Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

[Drhoz]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

In Cthulhu, some proud moments for me as a Keeper. Including Investigators refusing to read clues because they don't want to know what's going on, and two of them chanting "I disbelieve! I disbelieve!" in the vain hope that will work. This session was recorded by Pastor Joe's player, Mark, but there's no way in hell I'm going to release it to the general public. Partly because the players were somewhat out of control without the moderating influence of Ratfan and Purrdence ( and imagine a session where Purrdence is a moderating influence!), partly because the session began a playtest of Pelgrane Press's Cthulhu Apocalypse, but mostly because listening to my own voice in playback was a mortifying experience.

 

At least I can transcribe dialogue at my leisure.

 

But as usual, it's the downtime between sessions that provides some of the best lines. Such as double-checking which spells party members have actually learned.

Me, to McGinty's player

: I'm already worried by what McGinty might do when he finally snaps. Dispatch a Star Vampire to assassinate the Pope, perhaps.

To my considerable and unprintable alarm, McGinty's repertoire now includes both Summon/Bind Star Vampire, and Brew Space Mead, which makes Interstellar monster-assisted flight survivable by putting the imbiber into suspended animation.

McGinty OOC

: Woohoo!!!! First Irishman in Space! No-one can take the sky from me! I'll plant the Irish flag on the moon!

Me, GM

: 'I claim this satellite in the name of Belfast!'

Anticipating the consequences of the Irish Space Program

Prof. Engeleins

: The Irish are leaving the planet - at last we can build Utopia.

 

McGinty

: How far away is the Sun?

Me, GM

: Why, are you planning on being the first Irishman there, too?

McGinty

: ... We'll be fine, we'll travel at night.

The first Irish Interstellar Voyage

All

: Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?

McGinty

: If you don't shut up back there I'm turning this thing around!

 

McGinty

: Somebody open a window so Growler can stick his head out

Growler

:

*explodes in the vacuum*

Me, GM

: Thank goodness for Space Mead is all I can say

Further discussion reveals just how many options the party has in the event they're too late to rescue poor Lancaster.

Pvt. Rondale

: McGinty here invented classic gangsterism ten years early. He's got a tommygun in a violin case in one hand...

McGinty

: And a trumpet case in the other!

Me, GM

: ... And the trumpet raises the dead.

McGinty

: I'm a one-man marching band!

 

Me, GM

: You'd think that after the incident with the chicken lunch, the party would steer well clear of fowl necromancy.

 

Me, GM

: If you're serious about getting into Lucy's knickers I'd recommend plying her with absinthe, if it hadn't been banned 13 years earlier. It has quite a reputation as an aphrodisiac. It might be the wormwood oil, it might be the fact it's 180° proof, but it's apparently true what they say - absinthe makes the tart grow fonder.

All

:

*dead silence*

Me, GM

: ...aw...

Engeleins' player

:

*slow clap*

Rondale's player

: Well. Done. Drhoz. How Droll.

Pastor Joe's player

: I heard it, I appreciated it!

Rondale's player

: Oh, I heard it. I just didn't appreciate it.

Colonel Lancaster, carted off into the black Vermont skies by hideous arthropoid things. Lucy & Amy run ahead to the waiting vehicles, to get the missing reporter and themselves to safely.

McGinty

: Hang... *rolls dice* Yes, I physically piss myself laughing at the thought of Lucy driving anywhere.

Me, GM

: McGinty has apparently gone into hysterics again

Pastor Joe

: ... and wet himself

Prof. Engeleins

:

*slaps McGinty*

McGinty

: Where the fook did that come from?

*slaps the Professor back*

Pvt. Rondale

:

*intervenes. squabbling ensues*

Me, GM

:

*turning to Lancaster*

Aren't you glad

these

people are coming to rescue you.

 

Me, GM

: So, Pastor Joe, what are you going to do whilst these three go through their Three Stooges routine?

McGinty, Rondale, Engeleins OOC

: Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo! Nyuk! Nyuk! Why I oughta...

 

Pastor Joe OOC

: I'm probably still terrified - this is the first unearthly thing I've ever encountered.

McGinty

: Aw padre, don't you worry about it, it's just fooking big crayfish

Me, GM

: Flying crayfish

Pastor Joe

: Flying

glowing

crayfish

Pvt. Rondale

: So, easier to hit?

McGinty

: It's all to do with the French. You can't trust the bastards. They're doing stuff to the fooking crayfish now.

All

:

*long pause as we consider this statement and McGinty's previous blaming of all the world's ills on, variously, the English, the Catholics, the Satanists, and fishmen cults.*

Pastor Joe

: Riiiiiight.

The end result of McGinty's megalomania and paranoia.

Col. Lancaster OOC

: Oh that's just wonderful. After you've wiped out the English, the French, and the Germans, what have we got left?

The Irish and the Scots

.

McGinty OOC

:

*pauses. Then picks a fight with himself*

 

Me, GM

: The things have landed on a ledge, and pin your limbs before dragging you into a sort of cave

Pvt. Rondale player

: Thank god this is not an anime

Col. Lancaster OOC

: 'I'm not comfortable being grabbed there!'

Prof. Engeleins' player

: You're confusing anime with hentai, and hentai with yaoi... If they give you a sex change it could be yuri.

Col. Lancaster's player

:

*rolls dice*

woohoo!

Pvt. Rondale's player

: Was that a sex change roll?

Col. Lancaster's player

: Yes!

Lancaster tries to bluff his way out.

Col. Lancaster

: By the power vested in me by the King himself and the Greater British Empire I hearby order you to return to the nearest parallel dimension of convenience!

And elsewhere the party disregards McGinty's warnings about dimensional engineering.

Me, GM

: [The Pastor] just vanished into thin air before your eyes.

McGinty

: I told ya! I fooking TOLD ya! Nobody listens to the drunk Irishman!

Col. Lancaster OOC

: Nobody listens to the drunk Irishman? For fooking good reason! The only that's worse than a drunk Irishman is a

sober

Irishman!

 

Col. Lancaster OOC

: I just love how [McGinty] keeps asking which button it was, when it's been said there's one button. 'WHICH BUTTON IS IT?'

The Peanut Gallery

: 'I'll give you six bucks if you shut up'

McGinty OOC

: He hasn't got any money, he's being held down by giant crawdads

Pastor Joe OOC

: Space Crawdads

McGinty OOC

: No, it's a fooking buffet. Six claws and six wings on each, it's fooking grand.

Which gives us various recipes for Mi-Go barbecue

McGinty OOC

: What do we do with these glowing head things?

Pastor Joe OOC

: Nah, it's great, you don't need lights or anythin', 'cause the heids still 'lluminated

 

Pvt. Rondale

: Do you know how to use a tommygun?

Pastor Joe

: No...

*takes gun*

but I'm willing to learn.

 

Me, GM

: The only noise is the hum and susurration of the machines. There's no screaming, no cursing, no English accent demanding to speak to the Ambassador

Pastor Joe

: We've got two choices...

Prof. Engeleins

: We follow the drag marks

Pastor Joe

: Sure, let's go!

Prof. Engeleins

: German efficiency

 

Me, GM

: When you sneak up to the bend in the tunnel and peer around into the sickly yellow-green glow, you can see a chamber - not as large as the last, and with fewer machines, if that's what they were. There's also a raised slab of grey, polished stone. It looks a bit like an altar. Lancaster's body is lying face-up on it, and three of the crayfish things are crowded around one end - where it looks like they've gnawed off the top of his head. One is busy scraping the last bits of flesh out of the cavity.

Prof. Engeleins

:

*screams and hoses the room with a looted Mist Projector*

Mein Gott! Estanglatten liegenstatten! Nein! Nein! Nein!

Further hysteria -

Me, GM

: There's an assortment of curious tools, or possibly holy sacrificial knives, laid out around the remains. One of them resembles a large ice-cream scoop.

Pastor Joe

: Are there any weapons?

Me, GM

: Well, there's the ice-cream scoop.

 

Me, GM

:

*To Lancaster's Brain*

All you can see is is these three, moving back and forth. And it's all grey. Perhaps it's moonlight, or you were hit in the head. But you can't turn your head.

Col. Lancaster's Brain

:

*flat mechanical voice from the speaker rig*

Why. Can't. I. Move. My. Head.

Prof. Engeleins

: You're in a jar, my friend.

All

: *

pause

*

Pvt. Rondale

: You could have said it a little bit nicely, but then again -

Prof. Engeleins

: I don't think there's a nice way to say it.

Pastor Joe

: And he

did

say 'my friend'.

Prof. Engeleins

: You're a brain in a jar. And by the way now is a good time to talk about my outstanding debt at your antique shop.

Col. Lancaster's Brain

: I. Know. I Am In. A Jam. Wait. Jar?

Prof. Engeleins

: Yes, they scooped out your gooey gooey bits and put them in a jar. It's quite humorous.

 

Prof. Engeleins

: I'm moving the rig around, without showing him his body, until he can get a good straight-on view of the hole

Me, GM

: Are you

really

doing that?

Pastor Joe OOC

: He's German, what do you expect?

Prof. Engeleins

: Schadenfreude

Col. Lancaster's Brain

: Where. Are. You. Taking Me? Why Can't. I. Feel. My. Legs?

Pvt. Rondale

: Don't worry, I can feel them, they're fine.

Prof. Engeleins

: Are you sure you want to see your body?

Col. Lancaster's Brain

: Yes.

Prof. Engeleins

: Are you

reeeeeaaaally

sure you want to see your body?

Col. Lancaster's Brain

: Yes.

Prof. Engeleins

: Are you going to erase my debt at your shop?

 

Pvt. Rondale's player

: He lost ten points of sanity, he's a brain in a jar...

and he's still the most sane of us

???

 

Col. Lancaster's Brain

:

*Is shown his remains

-

assorted choking noises

* If... If We've. Got All. The Bits. I'll Be. OK!

 

Prof. Engeleins

:

*Finds the Colonel's bloody and snap-frozen scalp and skullbones and props them at a jaunty angle on top of Lancaster's jar.*

Col. Lancaster's Brain OOC

: So I have a literal skullcap.

Pastor Joe OOC

: You're might be a brain in a jar but at least you have a hairstyle

At this point I lead them into the actual playtest. Which reduces most of the party to utter bafflement, confusion, and shock, despite their disturbingly high genre-savvyness, correctly predicting half the plot without realising it, and ongoing totally wrong guesses about what's really going on that they'll soon be regretting very much indeed.

Prof. Engeleins

:

*shouting hysterically*

Everything's wrong! We have to get Lancaster's brain back out of his head!

Pastor Joe

: We can't, we don't have the jar!

Prof. Engeleins

:

*almost in tears*

I don't care!

 

Col. Lancaster's Player

: I'm sorry, but the best thing about this sequence is that Paddy has been unconscious - FOR ELEVEN YEARS

 

Me, GM

: There's two dead men - both of them frothing at the mouth.

McGinty

: I've seen that. That's the crazy person look.

Pastor Joe

:

*chokes on laughter*

Yeah, you should know it...

 

Weldun

,

coming in to see what was keeping Lancaster's Player

: How long does it take to get killed?

Col. Lancaster's Player

: A long time, apparently. He

was

a brain in a jar, and that didn't stop him.

Pastor Joe

: Do they usually have earthquakes in England?

McGinty

: No! That's the fooking problem! Otherwise the whole place would have disappeared under the waves!

Finding a tearful survivor

Survivor

: Have you come to help?

Prof. Engeleins

: Sure, why not?

 

Prof. Engeleins

: Ma'am, do you drink?

Survivor

: .....socially...

Prof. Engeleins

:

I

drink socially. Also unsocially and antisocially.

Updating Lancaster

Prof. Engeleins

: The entire city is dead

Me, GM

: They did find two survivors though. And killed half of them.

 

Prof. Engeleins OOC

: We have a tank full of alcohol and guns... And we have a woman!

Me, GM

: Oh God. British Road Warriors. 'Eccentric Max'

Pvt. Rondale's Player

: This is the best campaign ever!

An Englishman, an Irishman & a German walk into a bar. But only to loot the place of anything potable. The group swiftly descend to further looting, defenestration, arson, and other mayhem. Possibly because they're still half-convinced all of this has to be some sort of shared hallucination

Me, GM

: I think we've proven that Lovecraft was right when he wrote that civilisation is a thin veneer over -

Pastor Joe's player

: Comedy?

Me, GM

: Insanity. Have we fled into a new Dark Age? I say yes!

Rondale does a stocktake on the increasingly crowded armoured car.

Pvt. Rondale

: So we have two dogs, two Irishman, and a zombie colonel...

Prof. Engeleins OOC

: That's no way to talk about the Colonel's daughter!

Lancaster is losing it.

McGinty

: Why is he talking into a fooking pistol?

Pvt. Rondale's

: It's the only thing that understands him.

McGinty

: Then why doesn't he stick it in his mouth and talk even closer?

 

Me, GM

: Around the hull the water is thick. White. Gelid with seeds.

McGinty

: ...That's the problem with seamen

Me, GM

: *

facedesk

*

Prof. Engeleins' player

: You didn't see that coming?

Me, GM

: I

should

have seen that coming.

Pvt. Rondale's Player

: That's what

she

said!

And that's where I'll leave it for now. Apart from three minutes of dead air where I'd left the room and the buggers all ran out of the building to see how I'd react to having no players when I came back. We're only halfway into the tape! But much more would give too much of the Cthulhu Apocalypse plot away and we aren't even at the end of the first chapter yet...

[New Hero]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

repped

[Major Tom 2009]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

Originally posted by Drhoz:

 

(and imagine a session where Purrdence is a moderating influence!)

 

 

Proof indeed that the End Times are a lot closer than we'd like to think...

 

 

And the bit about the Mi-Go barbeque...brings back some memories of the various

delicacies featuring pixies as the main ingredient, that one does.

 

Pixie wings, pixie croquettes...

 

 

Strange stuff, I know -- but what's a response to a Cthulu-oriented post without a

little bit of strangeness in it?

 

 

 

Major Tom 2009

[Major Tom 2009]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

Hentai movies start this way.... just sayin'.

 

 

No kidding... and if the trailer for the movie Primal is any indication, Australian hentai

movies are much the same (just go to YouTube and check out the trailer for Primal,

or any of the websites that have trailers for upcoming films).

 

 

Major Tom 2009

[Drhoz]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

...brings back some memories of the various

delicacies featuring pixies as the main ingredient, that one does.

 

Pixie wings, pixie croquettes...

 

Wouldn't be much meat on a pixie wing, I'd have thought. They'd be better cooked like bogong moths, perhaps - piled in a heap and rolled in hot coals until the wings and scales burn off.

 

Tasty!

 

And let's not mention one of the very very few incidents Vitus actually feels guilty about... although in his defense the party was starving to death and the sprites had really annoyed him.

[Drhoz]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

repped

 

Who? If you meant to rep me, nothing showed up in the counter. Click on the little star counter at lower left if you did mean to rep me

[Susano]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

Session 6 of Qin: The Warring States

 

The cast:

Black Cloud, a retired wu xia turned baker

Bu Ya, a calligrapher and vagabond

Silent Mountain, a wu xia and doctor

Wandering Vine, a barbarian, horse trainer, and internal alchemist

 

It's interesting to skip over notes from an earlier session. You find things you wrote down that makes you wonder, just what were we thinking at the time? For example:

Copper Cat -> Bronze Cat -> Rusty Cat -> Dust in the Wind

 

Dramatically Insignificant Combatants = "DICs"

 

GM: "Your spear is about to become dangerously wet."

(it just goes downhill form here, folks)

 

GM: "You have him by his... center of gravity."

 

"Captain firebug"

 

Wandering Vine on how to recover some of his missing chi: "I need to either mediate, or wait 10 years for the girl to grow up."

 

The other PCs comment on Wandering Vine's habits:

Black CLoud (OOC): "I wonder what 'Five Finger Mary' translates to in Chinese?"

Bu Ya (OOC): "Why did you put so many points into verbose?"

Silent Mountain (OOC): "What's your bullshit score?"

 

Wandering Vine: "I'll be building bridges."

Bu Ya (OOC): "That's a good name for it."

Silent Mountain (OOC): "At least you're not building dikes."

Black CLoud (OOC): "Depends on how guilty she feels afterwards."

[Shadow Hawk]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

Our Saturday 4th edition DnD group.

 

Aera Bourne, Elven Ranger (Aera)

Arthaboulous, Tiefling Warlock (Art)

Lucan, Kankau Battlemind

Theo, Human Rogue

Susie, Eladrin Paladin riding George the Rhino

Carlos, Shadarkai Invoker

We enter the dungeon

GM: Marching order?

Aera: Meatshield in the front!

Susie: I lead the way! I attack the darkness!

Carlos: Attacking the darkness is my job.

 

Battling the Orc

Art: I hit for 32 Necrotic damage, and he's weakened.

Aera OOC: 32 Erotic damage would weaken me.

Art: NECROTIC! NECK-Rotic!

 

Aera: I use twin strike, and shoot twice.

GM: Hit, hit. He's still standing.

Aera: I spend an action point and use twin strike again.

GM: Hit, hit.

Carlos: Sounds like a pizza commercial.

GM: Pizza pizza?

Carlos: Arrow arrow. Arrow arrow.

Aera: Aera, Aera.

GM: How many arrows can you fire in a round, anyway?

Aera: Theoretically? Using daily powers and action points? Ten.

Art: His arrows darken the sun!

Theo: Good, me and Susie can fight in the shade!

[Drhoz]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

The 4th Ed D&D

 

Murray, GM

: Under the admittedly loose definitions you can get with anything you can justify as adventuring and not piracy or brigandage.

Al

: As long as we pay tax.

 

Rumbaba

: I'd like to think they rioted because I didn't appear that night, but I'm not that egotistical.

 

Rumbaba

: It's not so much an Underworld in a town this small, as a slightly sunken dining room.

 

Police clerk

:

*checks record scroll on dead hood

* Petty theft, petty theft, drunk & disorderly, brawling, sheep rustling, sheep..

*peers closer*

Oh, sheep

fleecing

 

Gae-el

: I think we should go talk to the pigs. They have better manners.

 

Gae-el

: Are the brands on the pigs genuine? Are they Kosher?

 

Hood's GF

:

*to Tiefling*

Get out of my hovel, you're lowering the tone

 

Tiefling Paladin

: I get back on my horse...

Murray, GM

: Your high horse. Typical Paladin.

Tiefling Paladin

: ... And reinsert the stick in my arse.

Murray, GM

:

*headdesk*

Tiefling Paladin

: It's a class requirement

 

Mad Dwarven Fire Warlock

:

*grudgingly agrees to truce*

Well, we're within each other's blast radius. Mutually Assured Conflagration is fine by me.

 

Rumbaba

: OK, we're taking fairy cakes and mead and sweetmeats in case the fae turn up to the barbecue.

Murray, GM

: Just don't tell them you're baking brownies.

 

And a few comments from before the start of the Cthulhu game

 

Me, GM :

Paddy McGinty, the other Irish Blight

 

Pvt. Rondale's Player

: I count that wizard as a kill! He ain't coming back! Admittedly he took a whole town with him.

Me, GM

:Yes, there was a certain amount of collateral damage with that one.

 

The Peanut Gallery

: Are there any Welshmen in the party?

Paddy McGinty

: No

The Peanut Gallery

: Good - Irishmen and Welshmen do not get along

Paddy McGinty

: Hey, Irishmen don't get along with

anybody

from that little island off the coast. We don't get along with

each other

.

[Major Tom 2009]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

The 4th Ed D&D

Murray, GM

: Under the admittedly loose definitions you can get with anything you can justify as adventuring and not piracy or brigandage.

Al

: As long as we pay tax.

 

Rumbaba

: I'd like to think they rioted because I didn't appear that night, but I'm not that egotistical.

 

Rumbaba

: It's not so much an Underworld in a town this small, as a slightly sunken dining room.

 

Police clerk

:

*checks record scroll on dead hood

* Petty theft, petty theft, drunk & disorderly, brawling, sheep rustling, sheep..

*peers closer*

Oh, sheep

fleecing

 

Gae-el

: I think we should go talk to the pigs. They have better manners.

 

Gae-el

: Are the brands on the pigs genuine? Are they Kosher?

 

Hood's GF

:

*to Tiefling*

Get out of my hovel, you're lowering the tone

 

Tiefling Paladin

: I get back on my horse...

Murray, GM

: Your high horse. Typical Paladin.

Tiefling Paladin

: ... And reinsert the stick in my arse.

Murray, GM

:

*headdesk*

Tiefling Paladin

: It's a class requirement

 

Mad Dwarven Fire Warlock

:

*grudgingly agrees to truce*

Well, we're within each other's blast radius. Mutually Assured Conflagration is fine by me.

 

Rumbaba

: OK, we're taking fairy cakes and mead and sweetmeats in case the fae turn up to the barbecue.

Murray, GM

: Just don't tell them you're baking brownies.

And a few comments from before the start of the Cthulhu game

Me, GM :

Paddy McGinty, the other Irish Blight

 

Pvt. Rondale's Player

: I count that wizard as a kill! He ain't coming back! Admittedly he took a whole town with him.

Me, GM

:Yes, there was a certain amount of collateral damage with that one.

 

The Peanut Gallery

: Are there any Welshmen in the party?

Paddy McGinty

: No

The Peanut Gallery

: Good - Irishmen and Welshmen do not get along

Paddy McGinty

: Hey, Irishmen don't get along with

anybody

from that little island off the coast. We don't get along with

each other

.

 

Are you sure that your missus' Smut Field(Tm) doesn't have the Indirect

advantage? From what the Police Clerk in the D&D game was saying about the

list of the dead hood's crimes - particularly the bit about sheep fleecing - I couldn't

help but wonder if he wasn't being influenced somewhat by a nearby Smut Field.

As far as the dead hood goes, he sounds like he would've been a good candidate

for an Australian remake of Blazing Saddles:

"Qualifications?"

"Stampeding sheep."

"Well, that isn't much of a crime."

"Through the Sydney Opera House?!"

"Kin-ky. Sign here..."

Major Tom 2009

[Drhoz]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

Are you sure that your missus' Smut Field(Tm) doesn't have the Indirect

advantage? From what the Police Clerk in the D&D game was saying about the

list of the dead hood's crimes - particularly the bit about sheep fleecing - I couldn't

help but wonder if he wasn't being influenced somewhat by a nearby Smut Field.

As far as the dead hood goes, he sounds like he would've been a good candidate

for an Australian remake of Blazing Saddles:

"Qualifications?"

"Stampeding sheep."

"Well, that isn't much of a crime."

"Through the Sydney Opera House?!"

"Kin-ky. Sign here..."

Major Tom 2009

 

*grins* Alas, Purrdence hasn't been to the last two sessions! Possibly that implies her Smut Field has a 50 klick range....

[Shadow Hawk]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

OK, we had a Oracle spell today, so the only quote is...

 

"We need to write down our questions precisely, because our GM is a lawyer."

"But I haven't taken the bar yet!"

"That's even worse."

 

(Note: yes, our GM is in law school.)

[Drhoz]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

OK, we had a Oracle spell today, so the only quote is...

 

"We need to write down our questions precisely, because our GM is a lawyer."

"But I haven't taken the bar yet!"

"That's even worse."

 

(Note: yes, our GM is in law school.)

 

*grins* Of our D&D group, half of them have degrees in small business and workplace law - the arguments about registering the party as a business got quite complicated. Especially after they started consulting textbooks and then started criticising the textbooks.

[Klytus]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

*grins* Of our D&D group' date=' half of them have degrees in small business and workplace law - the arguments about registering the party as a business got quite complicated. Especially after they started consulting textbooks and then started criticising the textbooks.[/quote']

 

That's almost as bad as the D&D group I used to GM for running the party like an anarcho-syndicalist commune.

[Drhoz]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

That's almost as bad as the D&D group I used to GM for running the party like an anarcho-syndicalist commune.

 

Well, violence is inherent in the system. Otherwise they wouldn't give you experience points for killing stuff.

[Klytus]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

Well' date=' violence is inherent in the system. Otherwise they wouldn't give you experience points for killing stuff.[/quote']

 

While true, that does nothing to reduce how annoying it can be when certain members of the group get bent out of shape when an individual member of the party dares to make any kind of choice, decision, or take an action, that might possibly have an impact on other members of the party, or the party as a whole, without discussing it with the entire group and taking a vote on it ahead of time.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

While true' date=' that does nothing to reduce how annoying it can be when certain members of the group get bent out of shape when an individual member of the party dares to make any kind of choice, decision, or take an action, that might possibly have an impact on other members of the party, or the party as a whole, without discussing it with the entire group and taking a vote on it ahead of time.[/quote']

 

While I agree with the theme that the characters make their own decisions, I have seen just as many, if not more, players get bent out of shape when the other members of the party react realistically to the actions of their PC. If PC X commonly takes actions which are viewed negatively by the other party members, they are certainly entitled to decide that PC X is more trouble than he is worth and punt him out of the group. The expectation that the PC can do whatever he wants and the other PC's have to put up with it because, hey, he's a PC and you have to put up with whatever a PC does is just as unreasonable as expecting the PC's to exercise constant groupthink or make decisions only after thorough discussion with the rest of the team.

[Klytus]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

While I agree with the theme that the characters make their own decisions' date=' I have seen just as many, if not more, players get bent out of shape when the other members of the party react realistically to the actions of their PC. If PC X commonly takes actions which are viewed negatively by the other party members, they are certainly entitled to decide that PC X is more trouble than he is worth and punt him out of the group. The expectation that the PC can do whatever he wants and the other PC's have to put up with it because, hey, he's a PC and you have to put up with whatever a PC does is just as unreasonable as expecting the PC's to exercise constant groupthink or make decisions only after thorough discussion with the rest of the team.[/quote']

 

Oh, we're not just talking about disruptive behavior. I swear, there came a point when I was expecting the party to "prepare the secret ballots" to decide whether to turn right or left at each intersection.

[Drhoz]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

Oh' date=' we're not just talking about disruptive behavior. I swear, there came a point when I was expecting the party to "prepare the secret ballots" to decide whether to turn right or left at each intersection.[/quote']

 

They didn't take it in turns to be a sort of executive officer for the week, but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs?

[Klytus]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

They didn't take it in turns to be a sort of executive officer for the week' date=' but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs?[/quote']

 

I wish they'd been that orderly about it. All decisions had to be ratified by the rest of the group as they were made, or else there would be moans and cries of, "How dare you make decisions that affect me without giving me a say, first!"

[Tim]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

Heh, Have them play Kingmaker. Someone HAS to be in change. (I'm referring to the Piazo Adventure Path)

[Drhoz]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

I wish they'd been that orderly about it. All decisions had to be ratified by the rest of the group as they were made' date=' or else there would be moans and cries of, "How dare you make decisions that affect me without giving me a say, first!"[/quote']

 

That is a shame - all those opportunities for Monty Python quotes, missed

[Drhoz]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

I have to say this is one of the most frustrating sessions I've ever run, at least since I used to try to GM for Team Demolition back in Sydney. And the worst thing about it is that a great deal of it is my fault, and stems from from what I thought was my cunning attempts to mesh together the ongoing 1920s campaign, and the playtest of the 1930s Cthulhu Apocalypse. Instead, the players and their characters had reason to believe that they were in fact, trapped in some Mi-Go Matrix-style virtual reality, instead of a rather more horrifying plan millions of years in the making, involving time travel, multiple Mythos species, and the incidental extinction of humanity. I certainly shouldn't have spent an hour and a half at Matt's going-away do, prompting Ian to recount all the kinds of bullshit he inflicted on games in the past.

 

And the worst thing about it was players getting argumentative with me when I tried to inflict sanity losses on them when the scale, and time scale, of events, became apparent. I was very unhappy about the session by the end of it, and the "Oh god" count reached ten. Rondale's player was keeping track.

 

At least my attempts to mesh the campaigns left them with the knowledge that they'll be doing something terribly important, and horribly terrifying, in New York and London in the coming year, and that it involves somebody named Jackson Elias. Oh, and the small enjoinder that the something they do will result in the extinction of their species. Unless the amnesia, mind swapping, time travel, and letters from the dead are all some cunning trans-temporal game to try and ensure that doesn't happen.

 

Most quotes below give away nothing of the Apocalypse plot, or relate only to my apparently incompetent welding effort.

 

 

Anyway - the apocalypse has happened ( You could probably guess as much from the title of the book we're playtesting ). Needless to say this was quite a shock to the Reverend Joe, amongst others. Professor Engeleins has apparently gone catatonic, Colonel Lancaster spends most of the session sitting muttering over the coffee can full of the ashes of the daughter he cremated in the foyer of the post office, McGinty is relishing the fact that everybody in England is apparently dead, but I note he avoids ringing Dublin to see how things fare over the Irish Channel, and Rondale has gone just slightly bonkers as well. And they've run into a woman that apparently knows them, but they've never seen before.

McGinty

: Let's go steal the Crown Jewels! An Irishman with the crown jewels, they'll be rolling in their graves. I'll be walking around with my robe and the little sceptre, going 'Look at me, I'm the King!'

Me, GM

:

*giving him the first of many Looks that session*

.... Right.

McGinty, in gas mask ( the ermine robe is acquired later ) and waving a flamethrower.

Virginia Kendall

: Are you from the Government?

Paddy McGinty

: .....Yes. I commandeer this property in the name of Paddy!

Virginia Kendall

: Do you have any ID?

This Ms. Kendall ( ratfan's character for the duration ) has apparently known them since the mid 20s, and is trying to prod their memories about the horrible events in New York, and London. Which, thanks to the bizarre events in play, the regular party members don't know a thing about.

Pvt. Rondale

: Ma'am, I have never been in London in my life.

Me, GM

: Yes you have, this morning.

Pvt. Rondale

: OK, apart from this morning.

McGinty puts it down to drug abuse

Paddy McGinty

: Hey hey hey. Look over here. This table is full of cocaine. And there's s***loads of alcohol. This woman is clearly off her chops. She's turned vegetarian.

Me, GM

: Yet she knows all your names.

Paddy McGinty

: Well clearly she's taken some happy pills that let her see the fut... Where'd you get these happy pills?

McGinty's paranoia becomes alarming

Virginia Kendall

:Anybody that knows you is a threat???

Paddy McGinty

: Anybody that knows me, and I don't know them, is a threat

Virginia Kendall

: Well, it's possible you're not in a state to remember

Paddy McGinty

: Well, that's true. I'm quite often in no state to remember.

*commandeers another bottle of champagne*

Pvt. Rondale

: But

I

don't drink

Paddy McGinty

: Yes you do, I proved it, eleven years ago you fell over almost dead because you'd been drinkin'

Pvt. Rondale

: That's because

you gave me poison

McGinty, Rondale & Reverend Joe go on a looting rampage through Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, and the Tower of London. This fails to impress Ms. Kendall

Pvt. Rondale

: Well, there could be useful ammunition and stocks in there

Virginia Kendall

: That's not why you're doing it, sonny

Pvt. Rondale

: Not at all, but we might as well check anyway

Various proofs that what they're in can't be reality. 1) McGinty is wearing a tux ( under the gasmask, flamethrower straps and ermine robe ). 2) McGinty is in England.

Paddy McGinty

: I'm in England! I wouldn't be here unless I was dragged here by wild Byakhee!

 

Pvt. Rondale

: Do you know anything about Innsmouth?

Me, GM

: They mentioned it from time to time. And usually went very quiet.

Virginia Kendall

: Something happened in a fishing town, didn't it?

Paddy McGinty

:

*muttering to self*

Fishmen with the claws and the teeth and the murrrrrderous intentions...

Pvt. Rondale

: Speak to McGinty about it. He'll keep you entertained for hours.

Paddy McGinty

: ...and screaming worms in the sky. It was grand.

 

Reverend Joe

: Where's my Bible?

Me, GM

: It wasn't in your suit.

Reverend Joe

: This isn't real.

Paddy McGinty

: You might have left it your suitcase, numbnuts.

Me, GM

: Or lost your faith at some point between 1925 and 1935.

Reverend Joe

: Or lost my mind AND my faith.

Paddy McGinty

: There's a high probability.

 

Paddy McGinty

: We got to defenestrate somebody from a ground-floor window

Professor Engeleins

: And I got to explain what defenestrate meant.

Paddy McGinty

: I already knew what it meant! It's a great word. We just don't get to use it often, especially underground.

 

 

Definite spoilers ahead, heavily mixed with welding flux. A special no-prize to anybody that can name the cultural references I fitted into the Thing's speech.

 

 

Paddy McGinty OOC

: And Dover's under the sea. *

sings

* Under the sea - Under the sea!/ Everything's better, down where it's wetter, take it from me!

Pvt. Rondale OOC

: Would have made for a more interesting

Little Mermaid

.

Paddy McGinty OOC

: What, having a Deep One in it?

Pvt. Rondale OOC

: Yup.

Paddy McGinty OOC

: *

sings

* Doobeedoo DooDoo beedooBEEdooRAGGHH!!!

 

Virginia Kendall, climbing up onto an eight-foot-tall table, and finding a paperweight and bundles of 'papers'

Paddy McGinty

: What was that? What's up there?

Virginia Kendall

: There's a paperweight

Paddy McGinty

: Give it to me!

Virginia Kendall

:

*hefting the head-sized mass thoughtfully*

I'm really

tempted

to give it to him

Some lines I came up with ( or stole ) that I'm very pleased with. Engelein's player came up with the first, though

The Unpronounceable Thing :

[We] study how other species react to apocalypse. Every species encounters apocalypse. It happens to all.

 

Thing :

We are not a cruel species. All species become extinct at one point, or another. Even on this world - the serpentmen of Valusia, the pre-human voormis, these have come and gone. You four came to our attention.

Pvt. Rondale

: Well, we

did

set Buckingham Palace on fire.

Thing

: Not for anything that unimportant. You are involved in the extinction of your species, ten years ago.

Pvt. Rondale

: ........ that somewhat increases the kill count.

Virginia Kendall

: That's when I met you!

Thing

: Your actions drew our attention - not least because you have been involved in the manipulation of time

And the players indeed have, on four different occasions according to the Thing, but they can only think of two - their recent adventure involving Buttercup the Eldritch Cow, and that arch thing from Innsmouth. Despite their best hopes, setting Big Ben to Irish Time probably doesn't count.

Thing

: As the Great Race craft our destiny and our eschaton, we can use you to shape that future - the future can take many paths, many branches - and whilst we are a gentle race sometimes we are forced to prune.

Paddy McGinty's player

: *

laughs

* That's a

nasty

way of putting it.

Pvt. Rondale

: So that's it?? This is all humanity has left?? This is our great End????

Thing

: No! Humanity has, can and will become extinct many times! It has become extinct 300 years in your past! It will become extinct in 1945! And again in 2107!

Reverend Joe

: ........ huh?

Thing

: Time is, in a sense, mutable - lesser races assume time is a strict progression of linear events, but from a non-Euclidean, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a massive spheroid of elastic time-like quasimatter. Your species will, can and has discovered the means to travel in Time many times... the Plattnerite Armada of the Morlokoi, the devices of Kerensky & Blinovitch, the Zygma Beam of Findecker and Greel, the Time Capsules of Lambert & Newman. Your species

will

travel in Time - and suffer for it. Eaten by Paradox, hunted by the Tindalosi, earning the wrath of Afmogorgon...

Paddy McGinty

: What the fooking hell is this thing talking about?

Thing

: ...But the Great Race move on, learning all we can of the civilisations that rise and fall between the cusps of our existence.

Reverend Joe

: ... aren't humans the Great Race?

GM and other players

:

*pause, followed by hysterical laughter*

 

 

I don't think I'll include any quotes from the third chapter - I'm that annoyed with how it went. One relevant comment about Cthulhu Apocalypse, however.

Rondale's Player

: I notice that this is more pulp in tone than usual.

Me

: *

Nods

* It's written for

Trail of Cthulhu

, a much pulpier system than Chaosium's original.

Rondale's Player

: That's good. I like pulp.

Me

: You should like what I have planned for you for the next year then. It's probably the pulpiest campaign Chaosium ever produced.

Rondale's Player

: Great!

Me

: It also has more ways to have a Total Party Kill than anything they've ever written.

Rondale's Player

:

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

Oh' date=' we're not just talking about disruptive behavior. I swear, there came a point when I was expecting the party to "prepare the secret ballots" to decide whether to turn right or left at each intersection.[/quote']

 

Now that reminds me of a very old D&D game where the group had decided to appoint a leader (happened to be my character - good choice - a highly chaotic rogue type for leader...) but then decided important matters should be put to a vote by secret ballot. In general, my character was fine with that - who cares how decisions are made, especially since that approach means I don't have to make them. However, at one point, he cared about the decision, so when the secret ballots got handed to the DM said "As I'm leader, presumably I count the ballots. There are eight characters voting. The vote is 5 in favour, 2 opposed and 1 abstention." The DM stopped for a second at my ballot, then opened up the rest of them, jotting down scribbles on a note page behind the screen, and announced the result of 5 in favour, 2 opposed and 1 abstention.

 

Funny...most decisions my character cared about tended to go his way after that.

 

As a DM, my answer to the players would simply be "You have just spent 5 minutes discussing whether to turn right or left. I wonder if there's anything close enough to hear all that discussion [roll some dice]". As a player, depending on my character, I would probably find some way to interject that spending significant time at every bend in the corridors seems less than prudent.

 

I do recall a party where the two fighters in the front took turns opening the doors. At one point they stopped and asked "anyone remember whose turn it was?" A discussion ensued, ending when one of the two players said "Screw it - I open the door". I recall looking at the page and thinking the room with the rather damaging trap was an interesting place to forget, told the player how much damage he took and then added "By the way, it was his turn - you opened the door to" whatever the last door had been. Too bad I was the only one who remembered that.

[Shadow Hawk]

Re: Quote of the Week from my gaming group...

 

Leadership in most of my DnD games usually devolves to 'whoever takes charge at the moment', leading to wonderful diplomatic efforts by the Bard being interupted by the Barbarian screaming "ODIN!" and wacking the negotiator in two with a greataxe.

 

But it reminds me of the arguement between the human Fighter, human sorcerer, and half-elf Bard (with the interjection of Five, the half-orc barbarian) about who's responsible for what. It was decided that the fighter was responsible for combat tactics, the bard would do the negotiating, the sorcerer would question prisoners, and the barbarian would divide up the treasure.

 

(the conversation is repeated earlier in the thread)