Friendship is Dragons
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Page 526 - Tug of Door
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What does TK stand for?
Seems to me in most games, physical disputes between PCs don't exist or at least aren't generally allowed, since it disrupts the game. For the same reasons that NeverSplitTheParty is invoked.
Seems to me in most games, physical disputes between PCs don't exist or at least aren't generally allowed, since it disrupts the game. For the same reasons that NeverSplitTheParty is invoked.
In context? Telekinesis. Moving shit with unicorn magic, yo.
I've heard ponykinesis before. It didn't catch on in the circles I'm in so I stick with TK. I guess not everything needs to be a pony pun.
I dunno... if it's all straightforward kick in the door stuff, or the team is kept well on the rails or the DM never presents any moral quandries...
But at a certain point, they can't be avoided if a character has a moral stance they are serious about. Granted, most of the time, such conflict should be avoidable, but people are dumb and impasses happen.
Heck I played a system developed primarily around having a dice rolling mechanic for competitive argument resolution, (I make a moral plea! Ad Hominem! Straw Man! Insult! is only a slight exaggeration), and our first big argument STILL ended in gunfire. (We were criminals, and the mechanic only allowed for two sides, neither of which allowed for what I wanted. I had to "raise the stakes" to start a new argument, so I drew a gun. I got shot at.)
But at a certain point, they can't be avoided if a character has a moral stance they are serious about. Granted, most of the time, such conflict should be avoidable, but people are dumb and impasses happen.
Heck I played a system developed primarily around having a dice rolling mechanic for competitive argument resolution, (I make a moral plea! Ad Hominem! Straw Man! Insult! is only a slight exaggeration), and our first big argument STILL ended in gunfire. (We were criminals, and the mechanic only allowed for two sides, neither of which allowed for what I wanted. I had to "raise the stakes" to start a new argument, so I drew a gun. I got shot at.)
Just the other day, my elven ally hit my enraged barbarian ally accidentally in fog, and he turned back and almost killed her. Fortunately our cleric was right beside her and was holding her turn.
My friend's PC and mine have a friendly rivalry going on. And by friendly I mean he attempted to hit me with a grenade and I blew him up with a shotgun. We both survived (barely) and I think the GM is encouraging us to keep trying to kill each other.
Story time! When has your character been physically restrained by other players? I could mention Javolt, but we'd be here all day.
There was the time that a party gnome paralyzed another PC in the middle of a compromising act with the party's host. He then invited the rest of the group up to their room.
I can't remember if that resulted in the party acquiring blackmail material or getting banished. From what I recall of that lot, probably both.
I can't remember if that resulted in the party acquiring blackmail material or getting banished. From what I recall of that lot, probably both.
Not restrained, but I once ordered the death of another PC.
That wasn't any sort of trick or gimmick. The PC needed to be stopped, I made the call, an NPC shot and killed the PC.
That wasn't any sort of trick or gimmick. The PC needed to be stopped, I made the call, an NPC shot and killed the PC.
Back to my very first session with my cleric (before 5E offically came out), the party was looking for a rogue general for a bounty placed on his head and, due to whacky high jinks that I'm going to skip to save on time, all the new characters got introduced by walking out of a half demolished jail that was sitting next to the chapel on a large hill that served as the general's base of operations. Our barbarian (who had snuck into the base with our rogue and monk...yes, that monk) heard the noise of something sinking into the ground and walked up to the door to find us three walking up to the base in our attempt to not get captured...again. The barbarian asked what we were doing here and after I told him that we meant no harm, our fighter (played by the teenage son of the gamestore owner and who treated the game like it was Skyrim) immediately pulled out his bow and shot at him. I got angry at him and yelled at him to quit firing. *Sigh* The word fire set off our halfling monk and he ran past all of us in his attempt to escape the "fire" that didn't exist.
To the surprise of everyone there, the fighter was the only one out of all of us that managed to grab him and keep him from running away. This was a horrible idea but we tried our best to get the monk to calm down before our fighter decided to do something stupid. We failed, though we made our best attempt in the 2 and a half seconds we had before the fighter decided to fling the halfling up into the air and try to shoot him while in the air. Twice. He flung him in a way that, since we were at the top of a really large hill and the sinkhole that damaged the jail made the slope steeper than normal, he fell a good deal more than if we were on solid ground, so there was time for the idiot to shoot him twice. Our monk managed to survive the fall but was knocked unconscious upon landing, thus solving our little problem there. Our barbarian then restrained our fighter from going down there and finishing the job "for the experience points." It took our DM telling him that he wouldn't get any after a few minutes of arguing and him failing every check before the fighter finally decided to leave the monk alone. I was so glad when he stopped playing after the next session...and probably would still be too if I didn't see him last week making yet another fighter so he could join us on our secret mission that doesn't involve killing everything on sight...
I played a rogue a while back when in 3.5 I was still a noob and so was most of my group. Even so, my character was built rather well. However, at second level we got a new player who was a power-gamer. Our DM hadn't given us much in the way of loot or treasure, so we didn't have the best gear. This guy came in at level 2 with a lot more gold than us as a cleric and basically had a 19 or 20 AC.
So my rogue had found a shop with a weapon he was interested in but unable to afford. He re-entered in disguise as a wealthy nobleman, partially to scope the place out and partially to determine how dear the sword was to the merchant. I hadn't even decided if I wanted it yet, I was just looking.
However, the cleric happened into the store and saw me in my disguise. He actually rolled high enough to know it was me, and instead of letting things be or even just greeting me normally, he decides to accuse me of stealing the gear of his party's rogue and attacked me. When I even deliberately dropped the disguise, he kept attacking me and had me arrested by the town guard. I spent the night in prison and was put in the stocks in the morning, which I had to pay half of my low-level wealth to get released. Needless to say, I was unhappy with this player for quite some time.
(P.S. the group I mentioned on the last page didn't originate the gazebo story, they just repeated it to me. I misinterpreted.)
So my rogue had found a shop with a weapon he was interested in but unable to afford. He re-entered in disguise as a wealthy nobleman, partially to scope the place out and partially to determine how dear the sword was to the merchant. I hadn't even decided if I wanted it yet, I was just looking.
However, the cleric happened into the store and saw me in my disguise. He actually rolled high enough to know it was me, and instead of letting things be or even just greeting me normally, he decides to accuse me of stealing the gear of his party's rogue and attacked me. When I even deliberately dropped the disguise, he kept attacking me and had me arrested by the town guard. I spent the night in prison and was put in the stocks in the morning, which I had to pay half of my low-level wealth to get released. Needless to say, I was unhappy with this player for quite some time.
(P.S. the group I mentioned on the last page didn't originate the gazebo story, they just repeated it to me. I misinterpreted.)
Despite my earth pony being the biggest and strongest member of the group, she generally tries not to run headlong into combat if it can be helped. Most other ponies aren't as cool-headed about it.
So came a moment where we met the BBEG, and my pony had to physically restrain two others at the same time! Despite the penalties my little pony managed to roll a success twice that of the other two. Combined! XD
Now I know how AJ feels when she has to grab Dash to keep her from charging in.
So came a moment where we met the BBEG, and my pony had to physically restrain two others at the same time! Despite the penalties my little pony managed to roll a success twice that of the other two. Combined! XD
Now I know how AJ feels when she has to grab Dash to keep her from charging in.
There was one time when we were exploring a castle, trying to find the King in order to conduct business with him. We enter the King's private office, and sure enough he's not there (we had been warned he was seldom there), but what WAS there was an only mostly figurative mountain of paper work. The party paladin was of the opinion that all paperwork is inherently evil, so she took a swing at the paperwork with her comically-oversized axe (as in she-wasn't-even-proficient-with-it oversized). The DM announced that the paperwork had some crazy-huge deflection bonus to AC (the magic of Red Tape) that caused her axe to bounce off harmlessly, and then another party member tried to grapple the paladin to prevent her from taking a second swing at it.
The paladin easily had the stats to brush off the grapple check, but instead of actually resisting, she deigned to scan the paperwork with Detect Evil. No evil present. So she shrugged and left well enough alone.
The paladin easily had the stats to brush off the grapple check, but instead of actually resisting, she deigned to scan the paperwork with Detect Evil. No evil present. So she shrugged and left well enough alone.
A few sessions after the Lucky Stone incident, our higher ups finally allowed us to interrogate the criminal we apprehended (it took a while because he was trying to deal with losing his leg). Our group leader said I was to not go anywhere near him unless needed, which was agreed upon from the rest of the confused party, except Winter Wind and Fire Cracker, who wanted to get this thing over with.
It was voted I will be last if bad went to worst. Our leader went first (who else would) and tried to speak reason with our guest (as most of us called him) about what would happen to him if we had to report back to our boss' with no new evidence, and stressed that we never failed any mission before. Our guest responded with "There is a first time for everything." It sort of when on like that for the rest of our party members, and my character got bored and went to find some food or something for Lucky Stone when he was done trying to convince the guy while high.
Finally, Winter Wind and Fire Cracker went in when they thought they could get him to open up to children, and their optimistic ways... They had to roll a will or fortitude save to keep from crying when he bad mouthed them. It would so happen that I just happened to walk into the two kids running out of the interrogation room crying. Despite the fact I made them scared out of their wits before (when I bungeed them off of a building and what not), I had never made them cry. When I entered interrogation room to confront our soon to be victim, our leader and pretty much everyone else who could see the murder in my eyes stopped me from getting close to him (The roll was actually pretty close, it came out to 41 me and 44 them for opposed strength checks). It wasn't until I had to swore on my honor that I would not kill, or maim him.
I told him I will ask him once, and only once where his boss was. This guy had no idea who this guy (I) was, and he sounded a little more sure of himself then he looked like he could handle, so responded with "I assume you're just here so your best has an excuse to come here, right?" My honor went straight out the window when I snapped our interrogation table in half, and started to break most of his limbs and bones with a table leg.
Admittedly, It was one great round before the team ran in to drag me away and save the guy's life. I recommended to Winter Wind and Fire Cracker to try to get him to talk again (since the rest of the team had forbidden me to stay away from this wing of the building all together). They did so (with some reluctance from the team, thinking it was a good idea to send "harmless" children after the homicidal adult. Before he could make cry (for whatever reason) again, he took a glance out the window in time to see me there, upside down and just touching the window (via bungee cable) with the same (now bloody) table leg.
Despite being nearly incarcerated (again), and having to pay a lot for some pony's medical bills, my guy felt pretty good about himself; I found some friendly ground with a couple of kids I (in a sense) nearly killed, I lost all respect with my boss after breaking my honor (he didn't die, and I have no idea how far "maim" goes, so meh), and the rest of the group now knows I am to be trusted as far as they could throw a Ursa Major. Hooray.
My character once wanted to let a fire spread to the rest of the building, so he tried to stop my sister's character from putting it out. She rolled better than I did.
Come to think of it, such an altercation is how the two met in the first place. He was on a quest and knew adventurers rarely worked alone, so he grabbed a random bystander off the street who just happened to be a PC and dragged her along against her will.
Come to think of it, such an altercation is how the two met in the first place. He was on a quest and knew adventurers rarely worked alone, so he grabbed a random bystander off the street who just happened to be a PC and dragged her along against her will.
When I tried to pawn off a sacred relic me and my team had just quested for, I was baleful polymorphed into a cat, by our druid, Applejack.
It wasn't exactly that I was going to pawn the damn thing though, I just wanted it checked out by people that would know better about it, but our AJ plays pretty fast and loose, and jumped the gun on me before I could even try to explain. *sigh* the exploits of Fluttershy once again cut short.
It wasn't exactly that I was going to pawn the damn thing though, I just wanted it checked out by people that would know better about it, but our AJ plays pretty fast and loose, and jumped the gun on me before I could even try to explain. *sigh* the exploits of Fluttershy once again cut short.
My Sythesist got hit by Insanity, and it would have been suicide to turn back while the enemies were in the room, so instead he tried to make sure that they were always closer to him than his friends.
They were very careful not to attack him.
Eventually, they ran out of enemies, but Insanity is permanent so he was going to start attacking random party members. So they locked him in a room until he had a sane round in which to dismiss his eidolon and shift into his tiny fox form (he's a Kitsune).
Then, the oracle wearing heavy admantium armor grappled him until they could drag him back to someone who could heal him. He kept squirming and trying to bite but his 1d4-2 couldn't get through the DR.
They were very careful not to attack him.
Eventually, they ran out of enemies, but Insanity is permanent so he was going to start attacking random party members. So they locked him in a room until he had a sane round in which to dismiss his eidolon and shift into his tiny fox form (he's a Kitsune).
Then, the oracle wearing heavy admantium armor grappled him until they could drag him back to someone who could heal him. He kept squirming and trying to bite but his 1d4-2 couldn't get through the DR.
He was visiting the powerful and beautiful land of Atlantis. Yep. This story is going to go exactly where you think it will.
While he was there, he was accosted by several men who had the brilliant idea of subduing him by sneaking up from behind and hitting him with a rock. And it worked. Raxon, being a glass cannon, went down with one little tap. While he was out, they chained him to a mana siphon. The siphon pulled mana out of the world and forced it into him.
Now, even then, Raxon was known for being damn near unkillable. They decided to simply kill him by overloading him with mana. It took a few days, but their manacles prevented him from casting until he was filled to the breaking point. At that point, everything simultaneously went wrong.
The force of the breaking point blew out the manacles, and it was like a dam just vanishing. The blast was devastating, and could be heard the world over. The new moon was momentarily visible as a blast big enough to wipe Australia out entirely completely obliterated Atlantis, and almost a billion people. Raxon was the only survivor, due to the blast being entirely directed away from him.
Turns out that when you overload the single most powerful mana battery on earth, bad things happen.
And all of this happened because an idiot got hit with a rock while on vacation.
Back in AD&D, I had a character who was named Hans. He was a Fighter with 18/67 strength, 18 con, and 8 dex. At one point, we were facing a pretty tough foe. Hans was in front of the door, but we had a lot of enemies on the other side. To our credit, the rogue had his bow, the wizard and cleric had their spells, but everyone was worried that Hans would go down and we would all get swarmed.
You see, earlier, Hans had triggered a trap and taken a poison which caused dex damage which he had not yet gotten rid of. His dex was down to 4.
That was when our party Wizard realized that, in this situation, Hans actually had a higher AC if he couldn't move. They really needed him as a shield more than as damage at this point, so the Wizard cast Web (catching Hans and a good number of enemies in it at once) and the party continued to fire around Hans, using him like a tower shield but with more HP. The trick worked, and they killed the advancing horde while Hans was stuck in the Web spell, unable to move.
You see, earlier, Hans had triggered a trap and taken a poison which caused dex damage which he had not yet gotten rid of. His dex was down to 4.
That was when our party Wizard realized that, in this situation, Hans actually had a higher AC if he couldn't move. They really needed him as a shield more than as damage at this point, so the Wizard cast Web (catching Hans and a good number of enemies in it at once) and the party continued to fire around Hans, using him like a tower shield but with more HP. The trick worked, and they killed the advancing horde while Hans was stuck in the Web spell, unable to move.
Not that I was personally restrained, but my character in a Pathfinder campaign I'm in is a huge fan of Hold Person. Someone's doing something stupid? Hold Person. Mook's running away when we need to question him? Hold Person. BBEG? /Persisted/ Hold Person. And the occasional time when he doesn't even bother with the spell and just gives someone a "don't even move or you'll be slitting your own throat six seconds from now" look, which works more often than not.
He also restrains himself from being a jackass, sometimes. Kinda. Not really. One NPC actually asked, "why do you keep this guy around, again?", and really the only reason the party does is that he's really useful, and has connections, and is a diplomancer to the max. Or as max-ed as can be in a low-magic campaign.
He also restrains himself from being a jackass, sometimes. Kinda. Not really. One NPC actually asked, "why do you keep this guy around, again?", and really the only reason the party does is that he's really useful, and has connections, and is a diplomancer to the max. Or as max-ed as can be in a low-magic campaign.
Yes, I finally have a story to tell, I've been waiting to post until I had one but now...
Anyway for this story it requires a bit of backstory just so everyone knows what's going on. Anyway myself and my group were searching a cave system looking for a tribe of liZardmen to return one of their children that was the only survivor of a fight between the party and a bunch of lizard-folk bandits and to retrieve a set of magic items that were stolen from us that were very powerful.
Anyway after 2 days of combing the cave system our party was in very bad shape seeing as the first day of our adventure lead us into a undead swarm of insects or something that lead to my character (A Kensei Magus) becoming diseased and taking con damage, followed by a him putting on a magic helmet that, according to our arcanist would allow me to automatically confirm any critical hit... which was cursed and forced my character to go into a cannibalistic rage for each crit, we then went to leave the cave... and then half the group split off to search more of the cave leaving only me and another player wondering where the heck everyone went. After we found them they lead us into a final battle with a cave hobo, the end result of which was one of our party members being hit with a very unlucky crit that did enough Int drain to turn him into a vegetable and after that I was hit and aged 10 years... after the fight we rested back at camp only for us to be attacked by a ghost that almost none of us can hit thanks to use burning all our spells in the cave. The next day we searched the south end of the cave to find the lizard-folk tribe, only to come across a bunch of giant bugs, a new PC{The replacement for the vegetable) and gap between us and where we think the tribe is... luckily however the new character has an insane acrobatics score so they cleared the distance easily while also tying a rope to the other end, so we all made it across save for the not quite dead vegetable that was used as a raft and shield by our shaman.
AS a side note the new PC had a potion of remove curse so I got the helmet off easily enough.
Anywho, some time later after crossing a 3 rooms filled with mushrooms that did further stat damage to the party we found a blind cave hermit that was helpful enough to lead us to meet with the lizards after a night of rest. the next day the party had finally found the lizard and started discussing trade for the magic items, using the boy as a bargaining chip, the paladin had somehow managed to get them to hand over the items for the boy, a few minutes later our arcanist checks them and find out we were tricked and the items were replaced with mundane counterparts that do nothing.
So the paladin enraged at the betrayal attempted to collapse the cave tunnel to trap them inside... the tunnel we were in, and the lizard who built the cave and who more than likely have alternate paths throughout, and who would be pissed at us for attempting such a thing, us the party who is still diseased and has stat damage.
These were the events that lead to my aged, weakened, and ill Kensei Magus to football tackle the mostly fine paladin that was in his physical prime.
Anyway for this story it requires a bit of backstory just so everyone knows what's going on. Anyway myself and my group were searching a cave system looking for a tribe of liZardmen to return one of their children that was the only survivor of a fight between the party and a bunch of lizard-folk bandits and to retrieve a set of magic items that were stolen from us that were very powerful.
Anyway after 2 days of combing the cave system our party was in very bad shape seeing as the first day of our adventure lead us into a undead swarm of insects or something that lead to my character (A Kensei Magus) becoming diseased and taking con damage, followed by a him putting on a magic helmet that, according to our arcanist would allow me to automatically confirm any critical hit... which was cursed and forced my character to go into a cannibalistic rage for each crit, we then went to leave the cave... and then half the group split off to search more of the cave leaving only me and another player wondering where the heck everyone went. After we found them they lead us into a final battle with a cave hobo, the end result of which was one of our party members being hit with a very unlucky crit that did enough Int drain to turn him into a vegetable and after that I was hit and aged 10 years... after the fight we rested back at camp only for us to be attacked by a ghost that almost none of us can hit thanks to use burning all our spells in the cave. The next day we searched the south end of the cave to find the lizard-folk tribe, only to come across a bunch of giant bugs, a new PC{The replacement for the vegetable) and gap between us and where we think the tribe is... luckily however the new character has an insane acrobatics score so they cleared the distance easily while also tying a rope to the other end, so we all made it across save for the not quite dead vegetable that was used as a raft and shield by our shaman.
AS a side note the new PC had a potion of remove curse so I got the helmet off easily enough.
Anywho, some time later after crossing a 3 rooms filled with mushrooms that did further stat damage to the party we found a blind cave hermit that was helpful enough to lead us to meet with the lizards after a night of rest. the next day the party had finally found the lizard and started discussing trade for the magic items, using the boy as a bargaining chip, the paladin had somehow managed to get them to hand over the items for the boy, a few minutes later our arcanist checks them and find out we were tricked and the items were replaced with mundane counterparts that do nothing.
So the paladin enraged at the betrayal attempted to collapse the cave tunnel to trap them inside... the tunnel we were in, and the lizard who built the cave and who more than likely have alternate paths throughout, and who would be pissed at us for attempting such a thing, us the party who is still diseased and has stat damage.
These were the events that lead to my aged, weakened, and ill Kensei Magus to football tackle the mostly fine paladin that was in his physical prime.
I just Finished My Centaur character, I finally get to a point where I can use her Massive Charge speed/Damage to break down the door to the villain's lair and the party wants to play it safe cause the wizard wasted a high level spell getting us there.
I Take out my battering ram and Announce I am breaking the door. Que the entire party dog-piling me. I then add up the combined weight of all party members currently holding me: only medium load (2800 lbs) I charge anyway with half the party holding on to me moving 160ft a round with the rest chasing after me.
I Take out my battering ram and Announce I am breaking the door. Que the entire party dog-piling me. I then add up the combined weight of all party members currently holding me: only medium load (2800 lbs) I charge anyway with half the party holding on to me moving 160ft a round with the rest chasing after me.
Which reminds me, I'm still horribly behind on that podcast. I seriously need to get things in order so I can finish listening to that before the end of next year. :P
Ya know... Raxon still hasn't shown up, but I'm sure he has plenty of stories of restraining other PCs, or being restrained by them. I bet this comment section is about to get a lot crazier...
Someone's probably just restraining Raxon. Probably not a big deal.
I hope.
I hope.
I don't think anyone ever succeeded in restraining Raxon.
Well, probably not, no...
...Unless it was kinky, of course...>_>
Well, I was playing a trigger-happy nigh-suicidal wizard who would cast first and make the cleric cast speak with dead later. So we were talking to a waiter when I succeeded my spot check and saw him pour something into my cup, my character immediately said," You FOOL! You think that you could easily poison the great and powerful Riclamin Glittergaunt?! Take this foul being" The team paladin held me back and it turned out that the waiter was just pouring me the drink I ordered.
This one was pretty recent. We entered a dungeon room with a large (15-ft. diameter) orb covered in small unidentifiable glyphs hovering in the middle. As we entered the room, it zapped us with some lightning, which did no damage but removed all our magical buffs. Naturally, I ran up and touched the orb immediately, and I got blasted back into the wall with some moderately high damage. I took out a holy symbol and chucked it at the orb (I'm not a cleric, I just like to carry a few). It immediately disintegrated into dust. Naturally, I then declared my intent to run back up to the orb and lick it, but I was restrained by the party Barbarian.
I've mentioned before how PvP has led to total party wipes in my games (especially if it's an evil or Dark Side campaign). Although this can be entertaining if the players have the right mindset going in, I've found that it can be disastrous in a normal game.
For instance, in the Dark Side campaign, it was actually unbelievably epic what ensued after one dark jedi PC decided that he would kill off everyone in his party for a chance at becoming a dark master's apprentice.
Meanwhile, in one online Pony RPG I played in, it became increasingly frustrating when one party member kept trying to cover my mouth or hit me when I role-played my character. I feel like there's just a certain type of etiquette players should follow, especially when they're playing with strangers online. In this particular case, we kept trying to one-up each other until it constantly broke down into all-out hoof fights (and all of us getting ticked off IRL).
For a group playing in a pony campaign, we really didn't have a good concept of friendship in that game...
For instance, in the Dark Side campaign, it was actually unbelievably epic what ensued after one dark jedi PC decided that he would kill off everyone in his party for a chance at becoming a dark master's apprentice.
Meanwhile, in one online Pony RPG I played in, it became increasingly frustrating when one party member kept trying to cover my mouth or hit me when I role-played my character. I feel like there's just a certain type of etiquette players should follow, especially when they're playing with strangers online. In this particular case, we kept trying to one-up each other until it constantly broke down into all-out hoof fights (and all of us getting ticked off IRL).
For a group playing in a pony campaign, we really didn't have a good concept of friendship in that game...
When it comes to physical disputes between players ("football tackles"), I have a soft rule of one skill check per player, or one exchange of skill checks. Otherwise, passionate enough players will never stop finding a new action to take, a new attempt to make, especially if it involves "stopping them from doing something stupid."