So I'm running a game and have put an evil NPC assassin in the group as a weak girl they have to protect. Things go well for a couple sessions, and they embrace the role of being the character's protectors.

We work our way to the session where I'm going to reveal her as a villain. Turns out that my old D&D buddy from high school is visiting town. I invite him to join us with a one-off character. He agrees.

The first half of the session goes well. The reveal happens, my party is sufficiently taken aback, and start chasing her. I get ready for the climactic battle, which is going to be a rad battle involving necromancy and blood magic...

...until my friend turns into a rules lawyer. He starts questioning the reactions some NPCs have to the girl, starts questioning her ability to cast in certain situations (for instance, restrained with a hand clapped over her mouth), and summoning undead with no corpses anywhere nearby.

Essentially, he singlehandedly destroys the session. Looking back, I clearly didn't do anywhere near enough preparation, and I also should've stepped up and cocksmacked him for ruleslawyering in a campaign he normally doesn't even play in...

But at the time, all I could do is sit back and feel like shit because the big battle turned into one of the easiest encounters the party had had since we started.

my favorite gm trick was when he put us in a trap room where the ceiling was slowly lowering and both doors were locked. there were gears in the wall, but disabling them did nothing

the trick to the room was just to lay down and wait for the ceiling to lower to about 2 feet, stop, and then go back up

drove our rogue crazy when he finally disabled the gears and the ceiling kept going

Thats when you tell him to fuck off because it's MAGIC.

Thats how I always stumped some of my players: by throwing problems at them they can't solve by being rulelawyers and meta gamers.

>>12606307
>>12606320
I'm sorry dude. That just sucks and if I were one of your players I would have been upset by the whole mess. I've never DM'd before but I understand that it takes a lot of effort and sometimes the rules just stand in the way of making something an awesome experience.

>>12606353
>>12606348
Yeah, in reality I kept telling him to fuck off because I was the GM, but he caught me on a few things--I really couldn't justify necromancy in an area without dead creatures.

Now, if I was fast on my feet, I would've had her really quick kill a couple NPCs and then raise them. But by that point I was floundering, and just wanted the session to be over.

>>12606458
create undead and summon undead are two different spells... you can summon undead without and dead bodies nearby.... your rules lawyer is dumb....

>two archers on raised pedastals at the opposite end of a huge, empty room
>party rushes in
>runs face-first into elaborate maze made out of wall of force
>archers can easily shoot into the maze
FFFFFFFFFFFFF-

>ITT Stupid GM Tricked
FTFY

>>12606307
>>12606320
Honestly? You fucking deserved it.

First off
>evil NPC assassin weak girl
is a completely and utterly fucking retarded concept
>restrained with a hand clapped over her mouth
Yeah, it's called verbal and somatic components. If you just shit on them you shit on the fundamental rules of the game and shit balance all over the place.

Honestly, there's nothing I hate more than a stupid GM designing his "awesome BBEG battle" according to some strict fucking timetable and then gets all butthurt if the players actually do something about it.

Yeah, the players are totally just gonna make their characters just stand there, jaws adrop while your SO AWESUM BBEG hold his awesome speech and/or unveils his "smart" plans instead of actually doing something about it.

Fuck. You.

>>12606458
People underestimate the rigors we go through to entertain them for a night. They don't understand the trouble and stress we encounter when catering to them. And at that point, they'll become greedy. Ignorant. Cocky. These people are likely your friends, but suddenly they think that this game is some form of intellectual war: you versus them, there must be a winner and a loser.

And at that point, you need to think to yourself: what am I going to do? No one likes a problem player, even if they are a good pal of yours. I recommend telling everyone at the table, just for the sake of informing them, that being a Dungeon Master takes a lot of knowledge of the rules, knowledge of tropes and cliches that add flavor (sometimes for the sake of comedic effect), and general creativity. And sometimes, you need to "forget" the former in favor of the latter.

And if they don't like that, they can pack up their shit and get the fuck out of your group because they're obviously an ungrateful little shit.

>>12606345
That's one of the most stupid traps I've ever heard about. It doesn't kill anyone and obviously doesn't protect anything from anything. No one would use this trap anywhere other than perhaps in a carnival. So unless you were in some sort of convoluted carnival, that shit is retarded.

>>12606536

>Post stupid things you've seen done
For one, OP picture is pretty fucking retarded. No, wait, of course all women in fantasy land are hookers. What am I thinking.

>>12606536
Still Spell and Silent Spell Feats.

>>12606561
it was more about the panick setting in

i mean, everyone assumed there was a way for us to disable it and we just weren't rolling well enough to find it or accomplish it

it was a pretty great encounter, really

>>12606572

>>12606228

First I thought the mage was hiding because she was afraid of the dragons.

Then I realized it was because she had a wardrobe malfunction and her tits were hanging out.

I don't know how to feel about that.

>>12606606
And none of you thought it immersion-breaking that the trap was fucking stupid and no one in their right mind would use that trap anywhere because it serves no purpose to them?

Is it just me that things have to make sense to?

>>12606572

cantthinkofanythingsmarttosaysoillcallhimmad.jpeg

>>12606601
Choose one. You can't have both on a single casting.

>>12606627
maybe the trap was for shits and giggles. maybe the creator of the dungeon wishes to toy with random adventurers that wander into his domain.

>>12606609

Get out... your kind aren't welcome here

>>12606627
Actually, it might work if they have the door that you entered the room in unlocked. Really convenient, actually. If you know how to get through it won't stop you, but if you panic and leave, the next door doesn't open, so you're doomed to never get passes.

>>12606644
Now this is an reaction image I actually want.

>>12606627
the place we were going housed some magic item that everyone wanted. this was the last room, I think, before the end.

according to the gm it was there to trick high-level spellcasters into teleporting to safety

if everything has to make sense for you to have fun, maybe you shouldn't play dnd bro

Heres one I did for my party back in the day:
Going through a boss-per-room dungeon (I was lazy, didn't have anything better prepared). One of the bosses was an old mage. As soon as they tried to cross his room, a giant chess set appeared. Cue cliche as fuck chess game with players as pieces.

Well, being the chess nerd that I am, I easily trounced them. Then I said "That was fun" and was cut off before telling them that they were now free to pass, having entertained the old man. They said "I want another try!" I gave it to them. Six more times. Eventually, they let me finish and say they could move on, but this was about 4 hours later (the games took FOREVER).


On a brighter note, by that time the session was over, and from then on I set aside time to write for that party.

>>12606611
>implying you would give a shit about a wardrobe malfunction in combat
>implying there's anything other than females around
Not bashing on you Anon, but god fucking shit I hate everything about that picture and everything it stands for

>>12606627
I did but I didn't want to post just to say so.

Let's see, stupid shit I do while dming. I railroad by telling the party they did the logical thing in a situation. Not a big deal but they had a hole to go down and I had them roll out their set up for the rope lowering instead of asking them what they'd like to do. Unintentional but still railroading.

Put people in morally ambiguous situations that reflect past objections because it fucks them in combat. Someone got a moral BSoD in a fight because they put together that even though they were fighting the same battle they originally set out for, they could no longer protest because the fight was already doing. They could have easily dispatched the last enemy. Instead, fighter goes in, crit fails and gets himself killed.

>>12606664
>maybe you shouldn't play dnd bro
Good thing I don't then. I'll leave high-fantasy combat simulators for simpler folks. Myself I am cursed with having standards, and must play systems that also actually incorporate roleplaying.

OFF TOPIC: IGNORE IF YOU'LL GET BUTTHURT!

So, I looked closer at that picture cause fanservice is cool, when I noticed that all three were scantily clad females, one a 2-handed weapon wielding warrior, one a dual-dagger using scout, and one sorceress with a glowing staff.
All with MASSIVE amounts of not-clothed/leaves nothing to the imagination.

Is that picture of Fantasy Earth Zero, but with more sensibly dressed females?

>>12606228
Is this picture based or something? Game, setting, etc? Or just random fanservice picture?

Straight-line stolen from...I think it might have been an old Dungeon Magazine. Worked perfectly.

As the players enter the room, there appears to be only one exit - a locked and very solid door. To the left and the right of the door are 25 levers each numbered 1-50. In the middle of the room is a humming metal rod that makes one's hair stand on end if they get too close.

Whenever any lever is pulled, the rod sparks out static electricity, an automatic hit for 1 point of damage to whoever pulled the lever.

The door is entirely fake, it's actually just a wall, a dead end.

Here is one I did for my party that they will never forget:

They were in a giant maze, and were near the home stretch. They could literally see the exit. But they couldn't reach it. They were stuck in a 30 ft loop 50 feet from the exit.


They spent a good 3 hours trying to figure out a way to get by, trying every trick in the book, while their 'guide' (an imp) just kept walking forward, saying 'Walkin walkin walkin walkin' over and over again. I constantly repeated this (just loud enough to be heard but not too loud so that it was anything more than annoying) as they were planning out their actions.


Eventually they asked the imp to shut up. He did. The loop shut off, they walked right to the exit. And promptly raged.

>>12606653

Your kind aren't welcome here. The rules are the rules for a reason, any lines in core books about GMs having the final say are pandering and telling the purchaser of the product what they want to hear because they will do it anyway. Undermining the laws that govern the game world without prior notices about changes (so anything done on the fly) for any reason invalidates the entire process.

>>12606709
>>12606710
pretty sure it's from fantasy earth zero, the blue crystal is in the background and the tower looks like an archer tower with all the arrows on the ground

Feel free to call it stupid, but I don't necessarily feel it's my job to hold the players' hands. ---> it seems with the recent invention of the internets, I see the same character's get churned out whenever they roll in some bastardized attempt to plan what they'll be doing for the next 20 levels ahead of time ---> you get a lot of that "don't take tracking cause GM will railroad us to destination herp de durp"

I plan my campaigns in advance with numerous paths and deadends for the party. an npc might warn them that there's a time limit for a certain quest, and then I'll explain to them their destination can be reached by one of three ways... if their characters don't have knowledge of the area, or don't bother to ask there's a 1 in 3 chance the route is going to take them far outside the the designated time frame

in short, I want them to use the most of the availible abilities to finish a campaign... not just trying to maximize a character's combat abilities

>>12606711
haha oh fuck

>>12606728

Yeah. Didn't notice it was an arrow tower, and I just saw the Obelisk in the background.
It's definately FEZ.

>>12606718
>>12606517
To all DMs. Mazes are NOT fun. Please, stop using them.

Once, I was called by a friend to DM a scenario for their group. I had no prior experience with this group : it just happened that their DM was tired and wanted to be a player for once, so they asked me if I could master at least once. So this story isn't really about how the actual DM fucked up, but about how the usual DM that decided to be a player fucked up.

See, he wouldn't relinquish his DM rights. My first impression of him was that he was a pretty god awful DM that railroaded the fuck out of his players, and my experience with him pretty much confirmed that. When I asked to take a look at his character sheath, he responded "No, there are informations on there i don't want you to see". I was taken aback. A player that refuses to show his character to the DM ? A player that hides facts about his character to me ? Upon further questioning, it appeared that the character he was playing was actually the DMPC he forced on his campaign with those guys, some very powerful wizard or some shit, retarded Elminster-lookalike stuff. I'm like what the hell, this is awful.

I could've forced him to show his character to me. But I decided not to - this is not your group, I thought, and that guy is their DM. If you try to be confrontational with him, he'll be confrontational with you during the game, and ruin it for everyone else. And worst of all, they'll fault you and not him. So don't. You're better than that, you're smarter than him. You can deal with this indirectly.

So I just let it go, let him have his shitty secrets, and start the adventure off with some random little non combat encounters, to see how the party works, the dynamics between characters, and so on. It's pretty clear after an hour that the once-DM is clearly trying to munch the stage and take all the spotlight, trying to resolve every encounter by showing off his character's apparently unlimited range of skills. It's important to note that the group was composed of six players. That guy was litterally trying to get more sco do screentime than the five others combined, and I couldn't get the others to rise up against that. I tried to subtly get them to do something by adressing them directly during the game, but apparently they couldn't angle this egomaniac and just backed down whenever he spoke.

So by this point I am very bored, and tell myself I might as well just try a TPK or something, seemed like a good idea to end this trainwreck this way. So I bust out the only combat encounter I had prepared for this adventure : a rival group of class-based characters, slightly mirroring the player's party composition. I usually do that for very heavy encounters,when I want the characters to feel challenged and so there's something for everyone. The old DM, though, didn't understand that pretty much everyone had a designated antagonist in this encounter and predictably tried to hijack this into his own personal big reveal. What he did then, I shit you not, I still have problems believing it to this day.

>>12606773
I hope there's more of that.

>>12606733
Noble intentions, but that sounds like a fuckton of work to be prepped for.

>>12606767
The 'walkin' guy here

It wasn't really a maze in any real respects. It was just a bunch of silly tricks and traps set up, and the way out was just forward. Straight. There were tons of dead ends to either side, though.

And, most importantly, my players had a blast, despite all the trolling.

>>12606767
I'll shamefully admit to making stupid as fuck, impossible to map mazes filled with acidic blobs and shit- think a three dimensional series of pointless loopdeloops that filled an entire 8x11 piece of paper

Eventually my players said ENOUGH, and that was that

we were 12

>>12606787
Pic related.

One I did. Chalice of Immortality. It was kept in a dark room flooded with zombies. The zombies had regenerate and could return to normal five or so turns after being killed. All of that was not an intentional dick move, but foreshadowing. Anyone who drank from the chalice died instantly, only to return as an unkillable zombie.

I like to throw curveballs regarding what I think the players' are going to expect. It becomes fun when they become incredibly paranoid that a perfectly normal room has some twisted trap lying in wait. Most of my rooms are pretty normal.

>>12606710
>>12606709

protip: sage is for posting an off topic reply to a thread, since it allows you to make a post without bumping it.

>>12606805
I suppose its alright if you populate it with something instead of being "Woah! It's a maze guys! How ya gonna get through it?" and have painfully long and boring process of trudging through a fighting a gelatinous cube.

>>12606832
Saging this thread is for cunts. I'm eagerly awaiting hearing more from >>12606787

>>12606832

Dammit, man! I told you to ignore if you'd get butthurt.
Also, not everyone likes to type "Polite sage for not being on topic." Plus, then you didn't bump the thread, and are less likely to have your question/comment responded to.

>>12606793
it is, but I'm not above reusing some of the same areas in future gaming sessions... almost like handing everyone playing a free point to knowledge:local

>>12606856
F5F5F5F5F5F5F5F5F5F5F5F5F5

>>12606856
so am I. Dammit, I was gonna go to bed too

>>12606787

He basically starts going on a LONG description of how his character suddendly starts to rise up, grow larger and grow wings, and how a halo of celestial light starts hovering around him. The dude was a fucking ANGEL. Just not any kind of angel, either - some kind of high class seraph I don't give a shit about, but basically : an archmage (broken enough as it is) that, when shit gets real, reveal that he's actually a being of celestial might that's also capable of melee combat with some kind of giant spear of light, and knows healing magic.

AND I WAS APPARENTLY THE ONLY ONE THAT THOUGHT THIS WAS RETARDED.

I shit you not when I say that some in the group actually thought this was climatic and cool, and didn't feel the least bit alienated.

At this point I just don't care anymore, this is obviously going to shit and this group is awful, so I just bust out the big guns because I'm not doing this anymore.

See, in this antagonistic party I had prepared, there was also an ennemy suited for his character. Keep in mind at the time of making the NPC, I knew nothing of his character because I COULDNT READ HIS FUCKING STATS, so I just designed it as a small little shapeshifter that turns into a complete reflection of the person he fights. It was basically a small incarnation of the concept of Doom, that walked the earth only to kill vainglorious creatures and consume them into nothingness, making them retroactively disappear from existence once he has eaten them. I thought the concept was pretty cool at the time and I had actually written a fair bit of backstory for it, but at this point I just realized "Holy fucking shit, I had no idea how fitting this motherfucker is".

So basically, in game, I break it down to him that suddendly he's fighting a perfect reflection of himself, and god he wasn't pleased.

>>12606827
>Chalice of Immortality. It was kept in a dark room flooded with zombies. The zombies had regenerate and could return to normal five or so turns after being killed. All of that was not an intentional dick move, but foreshadowing. Anyone who drank from the chalice died instantly, only to return as an unkillable zombie.

do want

>>12606855
Nah, it was the first part of the campaign that I wasn't hold their hands, and it was pretty much a playground for them to try out multiple paths, finding their own way, having THEM drive their own adventure (giving them no shortage of options, of course), metaphorically AND literally.

>>12606856
>implying sage does anything
Yeah you're a stupid motherfucker

I once rolled in a party playing as a half-orc Barbarian/Cleric and the rest of my party was gnomes. Needless to say, this created for a fun and hilarious campaign. Well, at some point the rest of the party decided it would be fun to pull tricks on me. They stole things from people and planted them on me. Now, my DM decided to pull the racist card and made the townsfolk decry me as a typical pillaging orc taking whatever I want. Now, my guy was a pretty good fellow, but the way I had made him his BIGGEST peeve was people begrudging his Orc heritage, which he was very proud of. And being a man of virtue he was not happy about being accused of stealing things he definitely did not steal. So, one thing led to another and one of the locals threw a punch at me. I ended up in a fight with a town guard. I knew it was stupid, but it was in-character and I wasn't about to give up one of my character's most defining traits. So what does my party do? They sit back and laugh and laugh as I get my ass handed to me when more guards show up and carted me off to prison. And then the DM leaves me in prison for the rest of the session...

And really, there was nothing else my character could have done in that situation. It was the kind of guy he was and the DM knew it...

>>12606882
>It was basically a small incarnation of the concept of Doom

Hijacking this for whenever I need it. That is fantastically awesome

>>12606767
To braindead players who complain about mazes:

There's usually a gimmick.

The best one I've ever heard was that there's literally no way out from within the maze, but the 20-foot-high ceiling is just an illusion, and you climb up and out from absolutely anywhere inside.

>>12606891
Stop this senseless madness! Just sit and wait for the end of this particularly riveting tale.
>>12606773
>>12606787
>>12606882

>>12606882
I DON'T KNOW IF I SHOULD LAUGH, CRY OR RAGE.

I AM SERIOUSLY STUMPED GUYS WHAT DO I TYPE.

>>12606891
Sorry, son, it looks like your vagina's bleeding. Need me to fetch you a mop?

>>12606882
I'll never truly understand those types of people. Sorry dude.

>>12606882
it makes me rage most that his party was completely okay with this. I mean, whatever floats your boat, I guess, but they must have been so desensitized to him hogging the spotlight...

>>12606882
So, kinda like Gandalf, only even moar redonkulous?

>>12606882

So the fight rages on, and ultimately I manage to gain the upper hand with a little bit of team synergy. Basically, the guys apparently weren't used to the DMPC not being there to save their asses, and had little coordination, expecting him to fill A LOT of roles at the same time. The battle escalates in a high-fantasy fireworks contest between the two magic angels, untill an arrow from the werewolf ranger archer (don't ask, it seemed like a good idea at the time) turns the tide in the favor of the incarnation of Doom, and he manages to strike a winning blow.

Funny thing is, after that, the rest of the PC party managed to win the encounter because the little Doom guy couldn't really turn into any of them, as they were litterally too weak for him. So they manage to kill him and his party, and mourn the death of the DMPC adequately.

I don't know what happened afterwards, if they retconned the whole thing or if the DM just pulled a random resurection of his character out of his ass, or took it like a man - and I frankly didn't care. The group never called me back for another session - SURPRISINGLY.

All in all this was a shitty experience, but dammit - it felt pretty good ruining his fun like that.

>>12606919
YES. ALL OF THOSE.

>>12606954
I'd be your player. Must have been fun slapping that dudes shit.

>>12606954
you are my new hero

>>12606882

>>12606320
Here is what you do for next time a rules lawyer speaks. Buy a copy of XDM. Pages 68-70 hold the answers to dealing with terrorist rules lawyers. Consider the following 3 solutions.
The Jack Bauer - Rules Lawyers are game terrorist, do to them what Jack does. Kill the prick (well his character)
The austrailian - take their character sheet and make them play it from memory. Punish the character only if the player gets a fact wrong.
The always another rule approach - bluff and say there is a new errata, update, web posting ect. That shuts them up.

>>12606954
GM brofist.

You are a scholar and a gentleman and you did the right thing.

>>12607010
I like this.

>>12607010
Are you fucking stupid? The GM doesn't need to do any of that. It's called DM fiat and is completely legit.

>>12606901
I hate that shit.. Racism always hoses my half-orc characters. I think DMs have some sort of vendetta against them.

>horrible, baby eating monstrosity sitting in one spot in the center of a city
>the city seems to be charmed by it and worships it
>children willingly walk into its mouth
>players horrified, shank it from behind, Coup de Grace
>suddenly, the sky turns red and demons everywhere
>the entity was a flesh construct that was blocking an open portal to the Abyss with its own soul, sustained by the sacrifice of the children
>the city understood
>the party caused the whole city to be dragged into the worst depths of the Abyss
>nobody caught the reference

>>12607039
But then how will he viral for his shitty sourcebook?

>>12607062
What is that a reference of?

>>12607062
What IS the reference?

One time, I was running an All Flesh Must Be Eaten campaign at my local college for the gaming club. It was a Come one come all game, with anyone able to sit down and play for as little or as long as they wanted, since people had to come and go for classes. The stipulation was that you had to make a Norm, and it had to be based on yourself, and if you got killed, you were out. It cycled through about 25 players over the course of the semester, with the finale being the whole mega-group managing to fuel and supply a coast guard cutter and getting the fuck out of dodge (4 players were in the Coast guard IRL, explaining where they got the basic knowledge).

Anywhoo, there was another group in that club that ran first Vampire exclusively, then as soon as it came out, switched to Exalted. These people were the worst examples of the White Wolf syndrome you could imagine; it was all about making super sparkly awesome characters that they could live vicariously through, to escape their own drab little lives. Normally, I am very live and let live; these people can have their fun and I won't interfere, and I expect the same respect to be reciprocated. I expected some trouble from them because lets face it, AFMBE is about as far from Exalted as you can get. You don't have super powers, everything can kill you in one hit, you NEED to keep track of things like food and water, zombies are hard to kill, and there's no such thing as magical healing unless you are running some very specific settings.

We weren't running any of those settings. I was running it in Hardcore mode; this was full on post apocalyptic zombie survival in a gritty, sandbox version of the city we live in. Nobody was special, nobody got powers, nobody got any gear they couldn't prove they owned, nobody got firearm skills unless they could bring in a gun licence or a receipt from a gun-range for membership dues. That sort of thing.

To be cont....

I was invited to a campaign starting at level 1 by some weird guy from work. I intimidated some random fuck oldguy when we were lost in some forest. HO SHIT, randomfuckoldguy was an epic dragon mage! Whatever, I went to party with some friends.

>>12607083
>>12607090
>creature of flesh blocking the abyss with its own soul, fed children by a willing populace

>Immortal God-Emperor of Mankind blocking a portal into the daemon-infested webway with his own soul, fed psykers by a willing populace

Goddamn /tg/, I thought you were better than this.

>>12607141
he's not... you don't....

Goddamnit.

Player in a Supervillian campaign
GM gives us our first Hero to stop our crimes.
Attempts to kill everyone, and runs the hero very unheroic
we beat him losing one playercharacter
then he brings in a violent Justice Legue
Total Party Kill
:|

>>12607141
I'm so ashamed.

>>12607141
No thats not...

Ok vaguely, psykers are more kicking and screaming as they go in

I recently started playing D&D 3.5, first time ever playing a tabletop RPG. Since all the other PCs are complete novices too, the DM's been gearing the campaign so far toward just teaching us basic lessons about smart gameplay.
To teach us to make Spot checks, he decided to put five dire rats on the ceiling of an abandoned mine and have them drop down on us as we walked through the room. We knew they were in the room somewhere (rogue had heard them when scouting ahead, but didn't see anything because we figured he'd be better able to scout unnoticed without a light), but we figured they were by the back wall, which was out of range of our light. His reasoning for having the rats on the ceiling was that they have a listed Climb speed in the Monster Manual.
Then on top of that, he decided to arbitrarily speed up the incubation time for the filth fever our druid and barbarian contracted from the rats. The barbarian is possibly justifiable, given that he got infected three times during the course of the fight (which still doesn't make sense to us) then dropped to 0 HP, so one could consider the added strain to his system as having accelerated the onset of symptoms. The druid, on the other hand, had no such exacerbating circumstances, but still showed symptoms in a matter of hours, rather than the 1d3 days that's listed as the incubation time for filth fever.

>>12607141
To be fair, it was reminding me of Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas".

>>12607090
>>12607083
Dostoyevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov"
It's a reference to the "scapegoat" paradox.
If you could be the architect of a perfect utopia but it was founded upon the suffering of a child, would you consent to build it?

>>12607141
Get your fluff straight. The psykers mostly are inducted to the Astra telepathicaot become battle psykers. And the Empy is dead or has his soul divided playing chess with Tzeentch.

If the Demon had been on a golden throne, I might have gotten it, as it is there are far too many baby eating demons out there, willing or no.

>>12607103
MORE DAM IT

>>12607141
The psykers sure as fuck don't go in willingly, and the daemongate he guards is a product of his own stupidity and greed.

Should have had it be a lighthouse.

>>12607184
>>12607185
Gotta say, I went with those two as opposed to
>>12607141
Didn't see Emprah in that one at all

>>12606718
> mybrainisfulloffuck.jpg

How the fuck did that puzzle work?

>>12607184
Omelas was based on the "scapegoat" myth.
>>12607185

>>12607185
>perfect utopia
>requires the suffering of a person

The second condition nulls the first.

>>12607220
I know, but Omelas is one of my favorite short stories, so I kinda just jump to that when a scapegoat situation crops up.

>>12606718
SERIOUSLY, TELL ME HOW THE FUCK THAT MAKES ANY SENSE!

>>12607216
The Imp was the old familiar of the illusionist/mage who made the maze in the first place. It was built specifically to entertain the (immortal) Imp when said Illusionist left (he was a big part of the campaign, don't ask). Every trap, pitfall, wall in the maze was controlled by the Imp. He had had his fun, and some hapless NPCs had just entered into the other end for him to 'attend' to.

I gave the players numerous hints that their 'guide' was the one making life difficult for them, but they just didn't pick up on them.

>>12607271
>>12607216

Probably the imp being an asshole, and using some weird magic so that when he says "walking walking walking", people are trapped in the loop.

i find it pretty funny.

>>12606345
this is a nice trap, small groups are unharmed but large groups are squished.

>>12607103

Now, in setting, we were roughly three weeks after the initial outbreak. Last news reports before power went out and the TV station was overwhelmed was that simultaneous outbreaks had occured in 26 American cities and 14 European cities, and that it was believed to be bio-terrorism. Government announcements told everyone to lock their doors, keep noise to a minimum, and not to get in the way.

The first argument came from a girl I'll refer to has Depressed Goth; we'll refer to her in this way since that's what she was. Severe mental fuckup + White Wolf games + Predatory boyfriend who was good at manipulating her.

Now, Depressed Goth tended towards super raged up melee characters in the Exalted game, as I was given to understand it from my limited observations. She tried to convince me that she should have strength 4 and start with a Fireaxe. I pointed out that Strength 4, under AFMBE rules, is equal in strength to a professional football player or wrestler in peak physical condition; the ability to easily bench 600-700 pounds. But she had to have it, she said, otherwise her build didn't work right. I politely pointed out that this wasn't a game you should be making builds for, you were supposed to make a character based on yourself. This argument went back and forth for a while, and eventually she consented to make her character Strength 2. This was me being generous, incidentally. 2 is average levels of physical fitness, and this girl wasn't fit. She wasn't fat, but she couldn't open a pick jar if her life depended upon it.

I also pointed out, to be polite, that using an edged melee weapon would splatter blood absolutely fucking everywhere, and the zombie virus was known to be blood borne.

She assured me this would be fine, she could dodge it.

This led into argument two:

>>12607271

The imp was casting, jackass. Now be quiet.

>>12607271
>>12607216
Obviously the Imp's voice was the trigger to some sort of spell that looped the party's path over and over again.

>>12607185
No and I'd fight to my last breath to bring down such a "utopia."

>>12607299

Dodge, in that system, is the ability to have nearly supernatural levels of gymnastic prowess in order to basically get out of being hit; you don't get it unless you are someone that can pull some ridiculous agility. I suggested that, if she wanted to prove she could dodge things, she go stand out on the quad and let one of her friends wing a tennis ball at her, if she could actually get out of the way, she could have the skill.

Boyfriend got involved at this point. It went down hill. Long and the short of it was, I got told that if I didn't let her have SOME combat ability, their group wouldn't join the game. Since it was a club game, and the BF was an officer in the club, this could spell trouble. I had used club funds for public munchies, since it seemed like a good idea. If he pulled the plug, I could owe around a hundred and thirty bucks to the club.

Alright, fine. Its not worth 130 dollars to me to have her not be able to pull super-human dodges.

In the end, that dodge didn't help her anyway.

(typing this from memory, apologies about time delay)

>>12607062
>That's just exceptionally stupid.

>>12607314
>didn't catch the reference and is all rearsore about it

Of course it's a little vague and some details are different. It's a reference, not a copy.

>>12607299

>>She assured me this would be fine, she could dodge it.

HAHAHA

>>12607299

this is equally hilarious and painful. Cannot wait for more.

>>12607312
In all fairness, you seemed to be putting too much emphasis on realism in a game that is based on pretend.

>>12607363

Dude, that was the concept of the game : play yourself in an apocalyptic setting. He explained it. Everyone else played by the rules.

If he let some random girl be combat-efficient when she really wasn't it would break immersion for everyone else.

>>12607312

Everyone in their little group has made characters; predictably, they are all playing extra gothy versions of themselves that are at best poor representations and at worst, as close to sues as they could manage.

Now, they decided to move as a compartmentalized crew; that is to say they formed a little party to scavenge for shit on their own, only telling the other players what they were doing when it was convienent. The dark loners had to be dark and... loners, I guess. As a group. Whatever.

This led to them finding a the scene of a major National Guard engagement against the zombie hordes. Bodies are strewn everywhere; several hundred zombies are down, about 20 national guardsmen are dead. They found this alone, and they decided not to let the rest of the players know. They wanted to keep the weapons for themselves, in case quote "Things go bad."

At no point, up to this point in the game, had any player done anything against any other player. This was a fully co-operative game. Everyone wanted to live, and the only way to do that was to act together.

It is at this point that I will point out that none of them, not a one, had any ability to use firearms whatsoever.

>>12607363

I dunno, I like that every once in a while. Playing the realistic character in a world where nothing else makes sense and the odds of survival are zilch? It can be fun.

>>12607312
bumping to hear more

In one of my first D&D games some six years ago, my party and I contracted a Marut to hunt down a lich...

...bonus points to anyone who knows what a Marut is.

>>12607387
Sounds like what would happen in real life.

>>12607387
>horde firearms that they cannot use.
fucking rage

>>12607425
Why? This is the best idea and in no way, shape, or form could ever go wrong ever

I understand how you wanna be realistic and what not but saying the character is you and you have shitty stats makes people feel shitty about themselves. Overall you're better off with reflections of self and normalcy instead of this is you and you suck.

>>12607404

I DO, BUT I'M BURIED IN FOOTNOTES.

>>12607387
>Hording [resource] they can't use.

Is this like, a common thing with White Wolf players? Half the ones I knew did this too.

>>12607443
You gotta draw the fucking line though. Professional wrestler?

>>12607443

Your rights to post are hereby revoked. Shut the fuck up you stupid little man.

The worst thing to happen to me was intelligent weapons.
Fuck them.

>>12607387

Now, I know what you are thinking. "This is clearly going to end in someone killing themselves with an automatic weapon". Ah-ha, not so. Not so.

They've gathered up their little stockpile of weapons by this point when they realize the sun is going down. Being out at night is a Bad Idea; zombies are attracted to light, and a city with no power whatsoever is flippin dark.

So, they fortify themselves in a nearby bank on the idea that security glass will be able to keep out roamers, and the door to the drive-through area is a security door they can block. In the process of this fortification, a zombie randomly shows up. Boyfriend attempts to level a national guard issue 9mm handgun at one. Click; nothing happens. Its beginning to rush him.

The 9mm was jammed; the jam is what killed the national guardsman who'd been carrying it. Misfire at point blank. Things are looking pretty bleak, he gets about halfway through "I throw the gun at its head and run" when Depressed Goth chimes in:

"I charge in and hit it with my fireaxe!"

>>12607451

In a one-shot of Changeling I once ran, a PC basically called dibs on a Token that only one of the PC's could use, and he wasn't it.
This was one of the first games I ran, back when I didn't even contemplate players would be dicks to one another, and had set aside for them each one token that could be found during their crawl.
He, for some reason, decided to take his AND the other player's, despite it being obvious it would only work (with any real effect, anyway) for her. Her, not wanting to start issues, didn't fight him for it.
He proceeded to keep it the entirety of the game until he got bored with having it and sold it to a goblin.

I learned my lesson.

>>12607483

Now we're talking.

>>12607458
Yeah have them be normal people. Just average that way people don't rage when you basically say "You'd make great zombie fodder. John over there is everything you are and better".

>>12607483
>"I charge in and hit it with my fireaxe!"

>>12607483

Depressed Goth does, in fact, manage to do this. She decribes her character as coming in with a lateral slash, treating the fireaxe like a baseball bat. She rolls very well on this attack, and smashes her fire axe right through the side of the things head, decapitating it at nose level. Blood explodes out of the zombie that was, at that time, in melee range with the Boyfriend.

I tell her to roll dodge. She does so, and dodges. The boyfriend at this point has a "Oh... fuck" look on his face as I look over to him, a very slight trollface cracking across my face.

"Roll dodge."

He doesn't have the skill. This means he has to roll a D10 and add his agility of 2, and get above a 10.

He fails to do so. Boyfriend is splattered with zombie gore. Next words out of his mouth:

"Oh, you stupid, stupid cunt"

>>12607534

Hahaha please tell me this ends with a breakup.

>>12607516
She didn't have to play. She apparently likes Exalted, she can go play that, and leave this game to the people who enjoy it.

>>12607534
I am so happy right now.

Like big stupid, child grin-happy

>morn tonsolim

>>12606320
Well, setting aside the fact that he was a one-time player...

The rules function as a contract between the GM and the players. While Rule 0 exists,, the players generally know and can expect that the world will function according to the way they expect, and can plan and play accordingly. The play experience is enhanced when the players' fundamental expectations aren't broken.

To trample over that basic agreement that the game world functions fundamentally according to their beliefs by breaking the rules is a grievous sin as a GM, and should only be done after consultation with and with the blessing of the players.

>>12607534
please, continue

>>12607566
Sorry, but Rule of Fun trumps all.

If you can reasonably assume that breaking rule X will give your party a more fun experience, then by god, you break it.

>>12607534
>Pic related, as one smile is not enough to express the joy I am feeling.

>>12607534

Boyfriend is infected. Infection takes about six hours, and unlike L4D, there isn't anyone that's magically immune. He starts to rage. Seriously, ground swell rage.

"You never fucking think anything through! You could have just bumped it off me!" And so on and so forth. Recrimination and recrimination. The rest of their group is looking around at each other nervously.

As the argument begins to get out of hand, she slaps him in real life. He calls her a stupid bitch.

She looks at me and says "I attack him with my fireaxe!". She starts to move to do so in-game.

Enter player C, we'll call him "Dependency Issues Goth."

Dependency Issues Goth is a big dude; he's clearly physically pretty fit, he wound up with a strength of 3, which is "casual body builder/non professional athelete" level. Dependency Issues Goth is getting more and more agitated, since he REALLY doesn't like his friends arguing.

Dependency Issues Goth, being the only one who's reasonably strong, picked up a riot shotgun.

I never encourage players to make characters like themselves. In fact, I strenuously encourage them to make characters distinct from themselves.

This serves three very important purposes. First, it helps them stretch the roleplaying muscles a little to pretend to be someone different. Second, it cuts down drastically on the poisonous, irritating self-insert sue factor.

Third, and most important, if people play characters based on themselves, someone WILL start taking shit personally. Even if they're normally good roleplayers, there's a psychological difference between a character you play getting screwed over and YOU, same name, same personality, you yourself in the game world, getting screwed over.

The one time someone told me to make a character based on myself, I made a parody version of myself who'd joined a cult worshipping atomic power, in a post-apoc setting.

>>12607649
ilikewherethisisgoing.jpg

>>12607610
Having the players fundamentally agree with the GM on the basic functioning of the world they're playing in is conducive to fun. One person's Rule of Cool rule-breakage is another person's jarring break from what they expected and want.

The vast majority of people that complain about rules lawyers and talk about the Rule of Cool or Rule of Fun in RPGs aren't the people who rules-heavy games are designed for, and would be much much happier with a rules-light system.

As a one shot, semi board game done with D&D rules and PCs I made but let the players choose through character portraits I drew. One of the puzzles was a room with a mirrored wall. It was seemingly a dead end and they were without weapons. They searched for hidden levers and buttons, tapped against the glass to see if there was a hollow spot, but noticed it was odd when the mirror felt warm and hand like when they pressed their palms against it. After about 20 minutes, one of them had the idea to walk backwards into the mirror (so the reflection couldn't stop them)

I thought it was rather clever, and my players loved it after solving it, but it really is tacky and simple when it comes down to it.

Is AFMBE played with self-insert characters on college campuses with gaming clubs a common occurrence? Or was I actually in this game?

>>12607714

wouldn't their back just press up against their reflection's back?

>>12607649

Here begings Dependency Issues Goth's monologue: "You two love each other, what is wrong with you!?" And so on. He did this while leveling the riot shotgun at them to cover them both. They are in each others faces in-game by this point, so it is easy to cover them both with this big, beefy Mossburg 870 tactical shotgun.

This loaded tactical shotgun. Which he has now described his character as holding the trigger with the weapon shouldered, so if either so much as twitch, he can fire.

In the middle of this, because they had been screaming at each other, two more zombies show up. Both slam into the door on the other side of the arguing couple. I tell Dependency Issues Goth to roll a Will check to avoid automatic muscle tension.

He critically fails.

The shotgun blast takes them both in the upper chest; it sheers her face literally off, though she's still alive barely, rolling on the ground screaming. It rips the boyfriends nose off and ruins an eye, along with piercing the neck in several places.

He falls to the ground instantly, a look of horror crosses everyone's faces.

He takes out a 2nd sidearm he'd grabbed from the national guard before. He puts two rounds into Dependency Issue Goth, dropping him. Says:

"Serves you right.. bitch" and then puts a round through his own head.

>>12607745

>It rips the boyfriends nose off and ruins an eye, along with piercing the neck in several places.
>He takes out a 2nd sidearm he'd grabbed from the national guard before. He puts two rounds into Dependency Issue Goth

Wait. So with only one eye, in serious amounts of physical pain, and with no prior firearms experience, he managed to get off two solid, accurate shots?

>>12607762
Honestly, if I were this GM, I wouldn't have even questioned it.

>>12607762
Or pulled alot of times and only hit twice in the hail of bullets

>>12607762
Point blank. It's hard to miss

I'm thinking he was trying to cause drama with the exalted group at this point. (bad luck + dm influence)

>>12607745

Sudden loud gunfire attracted more zombies. The rest of the crew shoves the wounded and still screaming, faceless Depressed Goth in the undead's general direction and takes off with the weapons that they can carry.

They make a long escape fleeing through the streets at dusk until they get back to the home base.

This is where I am genuinely surprised. Depressed Goth wipes her eyes, smiles, and nods at the Boyfriend. He smiles and hugs her back.

"Good job there, you had me going hon"

"You too, that was pretty wild."

High fives were had; she was still a whiney player that tended towards annoying sparklebus characters, but their group was ALSO almost all in the drama club. They'd decided to play out their gritty realism characters as though they were in their white-wolf game, which they used as practice for Theatre.

I gained alot of respect for them that day, I'm not ashamed to admit. She even apologized the next week for trying to force a shitty and inappropriate character down my throat, explaining she'd been on her period.

All in all, it turned out to be a pretty positive experience.

>>12607791
MFW it all went better than expected

>>12607791
IAMDISSAPOINT.JPG

>>12607791
... huh?

>>12607791
badending.jpg

>>12607743
No, on the logic that how can you be sure there is a reflection when you can't see it? Or some nonsense like that, this was like 4 years ago. Or it was something about switching places, since the mirror is magic. Like I said, simple and tacky

>>12607791
.......

>>12607791
>explaining she'd been on her period

For some reason, that annoyed me a little. Cop to a shitty character, but don't make excuses for yourself.

>>12607791
DID NOT SEE THIS COMING AT ALL.

Alright, to address a couple of points:

I was very up front about the games realism from the start; this wasn't going to be a long epic campaign, this was going to be a survival horror thing.

>>12607715

From what I am given to understand, yes, they are fairly common. The system lends itself to them quite well, being simple and able to emulate almost any setting.

>>12607791
Trope: The Ending Changes Everything.

>>12607791
Damn it!

The hyper-cynical, embittered, entrenched nerd in me wanted them to break up or fight out of real life or something. Just to show those damn Goth's what for, for invading my precious hobby.

The stupidly romantic filled, english major part d'awwed.

"giant remorhaz!"

"we jump in it's mouth!

"...what?!"


We kill it from the inside by hack & slash and a cleric's "Harm" spell.

Before you all get even more annoyed, the title of the thread is "Post tricks that have been pulled on you by the party."

Just, throwing that out there.

>>12607791

And the GM's heart grew THREE sizes that day!

>>12607791

>>12607841

The title is tricks pulled by the GM on the party or a player. You have it backwards.

>>12607867

Ah, fair enough, my fault then. Misread that.

>>12607897
Whatever. I enjoyed your story, I thought it had an interesting end that proved that not everything sucks

>>12607851
fuck the story, that made me laugh.

>>12607917

5 returned, good sir. Thank you.

>>12607823
>>12607819
>>12607817
>>12607810
>>12607809
>>12607808

You guys are all trolls. that was an awesome story and I would have loved to have been in on that group.

>>12608022
I would have loved being in that group too, but the story was leading us to expect a certain outcome. Instead, the story took a hard right turn and we fell off a cliff.
No more, no less.

>Post stupid things you've done or seen done by a GM.
>Alternatively, post tricks that have been pulled on you/the party by the GM.

Every fight is a carefully balanced boss-fight DM

I mean goddamn, you'd think at level 15 that there'd be creatures not leveled up with us, or that the enemy wouldn't have sent its forces in carefully escalating threat form

Just always break immersion for me.

>>12608052

hardly makes it a bad story. In fact, the surprise twist ending is something that we don't see enough of outside of BBC Mysteries, and a certain someone's so called movies.

>>12608094
I didn't say it was bad, just unexpected.

>>12608052

Ah, but would it have been as much fun if it were so predictable? /tg/ is awash with stories detailing sparklebus players starting shit and meeting righteous vengeance. I find that, more often then not, that's the exception rather then the rule.

Let us not forget the tale of Mr. Bombardini.

I've had more experiences with truly irritating players, but they generally never made good stories. It almost always boiled down to "You, group is tired of your shit. Stop it or leave." and the person doing just that. This is one of the very few that caught me by surprise. I could regale you with the tale of the Shadowrun character that was secretly a bisexual dragon who, in the end, wound up getting arrested for illegal use of magic in JFK airport in New York and then was gunned down when he tried to break out of court.

But that wouldn't really be thread-appropriate.

>post tricks that have been pulled on you/the party by the GM
I was in a Shadowrun game where the job was being flown to LA from Seattle and pull the attention of Lone Star for whatever reason. being the trigger-happy fucktards we were, we went for it.

When we got back to Seattle, our home base was ravaged. Looking back, it was obvious that it was all a set-up. I think i was the only one who really cared though as the "home base" was more a gangland academy for runners currently being run my one of my previous characters. I'm still a bit ticked I never got to break into the Lone Star prison to try and rescue her.

>>12608139
>Let us not forget the tale of Mr. Bombardini.
BOMBARDINI!!!! =D

>>12608683
You sir, are a gentleman and a scholar.

And by "you" I mean the actual Bombardini guy.
The guy posting that picture, you cool too.

>>12606561
I'm pretty sure it's from a video game. But it's one of those video games where slightest touch with deadly things is death. So you have to just stay ducked.

My most grievous error as a DM was not being flexible enough to just make up stuff spur of the moment when player actions became immensely unexpected. They weren't being "lolrandum" but I shouldn't have expected a group of newbie players to follow typical PC group patterns.

Oh well, lesson learned. And congrats to the AFMBE GM for throwing us a nice curveball.

>>12608683

This doesn't tell the best part of the story.

read the thread on sup/tg/ to see the best part.

>>12609432
please tell me he gets revenge on all of them. please oh please oh please

haha oh wow i love this thread

Just finished reading thread:

AFMBE guy: You are pretty awesome. Pulling off a real-life characters game? That's pretty hardcore.

Bombardini: Awesome.

Personal note:
I was hoping this thread would be about gripes about bad GM techniques. So I'll do that.
Drugging the group and moving them in their sleep; why the fuck. It's the worst kind of railroading. Even the "wake up checks" so obviously rolled just for show, after explicitly requesting them. God, what a douchebag. How about you make up an actual reason for us to enter your shitty dungeons, as opposed to setting us out like strays on the lowest level of the dungeon to find our way out. What the FUCK.

That dragon looks pretty derpderp.

>>12606627
ever think that maybe the BBEG was just a cunt who liked seeing people scared? think maybe he put that trap in there so if it happened again he could use one that you DO have to disable the gear or it squashes you? there are so many reasons to put shit like that in dungeons it is not funny and it can really change a boring crawl into something better

>>12609432
cant seem to find it.
link please?

I was wondering guys, do I need to feel like a dick if I've putted a young white dragon vs a level 3 rogue, level 3 fighter (that fight with a crossbow), level 4 druid and level 4 barbarian/sorcerer. They were in a snow filled plain. I know they live in cold mountains, but in my campaign, King Gareth Dragonbane of Damara killed and sealed Orcus in a Tree that Illmather gave him as a symbol of hope and perseverance in honor for the people of Damara that lives in harsh condition and fought back the Witch-King. A cult of Loviatar burned down the tree to piss off Illmather. That released the essence of the soul of Orcus in the kingdom and made all the monsters and savage creatures more agressive and the dead raising everywhere.

I warned the players that white dragons were seen in the skies and all...

>>12610488
BTW is this campaign idea sucks?

>>12610488
if there's one thing I've noticed about players, is that they expect x number of leveled enemies per campaign and not one thing more... you throw in something well above their level that they're NOT supposed to fight, and they'll bitch and complain if they have to walk around it or flee altogether

a dm had invited me to play with him, so i dod. i made a night and the campign proseeded along as it normally did (which is badly) then he does a dick dm move.

a super god drops from the sky skills my character/destroys my soul/then brings me back to life. the whole time this is happening, he yells at us "THE GOD IS GOOD, HE IS GOOD I TELL YOU! HOWCOME YOU CANT SEE THAT!" then he kidnaps my character ang tells the other players that if they dont do what the god tells them they will never see me again. oh yea, the whole group was good.

>>12606711
Battering ram, motherfucker.
>>12610789
WHAT

I was playing a solo game in DnD 4e once with a good buddy of mine.

He decided he was going to troll my last three characters TO DEATH. Magical compulsions causes my female human rogue to commit suicide in a giant mansion deep in the middle of nowhere (Evil spirits suck)

Later I rolled a 'male' warforged fighter, and used alot of the component items to have him geared up for a long solo adventure. My buddy was so mad at my warforged and that he didn't have to sleep or eat he had dryads and nymphs teach him how to do these things. Of course he didn't survive, and the character became unplayable as I'm now stuck with all these fey creatures dressing him up and teaching him elf semantics.

Continued:

>>12610912

Then finally I rolled ONCE more, still having not learned my lesson. I made a male human fighter, trying out a brawler because it looks interesting. He marches from a fort to a larger city through a HUGE swamp. I make it to my destination by shear luck, he was pretty mad I skimmed pass his encounters so quickly (High dice rolls) When I enter the city it's a ghost town, and the king gives me a scroll that basically says the kingdom is finished and we should all run for the hills. I try to investigate further and learn what caused this, and I'm suddenly trapped in a room with four evil magic items. It's obvious I'm trapped with these things, and he makes it a point through casually dropping a great deal of metagame into my lap that I can't leave until I take one of the items. Instead of being magically compelled by an evil artifact to eat babies I decided it just wasn't worth it, so I quit.

Still to this day he calls me a baby for not playing along with his compulsions. I made it a point to tell him that not only was he being a douche, but the setting he made was almost no fun at all. If every npc I meet is the Emporer Reborne I don't wanna talk to them. If every corner has a group of ninjas who have a bone to pick with me, I don't want to play. If roads disappear, and doors have double the normal DC to force open because of 'magic' I'd rather just sit there and ponder why I'm even playing.

Sigh.

I was on a CON once and I already knew some of the other players. There was a DM who offered to master a DnD adventure. For I hadn't played DnD at this time, I asked him to let me play.
We played about 12 hours and it was a disaster.
First of all, the dm didn't manage to bring the players together. We simply didn't have a reason to gather up, so every player played solo.
Then,, as we worked as a team (even if it was completely unlikely for the characters), time began running out, because he had to go early.
So the DM rushed, while we were taking it easy. In the end he killed a charakter with a lightning, just because he arguing with an npc.
Worst game I ever played.

haha holy fuck, over 12 hours later and still going strong? I love you, /tg/

Give the party a large time limit to accomplish a goal. Slowly introduce elements that keep them from reaching the goal and generally stall them. Constantly remind them that the time is ticking down.

Have them be near the goal--only to introduce a small cave exploration. Force them to split up and waste time. In all, they fail after being a hair's width away from the goal because of intra-party dissent on where to go next.

One of the best sessions I ever had.

>>12610675
Oh yeah. Big yeah. Big fucking time. I had that problem even with otherwise good and rational players. They did good characters (with one exception), played them well and at times, I could go and soak in a bath for an hour and come back while they entertained each other, and that entertainment wasn't somekinda retarded "My background is more tragic than yours!" dickwaving (titswaving? only one guy in the group, and he was the... not good player).

Anyway, by and large, everything proceeded rather well. They met two characters WAAAAAY out of their league. The first one was a pretty friendly and jovial necromancer elf (my elves were somewhat different) who was friendly to the group (because he owed one of the characters a few favours and he wasn't the type to back out on a promise... even if said character didn't remember those favours; it's a long story). They also didn't mess with him because, at one point, he was talking to the group when they got jumped by a group of bad guys, so the necroelf just said "Excuse me" and killed all the bad guys with a single spell.

The OTHER guy, however... He was a huge fucking minotaur (these guys worked quite differently in my setting) and he had four guys with him that were from a race previously considered Always Chaotic Evil by the PCs (in reality, they were just a different tribe that had no beef with humans). Oh, and three of the minotaur's companions (a custom race, statistically based mostly on orcs) were wearing high-quality plate armour and wielding good weapons. The fourth one had a shaman-like getup.

The most hostile thing the minotaur did was yell "What the hell are you doing in my sanctuary?" when the party busted in, but upon hearing that the party had come in with the afore-mentioned necroelf, he lowered his weapon and said he'll go and meet this necroelf. Though I might've been a little subtle about it, he spoke of the elf as an almost equal.

>>12612405
The party refused. They blocked his path, despite being low-level themselves and while one of the party members tried to diffuse the situation, the others didn't budge and actually attacked the minotaur.

Obviously, it didn't go too well for them; the only reason they survived was because the story had become too interesting at this point for me to want to deal with the bitchfits and scrap the entire party, so I hand-waved it with the minotaur going easy on them and knocking their asses nine ways to Kentucky, non-lethal style.

But, seriously... "If it's within our range, it's killable by us" is a philosophy only commander Shepard should sport...

MOAR STORIES PLZ

>>12606767

No, mazes are fun. Particularly when thrown in as a break from the Kobolds with Murder Holes.

T_T Now if only my players, besides the one, would IC and OoC realize that they're in the Plane of Tucker's Kobolds.

So, I started a Paranoia campaign with some friends of mine who had never played before, and after R&D I sent them to be briefed for their mission assignment. The gist of their assignment was to go into the sewers, find two bots, and return them to the Bot Repair Station; a simple assignment for beginning players. They instantly forgot the directions to the sewers, because they didn't write them down, and the member who had been assigned a prototype flamethrower from R&D decided, "Hey, the sewers are under us, so how's about I just point my flamethrower at the floor and blast a hole through it?" Needless to say, she rolled a natural 20 and only succeeded in vaporizing her clone in a pillar of fire, leaving nothing but a perfectly symmetrical charred circle in the middle of the briefing room floor.

>>12606589
Male equivalent

>>12617168

The GM wasn't the stupid one in that story.

Anyone archiving this shit? Aside from the occassional arguefaggotry, these stories are worth saving, methinks.

>>12618531
I second this.

>>12617894
I am a woman and I find this image completely sexually unappealing. It's not a very good comparison.

Nice implication of his having gigantic cock though. That's the only part I like.

Here, have a random guy who's actually sexy.

>>12619009

>sexy
>brooding, dark character with mysterious past.

>nope.avi

>>12619009
>implying guys find OPs image actually sexy

>>12617894
WAUGH OH GOD TAKE IT AWAY

>>12619044
Touche.

I only thought about that after I made my post, after I realized that I had said the only part I thought was sexy was the cock.

Then I realized, the only sexy part about the OP image was the asses and tits.

>>12619044
I totally do. Ms. Hammer has a delicious butt that I would love to bury my face in.

>>12608683
I took the liberty of digging through the archived thread and compiling the full story of Mr. Bombardini in all its glory. The full image is too big to post all at once, so this will be a three part series. Lengthy, but oh so worth the read.

>>12619351

>>12619391

the corridor slowly slopes down to the point of it being almost impossible to notice or slowly turns in the same manner or both.

>>12619351
>>12619391
>>12619416
Bump for Bombardini.
also, stupid GM tricks; c'mon /tg/, you know you want to.

>>12619351

GOD DAMNIT. I was going to sleep.

/sigh.

>>12620391
Thread might still be there tomorrow.
Or just save the pics.
Also, I just woke up. :D Morning story!

Is it better to read the 1 part story Mr Bombardini or the 3 part?

>>12620406

3-part actually has the entire story.

Okay, so here's a story:

I played a small 3.5 campaign with my two bros, one was DM, I was a human paladin, other was a tiefling duskblade. Also, take in mind we were all pretty inexperienced. Starts off well, fighting orcs, diplomacy-ing dragons, good stuff. Well not too far into the campaign we get to a big city run by the BBEGs, a group of 5 high leveled characters, led by a charismatic, polite, yet ultimately evil Platinum Knight. Being the fancy villain he is, offers us a chance to join him. Its these moments where I can appreciate playing a paladin when I tell him I'd rather die than join him. Tiefling, not so much. This guy, whom I had befriended past prejudice and whom I had risked my life for without hesitation just up and accepts his offer. He gets a magic sword with stat upgrades, I walk out disgusted. One mini-adventure later, he gets kicked out for some minor fuck-up. Seriously, it was so minor and obscure I can't even remember. Basically, hes forced to join me again. So I'm back from a chat with a dragon, and he see me on the road. Naturally, I whip out my great sword, fully intent on carving him up. DM doesn't let me. Takes deity intervention and lawful good talk to dissuade me, despite having a perfectly good reason. Was upset, but they're bros, so it's not like I was pissed.

>>12619351
>>12619391
>>12619416
Those mother fuckers.

Only good Vampire character I've ever heard of.

So playing 4eD&D, I am the DM, and the party is a mix of a vetran and a bunch of new guys. decided to rip off Diablo for my plot, providing a little town with a massively enchanted shifting dungon below it, randomly summoning monsters into itself and the surrounding country side because something on the bottom level was wrong. (theres more depth, but screw it no one will care) they reach a set of stairs down, and start going down the sprial staircase. This is a clever trap that they can disable by some arcana checks, bypass via thevery to find a override, or solve (along with some other things) by getting cain in town to grant them security clearance (place was a prison for NASTY SHIT before everything went down 400 years ago and Cain was the Eladrin in charge after most of the guards died.). The enchantment on the stairs literally reads "You may not move forward down these stairs." The goblin scorcerer, who was the local comic relife charicter, pulls out a slinkie and lets it follow the rock in bouncing down and pack maning it to the top again to bounce down. Then while everyone else debates how to get down, he turns to me and says. "I back down the stairs." Everyone in the party laughs. I stare at him, and narrate "The goblin backs down out of sight." then turn to him and say "You stumble and fall, not expecting a solid level floor." Entire party looks at me. I later had Cain explain that the order had considered that trap virtually infallable, because 'no one stupid enough to get around it would make it that far.'

>>12620554
Stupid thing done by a GM: "This is the maguffin sword, it drains divine ranks and life until it kills anyone touching it other then X NPC." ME: "You said I was the only one who could enter the dream lands and reach the heart of dreams? The only one in the multiverse?" (he rolled a D4, my number came up apparently) GM: "Yes." Me: "Well my friends, this is good bye. We can not let the BBEG attain the sword. Make something of your lives that was worth dieing for." Me To GM: I take the sword, go to the heart of dreams, and plunge it into my chest. So long as it remains, as you said, I can not be ressurected, No one else can reach the heart of dreams, and if I simply placed it there, someone might compel me to retreve it. The dead do not decay in that place, for time has no busness there." The GM just stared at me. "So should I roll up a new charicter to help them deal with this or?" He started crying. (seriusly, guy was a bro, my friend, and the best DM I have ever had. He recovered later and used that ending as the plot hook for the best fucking game I ever played.)