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dagonet
Sergeant
442 Posts
    
 | | 05/01/2006 8:26 PM |
| Since we're sharing our current (and thus excellent) plotlines over in kyrin's thread, let's explore the other side of the coin. . .
What's the absolute worst plotline your (presumably well-meaning) GM has ever dragged you and the rest of your party into? I'm talking rail-roady, overdone, gagnasty**, throw-your-PC-off-the-nearest-cliff-just-to-get-away-from-it campaigns.
Mine would have to be, an incredibly inept adventure which had our low-level party infiltrating the infernal armies of a demon lord, with the eventual goal of assassinating him. Most of our enemies were armed with Morganti weapons (lifted right out of Steven Brust's books)--one scratch from them destroys your soul and leaves you a lifeless husk. I don't even remember how that one turned out; I think massive player disgust forced a GM rotation without the need for an open mutiny.
So, what do y'all got? [B)]
**gagnasty--New term, specifically created for this thread. [:p] | |
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."
Champion of Kyuss and his Servants of Squishy Doom | |
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FeranEldritchKnight
Sergeant
385 Posts
Kansas City, MO USA
| | 05/01/2006 8:49 PM |
| | I have a particular DM that just goes overboard with plot. His CS is based on his old box set campaign in which he was a player who obtained godhood. Everything about his world is way too related to a game he played 20 years ago and not really related to the PCs. He goes into vast detail about what his paladin did with THE Merlin and how they destoyed the world by bringing about Ragnarok. He manipulated character stats and intervened on more than one occasion. Needless to say, we all quit. | |
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Bert the Troll
Commander
3964 Posts
Adelaide
| | 05/01/2006 9:13 PM |
| It's the ones without plots that drive me bonkers. When the DM throws encounter after harder encounter until they make the players bleed and die but revseve it by intervening badly... 'ummm missed again' crud.
~
Does remind me of a Knights of Dinner Table where one of the others takes a turn HM'ing and leads them through a dungeon. Once they realise the map is the same as his house, he just has endless 10x10 rooms.
~
Was reminded of the 'magic mirro' 1st ed AD&D module yesterday... that was pretty awful.
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"Mutton yesterday, mutton today, and blimey, if it don't look like mutton again tomorrer." Bert the Troll - The Hobbit
Semi-Secret sig business: "In the age of the internet attaching a famous name to your personal opinion to give more weight to it is a very valid strategy." - Benjamin Franklin
Champion of Epic Lolth, Orcus, & Demogorgon and bring us Asmodeus! | |
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maijstral
Underboss
2105 Posts
| | 05/01/2006 9:53 PM |
| Worst adventure ever......hmmmm.
A longtime player but new DM and against our better judgement we let him run an adventure he made. He encouraged us to make anything we wanted but wanted one of us to be a were creature. I played a weretiger ranger, we also had a gith monk a halfling paladin, a rogue,and a pixie lawyer(don't ask). After a few random encounters, and i mean really random in level as well monsters, we either breezed through them or were beaten nearly to death trying to escape. After weird almost incomprehensable plot, that was narrated not roleplayed, we ended up in a barn in the middle of nowhere fighting wave after wave of endless cultest of Malar who were after us for reasons that were never quite explained.
The game degenerated into us playing hillbillies shouting "git off our land" to the never ending wave of cultists that we just mowed through and they never really hurt us after two sessions of this we called it quits. | | | |
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Dragon Snack
Warrior
285 Posts
| | 05/01/2006 10:21 PM |
| Where do I start?
Well, the DM who tried to put us through City of the Spider Queen was pretty crap-tacular. He gave us two options, follow the train tracks to CotSQ or face a group of ultra high level bad guys (at least 4-5 levels above ours). After the Cleric who was the only one following the plot hooks was killed about 5 rooms in, we told off Randall Mourn and left. The campaign didn't last too long after that.
Another DM ran us through Speaker in Dreams by marooning us in the town. That didn't go over well, especially for me when he decided the NPCs didn't like my character (a morose Cleric of Shevarash). We trashed the towns temple while "helping out" and he eventually pulled a Deus Ex Machina to get us out of it. The campaign ended shortly after that as well, but it also had to do with the characters not getting along. To top it off, the DM showed some blatent favoritism to one of the other players as well.
Then there was the DM who had Elminster (oh sorry, his name was "El") lead us around by the hand to fight a single bad guy each time. That campaign didn't end actually, I took it over and dealt with all the munchkiny weapons he had "gifted" to the players. It never did recover though...
I try not to put up with bad games. Anymore. | |
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Korhal_IV
Sergeant
852 Posts
| | 05/02/2006 12:04 AM |
| quote:
Originally posted by dagonet
Most of our enemies were armed with Morganti weapons (lifted right out of Steven Brust's books)--one scratch from them destroys your soul and leaves you a lifeless husk.
I've always vaguely wanted to run a Dragaera campaign, but Morganti weapons were one of the many obstacles to it.
Worst campaign: We were forced to relive the adventures of the DM's old PC. As in, we had to do everything exactly the way he did it, or else we couldn't solve the problem.
I.e. hordes of goblins rushing at us from an intersecting corridor. With our relatively high level of 6th, and our specific character builds (we had a ranger with Whirlwind Attack and Favored Enemy: Goblin, an archer with Rapid Shot and Favored Enemy: Goblin, a pyrotechnical sorcerer and a cleric with the Healing domain), we were mowing down 15-20 goblins per round, because these were the standard CR 1/2 goblins out of the Monster Manual and we were 6th level characters.
Now, a reasonable person might assume that after murdering 30-odd goblins in under 10 seconds (thanks sorcerer!), the average goblin would have second thoughts about suicidally leaping into the Cuisinart, or better yet the DM would stop bunching up six goblins within reach of the ranger with Whirlwind Attack, and another six in a line so the sorcerer's Flaming Sphere could torch them.
Nope. The goblin horde was literally endless and unyielding, until, using the rope, oil, and speed-knotting capabilities which were all magically bestowed upon me, I was more-or-less constrained to fire arrows dragging flaming, oily rope into the STONE columns on either side of the doorway so as to prevent the horde from rushing in. Because a Flaming Sphere won't scare them, a blood-soaked and screaming ranger won't, but a rope on fire will.
We all have our little phobias, and this DM's campaigns are now one of mine. | |
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Dropbear
Warrior
181 Posts
Perth, Western Australia
| | 05/02/2006 12:44 AM |
| Don't forget the all-time favourite campaigns where the DM's girlfriend is playing ... and somehow winds up playing a character that makes the rest of the party unneccessary.
(This is the same girl that decided to backstab a fellow party member in the middle of a fight because he had stepped on her imaginary dragon's tail ...)
In this case, she is somehow playing (in 2nd edition) a Human Ranger/Ninja/Archer with a souped-up magic bow and an intelligence of about 6 ...
The party is given a Rod of Transport as a reward - which allows the whole party to teleport (1/week). For some reason it is given to the Ranger/Ninja/Archer character rather than the Wizard (and his paltry 18 INT). Much to the party's lack of continual suprise, every time it gets used the party finds themself somewhere in the world they didn't plan to be ...
After about the 3rd time this happened the wizard (and the rest of the party) decided it was time to take control of the rod - at which point the Ranger/Ninja/Archer turned hi minto a pincushion. It took us about a year before we managed to get together and play again ... minus that DM and his girlfriend. | |
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| The Defenestrator
AesophDarkfable
Warlord
5628 Posts
| | 05/02/2006 12:50 AM |
| quote:
Originally posted by maijstral
Worst adventure ever......hmmmm.
A longtime player but new DM and against our better judgement we let him run an adventure he made. He encouraged us to make anything we wanted but wanted one of us to be a were creature. I played a weretiger ranger, we also had a gith monk a halfling paladin, a rogue,and a pixie lawyer(don't ask). After a few random encounters, and i mean really random in level as well monsters, we either breezed through them or were beaten nearly to death trying to escape. After weird almost incomprehensable plot, that was narrated not roleplayed, we ended up in a barn in the middle of nowhere fighting wave after wave of endless cultest of Malar who were after us for reasons that were never quite explained.
The game degenerated into us playing hillbillies shouting "git off our land" to the never ending wave of cultists that we just mowed through and they never really hurt us after two sessions of this we called it quits.
Much much worse than that Maij. He was a long time DM too. I wasnt there for that game, but yeah he can get them out of hand very very quick. | |
Im out- find me on Hordelings if you want to chat. | |
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LargeMarmot
Sergeant
463 Posts
| | 05/02/2006 12:51 AM |
| | I've played through at least 4 different campains that involved the party gathering 3 gems for some reason or another culminating in the battle with a bad guy that something and we intend to do the opposite with the stones - such as open a portal, or imprison someone, or control something. | |
Champion of the Tohr-Kreen.
WotDQ Called Shot: Fang Dragon. | |
| The Defenestrator
AesophDarkfable
Warlord
5628 Posts
| | 05/02/2006 12:57 AM |
| | Worst plot Ive ever been stuck in involved a one-way portal to Xanth... I hate Xanth... I really hate Piers Anthony. God that plot sucked | |
Im out- find me on Hordelings if you want to chat. | |
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dagonet
Sergeant
442 Posts
| | 05/02/2006 2:02 AM |
| quote:
Originally posted by AesophDarkfable
Worst plot Ive ever been stuck in involved a one-way portal to Xanth... I hate Xanth... I really hate Piers Anthony. God that plot sucked
Believe it or not, I think I can top that. In addition to the aforementioned Stephen Brust-esque campaign, we've visited the world of Weis/Hickman's Sovereign Stone trilogy, and played through Aeryon's rock opera: The Electric Castle. Which wasn't, actually, all that bad.
And AesophDarkfable, it could have been a lot worse; at least you didn't wander into one of Anthony's porn-novels. . . [:0] | |
"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people."
Champion of Kyuss and his Servants of Squishy Doom | |
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Most Edumacated
zenthrus
Warlord
5132 Posts
SLC, UT
| | 05/02/2006 2:17 AM |
| Worst campaign....I think I've been lucky and avoided a LOT of those (except in LARP and that's a whole other monster).
Probably the two worst plots we've run into were the Greyhawk Ruins 2nd ed module (the DM updated the monster stats to 3.5 but didn't change anything else...25 trolls vs. 6th-level party...ouch!) and one of my players-turned-DM's incessant Final Fantasy clones. Either way resulted in one-dimensional plots that died after a few sessions.
As to DMs and girlfriends....I haven't ever had a problem with this. I've gamed at tables where the DM had a girlfriend (or boyfriend) PC-ing and I've DMed with a girl I've been dating PC-ing. Favoritism just hasn't been an issue in any of these circumstances. Maybe I've just been lucky [:D] | |
Knight Warlord a.k.a. Commander (#32) in only 6 months. Where's my pie?
Champion of Dwarven Thunderlashers
Knight of the Large Dire Chicken
Have/Want List
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BigBC
Sergeant
620 Posts
| | 05/02/2006 9:12 AM |
| quote:
Originally posted by dagonet
**gagnasty--New term, specifically created for this thread. [:p]
Better copy-right this or we could see it as a new template for a future creature in DDM. The Gagnasty WTF! [:D] | |
Complete: Ha, De, Ar, GoL, Ab, Dk, Af, Ud, WD, DQ, BW
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"Indecision may, or may not be my problem." - Jimmy Buffet
Champion of the Gibberling | |
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reezel
Sergeant
555 Posts
| | 05/02/2006 10:34 AM |
| | Man, we had this one dude who always wanted to DM but was just awful at it. He never bothered giving any tactics to creatures he threw at us so there was never any challenge. It got so bad that at about level 13 he ended up throwing 8 beholders at us at once. (Yes, 8 of them!). We ended up destroying them with an almost casualty in there. I am glad to say this person is no longer part of our group. | |
Champion of the Beholder and Beholderkin
The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. | |
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Malin Lug
Sergeant
742 Posts
| | 05/02/2006 11:59 AM |
| I have been a couple of real stinkers as far as campaigns go. The two worst were in live action and in both cases the whole group of us just left with no word to anyone... we didn't even owe the people running it that much.
The worst table top game saw everyone armed with artifact power weapons by around 5th level and we were fighting fire and frost giants. We slaughtered the giants. It is amazing how boring killing horrible monsters can be when there is no challenge. I quit the group but most of the other players kept on going. I am not playing with that group anymore in any way.
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"Are you not entertained?" 
Champion of the Common Bar Wench
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| The Defenestrator
AesophDarkfable
Warlord
5628 Posts
| | 05/02/2006 12:25 PM |
| quote:
Originally posted by dagonet
quote:
Originally posted by AesophDarkfable
Worst plot Ive ever been stuck in involved a one-way portal to Xanth... I hate Xanth... I really hate Piers Anthony. God that plot sucked
Believe it or not, I think I can top that. In addition to the aforementioned Stephen Brust-esque campaign, we've visited the world of Weis/Hickman's Sovereign Stone trilogy, and played through Aeryon's rock opera: The Electric Castle. Which wasn't, actually, all that bad.
And AesophDarkfable, it could have been a lot worse; at least you didn't wander into one of Anthony's porn-novels. . . [:0]
Ug. God yeah I guess it could have been. I don't count one as bad but only as really funny. Back in High School about.... 15 years ago or so my buddy did the first time DM thing and the plot was going nowhere and bad, and then we realized it was basically Beastmaster which made it even worse, so we took joy in just being total punks and making horrid for him. | |
Im out- find me on Hordelings if you want to chat. | |
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maijstral
Underboss
2105 Posts
| | 05/02/2006 1:00 PM |
| quote:
Originally posted by AesophDarkfable
Much much worse than that Maij. He was a long time DM too. I wasnt there for that game, but yeah he can get them out of hand very very quick.
You knew him a lot longer than I did,I thought that was his first attempt at DMing it certainly seemed like it.
But I forgot about another DM that drove us crazy. He was a long time DM who built his own world the problem was he wanted to tell a story and we were incidental to the game. We were just characters in his story and if we didn't do what he wanted how he wanted it done characters died or were forced into roles. The last adventure we went on we a were 7th level party way over our head he had us going up against a rogue god and high level drow vampires. our NPC help turned out to be a 15th level fighter/wizard and after a few sessions it turned out we were basically just his henchmen so our Dm could tell his story about a drow civil war and the attempt at a rogue god resurection.
Our biggest problems were battles were one hit could kill us and we always needed high level support to survive. We managed to kill one of the lieutenant vampires 3 times during the adventure but it could never be permanent because the DM ruled the entire underdark was his home soil so everytime we defeated him the mist form would just hole up in a rock crevase somewhere where we couldn't get at him and regenerate. Shocked the he!! out of our DM when He threw a sphere of anillation at us at the same time as said vampire and my character managed to throw the vamp into it, no way he could come back from that.
But most of the adventures we just stood around and watched the big bad guy and our 'NPC' duke it out while we would keep lesser creatures from bothering them and sometimes not even that. | | | |
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Cheddar Bearer
Warrior
298 Posts
| | 05/02/2006 1:31 PM |
| Our group made the horrendously foolish mistake of letting the rules lawyer of our group DM, our logic, there was no way it could be more irritating than playing with him. I have never been so wrong in my entire life. The first indication it was going to be unforgiveable was that he had got hold of the epic level handbook and wanted it to be an epic campaign.
It lasted one session and for no apparent reason he made the charecters fight each other. One of the enemies drained an entire sea ruining his well thought out campaign world and one just dropped dead for no apparent reason when he displeased the DM. Glad to say I haven't played with him since. | |
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Zenako
Commander
3472 Posts
| | 05/02/2006 2:20 PM |
| Egads, not sure how many of you ever got into those situations in the first place. Our gaming group (which is a pretty longstanding one having begun playing together 30 years ago in college) usually spends a few months disussing any new campaign and backstories for it before a new one starts. We have three principle DMs among the 10 of us (with 3 being second generation players and not ready for it yet). Since most of our campaigns tend to run for years, we give thought to them before hand, which hopefully avoids the kind of things reported in this thread.
I do recall one funky little game we played in back in college where the DM had designed his dungeon and populated it. All seemed pretty normal until we realized that the entire dungeon had bilateral symetry right down to the location of secret doors. Back then we all had characters that played in the multiverse as we called it, in other words characters that could play in any dungeon that was being run at the time. There were perhaps a half dozen DM's and games and the characters (players) would organize outside of the game and pull together a party to go tackle So-and-So's dungeon that night. In some ways it was really like the fantasy tavern (with real beer on tap) where adventurers formed parties to loot the monsters. Usually a certain DM would offer to run (say on a Saturday night) and a few core players would go around and recruit the help they needed that night for what they expected to be doing. If we knew that Ernie had a kick ass Wizard and spell slinging was gonna be needed, go find Ernie and his character. Gonna need some high level clerics, go find Dave and his Patriarch for that session. Thinking back it was a kinda cool way to do things. | |
Built the addition for this addiction, now on to the "gaming table" project....
http://www.maxminis.com/hw_list.asp?user=Zenako last updated 29 May 2006
Set Status: in a nutshell = all of all
In Process trades 0), (Sig last updated 05/29/06) 300 plus Completed Trades -
If I seem scarce at times...blame DDO - Sarlona | |
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orcdoubleax
Sergeant
694 Posts
| | 05/02/2006 2:47 PM |
| I played in a few bad games, but will not name names or tell stories.
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The flip side of that is if any of my players want to make a post.
I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE. [:p] | |
Yes I am Gelatinous.
www.gelatinousdudes.com
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Sulaco
Underboss
1605 Posts
| | 05/02/2006 3:22 PM |
| There was a DM who I shall refer to simply as J. I will now relate to you a typical session run by J.
Through some mechanism or other we were brought to a castle inhabited by a single old man. We then proceed to spend the next several hours exploring the castle in -detail and trying to fathom who this man was, what purpose he served in our current quest, and why he had the bones of his dead wife on display. All fo this proved absolutley pointless. Apparenlty he was jsut a normal old man, who lived alone in a giant and empty castle, and who just happened to have his long-dead wife laid out like an old suit.
Finally I snapped and said "I grab the bones of the dead wife and throw them into the cooking pot!", to which J responded "Dozens of guards burst out of the walls and attack you."
Yes, it seems that this lonely old man kept several dozen guards, normal human guards, in his completely empty castle. Their job, it would seem, was to stand around in the hollow walls in order to burst out if anything bad happened. Apparently in our hours and hours of searching the building we entirely failed to miss one of the dozens of secret doors and peepholes which filled the place.
And yes, that was a typical session, You should have seen him when he was really bad. The only good thing about his games is that we, the players, grew so bored we basically started ad libbing our own game - usually very, very silly - while he sat back and watched. Because we found this amusing he figured he'd done a good job as DM. | |
Champion of the Gelatinous Cube. Nemesis of Gnomes and Dinosaurs.
Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of evil... prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun. ~ Terry Pratchett | |
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Bert the Troll
Commander
3964 Posts
Adelaide
| | 05/03/2006 1:08 AM |
| quote:
Originally posted by dagonet
quote:
Originally posted by AesophDarkfable
Worst plot Ive ever been stuck in involved a one-way portal to Xanth... I hate Xanth... I really hate Piers Anthony. God that plot sucked
Believe it or not, I think I can top that. In addition to the aforementioned Stephen Brust-esque campaign, we've visited the world of Weis/Hickman's Sovereign Stone trilogy, and played through Aeryon's rock opera: The Electric Castle. Which wasn't, actually, all that bad.
And AesophDarkfable, it could have been a lot worse; at least you didn't wander into one of Anthony's porn-novels. . . [:0]
I thought Xanth was P.A's teen porn novels. | |
"Mutton yesterday, mutton today, and blimey, if it don't look like mutton again tomorrer." Bert the Troll - The Hobbit
Semi-Secret sig business: "In the age of the internet attaching a famous name to your personal opinion to give more weight to it is a very valid strategy." - Benjamin Franklin
Champion of Epic Lolth, Orcus, & Demogorgon and bring us Asmodeus! | |
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Bert the Troll
Commander
3964 Posts
Adelaide
| | 05/03/2006 1:16 AM |
| One competetion game our group at a games day type thing had us tearing our hair out.
We spent half of the hour game describing our actions searching a room. Wasnt enought to say we search from top to bottom. Wasnt enough to say open all cupboards etc. To get past it (we needed an artefact in there) we ended up having to write down the room description and make a check list stating each thing we were searching.
- We search the room - Nothings
- We look in the east ward cupboard. - Nothings
- We search the eastward cupboard back panels - Nothings
- etc
- We search the fireplace - Nothings
- We search the fireplace coals - Bingo
For about two years after that 'search the fireplace coals' was the first thing the players would say they were doing in every room. | |
"Mutton yesterday, mutton today, and blimey, if it don't look like mutton again tomorrer." Bert the Troll - The Hobbit
Semi-Secret sig business: "In the age of the internet attaching a famous name to your personal opinion to give more weight to it is a very valid strategy." - Benjamin Franklin
Champion of Epic Lolth, Orcus, & Demogorgon and bring us Asmodeus! | |
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Most Edumacated
zenthrus
Warlord
5132 Posts
SLC, UT
| | 05/03/2006 1:29 AM |
| quote:
Originally posted by Bert the Troll
For about two years after that 'search the fireplace coals' was the first thing the players would say they were doing in every room.
That's pretty bad [:(]
In a LARP once there was a puzzle/riddle combination. I forget the exact riddle but basically there was a glowing orb in the sky and the PCs had to get it. My character was ticked off from a horribly written/role-played series of encounters prior and the rest of the group just stood their staring at the orb (couldn't solve the riddle). After a while I rejoined them (finally managed to kill the really annoying NPC and started to feel better), walked in, looked up, stuck my hand out, and the stupid thing appeared in my hand (the riddle alluded to "if I can see it I can touch it" or somesuch).
Another incident not long after had another GM running a module in which the entire night sky was recreated on a cave's ceiling in gems. After 45 minutes of descriptive flavor-text (in a LARP for crying out loud) one of the PCs reached up and plucked the North Star out. The GM was horrified since that was supposed to be the big mystery that could only be unraveled by solving the arm-load of riddles she'd written.
Obvious plot twists are just bound to be disappointments. | |
Knight Warlord a.k.a. Commander (#32) in only 6 months. Where's my pie?
Champion of Dwarven Thunderlashers
Knight of the Large Dire Chicken
Have/Want List
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Malin Lug
Sergeant
742 Posts
| | 05/03/2006 11:40 AM |
| OK... since LARP has been brought up, I will go into two different sessions.
A local Live Action Vampire game at the college. A good size group of us talked to the story tellers and we agreed to come in a Sabbat. We warned him that we had a number of very good role players and some very hard players in our group and it could completly alter the course of his game. His response was... "well, we have 50 people going to be there, how much damage can 8 Sabbat do?"
We were actually trying to talk to the other players, and proclaimed our allegence and asked for a parley. We did not go out of our way to kill any PC's, we took out anyone that attacked us and ambushed alot of NPC's that magically appeared to deal with us. The Brujah Justicar and her Archons fell into a trap and were all captured. A few more Archons chopped off their own heads rather than risk capture. All 50 players were hiding from us all night and for us it devolved into role playing with only each other. The game was so bad... that we ended up leaving half way into the first night and not even going the second night.
Another actually good LARP game at Gen Con a number of years ago happened despite all of the attempts of the storytellers and narators to screw it up. The game ended up being really enjoyable for the plots and counterplots that were made up and enacted by the players. The main plot of the story "Beauty and the Beast," was exposed (by me) and blown out of the water 3 hours into the first of the two all night sessions. There were times when we told narators to get lost rather than have their interference and the really annoying NPCs that they kept coming up with. | |
"Are you not entertained?"
Champion of the Common Bar Wench
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Kelemvor
Warrior
223 Posts
| | 05/03/2006 5:39 PM |
| My worst session was when the GM ran Menzoberranzan, but it was nothing like the dark elf city. He just drew up random rooms in a dungeon like sequence, and the "bad guy drow" kept getting away time and time again.
And whenever we started to look bored, he would pull a NPC card from the Menzo box and that would be the new minion we had to kill. There was no city, just room after room, and door after door. I don't even think he read from the books, he just had them out for show. We just kept chasing this "bad guy drow" for a couple nights, then it just fell apart and we moved on to something else. Wow it sucked. Amazingly this same GM ran "A dozen and 1 adventures" in Al Qadim, only a couple weeks later, and did really well with those. We were on the edge of our seats with each adventure. Go figure.
About LARP...
A couple things about LARP seems dumb to me. Everytime I hear a story about LARP it is always a disaster and/or a joke.
Does anyone have a story about LARP where it went good?
I admit I don't know anything about it, never attended one.
But if your going to do LARP, why not just get into stage acting, or into a play or something.
What do you actually do, I mean how do you resolve combat? Do you squat down and roll your d20 in the dirt? I mean seriously, I want to know. Because the only way you could get me in the woods in the middle of the night is if you had a keg, and then I think I would just get drunk and laugh and get beligerent (sp?) with the GMS, etc.
I was talking to someone the other day about how DDM has changed D&D so much, and now they have cool miniatures pre-painted and specific rules and they are drawing in more people. And he said something like "Yeah, it's changed alot from the rumors of devil worshipping, and people going out with real weapons and trying to roleplay events in caves and things."
And then I thought of LARP and cringed a little bit...
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Champion of ... Solamnic Knight on Silver Dragon
Completed Maxminis Trades = nystul69(1), ihawk(1), gausse(2), smilinirish(1), Ben Webster(1), thom(1), Gunthar(1), Halofurry(1), Anthraxus(1), Dr.Cornelius(1), me_is_fred(1), ksarchet(1), tirwin(1), Sirohk(1)
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maijstral
Underboss
2105 Posts
| | 05/03/2006 8:14 PM |
| quote:
Originally posted by Kelemvor
What do you actually do, I mean how do you resolve combat? Do you squat down and roll your d20 in the dirt? I mean seriously, I want to know. Because the only way you could get me in the woods in the middle of the night is if you had a keg, and then I think I would just get drunk and laugh and get beligerent (sp?) with the GMS, etc.
Not a LARPer and never will be but I do have a few friends who are or were LARPers and they tell me combat is resolved with rock,paper,sissors. I am not making this up that is how combat is resolved, I saw the same thing on a gamers documentary I watched the LARPer section had them show a combat and sure enough rock,paper,sissors. Its all about the acting so I guess they want to minimize and downplay the combat aspect.
BTW as far as I understand LARPing is very different from SCA things. | | | |
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Most Edumacated
zenthrus
Warlord
5132 Posts
SLC, UT
| | 05/03/2006 8:45 PM |
| LARP is a topic unto itself.....
I've managed/designed/consulted on several LARPs. Rock-paper-scissors is one method of resolving combat (typically reserved for Vampire/White Wolf LARPs). The most common method of resolving combat is boffer combat. Basically you take some PVC pipe, cover it in 5/8" (or thicker) PVC insulation, seal the whole thing in duct tape (only tape lengthwise, never wrap the tape), add a crossguard and pommel (more 5/8" PVC insulation), and voila you have a basic boffer sword. Various types of foam can be used to embellish the weapon (or make axe blades, hammers, etc).
Most systems then give you so many points (either a pool or by body location: either 10 HP or 3 Torso, 2 Right Arm, 2 Left Arm, 2 Right Leg, 2 Left Leg) or something like that. At that point, off you go to swing your foam sword at monsters while they swing their foam swords at you. Simple. Sort of.
Spells are typically handled via a "spell-packet" system. Take a roughly 8-12" square piece of cloth. Put about a 1/4 cup of bird seed in the middle, pull the ends up and wrap tape just under the ball of bird seed to secure it. Game mechanics differ, but essentially you call out the spell level and effect as you throw the packet to hit your target. Miss with the packet, spell is lost. Hit and they take the effect (unless they have a defense).
Well, there's LARP combat in a nutshell. It is a bit more complicated than that (again, depending on the combat system) but those are the nuts and bolts. | |
Knight Warlord a.k.a. Commander (#32) in only 6 months. Where's my pie?
Champion of Dwarven Thunderlashers
Knight of the Large Dire Chicken
Have/Want List
Trade References | |
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maijstral
Underboss
2105 Posts
| | 05/03/2006 9:13 PM |
| quote:
Originally posted by zenthrus
LARP is a topic unto itself.....
I've managed/designed/consulted on several LARPs. Rock-paper-scissors is one method of resolving combat (typically reserved for Vampire/White Wolf LARPs). The most common method of resolving combat is boffer combat. Basically you take some PVC pipe, cover it in 5/8" (or thicker) PVC insulation, seal the whole thing in duct tape (only tape lengthwise, never wrap the tape), add a crossguard and pommel (more 5/8" PVC insulation), and voila you have a basic boffer sword. Various types of foam can be used to embellish the weapon (or make axe blades, hammers, etc).
Most systems then give you so many points (either a pool or by body location: either 10 HP or 3 Torso, 2 Right Arm, 2 Left Arm, 2 Right Leg, 2 Left Leg) or something like that. At that point, off you go to swing your foam sword at monsters while they swing their foam swords at you. Simple. Sort of.
Spells are typically handled via a "spell-packet" system. Take a roughly 8-12" square piece of cloth. Put about a 1/4 cup of bird seed in the middle, pull the ends up and wrap tape just under the ball of bird seed to secure it. Game mechanics differ, but essentially you call out the spell level and effect as you throw the packet to hit your target. Miss with the packet, spell is lost. Hit and they take the effect (unless they have a defense).
Well, there's LARP combat in a nutshell. It is a bit more complicated than that (again, depending on the combat system) but those are the nuts and bolts.
Once again not a LARPer(and the only ones I know are vampire LARPers) but I thought the foam sword and other stuff you described were combat for SCA type adventures, LARPers being more interested in roleplaying tried to minimize the combat and other phsyical aspects of the adventure.
But then again there are many types of RPGers so I suppose there are just as many types of LARPers, what ever your bliss go for it. | | | |
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Sulaco
Underboss
1605 Posts
| | 05/04/2006 12:01 PM |
| quote:
Originally posted by maijstral
Once again not a LARPer(and the only ones I know are vampire LARPers) but I thought the foam sword and other stuff you described were combat for SCA type adventures, LARPers being more interested in roleplaying tried to minimize the combat and other phsyical aspects of the adventure.
But then again there are many types of RPGers so I suppose there are just as many types of LARPers, what ever your bliss go for it.
I'm not a LARPer but from what I've seen they seem to spend a lot of time wailing on each other with foam swords while yelling "Two magic! Two magic! two magic!" while a buddy wings beanbags into the scuffle while yelling "Lightning Bolt! Lightning Bolt! Lightning Bolt!" | |
Champion of the Gelatinous Cube. Nemesis of Gnomes and Dinosaurs.
Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of evil... prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun. ~ Terry Pratchett | |
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Malin Lug
Sergeant
742 Posts
| | 05/04/2006 12:05 PM |
| quote:
Originally posted by maijstral
Once again not a LARPer(and the only ones I know are vampire LARPers) but I thought the foam sword and other stuff you described were combat for SCA type adventures, LARPers being more interested in roleplaying tried to minimize the combat and other phsyical aspects of the adventure.
But then again there are many types of RPGers so I suppose there are just as many types of LARPers, what ever your bliss go for it.
The foam sword thing is a LARP system that I have never done. The SCA actually uses Ratan Wood wrapped in Duct Tape and effective armor. After an SCA battle, you are usually pretty battered. The first time I used rock, paper scissors to resolve a fight, I felt a bit foolish. But after a session or two, it felt as natural as dice ever did.
Most sessions I have been to in Live action were great... but this was a thread about "Horrible Plots." The session I spoke about at Gen Con a number of years ago was an absolute blast, but the storytellers sucked and the plot was really weak and in no way capable of keeping the 300 people there entertained. We used to run a game in a broken down old building where we had to jury rig the power and there were no toilets, but it was a blast and everyone had alot of fun.
And many LARP people either do or have done theatre in the past. I have done a fair bit in my time, and so has my wife (another old time LARP player.) | |
"Are you not entertained?"
Champion of the Common Bar Wench
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forkedmoon
Underboss
1305 Posts
| | 05/04/2006 1:20 PM |
| After reading these I now know why I don't want to resurrect any of my old dungeons. I would hope I wouldn't be one of those DMs who relives old adventures but this one time at orc camp.
Thanks for the laughs everyone and the realization that if I do decide to re-enter the world of DMing I need to go fresh. | |
Champion of Cyclops
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ShadowLord XT
Commander
2646 Posts
Plane of Shadow
| | 05/04/2006 4:58 PM |
| | My mom once said when I started playing that people who played LARPing got hurt and even some got killed because they slashed eachother. I probably would've thought of not getting into the game if I hadn't been playing DDM instead of D&D. | |
Disipline is the only way to overcome chaos.
Champion of Half-Golems
Knight of Golems
"This world is made for love and peace" - Trigun
"anyway..shadow..you've figured women out. KUDOS." - raye_kino16 | |
| The Defenestrator
AesophDarkfable
Warlord
5628 Posts
| | 05/04/2006 5:16 PM |
| | A friend of mine plays Nero LARP and they use boffer weapons. | |
Im out- find me on Hordelings if you want to chat. | |
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Frederyck
Sneak
139 Posts
Uppsala, Sweden
| | 05/05/2006 5:31 AM |
| I think that one of the worst I've played in was when I myself was DMing Dwellers of the Forbidden City over 20 years ago. [:I]
All the classical DM errors were there - railroading heavily to get the PCs into the module, forcing them to continue even when they obviously just wanted to get away by arbitrarily disallowing some of the stuff they came up with and so on.
I was really really bad back then, but I tend to think that I have levelled a few times in the Dungeon Master Prestige Class since those days... [:D] | |
If voting could really change things, it would be illegal. | |
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wildmage
Sneak
123 Posts
| | 05/05/2006 7:54 PM |
| | The DM is totally a core class (with lots of prestige of course). I think that regularly reading the maxminis rpg threads gives you an extra level as well. | |
Champion of the Bone Naga
(There's just so much roleplaying to be done with a large skeletal snake!) | |
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Most Edumacated
zenthrus
Warlord
5132 Posts
SLC, UT
| | 05/05/2006 10:01 PM |
| quote:
Originally posted by Kelemvor
About LARP...
A couple things about LARP seems dumb to me. Everytime I hear a story about LARP it is always a disaster and/or a joke.
Does anyone have a story about LARP where it went good?
I admit I don't know anything about it, never attended one.
But if your going to do LARP, why not just get into stage acting, or into a play or something.
The top RPG sessions I've been involved with were LARP. It's hit or miss (as is PnP). A well-run LARP is superior to PnP D&D by a LONG shot.
quote:
And he said something like "Yeah, it's changed alot from the rumors of devil worshipping, and people going out with real weapons and trying to roleplay events in caves and things."
And then I thought of LARP and cringed a little bit...
Only people who are missing a few sets of brain cells would fight each other with real weapons. SCA is little better (granted, I'm missing a few brain cells since I've fought in SCA tourneys before). Out of 9 years of running/playing Boffer LARP I've only seen two major injuries (one was not me and also non-combat related, the other still hurts on cold mornings). Heads, hands/wrists, and groin are banned strike zones in every boffer LARP I've seen (which helps tremendously).
As to DM being a core class....I'm Epic [:P] | |
Knight Warlord a.k.a. Commander (#32) in only 6 months. Where's my pie?
Champion of Dwarven Thunderlashers
Knight of the Large Dire Chicken
Have/Want List
Trade References | |
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