Show us your Rat Bastardry!

[Nytmare]

"I'm not done yet."

Then the president called. "Hello," I answered knowing who it was before I picked up the phone. "I believe that congratulations are once again in order." he responded. I heard his cabinet sobbing heartfully in the background.

"Your country needs you," he continued, "I'm sure that you've heard of the situation in North Korea. We feel as though your talents could be put to good use."

"I know, Mr President, but I'm afraid that there are some things that are more important. Roll for initiative..."

 

[Seraphaguin]

Hahaha. Well said, Nytmare. If you knew what I did for a living, that'd probably be funnier (because it's possible.)

 

[Rune]

Then there was the time, the callous, crass, stubbornly independent (and occasionally villainous) fighter got killed.

The party had no cleric capable of raising the dead, but they were traveling with one. Problem was, they hated her. She was annoying, petulant, frequently useless (a cardinal sin in the eyes of players!), overly pious, and strictly dogmatic.

And she was, at that time, the only example of a worshiper of her deity that the party had ever come across, so, as far as they knew, that's what the deity was looking for in a worshiper. They also had strong suspicions that the deity, or at least its church, was not as good as it made itself out to be.

Anyway, she cast raise dead on the fighter, but before he could come back, I handed the player a note asking if he [his character, that is] would agree to worship and serve the deity as The One True God. The implication, of course, being that returning to life was contingent upon his answer.

The player was so torn up about this that he actually rolled dice to determine whether or not he would agree to it. In the end, he did, and spent the remainder of his adventuring life as a faithful (in an entirely pragmatic way) and certainly villainous servant of that deity.

 

[JoshDemers]

I ran a demon-hunting game in which the one of the players was a shaman of Bat. Not only a shaman, also Bat's son. In their travels, they came across a colony of bats that had been warped into demon-touched monsters. Troubled, the shaman entered into the Shroud, where the totems dwell, and found Bat's cave. The guards were clearly not well, though one was just sane enough to permit him enter. He came to Bat's inner sanctum to see Bat hanging, as was his custom, from the ceiling, a pile of small somethings was under him and he was chewing. The shaman cast a spell, giving him the senses of a bat. There was blood on Bat's mouth. Behind him smirked the Demon of Jests (one of the big five in the game). She reached out and touched Bat, who let out a shriek and demanded "Blood! Give me blood!" That pile of somethings under him? Batwings. Bat looked at the shaman, his son, and screamed hungrily "Run!"

Oh, yeah. He ran.

 

[Nytmare]

Oh, yeah. He ran.

Bat Rastardry.

 

[JoshDemers]

Bat Rastardry.

Yes. Yes it was.

 

[SkidAce]

Trying to destroy an artifact; the characters had travelled for miles after teleporting (a special gate) to a snowy antarctic plain towards some mountains. Reaching the mountains they find a frozen lake and a city encased in ice under it.

Finally securing a way in they fight gibbous horrors and etc until they come to a huge room with a large pit. Levitating out of the pit was the BBEG, a mind flayer! They unleashed their spells and attacks and item uses immediately. (this was 1st ed by the way) The mind flayer twisted and burned from the spells, and the fighter finally used his own levitations style magic and got close enough to swack at it. The blade went right through it and he made his save versus illusion.

He warned everyone, and they were pissed they had expended so many resources, but were glad that the damage they had taken was "subdual" damage.

Until the fighter looked down and saw the real mind flayer who had been making the "projected image" down there controlling the reactions of the image.

With the gig up, the mind flayer (real) rose levitating out of the pit like the illusion had done, but now the party's big guns were empty. Darn...what a shame, having to fight "it" over again. They barely won*.





* They won with 2 of the 4 characters broken and unconcious. Then they found out the artifact had tricked them, and this was a place of power for it, not destruction. Darn...what a shame.

 

[Pbartender]

Not too long ago, I was running a Star Wars adventure set during the Clone Wars...

The characters were all "troubleshooters" for a neutral faction. A bacta (super healing fluid!) super-tanker belonging to the faction had disappeared, and the characters had been sent to locate it and retrieve it before either the Republic or Separatists could get their hands on it. They'd gotten hold of an astromech droid that had the coordinates of the tanker and were heading back to the starport to upload them into their ship's navigational computer...

And that's when they notice someone discreetly following them...

They have a little trouble losing him because the droid is slowing them down, so they decide to split up... he follow them all, right? One of them stops at a nearby hotdog stand, while the other three all bugger off in different directions at the next street intersection.

I take the first player aside... "The guy who's following you stops at a newsstand and starts browsing. You're pretty sure he's still keeping a surreptitious eye on you."

I take the second player aside... "For a minute, it looks as if you've lost him. But then, you notice he's caught up to you and is inconspicuously following you again."

I take the third player aside... "For a minute, it looks as if you've lost him. But then, you notice he's caught up to you and is inconspicuously following you again."

I take the fourth player aside... "For a minute, it looks as if you've lost him. But then, you notice he's caught up to you and is inconspicuously following you again."

It took the players nearly an hour of individually running around in circles futilely trying to lose their tails -- some of them were beginning to mildly freak out about it -- before they finally realized that it wasn't a single person following them... It was actually a team of a half dozen Covert Ops Clone Troopers all dressed alike in identical Hawaiian shirts and chinos.

 

[Lindeloef]

Does bring in the Family of a character and let them be really annoying and embarrassing for the character count?

 

[Rune]

Most definitely, if they were in a situation where the social stakes were high! Details?