Friendship is Dragons
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Page 253 - Hello, Little Friend
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Newbiespud
2nd Mar 2013, 5:00 AM
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...And I mean things like your makeshift monster figs, scrounged environments, and cobbled kitsch something that starts with a k sound and means models. Tell all about your homemade figures and sets!
The Candy Worm Kraken!! It was almost as dangerous as it was delicious. And apparently its cheery colors and translucency were a terrible sign for any ship unfortunate enough to cross its way... Or, in the case of our campaign, any port city unfortunate enough to be its target.
But the head was the best part. Couldn't get it done right so I melted some more worms and gummy bears, added lots of toothpicks and created the most colorful, horrific thing ever to come out of a microwave.
But the head was the best part. Couldn't get it done right so I melted some more worms and gummy bears, added lots of toothpicks and created the most colorful, horrific thing ever to come out of a microwave.
I love it. candy candy candy blood fighty time!
Snikt me!
I had run an adventure in D&D that I dubbed "Night of a Million Zillion Kobolds"
Two kobold tribes were fighting over territory and there happened to be an abandoned wizard's tower in the disputed area. The PCs decided to check it out in case the tower had some dangerous magic in it.
So now the party gets involved and has to fight two opposing armies of kobolds. To represent this I had purchased two bags of pretzels, one square and cheese filled, the other round and peanut butter filled. Rules were simple:
Cheese is the sorcerer tribe, peanut butter is the barbarian tribe, and if you kill it, you eat it!
I think we all spoiled our dinners that night :D
Literally had the party ranger, archer, and cleric in a 3-way race on who could kill the most kobolds and amass pretzels like they were treasures.
The cleric won with a final flame strike, but the numbers were something like 40-35-32.
Real close.
Two kobold tribes were fighting over territory and there happened to be an abandoned wizard's tower in the disputed area. The PCs decided to check it out in case the tower had some dangerous magic in it.
So now the party gets involved and has to fight two opposing armies of kobolds. To represent this I had purchased two bags of pretzels, one square and cheese filled, the other round and peanut butter filled. Rules were simple:
Cheese is the sorcerer tribe, peanut butter is the barbarian tribe, and if you kill it, you eat it!
I think we all spoiled our dinners that night :D
Literally had the party ranger, archer, and cleric in a 3-way race on who could kill the most kobolds and amass pretzels like they were treasures.
The cleric won with a final flame strike, but the numbers were something like 40-35-32.
Real close.
That reminds me both of my most recent ponyfinder game, where we went to a corrupted plane of Pinkie Pie, where we fought cake golems. Also reminds me of the prismatic dragon that the party killed by getting one character so drunk that jumping into it's mouth gave it alcohol poisoning and killed it, but that wasn't made up...
Candy monsters are the best!
We used M&M's and Reese's Pieces to represent Medium creatures, since they fit nicely into the square size on the maps I was using. Miniature peanut-butter cups were 4-square monsters, and once we had literal Purple (Gummi) Worms.
We quickly established the rule that the player who strikes the killing blow gets to eat the monster, that led to extra competition...
We used M&M's and Reese's Pieces to represent Medium creatures, since they fit nicely into the square size on the maps I was using. Miniature peanut-butter cups were 4-square monsters, and once we had literal Purple (Gummi) Worms.
We quickly established the rule that the player who strikes the killing blow gets to eat the monster, that led to extra competition...
I don't have any such story myself, but I recall a legend that more than a few of the monsters in the original D&D bestiary came from toys that Gary Gygax and friends had lying around the house. Since minis for monsters didn't exist then, they basically grabbed whatever was handy and put it on the board and based monsters off of it.
I quite often use skittles and smarties and similar as stand-ins for the hordes of goblins, skeletons, zombies, and other faceless mooks that my games produce. The major upside of this is that the players get to eat anyone they kill.
He's a noble warrior. Specific details to be filled in later. Other than the usual loadout of weapons and armor, he carries what is basically a tiny portable kitchen multi-tool thing, a special magical lighter that can start fires even in cold or wet conditions, and a high quality little shovel, a la Glock.
He believes that all dead should be honored, even your enemy, especially if he was a warrior. He has a sort of three pronged ritual that he is obligated to perform for any dead he comes across, or anyone he kills. By this, I mean he is obligated by the customs of his people.
First, he takes a token piece of the dead, when applicable, and when it is reasonable to do so. He ritualistically prepares the flesh and eats it. It is a small piece, and this is a sign of respect for a warrior, ensuring that some of his warrior's ability is passed on to future generations. (He's not going to eat the bones of a skeleton, or the flesh of something inherently toxic(unless it's funny).)
Second, he will burn the body on a pyre.
Third, he will collect the ashes and bury them.
To signify this, I think I'd save any candy I kill, and when the fighting's done, I carefully cut the candy in half, and eat it. Otherwise, I'd bring something with me.
Color/flavor coded undead? Brilliant!!
Dibs on the cherry zombies!!
Dibs on the cherry zombies!!
BAD IDEA!
seriously I am a bad player for doing this but I avoided killing Kobalds because my dm represented them with the red skittles which I hate.
seriously I am a bad player for doing this but I avoided killing Kobalds because my dm represented them with the red skittles which I hate.
I actually have one of the toys that the Bullette was based on- cheap Chinese knockoff plastic toy thing, I got from a doctor's office when I was a kid. Pretty awesome, really.
As I do art and most of my games are via skype, generally for most of my games I don't have this problem. For the game off of skype, I usually draw characters or anything that doesn't quite fit a miniature onto a small piece of paper and use that as a figure. The closest I usually come to this is either my own make-shit monsters or cats coming into our non-skype games and declaring them giant destroyers of worlds. Though generally that happens during Munchkin or Magic the Gathering...
Unfortunately, this means I haven't done much in random monsters. I have made a bunch of monsters based on the Random Adventure Table, though.
Also, Dragon Magazine did an issue (282) where it had Pizza golems, gummi bears, doritos and jolly ranchers.
Unfortunately, this means I haven't done much in random monsters. I have made a bunch of monsters based on the Random Adventure Table, though.
Also, Dragon Magazine did an issue (282) where it had Pizza golems, gummi bears, doritos and jolly ranchers.
We used toy prehistoric creatures. They were all dinosaurs except for a dimetrodon and a pteranodon. When ever we used 1 of those 2 as a monster, everpony would scream:
“¡That’s no dinosaur!”
“¡That’s no dinosaur!”
That is a quotation S01E01 “Serenity” of the television-show “FireFly”. Wash says that while playing with PlasticToyDinosaurs.
However, if I ever get the chance to DM, I'll be sure to use some. It would be way too much fun.
...We don't like zombie powder very much.
I am now going to devise a necromancer/ranger who tames undead the way a normal ranger tames mundane animals. He will love zombie powder so much!
Our DM made us fight a flying land shark. He is still sore that it didn't get a single attack off against us.
Not a 'custom' monster per se, but in the campaign I played in back in college, the party's second encounter was against a group of goblins looting the lair of the dragon they'd just killed in their first encounter. It was supposed to be a very simple, easy encounter. One of those goblins was the Overseer, a low-level controller with some really annoying effects. I picked a random wizardly figure from my box to represent him.
The entire party, however, rolled absolutely terribly during that encounter. The average d20 roll was a 6. For everyone. Nobody could even hit the Overseer, and he nearly killed them.
For the rest of the campaign, whenever I wanted there to be a particularly annoying baddie, I used that specific figure. All my players would immediately rage and attempt to kill 'that fucking overseer' - and they would always roll terribly in doing so. It was pretty hilarious.
The entire party, however, rolled absolutely terribly during that encounter. The average d20 roll was a 6. For everyone. Nobody could even hit the Overseer, and he nearly killed them.
For the rest of the campaign, whenever I wanted there to be a particularly annoying baddie, I used that specific figure. All my players would immediately rage and attempt to kill 'that fucking overseer' - and they would always roll terribly in doing so. It was pretty hilarious.
My first homebrew monster was "the Gnomish Death Machine" Basicaly a Battletech Heavy mech restatted for DnD and was pretty much immune from absolutely everything.
It's only a matter of time until the GM suddenly has to make actual metal jewellery for the Elements of Harmony.
Actually, I can see plastic costume-jewellery showing up in that role.
Also, ObScootamom: It turns out in that fic that the Elements' settings are made from an alloy of mithril, adamantine, and vibranium.
Scootaloo doesn't believe that those metals can be made to play nicely with each other.
Scootaloo doesn't believe that those metals can be made to play nicely with each other.
my brother had the blue dragon "miniature" for adult and drake
we ended up using more the drake for big monsters and the blue adult for not-blue dragons
we ended up using more the drake for big monsters and the blue adult for not-blue dragons
I'm part of a game on thursday nights that takes place in the Iron Kingdoms setting (anyone familiar with the table-top games Warmachine and Hordes, it's in the same world) using Pathfinder mechanics. One of the characters in that game knows the spell Enlarge Person, and frequently uses it on my Girlfriends's character or my character, since we tank damage very well and are both melee-centric. This means that we often resort to busting out light Warjack pieces to represent our enlarged selves. I very much enjoy running around as an 8-foot tall (in game) robot.
I'm into origami, so I bought some themed animal origami booklets that told me how to make a seal, penguins, a polar bear, etc. for the frostfell, a sea turtle and stuff for the ocean, and I even got one for the wastes. So I had bitty animals set about the table to amuse us. Sometimes I've even used the baked goods I make every week (as in, "I will kill you with this banana chocolate muffin, I swear I will"). They're also great for representing Huge creatures on a map.
The closest I ever get to this was when I was DMing girls-only crossover RPG. Every enemy and major NPC was a pretty girl and I always gave a link to their pictures while introducing them. Some of those picture took a sweet time to find.
One time we were playing a Super Heroes campaign and I had pitted the players against a new "Villain of the week" which was a size-shifting catgirl cosplayer (It... okay even with context it made no sense, but it was an amusing character).
Anyway, we were using cardboard cutouts for our figures that were about 1.5 inches tall. To illustrate this villain in giant form I had taken the core tube from a roll of TP and glued a front/back drawing of the villain so that it stood 6 inches high and dwarfed the players. Worked well for the combat.
Anyway, we were using cardboard cutouts for our figures that were about 1.5 inches tall. To illustrate this villain in giant form I had taken the core tube from a roll of TP and glued a front/back drawing of the villain so that it stood 6 inches high and dwarfed the players. Worked well for the combat.
GM forgot his Figures, So I had to Break out my Flames of War Tanks for Figures. We basically reenacted battle of the bulge unknowingly with the amount of Panzers the Kobolds had.
Well, we very often have to use the wrong minis. This has led to, whenever we're walking into an ambush, using all about 15 Admiral Akbar minis.
Well,actually, the DM used my legos...
Anyways, one of the players absentmindedly moved their figurine on top of one.... Cue:
"You take 1d10 points of damage."
I used to use Legos for building the combat scenery because it made portraying battle damage so easy!
The downside was that setup took a while to get done.
The downside was that setup took a while to get done.
And if you use Minifigs as characters and monsters, whenever you kill someone, you can keep their head and put it on a pike, aka, a toothpick, to keep score for xp earned that game.
Yup, legos are my primary standby when miniatures fail. I've got a big bucket full of minifigs who usually end up representing the massed hordes of whatever we're fighting, color-coded by outfit for when multiple types of enemies are involved. Beyond that, when large creatures are involved, we occasionally use dice cases, and huge and upwards we scavenge for whatever's handy. I may consider the candy approach discussed above for the future, though.
Or rather, we needed a MOUNT. The mount itself was actually a giant scorpion, but whatever.
We've proxied using dice as figurines for complex battles many times, but for improvised terrain and monsters...
This was after I'd finally gotten fed up with the Poorly-Run Alien Forest adventure. I decided to put that session on hold until I could be confident I'd DM properly, and run an entirely-improv vaguely D&D-ish adventure for the players instead. They grabbed random action figures and made up special moves on the fly, and ended up exploring a dungeon heavily cribbed from one of the larger Tribes 2 floating-base structures.
They loved it.
I don't remember what most of the baddies were, but the party decided unanimously that the end-boss of the dungeon was going to be the dragon-form Megatron figurine.
My favourite part of the adventure was the party wandering out through a door marked "Staff Only" and having to re-enter the dungeon. Sadly, the game was cut short by a disturbance across the street IRL.
I'm not very good at running improv adventures either, but some of the techniques used will come in handy when/if I decide to DM again.
This was after I'd finally gotten fed up with the Poorly-Run Alien Forest adventure. I decided to put that session on hold until I could be confident I'd DM properly, and run an entirely-improv vaguely D&D-ish adventure for the players instead. They grabbed random action figures and made up special moves on the fly, and ended up exploring a dungeon heavily cribbed from one of the larger Tribes 2 floating-base structures.
They loved it.
I don't remember what most of the baddies were, but the party decided unanimously that the end-boss of the dungeon was going to be the dragon-form Megatron figurine.
My favourite part of the adventure was the party wandering out through a door marked "Staff Only" and having to re-enter the dungeon. Sadly, the game was cut short by a disturbance across the street IRL.
I'm not very good at running improv adventures either, but some of the techniques used will come in handy when/if I decide to DM again.
But making Chopper a mean, vindictive bastard would be horrible.
I mean, seriously, Ms. Fast-Talking Encyclopedia is a perfect fit for Chopper.
Either way, my favorite character so far is either Brook or Frankie. And I will strangle DT so hard if DM ends up being either. And then I'll kill him again if DM ends up playing both.
(edit): After rewatching some episodes, I've changed my mind. My favorite is Franky, followed closely by Bon Clay.... WAAAAHAAAAA!! Why did he have to die!? He could have joined the strawhats! They were such good friends!
All I've got is that our group's "new guy" has a bunch of clay, so we end up (or I end up, anyway) making our own minis each session.
My story is not something that happened to me personally, but happened to my first group before I joined.
The game was being played entirely online over OpenRPG, I think. It's easy enough to jump onto Google to grab your miniatures too, except for whatever reason they couldn't find a picture of a scorpion to represent the two monsters they were fighting. Clue a replacement "token": a boat. So from then on, they joked about having the epic battle with a couple of scorpions that somehow shapeshifted into boats in the middle of a cave while searching for treasure.
The game was being played entirely online over OpenRPG, I think. It's easy enough to jump onto Google to grab your miniatures too, except for whatever reason they couldn't find a picture of a scorpion to represent the two monsters they were fighting. Clue a replacement "token": a boat. So from then on, they joked about having the epic battle with a couple of scorpions that somehow shapeshifted into boats in the middle of a cave while searching for treasure.
I really like using props for my DSA campaigns. Be it mystery potions they can drink in person (really had fun making them taste horrible!), diaries with clues that I hand out on the table to let them look through it or working with music.
My "masterpiece" so far was when one of them was getting a hidden message smuggled in their food - so I actually prepared the food and hid a small strap of leather (with the message written on it) wrapped around a pebble in the porridge. The looks on their faces when Anni fished the glob out of her bowl were worth the trouble a thousand times. :D
My "masterpiece" so far was when one of them was getting a hidden message smuggled in their food - so I actually prepared the food and hid a small strap of leather (with the message written on it) wrapped around a pebble in the porridge. The looks on their faces when Anni fished the glob out of her bowl were worth the trouble a thousand times. :D
I spontaneously had to think of the "much, much bigger"-incident.
A friend of mine lead a session of Star Wars RPG and struggled to describe the new vessel of one of us players. He spontaneously folded a candy box into a vaguely space ship-like ship and told us: "The ship looks exactly like this. Just, of course, much, much bigger."
The situation was so hilarious. We players first looked at each other, and then we dropped under the table, laughing.
Today, we still use the phrase "just, of course, much, much bigger" when a game master ist starting to screw up a description or comes up with a silly prop.
A friend of mine lead a session of Star Wars RPG and struggled to describe the new vessel of one of us players. He spontaneously folded a candy box into a vaguely space ship-like ship and told us: "The ship looks exactly like this. Just, of course, much, much bigger."
The situation was so hilarious. We players first looked at each other, and then we dropped under the table, laughing.
Today, we still use the phrase "just, of course, much, much bigger" when a game master ist starting to screw up a description or comes up with a silly prop.
In the numerous number of DnD games that I am in right now the DM's use anything from the dice to scrabble to marbles. One time we even used some pizza. That was the tastiest kill I ever got.
I forgot to say that the pizza represented a dragon. a massive dragon. I got the kill with a bit of luck. Rolling a critical my character threw their last knife and it went through the dragons mouth and shoot straight through to its heart, killing it instantly. We represented that by sticking a toothpick through one of the olives on the pizza.
That reminds me: with the number of people who've refused to entertain the idea of pineapple as a topping, I know refer to a Hawaiian special as a heresy pizza. And enjoying every pite of it.
I don't think fiendish pizza will catch on for olives, however.
I don't think fiendish pizza will catch on for olives, however.
I call it the island man pizza, because I get the pizza all to myself. Nobody else is willing to try it, even though it's much better than it sounds.
Dammit, I'm too late to post this. In one game I hosted, the party intercepted a message cylinder going between two bad guys. It was protected with a (moderately easily guessable) password, but if you tried to force it open, a vial of alchemist's fire inside would break and torch the message. Here's what I made for them:
http://s279.beta.photobucket.com/user/Toiski/library/Cipher%20Cylinder
http://s279.beta.photobucket.com/user/Toiski/library/Cipher%20Cylinder
I don't recall the exact history of Rumblebee, but he started as our needing a large bee (or bee swarm, I forget). We have a bunch of foam cubes (often used as terrain elements, even more often thrown at people to punish bad puns), and one player carved part of one into a tiny yellow cube, then carved out the underbelly so it fit on a figure's head, and then used a pen to turn the cube into a bee.
Since then, he's actually been used as a PC at least once. Seen combat, even.
We've also put together a pretty badass worm thing from a bunch of cubes and some sticks to stick 'em together. It got to be a bit of a hassle to move that thing, but at least it was memorable.
Since then, he's actually been used as a PC at least once. Seen combat, even.
We've also put together a pretty badass worm thing from a bunch of cubes and some sticks to stick 'em together. It got to be a bit of a hassle to move that thing, but at least it was memorable.