Friendship is Dragons
Updates Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays
Page 447 - House of Mirrors
Author Notes:
The ads on this site will be removed once I’m sure this pledge system works (which should be at the end of the month), and I’m currently looking into podcast hosting sites for Fallout is Dragons (the next part of which will be going up this Saturday, due to a strangled upload speed at my new (old) place).
Or
Self awareness of the lack of character depth?
But I've had one or two players do the "disposable Kleenex" thing with their character sheets. Can't say I had one want to switch in the middle of a dungeon though O.o`
Recently we had a campaign where one of our major foes was a Senator with full access to the coffers and powers of government. When someone died and needed to bring in a new character the group as a whole kinda rejected him (with good reason, they assumed someone who essentially showed up on their doorstep looking for work was a spy) and only let him in because shit started hitting the fan so hard and so fast after that (we might have accidentally freed a Demon Prince, or we might have opened the shrine where his awesome sauce sword was being kept from him. Either way we might have personally been responsible for the end of the world.) and just decided he could roll with us cus if he could pretend not to kill us that was good enough. Also we were banking pretty heavily on the idea that the Senator wanted the world there as bad as we did. On account of him storing most of his stuff in it.
Turned out we were wrong. He was planning on a long vacation a long ways a way.
We still have trust issues.
Keep in mind folks, DMing is a symbiosis with players.
He's one of those guys that comes up with character builds (or finds them online), and then really wants to try them. He optimizes the shit out of them (even going so far as to make custom races for them, or 3.5 homebrewed classes in Pathfinder). As of now, during our one dungeon run, he has gone through... A Half-Orc-not-actually Witch (1 session), a Lizardfolk custom race Barbarian with an archetype that allowed him a Velociraptor companion (2 sessions), an undead version of one of his older characters from this very campaign (2 sessions), and now he's moving over to another custom race, doing an Animate Dead build Oracle/Sorcerer/Mystic Theurge.
As a note, this is JUST during that dungeon. He has been through 3 or 4 other characters as well, each of which were introduced the session after the other one. He even plans them beyond level 10, and we're only at level 5. Welcome to my hell.
I don't like the sight or sound of crying, so to prevent that, I may or may not have went beyond the realm of meta, and with some astounding rolls, I might have... fixed the problem.
Please keep in mind, I did this in game as a character, and the DM was big on realism, so I haven't the slightest idea how I pulled it off.
We had started this game like a dozen sessions ago, and our DM had not had a chance yet, so he went. Ended up with this cross county adventure to help this peasent blacksmith save his family from an ancient family curse. My character's reasoning for doing this was he was a wizard who had this disbelief in curses, but knew the simple folks would belive in it like white on rice (to say, I don't know any other simile).
The other player in question had recently gotten into playing this game, and made a character who was born from a tribe of native born assassins (dragon hybrid race for flavor). To help with how she got to the situation was she found out the secret of her tribe, snapped, and Murdered the entire tribe in this one person war. (I didn't even know at the time, but her hybrid was gold dragon, and the norm of the tribe was either black or undead, I still question the DM for his choice.)
She leanred quickly that her character didn't know how to hunt or work in a good number of proffesions in the nearby town, so she decided to use her abilities to be a hired blade (and guess which gruop she ran into first.) My character was the only one trusting enough to allow her into our group after she (inadvertently) told us her story, still getting use to it as said, and it was her first real session, plus my guy has a number of great quirks such as "I don't care, a professinaol killer is what I need to protect me so I can help the smith and his family (and later, find internal life)" and "I am the leader, I pay your paycheck". Yeah, I was that guy.
During that time we leveled up a bit and took on new meanings. I got a spell (a little redone for the purpose of protecting my idiot allies who claim thievery a sport/profession) called Mass Amnesia. Assassin got a nice Draconic sword of fire, and everyone else used their bail money (only thing of note I remember). So we are on the road until we meet this guy along the way.
For once, we met someone who was kind, polite, and not trying to kill us or steal from us or anything. I liked it, not something the DM would do unless we deserved it. Solater that night after inviting him to join us to the next town, and erecting the camp fire of conffesion (as our traditian goes) we swapt some stories and gave away a little more information about our selves so we could trust everyone. Barbarian has a thing for a barmaid a few town back, check. Rogue stole the crown from the last merchant we came across, check. Assassin has a crush for the new guy bcause he's nice, polite, and it wouldn't be a job relationship (didn't see that one), check. I am on the search for eternal youth, no one cares, check. New guy survived the massacre of his tribe from a fellow assassin, chec-WAIT WHAT!?
... I figured out why the DM was snickering behind that screen, and I was not amused. Little to be said, but after the shock, everyone tied him up, Roman execution style, and place him before our assassin. Everyone knew what this meant, and only two people there did not like this, I and the assassin.
I in short (for the sake of argument) was pissed. If it wasn't bad enough that the rest of the party wasnted her to do it so she could "join" us (and it was her right apparently), and that she was at ends of herself, knowing full well what her character would do, but the DM had been laughing histaricly the entire time.
I knew the face of sadness well, and I knew tears wern't far behind, so I stood up, glared at the DM, and said "I cast Mass Amnesia, on everyone, erasing the last hour." The inssung half hour of arguing and bickering won me a "Ok, if you succeed the check to cast, everyone's will save, and a crit + confirm, you get your Mass Amnesia."
I was so happy I didn't look at my dice, I rolled a (15+20 (skill) for check arcana (35) a 18+9 (Intelligence) against will (27), and three 20's because I was holding one too many.
After the "explosion", I was able to convince everyone of what happened (got ambushed by hobos, because why not) and we should get some sleep and stand guard. After that, everything was ok.
DM banned me from Mass amnesia for the game, assassin married the guy (after keanrinf he did not partake in the secret (never found out what it was)), and everything was awesome.
Long live Popsicle Bacon. Wizard of time and memory.
Plus our assassin, after the DM seat turned to someone else, was given a due reward for NOT killing her entire tribe but the ones responsible.
If you've ever read MyStara Little Pony:Friendship is Adventuring- something like how the main character works (spoilers?)
I wana suggest an idea for sharing stories (if that's alright): whats a situation that ended up being just a little bit too perfect?
There was an American Civil War adventure I put together that the PCs played as leaders to Union forces against the Confederates. I used some fairly abstract large-scale battle rules to keep things simple, but each PC had control of a unit. Each unit (comprised of several thousand soldiers) had stats like Marksmen, Marching Speed, Weapon quality, Armor Quality, etc. I randomly generated starting "stats" for each unit and assigned them to the PCs.
One player got a unit that was quite stealthy and good at shooting, but barely armored and not too fast on the field. He ended up training them as a sniper team, which reflected his preferred play style REALLY well. "Points" he got in battle were always invested into being stealthier and better marksmen.
We had a bit of an injoke that his group was a unit of clones, all snipers with his scruffy face and his jaded attitude.
I won't go into detail about each character and its challenge, and instead will jump directly to the wizard. This guy was an absolute goodie two-shoes, always forgiving and willing to be understanding (unless dragons were involved, he was kinda nuts about dragons). He had perviously told our much beloved companion NPC to wait in the city and ask for help if we failed our mission to stop Tiamat from returning to the world.
So his challenge was to face a deranged verion of a monster he had faced before, with the twist being that it had killed all of our party, and was about to kill the NPC, who apparently hadn't obeyed his orders. After some miserable saves that rendered the wizard helpless and prevented him from solving the challenge through simple violence, only roleplaying the conversation with the NPC could save him; the task was simple, the NPC was accusing him of letting her die, and all the character had to do was grow a pair of balls and say "no, you died by your own fault, I told you to stay behind" or something of the sort...
What did the wizard do? He asked her for forgiveness for being unable to save her. Over and over. The player spent about 10 minutes without realizing what his character was supposed to realize, until the rest of the group dropped enough clues to make it obvious (the DM didn't stop us, he was tired of waiting for him to come to the realization by himself). Even then he had a hard time making his character say the actual words. Not because he didn't agree with the DM's offer, mind you (that would have been perfectly reasonable, some might prefer to see their characters die rather than be forced to feel as the DM wants them to), but because the player couldn't bring himself to think of his character as anything but a weak-willed pushover.
Eventually, the wizard was saved by his dragon familiar, who sacrificed itself to prevent him from diyng, which was the DM's backup plan all along. And everyone was relieved. The player took the opportunity of the death of his most beloved creature to actually MAKE the character change, funnily enough. He became half-mad, and when Tiamat asked for him to release her in exchange for a position as one of her lieutenants, he gladly accepted, which of course ended the campaign in a pretty bitter note.
To this day, and even though the player himself did say he had honestly failed to realize what his character was supposed to do, I'm still not sure if all of the subsequent actions just came to him naturally, or if he did it all on purpose as a way to take revenge on the DM for trying to force a thought into his character.
Emergency hugs are good, though.
Or at least I want to think of it that way.
I remember one time, a player and I secretly came up with a plan that we'd do *Nothing* and see if the NPCs would do all the work. Sure enough they did, so we sprung our little trap-- we allowed the NPCs to get caught by the police. Since we had nothing to do with their actions (we did nothing), we could not be tied to the crimes. :D The GM denied us any Exp that session on the accound of 'we did nothing' but it was worth it to watch his own NPCs get busted down hard by his own game.
Sorry to say.
I prefer groups of like minded individuals who represent something bigger then themselves. (Like a creed)
The DM sees how a player is acting and develops a situation or quest around that which will give said player a great opportunity to roleplay or build some character... And the player takes it as an insult instead of an opportunity.
I agree with some commentrs here though, it sounds like RD's player is still channeling some bad experience from D&D camp.
How about this for perfect?
"They have refused to speak with us. I am afraid there is no solution to this problem except violence."
"Hey! I solve problems with violence! I think I can help you!"
And of course, this will be the ONE time that the pcs will want to actually try the diplomatic route, for a change. -o-
You were nowhere near the top this time.
Yes, that had to be done.
Anyways, as for a perfectly tailored moment... We were traveling through a dungeon that was carved in the remains of a supposedly dormant volcano. Oh course, it was also filed with fire bats and ghouls and hitotamas/fire souls. And they were all susceptible to my Bardic wiles (as opposed to rouguish charm), of course. My Dragon egg ended up having right after I had my first botched roll, and it hatched singing, stalling the fire bats, and then it are then. And that was the birth of Mister Cuddlington the Third.
So yeah I have a tendency to get attached to my characters. I pik out theme music fr them even.
Anyways, my character (named Bard Simpleton) flies up to face the Dark Paladin on Mister Cuddlington the Third's back. When we get there, I give a pre-battle speech amounting to "y u do dis??? Y we no friends?" After which, the Paladin (a guy named Janice) basically lays all the blame for his being evil at my character's feet. Because my character liked his name while he hated it (he even changed the character's name to Jamean to show that he was evil). So he went evil so he wouldn't have to deal with others making fun of his name. So, still completely in character, I start singing "why can't we be friends" to him, with the lyrics altered to better match with our adventures. He then starts to cast a spell, but I beat him to the punch by basically casting a Heartsong, meaning that neither of us had to perform dodge rolls or will saves, as neither of us could be truly harmed until the song was over. And I brought the big guns, handing the Paladin's player a lyric sheet, and did a fairly seriously morose and begging vs angry and evil version of a multi song mash up. And even though neither of us could sing well, the DM (singing as Mister Cuddlington the Third) was able to sing his lines very well, and we went on like that for almost thirty minutes real time, with the DM multitasking quite awesomely as he less the rest of the group through the fortress. They got there just as we ended on a diet of a "Hey Jude" variant the DM and I had written for this. As Jamean and Bard sung, one in sorrow and the other in contempt, the rest of the group burst in (a rogue,a cleric, and a barbarian) just stood there transfixed as I collapsed to my hands and knees, weeping, whispering hoarsely, "why can't we be friends...?" as the Dark Paladin prepares a spell to strike me down where I lay. Huuuuge character moment there, as the barbarian, instead of attacking Janice/Jamean, jumps in front of me to take the blast, which leaves him on the ground, but not dead. He then does the first role-playing he's done the entire game, with the whole "I'm dumb, but you're my friend, he my friend. Friends shouldn't fight. Help him for me please." Then he fell unconscious as the others required their weapons. We fought him, with all of us having to make will-saves just to not balk at hitting our old friend. The battle stretched on for a while, since the others were using fairly weak weapons compared to what they could have been using, but it was Mister Cuddlington the Third that landed the final blow, with a tackle-hug. As he's arriving to break free (hugs with a dragon meant being too grapple, and his arms were crushed to his sides in the hug), as the rest of us approached him, throwing our arms around him and begging for him to come back to us. Bard looked to him, completely forlorn, and told him he'd always loved the name Janice, and even after all this, he was going to name his first son Janice, no matter how mean the Paladin had been. The Paladin starts crying as he whispers "it's too late," as he lifts his foot, a small blade protruding from the heel that he stabs backwards, through the tendons of my knee.
The cleric ended up having to rezz me and basically perform an exorcism on the Paladin, which brought out the TRUE BBEG, which was basically Nightmare Moon, except much more actually-evil and also a more humanoid entity. The Paladin and I had a little heart to heart as the Cleric and the Barbarian ran at the monstrous being of darkness and hate, while the Rogue tried to keep to the shadows and get sneak attacks (which didn't work since the shadows were a part of the creature somehow), and so I cast a Heal Light Wounds spell, bringing the both of us back up enough to fight, and nearly 100 rounds, a destroyed Fortress of Evil, and an enraged Mama Dragon later, we finally defeated the BBEG (I still can't remember what it was called, something Latin I think), and the Paladin paid for his crimes (which, in all honesty, were quite few in number. The biggest thing he'd done was kill the original BBEG and getting possessed by the Evil Ghostly Shadow of Evil), and he rejoined our ranks for one last adventure to save his and my characters' hometown, where our in-game wives (His pre-campaign marriage, mine during the campaign) were waiting, along with my dragon-consort (once again, it's <i>kinda</i> complicated, I guess?). We got our happy ever after and everything, and it wasn't all that contrived, either, since the world still needed cleaning up after the BBEG's defeat.