[PnP RPG] Mastering the Game (and your players!)

[Hotfoot]

You know the deal. Characters come and characters go, but the screen always remains. GMs of the world, unite! Share your stories and tales! Tell of the abject horror you have subjected your players to, and confide in us how they meddled in your best-laid plans, laying them to waste. Tell us of your style (or lack therof), your worlds, and your players.

Players, tell us of your experiences with GMs! Tell us of the cruelest tricks they've played, and of the sweet revenge you had.

I have played on both sides of the screen, as is the fate of many a GM or would-be GM. As a player, I have caused many GMs to worry endlessly about what I might do to unravel their plans or foil their schemes. As a GM, I am capable of causing abject terror with nothing more than a smile. To begin the thread properly, I shall tell precisely one tale from each side of the screen.





First, as a player.
The setting: 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons
The character: A dwarven Fighter/Cleric (level 3-4 at the time)
The adventure: Clean-up duty in a town's sewer system
The challenge: Mostly undead, various low-level monsters

For most of the adventure, it was your usual hack and slash, we split up our rather large party (roughly 10 characters, of which 8 were PCs) to ensure that we did not get flanked, though this caused some of our fights to get rather difficult at times. A few people got level drained by some of the undead, and not everyone had appropriate weapons with which to fight them. However, for the most part we made it through with merely moderate damage, collecting a fair amount of loot along the way.

Then we entered the final chamber. We saw nothing. We were about to give it a once-over to see if there was anything valuable when one of our spellcasters "sensed" something in the darkness...a hatchling shadow dragon. The average level in the party was around 3-4 at the time, though there were a fair number of us. Our most proficient fighter was the half-celestial Paladin (the only such character in the group...his presence was extremely unbalancing, since anything that might give the rest of us a hard time he took out without breaking a sweat), so we decided to let him take the first crack at the beast. None of us had the natural attack bonus he had, at least not without some serious augmentation magic, and he (along with the rest of the group) was benefitting from several magical enhancements at the time. He rolled a 19 on his attack.

And missed.

It looked hopeless. We simply did not have the magical firepower to take down this dragon, and our biggest, strongest, toughest fighter needed a critical hit to even hurt it. On top of that, the dragon was so much faster than us that if we fled and it gave chase, most, if not all of us, would be dead long before we reached the exit. As the only dwarf in the party (and wearing heavy armor at that) running away was simply not an option. If I died, I'd die with my teeth buried in that damned dragon's throat! My mind started racing, looking for possible solutions. Then it came to me: Mayday Tactics (I'll explain this later). During the course of our adventure, we had found a large number of bottles of alchemist's fire. I quickly re-checked the rules concerning grenade-type weapons in the PHB: the attack for a grenade-type weapon was a ranged touch attack, the protection provided by armor was ignored.

The odds were now back in our favor. I informed the others of my discovery and quickly went into action. Everyone started throwing the bottles of alchemist's fire they had picked up over the course of the adventure (we had divided them up evenly beforehand, thankfully), roasting the shadow dragon alive. After roughly three or four rounds of combat, the dragon fled (GM's discretion, the bastard should have been dead after all the damage we did), having done only moderate damage to the rest of the group. Not bad, considering that the GM just randomly rolled for treasure and threw the Shadow Dragon in for kicks...




Now, as the GM.

The setting: Heavy Gear 2nd Edition
The place: Re: my location
The challenge: Finish the campaign

So there we were, meeting for what was to be the last time before classes started up in a week or so. The campaign had been long and quite enjoyable up to this point, but it was getting late. We had already been playing for some time, and having just come to a good stopping point, we debated going on. The action was really beginning to pick up as the climax of the campaign came ever closer. The players were excited, as was I. This was my first time behind the screen where I was able to actually finish any given adventure, despite the loss of one of my players. We wouldn't meet again for at least a month, maybe more, and the players had to go home the next day. I did some quick calculations in my head and went over the remaining campaign notes. At the rate we were going, we could finish the campaign, but we would have to stay up all night in order to do so. I ran it by the players, and they agreed.

Amusingly enough, the campaign (not my own, I was running a pre-gen, as it was my first time GMing the system, plus my first time GMing in a while) had the characters pulling a similar marathon shift. As the game went on, the characters grew more and more tired, as did their players in this perverse form of method-acting. Halfway through they started popping stimulants and analgesics to help keep them aware and numb the pain from the various wounds they started to recieve from the multiple combats they took part in. In the final climax, one of the players actually passed out from his accumulated wounds right in front of the campaign's primary antagonist. Considering that his player had slipped into a Pepsi fueled madness by that point, I count my blessings that he failed that health check.

Anyway, during one of the many fight scenes (one where I had "zoomed out" a bit to increase the size of the playing field, as we were playing with minis and a wet-erase map), I had pitted them against a group of skilled opponents with some quality hardware and roughly decent teamwork. Had this been a straight-out "kill the PCs" fight, the PCs might have had a much, much harder time than they did. As it was, they were defending a specific position, and doing everything they could to keep the PCs from interfering. One of the PCs didn't have any weapons on hand that could reach the bad guys, so he had to use cover (the fight was in a cargo storage facility) to try and sneak around to get within range. Another PC had good range, so he spent most of his time getting behind cover and firing. The last PC was a sniper, and so used the range to his advantage and started taking heads off left and right. Once the shooting stopped, they had racked up a total of nine kills.

There were ten NPCs.

Sniper PC had just nearly gotten his head blown off by an enemy sniper, and the other two PCs had been seriously rattled, especially the ranged one, as the enemy sniper had the Heavy Gear equivilant to a .50 caliber sniper rifle, and had shot THROUGH the cover he was using at the time. They started talking amongst themselves...

"Uh, dude, weren't there ten?"
"Yeah, what happened to the one behind the guy with the Squad Support Weapon?"
"He hasn't moved since this whole fight started."
"Yeah, he hasn't done anything."
"What if he's been trying to aim at us?"
They looked at me, I just smiled. Their guesses were highly amusing to me, since in reality, I had decided that the NPC in question freaked out after his buddy's head got blown apart in the first round of combat, had thrown down his weapon and was hiding, waiting for shooting to end.
"Dude, that guy's gotta be like a sniping god!"
"Look at the smile on the GM's face, man! He's gonna kill us all!"
It was a positive feedback loop. I'd smile, they'd freak out. As they freaked out, my smile got bigger. As my smile got bigger, they'd freak out even more. Finally, they got to where the NPC was supposed to be.
PC 1: "What do I see?"
GM: "There's the body of the SSW guy you guys killed, and it's moving."
PC 1: "I shoot him."
PC 2: "What the hell? There's no undead in Heavy Gear!"

Naturally, the NPC in question was hiding under the corpse of his buddy, hoping that the players wouldn't see him as a threat like that, and that his own friends would have thought he got hit too. After the first shot into the corpse above him, he gave up properly, thus alleviating the fears of my players. Still, watching them try to puzzle out what I had in store was a delicious experience.

[Rob Wilson]

You know the deal. Characters come and characters go, but the screen always remains. GMs of the world, unite! Share your stories and tales! Tell of the abject horror you have subjected your players to, and confide in us how they meddled in your best-laid plans, laying them to waste. Tell us of your style (or lack therof), your worlds, and your players.

Well most of my memorable gaming was 40k, played in my old PLatoon Commanders house off base. Our group was all Soldiers and we had collectively spent some time doing RP at school, we had days to waste, disposable income, therefore a lot of newly bought figures to customise and Legions to create history for.

The mix comprised of 1 Lt, 1 C/sgt, 3 Sgts and a Cpl. between us there
were 3 snipers, 2 Assault pioneers, an Engineer, 3 FIBUA instructors, 1
ex-tankie, 1 ex-arty and a signaller, plus a few other trades we had qualled in. Therefore the first game we played by the actual rules ended very quickly with comments like "This is crap", "No way that house is still standing, the subsidance alone would bring it down" "What fucking line of site for Arty, they're indirect weapons fuckhead."

So we switched to house rules and went from there. A typical 3 day affair would see us consuming JD and Coke, orange juice, soda's, pizza's and sarnies, whilst understanding GF's and Wives had a get together downstairs.

The Bosses attic was brilliant, he had 4 huge game tables and a number of smaller ones for putting together close up parts of campaigns. We'd take it in turns to be GM and have proper orders sessions for our factions. Whenever anything was clled into question the resident expert on th subject would deliver a verdict and things would move on. the 2nd day would usually be the most hectic, with numerous battles going on in different locations with players running their troops while occassionally having to give opinions in other battles, the GM keeping things loose but well organised and heading for the goal.

Acting out of character during gameplay was always punished with ingame misfortunes (including the Classic dropship, literally dropping from orbit into one guys Battalion FUP and wiping out 80% of his titans and vehicles).

By the last few hours there would normally be everyone round the final table, if necessary taking the parts of unit commanders of surviving players forces. Always fun.

I'll try to dredge up some daft/cruel incidents in a follow-up post.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I'll try to remember some good stories later, but for now suffice it to say that my players know to fear seemingly inconspicous small rocks... The powers of the DM work in mysterious ways

[Eleas]

Well, we were playing NeoTech, basically a cyberpunk game with the world's coolest system. Our characters were three hoodlums from Bristol or somewhere; basically that didn't matter because they were on the lam anyway. The fun part is that they were all randomly generated, but still turned out with the exact same social status and rough afflictions (basically a one in a hundred occurence). They were all amphetamine junkies, but mine ("Spider") was also an internet addict and did a lot of cannabis on the side. Fribergs character, I forgot his name, was addicted as well - he had a manic need to dance - and the third guy was just generally evil (he happened to be an excellent chemist on the side).

Now to remember that these guys were all pretty much scum, so don't be shocked.

Anyway, the story starts at the most run-down Manchester bar imaginable; a house of ill repute, home to bikers, junkies, prostitutes and the occasional degenerate. This is our first time out after arriving in Manchester and finding ourselves accomodations. Anyway, the smoke hangs in the air like immobile drapes, there is loud music and ferocious dancing, and in the corner a biker is getting a blowjob with next to no privacy.

I, as Spider, find a computer outlet, having brought with me my life-affirming laptop. I then sit there while Friberg's character starts a maniac dancing spree. The last of our triad, henceforth known as The Evil, begins chatting up two likely-looking girls (probably the kind that would ask for money in the morning). Anyway, I snap out of my surfing, and The Evil introduces me to the chicks with the clear statement that we're gonna get laid. We've both just downed our amphetamine for the evening, so we're pretty upbeat.

Then there's sudden commotion on the dance floor. Well, actually there's more like a hush within chaos. Turns out Friberg, on his hyperactive dance routine, started dancing beside a girl, and insisted on slamming into her boyfriend and sending him flying. And, not knowing of who Friberg is, he attacks. Friberg's 15 in Taijutsu sees the angry one moaning on the floor with a broken arm in short order.

Now, so far this is something that could happen to just anyone. But, happening to us as it is, it escalates. Rapidly. Because the guy has friends. Two guys, who bump into us on their way to cause Friberg bodily harm.

The Evil, without missing a beat, goes for his gun. At this point I break game and ask his player what the hell he's smoking. He points out that amphetamine, though not smoked, is a narcotic, and hence he's perfectly in character. I find myself agreeing. Both The Evil and my character look at each other, then at the offending two people. Then they each shoot one of them in the head.

Panic. Chaos. You'd think they didn't see this every day, and, to be fair, that'd probably be a correct assumption. Then we hear the sound of a shotgun firing. It's the bartender, who announces that someone's gonna die unless we lower our guns. The fact that he's holding a shotgun towards The Evil's stomach makes it all the easier for me to shoot him, since a failure wouldn't inconvenince me that much, and my bullet cuts through an artery on the way through his arm, finishing by tapping his lung. He falls in a spray of blood, and The Evil makes sure with a few shots for good measure.

Picking up Friberg's character, we decide enough is enough; the cops are bound to come. The Evil realizes the chicks have all left, and starts complaining about this fact as we walk out into the street. We begin walking toward the low-rent hotel, when Friberg sees a drugstore and just snaps (his bloodstream is still singing with the effects of amphetamine).

He walks inside, brandishing a revolver of the type used for big game hunting in africa, and announces his intention to have a pack of cigarettes. The store owner is mesmerised by the experience of staring into the barrel of gun powerful enough to kill a hippopotamus and fails to comply.

It ends with Friberg's character ripping away the cigarette dispenser from the wall and throwing it around in a tantrum. He kicks at the store a bit more for good measure, then leaves. The sirens are getting closer now.

The rest of us are already a block or two away, but Friberg, none too clever, decides to hide out in a shadowed doorway. This doesn't work, of course, and Friberg immediately begins to open fire. His first two rounds miss, and the third plows straight through the car door, through the cop, and out through the rest of the squad car. The cop dies without a sound. The next cop calls for backup, firing back, but Friberg's character doesn't feel it, walks up, and blows his brains out. He then heads for home, convinced that his troubles are now solved.

They were not, really. Things got much, much worse. But that's another story.

[Rob Wilson]

Anyone else had problems with idiots that refuse to role play properly? I realise that's a loaded question in Bjorns case as I know he has, but what are the worst people have had to deal with?

My own example is from only a few years ago, it involved that creature most noted for refusing to abide by rules the TWA(T)/BSD* and a rather interesting game of D&D (house rules).

So, these guys are all people I've RPed with before, plus 2 have brought work colleagues to join in. The old regs quite happily accept some spec new characters so everyones at a similar level and we've appointed our VOM. The new young (fit, fit, fit) woman has chosen a male Berserker character and throughout the game after hesitant start really went with the character, the TWA(T)/BSD however has a thief and is Sooooooooo unhappy with it (despite spending 30 minutes choosing the damned thing ).

We now start our brave adventure and "WWWWWHHHHHIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNEEE", we clear it up and "WWWHHHIIIINNNNEE". This stop and start goes on a while, but things slowly return to normal, and I'm planning things for whiner. An hour later he doesn't just whine, he doesn't just break character he shatters the thing.

This looks like it's going to turn into the Tantrum from hell (over the fact i said he missed a false bottom to a chest, which was subsequently found by the Rogue). I've had enough, I've let him go so far, but he's had one warning and I'm about to 'Suggest' he leave as it's obvious he isn't enjoying it, but rather the attention his tantrums bring. However Wendy (or Naar the Destroyer I should say) just hauls off and thumps him right cross the face mid-tantrum, and he bounces off the floor. "You will shut up, or i will rend that carcass down to fish bait!"

Total silence, shocked look on TWA(T)/BSD's face, we're trying not to laugh.
"I was just saying." in the tiniest voice you have ever heard. And things went back to normal. I even managed to restrict myself to removing only one of his ears in a backfired trap search.

Needless to say he didn't take to RPing, but Wendy was a natural.

What about you guys, any total fucktards or persistent Character breakers?

*TWA(T)/BSD = Teenager With Attitude (Terminal)/Balls Still Dropping - normally applied to the late teens when their balls should have dropped ages ago. Strangely we didn't have a female version of the tag.

Oh and VOM is Venerable Old Man, the 'guide' in a party of low characters. Normally the most experienced player, and there to help Newbies avoid the worst pitfalls, as the GM is normally a sly bastard out to torture them and make life hell at every mistake.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Anyone else had problems with idiots that refuse to role play properly? I realise that's a loaded question in Bjorns case as I know he has, but what are the worst people have had to deal with?

Well, I haven't really had a proper group since... ever. Even when I had a proper group (before college came and everyone moved away), there were only 2 non-fucktards out of 5 players (and it still wasn't satisfying because all we had to play was AD&D 2nd ed. *barf*).

Two seemed not to give two shits about the game. They would whisper to each other the entire time and not listen to a goddam word I said. That was when they showed up, which was about 1 out of every 10 sessions. My solution was to let the players that showed up make decisions for the players who didn't, and their characters would always get killed or shafted in some way.

The last player deserves special mention as the biggest fucktard I've ever had the displeasure of knowing. He was an idiot, an asshole, and a whiner with an inferiority complex. His characters always had to be much stronger and better than everyone else's or else he'd throw a tantrum. He made a character supposedly fashioned after himself, which of course meant that he was a martial arts master who knew everything and had no flaws (if he was being accurate, he'd be good at nothing except getting under peoples' skin and have a two inch dick). After he managed to alienate every character in the group and cause multiple fiascos (his way of introducing himself to the group was to dragon kick one of its members and then pickpocket the party's thief to show he was better), we decided that we'd had enough.

The way he created a super character was by exploiting Disadvantages (we were using Player's Option set). The two major ones were Asthma and phobia of spiders. So the two other good players and I cooked up a little something to teach him a lesson he'd never forget. Their characters were Kurt (the Thief) and Trent (the Fighter/Priest). His character was Chris (he even named the character after himself). Chris prized his Sphere of Binding above all else and once used it to bind Trent so he couldn't move or do anything and laughed about it. The only reason to do this was to remind Trent that he was the boss.

So the party had teamed up with a bunch of people to hunt for an artifact, and were camped out in the wilderness. Kurt snuck over while Chris slept, took his Bindy Sphere and gave it to Trent, who smashed it to bits with his warhammer out in the woods. Then Kurt snuck back and put it next to his pillow so he'd see it when he woke up, and left him a little unsigned note telling him where to go meet him. When Chris woke up and saw that, he was enraged (as usual) and demanded to the other members of the expedition that they go on a blood hunt for Kurt and Trent. The other members were quite fond of Kurt and Trent and fed up with Chris, so they told him to blow it out his ass. He stormed over to the spot, saw Trent, and started angrily walking toward him, cracking his knuckles. He didn't see Kurt slip behind him and bury a longsword in his back.

When he came to, he couldn't even stand from his wound and Kurt and Trent were hovering over him. They snap his bo staff and chucked his sai and nunchuka in the river, and Kurt told him that Trent would heal him if he admitted that he was not the "Thief of the party" as he had claim, and would never amount to an equal of Kurt. Of course, his response was incoherent threats and yelling, so Trent and Kurt shrugged and left him for dead. This is where it got really fun .

Naturally, when Chris was able to stand several hours later, he made Kurt and Trent's goal his death, and this was when I stepped in. I wanted to show him what happens to munchkin power gamers who use flaws in rulesets to create super-characters. He was tracking the expedition through the woods when I "rolled some random encounter dice", of course that's in quotes since I already knew what would happen and didn't care what the dice said. Guess what showed up? Gigantic spiders! So I rolled to see if he could resist his phobia, and the dice said that he did in fact succeed. But I chose to pretend that the dice said otherwise, and informed him that he was now running frantically in the opposite direction. Since all that exertion is strenuous for someone with asthma, the disadvantage called that I roll a d6 and if it was a 1, he had an asthma attack. I rolled a 4. Eh, close enough. So he collapsed on the ground and was quickly devoured

He later created 2 dwarf characters, both of whom met hilarious ends when he wasn't there. The first (Dale) seemed promising, and in my teenatge naievete, I thought he might actually have learned his lesson and roleplay well. This notion was discarded rather forcefully when his Lawful Good dwarf cleaved someone's head in two with an axe for not knowing the answer to a question. Dale met a grisly end at Kurt's hands. There was a member of the party, Gorof, who was a 9 and a half foot tall Hippopotamus type creature. His skin was gray, but Kurt's player had always imagined that he was purple. When I informed him otherwise, he was so disappointed that he had Kurt paint him purple in the middle of the night and put the paint bucket next to Dale's sleeping form and the paintbrush in his hands. When Gorof awoke in the morning to see that Dale must have painted him purple, he angrily charged over and stomped on Dale's head, exploding it like a melon.

The second (Alec) was a short-lived explosives expert, who made the mistake of showing his new bomb proudly to Kurt and Trent while they were flying on the magic carpet. Kurt asked if he could see it, and when Alec gave it to him, Kurt lit the fuse and stuffed it down Alec's pants. Before Alec could react or realize what had just happened, Trent rudely shoved him off the magic carpet, and he exploded in mid-air, gore and gibs raining down on the ground below like a cool Spring rain.

[Gerard_Paloma]

They snap his bo staff and chucked his sai and nunchuka in the river, and Kurt told him that Trent would heal him if he admitted that he was not the "Thief of the party" as he had claim, and would never amount to an equal of Kurt.

Actually, we set his nunchuks on fire (I played Kurt).

[SirNitram]

Well, I'm still debating my best DM story. I have many tales to tell, and which was the biggest fiasco and insanity run is a gooood question.

I play far more rarely, so I will give my tale from tonight's session of Dragonstorm. For those who don't know, DStorm is a setting which was once a normal, happy magical world.. But tainted magic, Necromancy, and the horrific things called Dragonstorms now ravage the land, cruel Necromancers wielding terrible power over the common people, and strange shapeshifters, Warpspawn, and Plague Beasts are left in the wake of each Storm.

My character wasn't a nice guy to start with, see. He was training to be a Necromancer. Good job. All the money/beer/food/maidens you can extort from the nearest village, life after death, incredible cosmic power. Wonderful career choice. Except he pissed off the female Necro who was teaching him. She decided he had to fetch her a Shapeshifter from a nearby Dragonstorm. Fun fun. So, he went. It was that, or die very, very slowly.

Now his bad luck starts. Instead of finding a nice Unicorn for his mistress to misuse, violate, and drain, he gets pulled in and transformed into a Dragon. This is Bad. Especially when She Who Must Be Obeyed came to look for my punk ass, saw the dragon, and got little dollar signs in her eyes. I teleported, ran, teleported, ran some more.

In the swampland. Somehow, I'm with the other party member, and we're hunting treasure in a swamp. Now, it should be noted that tainted magic(Called 'Warp') effects the land. It twists it, fucks it up, makes it bad. This is what happens as we progress deeper into the swamp. Thankfully, the dice love me, and I get to the Place without incident.

What's the Place? Oh, a graveyard. Where the spirit of a failed apprentice like myself toils. Now, it becomes apparant as he whines about his evil that this guy is the most pathetic villain. Ever. But, he whines, and complains, and begs, and promises, and we dig up his bones and start carrying him so he can haunt a place where he can actually do some good work and get redeemed.

Walk walk walk. Three days through slightly better terrain, with this dead guy, his three dead associates, and the wildlife. Then, it gets worse. Wolves. Not just wolves. Wolves with a werewolf woman leading them. She casually deflects my fire spell and demands we perform a task for her, in exchange for our lives, and also her taking the bones somewhere good. Sure, why not...

Now it gets worse. A maddened cow-rhino attacks us. A maddened, mutated cow-rhino. With a spiked tail. And the spikes can be shot.

This is why tainted magic, or the Warp, is bad, folks.

We survive. Though I get hit against a tree and scraped off in the process. I've been reduced to 'barely able to walk'. A day passes. Then, in tainted forestlands, near our goal of a town, I get attacked. By squirrels. But not normal squirrels.

Mutated, tainted squirrels. You can't make this up. Especially when they beat me to within an inch of my life.

Tomorrow, he will wake up in the village, slightly less hurt, and have to fight more things....

[weemadando]

A tale of a recent Vampire the Masquerade game told from a third party narrative view.


Suburbia, London, 0110.

That damn removalists was next door all day today, crashing and banging about. But, it was worth it to get that snooty young couple next door out. Horrible people they were. But they were nothing when compared to that downright horrid man who lived across the road. Some Russian immigrant, rude, abrasive and just plain nasty.

But now - what time was it? Gaaawd, after 1 in the morning and oh the noise from the street. Two- no three vans now, outside that filthy euroscums house. Well, this time she'd teach him a lesson. "Hello - police? Yes, there's a bunch of people in the street - yes, this is Mrs Benchly - And what difference does it make, its like a bloody jippo circus in my street! - yeah! Send em round pronto!"


Panda wagon, two blocks away.

"Yeah, we'll take that one." The car crept about the late night streets, its occupants generally content to give the local landlords a hand when it came to closing time. "We're about a minute away." The panda turns onto the street, "Looks like about 4 vans there now, and -wow- nice sports car..." The owner of the sports car suddenly drops to the ground, completely immobile. A small feathered shaft protruding from his back. "Fuck - a crossbow bolt." A streak of flame and dirty grey smoke spring across the road.

"FUCK!" The front room of the house outside which the vehicles were parked explodes outwards. "All units! Urgent assistance required -" The sounds of machine gun fire could now be heard echoing up and down the street. Tracer fire reaching out from the upper windows of the house opposite.

"Look!" A second RPG flits across the road and hits the same room, this time a secondary explosion rocks the street, windows shattering...

"All units! Armed response required! Fire and ambulances required. Bomb squad required!" More machine gun fire was ripping into the house now. "What the hell -" A man rushed across the street, a flamethrower strapped onto his back, kicking in the front door he is cut down by someone from inside. Then a short burst of machine gun fire rakes the falling body, detonating the pack with devastating effect. The housefront becomes a hellish firestorm as a line of men step onto the street with SMGs and begin firing at the devastated house infront of them. Without warning they are all cut down.

"You see who did that?"

"No! Must have been fire from inside."

"Jesus - what the hell could be surviving in there..."

"Grenade!" The small cylinder flies into the middle of the street from the upper window, it then detonates with a huge puff of white smoke, sending pinkish blue sparks smouldering through the air in great arcs. Abruptly thunder booms above the street as a freak storm begins its downpour, slowing the hot flames advance on the house.

The radio was beginning to come alive: "ARV12 en route." "Paramedic Unit 27 en route." "ARV7 en route." "SO19 is standing to. ETA 50 minutes." "ARV5 en route." "SH60 en route." "SH12 en route." "HAZMAT en route." Ammunition can be heard cooking off as the fire begins to creep into the stricken home.

"Jesus Christ its a fucking warzone out here!" More gunfire could be heard, the heavy machine gun speaking again, sending its tracers flitting across the road. Then abruptly the HMG stops. Then the short booms of a shotgun can be heard from within the unscathed house.

Next door Mrs Benchley cowered on the floor of her home, the cacophony of noise rivalling the worst of the blitz.

"What the hell-" A figure dives backwards from an upper window, the glass smashing as he passes through it, as he falls another huge puff of white smoke billows out the window he dived from, a few of the hot sparks passing out it as well. "Jeeeezuuus. Did he just -"

"Oh my god-" The man lands on the lawn flawlessly, pirouettes unslinging the shotgun from his back and fires at a man rushing across the road. The blast of his shotgun knocks the charging figure off his feet, but he never hits the ground. He turns to dust as he falls. "Huh..." The man with the shotgun rushes back inside, firing as he goes at someone within the house.

"What the fuck." The radio chatter in the background reaches a crescendo, as the sound of approaching sirens begins to be heard. From the flaming maelstrom that was once a house a massive man steps out, wielding an absolutely huge machinegun. Its massive shells on a huge belt that is slung over his shoulder. He begins firing it, standing in the middle of the street walking the fire back and forth across the house infront of him while screaming obscenities in russian. Each impact of one of the huge bullets sends a spray of brick and mortar back out onto the road.

"This is insane - it can't be happening..." Suddenly four figures dive from the upstairs window, one after the other. The man that jumped before first out the window, then a very young woman, then two other men. As the last one jumps the top floor of the house blasts outwards, showering the road with shattered masonry. The four quickly pick themselves up and run down the street, disappearing amongst the flames and smoke. The man throws his gun to the ground and sprints away as well, disappearing as the first of the Armed Response Vehicles arrives.

The two P.Cs step out of there car and stand, dumbstruck, staring at the devastation.

[InnerBrat]

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

I'd not had a good coupla weeks. I was attacked by werewolves, sold as a slave, turned into a werewolf, sailed across the ocean to a strange land full of pyramids and giant frogs, and been transported back to the land of the Border Princes.
Now this town's decided I'm the great Duchess something-or-other, returned from the dead to save them from all the bloody orcs outside.

Now, I've just recently become a wizard's apprentice, and learned my first spell (cause aminosity). so when these tens of thousands of orcs attack, I turn the new Battle of Helm's Deep int a giant farce by making the orcs fight each other (which we needed because we don't have any elven archers)

Now, last night was a full moon, so I crept out a secret tunnel to the enemy camps. But I wake up, not to the ravaged remains of the enemy army, but naked inside a cage in the base camp.
all in all, not a good first day being a Duchess.

[weemadando]

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

Sounds like fun.

The WHFRP game I'm in at the moment features: Alamir and Galandir - almighty and powerful eeeelvveees.

A pair of High Elves. One a borderline psychopathic Shadow Warrior wannabe (well, slightly closer to borderline than other Shadow Warriors) and the other a White Lion wannabe. At the moment both have effective BS of 97/98 and as such are pretty much Legolas' on crack.

Then we have pesky jippo human. And an elf minstrel being RP'd by someone who has no clue as to how to RP anything other than a fighter.

Its all too much fun.

[Pendragon]

I was GMing a fantasy campaign about a year ago, where the PC had managed to gain control over the entire northern part of a feudal kingdom (well it wasn't that hard, after a discrete assasination or two, Martins PC Karondrik was the rightful heir to the Duchy, and thus had the right to appoint his vassals, namely the other two PC's). Naturally, they were not without enemies, and this scene describes how they treated a spie they had caught. The man was a fairly powerful nobleman within their own ranks, and since he was a trusted man they were a bit cross.

Duke Karondrik and Count Esel dragged the poor guy into Karondrik's infamous "confession tower" and started working him over rather brutally, with an assortment of stuff like red hot pokers, pliers, the rack, etc. The spy however showed an amazing amout of willpower and did not utter a single word. And they decided to give up for the day. Well... actually they just changed their approach.

The next morning, Esel propped him up by a window overlooking the courtyard, where the mans family had been gathered.

His daughter was tied to a stake, atop a pile of firewood.

His wife was tied up, scantily clad, and leered at by a bunch Orcs and Ogres.

His two sons were each tied to a cartwheel, with a large masked man, equipped with an array of sharp tools standing by each of them.

Esel then notified the man that if he didnt confess and tell them every thing, his daughter would be burned alive, his wife given as amusement to the bunch of horny blackfolks and his sons dismembered and disembowelled. In front of his eyes.

The man, who loved his family dearly, talked. A lot. He told them evrything they wanted to hear and more.

Esel then paced around the man, glaring down at him...
"These are serious crimes you have commited against your masters. We do not take treason lightly. Don't you think you deserve the gravest of punishments?"
The man, eager to save his family agreed wholeheartedly, hopeful that killing him would sate his masters bloodlust.
"Ah yes, I'm glad we agree. You should indeed receive the severest of punishments... Because you love your family, don't you? Youd take any punishment to save them, wouldnt you?"
Again, the man agreed.
"But... that means, nothing we could do to you would be the ultimate punishment we agreed that you deserved, would it? In fact, under certain circumstances, theses circumstances infact, it's better to leave you more or less unharmed."
The man stared up at him in hopeful disbeleif.
"Well." Esel chuckled "At least your body..."
Two torturers emerged and strapped his head firmly down looking at the courtyard, and forced his eyes open by sewing his eyelids open (theyve payed good money for some very skilled torturers) fixing his gaze to the courtyard. When Esel was satisfied with the man being unable to turn his head away or close his eyes, he leaned out the window and signaled to to his men in the courtyard.

The orcs and ogres were immediatley all over his wife, ravaging her. Naturally, with the natural aggression and brutality among blackfolks, amplified with a healthy dose of sexual frustration, she did not survie the ordeal and died in a rather grisly manner while her husband, was helpless and forced to watch.

Next, the executioners went to work on his two sons, disembowelling and maiming them with surgical presicion to keep them alive and awake as long as possible, yet again with the father helplessly watching.

When both of them had expired, a torch was put to the firewood, and the spy, was forced to watch as his only daugher, the last living member of his family was slowly burned to death while screaming her lungs out, as an helpful spell had been cast to make sure she did not faint from lack of oxygen.

Finally, when the fire had died down (as well as the poor daughter), a red hot poker was put to his eyes, burning them out, making sure this had been the last thing he ever saw.

He was then taken to a tower cell, where he was kept well fed and healthy to make sure he lived on for many years with the memories of his last sight.

And the most evil thing of them all? Karondrik's court wizard had already read the poor mans mind, finding out evrything, but since they didnt trust his abilities completely, they decided to make sure he had found out everything...

The most truly evil thing I ever witnessed...

[InnerBrat]

--snip--

You're friends are sick! You're a sick, sick person!

[irishmick79]

We play a homebrew Star Wars system.

A group of PCs of mine was working for Alliance intelligence, and I sent them on a mission to discretely assassinate a troublesome imperial garrison commander. One of my PCs managed to acquire (through means of dubious legality) a small fusion device the size of a credit card that could vaporize six city blocks if used properly. Why I gave him that much explosive I know not. I can only justify it by saying I was a rookie GM at the time.

But anyways, blaster fire gets hot and heavy, and our heroes find themselves pinned in a twenty story building fighting off several squads of irate, heavily armed stormtroopers. Fortunately for the PCs, they decided to hole up in the garrison commander's HQ, so the Imperials didn't exactly want to nuke the builidng. Yet. One of my PC's gets a bright idea of using a tow cable to latch onto one of the buildings across the street. He hoped to shoot downwards towards the ground, so he could simply attach a roller to the tow cable and glide down. He shot out a window, and managed to pull off a spectacular shot with the tow cable, attaching the cable to a wall in the room. So, he sets up to grapple his way down, and makes his role to grapple. Unfortunately, he didn't make his dodge roll, and he got shot several times as he was gliding down the tow cable over the street. Needless to say, he couldn't exactly stop when he got to the end of the rope, and knocked himself out cold when he crashed into the wall.

Next PC decides he can follow the guy down the line. Unfortunately, he gets half way down, and fails his grapple role. Badly. He's six floors up, and he drops like a stone. Crashing into the pavement below, he is only able to lift his head up in time to see the bumper of a hovercab on a collision course with his forehead. The hovercab runs him over, and sets off the fusion device, which vaporises half the city, along with the entire party of PC's. Game over.

[Pendragon]

--snip--

You're friends are sick! You're a sick, sick person!

Wow... I wonder if I can get that as a custom rank...

Oh, and your appreciation is duly noted. I'm very proud of the effort my players put into their characterizations. Plus it gives me the incentive to come up with something better... or perhaps I should say worse?

And then there was that time in a Western RPG with a stick of dynamite and a guys rectum...

[Hotfoot]

Anyone else had problems with idiots that refuse to role play properly? I realise that's a loaded question in Bjorns case as I know he has, but what are the worst people have had to deal with?

I've not had to deal with many, especially as the GM, but I have had a few in some groups. I will now tell the tale of one of the worst I have seen to date. For the sake of thinly veiling his identity, we shall name this player "Ben".

The System: Cyberpunk 2020
Ben's Character: Techie Tim

Ben did not initially strike me as a bad guy when I first met him. He was a bit of a newb, but I thought that we might be able to break him of this habit. Now, as anyone who's played the game can tell you, style goes a long way in Cyberpunk. Fail or succeed, at least do it with style, chombatta. This guy started off with all the style of a trailer park. But hey, we're not all perfect, especially starting out, right? Well, here's the laundry list of his transgressions.

First off, the magic inventory list of holding. The GM wasn't an asshole about encumberance or gear, but he (and the group in general) liked to keep things within the realm of realism. I would routinely draw sketches of what my character had on him at any one time, and make up to the moment lists of his on-hand gear, and roughly where it was stashed. I would declare any major changes to my inventory to the GM, and all was well. Techie Tim, however, had apparently invented a series of dimensional pocket from which his gear flowed like water. Spare set of clothes? No problem. Three spare sets of clothes? Sure. Weapons? Naturally. Tools? Like you had to ask. He would also try to be multiple places at once, but that was quickly squashed by the GM, as eventually was the magic bag of holding he was using.

Okay, so we were guarding this rockerchick from some crazy stalker, and we holed up in Techie Tim's apartment for the night. Well, someone saw us, apparently, and so they threw some rocks with notes attached through the windows. After we got her moved to a safer location and got her ready for a concert that night, Tim announced that he was heading back to his apartment to board up his windows.

Fast forward. Tim had an electric scooter. Hardly a stylish ride, as you can imagine. One one of his trips with it, it managed to get completely totalled. Most of the rest of us did not have cars either (damn things were expensive, and the GM was tight on cash), but the more...resourceful of us managed to "borrow" a car at one point in order to temporarily get around. This was a team effort when we did it: my character picked the car lock, another character disabled the alarm system and hotwired the car. After he lost his ride, Tim found himself in a bit of a sticky situtation. He was at his apartment after having boarded up his windows and finally gotten the gear he wanted (the GM had cracked down by then), but he needed to get to the club where our Rockerchick was due to perform.

"Hmmm," Tim thinks, "I have no ride, and I don't want to spend money. Public transport won't do. Maybe I'll steal a car. After all, that stupid Russian and the others managed to do it, and they weren't even techies like me! This should be a cinch!"
Ben forgot something, however. If people help each other out, they can increase their chances for success. He was alone. Additionally, the car we stole was from the same block as his apartment, which is exactly where he went to find a new one. So he finds his prey and sets to work. As you can imagine, he fails and trips the car alarm. What to do...what to do...that alarm is bound to attract unwanted attention of the law enforcement variety, after all.

In his unfathomable wisdom, he dives into a nearby dumpster and hides for a good quarter of an hour or more until he feels safe enough to emerge. When he gets out, he manages to get a ride to the club, I think by going off and finding another car to steal, or maybe going back to the first one and actually succeeding, but that's not that important.

No, you see, what is important that after spending a considerable deal of quality time in a dumpster, he doesn't even bother to change his clothes, much less wash off before he goes to the club where the rest of us are already preparing for the show. So he shows up, stained and smelling like refuse, acting like everything was normal. What happens next?

Ben: Are there any girls in the bar?
GM: Naturally. Why?
Ben: I'm gonna start hitting on them.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this was not a re-enactment of the Dead Alewives Dungeons and Dragons sketch, he actually said this with a straight face, being completely serious about the whole thing. He was going to try and get his mack on. The first girl he went up to slapped him, and slapped him hard enough to cause bruise damage. Instead of taking the hint, he continues in his attempts, this time wearing his helmet to avoid being slapped.

Gentle readers, especially those amongst you of the female persuasion, I ask you, what would you do if a guy, smelling like garbage, looking like his clothes hadn't been washed in a week and wearing a combat helmet with a bruise or two on his face came up to you in a bar and started hitting on you? Would any of you give him the time of day, much less go home with him (with his boarded-up windows) and have sex?

But this was not the end, no. For while at the club, predictably, bad things happened. A robotic drone crashed through the skylight and disrupted the whole show. My character, thanks to some incredibly good rolling, managed to dodge and weave through the oncoming wave of people running for the exits in terror, managing to look damn good while doing so (and hardly taking any "hits"). Other characters were not so lucky. Still, the drone itself was not cause for that much alarm. No, you see, it was primarily there to deliver a message. The source of the mass panic, sadly, was Ben.

You see, when the drone had finished playing its message, Tim took out his "signature" weapon, a microwave gun. This weapon is perhaps one of the mos universally feared and loathed weapons in the game, as it screws up any cybernetic systems nearby, in addition to anything along the path of the shot. Since we had a large number of cybernetically-enhanced players, we never allowed him to use it anywhere near us (when your cybernetic eyes fail, you are screwed). Since we weren't all that close to him, he figured now would be a good time, especially since the drone would be particularly vulnerable to it. So he takes it out, waves it around in the air to try and catch the hoverdrone's attention, and utters the awe-inspiring words, "You see this? This'll fry your circuts!!!"

Now, earlier that night, my character noticed a pickpocket in the club. At first he simply shrugged and made sure his own cash was secure. So long as the two-bit cutpurse didn't steal his cash, he really didn't care, sort of a professional courtesy (my character was ex-Russian covert ops, halfway between a Solo (Fighter) and a Prowler (Thief)). Then someone in the club caught him in the act, and the pickpocket pulled a knife. Bad move. My character didn't have any interest in the financial woes of others, but he was here to make sure things didn't get too out of hand and provide general security. Someone was now threatening to do violence, a big no-no. My character at the time had on him several weapons: a silenced submachinegun, a pistol with a screw-on silencer, some "toys", and a monoknife. He was also rather seriously modified, though not obviously so (muscle and bone lace, light skin weave, etc.), and was rather profiecient in several forms of combat. Obviously pulling a gun was a bad idea (I mean, come one), and since the other guy didn't have one, there was no need to risk panic in the club. So I approached, pulled out my monoknife and went for the hand holding the pickpocket's big mean knife. The results were rather nasty, and he went down fast. I got rid of him, received a few thanks, then went back to business. Simple and effective (I kept his knife though...it was very nice and nasty looking, perfect for intimidation, if not for combat). Within a few minutes, the club returned to normal.

While he was waving it in the air, it suddenly disappeared from his hands. A huge man stood behind him, the microwave gun in one hand, shaking his head at Tim. GM's way of saying, "Not a good idea." So, in a fully packed club, Tim whips out his Minami 10 (think Mac 10) and tries to go full auto right into this guy's gut. The big dude knocks his arm away before he can line up the shot, causing him to instead fire a full auto burst out of a window. Shots fire, more glass shatters, and it is now that the crowd panics, causing the rest of us to start dodging bodies. The big guy proceeds to whale on Tim, until our sniper comes down from the roof (There were more than just the one drone, apparently), sees this happening, and decides to save Tim by unloading not one, but TWO rounds into the big guy's skull at point blank range (barrel was stuck under his chin). After that, we get the hell out of there and make for a hotel to shack up in for the night. At one point, Tim is down in the lobby and checks a message that was left at the front desk. The message says to come to the parking garage, so he does.

After a while, our characters get to wondering where Tim is. After some checking, we decide to head down to the garage (I forgot what the motivator was, I think Tim called for help). Most of us got into the elevator and started our way down. One of the characters mashed a bunch of buttons just for the hell of it. Most of us on the elevator didn't care. Some of the group decided to run down the stairs to help Tim. When we finally got there, Tim was dying, but amazingly, he had managed to kill the Solo assassin who had been sent to kill us and kidnap the rockerchick. Our medtech attempted to try and save Tim, but failed. Nobody was willing to call trauma team since Tim was too far gone and fading fast. Had the medtech managed to stabilize Tim, it might have been a different story.

Tim was dead, but it was not the end. While Ben was still mourning the loss of his character, the "reporter" of the party had an idea. She offered a decent amount of money to anyone who was willing to take both the cowboy solo assassin and Techie Tim and arrange their bodies in some "compromising" positions. Hey, money is money, right? My character and another volunteered. The video our "reporter" shot apparently sold quite well on the black market...

Our group then divided up the gear of both corpses and moved on. I knew what would come next, so I passed a note to the GM. The next day, I got up before everyone else and went to Tom's apartment and cleaned it out of all the nice, juicy bits of equipment and stuff that he had. Anything I didn't want or didn't think the group would really bother to use I sold off to a fence. When the rest of the group finally decided to loot the place, they found it surprisingly devoid of most of Tim's really good stuff (that he had left, that is, he had a lot of good stuff on his inventory, but that was already looted). They shrugged and figured that either he had all of his good stuff on him, he lost it, or the GM made it so that his place got looted to prevent the extra gear from falling to the players. I made off like a bandit, and if anyone had any suspicions, they didn't say anything.

And thus ends the tale of Tim, as we never let him come back.

[Hotfoot]

--snip--

You're friends are sick! You're a sick, sick person!

Eh...I'll have to agree on that one. That is pretty sick. Granted, it is just game, but even so, characters pulling stuff like that are hero-bait after a while. I mean, that stuff is just blatantly psychotic evil.

[InnerBrat]

On the subject of annoying players, one munchkin always used to annoy me by faking dice rolls.

You know how it is, sometimes you just really want a dice roll to come out a certain way, and you'll wish yocould do ti again (and very occasionally, if no one's looking) but not always, because what's the point of gaming if you cheat?

But this guy would always lie about his d100 rolls (this is WFRP - you usually want a low roll). He constantly claimed the lower number was the tens, and the GM trusted him. In the end, I went out of my way before the next session to buy percentile dice to force him not to cheat - and he poitn blank refuses to use them!
(just annoying, I know, but annoying enough)

[Eleas]

--snip--

You're friends are sick! You're a sick, sick person!

Eh...I'll have to agree on that one. That is pretty sick. Granted, it is just game, but even so, characters pulling stuff like that are hero-bait after a while. I mean, that stuff is just blatantly psychotic evil.

Really? This presupposes that (1) there are altruistic heroes around and (2) that they have a death wish. Now, these guys weren't exactly unopposed after a while; I've heard stories of them. Does the word "genocide" carry a special meaning for you?

[Pendragon]

--snip--

You're friends are sick! You're a sick, sick person!

Eh...I'll have to agree on that one. That is pretty sick. Granted, it is just game, but even so, characters pulling stuff like that are hero-bait after a while. I mean, that stuff is just blatantly psychotic evil.

Hero-bait? Yeah, after they unleashed an undead army of death (pun intended) that pretty much razed the closest duchies to the ground (thats half the country, approximatley, the poorer, sparsely populated half, but still half) the King raised an army (he'll only let disputes among his noblemen go so far) as did the Church (who didnt really like it at all when Karondrik turned out to be in league with necromancers), but this all takes time, so the Church's own standing army, the order of the Sun Knights. The Sun Knights and a quickly assembled mercenary army was sent by ship to attack Karondrik's castle and the capital of his Duchy. Always well informed, Karondrik rushed back with the fastest troops available to him (thus not the undead, who followed at a more, lesuirly, but unrelenting pace). Karondrik and Esel arrived just in time to fortify themselves in the castle of Ekkershus as the Sun Knights vastly superior numbers laid siege to the castle.

The battle was nothing short of epic, slowly the superior numbers of the Sun Knights became evident as they broke through the outer fortifications. Karondrik was gripped by madness and took his personal servants down to his temple in the dungeons, crowned himself King Karondrik the first of Nordmark and then sacrificed the servants with his souldrinking blade. In the meantime, Esel led the defense of the castle, destroying siege towers and killing Sun Knights by the dozens with blasts of demonic fire. From the ranks of church's finest rose the champion of the Sun Knights, carried by a spell of flight (yes, it might seem high powered and it is, but a lot of the mightiest warriors in my campaign setting also dabble in magic) and a mighty duel ensued on the roof of the keep between Esel and the First Knight of the order.

Esel cut his head off and threw it back to the attackers, and claimed the orders most holy relic, the Sunsword as his own, right before Karondrik's undead horde rose from the nearby shore and surrounded the beseiged. Caught between the castle and the undead horde, the knights were massacred to a man, Karondrik leading his knights in hunting down whoever tried to get away.

90% of the Sun Knights were wiped out and the undead horde was bigger than ever before with those reinforcements.

Yeah... hero-bait alright, and the heroes took the bait.

[Eleas]

Well, roughly a year ago, me and Pendragon were (still are, I gather) members of this gaming club in Malmö. This club had signed on with the local community to provide introductory role playing sessions during vacation week for young aspiring ganers. Me and Pendragon signed up to gamemaster... actually it was just Pen, but I ended up helping him.

Problem is, when first he came to me he had no adventure, and deadline was an hour or two away. But between the two of us we decided on an adaptation of a Middle Earth Role Playing adventure (somewhat sucky system, and you always have to modify it pretty heavily in order to avoid things like Gandalf-level neophyte wizards, but it was nostalgia creek for us).

We decided that, since our beginners could be expected to have just seen the Lord of the Rings movie, they would want something tied fairly closely its plot; they wanted something they could understand from having watched the movie.

The concept (I'm fairly sure I came up with it, really ) revolved around the fact that the Ringwraiths were trying, after the Council of Elrond, to pinpoint just where the Fellowship was headed. Sauron had a spy in Denethor's court, who had just discovered where the Fellowship was headed (implausible but not impossible, Denethor being in the possession of a Palantir). Anyway, the fact that the spy had chosen to ride toward Isengard instead of Mordor meant he had managed to elude persuit, and the only ones that were close enough to stop him were the players. Complications? Oh, nothing much... just an encamped army of Orcs, and a Nazgûl come for the message.

Our setup was pretty much standard fare, I grant that. We were in a hurry, and had rather strange source material to go by. Our approach, however, was a bit unusual, at least for us. We came up with the idea of tag-teaming our gamemastering. Pendragon would be the narrator and the keeper of things and events in the immediate vincinity of the players... whereas I was the one to construct and extend and flesh out the plot, and give him the ideas and the blueprints and the what-happens-nexts. In this way, Pendragon could concentrate on the moment, while still giving his players absolute freedom. Go to Edoras? No problem, it'll take a while and Pen would have to gamemaster the journey while I'd draw floor plans and characters. It gave us far more ability to improvise.

Anyway, we got a choice pick of well-behaved newbies. Unfortunately, we also got Erik.

Maybe he doesn't deserve it, but Erik is probably one of the more annoying specimens of preadolescent dweebs I have had the misfortune of getting stuck with at a gaming table. His deep and torrid love affair with the Japanese katana (which he seemed to think would be able to cut through anything, including - but by no means limited to - a main battle tank) was contrasted by a genuine belief that he knew better than anyone around the table... especially the GM. As an added bonus, he was a Tolkienophile as well. He had spent the previous gaming evening playing Neotech with Pendragon as GM, where his character had been playing kissing games with a frag grenade - which was the only reason he wasn't killed by his group members.

Anyway, we gave Erik the hobbit to play. Bad idea. Erik had been reading up on his Tolkien, and suddenly, he believes his character is Frodo reincarnated (or, Frodo still being alive and well, perhaps I should say PREincarnated...).

Anyway, we begin running the game, and Erik seems pretty decent for a change. I thought he wasn't really that bad, not having gamed with him before. But that changed, and in an hour or two, he's managed to solidify his position of Annoying Little Bitch. The company tracks the spy to the Isen ford, where the spy is repulsed and sets out northeast, and Erik gets more and more irritating. The hour approaches midnight for us, and they hasten toward the conclusion.

The end of the adventure, at the request of Pendragon, is his to narrate.

[Pendragon]

Heh, yeah... Erik, a dark part of my gaming career. I have since thrashed his whiny little punk ass in 40K as well, but to the point, that fateful week in february last year...

As Eleas previously mentioned I had GMed Erik the night before in a cyberpunk scenario where he gladly had sold out the entire team when they decided to try to doublecross their employer. Naturally the rest of the group had a decent amount of hostility towards poor Erik and was about to ice him when the employer, who didn't like the idea of being doublecrossed, and didn't have any more use for the PC's anyway (including Erik's) sent in his personal SWAT team.

With a little luck and quick thinking the PC's managed to make a decent stand in the apartment, and gunned down the first few that came through the door. Unfortunately, the hallway was crawling with them so Erik crawled up to the door, poked his pistols out and started blasting away blindly. After having spent his ammunition he declared that he would stay put where he was, just inside the wide open door, and reload. Thus he had a front row seat when something small, oval and olive green rolled through the door.

"Is it a grenade?" he asked me.

"It certainly looks like one." I answered.

"Uhm, well, then I... uhm... what does the room look like again?" He was nervous. Good. I like the smell of fear.

"Time's a wasting, if youre going to do something, do it now."

"Uh... I pick it up... and uhm... I throw it back! Yeah, that's it! I throw it back at them!"

Well, there's a reason why people normally don't do this in the real world. The reason is that when the grenade is released, you have three seconds before it blows. Then you figure in about a second or so of time "in transit" and you have two seconds to react, pick it up and return it to sender.

Oh well, its not impossible, I'd give the lil' guy a shot.

I rolled the dice.

I looked up at him.

"Well, you lunge forward and grab hold of the grenade..."

I made a dramatic pause to torture him a little as he was fidgeting in his seat.

"You have time to notice the brand name "Death Ordonance" written on the side of it. You can literally feel the lethality emanating from the object that's firmly clutched in your hand..."

By now it looked like he was going to wet his pants, so I figured I'd save the furniture.

"A white hot pain erupts in your hand, travelling through your arm and washes over your face for a fraction of a second as the shrapnel and concussive force shred your arm and head into small pieces. You end your days as a one armed, headless corpse in a cheap hotel room, mourned by few, if any."

I usually don't like killing off PC's, but this one I actually enjoyed.

Anyways... to the next night in question where I had the assistance of Eleas, a new group of newbies, but still the same annoying Erik.

And the end of the adventure, they had managed to chase the spy up into an old ruined watchtower, and managed to defeat and kill him. What they didnt know was that the spy had come here because it was the designated spot where he was to meet Khamûl, one of the ringwraiths.

Pleased with their victory the group (a fairly standard composition consisting of a an elven ranger, a human warrior, a dwarf warrior and a hobbit scout (played by Erik)), lingered in the tower going through the spy's belongings when they heard the flapping of wings in the night. After a quick check through the cracks in the walls, they noticed that something big had landed outside the tower, exactly what, they did not know. Next they heard the door at the bottom floor creak open, and heavy steps slowly but deliberately move up the stairs. They felt the air grow cold around them, their breath becoming visible, their skin prickling... it was safe to say that the realized that all was not well, and they prepared themselves for whatever was coming up the stairs (despite the fact that the roof had caved in and climbing out wouldn't have been that difficult).

Emerging from the stairwell came a figure clad in black hooded cloak, ragged and torn. Pure terror engulfed them.

The elf managed to get a shot off from her bow, and the arrow embedded itself firmly in the figure's chest. It stopped dead in its tracks and looked down at the shaft protruding from its chest, and it fell into ashes. The dwarf, not to be outdone by a she-elf, threw his axe at the Nazgûl. In one smooth movement, Khamûl whipped his blade up and shattered the dwarven axe before it struck. Seeing this, the human raised his sword, an old family heirloom, and charged. With the powers that only frustration and panic can bring, the ancient blade smashed into the Nazgûl's head, sending it crashing down the stairs. The warrior's blade shattered, frozen solid, and the metal fused in his hand. The hobbit, seeing his chance for glory, suddenly thought he was someone he had never heard of and uttered words he had never heard in a language he didn't know, as Erik declared that he pulled out his dagger and ran down the stairs to "finish him off".

"Elbereth o Gilthoniel!" he cried out.

The others saw him round the corner in the stairwell, and heard his warcry falter into silence. Then they heard the sound of steel rushing through air with incredible speed, and saw red blood splattering over the wall.

Then, slowly, the Nazgûl came up the stairs, sword in hand. The human desperately attacked, wielding his shattered sword. Khamûl sliced his hand off at the wrist and tossed him aside like a rag doll. The dwarf and elf were frozen in terror as the wraith came towards them. It stopped for a moment, its gaze falling on the dead spy. It lifted its face towards the sky and let out a piercing shriek that seemed to cut through the very soul of the poor PC's. The elf had definitely had enough. Managing to shake off the paralyzing fear, she quickly turned on her heels and darted through the hole in the roof, leaping off the tower. She landed tumbling in the damp grass and quickly came to her feet, running for her life as the drawn out death screams of the dwarf echoed behind her...

I really dont like having annoying players ruining my games, but then again, I get really inspired to kill them off in gruesome ways, so I can't honestly say it's a total loss having one in my games every now and then.

[Hotfoot]

Really? This presupposes that (1) there are altruistic heroes around and (2) that they have a death wish. Now, these guys weren't exactly unopposed after a while; I've heard stories of them. Does the word "genocide" carry a special meaning for you?

Yes...most of the people who would practice it are quickly singled out as being a danger to most sentient races.

Though if you want to play games in which being psychotic evil is the goal, well, feel free. These guys seem like really bad villians though. Don't get me wrong, they are evil, no question about it, but what is their motivation aside from that? Killing to make the world a "better" place? World domination? Destroying modern civilization? Evil for evil's sake is just stupid, IMO. I much prefer to have antagonists which are believable, have realistic motivations which cause them to do the things that they do. Psychotic Evil individuals do not tend to last long or gain any appreciable amount of power. Now, maybe if this guy that they tortured had done something similarly terrible to them, I could envision the characters doing something like that. Otherwise, it just seems to me like a case of "oh, look how evil I am...I'm so evil....ooooh....good evil."

[Pendragon]

Really? This presupposes that (1) there are altruistic heroes around and (2) that they have a death wish. Now, these guys weren't exactly unopposed after a while; I've heard stories of them. Does the word "genocide" carry a special meaning for you?

Yes...most of the people who would practice it are quickly singled out as being a danger to most sentient races.

Though if you want to play games in which being psychotic evil is the goal, well, feel free. These guys seem like really bad villians though. Don't get me wrong, they are evil, no question about it, but what is their motivation aside from that? Killing to make the world a "better" place? World domination? Destroying modern civilization? Evil for evil's sake is just stupid, IMO. I much prefer to have antagonists which are believable, have realistic motivations which cause them to do the things that they do. Psychotic Evil individuals do not tend to last long or gain any appreciable amount of power. Now, maybe if this guy that they tortured had done something similarly terrible to them, I could envision the characters doing something like that. Otherwise, it just seems to me like a case of "oh, look how evil I am...I'm so evil....ooooh....good evil."

Their goal was quite simple. Power. And Wealth. You see the Duchy of Nordmark was tucked away in the north of the Kingdom of Kardien (tucked away is probably the wrong word to use about an area that comprised a quarter of the kingdom). It was easily the largest Duchy in the land, but also one of the poorest and often looked at as a bit backwards by their southern countrymen. Think of it as a bit like Scotland under english rule. Karondrik used this to breed pride and patriotism in his own people and antipathy against his two southern neighbours Inmark and Videlrike. He also made it quite welcome to the local elven population that theywere no longer welcome in his lands, and he seized their buisneisses and possession. The elves were allowed to leave peacefully, and they returned to the neighbouring forest of Goiana from where they came.

The prelude to war was when Karondrik retook the city of Torilia that had been taken as a colony by another country and held for several hundred years, once resisting a siege that lasted for seven years. With no small amount of diplomatic skill, Karondrik managed to raise a rather large force of the blackfolks (orcs and ogres) that had been plaugueing the countryside for a long time. These formed the spearhead of his army. Also by giving to the dwarfves a lot of the benefits the elves have had before, they agreed on constructing magnificent siege engines for him.

Armed with the finest dwarven catapult, and a spearhead of wild blackfolk, Torilia fell in the first assault, after only two days of siege. The Black folk that had survived were hunted down and slaughtered by Karondriks knights, and their bodies, along with the bodies of the defenders were hauled off to be buried (actually, the were in secret turned into Karondriks undead horde). This of course made Karondrik quite popular throughout the kingdom for washing off an embarrasing stain from the Kingdoms honour as well as severly decimating the earlier so troublesome blackfolk, and with minimal loss of life of his own troops!

Basically the King loved him, as did most of the country. Who cared that he had a quarrel with his neighbours?

Well...Im off to bed now. Ill add some more to this later.

[Hotfoot]

Their goal was quite simple. Power. And Wealth.

Power and wealth? That's it? No other motivations? Just because they could? Meh...