Friendship is Dragons
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Page 527 - Sounding Bored
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Newbiespud
9th Dec 2014, 5:00 AM
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Ran a game where the players were escaped prisoners trying to escape from an evil desert empire. They managed to run near an enemy town but couldn't get in because they would be over run and captured again or possibly killed.
The proplem they ran into was that a group of "zombies" that were really dangerous were following them because of all the death from the arena they escaped.
They ended up trying to make plans to escape the zombies, enter the city, and restock supplies that they spent the night ready to pull off their fendish plans only to forgot one thing. The zombies crave the living and there were a lot more living people in the city than in their group.
They found the city was under attack by the zombies that were following them as the town was trying to escape from the zombies and taking supplies with them.
They solved both porplems by doing nothing as they simply looted the areas affected by the carnage and dealt with a few straglers.
Bright side they were fully supplied now. Though the fact the enemy was now preparing for war aginst an undead menace they had accidently unleashed was growing bigger making them need to move faster in case the swarm followed their tracks. (This came from the RPG and they really are nasty. Low intelligence with the ability to follow tracks and smell death like sharks do with blood in the water.)
The proplem they ran into was that a group of "zombies" that were really dangerous were following them because of all the death from the arena they escaped.
They ended up trying to make plans to escape the zombies, enter the city, and restock supplies that they spent the night ready to pull off their fendish plans only to forgot one thing. The zombies crave the living and there were a lot more living people in the city than in their group.
They found the city was under attack by the zombies that were following them as the town was trying to escape from the zombies and taking supplies with them.
They solved both porplems by doing nothing as they simply looted the areas affected by the carnage and dealt with a few straglers.
Bright side they were fully supplied now. Though the fact the enemy was now preparing for war aginst an undead menace they had accidently unleashed was growing bigger making them need to move faster in case the swarm followed their tracks. (This came from the RPG and they really are nasty. Low intelligence with the ability to follow tracks and smell death like sharks do with blood in the water.)
Sooooo... your players set a zombie horde loose on an entire city and looted the place while everyone else was getting eaten?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtxr3DuMnxI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtxr3DuMnxI
And not every party isn't shit. HM WHAT COULD THE CORRELATION BE I WONDER
In my Fallout Equestria game, we have been blackmailed into assassinating a very decent pony leader in the name of politics. My character has been trying to find a "3rd option" on getting out of this. Well, we show up at the target's party and start our stake out (by which I mean I actually do some legwork to find the target. Everyone else is either drinking or banging).
Lo and behold, I wander into the kitchen where a Reaver has murdered the head chef just before it turns on a Stealth Boy and vanishes. My character is shaken but hey, now he has a perfect distraction on how to call off this job! :D
Lo and behold, I wander into the kitchen where a Reaver has murdered the head chef just before it turns on a Stealth Boy and vanishes. My character is shaken but hey, now he has a perfect distraction on how to call off this job! :D
Hmm... Maybe I should spend fewer hours in my day thinking about pony-pun linguistics.
Celestia and Cheerilee like to use "my little ponies" to refer to the ponies under their care. Nightmare Moon used "subjects."
I'm not pushing anything in particular, just pointing out that there are options.
I'm not pushing anything in particular, just pointing out that there are options.
As UFP notes, "people" is fine, it's just "human" and human body parts you can't mention.
Taking the first Equestria Girls movie into account, after her trip to Earth, Human phrases have crept into Equestria a few times in Twilight's conversation choices. Such as when she told Princess Celestia that Sunset Shimmer was in good hands.
Word choice, man. Serious business.
Either way, I agree with the "rational sapients = people" crowd.
Well in all fairness, Ironwill has hands. Discord has.. at least one hand. One could argue that Spike and other dragons have hands.
I'd like to point out that the ponies have used the term 'feet' as a unit of length in the show. :)
Plus Hands are used as a weigh of measuring the height of horses/ponies.
Other player's character was being a really shady asshole; your classic chaotic stupid, loot-swiping asshole. She was deliberately trying to wreck peaceful negotiations, conspiring with the bad guys to get us killed while we were in earshot, etc. I tried dealing with it in-character, but then my PC's best friend died and she started mocking him to my character's face whenever she had an excuse. IC and OOC, my thought was "as soon as we get out of this dungeon, she's going to die". I started planning how best to do it, I started working to get the other party members to at least promise not to interfere when I drew my sword on her, I even had in mind what I was going to say.
Just as we finished the dungeon, the problem player stopped showing up and I didn't get to do any of it. One last twist of the knife!
Just as we finished the dungeon, the problem player stopped showing up and I didn't get to do any of it. One last twist of the knife!
Between this and gplikespie's story the other day, I think I'll draft a prestige paladin NPC to have been after problem players all along in the event that they drop out before they're dealt with, to retrieve their share of the loot and turn over half to the party, minus the cost of Raise Dead scrolls. Players like that should have plenty room in their back stories to've ticked off a vengeful church. I've mostly only been gaming with friends lately, but never hurts to be prepared.
Raised? Nah. We were only level three characters and the dead PC had fallen into lava - he was going to need the expensive version. He was happy to re-roll.
Same here. Sucks when someone else's bad idea gets me killed. :c
In my group that's been running for about five years, the players came across an artifact that was intelligent and evil. The rogue took it in and used it, which unbalanced the party in certain situations. I have probably spoken about this item/group before, but just recently the rogue tried to backstab the intelligent artifact and it blew up in his face, so he was forced to throw away the artifact before it could get revenge on him. I was relieved, since I no longer had to worry about how I was going to get rid of it. :D
ehehe, that reminds me of a campaign I did awhile back. Our group was sent into a city to scout it out, to find out whether or not it might be gearing up for an invasion of their home city. One thing led to another and we found ourselves in a temple to St Cuthbert. Our rogue posed as a pilgrim to explore the grounds and eavesdrop on the priests without being noticed, and heard about an ancient and powerful weapon stored in the vaults below the temple. He then went up to the altar and uttered a prayer to his true god, Olidammara, and on the altar he suddenly spied a golden coin with Olidammara's symbol on it.
Later the party decided to break into the vault, and after bypassing about a dozen traps, they entered into a chamber containing an artifact intelligent longsword, bound into a pillar of stone about chest-high, with only the hilt exposed. Our rogue took the blade, only for it to immediately overcome his mind (I wrote down the stats for this thing, and it has an ego of 33). The sword is called the Magmablade, and is bound with the soul of the Balor that once wielded it. It immediately destroyed the stone sentinels that entered the room, using the Rogue as its host, and would have escaped, had the rogue not had a wild thought. With all his will, he focused on the coin of Olidammara, and found it in his hand. For 1 round, he had complete control of himself, and used it to return the sword to its place, where the column of stone reformed around it. The party then stripped the room of any other valuables (including a massive tapestry depicting the blade's history, if only they had the relevant knowledge skills to understand it all), and fled into the night.
Later the party decided to break into the vault, and after bypassing about a dozen traps, they entered into a chamber containing an artifact intelligent longsword, bound into a pillar of stone about chest-high, with only the hilt exposed. Our rogue took the blade, only for it to immediately overcome his mind (I wrote down the stats for this thing, and it has an ego of 33). The sword is called the Magmablade, and is bound with the soul of the Balor that once wielded it. It immediately destroyed the stone sentinels that entered the room, using the Rogue as its host, and would have escaped, had the rogue not had a wild thought. With all his will, he focused on the coin of Olidammara, and found it in his hand. For 1 round, he had complete control of himself, and used it to return the sword to its place, where the column of stone reformed around it. The party then stripped the room of any other valuables (including a massive tapestry depicting the blade's history, if only they had the relevant knowledge skills to understand it all), and fled into the night.
GM:"I didn't really thought about food...".
ME:"I humbly apologize for inconvenience"
GM:"To be honest Daymio is involved but you weer supposed to visit old priest living in wild forest to learn it."
ME:"We can still go there. Walk through the winter forest could be inspiring. And we can pretend to be surprised too."
GM gave up and let us do the stakeout in Daymio food magazine. We skipped around 6 hours of proble... I mean game by that.
WE ARE GIVNG YOU A HINT ON HOW TO ROLEPLAY THIS. ARE WE BEING TOO SUBTLE?
Well this might be stretching a touch but in a the same campaign with the cave and lizard-folk our party got the cave hermit's help by offering to bring him to the nearest town or village (Which was a week or 2 away) and between our party size, stolen supplies and another npc that was helping us at the time we couldn't really support that many people.
Luckily (or unluckily depending on who you are) the hermit said he knew where the lizard people's vault was, so a short conversation later the more... eager members of the group attempted to raid their vault while some of us were more than happy to call it a day and get out of dodge.
20 minutes later we have the entire group of lizard-men we were talking with a hour ago attacking us on there home-turf while half the party was in the treasure room and the other was a 100 or so feet away with the lizards in between the two halves... needless to say we didn't have to worry about feeding the NPCs for long.
Luckily (or unluckily depending on who you are) the hermit said he knew where the lizard people's vault was, so a short conversation later the more... eager members of the group attempted to raid their vault while some of us were more than happy to call it a day and get out of dodge.
20 minutes later we have the entire group of lizard-men we were talking with a hour ago attacking us on there home-turf while half the party was in the treasure room and the other was a 100 or so feet away with the lizards in between the two halves... needless to say we didn't have to worry about feeding the NPCs for long.
When the party arrived, they found the horrible truth.
The cult worshipped Knibbitz, the dark god of petty bickering. The cult was so disorganized, the party could waltz right into a ceremony, and all that happened was more bickering and squabbling.
It was so bad that the cultists couldn't even finish the first line of the ominous intonement, when somebody complained that the speaker had the wrong accent. And then squabbles broke out.
The looks on the party's faces were hilarious when the virgin sacrifice, a girl kidnapped from the village, started bickering with the guy holding the knife, telling him he wasn't holding the knife correctly.
That sorted itself out quite quickly.
The font is fine, you're just using it wrong. The spaces could use some work though.
And capitalization is a thing, you know.
Should a spelling-challenged banana really be commenting on someone else's name?
I'm going to have to register just for this. Been following the comic for a while, but hadn't had anything to add to the comments section. And then This Thread Happened. I haven't laughed out loud so hard in a while. Well done, all.
I have no story for a problem solving itself (I probably should, after the sheer amount of shenanigans I've been part of, but I digress). In fact, I don't even think a problem I've ever had could have came with an "easy button".
Well, there was one time when we had to figure out what to do with a bard a player left us with when he couldn't show up anymore. But the story behind that particular "episode" (we had magical floating balls following us from our arch nemesis, showing him what we did, and we didn't really care, so meh) wasn't so much as solving a problem, as it was saying "NOPE! WE'RE OUT OF HERE!"
The bard was seen many days after that as one of the greatest musicians ever built (and it was completely my fault).
Well, there was one time when we had to figure out what to do with a bard a player left us with when he couldn't show up anymore. But the story behind that particular "episode" (we had magical floating balls following us from our arch nemesis, showing him what we did, and we didn't really care, so meh) wasn't so much as solving a problem, as it was saying "NOPE! WE'RE OUT OF HERE!"
The bard was seen many days after that as one of the greatest musicians ever built (and it was completely my fault).
I have 2 stories about this guy.
First, we were in a castle town that DESPISED necromancy. When a guard asked him about his questionable lineage, he rolled a bluff, got a natural 20, and performed a Jedi mind trick, waving his hand and saying, "I am not a vampire." And that was the end of that.
Then, the DM split us all up into this maze, so each of us would have to confront our own custom encounters. However, he failed to take the Dominate Undead thing into account, and pitted him up against a Vampire... who became his loyal servant one spell cast later.
Out of nowhere came the billowing shout of a giant dragonborn, heavily armored and cloaked with the symbol of a red dragon. The town guard (what was left of them at least) surrounded the being and the dragonborn himself simply smirked and demanded a one on one challenge. If he lost, the cultists that attacked with the dragon would leave, never to return. If he won, though, then on the morrow they would be wiped out. He looked around at the pathetic lot that had gathered, all looking scared and pathetically holding their weapons like amateurs. It was a surprise then to hear the even louder shout of a dwarf accepting the challenge. The dwarf was equally armored and armed and the town guard gained a renewed sense of hope. Surely, their champion would be able to deal with this pest. But sadly, this was not meant to be as the dwarf's head was sent sailing through the air after a rather short fight. The dragonborn laughed and left the keep unopposed.
...This happened while all of the party was asleep. Apparently, one of us was suppose to challenge said guy in a one on one fight and die horribly. But the DM thought it was completely unfair (the dragonborn was apparently a few levels higher than us) so that problem was basically dealt with off screen and we found out about this second hand from the governor. So this is, quite literally, a problem that took care of itself without any of us actually being aware that it existed in the first place.
Hoard of the Dragon Queen? If you were leveling according to the guidelines in the book, you should have been level three when you fought him again, instead of level one like when you first did. How did he nearly wipe you out? My party fought him, the dungeon's caster, both brutes, and ten normal cultists at the same time, and won when the brutes surrendered with most of their health but having not landed a hit, and the rest of the enemies dead. None of us powergamed, no multiclassing, and 5e meant only the humans had any feats at that level, and even they only had one.
All things considered though, I'd agree with you that it wasn't that bad of a fight. Radiance of the Dawn practically wiped out the cultists and the brutes were too busy dealing with the barbarian for them to charge me like my DM usually has all the npcs do once I use that spell. It wasn't until Mondath used Spirit Guardians that things really went south for us. In two turns, both the barbarian and I dropped and our sorcerer had to ram a health potion down my throat just so I could use Prayer of Healing to get everyone back to as close to full health as I could (I actually maxed out with that spell and had we all had fun talking about how I overhealed the sorcerer and the fighter to the point where it was causing them pain from the excess amounts of life being poured into their bodies...which was a win in my book because both of them were jerks). It was solely because of that Prayer of Healing that we managed to survive long enough to deal the death blow to Mondath and win. So yea, that's how we were nearly wiped out. Fun battle, all things considered.
My character in my current campaign, unlike many of the others, has extensive backstory and, also unlike the rest of the party, actually has a job and stuff. So, since there's stuff going on, he's not exactly all about traveling all over the place when he has stuff to do. Right now, he's focused on shutting down the slave trade, which much of the rest of the party would rather do by killing slavers and miscellaneous violent activity, despite that giving the slavers a legitimate grievance against the party and the government. However, he ran into someone engaging in illegal activities, got super pissed off, and was such a body-hacking, authority-wielding badass (and the party knew nothing (in-character) about his body hacking or (in- or out-of-character) local authority) that the rest of the party kinda agreed to go along with it. Also, they got to rescue kids, and there was a three-tailed Kitsune kid that the Kitsune bloodrager is incredibly interested in, and they got to rescue kids. The DM got them absolutely outraged, and I handled the situation well enough that they agreed I knew what I was doing and would listen to me. Also, rescuing kids.
Okay, this story doesn't resolve itself, but it did get resolved. Our party was exploring an Orc stronghold (after wiping them out), when we find a prisoner (introduce new PC) who is a Warforged, who, unbeknownst to us is a Chaotic Evil Duskblade. He being new, we did not trust him at all, and watched him very closely. Eventually, we came upon the Orc captain's storage area, with a fair number of magic items. One of them, an evil-looking, black sword, was separated from the rest. Curious, we tried to gather as much information as possible about this thing. The DM gave us about 5 clues that all said "DO NOT TOUCH!!!". Three guesses as to who grabbed it, and the first two don't count. The Warforged thought it would be a good idea to use scraps of leather, so that he wouldn't, technically, be "touching" the sword. Evil black tendrils shot out and around his arms, and the cursed thing took over his mind, making him attack the nearest character, our Paladin. Thankfully, the Paladin got a critical, and chopped off both the Warforged's arms in one hit. The Warforged snapped out of it, and the DM ruled that Warforged were basically sentient, animated, suits of armor. So since he was empty inside, we used him as a mobile treasure chest. We even got his arms re-attached and had a door installed in his chest so he could keep carrying stuff!
My story is somewhat similar to this one, in that the resolved problem involved a Chaotic Evil PC. In fact, the problem was this PC, a CE Barbarian with a very low INT score. His first act upon reaching a town (In the very first session) was to try to pull the logs that made up the town wall out of the ground. He was politely asked to stop by a passing royal guard. When he persisted, he was forcefully dragged away. Come nightfall, he tries this again, with the same result. When he tries one last time in the morning, this time using a spiked chain to try and get it done quickly, he is chased off by town guard and swiftly cut down as he tried to jump a blockade.
The players had been discussing how best to harness this barbarian's stupidity, but he was lost to them in the first session. We didn't invite that player back again.
The players had been discussing how best to harness this barbarian's stupidity, but he was lost to them in the first session. We didn't invite that player back again.
ok, the game was Shadowrun. We, the Runners, were hired by the Johnson to perform an extraction. turns out the local cable company had kidnapped the Johnson's wife. We agree that this is unacceptable. We haggle. Johnson agrees to pay us 250K each and expenses. Everyone goes shopping. I, playing a mage, scout ahead, along the way I stop off to visit our Decker (hacker), figuring we are going to need matrix overwatch for this. Our Decker refuses to ever talk about this, running an op against the people who keep the local matrix (internet on steroids) running. We, it turns out, were NOT the first group the Johnson had tried to hire. Being that none of the PCs dealt with the matrix, we were the first ones to say yes. I asked him to look into the situation, not run against the company, but hack the Johnson, we had his wife's real name, so look into that.
Curiouser and Curiouser I thought, as I continued along. I get to the offices. I walk around the block, and get a call from the Decker. He gives me the real story. Johnson runs a business, business is good, but he hasn't paid the bills. Cable company kidnapped his wife to get him to pony up.
Johnson doesn't want to pay his bill, so he hires disposable assets to attack while he plans to sent in his security team in to get his wife.
I hang up, I turn around, and walk in the front door.
Security stops me, knocks me down, cuffs me, drags me off to a basement room after removing my gun.
I wait. The rest of the group buys guns and other things, they find a Decker willing to assist us, some dumb kid, never done a run in his life, we take him as a favor to a friend, split his share with the friend. Eventually, a couple security guards come in, along with a man in a suit.
Man sits down opposite me, puts my gun and my phone on the table in front of me, asks what I was going to do with a gun full of sleep darts. (I don't kill. No body bags, only out patients.) I missed 3 calls from the group.
I say I came to talk.
He wants to know what about, from my phone he found that I was a client of the company, and that I'd paid my bills on time, always online never in person. No one EVER comes in person. Especially armed. That sets off warning bells.
I say that I was hired to come to the company, along with a group of... less legal minded individuals... as a favor. That a woman named X had apparently been kidnapped. I'd done some work returning kidnap victims to their families in the past, this guy asked if I'd help him.
Man in the suit looks upset, says that the Johnson is an asshole. Says if I'm there to cause trouble...
A guard pulls out a gun.
I say "far from it. I'm here to pay his bill. How much does he owe you?"
The man in the suit blinks, rattles off a number. I ask for a receipt as I hand him my credstick.
They escort me upstairs. they bring me coffee, the real thing, not soycafe. They escort his wife to me. I lead her out of the building, call a cab, and escort her to a good divorce lawyer.
I send a bill to the Johnson.
rest of the party (and the GM) are pissed because no gun battle took place.
Curiouser and Curiouser I thought, as I continued along. I get to the offices. I walk around the block, and get a call from the Decker. He gives me the real story. Johnson runs a business, business is good, but he hasn't paid the bills. Cable company kidnapped his wife to get him to pony up.
Johnson doesn't want to pay his bill, so he hires disposable assets to attack while he plans to sent in his security team in to get his wife.
I hang up, I turn around, and walk in the front door.
Security stops me, knocks me down, cuffs me, drags me off to a basement room after removing my gun.
I wait. The rest of the group buys guns and other things, they find a Decker willing to assist us, some dumb kid, never done a run in his life, we take him as a favor to a friend, split his share with the friend. Eventually, a couple security guards come in, along with a man in a suit.
Man sits down opposite me, puts my gun and my phone on the table in front of me, asks what I was going to do with a gun full of sleep darts. (I don't kill. No body bags, only out patients.) I missed 3 calls from the group.
I say I came to talk.
He wants to know what about, from my phone he found that I was a client of the company, and that I'd paid my bills on time, always online never in person. No one EVER comes in person. Especially armed. That sets off warning bells.
I say that I was hired to come to the company, along with a group of... less legal minded individuals... as a favor. That a woman named X had apparently been kidnapped. I'd done some work returning kidnap victims to their families in the past, this guy asked if I'd help him.
Man in the suit looks upset, says that the Johnson is an asshole. Says if I'm there to cause trouble...
A guard pulls out a gun.
I say "far from it. I'm here to pay his bill. How much does he owe you?"
The man in the suit blinks, rattles off a number. I ask for a receipt as I hand him my credstick.
They escort me upstairs. they bring me coffee, the real thing, not soycafe. They escort his wife to me. I lead her out of the building, call a cab, and escort her to a good divorce lawyer.
I send a bill to the Johnson.
rest of the party (and the GM) are pissed because no gun battle took place.
I like how the party is upset because a gun battle didn't take place. I mean, I think the point of the job has been lost if the team loads up for bear. XD
But that's just me.
But that's just me.
Defiantly one of the better stories I've read. A GM (despite being pissed) is reasonable with your actions, a hazardous situation that is avoided altogether, and the kid that got hired gets to go home (not in a body bag). Sounds like a win in my book.
well, the GM was annoyed, because anyone simply PAYING the bill had honestly never occurred to him. He was expecting to run this fairly standard Shadowrun session, which involved lots of gun fights, spells cast, hacking into the computer, falsifying the records so that it looked like he HAD paid the bill, etc.
then _I_ come along and think, "why doesn't the guy just pay the bill?"
I mean sure, technically most characters in Shadowrun are criminals in one way or another. My character knew spells that definitely classified him as a WMD, and was wanted by the CSA for the destruction of an undersea military base. but if a company is providing you with regular service, be it the cable company, or a rent a car agency, you pay your bills. if you can't afford it, work out a payment plan.
then _I_ come along and think, "why doesn't the guy just pay the bill?"
I mean sure, technically most characters in Shadowrun are criminals in one way or another. My character knew spells that definitely classified him as a WMD, and was wanted by the CSA for the destruction of an undersea military base. but if a company is providing you with regular service, be it the cable company, or a rent a car agency, you pay your bills. if you can't afford it, work out a payment plan.
Did paying that guy's bill hurt your character at all?
When I play Shadowrun...ok, when I RUN shadowrun, I never get to play anymore...
When I run Shadowrun, I like to tell my players two things. First, I like to tell them that "if shots are fired, something has gone Very Wrong". Guns are lethal. They're great intimidation tools, but they started off as "a way to propel chunks of metal at subsonic speeds into a target you want to stop moving" and they've only gotten better at that. If you're pulling guns, the other guys will be too, and People Will Die.
The other thing I like to tell them is "...and things don't get interesting unless something goes wrong, you know." If everything just went according to plan, there's no point to having the game in the first place. Let the players write the plan, say "good job, great story" and move on. There needs to be tension and meaningful chances for failure to make things interesting.
And a gunfight is a GREAT source of tension.
When I run Shadowrun, I like to tell my players two things. First, I like to tell them that "if shots are fired, something has gone Very Wrong". Guns are lethal. They're great intimidation tools, but they started off as "a way to propel chunks of metal at subsonic speeds into a target you want to stop moving" and they've only gotten better at that. If you're pulling guns, the other guys will be too, and People Will Die.
The other thing I like to tell them is "...and things don't get interesting unless something goes wrong, you know." If everything just went according to plan, there's no point to having the game in the first place. Let the players write the plan, say "good job, great story" and move on. There needs to be tension and meaningful chances for failure to make things interesting.
And a gunfight is a GREAT source of tension.
I totally feel you on the 'never get to play' part. My local group rarely volunteered to Gm something other than I.