The fun stuff

[SirPetrakus]

Another true story, we were looking into this affair about some magical item and such that was said to have great evil magical power. It was supposedly lost in an area where a large city used to be and now all the fallen were turning into undead. So on our way to the site, we encountered a Drow, there was this symbol on his forehead that symbolized him as one of the "Damned". He had set this trap up that sent logs flying onto us.

 

- Oh my God! I think I've got it!

- What? What is it?

- The Dam-ed, logs ... I know what he really is!

- You ... you do? *the DM*

- Yes! He is a BEAVER!

 

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

I think we all need to play one of Petrakus' DnD campaigns or our life will mean nothing.

[SirPetrakus]

I guess I have real weird teammates who generally wreck havoc wherever they go.

 

On a different note and setting, we were playing Vampire and we were hunting some people down, don't remember who or what they were exactly ... it was my first time in vampire, whatever they were, they needed to stay near a cemetery for some reason. So, as we are looking for clues, they suddenly appear in front of us, going inside a van and driving off. The party suddenly goes ballistic and want to start chasing them, what a better opportunity to find their hide out, but it so happens that the Malkavian had seen the GM's notes and knew where the others where hiding.

 

- Wait, wait, wait! Give me a map, I'll tell you where they live.

- What? Are you nuts? They're getting away! And they're right THERE!

- Hush! Where's the map?

- Here it is ...

- OK, so they live in a cemetery, right?

- Yeah ...

- Well, they obviously don't leave on the east side ...

- Why not?

- The sun rises from the east!

- Oh ...

- North is too cold ... West is overrated ... so they went South.

- Uh, OK, let's pretend that this actually makes sense to one of us, there are 5 cemeteries in the south, how do we know which one?

- That's easy! Ini mini maini mo *points the fourth one* It's the first one!

*pause*

- A perfect Malkavian explanation, you win 3 XP!

[ramza]

I think we all need to play one of Petrakus' DnD campaigns or our life will mean nothing.

 

We happen to live in the same city and I have asked him whether I could join his gaming group. But, he apparently doesn't play p&p anymore...

[SirPetrakus]

I think we all need to play one of Petrakus' DnD campaigns or our life will mean nothing.

 

We happen to live in the same city and I have asked him whether I could join his gaming group. But, he apparently doesn't play p&p anymore...

 

I play from time to time, but the group I am with is currently busy with exams and I seem to have misplaced my small dice collection. About 14 different sets and another 20 random dices, mostly d10s and d12s. Even if we do play, getting from where I am to where you are, it's not easily accessible, especially since I don't have my own car. Nothing really hilarious has happened in neigh 4 years, well except for that rogue that ... oh! Well, maybe a story for next time! :D

Edited September 25, 2008 by SirPetrakus

[Walsingham]

he apparently doesn't play p&p anymore...

 

...And we can tell lieutenant Kaposki he can keep his stinking badge.

[SirPetrakus]

So, I was playing with a few friends, I had started out as the DM and decided with a player that we would switch sides once we reached lvl 10. i.e. he would become the DM and I would be a PC. Because the previous NPC I controlled bailed out on the story, I made a new character, a Sorcerer, at lvl 10. I asked him. the new DM, whether I should get money for equipment or if he would give me money to go buy what I wanted, he replied that he would give me things he thought were appropriate. Now, I hadn't played with this guy as a DM before, so I had no idea what he deemed appropriate. I got a pair of Bracers of armor +3, a ring of protection +3 and a longsword +1. The equipment was worth around ... let's see, Bracers of armor +3 is 8K, ring of protection +3 is another 8k and the longsword +1 is 2k. So I had 20k worth of equipment on me on lvl 10. Well, didn't really care, I had limitless fireballs and soon to get Cone of Cold so I didn't really bother.

 

4 levels later, the DM decided that Cone of Cold is a very abusive spell and that I shouldn't be able to cast it. I declined because I was level 15 and all I had to actually be useful was spells, since my magical items where all armor related and I could do better damage with a toothpick than my longsword, which I didn't know how to use cause I wasn't proficient with it ... go figure. So the DM agreed. I really wish he hadn't. Turns out, in order for my Cone of Cold spell to be utterly useless, he started bringing forth monsters that had SR near 40, which made it impossible for me to penetrate, therefore I was useless in any combat situation. Now, I was starting to complain because, basically, my Sorcerer was a nuker who couldn't nuke a fly, my buffs where largely inferior to those of the priest or the bard in our party and also didn't stack. But that can be forgiven if the story is good enough and I can use my linguistic skills to some degree ...

 

Did I mention that the DM loved dungeon crawling? We were constantly out one dungeon and into the other. Yeah ... Well, the poop didn't really hit the fan until he decided to throw a Balor against us. Specifically, a Pit Fiend. So, there were 4 of us, lvl 15, against a CR 21 Pit fiend, with the same equipment since lvl 10. Can you feel the greatness coming? One more thing, the DM was playing a fighter, who later turned Paladin and then into a Higher God's Avatar and his personality kept drifting from divine champion to fighter with anger management issues, plus he kept running off on his own, leaving us without a fighter. So the party was basically my sorcerer, the cleric and the bard. So there was actually 3 of us against the Pit Fiend. Easy mode.

 

Turns out, the Pit Fiend has a weapon resistance of +4/10, so no weapon of +4 or less could deal him damage unless we did at least 1 more than 10. The Cleric had a +3 weapon, the bard a +1 weapon with the wounding ability and I couldn't even wave goodbye at him.

 

- Uh, OK, I'm just gonna do the Pit Fiend a favor and throw a couple of fireballs at me so he won't have to get his hands dirty.

- Wait guys! We can do this!

- Do what? We can't even hit him!

- Look, my wounding ability can deal bleeding damage to him, all I have to do is hit him for more than 10 times!

- If we're even alive by then! The DM might not even accept the stacking wounding ability as one attack, rather than each 1 dmg as a separate attack!

- Uh, no, you guys go ahead, I'm OK with that!

- Right ... I'll go forward and try to tank, hope he attacks me instead of you guys, you'd be dead within a round.

- OK, I'll keep casting True Strike on you till I'm out of it just to make sure your attacks hit.

 

So the strategy actually worked, as long as I used True Strike, all the bard's attacks would hit, the Cleric was healing himself and us, whenever we were hit, and it seemed like we were actually gonna pull this one of, though it depleted us of HP, healing, buffs etc.

 

- As the Pit Fiend sees that you guys are too much of a threat to it, it gates another one in!

*pause*

- I fireball myself!

- Choke on Holy Symbol!

- Slit my wrists with longsword of wounding!

[Gorth]

That has a certain "Indiana Jones'que" flavour to it

 

From bad to worse to nightmare and then deteriorating.

[Walsingham]

That's the kind of GMing you do when you're 13 years old! My friend summed it up as a pointless exercise, since the GM can always win. (parries notwithstanding)

[SirPetrakus]

That's the kind of GMing you do when you're 13 years old! My friend summed it up as a pointless exercise, since the GM can always win. (parries notwithstanding)

 

 

When I was 13, I gave my guys all sorts of awesome equipment, we could kill a God usually by level 3 cause it was so gratifying to decapitate a Tarrasque right from the start! We would eventually get bored and start over with different characters. This was more like a "You ate my cookie! No rewards for you!" kind of thing. This guy keeps to this day not giving us rewards, started a new game, got to level 7 and all I had to show for was a +1 longsword and a full plate. He either doesn't know how to roll drops or doesn't want to. For me, it was the most fun part of DMing, giving out cool stuff.

[Deraldin]

The one and only game of PnP D&D I played consisted of a party of 4 modified wizards going on some sort of quest that would stand in for the exam at their school. The group of four was supposed to pass through a portal and explore the surrounding area for a magic staff of something that I can't remember.

 

After going through the portal we found a couple empty rooms and a hallway that was blocked off by a huge pile of rubble. Being the haughty wizards that we were, we took the direct approach and started digging. Apparently the other groups that played this adventure were too high class for digging and summoned help to dig for them. Anyway, we cleared a hole in the rubble to crawl through. As the last of us was pulled through the tunnel a large floating fireball rounded a corner at the far end of the hallway and started to come towards us. We panicked like little school children and ran for cover. In the first room on the left was a large stone table that the four of us climbed up onto just as the fireball caught up to us. In moments it was joined by a second fireball.

 

Just picture this. 4 mages standing huddle in the centre of a large stone table that is being circled by a pair of floating fireballs. Since the unofficial motto of this group eventually became "Let's do something stupid!" someone decided to try to put out one of the fireballs. He had no water though. One guy decided to improvise.

 

"I drop my pants and urinate on one of the fireballs!"

"You what?!"

"I drop my pants and---"

*dm facepalm* "Roll 1d6. You succeed on a 6."

*player rolls a die. It was a 6* "Woo! Take that you stupid fireball!"

"The fireball stops circling the table and floats off into a corner. If it had feelings, it would probably be experiencing humiliation right now."

 

At this point we decided to make a break for it. One at a time we run out of the room, down the hall, around a corner and down another hall. In this second hallway are three obstacles. The first is that for the first 10 feet of the hallway, the floor wasn't solid. If you stepped on this section you fall about 3 feet. The second obstacle was the wizard's ghost guarding the end of this hallway. The third obstacle was the wall of flame right behind the ghost.

 

Our trip went something like this:

The gnome jumps off the table and runs for the hallway. Falls into the false floor and gets stuck. He calls for help.

The second person jumps off the table and runs for the hallway. Uses the gnome's head as a stepping stone across the false floor as he runs past the ghost and jumps through the wall of flame. Ended his turn at -4HP.

The third person jumps off the table and runs for the hallway. The gnome has escaped the false floor. Person three jumps over the false floor. Both the gnome and person three run past the gnome and jump through the wall of flame. Gnome is now at -9HP (couldn't jump as high, took more damage) and person three is at -3HP.

I jump off the table and ran for the hallway. I jump across the false floor, run past the ghost and jump through the flames. I am at 0HP.

My companions are lying all around me, mostly well done, although the gnome is extra crispy. I force-feed the gnome a healing potion to stabilize him. *rolls for HP healed. rolls a 2* The gnome is now at -6HP. Luckily the next room in the hallway had a bed. With our one and only healing potion used up I manage to cram everyone else onto the bed and convince the DM that they should get the extra HP per day of healing for bed rest because the entry doesn't say anything about how many nearly dead bodies you can pile onto a bed before the bed loses any extra healing ability. We sleep for a week to regain HP. Thankfully no wandering monsters disturb us.

 

Now here's the way this encounter was supposed to go. You guys have 4 mages in the party. You were actually supposed to fight the fireballs/ghost with your magic. The ghost was guarding a ring of fire resistance that should have been used to safely traverse the wall of fire.

 

Afterwards we found out that the other three groups that had gone through this adventure had used nearly their full 4 hours. We made it through in a little over two hours thanks to our policy of charging headlong into everything except the rat swarm which was quickly dealt with by a combo of grease, burning hands and a hastily shut door.

[SirPetrakus]

You guys might need to pair up with Odysseas, he'll really complement your group. Or kill it. Either way, guaranteed fun!

 

OK, here's a little funny story. Years ago I was playing D&D with my older brother and his friends. 2nd edition Dragonlance. We had a real veteran of a DM, but he decided to take a step back for once and let someone else try for a change. So, we're a few levels in and we're walking through this forest or jungle or whatever.

 

- Suddenly, the birds start leaving the woods and the ground starts shaking. In front of you, a giant lizard like creature appears.

- Wait! Did you just throw us a dinosaur?

- ...yeah!

- Dude! There are no dinosaurs in dragonlance!

- You mean in this particular area of Dragonlance, right?

- Uh, no, I mean there are no dinosaurs in dragonlance.

- ... OK then, the lizard like creature blinks his eyes and realizes he shouldn't be there. He turns around and get lost in the woods, never to be seen or heard of again. The birds return to their trees and all is well in the world!

[Walsingham]

I am totally changing my company motto to: "Let's do something stupid"

[Magister Lajciak]

I am totally changing my company motto to: "Let's do something stupid"

 

Many financial companies did just that!

[SirPetrakus]

I am totally changing my company motto to: "Let's do something stupid"

 

Many financial companies did just that!

 

Thank God it worked fine with Enron.

 

Oh, wait!

[Magister Lajciak]

It worked well indeed!

[SirPetrakus]

So a few years ago me and a few mates started playing the D20 Call of Cthullu campaign setting, which sucked but I promised I'd give it a try.

 

I had missed most of the sessions since I was reluctant to take part in it. Call me predisposed or biased, I had my reasons. Most sessions ended for the group with them running half beaten and half naked through the Mojave desert. Yeah, it sounded just as obscure and ridiculous to me. Anyway, I was playing a cowboy styled preacher, a la the Korean manha, Priest, just less psychotic. Anyway, the band was on the tracks of a cult that used the Mojave desert (go figure) as a sacred ground for their abysmal deeds. When we got there, most of the paganists were involved in sexual acts with numerous partners and sacrificing goats. If this was supposed to be a Cthullu campaign, it was more near the grounds of a potential bad slasher film were youths enjoyed premarital sex and then got killed.

 

Moving on, there was a sand hill and some paganists were gathered there next to an altar and were chanting. So, this abomination gets conjured with multiple human limbs that staggeringly walks towards. This was more like it. So the GM decided that save rolls needed to be made both for our sanity and our stomachs. Most of the party members managed to keep their insides in, but not all of them managed to keep their wits about. Thankfully, I was carrying a shotgun, loaded. So, I get near the creep and shoot it a couple of times and it went down, while the cultists ran away. What a bunch of pansies! I was expecting fanatics here a la warhammer!

 

So, after killing off the the monster, a pyramid surfaces. Yes, in the Mojave desert. I know!

 

- Congratulations on killing the abomination, but it seems it just started getting interesting. There is a loud tremor and something seems to be coming out from the desert floor. It seems to be a pyramid.

- A pyramid ...

- Yes.

- In the Mojave desert.

- Yes.

- You're serious!

- Listen man, you've been negative about this since we started out, either go with the flow or leave OK?

- Alright! Just that a pyramid in the Mojave desert IS a little ... you know.

- Fine! Noted! So what do you guys do?

- Well, I brought dynamite along, I say we find what they want to do, rig the place and blow them all up.

- I say we start running. NAO!

- Why? I mean, it's a pyramid, I know, but it's just a structure!

- Yes, but what's in the pyramid?

- ... I ... have no idea?

- Exactly! And I wanna keep it that way!

- So you're playing Call of Cthullu and you see a pyramid and you're just gonna walk away?

- Who said anything about walking? I'm gonna run like hell! Anyone with me?

- Hell, yeah!

- Me too!

- So you're just gonna leave this to me? Thanks guys!

 

So I go inside the pyramid to find a summoning chamber with lots of pillars. I rig the pillars, wait for the cultists and blow the pyramid up. Having successfully thwarted the cult's plans, I get back to the car we came in with, drove back to our hotel and promptly found the rest of the group sipping hot cocoa and asking what took me so long.

 

 

FYI, it was the same group I played Planescape with, which made me even more reluctant to play with them in the first place.

[steelfiredragon]

lame.

 

would have been better if the cultists were all half naked women....... with psychopathic looks in their eyes

[SirPetrakus]

Well , here's another little story with Odysseas, happened during a dungeon run-through. We found ourselves in a chamber with what seemed to be a bathtub in the middle and a locked door on the North wall. The bathtub seems to be filled with something, but it looks very translucent. At the bottom of the bathtub there is a faint golden gleam.

 

- So what do you guys do?

- I cut a piece of my rope and throw it in.

- The piece of rope you threw in seems to be falling at a very slow pace.

- Aha! So whatever this thing is, anything that passes through it gets slowed down!

- Well, that's a relief! I jump in to get the gleaming gold object.

- OK! So Odysseas jumps in and you see him go down to the bottom at a veeeeeery slow pace. Odysseas, what you perceived as a foot to the bottom of the tub now seems to be 100 feet.

- WHAT? How is that even possible?

- Why not make an Int check and see if you can figure it out?

*rolls and fails*

- Well, that didn't work. What do you do now?

- I start screaming.

- OK, while Odysseas falls inevitably to his doom you hear him scream as he drops slowly by another inch. Roll Int checks to see if anyone of you gets the idea.

*Cleric rolls and succeeds*

- So, you now realize, with conducting a small experiment, that whatever this thing in the bathtub is, isn't liquid, it is in fact a spell that diffract the light, making anything underneath the surface look like it is much higher than it actually is. You also realize that it took you so long to realize this that it is already too late to lower the rope and save Odysseas. You hear a loud "splat" as he reaches the bottom.

 

Not the most fun death he ever had but he sure had a knack for dying.

[Walsingham]

Ah explosives... is there anything they can't solve?*

 

 

We had been planning a dungeon crawl for some time, but on the day I was the only player. The referee said I could try, but the odds were poor. I pondered this for a while and said I would, on condition he'd let me have a half dozen chickens, four gallons jars of lamp oil, a basting tube and a pouch of rolling tobacco and self-sticking fairy wings (rizlas). Thus proving a personal maxim which is it is best to not tell the ref what you're planning.

 

1. Two crossbow bolts and I'm past the bored goblins at the tunnel entrance.

 

2. I hear a troll talking to itself in the tunnel down. Down goes one jar of lamp oil. glug glug glug. "Hoy, rockfoot!" Burning troll. A bit of poking with a spear. Hi-di-ho, and on we go.

 

3. A guard room. Double-quick the basting syringe is filled with lamp oil, and one unlucky chicken receives it the way a T-54 receives an A-10 warthog. A roll-up is

tethered to the chicken's tail feathers and lit. Finally the chicken is shoved around the door, where it proceeds to flap about, spraying flaming lamp oil over everything and generally causing chaos. In the melee two more chickens are introduced, followed by my dwarven tunnel-fighter who proceeds to fillet the four guards.

 

4a. By this time the alarm has been raised if that's the right word, by the noise of explosive (literally) diahorrea. I can hear a range of goblinoids forming up around the corner. I lay down my second to last jar of oil on the floor. On the near side of the oil I leave a trussed live chicken, that has once again had its innards prematurely pickled. In its beak is clamped a lit cigarette. I weigh down its feet with a fallen sword, keeping it in a standing position, and retreat to a safe distance.

 

4b. On come the goblins, with the weakest in number at the front. They cross the lamp oil. One goes to pick up the chicken, but being food, it goes to the largest one (the chief), who unceremoniously bites its throat out. Out sprays the lamp oil, and down goes the cigarette. Flambe.

 

Naturally I realised at this point that I still couldn't win so I ran off. The referee objects to my use of the chickens as out of character, to which I obviously replied that it was normal practice among dwarven tunnel fighters, and that for this reason the ancient dwarf lords traded first with humans. A fast, and or capacious chicken being worth its weight in mithril.

 

I received full session experience points.

[SirPetrakus]

Same DM as in the CoC campaign ... he was such a douche! We're playing 3E D&D and I've made a wizard with incredibly high Int, Wis and Cha scores, but very low Con, Dex and Str. We started at level 3 and all I asked for equipment was a heavy robe( AC+2) and the Standard Adventuring Gear (a.k.a. Bedroll, torch, 10' pole, flint and steel, grappling hook, 10' hemp rope). DM says fine. Our first quest was to explore an abandoned keep, infested with skeletons. It all went wrong when I started to climb the outer wall.

 

Me: Well, my skill bonus is -3 because of -2 strength and -1 from the robe ... the DC is 16 so I need a 19 or higher to climb the wall. I use my grappling hook for a bonus.

DM: What grappling hook?

Me: The one from my S.A.G.

DM: You didn't ask for it to be there.

Me: How did I not ask? It's in the SAG!

DM: Yes, but you didn't ask specifically what's in it.

Me: *sigh* So what DO I have in my SAG?

DM: Bedroll and a torch.

Me: What? Just that?

DM: Yeah.

Me: What's the point of writing Standard Adventuring Gear as my equipment if all I have is 2 things? Why not just write bedroll and torch? It defeats the purpose!

DM: I dunno, you wrote it there ...

Me: *sigh again* Fine! I take 20! When we hit town, first thing I do is go buy a rope and a grappling hook, OK?

DM: Fine by me!

 

So we clear the keep and we head back to town which gets hit by a tornado.

 

DM: So what do you guys do?

Guy1: Hold on to something solid.

Guy2: Same

Guy3: Me too

Me: Hide in the basement and tie myself on something nailed down.

DM: With what?

Me: The rope I bought as soon as I came into town ...

DM: Yes, but we didn't really play that.

Me: But I told you that I wrote it when we got back! I even subtracted the money ...

DM: Too bad! The tornado hits the inn and starts tearing of the planks. Roll STR check DC 17 to hold on to something.

Me: Even me?

DM: Yes, even you.

Me: I'm in the frigging basement!

DM: Yeah, the door just broke off. Roll DC 17

Me: But I have a -3 on the roll! I can only make it on a 20!

DM: Shame!

*rolls a 16*

DM: Ooooh, you're dead!

 

What a frigging douche!

[Gorth]

Have you seen "Final Destination"?

 

Sounds like he had it in for you no matter what.

[SirPetrakus]

Have you seen "Final Destination"?

 

Sounds like he had it in for you no matter what.

He hated me. xD

 

No idea why.

Edited December 5, 2008 by SirPetrakus

[Amentep]

That's the kind of GMing you do when you're 13 years old! My friend summed it up as a pointless exercise, since the GM can always win. (parries notwithstanding)

 

At 13 (or was I 11?), in one of the few DMing sessions I ever did, I had all the players quit on me when they met an elephant in a cavern.

 

In my defense, when I put the elephant in the cavern it made sense to ME, I just could never get that across to the players.

Edited December 5, 2008 by Amentep

[SirPetrakus]

That's the kind of GMing you do when you're 13 years old! My friend summed it up as a pointless exercise, since the GM can always win. (parries notwithstanding)

 

At 13 (or was I 11?), in one of the few DMing sessions I ever did, I had all the players quit on me when they met an elephant in a cavern.

 

In my defense, when I put the elephant in the cavern it made sense to ME, I just could never get that across to the players.

 

I'm a little afraid to ask ... why WAS the elephant in the cavern?

Edited December 6, 2008 by SirPetrakus