Friendship is Dragons
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Page 254 - Meet Cute
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So true a statement spud. :D
Especially true in my group where players try to find ways around the rules for an advantage. I wear down a lot of rolled up newspapers from DMing.
Especially true in my group where players try to find ways around the rules for an advantage. I wear down a lot of rolled up newspapers from DMing.
ObBusterWylde:
"Man, that rolled up newspaper comes outta *nowhere*."
"I had a holster made."
"Man, that rolled up newspaper comes outta *nowhere*."
"I had a holster made."
And now I understand why so many people like to play without a system. If fast-talking DM is the main feature of the game, why bother to roll dice?
Because dice keep your DM's hands too busy to seek out something heavy with which to bludgeon you.
...Not that any respectable DM would condone such a course of action, of course. <cough>
...Not that any respectable DM would condone such a course of action, of course. <cough>
Anyone else find it hilarious this is right below Digo talking about beating his players with rolled up newspapers?
Light bludgeons, such as rolled up newspaper, are acceptable, and you may wield one and a die of your choice simultaneously.
Heavy bludgeons, such as a frying pan or the player to your left, have been prescribed at the table by the Mohan-Moore Conventions, ratified in 1985, and the Brom-Daxa Treaties of 1989 and 1991. In countries that have not signed the latter treaties, and the state of Idaho, the heavy bludgeon may be used only after the following criteria have been fulfilled:
a) the game has run more than 4 hours,
b) the hour is sometime between 3 and 7 in the morning, and
c) the players have failed to maintain a reliable source of caffeine for the DM or, if such a source is available, have attempted to withhold it for coercive purposes.
Heavy bludgeons, such as a frying pan or the player to your left, have been prescribed at the table by the Mohan-Moore Conventions, ratified in 1985, and the Brom-Daxa Treaties of 1989 and 1991. In countries that have not signed the latter treaties, and the state of Idaho, the heavy bludgeon may be used only after the following criteria have been fulfilled:
a) the game has run more than 4 hours,
b) the hour is sometime between 3 and 7 in the morning, and
c) the players have failed to maintain a reliable source of caffeine for the DM or, if such a source is available, have attempted to withhold it for coercive purposes.
My DM most recently brought a Nerf gun to the session. However, its purpose was merely to get us back on track should the conversation stray too far from the game.
At least it's better than Jenga. Grief is scary, especially with a Killer GM.
...Grief is freeform where you use Jenga instead of die rolls. Sometimes the GM will require you to take certain blocks or below or above certain heights or even multiple to increase difficulty. Basically you succeed in whatever you are trying to do as long as the tower is not knocked down. Of course, you have to be careful with warding or the GM will turn into a Literal Genie. And if the tower falls, Bad Stuff happens. It's like knowing that all good rolls the party makes only increase the chances of critically failing so bad someone dies. I've played two oneshots of it, the first the only one to survive had to be triple immortal to do so (the universe imploded). The second one almost everyone was to scared to do much, and still everyone died.
...Grief is freeform where you use Jenga instead of die rolls. Sometimes the GM will require you to take certain blocks or below or above certain heights or even multiple to increase difficulty. Basically you succeed in whatever you are trying to do as long as the tower is not knocked down. Of course, you have to be careful with warding or the GM will turn into a Literal Genie. And if the tower falls, Bad Stuff happens. It's like knowing that all good rolls the party makes only increase the chances of critically failing so bad someone dies. I've played two oneshots of it, the first the only one to survive had to be triple immortal to do so (the universe imploded). The second one almost everyone was to scared to do much, and still everyone died.
That does sound like a pretty cruel system. Points for originality, though.
My rpg group tends to be rather ADD. Just recently, we entered the first room of a dungen, and then promptly decided to go hunt goblins elsewhere.
We also tend to create our own sidequests, like founding the Followers of Wababac (if I'm spelling it right). That one started with the full-blooded ORC NINJA sneaking up the front side of the local herbalist's shop, climbing in the second story window, failing to break the door down, and then convincing the owner (who I assume is a peaceful half-elf) to join a religious order of "war and blood and battle and killing and more killing."
We also tend to create our own sidequests, like founding the Followers of Wababac (if I'm spelling it right). That one started with the full-blooded ORC NINJA sneaking up the front side of the local herbalist's shop, climbing in the second story window, failing to break the door down, and then convincing the owner (who I assume is a peaceful half-elf) to join a religious order of "war and blood and battle and killing and more killing."
That morning after everyone passes there fort checks with flying colors, we try and find a separate party member who has been missing in game for a year. We didn't know he was missing and the ignored plot hook was to find him. The reason we wanted to find him, even though we didn't have the hook? Temporis owns a mithril waffle iron and we all wanted waffles.
So we set out on this epic quest to find WAFFLES of all things.
Any good roleplayer worth their salt knows that there is a very fine line between "meta-gaming" and "I just fast-talked the DM into doing exactly what I wanted".
Fast talking the DM results in your character having lingering doubts, and getting to reroll his sense motive check again.
Well, if the character says something new, obviously it's a new situation and you should get to roll Sense Motive again.
So if you can get the guy to talk long enough, on enough different subjects, it's statistically improbable that you fail to tell their true intent.
So if you can get the guy to talk long enough, on enough different subjects, it's statistically improbable that you fail to tell their true intent.
The Rogue in my pathfinder campaign Sense Motives everyone and everything (including party members), to the point where the DM has just started admitting if an NPC is flat out lying so we have that covered.
As a contrast, our group's current GM for the Shadowrun campaign we're in is almost the opposite in that he's an "Anything Goes" style of running things.
So there's no need to fast talk him into letting the team get ahold of an anti-tank rocket. He's already shot at us with FIVE of those things, with two PCs already dead from their inability to soak rocketfire with their face.
It's almost like we have to fast talk our GM to stop giving stuff away freely to every NPC out there.
So there's no need to fast talk him into letting the team get ahold of an anti-tank rocket. He's already shot at us with FIVE of those things, with two PCs already dead from their inability to soak rocketfire with their face.
It's almost like we have to fast talk our GM to stop giving stuff away freely to every NPC out there.
It is like that, but in the reverse. The GM is giving NPCs the rocket launchers, thus forcing us to get rockets too just to keep up.
I understand that the challenge should slowly rise to keep players engaged as they increase in experience points, but I was under the impression the challenges should be tailored to match the characters.
In this case, non of our characters know how to use a rocket launcher, much less get a hold of one. :)
I understand that the challenge should slowly rise to keep players engaged as they increase in experience points, but I was under the impression the challenges should be tailored to match the characters.
In this case, non of our characters know how to use a rocket launcher, much less get a hold of one. :)
You just had to... escalate the problem with a pun, huh? ;)
I hope that doesn't raise any questions.
That's the kind of wordplay people lift for this sort of situation.
But then you lose out on the other half of the DMs job. Cutting off players when they have really bad idea.
Nah, that's the reason you say, "Are you sure you want to do that?"
No, that's when you just start evilly chuckling and rolling your d12's for no reason.
Drink in that player fear, for it is a sweet, sweet nectar.
Drink in that player fear, for it is a sweet, sweet nectar.
Nothing worse than hearing a half dozen dice rolls from behind the screen for no good reason.
I have actually had a player call me out with the phrase "You're bluffing, d12s aren't used for anything but Barbarian HP and battle axes."
Eh, it only takes one curse that reduces a character's height by 1d12 inches per foot to demonstrate the player's error.
"Awesome!"
"You now have the world's largest dong of any man."
"ALRIGHT!"
"Make a fort check."
"What?"
"Your body barely has the blood to support you. Make a fort check to avoid passing out."
D12 is a useful die. I like to use them for curses and other nonspecific things.
I used d12's for mook numbers, trap damage, amount of rounds before the room fills with poisonous fumes... all sorts of things. That and "the battle axe trap you didn't find lops the top off the wizard's hat, a severed rabbit head rolls onto the floor"
No. No it isn't. It's an insanely mean tactic that makes character creation feel like pulling teeth.
"I said you could have a 150 point character with 40 points in disads. This character has 1287 points in disads and still adds up to 900 points."
"Okay, I fixed it."
"Now it has 253 points in disads, including nineteen things I need to roll for whether or not they show up in each gaming session, and only adds up to 102 points. You're using Excel as your character sheet -- how can you be this bad at math?"
"I said you could have a 150 point character with 40 points in disads. This character has 1287 points in disads and still adds up to 900 points."
"Okay, I fixed it."
"Now it has 253 points in disads, including nineteen things I need to roll for whether or not they show up in each gaming session, and only adds up to 102 points. You're using Excel as your character sheet -- how can you be this bad at math?"
Yeah, if I wanted to haggle, I'd have taken a job in marketing, thank you.
for example, my huge sized giant who wields colossal weapons would be the unreasonable character.
My noble barbarian poet/philosopher of the elephant tribe would be the reasonable character. Yes, there is something hilarious about him. No, I won't tell you what it is, because then you'll know, and anyone who knows will see the joke coming from miles away. He's quirky and hilarious, while at the same time deep, philosophical, and and wise. As wise as a barbarian from a tribe that glorifies raw strength above all else gets, anyway.
I think the point is you have only two characters made, the one you want, and the silly one you show first just to fake out the GM.
"I have this 200 point character specializing in an instant heart attack power that is unresisted, with a radius of everything within a mile, useable on inanimate objects."
"Uh, no."
"I have this 200 point adventurer who has a sprinkling of gun skills, some good outdoors flavor, and speaks four languages."
"Go with that."
"WIN!"
"I have this 200 point character specializing in an instant heart attack power that is unresisted, with a radius of everything within a mile, useable on inanimate objects."
"Uh, no."
"I have this 200 point adventurer who has a sprinkling of gun skills, some good outdoors flavor, and speaks four languages."
"Go with that."
"WIN!"
Also, my bigoted wizard may be kind of a prick to other magic users, but danged if he isn't overpowered. But then, I designed him with endgame levels in mind, and I built him so that he'd fit right in... With an Exalted campaign. He's a sealed jackass in a can. I can't actually use him in a D&D game, except to present the homebrew school of magic he uses, and let the DM gawk at his level 9 omnidirectional healing spell with a 3 kilometer radius. No, I never expect to use this character except as a story character, but he is so much fun to write.
Also, never pass up a chance to link to tv tropes.
I had a wizard who in his background claimed he was once engaged to a jungle giant. Even he wasn't sure how that happened and he never visted her under the false assumption jungle giants work like praying mantises.
I predict the DM did not comprehend the mathematical implications of their homebrew reproduction rules.
I know theres a story here, and probably a funny one, Please tell.
I can't generally fast-talk anyone, but occasionally I get a glimpse of inspiration and twist logic inside out to make a perfectly reasonable (except for a few minor yet critical details) explanation for why I'm right.
Usually the equivalent of convincing them the sun rises in the west - and I have to act fast before they think about it and realize that no matter how much sense I'm making, I MUST be wrong somehow.
Those would be the times where I end up cackling like an evil villain (as opposed to the heroic villains <.<)
I hold no candle to some brilliant minds I've seen, though - Academagia, while a single-player game, has a particularly impressive scene where a sufficiently skilled PC can convince an NPC that the sky is some specific color that isn't blue (I forget the exact color, but it's irrelevant), using sound but false logic and facts.
Usually the equivalent of convincing them the sun rises in the west - and I have to act fast before they think about it and realize that no matter how much sense I'm making, I MUST be wrong somehow.
Those would be the times where I end up cackling like an evil villain (as opposed to the heroic villains <.<)
I hold no candle to some brilliant minds I've seen, though - Academagia, while a single-player game, has a particularly impressive scene where a sufficiently skilled PC can convince an NPC that the sky is some specific color that isn't blue (I forget the exact color, but it's irrelevant), using sound but false logic and facts.
Gah, you're doing it wrong! 'What I think I do' and 'What I actually do' should always be the same, for reasons that should be obvious.
Remember, kids: The DM can keep the Monster Manual away from you during the game, but he can't stop you from having read it all beforehand.
I got wise as a DM by creating my own balanced creatures based on the MM. Keeps them guessing a bit more often.
If players tend to act on Monster Manual knowledge, warn them that monsters have a saving throw vs. metagaming.
But I will try to talk my way around a ruling if I personally disagree with it. My co-DM has a habit of making illogical, semi-railroady decisions because he didn't anticipate something, or because he insists that the best way to run a game is to plan between sessions. And then goes on to leave it until the day before.
Fluttershy: "Oh look, the little fuzzy blue ball just ate a bushel of apples, I reroll my nature check to see if I know of what animals that can do that."
Fluttershy: "Oh look, the little fuzzy blue ball just vomited up a pink fuzzy ball. I reroll my nature check to see if any other animal does that."
Fluttershy: "Oh look, the little fuzzy blue ball and the little fuzzy pink ball just..."
DM: "STOP THAT"
Applejack: "Well if you stop setting the knowledge checks so high we wouldn't resort to doing this."
Twilight: "Yea, the last campaign I got a 29 and all I was left with was vague and ominous."
Now someone just needs to escalate things by making one for real.
Not it!
Not it!
I'm... just going to settle for congratulating DoubleCross for the work done. Very nice.
They're gonna be the new hot thing in the Brony circles.
The tops of a couple ring pops.
I'd prefer to get some of the googly eyes out of my daughter's crafting box.
In hindsight, maybe the other players were right when they said that character should have Chaotic Neutral instead of Chaotic Good. There was no ultimately-helpful motive behind getting a cheap BoH. He just wanted some place to store his ludicrous amount of stuff. (For example, at character creation, he bought 500 sheets of paper since we started with a large amount of gold and Alchemists are surprisingly cheap to build for on the budget we were talking so why not, right?.)
I managed to fast talk my way to letting my Dwarf rogue leave behind some items when he quit the party. One of the items was a belt that gave +6 to con and dex. My next character is a Dwarf Monk with a reason to stick with the party. I then got him 2000 lbs of mead, a wagon, and four horses. All at the cost of my new character having a deck of 22 cards. A rather nice deck that is clearly full of magic.
I have a Drunken Master of the Sacred Mountain who wants revenge and has more mead than the city we are about to leave from and the deck of many things.
I have a Drunken Master of the Sacred Mountain who wants revenge and has more mead than the city we are about to leave from and the deck of many things.
Your DM let you start from character creation with a deck of many things? What a silly silly pony...
Magic items were distributed through a random process. The deck was the only one I could not exchange since it is an artifact.
Wait a sec...*looks at cast sheet* Fluttershy rolled a 4. And more importantly, why have we never seen them take 10?
As for a relevant story, I have none because the only GM I ever had was a real stick-in-the-ass. Which is the reason I'm starting to take up GMing.
As for a relevant story, I have none because the only GM I ever had was a real stick-in-the-ass. Which is the reason I'm starting to take up GMing.
Hm, Pinkie supposedly knows what the creature is in the episode. Wonder how that will play out here? Did she steal his... her...? The DM's notes?
Bardic Lore perhaps? That's still an ability in 4e, isn't it?
Bardic Lore is gone, but bards do get a +1 bonus to untrained skill checks. Pinkie also took the Jack of All Trades feat, so her modifier on untrained checks is +3. I think there might be an error on her character sheet, as her modifier to Wisdom based skills, where she'd have a -1 penalty for a score of 8, is +6, rather than +5 (+3 level, +1 class, +1 bard, +2 feat, -1 Wis).
Even so, a +5 bonus is sufficient to score a difficult knowledge check against a level 9 challenge with a very lucky roll. It's simply possible that her dice were very good to her.
It's also possible that the DM gave Pinkie a bonus to the check based on her background. That would be consistent with the way this DM runs the game. It could also be that the DM gave an "apology" bonus for setting her up last session, but that seems unlikely, as well as unfair to both DM and Pinkie.
I'll mention one last option: this story winds up in unexpected territory because the DM winds up preferring the direction the bard's trying to take it. I don't think this is a spoiler, because it's a common and effective practice in many well run campaigns -- and also because I don't think this is quite where the author is going. I might be close, but I'm pretty sure my aim is off by at least a few degrees here.
Even so, a +5 bonus is sufficient to score a difficult knowledge check against a level 9 challenge with a very lucky roll. It's simply possible that her dice were very good to her.
It's also possible that the DM gave Pinkie a bonus to the check based on her background. That would be consistent with the way this DM runs the game. It could also be that the DM gave an "apology" bonus for setting her up last session, but that seems unlikely, as well as unfair to both DM and Pinkie.
I'll mention one last option: this story winds up in unexpected territory because the DM winds up preferring the direction the bard's trying to take it. I don't think this is a spoiler, because it's a common and effective practice in many well run campaigns -- and also because I don't think this is quite where the author is going. I might be close, but I'm pretty sure my aim is off by at least a few degrees here.
I generally only let my players talk me into silly things when it's a life-or-death situation.
For instance, I was running a module with a small group of like 2 other people. We were so small that I had to take a character myself. Anyway, we're in a long, 10-foot-wide hallway, and there's an encounter where a gelatinous cube has eaten a large set of armor and moves towards us with backlighting, making it look like the armor is haunted (which isn't that far-fetched for D&D). We were playing either 3.5 or Pathfinder (I can't remember which) and the only fighter in our group was a charging-type fighter. I was a druid and we had a ranger or something similar.
The fighter charges the gelatinous cube, makes a flying leap attack, and because the armor is towards the back of the cube, he gets sucked up and sinks right in. So, now we have a druid who can't nature shape pulling level 1 summon nature's ally scrolls out of his backpack in a desperate attempt to slow the cube down while the ranger's arrows aren't overcoming the cube's DR (or some other effect; I can't remember why, but the cube wasn't being hurt by him).
The solution? Being eaten by the cube does acid damage (because of digestive juices) so the cube must be made of acid, or at least have a lot of acid in it. So the ranger chucks a 1 SP pound of soap (about 4 bars, for those of you that are curious) right at the monster, and it swallows it up. The resulting chemical reaction does 1d3 damage per bar, which adds up to 2d6 damage total. The cube didn't survive long after that.
There was also the time with the mimic, but that's probably a bit too raunchy for this comment section.
For instance, I was running a module with a small group of like 2 other people. We were so small that I had to take a character myself. Anyway, we're in a long, 10-foot-wide hallway, and there's an encounter where a gelatinous cube has eaten a large set of armor and moves towards us with backlighting, making it look like the armor is haunted (which isn't that far-fetched for D&D). We were playing either 3.5 or Pathfinder (I can't remember which) and the only fighter in our group was a charging-type fighter. I was a druid and we had a ranger or something similar.
The fighter charges the gelatinous cube, makes a flying leap attack, and because the armor is towards the back of the cube, he gets sucked up and sinks right in. So, now we have a druid who can't nature shape pulling level 1 summon nature's ally scrolls out of his backpack in a desperate attempt to slow the cube down while the ranger's arrows aren't overcoming the cube's DR (or some other effect; I can't remember why, but the cube wasn't being hurt by him).
The solution? Being eaten by the cube does acid damage (because of digestive juices) so the cube must be made of acid, or at least have a lot of acid in it. So the ranger chucks a 1 SP pound of soap (about 4 bars, for those of you that are curious) right at the monster, and it swallows it up. The resulting chemical reaction does 1d3 damage per bar, which adds up to 2d6 damage total. The cube didn't survive long after that.
There was also the time with the mimic, but that's probably a bit too raunchy for this comment section.
"Oi"? Is the DM British, or vaguely commonwealth?
Possibly neither. I'm an American and I sometimes say "Oi."
With an oi oi here, and an oi oi there, here an oi, there an oi, everywhere an oi oi, old McDonald had a Raxon, E-I-E-I-O!
Sometimes I swear I come to this comic just to read your comments Raxon.
It will love you, it will hate you, but in the end, it will leave you passed out contentedly in a puddle of mysteriously viscous fluid, but it won't respect you in the morning, and it doesn't keep its promise to call you. It does post bail, though.
PS: It was jello.
PPS: I know my comments only take up around 2-3% of the comments section, but I have a good defense. Sturgeon's law
Victims that bleed.
Victims that bleed and I can reasonably be charged with a crime.
Why am I still here, again?
Oh yeah, probation.
I've always been told it's stereotypical Jewish, or anyone who's heard it recently (so, like, anyone who likes The Lion King counts too)
Nature: In case it is a natural creature that lives in the area.
Dungeoneering: May have come from the underground
Arcana: Because the fact that a parasprite can consume so much food and vomit out its children isn't natural
Religion: May actually be a fiend creature designed to consume every natural resource and cause a famine
History: Could have had such an impact in the past that someone felt that they had to record it
Streetwise: Someone else may have heard of it
Insight: To study it individually for any notable quirks
Perception: May be more than one
Diplomacy: To see if it's sentient
Bluff: Check the value of its intelligence and trusting nature
Intimidate: Check its courage and if it becomes timid or aggressive when provoked.
Stealth: To observe it in its natural settings without someone influencing its actions.
Acrobatics: Understanding its reflexes
Athletics: Understanding its physical strength
Thievery: Steel something from it that if values and see how it reacts
Heal: See if it's at the peak of health, wounded, sick, old...
Endurance: See how long it takes for the DM to rage quit because he's sick of you guys shoveling it on.
I love exotic food. Like when the lady dances on the pole while I turn it slowly over a nice fire.
My guess is "it feels like a peach filled with jelly, and it tastes like that 'mate' south american drink".
Fun fact: If I get to read today's comic without sleeping before, it will be my second FiD page this week with no sleep in between. I FEEL FINE!!
Fun fact: If I get to read today's comic without sleeping before, it will be my second FiD page this week with no sleep in between. I FEEL FINE!!
Our group doesn't have to fast-talk the DM, we just stall playing until he's had his third beer.
Yes that reminds me on my "Degenesis"-Party...
Its an non-magic postapocalyptic pnp, one of our players was a "Wiedertäufer", a extremly religions guy... So Degenesis had the stat "Glauben" - what means something like faith in english, but also "belive in" - so he kept useing it too convert Player knowledge to Character knowledge with rolling this and when he sucessed he said "I believe that[...]"... horrible^^ Well now I master and shut this down...
But another thing my party just keeps rolling is "Perception" - old dm used to let players find artifacts if they passed a perception check... now they roll all 10 meters they go-,- I keept telling them they woudn't find anything but they kept rolling... that untill on critical failures I let them "see an enemy" right next to an allied character... well - half-dead party and they stopped rolling >:)
Its an non-magic postapocalyptic pnp, one of our players was a "Wiedertäufer", a extremly religions guy... So Degenesis had the stat "Glauben" - what means something like faith in english, but also "belive in" - so he kept useing it too convert Player knowledge to Character knowledge with rolling this and when he sucessed he said "I believe that[...]"... horrible^^ Well now I master and shut this down...
But another thing my party just keeps rolling is "Perception" - old dm used to let players find artifacts if they passed a perception check... now they roll all 10 meters they go-,- I keept telling them they woudn't find anything but they kept rolling... that untill on critical failures I let them "see an enemy" right next to an allied character... well - half-dead party and they stopped rolling >:)
Honestly, never understood why you can't just "take 20" on remembering stuff. The worst was that one time I had to roll about how much depth I could go into explaining my backstory, even though it was basically "So my parents were abusive because of a curse so I hightailed it outta there real fast, and now I'm here" so it's not like there was the alternative motive of keeping it shorter.
What Non-Gamers Think I Do: Act out everything in-character a la LARPing.
What I Think I Do: Create a well-rounded character and use it to vicariously live out a fantastic journey.
What I Actually Do: Fast-talk the DM into giving me what I want.