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61

General Chaos / Re: I will fuck you up. I'll fuck you up Megaman

« on: December 13, 2009, 04:22:24 PM »

Holy crap this whole thread has made me so nostalgic for the games I grew up with.

62

RPGs / Re: Anecdote Megathread

« on: 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.