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General Category => RPGs => : Tadanori Oyama March 23, 2009, 10:42:42 PM

: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama March 23, 2009, 10:42:42 PM
They do them on the show, so why not do more on the forums? Post your best stories from game sessions.


This story is from years ago when I was running a 3.0 Dungeons and Dragons game, my very first long term campaign. It started in the Forge of Fury premade and moved up into the higher levels over months of play. Great time. I spent most of my time being fairly nice to the players. They had tough fights but they got treasure at an amazing rate so they were equipped to handle themselves properly.

At around eighth level I decided to throw them back into the dungeons after a lot of military campaign behind enemy lines kind of adventures. So, they have to get this book for some wizard to win the guy’s help in their country's war. This book is in a tomb but that’s easy enough, they've handled undead before.

The party enters the final room of the tomb/dungeon. The book, which they know is cursed, sits on a stand in the middle of a platform in a floorless room. The platform is held up by a massive pile of bones which descends into darkness. It's connected to the doorway by a narrow rope bridge that has a lot of slack on it. The characters have to balance their way across it, which two of them do while the other two wait.

The Cleric decides to read the book. The trap for the room triggers when the book is removed so I ask him if he’s going to open it on the stand or pick it up. He says he’ll  pick it up and crack it open. The moment he does so two things happen: the platform rumbles and the bones start clattering below them and the book blasts the Cleric with negative energy. He takes light damage but he is now totally paralyzed.

A round later, as the Wizard tries to pull the book out of the Cleric's hands so he could close it and the Fighter is rushing across the bridge to see what's going on, skeletons start to come crawling up over the edges of the platform. The skeletons aren't really a threat to the players but there's a problem. The skeletons are what's holding this platform up and as more and more come to get the adventurers the platform is starting to lower.

The Fighter gets to the platform and starts smashing skeletons as fast as he can because that's how Brutar the Dwarf liked things: smashed. Meanwhile the Wizard managed to get the book loose at last and tosses it into a bag. The Cleric, no longer staring into the cursed book, starts to come out of his paralyzed state. The Rogue is still at the doorway, because 1) he was kind of a dick and 2) the character’s player didn’t want anything to do with skeletons (which he couldn’t sneak attack or inflict significant harm on with his piercing damage).

The platform is about ten feet lower by this point and has pulled the formerly slack bridge tight. Skeletons are still pouring up from the edges and the Wizard manages to convince the Fighter that smashing them isn't actually helping the situation that much. The Cleric, thinking quickly, managed to stumble his way back onto the bridge and start back towards the doorway while the players of the Fighter and Wizard argue about how to stop the skeletons. The Cleric assumes he can take the opportunity attacks without much trouble. But the skeletons don't try to claw him; they grapple him (which took me a LONG time to get right, I wasn't great with the grapple rules) and work as a team to pin him down on the rope bridge.

Now the platform is getting even lower and the bridge is more of a ladder. The ropes are surprising strong and take some of the weight from the platform as it continues to sink, which tilts the platform at a thirty degree angle and forces the Wizards and Fighter to keep their balance and returns their attention to the problem of escape. At that moment the Cleric, using an awareness of his class features he had not yet demonstrated, remembers he could turn undead. He wins his grapple to get out of the pin and I rule he could turn while in grapple so he makes the roll and crits it. He totals high enough to turn all the skeletons on the platform, about ten of them, and then some (skeletons have about 1/2 a hit die, if I remember right). He assumes they will crawl back over the edge, thereby stabilize the platform. I then remind him that because they’re less than half his level so they are not turned; they are destroyed.

All of the skeletons around the players turn to dust; than the platform starts to tilt farther. I inform the players that the burst of positive energy destroyed skeletons still under the platform. The “floor” is at something like a sixty degree tilt now with the Cleric hanging onto the rope bridge while the Wizard and Fighter try to scramble up the slant to do the same. At this point the party is starting to get worried because the Wizard had used most of his spells for the day already and he only has damaging spells remaining, not utility spells. Some anger is also expressed towards the Rogue and his player, who still remains completely safe at the doorway.

Skeleton hands start to peak around the bottom on the platform where it still touches the pile of bones and it begins to tilt again. With some good climb checks from the Wizard and Fighter they get high enough to catch hold of the Cleric's legs. The Clerics player, after checking his strength score, informs them that he couldn't hold them up. The Wizard, in a fit of brilliance, pulls the cursed book out of the bag and tosses it up to the Cleric. He tells the Cleric to lace his arms through the ropes on the bridge and open the book.

The Cleric does so and promptly freezes in position. The remaining skeletons can not reach the Wizard and Fighter before the platform finally comes away from the bone pile and hangs totally vertical. The party is now hanging from the Cleric, who is in turn latched to the rope bridge.

The Wizard, hanging from the paralyzed Cleric, didn't want to try and make a climb check because significant failure would result in a fall into the pit. The Fighter, however, makes a quick check to climb up the Cleric until he is high enough to grab the planks of the bridge. He manages to get to the top and promptly begins kicking the crap out of the Rogue for not helping them. I get them back on track, reminding them half the party is still hanging on for dear life. The Rogue aids another, the Fighter pulls but they couldn't pull the bridge up with the platform attached to it. So they drop a knotted rope to the Wizard and get him level with the Cleric. After a few tries the Wizard gets the book loose from the Cleric’s hands and stuffs it back into his bag.

Within a few rounds the Cleric and Wizard are pulled to the top and the challenge has been conquered. They had the book, and they resolved to never open any books in the dungeon, ever again. Also, the Rogue would have to go first from now on.

: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: rayner23 March 28, 2009, 06:43:03 PM
I know I told Ross, but I'm not sure if I posted it here or not:

I run a game for my high school students and in one session, they were supposed to lure vampires into a town while Obad-Hai used his nature bad-assery to destroy their coffins (Swamp Thing fans will see a blatant rip-off there). Anyway, I told the kids they had to figure out a way to get the vampires to come into the town.

One player said, "Maybe we could pay some parents to let us borrow their kids for awhile."

I told them that a parent would probably find that to be incredibly creepy, but maybe for the right price and a really bad parent . . .

The players looked over their funds and came to the conclusion that it would be too expensive. Then, one player's eyes lit up and he said, "Is there an orphanage around here?"

I was silently proud of them.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe March 28, 2009, 09:03:33 PM
Funny bit in last night superhero game. The players were looking for a rare book that contained information they needed. Only one copy was available - in the rare book section of the NY public library - couldn't be checked out. When I told them that, they were crestfallen for a bit as the idea of stealing the book did not even occur to them. And these were characters who all committed multiple felonies - murder, assault, breaking and entry and the nicest PC had stolen evidence directly from the police. But if they couldn't check out the book, then they couldn't get it.

Player logic is hilarious.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Dawnsteel March 28, 2009, 09:56:07 PM
And it's a LIBRARY for god's sake.  If it bothers you so much, then hit Kinko's, photocopy the pages you need, and RETURN IT.

Librarians aren't going to press charges.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe March 28, 2009, 10:22:57 PM
And it's a LIBRARY for god's sake.  If it bothers you so much, then hit Kinko's, photocopy the pages you need, and RETURN IT.

Librarians aren't going to press charges.

well to be fair, it was a 3000 page tome.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama March 29, 2009, 01:06:57 PM
That one is a surprise. I can never predict what players will and will not destory/steal/kill/burn.

In our regular DnD game yesterday they decided that to get through a massive set of locked doors they could just destory the hinges and pull one down. They knock over one 30 ft door so their way is open. Then knocked down the other door. So it wouldn't be lonely, I guess.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Dawnsteel March 29, 2009, 04:02:12 PM
: Tadanori Oyama
Then knocked down the other door. So it wouldn't be lonely, I guess.

C'mon, everyone knows that covering only half a doorway totally borks the feng shui.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe March 29, 2009, 09:09:19 PM
It could be worse. If the door was made out of adamantium, they could have tried to take it with them as loot.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama March 29, 2009, 11:41:58 PM
Yeah, only make that mistake once. Turns out that a twenty foot portcullis of solid mithral crafted by Dwarves is both light enough to be carried on a Tensor's Disk spell after being knocked down and expensive enough to throw off the wealth curve of low level adventurers. That was back in 3.0 D&D.

This door was pretty fun to start with actually. They had to get their Rogue high enough to melt the upper hinges. After he did and the door had no connection to the wall he had to make an acrobatics check and if he failed it by too much, the door would tilt. And he rolled a one so the door fall over. It nearly crushed him but some quick thinking from the other party members saved him except for a little falling damage.

The weird thing is that their first plan was to take the place over and make it their new base of operations. Then they started dismantling it. Again: gamer logic.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Maze March 30, 2009, 01:13:06 AM
Most of you probably heard of all gaming theories and the so like: "gamism, simulationism, etc." that I personally consider as utter bullshit and waste of time.

We should make a whole thread about gamer logic, or tenets of gamers.

This is the only thing I've found:

(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y26/leapetra/playerlogic.jpg)

errr...
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama March 30, 2009, 01:37:01 AM
Like an "A Study in the Logic of Gaming" thread with stories of the strange things that players seem to think make sense? I could totally get behind that. Should that be a seperate thread or just continued here? I can tweak the title.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Maze March 30, 2009, 02:06:32 AM
Let's start a new thread and keep this thread for more gaming stories.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: IDaMan008 July 12, 2009, 04:46:17 AM
Hi all! In case anybody missed my waves and salutations in the Introduction thread, I'm Ryan, and I'm new to the forums. I've been listening to the podcast through iTunes for about a week now, and I love it more with each new episode I hear. One of my favorite bits of the show is when Ross and Tom share anecdotes that they receive, so I thought I'd toss my own chips into the pot and share a hysterical happening from my gaming experience.

In my gaming circle, several people have picked up the reigns as storyteller / GM at one point or another, but no one has failed as epically or as frequently as our friend Erik. Erik is one of my oldest friends, and a regular face at the table when I'm running a game, but to us, his turns behind the screen have become the stuff of bad game legend. Even before I joined the group during my freshman year of high school, Erik was running games that were so bad that we still talk about them today, more than a decade later. The example that springs most readily to mind is a travesty that came to be known as...

"The Birthday Game."

I'm tempted to believe that if Andy Kaufman ever ran a Mage game, this is the kind of game he would have run. Given Erik's track record though, I'm pretty sure he planned this out as a straight game and was completely perplexed by the fact that it irritated and confused everyone at the table.

I am happy to report that I was not involved in this session; I heard about it from another friend, Paul, a few months after it happened. The premise was simple: the players were a group of mages who were summoned to an abandoned warehouse by an informant claiming to known the whereabouts of the big bad that they were chasing. As soon as they set foot in the building, the doors slid shut and sealed behind them, eliminating their only visible means of egress. What the players found within was a series of locked doors that could only be opened by solving puzzles, word games and math problems that Erik provided them with in real life. Once they'd solved a puzzle, the door it was associated with would open, and they would get an item for their trouble, as well as passage through to the next door. Once they had completed a few puzzles and collected an armful of imaginary random crap--including a shovel, a bottle of ketchup, and a floorlamp--my friend Paul began to grow impatient.

"This is bullshit," he said. "We're just collecting a bunch of useless junk. Why don't we just blast our way through and find this guy?" The other players balked at this notion.

"I don't think we should," my friend Evan said. "We're probably going to need this stuff at the end of the game. I mean, why would he be giving it to us if we weren't going to need it?"

Even though he had glimpsed the terrifying outline of Erik's designs in the misty distance, Paul decided to bite, and played through another two hours of puzzles before he finally became frustrated enough to take action. By this point, the party had solved so many puzzles that their characters were hauling their door prizes around with a shopping cart that they'd won along the way. Paul began to bore his way through the remaining doors using Forces magick, disregarding everyone else's protests that they were going to need the items that solving the puzzles netted them. When Paul breached the final door, the scene that awaited him left everyone at the table speechless.

"You see a man sitting at the head of a long table that's covered with confetti," Erik said. "He's wearing a polka-dotted party hat and a cheesy bow tie. Behind him, there's an enormous banner that says, 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY!' in big, bubble letters. On the table in front of him is a gigantic birthday cake with chocolate butter cream icing, a single candle burning on top."

" 'What the hell is this?!' " Paul asked, in character.

" 'Welcome to my birthday party, friends,' " Erik responded. " 'Did you have fun playing the party games that I set up for you?' "

" 'Don't you have some information for us?' " Evan asked. " 'About the villains we've been trying to hunt down?' "

" 'Oh, no,' " Erik replied as the hapless NPC. " 'I just told you that so that you would come to the party!' "

As you can imagine, the reaction to this was violent. They tore down the banner, tied this guy up with it, doused him with kerosene, and lit him on fire with his own birthday candle.

Even though it happened more than ten years ago, The Birthday Game is a story often revisited and retold among my gaming friends, and is perhaps the most popular with those who weren't there, myself included. It was a predictor of disastrous things to come in Erik's GMing career, a pathway littered with the bones of abandoned campaigns and sworn oaths that he would never again run a game.

I'll save those stories for another time, so that this post doesn't turn into a novella. However, I have affectionately entitled them, "With Do I Can Kick Your Guts Out," and, "Kill the Mayor, Spare Us The Details."

Thoughts? Comments? Threats on my life?
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: JonHook July 12, 2009, 09:03:54 AM
Holy shit! That was hilarious. How old were the players in that game?

They set him on fire with his own birthday candle!!! I love it!!!
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tissue July 12, 2009, 01:19:06 PM
Thought : Erik reminds me of Sam

Comment : Well writen friend. welcome to the forum and what not

Threat on life : If you ever stop visiting the forum we WILL hunt you.

welcome
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Rygel July 12, 2009, 02:46:26 PM
Awesome story!  Hope to hear more for sure.  And yeah, using his own birthday candle to light him on fire was definitely the "icing on the cake"  aaaaahahahaha.  Oh god, I'm going to hell.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Dawnsteel July 12, 2009, 10:38:53 PM

That was great!  GREAT!
I really really wish I could've played that.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Boyos July 13, 2009, 11:55:46 PM

That was great!  GREAT!
I really really wish I could've played that.

i for one am glad i was not there, haha, great story would hate to be in it.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Maze July 16, 2009, 10:07:52 AM
What the hell? How can you even talk so dismissively about Erik like that. He's a genius!

Maybe he made it last too long, but it's a really good prank to play on your players. Your story is hilarious. Welcome to the forum. (Uoy llik lliw I)
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: malyss August 05, 2009, 12:54:41 PM
I have been enjoying the RPPR podcasts for a couple of months now, and I too enjoy the anecdotes. With that said, I figure my first post should be one of my own. I will post several, but this one I feel deserves to go first. It comes about from one of my best friends for almost 2 decades.

We had been campaigning for a few years by this point and were middling level, just really starting to fight demons. We were working in a city on the border of Tethyr and Amn called Riatavin, trying to restore some order to the area as the city was in a struggle after ceding to Tethyr from Amn. One of our compatriots, a half-elven ranger who I will not name to protect his identity... had broken off during a patrol looking for an assassin as I recall and encountered several minor demons. He fought off and chased a group of the little ones and was pursuing them when he encountered some of the noble city guard. Since we were all sworn special constables of the city, he enlisted the two human guards to head down into the sewers with him to finish fighting these demons.

The trusting human guards immediately followed him into the dark and scary sewers to battle unknown demons, so bold and brave were they. Since they were both armed with swords and shields, our archer ranger held the torch so that they could see in the dark, lonely, scary sewers. As humans, their eyes were not as good in the darkness as the bold half-elf's.

So off they go traipsing through the fetid darkness, whence they encounter a somewhat larger and scarier demon. The brave and loyal and trusting human guards immediately engage the foul creature, counting on the support of the brave hero of the city. The brave hero who shoots the demon to no effect with his rather normal arrows. The brave hero who realizes that he can not readily harm the demon. The brave and good-aligned hero who sees another demon approaching from the other direction. The brave hero who takes the torch and flees up out of the sewer... leaving the two brave and trusting and loyal human guards to be swallowed by the absolute darkness of the sewer that would quickly be their bloddy grave.

To this day, I still won't let him carry the torch.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: JonHook August 05, 2009, 01:10:29 PM
Nice!!!  ;D   :D
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe August 05, 2009, 01:38:39 PM
Ah, the mark of a true player character. Discretion is the better part of valor.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: JonHook August 05, 2009, 01:41:19 PM
A wise man once said that it is easier to be a coward than it is to roll a critical hit.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: jak7890 August 06, 2009, 01:06:24 AM
A wise man once said that it is easier to be a coward than it is to roll a critical hit.

Well he obviously hadn't gone out and bought his loaded dice yet. He should get on that.  :o
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: IDaMan008 August 06, 2009, 12:25:22 PM
Rule number one when you're heading into unknown territory to face a foe of undetermined strength: bring along someone expendable. Or, in this case, two someones.

I'll bet that guy caught hell from the captain of the guard, or at least some of the other guards, who I imagine wondered what happened to their two friends that had followed him into the sewers and never trusted him again.

Great story, malyss. I enjoyed it much much.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: IDaMan008 August 06, 2009, 12:43:14 PM
What the hell? How can you even talk so dismissively about Erik like that. He's a genius!

Maybe he made it last too long, but it's a really good prank to play on your players. Your story is hilarious. Welcome to the forum. (Uoy llik lliw I)


I don't mean to sound dismissive of his sense of humor, but from what I've heard, The Birthday Game was not a prank. Erik was genuinely confused about / upset by the players' violent reaction to his well-meaning NPC.

And besides, there are stories I could tell that are much, much worse.

Holy shit! That was hilarious. How old were the players in that game?

They set him on fire with his own birthday candle!!! I love it!!!

At the time, Erik would have been 14, and the players would have ranged 14 to 17 or 18. This was that oft-lamented subgenre of horror games known as The High School Game. I've run a few myself. In fact, maybe I'll start a thread about that.

Glad to see that everyone enjoyed my story. And thanks for the warm welcome!
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: IDaMan008 August 06, 2009, 01:53:50 PM
A few days ago, a friend of mine, who is a new DM and wants to start up a D&D 4E game, came to me seeking advice about how to run a successful campaign. I thought back to my experiences as a novice GM, the mistakes I made and the games I botched, and told him to be receptive to constructive criticisms (rare as they are), adjust his style to fix the problems that he sees, and keep trying, even if the results initially discouraged him.

You see, he asked me for advice because I've been running a pretty well-received campaign for nearly two years now, but it wasn't always so easy for me. If I had gone with the feeling I had after the first time I ran a game, I probably would have quit roleplaying all together. It was a disaster of epic proportions, but it taught me a lot about how to run a game, so I think it's worth relating here. If you'd like to skip the story and get right to my question, scroll down until you see the red text.

I started playing old WoD Mage when I was fourteen or so, having been dragged into it by my friend Erik, whom I've mentioned in my thread about his notorious Birthday Game. After playing a few sessions with him (which were sort of abysmal) and a few others with another friend of ours named Chuck (which were really fun, albeit rehashed episodes of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer), I decided it was time to strike off on my own and take a turn behind the screen. I got my mom to drive me down to the local comic and game shop to buy a Storyteller's Screen and some D10s, and I got rolling on my very own plot.

The planning that I put into this game went something like this: "The game will begin with the characters sitting around a table at a speakeasy in gangster-era Chicago, having drinks. They have no memory of how they got there or who they are. Suddenly, the place is raided by police, and a gun battle erupts. Beyond that, well, I'll drop some hints that they're really time travelers from the future who have to somehow find their way back...somehow...and...IT'LL BE GREAT!"

Armed with that, I invited a group of friends over and had them roll up some characters. There was Erik, whom you already know, Chris and Bill, who are nice guys, if a little crazy when they get together, and Joe, the worst possible person I could have invited. Joe couldn't follow the plot of Road Trip because of his short attention span. He saw The Blair Witch Project seven times in theaters because he couldn't figure out its complexities.

The problems with the session began during chargen, when Chris decided that he couldn't come up with an original name for his character without help. So he asked me to come up with one. This was basically how our conversation went:

Me: Why don't you call him...Douglas MacDougal?
Chris: No, I don't like that name. It's a stupid name.
Me: What's stupid about it?
Chris: MacDougal is too boring...I want to be called Douglas MacBougal.

He then wrote the following on his character sheet:

Name: Douglas MacBougal
                             ^
                             l
                      Not a "D"

The fact that this seemed to irritate me pleased him immensely. Eventually, after about forty-five minutes of living chargen Hell, the game began.

Before I brought in the cops for the shootout, I asked the players what they wanted to do, now that they've found themselves sitting in this speakeasy. Once again, Chris pipes up.

Chris: I want to conceal my submachine gun.
Me: Well, it says on the chart that it cannot be concealed. How do you plan to do that?
Chris: I use my magic to make it look like a lap dog!
Me: Ummm, okay. You're in the middle of a crowded room, remember. You'll draw some Paradox for this.
Chris: Douglas MacBougal doesn't care!

He rolled and failed.

Me: Okay then. You end up with something that looks disturbingly like the deflated skin of a stuffed dog with the muzzle of a Tommy gun sticking out of its mouth. Take two points of Paradox.

He then picked up my dog, a Westie, and began to aim her around the table, as if she were a gun and he was about to open fire.

By this time, Joe's focus had meandered away from the game; he had begun writing The Gospel According to Pancake on the back of his character sheet, an imaginative take on The Bible that involved a divine flapjack suffering for the sins of man. He shared this with the rest of the group, much to my dismay.

The rest of the game wasn't really memorable. It took about an hour to get through two rounds of combat because nobody was paying attention, and I eventually decided to call the entire thing off due to pure frustration. Still, I took something valuable out of the ashes of my first attempt. I learned to think about group chemistry before I went and invited everyone I thought would be interested. I learned that beginning a game in the middle of a scene with no explanation of what happened before it can put the players off, and I learned that I needed to give the players a clearer idea of who they were and what their objectives were. And with that, I took my first steps toward not being a sucky GM.

Lazy people, continue reading here.


So I was thinking about all this, and I got to wondering...do any of you have stories like this? Tales of failures that inspired you to try again, imploded games that helped you to grow as a storyteller? If so, what did you learn from them? What about the experience(s) made you want to try again? And what advice would you give to a neophyte GM?

Just curious.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: malyss August 06, 2009, 02:09:55 PM
Play with people you trust the first few times. People that you value. People that will be honest but not hurtful with their criticism.

And try to have at least a framework of a story, from beginning to end. It may never go anywhere, but if you have at least some thought as to what the goal is, you have direction in your own mind and can bluff your way through the parts you haven't written down much easier. You don't have to stick to the parts you have, but if you at least have something, that is better than completely winging it in my opinion.

I had a reasonably successful 3.5 eberron game a while back with only 2 players. I didn't know exactly what they would do, as they were given a lot of latitude, but I at least had an idea of where the part of the city they were was going to go through. They did a whole bunch of things that I hadn't anticipated, but since I knew where they were and what the game-world and its players were doing, I had a framework to play with.

I also find it easier to give the players more of what they want in the beginning - not railroad them down my story but work out one with them as we go. I provide the world; they provide the voice of the world.

I know it is of limited value, but it is what I am comfortable with anyway.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: ethan_dawe August 06, 2009, 02:13:54 PM
This anecdote comes from my current gaming group. They are a great bunch of guys but tend to shoot first and ask questions later. We were running through the Expedition to Castle Ravenoft super-module. A lot of helpful information is around in various NPCs, many of whom were potential encounters.

*********************************************************************

The party sure showed that Green Hag a thing or two! While she was babbling on and on about "go away" and "the Green God," all it took was a quick cast of Ghoul Touch and a Coup de Grace. After searching the area for the artifact they were told would be here and finding nothing, our intrepid heroes stand staring down at the body of the hag.

Player1: "Maybe we shouldn't have killed it"

Player2: "We can use Speak with Dead to find out if she knew something important."

Player3: "Rebecca doesn't have it memorized, we'll have to cast it tomorrow"

Player1: "Should we try and camp here for the night?"

DM (me): *smiles*

Player3: "I don't think that would be safe. We should head back to town."

Player1: "What if something happens to the body during the night"

Player2: "I take the hag's body back to my room at the Inn to keep it safe for the night"

DM (me): ?????? !!!!!!! ???????

Player1: "You can't take a body to the Inn!"

Player3:  (Flipping through PHB) "Maybe we only need the head"

DM (me): ?????? !!!!!! ????????

Player1: "I don't think the Inn is a good place to try and stash the body, what about the church?"

DM (me): ?????? !!!!!! ????????

 

Another day. another hag. Staring at the body of Madam Eva the Annis Hag they've just slain.

 

Player1: "I don't understand why she attacked us?"

DM (me): "Maybe it had something to do with the "Charm Person" wand you tried to use on her."

Player1: "Maybe we shouldn't have killed her"

Player2: "We can use Speak with Dead to find out if she knew anything important."

Player3: "Rebecca doesn't have it memorized, we'll have to cast it tomorrow."

Player2: "We just need the head, right?"

DM (me): *sigh*

: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: JonHook August 06, 2009, 02:59:57 PM
I've got several Call of Cthulhu games going at Role Play Online, including the new John Wick CoC scenario, "Curse of the Yellow Sign: Act 1 - Digging for a Dead God".

To give a brief set-up for this scenario, the players are all Nazi officers stationed at a Nazi diamond mine in north Africa. Their orders are to dig for diamonds to fuel the war machine. It is in one of the mines that they discover something interesting... a door!

So, fast-forward a bit, we have our group of PCs in the mine, in front of the door, and no one wants to touch it. How do you open a door no one will touch?

The game quickly became a series of spats, dares, and orders against each other. At one point one of the PCs had his officer draw his pistol and point it at another PC's officer!

This is all going on via a play-by-post forum setting. Me and the two players in question were all online at the same time, and I think we racked up more than 100 posts in under two hours!! If these two guys were in the same room, I think it could've boiled down into physical blows, but by being online, they both had to creatively channel their energies in their posts.

At the time of this writing, they have STILL  not opened the door!!!! Ya gotta love Call of Cthulhu paranoia!  ;D  :D
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama August 06, 2009, 03:33:17 PM
In the same vein, referencing another game, I'm honestly amazed anyone wanted to get out of the car at Chicago House.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: JonHook August 06, 2009, 03:39:20 PM
In the same vein, referencing another game, I'm honestly amazed anyone wanted to get out of the car at Chicago House.

Yes! Especially considering how long it took us to get away from the damnable air strip.   ;D
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Sentinel August 06, 2009, 05:22:26 PM
I went even further early in an Eberron campaign. At level 3, one of our allies turned against the party and tried to kill my girlfriend's character. He had secretly been leading us into the clutches of the setting's Big Bad for weeks. I "accidentally" killed him while negotiating for her release, which unfortunately meant we couldn't get any information from him. I wanted to cast Speak With Dead, but I wouldn't get the spell until 5th level. So naturally, I carried his head around with me for the next two levels (several weeks worth of game time).

Until now I hadn't considered the DM's reaction. It was probably a lot like yours. Something about D&D makes players casual about death and mutilation.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama August 06, 2009, 08:30:48 PM
Personally I never give the torch to the guy who needs two hands to operate his weapon.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Wooberman August 06, 2009, 08:55:04 PM
Amen brother
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Dawnsteel August 07, 2009, 12:06:21 AM
In the same vein, referencing another game, I'm honestly amazed anyone wanted to get out of the car at Chicago House.

Just you wait.  I'm drafting another fanboy tirade.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe August 07, 2009, 12:32:01 AM
Links to referenced games?
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama August 07, 2009, 12:59:51 AM
Here's the one I was talking about: http://www.rpol.net/display.cgi?gi=37459&ti=6&date=1249617901
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: JonHook August 07, 2009, 10:56:37 AM
Here's the other game too: http://www.rpol.net/game.cgi?gi=37861&date=1249653552

If anyone wants to view these games, just register on Role Play Online, (www.rpol.net), send me your username, and I'll grant you Lurker rights. Be warned, if you might eventually play in one of these scenarios, there are spoilers abound!
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama August 07, 2009, 11:24:47 PM
I'm amazed your players even know about Speak with Dead. My players general reaction to a lack of information is to start breaking things with their weapons.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: malyss August 09, 2009, 07:17:15 PM
Generally my parties run away from anything we can't easily understand...

(see anecdote - "The Mist")
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: malyss August 09, 2009, 07:44:15 PM
This little anecdote is about how sometimes the DM is too good of a story teller...

Our brave band of merry folk, having defeated several challenges that faced us, were feeling quite good about ourselves. We had defeated a couple of sub-bosses and uncovered some of the larger plot (at least we thought we had) and were on our way on the next leg of our adventure.

We were merely travelling from point A to point B at this time, with nothing planned by us in between. The next part of our quest awaited us in a defined place (at least to our characters) and we were promptly heading there by the most direct route - which happened to be a main road between two towns. We started feeling ill about something in the environment, but even in our alerted state, we could detect nothing.

We travelled on several more hours and were getting near dark. This is when most groups of adventures would pull of the road at a safe place and make camp. So we started to look for a good place. We noticed a road heading north into a small valley, and with the sun setting decided this might be a good place. Except when we reached the road, our eerie feellings intensified and we looked up the road to see... mist.

Our nature savvy ranger decided that a good roll would be able to tell us whether this mist was a natural occurrence based on the prevailing wether conditions or something else. He rolled rather well and it was determined that this could not possibly be "normal" mist.

It was getting dark. Our options were limited. But there might be xp down that misty trail...

Or there might also be something more sisnister than xp - the things you have to defeat to earn it.

We had defeated everything thrown at us. We weren't on a serious in-game time crunch. This should be a piece of cake. A no-brainer decision.

And we definitely fit that description.

It was clear from the description that our DM had given us that this was some serious mist.

So we ran away.

From mist.

And the DM took a pile of papers from behind his screen and promptly threw them over his shoulder.

Most PC's at least look at what is out there before making the decision to cut and run... heck, some of them even get into the fights that are over their heads. We need no such lessons - we clearly know when we are outmatched...
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe August 09, 2009, 08:25:10 PM
Post your neckbeard-est anecdotes here

Don't post separate anecdote threads now
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Nuncle August 10, 2009, 05:56:10 PM
Greetings All!
     Diggin' the podcast Ross/Tom/Cody/et al. Just caught up with the latest one today so thought I'd post my player's silliness for your amusement! This is a example of how player greed can overcome anything resembling common sense...
     I run between 6-8 players in a 3.5 game. They are all at 6th level right now. Because of player consensus, that's where we started the campaign. Some of them are not terribly experienced in running mid to high level characters, but they all wanted to try it, so who am I to say no?  ;D
     In this world, the characters avenged the death of a powerful, good sphinx, so in return they were awarded his treasure; in which was a Deck of Many Things. Some of the players knew what it was at first, some didn't. But, in game, they did research and found out what it could do. They also found out it was created by the god of Chaos and Trickery, Dodeca (very important).
     Once the characters discovered what it was I told them out-of-game "If you decide to use it, we will abide by whatever you draw...in other words, if you die or are otherwise fucked, you're fucked" So they knew the risks. But of course I knew they wouldn't be able to resist drawing at least one card...heh heh!  ;)
     Sure enough, Krugg, the half-orc barbarian, finally talks the rest of the party into letting him draw. So they lock him in their room at the inn all by himself with the deck and tell him to go ahead, while they cover their asses outside the room! :)
     So I lay out all the cards on the table and he picks one. I turn it over and...it's the Joker (Lose 10,000 XP and must draw again). I describe what happens to him and he's crushed. Then when I say "You watch as your hand moves of it's own volition to the Deck once again and you draw a second card" you should' a seen his eyes bug out!  :o
     But, this time, he totally lucks out and draws the Queen of Diamonds (Gain 1-4 wishes. I rolled in secret and it comes up two wishes). So I caution the other players to say nothing and tell him "You feel as though you can ask for anything and it will be granted to you...what do you say?" He says "Umm...20,000 experience points?"
     At this point, I take a little pity on him and decide that even though what he actually said was totally a metagame statement, I'll assume his character worded it properly. So he gets back what he lost and a little more. Now he's totally stoked and feeling great. So when I tell him "The power is still there...what do you say?" He shouts out "I want money!"
     All the other players just look at him.
     Now remember, all the characters knew who created the deck. They also know their current quest is to find this dungeon in which is secreted a horribly evil book they must retrieve. Said book is also being guarded by a big bad demon. So there's all sorts of things he could've wished for to help.
     So Krugg wishes...and a single, solitary gold piece appears on the floor before him.
     The other players give him a rash of shit for about the next hour.
     So I guess the moral of the story is...Be Careful What You Wish For... ::)
     Sorry...couldn't resist that...heh heh!
                  Tony(me)
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: IDaMan008 August 10, 2009, 10:06:41 PM
     At this point, I take a little pity on him and decide that even though what he actually said was totally a metagame statement, I'll assume his character worded it properly. So he gets back what he lost and a little more. Now he's totally stoked and feeling great. So when I tell him "The power is still there...what do you say?" He shouts out "I want money!"
     All the other players just look at him.
     Now remember, all the characters knew who created the deck. They also know their current quest is to find this dungeon in which is secreted a horribly evil book they must retrieve. Said book is also being guarded by a big bad demon. So there's all sorts of things he could've wished for to help.
     So Krugg wishes...and a single, solitary gold piece appears on the floor before him.
     The other players give him a rash of shit for about the next hour.
     So I guess the moral of the story is...Be Careful What You Wish For... ::)
     Sorry...couldn't resist that...heh heh!
                  Tony(me)

Ouch, man. I hope the player used that gold piece to buy his character a beer, because after that shit, he'd need it.

Post your neckbeard-est anecdotes here

Even though I shaved today, is my neckbeard still there in spirit?
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: xHero August 12, 2009, 08:38:41 PM
Last year I decided to host a weekly d&d 3.5 campaign and had a house full of people in no time...

Unfortunately a few weeks into the game our party was still in the starting town (in jail most of the game) as our monk, Shemp, could not refrain from attacking everything that moved. In the event that this happened the guards would respond quickly and he would attack them as well, usually with the assistance of our tank:

Kurn'l Sunders, whose picture was a bucket of KFC: Kurn'l Fried Chocobo. It was funny at first but set the tone of the entire campaign.

Due to poor DM discretion we allowed the use of a minotaur as a playable character, further lacks of foresight allowed for our horned fiend to dual-wield shields (in homage to unforgotten realms) These two characters who claimed to be of chaotic neutral alignment were absolutely incapable of performing not only a good deed, but anything beneficial to even themselves

The following is a brief description of some key events leading to our epic disaster:
1.After finding a strange vial my bard character entered an apothrecary's shop to determine it's contents. Kurn'l Sunders enters the shop and bull rushes the old proprietor and bursts through the back wall of the shop.
2.While our party sat in prison the apothecary came to see us and I was attempting to use diplomacy to reduce the charges. Things were looking good until Shemp runs from the back of the cell and begins bashing the NPC's head into the iron bars in front of all the guards.
3.Once we finally made it out of town any creatures we would encounter would have their heads removed by Shemp and placed into a bag he carried. All the while maintaining the he was chaotic neutral.
4.In the event that we entered a town Shemp would go into a spiel about how he entered some "magic crafting shop" and threatened the owner to manufacture absurd totems and tools out of the heads he had collected. He would then state that he received something like "Jumbalya's voice box" a human skull on a magic tripod of bone that would speak in any dialect or some dumbassery like that.
5.Kurn'l had min-maxed to unprecedented levels. As mentioned earlier he was dual wielding shields, well he later purchased a tower shield and attempted to strap in onto his back for an addition AC modifier (fortunately our 3rd DM vetoed it outright... or was it our 4th DM?)

But the climax of this brainless tale manifested itself during a pirate attack on a ship our party was on. After some great roleplaying and tactial combat Kurn'l decides he wants to steal a cannon from the pirate ship. He goes so far as to try and jump from one ship to the other while carrying a cannon (Swing and a miss). Once he was retrieved he took one of our ships cannons and for no damn reason at all declared mutiny on the captain. It was necessary for out mage to cast a sleep spell on him, we stripped him of his armor and tied him upside down to the mast where he remained even after we reached our destination. Of course Shemp felt guilty that we were persecuting stupid people and returned to ship to untie him... So a matter of moments later our ship is firing on the whole fucking town. A lengthy battle ensues and we eventually killed Kurn'l Sunders.

None of us had ever been in a campaign in which it became necessary to kill our own teammate... we felt pretty bad and had just lost another DM (5th maybe 6th) So to further prove our unabashed idiocy we gave Kurn'l's player a chance behind the screen. One maddening session of fighting balloon animals and demon clowns on unicycles blaring josephine johnny from magical boom-boxes, outwitting homeless apparitions of ourselves and bypassing Neil Patrick Harris on a unicorn licking the cave walls, a battle of epic fail proportions ensued in which we had to use legendary feats of dexterity to avoid the graham cracker shurikens that were being viciously thrown by the Stay-Puff Marshmallow man. None of us could touch a polyhedral die for a year.

 
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: codered August 14, 2009, 01:50:31 PM
WOW..... I prolley would never play again after crap like that...
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Boyos August 20, 2009, 06:44:49 PM

None of us had ever been in a campaign in which it became necessary to kill our own teammate... we felt pretty bad and had just lost another DM (5th maybe 6th) So to further prove our unabashed idiocy we gave Kurn'l's player a chance behind the screen. One maddening session of fighting balloon animals and demon clowns on unicycles blaring josephine johnny from magical boom-boxes, outwitting homeless apparitions of ourselves and bypassing Neil Patrick Harris on a unicorn licking the cave walls, a battle of epic fail proportions ensued in which we had to use legendary feats of dexterity to avoid the graham cracker shurikens that were being viciously thrown by the Stay-Puff Marshmallow man. None of us could touch a polyhedral die for a year.

 
Thats Just...... WOW!
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: ArtfulShrapnel August 21, 2009, 01:15:42 PM
None of us had ever been in a campaign in which it became necessary to kill our own teammate... we felt pretty bad and had just lost another DM (5th maybe 6th) So to further prove our unabashed idiocy we gave Kurn'l's player a chance behind the screen. One maddening session of fighting balloon animals and demon clowns on unicycles blaring josephine johnny from magical boom-boxes, outwitting homeless apparitions of ourselves and bypassing Neil Patrick Harris on a unicorn licking the cave walls, a battle of epic fail proportions ensued in which we had to use legendary feats of dexterity to avoid the graham cracker shurikens that were being viciously thrown by the Stay-Puff Marshmallow man. None of us could touch a polyhedral die for a year.

I know a guy JUST LIKE THAT. Holy crap it scares me that there might be another one.

I played in a game he ran. A one shot. I think by the end of it I had turned from a person into a nightghast or some craziness, and also was a were-chicken. My body was permanently turned blue (even though I was made of shadowstuff) and I had a bag that could produce an infinite number of capes (also blue). I think i had some magic rings that did some weird stuff. Someone was killed by being hit with a magic pie, and it started raining bears and shock lizards at one point. I mean literally raining.

Basically the same situation, but my guy pulled more from the Monster Manual, and less from Nabisco commercials.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: xHero August 21, 2009, 10:01:55 PM
Basically the same situation, but my guy pulled more from the Monster Manual, and less from Nabisco commercials.
Haha, well said.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe September 10, 2009, 12:50:13 AM
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2834527&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=75

I did not write these but YOU NEED TO READ THEM

Too many to just copypasta

I'll just post the first one. Look for posts by 50 foot ant.


Meet Stan.

Stan is almost 300 lbs.

Stan has black hair that glistens in the light and looks as if it is held to his head with paste.

Stan has yellow and white head acne so bad that at least once an hour a pimple will just burst, either squirting on something next to him, or just dribbling down his face.

Stan has one eye that just looks at random shit all the time.

Stan breathes heavy while paging through books.

Stan's skin is slightly gray, this probably has something to do with when he scratched his arm, he left behind little rolled black things.

Stan has BROWN teeth that are blackish gray here and there.

Stan has a zit encrusted nose that usually has one finger in there. He often keeps his hand under the table or out of sight until he thinks you are not looking, and then his finger goes in his mouth.

Stan played AD&D, the old 2E stuff.

Stan was friends with the FLGS owner (who was also a loser) and so he got invited all the time into games by the owner, not the GM's.

I had just gotten back to the States and had met a group at the LFGS and was running Ravenloft. Ravenloft involves a lot of indepth descriptions, Ravenloft punishes dipshits and assholes right in the rules. Ravenloft is a slow story buildup, with a payoff that is often the choice between two wrong choices.

Ravenloft is fun in the same way that being lost out in the woods and telling ghost stories to each other is fun.

Now, Stan has never played Ravenloft before, but is the LFGS owner's friend. This was before I learned how big a loser the owner was. The owner wanted to play in my game, since he'd hired some half-retarded 16 year old to run the store while he sat around and got fatter. I was told I wouldn't have to pay for tables, that if I needed something to talk to him, all that shit.

So, Stan sits at the table.

Missy moves 2 chairs away and retched.

So, Stan hands me his character sheet.

Oh goody, a 7th level Anti-Paladin with all kinds of shit.

Me: Fuck no. The rest of the group is 3rd level, and hell no.
Him: I played in his (points at the LFGS owner) game all the time with him.
Me: You'll lose him in 20 minutes, man, so no. Good characters only, and I strongly suggest human only.

So, despite my urging, Stan rolls up....

DUM DUM DUM!

A fucking 1/2E fighter/mage/cleric.

Me: Are your ears pointed?
Him: (snorting gasping laughter) Yes, duh.

So, the group's in a village, healing up from having a pair of ghouls ambush them in the forest and tear them new assholes. The half-elf comes wandering into the tavern/inn/old dude's house, sits down, motions the barmaid over, and then pushes back his hood.

INSTANT MADHOUSE!

"VAMPIRE! GET HIM!" cry out the townspeople, upon seeing his pointy ears, pale skin, and other elven attributes.

"They're just 0-Level Humans..." Snorts Stan, who cuts loose with.... Flaming Hands.

Well, one of the waitresses throws the garlic stew on him, someone else gets a bag over his head, and INTO THE RIVER HE GOES after being beaten with hoes and rakes and axes and sledgehammers and splitting mauls.

The rest of the group is laughing their asses off.

"BUT HE'S AN ELF!" Stan yells, pointing at another player.

"Yeah, but we docked my ears after that happened and I ended up running into the woods and almost getting sodomized by a werewolf." That player says.

"YOU'RE ALL JUST PICKING ON ME!" screams Stan.

Who promptly bursts into blubbery tears and has several zits explode all over his character sheet. Missy almost barfs, and you will NEVER guess what fucking Stan did next.

 He ran out of the gaming shop crying. An hour later his fucking MOTHER showed up to try and berate us for picking on her son. That's right, he went home and TOLD HIS FUCKING MOTHER ON US!

Stan was the bane of my games for almost 2 more years.

Fatback the FLGS Owner is another horror story.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: IDaMan008 September 10, 2009, 12:22:26 PM
I think that, when you find yourself hanging out with a guy nicknamed Fatback, at that point just maybe it's time to reevaluate your social options. Even if he does give you tons of free stuff from his gaming store.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Salrantol September 16, 2009, 06:46:41 AM
I was running a farcical superhero game in the Aberrant system.  The players decided to place their base of operations in a warehouse at the end of a pier, right past a porn studio, because, to their minds, no villain would pass up a porn studio to try to reach their base.  After one finally did, they decided additional security was necessary and installed a trap door outside their front door, below which was a cage holding a randy dolphin.  Well, two of the characters did that between sessions, and "forgot" to tell the third member of their party, the Uranium Cockroach.  When the Uranium Cockroach showed up and triggered the trap, the other players laughed as he was sodomized by the randy dolphin.  Of course, most of the laughter was because those players remembered something the Cockroach's player did not: The Uranium Cockroach had the Animal Mastery power, and could have compelled the dolphin to stop at any time.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Boyos September 17, 2009, 12:37:56 AM
I was running a farcical superhero game in the Aberrant system.  The players decided to place their base of operations in a warehouse at the end of a pier, right past a porn studio, because, to their minds, no villain would pass up a porn studio to try to reach their base.  After one finally did, they decided additional security was necessary and installed a trap door outside their front door, below which was a cage holding a randy dolphin.  Well, two of the characters did that between sessions, and "forgot" to tell the third member of their party, the Uranium Cockroach.  When the Uranium Cockroach showed up and triggered the trap, the other players laughed as he was sodomized by the randy dolphin.  Of course, most of the laughter was because those players remembered something the Cockroach's player did not: The Uranium Cockroach had the Animal Mastery power, and could have compelled the dolphin to stop at any time.

Lawl!
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: nekomata October 06, 2009, 07:37:29 AM
So, I'm going to run a GURPS game in Infinate Worlds, players are ISWAT. And I made the mistake of telling the players, "You can make anything you want." So here's the results, two of my players have thier characters finished, still waiting on the other two.

Clay: Is playing himself. Or at least a beefed up version of himself. He's mostly a random collection of skills and trivia, just like in real life, but has the advantage super luck which lets him determine the outcome of a single die roll every hour of play. Sadly, we all agree that he should have this ability...

Rai-ku: Is a semi-upright tiger man has lacks usable hands, he just has paws. So, he can't wield any weapons, or pick up, or grab stuff... He was also raised by monks and knows cinematic tai-kwon-do, did I mention that he has Wolverine-esq regeneration, healing 1HP per second. The really funny thing is that Infinity is supposted to keep demention travel a secerat, and they're going to be in the wild west...

I'll post the other two when thier done, and I'll definatly post a real antidocte after our first game.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: nekomata October 11, 2009, 01:43:36 AM
Unkillable, and termially ill... that's what one of my players came up with, and as far as I can tell its not illegal. He dies of illness, becomes a ghost, then comes back to life to die the next month. :o
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe October 11, 2009, 12:53:24 PM
Sounds fine to me although as a GM I would tack on a mental disadvantage - some kind of insanity WITHOUT him getting any extra points. That cycle of life and death would be hell - eternal suffering and torture.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Murph October 12, 2009, 09:10:57 AM
Sounds fine to me although as a GM I would tack on a mental disadvantage - some kind of insanity WITHOUT him getting any extra points. That cycle of life and death would be hell - eternal suffering and torture.

But what if he's a good person and gets to go to heaven every month or so for a vacation and rock out with Ted Nugget while riding a dinosaur as they use the power of music to deflect bullets and defeat bererker wooly mammoths as hot chicks dance all around them?  That would make being terminally ill and immortal kick ass.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe October 12, 2009, 11:22:54 AM
Sounds fine to me although as a GM I would tack on a mental disadvantage - some kind of insanity WITHOUT him getting any extra points. That cycle of life and death would be hell - eternal suffering and torture.

But what if he's a good person and gets to go to heaven every month or so for a vacation and rock out with Ted Nugget while riding a dinosaur as they use the power of music to deflect bullets and defeat bererker wooly mammoths as hot chicks dance all around them?  That would make being terminally ill and immortal kick ass.

Dying of cancer every few months would be enough.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama October 12, 2009, 09:43:36 PM
Sounds fine to me although as a GM I would tack on a mental disadvantage - some kind of insanity WITHOUT him getting any extra points. That cycle of life and death would be hell - eternal suffering and torture.

But what if he's a good person and gets to go to heaven every month or so for a vacation and rock out with Ted Nugget while riding a dinosaur as they use the power of music to deflect bullets and defeat bererker wooly mammoths as hot chicks dance all around them?  That would make being terminally ill and immortal kick ass.

Dying of cancer every few months would be enough.

Personally I think having his cancer continue to develop through his deaths would be alot of fun (for me). Mystical cancer that just keeps getting worse so each time he comes back he dies faster and experiences more pain than the last time. Eventually he'll be living to die. Then you give him ghost cancer.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Murph October 12, 2009, 09:51:56 PM
Just read Dunky Winterbean. Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnncccccceeeeeeeeerrrr!!!!
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: nekomata October 19, 2009, 07:14:42 AM
Well, we had our first session sat. It went pretty well, some friction getting people adapted to GURPS. The highlight in my mind was the fight with 3 werewolves. The werewolves have unkillable 1, requiring a total of 84 damage to kill. One took 3 .50AE rounds to the chest for a total of 56 damage after modifiers, and one of the players stabbed one in the balls twice with a silver edged dagger... That was a pissed off werewolf, when it was actually able to move. ;D My rolls sucked though, only one player took damage, and he had super regeneration. The players also managed to take about an hour of material I had, and stretched into a 4 hour game, and didn't even get to the boss fight. It was a good thing, I hadn't slept in like 20 hours and hadn't eaten in 12. Next session I'm going to make sure the guy with the dagger finds a boot in his pelvis.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: VilaWolf November 03, 2009, 08:49:51 PM
The best and worst experiances of mine have both been online:

First we have a three year epic failure of the worst game I've every played. What makes it so sad is that they have that rare, beautiful potential you don't see very often. They just can't hold a game together for more than a month, they min-max and worse of all, they use House Rules. It started out three years ago with a Livejournal invite to a by-post RP with the condition my application had a minimum of 1000 word RP sample in the character I was auditioning for. For the first two weeks I was in heaven. These people could play. I mean every post submitted, by all players, was well over that 1000 word min and they posted eight/nine times a night. When all five players were on at the same time, we could crank out an entire threads in less than an hour. Four threads a night sometimes. We worked out entire novels.

Then it stopped. Just like that. I log on and the board is deserted. It's me and the crickets for three weeks. Finally one of them thought to check the board and saw I was still there going WTF. They had moved on to another game and never bothered telling me. A year later I get an email. They heard a sequel to the movie we were rping the first round was out and they couldn't find anyone who could play the character like I did. They wanted me back for the new board. I should have known.

Two years later of on again off again playing I finally snap and yell at them. Three years I put up with their crap and I was done. Every time one of them saw a movie they'd go skipping off into the sunset and leave everyone else hanging. I say they as the two who are most guilty are “cousins”, even though we've never seen them separate and there's a standing joke/theory that it's the same person. A third player was they “yes man” and would follow them blindly from board to board. The fourth and I have become something of friends and continue to chat and bemoan the possibilities.

Then comes what started in an MSN Chat-Room RP in 1993 and turned into the greatest online game I have ever played. It went on for more than five years moving from chat rp to by post rp and it was everything a Gamer could have ever wanted in an online game. Solid descriptive posts, players who actually logged on, just about everyone took their characters seriously...I still make periodical pilgrimages to the remains of the site to mourn the loss to this day.

The New Tombstone.

Take the movie Tombstone, set in Dungeons and Dragons cross it with World of Darkness and any and all TV/Custom character you could write in a decent “how they got to TNT” story and you where in. I played the Invisible Man, Darien Fawkes as well as his nemesis Arnaud de Fhon, later taking on half the goddamned cast of the show. There was no character limit. As long as you could keep in character and posted, you could play.

There where something like 30 "full time" individual players another 40 "occasional" players who'd stick around for a thread or two and over 150 characters. For five years we would put in anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour or three a day every day and would post. Even if it was “sorry guys I cant play tonight.” We still made sure to at least be there daily. I made friends the world over whom I still talk to and trade halloween cards with yearly. We would buy birthday gifts for each others kids and when one of us was broken into one night, live during a chat, we did all but form a mob. The only thing that stopped us was was the distance. One of us was Australia, two in England, A Canadian, and three of us where scattered across the states. (it was a slow night) By the time all of our planes would have arrived, the police would have the guy in protective custody. Then MSN Groups closed the 18+ section of their site about a year or so after 9-11 and we where forcefully disbanded. While the loss of the game itself was sad, I still talk to my fellow players just about daily. I don't remember much of the story line due to the amount of characters and post count we would produce in a day, it was just impossible to keep track of everyone. What I do remember are the friends I made the world over who I continue to be friends with to this day. I have couches the world over I can crash on any time.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Shallazar November 06, 2009, 08:40:08 PM
Thats a great tale dood.

The online sphere is where I was first introduced to RPing. AOL chatrooms, oh man.
Then I graduated to the MSN chats for a while but somehow kept ending up in creepy anthro chats. *shudders*
But the creme de le creme was a beseen client chat called The Vampire's Kiss. Or the VK for short.

I was young and confused as to what was really going on in this room. But finally through trial and error, many character deaths, threats and just plain ol' bailing- I struck up a friend ship with this Jade, Nefertiti, Christopher, Kasortar and to some extent Morguline.
The chat was basically founded on V:TM and it inspired me to buy the books. Eventually beseen went belly-up.

But since I had the books, I used them. I ran the best games throughout highschool with my irl friends.
The games were basically angst and katanas + GTA.
But damn, I mean, blowing the entire party out of a 40 story sky-scraper into the night air of tokyo was a pretty great finale at my going away party.
From time to time I try to resurrect the HIGH OCTANE ACTION of those days with my players, to varying degrees of success.

I mean I owe my RPG loving soul to the internet and its assorted badasses.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Vastin December 06, 2009, 10:38:51 AM
 Hi everybody. My name is Vastin, I've been playing RPGs for awhile now, but last night I had something happen thats never happened to me in a game before. Its just too good not too share with everyone here.

 Afew friends and I just started a new campaign acouple weeks ago. we were all level one characters, I'm a fighter, My girlfriend Xarian was a half-elf bard, My friend Neiren is a half-elf cleric and our friend Kaisa was a ranger who would roll percentile dice to see if he cares about anything that the group did. our first couple of sessions went like a typical game. we got to town hand had to investigate the ruins below the city for an evill cult. we were led to a secret cave entrance and killed some skeletons and goblins. well as we were investigating we came across a door with ancient dwarven writing on it. I was able to sound out the phrase which opened the door to an unused section of the temple. When everyone went to rest I continued to search the area. as I was looking around I came to a large circular room where the doors would revolve around the room. I found one with a box on a large stone table. inside the box was a peice of parchment I could not read. I eventually found my way backl to the group, and brought everyone back. Xarian was able to read the instructions which told us it was a deck of many things. we each had to declare how many card we were going to draw and then keep any of the effects we got.

 Kaisa went first and was going to draw two cards. As he was explaining some of the cards effects he drew the king of clubs, trapping his soul in a gem. I went next and drew the queen of clubs, which gave me a negeative one to all my saving throws. I then drew a queen of diamonds which gave me three wishes, I then used them to find kaisa's soul and give myself a plus two to my strength. I then drew the king of diomonds giving me a greater wonderous item and jumped me from a lvl one fighter to a lvl ten warrior. Xarian went next and summoned a dire wraith that killed her instantly. neiren got an outsider as an mortal enemy and 2 greter magical wepons. kaisa and xarian decided to roll new chars and our gm bumped everyone else to lvl 8 to balance things out. all in all it was very interesting.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Boyos December 06, 2009, 10:23:43 PM
haha. almost as good as the old school dung crawl pbp ross ran a few months back.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: TigerStorm December 13, 2009, 02:24:47 PM
The online sphere is where I was first introduced to RPing. AOL chatrooms, oh man.

I remember those days of online RP'ing where everyone just went into a room and sat in a corner and watched. (which seemed to create 42 different corners in a tavern)

Anyhoo... This is my first post on the boards and I suppose it's appropriate that it's an anecdote. (I hope I spelled that correctly)

This is one of my proudest gaming moments. Not because of anything I really did, but because of a fairly inexperienced player finally getting it.

There was a new player introduced to the group who was new to tabletop RP. All she really wanted to do was throw fire around without any clear character direction. This provided two problems: First, we were all fairly high level and learning how to create characters and play 3.5 D&D starting at level 15 is a pain (nevermind the pain in trying to teach her). After several failed attempts and A LOT of complaining (by her and the other players) we decided that something needed to be done before the group just had enough. Truthfully, I think the only reason she even put up with the group and stayed with us was that she ended up dating the GM.

When we all sat down and talked about it, we decided on a good solution. We all needed to take a step back and look at how we had been making characters as of late, anyway. So we decided that we would vote as a group what each player would make and start at lvl 1. We discussed at length which race and class would fit each player best. This way, it would be easier for new players to the group to feel comfortable with their characters and would give veteran players an insight to what people thought of them.

The results were astounding. The game turned into one of the best campaigns we had played in a long time. The best moment happened between my character (a human paladin) and the aforementioned pain in the but's character (a gnome rogue). We were around lvl 6-8 by this point and my character had been drawing a lot of heat from a corrupt official which, consequently, put the other characters in life-threatening situations on a regular basis. He decided to fake his own death for their sake but to do it with them witnessing so that, if they were ever quesioned, they would answer honestly.

The perfect opportunity happened when we were ambushed by a group of arcane archers hired by the corrupt official. After identifying that they were using death arrows, I saw my chance. The only other person who knew what I was doing was our GM's character (a high elf ranger). On the surface the other characters believed that we hated each other (which we had, in the beginning). But the truth of the matter was that they had grown to respect each other in their own right and had become decent friends. Making good use of my bodyguard feat, I took a death arrow which had been aimed at the gnome rogue. I had passed the save, of course, but fell anyway. The rest of the group chased the assassins off and our ranger came back to check on my condition. (for story purposes, it was fortunate that the one who had been playing a cleric wasn't there that day) I was barely hanging on (or so the other players thought) and proceeded to take each player into another room for his "final words" to each of them. The player whose character I had saved literally came out crying. I had given her the classic "I can't protect you anymore, but you're strong enough to take care of yourself now." speech. She was into her character so much that she actually broke down into tears a little over this. It was all I could do to hold back the smile. Not so much that it made her sad, but that she stopped thinking of the character as just a collection of numbers on paper. They proceeded to bury me and travel elsewhere. The ranger's wolf came back and dug me up. After that, her gnome's general demeanor changed drastically. (as would anyone who had lost such a close companion in that way) I was so proud of her.

My character had then gone off and assumed a completely different identity: that of a costumed vigelante bent on throwing a monkey wrench in the corrupt official's plans (found an awesome prestige class for it and everything). Fast forward to about two months later (real time) when the characters learned of this costumed vigelante and had decided that his cause was a noble one. They (unprompted by my new character or the GM) decided to go help champion his cause. I asked the GM if he would mind if I played this "new character" since it looked like they were going to join him. He, of course, agreed. They never learned of his true identity until many sessions later when he was captured by the official and put on display as an example for all to see. When the GM described his unmasked appearance, the girl who had played the gnome proceeded to throw her dice down, storm over to me, and beat the crap out of me for some time. After she cooled off, we all had a good laugh about the whole thing. Once we explained to her the point of putting her through all that, she realized that she had more fun playing the character than just rolling dice and was a little proud of her progress, too.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Boyos December 14, 2009, 12:01:46 AM
now thats some good role playing. brovo.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: TigerStorm December 14, 2009, 12:15:50 AM
Thank you. I'm going to miss that group. Some real life stuff drove a wedge in an already diminishing group. I'm currently in the process of finding a new group upon which I can build future anecdotes.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Mckma December 27, 2009, 11:19:36 PM
So a pretty massive story consisting of two sessions of crazy Call of Cthluhu misadventures, misdeeds, and mishaps.  A note before I begin to help set the stage and explain some of the ridiculousness: this is a group that is fairly new to Call of Cthulhu, being only the second/third times they have all played and the second/third games I've run (I actually owe it to RPPR that we tried the system).  As to be expected with a group that is transitioning from high school to college (there is one member left who is a Senior in High School), there was a certain attitude of kick-in the door and kill the monsters that I was hoping people would be able to set aside for the game.  Still being a new Keeper/GM, I chose to run adventures out of Escape from Innsmouth (really liked Shadow Over Innsmouth as well as CoC: Dark Corners of the Earth), and for those familiar, I planned to run a quick intro with one of the adventure seeds then the Escape adventure and eventually the Raid.  Sorry it's a bit long, but it's important to understand some of the details here to get the ridiculous logic and chaos that happens later.  Alright here goes...

Heads Up: Probably contains spoilers for the Escape from Innsmouth adventure/Shadow Over Innsmouth story, so if you care, you've been warned

Brotherly Love
This was the plot hook (set in Arkham) that I decided to run for what I was intending to be a short segment in which the characters got a feel for some of the weird stuff around Innsmouth (i.e. fishmen) before they played the two main adventures, the Escape and Raid.  The idea is that a 8 year old was killed by a Deep One that was sent by another 8 year old classmate.  It turns out that the classmate is a hybrid whose brothers has changed into a Deep One.  This should have been a pretty simple investigation where they briefly stop in Innsmouth to find some weird stuff going down.  The characters were, Boba Dog Fett the Bounty Hunter, a Private Investigator who was originally going to be a Russian Peasant and was never named, and a Turkish Spy whose name escapes me at the moment.

The characters took a bit of directing and leading, but eventually started on their way investigating.  After talking to a few people and practically accusing everyone he met, Boba eventually found his way to the 8 year old hybrid's residence and began talking to him while a woman relative stood behind him.  Well, my first clue that things were going to take a turn for the "interesting" (not counting the names as we usually choose pretty nonsense names and general lack of serious play) was when Boba asked "How much does this kid weigh?  About?"  I thought for a minute and responded, estimating 80-90 pounds as that is what his character would be able to guess.  "Okay, I grab him."  I looked at him and he said he was serious, he was going to grab the kid and make a run for it.  I reminded him that this was CoC and not DnD, and there were police and the like and just grabbing a random kid (at the point he only knew that the kid had fought with the dead boy a few days before) may not be the best idea.  He insisted he still wanted to do it, so we looked up the rules for grappling and Boba grabbed the kid.  In response the woman grabbed him and we had opposed strength checks.  I gave her a strength of 10 as it seemed reasonable off the top of my head, giving Boba about a 85% chance to win and take the kid.  He failed.  Naturally she slams the door and calls the police.  I thought this would serve as a pretty good lesson that they can't just do whatever they want and figured it would add some flavor as he would either have to talk his way out, serve some time, or hide from the law.  No, Boba decides to up the ante and asks how long it will take the cops.  Hearing a response time of a few minutes he declares he is going to break into the house and take another shot at it.  Finding the door firmly locked through a short series of questions, decides to shoot the window next to the door and climb through there.  Having a pistol skill of 99, it was hard to argue his ability to do so and he enters the house.  He looks around for the kid, and only finds the woman.  Luckily he decides to knock her out rather than just shoot her and so we look up the knock out rolls and suceeds.  He then searches the house, tearing it apart and finds the kid, grabbles him and knocks him out.

At this point I decide the cops should arrive and Boba quickly runs out the backdoor towards the marsh/bog that is nearby.  Not wanting to lose his prize, but also realizing he can't just walk through town with him, he decides to look for a place to hide the kid in the marsh and uses his belt to hog tie the 8 year old so that he will stay put until Boba could return that night (it was about 5-ish by the way).  At this point I really wasn't sure what to do anymore and figured it would take the police a while to put things together and look for Boba (although he had already given them some help as he and another PC had been harrassing the coroner who didn't know anything about the murder), so he was able to hide out at his office for a while.  In the middle of the night, he returned to the spot to find the kid gone and webbed footprints in the mud, and decided to flee the town and head to Innsmouth, telling the others to follow in the morning.  He ended up sleeping in his car outside of Innsmouth all night and drove to a nearby city in the morning to report that he had abducted the kid, but when he returned that night, he couldn't find him.

The next day they went to investigate the old house of the hybrid's family, and, foolishly, I decided to add some flavor that was suggested in the book, and made Boba and the Turkish Spy make listen checks (the PI was still back in the previous town as he had decided to sleep in for some reason and thus got a late start).  They succeeded and heard some noises from inside a boarded up house (a Deep One was inside).  Boba, used to DnD and not CoC decided that it was time to kick in the door and fight the monster.  He was alone in this thought and began tearing off boards while the Turkish Spy went on to check out the hybrid's house.  Boba had pulled off all the boards on the door by the time that the Spy had returned after gathering information.  The Spy tried to convince Boba to leave well enough alone as they had found some interesting evidence in the old house, and didn't need to chase after strange things (the player was metagaming a bit I think as he had read the story before, but I didn't care as I didn't really want them to fight the Deep One as it wasn't really supposed to be fought at that point).  Long story short after a lot of stubbornness, the Spy agreed to check out the house.  The entered, found webbed footprints and proceeded to look around, eventually opening the door to the basement to be ambushed by the hiding Deep One.  They dispatched it fairly easily and about that time the PI arrived and they (being naive) decided the authorities should be notified and shoved the 7 foot tall creature into the back seat of the PI's Model T.  The Spy (once again probably metagaming a bit) decided, "I'll go check out the library, you can go talk to the police."  So the did.  As those of you familiar with the story would guess, the hybrid fishmen police were none too happy to find that some "outsiders" had killed a Deep One and were now seeking praise.  I dropped the players a hint when I let the roll idea rolls to notice some of the "fishy" characteristics of the Innsmouth residents, albeit a bit late.  This had all completely deviated from my original plan.  Not being particularly familiar with CoC or improvising in general, I pulled from what I already had seen/played in Innsmouth and had the constable convince the PCs to stay in the Gillman House.  This was because Boba had fast-talked his way into pretending to be a biologist that should examine the corpse of the Deep One (really he wanted to take it back to the previous town to show what had killed the kid) and the constable said he could do it in the morning.  Boba and the PI were suspicious, but went with it.  The Spy decided to spend the night in the abandoned house that they had investigated and left a note for the other two PCs with where he would be.

That night the PCs were attacked and forced to flee the city (not before using a stick of dynamite to blow a chunk out of the Gillman House first), and long story short, Boba and the PI were capture and thrown in jail as I figured it would add some incentive to the "Escape" portion in which they would be rescuing another person who had run afoul of the fishmen of Innsmouth...


Escape from Innsmouth
The Spy managed to sneak out of the town and make it back to Arkham were he was able to patch up things with the coroner and accomplish a few plot related things.  Not to bore with the details (they were pretty focused for a while), the important thing to note was the two replacement characters that came in: Jango Fett and his unnamed Chinese Criminal Manservant/Driver.  The eventually discovered that the character they were looking for, Brian Burnham, had been kidnapped by the Innsmouthers and was being held in the jail as well as most of the story of what was going on with Innsmouth, without much trouble we ended the session with the characters thinking about how they would get Brian out of jail.


So yeah, that's that, I'll write the second half of the story so far (my session from earlier today) after I take a bit of a break.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Maze December 28, 2009, 11:08:20 AM
That is truly awesome. Sometimes player logic might not create the best of games, but it sure makes for interesting stories to tell afterwards.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Mckma December 28, 2009, 11:51:02 AM
That is truly awesome. Sometimes player logic might not create the best of games, but it sure makes for interesting stories to tell afterwards.

Oh, definitely that's what I was thinking the whole time (and the reason why I let it keep going).  The second session was much more disastrous but much more humorous.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Maze December 28, 2009, 02:02:15 PM
I've personally had more troubles coming up with anecdotes nowadays. Gone are the days of crystal mountains and psychotic bastards wanting to blow up a gas station "just in case" and deciding the police officer is a power player.

Oh wait, no they're not. I've still got a player like that with whom I need to keep a short leash for fear of him ruining the game for everyone. Speaking of leashes, let me start by telling you he's a D&D player at heart. The first thing he buys when he makes a character in D&D is a rope, because "you'll never know when you need a rope." True, can't argue with that logic. What logic I can argue with is: "I'll go through unspeakable shit to get it, I'd even kill people, because we might need that rope."

Let me put it in context in the most simplest way possible: Apocalyptic wasteland in 2440, they've just lost their jeep and a fellow team member in a huge lake of acidic toxic water by trying to cross it. The lake submerged half of a medium-sized city and only the skyscrapers stood out of the water. They've discovered people living there, peculiar people. This place, called "City of the birds" or "City in the sky", was run by priests worshiping as god, a huge-ass bird called Vulture. Vulture was a mix of hawk, crow and lappet-faced vulture with a 25 meter wingspan. Oh, and it had an offspring. The offspring called "Babbys", was a conglomeration of bird heads, wings and feets that grew 2 1/2 meter high. Unable to pretty much do anything, the priests had to constantly feed it to keep it content or else Vulture might get agitated. So, the 11 priests had bird costumes, harpoon guns and would travel from one skyscraper to another by zip lines and hunt for birds. The rest of the population of the city we're living on the lower levels, forbidden to leave or climb up for which the punishment was being harpooned in the back of the head. They lived about 40 per building (all on the same floor) and their job was to hunt bugs with their hands, they would then travel by ways of rope bridge to a central skyscraper where they would fill buckets, lift them up with any of the four system of pulley in exchange for birds to eat. Those people were mostly all sick and underfed but prisoners.

When the players happened to stumble upon this place with only two barrels of provision, I had no idea what they would do. Their characters were not superheroes, or even do-gooders. Just people trying to survive to a harsh place.

So after talking to the inhabitants, one of the player, whose character name was "A.T." told the others to wait for him and went straight for the system of pulleys. When he tried to climb up the rope, it offended everyone around and they try to pull him down as best as they could with their weak arms. Failing to do that, they entangled him up and pulled him up as a sacrifice. When he arrived up, he came face-to-face with a priest that found their behavior "unacceptable" and told him so. They trespassed and came to their holy land without having been called upon, it's "unacceptable". He tried to bargain the fresh water and fish he had brought in barrels in exchange for rope. "No," the priest responded, "It's unacceptable! You will trade food in exchange for forgiveness and then leave." He threatened them. "It's innaceptable! Vulture-help-you, you shall be sacrificed to Babbys for your impudence!" So he jumped back down the line, started kicking and punching in the crowd. The other players came to help. A.T. decided to cut the rope, and jump in the water with it. The people start throwing rocks at him but with the luck of the dice, they escaped.

I should've killed him.

Since then, the other players didn't let him speak or interact with anyone important ever again. There was a time where they were negotiating over the radio with some barons that were asking for a tax for them to drink water from their lake (hint-hint). The character had to speak on the radio and cut the mike immediately after because A.T. would be like saying unspeakable things. I love how players react to being bullied by some bigger organization. Even though it's just a tax that they're not paying themselves (it was deers hunted by the people of a village they were in)
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Mckma December 28, 2009, 04:13:22 PM
Part two of my Call of Cthluhu story, this all happened yesterday, which was a week after the original session.  I thought that the previous session would have taught some lessons or at least helped, but as you'll see, it didn't.  At all.


Escape from Innsmouth Part 2
The PCs, Jango, his Manservant, and the Spy had just discovered a diary which had a combination to the safe which Brian, the guy they were trying to find, had tried to open before he was taken by the Innsmouth residents and imprisoned.  They head to the safe and find a fortune hunting Mercenary there trying to open the safe (another PC played by a player who had joined that session).  The Spy shoves the Mercenary out of the way, opens the safe and grabs the Book of Dagon and everyone heads off to the jail to bust out Brian.  The reason I mention it was because how funny I always found the "you look trustworthy" method of recruiting other PCs.  In this case, that was completely skipped over and PC hive mind was employed ("Hey there, you already know everything we know, let's go").  It wasn't worth arguing, so they arrive at the jail.  They pull out their guns and get ready to kick in the doors and start shooting.  I remind them that they can't really justify killing officials to bust someone out of jail.  After talking to them for a while, they decide to go around back and realize, "Hey, we could pop out these grates and get the prisoners out."  They also find the two characters that they had previously lost in Innsmouth in another cell.  They spend about ten minutes arguing on a plan that, knowing the Innsmouth residents, wouldn't really work, but I certainly wasn't going to say anything at this point as I had found it quite amusing.  Here was the plan:

The PCs gathered all of the dynamite they happened to have between them, 8 sticks (I think that only two characters explicitly said they had dynamite before then, and I had to argue everyone down to only carrying two sticks, but whatever), and gave them to Jango who strapped seven to his chest and put one in his pocket.  He was then going to run around and pull the suicide bomber feint in order to distract the police so the others could get Brian out (they decided to leave behind the other two PCs as they weren't important, despite Jango's main character motivation being to save his son, one of the PCs).  That was the plan, and failing to plan more than that lead to the following events:

Jango runs around to the front and says, "Okay I have my gun in one hand and the detonator in the other."  I ask him what detonator he is talking about and then inform him that there would be no way that they would actually have a detonator between them.  He improvises and pulls out a lighter which he holds near, but not near enough to accidentally light, one of the sticks of dynamite.  He runs in and says, "I start yelling a mix of German and English, but enough English so they know what I want," (he was a German bounty hunter).  I tell him to make a language check, to which he responds "I don't have that, but I'm from Germany," and I tell him to roll a language check for English then.  He decides to just yell in English with a German accent.  I ask him what he is yelling and he says just to distract them and stuff.  "Yes, but what exactly are you saying/asking/demanding?" I ask, and eventually, after a puzzled look get a, "I tell them to drop their weapons."  At this point he asks the other players if they are going to pop the grate, to which I tell them to make listen checks.  They all fail.  I tell them that they don't know that Jango has started and therefore can't be sure the constables are distracted.  Jango, meanwhile notices that the two constables (hereafter, Smart and Stupid, as one was a buff fishman who was less than intelligent) exchange a look and then draw guns.  Jango makes a failed shot as he starts running (realizing that nothing was happening that he had expected), but gets shot twice in the back.  This all happened quickly and the player gets mad remembering that there were three more people in the jail who could have told the PCs, demands they get listen checks.  I thought it was legit, and didn't really want to have to kill Jango so they rolled and succeed and we rework the last 20 seconds or so.  They get Brian out and Jango is able to run out and duck into an alley next to the station.

Here's the situation: All of the player's current PCs are in a car with Brian (who immeadiately insists they go get his girlfriend and out of town) and drive to a street north of the police station and about a block away, except for Jango who is hiding in the alley next to the police station.  The two constables (hybrid Deep Ones, if you didn't know) run out of the station and split, going in opposite directions.  The Smart One fails to spot Jango and runs down the street popping onto the street the car is waiting on, two buildings down the street.  Jango claims they had decided where to meet up when they made the plan and says he runs there.  He is running down an alley, and can see the car, when the Stupid One (who had doubled back and run around the other side of the police stations) shoots at him from behind, missing.  This is happening at the same time that the PCs in the car see the Smart One come around the corner ahead.  Jango's Chinese Criminal/Manservant/Driver sees this and decides to run the Smart One down.  There is a lot of arguing as the player playing Jango realizes that he won't be able to get in the car then and all his character would see was the car pulling away, presumably ditching him.  After heated discussion I remind them that it is the Manservant's decision, and to think about what his character would do.  He decides to run the guy down (which myself and the Spy thought was while not the best decision was reasonable), much to the anger and outrage of two of the players.  So Jango sees the car pull off and decides he'll pop around the corner and shoot the Stupid One point blank.  We look up point blank rules and finds it double hit range.  He gets annoyed as he had 99 pistol skill to begin with.  I had already decided, out of personal interest that the Stupid One would pick up a 2x4 since he had a 2x4 skill listed and it statistically did more damage (and had better hit chance) than his gun.  He comes around corner, and gets shot by Jango.  He swings the 2x4 and hits Jango for 7 damage, reducing him to 7 HP.  Jango shoots twice more the next round while the Spy says he is going to get out and go help Jango to which everyone else tells him not to and they'll just turn the car around and pick up Jango.  Figuring that the Model-T would not be too maneuverable, I say it will take two rounds to get back.  The Stupid one swings again, impales and hits Jango for 19 damage.  This gets Jango angry and he gets mad at the Manservant who he insisted he had told to wait for him and that it was all his fault he died.  There's general yelling and various things and eventually they decide to break out the other two PCs since they killed the two constables.  Here's where things get good:

They succeed and Boba goes to retrieve weapons from his father's corpse (which he knows is there for some reason), and the Mercenary walks with him.  Boba's player eventually convinces the Mercenary's player to tell him what happened so he will have justification to kill the Manservant (which he said he was going to do as soon as Jango died).  The Mercenary tells him that the Manservant had been a moron and pulled off before Jango could get in, resulting in his death (which wasn't entirely true as Jango could have run down and gotten in the car).  The PI (the first character from the guy who played the Manservant) got in the car and the Manservant pulled the car out to the street to wait for everyone to get in so they could head off.  Brian, sick of everything and having to wait to get his girlfriend, runs off to get her.  The PCs don't care at this point (even though he was the person they were supposed to be investigating and eventually rescuing), and he leaves, presumably to get killed.  The Spy, who realizes Boba's intent doesn't get in the car and walks up to the street behind.  They are all standing on the street when Boba walks to the passenger side, and shoots the Manservent.  He isn't killed and hits the gas, driving off with the getaway car.  At this point the player playing the Mercenary had to leave and turned his character over to Boba's player, letting him know that his character was pissed enough now to kill the Manservant.  So the Mercenary and Boba start shooting at the fleeing car.  The Manservant's player and the player of Boba/Jango start arguing at the table, talking about who's actions were justified in what situations (talking about leaving Jango, shooting the Manservent, etc.).  It is now the Spy's turn, and sick of the absolute mental breakdown that is happening in the street of the hostile town, tells me, "I'm dropping my last grenade and running."  This was very amusing to me, as with all of the arguing at the table, I was the only one who heard his action.  I move to next person and the Mercenary and Boba take more shots at the car before it goes out of range.  I then tell the players that the grenade goes off and the Spy rolls damage, killing both the Mercenary and Boba.  Boba's player is really annoyed now and demands to know what grenade and claims, "I didn't know about it, I would have done something."  "Exactly," I said, "you were too busy trying to kill the Manservant and shooting at his car you failed to notice the grenade dropped behind you."

There were several points at which I thought about adding some fishmen to try and help them team up again, but then I realized that the players were doing just fine killing themselves...
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Boyos January 01, 2010, 01:04:45 AM
Player Logic FTW!

Great job with the nade!
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe January 02, 2010, 03:11:43 PM
That is a pretty epic clusterfuck.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Mckma January 15, 2010, 10:27:05 PM
A couple good moments from the Savage Worlds session I played today, essentially we are playing a postapocalyptic game based on Fallout 3.  The characters themselves are pretty interesting:

Essentially, the greatest parts of the session where:

We were about to enter a building that was clearly haunted and the Amish character took a moment to ask Father James William to bless some water which he would then dip his hands in to cleanse them.  The player playing Father James holds up his hands as if holding a shotgun pointed in the air, pantomimes pumping it (complete with sounds), and says, "Consider yourself blessed."  (Not quite as great without the voice he used, but it stopped the game for about a minute as we broke out laughing at such a crazy statement).

My character modified an energy shield in order to put a forcefield on the trashy car we found that we have been slowly fixing up and modifying (currently it is crammed full with all of the stuff I've found, and has a turret mounted on top, the two energy turrets we pulled off of a downed helicopter, and the various bits of armor plating we have scavenged).

We had a chance to modify our characters as we were entering a new section, and in order to explain this, the muscleman was killed and resurrected as a zombie.  Because we had just essentially seen hell rise up before us (it's a little weird yeah), the GM wanted to make sure that we knew the characters resurrection was from good (it used up a point of Karma I had recently earned).  So an angel comes down and pulls the character up and back to life.  The first thing the character (whose delusion was being in videogames) says, "I told you guys I had three lives.  Oh hey, Pit."
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: TigerStorm January 19, 2010, 11:35:54 PM
So, while listening to the last podcast and hearing Ross, Tom, Cody, and Aaron talk about their first time GM'ing, it got me to thinking... I'm sure a lot of people have interesting stories about their first experience as a GM.

Anyone want to share?
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Dawnsteel January 19, 2010, 11:51:26 PM
I've said before that I'm not a very good GM.

This goes back to high school, so we're talking eighteen to twenty years ago.  We're playing 2nd edition AD&D, and I'd chosen a desert/jungle/tropical islands kind of setting.  I started the party off at 5th level, because I wanted the casters to have a small arsenal, rather than just the one magic missile or cure light wounds spell.  Anyhow.  I gave them almost everything they asked for, gear-wise: magic weapons, armor, cool stuff like that.
And then, during the third encounter (the second planned encounter, but I gave them a random one for the hell of it), they fought a priestess of a decay god and some of her minions.  She had a spell called Rend (actually I think it was a wand) and I broke all their stuff with it.
And the party cleric had hurled some sacrilegious insult at her, so after she broke his armor, she used the wand again to disintegrate his clothing.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Mckma January 20, 2010, 12:54:58 AM
I feel a bit ashamed to admit this, but my first time GMing I had a deus ex machina in the form of 30th level dwarf Fighter/Dwarven Defender leap off of the mounts they were flying on to take down a dragon that attacked the party...

In retro-retrospect I have decided it may not have been so bad since it was planned and should have been right at the beginning and the only reason I had the dwarf was because I wanted to make a 30th level character...

But still, I think that was one of the factors that lead us to stop playing that campaign (I think we ran three sessions before we got bored).  On the bright side, I was GMing for a new player who really enjoyed it because he was obsessed with the spiked chain he picked, and kept rolling really well.

I also need to send an e-mail with a condensed version of my CoC anecdote should the podcast overlords decide they might use it...
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama January 20, 2010, 02:41:43 PM
My first time GMing was while I was in high school and it was with mostly new players. I'd played a character in Dungeons and Dragons for three sessions, my first time playing, and that group basically fell apart.

So, I went out and bought some pre-made adventures, Forge of Fury and Speaker in Dreams if anybody remembers them, and started my own group. I got my two younger brothers and two younger friends so we had a mix of junior high and high school players. Only one player had played 3rd Edition before and he'd been in the first group along with me.

We started out well with the players all playing good characters except the rogue who was 'chaotic neutral'. Pre-made held together well and we got through three sessions with only one really tense player vs GM moment involving 3d6 Constitution damage from yellow mold.

Characters had developement but the central plot was very loose. The players always jumped for the plot hooks and did as I asked without me having to force them into anything. We changed out players as people came or went but the game somehow maintained a focus and the players who came to each session where fairly into the game world.

My youngest brother, who played from the first game all the way to the end, the only player do so, and to this day remembers it as the best campaign ever.

So, over all, a very positive first time DMing.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P February 16, 2010, 06:12:55 PM
After discovering the amazingness that is RPPR I started listening to episode 37 or so and continued

from there, after Tom's letter about how anyone who just came in now was not going to get a prize and

being verbally abused into going back and checking out the older episodes I also branched out into

the actual plays. I listened to the Divine Fire Play test 2 and I knew then I wanted to try playing a Call

of Cthulu game.

So I found some books and got the King of Chicago premade. I told everyone I game with, "I am running a

small scenario for CoC and I am only allowing 4 people to play." That sentence was met with a bunch of
"Eh" and "Ok...." One of my friends however was completely into the idea, he convinced 2 of the other

guys to play by telling them about how great Lovecraft is and that it would be a nice change of pace

from 3.5 D&D. Well I was at 3 and that was good enough for me, until my room mate wanted in and one of

the players brought their brother. I was past my target number and I was feeling a little overwhelmed

but decided not to say anything. We had a friend of mine who is a theatre actor who wanted to play

because I told him Role-playing would help his improv skills, so with a whopping 6 people we began.

It didn't take long for this epic clusterfuck to hit the fan, they made it to the end of the

adventure(without any information they needed to actually be effective) they stumbled upon the parking

lot that the evil monster lived under, so after I prayed that they would fail the search required to

find the secret tunnel I was forced to follow through with the conclusion of the adventure.

Upon entrance to the room the creature whips up a wind storm to put out the lights they are carrying.

This wind power says it does 1d20 Damage to every person within range.

All of them were within range. I read the passage carefully while they sat asking what they see.
I looked up closed the laptop I was using, grabbed my d20 out of the box and rolled. A 12 was all that

was need to kill even the beefiest among them. I rolled a 17.

Everyone sat there quiet for a while until one of the guys said, "You guys I think we premised too

hard."
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: IDaMan008 February 16, 2010, 08:48:56 PM
LOL, great story, Flawless! I wish I could have seen their faces. CoC can be a pretty difficult system to adjust to if you're used to playing an adventuring game like D&D. Like Tom, I sort of favor a more action-oriented Keeper style, so I usually allow my Investigators to find / carry around some ridiculous hardware for the purposes of killing terrible shit. I think they got too used to it, because when another friend of ours ran a CoC story that had more of a classic Lovecraftian feel to it, things ended in a TPK. I'm currently working on writing a scenario about Deep Ones infiltrating a southern prison farm, which I plan to be more of a Lovecraftian horror / mystery story that ends in a confrontation with the unspeakable, which'll hopefully throw my players for a loop.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Boyos February 16, 2010, 09:00:02 PM
That's some hella wind damage.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Kroack February 16, 2010, 09:00:17 PM
Yeah I got the same problem with my group. Any CoC game I run has to be very pulpy. More like Indiana Jones with terrible monsters instead of Lovecraftian horrors that will kill you.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe February 16, 2010, 09:24:54 PM
Bah you should have let each player roll their own damage but don't tell them what they are rolling for until all have rolled. That would have been more fun. The real acid test is if the players want to play CoC again after that. Do they?
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P February 16, 2010, 11:03:09 PM
Bah you should have let each player roll their own damage but don't tell them what they are rolling for until all have rolled. That would have been more fun. The real acid test is if the players want to play CoC again after that. Do they?

Actually yes all 6 of them.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Boyos February 17, 2010, 12:31:17 AM
Im pretty sure if I ran a TPK CoC game my buddies would want to play it again to see if they could beat it. Prob 2 or 3 times haha!
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Salrantol February 19, 2010, 05:33:10 PM
One of the better games I've run was an oWoD game billed as a knock-off of Buffy: the Vampire Slayer, where the PCs would be a bunch of teenagers latching on to a vampire hunting classmate.  Said vampire hunter was actually a super-hyped-up generations-bred super-ghoul used to fight rival vampires--developed by a Toreador master of the art of breeding.  The story, which eventually involved the vampirism of nearly every PC, centered around three of the PCs forming a band, which won a local battle of the bands against their rival band (one of the PCs had a flaw to that effect).  Said band then went on a tour, allowing us to explore exotic locales outside their small town.  The final destination of the tour was near their sound tech's hometown, out of which, according to the character's background, his family had been driven by the Technocracy after they were found out as Sorcerers.

So, of course, the character decides to visit his family's home, which is occupied by a team of Hyper-Intelligence Technology androids of various kinds.  I dropped lots of very-much-not-subtle hints that he probably didn't want to be here (what with his backstory indicating that everyone here wanted him dead and all), but eventually he and the band's vocalist found themselves in one of the towers (yes, his family's house had towers) where the HITMarks had put in a minigun for defense of what had become a regional headquarters of sorts.  He prodded the guard (you know, the one manning the minigun) about the fate of his beloved sister.  When he didn't like the response, he proceeded to attack the guard (you know, the one manning the minigun).  I gave him an obligatory roll and informed him he was reduced to a puddle of so much goo.  The guy who had accompanied him up asked for a retcon, offering to shove him out of the way.  He rolled exceptionally, so I allowed it.  Of course, the enraged PC proceeded to squander his opportunity to exit the premesis alive, again attacking the guard (you know, the one manning the minigun, who had just, pre-retcon, reduced him to so much goo), and again being liquified.

At the next concert, the band had their best performance ever with their new song "Uriel's Dirge," Uriel being the surname of their very dead sound tech.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: IDaMan008 March 12, 2010, 02:53:24 AM
I'm feeling a bit nostalgic tonight, so I figured I'd share this little tale from my early days of GMing. I'd been running games successfully for about a year at the time this story went down, but so far, none of them had lived up to the expectations I'd had for them when I planned them out. It was early 2001, and I had started an oWoD Mage chronicle that revolved around the establishment of the Virtual Adepts as part of the Council of Nine in the early 1960s. Most of the characters were playing renegade Difference Engineers who took to the roads to avoid being killed in the Technocracy pogrom while their application for admittance was stymied in the byzantine machinations of Council politics. I managed to cook up some pretty interesting encounters with the Men in Black, but the story didn't really hit its stride until I decided to bring a new big bad onto the scene: a twisted Nephandic cult leader and time mage bent on summoning his demonic master to Earth. The session in which I introduced him has always stuck out in my mind as the first game in that cycle that really worked, the point where the story crested the first hill and became a roller-coaster ride, and it will always be one of my favorite games that I've ever run.

Part of this was due to the details that I put into the planning. The villain was based off of a serial murderer from the 19th century, Dr. H. H. Holmes, who would lure his victims into his home and then torture them to death in various nasty ways. I spent hours mapping out my version of his mansion, a four-story maze with deadly traps and horrific scenes to be explored. I also took great care in my descriptions of his mannerisms, so that I would be able to play him as I imagined him: a charismatic charmer who could turn into a raving maniac at the drop of a hat. I also decided to warn the players in advance that they would be playing for their characters' lives, thereby waiving a tacit agreement in our group that a GM would do anything possible to avoid an unexpected character death.

Another element that largely made the game was the setting in which we played. I had recently purchased an eight-person tent to serve as a portable roleplaying arena when our parents didn't want us in the house, and we would often host all-night Mage parties using it as the venue. On the night we played this game, there was a terrible thunderstorm raging around us as we played, and I narrated the entire game by the glow of a single press-light positioned at the center of the tent. It threw off a faint florescence that was barely enough to read by, but set the mood perfectly.

In any case, the most suspenseful scene came when one of the characters, a happy-go-lucky VA named Steve O'Riley, discovered the murderer's secret basement torture room. Being a small man, Steve was the only character able to crawl through the secret passageway that led through the killer's furnace, and into the hidden rooms on the other side. Everyone else in the party listened as I described the foundations made of human skulls, the trinkets made from preserved body parts, and the perverse instruments of torture that littered the room. He also discovered a man being kept alive by magick who was stapled to the wall in three places, with large metal brackets wrapped around his spine and driven into a support beam behind him. The effect of the scene was so profound that Steve's player decided that he should have post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the experience, and completely changed his upbeat portrayal of the character.

I've run many other games since then that I would consider more successful, more dramatic, or more fun, but this was the first one that really clicked for me as a GM. It was an awesome feeling to run that game, one that I'll never forget.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P March 13, 2010, 04:53:23 AM
Hey all its good to be back, I've been extremely sick lately...

Either way I was thinking back on my gaming experiences and I decided to throw my hat in for bearing witness to the worlds shortest campaign.

So it was about 3 am and I was over at my friend Joe's place with our mutual friend Glenn, this was before I had played much D&D and long before I had tried any other systems. We were talking about all the different game systems there were out there and how my buddy glenn owned a copy of Vampire the Masquerade. I had played to the old computer game of VtM Redemption so the PnP interested me. As soon as the conversation turned to VtM my friend Joe got up and ran to his room, he came out flailing a piece of paper that he proudly proclaimed as his character sheet for back when he used to play Vampire. This in and of itself was funny enough to send us into a fit of laughter watching this 350 pound 6 ft man moving so quickly easily had us hysterical, then he described how his character was a ninja assassin babe with a katana who could cut through anything and we laughed harder.

Then he continuously suggested we play, to which my friend glenn said no, I do have an Idea for a story but its damn near 4 am and I don't want to teach Mat(me) to make a character maybe we can play next weekend.

This was not enough to satisfy Joe however who "Had to play like right now" So he pestered Glenn for another 20 minutes until he finally yelled "FINE!"

Joe got real quiet and said alright so whats the scenario.

Glenn looked at him very seriously and said "Your a vampire, you in the middle of the street, it's day what do you do?"

Joe frantically responds with "Um um um..."

"Your Dead" Glenn interrupts.

I laughed so hard I almost passed out and that my friends is....
The Shortest game ever or Why you shouldn't pester a tired GM.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: IDaMan008 March 14, 2010, 03:02:56 AM
This was not enough to satisfy Joe however who "Had to play like right now" So he pestered Glenn for another 20 minutes until he finally yelled "FINE!"

Joe got real quiet and said alright so whats the scenario.

Glenn looked at him very seriously and said "Your a vampire, you in the middle of the street, it's day what do you do?"

Joe frantically responds with "Um um um..."

"Your Dead" Glenn interrupts.

I laughed so hard I almost passed out and that my friends is....
The Shortest game ever or Why you shouldn't pester a tired GM.

LOL!

We also would have accepted, "Your character wakes up to find himself in a rapidly degrading orbit around the Earth without the protection of a space suit. What do you do?"
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Kroack April 01, 2010, 09:15:34 PM
Small anecdote. Tonight I ran a D&D scenario where an evil spider monster has created a cult surrounding him that snatches local villagers for food. Anyways, when one of my players found out how gruesome the deaths of the villagers were, he role-played his paladin so well it almost brought tears to my eyes. Here's this combat centric player who hardly ever role-plays actually getting into the shoes of his character. It was just nice to see him becoming a better gamer.     
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe April 01, 2010, 09:53:30 PM
What did he do actually?
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Mckma April 01, 2010, 10:03:22 PM
What did he do actually?

He fell to his knees, clenched his fists, looked to the heavens, and at the top of his voice yelled, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Setherick April 01, 2010, 10:05:32 PM
What did he do actually?

He fell to his knees, clenched his fists, looked to the heavens, and at the top of his voice yelled, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

In game or IRL?
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Kroack April 01, 2010, 10:39:21 PM
What did he do actually?

He held a mass burial basically. He spoke out against the insidious spider creature and avenged their deaths. The absolute sincerity of his actions was what moved me. Also, the fact that he's a kick down the door type player and willing to play a role was awesome.   
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Kroack April 11, 2010, 04:33:41 PM
Last night I played in a 1st edition d&d game. I had never played 1st ed and none of us were quite sure about some of the rules. However, we all made the best of it and it might have been one of the best games I have ever played in.

My character was a morally ambiguous private investigator type who wanted to uphold law and order. I based his character off a combination of Rorschach and the Pinkerton Detective agency with a medieval plague doctor's outfit.

The most memorable moment from the game was chasing a werewolf to a remote inn, managing to capture him after entering, and basically torturing him to get the whereabouts of an orc army nearby. Silver Fork Torture FTW.             
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Ulf April 16, 2010, 04:08:12 PM
I wanted to share one of my favorite terrible-game anecdotes here, but it would have been a ridiculously gigantic wall of text.

So here's a little taste of it. If you want to read the rest, there's a link down below this excerpt.

The Dungeon of Shame, or How I Learned To Stop Trusting My Players To Take Over As DM.

OK, so, many moons ago my good friend AJ decides that he wants a turn at DM'ing for our D&D 3.5 group. Now, let me preface the rant that follows by saying that AJ is a great guy, and I've got nothing bad to say about him. But, letting this good friend of ours behind the DM's screen turned out to be a lot like letting a lovable 6-year old behind the wheel of a semi truck, barreling through a crowded shopping mall at 70 miles an hour. Bad shit happening was the only possible outcome, and it was bound to end in tears.

So, the set-up for the game:   AJ says he wants to run in the Forgotten Realms setting, and he wants us all to play something we've always had our eye on, but other DMs wouldn't let us play. He tells us to cut loose. Anything officially published by WOTC is fair game. This is the first sign of trouble. Savage Species books get pulled off shelves. Players start dusting off Books of Vile Darkness and Races of Faerun.

As a long-time DM, I can see the stormclouds on the horizon already, and there's not a tornado shelter in sight. I decide to try and do something to mitigate the madness. I play a human paladin. I figure if the inevitable freakshow party has a very vanilla moral center, maybe we'll survive long enough to follow the plot, right? I can help steer the party away from decisions that will totally derail the game, right?

Wrong. We end with the following gems:

-A wemic barbarian who was some kind of unstoppable ride-by-attacking combat juggernaut.

-A human paladin with a longsword and a shield. (me)

-Some sort of half-devil, platemail-wearing, tumble-skill-specializing greatsword-wielding fighter chick (this player quit after like two sessions, thus ironically proving she was the wisest of all of us).

-A half water-elemental pacifist cleric who fought with a great-club and who’s combat role was simply to go full defense and provide flanking opportunities, heal us and cast Bless every once in a while.

-A wizard from some race that I’ve never even heard of, that the player found in a poorly-translated D&D errata on a Belgian website or something. This character was kind of human, but also kind of made of shadows or darkness, or something…. I don’t fucking know. All I remember is that he tried to screw us out of any treasure we found, every single time we found any.

-And of course, it goes without saying, the timeless D&D classic; a monkey-man bard from some oriental setting book, who played a lute with his tail and feet and danced around on his hands, singing lyrics from bad 70s and 80s heavy-metal songs. Yes, he was Man-O-War Monkey Man….

So, you know, the classic party template. Tolkien would have been proud.

The Hook…. a Broadway classic, as it turns out.

Apparently we’re all in this desert together, thousands of miles from anywhere. And we’ve never met before. Wait, what? And we have no supplies of any kind.  And no reason for being there. It’s just, you know, fate or coincidence or something…. or maybe it’s…. what’s the word? Oh yeah. “Lazy, incompetent fucking DMing”. That was it.

Then a city appears. Yup. Just sort of materializes around us, right in front of our eyes. Poof! A giant city, stretching for hundreds of miles. And we’re standing in the middle of a big market. The PCs are all like “Hey, what the fuck? First I run into this bizarre menagerie of freakshow characters, and now a city appears out of nowhere?” But never fear, because an absolutely awesome rationale is coming for this series of events!

No there isn’t.

So, long story short, the very first thing that happens is that the party is summarily overpowered and imprisoned (for what crime is never made clear, but my paladin’s Detect Evil ability shows that no one here, not a single person, is evil, so clearly we must have been guilty, right? Guess we shouldn’t have been randomly walking around the interior of a vast fucking world-spanning desert without supplies, huh? We should have known the cops would show up….). This all happens completely off-camera, and we have no chance of avoiding or escaping this fate. And then we’re thrown into an arena, where the DM informs us that we’re expected to fight for our freedom.

Then he lets us know that the city only appears once every 500 years, and stays there for 24 hours, after which it vanishes into the mists of time once more. If we can win our freedom in that time, we can leave. To which my response is something like “You mean we’ve been captured by the cast of Brigadoon? Really? I sneak out during intermission!”.

Next comes the part where our DM introduces us to a dude he describes as “an NPC party member to help you guys out if you need it. You’ll love him. I worked really hard writing him up, and he’s a totally original character.”

Enter the NPC…. I shit you not, it was a dual scimitar-wielding drow with a heart of gold, with levels in sorceror and ranger, accompanied by a shadowy dog-cat-monster-thing that could turn into a little statue. His name was Rz’zitt’n. And oh yeah, he also wielded Spellfire, and was the chosen of Mielikki or some shit like that. He was also like 15th level, where the rest of us were level 4.

Continued in Part 2: The Dungeon…. or, Oh My Fucking God This Is Making My Brain Hurt.

Here's the link to the entire thing, posted on my blog, Dice-Speak:    The Dungeon of Shame (http://gamefusionstudio.wordpress.com/2010/04/16/the-carnival-of-shame-epic-failures-at-the-rpg-table/)
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama April 16, 2010, 05:32:12 PM

Ha! Good stuff. Well, bad stuff, but funny.

I want to put this pick of the story from later on in a box with the label: 3.5 is kinda like this sometimes:

We approach cautiously, and my paladin Detects Evil on the coffin. Nothing. I give the go-ahead to carefully crack the lid open. We do so, and before we can even complete that action, a Death Knight wielding a greatsword leaps up out of it like some kind of satanic jack-in-the-box and begins one-shot killing characters. Two party members down instantly. We panic, faced with some CR 10 or 11 monster that has DR 10/+2 or something equally ridiculous. We attack it, using up all my lay on hands to damage it, and all the cleric’s turn undead attempts too. Our weapons just bounce off this thing, and we eventually beat it by having the wemic tackle it into a corner and then taking its greatsword away. Without Improved Unarmed Strike, it can’t attack us without drawing attacks of opportunity, so we just dance backwards and hit it with its own sword, which seems to damage it just fine.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Ulf April 17, 2010, 03:12:02 AM
Here's one of my favorites, from a con game I played in back in like '95 or '96 or so.

We were playing Call of Cthulhu, with about 6 players. I'd played the game before, but not very often. Maybe three or four times. However, I'm a giant Lovecraft nerd and had read everything he'd written, more or less.

So the setup for the game was that the person whose character survived the longest, and lasted to the end of the session, would win some little convention prize. But that we'd have to work together to get through the first half of the session or so, before it would make sense to turn on each other.

So the scenario is that we're passengers on a fishing boat that gets washed up on a mysterious island in a storm. We need to survive until help arrives, and the only structure on the island is a spooky old mansion and it's surrounding out-buildings. On this little island, about 1 mile square.

So I hand the Keeper this note, and tell him this says everything about what my character is doing for the entire game. And every time my turn comes up, I just say "Read the note. That's my action."

Then the other characters start dying in gruesome Mythos fashion, one after another. But my character makes it to the end, and lives to see the rescue helicopter. The Keeper laughs, congratulates me on playing a very boring but very effective CoC hero, and I win the little scenario bonus. The other players start giving me the stink-eye and demand to see the note. Here's what it said:

"Dear Keeper,

Unless I say otherwise, my character does the following every round: I find the spot on the island that's the furthest away from the water, but also not in a building. I then curl up on the ground someplace hidden with my eyes closed and my fingers in my ears. Every so often I look around, and if I see any of the other PCs, I ignore them and do my best to remain hidden.

I know why people die in Call of Cthulhu."
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Kroack April 17, 2010, 01:19:06 PM
So you decided that you didn't want to have fun and win an imaginary game?
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Ulf April 17, 2010, 02:12:46 PM
So you decided that you didn't want to have fun and win an imaginary game?

No, not really. I'd been in like half a dozen games over the previous day and a half or so, and I was a little loopy from lack of sleep. I just thought of that solution and wanted to see if it would work. It was never about winning. I just explained that part of it so there'd be some context about why the other players were were giving me looks at the end.

If something had interacted with me or if the Keeper had had a monster find me, I would have played the situation out. And granted, the Keeper could have done that at any time he liked, but he didn't. The whole idea started out as kind of a joke, but then when it kept on working, I figured what the hell, keep doing it.

I just think it's funny that in a game as deadly as CoC, sometimes the best way to live through an "all you need to do is survive, there's no plot beyond that" style scenario is to make yourself as unobtrusive as possible. :)
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama April 21, 2010, 06:01:50 PM
Managed to kill the second character in our Shadowrun game. Same player but this time I wasn't directly responsible.

We're watching a compound filled with like thirty thugs and assorted hostages/servants/family members/etc. Nasty place. So, we want to break in and since I'm more or less in command of the team I say we have to do things quietly since I was tired of being shot at.

So we're outside at night waiting for a chance to present itself. We've got five people in a run down humvee. Just inside the gate one of the guards start beating the crap out of a woman.

I'm watching another part of the building on full optic zoom so I don't see it happening. Our hacker is playing videogames in the back seat so he doesn't see anything. Our street samurai sees it but doesn't care. Our rigger sees it and wants to do something but doesn't want to come out of hiding to do it. And finally, our mystical adept, who is astrally perceving, sees that the woman is recently Awakened and that a spirit of man is guarding the gate while spirit summoning energy is building up around the woman.

Our mage decides something needs to be done so rather than ask the group for help or inform us about the spirits or that the woman is awakened, so he starts to cast a spell. The rigger sees what he's doing and decides to stop him. Initative, rigger wins, the mage, then street samurai. Me and the hacker sit it out because we don't know what's happening.

The rigger floors it and tells the sammy to cause a distraction. Since the rigger locked the doors, the mage leaps out the window of the moving vehicle. He instantly wiffs his reaction test to land and hits an abandoned car at about twenty miles per hour. After armor he's got 8 out of his 10 physical damage boxes filled. Sammy casues a distraction by firing some grenades into a nearby abandoned car (not the one that the mage hit).

The guards come running out of the compound to see what's going on with the explosions. The rigger starts to turn the car around so we can try and grab the mage (we need him for the job so we can't let him get himself killed). The mage limps to his feet and goes "running" towards the compound. The guards clearly see him and shot him. He takes enough bullets to go from hurt to dying to dead in one round but uses Hand of God to survive.

Second character down in the game, same player, same style of character.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Dogfish April 27, 2010, 05:14:57 AM
I've ran games through skype several times now. However have only ever ran one game in person.

I was visiting a friend from High School that has, like me, gone to a university in a different city from the one we attended high school in. We had both in that past year (and for me a bit longer) got into roleplaying games. He had a group with a very odd dynamic where they all play 4th ed. and take turns running it with a massive number of player characters floating around. Having never actually role-played with him and having told him of my skype exploits (also games round a table as a player) he had passed the word on to his buddies. In the three days I had to spend with him we spent one evening running an RPG. To mix it up for them I ran Call of Cthulhu. A rough approximation of Tom's game, with my own personal take on things.

The cast.
A sniper, my bud.
A translator, their best role-player that had to leave early.
A radio/engineer guy, quiet person that failed every single sanity check.
A truck driver, initially wanted to be a sniper and being a staunch catholic had gotten the prayers from Saving Private Ryan (this is important).
A medic, a bit of a non-player.

Well the game went aslong as you'd expect, they got increasingly worried and were really digging the atmosphere. However I realised my buddy clearly couldn't find anything I was saying scary. So sanity points are loss, the game is building slowly to it's climax and I know I have to get to my buddy. He's sitting beside the guy with the prayers. Everyone makes a sanity check, most fail. I pass a piece of paper to the catholic guy to start reciting the prayer out loud (it made sense in game, shit had gotten real, thankfully had remembered he had them). So play resumes as everyone goes a bit nuts...around a minute later the guy breaks into the prayers during a high tension scene and doesn't stop despite everyones reactions to him.

My buddy practically jumped out his skin.

I had won.


I've got some anecdotes from the Eberron game I've been in for the past year or so. I played a paladin of the silver flame (still do) and had a ball routing out evil.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama April 30, 2010, 04:56:04 PM
Remember that guy I said got killed last time? He got better but then I killed him off for real, which means that we have two official deaths in the "party" and both are directly linked with me.

So, the player survived his encounter with a parked car and several bullets long enough for us to return to the hotel and hook him up to one of our portal medical stations (we have like five for just such situations). We also hooked up the hacker, who'd managed to take two in the chest and start bleeding out pretty quick.

The rest of us get some sleep and wait until the next evening, when the damned fool with the caved in head finally woke up. I asked him to explain why he'd jumped out of the car and it basically came down to him believing that the other party members would leave the NPC woman to be beaten so he had to help her.

So, I try to rationalize with the guy in character, the other party members discusse what embrassing thing we'll spread about the PC on the internet this time. In what I can only describe as a "fit of brilliance" the wounded PC, our only magic user, decides to cast a spell on all of us to get us onto his side. He massive overcasts, doubling his normal spellstrength to be sure he gets us (which wasn't even necessary, none of us where good at resisting magic). He succeeds and imposes happiness on all those present.

But now he has to resist "Drain", Shadowrun's spell balance mechanic. Since he overcast, he has to resist Physical Damage rather than Stun Damage. He does okay and cuts the damage in half. However, he neglected to take into consideration that he'd just recovered from a coma. The moment he's finished casting the spell he takes enough Physical Damage to not only drop him into unconsciousness again but to also fill his damage overflow boxes, which means he's dying. Again. So, basically, we have one round to save him (again) before he's gonna die from his fresh wounds.

That this happens in the space of one combat turn, about three seconds. We all suddenly feel really happy and then go back to normal when the mage passes out and can't sustain the spell.

So, I look to the only other character in the party besides the mage with the ability to sense magic and ask him what just happened. He says that the mage just cast a spell on us.

I make a quick mental recap of the mage's actions recently which largely consist of not being much good at magical stuff, making alot of newbie mistakes that make the group look bad, and diving out of a car turning a stealth mission into a live fire mission.

And I promptly order him executed.

We shoved his body under the motel mattress and went on our marry way, after placing a notice online expressing a desire to find a new magic user, Shadowrunning experience required.

The player has decided to make his next character a troll enforcer. We all agreed that was a good idea.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: VampireVladd June 30, 2010, 02:06:15 AM
   Well I decided it was time for me to put together a story for the podcast now that I have been going to the forums for a while, and tell you why I no longer play DnD. Dungeons and Dragons will always hold a place in my heart because for many years it was all I knew about role playing. I will never forget my first character, a minotaur mage for a Dragonlance Campaign, or my favorite character, nor my first world I created while DMing, a funny little planet that was way to big a task for a naive high school nerd to build. But out of all of my games I have ever played or ran, none will be as memorable, (or as scaring) as my seafaring adventure I made for my friends.
   As with most games it started as an idea based off of a movie.  Soon after Pirates of the Caribian came out, like most gamers, my group decided to make a pirate game. It took 4 months for me to draw up maps and find any net book I could for rules on how to run an ocean based game.    After months of planing we were into the game and everyone involved was having fun. There was one player who was my best friend and he decided on playing a neutral evil kobold sorcerer. We had many talks about this character and how he wanted to run a game where he would be the villain in the form of a lich and it would be awesome to cross the two games. It would be like my game was the prequel to an awesome campaign.
   It took 5 games before the players had requisitioned the ship I had designed for them and now they were on their way to starting the ocean part of the their adventure. The kobold had started to wreak havoc on the ship. He made it so bad for the players that eventually he ended up in the brig and stayed there a majority of the adventures. We had gotten a player playing a  paladin along the way who was letting the evil little sorcerer live as long as he was decent to the team and I mean he is a kobold, what harm could he do right?
   At the end of a hard fight the kobold tried to kill the paladin leading it to a quick fight that landed the kobold on the end of a long sword. Trying to be nice I offered my friend one Wish (from the god he worshiped) so he could wish to be a lich. Instead my friend, bitter about his character being killed, wished that everyone he had ever met was dead and in hell.
   I was stunned and didn't know what to do. Should I let the wish go through and be a mean GM or do I go through with it and let the players get out of it. I flipped through the DM's guide for advice and found an artifact that would make all my months of planing not be wasted. I resorted to the Deck of Many Things. I had done this before and the results were not good for the players, but this time the were in hell and mean what worse could happen.
   I stated that Asmodious was going to let the hero's try to get out by using the cards because he stood to gain their souls completely with the deck anyway. After I announce this my friend said "If you bring that damn deck in this game I will stab you in the eye."  I told him that I was the DM and I was going to do it besides it was his damn character that got them into this mess in the first place.
   He didn't like that answer. He leaped across the room with the ferociousness of a Dire Wolverine and jumped on top of me screaming "TAKE IT OUT! TAKE IT OUT!" With pencil just like he said. It took two of the bigger players to pull him off and restrain him during which I made my escape. (I was a little guy.)  I saw him 5 minuets later acting like nothing ever happened yet I could remember the pencil being inches from my right eye.
    Needless to say the game never continued from that point on. I do miss playing my RPG's and with all of my friends moving on I no longer have a group, but sometimes I am glad that I don't have to worry about running into someone as bat shit crazy as that.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Mckma June 30, 2010, 10:05:51 AM
Wow...

From the get go I could tell that wasn't going to go somewhere good, but then it kept getting worse and worse.  Certainly never would have guessed it got that far...
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Setherick June 30, 2010, 12:59:13 PM
Had someone done that at Ross' table, Tom and I might have thrown them through the sliding glass door that Ross always sat in front of.  ;)
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama June 30, 2010, 01:17:39 PM
Had someone done that at Ross' table, Tom and I might have thrown them through the sliding glass door that Ross always sat in front of.  ;)

Always good to have the defenestration planned before the dice hit the table.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: IDaMan008 June 30, 2010, 01:59:16 PM
As someone who is missing an eye, I can tell you I would not have responded well to that. It sounds like an absolutely terrifying experience, especially coming as it did from your best friend, someone you'd be least likely to expect to leap the table and threaten to stab you with a pencil.

I can understand why it soured you on D&D. I don't know if I'd be so quick to pick up my dice again after an incident like that.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Boyos June 30, 2010, 06:39:29 PM
Wow! Sounds to me like that kid needs to switch to suger free red bull.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: VampireVladd June 30, 2010, 09:06:20 PM
I was just happy to have a story that actually could be added to the thread. I had been meaning to type it up for a while but I knew it would take some time to write it. Oh and after listening to many of the AP's, I would love to play with all of you one day.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Ryo June 30, 2010, 09:14:20 PM
So was the kid with the pencil five at the time?
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: VampireVladd June 30, 2010, 09:29:00 PM
No he was around the age of 18-20.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Addled GM July 14, 2010, 08:08:22 PM
Well. Here's a story about a game that died exactly four minutes into the session.

The setup: Star Wars everyone's a Jedi exept one character.  Everyone takes force choke.

We are all playing dark Jedi and our mission is simple.  The GM goes through the flavor text and makes it to the point that we find out we're in a ship above a planet that we are supposed to go down to eliminate some sort of mining operation.  The problem is that there are three Jedi on the planet in the building that we need to liberate.

Evil Jedi 1: "Can we bring up the building on the screens to get the layout?"
GM: "Ummm...sure."
Evil Jedi 2: "Can we see the lead Jedi on the screen?"
GM: "Yes he's...(was going to go into a description of how badass his NPC was)"
Evil Jedi 1, 2, and 3 interrupt: "I force choke him to death."
GM: (Nearly inaudible sound of pants shitting) Jaw drops. Face goes pale.

I have never seen a game fall apart that fast.  After about an hour of laughter and argument we decided it best to let the "Darth Vader did it" argument fall away and played the game as if it never happened, but we still talk about it to this day.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Addled GM July 14, 2010, 09:31:42 PM
Ok I'll admit that I'm not a Star Wars fan (thank you episode 1,2, and 3 as well as various novels, videogames, and other merchandising), but thinking back on my experiences playing the Star Wars RPG, I have come up with a few ways to derail a Star Wars game.

The most painful thing I tried was making a character soley to make clones.  This didn't work out too well.  The idea was to capture a jedi and remove some Midi-chlorians, so that theoretically I could clone them and turn them into a steroid like drug. 

Long story short: If you're playing Star Wars, play a Jedi or Sith because if you try to do anything else you will have your ass handed to you by one.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: VampireVladd July 16, 2010, 06:52:26 PM
Fantastic. In the Star Wars rules it states that force chokes only limitation is the target is visible.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Maze July 20, 2010, 05:32:04 PM

   I stated that Asmodeus was going to let the hero's try to get out by using the cards because he stood to gain their souls completely with the deck anyway. After I announce this my friend said "If you bring that damn deck in this game I will stab you in the eye."  I told him that I was the DM and I was going to do it besides it was his damn character that got them into this mess in the first place.
   He didn't like that answer. He leaped across the room with the ferociousness of a Dire Wolverine and jumped on top of me screaming "TAKE IT OUT! TAKE IT OUT!" With pencil just like he said. It took two of the bigger players to pull him off and restrain him during which I made my escape. (I was a little guy.)  I saw him 5 minutes later acting like nothing ever happened yet I could remember the pencil being inches from my right eye.

Holy shit. This is an awesome story, I can`t believe someone would actually do that for a thing that only exist in our shared imaginations.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: doctorscraps July 20, 2010, 09:48:53 PM
In most campaigns I have run or played in, the main objective almost always seems to be "Kill the bad guy", usually followed by "Destroy the weapon of mass destruction". A tried and true storyline that has seen much use with little divergence.
Things however turned out very different, and is actually a case of romance working in favor of the game, rather than being a component of it's destruction.

The campaign was a Star Wars Saga Edition game, where the players were a Republic version of G.I. Joe, but a lot less organized, as is the way of Players, consisting of twin Zeltron sisters who were the only two with actual military experience, a field medic, a Jedi outcast, and a Gungan Sniper who's only real addition to the game was to quote Tucker from Red Vs. Blue in the Gungan dialect.
Example: "Messa Bowsa Chica Bow Wow".
He does it too well. he's also a sniper, as is his meme, but that's a different story.

The case of it really begins when one of the twins, Trix, during a throw-away session (you know how it is, they want to play, you have nothing for notes, but you think  you can muster a three hour time sink), started flirting and actually engaging in an affair with a Force Adept scholar who was helping them research a potent Force Artifact of incredible power.
This Force Adept was also the alter ego of the villain, a Sith Lord who hid his identity dressing like Skeletor. So you already have a guess how this plot device worked- The players do all the work, and then the Force Adept shows his true colors and makes off with the McGuffin of Destruction.
There was a twist however...The affair between the Zeltron girl and the Scholar eventually, after much discussion between the player and myself, became a full romantic relationship, which made the day I revealed him to be the villain whom has been always one step ahead of them, a rather emotional moment.
After a few sessions following the betrayal, she approaches me out of game, and tells it to me straight- "I don't want to kill him."
I had expected her to feel betrayed and want revenge, however, I guess those running jokes and the banter back and forth between them...as well as compious amounts of in-game sex...touched a chord with her, and instead of hunting him down and killing him, she beseeched me, her mighty GM, to allow her to try and find a way to sway him, a master of anger, evil, and hatred, back to her.
I then started to think of it...Is not love an emotion the Dark Side feeds off of? Could he, while waxing poetic upon his onyx throne, be experiencing a hurricane of emotional anguish over a conflicted feeling of love and loss for betraying someone he might actually consider his life mate?
So I came to the decision, that yes, his feelings were true, but his desire to overthrow the Republic and the Jedi were much greater, even seeing the players teammates as obstacles, especially the Jedi, in his desire to also reunite with her and rule the galaxy with her as King and Queen.
This campaign is still going on but quickly approaching it's appex, but I wanted to share it with the RPPR community, as an example of how romantic side stories and throwaway jokes can actually form the backbone of the core questline itself and give it actual meaning rather than a series of encounters before you are allowed to do battle with the BBG.

Thank you and goodnight.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Kroack July 20, 2010, 10:06:57 PM
we has got an anecdote thread homie.

Merged this. --- Patrick
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: doctorscraps July 20, 2010, 10:44:13 PM
we has got an anecdote thread homie.

Merged this. --- Patrick

Thanks. Couldn't find the omnibus thead.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Setherick July 20, 2010, 10:56:56 PM
we has got an anecdote thread homie.

Merged this. --- Patrick

Thanks. Couldn't find the omnibus thead.

It's stickied. Also, check out this thread (http://slangdesign.com/forums/index.php?topic=853.0).
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: malyss July 21, 2010, 01:54:33 PM
DoctorScraps - Nice plot! That sounds like an awesome game. Good for you to keep it going and adapt to make the game (and keep the game) fun for all.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Kroack July 21, 2010, 03:08:24 PM
we has got an anecdote thread homie.

Merged this. --- Patrick

Thanks. Couldn't find the omnibus thead.

It's stickied. Also, check out this thread (http://slangdesign.com/forums/index.php?topic=853.0).

Don't check it out. I don't think patrick has gots the balls to internet harm any of us.

I dare you.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Addled GM July 21, 2010, 09:19:31 PM
Here's a story that's pretty awful yet still not as bad as the pencil in the eye.

This involves a group of PCs in a second edition D&D game.  The game had gone on for many sessions and the players had leveled up quite a bit.  One player and another were always fighting over everything and everything was coming to a head in game. The first player was a fighter of sufficient level to gain a keep and the other was playing a female wizard. 

After a fight the fighter PC said "I attack her, but im only doing nonlethal damage." 

We all thought that this would be the end of their fueding and since he wasn't going to kill the other PC it went on.  Attack, spell, attack, until the fighter finally downed the wizard.

The fighter,  "I'm taking her to my keep."
The puzzled GM, "Ok."
The other players didn't really care, so it goes.
The fighter, " I drug her and rape her periodically until I get a child."

The wizard PC decided it was a good time to hand in his charater sheet.  I have never seen another act quite that evil at a table since.  All the players still open that wound up whenever the guy tries playing in a game.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: doctorscraps July 21, 2010, 09:43:18 PM
Here's a story that's pretty awful yet still not as bad as the pencil in the eye.

This involves a group of PCs in a second edition D&D game.  The game had gone on for many sessions and the players had leveled up quite a bit.  One player and another were always fighting over everything and everything was coming to a head in game. The first player was a fighter of sufficient level to gain a keep and the other was playing a female wizard. 

After a fight the fighter PC said "I attack her, but im only doing nonlethal damage." 

We all thought that this would be the end of their fueding and since he wasn't going to kill the other PC it went on.  Attack, spell, attack, until the fighter finally downed the wizard.

The fighter,  "I'm taking her to my keep."
The puzzled GM, "Ok."
The other players didn't really care, so it goes.
The fighter, " I drug her and rape her periodically until I get a child."

The wizard PC decided it was a good time to hand in his charater sheet.  I have never seen another act quite that evil at a table since.  All the players still open that wound up whenever the guy tries playing in a game.


Wow what a douche.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: malyss July 21, 2010, 11:30:48 PM
Ummm... rape. Not really a coll topic at any point.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Ryo July 22, 2010, 12:14:57 AM
I thought wizards with a decent number of levels were top dog even in 2ed? Why not just charm the fighter?
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Atlas July 22, 2010, 12:39:13 AM
I once had a fourth edition game where the PCs were refugees fleeing from a conquered country, and a small village was willing to take them in if the players killed a group of encroaching goblins. So a young woman opened up her house for the players to stay in, the PCs were a good cleric, and an unaligned wizard.

When the host brought the players food, the cleric decided it was a good idea to rape the young woman, while the wizard sat in the corner reading.

I was taken completely off guard , and only forced an alignment change, needless to say his actions also perverted how my players and I felt about playing this game, and it died soon afterwards.

We kicked the rapist out of our group a week later, and he has returned to play World's Largest Dungeon, after a year of exile.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe July 23, 2010, 11:22:27 PM
Back in 2006, I made a fan video about D&D for a WOTC contest. It did not win but I did put it on youtube. It's gotten a lot of views but the comments are what really makes it special. Some are good, most are bad and a few are terrifying

http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments=1&v=4YrUwDE0HG0

i burn the tavern! BURN TAVERN, BURN! MWAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAAAAAAAA­AAAAAH!!!!!!!!! I WILL CONTROL ALL YOUr LIVES WITH FFIIIIRRREEE!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHHHHH! PYRO'S SHALL BURN EVERY TAVERN IN THE-.....im..im sorry... im calming down now.


im a murderous bastard in the game but im so creative wtih how i kill people im a theif/fighter and its so fun the art of killing i stuck a chef through the bottom of his chin and stuck it throug the roof of his mouth into his brain and the pressure causes blood to pool around the hilt and then i take outfit and loot body and go around killing people because i have hide in shadows and i tied somon with a hang noose backwards in a barn gutted like a deer while i raped their dead body chaotic Evil


: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Kroack July 24, 2010, 12:02:33 AM
hitler was right for killing all  the jew fags

-Dude, ur s0 racist

-I hate black people and nerds

-D&D is pretty cool

-Dorks who play D&D is losers! lolz

-Dorks who play D&D is losers! lolz

-Double post my bad

-Fuck this guy, D&D is cool and he's a faggot.

Comment Marked as Spam:
-It's games like these that are really creating a godless america, I think that one day my grandkids will all be rolling dice and worshipping satan!

-Shutup cunt whore!

-@cunt whore:
ur a bitch, faggot.


: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Mckma August 01, 2010, 03:01:49 AM
Almost killed all the players in my game tonight, with "one" monster.  It was a variation on the Ooze/Jellies, and I think it was a level or two too high.  Dropped everyone at some point and in the end killed a player and left three dying.  I basically had it keep splitting, and split it a few too many times.

It was amusing, check out the Community Actual Play in a few days if I get it up...
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Setherick August 01, 2010, 10:00:57 AM
Your players continued to fuck with it after they realized it was an ooze? You should have TPK'd them if they didn't try to kill it creatively.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama August 01, 2010, 01:27:46 PM
Your players continued to fuck with it after they realized it was an ooze? You should have TPK'd them if they didn't try to kill it creatively.

I'm with Patrick here. Oozes need to be fun and nasty.

I had a cult sneaking oozes into a city in vingear barrells for use in their rebellion. PCs took over the wagon the cultist where using (they didn't know about the plan, they just stole the wagon because they needed it). One of them assumed the barrells would be filled with wine, cracked it open, and got attacked by the ooze while the wagon was in motion. Cue a fantasy high speed fight scene in which they light the wagon on fire while still riding on it and crash it into the city gates, which are promptly knocked part way open, the rest of the barrells break open and a dozen vinegar socked oozes (which almost instantly catch on fire) go flowing into the city in an insane frenzy.

The PCs, having jumped off the wagon, get to see this from a distance, and decide to run around the outside of the city and climb over the wall since the city guard will be "distracted".
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: crash2455 August 07, 2010, 03:10:15 AM
Yeah, I've only fought an Ooze once (a black pudding, I think).  I think that was the first time I found a major use for Freedom of Movement (instantly win grapple checks to escape).  We also discovered that it had a weakness to sunlight, so we ended up destroying it with Scorching Ray (and some gauntlets of Scorching Ray, hidden in a locked chest in that very room).

edit:  Sorry about the wall of text.

You were not meant to play a rogue

This is more a story about crappy rolls over anything else.  I'm playing in a 3.5 campaign where we're seeking out pages to some ancient tome of whatever.  It's not important to the story other than it being our plot hook.  Last week, after beating the final encounter (which was 2 spiked devils and 6 bearded devils I think), we found the chest containing one of the aforementioned pages on the ceiling of cave.  Upon opening, it releases Wail of the Banshee (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/wailOfTheBanshee.htm) and so half the party has to make Fortitude saves or die.  I (a Monk / Cleric) make the save, as does the rogue, but the barbarian of all people managed to roll a 2, getting just under the necessary saving throw, causing him to die instantly.  Reiterating:  The half-orc barbarian managed to be the only person to fail a Fortitude save.

After a bit of discussion regarding Raise Dead and Resurrection (and how we didn't have any 5000, 10000, or 25000 gp diamonds on hand), we decided to bury him and have him roll up a new character.  The GM actually had some plans and gave him a character that was going to be an NPC (which turned out to also be a rogue).  We let him play this character because the first character he had ever played had been a rogue, so we figured he'd be able to do it.  We also sort of ignored that our party makeup was now 2 Rogues, a Cleric, a Sorcerer, and a Druid, meaning that we didn't have any sort of real front line, and that the GM mainly throws us into dungeon crawls.

So this week, we get down to our next adventure and hey, sure enough, it's a dungeon crawl.  But of course, with two rogues, it shouldn't be a problem, right?  Well, the part that we didn't know is that the second rogue was rolled up to be a faceman, so he had max diplomacy instead of search, so trapfinding turned into a major problem for him.  After the longest time ever to get through two hallways, the group's taking the longest time ever to do something, so I decide to step into the room and get hit by someone (and the GM was surprised by my 25 flatfooted AC, despite my heavy armor proficiency).  Okay, whatever.  Oh, he does sneak attack damage, too?  Sure, that's cool.  Make a grapple check?  Alright, yep, I failed that.  Tentacles latch onto my head?  Oh, son of a bitch! 

Yep, Mindflayer Rogue.  Anyway, 4 or 5 combat rounds later, after discovering that the Mindflayer has like SR 34, we as the casters start running through spells that don't get spell resistance.  The druid goes to the old druid fallback:  Fire Seeds.  Unfortunately, the Mindflayer was grappling with our faceman rogue (because the rogue decided to charge the Mindflayer for whatever reason), but the druid decided to throw out one 16d6 acorn grenade, dealing 52 damage to everyone within 10'.  Our GM likes to use the Massive Damage check rules, so everyone had to make a fortitude save DC 15 or die instantly.  Mindflayer makes his no problem, faceman needs to roll an 8. . . and rolls a 6.  Well, there's one more down.  We manage to take down the Mindflayer (whose Mind Blast turned out to be completely ineffectual against 3 casters), and then start debating over what to do with our faceman.  After a small bit of discussion, the sorcerer teleports him to Waterdeep and gets him indebted to a cleric that can cast True Resurrection.  That part is madness, but whatever, it's better than having the guy sit out for the rest of the night.

As we continue further through the dungeon, team rogue scouts ahead, though I guess one of them missed a search check or something because faceman gets hit by a set of walls that smash together, dealing something like 62 damage.  Alright, make a massive damage check (Fort Save DC 15). . . 12.  Fortunately, since he had just died in the last encounter, the GM just kinda retconned the check (though he still took the 62 damage).

We come to our final encounter of the night.  The group split up so me and team rogue were taking on a Frost Giant, and the rest of the party were taking on a Troll Half-Dragon thing (which is somewhere on the Wizards website, apparently).  When the GM can't decide who to hit, he just takes a d6 roll and assigns people numbers.  I think the rogue got hit every round by the Frost Giant, though he never decided to ask for any healing even though there was a Cleric behind him.  Team rogue and I eventually take down the Frost Giant and head to fight the Troll Hybrid madness, which at this point had been hit by a prismatic spray and was driven permanently insane.  On the round in which faceman showed up and sneak attacked the troll, it hit him, dealing enough damage in one hit to knock him to -10.  I think the next round it rolled that it had to flee at full speed from the caster, so it took off out of the dungeon and out of sight.

tl;dr pick up here

So yeah.  In 2 sessions, this player managed to get killed 4 times.  I think that's the kind of PC turnover that CoC has wet dreams about.  At the end of the session, we told him he should stick to Barbarians.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: FrodoLlama August 13, 2010, 01:45:07 PM
THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS PHRASES NOT ALLOWED AMONGST THE PROLES. FOR YOUR COMFORT AND SAFETY, FRIEND COMPUTER HAS REPLACED THESE PHRASES. ALL HAIL FRIEND COMPUTER!
I finally managed to deal with one of my bad players by playing Paranoia Troubleshooters with him.
Immediately introduced to the UTOPIAN WORLD THAT IS THE DOMAIN OF YOUR FRIEND THE COMPUTER, his first thoughts were to ENGAGE IN USELESS AND UNPRODUCTIVE ACTIVITIES IN A FEEBLE ATTEMPT TO DESTROY YOUR FRIEND THE COMPUTER because he was COMMIE MUTANT SCUM. I informed him that he LIVED IN THE UTOPIA OF THE COMPUTER and couldn't do those things, so he went on a mission and got pizza. Or, at least, burnt crust with sauce. When A LOYAL OFFICER played by A GOOD CITIZEN, who did pretty well, joined THE COMMIE MUTANT TRAITOR- THE TRAITOR wanted to TRICK HIM INTO JOINING THE COMMIE MUTANT TRAITORS and to get him to OVERTHROW FRIEND COMPUTER. Unfortunately, he did this in immediate earshot and eyesight of the Computer, which caused him to be killed. His clone attempted to kill itself before it exited its RESPECTIVE CONTAINMENT AREA. When I informed him that he could not, he stormed off.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Zeriken August 19, 2010, 10:19:44 PM
Alright, one of my favorite stories is about to be told. It holds several common tendencies that gamers tend to have. Namely: Meta-gaming and Fragile Player.

Back when I was living in northern Illinois (usa, of course) I frequented a game shop every Monday to play the good old D&D 3.5. One of the other usuals, a man whom we shall call Darwin, liked to make rather overpowered characters. Heck, we all munchkined in those games.

He was probably the third or fourth best at munchkining, though (me being one of the last, lol). Regardless, this player had the habit of cheating. He would call out false die rolls and would 'metagame'. His redeeming feature was his glass-jaw. No matter how strong his characters were, they found themselves dead quite frequently.

Now that this man's background has been explained, allow me to proceed with the story. We were dungeon crawling through an undead lair as a bunch of level 6s. His character had died earlier that day (fell into the ocean at the docks w/ heavy armor, failed swim checks) so now he played some sort of Swashbuckler, if I recall properly, with oriental armor that brought his AC up to something along the lines of 23. Anyways, we are exploring and I, a warmage, decide to enter a room by myself (we split up a bit in order to cover more ground). In this room, I find a couple of fairly large treasure chests, as the DM put it.

Spoken as almost a side-note, the DM tells me that there is a Undead Dragon standing right in front of the treasures.

Our metagaming Darwin does not hear this side-note and, upon me leaving the Undead Dragon (what I assumed to be way out of our league) alone, Darwin asks my character "So. What did you find in there?"

To which I, knowing he was OOC listening to almost everything and wanting to punish him for it, say "Why, nothing that we need to worry about. There is nothing in that room."

To which Darwin turns to the DM and says "I don't believe him. I walk into the room and go up to the treasure."

The DM smiles, rolls a few die, and says "Surprise round, the Undead Dragon deals 24 damage to you."

Darwin looks back to me, relatively displeased as you could imagine. Utilizing our magics (the cleric and myself), as well as the small doorway, we managed to kill the thing. But not before Darwin died, bless his meat-shield body. I always wondered why the dragon seemed to die rather quickly after Darwin did (maybe the DM had the same idea I did in mind? Lol.)

Darwin had to re-roll a third character. This character, for no reason in particular, hated my character vehemently.

I lol about it to this day.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama August 23, 2010, 05:56:06 PM
Got to tear a vampire to sheads with a dog/alligator/stone monster the other day. World of Darkness, Vampire: The Requiem, long running game at this point and the PC I'm about to talk about is, shall we say, difficult. She latches onto things and doesn't tend to be very flexable when interacting with the uncertain rules of the world. She also doesn't "get" vampires in Requiem and has been digging herself deeper and deeper into trouble since session one.

The PC is a member of the pagan magical group in the game. Awhile ago a stone from her magic circle vanished and her trees started to look unhealthy. She assumed the two things where connected (they were) and that the breaking of the circle had effected the trees (it had not). Shortly after she encounters a new customer in her bar and tried to press him for information of some sort. The man didn't like being asked questions when he just wanted to drink so he left.

Eventually, after some more pressing matters, she manages to track the guy to his apartment because she's sure there's something fishy about him (there is). She goes to his apartment and demands to talk to him. He says no so she kicks his door in and he starts throwing his furnature at her. After a tussel, during which he rips a power cord so that the wires are exposed and he throws lightning from his finger tips, she thinks twice about things and calls the vampire 'police'.

After looking around the apartment later, the police return with no significant information and her stolen rock, now broken into pieces, in a big bag. It's important to her so she has it put back together. Few weeks later and its ready for return to her garden. Once she puts it into place she adds the last few bits of missing stone to the mass herself. Soon as she does it starts moving so she throws blood on it (I don't get it, it's a vampire druid thing I guess). The rock changes into a horrible creature with the body of a large, shaggy dog, the long snout and big teeth of an alligator, and six compound fly eyes. I found out later that she thought she'd created a minion by mistake. In reality it's a creature called a Pandoran and they eat Promethans, another World of Darkness "race".

Anyway, the ali-dog busts out of the garden so she uses a magic spell to see through its senses and gets to watch a twenty minute race throug the city as the thing follows some scent its picked up. After the run it busts into an apartment building's basement and attacks a sleeping guy who the player recognises as Jim, the guy who's apartment she busted into. The ali-dog attacks him and starts eating him so she cuts the connection and then tries to summon the monster back to her.

At first nothing happens (because this isn't a minion she made by accident) but she keeps at it and I figured she did splash the blood on it and vampire blood is potent stuff so the Pandoran comes back, grown signifcantly larger with its lunch, and bursts through her gate.

It's at this point that I knew how this was going to end. Myself and every other player silently resolved to let her hang herself if that was what was going to happen. The other players said almost nothing as events unfolded, though they where unable to hid their sighs, groans, eye rolling, and exasperated gestures.

The monster comes storming into the garden and headbutts the vampire. She tries to bind it to her service by commanding it and it responds by biting her. I roll the dice infront of everybody, making sure they saw the size of the dice pool and that I removed her defense from the pool. At this point one of the other players (her husband in RL) suggests that perhaps the monster didn't work like she thinks it does. She declares that it does and she knows what she is doing. The monster uses its next turn to increase the size of its mouth and roar at the player, clearly demonstrating its aggressive intentions. The player assumes that since it didn't actively attack her this round it is now no threat and walks up to pat it on the head. And the new bigger jaws swallow her arm. Left arm inside of the creature's mouth she tries again to compell the creature to obey her. It chews on her a little. At this point I knew she's taken more lethal damage than she can take without dying but I don't want to force her into the grave if there's a glimmer of a chance she might think of a new plan.

She cuts her own hand on the monster's teeth, smearing her blood along it's insides and trying to craft some words of power to make the monster do her bidding. And the beast rips her arm off. Had to call it at this point, she'd taken about 13 lethal damage and she only really had 7 health. At no point did she make any effort to think of another plan, to defend herself, or even to heal any of the wounds the jagged teeth where inflicting on her.

Five minutes later her ghoul came outside and found what was left of her splashed across her garden, the gates smashed, and strange dog like paw prints in the blood.

I think I'll see if I can kill her new character in the same way, test if she actually learned anything from this.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Ryo August 23, 2010, 08:08:09 PM
You had me at "they eat Promethans". Does she think she is playing an oWoD gangrel?
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama August 23, 2010, 11:41:19 PM
You had me at "they eat Promethans". Does she think she is playing an oWoD gangrel?

She believes in alot of druidic stuff in real life so the Circle of the Crone stuff in V:tM appealed to her. Problem is that she doesn't quite get that most mystical stuff doesn't work, even in the game world. The ritual she thought she completed by accident requires her to have a ritual rating of 5 (she had 3), to know the ritual (which she didn't), to spill a massive amount of blood (she only used a little), and finally it creates a being inherently loyal to her (which this thing never appeared to be). I had no idea why she thought her plan was going to work, especially after the thing started to fucking eat her! At any point if she'd called for help or tried to run away she'd probably have survived.

Best part? Her will leaves everything to her servant (which apparently she thought she could just pick up with her new character) but one of the other vampire PCs kidnapped the guy before anybody else could do anything and turned him into a ghoul so now he gets everything because the sole heir is undying loyal to him so long as he keeps feeding the dude blood. Masterful vampiring.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P September 22, 2010, 02:33:10 PM
    This is a tale that is near and dear to my heart. I have been putting off sharing it because I am not entirely sure I will do it the proper justice. Names will not be changed to protect anyone as my friends are not innocent.

    Let me set the mood in my own overly wordy way. My friend Chad is where this starts, he read the Frostburn book for 3.5 DnD and decided that he wanted to run a game that was all about the bare minimum, scraping out a meager exsistance against nature, roughing it like he likes to do in real life. We sat patiently while he passionately told us the premise of the game, it didn't sound too bad but none of us were nearly as enthralled with the idea as he was. So there we were sitting around during character creation, discussions were had about what kinds of characters should be in the game. So I ventured something I had been wanting to try for some time, an Artificer. I showed him the book from Eberron that included the class that was going to allow me to work past my mediocre stats and still play a helpful role in the party. I mean making magic items would be completely helpful in this frozen tundra, valuable for trade and for keeping others alive. He reluctantly agreed, after one of the other players explained to him why it would balance fine.

    My first act as soon as the game started was to make several scrolls of Endure Elements. These proved to be vital trade items in this low magic setting.  After I realized how hard it was for us to get food I went on to begin planning a Box of Replenishing food stores. I couldn't create it yet but when I got to that point I was going to make hunting and forging obsolete. Sadly we never got that far because after I exposed this plan to him he put us on the tracks with missions from our village leader, whom he played as a complete pompous ass. We went off on his quest, and while we were out we PC halo'd in our friend Wiley who was playing a Barbarian named Akkar.

    This would prove to be fatal to the campaign. We finished off our quest and brought Wiley's character back with us to our cave, where he was put off by the leaders dickish attitude. He traded insults with the leader and at this point Chad (who was already in a bad mood from working that day) had enough and banished the Barbarian from our cave. Wiley started to walk out Tiger Skull Club in hand. He was almost out when he decided to talk a little more crap and managed to push the leader into casting some kind of spell on him. It was a touch spell so the leader walked over to cast his spell, he was a level 15 Wizard and Chad was angry so he decided to kill off the insolent one. This plan however backfired hard when Wiley decided to take his attack of opportunity. Natural 20 on the attack roll, max damage with a x4 Critical I think the damage calculations went something like 17x4=68 and the Wizard even with max hit points couldn't have possibly survived being as he was an elderly elf. We told Chad that he is the DM and there is always another option and the death didn't have to go down like that, but he was resolved in the ending of the game. He told Wiley that as soon as he did that the entire village killed him, despite all of our protests that we would talk them down long enough for him to escape. He denied anyone any opportunity to do anything and left.

    Chad went home pretty pissed off. We all thought it was pretty sweet that Wiley had managed to kill the character and took it as a sign that the game wasn't meant to continue. So to this day there are two endings to that game, the one where he kills Akkar off and we all cease to exist, and the one where we save him and go on epic adventures.(We came up with this on our own because we were upset that he hadn't given us a chance to act.) It is still a sore spot so we don't talk about it when Chad is around, but it is a perfect example of how the dice can turn against you at an incredibly pivotal moment.

: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe September 22, 2010, 06:42:36 PM
Chad was a bad DM because he didn't understand basic rules. Spellcasters can make a Concentration skill check to avoid taking AoO from adjacent enemies. 
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P September 22, 2010, 06:58:24 PM
Chad was a bad DM because he didn't understand basic rules. Spellcasters can make a Concentration skill check to avoid taking AoO from adjacent enemies. 
He knew the rule, or so he claimed afterwards. He said he was just too pissed off to think of it.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe September 22, 2010, 11:26:36 PM
Chad was a bad DM because he didn't understand basic rules. Spellcasters can make a Concentration skill check to avoid taking AoO from adjacent enemies. 
He knew the rule, or so he claimed afterwards. He said he was just too pissed off to think of it.

then he is a bad GM for getting angry so easily.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P September 23, 2010, 11:56:16 AM
Chad was a bad DM because he didn't understand basic rules. Spellcasters can make a Concentration skill check to avoid taking AoO from adjacent enemies. 
He knew the rule, or so he claimed afterwards. He said he was just too pissed off to think of it.

then he is a bad GM for getting angry so easily.

That's true. A fact that he only recently admitted too. After the game was over he tried to justify the game ending on the principle that "I'm not a good enough DM to run that game I was too ambitious and you guys weren't good enough role-players to handle the scenario." In essence stating that his own idea was so GOOD that not only could he not run it properly but we couldn't possibly have played it up to his standards.

This was about a year ago, when he was thouroughly convinced that he was the best gamer of all of us. About 2 months ago he admitted that he is probably the weakest role-player of all.

He has more or less given up on running games, he gets the spark every once in a while, and we all either shoot him down on the spot, or give it a one shot to see if its any good. Unfortunatly his stories suffer from being overly rail roaded.

I actually paraphrased somthing RPPR taught me one day, I told him "RPG's are about collaboration, your not the only one writing this story, our input should be just as valid." He looked like he wanted to disagree but I think I got through to him.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Zeriken September 23, 2010, 02:33:31 PM
I just want to know; what level was he? The exp for getting that kill would be awesome (if he would let them gain that amount. Through WotC DMG, you can't level more than 1 time per session. But that was epic.). What luck XD. Were I the DM, I would have missed that concentration check thing too, and would have just said 'Lolwut', before continuing the campaign.

The thing a DM needs to keep in mind is that their NPCs are not their character (even though they made them and RP them). He basically just leveled out the GM Hammer and flattened the party for revenge XD. A lot of starting DMs don't want to see their NPCs lose. They are too used to being the Player.

: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P September 23, 2010, 04:56:37 PM
I just want to know; what level was he? The exp for getting that kill would be awesome (if he would let them gain that amount. Through WotC DMG, you can't level more than 1 time per session. But that was epic.). What luck XD. Were I the DM, I would have missed that concentration check thing too, and would have just said 'Lolwut', before continuing the campaign.

The thing a DM needs to keep in mind is that their NPCs are not their character (even though they made them and RP them). He basically just leveled out the GM Hammer and flattened the party for revenge XD. A lot of starting DMs don't want to see their NPCs lose. They are too used to being the Player.



It's true and I think thats how he was looking at it. We all started at level 1
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P October 08, 2010, 05:51:49 PM
We recently started up a sequal campagin to the first campaign we ever had.
It is set in the Oriental Adventures Campaign setting and I am playing a Paladin/Gray Guard. A friend of mine is playing my traveling companion a Half Black Dragon Bard. I know Half Black Dragon is evil ect. ect. but we fit in story element that would explain this. My character was granted a wish by a trickster figure, he wished for a Dragon Companion. As a Paladin he meant to have a great and powerful dragon mount, but instead he got Thom.

There is something not quite right about Thom, he is a little "touched" in the head due to his forced alignment/personality switch(part of the wish). Luckily my character and this dragon get along very well so I don't mind traveling with him, he listens to reason 90% of the time when about to do something I cannot abide, and the other 10% they are usually minor offenses that end with me preaching to him about why he shouldn't do that.

One thing that neither of us knows however(In Character of course) is that beneath the layers of massively powerful magic holding his alignment in check is a murderous Half Black Dragon Fighter/Occult Slayer/Diciple of Darkness named Moht(Moe-Hot). So herein lies where things get interesting.

If Thom and James are ever more than 500 ft. Apart Thom must make a DC 22 Will Save or go into an in between stage of his alignment. He will have darker impulses than usual and be far more likely to act upon them. After a predesignated amount of time, or if we are seperated further he is forced to make another Save at +1 DC for each additional passed saved or he reverts completely.

So the story finds us fighting our way through hordes of bandits. We finally make it to the top floor of a building, where there I sensed 3 evil auras. When we entered the room there were 5 people. Not one to slay innocents I demand everyone stand down and strike up a dialouge with the man who seems to be leader of the group. He claims be doing nothing but protecting his friends from harm and my detect evil is not working on him. He extended his hand to shake and I initially refuse, until I decided to try to use our mutual touch to "Focus" my detect evil. Well clearly even if this was a clever ploy to cast a spell on me, I with my massive Paladin saves would be fine. Well it was a trap and he did cast a spell on me, it was a Plane Shift spell where he would be taking me away with him. All I needed was an 8, I got a 4. The Cleric and I are gone, and this leaves my trigger happy friends with two groups of enemies and a Neutral Half Dragon. 1 round later that Neutrality becomes full on evil. Now we used his evil self in a prequel campaign in which he fleshed out personality and fighting style. He proceeded to Drink a Potion to enlarge himself(houseruled to work on him) grew wings because he bacame large sized(also house ruled). Throttled a demon half to death and then flew 175 ft into the air and dropped him.

Epic. Now all we have to worry about is me coming back to find all our friends dead with him (forced back to good by my presence) having no idea what happend. Should be pretty funny.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Seejo Crux October 12, 2010, 11:38:38 AM
I played RPGs all the time when I was growing up. My friends were really into Rifts and, by extension, so was I. The only time I got to play D&D was with my brothers. We'd gotten to the point where we would 'play' without the dice. Telling stories about the bizarre characters they came up with became more fun than tactical combat.

At some point, my sister - one of the most cultured and well-adjusted people I know - wanted to participate. I think she had this idea in her mind that she wanted to show interest in what her brothers did. At the time, we were doing D&D 2e. But I also had tons of expansions, and we had very strange ideas on house rules. I brought her up to speed on how the game worked and we set about making her a character that would mesh well with the party.

Brother 1 had a wemic fighter named Hercules Bloodpaw. For those not in-the-know, a wemic is like a centaur but made of lions instead of horses. Bloodpaw was buff and had magic weapons and armor. He killed shit and did it well.

Brother 2 played 'Diablo', a wild mage who was also a member of the race of gnome-sized lizard men who didn't speak save through pheromones. (I can't remember what they were called.) I think at one point he had magical boots that gave him super-speed.

After hearing all this, my sister wanted to play something straightforward - an elven ranger simply called The Huntress. She enjoyed the character and played her well. There was nothing particularly strange about her until one day, when a random treasure table in a random dungeon earned her a magical item called the Decanter of Endless Water (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Decanter_of_Endless_Water).

"What does it do?" my sister asked.

"Well, it's a flask," I said, sort of downhearted because I was giving the party such a shitty item. "It has three settings. You say 'stream', 'fountain', or 'geyser', and it makes water at varying levels of force."

I think she knew that the item wasn't as impressive as the other items dolled out in the campaign. I thought about changing it, but she insisted on keeping it. "Maybe we can sell it when we get back to town." The ranger tucked it away for safe keeping.

Later in the same dungeon, shit went haywire. A giant guarding a princess was giving the PCs a hard time. They figured out that the giant's weak point was its unarmored head, but getting up there proved unexpected difficult. Just when it looked like things were going to end badly, my sister started to smile.

"Does the flask we got earlier have a strap or something I can tie with?"

"Sure, you can strap it to you if you don't want to hold it in your pack," I said, a little confused.

"Can I strap it to my back, upside-down, and use the 'geyser' setting to boost my jump?"

I sat their dumbfounded for a second. My brothers kinda looked at each other.

"Yeah, you can do that," I said eventually, not even bothering to read the magic item description.

In her following turn, the elven ranger shouted 'GEYSER!!' and, with a running leap, stabbed the giant in the face, gouging out an eye. The other heroes charged in when the giant fell to its knees and kept the beast from recovering. In time, they won the battle and saved the princess.

This was years ago, but I'm certain she still had that item when the character retired. I think Diablo the lizard painted wings on it at one point.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Kelkesh123 October 12, 2010, 09:42:39 PM
This is my tale. A tale of woe and dissapointment. Mostly dissapointment.

So I started off in my local D&D club group, who decided "WHO NEEDS PLAYER'S HANDBOOKS?". After reaching a consensus from the group that a level 1 rogue should be able to detect traps, we started off the game. We were called The Evil Side (with an opposing group of players playing The Good Side in a room across the hall), which was what our characters were supposed to be. We ended up all being pragmatic chaotic neutral, doing whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted to.

We had around 9 people in our group. NINE FUCKING PEOPLE IN A GROUP RUN BY AN INEXPERIENCED GM.
Which was loads of fun.
It didn't help we had a freshman named Marty(name changed) who would take actions for the rest of the group.
EX. Marty : Alright, what's it look like?
DM : There are two passageways. Both lead off into darkness.
Marty : We all go in the right one.
Everyone : Wat.


He had terrible social skills, got pissed off easily, and butted heads with the rest of the group.
The rest of the group was composed of Ian, a good buddy of mine, who was playing the groups fighter. He had some sort of acid scythe and could deal like 60 or so damage an attack at level 3. Now, I love Ian to death, but he had a few issues with D&D. Whenever he couldn't do something ingame, he got pissed and depressed at the same time.
EX. Ian : Alright, I'm going to cut through the rock with my scythe.
DM : Well, you can, but it might result in breaking the weapon.
Ian : Well...okay
(to me) Look at how useful my character is. He's so fucking useless. Everyone else can do shit, but look at me. I can hit shit. Goddamnit!


And then there was Joe. He was the group's Bardic whore. Nice guy, but he kinda got a bit touchy feely with other members of the party. In real life.
He would barely be in game, normally he'd run out and talk on his cell phone to friends, or be playing with Magic the Gathering cards.

Then there's Evan, our wizard. He was extremely quiet. Nice guy, but whenever a joke about gays was brought up, he'd shut it down through yelling. He was gay, and was extremely sensitive about it. We tried to tell him it was just a joke, and none of us are homophobic (except Marty), but he wouldn't hear it.

Next up is Trent, our cleric. He played a girl. He never did much. Occasionally he'd say "Lawl" and quote internet memes. He didn't interrupt the game with it though, so it never bothered me.

Next is Weston, our monk. He was extremely aggressive, hated roleplaying, power gamed the fuck out of everything. He clashed with me alot for the simple fact that I had fun.
EX. Me : I'll check the door for traps.
Weston : Dude, you can't fucking do that.
Me : I'm a rogue. I can check for traps.
Weston : Shut the hell up man, I'm trying to play.
DM : You can check for traps Sam.
Weston : What? Special treatment?
DM : No, it's a basic rogue skill.
Weston : Oh...

Kind of a douchebag, but he didn't ruin the gameplay...majority of the time.

John was our groups psion. He didn't abuse the fact that he was the only one with the Psionics Handbook, he would occasionally change the mood of enemies, but that was about it. He was very low key, but that was cool with me. At one point, he asked for divine intervention from his god (Cthulhu), and Cthulhu apparently summoned a flaming catapult because he got a 14 out of a 100. That guy kicked ass.

Our first session was us sitting around debating rules.
Our second session was us setting up my character and getting started.
Our third session involved us meeting a cloaked stranger in a bar and going to a cave he wanted us to investigate.
Our fourth session involved me getting caught under a giant rock.
Our fifth session involved me sitting under said rock until the rest of the party defeated a stone golem and let me out.

TL;DR?
HIGHSCHOOL D&D
THE WAY PROS PLAY.

: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: crash2455 October 13, 2010, 03:02:03 AM
HIGHSCHOOL D&D
THE WAY PROS PLAY.


I'm impressed.  I believe your group contained every gaming trope imaginable.

My tale comes from earlier tonight, and I think it probably happens in every group at least once:  Really distracted players.

When everyone got in, I was informed that one person had gotten about 4 hours of sleep.  I asked them if they really wanted to play tonight and if they be able to pay attention (they fell asleep in my last session due to a similar sleep schedule).  It was probably a bad idea to have them bring someone else over.

I probably should have called the game about the time it started.  I told them that a month had passed since the last session, told them all the things that they could do (leaving room open for them to do their own thing), and asked them what they were doing during that time.  Between the chitchat (between the players and the other person) it took 4 players about 45 minutes to say that they were all doing one thing. 

After "OH SHIT NAZIS ATTACK,"  the group split up, and we probably had about 4 rounds of combat from one group (who were a bit more focused) and the slightest amount of investigation from the other in the other 2 hours of the session.  I finally just said "Okay, we're done for tonight" when I tried to explain something to a player 3 times and it became apparent he wasn't listening. 

I later found out that 2 of my players and the other person were all there on around 4 - 5 hours of sleep.  Needless to say, I got pretty annoyed, and explained to them that I would appreciate their attention next game.  I am asking them if they're actually interested in my game and they at least say that they are.

Maybe I should bring the box of pain to my next game.
[/whiny bitch]
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: The_Last_76 October 19, 2010, 10:01:12 PM
Probably my scariest moment in gaming was a few years previous, when I was a player in a Call Of Cthulhu RPG without actually knowing what Call Of Cthulhu was. None of the players did, truth be told. I learnt later that the scenario we had played was essentially H.P. Lovecrafts 'Rats In The Walls'. Considering I hadn't expected a horror RPG, and we were only told that it would be a 1920s 'Real-World' setting, I certainly didn't expect the horror I was to witness.

There were no combat sequences, and really only minimal roleplaying. But I did not sleep that night, nor for the next few nights after it.

Probably the highlight of the evening came when we where exploring the ancestral estate that was the setting, delving deep into tunnels that did not exist on the building plan and the GM describing the slow, dragging sounds of claws and fur on stone as we descended deeper.

I actually heard these noises. I thought I was going mad. After the game was over (some 2 months later), I was told he had a CD player and was playing various sounds on as low a volume as possible, hidden underneath the table.

I've been hooked on Lovecraft ever since.

: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Setherick October 19, 2010, 10:58:56 PM
I was about to say, "Don't we have an anecdote thread?" But then I realized how old this thread is (from start date). Should I merge this or leave as is?
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: The_Last_76 October 20, 2010, 01:25:52 AM
I must have missed the latest anecdote thread - my apologies.  Merging would be the best option.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Setherick October 20, 2010, 06:42:51 AM
I must have missed the latest anecdote thread - my apologies.  Merging would be the best option.

It's stickied, but whatev. Merging now. :)
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: The_Last_76 October 27, 2010, 07:10:46 AM
Found an ol' wordfile that was written up a little while ago following a friends short-lived Military campaign.

The concept was fairly solid.  All massed combat was done using a simple wargame system - a modified version of Necromunda, if I remember correctly.  All the more involved playing that focused more on individual characters rather than units was done with a modified d20 system, based quite surprisingly off of Mutants and Masterminds.  We only played a single session before it fell through.  The players loved it, but the GM went walkabouts on us, sadly.

23-14th Whiteshield Conscript Squad of the Ypress PDF:

Sergeant Vken, armed with an .25mm repeating auto-pistol and fencing rapier.
Private First Class Hurikan with a .45 Calibre Mordian Pattern Rifle with x12 scope.
Junior Drill Commissar Luinste with a Stubb Hand Cannon.
Fire Team C-Blue - Muerre (Modesty), Aenid (Halo), Ishta (Dame), Ramirez (Rat), Havelock (Hack) armed with Ypress Mk39 Model Autofire Rifles.
Fire Team C-Red - Regis (Gob), Praetus (Cutter), Khan (Gold), Scythia (Calamity), Pontius (Mongrel), Yarn (Frag) armed with Ypress Mk39 Model Autofire Rifles.

Mission One:

Ambush.
Situation De-Briefing; While performing a standard combat sweep on the borders of Rogue Habcomplex 44-A, the 23-14th Whiteshield Conscript Squad was ambushed by a superior fireteam of Ypress Rebels armed with stolen lasweapons, approximately 25km South-East of Habcomplex 44-A in the ruins of 624 Living Unit destroyed in a previous tank action. Outnumbered and outgunned, the 23-14th began a fighting retreat after approximately three minutes of exchanged fire, whilst being bracketted by supporting Mortar fire and enemies in elevated positions. Thanks to excellent leadership on the part of Sergeant Vken they managed to escape with only 4 casualties (inluding Sergeant Vken himself), all of which were deemed walking wounded by the squads corpsman.

Post Game Experience
Sergeant Vken 60 + 6 (Survived.)
Private First Class Hurikan 60 + 1 (Survived.)
Junior Drill Commissar Luinste 60 + 1 (Survived.)
Fire Team C-Blue 0 + 13 (Two Wounding Hits, Survived.)       = +1 BS, The Kids Got Talent (Muerre)
Fire Team C-Red 0 + 4 (Survived.)                            = The Kids Got Talent (Scythia)

Journal of Private Johann 'Modesty' Muerre

Day: 86 - 5 775 456 M41

Got my first taste of combat today.

We were executing a standard sweep towards the middle of the day - maybe 1400 standard. Down near Hakenville; where Ms. Gunterfierd used to live before the fire.  Fire Team C-Blue had point, C-Red was on rearguard.  Hack and Rat had called a stop and we all took to ground. I remember thinking they were just showing off. Commissar Luinste never exactly made a habit of accompanying us on combat patrols, and I would have bet good denarii that they boys were just trying to show up the rest of the squad.  They looked so comical, hunched up behind a fragging bathtub that had found it's way out into the street in pieces.  The brute and the rodent. Funny guys usually.  I stopped thinking it was a joke when I heard the shouting come from down the street.  Dirt started spraying up in conical jets before I realised we were under fire. I must have been standing there like a jack-ass, because it took a body tackle from Halo to get me down in cover.  Holes appeared in the wall behind where I was standing.  I'm not a superstitious person, and Throne knows I'm not the most faithful - but I haven't got a doubt in my body that the Emperor guided Aenid that day. She saved my life, and I thank the Emperor that she was more on the ball than me.

The Sergeant starting yelling orders, but I could barely hear him over the sound of lasfire. I was hunched up under a fallen sign.  I think I managed to fumble the wax stopper out of my rifle barrel at this time. I know, I know - I shouldn't have had it in on a live fire patrol, but I didn't want mud to spoil my rifling. It's a fragging bastard to clean, and there is a smegging tonne of mud out there.  I think it was the right decision, even if I'd never tell the lash about it. I heard more than a few shouts from down Regis' side that made it pretty clear that mud-spoil was proving to be a bit more than a nuisance.

PFC Hurikan must have been on his toes, because he was up on a second story ruin by the time I noticed him - eyes down the scope and taking pot shots at targets I could barely make out.  The lash and the sarge had fallen back to C-Red, trying to keep an exit window open.  I'm fairly sure we were surrounded for a minute or two there.  I heard Calamity did a good show down that side, but I wasn't there to see it. 

I took the hint from Hurikan and ordered C-Blue to lay down a barrage of suppressing fire at the UF's. I must have done something right because the return fire lessened considerably.  I heard Commissar Luinste order the fall back in my microbead so Halo, Dame and I kept up a field of suppressing fire while Rat and Hack pulled back to us.  Hack was breeding pretty freely from a wound to his neck, but Rat insisted that he was fine.  C-Red started covering our backs and we pulled out to the RZ.  It couldn't have lasted more than a few minutes, and I never once actually saw the enemy.  Just what they did.

Hack wasn't the only one who earnt himself a souvenir from their first action.  Calamity now has a rather dashing scar across her waist, which she insists on showing off. And I earned a few stitches on my thigh. Didn't even feel it happen.

I was promoted from Conscript to Private. I am scared out of my mind.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Joven October 30, 2010, 10:11:05 PM
Probably the only gaming anecdote I can really remember, had found out another person I knew played D&D and me and 2 of my friends were invited to join in on one of their games.

They were like level 3 and we started making our characters while they started wrapping up some roleplay from their last session or something, I made a fairly generic neutral rogue, one of my friends (C1) made a mothery-type cleric woman, the goal which to facilitate the joining of our characters to their established group, and my other friend (J2) made a paladin who was insane and followed Torm I think (whoever the god of justice is). After some chatter at the tavern we found our little group and theirs had a common goal and we all looked trustworthy, so we teamed up.

The guy playing the paladin ended pretty much every sentence with "FOR JUSTICE!" and was playing up his characters mental illness and paranoia, which the DM hosting was kinda taken aback by. C1, who was the DM for our group, was intent on making sure that J2 stuck to lawful good, because previously he only played evil characters (his last character forced crippled kids to fight to the death, had a staff made of the bones of some old people he killed and ran a drug ring, etc.) and had earlier made a statement about how 'good' was relative, especially when dealing with the mentally ill.

To help our 2 groups become friends, C1 decided to have his character bake pies for everyone as a midnight snack, and they all went to their rooms with their new pies, and of course J2 decided to have his character fuck it, if for no other reason then he was insane. The people who we were playing with thought it was weird, but funny, so whatever, the characters came down the next day and since C1 had rolled good when making them they said how good they were, J2 said that yes, indeed the pie was tasty. 

C1 decided to take that moment to call J2 on lying, since he was a lawful good paladin OF JUSTICE! it was outside of his character to lie, and since he fucked the pie, commenting on its taste would have been a lie. His response, without skipping a beat, "What? I ate it." At that point the group hosting were completely...baffled? but after much recoiling, we finally started to set off.

However, we didn't get very far, some altercation occurred between my character and some NPC (who was some victim forced into a bad situation kinda, if i remember right), probably meant to be a plot hook to get us to investigate some gang syndicate or something, but the sight of some minor injustice was too much for J2, and he decided that I was wronged and the NPC had to die. After some fighting between us and the group, everyone pleading for us to just let the poor guy go etc, J2 had managed to grapple the NPC and I was going to them shoot him with my bow. One of the other characters had stepped between me and them to act as a shield and the DM said that there was no way to hit the guy unless I rolled a nat 20, which of course is basically D&D language for "the next thing you roll is going to be a nat 20", x3 critical, +sneak attack on a low level character = dead.

The DM was kinda at a loss and by that point we had spent so much time dicking around at the tavern that we never got around to doing anything else, and for some reason we were never invited back to play with them (although 1/2 their group did say it was fun, apparently we ruined the game for the other 1/2 lol)
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: The_Last_76 November 03, 2010, 09:59:55 AM
Note to Self: Three Fire Giants are no longer a challenge when your players have an army to back them up.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P November 03, 2010, 12:46:37 PM
Obviously written for laughs but I figured I would share it.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/there-was-always-that-one-kid-that-ruined-every-dd-game-.../
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Maze November 03, 2010, 03:58:02 PM
As a note, great and hilarious anecdotes, lack of response does not mean lack of interest. I've shared a a few of them with friends personally.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P November 03, 2010, 05:09:40 PM
Yeah that should actually be clarified, I too share these stories with people, as well as telling them where I got them, I always try to think of somthing witty to say after a story, but I never can... hence no response.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: The_Last_76 November 05, 2010, 05:27:03 AM
So naturally, I carried his head around with me for the next two levels.

I just laughed so hard I choked.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P November 05, 2010, 04:45:46 PM
So, I am pretty sure I should sue "Adventure Time" for violation of my intellectual property...LoL


Seriously though, they have to have some kind of survelliance being done on my brain. About 2 years ago or so I ran a campaign of evil characters. One of which was named the Yellow Jester, or just Yellow for short. He started off as a standard NPC with some levels in the Dragon Magazine Class "The Jester". I made him solely because I needed someone who was cruel but hilarious and I LOVE Gauntlet Dark Legacy. He wore a Yellow Jesters outfit with a pointy hat and everything.

So a few days before our weekly session one of my players called to ask if his younger brother could join in, I told him we couldn't add in a new character where we were so he would have to play as the Jester. His brother apparently loved the idea and by our Thursday meetup he was good to go. We ran through one session that was cut short by a surprise visit by one of our friends who lives 3 hours away so we cut it short to socialize. By the next week everyone was ready to go, only problem is I lost the jesters character sheet. After telling my buddy I lost it we formulated a plan. Out of no where this Jester becamse god like, he could basically do whatever he wanted to do the only prerequisite was he couldn't do anything that had and "real" impact on the PC's. His major claim to fame was having sleeves and pockets of holding. He then put tons of different things into the bags including many Shoggoth. He would play mean tricks on the PC's and even made one of them think his house was on fire. He would also fly to random towns and drop off a few Shoggoth(Chaos Beasts by game terms) and use them to transform the populace of the town into chaos beasts. So in order to somewhat acknowledge the things he was doing I had a Tarrasque come and eat all the Shoggoth. I decided that the Tarrasques true mission is to keep the Chaos Beast population down. So he decided to defeat the Tarrasque, I reminded him of the rule banning him from doing anything but trickery and whatnot. So his answer was to drop all the chaos beasts he had on it. His logic "eventually it will roll a 1 on its Fortitude Save"

[spoiler]Corporeal Instability (Su): A blow from a chaos beast against a living creature can cause a terrible transformation. The creature must succeed on a DC 15 Fortitude save or become a spongy, amorphous mass. Unless the victim manages to control the effect (see below), its shape melts, flows, writhes, and boils. The save DC is Constitution-based.

An affected creature is unable to hold or use any item. Clothing, armor, rings, and helmets become useless. Large items worn or carried—armor, backpacks, even shirts—hamper more than help, reducing the victim’s Dexterity score by 4. Soft or misshapen feet and legs reduce speed to 10 feet or one-quarter normal, whichever is less. Searing pain courses along the nerves, so strong that the victim cannot act coherently. The victim cannot cast spells or use magic items, and it attacks blindly, unable to distinguish friend from foe (–4 penalty on attack rolls and a 50% miss chance, regardless of the attack roll).

Each round the victim spends in an amorphous state causes 1 point of Wisdom drain from mental shock. If the victim’s Wisdom score falls to 0, it becomes a chaos beast.

A victim can regain its own shape by taking a standard action to attempt a DC 15 Charisma check (this check DC does not vary for a chaos beast with different Hit Dice or ability scores). A success reestablishes the creature’s normal form for 1 minute. On a failure, the victim can still repeat this check each round until successful.   [/spoiler]

So as he said, yes it eventually did, hence he eventually turned the Tarrasque into a Chaos Beast.

(http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b15/Flawless_P/afdasf.jpg)
I hate you Magic Man, you bastard.(No really though him and his brother showed me the episode and i sat there horrified and entranced as everything I had seen done by the Yellow Jester was done by the magic man.)
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Z November 13, 2010, 05:02:31 PM
I tell you this in only the strictest confidence. I may have played in the most incompetent campaign ever.

Originally, I was going to go on and on and on with how I came to meet the worst DM in the entire world, but there's far too much to cover. Instead, I'd like to give you a bullet point list of the various indignities I was subject to, and frankly subjected myself to, before finally understanding that BAD GAMING IS WORSE THAN NO GAMING.

-Imaginative Houserules!
I thought the DM was kidding when he said I need to "roll up a dragon ;)" when I was creating a character. As it turned out, every member of the party had been given a special ring that allows the user to turn into a Dragonborn instantly, allowing you to switch between entire characters as a free action. Also, we could swap out any of our abilities for free at any time. We could grow wings and a Dragonborn head whenever! We were also all telepathic, and could teleport to any location we had visited.

-Skillful Storytelling!
The aforementioned magic rings were given to us by an NPC simply called "the Battlemaster." It was our sworn duty (apparently) to band together and stop a war that happened THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO AND IS GOING TO HAPPEN AGAIN FOR SOME REASON I GUESS? We didn't really get any precise instructions on how to stop the mystery war, but a we were expressly told that the first step was to liberate an airship that was actually a living construct that was also a spelljammer (?!)

-An Amazing Cast of Characters!
We were able to interact with a grand total of three NPCs in the first month of the game. One of them was a talking table.

-Challenging Combat!
In the beginning, he would throw a lot of monsters at us that were two levels below us, and he would get flustered when we barely needed to use a healing surge. Eventually he would become visibly angry when we would turn his dumbass rules around and actually use them in combat. I don't think there was a single time we were legitimately bloodied. Except, you know, when he would say an attack hit us without rolling for it because "trust me, it would have hit."

-Scintillating Situations!
He had a female black dragon in his campaign that more or less raped all of our characters systematically. He couldn't understand why we found the idea objectionable.

-Exciting Locales!
By express order of the DM, we weren't allowed to play at anyone's house. He set up shop in a local restaurant and would awkwardly flirt with the college-age waitstaff. He was 45, balding, was equipped with a horribly unkempt beard, wore shorts everywhere, had giant old people glasses, and was pretty consistently bedecked in superhero t-shirts. This, as you can imagine, was rather awkward for me.

-Dynamic Environments!
Within two months of the game beginning, we were transported to Gamma World to find and recover a SECOND living-spelljammer-magic-airship. My character had his hand replaced with a shotgun after I made a joke about Monks not having ranged abilities. Also, various mutations turned my skeleton into metal, allowed our party's dwarf to control nanomachines with his mind, and made our warrior grow a second fire-breathing head.

That's not even the half of it. I may compose this into actual stories at one point, but it's hard to even start.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe November 13, 2010, 05:19:58 PM
hahaha

this is what happens when Rifts GMs try 4E

: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Z November 13, 2010, 06:24:48 PM
I really can't decide if his gaming or his socializing was the worst thing about him.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P November 29, 2010, 07:56:10 PM
This is kind of an Anecdote but I did it in bullet point form as much as possible because well its a damn long story. This is my

Attacked by a Kraken, sucked into a whirlpool

Shipwrecked

Exploration of the countryside

Tons of fruit, no animals strange flowers.

Further examination of flowers, FLOWERS ATTACK IN CARNIVEROUS

SWARMS!

Run and hide in a cave opening behind a waterfall

Cave exploration yields cave paintings of an Enormous Red

Dragon doing battle with what looks like a giant starfish

while humanoid figures battle the plants.

Dragon and Humans are defeated Humans flee into the caves.

Meet indigenous life forms, look vaguely humanoid but their
eyes are useless and they speak broken Draconic.

Make arrangements with the natives to move our shipwrecked
crew into their caves.

Go exploring through the caves to find the dragons hoard
because there could be magical weapons to help us escape.

Meet the Red Dragon named Malyx who is still alive. He is
poisoned and has been unable to sleep for hundreds of years,
his power is nearing its end, he tells us how we might destroy
the scourges power source and is mercy killed by the one of the group.(at his request)

He has many technologically advanced items, computers and
guns, that we cannot identify. One of the group casts identify
on a gun and is permanently drained of 2 wisdom to learn how it
works.

Uses gun till the bullets run out and we must run and escape
because of enemies in the cave.

We share our plan with the natives and the chieftain volunteers
for the kamikaze mission of forcing the volcano to react and
overload the scourges powers source, which is now resting
comfortably on the volcano.

We were able to recover small stones that stored magical
energy each rock would deal damage of the last element that
touched it. I charged them with cold damage and was rewarded
with a club that had 12 of them inserted in it. One attack
would shatter them all simultaneously destroying the weapon and possibly injuring me in the process.

We stage our final stand to distract the hordes of man eating
plants while we send our people back to the beachfront where
the salt and sand keep the monsters back.

We filled hollowed out coconuts with blood because we learned
that they attacked the smell of blood.

We started throwing the coconuts at the bigger enemies so the
swarms would eat them. We held them off for 4 rounds before I
misunderstanding the plan, took off for the beach as well.

Any injury was to be nearly fatal as it would cause you to
bleed and the masses to descend. I made it all the way to the
beach without fear of the plants but my allies weren't so lucky.

One of my allies was bleeding out and running while another
attempted to heal him, they were being over taken and when I
didn't see them exit the forest behind me I grabbed an armful
of seaweed and some charcoal and ran back in, I tossed the
seaweed to one and the charcoal to the other so they could
cover their scents and we ran back out.

The Volcano goes off and there is much rejoicing, we had just
defeated an enemy that had plagued these people for hundreds
of years and we were able to build a new ship, it took months
but we treated it as an island paradise from then on, plenty
of fresh fruits and vegetables and all the carnivorous plants
you could possibly ever want to smoke.
That is Chapter One.


: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama December 06, 2010, 06:48:26 PM
The return of my suicidal Vampire the Requiem player!

So, I've managed to avoid killing her current (third) character, Hatti, though only just. She's currently something of a social outcast because she's partly responcible for the death of her own covenant, but that's another story. Two sessions ago she was working a case, all the PCs are members of a secret police group serving the city's ruler, and called one of the other PCs, Chuck. They exchanged some information and she offered to help Chuck, which he declined. Hatti pushed that she should help because her abilities would be extremely useful and Chuck pushed back that they would not, that he had it under control.

Finally they go their seperate ways, him to continue his investigation and her to one of the secret police's hide outs. All of the hide outs have what's basically a red Batman phone that goes to the city's ruler for us in emergancys. So, she uses the big red phone to call in and say that Chuck wouldn't take her help so he isn't doing his job. Message is sent in and she doesn't hear a response right away so she continues about her business.

This last session Chuck gets a visit from a vampire higher up in the city's power structure who informs him an official complaint has been lodged against him and he's been summoned to court. Chuck asked who assused him and found out it was Hatti so he goes out and hires a vampire lawyer to defend him. Meanwhile, some of Hatti's other mistakes are catching up to her and she has to fight a pair of magicians before fleeing into the faerie world with some new allies to escape destruction. When she gets back to the real world she has a phone message informing her of the trial date regarding her complant against Chuck and advising her to get a lawyer. She calls the same lawyer as Chuck, who informs her he's already been hired and gives her four other lawyers she can go to.

Now, here's where it goes strange. Hatti insists on contacting a PC turned NPC named Gypsy. Gypsy is not a lawyer and bearly knows Hatti but she insists so she gets to meet with him. After hearing the details, Gypsy decides to use the trial to expose the secret police and weaken the current ruler polically so he can take control. He also demands an insanely high price for his services, which Hatti instantly agrees to.

The trial date comes, both sides show up, and take their places when suddenly the lights go out, the doors are sealed magically, and the three ruling vampires in the city appear out of the gloom, commanding all present be bound to secrecy on pain of death. So the trial starts and Hatti has no evidence of any wrong doing on Chuck's part aside from their conversation. So, she offers to let one of the elders read her mind in place of testimony, which he does. Chuck is asked to defend himself, which he does by showing that in the time between the accusation and the trial, he has solved the case he was working on. Witnesses are called. Hatti calls another member of the secret police to testify and does not get the answers she wants so she keeps talking until the elders tell her to move on. At that point she faces the elder in charge and starts talking about what the elders intended when they formed the secret police. Elder tells her to keep her focus on the guilt of the accused and not wander. She keeps going so the elder backhands her across the room.

Trail ends with all charges dismissed. Because Chuck opted not to counter sue, Hatti faced no legal action against her and everybody went their seperate ways.

So, to choke it all up for Hatti:
She lost her case.
She wasted the time of all three ruling vampire elders.
She got punched in the face.
Everybody in the city is still mad at her for her involvement in the death of her covenant (especially the one other surviving member).
She alienated all of the other members of the secret police and the public police (many of whom her called as witnesses at the trial).
And she literally bargained away her life to Gypsy for basically no gain what so ever.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P December 06, 2010, 07:21:48 PM
Politics doesn't sound like her game. I don't know much about the nWoD but sounds like she should have been a Brujah or Gangrel in oWoD less political BS that way.

Note: The kind of BS I loved because well I played a Ventrue all 3 games I ever played in.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama December 06, 2010, 07:41:15 PM
Politics doesn't sound like her game. I don't know much about the nWoD but sounds like she should have been a Brujah or Gangrel in oWoD less political BS that way.

Note: The kind of BS I loved because well I played a Ventrue all 3 games I ever played in.

Ventrue FTW.

A political genius she is not. She keeps getting herself into these situations. This new character was created with a political mentor who was supposed to watch out for her and show her the ropes.

About two minutes after her mentor official delcared Hatti independent she was getting into trouble but her mentor kept her somewhat sheilded. At least until three sessions ago when Hatti outright defied her mentor, took a powerful magical item to another covenant member, and got over 85% of the covenant killed (they went from about thirty members to four).

So, yeah, now she's the outsider who destoryed her own team, owes her life to a guy she got nothing from, and is arguing with her only two remaining allies.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P December 06, 2010, 07:55:50 PM
I'd give her a quick death and have her make a new character, well that is if she is no longer having fun
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama December 06, 2010, 07:59:04 PM
I'd give her a quick death and have her make a new character, well that is if she is no longer having fun

She seems to enjoy it. Besides, I get to tell these awesomely fucked up stories. The campaign is coming to an end in two weeks. I'll make her do something different in the next one.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: The_Last_76 December 07, 2010, 06:00:36 PM
My campaign is quickly spiraling out of control.

It started out as a simple 'A Wizard Brings You To The Future - What Do?' game, and now they've uncovered Pelor's Holy Avenger that was posing as a mountain while speared through the heart of a Colossus.  One of the characters became a Star for a few millenia, another spent an unnamed amount of time in the mind of an Angel.  And every other session they manage to at least attempt genocide.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P December 07, 2010, 07:22:21 PM
Tad has helped me to remember my own anecdote from Vampire. This one is in the Masquerade not Requiem, It was also my first time playing Vampire. I made a Ventrue and we all spent our points wrong because no one bothered to re-read the books, so I had alot more dots than I should have, we were a group formed by the Camarilla to investigate and curb Sabbat incursions toward Sacramento, CA. We were all together except for one member didn't make it to the game till late so we had to "work" him in.

We were meeting with an informant, when the other player showed up (in character he was looking for information as well). He was a Gangrel with bad blood towards the Ventrue as a general rule and he started to insult one of the group members for dressing all fancy and driving a really expensive car. He was a Tremere who had a lot of wealth and didn't take the insults kindly. He used his telekinesis to hold the Gangrel in the air while we insulted and threatened him. Well he spit at the Tremere and missed, he hit me instead and I was livid. So we took him out side and waited next to some railroad tracks, when the train came by we bounced him off of it a few times till he was about to meet his final death. Then I grabbed him and delete all his memories of the events, replacing them with a gang of Sabbat members jumping him near to death while we saved him with a combination of my Assault Rifle(not only did I not have one, I would have been at a loss for how to hit anything) and the Tremeres Telekinesis we killed them all and fed him blood to save him from nearly starving while he healed himself.

When he woke up he was super helpful to us and even assisted us in our mission.

Worst part of all of this is that the player is the biggest Wolverine fan, like huge! It wasn't until a few nights later that I realized we Weapon X'd the hell out of him. After I brought it up to him he laughed his ass off.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P December 07, 2010, 07:23:14 PM
My campaign is quickly spiraling out of control.

It started out as a simple 'A Wizard Brings You To The Future - What Do?' game, and now they've uncovered Pelor's Holy Avenger that was posing as a mountain while speared through the heart of a Colossus.  One of the characters became a Star for a few millenia, another spent an unnamed amount of time in the mind of an Angel.  And every other session they manage to at least attempt genocide.

not a single bit of that made sense to me, apparently I need some context
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: The_Last_76 December 08, 2010, 01:23:31 AM

not a single bit of that made sense to me, apparently I need some context

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=442824897901
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=445986842901
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/note.php?note_id=445989287901

Not sure you'll be able to read that, but that's about the first 24hours worth of gameplay written out.  In two sessions.  Going up for the 6th session and 60+ hours soon.  The short story is we've been playing hard and fast with D&D, ignoring the rules where they are inconvenient in favor of better story.  Three central players, with another seven who rotate in and out of the game at their convenience. 

We have an Eladrin Wizard who founded a magic school at the outpost, in a setting where - thanks to time traveling shenanigans - only her and those who came with her knew about magic.  She taught it to a species whose culture was entirely unprepared for it and the result was a massive civil war.  After getting tied up in the plans of a Liche-turned-God she's started to find religion.  Started with misguidedly worshipping the snake god .  After exploring the petrified body of a slain colossus (biological dungeon for the win), they found an Angel of Pelor at the heart of the corpse, guarding the God's Holy Sword.  After conversing with the Angel in a landscape created from it's mind, she chooses to stay there for X amount of time studying the religion of Pelor.  Now she's on her way to becoming an Angel herself.

Next up is the Chaotic Evil Dragonborn Warlord who seems to have taken Magnificent Bastardry to a whole new level never before witnessed by mere mortals. Starting as the judicial champion of the Chief Slave of the outpost, he worked his way up to Captain of the Guard and finally Military commander.  On the path to his lofty position, he organized the resurrection of an ancient Kua-Toa society to attack the town and justify his promotion, secretly murdered witnesses, egged on a war with the Spider people by setting their forest on fire and using his position to influence the outposts economical situation.  He is currently leading a small society aboard a floating Island-Fortress, protected by an air force of Dragon Riders.  Also the Death Knight Champion of the Liche-turned-God mentioned before.

The third of the central players is an Elven Ranger.  The character has actually been a driving force in most of the campaign, but still managed to slip under the radar while doing so.  She started off by orchestrating a raid on Gargantuan Ant Colony in a bit to capture some larvae and breed her own Ant Mount.  Three consecutive crits on her nature check inspired me to allow her to do so.  Ant Mount aside, she set up a business selling Queen Ant Jelly - which was later used to fuel several technological advancements in mining and deep-sea exploration procedures. A great friend to both the Spiders of Leng and the local societies.  In the last game she sacrificed herself to save a team mate, allowing herself to be used in a Star-ritual.  She's come back as a Star Avatar who just spent all of existence watching the world pass by from the sky.

It started out as a one shot, but they insisted on going with it.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Fizban December 13, 2010, 03:47:04 AM



Well, although I have many years of anecdotes I could dredge up, I feel the need today to share a few short stories from the one-shot I ran at MacquarieCon four times over the last weekend.  I also ran it with a test group a month or so before, so I have run it a total of five times.  And although those five games shared the same plot, the same characters, and the same goals, they could not have been more different.

The basic tenet of the game was this - a group of five mages have heeded the call for help from an archmage, whose last living relative on earth is in danger, and he wants her kept safe.  He'd do it himself, but he is over 400 years old, and if he sets foot on earth, reality will slap him into pasty ancient goo.  His relative was a girl working in a vault complex in Sydney, which was under threat of robbers, and she had been taken hostage.  Free the girl, keep her safe.  That was the ostensible goal.

I say ostensible goal, because there was, as in all my con games, a twist - the mage did not in fact care in the slightest about his great great great grand daughter.  But she had a ring, which was a powerful artifact which anchored his horizon realm to the earth.  However, only one of the mages knew this (the monk whose avatar was the ghost of Bruce Lee).  Well, that's not entirely true.  One of the mages in the group was a member of the nephandi - that group of evil mages who wants to end reality - and knew that the ring was a powerful device that could aid in massive destruction, and figured this had something to do with it.

The ring's power further complicated things, by preventing any sort of correspondence teleportation or scrying into where it was held.  And what the hell, to add a further complication, the robbers were all vampires - insane Malkavians who were holding the girl hostage to get the attention of the archmage, because they wanted help dealing with the technocracy, and figured he would come or at least send some mages if they put her in danger.  And one of the mages in the group wasn't actually a mage at all, but was a ghoul of a vampire who was an enemy of these Malkavians, and he used blood to perform magic-like feats to spy on the mages for general occult information.

Okay, so it's complicated.  But here's a summary of how each group who played this game sought to solve their problem.

The first  group, the control group, ran almost like clockwork.  They researched the building and the situation.  They teleported into a subway toilet, and walked to the scene. The police had already turned up to the scene, so they pretended to be police (undercover, since they were dressed so strangely they may as well have been the Village People) and got access to the CCTV in the vault and found out the robbers' demands.  They decided to go in and negotiate with the robbers, found out they were vampires (the ghoul hid himself to make sure they didn't recognise him) and agreed to help deal with the technocracy and help them loot the vault.  The vampires then basically proceeded to break the masquerade, make sure all the CCTV caught it, then tipped their hats to the magi and said, "Well, they'll be here soon.  Have fun!" and walked out the door.  A technocrat came with a HITMark and a few others, a massive magical fight ensued, in which the nephandi was given the ring by a trusting member of the cabal and told, "Keep it safe!" Yoink, she made good her escape and a few months later the world was ended.  Yay.

The first game I ran at the actual convention took a slightly different turn.  The group decided to do absolutely no research on the facility, teleported onto the roof, and took the fire escape down, but found it didn't go to the basement where the vault was, and used spirit magic to make a deal with the fire alarm not to set off when they opened the door, if they promised to set off all the alarms in the building within 1 hour.  They charmed a beat cop with magic, told him to ignore them, then snuck into the vault complex.  The ghoul used dominate on the vampire with explosives forcing it to stay still, before they blew a hole in the wall, incapacitated the other vampires with a swarm of wasps and fire, and then told the hostages to run.  They found the ring, which was safely snatched up by the monk.  The nephandi then proceeded to summon a horde of spirits to attack his companions in an effort to get the ring, but had his top half disintegrated, and so the ring was made safe.

The second game followed a similar beginning to the first - they ignored doing any research, teleported onto the roof, and went down the fire stairs.  But it didn't even bother them that they didn't go to the basement - they used matter magic to redesign the building and put in a fire stair to the basement.  They then installed a secret corridor to the room with the hostages, whilst the nephandi spirit walked into the vault to get behind enemy lines (and stole the ring while in there).  They froze the exploding vampire in time, stormed in with guns blazing, took out the other two vampires, before the nephandi grabbed the girl they were there for and escaped out the front door and into the hands of police.  Thinking they had all done incredibly well, the monk went into the vault only to find the ring gone, and wondered where it was.  The nephandi then won the game by accidently using spirit travel with the ring, thus tearing a hole in the gauntlet from Sydney to Colombia and allowing the denizens of the umbra to flood the earth, killing all humanity.

The third game had only three players, who did their research and decided to try and sneak into the  vault through the airconditioning system.  One player sought to turn themself into a cockroach, and succeeded in getting everything but the size right, and so snuck into the vault as a five foot tall cockroach.  They then decided to enter the vault by dressing up as pizza delivery boys and snatched the hostage they wanted from the scene, trapping the vampires behind bullet-proof glass doors as they ran.  The enraged vampires proceeded to quite horribly annihilate the other hostages, which the magi saw on their PDA which tapped into the CCTV, and felt bad - so they used magic to set off the explosives, destroying the whole building, and causing the two buildings either side to fall over onto the wreckage.  THEN the nephandi decided to turn into a cockroach and sneak into the vault (now buried under three buildings' worth of rubble), while telling the monk through a mind link that she was a nephandi and she was going to get this ring, and he should totally join her.  He responded by reaching into her mind and pulling out all thoughts to do with the ring so that, by the time she had the safe deposit box open, she couldn't remember what she was doing there, and so just took the ring as a trinket, and traded it to the monk in return for his promise to help her end the world.

The final game at the con involved five people who wanted to make sure everything went off without a hitch, and so planned for - I kid you not - two and a half hours.  They researched, they planned, they schemed, they looked at the clock and saw they had 30 minutes to complete this caper, and they managed to kill the head police negotiator, get subsumed and trapped in a safe deposit box by the spirit of the vault, turn the water sprinkler system into holy water to melt the vampires to puddles of goo, and basically forget about the hostages.  The nephandi locked himself in the vault, found the ring, and attempted to call his nephandi brethren through the spirit realm to tell them he had the ring and to ask what to do next - but botched, and accidentally got speaking to a werewolf, who appeared, tore the nephandi to tiny bits, and took the ring somewhere safe.

One thing that always bemuses me about con games is how you can prepare something (like the whole subplot about the vampires wanting help against the technocracy) and the players never even come close to stumbling over it.  I mean, four games, and no-one thought to find out what the vampires wanted?  Two of the groups didn't even do any research on the vault complex, and so missed out on the cool video I had prepared.  Oh well, such is life.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P December 13, 2010, 02:35:28 PM
That is awesome, this story makes me want to know more about the other White Wolf products since i've only played Vampire.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Ryo December 13, 2010, 03:05:14 PM
That is awesome, this story makes me want to know more about the other White Wolf products since i've only played Vampire.

Old World of Darkness Mage is not for the lighthearted. :P
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P December 13, 2010, 04:25:56 PM
This story is from chapter 2 of our campaign with the murderous flowers that I summed up a few posts ago.

We evetually finished building our new ship, took MONTHS as it should luckily there were lots of natural resources around. We ended up leaving and eventually came to a new port where we stopped to resupply and get make some money.

one of crew members, a fiendish bloodline sorceror was staying in a hotel and was found over a murdered man in the morning, he was drugged and couldn't remember anything, but we realized he had been framed.

So we go on a quest to find proof of this, so that he wouldnt be put to death. We eventually find proof and bring it back to the guard station, where he is held, problem is all the guards seem to have had a change of heart about our presence and we are ambushed and arrested.

We noticed that each of them was wearing an ear ring, they were all identical, so we deduced that they were being mind controlled.

This is where Tim comes in. Tim is a wizard, a wizard who has half of his leg missing and part of his bicep torn off from the shipwreck earlier.

His wounds had healed but he was still a frail individual with one leg. Well he also turned out to be the guy with magic missle.

Tim's player is a bit new to DnD so he turns to the DM and asks, Magic Missle hits its target unerringly correct? The DM responds yeah but you can't make called shots with it, it strikes them in a generic location unerringly.

Tim's brilliant logic is, "I want to target the Ear Rings."

Our DM's face lit up with excitment to hear this unique plan.

It worked, only problem was we had a large group of 1 eared guards who were pretty upset about it.

They still let our buddy go and everything turned out ok.(There was a battle in there somewhere but the story is already kinda long.)
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama December 14, 2010, 04:45:24 PM
I ran my first Deathwatch game Saturday. There where three PCs, all playing warhammer 40k space marines, so everybody was a total badass.  Scenario start, they kill like a hundred aliens with their chainsaw swords and ship-to-ship missiles.

Second fight they got ambushed by dozens of flying aliens with neutron guns while they where shotting through a forest in their big transport ship. The techy fails his drive roll and smashes into some trees, slowing the speeder to a stop. First round of neurton shots hits the assault marine melee specialist in the arm. He gets hit hard and the critical hits table dictates that his arm gets shocked numb for awhile and that he vomits. So, he vomits into the helment of his space suit, runs with one arm flailing in the breeze, and starts operating the mounted heavy bolter on the speeder with vomit covered lenses and one arm.

They manage to kill all the aliens and find the place they where sent to check out. In so doing they set off an alien brain bomb and they all start having visions of their worst nightmares, except for the tech specalist who made the save. So, the two guys on the speeder see the techy turn into a huge monster and open fire on him with the mounted gun just as more aliens, who detected the mental blastwave, land to check things out.

The techy gets shot up but charges and goes to work with his sword while the assault marine takes a flying leap with his jetpack and boards the alien drop ship. Once onboard he slaughters the crew, kicks his way into the cockpit, and nosedives the ship. To escape, he kicks out the cockpit window but gets stuck since the aliens are smaller than normal human size and he’s a giant human. So, as the ship crashes, he fires off his jetpack to tear free, screaming a battle cry while doing so and fails his jetpack piloting roll. He hits the ground, face first, at top speed. But since he’s a space marine he takes no damage. The techy runs behind the crashed ship for cover, since he was standing in an open field when the aliens landed and started using him for target practice. The assault marine runs around to cover as well and tells the techy “Don’t worry; I’ll get us out of here.”

He grabs the techy and ignites his jetpack again, rising slowly into the air. Away from the cover of the ship. With a huge squad of enemy aliens and their battlesuit wearing commander watching. The aliens track up, taking their time to aim, and open fire. Amazingly, they survive the hits, and just then the gunship they’d called up breaks the treeline, weapons firing.

40K. Awesome.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Dom December 14, 2010, 05:39:45 PM
That sounds like a Dawn of war intro cutscene. Awesome!
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Fizban December 14, 2010, 10:03:09 PM
Marines are built to survive - which actually makes your average gung-ho charging player a little more validated in his decision to go balls first into combat, firing guns wildly at friend and foe alike.  I'm still undecided on whether this sort of behaviour actually needs any more encourangement...
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe December 19, 2010, 07:07:48 PM
I dont know if this counts as an anecdote or not but the chatlog for a maptools game I played in last year - this was done at someones house - there were enough laptops to go around and it saved us time on setting up a board and minis

Fuzzy has connected.
Mithril GM has connected.
Jonny has connected.
Ross:    hi
Fuzzy:    Oh Hai Ross!
Fuzzy:    Oh Hai Doggy!
Ross:    you're my favorite customer
Ross:    Matt - plz have Bil eaten by a grue k thx bye
   Bill:    Not the Richard Gere dream again!
   Bill:    Rectum? Damn near killed'em!
   Bill:    What is... Richard Gere?!
   Bill:    « 1d20 = 2 »
   Bill:    « 1d20 = 19 »
   Ross:    they went from being big gnomes on campus...to dead on arrival
   Ross:    YYYYEEEEEAAHHHHH
"puts sunglasses on" Unknown command. Try /help for a list of commands.
* Ross puts sunglasses on
",e takes sunglasses off" Unknown command. Try /help for a list of commands.
* Ross takes sunglasses off
   Jonny:    Aw, snap!
   Bill:    Yeeeeaaaaaaaaaagh!
* Ross walks in slow motion and in the background an Escalade explodes in a massive fireball
   Bill:    
   Ross:    
   Bill:    
   Ross:    kekekeke u giev SOJ?
   Ross:    zerg rush kekekekeke ^_^
   Bill:    OMG BLUE TEXT?!
   Iochonen:    WTB SOW!
   Iochonen:    2 rogue lfg!
   Bill:    OMG DPS LOLZ!
   Ross:    no AWP camping
   Ross:    gg nextmap
   Bill:    « 1d20 = 9 »
Mithril GM:    « 1d20+mod = 7 + 2 = 9 »
   Ross:    barbarian needs food badly
Mithril GM:    « 1d20+7 = 18 + 7 = 25 »
Mithril GM:    « 1d3+1 = 1 + 1 = 2 »
* Ross takes sunglasses off and says "your goose...is cooked" then puts sunglasses back on
* Ross says "that dog just took a bite out of crime" then poses in slow motion while turning around in a designer suit
   Iochonen:    Scruff McGruff, that you?
   Yakko:    *Yells "YEEEEEEEEEEAaaaaaaaaagghh!"
   Yakko:    *Yells "YEEEEEEEAaaaaaagghh!"
* Ross puts sunglasses on while barrels explode in the background as a magic missile whistles by his head and sparks fly everywhere
   Yakko:    *Yells "YEEEEEEEAaaaaaagghh!"
Mithril GM:    « 1d20+6 = 6 + 6 = 12 »
Mithril GM:    « 1d12+8 = 11 + 8 = 19 »
* Ross yells out in slow motion "NNNOOOOOO" then drops to his knees in anguish while taking his sunglasses off
* Ross weeps for his fallen comrade while doves fly around him in slow motion. A chorus of angels sings in the distance
   Yakko:    *Yells "YEEEEEEEAaaaaaagghh!"
* Ross puts his sunglasses back on and says "revenge is best served...with death" and gets up - another explosion detonates in the distance
   Yakko:    *Yells "YEEEEEEEAaaaaaagghh!"
   Dog Companion:    Raooo chomp
Attack« 1d20+2 = 6 + 2 = 8 »
Damage« 1d4+2 = 1 + 2 = 3 »
   Dog Companion:    Raooo chomp
Attack« 1d20+2 = 20 + 2 = 22 »
Damage« 1d4+2 = 4 + 2 = 6 »
   Dog Companion:    Raooo chomp
Attack« 1d20+2 = 11 + 2 = 13 »
Damage« 1d4+2 = 4 + 2 = 6 »
* Ross says "I'll cast the first stone' then unleasehes an attack with his sling at Githyanki leader
   Yakko:    *Yells "YEEEEEEEAaaaaaagghh!"
   Githyanki 5:    Would you stop with the macros!
   Yakko:    *Yells "YEEEEEEEAaaaaaagghh!"
   Yakko:    No, wait, actually no, we can't
   Wilin Delfore:    Scorching Ray
Attack« 1d20+1 = 7 + 1 = 8 »
Damage« 4d6 = 16 »
   Githyanki 5:    Everything is Hazy...
Roll Will Save
   Githyanki 6:    Sword Slash
Attack« 1d20+4 = 19 + 4 = 23 »
Damage « 2d6+1 = 8 + 1 = 9 »
   Githyanki 7:    Arrow Shot
Attack « 1d20+2 = 5 + 2 = 7 »
Damage« 1d8+1 = 4 + 1 = 5 »
   Githyanki 2:    Everything is Hazy...
Roll Will Save
   Githyanki 8:    I attack the dark!
Magic Missile Auto Hit
Damage « 1d4+1 = 1 + 1 = 2 »
* Ross puts on sunglasses and wipes some dust from his face (a nearby explosion kicked up a giant dust cloud) and says "this shit just got real"
   Yakko:    *Yells "YEEEEEEEAaaaaaagghh!"
Fuzzy:    « 1d20 = 1 »
   Wilin Delfore:    Ray of Frost
Attack« 1d20+1 = 7 + 1 = 8 »
Damage« 1d3 = 2 »
Fuzzy:    « 1d20 = 16 »
Fuzzy:    « 1d6 = 4 »
"1d20" Unknown command. Try /help for a list of commands.
   Wilin Delfore:    Casts Spell
Instant Hit
damage « 1d4+1 = 3 + 1 = 4 »
Mithril GM:    « 1d20+8 = 4 + 8 = 12 »
   Bodak:    Slam Attack
Attack « 1d20+6 = 17 + 6 = 23 »
Damage « 1d8+1 = 1 + 1 = 2 »
* Ross says "no need to thank us..we're just adventuring...Miami Style"
   Yakko:    *Yells "YEEEEEEEAaaaaaagghh!"
Jonny is disconnected.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Moondog December 22, 2010, 03:37:54 PM
Now, I have the distinct pleasure of gaming with a group of people all of whom have been playing D&D since it had an A tacked onto the front of it. Folks who (fondly) remember when the various races were classes.

These're people who know what they're doing, and I don't think I could have ever found a better gaming group even if I tried. That said, one of them is one of those guys. We'll call him Ted. Ted is one of those guys who generally plays the same character again and again, just with a different class each time.

They're loud, aggressive, 'don't take no shit from no-one', and prioritize intimidation and strong-arming over reasonable diplomatic methods, such as negotiation. It doesn't matter whether they're a paladin, ranger, scout, warmage, or druid, they all do it to disastrous effect.

He's one of those guys that DMs love, because if they ever need to push a PC's button and propel everyone forward, he's the guy who is so easy to get going, you hardly have to try. Unfortunately, this tends to make the other players frown, because we know and dread what Ted will do next.

His character habits tend to get said characters killed in the most spectacular of fashions. They don't run away, regroup, or try to take things on from the side. They instead charge in and start swinging, usually to our cries of 'Ted, no!'

So, D&D, 3.5 game, Ted is playing Seamus, a hard-bitten, cynical druid who trusts the forest creatures more than deceitful humans. He's been with our group of hardy adventurers for a while now, and we're all gearing up to defend a forest-stronghold against an enemy army, led by a trio of mages all of whom are rather bad news.

We've done our best, but the beholder the enemy had dominated into service for use as a sapper (disintegrate at will makes for an *amazing* digging tool) made a tunnel under our walls and wham, we were overwhelmed in a few minutes flat (one of those 'you really aren't supposed to succeed here, but you can try! situations). So, we, being intelligent players, made our subtle exit out the back way and into the forest to regroup and see if we can't figure a way to reclaim the place at a later date.

When we notice a trio of men in arcane looking robes smugly wandering through the forest and petrifying the few defender silly enough to swing at them. We, the players, exchange glances, nod, and swiftly go 'We all go in the opposite direction!'.

Except for Ted. Ted smiles, and says 'They're going to ruin my yard. I charge them!'

Cue "Ted, no!"

Now, he had managed to get his hands on a vorpal scythe earlier in the game, as our GM loves handing out awesome weapons with caveats (it would drain Con from him every time he swung it, if I recall correctly. Nasty weapon, really nasty).

He rolls a natural 20, and beheads one of the mage lords right off the bat. We all just stare at him, while he cackles.

The other two mages, unfortunately, busted out twin-spelled Isaac's Greater Magic Missile Swarms, and after a few hundred d4s, our poor 8th level druid was reduced to a quivering pile of jelly, while the rest of us got away scot free.

Then there was his replacement Warmage. We'd infiltrated a sunken temple in desecrated lands, in search of a way to heal lands ruined by mana-drain.

In the bottom level, sitting upon a pile of treasure that would make Scrooge McDuck giggle in glee, lay a two-headed dragon, who looked rather bored, and not all that hostile. We figured 'alright, hey, we can probably convince him to give us our MacGuffin in exchange for some goodies or promise of later service or something, right?'

Ted smiles, and marches his elven warmage right up to the dragon, and begins poking it in the nose to get its attention, saying 'Dragon, in my blood flows magic mightier than even your biggest and baddest of breath weapons!' and then asked the DM if he could roll an intimidate check.

"Ted, no!"

Then our DM smiled and said 'Sure'.

A smiling DM is never good.

He rolled like, a 17 or so, and turned to us, saying, 'See? I'm not afraid of a big liz-' it was about then that the dragon bit him twice in one round, getting a critical hit on the first bite and killing him instantly (elven warmages. Not huge on the hit points), and was promptly torn apart, which initiated combat as all of our characters were good and would be honor bound to avenge his death. . .even if he deserved it.

Fast forward a bit. Our warmage was dead, our ranger bit the dust, the dwarven crossbowman was reduced to 3 or so hit points, and my catfolk rogue had 1 left over before we brought that thing down.  Ted's response? "See? If I hadn't have done that, you wouldn't have gotten any treasure!"

: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Fizban December 22, 2010, 04:28:34 PM
Ted's next character should be called Leeeeeeeeeroy Jenkins.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Moondog December 22, 2010, 07:39:57 PM
It would be a good fit.

He's not all bad, though! Later, he made a paladin who, after acquiring a vorpal weapon, found himself frequently hurled (via Swordsage throwing techniques) sword-first at far away enemies. 1st and 2nd time we tried it, natural 20s were rolled, and so did two dragons' heads. The third time he just ended up with a 19 critical.

It became a party in-joke that 'if we ever fight something REALLY dangerous, we'll just hurl the paladin at it."

Then there was the time an illusionist with a Sphere of Annihilation was encountered by the party. . .  :'(
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P December 27, 2010, 12:08:42 PM
...which initiated combat as all of our characters were good and would be honor bound to avenge his death. . .even if he deserved it.

Most of my group would be like "While he is intimidating the Dragon I leave." "You can't make it all the way out." "I use the Run Action to get as far away from this as possible."

I've seen many Good Aligned characters who would do this.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Moondog December 27, 2010, 01:24:46 PM
...which initiated combat as all of our characters were good and would be honor bound to avenge his death. . .even if he deserved it.

Most of my group would be like "While he is intimidating the Dragon I leave." "You can't make it all the way out." "I use the Run Action to get as far away from this as possible."

I've seen many Good Aligned characters who would do this.

That would have been a good idea! But then we wouldn't have gotten a small mountain of treasure and the MacGuffin. Including an iceberg of ice that never melts! I think we ended up giving that to a desert-princess as a present, easily trumping everyone else's puny gold and silver. :smug:
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P December 27, 2010, 02:19:11 PM
...which initiated combat as all of our characters were good and would be honor bound to avenge his death. . .even if he deserved it.

Most of my group would be like "While he is intimidating the Dragon I leave." "You can't make it all the way out." "I use the Run Action to get as far away from this as possible."

I've seen many Good Aligned characters who would do this.

That would have been a good idea! But then we wouldn't have gotten a small mountain of treasure and the MacGuffin. Including an iceberg of ice that never melts! I think we ended up giving that to a desert-princess as a present, easily trumping everyone else's puny gold and silver. :smug:

That's awesome, I remember using that logic in character to convince the other PC's to track down a dragon. The conversation was something along the lines of.

"What if the Dragon is still alive and besides the mountain is really dangerous."
"Dragons, have hoards...."
"Let's Do It."
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Moondog December 27, 2010, 04:20:06 PM
Player logic is a grand thing, ain't it?
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P January 03, 2011, 02:11:30 PM
Everytime I play this campaign I come back with a story. I almost feel like they are too long to be Ancedotes but I will try to do this one justice without being too obtuse.

We have a running game(I have posted a few things about it here.) However I have never really given you guys the premise so...screw trying to be short this deserves a mention.

Premise: We were shipwrecked and met a Great Wyrm Red Dragon who was rather benovolent. He had taken this race under his wing and was teaching them all about technology from his world.

Dragons:

His world being him and 4 other Dragons came from a Spelljammeresque exsistance where the Dragons no longer warred with each other over color and divided the universe up equally between each color chromatic and metallic alike. On the outskirts of the known universe a long standing war was being waged between the Fey. The Seelie and Unseelie had been locked in a bloody war to keep the Unseelie Fey from breaking the barrier and attempting to take over the rest of the Universe. They eventually won and were able to push through to the Dragons lands. Dragons and Elemental forces clashed with the Fey and slowly the Fey gained ground. Eventually the Unseelie Fey had conquered all of the Dragons territory and Malyx a Great Wyrm Red Dragon was able to save himself his Daughter Selene his Brother Chool, one of his allies Beryl, and Selenes love N'yarvix.

Malyx - Red

Beryl - Black

N'Yravix - Haven't met him yet

Selene - Silver

Chool - White

When they made it to this land they decided to go their seperate ways, Selene and Chool moved to a fishing town Malyx lived on the pennisula near a volcano, Beryl moved underground to the north and N'Yarvix moved far north away from the others.

Although N'Yarvix and Selene loved each other as part of the Red Dragons Alliance with The Black Dragons, Selene was promised as a bride to Beryl.

She refused and he was furious he trapped her in her human form and threatened to kill N'Yarvix if he ever came close to her, going as far as to create a large mass of land that neither could cross without his knowledge.

Selene being resourceful as she was created a humanoid/robotic body to house N'Yarvix's mind so that they could be together across the great distance.

Enter our party, before she could put her lovers mind into the body she used it to save one of our party members whose body was destroyed. At the last moment his body was transfered into his new form and he quickly learned that although the body was strong and capable of combat, that his bodies primary function was to serve as a way for the to Dragons to have sex with each other...essentially his new body was a really advanced Sex Toy.


He is repeatedly damaged and we have to keep coming back to her for repairs. Yesterday however there was no fixing him, he had finally died, he was snapped in half(shoulder to groin in half) by a giant crab claw. We wrapped him up and took the pieces back to Selenes house.(we were all pretty legitimatly upset by this because in our current DM's world ressurection is exceedingly rare, in his own words "Even if there is a scroll of True Ressurection that in and of itself is as rare as an Artifact Item in this world.")

We arrive with the pieces wrapped up and Chool(in human form) answers the door, drunk. He slurs his words a bit and notices the blanket. Stumbling back into the house, he shouts...Selene! Your Dildo's Broken Again!

After all the depressing talk about missing him and what not up until that point, we as players were completely unprepared for this, everyone started laughing so hard they cried, we seriously derailed the campaign for like 5 minutes.


: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Moondog January 03, 2011, 04:24:33 PM
Hahaha, niiiiice.

Those giant 'craps', they've got some nasty claws.

Let me tell you, meeting those is a truly shitty experience. *G*
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Fizban January 11, 2011, 07:30:00 AM
I figured it was time to add another anectode from history.  I enjoy most those anectodes that reflect some sort of maxim of the roleplaying world, so I chose this one to share.  Since there was talk in another thread about a character's personality growing through their experiences, I figured I'd tell a story or two about that.

My wife and I had moved to Queensland for my work, and we had no-one to roleplay with.  We did play Warhammer 40k though, so we would turn up to the local battle bunker regularly to play and hang out with people of similar nerdy ilk.  I was still pretty new to 40k, and I kept referring to victory points (VP) as XP, because of my D&D heritage.  One of my opponents picked up on it and said, "Why do you keep saying XP?"  and I replied, "Oh, it's just D&D talk, I get them confused."  And he replied, "D&D?  I've always wanted to play, but never had the chance."  Then over my shoulder, a guy from another table replied, "Did you say you're running a D&D game?  I want in on that."

The guy I was playing against is Matt.  Matt was a young guy, just out of high school, who had a list of problems as long as  both arms and legs.  If you can have an acronym for it, he had it - ADD, OCD, DPD, Asperger's, the works - and his family situation wasn't great either.  He didn't have many friends, but he was loyal to gaming and he was dead keen to make a good run of roleplaying.  He made an elf called Lithander, who wanted to be a fire mage.  We called him Lith for short.

The guy from the other table was Randal.  He was an early 30s guy, thin as a rake, and absolutely affable, would do anything for you.  He is always animated and expressive.  He made a human fighter character called John the Unhinged, who came from a long list of tribal berserkers (Bert the Vexed, Ken the Unstable etc) going back to Reg the Nutter, whose blade had been handed down through the family.

I'll start with Lithander the 'fire mage'.  After the party's first encounter with a scout group of draconians (yes, it's Dragonlance - of sorts) in which they did quite well, they continued to follow a trail in the hope of discovering a mage who had sidetracked a caravan and taken it off into the woods.  Unfortunately for the party, this mage had teamed up with a group of hobgoblin slavers, and so when they confronted the mage, they were set upon.  It was a balanced fight, but with a few disastrous rolls and some bad decisions (the party members got stuck in a web, and decided to burn their way out) they were all down.  It was their second encounter, and they were facing a TPK.  what does any DM faced with such a situation do?  Turns to the age-old fallback of taking all of the character's belongings and putting them into slavery, of course!  And so the party found themselves in the back of a slave cart, being taken up over the mountains.  All of a sudden, a dragon attacks the slavers, general  hell breaks loose, the hobgoblins flee, and the party finds themselves free - in their undergarments, without shoes, on top of a mountain.

At this point, survival is the first port of call for the party.  The mage is so physically weak (good old 2E, his strength and constitution were his dump stats) they had to build fires in holes in the ground at night, and then put the mage in the warmed hole and have one of the fighters sleep on top of him.  They were following the hobgoblin tracks, because they had no idea where else to go, and Lith in particular was upset at the loss of his spellbook (making a 1st level mage in 2E absolutely useless).  Eventually they came across the hobgoblin encampment in a cave, but the party were outnumbered, had no weapons, no armour, so no chance. They decided to do some recon in the hope of possibly overwhelming a single hobgoblin, taking his gear, and putting themselves in a better position.  Sure enough, they saw one of the guards go off into the bushes to take a toilet break, and so stalked him.  As they watched him do his business, they saw him then produce a book of some sort, rip out a page, and use it as a bog roll.  Lith recognised it as his spellbook, and lost the plot.  He charged out of the bushes towards the hobgoblin, who was totally surprised to see a half-naked elf rushing him while he was wiping, grabbed his dagger out of the hobgoblin's belt and stabbed him with it, killing him.

This incident crowned the weak and sickly elf mage as "stabbity death", and even when he did get his spells, sometimes he just couldn't help but charge wildly into battle, stabbing at things with his dagger and causing much less harm than if he'd stuck to his spells, but fantastically in character.  He actually only ever learned a single fire spell, flaming sphere, failing his rolls to learn affect normal fires, burning hands, and later flame arrow and fireball, before he died, of all things, from falling out of a tree.

John the Unhinged started off as a fairly typical fighter, who was less of a berserker and more of a fighter with an anger management problem.  But it seemed that he was fated to have strike after strike of bad luck, which slowly but surely drove him further and further around the twist.  It all started when the party was exploring an old crypt (affectionately remembered as the 'morguealeum', since mausoleum was mispronounced) which had in it, among other things, some skeletal bears.  When the old leaking magic of the tombs caused one of Lith's spells to backfire and showered the party with magical lice, the party found themselves hindered by itching and scratching, and their fighting style became a little more desperate and dangerous.  John found himself inside the ribcage of an angry skeletal bear, having to parry for his life whilst the other fighter of the party (Gruklen the minotaur) rained down blows from his halberd against the skeleton and John together.  With one perilous swing, Gruklen broke John's heirloom sword, sending him into a fit of rage and disbelief.  Unfortunately, unarmed, there was little he could do, so he broke off a rib from the skeletal bear and proceeded to beat it to death with its own rib.

At a later stage, whilst involved in ship-to-ship combat, John became the subject of wild magic and had his gender changed.  At first this was just a strange minor inconvenience, but slowly over time (with statements like "Ask him, she knows" from other members of the party) John came to fall more and more from his branch of sanity.  He began to act in a hypermasculine manner, and carve the number 3 above the door of any room he stayed in.  He also started talking to his shield (which would talk back), and asking it advice.  Later on, when his sword, newly repaired, was teleported away by a magic trap, he well and truly snapped.  The sword was in the hands of some frost giants, and he actually went so far as to accept help from tinker gnomes by way of a machine that launched people over crevasses (this is more insane than it sounds if you know of tinker gnomes) in order to get it back.

I still miss this group.  Those were good times.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe January 11, 2011, 06:01:02 PM
I've always appreciated the inherent difficulty in old school D&D - by default it was hard to do anything in those games and even harder to survive. But once you got to a certain point you became a near invincible killing machine. The wild swings in difficulty gave the game a unique feel you don't get in newer editions.

I'd love to play or run a 'hell on earth' difficulty level fantasy game but the RPPR group is not nearly masochistic enough to indulge me.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Yoba January 14, 2011, 02:08:26 PM
I run Pokemon Tabletop Adventures for a group on wednesdays.

And one of the people who plays with us, Jake, doesn't roleplay with our group often. But since we invite him for pokemon he does come to play that. And so far he's the only player in my group that doesn't waver his character's personality. He makes a goal and sticks with it. Now it's also funny to note his character has a CHA of 8.

So he joined in on the second session, and I started him off in Pallet Town where the others had started but I considered him like 20 minutes behind the others. So he goes to Professor Oak's Lab to answer a message Oak had posted around town asking for help from some youth of Pallet Town. And so he gets to the lab which has double doors you can see through at the entrance. And he just Stands there staring into the lab. He doesn't go in, or knock, or anything, he stands there. I then mention he saw Oak standing int here, and still no action from Jake's character, who is named Jabber. oak spots the youth and walks over to the door. But instead of answering it, he just closes some blinds on it so the creepy kid can't continue to stare in. That's when Jabber decided to go inside, and then talked to Oak about the mission, and he gets informed that he already hired two other trainers to go do it earlier. But instead he hires the dopey boy to go make sure the other two come back alive. At that moment he personally said out loud his goal was to kill them. And Off Jabber was sent with his brand new Bulbasaur as payment.

When he got to the next town, he just then realized he has no idea who he's looking for, or what they look like. He doesn't even know their mission. So what should have been a hard day's work searching for clues, he instead goes into the Pokecenter and asks Nurse Joy about the two. The guy gets a nat 20 on his dice roll, and being CHA of 8, I decided she just feels sorry for this thing that is in front of her and mentions seeing kids with pokemon that oak gives out and where they went. Then he gets to the pokemart, again he approaches the store clerk to find out information. BAM another Nat 20. SO again feeling sorry for this thing the store clerk tells it where to find his friends. He gets back to the Pokecenter and finally met up with them.

And then Ont heir mission they found themselves in front of a sink hole with an actual hole int he middle of it. And as they were deciding how they should explore it, Jabber pushed one of the other trainers down the hole, for no reason. And then this Samurai NPC held his blade against Jabber's neck because of what he did, and in response Jabber tried pushing the Samurai down the hole too, but instead he cut himself on the blade and stopped.

Eventually he was down in the hole too and exploring with friends and they told him to go down a different tunnel. And as he kept getting farther down there was no light, and he could hear sounds from the walls. His first response was to have his bulbasaur tackle the cave wall. When nothing happened he tackled it more until it collapsed behind him.

Later one of the trainers accidentally did 5 times the max health of a pidgey with a thundershock. so I said he pretty much nuked the thing, all was left was char sludge and bone. So Jabber scooped up the pidgey sludge in his shirt, and decided to try and carry it to the pokecenter. The others of course stopped him because he would get charged with excessive violence to the pokemon.

He also then got kidnapped. And instead of going along with the bad guys, he kicked one in the nuts and ran, while his arms were tied up behind his back. When he found his friends they decided instead of telling the police they would go back there with a big stick. Whent hey got there all that was there was this old man and old lady and the guys who kidnapped him weren't there. When the man told them to get off his property, Jabber started arguing that it was his property. And whent he old lady pulled out a phone to call the cops he ordered his bulbasaur to tackle her. I'm not sure what's better, this kid telling his pet lizard plant to beat up old people, or the fact that he was right and they were just in disguise. So a giant battle ensued in this like tiny log cabin with pokemon until they finally beat the bad guys and Jabber got knocked out.

Fun stuff.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Moondog January 14, 2011, 03:01:56 PM
There's a Pokemon Tabletop?
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Yoba January 14, 2011, 03:20:31 PM
Yeah, It's not like officially sponsored by anyone, so it's not an official RPG. It is in beta right now.

The books can handily be found here: http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Pokemon_Tabletop_Adventures

And the forums are here: http://s4.zetaboards.com/Pokemon_Tabletop/index/
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Moondog January 14, 2011, 03:26:05 PM
Ah, that. Thought I'd missed something.

Cool.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Fizban January 14, 2011, 09:07:13 PM
Okay, so this didn't happen in a roleplaying game.  It happened on the train two days ago.

My wife and I were sitting on the train, heading into the city to work in the morning (we work at the same place), and we were talking about how she needs to make a character for a DC Adventures superheros game that's being run at our gaming club this year.  She said she was having trouble coming up with ideas, since she'd used her last idea in another game (a cyborg that could mimic other people, so was like a spy, with a mechanical toe that could explode).

Now, I don't know how it happened, but throughout my nerd life, I've never really fallen into the comic book reading thing, so Marvel, DC, other - it's all really the same to me.  But we started talking about that classic argument, the difference between a hero and a superhero, because apparently Batman is DC.  Batman, in my opinion, is not a superhero.  He's just rich.  That's not a superpower.  But apparently, my wife says he is super intelligent.  Bah.  Anyway, we were going through other heroes that don't have special powers (like Iron Man, just another rich boy) and we got to the Phantom.  I've never read the Phantom, and I don't think I've even seen the movie.  I've only ever seen the occasional 4 panel in a newspaper.  My wife doesn't really know much about him either. 

So we started talking about whether he's a superhero, and if so, what's his ability?  All we really knew about him was he wore purple spandex and a masked, that he solved crime, and he punched people in the face and left a skull motif on them with his ring.  Apparently, that skull motif marks someone for life when he punches them in the face (so my wife tells me), so we figured that's not normal, and decided that must be his super power - he has a magic ring that leaves a permanent skull impression when you punch someone.  Woo.  Talk about scraping the bottom of the superpower barrel.  I think he also has a gun, but neither of us had ever seen him shoot anyone, so he must just use it to get people to put their hands up, so he can then punch them in the face.

I said that my wife should think about modelling her new superhero character on the Phantom, since no-one else would have thought of having a superpower like leaving a mark on people when you punch them in the face.  But we hit a problem - how would you possibly spend enough character points to create a superhero whose power is "I solve crime, and I punch people in the face and it leaves a mark with a magic ring"?  So we embarked on our quest for the trip - to try and work out where all those points could go.  By this time, you could tell that several people around us were listening to our conversation - people glancing at us, grinning or snickering a little when we said something particularly funny, or just shaking their heads as if we're crazy.

Then I hit upon a great idea.  We had this inkling that the Phantom had passed down his ring through the ages, and so Phantom had been around for hundreds of years, building up a myth that he can't die, or he's a ghost, or something.  So we thought, why not expand this idea a little? If there are different Phantoms through time, why can't there be different Phantoms around the world?  Think about it.  If you shoot one, sure, they die, but if another one lives somewhere else, then it seems like the Phantom never dies.  If two Phantoms foil a crime at the same time in different places, then it's like he has super speed.  Now, think about what you actually need to be a Phantom:  purple spandex, a mask, and the ability to punch someone in the face.  Take away the magic ring, and you've got a relatively lax recruitment strategy.

I mean, what would it take?  A bunch of people wearing purple spandex, an internet forum (at GhostsWhoWalk.com), and mobile phones with internet access?  And of course, for your AGMs you can just meet at comic conventions dressed as the Phantom.  When you're talking about real crime and fighting and stuff, people will just think it's a really epic roleplay.  My wife brought up the problem of where they all get their crime solving skills.  Are they all ex-cops?  But that's all a function of the internet forum - not only do you have different regional Phantoms (Barth and Wells Phantom, Greenwich Phantom, Soho Phantom, Sydney Phantom, Mumbai Phantom, Dakkar Phantom), but you also have Phantoms with different skill sets.  So East Bromwich Phantom finds some sticky residue at a crime scene.  Collecting it in a vial, he puts a message on MyPhantom, "Hey guyz, got sticky goo here.  Orange, runny.  Ideas?"  Then Orange County Phantom says, "I work as a chemist with a gas chromatograph.  Send it over."  4-10 days later. for shipping, "It's a glue-type substance with potassium tetobenzoate.  Helpful?"  Then, "Islington Phantom here.  I work retail in a hobby shop.  That's Heston Crazy Glue,"  and so on until crime is solved, criminal is punched in the face, and life goes on.

Of course, my wife pointed out, people would notice that the Phantom didn't look the same - especially when you've got tall Sydney Phantom , short Brisbane Phantom, a dark-skinned Darwin Phantom (no racial discrimination), and a female Victoria Phantomme (they had to let in girl Phantoms since the 70s).  But hey, with all these Phantoms running around, people will quickly forget what the 'real' Phantom looks like.  If two Phantoms turn up at the same crime scene, they scissors-paper-punch for it.  But then, really, Phantoms aren't meant to cross over into each other's territory, unless they're on holiday or something.  And for those people who think that Phantoms might be a pushover with all this outsourcing, just remember that you never know which Phantom is a computer programmer, and which is a retired cop, or a boxing champion.  And don't think it's so easy for a criminal to dress up like a Phantom and infiltrate the organisation - because Isle of Wight Phantom is a material manufacturer, and is the only one who makes the official purple spandex.

By this time, some people were specifically trying not to look at us, and one specific guy was constantly cracking up laughing as he listened.

We started thinking about how this character would actually work.  Can you imagine, in your superhero game, every time you got together to discuss the crime, a different Phantom would be standing there, depending on where you were?  Sometimes he's tall, sometimes fat, sometimes with pimples, always one step behind in the conversation and checking the forum backlog on their phone, always with a different voice, never admitting that they are in fact a different Phantom?  But also always with a different skill set, able to get expert opinions on almost any subject, and ever-keen to connect clenched fist to criminal face?  It would take a fair bit of effort to constantly be playing a different persona every time the action moved to a different area, but it would be a great laugh.

And then, we had to get off the train, and head to work.  So this is Westleigh Phantom signing off, ever alert for the call to action when the Phantoms need a court transcriptionist, or local criminals need a punch in the face!
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe January 15, 2011, 12:19:50 AM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Frequency
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: crash2455 January 16, 2011, 03:59:31 AM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Frequency

In a similar vein of "all the good ideas are taken," I'm running a M&M campaign for my group.  My group mostly consists of comic book nerds, and I am not, which leads me to situations where I think I've made a unique villain and someone will spout off an actual character with the same abilities.  It doesn't always happen, but probably around 80%.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Yoba January 17, 2011, 01:52:47 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Frequency

In a similar vein of "all the good ideas are taken," I'm running a M&M campaign for my group.  My group mostly consists of comic book nerds, and I am not, which leads me to situations where I think I've made a unique villain and someone will spout off an actual character with the same abilities.  It doesn't always happen, but probably around 80%.
I"m trying to start a M&M game for my group, and when people make characters I keep just telling them who their character is almost exactly like.

One player is a black Dr. Manhattan and another is if Yusuke was apart of the MiB and the MiB were really the lantern corps.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Yoba January 19, 2011, 05:37:46 PM
So I think I may have introduced my characters to a Lex Luthor x10.

I'm running a setting for D&D where religion is pretty scarce. And this kobold sitting in this bar with 6 dragon born starts giving the cleric of the group crap for being religious. And At first it was just a back and forth of backhanded comments against each other when the cleric insulted the kobold's mother. Instantly he invited the cleric back to his boat, and had the dragonborns grab his arms and escort him. instead they weaved around and ended up in an alley way where two of the dragonborns put on guard armor and each watched the ends of the alleyway. They start gang beating the cleric, and the rst of the group who was following behind them arrived and a battle ensued. At the end of the battle the two with guard armor on were dead, and the cleric had fully healed himself. Guards arrived and the PCs tried explaining the situation, but with guards dead and the cleric fully healed, it's hard to believe that the kobold and gang tried to do what the cleric claimed. So they get arrested, weapons were confiscated, and then while in the cells they see the kobold walk by as he's about to leave the station, and he just turns to them and grins as he walks out. Then they all get told he is a high up noble in the towna nd he cleared everything up and passed the blame on some other people so the group could go free. They leave and then as they are already out and about in town they realized they never got their weapons back. One PC goes back to ask the guards for their weapons back, but just to get told the kobold took everything with him as payment for getting them out of jail.

So now the half of the party that was lawful good got an alignment shift as they prepared to assassinate him during the night. Little do they know that the captain of the guard is at his boat this night to personally scold the kobold noble about the trouble he's causing. (the two were adventurers together in the past)
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P January 22, 2011, 05:16:41 AM
Ah, that. Thought I'd missed something.

Cool.

Yeah I ran it a few months back the rules weren't too polished but i liked it enough, it needs some work for sure but if you like pokemon i'd check it out.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Yoba January 30, 2011, 04:04:40 PM
So I stopped having fun with games when my friend DMs a long while ago. So instead I force my own fun into the game.

My character is a halfling cowboy who grapples and takes down giants. But so last night, we were one a boat. And 3 of us wanted to catch griffins for mounts. So we loaded up this giant ballista, that would launch a bolt that would throw a net onto the thing. But right before they launched it, my character ran up the ballista onto the bolt and rode it into the air. They shot badly so it was short. And well so I tried using my ability to restrain targets from a distance but I missed that too. So here I am, on this bolt with a rope attached to it, 160 feet in the air, falling. My character smacked right into the water and lost half his health. The best part is, he's got this ability called Diehard, so even then he's below 0 hp he'd be able to get right back up without going unconscious. so even if I had gotten max damage on that fall it would have been right above death for me and I would have got up and swam back to the boat. My character then proceeded to drink the pain away for the next 2 nights.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe February 08, 2011, 11:30:16 PM
shamelessly stolen from the Something Awful Forums:

I had an important villain flee to an impregnable fortress once. he was hiding inside this tower made of evil purple stone that was stronger than steel, with an enchanted door made from the same stuff. when they found out they couldn't put a dent in the walls or penetrate them using magical means, the bard says, "alright, I want to go to town and hire a wizard and a druid of at least these levels to accompany us for a day or so."

I figure, what the hell, they'll try throwing more spells at it but I can't see how they'd get through the tower that way. I ask him if he's sure he wants to spend the money and yes, he is quite sure. so the bard returns to the big evil tower in the mouth of an extinct volcano, hired spellcasters in tow.

he had the wizard animate the door, then had the druid cast awaken construct on it, so that the door was sentient. then he threw his nearly +40 diplomacy modifier at it and politely asked it to open. the villain was very surprised to see them


source: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&threadid=3198150&pagenumber=125#post382559630
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P February 12, 2011, 08:01:50 PM
I have a short one today that I remembered randomly.

It was from the first campaign I ever ran. It was an evil campaign and the whole group was connected to the Church of Nerul. So one of the players was using their torture facilities and on his way out one of the temple one of the clerics asked him to pay homage to Nerul. His response was to kill the cleric. Paying homage to the God of death through a sacrifice of his own cleric.

Awesome
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: doctorscraps February 13, 2011, 01:40:44 PM
In an old 3.5 campaign I ran, I made the mistake of taking a cue from an old RPPR Presents short and have the Rod of Wonder fall into the hands of the PC's. From it, much hilarity ensued...
-It once summoned an elephant that the Druid immediately clotheslined and wrestled into submission as the party's multipurpose mount (yes, she's the kind to roll a critical when you really don't want a player rolling a critical)
-During an encounter with the BBG, it was used in the hopes of something bad happening to the villain. Instead the rod sprayed the evil wizard with gems and coins.
-It once turned the Paladin bright blue.
-On no more than three occasions, the use of the Rod caused Darkness to be cast all around the party. This would be followed by subsequent use of the Rod and managing to roll up Darkness two more times during the encounter, shrouding the battlefield in what I dubbed "Stupid Dark", in which not even magical fire could be seen. If Darkness came up again, I had made the notion that it would create a Black Hole and suck everyone in. It never came to that.
-The rod once opened a portal to another realm, and the Paladin had accidentally thrown his axe into it. He went after it, and the rest of the party just barely going in after him before the portal closed. They made it back to their own Realm when the dreaded Wish spell was rolled on the rod.

Did I have any idea how magical items worked in 3.5 back then? Hell no.
Was I doing the Rod correctly? Probably not.
Was it hilarious? You bet your ass.








: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Fizban February 13, 2011, 04:32:52 PM
Ahhh, Rod of Wonder.  In a game I played once, a fighter received some sort of limited wish as a boon for completing a quest, and their wish was for a Crossbow of Wonder.  I thought, what the hell, and with a pop, there appeared the crazy crossbow.

The party's next quest was to hunt down a vampire that was preying on the inhabitants of a town.  Now, vampires in this game were suave, sophisticated, and moved in Matrix time when violent.  This one was watching from the roof of a building, and using subtle magical effects to make the party's evening rather unpleasant.  At one stage, the sharp-eyed ranger of the group spied the vampire upon the roof, and whispered to the fighter - figuring that if they both shot at the same time, perhaps they'd get lucky and stake it through the heart with an arrow or crossbow bolt.  So, holding a normal conversation, they suddenly whirl around with the ranger yelling 'Fire!' and shoot.  Of course, the ranger, with his fantastically high archery skills, missed.  But the fighter, who I think had only recently scored a proficiency with a crossbow since receiving her shiny new toy, managed to score a hit, which was followed up with a bright purple flash, and noise which sounded like a cross between a shriek and a quack.

Wondering what went on up there, the fighter turned to the dwarf and said, "How much do you weigh?" <scrabble to look at character sheet> "Ummm, I don't know." <grin> "Wrong answer - I fling the dwarf onto the roof."  Another successful roll saw the dwarf being nodwick'd up onto the roof, where he found a large, angry, waddling Emperor Penguin.  As large and angry as it was, it was a damn sight easier to subdue than a vampire, so they tied it up and brought it to the town's mayor for their reward.

They walked into the chambers of the town hall, pronounced to all and sundry (not many, since it was quite late at night by now) that they had captured the vampire and that it would haunt them no more, and produced a restrained penguin. Their reward was, oddly, not forthcoming.  They told the story about the magic crossbow, to which the mayor shook his head and said, "I don't believe you."  The wizard of the group retorted, "Look, I'll prove it - I dispel magic on the penguin."

Now, strictly, polymorph magics aren't so easily dispelled.  But as a DM, I like to reward stupidity with pain, so I let this one go.  The dispel takes effect, the penguin turns back into a very angry vampire, who quickly breaks free of his bonds, bullet-times a half-dozen attacks around the room causing general mayhem, tips his hat, before promptly becoming a mist and flying out the window.  No doubt the party would have been more useful if they hadn't left their weapons outside the mayor's chambers so they could approach him.


Speaking of vampires and crossbows, that reminds me of a novel exploit which happened whilst I was actually playing.  My low level cleric at the time, Hasluck Greybane, was likewise hunting down a vampire in a city with his companions, who chose quite stupidly to split up to find it.  Having spied it at some distance, Hasluck did the only thing he was really equipped to do at long range, and fired his crossbow at it.  Natural 20!  "That's got to stake it," says I, but we were playing 3.5, and the DM, not wanting her big boss to fall so easily, responded, "Well, no.  You haven't even confirmed the critical yet."  Never say that to the dice - natural 20. A crestfallen DM nods quietly, "Fine, your crossbow bolt lodges right in its heart, staking the vampire, paralysing it as it falls to the ground."

My cleric's dump stat was charisma (He was only about 18 years old, but wore a fake beard and tried to convince everyone he was a learned prophet, and preached at people constantly from a scroll which he wrote himself).  So when the time came to go and tell the story of his success, no-one would listen to him.  But the party member he was with was a sorcerer, and when he began to spin the tale of Riley, the Sorcerer who saw someone take down a vampire with one shot, the crowd was eating out of his hand, (natural 20) "Really?  You actually saw someone do that?  Tell us more!  What was it like to see someone take down a vampire so skillfully?  Did you blink, or have your eyes open the whole time?  What did it look like?  Wow, I hope my kids grow up to see something great some day."

This actually happened a second time, when Hasluck destroyed a second vampire later down the track, with a well rolled searing light ritual - now Riley could tell the story of how he had seen someone - always the nameless someone - kill two vampires single-handed!  And of course, no matter how loud and squeaky the protestations from Hasluck ("It was me!"), the crown was always cheering for Riley, the Observant.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Mckma February 13, 2011, 07:53:23 PM
Funny story.  The short version, ran Patrick's Unauthorized Content yesterday, added a few more ulterior motives.  The characters became so suspicious of the one character with "official" additional instructions they ignored Whitworth and a guy who was trying to steal corporate secrets (who did so right in front of them).  It was a lot of fun, thanks for sharing the notes, I'll put the recording up at some point...
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Wooberman February 20, 2011, 10:53:08 AM
Short Story from Last nights game of 3rd ed WFRP.

To set the scene, The intrepid group of warriors had been hired by a noble to help him move into his new (and obviously tainted) keep in the middle of a forest in the middle of nowhere, whilst keeping an eye on his staff.

Things go slowly to start with after one small group of Beastmen attack the caravan on its way to the keep. Eventually we get to the keep and after some short sneaking and sleuthing we managed to find a shrine to an undefined ruinous power in the sub basement.

Fast Forward to the finale in the same shrine, The righteous heroes are all but incapacitated from a combination of invading beastmen and drugged venison whilst battling a recently summoned daemonic fury, the cult leader and his mesmerized coven. The Sigmarite Initiate and High Elf Wizard's Apprentice are both unconscious, the pair of interchangable wood elf archery types (one waywatcher, one scout) are busy turning the mesmerized cultists into pincushions and Rori, my Dwarf Troll slayer is going toe to toe with the Fury.

Rori's particular "shame" is being caught in accessory to adultery... not really a shame to him but dwarven culture demands these things so he became a Slayer, Just wanted to add that.

The Fight is getting really nasty as the cultists are working as a sort of HP battery for the Daemon so basically we have a large amount of HP to churn through until the Daemon is beaten. With two fifths of the party inactive and the wood elves dealing negligible damage, the heat is really on poor ol' Rori and he's on his last legs. 

Eventually we're just down to the Daemon, all of the Duracell cultists have been exhausted and the cult leader is riveted to a wall. Rori is plowing in hit after hit and suffering from internal bleeding, minor head trauma and a ruptured spleen (gotta love critical wounds in WFRP).

In a moment of desperation, the Wood elf Waywatcher feeds the priest a healing potion and the priest comes to. He seizes the opportunity and invokes Sigmar to bless his hammer and attacks the Daemon.
During this time the priest's player is describing something very similar to the finale of this little vid...
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_KlINBUYc4

In response, Our fresh DM informs us this this is exactly what happens, in the priest's perspective. What really happens is that the Priest crawls across the floor muttering something unintelligible and drops his hammer on the Daemon's foot because only 1 wound was inflicted. The Daemon suddenly becomes unstable and is banished for 100 years and a day... as it was on 1 hp.
After that we called the game, partially because it was 2.30am and also because we couldn't stop laughing.
Who says Warhammer has to be completely Grimdark?
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe February 20, 2011, 04:19:49 PM
nice. I need to play Warhammer Fantasy some day.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Fizban March 13, 2011, 11:24:19 PM
So, talking about superhero games makes me want to tell a short story about the last superhero game I ran, using a system of my own design (the mechanics for the non-superhero bits I stole from a game called Kill Puppies For Satan (http://www.lumpley.com/puppies.html)).

The important characters at this point were Simon Saez (a council worker with the ability to summon doorknobs and use them to open doors in anything); John Doe (a grifter with the ability to swap the minds and bodies of people and animals); and Nick Berman (a local government mayor with the ability to create objects out of thin air).  The other two members of the hero troupe (with the ability to control electricity, and grease and oil respectively) were off on another adventure.

All of the superheroes had a secret shame/flaw to balance out their powers.  So any doors Simon created burst into flame after an indeterminate period of time; John had developed a psychosis after a couple of centuries of swapping his brain into other people's bodies; and Nick Berman was the mayor of a local shire and couldn't let his superpowers be known.

The job of the three was to create a diversion in a mechanic's shop office, where illegal immigrant slaves were being stored in a container in the yard.  The reasoning, plan and execution of the group went like this:

We need somewhere to park the car.  What, we can't find a parking spot?  That's okay, it's a weekend, we'll just drive the car up to the local primary school, Simon can create a marge door in the wall of a classroom, and we'll park in there.

Now, how are we going to get into the mechanic's shop to create a diversion?  We can't just walk in - let's transfer our minds into the minds of those galahs (http://galah.galahs.com.au/content/php/article016.php) over there and fly in (meanwhile making sure our bodies, now with galah minds, are safely locked away in the classroom).

Let's fly into the mechanic shop and see if we can find the slaves (this they actually accomplished!).

But how will we make a diversion? "I know," says Simon, and without another word flies into the office of the mechanic's shop.  The workers are of course a little surprised at the fact that a galah has just flown into their office, but they assume it must be domesticated, and lost.  They offered it a cracker, and the galah responded, "Ooh, yes please."  Now they were intrigued.  One actually pulled out there mobile phone to film the cute bird.  But the distraction had only just started.

The galah continued in its squawky conversation with the workers, answering their questions and seeming like a really well-trained bird.  Then the galah decided to really get the show on the road, and said, "Watch this!" before Simon the Galah decided to summon a doorknob in full view of the workers - by coughing it up.  The galah coughed up a full-size glittering crystal doorknob, which bounced once before rattling across the desk the bird was perched on.  The workers were a little shocked at this point, not really sure what to make of this display.  A galah had just come into their store, held up a pretty good conversation, and then coughed up a doorknob much larger than the parrot's head. 

The other superhero-cum-galahs were perched safely in the rafters of the shop, boggling at this diversion, but eventually decided that it would be a good plan to exist the store while the people's attention was fixed on this fixtures-producing avian.  Upon hearing his companions leave, the final galah said, "Vote 1 for Nick Berman!" before taking to wing and flying out of the store itself.

Upon returning to their car, they found their human forms perched up on school desks, squawking away and flapping their arms about.  John quickly transferred their minds back, before they jumped in the car and drove off, just in time to look in the rear vision mirror and see the primary school burst into flames from the magic garage door that was installed.  Ooops.

And for icing on the cake, when the heroes got home, they saw this on the 5 o'clock news:

[Sondra at the news desk] Thanks, Gil.  In other news in Eastwood, a fire broke out at the Eastwood Primary School today.  While no-one was hurt, as it is currently school holidays, fire investigators were surprised to find a secret garage-style door entry into the classroom which had caught fire.  Also found in the classroom were tyre marks from an as yet unidentified vehicle.  Investigations are continuing.

Finally, we'll leave you tonight with the viral youtube video that is sweeping the nation - Berman the talking Galah!  Apparently this video was also filmed in Eastwood today, making for an exciting day out in Sydney's East.  I'm Sondra Hayward, for Channel 10's First at Five news.

[Ending music with galah dancing around, saying 'hello', 'help me', being given a rice cracker and saying, 'thank you', before asking those around if they like Nick Berman, and then saying, 'Oh, yes, watch this' and coughing up a door knob, and saying 'vote 1 Nick Berman', as well as some footage of Mayor Berman saying, "I don't know that galah, but it obviously knows a thing or two about politics."]
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P April 26, 2011, 03:40:10 PM
How's about this for some insane player logic.

We are playing Keep on Shadowfell, and we met up with Splug and to my surprise Balgron the Fat. Being that I am attached to the other Balgron I felt inclined to not kill him, so we kiddnapped his fat ass and threatened him with death if he didn't help us. Splug was continuously insisting that we kill Balgron so I said "Dude if you want him dead so much do it yourself." Then Splug let out the Goblin "Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes." at that point I was torn between the two and so I decided it should be settled in the only logical way, we then surrounded the two of them and had a Goblin cockfight.

Somehow the Paladin found this honorable. Probably because he is a Goblin as well.

two npc's you like for no reason have a disagreement?

Settle it in an impromptu round of NPC combat!
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Fizban April 26, 2011, 05:43:11 PM
In the game I ran last night, I had to think up a mini quest on the spot, because the main player for the evening (who had his mage test) didn't turn up. But I had a couple of old players from the game drop in for a cameo, which meant that in the party, I had a worshipper from each of the members of the good pantheon. So I figured, worshipper's challenge! Set the party five tasks, one that represents the beliefs of each god, and reward them for acting appropriately, and doubly so if the correct worshipper was the one who came up with the correct response.  The test itself was a crab catching competition - biggest crab wins.

So far, the worshipper of Wisdom went the wrong way to where the crabs were; the cleric of Holiness bribed an official; the cleric of Justice suggested robbing another competitor for their crab; and the cleric of Nature suggested dragging the crab upside down over a rock shelf. The worshipper of Mercy has yet to act so contrarily, but they haven't finished yet.

This is normally a really conscientious group - I don't know what brought out the crazy last night.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: A Digital Native July 22, 2011, 12:22:19 AM


So apparently I made an http://www.obsidianportal.com/ (http://www.obsidianportal.com/) account. It says I joined a year ago, and that same day added the story of my first time playing as a PC. I got some chuckles out of it, and thought I might share it with ya'll.

P.S, this is a direct copy and paste from the site, with some quick editing for readability.

July 30, 2010 00:11

While I had known about this site a while before I started playing, and have wanted to record my games for a while now, I have only just received the inclination to actually start, and so decided that this place was the easiest way to do it. So, these first few posts will be a brief chronicling of what has happened thus far. (At least, what I remember thus far.)

After creating my character, Earl, a hafling rogue, Justin plunges me straight into his world. I woke up on a beach, seeing nothing but more beach, and a dirt trail leading up into some mountains. So, I walked along the beach, wondering where the adventure hook was. I soon came across a fellow halfling, sitting at a campfire. After hailing him, I decide that he seems trustworthy, and follow him as he walked along the mountain trail. As we walk, he explains to me that he was a sentry, looking for fresh recruits. He and his fellows have set up a camp in the mountains.

At camp, I was introduced to… Cassandra(?), and some bald guy I promptly named Douche. Cassandra, a fighter, was sent here by her king to cleanse the local area of threats. The king wanted to create a new town, and didn’t want any pesky monsters to stifle it’s welfare. Douche looked like a giant muscle in armor, and had a fancy for creating weirdly shaped swords. That halfling guy was a rogue as well, and seemed to be a scout for this motley crew. The camp had, instead of tents, wooden shacks. Three, to be exact. One was a barracks, with enough beds for 12 people. One was a supply shack, and another, an armory, which was locked… They were going to go clear out a nearby cave of monsters the next day. They asked if I would like to help them. “Sure,” I replied. “Koo,” they said.

Tomorrow morning we were to head out and clear the cave, then cave it in by blowing up it’s entrance.

The sun was still relatively high in the sky, so instead of waste a day at camp, I decided to go explore the rest of the island (I presumed) I was on. But before I headed out, I asked if I could take the night watch. The halfling guy was apprehensive at first, but I convinced him to let me do it.

I took the trail that went further up the mountains. Awhile later, I came across a cliff. But it wasn’t a cliff. It was a hill. Kind of. Anyways, It offered a great vantage point of the island. Up there, I saw on the beach, a ship, wrecked. I decided to investigate it. There was a great, gaping hole in it, so I climbed in. on the lower deck, I saw signs of a struggle. Bodies and and blood, strewn and smeared, respectively. The upper deck wasn’t much different. I noticed that the bodies were lacking anything metal. Coins, weapons, even belt buckles were gone. I did, however, find some brass knuckles, tucked away in some nook nobody had cared to search. As I exited the ship, I saw footprints and blood leading into the jungle. Following them, I found a dead body of someone, presumably of the ship, dead, and missing an arm. Further in the jungle, I heard hisses. Spooked, I left the site at a brisk pace. I came across the ship again, and then was hit with a brilliant idea. The ensuing conversation went like this:

“Does the ship have cannons?” I asked, innocently.

“Well, yeah, it’s a pirate ship.” Justin replied.

“I take a cannon.”

“What?”

“I take a cannon.” I replied, a little more clearly.

“How are you gonna get it down?”

“I’ll push it off the the side.”

Justin sighed. “Alright.”

“Sweet. How many cannonballs do I find?”

“They’ve got a whole pile of them in the lower deck.”

“Koo. I’ll take 20. How much gunpowder?”

“None.”

“What?”

Justing grinned at me evilly. “After a couple seconds of thought, I mentally smiled, and replied. “Fine. I’m still taking the cannon and shot, though.”

 “Alright.”

After dragging the thing up the cliff-hill, which required a series of athletics rolls, I headed back to camp, and talked to Cassandra.

“I think I deserve some sort of payment if I’m gonna be helping you guys.”

“We don’t have much money.”

“How about some gunpowder?”

“For what?”

“My cannon.”

“We don’t have any.”

“Then how are you gonna blow up the cave?”

...

Justin grinned. “Damn you."

“We only have enough extra for 2 shots from your cannon.”

“Alright.”

After that, I went up to Douche.

“Can you combine my sword with these brass knuckles?”

He nodded.

Oh yeah. Douche doesn’t talk. What a douche.

After paying him some gold, I decided to go exploring a little more. I followed the mountain trail up to the tippy-top, and there I found the cave entrance, covered by a runed door. After trying to open it for a bit, I decided it was time to call it a day.

I went back to camp, and slept. I was awoken by that halfling guy to take my watch. I waited, until I was sure he was asleep, and promptly began picking the lock to the armory.

Justin sighed.

After successfully breaking in, I found some crates filled with unfinished weirdly shaped swords, and my brass-knuckled short-sword. In a locked chest I found a scroll with similar runes found on the cave doors, and in another, the gunpowder. I put back my swordknuckles, so that they would’t know I was there, and put the locks on the same position they used to be in. After that, I waited until dawn, when Cassandra woke up for her watch. I slept until called upon to storm the cave. Before we left, I was sure to take my cannon.

We got to the cave, and Cassandra pulled out a scroll, and read the runes. Magic happened, and the door began to open. Thinking fast, I placed the cannon in front of the cave, poised to shoot if anything tried to jump out. I was not disappointed. As a thin, man-like creature with blue scales and a fuck-ugly fish-like face jumped out at us, I stuck my flint together and a resounding BOOM! was heard as the fish-man was obliterated. After that, we shuffled our way into the cave.

The cave was moist, and the ground covered in shallow water. As we advanced, fish men armed with fake gold tridents and loincloths pestered us, but were cut down with ease. And, like a true adventurer, I took their tridents. As we entered a second room, an iron gate separated Douche and I from Cassandra and that halfling. They urged us to continue, which, seeing as our exit was blocked, we did. More fishmen attacked us, and when we got to the next room, another gate separated me from Douche. This time, Douche was ambushed by even more fishmen. He motioned me to keep going, so I did.

After rooms of fishmen death, I came across a single fishman, almost identical to every other one, except this one had a necklace on. It was a simple red orb on some string. Thinking he was special, I killed him, and tore off one of his fingers. I then came to a room that contained a wall with 4 orb-shaped indentations. I put the red necklace in the first hole, and went on through some more rooms with baddies. I harvested both necklaces and fingers from their respective owners, then placed all the orbs in the holes. The wall shook, and slowly lifted itself to clear a path to the next room. In that one, I battled more fishmen. However, this battle was comically entertaining, as one of the fishmen kept critically failing his attack rolls, and was stabbing himself and his comrades. After killing all of his buddies, I felt bad for him. So while he cowered for fear of his life in a corner, I approached him, speaking soothing words.

“This won’t hurt a bit” I said, raising my knuckled sword. The blow was meant to knock him out. Instead, I punched him square in his face. I heard a sickly CRUNCH as he yelled out it pain. Thinking quickly, and punched him again. Luckily, this time he did get knocked out. I hog tied him, and went on to the final room.

This time, I found a fish-man, just as fuck-ugly as all the others, but covered in runic tattoos. A bit intimidated, I charged ahead...

 He went down just as easily as the others.

After killing him, I hit some levers that were in this room, assuming they opened the gates. As I went to exit the cave, I grabbed the fish-man and dragged him back to my friends. Puzzled, they left my fish-man alone.

We blew up the entrance, watched it cave in, and went back to camp.

“Well,” said Cassandra, “It’s time we take off.”

“Where are we going?” I asked.

We are going back to tell the king that this are is cleared. I’m not sure where you are going.”

“What? I’m the one who did all the work, and you’re going to take all the credit?”

“Yep.”

“Fuck.”

So, we went our separate ways.

I grabbed my cannon, and my hog-tied fish-man, and started my trek on the beach.



It was later decided that my alignment get knocked down to evil. Some bullshit about me torturing that poor defenseless fish-man. Whatever.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: FolcoTook August 19, 2011, 11:07:37 AM
Catching up on the podcast, heard the phrase "kill it with fire" and it made me think of this story...

Was DMing a 1 ed. AD&D game. It was a pretty basic low-level adventure. Some bandits had kidnapped the daughter of a local magistrate and were holding her at their fort. The PCs have been hired to get her back. Adventure ensues.

So the PCs get to the fort which is pretty much a ramshackle affair built with wood pretty close to the edge of a great desert (in other words, we're in an area that's pretty hot and gets little rainfall). Now in retrospect, I'm not sure where the bandits got the wood to build a fort (ramshackle or otherwise) at the edge of a desert. Probably from the plot vendor. But I digresss....

One of the players is my brother whose first tool to solve any situation tends to be fire. The PCs decide they need to create a diversion and then sneak into the fort (which is pretty much going along with what I expected them to do). My brother decides the theif should sneak up to part of the wooden wall and set it on fire. The very dry wooden wall.

So nobody sees any issues with this plan and in fact are all very enthusiastic about it. The fire is set, the alarm is raised, and the PCs sneak into the fort. While they are looking for the kidnapped girl to rescue, I come up with some on-the-fly rules for the chances of these bandits (who I had already determined were somewhat incompetent and disorganized) to put out the fire. I figured they had about 5 rounds to do it or the fire would start spreading exponentially.

It did.

By the end, the PCs no longer had to sneak around the fort because everyone was running for their lives to just get out of the place. But they did manage to rescue the girl and get out alive. Of course they burned up a handful of plot hooks that had to be planted elsewhere, but no module survives contact with PCs intact, right?

-FT
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Wooberman April 01, 2012, 10:53:21 AM
Stumbled over this awesome anecdote - Enjoy.

http://www.reddit.com/tb/rmuuw
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Setherick April 01, 2012, 11:15:19 AM
Stumbled over this awesome anecdote - Enjoy.

http://www.reddit.com/tb/rmuuw

HAHA! Awesome.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Moondog April 01, 2012, 01:07:20 PM
Stumbled over this awesome anecdote - Enjoy.

http://www.reddit.com/tb/rmuuw

I would murder a DM that tried to take my hit point count away from me. As if I wouldn't know how goddamned hurt I was? BLEGH.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Setherick April 01, 2012, 01:42:32 PM
Stumbled over this awesome anecdote - Enjoy.

http://www.reddit.com/tb/rmuuw

I would murder a DM that tried to take my hit point count away from me. As if I wouldn't know how goddamned hurt I was? BLEGH.

I actually like immersive RP'ing (then again I was an improv actor in an applied theatre troupe for awhile), but it's hell on the GM to keep track of it all.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Moondog April 01, 2012, 02:59:10 PM
Stumbled over this awesome anecdote - Enjoy.

http://www.reddit.com/tb/rmuuw

I would murder a DM that tried to take my hit point count away from me. As if I wouldn't know how goddamned hurt I was? BLEGH.

I actually like immersive RP'ing (then again I was an improv actor in an applied theatre troupe for awhile), but it's hell on the GM to keep track of it all.

What's immersion have to do with being put at an (unrealistic) mechanical disadvantage?
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Setherick April 01, 2012, 03:40:29 PM

What's immersion have to do with being put at an (unrealistic) mechanical disadvantage?

The easy answer to this is for me to ask you to quantify the current number of HP that you have IRL at this moment and your maximum HP. Also, can you quantify in real time the amount of HP that you lose from a combat situation?
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Fizban April 01, 2012, 07:20:20 PM
I ran a Mage game once where a character got his brain so badly fried by a magical accident involving electricity (caused by another character - that was a crazy game) that he lost all sense of feeling.

If you know Mage or WW generally, you know you have seven health levels, and the more hurt you get, the more of a dice penalty you get? Well, since he couldn't feel any pain, he lost the dice penalties. But since he couldn't feel anything, he had only a very vague way of measuring his health (ie count all your limbs, work out how much of that blood is yours etc). So because he was a Son of Ether, he invented a gizmo that was like a biometric scanner that would give him a description of his health, sort of like the HUD in Half-Life, so when he got hurt it would go "*beep beep* light bruising to left leg, sprained ankle".

Of course, when he had to fight a Black Spiral Dancer werewolf, he his HUD was going "*beep beep* Massive internal injuries" "*beep beep* Severe laceration of femoral artery" "*beep beep* blood pressure lowering" "*beep beep* left foot crushed" etc, and so he eventually turned it off.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: crash2455 April 01, 2012, 08:01:07 PM

What's immersion have to do with being put at an (unrealistic) mechanical disadvantage?

The easy answer to this is for me to ask you to quantify the current number of HP that you have IRL at this moment and your maximum HP. Also, can you quantify in real time the amount of HP that you lose from a combat situation?

I think to really have this discussion, we need to truly know what a "hit point" represents.  I think 4e got it right by abstracting as your will to continue fighting and/or your plot armor (wherein a warlord could yell encouraging words at you to heal you).

That said, that story was pretty awesome, even in spite of the smug.

I ran a Mage game once where a character got his brain so badly fried by a magical accident involving electricity (caused by another character - that was a crazy game) that he lost all sense of feeling.

If you know Mage or WW generally, you know you have seven health levels, and the more hurt you get, the more of a dice penalty you get? Well, since he couldn't feel any pain, he lost the dice penalties. But since he couldn't feel anything, he had only a very vague way of measuring his health (ie count all your limbs, work out how much of that blood is yours etc). So because he was a Son of Ether, he invented a gizmo that was like a biometric scanner that would give him a description of his health, sort of like the HUD in Half-Life, so when he got hurt it would go "*beep beep* light bruising to left leg, sprained ankle".

Of course, when he had to fight a Black Spiral Dancer werewolf, he his HUD was going "*beep beep* Massive internal injuries" "*beep beep* Severe laceration of femoral artery" "*beep beep* blood pressure lowering" "*beep beep* left foot crushed" etc, and so he eventually turned it off.

I think hearing all the horrible injuries you're sustaining would almost be as stressing as physical pain.  It's an interesting idea, though.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Moondog April 01, 2012, 10:25:32 PM

What's immersion have to do with being put at an (unrealistic) mechanical disadvantage?

The easy answer to this is for me to ask you to quantify the current number of HP that you have IRL at this moment and your maximum HP. Also, can you quantify in real time the amount of HP that you lose from a combat situation?

The average man has a Str of 13, and swings for 1d4 points of damage per strike. In fights before, I have taken about five or six or so solid blows before getting to the point where I could no longer fight (or in otherwise, am staggered). The average damage per blow is going to be 3.5 damage (2.5+1 for strength), therefore I possess about 15 to 18 hit points, at least as far as nonlethal damage goes.

I am at the peak of my condition for right now (no injuries, sprains, drunkeness penalizing my Constitution, nor illnesses). Therefore, I possess from 15 to 18 hit points.

Without being in a combat situation, I cannot answer the second part of the question.

Which is about accurate, saying I'm a 2nd or 3rd level expert with the constitution of a horse is an adequate statement in regards to my abilities, but this isn't really the thread for it.

Also yes, hit points have always been will to keep on fighting/ability to prevent a mortal or killing blow; even the 1e AD&D DMG says 'hit points are necessary abstraction; a high level Fighter can have more hit points than two heavy warhorses. It isn't that the Fighter can simply take continual flesh-wounds from orcish battleaxes, but that the fighter has the ability to roll to avoid all the damage, or deflect it to his armor, or his shield; his ability to withstand damage and stave-off the final blow is lessened when he takes 'damage', perhaps reflecting his shield arm being numbed and unresponsive, or him being winded'.

Or something very close to that.

: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: SageNytell April 02, 2012, 07:50:03 AM
What's immersion have to do with being put at an (unrealistic) mechanical disadvantage?

The easy answer to this is for me to ask you to quantify the current number of HP that you have IRL at this moment and your maximum HP. Also, can you quantify in real time the amount of HP that you lose from a combat situation?

The average man has a Str of 13, and swings for 1d4 points of damage per strike. In fights before, I have taken about five or six or so solid blows before getting to the point where I could no longer fight (or in otherwise, am staggered). The average damage per blow is going to be 3.5 damage (2.5+1 for strength), therefore I possess about 15 to 18 hit points, at least as far as nonlethal damage goes.

I am at the peak of my condition for right now (no injuries, sprains, drunkeness penalizing my Constitution, nor illnesses). Therefore, I possess from 15 to 18 hit points.

Without being in a combat situation, I cannot answer the second part of the question.

Which is about accurate, saying I'm a 2nd or 3rd level expert with the constitution of a horse is an adequate statement in regards to my abilities, but this isn't really the thread for it.

Also yes, hit points have always been will to keep on fighting/ability to prevent a mortal or killing blow; even the 1e AD&D DMG says 'hit points are necessary abstraction; a high level Fighter can have more hit points than two heavy warhorses. It isn't that the Fighter can simply take continual flesh-wounds from orcish battleaxes, but that the fighter has the ability to roll to avoid all the damage, or deflect it to his armor, or his shield; his ability to withstand damage and stave-off the final blow is lessened when he takes 'damage', perhaps reflecting his shield arm being numbed and unresponsive, or him being winded'.

Important part bolded.
Who says anything about hit points being realistic? They exist for the purpose of the game because some way to track physical harm was deemed necessary, you said it yourself. Anyone with any experience in sports injuries or the medical profession could tell you how laughable a concept it is - it's about fun and ease of play, not realism.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Setherick April 02, 2012, 09:25:48 AM
Important part bolded.
Who says anything about hit points being realistic? They exist for the purpose of the game because some way to track physical harm was deemed necessary, you said it yourself. Anyone with any experience in sports injuries or the medical profession could tell you how laughable a concept it is - it's about fun and ease of play, not realism.

My smart ass response was more directed at removing the need for deciding every action based on some sort of mathematical formula. I have somewhat of a math background so in a combat situation in a game I can quickly calculate the average amount of damage my character is taking per round of heavy fighting and decide probabilistically whether or not I should continue fighting. Immersive play removes the probabilities from the equation and you are forced to make a decision based on limited information. In high fantasy games, I see this as moving PCs to RP heroic actions that require leaps of faith more than they do number crunching. How much more nerve wracking is it to attack a dragon not knowing you're at low HP rather than attacking one knowing that you are?

As far as HP systems, I've always been kind of annoyed with systems that allow players an inordinate number of HPs anyway. I should be able to kill a monster or other PC with a single shot without having to rely on some gimmick (vorpal, save vs death, whatever).
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Moondog April 02, 2012, 10:24:17 AM
Important part bolded.
Who says anything about hit points being realistic? They exist for the purpose of the game because some way to track physical harm was deemed necessary, you said it yourself. Anyone with any experience in sports injuries or the medical profession could tell you how laughable a concept it is - it's about fun and ease of play, not realism.

My smart ass response was more directed at removing the need for deciding every action based on some sort of mathematical formula. I have somewhat of a math background so in a combat situation in a game I can quickly calculate the average amount of damage my character is taking per round of heavy fighting and decide probabilistically whether or not I should continue fighting. Immersive play removes the probabilities from the equation and you are forced to make a decision based on limited information. In high fantasy games, I see this as moving PCs to RP heroic actions that require leaps of faith more than they do number crunching. How much more nerve wracking is it to attack a dragon not knowing you're at low HP rather than attacking one knowing that you are?

As far as HP systems, I've always been kind of annoyed with systems that allow players an inordinate number of HPs anyway. I should be able to kill a monster or other PC with a single shot without having to rely on some gimmick (vorpal, save vs death, whatever).

I think we may just have a different view of what we want in our gaming. I like numbers. Numbers are fun and I get more involved in things when I know that by doing X I can get Y. So I will try X. Even if X is silly and probably heroically dumb.

That is to say, I don't think having the ability to calculate chances of success makes things any less heroic.

Edit: Yes, HP are unrealistic. I meant to say 'not knowing your own count is unrealistic' not that the abstraction is/isn't. Gotta be better at being specific, I guess.

Edit edit: Of course too much realism makes things completely goddamn boring; imagine a system that required you to make system checks vs septicemia or tetanus when injured in an even slightly dirty environment and calorie count vs exertio- so basically FATAL.

Edit Edit Edit: I think anything allowing one-shot kills would pretty much be the worst thing imaginable.  "Your heroic swordsman walks down the street. Due to his low charisma, a child lobs a rock at his head." *roll*  "He dies instantly." and then the game crashes to a screeching halt.

: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P April 02, 2012, 11:30:03 AM
Average commoners in 3.5 have a 10 in every stat.
They do 1d3 unarmed damage, so without con bonus you'd have 7 or 8 hp.

I think call of cthulhu abstracts hp best, 10 is average and most guns do 2d6 or more.  Unconcious at 2 hp or lower.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Setherick April 02, 2012, 12:09:37 PM
I think call of cthulhu abstracts hp best, 10 is average and most guns do 2d6 or more.  Unconcious at 2 hp or lower.

I agree, which is why Dodge is the single most important skill in the game if you want to make a munchkin. (That and Credit Rating. Coincidentally, Ross, my next CoC character will be a billionaire, ninja, computer hacker.)
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Moondog April 02, 2012, 12:50:29 PM
Average commoners in 3.5 have a 10 in every stat.
They do 1d3 unarmed damage, so without con bonus you'd have 7 or 8 hp.

I think call of cthulhu abstracts hp best, 10 is average and most guns do 2d6 or more.  Unconcious at 2 hp or lower.

False. Average commoners use 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8 for their stats, typically putting the 13 in the attribute most useful to their profession (Charisma for a performer or speaker, wisdom for an herbalist, strength for a laborer), so they're at +1. Then there's the +2 to a stat due to being a human.

You are entirely right about the unarmed damage though. It *is* 1d3. . . despite me always assuming it was 1d4.

Huh.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama April 02, 2012, 02:27:46 PM
Humans in 3.5 don't get a +2 to anything, they get a bonus feat and a skill point. Pathfinder and 4E give them +2 to an attribute.

I'm waiting for the funny twist on this "anecdote" you all are brewing up.

If we had a forum roller I'd suggest a 3.5 D&D vs. CoC "commoner" death match.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Moondog April 02, 2012, 02:30:09 PM
Humans in 3.5 don't get a +2 to anything, they get a bonus feat and a skill point. Pathfinder and 4E give them +2 to an attribute.

I'm waiting for the funny twist on this "anecdote" you all are brewing up.

If we had a forum roller I'd suggest a 3.5 D&D vs. CoC "commoner" death match.

We aren't.

We're arguing about...something. HP and averages and whether or not depriving a player of the knowledge of their own character's health is more immersive.

Or something, I kind of lost track.

also I did say this isn't quite th right thread for it. :p
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama April 02, 2012, 02:52:09 PM
I know you aren't building up to an anecdote; I trying to point that out. It didn't work quite right. The discussion probably does deserve a thread though.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Wooberman April 02, 2012, 06:47:45 PM
Oh god... what have I done?!
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Setherick April 02, 2012, 08:55:36 PM
Oh god... what have I done?!

Something unspeakable. You got the forums dedicated to RPGs to talk about RPGs. Monster.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Wooberman April 04, 2012, 06:10:43 PM
Okay I'm a terrible person but here's another winner from Reddit's Rpg subreddit -

http://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/rog1k/whats_the_most_creative_misuse_of_rules_youve_seen/
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Moondog April 23, 2012, 04:53:12 PM
Okay I'm a terrible person but here's another winner from Reddit's Rpg subreddit -

http://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/rog1k/whats_the_most_creative_misuse_of_rules_youve_seen/

That paladin with the helmet is a goddamn hero.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Wooberman May 12, 2012, 05:56:35 AM
Another classic from yog-sothoth

http://www.yog-sothoth.com/showthread.php?p=245138
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: bidoof May 28, 2012, 11:07:04 PM
So the first real RPG I played in was a really clunky internet forum homebrew system.  It was poorly designed and very unbalanced, but since we were all friends most of us tried to make characters that worked well together.

Not Bob, though.  Bob made a long string of terrible, min maxed characters, each less memorable than the last.  When we came up with an advantages/disadvantages system, he decided to get rid of his 8th character and make a new one, since disadvantages gave you a few extra character points.

His new character was Gunbot (that was his actual name), a police robot that specialized in shooting guns.  He hated evil.  This didn’t seem too bad, until you looked at his disadvantages and noticed a trend.

Intolerance: Gunbot is intolerant of evil.
Personal Vow: Kill evil people.
Obsession: Destroy evil.
Duty: Gunbot has a duty to kill evil where ever it is.
Berserk: Gunbot goes berserk in the presence of too much evil.
Bloodlust: Gunbot gets really angry around evil.
OCD: Gunbot is compelled to kill evil.
Code of Conduct: Gunbot cannot let evil exist near him.
Stubborn: Nothing can deter gunbot from his fight against evil.
Fanatic: Gunbot is fanatic in his quest against evil.
Phobia: Cats.
Depression: Gunbot is depressed when evil wins.
Sadist: Gunbot is sadistic in his extermination of evil.

The guy knew what he wanted, at least.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Wooberman May 29, 2012, 07:49:50 PM
So the first real RPG I played in was a really clunky internet forum homebrew system.  It was poorly designed and very unbalanced, but since we were all friends most of us tried to make characters that worked well together.

Not Bob, though.  Bob made a long string of terrible, min maxed characters, each less memorable than the last.  When we came up with an advantages/disadvantages system, he decided to get rid of his 8th character and make a new one, since disadvantages gave you a few extra character points.

His new character was Gunbot (that was his actual name), a police robot that specialized in shooting guns.  He hated evil.  This didn’t seem too bad, until you looked at his disadvantages and noticed a trend.

Intolerance: Gunbot is intolerant of evil.
Personal Vow: Kill evil people.
Obsession: Destroy evil.
Duty: Gunbot has a duty to kill evil where ever it is.
Berserk: Gunbot goes berserk in the presence of too much evil.
Bloodlust: Gunbot gets really angry around evil.
OCD: Gunbot is compelled to kill evil.
Code of Conduct: Gunbot cannot let evil exist near him.
Stubborn: Nothing can deter gunbot from his fight against evil.
Fanatic: Gunbot is fanatic in his quest against evil.
Phobia: Cats.
Depression: Gunbot is depressed when evil wins.
Sadist: Gunbot is sadistic in his extermination of evil.

The guy knew what he wanted, at least.

No shit, Cats can be pretty damned scary.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: IDaMan008 June 06, 2012, 03:16:23 AM
I promised you guys this story a while back, and I don't think you ever got it, so here goes:

It's a high school game of 2nd Edition Mage: The Ascension. My good friend Erik is Storytelling, and he's got four players: Alex, Ed, Chuck and me. We roll up our characters, as it is supposed to be a one-shot, and Erik takes Alex and Ed aside in a conspiratorial fashion. He's got special plans for them. When the game starts, we find out that their characters are missing, and it's up to Chuck and myself to find them. We go through about 30-40 minutes of investigation before our characters are overcome by something I don't remember--Gas? A magic spell? In any case, we pass out.

All the while, Alex and Ed are patiently waiting for their special moments in the spotlight.

Erik hands me and Chuck new sheets and tells us that we wake up as two completely different characters with all of the memories of our previous ones, including the bit where we fell unconscious. We are, understandably confused. Ed and Alex are there to greet us, but not as their main characters, either. They're playing two sinister NPCs who we don't know. We ask them what happened, why we passed out, what the fuck we're doing in different bodies, etc, but they give us no response. Instead, they handcuff us and shove us into the backseat of their car at gunpoint so that they can drive us off to God knows where. At this point, both of us look down at the sheets Erik handed us.

Chuck: So we're these other characters now?
Erik: You are, but from your perspective, you're still your original PCs.
Me: But these guys have completely different stats and skills. How does that work?
Erik: You don't know. You suddenly realize you have all these new abilities.
Me: Okay...

With a thrill that borders on pure glee, I see that my new character is an Akashic Brother with three dots of Do and a Dex pool of four. I tell Erik that I'd like to karate kick whoever is sitting in the seat in front of mine, because these people obviously don't have our best interests at heart. I succeed and roll enough damage to kill Ed's NPC instantly. My character kicks a hole in the front seat and the poor bastard sitting there. (To this day I have no idea how he had the leverage to do that, but...magical karate!) Chuck, meanwhile, makes a Dex+Athletics check to slip his cuffs under his ass and around his legs so that he's got his hands in front of him. Just as Alex's character (who's driving, I think) turns with his gun drawn to shoot me in the face, Chuck wraps the cuffs around his neck and strangles him to death.

We all turn to Erik expectantly, waiting to see where the game goes from here, but he's got nothing. He throws in the towel.

All told, Chuck and I had fun, but Alex and Ed did nothing but sit around for the better part of an hour waiting, only to be killed off in a few short rounds of combat. I'm sure it could have been a really great game for all of us, but player logic and bad luck on their part cut it short.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe June 06, 2012, 01:14:35 PM
hahaha, it's good for a GM to keep secrets, but sometimes you can play things too close to the chest.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Henry Hankovitch September 03, 2012, 08:17:08 PM
I just ran a reverse-engineered version of "Lover in the Ice" for a Skype game.  I love the scenario and have wanted to run it for a while (though I was too po' broke to buy into the Kickstarter, more's the pity). 

Anyway, after the characters took out Skip and encountered the first monster in the college-students' house, they decided that what they should do was shut down the power grid for the rest of the town to freeze out any other creatures.

Welp.

They call a power-company engineer in the middle of the night and get him to come down to the station for some kind of emergency, then try to force him at gunpoint to help them shut down all the power.  (I didn't think shutting down a city-wide power grid should be a matter of hacking the gibson from the admin-building computers; any power-company employees out there can correct me if I'm wrong.)  I make a couple sanity/willpower type rolls for the engineer guy, and he basically drives the PC past a police station at night, tucks and rolls out of the truck, and runs for the station yelling for help.  PC tackles and shoots the engineer, then calls up the other PC and shoots himself as policemen start coming out of the station.

The other PC goes back to the HOMEPLATE computer, and informs A-cell that uncontrolled vectors are out there and everything is fucked.  He then grabs a truck and tries to get out of town before Lafontaine blows up, presumably to live out his life in an off-the-grid cabin somewhere.

An interesting case of players sticking to player-logic to the bitter end.  I had only two players, though, and both of them were new to Call of Cthulhu.

Edit:  when the PCs came out of Skip's house, I had Roslin step out of the truck and say "what's going on?"   Because they'd gunned him down in the back yard and set the place on fire--which I'm pretty sure is the only way anyone will ever play that encounter.  So the PCs then shot HER.  Those monsters.

 I blame it on the fact that I'm not as good at playing adorably-sassy black women as Caleb.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Cthuluzord September 03, 2012, 08:21:11 PM
Holy shit! Did Aaron split himself in two via some form of mitosis, and did you play with both of him? It sounds like it.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama September 06, 2012, 08:42:08 PM
Wow. The things that players get into their heads...
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Jacko September 22, 2012, 04:55:39 PM
I didn't think shutting down a city-wide power grid should be a matter of hacking the gibson from the admin-building computers; any power-company employees out there can correct me if I'm wrong.

Hi, I work for a power company!  In fact, I monitor the computer and radio networks used by most of the company.

You're kind of correct.  Turning off the grid from an admin-building that isn't onsite can't actually happen.  The reason I said 'most of the company' is because there are completely separate networks used for actually running each individual plant. 

If the players were actually at the plant, they could feasibly do something but there's personnel on site 24/7 (especially during a natural disaster like a raging blizzard) so you're going to have a lot of witnesses to deal with and circumventing all the redundancies would take quite a bit of time and involve handling some very high-voltage equipment.  'Operate Heavy Machinery' anyone?
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: edwardian_adventurer January 27, 2013, 07:42:49 PM
Today I finished session two of a game based on Marble Hornets using nWoD/Changeling rules. For this game, I have made the Slender Man an exile of The Shadow Court. He feeds off the souls of children, turning them into Black Eyed Kids, which he then manipulates like puppets so he can find more souls to consume. I decided to make The Operator Symbol a summoning symbol.

The characters (Diana and Alexa) were exploring a wooded area, looking for the masked figure that had chased them out of Alex’s apartment. Diana decided to take a stick and draw The Operator Symbol into the dirt. Alexa, who was a Fetch, immediately sensed Slender Man’s arrival. She began to panic, telling her companion, who sensed nothing, they needed to leave. Diana refused to leave and a brief scuffle ensued. Diana managed to pin Alexa to the ground. Slender Man, sensing that Alexa was a Fetch, instantly killed Alexa by causing her to spontaneously combust. Both players were completely shocked. Diana succeeded in a composure roll, so she didn’t lose consciousness. She immediately erased The Operator Symbol.

In fairness, prior to the game I had discussed the concept of Fetches and Changelings with Alexa’s player, and she knew at some point the real Alexa would be returned (with no memory of the events up to her return). But the opportunity to shock both players with a sudden, unexpected death was too good to pass up. It would also teach Diana to be a little more cautious with arcane symbols.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Setherick February 16, 2013, 12:59:55 PM
The Anecdote that Almost Happened

I haven’t spent the time to write out this anecdote because there is not much to tell, but it does point to something that could have been glorious. In the spring of 2007, shortly before Karee and I left Springfield, Jason decided to run a Forgotten Realms game. We had so many players that Jason decided to break us into two groups – team good and team evil – and bring us together at the end of the campaign for an epic battle royale. I forget who was on team good, but team evil consisted of Karee, Dan, Ross, and myself. For a number of complicated reasons that were not Jason’s fault, the game only lasted one session, but, oh, what a session it was.

A bit of a back story first. Ross and I rarely played PCs at the same time. The only time that we played PCs together in an extended campaign was a Mage game where we ended up separated from the rest of the players, presumed dead, and returned from a surprise trip to the moon on a space airship.

In the Forgotten Realms game, Ross had decided he was going to play an undead sorcerer of course – Ross is fairly predictable with his undead and fantasy games. I was torn on what I wanted to play, and then I stumbled upon the Duskblade. Here was a character that met my particular play style, melee and combat caster, a hybrid I could live with that was not a Paladin or a Fallen Paladin.

Then things got interesting. I proposed to Ross, without Jason’s knowledge, that my character be Ross’ character’s bodyguard. Ponder that for a minute, the most evil RPPR PC maker and the horrible monster AS A TEAM. Team evil just got more evil. How better to justify metagaming when two PCs have been working together for several years before teaming up with another couple of evil doers.

For an example of how evil the undead and his body guard was, in the one session we played, Ross cast flesh-to-stone on a guard. Rather than just leaving the guard as a statue, I decided that we might as well crucify him and drove pitons into his hands and feet. Ross then cast stone-to-flesh, allowing the guard to return to living form, writhing in pain of course.

Occasionally, Ross and I still consider what team evil would have been like. But, the point for you, dear reader, is that every time you think that you have the worst pair of PCs in a game consider an undead sorcerer and his Duskblade body guard running around your game with the intent to be as evil as possible.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe February 16, 2013, 05:40:41 PM
team evil = best team
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Wooberman February 28, 2013, 07:42:40 AM
We have a very small gaming community where I live and since we are all friends just rejecting a player/GM isn't often an option. Call us care bears if you will but we don't want to hurt feelings.

One of our GMs is a Shadowrun Nut. He loves Shadowrun. The rest of us are pretty indifferent but the thing is that he only wants to play Shadowrun 3.0. I've got nothing against dice pools but when you have to roll a minimum of 7 on a D6, no matter how many you have in your pool, it sucks. You don't feel awesome in the slightest. That coupled with the acquisition system of waiting in-game weeks to receive your new rifle and having the GM turn to the rest of the party and ask them what they're doing during that time when all everyone wants to do it just do another mission again sucks. Don't get me started on the Decking while everyone else sits and looks bored minigame.
This isn't necessarily the fault of 3rd ed Shadowrun and more the GMs love of minutiae.

The group is adamant that we don't want to play Shadowrun anymore. This isn't as bad as Caleb's experiences with World of Darkness but its starting to go that way.
Its difficult when we mention moving on to a different game and his face lights up "Hey I've got all these things we can do with Shadowrun, I can draw up pregens for you to play and...".
*Collective shuffle of feet and change the subject quickly*

We've decided an intervention is in order, This weekend before we start up our next session we're going to ask him to sit down, tell him clearly and carefully how much we respect him as a friend and pass him a copy of Eclipse Phase with the words "We love you but we don't want to play Shadowrun ever again".
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: crash2455 February 28, 2013, 10:17:30 AM
To be fair, Eclipse Phase can take equally as long if this guy loves minutiae. Having played Shadowrun 4e, I know that it's very possible to deal with a contact and have your stuff pretty much instantly. Maybe discuss the root issue with him and how his play style does not mesh with that of the rest of the group.

Greg Stolze has a name for these kinds of people: meanderers. They are the type of people for whom roleplaying the act of going out and buying a rifle is just as fun as using that rifle. It's not a bad play style by any means (our group is composed almost wholly of them) but if you want to get down to the mission at hand, I can see how it would be frustrating.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama February 28, 2013, 11:13:53 AM
When I ran Shadowrun I used acquistion systems to get the players to take more dangerous run jobs. Basically the Johnson hiring them would put less cash on the table but offer instantly redeemable "credit". So instead of getting 10,000 nuyen you'd get 4,000 but there would be a 4,000 nuyen credit that could be instantly converted into equipment, regardless of normal acquisition times.

I once had two players use this option to get hold of enough "cloaking" material, the stuff they make the chameleon suits out of, to make a small hot air balloon. They got a pair of grappling line guns, the ones that fire a near mono-wire super strong length of cable, and after carefully measuring the wind around the area, floated the balloon over the place they needed to assault, used the grapples to anchor to the ground, and dropped the mage and the technomancer right onto the roof, were they proceeded to put down the first wave of guards and shut off the auto-turrets while the rest of the team came through the parameter wall.

Those runners were crazy.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: crash2455 February 28, 2013, 11:29:06 AM
Yeah, damn. The craziest we had done was shut down a club by filling it with sewage.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama February 28, 2013, 11:59:01 AM
That's pretty good. My guys never worked directly with sewage but they got close.

I told them they had to destroy an office once. It was one level out of a thirty story building and it needed to be totally destroyed. They didn't want to go in directly because of the guards and didn't want to use explosives because they didn't want to get put on terrorist watchlists. But then they managed to find out that at night the place was patrolled by bots rather than live guards. So after hours they hijacked a chemical supply truck, hacked the building's fire suppression system, and pumped aerosolized Class-4 chemical compounds into that one level of the building to melt/burn/corrode everything within.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P March 06, 2013, 02:36:49 PM
Travis moves into position and attacks the enemy who is holding girl hostage, he deals moderate damage and his turn is over.

Guy puts his knife to the girls throat and says "Back off man!"

Travis responds "I would but it's not my initiative!"

Proceed with all the players dying laughing for 10 minutes.

Travis continues the joke. "Speak up next time talking is a free action."

Best 3.5 combat ever.

EDIT: This happened last night... I am currently listening to episode 84 and it meshed pretty well so I had to come back and point that out.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe April 18, 2013, 12:46:45 AM
not quite an anecdote but this belongs somewhere on these forums

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&threadid=3533536&perpage=40&pagenumber=25#post414512575


Imagine that you and three to five of your friends have just engaged in a life-and-death battle with a winged, firebreathing monster the size of a galleon with teeth bigger than your arm. Having murdered this beast and having been nearly murdered in return, you stumble across a mountain of gold, gems, art and artifacts. There is enough wealth for you and your companions to spend the next several decades living in wealth and comfort, or the next few years engaging in every hedonistic pursuit you can think of... what do you do next?

You spend all that money on things that help you kill better and then you go back out to do it again.

Adventures just don't brain like most people. They devote immense amounts of time, effort, and money into becoming the most efficient killers and thieves the world has ever known. A high-level adventuring party is essentially a sovereign nation with (winged) feet- their chief export is murder and they're running one hell of a trade surplus. It's as if Stark Industries did its weapons business through house calls. A 20th level adventurer has 880,000 gold pieces, and a dedicated crafter can build double that amount in magical artifacts. That's enough cash to live in absolute luxury for the next seventy years. And it's not enough, it's never enough. They're the Rich Kids of Instagram with lightsabers and power armor.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Henry Hankovitch May 05, 2013, 04:29:34 AM
So my buddy announces this modern-day Call of Cthulhu game, and he tells us to make characters that are government agents of some sort, but "preferably weird ones."

That was his mistake.

That was how I ended up with Katie-Ann Olsen (née Tobolowski), a graduate of Southern Baptist University who works for the National Endowment for the Arts.  She's a "Regional Advisor for Public and Family Values," who submits reports on various candidates to ensure that funding doesn't go to artists who will do embarrassing things with penises and such.

She's also a complete goddamn sociopath with a rather un-Baptist amount of occult knowledge.  I fucked with everyone's heads by being perky and chipper for nearly the entire game.  Oh, crackerjack, that was a real mother-hubbard of a situation, wasn't it?

The pain on the GM's face was so beautiful.  The pain on our in-character contact's face was delicious. It was like a child whose ice-cream cone had fallen on the sidewalk.  So we have the NSA guy, the FBI, the Border Patrol agent...and the National Endowment for the Arts.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Jacko May 05, 2013, 06:26:48 AM
Ugh.  I feel like I've failed.

My group has been playing a campaign that is best described as 13th Century Mob Drama for something like 6 years now with a semi-rotating cast of downright vicious PCs.  Murderers, thieves, con-men, sociopaths, just horrible people with little hope of being redeemed.  They've killed women and children, stolen the life savings of people who did them no harm, even performed political assassinations.  We've all been looking forward to see how they each get their due but it's shaping up that my character is maybe one more session away from possibly going legit.  He's going to frame an innocent man to accomplish it and has managed to connive his way into the pockets of influential politicians to assist him with this hideous plan.

I was really looking forward to my PC dying in the gutter.  :(
: GURPS Cyberpunk
: sinanju May 17, 2013, 02:58:44 AM
My long-time gaming group (unrepentant rules lawyers and munchkins, every one) had recently acquired a new member. He was a big fan of cyberpunk and wanted to run a campaign for us. We're always up for that, so we said yes.

We developed our characters, which he approved with only a cursory look-see (his first mistake). We were a group of high-tech operatives for some shadowy organization, fairly well off financially but of only moderate point value. Our first job was to find and apprehend the leader of a powerful cybertech street gang. Said leader was huge, with garish cyber-augmentations (as well as some purely cosmetic horns) that made him a very dangerous fellow. His gang, also cybered-up and heavily armed, operated out of their HQ, an abandoned mall in the combat zone of the campaign city. His goons guarded the place and the gang was known to "host" bloodsports inside (deathmatches).

It was clear to us all that the GM expected us to sally forth, beard the guy in his lair, and engage in a heroic fight to defeat said gang and capture the leader.

"**** that!" we all said to ourselves.

Two of our group had access to large amounts of money. We rented an apartment in a building overlooking the mall's main entrance and established a lookout/sniper post. We also parked vans somewhere down each of the four streets that fronted on the mall (it covered an entire city block), with another heavily armed PC gunman inside, to cover every side of the building. Our first plan was to simply wait patiently for the gang leader to emerge, at which point we would gun him down from a safe distance, along with any of his minions who chose to contest the matter.

We also had access to braintaping equipment and cloning facilities (this was a very high-tech game). If worse came to worst, as long as we avoided a head shot, we figured we could kill him, grab his corpse, braintape him during the brief window of viability, and then download him into a cloned body. For extra bonus points, the cloned body would lack all his cybermods, making him easier to keep contained.

The GM countered by having the gang fail to go along. The leader remained stubbornly out of sight and out of reach.

At which point one of the other players asked the GM, "The mall is abandoned, right?"
"Yes."
"It's been abandoned for years, yeah?"
"Yes."
"I imagine that nobody's paid the property taxes on it in all that time, have they?"
"No."
"So, I'll contact the city and take possession of the property in return for paying the taxes owed. Make a big deal about my plans to revitalize the area and grease all the right palms."
"Okay...."
"So the property belongs to me now?"
"Yes?"
"I notify the authorities that there are violent criminals trespassing on my property and call for the police to clear them out."
"....?"
"Once the cops have stormed the place and taken out the gang, we'll swoop in and grab the gang leader. Or if the cops lose, we'll hit the gang while they're weakened and gun them down. After all, they're cop killers."
"...."
The campaign didn't go any further.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe May 17, 2013, 03:09:50 PM
Any GM who couldn't deal with creative problem solving like that isn't a good GM. That's fucking beautiful man.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: sinanju May 17, 2013, 07:10:24 PM
Any GM who couldn't deal with creative problem solving like that isn't a good GM. That's fucking beautiful man.

Yeah, sadly, what some see as creative problem-solving others sees as "rampant munchkinism" and "rules lawyering." That group had a lot of folks join us briefly, only to be shocked/horrified by our gleefully creative problem-solving and then flee, never to be seen again.

I was one of the few newcomers (the group had been around for some time before I moved to Oregon and found them) to stick it out. My first attempt to run a campaign for them ended in complete disarray because I, like the poor guy above, wasn't prepared for the way they played. The difference was, I _liked_ how they played. So I stuck around, and eventually ran other games and gave as good as I got.
: In Which Our Hero Gets His Ass Handed To Him
: sinanju May 17, 2013, 07:36:21 PM
My first attempt at running a game for the WOW (Western Oregon Wargamers) was the Expendables 1.0. GURPS rules. The PCs were the crew of a starship traveling from system to system to explore worlds and determine whether they were suitable for colonization. They traveled in cold sleep (think ALIENS) between systems. Some were volunteers. Others were draftees. One PC was there because his entire backstory consisted of "the Senator found the videotapes." Two others spent a lot of time sending messages back to earth via the comm laser, trying to get their convictions overturned and seeking court orders that would either have them returned to earth or, failing that, obtain a restraining order agains the Captain and First Officer to keep them at least 100 yards away at all times.

The dropship pilot (again, think ALIENS) chose "Alcoholic" as one of his disadvantages. The first time he flew the team down to a planet, he critically failed his skill check. A second check allowed him to avoid a catastrophic crash. As soon as they were back on the ship, one PC beat him unconscious. Another PC (the team doctor) took that opportunity to have the pilot carried to the sickbay, where he implanted a remote-controlled "wondergland" into the pilot's body, a device which would dispense Sober-Up (Tm) drugs at the push of a button. From then on, any time they needed the pilot to fly them somewhere, he zapped him with the remote before they boarded the dropship.

Alas, my schemes to endanger the PCs lives were no match for the paranoia of the other players. So that campaign folded after a few sessions.

Expendables 2.0 was stolen from based on Stargate. Except instead of exploring alien worlds, they were using a dimensional portal to explore parallel earths. After the first game session, where they created characters ("No, Mike, your character with Physician-35 as his primary skill may not join the team. He's just been drafted as the President's personal physician. Yes, you were very clever to manage that. Come up with something else."), I laid down the law.

The gate could only remain open for 30 seconds at a time, and it took 3 days to recharge the capacitors that kept it open that long. They could not use vehicles or pack animals. They could take with them through the gate only what they could carry. So, no calling for reinforcements if they got into trouble, no quick and easy escapes from danger. I promised them that I wouldn't drop them into vacuum or an unbreathable or otherwise instantly lethal environment, but otherwise I made no promises.

The next week, at the beginning of the session, they handed me a SEVEN-PAGE, single-spaced, typed list of all the equipment they were carrying (every item's weight listed, with subtotals and a grand total). They had calculated exactly how much weight 12 characters (6 PCs and 6 NPC redshirts) could just barely manage to lift and stagger a few yards with, just long enough and far enough to get through the gate in 30 seconds.

The list started with a fully-inflated 12-man liferaft capable of floating while fully loaded and manned (in case of water landings). Each team member was clipped to it via a D-ring. Inside the raft, secured by netting, was enough gear for the whole team for a minimum of a week. This included rations, water, weapons, ammo, comm gear, tools, and on and on and on. They had shelter materials and clothing appropriate to everything from desert to arctic conditions. There was virtually nothing they might conceivably need that they didn't have (or at least something that would do in a pinch). Their SOP became: stagger through the gate, drop the raft, immediately check for imminent peril. Then determine which gear they needed and take that. Leave everything else in place to mark the gate's location.

I looked at this list and realized that in the battle of rules-lawyering GM vs rules-lawyering players, I'd just had my ass kicked. But fair was fair; they'd abided scrupulously by my rules, so I had no choice but to salute their superior cunning and let it stand. That campaign lasted a lot longer than the first one, and it was a lot of fun.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe May 17, 2013, 08:15:07 PM
both of those games sound awesome and fun as hell
: WOW vs Steve Jackson
: sinanju May 28, 2013, 11:54:22 PM
The WOW gang attended a gaming convention many years ago (prior to my joining them) in Vancouver, BC. They signed up for a multi-group GURPS Cyberpunk game. One PC group were rockers, another were a street gang. The WOW crowd chose to be corporate hitmen. They got together and called the prospective GM to quiz him about the campaign background and rules.

Hint of Trouble The First: he was nowhere near as familiar with the rules as the WOW rules laywers. Questioned about specific points regarding character design, point costs, spending in-game cash vs character points, etc, he was a babe in the woods. He agreed to most everything they asked. (Note: they asked. Had he said no, they would have done things differently. But they asked, and got the GM's okay, so in their minds everything that followed was kosher.)

The WOW team included a guy with a full cyborg body--a brain in a robot body--(with the point-cost "limitation" that it didn't look remotely human--rather like the Terminator with all its flesh burned away). It included a hacker with Computer Hacking-35 or more, acquired via lots of points and careful management of advantages and cybergear. A gunman with a cyber-linked HUD for his full-auto assault weapon firing explosive rounds, with a Snapshot skill around 30. And so forth. Every member of the team was a walking death machine, armed and armored.

In short, every time the GM threw some NPC bad guys at them, the WOW gang wiped the floor with them. When one of the other PC groups tried to ambush them, it was a massacre. Instantly lethal headshots at ridiculous ranges and massive overkill were the order of the day. At one point, the guy with full auto explosive round assault weapon had just put a dozen rounds into some guy. The GM started rolling the dice for each explosive bullet. Steve Jackson (who was overseeing this game) asked, "Why are rolling? He's DEAD!"

Their ultimate goal was to retrieve a maguffin from a corporate office building. They had a plan. Once again, they began questioning the GM.

"So, this is a dark future, right? Environmental destruction, lots of extinct species, heavy pollution everywhere?"
"Yeah."
"So this corporate office building, it's environmentally sealed? So they have fresh air and no toxins get in?"
"Yes."
"And it's very high tech. A mainframe handles climate control, security, fire suppression. All that stuff?"
"Yes."
At which point, the hacker PC (with his obscene skill level) hacks into the building's computer, shuts off the alarm systems, locks all the doors and windows and activates the halon (they checked) fire suppression system. He suffocated about 300 people to death. Then the full cyborg PC (with a self-contained air tank) walks into the building, grabs the maguffin, and walks out. With no resistance at all.

And all the other players just stared.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Gorkamorka May 29, 2013, 04:31:30 AM
And this is why convention games need pregens.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: crash2455 May 30, 2013, 02:48:02 PM
I like that Steve Jackson was watching.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Wooberman August 18, 2013, 05:29:34 AM
We just started a Savage Worlds Dead lands Weird west game. Our kind DM picked up a copy of the old Twisted Tales IC Journal and asked us if we would be so bold as have one of us write a journal entry at the end of each session having a different character voice their point of view each time. For the first session I was volunteered to write the first entry.

So here it is, hopefully it will speak for itself. As time goes on I'll put up the additional entries as they are written.

Journal entry #1

So this rube comes along with this “I’ll pay you $10 if you guard my turkeys on the way to the middle of nowhere”. I figure I need a bit of spendin money so I hop along for the ride.

What a bunch of misfits we had here - An above-board Brit broad packing her own metal tinkered horse sportin a horn… A horn! Why? “Science” she says as if it meant anything with a glazed faraway look in her eye. She was sitttin pretty on the coach along with her Injun Scout friend. I didn’t know much bout her but can’t say I asked neither.  I figured Little Miss Science was payin her as a guide or somesort. Thought she was going for the firewater but a tee totaller… though I saw everythin till then. There was this little Jewish feller too, looked a right snake oil salesman and no doubt, stingy too. Doc Holliday was on the coach too, beat him at hold’em for $5. Damn I’m good.

Now there’s Roy. He’s a mean sunovabitch. Before we left I saw him blow a kid away for spillin his whiskey. I won $1.50 off the Injun scout for that one too. Lightning fast for an old codger but I’m not getting on the wrong side of him, a real curly wolf and no mistake. Then there was this China girl, nuthin much to her at all but she started askin all these questions about me… I got to figurin that that Ol Steinberg is still sore I haven’t coughed up his money and sent for rubes to come collect so I’m layin low. “Just Jack” to anyone who asks is the best course for now.

The trip went well, barring Lil Miss Science gettin fixin up the wagon when it slipped a wheel. If someone told be she’d do that before we left I’d be thinkin they were full of blow but lo and behold there she was doin better than I could have thought. Hats off lady, you’re all right. We also had an old prospector with a nameless ass come along and share his bacon. Good stuff.

We arrived at the town with no turkeys and after gettin my hard earned dinero I went straight to the waterin hole where the bartender was bleatin on about people being dragged from their homes at night and hung on an old oak outside of town. Lil Miss Science was deep into this one firin questions like no one’s business. I guess this is when the posse got together

I don’t rightly know why we banded together but it just felt right at the time. We got to the tree with the scout diggin all about the tree, lookin for tracks I figure and I thought this is a good time to crack out one of my good hexes, the one that gives me the knowin of things. I saw that tree was bad, real bad and old and thirsty for blood. Knowin what little I knew about the other side I figured this was the problem. Like the ol docs say, “Find the rot and cut it out”. I didn’t know how to tell the others but I knew that this tree had to go.  Stupidly I figured, make it a bet… yeah they called my bluff and I folded like a cheap suit. I wouldn’t be stopped though; I went straight to the general store to get provisions for burning this evil thing down. Storekeep was shuttin up but I gave him my good grin and he let me in.

When I got back even the Brit was sayin I was crazy by this time. Soon they left leaving me and the Scout behind, poor girl… I feel bad for what happened to her. That tree lit up like a bonfire then all hell broke loose. I clambered out of the ground and lunged at us. I don’t remember much, just running… so much running.

We made it back to town where it looked like the others were havin a fuss of their own. The scout went down, bein choked by the tree. It weren’t her fault bein there with me, didn’t deserve that. I got angry and threw out my all in a big ol hex. Ol scratch musta been playing bad cos I’ve never hexed that powerful before. There was nothin left of that tree just sawdust and ash. It was stupid, throwin that much out in one go right in the middle of town. The posse saw it and even some of the townies. Lil Miss Science gave me an out though, shoutin about fosfers or something. The Jewish flimflam man musta smelt an opportunity cos he came clamberin out of his hole to sell his “Medicinal whiskey” to calm the nerves of the townsfolk. I helped him do it cos it helped my case. Stingy snake didn’t even give me a fair cut either… last time I do that for certain.

The townsfolk wanted to know what happened and knowin I couldn’t just tell them that a demon tree was killin people and raisin the dead I spun a tale about bandits and complicated schemes. It works every time. When I get my big win I could be a snake oil salesman too.

And that’s all I gonna say about that.

Diamond Jack, Huckster
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe August 19, 2013, 06:07:11 PM
Nice! Savage Worlds does seem like a good fit for Deadlands.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Wooberman September 02, 2013, 06:12:35 PM
Deadlands Journal Entry #2

We rode into a town they call Coffin Rock. Small wonder why they call it that… I saw a thing or two there that should ‘a been long since buried.
My obligation to Lady Loxley being for the moment fulfilled, I found myself at somewhat of a loose end. The Saloon seemed a likely place to rest up awhile – unfortunately one of the ignorant law-men of this heap of shit town thought otherwise; a person of local heritage such as myself was not welcome there.  He did not put it quite as delicately.

Jack, ever the gentleman, saw that I was fixed alright for a bite to eat, bringing a platter of greased sausages and beans as I sat fuming on the saloon stoop.  One of these days I will not slink away meekly like a dog when told I do not belong somewhere. One of these days, one of them will be sorry they opened their fat, stupid white mouth. I forced my meal down angrily as the sun dipped towards the horizon, smearing a blood red smudge across the sky.
Presently Jack emerged and we set to finding somewhere for our horses for the night. This didn't seem the kind of place you’d want to leave them unattended outside. Something felt… wrong somehow. Most of the dusty old shacks that made up this town seemed unoccupied. There was the constant feeling of being watched and my Paco was throwing his head around and whickering nervously.

After some time wondering around in the dark we came across a corral. Upon entering, we were immediately hit by the stench of decay, and could just about make out two bulky shapes slumped in the dirt. It was two dead horses. No other horses were in sight. Other than its two very deceased occupants the corral was empty. There was no way in hell I was leaving my Paco there, and I stated as such to Jack. Him being of the opinion that it wouldn't be such a problem, and that they seemed long dead (as if that made any difference) we parted ways. There was a nasty feeling about this place and I wasn't about to spend the night there.

I ran into the oriental lady and the Jew on my way out of town – they had the same ideas about the town as I did, and we found a decent enough place to make camp not far down the road. We built a fire in the shadow of a hill and hunkered down for the night. I took the second watch.
I was sitting with my back to a tree, listening to the wind moving through the branches, and the rhythmic breathing of my companions, when I saw them. Two man sized shapes, moving steadily down the hill towards us. Something about their gait looked strange to me in the moonlight, they moved awkwardly in a shambling manner, and seemed to be swinging large sticks, which I observed were actually pick axes as they got near enough to make out. Leaping to my feet, I yelled out ‘Who goes there?!’

They didn't reply of course, and my companions and I (who were awake by now and grabbing their weapons) readied ourselves for a fight. Once the two men came into the circle of light from our camp fire we could see that they wore miner’s clothes and helmets, and there was something horribly wrong with their skin…it was pure white, as if all their blood had drained away, and they looked kind of shrunken. One of them muttered something about brains.

The fight that followed was a short one. I pulled off a couple of half decent shots, the Jew (somewhat panicked) misfired his gun off into the darkness, and then proceeded to cower beneath his blankets. Luckily the oriental lady made short work of the pair of them. By the stars that woman can move. Nothing but a whirl of fists and kicking feet. The first miner somehow ended up with his pick axe through his eye, and the second I swear she punched his head clean off.
We waited out the rest of the night drinking coffee and trying to keep warm, sleep was impossible then. Around sunrise we headed back into town and found our travel companions breakfasting in the saloon. Jack, bless his heart, paid off the barkeep to allow us the back room for our meal and turn a blind eye to having a native and an Asian in his bar. I was too tired to be offended at the barkeep’s attitude this time.

Lady Loxley has another job for us all, she wants us to go and investigate some copper mines her family has shares in. She couldn't pay us up front she said, this town having no bank, but I know she’s good for her word and will honor her debt once we reach the next town. As far as I’m concerned reaching the next town can’t happen soon enough, but it would be crazy to pass up the $5 she’s paying.  The other’s seemed slightly skeptical regarding our night time encounter, but they promised that we would all swing by the place where we camped out on our return from the mines.
If we return from the mines…

"Bobcat" Native American Guide
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: beej October 21, 2013, 09:23:26 PM
http://www.deviantart.com/art/MHI-Vehicle-Combat-365365267

I think this picture sums up every Delta Green game I've ever been in.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: j_train1 June 22, 2014, 09:50:30 AM
I have borrowed Ross' one Shot playtest for Wild Talents:Caped Crusaders and Cannibals and I have run it 3 times to just show people the world that is Wild Talents.

Now here are the different notes and anecdotes that have come out of the game sessions:

--in 2 of the games the players all piled into a Soccer Mom van and the Telekinetic lifts the van with his mind and the float down the street. They turn up the base and make the van do bouncing as it floats down the street, well the Ex-con was driving.

--in 1 of the games the Tech from the beginning gets gut shot and the PC's just leave him behind.

--in all three versions they kill Cutting Edge ,but in different ways
        1. set his head on fire
        2. use telekinesis to make his head bend the wrong way and snap around a building
        3. use the Invincible PC as a javelin and slingshot her into EDGE. HEAD SHOT!

--in 1 of the games they fly out of the city in said minivan into the sunset and see in there rear view mirror the city getting nuked.

--in 2 of the games they go after the cure to make it back to the IDEAL base. In 1 of those games granny gets bitten because she is being used as bait for the trap.

--in 2 of the games they encountered the alien warrior.
        1. they fight him and kill him.
        2. they send the elevator up and he gets lose into the city.

--in 2 of the games the Invincible PC can't stay clean for she is covered in gore and blood.

--in the last game 2 of the PCs were pretty much walking around naked for they lost their garments due to attacks or in one case the Elastic man formed into a puddle to go under a door ,but his shirt/pants do not make the trip.

--In all 3 games Granny is a ninja with her Walker, with using it as a weapon or blocking.

Thanks for all the fish,Ross and entertainment.

: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe June 22, 2014, 05:35:34 PM
That is pretty amazing. I really need to write it up as a base raiders one shot game.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: RadioactiveBeer July 23, 2014, 06:45:57 PM
Here's how I explain the difference between INT and WIS to my players now.

"INT is knowing how to use your superpowers to turn the ground under a hostage-taker's feet into laser beams.

WIS is knowing that's not going to be good for his hostage."

I seriously had this happen in a game of Mutants and Masterminds 2e I was running. It was set in Gestalt (people are empowered by archetypes from the collective subconscious) and the game was basically super-cops. Said scenario involved a religious conference getting hijacked by supers whose archetypes were gods of old - Horus, Thor, that kind of thing - holding nuns and imams hostage to demand an end to monotheism, a return to the polytheistic ways of old now that gods were verify-ably walking the world again.

One guy, an IRL physicist whose character had light-based powers, was able to make a good case for how his hard-light abilities could conceivably be used (via a kind of power-stunt) to turn physical matter into light energy, essentially allowing him to turn the floor into lasers under the hostage-takers. He didn't mean like a small thing either, he wanted a huge chunk to hit the whole group of the rival superteam at once.

When it was pointed out that it might be a bad idea considering the hostage-takers weren't the only ones in the room, his response was that everyone in the party had flight or some other mobility power that would let them get away from the effect.

Cue ten minutes of having to explain what a hostage was and that most nuns are not resistant to laser beams.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Henry Hankovitch December 06, 2014, 10:28:30 PM
This is how my Inception/Dreamlands campaign ended:

(http://i.imgur.com/6whxVyM.jpg) (http://imgur.com/6whxVyM)
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Kamen December 07, 2014, 11:11:05 AM
Beautiful
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Flawless P January 12, 2015, 02:07:12 AM
Anecdote about an Anecdote.

So this will actually end up being two stories.

I just finished running a Two part scenario in Pathfinder using a low magic setting. I generally consider level 10 to be max level for my PC's and the Players were settled in at level 7. So they are pretty strong compared to most people in the world.

The team is trying to get an audience with their informant and have to get into the most exclusive party in the known world.

They managed to finagle invites but in order to do so one of their NPC allies had to go on a date with the man who's family owns the venue. This is complicated by the man being known for being "aggressive" with women.

Well push came to shove and he roughed her up after the party because she refused to sleep with him (she's not a prostitute!) I figured it'd get a strong reaction and probably some violence on my hands but what ended up happening has led me to believe that Domestic Violence seems to be some kind of incredible trigger that turned them all into psychopaths.

So they paid a little trip to his home. Not unexpected. He lives with his wealthy parents. One player proceeds to set his side and front doors on fire. Leaving only the back door accessible.

The family comes fleeing outside right into the waiting arms of what equates to The League of Extraordinary Lynch Mobs.

Two of them grab his parents, the other two savagely beat him. At one point one of the players tells the mother "You're going to watch, and if you try to look away, we are going to kill him." Then they turn on his father proclaiming "You raised this son of a bitch!" and proceed to break both his legs with a club.

Once they leave one of the players goes to the local crime syndicates whom he already has an in with, and spends every last gold piece he possess to have the man killed, and to ensure that it leaves an impression on his family.

So a masked man besets out upon the fleeing family disables their carriage and decapitates the son in front of his parents.

Shit got real. Local authorities were on the hunt but some political connections and cash transfer have relegated much of the search to "inactive".

Now for the Anecdoteception.

My coworkers are pretty cool. Neither of them game but they both enjoy a good tabletop story. One of them is a part time fantasy writer and the other's husband and her used to play white wolf or something years ago.

So I was recounting events to them while we were out to lunch on Friday, and a woman had sat down  at the table across from us. I hadn't noticed that she was sitting there not eating for most of my story. Apparently she had finished her food like 2-3 minutes into my story, and finally when I finished telling them, she stood up leaned forward toward our table and told me "That is FUCKING awesome!" I was super shocked but it made me giggle to think that someone who probably had never played a role playing game before, found a story about Tabletop Domestic Violence and it's consequences fascinating.

Thank you random L and L BBQ Patron, in a weird way your appreciation for my story validates my narrative aspirations.

: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Alethea May 09, 2015, 12:16:58 PM
This past week I ran the second half of Think Before Asking for my players - two of whom are completely new to RPGs. By the time they found the Oracle, one player in a scurrier morph was anxious and refusing to come out of the top hat the octomorph decided he was carrying around for the scurrier to ride under. The player with an otomorph was riding the edge of crossing the trauma threshold - he really shouldn't have snapped those neotechnics' necks. Much like in the podcast, one of the players contacts the Oracle and asked how come the bomb(s) hadn't gone off yet. The stress of the answer slammed her over the trauma threshold. She picked echolalia.

There may have been some cackling on my part at this point.  ;D
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: TMayesing78 May 10, 2015, 09:32:48 PM
I thoughtlessly put an adamantine door in a dungeon.  (It was a pathfinder game.)  I probably shouldn't have been surprised but my players almost immediately left the dungeon to get the tools needed to chop the door out of dungeon and transport it to market so to speak. 

Unfortunately for them I had two weeks to consider the problem.

First I introduced the idea of overhead.  They had to cut the door up and get it formed into ingots.  Then when they tried to unload the material, they found their profits rapidly declining, due to a glut on the market.  Unfortunately this infuriated at least one of my players who walked out at one point.  He came back for the next session but still I thought I was being reasonable.  He felt I was was just being antagonistic.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe May 13, 2015, 03:07:05 AM
the player was a jerk but you kind of dropped the ball - that much adamantine is of strategic importance. Any reasonable kingdom will take great efforts to secure it - players want a payday, they can get it if they can lug the damn thing to ye old allied kingdom so the court wizard can buy it and enchant a hundred swords for the order of knights. Of course ye olde evil kingdom will send mercenaries to steal it and ye olde jerk kingdom will send agents to buy it from the PCs at a higher price - of course they will use the adamantine to make enchanted swords to fight ye olde allied kingdom.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: trinite May 13, 2015, 09:59:33 AM
the player was a jerk but you kind of dropped the ball - that much adamantine is of strategic importance. Any reasonable kingdom will take great efforts to secure it - players want a payday, they can get it if they can lug the damn thing to ye old allied kingdom so the court wizard can buy it and enchant a hundred swords for the order of knights. Of course ye olde evil kingdom will send mercenaries to steal it and ye olde jerk kingdom will send agents to buy it from the PCs at a higher price - of course they will use the adamantine to make enchanted swords to fight ye olde allied kingdom.

Ross has some good ideas. I think the trick is, players think of wealth as a form of scorekeeping. But past a certain point, a big enough source of wealth stops being scorekeeping and starts to be a plot driver. Just like a +1 Ring of Protection is just a stat boost, but the One Ring of Power can drive a whole campaign.

You can also get some more plot ideas by thinking about how that adamantine door got there in the first place. How did the dungeon builder pay for it? Are there more doors down there? Was the door just a loaner from a powerful devil prince who had extra doors in his adamantine hell-fortress and rented them out? Do the dwarves have an ancient claim on the door since it was made from adamantine stolen from them 1,000 years ago? Is the door the remains of a sentient adamantine golem, crushed into a door shape to save on smelting costs, but still conscious?
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: TMayesing78 May 20, 2015, 10:32:11 AM
Wow.  I was happy just dropping the price from the glut on the marks.  Now I'm embarrassed I didn't think about it a little more.  Both you and Ross make great points. 
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Jacko June 09, 2015, 08:38:11 PM
My group just ended an Apocalypse World campaign that started nuts and just kept running full-steam ahead. The setting was an isolated space station that had been cut off from Earth for decades and decades due to a wormhole collapsing. Cannibals, tribal warlords and 'proper folk' all fighting each other in a crumbling space station for dwindling resources. One of the moves players can use in AW is to 'open their brain' to the psychic maelstrom of the world. This is usually used to discern new information about things as the characters interact with the world in their own quasi-spiritual way. You can advance that move and if you do that and then roll a 12+ on 2D6+stat, something new happens. To quote the game text "You break through to whatever's on the other side". Freaky, right? One of our players did just that and simply declared:

"I see the Devourer for what it truly is."

This was the first mention of any such thing and cryptic enough to make everyone wonder aloud as to what it meant. The Devourer would eventually become a shadowy antagonist, the cause of all the anarchy and chaos on the station, for two characters to rail against, recruiting gangs and cults to their cause, infiltrating rival tribes and gangs, all kinds of crazy shit. Most of the other characters thought it was all tribal bullshit.

One day, a ship came into radio range. An ark ship carrying 180,000 people in cryostasis (and all the supplies needed for such a sizable group to start a colony) was returning after not finding any habitable planets and running low on reactor mass. The ship carried its own wormhole generator for a one-time-only use when a new colony was established and the craziest characters decided that they needed to get on the ship and get the generator to finally defeat the Devourer.

Queue every PC boarding a ramshackle torpedo and flying towards the ark ship as quickly as possible to beat the station gangs from tearing it apart first. Among the PCs was a psychotic cannibal by the name of Puff who really, really hated gluttonous and greedy sinners. Puff was sane enough to not tip his hand at every opportunity but at least one PC had seen him with a bloody mouth and a dead corpse at his feet. He was, in essence, an agent of the Devourer and had a psychic connection to it from spending years in cryo but no one else knew that. Another PC was an obese scientist named Dr. Raskolnikov, who kept a briefcase of wondrous inventions and oddments known only to him, and had a habit of talking down to everyone that was dumber than him (which was everyone).

The party was split up multiple times as they tried to simultaneously warn the ark ship sailors of the other station gangs, find the generator, and murder (and sometimes eat) people. Things came to a head when half the party was at the generator and the other half was in sickbay. One of them had been thoroughly ventilated by cannibals from the Flycatcher gang and was getting patched up. Dr. R was hiding behind the Marines that were keeping the place secure and Puff was there because Dr. R was there. There had been a one-sided firefight between a PC cult leaders group of fanatics and the Marines. The doctor in charge had been wounded, causing lots of panic and confusion so in the interest of never wasting an opportunity, Puff fell upon Dr. R, stabbing him in the back (literally) and then proceeding to bite his face off (literally).

There's blood and screaming and confusion and sheer fucking chaos and then the generator gets flipped on. Fade to white. Everyone rolls+weird.

10 years go by.

Dr. Raskolnikov had his face eaten and was already cooling when the generator went off. RIP.
The cult leader was never seen after that moment, lost in wherever exists inside a wormhole. Probably Hell. (Failed the roll completely)
The psychic-researcher that triggered the generator was on the moon, watching space and trying to start a cult around his messianic complex. (Partial success)
The badass merc was teaching a women's self-defense class and keeping a low profile. (Partial success)
The witch that had been shot to pieces survived somehow and became a hermit in the mountains. (Partial success)
And sometimes, in London, bodies would turn up missing body parts after a man listened to the tiny, hungry voice in his head. (Complete success on the roll)

It's really amazing to me that the climax of the entire campaign came from a single line spoken months beforehand and really speaks to improv GMing as none of it was planned in advance.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe June 11, 2015, 02:39:14 AM
Damn man, sounds fun!
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: D6xD6 - Chris June 23, 2015, 07:30:49 PM
This weekend I ran demos of Night's Black Agents and Atomic Robo on Free RPG Day.  For NBA, the players were chasing down a vampire in possession of a tactical nuke.  Once the players were in possession of the nuke, they were unable to disarm it and a countdown began before detonation.

Upon seeing the countdown, the 12 year-old girl playing the surly Irish wheelman, promptly declared "screw this, mates!" and sped away, leaving her party members behind with the nuke and blank stares.

 ;D

 
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: trinite June 24, 2015, 10:48:17 AM
This weekend I ran demos of Night's Black Agents and Atomic Robo on Free RPG Day.  For NBA, the players were chasing down a vampire in possession of a tactical nuke.  Once the players were in possession of the nuke, they were unable to disarm it and a countdown began before detonation.

Upon seeing the countdown, the 12 year-old girl playing the surly Irish wheelman, promptly declared "screw this, mates!" and sped away, leaving her party members behind with the nuke and blank stares.

 ;D

Hope that was a really fast car.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tadanori Oyama June 24, 2015, 11:02:59 AM
I got to play in that scenario but I didn't make it much past the vampire head slipping my called shot and punching me through a desk into a cement wall because we ran out of time. I did have two guys totally new to GUMSHOE who did a pretty good showing as agents.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: D6xD6 - Chris June 24, 2015, 07:21:38 PM
Hope that was a really fast car.

Well, at the beginning of the scenario, she got to choose between a fast car and a maneuverable one.  She promptly explained that there really was no choice, and only stupid-heads would take the slower car.

She was right!
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: The Lost Carol August 25, 2015, 11:05:14 PM
I know this isn't QUITE an anecdote, but don't know where else to put it.

In part two of After Hours, David's book report is from a supplement for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. Inside the book was the name and address of the prior owner, a private second class from the US Army. My IRL crew runs ADND exclusively (I know, it's my Palladium, I'm trying to get them to play new stuff...,) so I wanted to pick up the Player's Handbook in case I wanted to run a campaign. After opening the shipping bag and flipping through it, what did I find in the back of the book? A pair of schedules for January 1996, from a group from the US Air Force. What're the odds? I didn't think there was a stereotype of military men playing DND...
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Severite September 05, 2015, 08:03:52 PM
The most humiliating TPK I have seen was a module I ran (I don't remember the company.......) that was a Dracula's mansion kind of thing. Well, in this adventure are a pair of obelisks, one has the inscription "For greater wisdom insert weapon here with a slot to do so beneath it. When one inserts a weapon it breaks (the weapon) and a card pops out that says "One does not gain wisdom through the use of weapons". The second obelisk inscription reads "For greater intelligence, insert head here" with a slot big enough to except such...........after the first decapitation, the players decide it must be alignment specific and they all give it a go......
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: sinanju September 06, 2015, 03:27:07 AM
I was running The Expendables in GURPS. Think Stargate, only exploring alternate dimensions instead of distant planets. The PCs were a a group of hardened rules lawyers who strained to carry a huge inflated liferaft filled with a mountain of gear for every conceivable environment and situation thru the gate, then figured out what they actually needed. (I told them "only what you can carry, and you have a 30-second window" and this is what they came up with. I couldn't argue.)

So in this adventure I had them step through the portal and find themselves tumbling into a huge mass grave filled with corpses. My intent was to have them running and gunning in a world where the Walking Dead were running amok. (The mass grave was where the government was dumping the zombies who'd been killed for good.)

But the players/characters immediately fell into Paranoid mode. They began spinning increasingly elaborate theories about a dystopian US under a brutal martial regime... and it sounded a lot more entertaining than my idea so I ran with it. They were chased by black-clad minions of the President-For-Life and his ruling junta, and eventually were cornered by a helicopter gunship. The gunship pilot demands their immediate surrender over the speaker system.

Most of the players can't drop their weapons and throw their hands in the air fast enough. All except Frank, whose player is not good at quick decisions, hates to lose, and will occasionally decide to take his personal Custerian stand at the oddest times. So he decides that this is the perfect time to pit his MP5 against the armored gunship with the mini-gun trained on him.

He gets off a couple of shots (to no effect).

A few other PCs all run for cover while the mini-gun hoses down Frank. One PC remains absolutely still, hands in the air.

The mini-gun turns Frank into swiss cheese, then makes short work of the fleeing PCs.

The surviving PC is taken into custody and placed in an interrogation room. They have a few questions.

"I sing like a bird," says the player. After all, he reasons, he's missed his window to return (if the PCs don't return on schedule after two tries, the address is written off). Once he convinces the authorities that he's not a rebel, he's got a good shot at getting recruited to join the black-clad minions enforcing the junta's rule. And that's way better than going to jail, or getting a bullet in the back of the head. And so he does.

: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe September 10, 2015, 03:34:24 AM
Good story, but what happens next? It sounds like he's effectively out of the campaign as well.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: sinanju September 12, 2015, 11:39:02 AM
What happens next? He makes up a new character for the next adventure. The Expendables had a high turnover, which was both expected and intended. It was a game for a bunch of rules lawyers and ruthless power gamers, whose credo was "if it's a fair fight, you're doing it wrong." They expected the GM to be as ruthless as they were. And as we all took turns running games, that was generally the case.

Except for Todd. Poor Todd. He just didn't have the killer instinct. And one day he decided to run a GURPS Vampire the Masquerade game. He asked if we wanted to be Camarilla or Sabbat. "Sabbat!" we chorused. I'm sure he had some kind of plot in mind, and it involved fighting werewolves, who tended to attack us by jumping in and out of the Umbra like Nightcrawler teleporting all over the Oval Office in that X-Men movie. (I was pretty sure it didn't work that way, but whatever.) We dealt with them by throwing grenades around wrapped in silver wire.

When we weren't busy fighting werewolves we were street racing through Portland, shooting at (and throwing grenades at) our opponents because We're Sabbat. We Don't Care! We engaged in contests to see which of us could be cruelest and most inventive about killing humans. (And I have to say this is one of the few times I saw this group all pause, and consider what they were doing, and back off because it was just to psychopathic even for their murderous characters.)

Meanwhile, one of Todd's pet NPCs hosted live local wrestling shows on television on Friday night. Of course, he was a powerful vampire. So one of the PCs decided it was time for some diablerie. On live tv. So he goes to the wrestling show, kills any (human) security guards who try to stop him, and goes after the NPC vampire with a broadsword. The vampire's vampire goons intervene and there's a huge vampire brawl on live television. PC fails to kill the NPC, but does manage to get away.

At which point the Prince of the City calls my character and another PC into his office. He demands that we find our friend and kill him for what he did. We refuse point-blank. We point out to him that he didn't have us searched before we entered his office, we're very heavily armed, and we can take him and his goons. And after some dithering, we escape unharmed.

The thing is, if ANYONE in the group but Todd had been running that game, our response to the Prince's orders would have been to click our heels together and salute, shouting, "Sir! Yes, sir!" Because we'd have known that the Prince of THAT campaign both could and WOULD murder us in a heartbeat for that kind of insubordination. But this was Todd. We knew he almost certainly wouldn't have them react that way, and more importantly, we were pretty sure that if he'd tried we COULD have taken that roomful of NPCs. We'd have tried, anyhow.

So, the lesson here is: these guy will run roughshod over you as GM unless you've demonstrated you can play hardball too. Which is why, when confronted with a helicopter gunship, these guys immediately surrendered (except for Frank).
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: trinite September 12, 2015, 03:32:46 PM
I hope the President-For-Life used Frank's PC-knowledge to start conquering other dimensions, with Frank as his general.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Redroverone October 23, 2015, 09:37:12 AM
A little over 30 years ago, I was privileged enough to get an invite into a D&D group that ran on Thursdays, whose GM was affectionately known by many many people (including one Mr. Gygax) as Mad Ruthie. Why, I never learned. Anyways.

The campaign was, at best, total chaos. Party strength ran from as few as seven to as many as 20(!) people in a night, depending on how many people from the ever rotating cast would show up on a random Thursday. Levels ran from first to around 10th, or so. I never made it past level 7 with any character, however. Anyways.

First levels were essentially DCC funnel characters. Sent into rooms, with instructions to report back what they saw in the room. Generally, they never came out, so the party knew when to gear up for a fight. Once you made second level, though, you weren't the FNG anymore, and so you were golden. Well, except for the mass combats with the huge fatality rates among the low levels.

Along the way were simply the zany creations of a very imaginative lady and the really bad ways her players reacted to them. Among them was finding a Bag of Holding with a Sherman tank inside. A magical box that cast Teleport when you spoke the magic words 'Calgon, take me away!'. The old man in a room with a pile of housecats. The housecats reacted badly to our Fighter killing the old man, and the resultant 'combat' ended with our Fighter losing one eye. Of course, none of the Clerics cured it, and soon after someone replaced the crest on his shield with a cat's paw. The first level who wandered into a room with a beholder, upon which said beholder rolled six attacks, none of which hit, and the first level exited the room and said that he didn't see anything. I miss those games.

Addendum: After I came back to games a few years ago, my first group was playing the Lost Unicorn Star Trek TNG game. The GM was foolish enough to tell me that the only things he wanted out of my character was no psionics and no hybrids. 'Everything else is fair game!', he said. That was a mistake, and the reason why their ship ended up with a Breen pilot. Much hilarity ensued.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Jace911 October 25, 2015, 01:55:08 PM
Just finished a one-shot of the new Delta Green with four friends who had never played or heard of it before they sat down (Other than what I told them to see if they were interested). Their mission: to search the apartment of a recently-deceased Friendly and former DG agent to make sure his heirs didn't find anything incriminating or dangerous when they came to collect his things. By the end of the day two of the agents were dead, one was missing time, the fourth had a psychotic fear of identical twins, and a state park four hours away from the man's apartment had been burned to the ground with nearly twenty dead.

Mission. Fucking. Accomplished.

(Full write-up to follow)
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Henry Hankovitch October 25, 2015, 06:09:03 PM
Had a pretty intense Legend of Five Rings game last night.  The group had been tasked with eliminating a Scorpion daimyo and all his heirs, for treason against the clan.  This included the daimyo's nine-year-old son.  When they'd finally "rescued" the son from blahblahplot, they debated for a while what to do with the kid.  Unsurprisingly, most of the group was not willing to kill a little kid.  While they did that, the group's Soshi infiltrator (ninja posing as a rank-and-file samurai) wandered over and slipped the kid a poison drink; several hours later, the boy is dead.

At the end of the session, the player of the Soshi asks, "so how much XP for the kid?"
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe October 25, 2015, 06:11:21 PM
Just finished a one-shot of the new Delta Green with four friends who had never played or heard of it before they sat down (Other than what I told them to see if they were interested). Their mission: to search the apartment of a recently-deceased Friendly and former DG agent to make sure his heirs didn't find anything incriminating or dangerous when they came to collect his things. By the end of the day two of the agents were dead, one was missing time, the fourth had a psychotic fear of identical twins, and a state park four hours away from the man's apartment had been burned to the ground with nearly twenty dead.

Mission. Fucking. Accomplished.

(Full write-up to follow)

Demo adventure?
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: D6xD6 - Chris October 26, 2015, 06:58:17 PM
Just demoed Delta Green at the FLGS using "Last Things Last."

They decided to stay at a motel rather than drive in a storm to the cabin.  One of the demo characters is an FBI agent, so of course I had them overhear a prostitute trying to escape a crackhead next door.  After killing the crackhead and threatening the motel manager, a high-speed chase through a severe thunderstorm, and Grand Theft Auto-style car switch in the boondocks of New Hampshire, they finally made it to the cabin, wherein they failed repeatedly to start a fire, only to succeed. . . for the vector to escape in body of a dead squirrel.

They loved it, of course. 
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Jace911 October 29, 2015, 01:29:16 AM
Demo adventure?

Indeed, albeit heavily modified.

Full write-up is on a google doc because it actually exceeds the character length for this forum. It's a copy of a Fbook chat conversation I had with Tomsawyer, so forgive the terrible formatting and kind of scatterbrained narrative:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AZUhuky9roDSC2nVH6Dj8IGqJuQHtWi7EOMyjcRxclY/edit?usp=sharing (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AZUhuky9roDSC2nVH6Dj8IGqJuQHtWi7EOMyjcRxclY/edit?usp=sharing)

So yeah. First op: clean out an old man's apartment. Twelve hours later: two agents dead, a dozen civilians missing/dead, state park burned to the ground.

(http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/international/mission%20accomplished%20banner%2023423423.jpg)
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Jace911 November 16, 2015, 12:33:38 PM
Last night we finished K-Cell's second opera, which was much more of a success than the first. :V

Of the six agents who participated only one ended up in the hospital (And relapsed into alcoholism), one earned some gnarly torso scars and is halfway to becoming a Lamplighter, one developed wilderness-centric agoraphobia, one blacked out and can't remember where she was or what she did during the climax, one developed a totemic obsession with the SCAR-H she was armed with, and the sixth had her preexisting paranoia of twins blossom into a general paranoia of everyone around her.

Oh, and they tried to blow up some dinosaurs with a dynamite-strapped cow but the dinosaurs were too crafty for them so they had to blow up a fake meth lab instead.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe November 17, 2015, 12:44:03 AM
Future Perfect?
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tomsawyer November 17, 2015, 08:16:56 AM

Oh, and they tried to blow up some dinosaurs with a dynamite-strapped cow but the dinosaurs were too crafty for them so they had to blow up a fake meth lab instead.

Hey Operation Cowabunga was a brilliant plan  >:(

Also it was Yithian enhanced dynamite so it was more powerful then usual.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Jace911 November 17, 2015, 03:49:39 PM
Future Perfect?

Yep. I changed the Monolophosaurus to a pair of Dakotaraptors because I wanted at least one "clever girl" moment (Which I got) and I also wanted to see the looks on the players' faces when they realized that the 1200lb raptors could climb trees and mimic voices.

Hey Operation Cowabunga was a brilliant plan  >:(

Also it was Yithian enhanced dynamite so it was more powerful then usual.

All it took was one juvenile raptor making off with your cow bomb and suddenly your "brilliant plan" of blowing up all the raptors with one explosion turned into "chase a six foot juvie raptor through the forest, at night, with no NVGs and no idea where either of the adults are". :V
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Jace911 December 13, 2015, 11:16:53 PM
Just finished playing in my first-ever Better Angels game run by Tomsawyer. The premise: the supervillains TANK WASHINGTON and THE SINISTER SHROUD were ordered by their archdemons to "steal Christmas"  as payment for two huge favors the hosts pulled during the last heist, which shall never be spoken of again. They left it up to us to determine what that meant, so we decided the best way to accomplish this would be to build a doomsday device called the Disappointerizer, which when activated at the strike of twelve on Christmas Eve would transform all the Christmas presents in the city into the one thing their recipient didn't want for Christmas. The GM ruled that was a Cataclysmic environmental change and doubled it to affect the entire city, so to pay for it we decided to pull a heist a few days before.

We held the Kirby City Christmas Tree and the Children's Hospital choir ransom in exchange for [money units]. Tank Washington and some hired goons were threatening to torch the beloved tree live on national television, right in central park, while the Sinister Shroud kept the hostages imprisoned in a nearby public restroom (There weren't a whole lot of options in a park). Tank and the hired help had a brief tangle with some cops, which Tank mostly Terror'd with his fearsome patriotism and the Eaglephone (Devilish device to boost Terror, looked like an eagle's head as a megaphone) until the Pavior showed up and started wrecking shit in a misguided effort to save the day. Tank had to go head-to-head against the Pavior's huge steamroller while the Sinister Shroud used Impossible Beauty to shame the Pavior for endangering children until he quit the field.

Then once the money was delivered Tank Washington went back on his word and flew the Christmas tree out into the forest where it belonged.

Since the GM ruled that the Disappointerizer required a special fuel source to function (Cookies left out for santa, which the Sinister Shroud stole from the children's hospital where he worked as a janitor) there was a brief scene before the device was activated. It was during this time that Tank Washington realized activating the device would likely push him over the threshold of hell and had a sudden change of heart. He confronted his partner in crime as the Shroud was just feeding cookies into the machine, demanding that they back down, but the Shroud would hear none of it. He tried to confound Tank by shrouding the machine in darkness, but Tank was able to blunder into the machine and smash it with his superhuman strength.

The game ended with Tank walking away, intending to turn himself in and repent for his crimes while the Shroud ranted at him by the smashed Disappointerizer.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: trinite December 14, 2015, 12:26:40 PM
Just finished playing in my first-ever Better Angels game run by Tomsawyer. The premise: the supervillains TANK WASHINGTON and THE SINISTER SHROUD were ordered by their archdemons to "steal Christmas"  as payment for two huge favors the hosts pulled during the last heist, which shall never be spoken of again. They left it up to us to determine what that meant, so we decided the best way to accomplish this would be to build a doomsday device called the Disappointerizer, which when activated at the strike of twelve on Christmas Eve would transform all the Christmas presents in the city into the one thing their recipient didn't want for Christmas. The GM ruled that was a Cataclysmic environmental change and doubled it to affect the entire city, so to pay for it we decided to pull a heist a few days before.

We held the Kirby City Christmas Tree and the Children's Hospital choir ransom in exchange for [money units]. Tank Washington and some hired goons were threatening to torch the beloved tree live on national television, right in central park, while the Sinister Shroud kept the hostages imprisoned in a nearby public restroom (There weren't a whole lot of options in a park). Tank and the hired help had a brief tangle with some cops, which Tank mostly Terror'd with his fearsome patriotism and the Eaglephone (Devilish device to boost Terror, looked like an eagle's head as a megaphone) until the Pavior showed up and started wrecking shit in a misguided effort to save the day. Tank had to go head-to-head against the Pavior's huge steamroller while the Sinister Shroud used Impossible Beauty to shame the Pavior for endangering children until he quit the field.

Then once the money was delivered Tank Washington went back on his word and flew the Christmas tree out into the forest where it belonged.

Since the GM ruled that the Disappointerizer required a special fuel source to function (Cookies left out for santa, which the Sinister Shroud stole from the children's hospital where he worked as a janitor) there was a brief scene before the device was activated. It was during this time that Tank Washington realized activating the device would likely push him over the threshold of hell and had a sudden change of heart. He confronted his partner in crime as the Shroud was just feeding cookies into the machine, demanding that they back down, but the Shroud would hear none of it. He tried to confound Tank by shrouding the machine in darkness, but Tank was able to blunder into the machine and smash it with his superhuman strength.

The game ended with Tank walking away, intending to turn himself in and repent for his crimes while the Shroud ranted at him by the smashed Disappointerizer.

AWESOME I WANNA PLAY BETTER ANGELS
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: trinite December 14, 2015, 01:16:17 PM
Yesterday, in Civil War Cthulhu news, I ran my newly-written scenario about the Gettysburg National Cemetery project: "We Cannot Hallow This Ground."

The cemetery project required the exhumation and reburial of over 3,000 corpses scattered over the battlefield, in various states of decay after months in the ground. Every corpse had to be picked through to determine its identity as well as possible, or at least whether it was a Union of Confederate body.

I used Trail of Cthulhu, with a few small adaptations to fit the period (no Drive skill or Electrical Repair, and Cop Talk changed to Soldier Talk). Characters were a James Woodrow, a stalwart ex-military police detective; Melrose Pierce, a sardonic but sympathetic newspaper reported named Melrose Pierce; and Mrs. Violet Wesley, a widow searching for the missing corpse of her slain husband.

After attending the Gettysburg Address, they were personally charged by President Lincoln with investigating a spate of suspiciously empty battlefield graves.

Oh, and here's the main "handout" for the scenario, being held by yours truly.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Kamen December 15, 2015, 07:20:30 PM
Man I really hope I get to play in one of your Civil War scenarios someday, Trinite, they sound so freakin' cool!
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: trinite December 16, 2015, 11:58:31 AM
Man I really hope I get to play in one of your Civil War scenarios someday, Trinite, they sound so freakin' cool!

Thanks, Kamen! Actually, this one and my second one (General Order No. 11) would probably work very well over Hangouts. And I'm always looking for more playtests, since I'd like to publish them eventually...

I'd just need an app to do a little screen sharing for the map for this one.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: j_train1 December 22, 2015, 07:36:09 PM
Ran a session of The Play is the Thing, used Taming of the Shrew.
The players right out of the gate changed the plot by the father, Baptista Minola changing the plot where he didn't want either of his daughters getting married. The younger daughter Bianca Minola, didn't like that decison and threw a hissy fit she was promtply locked up in her room with a guard standing out side.(another edit) We find out she didn't want Hortensio(edit) ,but actuall was in love with the Guard who was guarding her door. So when the suitors came disguised not as music teachers ,but as Horticultuist(edit) He rejected their offer and a fight broke out? (edit) It turned into a running Yakky Saks scene where Hortensio was killed by Petruchio(Villain onstage ability). While Petruchio left the house he was approached by Lucentio who was trying to convince Petruchio to help him rescue Bianca ,for it seemed that the "guard" who was guarding Bianca was actually Lucentio in disguise. Petruchio rejects that offer and chases off Lucentio by Baptista's order. It seems Petruchio is now working for Baptista(edit) as a knight.
Lucentio breaks into the house to rescue Bianca to escape and elope. They are caught by Baptista and Petruchio ,while trying to hide in Katherine's room. A swordfight ensues and Lucentio is killed by Petruchio (Villian onstage ability). Bainca throws herself on her love impaling herself on the sword that is sticking through Lucentio. (edit) Petruchio is then ordered to kill himself by Baptista for the death of Bainca.(edit)   Katherine then tries to use a knife to kill her father for she now wants to inhierit the whole estate and then she won't have to marry anyone(fails edit)
So we close with Katherine and Baptista surrounded by death and blood.

Therefore one of the comedies of Shakespear has turned into one of the bloodest on record.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Review Cultist December 22, 2015, 08:42:19 PM
Man I really hope I get to play in one of your Civil War scenarios someday, Trinite, they sound so freakin' cool!

Thanks, Kamen! Actually, this one and my second one (General Order No. 11) would probably work very well over Hangouts. And I'm always looking for more playtests, since I'd like to publish them eventually...

I'd just need an app to do a little screen sharing for the map for this one.

Why not use a shared google doc or image thing on G-drive?
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: trinite December 23, 2015, 11:18:24 AM
Man I really hope I get to play in one of your Civil War scenarios someday, Trinite, they sound so freakin' cool!

Thanks, Kamen! Actually, this one and my second one (General Order No. 11) would probably work very well over Hangouts. And I'm always looking for more playtests, since I'd like to publish them eventually...

I'd just need an app to do a little screen sharing for the map for this one.

Why not use a shared google doc or image thing on G-drive?

I could do that, but for this particular scenario I'd really like a way to draw on the map and share it in real-time. I got the printed version laminated, so I can use dry-erase markers on it. But if everybody wants the 200mb TIFF file, I'm happy to share it. :)
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Redroverone December 29, 2015, 11:43:36 AM
So I've been playing a Mutants and Masterminds campaign with my friend GMing. There are four players, and the GM was hoping for a more lighthearted campaign.

Then he let me make the homeless guy with an Illusion array (Affliction/Damage) and a couple of levels of Transform. He's not got the best grip on his imagination, and he hears the voice of his dead friend, but I must admit that turning the air around an opponent's head into three pounds of plastic DOES end fights quickly. As does an army of six foot long ants crawling from vents. Or a swarm of bees erupiting from under his hood.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Jace911 January 17, 2016, 10:28:07 PM
Just finished playing in a "The Play's The Thing" game run by Tomsawyer, in which we set aside the works of Shakespeare in favor of producing Star Wars: A New Hope.

I was the Lead playing both Obi-Wan Kenobi and Princess Leia, while the Villain played Darth Vader and Luke Skyalker and the Ham played Han Solo. Here is a complete list of our edits over the course of the play:

1. Princess Leia's actor hates CGI and can't get in character without physical effects. Stormtroopers proceed to board the Tantive IV and gun down the Rebels with cans of silly string.
2. Han Solo's actor thinks his character is somewhat underused and shoehorned into the plot, so he convinces the playwright to edit the script to that Han is one of Luke's friends on Tatooine who regularly visits him. Han appears in the scene where Uncle Ben and Luke buy C-3PO and R2D2.
3. Luke threatens the Jawas who tried to sell them a droid with a faulty motivator, and they give him R2 to placate him.
4. Leia's holographic message is replaced with a miniature cuckoo-clock Leia that pops out of R2's dome.
5. Obi-Wan Kenobi's actor has seen the light when it comes to CGI and insists that the Sand People be made to look more frightening in post. In the meantime the extras playing the Sand People will wear green morph suits.
6. Obi-Wan's home is full of Persian rugs because ???
7. Obi-Wan flat-out tells Luke that Darth Vader is his father when he gives him Anakin's lightsaber. "This was your father's. He killed like thirty kids with it before I hacked off his legs and threw him in a volcano."
8. While in the Mos Eisley cantina Luke starts a barfight brawl with the two alien thugs, which rages on in the background. Obi-Wan, Han, and Chewie negotiate passage on the Falcon while hiding underneath a table.
9. Obi-Wan pays Han by selling him C-3PO.
10. When confronted with the bounty hunter Greedo, Han solves his dispute with him by challenging him to a card game...specifically, Uno. The audience is treated to a dramatic shot of Han slowly reaching under the table to slip a "Draw Four" card from his pocket when Greedo isn't looking. "I've been looking forward to this for a long time," Greedo says. "I bet you have," Han smugly replies just before the Uno machine spits dozens of cards into Greedo's face.
11. While being interrogated by Darth Vader and Tarkin, Leia tries to convince them that the Rebel base is on Tatooine. They destroy Alderaan anyway, because "Tatooine is too remote to make an effective demonstration."
12.  Leia tries to attack Tarkin for destroying her homeworld, only for Darth Vader to chop off her left hand with his lightsaber!
13. Han rolls his eyes at Luke's performance with the training droid. "I call it luck," he says an instant before the remote shoots him in the crotch.
14. Obi-Wan's face darkens and he clutches his heart. "I feel a great disturbance in the Force..." *audible sounds of the actor passing gas* "As though a million voices suddenly cried out in terror..." *extended flatulence* "and were suddenly silenced."
15. Instead of hiding in smuggling compartments to avoid capture, the heroes conceal themselves within the false walls of the Millennium Falcon. From inside they observe the searching stormtroopers through large paintings of Chewie's family with holes where the eyes would be.
16. The dianoga in the garbage pit is replaced with Oscar the Grouch in order to satisfy advertising requirements.
17. While fleeing from the stormtroopers, Han runs into Obi-Wan and the two escape the stormtroopers together before running into Darth Vader.
18. Han quickdraws his weapon, but Vader blocks the silly string with his hand before yanking it away! Still, this distracts him enough for Obi-Wan to strike a killing blow and end the Sith Lord once and for all! With his dying breath Vader warns his old master "there is another..."
19. Luke and Leia arrive on the scene just in time to see Obi-Wan strike down Vader. Luke, who knows Vader is his father, screams "NOOOOOO!" and strikes Obi-Wan down in vengeance. Han and Leia escape the Death Star, but Luke remains to take his father's place in the Empire.
20. For the trench run scene the extras playing X-wing pilots must piggy-back ride stage hands in green morph suits so that they can be CGI'd into starfighters in post.
21. Han decides to stay and join the attack on the Death Star in the Millennium Falcon. Leia goes with him as a gunner, having received a prosthetic hand, and during the trench run she hears Obi-Wan urging her to use the Force. She takes the shot that destroys the Death Star, cementing her role as the story's new hero while Luke has already left to meet the Emperor on Coruscant and become the new Dark Lord.
22. Chewie gets a fucking medal in the awards ceremony.

Failed Edits:
--Leia stows away on the escape pod with 3PO and R2
--Obi-Wan bribes the stormtroopers in Mos Eisley to look the other way by giving them 3PO
--Obi-Wan lets Luke get the shit kicked out of him in the cantina
--The Death Star was to be represented on-stage with a huge water cannon, which would blast the audience when Alderaan was destroyed. This would generate authentic fear and tension during the final scene as the station is preparing to destroy the Rebel base.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: clockworkjoe January 18, 2016, 10:26:02 PM
that is an awesome way to run The Play's the Thing. Kudos sir!
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Tomsawyer January 18, 2016, 11:40:13 PM
Next I plan on running Empire Strikes Back
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Gorkamorka January 19, 2016, 03:40:05 AM
Just finished playing in a "The Play's The Thing" game run by Tomsawyer, in which we set aside the works of Shakespeare in favor of producing Star Wars: A New Hope.

I was the Lead playing both Obi-Wan Kenobi and Princess Leia, while the Villain played Darth Vader and Luke Skyalker and the Ham played Han Solo. Here is a complete list of our edits over the course of the play:

1. Princess Leia's actor hates CGI and can't get in character without physical effects. Stormtroopers proceed to board the Tantive IV and gun down the Rebels with cans of silly string.
2. Han Solo's actor thinks his character is somewhat underused and shoehorned into the plot, so he convinces the playwright to edit the script to that Han is one of Luke's friends on Tatooine who regularly visits him. Han appears in the scene where Uncle Ben and Luke buy C-3PO and R2D2.
3. Luke threatens the Jawas who tried to sell them a droid with a faulty motivator, and they give him R2 to placate him.
4. Leia's holographic message is replaced with a miniature cuckoo-clock Leia that pops out of R2's dome.
5. Obi-Wan Kenobi's actor has seen the light when it comes to CGI and insists that the Sand People be made to look more frightening in post. In the meantime the extras playing the Sand People will wear green morph suits.
6. Obi-Wan's home is full of Persian rugs because ???
7. Obi-Wan flat-out tells Luke that Darth Vader is his father when he gives him Anakin's lightsaber. "This was your father's. He killed like thirty kids with it before I hacked off his legs and threw him in a volcano."
8. While in the Mos Eisley cantina Luke starts a barfight brawl with the two alien thugs, which rages on in the background. Obi-Wan, Han, and Chewie negotiate passage on the Falcon while hiding underneath a table.
9. Obi-Wan pays Han by selling him C-3PO.
10. When confronted with the bounty hunter Greedo, Han solves his dispute with him by challenging him to a card game...specifically, Uno. The audience is treated to a dramatic shot of Han slowly reaching under the table to slip a "Draw Four" card from his pocket when Greedo isn't looking. "I've been looking forward to this for a long time," Greedo says. "I bet you have," Han smugly replies just before the Uno machine spits dozens of cards into Greedo's face.
11. While being interrogated by Darth Vader and Tarkin, Leia tries to convince them that the Rebel base is on Tatooine. They destroy Alderaan anyway, because "Tatooine is too remote to make an effective demonstration."
12.  Leia tries to attack Tarkin for destroying her homeworld, only for Darth Vader to chop off her left hand with his lightsaber!
13. Han rolls his eyes at Luke's performance with the training droid. "I call it luck," he says an instant before the remote shoots him in the crotch.
14. Obi-Wan's face darkens and he clutches his heart. "I feel a great disturbance in the Force..." *audible sounds of the actor passing gas* "As though a million voices suddenly cried out in terror..." *extended flatulence* "and were suddenly silenced."
15. Instead of hiding in smuggling compartments to avoid capture, the heroes conceal themselves within the false walls of the Millennium Falcon. From inside they observe the searching stormtroopers through large paintings of Chewie's family with holes where the eyes would be.
16. The dianoga in the garbage pit is replaced with Oscar the Grouch in order to satisfy advertising requirements.
17. While fleeing from the stormtroopers, Han runs into Obi-Wan and the two escape the stormtroopers together before running into Darth Vader.
18. Han quickdraws his weapon, but Vader blocks the silly string with his hand before yanking it away! Still, this distracts him enough for Obi-Wan to strike a killing blow and end the Sith Lord once and for all! With his dying breath Vader warns his old master "there is another..."
19. Luke and Leia arrive on the scene just in time to see Obi-Wan strike down Vader. Luke, who knows Vader is his father, screams "NOOOOOO!" and strikes Obi-Wan down in vengeance. Han and Leia escape the Death Star, but Luke remains to take his father's place in the Empire.
20. For the trench run scene the extras playing X-wing pilots must piggy-back ride stage hands in green morph suits so that they can be CGI'd into starfighters in post.
21. Han decides to stay and join the attack on the Death Star in the Millennium Falcon. Leia goes with him as a gunner, having received a prosthetic hand, and during the trench run she hears Obi-Wan urging her to use the Force. She takes the shot that destroys the Death Star, cementing her role as the story's new hero while Luke has already left to meet the Emperor on Coruscant and become the new Dark Lord.
22. Chewie gets a fucking medal in the awards ceremony.

Failed Edits:
--Leia stows away on the escape pod with 3PO and R2
--Obi-Wan bribes the stormtroopers in Mos Eisley to look the other way by giving them 3PO
--Obi-Wan lets Luke get the shit kicked out of him in the cantina
--The Death Star was to be represented on-stage with a huge water cannon, which would blast the audience when Alderaan was destroyed. This would generate authentic fear and tension during the final scene as the station is preparing to destroy the Rebel base.

I love the fact that Luke took up the darth mantel and Leia became the one handed Jedi.  Badass
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Lord_of_Apathy January 24, 2016, 09:47:25 PM
I've run a lot of characters over the years and most of them have had memorable deaths. Mostly because I am an impatient SOB and get myself into bad situations but as am not blessed with a group that plans to end a campaign once it has started death is the only real release.  What follows is my most recent and 2nd most memorable character death.

The other night  we were playing Rolemaster: Middle Earth. The rest of the party, led by a dwarven fighter whose player treats every single game like it's Shadowrun and despite being a plate wearing dwarf tries to stealth through almost everything, starts listening at doors to figure out what room to loot first. My barbarian character decided he would climb up the rope that led either down into a well or up to some unexplored room. I encounter some poor sap who went to the kitchen for a midnight snack and deal with him in short order. The rest of the group encounters  the barracks that the majority of bandits sleep in and proceed to wake them up while trying to approach the room silently and kill them.  Back in the kitchen boss bandit and his mistress show up disturbed my fight. My raging barbarian gets in a quite a few solid hits in against the boss bandit before succumbing to the poison on his blade. 3 of my 4 limbs are paralyzed, one leg is still maneuverable and I am bleeding like the proverbial stuck pig.  Still in a raging frenzy I say "I try and bite the bandit."  GM states make a roll. I roll the dice he consults the Bite Attack Chart for Rolemaster and tells me the bandit drops. Hilarity ensues briefly.  Sadly this character then died as a result of blood loss since none of the other PCs were surgeons able to suture closed a 6 hit per round wound. I was content in finding another epic death after all how often do you have the chance to bite someone to death? 
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: sinanju January 30, 2016, 11:37:10 AM
Speaking of dwarves planning badly...in a GURPS Fantasy game once, one of the players (who tended to be somewhat obnoxious in real life in a "I know better than you about everything" kind of way) was playing a dwarf. In his typical fashion he'd acquired heavy armor and a potent axe and considered himself a real badass. The other PCs had encountered some goblins and gotten trounced--we'd run away rather than stay to fight and die. Obnoxious Dwarf (tm) had not been present for that encounter. He decided, for reasons best known to himself, to go out and confront the bad guys on his own, certain he could take them.

And one on one, he probably could have. But he encountered three. Two armed with spears and one with a crossbow. Run by a GM who was familiar with basic tactics and was as annoyed by the dwarf player as the rest of us. He warned the player (without declining subtlety) that he was not the unstoppable badass he thought he was, but was in over his head. The dwarf's player would have none of it. He charged into battle.

One of the goblins stabbed him in the foot through his unarmored leather boot, crippling his foot and reducing him to a hobbling movement. Then the two spearmen took up positions to either side of the crossbowman, using their spears to keep the dwarf at bay while the crossbowman slowly and carefully shot him near to death. He eventually blacked out and woke naked and badly injured, all his gear and gold gone.

Of course, the lesson HE drew from all of this was that the GM had cheated and/or been afraid to have the bad guys face him man to man. (Which was bizarre, given that our gaming group's ethos has always been "if it's a fair fight, you're doing something wrong." But the rest of us were highly entertained.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: SynapticError January 30, 2016, 06:32:14 PM
The first game system my friends and I really started playing together was Cthulhu Dark, and my friends each took turns GMing and really enjoyed themselves, but I never did due to my pathological fear of criticism.  Eventually, they got me to do it, and I had to come up with a campaign that would scare them but at the same time be funny.   They loved their black comedy.  So, I decided to have them be spin doctors for a powerful but relatively benign electronics corporation called ExecuTech, now unveiling a controversial but safe and effective nuclear power system.  (Yay, Azathoth!)  The first "spin" they were tasked with was that the cases could rupture and leak radiation, to get them in character.   That quickly devolved into them and their coworkers attempting to cover up or mitigate employee possessions, dimensional tears, temporal anomalies, and rogue creatures while holding onto their sanity and lives.

I called it "Mistakes were made", and it got up to 15 casualties before the game ended and was the first time I felt successful as a GM.

I can post highlights, but it might take a while, my friends really ran with the setting and left me corpsing more than once. 
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Jace911 February 01, 2016, 02:15:15 AM
Just finished running a one-shot of Better Angels. The player characters were members of Triskaideka teaming up for one of their smaller heists in the Midwest city of Kirby, which used the same rules as chapter two of No Soul Left Behind. I told them they needed to gather four money units and gave them the choice between multiple smaller thefts or one big job of their design. They chose to hold the Kirby Dam hostage by threatening to turn the entire lake into Natty Ice with a demonic device that mimicked Alchemy.

This was easily the funniest game I've ever run or played in--I can say this with certainty because none of the previous games made me laugh so hard I lost my voice. I'll try to post a full write-up tomorrow but the highlight of the night was when Headless Headsman slipped into a janitor's closet to change into his black robes, only to be locked inside when the janitor noticed the door was slightly ajar.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: The Lost Carol February 01, 2016, 01:30:31 PM
While leaving my friendly neighborhood game store during my lunch break I saw an ad for a GM looking for group... For fucking Alpha Omega. "Come get some!" Underneath the contact info. Of all the games on After Hours that was the last game I'd expect to see in the wild. A sick part of me wants to respond to the ad just to see the game in action; that is, if it'll work.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Alethea February 01, 2016, 09:23:25 PM
A sick part of me wants to respond to the ad just to see the game in action; that is, if it'll work.

Dooooo it! Think of the stories you'll be able to regale us with!
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Jace911 February 01, 2016, 10:30:42 PM
So for last night's Better Angels game we had one veteran ORE player (Tomsawyer) and three newcomers. I printed out character sheets for Explosion Sound, Headless Headsman, PCG Squad, and Ro-Borg Cy-Man Man-Bot from No Soul Left Behind as pregens but I also offered to walk the newbies through character creation if they were willing. Two of them picked PCG Squad and Headless Headsman while the third rolled up his sleeves to create Doctor Dunwich, a Lovecraft-themed supervillain (Clairvoyance, Hanging Curse, Aqua Form, and Utmost Foulness). Tomsawyer managed to slip a Jojo reference past me and made King Crimson (That Hideous Strength, Crime-Time, Darkness Shrouded, and Cloven Hooves), for which he shall be punished later.

The premise of the game is that these four members of Triskaideka were meeting in the Midwest city of Kirby to plan one of their smaller heists--the ones they use to keep their names in the news and their demons entertained. I more or less gave them free reign to brainstorm their own heist by using the Supervillainy 101 section in No Soul Left Behind, and they decided to pull an armored car robbery as a tutorial and to get some quick Generosity for building Devilish Devices. Once they had their ill-gotten gains, they set to work designing their evil equipment:

The Ghost Piper - Perfect Crime Girls Squad
A bulky backpack mounted organ grinder that plays haunting but beautiful music when activated, giving the wearer the Impossible Beauty power. Because it was also finicky I ruled that it was gas-powered and had to be started with a ripcord like a leafblower, but sadly the player never rolled a 1 on activating it.

The Summoning Hat - King Crimson
A gaudy Ushanka hat which mimicked the Summon power; when the wearer held the open end at an object they wished to summon a spring-loaded glove would shoot out, grab the object, and pull it back in a heartbeat. If the wearer used it to change into costume the hat stretched down to cover their body before snapping back up to their head. It was also Palpably Evil (Hence the gaudy appearance) and Blatant (Spring made a loud "boi-oing!" sound)

The Means of Production - Doctor Dunwich
A blood-red tome named after Dunwich's demon, He Who Seizes The Means of Production, and contained nothing but quotes about communism and the evils of capitalism. Replicated the effects of the Dark Ritual power when read aloud, but it was also Palpably Evil and Easy to Disarm.

Natty Ice Cooler - Headless Headsman
The centerpiece of their plan to hold the dam hostage: a box resembling a cheap scifi prop which could mimic the Alchemy power. Although Headless Headsman was the device's creator he later realized that he had only three dice in Cunning Greed and so passed it over to King Crimson. It had Expensive Upkeep and required Rare Components (Shredded copies of Atlas Shrugged signed by Ayn Rand).

With these in hand they laid out their evil plot: they would hold the lake behind Kirby Dam hostage by threatening to unleash the power of the Natty Ice Cooler, turning the city's water supply into a light beer so disgusting only Satan himself could enjoy it. The Natty Ice Cooler actually didn't have the capacity to transform an entire lake--that would have been Cataclysmic--but they figured that if they demonstrated it on a smaller tank live on camera they could bluff it.

After a round of failed rolls King Crimson bargained for his demon to give him a Master Die for probably the most mundane task a mortal has ever demanded of a hellspawn: finding a tour date before their heist was scheduled to go off. In exchange he agreed to throw the statue of Jack Kirby, the city's founder, off the dam and into the lake. After taking a tour of the dam to case the place, the villains learned that there would be a small celebration in a few days commemorating the anniversary of the dam's completion--a perfect opportunity to stage their ransom. The PCG Squad chatted with Marie the tour guide so she could mimic her with Dead Ringer during the heist while Headless Headsman and Doctor Dunwich scoped the inside of the dam for places they could change into costume during the heist. Since they rolled zilch and 2x1 I told them they had the choice of a very conspicuous janitor's closet out in the open or the men's room.

When the day of the heist came the PCG Squad intercepted Marie in the bathroom. Although the tour guide was very startled to see four extra images of herself in the bathroom mirror, when the music from the Ghost Piper began she decided to take "her" own advice and went home early for the day. Marie, Marie, Marie, and Marie then had a montage scene where they dyed each other's hair, changed their clothes, applied various makeups, and did everything they could to differentiate themselves so they could individually infiltrate the next tour group without looking like identical twins. Prime Mary then met with the tour group in the lobby, deflecting questions about her conspicuous leafblower/organ grinder and ordering everyone present--tourists, staff, and reporters alike--to follow her to the dam's aquarium for a special surprise. Once they had left, King Crimson used the Summoning Hat to change into costume before hefting the statue of Jack Kirby, hauling it outside, and tipping it into the lake.

As this was happening Doctor Dunwich entered the men's room to activate Dark Ritual and change into his supervillain outfit. Unfortunately one of the stalls was occupied, and the man on the seat was very confused when someone walked into the stall and began bellowing quotes from Das Kapital. Out of spite Doctor Dunwich placed a Hanging Curse on the man forbidding him from getting up from the toilet seat unless he wanted to be violently ill, and then began changing into his costume while the man groaned uncomfortably in the stall. Meanwhile Headless Headsman managed to slip himself into the janitor's closet to change without incident and was playing Candy Crush on his phone while he waited for the signal.

Unfortunately, when Marie gestured dramatically to the janitor's closet and gave that signal Headless Headsman found that the janitor's closet had locked when he shut it behind him. This led to a long, awkward pause as the door to the janitor's closet shook and banged while muffled curses could be heard from the other side. Headless Headsman debated using Dominator Strike to simply blast the door down but decided that the shrapnel would endanger the hostages, and was about to activate his scissor-head to cut his way out when he realized he still had the Natty Ice Cooler and could turn the door into light beer--unfortunately as it turned out he had no idea how to activate the damned thing, which led to muffled exclamations of "There aren't any buttons on this fucking box!" Finally he gave up and resorted to activating Hell's Engine, sliding a Patient over to Cunning as the door was hacked to bits by his snapping scissor-head.

At this point the PCG Squad dropped their Dead Ringer disguise (Except for one, who still looked like Marie) and announced that Triskaideka had seized the Kirby Dam and everyone inside. They demanded that the mayor personally come down to negotiate the hostages release face to face, and to demonstrate they were serious King Crimson used the Natty Ice Cooler to turn all the water in the aquarium into light beer, which they then "forced" "Marie" to drink to confirm its disgusting nature for the viewers. As a show of good faith they "released" Marie, who went to the bathroom and changed back into the fourth PCG Squad member.

It didn't take long for the police to respond, arriving on the scene and setting up a perimeter on either end of the dam, but the PCG Squad was able to interfere with their setup by using Glory over the live broadcast to order viewers to send food for the hostages. This resulted in a huge traffic jam of pizza delivery vehicles, taco trucks, ice cream trucks, and various catering services jamming the streets behind the police cordon. SWAT members attempted to commandeer some of the vehicles to infiltrate the dam, but Doctor Dunwich was able to use Clairvoyance to see them coming and warned them against trying anything. Thanks to a Master Die from his demon (In exchange for a secret request) he was also able to spot a SWAT team preparing to breach the lower levels of the dam, and the supervillains decided instead of warning them off they would have Headless Headsman and King Crimson take them out to show the mayor their resolve.

Speaking of, the PCG Squad had rolled so well on their calling out of Mayor Peele (Thanks to Glory) that he not only showed up to the dam to negotiate, he insisted on doing so face to face as requested. The PCG Squad was then able to use a combination of the Ghost Piper and Glory to "invite" him inside, along with his guards and several SWAT members (After they disarmed and grabbed some pizza and bottled water for the hostages, of course). The PCG then set up a 60 Minutes-style interview using the Pox News camera crew in order to broadcast the negotiations to the entire city.

Down in the powerhouse, King Crimson and Headless Headsman got into position just as SWAT was preparing to breach the maintenance entrance. Between the two of them they took apart a six-man tactical team in two rounds, with only one man being critically injured by bolts of electricity and another suffering a skull fracture. The others got away with concussions and sprained wrists, and after surrendering they helped the two supervillains carry their injured comrades back up to the lobby where the negotiations with Mayor Peele were underway. The sight of a full SWAT team limping in front of two supervillains really sold Triskaideka's position, and between that and PCG Squad's already ludicrous social advantages they were able to talk the Mayor into offering up five Money Units (And a getaway helicopter). They released Peele and the injured SWAT team as another good faith gesture, and all seemed to be going well until SKY ARROW came crashing in through the roof.

What followed was a brief but extremely chaotic fight scene, mostly between Sky Arrow and Headless Headsman and King Crimson. I rejiggered Sky Arrow's stats to give him Armor and Carapace for that classic man of steel vibe, but the two of them slowly ground him down with width-5 attacks. PCG Squad tried to use the Ghost Piper to get him to surrender or at least slow him down but he went for her early on, recognizing a devilish device when he saw one, and smashed the organ grinder to bits. She still spent most of the fight using Glory and Devious Corruption to erode his Nurture and Insightful, mocking him for recklessly endangering hostages and giving the good old "we're not so different" speech. Finally, with King Crimson surrounded by darkness and Headless Headsman blasting him over and over Sky Arrow decided to try and bug out. He flew straight up in the air with King Crimson still on his back, intending to drop him from as high as he could, only for King Crimson to summon his entire costume and let go before he could get too high. Sky Arrow was forced to flee the scene from the air, clad in nothing but heart boxers as the mayor's helicopter approached with their 5 money units.

Just as I was narrating a shot of Triskaideka's helicopter flying across the lake and into the sunset, Doctor Dunwich (Still in shoggoth form from the fight with Sky Arrow) shoved Headless Headsman out of the cabin.

Just as the player gleefully revealed his demon had ordered him to betray one of them in exchange for the Master Die the Headless Headsman (Who was short on Patient and high on Cruelty) threw one last bolt of lightning at the helicopter as a parting "fuck you". Fortunately King Crimson was able to stop time, and since he had been touching both the money and a parachute (And since the PCG Squad had been touching his shoulder) the two of them were able to bail out before the lightning blew up the helicopter with Doctor Dunwich and the innocent pilot still inside. Headless Headsman watched in spiteful satisfaction as it did, only to double-take over and see King Crimson and PCG Squad touching down on the lakeside with all the money.

Shortly after he hit the water he was belly-flopped by a flaming shoggoth.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: Darnus March 01, 2016, 01:54:56 AM
Been playing a hard-lock TL10 traveller game with some friends for ~28 sessions. Semifinal session was where we infiltrated the big evil base to steal the mcguffin that would make the bad guy come after us [it's prototype anti-aging drugs that he's using to control his mob]

I'm playing the party face who was, at one point, a psuedo-fox-news reporter, and has basically devolved into a crazy paranoid wreck through the campaign proving his paranoia correct. My go-to lie when dealing with people has been 'GRR WE'RE A SPEC OPS TEAM GRR YOU DON'T HAVE CLASSIFICATION'
So we get onto the base through some basic lying [our ship works for the evil conspiracy, we've taken damage and had a dead space episode while shipping their drugs] and my character is running around barking orders which everyone is listening to because I have a total of +3/+4 to persuade with bonuses from various prep work and just general crazy-high skill level. I lie our way into copying their anti-aging drug [the ruse being that we're making sure it isn't contaminated] steal the BBEG's biometrics, steal the BBEG's location, etc, etc, etc. I'm running with the timid player who's like quietly reinforcing me and an NPC who has basically been indoctrinated by continuous shouting.
Essentially, my lie is that the researchers created a 'nanoplague' in accidentally fucking with the formula for the anti-aging drugs [I've been reading a lot of eclipse phase] which is convincing because I have a scientist telling me how to make it sound convincing whispering in my ear.
There is also the group of 2 OTHER pcs whose job it is to plant emergency c4 on life support [in case things go loud] and, more importantly, to cause a life support fluctuation to add to my lie--making it look like the station is being eroded by the nanoswarm. One of the PCs has come in from vacuum after tapping the station's communication system.
The PCs get in, roll to hide the c4.
Massive fail.
They basically leave it on a rolley chair.
They've also shot the two guards on duty at life support--and a patrol is coming back. So they have to leave the c4 before they can try to hide it again, and they pull the bodies into the deus ex ventilation system that the future guarantees.
Guards come in.
Guards see c4.
Before they can report it in, one of the two PCs loudly yells through the compromised communication system--that they didn't know was compromised--'STAY AWAY FROM THE LIFE SUPPORT ROOM! I AM HOLDING YOU HOSTAGE' before anyone can stop him. This gets the guards to stop.
Roll persuade [it functions as intimidation in traveller, weirdly]
Crit fail.
Guards yell things 'communication is compromised! what's going on? who is this?'
'I AM THE NANOSWARM'
*rolls persuade again*
minor success [discounting crazy high penalties for bullshit]
virtual skype table erupts in laughter, we blow the c4 and the life support, op goes belly up, but this is, surprisingly after we've done everything we need to do, so we all shoot/run our way to the ship and get away.
: Re: Anecdote Megathread
: CADmonkey May 16, 2016, 03:22:56 PM
I posted this anecdote in the God’s Teeth – God’s Breath– Episode 5 comments, but maybe I'll share it here too.

My first experience playing CoC was almost 20 years ago, but I can still distinctly remember this exchange in the middle of the game:

Keeper: And then a Byakhee bursts through the window!
Me: What’s a Byakhee?
Keeper: blinks
Keeper: It’s a Byakhee…
Me: stares
Me: I don’t know what that means, can’t you describe it?
Keeper: rolls eyes
Keeper: Can somebody help him out?
Other Player: sighs, opens the CoC book, flips through it, pushes it under my nose, points at Byakhee monster description
Other Player: Here!

Bit of background for that anecdote: My first time playing CoC was with an RPGA* group.  None of them had ever read any Lovercraft (I had read a book of his short stories) but they had memorized the Malleus Monstrorum and spell lists (like all good D&D grognards) and tended to bark nouns at each other in lieu of describing things.  There were similar incidents in other games because I wasn't into memorizing entire rulebooks.

*Back then, the RPGA put out scenarios for games other than D&D, including CoC and Shadowrun.