Good Party:1 / Evil Party:0

[AkumaWolf]

Another story from a fellow DM... but I don't know if it's taken from a Dragon Magazine or something. (I've been proved wrong before) :smallcool:

Anyway... this one particular DM ran two campaings for two parties of different people, both in the same world...

One was a good party and one was an evil party... and they interacted with each other in this world... sometimes they would face off and fight head-to-head... other times (when the other party wasn't playing) they would see what influences the other party had in the world during their induvidual campaings (quest they've completed... honour they've gained... moster they've defeated est.)

But all in all... it was a fun game to see what one party could do to skrew the other party over...

Then the good party had a plan... (and since the evil party actually fell for it, meant they deserved what was coming for them... cause they're so stupid)


Okay... so the good party found a dungeon and cleared it of all baddies... then they found a suitable place in the dungeon that looked like an altar room of some sort (someplace that you'de find a powerful artifact)...
Then... they placed a random human skull (one they just found laying around in the dungeon) and put it in this room...

They then made *sure* that the evil party would find out about this and would get someone to convince them that the skull is a uber-powerful artifact... but there's a catch... in order to use this powerful skull artifact... they have to first cut off their own head and replace it with the skull...

This didn't discourage the evil party one bit... and off they went to the dungeon to claim their prize... :smalltongue:

Apparently... the druid in the evil party got greedy, and decided to go on ahead and see if he could claim the prize for himself... and he did actually find it... but then he had a problem...
Now that he was alone, how was he going to cut off his own head and replace it with a skull?
A few moments later, he came up with and breakthrough!
He would summon a monkey... give it his simitar... and try to get it to lob his head off and replace it with the skull...
It worked! (partially)

When the rest of the evil party came to the artifact room... they found a headless druid and a curious looking monkey with a simitar in it's hands... skull still on it's pedestal.

But of course... then came the arguments... the arguments of who rightfully deserves it that their heads be cut off.
Yes... these people actually argued over who get's to lose their head...

Finally, it was decided who get's to wear the skull... and so went forth the barbaric ritual that involved cutting off your allies head and replacing it with a skull...

But wait a minute... it didn't work :smalltongue:
So they tried the next guy in line...
Didn't work either...

Eventually... there was only one party member left.... but he wasn't gonna give up!:smallamused:

He divised a crazy plan that allowed him to lob his own head off and let the skull fall gently in it's place...

And *much* to his surprize... NOTHING HAPPENED! :smalltongue:


And that's how the good party got the evil party to kill themselves...




Now... I've always thought this story as fake.... cause no one can be that stupid....

But then again.... there are some D&D players.... :smallwink:


EDIT: I think this is the 'head of vecna' thing I hear so much about... is that correct?

[Laurellien]

Yes this is the head of Vecna. I doubt there's a D&D player who hasn't heard of it if they've played for at least a year.

[Dervag]

I cannot fathom how any player would want the head of Vecna. Don't they ever figure out that beheading is fatal?

[Laurellien]

It's more that they vaguely recall the hand and eye of vecna.

[AkumaWolf]

but I mean... c'mon... can't people tell that it's a trick when they look upon the corpses of the two previous party members on the floor...

must be a power greed issue or something

[Inyssius Tor]

Aye, we've all heard the tale of Vecna's Head. Always amusing. :smallwink:

[GRAMMARNAZI]Could you please not overuse the ellipsis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis) such? It is a common grammatical habit; when I pause to look for new words, I always want to transcribe that. It makes your posts kind of hard to read, though. A few handy tips that'll strike you as deeply condescending: If the ellipsis is at the end of a line, try replacing it with a full stop (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_stop); otherwise, try replacing the first ellipsis in a line with a comma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma_%28punctuation%29) and the second ellipsis with a semicolon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semicolon) (semicolons: they're the tuxedo of punctuation!); if you're about to list things, replace the ellipsis with a colon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colon_%28punctuation%29) and the following ellipses with semicolons[./GRAMMARNAZI]

[Winged One]

Yep, a classic example of the Head of Vecna tactic, which is often used by cruel DMs to screw over their stupid players or by rival adventuring parties when one party is a bunch of idiots. I don't think I've heard this exact story, but all of the ones where it works are pretty simmilar.

[king korath]

I just started playing and I heard about the Head of Vecna. One of the best ways to weed out stupid players.

[bedablachem]

I never heard of it, but it appears to be an old story (http://users.tkk.fi/~vesanto/link.fun/stupid.pcs.html) :smallsmile:

[prufock]

Aye, we've all heard the tale of Vecna's Head. Always amusing. :smallwink:

[GRAMMARNAZI]Could you please not overuse the ellipsis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis) such? It is a common grammatical habit; when I pause to look for new words, I always want to transcribe that. It makes your posts kind of hard to read, though. A few handy tips that'll strike you as deeply condescending: If the ellipsis is at the end of a line, try replacing it with a full stop (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_stop); otherwise, try replacing the first ellipsis in a line with a comma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma_%28punctuation%29) and the second ellipsis with a semicolon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semicolon) (semicolons: they're the tuxedo of punctuation!); if you're about to list things, replace the ellipsis with a colon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colon_%28punctuation%29) and the following ellipses with semicolons[./GRAMMARNAZI]

Thank you. That's one of my pet peeves.

[ocato]

So, the "good" party decided to convince a bunch of jerks into killing themselves. I mean, I don't want to say that ending the lives of evil people isn't good, it just seems sorta... Belkarish.

Not Belkarish, maybe Redcloakish. Belkar would be inside the skull with a flaming sword.

[Jayabalard]

Yes this is the head of Vecna. I doubt there's a D&D player who hasn't heard of it if they've played read about D&D on the internet for at least a year.Fixed that for you... I'm sure that there are lots of people who play D&D who've never heard of it.

[puppyavenger]

Isen't there an adventure for it on the WOTC website? of course they reward the players with magical heads and a few of them are even benificial!

[Yvian]

Isen't there an adventure for it on the WOTC website? of course they reward the players with magical heads and a few of them are even benificial!

The internet is such a wonderful thing: Here it is.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20070401a

[Hunter Noventa]

What's really sad is none of them thought to cast detect magic on it first...

[OzymandiasVolt]

So, the "good" party decided to convince a bunch of jerks into killing themselves. I mean, I don't want to say that ending the lives of evil people isn't good, it just seems sorta... Belkarish.

Not Belkarish, maybe Redcloakish. Belkar would be inside the skull with a flaming sword.

So when you play DnD you never kill any of the evil monsters that attack you and cause pain and misery to wash over the land?

[GunMage]

What's really sad is none of them thought to cast detect magic on it first...

They did, but artifacts don't detect as magical anyways.

[DreamOfTheRood]

So when you play DnD you never kill any of the evil monsters that attack you and cause pain and misery to wash over the land?

No, everybody hugs!

[Diggorian]

Been playing for 15 years and never heard of this. Amazingly ludicrous.

Doesnt seem cruel to me, just a harsh learning tool. :smallbiggrin:

[Driderman]

Probably a D&D urban legend.
I can't help but wonder how they kept the chronology between the two groups adventures consistent though...

Evil Party: We divide the spoils and return to our respective evil lairs to scheme and plot, so we're having two years downtime.

DM: Erm, you can't do that, you have a plot in one week...

[Jayabalard]

So when you play DnD you never kill any of the evil monsters that attack you and cause pain and misery to wash over the land?When playing as the "good guys" I generally go for protecting people... setting a trap and spreading false information isn't normally part of that.

[JaronK]

The thing is, people are this stupid.

True story: a Nevada highway patrolman (he was my driving instructor, so this isn't an urban legend) was out on patrol at night and he sees a car pulled off to the side of the road, so he goes to investigate. Inside he finds three drunken men evidently trying to strangle a fourth man with his tie. The fourth man has a cut on his head that's still bleeding and has obviously been bleeding for a while.

After managing to get the men outside of the car and separated, he finds out what happened: one of them had hit his head, and was bleeding a lot (head wounds tend to do that). The other three had tried to make a tornaquet on the guy's neck to stop the bleeding.

Seriously.

JaronK

[Dragonmuncher]

Isen't there an adventure for it on the WOTC website? of course they reward the players with magical heads and a few of them are even benificial!

Now I need them to stat out a gazebo, and I'll be set.

[ZeroNumerous]

They did, but artifacts don't detect as magical anyways.

Actually they do. Overwhelming so. The WTFBBQBLIND kind of overwhelmingly powerful.