"Uh ... you can *do* that?"

[Houston GM]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

anybody else got any good "Oh crap' date=' I forgot you could DO that!" stories?[/quote']

AD&D 2nd Ed.

I was playing a low-level cleric. The party was attending an Ice Festival. The festival came under attack when a spell caster animated the large ice sculpture, causing it to start flying around attacking the crowd.

 

GM: "So what do you do?"

Me: "What does this sculpture look like again?"

GM: "It's a mermaid with delicate fairy wings."

Me: "And you said that it's radiating cold?"

GM: "That's right."

Me: "We're outside at night during the winter. You're saying that thing is so cold that I can feel the cold radiating off it from 20 feet away?"

GM (smugly): "That's right."

Me: "Okay. I move up until I'm 10 feet from it, but I stay out from underneath it. Then I cast Create Water on its wings. I want to see how well those 'delicate fairy wings' hold it up with four gallons of water freezing on them."

 

To quote The Tick, "Gravity is a harsh mistress." The statue plummeted to the ground and shattered.

 

A couple rounds later 100 zombies came marching into town. I cast Invisibility to Undead on myself. In 2nd Edition, a group of mindless undead would get a single save to determine if they could see you. If they failed their save, they couldn't see you. If they made their save, they attacked you in preference to all other targets. Fortunately, they made their save.

 

Instead of attacking the townsfolk, the zombies all focused on me. I decided that a scared half-elven cleric could run circles around a zombie horde, and proceeded to do so. This allowed the townsfolk and the rest of my party to dismember the zombies with impunity.

 

 

The GM hadn't forgotten that I could do these things. It just never occurred to him that anyone would try them in the first place.

[ghost-angel]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

The GM hadn't forgotten that I could do these things. It just never occurred to him that anyone would try them in the first place.

 

GMs underestimating the crazy or clever of Players has caused more plot death over the years. . .

[DevilInSatin]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

Setup: One party member has Mind Link, only if in physical contact. The GM likes splitting the party now&then, the players hate it. My character, thanks to a Psych Lim, has died of the stupids, so I get to make a new character.

 

I give her a low power Mind Scan, "Only Persons She's Had Mental Contact With," Instant (and No Mental Awareness and a few other Lims) The GM approves, knowing that she'll get the mentalist to Mind Link everyone, and now my character can find the other members (but not over too much of a range). This makes the players happy ("We can find each other!") and the GM happy ("Well, mostly...").

 

Until we tangle with a villain with very powerful Mental Illusions. Who we interrupt in a robbery. The villain gets away, we recover. Then my character goes, "I know how to find him!" And tries her Mind Scan. GM says "Nope, you haven't been in a Mind Link with him". I say, "But doesn't the Lim say 'Only Persons She's Had Mental Contact With'? Mental Illusions is 'Mental Contact', isn't it?" (NOTE: I'm very polite about this, I'm not arguing a GM call, I just bring this to his attention.)

 

GM thinks, and agrees, the Lim doesn't say what kind of Mental Contact. So she starts tracking the guy. Got to admire the GM; finding the guy was supposed to be the whole story arc, my character short-circuited it, and he winged it so well we didn't know he was.

[nexus]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

Out of curiosity, what was the intent of the Limitation?

[Ken Solo]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

As the GM, I was the one saying "You HAVE that?!?" for the second or third time this last Tuesday when the 7 foot robot PC uses his Acrobatics skill to maintain his balance.

C'Mon! Not being an anime guy, giant acrobatic robots don't seem right! I forget what's not right!

[Ken Solo]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

GMs underestimating the crazy or clever of Players has caused more plot death over the years. . .

 

As a GM I live for those moments where the party takes me somewhere unexpected! I call that great gaming! It's not a plot death, it's a plot refinement.

[Nerdnumber1]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

As a GM I live for those moments where the party takes me somewhere unexpected! I call that great gaming! It's not a plot death' date=' it's a plot refinement.[/quote']

 

Though a good GM can normally adapt to player ingenuity, a miscalculation in the planning stages of a senario can mean the premature victory of the players over a normally dificult combat. Turning a 3hour, epic boss battle into "I missle reflect his first super deathray into the plot magufin which explodes and kills said boss in phase 12" can be hard to classify as plot refinement unless the GM can quickly whip up something for the remaining 2hours, 59minutes, 16seconds. I do however concede that, if done correctly, nearly any situation can be turned into "great gaming".

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

Not so much "you can do that" as "I can do that?" -- one of the players in my Champions game isn't too into the rules, so she usually has lots of help writing up her characters. As a result, she doesn't have the greatest grasp on what her charactes can do.

 

She had one character, a former Navy SEAL speedster, who had the rarely-used power of Active Sonar (costs Endurance, so it wasn't always on). After about the fourth or fifth game where she got hit with Darkness or a Flash attack or the lights went out during a fight, and her just muddling around blind, I took pity, grabbed a highlighter marker and highlighted that line on her character sheet.

[ghost-angel]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

As a GM I live for those moments where the party takes me somewhere unexpected! I call that great gaming! It's not a plot death' date=' it's a plot refinement.[/quote']

 

The death of one plot is inevitably the birth of another.

[DevilInSatin]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

Out of curiosity' date=' what was the intent of the Limitation?[/quote']

 

Ya talkin' ta me?

 

 

Do you mean the "Only Persons She's Had Mental Contact With" Limitation?

 

In game, she was a Blaster with a few, weak mental abilities. This was a reasonable restriction on an otherwise rather flexible power.

 

Metagaming--so the GM would pass it. As I said, he liked separating the party, the players were unhappy with that, and a compromise was needed. The GM could still separate us, but my character gone them back together quicker. Everybody was happy.

 

Until she traced someone who'd put a mental whammy on her.

[nexus]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

Ya talkin' ta me?

 

 

Do you mean the "Only Persons She's Had Mental Contact With" Limitation?

 

Yep. I was wondering if it meant "Only those that's established a Mind Link" with or "Only people she'd had any form of mental contact with, passive, active, target or attacker"?

[ghost-angel]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

It sounds like a decent Limitation for a mentalist who can only target those whom they've gotten a mental "fingerprint" of.

 

The metagame reason for buying it, however, seems an unfortunate side effect of a GMvsPC game. Though I have only this snippet to go so I could be way way off base.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

It sounds like a decent Limitation for a mentalist who can only target those whom they've gotten a mental "fingerprint" of.

 

The metagame reason for buying it, however, seems an unfortunate side effect of a GMvsPC game. Though I have only this snippet to go so I could be way way off base.

 

I was thinking of it more as a variant of 'Genre Savvy'; if something happens to a set of characters over and Over and OVER again, because the universe (GM) is inclined to do it to them repeatedly, it makes a degree of sense that the characters are going to do something about it.

 

I was in a game once where the GM was using called shot rules, and always-always-always-AL-f***ing-WAYS called shots for location 13 (aka, the groin). PCs would typically take Body damage from these attacks as well, due to the DM's love of the Penetrating (let's just SAY we made the joke, 'kay? ) advantage. Why he was surprised when we all saved up points to buy Adamantium Athletic Cups, I'll never know.

[nexus]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

It sounds like a decent Limitation for a mentalist who can only target those whom they've gotten a mental "fingerprint" of.

 

I don't have a problem with the Limitation itself I was just wondering about the original intent since it could be taken either way. As a GM I would have wanted it worded more precisely to get a idea of what value to give for it.

[nexus]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

I was thinking of it more as a variant of 'Genre Savvy'; if something happens to a set of characters over and Over and OVER again' date=' because the universe (GM) is inclined to do it to them repeatedly, it makes a degree of sense that the characters are going to do something about it.[/quote']

 

Yep. I wouldn't even call it genre just being realistically in character. Even flatworms learn from negative reinforcement and experience. As a GM, I generally don't mind PCs buying spot defenses and other precautions subject to campaign technology and tone (most of my games don't have readily available psi tech but Limited MD with various sfx is fine, for example). If there is some restriction on something I try not to abuse it or make the player's lives Hell with it though it would remain a major "This is serious" kind of threat that might have to be outsmarted rather than out fought.

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

The death of one plot is inevitably the birth of another.

 

No plotline survives contact with the Player-Characters. Very few, anyhow.

[Vulcan]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

Yeah, amine does strange things with robots. The thing is, they generally work it in so smoothly you don't realize how strange it was unless you look at it in total isolation, without any of the surrounding material.

 

Case in point: at one point in Neon Genesis Evaqngelion the team of 2 50' tall giant robots are doing back flips, synchronized.

 

So my response is "It's an anime thing, you wouldn't understand...":D

[nexus]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

Yeah' date=' anime does strange things...[/quote']

 

That's really all you need right there.

[ghost-angel]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

Case in point: at one point in Neon Genesis Evaqngelion the team of 2 50' tall giant robots are doing back flips' date=' [i']synchronized[/i].

 

At least those looked athletic... the Patlabor show had bulky Labors doing calisthenics!

[Vulcan]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

At least it was the Ingrams. Can you imagine Section 1's Model 98's trying that?

[Zeropoint]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

Doing calisthenics in a mech could be a valid way of getting the operator more experience in controlling them.

[Greywind]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

...or requiring massive amounts of vehicular repair...

[Nerdnumber1]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

...or requiring massive amounts of vehicular repair...

 

No pain, no gain.

[nexus]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

...or requiring massive amounts of vehicular repair...

 

Dude, it's anime Most of those things can do Kung fu with no great effort if the pilot is good enough.

[nexus]

Re: "Uh ... you can *do* that?"

 

Doing calisthenics in a mech could be a valid way of getting the operator more experience in controlling them.

 

I'm not an NGE fan but wasn't that part of the point of the scene in question? Training the pilots to synch with their EVA more efficiently?