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obliged_salmon
2010-12-27, 12:45 PM
So not enough non-DnD stuff in this forum today. I thought I'd correct that.

So the topic is, post here some yarns that have come about in your games that aren't DnD 3.5 or 4 (2e or below is allowed). DnD has its own language and consistency, which can be fun. I've found, however, that the spirit of independent games allows for so much more in a narrative and "play" sense, which is what I'm more interested in as a gamer.

I'll start.

Played a Risus game recently, one on one, in which my character was Na Zha, a God of war in the celestial bureaucracy.

At the beginning of the story, he is in hiding, unwilling to continue in his celestial position because of a great war of creation he knows is coming. His intention is to destroy the celestial bureaucracy to hopefully free the mortals of their tyranny and gluttony, by going through the underworld and facing the three divines. There, he will invoke the name of creation and unmake the great loom which tells the tale of fate, and the world.

On his way, he remembers scenes from his past, including when he was originally mortal, and won a great victory for the Jade Emperor who then fed him the fruit of immortality.

He also remembers the naming wizard who sought to use him to destroy the Jade Emperor and bring unlimited power to the wizard. Na Zha refused, and so the wizard killed Na Zha's progeny. Na Zha responded by wiping out a third of the world, and so depriving the wizard of much of his power over the names of things.

Then, he remembers his first trip into the underworld, where he found the now-dead wizard and fought him again, who used the spirits of things Na Zha had killed in his anger and wars against him. Na Zha stole the names from his spirit, corrupting the wizard into an empty shell.

In the last scene, Na Zha confronts the Monkey King, who fears that he will destroy all of creation if he goes through with his plan. Na Zha tries to convince him of his good intentions and rightness, but fails, perhaps because he has neither. He resorts once again to force of might, and vanquishes the Monkey King, his oldest friend.

He approached the three divines and the loom, curses them, and bemoans his own fate at having lived so long, and having done so little good. There the story ended, uncertain as to what he decided to do.

So how about the rest of you? What kind of awesome, independent gaming experiences have you all had?

Balain
2010-12-27, 01:07 PM
Well not really independent game, but not D&D. We played RuneQuest by Chaosium. Not sure what edition but the one published in 1984. The system was new to us, at least to the players. I was A local shaman that called on the spirits for his power, We had the normal party wizard, and this farmboy. The farmboy was suppose to have all this potential power. He just needed training. This one group was hunting down the farmboy. The player wasn't to happy when we let him get captured (we tried not to but we sucked lol) The farmboy ended up getting his essence drained. Which made him lose his powers and become depressed.

Oh yes Zeke the farmboy also had this pet pig he took everywhere we went. One day while talking with the spirits I saw a super powerful spirit attached to the pig but it never seemed to hear me or want to talk to me.

It was one of the best campaigns we played. It wasn't the best because of the system. The system was pretty standard, it wasn't the best because of the story telling, which was pretty darn good. This one GM was always good at the story telling part. It was the best because the system was new to us and we knew nothing about it playing. It had the normal monsters, but also new ones, even the standard monsters though we had no clue what to expect out of them.

Currently we are playing D&D but we also have a super heroes campaign going we play now and then using a modified fusion system. It was hard for us to get use to the system at first, coming from mostly D&D. So we beat up a bunch of the big bad guys followers and they have a bunch of equipment. But we can't take the equipment. You need to spend experience to take/get/use different equipment. Since we had no experience yet (or not enough) no loot for use.


I can't say enough how much of a good idea it is and how much fun it can be to play a new system once in awhile. So if you are the GM in your group, once in while pull out an new system and play it a bit.

bokodasu
2010-12-27, 01:49 PM
FUDGE counts as independent, right? We were playing a one-shot sailing adventure where I picked the doctor character, and we got attacked by a sea monster. I had zero ability to do anything combat-ish, so I went to the stores, found a pig carcass, loaded it with the ship's supply of morphine, and gave it to another character who tied it to an anchor and made the World's Largest Fishhook.

We got the beast to swallow it and it sedated him just enough to let the other players kill it. Turned out the sea monster attack was just supposed to be a plot device, so our ship got hit by a mysterious storm from a clear blue sky and we wrecked anyway, but at least we had a supply of food and some vital clues (that I found by dissecting the monster and finding out what its diet had been).

obliged_salmon
2010-12-27, 02:26 PM
Yes, let me clarify a bit. "Independent," for the purposes of this thread, means anything that isn't DnD 3.5 or 4th edition. Stories from all other games, regardless of their actual dependency, are welcome. Cool stories so far, keep 'em coming.

Totally Guy
2010-12-28, 05:20 AM
I'm running a Burning Wheel game where all the players are orcs interacting with orc society and attempting to unite the individual tribes into an almighty horde.

The character's are

Scum Whisperer - this guy has done all of the horrible jobs throughout his life and he's brimming with hatred from it. He's got an array of social skills and is the power behind the throne sidekick of Warlord Drodush.

Warlord Drodush - this character was born looking brutish and impressive and went through hazing rituals in his youth. He joined the black legion and was in command of a squad of trolls. A lot of the orcs thought he was casually sleeping with his trolls. He was able to pretty much take leadership of a clan until his rival, Herzog Gawrok tricked him into attending an unwinnable battle.

The Summoner - he's a summoner of Trolls and Demons, his background is among the orc mages. He has come to Warlord Drodush as he believes him to be the one who will unite the horde.

Grit the Troll - he's Drodush's bodyguard, controlled by Drodush's player, bought at character creation.

So far a clan of orc mages called the Slysides asked Warlord Drodush to kill off an elf know as the Magus to prove to them his power.

The warlord decided to take some humans as tribute for a dragon who'd likely know where the Magus would be. So they found an idyllic village which the summoner wanted to set on fire. After failing to do that he was in a perilous position and Warlord had to come in and save him. But Warlord Drodush was hit by an arrow and Grit had to do all the work.

They spent months hiding in a small cave whilst Drodush healed. Still partially injured they resumed the plan.

They thought about where the humans would wash and how they take a tribute for the dragon there. So after upsetting an Ent and having all kind of other complications come up they were eventually successful in taking a single old lady.

They found the dragon, Vasuki, and it turned out that with good graces and their tribute she would listen to them. She said that the price for the information would be a deal with a demon. Whatever the Demon asks. And they accepted! I thought they'd talk it out at least. But I guess Dragons are scary.

Anyway, the gang took on the Magus and took him back to the Slysides.

Excession
2010-12-28, 07:37 AM
I played an XD20 (http://www.xtremedungeonmaster.com/?page_id=90) sci-fi game a while back. The system is about one step away from Risus toward d20. The party consisted of:

- A heavy-worlder (ex)soldier who used a mono-filament sword and a heavy machine gun.
- A psychic who animated a giant teddy bear to fight for him. Cuddles was scary.
- A sentient plant with advanced instinctive bio-tech. Used a grenade launcher loaded with all sorts of weird chemical stuff. Turned the ship into a greenhouse because the mechanical life-support systems were offensively primitive.
- A crazy tinker-gnome type alien. Once built a gigantic mecha from scrap during combat.
- A slightly more normal ship's captain who was probably wondering why he always got all the crazies.

Free-form systems give the best characters. :smallbiggrin:

Britter
2010-12-28, 10:42 AM
Currently involved in a 7th Sea game. The crew consists of a handful of Castilleans of fairly high birth and education, an Avalonian with a faire curse, and a Eisen swordsman. So far we have faced off with a rival smuggler captain, defenestrated many piratical ruffians, encountered a mysterious Vodacce who is seeking the treasure map our quartermaster won in a card game years ago, and been hired by the Castillian resistance to work against the Montagine. We smuggled, then had stolen from us, then recovered, only to have it stolen from us again a cargo of medical supplies. In the process we rescued a mysterious artifact, learned of a mysterious prophecy related to said artifact, and fought a powerul bounty hunter who whopped us but good. Our entire crew got imprisoned by the Montagine dogs, and we have just staged a daring prison break. Once we have liberated our crew, we are off to find the mysterious island connected to aforesaid prophecy and artifact, so we can save Castille.

All that in just two sessions. Things are shaping up to continue to be interesting and fun.