Gaming Stories, Video and Tabletop

Me desperately trying to get my vampire players to around the same place, but continuously not having all the players at the table

Spoiler

Bruce: So what are we going to say was happening when I was gone?

Me: Okay, Bruce. When you wake up, you are in a park, your guts hurt because you have been cut up and sewn up with paper in your chest, and there is an incredibly tall figure in a suit, he has no face. It is your old friend from Chicago

Bruce: How many times are we going to do this old man?

Me: Slenderman is silent, not moving, but you have the feeling that he is staring at you.

Bruce: I wonder if I can Ghoul Slenderman?

Me: Int+Occult

Bruce: 2 successes

Me: You believe that there might be weird results, but it is technically possible.

Bruce: I pop my claws and go in *gets in two damage by clawing the Fairy’s chest*

Fairy: *makes a tentacle and punches Bruce across the field and into a tree, Bruce tanks all the damage due to fortitude*

Bruce: Oh, this thing can kill me

Me: Dude, you tanked all the damage

Bruce: Right, I can do that. Maybe I should run though.

Me:….

Bruce: Anyways, I’ll try this again.

Fairy: * forms an ice sword with magic*

Bruce: Since when can Slenderman do that?

Me: In your studies about this creature, you found associations with the Unseelie Fey and appearing as a knight. This is likely fairy magic

Bruce: Mmm, *gets into animal claw vs ice sword fight with a fairy knight, does more damage but decides to switch over to magic* I have this power from my spirit summoning magic that hits willpower, does that work on fairies?

Me: You don’t really know *I go with it working since it uses path rating as damage dice and willpower as resistance, so it isn’t too broken*

Bruce: *manages to get some damage in*

Me: So how do you describe this?

Bruce: It is basically the “Your soul is Mine” attack from Mortal Kombat, so this really noxious green gas that explodes and hits him in the face

Me: Slenderman takes a few steps back and looks hurt, he stabs his sword into the ground, roll athletics to avoid getting your feet frozen *success* You hear the roar of a car, and see Candida, your ghoul, inn the car with Cairo, the crow screeching as the car comes to a halt behind you. Slenderman then draws a circle in the ground, making a series of glowing sigils appear around him

Bruce: I run into the car

Me: *slenderman is nearly dead, with having 2 health levels and 2 willpower left* And Slenderman teleports out and Candida asks what that was.

Bruce: Dunno. *decides to head over to an ancient church crypt and tries to summon spirits to ask questions about the future, botches and gets it haunted by bane spirits* Hey guys *the bane spirits hiss* I’ll just get going

Me: *Rolls* A handsome man with a dark beard stops his car, and you see him roll down the window, just staring at you as if he sensed something go horribly wrong

Bruce: Is this your crypt?

Salomon Aubert: No, but I just feel like something horribly heretical went on

Bruce: Eeeh, would you know anything about Ventru?

Salomon: I am Ventrue

Bruce: No, not Ventrue Ventrue, Ventru Ventrue.

Salomon: I am Ventrue, I know legends of our founder

Bruce: Could you help us find her

Salomon: Wait what?

Bruce: Well it is the Apocalypse, so we are looking for her to help us get other people, at least a think, and there is stuff involving other monsters…I think

Me: Do you need me to just make notes on all of the things that have happened?

Bruce: *nervous laughter*

Me: He is looking at you in horror since you are talking about finding Ventru

Salomon: Ventru is dead, he has been for a while

Bruce: That’s not what I was told, she is supposed to be around

Salomon: Why do you keep calling Ventru a she?

Bruce: Because she is

Me: You get the feeling that the stories he was told and believes are different from the ones you know

Bruce: We are also trying to fight the like…somebody, I forget who, but they are trying to end the world for Lilith or something

Salomon: How about you get in my car and we talk *eyes Candida in the other car*

Bruce: Sure *spills just about everything about the Coterie’s plans and actions along with who they work for

Salomon: Who is Mekhet?

Bruce: He is Mekhet?

Salomon: The man who is either the Lasombra or Tzimisce antediluvian

Bruce: Nah, he isn’t any of those

Salomon: Think man, there are thirteen antediluvians

Bruce: There are more than that though

Salomon: Everyone knows that there are thirteen

Bruce: You are wrong

Me: You are kind of horrible at explaining things

OOC Bruce: I know

Salomon: Look, I am one of the Inconnu, those who have been seeking true knowledge, and have escaped the Jyhad. Either you are a pawn of your elders, or that of an Antediluvian who has been lying to you. And know this, awakening any Antediluvian will only bring pain and suffering upon the world

Bruce: There seem to be a lot that are awake anyways

Me: You also remember that Mekhet said that Lilith had infiltrated the Inconnu, and has been using them to her agenda

Bruce: Anyways, why do you work for Lilith

Salomon: No we don’t, we are free of our elders

Bruce: Nah, you are trying to destroy the world. Why would you guys do that anyways?

*more and more arguing in the car until a manticore-like demon lands on the car and stabs Salomon in the throat*

Bruce: I could jump out of the car

Me: There would still be a demon

Bruce: Could I punch the demon and control the car?

Me: You split the dice pool, but yes

Bruce: *gets a ton of successes to claw off the demon’s face and control the car, making it stop and launch the demon backfirst into the railing on the road, snapping its spine* Wow, I am awesome

Me: You see Salomon gurgling blood from his throat

Bruce: Don’t worry, I can fix this *uses dark science and magic to heal wounds*

Salomon: The Baali have come to the city, we must save it

Bruce: I want to run away

Me: He is getting his car back into gear, you can either leave it or stay

Bruce: I stay

Lots of Salomon running around and trying to figure out what is going on while Bruce assumes that he can somehow retcon himself to be in the other party

Salomon: I believe that the baali infiltrated the anarchs. If so, I must kill my childe for the others claim that this infestation arose from his haven. Should you desire, you may diablerize him.

Bruce: Why would you want to kill your kid

Salomon: The city is on fire and demons are in it

Bruce: I am gonna run away

Me: So, you run away, with no idea where to go. You see an Arabic man in traditional robes holding two pistols and a Filipino guy with a curved sword. They are arguing in the street-

Bruce; Do you know where Kokoro and Basket are? I’m trying to get to them

Me: Then the Arabic man does a double take before pointing his guns at you

Bruce: Why would you want to hurt me

Pistols Vampire: Capitalist scum, member of the Voivodate, today you die for the glorious Soviet

Sword Vampire: Can we calm down and not make enemies when the city is on fire

Bruce: I don’t work for the Voivodate

Pistols Vampire: You came from Voivode Sabina’s realm, you work with Kokoro, a member of her accursed false-church

Bruce; Oooh, why do you want to kill me

Me: He just said he is from the Soviet, one of the people at war with your faction

Bruce: Oh, I keep running to Candida’s car

Me: He shoots you

Bruce: Oooh

Me: Roll to soak

Bruce: *Is incapacitated by Toreador gunslinger*

Me: You see the two get into a fight now as the other guy is not happy, *Rolls* and the swordsman cuts off all of the guys limbs before picking both of you up and getting into Candiida’s car while she looks very worried.

Bruce: Can I eat the guy who shot me?

Me: There are rules on Diablerie, remember willpower

Bruce: *has 9 willpower* Oh right, well, I use my soul breath on him

Me: SO there is just this guy screaming in agony as you start burning his soul into a spec before eating him. Roll willpower

Bruce: *is okay, doesn’t have personality drift, gains new disciplines* I should do this more often

Me: The sword guy introduces himself as Ambrosio, part of the Anarch Soviet, and explains that he is part of a kill team with the man you killed, Abd Al-Malik, a childe of Kokoro’s sire, and how they are supposed to take her back to the Anarch Soviet for brainwashing.

Bruce: That is bad

Me: But there are more important things, so he wants to team up for now

Ambrosio: Do you know Arabic?

Bruce: Yes

Ambrosio; I will take you to my team, just say your name is Abd al-Malik and claim that Arabic is the most holy language which all should speak to the point that others are filfthy things which should be forgotten, and that you have taken the body of one who attempted to diablerize you. The more arrogant you act, the more they will believe

Bruce: Okay

Ambrosio: *gets Candida to park at the docks and swims out to bang on a partially risen nuclear sub as the city burns to the ground*

Bruce: They have a sub?

Me: And this is how you get to Enoch, driving a soviet nuclear sub ingo it.

=session with just Kokoro and Bruce=

Me: So, Kokoro, when the ship lands in the Underworld, you see what appears to be an absolutely massive cavern whose ceiling you cannot see. As the yacht sails, you can see what appear to be massive columns and the like, but there is light, far more than you are used to, almost as if it was sunset or the like. Actually, there appears to be stars and a sun in the sky

Kokoro: That’s…odd

Me: Roll perception plus alertness

Kokoro: *success*

Me: Due to your auspex enhanced vision, it dawns on you that those are not some kind of spectral sun and stars, those are ghosts. There are thin chains trailing down from each ‘star’ to somewhere else as these conglomerations of ghosts who have been fused together float like a psychopath’s hot air balloon made out of the dead. The sun is even larger, made of untold thousands or perhaps millions of souls.

Kokoro: WHAT THE FUCK,

Bruce: *not there but learning the same thing* Yeeeesh

Kokoro: *looks over to Lucian, Mehket, Sadb, and Ilyes* Did Caine do this

Antediluvians: No

Kokoro: So…the Black Hand did this

Me: Your memories from the guy you ate say yes

Kokoro: What? No, why? Why would you ever do that? What is the purpose of doing something like that. We are vampires, there are easier ways to make light, why make an artificial sun? Why, just why?

Mehket: *puts hand instead of a tentacle on her shoulder* Because these people are needlessly and overzealously edgy

Me: Additionally, you can see beautifully carved and painted statues, all over ten times the size of the Statue of Liberty. Do you try to take in what they are of or no?

Kokoro: I am a Toreador, I do.

Me: Okay, the first one you see is of a very young swarthy man in what you would associate with Buddhist or Hindu priest robes, sitting in the lotus position with his hands making signs, he is, thin and lean, with his skull deformed, bone having splintered out and shattered with cracks running down his forehead whilst a third eye protrudes from it. To you, he looks obviously evil. This is Saulot

Kokoro: Isn’t he supposed to be an old man

Lucian: *laughing* Obfuscate and Presence are skills which all of us know on some level or another. And what age do you think humans normally lived to in our time? especially at the point when we would have served in our master’s armies?

Kokoro: So, the reason people think of him like that, and think he is the nice Antediluvian, is because of mind control

Lucian (The Lasombra): Yes.

Mehket: It seems that we are approaching by the easternmost dock of Enoch, Saulot’s passage.

Me: Do you look out for more of the statues? Also, roll to not be mesmerized

Kokoro: *yes, succeeds* I look for lady ones since Arikel

Me: The first female statue you see is of a very buff redheaded woman who is holding up two werewolves or demons by their heads, fingers inside of their skulls as she crushes them with her bare hands. She is not wearing armor so you see abs, and her plinth is basically a mound of corpses. This is Troile the Lion, the second Brujah

Ilyes: Did…did they get rid of my statue

Sadb: Everyone preferred redheaded muscle girl to you

Lucian: Yes, she was quite enjoyable, I can see why your cold dead heart was moved by ‘redheaded muscle girl’ as Sadb says.

Kokoro and Bruce: *OOC laughing like lunatics, the former is rolling to not laugh in-universe*

Mehket: Everyone loved her far more than the deadfish, I mean, inferior bookworm, that is you

Ilyes: I can control time

Mehket: And so can we, without failing and spending forever outside of the time stream. Also, unlike you, we are real blood mages.

Kokoro: Oh god this is beautiful.

Me: As you approach, you can see Enoch. It is every city, you see bits of Chicago, Vancouver, New York, Seoul, London, Tokyo, Kyoto, basically, every city seems to flicker somewhat in this area as a writhing mass, buildings pointing inward or outward at 90 degree angles as they rise and fall, roads appearing at every angle and twisting as they all seem to bend in and replace one another.

Kokoro: This is some Doctor Strange stuff

Bruce: A Tesseract

Me:…And Kokoro, you see a giant ghostly ship sailing in the distance, it flies the jolly roger. Since you are a battle and history buff, you know that this is The Queen Anne’s Revenge

Bruce: That is a cool name

Me: It is Blackbeard’s ship

Kokoro: Wait what? Did it become a ghost?

Sadb: Certain items, once destroyed, can appear in the Underworld

Kokoro: Wow, um, lets keep going. We need to find a way out of here.

Mehket: If we wish to get control of the city, we will need a control rod. Items made to give we Antediluvians, access to certain city functions. Enoch can move, and it appears that even being sent to the underworld has not prevented that. With one that gives access to that ability, we should be able to surface the city and leave.

Kokoro: What would one look like

Mehket: Books, crowns, royal scepters, they vary

Lucian: I kept mine as a crown, though I believe that Grandfather’s Throne would act as one

Mehket: Yes

Me: Mehket puts a hand on Basket and his dog, they teleport away. And over with Bruce, you are in a nuclear submarine piloted by soviet ghouls. What are you going to try to do

Bruce: Escape

Me: Remember that you have a bird and a human woman, and that this is a submarine.

Bruce: Oh, um, am I in charge?

Me: You failed to get memories from the diablerie, so…you don’t think so.

Bruce: Do I have any idea of who is here

Me: You were given a rundown of the other members of the Soviet Killteam.*Puts in icons*

Kokoro: Wait a second, that is Annabeth Chase. Is the Filipino guy Percy Jackson?

Me: You can see is icon, zoom in, blow it up, and a bunch of other stuff. He is not Percy Jackson. Also, it is hard for me to get icons of Russian women who are not actors or from a fighting game.

Kokoro: That is fair

Me: So. The Russian woman is Roksana, she was a medic in world war 2, and is now a Lamia. Which are Necromancer Amazons, basically. She is the main one piloting the sub when it isn’t the ghouls. There is this tall, bald guy, Ivan. He is a Tremere and another firearms expert, he also was in World War 2. Though as a vampire. Finally, there is a very buff guy with bulging muscles, he has a very bushy beard, you don’t know his name, but everyone calls him Little Stalin. He is a Brujah, who was a member of the secret police.

Bruce: Mmmm, how do I get out of this.

Me: I don’t think you know enough about Submarines to properly get out.

Bruce: Yeah, could I order someone to let me out

Me: That might get them to ask their other superiors about what is going on

Bruce: I guess I will wait

Me: So, you guys eventually reach a dock and come up. Ambrosio has everyone load up and does pull you aside to remind you that Abd used guns.

Bruce: I get guns

Me: do you want to spend xp on having the firearms skill?

Bruce: No

Me: You guys get out into what looks like a shipwreck of real and ghost ships all piled together into a kind of coral reef.

Bruce: I stay with them

Me: As you guys travel, you eventually see a group of vampires holding guns. They start shouting at you in a different language, to you, it sounds somewhat like ancient Egyptian.

Bruce: Oh, they just have guns

Me: They continue to shout, the Soviets shout at them in Russian, this pisses off the other guys who have one of them responding in Russian insults while they gesture with their guns to get on the ground, the Soviets refuse

Bruce: I get on the ground

Me: The soviets pause in the midsts of all of this, Ambrosio facepalms and the others are going “Mmm, maybe this is not Abd.”

Bruce; Oh right, I am not me.

Me: The other vampires continue to shout, now in Russiian, saying that this is the Holy City of Enoch and only members of the True Black Hand may step upon its most sacred stones.

Bruce; I don’t get why these people dislike each other

Me: Maybe the State Mandated Atheist Elder Hating Soviets would dislike the Antediluvian Worshipping Theocracy?

Bruce: Oh

Me: A shoot-out starts

Bruce: *remembers that guns are painful when he gets hit and heals* Uh, I shoot back *rolls really well despite dice penalty due to having disciplines that increase his number of dice.

Me: So, the Soviets start to drink and kill these guys to replenish blood. Do you join in?

Bruce: Nah

Me: Okay, I need you to do some rolls

Bruce: *Ends up lost in the catacombs of the city with the Soviets, decides to use his evil magic book as a compass, letting it pull him around*

Me: And with Kokoro, you guys are sailing into a proper dock, and see a little girl standing in the area where your guys would put the bridge to leave.

Kokoro: Ooooh no.

Me: Prince Noa gives you a dirty look while La Maupin rolls her eyes. What do you do when you dock?

Kokoro: Stare at the girl

Me: You see that her lips have been sewn shut with wire

Kokoro: I do not do anything, I wait to see if anyone else does anything

Me: The pregnant vampire, whose name you have not learned since you refuse to talk to her, stands up despite being in a lot of pain, and asks La Maupin for a knife, which she obliges, Set’s mother then cuts the wire.

Kokoro: What happens

Me: The wire wriggles as if it is trying to sew itself back in, and the girl holds onto the dangling ends as they wriggle and writhe. The girl begins to talk in every language you have ever heard in a random jumble which does not make sense to you, this continued for a long time before she settles on English

Revenant Girl: I have been sent to help you, I am-Loz, Nergal, Ninmug, Al-Mahri, the blood is rising, Loz, Nergal, Ninmug, Al-Mahri…, Shaitan is awake and dwelling amongst the sword, his brother and sister sleeping as the slave nurses grudges, ah I hate that.

Kokoro: Why do you have wire on your lips?

RG: The True Black Hand, they took me to the Temple of Lilith, they carved spells into me, I did not like it, and I speak with the voices of four people.

Lucian: There is no Temple of Lilith in En…Mehket was right, they really did let Lilith worshippers in here.

La Maupin: I feel like the sun made out of souls would be a hint to that.

Surgeon General: This place is insane

Kokoro: Oookaaay, can you take us somewhere save

RG: Loz, Nergal, Ninmug, Al-Mahri, Loz Nergal Ninmug, Al-Mahri

Kokoro: Do I know who any of those are?

Me: Roll int+occult

Kokoro: *success*

Me: Nergal is a Mesopotamian god, but people also identify that as the name of one of the Baali Founders, Ninmug is a goddess of metalworkers, you aren’t too familiar with the other two, but think there are place names that sound similar.

Kokoro: So she might be saying the names of the Baali founders

Me: Ninmug doesn’t sound particularly evil

Bruce: Maybe she was an evil metalworker

Kokoro: Can you lead us to somewhere safe?

Me: Roll a d100

Kokoro: *Does okay*

Me: The girl leads you into the city and you end up in the slums, you see other people at times, some are human, some are vampires, a lot are ghosts, but all have this dead look in their eyes as they do manual labor, trudging on eventually while you are brought to a place which is run down and somewhat sunken underground, but is all young kids or teens, they are wearing rags and makeshift clothing, most have like spears, but a few have guns. The oldest one, a quarterback looking guy, steps forward and asks why you are here

Kokoro: We kind of fell here, would you happen to know where a control rod is

Me: They fucking stare

Kokoro: Nevermind, *looks to the Antediluvians* where could we find one

Sadb: I mostly worked under Ennoia

Ilyes: Mine would have been repurposed or given to the Lion

Lucian: There is Irad’s slave pits, Malkav’s gardens, the library, the palace, potentially the arena, the Pool of Zillah, temple of birth, and there is always the possibility of one of the homes having one. However, the Deluge could have moved things. mine own was with me in the Second City but destroyed in the revolt

Kokoro: I DON’T KNOW WHERE TO GO, um, kids, do you have a way to get around without trouble

Lead Kid: Nobody really knows how to navigate well, the city changes and moves. Archimedes helps a lot, like, actual Archimedes

Kokoro: Actually, why are you kids here

Revenant Girl: The Boogeymen come, and take us from our beds, then we are here, to be slaves and fed on, some become Boogeymen, and we serve.

Kokoro: This is a bad place

Sadb: Yes, I recommend the Pool of Zillah, it is a wonderful place and we should be able to see the future in its crystal waters

Me: and at that, the kids blink

LK: You mean the execution ground?

Kokoro: Um, they just said crystal waters

LK: The Tal-Mahe-Ra made a gallows over it and let the people the execute rot over it, then never clean it, so it is like a pit of blood and decay.

Me: You know how Ilyes says he has no emotions and Lucian wants to be a shadow monster

Kokoro: Yes

Me: Ilyes twitches while Lucian paints a smile on his face, teeth clenched together, and looks to the follower of Liliith

Lucian: You understand that these people include Lilith worshippers

Ilyes: There are more than these ones, and those of my blood claiming to be True Heirs of Temporis defile my name here, claiming to have no descent from the Lion.

Lucian: So, we are in agreement

Ilyes: Yes, genocide.

Me: You have seen this before in others, the point where someone is just on the edge of frenzy, roll empathy

Kokoro: *Success* they are really pissed off about this huh

Me: You get the feeling that to them, this is like coming home and finding that someone had a drunken orgy in their mother’s garden that they used to help tend, and then the people shat all over it while saying that they improved it. Then they started to live in said home while painting it in vomit.

Kokoro: So, murderous rage

Me: So, bruce, when you get to where the book was leading you, there are three black coffins which seem to have grown out of the floor, and a space for a fourth where it seems that one had been removed. There is a grating sound in the distance. You know Egyptian, and can kind of read what is on these coffins. They say, Nergal, Ninmug, Al-Mahri. Ambrosio also seems to be able to read this, and he panics, immediately jumping on the one with the symbol for Nergal on it, and is trying to break it open, fails, and is ripping apart his nails trying to get purchase

Kokoro: Oooh, no. I get where he is coming from

Bruce: Stop, why are you doing that

Ambrosio: This is Nergal, Nergal, the Baali founder

Bruce: And why does that matter

Ambrosio: One of the Founderss of the Baali, the one who worships and wants to become a demon, the horrific dark lord of evil, someone who even Caine considered an abomination against decency and ordered every vampire to hunt down and kill. You know, Satan?

Bruce: Then don’t mess with it

Ambrosio: I am going to kill him

Bruce: what if you wake him up

Ambrosio: What if he wakes up after we leave, this is something that needs to die.

Bruce; it might not be that nergal.

Me: You know the name Nergal due to your occult skill, even if this is not the Baali Nergal, it is still someone either names after or who inspired the Sumerian God of War and Disease, so you get the feeling that most people would not want him around based on just that. The other Soviets join in, trying to beat it open

Bruce; Why would they do that?

Me: They are Soviet Vampires who think that this is a vampire who actively tries to become Satan

Kokoro: This makes perfect sense, look, they are taking the chance that this doesn’t work out, because it might be worse if he wakes up later and gets some steam rolling instead of when he is groggy.

Bruce: Okay *joins in and causes it to crack somewhat*

Me: Yeah, so can you both roll a d100

Kokoro: *over 80*

Bruce: *over 85*

Me: *rolls a d4* First, you hear a shuffling as an ancient man in robes approaches. He sees all of you and screams. “What are you doing, no stop stop!”

Bruce: I’m just doing what people tell me to do

Ambrosio: Stop negotiating and following the orders of CULTISTS

Bruce: Come on man

Me: Ambrosio seems to be trying to come up with a solution and sighs before staring at the man as the old man *looks at sheets* Wow, White Wolf is terrible at making sheets.

Kokoro: Why?

Me: this is an over three thousand year old warrior vampire and he is supposed to just have three brawl and two melee.

Kokoro: I…what?

Me: Yes, and I am ignoring this sheet because this is stupid. He grabs Ambrosio and lifts him up

Kokoro: These guys are terrible at making sheets.

Ambrosio: *uses power to find out secrets* Wait, you are Elimelech, the guy from the bible, how-

Me: This seems to piss off the old man who crushes Ambrosio’s windpipe, do you do anything

Bruce: No

Me: Ambrosio *rolls* manages to just barely get a cut in with his sword, and you hear a crack as the Al-Mahri one opens, the cover grating as it is slowly slid back. A nearly petrified corpse coming out and you feel the presence basically flooring everyone to the ground as it climbs out, then, seemingly teleports to the combat, and sinks its fangs into the old man, instantly draining every drop of blood from his body, leaving the vampire as ash.

Kokoro:….Is this bad

Me: The corpse rapidly changes, taking the appearance of a young woman with tan skin and short dark hair, she addresses the Soviets.

Vampire: I am Aclima, Luluwa bat Hawwa, first woman born, where is my brother Qayin?

Kokoro: Is that?

Me: Yes

Kokoro: Second Generation?

Me: Bruce, your occult lets you know what according to some traditions, the reason for the whole Cain and Abel murder is because Adam went, “I have kids and know they need to make some, you know who makes good matches? God. I should ask God who should marry who, it isn’t like it took three tries for me to have a wife, and that ended just swell.”’

Bruce: Oooooh

Me: And so Adam went, “hey kids, make sacrifices to God so that he will tell you which of your sisters you should marry.” And Cain, twin of Luluwa, gave this some side-eye when God said unto Abel. “Yeah, go have sex with your big brother’s twin” and took issue with it, hence rock to head.

Kokoro: does god just like Himbos?

Bruce: So…is she second or first generation vampire

Me; You don’t know

Bruce; is this the best result?

Me: The d100s was to see if one of the coffins opened and had someone wake up, the rolls to open the one you were banging on was for the situation that it would be in, and I did a secret roll to see which one woke up. You got First Vampire Queen.

Kokoro: ooh fuck

Me: And Ambrosio kneels before the woman

Ambrosio: I am Ambrosio, a child of Enigma, descendant of the Loyal Baali who slay both the Nergali and Molochim.

Kokoro: Ffffffff

Bruce: I’m not sure if anything is good or bad.

 

Okay first time posting on this thread and I will be telling about my latest session but first some background.

A friend(The DM) and me(the only player) are running an Epic pathfinder campaing.

I am currently LV23, my levels are 4 in werewolf, LV10 Four Winds Monk and LV9 Barb with Elemental Rage Powers.

so from the lattest session.

I am currently doing an Arena Challenge and the Boss is a buffed Balor(His name was Malrok The Balrok a Balor with levels in Barbarian) meant to kick my ass in and win(death in the arena doesn't count)

And it does for like the first four turns doing nickle and dime damge to me(thanks to high damage reduction, resistance and high AC) but I can't deal more damage than it is healing.

But then Stunning Fist proccs(Which could only happen if it hit a natural 1 on its save) and I deal a little over 200 damage, but then on my next turn Stunning Fists hits again and I deal another 120 damage to it. Could have sadly been more but I had lightning rage going due to previous opponent so no bonus damage on that.

Which is there the sesssion ended.

It was pretty fucking hype when it happend

And so the next session happened and I got fucking two more Stuning Fists in on him and then he died from the accumalated bleed damage due to wounding on my claws.

 

Thinking about tabletop games that I had, there is this one Alpha Strike game where I first deployed my pair of Guerts against a particularly nasty Clan star.

For those who don't know, the tank that I call the Guert is a 100-ton tank that moves at a decent pace and is just insane.

Here's the stat card:

13 armor. 5 structure. Moves at 6 inches/3 hexes per turn. Has C3, CASE, ECM, and all its weapons on a turret. Oh, and it hits at 4 at all ranges. If this tank gets in a position and good dice rolls, it just rips apart even Atlases within four or five turns.

Everyone in the room just looked at me and called them disgusting. It was also the time where I head shotted an assault clan mech... with a bombardier. It got disgusting real quick.

 

Well I can say I have won DnD

I laid the Dragon.

Well to be more accurate the dragon laid me.

 

Details man. Details!

 

Playtested a new version of Payload last night, and the dice did not love me.

Because I was being stupid, I placed my Splinter Hawk (Custom, flight-capable Gunship "Mech") in a position with no cover whatsoever at the deployment zone, thinking I'll roll good Initiative to fly to the enemy side of the map and get a flanking move in.
Well, I did not, leading to the MBT and two Skimmer Tanks the GM wanted to test out utterly assblasting my Mech. Before it was even my turn, I was down to around 50% Health and On Fire.

It was only the GM showing mercy on me that Splinter Hawk didn't die immediately on the first round, before I could even do anything.

Rest of the session didn't run any better. Only around a third of my attacks even hit, and only half of those did enough damage to get past the Tanks' armor.
The weapons on my Mech were strong enough that they could do that, mind you, I wasn't throwing cotton balls at a brick wall here, I was just rolling so low on the damage rolls that it didn't get past the armor threshold.

 

Played a 4v4 on aoe3, the side I was on was for the most part working smoothly until one of green's villager wandered into red's base, and red went apeshit in the chat. Meanwhile I was on the sidelines making border control jokes. Somehow we still won.

Also my username on aoe3 is 我喜欢黄色电影, I figure it'll intimidate anyone who don't know Chinese due to the reputation that Asian players generally have.

 

I had to make a one shot for my players due to some guys not being available

I ended up with a CoC one shot where the contestants of a reality show are being hunted in an old asylum on a reality show.

The NPCs ended up being the weirdest people ever: Old Austrian lady big game hunter, Japanese comedian YouTube, Spanish med school mountain climber, Chinese drag racer and diver, and a Californian guy who works as an aid in home improvement show, who really wants to branch out and have his own one.

 

a general question, has anyone played Mutants and Masterminds? I tend to play around with the system's character creation to try and figure things out.

ex: Working on a character concept of an AI. The general ways I've seen this done is to have them be Insubstantial (Energy)/Etherial or use shrinking. Null stats are always a weird thing where I've seen debates on whether you need to give someone immunity to dodge/parry (which itself is an odd effect where I've seen it done multiple ways because even official books tend to have issues with power point distribution of effects).

The way I've done it is incorporeal with no physical stats, but cyberspace movement and teleportation medium through machines combined with communication (radio) and remote viewing (visual and auditory) to get around being an incorporeal presence.

Depending on if it is run as a minion or not creates different issues as minions are not supposed to have minions so a power like Animate Machines (use machines as minions) is technically not allowed by the base rules if done so, but works differently according to official sources compared to Afflictions that make machines go off on their own and perception move object limited to operating machines (I put the three and a perception damage power in an array).

I personally think it works best as a minion for another character by acting as a support and mainly non-combat character. *see things through camera on a guy's supersuit, use control/operate machine to open/close/lock doors/turn off security* on top of background stuff like making phone calls to people and using a deception check/legwork to falsify documents though I'm not entirely sure how the quickness advantage works there since a gm might consider that to be mental only or not.

general story time though

my VTM campaign has resulted in me having NPCs manhandle the players away from senselessly genociding an African village in Cape Verde due to them thinking about killing everyone on the island to raise as zombie meat shields.

Chinese Muslim Ex-Mujahideen Lasombra; I am getting a boat, they do not want us here, stop it. Bad.

Players: But what if we are attacked by the monsters in the sea

Chinese Muslim Ex-Mujahideenn Lasombra: I can punch buildings to death, you are a time stopping swordswoman, spirit calling gangrel, and weather controlling blood mage of the third generation. You don't need to do that

one of my players has saved over 50xp and refuses to spend it nor come up with an idea of what he wants to spend ANYTHING on because he is high on weed 24/7 (he is addicted, he complains about being stressed all the time if he isn't on weed, and doesn't acknowledge the idea of that being withdrawal despite one of our other players being a nurse)

Me: A tentacle that isn't moist at all wraps around your shoulder

Bruce (Gangrel Player character): Is it an octopus, I'll use animalism

Me: it is not moist

Bruce: I will speak in kraken, can I roll for that

Me: Yes

Bruce: *speaking in cephalopod*

Me: Another tentacle wraps around your other shoulder, roll to grapple

Bruce: Is it not listening to me?

Me: It isn't a sea creature, you are in the ship's cabin, being strangled to death by Slenderman again. Do you want to spend XP?

Bruce: No, *fails roll because he is severely underleveled due to refusing to spend his xp for several months*&

Me: You can feel your hyoid crunching and take four bashing damage. What do you want to do?

Bruce: Can I scream?

Me: Your throat has been collapsed.

Bruce: Is anyone coming to help me?

Me: Up top, Kokoro (Toreador player) you can see ice forming on the railing. It is winter though. Both of you can roll awareness or alertness if you like.

Kokoro: *gets 2 successes* So I'll go deal with slenderman

Me: nope, you don't know about Slenderman

Kokoro: What? Why?

Me: Because Bruce has NEVER EVER told any of you about the fact that he has been repeatedly assaulted by a scary tentacle monster. Bruce, what do you want to do downstairs?

Bruce: Try to escape

Me: You can spend blood to heal yourself and boost your stats

Bruce: *boosts strength and heals some but refuses to spend any on stamina even when he is about to be put back into torpor*\

Me: And Kokoro, you can hear struggling in the cabin

Kokoro: I go in

Me; You see Bruce, in bed, with a tall thin creature in a black suit on top of him, it has no face, a featureless white mask where one should be. Tentacles have grown out of its back and seem to be fused with its clothing, burrowing their way inside of Bruce as his veins become an oily black. Its head turns towards you as a long, skeletal finger comes to where its mouth would be and makes a Shushing gesture. What do you do

Kokoro *a toreador with Temporis, True Celerity, Potence, and supernatural sword skills* I try to negotiate with Slenderman *has only 6 dice for empathy and expression*

Me: *stares as a person on the path of Chivalry agrees to give an abomination against nature either a house, a wife, or a child*

Basket (Tremere on the path of the archangel): So we are giving Slenderman a child bride?

Kokoro: Giving him a child is probably the easiest, this is North Africa during the apocalypse.

Me: *stare* Basket, this is how you lose even more of your conscience and path, Kokoro, why do you even bother with the veneer of civility and everything else when it is clear that you don't give a damn?

If they actually did things instead of endlessly debate on plans that they never enact, at least one player would have lost a character to wassail.

 

Something short from a game I’m playing, been a few weeks with just 2 of the 3 PCs due to exam season, which has lead to the 2 of us that were present getting into some hijinks, which includes the pair of us joining the magic illuminati (long story).

So, obviously, the first thing the pair of us start to plan, rather than setting things up to prepare for the upcoming interdimensional invasion, is what sort of hazing ritual we can get the PC who has (in story) been doing responsible things to do when we induct him into the illuminati.

 

secret societies doing hazing is just normal IRL

completely in-character

 

*raises hand* Played both 2nd and 3rd.

Are you making a PC or something the PCs have? Or an NPC? Because some of the things you say sound like NPC (the minion thing), and NPCs get to break rules left and right if it makes things easier for the GM.

If it's an NPC, there's a lot of things you'd never allow on a PC. You can run an AI like a 'mentalist in a bathroom', just remote-viewing and remote-afflicting and making minions, only it's machines instead of people. The 'bathroom' in this case is either the mainframe it's running from, or an alternate dimension of cyberspace.

The later lets your gadgeteer PC make a machine to get the party into cyberspace and punch the AI in the face, the later has the team invading the evil lair, or blocking contact with the evil lair.

The minion rule is there to prevent PCs from making infinite minions, you can cheerfully toss it aside for an NPC. You could even allow it on a case by case basis for something on the PC's side, say, a minion AI who's only way to fight is to make a minion (controlling machines), because it's not breaking the action economy and it's not producing infinite minions.


If it's something the PCs have, then it depends. If it's something they're carting around I'd say make it a minion that pretty much acts as a device: a minion with no physical stats other than toughness that's basically a paperweight on their own, but with mental stats and the ability to remote-control or 'possess' machines. I wouldn't give it perception damage unless it's done a lot, possession works just fine and you can stunt the damage if it's not that common, probably as an indirect attack rather than perception most of the time, you should be able to dodge the car suddenly trying to run you over.

If it's something that's at the base, use it like a Contact, it'd functionally be no different than having a mission control NPC communicating with them while on missions and helping a bit to move the story along, but who sometimes gets radio-blocked or whatever so the PCs have to solve things themselves. You might even take the 'use a hero point to edit the scene' thing and let players use it to make the AI do extra stuff.


If it is a PC, that's when you run into issues. The game is built under the understanding that the players are there and can get punched in the face, things kinda break down if they're operating from a bathroom half a world away, particularly if only some of the PCs are, so that's when you use weird constructions like an intangible infomorph that possesses nearby computers, because then the PC is in the scene and can be affected.

 

It isn't a PC, I'm running the concept that it is a mission control like contact or minion for a Monster Hunter/Secret agent type

if done as minion, the fact that it doesn't move normally and its action would be held up in controlling the machine makes it seem like it should be able to do it since that is effectively just one action. As built the perception damage is 7 and is meant to be a mechanic for the flavor of it set things up for a thing to happen similar to how you have Luck powers cause an event.

 

I expected that's where you got the perception thing, but the Luck power is working on the basis that anything can be the random shit that damages the enemy, the AI is going to be a machine, and on most situations there's going to be a limited amount of sources for that, so the enemy can anticipate and thus, dodge it, that's why I suggested damage with the indirect extra that lets you sometimes catch foes flat-footed.

I'd say ignore the rule that exists there to limit PCs and let it make minions with machine-control most of the time, it's a better model since foes can just wreck the machine and thus stop the problem.


I'd also say let it stay at HQ and work from there, it gives you a lot more ways to screw with the PCs that way: there's no signal, the enemy gadgeteer is blocking it, the location is far from the base so the lag means it only gets one action every two turns, etc.

 

the perception power is on an array because I wasn't sure about how to run ranged attacks with no dexterity.

I find the insubstantial thing to not be that much of an issue as the lack of stamina means anyone with affects insubstantial bodies the AI but it isn't meant to really be there with them. the insubstantial thing is meant as its last resort (and its teleport is relatively limited) so if it shows up in front of them to say something, that means things are really bad and is going to do its best to try and get the fuck back out.

general idea is for it to be at HQ

 

Attack bonus. Sure, you have to buy it from negative but since you're basically running it as attack specialization it tends to end up cheaper than the extra of perception.

Of course, since it's an NPC and not a PC, you don't need to care. Say it has a damage effect with attack X and that's it, no need to bother with the math.

Eeh, don't use insubstantial for that, use remote communication with a visual component. A good rule of thumb is that if the foes shouldn't be able to hurt the AI by throwing an EMP or whatever, then the AI shouldn't be physically present at the scene. If they can hurt it, then treat it as a feedback effect from the minion getting wrecked by the right descriptor instead of worrying about insubstantial.

As I said before, the things you do to prevent the bathroom mentalist problem or the infinite minions problem aren't things you need to give the slightest fuck about for NPCs. Let it operate 100% remotely, make it do whatever effect is most appropriate to simulate what you want, which is probably a minion most of the time, but could be any other appropriate effect within it's PL if that works better for the scene (ie: turning on the supermagnet at the junkyard works better as an effect than as a minion).

Give it mental stats/skills because you might want to use those to roll for information checks and shit, but don't sweat it about the powers.

 

Ok, I'll give you guys a yarn about a Force-on-Force game I played a while back. I was French, working with Germans, going up against the Soviets.

French infantry (when not suffering terminal morale failure) are pretty fucking scary.

One of the major bits of Force-on-Force and its family (which includes Tomorrow's War) is that training means a fucking lot. For example, poorly trained conscripts will be practically useless while decently trained regulars can do surprisingly well, and elite soldiers just are something else. My French Regulars had to use D8 die instead of the usual D6 (note, poorly trained conscripts use D4s instead!)... and I got a roughly 75% success rate on those dice. My brother told me I did the statistically impossible.

Anyway, the Soviet infantry (including a Maxim team) got wiped out thanks to the Frenchmen doing most of the work. In a handful of turns, the Soviets were wiped out (and what wasn't confirmed dead were dying in a field due to how the rules worked, as you need someone still standing to check them over).

 

Can you give an AAR and campaign scenario? Sounds interesting.

 

It's a tabletop game, and it has been a long while since the game... but the basic gist of it is a one-off scenario where you have some germans and french in a town, and the Russians are coming in. I was playing as the French, a friend was playing as the Germans, while my little brother was the Soviets.

Everyone was roughly early-WW2 in terms of TO&E, which means quite a few Russians were coming down our throats and plenty of cover for their advance. If I remember right it was platoon vs platoon.

Turn one, my brother was moving up in a two-prong assault with one unit coming through the marsh and one through the town itself, with the MG team covering both. I arrayed my Frenchmen into the windows and then started shooting on the combat turn. The Force on Force family does one thing: you have dice based on the firepower of your weapons. For example, things like pistols, SMGs, ARs, and rifles tend to have one die per weapon, and man-portable heavy weapons tend to give two. Heavier weapons can have up to four attack dice. There is a limit to how much die you can throw around. As I said before, these firepower dice are based on your troop's training, and given that they're regulars (there are several tiers of training: green/untrained, experienced/trained, veteran, and elite with a corresponding die type... which looking at the rules again, I fucked up on the description, the smallest die is a D6, experienced/trained soldiers use D8s, veterans use D10s, and elites use D12s, there are also tiers of morale that is set up similarly), they get D8s. Now, you have to do a reaction test and whoever rolls higher than 4+ and has the highest roll goes first.

... and I consistently made good rolls to my reaction tests, meaning I get to fire first.

FoF also gives the sods getting shot at defense dice, and the number depends on squad size, how many die the opposing squad is sending their way, the sort of cover the unit is in, and any armor. First, to determine the number, base defense equals either a) the number of figures in the unit still alive or b) the incoming firepower die, whatever is less. After determining that basic defense die number, you add any cover and armor die. Armor only adds one or two die in FoF, but cover can add to 4 die at most... and if you're fighting exposed, you're giving your opponent an additional die. Successes depend on what is greater. For example, if your defense rolls have, say, a 6, I must roll more than 6 to kill your soldiers. FoF has training being the main determinator of who wins or loses, not weapons, and it shows in the combat resolution. Basically, if your troops can only have D6s and I can fling around D8s... unless you're dangerously hot with your D6s and I was bad with my D8s, you're fucked. In addition, you can fire as many times as you had firepower dice (with each succeeding bout of fire having -1 dice). You must have LOS to even attempt this, however.

So, with that in mind, the marsh-flankers had a line of sight against my French infantry squad on the upper floor of the hotel we were using as a base, but I won my reaction test and threw some 10 D8s at the flankers... and there was a lot of BURRRRRRRRRRRT that turn. The marshland squad got ripped to pieces.

This segways into another mechanic in FoF: determining casualties. If you had surviving stands, then they can roll for determining casualties. If there aren't any available stands within close proximity, then they're effectively dead in gameplay terms. That squad didn't have anyone alive to check.

My brother was 1) completely surprised at this development and 2) pissed. So he went off and opened fire with his MG (which gains two additional attack dice for firepower checks due to it being an emplaced MG) team. I remember not taking that team out that turn but given that I was holed up in the hotel, I got two additional defense die. Those two dice saved my ass as the MG team gave my soldiers a good scare, from what I remember.

So began the slugfest with the MG team giving my friend and I hell as my brother moved his other half through the houses as cover. It was somewhere in late turn 2 or somewhere in the middle of turn 3 that the MG team was taken out, leaving only the two squads going through the houses. By turn 4, that soviet platoon was rendered combat ineffective... with minimal casualties on my Frenchies.

So, in the end, you have to see the French being scary motherfuckers... when their morale isn't in the toilet.

 

I might need a war crimes counter in my games

Spoiler

My VTM players had to saw off a mutated arm in a UN refugee camp which they proceeded to feed to the people there to turn into ghouls, commandeered multiple UN armored trucks to drive through the desert, mindraped them into confessing any crimes they committed before proceeding to take over half of them out into the desert, turn into vampires, vomit the blood they took back into them *one of the players diablerized an antediluvian and has been dealing with the methuselah's thirst ever since* before diablerzing all of the ones they turned, mind wiped the ones they had left and mass dominated a village into letting them into it before traveling more,e finding towns wiped out by the Technocracy, and ending up with a werecat child that they decided they can't leave alone after learning about the Curse of Eternal Hunger

All while mind controlling a UN peacekeeper to drive their vehicle and aide them in their crimes

They've also made white phosphorus and nuclear devices *High chemistry, physics, technology, crafting, and Path of Conjuration*

Every campaign turns my players into terroriists

 

At some point you've got to accept that this is their natural state, not the fault of the campaigns.

 

thinking up how to do a Eldritch Knight build

going variant human with Hexblood lineage gives you Hex. Depending on if the GM lets everybody have a feat at first level (not RAW but a lot of dms do that) you can get misty step along with either Sleep for good crowd control or Gift of Alatcitry (add d8 to initiative) which helps even if you have low dex

rolled stats were 17, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13 so went

Str 17+1 from human, Con 16+2 from human, Int 17 use fey touch to get+1, cha 15, wis 14, dex 13.

Cloistered Scholar, Human, Fighter allows for Athletics, Perception, Arcana, History, one proficiency wherever you want (investigation and religion are both good), and three languages. (alternatively it looks like hex blood lets you choose 2 skills so you can drop a language for another skill and try to get even more int skills. If you drop Perception and switch out backgrounds you might get ALL the Int skills)

Either way, the Hexblood EK gets a lot of damage and can burn spell slots for even more teleporting bonks

not sure on fighting style

 

I run mutants and masterminds every now and again and have been doing it in DC

because of a running gag of the enemy factions being groups from ww2, I had my players hunt down the mafia who turned out to be reptilians (which exist in DC and caused the fall of Atlantis) related to Mussolini

The players went full THEY LIVE and used an alien spaceship to spread a broadcast about the reptilians amongst them and rolled really well. Because we go full comic book insanity, I had it be that most of New York's government was lizard people.

One of the players is a mad scientist and used DNA samples to make a blood test to see if someone is part reptilian.

New York became even more violent than usual because the mobsters were looking at each other wondering if anybody was a dragon, lizard people got punched and had their shapeshifting activate as a trauma response and Italy went into civil war due to paranoia and people taking the blood test and learning they were part space lizard followed by breaking down due to that.

The heroes ended up making public statements of "You are not your ancestors" while more information about a warlike species that conquers and enslaves galaxies on giant skull spaceships spread.

Ivan (Mad scientist mage): "Well the Pope is Argentinian, so that one is safe."

 

So why don't start a campain were they are alredy terrorists?

 

Things aren't going well for Eleanor de Roche-Foucald. She had been hoping to bring honor to her family name, become a protector of the weak, a household name, a discover of secret knowledge and/or more. Instead she had been kidnapped one night by a mad wizard and made to pose in a life-size historical diorama. Not even as one of the important players, either, just a nameless guard in the throne room watching the crowning take place. And then she stayed like that for years, going through the same kneeling and rising motion again and again, endlessly, compelled by the magic spells laid on her.

In time, the magic started to wear off. She wasn't the first one to be freed but she also wasn't the last. And at least she had armor and a sword. Setting off to find a way to break the spell still keeping the rest of the prisoners acting out their own parts in the scene, she confirmed that this wasn't the only diorama the wizard had created. After checking in on another room that had a replica of a famous shipwreck surrounded by merfolk, a sea monster and elves trapped inside pockets of air and seeing evidence that the magic holding them in place had frayed enough to allow at least one escapee from there as well, she went on to the main area that the hall opened out onto.

And found a small band of goblins looting the place of the gold that had been inlaid into the stonework. They didn't speak her language and she didn't speak theirs. But they could see the richly ornamented armor and sword she carried and that she didn't want to fight. Slowly advancing as she slowly retreated, when the time came, it was an embarrassment for Eleanor. She barely managed to wound two of the goblins before they overwhelmed her. Their prime interest was on the gold and jewels worked into her gear but once they had stripped her of her armor, they realized that they had a defeated, half-naked woman in front of them and no reason not to do anything that they cared to her.

So that is how Eleanor ended up losing her virginity to a goblin gangrape. And worst of all was how much she ended up enjoying it, shamefully orgasming as her noble womb was flooded with inhuman semen again and again. Finally, once she had taken care of all the male goblins, she was allowed to slip into unconscious, naked and leaking greenskin cum in the middle of a hall.

(Or, to put it another way, 'Emily' of Perverted World and I are enjoying our first D&D session together. Her poor Hexblade/Paladin had some awful luck but who knows what's going to happen next session?)

('Emily' says: Hexblade is OP, but not if you have a strength score of 8 and start the adventure without getting a chance to apply Hex Warrior to your longsword! Even if I had, though, there were probably too many goblins for me to have much chance of winning anyway. Eleanor is traumatized, of course, but I'm very grateful to CptTagon for subjecting me to goblin rape right out the gate! )

 

Just had a unit of 10 Archers + Mage kill a Bloodthirster in WHFB 8th.

 

I thought S3 couldn't even wound a Bloodthirster? Or is that after the change to the chart that let you wound almost anything on a 6, it's been so long I forget how it goes these days.

 

Always wounds on sixes in eighth. It's why Tomb Kings suck; they have very little armor but high toughness...which doesn't help when even Skaven Slave units have a 1 in 6 chance of hurting you.

 

I must be remembering either 40k or way earlier editions, or both.

That's pretty epic then. I can't remember the last time I saw a unit of 10 archers in WHFB accomplish anything at all, much less this.

I actually played TK back on release in ... 6th, and I so regretted that decision.

 

I want to tell you the story about my first attempt to play “S.T.A.L.K.E.R.”. How is it different from everyone’s else game experience? You see, series consists of three games, and their names do not contain numbers. I did not know which game is chronologically first, so I decided to look that on the internet. While I was looking, I stumbled on website where could be downloaded fan made build of first game: “Shadow of Chernobyl” with all official patches, community patches and numerous mods pre-installed. How lucky I am, not just patches, but also whole collection of mods! Mods are good stuff, they make graphics better and add new content, I know that for sure since I had experience in playing Morrowind with mods and they indeed made game better. By the way, website was full of rants that original game is too easy and protagonist becomes pretty much invincible with right equipment, which makes game not interesting, and that build corrects that problem. Oh, good, game will be challenging! I even selected highest difficulty because of course I am experienced FPS player, I played through “Quake 2” and “Serious Sam”, how hard could it possibly be?

Game experience was… interesting. I even dare to call if fun… in Dwarf Fortress meaning of that word. But I fully realized magnitude of that fun only much later, after I played “Shadow of Chernobyl” without mods.

Original game starts in bunker of Sidorovich. Some stalker found protagonist unconscious near crashed truck, brought him to Sidorovich, where protagonist awakens. Here player can get accustomed with controls in non-combat location, then exit from bunker to rookie village full of friendly NPCs, do some starting quests and explore southern Cordon – relatively safe noob location. When player is ready, he can go to northern part of Cordon through tunnel under railroad, and then he can go further north, to other locations.

In modded game protagonist awakens near the crashed truck, north from railroad. So another stalker does not carry him to Sidorovich, he just gives protagonist pistol with eight bullets and tells him where to go. He mentions that protagonist shall go under the bridge guarded by soldiers, but soldiers will let protagonist pass if he bribes them with a bottle of vodka. Where would you get a bottle of vodka here? One bottle shall be hidden in the nearby ruins of farm. Sounds like typical quest, right? Experienced stalkers would know that there is no necessity to go under the bridge at all, it is possible to cross railroad by jumping over the fence in certain place, but at this point I did not know that, so went for vodka.

I walked south by the road and suddenly noticed something glowing. I took it and turned out it was an artifact. Not very useful, but I could probably sell it. Awesome, I am real stalker now! And then I died. I reloaded game and died again. It took me several attempts to understand what is going on. Basically, many artifacts are radioactive, they irradiate protagonist while he is wearing them, and protagonist loses health proportionally to irradiation level. To counter that protagonist must wear with them another artifacts, which drain radiation. In original game it is not a big problem, because protagonist is affected only by artifacts on his belt, so full inventory of radioactive stuff would not hurt him. But in modded game artifacts can irradiate protagonist even from inventory. Only way to carry them safely is by using special radiation-proof container, that one can get from Sidorovich. So, I left artifact on road and continued my quest for vodka.

When I arrived at the farm, I learned that there is not only vodka but also very angry flesh. How big problem could a single flesh possibly be? Very big, because eight bullets from pistol was not enough to kill it and I completely forgot about knife. Luckily, when I ran away from flesh around the farm, I found corpse of less lucky stalker with loaded pistol and managed to finally kill flesh. Rest of the path to Sidorovich was uneventful: I took vodka, gave it to soldier under the bridge, and quietly, giving wide berth to mutants, reached rookie village.

In village I met Doctor and he offered to help with curing of amnesia. He gave protagonist some brew, protagonist was supposed to drink it, sleep and see in dreams stuff related to his past. In dreams I have found myself in huge labyrinthine cavern filled to the brim with barely visible anomalies and dangerous mutants. Oh, and some walls could suddenly disappear, allowing enemies to flank me. I had endgame armor, endgame weapon with whole sack of bullets, full belt of rare artifacts, bullshit tier anomaly generating grenades… and I still died very fast. And again, and again, and again. Eventually I changed game difficulty to easiest and continued to die. Because three pseudogiants with dozens of other mutants simultaneously are game over on any difficulty. It took me some time to realize that I am not supposed to fight through certain areas, I supposed to bypass them through other tunnels. Eventually I reached room with couple of other stalkers, spoke with them and dream ended. By the way, all of this also came from mods, in original game nothing like that ever happened.

Next morning, I decided to do some quests and they were surprisingly hard. Mods added automatically generated quests. Aside of plot driving quests from plot-important NPCs, pretty much every NPC was capable to give tasks like “bring me 10 dog’s tails and I will teach you how properly throw them in the anomaly, so it will create artifact”. Problem is that every night happened mini-emission which caused mutants to attack rookie village en masse. Randomly generated NPCs did not have any plot armor or decent equipment, they usually did not survive the night. So any quests must be finished before darkness.

Situation became worse due to roaming stalkers. In original game NPC stalkers were mostly sitting in camps. In modded game some stalkers walked everywhere imitating search of artifacts. It quickly became a problem because couple of stalkers started firefight with soldiers under the bridge and this triggered event where whole squad of soldiers starts to march from southern checkpoint north while shooting everything they meet. Soldiers noticed stalkers in rookie village, attacked them and those quest givers who usually did not survive night this time did not survived till noon.

Another nasty surprise was upgraded fauna. In original game Cordon was noob location with weak mutants, like dogs or boars. In modded game? Bloodsuckers! You know, those barely visible assholes who sprint at you with ridiculous speed and kill you with couple of hits. And in modded game they come in packs! Killing one before he will reach you is already a challenge, killing two requires two perfect headshots from double-barreled shotgun, because nothing else can one-shot them and they will not give time to recharge, and killing three… I never managed to take down three bloodsuckers simultaneously, even with use of grenades.

There was also a fucking sniper. One of the mods added quest where you find a corpse of stalker that was apparently killed by sniper and that sniper is still around. You should retreat from corpse in correct direction because in opposite direction awaits sniper who will one-shot you, but if you retreat and then return, sniper will be gone. I made a lot of attempts to kill that asshole, but I never managed to even see him. Only much later I realized that sniper probably was not NPC at all but scripted event that killed protagonist if certain conditions were met.

I eventually dropped this game, but not because of difficulty. Real problem was lack of sleep. Mods turned on necessity to sleep, if protagonist did not sleep too long then screen started to blackout periodically, as if he is closing his eyes. And there were no ways to sleep. There were supposed to be sleeping bags, but I did not manage to find even single one. I survived on energy drinks until Garbage location, met some stalkers here, started speaking with them, suddenly screen blacked out, and when I was able to see again stalkers were already dead and chimera who killed them already jumped at me. At this point i deinstalled modded game, installed original game and imagine my surprise when I learned how that game was supposed to be.