RD: “All right, kiddos, here’s the deal. Starting line’s on Tacktooine on the edge of the Outer Rim. Finish line is back here on Cloudsdale. Whichever one of you wins gets bragging rights.
AJ: “And the right to tax the whole network, aye?”
RD: “Yeah, whatever. But when I win, you’re all grounded for, like, a hundred years. Got it?”
PP: “Yippee ki yay, mother.”
GM: So how are we tracking this?
AJ: Ah worked out th’ basic rules. Each team’ll do a skill challenge. If they succeed, they advance to th’ next checkpoint on the map. Fail, and it’s either a random encounter or another one of us gets to attack ‘em.
GM: Sounds… not bad. OK.
RT: We try to steal a march on the others by using precise calculations to shave a few light-years off the jump distance to the Inner Rim.
RD: OK, roll… wait, how do skill challenges work again?
AJ: They’ve gotta roll an amount of successes set by the difficulty before three failures.
FS: Oh dear. I think my calculations are a little bit off.
RD: That’s three! All right… so, you make it into the Inner Rim, but the drag of a neutron star drains your fuel and forces you to land in… *roll* the Ostleron system.
RT: Have I mentioned before that I truly appreciate your boundless capacity for horse puns?
GM: I have to admit, I bookmarked Wikipedia’s glossary of equestrian terms.
RD: Ooh, awesome! “One of Ostleron’s moons is home to a variety of monsters, and orbits very close to the planet, allowing the monsters to invade at regular intervals.” I gotta hand it to you. You planned a heckuva lot of great stuff that we totally ignored.
I love saying this: Roll initiative, suckers! Where’s that Monster Manual hiding?
PP: C’mon, DRG-1! Let’s sneak attack them while they’re distracted!
RD: So… now all four of you are stranded and being attacked by flying monsters.
Sa-wheet! What other minis you got?
TS: I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
PP: Hey, it was my turn to say that!
RT: All right, this is mechanically domineering gaze. I throw a phial made from a tincture of my own blood into the midst of the horde and… *roll* … it fails to have any effect whatsoever. Again. Drat.
RD: Because you made INT your highest score! It’s the dump stat for vamps!
RT: This vampire is more than just a pretty, if slightly pallid, face.
TS: Two leaders and two strikers, no defenders, and the strikers are actively trying to sabotage each other. I’m not sure this is a viable combat scenario.
Also I’m out of majestic words.
FS: I’m pretty sure I could turn you into some sort of bomb if you like…
TS: Pass.
PP: Uh-oh… that was my last healing surge.
But I’m not gonna let that stop me! Death and I are old friends.
TS: Yay. A first session TPK.
RD: It does look pretty bad… sooo…
RD: “Hey girls! Not having any trouble, are we?”
TS: … tell me she’s not.
RD: “Guess I've gotta lend a hoof. Yeah! Who's your momma!”
RT: She is.
Guest Author's Note: "While the story scenario on this page comes out of the 'Tales of the Jedi' comic ('Ulic Qel-Droma and the Beast Wars of Onderon'), the game scenario is roughly based on a true story. I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to everyone who played in that game. (The bit about getting planet name puns from Wikipedia is also true, btw)."
Newbiespud's Note: Real quick - new RPG podcast launch! We're livestreaming Sundays at 2PM Pacific Time, and the episodes go up the following Saturday!
Spudventures - The Cinematic Universe, Session 1: PodcastVideo
That makes sense. As annoying as I'm sure they often are, I imagine Dash wants to finish this race with roughly the same number of daughters she started with.
In meta terms, she only made the encounter that tough so she'd have the opportunity to grandstand.
When I did this, I wanted an excuse to divert the characters to a settlement they had no reason to visit otherwise, which is slightly less ignoble but it still didn't work.
Ah. I was wondering if it was the lack of optimization/teamwork mentioned in-panel (although we could have used an actual panel of the mentioned "sabotage," imo) or an encounter actually designed to be too tough.
One of the online games I spectated did something like that for the final battle. The difference is that the NPCs were all characters the players were already attached to, and also they were only serving to hold off the final boss' waves of mooks she was sending at them. So it was basically a big anime-style power of friendship ending, plus the player characters were still the ones to take out the final boss.
GrayGriffin: Yeah, there are times when the cavalry is needed, and ways to make it more of a payoff than a way of taking the wind out of the players' sales. Holding off waves of minions so the PCs can focus on the big bad is one.
My group once had a situation where, after taking down an area boss, we came out and walked into an ambush of all the baddies we'd avoided fighting on the way in while we were battered and depleted, but a literal cavalry of paladins showed up to fight them off (after my character had been ganked by an invisible assassin for dramatic effect) and offer us mounts to get to the final confrontation.
When it gets ANNOYING is when the DM sets it up so the PCs have no chance from the start so they can show off their OC, Drizz't SonGoku.
"What was you thinking?!"
So many missed opportunities...
When I did this, I wanted an excuse to divert the characters to a settlement they had no reason to visit otherwise, which is slightly less ignoble but it still didn't work.
Faster if the new daughters are adopted, though.
Cloning tanks.
(well... different at least)
A classic.
My group once had a situation where, after taking down an area boss, we came out and walked into an ambush of all the baddies we'd avoided fighting on the way in while we were battered and depleted, but a literal cavalry of paladins showed up to fight them off (after my character had been ganked by an invisible assassin for dramatic effect) and offer us mounts to get to the final confrontation.
When it gets ANNOYING is when the DM sets it up so the PCs have no chance from the start so they can show off their OC, Drizz't SonGoku.