AtwasAwamps
2010-10-21, 09:06 AM
TL;DR - Character development is awesome.
Story:
I just really want to share this story. It was a beautiful moment in a game that made my players grin like idiots and made me lean back and nod in satisfaction.
My players were, for the first time in this campaign, confronted with an actual, honest to goodness, “Dungeon”…a mazelike warren of sewers and passageways that was the lair of a powerful group of spriggans, led by a gnome who was trying to control them or…as the party finds out…’fix’ the spriggans, restoring their minds back to normal.
The warlock in our party, an accidental addition from Sigil who is currently the subject of a rather nasty planar anamoly and keeps getting teleported through realities, recognized this gnome when he came out to confront the party…it was a warrior that he’d fought alongside back in his adventuring days in Sigil. He noticed a few odd things about the warrior – His face wasn’t moving properly, he was using magic when the warlock knew he didn’t have that skill before…and the warrior recognized him. Though the conversation started with the warrior wearing a rictus grin and taunting the party, when the warlock spoke, the gnome’s face twisted into a flat, neutral expression-and he encouraged the warlock to run. Then the face twisted into a terrible frown, lamented that fate of all those who crossed it, and fled further into the dungeon.
And then warlock stepped up and RP’d like a badass. See, he was playing a Gnome Feylock and was doing it, to the HILT, as a wacky flippant gnome…very fey, very lacksadaisacal, and reveling in his power and the use of it. At this moment, rather than cracking jokes and taunting the enemy, he went dead serious. He still made a few quips as they worked through the dungeon, but both the player and the character made a point of keeping a straight face and a worried look throughout, until they reached what appeared to a makeshift study.
In this study, they discovered a mystical video diary, in which the gnome, wrapped mostly in bandages, related his research in trying to save or mend the spriggans that he’d brought with him when he escaped the Formorians before they could twist him into a spriggan. He could barely control the wild creatures, thanks to his half-finished transformation, but he was doing his best. Barring civilizing them, he began trying to find a place to put them…but he was a fighter, not a caster.
He was found by a man draped in black, a powerful magician, who offered him a “pocket dimension” for his spriggan wards, as well as a magical mask that would hide his facial disfigurement…in return for the gnome warrior and his spriggans eliminating an adventuring party that had been causing him some trouble. That adventuring party, of course, being our intrepid party, and that powerful magician the nemesis they’ve been stalking across continents.
The last recording was one of the gnome, his face revealed but stiff, begging whoever found the diary to get out, that he couldn’t control the mask anymore…and begging someone to stop the magician.
Our warlock goes dead silent. The player stares at me for a long moment and then nods, decisively, and says the first altruistic thing the character and player have said the entire game:
“We’re saving him.”
He recieves no argument.
There’s more here…the warlock manages to do some extra research in the study, discovering more about the nature of the world he’s been sent to (and its NOT what the residents…ie, the other party members…think it is), and throughout all of the RP involved in this, there is a steady progression of the warlock’s character from light-hearted to stone-faced…he makes his Arcana and History checks, relates what he knows to the party in a dead serious voice, and urges the paladin to hurry with his prayer…and thanks him for praying for his friend.
It’s not long before they enter the room that the warrior has retreated through with a band of Spriggans. He taunts them, one hand holding an axe and the other a scepter, but the warlock tries desperately to reach out to him, to get to the gnome he knew before the mask took hold…it’s not working.
Now, I’d expected a few things out of this fight. The paladin and swordmage, I knew, would try to close in on the warrior and tear the mask off. They were more than able to do this, but it would allow some of the other spriggans in the room to reach the “squishies”…a bard, a rogue, a sorcerer, and of course, the warlock. They both tried to do so. The warlock marched straight into the room and asked me if he could use Decree of Khirad to force the warrior to take an action besides a basic attack.
Me: “What action?”
Warlock: “I want him to tear his mask off.”
I think about it and say yes, but he gets a saving throw. I warn the warlock that there is a bonus to saving throws in play (an ability stacked on the warrior), but he shook his head and said “This is what I’m going to do,” readies an action to Decree as soon as the warrior gets in range, and waits.
The warrior gets in range. Decree of Khirad hits EXACTLY the amount needed to nail his defenses. He rolls his saving throw, with a +2 from an aura. And he rolls a 7.
A cheer goes up and the warrior struggles to take his mask off. HE can’t do it…it’s got more than just a mental hold on him and is latched into his flesh. It does, however, cancel his turn. Plans are made for the bard to use her domination ability to the same effect. The warlock, however, didn’t feel like waiting that long. On his next turn, he teleported next to the fighter using a power and then…grappled him, wrestling him to the ground and trying to tear his mask off. The party went DEAD silent, jaws hanging open, as the most cautious player in the group…the player with the least damage taken, who always sought away to avoid conflict and combat, who had spent half the game running in terror from dangerous enemies…threw himself next to most dangerous creature on the field in an attempt to save its mind and soul. He succeeded, but it still wasn’t enough to tear the mask off (I had a set number of attempts made before the mask could be torn off…it was a mini skill challenge in the fight itself. The mask could also be attacked as a separate entity from the warrior himself, if the players thought of it).
So what does our cautious, tactical, smart warlock do?
Action Point.
“I do it again, goddammit.”
He succeeds again, causing blood to slick his hands and smoke to rise from his opponents face as the masks hold is loosening.
There was no stopping the warlock. While the rest of the party tore through the spriggans that accompanied the maddened gnome, the warlock…with low strength stores, low con scores, and no AC to speak of…spent the fight next to the warrior, soaking enormous hits from spriggans trying to get him away from their chief and hits from the boss himself (he was making saving throws every turn now, without the bonus, to try and stop the mask from making him fight…he failed most of them). Every turn, the warlock grappled away, usually failing. When the bard finally remembered to dominate the warrior, she managed to succeed in making him inch the mask off just a bit more…just before the warlocks turn.
With 15 ongoing damage from the other spriggans, 22 hitpoints, and nothing but the warrior left, the warlock rolls one more grapple check, while screaming at the figurine, the character, the NPC, and the world in general.
“Wake up, dammit! WAKE UP. THIS…ISN’T…YOU!”
Natural 20 on the last success needed. With a wrenching sound and the tearing of skin, the mask is torn off of the warrior and flung aside, radiating dark magic as it transforms into a plain wooden disc with eyeholes. The warlock stares down at the fighter’s ruined, smoking face, into the grin of a freed man.
“Hey there, Toiky,” says the warlock. And then the player looks at me and says “…I now drop unconscious.”
There are very few times at the table when someone gets applause…high fives, fist pounds, what have you, they happen all the time. But applause?
That’s something you gotta earn.
I just wanted to share that story. I know that you had to be there for a lot of it, but it was just too damn fantastic not to share. Thanks for reading if ya did.
Story:
I just really want to share this story. It was a beautiful moment in a game that made my players grin like idiots and made me lean back and nod in satisfaction.
My players were, for the first time in this campaign, confronted with an actual, honest to goodness, “Dungeon”…a mazelike warren of sewers and passageways that was the lair of a powerful group of spriggans, led by a gnome who was trying to control them or…as the party finds out…’fix’ the spriggans, restoring their minds back to normal.
The warlock in our party, an accidental addition from Sigil who is currently the subject of a rather nasty planar anamoly and keeps getting teleported through realities, recognized this gnome when he came out to confront the party…it was a warrior that he’d fought alongside back in his adventuring days in Sigil. He noticed a few odd things about the warrior – His face wasn’t moving properly, he was using magic when the warlock knew he didn’t have that skill before…and the warrior recognized him. Though the conversation started with the warrior wearing a rictus grin and taunting the party, when the warlock spoke, the gnome’s face twisted into a flat, neutral expression-and he encouraged the warlock to run. Then the face twisted into a terrible frown, lamented that fate of all those who crossed it, and fled further into the dungeon.
And then warlock stepped up and RP’d like a badass. See, he was playing a Gnome Feylock and was doing it, to the HILT, as a wacky flippant gnome…very fey, very lacksadaisacal, and reveling in his power and the use of it. At this moment, rather than cracking jokes and taunting the enemy, he went dead serious. He still made a few quips as they worked through the dungeon, but both the player and the character made a point of keeping a straight face and a worried look throughout, until they reached what appeared to a makeshift study.
In this study, they discovered a mystical video diary, in which the gnome, wrapped mostly in bandages, related his research in trying to save or mend the spriggans that he’d brought with him when he escaped the Formorians before they could twist him into a spriggan. He could barely control the wild creatures, thanks to his half-finished transformation, but he was doing his best. Barring civilizing them, he began trying to find a place to put them…but he was a fighter, not a caster.
He was found by a man draped in black, a powerful magician, who offered him a “pocket dimension” for his spriggan wards, as well as a magical mask that would hide his facial disfigurement…in return for the gnome warrior and his spriggans eliminating an adventuring party that had been causing him some trouble. That adventuring party, of course, being our intrepid party, and that powerful magician the nemesis they’ve been stalking across continents.
The last recording was one of the gnome, his face revealed but stiff, begging whoever found the diary to get out, that he couldn’t control the mask anymore…and begging someone to stop the magician.
Our warlock goes dead silent. The player stares at me for a long moment and then nods, decisively, and says the first altruistic thing the character and player have said the entire game:
“We’re saving him.”
He recieves no argument.
There’s more here…the warlock manages to do some extra research in the study, discovering more about the nature of the world he’s been sent to (and its NOT what the residents…ie, the other party members…think it is), and throughout all of the RP involved in this, there is a steady progression of the warlock’s character from light-hearted to stone-faced…he makes his Arcana and History checks, relates what he knows to the party in a dead serious voice, and urges the paladin to hurry with his prayer…and thanks him for praying for his friend.
It’s not long before they enter the room that the warrior has retreated through with a band of Spriggans. He taunts them, one hand holding an axe and the other a scepter, but the warlock tries desperately to reach out to him, to get to the gnome he knew before the mask took hold…it’s not working.
Now, I’d expected a few things out of this fight. The paladin and swordmage, I knew, would try to close in on the warrior and tear the mask off. They were more than able to do this, but it would allow some of the other spriggans in the room to reach the “squishies”…a bard, a rogue, a sorcerer, and of course, the warlock. They both tried to do so. The warlock marched straight into the room and asked me if he could use Decree of Khirad to force the warrior to take an action besides a basic attack.
Me: “What action?”
Warlock: “I want him to tear his mask off.”
I think about it and say yes, but he gets a saving throw. I warn the warlock that there is a bonus to saving throws in play (an ability stacked on the warrior), but he shook his head and said “This is what I’m going to do,” readies an action to Decree as soon as the warrior gets in range, and waits.
The warrior gets in range. Decree of Khirad hits EXACTLY the amount needed to nail his defenses. He rolls his saving throw, with a +2 from an aura. And he rolls a 7.
A cheer goes up and the warrior struggles to take his mask off. HE can’t do it…it’s got more than just a mental hold on him and is latched into his flesh. It does, however, cancel his turn. Plans are made for the bard to use her domination ability to the same effect. The warlock, however, didn’t feel like waiting that long. On his next turn, he teleported next to the fighter using a power and then…grappled him, wrestling him to the ground and trying to tear his mask off. The party went DEAD silent, jaws hanging open, as the most cautious player in the group…the player with the least damage taken, who always sought away to avoid conflict and combat, who had spent half the game running in terror from dangerous enemies…threw himself next to most dangerous creature on the field in an attempt to save its mind and soul. He succeeded, but it still wasn’t enough to tear the mask off (I had a set number of attempts made before the mask could be torn off…it was a mini skill challenge in the fight itself. The mask could also be attacked as a separate entity from the warrior himself, if the players thought of it).
So what does our cautious, tactical, smart warlock do?
Action Point.
“I do it again, goddammit.”
He succeeds again, causing blood to slick his hands and smoke to rise from his opponents face as the masks hold is loosening.
There was no stopping the warlock. While the rest of the party tore through the spriggans that accompanied the maddened gnome, the warlock…with low strength stores, low con scores, and no AC to speak of…spent the fight next to the warrior, soaking enormous hits from spriggans trying to get him away from their chief and hits from the boss himself (he was making saving throws every turn now, without the bonus, to try and stop the mask from making him fight…he failed most of them). Every turn, the warlock grappled away, usually failing. When the bard finally remembered to dominate the warrior, she managed to succeed in making him inch the mask off just a bit more…just before the warlocks turn.
With 15 ongoing damage from the other spriggans, 22 hitpoints, and nothing but the warrior left, the warlock rolls one more grapple check, while screaming at the figurine, the character, the NPC, and the world in general.
“Wake up, dammit! WAKE UP. THIS…ISN’T…YOU!”
Natural 20 on the last success needed. With a wrenching sound and the tearing of skin, the mask is torn off of the warrior and flung aside, radiating dark magic as it transforms into a plain wooden disc with eyeholes. The warlock stares down at the fighter’s ruined, smoking face, into the grin of a freed man.
“Hey there, Toiky,” says the warlock. And then the player looks at me and says “…I now drop unconscious.”
There are very few times at the table when someone gets applause…high fives, fist pounds, what have you, they happen all the time. But applause?
That’s something you gotta earn.
I just wanted to share that story. I know that you had to be there for a lot of it, but it was just too damn fantastic not to share. Thanks for reading if ya did.