Anecdote Megathread

[clockworkjoe]

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.

[Yoba]

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.

[Moondog]

There's a Pokemon Tabletop?

[Yoba]

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/

[Moondog]

Ah, that. Thought I'd missed something.

Cool.

[Fizban]

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!

[clockworkjoe]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Frequency

[crash2455]

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%.

[Yoba]

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.

[Yoba]

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)

[Flawless P]

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.

[Yoba]

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.

[clockworkjoe]

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

[Flawless P]

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

[doctorscraps]

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.