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GMing a game of Pathfinder in a Forgotten Realms/Planescape setting. The party got absolutely beat down by a town guard, and a crooked cop stole most of their items when they went to jail. Kinda standard, break into the cops home to get your stuff back quest. Right? Right now the party of 5 is split into two groups, and one group is a half-mad Dwarven ranger who works as an exterminator and a Paladin of Freedom who works as a defense lawyer. So the party goes to the hall of records to learn about the crooked cop. They end up finding that he has an exotic pet license. At an exotic pet-store they make some gather information checks in conversation and the warden who runs the store tells them that the bad guy keeps a giant Praying Mantis as a pet. So the players talk their way into being given a dead giant dung beetle as long as they removed the carcass from the premisses. So the players hatched a plan. First, they ripped the head off that dead dung beetle. Then the players decided to piss on it because that would give it male pheromones to attract the mantis. Me - "All right the pet store worker leaves and get more workers, they escort you out of the building for urinating on a decapitated insect head in a fancy Pets-Mart." Dwarf Exterminator - "Alright before we fill this motherfucking beetle head with rat poison, I say, Hey Lawyer boy, you'll earn all my respect if you just take a bite of this beetle brain goo." Paladin Defense Lawyer - "Yeah, I say gently caress it and take a bite." "Roll a d20 for fortitude." "5." "You become instantly nauseous and hold your hand up to your mouth to stop vomiting. It doesn't work, now you just have two streams of projectile vomit going out both sides of your mouth. You stumble over to the gutter next to an outdoor bistro and start vomiting in front of upscale patio diners. The manager comes out to hit you with a broom." God Of Paradise fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Jan 21, 2013 |
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Jan 21, 2013 02:47
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I DM'd a bit as a teenager. I just got back into it. My players still bring up the time they random encountered horses while traveling across Toril. And instead of horses I made them stumble upon Wyld Stallions. Bill S. Preston Esquire and Ted Theodore Logan, camping with Jesse James and loving Spock next to their magic phone booth. They offered the players an excellent quick adventure quest. They were asked to help save the righteous babes from a non-non heinous cult-slave camp in a magical land called San Dimas. The players said yes, and joined the two most excellent bards, with their invisible instruments, the gunslinger, and some really smart elf monk. I said gently caress it and broke out a D20 Modern manual, and had them kill their way through a Church of Mormon summer camp to rescue two heavy-metal girls. They were most triumphant in slaying the camp counselors so they were rewarded with getting to go ride the water slides. On their way back to Toril, the players made a pit stop at a playhouse to drop off Jesse James, and they failed to save President Lincoln from an assassin's bullet, which Bill and Ted thought was totally bogus. They were brought back 3 minutes into the past from where they left D&D world. Then the next session two players died, so I had Death himself come down from the sky in a phone booth to resurrect them, and tell them to "Be Excellent To Each Other."
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Jan 29, 2013 12:05
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This is like Return to Zork the tabletop RPG. Where any solution to a problem that's not batshit crazy ends up in instant death. "I decide to make a running jump across the spikes." "Roll." 19. "A 19. Okay. You make a running leap across the chasm and clear the distance. But then you are immediately eaten by wolves." God Of Paradise fucked around with this message at 09:31 on Feb 8, 2013 |
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Feb 8, 2013 09:28
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I stole a Jack Vance character from Dying Earth in my Pathfinder campaign. Turjan is a prototype of a greedy Thayvian wizard that crafts clones to be under his servitude. In my game, he produces "pleasure model" clones that are nerfed versions of famous d&d characters. They all have 3 wisdom and work in his brothel/combat arena, because well, in this grimey city the players are in, that's what would pay the bills and bring in the rich nobles and tourists. Last session, one my players got imprisoned by stealing a deck of many things and being dumb enough to pull 4 cards from it. Instead of rolling a new character, we decided that Turjan would lone one of his pleasure models to the party, at least until the players rescue the dumb rear end monk who got himself imprisoned. Enter the new PC. Drizzle DoHERden. It's a level 4 drow ranger that exists just to please any rich old lady, or gay man who wants to experience what it's like to sleep with Drizzt. Drizzle has two swords, Twink and Icing. One does +1 glitter damage and the other does +1 whipped cream damage. A speedo of hypnotize. And whenever he casts dancing lights horrible club music starts playing and he reveals his speedo and starts dancing. Also in his inventory is a wand of "grease," and many bottles of fine champagne. His familiar is a hot pink panther named Gunther. It was silly as hell, GMing a game with this sophomoric porn-parody version of Drizzt, but my friend Ryan started taking our joke character as seriously as he could, turning him into, basically the D&D version of Jude Law from A.I. It helped that he'd read all those silly teen-novel R.A. Salvatore books I've never been able to stomach. Tonight Drizzle accompanied the other PCs into the mists of the realm of dread, to the city of Barovia. I broke out the 1st edition Ravenloft module, because, well, I didn't plan for the Imprisonment, and figured Castle Ravenloft was a good place for this monk to be chained up in. Drizzle kept rolling 19's and 20's in his attempts to seduce Ireena Koldova, the object of Strahd the vampire's affection. After burying her father, he slept with Ireena, angering the Strahd the dark lord enough that he came out and confronted him challenging him to a duel. The Dark Powers, the gods that are in Ravenloft simply to torture the dark lords, they then rewarded the party by turning all of the towns people's faces into Drizzle's and they all started mocking or making passes at the vampire. Strahd quickly killed a couple townspeople then swore his revenge and retreated back to his castle to brood, the powers laughing at his torment.
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Feb 24, 2013 10:14
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I got an epic jump scare out of my last session. Right now I'm running a converted version of the original 1st edition Ravenloft module. The PC's are in Castle Ravenloft, on the roof. They enter a room through an unlocked window, right into Strahd's bedroom, where the magic happens. In it, they find the confused missing girl from the village of Barovia, Gertruda. She's wearing a fancy evening gown and for some reason believes she's going to be made into a real princess by the dashing count. One player intimidates her, rolls a 20, and tells her to run home and to take care of her worried grandmother Mary. After the intimadating barbarian guilt's her into fleeing the castle, he then demands she hands over her necklace. Gertruda does so, then runs out of the nearest door, scared, with no way of knowing the way out... And no knowledge of what's actually in the castle. Or what her suitor truly is (the first vampire.) I tell the players as they're searching Strahd's room, you hear footsteps and doors opening to the east. You hear the young woman scream. Then you hear her running footsteps travel past your door to the west. You hear another scream in the distance to the west. The pitter patter of feet and the creaky hinges of opening doors cease. The players dick around looking for secret rooms, and waiting for whatever monster Gertruda saw from the East to come a knocking, so each player takes a door to guard and just waits. There's a knock. The barbarian who intimidated the girl opens the door. "The door creaks as it opens revealing... Oh... It's just Gertruda." The barbarian then turns his head and starts giving orders to another player. Thats' when I lunge at him from across the table, scream-hissing like a hungry vampire ready to bite. I startle the hell out of him. He jumps out of his chair, yells, "Oh My God! What the poo poo!" and spills his drink. The table starts cracking up at him as I roll an attack for the vampire spawn he inadvertently created. I miss and say, "I think you deserve to roll a fear check after that one," while in my mind pelvic thrusting like Jim Carrey. I didn't even think a horror movie jump scare would be possible in a game of Pathfinder. It's the little victories as a DM. The little victories. For a moment, the players who've been paranoid, and hunted the past three sessions, sleeping in chapels as a priest pulls an all nighter praying, as wolves scratch at their doors and howl... Were for just one simple moment, scared shitless as not only players, but as people themselves.
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Mar 5, 2013 11:14
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So only bad GM's use called shots to specific body parts? "I shoot the cyclops in the eye." "I'm sorry you can't do that, for I am a good GM." I don't get it.
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Mar 12, 2013 08:53
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I got you. Sorry I misunderstood. That sounds horrible, and pointless, to make every shot a called shot whether meant to be one or not.
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Mar 12, 2013 09:51
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Holy poo poo. I thought the campaign was over. I was tired of it, and planned on ending it tonight. But goddammit, now I never want it to end. After one fight. One epic fight. It just ended. 2 of the 5 party members were dead. One of the party members was tied up stories above, wearing the wedding dress of Tatyana Von Zarovich, a sister-in-law whom Count Strahd is obsessed with. (To explain the creepiness of this, it's okay, it made sense in the story, and the player is my wife... So I'll pretend to tie her up and feed on her all I drat well want.) All of their pets and familiars were dead. All that was left in the catacombs of Ravenloft was Sully the dwarven exterminator, who had one hit point, and Toddy the barbarian who was polymorphed by Strahd into a rat. With this, they killed Strahd Von Zarovich, who was at full 61 health, in a fair fight, letting the dice fall where they may. The Dwarf, at one hit point, heard the sound of Strahd casting the polymorph spell and ran from the catacombs into Strahd's crypt. He then rolled initiative instigating a new combat as the polymorph of the barbarian resolved the other one. He rolled a 29. He yelled "Hail Mary Full of Grace!" and rolled a 20 on a called heavy crossbow shot to Strahd's head, dazing Strahd. Then he pulls out the sunsword and proceeds to thwack him down to 8 hit points before the animated corpse of his monk friend bit him and left him bleeding out. It just happened, by the rules, that that same round was the round in which the Barbarian returned to form. And naked as the day he was born he quick-draws the Sun Sword from his dying best friend and swings a killing blow on Strahd who was trying to enter his coffin to regenerate. He stabilizes two of his friends and one naked barbarian stoods victorious over all of Ravenloft. The dark powers were very entertained by their performance, so as they were transported back to the prime world, given the information they would need to save it, and they were all raised. For this I am giving the Dwarf a homebrew feat he's been asking me for, Balls of Steel. God Of Paradise fucked around with this message at 10:02 on Mar 17, 2013 |
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Mar 17, 2013 10:00
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I keep getting new favorite roleplaying game moments. Here's my new one. Finally... I've killed a PC. First time. I've been DMing for 5 months. I have a monk in my party who is a rule lawyer. I caught him lying about his grappling role as he attempted to grapple a mindflayer. I've killed 2 of them before, one of them twice, but not the one that could stabilize them after they won combat... And I still haven't, yet. I told them going in, this will be an area where you can die in this game. And an area where you can not be revived by a simple raise dead spell. Then they finally, after 5 months of weekly sessions, fought the mind-flayers I'd been teasing since before the game started. And like the spider to the fly, I ate my best friend's brain. Oh god. It's like the orgasm that doesn't stop. Oh god his tears taste like artisanal chocolates mixed with beyond my league pussy juice. They are so good. He tried to grapple a mind-flayer and then lie about his own pluses. And then I ate his brains. Oh god. I can taste his brains. It's like filet mignon in beyond my league pussy juice with onions and mush-rooms. What I'm saying is, D&D taught me the pleasure of killing my friends, hail Satan.
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Apr 28, 2013 09:24
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BlackIronHeart posted:Traditional Games > Good, Bad, I'm the one with the beyond my league pussy juice. Yes. Please, this.
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Apr 28, 2013 09:44
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Um... Don't be a lying rule lawyer who does stupid loving things like attempt to grapple a mind flayer. I'm of the belief, people don't die in D&D unless they do something stupid. That's a pretty stupid thing to do. I went by die roles. When a mindflayer has you grappled in it's 4 tentacles, it has to wait until the next round to extract your brain. Instead of aiding him in grapple, or sundering the tentacles, they tried to kill the mindflayer, all 5 other players, and they failed... Two of them were mind-blasted, gently caress those guys, poo poo happens. Instead of helping them, they made the wrong move. Instead of breaking the grapple of just one of the tentacles, the 10th level monk decided to flurry, and then he rolled two ones, then confirmed them, and I gave him the choice of hitting his compatriot or losing a flurry strike, and he decided twice to hit his compatriot... I ate his loving brain, and would of eaten his brain before he embarrassed himself. Get yourself a real DM and test the measure of your nuts and or ovaries. Then, I recommend, you don't stop combat constantly to correct him with completely incorrect calculations. God Of Paradise fucked around with this message at 10:07 on Apr 28, 2013 |
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Apr 28, 2013 10:00
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Dude died at one of the climaxes of our game. In reality, I took him into the other room and talked to him, and made sure he was cool with his character dying. I told him he can be cloned for a fee and come back just losing a level. He said he was wanting to make a new character anyway. I thought it was pretty obvious I was joking around on this thread.
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Apr 28, 2013 21:49
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Yeah, I learned everything I know about D&D from this Jack Chick comic.
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Apr 29, 2013 01:05
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robziel posted:You know someone got the film rights to that and is trying to make it into a movie, should be hilarious. Awesome. Jack T. Chick comics should become a regular animated series. There's one where a teenage girl gets raped violently, and becomes pregnant. She aborts the baby. Later the doctor tells her she has AIDS. The last panel shows her in hell, for getting an abortion.
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Apr 29, 2013 03:52
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My friend and his wife were playing with me. He rolled for a called shot to her "smart loving mouth," once. Crit. Not monstrous. Hilarious. God Of Paradise fucked around with this message at 03:27 on May 25, 2013 |
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May 25, 2013 00:50
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:This. THIS. I'm pretty certain that you and your friends are the best drat role players and guys to game with on the planet. Keep the stories rolling.
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May 28, 2013 11:41
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So Dark Sun sounds like a cool idea right? Survival in the heat? Fun fun fun right? Wrong. Today five other players and I spent over an hour straight rolling survival and fortitude checks for every 30 minutes. Difficulty checks went up to 64 as the afternoon in the desert rose up to 150 degrees. This was preceeded by about an hour of straight climb and strength checks. Everything was done one at a time and no, abstracting it and quickening the pace was off the table. Why do some DM's think rolling equals fun? Rolling doesn't equal fun. It was equivalent to listening to a loop of Fred Durst sing the chorus to that horrible song Rollin. Because over 2 hours we were just rollin rollin rollin. We kept rollin rollin rollin. Also... My friend - "OK. My dog's searching the cave. Does my dog sense anything within 30 feet?" The DM - "No. And oh, by the way, your dog is in the mouth of a giant gila monster. You see his body being ground up in the lizards teeth. Roll initiative." Is Dark Sun any different if done right? Or is this just par for the course of this game?
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Jun 9, 2013 09:41
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A Pathfinder player of mine has an item called The Robe of Impracticality, which holds 50 wild card items of my own invention. Some are useful, some are powerful, some are dangerous, some are benign. It's like a robe full of SCP Foundation novelties and graphic adventure puzzles. Last game my player pulled from the robe. It was a square piece of plastic. In a moment it started flashing red and vibrating, and the party was whisked away to another plane. When they faded back into existence they were in the crowd of a theater full of strangely dressed men and women. Then a magical booming voice rang out announcing four of their names. This was immediately followed by the famous statement, "You're the next contestant on the Price Is Right." The party won a newwwww car thanks to our thief, as she won The Dice Game. Another player won during the yodelling climber game. Then the dwarf lost at Plinko. There was much bloodshed as they tried to open a portal back to their Prime Material plane. The history books of the strange land they visited will forever remember them as the Price Is Right terrorists.
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Jul 5, 2013 11:53
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JustJeff88 posted:I cannot accept this as cannon due to the fact that nobody was the closest without going over. They were actually. We have 6 players. Only 3 went onto solo games. Others lost. One refused to bid, and simply started pleading to Bob thinking he was an avatar of dark powers. He started rambling to him about how they needed time to find and bring back Vecna, and that to please not send him back to Ravenloft for more torture. They cut his mic and whisked him to a backstage room where a security guard gave him some coffee and told him he'd be released through the parking-lot exit once he sobers up. I pulled prices for random things around my duplex, seeing how much they sold for in stores on a laptop, which also was used heavily for sound fx. God Of Paradise fucked around with this message at 11:17 on Jul 6, 2013 |
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Jul 6, 2013 11:04
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Arivia posted:why I did that because, believe it or not, it fits the "plane-hopping, colossal mind-fuckery" tone of our game. We played one game, simply so they could have a chance of winning an El Camino to drive around D&D land in. Once they won that, not by winning but by tricking Bob through a magic spell, I started to send them back, but the players wanted to stay and get a chance to play the ridiculous Price Is Right games. On how I ran the games, The Dice Game can be ran with six sided dice. Plinko can be ran through writing numbers on a sheet of paper and then a pachinko flash game. The hill-climber game is ran by yelling out simple addition. On the security officers tasers, after they decided to attack the winning guests on the Price Is Right, I used a touch attack, high-level lightening bolt spell that did sub-dual damage with a fort save of 17 not to be incapacitated for 1d4 rounds. Later, the bard teleported the car onto the head of a pit fiend. God Of Paradise fucked around with this message at 11:21 on Jul 6, 2013 |
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Jul 6, 2013 11:08
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Planescape session. Morpheus on Mt. Olympus - "I shall offer you any ally you want, any dream that exists, I will make flesh, and send them down to aid you." The Players - "We want The Rock, with a hawk, in the Dr. Who box." ... much laughter... Done.
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Jul 21, 2013 10:26
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One of my players freaked out over five level 11 party members fighting one Pit Fiend. My monster died in like, five rounds, no near causalities. At the end of the day, some people are just pussies, some people enjoy a challenge. Don't cater to the former, but don't be a dick about it.
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Sep 29, 2013 10:19
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I have to ask, is this a lovely thing to do? I joined some silly weekly Pathfinder Society game at a game shop, because I'm in-between games and in need of a cheap RPG fix. I have a first level sorcerer with nothing but Mount and Silent image, and a pet raven from the arcane bloodline. After one game, I am annoyed that our DM railroaded us into an ambush while traveling. We weren't given a chance to take precautions because it was done in narration. So I've set up a strategy for not getting ambushed by random encounters while traveling. Way I see it, who has time for that poo poo anyway? So I have 430 gold from the first little Pathfinder for beginners module we played. First, I've purchased a Royal Outfit a couple of ten foot poles and a bunch of blankets. Cast Prestidigitation on the blankets so they look like banners bearing a distant Royal Crest. Tie them to ten foot poles. Cast mount every two hours so I ride at the tail of the party dressed as a king. Send my Raven up into the sky so it has an aerial view and can caw twice if it spots trouble. If it spots trouble, I can cast Silent Image to give the appearance of 400 feet of marching soldiers behind me. If this works or not, is this an rear end in a top hat thing to do at some PFS game, which are basically just like convention games? Am I robbing some dork from his great experience of being told that he has been ambushed by wolves or kobolds or time-consuming-things-to-hit that don't have anything to do with the plot of whatever's written in the module?
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Jun 7, 2014 09:50
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My Lovely Horse posted:If the rest of the group is into combats and random encounters you're basically going "nope, we are playing this my way, bitches, cause my character has the means" and that ranges from kind of to tremendously lovely, yeah. Imagine if you were in a game heavy on diplomacy and avoiding battle and a new guy comes in and plays a barbarian who attacks everyone. Might as well let the dorks be dorks and find a game that suits you more, or else try and get a group conversation going about random encounters vs. actually following the module's plot in the first place. The rest of the party didn't seem especially keen on having the slough through combat with snakes and wolves... It's like this... Cliche wise, at level one, someone is going to tell you to kill rats. I can't think of anyone who actually wants to go fight a basement full of rats with a sword. I've never been presented with this, and said, "yipee, killing rats!" and neither have I seen anyone else salivate for the opportunity. Last game? I did do the sensible raven thing already. It was ignored, completely dismissed. We are traveling. I tell the DM that I send my familiar 70 feet into the air to scout for us, and alert us to upcoming danger. He ignores it completely and bam, we were ambushed by wolves and snakes on our way to a mission where wolves and snakes are irrelevant. The fight could of been circumvented, it lasted far longer than the DM and players expected, and we were forced to rush the rest of the game, which included all the plot, character interaction and significant plot related combat encounters... The DM was a newbie, and inexperienced, so I don't fault him too much. It should also be noted that I created a pure face-man bluff character. No offensive spells or intention to take offensive spells, just trickery. So for me to be useful, I must use ingenuity to overcome obstacles, diplomacy, misdirection and trickery. It's just in my character. If it backfires, well, that will instantly lead to a more memorable encounter for everyone... So in further reflection, screw it... I'm going to go ahead and potentially be perceived as a dickhead. I can try anything I want, and if the other characters decide not to follow suit, and decide to fight, well, that's fine, I'll join them and help where I can. So it's not a big deal. I can try it. If other players don't want to do it, we won't. I think earlier I was just being too self conscious when I asked about it.
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Jun 7, 2014 13:05
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Splicer posted:This is bad. Who cares? I made a face-man with illusion spells. A bluff character. They're fun, and coming up with schemes isn't forcing any other player to do anything. If other player characters don't want to try my scheme, they'll say, "No." Or "I ignore God Of Paradise's scheme and I rush at the the monster with my axe." And there you go. To quote Boris from Rocky and Bullwinkle, "Who cares? This fantasy show." Also this is an inconsequential PFS game at a game store I don't care about or frequent regularly. If I show up and take a poo poo on the table I will never lose sleep over it, be remembered by anyone in a few months, or receive any sort of comeuppance from it. I can't think of anything that matters less... But I'm not doing anything assholish to the 50 year old wretch who can't drive, or the zit faced teenaged girl with a furry tail... I'm just coming up with ridiculous schemes in an RPG to have fun, and if they get rejected, they get rejected. God Of Paradise fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Jun 8, 2014 |
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Jun 8, 2014 04:22
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Night10194 posted:Why would anyone play in this? Why would you want to GM a game where you have no freedom to rewrite or change any of it? I'm still trying to figure out why anyone would play it. It was new to me. I finished a 2 year campaign I ran from my house once a week. I have a friend getting ready to run a weekly game... So I did what I figured most people did if they wanted to play, but didn't have a game at the time. I looked up the shop in my city that runs RPG games. I asked the guy behind the counter what they had running, and checked the board for postings. No postings caught my attention. So the guy behind the counter asked what I'm familiar with. I told him the systems I've played, ran or know. The only thing they had going was Pathfinder. Guy just told me to make a character and show up on Thursday. I didn't ask any questions. I just figured we'd be playing, you know, an actual Role Playing Game... Thought I was being invited to sit in and play in an actual GM's actual campaign.... Not whatever the hell Pathfinder Society is... Which is a goober college kid reading narration from a sheet of paper with no inflection or interaction, punctuated with a by the numbers mini-quest. I would not recommend it to anyone. If you've never played a role playing game I'd just recommend getting some friends together and playing one, or going to a convention, looking at all the games, and figuring out which GM seems like someone you'd allow in your house, or talk to at a party, and signing up to that person's game. God Of Paradise fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Jun 8, 2014 |
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Jun 8, 2014 04:54
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Arivia posted:It's not like getting ambushed is a terrible thing in that genre, too. HEY LOOK YOU GOT TO KILL MORE MONSTERS AND TAKE THEIR STUFF JUST LIKE YOU WANTED. Cool. Yeah. The random encounter was very poorly ran and the kid apologized to all the players about it since it rushed the rest of the game. The random encounter should of easily been avoided by smart playing and improvisation. If the players choose to fight the random creatures, smart playing should be rewarded with a chance to plan your attack. Sure ambushes are a part of the game, but so are tactics, scouting out what's ahead, bluffing your way out of an ambush and having a chance to ambush whatever enemy you spot. What exactly is your argument? PC's shouldn't be able to use their skills, powers, ingenuity and abilities to gain an advantage? Why not just sit at home and play just the QTE sections of bad video games? Why not just jack off in a corner staring at a shiny piece of pretty foil? God Of Paradise fucked around with this message at 05:07 on Jun 8, 2014 |
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Jun 8, 2014 05:05
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Captain Oblivious posted:It's not your place to determine what is and is not an acceptable form of having fun. If a mindless dungeon crawl is what they wanted, what they sat down to do, that's their business. Who's this they? I am they. I was a random person who sat down at a pick-up game full of random people. I'm just playing a game based off the rules of the people who designed it. It's Pathfinder. There is more than one solution to a problem. This is a stupid loving argument. I asked if something stupid was an rear end in a top hat thing to do. Then I realized 1) No, it's a really inconsequential. 2) No, pitching a ludicrous idea isn't an rear end in a top hat thing to do as it forces nobody else to go along with it without their consent. And 3) gently caress it. Even if it was an rear end in a top hat thing to do, I don't care, which links back to reason one, because it is at the end of the day it's inconsequential. So, yeah, you'll hear no more arguing from me.
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Jun 8, 2014 07:16
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Kurieg posted:If memory serves PFS games have X number of combats that must be completed and the combats are templated with creatures tailored to the number of characters in the party, so yeah if you didn't have any combat spells at all and as you stated 'have no desire to pick any' then you're being a drag on the group when the fighting actually starts. Yeah, great. Not what happened. Avoiding getting ambushed doesn't mean no combat, it simply means starting combat on the parties terms, with the advantage. Combat heavy does not mean that there is no space for character interaction. The whole issue I had with the game was from a very inexperienced DM, running a module he'd never even read before. That's something you just shouldn't do. You can do crowd control with illusion spells just fine, it just takes creativity. You can play a smart character who is useful in combat scenarios. You can choose to play a mage who casts magic missile every round, sure, that's fine, but it's not the only way to do it. Is your honest interpretation of the game, "cast magic missile or get the gently caress out?" You're kidding me. There are tons, tons, tons of things an illusionist can do in combat, or in preparation for combat to give the party an advantage. For example, say you're getting flanked by a monster in a forest. To delay them make them hear the roar of a bear. Summon the illusion of a roaring wildfire, and boom, it's willsave or flee. Summon the image of some level 20 death knight by your side in a dungeon full of Kobolds. Say, "This is Henry. I snap my fingers, Henry makes you dead. Leave now and you'll be spared." Roll an intimidate and watch the ranks scatter. Say you've got a minotaur charging at your wounded Cleric. That Minotaur is going to change his course of direction if he's met with an oncoming gelatinous cube. An orc opening the door your parties behind? Show him a false wall of stone in front of your party, and watch your party decimate him before he gets a chance to attack. I wasn't aware of the nature of the game. I was told to go online for a member number and show up. I wasn't openly disliked by the rest of the party. In game I made quick friends with the monk of a fire god. I crafted a molotov out of an empty vodka bottle, lamp oil, paper and twine, and I gave it to the PC as a way of saying "Hello." And when the time was right, he gave me the thumbs up and I cast spark, sending him into a swarm like a mad jihadist. Area of effect damage so goodbye swarm. Then I walked over and zapped him with a wand of healing. I seemed to be seen as useful and welcomed by the other players just fine. You guys are assuming a lot of negatives about this ordeal that simply do not apply. But no. PFS is not my cup of tea. And I'll probably try to find a different game. God Of Paradise fucked around with this message at 11:09 on Jun 8, 2014 |
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Jun 8, 2014 11:02
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SALT CURES HAM posted:Are you even reading his posts It's forums. They do this to people. Goes with the territory of posting on them. No big deal.
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Jun 10, 2014 11:56
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Manic_Misanthrope posted:Not my story, stolen from a /tg/ anonymous poster but it's a story none the less. Thanks for this.
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Jul 22, 2014 05:10
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Zombies' Downfall posted:Hit me with your stupid dice stories where ridiculous shenanigans with dice - whether due to luck or terrible people at the table - made or broke an entire game. I remember DMing a Ravenloft module called Vecna Reborn. Early on the party of five players were to be arrested by guards and brought to Kas the Destroyer. There they would be given their job. There was a fairly strong NPC with the guards named Tejen the Grim. He made it clear through conversation that the guards arresting them only wanted to talk, so I felt I made it pretty clear to the players that this is what we were doing, you know? Do you want to play or not? Two players didn't. The others gave up and were arrested. Two players and a familiar then killed all 10 guards, including Tejen the Grim. So I sent another ten guards. They were being promptly dispatched to hell whenever I decided, gently caress it, these two players, they've broken the code. What would happen if you kept killing cops in a city ran by an epic level rear end in a top hat like Kas the Bloody Handed? Eventually he'd take care of the matter himself. Player 1 Badass Barbarian ended up dying in an epic fight that covered the whole city. The first time I decided to go all out to kill a player. Kas won the fight with only 26 hit points left. I gave him the character back a month later due to convoluted campaign shenanigans. Player 2 was playing Badass Barbarian's hired goon. Using Kas' stats straight from the book, he had the power to summon 1d10 hundred bats. I rolled 1d10. 3. We rolled 300 d20's, 3 of us, five at a time. Before hand we worked out the bats would only hit on a 19 or 20. The next round we did it again. At the end of it, after 600 dice, Player 2 escaped into a dumpster in an alleyway with 1 hit point left.
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Aug 26, 2014 12:19
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In my new game I tried something new. I rolled the dice 3d6 in order to determine what I was playing. Then I rolled background. Even rolled for alignment. Everything turned out alright except for the alignment, where I got chaotic neutral, coupled with a wisdom score of 7, oh well. So the dice told me I would work best as a Cavalier. And they told me I was a debaucherous black sheep noble and heir to the barony of a village. That my parents were both nobles and innkeepers. And once I failed a scoundrel due to pleasure. I interpreted this to mean I am the Breakfast Knight, Sir Larry Goldstien of the Village Inn. My noble crest is a plate of ham and eggs and I have the personality of a former child actor. Enter into our game. We are at work, on the clock, as couriers. Our mission is to travel to a city and bring the king a message. The moment we walked into town the surly halfling gunslinger at my side happened to be playing his kazoo. A gnome in a black cloak approached us, asking if we had the goods. Wait, what? We told him he had mistaken us with someone else. The gnome got mad that we weren't his contact and we needed to scram. He argued with the gunslinger and it escalated to the gnome trying to take my friend's kazoo, so I galloped over there and beaned him with the staff of my banner. We dragged the unconscious gnome into an alley and looted him, the gnome was carrying little pouches filled with cocaine. I put two and two together. We dressed the other halfling in our group, a stammering bard who is essentially Butters Stoch, in the gnome's black cloak and we ordered him to cover his face with the cloak and meet the contact. He did. He rolled a six on his bluff check. On the opposing sense motive check the DM rolled a one. The contact gave him a large box, and thanked him for moving the product in this city. We opened the box in the alleyway. Our party is the proud owner of a massive shipment of cocaine. We immediately went to the brothel. What else do you do with a Tony Montana sized box of blow? I hired whores to become our pages and banner-girls, because I can't carry my flag and my lance at the same time, obviously... At the brothel we learned there was a rodeo in town that will be taking place tomorrow at the arena. So I put two and two together again. The plan as it stands now is I will enter as a contestant in the rodeo, since you know, I'm cavalry. The gunslinger will sneak into the stables and feed or inject every bull with cocaine, save the one I am riding. The banner-girls will support the gunslinger, providing him a distraction if necessary. Then Butters will bet all of our gold on me winning the rigged rodeo. Hopefully they won't gently caress it up, but if these little bastards and our banner-girls keep snorting up all of our cocaine I don't like our chances. Then there's the issue of what our bosses will do if they realize that we are lollygagging around hatching insane money making schemes while we're supposed to be doing our job as couriers. The game is turning into a Rich Dicks sketch from the Kroll show, and it's a glorious amount of fun. God Of Paradise fucked around with this message at 12:43 on Sep 1, 2014 |
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Sep 1, 2014 12:38
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Agrikk posted:Echoing others sentiments that this is funny as hell and I really want to use this sometime. "Yeah you have an awesome familiar but you can't communicate with it until you skill up in its language." "What language is that?" "You don't know." I played a corporate suit in Cyberpunk 2020 who was tasked with shutting down unauthorized clubs held on unused property owned by some Zaibatsu. I played him as a family man, who treated everything outside of his solipsistic little world with arrogant fascism and unbound privilege. I basically played him as a run of the mill police officer. He was rather boring and depressing to play really, but he kept the game rolling, period. That's one of the ways to play an evil character well. You keep the plot moving, and not grinding to a loving hault every five seconds because you just have to slap your dick on a passing commoner or pee in some little kids cheerios. So as an evil character that didn't suck. I would be given a task. I ask NPCs to do something to complete my task, like "shut down this illegal club and vacate." Then demand they do something, "By order of this and this statute, you are not in compliance. Unless you leave the area than this and this corporation will be forced into further action." And when they didn't comply twice I would shoot them in the face. Then the rest of the party would shoot them in the face. Multiple times. I did this because I simply had the power and authority to do so. For some reason, this rear end in a top hat I played also believed this made him a hero. His other acts of heroism were based completely on helping other members of the corporate group in personal ways. Since these were hired solos and a junkie decker, this meant to get them to do things legally. He wanted to fix their faults, merely so they would be in compliance with what he (and Human Resources) saw as a functional person. But even if I was a total law abiding company man, I would never tell my other party members not to do something that was illegal or against company protocol. I would simply take the, bleh, higher road. And approach them like a, puke, annoying Christian. You know, because I'm such a hero and fart. It was a completely believable character. It was a corporate game that was linked with a separate campaign of sprawl heroes, if there are heroes in cyberpunk, nonetheless the other game must of been a much lighter shade of gray... This dual-game was supposed to be ran to where each campaign would effect the other campaign in long lasting ways. But we were not tasked by the DM with killing the other squad. However, very quickly the good campaign's players heard about us and decided to ambush us on a deserted street, which was tactically stupid. We met together the next week, and we killed their party in about an hour. This campaign was abandoned because to continue it would just be depressing. I got no enjoyment out of role playing my character, and was actively rooting against him. All enjoyment came from the story itself. But I maintain that he was a good character. Was not cat piss. Because he moved everything forward in a manner that was in loose agreement with the other players and the GM. I think this might be the problem with playing an evil character well... If you are playing an evil character, you, unless you are a psychopath, should not like the character you are playing. You should have your character believe that he is right, but you should understand that your character is not right. So it creates this problem. If you are a person of any ethics or morality, then it would be hard to get enjoyment from playing an evil character, even if he was well conceived. So what would be the point? I'm currently playing a game in which there are players playing evil characters. For some reason they get satisfaction on saying "Ha Ha! I showed those imaginary townspeople, ha ha!" By trying to get this satisfaction they completely gently caress up the flow of the game with a complete disregard for the goals and plots of the other party members. Therefor they are poo poo characters who infringe upon the fun of others, and muck up the gears of the story by keeping it static instead of moving forward. I'm playing a neutral roguish type who comes up with schemes with the other party members on ways to make large sums of money in-between completing missions that are plot points. I am not playing him as outright evil though, but I could, and it could work. This adds to the fun of the game. Generally, if you want to play a good evil character. Play a rogue. Play a rogue who plots and schemes ways to make a ton of money for very little work. These plots, heists, criminal plans can be great fun if you have a party that are down to do some dirt. Create the plots with an open ear to ideas from your other party members. This could be a neutral character, and the evilness is only dependent on the depths you are willing to go, or the lack of redeeming qualities of your character. Yes this is cookie cutter D&D cliche, but it also is proven to work within an RPG party. If you want to play anything else that is evil, move forward, do not commit completely random nonsensical acts of evil, do not ruin the fun of others, and do not constantly gently caress up the game for your party. God Of Paradise fucked around with this message at 10:30 on Sep 14, 2014 |
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Sep 14, 2014 10:22
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Night10194 posted:This is actually how you describe a bad RPG character. 'I moved things forward but hated my character and didn't have any fun and was too depressed to play' is not an example of a good evil character. You're right not to cause bad problems for everyone else, but if your character bores the hell out of you you probably shouldn't bother playing them. It was requested by the DM that someone play a corporate suit. Nobody else wanted to do it. I had fun kind of mocking my own character, and playing him up as some satire of an action hero cop. Some times that poo poo happens and a DM asks you to be something to help his game. It's kinda a lovely thing to do, and I wouldn't do it to my players. I don't like playing lawful or evil characters. Though CP 2020 doesn't have alignment my dude was LE. Doesn't mean that the character was bad in the grand scheme of the game, you know, for everyone. But I gotcha. Generally, yeah, you'd want to play someone you like. God Of Paradise fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Sep 15, 2014 |
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Sep 15, 2014 00:12
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I almost forgot. I played two games as a NE D20 Future character that was awesome. He didn't last long because of the dice. Rico Whatshisnuts Pallatzo. Essentially he was Christopher from the Sopranos, in space. I guess mafia type characters that carry a code of honor with their friends, but gently caress everyone else would be another way to make an evil character work. But that's pretty much the same thing as playing "the rogue," so I guess there's nothing special about it. The thing I liked most about that character was playing as an Italian human who was racist as gently caress towards aliens.
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Sep 15, 2014 00:19
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Our group also has this tradition three games running of making The Rock an NPC in whatever game we are playing. This NPC gets shoe horned into the story in some weird way, and we use him as an extra player character for passerby's and newbies. So whenever a friend shows up during game night, we hand them a stat sheet that says, Dwayne Johnson "The Rock," and tell them they're playing The Rock or they can leave. He's ridiculously OP, easy to play and a lot of fun to play. The only thing is, man or woman, introverted or rowdy, you have to do your best impression of The Rock at the table. If a character dies, and it takes a long time for them to get resurrected, or for them to role a new character... The Rock appears. We played it like Dwayne woke up on Sunday. Put on his robe. Grabbed a folding chair. Took it down to his dock in Tampa, and began fishing when all of a sudden a portal opened transporting him to the boonies of Faerun. That's how it started. Now playing The Rock is different for everyone. The best was a girl at my table in a game I DM'd. She would have The Rock breaking down and trying to keep it together, conflicting between himself and his wrestling alter-ego, while dealing with being transported to a land full of monsters and magic. Laughing, thinking he's in a dream. Then slowly realizing he isn't. She gave these great promos about overcoming the odds to an army trying to protect it's city walls. She said how every last one of them was a champion of the people and ended the speech with the The Rock making them all pancakes. It was so entertaining for everyone we were all kinda sad whenever they completed the quest to revive her character. Another player, when handed The Rock, treated him as if he was a time-lord, and when things got hairy he kept searching for cameras and threatening people, telling them to bring Ashton out. Another visiting player came up with this dissociative identity disorder for the Rock, based on the premise that he was born with a conjoined twin that held the power of his alter ego. Anyway, watching people play The Rock was the most hilarious thing. So. We are playing a shadowrun-like D20 game where cloning is a thing. I figure, in the near future, a lot of celebrities will have their DNA to be cloned on file before dying. I was very disheartened when I brought my GM The Rock character sheet and he said, no. Nope. You can't be The Rock. No way. Yesterday was a tragic day.
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Oct 14, 2014 16:23
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I used to run a game with a group of players who whined, "Why wont any of these epic level characters do this?" - Just because I entroduced a level 20 sorceror as their DMPC. The DMPC would aid them in their quests, like Q from James Bond giving him awesome gadgets to complete their missions... And they could call him to open a portal if they got into too much trouble. (Until level 10 when the DPMC was forced into hiding, and they no longer could.) He never saved the day. He never blew up bosses by entering battle and rescuing them in the nick of time. He was just their benefactor and boss. I thought this was how it was supposed to be. For some reason this made a couple of the players angry. The two I now refuse to game with. "What I wanna know is why I'm risking my rear end out there all the time and you sit here in your office? Huh? You should be out there in the thick of it." They'd tell the DMPC and the DM. The DMPC would then tell a story about something that happened, something horrible that happened out in the planes, and bs a story about getting out alive by the skin of teeth... Then I'd tell them that was what I was doing while you were out sabotaging the mindflayers/finding the sword of Kas/ whatever their mssion was. There is too much work, if I could handle it alone I wouldn't have hired you." To a couple of players, their resentment grew. They had an epic level boss, and he wouldn't constantly travel with the party solving all their problems for them? How dare he? For some reason establishing a DMPC who would meet them before an after missions, who they could contact using a calling stone if they needed him, or who could open portals if they called upon him.... That wasn't what these players wanted. Two of them argued that this epic level DPMC should travel with the party. Eventually I had to take them aside and tell them, "This is a game. A game I'm running for you. This is not a novel I'm writing. If you want to watch me play with my toys and tell you how bad rear end they are, I'd just prefer to be alone." Eventually to curb all of this, I forced the DMPC into hiding so he could only be contacted if they went to a maze dimension he'd set up in his house. In my last two games, I've avoided having any DMPC whatsoever.
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Dec 26, 2014 06:06
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Writer Cath posted:My friends, the DM and his girlfriend have cancelled game with little to no notice, for the tenth time in a row. Seriously. If a game is canceled three times in a row it is a dead game.
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Feb 26, 2015 19:02
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SpiritOfLenin posted:Last night I saw a reverse miracle during our Dark Souls themed D&D 4th edition campaign - I have to ask. If you are basing your game off of Dark Souls why pick 4th edition? Shouldn't it be easy to die in a Dark Souls based game? Especially if the players are immortal in undeath?
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Feb 26, 2015 19:12
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