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Elector_Nerdlingen
Sep 27, 2004



I'll start thinking about it then :)

I've got too many game projects in the works right now, so something will get dropped though. I've got a generic 4e dungeoncrawl that I have to finish because we're already playing, Deadlands in FATE that everyone's super excited about, a D&D-by-editions retrospective (I'm gming 1e and 3e, my mate is doing OD&D and 2e), a Dread game in space with zombies, and now this... I really need to start managing my game making time, because I'm feeling a bit snowed under.

Edit: I'll ask a question here, not intended to start an edition war - what level would be best to showcase 3e? We're doing level 3 for OD&D and 1e, and level 6 for 2e. Our group (purely on personal preference) never liked 3e much and so didn't play enough of it to know where the sweet spot is.

Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 02:06 on Feb 12, 2012

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Kobold
Jan 22, 2008

Centuries of knowledge ingrained into my brain,
and this STILL makes no sense.
I think around level 5 was considered a good starting point? You got some hit points, a few of your basic tricks... and casters have access to three levels of magic, giving them quite a few options. I could be wrong, though.

Chrome Gnome
Jan 21, 2009

yum tum yummy tum tay
You're right about the spell levels, but my groups usually had more fun around the midlevels, starting at 8 or 9. Things got a lot faster paced, everybody's got several cool abilities, planar travel etc. is actually a possibility, monks are semi-functional, and nobody gets permanently screwed over by Save Or Die. But it's still early enough that the pants-on-head retardation of the higher levels isn't fully apparent and fighters / barbarians are still more than pack mules.

Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!
I usually start people at 6. You have 3rd level spells definitely, a good number of feats, and also the ability to have at least one level in a prestige class.

Whybird
Aug 2, 2009

Phaiston have long avoided the tightly competetive defence sector, but the IRDA Act 2052 has given us the freedom we need to bring out something really special.

https://team-robostar.itch.io/robostar


Nap Ghost

Yawgmoth posted:

I've had this happen exactly one time and the response from everyone was "well the gently caress you AND your character, stop being a poo poo and either be a part of the team or gently caress off to the car until we're done playing."

I prefer the approach of "Awesome. You're roleplaying being an unstable sociopath with no respect for the law. Good for you. Now you get to roleplay through the consequences of being an unstable sociopath with no respect for the law."

Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!

Whybird posted:

I prefer the approach of "Awesome. You're roleplaying being an unstable sociopath with no respect for the law. Good for you. Now you get to roleplay through the consequences of being an unstable sociopath with no respect for the law."
I've never been a fan of trying to punish someone in-game for being a shitheel. It never works to solve the problem and in fact usually makes things worse.

Doc Hawkins
Jun 15, 2010

Dashing? But I'm not even moving!


Yeah, there's always some need to have everyone at the table to be down with your character, but that goes super-double when they're terrible. If you aren't constantly explaining yourself, checking if your actions are okay with the other players, and doing something else when they say no, then it isn't your character who's an rear end in a top hat.

FrozenGoldfishGod
Oct 29, 2009

JUST LOOK AT THIS SHIT POST!



Doc Hawkins posted:

Yeah, there's always some need to have everyone at the table to be down with your character, but that goes super-double when they're terrible. If you aren't constantly explaining yourself, checking if your actions are okay with the other players, and doing something else when they say no, then it isn't your character who's an rear end in a top hat.

Of course, if you are doing all of that and they're not calling you out on it, that's on them. I had a guy doing that, but because I and the other players in my game were a bunch of passive-aggressive little nerdlings, nobody told him that he was being a prick until the game was pretty much over anyways.

SiKboy
Oct 28, 2007

Oh no!😱

Whybird posted:

I prefer the approach of "Awesome. You're roleplaying being an unstable sociopath with no respect for the law. Good for you. Now you get to roleplay through the consequences of being an unstable sociopath with no respect for the law."

I find the problem with that is that you are essentially rewarding them for being a dick. Their punishment for being a toolbox is... that they get to be the focus of the session and the centre of attention!

Nah, I personally believe that in 100% of cases you are better off just cowboying up and speaking to the player rather than the character. Its perfectly reasonable when someone says "But I'm roleplaying! Its what my character would do!" to respond "Well, your character is a dick and no-one would want to be in a party with him. Its not fun for anyone else.". As the character is fictional having him act in a way that allows everyone to enjoy the game is not exactly a big ask.

Etherwind
Apr 22, 2008
Probation
Can't post for 108 days!
Soiled Meat
I've had a problem recently; a character in a long-term game I am running was being a bit of a demanding rear end in a top hat, but was driving the plot forward and generally being entertaining as all hell. The player? Really nice guy, very much interested in making the group function well, and an all-around great role-player.

Turns out that most of the other players really didn't like the way his character was interacting with theirs. I only found out because I happened to ask about it as an afterthought, subsequent to dealing with problems with one of the other players. So I took him aside and have to asked him to tone it down, and he was mortified, outright offering to retire the character and make a new one, and I had to reassure him that it was okay, he only needed to wind it in a bit.

The thing? He's the best player in the group, bar none, and I honestly think the other players are being extremely thin-skinned about the way his character was acting. It's not like he was on a rampage or randomly loving with the party for fun, either: the extent of it was stuff like "His character was really pushy when asking mine for some cash" and "He's a bit quick on the trigger finger when we're being chased by demon-possessed people."

It's a World of Darkness game, and his character is playing to the Faustian archetype of "Make a deal with the devil to further your goals" mixed with the whole "Stare long into the abyss" cliché. Doing it drat well, too. I really feel and felt that the other players are and were in the wrong, but I've bit my tongue, asked him to tone it down, and things are back on track.

Moral of the story? It's the group consensus that matters, and nothing else.

Etherwind fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Feb 12, 2012

Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!

Etherwind posted:

"He's a bit quick on the trigger finger when we're being chased by demon-possessed people."
I didn't even think this was possible. If a guy's possessed by a demon and you're being chased by him, the only question you should be asking yourself is "silver bullets or shotgun rounds?"

Etherwind
Apr 22, 2008
Probation
Can't post for 108 days!
Soiled Meat
Exactly.

Elector_Nerdlingen
Sep 27, 2004



I had to ask a player to tone it down, and it was depressing, since the character was awesome. Rugn Stonethrower, one legged one eyed dwarf. A former drill sergeant who took up clericing when he lost his eye and leg and was disembowelled, and was saved by priests. He was rude, flatulent (his guts never got stitched up right), bossed people around, and was utterly unmotivated by treasure or reward. All he wanted to do was defile/desecrate temples to evil gods. He'd drag the party off mission to assualt The Temple Of The Snake God just so he could piss on the altar. He wouldn't even steal anything, since it was all "tainted with evil", although he didn't mind if the others took everything that wasn't nailed down. He'd also negotiate loudly with NPCs (from merchants up to kings) in a very well done "drunken scotsman" accent, punctuated with fart noises made with his hands and/or armpits.

He thought is was a great character, I thought it was a great character, one out of the other four players thought it was a great character, everyone else was annoyed. So I talked to him and he toned down the very-religious-farting-drill-sergeant act, to the general detriment of my fun, but it kept the game going.

Edit: Oh, also, he was big on Following The Law, he just thought it didn't apply to people actively involved with worshipping evil. That was usually hilarious - he'd peacebind his weapons in the city, pay all tolls and taxes and tithes, be polite(ish) to authority figures, and then sneak out at night to desecrate the Temple Of The Dark God and piss in their unholy water.

Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Feb 13, 2012

President Unerlion
May 3, 2008

by Ozmaugh
So I'm back with some more stories from my 3.5 campaign.

After the horse incident there was a lot of RPing. The TL;DR is that the dudes house who we all tried to rob/break into/flat out destroy was not only a super wealthy merchant in the city but a super wealthy merchant in relation to EVERY loving WHERE in the game world. He decided that instead of killing us, for obvious reasons, he was going to give us a job. He was trying to break into, business wise, the Elven realms that controlled the norther half of the continent(world). He was going to do so by sending a "tribute trade" of sorts. Basically he had a very old/rare/powerful/shiny artifact that he was trading for money/another artifact with some influential Elven merchants. He decided that he wanted us, the people who just demolished his front room with the intent of robbing him (for the most part) to take the lead on this very valuable assignment.

So we went. With the stipulation that we should at least meet with the contacts and attempt to do the trade. We could take the money that resulted, but he at least wanted the contact to be made.

So that's how we got started. Errands.

I'm pulling a reverse Santa.

So after a few days of traveling north we noticed a few guys standing in the middle of a field off the side of the road, shouting. We sent out our Ranger to investigate. After a few move silently rolls he's close enough to gather that they had tried to raid an old dungeon and gotten three of their friends killed. Two were still in the dungeon and they wanted to get them out.

The Ranger, in his infinite wisdom, decides the best course of action is to just stand up, less than 4 feet away from these guys, with no warning and offer to help. Guess how well that went.

Ranger: I stand up and offer to help them with their problem.
DM: Ok, you've just given the older gentleman, from who's perspective you just suddenly appeared next too, a heart attack.
Ranger: Ah. Heal check? *rolls*
DM: Yeah that 5 ain't gonna cut it.

So old man dies, leaving two completely bewildered guys left to relate the story to us. They are treasure hunters and had bought a map of "rich" locations from a traveling merchant and this one was the last one on their list. They had only made it a few rooms into the dungeon when a pack of Giant Vipers attacked them. Two of their friends got bitten and grabbed as they fled, and the (first) dead friend on the ground had also gotten bitten. They wanted our help to get their friends out so they could bury them. Being treasure hunters they could obviously offer good compensation.

So we took the job and ventured on in. And in the first room the remaining adventurers tripped a rock trap and died.

DM: I hate DM PCs, and they only had like 5 hp anyway.

Moving on. We kept moving until we found a locked door. But since it was the only room we hadn't searched yet (of which no good loot nor information was discovered) we decided to try and get in. The only one of us who had any useful ranks in a relevant skill was our Elf Thief who kept failing. Finally after about 5 tries our Barbarian, now called Horsethrower, decided to just bust the door down.

Horsethrower: I'm going to just chop the door down with my axe. It's a wooden door right?
DM: Yeah, go ahead.
HT: *rolls* 1...
DM: You hit the wall.
So I decided to chime in, being a dwarf and a bard.
Hodii: HA! Want me to go get ya a horse?
HT: (Out of game: Do you really say that?)
Hodii: (Out of game: Yeah.)
HT: I grapple the dwarf.
Hodii: WHAT! gently caress YOU.
HT: *rolls* 18 plus...23
Hodii: What, how do I dodge or resist (first game so I really didn't know how this worked)
DM: You don't he has you.
Hodii: poo poo.
HT: I throw him at the door. *rolls* HA, crit.
DM: You hurl that dwarf like a sack of bricks...
Hodii: As I fly away I yell "gently caress YOUUUUuuuuuu".
DM:...And shatter the door. Hodii you skid a good, 10 feet on your face, and end up in the middle of a group of 4 Giant Vipers.
Hodii: I yell even louder: "YOU COCKSUCKER!"
HT: I chuckle.


So initiative starts. Thankfully I roll high and end up going before the vipers, who end up going before the rest of the group. I manage to tumble out of the group of Vipers and avoid their A.o.O.s to position myself in a way that lets me only have to worry about two instead of 4. The short version is I killed 2 Vipers and the others were done in by Alchemist's Fire.

As we're finishing up, looting the bodies of the vipers and dead adventurers as well as my giving in and out of game poo poo to Horsethrower the DM asks up to roll listen checks. We all roll above 15 and hear what seems to be a pair of very large, very snarly dog like creatures in the room outside of the one we were in.

Entire group: "Dire Wolves..."

Hodii: I quickly look around the room, what do I see.
DM: In your haste you only notice the bodies of the vipers and adventurers, some torn tapestries and a chimney.
Hodii: I climb the chimney.
DM: What?
Hodii: I have 5 ranks in climb.
DM: You're a dwarf.
Hodii: With 5 ranks in climb.
DM: Ok.
HT: Coward.
Elf: I ready my alchemist fire.
(Ranger and Beguiler get ready as well)
Hodii: *rolls* 15, 19, and 13.
DM: You only have time to make it up the chimney about 10 feet before you hear the pair of Dire Wolves reach the doorway and walk into the room. They stop and stare at you.
Ranger: I'm going to try and charm them with my animal sense.
DM: You can try. But before any of you have time to do anything, except for Hodii who's Santa-ing up the chimney, you hear a booming voice yell out, in a loud but calm manner: "Heel Boys. What'd ya find?". Then you see a 10 foot Orc walk in behind the wolves.
...

Next time: Yes, you can smoke the 2000 year old weed.

namesake
Jun 19, 2006

"When I was a girl, around 12 or 13, I had a fantasy that I'd grow up to marry Captain Scarlet, but he'd be busy fighting the Mysterons so I'd cuckold him with the sexiest people I could think of - Nigel Mansell, Pat Sharp and Mr. Blobby."

I'm now pretty determined to play a character with a long series of titles, all relating to things they've thrown a long way.

"I, Robern Horsethrower Dwarftosser Snakelobber Catbowler Elfcaster Logpitcher Golemslinger Mindflayerlauncher Griffonpelter, greet you."

President Unerlion
May 3, 2008

by Ozmaugh

namesake posted:

I'm now pretty determined to play a character with a long series of titles, all relating to things they've thrown a long way.

"I, Robern Horsethrower Dwarftosser Snakelobber Catbowler Elfcaster Logpitcher Golemslinger Mindflayerlauncher Griffonpelter, greet you."

Oh yeah, that's actually what happening to his Character. At the time of retirement (my friend moved on to an assassin doctor) his full name is Conan the HorseThrower Dwarftosser Tableflicking StatueChucking ChildMauler. The Barbarian. I'll get to those stories.

Conan now inhabits our personal town acting as blacksmith. He just makes retarded amounts of weapons and armor every day. We skipped time ahead 1 year during winter break and my friend had to roll for how many pieces of weapons and armor he had made (rationalizing that he has literally nothing else to do and has a one track mine). The rolls were 1d20*100. So we have an armory full of 1400 weapons of various types and 1900 suits of armor or various types. We decided that since he has nothing to put them on he has started arming and armoring the livestock in town. So we have chickens, cows, pigs and more than a few deer running around armed with pikes and suited with full plate armor.

Don't gently caress with our town.

President Unerlion fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Feb 15, 2012

Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!

President Unerlion posted:

So we have chickens, cows, pigs and more than a few deer running around armed with pikes and suited with full plate armor.

Don't gently caress with our town.
Next time I run a D&D game, this is going in there.

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Dwarftossing reminds me of my very first character, Garret the Generic Halfling Rogue. We had just cleaned out a dungeon and found the treasure chamber at the end, but surprise, it was trapped with some magic dust that gave you CON damage over time unless you made a Fort save, which I blew. So the others have a load of possibly trapped loot on their hands, with Garret being the only one who can find traps worth a drat, and he's only half conscious. His friends immediately grew concerned.

Ranger: "Dammit Garret, get moving, there's two chests that need checking."

For the loot, of course.

Garret: "gently caress you I am literally dying"
Wizard: "This is no good. Are you strong enough to pick him up"
Ranger: "Sure. You thinking what I'm thinking?"
Wizard: "Yep. Alright Garret, we're just gonna sweep you over this pile of gold, okay, and you tell us when you find something unusual."
Garret: "You sons of bitches!"
Ranger: "Yeah yeah look just go 'gently caress you' once for traps, twice for no traps."

So they used me as a trap detector as one would a dowsing rod. And I blew my remove trap roll, triggered another trap of the same making, and of course failed my Fort save again, getting me down to single digit HP. The others were fine.

Ranger: "drat. Garret buddy, you okay? Still one chest to check here."
Me: "From the crumpled heap of halfling moaning on the ground before you, a trembling hand slowly rises and extends just one finger."

A smug sociopath
Feb 13, 2012

Unironically alpha.
I've been into roleplaying for about ten years now, with a few different groups, and had my share of good and bad experiences, enough to fill a few posts.

In my first group, back when I was 15 or so, we started out playing Paranoia and Warhammer 40k. And in this group was this guy, let's call him Jay. Now, Jay was your stereotypical, raging powergamer. Whatever the game, he only cared about winning, usually at the cost of the enjoyment of others. Also, he was 2 years older than the rest of us, and tended to get violent from the slightest provocation.

Playing WH40k with him was -unsurprisingly- pure pain. He would resort to rule-lawyering and micromanaging, even cheat to ensure his victory. But on the rare case when he lost, well, that's when things got from bad to worse. He would throw his miniatures at walls, scream and rage, and sometimes even break his opponent's troops as well. Sometimes he didn't even need to lose.
This one time, I was playing against him, he was playing Blood angels, I had Ultramarines. And he had this brand new tank, Baal Predator I think. Now, he was really meticulous about his miniatures, he would spend weeks painting a single character, and I have to admit, they often looked pretty amazing. This tank was no exception. He was so drat proud of it, and giddy with the anticipation of crushing me with it.
Now, the game begins, and immediately I drop a squad of terminators behind it. I destroy the tank with a punch from a single powerfist.

The room falls in silence. He just stares at the tank. Then he clenches his fists, and starts shaking.
Then, without a word, he grabs his tank, and smashes it on the concrete floor. Like, literally smashes it into tiny pieces.

We ended the game there. He later accused me of breaking his tank :wtc:

He was also in our roleplaying group. He wasn't that bad... until we let him try his hand at GM:ing.
At first we were only playing Paranoia, which I GM:d. I then went to make some conversions of the Paranoia rules system, one of which was a modernday crime game called "Urban Gangsta" (Yeah, yeah, 15 years old, remember). I wanted to play it myself as well, so we took turns GM:ing. Then came Jay's turn.

In this case, we (Me and a second player, John) were picking up a drug baron from the airport, so we could take him to a meeting with our bosses.

Now, as a sidenote, I tended to handle this game as a sandbox, so even though there was a plot to every mission, there was very little railroading on my sessions.

So, we're heading out of the airport in a van of our own, with John driving. I'm sitting in the back, in case someone decides to come at us. And soon enough...

Jay: As you're leaving the airport, you notice that two black Vans begin following you.
Me: Okay, John, slow down so I can get an aim on them. How far away are they?
Jay: About 30 meters.
Me: I open up the back doors, and pull out my rocket launcher (yes, I had a loving bazooka with me)
John: I slow down a little.
Jay: Okay. They keep their distance.
Me: I aim at the the one closer to us and fire. (Roll dice, a perfect hit)
Jay looks at the dice for a moment.
Jay: You didn't hit them.
Me: What?
Jay: You're too far away.
Me: I'm pretty sure a rocket launcher can shoot 30 meters.
Jay: No it can't. The rocket falls on the asphalt behind you and explodes to no effect.
John: That thing shoots at least like 250 meters.
Me: Yeah, what the gently caress? That's ridiculous.

At this point Jay throws his stuff on the ground and begins screaming.

Jay: Well you know what, yeah, it hits the Van! Then you get hit by lighting, and an airplane falls on your car! You're both loving dead, how's that? Gimme your character sheets!
Me, John: :wtf:

Turns out his masterplan involved us being followed to our destination, and us shooting at the followers broke his delicate railroading.

He didn't GM much after that.

I've got more stories from our later/current group, inclucing the birth of my username, tales of shitfetish GM's and other assorted madness.

GaryLeeLoveBuckets
May 8, 2009

A smug sociopath posted:

Jay: Well you know what, yeah, it hits the Van! Then you get hit by lighting, and an airplane falls on your car! You're both loving dead, how's that? Gimme your character sheets!
Me, John: :wtf:

I am GOD HERE! Give me your pitiful character sheets so that I may rip them in twain. See now the sleeping giant you have awoken with your hubris.

Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!
There was a guy who went to FNM who would throw his deck about half the time he lost, the other half he would just poo poo on any attempts to be a good sport about things ("good game" "no it wasn't! gently caress this game!") and just generally sucked any enjoyment out of the game there was to be had. He finally got banned from the store, not because of his constant tirades but because he got convicted of sleeping with a 14 year old girl.

Temascos
Sep 3, 2011

^^Thankfully none of my (Admittedly little) tabletop gaming experiences have involved man-childs like that freakazoid.^^

But of course we've had our moments of sheer silliness. After our main DM wasn't available on Skype to do Pathfinder like usual I got chatting around about various things with the rest of the group, and eventually the topic came round to one RPG...

FATAL.

Yep, we found the character generator and messed around, laughing our butts off about it and how it was a shame our DM wasn't here to play this, but then I had a flash of wisdom. We were gonna play FATAL to our own rules. We decided from the get-go to make it silly as possible, and end in the characters dying in some daft fashion. The rule was simply "Roll one d20 and see how awesome you do" on any action that I deemed important. And off I went to work on Maptools to hastily edit a pub full of characters and seeing what happens from there.

I'll just give the highlights. This was the most immature game ever.

* Snake decided to try and perform wrestling moves on every maid in the bar, they kept going out back. He'd try moves but he critcal failed all of them so he ended up accidently complimenting them.
* Mattox was a drunk old man, getting so drunk that he ended up naked writhing around on the floor, some of the trolls became "interested" in him. Thankfully the bar was set on fire so the trolls got roasted before anything could happen.
* Cold was playing a female character so according to the word of Tom Hall she had to have sex as much as possible in a highly comical orgy. Basically the resulting orgasm sent everyone flying back into the bar and one participant turned into mush after hitting the wall at a high velocity. Afterwards one of the bar owners came along to tell her off, thats right, I rolled to see how effectively the bar owner told her off, it was a critical success.
* The bar owners ended up fighting each other to be the one of serve the customers. This continued whilst the fire was going on, and before the building exploded he was on fire and he simply strolled out, ranting about the session's turn of events.
* At the end the characters died, Cold was killed by melting due to alcohol. Mattox died from a heart attack, and Snake turned into a comet and flew off into space.

In short, it was an absolute riot. I'm hoping to DM again, obviously a more mature session next time but the timing was perfect to play something silly. :)

President Unerlion
May 3, 2008

by Ozmaugh
I just realized that I'm currently having a bad experience. Not terrible, but I could have been having an easier/awesomer time.

So My latest (4th) character in the campaign I've been posting about is a wizard. When I was making it I had just stumbled across a TL;DR'd version of Players Handbook 2 which lists a feat that you can take instead of a familiar called "Immediate Magic". Since it was a TL;DR version it just listed the basics: Specialize in a school, get a spell-like ability linked to that spell that you can use as an instant action at any time in or out of combat. I took it and chose conjuration for the teleport spell. Well one of the other guys says that I had to be able to use the spell it's based off of to be able to use it. And since Teleport is a level 9 spell, it was going to be awhile.

Well I just decided to hunt down the full text and well he was full of poo poo. It specifically lists that you can use the related spell like ability at level 1 and the spells level is based on my own.

My fault for not looking further into it until now, but I can't help but think that the Beguiler wasn't playing his character out of game.

Whybird
Aug 2, 2009

Phaiston have long avoided the tightly competetive defence sector, but the IRDA Act 2052 has given us the freedom we need to bring out something really special.

https://team-robostar.itch.io/robostar


Nap Ghost

Yawgmoth posted:

I've never been a fan of trying to punish someone in-game for being a shitheel. It never works to solve the problem and in fact usually makes things worse.

Oh, I'm definitely in favour of responding to OOC douchebaggery with OOC negotiation. I was thinking more of the situation where a player goes and has their character run around breaking laws and expecting to avoid any IC consequences "because it's what my character would do", which isn't always a problem with the other players.

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

Welp.

Decided to join a pick up game of 4e D&D to finally put to rest my concerns about the system (which I won't get into because editions wars is tedious). The DM keeps calling me 'little lady' and never directly addressed me, which already made me want to pack up and leave, but I decided 'well never going to see this rear end in a top hat again, and rather not wait another hour for the bus home'.

So I rolled up my character - a fey pact warlock and male character. The group starts cracking homophobic jokes, and I'm just sitting there holding my dice in disbelief as one of them asked if the warlock getting hit by a hammer would be considered 'gaybashing'.

I pretty much quit right then and there.

Thelonious Funk
Jan 6, 2009

Twisted Fate ain't got shit on me.

Robindaybird posted:

Welp.

Decided to join a pick up game of 4e D&D to finally put to rest my concerns about the system (which I won't get into because editions wars is tedious). The DM keeps calling me 'little lady' and never directly addressed me, which already made me want to pack up and leave, but I decided 'well never going to see this rear end in a top hat again, and rather not wait another hour for the bus home'.

So I rolled up my character - a fey pact warlock and male character. The group starts cracking homophobic jokes, and I'm just sitting there holding my dice in disbelief as one of them asked if the warlock getting hit by a hammer would be considered 'gaybashing'.

I pretty much quit right then and there.

Just curious, you're not hating on 4e for this, are you? Because this is not the fault of 4e. It's the fault of horrible people being horrible people.

Thelonious Funk fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Feb 16, 2012

Thuryl
Mar 14, 2007

My postillion has been struck by lightning.

Thelonious Funk posted:

Just curious, you're not hating on 4e for this, are you? Because this is not the fault of 4e. It's the fault of nerds being nerds.

... no, I am pretty sure she is not using her experience of sexual harassment as an excuse to edition war. Why would you even ask this?

Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!

Thelonious Funk posted:

Just curious, you're not hating on 4e for this, are you? Because this is not the fault of 4e. It's the fault of nerds being nerds.

Let's be fair, this isn't even "nerds being nerds". This is shitheads being shitheads.

Shogun Warrior
Apr 25, 2008
Yeah, I roleplay with some of the nerdiest nerds ever to nerd and they'd never treat anyone this way at the table (or anywhere else).

Thelonious Funk
Jan 6, 2009

Twisted Fate ain't got shit on me.

Yawgmoth posted:

Let's be fair, this isn't even "nerds being nerds". This is shitheads being shitheads.

You're right, updated.

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

nope, just sour me on any more pick up games if there's no one I know. I was just trying to cut off the edition wars at the pass.

But yeah, this was really the first time I felt really uncomfortable at a tabletop game - I've been sitting in or playing various games since I got introduced to D&D by the Goldbox Games (Gateway to the Savage Frontier to be exact)

Robindaybird fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Feb 16, 2012

hito
Feb 13, 2012

Thank you, kids. By giving us this lift you're giving a lift to every law-abiding citizen in the world.
Alright here's a story. Was a while ago so I might be sketch on the details.

I was playing Living Greyhawk - basically it's where you play DnD at these set places like gamestores and cons, and you record your adventure records each time, so it's a giant metacampaign. This means that I was playing with new people (though obviously there were regulars) every adventure with my same guy.

Anyway, I'm at the table with this pair of people who know each other but I've never met. One of them is really boisterous, playing a Drunken Master with Improved Improvised Weapons, and thus, +1 chairs as his main weapons. The other guy was a centaur, and he was the sort of metal head traditional game player. Beard, pretty serious face, you know the type. He would answer questions asked of him and say what he was doing for his moves and that was it.

With two exceptions.

The first was at the beginning. Someone was playing a halfling or gnome or some small creature, and jokingly brought up riding the centaur. Not as a question to him, but just as banter. But still, he coolly interjected, "No one rides me." Which is a pretty sensible stance for a centaur to take, and we said no more about it. His buddy was really outgoing and the table banter was happy and friendly.

Now, as the adventure begins, we're chasing after this sorceress. I forget the exact details, but we had bayed her up into a building that was subsequently set on fire. She pokes out and proceeds to throw a baby out of the building before scampering off in the other direction.

Only one of the characters was in range, and what could they do but catch the baby and let her go? So, she got away, we all get together, and we're sitting here holding this baby. We have no clue whose baby it is, and we're arguing about what to do with it. We don't have time to go walking around presenting this baby to people, we need to start tracking her, but are we just going to leave the baby on the side of the road?

Centaur rolls a d20. We all look at him inquisitively.

"I rolled a 20, and crafted a baby saddle."

And that was how a baby (later revealed to be abducted from a villager specifically to throw as a diversion) got to ride a centaur for half an adventure.

Strange Matter
Oct 6, 2009

Ask me about Genocide
I posted about my first experience with Unknown Armies in the previous thread which turned out to be the best game I've ever played. Since my group is currently playing through a follow-up game with the same GM which is turning out to be just as awesome, I thought I'd dredge this up and repost it in all its glory. I expect the summary of the current game will go in here along with this.


Let me tell you about my first Unknown Armies experience.

It was a streets level campaign called Lullaby. There were three other players other than me, and all of us had never played UA before. Our GM, Mani, had run this particular campaign twice before on an actual table, but this time we were playing over AIM chat, which turned out to be a huge boon once things started going off the rails.

The characters and their players (I'll use their actual names because there's nothing bad or embarassing about any of this):

Fuse: played by Dylan. Fuse is an ex-Yakuza hiding out in America after basically fleeing Japan to escape some supernatural forces that were haunting him, J-horror style. He had the highest struggle level in the party, and his primary skill is Obayun, which is his ability to make people listen to him through sheer force of personality.

Gary: played by Chris. Gary is a private investigator. I don't think he ever told us what his character's trigger was, but he stuck by Fuse's side for most of the game because he was on his payroll, and because they were the two old guys in contrast to the other two characters, who were much younger and more impulsive. He's the only character with any sort of firearm skill, though he wound up shooting like a stormtrooper for most of the game.

Mark: played by Ben. Mark is an academic, and the only character in the party with any kind of major supernatural skill, in that he can see auras around people and objects. I actually don't have much to say about Mark because Ben wound up being absent for large stretches of the game.

Lynch: my character. Lynch is sort of an odd duck in the party. He was a DJ and a signals intelligence expert-- his day job was doing tech support for major broadcasting corporations, and he also worked the graveyard shift at a Top 40 radio station, a job he hated. He is also an insomniac and an alcoholic, and started with the most failed sanity points of the entire party. His trigger moment involved a traumatic experience with a number station, and every since he's been obsessed with finding strange and arcane radio signals.

The party is formed with Fuse as the leader and financier, Gary as his enforcer and Mark and Lynch as consultants, basically. Lynch was brought in by Gary to make and plant listening devices.

The setting and story of the game is an island town called Vinalhaven, where there have been reports of strange happenings going on involving vandalism, nightmares and a strange, troubled girl named Elsie. I'll post Mani's info dump on it actually:

quote:

Vinalhaven, a small Maine island town not far from Rockland, is a storybook community of around 1,200. Their biggest claim to fame is probably that the author of Goodnight, Moon once lived there. There's a small Historical Society which sells her books, and displays a few relics from the ancient Red Paint civilization that once inhabited the island. There is only one K-12 public school, only one library, only one nature preserve, only one lighthouse - and only one way to get on or off the island (a ferry ride of about 1hr 15mins to/from Rockland). There's a small swell of tourism in the summer, but above all Vinalhaven's community prides itself on its friendliness and its people.

As explained by the owners of the island's Tidewater Motel: "We have a habit, you'll be quick to notice, of waving instinctively to one another from our cars and trucks or as pedestrians. If you stay with us for a few days, you'll fall, awkwardly at first, and then more comfortably, into the same custom. We hear endlessly from our guests that this is the friendliest place they've ever been."

The Vinalhaven you all will be visiting is not nearly so warm and cozy.

About two weeks ago, 8 year old Elsie Hale-Shepley disappeared one night, and was later found about to jump from a cliff into the sea, babbling in a tongue no-one seems to recognize. She was promptly hospitalized, and then committed to psychiatric care under Dr. Jonathan Lanham (one of the town's two psychiatrists, and the only one who lives on the island): Elsie has been acting strange since then, and so, it seems, has the town...and the sea.

Nightmares about black, stormy oceans and sea monsters bubbled throughout the Vinalhaven night at a suspicious rate. Soon, some of the island's many fisherman claimed to have seen enormous, dark shapes moving just beneath the waves - others began to speculate about the fact that Elsie's father, Leland Hale, had himself begun talking about dark creatures in the sea singing terrible songs - just before he died: against advice, he took his ship out during an unnaturally violent storm, and was sucked into the sea not too far from the town; his body, of course, was never found. Perhaps most disturbing for the a town whose primary income is lobster fishing, hauls have been anemic since that incident, and declining. Occasionally, a haul will contain nothing but the dismembered remains and cracked shells of lobsters, not a single living one among them.

On land, people began to see and hear things that weren't there - shadows darting just beyond the corners of their vision, wet footprints appearing mysteriously all over, and sounds with no apparent source echoing throughout the town: notably, children crying, pianos playing on their own, and a haunting lullaby. On rarer occasions, a townsperson has been seen acting in a bizarre delirium, hoarding any and all books they can find, muttering about the "permanency of the word" in the "cold black of existence" and reading feverishly for hours and hours on end - and then remembering little to nothing the next day, unable to explain what happened to them, except that it had a dreamlike familiarity to it, that it "made sense" on a level they can't quite articulate - or aren't willing to.

It wasn't long before local gossip mixed with quiet hysteria, and talk flew around that Elsie was possessed by some demon or malevolent force. After all, everything started after that morning she was found, gibbering in that freaky language. Even more suspicious, the doctor overseeing little Elsie are unusually tight-lipped about her case and condition - the only person permitted to visit her, is her mother, Lisa Shepley.

Having lost her husband, Leland, only recently - and now enduring this whatever's-going-on-with-her-daughter - Lisa has the sympathies of almost all of the townspeople. Almost. A few gossipers have been spreading talk that Elsie was herself unnatural from the start; Lisa had been unable to conceive for years, and it was only after she returned from an off-island consult with a "specialist" that she bore Elsie. Lisa had herself confided in her friends that she thought there were demons or dark forces interfering with her daughter, though at the time they chalked it up to the stress of being a new mother. Fisherman have begun noticing that their catches really began declining about the time that Elsie was born - and have only hastened (albeit dramatically) since the incident. That was two weeks ago.

Suddenly, simple things started taking on a dark and unfamiliar tone all over Vinalhaven - from the worsening weather, to the blurb on the library's website: "Some research says readers begin in the womb," or the blurb on the recent horror/mystery-themed readings at the library: "The world of writing and books will come alive as these authors speak, even though more than the average number of subjects will be dead or dying."

Of course, with the tourist season only months away, and things being as unsettling as they are - in a town that usually sees nothing worse than the occasional "curmudgeon" or "offensive language" - the townsfolk aren't spilling all this to just anyone. People are on edge, and the normally warm community is twitchy and uneasy and tight-lipped (relatively, anyway).

It's worth noting that the previous two times that Mani ran this campaign, the PCs had been religious types: once a squad of catholic exorcists, and the other was a televangelist and his entourage. We didn't have any kind of religious connections, it was more based on Fuse's interested in the occult due to his activities in Japan.

So we arrive in town in the rain and set-up shop at the hotel. Things are immediately off to a weird start when Fuse's assistant and chaffeur, Ise, is acting very paranoid and jittery. He's found in possession of a strange novel called This Cold Black. Before we can grill him to figure out what's going on, a window is smashed and a small girl is making off with Mark's luggage. We give chase into the storm but she's gone. Lynch, however, picks up a strange giggling sound in the air thanks to how his Notice skill is augmented by a skilled called Ears Like a Safe Cracker.

We stay the night at the hotel. I have Lynch begin setting up his radio equipment and cruise the airwaves for signals. Meanwhile Fuse, Gary and Mark all sit down for storytime as Mark begins to read This Cold Black. Now I wasn't actually around for this part because the way the game worked was that when different parts of the group would receive exclusive information, we'd split off into our own chats with the GM. This would factor heavily into later parts of the game. From what I understand, they got sucked into a nightmare where, like, water and giant squids started exploding out from the book and prompting sanity checks that I think Fuse at least failed. From that point on, Fuse (and Dylan) became extremely paranoid around any and all books, and basically forbade Mark from even touching one.

It's worth mentioning at this point that there was sort of a meta game going on here. Dylan said at the start that he was obsessed with Fuse surviving this campaign. Now Ben and I, we saw things differently, so we made it our duty to complicate things as much as possible to increase the odds that someone would die horribly. Ben accomplished this by giving Mark almost no sense of self-preservation and leaping headfirst into whatever supernatural challenge popped up. With Lynch, I contributed to our cause by steadily increasing his paranoia and erratic behavior as the game went on, fueled by booze, lack of sleep and weird radio messages.

So while they're having their reading rainbow adventure, Lynch is in his room scanning for radio signals when he comes across a weird, carousel tune playing on a channel without any discernible source. Mani actually sent me an MP3 of the tune; I think it was from Silent Hill but it was creepy as hell. If I can dig it up I'll play it here. It's so sudden and alarming that Lynch spazzes out and breaks his nose against a piece of furniture.

The next day we do some investigating, splitting up into two parties. Lynch and Gary go to speak with Elsie's former elementary school teacher, Helen, while Fuse, Ise and Mark go to the library to see what they can find out about This Cold Black. Lynch plants a bug in Helen's office while she explains to the two of them about how distressed Elsie's mother Lisa is, and about Castro, the old mulatto guy who lives in the Lighthouse who was found with Elsie after she went missing.

It's about this time that Dylan begins his pattern of improbably good dice rolls. He must have passed more than 80% of his checks, and rolled more single digit successes than the rest of the group combined. It was unreal and basically allowed Fuse to do practically whatever he wanted. His obayun skill practically became a jedi mind trick.

After Gary and Lynch finish with Helen the party regroups in the town center in time to find a crazy guy screaming at the top of his lungs while hanging from a flagpole in the town square. Before much else happens he's struck by lightning and falls to the hard ground below; and yet comes up fine. This is JJJ (I forget his full name), an exorcist whose come to town to expel the demons possessing Elsie. Lynch later discovered that JJJ had a radio show that he picked up some broadcasts on. JJJ gets carted off to the hospital, since he just got struck by lightning and all.

Our party heads to the hospital to speak to Dr. Latham, Elsie's child psychologist, but to our chagrin it turns out that JJJ was a step ahead of us; be broke loose from his restraints in the emergency ward, beat the hell out of some nurses and disappeared. We run into him in the hall. We try to talk him down at first but he's full of zeal and god's love, so we have to do it by force. Here, ironically, in spite of Dylan's boss rolls he sorta doesn't do that well in the struggle, and it's dragging pretty bad until I manage to roll well enough to have Lynch grapple JJJ while Gary and Fuse beat the tar out of him. The whole time, Mani is openly rolling dice and randomly telling us that JJJ is evading our attacks through increasingly improbably coincidences. After we finished the game, Mani revealed that JJJ was an entropomancer, although he didn't know about the true nature of his powers and just assumed that god loved him so much that he protected him from harm. We manage to subdue JJJ and the cops take him away. We come out of it with minor injuries, but luckily we're in a hospital.

Afterwards we recoup from our heroics, and Gary and Lynch head up to talk to Latham while Fuse and Mark talk to the authorities. Turns out he's not in, but his office is unlocked, so I sneak in and plant a bug in his office. We bolt as he approaches, splitting up. And here is where things start to go nuts.

Gary gets out of the hospital but Lynch ends up going deeper in, and there finds Elsie. In the only lit cell in an otherwise totally dark hallway. Oh and it's soundproof. And her neck is wrapped in bandages. I put two and two together and realize that they gave the girl a tracheotomy to remove her ability to speak normally, and put her in a soundproofed cell for good measure.

So this is all pretty terrible. She can only communicate through drawings, and the first thing she asks is "Can I Go Now?" I actually have a long conversation with her, discovering, among other things, that the spooky carousel that Lynch heard on the radio was some kind of lullaby that Lisa sang to Elsie, and that more importantly Lynch has a weakness for little kids in peril. I left promising her that I'd be back to get her out and bring her to her mother.

I should note, also, that all of this took place in a private chat away from the rest of the party. None of them knew that I had personally met Elsie.

while this is going on, Mark, Gary and Fuse are having their own little adventures. Gary and Fuse go to talk to Castro while Mark stumbles into some kind of weird other space where he meets a boy calling himself Ego, who talks about the Mother and the Devourer and the Victim and the Host and a bunch of other weird stuff. This is actually the last full session that Ben plays with us for several weeks. A combination of technical issues and real life concerns kept knocking him out of the game. All of these occurred as solo sessions with their respective party members, so none of us know what the other is really up to.

Gary and Fuse's experiences with Castro are equally uncanny, and in the end he does something to Fuse that scrambles his speaking abilities before kicking them out of his lighthouse. He also reveals that he is the author of This Cold Black. As is revealed in the post game, Castro is a Bibliomancer, and also an Avatar of the Outsider or something. When the party regroups at the hotel after all of this happens, Gary and Fuse are shaken. Especially Fuse. Especially. He's talking about going back to Castro and putting the boots to him, medium style. He's extremely agitated. He's talking about him being a crazy sorcerer and stuff.

It's at this point that Lynch's paranoia is getting really ratcheted up from a combination of more booze, less sleep and another creepy radio message, this time a rock song that dissolves into a gutteral chanting of "I'm always watching you", and I decide not to tell the rest of the party that Lynch met Elsie.

Gary and Fuse retrieve a bunch of tapes that Latham made of his sessions with Elsie, and they have Lynch analyze them, which I do in another solo session. The tapes reveal a few things-- the first one is actually the doctor talking to Lisa and Leland. Lisa is a total wreck and Leland is becoming increasingly distressed with the whole situation. Another tape has Latham speaking to Elsie directly; however, Elsie is speaking gibberish. And then Latham starts speaking gibberish, unconciously. After listening to the tapes over and over and over again and dissecting every bit of dialog, begins to understand a few words in Elsie's strange language. Understand them like he's known it all his life. For the rest of the game, this language continues to creep up into his speech at random.

Okay so now Lynch is in a really weird mood. He's got a constant buzz going, hasn't slept in days, is being hounded by mysterious radio signals and now his brain is being rewritten. He begins to see Fuse's threats of violence as his very real intentions instead of just venting.

This leads to the turning point in the game, where everything goes haywire. Lynch is taking a break from his analysis to get food and while he's at the diner, Mark walks in. Ben managed to get himself in order enough to try out a game, but no sooner does he enter the chat than does his connection die on us. Then he's back. Then he's gone again. This goes on for about a half an hour, during which the game is at a complete standstill.

Finally Mani gets sick of it, and when Ben disconnects for the last time he has Mark simply pass out on the table. I take his phone and call Fuse and tell him what happened. Then I decide to leave before they arrive. Through the emergency exit in the back. Which sets off the alarms in the diner. I figure, why does it matter? The ambulance is coming anyway.

My objective here is to visit Castro before Gary and Fuse decide to go over there and put the screws to him, mostly to satisfy my own curiosity while I still can. Fuse and Gary arrive soon after, and realize that Lynch left through the emergency exit. Gary goes out the back and sees Lynch just barely in view, and they give chase. And now I'm running to because, hey, I'm being chased!

This leads to an hour long chase scene of Lynch trying to outmaneuver Gary and Fuse. As it proceeds, each side is becoming increasingly sure that the other side is up to something, and the paranoia of the characters becomes the paranoia of the players since no one really knows exactly what the others have been doing. I almost get away with it, but then Gary rolls and 01 on his Notice check and realizes that Lynch is heading for the lighthouse. Fuse calls Ise and they give chase in their car.

Lynch beats them there just barely and races up the lighthouse to the top, where Castro has locked the door and covered it in police tape (later revealed to be a sealing spell), but Lynch is able to convince him to let him in by saying that he met Elsie and by repeating "The darkness is safer than the light", the key phrase that he was able to understand from her gibberish. Castro lets him in a few minutes before Fuse and Gary catch up.

I get a really awesome scene in Castro's library where I get to monologue about Lynch's history with music and his own obsessions with radio, and solidifies in my mind that Castro is on our side. Meanwhile, the opposite is happening with Fuse and Gary, who are now convinced that Lynch is totally unhinged and that Castro is even more dangerous than they predicted. When they finally get to the top of the lighthouse, Dylan and I have an intense and awesome cellphone argument through the door, where it comes out that Lynch met Elsie. He asks Fuse if he wants to talk to Elsie, and then plays some of her gibberish which he recorded to a microcasette through the phone. Fuse practically throws the phone down.

Finally Castro comes away with a book-- another copy of This Cold Black, which he uses in conjunction with the original copy to see that JJJ has escaped from police custody and is heading for the hospital.

Then this exchange happens. I'm paraphrasing, but:

quote:

Lynch: You've got bigger problems than me right now.
Fuse: What do you mean?
*pause*
Gary: We've got to go now!
Fuse: What?
Gary: I....squid

I didn't know this at the time, but a giant squid had just erupted from the ocean nearby and was approaching the shoreline.

They flee, and now the party is not only split, but actively working against one another. I'm now determined to save Elsie not just from the doctors who want to take her off the island for more testing, but from Fuse and Gary who are obviously dangerous. This is exacerbated by the fact that Dylan/Fuse has come to believe that Elsie is also dangerous, so I genuinely think he may do something bad to her.

I talk to Castro for a while and learn some things. He took in Elsie after she ran away, and through his research learned that her gibberish language is called Alter Tongue, and that it has the ability to spread to people who hear it. He used her language to write This Cold Black and attached a bunch of Bibliomancer spells to it.

Castro gives Lynch his second copy of This Cold Black and I head for the hospital. On the way I call Elsie's mother Lisa to meet me behind the hospital. I head over, sneak in through the back, and reach Elsie's room just in time to see Fuse, Gary and Mark preparing to throw down with JJJ, who has just broken through the soundproof glass. When my turn comes up I aim the book at them and open it like it's a cannon.

I honestly was expecting it to flood the room with water or summon a squid or suck them all up like a pokeball, but what it did was fill them with feelings of weakness and victimization and, in Fuse's case, make him even angrier because not only had Lynch betrayed them, but he had brought along the one thing on the island he was most afraid of.

I get drawn into the brawl and its a free for all, and during the melee Elsie tries to break free. JJJ almost gets her but in his moment of victory, right when he has the upper hand...he just up and walks away.

Mani explained it after the game. Because he didn't really know how his own powers worked, when JJJ thought he was exorcising spirits he was actually summoning demons. If he succeeded, the demon would have tried to possess one of us and we'd have to save against it. However, he did not succeed. He botched it, very badly. And as a result, he was possessed. And the demon, finding himself suddenly in a shiny new body, decided that he had better things to do than fight a bunch of humans.

Lynch shouts to Elsie that her mother is outside and she bolts for the fire escape. Mark (Ben was finally able to rejoin us) made a snap decision and ran with her, trying to carry her outside to her mother while Lynch was determined to hold off Fuse and Gary. Unfortunately for him they had much higher struggle scores, and they had weapons. Lynch, however, had a complete lack of regard for his own safety. I get the crap beaten out of me. In the middle of the fight Gary pulls his gun intending to threaten me, but Chris somehow fails a roll so badly that the gun actually goes off. It misses Lynch by inches but deafens him, and since his hearing is so good he's really messed up. I actually have to make a sanity check, since Lynch's fear impulse is silence, which I pass. I keep on fighting until I basically get KO'd, but by this time Mark is almost out the door. Fuse and Gary give chase, and they run right into a squad of police cars waiting outside.

So we all get arrested.

Everyone spends part of the night in the hospital, and the rest of the night in the slammer. Over night we get visited by weird dopplegangers of Elsie, each with weird distorted faces. The next day we make bail-- thanks to Ego, the weird kid that Mark met earlier. It's Mother's Day, and Elsie is scheduled to be shipped off the island.

We leave the jail and the whole town is in chaos. Its being vandalized by an army of Elsie duplicates. In the middle of it all we find Mark's lost luggage, which happens to be soaked with urine for some reason, and inside we find pills. Antipsychotics. At the same time I get a phone call from Lisa, who is utterly unhinged, screaming about how Elsie is not a bad girl and how she needs her daughter back and on and on and on. She bellows something about the pills aren't working anymore and we figure that the meds we found in Mark's suitcase were hers.

Just then, an ambulance pulls up to a stoplight, and Fuse has a revelation. He runs up to the driver and tells him he has a fuel leak, and when he gets out jumps him while Lynch gets in the driver's seat (I have the highest Drive skill in the party). We gag the guy with Mark's piss stained clothes and throw him in the back, then strip him of his EMT uniform. Our plan is simple:

1.) Pretend to be EMTs
2.) Go to hospital, pick up Elsie
3.) Uhhhhh

I dress Lynch up in the EMT's outfit and we head for the hospital. We get there and Gary gives Lynch his stungun, in the event that I need it, but when I come in an orderly, partly speaking Alter Tongue, throws Elsie into my arms and says to get her out of here. So that was pretty easy.

We take the ambulance (and the hogtied EMT) away from the hospital and plot our next move. In the process we have one of the best exchanges in the game, something like this:

quote:

Fuse: Castro is a psychopath and a sorcerer! He wrote that damned book!
Lynch: Yes wrote it, but he used her words! *pointing at Elsie*
*Fuse's jaw drops slightly, and he immediately walks off*

Afterwards Fuse spends some time talking to Elsie, who answers his questions with a combination of body language and writing. When asked if she's afraid of Castro she shakes her head, and then confirms that by writing "Kastrow" when Fuse asks if there's anyone on the island that was nice to her.

During this time we get a call from Helen (Elsie's teacher), who's with Lisa at her home with Doctor Latham, saying that Lisa is calmed down and that we should bring Elsie back. Now we're starting to formulate a plan. By this time, incidently, we're all convinced that Latham is the villain, possibly the Devourer that Ego spoke about. Using a valuable book that we found at the hotel (a signed first edition of Player Piano), Lynch "calls" Castro, thinking that maybe he can hear him through one of his books. Afterwards Lynch says "I feel retarded." Our plan is to get everyone together at Lisa's house and settle things there.

What amazed me about this final act is how our group dynamic had shifted. We were all on the same side, but instead of Lynch coming to his senses, they had all basically joined his side, kinda vindicating his craziness. I also discovered something about Lynch during this act. I was concerned that I was sort of acting out of character by having him behave more rationally and less impulsively given his prior actions, but then I realized that he hadn't had a drink in almost 48 hours. He's not schizophrenic; he's just a really bad drunk.

So we drive the ambulance to Lisa's home (we still have the EMT in the back, by the way) so that everyone can air their grievances. Helen greets us and leads us through the house and up into Elsie's room. The whole while we're hearing the creepy carousel lullaby that I heard at the start of the game.

When we reach Elsie's room we discover that we had vastly miscalculated things. Latham wasn't the devourer; he was dead on the floor with a pair of scizzors in his neck. Lisa seems Elsie, and all hell breaks loose.

I wish I had Mani's description on hand, but in sort order:
Elsie's old crib explodes into shards and forms a crucifix behind Lisa. Knobs from it impale her hands and feet and she's lifted off the ground.
She transforms first into an image of the Virgin Mary
Then her stomach bulges out and explodes into a dozen tentacles emerging from a fanged, ravenous uterus

So it turns out the Devourer and the Mother were the same thing. Oopsie.

Two of our party fail sanity checks but select Flight anyway so they bolt out. I grab Elsie and run, while Gary has the decency to haul Helen away from being horribly killed. We managed to break out of the house and make it to the ambulance and start driving away. Lisa crashes out of the house and gives chase and Lynch floors it down the street.

At the end of the street he stops. For once, Dylan and I are 100% on the same page. I turn the van around, tell everyone to buckle up and say a prayer to the god of random number generators, and roll to run that bitch over with a van. Success.

Mani said afterwards that that's the first time anyone's tried to hit the Devouring Mother with a car.

I score a direct hit and smash right against and over her, but she's not quite dead yet. Gary opens the window and starts firing uselessly at Lisa, and I end up pulling away in the van to get away. Elsie now crawls into the front with the piece of paper reading "Kastrow" on it, so we drive to the lighthouse.

When we arrive Lisa is catching up. We untie the EMT and have him drive away with Helen while we head into the Lighthouse.

Now at this point Mani had an ending in mind. We were supposed to climb the Lighthouse, and then we fight Lisa in Castro's library alongside him. That's not what happens though.

Instead, while we all run for safety, Gary hangs back and stands his ground. He draws his weapon and fires one last time before retreating with the rest of the party.

And rolls a 01.

At this point the chat explodes into hysterics as he adjusts his aim and fires right into Lisa's womb, which, in conjunction with me hitting her with the van, does enough damage to kill her outright. She goes down and is shriveling up and Gary goes over to her and delivers a coup de grace with his gun to her head while saying "Happy Mother's Day."

So yeah. Unknown Armies owns.

Fuego Fish
Dec 5, 2004

By tooth and claw!

hito posted:

And that was how a baby (later revealed to be abducted from a villager specifically to throw as a diversion) got to ride a centaur for half an adventure.

Lone Horse and Cub.

Captain_Indigo
Jul 29, 2007

"That’s cheating! You know the rules: once you sacrifice something here, you don’t get it back!"

Fuego Fish posted:

Lone Horse and Cub.

I may have missed the point entirely...but I read it as the centaur crafted the baby INTO a saddle...

hito
Feb 13, 2012

Thank you, kids. By giving us this lift you're giving a lift to every law-abiding citizen in the world.

Captain_Indigo posted:

I may have missed the point entirely...but I read it as the centaur crafted the baby INTO a saddle...

Oh, heh. No, he crafted a saddle for the baby. It was heartwarming because literally the only other bit of tabletalk he had done was how adamant he was no one would ride him.

I can see how it'd be confusing because it's not like he had crafting tools and leather right there with him. But our DM was a good DM who knew that official rules and common sense aren't worth stopping a centaur from helping a baby. And hey, he did roll a 20.

Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!

Strange Matter posted:

Gary goes over to her and delivers a coup de grace with his gun to her head while saying "Happy Mother's Day."

So yeah. Unknown Armies owns.
That is the most action movie thing ever and this entire story owns bones.

The Man From Melmac
Sep 8, 2008
I'm getting in on a Rifts game a friend of mine is running. Apparently they just finished up a Mouse Guard campaign, but one of his players wants to keep playing the same character. So he came up with the story that after a rift swallowed him up, he was trained by Jinx from Super Mario RPG, who taught him how to use 'Quicksilver'.

I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Rigged Death Trap
Feb 13, 2012

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

I've only really played one Campaign of 3.5e but it ended up being totally nothing like what I expected.

The character I rolled was Urist Fist (Yes I know), Dwarf Monk, and My party consisted of a bard, a wizard, a warlock and a GM fiat-ed in half dragon. When it came to the regular encounters I barely hit anything, not even 10 AC zombies. Even when I did hit it would be for piss poor amounts of damage.

Then we hit the boss gauntlet. A huge fire elemental and a boneyard, both felled by critical fists. Urist then retreated to a life of uselessness. We ended up naming him Urist the All-loving Giant hater.

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Volmarias
Dec 31, 2002

EMAIL... THE INTERNET... SEARCH ENGINES...

Strange Matter posted:

At this point the chat explodes into hysterics as he adjusts his aim and fires right into Lisa's womb, which, in conjunction with me hitting her with the van, does enough damage to kill her outright. She goes down and is shriveling up and Gary goes over to her and delivers a coup de grace with his gun to her head while saying "Happy Mother's Day."

So yeah. Unknown Armies owns.

This is an awesome story and I would like to hear more awesome stories like it.

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