Nostalgic RPG stories (A.K.A. come brag about your characters)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Holy smokes, Johnny, I might never stop laughing at that one…

Reminds me of an evil, evil curse that once befell our little AD&D adventuring party: Teddy Ruxpin. We found the little bear in a dungeon, where it asked, “Can you and I be friends?” Someone made the mistake of answering “yes”.

From that day on, where he went, Teddy went. When we’d try to sneak up on a pack of bugbears, Teddy would wander up and say, “What are you guys doing?” at the top of his lungs. When he’d try to sleep, Teddy kept him awake, wanting to tell stories. He couldn’t be killed, he couldn’t be trapped or contained; he’d always find a way to keep following him.

The character stricken by the Teddy Ruxpin curse eventually committed suicide, which was the DM’s aim in the first place. Oh, the humanity…

22

There’s also the tragic tale of the hero known only as Monkey Man. He was as strong, as stalwart and as swift as any Basic D&D character could be, and he had the maximum hit points – all by natural die rolls. Those of you who have played Basic will probably appreciate how rare and precious such a character is.

And so, Monkey Man was as ready as any adventurer could be on that day when he first entered the first chamber of the first dungeon of his adventuring career and lost initiative to a dwarf with a two handed sword who leapt into the air and took Monkey Man’s head clean off with the first blow of Monkey Man’s first battle.

Since when, everytime his name is mentioned, adventurers get tears in their eyes and say. “Poor Monkey Man. Poor, poor Monkey Man.”

23

Maybe I’m just tired, but Johnny that Honknar story is the funniest thing I’ve read in ages.

“Hell, you can have that one!”

ROTFLMUFAO!

God is my co-pilot. Blame Him.

24

I am trying to type thru the tears of laughter…Oh my God Johnny. That is HILARIOUS! My head hurts.
“Hell, I dont need that to Kick yur Ass!”

Ow.

Gasp

25

It was 1994 and my faithful gaming group had gotten together for our weekly AD&D session. We had been meeting for 5 years so the GM and players new each other very well. The game started as our party ( by this time our chars were famous mercenaries in Forgotten Realms ) were enjoying a bowl of Dragon soup and a hand keg of a fine stout when a messenger came from the nobles. The stories of an advancing goblin horde were true and the nobles wanted our group to lead the fight.

We agreed to the deal and my 11th level Paladin, Sir Ragnor the Holy, was commissioned as the General. He commanded a battalion of a thousand men along with the rest of the party as he set out to fight the horde. To make a long story short, the goblins were controlled by an evil Zhentarim mage bent on the destruction of Waterdeep. During the battle two other members of the party were killed in efforts to stop the Mage. Ragnor seeing his friends and countless numbers of brave men die at the hands of this beast paved a swath of destruction through the hordes to get to the Mage.

He prayed to Tymora to guide his sword as the battle began with the Mage. After minutes of spell slinging and sword play the mage began a spell that would kill Ragnor. Ragnor sensing this began to fight even harder. The same moment the mage finished his spell Ragnor took his head. The spell went off and mortally wounded Ragnor as the magi’s head rolled to a stop. His dying words gave his troops the power and courage they needed to finish off the remaining horde.

This was the greatest game I have ever played in. I can still remember the tears in Melody’s (one of the other players) eyes after Ragnor passed on. The GM told me that Ragnor could be resurrected, but I told him no. The story would have suffered. The players wouldn’t have liked it, and to be frank I didn’t want to.

I still have Ragnor’s charector sheet laminated, and it is the only thing that I still have from that time in my life.

26

This is back in First edition Paladium. The GM didn’t allow rerolls or anything, and I decided to play a gnome. After the most trully pathetic rolling in the history of time(my stats were 3,5,4,3,2,7,4,4. The gm decided to let me be a Warlock(basically an elementalists) since he wasn’t actually qualified to be anything but a peasant. Due to his lower than minimum intellience we decided that he had to role to see if he could actually cast any of the spells, and of course I missed every role, so he finally gave me levitate other. So Klah’rahn’tier the inept gnone was unleashed on the world. The Gm also played with a personal crit table, that would result in severed limbs, and personal disfigurments.

first encounter against a troll. Has a gnone sized shortbow, It does 2 dam maximum. First role, critical miss. bad roll, he loses three toes on the right foot, Passes out. Gets woken up, but there is no one to reattach the toes.

second encounter. Wizard casts fireball, gets a crit on Klah, blows off his left leg, but does minumum damage. Klah is still alive, but needs a woooden leg. Speed reduced to 1 (about 30 is average).

Third encounter. A bunch of goblins. The other members occupy most of them, but ones comes for Klah. Using the only ability I have I levitate the goblin into the air. so it can’t attack me, or so I think. It pulls out a bow, and crits Klah in the eye, destroying it. Klah passes out, spell goes away. Goblin falls 60 feet to earth and gets killed. Klah wakes up and get an eye patch.

Fourth encounter. Big ass ogre champion and spell caster.(By this time I was about to give up on Klah.) Spell caster blinds the group. MY poor little 2 toed, peg-legged, eye-patched 20 inch tall gnome with no weapon abilities decides to throw a dagger into the dark. Needs a crit to hit, rolls a twenty. The Gm decides that since he was a -18 to hit, that it wouldn’t count as a crit unless I rolled another 20. I rolled a twenty and went to the drit table. rolled a head shot, 99 percent, instant kill. At that point I decided I could never give up on the little guy.

Somehow he survived to 10th level. By that time he had lost a hand, his nose, and was covered in huge scars. He also had several insanities from all the trauma, he got histerial strength and charged everytime he saw a demon, was terrified of women, spiders, was an alcholic, and had an compultion to stop and clean his armour everytime it got dirty, even if it was a blood spatter in the middle of a battle. He also had managed to get a rune dagger, and had killed several demons somehow.

The group spilt up, but he was the only character to make it all the way through. He is an npc in every campaign I have run since then :slight_smile:

27

I’m still DM’ing AD&D – playing with the some of the same group I started with back in '79, plus their teenage kids.

Many memorable times, but one that stands out is the desecration of the Temple of Set.

The group of about 12 characters arrived in a coastal town after the usual harrowing journey through the wilds. They wanted nothing more than a drink at the tavern… Unfortunately, the tavern had a sign: NO DWARVES ALLOWED.

That pretty much spelled the end for that tavern, as the group had several fierce and proud dwarven fighters. While the bulk of the group was busy fighting everyone in the tavern (plus the town guard), the Hobbits and Elven theives in the group were robbing the bank next door.

All this chaos got the attention of the local Wizard - who managed to get everyone corraled, put out the fire before it spread, and get the money back in the bank. He offered the party an impossible quest or death. Golly, which to choose? This group basically lived for impossible quests.

They find themselves on the edge of a desert, with instructions to desecrate the temple in the distance. All goes well until they arrive in the inner sanctuary, where the head priest manages to gate in none other than Set himself.

Everyone freaks, then proceeds to unleash their best shot. First on initiative is the humble Ranger, who rolls a 20, using his two-handed Vorpal blade. The group cheers wildly, then stop – seeing the expression on my face.

I let them get away with it – and they all went up two or three levels. I ruled that they had managed to banish Set from appearing in person for a period of 1 year. But after that year, they were in big trouble.

Three characters used wishes to wipe the event from their past, losing all the experience, levels, and goodies in the process. The rest were all dead a week after the year was up. Most spectacular was Shibumi, the Magic-user. Her goal was to get the materiels and appropriate level so that she could ‘Magic Jar’ Set when he came after her.

The one item she needed was a ‘Pearl of Power’ – and she found one deep in a dungeon, on the anniversary of Set’s banishment. She was so excited she hollered out ‘Set, come get me now!’ So he did.

I love it when the characters make my job easy.

28

A gurps character in a weird campaign about something or other, but my character was a twelve year old hacker who liked to rave. He was modeled after me, and I’m cool. His name was Fearo.

29

Some friends and I used to play Marvel Super Heroes, however, we went much further than the simple ruleset allowed. Bank robberies and kidnappings were too mundane for us, most of our characters were on a cosmic level.

After playing with a large group of people for quite a while, I got sick of always being the goody two shoes, and so made a villian of epic proportions.

His goal was to destroy all of Earths heroes, and though he did not even come close, he did manage to take out Spiderman, Dr. Strange, Quasar, the Fantastic Four, and several members of the X-Men.

In AD&D there are a million memorable battles and dialogues, but the two that stand out the most are:

Level 9 mage obliterating a duerger city with only a staff of the magi and a few spells.

Cleric of Ares going out of his way to wipe out a large band of verbeeg because they ruined his grappling hook.

30

My first character was in Palladium Fantasy. A changeling wizard name Robert Drake. He got to do a mystic cauldron ritual early in the campaign; it taught him some spells, but I had to roll for an insanity. I rolled… alcoholic. Considering that changelings have NO resistance to alcohol (and therefore drinking alcohol could reveal that he’s a changeling, causing an angry mob to form and kill him), the GM told me to re-roll. I rolled compulsive liar. Do you know how fun it is to play a compulsive liar who can shape-change?

The day after he got the insanity, he walked into an alchemist’s shop, posing as a well-known mage in town. He told the clerk to gather a number of magical items, and added: “Oh, and put these on my account.”. Free magic stuff. Neat.

He’d also constantly change his identity; first he was Robert Drake, then John Roberton, then Jacob Johnson, then Michael Jacobson, then Glenn Michaels, etc. It was loads of fun, especially when encountering old friends. “Did I meet Fred as Michael Jacobson or as Glenn Michaeals?”.

31

Note to DMs: Want to add a little spice to your campaign? Give your Chaotic Neutral magic-user a Wand of Wonder.

The ranger in my group has a habit of suggesting deadly encounters for the party, mostly by buying some huge, kickass figures and giving them to the DM. This particular episode was prefaced by the ranger (who goes by the name of Melvin) mentioning that, even though they’d been at sea for several games, they hadn’t encountered a sea-monster.

Needless to say, soon afterward the giant squid was doing very well for itself. It had tentacles wrapped around the hull of the ship they were on, and had entwined and/or crushed several of the crewmen. The ranger was hacking away at the tentacle crushing the captain at the stern, the dwarf had donned a Ring of Swimming and gone over the side. The cleric was having a hard time with two tentacles, assisted by the surviving crewmen. And Hratmus, the magic-user, had gotten hit. In fact, he’d gotten grabbed, and his left arm was pinned, and he was having the breath crushed out of him, and being dragged off the boat.

Unable to cast any spells, the doomed mage whips out the only thing he could think of… the Wand of Wonder. Jams it into a tentacle, and triggers it.

Now, keep in mind that I use a special Wand of Wonder effects table. There are a hundred different effects that could happen, and I’m constantly changing the order, and adding new and interesting effects as they occur to me. Almost anything could have happened.

Hratmus rolled a 46. Which, on the table at the time, was a fireball.

The explosion had several results. The tentacle, of course, got severed. The magic-user got hurled across the ship, to slam against a mast, unconscious but alive. The ship, of course, was on fire, and sinking. But the fireball, and the underwater dwarf, did enough damage that round to drive the squid off, and they were able to get the party to shore soon thereafter.

I went over that table of results after the game. There isn’t one other effect on the whole thing that would have saved the wizard’s ass.

Let’s hear it for the dice gods!

32

In a small inn a group of adventurers gathered together and heard a story that there was a group of thieves holding a keep some miles in the distance. The thieves were led by an evil mage of unknown abilities and the thieves were making the lives of the villagers pure misery.

There was a Ranger of good character named Thordak and an Elven Wizard who cannot be named. There was a Dwarf named Dorf and Feynn, a human cleric. The cleric and the dwarf possessed nearly godlike strength, this and their quest for adventure was the only thing they had in common. Feynn decided to rid the villagers of this mage and his henchmen due to his righteous nature whereas the Dwarf was just looking for booty and a piece of ass from some grateful village girl. So off they went.

After scouting the keep the Ranger discovered a cave entrance behind the front of the keep. Assaulting the Keep directly would have been suicidal as ballista tend to leave huge holes in one’s person. The only obstacle to getting into the cave was the band of Orcs that had taken residence there.

The party attacks the Orcs at dawn with the Thordak and Dorf leading, the Orcs put up a good fight but cannot contend with the berserker that is Dorf. Feynn is challenged by an Orc and dispatches him quickly with his mace. A second Orc attacks Feynn and at this time the wizard decides that he is no longer a mage but an elven warrior. He draws two throwing knives and hurls them at an Orc but hits Feynn in the back. This distraction caused Feynn to be struck by the Orc who severs Feynn’s left hand at the wrist. The rest of the party slays the Orc and then Dorf pounds the ever loving crap out of the wizard for playing with knives.

(The Dm decided that a cleric could function pretty well with only one hand and a shield was strapped to the arm with the stump).

After binding his wounds and casting a healing spell Feynn proceeds into the cave to find Orcish women and children cowering in fear. Dorf decides that raping the women might be good sport but Feynn stops him and lets the Orcish women and children go. The party proceeded to rid the Keep of it’s occupants and nearly kill the mage who wisely decided to make his escape through a secret door.

The party is never again attacked by Orcs as the freed women and children spread the word of the cleric who comes to be known as “Feynn the Merciful”.

The party goes on to many more adventures and their battle cry of “I’m gonna cut you a new asshole” is feared throughout the land.

Feynn was the luckiest character ever, his god calls almost always succeeded which was good. When one travelled with a psycho dwarf who would just run headfirst into anything without forethought a party needed every edge it could get.

Funniest moment ever was when we were in some god forsaken dungeon and entered an unlocked room to find a couple of cute and fuzzy bunnies sitting at the far side. Dorf cries “LUNCHTIME!!!” and launches himself toward the rabbits.

Dorf was never a fan of Monty Python. Feynn wisely pulled the Ranger back through the door and left Dorf to contend with the killer bunnies.

33

I’ve had two…

My first was my very first GURPS character (Ok, first character ever!). She was based almost entirely on me… from attitude to background, almost everything. Except she was a fairly powerful psionic. The campaign took place in my college town, and I was a college student there. There was one pesky Supers recruiter that just wouldn’t leave me alone. He kept trying to convince me to become a registered Supers, and I kept refusing. Most of the mischief that I got into then was more a result of his trying to get me to join up than through any fault of my own. Of course, the little bitch that I was would regularly harrass him back. Things like sending out mind-call suggestions to any other Supers in the area to either stop by for a visit or, if they were unaware of their powers, come in and join up. Of course, this backfired in that I got “persuaded” to do all the paperwork for the new Supers.

The other character was a level 2 Mage (again, GURPS) She learned all her skills with one ultimate skill in mind. Deathtouch. Much to my GMs displeasure, it even worked on the undead. (He thought he had her. HA!) And, she carried a staff, so she didn’t even usually have to get close enough to be harmed herself. The GM kept trying to find ways around the spell, but luck (or something) was on her side, and he never managed to find a way to keep her from using it. Finally, he forbad me to play the character in his campaigns all together.

34

Well, in our final program, we were supposed to show floating rates of variance for a tape on which were recorded the missed tolerances of a number of manufactured parts, I had the L1 set up correctly to identify any variation in tolerance outside the parameters, but I was having a problem with my T1, trying to reconcile the page breaks on the report with the way the page advance was jumping before the break…

uh…what? Well, the title said “Nostalgic RPG stories”. This was before we started the section on FORTRAN.

nevermind

35

Ooooh, that was a very good one about Honknar, Johnny. Highly entertaining.

Feynn, your mention of Monty Python and bunnies brings to mind my best character ever.

In college, we had a weekly AD&D game, and I created a character named Tym Von Albino, essentially based on the enchanter Tim in Holy Grail. He was a Choatic Neutral Wild Mage and, quite literally, mad. He met the PC group after escaping from an insane asylum. Just about the only spell he would ever cast (maybe about 8 of every 10 casts) was Nihal’s (sp?) Reckless Duomer.

First encounter that sticks in the mind: the group is fighting off a band of minotaurs, and doing rather poorly. Tym is about to cast a fireball when out of the corner of his eye he sees a group of rabbits bounding out of the forest. Quickly prioritizing these threats, he sends the bunnies to their flaming doom. Amazingly, no character deaths resulted from this encounter. Doubtless due to the quick thinking and initiative of Tym. ;)

Another memorable moment: while trying to cast an offensive spell, Tym accidentally heals his entire group. After many rounds more of fighting, the group emerges victorious, but heavily wounded. My friend's character, Bard Sexdwarf (the story of Sexdwarf and how he got his 18 charisma is a good one for another time), impressed with the healing abilities Tym displayed, asked Tym to heal him again. Naturally, Tym repeated the same exact procedure, but this time succeeded in casting the offensive spell. The now enraged and lightly toasted dwarf decapitated Tym with one clean sweep. We feared it was the end; however, soon the party ran into a paladin of Necros (the god of death in Meridian) carrying a large sack. The paladin dumped the sack containing Tym at the party's feet with the stern admonishment: "Never do that again. We're not ready for him yet!"

Tym soon became a prolific spell writer, only rarely choosing spells from the book. His spells ranged from the disastrous (Albino's Well-Cooked Breakfast) to the devastatingly effective (Midget Storm: a rain of midgets from the sky. It can also be cast in reverse with truly horrifying effect on Dwarven armies). Midget Storm was the most effective, but the best combination occurred during a battle with a troop of evil clerics in their castle. Our own party's NPC cleric, Brother Maynard, provided an excellent opportunity, so first Tym cast 'Protection from Abnormal Missiles' on Brother Maynard, then he cast 'Papal Magnet,' which causes all clerics within the radius of effect to fly towards the casting point, suffering from greater damage depending on how far they fly and into how many other clerics they smash. Although the DM ruled that clerics did constitute "abnormal missiles," Brother Maynard never forgave Tym for that.

There are many other Tym stories; like the time he accidentally turned himself into a Basilisk, the time he demanded a mountain range of jellybeans from a demon trying to buy his soul, and his adventures when he selected the skill "brewing." I will always miss that campaign.
36

What, no sci-fi RPGr’s here?

Had a character in FASA Star Trek RPG who made Patton look like a Nancy girl. I commanded an Avenger-class Frigate (a beefed up version of the Reliant-class light cruiser) from Military Operations Command, tasked to Starfleet Intelligence. We played the middle years, in-between the movies (I thru VI) and ST:TNG (this was early 90s). Our sick, twisted engineer used a multi-phasic paint, and painted a sign on our saucer section that was invisible until electric current of a specific amplitude was passed through it. It said:

We boldy went places we weren’t supposed to go, did things we weren’t supposed to do, vaporized the evidence and then denied it.

Most Trekkie “purists” have apoplectic fits when I describe some of our adventures.

When “Section 31” was introduced in Deep Space Nine, my friend and former GM called me from Atlanta, and we both laughed hysterically for the whole show, screaming back-and-forth “THAT WAS US! THEY STOLE OUR IDEA!”

The most notable adventure that I can recall was a hostage rescue mission on a Federation Colony that had lapsed into civil war. There were 7 different factions, and one (or several) of them had snatched up the Federation’s Colonial Command Development Team and their families, demanding weapons of mass destruction to use against their infidel enemies, or else.

Well, a Commodore in an Excelsior-class Battle Cruiser had been dispatched to negotiate the release of the hostages, but he was constrained by the usual rules. We were there “officially” as an “escort and perimeter security” vessel. Unoficially, of course…

After beaming in several SEALS Teams (SEa, Air, Land and Space), snatching several partisans/militiamen and turning them over to our Intelligence Section’s Interrogation Specialists, the Commodore began to get some cooperation from the local strongmen.

A few slashed throats, a few garrisons wiped out from poisoned food and water supplies, and an armed photon torpedo beamed right into the heart of the utra-super-secret revolutionary headquarters, ensured that the local strongmen turned downright friendly.

All hostages were released unharmed forthwith, and the Commodore got a great big medal. We just went to our next assignment. Needless to say, we were all Kieth Laumer fans.

37

Well, speaking of FASA I’m a Shadowrunner myself. I run a 380 Lb. Street Samuari named Phil. Phil is such a brawny guy that he bounced 45 rounds from 9 H&K MP5’s. We tried converting some SR concepts into D&D and we found out that he’s a Storm Giant (at least in terms of strength and toughness). The best story about how tough this guy is follows. Anyone who has ever watched the anime or played the Dreamcast game Berserk has seen the main character Gatz(Guts in the Translation) carying a giant sword called the Dragon Slayer. Based on the acient Japanese Zanabotu (sp?) it’s a sword that’s roughly 7 feet long and about a foot wide. Phill was in a little firefight when an enemy lobs a NERF™ football filled with Napalm at him. It hit him square in the chest and then the little charge of C4 in the ball was detonated. Phil takes the hit and is standing there covered in burning napalm. He ignores it. And I ask the GM quite plainly… “So does this mean my sword is on fire?” To which the GM replied after several moments of stunned silence…“Yeah…I guess it is.” From that day on Phil carried canisters of napalm on him so that at need he could douse the dragon slayer and light it aflame.

Phil is one of the wackiest characters I’ve ever played, he once planted 20+ Plastic Pink Flamingos filled with gasoline and strapped with C4 into a Wal-mart parking lot, but he doesn’t compare to the my favorite D&D character. His name was Dexter. Dexter was a Gnome. Dexter had one eye. Dexter was a Bard. Dexter was Chaotic Evil. He was always on the lookout for others with only one eye. He would leave them alone. If you had two eyes however Dexters plan went into effect. Using his various charms he’d lure people in. [Jamacian Accent] “Cahm a little closa’…closa’…closa’ I STAB YOU IN 'DE EYE!! AH HA HA HA!!” [/Jamacian Accent] Sadly Dexter only lasted one session in that form because after he blinded half a dozen innocent townsfolk he was quickly executed. Cest la vie.

“You want wacky?!?! You want WACKY?!?! FINE!!! I’m gonna’ play a Kender INVOKER! How’s THAT for WACKY!!!” -statement made by me upon hearing that our GM wanted to run a “Wacky” campaign.

Oh, and here’s a little brain teaser my Shadowrun GM used to use on newbies (especially those comming in from D&D) “You see a small room at the end of the hall. It has one door and no windows. As you watch a group of people enters the room and the door closes. Several miniutes later the doors open and the room…is EMPTY. (Pause as the player freaks out.) So are you going to get into the elevator or not?”

38

Some memorable ones…

Justin the Magician, an eccentric fellow, he was a human orphan raised by a village of claustrophobic drow who lived in a swamp in southern Faerun. He was driven into a life of adventure after his war dog Phydeaux bit a matriarch and they were both forced to leave. Memorable for his 10 lb. bag of raisins and his favored combat tactic of siccing Phydeaux on his enemies while he stood back and provided long-range support. Killed by a fellow party member (a brain-damaged dwarf) after reading a cursed scroll and turning into an orc.

Erica, Priestess of Cyric. Grew up in a small town in the far north until she fell in love with and ran away with a travelling priest of Cyric. She killed him during an argument, and gained the favor of her god. A bit too honorable to be a follower of the god of treachery, strife, and murder, she had a crisis of faith when she was forced to reassess her allegiance after an encounter with a powerful demon - when grasped in it’s claws and asked who she worshipped, she said ‘Cyric, but I’m willing to trade up’. Erica at this point lost her spell ability and the rest of the party found out she really wasn’t a good-hearted rogue. Her later conflicts with a child-murdering halfling in the party (she was the only one who knew he was guilty and nobody would believe her) didn’t help the interparty relations until they later realized she was telling the truth. She hadn’t decided yet whether to take up worship of Tymora like the other cleric in the party or to betray the party to regain the favor of her god when she was killed and eaten by ju-ju zombies.

Speaker-to-Insects was the son of a half-elf shaman and a half-orc barbarian. He wasn’t very strong and looked down upon by his nomadic tribe until they recognized the value of his vast intellect - he started learning the arcane arts on his own, and was also the only member of his tribe who could learn the language of th Thri-Kreen, the mantis-warriors who shared the steppes north of Phlan with them. When he realized that he could find more intelligent conversation among insects than his fellow tribesmen, he decided it was time to move. He hooked up with a very unlucky party of adventurers and earned a reckless reputation after lassoing a displacer beast - he intended to polymorph into a hippo after attaching himself to it so as to help his party members, but he dropped the potion and got dragged for a mile or so and almost died. He later was killed by a pit trap, and was resurrected as an ogre. He gave up magic, sold his wands, and bought a really big set of full-plate and a sword. He did well until he was killed by a crimson death.