Mine are two, and very deep in tragedy (thery were really fun to RP):
- (Player) My undead-hunter cleric spent years in his mission in the remembering of his father, great inquisitor (not the class, it was several years ago :P) of the church.
Finally found a book, a magical item helping him in the undead hunt, wrote and crafted by his father. Hints in the book suggested my father was still alive.
It came out the story about him was false, he was a fallen hero become undead. I finally had the chance to face him, but I was too weak and I fell, becoming his thrall
- (DM) In a planar-war campaign against Baatezu, the PC struggled a lot vs these devils - the campaign has been 5 years long IRL. Somewhat, reaching epic levels, they become accustomed with every archdevil, prince demon, and celestial lord, delving in their backstories other than seeing them as allies or enemies.
For a mess happened with Pazuzu, hey went back in time just before the day (my history is not canon) some Archons fell and became Devils. They RPG with Archdevils that would become their archenemies millennia after that, and watched the tragedy and what happened because were in the place (a battle at the gates of the abyss).
i played a gnome sorcerer back in 3.5 and i took craft alchemy as one of my main skills, since i was looking forward to opening my own shop at some point. i saved all my money to purchase a house/shop to sell all of my creations.
We had just entered an abandoned dwarven city that was close to the surface and we were in the process of clearing it out so that we could move in and build homes, stores, etc.
while going through one section, we came to a room that had a cage that had dropped from the ceiling, making it impossible to get into the room unless we could get through the bars of the cage.
since i was the alchemist, everyone asked me to eat through the bars with acid, but since i didnt have any, i had to make some. no biggie, right? so i just pulled out my portable alchemist kit and rolled my craft alchemy check and got a...
NATURAL 1!
The next thing the party sees is a gnome running past them screaming, "RUN AWAY!"
everyone at the table (IRL) was like "What?" then when they remembered what i was doing they all were like "OH SH.....!"
one of the greatest moments ever. its things like that that make me love roleplaying.
i played a gnome sorcerer back in 3.5 and i took craft alchemy as one of my main skills, since i was looking forward to opening my own shop at some point. i saved all my money to purchase a house/shop to sell all of my creations.
We had just entered an abandoned dwarven city that was close to the surface and we were in the process of clearing it out so that we could move in and build homes, stores, etc.
while going through one section, we came to a room that had a cage that had dropped from the ceiling, making it impossible to get into the room unless we could get through the bars of the cage.
since i was the alchemist, everyone asked me to eat through the bars with acid, but since i didnt have any, i had to make some. no biggie, right? so i just pulled out my portable alchemist kit and rolled my craft alchemy check and got a...
NATURAL 1!
The next thing the party sees is a gnome running past them screaming, "RUN AWAY!"
everyone at the table (IRL) was like "What?" then when they remembered what i was doing they all were like "OH SH.....!"
one of the greatest moments ever. its things like that that make me love roleplaying.
That cage wasnt there when we returned btw, neither was my alchemy kit :/
My 8 Chr ranger (with a stutter) trying to negotiate with a rogue NPC for shelter for my unconscious allies. The rogue had a Touretts Syndrome Tic (Iky-iky-iky about every sentence). Needless to say The GM and I spent about 10 minutes "negotiating" then I ended with a "l-l-look M-m-mushmouth hh-h-eres the gold now shut up your voice a-a-annoys me!" dropped the coins and drung my allies inot the bolt hole.
Several laughs were had.
I had one character go through some serious stuff...
My drizzt clone, Kryzbyn, after operating on the surface for 5 or 6 levels worth of time (started at first) was just beginning to gain noteriety, and not be hunted or fought on sight...
He met and fell in love with a human working girl (npc) and married her.
She had class levels (thief) and insisted on adventuring with him.
As time progressed, we found ourselves in the underdark fighting illithids, one of whom had mamaged to capture his wife, and just before he ate her brain, announced, "Oh this one is with child"...
Now I dunno what happened out of game, but my dice rolls began to utterly rock. In game, his face hardened and he just walked right up to the Illithid and killed him in 1 round. He looked after the corpse of his wife, said his goodbyes left her with the cleric and stalked off into the underdark to hunt illithid...he killed quite a few...
He erected a cairn to her, and moved on.
Later when we had returned to the city, the cleric "suprised" him by taking a peice of his wife to his church to have a true ressurection cast. He got his wife back, but sadly the baby was not regenerated with her...there was a conversation about motherhood and adventuring but she was adamant about being with him, so he took her to be trained as a fighter.
Later on, same party, run accross a deck of many things...to make a long story short, he drew a card that turns a cohort against you, and guess who that was. She drew a card that gave her a devoted 9th level fighter, who just happened to be male. It was eventually fixed with a wish spell, but wow were there some crazy Rp moments: marital un-bliss, her flirting with the fighter jsut to piss my character off, the fighter thinking he would make a better husband to her than my character and actually going so far as to challenge him (not the brightest)...all while in the middle of the underdark.
When we quit playing, we were 14th level, he retired as the baron of a parcel of land dominated by forrest, and had 2 twin half elf daughters.
That campaign lasted over 3 years, iirc, and was the best I've ever been in.
Fnipernakle, that is hilarious! Makes me worry about my party's gnome alchemist...
Thanks Dragonborn3. Its one of my favorites.
Another one was when I played a dwarven fighter with his maul (bear raper) and we were fighting goblin on top of a wall in a dungeon and they had a pendulum they kept throwing at us that was killing the party. Until I hopped on it and used it as a swing to get to the top of the wall and proceed to rape face.
Dragonsong, that post made me lol and people looked at me funny.
Dragonsong, that post made me lol and people looked at me funny.
I do what I can, and while I truly believe that many of the great RP moments in this hobby are dramatic or romantic. Sometimes it's the humorous ones the really steal the show.
Dragonsong, that post made me lol and people looked at me funny.I do what I can, and while I truly believe that many of the great RP moments in this hobby are dramatic or romantic. Sometimes it's the humorous ones the really steal the show.
+1. You get 1 hero point for a true statement.
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Dragonsong, that post made me lol and people looked at me funny.I do what I can, and while I truly believe that many of the great RP moments in this hobby are dramatic or romantic. Sometimes it's the humorous ones the really steal the show.
And yet, mine falls squarely into the first two categories simultaneously. My Swashbuckling rogue had the opportunity to crash the unwelcome wedding of his One True Love to his arch rival. He crashed the wedding literally, through the stained glass window, onto the altar, at the 'I object!' moment. An epic duel ensued, leaving my opponent, bleeding and humiliated, but still alive. Alas, no wedding happened that day or for many years to come. The church did not appreciate my property damage and demanded I make restitution. They were not to keen on accepting 'blood money' from an adventurer, so I needed to start a legitimate business to launder the money through. The rival and his family of course made this difficult every step of the way.
The DM went out of his way to make sure all the PCs had a great moment like this early in the game, earning each of us a great arch-rival.
Dragonsong, that post made me lol and people looked at me funny.I do what I can, and while I truly believe that many of the great RP moments in this hobby are dramatic or romantic. Sometimes it's the humorous ones the really steal the show.And yet, mine falls squarely into the first two categories simultaneously. My Swashbuckling rogue had the opportunity to crash the unwelcome wedding of his One True Love to his arch rival. He crashed the wedding literally, through the stained glass window, onto the altar, at the 'I object!' moment. An epic duel ensued, leaving my opponent, bleeding and humiliated, but still alive. Alas, no wedding happened that day or for many years to come. The church did not appreciate my property damage and demanded I make restitution. They were not to keen on accepting 'blood money' from an adventurer, so I needed to start a legitimate business to launder the money through. The rival and his family of course made this difficult every step of the way.
The DM went out of his way to make sure all the PCs had a great moment like this early in the game, earning each of us a great arch-rival.
Flippin sweet! I'm so stealing this!
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I was playing a halfling rogue - we were exploring an underground lair of evil creatures. I was going a head to see what was there and walked into a room with a group of Minotaurs around a table planning a battle or war against a nearby town. They saw me and started to brisle.
I said the master sent me (there was a vampire thing going on in this place). I am the new historian. The minotaurs became a bit confused for a moment and questioned me about who I was, the master and my new role. Alas, I failed to convince them that I was there to chronicle their war and battle ensued. There was death all around.
This character often just came up with a totally implausable story for why he was somewhere and what he was doing. He lied constantly but had no ranks in bluff. Normally those lies did not go well but.... I had fun.
The players were dealing with a pair of high level assassin twins. They were killing off members of a specific church of Tymora. One of the players worshipped Tymora, and the others knew that someone was targeting worshippers on a large scale in an attempt to weaken the gods. Long story short, the players knew they had to stop whoever was behind the murders. The players tried a lot of different tactics to keep the followers safe. The players moved everyone to another city, had the followers travel in groups, etc. Nothing worked, the followers kept getting picked off one by one.
The whole time, there were 1 or 2 followers who kept opposing the players plans. They would say things like "Who put YOU in charge?", "How do we know you aren't the ones responsible?", etc. There was just enough distrust towards the players that their plans to protect the followers kept failing. Finally, the players just said everyone is going stay in one room together, and no one goes anywhere. At that point the assassins decided they needed to get the players out of the way so they could finish their job. So during the attempt, one of the players ends up dead from poison that prevents resurrection(3.5 poison that gives the victim a 25 spell resist against ressurection spells). Also, one of the assassins ends up dead. At this point, one of the players recognizes the dead assassin as one of the followers that kept opposing the players. It was an epic moment as all the players suddenly realized why all of their carefully laid plans failed. They couldn't get away from the assassins, because the assassins had made themselves part of the group., and their attempts to isolate the killer kept failing because there was more than one.
So, the remaining assassin has lost her sister. One of the players is dead and cannot be resurected. The assassin contacts the players and offers the antidote in exchange for her sister's body. The dialogue that followed was pretty epic. It ended with the player's tossing the dead assassin's body into a pyre, and the remaining sister vowing revenge.
My best night mechanically speaking...
Whilst playing a 3rd edition conversion of Keep on the Borderlands the party was finding itself on the losing end of a fight in the caverns of chaos. My venerable aged human wizard was out of spells, our rogue had run out of the room to hide and the two other characters had just been dropped into negatives. We knew that our enemies were in almost as bad of shape as we were but without the damage and healing output we had just lost...it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that this was going to be a "sometimes the bear eats you" evening of D&D.
In an act of foolish desparation my wizard charged one of the main offenders with the intent of shoving them into a huge roaring fire place that the GM had described to us upon entering the encounter. The other players began to discuss our new characters in the background and our GM rolled some dice to placate me. Somehow my 7 strength overcame my oponent and into the flames they went. Some laughs were had and then the, now flaming, enemy failed a reflex save to put themself out resulting in enough damage to knock them out...on fire. So the burning enemy's protector decided to put me down and the GM rolled a 1 (pre 3.5 so it auto-failed). I then critted the brute with my strength 7 wizard (probably amounting to a terrible hit from our now dying fighter). Our party's halfling rogue that had run into hiding when things turned south on us chose this moment to re-enter the fray succeeding in an improved feint maneuver followed by a sneak attack...that critted...which was enough to put the hulking jerk down.
We were able to stabilize our friends and though we had to flee the caverns, we eventually came back and cleaned the place out.
Whenever I am getting down about how the dice are treating me I always remember that session and realize that I'm probably still paying off that hugely improbable series of dice rolls. It's also caused me to get very scrappy with whatever character I play no matter how apparently screwed the party appears to be. And I now make sure my wizards/squishies have a couple surprising melee contingencies up their sleeves which has paid out again and again. Nothing quite like a scratch from a human-bane dagger...
Wow...so many to choose from!
As a player: back in our old high school Temple of Elemental Evil campaign, I was playing a ranger who had found a wolf pup early in the campaign, which he was raising with the aid of Jaroo, the druid near Homlett. I fed that little wolf for MONTHS (game time and real time) and cared for it in hopes that it would someday become my companion. Our nefarious DM, once we had raised Iuz's hackles one-too-many times, decided he'd give us a little warning to stop our excursions in the temple. We arrived in Jaroo's grove for healing after a particularly bloody battle, and the druid is strung up in the trees and skinned, and there's Iuz, the Old Man himself, sitting there contently humming, speaking to us using my wolf's decapitated head as a finger puppet.
Nooooooooooooo!!!
And, the thing is, I wasn't mad at the DM. I was mad at IUZ! I've never watched each roll so closely as after that encounter, knowing every successful swing in the temple was one step closer to getting my revenge on that wrinkled sonofab$*%!. =-)
This was years ago, back in the 2e years. The party I was DM-ing was using a corrupt merchant to draw out an assassin that had killed the local lord (a former PC, no less). The merchant had hired the killer, and the party had spread a rumor around town that the merchant was willing to reveal the assassin, but only to a particular religious leader (who was not in town). This would force the assassin to come to their bait, to silence him.
They had holed up in his manor, locking the merchant in a room with only one entrance. They kept a guard on the entrance constantly (rotating party members). Now, at this particular session, some players were running late (holiday season, IIRC), and we decided to warm up with some RP. We pulled out some cards and dice, and got into character stories while playing tavern games. We just decided that the missing players were on watch until they showed up, and then the shift would 'rotate', allowing the missing PC to join the game as another late player's character took their shift. It was fun and worked well as a warm-up.
Eventually, the last player got there, and I started the game properly...except I didn't warn the party. I went to use the WC, came back, and announced that the NPC fighter was going to take the prisoner his dinner and replace the PC of the last player. As my wife was playing, and her elven wizard was involved with the fighter, she and I had a small in-character chat before I broke with the party. At the end of the chat, we gave each other a little peck, and I sat down with my books and let the players finish their card game...
Except the moment that the NPC was officially out of the room, my wife turned to the rest of the party and said, "That wasn't Cal. Something's wrong."
The party quibbled for only a minutes (maybe 5-6 combat rounds), and then decided to send someone out to check on the outhouse just outside the merchant's kitchen door. There, they found the fighter's body, with his heart ripped from his chest from under his ribcage. They ran upstairs, just in time to find the doppleganger(!) assassin finishing off the merchant, then leaping out of the window. He got away that day, thought they did eventually find and finish him.
What still amazes me about that session is my wife. She could tell, instinctively, that I had dropped totally into GM-character mode and that the real game had begun, and that my NPC was a different person from only ONE KISS. I told her nothing in our character chat to give the identity away, and I did nothing that was OOC for the NPC. I just gave her a little (emotionless) peck, and walked off. She figured it all out from that.
God bless her.
We've had some interesting RP encounters back in the day.
In one campaign, my friend was playing a half-ogre fighter. He used twin scimitars and this was years before Drizzt hit the scene. He was big, brawny, but not that smart.
We were adventuring in the wilderness, following an important map to an artifact we had to keep out of the hands of the enemy... an enemy who was dogging our steps the whole way. They marched with a small war band that included wizards as well as fighters and we had to keep ahead of them.
One night, the lead enemy, a woman as beautiful as she was evil, came to our camp. Brol the half-ogre was on watch. The DM took the player from the room and played out the scene. When they came back, the DM told a couple of us that we woke up hearing voices. We saw the evil woman heading off in the distance. Brol seemed to be OK.
"Brol, what just happened?"
"I gave her the map."
"WHAT?!? Why?"
"She kissed me."
"You had better have gotten a lot more than a kiss for that map!"
"... There's more?"
We laughed long and hard about that one.
On another adventure, I was playing an elven specialty priest (2nd edition) of a trickster god, so I was geared up for grift as well as general cleric stuff. There was a bounty of some sort on our heads from some enemy in the campaign and we were trying to avoid getting caught. The bounty hunter on our tail was a brute. We knew we were outclassed in any straight-up fight being, as I recall, a priest, a psionicist, a wizard, and a thief. No fighters that I can remember. Fortunately, the bounty hunter had a couple of weaknesses. He didn't know exactly what we looked like and he wasn't the brightest bulb on the Xmas tree.
The party and the bounty hunter ended up together on a ferry crossing a wide river. He's giving us the eye like he's trying to reconcile how we look with the description of his quarry. We engage him in conversation and try to fast talk him. Turns out, he comes from a society (the Shara-kai) where nobody starts out with a personal identity. He's got to earn it. He's just a Shara-kai.
We do our best. "But surely you're your own man. You're not just a Shara-kai, you're a specific Shara-kai."
He starts to eat it up. "You're right. I'm specific." He takes the name "Specific Shara-kai!" with awe in his voice.
As the conversation continues on the philosophical differences of being part of the collective and an individual, Specific Shara-kai says something that we fawn over, "That's very profound, Specific Shara-kai."
He then adds to his name "Profoundly Specific Shara-kai!"
Once the ferry hits the opposite shore, we go our separate ways and try to put as much distance between him and us as we can.
The first few levels of my first campaign rotated around a zombie apocalypse, which our party ranger and rogue released. I played a Missionary Cleric of Pelor, who was always thrust into situations he was expected to solve, being the best undead killer in the party.
At one point our ranger ran into the local noble's abandoned house in order to loot the place (without telling anything to anyone in the party). The rest of the party ended up on a rooftop a few houses down with the rest of the nobles including the one who was currently being looted. After a little while we learned where our ranger had disappeared to. The party turned to the cleric to find a way across to the other house, the streets between filled with a number of zombies that our party could in no way handle. I refused to help him, saying I sully my good name saving a thief, and instead choose to light a small fire so he could make tea.
The rest of the party was fearing for the rangers life while the cleric made friends with the nobility sharing what little tea he had, eventually a spontaneous alcohol drenched celebration erupted. All the noble's lead their new friend the cleric showing off the various toys they brought with them to this shelter. The ranger eventually ended up finding his way through the sewers to the house we were currently on to of, nearly paralyzed by various poisons the noble had in traps to protect his valuables. The cleric got a sweet robot chicken toy he would eventually sacrifice as an oil bomb-carrying device.
1) End of long and increasingly erratic game. An Elf warpriest and I, yet another Dwarf Cleric, had been running the stock antagonistic interplay.
The GM ran a brief ambush scenario to start the session. By the end of round 2, 4 characters were DEAD! The encounter was 2 levels below us, just something to warm up, but the Dragonmen missed once in the first 2 rounds and registered 7 Crits. We dropped one. The Elf's wife was one of the dead and he spoke a 'death oath' (campaign geas thingee) and swore to die by her side. No dwarf cleric to a war god would let some wimpy elf out-hero him, so I stood side by side and went down with him. As I took my death blow, Elf dropped a tanglefoot and ground-zeroed a necklace of missles, killing everyone who was left.
I had a mute druid that would pantomime everything. Most of the other players could readily get what i was saying, sometimes eerily so. One time the druid/me is explaining a fairly complicated situation and the other player started signing back instead of talking. Two minutes of dueling pantomime later "wait a minute I can talk why am I signing?!"
Just for kicks, we were playing a 20th-level one-shot game. The arcane trickster, using feats and items, managed to sneak attack the BBEG for over 650 hit points in one round, killing him so dead, you'd have to resurrect him twice.
One of the players looked at him and said, "Think you used enough dynamite, there, Butch?"
The group I DM'd had entered a tavern to look for an inner city contact. It was crowded and they were positive they had seen their contact slip through a door to the left of the bar. But they knew better than to go barging through there like they owned the place, being low-level as they were. (They actually did NOT want to start a barfight.)
The bard concocted a great scheme: the fighter and paladin were to engage the bartender in a lively discussion of some sort while the cleric stood watch. The bard, meanwhile, ambles stealthily over to the door and attempts to unlock it. A few checks later, she hears a nice "click" and finds that she's actually LOCKED the door! Horrified, she now has to undo her mistake, but time is running out, as the fighter and pally are running out of things to talk about and the bartender is beginning to suspect something's up.
The bard continues to try, and then resorts to Disable Device checks, trying everything she could think of to get through. Finally, when the bartender's bouncers had been called over and things were about to get ugly, she heard a satisfying "click" and flung the door open...
It was a broom closet ...
The players sat stupefied, and all have acknowledged that it was one of our more memorable moments.
At one point, we were playing a cross over game of mage and werewolf (world of darkness) and our mages ended up staying with a group of werewolfs for some time. During this time, one of the werewolfs was just being a huge ass to my character for seemingly no reason.
He says he "has his reasons" or "its personal" but never actually asked me not to get involved before he actually started making deals with people to skrew me over.
So after 2 or 3 times of him messing with me i was fed up. This guy was a womonizer of sorts and i happen to catch him walking into his chambers with 2 women.
So i waited to about 10 minutes and then i mozied on over to the guys door. Needing to get his attention so we can deal with some stuff going down on the other side of town, i kick the door open and yell "WE GOTTA GO!!!"
Needless to say, the reaction from the women was priceless!!!
Wow, does this bring back some memories.
Perhaps the best moment was when I was DM'ing for my 14 year old son and his buddies (ahem 22 years ago). One afternoon the lead pita, and all 14 year old boys are pita's, was not there. They were in the Temple of Elemental Evil and had picked up Wonlin F/T to come with them and needed to enter the Air(?) Temple. My son's character, a Druid, put on one of the robes and went into the Temple. Being alone and waiting for the others he was getting nervous. Well, out in the hallways, some of the party members got "captured" by other members of the party wearing Air Temple robes and were walking down the hall and ran into the Air Temple guards. They role-played well, and in a moment of surprise wiped out the guards and then burst into the Air Temple and saved the Druid from doing something he didn't want to.
-- david
Papa.DRB
Self: Convincing the rest of the party that my crazy killbot character was in fact an engineering assistant, and that the sweaty, nervous squirming dude next to me was a competent ship's engineer.
Others: A player character hippogriff hiding in a giant's desk drawer. For whatever reason, it has become a major reference point in our gaming (i.e. "Ut-oh! Bad guys! If only there were a gigantic desk drawer around...")
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This was years ago, back in the 2e years. The party I was DM-ing was using a corrupt merchant to draw out an assassin that had killed the local lord (a former PC, no less). The merchant had hired the killer, and the party had spread a rumor around town that the merchant was willing to reveal the assassin, but only to a particular religious leader (who was not in town). This would force the assassin to come to their bait, to silence him.
They had holed up in his manor, locking the merchant in a room with only one entrance. They kept a guard on the entrance constantly (rotating party members). Now, at this particular session, some players were running late (holiday season, IIRC), and we decided to warm up with some RP. We pulled out some cards and dice, and got into character stories while playing tavern games. We just decided that the missing players were on watch until they showed up, and then the shift would 'rotate', allowing the missing PC to join the game as another late player's character took their shift. It was fun and worked well as a warm-up.
Eventually, the last player got there, and I started the game properly...except I didn't warn the party. I went to use the WC, came back, and announced that the NPC fighter was going to take the prisoner his dinner and replace the PC of the last player. As my wife was playing, and her elven wizard was involved with the fighter, she and I had a small in-character chat before I broke with the party. At the end of the chat, we gave each other a little peck, and I sat down with my books and let the players finish their card game...
Except the moment that the NPC was officially out of the room, my wife turned to the rest of the party and said, "That wasn't Cal. Something's wrong."
The party quibbled for only a minutes (maybe 5-6 combat rounds), and then decided to send someone out to check on the outhouse just outside the merchant's kitchen door. There, they found the fighter's body, with his heart ripped from his chest from under his ribcage....
TMI from me, but, if that had been my wife, I MAY have just thrown her down and taken her right there.
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This was actually in a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (2nd edition) game. I was playing a very unscrupulous Dwarven Noble. In the midst of adventuring, I had managed to find a tome of blessings to Nurgle (plague ridden demon god) and stashed it away in my belongings (wrapped very securely in leather in my pack).
Due to some unsuccessful negotiating in the last city we were in (not by me), we were being hunted by the constabulary. We managed to pay passage on a boat and were going down-river, but the road wardens had caught up to the boat and wanted to board it. My character snuck back into his belongings, pulled out the tome, and snuck it into the ship's captain's quarters.
After the boat docked nearby and the road wardens were searching us, my character was acting worried, but relieved. I confided to one of the road wardens that we were thankful they arrived, for I feared we were going to be sacrificed to the chaos gods. A few minutes of fast talking RP, followed by a solid roll, and the wardens searched the captain's cabin and found the tome. They took him off boat for immediate hanging, and were so preoccupied with him that the rest of us managed to get away.
Strangely enough, all of my favorite personal RP exploits involve character death through good RP. :)
1) in a 2e Planescape campaign, I had a fire genasi priestess/wizard of Bast/Sharess. We were shunted off to the demiplane that Set resides in as a result of something to do with the dead god Orcus. We were quite powerful at that point, and met by one of Set's avatars upon arriving. Needless to say, at some point I spat directly upon that filthy swine and was promptly axe-murdered. :)
2) In a L5R game, Rogugan a fantasy feudal Japanese setting, I played an irreproachably honorable Lion samurai-ko. Before a pitched battle, there was a disagreement among the group upon how/when to join the battle that resulted in a duel between myself and our very competent Dragon ronin swordsmaster. He threw the fight, knowing that because of a magic tattoo he had he wouldn't die, only be incapacitated. I made a ridiculously lucky perception check to realize that he hesitated at the very wrong moment, something I KNEW he would never do on accident, and committed seppuku (ritual suicide) out of the dishonor of winning a duel in such a way.
3) My favorite by far. This one took place in a long-running Vampire LARP. I had maintained the Princedom of the game for almost 2 years IRL, and was incredibly territorial (from botching a Humanity roll at some point). I was in possession of a book of hermetic magical formulae which was a part of the overarching storyline, and very valuable to multiple parties. I find out that an elder vamp has moved into the region and is basically creating fledgling vamps to ship off to feed elders that can no longer sustain upon human blood. This guy was a general thorn in my side as well, and one night he just crossed the line with me. Some Technocrat mages had been poking about looking for the book I had, and had actually helped me cover up a few incidents (presumably trying to get in my good graces to at least get a peek at the book), so I called them up and offered them a copy; all they had to do was tele-nuke this arrogant jerk who was crapping all over my right of Progeny as Prince. Problem solved.
Turns out that getting the Technocracy to nuke a guy that is feeding over half of the major elders on the continent gets you put straight on the Red List (basically the Camarilla equivalent of being Osama bin Laden) and publicly executed during the next major Conclave. But, I consider it a major achievement to have played a character that was legitimately Red Listed.
Back in a 3.5 campaign I ran in college, my PCs were in dire straits atop a clock tower. Getting to the top of the tower to prevent a human sacrifice was strenuous and left them with minimal resources. At the end of the rooftop battle, everyone in the party was either down or barely hanging on. Their only remaining enemy was a rampaging flesh golem that they were not going to be able to defeat in their current state.
The cleric of the local sun-god, one of the few PCs still standing, decided to take one for the team. Right as he began, the music player shuffled to the theme from Chariots of Fire. He bull rushed the golem, intent on tackling him off the tower at the cost of his own life. The golem missed the first attack of opportunity (from moving through threatened squares) and then the second (from the bull rush). As the music hit its crescendo, the cleric rolled a 20 on his check, hopefully overcoming the flesh golem's massive strength advantage. The golem rolled a 1 on the opposed strength check and went tumbling off the tower.
As the music from Chariots of Fire played in the background, dawn broke over the tower and struck his holy symbol, which blazed so brightly that everyone in town could see them. It was one of the finest moments I've gotten to DM.
The funny part about the story is that the cleric PC must have used up all of his luck on that encounter, as he ended up getting killed a record 3 times over the course of the campaign. (Killed by phantasmal killer, killed by a cache of exploding alchemist fire, killed by T-Rex consumption.)
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I had a great moment over this last weekend. The party cleric is supposed to be a CN cleric of battle. He'd been playing it more evil then neutral and finally as I was going down the list of his sins because of some dumb off topic conversation I realized...he'd gone way too far now and he was most definitely evil. At first he was like cool, I'm evil.
Till the next combat and our resident rules lawyer (with license to practice) at our table pointed out a evil cleric can't channel positive energy.
He went oh crap and then decided to reverse his evil ways, and shift to chaotic good. I printed him out a highly detailed guide to being chaotic good and sent him on his way.
His first act of goodness. He bought a slave with the intent to free him. Problem was, he used party goods, hawked them, and then used the money to pay for his slave. (Chaotic, but not evil in my book) This caused most of the party to have an uproar because he bought a really well trained bodyguard slave. Then equipped him too. Then set him free, and created a contract of work with the slave to pay him ongoing for working for the cleric. A chaotic, and good act all in one.
The leader of the party had up to this point been very... not there. It forced him to make a stand, what was funnier, the leader was LG. The party either wanted to re-enslave the body guard and sell him back and cut their losses, or just never give the cleric his share of the loot until he payed up.
The player took me aside with a sheet of paper with like four options of what he could do, and asked...where's the lawful good option. I told him there wasn't one, and may never be one with a mixed bag party like this one. Welcome to leadership.
Charlie probably doesn't read this, so I'll tell his story.
The first main adventure in the campaign involved investigating the disappearance of Little Johnny Bupkis, who, it turned out, had become a Yellow Musk Zombie and was subsequently shot by an NPC. We fought the ensuing plant that rose from his corpse, and then tracked down some other yellow musk badness, while also fighting some fairly unique undead, all around this puny little hamlet. Eventually, a gypsy caravan came through, to sell us overpriced magic jewelry and we could get our fortune read -- Deck of Many Things.
The paladin pulled a Wish. "Wish for strength!" our powergamer insisted. "Wish for a cool bow!" someone else suggested. "I wish..." started our paladin, "That Little Johnny was home, safe and healthy!" It was the perfect wish by the perfect character.
And the DM pulled out the homemade custom mini for Yellow Musk/Super Undead Little Johnny Bupkis -- really nasty! -- that we wouldn't have to fight after all.
Everything I do.
It's ok; you can bask.
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This one isent mine becaus my two greatist tails are about one rounding two seperate bosses in two seperate games with the same character.
My good freind was playing a scounderel,Star wars version of a rouge.He and the party were beset on by a foursome of bad guys i had as the gm ,come up with to be the big final fihgt bafor they saved the day.He roles a bluff and in character askes were the bathroom is.THe bad guy are thrown off he thin wispers to a jedi played by another freind to throw a granad he had picked up erlyer off a trooper .
The garnade is tossed the bad guys are flat footed and the role for dmg is the max.Bluff is an awsome skill.
Last game I saved the entire party from a halberd wielding demon by casting grease on it. ;-) Level two party.
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We had a Bard cornered and my grate and powerful ranger who had never known defeat was grilling him for info. The Bard uses his one last spell to cast sugesstion and say"go srew off". Needless to say i failed the will save to resest and my caracter found himself a quite corner to fulfill the task.
The clencher though is that my druid comrad disides for effect to summon in a cylistial monky and send it over with a pair of chimes to.as we say over see the procedings.
No lie.
For deadlands, my character Dr Newton Anatole was a Mad Scientist who had married rich and regretted it for 30 long years. When his wife died he passed the plantation over to one of his children and danced a merry jig all the way out to the weird west, where his kids would occasionally send money.
The Marshal (DM) was running a printed adventure, and the female captain of the ship had an EERIE resemblance to how we'd pictured the old ball and chain, so it wasn't long before I let loose with suggesting that if we needed ballast the answer was as rudimentary as relocating her to a different part of the ship and that some sort of ghost steel crane MIGHT be up for the task.
He was of course, thrown off the ship. With his mechanical mule.
Cue a few minutes of waiting, and the rest of the pose sees Doc on a small, rowed craft behind them, sitting on the mech mule with a pink umbrella over head, sipping a tall iced drink and yelling "Stroke, stroke, stroke..." into a megaphone.
He paid the rowers well...
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Rolling 1's always brings memorable moments for our gaming, as a result we love them as much as we hate them.
One of our recent classic moments was when one member of the party went slightly ahead of us and killed a sheep in a field (we were near starved having escaped a dungeon), the player, knowing that the Paladin would never approve of essentially stealing from the village then decided to make use of his bluff skill (which was pretty darn good). Obviously along with the roll he then had to actually talk to the Paladin and explain this fortuitous situation of finding a naturally dead sheep, possibly due to old age. After about 5 minutes of pure class BS, he rolled the dice and it was a 1. When the player stopped talking the Paladin just looked at him straight faced and said 'Dude, your sword is still IN the sheep' (I know Dude is not exactly fine Roleplay language of a Pally, but it was just priceless!)
As I say, we have lots of fun with 1's - we have our own fumble chart so that when fighting if a 1 is rolled you then roll percentile die to see what happens, it can be anything from choking on your own tongue, losing your grip and hurling your weapon accross the room, tangling your fee in your cloak and falling over. They always happen at the most inopportune moments.
Another great moment was when it was the DM that had the 1 curse. He had the perfect situation - the monsters were at the top of a trap door and the players had no choice but to climb the ladder, so the DM rolled for the goblins to sneak up to the trapdoor, and rolled a 1. The DM let out a sudden shriek and the players watched as a Goblin plummeted to the floor in front of them. As if that was not funny enough, just a couple seconds later there was another scream and a second Goblin fell flat on his face from the trapdoor - two 1's in a row was fantastic! This was followed up immediately with a player turning to the party and saying to the character local to the area 'You know, where I come from "It's raining Orcs and Goblins" is just a saying...'
Some of my favorite moments come from seeing what players come up with on the spot for Prayers or spells (In our group if you are a casting casting a spell you have to have 'Magic words' to go with them, if you are a Cleric you actually need to pray to your god each morning, coming up with a fewgood lines as your prayer). Though the most fun usually comes from having a Bard - if anyone is brave enough to play one as singing and silly rhymes are required!
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Well one of my favorites was when I was playing 2nd edition. I was playing a half-giant fighter and we had been captured and forced to fight in an arena. Our group was good and became well known. We devised an escape plan but to do it we needed to kill the captain of the guards. My character finishes his match and calls to the crowd and challenges the captain. The proprietor forces him to fight, the captain was a 11th lv fighter when I was 8th. During all this our rogue is out down in the tunnels trying to find where they keep the animals. The fight starts and my character holds his own for awhile but is clearly outmatched. At the end of the fight my character is on his knees without a weapon and waiting to be killed. An alarm goes off the Captain is distracted for a second my character acts, grabs the Captains arm and stands, kicks his leg into the captains armpit and wrenches the arm. With his strength he ripped the arm completely off. Both my character and the Captain look at what I did. Having no other weapon I start to beat the Captain with his own arm. I beat him to death with his own arm. And with the help of the rest of the party we escaped. We ended up finding the owner and killing him, too.
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Rolling 1's always brings memorable moments for our gaming, as a result we love them as much as we hate them.
One of our recent classic moments was when one member of the party went slightly ahead of us and killed a sheep in a field (we were near starved having escaped a dungeon), the player, knowing that the Paladin would never approve of essentially stealing from the village then decided to make use of his bluff skill (which was pretty darn good). Obviously along with the roll he then had to actually talk to the Paladin and explain this fortuitous situation of finding a naturally dead sheep, possibly due to old age. After about 5 minutes of pure class BS, he rolled the dice and it was a 1. When the player stopped talking the Paladin just looked at him straight faced and said 'Dude, your sword is still IN the sheep' (I know Dude is not exactly fine Roleplay language of a Pally, but it was just priceless!)
As I say, we have lots of fun with 1's - we have our own fumble chart so that when fighting if a 1 is rolled you then roll percentile die to see what happens, it can be anything from choking on your own tongue, losing your grip and hurling your weapon accross the room, tangling your fee in your cloak and falling over. They always happen at the most inopportune moments.
Another great moment was when it was the DM that had the 1 curse. He had the perfect situation - the monsters were at the top of a trap door and the players had no choice but to climb the ladder, so the DM rolled for the goblins to sneak up to the trapdoor, and rolled a 1. The DM let out a sudden shriek and the players watched as a Goblin plummeted to the floor in front of them. As if that was not funny enough, just a couple seconds later there was another scream and a second Goblin fell flat on his face from the trapdoor - two 1's in a row was fantastic! This was followed up immediately with a player turning to the party and saying to the character local to the area 'You know, where I come from "It's raining Orcs and Goblins" is...
We do something like that to with natural 1s
I was dming and we were facing a Drow wizard he starts a spell our paladin runs up and attacks he rolls a 1. So the wizard finishes his spell (cone of cold). Points the cone at our paladin and there it goes flash froze paladin
Best roleplaying moment ever (as DM):
First, a few important details...
The party paladin is an aasimar with a 20 charisma and is very attractive (I have them roll a d20 for comliness, and he rolled like an 18 or 19). He describes himself as having long hair and bright eyes. Basically he's the "super-hot bishie" of the group. He is also a total prude. IRL the player thinks he's a moral genius, and he actually plays the role of a paladin fairly well, but he is very uncomfortable with women. Even fake ones.
The party is staying at a small-ish farm house on the outskirts of the eldritch forest, with the only human in town, along with his (barely legal) elf wife. The one fey-girl in the party is the only one to pick up on the fact that she's so young (for an elf) and is kind of disturbed, but just shrugs and goes on with it. The paladin ignores her, dealing only with her (very large, imposing, almost Spartan-like) husband who has served as the town welcome wagon.
The farmer's wife, however, has a thing for long hair.
After about an hour of role playing in town and being shown around, the party heads back to the farmer's house for the night. The three males sleep in the common room, the female druid sharing the room that the children are in. The paladin makes his perception check while sleeping, and wakes up (D:) to find the farmer's wife feeling him up under his blanket. He freaks, wakes up the rogue who isn't much less attractive (but with a lower charisma). The paladin immediately tries to dump the girl on the rogue, who suggests the swashbuckler (butt ugly, rolled a 3 for comliness).
The hilarity that went on OOC made this the most fun RP moment ever for me. It would be infinitely funnier if you could have seen the paladin's face when the rogue (jokingly) suggested a threesome. I bailed the pally out though and had one of the kids wake up. The farmer's wife is a running gag at the table.
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I think the best moment was when I (and the rest of the group) realized that we had gone four entire sessions full of roleplaying without a single combat (and all without me intending that to happen.) Those four sessions were amazing!
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AKA 8one6
We were playing Pathfinder and i was DM. One of my characters is a chaotic neutral druid with a curse which causes him to become chaotic evil if he feels nature is threatened. The other is a fairly generic rogue. The party is attempting to assassinate a baron who is destroying the local countryside. The druid uses "speak to animal" to convince a fox to show them a hole in the castle wall. They swim across the moat and the druid almost drowns. After that they accidentally fail several stealth rolls and tie up two dead guards, two nuns, the barons son and an altar boy together. they then sneak into the castle priests room and the rogue steals the priests clothes. The druid finds a red dress and wears it. They then accidentally find the queens chambers where the druid forgets hes wearing a dress and walks in to find several of the queens hand maids staring at him in awe. After an awkward conversation he finds his way to the barons chambers, meanwhile discovering that the priest had been sleeping with a girl named Isabella. When he arrives at the barons chambers he finds him goes into evil mode and literally coats the walls with him. He looks out the window to find eight guards standing beneath it he immediatly jumps out the window and turns into a tree killing all eight guards instantly. The rogue meanwhile hides under the bed while two guards enter and walk to the window. as the guards stand in awe of the carnage the rogue pops out from under the bed cuts one guards throat and pushes the other out the window onto one of the druids limbs the druid changes back to find his arm lodged in a human torso. The druid then proceeds to kill everyone in the castle including the priest who he finds sleeping with the baroness. The fight a monster as they escape from the sewer. The druid has no more spells and both characters are half dead. Awesomest night ever
Tied between two for me:
1) I was playing a halfling fighter/rogue/swashbuckler (3.5) who focused on feinting in combat, which obviously led to my bluff score being high (maxed skill ranks + great charisma + skill focus + conceal thoughts from the party's psion), which was incredibly important to my success. We had just returned to the town we had been frequenting between adventures to find out that in the winter we were gone it a new corrupt count had taken control of the region and imposed martial law. Needing entrance to ensure the well-being of friends inside the others wanted to fight their way in, but I held up a hand and approached the guards alone. After being threatened with violence if I didn't turn and run off from wence I came, I hopped up, grabbed the guard by the collar and pulled him down to eye level and talked to him very calmly.
"I'm summoned by the count from miles away, ride for weeks to get here, paying the expenditures for my own travels mind you, and those of my personal elite guard (*party smiles and waves when we look over my shoulder at them - they think I'm bribing the guard as they are out of earshot*), for the soul purpose of whipping you slackers into something suitable for a basic military title. After the treatment you've just shown a superior officer I see that your aren't fit to guard my outhouse, let alone keep civil order in this town. Fetch for me whoever WAS in charge here, quickly, as I will require an assistant to get me up to speed on current events since I recieved notice asking for the aid of my services some time ago. Make sure to note for your insolent attitude your previous commanding officer will be my personal servent for the forseeable future. And bring something to drink as well, I'm parched from the road. After you have done this, report to the mines in the crags to the North, you are being reassigned'."
(The roll on my bluff was a natural 20 coupled with modifers and even a circumstance modifer following a successful intimidate I well overshot any of the guards sense motive). All in all I fired several guards who assumed I was in charge, took over as captain of the city guard (after we were shortly thereafter greeted warmly by the head officer with a bottle of fine wine who became my P.A. for a little while, before he too was 'let go'), and had free run of the town. I got so caught up in the lie that I was actually helping them strengthen the new tower and other fortifications that were being made in town before I was reminded gently by the party that my goal should be the opposite.
Or 2) I was playing a rather corrupt bard/cleric/evangelist of St. Cuthbert (again 3.5). He carried around several large tomes which he re bound to appear to be lengthy religious texts but were often nothing of the sort (many times they were blank). I'd walk around with a book open spouting off random rules to live by to other characters in my group, often to great amusement, and often about nothing all that important (the way they ate, order of watches - priests require the restful sleep!, when to take bathroom breaks, etc). Anyway, we had just finished slaying a dragon and were digging about its horde and splitting up treasures, and my evangelist kept jokingly calling dibs on all the most expensive items, even those he couldn't use (spell books, copies of items he already owned, and so on). Eventually our paladin just looked over at me and asked in good humor:
"Why do you get all the most expensive treasure?"
"St. Cuthbert's rule number 67 - Thou shall not muscle in on thy clergy's money making racket!" *Flipping out a blank tome and pretending to read.*
The paladin slides in close and asks incredulously, "Where in St. Cuthbert's holy book does it say 'money making racket'?"
"St. Cuthbert's rule 68...shut up." I respond, slamming the book shut before he can see there is nothing to read.
There were 213 rules before he died, and everyone missed him.
I was DMing a 3.5 game where the characters were chasing a thief through the streets of a city. They chased him down a nasty, trash filled alley just in time to see him enter a building. Not knowing exactly what they were going to find inside the building, they decided to gather some quick intel first. Being pressed for time, the Druid of the group quickly cast Speak With Animals in hopes of talking with a rat in the trash piles. Well, he cast it and THEN looked for a rat. Needless to say it took some time to actually find a rat but I gave him the benefit of the doubt...he finally found a rat in a trash container and we came to the conclusion that he had time for 3 quick questions before the spell ended, his only one to boot. He first asked, "How are you doing?". I had never roleplayed a rat before so I came up with a thick accent to use for it's voice. "Gooood!", I replied to him. The next question the Druid asked was, "How many in there?". "Nooooone!", I responded. "Nine?", the Druid asked. "Nooooone!", I responded again. The Druid's player immediately yelled "sh#@!" as he realized too late that his spell had ended and that the rat was saying "None" and not "Nine" because it was refering to the trash container it was in! We all laughed so for a very long time after that roleplaying moment.
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3rd edition was only a few years old and I was running a high level plane/dimension jumping campaign (the 5 Towers campaign) that had the PCs looking for keys to stopping the apocalypse. The group was made up of me (DM), my wife(fighter), my wife's sister (elf sorcerer), my wife's brother-in-law (human/vampire fighter), and one of their friends (elf ranger).
During their quest the PCs traveled to the Forgotten Realms, Draglance, Greyhawk, Ravenloft, the Wheel of Time universe as well as some I made up.
This particular night they happen to be in the Wheel of Time universe and were being added by an Aes Sedai and her Warder.They tracked the item they were looking for to a tower (I believe it was the same one that Mat and Thom rescued Moraine from in the latest book). After several battles, they finally found the item and were trying to return to the exit.
During their escape they had to cross a narrow stone walkway that spanned a seemingly bottomless pit. The PCs fell in single file behind the Aes Sedai and her Warder as the path was too narrow to allow them to travel side by side.
The marching order was Aes Sedai, Warder, my wife's fighter, the elf ranger, my wife's brother-in-law (vampire) and her sister(sorcerer). Out of the blue my wife's sister declared she was going to attempt cut the vampire's (her husband's PC) head off. (She had picked up a magic sword in the tower that I allowed her to use, since her magic didn't work properly in this universe).
I was kind of surprised by this but since this particular group, tended to be incredibly creative and fun, she had piqued my curiosity. So when she made the call I wanted to see what she was getting at. Since she already had the sword in hand, she was behind the vampire and her attack was completely unexpected, I told her to roll.
Perfect 20's for everything. She swung, lopped off the head of her husband's character and since there was no room to maneuver no one could stop her. Her husband's now dead character's head and body fell into the abyss as the rest of the group, looked back stunned.
Around the table all of us just sat there staring at her, somewhat stunned that she not only wanted, but succeeded in killer her husband's PC without provocation. After a few moments of silence she calmly stated, "I just remembered I don't like vampires." Everyone started laughing except her husband who stormed out, more than a little upset.
I composed my self and followed him outside. I told him I'd save his character (we'd been running this campaign for almost a year and he was very attached to Vlad), but to keep the peace he had to abide by what I said. He agreed and came back to the table.
Of course I worked it so that the gods that had given them their quest resurrected the vampire, returning him to his human state, and he was waiting for them when they exited the tower with no knowledge of what had happened. The group decided to tell him that they were attacked inside the tower and he was pushed off into the abyss. Sacrificing himself to allow their escape.
(Vlad eventually died anyway a few sessions later, but when I killed him he didn't mind. But he did die a noble death, this time actually did sacrifice himself for the group)
Within a year of that the two of them separated and eventually got divorced. It was then revealed that my sister-in-law(sorcerer) was messing around with their friend (elf ranger). Once everything was out in the open that night in the tower made a little more sense. While the divorce and other bad feelings eventually broke up one of the best gaming groups I have ever been in, that night is still brought up from time to time. Like most things it was a lot funnier when it happened (a you had to be there moment) but it is still one of my all time favorite table stories.
From a gaming group several years gone...
Backstory: I had actually left the group because of a personality conflict with another member, but my wife continued to play in it as her sister was the DM. I eventually resolved the conflict with the other member and came back, but by that time my character had gone off with dark elves (long story).
More backstory (in a new paragraph to avoid text dump): That character wasn't my best as I was trying to play a brooder and it didn't come out as well as I'd hoped. For my new character I decided to go a completely different way and came up with a paladin of Sune, the love and beauty goddess. In some ways he was like your typical paladin: charismatic, romance novel-cover looks, etc. Except he was very talkative and wasn't the least bit interested in justice, etc. Thievery didn't bother him as long as the thief left the crime scene a little more beautiful than before. His holy quest was to beautify the world. :)
Wife's character's backstory: She was playing a very ugly half-orc druidess who was very wild, not overly talkative, etc. She didn't know much about civilization, and was very uneasy around humans, especially humans with a high-class background like my paladin. One amusing thing (to me at least) about this is that my wife IRL is very talkative while I'm not.
Now hold on, here is the RP fun: The party had gone to a semi-large city where they were meeting with the local noble, who introduced my character as he wanted me to travel with the party to retrieve something he needed. During the ensuing celebration my wife's druidess spent the entire evening agitated, hood up, trying not to be seen by anyone in power. My paladin noticed this and started trying to get her to talk. Eventually he pulled off her hood and discovered how ugly she was. She stammered and tried to get away, but my character solemnly held her back from escaping and offered her the run of his makeup jar to "touch up a few things here and there". I completely floored my wife with the comment as she didn't know what kind of paladin I'd be playing.
From then on, until the campaign ended a bit later (for outside reasons), my paladin made the druidess his pet project as he was determined to "make her beautiful". He constantly followed her around, offering unwanted suggestions, etc. since she thought she was fine as-is. He was one of the most fun characters I've ever played before. It's a shame that we never got to travel back to the town where the druidess had an orc boyfriend before the campaign ended, as that would have been a lot of fun to RP.