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Post by Forresst on Feb 9, 2012 15:59:56 GMT -8
Everyone grab a drink and sit down because this is a story about the funnest game I ever played and how one jerk tried really hard to ruin it for everyone but then I won hahahahaha screw you Jerry{1}.
Once upon a time when I was a young-to-middlin' gamer, my gaming group was all about Rifts. Rifts rifts rifts, all day long. This was mostly because our de facto GM, Floyd, loved Rifts and was good at running it!{2} Now, this was the second campaign I'd played in for more than 2 sessions so I was beginning to find my groove. I'd rolled up a Faerie Bot, which is a little 8 1/2 inch-tall alien thing with a personal vehicle the size of a basketball, and become the universe's greatest fixit girl.
Just before our party got underway, our host had mentioned to his best friend that we were playing. Floyd had neglected to tell him so because well, Jerry was the problem child of our group. So much so we tried to kick him out. Unfortunately, given Jerry's ties to Lloyd who was almost always our host... that was hard to do. Now, Jerry was a problem child in more than one annoying fashion. Not only was he almost always distracting the group, he was a rules lawyer (and bad at it, but persistent), and he also seemed to get a real kick out of trying really hard to get the rest of the party killed.
Once we (grudgingly) accepted Jerry, we found ourselves almost immediately stranded in an enormous starship graveyard in the middle of unknown deep space. And in the middle of our view there was a giant spaceship that was directly modeled after the Phloston Paradise cruise ship in Fifth Element. When we got on the ship, oh man was there ever a lot of interesting things to do.
The first (and sadly only) thing we did as an entire group was to confront the holographic doctor who had been hacked. We had to take him out, and then repair his programming, because he'd been made to believe all organic life was a contaminant and would kill us with gas if we didn't. During that battle, Jerry wandered off just before we finished the fight.
Jerry decided he would take a look around the ship, and found a closet that was being used as an incubator for some eggs of the most violent, bloodthirsty, kill-on-sight alien beings in the known universe. These things were tough, hit like a truck, and were just plain evil. He used out of character knowledge to realize "hey I can steal an egg and become one of those aliens!!" and so... an hour later, he came back to the rest of the party with a big squirming bag of evil alien babies.
When confronted by everyone in the party but me (I had been sent to engineering to see if I could start the ship), he claimed he thought they were treasure and when told "they're squirming around and obviously alive" he changed his tack and tried to tell us he wanted to hold them for ransom.
There was a bunch of other stuff happening all the while. I'd found a "Dead" vampire. I accidentally de-deadified her. But not before I stole all her weapons and armor because I figured it was free interesting technology. Eventually the rest of the party killed her for real and flushed her down a hot tub. I also found a cyborg, and had to play psychotherapist. It was a rich and awesome game.{3}
However, eventually, Killy McAlienpants came back for his babies, and was MIGHTY PISSED that they were gone. And instead of a "ransom", the aliens (who, by the way, didn't need air) decided to blow the ship up and just collect them from space. This was much to Jerry the asshole's liking. The rest of us fought bravely on, but one alien escaped long enough to get into telepathic contact range with his ship, and the ship started coming in to blow us up.
When the sensors (which by this time I had patched into the systems on my shipsketball) started screaming at me that hostile fire was incoming, I flew down to engineering as fast as I could pilot and hit the "OH FUCK PANIC" button. That put us to the main star port. I used to remember the name of this place... it was something awesome, anyway.
Now, Jerry's first reaction to suddenly being in a place with laws, surrounded by angry partymates, about to have to submit to customs inspections and carrying a bag of highly-dangerous, top-level contraband alien babies, was to turn invisible and hide. The problem with that was, he had his racial invisibility power, which didn't cover infrared scans. So, I ratted him out to customs and his character was carted off in chains and the alien babies were destroyed. Ooooh he was so mad.
He decided I was an enormous spoilsport and that he never wanted to play with me again. Which was fine because nobody really wanted to play with him anyway. Unfortunately, it meant that if he decided to horn in on games after that, it got really awkward because people invited me to play and then... well, you know.
What made this an awesome gaming moment for me was that I had somehow become the party leader, even though I was doing most of my leading from places like the engineering bay, or out in the starship field as I went and collected smaller ships to put in the cargo bay of our cruise ship. And I'd told the whole party that if the worst happened, we could take our chances with the emergency recall system.
During all the douchebaggery, I'd figured out the infrared thing, and had foiled some of his other, smaller attempts to get us killed in the process. He tried to join forces with the vampire, for one. He tried to join forces with a riftwalker another time. Yeah, he was a real winner all right.
{1} All names have been changed to protect the annoying. {2} Yes yes I know, I've heard that people don't like Rifts much around here, but I think the inherent unbalancedness of the system can be really well managed by a GM who runs it smart, and Floyd is really good at that. {3} Of course I'll expound further on those plot sidelines later, but the character limit is ticking ever downward, I don't think the whole thing would fit.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 10, 2012 2:17:48 GMT -8
Not to ascribe a theme to this thread, but I'll tell a story of a shitty player we had to get rid of because of max suckitude. It was a Star Wars Saga Edition campaign, GMed by me. The campaign started with our campaign regulars, but then one guy had to drop out and I brought in Mi- Um, to protect his identity we'll call him Nike. I had only played with him a couple times in a crappy Pathfinder game, but he seemed cool enough.
Disclaimer: the quality of the Pathfinder campaign led me to drink quite a lot during the games. I was not in a position to accurately judge the character of the other players. Or even of their characters. Or of my own. I forgot his name a lot.
Anyways, I should have recognized an immediate problem: his character didn't fit in with the game at all. It was about Rebel starfighter pilots after Hoth who were trying to free a sector from Imperial rule. He did not make a very good pilot character. Using all his d20 skills he made a really tough soldier who specialized in grenades and other explosives. In starship combat he would have fared better if he ejected and took on TIE Fighters with his grenade launcher.
Now as it developed, the campaign was having a lot more shootouts and less ship combat. That was because of Saga. I just didn't want to put in the effort to make interesting space combat when the system itself seemed to making efforts to prevent that. The rules just didn't work for exciting space battles. So I switched to Wushu, the very rules light system every group uses once or twice for ridiculous improv action games. We did a whole campaign with it and it was awesome.
...For everyone except Nike. He was the worst kind of d20 rollplaying purist. He knew how to build a good character, mechanically, and for him games were about maxing a build and then unleashing high numbers in an encounter. Get the optimal feats, the right sourcebook class abilities, hide behind cover and tap the WIN button a few times.
He didn't get why we picked Wushu, which was to focus on the narrative out of combat. It was a fantastically good group for roleplaying. Some personal and emotional scenes made players cry while his character was down in the ship's spacement1 taping grenades together.
So his character was a grey lump of generic action hero, but he must have loved Wushu combat, right? It's a chance to be as badass as possible, as creatively violent as a player wants to be. But no, he was still wired for d20 combat.
Nike: I throw a grenade at the stormtroopers. Handsome GM: Uh, ok that's 1 die. The cap is 4 for this fight. What else ya got? Nike: It's a gas grenade. Talented GM: Gonna need more here. It's Wushu man, just come up with cool action. Nike: The gas grenade explodes and it chokes them, they all collapse and die horribly. Innovative GM's Best Friend and Star Wars Superfan: Hang on, stormtrooper helmets are sealed. They're protected against gas and vacuums. Nike: Ok I throw a napalm grenade.
And so on it would go, us trying to drag anything out this guy and saying "Grrr, fucking Mi- Nike!". Most of the time he did nothing at all. He didn't have anything to add to roleplay and when something big was happening he only paid attention when we poked him to say what he was doing. Every gamer encounters the player who's incredibly bored in a game and probably doesn't want to be there. But Nike was eager to be involved with the game. I never figured out why.
We kicked him out after "I set off the bomb" incident. Really big story arc, awesome adventure sneaking onto an Imperial skyhook, a massive orbital fueling station where star destroyers are docked. It's connected to the planet by a big space elevator and fuel line. The skyhook also has a prison where a longtime friend is being held. The plan: get into the pump controls and sabotage them so they overpressurize the system and kaboom. Set it on a timer so they have time to break into the prison and escape with hundreds of potential new recruits.
The first session was the planning and setup. The second session was getting onto the station and talking their way into the pump works with some amazing roleplay. Hack the system, but there are guards. A small, stealthy fight breaks out. Mike's contribution: "I help with the bomb." The other players explain there is no bomb. That's not part of the plan at all. "I made bombs a few sessions ago. I'll set that up." Another round of explaining he's an idiot and there is no bomb. We come around again when combat is tense and the whole operation could be a bust. "I set off the bomb."
"THERE IS NO FUCKING BOMB NIKE! THERE NEVER WAS!"
We ran out of time after that fight, and the plan was still safe. They had hacked the system, stealthily defeated the guards, and were ready to bust into the prison. Without Nike. We ejected him from the group.
The next session was amazing. And the one after that. It took two to pull of their plan of posing as Imperial Security Bureau agents bringing in the most famous member of the party, infiltrating the prison, then causing a riot and leading the prisoners in a brilliant and bold escape. They led the mob through the station as the fuel system overpressurized, stole an ISB Corellian Corvette, and blasted off as skyhook erupted in gysers of fire and tumbled down through the atmosphere, taking several of the docked ships with it.
The Rebellion claimed two star destroyers, several star galleons, a dreadnaught, untold Imperial shuttles and fighter squadrons, an ISB prison, and thousands of Imperial Navy and ISB personnel for the loss of just one pilot.
Yeah, we kicked Nike out but his character was still on the skyhook when it went down. No hard feelings, bro.
1 All our scifi games include a space basement in homage to the film Space Mutiny.
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Post by jazzisblues on Feb 10, 2012 7:11:14 GMT -8
Amazing stories and tons of fun to read thank you for sharing them. I have a number of stories to tell and anyone who knows me can attest that I will cheerfully tell them. However, to not get this thread too much on the rails of player suckitude I will relate one of epic awesomeness that I have alluded to a couple of times on the cast.
Background --- We were all about 18 or so when we played this. Keep this in mind. At the time several of my players were pretty firmly Christian in their beliefs so I set up the game to have one true religion that basically equated to the Roman Catholic church but with real magic and whatnot.
As our story opens the party has bedded down for the night outside a village on a major trade route. The next morning a couple from the group (Jarren and Fawn) were to get married and then the group was to join a caravan (as guards) and head south. Why? Largely because I needed them to go south for the next thing I had planned for them.
Now I don't usually do random encounters because well they're random and don't usually serve to move the story forward. But I rolled a random encounter and in a fit of wanting to liven things up a bit decided that a bunch of slavers, having spied out the group's camp, had decided to subdue the erstwhile adventurers and sell them into slavery after, of course, having some fun with the female characters. This was never intended to work and the group was to slaughter the slavers and go on their way.
During the ensuing fight one of the slavers rolls a critical hit. At the time I used a chart to determine the result of a critical hit and the result was, "Neck broken immediate death." Oh fuck me sideways, I just killed, in a random encounter, a player character and the female of the couple. The male of the couple upon seeing his lady love fall dead in the fight said, "I tackle the slaver to the ground and cut him to pieces." Two very successful rolls later he had the slaver down and was cutting him apart. He continued to cut him apart long after the rest of the party had mopped up the rest of the slavers and the fight was over.
The next morning they interred Fawn in proper elf fashion and I then asked them what they wanted to do. Jarren's answer, "Hunt slavers." Well, ok not what I had planned but we'll roll with it and get back to the real adventure next session. Or that's what I thought ...
For a year and a half of real time, playing at least once a week, all that party wanted to do was hunt slavers. They came up with the most elaborate inventive and painful ways to dispatch slavers you've ever heard of. We didn't have the internet in those days, yes I know I'm old shutup, but I am fairly sure that at least one of the group went to the library to research methods of torture though it may have just been a side hobby for her. They also delighted in displaying their kills as symbolic messages to the slavers that they were now the hunted.
Along the way they were joined by a dark brooding swordsman who they discovered some time later was the half brother of the girl (Fawn) who was killed. He was a brutal sonofabitch. He had no compassion, where slavers were concerned. He had no sense of humor and no qualms at all. In short he was a killing machine.
They hunted slavers. The Slavers attempted to retaliate and sent all manner of assassins and other nastiness after the party. All of which just fueled the pc's lust for revenge.
After a time and a significant escalation of violence. By happenstance they ran across the head of the slavers everywhere. A quickly devised plan to capture him went off without a hitch. Sometimes the dice just want to help the story move. Now they have the head slaver tied to a chair in the back room of an inn. The innkeeper is going nuts because he's sure that the slaver's buddies are going to show up and he and his wife and children are headed for the salt mines in some godforsaken part of the world.
Fawn's brother tells the rest of the group that he is going to peel the skin from the slaver in 1" strips. At which point my best friend (Let me remind you we are all 18 or so) says, "No you can't do that it's wrong." Fawn's brother is unmovable on this point. "Wait, wait," says my best friend, "You have to let me talk to him. I have to show him that what he's been doing is wrong." Still Fawn's brother will not be swayed. "Please you have to let me try to get through to him," my 18 year old best friend pleads. Fawns brother allows that he can have 10 minutes to get through to him. If he can't convince him then he's going to kill the slaver.
For the next 10 minutes my friend gave forth with the most impassioned plea for Christianity I have ever heard in my life. At the end of which I, trying to think like the slaver, considered and finally decided that after a life spent profiting off of the suffering of others the slaver would not buy anything he was saying. So, he rebuffed them and told them they were stupid innocent children and he would have none of it. My friend turned to Fawn's brother and said, "I tried, I did my best, he's all yours," and they left the room.
Several minutes later they hear a blood curdling scream from the back room, Fawn's brother walks out through the common room of the inn without saying a word, gets onto his horse and rides away. Whereupon all hell broke loose because not only had he just murdered someone noisily and messily he left the mess for them to clean up. They go into the back room and find the slaver sitting in the chair where they'd left him with a dagger pinned through the back of his hand. My friend had not gotten through to the slaver, but he had gotten through to Fawn's brother that what he wanted to do was wrong.
Pure role playing gold and all I did was follow along and fill in the parts they needed to make their story work.
I will point out that very little of this had anything to do with rules or game mechanics and had everything to do with a group of people all driving a story together.
Hope you enjoyed this,
JiB
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Post by Forresst on Feb 10, 2012 14:17:12 GMT -8
Here's a story about my very first game ever. It was Rifts... with a twist!
For my first ever tabletop guy, I made a technoninja, which was a ninja who had the traditional martial arts training, but made their living in corporate espionage, hacking, and piracy. I had yakuza tattoos all over the place, a cool set of armour, a wrist laser, and a gigabyte data chip in my skull.
When the adventure started, I found myself traveling on a train toward Dweemer, which was a technomage enclave at war with the Chi-Town Empire. I'd been sent to work for a technomage. Now, unfortunately, on the way to Dweemer, all of a sudden the train was attacked! I noticed because I critted a perception test and saw the corner of a coat flap as a guy climbed up on the roof past my window.
So, being alert and stuff, I quickly zipped up my armour and went to investigate. I found myself shooting at a bad guy while he tried not to get blown off the train!! I took the guy down, but not before he reduced my armour's helmet to almost a smoking ruin.
Later during the trip I met up with the rest of the party, who had also done some bandit-killing, except they were in the main dining hall.
We all got given some rewards for saving the train in Dweemer and that's how we all blobbed together to make the party. I had asked for my helmet to be repaired instead of a cash reward, although I did take the free maps and historical data card they gave me. They told me, it would take a day or two. So, our shiny new party went to the inn to rest up (paid for by the train company) and get in contact with this technomage we were all coincidentally now working for.
This was great until I had to go get my helmet. I didn't have English in my languages. And I didn't think to ask someone who did to write a note for my party for me. So I told my GM "alright, I will try to draw them a little picture." He asks me: "do you have the art skill?" and I say "umm.... only flower arrangement". So he tells me to roll percentile with a target of 15. I rolled a 99. So he handed me a pencil and a pad of paper and says " Ok. You're... left-handed right? Yeah, draw your picture for them with your right hand."
As you can imagine, it was TERRIBLE. There was stick figures and I tried to draw my flamethrower and it looked like I was shooting giant loads from a big rubber dick and oh man it was a disaster.
My party figured I was trying to communicate that I'd gone on a giant bender. They waited for me and offered my eggs when I got back with my helmet.
Next level up, I took English language proficiency right away.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 18, 2012 23:43:17 GMT -8
This thread needs more words.
The end of my Star Wars Wushu campaign was amazing. As background, it was my first online campaign run in Peace Corps. Peace Corps life is isolating. I live in a coastal town three hours from the nearest American and 16 hours by bus from here to Manila, where the few gaming stores are. Starting an online campaign was a fantastic way to reconnect with parts of my old life while I was in a very difficult period of my service. It was also great for bonding with another Peace Corps Volunteer who was a huge Star Wars fan but novice gamer. We're 8 hours apart but the game brought us together.
So together with her and my old group from the States we crafted an incredible story about the little band of pilots to stand up to a grand moff and spark revolutions on several worlds. The characters went through dramatic arcs and become parts of our lives. We knew the campaign had to end eventually and I had a big concluding adventure that took 4 or 5 sessions. The grand moff was back from the dead after they tried to assassinate him months prior and now he had a big superweapon that would blow up a world the party led to revolution.
So they travel to a neutral planet enlist the aid of its special forces after rescuing their leaders from kidnappers, sneak through the blockade on the threatened planet and find a way into the Imperial base. For the last session of the campaign they'd have to infiltrate the base and destroy the weapon. But of course it was all a trap set for them, and there would be a big Wushu-tastic fight against overwhelming odds.
One problem: a typhoon blew in. I live in a tropical country and it gets hit by many typhoons every year. I'm in one of the regions that's hit by the most. But I'm NOT delaying this game, not after building the tension for weeks. The typhoon will arrive a couple days before the game. I know the power will go out, probably for several days. But I have a plan! I use a netbook with great battery life. From my first months in service I still have a USB cellular internet dongle. I can do this!
The typhoon comes. It's bad. Power goes out the first night. Day 2, no power and leaking apartment. I'm rationing food and water. Day 3, game time. Haven't showered since the typhoon started and I'm low on sleep because the wind and rain is so loud every night. Turn on lappy 5 minutes before scheduled start, turn screen brightness way down, close all background programs, ready to game.
The session was fucking awesome. We were all kicking ass and I was reveling in my villain monologues. The action was cinematic and incredibly tense. Every die roll mattered. It was about everything the characters had become, why they fought and the nature of power.
And in the background, the storm eased up. After a few hours the sun peaks through the clouds. The clouds keep break through the final encounter. By the time they send the moff hurtling down a shaft towards the center of the planet and disarm the weapon, it's a bright day. I was feeling a gaming high like none I've ever faced before.
The party's corvette, the one they had stolen from the skyhook months before, came down to the planet to give them medical assistance and bring news of the Alliance victory, but I've got 5 minutes of laptop battery left. I'm thinking I have to race through everything. But as the ship lands my power came back on. It was amazing. Absolutely a perfect moment. We kept the session going and let the characters revel in their victory as the players and I were toasting the fantastic campaign we had managed to run in the worst circumstances.
I'll never have another gaming moment like that one. It will stay with me a for a long time.
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Post by kaitoujuliet on Jul 24, 2012 18:09:17 GMT -8
Resurrecting this thread because it's awesome and deserves it! Also because I have finally got the time and energy to write up my own contribution. This story comes from Winter War 38 (January 2011). I played in a game of Tunnels and Trolls run by Jeff Rients of Jeff's Gameblog fame. The premise was that the PCs were all monsters who were tired of having our dungeon invaded by adventurers week after week and had decided to strike back. We drew our races and abilities randomly from a stack of 3x5 cards. Here are the characters I can remember: - A demon who gleefully took every available opportunity to get people to sign away their souls.
- A Scottish dragon who loved to cook. The player spent her off time drawing the picture at the bottom of this post.
- A very dim fire elemental (dim as in low intelligence--pun intended).
- A dark elf who got killed almost immediately.
- A small female "rock person" (played by me).
- A shapeshifting Chinese Fox.
- A "black hobbit" armed with a blunt instrument. The player promptly decided that the blunt instrument was a saxophone and the hobbit's name was Scrofulous Pineapple Proudfoot.
- And finally, a warlock with the capability to cast exactly one spell at a time before he had to lie down and have a rest--but who had a Charisma score of 17.
We started by storming out of the dungeon and into the nearest village. Some adventurers were staying at the inn there, and we also learned that a merchant from the nearby large city was due in soon with fresh supplies. We made pretty short work of tearing up the village. The elemental rolled around setting fire to various buildings until finally doused by the miller and his sons. The warlock blew his one spell, staggered off to the inn, locked the door behind him, and fell asleep. Meanwhile, the rest were gleefully grabbing treasure while my character shopped for a pool boy. A handsome but bossy paladin caught her eye, and since her dexterity score was lousy, she talked the Chinese Fox into throwing a prisoner bag over him for her. Later, she got the warlock to brainwash him into being her willing servant and dressed him in jeweled swim trunks. "Somehow I doubt the four-foot-tall person made of solid stone is going to have much of a pool," someone commented. "No no, I need him to polish my pool table!" The dragon breathed fire on the lake until it boiled, cooking the fish and several people as well. Then she settled down to enjoy some tasty soup. The warlock fortunately woke up from his nap and got out of the inn before it burned down completely. He even managed to seduce the barmaid in the midst of the chaos. As someone quipped, "When all you've got is a charisma of 17, everything looks like something you want to nail." Once the town was in ruins, we settled down to wait for the supplier who was keeping the adventurers stocked with oil, holy water, etc. When he did show up, we terrorized him into telling us who he worked for. The demon got him to sign over his soul, and then we all set off for the nearby big city to cut off the problem at its source. The warlock went to the supplier's warehouse, posing as a new customer, with the barmaid on one arm and the Chinese Fox (shapeshifted to look like the barmaid's twin sister) on the other. He noticed some large vats of oil in the warehouse and started asking about their fire prevention measures. The owner assured him that they had a contract with an excellent fire brigade whose headquarters were very close by. Next, they went to the fire brigade office. The Chinese Fox shifted to resemble the warehouse owner and said he wanted to cancel his fire insurance policy. At this point, the fireman started getting angry: "It's that other office on the other side of town, isn't it? They're offering you a better price?" "Maybe...." "Why, those double-crossing, under-selling...I'm telling you, they can't possibly do as good a job as us! They'll take too long to get here!" "Well, let's test that out," suggested the fox calmly. So she actually convinced the fire brigade to set fire to the warehouse in order to test the response time of the other brigade! And of course, the other brigade never showed up because they didn't really have a contract with the warehouse! But by the time they figured that out, it was too late. The warehouse burned to the ground. "Okay," said the GM to the player of the fox, "now roll a d6 to see how extensive the damage is. A 1 will mean it's just the warehouse--" The player rolled. "Nope, it's a 6." I'm not sure whether the whole table actually burst into cheers and applause at that point or if I just remember it that way because it was what we all wanted to do. As we said farewell to our characters, the dragon was setting up a spit on the city walls and roasting citizens over the world's largest barbecue pit. jrients.blogspot.com/2011/01/from-sundays-game.htmljrients.blogspot.com/2011/01/something-i-liked-about-mm.html
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Post by SirGuido on Jul 25, 2012 18:12:03 GMT -8
I want to talk about something that happened while I was playing back during Free RPG Day. For the first time ever I played 4E. I thought, unlike most of its detractors, that it was high time I actually played the game if I wanted to fairly critique it. So I sat down to play and we needed a 4th player. One of the owner's daughters walked over and decided to play the game with us. When she sat down she was given a halfling rogue to play. She looked at the character sheet and something akin to "Oh, I was hoping to pay a magic user." quickly followed by "Oh, I have a high disguise skill. So yeah I guess I am a magic user. As far as everyone else knows."
The GM just shook his head and smirked.
We started and everyone introduced themselves and their characters, and at her turn she said "I'm Tumble Thistledown, Wizard of the ages!" GM asked her to make a disguise and bluff roll which she succeeded at, so all of the rest of us assumed we had a magic user with us. Cool enough, she didn't leave it there like most people would.
During our first combat(and every one after that), she would shoot her bow and scream out "Magic Missile!" The coolest part about that? The character was built for backstab damage, not ranged attacks. So she purposely gimped her own effectiveness to roleplay.
Who says you can't roleplay in 4E?
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Post by Kainguru on Jul 26, 2012 2:54:52 GMT -8
I've alluded to a certain player in several posts . . . We'll call him Tyrannus and set the scene first. I was at a loose end many many years ago, no study commitments due, I had a weekend only job and worked agency during the week (and there was no work offering come the Monday morning). So an impromptu 5 day holiday . . . Another friend, whom we'll call Merkel, dropped over for similar reasons . . . He too was at a loose end. Both being gamers and having DM'ed each other on various occasions we decided to have a one-shot: neither of us had ever played the temple part of the Temple of Elemental Evil in the past, I'd just finished raping it for ideas the week before so I was familiar with the setup . . . Table setup, books out, dice deployed and characters generated. By early afternoon everything was in place to start . . . We intended a single day/night session because of other peoples work commitments . . . But as we got into it it went from Monday afternoon to Friday night. We all stopped to only to sleep (4 hours) eat and shower (Australia - showering is not really optional). To be fair we didn't live of crap either . . . There was a sandwich bar around the corner which also sold salads so we'd take turns walking down and stocking up during necessary toileting breaks. Various employers would have hated myself and Merkel had they known that we were singlehandedly responsible for the sudden raft of sicknesses and impromptu time owing requests (evil grin). There was also a lot of alcohol consumed to keep going, I favoured Mr Jim Daniels at the time . . . that signature bottle propping up one side of my battered DM's screen the glass sitting in neat nest of dice (so I could always find them). About halfway thru, out of the blue Tyrannus appears from his chefing job in Papua New Guinea . . . Total coincidence but a brilliant. See I knew, and still know, Tyrannus from high school and he is a really good friend . . . That was why, in my old campaign, I let it slide with respect to his impossibly high attribute scores and the rest (Paladin 18/00 strength, 1st ed psionics with max number of defence and attack powers, Nobel birth, alignment: dickarse). Naturally Tyrannus asks to join in . . . Naturally I say yes, what I didn't expect was for him still have his old character sheet for Paladin dickarse. I'm fulla Jim Daniels and the session is going great, we've had a few party deaths requiring retreat, restock and resurrect tactics so "what the fuck let's play, cause now the going is only going to get a lot tougher". Now Tyrannus was a notorious cheat . . . I knew this from old and never let it bother me because he was only cheating himself - it only bothered me because he assumed the DM was against the players as a justification for cheating, what he never knew (and if he's reading this: take note!!!) was that I'd often fudged dice or creature tactics in the party's favour in the past to prevent a TPK . . . cause that wouldn't have been fun (better to bring them down to 4 or 5hp for dramatic tension than say -10hp you're dead end of campaign). I also had a stock of tricks to counter his cheating. The first was it being my turn to make a sandwich shop run . . . I knew he'd looked at the maps while I was out. Now those of you familiar with TTOEE will recall a room off the left at the edge of the map with a secret trapdoor to the next level . . . A bypass to the centre so to speak. So outta the blue Tyrannus decides, never having bothered before this, to "search for secret doors" right where the trap door should be . . . Many rolls later "no door detected" Tyrannus "but there must fucking well be one" "why?" - silence . . . Truth was the door was still there just 10ft further to the left than originally mapped . . . Which he found out later when they found the other side of the door (Tyrannus assumed that in his haste he'd misread the map earlier). (eviller grin) The epic moment was the conflict in the lower temple where several of the big bads gathered (the climax before the characters discover and tackle the elemental nodes) . . . This is a shit storm of a setup meant to be unassailable by direct assault. You have several very high level spell casters, loads of offensive magic and literally troops of humanoids defending the area. Tryrannus gets munchkin head on and exercises ultimate dickarse Paladin lawful stupid group override - ignores suggestions to infiltrate or conduct recon - shouts attack and leads a full charge straight down the steps and into the main temple area. It was one fuck of a long, though throughly enjoyable and engrossing, combat . . . At least two hours if not more in real time and a good twenty rounds of game time . . . The shit was flying everywhere with everyone nearly depleted of spells, charges, potions, hit points etc on both sides before Tyrannus finally sounds the retreat to regroup, rally and restore. Most notable was the 'brave' Tyrannus utilising levitate (psionics) to stay above the melee below until he realised that that just makes a better target for missile assault. Bathroom break, The party is reassessing it's reserves and tactics . . . Tyrannus wants another direct assault once all the spell casters are recharged and everyone is healed. I'm looking at the NPC roster thinking 'fuck it I'm not going to reward stupid play and tactics, I'm not a douche but I'm not a walk over either . . . Time to be DM bastard, time to really play the NPC's like players and get them use everything they have to fight for their lives'. I know Tyrannus has cheated (again) and had looked at my tactic notes - he knows me he knows where I traditionally put them. How do I counter this cheating? . . . I meta game, just a little, because I realise that 1) Tyrannus has assumed that his second assault will pick up where it left off 2) Tyrannus is unaware that NPC's get to rest and restore as well 3) Tyrannus assumes that because I've written the tactics down they are laid in stone and not subject to alteration (?). So I stare at the remaining NPC spellcasters and the spells the have access to and scratch about for a change of tactics . . . Then it hits me . . . The right combination of spells in prep before Tyrannus attacks again . . . If it works he might just learn a lesson about assumptions. Tyrannus leads the second assault into an empty, quite temple area . . . "What the fuck . . . maybe they've evacuated, run away before my mighty dickarse Paladin's massive manhood?". Merkel et al hang back, they're not so sure . . . Merkel even comments that it's too quiet. Tyrannus strides in triumph into the centre of the temple to mount the steps and proclaim victory . . . Then they hit him: He's stood in the middle of a hoard of zombie hobgoblins (the very same ones he'd ploughed through in the earlier assault). The quiet? Multiple Silence spells 10ft radius, the zombie hobgoblin appearin out of nowhere? Multiple invisibility spells 10ft radius . . . Turn undead inoperative because "you're in the middle of THEIR temple dedicated to THEIR Evil God" . . . Tyrannus still thinks he can win this with munchkin fortitude: (meta gaming to fuck) "zombies are slow, they never get initiative . . . I can just move away if I have too". DM picks up dice and rolls for initiative . . . Zombies win . . . Tyrannus (incandescent with confusion and rage) "what the fuck zombies don't get initiative!!! Look it's here in the monster manual!!" DM "yeah, I know but they do if a haste spell has been cast on them . . . Oh and that means they can move as fast as you too so you'll have to really be quick if want to outrun them back to the rest of the the party". Tyrannus just sits there stunned, no reply he's fucked and he knows it and he knows that the rest of the party were a) right and b) he actually needs all of them more they need him to survive. Merkel, as only a fellow DM can appreciate true cunning, leaps up from his chair (literally) and high fives me yelling "fucking brilliant . . . That's just pure genius" . . . Sits laughing at Tyrannus for about 2 mins and after wiping the tears out of his eyes finally says "I suppose we'd better rescue you then and see if we can survive long enough to just getting the fuck outta this place until we know what we're doing". They did survive, just long enough to be captured and cast into the elemental nodes as sacrifices . . . but that's another story
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 26, 2012 14:47:58 GMT -8
Not so epic, since being epic entails epic length, but I have a short story.
We've been playing a custom system that our GM had created, we were about 13 years old, and our GM was 18, so you can guess what types of characters were in the table: a super strong barbarian, a deadshot archer and a shadow-mage, warrior, assassin munchkin loner type. Having lost my previous character (a wizard) due to my team leaving me to die, by the hands of a cult, I found a way to abuse the system to make a character I always wanted to play and piss the rest of the party off, I rolled THE perfect diplomat!
You see, the way the system worked was that you got xp even out of combat when you succeeded in rolls, and the higher you rolled, the better the success and the higher the xp you gain to spend on skills and stats. So I put the vast majority of my points on social skills and stats and leave all the rest weak. I turned out to be invaluble to the party since their social skills were at rock bottom, and I also had the attitude and the arguments to back the rolls up. The best part though is that they had to carry my ass through entire continents, literally, since I was incompetent at everything but speaking; I couldn't climb, swim, sneak, jump or anything, I was a constant burden, even better, with my high social skills I got to diffuse almost every combat situation with enemies that could speak any of my languages (they were plenty), therefore denying the combat xp from my hacky and slashy allies only to add more momentum to my snowballing social prowess, I was basically their social nuclear warhead they had to carry on their backs. Even when they got to fight with monsters and animals their xp gain was so much lower than mine due to me reaching godly amounts of die results when I got to make a single social skill. The munchkin player's look on his face was precious (I remind you that we were 13) every time I took his precious xp away by convincing a band of bandits that we were friendlies, a few seconds after they jumped to kill us. I believe I got my revenge tenfold and the character turned out to be one of my favorites, even though he was hated in a meta-gamey way by the rest of the party.
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jfever
Journeyman Douchebag
FEVAH!!!!
Posts: 218
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Post by jfever on Jul 28, 2012 8:57:44 GMT -8
I was DMing my first game ever: A 3.5 DnD game with 10 players. We were all seniors in high school, and I was the only person who had played role playing games before. It was a tall order, but luckily all of my players were up to the challenge. . . .well . . . .all except one. This guy, we'll call him Dick, was a passive agressive nerdtard who thought he contained all knowledge of all things nerdery. He was an idiot and easy to debunk or prove wrong, and when this happened he would just nod his head down and pout. I think the only reason he ended up in the game was because he just HAPPENED to be there when we all decided to play. Anyway, we played out first game session which was way fun. Especially when Dick, who made a cleric, had a character in the negatives lying at his feet and he looked at everyone and said, "What do I do?" All of the people at the game sighed, and some even yelled at him, "YOU FUCKING IDIOT!! YOU'RE A GOD DAMN CLERIC!!! WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU SHOULD DO?!?!?!" Dick then goes, "Well. . . . I have create water." Yeah, this guy was THAT fuckin dumb. Anyway, everyone agreed that our first gaming session was a success. . . . . . .except Dick. I found out through some of the players that he was talking behind my back that I "was a terrible DM" and my game "sucked" and he could run a better game. In fact, he had this grand idea to run a DnD 3.5 Halo game. . . . . . . So, even at my tender, young, impressionable age and DM experience I decided that I was going to pull the greatest douche bag move in the history of role playing games. Game day comes and we are all gathered. We all sat down and I said, "All right. You guys hear the flapping of wings in the distance. Then a Ancient Red Dragon appears. Hey Dick, what's your AC? 14? Ok, the Red Dragon immolates you with his fire breath. There is nothing left of your body except smoldering ashes that say the word "Fucker"." I then picked up his miniature, threw it at him, and said, "There. Now you can go run your fucking Halo game." The room was silent. Dick then had to sit and watch the rest of the game as he didn't drive himself. I tell that story to every new player I have, so they understand the severity of my wrath. Honestly, I've grown up a lot and would NEVER do something that terrible to anyone again, but I like my players to think that I would.
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Post by Kainguru on Jul 28, 2012 9:25:49 GMT -8
I was DMing my first game ever: A 3.5 DnD game with 10 players. We were all seniors in high school, and I was the only person who had played role playing games before. It was a tall order, but luckily all of my players were up to the challenge. . . .well . . . .all except one. This guy, we'll call him Dick, was a passive agressive nerdtard who thought he contained all knowledge of all things nerdery. He was an idiot and easy to debunk or prove wrong, and when this happened he would just nod his head down and pout. I think the only reason he ended up in the game was because he just HAPPENED to be there when we all decided to play. Anyway, we played out first game session which was way fun. Especially when Dick, who made a cleric, had a character in the negatives lying at his feet and he looked at everyone and said, "What do I do?" All of the people at the game sighed, and some even yelled at him, "YOU FUCKING IDIOT!! YOU'RE A GOD DAMN CLERIC!!! WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU SHOULD DO?!?!?!" Dick then goes, "Well. . . . I have create water." Yeah, this guy was THAT fuckin dumb. Anyway, everyone agreed that our first gaming session was a success. . . . . . .except Dick. I found out through some of the players that he was talking behind my back that I "was a terrible DM" and my game "sucked" and he could run a better game. In fact, he had this grand idea to run a DnD 3.5 Halo game. . . . . . . So, even at my tender, young, impressionable age and DM experience I decided that I was going to pull the greatest douche bag move in the history of role playing games. Game day comes and we are all gathered. We all sat down and I said, "All right. You guys hear the flapping of wings in the distance. Then a Ancient Red Dragon appears. Hey Dick, what's your AC? 14? Ok, the Red Dragon immolates you with his fire breath. There is nothing left of your body except smoldering ashes that say the word "Fucker"." I then picked up his miniature, threw it at him, and said, "There. Now you can go run your fucking Halo game." The room was silent. Dick then had to sit and watch the rest of the game as he didn't drive himself. I tell that story to every new player I have, so they understand the severity of my wrath. Honestly, I've grown up a lot and would NEVER do something that terrible to anyone again, but I like my players to think that I would. LOL I love it . . .what you did was sooo wrong yet I bet it felt soooo good (and before anyone says it, cause its obvious - "like anal" but with whipped cream and a cherry on top)
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Post by kaitoujuliet on Jul 30, 2012 10:32:17 GMT -8
Not a board member's story, but still an epic gaming tale from someone who gets it...
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jfever
Journeyman Douchebag
FEVAH!!!!
Posts: 218
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Post by jfever on Jul 30, 2012 10:45:41 GMT -8
That video is excellent. Thank you.
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SirGuido
Supporter
Drizztmas Santa
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Posts: 2,127
Preferred Game Systems: L5R, Traveller, Fate Accelerated, Masks
Currently Playing: Nothing.
Currently Running: Nothing.
Favorite Species of Monkey: Anything in a Cage.
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Post by SirGuido on Jul 31, 2012 5:09:47 GMT -8
Mikey Mason FTW! Check him out at mikeymason.com. He does a lot of great nerd comedy. Even a cd that was full of great songs that I kickstarted. He has a new one that he's working on that I was unable to kickstart. If he comes anywhere that you are I highly recommend you go see him and tell him I sent you.
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jfever
Journeyman Douchebag
FEVAH!!!!
Posts: 218
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Post by jfever on Jul 31, 2012 15:58:14 GMT -8
Another epic gaming story. One far more recent: I was playing in an original Deadlands game with my gaming group. While Deadlands is a super awesome old school system (flaws and all), our GM has this horrible habit of railroading the living fuck out of us every game. Instead of letting us role play or "yes, and"ing us, he would just say, "And then you black out." and have us wake up in the next place. He was already a terrible rail roader, but he finally ran out of ideas and just started telling us we blacked out all the time. He did this for 3 game sessions straight, and I just about fucking snapped. But, he is also my friend for whom I try to have all the patience in the world for, so I kept my cool and just went with the flow. . . . . . . . . .. Finally came my breaking point. Our characters were on the side of a river with a fat prospecter in Louisiana who told us that there was a ship at the bottom of the river filled with gold, and that we should retrieve it for him. My character, who's name was Klem Earp (a 70 year old die hard Confederate mad scientist, who through a botched experiment had gone mad and thought himself Klem Earp, the non-existant youngest Earp brother. The role playing was god damn hilarious), told the party that what the prospector told us has given us an opportunity. Instead of retrieving the gold, which would be very dangerous and require a lot of work, we should go tell other people we know where there is a fuck ton of gold, sell a map with the location on it to said people, and make more money than this guy was willing to pay us to retrieve it. The GM then required that we all make a Smarts roll. After we rolled the GM told us this: "You don't think that that is a good idea". I nearly quit right there. WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU TO TELL US WHAT WE THINK??!?!?!?!? Affecting our free will was the final straw. Before I could lose my shit, the GM told us that we blacked out (AGAIN!!!!) and that we would pick up the game next week. The next day I listened to a Happy Jack's RPG podcast where Tyler talked about dealing with a similar rail road situation where he would make his character lay down on the ground until he starved to death. I decided I could do one better than that. The next game session started. We woke up in a room filled with occultists performing a ritual. We were all tied up and all of our guns where in a chest on the opposite side of the room. We drew quickness and started combat. Every other player got loose from their bindings first and started fighting. Klem, not being so adept at escaping restraints, took a while but finally got out. Several rounds of combat had passed and my party was glad to see that Klem was free so he could help. Klem was an old man, so you can imagine that his moving across the room to retrieve his gun took about 3 turns. When he finally got his rifle, he screamed at the top of his lungs, "STOP ME FROM DOING THIS GOD!!!" and put his rifle in his mouth and pulled the trigger. The table went silent. One of the players broke the silence by laughing hysterically. The GM, dumbfounded, said, "Uh. .. .ok.. . . . . .roll damage." I nearly lost my shit again. You mean I run the possibility of not dealing enough damage to kill myself? A FUCKING RIFLE IN THE MOUTH? LUCKILY I rolled really high, so I didn't have to argue my way into my own character death. There were various "Oh my god!!!"s followed by laughter. The combat played out, and the party survived. I made a new character that claims to speak to God and does whatever God tells him. So now, if he ever pulls shit like that again, which I doubt he will, I will have a character motivation to obey. That is the only way I can deal with that. It has been several months and no one has ever blacked out in a game since. He also has claimed during our gaming sessions that the "lesson was learned". Epic. Win.
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