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Cluedrew
2021-06-30, 09:00 PM
Anyone read The Book of Awesome? It was basically a list of one thousand awesome yet extremely normal things. And that is kind of the vibe I want to go for, although I am going to open this to more unusual moments as well. In fact the only rules (well guidelines) I have are: You must think it's awesome and no raining on other people's awesome. Other than that, do what you want. Awesome moments, awesome rules, awesome systems, awesome options, in-character or out, big or small it doesn't really matter. In fact I have two very different examples to get started:

The first is probably my favourite scene in role-playing. It's from the campaign I introduce with "A mercenary, a naive mystic and a reality TV show host walk into bar." They were later joined by a local hunter and a wildlife photographer with fancy equipment, and I should mention the TV show host walk was a survivalist (it is what the show was about). Anyways the scene gets started as the mercenary realises they (her, the mystic and the photographer) are not going to reach the hunter's plane and the rest of the PCs in time, the swarm of monsters will reach them first. The plane was also broken. Anyways, she started fighting them off, the mystic ran for the plane but the photographer stayed back and got pictures. Then he got a call from the hunter, using the plane's radio to reach the photographer's super phone who then related local knowledge about the monsters to the mercenary giving her a combat bonus. Then the survivalist finished packing the supplies and preparing some extra light sources (oh yeah, all of this was happening in a snowstorm just after the sun went down). The mystic leapt into action stealing some torches and running out screaming. She was chased down by the monsters, leaving the one-health-left mercenary alone. The survivalist managed to clear the mercenary's damage-over-time effect saving her. Also the mystic also managed to come back from the dead (?) later.

Or to strip things down to their base: Five incredibly diverse characters all made a thematically appropriate contribution that each reasonably was required for the PCs to make it out alive.

The second is a smaller thing that just happened to be fresh in my mind. In Lancer there is reference section for each action you can take during combat. In addition to the actual rules for mount and dismount, it has the following text: "You don't 'get in' or 'climb aboard' – you mount. You're the cavalry, after all."

(If anyone is wondering what the point of this thread is: I've read a lot of threads about problems here recently and I would like some positivity to balance things out.)

Quertus
2021-07-01, 07:05 AM
I've come to learn that my memory is much better at remembering the bad than the good. So this is a bit tricky for me, trying to remember all the awesome. However, I'm quite certain that I remember the *first* awesome.

The first thing i loved about RPGs were all the tables - thieves tables, weapons tables, Wizard spells by level. I know some people think of such things as flaws, but they are a part of the awesomeness of RPGs. Removing them just makes RPGs more bland.

The second moment of awesomeness for me was discovering that I could transcribe a page of pain text in about 5 minutes.

Most recent moment of awesomeness? Running for preteen players, and having them convince, not the nobility, but the god of tyranny and the Druids who were fighting to settle their disputes through Democracy.

Although initially fighting on the side of the Druids, they used a "capture and release" strategy with the evil cultists. Then, at the end, instead of killing everyone, they called in their "we didn't kill you" cred (and their "we helped you" cred) to get both sides to sit down and talk.

They convinced the cultists to unblind the nature goddess (although the cultists did so in such a way that she was reliant on them for her sight - they could take back their "gift" if she betrayed them), and convinced the goddess to allow cult troops and undead to enter her lands to ensure the fairness of the vote. Because, yes, everyone would *vote* on which religion they wanted to be dominant in their area, which religion would hold the places of power until the next vote.

To ensure the fairness of the vote, both sides were allowed "representatives". And, to ensure the fairness and accuracy of the vote, the vote would be public. Oh, tyranny just loved that!

But the party got the two sides to agree to share the region, and to band together against incursions from *other* gods.

Which resulted in the party Clerics losing power. Because *their* gods were no longer welcome. The looks on their faces as they understood the consequences of their actions were priceless. And they quickly decided that their next adventure *wouldn't* be in that region.

Before that? It was probably how they jumped completely off the rails, yet still managed to land in content that was described in the module.

Senility willing, I may try to post a campaign log some day.

KorvinStarmast
2021-07-01, 09:19 AM
Our first session of Space Quest. RPG, late 70's.

PC generation was all new stuff for us; we had tried some Traveller(original) but it didn't provide enough of that "star wars" feel that we were looking for. Six players, one GM.
Space Quest had technics, and mercs, and a thing called a Trilax. That was a being that had three legs, three arms, three eyes. Someone made one of those. And someone else got a piece of equipment called an ion chatter. A weapon.

There we are, in a space port, in a bar, trying to figure out who we were and we end up in a brawl/scrap with a bunch of mercenaries. The guy with the ion chatter goes on full auto, and clears out the bar while the rest of us are going out the doors/windows. As he left I chucked in a stun grenade.

We are immediately on the run, looking for a ship or a vehicle to help us get out of town before getting busted or chased down by the mercs' buddies. We ended in media res, with a "what the heck do we do now?" coda to the session as we put stuff away.

====================

And we never got to play again. Why? Because the game master (the one guy who had the books) had to go to summer session classes to qualify for his next semester classes, for his major, at a local college.

Our gaming group went back to D&D.

Darth Credence
2021-07-01, 05:10 PM
I would say that the saga of Dobra the tax man, which I created a thread about recently, was pretty awesome. The players decided to pluck the guard at the gate, there to collect taxes, from his regular job and make him show them around town. They built his confidence enough that he felt good at the bar, and ended up being seduced by the succubus bad guy. From there on, he did little things to sabotage them, while they felt like he was slowly growing into a better fighter and person. In the end, he stabbed the wizard in the back, got turned into a giant ape, and was knocked unconscious. They still forgave him, and went to visit him in the healing ward after.

I'm trying to narrow it down to just one more, because I feel like I could just keep repeating tales of my games, because I think they're all awesome. So I'm going to go with one from very recently. My players captured a mine, and ended up creating a society for goblins, who stay there to work the mine. The players get a cut, but mostly it is a goblin town. I like to have some side adventures set in the same world, just as a break from the same campaign if a person has to be out or if we just want something a little different, so I had written up "Goblin Quest". (I found out recently that there is a published game of the same name, that is actually quite close to what I had in mind. Small world.)

So at a recent session, shortly before it happened, one of the players was sick and couldn't make it. We normally go on if that happens, so everyone still got together. One other person didn't make it, and we found out he was in a car crash and wouldn't be able to get there. (He's fine, just had to deal with stuff). So down to three players, we break out GQ. The idea was basically that the goblins were exploring the deeper reaches of the mine, and things started to happen, so the goblin leader was rounding up goblins with skills to go check it out. Everyone set out with a 1st level goblin character, (one player controlled 2) and they wandered in. First room had three rust monsters. My assumption was that they would throw down some metal and just pass through, but they made it a fight. And the monk goblin proceeded to kick the utter crap out of one of them. He was using a spear and he hit for max damage, then he hit with an unarmed strike, also for max damage. Next turn, he did the same thing again, and brought down the monster. The others were getting pounded by the other monsters, and ended up unconscious, while that monk just moved through the monsters like they were nothing. They killed all three, he got the others back on their feet, and they moved on.

Next, they snuck past the bug room, and ended up in magical darkness. Here, they ended up stumbling around, while one of the players basically ran away. Well, the first one into the area was torn apart, eaten by a grue (any Zork fans out there?). Everyone ran, one far enough away to get into some light which drives the grue away, the other two into a dead end, and they were eaten. Three characters dead, and the goblin leader was sending in three more. At that point, one of the players got a phone call, and had to leave. I asked the other two if they wanted to keep going, and they did, controlling two people each. From there, it got crazier!

The one that ran away went back to the entrance and was reminded of the lore on grues (this has been given to the players multiple times) and handed a torch and some healing potions, and they headed back out. This time, they failed the check to sneak past the bugs, and one of them was killed by a swarm of wasps while the others ran away. 4 dead. They kept searching around, came across some mycads (mushroom dwelling dryads). The mycads would have just talked, but one shell shocked goblin attacked. The same one who ran away earlier ran away again, and two more died. The runner (who was called Karen and demanded the manager) hid out until the next group wandered in. They went a different way, ran into some russet mold and a thorny, as well as the coated bodies of other goblins lost in the area. Took a couple of lungs full of the mold, fought the thorny, and made it through. Weakened, but OK. They then found the ghost of a lizard person who was killed by goblins and wanted revenge. First thing it did was possess the bard goblin, and force him to use his most powerful magic on the others. That was a sleep spell, and with 5d8, he rolled a 9. Lowest hp was a 10. They all focused on the bard and brought him down, but not dead. The ghost did horrifying visage, and Karen was the only one affected, which was perfect. She was just far enough down the hall that she couldn't directly see things, so she wanted to try to throw her hand axes but bounce them off the wall. Why not? we said, except on a natural 1, you are going to hit the knocked out bard. Lucked out - he actually rolled a two. The other do some damage, and one goes down. Karen's turn, wants to throw the axe again - gets a natural 1. And another one bites the dust.

In the end, we had 8 dead goblins, one who had survived from the beginning by running screaming from anything it could, and two players who had been dancing and shouting for hours. We all walked away loving it, and we are finishing up the story next time, hopefully with all five people back.

Cluedrew
2021-07-01, 05:56 PM
To Quertus: That is kind of why I want to make a thread. On an emotional level I was having some trouble remembering. I have also some great lists of content myself maybe I'll put one or two into one of my pieces of awesome later.

To KorvinStarmast: I mean how could you follow up that opening? OK I can think of some.

To Darth Credence: Dobra the Tax-Collector really got me. Do you have a link to the thread?
I didn't have another piece of awesomeness in mind... inspired by Quertus I had a lot of fun reading the Lancer's index of licences ("class levels") with all the weapons, mechs, mods and equipment that unlocked. Some highlights for me include "Fortress Protocol" which turns you into a significant part of the terrain and another mech that turns itself into a buff for an ally.

Darth Credence
2021-07-01, 06:02 PM
To Darth Credence: Dobra the Tax-Collector really got me. Do you have a link to the thread?


Sure thing! https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?631745-The-saga-of-Dobra-the-tax-man

And looking back, it was a homebrewed giant cat, not a giant ape. The ape wouldn't have fit.

Pauly
2021-07-01, 08:33 PM
From a personal PC perspective. Two incidents standout for me, both from different Superhero RPGs.

In the first campaign I rolled up a character who had basic martial arts for offensive power, but had armored skin and regeneration at max levels plus some other damage resistances. Basically he could be Hulk smashed then pick himself up and brush off the dust, but struggled to take down your average street thug.
In our first session the party, who had no members capable of flight, was at the top of the Empire State Building when the bad guy got into his escape elevator and disabled all the other elevators and was making his escape. My character just stepped off the balcony and with a cry of “Pavement Angel” made his descent.
The GM declared my PC dead. I disagreed and demanded that the math be worked out. To the DM’s surprise I survived the fall with 2HPs left, and regenerated back to over half health by the time the bad guy’s elevator made it to the ground From that time on “Pavement Angel” became my PC’s motto.

The other PC I rolled up in that system was a robot who was functional in form, not anthropoid, who also had a stealth disguise mode. We were in a museum we wanted to stakeout so I declared that I was entering stealth mode.The DM said it was a plain empty lobby, so how I could I be stealthed? Pointing out my power was wasn’t camouflage or invisibility but something the villain would see entering the room. I declared my stealth mode to be a Coke machine. Wearing sunglasses.
Later in the campaign when our party became famous I sold out to Pepsi.

King of Nowhere
2021-07-01, 11:41 PM
Old campaign.
The high priest of vecna was trying to conquer the world. He had hidden an army of liches, and had secured the alliance of several evil powers.
Most of the rest of the world united against him, led by the party.
As the two sides were fighting each other, they had no idea a secret dragon society was waiting for just such an opportunity: let humanoids kill each other, unite dragonkind and conquer what's left, have dragons dominate the world again.
To ensure the humanoids would kill each other as much as possible, the dragon leader managed to infiltrate a few allies in the higher echelons of both sides - including the party dragon cohort! - using them to help whoever was losing and sabotage whoever was winning.

It turned out, the party was winning too much, and their dragon cohort had to sabotage things too much to even the odds for the vecna side. She exposed herself, and was found.
At this point, the dragon leader decided to reveal himself. He called in a meeting of dragons, to which the party would participate, supposedly to judge the dragon cohort. Instead, he revealed his plot, and he attacked the party with his closer allies. He was hoping the other dragons would follow him.
I was expecting them to flee. They were against three great wyrms, all with extra hit dice, elite stats, and equipment. Instead they fought. And won. they burned several wish and miracles to accomplish that.

Having killed the leaders of the dragon suprematists - with the other dragons still uncertain - the party confronted their former cohort, who betrayed them. She was just an adult gold dragon with some rogue levels, absolutely not a match for the party even in their weakened state. So she basically said do your worst, i only regret the cause of dragon supremacy has failed.

The party forgave her, with a heartfelt speech on how dragons and humans could live together.

Cue the rest of the dragons agreeing to ally with the party.
At that point, the forces of vecna were so badly outmatched, i just called the campaign over

oxybe
2021-07-02, 12:35 AM
So we play in a weekly-ish Adventures in Middle Earth 5e game.

We were on the third day of a siege: a group of orcs and goblins were going to pass over a bridge and gatehouse, destroy the village and continue onwards. Our group were tasked with protecting the gatehouse until the main defense force arrives.

We on the first day it was just a scout band and we fended them off no problem. second day was a bunch of orcs and a troll. Troll was hoping to just hammer down the gatehouse but the elf has a super cheezy ability and took it out at range.

third day we were faced with a horde of orcs and wargs just swarming the bridge. while their leader stood at a distance I dipped an arrow in pitch, lit it on fire and shot at his warg, which clearly didn't like it. This, to my character at least, proved the pseudo-prophecy we got after the troll incident correct, where, and i'm paraphrasing "fire and water will help us". I'm not saying the fire arrows were super effective. it was like... one more point of damage, but the warg didn't like it and it prove to my character the prophecy correct.

we finished off the leader after goading him into melee combat and then we met the real head honcho, some blackened husk of a corpse, with flaming eyes, carted around in a cage by 2 orc-bred steeds. it whispered horrible things in our brains and caused the party to go into fear shock, and it's slowly making it's way across the bridge. Remembering the prophecy and how this thing seems to be able to disable my allies by giving them the stink eye, i decide to try my luck.

While on top of the gatehouse I wait for it to get closer and whip out my grappling hook, connecting and locking hard into place with the corner of the cage. I then launch myself off the gatehouse, off the bridge, and into the river. Noting that my character is a six foot something mountain of a beorning man, the cart jerks sideways and suddenly stops at the lip of the bridge. the cage then unbalances and gets tossed into the rushing river. the creature unleashes an unearthly moan as the river roils and boils where the cage dropped.

And that's how I killed the boss without rolling an attack dice.

Saintheart
2021-07-02, 12:45 AM
Stolen from the Crowning Moment of Awesome page on tvtropes:


This Troper once had a high-level (16 or so) druid. Fun, of course, but in the run-up to our confrontation with the campaign's Big Bad, we were called upon to break a siege, in which we would have to fight an invasion force of goblinoids OVER A MILLION STRONG. Being a quite pillage-happy party, we had acquired over the course of our game numerous magical items- including about forty necklaces of fireball and a helm of brilliance. Fun enough on their own.

Being a druid, I was fond of wild shaping, and had purchased a wilding clasp, which lets you retain your equipment in wild shape. My druid, upon hearing the task before the party, had only this to say: "Fetch me a catapult, and aim deep." I strapped on all forty necklaces of fireball, donned the helm of brilliance, and attached my wilding clasp- then had myself launched right into the middle of the goblinoid hordes.

Quoth the DM: "So... you're in single-digit HP, stranded in the middle of millions of enemies, and you have probably one action left before they take it in turns to sodomize you with halberds. Any last words?"
My response: "Wild Shape. Fire Elemental."

Anyone who knows 3.5 can guess exactly how it went down, but for the rest of you, I'll spell it out: 200 Fireballs, 50 Prismatic Sprays, 100 Walls of Fire. This is the high-fantasy equivalent of A NUCLEAR STRIKE- and being made of fire, I was * immune* to all the damage I threw. It's well and truly gratifying to have a seasoned DM- and then make his jaw hit the table. To top it all off, that single shot caused the remnants of the million-strong siege army to "scatter like roaches".

Don't even care that the mechanics don't work, Rule of Awesome, people.

KorvinStarmast
2021-07-03, 10:14 AM
{snip neat encounter}
And that's how I killed the boss without rolling an attack dice. I love it. That's got a nice little old school feel to it, a cinematic feel, and players using their wits. *round of applause*

Cluedrew
2021-07-03, 11:18 AM
To Darth Credence: Thanks.

To King of Nowhere: (The dragon story.) As it turns out, racism is not the answer.

All the stories have been fun, thanks for posting them.
Another one Pauly's Pavement Angel story reminded me of is a time the PCs were in a helicopter, and someone with lightning powers was zapping it. There were a series of ineffective attacks against them when the party assassin declared, "I jump out of the helicopter." They grabbed onto the landing gear and got into a fight with zappy as they booth hug beneath the helicopter. Then they lost their weapon. Which is fine, it was the party assassin, they just slipped another special knife out of their sleeve and killed zappy in the next action.They were wearing a parashot but I'm not sure if it would of actually saved the considering other factors. Would have given the GM an excuse to fudge it.

I've got another non-event one, Specialised Systems: where the setting or campaign premise is (very deliberately) tided up in the rules. A prime example would be Blades in the Dark, which is designed for one city and the premise of heists and street crime. And there are connections across this system because of that, the base mechanic is (loosely) connected to the fact you are on the run from the law, there is a resource mechanic is based off the type of characters you will be playing and your gang is tied up in your character stats. It an extreme example of course but I like it when the rules tie in more of the campaign together.

The downside is of course that there are more rules to learn for a given campaign - so I understand why not everyone is all for this - but toolbox systems (such as Fudge) or system families (Powered by the Apocalypse) help address this. Even Blades in the Dark has tips for how you can push the envelope a bit with some modding.

oxybe
2021-07-03, 01:44 PM
I love it. That's got a nice little old school feel to it, a cinematic feel, and players using their wits. *round of applause*

Thanks! It was a fun session and the campaign as a whole has been great.

While Adventures in Middle Earth is a decent take on 5e, it definitely could've used another round or two by the editor's eyes.

Cluedrew
2021-07-09, 08:33 PM
The thread hasn't caught on (yet?) but I have one more:

A shout out to the person who taught me Powered by the Apocalypse. They are really into it - Apocalypse is sometimes stuck in front of there name for that reason - and I played several of their apocalypse world hacks before the term Powered by the Apocalypse had really caught on. And it was really weird to encounter other systems and wonder why people where campaigning about problems the family didn't have. As it turned out, they had fixed them for their hacks. There were problems, trade-offs and a narrow focus still and some of it is a matter of taste. But on the whole I think they did manage to improve the Powered by the Apocalypse formula just a bit.

And that's pretty awesome.