Coolest RPG Scene

[stofsk]

Ep 3: Icelands and the Running Man.

This session actually took place before the previous sessions, and being someone else's game also happened in an Alternate Reality. We still played the same characters.

If I recall, there was my monk, the Elven Wizard/Thief, Wayne the Cleric, and one other (whom I forget - possibly a Barbarian). The party has journeyed to a frozen land with Vikings walking around making arses of themselves.

We look into the standard the dungeon setting - forgotten tombs near the city/town. We explore, find monsters, conquer. Big deal.

At this point, Wayne the Cleric was pissing off everybody, not just me. He has the "schnict!" syndrome - that is, every time he gets confronted by the long arm of the law, or some old guy that's asking for directions, he (the player) says "schnict!" (supposedly the sound a sword makes when it gets drawn - ironic, considering Wayne wasn't armed with a sword) and attempts to teach the offender some "manners". Another word for it is munchkin.

Anyway, Wayne is bemoaning how we never get any magical items as treasure when we adventure. The DM asks Wayne what sort of magical trasure he would like. Wayne says boots of speed. Wayne then trips over, looks at what caused him to fall, and lo and behold there's a pair of fancy looking boots with an aura of greatness about them. Wayne immediately claims ownership, and threatens bodily harm upon any who would attempt to steal the trasure away from him. We all kinda collectively roll our eyes and carry on.

We get back to town and are about to divy up the treasure we got from the tombs. Wayne feels this is an excellent time to try out his new sneakers. He doesn't bother getting the boots identified. There's a Wizard in the party who could do this for free, but no - there's no need, you see, because Wayne knows they're boots of speed.

He puts them on. He immediately starts running. The party looks up from whatever we were doing to catch the last glimpse of Wayne sprinting out of town, yelping all the way. (ok not really. I'm using my imagination here)

Now here's the kicker. Wayne could've attempted to somehow jump out of his boots. Anyone with a brain could tell that the boots were cursed, and the DM was waving his finger at Wayne. "Be careful what you wish for" and all that.

But no, Wayne is convinced that the boots are "leading" him to an even greater treasure hoard, so he decides to do nothing. The DM was even giving him a chance to get out of the boots, but no Wayne is insistent; he's being led, after all, to riches and power.

They lead him alright, right into the freezing sea. Wayne becomes a popsicle and the rest of us burst out laughing.

 

[JakeDranx]

Best thing that's happened so far to me is in a 3rd ed D&D game, we just come up against evil knights, who all, coincidentally, wear black armour. Our cleric (not me) proceeds to walk up to then and, I quote, says

'Isn't black an evil colour...'

 

[FlightCommanderSolitude]

I was at a con years ago (late eighties) and decided to jump in a huge demo of a game that I can't remember the name of but it was all about guns, and was rather complicated. There were about 30 people playing I think; there were two opposing 15-man teams converging on a contested, two-level villa or something. Teams were broken up into three-man "fire-teams" that were fairly autonomous, and each player could have (if I recall) either an SMG or a pistol and a grenade. There were three maps: one for each team, and one "master" map for the referee. We played with miniatures, and each opposing combatant you dropped, you got his miniature as a freebie. There were three judges, one for each team and the "master" referee who really new the rules and kept everything in order.

So anyway, my little squad was racking up a few freebie miniatures by hanging out and guarding a hallway/stairwell. I think my two teammates were just about out of ammo and I had used my grenade, when all of a sudden an enemy combatant steps out of a stairwell into the hallway behind us while we hadn't been paying attention. He levels his SMG and ...

"Wait!" I said to our table's referee. "Do the rules allow me to make a snap shot here?" He conferred with the master referee and said yes, I could take a quick shot with my pistol if I made an initiative roll (which I made). If I recall correctly the rules also allowed for called shots, so I figured what the heck, I'll try and shoot him in the head - otherwise we'd probably be dead meat whether I hit him or not.

The ref ruled I had a 3% chance to make the snap shot. I took a deep breath and rolled my percentile dice.

... 2.

The opposing player came over to congratulate me and personally hand over his miniature.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Reminds me of a game I was in years ago - a kind of cyberpunky game using the Aftermath rules.

Two of us were raiding a house (I forget why). We weren't expecting much trouble. I had an experimental laser pistol, the other guy had a revolver.

I kicked open the front door and went in. There was a hall with stairs up and a door to another room. A bad guy appeared at the top of the stairs with a rifle. He dropped prone and took aim. I had time for one shot, and all I could see was his head. I rolled...

Critical.

Head shot.

Max damage.

There were brains all over the walls. Another guy with an SMG came though the door, fired, and missed. My friend turned and ran (thanks a lot!). I returned fire and the bad guy dropped. Another with an auto shotgun came down the stairs. I fired, emptying the laser, and hit the gun, causing the magazine to explode and blowing the guy's hands off. *Another* guy with a rifle came down the stairs. I dived for the SMG, fired a burst, but missed. He fired, hitting me, but not doing much damage. I took aim and pulled the trigger...

Click.

CLICK?!?

"Oh fu-"

 

[Maspy]

ok, here's a tale...one of many from my most favorite RPG character. AD&D 2e Moon Elf MU/T, NE. My first evil character and I was having fun with him.

1st instant that stands out: We were searching out clues in a house. The party Brute came across a hidden chest. The Bard (female elf, gypsy,) spurts out "Thief, pick the lock!"
I ignored her, both in character and out. She repeated her demand.
"Are you talking to me?"
"Yes."
"Who are you calling a thief?" He had never actually used (infront of the party) any of his thiefly skills.
"Well, you have no armor on, you carry only daggers and are graceful. That says to me thief."
"Then you must be a WHORE! You wear revealing clothing, prance around infront of men and take money for it."
At the word whore, her husband choked up his pop, the DM bit his tongue, and the gypsy-bard turned bright red.
I looked at the DM. Aeris take the hammer off of Ravann's belt and smashes the lock.
"It opens."
He tossed the hammer at the gypsy's feet, "Picked" ...and storms out of the room.

She wasn't much of a role player. And when I called her(character) a whore...the look on everyone's face was priceless.

 

[Maspy]

Scene 2 with same aforementioned elf...
Now remember, this is my first evil character

ever in a full bore campaign. He has successfully avoided detection as being both evil and as a MU for 3 levels. (From both the characters and the players.)

The party was attacked by some poison wielding witch. She killed

the brute and poisoned my guy before she was dispatched. With the pison, his HP's were ticking down. The party healer was just a druid. Neuralize Poison was just above his ability to cast. But he decided to risk it or I'd be dead, too. The DM had rules for casting above your ability. He failed and rolled on the miscast chart. The result called for changing some of the letters in the spell name. Thus Neutralize Poison became... Neutralize Person. So much for being evil.

Crap.

 

[Keklas Rekobah]

Lesse...

Fantasy campaign, seven PC's, five NPC's, and four 2-litre bottles of Jolt Cola.

I'm playing Bog, a big dumb fighter (STR: 18/87, INT: 4). Bog talk like Tarzan, eat like wolf, smell like bear.

The other PC's were named Elwitta, Thumper, Renegade Wolf, Criminal Toad, Lady Vixen, Bill the Drood, and five nameless idiots with barcodes on their shields.

We're being persued by balrogs, we're out of spells, nobody has hit point in the double-digit range, and all the Doritos are gone.

Bill the Drood finds a portal and 'accidentally' activates it. We all dive through...

Imagine what effect the sudden appearance of 12 medeival characters in the middle of Central Park would have on all the hippies, winos, and gang-bangers living there in 1983.

After a few brief skirmishes, and a brief brush with local law enforcement (Tongues spell: "Yes officer, we're Anachronists from the University..."), we find a place down by the river to rest and heal.

Elwittah: "Toad, what did that watchman say the name of this town was?"

Criminal Toad: "Noo York."

Bog: "Hmm... Smell like Old Orc to me."

<* sigh *> I guess you had to be there

 

[CarlP]

Originally posted by Ran Targas:
^ Just goes to show, no matter how long you allow your players to develop a plan, they never do and the little things always kill them!

I always love asking, "So during the week in J-space, do you want time to plan or should we just jump ahead to arriving in-system?" Never, ever, have I heard, "No, we need time to plan".

Okay, I've got to share a story that can show what happens when the players *do* plan. It was many, many years ago, in a Morrow Project campaign. We were playing characters that were actually trying to follow the principles behind the Morrow Project--rebuilding society. Some bad guys had started rampaging around the midwest in a big, armored RV (the SCIENCE 1, I believe it was called). I don't remember their motivation for doing this--either they were just on a rampage, or they were empire building, or what. Whatever it was, they were heading our way, and we had to stop them.

Well, unfortunately, we didn't have any weapons that would stop that bus. We had small arms, some sniper weapons, grenades, and explosives, but nothing that would get through the armor of the beast. Well, we asked the ref how much time we had. He said we could take all the time we wanted. Two hours later he asked if we were ready to go, yet. We were still planning. I think we had it all together in three hours. 8^D

There wasn't much terrain for us to use. It was set in the midwest, so the most we had was a few stands of trees, and some wide, flat, shallow rivers.

If we blew the bridge before it got there, well, it was amphibious, so it could still get across.

If we blew the bridge while it was *on* it, it would just drop into the water and finish crossing. Shaken up a bit, but mostly unharmed.

After some brainstorming, we came up with a plan we thought would work. We wrote it all up, but didn't share all of the details with the ref. We wanted to surprise him. 8^D

So, we wired the bridge, and hid in the brush along the side of the river. The vehicle came up to it. Convinced that they were safe, it paused only briefly before starting across.

At the midpoint of the bridge, we set off our first wave of explosives. These blew out the downriver side of the bridge. The whole structure slanted, and the RV started to tip. Then we hit the underside with grenades--not in an attempt to penetrate, but to blow it over. We also set off some more explosives, on the upriver side.

The whole effect was to tip the RV over onto its side, in the river. Where it couldn't do much.

I think the ref was a little flustered by this. Certainly, the people inside the vehicle were messed up by it. One of them paniced, and deployed the rocket launcher on the roof. Which was now on the side of the vehicle. Where my character could see down inside from his vantage point. One shot from a sniper rifle later, and the internal magazine was going boom, inside of the nice armor plating that had previously been keeping the bad guys safe.

The ref hadn't planned on losing his big baddie so quickly. He'd figured we'd be forced to engage in a guerilla campaign against them. It was all his fault for giving us time to plan. 8^D

carl

 

[pennshome723]

My most notable situation was while DMing AD&D v2.0, I was amazed as my player group of 7 players that ranged between 5-13+ yrs of experience and all being former DMs/GMs themselves...came into a Great Hall of a former court Wizard that was abandoned and haunted. Well this group found many cool magic things to investigate and play with...one a magical green fire within a great "walkin Fireplace"...(i had thought would have been a hint in it's self). Well the found the riddle written in stone apon the mantle and spent the next 4 HOURS over analizing it...drove me NUTZ!

You see I love traps and great details, plus always have plots within plots and etc. Nothing is ever as it seems BUT this time I was rushed (LOL) and used a simple riddle, the describe how to open up the "Fire Gate" and these guys just went so above and beyond what they needed.

The real kicker was at the end of the evening, one of the players wives showed up with his 8 yr old son and asked what was going on. He had been allowed to play once in a while, and was allowed to take over one of the Pages outside (the door to the place was a One Way In only), and he enterred (the 1st NPC in the room)...and walked over to the fire, read the riddle and did the simple little thing that need to be done and POOF...openned the gate!

LOL ...I thanked him GREATLY...while his dad and the rest of the party sat there in TOTAL silence looking real...STUPID

I then ended the game for the night on that note

Boy were they all PISSED!!!

 

[zonk]

OK, I've got a couple.

Morrow Project. They never got out of the hole, players went paranoid and engaged in a shoot out with each other. I figured freezer burn...

CT, back before the Fifth Frontier War but, of course, post Star Wars.

One of the players met up with the Ingavar and decided that they were the "Rebel Alliance", nothing could convince him otherwise. Highly amusing when he discovered he was with the terrorists...

Space Opera

Small (armed) freighter docked on a vacum planet. First after the players regained control of their ship with a vicious firefight, they then chucked the wounded out the lock...

Remember it's a vacum world

Shortly thereafter - best scene ever

The two police cars come screeching up and one of the players turns a starship turret onto the police car...

surviving car executes a U turn and screechs away

 

[eiladayn]

Originally posted by zonk:
OK, I've got a couple.

Morrow Project. They never got out of the hole, players went paranoid and engaged in a shoot out with each other. I figured freezer burn...

From one former player of Morrow Project to another, that has to go down as the shortest campaign ever!

Welcome to the posts Citizen Zonk!

Pappy

 

[Anthony Emmel]

Chello!

Originally posted by Keklas Rekobah:
[QB] Lesse...

Fantasy campaign, seven PC's, five NPC's, and four 2-litre bottles of Jolt Cola.

They make 2-liters of JOLT?!!!!

 

[Straybow]

Not really RPG, but the old Melee game. We played at lunch in high school. I was known for being a bit lucky with the dice.

Waiting for the bus one day, my friend Alan says, "I know you're a lucky ba***rd, but that's not everything. You've got a secret, and I wanna know what it is."

I could tell that nobody else in the group had ever worked out the exact 3d6 probability curve, so I asked Alan if he knew the difference between a 10 and an 11 (rolling to hit below or equal to adjusted Dex). Odds jump from 50% (which everybody knows) to 62.5%, and 12 give you 74% chance.

Armed with this knowledge, Alan tries to immitate my play style. His gladiator gets croaked, and he slaps the dice on the table. "It didn't work!" he shouts in my general direction (at the next table doing some homework at the last moment).

I slide over and say, "You're not doing it right." So we set up another encounter. The other character wins init and misses. I pick up the dice and announce, "First you need to roll a three." (5 always hits, 4 double, 3 triple damage). I roll a three. "Then you need max damage." I roll 10 on 2d6-1. I shrug nonchalantly and say, "I guess that's close enough."

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Straybow:


<snip>

I slide over and say, "You're not doing it right." So we set up another encounter. The other character wins init and misses. I pick up the dice and announce, "First you need to roll a three." (5 always hits, 4 double, 3 triple damage). I roll a three. "Then you need max damage." I roll 10 on 2d6-1. I shrug nonchalantly and say, "I guess that's close enough."

Ah, another master of the art No worries, I won't give up the secret

but that is very close to many of my own stories of "the talent" we share...

One in particular comes to mind. My character (well the party but my PC wouldn't say it that way) had just rescued the daughter of a local nobleman from a cult and was enjoying a well deserved private bath after the nobleman's generous thanks and much coin when in walks the daughter. So there I am naked, soaking wet and looking forward to the real reward (and for the record the bath was down the hall from my armor and weapons and associates).

First though she wants to shave the scruff off my face and pulls out soap and a razor. I was suspicious but was my PC? Roll says the GM, high he adds unnecessarily I roll a natural 20 of course. I grin and ask high enough, he says sure you're suspicious and alert, she is going to try to slit your throat. I (recalling the cursed sword I had been shackled with earlier, the +1 sword that can be loosed but never rid of that always magically appears in hand no matter what when faced with combat, though it was not my choice of weapon) say flatly I chop off her head (oops mistake, I could have just said I attack, but no) and remind the DM the sword will appear (I think he forgot). So the DM says with an evil grin, roll a 20 (we often played loose rules, on the spot single rolls). No problem of course, I roll the die and 20, lop, her head plops off (no troublesome scream) and I live. Time to wash off the blood, get dressed and sneak away, leaving my associates to deal with the consequences. Oh did I mention this character was evil

I'm sure the DM was trying his hardest to bump him off before I corrupted his campaign

 

[Straybow]

Master? Once upon a time, perhaps. Nothing like what I've seen others do. My brother's friend Bill used do things like this on a regular basis: "This roll doesn't count, it's a one" [rolls a 1 on d12 for damage against large creature] "OK, this one is good" [rolls something decent].

In game I managed that only rarely. I had a Boot Hill character who was known for making highly improbably knife throws on a regular basis. Couldn't shoot straight with a pistol, even though his skill was the same at both.

In a grognard chit-and-hexpaper air combat simulation I got a double cannon kill in an F-111! The first was pulling out of the bombing run, just happened to line up perfectly on a MiG in the middle of a turn on the 6 of my fighter protection. The second came by rudder-rolling into a maximum range high-angle-off shot at a retreating MiG 17, requiring a check to see if I lost sight of him in the maneuver, 2 out of 36 to hit, then getting doubles on the damage chart for the kill.

Joining an ongoing AD&D wilderness campaign of ~4th level characters, my first character made a decent cleric (of which the party had none). Died quickly. Next character was an unexceptional fighter (named John, dunno why I remember); killed by giant scorpions the first day out of town.

My petition to GM to start at 2nd level but 0 experience points so that I might survive is denied. I grumble that maybe my luck will catch up to me. Not really, I get a fighter with a 17 Str and small Con bonus, who is promptly equipped with 2H sword.

We promptly find a dungeon.

Therein we find a nest of trolls, and though two succumb to spell and flaming oil we run out of both. Our staged withdrawal doesn't go well, but the entrance is a dwarven (pseudomagical) elevator with a wide "lobby." My character is down to 2-3 hp and won't survive the free swing the trolls will get if I run for it, so I volunteer to hold them off until the party activates the elevator.

(The trolls foolishly follow the party to the surface once the elevator cycles back down; they die halfway up the shaft in a volley of oilflasks retrieved from packhorses. The party bravely faces the stench of a ride back down to retrieve and bury my character with honor and a vow to quaff a drink in his name. Thanks, guys.)

So while the party heads back to town and heals up (still no healer in the group) I roll up a new character before a witness&#133 whose eyes steadily expand until they resemble billiard balls.

The one "low" stat was a 15 Chr.

I made him a Ranger so he'd have 2 dice, although I "only" rolled 14 (plus double Con 18 bonus for 22). STR was "only" 18/92, which by age bumps up 10% under house rules if a natural 18

(I should mention: we used 4 dice, keep 3, but that only skews the odds so much. GM looked at the stats and mumbled something about regretting the refusal to start the previous character at 2nd level.)

GM introduces him to the party by allowing the fully recovered and itchy 18/01-ish Str bounty hunter to get himself into a bar fight [what, you talkin' to me?] with someone who rises from the barstool to become the largest person he's ever seen&#133

Yeah, the character Armath lived. Many adventures later they are ambushed by a nonstandard boulder-throwing giant. More like an evil Titan, so big we actually lost track of how much damage we'd done to him but we were sure it was well over 100. No Ranger bonus because we never got close enough to hit him except with missile weapons; heck we rarely saw him for more than a second as he played artillery practice with us.

Armath and the bounty hunter both in low single digits. Everyone else in the party is pounded to a pulp, bleeding to death (house rules unconscious at 0 or below, you bleed until hp -10). Fortunately with blunt force damage bleeding is slow.

Individually we decide to withdraw, and so does the giant. Bounty hunter says he limps off to bind the wounded. I have one arrow left, so I tell the GM I hide behind an outcropping and take one, carefully timed max range opportunity shot. GM has me take a guess at his escape route. GM says, "You guessed the right route. Craggy terrain makes it hard to spot him, blood in eyes, weak with cracked ribs, and swirling breezes: you need a 20." I roll a 20 and max damage 8. GM looks disgusted and makes a noise like a falling tree. "The giant collapses with an arrow through his neck." GM reveals giant had been down to 8 hp.

 

[DaveChase]

Playing an Orge that was none to bright and very strong. A NPC we were chasing ran inside a small tower with large double oak doors. You know the kind that it takes either fire or a large group of people with a very big pole to knock down. The dwarf in the party who had a grudge against me because he lost a drinking costest, said 'Hey, Krunch (my characters name) why don't you just run as hard as you can into the door and knock it down." Of course playing my character I said 'Sure'

Now the GM asked me what I was going to do, so I spelled it out.

Get about 2 blocks from the door and run at full speed and then hit it with my head. And I proceed to do this. The GM says OK, now roll, you need a 3 (3d6 which is critical, GURPS) to not hurt your self. I roll a 3 (grin).
Then I have to roll twice more to see what happens to the tower door. Rolled another 3, critical success. The GM takes my dice gives me 3 new ones and I roll another 3

The door is broken down and I am in. He starts to make me roll again to see if I take damage from the doors collapsing on me when his girl friend say, "stop taking chances, just make him unconscious".

He was one of those GM that would always rely on dice to determine outcomes instead of using 'common sense', but then again it was high fantasy.

But, boy did I have bragging rights, but the bad part was the fighting in the bar or around town would always stop when every I joined in. It just was not fun any more

Dave

 

[Straybow]

Wow, a girlfriend who not only ok'ed RPG, not only played RPG, but truly understood RPG!

 

[ACK!!]

Originally posted by Straybow:
Wow, a girlfriend who not only ok'ed RPG, not only played RPG, but truly understood RPG!

Not my girlfriend but a player's girlfriend. She played an Imperial Aslan with an attitude.

OMG, she was great!

Ok, coolest RPG scene ... It is a cold day in Greyhawk. You know you are doomed. You know that you are going to die. Someone called a contract on your life with the Assasins guild. The names of the dreaded illuminary figures active in the guild fill your mind. Then you hear the name. You find out the name of the person who is being sent to kill you. You brighten up and surround yourself with guards before preparing to flee the city. You think you have a chance to live.

On the way to the stables you see a huge ugly half ogre approach you and your guards. He wears a full helm because of his legendary ugliness. He reveals his face to one of the guards and he pukes in revulsion. The half ogre pulls out a little black dot from a bag and opens it up to a large hole. Out of the big black circle of a portable hole he pulls out of the hole a gnome.

This was the assasin you heard about the vicious evil killer known as Hopkin Hillhopper III. The half ogre is his partner Brutus Wuv. The ogre places the gnome on the ground and the gnome begins to bounce up and down wearing some sort of magical boots of jumping and springing or something. Why? Because the gnome bounces up and down in place like a child's ball (or perhaps Tigger from a children's book). Then the gnome just disappears.

The ogre takes out a huge ax in one hand and a maul in the other and lifts his great helm and charges. The sight sending a few of the guards screaming.

That is when you feel the impact of the body against your back little legs wrapping around your chest and two blades from two short swords pounding into your back.

As you die you watch the gnome fling a the carcass of a chicken at your men. It was filled with some sort of powder that made them sneeze and itch. The half ogre rampaging after your fleeing men and you feel little feet in your back as the gnome dances on your corpse.

 

[marvo]

CT - a player had just mugged an unfortunate noble and dragged the body into a freight elevator. Finding the noble armed with only a foil he said 'I cut his throat with his sword'. Doh!

 

[Straybow]

Well, you can't really call him "armed" if it is truly a foil, not a rapier.