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11:32, 28th March 2024 (GMT+0)

The Lurker's Lounge and Timewaster's Tales.

Posted by HeathFor group 0
Heath
GM, 15478 posts
Nyuk, nyuk!
Why, I oughta...
Tue 3 May 2011
at 00:56
  • msg #1

The Lurker's Lounge and Timewaster's Tales

Game idea by Heath (original game) and jioan (resurrected game)

Here is where you can discuss fun things that happen in your roleplaying games.  You may link to games as needed within reason.  This is a discussion forum.

Original Game Rules:
      Point to games that are a great read, give highlights of fun games,
      interesting scenes, or whatever.  Just a way to talk about other games
      without joining them or using the Time Waster Lounge.

      For example, Doulos and I were joking about his character dying in my
      campaign, and we could do something like that in a Lurker Directory
thread.

Discreet
player, 2205 posts
Tue 3 May 2011
at 01:08
  • msg #2

Re: The Lurker's Lounge and Timewaster's Tales

Here's one to atart things off-- this is from an offline table top I was running not too long ago.

So the main idea behind the game was that I was testing out a new casting system I was designing where the players could create their own spells on the fly.

So I had the players just coming together and meeting each other for the first time, and they were coming upon a group of goblins and orcs. They had just passed some travelers heading north, and knew the baddies would overtake the travelers before long if they weren't warned.

So two of them decided to stay back, and act as a distraction of sorts for the goblins---skirmishing--- while the third darted off to warn the travelers.

So as an interesting aside, the one that had dashed off to warn the travelers had died in the introductory sessions of the game--just DM and player-- and had actually been reincarnated as an Eagle---which was why he was chosen to be the messenger. So he flies after the travelers, and realizes on the way that, while he'd get there first, they may not believe him, or be able to take a talking bird seriously. So instead he decided to try and build a message spell.

Mind you, this was his first spell of the campaign-- so he picks all the various parts and pieces of the spell, and gives his reasoning for why he chose those things, and he casts it. Not thinking, he chose an -instant- duration, so rather than the magic having some duration that could carry the message, his wording went from "Look out, goblins are coming up from behind!" to "blrrggg!" --or more appropriately a loud horn like sound that rapported over the duration of a second or less.

This had some good laughs around the table, and was a good comic relief for the game. One of many that involved message passing, actually.
Grant
GM, 6289 posts
HOLY CRAP!!!
ITS SEAN CONNERY!!!
Tue 3 May 2011
at 01:10
  • msg #3

Re: The Lurker's Lounge and Timewaster's Tales

This story comes from my first home-brew adventure that my older brother ran for me about 6 years ago. I played a rogue who was an ex-arson in a 'past life', since all of the PC's had amnesia and had to try to figure out who they were. During one of our  missions from this crazy extra-dimensional time traveler (it's a long story), we had to break into this castle that was heavily guarded at the gate with a wizard who had no means to teleport or otherwise get us in.

So my character, having a high Dex and really good climbing skills, scaled the walls to one of the towers, single-handedly slaughtered (more like backstabbed) every single guard within the tower system, then opened the gate. Shortly after, we found out there was an informant on the inside who was going to open the gate for us. Apparently I killed him without knowing. And I torched his body as a distraction for the other guards, so lost the key he was going to give us which would later open the door we had to get into.

Oh well.
Heath
GM, 15483 posts
Nyuk, nyuk!
Why, I oughta...
Tue 3 May 2011
at 01:14
  • msg #4

Re: The Lurker's Lounge and Timewaster's Tales

In high school, my friend would play a practical joker.  After killing a bunch of goblins, he cut of an arm of one of them and when they were sneaking up on some trolls, he hung the arm around the corner of the cave, pulling its tendons like a marionette and telling the trolls to come get some goblin meat.

* * *

Another player pulled out a sword that transformed the bearer into a giant.  Unfortunately, it did not add mass to the target.  Therefore, he went from a skinny human to a bony stick-like giant 12 feet tall -- from normal strength to an extremely weak giant.

So the practical joker drew a party portrait with everyone and just drew two skinny legs going up to the top of the paper for the other player's "giant" character.
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:15, Tue 03 May 2011.
Discreet
player, 2206 posts
Tue 3 May 2011
at 01:35
  • msg #5

Re: The Lurker's Lounge and Timewaster's Tales

A friend of mine was playing a half-rhakshasa ( Sp? ) rogue/sorceror. Going on the premise that he was sort of following a head of some household, he had some in-character schtick that he would clap his hand over his fist, and offer a short bow in recognition that he was going to follow through with his objective.

You know, supplicate himself.

Well anyway, being that he was essentially building an assassin, he had a signet ring with a needle of some intense poison on it, and he wasn't thinking so when he did the bow, he suddenly realized it, and just said "oh sh-t I just killed myself!"

Failed the save against it, and basically collapsed.---If you're wondering why the house-head didn't save him, it's because it was a figure communicating via telepathy or something.

e_e ah good times.
Heath
GM, 15486 posts
Nyuk, nyuk!
Why, I oughta...
Tue 3 May 2011
at 01:42
  • msg #6

Re: The Lurker's Lounge and Timewaster's Tales

In high school, I ran two separate groups, one with my friends and one with my younger brother's friends.  So I decided to run the same adventure with them simultaneously going through it.

Well, my friends heard about this and were ahead of the other group, so they decided to make a map.  In this map, they indicated great treasures in places where there were lethal traps and dangerous dragons "Stay AWAY!" and such for the places they absolutely had to go.  It was a very detailed map, and when my brother's friends stumbled upon it, it caused them no end to their misery for trusting the map...which they did...over and over.  They did not survive that dungeon crawl.
Remi LeBeau
player, 180 posts
Laissez les bon temps
rouler mes amis!
Tue 3 May 2011
at 01:48
  • msg #7

Re: The Lurker's Lounge and Timewaster's Tales

There was a game I picked up the reins for after the main GM left... and we had one character who kept getting away with posting his amazing actions(the love child of Sephiroth and Cloud, I believe he was).  He kept trying to get his way in a combat, posting these amazing moves and evasions.  I kept shortcutting him.  Finally he does this massive leap off a building and assumed he landed perfectly.  He broke both ankles from the height and impact.  For some reason, no idea why, I got plenty of messages laughing about that...
jioan
player, 2367 posts
Tue 3 May 2011
at 02:25
  • msg #8

Re: The Lurker's Lounge and Timewaster's Tales

After about 6 months of playing 4th edition D&D all but one of my 6 players hated it.  To end the campaign they had their characters all commit suicide at the same time in the most creative way possible.  What they came up with was using nonlethal damage to beat a huge dragon unconscious, propping his mouth open with a staff, and crawling into his stomach to be digested together.  I'm not sure why but that's what they did.
Remi LeBeau
player, 183 posts
Laissez les bon temps
rouler mes amis!
Tue 3 May 2011
at 03:34
  • msg #9

Re: The Lurker's Lounge and Timewaster's Tales

Wow... that's just... wow
jioan
player, 2378 posts
Wed 4 May 2011
at 11:14
  • msg #10

Re: The Lurker's Lounge and Timewaster's Tales

During my very first campaign of roleplaying I was DMing a game of tabletop D&D 3.0.  Now only one person in my group had played before and he was the one who owned all the books.  He told me that as DM I didn't need to read the Player's Handbook to play the game.  Only the players had to do that.  So when we actually started the campaign I didn't know many of the rules but pretended I did because I was supposed to and I didn't think the rules I was missing were in the PHB.  I had no clue what spells the players were casting or how much standard equipment should cost.  In the end only the one player actually knew the rules and the others just asked what to do whenever they levelled up or rolled a check they weren't used to.  He ended up getting away with more than I ever have let anyone get away with since.  He did things like use a grappling hook as a standdard weapon, convinced me he could add modifiers to his dice and tell me the result, and told me resting for 8 hours completely restored their hitpoints.
Kagura
player, 13485 posts
Mostly Human
Mostly Harmless...
Wed 4 May 2011
at 14:47
  • msg #11

Re: The Lurker's Lounge and Timewaster's Tales

jioan:
After about 6 months of playing 4th edition D&D all but one of my 6 players hated it.  To end the campaign they had their characters all commit suicide at the same time in the most creative way possible.  What they came up with was using nonlethal damage to beat a huge dragon unconscious, propping his mouth open with a staff, and crawling into his stomach to be digested together.  I'm not sure why but that's what they did.


See, I don't understand why people have such a problem with 4.0. I'm currently playing in two separate 4.0 games, one currently Heroic Tier (Lv. 10 party) and one Epic Tier (Lv. 26 party). Personally I find it easier to play all around. Character creation takes all of 15 minutes (as opposed to the hour or so of calculating and so on that I had to do in 3.5), every character gets interesting moves and abilities, and skills are infinitely more manageable. Other than that, it's pretty much the same as it's always been. Fights still take forever, you still roll dice to attack defenses, monsters still have unfair advantages... you know, all the things that make D&D fun.

However, on the note of people crawling into a monster's stomach... in my epic tier game, about 6 or 7 level ago, we were fighting this purple worm (and some other things, but I don't remember because we killed them in the usual manner). Our wizard was told that he had a "feeling" that there was something inside the purple worm that he needed to become an Archmage, and it had to be taken while the worm was still alive. So, being the brilliant idiot that he is (high INT low WIS), he JUMPED DOWN THE WORM'S THROAT. And started being digested. Fortunately, our paladin got swallowed too. The paladin then proceeded to roll a crit on an attack roll from inside the creature, which was flavored to "You managed to thrust your sword down, through the worm's stomach and into the ground below, effectively pinning it in place." After that, finishing the thing off (it had been a burrowing type of worm) was pretty easy for my monk and the rogue, who were now the only damage-dealers outside of the worm (we also have a cleric and an artificer, but they're not so big on the damage thing). Good times.
jioan
player, 2379 posts
Wed 4 May 2011
at 20:44
  • msg #12

Re: The Lurker's Lounge and Timewaster's Tales

Cons to 4.0
While there are tons of arguments against 4.0 (and most are legitimate) these are the 3 that bothered me the most.

-The Monster Manual is supposed to make it easier for DMs but I found it much harder to create variety.  There are not base creatures but instead very specific entries many of which don't follow the same rules as PCs and use recharge rules and such.  Minions make no sense and the other monsters all have a huge number of hitpoints causing combat to drag on forever.  This isn't a problem for players generally but as a DM I felt as if my intelligence and abilities were insulted.

-There are really only 4 classes.(Controller, Defender, Leader, and Striker.)  The actual classes are simply slight variations on these roles.  Their combat abilities almost all degenerate to a formula (YdX + Z dmg vs Static Defense(AC, Ref, Will, Fort)).  This makes combat boring and uncreative especially now since class specific systems have been replaced with encounter, daily, and at-will.  Combat turns into everyone using their encounter powers and then smacking the enemy with at-wills while debating whether to use dailies or not.

-The game rules seem to do everything they can to turn the game into a series of dice roles and extract roleplaying.  Skill challenges can turn exciting chase scenes or conversations into simply rolling dice and hoping for high numbers.  The alignment system is now smaller and one dimensional instead of two dimensional so that grey areas were all but removed.  Miniatures (or at least tokens) are now required converting the game from roleplaying to tactical combat.  I feel more like I'm playing a Warhammer heroes game than a roleplaying game.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:53, Wed 04 May 2011.
Kagura
player, 13488 posts
Mostly Human
Mostly Harmless...
Wed 4 May 2011
at 21:27
  • msg #13

Re: The Lurker's Lounge and Timewaster's Tales

jioan:
-The Monster Manual is supposed to make it easier for DMs but I found it much harder to create variety.  There are not base creatures but instead very specific entries many of which don't follow the same rules as PCs and use recharge rules and such.  Minions make no sense and the other monsters all have a huge number of hitpoints causing combat to drag on forever.  This isn't a problem for players generally but as a DM I felt as if my intelligence and abilities were insulted.


I don't DM, so I can't argue with you on this point.

jioan:
-There are really only 4 classes.(Controller, Defender, Leader, and Striker.)  The actual classes are simply slight variations on these roles.  Their combat abilities almost all degenerate to a formula (YdX + Z dmg vs Static Defense(AC, Ref, Will, Fort)).  This makes combat boring and uncreative especially now since class specific systems have been replaced with encounter, daily, and at-will.  Combat turns into everyone using their encounter powers and then smacking the enemy with at-wills while debating whether to use dailies or not.


While I can't deny that there are four character types, and that battles will invariably break down as you say, I think that the variation within classes really is significant. For example, the epic-level game I'm in. My character is a Monk (Striker) which is good at infighting, doing damage reliably in smallish amounts, moving around the field, and hitting multiple creatures at once. Our other Striker character is a Rogue, a character with a specialty in ranged attacks, unreliable but very high amounts of damage, and dealing extra damage to one or two creatures at a time. Also, the whole "attack a static defense" thing doesn't preclude creative combat. Especially if either a.) you have no way of determining the enemy's weakest defense or b.) you have no attacks that attack the enemy's weakest defense. You've got a problem with the creativity of the people you're playing with if the battles are uncreative. Replacing class specific systems and making everyone's battle system work the same way doesn't really strike me as a bad thing.

jioan:
-The game rules seem to do everything they can to turn the game into a series of dice roles and extract roleplaying.  Skill challenges can turn exciting chase scenes or conversations into simply rolling dice and hoping for high numbers.  The alignment system is now smaller and one dimensional instead of two dimensional so that grey areas were all but removed.  Miniatures (or at least tokens) are now required converting the game from roleplaying to tactical combat.  I feel more like I'm playing a Warhammer heroes game than a roleplaying game.


I have to disagree with you completely on this. If all the 4.0 games you've played are like this, then the failing is with your DMs, not the game itself. Yes, the game allows for everything to turn into either a combat or skill encounter, with dice rolls, but if the DM is creative in their storytelling, then you also end up with a lot of roleplaying too. We've spent entire 4- and 5-hour sessions just roleplaying, not doing encounters of any kind, in both games that I play in currently.

Also, miniatures have always kind of been necessary for the game. When I was playing 3.5 we used dice to represent our and the monsters' locations so that we knew where everything was during combats. So I don't see how that's really a change. Maps being required is the bigger change, I think. But honestly I again don't see that as a bad thing.

As for the alignment system, can you honestly say that you'd really played your characters that deeply? Or that everyone ELSE in your parties did? All they really did was turn "Neutral" into "Unaligned" and remove the contradictory player alignment of "Chaotic/Good"... because nobody really knew how to play that anyways.
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