Author Topic: Anecdote Megathread  (Read 404914 times)

Tadanori Oyama

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Re: Anecdote Megathread
« Reply #255 on: 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.

crash2455

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Re: Anecdote Megathread
« Reply #256 on: February 28, 2013, 11:29:06 AM »
Yeah, damn. The craziest we had done was shut down a club by filling it with sewage.

Tadanori Oyama

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Re: Anecdote Megathread
« Reply #257 on: 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.

Flawless P

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Re: Anecdote Megathread
« Reply #258 on: 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.
« Last Edit: March 06, 2013, 05:28:58 PM by Flawless P »
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clockworkjoe

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Re: Anecdote Megathread
« Reply #259 on: 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.

Henry Hankovitch

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Re: Anecdote Megathread
« Reply #260 on: 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.
« Last Edit: May 05, 2013, 04:32:02 AM by Henry Hankovitch »

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Re: Anecdote Megathread
« Reply #261 on: 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.  :(

sinanju

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GURPS Cyberpunk
« Reply #262 on: 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.

clockworkjoe

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Re: Anecdote Megathread
« Reply #263 on: 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.

sinanju

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Re: Anecdote Megathread
« Reply #264 on: 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.

sinanju

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In Which Our Hero Gets His Ass Handed To Him
« Reply #265 on: 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.

clockworkjoe

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Re: Anecdote Megathread
« Reply #266 on: May 17, 2013, 08:15:07 PM »
both of those games sound awesome and fun as hell

sinanju

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WOW vs Steve Jackson
« Reply #267 on: 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.

Gorkamorka

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Re: Anecdote Megathread
« Reply #268 on: May 29, 2013, 04:31:30 AM »
And this is why convention games need pregens.
Gorkamorka (Fridrik)

crash2455

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Re: Anecdote Megathread
« Reply #269 on: May 30, 2013, 02:48:02 PM »
I like that Steve Jackson was watching.