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Klingons are not Vesk.
Correct. The Gorn are Vesk.
They may not be strictly gaming, but the terms neckbeard and fake geek really set me off, and actually calling someone by either term will get you bounced from my game and kicked out of my house.
...are Shadowrun's cover rules really that bad? Anything short of an actual tree big enough to take cover behind should do pretty much nothing against military grade rifle rounds from as far back as a century ago. Future(TM) guns should have no trouble whatsoever. Part of it was just how the dice were misbehaving, and part of it was pure poor rules design. This incident was just really funny, but there were a couple others times where combat was stretched out far longer than it needed to be because of it. It eventually led me to abandon the 4th edition of the game, and I swore if I ever ran Shadowrun again, I would go back to the 2nd or 3rd edition.
So the same Shadowrun game that the Troll judo-flip happened in. The group in the course of their adventures kick down a door, and the two goons inside the room flip over the table they were sitting at to use as cover. Now this was a plain wooden table using the same stats as the rulebook gave for a plain wooden table. Shots are exchanged, and the parties bullets... bounce off the table. More shots are fired, bigger weapons are brought out. The table remains unharmed. Grenades fly, the table is unscathed. The rigger calls in a drone, with two machine guns mounted on it. The table remains undamaged. Finally one of the groups Street Sams pulls a katana leaps into the air, and brings the blade down on the table. He scratched it ... barely. The party finally managed to kill the two goons behind the table, but never managed to really hurt the table. Knowing my players, I'm still a little bit surprised that they didn't decide to take the table with them after that.
So I have a friend, who the dice absolutely hate... not just his dice, but my dice, the dm's dice, pretty much anyone who sits at the table with him, their dice hate him. And it's not just rolling low. The dice always go to the result that will be the worst for him. Add to this that he is incredibly impulsive, and well he goes through a lot of characters. I have killed his character at least three times, all accidentally. (Okay, one of those is debatable, I still hold it was an accident, and an incredibly poor decision on my part.) This is, of course, as a fellow player. It does not count the times I've killed him as a DM, or even the amount of times that he has died because someone cast haste on him... One time, we were in a new campaign and we end up in a chase. Our hobgoblin pursuers in their magical hovering "Battlewagon" closed in close enough to our normal wagon that characters could leap over to it. My friend, playing our rogue, gets the highest intiative, leaps onto the battlewagon and enters melee with the hobgoblins. The rest of the party... does not follow. From the bed of our wagon the wizard keeps casting spells, my archer keeps firing arrows, and our Cleric and even our Barbarian stay aboard firing crossbow bolts at the hobgoblins. Needless to say our rogue was getting the worst of that fight. Come my turn my Archer fires, and rolls a 1. Our game does use fumble rules but it has to be a 1 followed by missing your targets ac again. Their is no fumble table, the DM just rules whatever makes the most sense happens. I role again, miss and hit our rogue in the chest with an arrow. Gritting my teeth I roll my damage, and roll high. I look up and hear my friend, "Yes, 1 hit point left! I fall to the ground and pretend that I'm dead!" The DM ruled the hobgoblin did not even question it. I actually saved our rogues life by shooting him in the chest with an arrow, and he got to live for a while longer until he was smashed into paste by an ogre's club in a different adventure. Another time, I am running a Shadowrun game. Said unlucky player is playing a Troll Street Samurai who specialized in unarmed combat. The players managed to annoy the local mob, and ended up fighting some of their thugs on the street. No one special, mind you, just some basic "mob torpedoes" from the book. The Troll street sam comes at one of the mob thugs and throws a punch. I've never seen so many dice come up "1" at the same time before. I then rolled the toughs unarmed. There weren't near as many dice, yet they all came up "6". I then got to describe to the group how a gigantic troll charged up to a 180 to 200 pound guy in a suit, throws a massive fist at him... and the mob guy calmly ducks under the blow grabs the massive arm and judo flips a 500+ pound Troll onto a parked car, demolishing the car, and making the Troll see stars.
487.Seemingly very stressed and worried, he is consulting with his top advisors on how to stop his most dangerous foe. A minion the PC's have dealt with before walks in and asks, "Wow, is this all for [the pc's group]?" To which he replies, "Oh please, they're barely even an annoyance. This is all for [Foe x]. 487b. Bonus points if foe x is a person or group that the pc's actually know and can't stand. 488. Attending a concert. (comedic; attending a boy band concert) 489. Performing in a concert. (comedic; performing in a boy band concert) 490. Talking to a recently captured ally of the pc's who is being held in a cell that is far more luxurious and comfortable than that characters normal living conditions. 491. Reviewing plans with his political advisors on the reforms that shall be made after he takes over. 491b. For those that listen to the plans he actually seems to be far more competent and caring than those who are currently in charge. 492. He is listening to the complaints of a band of villagers about the terror plaguing the countryside. He actually seems concerned for his people. 492b. The terrors are the pc's. 492c. "What do you mean they burned down an orphanage? What kind of monsters do that?"
I was thinking about posting some of the most recent drama my groups gone through, but reading this thread reminded me of the actual worst gaming experience of my life. This was back when I was either a sophomore or junior in high school, so either 92 or 93. A little background, I grew up in a small, fairly religious town, the type where if the people don't understand something, it must be evil... Yep. I lived in a town where Dark Dungeons was taken seriously, and we weren't even allowed to have halloween parties. Needless to say my group of friends/gaming group and I were the outcasts in our school. We always ate together at lunch, and usually had three yo four other people there who weren't gamers, but were also at the bottom rung of our school's social ladder. One of there guys was annoying, just out and out irritating. We still let him sit with us because it really sucks to not have someplace to eat your lunch in peace. One weekend, we have a game of Shadowrun planned. Five of us showed up, lets call them Leader, Twink, Red, Linebacker, and myself showed up at our sixth members house. Let's call him Test. Irritating guy is there. Now we never invited irritating guy to the game, and I'm pretty sure we never even told him where Test lived. Anyway Leader and Twink try subtly hinting to Irritating guy that he should probably go as we hauled our stuff into the garage/shop/building that we gamed in. (I'm not honestly sure what it's purpose was, all I really remember was that it had a metal door, which is important later.) Irritating guy doesn't take the hint. We set up for the game. Test and Twink politely ask Irritating Guy to leave. He doesn't. We actually start the game, trying to ignore Irritating Guy. But he will not be ignored, and Leader, flat out tells him, "You were not invited. we do not want you here. Leave. Now." Irritating Guy ignores him, and Leader repeats his warning Irritating Guy ignores him again. So, Twink, Test, Red and Leader bodily carry Irritating Guy, who is kicking and screaming all the way, out of the building and dump him on the lawn. A pink belly may have been involved. Yeah, we're teenagers, we're immature. A little while later, the game has finally gotten underway when we hear a heavy pounding on the door. We roll our eyes make some comments and try to continue. The pounding continues. Finally Linebacker gets up and opens the door. Now Linebacker, has his alias implies was actually on our school's football team, so it was probably fortunate for us that he was the on who opened the door. He caught the axe Irritating Guy swung at him, by the handle, right underneath the axehead, took the axe away, calmly put it down, and then proceeded to beat the holy living hell out of Irritating Guy. As Irritating Guy ran off bawling, Test loudly proclaimed "Alright! Nobody tells their parents!" We all looked at him like he was stupid. Everyone in that room already knew that really wasn't an option.
Possibly because of your ability to manipulate magical energies, a curse, or interaction with a magical artifact, the laws of reality just don't seem to work right around you anymore. 1. Gravity. Items dropped around you fall at different rates of speed. Coins commonly land on their sides. Occasionally an item will pause in mid-air for a moment before it continues downwards. 2. Reflection. Your reflection seems less like a reflection, and more like there is a being impersonating you on the other side of the mirror. Additionally, when your alone and have your back turned, you could swear it makes faces at you. You haven't been able to catch it yet though. 3.Wind. Your hair and clothes always act as if your standing in a breeze. Additionally, if there actually is wind, they always seem to blow against it.
197. Walk into a bar in a city that hates a certain race/nationality (that one of the adventurers happens to be) and when one of the bar patrons makes the inevitable racist remark, brutally murder them. 197b. Get confused when the rest of the bar patrons run screaming from the bar shouting for the Guard. 197c. Get even more confused when they find out that they are to be arrested, put on trial, and, if found guilty, executed for their crime. 198. Take absolutely everything they find that isn't nailed down. 198b. If equipped with a crowbar and a hireling, take everything that is nailed down as well.
Oh yeah. Had a campaign with a Redcap serial killer, an insane queen trying to sink an entire city, an assassin that actually captured a player character and cut off his finger, a Necromancer that was killing and raising townsfolk as undead and an evil cult that was kidnapping and sacrificing children. But the villain the party truly hated? A thief who stole from them. Not one of their expensive magic items or even a coin purse. He stole their carriage. A carriage they would have had to abandon as they went into the mountains anyway. Just when I though they couldn't get anymore angry with him either the found the remains of their carriage. (It had been used as firewood.) They would have gone to the ends of the planet to kill this guy. As it was when they did catch up to him they not only killed him but a couple of people who happened to be standing near him. But the true beauty of it all was after all that I attached the thief's ghost to one of the magic items they looted off his corpse. (And later on when the character who had that magic item died, I attached his ghost to the item as well.) Their most hated enemy, and he would mock the party forever. (Unless they actually got rid of a useful magic item, but, come one, they're PC's...)
I used it once to dump out an enemy archers quiver. The DM gave me extra xp for that. Personally I just wanted the guy to stop shooting at me.
DM says: Would anyone else like to make a Perception check?
I think it's just easier to use tha current system and assume that this :http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0122.html happens quite a bit to adventurers.
Reminds me of a conversation in a game I once played in... GM: All right, so what kind of clothes are you wearing? Paladin: Chainmail. GM: No, your clothes not your armor. Paladin: I'm not wearing clothes. That's why I have armor. GM: Now let me get this straight, your not just wearing armor, with nothing on underneath, but you wearing chainmail? Paladin: Yeah... Me: That seems like that would chafe...
If it was just the problem player, it's a problem you could solve, but in this case it sounds like the GM is as big of a problem. You need to exercise the one piece of power that every player has over the GM and leave the game.
Sadly yes. People were saying this would happen 20 years ago when NAFTA went into effect.
Winter Blanket. I've used them to make stretchers to haul unconscious party members (or important NPC's) Wet one down and draped it over myself before dashing down a fiery corridor, used them to help reinforce a shelter when we got caught in a hurricane, plus I like the idea of staying warm when I sleep.
Made a mistake one night, and accidentally told my players that a pair of boots, that weren't actually suppose to be magical, were. While I caught my mistake, I decided to run with it, so upon identifying the boots I told my players that they were a barely magical pair of boots that had the ability to resize themselves to fit the wearers foot (As all magical boots do)and had the added benefit of being very comfortable. To my surprise, I had three players roll off for the boots. The winner wore them until the end of the campaign.
A duck(raven) is not just any duck, but a black duck, THE DUCK OF DOOM! ...or Daffy Duck... which may be better or worse than a duck of doom.
Pharasma - What can I say, I like it when the deity of death is depicted as a force of nature rather than as evil. I also like the fact that the undead are considered anathema. Nethys - I find the ideas of a bi-polar god of magic both intriguing and terrifying. |