Friendship is Dragons
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Page 579 - Tried, Denied
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Ingratitude does seem to be rampant for hapless adventurers saving the world.
Story Time: When did you do something great for others and get absolutely no respect/praise/reward/indication that you did anything?
The Great & Powerful Trixie once saved the party from some kidnappers. It was a messy save, but still one we all walked away from. Never got one bit of respect or praise for it-- only criticism on her brute-force method of going about the rescue.
How rude!
How rude!
Not paying me for eradicating your Illithids is a real easy way to get our parties to magically resort to murder. We are often either helping explicitly for the pay or we've got other issues.
While not paying you is a thing I could forgive, turning against you is a cause for making a point to kill him when you leave town.
In a Pathfinder game, we saved the world not once, not twice, but THREE times. And as far as we could tell, nobody cared.
Just one of the numerous problems I had with our last Deadlands game was the fact that we never got the chance to do any tale-tellin' to improve morale and drive off fear after destroying Insert Hideous Threat Here. Mind you, it was already railroady as all heck so I doubt we'd have been allowed to make a difference anyway... :-/
They nearly got arrested themselves for trying to pose as the "epic looking heroes" they "obviously" don't look like. Thankfully we had a diehard fan of Trixie in the group who had convinced the police that the group was just trying to scrap enough cash together so she could go and see a Trixie concert for her birthday (cause a cost of a ticket for that concert was like EVIL), and to not arrest them.
... however, our youngest member and I was still at the train station making sure everyone was ok, and someone thought we were also some of the captives, so we got a free ice cream. Yay.
Something I did as a GM fits closely into this category...
It was a Western setting and I was bringing all of the players together. One had a native as a character, and he was caught up in a trial against a friendly tribe -- it was essentially a trumped up, governmental landgrab type of deal. Not friendly or even really legal, to be honest, but more than a little historical.
The chief of the beleaguered tribe was allowed to speak and delivered excerpts from that famous Chief Seattle "How can you buy the sky..." speech, complete with a link to the full text.
I know, it was written for a movie, but based on as close to first-hand accounting as it was possible to obtain at the time. Regardless, it was a very moving scene.
After the speech, the players waited anxiously as the court officials conferred. They, of course, expected a Hollywood style "We're Saved" moment. They didn't get it.
Not only was the content and emotional quality of the speech dismissed with arrogance, but the length of it gave the court an excuse to rescind the rights of the defendants to speak. Instead, they would be restricted to communicating to the court through their attorney under the excuse of efficient use of time.
Needless to say, the reactions on part of the players were extreme and about as honest as any I've ever seen. Riotous action erupted, even from those players not immediately involved with the trial.
It was a Western setting and I was bringing all of the players together. One had a native as a character, and he was caught up in a trial against a friendly tribe -- it was essentially a trumped up, governmental landgrab type of deal. Not friendly or even really legal, to be honest, but more than a little historical.
The chief of the beleaguered tribe was allowed to speak and delivered excerpts from that famous Chief Seattle "How can you buy the sky..." speech, complete with a link to the full text.
I know, it was written for a movie, but based on as close to first-hand accounting as it was possible to obtain at the time. Regardless, it was a very moving scene.
After the speech, the players waited anxiously as the court officials conferred. They, of course, expected a Hollywood style "We're Saved" moment. They didn't get it.
Not only was the content and emotional quality of the speech dismissed with arrogance, but the length of it gave the court an excuse to rescind the rights of the defendants to speak. Instead, they would be restricted to communicating to the court through their attorney under the excuse of efficient use of time.
Needless to say, the reactions on part of the players were extreme and about as honest as any I've ever seen. Riotous action erupted, even from those players not immediately involved with the trial.
Man, it's still embarassing. We were so gung-ho eager to get planetside and pursue our target that we didn't bother signing up with the other mercenaries flying down for the battle in the morning. So when a the space-Texan enlisted soldiers whimsically offered us a once-in-a-lifetime job driving their unspeakably ancient & holy battle tank (they were more comfortable on horseback), we agreed, and when the time came we punched through enemy lines and carried the battle...
And saw our exploits in the news next session, where it was announced that an unknown group of heroic mercenaries had risked life and limb piloting the archeotech Fellglaive tank, Free. Of. Charge. Sure, there was appreciation, but no one knew it was us, and a couple of us were EXCEPTIONALLY displeased by missing out on that kind of payout.
> Story Time: When did you do something great for others and get absolutely no respect/praise/reward/indication that you did anything?
Wouldn't that be EVERY computer RPG game?
"Oh, you saved the town! Now, buy stuff from our vendors at inflated prices".
Wouldn't that be EVERY computer RPG game?
"Oh, you saved the town! Now, buy stuff from our vendors at inflated prices".
The only thing he gets as recognition for his selfless acts is to be called a wimp and a pansy elf at every opportunity while being the universal target for whatever beehive his party decided to stir up this time around. And he's a half elf, dang it!
Though, since the annoying character and the person seem to be one and the same, I'm having a hard time wondering if it's my character annoyed with his character or if I'm the one annoyed with the player. Then again, he won't shut up with his attempts to assign all blame to my cleric for burning down the plains we were in. Despite the fact that he not only encouraged the idea (after the rest of us agreed it was a terrible idea), but figured out a way to do it safely and provided the tools to get it done.
So yeah, I might have a PK story coming up soon™.
Sounds like a perfect opportunity for Celestia to "invite" them herself to investigate the corruption in the Canterlot elite. And of course in the process totally trashing Dainty Dove's chances... :)
Well now the DM's just giving mixed messages. On the other hand, nothing will spur PCs to try and get something like telling them they can't have it.
I was about to say that reverse-psychology is what Faust was trying to do, but then I realized that Faust actually DID expect them to be excited about the fair, and this was the first of her *secret* speedbumps/encounters to challenge their enthusiasm.
Hmm, so Celestia couldn't get the tickets in this version? Oh I would so still go over just to crash this party. >:)
...might be what they end up doing actually.
...might be what they end up doing actually.
At what point does a character mastered his job.D&D and similar RPG based only
Me:you know your a great thief, when you can take the clothes off a noble in public(underwear too) and they don't realize it, until they become a laughing stock.
Me:you know your a great thief, when you can take the clothes off a noble in public(underwear too) and they don't realize it, until they become a laughing stock.
Look up "The Emperor's New Clothes" sometime :P
As for me... I have heard rumors in my group of a halfling ninja who declared her mastery of stealth by holding a lantern in front of a guard... Who saw a floating lantern, and not the halfling holding it. No spells, no rings or other artifacts, just that amazingly good.
As for me... I have heard rumors in my group of a halfling ninja who declared her mastery of stealth by holding a lantern in front of a guard... Who saw a floating lantern, and not the halfling holding it. No spells, no rings or other artifacts, just that amazingly good.
She dug a hole, hid in it, put lantern onto a stick, sticked the stick out of the hole. Simple.
That's amateur hour. Come back when you can steal fire from the gods.
Bah. Come back when you can give fire back to the gods and have them reward you for it, not take it and laugh in your face (or worse)!
Please, talk to me when you pickpocket the God of Thieves and steel a magic golden fiddle without him noticing.
Cohen the Barbarian! Genghis Cohen! Gotta love the Discworld...
A great thief... or a sorceror/wizard with chained reach Teleport Object. (Yes, this requires a level 11 spell slot. If you have level 11 spell slots, you're an arcane spellcaster to be reckoned with.)
And I gotta agree with AJ on this...they saved the freaking ungrateful world and they still can't get an invite. I hope they vote for party crashing.
In fairness, they did crash the last party they went to. Kinda honked off a bunch of prissy pony aristocrats...
So, let's see. They crashed the last party and ticked off the aristocratic class and now they are surprised the same aristocratic group of people denied their invitation.
Sure, I agree that saving the world should get them some special recognition. But if the saviors of the world crashed my last party and embarrassed some of my guests in front of everyone present, I'd hesitate to invite them to the next one too.
My guess is that, seeing that the players weren't interested, the GM decided to tell them they can't go in order to get them interested.
Reverse psychology in action. Works on way more players then it should. XD
You see... most adventurers have a PR problem. It probably doesn't help that sometimes they're prone to wanton destruction either...
That or there are no witnesses to back up their claim of saving the world. :D
I can't remember which book it was in, but a line from a Discworld novel comes to mind:
"That's the trouble with saving the world from certain doom. If you pull it off, people are left wondering just how certain it actually was."
"That's the trouble with saving the world from certain doom. If you pull it off, people are left wondering just how certain it actually was."
Playing a Half-Elf Rogue in 5E campaign (starter kit). Got rid of the bandits, go out again and kill the goblins. Come back to town, there's aids-rain, cancer-soil, and malaria-wind (amongst other things). Walk into the tavern, our drunk employer keeping the angry mob at bay. Not our fault, haven't even been thanked so far, and we get blamed for something we didn't have a hand in. If I'm going to get blamed for something, I at least want to have been responsible for it!
-Ru
-Ru
Ah, reverse psychology, what a perfect way to make someone want something.
Wild player characters appeared!
DM used Reverse psychology!
It's super effective!
XD
DM used Reverse psychology!
It's super effective!
XD
You know, these six ladies saved the world, they could find a way to unsave it at any time. I think there's a demi-god of chaos in the palace gardens that would love to have a word with you.
My player's were on a quest to save the high priest's daughter who had been kidnapped by cultists. They managed to save her, but not before the girl was tainted by demonic magic. Needless to say the high priest was not happy. Not only did the party not get paid, they ended up kidnapping the girl themselves before the high priest could "purge the evil in her" by fire.
If you're not, I'm away from my work computer and I'm in no position to fix things immediately. Hopefully that won't happen.