"Rock Star" Moments in Gaming

[Dairun Cates]

We've had a thread on moments of PC stupid luck and PC genius moments. This isn't a topic about either of those.

Between stupidity and genius, there's another lovely set of moments that can best be referred to as Rock Star moments (technically, moments of badassery work too, but that's not a word). Almost every group has had at least a few of them. They often can be related to a PC being incredibly resourceful or outstandingly stupid, but they're their own separate category. These are the moments when a PC, for some reason or another, is inspired to throw caution to the wind and risk themselves in order to achieve some victory of means. The character steps it up a notch so to speak. These risks are not usually dumb luck, but usually a willingness to play against the 33 some odd percent odds of dying as a result. When a player does this, they usually have a nice moment in the spotlight and drop the jaws of the other players.

A couple of examples:
One of my players, gets ambushed from behind by a ninja. The ninja makes the hit on the gun mercenary, Ms. Priori, and rolls high sneak attack damage. Despite having a sizable HP for her level (about 50 at level 6), she eats a HUGE chunk of her total (about 35 in one hit). The ninja literally skewers her with the Katana. What does she do? She grabs onto the blade as its sticking through her, pulls it in, and holds it with a strength check. She takes some damage from the ninja moving the sword around, but the other players close in on the ninja. The ninja, horrible at taking on groups without a weapon, is forced to teleport into the shadows and switch to a back up weapon. Ms. Priori, pulls the Katana out and straps it on her back. Despite having like 8 HP left against a well-conditioned opponent, she continues fighting, and no only survives, but does some heavy damage to him. She keeps the Katana as her back-up melee weapon and then eventually kills the ninja later in the campaign with the same Katana on a crit.

On a side session of another campaign where the players played as the idiot rival Pet Monster snatching team, Team Astro, the players were tricked into blowing up their own HQ. Thinking they were the only ones left of Team Astro, they had no choice but to try and stop the Dark God/Accountant who had sealed away the PCs. When they threatened to attack, the Dark God exclaims that any attempts to defeat him are plain useless. The player of Astrocat then screams, "EVERYTHING WE DO IS USELESS!", evolves, charges, and beats the ever living hell out of him.

A more social example. In a D&D one shot, a shapechanger framed us for espionage. The town guard, who is a female that we signed a diplomatic treaty with, exclaims towards our bard, "There's the man that was in my room." Realizing that we couldn't take the town guard head on, and realizing that the treaty needed to get back to the right hand, the bard hands the rogue the scroll and yells, "That's not what she said last night," and then starts booking it. Because of that, we were able to get the treaty back without any fighting.

So, in short, a Rock Star moment is a moment that fulfills most of the following:
1. It involves a heavy, but not entirely stupid risk.
2. It's awe-inspiring and causes the other players to applaud, laugh, or gawk
3. It can be described as "Bad ass"
4. It usually contains a witty line.
5. It is a character defining moment
6. It achieves some extraordinary end that is normally beyond the character's abilities.
7. It's quick and spur of the moment.

So, I'm interested. Share your moments of charging Demi-gods with only half your HP and a flaming sword, or jumping off the side of the boat in roaring rapids to save a comrade. When have you spit in the eye of a King that screwed over your party? When has your character been a rock star?

Note: Just about anything that counts as a 3-dice stunt in Exalted or requires like 3 action/force points is a Rock Star moment and should be used a good measure for what I'm talking about.

[Dhavaer]

I don't know if this is what you're talking about, but: the PC was in a carpark, fighting a pair of ghoul ninjas. He killed one before the security guards got there. The second ninja critted him and he failed the massive damage save, passing out just as the guards shot down the ninja. It was just the most perfect timing. Would have been very cinematic.

[Dairun Cates]

I don't know if this is what you're talking about, but: the PC was in a carpark, fighting a pair of ghoul ninjas. He killed one before the security guards got there. The second ninja critted him and he failed the massive damage save, passing out just as the guards shot down the ninja. It was just the most perfect timing. Would have been very cinematic.

Well, that depends, did he do it with a chainsaw while screaming like a mad banshee and suicidally charging in head first? If so, then yes. If not, then maybe.

Although, technically, the guards get some bonus points for showing up in the nick of time too.

[The_Werebear]

Ok, D20 Modern Setting. Humanity is in ruins from nuclear war, demonic invasion, and general catastrophe. My party(Smart Hero 2, Charismatic Hero 2, Strong Hero 1, Dedicated Hero 1) sets up in Kansas City. We are considering settling there for quite a while, so we set ourselves up in Arrowhead Stadium, (which was miraculously mostly intact) our logic being that it is spacious, has facilities for plumbing, cooking, and power we could repair, as well as having some choke points we can fortify if we are attacked by raiders.

So, we are exploring the place and come across a dessicated husk of a corpse. We start searching it, and it gets up and starts slowly trying to beat us to death. It doesn't move fast, but blunt weapons and puncture wounds do no damage to it. We discover that I, in fact, have the only weapons that can put one down, a Taser and a crossbow modified to fire sharpened can lids or shurikens. After a little struggling, we put it down and retire to the pressbox to rest.

In the morning, the Strong Hero decides he wants some football pads for
armor, because he got mauled fairly badly. We go down to the locker rooms and find another one. We get the jump on it and it dies quickly. We all move in and start searching the room for pads. Just as we find it, the creature gets back up and lunges at the Strong Hero. He is taken to 0 in one round and is forced to retreat slowly out of the room, while the rest of us distract it and run while I fire shurikens into it. We get out of the room with the pads, slam the door, and shove a table in the way. Just as we start to relax and bandage the Strong Hero, we hear a huge Bang! and the door starts to shudder and cave. The Dedicated and Charismatic hero drag Strong away while I ready an action to fire. I graze it as it bashes through, and am forced to retreat into another room, which we barricade again. Again, Bang! as the door starts to cave. The rest of the group takes off through the lockers as I am forced to snipe at it as it shambles closer. We retreat to another room, blocking a third door with a bench. The next door in line was locked, and we were up against the wall. I get a lucky hit though, and it goes down inches from ripping my arms off. Just as we finally start to calm down... Bang! from the locked door behind us.

We all take off at full speed back to the pressbox, where we block the door so well that it took us a half hour to get in or out. That wasn't the worst of it. The strong hero's wounds started to go bad. His skin takes on the texture of the creatures, and he starts to lose memories. I am forced to make a crude land mine (smart hero, after all) and go harvesting brains so that the Dedicated Hero can whip up a cure. I ran a pull cord from a can of gunpowder, nails, and broken sawblade bits around a corner. Then, I got the attention of a zombie by repeatedly shooting it. Running away at top speed, I got to the ripcord just as the monster was limping over the mine. I blew its legs off, and was able to just shoot it while taking five foot steps back each round. I got the intact head though, and we were able to make a cure.

In the end, the fighter survived and got armor, but we decided there were better places to set up camp. Like three states over.

[Dairun Cates]

We discover that I, in fact, have the only weapons that can put one down, a Taser and a crossbow modified to fire sharpened can lids or shurikens.

That very well may be the coolest Jury rigged weapon I have ever heard of.

[Bosh]

If you like that sort of gameplay you MUST give Fate a shot for its aspect system. Aspects are basically anything important that describes your character (favorite possessions, catch phrases, personal history, personality quirks) and anytime you do something that relates to your aspect you can use a Fate point to get a bonus on your rolls. This is a great system since it allows your character to do really badass stuff when appropriate without being overpowered all the time.

For example my character is a rather stupid swashbuckler (imagine a cross between Elan and d'Artagnan) with the aspect "I will redeem my family's honor" which means when I try to have a rockstar moment doing something that fits with that I get a bonus, which is cool. Aspects do other stuff too, but they're great for encouraging this sort of thing.

[abadguy]

Wow, this thread's timing couldn't have been better. Just had quite a "rockstar" moment in my last session.

Me (Cleric 4) and my party's wizard (also Level 4) were separated from the rest of the party as we headed to the city's library for some research. We got accosted by a group of rogues in the streets, who were after our party for some important quest item that was currently carried by our fighter. We got lead into a narrow alleyway and then! A group of religious fanatics lead by a cleric appeared on the other end of the alleyway. Naturally, they were after the same item the rogues were. Caught between the two groups, me and the wizard came up with a plan born out of sheer desperation.

First, I tried to convince the rogues to aid us to defeat the fanatics. They agreed and began leading us to their hideout. At a junction, they said that we (me and wizard) had to seperate. Knowing that separating would most likely lead to our respective dooms, I then attempted to convince the leader to stay and fight, stating that both myself and the wizard were spellcasters with the ability to defeat the enemy cleric. Bluff check. No ranks in Bluff. I rolled a natural 20. They went with our plan and managed to shoot down most of the fanatics before they retreated.

After that, we were told that we had to separate anyway. I looked at the wizard and he looked at me. Then I said "I attack the rogue leader." The DM was aghast as I rolled for initiative. We gained a surprise round and managed to take down the leader with a nice crit from my longsword. I continued to roll very well and the narrow alleyway helped to prevent us from being flanked. As we cut them down, the surviving last rogue tried to run away but was taken down by the wizard's last Magic Missile.

That was truly a gem of an experience, turning things around like that. I think the DM will definitely be preparing more nasty surprises for "Team Spellcaster" soon!

[Ashtar]

Spoilered for length. This is what happened to my human rogue in our Eberron game, I stole the spotlight for a while and saved the group, but nearly killed myself in the process.

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We are in Sharn's underground, coming out of a Cannith workshop after a fight with some (warforged?) mechanical guard dogs. Already in the fight, my rogue saved the group by brandishing the Cannith insigna to stop the guardians' attack. We had found the template which we had been sent to collect and were weighed down by our filthy loot (gold bars, coins, magical armour and weapons).

Just as we leave, a enormous flaming crossbow bolt embeds itself in the door and our "favorite" recurring villainous warforged servant of the Lord of Blades, Sabre, arrives. As he advances on us, he declares he only want the Cannith template and that if we do not hand it over, he will skin us and rend our flesh upon his bladed armor. We decide to resist. Sabre draws his oil drenched weapon, sets it aflame and advances upon us.

Our cleric bravely advances to protect us, but is cut down in one swift blow. As she lies, bleeding on the floor, we realize that our last hour has arrived.

I drop my backpack filled with loot (for I was overloaded) and take a pouch, raise it high and say to Sabre: "Come and take the template, if you can" (Bluff (roll 18 + 7 = 25 ^^). He ignores the others and comes after me as I lead him away, my swaying lantern lighting the way as I scramble through the rubble of the ruined undercity. Launching a tanglefoot bag at him, I gain precious moments to get ahead and out of sight where I am able to duck behind a ruined wall. Leaving my lantern there (the only source of lighting), I run further and duck into the shadows (Hide in Shadows). Sabre arrives and discovers the abandoned lantern, and destroys it in a fit of fury. He extinguishes his weapon, leaving us alone, in a deadly game of cat and mouse, in total darkness.

Meanwhile, the Mage and Psion had stabilized the cleric and dragged her to the exit shaft where we had secreted a cache with a healing potion. Using the rope they had left, they climbed back up, after marking the shaft with a light spell and leaving me to my fate as they rushed to deliver the Template (carried by the Psion) to our employer.

As I start creeping towards the exit shaft, completely blind, I suddenly hear Sabre’s booming voice very close. “I can hear you! I am coming to rend your flesh, human!” (DM rolls Intimidate, I manage my resistance roll to avoid whimpering in fear and making noise). Sabre passes very close to my position on his way to the exit shaft, knowing that he can block me off there. He reaches the shaft before me, blocking my exit.

I start hearing some dull crashes, as if he was demolishing stones. Advancing under cover of the noise, I see him at the bottom of the shaft, breaking through the wall and suddenly, he releases a torrent of water!

With the water rising fast and the warforged blocking my only exit, I am trapped in! I can hear Sabre cachinnating in evil glee as the tunnel and shaft to the surface are flooded. Realizing that I will need to swim out, I get rid of all my equipment and heavy clothes to avoid the swim penalties. I stay in the ruined area as the water slowly pushes me up to the ceiling, periodically diving to check if he is still blocking the tunnel.

Finally, as the water fills the chamber, with my last gasps of air in my lungs, I dive to the tunnel and discover the warforged gone. I swim against the current in the tunnel (1 swim check per round + holding my breath) and arrive at the bottom of the flooded shaft. I start rising along the shaft and my breath runs out. My CON 12 rogue starts making constitution checks, and finally, I surface out of the shaft. Freezing, half naked and scared that the warforged is waiting for me, I sprint to the ground level of Sharn, where I take refuge among the goblins I know.

[jademonkey]

My favourite rockstar moment:

We're Imperial Space Marines on a derelict ship that obviously has a horrible huge reality warping soul-eating alien (imagine the Alien from the first film but its bite destroys your 'soul' and looking at it makes you go crazy) on it. It's all very tense and my character, who is the squad Sergeant, is currently unpopular with his boys after an unfortunate "itchy trigger-finger" plasma grenade incident.

We search the ship and find the hideously mutilated remains of dozens of soldiers, techs and civilians. Most of the other PCs start saying that we should bug out but I tell them that we have to move on. More muttering.

Finally, the moment comes. We open the doors to the bridge and the DM describes the monstrosity with relish, (we expect to TPK at this point) lingering on the details such as its enormous size, the reality warping effects of its very existence and so on.

Realising we're over our heads, I act first and tell the rest of the squad to run like hell back to the ship and that I'll cover their asses. They all run. :(

The abomination charges me and bites me. I luckily make the save and don't drop dead immediately, but still take most of my HP. I then throw a plasma grenade in its mouth (lucky) and 'duck and cover'. The beast's head explodes, spattering me with gore. I then stagger back to the rest of the squad, to their absolute shock.

[Darrin]

Valdres and Mauldra vs. the 50-foot Gnoll

Back in my college days, 2nd Edition, I was one of the two tanks in the group, playing Valdres, a fighter who specialized in every possible combat style that involved bastard swords. Or second tank was Mike's elven pit fighter, Mauldra, who specialized in mauls (arena weapon similar to spiked gauntlets). We were playing in DM Ryan's homebrew campaign, sorta a Dark Sun meets Warhammer FRP thing.

Ryan had this thing for gnolls, and in particular, mutant gnolls. One of his favorite BBEG's was Krom, who had some Tarrasque-like regeneration abilities, and he caught up with us in the desert with a bunch of mutant gnoll flunkies, one of which was 50 feet tall. Everybody was around 5th or 6th level, and not really up to fighting 50-foot anything. We weren't all full strength and we'd lost our healer, so the rest of the party took the hint from the DM that he wanted us to parley or negotiate, and proceeded to argue with Krom about why, exactly, our thief had tried to backstabbed him last time we met. The negotiations hadn't started off well, so I looked over at Mike, and I could tell we were both struggling with whether our characters would decide to back down or do something incredibly, insanely violent and suicidal (but somewhat in-character).

I picked up my 20-sider and asked him, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

Mike in a quiet, slow voice, said, "Yes, I think I am."

We tossed the dice onto the table. I rolled an 18. Mike rolled a 20. The DM turned to us, surprised that we were rolling attack rolls, and gave us his shocked "Oh crap they're doing something incredibly stupid that will get them killed", and asked us, "Do you really want to do that?" We told him yes, we knew it was stupid but we wanted to do it anyway. He said "Ho-kay!" and reluctantly shifted gears as it began to sink in around the table that we were now all headed for what looked like a TPK.

Next turn, Mike rolled an 18 and a 20. I rolled a 19, and after a few rounds, both of us quickly and thoroughly made mince-meat of that 50-foot gnoll's ankles. I never rolled anything lower than a 16. Mauldra finally landed the fatal blow, and the 50-foot gnoll toppled to the ground...

...on top of Valdres, who blew is roll to get out of the way, driving him waste-deep into the sand. The crushing damage dropped him below 0 HP, and I spent the next six days waiting for natural healing to bring me back up to conciousness.

[Leicontis]

This game was set in a sort of post-apocalyptic Forgotten Realms (Monstrous races had overthrown all civilization and taken over the world). My character was a grizzled old Marshal with better mental stats than physical stats. Prior to game start, he had witnessed his beloved mentor brutally killed and torn apart by goblins, who had then run off with the various pieces of heirloom regalia my character should have inherited. Needless to say, he hated goblins.

We're clearing a small Dwarven village of the goblins that now occupy it. Upon opening/looking into the door of one of the houses, we see three goblins inside. My character immediately charges in, while the other party members stay outside, one or two providing some ranged support. My character's actions from here are as follows:
Round 1: Attack first goblin with longsword. He drops.
Round 2: Attempt to shield bash second goblin with (non-spiked) shield (also, no shield bash feats whatsoever). Critical. Drops.
Round 3: Turn to only remaining goblin and bull-rush him, attempting to crush him against the wall. A good roll combined with broken weapon racks on that wall...

At this point, the quiet, dignified, intelligent older man arches his back, tips back his head, and lets out a bestial roar of victory. The rest of the party just kinda stood there with "Do we know this guy?" looks on their faces.

Thanks to a good set of rolls, this combat went in a very RP-good fashion.

[Hunter Noventa]

Probably the most badass thing I ever did with a character involves the Swordsage in my avatar.

The campaign was in a semi Vampire hunter D-ish world, where vampries more or less lord over the general populace. But it's not Ravenloft.

Anyway, the party had just infiltrated the castle of a powerful Vampire Lord intent on taking over the last free human city. We made our way to his throne room where he was meeting with some cronies. They scattered whent he fight broke out, as the statues around the room came alive, becoming Retrievers.

Our party consisted of my Swordsage, a Cleric with a Warforged Cohort, an Artificer with Blast Rod wielding Homunculus, and a non-optimized Psion. THer emay have been one or two more, but I don't recall.

Now, I had been lucky enough to acquie a Sun Blade. So as combat started and my super dexy, Shadow Hand focused Swordsage charges the Vampire and "tanks" him while everyone ele fights off the Retrievers. I spent severl rounds exchanging blows witht he Vampire, backing him up onto his throne as he tries to stay aay to cast spells.

Eventually the retrievers are dead, and the party is focusing on the Vampire. And then, I use a manuver, pull off a critical hit with the Sunblade, and do enough damage with it to destroy the vampire. My DM ruled that I took off his head with that blow and basically incinerated the body, because I was using a Desert Wind manuver. Not only that, but the weapon became a Legacy Weapon right then and there.

It was beautiful.

[Heineken]

I had one of these Rockstar-Moments on friday:
Our party (12th lvl Rogue, 12th lvl Bard and 12th lvl TWF Ranger <-that´s me) was fighting in quite a big battle inside a dwarven city. Duergar had attacked the city from the underground, while an evil Wizard tried to steal an artifact from the throne room. We were defending the gate to the throne room, when the Duergar´s main force arrived. There was absolutely no chance of defeating them, so the Dwarven chief sent us to find the powerful temple-guard to reinforce our troops. We fought our way through the burning city and finally saw them, fighting a big bunch of Duergar. Unfortunately we were quite high above them because we were standing on a bridge that connected two plateaus of a higher level of the city. So I asked the Bard to enlarge me and jumped off the bridge and aimed for the leader of the Duergar. Thanks to power attack and Leap Attack I killed him with one hit. That was one hell of a cool moment...

On another occasion the same character charged a treant while he was down to 1 hp. What can I say? I critted him

Man, I love this character.

[Seatbelt]

We saved Greenday from Polar Bears. Rockstar moment? Yes please.

[Jerthanis]

There was one time my level 5 Fighter practically soloed the level 9 fighter who had a brilliant energy weapon, the campaign end-boss... but that was less "I did something crazy and dangerous and it worked" and more "My party was useless, and I had the right potions for the job"

Other two spoilered for length

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There was another time where there was a powerful Djinn warlord who was attempting to take over the world. We found that the only way to defeat him was to seal him away in a sunken castle, so we found out how to raise the castle, and then lured him there. My character, a level 6ish Druid, was waiting for him at the gates. The Djinn left his armies behind and accepted my one on one challenge. I cast Flame Blade, he formed a sword out of wind, flashing green. We dueled for a bit and I realized I wasn't going to win, so I ran away into the throne room, and hit myself with a couple healing spells. The Djinn caught up and we resumed the duel, fighting over the throne itself. I again withdrew up some flights of staircases until we were fighting on the battlements. He kept "pushing me back" as I retreated round after round with a five foot step each time. Finally he had me against the battlements and open air... He told me to yield, and he'd make my death quick. As a response I threw myself over the edge and Wild Shaped into an eagle just as my wizard friend activated the doohickey to seal the Djinn there. It was at the least, a satisfyingly climactic end to a campaign.

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This other time, in Ebberron, I was playing a rogue who was hired as a mercenary to act as a policeperson for sharn while their law enforcement brigade was lost in a living spell of Maze. She was going to confront the person in charge of house Cannith about some of their factories and an unlawful upsurge in production, and blackmail her about that for information on the house of shadows, so I could bring in the people who were trying to assassinate the minotaur who was hired to go into the Maze spell and bring people out of it. I wasn't listening to one of the DM's asides for another one of the players, as the game had allowed a lot of freedom to separate from the party to pursue individual agendas... but apparently he had made contact with the house of shadows and had apparently been hired to destroy House Cannith, because while waiting for the CEO (what we started calling the head of House Cannith) to get out of her meeting, I saw my fellow PC out a window, riding a Flying carriage packed with explosives right toward the tower. Cursing violently, and thankful I had a ring of featherfall, I ran into the meeting, grabbed the CEO, and jumped out a window a moment before the explosion rocked the building. I made my reflex save to avoid the shrapnel raining around, but I saw my fellow PC above me, also falling with featherfall, and him being a Spiked Chain Fighter, I knew my bow-rogue couldn't win in an aerial duel with my hands full of CEO. I realized it was only a matter of time before we landed and he killed both of us, so I "Kicked" one of the pieces of falling tower around us and used my slippers of spider-climb to attach myself to it. It overloaded the Featherfall spell and we plummeted from the skies of Sharn. Unfortunately, that gave him the same idea... and he used his spiked chain to wrap around his OWN piece of falling debris to follow us. Fortunately for me, there was a sky-platform we were falling past, and I was able to leap to safety, rolling with it and taking only significant falling damage, instead of dying. Fullplate man was not quite able to make the jump, and was clinging on to the edge for dear life. We looked at each other, him not quite able to make an easy climb check to pull himself up repeatedly, me not quite certain I want to push him the rest of the way off for fear of him pulling me with him... Eventually I retreat with the CEO and lose him in the city.

[Winterking]

Ahh, the memories...

Two autumns ago, I was studying abroad, and had found a group that played a variant of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Being a High Elves player myself, I went with High Elven WHFRP characters, only for them to keep dying, after generally less than a session of adventuring. Finally, I'd made a new character, a two-sword-wielding swashbucklery type who so far had been unable to do much more than stay alive. The party was investigating some hideous murders and evil-stuff-activity, when a giant snake-daemon (made out of garbage, I believe) attacked us.
The fight was going somewhat poorly, until my elven swordsman leapt onto the daemon-snake's back, ran up its neck, and plunged my swords into each side of the beast.* The worm turned, and as it fled back to its lair, my elf kept his balance, riding atop the snake-daemon like a Fremen on a sandworm, singing a bold elven song, bright red cape flapping in the breeze. Being carried away from the party, straight into the lair of a bunch of cultists. But it was quite the "rock star" moment.


*The fact that the fireballs of our group's permanently drunken wizard finally managed to strike the daemon may have had more impact on the course of the battle, however...


Another campaign I played in was a strange amalgamation of old WoD settings, and while the rest of the party consisted of a Vampire, a Werewolf, and a Sorceror, I was playing a Daredevil (from Adventure!), a crack shot with a heavily modified shotgun. The greatest rock star moment there involved a called shot to the left nostril of a half-demon neo-Nazi, and over twenty dice being rolled for damage. The result? An exploding head, and severely damaged architecture behind the demon.

[Argent]

Party is up against a bunch of bandits who're looting a caravan. We're mopping up the mooks when the bandit leader decides to hightail it -- he grabs the loot and jumps on his horse in preparation to flee. My cleric (of Kelemvor) just happened to have cast True Strike and it was still active; on my turn, the cleric chucked his heavy mace at the bandit leader, who was about fifty feet away... and rolled an insta-kill. Twenty, twenty, hit. Dropped the guy like a bad habit, right off his horse. Probably the most cinematic moment I've seen in a game in a long time.

[Telonius]

Our warforged barbarian had been swallowed whole by some sort of awful unpronounceable aberration, and was in danger of being utterly consumed by the stomach acid. My Wizard/Rogue/Master of Masks charges the thing, dives into its jaws, grabs hold of the barbarian, and teleports out to safety. It was one of his more badass moments.

[Shatenjager]

Well there was this one campaign where I was running a D20 Appocalypse campaign with all the PCs as members of a rock band. I made a wierd magic system that had to do with perform checks.

They had to fight some tribals with arrows when the lead guitarist struck a bad ass chord on his axe, drew his sword and charged. The chord lingered in the air deflecting arrows as per the wind wall spell as he covered the entire distance between the archers and himself.

Is that rock star enough?

I miss that campaign.

[Indon]

So, in short, a Rock Star moment is a moment that fulfills most of the following:
1. It involves a heavy, but not entirely stupid risk.
2. It's awe-inspiring and causes the other players to applaud, laugh, or gawk
3. It can be described as "Bad ass"
4. It usually contains a witty line.
5. It is a character defining moment
6. It achieves some extraordinary end that is normally beyond the character's abilities.
7. It's quick and spur of the moment.

The Exalted campaign I'm currently running is filled with these. A relatively recent moment:

The players are on a river barge being fired upon by a nearby river fortress with a functioning first age weapon mounted on it; it is essentially a powerful piece of artillery, and very capable of destroying a ship.

After deflecting a few blows off the ship by parrying them, three party members get the bright idea to strike the next shell hard enough that it flies _back_ to the fortress, striking it. I let them do this by all making attack rolls, and they achieved 31 combined successes.

So they not only deflect the attack, but they knock it back into the fortress, inflicting significant damage and giving them some hella impressive reputation.

[tainsouvra]

The Exalted campaign I'm currently running is filled with these.

Yeah, Exalted is made for this stuff. If you're not having moments like that, your storyteller is watering it down

[Indon]

Yeah, Exalted is made for this stuff. If you're not having moments like that, your storyteller is watering it down

Ooh, another one. The resident Lunar once turned into a Tyrant Lizard and repeatedly rolled over a 1'st Circle demon to beat it up (I ran it like a clinch in-game, if I recall).

[tainsouvra]

Ooh, another one. The resident Lunar once turned into a Tyrant Lizard and repeatedly rolled over a 1'st Circle demon to beat it up (I ran it like a clinch in-game, if I recall).

Ok, that's just funny.

For the D&D inclined, this is somewhat similar to wildshaping into a huge dinosaur then sitting on your opponent until he is crushed beyond recognition. I find that too funny to not abuse at some point in the future.

[Zim]

The rogue in our STAP campaign did what was probably the most awesome bit of spy work I've ever witnessed. We had just defeated one of the BBEG's and taken his disguise (a magical rubber suit that made him look human rather than a horrible monster). We had found out that the leaders of the BIG conspiracy were meeting at a certain time and place and this BBEG was in tight with the leader (a kissy kissy way, that is).

What we did was dressed the rogue up in the magic suit, gave him a potion of glibness, hat of disguise, the BBEG's clothes (incl jewellery and cologne), and a cape of the montebank (escape route) and sent him into the secret conspiracy meeting, making the excuse that he was crashing the party.

Several ungodly Bluff and Disguise checks later (we're talking low 50's), he had the entire group of shadowy figures eating out of his hand. He even flirted with the head conspirator and the elven vampire, and none of them knew the difference!

Needless to say, when they found the body of the BBEG we killed lying face-down and naked in his sanctum the next morning, they were pissed! It was very cool!

[Indon]

Another one from my Exalted game:

The party encountered a giant (horse-sized) roach near a Wyld zone. The Dragon-blood of the party, ever heroic, leaps onto the roach and stabs it in one eye. The roach deployed its' wings and took off, the Dragon-blood hanging on, Shadow of the Collossus style, attacking it all the while.

In fact, that character's general approach to combat against large things is 'climb up it and stab it', which is fun.

[Machete]

I was playing in a game of Evolution as a race of sentient mushroom people. Among other interesting abilities they had was the fact that their bodies were very poisonous. Another dragon-like race had developed a godkilling ability that sapped gods of their powers and looked to eventually kill the gods. This also gave them a taste for sentient flesh.

Therefore, the mushroom people, being the race of mostly pacifistic herbivores with more points in stuff like brewing and cooking than fighting they were decided to offer a great number of themselves up as slaves to the dragon race.

Decades later in game, the true reason for their enslavement arose during what the mushroom people called a celebration of their masters they killed each other and served most of themselves up. The dragon creatures ate up and almost the entire race of dragon creatures was killed in a single night during the full moon as they died horrible deaths comperable to chugging cyanide.

Sure, the mushroom people hadn't sent enough slaves to poison everybody, but it was still a rockstar moment.

[BRC]

I was absent at the time, but apparently my group once convinced a city of mind flayers to turn against their leader and fight for us.

[Fruan]

Well, if we're telling Exalted stories...


My Solar Twilight Sorcerer - Mnemon Yen - had a pretty impressive rock star moment when we were clearing the ancient and malfunctioning first age defenses out of his first age incarnation's manse.

On either side of a large sweeping stairway leading up from the back of the great hall to the mezzanine level that surrounded it were 8 big statues. We'd polished off some 3rd circle demons that had been bound to guarding the place, and had basicly all split up to explore. The circle's Dawn does something he shouldn't have (sadly, I forget what) and the statues animate and start attacking.

The were pretty damn tough - Enough soak so that the Grand Diaklave weilding Dawn combat monkey was only doing ping damage. (In D&D terms, I guess this is roughly similar to a creature having massive DR that you just cannot bypass). Coming out of a lab off the mezzanine level, Yen realizes that it's time to break out the big guns, and spends a round casting 'Invunerable Skin of Bronze' - A spell that literally turns you to living bronze, making you hella tough, as well as becoming as heavy as a large solid bronze statue, etc.

The Statues just aren't taking noticable damage from the rest of the party, so Yen charges at the nearest one, tripping it over on the staircase. He then jumps up on it, and stands on it as it starts to slide down, applying all his now massively increased weight to grinding the statues head against the stairs. Riding the statue down the stairs, he starts to cast "Death of Obsidian Butterflies" - A spell that sends out a swarm of razor sharp butterflies carved from obsidian in a rather large cone area of effect. Just as Yen reaches the bottom of the stairs, the spell goes off, effectively sand blasting the statue he rode down into rubble.

Of course, Sorcery being what it is in Exalted, he had to go sit down after that, having expended 80% of his essence. But damn it was cool. Getting a 3 die stunt bonus on a grapple attack, and then using a stunt to be allowed to cast sorcery in a grapple is where things are at.

[EndgamerAzari]

Ooh, ooh! I have one!


My fighter/barbarian was witness to an out-of-control parade float careening towards a patron-filled inn. Acting on instinct (both her and I), she charges the float. I roll a nat 20 on my strength check, and she tears a wheel clean off, causing the float's speed to drop to non-life-threatening. If I'd screwed that up I probably woulda been flattened.

[DraPrime]

I was playing a were-tiger. Our party was in a castle that was under attack, and the gates were almost down. I transformed into hybrid mode, and gave one command. Open the gates. I managed to single-handedly hold back half the enemy army.