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Daeren posted:First of all, be wary of anybody with Just Bruised. They will not die. Ever. Notably, we actually nerfed Just Bruised such that successful uses also imposed a stacking -1 penalty to future rolls in the scene. Without this and particularly if they pick up the Wound Healing demon part, your demon is effectively immortal short of being gun downed via chip damage, much like a Mask slasher is. Muse stacked all the armor granted demon parts and consequently had armor that would have been nigh-insurmountable if it wasn't for future tech. Needless to say, Rubix used a lot of nasty stuff you'd typically see employed against a tank on Muse.
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Aug 7, 2017 05:25
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Obligatum VII posted:A combat optimized demon is a nigh-unstoppable engine of destruction. Provided they don't bite off more than they can chew, they absolutely should demolish anything you throw against them. It's never a fair fight in nDemon. One side is the one doing the stomping. If you want to put the fear of the God Machine in them, always run it on the razor edge of them pulling too much heat and being the ones stomped. "Optimized" might be overstating it a little -- I'm a very mechanical-minded player and the first thing I did when I started seriously looking at character creation was to build a Murder by Improbability + Hellfire abomination that could one-shot most of the sample antagonists, but my players are a mix of folks going for almost purely social-oriented characters plus one or two whose characters are conceptually designed for fighting but don't have a high degree of system mastery. (For instance, I've got a guy who's original cover was a combat medic and all his embeds and exploits are healing- or mitigation-oriented, and another one who took Merciless Gunman and Ambush and a lot of dots in Firearms, but didn't take any of the damage- or armor-boosting forms/powers or any of the stuff that lets you mess with the action economy.) They're cool concepts and I'm perfectly happy to design around what my players have signaled -- that they want to shoot things and deal with the consequences of people getting hurts in fights -- I'm just worried about what the guy whose only exploit is Sermon will do in that situation, and how to figure out how much to throw at the medic and gunslinger Thank you, this is all very helpful.
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Aug 7, 2017 05:30
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Obligatum VII posted:Notably, we actually nerfed Just Bruised such that successful uses also imposed a stacking -1 penalty to future rolls in the scene. Without this and particularly if they pick up the Wound Healing demon part, your demon is effectively immortal short of being gun downed via chip damage, much like a Mask slasher is. Isn't that how Just Bruised works RAW? Demon: The Descent Revised, pg. 129 posted:The demon can use this Embed multiple times in a scene, but each subsequent use imposes a cumulative -1 penalty, whether successful or not. Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Aug 7, 2017 |
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Aug 7, 2017 05:35
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The best way to threaten a demon isn't to threaten their lives, they're stupidly durable and almost always capable of just fleeing, but to threaten their cover, their goals, and the things they give a drat about. It's about the ripples they make in the fight and to what lengths they go to keep the enemy from getting actionable intelligence on them. It wasn't until the end of the game that the God-Machine had finally gotten enough intel on them that it could make angel's specifically to kill them though it never got the chance to deploy them under its terms. When I did aim to threaten their lives I always made sure that they had a gimmick that could be used to mitigate or negate the danger so long as they were observant, adaptable, and clever with their embeds.
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Aug 7, 2017 05:40
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Rubix Squid posted:It wasn't until the end of the game that the God-Machine had finally gotten enough intel on them that it could make angel's specifically to kill them Which was Rook's single biggest contribution 
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Aug 7, 2017 05:47
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:Isn't that how Just Bruised works RAW? So you're right. I swear I remembered it not initially having that, but re-reading would prove otherwise.
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Aug 7, 2017 05:48
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My players are doing as well as I would expect in coping with the disasters around them. Their Gatekeeper druid friend, Mila, is getting smeared in the public eye for her horrible evil plan of... giving out magical healing to the wounded and diseased for free. And she's taking in anyone who is interested in becoming a druid and teaching them, also for free! How dare she! This is stressful for the poor half-orc from the Shadow Marches who has until very recently never really been in a population center with more than a hundred people, let alone a metropolis like Sharn. Never mind the repeated bursts of madness that plague the lower wards several times a week and the new group of weirdos recruiting without ever recruiting. While they'd surely love to help, the PCs have been given a task by the Dark Lanterns, Breland's equivalent of the CIA. Seems one of their agents has gone rogue and stolen a rather powerful artifact, then disappeared into the forest that has been quarantined by the crown for being several kinds of deadly. So they delegate the public image problem to their employers for the time being and head out into the wilds, Dimension Rift-ing themselves past the patrols at the border of the forest and coming out only lightly grazed. Everything including the air is necrotic and foul, but thanks to Heroes' Feast they're mostly immune to the effects. Once inside, they find the mangled corpse of their Dark Lantern, split in half diagonally. They find some tracks leading away from the scene, and follow them straight into an ambush of oozes, undead, and undead oozes. This is where Follow (the psion with the Rod of Wonder) really gets to shine, because he has the Ooze Domain's power! Despite not having a charisma mod, he still rolls well enough to rebuke the two toxic oozes. The party does what they do best to the remaining enemies, blasting the hell out of the necromental, crushing the alchemically-enhanced karrnathi undead, and splitting the bloodrots and exploding them. Unfortunately, Follow has a real circulatory system with actual blood in it, thus making him not immune to the bloodrots' disease-curse. He fails the save and take Con and Cha damage, except oh wait he also has the Pleasure Domain's power, making him immune to any Cha damage! Seeing as how this disease-curse does damage every minute rather than every day like a normal disease, they decide to book it back to Sharn for a top-off, since no one knows Remove Disease or Remove Curse. And how do they teleport back? Why, with Dimension Rift! Using the escalated version to go directly back to Mila and her druidic circle, Mevil rolls the 1d100+30 and... 103.  Oh dear.
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Aug 7, 2017 15:45
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Mevil has escalated Dimension Rift three times for long distance teleportation, and it's failed twice now...
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Aug 7, 2017 21:03
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Yawgmoth posted:And how do they teleport back? Why, with Dimension Rift! Using the escalated version to go directly back to Mila and her druidic circle, Mevil rolls the 1d100+30 and... 103. I'm usually pretty good at deciphering these things but I'm a little lost here. Help for the d20-deficient?
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Aug 7, 2017 22:48
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Roll d100, that's how long it takes to teleport and how much it hurts. Roll too high and I think you're stuck between realities forever.
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Aug 7, 2017 22:50
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JUST MAKING CHILI posted:Mevil has escalated Dimension Rift three times for long distance teleportation, and it's failed twice now...  Kavak posted:Roll d100, that's how long it takes to teleport and how much it hurts. Roll too high and I think you're stuck between realities forever.
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Aug 8, 2017 13:51
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Sorry I've been slacking on the Tanicus updates - July was a stupid busy month for me and I've been unable to get to the writing. I will focus on at least getting to the next artifact this weekend! Teasers... - Running into a dao who offered the party three wishes... - Meeting four gods face-to-face and only getting into a fight with one of them... - Finally seeing Az in the flesh and only a miracle die roll saving us from total destruction... - Oh, and Varis is apparently in an arranged marriage.
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Aug 8, 2017 15:29
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At this point the other party members must be freaking out whenever he starts that set of mumbles and hand motions. "Oh hey what's the wizard doiWAIT NO gently caress STOP" *lands in the butt dimension from Rick and Morty*
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Aug 8, 2017 15:31
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Splicer posted:At this point the other party members must be freaking out whenever he starts that set of mumbles and hand motions.
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Aug 8, 2017 16:05
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Yawgmoth posted:It's actually the dimension of Pure Itchy from Invader Zim. Quasi-elemental Plane of Itch, at the intersection of the planes of Touch and Negative Energy. (At positive you get the quasi-elemental plane of Poke.)
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Aug 8, 2017 16:48
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Yawgmoth posted:It's actually the dimension of Pure Itchy from Invader Zim. I feel old 
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Aug 8, 2017 17:04
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Foolster41 posted:Yeah, I'm worried about her, though when I talked to the player who was uncomfortable she said that the girlfriend seemed okay (followed by three question marks though). We'll have to see, but I have a feeling she's gonna go too. Hey, this is a page ago, but I'd totally like to hear more. The second one was pretty funny. Also, is it just me, or is this one of the nicest threads on SA? Like the tone is always super friendly. I dig it.
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Aug 8, 2017 18:04
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DicktheCat posted:Hey, this is a page ago, but I'd totally like to hear more. The second one was pretty funny. Thanks! As an addendum to that story, I remember we actually found a magical index book in the tower that let us know all the magical artifacts. I think we were looking for specific ones as McGuffins? Also, IIRC the wizards all used scorching ray, because, lazy DM.  (This might be hazy memory, it's been I think 20 years)I have quite a few stories from that group. There was another time we were infiltrating a cave (I think this was a completely different set of characters). One of them was a Dwarf Barbarian, Shamus. Shamus was an awesome character. He had a necklace of fireballs that he loved used (even on really inopportune times against people who were likely not threats) that the Gm kept replenishing ("Oh look, another necklace of fireballs"). We joked his catch phrase was "fireball!". He once jumped from tree tops. He also wore a Viking helmet that he used one of the removable horns as a drinking cup (the player actually eventually started wearing a plastic Viking helmet). In the cave, Shamus decides to get into a drinking game with the guards of the cave, who happen to be minotaurs and starts drinking them under the table. I think he got 1-2 of them before we stepped in. Another time we had two rogues in our party, and we're looking to I think Morlock cultists. We sneak in and see some sort of magical incantation written. One rogue decides to mess it up. The other immediately after uses "use device" on it.  The GM rolls a die, and there' s huge earthquakes. The GM tells us if it was a critical failure or success it would have been very bad. Stupid rogues and their "use device" class skill. Foolster41 fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Aug 9, 2017 |
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Aug 9, 2017 00:02
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DicktheCat posted:Also, is it just me, or is this one of the nicest threads on SA? Like the tone is always super friendly. I dig it. I think that if you are even IN the thread viewing, you automatically acquire nerd proficiency at epic level, so there is no one to mock. Also reading the Malazan books right now, and, although I realize it was based on a GURPS campaign, I would bitchslap a (hideously overpowered and terrifying monster from your preferred game universe) to play a decent military based RP campaign (like Malazanish or pseudo-Black Company).
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Aug 9, 2017 06:43
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A character I played in a Mage:the Ascension MU* several years back helped to inspire a novel that Tor Books announced today, so that's pretty cool.
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Aug 9, 2017 06:50
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That the one with the twins?
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Aug 9, 2017 08:34
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Ayep! Many many moons ago I was playing a Son of Ether linguist on a MU* and became friendly with the player of a Hermetic math prodigy; after leaving that game we stayed friends, and one day she said "DCB, I have a book idea. Can I steal your character for it?" This was about a year before FEED was sold and she won the John W. Campbell Award and became Popular Author Seanan McGuire. Anyways, I said yes, and for years I've been seeing early drafts and refinements and watching the book get better and better, and now it's going to be a thing, and I smile every time I remember that our entire character relationship was built on a foundation of the two of us commiserating out of game about how incredibly terrible some of our fellow players were.
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Aug 9, 2017 10:47
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That's incredibly loving rad.
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Aug 9, 2017 13:23
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:All the cool things So I just caught up on the thread from the start after like 2 months. Glad to see you're still posting cause by god the Star Wars stories were easily the things I looked forward to most each page as I sat at work bored and pretending to do things. I finally get to throw in my first good story, from a while back now, probably around 12-18 months, but was the first real "memorable moment" from my RPG experiences. So some background, I've been the forever-DM for my group of people since we picked up RPGs about 2 years ago. We started with Stars Without Number, and quickly tried 5e DnD, which is what this story came from. There is one player, we'll call Geoffrey (cause who's afraid of a Geoffrey?). Always plays a blunt, usually unintelligent fighter-type in our games. In this case, played as Mork, the Female Half-Orc Fighter. The next player we'll call Adam, cause that's his name. He usually plays a rogue, or a bard, and enjoys being the "Face" of the party, tends to naturally slip into the conman role in most characters he plays. This character was Noble Joe the Human Fighter (archer). His name was actually Noble Joe, as his character believed it would imply an air of, well, nobility when introducing himself. The next player was Barry. Barry isn't his name, but Barry was an rear end in a top hat (plenty of catpiss from Barry, but that's for another time). Barry played Whitecloak, the lawful-stupid Paladin Dragonborn. (Doesn't play a part in this story really) The final of the four players was Sara, another not-name *shrug*. Sara played Zoe, a Wild Magic Sorcerer Half-Elf. (Nor does she) While travelling the land the intrepid heroes stopped at an inn, a small homely place with many rooms to spare. Looking around the downstairs bar and eatery, the group spotted another group of five or so rather finely dressed, and boisterous guys, sitting with a table full of food and drink, and appeared to be having a grand time. The party approaches, introduce themselves, and find out these five finely-dressed gentleman are actually a group of brave adventurers! Fancy that! The party are subjected to a plethora of stories of this groups adventures, they'd slain ogres, saved villages, plundered deep dungeons. The party instantly takes a disliking to these proud and not-at-all-modest gentlemen, and try to glean anything about these men that might suggest they aren't on the level. Insight is rolled, pointed questions are asked, and the party notice a few things, the most important of these is the weapons and armor these gentlemen wear appear to be incredibly expensively decorated, but show no sign of wear or even use. Something doesn't add up, and with this, the party leaps to the only logical conclusion... Noble Joe  They're obviously pretenders! Let's challenge them to a show of skill!DM  So you challenge them to a show of skill? What shall it be?Noble Joe Let's do it all! Archery, sword play, magic explosions! They'll surely be caught out at every step. *rolls persuasion*DM: Alright, with some convincing, and several suggestions they aren't as magnificent as the claim to be they proudly accept your challenge, and with great pomp, they follow you outside into the fields to begin with the archery. The leader of this group encourages the other innocents at the inn to come watch, and once outside asks "So, what shall the first challenge be? Archery Bullseye at 50 paces?" Noble Joe That it shall be!DM: The archery competition commences, and the gentleman archer and Noble Joe step up, lining up a target at 50 paces. They stand side by side, and it's at this point that Noble Joe, now up close, sees that the gentleman archer has really very little skill in handling his bow. He doesn't point it out, and the two of them get ready to fire. DM: Ok, AC of the target will be ten, nice and simple. *Rolls for gentleman archer* Crap, rolled a 9 total. Noble Joe  *rolls a 4* gently caress, 9 total aswell.DM: The arrows fly wide of the mark from both of you, and the gentleman archer turns to you, winks and says "looks like we're both cut from the same cloth eh? Heh heh" Noble Joe No it's because it's got no pressure! It's not exciting enough! Here, I'll shoot an apple! Off of the head of... *player looks at Geoff* MORK!DM Uhhh, *looks at Geoff* ???Mork  "I approve of this challenge!" I stomp forward 50 paces, and place an apple on my head.DM Ok, the challenge has been set, roll an attack roll!Noble Joe *rolls a natural two* ahhh. poo poo.DM: You take some time for this shot, and you notice the gentlemen eyeing you intently, not believing that you're actually going to go through with this when *twang*, your arrow lets loose and flies through the air to embed itself heavily in.... Mork's left shoulder. Mork "Hnggh. I'm alright!" I pull the arrow out and stomp back to the line of people, thrusting the arrow back into the hands of Noble JoeNoble Joe "Thank you Mork, what a great shot! Right where I intended it to be! Beat that!" *rolls bluff*DM Uhh, the gentlemen look amongst themselves awkwardly. "But you missed? Surely we win!"Noble Joe "Only if you make the shot that I could not" *nods sagely*DM: Ahh poo poo, alright, the archer of this group steps forward, and the larger of them grabs an apple, and walks 50 paces away, placing it nervously on his head. He calls down to the archer, "Bazza? You sure about this?" and the leader cuts off any response from Bazza, "We're sure Simon, don't worry about it!" the atmosphere is palpable and tensions are high as the archer readies his shot... DM *rolls a natural one* as the arrow flies true, you feel a sinking feeling in your stomach as it appears the shot is going to nail the apple dead center when *squelch* it embeds itself into the eye of the larger man 50 paces away, and he drops to the ground dead.The collective party:  Mork Well I guess they were closer. Let's pay the manEveryone loses their poo poo at this point, and we lose a good 10 minutes just dying with laughter, and we come back to the game. The party are flabbergasted, and the gentlemen are white with shock and horror. The archer seems to faint. Turns out the gentlemen WERE in fact fakers, but were so bought-in to their own bullshit they didn't want to drop the facade. The gentlemen were left to mourn their fallen friend, and were last seen arguing over who was going to tell Simon's parents that he'd been killed. Mork's shoulder never quite healed. But she was always proud of her scars, and that one was always a reminder of what started as a beautiful friendship right up until she sacrified herself at Noble Joe's own hand. Another story, another time. Edit: Missed an important bit. Spiteski fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Aug 11, 2017 |
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Aug 11, 2017 10:32
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I love it! I can't quite put my finger on why but I'm laughing so hard at this story, probably because they're arguing over who's going to tell the parents, not that someone KILLED their son!
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Aug 11, 2017 18:11
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So, back to the Battletech game with the time-travel shenanigans. When we last left off, the party had just survived a brutal firefight in an elevator and licked their wounds in an abandoned future-version of the planet they're on. Oh, and it also turned out that they'd be the ones to found the Clans. They also decided to take along Karin, the mildly senile centuries-old android they'd found abandoned in the future who had shared some of that knowledge with them. After patching everyone up in a series of multi-hour surgeries, the party faced the problem of actually making their escape. One of them, the trader Bernhard, actually had a small jump-capable ship in orbit. But the problem was actually getting off-planet, as the coupists would have the spaceports well in hand at this point. However, there was a different way out: A fixed orbital cannon, built to deliver cargo to the local space station. It wasn't really made to transport people, but it was technically possible. So the party set out to get there, travelling most of the way in the future-version of the place before translating back to their own time in a train station because the future-trains didn't work. Unfortunately, somebody was already waiting for them: The android who tried to prevent them from taking the time-travel device in the first place, Viktor, and his boss, Ulrika, the local head of research. Unsurprisingly they wanted the technology back in their own hands, in no small part because they're part of an interplanetary scientific group that has their own plans for it (*cough*Comstar*cough*). Anyway, any attempts at diplomacy quickly failed, and Ulrika ordered Viktor to take the device by force. Remembering Viktor being able to literally take a bullet to the chin and keep on going, the group immediately opened fire with all the guns at their disposal. And it actually seemed to work. In the hail of bullets and laser shots, Bernhard (not usually a gun person) landed a lucky shot that disabled Viktor's arm and dropped him to the ground. Seeing her fortunes shift, Ulrika moved quickly and took Ryan's wife Elizabeth hostage, trying to force the party into compliance that way. Fortunately, Ulrika didn't actually have a gun. That allowed the resident Kung Fu mistress Linh to move in and engage her in a grapple (but not before Linh's player decided to "hand her gun off to whoever's closest", which resulted in a rather out-of-it and quite surprised Karin suddenly finding herself in possession of a shotgun ). Linh proceeded to slam Ulrika's head through the theoretically shatter-proof window of the train and then audibly dislocated Ulrika's hip with a flying kick. Both of which only seemed to mildly annoy her. Ryan stepped up and delivered a point-blank shot to Ulrika's head, which finally put her down. Though as the party only later realised, the usual splatter of blood and brains you'd expect from a headshot was conspicuously absent.They made their way to the orbital cannon, and the orbital insertion actually worked as planned, though it was decidedly unpleasant. They docked at the space station and found themselves immediately discovered by a dock worker looking to unload the latest shipment. The party panicked for a brief moment, but seeing himself faced with a group of heavily armed people and at least one obvious android missing part of her face, the dock worker quickly decided "gently caress all this poo poo, I ain't getting paid nearly enough for any of this" and left them to it. Bernhard made contact with his ship and crew. As it turned out the docks of the station were watched by the coupists, but there was a section currently under construction that might work as an inconspicuous rendezvous point. The party made their way there, and were greeted by a number of giant placards full of warnings that told people to not use any heavy powered machinery, firearms, or fast vehicles in there. For good reason, too, the whole section was covered by the space-equivalent of scotch tape and tarp, the bare minimum to keep the atmosphere in while the actual structural supports were under construction. They found the makeshift airlock and waited for the rendezvous when one of the party (who shall remain nameless to hide his shame ) heard the sound of an engine and remarked "Hey, that must be the shuttle closing in!". After the rest of the party patiently explained to him that no, you can't actually hear the engines of spaceships from the outside, it turned out that the sound came from a golf-cart sized vehicle carrying a squad of coupists looking coming after the party, after having intercepted their communications with their ship. They weren't brandishing firearms, but they did have armour and were trained military. This would surely be a tough fight for the party. But then Bernhard immediately raised his gun and took a shot. And missed. And hit a weak point in the bulkhead instead. A crack appeared and quickly propagated through the hull. The coupists immediately turned tail and put the pedal to the metal to get out of there. The party wasn't so lucky, as the hull integrity failed just moments later and they were sucked out into empty space. The last thing they noticed was Karin making a grab for a gun before they lost consciousness, which was where the session ended because our GM is a cruel god. 
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Aug 15, 2017 09:50
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That sounds amazing. Can't wait for the follow up.
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Aug 15, 2017 16:01
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So, I just played the greatest round of Betrayal at House on the Hill ever. It's an epic tale of revenge, bullshit luck, and some other third think I can't think of right now. Anyone interested to hear about it?
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Aug 23, 2017 03:06
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Rebonack7 posted:So, I just played the greatest round of Betrayal at House on the Hill ever. It's an epic tale of revenge, bullshit luck, and some other third think I can't think of right now. Anyone interested to hear about it?  Betrayal is a great storytelling device and a fairly swingy game, so it's always fun to hear good stories!
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Aug 23, 2017 03:08
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Rebonack7 posted:So, I just played the greatest round of Betrayal at House on the Hill ever. It's an epic tale of revenge, bullshit luck, and some other third think I can't think of right now. Anyone interested to hear about it? Yes; I want to hear this. Most board games I have no context for, but I used to play this one at my weekly "Gamer's Guild" just to be a sport until I just couldn't take it any longer, and I am a horrible human being who revels in the suffering of others. On that note, I do like board games that are co-op versus the "AI", such as it is for a board game. I wasn't involved, but at the aforementioned guild a group of four people won a game of Ghost Stories on the hardest difficulty setting, totally by the rules. Apparently this is absurdly difficult to do and the four people involved were justifiably proud of themselves.
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Aug 23, 2017 04:28
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JustJeff88 posted:On that note, I do like board games that are co-op versus the "AI", such as it is for a board game I've played two of those: One was Pandemic, the other was Sentinels of the Multiverse. One of these we played three times and lost each time. One we triumphed and actually had fun. Guess which was which!
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Aug 23, 2017 05:56
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The whole thing started when I invited an old school friend (we'll call him Shawn) over to hang out one last time before he left town again for his last year of college. It wasn't any kind of fancy gathering, just the two of us and my little brother playing a bunch of video games and board games. After speedrunning Star Fox: Assault and playing a round of King of Tokyo - which I came within a hair's breadth of winning - we decided to try out Betrayal at House on the Hill. Shawn had never even heard of the game, but he took a liking to it very quickly, and we wound up playing three rounds of it over the course of the day. We mostly stuck with the same characters through the whole thing: I was the plucky 12-year-old Brandon Jaspers, my friend was the perpetually unlucky Father Rhinehardt, and my brother was Ox Bellows, the walking freight train. The first round saw my brother (then playing as Peter Akimoto) turn into an invincible warrior bent on opening a gate to Hell - a task he easily succeeded in, pausing only to casually obliterate Father Rhinehardt, who had the misfortune of being between him and the Pentagram Chamber. In the second round, Rhinehardt unleashed an army of man-eating plants in the house. His attempts to stop us from destroying them were thwarted when he tried to take the Mystic Elevator out of the basement and rolled a zero, causing the elevator to crash. While it wasn't enough to kill him, it left him stranded in the basement with Ox, who effortlessly beat him into paste. Needless to say, my brother was getting a pretty swelled head at this point, not helped by his earlier victory at King of Tokyo (I SWEAR TO GOD, ONE MORE SMASH DIE AND I WOULD HAVE HAD HIM). Unfortunately, the night was winding down, and we only had time for one more game. If I wanted to wipe that smug grin off his face, this would be my only chance. The final round started much like the previous two. Ox rummaged through the house amassing an ungodly amount of items and weapons, Rhinehardt stumbled face-first into every negative event and room effect he could find, and Brandon found the Mask (which I had somehow gotten in both of the previous games as well) and fell through the Collapsed Room into the basement (which happens to me every goddamned time I play this game). For those of you who haven't played Betrayal before, getting dumped into the basement sucks rear end. Unless you've gotten insanely lucky and someone found the basement stairs before you fell down there, you're basically stuck wandering around blindly until you either find them yourself or the Mystic Elevator shows up. Then the Haunt began, and my brother and I shared a knowing look. Airborne. The very first Haunt we'd ever played, and with the same characters we were using now to boot. In Airborne, the entire house is lifted off its foundations and carried away by a giant bird, forcing players to fight each other over the limited supply of parachutes. Whoever gets a parachute, reaches one of the rooms where you can jump out of the mansion, and makes a minor Knowledge or Sanity roll wins. In this case, there were three players, so there was only one parachute. No matter what, only one of us was getting out of that mansion alive. More importantly, though, the game had just become personal. The last time we had played this Haunt, my brother had stolen my parachute moments before I reached the escape point. He won, and I was left behind as glorified birdseed. This was my chance to pay back that kindness. It was as the Haunt started that I received my first of many lucky breaks that night. Since the house was torn from the ground, the basement was now out of play, and any characters in the basement (read: me) were unceremoniously shoved into the Mystic Elevator and brought to the ground floor. Now that I was no longer groping around in the dark for the stairs, I had a chance at the win. Surprisingly, despite his terrible luck for the rest of the night, Rhinehardt was the first to find the parachute. Then again, maybe it wasn't that lucky, as he found it right as Brandon was closing in on him. Despite his youth, Brandon had a respectable 4 for his Might stat, more than a match for the clergyman's paltry 2. No sooner had Rhinehardt found the parachute than a small boy ran into the room, kicked him in the shins, and made off with it. Or, at least, tried to make off with it. According to the rules of the Haunt, stealing a parachute automatically ended your turn, which meant Rhinehardt had a chance to steal it back. Shawn knew he stood no chance in a battle of Might, but luckily for him, the Haunt's rules also permitted a Knowledge attack to steal the parachute, and he had a 6 in Knowledge. Unluckily for him, I'd put on the Mask earlier, eroding my Sanity in exchange for a Knowledge boost that put me on even ground with him. The epic battle of wits between the college-educated priest and the pre-teen computer programmer ended in favor of the latter, and I used my next turn to skedaddle. Since we hadn't yet uncovered any of the rooms that were usable as escape routes, the only way out was the front door. Meanwhile, Shawn was smacking his forehead as he realized he'd forgotten to use his Angelic Feather, a one-use item that would have guaranteed him a victory in our struggle over the parachute. Still, since it was only one use, he decided to enter an unexplored room in hopes of securing an extra edge over the child that had humiliated him. He promptly triggered an Omen, and drew the Bite, which wound up doing enough damage to kill him off. Once Shawn was done swearing, my brother took his turn and made his way downstairs from the upper floor. I immediately realized this could be a problem, as he was much closer to the front door than me, and he had made it very clear that he had no intentions of simply stealing the parachute from me. He felt it would be much easier to beat me to death with his superior Might and take the parachute off my body once I was out of the picture for good. That problem became a thousand times bigger when he whipped out the Bottle. The Bottle is a high-risk, high-reward item with a random effect. Depending on how you roll, you could be looking at anything from massive stat boosts to being immediately knocked down to the brink of death. Naturally, my brother rolled a 5, which gave him the best possible result for his current situation - a two-point boost to both Might and Speed. As of that moment, Ox Bellows had a Speed of 5 and an obscene Might of 8 - the highest the game allows. He was now an engine of death capable of crossing half the map in a single turn and turning anything he met into coleslaw. And he was dead-set on murdering Brandon Jaspers, a twelve-year-old geek with middling physical stats and no defensive items or weapons whatsoever. Needless to say, I promptly did an about-face and high-tailed it for the unexplored end of the house. Going out the front door was no longer an option, so my only hope was to start searching unexplored rooms in the hopes I'd uncover an alternate exit. Unfortunately, I didn't have quite the Speed I needed, and I was forced to stop just short of the nearest unexplored room. Speed wasn't a problem for Ox Bellows, though. Not anymore. He had just enough to reach the room where I was on his next turn. I still had one chance, though: the Junk Room. Whenever someone passes through the Junk Room, they have to roll a Might check of 3 or they'll lose one Speed. There was only one path from Ox to the wing of the mansion where Brandon was, and it led right through the Junk Room. Of course, it wasn't much of a chance. After all, it was a Might roll, and as I just explained, Ox had just obtained the maximum possible Might. All my brother had to do was roll a 3 or higher with 8 dice, and he'd be free to turn me into a special effect for a video on industrial safety. He looked me dead in the face, as smug as I've ever seen him, and cast the dice that would decide my fate. EIGHT. loving. ZEROES. I'm not ashamed to admit, I laughed like a loving hyena. After years of losing every possible game of chance to my brother, after god-only-knows how many games where skill and strategy were cast aside in the face of his unholy ability to roll the absolute best result 99% of the time, the dice gods had finally smiled on me, and it was glorious. My glee was quickly silenced when I realized that regardless of my brother's botched roll, he was still right next to me in a dead-end wing of the house, and if I didn't draw one of the exact room tiles I needed this turn, I was hosed. With trembling hands, Brandon slowly pulled open the door to the next room, doing his best to ignore the pounding on the door behind him. Would this new room be the key to his salvation? Nope. It was a straight hallway, and the Event card I drew simply raised my Sanity, a stat that would do gently caress-all to help me against the unholy spawn of Brock Lesnar and a supernova. Ox Bellows broke down the door, and his fist collided with Brandon's face like a railgun. The dice were rolled, and this time my brother definitely did not bungle his roll. As Brandon's body slid down the opposite wall, leaving behind a red smear, I sighed and adjusted my character card to reflect the damage that had killed me. Except it hadn't killed me. Somehow, against all odds and all laws of nature, Brandon Jaspers was alive. Between his Might and Speed, he had just enough points to cover the damage without forcing either one down to zero. Anything more damaging than a paper cut would kill him, but there was still one last chance to save him. With his one remaining unbroken arm, Brandon reached up, turned the doorknob, and fell backwards into the new room, praying he would find freedom instead of more hardwood flooring. I drew the Coal Chute. A viable escape point. I gathered up the dice for one final Knowledge roll to operate my parachute, and cast them. There was no floor beyond the door, only a straight drop to freedom. Ox Bellows saw the faintest hint of a smile on his face as he plummeted. Seconds later, he saw the parachute open, and his would-be victim's barely-conscious body drifted away on the wind. For all his Knowledge, Brandon had no way of knowing where he would land. He didn't know whether he would receive medical treatment or die of his wounds. He didn't know how many sleepless nights he would spend remembering the look on Father Rhinehardt's face when he ripped the parachute from his frail arms, or his screams as the unseen thing bisected him with one snap of its jaws. He didn't know if the drugged-up remains of Ox Bellows would ever be discovered, or if he would be lost forever in the stomach of a beast unknown to time and science alike. What he did know was the most important thing. He had escaped. He had won.
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Aug 23, 2017 06:23
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I prefer to imagine that you got punched straight out of the building. Nice tale; it makes me really glad that I just picked Betrayal up! Stories like this should help convince people to give it a try.
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Aug 23, 2017 06:54
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The problem with BatHotH is that while a good game makes for a great story, it's just as likely to leave you wandering around for two hours waiting for the haunt to start and then it does and one side wins in two turns. It is also, unfortunately, one of the only games in its niche. I owned it myself, and I ended up selling it after only a couple plays. And I kept "Epic Spell War of the Battle Wizards: Duel At Mt. Skullzfyre". girl dick energy fucked around with this message at 12:05 on Aug 23, 2017 |
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Aug 23, 2017 12:02
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PMush Perfect posted:The problem with BatHotH is that while a good game makes for a great story, it's just as likely to leave you wandering around for two hours waiting for the haunt to start and then it does and one side wins in two turns. It is also, unfortunately, one of the only games in its niche.
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Aug 23, 2017 13:07
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PMush Perfect posted:And I kept "Epic Spell War of the Battle Wizards: Duel At Mt. Skullzfyre". That's a great drunk game. Gotta do silly voices though.
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Aug 23, 2017 13:40
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Didn't Betrayal require a *massive* amount of errata printed up?
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Aug 23, 2017 18:15
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Yeah. One of the benefits of the green box for Betrayal was to roll all the erratta in to the rules.
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Aug 23, 2017 18:20
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House is like Main-Games standby Space Station 13, in that it can spark some amazing scenarios, but it's more likely that one side or the other will just get turbofucked.
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Aug 23, 2017 19:30
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Oh my god this is amazing.
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Aug 23, 2017 20:46
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