Vicon's page

Ol' Bekken tells tales of the vicinity and areas beyond.

One tale he spins is of a group of families of deformed giants -- The Thawn -- who are known to dwell in the plains and flatlands south of the river. It is uncommon to see a territory marker of theirs this far north -- which may mean an offshoot group may be exploring territory closer to Bekken's and the trading post. There would surely be bounties on the heads of any Thawn that could be found and killed -- as they are a menace to hunters and trappers alike curtailing free range of what few people do attempt to make a living in the stolen lands.

Another tale he tells of an area southwest across the river that is rich with fruits and berries, marking it on your maps. He notes that the area is likely plagued by swarms of spiders, and offers the party 4 free alchemist fire(s) if you happen to run afoul of the creatures.

He doesn't know anything about the lush meadow you mentioned with the strange tracks leading in but not out, but says to watch out for "apex predators" in the region -- whose lairs are often overgrown because animals have learned to avoid too close to where they make their nests.

He speaks of "Old Tuskgutter" -- a great boar that also plagues the region, and says it might be found if hunted in the eastern part of the woods nearby.

Lastly he says that he too has been visited by visions of imbalance in nature and a secret war playing out within the wood. Some great power among the Fey Court has upset the natural order leaving two spirits of the woods at odd with each other -- A good tree spirit of growth, called "The Lahppiduhk" is now in a struggle with a spirit of decay called "The Asphodel" -- Whichever wins will determine the fate of the face of the forestlands, whether they become strong woods of light or swampy barrens of decay. The two spirits used to be at peace but now seek some way to gain advantage over the other.

He warns the party that the presence of the Asphodel is marked by the prevalence of grey vines covered with white colored flowers.

First rule of fight pony -- don't talk about fight pony.

GO GOLWEN!!!

Zzt! Zzt!

The parties arrows are loosed at the western tower bandit -- the first hitting him square in the chest and the second completely shattering his jaw and sending him sailing out of the tree to the forest below.

"Ambush!"

Shouts come from all over the camp, and with it the kobolds practically lose their minds with excitement.

The battle is joined!

Will roll initiatives soon and process initial orders accordingly.

The surveyors, learning that it is likely that the party will be setting off soon, request an escort to help defend them. Dommer happily steps up to be rearguard and help protect the surveyors.

Dommer will now be an RPC that protects Draven of Ustalav and the rest of the surveyors

Btw, I'm all for making sure party loot long term is as balanced as it can be...but a Composite Longbow would be very nice...!

Of course I offered it to the two non spellcasters who could make full benefit of it first. (Apologies to our Magus, I forgot when posting that as an elf you're proficient.) But as someone who will never hold a blade or want close to the baddies...I'll at least take the normal Longbow and if everyone else is alright with it the Composite just to do a little more damage.

You can retcon to buy items until you leave the trading post.

Yes you would, you might even be a rival story-wise that they have an axe to grind with. :D

Work on your craft. This is a railroad. What if I don't take the notebook but merely read it where it is? What if I leave the medallion behind? Why would I be arrested for trespassing if there is nothing indicating such on the ladder? What if I can talk my way out of being arrested, because just arresting people for using a ladder is kind of silly? What if I manage to escape and not be taken to jail? What if I don't want to ask the sheriff about the rain?

See all that stuff above -- those are decisions that are up to THE PLAYER, NOT the GM. You should read up on the forums about "Railroading" -- that is, having a story in mind and not letting the players deviate from that story (no matter how hard they try) -- because players don't like that. They are not puppets to be pulled around in a GMs world -- they are players that should be free to make their own decisions within that world. I suggest you come up with angles to this story that do not require unavoidably being thrown in jail, when the sheriff could just as easily seek the players help -- perhaps first in finding the body/amulet and then dealing with the rain.

But more than anything -- the best thing you can do for your story is to give players more agency. Let THEM decide to climb the ladder (or not) or give them a chance to escape or be caught on the merit of their ideas & rolls.

Good luck.

Anguish and Brunwald are giving you EXCELLENT advice.

"The marsh" actually being it's own "prison-plane" will help a lot, and it can be part of the adventure for the characters to even discover they are not actually on the prime material plane, but just a tiny world that is analogous to it.

Likewise, as a GM beware of the instinct to railroad. How they choose to get out is not your job, at least in a sandbox -- your job is to make it sufficiently difficult to be a challenge. As such, don't decide what's going to work... entertain a couple of things that MIGHT work, and the more obvious things that you've considered can be extra difficult because it might occur to the party first as well.

Impenetrable barriers and anti-magic zones might also be your friend here.

An interesting hook might be that leaving the plane actually destroys it -- so letting the party know that numerous innocent, important, valuable people might also be here... (or items or information) that if left behind would be a disaster, could potentially keep the players in bounds for some time.

A giant, flying stone head that is worshipped as a deity by a local barbarian tribe.

The head routinely vomits up guns for the barbarians to use when enforcing its will.

ZARDOZ. ZARDOZ.

It sounds like you need a BREAK. It's not a total loss, and I definitely think you can play with four just as well if not better than 8 -- if they are consistent.

Some of my BEST gaming of all time was with me GMing and two of my best friends playing, sometimes just one player, one GM even. It's really easy to give the spotlight to just two people.

I reckon you give it a break, and I have no doubt you'll want to return to it refreshed. In the meantime, instead of playing RPGs, endeavor to do some of the things you talk about so much in a campaign but never get around to doing. Ride a horse. Take an archery or metalworking class. Go to a couple of Renfaires. Just scratch the itch in a different way, and you'll be a better GM when you get back for those experiences.

As far as your dad goes, if he's a good dad he's just concerned that you can't live by bread alone -- you've gotta have some toast too. But gaming has been a lifelong enjoyment for me, even though I have historically gone years in between playing and I'm on the uptick again.

You just need to refresh. Don't sweat it.

Just ask yourself if you're having fun, and let that guide you. Don't neglect family, outside, or romance either! (though that doesn't sound like a big deal)

Sincerely,

V

134) While walking past a Jewelry store -- a high perception check reveals that nobody is behind the counter, and in fact customers and staff are bound and tied laying about the floor. Numerous NPCs (of comparable level as the PCs) are robbing the place -- and can choose to intervene. Alternatively -- you can make the site a bank, and there is a standoff between a good number of organized criminals and town guards, worried about approaching because of the fate of hostages. Upon seeing the PCs, the guards are emboldened if the party will initiate a covert action or coordinate/lead a breach.

135) A gas fire/explosion in the poor section of town has created a HORRIBLE yellow mold problem. Small colonies of yellow mold have been fed by the flames, causing the stuff to boil out from under the ground, taking over a whole block of run-down, burned-out buildings. The PCs may simply be threatened by the mold, or be somehow obligated/motivated to fight the fire and the yellow mold before it gets out of hand. The fire and poor structural integrity of the run-down buildings are added threats.

136) While walking at night up to a four-way intersection, the party is confronted by a different of three large street gangs coming up each opposing street. If the party doesn't talk fast they will invariably be pulled into a deadly four-way conflict!

137) A distinguishing item or bit of clothing on one of the party members mistakenly labels him as a contact for a spy/saboteur from a nearby country/city. The party member will be approached subtly and asked to come to a meeting point. This will lead the party into some bit of larger intrigue, or at the very least an interesting encounter where they are suddenly expected to have detailed orders and instructions for a group of organized terrorists/mercenaries -- who will no doubt be out for blood once they realize their mistake. You could even have the party member run into somebody wearing the similar ring/cloak/hat on the way to the mysterious unexplained rendevous (the actual contact) and broaden the intrigue -- especially if the actual contact goes to meet the saboteurs and is slain as an impostor!

Hi there! I was thinking of getting a few players together for an interesting open-ended, sandbox campaign set in pathfinder for a PbP -- check out my idea and tell me if you'd be interested!

Not a traditional pathfinder game, the characters will be various monsters in a dungeon setting, that start as lesser creatures but rise up the food chain taking higher CR forms as conventional players might level. I have various ideas for how this would work in game terms (from mind-control parasites to incorporeal spirits or outsiders that clone/hijack bodies... But players with other ideas may be welcome as well. The idea is you could be a different CR creature every level as circumstances permit, or maybe in case of creatures with class levels progressing that way.. If your form dies you must find a new host/body if able, and the entity the player uses to control those bodies would be for conventions sake very vulnerable without a body. More details for players should this get off the ground.

The goal of the campaign is for the players to start in level one of a mega-dungeon ecosystem, and as they level descend deeper and deeper into the underdark, extending their influence and growing in power via influence and higher CR forms... With the ultimate goals being dominance of the entire dungeon, or various objectives sought by the players.

Any thoughts on this? Anybody have info on monster campaigns or ideas similar to this (so I needn't re-invent the wheel!)

If you're interested in playing something like this let me know your ideas (and/or PM) and what threshold of activity you can handle.

The old "fighting fantasy" monster, the "gonchong" from "island of the lizard king" gave me the idea for this campaign, but whether you know the reference and think that's cool, or fancy being an angry ghost with a penchant for living puppets, or a formless evil from beyond the dark tapestry ... A party of body-snatchers ate the protagonists of this story!!

The most important thing you can do is use the city as an environment for various goals and objectives to stall/thwart the kobold advance... here are some examples:

The party needs to:

1) Break a bridge into the rich district to stop the kobold advance and give nobles time to evacuate their neighborhood, this might be done by holding the bridge while engineers undermine it, or maybe somebody with climb has to clamour down to one or two support pillars with a powderkeg, which once in place can be used to demolish the bridge with a fire-arrow.

2) A temple in the city-center has a secret tunnel out of the city, and hundreds of citizens are packed inside with the Kobolds just outside -- the priests need time to clear the tunnel and lead everyone out... and the party has to keep the kobolds out at least that long. The temple is really secure which could allow a cool siege element, and the priests may have a large store of Oil and other things for rituals that the party could use to repulse attackers.

3) The party is fighting from a higher tier of the town, allowing them to drop all manner of objects and shoot at kobolds running by, firing back from numerous houses, and killing or preventing the kobolds from scaling into this higher level of the town. You could employ cover and spell-fire as main elements of this part, as well as ammunition -- maybe security forces can bring them supplies if they can hold the high ground.

4) Beat the kobolds to, or Eject the Kobolds from, a gatehouse leading into the interior districts of the city, allowing the guards to lock it down and hold that area. Once the Grand portcullis is down it will buy the party some time or allow them to move to other points of contest.

5) There is a Dam, or a great sewage gate in the poor section, that if opened, will flood the poor section of the city (where the kobolds have already taken control, have made their staging area, or are bringing in reinforcements. Breaking/opening the Dam/Gate will flash flood the area killing DROVES of kobolds and throwing their leadership into disarray. It's a desperate plan, but the bold gambit could turn the tide!

6) A Blacksmith has just completed a few Ballistas or Catapults for an out-of-city buyer, but decides to get it to higher ground in the city through narrow streets and steep inclines,(perhaps to the top of a castle or city hall or highest/securest point) to help rain artillery down on the invaders. The party needs to escort the vulnerable machines, which will surely run afoul of advance kobold troops or infiltrators. Getting them safely to a point of advantage will crank up kobold casualties and raise the morale of the defenders considerably.

7) A scout detects the kobolds are slowly wheeling a huge cart of diseased corpses towards the center well (or water supply) -- the cart, which is being protected by a regiment of the most disciplined kobold fighters, must be stopped.

8) Hold the Market long enough for all the vendors and peddlers to escape, or hold a bottleneck in the docks district while innocents, valuable art and other important city materials, and VIPs (nobles) are loaded onto ships. The majority of the kobolds have to be diverted away from the docks or repelled from entering along this main thoroughfare so that the guards and militia overseeing the evacuation can handle whatever kobolds slip through without being overrun.

9) There is a park in a corner of the town with a cave/storm-shelter in it that many citizens have fallen back to as a defensible area. The kobolds haven't found the cave yet, but when they do, and they will, innocents will die. The party needs to clear all the kobolds out of the park (changes the scenery from the city if that gets routine) -- As a secondary objective the party has to escort a small team of rangers and blacksmiths with a cart of bear-traps to the park, and once it is cleared of kobolds, protect them while they cover the park with bear-traps. Just as the traps are deployed, the party sees a huge mob of kobolds moving into the area, they have to fortify, dig in, and turn the trapped park into a kill zone until the kobolds lose heart in crossing the area and thus leave the secret of the cave unfound.

By making the encounters of tactical/strategic significance to the siege of the city, normal random clashes with kobolds can become very memorable encounters! Add a kind of "Military/War" flair to the atmosphere and you might have some very nice sessions ahead!

here are some ideas for events that might shake up a boring sea voyage:

*Keep track of food -- Then have something befall it neccesitating getting more or the crew will starve. Have the fresh water barrels develop some weird kind of rot or mold which fills the larder with some kind of ooze or similar monster which the party must defeat -- only to discover it contaminated or consumed all the food and water... now they have to fish or find a deserted island to forage and resupply: They have to find a lake of fresh water, chop wood and cooper new barrels -- and find and gather enough fruits,roots,birds,and wild game to refill their stores.

*"Doldrums" : "A place out in the middle of the sea where there ain't no wind -- the sea is like glass in every direction, the sails hang like wilted lettuce in their yard-arms... and the sun is so hot you can hardly breathe." Put simply, naturally or unnaturally -- the weather is ZERO WIND for a prolonged period... perhaps in an area so large even if they ARE drifting they can't be certain the ship is even moving. No waves, no motion to the sails... They could slowly go crazy and the crew turns on each other, or certain types of monsters prey on ships stuck in the doldrums, etc.

*"Euripatid Bloom" : During certain seasons, or conditions (think real-life 'red-tides') Euripatids (poisonous golarion crab monsters) release HUGE amounts of eggs into the open water. Ships passing through these clouds of Euripatid sperm and eggs develop great swathes of foamy barnacles that cannot be removed effectively at sea. Given time, Enormous plagues of these sea-scorpions can hatch on the surface of the ship (mostly below the water-line) and upon hatching, many make their way onto and below deck. Imagine waking up one morning and the deck is a CARPET of tiny poisonous scorpions. Every unworn boot, bowl, nook and cranny on the ship has one or more baby euripatid growing in it -- and as time wears on it settles in that nothing the crew does will get rid of them all. As they mature, more and more go overboard into the sea, but many grow accustomed to catching and eating smaller euripatids, vermin, and whatever else they can find. Perhaps in the days or weeks to come (their life-cycle of this particular species may be very fast) Full-grown euripatids are glimpsed hanging onto the outside of the ship, heard clattering around on the outside of the hull, or perhaps a pack of truly huge ones are hiding in a lair in a dark corner of the ship...

Sargasso Seas: A massive net of deep, impossibly thick seaweed, that the farther the ship travels into, the more mired and stuck the ship becomes. Of course, the sargasso is a an ecosystem of all sorts of creatures -- and some may attempt to invade the ship while it's stuck, or if the party seeks to cut free by going overboard - there are equal or greater dangers in the water.

Those are just a few off the top of my head.

There are GURPS books for Ice-Age and Dinosaurs -- you can purchase them, you can even view the PDFs online before you buy, if you search like I did. I think this will help you the most, shouldn't cost much if you bought the PDFs!

There's also a stone age RPG called "Totem" you could look at:
http://www.geocities.com/zozergames/totem1.html

Hope that helps.

Rather than let players know they are skipping rooms, just X them and move on, or give a sweeping description of those areas, but within the context of them moving through them... if there is nothing central to the plot in a gallery for example, you can just say (just as you would say "you move down the hallway and round the corner") instead: "The party moves carefully through a series of threadbare rooms containing humble quarters and mundane supplies and tools, opening up to a huge gallery, walking past high hung tapestries and crude statuary, you note the farther into the gallery you get, the more dust seems to have piled upon the floor, holes in the ceiling let rainwater in from above that fall into uninviting holes below them down to the level below, but they are too deep to see down... after a while longer you arrive at the other side of the gallery, at the foot of a huge double door... what do you guys do?" That way they have a VIVID image of the place in their mind, but you held their hand and walked them through the area. If they are driven to ask questions about the previous area, indulge their curiosity, but if you're afraid they'll bog down, tell them it's simply a setpiece and the real meat of the matter lies beyond. If they end up really jazzed about ancillary details "Whats up with those holes? What's above us? What's below?" REWARD THAT CURIOSITY... make something be there, think on the fly.

Another thing I suggest is grab, put to mind, or if you have a laptop, keep in view a bunch of pictures of scenery off of google images, and then write youself a list of modifiying descriptors like "Old, new, rotten, elven, artistic, decorative" and you can use the pictures to decribe areas again and again with the same lists of images, but with totally different pictures painted for your players because you're telling the story of the rooms differently with the different descriptors.

Also consider running down a list of the 5 senses every time somebody enters a new area or makes a perception check:

1. What does the air FEEL like? temperature?
2. Any smells? THERE SHOULD be, even if it's just normal crisp air, or mold, or dust, or candle-smoke... or baking bread. Scent can tell a story. Have a player SMELL a creature hiding or approaching for a change!
3. You're likely doing Sight well enough, but I gave tips above
4. Sound, Think ambient noise. background critters and birds, fires popping, distant footsteps, howling wind. you get the idea... don't just introduce sound when entering an area, have the noise environment change while they are doing other stuff. Did that pole in the corner fall down because we're stomping around? Or is there somebody stealthing around and just messed up?
5. Taste -- you can say the air has a metallic tinge to it, or the air is full of vapor, which causes your faces to curl up and your tongue to retract reflexively. Or "The zombies are so rank and putrified you can literally TASTE their rot in the air, roll to save vs. sickness, your eyes involuntarily well up and you can FEEL the heat of their decomposition even as you strain to keep your eyes open and focused on their approach."

He wants details? GO ALL OUT on the details. If you're too busy getting them to a point you've already decided they should be, you're not letting them enjoy the journey! And REMEMBER -- just because he's not DOING ANYTHING with all of that information does NOT mean he's not getting all of his enjoyment from seeing those pictures in his head as you describe them and putting his character there.

I have a similar gripe as your John guy in my current group... though for my part I am far more interacting with my environment. My problem comes from my feeling often that NPCs are "wooden" -- guards never have anything to say except "I don't know, ask my boss" and the bosses often say "We're hired to do a job, we don't know how to contract our supervisors, they contact us." so a lot of encounters are can seem 2 dimensional, or just missed opportunities.. last session we faced a DEMON. The first such creature of our adventure -- I had learned abyssal for my character just so I could communicate with nasties like this... No -- it doesn't talk. There has been nothing to introduce it, not even a forbidding rumor, and it, just like a couple of other boss monsters, it got killed without there even being a real explanation of why it was there or what it was ever doing. How do you make your critters seem more 3-dimensional? GIVE THEM MOTIVATIONS, and make them part of an ecosystem... if I ran those guard encounters, I would say to myself when I rolled the number of guards, One is a grizzled alcoholic veteran, one is a widower just trying to put in his time to get a pension, one is a sociopathic youth with something to prove, and the last one is secretly a coward, but will do whatever the sociopath kid eggs him on to do. Boom -- off the top of my head. So now I can describe how all the guards look, and if 3 are killed and one is captured, I have a VERY distinct idea of how that interrogation is going to go based on those personalities. I can even color dialogue between them.

For the demon in my above example, I would have it that he couldn't resist monologuing and talking to his potential victims if he was addressed, they would get to know the demon a little, and the demon would get to know them. The demon might be hinted at even a whole session in advance, hushed whispers or the remains of an ill fated party that ran ahead of the players... maybe cryptic communications from the demon himself. Even DUMB ANIMALS, if you think about what they might do in the average day in their life, can breath LOTS of life into your environments. Maybe that band of kobolds is there when the party comes to a particular part of a dungeon because this is where they go to get water. Maybe they dump their refuse in another place, etc. Don't think of a ROOM where a monster can be, think of a series of rooms it might go in a day -- have it's routine interrupted, don't just have the party keep coming up on monsters seemingly waiting to be found.

Hope all that helps.

Role with it, you know, like roleplaying...

Thanks Stuart! ANOTHER post that tells me to do nothing? I appreciate your opinion, but as previously stated, people who don't want to help are encouraged not to respond in this thread. I am doing a great job and enjoy all the aspects of my character, ups and downs... I however do not see the point in enduring my curse any worse or longer than need be, hence my posting here.

I had originally expected that by level 5 in ANY class levels I would be at 60' darkvision by now... I am only trying to find ways to get closer to my original timetable --So if you cannot help, I don't need any advice to "grin and bear it"... I can do that just fine on my own and don't need a forum to tell me that. :D

Were-pizzas. Once they change into their pizza form they can be picked up and eaten.

Cheating is something I don't think I could abide at my table, especially if somebody was being so unabashed about it.

I wouldn't shame the offender, or make a scene, or vengefully kill his character -- but after it has been established that *I* know he's an unrepentant cheater, and he knows I know... I will henceforth "Forget" to invite him back.

Somebody else in the thread said wisely that cheaters are bad for the hobby. It's important to put forth a good example.

I'll meditate on the issue further, but that's what I feel in my gut. If the player brings great RP value or depth to the campaign I might go the extra mile and take steps that would preclude their cheating, like requiring THEIR rolls to be made on an automatic dice-server or similar device... something to KEEP them honest, if their presence enhanced the game but a kind of Pathos prevented them from not fudging. But unrepentant and wonton cheating? I'd have to drop the hammer eventually.

I am also going to give you a great resource for beginning GMs... a non-system specific Random Generator.

Link:
http://donjon.bin.sh

Explore this site, and generate a bunch of random stuff to help give you ideas and populate the ideas you do have. For example the third generator from the top has NUMEROUS options, one of which is random QUESTS.

Sublink in case you have difficulty finding it off the bat:
http://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/random/#quest

I went there and got 10 ideas for quests that were all pretty interesting.. and you can mix and match! If you have a laptop you can game with, you can even use online tools like these to create , name, and detail NPCs, Quests, and places on the fly!

In addition to the random quest generator there is a random adventure generator that gives DOZENS AND DOZENS of tropes and popular themes for adventurers, settings, villains, plot twists... the rest is making the story yours and coloring it sufficiently.

So take that link, explore it, and jotting stuff down you can come up with innumerable original stories or just co-opt directly the best permutations you find.

People like me on the site will be happy to help you flesh things out or tell you which threads have already covered the info you seek!

Abraham spalding wrote:

A helpful traited halfling order of the dragon cavalier could offer up a +7 bonus on aid another I think.

That's a good one! thanks. If you could have one of your party play a halfling cavalier for 20 lvls, i think his bonus with the helpful trait would get to +8. If one of your party took him as a cohort, you could still net +7. very cool.

Halfling cavalier can be truncated to Cavalier if the Cav takes "Adopted" as a trait that allows him to take the halfling racial trait. Expecting your buddy to play a halfling is a big thing, asking him to work familiarity with halflings into his backstory is less of a request.

Level 20 Geisha using versatile Performance Oratory for diplomacy.

36 Charisma +13
20 ranks +20
Trained +3
Geisha Bonus half level +10
Skill Focus Oratory +6
Savant Trait +2
Prodigy +4
Tea Ceremony (inspire competence) +6
Voice of the Sybil +3
Luck stone +1
Ensemble +8
Masterwork Tools (the right outfit) +2
Moment of Prescience +20
Greater Heroism +4
Moment of Greatness +4
Touch of glory (Cohort) +18
124

Idea was to boost Performance Oratory and use versatile performance to use Performance Oratory roll for all diplomacy rolls. This also gives you Sense Motive at the same Epic level.

Orignally I had a +30 item in there but saw you did not want any custome items. That would add 24 to the number as it would not stack with Tea Ceremony.

Circlet of Persuasion is a competence bonus so would not stack.

Masterwork tools do not apply to a Versatile performance, I believe... anyone want to prove me wrong? I'd actually appreciate it because I want the +2 as much as the next guy.

(Joke) At a meal: (while others fill plates, take meal in a napkin) If asked… "I'm a cleric, I cannot use plate at my level!"

(joke) on being at a social gathering: "Is this a treasure chamber? 'Cause they're I'm detecting that there are several large chests in the room!"

*(joke) "So these sentries are approached by a couple of minotaurs trying to cross a bridge they are bound to defend… and the Captain says: "Now wait just a minotaur two."

(joke) One day I was out in a village market north of the city, and I saw a farmer's boy asking his father about his heritage. He asks: "Why is our country called Ustalav, father?" and his father says: "Because Ustalav miles to go before you rest, Ustalav a government in political turmoil, and Ustalav a heritage of slavery to the undead." Then we all laughed.

*(joke) In the initial years of the reign of the whispering tyrant some pretty harsh laws got passed. At one point, to consolidate his powers, his deathlords advised (logistically, not literally) that most everything central to propping up the people in the cities should be left in place, everything extraneous should be removed and transported to the provinces to deter invasion. To which Tar-Baphon replied -- "You're right - strip all the skin and muscle from most citizens and send it to the frontier, that will teach them not to invade." - "…It might have turned out to be a good move for him though, skeletons can make good labor, and the mountains of rotting flesh were horrifying deterrents every year all the way up to the burning crusade!"

(joke) On travel/pilgrims: "for years I've heard stories of undead walking among the people in Ustalav, even before but especially after the occupation of the Whispering Tyrant. My sect had stories, even jokes about the purges and hunts that went into weeding out the more convincing predators -- the only certainty being they knew they never caught them all: (pause) 'So three pilgrims meet at a crossroads and line up at a food vendor that makes his living selling meals to travelers at the junction. The first pilgrim says: "I will have the watermelon, I will drink the juice to refresh me, then eat the fruit to sustain me on my journey. Then second pilgrim says: I will have some bread, it is lighter and it shall sustain me just the same. The third pilgrim looks at the other two and says… "how much for just a fork?"

(joke) On Orcs of the Beltzen range: "How do Orcish raiders hide in the forest?" A: "They paint their balls red and hide in the apple trees." "Have you ever seen an orc in an apple tree?" "No? Then be on your guard -- we must assume this stratagem is quite effective."

(Joke) On the peculiar ways of gnomes: When I began my studies as a cleric I spent a great deal of time with secular folk, reading secular texts. I was talking with an old gnome who said: "Back in my gnome-hold, we have learned 99 different ways to please our partners. Couples practice day and night, sometimes for centuries, and I'm pretty well convinced my wife and I tried everything that's possible." -- "I, being a young lad, was quite impressed with this and confided: "I've only ever done the one thing. I lie atop my partner and…" (making gesture insinuating copulation) "Oh My!!" Interrupted the Gnome. "I think you've found number 100!"

(joke) On the Kellid: "One day a high priest of Desna came upon a rocky outcrop, where he saw a peasant of Ustalav flailing in the waters of lake Encarthan. When he ran out to help him, he saw that two Kellid warriors were already at the shore, and had in fact gotten a rope around his waist. The High Priest says: "It brings me great hope to see the Indigenous peoples and the men of Ustalav can still find occasion to help each other." and with that he sped off. Seeing him go, One Kellid asks to the other: "Do the Ustalav not know how to fish?"

(Joke) On Ustalavians being hard-bitten: "So an Elf from Meiriani Wood, a Halfling from the River-Kingdoms, and a warrior from Ustalav have all been captured by orcs while traveling beyond the Lastwall. The orcs tell them that for their trespass on the ancestral lands of the orcs, they are to be bound to a rack in the morning, and their skin will be flayed from them to make an orcish war-canoe. However, as the orcs are not wholly uncivilized, they would allow a final request to each of them. The elf says: "Give to me some poison." and he drinks it, so that he might not be skinned while alive. The Halfling asks for a rope, so that he may hang himself and he too, will not be skinned while he yet lives. The Ustalavian thinks for a moment, and asks for a fork. The orcs are befuddled by this, but comply to his odd request -- with which he begins stabbing himself all over and shouting "Good luck with your Canoe!!"

(Joke) On mages: "You can't spell Damage without Da-Mage!"

(Joke) On fighters: "You cannot trust cavaliers who retire to become merchants. It is only their nature to charge at every opportunity."

(joke) "The first decree of the Fisticuffs guild is… One doth not discuss the matters of the fisticuffs guild."

(joke) on first aid: "So I'm doing first aid in a village to pay for the next leg of my journey, and this burly guy comes into my tent and says "he hurts everywhere" … "when I touch my head, it hurts. When I touch my arm, it hurts. When I touch my leg, it hurts. -- So I say "you're a half-orc, aren't you?" and he's like "I usually pass for human! How did you know?"… and I say: "Your finger is broken."

*(joke) on Dwarves: "A long time ago before I was a priest I did first-aid at an apothecary for the folks normally too poor to afford a potion. And one day with the Alchemist out, a dwarf came in asking about… well… a "potion of Ardency" if you know what I mean… So I get the vial for him and he asks: "How long does it last?" and I tell him "4 hours, exactly." and then he asks: "How much does it cost?" and I tell him: "50 platinum, exactly." and he says to me: "I'm not paying 50 plat for a measly extra 15 minutes."

*(Joke) How do you know when an Elven archer is out of ammo? He switches to the stick up his butt as a backup weapon."

I think you need a little air of the theatrical here -- Really visualize the things that will make a chase dramatic and memorable in their minds. Here are some suggestions I'd offer -- your organization and mechanics may be fine... but you need "oomph" in a visual/visceral sense. So I'm thinking:

1) change the altitude/environment of the chase: At one point, have them fall into a burrow or lair of "THE" creature or at least "a" creature. -- for instance maybe the monster has dug burrows as various points in this section of the wild, or it could be an entirely different monster, or just a coincidental point of interest they find themselves in... they characters are running, and POW! the ground gives way or as they are running for their lives and looking behind them as often as they are looking forward so they take a header off of a not-so-high cliff, or into a crack in the earth... BOOM... they land in a pile of bones in the bottom of a dark pit and have to climb OUT and resume the chase with SO MUCH GROUND LOST, or perhaps they find themselves running through a long abandoned graveyard in the woods and fall through the ceiling of a buried crypt and now what to get their bearings and RUN UNDERGROUND for part of the chase while the creature decends and follows them. Or maybe they fall into a massive nest of spiders, or a gorge full of all manner of panicked and injured animals that are also instinctively running from the creature... it could be quite exciting to have to fight a bear, dodge a couple of kicking and jumping deer or hinds, all the while yourself trying to clamour out of the gorge and in an orgy of chewing and noisome suck the characters flee with the gorge behind them, hearing the shrieks of the animals in the very pit they climbed out of seconds ago. The image alone of fleeing from some horror only to fall headlong into a web, see a huge bulbous spider decending to eat you, only to have the whole web go collapsing to the bottom of a pit because the creature fell into the same pit chasing you, and is quickly devouring your would be devourer, then changing the chase to a vertical terror-race back to the moonlight above with the horrible unseen thing whipping it's tentacles in the darkness... STUFF LIKE THAT.

Give them visuals that increase the terror and hopelessness... tell them there is a well-lit cabin in the deep woods they didn't notice before, but it is off to one side from where they are running, and they'd never make it there with the monster moving parallel to them and it being closer to it... have the monster flat out crash THROUGH the house, and all the light in it suddenly goes out, or it blows up... and suddenly furniture and house pieces are whipping into their path making it difficult terrain or forcing them to dodge. You know... get cinematic.

Tell them it suddenly seems brighter behind them and then they notice, to their horror, this thing is knocking down or wholly consuming some of the larger trees behind them in it's pursuit to destroy them, as such, the shadow they were normally cast in is now an eerie moonlit brightness, with both their shadows, and some awful pulsating silloutte cast long and far ahead of them.

Have them run right past an old prospector and his mule and let them hear his friendly chiding as to "what's the commotion?" and "Where y'all doing in such a hurry" give way to screaming and agony and then have a bloody mule hoof strike one of them like a missile... ejected from the maw of the creature like an aggravating seed in one's meal.

The idea of having to run blind through a crypt mini-dungeon as an underground part of the chase is of particular appeal to me. Also the idea of winding up in it's or some other giant horrible creature's lair is also appealing.

Let me know if any of that appeals, and maybe I'll take a shot at your Leng chase. I'd have to meditate on that but I already think (if these sorts of ideas appeal) where I could go with that.

Dear Luna,

Since you said "Desperate" -- I am going to go for broke and literally spill the entire contents of my head here. This is going to be a wall of text, so go in with full warning and nobody is being forced to read this. I'll preface by saying that if two people love roleplaying, it can be the same thing as having a personal "best-seller" between them, and the stories are treasured forever, but if your spouse quickly, or even ultimately decides it's unfulfilling -- I BEG YOU BOTH TO BE HONEST WITH EACH OTHER. You say she shadows your account... I say "Bless you, dear -- for being open to share this hobby and most sacred of enjoyments with your partner - I've been in relationships where gaming has been an integral part, and where it needn't be. I hope it is very fulfilling for the both of you, give it a chance with an open heart... and don't force it if you can't feel it. If RPGs don't work, I *PRAY* you come up with some other activity you can share like this where you are both good, giving, and game to one another."

OKAY... now into HOW I WOULD DO THIS:

Since you mention the final fantasy series -- you are certainly familiar with video games. Something YOU will be extrodinarily familiar with then will be the concept of a TUTORIAL LEVEL.

It's obvious that since you already have a race/class decided that you can make the build for her (constructing characters/builds is something you should take responsibility for until she gets the handle on the game) but you can actually synthesize her learning into the CHARACTER learning to be a rogue, by having the first adventures be just that -- learning what her various skills are, and how to use them. for most players the adventure starts at level 1 -- because it assumes you'll learn as you go or you already know how to play... instead, start at level 0. Put ranks in skills as she learns to express them, or you can have the build all worked out, but she's not level "1" and starting the campaign until it's demonstrated in the tutorial challenges that she knows how to use all her skills. At the end of the tutorial she or you can tweak her character if either of you like, or as it suits her play style, but have a build in mind.

A good place to start would be to go on youtube and take a look at the tutorial level for THIEF: THE DARK PROJECT. I know there is a radical difference between PnP games and FPS-style games... but the level will give you a thematic spine and a good example of various challenges a rogue faces, in a safe and non-lethal atmosphere for the player. Your wife will begin her character as a novice thief IN THE THIEVES GUILD, and despite her relative cluelessness her patrons have undoubted confidence in her RAW POTENTIAL... she can make as many mistakes as she may or wants in this first scenario, but everything she learns builds on the previous thing.

Here's a link to the tutorial I mean: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhiaI1UH7nU

Watch it, and model the first tests after what you see -- with your imagination you can make analogous tests very fascinating and engrossing. I trust you can skim out any references to THAT game's mechanics and swap them for OUR game's mechanics. The point is, that tutorial addresses stealth, noise, sneaking up on people, melee and missile fighting, and other skills -- you will present the skills in a similar safe and hopefully immersive manner. She'll LEARN how to be a rogue, by DOING the things a rogue does.

For example, start her in a room that is dark with rays of light coming through the windows bathing one side in shadow -- you can use a grid even as preparation for eventual combat. Give her a picture in her mind of where it's dark and where it's light and put a sentry in the room. The objective of the task should be to get behind the sentry without being seen to approach. You can explain that there is no facing in the game, but she must use her STEALTH skill here, and she'll get a bonus to stealth for picking the dark side of the room, and it's far riskier but not impossible to make it on the light side. (maybe put a tempting silver chalice on that side of the room, with the odd pillar or box to hide behind, a challenge with a reward of a few gp for taking risks, more on that later)

Have a second part to travel over a balance beam between rooftops in the poor section of town. Lots of hay-bales and bushes lie below, or perhaps her mentor can cast featherfall -- but she'll have to use acrobatics to cross the balance beam, and then disable device to pick the lock on the window on the other side. Calculate the spread of how much gold a rogue starts with at the beginning of the game at level 1, and scatter coins and little treasures all around your tutorial level to encourage her to look for hidden stuff, and as an exercise in perception (though there should be simulations for encountering and disarming traps as well) -- with the scattered treasure idea it will also instill the idea that just like in a regular game, you should be on the lookout for extra or hidden stuff. It's always fun to find loot. So for example, as part of a climb/acrobatics challenge (She must climb a rope and swing or jump to a series of other ropes to cross a room, she can notice (especially if she is looking for) a black felt bag hanging from the bottom of one of the shorter ropes by the cieling, or a gold ring on a eave or ledge near the exit door to the room... At the end of the tutorials she'll have no less/more than the min/max a level 1 rogue starts with, but it will be because of her diligence she got more rather than less.

If she doesn't have enough skill points to put into all class skills and you wonder if she's up to the task of having "agency" for these choices, have the tutorial challenge include various CHOICES that will feature the skills that come naturally to HER... Tell her that her mentors are watching to see how SHE solves the problems and her skills after her training is complete will reflect her choices (where these last few ranks go on her sheet, or maybe the guild can give her a free Masterwork thieves-tools if she repeatedly picks locks, or a disguise kit for disguise -- you get the idea) for example, one of the tests is a theatrical mock-up of the front of a castle. On one side of the stage is a guard outfit drying in the laundry (she can pick Disguise) -- there is a "Study" off to the side where one can forge papers for entry (Linguistics), a guard off to the side who is sleeping with an OVERSIZED key ring dangling obviously (slight of hand) -- the DCs for the activities should be normal, but if she gets "caught" the mentor calls "CUT" like it's just a play and everybody goes back to "Places" and the challenge can begin again. Keep the set-peices short, at least at first, no more than 3 skill checks, and at first it's obvious what to use but as you go on, provide choices. Patterns may emerge on the kinds of things she likes to do -- illustrate successes... and failures. Repeated high rolling for acrobatics should be hammed up as flips and sommersaults through the air, flawlessly completing challenges some of her fellow apprentices take solid dives on. A poor disguise rolls will lead to chiding stories over choices of garb that were none too convincing, Give lower DC to perception when she actively is seeking something but higher if she is preoccupied with other tasks.

If you're a great GM you could even introduce a kind of "Hogwarts/Harry-Potter" meets "Oliver Twist" aspect to the thieves guild... make up several NPCS going through thieves training with her, and give them character aspects that make them endearing and interesting. These NPCs can even go on these challenges with her (maybe one at a time, but this will prepare her to work in a party, AS WELL as have an example of how everything can be done RIGHT or WRONG (some of her friends will be star pupils, others, maybe not so much) here are some ideas:(character development will help with roleplay, and even give her some contacts or companions for later on in the game!)

Bors: Bors is the grandson of a very influential member of the thieves guild - thievery is IN HIS BLOOD, but less in his personality. He hopes he can satisfy his family by repurposing his rogue skills to be a spy or diplomat, and is more interested in stealing intriguing papers than shiny things. Despite being almost grossly overweight (glandular problem) he is a FLAWLESS climber (really, it's kind of freaky) and for somebody of his stature is really rather quiet over the floorboards. His friends joke that if there is nowhere else to hide, a good thief can always take refuge in Bors' shadow.

Trixie: Trixie is a nick-name, and only some of her teachers know what her real name is -- some people say her actual name is really embarrassing, others say it's more mysterious/complicated than that -- and that a former student (ahem) got... "relocated" when they found out. Trixie's stealth and device skills are lacking, but her perception, bluff, and disguise are spot on... she's also quite intimidating and as long as she's playing a role can be rather persuasive (her real personality though is to be intimidating) -- when she can she eschews the sneaking aspect and bluffs right through the front door, makes or steals uniforms and outfits that convince people she belongs in places (especially outfits like 'head chef' or 'butler' or 'officer' that allow her to move through even exclusive areas without anybody willing to challenge her. Despite her manner alienating most of her peers, she's actually quite lonely and she goes to ungodly lengths to help and protect people who "Understand her"... which really just might be the people she actually picks to let in.

Tems: Tems is going to be a fence and everybody knows it. Use magical device, Appraise, and Knowledge (Local) are his main talents. He's CONSTANTLY bungling on the physical challenges, some people even wonder if he'll pass muster... but he already has dirt on half the people in the class, and even some say a couple of instructors or he'd be gone by now. NOBODY gets as much for their loot than Tems does, and he's already got a minor side-line as a fence in the training school for moving other students finer 'rewards' (the loot dropped around as incentive) for a cut of the profit, generally a fraction of the margin of the better deal he'd get. One or two people whisper that Tems might actually be the star pupil... and he's been faking incompetance THE ENTIRE TIME... but that's just crazy... what kind of brass ones does a fellow have to have to try and pull the wool on the guild that's training you!?!

You get the idea -- maybe you make the tutorial adventure a very short run-through of all the skills, but with NPCs that can help (Aid other +2!) various tasks or offer challenges, rivalry, encouragement, she'll be hopefully challenged to role-play more, showing different sides of herself to aquaintences rather than close compatriots, and you can sow plot development into the above, if you both enjoy it. There are plot hooks to each of the above NPCs to make them interesting... and they could easily be best friends or bitter enemies that could develop later into recurring contacts or foils/villains even in later adventures! She'll have a strong sense of agency that the friends she CHOSE (you can't be friends with everyone, can you?) will have an impact on her character later. 3 adventures down the line, when she is trying to fence a particularly expensive ancient vase -- she may bump into "Tems" again -- this time as a successful and influential import/exporter (a front for moving his stolen goods)... and whether he was a pal or a rival might make the difference between getting the best price for the vase, a side-quest to get out of town before his cronies steal it before she can sell it, or even if she hated him enough, a side-quest for her to rob his warehouse of a most precious item. You get the idea.

I realize I'm getting VERY fancy here -- and you can go far lower-frills, a basic obstacle-course of sorts with some (inert) traps, locked doors and boxes, pits, ropes, ledges, a series of infiltration (diplomacy, bluff, intimidate) scenarios, a little disguise... basically something that explores EACH skill a rogue has, hopefully in a variety of situations with differing DCs so the player gets an idea of what they can and cannot do.

In mock fighting, put her in a couple of melee, range, and surprise situations. She'll note the massive difference in damage between her surprise attack, going against a fighter or classmate toe to toe, shooting at targets or dummies at various ranges and various degrees of cover, as well as crossing a live-fire exercise "run the garden without being hit by dummy arrows" she can learn the use of stealth, cover, and concealment (bushes will help her not get hit so much, the fog spell in the middle of the range or the giant mushrooms over there provide 40% or 80% concealment, etc.

The individual tests will give her familiarity with the mechanics -- but the story (if you are up to the task) of actually becoming a thief may help in hooking her into the finer aspects of the game where only ego (joy for doing well or burn of setbacks) and not the sense of feeling more incompetent than your character on your first adventure. If you really like the "thief school" idea you could have her first adventure be a "Practical Final" where her and her classmates are all sent to a Noble's house on a day a petty-noble (and his finest guards) are off on a trip -- those finer guards were important for discipline, and at this point since the master's leaving -- discipline is pretty lax. Some of the guards have taken to drinking or sleeping on duty it's been noted... SOME of them. The graduating class has been tasked with descending on the house like locusts and stealing EVERYTHING that isn't nailed down. Rivalry will be in full force with some thieves even trying to sabotage one another, while friendships or favors during the learning phase will be returned in spades as friends share intel and get each other out of trouble. The best loot will be in the deepest more secure areas of the house -- where you might give her a choice of a cool magical item she may want (not too powerful) or an exotic pet or mount, or maybe just a really lovely bauble that, being her first great heist, might be of great sentimental value.

So I'm probably beating a dead horse at this point -- but you introduce little aspects a little at a time. You might even have two character sheets, one for you and one for her, and ss she learns her powers and abilities, you take a little bit of info off the one SHE has and put in on HERS, like a "bag of tricks" - that way she isn't looking at 20 skills and 8 powers and is so spoiled for choice or ruined for relevance it looks meaningless. When you cover sneak attacks, you write sneak attacks onto her sheet and she knows what it does and that it's in a different place than a regular skill. Chances are, she'll start to pick up on more sophisticated rules interaction once you start building on what she knows.

Best part: every time she levels -- you can explain the new powers or abilities in the context of lessons she'd previously studied or witnessed back in school. Ie:

DING! She's level 2, and has "Evasion" now -- what the hell does that mean? Suddenly, she has a flashback, she's back in the classroom, watching her classmates and the advanced students in an "Evasion Exercise" -- clay pots with dampened explosive charges are thrown at the students as they sommersault across the room -- taking saves as they go. You present a scenario where a classmate totally fails to dive away from the charges (or even just roll a set of saving throws and resolve them) with fails COVERING students with soot (Full, damage, they have to go change) -- a successful save for beginner students (half damage) but they can continue -- and the advanced students with evasion miraculously dive/roll away from the soot, suffering no damage. She remembers the lesson as a beginner student, but in her minds eye -- she in the advanced class -- show her how to apply this ability like she was back in the classroom, and she'll grasp (and hopefully have a sense of accomplishment) from now being able to cross a room of explosions (however inert) clean and smelling like a rose -- noting that lesser trained individuals suffer some damage anywhere where she does not. (and even if she fails her reflex saves and gets dirty -- it will give her a grasp that her evasion ability isn't PROOF against such situations, it mitigates some of the RISK -- such familiarity will go miles towards instilling confidence towards what her character can and cannot do) ... so what she whiffs two rounds of saving throws and needs to change again and again... it is a simulation, and can become part of her memory of education. A lesson she saw, and has now absorbed fully.

Please take a note of my handle and feel free to send me a message if you want me to take a look at other posts you have on this topic. I wish you and your spouse the best of luck -- and I don't know how little your kids are, but carefully introducing, even SHARING gaming with your kids can be a GREAT way to enjoy family time, empower and teach your kids, and expose them to new ideas, cultures, and facts. (That's a WHOLE other ball of wax entirely, but soon enough when I have children, if they seem interested I'm going to groom them for gaming as well -- because it opened my eyes and mind to so much in the world. That said, gaming with your spouse can open up a spectacular inner world as well -- one that you can share with friends AND kids alike!

Best of luck.

Bltz -- I can't imagine making a gnome/elf/dwarf bard WITHOUT that feat! welcome to the club... and here's a special song for your bard to play when he's explaining how he got 90+ professions with multiple points in each:

(to the tune of 'the dubliners' "Jack of all trades": (you can adapt it to your bard's specific history)
but youtube the song to get the tune!

Golarion JACK OF ALL TRADES (sing first verse in head to get tempo!)
Time how long the song is and consider paring down... remember chorus btwn every 2 verses!

Oh I am a roving sporting blade, they call me Jack of all Trades
I always placed my chief delight in courting pretty fair maids.
...In Andoran I came of age -- then tried for a situation
I'm always proud to hear it's now the pride of all the Nations.

On Gralton Quay I later went and there became a porter
Me and my master soon fell out which cut our dealings shorter
*...In Daggermark… a pastry cook; In Tymon was a baker
In Xer I did fine coffins make; and in greengold a Laker.

cho: I'm a roving jack of many a trade
Of every trade of all trades
And if you wish to know me name
Well They call me Jack of all trades.

In City Kerse I ran a shop - and there was well requited
A Courtier in Ustalav, where I was nearly knighted!
*…For In my time I'd high reknown…, or I am much mistaken
In Lastwall I went flipping broke -- sold butter, eggs and bacon.

In Tamran town I sold old shoes: In village Meath a grinder
In Pangolais I lost my wife and I'm glad I ne'er could find her. ;)
*…In Korvosa I dyed old clothes… of which I'd often boasted
And all over Varisia, sold mutton ready roasted.

--Chorus

Egorian, I dressed old hats; Senara was a sire, (sawyer)
In Pill Lane, I sold forks n' spoons, in Nex an honest liar, (lawyer)
*…In Plunkett Streets sold castoff clothes… in Merab was a broker
In Katapesh another shop, sold shovel, tongs and poker.

In Liepstadt then a banker was, and outside Geb a drover
In Qadira, a waiter and in Vudras towns, a glover
*…In Tian-shaw I sold old books… in Valashmai, a Jailer
In Padiskar, a carpenter; in the Shackles was "a sailor."

--Chorus

In Aspenthar a Shipwright and, at the same time a tailor,
In Ridwan I did candles make in Kraggodan, a weaver.
*…In Kokutang went bust again… and I ain't going back there-
The people all are cannibals, almost wound up a snack there!

In Vigil was a Watchman and In Woodsedge was a grainer
In Thronestep, I did carry sacks; n' Earns I was a glazier.
*…In Starfall, was a Clockworksman… and turned a tidy fortune,
Tied up those funds in a Fog Peaks mine; And lost the larger portion.

--Chorus

In Bellis restored furniture with fleas and bugs I sold it
In Oppara I farmed some land but sadly failed to hold it
*…In Carpenden sold hay and straw… and a Herbalist no fakin'
By Fishambles in Totra the grand trade of basketmakin'.

In Quantium a coachmaker; a jeweler and a gilder
In Solku was a tanner, and in Mechitar a builder!
…. (gasp!)….
In Dyinglight, sold hosiery; In Absolom sold all blades
So if you wish to know my name, well they call me Jack of all Trades!!!

Chorus!

See also: Master-crafted bee-smoker.

In my games historically, I have warned disruptive or disturbing PC behavior by dropping hints that as the party is gaining reputation or power, they are getting the attention of more important entities... and provide carrots and sticks for behavior respectively. Here's an example to a couple of sticks:

A) The PCs are raiding/intruding/sneaking in a base of some bad guys -- they find in their prisons a dead member of a powerful and/or influential group they either know of (or learn of through this discovery) -- among his possessions is a note that indicates he was captured in this area tasked with spying on the PC who is the torturer. Basically the party is starting to show up as a rising star in power, and while the majority of the group seems like a new piece on the chessboard that could be a force for good, the organization finds that wicked monk may be a corrupting influence. He was tasked to keep an eye on the monk and if reports/divination continue to indicate his imbalance the larger entity intends to "Remove him from the board" lest the party be steered in a direction from law towards chaos. (basically a wealthy, powerful, and good organization will start sending assassins to get HIM specifically) if he doesn't stop, have his next sleep at an inn interrupted by somebody strangling him, or if higher level, have a night hag or some other dream-killer creature start preying on him. If he beats that, let him find another one of their agents dead/captured or whatever -- and this time he'll intercept a communication that if his ways are not observed to change very soon... the organization is going to pay a premium for "The Grey Man" to take care of this disturbing anti-hero. (In game or out of game you can explain that the grey man is a 20th level assassin, out JUST to kill him... if you think the party might be able to police them make them worry he might kill them incidentally (he doesn't leave witnesses or avengers as part of his professional exercise) ... It's a better answer than "No" as a GM, but lets the player know he's digging his own grave.

B) Have the party come to a village on the way to the next thing, but nobody will talk to them, or sell them anything, and basically treats the party like shit or just goes into hiding. Windows slam, kids are called inside, women hurry into the temple and close the doors. The only person who will talk to them is the town's protector, a blind oracle with powerful divination abilities. He says he foresaw the coming of a brutal and insensitive torturer, and the fools who stand by and enable his cruelty. He warns them that despite their overarching intentions -- the common people and the gods are more black and white in their perceptions. They should ask themselves if torturers are who they really want to be known as.

C) An aspiring bard/rogue has been following the party, picking up their leavings, treasure they miss, and getting inspiration for songs and stories watching their adventures from afar or picking through the aftermath. The torturing is REALLY centrally featured in the songs, and casts that particular member of the party in a bad light, which gives them an unfavorable reputation. The PC is torturing because it's fun, and lacks consequence. Let him see the consequence, as it may seem less fun.

D) Have a vital introduction or plot point in a mission take place at a party or social event -- the rest of the party is allowed to attend, but the torturer is snubbed. Because of the reputation that guy is getting (via word of mouth from anything like the above 3 sources) the monk is asked to go around "To the servant's entrance" -- there he realizes that he is not to be admitted to the party, but is instead given A HAM SANDWICH and told my several burly guards to wait in the stables. If he starts bullcrap, it begins to disturb the social event -- and the folks in power (who the party need to give them information, or vital item, or the quest, or whatever -- end up asking the PCs to help (their more than adequate defenders) to put the monk down... not diffuse the situation, but literally kill or subdue him for jailing. If he doesn't start crap -- just have him sit there, in the rain with his sandwich -- maybe hearing a jeer about how he's outside because he's a bully and a sadist. Some young ladies gossiping by a window above chitter that the rumor going around is that one of the heroes is an immature sadist... and likely because he's a eunuch or "otherwise stunted in a manly regard." ... stuff like that. Sometimes players like bad reputations... but if your reputation starts to become "you're the prick" ... or "He's crazy from syphalis" or something like that, less so.

E) Monks can be of various faiths, orders, and disceplines. Have the party come across an area where a big feature is an order of monks of the same or almost the same type as the offending monk in the party. They'd normally make great contacts and this would be a huge boon for the monk, and the party -- except the misdeeds of that monk have been reflecting bad on them... and they're REALLY mad about it. They've cultivated a tradition of honor for centuries, now peasants who can't tell one monk from another think they are all bullies and sadists. This can be worked in all sorts of ways -- but if he's not listening after all of what came before, and still won't take the hint or listen when monks of a like practice disdain his actions and ask him to repent... I'd give him a high level foil via this monastery. This could basically be a single-combat fight against a monk he has little or no chance of beating on his own (and if the party decides to fall in with him warn them the entire party's alignment will shift) or if he's overpowered or you don't want to go that route, basically say one of the mischievous patron monks has decided to teach the PC a lesson -- by torturing him. Give this monk insane powers -- and every time the monk turns his back, the monk is doing things like sneaking a turd into his drink-cup, or switching his packed items with similar-shaped rocks, drugging him so that he goes into fights unable to focus his abilities, writes embarassing epithets on his forehead while sleeping, places itching oils in his footwear or robes, blowguns sovereign glue between his fingers from insane range so that he has to fight with twisted up, palsied hands... etc.

F) Have somebody he cares about tortured in revenge by the significant others or handlers of somebody HE tortured. Have them horribly resent him (not be killed, let them live because if they're killed they become martyrs to avenge... NO, this was somebody the PC liked, who thinks he's a DICK now.

G) Get to him via the cleric. If the Cleric is lawful good -- start impressing to the cleric his god (or his angels/whatever) that keep his holy power bills paid, are starting to grumble. Let it start by the cleric getting uneasy when he uses spells/powers on the monk... then after that -- have one fail when on the monk specifically. That should send a clear message. If the cleric thinks he'll lose his POWERS over the monk's shenanigans -- the cleric will either stop healing the monk, or the party will work him away from the table.

If the above doesn't do it... lose the player... because after hints like that, expressed through the narrative of the game, he doesn't need any more chances. Bounce him. It would mean the character isn't just a dick, the player is.

H) Out of game, tell the player that you don't want torture as a part of your stories for the same reason you don't want rape in your stories... it's gross, and detracts from YOUR enjoyment. If he still tries to pull his crap, whack him HARD with the GM stick.

I've never found it in any game book -- but there is a simple tool used in apiary (that's honey farms for the lexicanically challenged) called a BEE-SMOKER... it's basically a small bellows hooked up to a slow-burning substance in a relatively oxygen-starved chamber. (look up a picture on google images -- it's a simple enough tool that I'd be surprised fantasy level tech didn't allow for it)

Basically it works like this: Pumping the bellows feeds air to the burning material in the chamber -- the smoke is poured out of a spout in the same "puff" from the bellows. Smoke is well known to paralyze small bugs, and pacify even the angriest swarms of insects and arachnids and the like.

So what I would do is get some swarm suits, and get your GM to permit you to start using bee-smokers. If he won't, start buying smoke-bombs, or just start hanging censers of smoky incense off of everybody's armor. Once you guys are all perpetually moving in a cloud of smoke, it will be hard to argue that the swarms could do anything but lazily walk on the floor while you stepped on them.

But for such a tool to be introduced, your GM would likely have to not be a dick.

possible uses for prestidigitation (sorc0)-- Color spots on things so you don't get lost for at least an hour. Make people smell unique so they can be tracked. Or just soil everything! Even your skin tone and whiten your teeth (+diplo?), or add bruises to look ugly. Amplifies your voice, cold sensation can ease pain, sweeten or improve the taste of food (+cook), make handwriting fancier/worse(+linguist?), hide body odor (i.e., I smell like pine needles in a forest) (+stealth), sorting and gathering lightweight items, REMOVES BLOOD AND GRIME FROM ADVENTURERS CLOTHES - Unsoiling clothing could enable one to make a makeshift latrine in a confined space, healthy alternative to salt, Tie your own shoes without touching them, tie SOMEBODY ELSES shoes together without touching them, never sweat again, Feel comfy temperature wise in warm/dank environments - make somebody else very hot or cold in their armor, Put insignia on things, Dramatically blow your hair and/or clothing around (+Intim?), Sound effects: Make somebody's sword gleam, crackle or crack loudly (intim), Make poison things smell like coffee/cream/whiskey/etc, Soil a rival speakers clothes before he presents in public, Motion blur a dagger/fingers/forks, Make awful food you must sustain yourself on delicious, Change people's hair/eye color at will (+disguise), Blow smoke at will, Color coordinate weapons and clothes, instant hot sauce, Color camouflage/black-clothed people's dress to garish colors so they are easy to pursue (if he's wearing black, make him orange), Simulate bloodstains on surfaces to cause distraction or incriminate somebody, create an illusory fly to pester or distract someone, Make a skeleton move to scare somebody, Dry a spell book, Cause fake gems to sparkle and glow, retrieve/steal keys, drop a rock on somebody to wake them up, light a candle, Always be clean and fresh, temporary tattoos (for style or impersonation), "clean" parts of a binding circle because they have to be continuous and perfect, make forged document look old and brittle, Build a ship in a bottle and other fine manipulations, Make valuable item look old and worthless so it might be overlooked or not recognized for what it is, Unclasping a garment to make it fall off, create small objects: Gems/notes/goodies, Drink somebody under the table -- as you can make YOUR beer look and smell and taste real - but it is water, Make normal water seem to boil and hiss when dropped on an object - to convince other folk it is magically hot and too dangerous to touch/say water is holy water and lie that item is evil/cursed and doubly dangerous, chain numerous color/movement effects and tricks above to cause an entertaining diversion at a party while everyone else searches a house, turn a coin into a ring for an hour, turn a scrap of paper into a scrap of linen, and then change that into a rose, Dampen torches/gunpowder, gather coins all over the floor into collectable piles, Misdirection: Have small objects fall behind somebody looking for you -- strike when their back is turned, Make somebody's imposing black armor a shade of effeminate purple, Run a shell game, Dampen a man's trousers as he shows off in front of his friends to shame him, Extinguish light sources with dampen, Cheat SHAMELESSLY at cards (pair? Royal flush!), Shake/Stir a volatile substance, Shake/Stir a Martini, Don't just change your odor to something local, change your COLOR to something local!, Make your voice frightening or soothing, empty somebody's quiver, move a dagger to cut bowstrings/quiver straps, remove a wig, change the color of somebody's uniform to raise suspicion, change a society woman's dress to a color of last year's fashion, Gather Caltrops so they can safely be retrieved or crossed, Untie a belt pouch, move pebbles or caltrops into boots taken off in camp or barracks -- then raise the alarm, make other objects smell/taste like you to throw off stalking dogs, sovereign glue does not weigh much -- glue things together quickly and well -- like weapons in scabbards/doors/levers -- even somebody's shoes, color a sheet of paper same as the floor and cover a hole with it (even hover it), TRIP TRAPS that respond to a pound or less of force, make a statue cry tears, Maybe Start an avalanche/Rockslide, Create a (small, clumsy, but functional) mirror to use as a signal or to reflect a gaze, Mood lighting and theme music! move a candle to cause a fire, silently conveying a plan with static symbols in the air, Repeatedly clean a veil/mask to serve as a filter, Purify water by repeatedly pouring it through a cloth and cleaning the cloth. Color a room to search for anti-magic zones - The zone won't color. LIGHTING OIL vs. swarms, have everything of value of 1 lb. or less quietly float itself out of a room, hold small objects steady or prevent them from falling (+SlightoHand?), DISTURB undead w/o doing damage to cause inactive undead to rise (a weak disrupt undead), make the back half of an arrow and hold it to your eye to fool somebody into thinking you were shot dead by arrows fired into your area or a trap -- then jump up and hose them. (or do this to the rouge so he can backstab.)

I think a far more succinct letter is in order:

1) No evil characters or contrary shenanigans were to be tolerated at the onset of this campaign as a result of the above ruining the previous campaign.
2) the Parameters set forth have not been honored by you know who, and the reasons for this are not a mystery.
3) This PROVOKES an issue that must be addressed and brought to a head immediately. Either the player in question should be brought to heel, or preferably and permanently expelled from the group. I will take responsibility for acquiring a competent and fun replacement so that we can truly enjoy the campaign ahead as was intended.

Honestly, that's as soft as I'd word it. From your message you still sound like a bunch of wet-didie apologists for an obviously stupid-ass bastard who is capitalizing on your good graces, and calling your implorings for him to stop as some kind of bluff.

SHOW HIM THE DOOR. He *HAD* a second chance, it was called "design an appropriate character" -- he WILL NOT act right.

*YOU* are the fool now if you try to negotiate the terms of your being swallowed by a python.

This guy may be a great drinking buddy -- but he gets off on aggravating you. That's HIS angle at the table. You don't need that.

You also don't need to set an example to your son where you tolerate awful behavior from other people and suffer for how other people refusing to act right. The lesson you're teaching your son is that in this world there are ulcer givers, and ulcer getters -- his dad is a big sloppy getter, and if he wants to grow up happy he should take a clue and be the one giving the Ulcers.

You have higher standards to think of. Show your son, and your gaming group -- that what is most important is having fun and working together, and not tolerating disruption. Your pathetic capitulation and framing of this problem to somehow keep him included is flat out stupid at this point... and frankly I'm offended by how weak your letter is.

GUY. DOOR. SORRY. = an even better and more succinct letter.

Your 'friend' is an a!+#~~%. Everyone knows it.

Y'all need to stop being a bunch of doormats and give him the just wage of being such a scumbag.

Boot him. The world is FULL of people who want to game with you. Go to three gaming stores, check the bulletin boards, and contact the people looking for a group... you'll have a better player in no time.

Continue to see your friend out of game, but never let him forget that in rpgs, he gives you a friggin' rash.

... I'll NEVER understand why people stand for crap like this. I've shown people the door for FAR less.

The problem I have is that Im a fantastic DM that doesnt want to DM.

I would rather just be a player. It's more for to me.

lol

Totally, NOT trying to put the boot in -- but this may be the heart of the matter right here. Heavy wears the crown, "Players" -- Everybody wants to eat steak, but nobody wants to be the butcher.

Well... speaking for the butchers, if you're content to enjoy the fruit of our labors, but prefer to not get your hands as dirty as us, do us the courtesy of not grabbing for our knives and aprons while we are working.

Gamesetmatch.

Oh dear god....I need eye bleach stat....I had to know and googled it...It's like Slender Man just had his way with my eyeballs. I never want to sleep and wish I could unsee what I just saw.

Vicon, you are a sick, sick individual for thinking those are the "best hits".

@abeloec/Abandoned Arts

Apparently some people aren't aware that google searches are tailored on the basis of previous searches. The top hits I'm getting relate to D&D's "Hordes of the Abyss I & II" ... they are links to PDFs. I don't know what results YOU'RE getting -- but I can't use stuff from 3.5 or 4e in my games. I'm not sick, and I DON'T try to sneak non-legal stuff into my games. Or what are your searches showing you? Am I missing something?

@Jiggy: It's a kind of portal, correct?
sphincter /sphinc·ter/ (sfingk´ter) [L.] a ringlike muscle which closes a natural orifice or passage. Synonyms: "Constrictor" (Source: Google)

I really don't know very much about Tieflings and don't have any examples of sphincters in any of their art (that I can tell) ... But if it's not strange that they have horns I guess it's not strange they can have demonic portals on their bodies that they can use for propulsion. Mazlith, can you provide a link to Fiendish Sphincter as it appears in Exhalted deeds?

If I'm going to use a character with fiendish sprinter AND sphincter it'll need to be ready before this weekend. My game group doesn't smile on people holding things up tweaking builds or screwing around with minute parts on their character when everyone else is chomping at the bit to play.

Edit: I'm really starting to sweat, guys... why is nobody giving me a straight answer?

I like to incorporate sexuality in my games, but when the time comes around to the actual event, it's "fade to black."

And by "fade to black" you mean Umbral horse penis?

I'm glad I'm not your GM. I had a game end due to a similar issue.

As a player? If you pulled something like this I'd have refused to play with you again. But then, we don't allow evil PCs in our games.

And yes, this is an evil action.

So, why don't you present your problem to the other PCs in game and come up with a solution?

"Look, IMO, she's a threat to us, the world, and herself. What can we do about it?"
From all you've said, though, it would appear they don't see it that way.

Your call.

A better solution? Set the trap to the mind-bug, freeing her from it's influence.

It's not evil to refuse to bare your throat to the evil.

Seriously, do not do this. Although the leadership feat may not be involved the NPC is a cohort in all but name. Do not PVP. Especially do not PVP the GM's wife.

If the GM is plotting against you it's because you're being a jerk to his wife. If you try to push this you will either get kicked out of or cause the complete break up of the gaming group because the GM is rightly going to put his real world marriage first.

If you can't handle this leave the group.

If a GM sets up a campaign so that months of collective story-telling amounts to a mental-masturbation exercise for his spoiled wife, he's a shitty GM... no matter how good the stories are. NO PLAYER... SHOULD EVER... have to sit on their hands and sacrifice all agency because the GM has rigged the story to hinge on a pet NPC... that belongs to his wife is even worse.

If all of the players were on-board then keeping the mole mis-informed would be an option. The mole is in a relationship with a PC who will not agree to such a plan.

And that's retarded. I'd also gamble the wife of the GM is perfectly happy to leverage that status in and out of game. There is a complete (and unhealthy) meta-level going on here, where the GM is catering to his wife and the wife is protecting the DM's storyline. And the other players are supposed to sit on their hands and allow it.

Sleep, I am literally BEGGING YOU to share with the forum, or at least message me how this situation gets resolved. I am betting all in the GM does you wrong.

And remember -- Hold your high ground. There is something in a lot of GM's natures that make us able to take a disproportionate amount of the work or give us an instinct to capitulate to make others happy. This is not a bad thing... BUT YOU MUST REMEMBER YOUR SPINE.

You're all hung up on having to say no when you previously said yes... when if people were honoring what was already established (core books only) we wouldn't be here in the first place.

Stop being a voodoo doll for every pin that belongs someplace. Stick those knives where they belong.

Forgot to mention: He explained that elementals are in dark sun, so it technically WAS a dark sun adventure. His defense for adherence to source material? There was an Earth place (the crater), an Air Place (the peak) and a Fire place (the forge)... But it's darksun... so he elected to forgo a Water place...

If he ever winds up in my basement, I'll be sure and forgo a water place for him.

My nightmare GM story:

With some friends at ConCon -- got all my board game and RPG events picked out, when it turns out a "Dark Sun" scenario is going to be re-established after having previously been cancelled. Well a friend of mine and I both love Dark Sun, and he really sells me on the idea of going back to that slot even though I was hell-bent on my next activity.

Turns out the sub-in GM really had no intention of running the scenario advertised, and to my comprehension only had the most cursory awareness of the darksun world/franchise. We never met a darksun monster and the world, while barren... didn't feel very Dark-Sun-esque.

He also had some weird mental thing where he figured our characters wouldn't know the names of things like "Lava" if we saw it... so he used terms from Stargate SG1 or something... He'd say stuff like.. the rock is so hot here, its turning into liquid. "Like Lava?" we'd say? and he'd say "Your characters don't know what lava is, but I'd say it looks kind of like 'zeerfar-gernuff-pahoyhoie' from SG1"..... Like we've never conceived of Lava, but our characters had probably all seen that show. Morale is starting to fall in the group, but we keep at it hoping it will get better. We get to the top of the mountain where the adventure is and become party to perhaps the most boring and pointless drivel setup of a genie pavilion... but the genie and guards don't really say anything, or ask us to do anything, or really gratify any of the parties questions relating to the quest or phenomenon before us. We end up walking past this pavilion wondering why it was even there.

Still no combats and we're over half way in... just wandering around in a volcano with nothing more of import that's happened beyond what I've related. Apparently our ignorance of common or basic phenomena is supposed to be holding our interest. (I honestly believe at this point he expected us to be roleplaying our characters as fascinated... even while the players at his table were bored stiff out of their minds) ... I am generally of devoted respect and deference to any and all GMs... but after a point I asked him directly if we might have any Darksun Monsters in our Darksun Scenario. He didn't have a good answer for this... certainly no answer I remember so it wasn't even anecdotally funny.

The next encounter was equally pointless and mystifying. It was a FORGE full of metal weapons and armor. IN DARKSUN. This is a game-world where a King can choose to make ONE suit of plate-mail or extend the walls of his city-state for miles. At our level I would have been alarmed to see any metal equipment at all (a dagger would have started me salivating) ... but a forge full of an army's worth of equipment broke any illusion this was even peripherally associated with dark sun. Here we are, a 5th level party laid witness to this -- where any super-power in the world with any kind of divination or sensitivity to these things would be going ape-turd to converge on this spot if this scenario made any god-damned sense.

I told the rest of the party that ANYTHING we were doing beforehand was been VASTLY superseded by the attractiveness, nay necessity, of getting EVEN ONE ITEM out of this forge.

But the guy in the forge wouldn't sell or barter anything to us. He didn't want anything from the party either, so no quests, no reasoning or honeyed words or oaths or anything would convince him to part with THE TINIEST SCRAP from this armory... he was making all these weapons, but gods forbid any of them be bought or traded or given or even used. It was utterly ridiculous. On top of that, he was like the pavilion encounter before him -- utterly inscrutable in his motivations, why he was there, and what our purpose for interacting with him was. So we walked PAST THAT. WHAT IN DARK SUN WOULD BASICALLY BE THE MOST WONDEROUS AND MAJESTIC SIGHT ANY MORTAL COULD WITNESS. We were Assured by the GM that picking a fight with the forge-guy was straight-up suicide... even in light of that I put forth the idea of selling my life at the cost of them grabbing items and running, but I was somehow desuaded from this course of action (though I still think even from a story perspective in a GREAT darksun campaign the gambit might have been worth it). The morale of the party at this point was getting pretty low even in light of the first benchmark grumbling... and we had less time ahead of us than behind us. It was sinking in we'd burned 3 hours already and this guy was just a dick. He looked like a Napoleon Dynamite who somehow didn't catch enough bad-ones in grade school to have learned any type of humility. Growing up I was a protector of my "nerd-herd" but even I was starting to think his face was starting to look like a basketball. But it went on. We were all unhappy -- but my friend and I were the only people who were willing to alter the trajectory of the scenario to just antagonizing this horses-ass... so we quickly disabused ourselves of the notion and resumed suffering in silence with the other players who apparently had more patience than us to suffer in relative silence. More patience than the ocean perhaps.

So... 3+ hours in, and we're a bunch of half-naked dudes and gals (as darksun characters often are) at the bottom of a friggin' active volcano filled with pools of something we're not allowed to call lava and I don't watch enough SyFy channel to be able to pronounce what the GM insists we call it. Theres a portal here... but DIG THIS... THE PORTAL DOESN'T GO ANYWHERE! (actually we determine it's a portal to the elemental plane of earth, but it doesn't go into a void there, it transports directly into solid rock, so we can't enter or put objects through it. More time passes and we realize we are in the THIRD of what I could only loosely define as "Points of interest" in this supposed darksun scenario... and likewise NOTHING is happening. One of the other people at the table likewise throws up his hands and tries to explain/remind that there's less than 20 minutes left and we haven't even seen any combat... and we'd really appreciate it if the GM could make something happen.

So a bunch of SALAMANDERS boil out of the portal to fight us. Really big powerful ones that If I remember correctly the encounter was considerably too powerful for us. Never mind that a Salamander (while possible to encounter perhaps in dark sun) is not the best choice for the only darksun encounter in a scenario where everybody wants to play darksun... but note also salamanders are fire creatures and he already related that the portal was to the elemental plane of earth. There might be a justification for this as I'm not really up on my planes... but the ambiguity and failure to even give us something resembling what we'd want was telling.

I can't remember if we just ran out of time or everyone died -- that will give you an idea of the level of drama and investment we had at that point. I literally counted out of everyone at the table, more than half of us were melting onto the floor in utter contempt and boredom. In the rushed clean-up after we declared the scenario a wash -- We asked questions in a non-blaming way to find out just what the hell had happened... what did WE do wrong that made the adventure go nowhere?

His answer? : The entire "REAL" intrigue (which he assured us would have been fascinating) would have coming from learning that there was some forbidden love triangle between a genie in the pavillion and one of the fire/earth guys. Since WE didn't find out about it (to wit: he failed to even indicate such an intrigue existed nor lead, lured, suggested or hinted it could have) and HE let us walk past it (supposedly knowing full well everything after that would be pointless, we had no other instructions than 'go to the volcano and find out what's going on." -- He obviously had no idea about darksun and just volunteered to fill the slot with some crap spun by the seat of his pants (or actually I think he'd said he'd run it several times before to great success)... I wrote a SCATHING evaluation for him, and complained to the organizers that he had NO BUSINESS running an event and that he wasted everyone's time. Everyone else wanted to stop short of that, but my friend was willing to back me up.

The following year, I saw him enter an event called "The ultimate DM challenge" -- he obviously was exceedingly fond of his own abilities... riding on the coat-tails of tight lipped and over-considerate people, no doubt. I considered it a public service to tell him to his face and at length what a dismal and horrible GM and storyteller he was, and I cling to the vain hope he remembers it... Though in hindsight relating the story on the drive back to NYC was hilarious. Overall, that Con was amazing though -- and there were far more examples of INCREDIBLE GMing than that dismal turd-stain.

So that's MY nightmare DM story. Thanks if you read it!

Table manners come first, RP issues come second. Worry more about your relations with real people, and less about pretend problems in a pretend world.

Where are the table manners of the player who knowingly and intentionally purchased a showcase object that is diametrically opposed to another player at the table?

KILL IT. And I advise other people to kill issues like this immediately because if you allow it to pass, the harder it gets.

The GM is a total friggin' MORON to not let this become a bone of contention and trying to glaze this. In a role-playing game, having to play your character is sometimes a hassle... but there isn't all that backstory, and fluff, and proscriptions by deities so that you can GLOSS OVER IT whenever there is a conflict.

The other player at your table is basically pissing on your clothes so that he can drive what he perceives as a rolls royce. It's not about the horse hurting anybody -- from you perspective the horse NEEDS to go to the afterlife. This is the on-table equivalent of the party insisting that the party stew pot now include pork if a party contained a rabbi, or suddenly declaring that a Baptist Minister has to have an open marriage... it's not hurting anyone, right?

This is a game with religions in it, and those religions proscribe things. Ask your party if it's more important that jackass has a horse, or for the party to have a cleric. Don't crap like that devalues ALL the roleplaying everyone does... it's meaningless the minute it's inconvenient. If that were good, or even Okay... there wouldn't be any proscriptions.

I play in a party with a Paladin. Partying with a Paladin is a Headache... and OFTEN in fact, because they are constantly needing to assert their code. Part of the dynamic at the table is negotiating or justifying what the paladin is forsworn not to do... for example, we recovered objects from a false-tomb that belonged to, but were lost by a church. It wasn't even his religion, but instead of divvying the loot (which was OBVIOUSLY from a game perspective loot for the adventure ahead) the paladin INSISTED we return it to the church as otherwise it would be theft. It was a tense moment, but we went along with the paladin -- because the time to raise objections about proscribed behaviors is at the start of the adventure or when before that character is introduced. We got to keep the stuff anyway, but the point is we didn't have a problem with OUR character proscriptions, and the game actually dictates that they don't either.

Your friends are being dicks. This is no better than trying to wedge an evil character into a lawful good group, or adopting a recurrent strategy of starting forest fires to flush out enemies in a party with a Nature Druid.

Bottom Line: KILL THAT MOTHER-FRIGGIN' HORSE!!!!
Then buy him a nice warhorse to make up for it (that was a good idea) and tell him you'll be happy to ANNIHILATE any other undead accessories that he subconsciously fears might corrupt him.

Whether your friends bend on this or not, you're TOTALLY in the right. They might as well have asked a Cleric of Desna to worship Lamashtu. That horse is a TOY... they are asking you to crap on your character's IDENTITY. screw that.

I saw somebody mention a Tiefling power called "Fiendish Sphincter" as an alternative racial trait that makes a character run faster. Can't find it on google though and the best hits aren't even pathfinder... just PDFs for the fiendish codex for D&D. So is this 3.5 or 4th edition or is somebody mistaken somewhere?

Sigilwraith is right on the ball here. As a GM, I am ALL about yielding to and rewarding novel, innovative or arguably brilliant (Especially unexpected) solutions to problems. Matter of fact, it's one of the most rewarding aspects of the game... you try to anticipate all the players resources and abilities in order to make it as challenging as possible, but never ever impossible and never harder than it needs to be. If I am doing my job perfectly, the party will win when they expect to win, pull through in the clutch when they really try or work hard (and/or work together) -- and in finales or points of importance, I try to make sure that if they win -- they do so with the a worthy amount of drama and by the narrowest margin so that tension and perception of the accomplishment is most memorable and rewarding.

On the other hand, GMs must always be on guard of players basically becoming able to cake-walk everything by virtue of what is on their character sheet rather than how they role-play or improvise in a situation. Google the term "power-creep" and try to analogize the concept to pathfinder or any other roleplaying game. As characters level they retain their old powers and gain increasingly more powerful ones. These abilities are hugely important and greatly anticipated by the player -- often players have waited WEEKS or MONTHS even YEARS to fully realize their builds... but how these powers are interpreted (if they are in fact subject to interpretation) or the synergy of certain aspects of classes/races/whatever is constantly a threat to making a GM's job difficult or even nearly impossible. Since this point alone isn't the whole crux of your question I won't fully elaborate, but you get the point -- A GM is expected to know and adjudicate all rules even when the consequences of such rulings (or failing to account for such consequences) may not be felt for several levels from the time of a ruling... and a million other complexities.

I'm also, whether a player or a GM -- very much of a mind that if a GM is worth playing with, their word is final and their heightened responsibilities accord them a higher degree of deference and respect. The rules have pretty well established (as has custom) that the buck stops with the GM, and chiseling, whining, or bogging down a game with lawyering is bad form by the players. Tyrant GMs should be stripped of their office. A good GM should be accorded respect and deference even when players may not agree -- because no player can (nor should) be aware of all the subtleties and intricacies that go along with what they want. Sometimes a transitory concern or single bell or whistle on a player's character can make a GM's entire job vastly more difficult into perpetuity... if allowed, this will cause the GM to have less fun as time goes on, which will translate into less fun for the players. You need only look up the threads on "Pun Pun" to see what kind of stuff DMs face, indeed what they must constantly be vigilant for -- if they don't, campaigns can be sentences to rapid or worse slow, annoying death for all involved. Just too much of an imbalance in power between party members can strain the system creating situations where to harm the strongest player at all the GM must risk killing the entire rest of the party that is not so strong -- or the alternative is to throw out a challenge suitable to the normal characters to which the strongest player cannot fail. What this means to me? GMing well is hard. You shouldn't give your GM bullcrap if you can manage not to.

I'd say what a DM means to me isn't much different than most people. We want a GM to plan ahead to the extent that is necessary, make sure everyone has a good time and feels challenged as well as adequately rewarded... to tailor adventures to give often wildly different characters and play styles chances to shine, and do a balancing act with all of their own mechanics as well as judging everyone else's -- even when certain players might not be anywhere near as thoughtful about their team-mates as they should.

So in one paragraph: GMs are supposed to present as well as anticipate everything, remember everything the players have been presented with and keep details and patterns in mind so as to realize opportunities to improve/advance the plot, seek enjoyment in an often thankless task of trying to entertain everybody, and when we do our jobs well we always lose by the smallest margin, and when we do our jobs poorly we always and quickly win. A good campaign depends on every player at the table, but none are as accountable or responsible for it going right than the GM... and they often do not have the devoted co-operation of their players to do this.

More than anything I want players to not just have fun, but to feel like their choices (not just when leveling up mind you) mattered, and that the stories are worth remembering. I am never happier than when I come up with something completely original, the party comes up with a completely original solution, and everybody has a sense of accomplishment.

Everybody is making some GREAT points here. Here is my 2 coppers on the situation. I *promise* you this very question has been asked and rehashed in a million different forms and threads on these forums. The advice is almost always the same and there are a million cautionary tales. If you read no further remember this: YOU ARE IN CHARGE, and your instinct is giving you a warning. Ignore that at your peril. You ALREADY know what is in store if you don't. Even if you can deal with it, the other people at the table shouldn't have to.

1) EMBRACE YOUR POWER AS A GM. You can say NO TO ANYTHING. You can CHANGE YOUR MIND. In EVERY campaign I've been in before it's gone off -- EVERYTHING IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR TWEAKING... there is LITERALLY NO REAL COST in vetoing or changing something BEFORE AN ACTUAL GAME BEGINS... once the game gets started it hurts more to nerf things or change the world... but embrace this... take a deep breath and read this aloud two times:

"I am asking for nothing out of the ordinary, unreasonable, or unfair. I made a mistake approving this at an inopportune moment, and I apologize for that -- but that being said, to do my job as a GM and to have fun... I need to be sure things run a certain way."

... Games like Pathfinder, games with "Systems" can have profound consequences for any ripples you put in the pool relating to home-brew. Balance is something you will see endlessly debated in the forums and very often the final ruling or the sagest observations come from people who have predicted or experienced minor changes interacting with minor or seemingly inconsequential factors that lead to phenomenal effects or at their worst... exploits. Your friend wasn't born yesterday and likely if not obviously knows how to exploit an advantage (he certainly is trying with you on this matter) -- this to me is even more evidence that he doesn't need an advantage but could actually make do with less. You are being generous giving him as much as anybody else.

2) Inventing races right before a campaign, with or without the creative contribution of the player -- is a HUGE complexity. That races history, existence, culture, powers -- could potentially have a gigantic impact on your world and the story you have in mind. It being first your friend's creation and not yours also gives him an unfair "editorial influence" on the substance of your world to the extent that he feels (or wants you to feel he feels) you are not letting him be "one of X" by taking the reigns on the culture or race in question. "My face is utterly fearless in the face of swarms, for this, this, this, and this reason" -- or the suggestion of race-specific gear, locations, NPCs, racial and personality traits... it's a slippery slope. Even if the place of this race is not a huge factor or a big deal it could almost be as galling for you and the rest of the party to be totally integrated into an established world, and he looks like a peacock snowflake -- unique and better in every way. Forget that. Roll from the already generous and potential-filled options offered to you... tell him not to make your job any harder... no... tell him you can't let him make your job impossible. You can talk about the race in the months to come and perhaps it will be a fully fleshed idea in another campaign, opportunity willing.

3) This problem is as old as the hills. "Core and APG only" being respected by everyone at the table but one guy -- and that guy KNOWS how to get a few amendments put in that make him miles above everyone else. At worst nobody else will ever truly get the spotlight except by saving his ass... at best it will still likely look, or more likely outright BE unfair. You not only have a chance, but you have a RESPONSIBILITY to put a stop to this.

4) I'm not going to advocate an assertiveness training course, though if you know you're a pushover -- wear the real hat of a GM and stop being a summer-camp counselor. Old friendship dynamics are COMPLICATED and I know personally that I am the loudest and most dominating person in certain social dynamics and pretty much a quiet right-hand-man in others. It's not about Alphas and Omegas, it's about what's there in *this* situation. It's important you kill this noise QUICKLY. I have a story DIRECTLY anecdotal to your experience by the way:

I had a friend I knew my entire childhood, but never gamed with. Partly it was because he was not an original part of my main gaming group (and would therefore upset the delicate pecking order) but also particularly because he was a pushy kind of guy, and a couple of years older -- which doesn't always matter but does especially when you are young. He always wondered why we never gamed together (he had a different older group) and eventually I began to wonder too. I one day decided with him I'd have a one-off to see how our styles meshed and if I could fit him into another group I played with. I created a custom sci-fi setting based on a game system HE was comfortable with (Traveller) and I knew nothing about (though I learned) and after exhaustive creative effort fleshed out a world and some plot-seeds that I thought would appeal to him based on what he said he wanted out of a campaign. I created/ported a handful of converted races from other games or from scratch and invited him to make a character of any of these races so we could start the campaign. By the time we were done "approving" his character, he decided on making what I had named a "TriBrid" -- a Hybrid race of three of the coolest races I fleshed out for the campaign. The very existence of this race required the history of the starting world to be tweaked and had massive and far-reaching implications for the campaign. We hadn't even started and he had lawyered me into letting him create a character that at my best I would be mentally taxing to truly challenge, and he already had me dancing on the head of a pin to make this possible for him. I didn't want to scrap everything I was so happy to have designed for the occasion and was really psyched to play -- but I put the halt on it. The game didn't go anywhere. Now when I hear him kvetch about being phased out of another PbP... I know why.
Your situation is neither unique, nor even all that special. Tell this guy to be ready to create a character of equal (or GASP!) even lower than normal power... or to hit the road. Tell him you really want to play with him, but this time... after all this time, he's going to be pushed by YOU. If he can't hang, he can't hang... you've got other players, and you can likely fill his spot.

LASTLY... because some people WON'T do the right thing... (him or you)

5) if it turns out you are an irredeemable pushover and are going to capitulate in spite of the best advice from me or anyone else... make SURE you give every other player an extra 4 race points of bonuses... that way, as crappy and unbalanced as it may be -- everyone will feel like their getting something, and everyone will have powers commensurate to each other. The synergy of abilities may get messy balance wise, but it will be far easier hopefully to make encounters that challenge everyone equally (cranking up the difficulty accordingly) rather than having to make a choice for it to forever be a cakewalk for everyone, or threatening to likely kill or knock out everyone else just to have an outside chance of hurting that one "nut" that is %40-%50 harder to crack... and if he knows what he's doing, he'll do better than that. There is a guy on this board who sounds like a total sociopath who constantly looks for validation for his power-gaming here... he buffs himself first, helps indirectly or in only the most self-aggrandizing ways and thinks everyone should be grateful he's always the last person standing. His other players DO NOT like him... or else he wouldn't be constantly trying to second-guess their groaning on these forums to feel better about hogging the spotlight. DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN.

So to sum up -- you're not doing anything wrong at all here vetoing the race, and you'd still be within your power to gimp something if it's breaking the game even after you started... but at that point it's going to suck and chafe a hell of a lot more. Put your foot down now, and be ready to put it down early and often for as long as you play with this guy.

My personal "mini-tyrant" got so used to talking free and speaking his mind he actually made my wife cry once. That completely changed our power dynamic when I told him he'd better eat crow like he never has if he ever wants to see either one of us ever again. My partner was sweet enough to realize how important my friendship to him was and forgave him, but seeing my personal protector and group-alpha kneel and beg forgiveness changed perceptions forever, and I'd never let him run loose without checking him again. Don't let it come to that at your table, brother. Not likely to be THAT big a drama, but drama like this on ANY scale is to be squished.

The magic words now and every time to come: "After giving it some more thought, No."

Or if you'd rather...

"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

I will commiserate by sharing my own experience, and it has a happy ending.

My original gaming group which lasted from grade-school into my late 20s/early 30s died out for (t)reasons (hehehehehhe) of family, and the lure of real lucre eventually outshining the pyrite hoards we once so cherished.

The greater conspirations of duty and time pulling away from your gaming group can cause the greatest gaming civilizations to fall. I suppose infusions of new blood can help maintain it -- but in my experience people don't tend to do this... we lurch towards bethlehem to die one gaming table at a time, sometimes with a bang... but more often I hear with a whimper.

At the end of my gaming group the last two players of mine FINALLY faced the biggest most epic threat of all time -- something I made up in 8th grade called "The world ship" (I've since heard others use this term in other fiction but to us it was original) -- which was basically the Invasion Craft the Great Old Ones would use to break "The Frontier" of reality and destroy the universe in a kind of cross-genre ragnarok. Since the very beginning of my referencing it's existence or it's eventual coming I never had the sand or the heart to use it as a REAL plot device, as I knew employing it would likely end the world, or AT LEAST render all subsequent objectives/glories insignificant by comparison. But after longer and longer hiatuses but the last of us always reminiscing about "the one that got away" one too many times over drinks... I set to planning the last course to the banquet of our gaming lives.

Every cool race of enemies I could remember from every campaign/setting/video game/movie and franchise for over 2 decades I referenced or directly cameoed in that final, epic and titanic battle. Characters we repeatedly referenced in inside jokes and even many that had been all but forgotten because they were antiquated relics of our more immature gaming tastes reared their heads from the oldest papers I'd saved. All the greatest worthy villainous factions teamed up grudingly with the greatest allies across our sci-fi, fantasy, and modern-style campaigns -- and in every fight old friends showed up to save the day or gave their lives so that the heroes could press forward. The Ur-quan held flanks for the protoss, the grass clan ninjas showed up and revealed they had anticipated the threat all along, The masters of Orion, The heroes of death-trap dungeon, the space marines, the sathar, the Slayers from Krull, the Darloks, Wasteland Rangers, The fallen lords, the Dweenle, the Uhlek, Sariens and Bionic Commandos, Kenju from "death lord", the Trow, Angels, gods, Solamnic Knights and the forces of Takhisis, and dozens of NPCs and races whose names would be pointless to reference (but some may recognize some of the above.) It was the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny -- all fighting against horrors that I could only barely describe with stat blocks more ad-libbed than concrete. Basically everything was supposed to be impossible, but hero points earned and flowed like water. The real currency was whatever they could remember, were willing to sacrifice, and the best ideas they had.

In the final room -- the "Bridge" of the world-ship, they found the captured heads of some of their favorite characters they themselves had played but had died or been lost or cast aside over the years, employing their spirits or channeling their powers in a final battle with Hastur... In the most epic syncronicity of chance everyone was rolling super high or super low at the tipping-point in the battle, and I had them Triumph -- but only after sustaining injuries they were sure would irretrievably kill them. They would never be sure if it was actually enough to save existence -- but the open endedness of it was appropriate, movie-like. They said their goodbyes to those allies they were sure were still fighting from the bridge, and exhorted the forces of the reality we'd collectively made to fight for it's final defense before they finally left it. There was hope.

And the best and longest-lived characters my best two gaming companions had... took a bow and died. There was nowhere to go from there, but we pretty much knew the score. One of them has four kids now, and we were pretty much playing for closure. And closure is what we got. It was a one-way trip, and we loved it.

We can't all go out like that, but the finality of that game kept me out of gaming for SEVERAL (perhaps better defined as "many") years afterward. Quite outside my own designs after meeting some guys in a new town and agreeing to teach them how to play Arkham Horror, the topic of playing a tabletop RPG came up again. Almost always a GM before, I am now newly a player in my burgeoning second gaming group -- one of them has kids but so far it's not a big problem, though I suppose it may be more so when my wife and I start a family soon enough.

The moral of the story is -- there's life after death for gamers. True gamers don't die, we just re-roll.

Make sure if you get your second wind (however long your break from gaming may be) that you pick your companions more carefully to your specific tastes. Gather to yourself the best role-players if that's what you enjoy -- as a talented and storied GM, *YOU* more than any other gamer have it within you to rise from the ashes, because if you're going to GM again -- players will rally around you if you know where to find them. At some point you may find there are enough "misfit toys" in your social rotation to get a game together... and you will suffer no munchkins to live.

Until we meet again in "You just went up a Lev-Valhalla" -- (Where I imagine true GMs go to die), rest now -- and turn in your mind the best dramas you have wrought for your players. A retiring GM is a sad thing to see, but it is a beautiful thing. Your paintings hang on no walls, but they are plastered all over the very souls of those who've enjoyed your story-telling... even if it often seems some of it was pearls before swine.

Good show, my man -- good show. Well earned rest, and I both pray and suggest that at least for a while... for your next obsession to be your wife. ;D

-V

Sorry Redcelt... the imagined value is one of the focus group. If you poll a forum and a certain number of people not only disapprove, but are horrified, as a GM you could take that as a signal. It was put far more gracefully before me, but I am putting my oar in with that demographic. He's playing a different game than pathfinder when a GM pulls crap like this... and a GM's word and authority should be respected at his table, but this is not an invitation to abuse that authority simply because he loves his final fantasy tropes or lacks the style or dedication to make a fair challenge to his players. "He presents his sword and 12 spells go up" is downright silly... and his justification for why he should be able to is doubly so.

The best GMs can get away with anything because they know how to make sure their players have fun and they create a great story. How would YOU feel if your beloved character, an investment of hours of planning and cumulative days of playing (with your valuable leisure time) was destroyed simply because your GM is more in love with Final Fantasy's "Gilgamesh" than the actual game he's playing, his players, and the investment of care and effort placed by them in their characters?

That's the value of the post. I wouldn't give the OP the time of day at my table if he thought it was fair to pull crap like this. And while I'll fully concede I could have couched my point better -- it's enough to convey that players worth their salt say that this idea is awful and should be reworked in the context of the rules of THIS game, not final fantasy. Scenarios like the one described are best reserved as mental exercises. The rules are there for balance, AND to prevent some romantic notion of certain GMs (i.e.: "wouldn't it be great if I killed all the players with a homebrew version of my favorite final fantasy monster?!!")

The answer: "No, it would not."

When you also know you're practically wasting your time even voicing your objection (this guy is going to do it anyway) ... I'll spare the prolonged explanation and leave the more important point there -- Many players would see this as corrupt and uncreative abuse of a GM's powers.