Scumbaggery
2013-10-17, 11:03 PM
At the encouragement of my players, I have decided to share amongst you the most morality cringing story of a session of Pokemon Tabletop Adventures I have yet to run.
First, a little background. I run a very 'real world' version of PTTA. Pokemon can be eaten as food, killed, etc. Likewise, people, can also be killed. Running into tall grass means that Pokemon are gonna come at you with such vengeance that you might as well be dipped in barbeque sauce. I also implement realistic feeding patterns and such, so in other words carnivores will eat you, herbivores will most likely run away or defend their turf.
Secondly, the players. We had a player absent today, which makes it even more hilarious when he actually learns what happens. For this session, we had a Capture Specialist (Sapphira), a Coordinator (Dippity), and an Ace Trainer (Lyra.)
On to the good stuff.
The trainers had just finished doing a gym battle in one of the earlier towns. Each one only found victory by the skin of their teeth, so they decided to run back into town and train up and find some different Pokemon. I should also mention that the Coordinator just got done winning a contest, with the Pokemon coming in last place being a Feebas.
So, they head into the forest. For a few minutes, nothing happens. They walk around and scout for some Pokemon, and at first they find nothing. A rustling in the nearby bushes alert them to the presence of something, however, and they go to investigate. They part the bushes to find a Deerling, quivering in fear.
Then the Coordinator asks, "Can I roll to tackle it?"
All I can muster at first is, "What."
So Dippity rolls an attack against it to 'hug it fiercely.' After rolling a natural 18, the Deerling is hopelessly grappled by her. Surely that would be enough.
"I make a capture attempt."
Welp. She rolls the 1d100 for the capture attempt. Despite +5 from the Pokeball, and +10 from circumstance penalty, she succeeded. The poor Deerling is then shoved into the Pokeball without remorse. Well, that was funny, but let's move on shall we?
They then come across a Paras. Dippity attempts to, again, grapple it. This time, she rolls a natural 20. Oh my god. At least I have the pleasure of having its Effect Spore go off. Which subsequently makes her fall asleep. There, that'll teach her.
Except it didn't.
They knock out the Paras, and after some hilariously high capture rolls on behalf of the rest of the party Dippity finally wakes up. She then proceeds to eat the Paras in a fit of hunger, starting with the mushrooms.
"What."
I had nothing to accommodate for this, so I made her call High or Low on a 1d100 roll any time she wanted to do anything or she would slurp and drool like a drug addict. Perfect.
I can already tell by their juju that things were going badly for them. The worst part was, is that is was their fault. I railroaded none of this. Keep this in mind later.
So they come across a woman in the forest. She was one of the other contestants in the Beauty competition that Dippity had won earlier, and accused her of cheating. She challenged Dippity to a battle, and threw out her Feebas. What I expected and what actually happened turned out to be two very different things.
After drooling on herself, Dippity sends out her prized Minccino. The battle obviously swings in Dippity's favor after a single Pound, after which the breeder accuses her of cheating again. In a fit of shroom-fueled rage, Dippity smacks the woman across the skull with her shock baton (her primary weapon.) This poor woman, whom I rolled with no actual class levels, goes unconscious instantly. Surely this is the end of this madness?
Nope. They put her body in a tree to keep her out of harms way. Nice. I should probably mention here that the forest they are in has almost the equivalent of redwood trees, and thus they have to be careful about how they navigate squares. Pokemon also live in the trees, and can be knocked down by attacking the tree. They have been attacking trees as a group the entire time so far, but nothing popped up.
After a little more adventure, they spy a Bidoof. For the record, I hate Bidoof. I actually went out of my way to explain in the opening of this campaign that Bidoof are little more than boon animals raised to be killed, but they do exist in the wild. Upon spotting said Bidoof, they immediately pin it down. More specifically, Sapphira the capture specialist pinned it down and began skinning it.
"Wait, you skin it?"
"Yeah, we've sold the furs before."
"Yeah, but you didn't kill this one first."
"...Oh."
So the Bidoof is skinned alive. When they finally look around, which they did not even bother to do before, they realize that this Bidoof had a trainer. A trainer who was a young child.
They captured and skinned alive a Pokemon right in the face of its owner.
In short, Dippity miraculously passes her roll to temporarily shrug off the effects of the mushrooms she consumed and manages to convince the kid that it wasn't even his Pokemon, and then sends him to the southern part of the map.
Little did the players know, I had actually set up an encounter on this side of the map already. The child, naturally, was going to trigger it instead. And the players had no idea.
When they finally come across the kid, he is being attacked by a Shroomish. They come just in time to see this Shroomish blast the child with bullet seed, covering him with dust and sap. They have just enough time to knock out the Shroomish before it can do any real harm to the child
Yay, they did something nice for on--AND THEN THE HERACROSS ENCOUNTER JUMPS FROM THE TREE AND ONE-SHOT-KILLS THE NPC.
I had originally set it up so one of the players would take the sap-blast to the face and enrage the Heracross. Instead they get to see said Heracross impale the NPC and feed off the sap currently coating his face.
Without skipping a beat they manage to KO the Heracross, capture it, and loot the body of the kid.
This 'kid' was actually a quest NPC in the future, and he is now dead. They have all of his money, his pokeballs, and his ID + Family Crest.
They also took the woman's ID, money, and even her Feebas before handing her to the authorities in town. This woman was to be a reoccurring 'psuedo-BBEG' for the coordinator for her entire career.
When questioned, they pinned it all on the kid. Who is dead. And, now, subsequently wanted for murder and theft. I don't even know what to think about my childhood right now.:smalleek:
First, a little background. I run a very 'real world' version of PTTA. Pokemon can be eaten as food, killed, etc. Likewise, people, can also be killed. Running into tall grass means that Pokemon are gonna come at you with such vengeance that you might as well be dipped in barbeque sauce. I also implement realistic feeding patterns and such, so in other words carnivores will eat you, herbivores will most likely run away or defend their turf.
Secondly, the players. We had a player absent today, which makes it even more hilarious when he actually learns what happens. For this session, we had a Capture Specialist (Sapphira), a Coordinator (Dippity), and an Ace Trainer (Lyra.)
On to the good stuff.
The trainers had just finished doing a gym battle in one of the earlier towns. Each one only found victory by the skin of their teeth, so they decided to run back into town and train up and find some different Pokemon. I should also mention that the Coordinator just got done winning a contest, with the Pokemon coming in last place being a Feebas.
So, they head into the forest. For a few minutes, nothing happens. They walk around and scout for some Pokemon, and at first they find nothing. A rustling in the nearby bushes alert them to the presence of something, however, and they go to investigate. They part the bushes to find a Deerling, quivering in fear.
Then the Coordinator asks, "Can I roll to tackle it?"
All I can muster at first is, "What."
So Dippity rolls an attack against it to 'hug it fiercely.' After rolling a natural 18, the Deerling is hopelessly grappled by her. Surely that would be enough.
"I make a capture attempt."
Welp. She rolls the 1d100 for the capture attempt. Despite +5 from the Pokeball, and +10 from circumstance penalty, she succeeded. The poor Deerling is then shoved into the Pokeball without remorse. Well, that was funny, but let's move on shall we?
They then come across a Paras. Dippity attempts to, again, grapple it. This time, she rolls a natural 20. Oh my god. At least I have the pleasure of having its Effect Spore go off. Which subsequently makes her fall asleep. There, that'll teach her.
Except it didn't.
They knock out the Paras, and after some hilariously high capture rolls on behalf of the rest of the party Dippity finally wakes up. She then proceeds to eat the Paras in a fit of hunger, starting with the mushrooms.
"What."
I had nothing to accommodate for this, so I made her call High or Low on a 1d100 roll any time she wanted to do anything or she would slurp and drool like a drug addict. Perfect.
I can already tell by their juju that things were going badly for them. The worst part was, is that is was their fault. I railroaded none of this. Keep this in mind later.
So they come across a woman in the forest. She was one of the other contestants in the Beauty competition that Dippity had won earlier, and accused her of cheating. She challenged Dippity to a battle, and threw out her Feebas. What I expected and what actually happened turned out to be two very different things.
After drooling on herself, Dippity sends out her prized Minccino. The battle obviously swings in Dippity's favor after a single Pound, after which the breeder accuses her of cheating again. In a fit of shroom-fueled rage, Dippity smacks the woman across the skull with her shock baton (her primary weapon.) This poor woman, whom I rolled with no actual class levels, goes unconscious instantly. Surely this is the end of this madness?
Nope. They put her body in a tree to keep her out of harms way. Nice. I should probably mention here that the forest they are in has almost the equivalent of redwood trees, and thus they have to be careful about how they navigate squares. Pokemon also live in the trees, and can be knocked down by attacking the tree. They have been attacking trees as a group the entire time so far, but nothing popped up.
After a little more adventure, they spy a Bidoof. For the record, I hate Bidoof. I actually went out of my way to explain in the opening of this campaign that Bidoof are little more than boon animals raised to be killed, but they do exist in the wild. Upon spotting said Bidoof, they immediately pin it down. More specifically, Sapphira the capture specialist pinned it down and began skinning it.
"Wait, you skin it?"
"Yeah, we've sold the furs before."
"Yeah, but you didn't kill this one first."
"...Oh."
So the Bidoof is skinned alive. When they finally look around, which they did not even bother to do before, they realize that this Bidoof had a trainer. A trainer who was a young child.
They captured and skinned alive a Pokemon right in the face of its owner.
In short, Dippity miraculously passes her roll to temporarily shrug off the effects of the mushrooms she consumed and manages to convince the kid that it wasn't even his Pokemon, and then sends him to the southern part of the map.
Little did the players know, I had actually set up an encounter on this side of the map already. The child, naturally, was going to trigger it instead. And the players had no idea.
When they finally come across the kid, he is being attacked by a Shroomish. They come just in time to see this Shroomish blast the child with bullet seed, covering him with dust and sap. They have just enough time to knock out the Shroomish before it can do any real harm to the child
Yay, they did something nice for on--AND THEN THE HERACROSS ENCOUNTER JUMPS FROM THE TREE AND ONE-SHOT-KILLS THE NPC.
I had originally set it up so one of the players would take the sap-blast to the face and enrage the Heracross. Instead they get to see said Heracross impale the NPC and feed off the sap currently coating his face.
Without skipping a beat they manage to KO the Heracross, capture it, and loot the body of the kid.
This 'kid' was actually a quest NPC in the future, and he is now dead. They have all of his money, his pokeballs, and his ID + Family Crest.
They also took the woman's ID, money, and even her Feebas before handing her to the authorities in town. This woman was to be a reoccurring 'psuedo-BBEG' for the coordinator for her entire career.
When questioned, they pinned it all on the kid. Who is dead. And, now, subsequently wanted for murder and theft. I don't even know what to think about my childhood right now.:smalleek: