Things I May No Longer Do while Playing IX: GNO GNOMES!

[Spore]

*** Cannot abuse the fact that priceless can refer to being completely worthless, it's just never used that way.

**** Should not point out to the DM that priceless means that no price can be evaluated for an important item while the price of "nothing" is an actual price, therefore his joke falls flat.
***** Might not start an Adamantium Door Dungeon outfitter with a Wizard specialized in Polymorph spells.

[GPuzzle]

*May not base a sci-fi campaign on Digital Haunt.
**No one even understands what it actually means, the clues make no sense at all!

[Anonymouswizard]

**** Should not point out to the DM that priceless means that no price can be evaluated for an important item while the price of "nothing" is an actual price, therefore his joke falls flat.

***** May not claim the presence of a space.

[JAL_1138]

*Must not state a die is lucky or performing well, or offer it any form of praise whatsoever for consistently high rolls, as it will immediately turn against me and refuse to roll higher than single-digits.

[Rater202]

*Any build that gives an arbitrarily large number of spell points at chargen is banned.

[Anonymouswizard]

* My character must have a motivation other than 'FOR SCIENCE!'
** Said character cannot be the most emotionally stable of the group.
*** Cannot use science to invent a new version of magic.
**** Especially if magic and science are said to be in opposition.
***** May no longer play scientists or engineers. It's scary when I apply the scientific method in-game.

The last one is actually kind of true, in that once I had my character start applying actual scientific method to experiments involving zombies he discovered more in a day than the army had in six months (it helped that we ended up in an industrial estate with many weak zombies surrounding it, meaning that my character had enough resources that capturing test subjects and holding them were handwaved, and lightweight armour to protect from bites in experiments. He managed to confirm that zombies were essentially immune to electricity). I made sure to stress that every experiment was repeated to get reliable data, and I think he GM only took me out of the lab in the session I missed so that I couldn't learn enough to start developing effective weaponry.

As it turns out, playing a scientist when the GM doesn't have any idea how science works can be really scary, in that I could roll off simple experiments for useful data in the order of one experiment roughly every two minutes, and one of my first experiments established the enemy as non-sentient because they couldn't be trained (at all). It's made me want to play another scientist character who actually gets time in R&D to make gadgets. I did once get the opportunity, but the world's magic system was so interesting I made a kook instead.

[DigoDragon]

The last one is actually kind of true, in that once I had my character start applying actual scientific method to experiments involving zombies he discovered

There were two retired military personnel in my old group. I learned a lot about military protocol and tactics because of them. It was indeed scary when I ran an American Civil War campaign and they handily won like... 25% more Union battles than the Union actually did.

[goto124]

* May not ask Digo to post the lastest shenanigan from that FO:E game.

[Spore]

**** Especially if magic and science are said to be in opposition.

* May not point out that Wizards are often the equivalent of magic scientists in most RPGs.
** Can also not use real architectural knowledge to point out how concrete walls would not stand in a post apocalyptic scenario 500 years from now.
*** May not point out that in said scenario there is NO real reason for some factions to revert to weaponry from the Iron Age, the Renaissance or the Industrial Age.
**** Might not point out the setting's flaws mid-session; and question the DM's weird fascination with that cohesive yet scientifically completely stupid world.
***** Not allowed to wonder or complain if I am not invited to further sessions of ANYTHING remotely fantastical.

[JAL_1138]

Ammunition could be a factor in going back to earlier weapons. Brass cases wear out if you reload them enough, and smokeless powder isn't terribly easy to make compared to black powder (which will foul a barrel and action extremely quickly--enough smokeless-powder residue can gum up a striker-fired pistol to the point the action doesn't work properly even if the barrel is clean; black powder is far worse). Powder doesn't keep indefinitely either; it has a shelf-life. Old powder is unreliable as to burn rate. Primers and even their precursor, percussion-caps, aren't really easy to homebrew without functioning industry (if nothing else, to provide the chemicals), either. Lead spheres and Minié balls are easier to make than modern hardened-lead bullets, which are themselves easier to make than any kind of jacketed bullet. Flintlock muzzleloaders might make a bit of a resurgence for ease of maintenance and ammo, as might bows and spears as hunting tools. Machetes, knives, axes, or even a fairly common WWI trick, sharpened shovels, are pretty useful in close-quarters combat, especially if you don't have easy access to cartridges. And of course springs wear out, barrels bulge, rust happens, metal fatigue snaps that teeny fiddly little absolutely-critical part somewhere in the inner works and there's no easy way to replace it. So I could see that sort of thing, somewhat, if a hundred years or more had gone by since the apocalypse without any real rebuilding.

[DigoDragon]

* May not ask Digo to post the lastest shenanigan from that FO:E game.

It's for the twist that just happened, isn't it?

** May not spoil the twist until it is the right moment.

[TurboGhast]

Just thought of this
* If playing a Mega Man X based campaign, can't leave the quest to resurrect Green Biker Dude.
** If playing a Classic Mega Man based campaign, can't leave the quest to make sure Green Biker Dude never dies.
*** Especially because he hasn't been born yet!

[Anonymouswizard]

There were two retired military personnel in my old group. I learned a lot about military protocol and tactics because of them. It was indeed scary when I ran an American Civil War campaign and they handily won like... 25% more Union battles than the Union actually did.

Yeah, I refrain from commenting on bad science as I'm really not as up-to-date as I should be (but I have called bull**** on the physically impossible several times, and outright ban instant travel in my games). But if I actually do start experimenting in-game I can be scarily competent, as I ask enough questions that I stumble across the right ones.

* May not point out that Wizards are often the equivalent of magic scientists in most RPGs.

** May not point out that this is true in all my homebrew worlds, and that generally they have the rules of magic pretty well worked out to the point where they can come up with the right spell with a few weeks to a few decades to work on it. Usually.

[Roderick_BR]

* My character must have a motivation other than 'FOR SCIENCE!'
** Said character cannot be the most emotionally stable of the group.
*** Cannot use science to invent a new version of magic.
**** Especially if magic and science are said to be in opposition.
***** May no longer play scientists or engineers. It's scary when I apply the scientific method in-game.

The last one is actually kind of true, in that once I had my character start applying actual scientific method to experiments involving zombies he discovered more in a day than the army had in six months (it helped that we ended up in an industrial estate with many weak zombies surrounding it, meaning that my character had enough resources that capturing test subjects and holding them were handwaved, and lightweight armour to protect from bites in experiments. He managed to confirm that zombies were essentially immune to electricity). I made sure to stress that every experiment was repeated to get reliable data, and I think he GM only took me out of the lab in the session I missed so that I couldn't learn enough to start developing effective weaponry.

As it turns out, playing a scientist when the GM doesn't have any idea how science works can be really scary, in that I could roll off simple experiments for useful data in the order of one experiment roughly every two minutes, and one of my first experiments established the enemy as non-sentient because they couldn't be trained (at all). It's made me want to play another scientist character who actually gets time in R&D to make gadgets. I did once get the opportunity, but the world's magic system was so interesting I made a kook instead.

As a DM, I would allow it, although some knowledge-based skills are faster and more reliable to find out information about monsters. And missing an adventure while locked in a lab may hurt your XP earning.

[DigoDragon]

And missing an adventure while locked in a lab may hurt your XP earning.

What if you were locked in the lab against your will with an intentional fire? :3

[Draconium]

*I may not bluff my way into an emergency international meeting when I just randomly stuble upon it.
**Especially not if my nation didn't originally send anyone to this meeting.
***I may not claim that my nation is willing to open trade routes with other nations when we've been entirely self-sustaining until this point.
****If they contact my nation's rulers to confirm this, I may not act so confident about it that the rulers decide to just roll with my bluff.
*****I may not do this all at level 1.

[JAL_1138]

*I may not bluff my way into an emergency international meeting when I just randomly stuble upon it.
**Especially not if my nation didn't originally send anyone to this meeting.
***I may not claim that my nation is willing to open trade routes with other nations when we've been entirely self-sustaining until this point.
****If they contact my nation's rulers to confirm this, I may not act so confident about it that the rulers decide to just roll with my bluff.
*****I may not do this all at level 1.

Brohoof. I did almost the same thing once (at much higher level, though that didn't give me a stat bonus in 2nd). May have put it in an earlier thread. Bluffed my way into trade negotiations as a duke when the representative didn't show. Got a good enough trade deal set up that my home nation had to retroactively make me a duke because they didn't want to lose the trade deal. I retired the character to go run his new fiefdom.

[Draconium]

Brohoof. I did almost the same thing once (at much higher level, though that didn't give me a stat bonus in 2nd). May have put it in an earlier thread. Bluffed my way into trade negotiations as a duke when the representative didn't show. Got a good enough trade deal set up that my home nation had to retroactively make me a duke because they didn't want to lose the trade deal. I retired the character to go run his new fiefdom.

In my case, I only had to actually roll a couple of bluff checks. The rest of it was pure roleplaying. It got really tense. And I loved every second of it. I haven't played that character since - haven't really got the chance - but he had a fun personality. He was actually one of my first evil PCs, so he introduced me to the deep end of the alignment pool.

[Anonymouswizard]

As a DM, I would allow it, although some knowledge-based skills are faster and more reliable to find out information about monsters. And missing an adventure while locked in a lab may hurt your XP earning.

The thing was, we were earning XP so slowly that me staying behind, doing research and developing gadgets would have been strictly better than me going out into the field and earning XP, simply because we weren't earning XP fast enough for me to get good at fighting with anything but an arming sword.

The thing that annoys me was that I had been clear since my first character concept (magic-using Anglican priest) had been shot down that research was my character's number one priority, and that was why over half my skill points were in science and electronic engineering. Instead of letting me roll with it he stopped me from building simple weaponry (you can totally build a railgun good enough to kill a zombie with modern equipment, the power drain is just so much it would likely end up as a turret weapon or with a backpack battery) and only let me run any experiments once he had finally decided to stop making up reasons why are characters couldn't do the sensible thing and go to the industrial estate (we had several days worth of food and plans that would have allowed us to be better equipped for scavenging at the end of day one at the industrial estate).

Any reasonable GM would have either just docked me XP or required me to funnel the XP towards science and engineering skills. This GM came up with reasons why the party scientist and mechanical engineer (that's two separate PCs) couldn't use their skill sets.

*I may not bluff my way into an emergency international meeting when I just randomly stuble upon it.
**Especially not if my nation didn't originally send anyone to this meeting.
***I may not claim that my nation is willing to open trade routes with other nations when we've been entirely self-sustaining until this point.
****If they contact my nation's rulers to confirm this, I may not act so confident about it that the rulers decide to just roll with my bluff.
*****I may not do this all at level 1.

Sounds perfectly reasonable. Bounded accuracy means that the level 5 representatives likely don't have a sense motive much higher than your bluff.

* When every other suggestion of a game has fallen through, cannot finally try to run D&D at the university gaming society.

[DigoDragon]

* No longer allowed to categorize game systems based on their ability to ship my characters.

[goto124]

** May not wonder what Bounded accuracy actually is, since it extends beyond combat.

Digo: ** May not mention Bliss Stage.

Spoiler: Explanations of Bliss Stage, from other fellow GitPers

Show

I think the best way to describe Bliss Stage is that it is a game based on "romance". There is only one adult character in the game. Figure out why one of my standing rules for tabletop is that anyone suggesting it (Alongside FATAL and Cthulutech) gets punched in the gonads.

Now , I could dig a scenario where you're a hundred miles from anything resembling civilization, so it is either take the kid or let them die. Having them fight could just be unavoidable, as some enemies would see them as hostages or food. That's fine. There is a very good reason for the situation.

Except the times that I have seen younger characters, the player never does this. One time it happened in a large city with an orphanage. I guess what I want to say is that if you want a difficult concept, please put in some effort to help other characters, instead of doing nothing and get upset at paladins for not wanting to traumatize children. Yes, other players should help, but all sides need to pitch in not just others.

Think "Evangelion meets Falling Skies with heavy dating sim elements that are the main means of character advancement."

Slightly longer version, Bliss Stage is a semi-obscure game in which you play as teenagers...
Fighting a guerilla war against alien conquerers...
Using mecha...
That literally run on the Power of Love...
To which end every PC has a designated NPC love interest...
Your relationship values with whom constitute four out of your six ability scores...
And yes, by "ability scores" I mean the ones that determine how good you are at fighting aliens.

Ah, so a romance-anime-plot crossed with a super-robot plot. Eh, I can see that being done well or creepy, honestly. Romance-excuse-plots are just ways to add drama and force teen characters who might otherwise be too shy to participate in the plotlines. (Though it CAN go creepy, depending how it's handled.)

[Draconium]

Sounds perfectly reasonable. Bounded accuracy means that the level 5 representatives likely don't have a sense motive much higher than your bluff.

*I may not point out that it was D&D 3.5, and I was playing a core-only fighter (we didn't have splatbook access, and it was mostly role-playing anyways).

[Anonymouswizard]

** May not wonder what Bounded accuracy actually is, since it extends beyond combat.

*** May not respond with 'it means that your bonus can't get above a 12 without magic, and so is obviously a way to make wizards all powerful'.

Digo: ** May not mention Bliss Stage.

*** May not ask 'is that the one where a high-risk strategy is to play 'Barney Stinson but a teenager'?'
**** 'Can you sleep with the aliens?' is also banned.

[Lord Raziere]

* No longer allowed to sing the NWO's name in full in an uplifting british voice every time I refer to the NEW WORLD ORDER!!

[DigoDragon]

Digo: ** May not mention Bliss Stage.

Oh my. That's something. ...something banned I assume.

**** 'Can you sleep with the aliens?' is also banned.

We all already know the answer anyway.

[Anonymouswizard]

* No longer allowed to sing the NWO's name in full in an uplifting british voice every time I refer to the NEW WORLD ORDER!!

** May not criticise the British accent without hearing it.
*** Even if I have one of the most British accents possible.
**** May not mention that my family, despite having the most English accent possible this side of RP frequently get accused of having an American accent by people with the exact same accent.

* No matter how many laughs it gets, I cannot have the punchline to a 'the government says foreigners are evil' joke be 'now if you'll excuse me I have a Chinese girl I want to ask out'.

[GPuzzle]

*No longer allowed to run a Shadowrun campaign set in future South Park.

[JAL_1138]

*May not claim that a 10ft pole is more precious than adamantite or mithral armor or weapons.
**Even if it's saved my life more often.
***There is no god of 10ft poles.
****The god of survival's holy symbol is not a 10ft pole.
*****Nor is it a bag of flour.
******Nor is it 50ft of rope.
*******Nor is it a reach polearm, which is just a 10ft pole you can kill people with more easily.
********Even if I made it through the Tomb of Horrors in one piece and am of sufficient level to earn the title "High Priest," I am not the High Priest of Survival.
*********Nor am I the High Priest of Dungeoneering.
**********Nor am I the High Priest of the Order of the Red Shirt.

[Rater202]

*None of my reflected mystical effects can be stronger than the original.
**Especially if I'm reflecting a reality Marble.
***Especially if the Reality Marble is Unlimited Blade Works.

[Lord Raziere]

* may not design traps that only activate when feet touch them, which wooden poles wouldn't be able to detect.
** or change the dungeon to kill monsters before the PC's can get to them to deny them valuable exp when they use a pole
*** or change all the gold in the dungeon to wood.
**** or set it up so that every trap they find it only makes the 10 ft pole glow and keeps returning to their hand but otherwise seems harmless until they finally step into the BBEG's room where all the traps stored in the 10 ft pole suddenly explode upon the PC's as they cross the threshold
***** or design traps that seem only beneficial until they hit a "reversal room" that then reverses all the buffs they got so that they die or at least incredibly weakened so that the BBEG kills them.
****** nor can I design traps that don't seem to do anything but instead activate illusions out of sight that lead them to their doom.