Aggravations from my PnP days

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Greetings Everyone.

This is a new thread for Pen and Paper (PnP) gamers to discuss some of their most aggravating or frustrating moments in gaming.

Of course, you can also list some of your best gaming moments, too. No reason to have a separate thread for those.

The most aggravating experiences I had when playing the PnP version of AD&D centered around 2 members of our gaming group.

The first one was No Damage Nikki (names are changed, of course). I'm sure you ALL know the type....no matter WHAT happens, his character NEVER suffers any damage because he just took whatever steps were necessary to avoid any damage 2 segments before the damage could occur.
For example, early in our gaming careers, Nikki was playing a mage and I was playing my ever-lovable barbarian (Cerek, in case you couldn't guess). We were searching through an underground hideout of some gnolls and goblins. Nikki spotted a monster at the end of a corridor and immediately whipped out a Wand of Lightning. Unfortunately, the monster dashed around the corner, so the Lightning Bolt rebounded off the stone wall and hit my barbarian dead center (BAD NEWS!!). We had to take a quick break in the game just then, so I told the DM that my barbarian was gonna attack the mage when we started up again. We came back to the room and...on my initiative...I made a grab for the wand (I was just gonna break it over my knee). HOWEVER, Nikki had figured out that something was up, so he claimed that he had put the wand in an inside pocket of his robe...even though he had already burned his initiative for that round and I beat him on initiative the next round!!! Unfortunately, the DM sided with Nikki and I did not get my revenge.

2)The other member was Kaylor, the Killer DM. This guy ALWAYS DM'd (never played) and viewed every single dungeon as a personal challenge between him and the players. Since the DM has fairly absolute authority, you can guess who won. Clerics were not allowed to "choose" spells. Instead, spells were assigned by their diety. Fighters who used bows would have an unbelievable high number of bows to break (not the strings, the bow itself would snap in two like a twig).
In one dungeon, all the clerics were "randomly" assigned Invisibility To Undead. That would've have been handy if there had actually been any Undead in the dungeon. However, at NO TIME was any cleric EVER granted Healing spells by their diety. That right, we had ZERO healing in the party (which made the clerics practically worthless). We were supposed to storm a castle, but we could never make it over the wall. The incredibly accurate archers would pepper us with arrows, we would have to leave and rest for 2 weeks (gaining 1hp/day in healing) and then return and try again. It took 5 attempts before we ever cleared the outer wall. We finally DID get inside the castle, only to be killed by the first guards we encountered. End of Dungeon and another Victory for Kaylor!


So now it's your turn. Did you have the DM from Gehenna, or a player that STOLE all the treasure or had to carry Bogus Bob's Blistering Bazooka (with unlimited ammo) into every encounter?

I look forward to hearing from you.

[Morgeruat]

well, I guess the other players would nominate one of my exploits, as a first level party we were wandering around the mortuary in Sigil (planescape campaign), and we opened a door, inside we saw several ghouls, so we instantly slammed the door and the rest of the party was preparing to move on, when I convinced them (I was a good priest) that the undead were an abomination and we should mercifully end their existance... an hour into the campaign and I had gotten everyone killed by ghouls, the DM decided it was one of those "nightmare sequences" rather than have everyone roll up a new character after the first night.

other than that, just your regular run of the mill "I'm about to hit level 12 with my palachick when BAM get pimp-slapped by an Elven Vampire. Not only did I lose a point of charisma permanently, but when i was restored I lost all my experience that was about to level me, (in PnP restoration only gives you back enough experience to put you at the minimum amount for the level you were at before you got drained). I was not a happy morgie...

[Tancred]

My first PnP character, Diermot the Bard, was brought into creation by a bunch of guys I knew from a local gaming club/shop/thing inviing me to play. Neat, I thought. So I rolled up a good Bard and got to work. I felt a little vulnerable - everyone else was at least level 6 - but I fought as best I could, and was somewhat heartened by the bravery and thoughtfulness shown by my party members to keep me alive; shielding me, giving me the space to run away, even gifting me a fine set of chainmail.
It wasn't until the finale that things went a bit wrong.
A dragon struck; big, bad, breathing fire.
"Okay," says the party leader to me. "You keep the dragon busy. We'll get the Sacred Tome of Donbluth (or somesuch)".
"Huh?" says I, somewhat worried.
I do my best; throwing slingshot and dodging flames as fast as I can, but eventually my poor little level 1 Bard, Diermot, was incinerated and chewed up by a large lizard while the 'heroes' of the story made a quick getaway with the object of their Quest.
I was not invited to re-roll a new character; not that I would have wanted to.

Tancred

[Garnet FalconDance]

Dearest Cerek

Ummm, this is why I am so glad I am a pc gamer. Pen and paper sounds fun, but without the reload option..........

Tancred, your bard was dragonbait? How funny....I mean tragic. Yes, very tragic. So sorry.

Morgeruat, I almost fell off my chair laughing. I realize this may not have been the object of your telling, but the mental image of your palachick and the elven vampire....too good.

[Sir Kenyth]

Cerek asked me to post this story over here. I've always felt gaming should be an enjoyable experience and always strove to make games flow like an interactive novel. I took great pains generating adventures. I never allowed PCs to be permanently slaughtered, with the exception of extreme stupidity. Kind of like the computer games, I always gave a chance to go back a little way to pick a different path, or allowed a reincarnation by a passing benevolent preist. I always started campaigns at about 5th-8th level or so, to keep it interesting. No matter how nice you try to be though, someone always has to be the party pooper. Unless they're blasting everything in sight to smithereens first try and taking no hits, they're not happy! Perhaps they should make an RPG called "INVULNERABLE IMMORTALS! The game where all sides of the dice are the highest number and bad guys can't get you!" It would be a hit I'm sure.

Anyway here's a re-post for Cereks thread:

quote:

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I never could fit in with the D&D crowd. That's why I only play computer games now. I always had to DM or GM because nobody else remembered the rules well enough. Every time I tried to play I wound up with a disgruntled player who wanted to play THEIR verson of the fantasy land. You know, the one where sawed off shotguns are effective at returning fire on snipers 100 yards away. The guy was mad when the sniper killed him. All he had to do was run! He could have even used a luck point to avoid death, but he didn't want to play anymore because I was unfair. One guy refused to play a D&D Ravenloff campaign designed for 7-8th level unless I let him use his 21st level multi-classed elven, egyptian, fighter/mage/cleric with his whole load of overpowered goodies. Even though I had designed a whole group of characters that fit the story perfectly and had balanced equipment and skills. *Sigh* He then proceeded to tell me that HE had to be the one rolling when I was checking whether or not they saw secret doors or detected something. Doesn't it defeat the purpose to tell someone that they're rolling to see if they see something they don't know about? He threw a fit every time he was presented with a problem that he wasn't allowed to blast to smithereens. My effort to have everyone role play an actual story line was not appreciated. I wanted to strangle him! Both these guys wern't kids! They were in their twenties for crying out loud! I sold all of the role playing stuff shortly thereafter and stuck with computer games. I've been much happier since!

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[Cerek the Barbaric]

Garnet,

Don't think ALL PnP experiences are bad. If you have a bad player, there ARE ways to remedy the situation.

The BIG advantage to PnP playing is the creative flexibility of the game. Basically, your character can try ANYTHING, and the DM will determine what results you get.

The DM that taught our group how to play was great. He would allow just about anything - especially if it produced humorous results.

He ran a "closed campaign" (which meant he had his own gameworld with its own rules - similar to Sir Kenyth apparantly). Our main characters were a ranger(me), cleric("Nikki"), and a druid(my roommate).

We were around 5th level and had been sent to investigate "strange occurrences" in a neighboring town. We got there only to discover that a vampire had taken up residence in the local castle. We had very few magical items, but didn't let that (or our lack of experience) deter us. After searching the castle and fighting several underlings, we FINALLY found the vampire's coffin. We saturated the coffin with oil and set it aflame (from a safe distance). When the fire died down, we went back in...only to discover the vampire wasn't there (RATS!!!).
Going back upstairs, we found the vampire "dining" on one of the local peasants. We were pretty beat up and he was at full strength.
While we pondered our dilemma, the vampire offered us an option. If we would clean all the soot off his coffin and shine it back up, he would let us go! The cleric yelled in defiance and rushed the vampire. One hit knocked him out.
Then, the druid turned to the ranger and said, "I'll grab a rag". It was several minutes before ANY of us could stop laughing long enough to finish the game. (Yes, the vampire DID let us go).

Also, it was in PnP when my barbarian developed his trademark Barbarian Magic Missile (see below) using a mage played by roommate. That was another classic moment.

************************************************** ******************
Barbarian Magic Missile Toss a wizard at the nearest monster. Either way, something good is bound to happen.

Guess I was fortunate, I didnt start playing till I was 20 or so, and it was with mostly older gamers over seas in the military..if anyone acted the way you describe onn here they would have found themselves cable tied and hung naked from the hoist on the loading dock (the common punishment for being an ass) We had reasonable people playing who wanted to RP a realistic environment...new people coming in were allowed (required) to watch and learn first. We always seemed to have a decent core of about 7 or 8 experienced gamers around.

We did run into one guy who wanted to play his duel weilding fighter with his twin "Black Hole" paddle swords which sucked anything they touched into their respective black holes (from which he could retrieve anything he wanted)....our DM looked at us, then after a second allowed him to join the second he drew the swords he was sucked into his blackholes and and they vanished from our gaming universe forever.

[Rikard_OHF]

I wanted to pull out a hair to cast light on it
The DM said it would do 1 HP subdual damage
in other words
pulling out 17 Hairs will knock out my sorcerer....

I ended up running around with glowing hair

[Micah Foehammer]

My pet peeves were always the "killer DM" and the "treasure hog". I'm sure everybody recognizes those.

Here's a couple of lines from PnP games of the past:

"The giant termites did WHAT to my staff of power?"

"Oh god .. not ANOTHER rust monster!"

"What do you mean my featherfall spell runs out?!"

"How many freaking times do I have to tell you... if you keep yelling 'Asmodeus, Asmodeus, Asmodeus' .. something bad .... oh oh ...."

"Okay guys, lets rush this thing .. guys ... guys? HEY GUYS!!!??"

"I'm telling you .. this is JUST slimy water on the .... mmmph"

"What do you mean a natural 20 doesn't hit????"

"He did HOW many points of damage?"

"RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!"

"The frost giant aims the ballista at the dwarf and fires ....."

"Sure I'll play cards .. pick a card? any card? ....."

"Oh for pete's sake ... They're only goblins ...."

anyone have any others? ....

[Cerek the Barbaric]

Those were great, Micah.

Here's a couple from some games I was in.

Another undead dungeon in the aforementioned campaign - slightly higher level and better magic.
We entered an underground tomb, only to have the staircase collapse behind us...then we got ambushed by several undead. Our druid had been killed and resurrected, but had to become a cleric. Nikki's cleric was still up and running. The DM expected the 2 of them to "Turn" most of the undead...instead, everybody just attacked.

Then..a Ghost appeared. I blew my save and ran off in a mindless panic. Since the stairs had collapsed I ran the other way - and came face-to-face with a vampire. Because of my "panic" state, I couldn't defend myself, so I was a stationary target.

THEN THE VAMPIRE BLEW HIS "TO HIT" ROLL!!!

After a brief pause, the DM said "Ok, it's your initiative. What do you do?"
I grabbed the vampire by the lapels and jerked him right into my face and shouted "RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!! IT'S RIGHT BEHIND ME!!!" I thought the DM would have a stroke from laughing so hard.

Another good line when I was the DM of a 25+ level game.

Me "The dragon breathes on you for 250 points of damage."
Players "OK, we make our Save for half-damage."
Me "Yes, I expected you would. The 250hp IS half-damage"
Players "{unprintable}"

One other No Damage Nikki incident. The party got hit by a Fireball inside of a circular room with stone walls. The DM said that the fire was SO hot that it actually melted part of the ceiling, so we took minor damage from molten ceiling droppings.

Nikki "I'm afraid that's impossible. The melting point for concrete is xx degrees and the fireball would not be sufficient to generate that type of heat"

After that, his new nickname was CAPTAIN CINDERBLOCK