15 replies to this topic

[Atramagus]

Most players will usually amass entertaining stories and anecdotes about their characters, events that happen in game, etc... and I'm always interested in hearing new ones! If you have anything to share or add, please add a post below.

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One of my most memorable characters was a gnome illusionist. He was an odd gnome, though; being a touch shorter than average, and with a nose actually in proportion to his face, many people often confused him for a halfling. He had 12 names and insisted on using them every time he introduced himself, and I gave him a high-pitched, obnoxious voice. Most of the party and the DM wanted to kill him, but no one ever succeeded.

In 2nd edition, gnomes had a 20% chance for a magic item to not work for them. Well, I wanted my gnome to have been touched by his deity, a deity of magic, and so he had a surplus of magical energy stored within him. I talked to the DM, and actually convinced him to alter the 20% chance a bit - instead of not working, there was a 20% chance that his natural magic would seep into the item, causing it to explode! I gave him a very high constitution to make sure he could live through that, which was good because that 20% chance seemed to come up 50% of the time. It only happened the first time he touched an item, though; after the first time, he could use it normally.

My first adventure with him was a blast. I remember walking into a room, and after the party had cleared it of its inhabitants, we started searching. I noticed an interesting shield on the wall, and was curious about what was behind it. I started to reach out for it, started worrying about traps, but figured, eh, what the heck. I screwed my eyes shut, turned my head to the side, and grabbed an edge of the shield.

When nothing happened, I let out a breath I had been holding, reached up with my other hand, grabbed the shield and set it on the ground. That's when I realized that my hands were stuck! I tried pulling them away, but they were stuck tight. So, seeking additional leverage, I put my foot on the shield and gave it a good push, trying to get my hands free. No such luck, and now my foot was stuck as well.

The groups fighter sighed, picked me up by my shirt, and started carrying me around. I was basically the handle for his new shield. There was a random encounter in the dungeon, and when I said "Hi!" the local encounter was a bit freaked out by the talking shield.

Various minor events followed, and we ended up camping for the night. After the party had gone to sleep, I decided that I was bored with being a shield. I slipped off my gloves and my boot, dragged the shield out using the edge of my boot, then went back to my tent and fell asleep.

The party was quite irritated in the morning

[Shakandara]

I've got tons from running my home campaigns, but I'll share one as a player. A little background:

For a number of years, I was pretty heavily involved in RPGA events - playing them, DMing, writing, and organizing local game day events and conventions. It was also during that time period that I was regularly attending some of the bigger conventions, particularly GenCon and Origins. At some point, I got dragged into the Living City campaign - a BYO character game set in the Forgotten Realms. I had a number of characters that I'd play depending on what was needed, but my hands-down favorite was my paladin of Lathander, Sir Darius Cariscuro (known as Lyte to his close friends). He was the genesis of a group of characters played by friends that toyed with the contrast of light and dark (hence the word play on chiaroscuro - a term generally used in art regarding the juxtaposition of light and dark within a work - for the surname). He had a twin brother paladin of Kelemvor, Damien (known as Darke), and they had a pair of younger twin sisters, Dawn (a cleric of Lathander) and Duske (a cleric of Kelemvor). The four of us were all local here in Houston, so when we got the "family" at a table, it was a lot of fun, especially when it came to dealing with undead. Because of our deity and class choices, we were especially good at dealing with them, occasionally breaking scenarios because of how effective we were when together.

However, at the big cons, that didn't often happen. We'd usually end up playing other characters or getting marshaled off with with tables made up largely of people we didn't know. One particular Winter Fantasy (the RPGA's winter event in Fort Wayne), I was playing Lyte in a 2-round event that was part of a longer plot arc. Earlier in the plot arc, the goddess Sune had been wounded by the Dagger of Glaysa. The wound healed, but left a scar, one that would not go away, and had permanently marked the face of the goddess of perfect beauty. Her followers took to wearing a makeup scar upon their own faces because of it. In this particular event, called Scars that Never Heal, the Dagger is recovered, and the players go through a series of encounters with petitioners that want the Dagger for themselves. One group wants to use it to kill Lloth (and threatens the party with enmity if they do not choose them), another offers riches beyond their wildest dreams, a group from another world wants to use it to defeat a necromancer/lich that has risen to god-like status and is converting the world to his undead army, and finally, they meet the proxy of Sune herself, who tells them that she can use the Dagger to repair the scar on the goddess' face, returning her to perfect beauty. At the end, we must decide, by a majority vote, who will receive the Dagger.

So, of course, as a charismatic paladin, I listen to each group carefully. The offer of treasure has no meaning to me, and I also realize that the death of Lloth will just create a power vacuum in the chaotic drow society, with someone else rising to power in her place. As I listen to the tale of the people of Atheron and their plight at the hands of the necromancer lich-god Prax, I begin to get agitated and pace around by our table. I am moved by their plight against the very sort of thing that I've dedicated my life to fighting. But I know the meeting with Sune's proxy is coming, and in the back of my mind, I already fear that the others in the group will support her, for all she has done for the city in the past. This finally reaches a boiling point when me meet her, and she pleads her case. I argue back with her that the mark on her is of little consequence, when the fate of an entire world hangs in the balance. She counters that this other world has done nothing for us, and that the mark represents a loss of power as a mar against her portfolio of beauty. She also presses the point of how much she has done for the realm. I respond that the mark on her has not only not diminished her, but brought her followers closer, as evident by them taking up the mark on their own faces. I press further that none of her priests and paladins have suffered any loss of abilities during this time, so the if there is some loss of power on Sune's power, it is not measurable. She pleads again that Sune's beauty be made whole. My anger has been rising throughout the argument, and finally boils over at this point, when I spat back at her, "Vanity is not a virtue! I've heard enough from you." And I walked off from the table.

I returned a short time later as the group is discussing the options before them; convinced that the party is going to out-vote me to give the Dagger to Sune. As we discuss it, one of the other players questions me about Sune's loss of power, wanting to know if would I ask my own patron to suffer a loss of his power as it would be to not give the Dagger. I counter that not only would I do so, but I would lay down my life for those people that I do not know, if it would make any difference for them, because it is the right thing to do. The GM calls for the tables vote, and I watch, somewhat stunned, as one by one, each person at the table casts their vote for the people of Atheron over Sune (we were one of the very few tables at the convention to not vote for Sune).

Now, running down a goddess' proxy and verbally pimp-slapping isn't a bad story, but the best part is yet to come.

For our reward, we get "The Favor of Atheron" - because the Dagger helps them defeat Prax and save their world, each of us receives the thanks of an entire world, in the form of a one-time, "get out of jail" free card that lets you turn any one failed saving throw into a successful one. However, since it takes some time to defeat Prax, the reward can't be used until at least 6 months later.

Fast forward to Origins that year, and I have been lucky enough to finally receive a paladin's holy sword (2nd edition). In the very next event I play, I roll a Nat 1 on my save vs. a Disintegration attack. I open my binder, and pull out the Favor of Atheron, dated exactly six months ago, to the day.

I saved them, and they returned the favor exactly when it was needed most.

~v

[buglips*the*goblin]

I tip my hat to you, sir. That is some fine, epic roleplaying.

[The Inner Geek]

Many moons ago....

My friends and I played a bit of 2nd ed DnD back in high school. We were short on muscle in a new party we were rolling up so the DM let me take a Minotaur as a player character. He was strong, mean, and dumb... it was good fun.

Early in our adventures we are in a temple and attacked by a stone golem that shot lava from it's fingers (I don't know if this is common amongst them, but this one did). The Minotuar was hurt pretty bad by the lava and became a little suspicious of anything huminoid shaped and made of stone.

Next adventrue sees us making our way up through the lower levels and up to the top of this mysteriously abandoned castle filled with statues. At one point we captured a goblin which we coercered into telling us where some loot was. It said the treasure was in the neck of a statue that is located in the middle of a pool of black liquid. Well, it was late and we were getting tired. So when we started seeing statues of people throughout the adventure we'd forgotten the bit about the location. So, the minotaur is breaking the heads off ALL the statues to see if they have a hallow neck full of loot. This goes on for some time until we come to a room with a statue on a throne in a pool of dark liquid. Doh! So we grab the loot, but the minotaur keeps beheading statues anway as he has a grudge against them due to the burns from the golem. This continues untill we are high up in the castle, at which time the minotaur starts using his considerable strength and throwing the statues out of windows and watching them shatter on the ground below. He really likes that.

Anyway, we should have seen this coming. We get to the top, defeat the evil wizard and all the inhabitants of the castle return to flesh... from stone. Many returned to flesh in lots of tiny pieces below the castle walls... many returned to flesh without their heads attached. Luckily, the minotaur didn't have a chance to twist the head off the queen seated upon the throne before the final showdown with the wizard. Boy, she sure did look like something that might have a lot of treasure stuck down her neck when she was a statue though!

So that's how my character helped to save and simultaneously destroy the population of a peaceful kingdom.

[Argentee]

Back in college I played way too much WoD. One of my first characters was Lydia, a Malkavian (insane vampire clan) who had been an artist before she died and had been told by her creator that she was a Toredor (artist clan). My insanity was obsession with making art. Some of my fellow gamers whined this really shouldn't count.

Until in the middle of our first gun fight one of my fellow players blows away an enemy Vampire with an elephant gun. My character fails her sanity check.

"My god! It's a metaphor for the creation of the universe!" My character sits down in the middle of this gun fight in an abandoned warehouse and starts drawing.

Ten bad guys start shooting at me. Every one of them fails their rolls. I roll five success on my artistic skill check. Zero on my willpower check. I keep drawing.

The bad guys divide between shooting at me and my friends. The abandoned warehouse catches fire.

Every time a bad guy rolls to hit me they miss. Three times I make the willpower check to not panic due to the fire. Three times I FAIL the willpower check to stop drawing. The whole time I'm improvising this babble about light and darkness, death and creation, etc... The other PCs are panicking but the players are laughing so hard they can barely roll.

Eventually one of my friends picks my character up and carried her, STILL DRAWING, out of the burning, collapsing building. Muttering, I finally make the roll to stop once they've put me in the van and close my sketchbook.

PC1: Wasn't that a little ... Odd of Lydia?
PC2: Seems normal to me.

[dwarvenranger]

I had a dwarven bard that cut off Orcus's balls once with a dwarven waraxe of sharpness (obviously it was a home campaign). Pretty proud of that one.

[Shakandara]

I tip my hat to you, sir. That is some fine, epic roleplaying.

Thanks! The story really doesn't do it justice; I like to think I'm a pretty decent role-player (I've placed in some of the old "best of the best" tournaments at GenCon, in both D&D and Shadowrun), but Lyte was something special for me as a character.There were times when it was easy to really get in to character with him - he was both me and not me at the same time - and immerse myself in the role. That was one of those times, and I was at my finest.

The really funny part is, if I'd been running with my friends, particularly those that played his brother and sisters, this never would have happened. I would have felt more assured that they would vote the same way as I was going to (while Lyte was perhaps the most extremely dedicated of the lot to destroying undead, they all had similar views), and thus there would have been no conflict to drive me. I'd even gone so far as to offer my services to the Atheron representatives if the group did not vote to give them the Dagger. I knew it was a one-way ticket at best, and most likely a suicide mission, but I was bound and determined to do right by them.

~v

Edited by Shakandara, 04 October 2012 - 04:15 PM.

[Bruunwald]

I've told various forums about Gruthl a number of times over the years, but it's good enough to tell again.

Gruthl wasn't my character, but characters like Gruthl can certainly be everybody's problem. He was played by a particularly disruptive player, who, while a very funny and smart guy, has ended more than his fair share of games over the years with his outlandish behavior and stubborn attitude.

Anyway, Gruthl was a 2nd Edition D&D character, a CN half-orc thief, with an insanely low Wisdom, the lowest possible Charisma you can have without being a plant, and only a moderate Intelligence score.

He went about stealing anything and everything, made the worst decisions possible, turned every friendly encounter into a brawl, and regularly grabbed the butts of the female characters (both NPCs and PCs). I enjoyed sketching pictures of him. Usually, I drew an extra mouth on the side of his neck, or a few extra eyes on his head. Somehow, I just couldn't draw him as ugly as we all pictured him in our heads, but we had a lot of fun trying to describe him to each other.

The funny part of the story, is how Gruthl came to an end. We were all fighting these cockatrices in the courtyard of a ruined castle, when he and another character were turned to stone. We didn't have horses, and we weren't prepared to carry them both for leagues and leagues, so we buried them, intending to return with scrolls to restore them.

There was this long moment of silence, when everybody kind of looked at each other funny. And then Gruthl's player asked, "Are we really gonna come back and dig him up?"

And all at once, everybody answered, "Naw!!"

It was an appropriate end to an annoying character.

[Shakandara]

I'll share one more as a player, although my character was only peripherally involved in it. Some 15+ years ago, I was playing Shadowrun regularly with a group here in Houston. I was the new guy, having just moved to TX only a few years earlier; the rest of the group was pretty established. I was playing my troll street samurai, Caine, at the time (the cyber troll DYOM that has apparently disappeared from the Previews page for some reason). We had a B&E guy, as well as someone with the psychosis of thinking that he was Wolverine from the X-men, complete with cyber hand razors and the blue and yellow spandex outfit. o_O

Anyway, we were on a run in waters off Vancouver (iirc, the details of the run are a little fuzzy), and needed to board a yacht. Now, my troll samurai is pretty stealthy, but having him climb on board the boat seems like a bad decision, so we send the B&E guy on board. However, the guards spot him, and a gun battle ensues. The rest of the team is in a smaller craft pulled up alongside the yacht, and Mr. Wolverine isn't tall enough/strong enough/skilled at climbing to get up on to the deck to help, and he's a close-in melee guy. So he turns to me, and asks me to throw him up on the deck so he can get in to the fight faster. Now, there are guys up on the deck with guns, firing at pretty much anything that moves. Since it's not my funeral, I agree, and give him a big heave. At the moment I make the die rolls to do so, one of the other guys at the table simply says:

"PULL!"



~v

[Argentee]

Never trust a player with a notebook...
... I'm the player with the notebook.

Going back to Lydia, my insane artist vampire. The GM was running a module that depended on the Prince of the city not believing what we told him about an encounter with so bad guys then forcing us to drink his blood.

*check my notes as to what the Prince had done two sessions ago* "Why don't you just use your powers to make us tell you the truth like you did to that reporter?"

GM looks at me, looks at the module, checks the next few pages.... And throw the book across the room.

Prince: "Fine. Tell me everything you did that night."

Lydia: "I woke up, rolled over onto my left hand side and pushed back the cover and bedspread. I sat up, swinging my feet over the edge I the bed. I stood up. I walked to the bathroom and opened the door. I turned on the light switch. I realized I needed towels and turned around. I walked back I to the bedroom, to the bedroom door. I opened the door...."

After ten or so minutes of this, Lydia had gotten around to describing feeding her cat. The other players were having giggle fits and the GM decided to call it a night.

[smokingwreckage]

Well now. A mate of mine ran a few sessions for me and another friend... incidentally his wife. We managed to murder every campaign. One was through unplanned pregnancy. Yeah. Incidentally those were some of the very few campaigns I had a character survive; back in the day we played Rolemaster, and my characters generally died in horribly detailed but somewhat bizarre ways, on a per-session basis.

[Maceswinger]

This was a couple of years ago while playing the old Marvel Faserip rpg. The players weren't the biggest comic book fans but it was never more apparent when they battled there way through a giant ship flying over NYC and got to the command center . There I discribed the man controlling the ship: a man in metallic armor wearing a green tunic with a green cape with a hood. Naturally I thought they knew who stood before them, but all I got where blank stares. So I decided to give them another hint:

Me:" How dare you meddle in the affairs of DOOM? You are no match for the might of DOOM?"

PC:"And you are...?"

But Dr.Doom did kick their behinds for not even knowing who he was. And now they shall never forget the name of Victor van Doom!

[Ishil]

Anyway, we were on a run in waters off Vancouver (iirc, the details of the run are a little fuzzy), and needed to board a yacht. Now, my troll samurai is pretty stealthy, but having him climb on board the boat seems like a bad decision, so we send the B&E guy on board. However, the guards spot him, and a gun battle ensues. The rest of the team is in a smaller craft pulled up alongside the yacht, and Mr. Wolverine isn't tall enough/strong enough/skilled at climbing to get up on to the deck to help, and he's a close-in melee guy. So he turns to me, and asks me to throw him up on the deck so he can get in to the fight faster. Now, there are guys up on the deck with guns, firing at pretty much anything that moves. Since it's not my funeral, I agree, and give him a big heave. At the moment I make the die rolls to do so, one of the other guys at the table simply says:

"PULL!"



~v

What he should have said was "Fastball Special!"

Ishil

[Gryfter_92]

Way back in Highschool
, the group that I learned to play RPGs with eventually found our way to 2Ed, we used our own world at the time, and I still design worlds and cities etc when playing to this day. There were three main players: Brakus a Minotaur Fighter, Andarri a Mage of no small talents, and me, a mouthy little halfling thief who had an insatiable curiousity. We were sometimes joined by a paladin, who's name escapes my addled brains right now. On is particular adventure we happened to be in a boat traversing a rather nasty swamp. Lo and behold we come across a hut on rather tall stilts. Even for Brakus they were tall. The side we came up on showed one doorway open to the elements and a window some three feet to the side. The appeared to be unoccupied. At the time, the easiest way to gain entry seemed to be for Brakus to toss me (Gryfter) up through the doorway where I would check to see if there was a rope ladder or some other means of getting my companions into the hut for a nice quiet nights sleep. Bei rather nimble, it should have been a piece of cake........Brakus grabs me by the seat of my pants and by the back of my shirt. (Rolls the die....oops. A 1) As I somersault through the air and expect to find a doorway.....oh look.....the wall. Instictively I plant my hands on the wall (Rolls the die....20) stopping me from smashing my pretty little face into the wall. I tuck and roll as gravity takes me back down to Brakus and a chuckling Andarri. Brakus catches me (Rolls the die.....20) and reverses momentum to toss me back up and through the doorway, you would think a 7foot plus Minotaur with a Strength of 20 should be able to toss a 3 1/2 foot 60 lb halfling where he wanted right? (Rolls the die.......another 1) WTH!!!!! We did this three times before Brakus finally rolled something other than a 1 to get me through the doorway. By the time I got through, I didn't really care if there was anything in there or not. All I could do was lay there and laugh at the situation. Luckily it turned out to be just a dry place for us to spend the evening. Needless to say, I wasn't too keen on the idea of Brakus tossing me around anymore..... As a group we laughed for a good thirty minutes at the absurdity of it all. There were die rolls made for tipping the boat over....20's, the only 1's rolled were for getting me to the silly doorway.......absolutely ridiculous, but so much fun!!!!!!

[The Inner Geek]

Well now. A mate of mine ran a few sessions for me and another friend... incidentally his wife. We managed to murder every campaign. One was through unplanned pregnancy. Yeah. Incidentally those were some of the very few campaigns I had a character survive; back in the day we played Rolemaster, and my characters generally died in horribly detailed but somewhat bizarre ways, on a per-session basis.

We used to play some Merps which uses the Rolemaster system. My friend had a Rider of Rohan character (expert hosemen). Our first adventrue at level 1 he takes off to skewer and enemy with his lance (first attack made with character ever). Rolls open-ended down. According to the charts he stuck the end of his lance in the ground and pole-vaulted from his saddle breaking his neck in the fall. I'm not even sure the fall killed him, but if not he was paralyzed and his horse riding days were over. And that's why I love Rolemaster.