Shrapnel's Log of TTRPG Ignorance

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Shrapnel's Log of TTRPG Ignorance

Post by Shrapnel »

Right, I have a secret: I'm legendarily not-at-all-that-very-good at figuring out TTRPGs or Thursdays. I mean, I still have to ask what die to use for an attack that utilizies a d6.

...Okay, so I'm not that bad, but still.

So, mostly for my amusement more than anything, I've decided to keep a log of my misadventures that updates at erratic times of whenever I feel like it or remember to.

I'll start with the session that I'm in right this instant.

Background: It's based off Scorpion Swamp, with a few serial numbers filed off and some new ones poorly scrawled on in magic marker, and Darth "Eddy" Rabbitt is DMing. Friend #1 is playing an undead Colin (Lisa's Irish boytoy in the Simpsons movie; it's a long story) who is an unwilling servant of Nerull, Friend #2 is playing a black person ninja, and I'm playing a Vulpix wearing an Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat cape that's also a bounty hunter freelance peacekeeping agent who's Lawful Chaotic Stupid and has an ill-explained history with Poon Chucker Spoon Checker.

Currently, the party is working for the Good Wizard and Spoon Checker, looking for some magic plant and also doing whatever the fuck the Good Wizard's quest was. We also killed the Bad Wizard and the Master of Wolves. But that's not how this tale began. It began, like so much in life, in a tavern.

My character was chillaxing at the pub, and was rudely insulted by the bar maid's breasts. Then he met up with Colin, gave him some drinks that were illegal in several planes and one small town in Iowa, and then they set off for the Bad Wizard. After saying bad things to a bat that was purely decorative, we attacked Grimslade the Bad Guy, who was also a servant of Nerull, and we slew him dead. Then we visited the Master of Wolves, and his dick started saying bad things about Vulpix's mother, which lead to another fight and we killed him dead, too.

The next session, we were joined by a ninja who was there the whole time, but was invisible until he put on his hat. Then we were attacked by those fucking sword trees, but killed them alive, and now we've taken a break, and that's where we are now.

(It should be noted that for my miniature is a PVC Vulpix figurine with a clothe cape from a Star Wars figure wrapped around it.)
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Re: Shrapnel's Log of TTRPG Ignorance

Post by Darth Rabbitt »

Shrapnel wrote:Currently, the party is working for the Good Wizard and Spoon Checker, looking for some magic plant and also doing whatever the fuck the Good Wizard's quest was.
That is the Good wizard's quest.
Shrapnel wrote:My character was chillaxing at the pub, and was rudely insulted by the bar maid's breasts...Then we visited the Master of Wolves, and his dick started saying bad things about Vulpix's mother
They didn't actually insult him; Shrapnel's character is just Chaotic Stupid.
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Post by Shrapnel »

LAWFUL Chaotic Stupid, thank you.

Anyways, what does the DM know?
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Post by Shrapnel »

UPDATE: Colin has sent Bart, his undead minion, (another long story) ahead into the forest to die at the hands of various forest nasties. I am now heading off to retrieve his skull and wear it as a trophy.

FURTHER UPDATE: WE KILLED A UNICORN, AND THE WORLD IS HAPPIER.

FURTHERER UPDATE: I forgot to mention, but me and Friend #1 are engaged in a competition to make Darth DM's life miserable by seeing who can lose the most amount of Action Points, which we do by making bad puns. It's glorious.

YES, ANOTHER UPDATE: I AM SO FUCKING BORED. Despite appearances, it's a lot of work to roleplay a Fluffernutt. So we're going to stop now, and pretend to watch Executive Koala.
Last edited by Shrapnel on Sat Apr 26, 2014 7:55 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Post by Shrapnel »

Did I ever tell you guys about my very first campaign in Dungeons & Dragons, where my first character ever was Satan, and that he fought an evil elven school teacher god? I don't remember doing so, but even if I did, then too bad, I'm saying it again (possibly).

So, the very first time I ever played D&D in a manner other than watching the Sunbow cartoon or dragging out my brother's battered 2e Monstorus Manaul to look at the pictures of scantily clad females was some indeterminate amount of time ago that I can't remember. Anyway, I bugged Darth about joining his gaming group because he kept telling me all these hilarious stories about his games and I wanted to be a part of that.

So, after much pestering (at least, I recall there being much pestering; that may just be wishful thinking), I finally joined in on a campaign that I later gathered had been going on for a long while, and it involved an evil Elven army, there viscous evil god Vin (named for a favorite teacher of ours we all had in school), and a bunch of evil curses that involved Darth wanting to boff another player's character and me having a TV glued to my eyes that constantly played Super Baby Geniuses 2 and subsequently drove me mad. Or at least, it was something like that. I only clearly remember two things:

First, the character I played was Satan (who is, as everyone should know but doesn't, a giant, red Fry Kid with horns wearing fashionable red, occasionally yellow, jogging shoes - long story short: I doodled this one day and thought it would be funny to make it Satan). The very first thing I ever said in any campaign is thus: "I come down riding a crashing wall of water, and say, 'My name is Walter!'". This extremely bad pun failed to illicit any kind of reaction except for someone saying, "Hi, Walter!", just as I had intended, or so I tell myself late at night when I lay awake worrying about it.

That pretty much set the precedent for almost every character I've played since.

Second, the BBEG was super overpowered because the DM failed to calculate how powerful (re: weak) we were in relation to the point we were in the game. After many rounds of futile attacks that didn't do diddly-shit, it became my turn for the umpteenth time and, with a combination of a complete and utter lack of comprehension, or indeed, respect of how the hell to play the game coupled with the boredom of sitting there watching people roll dice, I decided that my character would throw Bounty towels at the baddie. The DM, through a combination of desperation and amusement, decided to let this work, and said that the big bad elven god Vin exploded on contact with soft paper goods, and there was much rejoicing.

That set the precedent for how much I actually knew about D&D and table top role-playing games, and how I would go about playing them.

Aside from that, most of my memory from that game goes more or less goes like this.

And that's how I got into D&D.
Last edited by Shrapnel on Wed Apr 30, 2014 1:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

Shrapnel wrote:Second, the BBEG was super overpowered because the DM failed to calculate how powerful (re: weak) we were in relation to the point we were in the game. After many rounds of futile attacks that didn't do diddly-shit, it became my turn for the umpteenth time and, with a combination of a complete and utter lack of comprehension, or indeed, respect of how the hell to play the game coupled with the boredom of sitting there watching people roll dice, I decided that my character would throw Bounty towels at the baddie. The DM, through a combination of desperation and amusement, decided to let this work, and said that the big bad elven god Vin exploded on contact with soft paper goods, and there was much rejoicing.
That wasn't Vin, that was Death By Nitrous Oxide (the 2nd of the 3 evil Elven generals: the other two being Megakill, a jester who was the archnemesis of my undead Thri-Kreen Samurai character, and bob, who was just bob). Death by Nitrous Oxide (I'll call him D by NO2 for short) was a super pimped out melee monster (even nastier than my character, another melee monster who had like 36 Dex, four arms, and combined the weird one-handed versions of kusari-gama with Horde Breaker to get +TEXA$ area of effect attacks).

(Note to anyone unfortunate enough to read Shrapnel's mad ramblings: We had a Lich with save-or-dies that D by NO2 made saves against all the time, and his AC was too high for me to hit, and Shrapnel didn't know how to play his character, but most of his good abilities were based off of stat damage that D by NO2 was immune to.)

Vin was weakened by the death of his three generals, and our superpowered characters were able to take him out at that point. As that suggests, we were actually insanely powerful; the problem with D by NO2 was that the "elf game" (as our gaming group calls it) was not Darths and Droids so we didn't get insanely lucky enough rolls to kill the Darth Maul/Grievous-equivalent. The Bounty even didn't kill him, it just did shitloads of damage. Basically the equivalent of a Flask Rogue Sneak Attack or two. I think eventually one of my 12 attacks/round or one of the lich's 2 SoDs/round killed him. After 2 fights (D by NO2 teleported to safety the first time around.)

I've written up much of this game in various posts throughout the Den.
First few (3 or 4) sessions:
Darth Rabbitt wrote: And finally, my friend (the same one who played the shadow and the gnome) is running a Tome game, where I'm playing a quadruple kusari-gama wielding ghoul thri-kreen samurai (with a Dex of 36) who whores out on attacks of opportunity.

This is by far the most ridiculous game I've ever been involved in.

The game's premise is that all elves are inherently evil, and banded together when they realized that they could rule the surface world. Kraagik (the name of my character) was a leader of his people, who were slaughtered by the armies of an elven general named Megakill (one of the villains of the campaign). They were ancient enemies of the elves, and Kraagik himself was brought back from the dead as a ghoul by a wizard (Kraagik's Lord, who later turned out to be working with the elves, causing Kraagik to strike him down in rage). Tormented with the spirits of his people, who essentially functioned as his ancestors, Kraagik vowed to feast on the heart of Megakill.

On an aside, since the DM forgot to design a map for his world, he used a map of Middle-Earth, much to the dismay of the Lich Paragon (who used the method of destruction of his artifact phylactery as "the fires of Mount Doom," because there actually was a Mount Doom in this game.

The party, searching for a man named Flounder, as he supposedly knew a lot about the elves' plans and thus went into hiding in fear of retribution, got attacked by a Tyrannosaurus that charged headlong into a wall of force placed by the lich. The DM ruled that it died on impact, despite the player himself suggesting that it shouldn't.

It turned out to be Flounder's pet, and the lich's offer to bring it back as a zombie didn't seem to be much consolation, but he still eventually gave us the information we needed on Megakill's army.

There's also a running gag of us being attacked by giant constrictors. (Why does it have to be snakes?)

We spent much time in Bree, the last line of defense against the elves, which resulted in a lot of bad cheese puns (most notably, Megakill sent his advanced calzone golem (no, really, calzone golem, it's from some Wizards adventure) "Pizza the Hut" (a homage to Spaceballs, of course) and its follower Boba Feta, both of whom we soon dispatched of.)

Soon, we met with Megakill himself, who was coming to dispose of us personally. He was described as looking like Judge Doom (after he reveals he's a Toon) from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" wearing the Dark Knight Joker's makeup and Glasgow smile, with pointed ears, wearing the Comedian (from Watchmen)'s leather armor, and carrying a Colossal crossbow (he was a Jester, and the DM forgot the weapon sizing rules in RoW, but we all agreed that it was so ridiculous that it was OK for him to be able to wield it. There was Rule 0, of course, but again, nobody minded.) His spells all had verbal components of bad puns. After some Who Framed Roger Rabbit and The Princess Bride references (Megakill: Remember me, Kraagik? When I killed your clan, I sounded just... like... THIS! Kraagik: My name is Kraagik. You killed my clan. Prepare to die.) Leaving the rest of the party to dispose of Megakill's shadows (he had the Necromantic feat to create incorporeal undead,) I disposed of Megakill, and did indeed eat his heart. However, he had a contingent Magic Mouth cast on his heart, and it insulted my ability to eat it properly. He similarly had one cast on his head, making bad puns as always, but I still kept it as a trophy (houserule: the DM gives action points to anything that makes him laugh, and that includes bad puns, and agreed that having Megakill's still talking head was a good way to do that).

Kraagik was about to kill himself, considering his quest over, but was approached by the spirits of his ancestors, saying that Megakill was only the subordinate of a more powerful elf general, Death By Nitrous Oxide. After returning to Bree, we found out that the mayor heard that Death By Nitrous Oxide was preparing an all-out attack on Bree, and we headed to their encampment. Most of them were low-level warriors that were taken out by the lich's cloudkill. When the lieutenants saw us surrounded by so many dead, they asked what happened. The lich replied, completely deadpan, "I farted." I couldn't help but laugh. After killing them, we used Speak with Dead to find out where Death by Nitrous Oxide was, and discovered that he had taken the form of the mayor's son!

Heading back to Bree, we found the mayor, who told us that his son was dead. This was true, but now Death by Nitrous Oxide had taken form of the mayor. He revealed his true form. Death by Nitrous Oxide was Huge sized, had a face "resembling a cross between an ape and a lizard," with a Mad-Eye Moody style giant googly eye and "steam shooting out of his pointed ears like an angry cartoon character, only constantly", two "Popeye" arms, and four thri-kreen arms, which were sewn on, taken from a legendary thri-kreen hero. The rest of his body resembled a huge, muscular elf's, and he wore naught but underwear, suspenders, a cape, a top hat, and a monocle over his non-crazy eye. He wielded four trees (game mechanically: ironwood greatswords) and a tower shield taller than himself. Death by Nitrous Oxide could survive in melee combat with me, and save-or-dies from the lich (none of the other PCs had even a chance to hurt him), and although we eventually whittled down his health to near-death, he teleported away. Kraagik threw Megakill's severed head at the ground in rage.

We leveled up, as his fleeing counted as a defeat, but we were also warned that Death by Nitrous Oxide would return, even more powerful next time (read: he leveled up too.)

OK, that was a lot longer than I expected.
Extra stuff on Kraagik, Vin's curses, and setting info:
Darth Rabbitt wrote:I played a character whose backstory was that his whole tribe was murdered (so was he, being brought back as a ghoul by a necromancer), and he wanted revenge on the people responsible (who were the villains of the campaign.)

He ended up becoming a sociopath because of this, only friendly with the rest of the party because they shared a common enemy.

So I suppose that it falls under the Pathfinder model of backstory, but it was just to make it so that my insane murderous character had some reason to be so.

Also, it's the only time anyone in my gaming group has done so, so maybe it just doesn't come off as cliched to me.
Darth Rabbitt wrote:I was in a game where all the races of Elves were deranged mutants banded under an evil god known as VIN, and with his three generals leading them (the most heavily mutated, although they were considered the most charming, graceful and beautiful amongst their people).

So they were the campaign villains, and my character was a Thri-Kreen Ghoul named Kra'ag'ik (usually shortened to Kraagik) who had his clan recently destroyed by the elves (his people had long been their enemies,) only spared their fate by a necromancer (who was working for the elves, actually; long story)

So he fucking loved killing and eating elves (Thri-Kreen are said to have a taste for elves in the old 2e books, and also he was a ghoul) and everyone was OK with this (presenting severed elf ears was a show of bravery in the setting.)

Pretty much any other race was tolerated in the setting because none of them could do anything as dangerous as the elves, even if they were really evil themselves, and everyone realized that infighting amongst the other races is what allowed the elves to grow so powerful.

Probably the most fun game I've ever played in.
Darth Rabbitt wrote:A friend of mine ran a game where we all ended up being cursed by an evil deity.

I was told that my thri-kreen ghoul samurai "want[ed] to bauff [another player's] character [who was not undead, or a giant bug]," and that I had to roleplay it (although not actually play out the sexual encounters, just hit on her and ask for sexual favors).

Another character (High Int, Wis, and Cha Lich) ended up with Tourette's.

Both were otherwise serious (and in the lich's case) dignified characters.

Really fun game, actually.

Something like that could work.
Darth Rabbitt wrote:My character, a former thri-kreen leader turned vengeful, insane ghoul got cursed by the evil deity who was responsible for ruining his life, making him want to have sex with another party member (who consented, oddly enough...)

It was just handled offscreen after our characters decided to do it.
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Post by Shrapnel »

Darth wrote:That wasn't Vin, that was Death By Nitrous Oxide
Well, as I said, my memory of that whole event is a little hazy, so there any inaccuracies are to be expected.
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Post by Shrapnel »

In our gaming group, I have become something of a legend.

...Okay, tell a lie, I'm really not. But a character I played once did become legendary in it's own right, and contributed to the lexicon. Which lexicon, I'm rather unclear on.

Once, long ago, our gaming group was happy, if not dysfunctional. Now, we are simply dysfunctional, and almost all of my characters are or have been referred to as "Fluffernutt".

First, some background. Fluffernutt was the nickname I had given to my Victini in Pokemon White. Beyond the fact that I was originally going for Fluffernutter, and the character limit wouldn't allow that, I do not know why I decided to name it this, and no one else alive today knows, either. Why I then decided to play it as a character in a D&D game, even less people know.

What is known, however, are the consequences.

See, the game was an adaptation of the Fighting Fantasy book Deathtrap Dungeon. You may or may not have noticed by now, but a lot of our campaigns are invariably based off of FF books.

Anyway, Darth was on DMing duties, and I made sure that the experience was anything but pleasant, because I'm not a dick, I'm a nice guy. And so began the legend of Fluffernutt and the White Lotus's massacre of Deathtrap Dungeon's traps. It also began the legend of the Five Point Palm Exploding Roleplaying Technique.

See, initially, I tried to play Fluffernutt as being insane, but he ultimately ended up being merely Chaotic Stupid, and one of the most memorable things I did in this campaign was to purposefully and willfully activate every single trap we came across, because Fluffernutt thought this is what one did with traps, and he had half a brain to share between him and a bowl of petunias that was never mentioned before or since, and shall never be mentioned again. Suffice to say, this was rather annoying to the rest of the party (activating the traps, not the petunias, mind). At one point, I also caused a plot exposition-feeding ghost head to commit suicide and implode simply because it grew so annoyed with me and my inane antics. Also, Fluffernutt had a cursed dagger named Danny the Daedric Dagger that had a moose skull taped to the hilt, and obviously Fluffers treated this as his god, and regularly gave it sacrifices and baths. It was Danny, speaking through the petunias that were not supposed to be mentioned again, that dictated Fluffernutt's actions. However, most of the time Fluffernutt misinterpreted these dictations, and then did whatever the hell he was going to do in the first place anyway.

There isn't much else I remember from this fateful game (big surprise, eh?), but I do remember I killed the dude who ruled over the dungeon by cheerfully handing him a deadly poison that kills on contact with skin, and I had immunity to poison, and he didn't, so he died instantly and the campaign ended thirty or so minutes earlier than it was supposed to. I guess this makes up for the fact that the first session overran by twenty minutes because of my initially-amusing-to-others-but-quickly-tiring antics.

Since then, every Chaotic Stupid character I've played (which is almost, but not quite, all of them. It's not a conscious decision, that's simply how I roleplay) has been called Fluffernutt, due to the various degrees of similarities.

I also happened to play Fluffernutt in a great deal many other games, too. The only two memorable things I remember about them, however, are thus: One, he died rather ingloriously by being torn to pieces by two low level Pichu, and Two, the most greatest thing I've ever done in any D&D game ever was with Fluffernutt. In a later campaign (one which was based off of Fallout: New Vegas's main quest), the party was walking along with Fluffernutt in the lead, and he walked into a bush. Hiding in this bush was a gangster and IMPORTANT NPC named Benny, and he had his gun drawn. When Fluffernutt walked into the bush, he also walked into the gun, which got jammed rather far up Fluffernutt's nose, and if he had a functioning brain, it probably would have been poked by the gun. As it was, Fluffernutt merely reacted with indignity to the situation, and said to Benny, "HEY! You got your nose up my gun!", to which Benny responded by shooting Fluffernutt several times upside the cranium. This didn't kill Fluffernutt, but rather simply rendered him unconscious. He could still talk, however, because talking is a free action, and the incident immediately passed on into legend.



...I was originally going to have a point to all this, but I'm terribly afraid all this has rather gotten away from me now. Hmm. Shows that that's what you get when you start writing when you can barely keep your eyes open, right?
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

I do love how every campaign log Shrapnel ever makes on the Den goes:
1. Shrapnel says some crazy shit but leaves out a lot of important details. 2. I explain said details, and feel embarrassed about the whole thing.
Shrapnel wrote:You may or may not have noticed by now, but a lot of our campaigns are invariably based off of FF books.
Mostly because I end up mapping them out and then using the maps for games. And I was pretty damn unoriginal when I started DMing.
In a later campaign (one which was based off of Fallout: New Vegas's main quest)
Only in that there was an NPC named Benny and an NPC named Mr. House. There were also a bunch of factions fighting for control of a city filled with bands of criminals (which is why I threw in the references) but that was because those factions were built from the ashes left as a result of havoc wreaked in the last two campaigns set in the city.

Long story short: after the first game, the city was basically run by a Thieves' Guild (that the PCs worked for), and after that game the city fell into chaos (one of the PCs, Krull Mulk the Skullcrusher Ogre Barbarian, broke ranks with the Thieves' Guild in order to take more direct control over the city. Which he got by killing the player's character from the previous campaign, who the ruler of the city had been nearly killed by. More on that later. Upon getting his reward, Krull Mulk beat the shit out of the ruler of the city.

So Krull Mulk had fled a power struggle in his tribe, so his tribe came looking for him. Those were basically the three factions; Mr. House was the leader of the remnants of the Thieves' Guild. And yes, Krull Mulk's player ended up killing Krull Mulk with his new character in the third game. That's the one Fluffernut was in.

Not that the game wasn't blatantly derivative of other things: the map of the city was literally just Port Blacksand from City of Thieves, and my first game set there was literally just City of Thieves. That first game has always been a favorite of the group (although Shrapnel missed it.) The second game was based off of the aftermath of the havoc in the city that the PCs wrought:
Image
Since then, every Chaotic Stupid character I've played (which is almost, but not quite, all of them. It's not a conscious decision, that's simply how I roleplay) has been called Fluffernutt, due to the various degrees of similarities.
Actually it's just the other members of the group (including yours truly) that call Shrapnel's characters Fluffernut. He gives them separate names. In the literal sense, he only played Fluffernut twice: once in the long-running game where he went through a kinder, gentler Deathtrap Dungeon and what were basically the ruins of the City of Thieves, and once in a Pokemon D20 game; the bastard was indeed killed by 2 low level Pichu, after a gauntlet of brutal traps and a professional killer who got several perfect shots in on him failed to do so. (he had completely different stats in the Pokemon d20 game.)

Also, it's only in Pokemon based games where you don't play Chaotic Stupid for whatever reason. All of your D&D characters are Chaotic Stupid. But in the Pokemon d20 game the character who replaced Fluffernut wasn't Chaotic Stupid, and you haven't played a Chaotic Stupid character in either of the PTA games (with the exception of the short-lived Cuil, who only lasted for a session or so.)
As it was, Fluffernutt merely reacted with indignity to the situation, and said to Benny, "HEY! You got your nose up my gun!", to which Benny responded by shooting Fluffernutt several times upside the cranium. This didn't kill Fluffernutt, but rather simply rendered him unconscious. He could still talk, however, because talking is a free action, and the incident immediately passed on into legend.
Actually, Benny still had another shot left in his magic revolver, so he could have killed Fluffernut. But Fluffernut was unconscious (and shouldn't have been able to talk) so Benny opened fire on another PC. He ended up being charmed, and basically became a cohort of the party.

Also, if Shrapnel hadn't insisted that Fluffernut literally walked into Benny's gun he wouldn't have been full attacked in a surprise round by Benny.

More info on the first two City of Thieves games, if anyone's curious. It's where the log of the Elf Game came from, actually.
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Post by Shrapnel »

Darth Rabbitt wrote:I do love how every campaign log Shrapnel ever makes on the Den goes:
1. Shrapnel says some crazy shit but leaves out a lot of important details. 2. I explain said details, and feel embarrassed about the whole thing.
I do love how every reply to my posts concerning these things goes:
1. You fail to realize that my brain was not designed to remember important details, and I've often said in the beginning, middle and end of my posts that this was in fact the case, and thus seem to ignore this small but vital piece of information. 2. You definitely should.
In a later campaign (one which was based off of Fallout: New Vegas's main quest)
Only in that there was an NPC named Benny and an NPC named Mr. House.
Again, a faulty memory precluded the shit I didn't remember (in this case, the fact that the only similarities between NV and our game was Benny and Mr. House).
Since then, every Chaotic Stupid character I've played (which is almost, but not quite, all of them. It's not a conscious decision, that's simply how I roleplay) has been called Fluffernutt, due to the various degrees of similarities.
Actually it's just the other members of the group (including yours truly) that call Shrapnel's characters Fluffernut.
Okay, this one is on me; I should have clarified that every Chaotic Stupid character I've played is called Fluffernutt by the other members of the group. Also, Fluffernutt is spelled with two "t"'s.
Also, it's only in Pokemon based games where you don't play Chaotic Stupid for whatever reason.
Yeah, this baffles me, too. As a side note, in all of our PTA and Pokemon related games, the DM (both Darth and the player that Jesus loved) have decreed that Victini's don't exist in the game world. I have no idea why...
As it was, Fluffernutt merely reacted with indignity to the situation, and said to Benny, "HEY! You got your nose up my gun!", to which Benny responded by shooting Fluffernutt several times upside the cranium. This didn't kill Fluffernutt, but rather simply rendered him unconscious. He could still talk, however, because talking is a free action, and the incident immediately passed on into legend.
Actually, Benny still had another shot left in his magic revolver,
Forgot that bit,
so he could have killed Fluffernut. But Fluffernut was unconscious (and shouldn't have been able to talk)
But talking is a free action, so...
... Also, if Shrapnel hadn't insisted that Fluffernut literally walked into Benny's gun he wouldn't have been full attacked in a surprise round by Benny.
This was part of the reason I had so much fun playing Fluffernutt.
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Post by Darth Rabbitt »

Shrapnel wrote:Also, Fluffernutt is spelled with two "t"'s.
I thought it was spelled with 1 't' because the character limit in Gen V and earlier Pokemon was 10. Fluffernutt is 11 letters long.
... Also, if Shrapnel hadn't insisted that Fluffernut literally walked into Benny's gun he wouldn't have been full attacked in a surprise round by Benny.
This was part of the reason I had so much fun playing Fluffernutt.
Fluffernutt was actually a really weird tank (technically he was some sort of weird Fire Mephit/Monk 1/Jester 2+ that took that Monk feat that based your WIS-based Monk abilities off of Charisma, was permanently reduced (in 3.0 reduce worked on any creature type, and our group has kept that version) and was on fire all the time (he took a feat that explicitly states that you're on fire unless you suppress it) so he had a good AC (~23 or so), really good saves (his worst was in the double digits), DR 5/magic, and fast healing 2 all the time (again, he was on fire all the time, so Fire Mephit healing worked). He had grease, hideous laughter, and glitterdust, so he was OK in actual combat too. In a 6th level game that's not too bad. I made him that way because I knew Shrapnel would do stupid things with him (although no one could have predicted him shoving Benny's gun up his nose). So the rest of the party let him go into obviously trapped rooms and areas where they suspected an ambush. (in character, they wanted to kill him; out of character, they thought it would be impossible) And I think this basic indestructability is part of what made him fun for Shrapnel.
Pseudo Stupidity wrote:This Applebees fucking sucks, much like all Applebees. I wanted to go to Femboy Hooters (communism).
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Post by Shrapnel »

Darth Rabbitt wrote:
Shrapnel wrote:Also, Fluffernutt is spelled with two "t"'s.
I thought it was spelled with 1 't' because the character limit in Gen V and earlier Pokemon was 10. Fluffernutt is 11 letters long.
I like it better with two T's, so that's why it is Fluffernutt.
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Post by Shrapnel »

Something I've often strived to do on the Den is to avoid getting into or participating in any of the "heavier" and more heated discussions that often occur around here, which is why I very rarely post in political/religious threads, or in the IMHO and IMOV forums. There are two reasons why: First, I haven't got the knack. I'm absolutely terrible at debating and arguing, either on the Internet or in real life. I have neither the smarts to successfully argue my point (like Frank) or the sheer stupidity to just keep blathering on (like shadzar). I am not very good at articulating my thoughts coherently, either, as you may or may not have noticed.

The other reason is that I have learned - not just from my time on the Den, but from also watching MSNBC, Fox, CNN, CSPAN, and two cats that I once saw fighting over a dead frog in my driveway - that it is nearly impossible to change someone's mind about something, at least through debate. It is even further difficult to convince someone of another point of view on the internet, and pure madness to do so on a forum.

So I figure, since there are people here that are much better at it than I am, that I'd avoid the whole mess and leave all the arguing and rage to the rest of you.

... I'm not really sure what this has to do with anything, but now you've seen it and read it and now it's already a part of your brain so there.

On an unrelated bit, here's my character sheet from our current PTA game, mostly for shits and giggles, but also to justify the whole "In The Trenches" thing.

Sir Aaron:
- Trainer Page
- Trainer Battle
- Features
Pokemon:
- Riolu
- Pidgey
- Dustox
- Bulbasaur
- Croagunk
- Wooper
- Growlithe
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Post by Shrapnel »

I've always been self-conscious about my voice, because it's too soft, and it's.... I dunno, I just am, all right?

However, it's not entirely without cause: y'see, my voice seems to sound rather girlish when heard over a phone or recording. In fact, I have been mistaken for a female and called "ma'am" on the phone at least 26 separate times in my life, often by salespeople and whatnot. There was even once a case of a wrong number from a lesbian who asked me out because I apparently had a "super sexy voice". Thus far, she is the only woman to have ever said anything like that to me.

I'm not really sure how I should feel about that, even to this day.

So, I've attempted to post about our current PTA session about three times now, and each time some error with the internet has caused whatever I've typened to disappear, so now, for this fourth attempt, I've kinda lost the enthusiasm that I once had, and - considering the fact that I already wrote three summaries of the damn thing - I've also sorta don't feel like writing it again, so here's a quick overview:

It's set in real world 17th century France, but with Pokemon. Deal with it. My character, Sir Aaron, comes from the regular Pokemon World, and was transported to the French one after getting caught in a fight between Dialga and Palkia at Spear Pillar, and he is currently trying to find a way home during his adventures, and hopes to do so by finding Dialga and Palkia again. Darth's character is The Great Kung-Bill, who is the ancestor of David Carradine from Kill Bill. The Player That Jesus Loved* is the DM/GM/MC/TM/take-your-pick, and there's also another player whose character I have completely forgotten about. We are part of an Adventuring Guild, and currently are doing odd jobs for them and gaining levels and experience and shit.

There, I finally managed to get it out there. Take that, Internet!



* Our friend, who isn't on the Den, has requested that we don't use his name, so I've taken to calling him this because I think it's funny, doubly so since Darth's nickname in our group is Jesus.
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Post by Shrapnel »

Puzzle time, laddies!

Can you spot the difference between these two images?

Image Image

Click the spoiler for the answer!
Image
That's right! The difference is that the image on the right has Lebanese-Amercian diplomat Philip Habib in it!
Puzzles sure are fun, aren't they? Check back for more! Or maybe not! You never know with these things, do you!
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Post by Shrapnel »

One of the (two) great pleasures that I derive from playing TTRPGs, and RPGs in general, really, is the role-playing, which seems to be an often forgotten aspect of ROLE-PLAYING games. Now, I'm not especially good at it, I don't always stay in character, and I have very little grasp of player-character separation. But goddamn it, it's fun.

I think I may have pointed this out before, but the biggest problem that I have, however, is that no matter who I play, whether it be Blitzwing, ヘルバット, or Kris, I invariably end up playing Fluffernutt, in that I end up playing them as Chaotic Stupid. I don't know why, but I always play such characters even if they are supposed to be smart and shit. I think the problem may be on my end; I'm not too sure.

(Of course, the exceptions to this are my PTA characters, who actually tend to be rather not Fluffernutt. I have no idea why. In fact, I often don't have ideas as to why a great many things are. Just get used to it.)

Speaking of Fluffernutt, I feel I should mention how the character "retired". So, short version, we were playing a Pokemon campaign with a d20 system (it was before we discovered PTA), and I was playing Fluffernutt. Now, one of the important things about the character is that he made everyone else miserable, too, which is my second greatest joy of TTRPGs. In this game, however, he was making even me miserable, too. I suspect that once I had done the whole "You got your nose up my gun" bit, there really wasn't anything else I could do with the tiny little dude. Anyway, playing Fluffernutt was no fun anymore, and I wasn't enjoying the game as much, so I decided to have Fluffernutt killed: He was torn to pieces by two wild level one Pichu. It's how he would've wanted to go, anyway. Immediately afterward, I played a new character, and everyone, myself included, began enjoying the game much, much more.

Funny, that.

As a side note, I hate reading my past posts... they just fill me with so much shame. Anything from over a year ago makes me wince. It's like remembering something genital-headed you did while piss-ass drunk. Is this true for everyone, or was I (am still?) just really bad at posting and simply got marginally better at it to the point that I don't cringe at (almost) everything I write?
Last edited by Shrapnel on Sun Jun 01, 2014 5:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Shrapnel »

Last Saturday was perhaps the most productive session we've ever had.

It was our usual PTA game, with the usual gang of suspects, and we were all crammed into a small (but air conditioned) room. The GM spent some time catching us up on what we had done last session (about two to three months ago), when, somehow, the topic of organized religion in the 17th century arose.

Now, I don't know if anyone remembers the setting of our current PTA game, but the general gist is that it's 17th century historical Europe with Pokémon and steampunk Porygons and Mewtwos. Now, an integral part of the setting is that we all devolve into arguments and debates about the merits or lack thereof of Europe, the 17th century, the weather, Peter Holmes [whups, wrong one!], and the ethics of putting men to death in jails.

Well, this time the required argument was about religion, or more specifically, which ones did or did not exist in our game. This went on for some time, and in fact took up the entire three hours that we were supposed to be playing the game, to the point that it got to late to do anything. So, like I said, one of the most productive sessions we've ever had.
Last edited by Shrapnel on Mon Jul 28, 2014 11:23 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Shrapnel »

So, in our group, we had this member who I will call Al to protect his identity, even though his real name is Alan.

Now, Ala- Al was even more disruptive to the group than I was, and that's saying something. He would often whip out his smart phone and either play a roller coaster sim during the game (he was REALLY into roller coasters, like, a LOT), or he would pull up hentai pictures and show them to the rest of us.

Well, one day I was sitting next to him during a session and he had his phone out as per usual. I cannot for the life of me recall what the hell the game was or what it was about, because Al decided that day to show me some Princess Peach hentai (because that's something that you just do at D&D sessions, apparently) and that's all I can remember about it.

Now, I'll spare you the details, but the overall effect of this is that for the rest of the day my brain latched onto the idea of Peach hentai, so that when I got home I immediately went to my computer and started to look it up. The end result is that I accidentally saw a picture of Bianca from the Pokémon series, and so of course during the next session I decided to tell the group of my discoveries, because that's obviously the sort of shit you share with a group of your closest nerd dudebros.

Now, I don't know if anyone has played Black/White, but suffice to say Bianca is ULTRA annoying and stupid and god she needs to die, and is not the kind of character you'd want to find erotic art of.

Anyway, this lead to the rather unfortunate but in hindsight rather predictable consequence of the rest of the group for a time saying I had a Bianca fetish and referring to me or my characters as the above described fictitious personage, all of which was rather upsetting. Trust me, you do NOT want to be compared to Bianca.

Clearly, this was all Al's fault for showing me that fucking Princess Peach picture in the first place, which in turn led me on a quest to find erotic fan art of said princess and instead caused me no end of grief.

On a related note, I also discovered that the most common type of erotic Mario fan art were pieces depicting Peach, Daisy, Bowser or all three as shemales with dicks the size of a baseball bat. I'm sure you're all glad to know this.
Last edited by Shrapnel on Tue Jul 29, 2014 5:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Shrapnel »

Well, it's been a really long time since anything has happened on the TTRPG front, but - as of Saturday - we are officially back together at the table.

I'm referring, of course, not to the inevitable reunion tour of Billy and the Boingers (but that will happen someday, as sure as Ozzy is hairy), but to our gaming group getting together again.

And to mark this momentous occasion, we have decided to start a new campaign with a brand new system: PTU. (An aside: If your wondering why I only seem to play PTA games, it is because I grasp D&D only slightly better than I grasp string theory, and as such PTA is easier to play and understand (for me, at least). Also, I like Pokemon.)

Basically, PTU (Pokemon Tabletop United) is like PTA but better and it includes shit from Gen VI. And mounted combat is a thing! That's always nice.

The first session was mostly around familiarizing ourselves with the new system, creating our characters, setting up laptops, eating pizza, and one of the players making a nuisance of themselves (and it wasn't me, for once! The wonder of it all...). Y'know, the usual fair.

Oh, and Darth nearly killed someone's laptop. The high point of the session, surely.

Next weekend the game will hopefully start, and if we're lucky, we'll actually get at least fifteen-twenty minutes of progress through the game!
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Post by Shrapnel »

I didn't want to clutter up either of the Back to Basics threads, and I don't know where else to put this, so here we are:

AH, I think this has to be one of the greatest typos in history. And if it's not a typo, then don't tell me; I want it to be a beautiful mystery, like who really killed Abraham Lincoln.
Ancient History wrote:
Flintbeard then makes a lasso to grab the duckbunny, tie it up, and stuff it back in the bag.
The fuckbunny does its best to avoid Flintbeard. Lassoing it will not be easy.
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Post by Fwib »

Shrapnel wrote:I didn't want to clutter up either of the Back to Basics threads, and I don't know where else to put this, so here we are:

AH, I think this has to be one of the greatest typos in history. And if it's not a typo, then don't tell me; I want it to be a beautiful mystery, like who really killed Abraham Lincoln.
Ancient History wrote:
Flintbeard then makes a lasso to grab the duckbunny, tie it up, and stuff it back in the bag.
The fuckbunny does its best to avoid Flintbeard. Lassoing it will not be easy.
My theory was that 'fuckbunny' was in the autocorrect and 'duckbunny' was not. Sadly a boring theory based on my guess of word frequency.
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Post by Shrapnel »

'Tis still hilarious, though. I may have to sig it, but I'm torn on what I should boot out to fit it in.

Edit: Well, that wasn't too hard.
Last edited by Shrapnel on Wed Oct 08, 2014 10:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Shrapnel »

Random thoughts and musings from a harmless idiot.

You may be wondering why there hasn't been any updates lately. Well, that's because trying to get our gaming group together is like trying to lasso a fuckbunny: It ain't easy. Also, one of our group moved to a new place, so they've been busy setting up their new digs, which isn't very conducive to setting up times to meet.

So, something I've discovered is that I'm terrible at understanding D&D in general (NO, really?), but when it comes to PTA/U, I've got a slightly better grasp on it. It probably helps that when we play we use fan-made Excel spreadsheets that do most of the math for me (numbers make my head hurt) and spells everything out (yes, I need to be hand-led through the game, what of it?). And the game revolves around Pokémon. And it has pretty pictures of Pokémon fan art in the manuals. (Then again, D&D also has pretty pictures, and sometimes those pretty pictures are ladies with their bosoms exposed, which is nice.)

(I used a lot of parenthesis in that paragraph.)

I have no idea how you guys are able to keep all of that shit (re: rules and mechanics) straight and in your heads. Whenever I look at stuff like that, my head begins to hurt, my eyes water, and my fingernails start crying blood. Seriously, how do you do it? I mean, I'd love to be able to understand it all and join in on the various games and such here, but I'm just so terrible at it that I wouldn't have a clue as to what to do, and make a fool of myself, which is clearly something I strive not to do.

I've noticed that most Denners whose name begins with 'S' tend to be terrible people: Shadzar, silva, me... Is it just coincidence, or is there something far more sinister going on?

Giftmas is around the corner, so it's time to start warding off evil, cold-bringing spirits with porcine tits and wombat gizzards.

Something you should know about me is that I am terrible at finishing things and following shit through to the end. The 2E Manstur Monuol thread is a perfect example of this. Unless something is related to Transformers or Transformers, I will quickly lose interest.

I got a Wii U the other day, along with SSB4 for said Wii U. It is awesome, and I literally squealed like a five year old girl the first time I played it. I don't come off very well saying that, do I?

I don't consider myself a grammar Nazi, but I am a stickler for correct spelling. I always strive to spell things correctly, and whenever I see people doing things like this:
"r u a guy or a girl? if it says anywhere on ur talk page, i just kinda skimmed thru it.i always assumed u were a girl, but decided not 2 call u 1."
It makes me cringe, because - to me, at least - it makes that person sound mentally deficient.

And that's all from me for today.
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Post by radthemad4 »

Shrapnel wrote:I have no idea how you guys are able to keep all of that shit (re: rules and mechanics) straight and in your heads. Whenever I look at stuff like that, my head begins to hurt, my eyes water, and my fingernails start crying blood. Seriously, how do you do it? I mean, I'd love to be able to understand it all and join in on the various games and such here, but I'm just so terrible at it that I wouldn't have a clue as to what to do, and make a fool of myself, which is clearly something I strive not to do.
Try to do as much computation as possible pregame and put it down on your sheet. Make it like a monster stat block. In meatspace, you can probably just ask another player to help out. You can probably make an elaborate excel sheet to help you.
Last edited by radthemad4 on Tue Dec 09, 2014 6:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Shrapnel »

The main problem with that is... well, there are no words to describe just how truly awful I am at math and numbers. I literally cannot do any kind of math on my own. Hell, I can't can't even do addition without aid if it's anything more than two digits*. I also have no idea how to use Excell†, the PTA/U sheets we use were pre-made by some internet dude, and all the formulas are entered in there already; all I have to do is put in a number and it does the rest for me. It's magic‡.

But in meatspace, I do actually ask the other players for help, by which I mean I have them do everything for me except the role playing itself, which is the only thing I can really do, and even then, not too well. (But at least I enjoy that part.)



*Except multiples of five or ten, which are fairly easy enough to count.
†In fact, the only Microsoft Office product I am halfway competent at is Word. And Paint. And FreeCell.
(gettin' fancy with footnotes!)Magic = Math and science I don't understand
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