Tabletop RPG Shenanigans

Since the "EoFF Plays..." thread is mainly for organizing a group to play D&D/Pathfinder online, I thought creating a new thread just for sharing ideas and tales of random exploits may be more appropriate than filling the existing thread with such shenanigans.

I joined a new D&D campaign not too long ago. After a bit of debate, the DM decided to start us off at level 4. I rolled a bard, of course, and I must say that our lawful good monk is very lucky that I'm evil. He would be dead right now if I hadn't incapacitated him and sold him as a ritual sacrifice for my own freedom. And, more importantly, I'd be dead.

The long version:
While searching for an amulet in a cave, we came across an altar containing instructions for a ritual to open a portal of some sort. The steps for the ritual, scribed in undercommon, included sacrificing an unwilling subject. Naturally, we assumed it was crafted by drow, but I assured my two companions, the monk and the true neutral warmage, that my diplomacy skills were sufficient and that no harm would fall upon me if we should encounter any drow.
As we traveled deeper into the cave, the rough walls became finely worked stone. There were a few signs that the cave was inhabited. For example, I managed to spot a pressure plate that triggered an arrow trap on the ground. Naturally, I distracted the warmage who was leading the party and advised the monk to take the lead, causing him to trigger the trap and take the damage for us. Despite this and a few other things, we never actually saw the inhabitants of the cave... until they ambushed us!
A group of seven drow surrounded us. Their leader proceeded to cast Summon Monster 3 for additional assistance.

[Note that this is a 3rd level spell, requiring at least a level 5 spellcaster. For those of you who are not good at math, a drow's +2 level adjustment puts the leader's minimum ECL (effective character level) at 7, and his minions' ECL at 3. We're ECL 4, and now outnumbered 8-to-3. There's no way we could have taken them.]

Before threatening to attack, they made us a very attractive offer: They would tell us where the amulet we were sent to find was and let us go if we brought them one of the villagers to use in the ritual scribed on the altar we had found earlier.
Despite this being an extremely good deal on our end, and despite the fact that we were grossly outnumbered by a swarm of creatures that could certainly kill us without breaking a sweat, the monk insisted on refusing the offer. The drow attacked, and dropped all of us below half health in a single round.
Being the reasonable and evil bard I am, I attempted to convince the drow leader to let the warmage and myself go in exchange for the monk. The monk didn't like the idea, though; I had to incapacitate him with Tasha's Hideous Laughter to prevent him from putting up a fight and getting himself killed.
As soon as he was beaten unconscious and shackled, I asked the drow leader for another deal: Since it doesn't matter who is sacrificed for the ritual, as long as the subject is unwilling, I asked if we could have the monk back in exchange for one of the villagers. He agreed.

Drow: You have three days to return before we proceed with the ritual.
Me: Three days? This won't take twelve hours!
Drow: Okay then, you have twelve hours. If you're not back by then, we'll assume you've abandoned you "friend" and start the ritual early.
Monk: *Cringe*
Me: Sounds reasonable to me. See you in six hours!
Monk: *Facepalm*


And so, I returned to town with the warmage and tracked down the NPC who had sent us into the cave to retrieve the amulet we were originally searching for. We told her exactly what had happened in the cave: That we had found some information that may lead to the amulet, that our monk was incapacitated by the hazards of the cave, and that we needed a good-hearted person like herself to both save the monk and to unlock the secret of the amulet's whereabouts. For some reason, despite being entirely truthful, I had to roll a bluff check for that conversation... but, she could not resist my bard-ish charm and agreed to join us.
Another nearby NPC heard us mention the amulet and asked how much we were being paid to find it. With a bit of persuasion, I convinced him to offer us a bit more gold than the original quest NPC had offered. Surely, this NPC's appearance was just the DM's way of seeing that we still get a reward for the quest even after the original questgiver is killed off. And the session ended there, with the monk still imprisoned and the warmage and myself preparing to rescue him.
I have yet to find a way to prevent the monk from killing me for having him beaten into unconsciousness and imprisoned, and then luring an innocent and unsuspecting NPC to her death in exchange for his freedom. I'll be sure to let you know how that plays out when the time comes.

The short version:
While searching a cave for an amulet, we encountered a large group of drow. Our lawful good monk decided to rub his holier-than-thou attitude in their faces and nearly got us all killed. Since he was the one endangering the rest of us, I swiftly stabbed him in the back and allowed the drow to hold him as ransom while the warmage and I went to acquire another suitable sacrifice for their ritual.

Don't have any particularly interesting stories, but oh god I had this one character I loved to death.

So we were playing AD&D (which I adore) and I rolled up an Elf Wizard. Thing is, she had an 18 Intelligence and 18 Charisma, and I just loved her stats so much and basically role-played her as a some debutante bitch who decided to up and go adventuring some day. In fact, she was essentially just covered in extremely fashionable clothes and jewelry and no one had a single clue she was a wizard. This was a humongous advantage as she was never perceived as a threat.

Now here was the thing and want ultimately made me roll up a female: everyone else in the party was male, not particularly charming or refined, and either a Fighter or Ranger with the exception of the Paladin (one of those Paladins too). Needless to say, she hated them and would always insult or belittle them in way far above their heads. When we would go to towns, she'd always get special treatment and services from people simply because of how she appeared.

She was the leader of the group, and the other players had a legitimate respect for the way I played, showing many of the newer players some of the amazing stuff a non-combat character can do. She did the talking. She did the planning. She did the thinking. She did the strategy. And perhaps, most interesting of all, she was the moral conscience of the party. She was rational but ethical, ultimately making the decision for the group when there were moral dilemmas. I even managed to get the Paladin to listen to some of her more morally gray schemes.

Seriously, this chick was awesome. She was the only character to really stay in the group as she had a wide variety of skills and creative uses for spells that made her really, really hard to kill. She looked weak and constantly outsmarted her foes through any means she had. Also, she used mind games on the Paladin so he would protect her especially, going as far to using him as a literal stepping stool for places she couldn't reach.

She would always demand the best lodgings, clothes, and food wherever she went, knowing that her appearance as a bit of a princess is what made her so powerful. I remember once I literally left my party to avoid sleeping in a room filled with ugly brutes and managed to be able to weasel herself into a ball purely on her appearance and behavior while her comrades were shacking up in a room filled with sweaty dudes.

The best thing though is that everyone who has ever played with me knows I roll like trout. I get 1's all the damn time. One time, a ranger (the only chick who was with us for the slightest time) was particularly unfriendly to my character. They would catfight all the time. She was gruff, rude, and all-in-all uncouth. She was everything my character represented. One time, when my character was throwing a hissyfit about something (probably about how many stupid decisions the group was making) she had the nerve to draw a circle around us two, claim it was an arena, and sock my character's beautiful face.

A few days later, my character, in a sweet and friendly plea for forgiveness, managed to make a series of successful Charisma checks to convince this chick that they let bygones be bygones. Then, upon suggesting they shake on it, the chick extended her hand for a shake. My character responded with a Critical Hit with her Fist of Stone to that bitch's face, knocking her out old. That bitch never messed with me again.

Unfortunately, I had to retire her due to moving to college and not being able to play with that group anymore. But I'll never forget how much fun I had playing with her. I was so proud of her I even used her personality and appearances as a template for a character in some of my writing. What I was most proud of is I had developed a female character who was very much feminine and "ladylike" yet still managed to be the single most powerful force in the group. I think we need more characters like that in fiction.

That character sounds kind of similar to the character I made for a playtest of 5th edition: A noble high elf wizard named Sir Prissy von Wellington III. I don't think I need to elaborate any further - his background, class, race, and name should indicate exactly the kind of personality he had. I'm pretty sure he was much more arrogant and irritating than your elf wizard.

The session was just a one-shot thing since the group was only in town for the weekend, and the DM had only briefly skimmed the pre-made playtest campaign. We ended up just winging it and fighting some random mobs to try out the new combat mechanics instead of sticking with the module. I made sure to spend a full round of combat running away from an ooze and shouting, "You people are absolutely insane if you think I'm going to touch that thing!"

My friends no longer allow me to GM these types of games. Mostly because I have a rep as a Killer Game Master. Granted, once people started whining about how suicidal my campaigns were I started to go out of my way to make nearly impossible missions for my players, so I guess the rep is accurate. Course I also play with a few munchkins so I kind of felt obliged to go out of my way to keep them from borking the campaign in their favor.

My favorite scenario was from the Palladium Robotech books in one of the Sentinels campaigns, where it was a small reconnaissance group trying to answer a distress call from some not too happy to see the humans Robotech Masters, who quickly tried to kill the group in order to hijack their ship, except as the fight went on, the Invid showed up and took out the party's reconnaissance fleet in orbit and then damaged their own vessel, stranding them on the planet with a three way conflict with the Invid and Robotech Masters. A truce was almost made until the Zentradi showed up to answer the distress call and the RM back-stabbed the party. Course the Zentradi started a total bombardment of the planet and ignored the RM to fight the Invid and well it kind of turned into a four battle and the party made the unfortunate decision to try and use what protoculture they had to get the RM ship back up and running to escape, but the moment that thing lit up, the Invid swarmed it and the Zentradi fired upon them. I can't remember if the Invid took them out or the friendly fire from the Zentradi blew them both out of the skies. To suffice to say, no one made it off the planet. Good times.

My first (and, thus far, only) tabletop RPG experience ended shortly after our Ranger shot me in the back for max damage, nearly killing me. Fun times.

^ yeah, that was definitely a classic RPG moment.

Welcome to tabletop :bro: