Um. I remember when my husband (or soon to be husband at that time) **woke ** me up in the **middle ** of the **night ** for the **sole ** purpose of watching him beat Sephiroth in Final Fantasy VII.
Yeah.
That. was. good. times.
And I like RPGs. I really do…
Same party as the Dragon story above.
We got into a fight with a whole school of Wizards.
The Rogue (currently an obnoxious half-elf, wheras she used to be a Gnome…long story) tripped one of the Underclassmen. Deliberately. Which grumpied his (10) friends. I (Half-Orcish Barbarian with 16 Cha) attempt to smooth things out. As did an NPC travelling with the party. Unfortunately, the Gnomish Fighter/Sorcerer started attempting to intimidate them - threatening to tell the Dean on them if they started trouble, and pointing out we’d kick their butts.
Needless to say, things didn’t get smoothed over.
Most of us (everyone except the Rogue) aimed to knock out or scare off the wizards, rather than killing them (I was punching, and used my Frightful Presence feat, casters were stunning, holding, greasing, etc), but we were still in a rather huge melee.
After we’d kicked the wizards butts…well, the commotion got the attention of the other 680 Wizards on campus.
We got some broken bones, some burns, and I got turned into Bottom. But they didn’t kill us, so that wasn’t too bad.
Here’s one of my favorite RPG memories:
Playing Villians & Vigilantes, I had a somewhat wimpy hero named Omnidon who had the powers of flight, teleportation, paralysis, devitalization and disintegration. The fun power was disintegration. The way the power was written, it did 1d20 points of damage against non-living material, but a full 20 points against living things. The average superhero had between 4 and 8 hit points. Instant death. His paralysis and devitalization rays were fairly pathetic as combat skills, so I talked the GM into letting me be a villain instead.
One of our other players thought that sounded like fun, so he whipped up a team of twelve supervillains: the Death family. Death Knight, Death Speed, and ten others whose names have long since faded into mist. All twelve of the death twits got themselves captured in the same afternoon and were sent off to Sanctuary, the super-prison. Omnidon saw that on the news and decided he could use some flunkies.
On the day of the transfer to Sanctuary, Omnidon killed all the guards and vaporized his way into the actual transfer vehicle, basically a giant, armored semi. As he was walking down the center aisle, vaporizing guards and shackles with equal poise, the brick-member of the death twits decided that he couldn’t let someone else free him, and pushed his strength to the max to try and break his adamantium shackles. After a couple of quick critical fails, he’s screaming in agony, his spine, both arms and both legs shattered.
Omnidon is an extremely focused individual, and since the idiot was now useless to him, ignored him. One of the other death-twits said, “You can’t just let him suffer, do something,” so he shot the poor sot with all fifty ampules of morphine from the vehicle’s first aid kit. “You killed him!” “I did something. He’s not screaming anymore.”
Then Omnidon teleported the eleven survivors to his secret base. As soon as they got there, the eleven twits decided they could probably take him. After all, they outnumbered him eleven to one. “Why did you bring us here?” one of them demanded.
“The eleven of you will serve me.”
“Bull<bzzkapp!>” vaporized baddie.
“The ten of you will serve me.”
“Yes sir!”
The player, of course, was doing a fish imitation, mouth wide open. “He can’t do that, can he?” to the GM. “He just did.” Heh.
Another favorite memory, involving the same player as it happens.
Back in the day, when there was just D&D and AD&D (none of this “edition” noise), I was running a dungeon and the players were taking a virtual army with them on their treasure hunt. There were eight or so PC’s and a horde of followers and flunkies. Somewhere on the 13th level, they come across two doors, right across from each other. The thief checks for traps on the left-hand door - no trap on the door. He opens it (outward into the hall, as it happens) and they see a plain 10’ x 10’ x 10’ room with a small column in the center of the room, about a foot across and five foot tall. There’s something shiny on top of the column. One of the mages does a detect magic, and there’s a lot of it in the small shiny thing. The thief does the detect trap thing again, and thinks the room is trapped. The cleric does a detect trap spell and gets back, “You idiot, of course it’s trapped.”
So, they’ve got a shiny magic thingie in an obvious trap. What do they do? Genius sends one of his flunkies in to grab the thing. As soon as flunky touches the shiny thing, the column snaps into the floor and the ceiling falls on him. When I told the players, “…and the ceiling falls on him” they didn’t seem too impressed until I followed it up with, “and it appears the ceiling was actually the bottom edge of the 10’ x 10’ x 10’ granite block that was being held up somehow. The flunky is flat - beyond flat. He’s oozing out the door, under the edge of the block. What do you do now?”
They turned to the other door. “Is the door trapped?” No. “Open the door.” Looks exactly like the last room. “Is the room trapped?” Do mages play with their wands?
Genius says, “I’ll bet it’s a different kind of trap. If it’s the same, I’m wearing my girdle of <some giant-like critter> strength. It’ll let me hold 2,500 pounds. I’ll just walk in, grab the shiny thing and catch the block when it falls.”
I stared at him for a few seconds, then said, “OK.”
“I walk in and grab the shiny thing.”
“As soon as you touch it, the column snaps into the floor and the ceiling falls on you.”
“No trouble. I catch it.”
“And you can lift and hold how much?”
“2,500 pounds.”
“OK, you catch the first 2,500 pounds. The other 140,000 pounds smash you slightly less flat than your flunky across the hall.”
“You cant do that!”
“If you’re stupid enough to walk into a trap, you’re stupid enough to die in it.”
He stopped playing with us a short while after that.
In a game developed by my friend Tim (which should be published any day now, real soon, he promises) I played a character named Piscator, from a race called the Sidda.
Now, the Sidda were one of the old races on this world, with thinking beyond the ken of man. As they aged, they would take on traits similar to anything they had an affinity with. A sidda who liked being outside might turn into a tree; one who liked fire would turn into a fire elemental.
Now Piscator considered himself a simple fisherman. Yeah, he was good with a sword, but that’s really just for slapping the younger races on the backside when they try to give you a raw deal on the day’s catch.
Anyways Piscator ends up going on a quest to save the world with some other adventurers, and whenever he gets a chance, he does some fishing. In fact, when we come upon a bunch of mystic blacksmiths, the rest of the party asks for swords, shields, while I ask for a fishhook. And that’s what this story hangs on.
As part of our quest to Deal With The Evil Villain, our group sailed back to where we were from after getting support from the King, tormented all the way by nightmares being sent by the Villain. Since we’re sailing, and it’s a multi-day journey, Piscator hangs a line off the back of the boat with his mystic fishhook.
And snags a sea serpent.
Now if this were Piscator and the Sea, that serpent would have dragged us halfway around the world off our course, and killed us any time it decided to dive. But Sea Serpents are much smarter than that-- they just rise up and swamp whatever tiny vessel has them hooked. So this serpent, a mile long if it were an inch, rises up to crush us to bits-- and Piscator hangs onto that line as the serpent’s rises 100 feet into the air and blows steaming hot water at the vessel, scalding everyone on deck. Seeing the danger his crew has been put in, Piscator starts swinging, and manages to shinny up to the creature’s head, and inadvertently gets snapped up into its mouth. Hearing the bellows-like gills start scooping up more water for another scalding blast, Piscator grabs his sword (because who leaves his sword behind when fishing?) and slices his way through the beast’s tongue and undermouth, falling like a rock, but failing to be blanched like a tomato when another blast erupts. Feeling the pain, the serpent plunges its head towards the ocean, dragging Piscator, but not before he has the chance to cast a minor cantrip allowing him to breathe water.
And so the struggle continued below the surface. While the boat’s pilot fought to keep control as massive waves tried to swamp the vessel, Piscator climbed and clung to that line until he was once again level with the beast’s maw, fiercely fighting to stay conscious as the pressure of the depths threatened to crush his bones into jelly. He used that hook as a climbing piton, ripping it out and sticking it back in to climb around the beast until he saw it’s eyes in front of him-- so he sliced his way in, crawled into the socket, plunged his blade into the serpent’s brain, and wrenched out the hook one final time.
It took more than an hour for Piscator’s unconscious body to float to the surface, and once there his companions barely recognized him: his skin was scaly, his eyes had lost their whites, and he had developed gills. Most of those effects faded after he returned to shore, but his eyes always stayed as dark as a creature from the depths.
I don’t know how many of you know of a system called Anderenfire, it’s a home-brew system I was introduced to down in Orlando (and I wish I had the books). It takes everything, and throws it together. We’re talking Star Wars Jedi, Steven Brust Witches, Wizards, DnD, elves, indians, dragons, space ships. I mean the system was built to accomodate every fantasy and sci-fi fan’s dream.
Hell, in one game I played a Predator. That kicked ass.
But unfortunately no great stories live to this day.
But I do have one, a story of how my warrior Lukas kicked the crap out of the “white dragon.”
So there we were, saving this king’s wedding from a hoard of orcs. When suddenly the green knight appears and grabs the girl of the group (and boy was she not happy) and rides into the courtyard where a portal opens for him and he leaps through.
Now, I’m all set to run and leap into the portal after him, little concern of what there is through it. I take several long strides and leap and as I’m about to pass through the portal I stop mid air.
The damn telekinetic monk grabbed me with his mind. I start cussing at him and telling him to let me go after her. And thus ensues a large squabble of arguements over who is the leader and blah blah blah.
In any case, the portal slowly begins to shrink and we finally decide to follow him.
So I take my leaping bounds and fly through the portal, tucking into a roll to land. I stand up and find myself on a tall stone walkway, no supports or railings on the side.
… And none of my compatriots came through. But Lukas didn’t let this get him down, now was his time to shine. So he looks one way, then the other and suddenly there’s a brilliant light over a tall castle in the dark sky, greens and reds mostly. He decides to head that way, figuring it was a battle of some sort.
So walking down the walkway he begins to feel a vibration in the ground, his stone walkway begins to shake under him. Preparing for the worst he draws his massive, Final Fantasy style, absolutely impossibly long great sword and readies for battle.
Then, he see’s it. A great wurm, with a brilliant white eye that shines in the darkness, a scream as it is fast approaching him.
He takes his posture, preparing to stand in front of it until the last moment, where he would leap atop it and bury his sword in its head.
It continued to barrel towards him, and it was around this time he got the itch on the back of his neck, realizing something wasn’t right. But being a warrior his bloodlust distracted him from it.
As it was about to slam into him he executed his leap, the sword flashing in the light of its eye, he landed perfectly on the top and burying his sword through the back of its head. And the great white wurm quickly slowed down, its momentum quickly dropping to 0. And Lukas stood atop this great white wurm, victorious. As a portal reopened in front of him he withdrew his sword and leapt through it, knowing no one would believe him.
And it would be true, because this was no great white wurm. This is the tale of how Lukas slayed the evil monorail in the great land of Disney.
Apparently the DM just wanted to see what ruckus a hero could cause in Disney and after I “slayed” the Monorail he began to feel guilty, wondering how many kids would need therapy after I beheaded the were-rats (Mickey and Minnie) and such.
Ah - those were the good ole days.
Let me tell you about the man known as Phil, who was so dumb he spelled his name F-I-L.
One day while a group was skulking its way through underground lairs, Phil took a bathroom break, and so became ‘tail-end Charlie’ watching our collective backs. While he’s gone the ledge the rest of the party is walking on crumbles, pitching half a dozen men into the quick-moving waters of the sewer system. Phil returns to hear our cries for help, nimbly dashes past the crumbled ledge, and spots us moving swiftly towards a whirlpool.
So he grabs his rope, gets ready to lasso us to safety, thinks better of it, and decides to dive in after us, thus ensuring everyone’s pleasant home in a watery grave.
I now make sure that every PC I ever make can swim. Even if they come from the middle of a sandy desert.
And then there was the half orc fighter that was swallowed by a great white wyrm. He survived the bite and the swallow. He even had enough endurance to pull out his sword and hack his way out of the things stomach, not knowing it had killed the rest of his companions and taken flight. He emerged victorious (and covered in wyrm bile) and promptly fell hundreds of feet to his death.
So, the three of us enter the haunted cathedral. It’s me, playing Mazzir, a renegade drow fighter, Reyla, an Athasian elf fighter, and Jurgen, a human bard.
In the vestry, there’re two doors to either side. We decide to investigate. In the first room, we find an obvious trap, much like the one Ninja Pizza Guy’s group encountered: a short plinth with a large, multi-faceted gem on it. As it turns out, the guy playing Reyla is half-asleep at this point, and the guy playing Jurgen is… well, basically an idiot.
Reyla walks right up and grabs the gem. :smack: Immediately, a half dozen ghosts melt out of the walls and attack. Jurgen fails a saving throw, and is terrified. He flees the room while Reyla and I duke it out with the undead. He runs across the vestry, into the room opposite. Which is identical to the one he just left, except instead of a big gem on the pedastal, it’s a glowing sword. “Ah ha!” he thinks, “We can use this sword to kill the ghosts!” So he grabs it… and is slaughtered by the half dozen additional ghosts that appear, who then proceed to attack me and Reyla from behind.
We both managed to survive and finish the adventure, but we decided to just loot Jurgen’s withered corpse rather than haul it all the way back to town.
Heh. Obviously, “Genius” wasn’t terribly adept at calculating the weight of stone.
My fondest RPG memory:
I was DMing my brother and his buddy in Dungeon Module A5, under the 1st Edition AD&D rules. The two of them typically played like Munchkins. Each of them was playing two player-characters at the same time, neither of which would ever be allowed into a game by any sane DM. So, for me, DMing was more a chore than a joy. Anywho, they arrived in a room, I read the description, and they were set upon by 4 or 5 giant ants.
How they dealt with the giant ants was a classic example of Muchkin overkill. The first two characters both let loose with psionic blasts. (Yes, two of their 4 characters managed to “roll” lucky enough to get psionics when they were rolled up.) The third character swung the Magma Mace he’d somehow picked up from Arduin Dungeon #1, which allowed him to fling a deadly globule of molten lava across the room at his foes. The fourth character was a “Mycretian,” a cleric-like character class from the City State of the World Emperor game accessory. Instead of clerical spells, Mycretians received “gifts” that they could use every day. This particular Mycretian had the gift called “Friend”, which would instantly make anybody you met into your friend on a 1-5 roll on a d6 (no saving throw). (A cough cough “misreading” of the Mycretian rules by my brother and his buddy convinced them that these “gifts” could be used every round an unlimited number of times per day.) So … while the other three characters were hitting giant ants with psionic blasts and a Magma Mace, the Mycretian turned to one of the untargetted ants and said “Friend!”, thereby convincing said ant that the party meant him no harm (!).
But I had the last laugh. It turned out I was accidentally reading the room description for the room on level 2 of the dungeon, and the party was still on level 1. The desctription for the room they were actually in had no giant ants or other monsters in it. Their whole combat scenario never happened!
Weird. I met this guy tonight. He works at the library about 2 miles from my apartment. He noticed me checking out graphic novels and we started chatting it up, and before I left he wrote down his name and told me to google it.
Nice guy, and practically a walking comic book encyclopedia.
Yup! And does he not resemble Wallace Shawn? 
Bad zombie thread, bad!