead. Anyway, during down-time, Mike would have us roll on the Rolemaster random event tables and incorporate them into our characters for a bit of spice - you'd be rewarded for some heroic act around the town/my druid's grove, or offered membership in a society or what-not. But G managed to roll 100... reroll on the next table... another 100... If you happen to know what this means in Rolemaster, you're probably laughing, if not, it means he landed on Deified. So, G's goddamn-hardy wizard gains a deity level unbeknownst to the character, becoming a minor demigod and picks the schools of fire and healing, I think it was. A secret cult of worshippers begins in the nearby city and several other locations we'd visited and saved townsfolk from death and destruction, just enough worshippers for that first level of Godhood. I have no idea how he did it, but Mike managed to weave it into the game like a master craftsman, including G's character's slow gains of deity levels, and never managing to make him overpowered, slowly discovering his powers and benefits (home plane for instance). Unfortunately one adventure my druid died, and we were stumped on what kind of character I should create, until it hit me: I'd be his first cleric. I became the first cleric of G's church, and ended up joining up with them and adventuring with the living personification of my god. It was a really great game and we had plenty of jokes about me praying for my spells in the morning while G's wizard attempted to have a sleep in, and he'd tell me to shut up from his bedrool when I started praying, or denying me spells when I went against the morals of his PC - what better way to develop the core identity of a church by learning from their god over a few ales.
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Apr 15, 2013 05:06
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crowtribe posted:I became the first cleric of G's church, and ended up joining up with them and adventuring with the living personification of my god. It was a really great game and we had plenty of jokes about me praying for my spells in the morning while G's wizard attempted to have a sleep in, and he'd tell me to shut up from his bedrool when I started praying, or denying me spells when I went against the morals of his PC - what better way to develop the core identity of a church by learning from their god over a few ales.
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Apr 15, 2013 06:52
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More Ghostbusters shenanigans! So, after that "the bad-video-game-graphics ghost totally got away" debacle, our heroes headed back to base to heal up and deposit the captured spooks in their containment unit--which, incidentally, was running off of its internal batteries since the wiring in the converted machine shop that was their home base was insufficient for their needs. I believe it was Vernon who had the idea to have the Best Buy they just rescued host the thing for a few days, at least until the technicians got the repairs and upgrades going. In the meanwhile they tried to figure out what the heck it was that just got away. During their investigation they discovered a forum dedicated to the Princess--getting some of the rules about her and ominous rumors of those trying to find her mysteriously disappearing. They also discovered who it was that caused the Princess manifestation--a member of the "Princess Society" playing Call of Duty at a demo kiosk. They got into contact and met up with her at a book store coffee shop--they were expecting a guy, but that wound up not bein' so. She gave them more in-depth info about the manifestation and how it worked, as well as noting that her "favorite" game seemed to be Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and how the best way to get her again was to play it while thinking really hard about how much you wanted to run into her. After dropping off the containment unit at the Best Buy (I don't think they charged a buck for a two-minute peer trough the viewing port, but they should have), they set up their amazing plan to take on their digital foe. Vernon rigged some slime mines--positively-charged ectoplasm stored in high-pressure tanks set to rupture--to blast the area on command, preventing the Princess from escaping and sealing any portals she may open. Further, he volunteered an old laptop--just powerful enough to run an N64 emulator--and found a nice, cramped room in the basement, with just enough room to fight but small enough that between Danny and the slime mines the Princess's exits would all be blocked. It was pretty ingenious. After some tedious Ocarina of Time playing for a few hours, the Princess appeared in-game and started up a friendly dialog. And by friendly I mean threatening. The Ghostbusters traded barbs and accusations, most importantly accusing her of murder and how totally uncool it was that she killed some guys when she knew how much it sucked to not exist. She responded by exiting the computer and getting into intense battle! The slime mines went off without a hitch, but their brilliant plan had a hitch: being locked in close proximity with an angry ghost. The close range meant that they had to contend with sizzling-hot slime boiling off from the heat of their proton streams and had precious little room to dodge the swarm of danmaku bullets. In a stroke of inspiration Danny sang some happy music at the laptop--as it was soaked in positively-charged mood slime, it came to life and snapped at the Princess's heels, distracting her long enough for someone to fire a finishing blast. They maneuvered her over the trap and sprang it. Her "death animation" was ripped from Kefka's at the end of FFVI--breaking into pieces and fading into the trap. After a moment's peace, the laptop emitted strange lights and sounds, and the missing gamers were spat out of it in a sticky, confused pile. Turns out the Princess hadn't killed anyone, though she had done some kidnapping, which was still a dick move. There was a general "maybe we were a bit hard on her" sentiment, but. Whatever, right? Case closed! There's another dangling plot thread here, but again, spoilers. It'll probably come home to roost in the next storyline or two. After that began the longest-running plot so far: the amazing tale of the Fairfield Five, how the Fairfield Ghostbusters got their Slimer, and hesitant toe-dippings into the realm of mushy feelings. I'll chat it up with Zemy to see if he remembers enough of it to recount, or if it's my turn again. It's probably gonna be a tag-team effort; I'm sure we both remember stuff the other guy's forgotten.
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Apr 16, 2013 04:19
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hyphz posted:Needless to say the scene was somewhat less impressive when Central Intelligence fender-scraped the planet it was leaving, jolted and jarred and went into out-of-control spins twice even though it was just trying to thrust away - the second spin so significant it actually broke part of the crystal hull. The engineer managed to hyperspace it out before the pilot actually wrapped the thing around a lamppost but it was a fairly close call. Okay, the line about fender-scraping the planet cracked me up. This whole paragraph is awesome. You are awesome. Lorak posted:Reminds me a bit of Richard Bach's "Illusions", though that book was more one messiah teaching another. I remember that book. Wasn't there something about the more attuned to yourself you are, the cleaner your biplane gets and the better it handles? His books were really cool. Surreal yet grounding at the same time.
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Apr 17, 2013 17:50
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TombsGrave posted:More Ghostbusters shenanigans! I am enjoying these Ghostbusters and their shenanigans. I am also depressed because I'm a big fan of The Princess, I wish that story was still being updated 
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Apr 17, 2013 19:29
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Brace yourself, then, 'cuz there's more Ghostbusters where that came from! This next arc was the longest we've had so far, and it introduced two--well, make that three--things that are now indispensible for our ongoing experience in busting ghosts. One is the Gravefiller, Vernon's dark-matter-shooting shotgun and new signature weapon; the other is Vernon's inventions all trying to kill him; and the last is Lenore Greunebaum. So this particular adventure begins with some equipment upgrades. Devin put in a request for heavier ghostbusting gear--and received an XGB-class heavy pack. (Also, Zemy got something wrong--Chelsea had a proton pistol as her main armament due to her atrophied book-reader muscles being insufficient for a full pack.) Vernon inventing an anti-ghost flare gun. I say sure, rock on, but you'll be starting with three flares because lemegetonite, the element used for the blinding flash, is really hard to scrape up. Then the call comes in: somebody's house is gettin' ransacked by a fivesome of ghosts and they're freaking right out. Our heroes saddle up and prepare to kick every undead rear end in the vicinity! Their Ecto-Van pulls in just in time to see that the ghosts also have a car. A car that's a ghost, and looks like it's been decorated by a fusion of Rob Zombie and the entirety of GWAR. Skulls are prominent. The car honks and one of the ghosts inside the house blows open the window on the second floor and floats out. It's a freaky cross between a guy in a 1930s-era suit and a giant hawk, and he's got a shotgun! A battle ensues! Vernon acts first, and shoots the car with the flare gun. He rolls a ghost and blinds himself as well as the car. Take note of that. A fracas ensues. The ghost fires hard globs of ectoplasm from his gun--it hurts as much as a paintball, but a paintball that's made of emotionally-charged hate jelly, so that counts for extra. The car gets blitzed and blasted and ultimately mired in some ectoplasm from Danny, prompting a half-blind Vernon to toss a trap out and spring it. Meanwhile, Devin softened up the ghostbirdy with a Boson dart (which sends the specter flying and breaks all the windows on their client's house) before snagging him and trapping 'em. Once done, Danny commands the dispensed ectoplasm to un-dispense. That's normally not something that happens, but given Danny's got incredible Cool (and a talent for being completely nonplussed by events) I figure she makes it happen. Saves on stress on the base culture, at least. The heroes head inside and check on the witness-victim. He explains what he saw--three ghosts, one moving pile of gravestone and cemetary statuary chunks, and the car. The head ghost screeched and roared at him a while before another found the family piano and directed them elsewhere. Thus did Chel investigate the piano! She rolls a ghost on her searchin' roll--she is very bad at not rolling ghosts on using the PKE meter--and I rule that she 1) finds a box sitting on the end of the piano and 2) idly strokes a few of the extra piano keys there. As this turns out to be a boite diabolique, she quickly learns why the thing had a lock on it. The GB's confiscate the boite diabolique (by having Devin rip it off) and chase after the other ghosts--specifically, where the guy's grandma bought the piano, an old antique shop. There's a ghost romping around inside, the one that's occupying a bunch of pieces of tombstone and statuary. Vernon fires off a flare at it and succeeds in blinding both himself and the ghost. Devin steps in and gives full stream from his XGB pack, which melts a layer of stone off of the thing. Vernon, half-blind, decides to try and end it early by tossing the trap and opening it. Now, normally you can't capture a ghost until their ectopresence is depleted... but far be it from me to get in the way of improvisation. I decide to match the ghost's Muscles score (which it has while inhabiting the stone) against a pool that seemed about right for the trap. The ghost braces itself over the trap and tries to keep itself from being drawn in. The trap wins, and the ghost's sucked right out of its improvised body and into the trap. At this point I make a discreet roll and inform Devin's player that he's just been possessed. I give him a bit of background on the ghost: he's a psychic investigator from the 1930s, he worked with these people when they were alive and he's kind of freaked out at suddenly being here and a ghost. He's kind of effeminate and easily scared but he means well. Apparently Devin misreads or I make a typo on a key personal pronoun, and Devin procedes to act like an effeminate high-class lady from the 1930s. I roll with it! To my team's credit, it didn't take long for them to notice Devin was acting weirdly. To my team's lack of credit, it wasn't because he suddenly had to ask where Vernon's cigarettes were, sashayed instead of walking, and seemed in absolute giggling-with-excitement awe at equipment he had shown to be too stupid to understand but intensely good at using to blow things up and capture ghosts. It was because his vocabulary was suddenly longer than two syllables. After interviewing the shopkeep and discerning that the last ghost had run off on them, Chel turned the PKE meter to Devin. BEEDEEBEEDEEBEEDEEBEEDEE I took over for Devin. The ghost raised Dev's hands and apologized, saying she had nothing against the team and was just sort of--along for the ride, as confused as they were. This is surprising! The Princess being artificial, she had an explanation for being intelligent, but a naturally-occurring ghost in full containment of its faculties was a bit odd. She also requested some help getting out of Devin, since she was new to the whole being-a-ghost thing and didn't know how to un-possess someone. One quick spray with positive slime later the ghost was ejected out of him, taking the form of a gray alien in stereotypical private eye garb. She gave them a bit of backstory and confirmed a bit of suspicion our heroes had--she was one of the Fairfield Five. So-and-so years ago, they had been called in to investigate the Slouch Hat murders, a country-wide series of brutal killings that one FBI agent in particular was convinced was a cover-up for, or the unseen hand of, some mafia work. He had brought along psychic investigator Lenore Gruenebaum to help in his case--and that was the very one our heroes were speaking to. Danny, being a nice young lady, figures that Lenore would be more comfortable with a body, and so located a fashion mannequin and filled it with ectoplasm and (after humming a few bars) offered it to Lenore as a body. Lenny took her up on the deal and hijacked the mannequin. "After a few moments, the mannequin starts moving of its own accord. Lenore is now officially terrifying." In order to make her look less absolutely horrifying they bundle her up in clothing from around the back room, including a wig and a hat to help keep the wig in place, and a scarf to cover her gradually-becoming-more-expressive-and-really-really-upsettingly-creepy-in-the-meanwhile face. Thus did the team meet Lenore, their Slimer. I'll save the backstory Lenore proceed to lay on them, and the shootout at the police station, and the killer goggles, and Alderville for later.
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Apr 18, 2013 06:50
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The mental image of this poor ghost being pleased as punch with their new, useful mannequin body while everyone else tries to smile and nod approvingly while attempting to contain their flashbacks to every piece of horror media ever made just tickles me pink. E: That's a grammatically challenging sentence.
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Apr 18, 2013 16:47
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Why am I not playing Ghostbusters right now, at this moment, and also forever. More games need Look Around You gags implemented in them, as well.
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Apr 18, 2013 20:19
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The next Ghostbusters session began with Lenny filling in the team on the backstory of the Fairfield Five. They were a dream team of daredevil action agents led by Daniel "Deadeye" Dalton, a daredevil action-hero type with twin Thompson SMGs and a hate-on for the Mafia. The others on his team were Julian "Hawkeye" Hawke (faithful sidekick and shotgunner), James "Heavy" Harvard (big tough strong guy and kneecapper), Carl "The Wheelman" Rutherford (ace driver), and (naturally) Lenore "The Little Lady" Gruenebaum (psychic investigator). The team had busted some Mafioso heads and found the fiends responsible for the Slouch Hat murders--and more importantly, the devices they'd used to carry out the murders. There were three components to it: the Slor-Bile Jar, the Boite Diabolique, and the Amulet of ThurKurak. The Slor-Bile Jar was used to thin the dimensional barriers, the Boite Diabolique used to call up eerie spirit beasts from the other side, and the Amulet to discuss terms with the beasts called up. The problem was that while they had the items in custody, there was no way to prove that the perp (one Angela Whittaker, a former socialite and occultist) did murders this way because proving that it worked would release an unstoppable murder-monster they couldn't control. While the mundane Mafioso were detained, the supernatural component got away scott free, and that failure haunted Daniel for the rest of his life. And, evidently, beyond--Lenore said that she remembered, somewhat, the last few hours of her life, a timeless interval of darkness, and then waking up as a bizarre spirit creature alongside her old friends turned bizarre undead monsters on the anniversary of the case being closed. There was only one of the Fairfield Five left to contain, and he could only be at-- Oh yes, the police station, where a running gunfight was going on. Daniel had hit the police station a short time ago, and now the cop were locked in a running battle with him. The GBs saw a group of fresh cops trading with exhausted, ectoplasm-soaked officers, and one guy evidently in control of the mess. That would be Officer Bradley, a real level guy who caught them up on the situation. Danielle suggested he assist them in their capture and doused his bullets with ectoplasm in the hopes they could shoot. Man, I had plans for those bullets--if he rolled a ghost, that is. But seeing as how Devin was on the team you can imagine those didn't wind up being necessary. The team had a rough job on their hand. They finally got a good look at Dalton, who looked like a Kamen Rider themed after skulls and stylin' 1930s FBI agents--and then were forced into cover by a hail of attached-to-his-arms Thompson SMGs firing high-velocity ectoplasmic bullets. He had the necklace and the Slor-Bile Jar and was raring for action. Chel decided to use some of her psychic powers to distract him by ripping a fan out of its socket--which succeeded! Vernon fired off a flare, not blinding anyone but himself and leaving Devin to blast 'em. Sensing the end was near, Dalton uncaps the Slor-Bile Jar and hurls it down a side hall, then goes out to blast the hell out of the GBs. Chel attempted to TK-wrangle the necklace and succeeded in dragging Deadeye right into melee range. Things got icky, but a few spurts from Danielle and wrangling by Dev and Vernon got him good and trapped. Things were pretty jovial until someone noticed that the Sloar-Bile Jar wasn't visible, and there were PKE spikes coming from down the hall. Danielle leads the charge, raining slime and singing "Singin' in the Rain" for extra joy. I call for a Moves roll and she rolls just about high enough to soak a growing pool of black slime from the thrown Jar just as some chunk of it animates and flings itself at her. Soon the pool's negated into a grayish puddle and all that remains is to somehow fish the evil jar from the vile black fluid still spilling out of it. Finally, Chel reveals to the others that she has psychic powers by levitating the cap of the jar back into place and TK fishing it out of the pool. Danny gives the last of the black slime and the jar itself a splash to ensure it's safe to transport. The jar, they find, has the appearance of a reptile monster with powerful arms, a long tail used as a handle and a glowing green jewel on its head serving as a button to loose the cap enough to pour without pulling it off entirely. Ominous! Impressive! And at last their busting-day is done. Lenore is grateful, but--well--she's feeling antsy. Those were her buddies! Sure, Deadeye Dalton sort of raised her from the dead somehow because he couldn't let go, but she doesn't blame him for being obsessed. The team decides that, at the very least, they can help her pals move on by providing definitive proof that Angela was the one behind the Slouch Hat murders. A goal is laid out and a plan of attack made! Chelsea also got the name of the officer who was so very helpful. It's Bradley--Janet Bradley. And that, well, that's another story entirely. Thus begins the second half of the arc, and the journey into Alderville. Quotations, investigations, and defenestrations, next time!
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Apr 20, 2013 08:25
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TombsGrave posted:who looked like a Kamen Rider themed after skulls and stylin' 1930s FBI agents You don't say. By chance, when were these sessions run? I'm curious if Dalton was inspired by something or managed to precede it.
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Apr 20, 2013 11:53
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Cornwind Evil posted:You don't say. I think this was late last year, November or so, but I've never seen that particular character before, so chalk it up to either being a massive coincidence or me seeing an image online, forgetting about it, and then subconsciously basing the look of "Deadeye" Dalton on 'em. One or the other!
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Apr 20, 2013 17:37
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Brilliant session today, but it shows how the Dungeon World system requires creativity. I asked how the Dwarven Paladin got to the human capital city, expecting a religious mission, a political trip, etc. He was last seen 4-5 sessions ago, so I figured there'd be a good solid reason. The player said he was sold into slavery. Huh. This caused an awesome, totally unscripted derail. I asked the ranger for the name of her god (and we all had a good laugh when she suggested Howard. She settled on something else). I started the game off in a dingy alley, where the players encounted an illegal slave auction. When the players refused to bid on their friend, Sir Lucia, he was purchased by the dread necromancer Howard. Watson the inventor bribed a guard to tell him where Howard was hanging out, leading to the following exchange: Watson said "I already offered you ten! You can't up your bribe price!" Guard responds, "I'm the guard of an illegal slave auction. Nice doing business with ya." The players then stormed the Courtesan's Brazier, a high class gentleman and gentlewoman's club*. I switched up the music playlist (normally fantasy/actiony stuff) to Pour Some Sugar on Me. The entire sequence ended with Watson, disguised as Garri the serving boy, accidentally flirting with Howard during an assassination attempt. (I think the line was, "Is that a projection rod?/It can be. Wait, damnit.") Now the party owes a 400 coin favor to a Necromancer, in addition to the troubles they got into during the actual adventure I wrote. Luckily, I can tie that into another adventure front... *Again, all improvised. It was originally a hotel but I lateraled. Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 08:13 on Jun 26, 2014 |
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Apr 21, 2013 08:25
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So I've been playing a homebrew sort of system for a while now, where myself and a fellow party member, who we'll call Bob, end up cornered in a room by a nasty NPC with a love for sneak attacks and shadow powers. The entire room goes completely dark and we know we're going to get stabbed in the rear end. When my turn comes up, I don't start taking actions, but instead talk in character. (Me): Bob?! (Bob): Yes?: Shadow dude?! (DM as shadow guy): Yeeeeesssss?: BLAM! *roll shotgun attack*Short version: Tricked DM into calling out where he was as an NPC so I could shoot him in the face.
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Apr 21, 2013 16:21
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So, you might remember my post about an amazing Fallout PnP game, which I posted a while ago. Well, sadly, that game fell apart, but we managed to get a group together again and play a different campaign with a different GM (who was one of the players in the first one). It's set in postapocalyptic New York and it's amazing. Last night was our second session. We were tasked to go into an abandoned hospital, and wipe out any wildlife that happened to be inside. It started off promising, when our Soviet combat robot, B.O.R.I.S., opened the front door with his head, throwing it so hard, it flew inside and killed two rats. The following combat was pretty uneventful, the only interesting thing that happened was our Nazi ghoul fighter pilot (named Shnitzel von Perrywinkle) bashing a giant spider to death with a wrench. We looted what was there to loot (a few stimpaks, some drugs, some surgical tubing - that's important - and a couple of bottles and rags to make some molotovs if we ever stumble upon some gasoline). Then we went upstairs, to the Admin Office. The office had a few mole rats inside - not a giant threat, and we dispatched them with ease, but my off-handed remark at how two mole rats aren't exactly a formidable mob prompted one of our players to start screaming (in character) about the Mole Rat Mafia. Yeah, I don't know either. After that, my character cracked the safe that was there, which had a .38 revolver and a frag grenade. (the grenade's important.) There was also a computer with an open e-mail still on the screen - the e-mail was the hospital's admin telling someone he was going to go upstairs to get an X-ray scan done. We also learned about a locked cold storage in the basement, and that the admin had the key to this storage, so we put two and two together, and went upstairs. Upstairs we found a few more mole rats and a couple of big spiders - we left the rats alone, but the spiders... Well, what happened was that the Nazi ghoul was the first one to see the spiders. So he decided to scream at them to scare them off. He flubbed the roll. ("You swear ineffectively in German at the spiders.") So, then, he decided to run towards them and jump on one's head. He passed the roll, and... did just that, squishing it and killing it instantly. Our other player, whose character was basically a hispanic Solid Snake, decided to one-up that. So, he grabbed the dead spider and stuffed it into his homemade pneumatic launcher. Then he shot it at the second spider. It was a miss, but hell, he tried. Someone else finally took the spider out and we moved on to the X-ray rooms. One of the X-ray rooms contained a giant spider, which was dealt with easily. The second one had a still working X-ray machine, which evidently had someone inside - someone growling. We realized it was probably the hospital admin, trapped in there and changed into a feral ghoul, so we had our tribal psyker overload it with his electric powers and blow it up. It went boom, with the keycard we were looking for lodging itself in B.O.R.I.S's chest. With the card, we went downstairs. We came across a door. So, B.O.R.I.S tried to bash it open. He succeeded the roll, but since it was a fuckin' thick large freezer door, he only dented it. The rest tried to bash it open, blow it up and try looking for an air vent to bypass it. Then I reminded everyone that we had the key. The GM called us "loving amazing players", which might've contained a hint of sarcasm, and had us open the door and enter the cold storage, which was full of big spiders, giant fuckin' spiders, and one spider queen. Combat time! We started whittling down the spiders one by one, while Shnitzel sneaked around the queen. One by one, the spiders fell - one to the tribal's flaming bow arrows. One to my character's (a ghoul mafioso) .45. I scored a critical on another one, sending the bullet through it and richocheting it into another. One got killed by the frag grenade found earlier fired from the hispanic guy's launcher hitting a liquid coolant pipe and freezing it instantly. The queen got hit with a few bursts from B.O.R.I.S's minigun arm, and got ventilated pretty well, but it was still standing. Then, Shnitzel's player decided he wanted to wrangle the queen. Because our DM loves improvisation, he had him roll for Agility to climb on the queen's back. Passed. Then he had to roll for Strength to wrangle her with the surgical tubing he found earlier. Passed, too. He managed to tame the boss and have her under his control. He had the queen kill the remaining few of the spiders, and then blew her brains out with the .38. After scouring the basement and finding a doctor Mr. Handy robot, we exited the hospital and leisurely walked back to the quest giver, drenched in spider blood and victorious. We got paid, and the quest giver threw in a free stay in the (pretty luxurious for the wasteland - it had hot water!) local hotel. I can't wait for the third session. cis_eraser_420 fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Apr 21, 2013 |
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Apr 21, 2013 17:13
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M.Ciaster posted:He managed to tame the boss and have her under his control.
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Apr 21, 2013 20:25
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That would be great, yes, but I imagine you're going to eventually run into some logistics issues with the feeding, caring, housing, and taming of a giant spider. Actually, that sounds like a Paranoia game gone horribly right, now that I think of it.
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Apr 21, 2013 21:34
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Shady Amish Terror posted:That would be great, yes, but I imagine you're going to eventually run into some logistics issues with the feeding, caring, housing, and taming of a giant spider. None of those things are problems. Those things are adventures.
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Apr 21, 2013 21:49
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I guess the character just wasn't a housepets kinda person. 
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Apr 21, 2013 22:20
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Zemyla posted:He didn't keep her, and just have his character concept become "Spider rider"? Because that would have been awesome. The GM warned us that the taming was temporary and that the spider'd eventually break free, because he didn't want us to be OP right off the bat.
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Apr 22, 2013 00:08
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An alternative probably would have been to make capturing and long-term taming of the spider as a minor sidequest throughout the campaign. Sure, it'd be a hassle, and would lead to hijinks as you try to tame a spider and cover up it eating dead bodies and such, but the payoff would be pretty neat as you got a pet that would become increasingly more useful over time with the effort you put into it. Not that I blame someone for just shooting the motherfucker instead, but I'm definitely in the 'wanna tame a giant spider' camp, myself. Shady Amish Terror fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Apr 22, 2013 |
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Apr 22, 2013 00:16
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Shady Amish Terror posted:An alternative probably would have been to make capturing and long-term taming of the spider as a minor sidequest throughout the campaign. Sure, it'd be a hassle, and would lead to hijinks as you try to tame a spider and cover up it eating dead bodies and such, but the payoff would be pretty neat as you got a pet that would become increasingly more useful over time with the effort you put into it. I'm also guessing that he just didn't want us to get something so powerful, given our group's track with devastating things (the last campaign we got our hands on a nuclear bomber and a failed skill check led us to obliterating half of Chicago - again). It'd probably escape and eat everyone or something. 
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Apr 22, 2013 00:43
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M.Ciaster posted:(the last campaign we got our hands on a nuclear bomber and a failed skill check led us to obliterating half of Chicago - again).
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Apr 22, 2013 00:47
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Lorak posted:The same half, or the other one? I get the feeling that's two stories with the same ending. A sort of role-playing monomyth.
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Apr 22, 2013 01:24
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