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Gaming Stories, Video and Tabletop

After it has been made very clear that all the potential inheritors to the lordship of magic Las Vegas are some kind of absurd supernatural beings, my players in a Dresden Files campaign used their ability to see souls on two (after having already met several demigods, cambiones and so on) and two of them went "What are we supposed to do, they are a demigod and nephilim?"

Third Player (Yog Sothoth cultist): Why are you hiding behind the pillar *His character is still leaving the class he was teaching and not there yet*

Me: You've talked to a demigod, possibly demonic mafia member, eldritch abomination in human form, a nephilim already

Berserker and Wizard: But what are we supposed to do

Me: The two are walking away with the student tour group

B and W: *continuing to panic*

Me: They are walking away

B and W: *hiding behind pilar*

Me: The other teacher is leading the group away, staring back at you with no idea why you guys are being weird

B and W: What do we do?

Me: And they are gone

Cultist: *trying to comprehend why the two are panicking after using the third eye which always results in weird and trippy stuff*

Me: Roll alertness you see a horrific bug monster with a mosquito's face, wings of a locust, body of a praying mantis, and tail of a scorpion

Berserker and Wizard were confused about why they were attacked by a Denarian while being weird and stalking a Nephilim after they'd been told about the denarians last session by a Nephilim, had it confirmed that they had been smacked around by a denarian, and that the Denarians had been making nephilim

Meanwhile

Yog Sothoth Cultist: I bless this fountain in the name of my god *makes the denarian's legs explode since it was in the fountain having a fistfight with the Berserker*

two of the player characters ended up in the hospital (with one contracting the bubonic plague) after half the courtyard was blown up and the third lawyered up when the cops were asking about the multiple stab wounds and claimed terrorist attack

We did however have the berserker punching so hard it cracked the denarian's skull, it healed but still.

I do have the problem of two of my players always asking to be told what to do otherwise they are stunned in inaction and end up with stuff happening around them while they stare.
 
Tabletop gaming reveals many things that you might not expect. Like getting my sister into a GURPs game. She wanted to know what all of the fuss was about, especially since I do play games with my nieces and nephews, meaning that she has not only been hearing random stories from me for years, but also from her own kids. Put a pin in that thought, it will be relevant.

Now, I had a session zero with her where I tried to figure out what sort of game she was most interested in. I quickly realized that she wanted something more narrative as opposed to tactical. Fine, I pull out my GURPs books/PDF to start working on what kind of character she wants. She has a bunch of half-formed ideas but keeps getting a little distracted by the details. I give her the advice of building herself in a dangerous world, basically turning it into a self-insert. It makes the roleplay easier for a beginner anyway. So we start making some real progress in building her character, except I'm a little surprised that she wants to be a sneak. Fine though, I can work with it.

Then we start working on dialing the abilities in. I ask "Well, if you saw a pile of supplies that you could use but isn't yours, what do you do?" "I steal it." Okay, not what I was expecting out of the literal Sunday School teacher, but fine. She is a sneak. But it kind of keeps going like that. If you see a downed enemy? Well, she doesn't want him to attack again. Need to get somewhere quickly? Steal a car! Friend betrays you? Revenge!

By this point I'm thinking she's just trying to be tough or mean but whatever, it's fine. We end up with a high IQ/Dex build that moves quickly, does a lot of damage, and is alright at being the brains and face. Working off of that, I drop them in a "failed colony" situation where the planet got terraformed enough to support human life but the infrastructure falling apart was a devastating blow. Fairly standard survival stuff. I get together with the rest of the group and when they see her character, they decide to be a bandit gang with my sister's character as the leader.

As it turns out, she was not, in fact, playing around with her answers. a few sessions later and they're a feared bandit gang with some honestly impressively well executed plans giving them good resources and a decent little hideaway that's slowly looking like a small town. But trouble is brewing! One of her kids decided to go full Starscream and try to take over while she was recovering from wounds. (Her HT is pretty low) When she recovers she decides to deal with the situation.

By sneaking into his house, kidnapping him, pulling everyone into the center of town with a flare, and executing him in cold blood! Me: Jesus Christ, really? That's your kid! Her: He tried to dethrone me, what else was I going to do?

So now I have explained the concept of discussing major character beats and not killing a fellow player's character without permission to her, even if her son was fine with it and rolled up a new character. Definitely one of the more chaotic sessions I've had in a while!
 
Hangwind said:
Tabletop gaming reveals many things that you might not expect. Like getting my sister into a GURPs game. She wanted to know what all of the fuss was about, especially since I do play games with my nieces and nephews, meaning that she has not only been hearing random stories from me for years, but also from her own kids. Put a pin in that thought, it will be relevant.

Now, I had a session zero with her where I tried to figure out what sort of game she was most interested in. I quickly realized that she wanted something more narrative as opposed to tactical. Fine, I pull out my GURPs books/PDF to start working on what kind of character she wants. She has a bunch of half-formed ideas but keeps getting a little distracted by the details. I give her the advice of building herself in a dangerous world, basically turning it into a self-insert. It makes the roleplay easier for a beginner anyway. So we start making some real progress in building her character, except I'm a little surprised that she wants to be a sneak. Fine though, I can work with it.

Then we start working on dialing the abilities in. I ask "Well, if you saw a pile of supplies that you could use but isn't yours, what do you do?" "I steal it." Okay, not what I was expecting out of the literal Sunday School teacher, but fine. She is a sneak. But it kind of keeps going like that. If you see a downed enemy? Well, she doesn't want him to attack again. Need to get somewhere quickly? Steal a car! Friend betrays you? Revenge!

By this point I'm thinking she's just trying to be tough or mean but whatever, it's fine. We end up with a high IQ/Dex build that moves quickly, does a lot of damage, and is alright at being the brains and face. Working off of that, I drop them in a "failed colony" situation where the planet got terraformed enough to support human life but the infrastructure falling apart was a devastating blow. Fairly standard survival stuff. I get together with the rest of the group and when they see her character, they decide to be a bandit gang with my sister's character as the leader.

As it turns out, she was not, in fact, playing around with her answers. a few sessions later and they're a feared bandit gang with some honestly impressively well executed plans giving them good resources and a decent little hideaway that's slowly looking like a small town. But trouble is brewing! One of her kids decided to go full Starscream and try to take over while she was recovering from wounds. (Her HT is pretty low) When she recovers she decides to deal with the situation.

By sneaking into his house, kidnapping him, pulling everyone into the center of town with a flare, and executing him in cold blood! Me: Jesus Christ, really? That's your kid! Her: He tried to dethrone me, what else was I going to do?

So now I have explained the concept of discussing major character beats and not killing a fellow player's character without permission to her, even if her son was fine with it and rolled up a new character. Definitely one of the more chaotic sessions I've had in a while!
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Geez, she's basically Megatron but competent.

Anywho thread tax time.

I shall tell the tale of my first DnD game ever.

Ok, so here I am. Fresh, off from completing my first ever character. He was a Paladin. It took me took weeks to work it all out. I was so proud.

I get a game and the first 30 minutes was great! I was checking doors. Got some good wins in and what not. Then we hit the boss. Now, I still don't really know what I was doing. I had to ask the DM quite a few questions and the like.

Well, here I am in the back of the group because I was worried about getting hit from behind and we had a fighter in the front. The boss runs past the entire party and targets me. Three attacks and it got a crit.

We were level 3.

I died straight up.

DM says "Hey no problem. Let me finish this encounter and I'll help you roll up a new character."
2 hours later the session ends, with me just sitting there.

I wish I could say I just bailed after that, but I had yet to learn 'no dnd is better than bad dnd'

The rest of my time there was horrible. We did the frost maiden module and from the get-go I hated it. First I get strong armed into ranger. Then I have to deal with those awful cards that decide my backstory. I made it clear from day one, that I want to be the one who chooses my backstory.

It wasn't even an unreasonable one. It was 'I was a town drunk that tried to save the day and fucked it up and have been living in shame ever since.'

Nope, had to draw the cards. Can't remember what I got but I hated it. DM even complained when I managed to stop a player death in the first session. He was really mad that it took several months before he managed to kill one of us and it was a 'rocks fall death'

The party itself was a mess and the DM kept pushing us against each other. Took me a year of getting dunked on before I finally left.

Haven't played dnd since. I don't even remember how to make a character anymore.

Kind of want to get back into table top but well, too many bad experiences. Doesn't help that I want a more narrative experience rather than 'hardcore kick your teeth in.'
 
My Dresden files campaign's last free sessions has had the players be hunted by a cultist subverted government agency

they currently believe it is the FBI

They had been in a firefight with Jade Court backed Triads and killed a jiangshi by blasting it in the back of the head with dragons breath shotgun shells before ripping its head off

one of their members fled his own apartment upon seeing government agents and animal headed Shub niggurath spawn that eat children and had to pick up the other that was stuck fighting eldritch horror's in a children's ward of the hospital he was in

due to this they made an agreement with the Las Vegas mafia and went around buying guns (to lore out their pursuers)

The yogsothoth cultist player went into a gun store owned by very French people and was staring at machine guns wondering if he should buy several while what they believe are feds came in to arrest him

Player who believes the feds have summoned child eating eldritch horrors: are you really planning to arrest me here?

Government Cultist: Yes *executes several people in the room before turning on his microphone* Shots fired shots fired, there are casualties.

player: You bastard

they haven't bothered checking the news because they know that the weird historian propagating an old religion and a war tourist that fought across several countries in the 90s are really easy to put in the news cycle

they now believe that cultists have infiltrated the government using a lesser eldritch horror the government had been researching (correct)

they were quite perturbed by the idea of a government agent with a stone cold face vocally expressing terror and panic into a microphone while maintaining eye contact with them

so we now have The Mafia and White Court Vampires versus cult subverted CIA and FBI agents

the players have abandoned trying to clear their names and have dedicated themselves to supernatural warlordism
 
My players in the Dresden files game i ran ended up sitting back while the various potential inheritors of a demon king title played liar's dice to determine who would be Demon King of Las Vegas

then did nothing while the Spirit of Carnage appeared to complain about how no one was murderjng each other

Players: *not doing anything mainly worried*

Me: Roll awareness

The Winner, an eighteen year old half demon Casino waitress: *violently stabs an incarnation of carnage with an Aztec dagger that absorbs it*

Cultist Player: Wait, why did you have that

Teenage Waitress: the previous demon king ran auctions and trades of magical artifacts to find a weapon that could seal away the overseer of selection. So i was told to stab it once the competition ended

Cultist Player: that is fair

berserker player: is this a bad thing? What if all Carnage is gone

Cultist Player: I think it is okay if the embodiment of Carnage is gone if it works that way

and later persuaded a different teenage girl into doing a black magic ritual to kill her Fallen Angel father with the carnage knife as a focus (and accidentally killing her mother with the spell as well)

Me: Her eyes are black now and she is asking why you are staring

cultist: did we make a villain? Are you possessed

berserker: does angelic power run on God of War rules?
 
I am about to run a 3.5 gestalt campaign for my friends due to the group still being low on people.

I am unsure about doing Rogue (Swashbuckler Dip) + Bard or swordsage. Either one goes into Scarlet Corsair PrC. (The campaign is in Ravenloft but will include a lot of sailing).

Bard allows for Snowflake Wardance and spell casting but Swordsage is well, swordsage
 
shadowdice said:
I am about to run a 3.5 gestalt campaign for my friends due to the group still being low on people.

I am unsure about doing Rogue (Swashbuckler Dip) + Bard or swordsage. Either one goes into Scarlet Corsair PrC. (The campaign is in Ravenloft but will include a lot of sailing).

Bard allows for Snowflake Wardance and spell casting but Swordsage is well, swordsage
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Bard would be more useful for a small party, would probably have a better attack value, and would be able to take advantage of the level 5 fear ability. Bard would have an easier time gaining a reputation as a fearsome pirate, because rep work is trivial for a Bard. Oh, and Bard songs are amazing when you're stuck with a semi-large group of ally NPCs, like a ship's crew. Provided they're a living crew and not skelletons or something.

For Swordsage, Corsair's Feint -> sneak attack shadow hand maneuver is the sole synergy there. I'm not too hot on relying on that in Ravenloft, but maybe the sailing focus will take you away from sneak-immune foes and you'd have non-synergy martial schools to fall back on if not.


What else is the rest of the party? If they're doing party face, divine and arcane casting, that tilts things Swordsage-side heavily. If there's a role poorly fit, particularly party face, that tilts things Bard heavily instead.
 
aabbcc said:
Bard would be more useful for a small party, would probably have a better attack value, and would be able to take advantage of the level 5 fear ability. Bard would have an easier time gaining a reputation as a fearsome pirate, because rep work is trivial for a Bard. Oh, and Bard songs are amazing when you're stuck with a semi-large group of ally NPCs, like a ship's crew. Provided they're a living crew and not skelletons or something.

For Swordsage, Corsair's Feint -> sneak attack shadow hand maneuver is the sole synergy there. I'm not too hot on relying on that in Ravenloft, but maybe the sailing focus will take you away from sneak-immune foes and you'd have non-synergy martial schools to fall back on if not.


What else is the rest of the party? If they're doing party face, divine and arcane casting, that tilts things Swordsage-side heavily. If there's a role poorly fit, particularly party face, that tilts things Bard heavily instead.
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One is playing archivist/wizard and the other will be Druid/totemist or war blade

I am going to run two NPCs with the other being dungeon crasher/barbarian or crusader
 
aabbcc said:
So nobody can party face for shit? Yeah, Bard all the way.
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aabbcc said:
Bard would be more useful for a small party, would probably have a better attack value, and would be able to take advantage of the level 5 fear ability. Bard would have an easier time gaining a reputation as a fearsome pirate, because rep work is trivial for a Bard. Oh, and Bard songs are amazing when you're stuck with a semi-large group of ally NPCs, like a ship's crew. Provided they're a living crew and not skelletons or something.

For Swordsage, Corsair's Feint -> sneak attack shadow hand maneuver is the sole synergy there. I'm not too hot on relying on that in Ravenloft, but maybe the sailing focus will take you away from sneak-immune foes and you'd have non-synergy martial schools to fall back on if not.


What else is the rest of the party? If they're doing party face, divine and arcane casting, that tilts things Swordsage-side heavily. If there's a role poorly fit, particularly party face, that tilts things Bard heavily instead.
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It is part of why one is a rogue/corsair

i am starting them at 6th level and the PrC has 8 bluff/intimidate as reqs

And I'll be using the darkstalker feat to get around scent/blindsense
 
I finally ran my 3.5 game

Players: Is he punching through the metal bars?

me: Yes, he is a dungeon crasher

first combat

dungeon crasher: natural 1 initiative, natural 20 bull rush

Players: *look at the amount of damage* is he just covered in gore from the people he ran through?

me: one of you turned into a tiger with five attacks before having a second tiger do the same
 
I find it funny that what gets my players up and running in universe isn't human experiments, seeing a murder, were rat conspiracies, or plague

It is being in low income tenement housing

They wanted out of that faster than they did their time in prison

they hid in boxes to escape the mental asylum that was experimenting on people and were staying in their so long I had sent NPC rogue/bard out

Them: We wait

Me: minutes pass, half an hour…an hour

Them: we wait for her to come back

I had them make listen checks and they heard (and saw) a guy being held up with a gun, murdered, and eaten by rats without doing anything, waiting until after the bard NPC came back with the warehouse manager

They didn't mention to the warehouse that the place they came from did human experiments

Then they asked for a place to stay from a scruffy butler that clearly disliked the bard got a low roll, and were in an industrial era-esque overcrowded apartment building

Then they talked to the person that owned the warehouse/a shipping company that carries product from her businesses/sponsored corporate privateers

They still didn't mention the human experiments at the place they escaped or the murder they saw only that they didn't want to live in the tenement building

Merchant: Why should I hire you to run a privateering vessel and have you sailed before

Wizard: I was a sailor a hundred years ago as a ship's mage. I mostly did the mage aspect

Druid: And I can turn into a bear *does so*

Me:….the Merchant stares at you Druid because you turned into a bear instead of anything related to privateering. The NPC rogue/bard says she has actually run a ship and *crit roll* does ninety damage to a statue, resulting in the NPC fighter hitting her head repeatedly for doing so
 
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My players' first thought on how to recruit a privateer group was shanghaiing people

The NPC bard explained that you need a bunch of toughs for that to work so you don't get ganged up on

They also really wanted descriptions of the crew to feel for them

Me: So one of these people you got is this little maybe fifteen year old urchin boy Philippe. He has a rusty cutlass and a begging bowl on his side while looking up at you with big green eyes, saying he has been on Three whaling expeditions

Wizard: Oh god does he have a sick mom at home

Me: he isn't that lucky

Druid: please don't kill him

After the party piss off rats in the city I said was full of wererats and have to crush entire swarms of diseased rats

Wizard: do they do this often

Philippe: I never sleep on the ground floor and keep two blankets wrapped up tight so they can't bite me and I stay warm

Wizard: How intelligent are you. I need to teach you some cantrips to not die of cold *vomiting from a disease the Druid is healing him for*

Their privateer crew now includes a street urchin from any novel about the horrors of the city, spirit shaman, and a lawful evil sea halfling snake monk who has a Glasgow grin

Player who crit sense motive on the halfling: We know he will follow orders
 
My players in our ravenloft game got to hear Revolution Era French songs come out of the mouth of a haunted pet shop's monkey, then heard the translations

Players: What the fuck this shiit sounds insane

*hear another song which repeats It'll be fine it'll be fine while talking about horrible things they do to people*

Players: No, just no. That is a Cope song

also players: We will reveal were rats to fantasy france on a religious holiday by pushing one into a divine circle and have the mob drag suspected wererats into it to so we can test and kill them.
 
aabbcc said:
Have someone bring out a guillotine.
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That happened later

My players used magic to detect curses around them and discovered both the party NPCs were cursed

Elven Player: What kind of curse do you have

NPC with Hiregaard blood *hiding tsarovich blood that the players learned by finding a genealogy book of all the nobles*: We have a madness of law and hatred for others. A psychologist from outside made a study resulting in what he called the Racism Table

Players: *horrified as I put down the Hiregaard species/sex/phobia table that includes All Other People, Children, and members of the opposite sex*

Elven Player: How do you people reproduce

NPC: It is normally not all at the same time and the ones that hate children/the other sex do not get married. We also must purge those that delve too far into madness before they become rampaging beasts of horror

Players: he is a paladin

Me: he has repeatedly told you otherwise

Elven Player: How far along in the madness are you and please give me warning for my own safety if it increases

The elf is both appreciative for a long lived person around with him and worried about the Curse

Along with now checking the guy's teeth for fangs when he is asleep now
 
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