Professionals have standards. Be polite. Be efficient. Have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
Always have a plan. Always. And never tell a soul. 🙂
Damn.
Making notes…
This thread is unreadable to my ancient eyes, but is thankfully archived [ HERE ].
Have a free transcription:
what is the evilest thing you’ve ever done in a game?
“… A buddy of mine went off to college a few years back and ended up sharing an apartment style res with four other gamers. At first they were pretty cool guys, until I was invited to game with them. The entire lot of them were THAT guys, playing anthromorphic characters, being chaotic randum, one player had a custom made vampire race that was stupidly OP and only had a LA of +1. Shit had to stop and I knew that it was my duty to stop it. I played a LE human wizard who specialized in the creation of magical items, his character concept was that wealth was often equal to power and what better way to make cash on the up and up then by creating and selling gear catered to adventurers and the elites. Another quirk of his was that he kept a grimoire on him in which he wrote the names of those he and the party had slain, if a name was unavailable he would write a brief description, approximate age, and location of death. Whenever they’d stop in a major city he would copy the most recent additions and deliver it to the mortuaries, as an act of respect to the dead. I actually made this book in RL, and filled it out after every fight.I went full out on this guy and regularly made the parties equipment for ¾ of the cost it would have taken them to buy it, often giving discounts if it suited both of our needs for them to have the better gear.
My only stipulation was that my loot be kept on me, and not with the parties funds.
By the end of the campaign I was several levels under the party but had a huge stockpile of gold saved up to buy a nice island somewhere and live the good life. We finish off an evil draco lich that was bent on world domination and are about to go our seperate ways when the party barbarian stops my character and demands that I give them back the gold they paid for their equipment or he would kill and take it from me. I tried to reason with the rest of the party but they were all being greedy fucktards, It was four vs 1 and I wasn’t allowed spells from outside the phb, so none of the fantastic bullshit of celerity could save me, and the barbarian would unquestionably beat me on initiative if it got to combat. Resigned to my fate I did the only thing I could do, and spoke to them one last time.
“Lalilulelo” Our clerics armor suddenly burst into sunlight, the barbarians weapon animated and began to attack him, while his armor locked in place freezing him on the spot. The rogue was disintegrated on the spot as his gear spontaneously blasted him with magical rays.
Within a round the party was dead or incapacitated, save for my character, who calmly approached the frozen barbarian as he was hacked apart by his own weapon, pulled out his book and flipped to one of the first entries. As I described this I pulled out my copy of the book, and did the same, turning it so that the rest of the table could see where there names had been scrawled on the day I had met them.
“There was never any doubt in this outcome. I knew your greed would overwhelm you and took the necessary measures to stop you when it did. Perhaps if you had simply let me go things wouldn’t have gone just as planned.”
The table just kinda stared at me in silence. I didn’t play a very talkative role in the campaign, and usually kept what I did separate from the party pretty brief. They hadn’t even known my alignment, as my evil deeds were usually of the subtle sort, such as unfair contracts and manipulating the party into doing what I had planned. After the final fight I gathered the loot from the dracolich’s hoard, including the materials and instructions required to make a phylactery of my own. The campaign ended with my character getting the credit for saving the continent and being lauded as a hero, the others were quickly forgotten, as I claimed that they had fallen under the influence of the dracolich and been destroyed. The only legacy they left were their names scrawled in my book.”
Smug self-delighted players who get a kick out of being pointlessly nasty because ‘it’s just a game’ are the worst. Like dude. Bro. Your power fantasy says things about you.
I’ve been lucky to have never had one of these dolts in a group with me, the worst i had to deal with was a nerdlich who repeatedly bragged that with his stats he could “Beat Belldandy” (lol) but I’d welcome them if someone like OP was also there. Dat payoff.
you know the trope of the old retired warrior squeezing into their armor for one last fight?
i just had a mental image of me digging up my old leather jacket and my bass guitar and giving myself a mohawk at the kitchen sink, and joining a party of old adventurers as the punk bard. pretty sure i still remember the bass line for ‘wave of mutilation’.
which really should be a dnd spell, btw.
oh!
it is always the warrior that does it isn’t it? I really like the idea of some other class (retired) gearing up for one last adventure. But I suppose the thing is, Warrior is one of those classes that might retire? Wizards just get more wizardy after all, monks get more monkey you don’t expect other classes to stop and take up another job the way warriors do.
even the trope of the bad ass old gunslinger is essentially a warrior, isn’t it?
gonna think on this if you don’t mind.
i mean, not every old bard settles down to open a guitar shop, but we can’t all be henry rollins. 😀
was going through my gaming tag and found this, and it got me thinking on the trope some more. the old bard would have different challenges than the old warrior. the old warrior has skill and patience and combat reflexes, but is no longer as fast or strong as they once were. the old bard, though, unless they have arthritis in their fingers, they’re only going to get better and better.
imagine a story that kinda leads with the old-warrior-comes-out-of-retirement trope, and he’s got his old adventuring party with him. the wizard just got more wizardy, after all, so the narrative has to sideline that guy early on to maintain the challenge. the healer’s still trucking too, but uses up half her spell slots every day just keeping the rest of them upright. the rogue’s fingers aren’t so quick anymore, but she’s the wiliest creature alive. the bard knows all the songs; ALL of them. together they get the warrior to his Fated Last Battle, but there’s one more obstacle – a penultimate group of villains who have a goddamn rock star of a young bard who challenges the old bard to an improv duel. no old standards, grandpa; just music versus music.
the young bard is fast, REALLY fast, death metal fast, and pulls out all the stops devil-went-down-to-georgia style. he weaves a bewildering wall of power, a wild wailing force of pure rage. it seems like there’s nothing the old bard can do against that. even if he could pick that fast, he doesn’t know that style, he’s a support guy, what can he do? but he looks really calm as he brings his guitar around and sits down on a handy chunk of rubble.
young bard: you’re SITTING DOWN? you better take me seriously, old man! *plays even faster*
old bard: … all right, son, if that’s what you want.
blue smoke coils around the young bard’s fires and extinguishes them one by one. somewhere in the wreckage a neon beer sign flickers fitfully, even though neon hasn’t been invented. everyone finds themselves nodding. when the final chord falls silent, someone says, quietly but with feeling, “yeah.” the young bard is appalled to realize that it was him.
the villains stand aside to let the heroes go through. the old bard touches his hat and the young bard nods. it’s like the song says: ain’t no shame in being beaten by a master.
so I’ve been meaning to put this on tumblr and keep forgetting but, in the campaign I’m running my sister is playing an orc fighter, and one of the options you can pick for a fighter’s signature weapon is that it “glows in the presence of [fill in the blank].”
I was like, “oh, that’s funny because it’s a reference to that sword in The Hobbit that glows in the presence of orcs. Your weapon probably doesn’t glow in the presence of orcs.”
to which she responded, “FUCK YEAH it does.”
So now we have in the party an orc fighter with a club that glows in the presence of orcs. Or, as far as the character is concerned, a club that glows. It’s been in her family for generations since some ancestor won it in a battle, and it’s just always glowed. She has a sack to put it in when she’s trying to be stealthy.
a d&d group who have only ever played virtually are forced to meet up and join forces when it seems their dm has gone missing. the group is comprised of beautiful popular athlete pretending to be a dork online, a dork pretending to be a beautiful popular athlete online, a stereotypical lives-in-his-mother’s-basement gamer who’s secretly rich, and the dm’s brother who doesn’t know the dm is his sister – they’ve never even exchanged real names online. halfway through their search they realize the dm sent them on a wild goose chase on purpose to give them the thrill of a real-life adventure. three quarters of the way through they realize that through the actions the dm set up for them to take, they’re actually being framed for a crime she committed.
Unrealistic premise, it requires players to actually follow the DM’s beautifully crafted plan for more than five minutes, zero stars
yeah, these are D&D players. they’re just going to steal the first dog they see and then burn down a grocery store.
you’re a bard who has had a really good life, overall. Relatively humble life, no terrible trauma, no complicated revenge plot, no evil relatives and no enemies worse than, “that’s Jeff, he’s a prick, but he makes a nice pudding, the wanker.”
At least until this jerk of a noble stole your dog. Now you are on a quest, In Search of the Good Boy.
The journey isnt exactly frought with danger, there’s a misunderstanding with a goblin whose startup food wagon business gets mistaken for some kind of extortion or toll booth, but boy howdy, if these kebabs she’s selling are extortion, you don’t mind one bit! You leave that encounter several silver less, with a bundle of delectable foodstuffs in hand. You take it upon yourself to tell people how delicious this goblins food is. Then you set up camp in a field, and while you’re sitting by the campfire, wishing you had saved some of the goblin’s kebab for later, a couple of orcs emerge from the night to ask you to please put out your fire, there’s been a drought going on and there’s a severe risk of wildfires breaking out. They instead invite you to their farmhouse for the night, and are very pleasant company that brew wonderful tea.
Eventually, after many enjoyable encounters and after making many new friends, you finally reach the noble-who-took-your-dog’s house. You knock, and the noble in question, to your great surprise, answers the door themself.
They are much more good-looking up close than you thought they would be.
You explain why you’re there and they apologize profusely for the misunderstanding, because they thought your Good Pooch was a stray, and you hear barking and wagging and excited pup sounds as your dog races to greet you.
Your quest is complete. You have found The Good Boy.
Also the Noble asks you out, and then you eventually get married, and the orc farmers are there, and their farm is flourishing, and the goblin food wagon chef is there, and her business is booming thanks to your patronage, and now she has a brick and mortar restaurant that you and the Noble helped her to open.
just moving along like everyone else 