Two Truths and a Lie

[BlackMoria]

Fact 1: I played a 1e halfing thief with these stats. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (rolled up) and in trying to kill the character off, I subdued an ancient red dragon single handedly.

Fact 2: I once played D&D with Gary Gygax.

Fact 3: I have played about 75 characters in 31+ years of playing and only had three characters die in that entire time.

The Lie: Fact 2 - I only met Mr.Gygax but never had the pleasure of playing at his table.

 

[Stormborn]

1. When shown the first article I wrote in Dragon my mother's comment was "It's so pretty!"
2. I met my wife gaming.
3. Even though I have only been gaming a few years I have written over a dozen game related books that are currently in print.

[sblock] 3. Other than 2 Dragon articles, which were included in the Compendium, all of my work has been in electronic or pdf format. [/sblock]

 

[freyar]

Fact 1: I played a 1e halfing thief with these stats. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (rolled up) and in trying to kill the character off, I subdued an ancient red dragon single handedly.

Your DM must have been highly amused by the encounter.

 

[maggot]

1. My first character had a Con of 5 and died falling down a flight of stairs. This was 1E and we used the standard zero hit points and you are dead rule.
2. My first character didn't have a name. I couldn't decide on a name, and only gave him one after the game was over.
3. My first character refused to cast spells because I didn't realize you got them back when you rested.

Spoiler

#1 is the lie. That was my second character. Come to think of it, I don't think he also didn't have a name until after he was dead.

 

[Darklone]

# 1 - My longest D&D combat went on for 36 hours with several hundred NPCs dying. The whole session lasted from friday evening till sunday night.
# 2 - I once played with a group of professional ... you know, female professionals. They wore some pretty tight leather strips and not much more, not even chainmail bikinis. Playing a group of amazons. Met them at a LARP and saved one in a huge battle... so they considered me worthy to talk to me. Now and then.
# 3 - I still own my first d20 and I know exactly how often he rolled a 20.

Answer:

Spoiler

# 3 is wrong. I do know how often the die rolled a 20 but it was stolen a few years ago at a convention.

 

[Voadam]

1 I repeatedly took public school class electives in roleplaying games during junior high where we did nothing but play AD&D, GURPS, and TMNT.

2 I have played a character from 1st to 20th levels.

3 I once caused my friends to double over rolling onto the floor laughing using just a single word that was a gaming in joke for our group.

[sblock]#2 Close but not gone from 1-20. I've taken my eponymous character from 2nd to 20th and had a reboot where he lost all levels and had to start over from first, but he has not gone from 1st to 20th[/sblock]

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

1) My wife gave me a pink box Basic Set in mint condition (dice and crayon still in the unopened bag) that was on a shelf in her parents house.

2) I played D&D with a person who loved losing levels to undead. He would walk up to them and wait for them to attack him.

3) We once attempted to set the world record for the longest continuous D&D game.

The lie:
[sblock] #3: we talked about it often, but never actually tried.[/sblock]

 

[Piratecat]

1. My first character died when he stuck his head in a certain green idol's mouth to "see what was behind the darkness."

2. I have gamed with over a thousand different people.

3. In a high school campaign, another player killed my PC every session for six weeks in a row.

[sblock=The Lie #1. That did happen to the PC of one of my friends. My first character died when a secret door fell on him, knocking him unconscious, and the rest of the party stepped on the door to see where he had gone. Squish. It was not what one might call a heroic death.[/sblock]

 

[BlackMoria]

Originally Posted by BlackMoria
Fact 1: I played a 1e halfing thief with these stats. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (rolled up) and in trying to kill the character off, I subdued an ancient red dragon single handedly.

freyar wrote:

Your DM must have been highly amused by the encounter.

I don't know who was more shocked by the outcome - the DM or myself.

Background: The DM was a real stickler for playing characters as rolled and as indicated, the character stats was a real stinker and the only class (and race) I could qualify for was halfing thief. DM wouldn't let me re-roll or axe the character so thief with a 9 Dex it was.

I tried to get the character killed so I could create a new one but due to luck, odd misfortune/fortune and perhaps some DM fiat (I suspect), my pathetic thief made it to 5th level.

Party finds a lair with a sleeping ancient red dragon and decides to give it a pass. Party retreats but discovers the thief is missing.

I had moved undetected (by the dragon and my party) into the lair and announced an attack on the dragon. There was no way that I was going to survive this and I looked forward to ditching the thief and rolling up a less than pathetic character.

The DM asked if I was striking to subdue (as per the rules). I thought, why the hell not, it is so remote a chance to succeed that my demise was a certainty and I certainly didn't what killing off the character to be that blantantly obvious.

Natural 20 - I managed to hit. I did 3 subdual damage.

Subdual chance is percentage equal to damage. DM gave me a evil grin, rolled openly and ....

02.

I don't know who was more shocked or amused by the outcome - the DM or myself.

Red Dragon wakes up, grabs his nose, goes "ouch" and surprised (and apparently cowed) by the diminuative halfing, surrenders.

I had mixed feelings. Delighted on outcome (I made a bundle on the sale of the dragon and got a major share of the hoard) but I still had a well below average character....albeit, a rich one now.

 

[John Cooper]

I'll give it a whirl....

1. In my day job, I am a professional editor at a book publishing company.

2. I have proofreading/editing credits in products from over half a dozen different RPG companies.

3. My likeness has appeared on the covers of several different RPG products.

[sblock=The Lie: ] #1. I have no professional editorial experience at all. I don't even have an English degee - I was a math major in college (which probably helps explain my willingness to pull stat blocks apart and see how everything adds up). Like Emma Peel, I'm just a (somewhat, in my case) "talented amateur."[/sblock]