Your fondest RPG moment...

[Jediphile]

Since this is the PnP forum, I guess you've all had them - those defining moments that were so much fun or so much terror or so much... whatever, that you're still playing RPGs or at least remembering with the hint of a smile on your face.

 

So let us reminisce and embrace nostalgia...

 

I'll go first with one of my experiences.

 

The game was AD&D 2e. We were playing in the Mystara setting (not that it matters) and were in some northern lands exploring some mountains.

 

The group was a fierce human warrior (about level 10-11 or so), a powerful human wizard (around level 12 - that was my character), and a halfling thief (about level 9 or 10, I think).

 

In the mountains we came across a fairly large red dragon whose alignment was apparently "hungry"... A harsh battle commenced.

 

We approached the matter with strategy, of course, so the warrior charged the dragon and kept it away from the rest of us. He struck it with powerful blow while taking great damage himself, while my wizard stood in the back and aided his attacks with spells.

 

The halfling, of course, decided quickly that this was all very dangerous and so disappeared to the shadows...

 

Meanwhile the battle raged on. The warrior and my wizard were doing severe damage to the dragon, though the warrior was hurt a lot himself as well.

 

This went on for long rounds, while the thief waited. But he eventually decided to at least do something with his time, so he told the DM that he would sneak behind the dragon.

 

This also took several rounds while the warrior was hemorrhaging hit points and my wizard was beginning to run low on spells. But we were making progress at least - the dragon was visibly hurt too, though it wouldn't go down yet.

 

The halfling thief had found his way behind the dragon, though, and decided that he would try to backstab it. The DM warned him that the dragon might turn on him, even if he failed the attempt, and that his chances were not good, since he didn't have a good hit-probability, didn't have a magic weapon, and didn't have high strength, while the dragon had a very good AC. Indeed, the halfling would need to roll a natural 20 to hit at all!

 

I think one of us (might have been me, but I honestly don't remember) noted that this would logically not be possible, since the rules stated that backstabbing was relevant only against humanoid beings. And besides, the halfling would not be able to reach the dragon's "back" in any event... The DM shrugged it off, however, because, as he said, "what are the chances of success anyway?"

 

But the halfling was adamant to try and rolled the dice. Of course he rolled a natural 20. Now, I should point that in these days, we played natural 20s as straight double damage. If you rolled a natural 20, then you rolled damage roll plus damage modifiers and then it was twice that.

 

However, since this was a thief, he also got his backstab modifier, which, along with the double damage, added up to quadruple damage on the dice roll. However, since it was a nonmagical weapon and the halfling had no damage modifiers, the damage inflicted would be four times whatever he rolled on his 1d6 die for damage. So he rolled his d6...

 

And he rolled a 1. The dragon took 4 lousy points of damage from his massive backstab... And then it rolled over and died...

 

Actually the rest of us besides the guy who played the halfling haven't talked much about this since, so maybe it's not the best story...

[metadigital]

What happened to all the threads? There are a lot that just closed, without so much as a "Spammed" or "AoTS" post scriptum from the mods ... they must be busy.

 

Er ... Fondest memory ... when our whole DnD party (except my eleventh level assassin, who was injured) got toasted by the second of a pair of dragons in a cave of the second Dragonlance campaign. Had the effecct of breaking up the playing community ... And my assassin is still wandering around waiting to backstab from out of the shadows ...

[Walsingham]

I don't about fondest. The one that sticks with me would be playing Cyberpunk. Leaving aside the many comedic properties of invisible monofilament mesh.

 

1) Pursuing a rogue AI in a briefcase that had been stolen by Tuvalan mercs and suspected hidden inside a subterranean high security corp residence. Our midget techie genius was selected to go on recon. A surprised referee was informed we wanted to shop for some oshbegosh (2020) apparel, and a stuffed crocodile. The techie was dressed accordingly, and the crocodile (an actual real stuffed croc not a toy thanks to unclear instructions) was further enhanced with a broad spectrum of detection equipment and a stun gas grenade up its butt.

 

The techie, who looked like a particularly angry and diseased child dragging an incredibly heavy stuffed crocodile, strolled past the cameras on the door, hotwired the mechanism and went inside, traipsing about talking to his 'toy' (really the rest of the team back in the van) and showing 'Mr Nibbles' various things like blocked off areas.

 

Eventually, some of the mercs took exception to this malodorous runt staring at them, and dragged him into a lift to eject him from the premises. Standing there, crammed into the lift there is a Pink Panther moment as a hissing sound begins. first one merc then the other stare at each other. Then they stare down at the midget, and the midget stares at his crocodile who has clouds of yellow gas wafting from its butt. the mercs do a comedy double take, fail their poison checks, and slump to the floor.

[Cantousent]

My favorite was when a halfling thief (played by a friend) pimped out a half-elf (played by my sister) to a bunch of orcs. The way the fellow was always dressed, the hobbit kind of made me think of a pimp anyhow.

 

At any rate, I thought it was ridiculous, but I gave it a chance of working. The halfling managed to get the information, the half-elf managed to cast charm on the first human "customer," and the party managed to escape without a loss. Ahh, the days of beer, grill, and chips. A lot of beer that day.

[Lancer]

My funnest gaming moment for my PCs was achieving Name level in Mystara in which they were able to become lords and run dominions. Determining castle designs and specs was extremely fun as was the construction process itself. And finally getting that castle done and having your own permanent physical mark on the geography of Mystara was the most satisfying feeling of all. The ability to raise an army and war against your neighbors and directly affect the political spectrum.. What else could you ask for?

 

It was great watching them instead of copoerating with each other COMPETE with one another to determine who was able to forge the largest empire.. HAHA!

 

And to this day makes me realize how diverse Mystara is compared to TSR's more plain vanilla fantasy settings that only have two main modes of play.. Dungeon crawling and traveling between locales.

[Darth_Schmarth]

What happened to all the threads? There are a lot that just closed, without so much as a "Spammed" or "AoTS" post scriptum from the mods ... they must

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Just what is AotS an abbreviation for? Attack of the Schmucks?

[Nartwak]

AotS

[Walsingham]

That's just weird, Brain.

[Lancer]

I am shocked that they shut down my topic on "How you DM/GMs find players for your campaigns?"... I didn't think there was anything in there questionable or out of line.

 

The discussion wasn't near over either..

[EnderAndrew]

I'll never understand why certain topics get shut down.

[alanschu]

We probably had it coming, given the gong show last week.

 

They probably just have itchy trigger fingers.

[Walsingham]

We probably had it coming, given the gong show last week.

 

They probably just have itchy trigger fingers.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I now have this mental image of the moderators crouched behind a pile of sandbags with blue helmets on, nervously swatting away mosquitos. The faint chirruping of the servers the only noise in the hot darkness.

[EnderAndrew]

And no pants.

[Walsingham]

And no pants.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I don't need to imagine that bit. They never wear pants.

[metadigital]

Mosquitos are bad. My father nearly died from Malaria. They should use some sort of protection.

[Cantousent]

The mosquitos or the moderators?

[Nartwak]

Mosquitos are bad. My father nearly died from Malaria. They should use some sort of protection.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

They've fine, they've got helmets.

[metadigital]

With corks?

[Walsingham]

Mysoginistic fact

 

Female mosquitos carry the horrible diseases, and bite you. Male mosquitos only drink fruit juice.

[EnderAndrew]

That's because the mosquitos aren't drinking the blood for themselves. Female mosquitos only bite you when they are trying to get food for their young. So when you smack a mosquito, you are orphaning little helpless babies who can't fend for themselves.

 

Isn't that great?

[Darth_Schmarth]

That's because the mosquitos aren't drinking the blood for themselves.  Female mosquitos only bite you when they are trying to get food for their young.  So when you smack a mosquito, you are orphaning little helpless babies who can't fend for themselves.

 

Isn't that great?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hypothetical: Did you know that if no fly since the dawn of life had been killed, the entire planet would have been covered with a 14-metre layer of flies? Think on that fact every time you smack one of those little things.

[EnderAndrew]

We just need more spiders.

[Darth_Schmarth]

No, we don't.

[Darque]

Can't you all spam in the off topic forum?

 

There'd be less thread closings that way.

[Darth_Schmarth]

You see, spam is a quickly spreading disease. Any thread threatens to turn into spam, and do you know why? Because that his how human social behaviour works. I'm not promoting or glorifying spam, I just say that it is more or less inevitable. All discussions eventually change direction, and mostly so into socializing chatter. And how much any of us (particularly the mods) wish this weren't the case and try to change it, it's just not gonna happen. You can't just put people in the OT thread and say "spam all you want", because spam isn't the result of an actual urge to spam, but of a discussion reaching the end of its life-span.