@LadyRhian You definately seem to have a preoccupation with male groin mutilation in your games. Would it be less thrilling for you in a game if a female character awoke with the message "That disfamiliarity you are feeling in your bloomers are "holly berry bombs". Do not move." painted on the unusually well lit ceiling? EVEN MORE OFF TOPIC: I wrote a very unserious D&D module/setting for a group that now looks like it will be all women. I would really appreciate your prespective if you were willing to have a look at it. I know you not into 3.5 but I want your advice on the content more than I need help with mechanics. I can just get some dudes for that. I find in most games, and where most of my experience lies, female players both react and interact more with the male players and less with each other. So I am not sure how the dynamic will be with all womensfolk. Ought I personalise Npc's of interest for all of them to have something to "play off of"? Does this problem go away with female DM's?
@rexreg I always had an interested with Cuthbert. Notice how D&D does not really have sainthood as part of the material hardly anywhere in most settings Cuthbert is in? Some of his more obscure lore along with some early module adventure content is the link that ties our real world into actually existing in the D&D game setting as canon. Also, which religion do you think that he was a saint in? Gods are not usually considered saints of themselves. So yeah, he brings that to the table too.
@Figrut Well, you did ask for "memorable", and both those incidents were certainly memorable. But seriously, that was only 2 times in something like 35 years of gaming. I did piss off a DM once by my character being too good at what she did. It was an online 3e game, and the game's conceit was that we were mid-level adventurers swept through to Undermountain to retrieve the daughter of a sage whose knowledge the bad guy wanted.
So the minute we go through the portal, everything animal-based on us gets destroyed- leather straps on armor, bowstrings, the whole bit. My character was specialized in composite longbow, so I was a little annoyed, but I also had specialization in longsword, so I run with that. Every time in combat, we get a little more well-equipped because we adapt what our foes have to our use. Especially when we get fireballed and lose more of our stuff again. However, thanks to that specialization in longsword, my character, who got really good dice rolls on the site's dice roller, was basically a ginsu knife on two feet *it slices, it dices, and it can still cut a tomato!*
When it came down to the last battle,my character killed two Ogres one after the other, and went after the bad guy. The DM intended him to escape, when my character rolled to hit him and did enough damage to kill him outright. The DM was rather peeved about it, too. Oh, he didn't say so, but he'd expressed annoyance at how much damage my character could do, and his words after bad guy bit the dust were most telling. ("Oh for heavens.... ALL RIGHT, HE'S DEAD.")
My original BG and D&D character is Drugar Deathbringer, dwarven berserker, dressed permanently in giant spiked armour and wielding a 6.5ft greatsword. The original roll was heavily min-maxed (18/16/20/6/7/8 iirc) but it did make for hilarious playing. He always wanted to do good but...somehow hardly ever did. The party generally used "Or we'll cut the dwarf's chains" as a threat to evildoers though, I guess that counts as doing good.
A friend of mine from a few countries over stopped by a few weeks ago and wanted to play Vampire: The Masquerade since he'd never played. My roommate was Storyteller, the story was set in France, 1943. He played a French Brujah resistence fighter, I played an allied undercover agent in the SS, Spezial Leutnant Adrian Schmidt, Giovanni necromancer. Since it's not every day you get to play a nazi, I went all out. Eyepatch with a skull, black leather suit, heavy German accent and being an asshole to all the minions I had marching around me. Best thing, the guy playing the resistence fighter didn't know I was secretly on the allied side and being a Brujah, he tried to resist working with me at every opportunity, even after he was informed (then again, I did have soldiers arrest his girlfriend (I needed information about him), interrogated her, Dominated her into telling me everything she knew, then drained her of her blood and put her in the hospital, so there was *some* reason for a grudge). I had way more fun than I should have, hope he stops by again soon.
@Drugar Were the Giovanni's against nazi's? Eugenics is kind of a very "inbred" way of life for them. I want to say italian Sabats? Could you share your background a bit? Familial connections? Your involvement with allied forces? Was stalin involved, or did it go back before? Were you another "vampire commando of 'merica!"?
@LadyRhian in your 35 years of experience, how do you get female players to interact with each other most effectively? I am used to 2-3 guys and 2 girls in a group of 4-5. I do not have just 3-4 women nearly as often. In most of my experience, the female players just do not interact as "successfully" (lacking a better word) or as frequently with one another. Any tips? Also, 3rd edition+ was never meant for DM's with trouble getting their heads around players actually at least being temporarily successful or heroic.
@Figrut The Giovanni as a whole were fairly neutral in the whole affair, as far as I know. A lot went with the nazi's but it was mostly the Tzimisce who had a hand in a lot of death camp business for 'experiments' and the like. Considering it was going to be for one game, we didn't plan a gigantic background, but the general gist was that I was German-born, resident in America when the war broke out and later spying for the Allies on the Nazi side, being one of the main agents in Hitler's occult program (four points in Occult bitcheeeees). I'd try and funnel as much information as possible back to the Allies and try to obscure the important relics from the Nazi's. In return, I'd have the opportunity to rummage through the Old Worlds treasures during the war (nicking some things for myself) and I'd be granted a similar official position after the war would be over (giving me a win-win, regardless of who'd win the war, I'd be knee-deep in artifacts).
It was intended to be a one-shot, but we all had so much fun, we're looking into making it a regular game (which is difficult considering the other player lives 1200km away). I'm normally not so cunning (as said, my standard D&D character is a berserker) but Schmidt brought out my manipulative side. I had three points in Necromancy, Sepulcher path, so I could see, summon and command spirits. After hell broke loose between the Rebels and the Nazi's, I had much fun checking soldiers' bodies and using their dogtags to summon their spirits (as they're important to the carrier and have their full name on it) for information and other purposes. Example; When I'd interrogated and fed from the other player's ladyfriend, I had her brought to the hospital by four soldiers. I later learned that, in her weakened state, she'd made a feeble attempt to get away, after which the soldiers also beat the crap out of her, enraging the (already enraged) Brujah when he heard. As a gesture of good will, when the Brujah and me met face to face I had gathered around three of the four soldiers who were guilty of this act (using a combination of Dominate and some of my blood in a bottle of whiskey to cement their loyalty) and locked them in a room with him where he tore them to bits (botching his humanity roll, losing a point and gaining a derangement). I collected their dog tags, summoned their freshly made spirits before they had a chance to cross over and commanded them to haunt their fourth companion. For some reason, the Brujah didn't take this kind gesture well. I went from "Nazi piece of merde" to "Creepy Nazi piece of merde". Ah well, it paid off my debt to him and made him more of a monster, so I still call it a win.
@Drugar An american born Giovanni? In the early 1900's? They are all from the same narrow, unforking, deliberately incestuosly bred family tree. I thought only "double dose" Giovanni's can be Giovanni? I might have that wrong. Sounds interesting to say the least. Good thing that Brujah held his beast in check at that kind of news and did not frenzy. It all sounds like great fun. I am curious though, what could there have been for a tzimisce to learn from... oh... I think I have my next idea!
@Figrut@Drugar I used to have that game, and the Giovanni Ghoul families are pretty disgusting as well. I remember one female ghoul whose preferred sex partners were her family's dogs. (Makes horrified face). I had several of the "Black Dog Game Factory" books, which was the stuff even White Wolf couldn't get away with printing. The Baali book and several others.
@LadyRhian I remember an absuredly thick paperback I want to say was by white wolf way early on. It was general pulp novel dimensions, but phone book thick. Perhaps I am miss remembering... WAY OFF TOPIC: Why does everthing in WH40k look like RIFTS?
@Figrut That, I have no idea about. It seems to me that Rifts came out first, but I don't remember really, since I only played one game of Rifts as a player, and the game I was in was a real patchwork. The game posited a world where people and things dropped in from other realities through Rifts. I only remember two things: The ad for the second worldbook called "The Vampire Kingdoms" that seemed to turn up in every Dragon Magazine I remember reading back then, and one of the characters in the single game I played deciding to go hunting with his megadamage weapon (I think that's what they were called). He was playing a character from a Robotech Universe and his suit of armor had a gun that did Megadamage. He shot a deer with it, and had small shreds of deer left afterwards. The GM had to remind him that Megadamage weapons were not supposed to be used on "soft" targets. That deer wasn't even chunked- it was in pieces the size of a postage stamp!
Here's a true story from a friend of mine... he's a really big, tall guy, very strong, and he was playing D&D at someone else's house. The friend who owned this house had taken his closet door off its hinges (I think there wasn't enough room in his room with the door open or something), so he took it into the next room and leaned it against the wall. This was the room where they played D&D, and my friend had the chair with the door behind it. As he's getting into his role playing groove one night, he feels this hard bonk on his head, and all the friends are looking at him in horror. He looks calmly at them and asks, "Is there a door on top of my head?" And, still horrified, afraid he was badly hurt, they all nod. My friend said, "Okay, whatever." and went on with his RPing. At the next break, he leaned the door back up against the wall, a little steeper this time. It didn't hurt him, and when he told me this, the Meme didn't exist, but, man... LIKE A BOSS!
@LadyRhian Megadamage was an odd mechanic. Rifts had the best reward system for exp I had ever seen in a game with scaling up exp required per level. Being a thoughtful and proactive player was more important than getting a good roll. You could learn more from falure than successes occasionally. Which was good, because the power levels of the PC classes were all over the place "So your arms are optomise primeses and your feet are voltrons. You actually have cats for feet as cats for feet. And you? You are the juggernaught, metallo, a jedi, and popeye... but better. Kay. Me, uh, I can hit ghosts with wood better than not at all, and I can diffrentiate some varieties of tomatoes on a good roll. My job is apparently to kill space satan, and you guys are just a local police force. *sigh*." I jumped from level 1 to 5 in just one session out of pure " 'A' for effort but ultimately futile" exp.
My own experience with doors was maybe funnier. I was playing a D&D 2e game in a game store where they used to have space for people to play. Behind one of the players was a door- I don't recall that it actually opened to anywhere or anything, and most of the time it was locked. Well, this was soon after 2e came out with the new mechanic that allowed you to survive below 0 hit points and at up to -10 hit points. It's literally called the "Knocking on Death's Door" rule. One luckless player kept getting knocked down to -2, -3, -4 or even up to -6 before another player would come over and bandage him (bringing him back up to 0 and allowing him to be healed. (if you weren't bandaged, every round, you'd lose another hit point from bleeding until you hit -10 and actually did die.). The fifth or sixth time this happened in one session, he turned around and knocked on the door behind him, and said, very plaintively, "Mister Death? Mister Death, are you there? It's me again..." while the rest of us broke up laughing.
Comments
So the minute we go through the portal, everything animal-based on us gets destroyed- leather straps on armor, bowstrings, the whole bit. My character was specialized in composite longbow, so I was a little annoyed, but I also had specialization in longsword, so I run with that. Every time in combat, we get a little more well-equipped because we adapt what our foes have to our use. Especially when we get fireballed and lose more of our stuff again. However, thanks to that specialization in longsword, my character, who got really good dice rolls on the site's dice roller, was basically a ginsu knife on two feet *it slices, it dices, and it can still cut a tomato!*
When it came down to the last battle,my character killed two Ogres one after the other, and went after the bad guy. The DM intended him to escape, when my character rolled to hit him and did enough damage to kill him outright. The DM was rather peeved about it, too. Oh, he didn't say so, but he'd expressed annoyance at how much damage my character could do, and his words after bad guy bit the dust were most telling.
A friend of mine from a few countries over stopped by a few weeks ago and wanted to play Vampire: The Masquerade since he'd never played. My roommate was Storyteller, the story was set in France, 1943. He played a French Brujah resistence fighter, I played an allied undercover agent in the SS, Spezial Leutnant Adrian Schmidt, Giovanni necromancer. Since it's not every day you get to play a nazi, I went all out. Eyepatch with a skull, black leather suit, heavy German accent and being an asshole to all the minions I had marching around me. Best thing, the guy playing the resistence fighter didn't know I was secretly on the allied side and being a Brujah, he tried to resist working with me at every opportunity, even after he was informed (then again, I did have soldiers arrest his girlfriend (I needed information about him), interrogated her, Dominated her into telling me everything she knew, then drained her of her blood and put her in the hospital, so there was *some* reason for a grudge).
I had way more fun than I should have, hope he stops by again soon.
The Giovanni as a whole were fairly neutral in the whole affair, as far as I know. A lot went with the nazi's but it was mostly the Tzimisce who had a hand in a lot of death camp business for 'experiments' and the like.
Considering it was going to be for one game, we didn't plan a gigantic background, but the general gist was that I was German-born, resident in America when the war broke out and later spying for the Allies on the Nazi side, being one of the main agents in Hitler's occult program (four points in Occult bitcheeeees). I'd try and funnel as much information as possible back to the Allies and try to obscure the important relics from the Nazi's. In return, I'd have the opportunity to rummage through the Old Worlds treasures during the war (nicking some things for myself) and I'd be granted a similar official position after the war would be over (giving me a win-win, regardless of who'd win the war, I'd be knee-deep in artifacts).
It was intended to be a one-shot, but we all had so much fun, we're looking into making it a regular game (which is difficult considering the other player lives 1200km away). I'm normally not so cunning (as said, my standard D&D character is a berserker) but Schmidt brought out my manipulative side. I had three points in Necromancy, Sepulcher path, so I could see, summon and command spirits. After hell broke loose between the Rebels and the Nazi's, I had much fun checking soldiers' bodies and using their dogtags to summon their spirits (as they're important to the carrier and have their full name on it) for information and other purposes.
Example; When I'd interrogated and fed from the other player's ladyfriend, I had her brought to the hospital by four soldiers. I later learned that, in her weakened state, she'd made a feeble attempt to get away, after which the soldiers also beat the crap out of her, enraging the (already enraged) Brujah when he heard. As a gesture of good will, when the Brujah and me met face to face I had gathered around three of the four soldiers who were guilty of this act (using a combination of Dominate and some of my blood in a bottle of whiskey to cement their loyalty) and locked them in a room with him where he tore them to bits (botching his humanity roll, losing a point and gaining a derangement). I collected their dog tags, summoned their freshly made spirits before they had a chance to cross over and commanded them to haunt their fourth companion.
For some reason, the Brujah didn't take this kind gesture well. I went from "Nazi piece of merde" to "Creepy Nazi piece of merde". Ah well, it paid off my debt to him and made him more of a monster, so I still call it a win.
Here's a true story from a friend of mine... he's a really big, tall guy, very strong, and he was playing D&D at someone else's house. The friend who owned this house had taken his closet door off its hinges (I think there wasn't enough room in his room with the door open or something), so he took it into the next room and leaned it against the wall. This was the room where they played D&D, and my friend had the chair with the door behind it. As he's getting into his role playing groove one night, he feels this hard bonk on his head, and all the friends are looking at him in horror. He looks calmly at them and asks, "Is there a door on top of my head?" And, still horrified, afraid he was badly hurt, they all nod. My friend said, "Okay, whatever." and went on with his RPing. At the next break, he leaned the door back up against the wall, a little steeper this time. It didn't hurt him, and when he told me this, the Meme didn't exist, but, man... LIKE A BOSS!