Funny Gaming

Caesar Slaad

Feel free to be interested in such names. I believe if you contact each of those players privately they'll be happy to discuss the reasons why they're still alive with you. I hardly think the list is the place for bringing up people you have a combat policy with, lest it degenerate into a series of postings about 'people who I think suck and the reasons why'.

Likewise, no one really should expect to see any of these in print:

GURPS Atlas Shrugged

I dunno. The vampire games are doing well. People seem to enjoy playing monsters.

"Okay. The six-foot three capitalist rapes you. Roll versus Will - 2 to avoid falling in love with him."


A party of mostly clerics and magic users, who noticed in the midse of an assassination attempt that Silence, Darkness, and Fireball all have roughly equivalent radiuses. Cast them all simultaneously, and you get:

"Dwarmigi's Inconspicuous Fireball-- I don't know what it was, but it sure hurt like hell..."

Also, from the same game, the Cleric blesses a dead NPC:

"Ominus, dominus, you still dead."

From a first edition AD&D campaign in which I was playing a gnome (all of whom have the ability to speak with small burrowing mammals):

"Are those small burrowing lions, by any chance?"

In a cyberpunkish game I was running, the PC:s were a team of investigative journalists, and one of them was the Ultimate Englishman - completely calm, expressionless and collected, no matter what happened (any relation to real Englishmen is purely coincidental). The first time we played, he was assaulted by a hitman in the basement of a post office, and got kicked in the groin, hard. Not surprisingly, he was stunned for a while, and then the cops arrived to break up the situation. When they tried to question him, he replied : "Terribly sorry, but my genitals have just absorbed a substantial amount of kinetic energy, and I am momentarily incapable of responding to any inquiries."

When the party is in the wilderness and kills and eats a deer.

Then the GM asks everyone to make a Save vs. Poison because "no one said they were going to cook the deer first."

Needless to say, this resulted in a lot of players pointing out that they would use their actions to breathe, and occasionally mentioning that they would expel gas if necessary so as to avoid blowing up.

The weregerbil crinos form wasn't too cool either. Turning into a 7' tall, 300 lb, cute and cuddly killing machine takes something out of combat in my opinion. The only good thing about it was we always attacked first, because all the fomori were too busy laughing at us to put up much of a fight.

Remember the wonders of illusions in fantasy role-playing games? One had to 'save' against intelligence to shake off the effects (this means manage to roll on dice a number less than one's IQ, giving the disadvantage to the stupid). To succeed in this was to 'disbelieve', and something everyone wanted to be able to do, until...

Picture this: a mixed campaign, both male and female players. *Quite* late (and *puncheeee*...)

One day an illusionist cast a spell he called 'phantasmal fuck'. The description of precisely what the affected perceived in sight, sound.. smell...texture...caused one particularly frustrated fighter to abruptly begin crying out:

"I don't want to disbelieve! I don't *want* to disbelieve!!"

...at this point, Chaos ensued in the gaming room...

I don't know, I've always thought having alignment be a palpable quality of sentients & (in some cases) non-sentients is a really stupid thing (IMHO).

The image of someone casting know alignment on someone, discover that they are (gasp!) 'Evil', & then using ruthless, 'unfair' methods to kill them with this as an excuse strikes me as the height of absurdity. I think AD&D would be a lot more palatable if you replaced 'Good' & 'Evil' with 'Democrat' & 'Republican' (*not* necessarily respectively), and replaced 'Lawful' & 'Chaotic' with 'Protestant' & 'Catholic'. Neutral could then become 'Independent' or 'Agnostic', depending on the context, & eliminating an awful lot of ambiguity. We would also have the opportunity to see Catholic Republican dragons. It makes as much sense as the current system, & is a lot more entertaining.
 

  • Chaotic Evil means never having to say your sorry.
  • Lawful Evil means never having to mean your sorry.
  • Chaotic Neutral means you're often sorry, but oh well.
  • Lawful Good means you're just plain sorry.
  • Lawful neutral means that you're sorry, but not liable.
  • Neutral good means you're always sorry.
  • Chaotic Good means you're really sorry, but you've got to run.
  • True neutral means that you may be sorry, but then again you may not.
  • Neutral Evil means you're never sorry, you see no need to be sorry, and you have a good laugh every time someone feels sorry around you.


    • Three stunts in our game for this years stupidity awards.

    1) The first level party of adventurers has miraculously heard orcs on the other side of the door. (The thiefs 1st ever success!) The plan is to knock onthe door, tell them in orcish that we want an aliance, then, as they open the door, burst in and cleave them down with surprise. We gather outside the door, weapons at the ready. Our powerful fighter, Derrick the Loud approaches the door, with the orcish speaking Mage. Then he yells out in common, "TELEGRAM!"

    All hell breaks loose. We survived, just.

    2) The party is several levels higher. We defeat some bandits and loot them.

      Derrick the Dragon Slayer (he renamed himself) finds a ring.

      Derrick: Think fly. Up, down, big, small, fire resist.

      GM : Nope, no, no, no.

      Derrick: Change myself? Cast a spell?

      Gm : Nup!

      Derrick: I wish Despard would turn into a rabbit.

      GM : Despard turns into a rabbit. (My mage turns into a rabbit)

      GM : The ring disintegrates.

    3) Derrick, Despard de'Thrai, and Kieron the Corrupt meet a large gold Dragon in the middle of the road, digging a large hole. Derrick approaches it.
      "G'day. I'm Derrick the Drag..... uh, drain digger."
    Miraculously, some of this party are still alive.

    "Uh, we're all fine here, now....."

    "How are you?" Han Solo

    An unsuccessful use of 'con'.


     

  • Lawful Good: "Two wrongs do not make a right!"
  • Lawful Neutral: "Please define 'right' and 'wrong'..."
  • Lawful Evil: "Wrong is right!"
  • Chaotic Good: "Two wrongs *can* make a right - it depends on who you wrong!"
  • Chaotic Neutral: "Right, wrong,...who cares, anyway?"
  • Chaotic Evil: "DIE! All of you! DIE!"


    • Player: What would it take to hit the gamemaster?

    Me: A natural twenty-one.

    (Player checks his character's sheet)

    Me: On a d4.

    This is something I have heard of several years ago, I do not remember the names of the people involved. An AD&D druid found himself in a desperate situation, where he needed a missile weapon. He threw his scimitar.

    The DM said:"roll a 20".

    He (the player of course) did, and the druid survived.

    Much later, the same thing happened again. That is two times out of two, there were no failures in between.

    The DM let him take weapon proficiency in thrown scimitar.

    The best "incredible rolls" story I've heard comes from my DM of a few years ago.

    The PCs approached a stereotypical Evil Temple. The priests came out and yelled for them to "Surrender, and drop all your weapons!"

      The PCs said, "Okay" and did! Naturally, this startled the DM who was itching for a good fight. Okay, the DM thinks, I'll *embarrass* them into fighting!

      "Remove all your clothes, and let the priests bind you and take you into the temple for the human sacrifice!"

      "Okay..."

    WHAT!?!? PCs don't *DO* this! The DM has visions of his entire campaign dying 'cause the PCs wouldn't fight back. The PCs are stripped buck naked and led into the temple. The first PC is chained (CHAINED, mind you!) to the altar.
      DM: The head priest lifts the dagger over your heart.

      PC: I break my bonds.

      DM: WHAT?! You're chained down! Make a bend bars roll. [7% chance]

      PC: \{rolls\} Made it!

      DM: Okay, now roll for the OTHER arm!

      PC: \{rolls\} Made it! I grab one of the burning censers I see next to me and start using it like a mace.

    The PCs, naked and weaponless, proceeded to fight their way out...

    OK, here's my favorite set of last words. The setting: an SF game with ships using antimatter drives. The characters are fleeing for their lives on their ship, about a kilometer out of the spaceport, with a pursuing ship about half a km back.

      Gunner: (to Bridge) "Captain, may I fire our tactical nuclear missiles at the pursuing ship?"

      Captain: "*What*??...***NOOOO***!!!!"

      Gunner: "Oops."

    The resulting chain reaction blew the entire planet out of its orbit, and into the sun...

    (Yes, I know that it'd more likely just knock it into little bits. Having it fall into the sun was more dramatic.)

    Just saw Star Trek III - the Search for Spock last night. And in it are the (IMHO) best "famous last words" so far ...

    (paraphrased)

    (Klingon boarding party take the Enterprise ...)

      "No, my lord, there is no-one here, except for the computer speaking"
        "What is it saying ?"
      "9 ... 8 ... 7 ..."
      "If you can't harm it with magic or might, you should just eat it!"
    - from a very unwise, dead player

      And finally, from Star Frontiers: Knight Hawks,
    UPF Player 1: "With my [crippled] battleship next to the Sathar flagship, I initiate self destruct."

    Sathar Player 1: "I initiate self destruct so I can blow him up first, and get his assault scouts too."

    Sathar Player 2: "Hey, [my last ship]'s surrounded. I can get 5 of 'em if I blow up. I initiate self destruct."

    Sather Player 3: "My fighters are gone, and my carrier is too damaged. It will never make it back to base. I initiate self-destruct."

    UPF player 2: "If they blow themselves up we get no points. My scouts congregate here and initiate self destruct."

    UPF Player 3: "My ships will never get away in time. I surround the light cruiser and initiate self destruct too."

    UPF Player 4: "Well if you're gonna do it..."

    Sathar Player 4: ""Hell, why not? Me too...."

    MT suppliments also have the same lack of playtesting. Always make sure, if you buy *any* GDW RPG, to get the opinion of some poor fool unlucky enough to have already purchased the product as to whether or not it is worth buying.

    'Fighting Ships of the Shattered Imperium', for example, sets a new low in the field of 'Supplements Apparently Written In Complete Ignorance Of The Rules Of The Game They Are Supplements For.'

      - James Nicoll

    This whole question of getting points for disadvantages gained in play and paying for advantages gained in play has caused me to invent a whole new gaming concept!

    Everyone starts out with boring characters with no disadvantages or abilities. Then, during gaming everyone tries to pick up disadvantages so that they get the points to spend on advantages or skills immediately. For example:

    "Oh no, the villain has left a minefield in our way."

    "No problem." Step. BOOM! "Let's see, no legs is 25 points. How much does flying cost? Now I can carry the rest of you over. Oh, and can I pick up a Phobia of touching the ground from the trauma? Then I could increase my flying speed enough to catch the villain."

    Since nobody cares about getting maimed any more, the GM has to threaten them with undesirable advantages.

    "Eek! A vampire! Don't let him bite you or you'll have to pay points for becoming a vampire!"

    Or

    "Gee, Fred, the mayor is being awful nice to you. Better do something to piss him off before you have to pay for a patron. Might as well piss off the police chief while you're at it. You could always use the enemy points."

    Sorry, I couldn't help it ;-)

    Steven Sharp

    [time passes, mostly being chased and mutilated by a red dragon]

      Brian is the only one left, and is in a rubbled in area with the dragon clawing to get in. So with the aid of Hargraves fumble tables..
    B: I strike with my morningstar

    DM: (B rolls 1 for fumble then 20) The weapon breaks

    B: "SH** I take out my broadsword and strike"

    DM: (B rolls 1 for fumble then 20) The weapon breaks

    B: "SH** I will try the spear in here"

    DM: (B rolls 1 for fumble then 20) The weapon breaks

    B: "I try the dagger that I found"

      The dagger was found earlier in the adventure
    DM: Hits, it is a dagger of dragon slaying.

    "I swing the Toxic Avenger's mop at the grenade so I can bat it across the room at the aliens..."

    "Wait! Isn't that grenade Contact Fused???"

    - Hyperman and Beach Dude while battling Predators on Europa. By the way, he missed...

    "Ha ha! Now that I have the villains trapped, I engage my Solar Flare power!"

    - StarPulse just before he EMP'd the entire city of Los Angeles. He is currently on trial for 3,346 counts of 1st degree murder, 12,000 counts of Paranormal Assault and several other misc. crimes. He is also going to get about 1,200 years for contempt of court.

    "No matter what you or your puny laws decide, in two hundred years all you will be dust and it will not matter. And, from your ashes I shall emerge."

    - Starpulse, just before getting his 1,200 years for contempt.

    "Let me get this straight...our ship is attatched to a larger starship, which has a nuclear device wired to the power plant and is on collision course with a populated starport. Our maneuver drives don't work, because this whole ship is a piece of Sh*t and the only way to deflect the starship from blowing up the starport is to hotwire the jump-drives to boost us *Almost* to jump and thus throw us and the other starship in a random direction away from the planet.

    "All this with jump-drives which only work half the time and a power plant held together with chewing gum and prayers, while we are next to a larger mass object than the ship and within 10 radiuses of the planet.

    "You really want to do this??"

    PC: "Just Do It!"

    Riggs: "Ok...."

    Fortunately for C.P.O. Riggs, his blasted body was dug out of the wreckage of the engine room in time to administer a stasis drug, saving the brain cells for revival on the tech-13 hospital on the starport they just saved...But he was clinically dead for several hours.

    Of course with their competent Engineer out of it, the PC's still had to defuse a nuclear device attatched to the only working power plant on both ships...I think between them, the people doing the defusing had Engineer-1, Jack of all Trades-1 and Demolitions-1...

    Paranoia

    1) High clearance NPC who the characters are escorting is getting organized to send them off on a wild goose chase. He orders our heroes to line up and count off starting with one. My players immediately chorus "One!"

    2) Five players, four seats in the car. Solution: player five goes in the trunk. For the rest of the evening, he would knock on the inside of the trunk and yell "Sir?" when he wanted to say something. Late in the adventure, our heroes were quietly staking out a building and preparing a final assault. The atmosphere among the *players* was, at the moment, rather quiet as well, and about as tense as it can get for a slapstick role-playing game. Then... tap, tap, tap, (whispered) "Sir?" (and I know you're out there somewhere, Al)

    The hierarchal structure is also always good for a few yuks and a casualty or two. For instance:

    For no readily apparent reason, the Yellow clearance leader of the party is allowed to appoint a Red (lowest) clearance Troubleshooter as the team's second in command, even though there is an Orange clearance (next rank up) Troubleshooter in the group as well. Yellow clearance leader dies. Second in command and Orange clearance troubleshoter eye each other over the smoldering body.

    Finally, the second in command issues an order. Orange clearance figures he doesn't have to take orders from this Red punk at his level and issues a different order. Second figures he's in charge here and nobody else in the team is going to tell him different. The rest of the group slowly fades into cover. As happens so often, the argument ends in gunplay. The rest of the team is inspired by this and executes the survivor for murdering a superior officer. Problem solved, new clones all round.

    But I must say that a special place is reserved in my heart for the (often lethally) unreliable hardware. Such as:

    1) I had a habit of issuing large quantities of useless equipment. My players were, thank the Gods, able to find Rube Goldberg-like uses for such items as a case of motor oil, a twopenny nail and a gross of hammers, an office desk, a jet engine, and a stand-up cardboard cutout of David Bowie.

    All at the same time, of course. I won't bother to relate the story of Ziggy Stardust, the flying flaming oil desk, since I could never do it justice here.

    2) R&D. Selected toys: Acid gun, used LSD-25 instead of the listed hydro-chloric acid.

    Smart bomb, which read selections from J.B. Bury's excelent History of Ancient Greece To the Death of Alexander the Great.

    Computer-guided weapons series, which suffered from a number of defects.

    Mk I shot the nearest target first (usually the person who turned it on) and worked its way out (usually getting his friends, unless they were wise enough to hide behind something large).

    Mk II had this defect fixed; it still targeted perfectly, but had no ammunition.

    Confetti round for the cone rifle. The players ambushed a large, well armed band of commies, counting on an unnamed experimental round to take most of them out (early adventure, or else they would have known better). Everyone involved is very surprised when the "ultimate weapon" showers the commies with bits of paper. After a brief pause for the players to realize how dead they are about to become, one of them shouts out "Alph-gram!" The singing telegram gambit caught me sufficiently surprise that I let them live a while longer.

    Paladin: "I'll try a detect evil on the room!"

    DM: "You're in the Temple of Elemental Evil!"

    Paladin: "Do I detect any?"

    DM: "Lots"

    Paladin: "Good!"

    GM: The fighter carves his initials in your chest, like Zorro

    Player: Yeah, so

    GM: He is using a mace

    I once had this human magic user named Ignatz who STARTED relatively sane, but once the campaign got going, I found that it was one of those 90% magic resistant campaigns (tm). You know...

    Ignatz> "I cast Magic Missiles at the kobold"

      DM> "Well, he *only* has a 10% magic resistance, so let's see... you are first level and that makes your chance..."
    Ignatz> "Never mind..."

    Finally, poor Iggy had a breakdown, partially triggered by the tragic death of his friend Mezzeron. As his comrade lay dying in his arms...

    Ignatz> "Fear not brave Mezzeron, for we will get you to a cleric..."

      Other player> "I think he's dead Iggy."
    Ignatz> (his eyes crossing and uncrossing like juggler's oranges) "Then I will RESURRECT you with my magic." (Babbles off meaningless words and makes bizarre gestures)
      Other player> "I think you need to be a cleric to resurrect people, Iggy."
    Ignatz> "No I have brought him back!" (To Mezzeron's corpse) "How do you feel old friend?"
        Mezzeron> (Ignatz is working his jaw up and down and making a poor attempt at throwing his voice) "Oh much better thank you! Woooooooooo!"
      Other players> "He's finally flipped."

      "Well, he *has* been under a lot of stress lately..."

    From there on in, Ignatz carried Mezzeron's skull strapped to his left shoulder, and during stressful periods would consult with him regarding the party's best course of action. For example:

    Ignatz> "Mezzeron, which branch should we take: right or left?"

        Mezzerson> "Neither! Go back to the surface! Woooooooooooo!"
    Ignatz> "Mezzerson! Who is the greatest sorcerer in the world?"
        Mezzerson> "Why, Ignatz of course! Wooooooooo!"
      Others> "Maybe if we took the skull while he was sleeping?"

      "No way, he'd just get another!"

        "Yeah but it wouldn't be Mezzerson."
      "I don't think he *cares*."
    And indeed they were right. As we destroyed more monsters and lost more players, Ignatz's skull collection grew to epic proportions. And then came the day when he learned how to cast Magic Mouth...
      Other player> "You know Iggy, maybe if you didn't drag that bag of skulls around you might have more room for treasure."
    Ignatz> (Brow furrowed in concentration) "I never thought of that!"

    (To his skulls) "Hey you guys! Do you mind if I just bury you?"

        Skulls> (talking without the benefit of Ignatz working their jaw bones)

        "Yes! You said you would said you would resurrect us!" (assorted moanings and wailings)

      Other player> "Never mind..."
    Ignatz had a Mouth spell for just about every contingency. Then came one day when *another* party member learned how to cast MM...

    Ignatz> (after clubbing a kobold to death with his staff) "Ha! That creature has PAID for his crimes against society! Well, what do you think of that, Mezzeron?"

        Mezzeron> "Shut up Ignatz!!!!!"
      Others> (appropriate sniggering and laughing noises)
    I must say that Ignatz was the most *fun* character I ever played (except for maybe the Harrie Chrishna (sp) monk who used to hand out pamphlets and sell flowers when he was not busy killing things), and I was genuinely sorry to have to leave him when the campaign ended. I really wished I had learned to cast Animate Dead before then! Imagine a smug looking mage followed by *hundreds* of different types of monster skulls, hopping along by using their jaw bones!

    A friend of his, while game-mastering AD&D, set up an entire dungeon, with no monsters. Every room just had tons and tons of treasure. There was nothing guarding it and nothing to stop them from taking it. In short, no tricks or traps.

    Only one person made it out of the dungeon alive.

    One of the more famous "famous last words," originating (if I'm not mistaken) from the original /Dragon/ article on the topic, was:

    "Death before dishonor! ATTACK!!!"

    Well, a party with whom I played adopted this prhase as their motto and code. My Svirfneblin thief (1st edition) didn't exactly agree with this line of reasoning, so came up with his own catchphrase:

    "Hide before pride! RUN!!!"

    Andrew Bell, responding to John Francis:

    *Francis's first law of role-playing games: If the game mechanics obtrude into your gaming session, then you are using the wrong system for your group.

    My own personal feeling is that the best rules system is the one that intrudes least, generally from having simple, straightforward mechanics.

    *Shaw's Rule of Suspension of Disbelief: If the rules give you a result that constantly jolts you out of the flow of the game by seeming irrational, you are better of with more intrusive mechanics that don't.

    *Francis's second law of role-playing games: A good DM, with good players, can extract enjoyment from practically any set of role-playing rules.

    Amen.

    *Luce's Law of Rules Systems: A good DM can make any set of rules work for him.

    You can pound nails with a wrench, too.

    "Let's see your power stop me now, Deus ex Machina Man!"

    [safe falls on villain]

    "Not bad...."

    Speech #1:

    We munchkins are glad to finally see that we are getting the respect we deserve. After all, considering the way we were gyped by Gygax, we certainly deserve the recognition now being given to us by those who are awed by our great powers and skills! I mean, really, you think about it. Did the ELVES get a place in the PH?

      Chorus: Yeah!
    And all they did was work for that Claus guy! Did the DWARVES?
      Chorus: Yeah!
    Did the GNOMES?
      Chorus: Yeah!
    Did the DWELVES?
      Chorus: No!
    Oh, er, yeah. Right. Um...

    Did the HOBB-, er, HALFLINGS?

      Chorus: Yeah!
    Way I see it, even the accursed BROWNIES got a spot in the Monster Manual! But what did we munchkins get, after all we did for Gygax?
      Chorus: NOTHING!
    That's right, nothing! And now it's time for the truth to come out! We munchkins, despite our prominent position in the Wizard of Oz, feel it is time for a demi-human reckoning! With the incredible levels and numbers of magic items we have amassed in the past twenty odd years since the creation of AD&D, we have ousted Gygax! Yes, the dread lord of AD&D himself was tossed out by us munchkins! All you other races should bow your heads in shame. While you were out role-playing and living it up, we munchkins were slowly manipulating the reigns of power, ever appearing as bumbling buffoons, secretly collecting ALL THE MAGIC ITEMS IN THE BOOKS. That's right, our lord Waldorf then proceeded to destroy ALL THE MONSTERS. We are now ready to take over AD&D forever!

    As such, we are finally going to be presented in our very own Players Handbook Supplement... The Complete Munchkin's Handbook! Here's some advance stats...

    MUNCHKIN

    Advantages: All ability scores are automatically rolled on 3d6, take the highest one, plus 17. The munchkin, though short of stature, is nearly godlike in ability.

    Since our race has accumulated all the magic items, a beginning munchkin is allowed to take whatever he wishes in that area. Also, since munchkins have infinite access to potions of longevity, we live forever.

    A munchkin also gets a 10% bonus to all earned experience points.

    Role-Playing Adventure Suggestions:

    1: A munchkin enters a bar. He is the only one who leaves. The players must stop him.

    2: A munchking enters a bar. He mind controls everyone inside, leads them out, and orders them to kill. The players must stop him and his army.

    3: One of the players is a munchkin. He takes over the world. The party must now role-play the parts of his slaves. Optionally, a munchkin co-ruler could be found to create political intrigue.

    Pe+eR

    [setup - Player was using new characters to enact 'revenge' for things done to or said to his old characters. GM asking for help.]

    My response-

    If I was another PC, I would kill him. Plain and simple. And if he bitches, kick him out.

    If he uses his next character to exact revenge, here's a fun plot: The pc is a demon, reinhabiting souls, whose purpose is to foil the other PC's plans and to destroy all the magic items he can (because they're dangerous)

    Don't let on to the first guy what's going on (he'll act like a jerk consistently, so you can depend on him), but leave clues (ie- notes to various players, or private conferences... I assume you normally have those?) to the others of what he 'truly is'.

    Someone else-

    This is the cutest idea I've heard in a long time. Ideas like this are why I read the rest of the drivel on the net (not just this newsgroup, I'm not picking on frp - although I *do* think the sexual differences thread is way the hell past useful...).

    Don't be obvious - I wouldn't use conferences or notes. Cast the PC as the demonic villian as above, but make the adventure *finding out*.

    Suppose they enter a village. The old shaman takes one look at them, and a pall of fear closes over his eyes. He demands they leave - immediately! When pressed, he is only able to tell them they are cursed - the are carrying a terrible, terrible curse!

    They will, of course, be somewhat curious about this curse. Have they PO'd a god or something in the last few months? Maybe he created the Re-Habitator.

    Perhaps they can run across the legend in some old tome - or in a musty old library. Perhaps they have heard how hard it is to get *rid* of the thing...

    Give the player some demonic attributes. Immunity from attacks by other demons, say. They just never attack him, and if he attacks them they just look at him and say "Why, brother?" Perhaps something subtle - he can't see his reflection in a mirror. Perhaps sunlight is painful - not damaging (he would twig something is wrong) but something like: "The warm sunlight is a most welcome relief after the darkness of the keep. It seems to lift all your spirits with its golden hue...

    (his name), your eyes are watering and your skin itches like hell..."

    I think that moment of dawning comprehension in your players eyes will be something any GM will treasure for life. Work on it...draw it out. This ought to be good for at least a dozen adventures as they first discover they are cursed, who did it, how and most important of all, how to get *rid* of it.

    When the player discover s he fell so neatly into this trap he may be so chagrined at being so transparent that he may change. If not, the Re-Habitator will return.

    Until eventually the rest of the players exorcise this demon completely - by expelling the jerk or adjusting his aattitude.

    'Whew. That was easy. I was expecting the DM to put in a (lich, or tarasque, or combat mech)'....

    *pointing* 'Like that?'

    No. Just do what I did in one demented munchkin from hell game.

    "I open the door."

    "You see an ogre in the room."

    "I charge forward and chop it with my +5 Holy Avenger!"

    "The sword bounces off the Biphase Carbide armor. The starboardturret is aligning on you."

    "SAY WHAT?!"

    "I said you saw an Ogre. Ogre MK V, you'd guess."

    "AAAAAAHHHH! Run Away! Run Away!"

    You're welcome... The party involved found it funny too, except for the munchkin from hell who was killed by the nuclear shell.

    Heard at start of a bar brawl:

    "What're you lookin' at, punk?"

    "Hmm. You got me. Neanderthal?"

    I wasn't there, but a friend of mine was DMing a game with a siege that had been going on for five years (not player time :-) ) when someone prayed for something to end it.

    "You've got a 1 in a 1000 chance." says Dave, the DM.

    3d10 - 01, 01, 01.

    At this point (after some fast thinking by the DM) a B-52 flies through a trans-dimensional wormhole, dumps a full bombload on the city gates in a attempt to lose weight, but crashes into the hills to the north anyway. (I think the engines had failed in the warp).

    The trolls living in the hills caused total havoc for a while when they worked out how to use the machine guns from the turrets (finding out about weapons by trial and error is a lot safer when you regenerate :-) ), but fortunately the ammunition ran out after a while.

    A bunch of Champs characters (all supers) go into some gravity well elevator or something. The car took three game sessions to get to the top, where the villain was. Along the way, the three game sessions were all combat, and quite deadly.

    (It didn't help that the referee was a number-cruncher and made sure the players realized it) One guy fell off the elevator and bled to death while falling down the shaft. A flying character managed to catch up with him when it was too late.

    (Straw deaths, anyone?)

    Anyway, the players still wanted to continue, so for each dead person, the referee would arrange for a new PC to come in for the same player. This continues throughout three sessions. By the time the elevator car reached the penthouse or whatever the destination was, the group had entirely cycled over.

    Nobody's new character was informed what the quest was by anybody's old character.

    The characters marched out, realized that they had no idea what to do now that they had arrived, apologized to the evil mastermind who had sent all the monsters, and promptly marched back into the elevator for a long ride down.

    The players called a reality break and haven't been back to continue that game since.

    Now then, I return us all to our regularly scheduled program of drivel and arguing about things which may or may not exist. Please, under any circumstances, do NOT post ideas about a game, or materials, or rules questions, or system questions. You may only discuss a) munchkins, and how bad they are, and how they are probably going to take over the universe, b) how everyone else is a munchkin and only YOU know how to play FRPs and then elaborate on that for at least 10 screenfuls, c) why David Nalle is a God/Cad/Friend/Foe/Savior/Savoir-faire/Doctor/Lawyer/Indian Chief/etc/etc/etc.

    Having caught myself using something like the phrase a couple of times in recent posts, how about a new net.abbreviation: NWIRM - "Not When I'm Refereeing, Mate"

    It's the wild mage in Ravenloft again!

    Just for your amusement, this song came up in our last gaming session

    (somehow, I think it indicates the fact that we don't have the sort of respect for Ravenloft that we should have...):

    Ninty-eight Blue and Green Slaad at the door,

    Ninty-eight Blue and Green Slaad,

    Take one down, they gate in two more,

    Ninty-nine Blue and Green Slaad at the door...

    essentially, Baby-Man (who was never actually built, thank eris!) was a little kid, maybe a year and a half or two years old, with a PRE around 80... the idea was that he would somehow end up among the "normals" near the battle, get scared, and start screaming and crying at the top of his lungs, effectively paralyzing everyone in the area (including, of course, both the PCs and whoever they were fighting :).

    and, of course, after the battle EVERYONE involved would get bad press for upsetting this poor, innocent little kid... :)

    Sounds like the time Nicolai and I wrote our daughter up as a Champions character when she was still an infant. "Super-Vickums" had a sonic wail with mind-control function, and when she wanted to be fed, changed, or cuddled (Super-Vickums took a LOT of cuddling) let the whole world know about it, and the superheroes and villians, being the fastest people around, were the ones she wanted to do it. She had two DNPCs (us, of course), immobility, and several other disads. She was not so much a super hero, or a super villian, as a super nuisance!

    THE MUNCHKIN

    The munchkin is the character class for people who are just plain sick of all those stupid restrictions placed on other classes. Munchkins can use any armor or weapons, get all magic-user, cleric, and illusionist spells, and get all abilities of all other classes.

    A munchkin may be any alignment. Most munchkins are chaotic evil, since chaotic evil as an alignment is the least restrictive.

    Race restrictions: none. However, most munchkins are Grey Elves, since they live the longest.

    Required stats: 18 str, dex, int, wis, con, chr; 17 com. Most players rolling up munchkins just give themselves straight 18's to save time.

    Weapons: munchkins start out proficient in all weapons. They get a specialty every level, and are allowed to double-specialize in TH swords and crossbows unlike those other wimpy classes. They can also use Holy (and unholy) avengers to their fullest extent (no matter what the alignment of the munchkin).

    Munchkins can't fumble.

    Spells: Every two levels starting at the first the munchkin gets an additional level of magic user and illusionist spells. Naturally, material components do not apply; munchkins don't need them. Once a munchkin has gotten a level of spells, (s)he can use any of them any number of times a day.

    Unfortunately cleric spells are a little more trouble to get. The munchkin has to select a deity to worship. No restrictions on deities; usually munchkins worship whoever does the most damage. As for tithes, munchkins don't have to worry. If the god in question gets upset, the munchkin might get upset (and hell has no fury to match the destroying wrath of a high-level munchkin).

    Saving throws: Munchkins automatically save against everything.

    Miscellaneous special abilities:

    The munchkin may roll for exceptional strength if strength is 18 (and it always is).

    The munchkin gains ranger, druid, thief, monk, barbarian, psionicist, and paladin abilities by level as described in the Player's Handbook. In addition:

    • 1. The munchkin cannot be surprised.
    • 2. Starting at the third level of experience, the munchkin gains the ability to re-roll unfavorable rolls (only once per roll). This applies to hitpoint gains, damage rolls, 'to-hit' rolls, everything.
    • 3. At the fourth level of ability (and above) the munchkin automatically does maximum damage with offensive spells and weapon attacks.
    • 4. At the fifth level, the munchkin gains the ability to summon a horde of 100-400 first level munchkins. This summoning takes 24 hours.
    • 5. All munchkins know a language called the Munchkins' Cant. This language is not known to any other creature.
    Munchkin Experience Table
    Experience Level Title 12-sided dice for accum. HP
    0-1,250 1 Whiner 2
    1,251-2,500 2 Complainer 3
    2,501-5,000 3 Munchkin Initiate 4
    5,001-10,000 4 Munchkin Aspirant 5
    10,001-25,000 5 Munchkin Adept 6
    25,001-50,000 6 Experienced Munchkin 7
    50,001-125,000 7 High Munchkin 8
    125,001-250,000 8 Master Munchkin 9
    250,001-500,000 9 Master Munchkin (9th) 10

    Munchkins require 250,000 experience points and gain 1 hit die for every level above the 8th.

    Note to DM: It is generally best to have a party consisting entirely of munchkins (say a party of 5th level munchkins cleaning out the levels of Hell). Having a single munchkin in a party can present a considerable challenge; usually the munchkin will want to conceal his or her identity. You, the DM, will have to instruct the munchkin on certain aspects of the game, to avoid embarassing situations like:

    "Make your saving throw versus death." "What's a saving throw?"

    An 18/00 str paladin said:

    "I throw the gnome-illusionist into the dragon's mouth for the _greater_ good, now that's not chaotic or evil is it?"

    "No, Mr. Troll, Sir, I'm not afraid of you. Unfortunately my religious convictions force me to run away and cry like a woman at the sight of you."

    "You don't look so tough to me! Just cuz yer a meter taller than me, twice as massive,...holding an assault rifle like a toy,...with that pointed at my nose... on second thought...You DO look that tough."

    [whimper,cower,run away]

    Vulcan:"No, I'm a Vulcan. I never lie..."

    Romulan:"Then you swear allegence to you're captain here?"

    Vulcan:"I never saw this man before in my life, I was just hitchhiking and he picked me up."

    We were trying to track down a vampress which had been harrassing our party for quite some time. The only problem was, we had no idea where to look.

      Player 1: "How did you find her last time?"

      Me: "She found us. She attacked the village we were staying in."

      Player 1: "All right, here's the plan. Step 1, we find a village...."

    "So what you're proposing to me is that we track an invisible rabbit who also happens to be a Ranger Lord through his own woods, at night, during a thunderstorm? I'll be here when you get back."

    (The scary thng is, this is EXACTLY what we were proposing to do--it seemed so reasonable until he put it that way...)

    "Well, I didn't KNOW he was unarmed! His back was to me!"

    In a bar, in the combat zone, London, England:

    Bartender: What do ya want?

    Techie: How about a nice spot of tea?

    Solo (grabbing Techie and pulling him away from the bar): Are you crazy? They're gonna think you're upper class and gank you where you stand if you order tea in a place like this. (throws him back to the bar)

    Bartender: What do ya want?

    Techie: Apparently I want a glass of beer.

      One quote used constantly in our groups, especially the CoC ones:
    [Party sends person ahead to investigate.]

    "We wait for the prearranged signal."

    [blood-curdling scream from ahead]

    "We run the other way. That was the prearranged signal."

    I had a particularly obnoxious player who had his character rape another player's.

    The other player wanted revenge and in the middle of the night with two cohorts grabbed the guy and prepared to castrate him. (Ah! The Code of theWest!) Anyway, he wakes up in the middle of this (BTW: This was DragonQuest; so you may not get it) and the GM says "what will you do?" He askes "will I lose fatigue?" "No" is the reply. "Okay." So his balls get cut off and he loses five points of Endurance...

    Same player: this guy's characters are *always* getting killed, usually by his ersatz friends. Anyway, I notice that his characters are designed on the pages of an exercise book. One dies, he crosses it out and flips the page.

    Someone asks "how is this character different from the last one? I mean, is it different in any way?"

    He thinks for a while: "This one's taller."

    Prince Andrew: Daddy, I need to borrow twelve thousand silver pieces so that I can fund an expedition to recover the lost Sceptre of Grod, return it to the King of Cinerama, and then gain his daughter's hand in marriage and half his kingdom.

    King: Well son, are you sure that's what you want to do?

    Prince: Well, it's what all the aptitude tests said I should do.

    A bunch of terrorists are attempting to stage a fake death by leaving a number of bodies in their hotel room and then faking a bomb mishap (so they'll appear to have been killed while fusing their own bomb). They have already killed a few people, but they decide that to convince the authorities they'll need some more. So they kill a few extra people -- only they get a bit over-enthusiastic and now they have MORE bodies than there are people in their group.

    GM: what will you do with the extra bodies?

    Players: who cares? You can never have too many bodies!

    Character is in the bridge of a cruise ship with several terrorists pointing guns at him. One is holding the remote control for a bomb planted in the hull below the water line. A second character has found the bomb and fails his roll to deactivated it.

    Meanwhile up in the bridge the remote begins to beep and a light flashes causing the terrorists to exchange glances and get nervous.

    GM (to character in bridge): Ok, what do you do next!

    PC: I scream and go down on my knees crying `Oh God, no, nono!'

    GM awards the players with the temporary ability to shape change into various type of beasts, but usually only if the character has seen one. One PC can change into any bird, one any mammal and one any insect. Unfortuantely he runs out of ideas when he comes to Maximus Silva. So he bestows the dubious gift of allowing Max to turn into vegtable matter. Max can not seem to use this gift to his advantage and even a type of barkskin is not an option. Leading to this following little quip...

      GM:What do you do next?

      Konn:I turn into a large lion and attack!

      Glam:I turn into a huge praying mantis and strike!

      Thorismund: I turn into a large eagle and swoop from the sky!

      Kelex:I turn into a monitor lizard and slither to the fray!

      Max (sarcastically and dripping with bitterness!): I turn into a tap dancing dandelion and draw his attention!

    (party find themselves in 1927 America, facing their archenemy, who's holding the incredibly powerful item they've spent the campaign trying to keep away from him..)

    "We're up shit creek, it's full of acid, and we don't even have a BOAT!"

    I'm not sure how the start of this adventure went, but our local neighborhood mexican dwarf street samurai, whom we called Burrito, mostly because he had about the same intelligence and personality, was in the service of a powerful corp who happened to have one georgeous-babe mage-assistant, as one person put it, working for him. Burrito is provided quarters and the she-mage (we never could remember her name) escorts him to the room. At the door, just before she leaves:

    She-mage: "Is there anything else I can get you"

    Now, we were all thinking the same thing, and to Burrito's credit, so was he, unfortunately he had to open his mouth... (all of Tim's characters have this problem)

    Burrito: "You'd be nice"

    We couldn't believe he did this, but it gets better...

    She-mage: Thinks for a sec, "Yes, I would be" and leaves!

    We loved it. Of course Tim was embarrassed, but we all wanted her more after that line.

    NPC: We've got to go back in there.. They stole the Invisible Icon!

    US: We didn't see any Invisible Icon.

    Party finds sleeping dragon & hoard. Lawfull Stupid Palladin decides he must slay yon evil beast. Has to cross an underground stream first. QUIETLY removes armor and sword and tells others to throw his sword to him after he crosses. Pallidin crosses and signals for sword, dragon is still asleep.

      GM: roll a d20 to throw the sword to him

      player: a 1

      GM: Crit fumble, you impale the palladin with his own sword.

      GM(asking palladin): You're about to pass out, what do you do?

      Palladin (cold bloodedly): I scream.

    "Guys, lets leave. Remember.. Keriastis, she who eats her children?"

    "No problem. She won't bother me.. I'm not one of her children."

    A party of stalwart adventurers found themselves gazing through a magic portal at the Evil Wizard's castle. The castle and its grounds were on an island of rock floating in nothingness. As the DM described the castle grounds, with their beautifully manicured lawns, the ranger quipped : "Hey, Astral Turf !"

    That resulted in a humour critical on the DM (and 100 EP for the ranger)

    Live Role Playing game---"Life In Hell". A visiting Demon walks out of a bathroom and is simultaneously attacked (with surprise) by four near-top-level devils (Da Mob). The two words you thought you would NEVER hear a demon say......."JESUS CHRIST!!!!!"

    Our gaming group here at college, in which we play mostly Shadowrun, has a player named Chris Kulander, known as Ku. I first met Ku in an AD&D game we were playing (he was a friend of another player). That same campaign was where I heard my first "Kuism." Ku, who had been sitting quietly during most of the game, suddenly looked up at one point and said, "One of the characters, determined randomly, becomes randomly determined."

    If you all like the quotes that have been coming so far, check out anything from Leading Edge Games... They put out "Phoenix Command", "Living Steel", "Swords Path to Glory", maybe others. They have quotes on the margins, I believe from he characters of people who were playtesting the games (of course I could be wrong).

    There are things like this:

    "It won't do you any good to hide behind the girl. She'll only stop 3 points."

    "Don't think of it as being vastly outnumbered, think of it as having a very wide shot selection."

    "If you can't dazzle them with style, riddle them with bullets."

    Another of my favorite sequences in the counterterrorist campaign I'm in came between some of the villains. A friend was playing Calculus, a cold-blooded, analytical accountant type; I'm playing Stiletto, the leader of the villain group, and Cyanide, a sabotuer; she's 29 but looks about 12 (and is 4'7").

    Anyway, Cyanide had been working her way through all the men in the group and had finally reached Calculus. She made a pass at him in the cafeteria, and he turned her down, partially because he didn't find her attractive due to her apparent youth. She got angry, and began arguing with him. Eventually she made what sounded like a veiled threat, and the following dialogue ensued...

    Calculus: You said earlier that vision is not necessary for sex. If you continue to pester me about the latter, I may be forced to deprive you of the former... (got up to leave)

    Cyanide (muttered): Well, if that's what it takes to turn you on...

    A short while later, Calculus opened one of his files during a meeting and discovered a copy of "Jiggling Nude Twelve-Year-Olds" (or something in that vein) in it. He didn't show any reaction, but Cyanide soon found that everything in her room was falling apart...

    A couple days later, he found a Miss Manners article about how to refuse a gift graciously; there was a Post-it Note attached saying, "If you didn't like the gift, why didn't you give it back so I could exchange it for something in your size?" (I'm not sure what Cyanide's life expectancy will turn out to be...) The magazine itself wound up with Stiletto. She puts on an image similar to Doonesbury's Lacey Davenport, but she does all sorts of little things to disturb people and throw them off-balance (like impaling flies with a penknife). This led to this dialogue:

    Calculus: You wished to meet with me?

    Stiletto: Oh, yes, come in. Calculus, dear, I heard recently that you were given a gift of a magazine. Do you still have it?

    Calculus: Yes. (produces it and gives it to her)

    (Stiletto begins flipping through it, lingering on some of the pages.)

    Stiletto: You may go now, Calculus.

    The last words he heard as he left were:

    "Oh, great! It's even got a subscription card!"

    WWII Champions campaign. Chameleon is a mad-scientist inventor and shape-shifter, while one of his partners is Fighting Patriot, a Cpt. America type with guns.

    They are split up fighting Dr. Moreau's Manimals, animals given human intelligence and super-powers by an evil fascist scientist, one of whom is the Chameleon, another shape-shifter. Fighting Patriot hears shots above him and charges up the stairs.

    GM: You see TWO Chameleons. One is lying on the floor, bleeding, the other is standing over him looking down, what do you do?

    FP: I've never known Chameleon to be combat-effective. I shoot the one standing.

    In a Champions campaign a friend of mine ran, the opening scene of the adventure had the players pull a particularly dim action. A massive meteor had struck the city, creating a huge crater surrounded by swirling shock waves and clouds of dust. The players were flying over in a modified rocketship, and their sensors detected an anomaly at the center of the dust cloud. "Must be an extradimensional portal" said the leader (and pilot), and with no further ado, and with the general assent of the other players, took the ship in a nose dive directly down to the ground where the source of the anomaly was. The GM looked blankly at them for a few moments, made a token attempt to dissuade them (they were adamant) - then sighed and closed the books as they piled into the ground at Mach 4.

    (After much whining, coersion and bribery, the anomaly was turned into an extradimensional portal so the campaign could continue. Or at least, so they wouldn't have to make new characters 20 minutes after making the first ones.)

    In a MAGNA VERITAS game (same as IN NOMINE SATANIS, but with Angels instead of Demons...).

    The house where the Angels are is being attacked by a team of Demons. One of the Angels is in the top stair, under a window:

    - "I use my 'Near Future' power..."

    DM: "You see a Demon entering the window and bashing you for lots of damage..."

    - "Lemme think about it... In a few seconds, a Demon will enter this room and attack me... Hmmm... What should I do?.. Hmmm..."

    DM: "A Demon breaks through the window and attacks you, doing lots of damage..."

    Player (genuinely surprised...): "AAAAAAARRRGGHHH!.."

    Here we see 4 intrepid 1st level would be heroes setting off on their very first campaign together. They arrive at the ruined castle they want to investigate. In one the rooms is a large spherical black object. One person pokes a stick into it.

    The stick is violently wrenched out of his hand. He promptly says "I'll enter the sphere." Everyone followed him....

    Remember...never enter a sphere of annilation if you want to continue the adventure...

    Yeesh -- you sure have different tastes than most people around here. The whole point behind CoC is the atmosphere of dread created by the players *knowing that they are going to bite the biscuit, but knowing when or who, or what unmentionably slimy thing will be doing it to them. CoC works much better if players have only slight acquaintance with the background in the rules. A perfect party of players is a group of five where only one knows anything about Lovecraft, or the game's background material. That way when things start pointing towards R'Lyeh, four players can look around confused as one starts making "acckkppphh" noises .... wonderful to watch as a GM. I will never forget the horrified looks on my player's faces as I told them (in a Champions adventure set in the world mentioned above) that the news held reports of a newly created country in the South Pacific.

    They new that it had been created by a slightly dotty AI who had an efficient electronic finger poised over the world's economy and had used this power to blackmail the UN into allowing it to join. And then they found out that the "leader" of the world (through the news) had declared the country's name to be R'Lyeh.

    The tv reporter was grinning slightly as he patiently explained to his viewing public that it was a quaint reference to a little known American writer of fantastic tales. My players were screaming and running for the door....

    Series of apparantly gratuitous and ego-stroking posturing, followed by my :

    You know, they have MUDs and IRC for this sort of thing, where people can try to out-powerstory and out-pretend each other.

    ["I am Lord Aragoth, son of beastlord Tinn, who controls all of the multiverse!" "Ah, but >I< am Chaos, son of Time, who transcends the sphere of planes!" "You fools, bow to Kkavvirie, spawn of Night, which existed long before Creation and Time!" "Heh heh heh, know thee that I am Ctrillison, the One True God, and all of you are but day dreams of mine..." "Uh, excuse me, I'm Joe. Where's the nearest bar?"]

    bla.

    -Me[It gets REALLY REALLY stale... I've heard it b4.]

    GAH! This MELODRAMA is strangling my cortex! ARG!!!!

    These people must LOVE fantasy novels...

    ["No no, Sharianshishrasikikivimia, don't cry. I must avenge my brother Joe's death, at the great bar of Shakriva, against the spawn of chaos and time. My death will be just a drop of sunshine against the broiling darkness that is to come... go, and tell those of the sun-pearls to prepare for the coming doom, unless my one sacrifice shall...

    bla bla bla.

    -Me

    Creeks and Crawdads was billed as the first realistic post-holocaust RPG, i.e. humans and most other "higher" forms of life are wiped out by the bomb. The inheritor of the mantle of civilization, such as it is, is the lowly crayfish, after its intelligence is raised somewhat, but not nearly to normal human levels. The smartest of the crawdad PCs is about as smart as Dan Quayle.

    The game is a parody of RPGs, but a playable one. The basic character classes or subraces of crawdad are Thinker, Fighter, Tool-User, and Prole. Proles are pretty similar to ancestral crawdads, maybe a tad smarter. Fighters are somewhat bigger, maybe 6 or 7 inches long, very aggressive, and mainly interested in killing things and eating them, not necessarily in that order. Tool Users are the technological wonders of crawdad society, and come up with such marvels as the pointed stick, the sharp piece of glass, and the leaf bag, when they are not pushing for an insurgency vs the thinkers for telling the them what to do all the time. The thinkers are leaders and planners, such as there are, being the only crawdads whose memories have a half life of over a couple of hours for anything outside of their immediate view.

    Typical adventures have seen parties of crawdads dispatched from the village by the council of elder thinkers to investigate some problem and

    a) forget the mission and wander back home to get something to eat

    b) complete the mission and forget the way home to report their success

    c) forget that they were supposed to go home and wander off to found a new village

    d) get separated, forget who each other are, mistake one another for enemy crawdads and/or food, fight and eat one another.

    Roleplaying crawdads other than thinkers tends to revolve around eating, sleeping, fighting or inventing, spawning, and being confused a lot and wandering around or off to give the thinker(s) headaches trying to keep the group on track. Thinkers do a lot of bossing, shepherding, and generally acting like addled preschool teachers, with the occasional moments of brilliant insight into philosophy of the condition of crawdads which are forgotten in a day or two.

    [Apparantly, thread on the Computer Virus plot in the post crash Traveller stuff. Summary- Weird crystal organism used for navigation chips in ships begins evolving/mutating, causing partial collapse of civilization.]

    A_COPEAB@CCSVAX.SFASU.EDU (Brandon Cope) writes:>

    > As to the person who basically said to toss the problem of paying for a fleet

    > by the government printing more money to use to pay for it -- SAY WHAT????

    > By the time you've paid for that grand fleet, you will have devalued the

    > credit so badly and caused such economic ruin that you'll wish you HAD been

    > invaded. Something like this is A Very Bad Idea.

    Well, it works better than the Computer Virus Idea, anyway!

    Other possibilities:

    1. A mutant star goat came and ate all the TL 15 planets.

    2. The Zhodani Consulate found out how the Imperium had used psychology to turn all its people against psionics, and had its secret agents mount a similar campaign to turn all Imperial citizens against TL 15 equipment. In revenge, the Imperial Secret Service used yet another campaign to make the Zhodani forget all about the Imperium. Both campaigns worked too well. The Imperial citizens turned against all equipment above TL 11, and are now working on TL 11 stuff as well. The Zhodani forgot about the Imperium, the Aslan and the Darrians, and are now fully occupied with their CoreExploration expeditions.

    3. You've all heard of Chaos Theory, which means a but terfly can flap its wings and cause an earthquake. Now there's Megachaos Theory, in which a flea can burp and cause a TL 15 processor to malfunction. There's also Hyperchaos Theory, a development of quantum mechanics which states that if one TL 15 processor breaks down, all TL 15 processors break down in exactly the same way.

    Well, options 1 & 2 are more likely than the computer virus, and option3 is about as likely as the computer virus.

    Add a lot of :-) and enjoy!

    In a Champions superhero game, one guy built a mime who was able to create the effect of any real object as long as he could successfully mime it.

    The standard "wall in front of me" mime routine would result in a completely solid though invisible wall. His crowning achievement in the campaign was successfully miming a rocket launcher and collapsing an underground cavern.

    A lot of people mention the primitive birth control in medieval times, but that doesn't happen in my world.

    You see, I run a rather high-fantasy campaign where historical realism is thrown almost out the window. About the only historical pieces I use are the Akkadians (like advanced ancient Egyptians) and a human/dwarf kingdom that worships Norse gods.

    Priests have spells like Contraception, which temporarily renders a being infertile, and they STILL have Cure Disease. My pantheon does not glorify abstinence, so people aren't afraid to go, or take their partners there before sex. Magical cures have all but eliminated sexually transmitted diseases.

    Wizards have one rerally funny one called Double Dong, which gives a man an extra penis above his real one, but has no testicles of its own. One of the players was a wizard who rarely spent town nights in an inn- he'd rent a room in a cathouse and buy the services of 4-5 women all night. he was the inventor of this crazy spell, because he wanted to be able to do a woman both ways at once. The same guy also researched spells like Augmentation I-III (breast enlargers), Vibration (which could be placed on an item), Dick Almighty (a penis enlarger), and Simmons' Titillating Tongue (a tongue lengthener and fine controller named for rocker Gene).

    Not to be outdone, my girlfriend created Multiboobs (adds 2 breasts to the target), Aquaboobs (supports the breasts as if they were under water), Power Word: Strip (destroys all clothes on the target), Penis Envy (gives a woman a penis), Deep Throat and Improved Deep Throat (useful for removing golf balls from garden hoses), Vitality (a spell that removes the need for rest, food, and water, enabling sex to go on for days at high level), and Dicklessness (a nasty spell in our campaign... it could be cured only by Wish, Dick Almighty, or a high-level Remove Curse).

    We have fun with them.

    It's even EASIER to fix than that. You look at Frank, tell him, "Look, dude. I am the GM. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I am the Lord God of this game, and if I say that Bozo the Mage's fireball orbits the planet twice and then comes in on a glidepath approach before veering off and bullseyeing the target, why then there is no help for it but that so does it happen.

    "Take a look in the notes to the DM (assuming you haven't memorized them) and read the part that says that the DM is to feel free to change anything they want, at any time..."

    Friend: As a Christian, I beg you not to play. There are tons of other role playing games out there.

    Me: Oh, like war games - which emphasize large scale death and destruction.

    Friend: Yes.

    I don't think I've seen what I think is a logical hazard of the 'cold sleep' travel method: the danger of lost luggage. You go to sleep, expecting to wake up on Tau Ceti 1, only to be accidentally shipped to Omega Ceti 7. Worse, not only do they not want your skills as a cutting-edge of technology enhanced combat cyborg, but since the shipping company had you stored in a warehouse for fifty two years while they tried to straighten out the paper work, you aren't so 'cutting-edge' any more.

    'You have no hope against our superior technology! People of Mars, surrender!'

    'Excuse me, but this isn't Mars. It's Earth.'

    'Earth?! Earth-with-nuclear-weapons Earth?!'

    'Yes.'

    'Friend!'

    [from Second City, Toronto, circa 1987]

    PCs: We open the door.

    GM: You see a 20'x20' room with a door in the middle of the opposite side of the room. There is a single stalacmite hanging from the centre of the ceiling.

    PCs: Whaa? Is the room a cave? Is the ceiling rough?

    GM: No. The ceiling is flat aside from the stalacmite. The stalacmite looks thin, spindly and somehow... malnourished.

    PCs: Uh, we cross the room, careful to avoid standing under the stalacmite.

    GM: No problem. You hear a small sigh escape the stalacmite.

    Piercers get no respect in our worlds.

    Biggest dragon in several universes: Leave, or I shall surely grind you to paste.

    Monk: We don't fear you. Besides, this isn't my character and I don't care what happens to it anyway.

    So, You're claiming that your client did not realize that running the car over with a steamroller would hurt the inhabitants?

    "He'd never done it before, your honor, and besides, there was no warning label on the Steamroller..."

    Champions character, started as a talented normal, 8d6EB, 8 levels of Growth w/activation roll for each level, +8 speed. Each d6 of Energy Blast and each +1 SPD was Linked to one level of Growth. Also, he became increasingly reptilian as he grew, and the EB was a breath weapon.

    Name: Speedy Godzilla.

    "When the world's in trouble I am not slow. So it's hip-hip-hip and away I go!"

    A very long time ago I played a very evil and despicable wizard named, simply, Kane the Black. Now, while that's not the most original of names, it's not the funny part either :-)

    It seems the GM of the game liked the way I played the dark wizard (including casting Pain spells on underlings who annoyed him for whatever reason) and so, when it came his turn to make up a character for my campaign he made up another evil wizard and named him Belfis, the not-so-black-as-Kane.

    :-) I liked that a lot :-)

    *Ineptus Mediocrates, the world's least powerful wizard

    *Shazmazaligor Graz'Asmolorcusmogorgon of the Unpronounceable Last Name

    *I-gor (A half ogre swashbuckler who "fenced" with a two handed sword. The definitive encounter with this character involved a human swashbuckler who slashed a "Z" into his shirt and said something like "Ha! Z for Zanzibar, you pathetic oaf!". I-gor took one look at him and sliced him down the middle with his two-handed sword, responding, "I! For I-gor!"

    *Bubbasky, the Polish barbarian (a creation of a friend of mine)

    *Hen3ry ("The 3 is silent")

    We were searching through a series of sewers (sound familiar) when we were beset by orcs. The orcs were badly outmatched (I suspect they came off of a random encounter table that shouldn't have been), and we captured two after slaying the rest in order to find out where certain things were (like all their treasure, and the HQ of the lead nasties). Our half-orc assassin began the questioning, but they were highly resistant. We began to run a good-cop/bad-cop routine between a dwarven fighter (who, natch, HATES orcs) and a thief; no go there either. Finally, the thief (named Hubie Illin - this is NOT my fault) turned to the assassin (named Ert) and said with a perfectly straight face, "Ert, get out the genital press."

    The GM was so impressed he actually coughed up information. To this day none of us knows exactly what a genital press looks like (and we're not sure we wantto find out . . .)

    (This was sent to me by a player in my D&D game a while ago and now I'm going to embarrass him by posting it. I think it is supposed to be a satire of my game.)

    (clatter of dice rolling)

    #1: I'm Hiding in Shadows, ok?

    DM: You're out in the middle of a plain at noon. Where are you going to hide?

    #1: Well, there must be some shadows around.

    DM: Fine. You're Hiding in the Shadow of a blade of grass.

    #1: Cool.

    DM (to all): You see a big green scaly slimy slobbering horrible monster coming toward you.

    #2: Oh, it's so cute! I try to make friends with it.

    #3: I kill it.

    DM: Okay, as you attack, your sword goes right through it. It was an illusion.

    #4: Hee, hee, hee.

    #3: I kill <#4>.

    #2: I try to make friends with him.

    #1: I Climb Walls.

    #5: I know what we're supposed to do here, but I'm not going to say anything because I'm not supposed to know, and my character's dead anyway, but I think it would not be a good idea to kill <#4>.

    #2: I sing a song about trees on my harp.

    #3: I kill <#2>.

    DM: You're still out in the middle of this plain at high noon. No shelter is in sight.

    #1: I steal the treasure and keep it for myself.

    #3: I kill <#1>.

    #1: You can't, I'm Hiding In Shadows.

    #4: I cast Light and eliminate all the Shadows.

    #2: I cast Animal Friendship.

    #1: I Pick Locks.

    It is time for me to speak of one of our most amusing campaign legends: Zot the Amusing. (Other players' name for him.) Zot was played by a neophyte to our campaigns who was deeply into hack-and-slash but we needed some additional people. He died in every campaign, but it was amusing to allow him to get reincarnated to see how he'd die next time.

    I forget how Zot died the first time, but I'm sure it was provoked by greed and was incredibly stupid. I also forget what race Zot started off as. May have been elven.

    OH! I remember! He was the first one who hit the "illusion of gold coins over the acid pit" scenario that I mentioned in an earlier post!

    The party successfully retrieved some of his bubbling bones from the pit. Anyway, the party felt sorry for Zot and got him reincarnated. He came back as a gnome, incredibly humiliating for this hack-n-slasher.

    Next adventure: the party is travelling along a river bank, trying to figure out a way to cross this white-water barrier. they come across a catapult set up on the bank. Zot spies a large trampoline-like net on the other side.

    Zot is inspired. "It is OBVIOUS to any moron that we have to catapult across and land safely in that net!" Zot asserts. the group agrees (it is obvious to any moron, that is).

    Zot jumps into the catapult cup. He cuts the rope. A small gnomish body is sent hurtling into the air. A shrill scream can be heard as it significantly overshoots the target and arcs with a graceful **thud** onto some distant rocks.

    The rangers in the group, using their bows, easily pick off the three gnolls who roll from their hiding places in uncontrollable laughter.

    After the catapult fiasco, Zot was reincarnated as an ogre. Zot's reaction: "Cool!"

    Obvious heaven for a dyed-in-the-wool hack-n-slasher. The party members are now between 1st (Zot) and 3rd levels.

    The next adventure found them deep in a dungeon. Zot happily hacked and slashed his way through until the came to the following scenario:

    DM: You arrive at a large chamber. The floor is composed of glass-like squares, about 10'x 10'. The floor is five squares wide by 10 squares long. Looking through the glass floor, you can see a bubbling lava pool, about 50' below. Action?

    Leader: We cautiously test the floor with a foot.

    DM: It holds your weight.

    Party: Let's cross!

    DM: (After ascertaining locations.) You hear a high-pitched musical note. One of the squares shatters loudly (square 7-E). Looking across the chamber, you see a lone kobold on a high ledge. It is holding what appears to be a silver flute.

    (Party discovers that, for each advance they make, the kobold blows a note on the flute, blowing away, it appears, one square of floor at random.)

    Zot: I yell to scare it away.

    DM: (Rolling) Your shouts have attracted the attention of a lone orc, who cautiously steps out onto the glass towards you, weilding a club. The orc is on the square that Zot is on before any actions can be taken.

    Zot: I have it! I'll smash the floor square the orc is on with my mace!

    DM: Zot uses his mace to smash the square of glass upon which he stands. The square readily shatters, sending Zot and the orc spiralling down towards fiery deaths. (The party sat, stunned and incredulous for several minutes. The Zot player was baffled for a while, trying to figure out why his PC went down with the orc.)

    Leader: We finish crossing as fast as we can, before that damned kobold can toot on his flute anymore.

    DM: You find that Zot has smashed square 7-B, that creates a row of broken squares along row seven. This means there is a 10' stretch with no floor. You find yourself gazing at the lava below as you contemplate your next actions.

    Only one party member, other than Zot, died as a result of this action. We ruled that Zot had cut himself on the edge of the glass on the way down (so we'd have something to use to reincarnate him again -- the party wanted vengeance for this one!).

    This has been around for 20 years, when we thought it up in highschool. Never seen it elsewhere, though.

    At the end of an episode in which several Expendables have been wasted...

    "Come, Mr. Sulu. Let us bury our dead."

    "Already plotted and laid in, sir!"

    GM: So, what are your plans for this morning?

    PCs: We split up the stuff we got from that pack of storm giants who attacked us last night, put the Blue Dragon hide on the Bard's pack mule, pack up our tents and carry on down the road.

    GM: Ok, (rolls a die) you travel for about an hour, when you encounter...

    (rolls more dice, consults some tables)

    THE FLOATING USENET HOMOSEXUALITY FLAME WAR!!!!

    PCs: HOLY HIPPO SH*T!!! We ditch all our treasure and RUN AND HIDE!!!

    In other words, This Is The Thread Your Mother Warned You About...

    Probably the weirdest PC ever was a 1/2ogre chaos mutant, who was shorter than a dwarf, hairless and stammered. He was a professional watchman.

    As a mutation, he got "Unusual skin colour" I did not consider that mutation very powerful, so I let him choose the colour he wanted. I suggested he'd pick Army brown&green so that would work as "Concealment rural" skill.

    Guess what he asked me then?

    "Would I get Concealment Urban if my skin was painted with houses and CARS???"

    (In a FANTASY campaign!)

    I rewarded that stupid question by giving the character an additional D6 insanity points.

    And then there was the game where the GM put a museum in the main city. The players, all low level, decided to take a look around and see what they could see.

    All sorts of wonders were there: dragon skulls and magical fountains.

    And Stormbringer. In a glass case.

    My friend stated that she wanted to break the glass case and steal the sword.

    The GM apparently hadn't thought that someone might want to steal the most powerful sword in the omniverse. She did it, and then carved up all the guards who came running, and jumped out a window.

    The GM did a number of stupid things trying to fix his original stupidity. He eventually had her polymorphed into a lion so she couldn't wield the sword. She then reminded him how Stormbringer can function as a sword of dancing (levitates and obeys it's owner) in the Elric saga. The game eventually fell apart.

    My favorite character of all-time was an Aztec Cleric named Duxwatl.

    Eric and the Gazebo, by Richard Aronson

      aronson@sierratel.com
    Ed Whitchurch (DM): You see a well groomed garden. In the middle, on a small hill, you see a gazebo

    Eric Sorenson: A gazebo? What color is it?

    Ed: (Pause). It's white Eric.

    Eric: How far away is it?

    Ed: About 50 yards

    Eric: How big is it?

    Ed: (Pause). It's about 30ft across, 15ft high, with a pointed top

    Eric: I use my sword to detect good on it.

    Ed: It's not good Eric, it's a gazebo

    Eric: I call out to it.

    Ed: It won't answer. It's a __gazebo__

    Eric: I shoot it with my bow (roll to hit). What happened?

    Ed: There is now a gazebo with an arrow sticking out of it.

    Eric: (Pause) Wasn't it wounded?

    Ed: OF COURSE NOT, ERIC! IT'S A GAZEBO!

    Eric: (Whimper) But that was a +3 arrow!

    Ed: I suppose you could try to burn it, but I don't know why anybody would even try, it's a @#$%!! gazebo!

    Eric: (Long pause. He has no axe or fire spells). I run away

    Ed: (Thoroughly Frustrated). It's too late. You've awakened the gazebo. It catches you and eats you.

    Eric: (Reaching for dice). Maybe I'll roll up a fire-using mage so I can avenge my Paladin

    GLOSSARY

    Gazebo - A) a monster (see monster section); B) a noun; C) something paladins attack D) A wooden structure about 30ft across, 15ft high with a pointed top, often found sleeping on lands belonging to the wealthy

    I was in a group of rather low level adventurers [1-3] and we were hired to find some gemstones in a tower. Well, there was a pattern to the rooms. All the rooms had the gems we needed but some were easier to get to than others. Anyway, we made a good guess and entered a room. There was nothing in the room except a lamp. Now, I wasn't the leader of this group so I let him get the lamp thinking he knew what needed to be done.

    Fat chance.

    The first thing he tired was putting oil into the lamp then lighting it. Then he tried dumping everything out of the lamp by shaking it. After five minutes of "wait, try this" and "oh, try that" with no results I finally got fed up and said "GIMME THE STUPID LAMP!" I then told the GM, "I rub the lamp. "POOF! Instant genie. After that showing of intellectual superiority, I then proceeded to help get this show on the road. "I wish that the genie would make me a gemstone." So much for intellectual superiority.

    This reminds me of an old Cerebus comic. Cerebus and Red Sophia (a Red Sonja satire) are on an adventure. Cerebus had defeated Red Sophia in fair combat, thus winning her heart (and body etc.). He wasn't interested. In fact, he found the whole thing ridiculous. Finally, we get a back view of the following scene:

    RED SOPHIA: "Oh yeah? Well what do you think of THIS???"

    (pulls bikini top off)

    (Cerebus stares for a panel)

    CEREBUS: "Cerebus thinks those scars might heal if you stopped wearing Chainmail halters."

    Yeah. I concur.

    The DM I played with never put much wit into his games (although plenty of polish in other areas). I wish just ONCE when he looks on that critical hit table of his he would say something like:

    "9tysomething mumblemumble Uh oh. The sword severes...your nose... at the spleen."

    In a magical "Champions" campaign, I once played a wizard who had an old TV set that he'd enchanted to act like a crystal ball for him. I put a disadvantage on this power that his sightings would be interrupted by bizarre commercials. The first time I used this power, the GM had a Cenobite recruiting commercial come on. They said "Join us while it's still voluntary."

    One of my perpetual favorites (and a big one, sort of, of my players) occurred early on in our Torg campaign.

    The party was looking for a missing artifact, and kept bumping into an annoying peddler with a big, clumsy hearing aid and an eyepatch, among other problems.

    He keeps telling them he'll sell them useful information.

    Well, the party eventually finds a notebook filled with clues that they're having trouble figuring out.

    When the peddler shows up again, they pay him, get his info, then give him the notebook and ask his advice.

    He's not able to help them, gives the notebook back, and they leave.

    Considerably later, they figure out the clues and head to the appropriate place, only to find they've been beaten there by some cyberware-equipped goons.

    After disposing of the goons, they search the bodies and find...photographs of the notebook pages they've been studying.

    After analyzing the angles of the shots and backgroudn details, they suddenly realize that the photos had been taken by a camera-eye...the peddler!

    One of the party members sits there in silence for a moment, then _shouts_, "You mean, we _paid_ that guy to _spy_on_us_?"

    It took them a _long_ time to live that one down.

    Our gaming group ran a Fantasy Hero campaign set in the AD&D Dark Sun campaign setting for about two years.

    Later on in the campaign, our party of Brave Adventurers was wandering through one of the jungles on the periphery of Athas en route to the evil psionicist's lair. Suddently we were confronted by half a dozen feral halflings who plainly intended to rob us.

    At this stage, half a dozen feral halflings posed no threat to our group, but we were loath to slaughter them because we had just left an encampment of halflings and didn't know if these six were associated with those somehow.

    Then one of the party wizards spoke up and initiated negotiations with the halfings.

    (The player in question didn't usually roleplay a whole lot, so this was an interesting change.)

    The conversation went something like this:

    Halfling: "Give us your stuff."

    Wizard: "Well, we don't really want to give you all our stuff."

    Halfling: "Give us your stuff, or we kill you."

    Wizard: "Look, we don't want to fight. How about if we just give you some of our stuff, and nobody gets hurt? Otherwise, we have to fight, and some of your friends could get hurt."

    Halfling: "We fierce warriors. We not get hurt. You give us your stuff."

    Wizard: "But if you kill us, you won't know how to use the magical meat stick."

    Halfling (curious): "Magic meat stick? What that?"

    (Halflings in Dark Sun are still ravenous.)

    Wizard: "The magic meat stick. It makes meat. All the meat you want."

    Halfling: "You give us meat stick."

    Wizard (pulling stick out of tunic): "This is it. But you have to know the magic words to use it."

    Halfling (impatient): "You show use how to use meat stick. Or we kill you."

    Wizard: "Okay, you use it like this."

    (waves wand of fire, kills all halflings but the leader)

    (pointing at charred corpses) "See? There's your meat."

    It was so callous and cruel, we were all rolling with laughter for about twenty minutes. Of course, the other fifty halflings jumped out of cover and slaughtered about half the group with venom-tipped arrows, but it was worth it.

    The GM misreads the central clue in the module and you begin searching for the Lost Tome instead of the Lost Tomb. The mistake isn't realized for another four hours.

    OK - I'll stick my finger in that electric socket to see if it gives me super powers."

    - the dumbest thing I've ever seen a PC do

    A really male chauvanist pig type character kept pushing a female, MUCH higher level, character around making her do all sorts of things which were menial and degrading. Finally, one day, she'd had enough of his ways and as they came to a door in a dungeon the following conversation ensued:

    "Open the door #####! (Nasty editor removed cuss words)"

    "Ok." the female warrior replied. As she was the person who was carrying the lantern at the time, she turned to the obnoxious character and said "Here, hold this."

    "Sure." he said, taking the lantern.

    The female warrior drew her sword and promptly sliced the guy in half. As the two pieces fell in different directions, the female took back the lantern from the lifeless hands, set it on the floor, and asked "Any questions?" There were none and the party left the guy on the floor to continue their adventure.

    (on the water depletion caused by Traveller ships refueling for fusion drives)

    You seem to have a fair idea: the radicals get pissed on principle, as soon as they notice; responsible environmentalists as soon as it's measureable; and your average sleepwalking citizens when they see their beaches receding.

    The conversion from megatons to joules is 1 megaton = 4.2x10^15 joules. This is from a textbook on nuclear physics, so I believe its accurate. Since E=mc^2, 1kg of antimatter annihilating with 1kg of matter puts out the same energy as a 43 megaton explosion. Thus the 1cc chunks of anti-lead (about 10g) are equivalent to a 430 kiloton bomb. The cubic meter would be equivalent to a 430 gigaton bomb. Most of this energy is released in the form of HARD gamma rays, so even without the impact, the target is going to be really toasty.

    I knew I was doing a good job presenting a villain when the party looked at me in shock, and the fellow with the Pacifism: Will Not Kill disadvantage said, "That's it; I'm saving up to buy off Pacifism..."

    Let's take a nod from Ann Rice here.

    The best way to stop a vampire is to listen to 'em complain about how lonely immortality is and about how all their friends don't talk to them any more now that they've been made vamps themselves, etcetera, etcetara. Do NOT try to seduce a vampire. Would you sleep with a goat? [If you happen to be playing a character who WOULD sleep with a goat, by all means, try seduction. You deserve everything you get.] It'll help if you remind them of somebody they knew a few hundred years ago, so don't bathe for a few weeks. Use lots of perfume instead.

    Now, vampires are not stupid. They're not about to hang out in your living room until fifteen minutes before sunrise and then try to run home with smoke pouring out of their ears. So you may be asking yourself how listening to them whine incessantly will help. Well, you didn't want to know how to KILL them. You wanted to know how to STOP them. And odds are, if your GM is one of those pudgy Riceheads I kept running into when I took the Vampire Lit course back in school {UC Berkeley, natch} your GM will LOVE to sit across from you and roleplay a romantic, grumbling, alienated, THIN bloodsucker. And remember-- while your GM is busy making up snappy dialog, he/she is NOT rolling all those dice that vampires get in combat. Which augurs well for your throat.

    Coming next week: identifying the NPCs you won't be allowed to kill from conversations with your GM about their love life.

    >A portion of space within the box is heated to the point at which

    >physical laws rejoin (just about, oh, 300 million to 10 billion times

    >the core temperature of the sun, maybe much more). At that point,

    >neutrinos passing into this area will interact easily with other

    >particles. There is a 'decoupling' area, at which neutrino interactions

    >will jump to a great number of interactions.

    Well, yes, this might work, but to my mind the basic problem is that if I (as a warmongering weapons designer, of course) had a way to heat something to 300 million times the core temperature of the sun, I'm afraid the first thought to pop to mind wouldn't be, "OH BOY, now I can DETECT NEUTRINOS!" :-)

    This is an excerpt from a Swedish gaming magazine. The constructor of the table is Martin Fredriksson.

    The table was constructed for systems like Call of Cthulhu, Runequest etc. Multiply the modification with the skill value and use the result as a modified skill value.

    Modification Difficulty

    • 3.0 Identify King Arthurs shield mark, hit unconscious opponent
    • 2.6 Read a maths book from the first year in school.
    • 2.4 Row a boat over completely still lake.
    • 2.2 Identify Lancelot du Lacs shield mark
    • 2.0 Shoot a sleeping elephant (not point blank)
    • 1.9 Hit an almost unconscious opponent
    • 1.8 Bargain the a ten year old person
    • 1.6 Track a hippotamus in 5 cm deep snow
    • 1.5 Climb a rope ladder
    • 1.4 Listen to a normal conversion through a thin wall, drive a car with automatic gear through a city
    • 1.3 Pick a bicycle lock, pick someone pocket in a crowd, read a book for children (9-12 years old)
    • 1.2 Climb a very difficult tree
    • 1.1 Sneak through a room while a washing machine is running
    • 1.0 Do things under normal circumstances
    • 0.8 Shoot a running person
    • 0.7 Jump in deep snow or mud, listen to a whispering conversation through a door
    • 0.6 Climb a mountain without an gear, hit a bird
    • 0.5 Find a secret door
    • 0.4 Track on concrete
    • 0.3 Climb with a full plate, sneak with broken legs
    • 0.2 Swim with full plate, ride with a broken pelvis
    • 0.1 Shoot a flying mosquito on long range
    • 0.08 Walk on a rope wearing skates, track an ant
    • 0.06 Swim in latrine wearing boot made of concrete and smile
    • 0.04 Juggle with 20 burning small pieces of paper
    • 0.02 Cleave an atom with a dull chainsaw
    • 0.00 Finish off a Rolemaster battle in less than 20 minutes.
    Enjoy and extend!!

    Random Shadowrun quotes, taken mostly out of context:

    "I'll interrogate it, I guess. Two shots." -- Hatchetman (John W.)

    "I lied. I'm a man. I do that." -- Hatchetman

    "Can you play a woman for 20 minutes?" -- Nightshift to Shaz (a female merc)

    "Massive human tragedy!" -- Nightshift's plan for astral camoflage

    "Only a fucking beast armors a sportscar." -- John W.

    "Oh, it's not your race, it's that we're sexist." -- Shaz to two big Orks

    "I wanna kill something that dies!" -- Baal

    "It's not my fault she died on the table." -- Dr. Kittredge to Tess after Tess was razzing him about being able to help his patients more than he could

    "Some of the dragons have flown the coup." -- Morgan, on the occasion of a dragon coup d'etat

    "May I borrow your gun for a second?" -- Dr. Love to a cop

    " 'That's dead with an "e"!' " -- Don P., quoting a Dan Quayle poser-gang

    This one is legendary in my circle of aquaitances, and whats more, it's not a player quote, its a GM quote. Party approaches bridge guarded by humungous troll with equally sized two-handed troll maul.

    The party stops short of the bridge .

    The troll looks on and shouts 'SEND FORTH YOU BEST RIDDLER!'

    There is heated argument about who is the best riddler among the players... 'I should go!'....'I have the best intelligence' etc...

    Finally one of the players marches up to the troll. 'I'm the best riddler!' he announces brightly.

    The troll splats him dead. 'I hate riddlers.'

    An example of where the GM took the rug from beneath us was in another CoC game where I was a player. The plot (?) centered around Miami in the years just after WW1 - involving disappearing people, child sacrifice (you know, the usual kinda thing for CoC :-) As a backdrop to the adventure was an air of tension between Mexico and USA.

    During the events, an American frigate just gets *taken out* while on patrol in the Carribean, all hands lost, no wreckage. Our adventure leads us to an island nearby, whereupon our party comes across a few trucks parked on a cliff, with lots of hi tech equipment scattered about. One truck has a big open ended box as its load.

    So I read the stencilled writing on the box:

    aerospatiale MM.38 (launch) this fwd->

    Now *I* know that an MM.38 is an Exocet missile, but my *character* couldn't possibly know this, and hence couldn't act on the information. It was like a player SAN loss while the character remains intact :-) Ol' Nyarlathotep had done his fav trick and rewarded faithful cultists with weapons from the future.

    Tim

    [Bushido...]

    I played it long ago, before the books 'grew up'. Okay, I have the first edition, the second edition were printed in a larger format.

    We had been investigating some strange stuff, and found the main hiding place for a very, very, (did I say very?) powerful group of Ninja's. They saw us. We ran. They surrounded us on a hill.

    The referee asked us with an evil gleam in his eyes, "What do you do now?" The evil Ninjas advanced up the hill.

    I looked at the other players. We knew that we were doomed. We shouted out to the referee, "We form Voltron!" It did not work, we died; however, we got bonuses for our next characters. All in all, a lot of fun. It was worth it to see the double take the referee did.

    The Unitarian Universalist White Witch Myth is the wonderfully amusing name coined by Isaac Bonewits for the mushy, ill-defined idea that there was some kind of unitary, universal "Goddess" religion ALLL over Europe, under which everybody was happy and kind and good to their mothers and frolicked in the forest with Bambi and Thumper until the Evil Christians came and made everybody sad.

    He has an amusing explication of it in his classic, _Real Magic_.

    William H Timmins - Pooh@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu