[Wids]

>_>

<_<

Well, we can't have a thread without this classic, can we?

[Gatalis]

Nah. Colorado (and haven't played with those guys in a while unfortunately). I'll have to mention the next time I'm down in Texas for political stuff though.

We got into some crazy adventures... I think I managed to get about half of the non-combat spells druids could use banned over the course of a year for one reason or another... And one of 'em managed to get the summoning of any and all water-based creatures banned after we combined treeshape with the summoning of porpoises.

[Wids]

Details! We want details!

(This ought to be good.... :D )

[WillowWhite]

@WillowWhite: So Milo the Halfling tried on magic items without identifying them first? O_O

...

I also like to live dangerously. :P

Yeah, our thrill seeking halfling. He was always pilfering goods, and he couldn't very well have the group scholar identify the items. Then we would have known he had them. Sneaky little halfling would just wear what he could until we came to a town and hope for the best. As luck would have it none of the curses were too very terrible. :)

[Wids]

You know, if Milo's companions were clever, they could have just left any potentially cursed magic items lying around for him to find. "Well, I really like this girdle, but it could be one of those girdles that changes your sex when you wear it. I know! Let's let Milo try it on. If he turns into a halfling girl, it's cursed." :D

Also, more amusement ensues:



Yeah, "Don't split the party" is common gamer advice, but it's too bad that so many gamers feel this way (and that so many Game Masters enforce this idea), because some of the best tabletop times I've had with my players were with that aforementioned Technocracy party, where splitting the party was A) a common occurrence, and B) usually the key to success. "Okay, we have eight minutes to find this antimatter bomb. Agent Echoes! Keep leaning on that desk sergeant we captured; he's bound to know something. Dolph! You and Helsen search the power plant; pay particular attention to any reactors you find. I'm taking Deepwell and Applebot to search the tower from the ground floor up. Contact me immediately if any of you find anything. Let's move out!"

Splitting the party can also be great for those times when someone in the party is walking into something big and hairy but doesn't realize it, a la:

DM: "And there, embedded in the stone tree, is the Stone of Azrabbar, right where the druidic text said it would be."
Joe Player: "Kargath takes his adamantite dagger and pries the stone out of the tree."
DM: "Kargath's unbreakable blade slips behind the mystic stone, and with a twist of the blade, the stone begins to come loose amid a shower of broken pebbles. Cutting back to Starkad. Starkad, the druid is still chained into the throne where you left him, but his emotion has made an unexpected change from anticipation to glee."
John Player: "Starkad slaps the druid across his jowls and asks him, 'What's so funny?'"
DM: "Shaking his head to ease the sting, his glee ascends to cackling. 'I lied. The Stone of Azrabbar is not a conduit for necromantic power; it's an inhibitor! My forefathers butchered twelve druids from the Circle of the White Rose and took that grove for their own, but the earth recoiled in vengeance and began to vomit forth the corpses of the slain! So my grandfather's grandfather set the Stone of Azrabbar in that tree to stop the vengeful dead from rising and consuming anything in their path, then petrified the tree so that none could remove it...none but a man with an unbreakable blade, mayhap.'"
Joe Player: "Oh...shit."
DM: "Cutting to Kargath. Kargath, to your delight, the Stone of Azrabbar pops free from its granite moorings and plops right into the palm of your hand. But no sooner have you tucked the stone into your satchel than the earth violently shifts beneath your feet with a bone-chilling wail from beyond! Roll a Reflex Save against DC 12 to stay standing."
Joe Player: "Oh...double shit."
DM: "Also, get ready to roll for initiative, because the roiling topsoil just unearthed a dozen gaunt and pallid faces with eyes of green flame, and they're all turning to glare hatefully at you. Now, let's see that Reflex Save...."

And sometimes, splitting the party is done out of necessity. That Wraith campaign was one such time, since (as Walter the Ferryman explained to the PCs) there are three big factions in Wraith: The Hierarchy (the government over the dead established by Charon himself waaaaay back when), the Heretics (the religious types who basically believe that God/Goddess/the Gods/whatever--and not other wraiths--should govern the dead) and the Renegades (the ones who don't want to kowtow to any sort of authority). There's also Oblivion and all of its little spectres and other monsters, but they don't count because no one in his or her right mind would want to join those guys. And even though a Circle of wraiths can be comprised of PCs from all three factions, it's best to not let your faction's bosses know about your friends from the other side of the fence.

So Serena (Cat's ex-corporate manager turned Usurer) and Hoagie (Kenneth's ex-construction worker turned Spook) decided to join the Hierarchy, while Damian (Ben's ex-gearhead/street racer turned Harbinger) and Wade (Zack's ex-beat poet/artist/coffee grinder turned Proctor) went Renegade. So Walter dropped Hoagie and Serena off in Stygia, then dropped Damian and Wade off at some Renegade camp set up at the Shadowlands version of Bunker Hill. Hoagie was surprisingly well-behaved as he sat down with his and Serena's new boss: Jean-Pierre [some French surname that I'd have to dig through my old Wraith notes to remember], a spice merchant who got guillotined during the French Revolution.

Ben: "I like this game! It's part Final Destination, part The Shining and part Beetlejuice!" (on hearing me describe to Kenneth and Cat how Jean-Pierre French Guy just walked into the room carrying his own head, set his head down on his desk and started talking to them through his head on the desk while his body settled into the chair behind his desk, twiddling his thumbs and jotting down notes.)

So Jean-Pierre gave Cat and Kenneth their "Welcome aboard, now prove yourself" quest: Find out what happened to some kid's ghost who stopped hanging around the playground at his old school. Then Damian and Wade got to meet their new boss, and things didn't go so smoothly:

Me (Storytelling their new Renegade boss, Jakob the Jew): "So the two bulky Hell's Angels lead you into something resembling an old Army tent, then go back outside and stand watch at the entrance. After about two minutes, the tent flap on the far side opens, and in shambles a bald man as naked as the day he was born. He's unsettling to behold, as he's very gaunt and almost skeletal in appearance, with dark eyes deeply sunken into their sockets and skin stretched tight enough for you to make out the fixed joints in his ribs. Puffs of yellow gas drift from his nose and mouth as he stops before you and strains to speak. 'Perhaps you are wondering why you are here....'"
Zack (to Ben): "Perhaps we are wondering if we should have brought this guy a cheeseburger and a pair of pants!"
Me: [silently listening, not even bothering to ask them if they're talking IC or OOC, because it's an established rule at my table that, if I'm talking IC, you shouldn't talk OOC without giving me a heads-up first.]
Ben (to Zack): "You can count his ribs. Better make it a dozen cheeseburgers."
Zack (to Ben): "Or a hundred."
Me (as Jakob, raising my voice and leaning over my screen): "I died at Auschwitz."
Zack: "Oh."
[Zack and I stare awkwardly at each other for a few seconds.]
Zack (as Wade): "Shutting up now."
Me (as Jakob): "Thank you."


So it turned out that Jakob was an old Polish rabbi who died like he said he died, but he figured that the dybbuk weren't doing enough to depose the Deathlords, tear down the Hierarchy and replace it with some better form of government, so he left the Dark Kingdom of Wire, joined the Renegades and worked his way up to become one of the local underbosses after a few decades. I used to live down the road from an old Polish lady back in St. Louis, so I can do a fairly decent Polish accent (like I did for Jakob). So anyway, Jakob gave Damian and Wade their "Hello" quest: "We've heard about a Nihil opening up in such-and-such location west of Buffalo, New York. Go there, come back and tell me what you found." Yadda yadda.

So Serena and Hoagie got a boat to the ruins of the Saint Louis Arch (since almost everything in the Shadowlands is an old, crumbling version of what it is in the Skinlands), while Damian and Wade drove there using Damian's Dodge Challenger and his Argos. So they all met up again, talked about their errands and decided to take care of the Hierarchy quest first. They found that a bunch of Striplings had come to the playground and tormented the boy's ghost until he became a Stripling too, so they took out a few of the Striplings (including the boy himself) and ran away from the rest, because a playground full of evil little kids is creepy as hell. Then they went to find the Nihil.

Ben (as Damian, getting out of his car): "I bet he's sending us into some God-awful deathtrap, because you couldn't keep your mouth shut about cheeseburgers!"
Zack (as Wade): "Hey! You were a part of it too, you know!"

So they didn't find any Nihils there, but they did find a few Tindelhounds (who only appear in the Shadowlands after a Nihil opens up and spits them out). So they went back to the Arch and went their separate ways to report back in with their success. Of course, I had to remind Ben and Zack that they had already gotten off on the wrong foot with their new boss....

Me (as Jakob): "So...did you find any evidence of a Nihil opening?" [leaning over my screen and glaring at Zack again] "Or are you just here to give me a hundred cheeseburgers?"

I like tormenting dumb players. Apparently, so did Kenneth. ;)

Kenneth (as Wade's Shadow): "Hey, Wade! I dare you to walk up to Jakob and kick him! I bet he breaks right in half!"
Zack (as Wade): "No way in hell! I'd get my ass beat!"
Kenneth (as Wade's Shadow): "Whatever. You wanna do it and you know it!"
[even though dialogue between wraiths and their Shadows is usually internal, Jakob, being a rabbi of sorts, happens to be a Pardoner (which is how he survived living next to the colossal permanent Nihil at Auschwitz for so long). And wraiths with a rank or two in Castigate can tell when a wraith and his Shadow are at odds with each other....]
Me (as Jakob): "Is there a problem, Mister MacGrath?"
Zack (as Wade): "Yeah, my Shadow's telling me that I should run up and kick you right now."
Me (as Jakob): "I see. That would be a...very unfortunate thing for you to do."
Zack (as Wade): "I figured. That's why I'm telling my Shadow to piss off now." (then to Kenneth): "Piss off!"


Anyway, splitting the party can be fun, so you should definitely split the party at every opportunity. Later, I might chatter about my friend Rachel's Vampire campaign, my Assamite and how we split the party for great justice there too! But for now, I want to play Neverwinter Nights. See you on the server! ;)

[Wids]

Meanwhile (or, rather, some time in the early 2000's), our troupe's Technocracy party had uncovered a plot about the Neo-Technocracy (a secret splinter group within the Technocracy) trying to usurp control of the Technocracy itself by wiping out several Technocratic control stations and whatnot...

Kenneth (as Agent Echoes): "Hicks! I'm inside the warhead, taking fire from two sides while I'm trying to redirect the guidance system! What are your orders?"
Ben (as Lieutenant Hicks): "...hold your position."
(Echoes was crammed inside the warhead of a Neo-Technocratic antimatter nuke, sitting on the missile's antimatter containment unit and reprogramming the guidance computer so that the missile would come right back down on the Neo-Technocracy base and detonate, all while Hicks and the rest of the Last Resort team were exchanging fire with Neo-Technocracy defense teams on the other side of the missile silo...and the other side of the missile. It was a very precarious place for Echoes to be.)


Years before that, I ran a GURPS Horror one-shot for Robert, Kevin and Lenny while Dobie was away on a TDY for a month or two and Screech had to stand guard at Malmstrom's arsenal that night. Just as Palladium games are good for munchkins, GURPS games are good for obsessive-compulsive Game Masters who want a dice table for everything down to what color the character's boss painted her toenails that morning. Every other type of Game Master tends to find GURPS tedious and nitpicky as all hell, and so I did. But I still ran this one-shot, and I baited-and-switched my players by not telling them that it was a horror game, just that they were playing a bunch of college guys heading down to Camp Lakeside on Flathead Lake to drink beer, play some sports and schmooze with the college girls. So Robert rolled up Jughead, Kevin rolled up Moose and Lenny rolled up Reggie because my players were jerks. Then night fell, one of the college girls told a campfire legend about a killer maniac named "Crazy George" Freeley who killed off a mess of campers up in those same mountains twenty years ago. Guess who showed up a little while later and started picking off college kids one by one.

Lenny (as Reggie): "Jill! We're getting everyone to the ranger station! Where's Stephanie?"
Me (as Jill): "Stephanie? She was all stressed out over Crazy George killing her boyfriend, so she went down to the beach to take a hot shower."
Lenny and Robert (together, as if on cue): "She's dead."
--Lenny and Robert, being dangerously genre-savvy. Sure enough, they found Stephanie hanging from from the showerhead, right where George caught her mid-shower. Have two-dozen Halloween and Friday the 13th movies taught us nothing? :P


Me: "The front door to Ranger Station 13 is a few inches ajar as you all walk past the Montana Park and Wildlife Service truck and approach. From somewhere inside, you hear white noise crackling from a radio...."
Lenny: "Let me guess. All the rangers are already dead."
Me: "There were only two. But yes."
--Lenny, being genre-savvy again.


Robert (as Jughead): "All right, Crazy George! You can kill us all you want, but that duck? You done fucked up now!"
--Crazy George tried to spook the kids out of the ranger station by snapping a duck's neck and hurling it in through a closed window. Jughead did not take kindly to that.


Me: "The still of the night is suddenly shattered from the staccato reports as Lenny empties the last three hollow points from the ranger's revolver into Crazy George's center mass. The killer stumbles, then falls backward onto the grassy sand in a shower of gore, where he writhes in agony for a moment, then lies very still."
Lenny: "Yes! Kick ass!"
Robert: "All right! Is Crazy George finally dead?"
Me: "Are you checking to see if Crazy George is dead?"
Robert: "...okay, yeah. I check to see if Crazy George is dead."
Me: "Okay." (rolling six-siders) "While Jughead is leaning over Crazy George and checking him for signs of life, he suddenly feels the sharp bit of George's pickaxe punching through his abdominal wall for 12 Dam...."
Robert: "Whoa, whoa, whoa! I did mention that Jughead's checking him from all the way over here, right?"
--Sorry, Robert. No takebacks. :D


Dobie (having returned from Guam, now hearing our account of the GURPS Horror adventure): (as me) "You've all showed up for a fun-filled weekend at Camp Crystal Lake! What do you do first?" (as himself) "We leave."
--Sorry, Dobie. I had a contingency in place for that possibility too. I think of everything. ;)


Me (to an SP walking into the dayroom with his German Shepherd): "Hi there. Can we help you?"
The SP: "Somebody down the hall called us and said that they heard screaming coming from this dayroom...?"
Dobie: "Oh. That was us. Sorry."
--Some other Airman in the barracks called the cops on us, so we had to explain to the SP that everything was fine and that nobody was actually being murdered. I guess we might have gotten too enthusiastic carrying on about the GURPS one-shot.


Later, during that aforementioned Marvel Superheroes campaign...

Dobie: "He spent five years at Alcatraz before he finally realized that it's not really a prison anymore. So he left."
--Dobie, trying to help Robert come up with Blockhead's backstory. Robert didn't bite.


Okay, who's next? :)