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Post by chronovore on Nov 11, 2016 1:19:42 GMT -8
Listening to the podcasts and reading through your posts here, I've found myself reminiscing over old games. Mostly I'm happy with the stuff I ran, and look forward to running more stuff soon, but I've occasionally remembered things where I feel I really screwed the pooch as a GM.
What's the worst thing you've ever done to a player-character?
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Post by uncommonman on Nov 11, 2016 2:27:42 GMT -8
I GM:d an Kult adventure where I planned to kill as many pc's a could.
Sadly I don't remember any details other than lots of dead characters.
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Post by chronovore on Nov 11, 2016 6:56:58 GMT -8
That's... mean, sure. I guess I'm wondering what the worst thing you remember doing to a PC.
For instance, I have a couple, but this one I feel quite bad about: One of the PCs, "Franz," was fascinated with the impure and revolting. During a lengthy GURPS battle, Franz was swallowed on turn 1 or 2 by a shambling mass constructed entirely from dead flesh. In a way, it was the king rat of zombies. It's huge, and taking it down will be a herculean labor. So this PC is inside it, and spends the entire combat more or less unable to fight back, making regular HT checks for drowning in gore and ichor, suffocating in stench. The player was essentially helpless while the three-hour battle continued. The player did a good job of not communicating anything from inside the creature.
Finally the monster was defeated, and the PC was able to struggle free. I said to the group, "You see some of the rotting limbs and torsos move apart, and Franz appears. He takes a deep breath and shouts, 'THAT WAS AWESOME!'"
The player immediately screamed, "God damnit, that was MY LINE. I've been in there for three hours, waiting to say that!"
He was completely right, I never should have voiced anything for his character, and I rewarded his patience by stepping on his opportunity to role-play.
That's not the worst thing I've done, but it's pretty bad.
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sbloyd
Supporter
WHAT! A human in a Precursor service vehicle?!
Posts: 2,762
Preferred Game Systems: Storyteller; Dresden; Mage
Favorite Species of Monkey: Goddamnit, Curious George is a CHIMP not a monkey! Stop teaching my daughter improper classification!
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Post by sbloyd on Nov 11, 2016 8:42:33 GMT -8
I had a player whose bard considered himself quite the ladies' man.
He met a succubus.
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Post by griever789 on Nov 11, 2016 9:25:50 GMT -8
I had a player whose bard considered himself quite the ladies' man. He met a succubus. Hm reminds me of video spoony did about succubuses, apparently it a trope of if your charecter manages to get laid in a RPGs it wil turn out the girl is a succubus
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sbloyd
Supporter
WHAT! A human in a Precursor service vehicle?!
Posts: 2,762
Preferred Game Systems: Storyteller; Dresden; Mage
Favorite Species of Monkey: Goddamnit, Curious George is a CHIMP not a monkey! Stop teaching my daughter improper classification!
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Post by sbloyd on Nov 11, 2016 9:34:50 GMT -8
Oh, it wasn't his first 'encounter' - which we pretty much always did as "fade to black - fade back in next morning" style things. But his character *had* attracted the attention of the Underworld, and this she-demon *did* exhibit clues that just got overlooked.
That all being said, I didn't level-drain his character. I hate that shit. I just had him drained of "life" - too weak to move when he awakened while she pillaged his bags looking for the MacGuffin, and I had his spells and stuff narrate as weaker (pale yellow flames instead of bright red and orange, for example).
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mysticfedora
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The truth lies somewhere in between.
Posts: 281
Preferred Game Systems: 5E, PbtA, OSR
Currently Playing: LotFP, 5E
Currently Running: 5E, PbtA, Stars Without Number, CoC 7e
Favorite Species of Monkey: Kong
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Post by mysticfedora on Nov 15, 2016 8:55:26 GMT -8
A half-orc paladin who devoted his life to protecting his clan, found them dead in a single pile of corpses. The pile of corpses came alive as a single animate creature (Corpse Mound monster from the Tome of Beasts) and during combat he was sucked into the pile of corpses, surrounded by his family, kin, and closest friends as their bodies smacked against his in a mass of rotting flesh.
He managed to keep his faith after that, amazingly.
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Post by chronovore on Nov 15, 2016 19:03:14 GMT -8
A half-orc paladin who devoted his life to protecting his clan, found them dead in a single pile of corpses. The pile of corpses came alive as a single animate creature (Corpse Mound monster from the Tome of Beasts) and during combat he was sucked into the pile of corpses, surrounded by his family, kin, and closest friends as their bodies smacked against his in a mass of rotting flesh. He managed to keep his faith after that, amazingly. That is a truly douchebag thing to do! If we make a club, you can be the treasurer.
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Post by ilina on Nov 15, 2016 23:38:13 GMT -8
i can't remember which RPG it was, i just know the characters would have rather died than lost their gear. either way, they had a mountain of medicine they had been holding onto for a long time, and i told them "your bags are starting to smell funny." turned out they didn't care their bags smelled. "the smell of mold is starting to make you sick."
turns out their stash of potions got moldy and were effectively too toxic to use. and nobody was going to be able to purchase those things. and they were in the middle of a desert. so i included a Traveling peddler's caravan that Traded potions at Quintuple the normal price. the group literally bought a new stash of potions and literally had to walk around in their smallclothes with a dagger apiece to afford the potions.
there wasn't another alchemist for quite a distance, and i warned them that they were in the desert and that finding somebody to sell potions wasn't going to be cheap. and that in the heat, those potions would grow moldy by adventure's end. turns out they used all of them in the first four fights. literally gave them illnesses for drinking too many potions at once in the heat.
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Post by chronovore on Nov 16, 2016 3:55:11 GMT -8
Yikes! That is... really mean.
Were they ever able to buy back or replace their gear? Was the desert trip some form of penance?
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Post by Kainguru on Nov 16, 2016 5:44:07 GMT -8
Had a PC's dalliance with a barmaid turn out to be his evil estranged sister in disguise - hey, I'm a big fan of Excalibur . . . Morgan and Arthur = Mordred (pretty epic). But there is an entire thread about this event. Aaron
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sbloyd
Supporter
WHAT! A human in a Precursor service vehicle?!
Posts: 2,762
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Favorite Species of Monkey: Goddamnit, Curious George is a CHIMP not a monkey! Stop teaching my daughter improper classification!
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Post by sbloyd on Nov 16, 2016 7:07:12 GMT -8
Yikes! That is... really mean. Were they ever able to buy back or replace their gear? Was the desert trip some form of penance? Probably because they didn't put their stats in suboptimal allocation.
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Post by OFTHEHILLPEOPLE on Nov 16, 2016 12:54:52 GMT -8
I was playing Dungeon World with a bunch of guys which were dishing out a lot of shit that I was fed up with. We were playing with a version of Dungeon World with Death Moves, move you make if you choose not to fight your death and instead do one last awesome thing on the way out. The Wizard's Death Move was a miraculous Wish that would fade with time after achieving a particular definitive goal. Upon death he chose to rise as the legendary dragon I had hinted at as an "Eater of Worlds" epic level super dragon whose dreams fueled all magic in the world. His first action after coming back...destroy the enemies that had slaughtered him with his dragon breath.
It was at this time that I informed him, after several "Are you sure" questions, that he had just blasted a hole through not only the planet but the very fabric of the plane of existence and destroyed everything that ever was in this particular reality. WORLD TPK!
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mysticfedora
Supporter
The truth lies somewhere in between.
Posts: 281
Preferred Game Systems: 5E, PbtA, OSR
Currently Playing: LotFP, 5E
Currently Running: 5E, PbtA, Stars Without Number, CoC 7e
Favorite Species of Monkey: Kong
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Post by mysticfedora on Nov 16, 2016 13:12:19 GMT -8
I was playing Dungeon World with a bunch of guys which were dishing out a lot of shit that I was fed up with. We were playing with a version of Dungeon World with Death Moves, move you make if you choose not to fight your death and instead do one last awesome thing on the way out. The Wizard's Death Move was a miraculous Wish that would fade with time after achieving a particular definitive goal. Upon death he chose to rise as the legendary dragon I had hinted at as an "Eater of Worlds" epic level super dragon whose dreams fueled all magic in the world. His first action after coming back...destroy the enemies that had slaughtered him with his dragon breath. It was at this time that I informed him, after several "Are you sure" questions, that he had just blasted a hole through not only the planet but the very fabric of the plane of existence and destroyed everything that ever was in this particular reality. WORLD TPK! HAHAHAHA
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maxinstuff
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Post by maxinstuff on Nov 16, 2016 13:12:23 GMT -8
Well, in Traveller, is having one PC's estranged son crew under the pirate captain that is another character's sworn enemy count as a dick move? Because when they got the jump on them at port, the argument about what kind of grenade to toss into their airlock as the door closed was god damned hilarious
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