SynchroniciticallyChallenged's page

The group I'm GMing recently took to rubbing elbows around town (near the end of book 1) and heartily getting into role-playing with the population.

Some of the funniest moments:

Dhampir Fabulous

Scissor Me Timbers!

I have something to add and hopefully it will help someone.

I changed the whole thing from a "Damn, we just watched that happen and now feel failure at something we couldn't prevent but man do we hate us some goblins now," to something more like, "Woah, bad things are happening... let's investigate through all this confusion... Woah that was really bad, but at least we did what we could."

Ramped it up to a fully fleshed encounter with maps.

Explanation

Three of the characters are locals and one is the son of the (now single mother) proprietor of the House of Blue Stones.

During the raid, Mama Monk acted quickly to gather all the children in the streets and fortify the orphanage while the adults helped with the defense of the town. There is a standing and modestly trained militia in this version of sandpoint. All this matters now because in the aftermath, it takes some time to find the families to which the children belong.

Next Day

Ending the cemetery encounter in which Tobyn's body is found missing, the party is walking back around front of the church with Zantus. We introduced a couple more characters at this point and the encounter helped to knit it all together nicely. (Up to six players on and off)

It's about midday at this point and as one character joins the rest with information about goblin scouting parties north of town in the woods, the party is confronted by a lone frantic child running toward them down the street.

He is crying and (through some surprisingly soft coaxing by the party's mercenary Bloodrager) eventually gets out that he and the grownups have been looking all day and can't find his parents. The child is Aren Barret.

He directs them to his house which is just down the street. Cue arrival of new player who's just found that Vernah's Fine Clothing two doors down is closed to business.

The house itself is locked and all the windows are curtained. Doors are barred and immovable. The party, after some time of fiddling with different ideas, breaks a window and pushes down a table that had been set against it on a mound of junk inside.

Long Story Short

The party found the Barret house barred and trapped Tucker's Kobold style by three goblins left behind in the aftermath of the raid. Murderholes, boards with nails in strewn about the hallways (Alergast was a carpenter and had many tools upstairs), and every book in the house dumped and piled on the only stairway to the top floor, ready to be torched.

After negotiating the murderholes with a large table that had been used to bar the door and moving the dangerous spiked boards with a longspear to make a path, they turtled to the stairway. Party rogue and cleric both reacted swiftly enough to catch the oil and alchemists fire before it set the stairwell alight.

A little later, three goblins lay dead in the upper floor and a search turned up a couple of bags of mangled and sticky bones packed behind The nest they'd made in The corner. The goblins feasted well through the night. Three bodies were found and the party got a little torn up at this point. They'd even eaten the toddler and stuck the bones in a separate sack.

Reactions

I made my players cry. Literally. Emotionally hurt and charged to strike back at the goblins.

Yes. I hear you say that it's cruel and dark, but it led to some of the best role-playing I've ever seen the folk in this group get up to. And the best part is that they didn't feel like failures. They didn't feel helpless. They felt sympathy and disgust, sure, and it made them all care so much more for these people that are little more than numbers and names.

The cleric in particular solemnly and quietly had an aside with Zantus about the bodies and then smoothly picked Aeren up and began walking him about town on his hip. Silently. Sharing space with him and making him comfortable. Wanting to do anything to keep the kid from feeling alone.

Anyway. That's what we did.

I agree that it changed the tone significantly. I find that running it my way was an excellent counterpoint to the fun and frivolity of the fair the day before. It was even hit upon quickly enough that by this point the players hadn't had time to really process their situation or the town's, keeping them on their toes.

Further, I would add that a campaign is best run by it's player characters. A story is best told by one that lived it. If things don't work in your world, the important thing to remember is that it's your world and you have as equal a share in it as the folk that populate it. Make it work.

For the record: conversation, investigation, postulation, inference, extrapolation, and adding to the exposition of any character including your own is just as important as any technical skill. For something so bogged in technicalities as running a starship, it is far more important to the telling of the story for everyone involved to try their own hand at this.

Star wars would be a boring and unknown franchise if it were simply full of folk turning hydrospanners and figuring out astrogation algorithms.

This may shed some light on bowser's mommy issues.

Oddly enough, she was invited to his wedding day before mario wrecked the chance. Awesome show. Love the 90's. To support the 'blood brother' theory, the entire show is like a stage play with costumes where nearly everyone is in on the gag. Much like the gentry and nobles playing chess with live pawns.

*static* "hey guys... this is your pilot speaking... I think we've hit some sort of temporal anomaly. Maybe a wormhole. We *have* arrived at port, but if you'll look out your starboard viewscreen, you will see our ship leaving atmo two weeks ago..." *static*

Hayden reclined in the pilot's chair of the light cruiser he was given for his mission, fingering a torn bit of molding on the underside of the arm rest. It wasn't a familiar or comfortable vessel by any means, but he was coming to learn it's idiosyncrasies. He gazed upon the moon before him with a mixed sense of awe and disgust. HK, as he had for the majority of the flight, stood motionless to Hayden's left, just behind his periphery. The faint hum of his core machinery the only thing to note his presence. Hayden suspected the Jedi that reprogrammed this unit had left quite a few intimidation protocols in place. He also suspected that this had been done apurpose.

 "I recall Jedi Master Kel Motha declaiming with praise the diverse and engaging sprawl of Nar Shaddaa. I don't think he's ever been here," he said as he watched a small shuttle land, and it's crew debark upon a tiny pad jutting from the side of a derelict skyscraper. He could just make out the crew entering into a conversation with the pad's attendant.

"[Mocking, yet insightful interjection] If you will remember, Jedi Hayden, at least two of the masters on the council suggested you and former master Sharron be made to serve a penance. I do not claim to be included in their deliberation, but I do think they aimed to take more than your lightsaber. I would be greatful for this mercy and look upon this festering heap of easy targets as a way to hope they forget about you and your indiscretions."

"Castration jokes get no funnier by their repetition, Theta Zero," he replied as he watched blaster fire erupt upon the small landing pad. He leaned forward and quickly rerouted the autopilot to find a path through another sector. Straight lines had their merit, Hayden thought, but the scenic route spoke for itself. There was no hurry. They were headed to a location apparently owned by a Jedi stationed here in secret and there was no time table of which he was aware.

"[Confused query] Was I joking, Jedi Hayden?"

"I'm remembering this and the last week of our trip the next time you need maintenance. It's not like I don't feel bad enough she's out in the nether crack of the galaxy because of me. And mother... Well... I bet she'd be proud I'm out here and away from Jedi influence. This place looks like a nest of politicians. She could holiday here and feel right at home."

"[Agreement] Senator BeShawn would very well own half of Nar Shaddaa in a short time with her skillset and expertise. Her drive and commitment are admirable for a meatbag."

"Have you ever been here, Theta Zero?"

"[Statement] Before being reprogrammed by the Jedi, I was one of three hundred and seventy units dispatched to Nar Shaddaa in the hunt for the jedi exile. [Reminiscent Recitation] It was an exciting time and many thrilling kills were had. Sadly, our bounty escaped and wrecked quite a lot of property in egress. No doubt due to the host of deadly hunters on his trail. [Warning] The power vacuum created in the Exchange by the Jedi exile has caused this moon to become far more hostile and volatile to the average traveler. It would be wise to proceed with caution."

"Ah, but we're far removed from the average traveler. I think we ought to be alright."

"[Proud Statement] Of course we will, Jedi Hayden. I'm here."

"I once read a discourse on privilege in my time at the Academy on Coruscant. It was written some hundreds of years ago by a man (a Jedi of the council) exiled and a fugitive from his home world of Jetarax minor, apparently for the crime of being force sensitive and unwilling to be confined to the secluded island upon which a lonely monastery stood. He came from a sociologically primitive culture in which his gift was misunderstood by the masses and exploited by those in power. He described the island upon which his brethren in the Force spent their years as a prison and a larder, it's inhabitants forced to task daily in the making of instruments of war, and in saying sooth for the masters of the world.

"The book was boorish and lengthy, but he made some excellent points that have stuck to my mind like an embarrassing moment from childhood. He concluded that privilege means 'private law' in its most basic sense and that it is something often sought and dearly paid for, but rarely earned or well kept. His postulation that those with privilege ought to be charged with dispensing it, is something that I've thought on since the day I read the words. It could be taken to mean a number of things.

"My mother is a woman of privilege. A Senator of the Republic representing an entire system. I was born into it, this private law, and despised it from the start. I saw how her lies and compromises destroyed her integrity. At least, from afar. It's not like we're close. My best friend and nanny was a top-of-the-line T2 unit until I was old enough for her to pay for me to have the privilege to attend an Academy that regulated my day nearly to the bowel movement and left her free to carouse and lie the day away with her 'friends' at the... excuse me. I digress.

"...the dispensing it thing. Right. At any rate, it has occurred to me as I've aged and left behind much... at least, some... of my contempt for the rich and fanciful that those same rich and fanciful folk fail at the outset to dispense the private law that they so covet. Never once have I seen a man from CoCo town invited to a gala at the Chev'mon Ducat. Never once have I seen a senator or lobbyist throwing cred chips to the destitute and homeless of the lower levels despite their privilege earned from earmarks for such-and-such corporation. Doctors and surgeons have never flung from their mighty penthouse suites kolto packages and med kits for those that die of paper cuts and a grievous lack of insurance. They all share such things with their own kind. Those that already have such options. Perhaps that is why they fail to learn privilege's lessons and lose it so quickly.

"I realize, before you condemn me to only speaking in generality and from my own experience, that these folk I describe are not every or the only examples of leadership and privilege there is to be had. I realize that there are folk that try; those that do. Leaders and Senators and Doctors and other Gifted people that give of their hearts in everything they do. I've seen the most of it in the Jedi. Perhaps that's why, in my youth, I gave my future to them. Perhaps that's why, in my adulthood and my growth in understanding, it hurts so much to be taken away from the good I was trying to do. I mean. I get it. And it's not really exile. Just some time to learn from mistakes and grow as a person. Hopefully..."

Howdy.

AFishWithHorns is no longer an available login for me to use as I've neglected to remember the password for the email to which it is assigned. I will, henceforth, be posing with this alias.

The search for a suitable mohawked avatar is yet underway.

I am the unnamed co-conspirator of this fantastic and expansive idea that rests in Mr. Terrigan's capable and devoted hands.

Character flesh and pith soon to come. Will be posting ideas, jokes, cooking tips, preference for interior color palate and upholstery of the ship, and other important things as they come to me.