fragnar0k's page

I've never had this happen to me, but it did happen to a friend of mine very recently in the game I'm running. He was a wizard, who's motivation in the party was service to the party's leader (a fighter). The group met many hardships in the underdark, and the fighter apologized to the mage for putting him in the way of more danger than he'd ever expected, and released him from his service if he wanted to. When they reached the surface, the wizard had no in game motivations to stay with the party at all, and he left. He rejoined as a slightly lower level character under different circumstances later.

Assuming nothing like that can happen, consider this. Almost all of my characters start out iconic, and very set in their ways. I only ever had one character that stayed that way (A Jedi in a star wars game, which was really fun to play), the rest all slowly changed over time. As they experienced the real world, and grew in levels, they changed their perspective over time, many times more closely matching my own, as it is my out of game perspective of things that dictates what they perceive, in a sense. I'm not talking about metagaming here, I'm talking about the unavoidable fact that our characters are influenced by the way we think. So slowly over time, my characters change and grow, and I always have fun with the result. And I think that's the pinnacle of role playing.

So let marcus change and grow with new experiences. Just because he's stalwart and set in his ways now doesn't mean he can't ever change.

What? Are we supposed to post Halloween adventures here or something?

I think he was just wellwishing, actually.

This isn't *quite* what you're looking for, but my dark-and-sinister-bad-guys-attempt-to-destroy-the-world plot that I've yet to be able to use is as follows:

A bad guy, protected by a bunch of other bad guys, is travelling to the lowest point of the earth, a volcano, wherever it makes sense. He plans on sending a sphere of annihiliation burrowing down into the center of the earth, and then magically transporting a rod of cancellation to it, creating a massive explosion at the centre of the earth that causes the world to tear itself apart seismically.

Cool additions include making the rod a super duper rod of rulership (he has charmed a LOT of badguys to protect him) or of super duper earth elementalism (He has a lot of earth elementals with him, and can shape the earth to make the hole for the sphere of annihiliation). These are real vagueties, things could be worked out more specifically (he does it in a volcano instead of center of the earth, seals the top and causes magma disharge around the earth, whatever).

I thought of this back in 2nd edition, and nowadays a dawnstar explosion does more damage than the rod/sphere combo, so that could be done instead too. The dark arch enemy has murdered the righteous avatar of pelor, and plans to use his dawnstar, weapon of justice, to sunder the earth itself!

Yes, I have a penchant for evil.

/muahaha.

My group usually alternates between d20 Star Wars and D&D, and the Sabacc rules for SW have proven to be quite fun. You can also think of it similarly to texas hold 'em, where the rolls are the cards being drawn.

Bets are made around the table from the left of dealer (You can rotate or keep a house dealer). Players should keep their rolls secret (except the d6 roll) as showing rolls is equivalent to showing your cards... you can no longer bluff, etc. During betting, you can choose to bet or fold, and whoever has the highest total at the end of the round wins (unless everyone else has folded due to his awesome hand, or awesome bluffing).

1) <b>Ante.</b> (This should be different for different tables, high stake areas = much higher antes)
2) <b>Each player rolls a d10, and then places bets in turn.</b>(this would be the "flop" or first 3 cards in hold 'em)
3) <b>Each player rolls a d20 +int mod and +2 for having 5 ranks in bluff, intimidate, gamble, and anything else you deem appropriate. Then players place their final bets, in turn.</b> (This would be the "turn" in hold 'em)
4) <b>Each player rolls a d6. If they get a one, the last card has not gone their way... subtract 10 from their total.</b>(This would be the "river" in hold 'em)

The players then add up their totals for the d10, d20, int mod, and skill bonuses, and whoever has the highest wins the hand.

I know it's been a blast to play in game (bluffing is quite fun and viable in sabaac), so I hope you enjoy. You can of course call it Sabaac, hold 'em, or make up some silly d&d name like <i>Dragon's Hoarde</i> depending on your setting.

If my explanation wasn't super clear, just drop a message, I'll be watching this thread. :)