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Silus
2011-06-02, 01:40 PM
Have you ever had or encountered a character in a game that just outright scared you?

Obviously, I have an example =P

oWoD game, I'm playing a Brujah named Nikolai. The guy is, essentially, a brute (relies mostly on physical force), but he's....well, he's a touch sadistic. His backstory is that he was trained by Spetznas and Mossad, and that his job in the current story is to find out who is murdering students at this weird magic Umbra school thing.

So we get our first....suspect (A girl, about 17-19 named Natalia). It sort of goes down like this:

Nikolai: "Tell us what we want to know, and we will let you go."
Natalia: *Spits on Nikolai's shoe*
Nikolai: "....." *Looks down at spit, then over to one of the party members* "You have a knife, yes?"
Party member: "Yeah." *Hands Nikolai a knife*
Nikolai: "I will ask you once more. Tell us what we want to know."
Natalia: *Sneers and spits again*
Nikolai: "....Very well." *Grabs Natalia by the head and begins sawing her ear off*

Yeah, that's just the tip of the iceberg there...

TheCountAlucard
2011-06-02, 01:56 PM
Funny you should mention oWoD Vampires, 'cuz Arch Whitman sprung immediately to mind. :smallamused:

Since I don't feel like cross-posting a lot, I'll just leave a link (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=179239) to my Vampire campaign journal here, 'kay? :smalltongue:

Yukitsu
2011-06-02, 01:58 PM
I'm usually more unnerved by the ones that smile politely and let you go without the information. It gives an unnerving feeling that they've already won, and I've been outgambitted. Besides, torture is at least indicative that I'm not facing anyone competent, and if I'm dead I'm dead. Only met one NPC that was of that sort when I knew he wasn't just bluffing.

Velaryon
2011-06-02, 02:14 PM
The one that gets me is a fellow PC in a game I'm in right now:

The character's name is Bjorn Yorgen. He's a Maenad, but became that way as a result of magical experimentation (he used to be Human) when he was captured by a group of wizards remarkably similar to Red Wizards, though the resemblance is mostly coincidental. Bjorn is also a Hexblade, with that ACF which lets him swap out his familiar for a panther-like creature made entirely of shadow that can debuff enemies it stands adjacent to.

Bjorn is... not exactly sane. He joined the party after the rest of us stumbled into his little fishing village, which was abandoned except for him. See, when he escaped the wizards who had experimented on him, he returned home to find that everyone in his village had been killed by those same wizards. So he had been living alone in this village for some unknown amount of time before we found him.

Not too long afterward, we were forced to fight off some undead creature that was made up of the tortured souls of everyone in the village - basically everyone that Bjorn had ever known. Their anguished faces were visible in the creature's body as we defeated it and (hopefully) ended their torment once and for all.

Bjorn decides to come with the rest of us since there's nothing left for him at home, and through a series of portal-hopping adventures we end up returning to our own home city, which had been under attack by an army of demons when we (mostly students at the city's wizard school) escaped through a recently discovered portal to an unknown location.

We returned to find the city mostly in ruins, overrun with demons, and packs of hellhounds roaming the streets. Eventually we found that the survivors were holed up in a heavily fortified mansion, and managed to get in to join them. Once there, we learn that the demon army was led by (you guessed it) those same wizards that ruined Bjorn's life. What's more, the survivors have recently captured one of these wizards.

Bjorn volunteers to interrogate the man, and upon seeing him realizes that this wizard is from the group that destroyed his village (although he doesn't know this wizard personally). What follows is something as chilling as the torture scene in Reservoir Dogs, as Bjorn calmly, even cheerfully, tortures the wizard (whom he nicknamed "Squirrely" since he refused to give his name).

At one point, the badly beaten wizard bites off his own tongue, hoping to bleed to death and escape further interrogation. Bjorn gently scolds the man, pulls out a magic item to heal him, and continues the torture without missing a beat.

What truly makes Bjorn terrifying to me is who's playing him. This particular friend of mine is one whom I would without hesitation describe as an all-around good guy. He pretty much always plays good characters; even his Dread Necromancer in my own campaign is as close to good alignment as the class will let him get. The actions of Bjorn Yorgen are chilling in their own right, but for me it's compounded by the fact that this particular guy is playing him.

Choco
2011-06-02, 02:14 PM
I played a character once who was basically a scientist, and who's method of interrogation was to torture the prisoner for a day or 2, in the process permanently disabling them in just about every way other than their ability to listen and speak, and then tell them that as soon as they talk and the information can be verified as true, they will be put out of their misery. Otherwise they would be kept alive and in pain until they talk. If they were taking too long (or honestly didn't know anything) he would experiment on them until they told him something. He had a high Sense Motive too, so if he thought they lied he would not give them a chance to talk again for a few days.

Then after they talked, he would cast a spell to read their mind to verify that they spoke the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Yes he could have done that in the first place, but hey the man enjoyed his job and wasn't gonna take shortcuts. Plus he did it for science, if he had not done that he would not have learned all he did about which organs are actually vital in the short term, that awesome "hidden" pain nerve, that it actually IS possible to cut off and switch around a persons hands and feet and reconnect the nerves in a way that they still work, etc. Whether they held anything back or not, on to the next paragraph!

One of his hobbies was creating chimeras the old fashioned way: AKA sticking together parts of creatures (living, dead, mechanical, or all of the above, it didn't matter) using magic and technology and seeing what happens. When he was attaching and replacing parts of people, he viewed it as doing them a favor by improving them and laughed at how stupid they are for not seeing that. People who spoke the truth during the interrogations were made into his servants, the rest were used for parts to be used for the former.

In combat I was sure to describe the kills in the most gruesome over-the-top ways possible (he was a self-buffer so he did a lot of physical combat). Some of my favorites are when he pulled out an enemy's intestines and choked him with them by seeing what happens if you create a loop by shoving them down his throat, literally tied an enemy into a pretzel and started betting on how long till he dies, literally shoved an enemy's head up his own butt and tried to start a betting pool as to whether he would die from the internal injuries sustained by doing that or suffocation first, etc. One time he was disarmed, so he "disarmed" the guy who disarmed him, and found out how far down the guys throat he can shove said arm before he dies.

Outside of combat he enjoyed seeing how much mental torment certain people could take before breaking. None of this bothered him, because he honestly viewed everyone and everything in existence as an object for him to study. As such he didn't actually take pleasure from what he did either, other than satiating his curiosity anyway.

That guy creeped the group out a bit. In case ya are wondering, the whole "theme" of that game was going over the top.

randomhero00
2011-06-02, 03:36 PM
I've never been scared, but I've scared my party members and DM :D But seriously though, they got so freaked they asked me to play a new character :(

I'm not even sure I can say what he did here. It was very sadistic. The OP's ear story has nothing on it. If you want to know PM me.

Pisha
2011-06-02, 04:30 PM
Similarly, I don't think my favorite "scary character" story is entirely board-appropriate either. The simple version, then: a friend of mine played a Changeling:the Lost character who was very low Clarity (i.e. quite insane), and carried around a sock puppet that he insisted was a separate person. He would speak to it, then have it "answer" him. Now, you might think this is a silly, funny concept, a la Elan and Banjo the Clown.

I assure you, when you are on the receiving end of an interrogation, with this guy and the puppet playing Bad Cop/Worse Cop, it is not. Not even a little bit.

Solaris
2011-06-02, 04:34 PM
I once played a character named Jon Stryker. Rather ordinary chap, only normal in a setting full of psionics, magic, and science fiction powers.
He was easily the scariest one there, or so I've been told. I think it helps that I play him and... well, let's just say I maxed out the Intimidate skill (despite a Cha penalty), and I'm not a half-bad actor.
Jon was a very, very bad person. He wanted revenge on one Kyne Xaratan. Why? Never really figured it out. He never told anyone. They used to be on a zoid team together, something happened between them. Jon left, Kyne stayed on the team and made it big. Stryker started with one of Kyne's team-mates, a man named Tim. Tim had a wife and an infant daughter, and was run by a buddy of mine.
Stryker didn't directly kill the daughter. The wife, on the other hand, received a blood eagle. Look it up, kinda neat. Stryker set up the wife's body in a classic Madonna pose (not the singer), cradling the infant. When Tim found them, Stryker abducted him and called the police. The police arrived in time to trip a wire, setting off a bomb that destroyed the apartment complex - including the corpse holding the crying infant.
(Tim's player? Not so much with the happy.)
By the time Kyne and the surviving team-members found out (Jenny Takaiian-Xaratan, his cousin, and Hank "Craters" Fisk, the lunatic gunbunny), Stryker had already gone after Kyne's sort-of girlfriend at the diner she managed just as she was closing shop.
(Hey, I hated that little relationship anyways.)
He skinned her alive, then applied a hemostatic agent to the bare flesh to prevent her from bleeding to death too quickly. I'd been working up what looked like a love triangle there with the sole intent and purpose of making it easier for Stryker to do this.
Jon Stryker had taken the Leadership feat. He boogied out of there before anyone could figure out what was happening with the girlfriend, and had his cohort set up a sniping position across the street from the diner. The cohort took two shots - one to take out Jenny, another to take out Craters - before getting on a motorcycle and taking off.
Kyne eventually has his showdown with Stryker. Big epic battle between their zoids. Kyne wins, and then when he comes home the next day he finds a DVD taped to his door. He puts it in.
The video is kind of shaky and grainy, but he can tell it's Tim tied to a chair. Someone is dousing Tim with a liquid. Stryker's voice comes from just offscreen. "You came into this world blind, naked, and screaming," he says as he walks into view. He lights a match. Tim's eyes get real wide. "And that's how you'll be leaving it."
Tim takes two hours to burn. Kyne knows, because he watches the whole thing - and he notes the timestamp on the corner of the screen. Tim died that morning, after the fight with Stryker.
I never did admit whether or not he'd actually killed Stryker in their duel.

First time I'd seen a GM trying to play catch-up with one player taking out all of the others. They'd all thought it was going to be just some lighthearted fun, until I approached the GM the night before with all of the plans and contingencies. I understand it was when I was acting out Stryker during Tim's final moments that really scared my buddies.

Silus
2011-06-02, 05:11 PM
I've never been scared, but I've scared my party members and DM :D But seriously though, they got so freaked they asked me to play a new character :(

I'm not even sure I can say what he did here. It was very sadistic. The OP's ear story has nothing on it. If you want to know PM me.

*Chuckles* Well the vamp did more than just cut the girl's ear half off.

Let's see. She tried to escape, so Nikolai took a lead filled steel pipe to her hand, shattering the bones, and then continued to ask her questions in a fairly calm manner. We then got an IV and some questionably acidic chemical and were gonna fill her veins with the stuff if she didn't talk.

That's about the point where she botched a spell and started internally bleeding.

Long story short, my vamp now has a minion.

Then there was the teacher. Guy was stupid enough to stab a student in the chest with a pair of mages and a vampire next to him. So Nikolai knocks the guy out with a pipe to the head, ties him up and starts questioning.

The teacher starts gettin' crazy, talking about how he and the other bad, crazy wyrm worshipping nutjobs that are hiding at the school were going to torture and kill Nikolai's ward (a 11 year old named Illyena). Well this sent Nikolai a little over the edge. After some taunting from the prisoner, Nikolai ended up dislocating the guy's knee (was attempting to rip it off) and then broke his knee joint backwards.

The guy was shortly thereafter blown up by a Fibonacci bullet.

Tengu_temp
2011-06-02, 06:03 PM
Similarly, I don't think my favorite "scary character" story is entirely board-appropriate either. The simple version, then: a friend of mine played a Changeling:the Lost character who was very low Clarity (i.e. quite insane), and carried around a sock puppet that he insisted was a separate person. He would speak to it, then have it "answer" him. Now, you might think this is a silly, funny concept, a la Elan and Banjo the Clown.

I assure you, when you are on the receiving end of an interrogation, with this guy and the puppet playing Bad Cop/Worse Cop, it is not. Not even a little bit.

I don't know. Maybe I just have a very dark sense of humour, but no wonder what terrible acts come to mind this still sounds pretty hilarious to me.

I didn't really have any disturbing PCs I remember, since I tend to play games with heroic characters. I have an NPC in one of my games who will probably disturb the players a lot once they find out more about him, though - they've met him before, but they don't know his secret yet.

Yukitsu
2011-06-02, 11:34 PM
I don't know. Maybe I just have a very dark sense of humour, but no wonder what terrible acts come to mind this still sounds pretty hilarious to me.

I didn't really have any disturbing PCs I remember, since I tend to play games with heroic characters. I have an NPC in one of my games who will probably disturb the players a lot once they find out more about him, though - they've met him before, but they don't know his secret yet.

You have an evangelion avatar, and find people who have cracked and view puppets as people funny... I'm deeply disturbed.

Flame of Anor
2011-06-02, 11:54 PM
I once played a character named Jon Stryker. Rather ordinary chap, only normal in a setting full of psionics, magic, and science fiction powers.
He was easily the scariest one there, or so I've been told. I think it helps that I play him and... well, let's just say I maxed out the Intimidate skill (despite a Cha penalty), and I'm not a half-bad actor.
Jon was a very, very bad person. He wanted revenge on one Kyne Xaratan. Why? Never really figured it out. He never told anyone. They used to be on a zoid team together, something happened between them. Jon left, Kyne stayed on the team and made it big. Stryker started with one of Kyne's team-mates, a man named Tim. Tim had a wife and an infant daughter, and was run by a buddy of mine.
Stryker didn't directly kill the daughter. The wife, on the other hand, received a blood eagle. Look it up, kinda neat. Stryker set up the wife's body in a classic Madonna pose (not the singer), cradling the infant. When Tim found them, Stryker abducted him and called the police. The police arrived in time to trip a wire, setting off a bomb that destroyed the apartment complex - including the corpse holding the crying infant.
(Tim's player? Not so much with the happy.)
By the time Kyne and the surviving team-members found out (Jenny Takaiian-Xaratan, his cousin, and Hank "Craters" Fisk, the lunatic gunbunny), Stryker had already gone after Kyne's sort-of girlfriend at the diner she managed just as she was closing shop.
(Hey, I hated that little relationship anyways.)
He skinned her alive, then applied a hemostatic agent to the bare flesh to prevent her from bleeding to death too quickly. I'd been working up what looked like a love triangle there with the sole intent and purpose of making it easier for Stryker to do this.
Jon Stryker had taken the Leadership feat. He boogied out of there before anyone could figure out what was happening with the girlfriend, and had his cohort set up a sniping position across the street from the diner. The cohort took two shots - one to take out Jenny, another to take out Craters - before getting on a motorcycle and taking off.
Kyne eventually has his showdown with Stryker. Big epic battle between their zoids. Kyne wins, and then when he comes home the next day he finds a DVD taped to his door. He puts it in.
The video is kind of shaky and grainy, but he can tell it's Tim tied to a chair. Someone is dousing Tim with a liquid. Stryker's voice comes from just offscreen. "You came into this world blind, naked, and screaming," he says as he walks into view. He lights a match. Tim's eyes get real wide. "And that's how you'll be leaving it."
Tim takes two hours to burn. Kyne knows, because he watches the whole thing - and he notes the timestamp on the corner of the screen. Tim died that morning, after the fight with Stryker.
I never did admit whether or not he'd actually killed Stryker in their duel.

First time I'd seen a GM trying to play catch-up with one player taking out all of the others. They'd all thought it was going to be just some lighthearted fun, until I approached the GM the night before with all of the plans and contingencies. I understand it was when I was acting out Stryker during Tim's final moments that really scared my buddies.

:eek:

Just...wow.

Alleran
2011-06-03, 04:19 AM
A friend of mine played a sociopath once.

He's also a very good roleplayer. We were half-wondering where the line between him and his character was by the end of the first few months. He honestly played that character as though he had ice water in his veins. If it helped the group, he'd do it. Whether that was saving a princess from a demon lord, or brutally murdering her and stringing her guts up on a fence for the entire kingdom to see.

And he was impossible to predict with that character. Downright creepy.

onthetown
2011-06-03, 09:49 AM
I gave my DM a bit of a scare when I said my new character was going to be Chaotic Neutral. He's calmed down a bit since I'm actually playing CN as CN, and not as CE.

Alignment aside, we once played with a half-orc named Krush Skullz. He liked crushing skulls. Sometimes he was terrifying, but it was all in good fun. :smallamused:

jidasfire
2011-06-03, 10:22 AM
I ran a game once where the PCs were a medieval crime syndicate, and while several of the characters were scary, one stands out above all. He was a giant hobgoblin fighter named Derro, who wielded a pair of hatchets, and happened to have wild psionic talents that increased his physical abilities when he got angry. His first action as a PC was to drop a desk on the legs of a man who owed the boss money. Another time, he was passed out for a day (which he often needed to do in order to regenerate his wounds) and the rest of the PCs stole his box of fancy cigars. When he came to, and realized his cigars were missing, he went on a rampage, trashing the bar the PCs hung out at, and was only stopped by very strong poison. When he calmed down (no, it didn't kill him), he put out a cigar in the face of the PC whole initially stole the box. Another time, he was forced to fight in a gladiatorial arena in a ring that was rapidly filling up with lava. His opponent, the local champ, had knocked Derro's hatchets away and was about to deliver the death blow, so Derro grabbed a handful of lava and smeared it in the champ's face, burning away most of his hand in the process.

Derro's final and most horrible series of actions was retaliation against the crime boss who'd sold him into slavery in the first place. He went to said boss's home turf, bringing with him a horse carrying two drums of oil. He lit the horse's tail like a fuse and kicked it through the door of boss's home, leading to a massive explosion, after which he really got started. He massacred his away across the entire city, making sure to spread the fire and death as much as he could. Long story short, he burned the city to the ground, destroyed the crime boss's organization, killed most of the city guard and lots of civilians before he was himself slain. The funny part was, he had several chances to run, but chose instead to keep killing and destroying, and was ultimately okay with his own death. His fellow PCs were terrified of him, but drank to his passing whenever they could.

aart lover
2011-06-03, 10:37 AM
one of my players is kinda scary. you pretty much sum him up with 2 words, "bad-ass" and "overkill". his name was Attin Ironbones, Half-Orc Barbarian, foul temper. this one time he found out that his "business partner" had been cheating him in a deal, he...launched a flaming ballista bolt straight through his torso:smalleek:. or this other time we needed to interrogate this one thief, the thief guy was being difficult, so Attin shoves a friggin' flare gun down his throat and FIRES IT. also, only guy i've ever known to respond to an arrow through the eye by ripping it out and stabbing his attacker with it :eek:

Tengu_temp
2011-06-03, 10:46 AM
You have an evangelion avatar, and find people who have cracked and view puppets as people funny... I'm deeply disturbed.

She thinks the doll is her daughter! Ha ha ha! So silly! </Cinema Snob>

lord pringle
2011-06-03, 05:28 PM
three words: Necrophiliac Monk Cleric.

Terraoblivion
2011-06-03, 06:11 PM
I have an NPC in one of my games who will probably disturb the players a lot once they find out more about him, though - they've met him before, but they don't know his secret yet.

Which of your games is this? One of the ones I'm in? Also, Lightly was terrifying. I mean, sure you laugh at Kimura in Azumanga Daioh, but imagine having to react to him? And answer to him as a subordinate when you're just a teenage girl with romantic ideas of the military? Quite creepy to say the least.

wayfare
2011-06-03, 06:18 PM
I usually play characters in support roles (In AD&D i as a wizard, in Earthdawn I play a weaponsmith, the very definition of "support character"), but I have one character that really screwed with my party. His name was Vayne, and I played him in a modified version of nWoD with a fantasy setting.

Vayne was an immortal who lost his memory. Now, before you go thinking that this meant I could toss a bunch of cheese into my character, let me clarify. Being immortal didn't mean that he couldn't die -- just that if he did die, he would eventually be re-assembled by magitech over the course of months or years.

Vayne was the 13th immortal in this setting. His job was to keep the other 12 immortals in line -- if they ever lost sight of their own mortality, he was sent out to reacquaint them with old grim.

As you might imagine, vayne was a combat heavy character. At one point the party was dispatched to investigate some disappearances. We tracked them down to a secret cult trying to gain power from the BBEG of the setting. The cult was mostly composed of bored teenagers and nobles with lots of money but nothing interesting in their lives. So they decided to worship the BBEG.

OK. This steamed my character up a bit.

So when we are infiltrating the secret cult base and get stopped by these guys, Vayne throws them down a stairwell. He then hops down to the next level and dispatches the next batch of guards in the same way. Any that survive their falls are not killed, but left to suffer their wounds.

I didn't really see the moral issue here (yes its bad to throw people down the stairs, but who would tell that to an immortal assassin) for vayne, but my party was completely horrified. They were used to thinking of Vayne as an efficient killer, not some guy who would defenestrate teenagers.

So, while not excessively brutal, it still creeped the heck out of my party.

LrdoftheRngs
2011-06-03, 09:31 PM
The character in my most recent campaign whose actions I am going to post here wasn't so much scary, but his one action was. They were sleeping in an inn when a group of assassins ambushed them. Being the paranoid little gnome that he is, he sleeps with a knife beside his bed. When the anguished cry of a character that just took 60% of his hp in damage (Critical sneak attack) woke him, he saw one of these assassins was standing over him. To keep this postable, lets just say that he gave the assassin a very efficient, quite permanent contraceptive :smalleek:. To make matters worse, he put the "results" of this maneuver in a cloth bag (Don't ask why, he was roleplaying his CE sorcerer extremely well). When they were in the slums of the same city investigating this attempt at murder, they got mugged. His character said that he would hand over all their money in a cloth bag, much to the dismay of the other players. At least until he said which bag he was giving. The muggers went away, then about 15 seconds later, the characters heard a shriek and the thud of the muggers fainting.

Warlawk
2011-06-04, 02:41 AM
I've played a couple evil games, and gotten more than a few strange looks from our group.

Frankly though, I find it more disturbing when you're playing a good guy. Really getting into it, to the point where it feels like the character has completely taken on a life of its own. Then, something happens and you find that characters killswitch. Something comes along in game and throws the switch, and you've just found the hotbutton that turns this nice-guy hero into a cold blooded killer that will do ANYTHING to prevent/avenge something.

Honestly, that creeps me out a lot more than an evil character doing evil things. Finding the snapping point where an all around good person crosses the line.

Tengu_temp
2011-06-04, 05:20 AM
Which of your games is this? One of the ones I'm in? Also, Lightly was terrifying. I mean, sure you laugh at Kimura in Azumanga Daioh, but imagine having to react to him? And answer to him as a subordinate when you're just a teenage girl with romantic ideas of the military? Quite creepy to say the least.

I can't tell. Thpoilerth!
Lightly was creepy to the characters, but he was funny to the players. Well, at least he was funny to me. I'm a mean DM.

Solaris
2011-06-04, 07:26 AM
:eek:

Just...wow.

On the plus side, they quit trying to have any fratricidal fights going down when I was around.

FMArthur
2011-06-04, 09:56 AM
While there have been a couple of villains presented by novelist DMs that have successfully sent chills down my spine as the magnitude of the threat we (the players) are up against is gradually and uncovered through smart storytelling techniques (suffice to say that player-initiated discovery somehow carries more verisimilitude than NPC scripts on what we're "supposed" to know at certain points), I have to say that I've been more creeped out by people at the table in the way they handle RP than actual game entities.

I've known a few very messed-up people, whose character backstories and roleplay seem to bear a few too many direct analogies to events and people in their own lives. Usually they are totally oblivious to the awkward level of nakedness as they lay their psychological problems or fetishes on the table. Some of the entries in 'DM horror stories' threads here seem to result from that type of play just happening to come from the wrong seat of the table.

Lady Tialait
2011-06-05, 07:16 PM
Sir Aurter Dragomire of Clan Tzimisce, and Wally from Somewhere both played by the same person, both oWoD characters.

Aurter was a Teutonic loyalist, and was a member of a secret order that protected the Czar. He was embraced quite violently into clan Tzimsice, and used Vissitude to become a talented surgeon. He helped advance medicine at an extreme pace. What was scary about him is that he had very low humanity, and pretty much ran off an obsession with how sickness, both mental and physical worked. Instead of ridding himself of humanity, he simply rode the fine line between the man and the beast. During the whole of the Chronicle he slowly slipped into a totally alien mind, that was hard to understand. He would do what was best for his patients, no matter who it killed. He was a very disturbing character to be around, and the fact that we roleplay hardcore and ignore our character sheets sometimes larping....it got skin crawlingly scary.


As for Wally from....somewhere...well he was Malkavian. I was never sure what was madness and what was just him being viscous. He would often set up elaborate plans that didn't come to fruition for months real time. The scary part was, the guy who played him had written down on the character sheet as the insanity "Hear's voices" but he never seemed to argue with himself, but the way he played the character he was unpredictable. That sense of uncertainty make everyone uncomfortable.

tribble
2011-06-05, 07:45 PM
Sure is World of Darkness in here.

I had one good moment as ST in Exalted. The party was Dragon-blooded, and set up with the intention of the game being, to put it bluntly, Geass Note. Anyway, they were on skullstone investigating missing shipments one player had been exporting to skullstone. After letting them meet the (obnoxiously cheerful) abyssal city manager, who flirted with them, I woke them up with a 1984-style public radio thing. Earlier, I had been careful to describe the presence of a small golden "buddha" figurine on the dresser of their rooms (They were staying in a ritzy hotel prepared for them by a ghoul.). The next morning, they awoke to the sound of the abyssal governor playing music and doing the weather-coming out of the buddha. One of my players made a point of turning the buddha to face the wall before he left.


I must say I enjoyed his expression.



EDIT:

As for Wally from....somewhere...well he was Malkavian. I was never sure what was madness and what was just him being viscous.

Generally, you can assume the drippy, sticky parts are him being viscous.:smallamused:

absolmorph
2011-06-05, 11:05 PM
I'm going to preface this story by mentioning two things:
One, this was a 4e DnD game, so paladins don't have a code they have to follow.
Two, this character was a commando prior to joining the party.

This didn't really scare me, but it scared everyone else in the group.

The start of the grudge:
Our party (level 8 at the time) was going around the continent and collecting the plot tokens for a king. We got all of them, then went back to the king and, after a bit of chat, the wall exploded and some orcs attacked. Then came the big wham. The BBEG, Orcus and Lolth all came through the door of the throne room and informed us that their army had invaded the castle. After some banter, Orcus charges the party, my paladin gets ready to face him and suddenly we get teleported out. A second teleport drops us in an icy area, we have an adventure, then get teleported into an alleyway in an unfamiliar town on an unknown continent.
A bit of inquiry reveals that the town is the center of the continent's dominant religion, and my paladin decides that we should head to the temple and talk to a priest (since we were given a task by Melora, in person). The head priest sends us on a forest adventure, which is easy. We go back to town.
When we go back to the temple, he calls some soldiers out and calls us demons because we teleported into town, and only demons teleport. Supposedly. I admit, our cleric is a succubus, but she hadn't used any of her succubus abilities.

Fast forward a few weeks. We're now level 13 or so. We've helped free Corellon and win a war, and my paladin got a pretty big power boost.

And now, the revenge:
We return to the town as escorts for a wine merchant. Part of our pay was some extremely flammable liquids. I discuss payback with the ranger's player, he agrees.
We wait until we know all of the townsfolk will be at a service, then gear up and march to the temple. We burst through the doors, and my paladin opens the discussion by hurling a Large-sized maul into the altar. We allow the terrified civilians to flee, then begin lighting the place on fire, partially with improvised Molotov Cocktails using the liquid from the merchant. Some guards come, but go down really easy (after lodging a musket ball in my shoulder).
My paladin picks up the priest and pulls him outside, and the building eventually collapses in flames. I take a dagger, then use a burning piece of wood to heat it.
The hot dagger then was used to slice up one side of the priest's face, ruining his right eye.

And that's the story of how my paladin put out the eye of the campaign's corollary to the Pope.

SilverSavio
2011-06-05, 11:50 PM
Does it just have to be characters? Or can scary game groups be talked about here, because the first couple of DnD games I ever played were with people who power gamed to the max. I mean they played with 7 characters a piece all about level 15, and I made a Halfling Rogue 1. They proceeded to go to Hell if I remember right. And there was a guy there that just by swinging his mace knocked everyone to 5 hp...because his army behind him was destroyed so that the PCs could live. I even managed to get my hands on a weapon in that game. It was a sword that I called the "Big Butter Knife". 9d20+41, 4-20x19 for critical hits ... These are the things that haunt my nightmares.:smalleek:

Dwoir
2011-06-06, 01:47 AM
From the NPC point of view, I'd say every party is pretty darn scary, or rather the ones I'm involved in. Did you know axes have a 1d8 bonus to Diplomacy checks?

My current Dwarf fighter could been seen as scary in that he is half-insane after we decided implementing the Sanity rules into our 3.5 game. Bad idea mechanically, great for character development. He endured all sorts of mental taunts from a mind-flayer, domination from an aboleth, killing his best friend, long-term insanity (curse you necrophilia..), and deals with dragons and demons. It soon reached a spill-over point. Thus, his psyche was broken, and he has a very thin grasp on reality - it only really extends to what is in his hands. So, while he may not be scary as in disturbingly violent or dark, I've scared the party plenty with him - jumping onto fleeing krakens being the least of their worries.

In essence, I'd say he's scary in the same way as a half-senile old man armed to the teeth could be. Except, this half-senile old man charges everything that looks remotely hostile, and carries all the gold and loot. Where he goes, the gold goes; Where the gold goes, the party goes :smallbiggrin:

Pyrophilios
2011-06-06, 03:38 AM
nWoD: Crossover - three mages, one werewolf, one vampire and a mortal blacksmith.

Three guesses who was feared the most.

The story was staged largely in Cape Town and revolved around the acquisition of power and the destruction of the local ruling supers.

The blacksmith became the boogie man of the night people. He captured them in elaborate traps or beat them in duels. His favorite tool was a spade to decapitate subdued foes. If he was bared entrance by mystical means, he sent bombs per mail or model helicopter.
In short he was a real Terrorist.
And he never showed his real face.



This was prior to the release of Hunter and a bit of a paranoid game. Everyone tried to conceal as long as possible what he was.

To be fair, the blacksmith was the only optimized character (Dex fencer w/ FS: Fencing, sharpened saber, lots of WP, Pride for Sin, Fortitude as Virtue, highest occult knowledge, Kevlar armor, Kung Fu Iron Skin, Shotgun)

As the story wore on, they discovered each others weaknesses... except the mortal had no recognizable weakness. Bullets did only bashing damage (Kevlar under wide clothes), mental domination failed (WP to shore up the defenses and unoptimized abilities from the other players), Lunacy seemed to have no effect (high WP and exposure primarily to the near human and wolf forms, drugs and the abuse of the mob rules), protection from (vulgar) magic (just paradox and WP).

It all hinged on their inability to recognize his true nature. The GM had a lot of fun with this and might have bent certain situations so that he could keep the secret just a little longer.

The blacksmith was crazy prepared and used Armory to its fullest extend (high resources). Also he did not need to invest XP in supernatural advantages and instead purchased every useful merit that could give him a situational advantage (Tolerance for Biology, Emotional Detachment, Meditative Mind, iron stamina, etc.)

All that wouldn't have helped him, if the other players had really used their potential. But the more he achieved the more they were afraid to confront him.

Yes, power gamers can be scary.:smallwink:

tribble
2011-06-07, 07:56 PM
Batman

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