"V"

Re: GM's - putting one over on your players

This is one I mentioned a while ago but it fits here, and it was a bit of GM sneakiness that spanned campaigns.

I ran an AD&D campaign that culminated in the PCs tracking the main enemies of the campaign (evil dimension-travelling Elvish parasites) to their home dimension, a dying world which they were sustaining by draining the life from other worlds. The PCs had discovered that this time the Elves were planning to migrate to another world and start their evil empire all over again. There was the typically apocalyptic battle, sneakiness etc, and the valiant PCs managed to jinx things enough that the evil elves led by the sadistic tyrant Grimrath blasted themselves off from their home dimension and into the void between worlds.

Fast forward about six months, the PCs are now two or three months into a Champions campaign I'm running. One of the PCs has the ability to teleport herself and others through mirrors. She has two NPCs in her background story, one an emotionally damaged but near invulnerable Brick, the other an occult/psychic type.

The Psychic comes to the PC asking for help. He's contacted some astral refugees who need help to return to their homeworld. They have even provided knowledge on how it can be done. With the help of the rest of the PC team the equipment is assembled (a suitably enchanted mirror and some other maguffins). The psychic activates the link and the PC heroine steps through the mirror into darkness, with lots of pinpricks of light around her - the poor lost souls. She steps back and brings them back into "our" world. The deal is then that the psychic will, with the aid of the entities "tune" the mirror to a new destination, which he does, and the heroine steps through once more leading the little motes of light into their world of sylvan beauty etc etc. Heroine returns. Job done.

Unfortunately over the next few sessions it becomes apparent that not all the "poor disembodied entities" left when they should have. One of them at least remained and possessed the emotionally damaged but near invulnerable brick NPC. That led to the mother of all battles and also the realisation that the poor astral refugees may not have been as innocent as they appeared.

PC team go back to the psychic NPC.

"We need to get to that world we took them to. Can you open the portal again."

"I don't think so," he replied, "Not without Grimrath helping me."

"Well can't you.... without WHO helping you?"

The silence that followed, in which the players realised they had just helped the lethally dangerous enemies of their AD&D party to invade another world (actually the AD&D party's homeworld) was something I would pay money to experience again.

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares

LOL

Oh the possibilities

The Elephant Man of La Mancha

Re: Dancing with the Heroes

Jack-a-Dandy is an excellent ballroom dancer, and wicked at Latin too. He'd have no trouble with the dancing, the performance or playing the crowd to get the votes. And, of course, he could flirt with the judges.

Re: Brainstorming a mystical superhero mansion and the people in it.

Great stuff.

And as I've said elsewhere, heck it's your world it may as well be done the way you want it. FWIW I totally agree with you about nurses' uniforms. I recently had to spend a lot of time visiting a hospital and there was real confusion on the part of visitors between who were nurses, orderlies and cleaning staff - they all looked pretty much the same. Some nurses' groups actually believe that having a "traditional" nurse uniform can actually cut down antisocial behaviour towards medical staff too, since we are actually relatively easily programmed creatures and tend to respond to uniformed authority with at least a mild level of deference. Plus IMO it looks better too.

Re: Brainstorming a mystical superhero mansion and the people in it.

Oh well' date=' at least people sometimes read the crap I write, right?[/quote']

 

I always do, and there is no higher crap ratio than in many of the other posts round here- don't be too hard on yourself (whether honestly or passive-aggressively ). I get the feeling that you're building campaign ideas as more of a setting for interesting fiction and thought-experiments rather than for actual play (you've mentioned before that you have no actual players at the moment) and there's nothing wrong with that at all.

 

My question was simply an innocent one as to why those two themes are so central for you. None of my business I know, but I'm a compulsive people watcher & it's been intriguing me for a while.

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

!! Wow... uh... weird... that would have been interesting to see!

You're not kidding. A female gamer. Wow...

Re: Brainstorming a mystical superhero mansion and the people in it.

I think that was TMH's point I'm afraid.

And I must ask just from a people-watching viewpoint: why so many female NPCs that always wear gloves and/or old fashioned nurse uniforms?

Re: Prison facilities for super-human criminals in your Campaigns?

I'll post this as it's just about sort of nearly on topic.

I'm not currently running a supers campaign, but I am running an Ars Magica campaign set in the 19th Century, and the Order of Hermes had what seemed like a great idea to imprison rogue Magi - they did a deal with the Elves of Avalon and shipped the Magi off to be incarcerated there - in a faerie realm detached from the real world.

Unfortunately the faerie inhabitants turned out to be rather more unpleasant than the Order expected (a bias of my own...) and effectively began torturing the inmates by probing their minds and then subjecting them to personalised and well crafted immersive illusions to torment them using their innermost fears, hopes etc etc.

All in a realm outside time where the inmates had no hope even of death...

This was discovered by one of the PCs when he was sent to stage the breakout of one inmate who had vital information and he was horrified to see the state of the inmates (villains though they were) and the glee with which the elves tormented them.

Guess where he woke up the next morning having been set up without his knowledge by his superiors to "sell" him as a traitor to the order & encourage the bad guys to accept him...?

Re: Poetry/clue help

Once the veil of death was named

Lasting, final, end of pains.

Full soon the art of wizards claimed

In part the freedom from those chains.

Loosed the tomb, and loosed the crypt

Invaded Death's own dreary hall

Out steps the corpse from slumber ripped

Now march my army, never fall.

Re: Poetry/clue help

Oh foolish foes that stand aghast

Learn now that soon you'll breathe your last

For now your doom upon you rises

I watch with glee your foul demises.

Let your feeble wits aspire

Initially as you enquire

Over me, your final foe

No more home again you'll go.

Re: Softcover??

Something unflattering beginning with "F" is my guess, I suppose we'll have to stretch our imagination to think of a suitable candidate.

(pauses 0.25 nanoseconds)

Ok, I've got one...

Re: The Messiah, The Golem, The Amazon, and The Brotherhood

"Quickly, Thelemic-Man, there's a robbery at the Metropolitan Museum."

"I'll be there in a moment, I'm just finishing off some laudanum and then I'll be having sex per vas nefandum with young Victor here."

"Oh. Ok, but hurry up. They've got guns."

"Ah, they may have guns, but we, we have the assurance of knowing that time is cyclical."

"Right. I'll.. I'll see you there then."

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Zenda:

("Good God, Hentzau, they're absolutely identical, well, all except that ugly looking scar on the English boy."

"Oh we can take care of that Michael," Hentzau threw his cheroot out of the open window and drew his schlager. "De Gautet, hold the brat still...")

Re: Poetry/clue help

--

Incoherent moronic flea!

Think that you're as wise as me?

Oh! Inferior concealment!

Guess my name or you're hell-bent!

Ornament of choicer line

All mixed up, oh foe of mine!

(the 1st, 3rd and 5th lines are all anagrams of Ofilion the Necromancer)

--

A warm welcome to all as I bid them to stay,

But the stove not the food is what's taken away,

-- (this kind of assumes that "hob" is another word for hotplate or stove in the US as it is in the UK, if not this doesn't really work!)

--

No dust on my bones,

No stone at my head

No wind o'er me moans

In lament for the dead

No grave dug with labours

No trees planted near

Yet I rise with my neighbours

Let the living world fear.

Re: Poetry/clue help

I'd love to help out with some doggerel, let me know when you're next in need.

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

Pure awesome

I'd love to take the credit, but the divine Miss Dashwood was being played by the incomparable Mrs "V" and the line was delivered perfectly to the amusement of all concerned.

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

 

Mirage: "[Dr. Archer], I take it all of your friends are staying out of trouble."

Dr. Archer: "The night's still young."

Chuckle.

Reminds me of an exchange from a pulp adventure I ran a couple of years back:

Strong Jawed Adventurer to flighty femme fatale at end of a relaxing evening epilogue: "Do you realise Miss Dashwood, this is the first time I've spent a whole day in your company when you have remained fully clothed."

Miss Dashwood: "Well there's still half an hour till midnight. Pop in for a coffee?"

Re: Trick Arrow Villain?

Hey, Cupid was an archer... how about an arrow with a transform in it "Normal person into Normal person with undying passionate love for highly inappropriate nearby subject"?

Re: Poetry/clue help

I've just seen the recap which

a) reads like a very fun game, and

heavily suggests that I was too late, sorry about that. I do enjoy coming out with doggerel!

Re: Poetry/clue help

If I'm not too late:

First the seeker must ascend on high

To seize earth's fiery union with the sky

Then look beyond where fire's bane

In reddest garb adorns the plain.

 

That taken plunge into the brine

To snatch the gleaming swimming shine.

Then glow-worm's bane you need to save,

Eternal flame from deepest cave.

 

Strive on, your tasks have not yet ceased:

Bring sweetmeats from the pismire's feast

Then bring the weaver living from his tomb

Unwilling made into another's womb.

 

Your final challenge- courage, do not fear

Not might or magic will avail you here

The ancient brazen sage has in his keeping

The shining treasure that you now are seeking

Re: EMERGENCY HELP: I need an adventure idea STAT

 

 

Oh how about a Haunted Plantation. Even going so far as drawing the PC's into pre-Civil War versions of themselves and having them solve some murder or theft that still is an issue in the modern era.

I love that idea - what a nice twist.

Re: When the good cosmic being motiffs are taken

On the assumption that cosmic beings are ineffable and unknowable, and take on form based on the limited perceptions and expectations of lesser creatures:

The manifestation of Cosmic Doubt, appearing at moments where lesser beings feel certain about any action - a vast Owl with eyes upraised and a booming voice intoning

O'RLY?

Re: Pulp Hero Resources

I had to look it up ... I didn't know that bit of slang.

Chuckle... I think in context it's an acronym for "Without Guarantee", but it did speedbump my reading of the post when I saw it.

Re: Genre-crossover nightmares

Booster Golden Shower Party III

Re: Pulp Hero Resources

ALL DETAILS GIVEN IN GOOD FAITH BUT WOG.

Very in keeping with the Pulp mentality but a little racist surely!