Players that make you go 'Whoa!'

[Mercule]

Great RP, man. Definitely let that player some leeway with his next character.

My best story comes from a solo adventure that I ran. This may have been a "You had to have been there," but it's the most enthralling adventure I've ever run and has become something of a holy grail of vibrancy that I've chased for 15+ years now.

The PC was an uber-potent Ranger who had been played over the course of ~20 game years (about 5 real years). I'd written Ravenloft, I6 (this is before the campaign setting was published -- or probably even considered) into his back story and the ranger had defeated Strahd and reclaimed his ancestoral estate, so this takes place in and around Barovia.

He'd also had a couple of children; a son and a daughter. Although when their adventurer mother had died in battle, the kids had been placed in the care of a trusted friend. They had only recently returned to their father and as young adults.

The daughter's badly mangled corpse is found and brought to the castle. Much chaos ensues. Later, the ranger's squire comes into the castle escourting the daughter. More chaos ensues.

It is deduced, obviously, that one of the "daughters" is a fake. A visiting dignitary, who happens to be a paladin detects evil on the living daughter and declares her to be evil. The squire objects strongly, but acknoledges that she had been briefly out of his sight and could be an imposter.

Paladin calls for a trial/inquiry. Much debate ensues. It is revealed that the daughter and squire had been secretly courting. Squire vouches in no uncertain terms for the validity of the daughter's identity. Paladin vouches in no uncertain terms for the evilness of the daughter.

Ranger freaks out, and leaves. Following is massive soul searching and uncertainty. Ranger loses it and actually goes to the spot by the river bank where he dumped Strahd's ashes and begins talking to Strahd about the whole mess (Strahd doesn't talk back, but this outporing of emotion does give me a means to later "resurrect" Strahd for more use). Much emoting on the part of the player as the character realizes that he never knew his daughter well enough to be able to even guess at whether this is an imposter.

When the ranger returns to the castle, he declares that the central participants will go to town to seek the counsil of the local cleric and to bury the body. Everyone agrees. The cleric acts a bit odd, but confirms that the daughter is evil.

The paladin urges the ranger to strike down the imposter who must also be his daughter's murderer. The ranger agrees, since all evidence points this way. Paladin hands his sword over, but the ranger hands it back, saying that he doesn't have the heart. Paladin moves to strike the daughter, but the squire jumps in the way. Paladin declares that the squire is an ally of evil and evil himself.

Ranger thinks for about two seconds and realizes that the squire should have detected as evil previously if he were evil -- seems an odd detail to have left out. Ranger commands the Paladin to halt. Paladin refuses and a fight ensues -- details not really relevant.

Paladin turns out to be a glabrezu who was trying to get the ranger to commit a truly horrid act and bring him low. Ranger wins, no major casualties, although the daughter is in constant danger as the glabrezu tries for a "parting shot".

No single action during the adventure stands out, but the whole was a very emotional session. The player really took it all a notch about where I'd even thought it'd go.

 

[Zappo]

Uh, dude ... that story ain't similar.

Yes, it is, it's an example of a player roleplaying his character correctly, despite the metagaming notion of PC vs. NPC. Most players wouldn't offer the souls of other PCs to a chaos lord, even if playing evil characters such as a Pan Tangian, but they would do so with NPCs.

 

[Henry]

Zappo's right - it's a devious and lurid tale, to be sure, full of misery and woe, betrayal and treachery, avarice and evil - but it fits, to be sure.

Mark Chance, my hat is off to the player - and even more so to the players who didn't give him a wedgie after the game.

 

[Zappo]

Zappo's right - it's a devious and lurid tale, to be sure, full of misery and woe, betrayal and treachery, avarice and evil - but it fits, to be sure.

It strikes me as perfectly fitting to the Stormbringer setting.

 

[Meridian]

Once long ago....The greatest RP moment

(Please forgive the system used: VAMPIRE)

I ran a VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE campaign set in 1920's Chicago eight years ago.

The cast of characters (I'll list them by concept first, then Clan for those who actually know this system)

A sociopathic Mafioso hit man who considers the act of killing a form of self-enlightenment (Assamite Antitribu)

A psychiatrist investigating local cults and analyzing the group mentality behind them (Tremere)

A wealthy artist related to the Cartier diamond magnate family caring for a human ward (Toreador)

A black dockworker attempting to uphold unionization (Gangrel)

A speakeasy owner with a secret identity as a cat burglar (Ventrue)

A playwright/author whose fascination with the macabre leads him into the world of grave-robbing (Malkavian)

An accountant who was murdered by a mob boss for knowing too much but survived when transformed into a vampire (Nosferatu)

The greatest moment of roleplay actually took place during a jaunt to New Orleans. The backstory was that midway through the campaign, the human ward of the artist was kidnapped by a satanic cult as part of a ongoing plot to embroil him and his vampires in a series of events calculated to dehumanize them all, rendering them vulnerable to further corruption. The scene took place at the climax of a car chase that ensued right after the child was rescued (by the Mafioso no less) and ended in a plot of undeveloped land with dawn coming over the horizon...

By this time, all of the vampires had lost a lot of blood from the gunplay and were becoming dangerously incapacitated and/or close to frenzy. In visuals straight out of Custer's Last Stand crossed with Bonnie & Clyde, some stayed out of the ground providing interference to make sure their allies could reach ground safely and protect the mortal child, some came out of hiding at risk to themselves to save the other vampires by dragging them under shelter while everyone started to burst into flame, shouting their defiance at the forces of evil...and in one heart-wrenching dialogue, one unique couple swore undying love to one another, sealed with blood, while hidden from the sun in a dry water tower.

It was all the more tragic when at the end of the campaign the artist was martyred by a third party and his allies made a pact with their satanic enemies in order to get revenge.

 

[Foundry of Decay]

Interesting! And certainly, the tale of the Stormbringer campaign is along the same vein, since it surely sounds as if the character was acting within his mindset. Even evil acts as that are still considered true RP.

I'm certainly giving a good deal of leeway to the player's next character as well (a Thief), and allowing the character to start at the next level, considering that the rest of the party is so close to advancing anyway, so it wouldn't be a huge gap.. Just some reward XP.

Frostmarrow: I indeed do have Celestials, and the sacrifice of the Paladin was enough to have him turned into an Aasimar-style person. We even will be seeing him again as the Cleric will be able to summon him via Planar Ally spells at specific times. Thus the Paladin hasn't truly failed in his protection of the Cleric, he's just multi-tasking now

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

*raises a glass to the Paladin's player*

Make sure you show him this thread! RP like that should be seen to be appreciated!

Hats off to the guy, that's some decision. Make sure he realises how much you value that kind of roleplay.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Whoa!!!

First of all, That was a fantastic moment Foundry. Kudos to the player.

I tend to run pretty wild, furious, and humorous campaigns. So heartbreak isn't common, but they're have been more than a few times where I was really really really impressed.

First of all, I have to give props to Feng Shui, a game that let's players describe a lot of the scenery, gives them bonuses for elaborately described stunts, and lets them describe their own spectacular failures.

That game renewed my faith in players. Not one session went by in which I wasn't astounded by the beauty, ballsiness, sheer imagination, and appropriateness of at least one of the players descriptions. Every action the players took became a poem and they would use every detail to add to the vocabulary of their piece. From a bead of sweat turned to a tear of frustration to taking a fatal shot in a good cause and falling into a redeeming beam of light. One of them even brought a pre-prepared musical spike for the moment when he fell in the final battle against the man who had killed his child eight years ago.

Whereupon, the rest of the players described a long moment of silence as he fell slowly down to earth, during which they took turns reading pre-prepared epilogues as they described how the fallen character had changed their lives and what they did later to honor him.

Whereupon, I described the triumphant kata of the evil kung-fu villain and qued up the music from the initial fight scene in "Crouching Tiger."

That was a great game.

 

[Atticus_of_Amber]

Why not let the player play the risen, formerly NPC cleric?

Or do a two person, one body thing, like trade out the palidins fitghter levels for cleric levels and get the player to roleplay a hybrid character? Palidin gives up his "life" (i.e. eperate identity) that the cleric might live again?

Total change in character concept (ftr/pal becomes clr/pal) but that could be cool, if the player wants it...

Not the cleric levels for fighter levesl would make the character a much less effective warrior...

 

[Thanee]

A true sacrifice!

We've had a very few similar occurances in our various campaigns, too. But that's a rare thing, to say the least!

Bye
Thanee