As I look at my schedule (I have visit coming over, a game to prepare and the job has started being a bit heavier again), I’m not sure how much I can post this week.
So I thought I’d share with you a short but funny memory brought up by a Gtalk chat I had with Critical Hits‘ Bartoneous this morning.
He was telling me that he wanted to re-visit his college RPG campaigns and write about them.
This made me remember about one such campaign I played at college (i.e. 13-14 years ago) during summer. It was a Gurps Fantasy campaign that could basically be summarized as:
Hafling accountant stole deeds to a gold mine and the One Ring from Lich Emperor boss, runs away with misfits accomplices (including a Were-Serpent Mage and a Split Personality Thief/Acrobat )and befriends a Microwave Ogre.
Bart then asked me what was a Microwave Ogre.
Here’s the gist of it:
There was this Ogre that had recently joined the party. Being an Ogre, it had to hide in the Hayloft of any inn’s stable whenever the PCs were sleeping in a town.
One night, Some NPCs come in the Inn occupied by the PCs bearing torches and Pitchforks, asking if anyone had seen an Ogre marauding around.
All players literally jumped in to spin this incredibly funny and ridiculous yarn about how Ogres were scary, fanged creatures with a magical gaze that caused Metal Armour to spark up. It also made people melt or boil or even explode whenever they stared at it for too long!
The NPCs ran away screaming, the players were choking because they were laughing so much and the Microwave Ogre was born and remains to this day a legend in my home-grown game world.
This is a perfect example of players taking initiative in shaping a story (no matter how initially ridiculous) in such a cool direction that it becomes instantly embraced by all. Such events are the stuff of legendary games and this session remains in my top 5 RPG stories.
Have you ever had such player input (funny, ridiculous or just plain cool) that became part of your campaign’s lore? Is it still referred to in later games and campaigns? I’d love to hear about them!
While I’m at it, can any of you Crunch Heads come up with a D&D mechanic and or stats (any edition, just specify) that could help us make a real Microwave Ogre? I’d love to drop that on my players as a tribute to that old game.
For 3.5/4e I’d probably would start with the Bodak, but instead of instant death I’d probably have the gaze attack cause 1/2 Electrical/ 1/2 Heat Damage based on the Fireball spell (Fort Save for half, penalty for Metal armour).
Your thoughts?
shadow145 says
The Tale of Sir Bruce
So at one point I decided to drop an unimportant encounter on the PC’s, really just to spice things up a bit as the game was going slow that night, and give the kids some combat. This was when the great polymorph debates were going on, and the War Troll was front and center. So I hit them with War Troll Rangers straight from the book.
It was a classic ambush. There was a huge boulder in the middle of the road. A cat was tied to a rope stuck under the boulder. Well, the adventurers investigate, and the Trolls attack. This wasn’t meant to be a killer, and the heroes dispatched the trolls easily.
Well, the heroes then released the cat by lifting the boulder, and there was a huge bloody mess under the boulder, along with some mashed wizard robes.
The cat was apparently a familiar. Well, the player of the friendly Ogre-weretiger (I run an interesting game…) immediately took a liking to the cat. I played off this, so the cat liked him too, and would use him as a scratching post (DR/silver made for an interesting effect).
He became their mascot. They named him Sir Bruce. And as cats are prone, Sir Bruce has a mind of his own. He would wander off, and show up in the most impossible places. Pretty much I gave him the power of the gods, but the mentality of a cat. My favorite example of this was when the party defeated a rampaging Battle-armoured dinosaur that was in the middle of town, a slice opened up in the side of the slain beast, and Sir Bruce walked out, completely clean.
Every now an then Sir Bruce makes an appearence in the campaign, usually when the players ask “Where’s Sir Bruce?” at which point I come up with an outlandish discription of what the most powerful entity on the planet is doing.
And then, there is Quack the duck… Perhaps a tale for another time.
ChattyDM says
Awesome NPC Shadow… I’m taking notes as I’ve had a similar inspiration for a definitively non-human NPC in my current game.
Khorboth says
Not too tough in 3.5.
It seems like Heat Metal with Energy Substitution: Electric would work for the armor sparking.
To melt people… I’d go Lightning Bolt with substitution: Fire. That makes it a line attack. Searing Light would work too.
If you make these properties activatable 3/day on an ogre-sized suit of plate mail, you have a really nasty foe and probably armor the PCs will just have to sell off.
Sciguy says
I played a character who has been the subject of many “you remember when…” stories with my gaming group.
Tully was a Chaotic human rogue who had a habit of going a tad outside the box of what the DM expected. And sometimes outside what *I* expected. π
The most memorable one was when the party had some downtime (IIRC, we had come into some money, and were spending time getting magic gear created), so the DM set up a few individual adventures for the various characters. Tully’s started when he was contacted by a member of the city’s Thieves Guild to “shakedown” a local merchant who owed the guild some serious coin (I think it was 10,000 gp) in gambling debts. The guild offered Tully a 10% “finder’s fee” if he could get the money owed to them.
Well, Tully scouted out the merchant’s home, and found out that in addition to gambling, the merchant also liked the high life: he’d be out until the wee hours of the morning drinking and whoring, getting back around 3 or 4 am.
To check out the home interior, Tully dressed in his finest “go to church” clothes, went up to the merchant’s door bright and early in the morning, and knocked loudly. When the bleary-eyed NPC opened the door, Tully gave a great big smile and spoke the line that would live in infamy:
“Could I interest you in hearing about the church of Kord?”
With some smooth talking, Tully worked his way inside, telling this hungover NPC about all the benefits of the great god Kord. The merchant’s home was pretty run-down (the gambling and drinking apparently caused him to pawn off a lot of his possesions), but Tully got some good recon information. And with some awesome rolls, I even got the merchant to agree to go to church the next week.
That night, the merchant goes out for his nightly drinking. Tully breaks in, and finds the hidden money stash: 750 platinum. Not enough to fully pay off his debt to the guild, but, eh, wasn’t my problem.
Tully met up with his guild contact and presented him with…..250 pp. “Sorry, this was all he had in his entire house”. Between some good bluff rolls and some (IMO) excellent roleplaying, Tully not only convinced the contact that the merchant still owed the guild 7500 gp, but he also got the full 1000 gp finder’s fee we agreed to at the beginning of the job.
6000 gp for one night’s work breaking-and-entering wasn’t half bad. And I think the fact that I started it off posing as (essentially) a Mormon missionary was what convinced the DM to let me get away with it.
Although I think that was the encounter that finally had the GM tell me that Tully couldn’t be CG anymore, and he changed alignment to CN. And the DM warned that it was possible for the guild or the merchant to figure out they’d been double-crossed.
Sadly, not too much later, Tully and his party ran into an Ogre Ranger. Tully took down the ogre’s animal companion (a dire badger), but got stuck in a bad position due to a failed tumble roll to get out of the way. With an anguished cry of “You killed Pickles!”, the ogre crushed Tully under his large great club. The DM had implemented a “three strikes and you’re out” policy with regards to Raise Dead / Resurrection, and Tully had already come back from the great beyond twice before.
I still liked the character enough that I wrote him into the character background of a rogue I created for another campaign. “Tulstrum DuLac” was the leader of my new character’s guild. π
ChattyDM says
@ Khorboth: Welcome on the blog! Heat Metal, while appropriate from a flavour standpoint, is kind of dull to play with… However, I love the idea of a large size Plate mail armour that gives Microwave powers to Ogres and Trolls!
@ Sciguy: Awesome Story… Why don’t I get these kinds of stories when a geek corners me in a game store and tries to tell me about his character?
Bobert Mk 2 says
My crew has several meta-game references that never seem to die. The most notable, by far, occurred during our first session ever. Back when my group first stared playing the only place we could find to game was in the basement of one of our parents houses (We have never lived down that stereotype). My friends family had/has many many cats so it wasn’t uncommon for a few to be around when we gamed.
The party had just come into possession of their first air-ship and were debating on what to name her. After two real life hours of discussion I (as the DM) proclaimed that the next thing someone blurted out would be the name of the ship no matter what. Just then two of the cats got in a little tussle and one ran away with a wound on it’s face. My friend who owned said cat yelled “Kitty Kitty, come back!” So it was settled and the SS Kitty Kitty Comeback was born. The ship became the most feared and gruesome pirate ship to ever sail the skies and to this day we not had a single campaign that included, somewhere, a despicable vessel call the KKCB. The damn ship(s) is always impervious to any damage and is always manned by the most ridiculous crew imaginable.
ChattyDM says
@Bobert Mark II: LOL… What is it with RPG gamers and cats? First Sir Bruce and then KKCB. That’s actually a great name for a Pirate (air)ship. Much like the ‘P.S.: I Love you’ π
Oh and welcome to the blog too!
ChattyDM says
Wow, a lot of new commenters lately… yay!
Are any of you coming from Johnn Four’s last newsletter? Or were you readers that stepped up to the commenter’s plate?
I wonder how well received my new monthly column there was received? I’ll post it here as soon as Johnn posts the newsletter on his website so we can have comments on it.
Dave T. Game says
Bobert: The airship/Spelljammer in one of my campaigns ended up being called the “Sacrelicious Legacy” due to a compromise between two players: one wanted something related to the campaign, and the other was a big Simpsons fan.
Dave T. Games last blog post..YouTube of the Week: Betraying Warthog Edition
ChattyDM says
@Dave: Hey long time no see man! Your campaigns are huge pop culture references that actually work… I’ll have to interview you on this at Gen Con! I’d like to pull it off in mine… Then again, since we play in French, maybe I can’t pull the same thing. A lot of Pop culture reference sound somewhat lame in ‘la langue de MoilΓ¨re’… at least to my anglophile ears.
Tommi says
The current group does not have anything too memorable, but the old one…
There’s the (colourful, immaterial-or-not) grand piano, there are squirrels (don’t trust the bastards), lizard brain soup in a glass container (the glass is sand that melt around the undeadish lizardman thingy due to very critical electrocution by magic), an indestructible NPC named Tum-P-ELO (a Paranoia reference that works in Finnish) that always fails at everything but just won’t die, a reincarnating mule, and mushrooms. There was an Ars Magica covenant built in a cave filled with mushrooms. There was a dwarf who made stuff from the mushrooms, described roughly as “maybe not instantly lethal”.
I also have some select quotes in a notebook somewhere around here.
Then there’s all the insider jokes. Good times.
Khorboth says
Thanks for the welcome. Since you asked, I’ve been lurking for a little while. I got pointed to the top 50 list at DungeonMastering.com from Shamus Young’s blog. From there, I picked up a few sites and have been reading irregularly for a few months with nothing too useful to add. Then you called for a rules-monkey, so I figured I’d see what I could come up with.
One of the reasons I’d go with the Heat Metal application (possibly with an area of effect?) is so that you can hit them with part 1 before they see the bad guy (dramatic reveal and all that). They won’t take enough damage to be detrimental, and you can make sure you give them the full effect. If this is mostly a gimmick encounter, I’d make it pretty easy. Also, nobody expects it; it’s a very underused spell.
Other possibilities:
Cone-shaped heat attack. Doesn’t need to mimic a spell.
Disintegrate effect widened to a cone. Say… DC10 with 5D6 electric on a failure? Scale to your party, of course.
You could go with whatshisname’s acid breath. Good meltyness there.
The sparks are illusion?
Or… Ranged grapple with effects like the Mind Flayer?
And, I didn’t think of this earlier, but you should probably also do a fear aura like dragons have. that’ll account for a not-so-nasty ogre with a very nasty reputation. Or, if you’re feeling mean, give the ogre levels of Blackguard.
jason says
My old group had a real world lesson in flanking when the DM got stabbed in the arm with a sword while fighting two other players. Guess that’s what he got for boasting about being a fencer.
ChattyDM says
@ Tommi: Wee Paranoia! I’m reading through the XP version… still not sure if it’s supposed to be playable or it’s a sick joke the designers made (you can basically play the whole game without ever playing dice, full GM fiat, as long as you are ‘fair’…. whatever that means).
I take it the mushroom were of the recreational kind… π
@Khorboth: Way cool. I appreciate you taking a stab at this. My pal Graham has cooked something a CR 13 critter based on the Ember Guard in MM V that is very promising! I’ll let you know how it went as soon as I try it. I really like all the meltastic stuff you cooked up!
@Jason: Why do I picture your gaming group drawing steel during a rules argument? π
jason says
lol no it had nothing to do with a rules argument. Our old DM had a habit of making boasts about things he really knew nothing about. Turns out he definitely didn’t know how to defend against two armed opponents. I believe my exact words as soon as he got stabbed (It was only a flesh wound! HAH!) were. “That, my friends, is why you get a +2 bonus for flanking.”
Dave T. Game says
Yeah, I’ve been way busy, a condition I’m sure you’re familiar with (and is unlikely to go away for at least another month.)
I’ve actually tried to move away from some of those references, though my first campaign (as a middle schooler) was by far over the top. Deities included “Lute Skywriter” and “Dort Invader”, and very few of the PCs had original concepts (mostly taken from Final Fantasy.) Check out the other campaign on my Obsidian Portal site if you want a bigger taste. I’m happy to talk about using references whenever you like. (Still haven’t made my GenCon plans, gah…)
Hey, you could do an authentic Asterix the Gaul game in French! That’s something that wouldn’t work here.
Dave T. Games last blog post..YouTube of the Week: Betraying Warthog Edition
Yan says
Dave your comment made me think that Asterix is one of those comic that as been translate in most languages yet the very name of the character in it are all puns. How the Hell did they translate it? I’ve never seen an other version then the french ones. I would assume that the name have change to some extent.
In the french book the bard is named Assurancetourix, which sounds like “assurance tout risque” basically meaning full coverage insurance. Great pun since is singing is the worst. π
Graham|ve4grm says
Yan –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix_the_gaul#Characters
Cacofonix is the english version of the bard. (A play on cacophony, or loud, usually unpleasant noise.)
Bartoneus says
Wow, glad I inspired such great sharing of stories!
Bartoneuss last blog post..YouTube of the Week: Betraying Warthog Edition
Dave T. Game says
Yan: The translators are just awesome and made localized puns for every language they made it in. As a wee one, I never thought that the books had been translated from another language because they were so darn funny.
Lanir says
I’m not a very crunchy type but if I were going for an effect like this… Yeah my first thought was something based off of heat metal. Pick your radius, probably 20-30 feet. Ignore rounds 6 & 7 and just keep applying 2d4 per round if people insist on being cooked. Honestly these ogres should carry large sized turkey basters in case someone is so foolish. Think of it as a marinade special attack.
I was kind of figuring the sparking effect would be a constant faerie fire on anyone using metal weapons or armor that dissipates as they leave range. If you want to be really mean you could assign a -1 per d4 of damage they’re taking at the time to offense (metal weapons) and/or defense (metal armor). I think this ability on it’s own would probably add 1-2 CR to the critter but who knows. I sometimes think CR is assigned based on recommendations by the magic 8 ball.
Dean says
In one of our college campaigns, the party was subject to bunches of things “randomly,” like getting hit by the person emptying the chamber pot on the second story and that sort of thing. The GM (Rolemaster) would ask us for a “luck” roll and the person who lost would be the one subjected to the attack/environment/effect. One of my friends, we’ll call him Greg, would normally be the one affected. It came to pass that the GM started asking just Greg to roll his luck roll.
Eventually, “Greg… Luck roll” made its way into our real life conversation, and persists over a decade later in our interactions.
ChattyDM says
Aie! I’m behind in comments!
@Jason: That’ll teach him… I hate boasters that can’t back their claims. Excellent ‘riposte’!
@Dave: Join me in the Real life intrudes on the fun stuff crowd! Asterix is pure gold namewise… I’m not sure I could top it… While I have a way with words, i’m more of the smartass/clever response type than the pun maker… and when I do, the whole place tends to crumble in groans.
@Bart: Thanks man! Drop by Gtalk anytime!
@Lanir: I pegged Glitterdust as the perfect Spark effect! Thanks for the suggestions.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/glitterdust.htm
@Dean: We too have a lot of insiders… most of them I can’t write here and expect my grandmother to approve. But there is this one quote from Clerks where Randal discusses the merits of Hermaphrodite erotica that comes up whenever my plot becomes too complex.
ChattyDM says
Woot, I’m now number one on Google for Microwave Ogre… how’s that for Search Engine Optimization!
π
John says
I would just have a cumulative effect happen.
Call it a 20 foot cone.
1st round 1d6 (feel warm)
2nd round 3d6 (feel hot)
3rd round 6d6 (feel very hot, metal starts to spark)
4th round 10d6 (boiling from the inside.)
etc…
Ed says
In the first game I ran for my old group, I’d set them in the middle of a big war where they’d been hired on as elite mercenaries. Their first mission was to seize an old watchtower the invaders had captured and fortified as a storehouse. With their bard leading the way, they bluffed their way through a series of security checkpoints and all the way up to the roof of the tower, where the garrison commander, an interesting fella who’d trained with the elves and would provide a reoccuring foe throughout the adventure, waited to meet them, perched dramatically on the ramparts. The door opened; he turned to them, a smug and knowing smile on his sharp face.
The barbarian charged and bull rushed him over the edge.
Well, I sort of needed this guy for the plot, so I figured a little railroading wouldn’t hurt. He landed on a soft patch of grass and mud, battered but still alive, while the entire tower went into a hornet-like frenzy. I figured that’d keep them busy enough for my villain to retreat.
Then the barbarian leapt off the tower, helmet spike first, hit against a ton of penalties, and impaled him through the chest.
$@&%ing barbarian.
ChattyDM says
LOL!
Welcome to the Blog Ed. That’s a great story… HAd you been an Evil vindicative DM, that fall on the Barbarian’s head could have made him ‘funny’ and turn evil… replacing your BBEG!
π