Player Sayings
Goodness, where do I start? These are all about the same gm.
Ben's cleric adventured through one night, slept until the afternoon, and then awoke, ready to pray for spells -- a not uncommon occurance over the previous three years of running this particular character in this particular campaign. "You can only get spells at dawn." The gods had apparently changed their procedures.
One character, polymorphed into a pegasus, and with another character riding upon his back, landed in a clearing -- or at least tried to land in a clearing. Turned out that the gm's description was a bit deceptive and the mage took some damage from bashing his wings against trees. There was some minor muttering.
However, later that night a dragonel and rider swooped down upon them. The dragonel, considerably larger and less maneuverable than a pegasus, managed to drop into the clearing, allowing its rider to attack with his lance while it attacked with its claws, and then pulled up in time to clear the trees.
Three warriors were hanging around outside a dragon's lair, waiting for the wounded dragon to appear. The opening to the lair was a pit. Suddenly the dragon flew out of the pit, breathing acid as it passed, and then disappearing over the trees before the archer, who had been waiting off to the side with arrow nocked, had a chance to sight and loose. Dragon's are about the slowest, least maneuverable of all the flying creatures in that world.
"Okay, you've opened the door. Now what do you do?" [ Shrug ] "I enter the room." "You disappear. What do the rest of you do." As it turned out, the room was a well, not a room. The first character into the room failed to notice the lack of floor, despite carrying a torch. The rest of the group, most of whom were facing the first character, failed to notice what had happened -- he just disappeared.
The gm forced the spell-casting characters to use these stupid spell-minder sheets, of which he kept copies. "I cast XXX." "You don't have that spell memorized." The number of times that happened was incredible.
After getting just a little tired of hearing, "That's your formation? Some of the enemy move onto your flank," I decided to try that exact wording out for myself in hopes of discovering the appropriate response. It seemed that, "they don't let you," was a sufficient description against such an maneuver.
So the next time some humanoids tried to flank the party, "I don't let them."
"Okay, you'll have to move back one square." Why not? "That's what I'll do then."
"The skeleton moves along with you. You'll have to back up another square to keep him from flanking you." I decided to see how long the gm was willing to play that game and ended up thirty feet down the passage -- but that skeleton never outflanked me! Ha!!!
This gm also was a wimp when it came to killing pcs, and I don't mean the common only-kill-them-if-they-do-something-stupid gm. Nooo. He was quite happy to wax a character if enough hit points were inflicted in combat. But if something outside the area of hit-points-inflicted caused death, fat chance. He ruined some very good deaths like that.
The number of swords we broke in combat was beyond belief -- even a magical one snapping was no surprise. "It falls out of your hand and notches on impact." "Aren't we fighting in a foot of mud?" "It must've hit a stone."
That only scratches the surface, but I think you get the general idea. Why game with him? Well, after a few years the frequency of him gming did drop off, but the world he had developed was incredibly rich and was fun to live in; especially when we developed characters to the point where they were well known and could dabble in politics. Many a time it was said that if only LZ would work on his world and come up with sketchs for adventures, and then turn the gming over to someone else, we would've have a lot more fun.
I recall one grotesque game...
In a rare fit of open-mindedness I consented to a V1 AD&D game. (Ordinarily I'm a GURPS head.) I wasn't crazy about the DM but I liked my fellow players. And as to the weakness of the system... to the devil with it. To a Real Role-Player Characterization is Everything.
So I fast-talked the DM into letting me take an elven illusionist. Rolled for age, ended up with the usual Tolkienesque millenium-plus. No problem. I've played oldsters before..
So there's the party in a town in the Midst of Noplace. And a Beautiful Woman goes by. Dressed in rags. Says some snotty things to us and leaves. But then, Villians swoop down and kidnap her!
"Actually," says the DM, "the cleric recognizes her as the heiress to a kingdom."
"Gee," says the thief. "Should we go after her?"
"Anything in it for us?""Reward?"
"For a tart in a third-handmedown? Preposterous.""She could have been a princess."
"Uh-huh.""Really? Near here?"
"Just over the hill.""Great. Let's go tell them and enlist a few hundred foot-soldiers to sop up some damage."
"You can't do that.""Why? Is everyone dead?"
"As a matter of fact, the kingdom is Cursed.""Let me guess. Salt in the ground?"
"Yes. That's where you all know each other. You were retainers.""I? To a HUMAN kingdom? That's like being a retainer to a cockroach."
"Well, it was a very beautiful girl. Comeliness of 25.""I'm eleven hundred years old, and a different species besides. One quite used to beauty."
"Well, you feel very sick now that she's gone. Knock off a point of constitution. And you'll keep losing them. In fact, everyone knock off a point."Much glancing away and back-of-the-head scratching.
"Well, I guess we're going after her. Were the Villians on foot?"
"Yes. You'd better hurry.""Ha. Off to the stables, my friends."
"None of you have any money.""Strange, I had a few thousand just a minute ago..."
"Must've been robbed."More scratching.
"Right. Any pebbles around here?"
"What do you want a pebble for?""Don't tell me they're Cursed too."
"You find a pebble.""Great. I cast Spectral Force; I'll be maintaining it as long as possible. First order of business: I make the pebble look like a diamond."
"Uh.. Ok.""We step into a store to pick up supplies."
"You don't have any money.""Au contraire. I have a very expensive diamond here."
"You can't do that.""What, the merchant has a Rod of Detect Illusion?"
"As a matter of fact he does.""Probably worth more than his entire inventory. Yo, you with the sword, grease the freak."
"You can't do that. Get on with it.""Right. Well, I guess we set out on foot."
Track track track. Ambush! Orcs! Aieee! But since this is D&D we pick their lieutenants up by their ankles and beat the rest to death. "Save a few for questioning!" I cry.
The cleric breaks a few legs- without drawing blood, mind you- and we have prisoners. "So, dirty-lousy-rotten-stinking Orc maggots, tell us everything you know or we break your- er- or we set fire to your hair."
"He is unimpressed.""I grow six arms and slap him around a bit."
"He dies.""From a few friendly slaps?"
"He died of fear. A six-armed elf is scary.""Very well. Drop the arms. Next prisoner. So, dirty-lousy-ro-"
"He dies. That's your last prisoner.""We had six."
"The other four ran away."I don't remember much after this. The game never did reconvene.
(PS. A person in the mood to flame could say that this was a simple case of a fractious player. All such flames will be cheerfully ignored. I still have this DMs address if you want to give it a go. She never did get to use the Really Neat Dungeon she so carefully plotted out.)
Greetings, Hail, and Well met! In my introductory campaign, the following happened to me. As we were all new, we thought the DM knew what he was about, but since then, we are not so sure....
My character was an Assassin (this is all 1st ed.) by virtue of the fact that his two highest stats were 12 and 12, so anything else was pretty much out of the question.
Because he was such a wimp, I played him as mysteriously as I could, figuring the players imaginations would make me more formidable in their eyes than I could ever in reality be.
This worked, only too well.
To my surprise, on one fine day, the group's wizard approached me one day and said, "Next trip, I'll get enough XPs to make 5th level, and then I'm going to Fireball you." Hmmmmm. I'm but a wimpy 3rd level assassin. He could even beat me in hand to hand in all likelyhood.
What to do?
I approached the DM, asking if he would tell the group that I had gone on a solo adventure and gotten killed. If he would, I would use the assassin skill "disguise", and introduce and "new" character, and continue playing as usual.
And bide my time.
This happened in Jan of 1979. In May of that year, the wizard got killed when we were about five miles out of town. I offered to take him to the temple.
The party did not want to interrupt their adventure, so they agreed.
Halfway back to town, I carved the body into tiny pieces and fed the pieces to the littles fishes. Then I hid all of my valubles, broke my bow and several arrows, (softly) hit myself with a jagged rock for bruises and blood, and then feigned unconsciousness until the party should return.
They eventually came down the path after the successful adventure.
Finding me, they wanted to know what had happened. I explained to them how we had been ambushed by the assassins guild, who were taking the wizard because he had threatened the life of one of their members. They asked the player if in fact he had done that. He said he had, but that it was just my old character, and he was long dead anyway.
Heh heh heh.
So, the party was glad that at least I was alive, and they did not want to go up against the assassins guild. So we started to leave.
Who should happen to wander by, here in the wilderness, but a HIGH PRIEST who just happened to have DETECT LIE and TRUE SEEING up.
Oh brother.
He asked us how we were doing and what had happened. Various party members filled him in on the details. He then asked me point blank if I had killed the wizard. I told him the truth, no. He then announced to the party that I was not a fighter, as I claimed, but in fact an assassin, and he told them who.
Could've heard a pin drop.
They wanted to know why I did it. The wizard had already admitted to threatening me, so I told them that he was nearly twice my level, and if I had let him fireball me, I would be dead. A fighter would attack him in that situation, a wizard would throw spells, and assassin, well....
I also added that any wizard stupid enough to warn an assassin that he was going to kill him deserved to die.
That seemed reasonable, so they were going to let me go.
The DM announced that they all suddenly believed that if they did not punish me, they would be cursed by their respective gods.
Ooops.
So I offered a deal. My character, as you all know, (they did) walks with a limp. Give me halfway to the forest before you come after me. If I make it, the gods want me to live, if I don't, they want me to die. Everyone agreed.
Of course, the limp had been fake all along. They had no prayer of catching me once I had a halfway headstart.
The DM ruled that the thief with the belt of giant str could catch me just as I got to the wood.
He said to run for it, and he would tell everyone else that he had killed me in the woods.
The DM said that if the theif did not kill me he would be cursed big time.
The thief did. No hard feelings on my part. (He wasn't then, but now the thief is my real-life brother-in-law.)
After awhile the injustice of the DM's actions began to become more clear to me.
However, it was everybody's (except the DM's) first campaign, so no one got upset, except maybe the wizard. Since then, I've become "the DM" and I must say in fairness to the DM of that adventure, letting players kill each other detracts from everyone's fun, and it may be that he did not want to let me set a precedent for that kind of behavior.
The story does have a happy ending. One of the clerics was quested to find the Necronomicon, and had no luck in locating it. The theif pointed out that my dearly departed assassin knew where it was. One speak with dead later verified this, and one ressurection later I told them where it was.
I was DM'ing a game looong ago ('80 or '81) when I was in the military. Party consisted of 2 Elves, a Dwarf and 3 Humans. One of the Elves was, in real life, a military officer (Capt. I think).
Scenerio: Party asleep at a fire. Elf standing watch.
DM: (random encounter) O.K., elf you fall asleep while on duty.
Elf: No I don't, Elves don't sleep. Haven't you read Tolken?
DM: Tolken? What's that have to do with this? Oh, alright, while you are off taking a crap.
Elf: Nope, Elves don't go to the bathroom either.
DM: (rest of party laughing) WHAT? What do you do, explode when you reach 20???
After that one, he didn't come back to my place (he still came to the rec center for the general game though).
We still laugh about that one.
How about creative DMing?
We once had a group running T&T (it's been a while, OK?). Rich, the DM, had made up a set of dungeons for a different group of PC's. In one, they found a stone head of a gorgon. In a later one, they found a headless statue and if they were foolish enough to combine the two....
Anyway, we knew nothing of this at the time, but we were going through the second dungeon without having gone in the first. We enter a room and Rich tells everyone to make a 2nd level save on IQ. We all make it except for a particularly dense dwarf.
"Ok", he says, "everybody except the dwarf looks straight at the gorgon..."
"WHOA!" we all scream, "We MADE the save!"
"Let me finish! Everybody but the dwarf looks straight at the gorgon because it's just a statue of a gorgon and, in fact, doesn't even have a head."
Smug look on his face.
"Rich?" I said. "If it doesn't have a head, how do we know it's a gorgon?"
Two second pause.
"Because there's a sign at the bottom that says 'Gorgon'."
It's not strictly a player quote, but what the heck.
In our last GURPS session, one of us had a question about magical beasties; to wit, "Hey Todd, are there dragons in this world."
"Well, camels."
"Camels?"
"Yeah, they're kinda like dragons."
Yes, that was the GM suggesting dragons ~= camels. Hi, Todd!
Well, I agree somewhat. However, there are portions of a character that are not up to conscious control.
Player: Well, Joe runs after the villain.The way I see it is that the GM is also responsible for the portions of PCs that are not under conscious control.
For example- 'average' person (Joe) just broke his leg.
GM: He has a broken leg...
Player: It doesn't matter if it breaks more, he'll fix it later.
GM: That's not the point, it hurts like hell!
Player: Joe bears it and runs after the villain.
By some standards, the GM would allow Joe to run, with penalties to experience, damage, perhaps some modifiers. My solution is simple:
GM: Joe gets up, jogs onto his broken leg, and falls with a scream. He appears to have passed out.ie- Joe's ability to bear pain is not under control (if the character has been defined as unusually resistant, the amount of pain will vary)
GM: The man explodes in front of you, splattering you with warm liquid. You feel nauseous.Other examples:
Player: No I don't.
GM: Well, I meant your character.
Player: He doesn't feel nauseous either. He's seen horror movies.
GM: Has he ever been in combat?
Player: Well, no.
GM: Ever seen a dead body? Your character, that is?
Player: Uh, no. But he saw faces of death several times...
GM: Ok. The dead body doesn't nauseate him. The guts splattered on his shirt do.
On the other hand, I agree that unless mind control is involved, choices that are conscious should be allowed.
GM: She sidles up to you and massages your arm. You feel a bit turned on.Player: I ignore her and keep playing poker.
GM: Her movements are a bit distracting, but you continue.
or
GM: She sidles up to you and massages your arm. You feel a bit turned on.
Player: I wonder... I keep playing, but try to tell if she's signalling anyone. It's a common trick...
GM: Her eyes DO tend to look over at Ballsy Bart, a look that seems fairly like a signal, as he tends to glance at her when she does.
Player: Ah ha... I slap her butt and tell her to come back when I'm done...
Larry Smith:
>Actually, you hit the nail on the head above when you said "for fear of
I had a object lesson in this some years back.>spoiling the player's enjoyment of the game.". He is not the only player,
>and to my mind your sympathy should lie with the regular, amenable
>players.
One player - an on-again, off-again, not-very-good...well, really-bad...player ran a mage who fried a bunch of guard with a fireball in broad daylight - in a city where magic was totally forbiddden.
He was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to be burned at the stake at sundown that night (justice is swift in a world without lawyers). The other players didn't really like this player, since his stupidity was responsible for no end of problem for them, not to mention they only barely squeeked out of an illegal magic charge just for associating with the twerp.
Nevertheless they swung into action, weaving an elaborate plot - one mage contacts and empowers a mouse with intelligence, and sends it off to gather other mice, a fighter goes off to find out exactly where the mage was being held, and so on and so on...
To be perfectly frank, I admit I had no idea what their plan was, but they obviously did, I round-robined the free players and they always had some call ready for this plan, all if which required a whole bunch of people to converge on the null-magic area where the stake was.
Okay, I thought, they came up with a plan to free him while I was getting chips or something.
So I counted off the hours and responded to all these pieces and parts of the plan, while the imprisoned mage awaited his doom, obviously charged with excitement at all these preparations.
This went on and on until finally the appointed hour came, the mage, under magical constraints, was brought forth, tied to the stake with great ceremony, and stacked all around with inflammables, all the while asking the others "when are you going to save me? What's the plan?!"
Then the pile was lit - and the other player characters all whipped out drinks and marshmallows while a chorus of little mouse voices sang "Burn, burn, burn the magic-user, gently light the torch! Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, watch him burn and scorch!" and proceeded to have themselves a party as the mage burnt to death.
I was boggled.
Nevertheless, I couldn't hold it against them.
The mage's player _was_ a first class pain in the patoot with his cluelessness.
But this kind of backstabbing was pretty rare in my group.
There, a *stunned* stupid PC story all in one.
=)
Ken was once playing Basic Heroquest with Sasha, when Sasha was three. I was doing something else. They were doing fine until it became necessary to try and disarm a trap.
Sasha was worried. "I don't want to disarm a trap. I don't know how. You do it, Ken."
Ken: "I'm not there."
Sasha: "You said you were the GM. The GM can do it."
Ken: "The GM is just helping you tell the story, I'm not really there."
Sasha: bursts into tears "I'm all on my own in a dungeon! Waahh."
I had to go down and rescue him. The moral of the story is - the GM *should* join the party if there are under 5s among the players. :-)