Dire Elf's page

As much as I try to shut out the world sometimes, some songs will pierce that veil and makes me react to it in some way. "Danny Boy" and "Hallelujah" will rip my heart right out, and if you've not heard "Hallelujah" by a singer called Puddles the Pity Party Clown, I urge you to go to Youtube and find it (but when you're alone, of course. That song will just get right inside you). He is an amazing singer and does some truly outstanding covers of both old and new songs.

Puddles is amazing. His has an incredible voice. I’ve seen him live twice and hugged him once. He’s also physically impressive - nearly 7 ft tall. He auditioned on one of the singing shows, whichever one Simon Cowell is on, but he didn’t make it. I think the clown schtick was too unusual for them. He does some fantastic pantomime comedy in his live shows too.

On the topic of songs that make me cry, I’d have to choose Souvenirs, or Hello In There, by John Prine.

My husband has had some serious health issues over the past couple of years, to the point that I was afraid he’d become bedridden and we’d lose what little social life we have when we’re not on pandemic distancing. But his doctor had suggested a temporary stay in a skilled nursing care facility to try to get a handle on his problems, and he decided to take the initiative and do that. He spent a week there and with the targeted treatment he made great improvement. Unfortunately he had a bit of a setback the day before he was scheduled to be released and landed in the hospital instead. He’s home now, though, and we’re experiencing what it’s like to be hospitalized but not in the hospital - paramedics or nurses come to the house thrice a day to take his vitals and administer IV meds, and we have a dedicated phone and iPad for a nursing contact center. He lost some of his progress, but I think he’ll be able to recover it in time, and he’s still much better than he was a month ago. I’m so lucky I have a job that provides good healthcare benefits.
But it sure is cutting into our gaming. He can’t play when we’ll be interrupted for an hour by the medical treatments.

Even before the pandemic, one of our core group had moved away and he'd Skype in for games. The rest of us all met in person. At that point we just used a camera pointed at the map on the table, so it wasn't a big change for those at the table.

Maybe something like that? It's still not the same as being around the table with friends, but it's less of a burden on them - no need to learn Roll20 or any such virtual tool.

We’ll have to talk to our friends about that. Of course I hope that when the pandemic is over it will be possible for my husband to get a treatment that might alleviate some of his most challenging medical issues, but that will have to wait.

I’m trying to accept that when the pandemic is over, my husband and I may not be able to return to in-person gaming. His existing health issue has deteriorated during isolation and he now has side effects that would make it unpleasant and embarrassing for him to go to other people’s homes to play - or to go anywhere else for that matter. For reasons I don’t want to go into we can’t play at our house.

One of our friends was running Wrath of the Righteous, which we were both enjoying, but this friend is unwilling to learn to use Roll20 so we haven’t played that adventure path since March. When everyone else is able to get together again I’m expecting we may have to give up gaming. We’ve only ever played with friends, the same core group of people for 25 years. I wouldn’t know how to find an online group. We do play Kingmaker on Roll20, but it’s just not the same as being around the table with our friends and I don’t expect them to make that sacrifice for us when social distancing is no longer necessary.

It’s very hard to face that our gaming days may be over, and our social lives with them. Disability is cruel.

I confess that I love playing wizards, but I’m pretty poor at playing that class. I can never seem to choose the right spells for the situation, I can’t make up my mind which spell to cast, I get analysis paralysis. Then when my spells fail (or more likely the other characters or enemies move in / out of range and ruin my plan) I get frustrated.

I also confess that I get whiny when my character gets knocked out or mind controlled.

The things that bother me the most are less game and more player things.

If you say you are going to show up then you should show up.

It seems to be popular now to commit to a session and then not bother to show up, let anyone know you will not be coming, etc.

If this was a rare event, it would be one thing, but it seems to be pervasive.

As a GM, if you are willing to put many hours into prep then the least the players can do is make realistic predictions about their attendance.

I read an article a while ago about how some people have become much less willing to commit exclusively to a single social activity these days because there’s a perception that they might miss out on something. The article related it to other social phenomena of the smartphone/instant information/flash mob/popup event era we live in.

This doesn’t excuse that type of behavior, but I think it’s also related to how no one ever has enough time to do all the things we want or need to do. I can game, or see my friend who’s only in from out of town for two days, or do laundry, or go to the gym, or spend time with my kids.... Which ones do I give up? And while gaming has become more acceptable and mainstream I think there’s still a perception among some players that it’s not that important, or a misunderstanding of its importance to the other members of the group. It’s part of the social compact that should probably be discussed with the group along with play styles and table etiquette.

My group only wants to play PF1e and no one else will step up to GM. BUT this coming Friday one of the guys offered to run a DC Heroes game. I was very excited because I love the game. But, I had to cancel all games for the foreseeable future because of the COVID-19 boogie. Dang it.

We are playing Kingmaker and Star Wars on Roll20. It’s not perfect, but at least we are still playing.

I use Word at work although not at home. We don't have the most up to date version but you should be able to edit the Tab positions so that you don't need to use Tables to align things. Each line can have different Tab positions as necessary.

For artwork you can insert a picture into a Frame and format it so that text flows above, below, to one, other or both sides and, I believe, even over the top of the frame (picture). You may also be able to do that without a Frame - not quite sure about that. You can anchor it to a paragraph so that it moves when you type extra text or direct to a location on the page so that the text moves around it.

You can also put text into Frames or Text Boxes that you can move around the page.

To some extent it will depend on the version of Word you have but really, if you don't need the sheet to calculate or auto-fill anything, it's just a case of scribbling down the approximate layout you want and then fiddling with the Tabs and Frames and point sizes until it looks a way you like. That will go for any word processing software.

You could go with page layout software like PagePlus but that probably isn't necessary for a character sheet. Word should probably do it quite well.

The only thing is, doing things like this takes time. Don't be surprised or distressed if you find it taking several hours to come up with something you like and find easy to use.

Not sure what is available ready-made.

Good points! I think the original version of the sheet might have been made in XP and although I’ve converted it to Word 2016 it’s still running in compatibility mode, which probably explains why the tables are sometimes uncooperative. I should take a stab at recreating it without tables.

Lords Of The Rings Online has the player(s) follow in the footsteps of the Fellowship and helping rangers deal with various threats and preparations.

Guild Wars 2 is pleasant game that is build in the way encouraging spontaneous cooperation in game (the one game that marks dying players on map for others, so anyone can run to you to help you).

I signed up for LOTRO, Guild Wars 2, and DDO. But I’ve never done anything beyond make a character for any of them. I didn’t have a computer that was really up to the task, but mostly it was fear of other players. You hear so many stories about other players being awful to newbies. I know everyone isn’t like that, but just one is too many for me.

My husband has been playing quite a lot of Elder Scrolls Online. It’s very appealing to me because the Elder Scrolls games are my favorites and it can be played entirely solo. Plus it looks gorgeous. I haven’t tried it yet but I think that’s the one I’m most likely to try.

Last week’s Kingmaker session was kingdom-building bookkeeping. Our budding nation experienced a plague and two monster attacks from the event cards.

Player: “Where’s the event for ‘Won a beauty contest, economy improves by 2’?”

I’ve spent far too much time in Hero Forge making new characters. I backed the Kickstarter and coloring my characters is just way too much fun.

Some dude adventures with you for four levels and doesn't understand why you call him a 'Paladin,' since he's *clearly* a Crusader... Similarly, the 'Priest' of Desna has no use for the term 'Cleric.' There's no need for the out-of-game class nomenclature to be ubiquitous in-game, and it can certainly vary by culture or religion.

I’m playing a paladin for the first time ever in my 25+ years of gaming, and I’m trying hard to avoid referring to her as a paladin in-game. She is a warrior n the service of Sarenrae. I could envision using paladin as a title if she belonged to an organization, but I see her more as having been inspired by an experience to dedicate herself to this path, not as a member of any organized group of people with similar abilities. She’s also an aasimar and I’m resisting referencing that in-game, too. Her parents are elves, she was raised among elves, she looks like an elf. She sees herself as an elf.

I’ve played a lot of different systems in the past:

RuneQuest
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
Fantasy Hero
Champions!
All editions of D&D except 4th
Mutants & Masterminds
Savage Worlds
Big Eyes Small Mouth
GURPS
FASA Stat Trek
West End Games Star Wars
Risus The Everything RPG

But my only non-Paizo game now (and currently the only game because social distancing) is Star Wars Saga Edition.

5e is a bit more widespread, and is much older than PF2. I hope to see people working on PF2 variant character sheets soon, especially now that the optional rules for stamina in the GMG make it so that we need variant character sheets that have a place to track that.

I should have mentioned that this question is specific to Pathfinder 1e.

I have become unhappy with the barbarian class of late. Not so much the mechanics, though it does seem a bit ridiculous to me that a whole class is built around the ability to enter a berserk frenzy. It’s the image that bugs me, and the connotations of the class name. “Barbarian” originated as a derogatory term. It’s still used as a derogatory term. Barbarians are portrayed as ‘uncivilized brutes’ who are only good at fighting. And they’re almost always pseudo-Scandinavians who live in perpetually snowy environments and wear ridiculously impractical clothing.

Anybody could enter a battle rage. A cleric could enter a righteous rage when faced with undead and blow through all of her channel uses, or expend all her cure spells in a frenzy of grief to save a dying companion. A wizard could become enraged by misuse of magic and use up all her blast spells. Berserk frenzy doesn’t have to be limited to a bearded blond guy in furs wielding an axe, or a woman with an inexplicably bare midriff.

I can see a reason for not making rage just a thing you can do, but maybe it could be a feat available to any character with a minimum prerequisite, instead of the focus of a class. If there has to be a class, call it berserker instead. And take all the cultural references out of the class description.

Lately I’ve seen a lot of custom character sheets for DnD5 on Pinterest and I’m jealous. For years I’ve been using some sheets a friend made in Word and I modified for my personal use, but they are not very attractive. They’re made entirely of tables, which makes some editing easy but other edits are hard. It ends up looking like it was made in Excel even though it wasn’t.

I do not want to use an app. I find that too annoying during a tabletop game. I do not want a printed sheet I have to hand-write all the details in. I want a sheet I can type information into on my computer and then print. I’ve seen the suggestion to use Excel, but I despise Excel. I want the sheet to have space where I can insert things like graphics and decorative borders. I want to be able to select from a variety of fonts for the fillable fields. I do not want it to do formulas for me.

I want a sheet that I can edit to suit changing needs or customize for specific characters, and I want it to be attractive but functional. Does such a thing exist? Is it possible to create one without having to purchase new software or develop artistic skills that I lack? Why is all the cool art going into DnD sheets and not Pathfinder?

Found a couple of old ones.

GM: “This is a normal mummy stuffed with linen and herbs and spices. And chicken.”
Player: “I can detect at least six spices. Maybe seven.”
#kfcmummy

One character is affected by a curse compelling him to drink some enchanted water.
GM (whispering): “Drink the water. Drink Sprite. Be yourself.”

The party found a jar of alchemical preservation, which we kept referring to as alchemical preserves.
Player: “Made by the great alchemist Smucker.”

Another session of our Kingmaker campaign:

The inquisitor is feeling a bit out of her element in the wilderness.
Inquisitor’s player: “[Inquisitor] is losing her mind. She needs to go back to society.”
Half-orc: “We need to build her a society.”
Wizard: “So what is this, your therapy kingdom?”

Used to have a GM who was always throwing random ambushes at us and then telling us we needed to have “better tactics”, like a single tactical plan would work for every situation. We were never sure what he expected us to do. He never provided any suggestions.

I think he wanted us to go out buffed to the max and blow through all our buff spells. He was the kind of GM who liked to force players to roll up a new character, which he approved, then got annoyed when the player used the character’s class abilities.

My two cats have not yet done my gaming any harm, beyond making me late by barfing just as I was about to leave.

We play at the home of friends who have several cats. Their oldest and crankiest cat peed on my gaming bag one day. Managed to get my dice bag too - thank Sarenrae I keep my character sheets in page protectors!

Now I put my bag on a side table so the cat can’t reach it. Luckily he’s not a jumper.

New adventure path - plan is for the slayer to become party leader but it’s only session 2. Party have gone to deal with some bandits at the bandits’ campsite. The wizard is using ‘message’ with two party members.

Wizard whispers: “They found a bandit camp.”
Slayer: “This one time, at bandit camp...”
Wizard whispers: “You’re not allowed to be leader anymore.”

I have a canvas backpack from Offworld Designs that has Bag of Holding embroidered on it. It has lots of pockets, but the shoulder straps have no padding so it’s not very comfortable to carry when full. But I only use it to haul my gear from the house to the car and back to the house so the comfort issue isn’t a big deal. It holds my character binder, dice, item cards, extra pens & pencils, sticky notes & notepads, but no minis. I have a separate mini case for that. All my books are on my iPad Mini but I don’t like keeping my character sheets on there. Too much scrolling.

I want to do a campaign where the world is destroyed and the PCs lead a small band of survivors to another world. Just as they go the Gods of the old world empower the PCs to become the gods of the new world. The Gods then sacrifice themselves to stop the force that has consumed the old world.

The rest of the campaign would be about my players literally building a new campaign world themselves. Seeking out and claiming their own divine portfolios, guiding the rebuilding of civilization and defending their world against the remanents of the force that destroyed the old one, (reduced in power by the sacrifice of the old gods to something enough to threaten the PCs but not crush them like ants).

and then....when it's all over I want to run a regular campaign in that world my players created.

What a fantastic idea!

The party enter a chamber to face the BBEG, who is a mummy.
GM: “A trumpet fanfare greets you.” Plays ‘sad trombone’ sound file from his phone.
Later, after the party have destroyed a golem minion protecting the mummy:
GM: “The pharaoh is angry that you defeated his golem.” Plays ‘sad trombone’ again.

There was an article in an old issue of Dragon (pre-3rd edition) suggesting possible campaign starts. One of them had the PCs turned into statues or trapped in some kind of stasis and then released a century or more later. I've always liked the idea of doing something like that, and having all the characters have families or friends or businesses that would have disappeared in the intervening time. Either that, or they've somehow become legendary heroes during their absence and now everyone has ridiculously high expectations of them.

I’ve been thinking more about this idea, and now I’m thinking the PCs should be petrified/in stasis/trapped in a pocket dimension for much longer. In the meantime the geography of the world has been dramatically altered by some cataclysm that happened long enough ago that the cause has been forgotten or distorted into myth and legend. The PCs would be the only people who know what the world was like before, and now it looks like a similar cataclysm is about to take place that only they can prevent.

From a Star Wars campaign:

Jedi is currently in a bacta tank while the other characters are under attack nearby.
Jedi player: Waves hand, signifying he’s using a Force power. “That guy misses.”
GM: “He’s outside the range of that power.”
Player: Gets up and walks across the room to where the GM is sitting, them waves his hand again. “That guy misses.”

Last week the party was on their way to a huge structure when they were attacked by three colossal scorpions.

The monk made a flying kick attack on one of the scorpions.
Bloodrager: "What are you doing? Make it cinematic!"
Monk: "You see a flying ball of fists and feet. It looks like a Warner Brothers animation of the Tasmanian Devil."

The shaman disintegrates one of the scorpions. His unseen servant begins sweeping up the dust left behind.
Monk: "Is it sweeping the dust into another dimension?"

During the combat, the wizard summons up an arcane cannon which keeps firing continuously. The wizard doesn't dismiss the cannon when the combat concludes. After all the scorpions are slain, someone appears atop the structure and makes a pompous speech, concluding with "Let all who would be wise listen!"
Wizard: "Boom!"

After the party enter the structure, a confusion effect causes the druid to attack the wizard. The wizard responds by using baleful polymorph against the druid, transforming her into a duck. Then the wizard becomes confused too and fires off a fireball at the rest of the party. The tengu monk rushes over to rescue the duck, not realizing she still has the hit points of a 15th-level druid.
Wizard: "It's bird-on-duck action."

The party is in a long hall. The investigator looks toward the far end.
GM: “Make a Perception check.”
Investigator: “ 54.”
GM: “You can see a field mouse all the way down there taking a poop.”

The host’s cat jumps on the back of the GM’s chair and starts vigorously rubbing her head against the back of the GM’s head.
GM: “It’s hard to be evil wihen this is happening.”

Things are going badly. Many of the party members have been strength drained by shadows, and the warpriest has been possessed by a demon and is attacking her friends. Suddenly one of the hosts brings in a cat and hands her to the GM.
Host: “ I’ve brought in reinforcements.”

Secretive casting: The rule I use in my games is that casting a spell, under any circumstances, is treated exactly the same as drawing a sword: Always Obvious, Always Noticed, Always Treated As Hostile. And still my players ask if they can sneak in a cast while someone else is talking to the NPC.

What if the NPCs aren't familiar with spellcasting gestures? I suppose they could be like modern police, who may err on the side of caution by assuming that if you've got a roughly gun-shaped object in your hand that it's a gun. Assume that if the PCs are gesturing it's a threat, even if the NPCs don't know exactly what it is that they're doing.

But speaking of that, why do the NPCs always know about magic? I'm always disappointed to play a magic-user and every non-magic-user NPC seems to know not only that I'm casting a spell but what spell it is. I'd like to encounter some NPCs who are awed/frightened/intimidated by magic. See my earlier complaint about uniformity of spells too - if my character is of a different race or nationality, even another caster who knows that spell shouldn't necessarily recognize it the way I've learned to cast it. Maybe the way I pronounce the draconic syllables of the verbal components has a different accent they can't understand, or I don't use quite the same gestures.

As a side note, I do have a GM who gave me a homebrew feat so other characters who try to identify my elementalist wizard's spells get a small penalty because she's from an uncommon school. And just for fun flavor, all of her spells have her element incorporated into them somehow. Doesn't change the effect, just the appearance of the spell. I think that's a simple way to differentiate spells - maybe if you're a cleric of a good deity your light spell is warm and golden while the light spell of a necromancer gives off a purple light that makes everyone look gaunt and cadaverous. Still light, still affects the same area, just doesn't have the same cosmetic effect.

Things that bother me:

Armor being treated as if it's all one piece that covers the entire body, even when it's described as a 'shirt' or 'breastplate'.

Nobody I know of ever plays characters in the middle age or old age ranges. We're always teenagers or young adults. While we're on the subject of aging:
Aging penalties. In the real world not everyone gets slower, weaker, or wiser as they age.

No permanent disabilities or even scars. Sure, I don't want my character to become a paraplegic, but losing a hand or an eye or suffering hearing loss or gaining a limp are things that happen in real life. Those kinds of disabilities don't completely ruin a person's ability to do the kind of things adventurers do.

It's fantasy. Why do any of the non-humans have to look similar to humans? Why do the humans even have to resemble real-world humans?

Why is there a barbarian class? Why not just a fighter who has battle rage? And why are all barbarians pseudo-Vikings?

While playing Wrath of the Righteous, my Players bluffed their way into the BBEG's Castle in part 2. They are more or less his guests, and the BBEG is manic-depressive, so he doesn't really care about them being there most of the time.

They wander around a bit until they get fed up with the demons harassing them, the Wizard (Archmage path) Pops Invisibility Sphere and they start to Trail the bad guy during his wanderings. They end up with him and his Bodyguards at the place where the big bad ritual takes place. Instead of waiting for him to leave, they decide to go nuclear right there.

I told them I would need some time to prepare and think about this, as they had just decided to combine about three Encounters worth of enemies into one room.

It did work out in the end, but after that we decided that the Archmage would get rid of the "Any spell, any time" power. He was overwhelmed with the choice and I was completely unable to predict ANY Encounter with that in place.

Our group is playing through Wrath right now, and I'm running the Archmage. I took Wild Arcana as my first mythic path ability, but I'm so stingy with my mythic points that the GM doesn't really have to worry about me making wildly unpredictable choices to throw off the adventure. I also tend to die a lot, even with mythic tiers.

GM: "What supplies do you want the quartermaster to look for?"
Investigator: "I need some more alchemical grease."
GM: "What are you using it for?"
Shaman: "Saturday nights."

Last night during a sci-fi game, the PCs were in a forest where they were attacked by a creature the GM described as a snow leopard.
Player 1: “So it’s just a regular snow leopard? It doesn’t even have six legs or anything?”
GM: “Okay, It has six legs. Now it has two extra attacks.”
Player 2: “Keep it up, Player 1. Next it’ll have a bite attack at both ends.”

During today’s Pathfinder session:
The party encountered an unfriendly djinni.
Player 1: “Does the djinni like pina coladas?”
GM: “Yes, she does.”
Player 2: “She is evil, then!”

After the djinni was slain, discussion turned to the elaborate pectoral she was wearing. The party’s tengu monk has a reputation for wanting the gaudiest items; at one point he was wearing a crocodile mask, a fancy plumed hat, and a hand of glory amulet.
Monk: “Can I wear the pectoral until we get to someplace where we can sell it?”
GM: “It would be like a breastplate on you.”
Bloodrager: “Is it a big clock?”
GM: “Yes. It has a big gold chain.”
Monk: “I’m not wearing that!”
Druid: “It’s too tacky even for you.”
Shaman: “You could be Flava Crow.”
Monk: “I am not Flava Crow!”

Later the party found a skeleton wearing a bright red cloak of the mountebank. At the time the druid was wild shaped as a large earth elemental. The other players suggested the druid should take the cloak.
GM: “I think the earth elemental wearing the cloak would be funny. It would look like a napkin on you.”
Druid: “A teleporting elemental would be funny.”
Monk: “A telemental!”

At the beginning of the session:

GM: “How’s the party doing for resources?”
Brawler: “Fists for days!”

A GM in our group is thinking of running an Eberron campaign in 5th edition. I kind of wish he'd run it in Pathfinder.

#GamerWorldProblems

GM: "I don't think you've been told why the temple was abandoned."
Player: "Their Yelp review score was 1.5."

The PCs have been forced to participate in a chariot race. All of the chariots are drawn by camels.
GM: "It's a clash of camels."
Player 1: "Clash of Camels, the new novel from George RR Martin!"
Player 2: "Is that from 'A Tale of Sand and Spit'?"

GM: "We haven't played the adventure path for a while. Let's start from the beginning."
Tengu: "I remember pecking my way out of the egg."
GM: "Here, let me show you in interpretive dance!"

One of our group's running gags is when a character is flying, we ask what style of flight - Superman or Dark City. Recently we added a 3rd option - Wonder Woman.
Player 1's PC starts to fly.
Player 2: "Are you flying Superman, Dark City, or Wonder Woman?"
Player 1: "Greatest American Hero."

Not during a game session, but...
My husband and I are discussing new abilities for our Pathfinder PCs.
Husband, reading from a source book: "Inspire Minions."
Me: "I'm not your minion, you're all my minions! Elf, older and smarter than everyone else, duh!"

I like to collect minis. While looking at Dark Sword Miniatures' 'Critter Kingdom' line of anthropomorphic animals, I thought, why not a campaign about a group of anthropomorphic animal adventurers? Perhaps they've been cursed or the victims of a magical accident, or maybe they come from another plane or country where anthropomorphic animals are the norm.

I like the idea that they're cursed. Then they have to persuade people to recognize them and take them seriously.

But I also like the idea of them coming from someplace where they're the norm, like a magical fantasy version of Zootopia, and then ending up in a traditional fantasy setting surrounded by humanoids.

My main grievance is never having enough time to get through a campaign. Dead Suns? My group is just about to meet Gevalarsk Nor. Another AP I started GMing a year or two ago, they're about to fight the boss at the end of book 1. If by "about" you mean "whenever, if ever, we can schedule a game with more than one person coming"

Our group has been playing through one AP since 2011. We're in the 3rd book, I think. It's taken us that long because the GM is often unavailable. Our last session of that AP was in 2016. The GM kept saying he wanted to get back to it in 2017 or 2018, but he hasn't been around much. Evidence is beginning to pile up that he may have moved and canceled his mobile phone account.

I only recently finally finished painting a mini for my character, after being unable to paint minis for the past 6 years. I suspect I'll never get to use that mini again for that character.

PLAYER to GM: "Wait, the villain's doing something else? It's my turn to do something else!"
GM: "Nope, nope, nope. He's a villain. They get seven standard actions."

The player-characters have slain three efreeti.
PLAYER 1: "We're just churning out some efreet sausage over here. It's spicy hot!"
PLAYER 2: "Efreet meat! Get your efreet meat here!"

PLAYER rolls a Knowledge (Arcana) check to find out about a desert drake's abilities. After asking a couple of ordinary questions...
PLAYER: "What was his college major?"
GM: "Draconic Arts."

A monster speaks in Ignan.
PLAYER: "I'm ignanorant of that language."

The druid, wild-shaped as a falcon, blasts some enemies with a call lightning spell.
OTHER PLAYER: "That's some bird poop you don't wanna mess with."

Oy, that makes me feel old, and sad. I was 14 when the original game was released, but I didn't start playing D&D until around 1996. I moved last year and all my old binders got tossed due to water damage. :(

More moldy oldies...

The same party that included Pakkin the goblin NPC also included a dwarf barbarian/fighter named Rock.

A monster had tried to swallow Rock.
PLAYER: "It can't attack now. It ate a Rock!"

Rock's player was absent so another player was running Rock.
PLAYER (rolls a 1 on a Will save): "I broke Rock's Will!"

CLERIC: "[Enemy] is between a Rock and a hard place."

ROCK'S PLAYER: "Can I have a resurRocktion?"

Rock falls down a flight of stairs due to a failed Dex save.
ROCK'S PLAYER: "It's a Rock tumbler!"

GM (to Rock): "The creature slams into you and rocks you back."
ROCK'S PLAYER: "Uh-huh, I Rock here."

FIGHTER: "He Rocked her world."
GM: "That staggers her."
PALADIN: "Does staggering provoke an attack of opportunity?"

ROCK'S PLAYER: "I'm going to stand at the edge of the room and hate people."
GM: "[Fighter], what are you doing?" (The fighter and Rock were best buds.)
FIGHTER: "I'm hanging with Rock, but I'm not hating."
ROCK'S PLAYER: "Rock's all about the hate."

Rock rages during combat.
CLERIC: "Sorry, Rock is in a rage right now, if you'd like to leave a message."

I found an old document with some funny stuff from a campaign our group had 5-6 years ago.

The party had a goblin NPC named Pakkin. The name was the source of many jokes and puns.

GM: "You can borrow Pakkin's pants."
PLAYER: "Is he Pakkin pants?"
GM: "No, he's Pakkin heat. A slow, spreading warmth."

GM: "Pakkin is 'confused'."
PLAYER: "But that's his normal state so he doesn't have to make a save."

PALADIN: "This ring summons a huge monstrous centipede. Let's give it to Pakkin."
GM (as Pakkin): "I'm not hungry."

The party had just had dinner at a prince’s palace.
CLERIC: "Can we get a doggy bag?"
FIGHTER: "We all leave quickly and tell the waitress that Pakkin is paying for dinner."

Pakkin had spent most of his time with the party's paladin.
GM: "[Paladin] realizes that she can recognize the faithful of Elishar by the light in their eyes. Which means that Pakkin would have a very slight glow."
PALADIN: "He's kind of a believer?"
FIGHTER: "He's a dim bulb."

GM: "What spell is it?"
CLERIC: "Summon Pack and Herd."
PALADIN: "Summon Pakkin?!"

Just Saturday I was talking to the GM of one of our games and was reminded of a thing that bothers me:
Spells that are shared by more than one class, and spell descriptions that make it sound like everyone, everywhere casts that spell exactly the same way.

Seriously, in the real world people from the same backgrounds don't all make food the same way. So why would all races, classes, and nationalities cast spells the same way, or know the same standard list of spells?

Reaper's Chronoscope line has some modern minis, as well as sci-fi and superheroes.

https://www.spectreminiatures.com/collections/
Most of them are holding guns, though, so that may not fit what you're looking for.

There's also Wargames Foundry's Street Violence line: https://www.wargamesfoundry.com/collections/street-violence

Hasslefree Miniatures modern & post-apocalyptic :
http://www.hfminis.co.uk/shop?category=modern-%26%0D%0Apost%252dapoc

Copplestone Castings Future Wars:
https://www.copplestonecastings.co.uk/list.php?cat=1&page=1

Or go to www.coolminiornot.com or www.nobleknight.com or www.miniaturemarket.com and browse their shops. They carry a lot of different miniature lines.

I googled 'rpg miniatures modern' and '28mm modern miniatures'.

Different miniature makers have different body proportions. Reaper minis tend to have larger heads, but often when the body size is increased it will make the head look smaller if the chest and arm muscles are unusually large (just look at a professional bodybuilder - they all look like they have ridiculously tiny heads).

Other manufacturers make minis with body proportions more like real-life people, but that can make the heads looks small, too. And mini manufacturers don't all use the same scale for every mini they produce; they may all technically fit in the 28mm category (or whatever size you're looking for) but one 28mm mini can look bigger or smaller than another 28mm mini, depending on who sculpted the original model.

Like Cpt-kirstov mentioned, you didn't specify if you were looking for a mini to represent a person who's really muscular or tall, or a mini to represent a creature that is Large size category. That will make a difference. Especially if it's for a humanoid creature, there aren't a lot of Large minis out there, compared to how many Large size minis there are for monsters, for example.

I'm embarrassed that I can't remember anything specifically exciting or dumb that I did when I started roleplaying. It's been nearly 30 years, and I didn't get into tabletop RPGs until I was 35. I never went through the phase of playing with a bunch of teens or tweens, with a GM who barely knew the rules better than the players did. My first group was with a bunch of experienced players who had all been playing for at least a decade, and they walked me through the rules so I wouldn't make n00b mistakes.

But I do remember some fun stuff that happened to other players in that earliest campaign. My boyfriend (now husband) got me started, playing RuneQuest. For those not familiar with that system, RQ doesn't have classes or levels. My husband was playing a warrior type who had become a Runelord of the god Humakt - kind of like a paladin, but without the lawful good requirement (no alignment in RQ, either). One of the other players had imported a character from Palladium to RuneQuest and that character had pretty high rolls in combat too, similar to my husband's Runelord.

RQ also has something called 'divine intervention' where a PC can call on his deity to help him - any player can do it. You roll percentile dice, and if you get a certain percent (98-100 if I recall correctly) the god will intervene and give you a boost, but you may suffer a penalty afterward.

Anyway, we were involved in a difficult combat with some tough enemies, and the Runelord and the imported Palladium character both really really wanted to best their opponents. I think some of the other PCs might have been in trouble, with disabled limbs and near death, so the two powerhouse characters both called for divine intervention from their deities. Amazingly, both of them made successful rolls. Suddenly the Runelord managed to ride up to his opponent and split him like a trout (not easy to do in RQ - the game uses hit locations and hit points per body part, so he had to exceed the enemy NPC's total hit point value to kill him with one blow). The other character literally kicked her opponent's head off.

The GM described the event as being like a fireworks display with a heavenly choir singing as the two characters massacred the opposition. I think the rest of the PCs just stood there with their mouths hanging open.

It depends on the players and the GM. Typically my friends and I don't stay 100% in character through an entire session, because we're not there to be actors, we're there to play a game with friends. But we do try to keep in mind "what my character would do" based on the personality we imagine for that character. However, we have had players in our group who never think of their characters as separate individuals; their characters are just stats on a sheet of paper.

The GM also has to encourage that type of roleplaying; if the GM just pushes the PCs from one combat to the next, there probably isn't much opportunity for players to think about what their characters would do beyond choosing their next action.

I can only run original campaigns. I just can't run modules or adventure paths. I've never been able to do so with any sort of competence or confidence. Plus my players prefer homebrew campaigns. Using the PF rules we changed from our 3.5 setting (which dates back to 2e). There are some great sounding APs out there, but I don't run them. Another reason is I can't afford them.

I think it can really be a challenge to run a pre-written adventure. One of our GMs is heavily modifying an AP to better fit the style and characters of our group. That puts a lot of pressure on him to figure out what to modify and what to leave alone, and how to adapt the AP details to fit the characters and relationships we've created. But another GM is just running the AP as-is, so it really feels railroad-y and our characters don't get much time to interact with each other while they're so busy following the tracks from one combat encounter to the next.

Some of the APs aren't terribly well organized, either, so if you're not good at juggling a lot of balls it seems like it would be really difficult. Having to go look up monster stats in a bestiary, or finding that the stat block for an NPC is only included in book 1 but the NPC shows up again in book 4 can be frustrating.

The good:
We finally got back to our long-delayed Wrath of the Righteous campaign and we've been able to play it quite a lot. I'm enjoying mythic tiers so far, and our GM does a lot to tailor the AP to our characters and our play style. I get to play a slightly unusual Wizard build that I'm really excited about.

Among the highlights was our Brawler getting a boost from the Warpriest so she could leap into the air and punch out a nabasu demon who was trying to fly away.

We also started a Mummy's Mask campaign, and that's been fun, too. We had one great session in which the whole party used feather fall to jump down into a gorge from the top of a cliff, then hammered a giant and a gigantic monstrous snake, all while my Druid was flying overhead in falcon form blasting everything with lightning bolts.

In our Star Wars Saga campaign, we finished up one 'alternate history' campaign in which the heroes of the Rebellion who destroyed the Death Star were the PCs instead of Luke, Han, and Leia. We've started a new campaign 10 years into the future from that, where the New Jedi Order is busy trying to maintain peace and stability between the Empire, the Republic, and the Neutral Zone. And I get to play a Jedi who's higher level than the other PCs. This is the first time I've ever played in a campaign where all the characters aren't the same level.

I haven't been able to enjoy my hobby of painting miniatures for several years due to my living circumstances. But one of my friends offered to let me store all my painting supplies at his place and go there to paint. I've been getting lots of painting done the past couple of months.

The bad:
Our Kingmaker GM has been mostly unavailable this year, so we haven't been able to play that AP much. It's been running for 4 years now and we're still a long way from finishing.

We haven't been able to play our D&D5 campaign, because the GM has been busy completing a 5-novel series. It's good that he's finally publishing books, but I wish it didn't take away from our gaming time.

What I'm looking forward to:
Continuing to play, and hopefully being able to finish one or all of these Adventure Paths.
Maybe getting back to D&D5.
My friends all maintaining good health and financial stability.
Continuing to paint lots of minis.