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I've played almost all the typical character archetypes in my D&D group, but never had as much fun as I did with characters that focus on skill, knowledge, and ingenuity rather than combat to get through situations. Unfortunately, our group has one, often two, people who's answer to most encounters is to stick a sword in it. So while I have the Charisma and Diplomacy to talk my way into the BBEG's lair, the Barbarian and Warmage are throwing a wrench in that plan by blowing everyone up. So my usual DM decides to set up a solo scenario for me. Playing a level 1 homebrewed Sniper class from Minmaxboards, I focus on stealthy sniping and roundabout ways of solving problems. I've recently joined a group that does assassination, espionage, etc, and the way they typically give assignments is by leaving a small note somewhere you're bound to see it. I wake up one morning to find a note saying "Guard Captain", along with the school symbol meaning "he's got more details, don't kill him." I find the guard captain, and he explains a hugeass wolf is messing with the livestock of a well-respected plantation owner. As my guild is basically the plaything of the nobility, whom this guy gives supplies to, it's my job to kill it. I meet with the owner and he says it's a worg, not a wolf, but I say whatever they both bleed the same. I spend the next few nights staked out in a tree near the goat pens waiting for it to show up. Eventually a goblin sneaks up and starts messing with the lock to the pen. I nonlethally shoot and tie him up. I spot the worg way out in the distance storming off in a huff. I can't possibly catch him or hit him at that distance so I let him go. Next morning I bring the goblin to the owner and explain what I saw. He cuts the thing's head off, says good job keeping it away but that's hardly a permanent solution. A few nights later I'm back and see another goblin messing with the lock again. I shoot to kill this time, worg in distance gets pissed and slinks away again. Next night, I see another goblin, same deal, but this time I let him open the gate. He runs off like a bat out of hell and the worg comes in and I shoot it. He quickly grabs a goat and starts trying to run back through the gate. I jump out of my perch, slam the gate shut, then run back up the tree, shooting it every opportunity I get but rolling poo poo for damage. Worg tries to make a couple running jumps over the fence and eventually makes it, with about 2 HP left. Next morning the owner lends me a farmhand with rudimentary tracking skills, and we follow the blood trail to a cave where a dozen or so goblins have taken shelter. I ask why we don't just call the militia on them, but there are enough to form a risk to the militia and the plantation owner doesn't want that on his conscience. There's no way I can take on that many and the worg, so I decide to set up a trap. A neighboring farm is owned by Barlowe, a semi-retired gnome spellcaster/alchemist, who uses the farm as a means to fund his research. One of his discoveries is that a type of poison can be used to grow larger and faster crops. The goblins ignore him for the most part because he's got several huge guard dogs (which unbeknownst to them are illusions). I ask if we can use his farm as bait, since the goblins would love to get their hands on his stuff. He jumps at the chance, but is wary due to the risk to his farm. If I can get him a cheaper source of the poison he uses, he'll let me use it as bait. His normal source is a pixie who uses its woodland knowledge to distill poisons from plants, and often uses illusions to disguise itself as more menacing creatures; and who has also starting charging much higher amounts. I have no idea where to go about getting poison, so I leave a note saying "I need a source of Nitharit poison" in the same spot the note to see the guard captain was left, figuring that I'd be followed by the guild wondering why I haven't killed the worg yet. When I check back later, a new note is left with the name of a shady dealer. It turns out it's the pixie, and I explain the situation, that Old Man Barlowe found a legal use of the poison, and convince the dealer that he can sell the fertilizer version legally, letting him open a bigger, more prosperous shop that isn't the size of an outhouse. A deal is struck. I return to Barlowe with the good news, and we forge a plan. We'll put out the word to the goblins that Barlowe and his "guards" will be away from the farm for one night, and that he's coming back with more security, so if the goblins want to raid, that will be their only opportunity. We'll put on a big show of Barlowe pretending to get into a carriage/wagon/whatever and riding off, while he actually slipped out through a false bottom and snuck back inside to help with the defense later. We'll round up all the local farmers and merchants and farmhands, have them set up traps and ambushes, and basically bludgeon the goblins to death with torches and clubs and whatever while I deal with the worg. The first step is to get the message to the goblins. They're a small band of primitive, almost childlike, isolationists who never leave their cave except to raid for food. I get a ratty old cart and fill it with random junk from town: pieces of broken mirrors and stained glass, door hinges, a couple wooden mugs painted bronze, etc. I wheel it up to the cave and make trade offers, but they don't go for it, saying they want food. I come back a few days later with some salted meat, and they allow me in to see "Boss," which turns out to be the worg. It leaps up onto the cart to attack me, but the lovely thing falls apart under its weight, and I bolt out as soon as I can manage. I yell back that I just want it to stop attacking the plantation, and that if it really needs food then Barlowe's farm will be unguarded ten nights from now. I turn and run away and head home. That's where the session ended, but it's already turning out pretty cool. Next time, I'll be gathering up an army of peasants and rigging up a farmstead with booby traps.
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May 30, 2013 06:02
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I just had the pleasure of introducing some friends to Paranoia last week, one of whom had never played RPGs before. Our cast: KATY-R-DID: Played by my girlfriend. DAN-R-DGN: Played by a friend and ex-coworker of mine. PAT-R-TON: Played by my friend's brother-in-law, who had never played RPGs before. Our intrepid crew were hauling a rather bulky box with undefined contents down a hallway when they encounter the Alpha Complex Fitness/Jogging club, which consisted of about a hundred morbidly fat infrareds pushing aside or trampling all in an all-consuming sea of blubber. DAN responded by climbing on the box and clutching onto a pipe on the ceiling, KATY ducked into a vent, and PAT simply ran in the other direction, leaving the box to the mercies of the mob. Once the fat people reached the box, they starting pushing it down the corridor. Rather than see their hard-earned progress lost, DAN made a jump for the box, but ended up crowdsurfing onto the fat people and was ultimately trampled/suffocated among the sweaty fat-folds. PAT, deciding that running back down the hall 2km to their disabled vehicle (which KATY totaled when she was high earlier) wasn't worth it, decides to do something...creative with the jars he got from PLC. He shattered the jars on the floor and spread the glass across the corridor. Upon stepping on the glass, the fat mob fell and tripped over each other, many of them mortally lacerated and/or crushed by the runners coming up, essentially forming a wall of dead/incapacitated fat people akin to 300, with the box and KATY somewhere on the other side. KATY attempts to dig the box out of the fat people, but can't move it on her own, so PAT decides to clear out the wall...with his flamethrower. Except that PAT had no idea how actually use a flamethrower, so he only managed to immolate himself with it, and then leapt into the wall of fat, setting it ablaze with him. At this point the fire gets a little out of hand, to the point that the O2 alarms are reporting that CO2 levels are getting dangerous, so KATY jumped back into the vent again, and actually manages to hit the "Pump the room full of O2 so I don't suffocate button," which had the unfortunate secondary effect of causing the fat-people-fire to burn even hotter, to the point where the box started melting. KATY then tapped her inner, disturbed genius:  : "I rip one of the arms off of the burning fat people." : "Wait, what? Why would you...what do you plan to do with that?" : "I take one end of the arm, heat it up on the fire, and graft it to a melting part of the box. Now that it has a handle, can I pull it out now?"After the...umm...clever engineering, KATY tugged the box by it's suspiciously human-looking organic handle to safety, where she met up with her comrades new clones, and proceeded onward. Needless to say, the Greens at the checkpoint right afterward were rather suspicious as to how the box came to have a human arm grafted to it. While it wasn't as backstabby as most Paranoia memorable moments go, the cascade of incompetence and disturbed creativity leading up to the inferno in that scene pretty much made the evening. We've decided to do another game either this week or next.
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Jun 4, 2013 00:56
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Cascades of incompetence and creativity make for all the best stories.
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Jun 4, 2013 01:08
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PublicOpinion posted:Cascades of incompetence and creativity make for all the best stories. I'm actually confident is saying that accurately describes our current L5R game. As a little background, it's a 5 player game (not including the GM), where 3/5 of them have played since first edition (but none of the OGL/d20 crap) and currently on to 4th Ed. The 'team' is 3 Cranes, 1 Unicorn, 1 ronin and his ashigaru friend/attendant. The game starts with a minor Crane family's army crushed by the Lion, with the ronin and ashigaru as mercenaries and the Unicorn (a small unit of scouts) leant to the Crane due to some long-standing alliance between families. Fleeing the battlefield, they all meet up and join forces, and the Crane realise it's seppuku or the ronin life ("I didn't choose the ronin life, the ronin life chose me.") and quickly decide life is still worth living. As the Unicorn was only an attached force, he's absolved of failure and continues to be a bushi. So now we have 3 ex-Crane ronin who are just not cut out for the life and really struggling to work out how to act now they're lower on the Celestial Order, stuck with 2 who are old hats at it, and a pragmatic Shinjo bushi who lacks any kind of etiquette, but is now technically higher on the Order than them. It chafes, and as the Unicorn, I like to rib one of the particular affronted Cranes at every opportunity.
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Jun 4, 2013 01:55
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Just played a Fiasco with the Pinnacle City Heroes playset. God, was it grim. The first incident was when Copycat, distraught over her love of Princess Dawnstar, dismissed the alien princess to go backwards one year in time, to a world where they never met. After a comedy of errors (with three heroes showing up to bank robbery that didn't have any villains), everyone teleported to Blink's apartment. His girlfriend (and Orpheus's roommate), Dawnstar, was in the shower...which Copycat teleported into. Blink revealed he wasn't an executive at the Petco where he and Orpheus worked; they were actually coworkers. He also accidentally implied he was cheating on Dawnstar with Copycat. After some romantic tiffs (one need: "To save the world...because it's your fault"; the other "To get laid...to make someone jealous"), the group made its way to the interior of the Washington Monument. Turns out it was an alien artifact, controlled by an angry, bitter Dawnstar. She had faked the bank robbery. Princess Dawnstar and Copycat, lovers unmoored by anti-alien sentiment and time travel, went back a year, to an empty cornfield outside Pinnacle City. Copycat uncovered Dawnstar's crash-pod. They kissed. --- In the aftermath, things turned into a real shitfest. In a world where Dawnstar and Copycat were together, Dawnstar didn't conceal her identity...leading to waves of anti-alien sentiment. Copycat somehow got pregnant (due to alien physiologies), but anti-alien laws got them both kicked out of their apartments and put on the street. Orpheus, who originally discovered Dawnstar, was never granted superpowers. He ended up working at Petco, in a city destroyed daily by supercrime. Blink, unburdened by the failure of others, became a huge celebrity, a corporate executive, and host to a bevvy of superbabes. Dawnstar gave up on fighting crime, and after accosting and attacking a random man (Orpheus) in an alley, left Earth forever. She harangues him with their relationship, the last words of the game: "You. You made me what I am." And she flew off, never to return. Golden Bee fucked around with this message at 08:21 on Jun 26, 2014 |
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Jun 4, 2013 06:30
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Well at least Blink made out ok 
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Jun 4, 2013 14:41
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Okay, so, I have a pretty terrible experience to talk about. Well, several, but just one for right now. It all took place with a couple of groups I played with at a local gaming store. So, our first tale of terror concerns a godawful DM, let's call him "Eric". For context, Eric was a Desert Storm vet who claimed PTSD (and seemed more likely to just have BS), and because, due to his "PTSD", he didn't have a job and needed to be given a ride to the game store to even run the game. I was still in high school so these glaring character flaws failed to raise a red flag. So, we're making characters, and I get only vague responses when I try to ascertain whether the party is planning to be good or evil, so I throw up my hands and pick Chaotic Neutral for alignment because then I fit into any group. This is important, keep this part in mind. So, I take time to really plan my guy's gear. Crowbar, signal whistle, chalk in case we end up in a maze, stuff like that. I even have a neat backstory all thought up and ready to go to explain why I am where we are. Except the second the game begins we're all knocked out with no save and kidnapped. Also enslaved. This campaign brought to you by Amtrak. Speaking of trainwrecks, it gets worse from there. We get forced to fight in some gladiator thing and find a secret escape passage during the first such fight because we got lucky (thus we escaped with minimal horseshit, one of the few high points in this game). So, we end up going through this passage and we gotta choose between two portals. One seems to lead to a hellish place of fire and brimstone, the other some sort of happy meadow. We're all idiots, so we chose the happy meadow. Now the bullshit begins in earnest. Turns out we are in the land of the Elven pantheon, and are met by some Elven goddess. We have exactly one Elf in the party, though he was a Cleric. Turns out the goddess has a quest for us. There's a city. No name, it's just a city. And it's like, super evil or something. And we gotta fix it and make it good because it's, like, sacred or something. That's great, my character's not opposed to that sort of thing, and it sounds profitable enough. But the DM, when asked how long this would take, decided to say it would take one human lifetime. Now, I'm a human, so suddenly I'm a little cagey on this whole deal. I mean, I'm not an elf, and my character, due to the background I made to fit him into his alignment, is not especially altruistic. So, I ask for a little something up-front, a show of good faith. A little +1, nothing fancy, just enough to justify my character spending literally his entire natural life fixing some city he's never even been to. As it so happens, I did receive something! A geas. And this is why everyone hates elves. Oh, and let's be clear, this wasn't the Quest spell, the DM specifically called it a geas, which is just plain more sinister. The second session (yeah, all of that was just one session) was hardly any better. My character was none too pleased getting forced to do something when it would have taken far less divine power to give him something that would have gained his willing cooperation, so he was "rear guard" as we trudged through the inexplicable dungeon that would lead us back to the realm of mortals. Along the way I manage to save the day when a door fails to be picked by the thief by employing my Crowbar to help force it open. That felt pretty good, and is another thing to remember for later. The DM smugly described the room as empty, clearly thinking my success dulled, but he made the mistake of mentioning a pair of six-sided dice in a wall sconce, which my character promptly collected as souveneirs (I then bought a pair of incredibly tiny d6s from the front counter, to use whenever my character decided to roll his dice to pass the time). Not pleased with my open defiance towards his dick moves, the door before the boss room had a pit trap on it that the Rogue set off. Except the pit was a number of feet back from the door. In fact, by coincidence, it was right under where I, and nobody else, was standing at the time. The forty foot drop was not pleasant, but I had a rope and grappling hook so I was okay. Of course, in my injured state, I informed the group that they were on their own for the boss (I should take this opportunity to point out that they had been almost gleefully throwing me under the bus at every turn and did not once even attempt to back me up when the DM was pulling bullshit on me, so they deserved to take a few lumps for once). Once half the party was incapacitated and the other half barely hanging on, I finally decided to enter the room and lend a hand, quickly finishing the boss. What was the boss? A ghost illithid. We were level 2. So, third session. Turns out everyone got a fat share of gold, but, since I'd been beaten, battered, and bruised every step of the way for two whole sessions, I (after making sure the others were okay with it) claim the magic item found on the boss. A Ring of the Ram. I'm not the type to use activated items so I made plans to sell it off. In the magic store I make perhaps my one legitimate blunder and get a little brusque with the shopkeep, because the city was very lavishly described as a hive of scum and villainy, and I didn't want to get cheated. As a result, I was cheated out of a third of the gold I was rightfully due, I had played right into Eric's hand. The end of that session involved a fight in a cathedral against some evil cleric dude with stoneskin and a ton of imps. We had a new player that session, an archer. Who fired at the boss while most of the party was in melee range with him. Without Precise Shot. He hit me more than he hit the boss. Oh and there were still imps in the room he could have been shooting. Remember this guy. After the fight, most of the party goes to bed in the common area of the church since it's free, but my character, being well and truly fed up with being dropped into pits and peppered with arrows, decides to claim the evil cleric's room for the night. Apparently the guy was so evil he cursed his bed, I took Int damage from sleeping in it. Losing my cool, I hack the bed to pieces with my swords, and find a box. In the box are Ioun stones. I claim one that grants some slow regeneration, because the others were more wizardy. The fourth and final session (in which I played) began with a new player joining the table with his sorceror. I, proud of the first real good thing to happen to me thus far, bring up my Ioun stone, and suddenly everyone is aghast that I'd have the unmitigated gall to wear an Ioun stone inside an inn. Thinking little of it, I shrugged and figured it was no big deal. The new player whispers something to Eric, makes a roll, I fail a roll of some kind, and there goes my Ioun stone, stolen by a fellow party member purely out of spite. So then because of things my character isn't and has not been privy to whatsoever up to this point because Eric only tells some of the others and they never want to tell me because gently caress party unity, we go underground to find more evil. We face some enemies. One of them has that one magic sling that turns bullets into catapult stones and instantly kills the new guy in the most satisfying moment I got to experience, tempered only by the fact that Eric was the one responsible. For my part, I was hit by a Ray of Enfeeblement and decided my character had officially gone berserk with rage for a few minutes, hacking at the corpse of the caster for the remainder of the fight after slaying him. The new guy comes back as an identical character (probably even still carrying my Ioun stone), and we move on. We enter some abandoned underground town, and I ask about any possible magic shops, hoping to get some neat stuff through looting. Joining me on this adventure was the only party member who hadn't deliberately hosed me over thus far, the archer. So, we find a magic store, but the door won't open. So, I decide to bust out my trust crowbar, the one thing I could take some pride in. Apparently not only was the door magically sealed, but my crowbar snapped. That was the final straw. I knew I would not be back, but by god I was going to get into this building. My character began working at other things, and, denying me even the satisfaction of opening the door, Eric gives the party wizard the way to get the door open. I asked how he did it out of curiosity and he refused to tell me because this table was full of assholes and the fact that I made it through four sessions thus far was nothing short of amazing. But, regardless, we had entry! Me and the archer run on in to collect our prize, and Eric made his fatal mistake. He took on the biggest poo poo-eating grin I'd ever seen and told us that it was nothing but piles of Amulets of Protection +1. He'd forgotten, I didn't have any magic items. I was elated, and the archer and I took as many amulets as we could carry, our adventure successful. But more than just the magic item, I had obtained victory. He thought he'd dashed my hopes, but he'd lowered my expectations so much that anything at all was plenty. I got something good that he couldn't take away and that he'd given freely, thinking I wouldn't want it. When, next scene, I attempted to defuse a hostile situation and got a Flame Strike for my trouble, I felt more than comfortable walking away for good. The game actually ended a couple weeks later when absolutely everyone was sick of driving out to the hinterlands to pick Eric up, so I missed maybe one session. Next time, I'll tell you guys about the group that abandoned me to die!
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Jun 5, 2013 05:11
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EclecticTastes posted:Next time, I'll tell you guys about the group that abandoned me to die! At this point, I'm guessing you really do mean the group abandoned you, the player, to die. Good lord.
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Jun 5, 2013 05:28
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Oh man I can't wait to hear more 
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Jun 5, 2013 06:17
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FredMSloniker posted:At this point, I'm guessing you really do mean the group abandoned you, the player, to die. Good lord. Well, if I can stop laughing for a few minutes, I'll type up all my experiences with this group. The stories are shorter, but oh boy do they not get much better. So, first off is a RIFTS game, I'd wanted to play it for a long time because it sounded cool from stuff said in the Ask Red Mage column back before NuklearPower got its redesign. My first character did okay, but got vaporized in a totally-not-their-fault laser accident. This is the one and only time my party was not directly responsible for my death. And they were indirectly responsible because they were the ones who caused the accident. But let's get to the meat of it. I like giant robots, always have. So when it came time to make a new dude, I asked to be a Valkyrie pilot out of the Macross book the GM ("Evan") had. Those that know RIFTS can guess where this is going. Oh, yeah, Eric was there, playing a Glitter Boy. And the RIFTS veterans know exactly what's coming. My Valkyrie was invariably disabled in the first round of every space combat while the Glitter Boy soloed the rest of the enemies. Oh and the rest of the party apparently did not appreciate my character trying to be friendly and acting like part of a team, because they seemed to think every game needs to be played like Paranoia. So I got neither sympathy nor help from the other people in the party. That game ended when the guy playing some ancient sentient nanobot robot race and the party sorceror both achieved godhead or something and then like merged into a supergod and I think we all died but honestly that session was so hosed up Gainax would be confused. I spent most of the crisis floating in my powerless Valkyrie that was remotely disabled by machine man because he had become omnipotent with machines or some poo poo. Basically that character never got to do anything interesting because everyone else was too busy making GBS threads all over him. Eric's lack of a ride meant he actually wasn't present for much of this, but what little he was present for he spent laughing at every bad thing that happened to any character that wasn't his. gently caress Eric. I got another brief Eric story for another time, but back to these jerks. So that game ended and Evan decided to run Heroes Unlimited. The first attempt lasted one session. I rolled up a mutant so I could get some neat powers. I got Continuous Mutation, which meant I'd get more powers as I leveled up, eventually having more than most other possibilities! What was the Major Power I got to start off with? Cloaking. Cloaking makes you invisible. To electronics. Now, that's neat, but it can't be turned off and it pales in comparison to just about every other major power in the game. So, the premise is a bit X-Men, we're all on the run from the government. Everyone meets in my apartment because I'm the only one willing to offer (again, the others are playing it like Paranoia). I'm also the only one willing to disclose the power I'd discovered I had, because let's not forget, gently caress party unity (if you're ever in a game with me, here is the reason I will probably get snippy the first time someone keeps secrets from the rest of the party, we're on the same side you do not need to keep secrets unless it's a Dark Secret flaw thing). So, we end up on the run in one guy's van, and we're looking for suggestions of where to go. My character suggests White Castle as a joke. After a couple players protest the stupidity, Evan has the GMPC actually decide to drive us to White Castle and we get some sliders, to my disbelief. I mention this because I am certain that this moment is the motivation behind what will happen later on. So, we go through a combat I can't contribute to because all I have is Cloaking, and we get to a government lab because reasons (it was a few years ago, I don't always remember the plot). My power is actually kind of useful as I get us past some security, then the lab starts collapsing and we're all running out and I trip and fall. Now, let me explain something about Cloaking. Along with the main effect of invisibility to technology, it also includes a small bonus to stealth skills and one single line of fluff that basically says "people are less likely to notice you". The member of the group who disliked me most, let's call him "Matt", or "rear end in a top hat" if we want to be more accurate, had remembered that line precisely for this moment, convincing the entire group (a fairly easy task because they're assholes) to ignore me completely, leading to my capture by the bad guys. When I call them on being fuckheads they immediately threw up their hands and said "Nothing personal it's in the rules bro!" So they're cowards, too, is the idea. Last notable thing that happens is that when the "enhanced interrogation" on my character begins, the interrogator rolls a 9 (on a d100 where low numbers are good), and I rolled a 3, so even when utterly abandoned by my rear end in a top hat "friends" I didn't give them up. The next Heroes Unlimited game is a high point for my experiences with these bastards. I make a dude and he gets Supernatural Strength, Body Weapons, and Super Energy Expulsion, a fair bit more power than before. I have some fun times, but the ending is what you guys are looking for. There's a giant doom laser and we gotta stop it, and I got Super Energy Expulsion, which makes me immune to energy. But Evan dropped the ball a bit in describing this thing. First, it apparently was not a laser, but a projectile gun or something. Also the opening was like the size of a football field which is both stupid and also way bigger than he'd previously implied. So he decided that, despite my going in with faulty information that would have affected my decision, that my choice to jump into the barrel stands. Jerk. So, instead of blocking the laser with my body, which would have worked and been awesome, I was now sitting in a gun barrel, on top of the bullet. But I figure, hey, s'cool, I'll just climb out, we beat the bad guy so there's plenty of stuff I can do to get out. One of my teammates is getting ready to fly the thing away to safety before it goes off, but I'm not worried. Then the magic happens. An argument breaks out among my party members in which they desperately try to justify my being unable to leave the gun and thus doomed to die. My group deliberately tried to convince the GM to kill my character. Like, rear end in a top hat tried to use Fireball Geometry on some spell the Magic Object guy had in order to make an energy shield cover the entire barrel of this retardedly enormous doomgun solely so I could not escape. Evan, being mostly okay as a GM (emphasis on the last three words, see below), told them to cool it, I got out, we all lived, happy end. On to d20 Modern. This time, Jesse was running, Evan would be playing. I rolled up a Strong Hero, a Dwarven biker named Nitro Motorbeard. He liked axes, motorcycles, and booze, not necessarily in that order. His ranged option was a sawed-off. This guy was the embodiment of d20 Modern dwarves, and remains a favorite concept. He lasted one session. Many groups have a guy, and this guy's specialty is making story-worthy moments. The only problem is that he does it at the cost of killing the rest of the party and also overshadowing all the cool things the party's doing. And basically the only person who even has a chance of being interesting is him. For us, Dan was that guy. Nice guy usually, and he remains the only one of that group I would ever game with (just not RPGs). He modified Nitro's motorcycle without consent, but since everyone else had the clairvoyance to tell him specifically not to gently caress with their rides, he left theirs alone. The modification included a large explosive as an anti-theft measure. Which some bad guy set off. So, of course, Nitro loses it and goes to destroy the barely-breathing-but-still-technically-alive dude responsible, when Jesse's like "Okay now all the nearby cars explode" with no warning. And rather than kill Nitro off they hospitalize him, all charred and crispy because if I got any measure of dignity during a game I think their heads would have exploded. Also, no, Nitro never did get to participate in a combat or do anything cool or interesting at all. So, character two was a Charismatic Hero because we didn't have one of those. rear end in a top hat's character threatened him at gunpoint to never act as the group's face again following my one (fairly successful) attempt at being the group's face, because I didn't have seniority or some poo poo. Then the party dragged him along on some raid against a local street gang and he was trapped inside a car that got Fireballed. rear end in a top hat's character was there but he was okay because Evasion. One session, and I didn't get to do anything interesting. That's cool, that's cool, third time's a charm. I went with a Tech Mage Guy or whatever. I invented a neato lightning gun that caused real lightning, with thunder and everything. Evan's character shot me because he was caught in the Deafness range of the weapon when I used it to toast two enemies he was fighting. He said he was acting "in-character" but we all know what a weak cop-out that poo poo is. Next scene I was killed in one punch by a bugbear because nobody even remotely tried to keep him away from me. This was after I'd used my lightning gun to injure him pretty badly while he was beating on another party member. Lasted one session, but I got to use my lightning gun at least. Fired it a whole two times! So I decided that if it killed me, I would be it. I next played a Bugbear Strong Hero who used a loving chainsaw to fight. I was not loving around. Jesse even gave me some magic fire sword off a defeated boss from earlier because I guess he wanted to throw me a bone. Evan's character enrolled me without consent in some underground fighting thing. I had no unarmed skills because CHAINSAW. Also my opponent was a Half-Dragon. I was put into critical condition in my first combat with the character. I had not gotten to do anything cool or interesting with him. That was my last session with that group. The answer to the question you're all thinking is "They were the only gaming group in the area at the time and my self-esteem was not great back then."
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Jun 5, 2013 07:36
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I can't even fathom how someone would think that would be fun. Being a spotlight hog is one thing(which I am sometimes guilty of) but removing agency from your fellow players entirely just sounds dumb. "What's that? You have a transforming robot plane? That's a thing I do not have, gently caress you. It's broken forever now."
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Jun 5, 2013 08:19
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EclecticTastes posted:That was my last session with that group. And I guarantee you they thought, 'Well, glad we finally got rid of that rear end in a top hat.' 
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Jun 5, 2013 08:43
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FredMSloniker posted:And I guarantee you they thought, 'Well, glad we finally got rid of that rear end in a top hat.' I can verify this, they all wore their dislike of me on their sleeves. More accurately, they may as well have gotten irreverent T-shirts declaring their hatred of me and the prospect that I have any fun ever.
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Jun 5, 2013 09:55
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How many times did you suckerpunch them all in the gut to deserve/pay them back for this poo poo?EclecticTastes posted:The answer to the question you're all thinking is "They were the only gaming group in the area at the time and my self-esteem was not great back then."
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Jun 5, 2013 10:19
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Pidmon posted:How many times did you suckerpunch them all in the gut to deserve/pay them back for this poo poo? Well, I did get Dan back in a really esoteric way later. During some big board game playing thing around New Year's at the game store, I was playing some lame bidding game with a couple other people and Dan. We wound up with the same number of points at game's end (tied for second-to-last). And I'd spent the game being pally with Dan because he hates enthusiasm. So I then exclaim in my best JD-from-Scrubs voice "We're point buddies!" Someone said to Dan as we did a post-mortem, "At least you're not last." And he responds without missing a beat and with all the disdain I'd hoped for, "No, I'm a point buddy." Dan's actually not the worst guy to hang out with, though he did do some freelance for White Wolf (who hasn't?). Okay, here's the Eric story I promised, the Eric Epilogue, with bonus lovely Con Game content! So, I'm at a local gaming convention, having a good time, and I go to a Changeling: The Lost game because I hadn't yet learned how bad White Wolf really was. Now, don't laugh, but my mother also enjoys RPGs and I had just gotten back from a failed attempt at military service (long story), so she was there and had apparently also signed up for the Changeling game. This will be important in a sec. The GM has no patience at all. My mother doesn't take to new rules as quickly as me, so she was taking a while to figure out how many dice to roll, and the GM was really rushing her and I was getting close to decking him, and then a friend of his arrives. Now, the room's pretty dim and I'm bad with faces, so it takes me about fifteen minutes to realize who it is. loving Eric. And now I know why the GM is an rear end in a top hat, he's Eric's friend. Nobody but an rear end in a top hat would be friends with Eric. So, the game goes as I then expected, downhill for me and my mother while Eric and his friends have all the fun in their circlejerk wonderland. I'd signed up for the subsequent Geist game but bailed halfway through when my mother called me up to alert me to Mutant City Blues, which I'd been dying to play since I'd bought it (had tons of fun playing a supercop, if you were wondering). So, the finale is the last day of con, playing some Shadowrun. My mother ran out of things to do so she joined in, mostly so we could hang out and she'd never played Shadowrun before. Bad news: There's Eric, like a loving spectre, haunting me in every game I play. Luckily this isn't his group of friends, so I manage to have fun, while he doesn't because we're not suffering. However, here's the part that matters, when my mother asked questions and got a bit frustrated with some dumb rule of Shadowrun, not freaking out, just a little bit annoyed over an idiosyncrasy of the system, Eric tells her to calm down in a tone so condescending he may as well have told her to make him a sandwich while the big men play and by god it took all my willpower not to punch him in his fat loving face. He pulled that poo poo a few more times on people all over the table until the GM told him to cut it out, which felt great for me, petty as that is. Apparently Eric made my mother's skin crawl so I'm not the only person who doesn't like him. I have not seen Eric since and, God willing, will never see him again.
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Jun 5, 2013 10:41
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EclecticTastes posted:The answer to the question you're all thinking is "They were the only gaming group in the area at the time and my self-esteem was not great back then." Could I offer you a hug? Because... god drat. I'm curious, what kind of demographic/play style differences were there between you and the rest of the group? You mentioned being in high school, and that one GM being a Desert Storm veteran, which suggests a few years difference at least. You described choosing bits of gear fairly meticulously; did any of them do similarly? I'm trying to decipher why these guys might have been or considered you an utter asswipe, but the best I can come up with from my own experiences is that you were more interested in getting into genre and character than just riding the rails and fighting straightforward drag-out battles. I played with someone like that when I was younger, and my GM is still a 'roll dice, kill poo poo' kind of guy, but while our would-be hero was kind of annoying for that he became much worse when we realized he was a creepy egomaniac who thought he was a ninja.
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Jun 5, 2013 13:02
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Well, Eric and his group were definitely more into train rides and an adversarial player-DM relationship while I actually wanted a story with roleplaying and player agency and perhaps even cooperation between players and the DM in order to make a better experience for everyone so I was clearly a shithead who needed to be punished. For the second group, there was less of that and more a difference in both tone and party philosophy. I believe in parties where we don't have secrets because we're all friends and on the same side (unless we're playing Paranoia or the like, of course). They believed in the exact opposite, telling party members only what is essential to function and treating each other like potential enemies and marks. Oh and I mean the other players, not just in-character. Which is a lovely way to play non-Paranoia games because a dark secret that nobody but the player knows is not a secret at all, people need to at least know out-of-character so they can feel the dramatic tension when the secret is threatened to be revealed and stuff. And let's be clear, everything beyond their character's name was treated as a dark secret of the highest order. Aside from that, my characters tended to be more nice and friendly while theirs were amoral and sociopathic. This included the second Heroes Unlimited game where we were actual good guys. My characters never started problems or anything, but the very fact that they were not happy to blithely murder people on a whim earned them the ire of the other players. Basically they played murderhobos while I tried to play actual people, and of course I was the dick for not being a murderhobo like the "cool kids".
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Jun 5, 2013 17:21
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So about a month ago, SpookyLizard and I started in a Starwars D20 game with a bounty hunting lean with a few friends and my younger brother. The main players: Tyrral Storm: A human Scout, played by myself. Prefers not to kill people, and developed his own tranquilizer gun to take bounty targets alive. Served in the Republic Military alongside Zaek. Zaek Thurinos: A human Soldier, played by SpookyLizard. Started a career as a soldier alongside Tyrral, worked as a cop after his contract was up. Ended up faking his own death and taking up bounty hunting work with Tyrral's aid. Shrii: A Wookie Soldier, played by my brother. Holds fast to his "Wookie code of honor" to a fault. Zador: A Nautolan Soldier, Seems to be somewhat of a pacifist. Don't know too much of his character to be honest, other than his parents were murdered (pretty much all of ours were.  ).Baird: A Human Scout, also serving in the republic military. Another who's background is a mystery. The first session starts off on Nar Shaddaa with the GM pulling us all aside and recruiting us one by one. He tells my character that he has work for him that has the potential to be very, very lucrative. I agree to come to the meeting the next day to hear more. Once we're all gathered the GMNPC (an IG series droid) tells us that he's gathered us there to invite us to join his little gang, the Auk-Ma corps (from here forward I'll refer to them as the Greens, as they wear green armbands). We all agree to join as long as we get paid well. We all receive orders to investigate the gang known as La-Ilk-Or (the Yellows from here on out. Yellow armbands). Zaek and I pair off, as do Shrii and the Zador. The other scout goes it alone. Shrii and Zador end up at a Cantina where Shrii recognizes one of the guys sitting at the bar. He roars a challenge and walks over to him and picks him up by the throat. (Apparently this was someone from his background but we didn't know that at the time). He goes to throw the guy and rolls a natural one so he just drops him back down. The guy draws his pistol and fires, rolling almost max damage. Shrii gets seriously wounded and looks at Zador to help. The guy tells Zador to stay out of it, it's not his fight. Zador shrugs and says "okay." and just watches the events unfold. Shrii is knocked out, Zador goes back to the green guild. Zaek and I decided to pay a visit to the resident Hutt, as they can almost always be trusted to have information (at a price). We learn that The Yellows have a leader who looks like he belongs underwater, are spread all over the moon, and yet are a still a startup gang with not too much behind them. Satisfied with this information, Zaek and I return to the Green Guild. Once we all return to the guild (Baird didn't get any information, he just ended up drunk in an alleyway), we present the information to I-5. He says that we'd done well, and pays us for our work. He says he'll be in contact soon, as there is a lot more work to be done. We all get a call about 4 days later to come to the Green Guild, there's work to be done. We all arrive and I-5 tells us that there are two separate contracts that need filling, both of equal importance. One is an investigation on a landing pad and the other is removal of a high-profile target of the Yellows. Being the most experienced bounty hunters, Zaek and I decide to take on the Target Removal, with Shrii opting to come with us. Zador and Baird are left to investigate the landing pad. Zador and Baird get to the landing pad, and find it to be crowded with about 6 Yellow Guys. Zador tries to open with a grenade, but fails with a natural 1 and drops it at his feet. He takes full damage from it, while Baird escapes with only half because of one of his talents. That guy manages to drop a couple of Yellow Guys, but in the end they are ultimately outmatched, even without the damage that the grenade dealt. They were knocked unconscious and captured by the Yellows. They woke for a moment and found themselves strapped down in a medical facility, with men and women in labcoats walking around carrying needles and charts and the like. When they woke up again they were in an alley with nothing but basic clothing. Aside: All of my parties with this GM have a history of being unable to throw anything. Especially Grenades. On an offhand chance I rolled to see if my character passed grenade class in Basic. I rolled a one. Zaek, Shrii and I find the quadrant of the area we've been working in Nar Shaddaa that our target frequents (southwest). We wander around the quadrant until we run into him, and then Zaek runs back to his ship to make flash mines to plant on my ship. (We'd planned to lure him back to a private area, knock him out and drop him off of one of the ledges. Making his death look somewhat accidental). Shrii and I continued to tail the target, with me in front. Eventually I flub my stealth roll and he notices me, and yanks me down an alleyway.  : Why are you following me? : You see that Wookie behind me? He's been following me for blocks and I can't figure out why, but it's freaking me the hell out.: Well then why follow me? What do you want me to do about it?: I dunno, help me? It's a goddamned Wookie, they've been known to tear a mans arms from his torso. I just need backup.: Fine. We'll wait here, you go confront him.I waited at the corner of the alley, with the target a few feet behind me, waiting for Shrii to round the corner. Myself: What's your problem? Why are you following me? Shrii: What? What are you talking about? Myself: You've been following me for a while now, don't think I didn't notice. Leave me alone. Shrii: I don't know what you're talking about. Myself: gently caress off, leave me alone. (deception roll, beats his will by a lot.) Shrii: Uh, okay. Bye. Shrii leaves, and I thank the target for his help. I invite him back to my ship for a drink to show my gratitude. He agrees on the condition that his six lackeys can come with him. i shrug and say "why not?" I tell him I'll meet him at the bounty hunters guild when everything's ready. I go with Zaek and set up the mines in the lounge on my ship. Afterwords I go and collect the target and his buddies from the Bounty Hunter's guild. His lackeys make themselves comfortable in the lounge, unaware of the mines planted right under the table in front of them. I tell them to settle in while I grab their drinks. The target insists he come with me to help carry them out. After a little arguing I agree. We get to the kitchen where Zaek is behind the island, with glasses in front of him. I insist to the target that the two of us can handle seven glasses, and that we'll simply make two trips to grab our own. He seems to accept this and leaves the room. I nod to Zaek and draw my dart gun, intending to put the target to sleep. I round the corner out of the kitchen to shoot him in the back with it and he's there waiting for me. With a Flamethrower. It's worth noting that I had given him reason to be suspicious, insisting at first that he come to my ship alone, or with only one or two friends. And then with my insisting that he stay in the room with his lackeys he got very suspicious. So when he saw me rounding the corner with a gun drawn he had every reason to fire. I took a crazy amount of damage (about a third of my health. We were all level 2 at this time if I remember correctly), and was knocked to the floor. I shouted to Zaek to blow the mines while I drew my blaster and fired on the target (known as Firefly from here on). A total miss. I got another gout of flame to my face while Zaek tried to shoot at Firefly but couldn't get a good Line of Sight to him to make the shot possible. Firefly kept his flamethrower on me until I was knocked out, and then left the ship in a hurry. His lackeys, all dazed from the flash mines were just recovering at this point. They all began spilling out of the lounge, while Zaek and I sealed the door to the kitchen. We decided to vault over the bar between the kitchen and lounge (they were adjacent rooms) and ambush them from behind. Zaek takes down two of the mooks and I drop a third. I hear thuds coming from downstairs, where the engine room is. I go to chase after Firefly while Zaek finishes mopping up the mooks. We take a couple of potshots at him and miss, eventually we lose him in the streets of Nar Shaddaa. I returned to and checked my ship. Everything was trashed, and I was essentially grounded until I got it all fixed. Luckily I could fix it, having built it myself. But that would take time, and credits. Zaek and I reported back to I-5 that we were unable to complete the mission, and naturally weren't paid. We then learned out of character that this encounter was meant to set the stage for one of the more major players of the Yellows, and that he was a level 5 character. 3 levels above Zaek and I. We weren't expected to defeat him, just to introduce him. I would have been a little annoyed if it weren't for what happened next. Next Time: The Dickest Life Debt, Crime Alley and Running (or dying) Like a Bitch.
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Jun 5, 2013 19:19
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I love when a good DM/GM uses a battle you're supposed to lose to introduce important characters or events, especially at lower levels. If done well, it can really set the tone for an adventure in which you're just 'regular' guys, instead of godlike people that hold the fate of the world in their hands. I've played a couple of games in which we were just starting out, and by level 3 were already saving the world from certain doom. It sucked, but then again, we weren't the most experienced pen and paper gamers.
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Jun 5, 2013 20:37
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What's even better/worse (depending on your point of view) is when you're set up with that battle you're supposed to lose and you end up winning it by freak miracles. Happened to us in Star Wars Saga Edition in either our first or second session. We were investigating the evil doings of some up-and-coming Sith Lord, and one of the party Jedi happened upon the system's major weakness: defenses not scaling well against skill checks. Darth Evil McPoopypants was in the middle of his monologue, and our Jedi waved her hand and told him to surrender. One high roll later and we realized we had defeated the principal villain of our story with a single die roll. PantsOptional fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Jun 5, 2013 |
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Jun 5, 2013 20:49
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PantsOptional posted:What's even better/worse (depending on your point of view) is when you're set up with that battle you're supposed to lose and you end up winning it by freak miracles. Happened to us in Star Wars Saga Edition in either our first or second session. Your GM doesn't know the system well, then. A simple Rebuke would have stopped that, and there are a couple of different feats or talents that improve Will Defense, especially against Force manipulation, any of which he could have hand-waved that the Sith had. I'm not saying the GM should be crushing everything a player does with heavy handed rules lawyering, please don't mistake that, but if the Sith was intended to be a recurring thing in a cool story, he can fudge things a tad, at least enough to let his big villain continue to exist. Or I guess the Sith could have pulled off some Joker thing and allowed himself to be captured for some elaborate plot, it's y'all's game!
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Jun 6, 2013 00:18
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Oh, he didn't know the system anywhere near as well as he should. The book had just come out and as I say this was our second session at most. I think that he thought that a level 12 (I think) Sith NPC should be able to take anything a level 1 PC could throw at him. To top it all off this was the same guy who had run at least six sessions of 4th Edition D&D for another group before he learned anything about encounter budgeting or even proper XP distribution. I should point out, for sake of completion, that this particular player has managed this particular type of gambit three times in different games with different GMs. The Star Wars game later collapsed for reasons which should be apparent. The straw that broke the camel's back involved a basket of exploding muffins, and is PantsOptional fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Jun 6, 2013 |
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Jun 6, 2013 00:29
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So I started a new Pathfinder game a few months ago with a group of people who've never played any kinds of tabletop before and I think I've unleashed something horrible upon the world. The group seems to have really balked at the traditional dungeoncrawling and set piece fights, so I eventually said "You know what guys? do whatever you want. Seriously. Just go, do something, anything. I'll just play it out" Since then: -They started a food cart for "exotic meat" using an enchanted permanently red hot spear -Murdered a brachiosaurus in cold blood using a keg of gunpowder and stole the egg, traumatizing most of the party -Made a visit to a circus that ended in a vicious coked up clown-on-clown fistfight in the filth of an overturned outhouse Their behavior has been getting worse and worse, and the situations more absurd.
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Jun 6, 2013 01:31
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NightVis posted:So I started a new Pathfinder game a few months ago with a group of people who've never played any kinds of tabletop before and I think I've unleashed something horrible upon the world. The group seems to have really balked at the traditional dungeoncrawling and set piece fights, so I eventually said "You know what guys? do whatever you want. Seriously. Just go, do something, anything. I'll just play it out" See that just sounds like hilarious fun to me.
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Jun 6, 2013 02:21
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NightVis posted:So I started a new Pathfinder game a few months ago with a group of people who've never played any kinds of tabletop before and I think I've unleashed something horrible upon the world. The group seems to have really balked at the traditional dungeoncrawling and set piece fights, so I eventually said "You know what guys? do whatever you want. Seriously. Just go, do something, anything. I'll just play it out" I'm pretty sure you meant to say better and better. That's the kind of party behavior I admire and encourage. For example, in my Call of Cthulhu game, my players have managed to: -Destroy a cherished and much-beloved Innsmouth hotel (as well as its cherished and much-beloved owner) when the usually quite skilled mechanic had some difficulties with the homemade grenades she had stashed in her bra. -Steal, and then return, the Miskatonic Library's rarest and most treasured book, but not before the Indiana Jones/Marine Biologist character had read it and learned some Very Unpleasant Things. -Nearly strand an eight-year-old girl in a zombie infested graveyard of her own inadvertent creation, because risen corpses are too spooky. -Demand the sunglasses of a not-quite-human Police Chief/Psychic. -Play a one-on-one game of hide-and-go-seek with the ghost-secretary at the paranormal investigation office they're employed by. To the credit of the escaped insane asylum inmate/faux ex-circus ringleader/team leader, he won, but it should be noted that he was the only one who knew they were playing. -Try to get their employers to reimburse the purchase of an absurd amount of incredibly illegal black market dynamite. -Search for discarded cult artifacts in a landfill, because clearly that's where those would be found. They were right. I earnestly love this group.
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Jun 6, 2013 03:28
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NightVis posted:So I started a new Pathfinder game a few months ago with a group of people who've never played any kinds of tabletop before and I think I've unleashed something horrible upon the world. The group seems to have really balked at the traditional dungeoncrawling and set piece fights, so I eventually said "You know what guys? do whatever you want. Seriously. Just go, do something, anything. I'll just play it out"
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Jun 6, 2013 04:24
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They're really a frickin spectacular group. The absolute depths to which they're willing to sink to make a buck is fricking amazing. They've currently got a secret poppy field (with druidly assistance) because their next scheme is to start an opium den. I had a bunch of lore, a planned campaign, some plots. But really, "It's Always Sunny in FANTASY WORLD NAME GOES HERE" is way, way more entertaining. Edit: The Party Consists of (in a rotating players kinda way) A Gender-Neutral Monk/Circus Performer who enjoys juggling, inner peace, and throwing shoes at enemies. Likes to use rusty objects on fleeing enemies. Hopes they get tetnus. A slightly insane Druid who is a burgeoning ecoterrorist A Ranger/Rogue who skins literally everything they kill. Probably a serial killer. A Reskinned Elven Alchemist who's a "Weedromancer", instead of tinctures/potions, it's various strains of weed A Lawyer/Wizard with Aspergers A Halfling Bard/Courtesan who is actually really unattractive, the 18 Cha is explained that she's "got a great personality" A Half-Orc fighter who cannot hide her contempt for the zany schemes but plays muscle anyway A Ratman Gunslinger in Samurai armor, cocaine addict, really really evil. Currently afflicted with a curse that is slowly turning him into a literal clown. The Brachiosaur murder was especially heinous. The initially wanted to capture one to sell to the circus. They came upon the nest and realized that the thing would probably murder them each in a single hit (average party level is 5), so they had the Druid wild shape into a baby Brachiosaur and distract the mother by pretending to be an orphan. Then they replaced the egg with a keg of gunpowder and set it off while the mother was checking on it. Pretty much the entire party was horrified by the entire ordeal (except the NE Ratfolk character who set off the plan himself). The clown fight was amazing. The ratman had been afflicted with the "curse of the Clune" after agreeing to join a clown troupe in exchange for cocaine. Since they were at the circus, I had a bunch of performers call in sick/dead and the PC's had to fill in and make a ton of skill checks/mock combats to gauge their performances. Of course the rat's section ended up with the clowns beating the poo poo out of him with boxing gloves on sticks, giant rat traps, etc. and make his life a living hell. It was then he figured something was wrong with these clowns and that he should probably get help from the party. Turns out the head magician of the circus had discovered some foul clown magic and turned into a clownlord, luring the desperate and sick under his sway and turning them into the pitiful, foul beasts. He had the courtesan lure a clown into an outhouse for information, then burst in to try to stab it in the head. Critical failure. He drops his shiny new +1 dagger in the shitter and ends up in a brutal fistfight/grapple with the clown. The outhouse tips over, and a crowd gathers to watch the clownfight unfold. The enemy clown grabs the dagger and lands a critical hit, stabbing him in the kidney. The rat has enough of this poo poo and blows his head off with a pistol in front of a crowd. Eventually the constables rule it was self defense, but in the meantime the clown cult has abducted a number of children, which leads to next week's game. TheSwizzler fucked around with this message at 09:09 on Jun 6, 2013 |
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Jun 6, 2013 04:59
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NightVis posted:-Made a visit to a circus that ended in a vicious coked up clown-on-clown fistfight in the filth of an overturned outhouse I've been wondering what to do with my D&D session this evening all week - and now I know. Brb statting up cannibal clowns.
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Jun 6, 2013 09:01
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NightVis posted:A Lawyer/Wizard with Aspergers This is an amazing idea and I would love to hear more about it.
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Jun 6, 2013 12:49
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NightVis posted:The clown fight was amazing. The ratman had been afflicted with the "curse of the Clune" after agreeing to join a clown troupe in exchange for cocaine. Since they were at the circus, I had a bunch of performers call in sick/dead and the PC's had to fill in and make a ton of skill checks/mock combats to gauge their performances. Of course the rat's section ended up with the clowns beating the poo poo out of him with boxing gloves on sticks, giant rat traps, etc. and make his life a living hell. It was then he figured something was wrong with these clowns and that he should probably get help from the party. Turns out the head magician of the circus had discovered some foul clown magic and turned into a clownlord, luring the desperate and sick under his sway and turning them into the pitiful, foul beasts. He had the courtesan lure a clown into an outhouse for information, then burst in to try to stab it in the head. Critical failure. He drops his shiny new +1 dagger in the shitter and ends up in a brutal fistfight/grapple with the clown. The outhouse tips over, and a crowd gathers to watch the clownfight unfold. The enemy clown grabs the dagger and lands a critical hit, stabbing him in the kidney. The rat has enough of this poo poo and blows his head off with a pistol in front of a crowd. Eventually the constables rule it was self defense, but in the meantime the clown cult has abducted a number of children, which leads to next week's game.
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Jun 6, 2013 14:42
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potatocubed posted:I've been wondering what to do with my D&D session this evening all week - and now I know. Arg! If this was even one month earlier I would be able to send you some I made last year*, but my subscription lapsed and they were only on the online Monster Builder. It is my failing and I must now commit seppuku. * They were part of a series of nightmares as the party was traveling through the dreams of one of their own party members.
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Jun 6, 2013 14:53
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Doesn't the builder keep your dudes for as long as you have a login even if your DDI sub lapses?
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Jun 6, 2013 14:59
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Volmarias posted:This is an amazing idea and I would love to hear more about it. Well the guy's one of the less participatory players, but does go occasionally into pedantics about the legality of killing bandits, the racism of ambushing a camp of hobgoblins just because they're hobgoblins, and likes to draw the characters into drawn out arguments that often hinge on the meaning of a single word
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Jun 6, 2013 17:52
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PantsOptional posted:Arg! If this was even one month earlier I would be able to send you some I made last year*, but my subscription lapsed and they were only on the online Monster Builder. It is my failing and I must now commit seppuku. Well, thanks for thinking of it - when this game's done I think I'll just zip up all my creatures and stick them online for folk to download. In the end they mostly dodged the cannibal clowns, though, in favour of leading them into the palace of Cobalt the dragon as a distraction while they kidnap her alchemist before he can turn their followers into fanatic dragonborn warriors. We left it just as the clown-on-lizard action kicked off.
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Jun 6, 2013 23:02
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Is this going to go horribly horribly right and result in the dark lord Clowndragon being born?
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Jun 7, 2013 18:02
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I'm not sure exactly how to explain the madness that my group has been engaging in, but I will try because it's hilarious. We decided to playtest the homebrew Magical Girl class for 3.5 D&D (described here ) because we're all big gay nerds. We're doing this in episodic format, starting at 1st level and gaining a level each episode, until we're 20th level, essentially doing a 20 episode anime series. We are rotating among three DMs, me being one, because we figured we'd really stress test the class and have three different DMs attempting to deal with the characters and (now five, we started with the three DMs) players with their own combinations of the class's own powers and existing feats from the book. It was always intended to be lighthearted fun for us to dick around and not take too seriously, and it has become the favorite of many of us so far. We're playing a bunch of anime ripoffs who are regular kids in high school. We have me as Saber from Fate/Stay Night, one DM is playing a female Version of Archer from the same show, the third is Sailor Star Healer from one of the Sailor Moon spinoffs, Koneko from one of the High School of the Dead shows (might be DxD, haven't seen those) and the guy who joined last week is playing something from an anime I have no clue at all about, and is the only male character in the group. One of the DMs is having us essentially do things from the Madoka Magical Girl anime, we got ours powers from the little white cat looking dude from that show, and in his games, we have done the following: -Fought a giant tentacle monster (don't worry, no anime girls were raped in the making of this encounter) -Fought an evil witch who nearly killed Saber -Saber got jumped by a Devourer by herself, which is a Challenge Rating 11 monster, at level 4. Took it out solo like a badass, then proceeded to get on her rusty, lovely bike someone had given her for nearly free, fumbled the Ride check and crashed it into a parked car and nearly got killed by the damage from that because she was seriously at 4 HP after the fight -Fought a bunch of Jesters who were abducted high school kids mutated into twisted clown forms, Saber nearly got killed (this is a running gag at this point, she has been knocked unconscious three times in the five episodes we've played) -Koneko is kind of a monk, except really drat violent, and has broken probably three different kids' ribs because they were bullying someone and she came to the "rescue" -Got a date rapist expelled from school and put in juvie The DM who is playing Sailor Star Healer has done one episode so far, the next episode is his, so we haven't done a lot yet, but we have a new history teacher at the high school who gave us an assignment to find old historical and cultural references to the C'thulhu mythos and compile a report on things that are similar in nature to the H.P. Lovecraft stories. Since this teacher showed up, there have been crazy power outages, horrible murders, and someone crashed a Prius through the window of the shop one of the characters has a part time job at. And we fought some Ilithids. My two episodes so far have been far more comedic in nature, both on purpose because I'm a manchild who refuses to take anything seriously, and on accident because when I'm DMing my dice are possessed by Loki. so far we have: -Had a science fair, Sailor Star Healer tried to build a tesla coil, Koneko managed to figure out how to turn "punching things" into a science project, Saber built a trebuchet, and Archer did a really complex report on the paths of arrows after they are launched, the effects of wind speed and distance, and a whole shitload of stuff. A frequently picked on kid planted a bunch of Saibamen from Dragonball Z, one of them exploded and killed a kid named Yamcha -Fought Nappa, who showed up to find out why Earth wasn't destroyed by Saibamen yet. Vegeta was not there, but Nappa was wearing what appeared to be a human skull as a codpiece, and he kept talking to it throughout the fight -Formed a band for a talent show being held at school a few weeks after the science fair, based on Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. -Fought a dozen Owlbears -Fought a giant super voltron Owlbear because we completely wrecked the dozen Owlbears and I decided the corpses should combine into a terrible monstrosity because the previous fight was too easy -Met Vin Diesel, which was entirely unplanned, because we were actually fighting the Voltron Owlbear in the middle of a street, and I was rolling for a random chance for a car to happen by, and one did. Everyone but the Voltron Owlbear noticed the car coming and bailed out of the street, and the car hit it, going 40 mph, finishing it off. I had the driver get hurled out the windshield and decided that he should take 10d6 damage. I rolled something in the 30's, then rolled a percentile pair to see how much HP the driver had. I rolled a 98. At this point I decided that the driver was Vin Diesel, who was in the area filming for a Fast and the Furious movie. -Played I Love Rock and Roll at the talent show, then played I Hate Myself For Loving You for an encore -Fought a bunch of zombies and essentially turned the rest of the session into High School of the Dead because one of the kids dressed up as Michael Jackson, played Thriller, and rolled a natural 20 on the Perform check. -Won the talent show through blatant cheating because things were so bad because of the zombie outbreak that the white cat thing from Madoka Magical Girl showed up and had to reset back to the point before the outbreak, so Sailor Star Healer convinced a fat kid to run up on stage and tackle the kid playing Thriller before he could accidentally summon the zombies The four girls who have been a part of the show from the beginning have a reputation at the school because we have been incredibly hard on bullying. We've heard rumors that other kids are calling us the Four Horsemen. We have each been to the Principal's office several times, and a couple of suspensions have actually been handed out (Saber and Koneko) because we have outright injured people. The new guy in our group hasn't been picked on or bullied once because we ended up being the first people to introduce ourselves to him, so everyone assumes he is part of our group, although he's only been on one adventure with us so far. Nucular Carmul fucked around with this message at 04:54 on Jun 8, 2013 |
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Jun 8, 2013 04:50
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Nucular Carmul posted:I'm not sure exactly how to explain the madness that my group has been engaging in, but I will try because it's hilarious. We decided to playtest the homebrew Magical Girl class for 3.5 D&D (described here ) because we're all big gay nerds. We're doing this in episodic format, starting at 1st level and gaining a level each episode, until we're 20th level, essentially doing a 20 episode anime series. We are rotating among three DMs, me being one, because we figured we'd really stress test the class and have three different DMs attempting to deal with the characters and (now five, we started with the three DMs) players with their own combinations of the class's own powers and existing feats from the book. It was always intended to be lighthearted fun for us to dick around and not take too seriously, and it has become the favorite of many of us so far. Well you've got the "magical" part down pat. 
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Jun 8, 2013 05:26
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So Dark Sun sounds like a cool idea right? Survival in the heat? Fun fun fun right? Wrong. Today five other players and I spent over an hour straight rolling survival and fortitude checks for every 30 minutes. Difficulty checks went up to 64 as the afternoon in the desert rose up to 150 degrees. This was preceeded by about an hour of straight climb and strength checks. Everything was done one at a time and no, abstracting it and quickening the pace was off the table. Why do some DM's think rolling equals fun? Rolling doesn't equal fun. It was equivalent to listening to a loop of Fred Durst sing the chorus to that horrible song Rollin. Because over 2 hours we were just rollin rollin rollin. We kept rollin rollin rollin. Also... My friend - "OK. My dog's searching the cave. Does my dog sense anything within 30 feet?" The DM - "No. And oh, by the way, your dog is in the mouth of a giant gila monster. You see his body being ground up in the lizards teeth. Roll initiative." Is Dark Sun any different if done right? Or is this just par for the course of this game?
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Jun 9, 2013 09:41
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Uh... that has nothing to do with Dark Sun and everything to do with a terrible DM. Dark Sun is fuckawesome. Your DM is apparently lacking the awesome. Also I'm not sure what to say if your entire group sat there and rolled dice for a literal real time hour to pass survival checks. If you don't enjoy it, your group doesn't enjoy it, and your DM is 'forcing' you to play this way, discuss it or don't play with him.
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Jun 9, 2013 10:26
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You need to tell that boy to chill out and let poo poo slide. I've never played Dark Sun, but as long as the players have done some prep work before going out into the desert I would have a couple of checks, maybe one after a lengthy fight since they spent some energy, but if they did the work to buy supplies and be appropriately dressed it would absolutely be okay to skip a few survival checks. Is that DM really having fun doing that? Is anyone? e: Like if they just rolled out with no prep work I might throw some extra checks in to remind them that the desert is hot and dry, requiring some level of preparedeness, and if they did better next time then yay! Also I should point out that for our campaigns, one of our DMs has converted Recettear into a set of tables to use as a merchant in D&D or whatever, and he's going to bring it next time we play and let us all use it. It has tables to see if things are rare or common, in demand or out of style, with price modifiers for all of it, so Recette and her shop are going to be in all of our different campaigns and become a multiversal truth. Nucular Carmul fucked around with this message at 11:38 on Jun 9, 2013 |
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Jun 9, 2013 11:34
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