Things I May No Longer Do While Playing XI: I May Not Postpone Naming My Thread

[Guizonde]

Drill Instructor: So you're an Ork?
Joker (Ork): Sir, Yes, Sir
Drill Instructor: Let me see your WAAAAGH face
Joker: Sir?
Drill Instructor: You got a WAAAGH face? WAAAAAAAAAGH!! That's a WAAAGH face! Now let me see your WAAAGH face.
Joker: waaaagh?!?
Drill Instructor: Bull[], you didn't convince me. Now let me see your real WAAAGH face
Joker: WAaAaAaAaAaGh!
Drill Instructor: You don't scare me, work on it!

ever heard of the armageddon ork hunters? my dm didn't, and he laughed out loud when i showed them. i ad-libbed my character fought alongside them just to explain away why my dice love killing mushrooms almost as much as they do.

[LordCdrMilitant]

Oh, part of the point with the fantasy version is to have the PCs leading the charge, the henchmen are there to make the fight more epic and to allow meaningful attrition during the scenario.

With the system invasion, yeah. Honestly I've never liked the 'PCs go on an important mission that somehow decides the success or failure of the fight' method of resolving it, so I really do want to come up with a way for them to be the admirals in charge of the battle.

Bit of a moot point though, because the next SF game I plan to run will begin with the players owning a small in-system vessel before managing to become owners of a small (1.5km long) starship. In this setting starship maintenance is fully automated, so while they might end up hiring a load of engineers to fix major damage at ports most of the people they want to hire will be security and cargo handlers (if they don't just decide to sell the ship). Plus it uses reactionless drive relativistic travel with slow FTL radio, most systems are independent because controlling them is too much trouble.

So far, the best one I've done was having the players fighting down a hill to a stranded Baneblade surrounded by Tyranids. Imperial Guard support manifested itself as being able to mark targets for a Shadowsword atop the hill, and a company of Basilisks firing to cover their flank. They got to roll for the Shadowsword and pass the target designator around, which made it fun for everyone.

The least good one I've had was a major fleet battle. The party was in charge of the fleet like it was a wargame, but they weren't as interested, excited, or invested because their own vessel and themselves weren't a major part until they had an opportunity to board an enemy vessel. Part of it was the fact that Inquisitor Lord Loria's battle barge and Rogue Trader Soladon's heavy cruiser were significantly larger and hit many times harder than the pair of frigates they personally owned [not to mention the presence of other frigates and light cruisers in the fleet]. I feel it flowed better when we focused on their personal frigate pair and fights with enemies near their own size while Lord Loria [who was much higher ranking anyway] assumed command of the fleet. It didn't help that ships were firing tons of torpedoes and launching tons of fighters, which really slowed down play.

Other good ones have included the support of a Guard armored platoon and a Macharius to hold against a Chaos Space Marine armored attack, a two pronged attack with a hive gang attacking the front gate conjunction with the PDF while the party slipped in another way to break the heretic defenses from the inside, and the boarding of a renegade battle barge to capture it's navigational data and blow it up amidst a pitched fleet battle.

I had another field battle [this time in a PF game] where the player, having successfully started a rebellion and liberated a city, lead their rebel army against the army of the crown. Pathfinder's Mass Combat rules worked okay, but players had more fun focusing on their own individual abilities: tossing fireballs into packed spear formations, fighting a duel against an enemy commander, firing a lightning cannon against enemy griffon riders, etc. I would have a mass battle round or two where they ordered their troops around, then I'd go to each of them on the field and have a small encounter with them where they could do something personally heroic.

[Anonymouswizard]

Honestly, I wouldn't run such a battle unless the PCs were Sorrento part of the space force, and if they are it's not hard to make sure the heavy cruiser or whatever they're in charge of is the biggest ship in the fleet.

I can see the argument for just using mass battle rules though, and then zooming in on a smaller scale fight for the finale. It's just I'd likely still have the small scale fight include underlings if possible, and only do mass battle rules if players don't want to Wargame (which Savage Worlds is fully capable of doing).

[Rater202]

*I can't play a force sensitive who is ungodly powerful with the Dark Side by a combination of being cheerful and optimistic to the point of insanity, a significantly above average level of force sensitivity, and complete and utter ignorance of how the force is supposed to work.

[LordCdrMilitant]

Honestly, I wouldn't run such a battle unless the PCs were Sorrento part of the space force, and if they are it's not hard to make sure the heavy cruiser or whatever they're in charge of is the biggest ship in the fleet.

I can see the argument for just using mass battle rules though, and then zooming in on a smaller scale fight for the finale. It's just I'd likely still have the small scale fight include underlings if possible, and only do mass battle rules if players don't want to Wargame (which Savage Worlds is fully capable of doing).

What I've also found is that as wargamers first, we'd rather just play a real wargame, and a roleplay gamers switching to mass combat or a large battle just devalues our character's abilities.

[danielxcutter]

*I can't play a force sensitive who is ungodly powerful with the Dark Side by a combination of being cheerful and optimistic to the point of insanity, a significantly above average level of force sensitivity, and complete and utter ignorance of how the force is supposed to work.

That sounds rather... Specific.

[Anonymouswizard]

What I've also found is that as wargamers first, we'd rather just play a real wargame, and a roleplay gamers switching to mass combat or a large battle just devalues our character's abilities.

Yeah, I've got one group that is literally fine switching to wargame rules when needed, even if it's just one giant mech against another. However I'm bored with every climatic fight being 'the PCs against the villain and his strongest henchmen', I want an actual epic battle to cap a story where elephants charge through enemy lines and magicians bring vulcanos back to life.

[Personification]

*My campaign may not be an obvious rip-off of the Odyssey
**If my campaign happens to be an obvious ripoff of the Odyssey, I may not blindside my players who are dutifully trying to properly follow the storyline by giving the Cyclops Polyethylenephemus a monocle of true seeing

[Katrina]

* Circe being a Necromancer and Evokes instead of specialized in Enchantment, Illusion and Transmutation is right out.

[ElFi]

* No matter what our Bloodrager claims, there are problems that can't be surmounted by casting enlarge person and beating the enemy to death with another enemy.
** No, setting him on fire won't help.

* If the entire campaign concerns the hunt for the pieces of a world-ending MacGuffin and it looks like the bad guys are on the edge of victory if they find enough, my first plan probably shouldn't be poring over every bit of obscure lore I can find in an attempt to figure out how to destroy them.

* If I try to set up an elaborate space-opera setting a la Star Wars and my players immediately begin statting up the Ginyu Force, there's been some miscommunication between the two sides.

* In the event that all of my villains end up being cool and sympathetic characters whose motivations for their deeds are arguably better than the alleged heroes, I should probably start rethinking which side I'm really on.

* No, I'm not allowed to make the vampire clan less threatening by giving them flagrantly stereotypical Joisey accents.
** Or French accents.
*** Or Deep South accents.
**** Or ridiculous Eastern European knockoff accents.
***** I've been listening to too much Adventure Zone.

[Anonymouswizard]

* Cannot complain when the GM cancels yet again. Come on, we almost had regular sessions.

GM has given me permission to pitch a simple SF game to the group so she can sort out both plot and the character of the one player who's not rules-savvy enough to do it without help. I'm considering going all the way back to classic Traveller (which I have access to in it's entirety in pdf) instead of digging out my Mongoose Traveller 1e book, the lack of events will make character creation a lot easier for everybody. Six Careers, only two ships they might start with (if not they'll manage to get a mostly-broken Free Trader running during the first session), and lots of less 'gain an Ally/Rival/point in this skill'.

[Personification]

*My campaign may not be an obvious rip-off of the Odyssey
**If my campaign happens to be an obvious ripoff of the Odyssey, I may not blindside my players who are dutifully trying to properly follow the storyline by giving the Cyclops Polyethylenephemus a monocle of true seeing

*** Circe being a Necromancer and Evokes instead of specialized in Enchantment, Illusion and Transmutation is right out.

****The final boss may not be Penelope, and she has not actually been a succubus the whole time

[Lord Torath]

* Cannot complain when the GM cancels yet again. Come on, we almost had regular sessions.

GM has given me permission to pitch a simple SF game to the group so she can sort out both plot and the character of the one player who's not rules-savvy enough to do it without help. I'm considering going all the way back to classic Traveller (which I have access to in it's entirety in pdf) instead of digging out my Mongoose Traveller 1e book, the lack of events will make character creation a lot easier for everybody. Six Careers, only two ships they might start with (if not they'll manage to get a mostly-broken Free Trader running during the first session), and lots of less 'gain an Ally/Rival/point in this skill'.

* May not suggest Spelljemmer as an alternative to Science Fiction.
** Even though it still involves interplanetary and intersystem plots.
*** And Giant Miniature Space Hamsters
**** Seriously, no Spelljammer!
***** I mean it! Gno gnomes!!!!!

[danielxcutter]

*My campaign may not be an obvious rip-off of the Odyssey
**If my campaign happens to be an obvious ripoff of the Odyssey, I may not blindside my players who are dutifully trying to properly follow the storyline by giving the Cyclops Polyethylenephemus a monocle of true seeing

Didn't they drive a log through his eye? Don't think True Seeing helps with that... Maybe something that grants Blindsight instead?

[Personification]

Didn't they drive a log through his eye? Don't think True Seeing helps with that... Maybe something that grants Blindsight instead?

For some reason I had remembered something or other about the use of invisibility, but I may be conflating the before and after of him getting his eye stabbed out. Maybe this would work better:

**If my campaign happens to be an obvious ripoff of the Odyssey, I may not blindside my players who are dutifully trying to properly follow the storyline by giving the Cyclops Polyethylenephemus a monocle of invulnerability

[spineyrequiem]

* Sure, the bard can use a banjo
** I... guess you can all be from the same family?
*** What do you mean "The tree is... complicated."?
**** No, "Full-frontal democracy" does not count as a battleplan
***** At least drop the accents.

[Potato_Priest]

* No, I'm not allowed to make the vampire clan less threatening by giving them flagrantly stereotypical Joisey accents.
** Or French accents.
*** Or Deep South accents.
**** Or ridiculous Eastern European knockoff accents.
***** I've been listening to too much Adventure Zone.

I feel you on this one. I only know how to do so many accents, and they're all really extreme. I know that I've gotten complaints about my "Trucker Thor" before.

*My players will take my trucker Thor, and they will like it.

[Lord Raziere]

* May not refer to the Tree of Harmony as "The Magical Tree of Friendliness."
** Or as "The Tree of Buddies"
*** or as "The Magical Tree of Chums"
**** or as "Pine Tree of Pals"
***** or as "The Oak of Camaraderie"

* Also may not refer to the Magic of Friendship as "The Technology of Chummery"
** Or "The Science of Pal-ology"
*** Or "The Psychic of Buddy-ness"

[Faolin]

For some reason I had remembered something or other about the use of invisibility, but I may be conflating the before and after of him getting his eye stabbed out. Maybe this would work better:

**If my campaign happens to be an obvious ripoff of the Odyssey, I may not blindside my players who are dutifully trying to properly follow the storyline by giving the Cyclops Polyethylenephemus a monocle of invulnerability

If memory serves they clung to the bottom of some of his sheep after they blinded him.

[Hellpyre]

*I may no longer stare down the rogue after critically succeeding at stealth and knocking the guard he had alarmed unconsious.
**Even if it's the third time this session.
***Especially if I don't have as good a stealth modifier as him.

[Anonymouswizard]

* If I make one more character with an age over mine squared I an banned from life path systems.

I also had a GM literally ban me from taking more terms in careers because my character was already the eldest by a large margin. That GM knows that I'd create a wheelchair bound one armed senile master hacker grandpa if given the chance.

[LordCdrMilitant]

* If I make one more character with an age over mine squared I an banned from life path systems.

I also had a GM literally ban me from taking more terms in careers because my character was already the eldest by a large margin. That GM knows that I'd create a wheelchair bound one armed senile master hacker grandpa if given the chance.

I put a hard limit on the number goes in Traveller. Usually 3. One guy tried running a Traveller campaign, and the ensuing result gave us many Things We May No Longer Do While Playing Traveller.
*May not generate a party entirely of rank 6 characters
**No farming ship shares with characters.
***May not buy 3 spaceships between 8 players. We're not playing a party of spaceships, even if it's a well balanced adventuring party.
*May not equip my spaceship with more than 18 points of armor.
**May not buy a battery of particle beam triple-turrets for my ship.
***May not include bay guns, just in case someone else has a gunbrick.
****May not have full ECM and stealth systems on the gunbrick.
*****Just because the ship shares cover a fixed percent of the budget doesn't mean the budget is infinite. What about your monthly payment?
******May not require one of the party ships to have "fuel tanker and refinery for the other two" as a function.
*******Katherine may not design her own spaceship or spacefleet anymore.
********Or request modifications to her stock spaceship.
*The party never has a letter of marque on pirates ever again.
**Used pirate spaceships have massive drops in re-sale value.
***Really massive drops, our guns and boarding ships made holes in them.
****Space is going to eventually run out of pirates, you know.
*****You may not pay off the entire cost of your ship, which has a price like it was designed by the American military, by boarding pirate ships.
******There are no space pirates ever again. If a traveler campaign every says it's going to have space pirates, they're pre-emptively retconned into not-existing.

[Guizonde]

I put a hard limit on the number goes in Traveller. Usually 3. One guy tried running a Traveller campaign, and the ensuing result gave us many Things We May No Longer Do While Playing Traveller.
*May not generate a party entirely of rank 6 characters
**No farming ship shares with characters.
***May not buy 3 spaceships between 8 players. We're not playing a party of spaceships, even if it's a well balanced adventuring party.
*May not equip my spaceship with more than 18 points of armor.
**May not buy a battery of particle beam triple-turrets for my ship.
***May not include bay guns, just in case someone else has a gunbrick.
****May not have full ECM and stealth systems on the gunbrick.
*****Just because the ship shares cover a fixed percent of the budget doesn't mean the budget is infinite. What about your monthly payment?
******May not require one of the party ships to have "fuel tanker and refinery for the other two" as a function.
*******Katherine may not design her own spaceship or spacefleet anymore.
********Or request modifications to her stock spaceship.
*The party never has a letter of marque on pirates ever again.
**Used pirate spaceships have massive drops in re-sale value.
***Really massive drops, our guns and boarding ships made holes in them.
****Space is going to eventually run out of pirates, you know.
*****You may not pay off the entire cost of your ship, which has a price like it was designed by the American military, by boarding pirate ships.
******There are no space pirates ever again. If a traveler campaign every says it's going to have space pirates, they're pre-emptively retconned into not-existing.

*glows with pride at your achievements*

the closest i ever got to something like this was:

*if the dm calls for a "measured response", may not suggest 28 macro-battery salvoes.
**even if it's effective.
*there is no such thing as "favored weapon: voidship artillery" for pc's.
*despite overkill being "plan a", it no longer can be played out until we hit the godzilla threshold.
**no forcing a crossing over the godzilla threshold so i can have fun shooting.
*i have to stick to man-portable exterminatus from now on.

completely random, but i just remembered:

*the team necron cannot have living, breathing, bayonets attached to his weaponry.
** especially ones that can shoot from under-barrel.
*** the necron is banned the following: duct-tape, super-glue, belts, needle and thread, laces, rope, chains, npc's (xenos or otherwise), and teammates.

[Anonymouswizard]

* May not insist that knowing the exact dimensions of my overkill makes it a measured response.


Not banned yet, but the GM is going to have trouble keeping a straight face...
* Even if half the players are bi/pan, calling the party the 'Rainbow Warriors' isn't okay.
** Even if half the characters ate explicitly LGBTQ+.
*** It's still frowned upon if all the characters ate LGBTQ+.
**** QUILTBAG is also banned.

* The stealthiest member of the party should not be the tallest.
** Or the heaviest.

[LordCdrMilitant]

*glows with pride at your achievements*

the closest i ever got to something like this was:

*if the dm calls for a "measured response", may not suggest 28 macro-battery salvoes.
**even if it's effective.
*there is no such thing as "favored weapon: voidship artillery" for pc's.
*despite overkill being "plan a", it no longer can be played out until we hit the godzilla threshold.
**no forcing a crossing over the godzilla threshold so i can have fun shooting.
*i have to stick to man-portable exterminatus from now on.

completely random, but i just remembered:

*the team necron cannot have living, breathing, bayonets attached to his weaponry.
** especially ones that can shoot from under-barrel.
*** the necron is banned the following: duct-tape, super-glue, belts, needle and thread, laces, rope, chains, npc's (xenos or otherwise), and teammates.

The basics is that someone in my old group wanted to try his hand at GMing, and he chose Traveller. We generated our characters, and all basically kept rolling until were were max rank. Half of us were varieties of ship-people, in professions that awarded ship shares and and skills related to ship operation, and half of us were marines, who mustered out with battledress and plasma cannons [In our defense, nobody said we couldn't]. The ship people slip up the shares three ways to make down payment on 3 ships: a gunboat, a "science vessel", and a cargo ship.

We all designed our own ships. I was the captain of the gunboat [The TIS Sledgehammer, affectionately referred to as the "Gunbrick"], and designed my ship to be the ultimate pirate hunter. It had all the armor, 24 points of it, IIRC, and meson and nuclear screens which made it effectively immune to weapons that a pirate corsair might mount. I didn't actually have that many guns, 8 triple-turrets of particle cannons, but there were enough. A bay-mounted Meson Gun was specifically nixed during construction. I had a max rank ship's computer to run all the fire control systems, to ensure the guns were on target. The ships were all designed with each other in mind. I only carried a tiny amount of fuel, but the science ship had an on-board refinery and fuel reserves for us to make multiple jumps. The science ship was really more of a skill-monkey vessel, but we called it the science ship because it's captain was a master scientist. The cargo ship was basically also a giant brick of metal, but it was hollow on the inside and not studded with guns. It was also designed to explicitly have enough interior space to swallow a Corsair.

We were basically Q-ships. The plan was to jump into pirate-infested space, look weak, defenseless, and in-trouble. When they attacked, we'd board them with our space marines to capture their ships. We could effectively prize-crew 2 ships, and haul another damaged one back in our cargo hauler. By selling the only slightly abused pirate ships, we were able to easily make our ship payments and then some, because ships are insanely expensive, even being sold for scrap. We did this a couple times; before we effectively had enough money to pay off the loans on our q-ships.

However, the key is, that this wasn't the GM's plan at all. Capturing pirates was so much more lucrative than whatever he had planned for us we sort of forgot about his plot, because the contracts offered weren't anywhere near the amount we could get from a single captured pirate ship, and our immediate goal was to pay for the obscene cost of our ships. We did stop by to visit the mafia on a planet, and a few other places, but as a whole the GM wasn't the greatest anyway, and we only had one session. I think it did have a lot of promise as a game, but our GM was both rather frustrated with our battlefleet and just not very good in the first place.


I've actually always wanted to run a Traveller game, but my group overwhelmingly would rather I run more 40k RPG campaigns.

* May not insist that knowing the exact dimensions of my overkill makes it a measured response.


Not banned yet, but the GM is going to have trouble keeping a straight face...
* Even if half the players are bi/pan, calling the party the 'Rainbow Warriors' isn't okay.
** Even if half the characters ate explicitly LGBTQ+.
*** It's still frowned upon if all the characters ate LGBTQ+.
**** QUILTBAG is also banned.

* The stealthiest member of the party should not be the tallest.
** Or the heaviest.

I don't like being eaten. It's also not a skill group, so you can't gain it using the Omophagea.

Also, that [the Rainbow Warriors joke, not eating LGBTQ+ people] might be something that just might not fly in our group. I suspect it would get uncomfortable fake-laughs.

[DigoDragon]

* The stealthiest member of the party should not be the tallest.
** Or the heaviest.

*** Or the loudest.
*** Or the sparkliest tint of azure, cerulean, and cornflower blue.

[Personification]

*** Or the loudest.
*** Or the sparkliest tint of azure, cerulean, and cornflower blue.

****Ultramarine will result in a rocks fall everyone dies

[braveheart]

*I may no longer casually inform the level 1 party that there is a sleeping terasque down the hall

[Personification]

*I may no longer casually inform the level 1 party that there is a sleeping terasque down the hall

**Especially if I lead them to believe that a terrasque is a type of bovine known for its delicious steaks
***The terrasque is DEFINITELY not sleeping in a (dreaded) gazebo!

[Katrina]

* Mind control is not the answer the Gm is looking for.
* No longer allowed to rewrite the assassin's memories to convince them they were framed for all the crimes they are guilty of and it is their employer's fault.
* Not even in an attempt to turn them into the Punisher.
* No longer allowed to use Telepathy to gas light the mechanic.
* No longer allowed to play telepaths in any system. The previous ban on Enchantment magic still stands.