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When I wash in college, I was told by the GM of an upcoming campaign that I was under no circumstances going to be permitted to play the standard chainmail bikini half-elf rogue I normally played.
That was his first mistake. ;)
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a standard-issue sex-kitten-fighter again.
I didn't know this was a thing and am confused that this statement exists.
(I mean, I know the "chainmail bikini" thing is a thing, but it's funny because I always thought it was a joke based on art. I don't think I've ever run into it in any game I've ever actually played. Even when it was with pretty thirsty dudes.)
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I tended to base my characters off of illustrations I saw in the 2nd edition books, Dungeon/Dragon/Realms of Fantasy magazines, late night B adventure movies...
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I tended to base my characters off of illustrations I saw in the 2nd edition books, Dungeon/Dragon/Realms of Fantasy magazines, late night B adventure movies...
That does kind of point to a need to show different illustrations of character attire.
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You left out Red Sonja comic books. :-)
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You left out Red Sonja comic books. :-)
Actually ALL comic books of that era.
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I tended to base my characters off of illustrations I saw in the 2nd edition books, Dungeon/Dragon/Realms of Fantasy magazines, late night B adventure movies...
That... that's fair!
That does kind of point to a need to show different illustrations of character attire.
Hah! I'm all for ever-more artistic illustrations!
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If my players insist on wearing a chainmail bikini, more power to them I guess, but they will have a hard time convincing me that it qualifies as a chain shirt.
I also find it a bit weird, because even in my capacity as a lesbian, I don't find it to be a particularly attractive or appealing look in the first place.
As for things my GM won't let me do, I probably shouldn't be allowed to interact with small children (my way of "helping" a 6 year old child who had recently watched his dad get eaten by ogres was to give him my light crossbow and a quick tutorial on how to use it)
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The chain bikinis seem like they would do a lot of pinching in places you wouldn't want pinched in the least.
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As for things my GM won't let me do, I probably shouldn't be allowed to interact with small children (my way of "helping" a 6 year old child who had recently watched his dad get eaten by ogres was to give him my light crossbow and a quick tutorial on how to use it)
I dunno, sounds like a darned good solution to me!
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Summoning a pinch happy crab into a foe's armor.
Not even if I allow them a reflex save.
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What! But that's what pinch-happy crabs are for, GB! XD
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Summoning a pinch happy crab into a foe's armor.
Not even if I allow them a reflex save.
LOL!
However, the GM can fairly claim that you don't actually have Line Of Sight to the summoning point.
As for things my GM won't let me do, I probably shouldn't be allowed to interact with small children (my way of "helping" a 6 year old child who had recently watched his dad get eaten by ogres was to give him my light crossbow and a quick tutorial on how to use it)I dunno, sounds like a darned good solution to me!
That would just get the kid killed .
To be of any value, much more serious training would be needed. Are you willing to take the kid on as a long term follower (i.e., a squire/apprentice situation)?
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I am no longer allowed to distract a large number of enemies by summoning several earth elementals...followed by wall of iron...followed by the elementals "nudging" the wall to fall the appropriate way...
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I am no longer allowed to distract a large number of enemies by summoning several earth elementals...followed by wall of iron...followed by the elementals "nudging" the wall to fall the appropriate way...
Why is this tactic a problem?
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Because I thought of it and he didn't.
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Also, in his Lord of the Rings ripoff campaign back in the mid-90's, he had his Sauron-surrogate about to finish the reforging of The One Ring. He didn't like my plan to intercept the will of Sauron-surrogate into my staff of the magi (one of two he had given me, mind you) and then purposefully detonate it. I figured I either died gloriously or got shifted to another plane of existence, but I was definitely going to take Sauron-surrogate out using his own will trapped within my staff.
My DM just looked at me and said "I'm simply not going to allow that."
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Not so much of what I would ban a player from doing, but due to a player insisting upon a ridiculously lengthy discussion about the hinges on the door to the Ultimate Cathedral of Evil, all doors in my campaigns are sliding doors.What is it with players and doors? Good grief! I bet I've logged a thousand game hours of explaining to players which way the door opened and why.I hear you. I think it's the mentality of players who are either 1) just trying to break the game/ruin the GM's plans by thinking of something the GM didn't, or 2) think too hard about/try too hard to apply reality to a systematized game system. E.g., the door's hardness is the door's hardness, it doesn't matter if you are breaking it down toward the way it opens or not--but they will argue to the ends of the earth that it will or should. My player was mostly coming from #2, and his stance exacerbated by the fact that he worked construction IRL and wanted his IRL knowledge to be useful in game--never mind that I repeatedly told him he was metagaming and his half-drow ranger would not have the same understanding of construction he does (and indeed did not have the right skills trained to succeed on the roll required to analyze the door's engineering).
The problem with both groups of players is that they overlook the fact that a good GM at least is not going to present them an obstacle they cannot overcome. In this case, I had designed at least four different ways to get into the cathedral. Through the front doors was, for reasons at least obvious to me (it was the most visible entrance to the headquarters of the Chief Evil Bad Guy), going to be the hardest because of course the doors would be well reinforced (and this was a high level game with high level adversaries that had forbiddance and all kinds of other magical reinforcements, wards, and contingencies preventing easy passage through it). Rather than think, "well, the GM must have come up...
if I could go back in time and talk my namesake out of some of what lead to the eventual player/DM cold war, I would.
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When I wash in college, I was told by the GM of an upcoming campaign that I was under no circumstances going to be permitted to play the standard chainmail bikini half-elf rogue I normally played. And this was to be a space game with no swords or chainmail in it anywhere. So I wrote up a character who was a dowdy astrophysicist, useful in the group as the one who can figure out the problems with her brain instead of her brawn. About two hours into our first session, there was some type of bizarre event (I forget what... a supernova caused by a warp core breach or vice versa or some crap like that, caused by the big bad who had been hiding on the ship) that caused both DNA and personality mutations in the entire crew, and the GM told me that I ripped off my shirt, shook my hair out of the bun, and was to improvise a weapon and start fighting the big bad. Now.
Everyone else in the group thought it was fricking hilarious.
Especially when I was told that, no, this wasn't the real campaign, it was just an elaborate joke. Now we were going to roll up our actual characters for the game that would start *next* session. I never wanted to play a standard-issue sex-kitten-fighter again.
...what?
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a standard-issue sex-kitten-fighter again.I didn't know this was a thing and am confused that this statement exists.
(I mean, I know the "chainmail bikini" thing is a thing, but it's funny because I always thought it was a joke based on art. I don't think I've ever run into it in any game I've ever actually played. Even when it was with pretty thirsty dudes.)
I see you have signed up to game with me. You have chosen wisely.
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Graffiting DT is suppressing the show Evil on dungeon walls.
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Also, in his Lord of the Rings ripoff campaign back in the mid-90's, he had his Sauron-surrogate about to finish the reforging of The One Ring. He didn't like my plan to intercept the will of Sauron-surrogate into my staff of the magi (one of two he had given me, mind you) and then purposefully detonate it. I figured I either died gloriously or got shifted to another plane of existence, but I was definitely going to take Sauron-surrogate out using his own will trapped within my staff.
My DM just looked at me and said "I'm simply not going to allow that."
Oh come one now I once had a player save a mirror of opposition the whole game long enough that I forgot about it and used it on the final boss of the campaign and I still allowed it!
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Oh come one now I once had a player save a mirror of opposition the whole game long enough that I forgot about it and used it on the final boss of the campaign and I still allowed it!Also, in his Lord of the Rings ripoff campaign back in the mid-90's, he had his Sauron-surrogate about to finish the reforging of The One Ring. He didn't like my plan to intercept the will of Sauron-surrogate into my staff of the magi (one of two he had given me, mind you) and then purposefully detonate it. I figured I either died gloriously or got shifted to another plane of existence, but I was definitely going to take Sauron-surrogate out using his own will trapped within my staff.
My DM just looked at me and said "I'm simply not going to allow that."
I once held on to a portable hole and bag of holding for nearly a year before deploying them offensively in the final fight of the campaign.
Worth it.
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Apparently I'm no longer allowed to use attacks of opportunity.
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Apparently I'm no longer allowed to use attacks of opportunity.
Ha! I've been forgetting to use those for years now!
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A friend of mine just threw down his D&D 3.0 Player's Handbook and stopped gaming completely because he hated attacks of opportunity, even though we had had a similar houserule going back as far as 1e in our group. He called me before Christmas to ask what I thought of 5e because his son was taking an interest in it. I couldn't give him any insight because none of us play 5e. He asked did it still have (insert profanities of your choice here) attacks of opportunity in it. I said yes and he told me that was the clincher. He wasn't going to buy it for his son because he refused to DM any game that had them in it.
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NO ONE EXPECTS THE AOO INQUISITION!
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3.5 rules supposedly in use.
Big bad orc chieftan gets surrounded by my character (1/1/1 barbarian/ranger/druid), my wolf companion, a 3 rogue, and a 3 warblade.
The wizard decides to hit the orc with scorching ray and does the most damage by far in that round.
DM decides the orc is going for the wizard. By just sauntering over there. No acrobatics. No special moves. Just...walks...
I mentioned AOOs. Yeah, he agrees those should happen. I ask if the wolf's can be resolved first. Sure. The wolf trips the orc.
Now the rest of us continue on to resolve our AOOs...and the DM says "Well, you tripped him up, that's enough. I'm not going to allow ALL of those attacks."
In the What's the Plan Stan Weekend thread, I mentioned that the DM is making up his own ruleset as he goes.
This was one of those times.
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Did somebody say "DM is making up his own ruleset as he goes..."?
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3.5 rules supposedly in use.
Big bad orc chieftan gets surrounded by my character (1/1/1 barbarian/ranger/druid), my wolf companion, a 3 rogue, and a 3 warblade.
The wizard decides to hit the orc with scorching ray and does the most damage by far in that round.
DM decides the orc is going for the wizard. By just sauntering over there. No acrobatics. No special moves. Just...walks...
I mentioned AOOs. Yeah, he agrees those should happen. I ask if the wolf's can be resolved first. Sure. The wolf trips the orc.
Now the rest of us continue on to resolve our AOOs...and the DM says "Well, you tripped him up, that's enough. I'm not going to allow ALL of those attacks."
In the What's the Plan Stan Weekend thread, I mentioned that the DM is making up his own ruleset as he goes.
This was one of those times.
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I'm not allowed to use mythic anymore.
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"What rules?"
"Mythic. Mythic."
*Carol Kane leans around corner*
"Yeth?"
"Good grief. A running gag."
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I probably won't use mythic except as an option for after 20 because while their leveling is such a drastic shift in power dynamics. It's to hard to balance.
Also Quibble I was expecting a Robert Asprin reference. So disappointed.
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Also Quibble I was expecting a Robert Asprin reference. So disappointed.
Robert Asprin wasn't in the Muppet Movie. How does that even make sense?
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...The wolf trips the orc.
Now the rest of us continue on to resolve our AOOs...and the DM says "Well, you tripped him up, that's enough. I'm not going to allow ALL of those attacks."...
It has been a while since I got deep into this stuff, but I think your GM may be following the rules after all.
AoO was provoked because the orc left a threatened square. The wolf interrupts that, and resolves his action before the orc leaves the square. Once the orc is tripped, he has no longer left a threatened square, thus no longer provokes AoOs. As I understand it, after the wolfs AoO, it returns to the orcs initiative. The orc has used a move action to no effect, and still has a standard action left.The Orc is totally screwed at this point anyway, as he will either have to fight while prone, or risk AoOs from everyone for standing or crawling 5 feet (both separate move actions then the one that provoked the wolf's trip AoO). Note that he can not be tripped during those AoOs, because he is technically still prone when the AoOs occur.
I could be wrong, it has been a while since I played/GMed Pathfinder, and even longer since I played/GMed 3.5.
I found over the years that the GM generally had to be able to handwave most rulings without debate, because so many aspects of the game are highly debatable. I've been poking around the 3.5/Pathfinder rules for over 15 years, and I would guess there is a 25% chance I'm wrong about this.
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...The wolf trips the orc.
Now the rest of us continue on to resolve our AOOs...and the DM says "Well, you tripped him up, that's enough. I'm not going to allow ALL of those attacks."...It has been a while since I got deep into this stuff, but I think your GM may be following the rules after all.
AoO was provoked because the orc left a threatened square. The wolf interrupts that, and resolves his action before the orc leaves the square. Once the orc is tripped, he has no longer left a threatened square, thus no longer provokes AoOs. As I understand it, after the wolfs AoO, it returns to the orcs initiative. The orc has used a move action to no effect, and still has a standard action left.The Orc is totally screwed at this point anyway, as he will either have to fight while prone, or risk AoOs from everyone for standing or crawling 5 feet (both separate move actions then the one that provoked the wolf's trip AoO). Note that he can not be tripped during those AoOs, because he is technically still prone when the AoOs occur.
I could be wrong, it has been a while since I played/GMed Pathfinder, and even longer since I played/GMed 3.5.
I found over the years that the GM generally had to be able to handwave most rulings without debate, because so many aspects of the game are highly debatable. I've been poking around the 3.5/Pathfinder rules for over 15 years, and I would guess there is a 25% chance I'm wrong about this.
The orc provoked AOOs from all of the characters by leaving the threatened square. That doesn't change based on the order of resolution, when in fact all of them would be taking place simultaneously.
I simply asked for the wolf's to be resolved first because I had a hunch he would pull something like that and I didn't want our wizard, who was playing in her first ever session, to get creamed into a paste immediately after casting her first spell.
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...The wolf trips the orc.
Now the rest of us continue on to resolve our AOOs...and the DM says "Well, you tripped him up, that's enough. I'm not going to allow ALL of those attacks."...It has been a while since I got deep into this stuff, but I think your GM may be following the rules after all.
AoO was provoked because the orc left a threatened square. The wolf interrupts that, and resolves his action before the orc leaves the square. Once the orc is tripped, he has no longer left a threatened square, thus no longer provokes AoOs. As I understand it, after the wolfs AoO, it returns to the orcs initiative. The orc has used a move action to no effect, and still has a standard action left.The Orc is totally screwed at this point anyway, as he will either have to fight while prone, or risk AoOs from everyone for standing or crawling 5 feet (both separate move actions then the one that provoked the wolf's trip AoO). Note that he can not be tripped during those AoOs, because he is technically still prone when the AoOs occur.
I could be wrong, it has been a while since I played/GMed Pathfinder, and even longer since I played/GMed 3.5.
I found over the years that the GM generally had to be able to handwave most rulings without debate, because so many aspects of the game are highly debatable. I've been poking around the 3.5/Pathfinder rules for over 15 years, and I would guess there is a 25% chance I'm wrong about this.
The orc provoked AOOs from all of the characters by leaving the threatened square. That doesn't change based on the order of resolution, when in fact all of them would be taking place simultaneously.
I simply asked for the wolf's to be resolved first because I had a hunch he would pull something like that and I didn't want our wizard, who was playing in her first ever session, to get creamed into a paste immediately after casting her first spell.
This, AoOs take place at the same time, not in any order.
For example, the first person that rolls might have an ability that teleports whatever they hit. Doesn't matter that they rolled before everyone else since there's no order, the target is getting hit by everyone then teleported.
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Hey all,
I have a terrible weakness as a GM/DM. I am absolutely useless in trying to come up or solve puzzles and riddles. I have never been able to do this. A friend is running a game soon (I'm not sure of the system) where she wanted some ideas to mull over for it.
So I've come here, hat in hand, to stand before the best minds in the gaming world (as well as Monkey Santa) to ask for some insight. Here is what she has in mind for a set up:
End of WW2, Nazis have been defeated, but a hidden faction is still trying to destroy the American government by destroying all government documents. Without the historical documentation, how could the country be rebuilt? A group of intrepid government documents librarians must stop the destruction. Need puzzles for them to solve to save the country.
Any ideas? If you'd rather not clutter up the forum with stuff feel free to PM me. Thanks!
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Just off the top of my head, there could be a substitution cypher puzzle using the Dewey Decimal System and longitude/latitude coordinates.
FOR EXAMPLE: The Library of Congress is located at 38 degrees N, 77 degrees West (dropping decimals). That corresponds to General Encyclopedic Works in Scandinavian Languages (38) and News, Media, and Publishing in Eastern Europe/Russia (77).
So if they found a Nazi agent with two books (or intercepted a delivery to a suspected agent OF those books), one being an encyclopedia in Swedish and the other being an archived news collection from the Soviet Union...
The agents could be communicating with one another that way to give target locations--there are plenty of libraries to target.
EDIT: Riffing on the categorization theme, there could be a deceased agent (for either side) whose cover was an antiquarian book seller. Close study of his shelves reveals a number of mis-shelved books. Returning them to the correct order causes a secret door to open...
There's always playing around with the infamous Voynich Manuscript. Since it's never been decoded, you can project any set of meanings onto it.
MORE EDIT: Page and/or line numbers from classic books could also be a fun puzzle. For instance, suppose one bad guy has checked out Virgil's Aeneid, Shakespeare's Hamlet, and Milton's Paradise Lost. The notepad he was writing on in the library is missing a page, but graphite rubbing the remaining blank page reveals several quotes from those books. The page numbers (or line numbers) corresponding to those quotes provide a sequence of ten digits...
...ten digits being a standard phone number length. A quick trip to the local Bell office reveals that the number belongs to a payphone in a park...
EVEN MORE EDIT: Suppose one of those Nazi moles had embedded themselves in the American publishing industry. And suppose there's a "Payola" style scam going on where certain books are being listed as "best-sellers" in exchange for money. One book every week, with a title that the editor insisted on that contains only two H's. And on page 88 of that book (H being the 8th letter of the alphabet and the Nazis using the double 88 as a stand-in for Heil A%+!#!$)... there's always one sentence with a typo. Those sentences, scattered through different books since 1945, spell out a plan to agents who know what to look for. And intrepid librarians who have to get all the bestsellers for the past year or so to figure out what's going on.
LAST EDIT: Well, I'm going to go to bed and have nightmare looping dreams about Nazi bibliophiles and the librarians who have to decipher their nefarious plans.
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Guys, I didn't realize it but I posted this question in the wrong thread. I'm sorry about this. I wasn't paying attention and it was not my intent to derail the thread at all.
Quibble, thank you so much for the suggestions. Because when I say I am no good at puzzles or riddles, either devising or solving, that just simply does not convey the depth of how bad I am...LOL
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Aha! I think Vanykrye and Rysky are correct. I also think I need to buy more 'Y's if I'm going to keep typing your names!
I never really had a problem with the concept of AoOs, I just wish they were limited to simple attacks, and didn't include combat maneuvers. With attacks for damage, things stay pretty simple, and rarely result in bizarre alternate timelines where everyone gets AoOs for something that never happened.
I don't want to derail the thread, but does anyone know how Pathfinder Mk2 handles AoO? I can't seem to find a PRD type doc that addresses AoOs.
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Is having plague spreading undead wearing makeup to disguise their dead white skin and pustules too political? Asking for a friend.
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I shouldn't even try to name my paladin Joe Biden. Forget I said anything.
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Anybody who claims to be "the best" <whatever>... isn't.
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Anybody who claims to be "the best" <whatever>... isn't.
With the possible exception of Wolverine.
Ok, fine, I'll go make a real point somewhere else. pbthpbpbthttht.
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My most recent DM has decided I'm not allowed to ask so many questions anymore. Or, more accurately, I'm not allowed to QUESTION HIM anymore.
Man, I would find myself at a very lonely and empty game session if I tried to pull something like that with my group. As we use Theater of the Mind pretty much exclusively my players pepper me with questions about pretty much everything, and that includes rules interpretations and stuff whipped up on the fly. If I were to stomp my foot and declare no one was allowed to question me I'd be immediately compared to a certain incumbent president and told where I could shove my dice.
I love my group.