One of my favorite things to do when I first realized the joys of roleplaying a character was to do a little something extra between sessions. A journal entry, battle haiku, drawings of creative taxidermy made from the corpses of random encounters — that sort of thing. As a DM, it never fails to bring a smile to my face when a player does something similar. Seeing a player’s investment in their character inspires me to make the same investment in that character’s story — and in turn, everyone’s story.
We have a new player joining our group, and her character debut is going a little differently than I’d seen before. I’ve seen detailed backstories written. I’ve never seen a player bring a list of demands that must be met if her character is ever to see the light of day. Of course, I accepted her terms. You see, she hadn’t played D&D before, and she never knew about the credo of the Evil DM — “be careful what you wish for, you just might get it!”
I also don’t think she remembered that, as a card-carrying RPG blogger, I have the ability to hang her pathetic dreams like a piñata above hordes of slavering evil DM’s willing to accept the bitter tears of demoralized players as payment.* It doesn’t matter if her demands were primarily tongue-in-cheek. She must be crushed just in case.
So it is that I ask you, my gentle readers, to help me…. shall we say, fulfill my player’s demands. What better return on investment could she ask for?
If You Want To See My Character In-Game You Will Meet These Demands
Here’s the list of demands my player gave me:
1. The character can shift perceptions, (i.e. if a bad guy sees someone from the group, I can make them think it is a rock instead, or make them think a rock is fire.) Limitations being I have to be within sight of the person.
Granted. Her character now has the power to make people of evil alignment within her field of vision think any member of the party is a rock, or that a rock is fire. I’m not quite sure what this gains her in the long run. Moving rocks are pretty suspicious. Rocks that look like fire just make sad children with unrealized s’mores.
2. The character must have the equipment, training, and financial cash flow of Batman, claws of adamantium like Wolverine, and a Spidey sense.
Granted! The PC has all of Batman’s stuff and training, which are totally awesome. She even has billions and billions of dollars that yield more interest in five minutes than I’ll make all year. Unfortunately, the establishments in the Forgotten Realms that accept U.S. currency are rare. That, and fuel and power to run all the cool gadgets. I’m sure a deal could be brokered with the right wizard (assuming they accepted dollars), so maybe this works out OK.
(Edit: I realized later a much better solution to this. The PC has all of Batman’s equipment and money AND HE WANTS IT BACK.)
The PC also has adamantium claws, just like Wolverine’s! However, the PC does not have Wolverine’s healing factor. Using those claws renders the PC’s hands useless for 3 weeks each time.
The PC’s Spidey sense activates every time she is about to extend her claws.
3. The character will enter the storyline by putting a knife to a character’s throat, however it must be done in a storytelling manner that will not end in my character’s demise.
Granted! The character enters the game with a knife to her own throat. I really don’t know why she would do that. Maybe she knows something she doesn’t. Either way, unless she trips or suffers a sudden muscle spasm, I’m guessing this won’t end with her untimely death.
4. The character will have a flying immortal tiger with its immortality tied to the moon of a planet many many many worlds and dimensions away.
(I made my new player a little scared when I told her this one was the easiest of the lot.)
Granted! However, the tiger is 2″ long and lives in her digestive tract. If the PC does not eat steak every three hours, the tiger begins to consume her from the inside out. Don’t worry. It can’t die.
5. The character will be able to read minds, and is a 1200 year old day walking vampire.
Granted! However, the nature of her telepathy translates everything she hears into Entish, and it takes four days of constant concentration just to hear three words.
I’m not really sure how the PC lived as a vampire for an entire 1200 years walking out in the daytime — but, if that’s what she wants to do, who am I to stop her? I may have the player preroll another character to bring to the next session. You know, just in case.
6. The character has the magical power of Meta, and thus can meta-game at any time.
Granted! Funny, all the other PCs in our campaign seem to have this power too, and they wield it frequently. Weird….
7. The character will be an expert swords(wo)man with a focus on short swords and daggers, although the can handle broadswords with stunning efficiency.
Granted! The character will gender-swap every time (s)he picks up a sword or dagger, and cannot do lethal damage with a broadsword (but critically hits on a 15-20).
8. The character does not worship a deity, deities worship her.
Granted! The gods themselves worship the PC. However, she has upon her the burden of listening to the prayers of the gods themselves, and the weight of their reality-shaping requests and prayers squishes her mortal mind like a grape.
Also, the Raven Queen wants the PC’s job, so she shows up with a crowbar and busts the windows out of the PC’s car.
9. The character is a seductress, and uses her own knowledge and noble standing to convince people to do what she wants.
Granted, on the provision that invisible wooden stakes always hover 1′ behind her character just waiting for an uncomfortable roleplaying situation to occur.
10. The character has the power to conjure Voldemort, although he is weak against “The boy who lived” so should not be conjured in the Potter dimension.
Granted! Voldemort might be hot stuff in J.K. Rowlingsville, but this is the Realms. You bring your pale, no-nose, can’t even get a wand to listen to you weak sauce in here and it won’t be 5 seconds before Bigby slaps you around with his Pimping Hand. Elminster wouldn’t even accept you as a cleaning lady. These are hardcore, mana-hittin’ wizards. Word to your Leomund.
Besides, I get to control him and he really hates seductress vampires. Especially ones who are rich in useless currencies, take strolls at noon, and have a tiger eating them alive from the inside.
Need Evil Input
Sadly, I’m new at this whole evil thing. I am certain that I was not even remotely as evil as was probably necessary for this job. So, as I said before, I need a little help crushing these dreams lest a tiny shard of hope survives – ruining an otherwise perfect day.
If you would like to lend an iron boot, please do so in the comments. Your utter lack of human decency is appreciated and will be rewarded in due time.
A challenge indeed! Me, I’d say that the character is so AWESOME that reality around her bends and project a small bit of her persona from Earth2100 or wherever into the world, where the adventure takes place. However, that projection is fully material only about 95% of the time and tends to fade especially during tense moments! So yeah, the bad guy, who thinks you’re a rock, is in awe at your mad sword-wielding skillz. But! You only rolled a 3. Just a moment before you hit him, your projection fades slightly, and the villain is unscathed!
Anyway, I’m hoping she’s just testing you. If so, you and the other players might let her play full Mary Sue for a while to see how BORING that is. If not – the gods (those that don’t worship the character, anyway), be with you.
#1. Myopic double near sightedness restricts your vision to just less than the reach of your hand.
#3. Limb removal seems to be an acceptable option here.
#4. Your tiger is actually a weretiger that loves to playfully nip at your toes and give you a nice little chomp now and then.
#5. All lycanthrope bites are fatal to vampires, ala Vampire Diaries.
#8. This is a quote from the Space Alert handbook:
“Science fiction writers would have you believe that alien beings living in such a place would treat you as gods. And maybe they’re right. What they don’t mention is that most of the inhabitants of the Galaxy detest gods and like nothing better than blowing them up.”
#10. Well, Voldemort is likely looking for some new Horcruxes. Enslaving a 1200 year old vampire and an immortal tiger should do pretty good for a start.
Awesomeness is caused by microorganisms, similar to midichlorians. Every awesome feature has an ‘awesome value’ which related to the amount of microorganisms existing inside the individual in question.
For example: Adamantium claws generate, oh say, 5000 AWP’s (awesome points). Perception shifting (limited to rocks and fire) would be somewhere around 1250 – 1500 AWP’s.
Unfortunately, extremely high levels of AWP’s begin to warp the fabric of reality and – though this is still up for debate with the FDA – are extremely toxic (in a metaphyscial sense). Consequently, the more awesome a character is, the more weird & unexplainable the things that happen to and around them and the sooner they are likely to die.
Death by awesomeness.
“The PC’s Spidey sense activates every time she is about to extend her claws.”
Classic!
It’s obvious I didn’t stress the tongue-in-cheekness of her demands enough in my article. It’s all in good fun, and my new player is a nice person and not a giant diva.
She still must be destroyed.
See… I could exploit this character to the point that your wish granting would weigh heavily on you and be nightmare fuel for the length of the campaign. Never play genie unless you have thought out the repercussions in the greatest detail. 😀
I see a panic arising around a collective hallucination that someone is turning the innocent people of the Realms into rocks… or perhaps of a mysterious invasion of Galeb Duhr.
Also, I wounder how the Gods will take it if she fails to answer they’re prayers in a timely fashion?
Oh, you could also make her allergic to cats. >: )
“The character is a seductress, and uses her own knowledge and noble standing to convince people to do what she wants.”
Sure – did I mention her fever-induced retrograde amnesia and disgraced noble grandfather who hung himself after the bishop annulled his marriage to a neighbor’s goat.
BWAHAHAHAHA!!! This will be a harsh, harsh introduction to RPGs. Honestly if she survives more than 6 minutes I will be impressed. Best to have a halfling thief as a standby backup character.
Scratch that. Make it a gnome illusionist.
Is this person 13?
“However, she has upon her the burden of listening to the prayers of the gods themselves,”
That actually sounds like a really really awesome campaign.
Seems your off to a good start. This whole post reminds me of a trip to Hawgwaller’s and the weekly meeting of GM’s when BA’s campaign goes off the rails
(Knights of the Dinner Table reference for anybody unfamiliar with it http://www.kenzerco.com/index.php?cPath=22_23)
The bit that really caught my attention and cried our for Evilness
The character will be an expert swords(wo)man with a focus on short swords and daggers, although the can handle broadswords with “”stunning”” efficiency.
Granted! The character will gender-swap every time (s)he picks up a sword or dagger, and cannot do lethal damage with a broadsword (but critically hits on a 15-20).
I would drop the cannot do lethal damage bit and take a page out of the pacifist cleric handbook i.e any time the Crit occurs she is immediately stunned (save ends). Talk about stunning efficiency!
#8 – Granted. The deity who worships her, however, is Thimby, the lesser-known minor halfling god of Thimbles. He worships her because she has the amazing ability to reach things on high shelves, something he never mastered. She may call upon him to summon a thimble at any time, though his sphere of influence doesn’t reach beyond that.
#9 – (EDIT: Oops, it seems Carl Rauscher beat me to this one. Oh well.) Granted! Though nothing was mentioned about having any knowledge or noble standing whatsoever, so good luck convincing people of much as an uneducated, amnesiac peasant.
#10 – Granted! Voldemort may be summoned, though it takes him seven novels… er, years… to do anything, and he fails at absolutely everything he attempts, except for breaking himself into little pieces, and dying. He’s good at those two things.
I love the batman/wolverine/spiderman answer, by the way. *SNIKT* “AAAAAUUUGHHH!!!!”
And the intestinal tiger? Pure, unadulterated genius!
Oh! Right, didn’t quite catch that little phrase the first time.
It’s still a challenge, tho. Perhaps I’d try battling Mary Sue with the Gary method: whip up an NPC just about as awesome as the character, have him fall madly in love with her and attempt to “aid her” at every little opportunity only to mess things up. Oh, right, and let him have a smexy celestial flying tigress.)
About breaking the “curse” – only if the PC decides to lose all of her superawesome powers does Gary lose interest and leave her alone (finally!)
Hm, you know, this is a pretty sound plan to battle my own party’s wonderwoman.)
What happens when Batman shows up looking for his money?
Obviously he is going to ask “Where is she!?!”
Oh and here is to #6
Unfortuantly she also seems to grant the ‘meta ability’ to everyone in a few hundred feet (explains the party metagaming). This will foil attempts to pickpocket and be sneaky by the party as the villians appear to know exactly what they were thinking.
Muhahahahah
Also, because I enjoy word play have voldemort be easily killed by any common gardner who happens to have a hairy body and own a clay pot.
Option for #1:
Granted! While she is in the party, all PCs look like rocks (not animated statues, but boulders), and all rocks look like fire. To everyone. Including her. Always. Good luck navigating the “Forest of Fire and Rocks and Nothing Else”, where the rocks are the only safe places to stand. Or, y’know, holding regular conversations with anybody.
“Good day, barkeep.”
“Holy s***, a talking rock!!! Kill it!”
I actually think that Demand #3 is quite interesting. It would be fun to try and pull this off without characters killing one another.
okay. had someone presented me with that list I would have lacked the imagination to pull it off. So I found this a very entertaining read. your skill ranks in evil dm are much higher than mine. well done!
(i will still be laughing about this tomorrow for sure)… 🙂