Waste time gaming much? I bet you do…don't be shy, tell us all about it.
Not so much work, its this 'sleeping' thing that I have to do for about 6 hours every night that hits me on the gaming schedule. Nasty business that :P
The title says a lot. What was the worst Game your characters went on?
For Jimmy it was probably The Well. This was in the days of yore before write ups came online, so there isn't a written account. It led to a great deal of terrible fallout. Sam Adamas (Baker, Fauker) died by PISCES' hand and the rest of us were gifted with Enemy 5. It turns out that Jimmy's friend Romans died on the same Game, though it was run at a different time. So, two dead friends and a massive evil military group hunting you for ever. That was a bad one.
For Simon, tough call, but probably The Exhibit, where he was killed by a vampire (it semi-killed him so that it could posses and enslave him). He had a lot to come back from on that mission including beseeching a contact that is less than desirable (read: pure evil) and trying to oust a vampire soul from his body, not to mention finding out that one of his compatriots was a serial killer, and irking a Harbinger. Good times.
So, there are my shining moments, what were yours?
Hmm… that is a tough one, but I think I can pinpoint it. Zane, the Well was pretty bad, but I think the worst one was the one with the lake. Adams was a good friend to him, and to not only witness him driven to madness right in front of him, but to also witness his death at the hands of a creature that is indescribably horrifying? Yeah, that was a pretty bad one.
Harold, something of a tossup between the first and the second games. Probably the first one, where he actually became a plant monster (rather unpleasant transformation, that. Got two derangements from surviving it) Though the second one, where he nearly starved himself into his equivalent of a coma was also pretty bad.
The Demon of Catheway. Total failure on the mission, a ringer who started a fight and was brutally killed, a pre-Mythos caster in a scenario with two other PCs against six guys with shotguns…
Mission failed after a harrowing escape through the snow. No redeeming features.
Ackroyd has been pretty sheltered thus far, though.
For Dorian it would probably be the pregame when he lost his mansion and had to shoot his possessed butler in the eye. A hedonistic playboy billionaire just doesn't walk away from that kind of thing the same.
The most harrowing game for him was probably the game Ascenion, where he was singled out by The Clever Prince for a secret secondary objective and he had to save everyone's lives multiple times. He brought 5 people with him through several different dimensions, and used 6 months of stored tass and quintessence all in one night just trying to keep people alive. Then at the end of it he had to blood-bond his fellow gamer, Devin, to fulfill his secondary objective and got death threats because of it. The poor guy.
Well there are two or three pregames that have entirely changed Devin. One was when his old partner, current girlfriend, and senator of New York joined forces to put a sting operation on the master thief leaving him with 2 less dots of resources and out 1 contact.
Another pregame was going back to New York to find that his old partner and girlfriend had been murdered by his new mentor
Another where Devin found out he was the incubation chamber for a Shadow Dragon egg laid in him by his mentor. Oh, and if he dies, he will be forever tortured in the Shadowlands. Rough life.
The single most harrowing game for Devin was probably "I saw a black branch with blood that kept dripping" Where he was tattooed twice, stabbed a man in the chest with a golden quill and then in a hypnotized trance dragged the body of the man through the town and kept stabbing him with the quill scrawling runes of blood on the side of a large obsidian tree. Eventually he was knocked out of it because someone shot the quill. The whole time he thought the man was just a giant golden ink pot. He also met the brother of a man that he killed a few months ago. A very hard time for Devin.
For Mr. X, the most scarring is a balance between "The Monarchs," and "The Icecream Man."
For "The Monarchs," I won't say much about it, since hopefully at some point everyone will have to be faced with it. We'll just leave it that the mission was an utter failure, and he was the only one to escape.
"The Icecream Man," was probably X's third or so mission. He could do little more than pick locks and pockets at the time, and was completely gullible. The results were that he got captured by the monster and dragged off to face a fate worse than death. Only got out of it cuz Coralino came to the rescue, diced up the Icecream man, and saved his sorry ass.
In defferance to this event, the House Special at X-marks the spot is "The Coral Snake."
Wow. As I've posted before, "The Icecream man" was Jimmy's first mission. We lost one guy to the evil critter and almost lost another (Adamas was crippled) before Jimmy (who wasn't much more than a military cat with a death wish) became priority numero onu. He managed to dodge most of the attacks and soak a bit more. In the end he survived, but he never got a shot off until the monster was already dead (at which point he put two .45 caliber rounds in it's head and kicked it).
All in all, not his finest showing.
I'm amazed that your GM allowed you to live long enough to get rescued…
Yeah, I was saved by the fact that Mark was playing as the Icecream Man, and while he easily could have killed me outright, he chose to drag me off to the trunk of his car where he planned to make his escape, and then dismember me slowly. Coralino was dealing with a deathtrap of his own at the time, but upon escaping came hot on my trail, flew into a maniacle rage, and chopped the bastard to pieces. He reasonably far along at that point (6 or 7 games I think), and so had the means to deal with the situation. Noobs, as I learned, really don't stand a chance.
Oh yeah, and Ed ran it for us too. (though he may have made improvements once he got you you guys ;-)
Not a single game, but the first few games with Elliot Bratovich were pretty traumatizing. The games themselves were fine, but Elliot is a very sick man.
Well for Sissy, it would have been when she faced the spider aliens. When we returned to our bodies, everyone started attacking the aliens. Sissy jumped up and stabbed the psychic. Totally missing the guy with the machine gun standing next to her. Ouch. Thanks to her powers, her ancestors, X's ingenuity and luck of the dice, I didn't die.
For Rowan…it would have been the day Jake stabbed her in the heart. Nothing has been the same since.
For Jake, it was his 3rd game…after getting infected with the alien fungus, a harrowing test of wills, & a convenient botch, he avoided both sudden death & enslavement. Failed to avoid a tentacle growing out of his sternum, however. Later in the same game, completely mad & raving, he challenged the Scorpion God to a test of wills (a minor Great Old One), & emerged triumphant, yet forever after a dormant vessel for the sleeping god.
Runner up was a game that was in fact a veiled attempt for another Sorcerer to claim Jake's soul & power. Ended in a wizard's duel in a Savannah boneyard…narrowly won, & again, not without mutation, deformity, & derangement.
God, how many Vets and Seasoned characters exist simply because the dice were kind to them when it counted. There are several times that an unavoidable conflict should have killed Jimmy, but the dice were just lucky. Like that evil fucking Extended Willpower contest at the end of "A Little Thing".
And then there was the face off with Papa Swamp. Every character, repeat EVERY character was unconscious or dead besides Jimmy. Papa Swamp finally ran out of whatever Pool it was he used to power his magic and Jimmy was able to finally get in a clean shot. The only thing that saved him was that P. Swampy didn't have one or two more points in the tank.
When Ed says win or die, he isn't dicking around…
Or for that matter, how many didn't make it due to fate's cruelty.
When Raslow summoned that first hunting horror, he was binding the thing making a resisted willpower roll with ten dice againt it's four(after applying appropriate powers.) With ten dice, I rolled no less than FIVE one's, and was saved only by the fact that I'd just bought a fifth level power that let me burn a perminant willpower to buy five additional successes, and even then, I was only able to succeed by the willpower point I'd spent to buy a success.
Elsewise, it would have been curtains for the Professor.
It's hard enough to survive these Games when you make logical, intelligent decisions. The poor fools that treat this as D&D get squished.
Usually a great many times.
Still others die because they are too cautious.
The real difficulty is deciding when to raise and when to fold. After that it's just the luck of the cards…
Yeah, there's a balance to be struck there. I haven't managed to catch it yet, (obviously) but I'll get the hang of it sooner or later. Hopefully Harold won't go along the same lines as Zane and Vasili… Poor bastards.
One option is to be just slightly more cautious than others in the group, which makes you less likely to be a target but can put you in a position to take the risks you have to.
That's the Ackroyd theory, anyway. Works for a Mythos caster until you have to, you know, do ANYTHING related to the Mythos whatsoever. Wraith-wrangling and book-reading (and Horror-binding) don't offer much tolerance for failure, and this is just kiddy stuff compared to what a real Mythos caster might need to do.
Which plays into group dynamics. It's helpful to have someone a little more gung ho and willing to take risks (like Jimmy) and have them tempered by a voice of caution (like Ackroyd). Together a group can come up with more and better solutions than a single character on his own.
Kind of like Captain Planet, with more blood and tentacles.
Mark,
Jake's third game where he faced down the Scorpion God and won was truly the most horrifying and epic victory that I've ever witnessed. It left me in shock realizing the true depths of your resourcefulness. It made me, as a player realize how much more you can get out of anything at all, if only you apply enough ingenuity. It also left me feeling quite certain that Jake can never be defeated by a player character aside from himself.
Awww…yeah; Jake Brody always has been an over achiever. Funny that in spite of all the games, he just isn't that directly powerful. Very spread out. Still, that was by design: I'd hate to retire Brody like I did Bratovitch.
For Raslow, his worst was definitely this most recent side game.
Let it be known:
Odds of getting eaten by your Hunting Horror when summoning under fail-safe conditions: 87%
Yup, almost happened to Jake in a side game…vicious critters.
By the way, you guys. If you ever come around NC, or want to game over Skype or something. Throw someone over here a line. I'm itching to play with another cell. xD
I'm all for it. If we feel like trying to plan ahead, I'm gonna have some time off work in two weeks, so we could try to set something up then.
Don't do it! He'll sic PISCES on you, and then you'll never be rid of them! Although all of your games will become quite interesting from that point on… god help you.
Well… Yes, I probably will, But it will all be for the greater good, I promise you… I hope.
Though at some point, we need to get Gershaw, Templar, and X all togather for a game and have our band of theives and con-men. Nothing will be safe :-D
Awesome. I have a character who could use a few more enemies. Don't worry, I think he could take them. Truth be told, we're pretty okay with the idea of PISCES over here as far as I can tell. Like we've got a few seasoned characters who could hold their own.
Hawful has a game he wants to run apparently. We're open just about every afternoon except Tuesdays over here.
Heh heh, Sweet. Let's try and plan something then. The next two weeks are going to be crazy busy for me, but perhaps that Thursday, week after week after next (I think that works, right?)
Umm, who would you be playing? I thought X was Vet? And Devin is Seasoned. And, well, Templar is still Novice, if only barely.
I think that I may have to bow out of net Games, just because my laptop is awful and my schedule is suicidal (working four jobs right now).
Sad.
Four jobs??? Damn. Yeah, the band of theives is gonna have to wait a while anyway, till high seasoned at least (If our GM's willing to allow a little vet bleed over). For now, Raslow's got exactly ten games in him, and my novice just died, so that's who I'll be playing.
So how about Friday the 22?
I'm willing to go before that, but that's what seems like works for everyone. Everyone over here has a novice and a seasoned character they could play with. I'm sure Corey's got a couple of vets up his sleeve too.
Sounds like a plan to me. Let's staple it down more as the time approaches. Let me (and anyone else who want's to join in) know who's going to GM, once you know, and I'll (we'll) send character sheets to him… Unless he just wants to ride the wave of new powers as it comes :-D.
Oh, and if we were actually to steal the planet, I'm sure the Mi-Go might be interested in buying. ;-)
Since this is kind of a new thing for us, the more reasonably sized we can keep the first time, the better. We have four gamers who would probably be interested, and I don't think we should have more than seven gamers and one GM because that's already a lot. Also it would be infinitely easier if we have only two sides to the call, and that means two regions, so I guess Portland and NC? :D
The Mi-Go! Of course, they'd probably want to pay in metal cylinders, and you can only have so many brains lying around…
Hawke died? That's a damn shame. I really, really wanted to watch him take revenge on Verizon for charging him Data Access fees that he didn't acrue.
Fucking Verizon.
Whatever format you guys choose for this, try to leave a record of the Game for the rest of us to laugh at maniacally.
Yeah, Hawke's dead. Got his bones picked clean by a swarm of ants. His obituary should be up soon…. Though, his heart is still in a box, beating, so I suppose he is still alive on some level… Just not one he could possibly return from on his own. Who knows, maybe the hooker will get him resurected some day.
And yes, Verizon is the master of the "It's not stealing if you give us money you don't owe us just because we tell you to" ploy. Bastards.
Still, much as I hate to say it, I'm on T-mobile now and their service SUCKS. They are much cheaper, and don't screw you with the service charges, as much, but damn, some days I do miss Verizon.
It's a good thing Dr. Etherage pays for Mr. X's cell service, or there would be some serious trouble in the industry.
I'm also a Verizon ex-pat who has found refuge with T-mobile. And you're right, I hate my crappy phone and my crappy coverage, but I don't have my bill doubled or tripled on a whim anymore. That makes it worthwhile.
A master thief has a friend covering his cell bills. That's, well, either very appropriate or very sad.
Shame about Hawke. Are you planning another ass kicker (or attempted ass kicker) for your next Novice or are you planning on another sophisticate? They don't have to be mutually exclusive, though. You could take a cue from Professor Jones and Dirk Pitt.
Hey, sorry Mr. X rather obliterated our previous discussion. I think Friday the 22nd will work great for me, I'll round up a few players here, and we can go to town.
I probably won't have a new novice by then, but can start one if that's the level of game we want to play… I've got a few ideas bumping around. Otherwise, Professor Raslow and Mr. X are at your service.
And for the record, it is perfectly appropriate for a master theif to have a friend covering his cell bills. How can one expect to take advantage of one's enemies, if one is incapable of taking advantage of one's friends? (At least that what I'm going to keep telling myself.)
Any idea what time this game between NC and Portland is going down on friday? I'd like to be there, but I'll be driving back from the bay area that day, so I need to know when to leave to get back to NC in time.
So how about 5:00 PM. Hawful wants to run, says we can bring any level of character. Personally, I'll probably be bringing my novice, Carson Wiles. He could use some more scars. :D
Sounds good. I'll do my best to be there on time.
Well I guess this is happening in like a week! :D
You guys should add me on skype. Username: Shadytradesman. :3
Afraid not. Ever since Ed left the Portland cell has degenerated into a collection of drunks: we are way to rockstar to co-ordinate it sems.
Yeaaah…
On the bright side, the offer is open to Alabama now too. Just throw a PM over my way if you're interested.
So what is the most embarrassing moment. So far for me, botching a roll for trying to duct tape something.
For Harold, probably when he tried to literally shake off a hoard of roaches on him, and broke his illusion.
For Zane? Probably dying.
For Hawke, it wasn't dying so much as the heroic leap from a 25th floor window, and then failing entirely to catch himself.
Raslow's had a few, but his worst was probably in a fight with so demons. He lasted long enough to say "My isn't that interesting…" be for being knocked unconsious.
X's worst was probably gettin taken out by the 'Icecream Man.' *Dark shadowed room* Mr. X- "Hey, I can't see anything. You look that way, and I'll look this way." Icecream Man- "An excelent idea…" *CLANG*
I think for me, it was probably getting tricked into blowing up a grocery store and then getting arrested for it, receiving the derangement that I'm paranoid of cops.
For Jimmy, there have been a few like his first Game.
Baker laying on the ground bleeding with dozens of shells from his Thompson surrounding him: "Shoot him. He's the Icecream Man."
The Icecream Man: "I'm not the Icecream Man, he is."
Jimmy: "Wait, wait. Let's talk our way through thi-Oh-you-shot-me."
Of course there were plenty others. Like recently when the geeky academic lectured him on tactics and he deserved it. Freaking Ackroyd.
Simon. Huh. The problem with embarrassment is that you have to be able to feel some level of shame and Simon is nearly shameless.
Hey, Ackroyd's been reading Sun Tzu lately.
I think for Ackroyd, it was finding out from Jimmy after the Zane incident that Zane really did deserve to die, full stop.
Close runner up was his attempt at being "Jimmy-lite" with a shotgun and a .45 automatic. "Firing the shotgun:" botch, the gun explodes in his hands. "Firing the pistol:" lands several shots on the monster, which proceeds to return fire. Ackroyd is almost killed by the return shots, falls unconscious. Lesson learned. The Mythos caster is not the shooter.
Just John's most embarrassing moment will come when he's finally turned into a real zombie and discovers that he was only the drug-addled living kind previously.
What about your most epic moment?
First of all, I think all of these moment things should be separate threads. xD
For Dorian it might have been that time he saved Devin, Pulse, Geoffry, and Jacques Mime all at once by opening a rift between the dimensions so we could escape from that group of gargoyles.
Or it also could have been that time last game when he summoned, bound, and interrogated a demon. That required so many rolls it would blow your mind. Metaphysics, spirit lore, demon lore, enigmas, rituals, cosmology, occult, and high ritual I think. D: The epicness of that moment was slightly reduced when the demon decided that warning me about the fallen angel general sneaking up behind me wasn't in his best interests and I got OWNED by Nicodemus.
Thanks for saving Dorian later, btw.
For Carson it was probably that time that he decided to go hunting knife vs mech. It was especially ballsy considering that the mech and almost killed a high-seasoned character a moment ago, and Carson is just a little novice. :D Needless to say, he ended up failing to soak 11 health levels of damage and almost dieing. All the cool kids finish games incapacitated.
Ellis' was definitely in that last game with the Shroud of Turin.
For those not in the game, we got into a situation where we had about nine minutes to stop a train and kill the people on it before a ritual was performed that caused a plague on all of Chicago, if not the entire world. So we laid a bomb on the tracks and caused a crash. Some very powerful demons emerged from the train, pissed and ready to fight. My character, Ellis, dropped a rather large payload of C-4 at the feet of one of them, which we determined was enough to do about 200 dice of damage. We realized after he dropped the bomb that the resulting explosion would easily consume all of us as well. So Ellis spent his last point of willpower using a path called Mystic Fireworks to contain the entire explosion into a five-foot radius that surrounded the demon, dealing 101 points of damage to her (we rolled all 200 dice for that).
Also, I'm stoked to have ran the game that gave Carson his most epic moment.
Mr. X has actually had quite a few, but the one that tops them all was when he smashed the Grey Stubbins. Let the powers know that he'll play their games if they like, but he'll play by his own rules thank you very much.
That and the look on Mark's face.
For Raslow, probably the time he sicced a Hunting Horror on a spider alien hive. Damn arachnids.
Jimmy has had a few over his career, like when naked and armed with only a few javelins he charged a spider-alien tank.
And killed it.
Recently there was a nasty drag out fight in the sewers with a guy that had over a hundred temporary Willpower to throw around and could dodge bullets while standing still as well as sucking characters into other dimensions on a whim. When we finally kacked him (thank you Ackroyd) and his minions, a fresh horde of werewolf mutants came charging up on us from behind.
Jimmy stepped past the other characters, smiled, and turned the entire group into a fine red mist. It was beautiful.
Simon. Simon doesn't think of epic in the same way as others. For him epic was the time he (I) talked another character (player) into being possessed by a vampire's soul, which had been possessing Simon. And it was all roleplay.
No dice at all.
Hmm… Ackroyd's maybe got two that I can see: The end of the Well mission, where his two companions were both dead (one undead) and he was forced to rely on his weak people skills, native wit and temporarily deep pockets to finish the Game alone. Ended up paying British farmers to do some digging while he climbed into the well and did some explosive redesign.
Blowing Antonio's skull up would qualify, too.
Probably most epic should have been in the Bog, where he defeated three Wraiths in rapid succession, but the fourth was one too many and things went downhill from there.
Runner up for Ackroyd; Insylum, the dream-world where he was the decisive one and Jimmy was at a loss. The gold star set the tone for the game. Plus talking to the King in Yellow and surviving with his sanity and humanity intact probably counts as epic.
For Just John, I'd say the whole Percival's Mask mission, from falling several stories unharmed in mid-game to the endgame, where he intentionally jumped down two flights to beat the bad guy to the ground and then slashed and punched the shit out of him.
Brian vs the stone giants who were guarding the human faced fruit we retrieved for the Lord of Tokyo. Dodge the first one that tried punched him while he was climbing the cliff and ran up its arm while it tried to extract its fist from the cliff wall. Got the second one to punch the first one in the head, dodging again with a well-timed jump, and ran up its arm. Got the third one to tackle the second, and rode them down to the ground. I don't know if they were destroyed or not, but it gave everyone time to escape with the fruit.
As a GM (or Storyteller, Dungeon Master, HMFIC, etc.) what was the most unexpected thing that players have done in your Games.
For Percival's Mask it was the realization that I'd set up a Game where events were time released and the players wouldn't let the first day pass! They just kept doing things.
sigh
The most unexpected thing that happened in A Minor Detour was that I didn't have to explain anything to the players about how time distortion worked, how they had to find their own way back to the present, etc. However, no one could figure out that the small sharpened rod they were supplied with was a pencil.
Freaking players.
Haha. Pencils are hard, okay? My cell has lots of trouble doing day-to-day tasks when they're required in game. We have some great memories of two characters using time distortion, piggy-backing, and throwing wells of blackness around to get through customs in a regular airport.
It always surprises me how long it takes us to get stuff done. In one game I ran, the players spent about nine hours planning how to break into a single building. I wasn't expecting it to take quite that long. Another time it was a discussion about the morality of recruiting an army of bloodthirsty ghost pirates for an inter-dimensional war (I like to think that situation was a lot less farcical in-game than it sounds now, but I'm not so sure).
Last game I ran, the players were caught in every single trap I set up for them, and still managed to survive and beat the game somehow. It was nearly a full party wipe of high-seasoned characters, and they did end up getting five points of enemy in the end, though, so I guess that makes up for it.
Haha. Oh god customs. My favorite customs scenario was when our cyborg decided to fly coach and got held up by customs. The great part was that Quan Chi' decided to approach to say, and I quote, "Excuse me gentlemen, but he is with us."
Needless to say the rest of us had already slipped off to deal with the mission.
One of my first games was a modified version of an old CoC adventure, "Shadow Over Innsmouth". They weren't given much information, but they were told that they had to fix whatever was wrong with the town. However, the more seasoned characters were so involved with macho posturing at each other that they never left the hotel room to check out the town. The only one who did was pretty much a meathead, and so nearsighted he couldn't tell that the people looked a little funny. Somehow out of that I was the one that ended up with the reputation for running games that took way too long.
Actually over the years I've found I can predict bizarre twists. I once planned an entire scenario hinged on "knowing" 1 particular character would botch at a key moment. Call it GM's Intuition. A few moments though:
1) Tomas Night deciding to shoot up the toxic chemical plant while besieged by equally toxic mutant townsfolk. Suffice to say, the fumes so produced raised the bar quite a bit, & nearly got his ass stomped by Titania.
2) Samantha deciding to run directly into the cornfield at the opening scene in Sanctuary. A bad roll allowed her to escape merely wounded, alas.
3) Prof. Griff setting himself on fire to prevent capture by Vampires, proving the old adage, "They can't grab you if you're on fire."
4) Morgan leaping on the back of a flaming Gargoyle & proceeding to ride it directly into a canyon wall.
5) Lamia managing to conjure up a Fallen Angel, enthrall herself to it, & unleash it on the world in a game that contained none of these elements.
6) Winston knocking back a glass of the evil spiral algae on a dare.
7) Dr. Mengele throwing a cannister of "re-agent" gas into a recently massacred convention centre in Vegas.
8) Sparky being an enterprising smuggler, & deciding to capture several Xenomorph eggs, to be auctioned to monster collectors & mad scientists.
9) The infamous, near-fatal entrance of the short-lived Carl Hawke. The aftermath of the intro took longer than the game itself.
10) Top billing has to go to Mr. X on his 1st solo, smashing the Stubbins, voluntarily losing, & collecting several enemies in the process. The Stubbins was an artifact I had planned on introducing for years, & had intended to use it elsewhere…best laid plans, smashed to dust.
Oh, oh god that's beautiful. You just can't save characters from themselves.
In my highshool D&D group we had two players that died so often that we stopped agknowledging their names. Eventually there were only TCC and CCC.
Tony's Current Character and Chuck's Current Character.
Thankfully nothing like that has happened since.
;-)
Does anyone here play video games online?
I' sure a few people are on WOW and such. I do not, not because I wouldn't thoroughly enjoy them, but rather because I would too thoroughly enjoy them.
We must all know our weeknessess ;-)
Yeah I feel the same way. Never touched Wow for that reason.
Well a few of us over here play Halo Reach online and sometimes we partake in some diablo 2 or Guild Wars. Also I've got Starcraft 2 but I really haven't played it much. Was just wondering if anyone else on here played those games at all. :)
I used to play Diablo 2 over a lan. I mostly play Civ 3 and battlefield 1942 now and not over the net. No WOW for me. I would get sucked in and I have to pass school or several people on the forum would beat the crap out of me and then kill me. (maybe even bring me back a few time to kill me again)
That would be so awesome if we could start a Housegaming guild in Guild Wars.
Not sure if anyone in the world plays guild wars but us, Dlyan.
Too much fun not to share.
[http://www.atom.com/channel/channel_scariest_show/?v=scariest_show_lake]
Enjoy.
"The other type of STD"