Ready to win some Beta Keys?

After finishing off a long lasting campaign within the fabled dungeons of Rappan Athuk, having died to Orcus, we are all eager to start up a new campaign.

"Why is it their are never any gnomes in our adventures?" says Jason
"Because our DM(me) has had a long lasting hate of them since 1st edition." replies Jon
To which Jason announces. "It is now 3rd edition, he should get over it! We should make our new party a party completely of gnomes. That would be hilarious!

While 3 of the 4 gnomes sit in the tavern drinking and chatting up the villagers for quests, the 4th gnome enters eager to tell his group what he has learned. Local lumberjacks are having difficulty with their work as some of the best lumber is infested by giant spiders. They are offering only a small amount of gold for the extermination, but they have been convinced to throw in a magical dagger. The group cheers as they are glad to finally have a direction to their campaign and are tired of aimlessly milling about town looking for work. They decide to celebrate with another round of mead, but are met with shrieks from one of the bar maids. "Sorry boys, but the tap has run dry. Trouble in the cellar." The group of gnomes inquires to discover some dire rats have made the cellar their home and no more drink can be had until they are cleared out. The barkeep is happy for the help they offer and even promises them a free round of drinks for their heroism. The group of gnomes heads down the stairs. Magic Missiles fly while short swords and daggers pierce rat flesh. They are bloodied and tired from the savage rats, but emerge from the cellars with big grins on their faces. They have vanquished their first foes and even managed free drinks for it. By morning the cleric of the group will have all their bites healed up and can head out to slaughter some spiders. Little do they know they have all contracted Filth Fever from the rats. It only takes a few days of traveling across the wilderness, ill prepared, looking for spiders before they all end up dead and stranded from the ravages of the disease and numerous bad saves from each. At the end of the night, the first and last night of that campaign I can only snicker at the group of dead gnomes. "And you wonder why there aren't many gnomes wandering through my games." Now, whenever my friends encounter a rat no matter the level of their character everyone starts cracking gnome jokes.

 

My best character is a level 28 bard, I've been playing pretty much my whole entire life. He's been through quite a lot of eclectic and diverse quests throughout our play time, but this is the most recent, and perhaps, most compelling.

I remember this one time I tried to embark on a quest to steal a magic KEY. This treasure was highly sought after, and heros from all around the world were also trying to loot the key for themselves. There were tales of few that had already found a magic key that could turn them into lords and ladies of the land. The Key was only revealed once in a blue moon, so my bard embarked on a time sensitive journey to grab the key from the clutches of the Dark Bearded Lord, Megadestructo. But before I could even match wits with this truly sinister villain I had to remove a 3 year curse put on him by a far too temperamental Fairy named the "Wi-Fey". Who insists that the curse isn't to stop him from "barding", but really is just there to encourage him to help out a little around the castle because the "dishes won't slay themselves." Whatever that means. After trying to trying to navigate an unavoidable dungeon filled with riddle traps and her minions, "The daily questions," the "Wi-Fey" trapped me in the final dungeon room. Instead of fighting this imposing creature, I decided to run. You don't make it to level 28 without a few strategic withdrawals.

After several rounds of tactical evasive maneuvering, my saving throw luck ran out.

"So what do you think? Wait...Are you even listening? What are you doing!?"

Critical Miss

Trapped in a dominion spell for a week...

Sometimes when you find a really good campaign you make it last a lifetime ;-).

 

One of the first games I'd ever run, maybe even the first. It was a D&D 3.0 game right after the books had come out, in high school. We'd play as we had spare time during the school day.

When we left off one session, one of the last things to happen was the barbarian announcing that he was going to drain the main vein in a convenient pit trap the party had crossed.

We didn't have an opportunity to play again for a few weeks; when we did, I declared that the barb had been pissing this whole time, the pit trap was now full to the brim, and kobolds were using it as a swimming pool.

It was a very silly game.

 

Hey, guys, I have bad news. We took a wrong turn. This isn't Sparta...

 

My best friend and I would always make a pair of dwarf brothers, Hugin and Mugin. On one adventure the dwarven brothers were out scouting for trouble, and upon returning to the camp they found it ransacked. The rest of the party appeared to have gone missing after a scuffle with who knows what. Both of us being dwarf fighters our tracking skills were not really what you would consider up to par, but fortunately whatever took the rest of our party was huge. We followed the tracks to what appeared to be a giant cave, but it also seemed to be carved from the mountain and not just natural. As we entered the halls we realized that this was a giant stronghold and they captured our party so they could feed some visiting dignitaries some nice snacks. As we made our way into the main hall, being about as sneaky as a two dogs with pots and pans tied to them giants stepped out of alcoves along the walls. They were going to make us snacks as well, but some quick thinking and a bluff convinced the giant that we were their to parlay, before the rest of the dwarven forces raided this location. The lead giant refused to talk unless we could beat him in a drinking competition. He would release one party member for each giant we outdrank. Well 3 giants later and we are pretty much down for the count, but their is still one more member left to rescue. I took the risk and drank both of the drinks, winning the competition and dieing of alcohol poison at the same time.

 

These are amazing. A whole week of these? We are going to have a seriously tough time...

 

Back in the good old days of D&D 3.5 a buddy and I got in a heated debate about what the biggest and baddest enemy a gnomish character could kill with its bare hands was. This lead to me committing an entire year of campaign play to creating Fibnok Thistlebottom, the gnome monk-ninja-illusionist-master grappler-assassin. Believe you me, he was no ordinary gnome, he was a hardened killing machine. When the fated day came and the rest party was nowhere to be seen as the Elder Red Dragon swooped into the canyon Fibnok made his move. Silently dropping onto the titan he stunned it with a powerful enchantment before engaging it in fisticuffs, only to be swallowed whole. As my friend sat across the table snickering at my wasted efforts I held fast and prepared to roll my dice. Using his monk powers Fibnok slowed his breathing to a halt, tore his way out of the dragons stomach, and proceeded to pummel its heart from the inside. After Fibnok burst out of the beasts chest cavity the obvious victor against all odds my companions never once made another crack about one of my gnome characters being weak and helpless.

 

I know this isn't part of the contest, just wanted to add these links: http://imgur.com/a/8jZJS#0 and http://imgur.com/a/tDXtk#0 are two sets of image galleries I put up for the Blue Manchu twitter earlier, they're great gags for anyone who's played P&P RPGs.

 

Back in the early 00's we got nostalgic and started a Middle-earth Role Playing (MERP) story and i decided to try a Bard.
Exploring a cave we found a strange creature that can be described as a werewolf (or more correctly a were-Warg as we found a pack of Wargs before him), the fight was quite intense when our Berserker had a lucky roll on a Crushing Crit (i love the Critical System of MERP) and got a "Powerful blow to the head of the enemy. Bleed for 6 round then dies" so we get confortable by trying to survive without spending effort on damaging him, on his fifth round after the critical the WW decide to slash in my direction and got an extremely high Slashing critical (i hate the Critical System of MERP) saying "A furious slash to the head of your enemy hits his face tearing off his right eye and knock him off 10 yards." this got me falling form a stair with a nice Concussion Critical that gently told me "The hit is centered on your upper torso and neck. You go unconcious for 3 hours and lose the ability to talk for 2 weeks".
The first Half-Blind Mute Bard of Middle Earth

 

Not my game, but one I helped run, the DM allowed a fishnet wearing, crossdressing orc riding a giant armadillo and wielding chopsticks.... It was the most laugh inducing game I've ever witnessed.

 

Sometimes when I DM I like to borrow references from other media, not really for inspiration, but maybe as an homage, or a private joke to see if anyone is paying attention. Sometimes it's because it involves imagery that's meant to be cute, but when taken from it's context it's actually quite horrifying, as if the original writer didn't understand what a twisted story he had actually just written, say, for a child audience. My favorite was a party of 9 unsuspecting players I got to run a complete campaign of The Fantastic Adventures of Unico. The best part, was after everyone thanked me for one of the more horrifying and thought-provoking campaigns that they'd ever been on, both as a survival horror, and commentary on human nature, I showed them the cartoon show. I think they watch cartoons a little differently now.

I also personally have a thing for disrespectful behavior around "famous landmarks". I'm not sure why; I guess I just don't like some campaign writer I've never met telling me what's important for my character's personal story.
So, after having played Planescape: Torment for PC, my friends and I decided to play Planescape tabletop. By sheer chance, after months of arduous travel, our group had wound up at the Pillar of Skulls, in an eerily similar fashion to how the Nameless One had in the computer game. For those who don't know, the pillar of skulls is one of the places you can get stuck when you die if you're smart, and are of a particular evil alignment. You're stuck as a talking head for all of eternity, forced to answer questions from people who might value your evil knowledge. Here's how It pretty much went:

DM: "So yeah, here's the pillar of skulls. Nobody else is around, so if you want to ask it something, now's your chance. Better make it quick, it's already making a commotion by trying to chat you up in 1000 different voices at once."
P1: (joke)"I ask it if it's seen my journal."
P2: (joke)"I want it to tell me what can change the nature of a man."
DM: (rolls eyes) "Any serious questions?"
(everyone stops for a moment and realizes they didn't really know exactly how to ask this thing what we needed to know)
P3: "How do we get back to Sigil? How do we get back home?"
DM: "Several skulls answer at once, but they all want something for the information. One offers to tell you if you pay it. Another offers to tell you if you do a job for it. One simply tells you it will help you, if you kill another skull on the pillar which it has always found particularly annoying..."
Me: "Which skull does he want dead?"
DM: "Um... that one. The one that's always screaming obscenities." He indicates that a particular skull has been singled out.
Me: "Okay, I smash my little bottle of green slime against it's forehead, then turn on the one that made the offer and demand my answer. He's now lawfully honor bound to tell me what I want to know"
DM: "Wait... You what?"
(everybody sort of freezes. They're not used to something catching the DM off guard.)
Me: "Green slime kills skulls, right? It shouldn't take very long at all to dissolve. I want my answer."
DM: "Where did you get that? Why do you even have that?!"
Me: "Our very first encounter, when you tried to kill me with it, remember? I saved some in a jar to keep as a pet, just for this sort of thing. Get em', Slimey. Make em' talk!"
DM: "I think that stuff spreads faster than you might have realized. The skulls start screaming in unison as they realize their fate slowly spreading across the pillar towards them."
Me: "He's still got plenty of time to answer my question. Talk you darn skull! I did what you wanted, now tell me how to get back to Sigil!"
DM: "All it can manage is "You fool, what have you doooooone!?" before it's engulfed in the slime and dissolves."
Me: "Rats. Are any other skulls still alive long enough to answer?"
DM: "The entire screaming tower of skulls is losing it's stability, as the slime eats away at it, and it's beginning to collapse in on itself. It's becoming dangerous to even stand near it anymore."
All: "We back off and watch from a safe distance."
DM: "The entire pile of heads comes crashing down on itself loudly, creating what is perhaps the single largest green slime in D&D history. The pillar of skulls is now the sea of Slime, and all of Baator will probably want you dead for this."
Me: "I killed a landmark? How many XP does that give?"

 

Good old Heroes Quest... after defeating most of the critters (mummy's were as serious pain) fell into a pit trap on my way out carrying all my loot. Needless to say that took the last of my body point -___-*

I love that game...

 

Lots of Traveller™ sessions where the players don't even make it out of Character Generation alive. That's how tough it was back in the day.

 

God, MERP. We used that game as a springboard into the Rolemaster system, which I guess it was derived from. But you're right Pengw1n, absolutely brutal combat. The first time we played it we were just getting into it - we'd figured out the combat system by sparring a little, been hooked into the story by the GM, and found a ruin in the Trollshaws. We were going about exploring it gleefully when we were attacked by Dunlending scouting party. Well, you know how combat is. It ended with me (a dwarven warrior) having his leg severed and being left to bleed out in agony, our mage being shot clean through the eye for an instant death, and our scout having his "heart exploded" by a blow from a warhammer.

Couldn't wait to roll new characters and play again.

 

I don't RP because there's no RP community near my location and when I finally got my RP-ing friend over, I realize that I SUCK at RP-ing! *sigh* I guess I can kiss the beta key (and my happiness) goodbye

 

Ever played an MMORPG or Computer RPG like Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights? That'll work, it doesn't have to be a "pencil and paper" game.

 

My best moment occured over 25 years on my very first adventure.

As a 12 year old I was dragged to one of my aunts homes and sent off to join my older sibling inhis little game with his mates( they where all 16 years old and playing D&D).

Sitting down at the table I was told 'we need a healer you can be this cleric , just sit there and do as you are told and heal us when we tell you'. So there I am with this A4 sheet infront of me without a clue in the world what was going on and what all these numbers and items on the sheet meant, but very excited about confused at the same. Half an hour later with some healing under my belt, we enter the lair of a red dragon. They all charge off to attack leaving my character to stand in the door way healing when told. After 5 mins of attacking the dragon and all of my spells gone the group gets flamed by the dragon leaving my PC all on his own standing in the door way. At this point one of the older boys pipes up with ' I thought we had an orb of restiance to dragon breath' , this leads a 10 min chat and flicking through of sheets. At which point they all turn to me and ask for my sheet, it turns out my cleric had the orb all along, but as I was told to keep quiet and do as I was told I failed to say anything. The DM at this point continues the adventure with just my character finishing off the dragon which had been reduced to under a 10% of its health by the others,With my character walking through numerous breath attacks from the dragon.

Only later did I find out that the adventure I was on with them was a conculsion of a 12 month campaign, with only mycleric to walk out of it alive. This experience showed me that no matter how young or inexperience at these games everyone should be aloud their own voice and the chance to be inculded.

 

Thanks for the heads up! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna dash to my nearest game store and purchase a dragon age game

 

Well lets see....i believe one of the funniest sessions i had was a Vampire The Masquerade game...
One of our players characters had been captured by the Sabbath and was beeing held in Madrid and since our group was a notorious bunch of good hearted idiots we went there to rescue him...funnily enough we only knew where he was because he swallowed one of his own bugs and we triangulated the signal origin...we even brought a sizable force to get there in one piece. So while most of our reinforcements distract the enemy our group sneaks in to where he was held without encountering any resistance only to find him...well and what appeared to be his 7 identical siblings attached to hooks on the wall - man i hate tzimisce - all begging us to help them and claiming each of them is the real guy. So our blind malkavian orders to stake the whole lot of them since we can not possible detemine which is the true one and we cant take any risks with infiltrators. Then they take the first one off his hook and he instantly turns to ash. Well thats probably not the real one then...lets get the next and so it continues until there is only one left (our GM told us later that all of them were kind of high ranking camarilla prisoners and the first wasnt going to be our guy and after that he would roll to see if our man was next...and he lasted until the very end) and the GM asks: "are you sure you want to take down the last one after seeing what happened to the other 7?" (the caracter even had the common sense trait) to which he replies: "sure why not?" Thus died the first character of that game. Shortly after the booby trapped room went up in flames...luckily we got out in time and went downstairs only to find Sabbatis on the bottom of the stairwell so we ducked into a flat while our Toreador with his int of one with a trait that forbade him to ever go over 2 int decided to delay them by dropping marbles down the stairs...and i am still wondering why but that really worked and bought us the time we needed to barricade the door.
Since beeing a Vampire comes with the perk of not beeing easily killed by fall damage we went out the window. One of us decided to leave our pursuer with a little parting gift by the name of C4...when he stocked up the GM assumed he would just get one of those standard sized packages like in the movies...well now he asked him how much he was actually placing...and he showed him with his hands the measures of something like a big travelling suitcase or maybe a really big microwave...the GM's look was amazing...he then made him do a Wits roll and then told him that on the timer he set he better jump now and find something fast down there to get out of there.
Well as we were speeding out of there the GM described the following: "You notice a red gloom from behind that grows brighter by the second." Thats when i feared we got our timing wrong and the sun was getting up...well there was a giant ball of fire but luckily for us it wasnt the sun...it was just the block our buddy just blew up...well i didnt like madrid anyway...
But well they cant really miss that kind of thing and came after us with a helicopter...and our Bruja actually managed to get a really lucky shot off and shot the Pilot. Further down our escape route an armoured vehicle tried to stop us...and he shot the guy at the machinegun through the slit he was aiming through...the GM set that shot at DC10 with at least 3 Successes needed to hit and he made it...that players luck with the dice is just unbelivable.
When he saw a jet in the distance he went for that too...but some things are just too unlikely and he missed that shot...would have been even more hilarious though.

Just to conclude this...a lot of playtime later he botched a conscience roll and got a mental illness...guess what...yep megalomania...since then his legend has been growing out of control and NPC are pretty sure that he could poop rockets and shoot lighting from his eyes if he so desired...that character believes he can achieve whatever he sets out to do...no matter what and so far...he got away with it...legends like this should have been overtaken by their reputation and with his reckless lack of regard for his own safety he should by all rights be dead...but well...he had become the leader of an upstart vampire clan that conquered Washington and was even offered the position of Justicar of this clan for the camarilla if he agreed to join. He even started to learn Thaumaturgy...he has not yet learned the Path of Lightning but thats just a matter of time.
To this day he does not understand why megalomania is considered a disadvantage...

anyway i hope you enjoyed my little retelling

PS: may i tell another one?^^