PDA

View Full Version : "I have come here to chew ass and kick bubblegum..." [Rants that just never go right]



Arcanist
2012-11-01, 06:26 AM
We all experience those. Occasions when our perfectly prepped out speeches either get interrupted by the DM, a phone call, another player making a terrible joke that spoils the mood, etc. You name it I can guarantee someone has experienced it and has always regretted it.

This thread is to highlight those moments and generalize our Epic speeches that didn't turn out so epic...

For example, this happened to me a little while ago while I was DM'ing for a friends first fully played through game. The BBEG was a Shade Cleric of Shar who had been camped up In a Tainted Bog and had gone insane along with his flock.

BBEG: "I have finally completed it... Yes... After these long, long years... These torturous years... Sacrificing every little thing just for this one moment, only to be attacked by a measly child... No... The Sharess, would not desire this... This goes against her very doctrine... PREPARE FOR-"

Player: "MAH D---!"

BBEG: "... Divine Judgement" :smallannoyed:

I get that it was his first time playing, but it took me all day to think up that game just to lead up to that speech and he just... ruined it with dirty humor... Ah well... no use frowning over split milk I guess...

Anyway, post your Speeches and if you remember or want to your initial reason for saying it (or wanting to) :smallsmile:

PaperMustache
2012-11-01, 08:05 AM
This is why whenever I want to say something awesome, I just write it down and give it to the DM beforehand. Then when the opportunity presents itself, I just say "I give that badass speech. The one about how incredibly powerful and prone to destruction we are... You know the one that borrows heavily from Iron Man's headcount speech. Yes, that one. I'll roll intimidate now." Rather than trying to be all melodramatic in game. But then, I'm speaking as a player here.

As a DM, I tried once to introduce the BBEG early on because I wanted the party to have a chance to gain information right from the source and also establish a personal vendetta against the party. He was going to give a speech about how he was going to kill the spirit who was guarding him and then he would be free to "continue his research" which translated to "kill a bunch more people and spell out their names in blood" (insane ghost wizard with a linguistics obsession...) Anyway, what actually happened was he started talking and the party witch immediately cast Charm Person on him. I didn't know that ghosts were immune to that sort of thing, so the megalomaniacal speech turned into a pleasant chat wherein he layed out his plans in detail and told the witch where/how to find him and his allies. Saying "I'm going to spell out her name in goat blood and she will die again" with a pleasant smile was not really what I was expecting, but it was sort of cool anyway.

Lentrax
2012-11-01, 09:41 AM
Sometimes I accidentally, no matter how prepared I am, end up using the completely wrong verb.

Example: What I meant to say: "Until next we meet."
What came out of my mouth: "Until next we part."

Averis Vol
2012-11-01, 01:47 PM
DM(me): as you inhale from the pipe the shaman has--

Player1: awesome, we're stoned.

DM: shut up Anthony, as I was saying,as you inhale from the pipe the shaman has given you, your vision blurs a light purple and you drift from your body in a new form. Juan, yours is the visage of a large black wolf with pale blue eyes. You lick your maw as you look to see Anthony. He's towering barbarian has his regular upper body, but the til and slit eyes and tongue of a powerful desert snake. He looks over to see Ed cloaked in perpetual shadow with beating red eyes.

Player2: lol Anthony looks stupid.

Player1: **** you dude.

DM:both of you shut the **** up. the disembodied voice of the shaman says "this is a segregated area of the spirit realm where you may do as you please without angering the spirits near you... Kay peeps, whats your characters dreams?

Player1: glorious battle by the side of my king!

DM: Kay. you close your eyes and picture glorious battle. As you open your eyes you barely dodge a thrust of a Longsword before you ram the tip of your spear through his gut--

Player2: lol, tip.

DM: bro, shut. Up. And land a thrust from below a horseman looking to cut down your king

Player2: dude, you just saved the king. He would be like "oh bro, thanks for saving me, ohh cool our hands are the same size, and my wife's tits fit my hand perfectly--

DM: ya know what, **** this I'm out *flips table while everyones busting up*

.....

M groups a bunch of jackasses who I need to stop runni g serious games for. My other friend took vodka from a stranger so he was out, otherwise he would have contributed:smallannoyed:

Kurald Galain
2012-11-01, 02:45 PM
I once played a cleric-like character focused on melee fighting rather than spellcasting, who was getting increasingly fed up and angry at the (evil, duh) team we were working against. I had this whole moment planned where he would beat one of the enemies to a pulp with his bare fists while loudly reciting (punch) the prayer (punch) to his deity (punch), then teleport out before the rest of the group would realize he had snapped.

Unfortunately the campaign ended before I could play out that scene. Well, it sounded awesome in my head :smallcool:

Arcanist
2012-11-01, 03:08 PM
Player1: awesome, we're stoned.

I lost it right then and there... :smalltongue: I guess it's funnier to see it happen to someone else and not funny to see it happen to you :smallfrown:

Knaight
2012-11-01, 10:10 PM
While I generally don't get this for speeches, I did get it for an intense RP moment for one of my characters in an online game, where one of their character defining secrets came out against their will.

Guess when one of the player's internet decided to die?

Socratov
2012-11-02, 05:11 AM
Well, once I was promtly made the leader of a pirate island ubnder attack by the navy (the rest of the campaign drifts around in these forums, just look around).

So i look at my DM when he tells me the navy is coming for the island to lay waste to it and he tells me everyone is looking at me like I'm the admiral. So I say in character:

"right... So... ehm... You want me to lead you into battle? (stalling for time). Ok... Ehm... Yeah... got it. So these ships will go here and here, these whips will go here and here. you guys focus on these ships, that order *proceeds to give orders and instructions* *blablabla*."

*naval battle ensues wehre I and my pirates slaughter everything in sight*

DM: So, that went well... Nice tactical speech btw. don't be surprised if you get a visit from the piratelord on the island...

me: "Eh... what? Pirate lord? As in, big boss?"

DM: " Yup"

me: "oh [REDACTED]"

DigoDragon
2012-11-02, 06:55 AM
I recall in an Oriental campaign (that was only 8% Oriental) where the party was confronting the "right hand man" of the BBEG. This villain considered himself a Rennissance man and started up a speech that made the comparison of the party being cheap whiskey while he was a fine elven wine.

Before he got to the point, the party ranger shouted "Get to the point!"
This was followed immediately after with the party wizard offering the point of his dagger into the villain's gut.
Fourty-nine hit points later we were standing around the villain's dead body with me wondering what the end of that speech was going to be. I was playing a social Rogue/Cleric and was hoping to banter a bit with this villain before we ran him through.

The GM was just grumbling from behind the screen. Something about no respect for classic theatre or something.

Socratov
2012-11-02, 07:12 AM
I recall in an Oriental campaign (that was only 8% Oriental) where the party was confronting the "right hand man" of the BBEG. This villain considered himself a Rennissance man and started up a speech that made the comparison of the party being cheap whiskey while he was a fine elven wine.

Before he got to the point, the party ranger shouted "Get to the point!"
This was followed immediately after with the party wizard offering the point of his dagger into the villain's gut.
Fourty-nine hit points later we were standing around the villain's dead body with me wondering what the end of that speech was going to be. I was playing a social Rogue/Cleric and was hoping to banter a bit with this villain before we ran him through.

The GM was just grumbling from behind the screen. Something about no respect for classic theatre or something.

you heartless, bastards, and you dare call yourself heroes (you are ok but the rest of your party)? If the villain (or his right hand man) starts speeching you listen and call him out on the flaws in his speech, banter back and forth a little and then you proceed to chop him up. that's how it goes. I mean if everyone starts being efficient about it the villain wold make his fortress impregnable by reading the evil overlord list and prevent heroes from rising up so they won't be bothered by those pesky heroes. *rants away on the good old days where cartoons showed proper hero-villain conduct and how Terry Pratchett is exactly right in his descriptions of the adventures of Cohen the barbarian*

(funny story :smallwink:, the above bit of written drama has been sponsored by TVTropes -
don't engage media without it :smallwink::smallcool:)

SuperPanda
2012-11-02, 08:05 AM
I had this happen to one of my players not long ago, and the part that makes it beautiful in my mind is that the dice rewarded the player for messing up.

The set-up. The party had been the hired mercenary security group on an expedition through a strange portal and then got stranded with the expedition on a completely new plane which didn't fit anything they knew about their cosmology. Several big things had happened recently, but the most important ones involved the party Paladin's decline into darkness and an expedition into enemy territory looking for an allied faction for help in an escalating war that the expedition seems to be caught in the middle of.

The allied faction had a very distinctly Norse tone and feeling to the point that the wrote in nodic runes and called themselves the "Othalla" (the rune for heritage, and one of Odin's signs).

A group of ice theme'd monstrous humanoids waylaid the party on their way to find and kill some figure called "the Great Tiger" (a plot hook they'd ignored a while back).

The group Wizard, being the only one who spoke the language of the Othalla and realized that the "Ice Giants" were speaking the same language attempted to interrogate them mid fight.

Wizard: Who is this "Great Tiger" and what do you want with him fiend?

Ice Creature: Not your concern dead man.

Wizard: I demand you tell me everything you know!

Ice Create: We will tell your corpse. *Hisses with pleasure*

Wizard: Over my dead body!

Within our group there was a beat while everyone processed what was just said and then we all, the Wizard's player too, started laughing. Now my planned response was "Your proposal is acceptable." However, all three Ice Creatures rolled critical failures in response to that and the party killed them the within two rounds. I later agreed with the player that his spectacular display of wit must have caused them damage in some form, preventing them from reacting normally.

The next time the group fought these creatures, with the same stats and in the same numbers but with the group fully healed, they were actually harder to deal with.

Galdor Miriel
2012-11-02, 08:24 AM
I feel pretty lucky. When I come up with something for an adventure I always try and put some prose in to set the scene, some speeches for the villains etc. My group actually listens, and if the prose is good it enhances the moment. I don't think I have ever had players spoil a game like that.

If players do come up with something off the wall, I either have a giggle or blend it into the plot. LIke the time in first edition a chaotic neutral wizard who looked like the black dude from Live and Let Die (James Bond movie from the 80s) used his illusion spell to walk into a room on laser stilts giggling maniacally.

GM

Averis Vol
2012-11-02, 01:01 PM
I lost it right then and there... :smalltongue: I guess it's funnier to see it happen to someone else and not funny to see it happen to you :smallfrown:

It was a recent game so I'm still a little PO'd about it, but I know my group and whenever we're playing I can hear them giggling like school girls and just barely make out, *Teehee* we have the same hands, before everything erupts in laughter and I have to put the game on hold for 15 minutes to let everyone calm down. But, give it til the end of the campaign and I'll be laughing about it.

DigoDragon
2012-11-06, 09:06 AM
you heartless, bastards, and you dare call yourself heroes (you are ok but the rest of your party)? If the villain (or his right hand man) starts speeching you listen and call him out on the flaws in his speech, banter back and forth a little and then you proceed to chop him up. that's how it goes.

LOL, exactly! Back in the old 2e days we always gave the villain our attention for that monologue. It was just how things were done! :smallbiggrin:

Razanir
2012-11-06, 11:01 AM
you heartless, bastards, and you dare call yourself heroes (you are ok but the rest of your party)? If the villain (or his right hand man) starts speeching you listen and call him out on the flaws in his speech, banter back and forth a little and then you proceed to chop him up. that's how it goes. I mean if everyone starts being efficient about it the villain wold make his fortress impregnable by reading the evil overlord list and prevent heroes from rising up so they won't be bothered by those pesky heroes. *rants away on the good old days where cartoons showed proper hero-villain conduct and how Terry Pratchett is exactly right in his descriptions of the adventures of Cohen the barbarian*

(funny story :smallwink:, the above bit of written drama has been sponsored by TVTropes -
don't engage media without it :smallwink::smallcool:)

But parley's my favorite French word for "everyone else is flat-footed and bare-handed" (DM of the Rings (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1280)) Nah, I follow the time-honored tradition of listen to the monologue.

I also have a story of my own. I was running the start of a campaign I'm writing freeform with a friend NOT in the party, just so I could flesh out the world before the adventurers arrived.

Me (DM): You arrive at the temple. There's a decently sized room with people meditating in front of a statue of a rabbit. There is also a small potion stand near the entrance.
My Friend: I steal the potions.
Me: Okay... Despite sneaking in quietly, the cleric running the stand notices you. (Oracle uses blindsense to detect him, then using the telepathy ability from the nature mystery to warn the cleric). You get blasted with a magic ray and fall unconscious. You wake up in prison.
Afterward, he refused to pay the fine and was sentenced to a night in prison. Needless to say, he threw a wrench in the timeline.

Later on, I tried again with a different friend. That time he killed the first quest-giver before receiving the quest. The lesson from all this– No plot is immune to Chaotic Stupid (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChaoticStupid)

Amidus Drexel
2012-11-06, 04:21 PM
Later on, I tried again with a different friend. That time he killed the first quest-giver before receiving the quest. The lesson from all this– No plot is immune to Chaotic Stupid (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChaoticStupid)

Hrm... What if the plot required them being in prison, and you gave them an easy opportunity to go to get arrested?

Edit: I appear to have forgotten a rather important word.

Razanir
2012-11-06, 04:39 PM
Hrm... What the plot required them being in prison, and you gave them an easy opportunity to go to get arrested?

No, the plot required they NOT get arrested. AND it's in a town where so few crimes happen, that almost anything just has a fine. Pretty much the only things you can do to get imprisoned are kill someone, destroy something important, or refuse to pay a fine

mishka_shaw
2012-11-07, 04:56 PM
Me and the sorcerer get dragged into a huge Maze filled with thousands of gibbering goblins.

Sorcerer: Oh god this is going to turn into Labyrinth isn't it?

Me: Stick the Magic Dance on!

Sorcerer: *Plays Magic Dance by David Bowie from the phone*

DM: The Gibbering King steps forward "Ah you fools walked into my domain *his speech goes on and is really dramatic all the while Magic Dance is playing in the background*

Sorcerer: sorry to interrupt but we can't hear you over all that racket

DM: *Mimics the goblin king pressing stop on a cassette player*

Sorcerer: *turns off the song on phone*

Roleplay to the max!

Man on Fire
2012-11-07, 07:27 PM
NWoD game, homebrew setting. During the game two things happened. First: we left other PC's witch grandma alone at the sake of people we knew were witch hunters. She dissapeared and we assumed she was kidnapped. Second: We allied ourselves with pack of werevolves against the witch hunters.

During the asault at which hunters' base:

Storyteller: And then sudennly hatch in the floor is ripped from it's place and send up in the air. From the hole somebody jumps at the nearest opponent. somebody in which you recognize....
Me: Granny?!
Storyteller:....Wolfpack leader.:smallannoyed:
Me: Granny would be cooler.

Kane0
2012-11-07, 09:48 PM
This is exactly why my BBEGs use actions as communication.

My group is so used to melodramatic rants that a quick "Fine, I'll do it myself" followed by a spell, full attack and/or trap being sprung really changes their initial impressions of my bad guys.

That said, my NPCs give our some good one liners to match the PCs quips most of the time.

Zahhak
2012-11-08, 06:28 PM
Meant to say: "The only way back is forward"
Said "The only way up is out".

lolwut?

Sorry, only thing I got.

Water_Bear
2012-11-08, 08:07 PM
My first DM in college was running a pretty intense campaign; it was (theoretically) from 1st to Epic levels, involved the kidnapping and replacement of most of the Greyhawk deities in an Aboleth plot, and most of the action took place in a massive and complex city he had designed as essentially a desert Material-planes Sigil. We didn't take it very seriously though, and the contrast between how we acted and the setting around us made RP weird.

My personal favorite was when the party had been sent out to deal with some kind of creature eating townsfolk out in the backwoods. We had just determined based on some scouting that the creature was some kind of modified animal, not showing much intelligence and basically Pac-Manning through the woods, and had retired to the local inn for the night. My NE Bard and the party's CE Ranger had a conversation that went like this;

Bard: "Well, the way I see it we could <long detailed plot to brainwash villagers into marching into the woods to dig a massive pitfall trap / series of trenches and then act as bait there to trap the monster>."
NPC Innkeep (who was apparently standing there the whole time): "What?!?"
Bard: "Suggestion! You, err, didn't hear that?"
Bard: "Err, guys we might want to get out of town in the next <caster level> hours. Just sayin."

Other than that, our master plan to infiltrate an orcish warband to start a party so that they would be too drunk to fight back the next day was a hillarious failure.

DM: This is an awful idea.
Me: Shut up, this is totally going to work. :smallcool: My Bard casts Disguise Self to look like an Orc and leads the three carts full of beer over to the Orc encampment.
Rob: My doppleganger turns into an Orc and comes with.
DM: The Orcs yell a warning in their language.
Me: Right, I say... wait my character doesn't speak Orc. Rob?
Rob: :smalleek:
Me: Run Away!
DM: :smallsigh:

The sad thing is, they still hadn't touched the beer by the time we attacked the next morning. Despite eating our camels. At least we had tons of liquor for the Freed Slave Party my character organized afterwards.

Autolykos
2012-11-11, 12:39 PM
Happens quite regularly when making up descriptions on the spot. One classic:

Old factory, the GM tries to emphasize how run-down the place is:
GM: There's a small, rusty door to your left.
Player: I open it. What's behind?
GM, skimming notes: There is some rusty machinery to your right and some small rusty barrels to your left. Oh, and two mechanics are working on the machinery.
Player: Small, rusty mechanics?

Since then, every single mechanic our group meets is introduced as small and rusty.

DigoDragon
2012-11-13, 08:38 AM
Had one recently come up that annoyed me--

The PCs were hanging in various places inside an opera house during a big production of "Prince Rafael". The lead female singer is an NPC the party needs to protect and they knew for a fact that at least two groups were going to show up this night to capture her.

After a few amusing turns of events, several players landed on the stage with the bad guys, breaking a magical ward that set off a Power Word Stun trap. Oh, and stopping the play in the middle of Act 3.
The meta of this trap was to stun the PCs for a couple rounds so that one of the antagonists can set up a quick statement that this is part of the show. Then I would release the PCs from the stun and they can respond in kind with their acting skills and thus play out a fun combat of showmanship and skill for the audience (including the king who was watching from his box seat).
I'd then award bonus EXP to PCs who put on a good act (regardless of actual Perform skill ranks, this is a free-form RP thing).

Instead I had two players constantly interrupt the NPC's dialog with "Can I attack yet? Can I attack yet? Can I attack yet?" :smallannoyed:

So... I guess no bonus Exp then.

Man on Fire
2012-11-19, 06:00 PM
My buddy told me one today from his Legend of the Five Rings game:

Player: Our friend may look like a soild rock, but who is to say he isn't like an active volcano? At any given time he can....
<GM bursts in laughter>
GM: Sorry, I know what you wanted to say, but I tought of premature ejaculation.

Sunfall
2012-11-21, 07:09 PM
I've remembered a good one from a campaign a while back. I'll try to translate it as best as I can.

So there was this rogue-ish cleric who always referred to himself as a "minister" whenever talking about his calling. Another character was a blind female monk.

So the two of them go to see a quite important guy and have to fast-talk the guards at his palace. What we think he wanted to say back then was something like: "Good day, good sir, I'm a minister and she is blind. We'd like to request an audience."

What he said was: "Good day, good sir, I am mental and she is disabled. We'd like to... wait, what?" Needless to say, hilarity ensued :smallamused: