Quote from: SHARK on February 02, 2022, 05:45:40 PM
Greetings!

Take everything away. All of these crybaby players. Fuck them. It's good to be stripped down to nothing. Then, you can grab a dagger, or a club, or a hammer, and just jump in! Biting your enemies, crushing them in simple, bloody combat.

Improvise! Learn to overcome and adapt! All these crybaby players that need all these special powers and spells. Whaa! Whaa!

You have to get simple, brutal, and ruthless.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

New class:

The Sharkpit Survivor
HD: d4
Attacks: As fighter (why not, no bonus until 4th level)
Saves: As thief
XP to advance to 2nd level: 20,000
Spells: 1 (ever... make it a good one!)
Weapons: Any (stick or rock)
Armor: Loincloth
Special abilities: 1d2 bite

Quote from: Pat on February 02, 2022, 05:52:49 PM

Quote from: SHARK on February 02, 2022, 05:45:40 PM
Greetings!

Take everything away. All of these crybaby players. Fuck them. It's good to be stripped down to nothing. Then, you can grab a dagger, or a club, or a hammer, and just jump in! Biting your enemies, crushing them in simple, bloody combat.

Improvise! Learn to overcome and adapt! All these crybaby players that need all these special powers and spells. Whaa! Whaa!

You have to get simple, brutal, and ruthless.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

New class:

The Sharkpit Survivor
HD: d4
Attacks: As fighter (why not, no bonus until 4th level)
Saves: As thief
XP to advance to 2nd level: 20,000
Spells: 1 (ever... make it a good one!)
Weapons: Any (stick or rock)
Armor: Loincloth
Special abilities: 1d2 bite

Greetings!

*Laughing* Nice, Pat! I love it!

A short story. Way back when, one of my first characters in D&D. I was a Paladin. My character had been captured, enslaved, and imprisoned by a tribe of evil Yetis, serving an evil sorceress. I had ben stripped of everything--armour, magic items, weapons, everything.

Somehow, I managed to escape from my prison cell. I stole a stone food bowl. I strangled a Yeti guard. I proceeded to engage in brutal hand-to-hand combat with patrolling Yeti guards. I ripped their furry throats out by biting them. I crushed their skulls in with the stone bowl. I eventually got a dagger, and started stabbing them. Then a fur cloak, and a club. I burned them with smoking torches. I poured hot oil down their throats. I stabbed one with a hot poker from the fireplace in a torture chamber. I went crazy. I did not look for an escape route. I kept an eye out to find my armour and gear--but the mission had changed.

I became a haunting figure down inside this crazy prison, stalking the shadowy hallways, leaping from the darkness to bite and slaughter them. Gradually, I freed other prisoners, and built up a guerilla force. Eventually, I found my stuff, and slaughtered all of the evil Yetis, and escaped from the mountain-side prison. Later on, a confrontation with the evil sorceress, when I was geared up.

But for a good number of game sessions, it was just my character, and a few others, with nothing except determination, brutality, ruthlessness, and the simplest of weapons.

It was a blast, and lots of fun!

It also taught me that roleplaying was important, as well as resource management, and good tactics. And determination. Never give up, and don't be afraid to say fuck it and jump in and roll the dice! Attack! Attack! Attack! I made the Yetis fear me. *Laughing* It was a hilarious adventure set too.

No magic, no uber items, none of that. You know?

The DM loved the imagery, too. A bearded, shaggy human, wrapped in gutted Yeti furs, a broad leather belt on, old furry boots, a dagger in one hand,a stone bowl in the other. Gritted teeth, growling, howling in the dark passageways! Covered in blood and gore. I eventually made a necklace of collected Yeti teeth, and wore it around my character's neck. I would roast the Yeti's I killed, and eat them. Yeti's howling in the darkness, as we kept them alive, so their companions could hear their screams from down below. Psychological warfare, baby! It was all an awesome experience.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

SHARK, that reminds a lot of the second best editorial in the history of Dragon magazine.

Quote from: Moore, Roger E. "Legend". Dragon 144 (April 1989): 3,94.
Legend

The mountain pass was called the Demon Tongue, which implied there might be a demon and treasure there, so the party headed for it right away. The characters were hungry for combat and cash -- lots of each. I was the DM. We were gaming on the pool table in the medical company rec room in West Germany, a decade ago last fall.

Not many of the details of that adventure are left with me now, but I remember what happened when the adventurers got to the Demon Tongue. The paladin was the point man, mounted up and armored like a tank (he had volunteered for -- no, demanded the position). Some distance behind, the wizard was checking the landscape with his amulet of ESP, hunting for enemy thoughts. Everyone else was gathered near the wizard, weapons ready. They were on a narrow road in the pass itself, with a slope up to the left and a sheer drop to the right, when the wizard got a reading.

I rolled the dice and checked the books. The party had found the demon, but the amulet of ESP had malfunctioned. I scribbled a note and passed it to the wizardís player. He read it and gave me an incredulous look.

"Hey, guys, said the wizard, reigning in his horse. That demon is here, but that demon is the Demogorgon. We are doomed."

Everyone stared at the wizard's player, then at me. Everyone had read the Monster Manual. The entire party came to a halt. Then the characters began to guide their horses back the way they had come, looking around with nervous grins.

All but the paladin, that is. He stopped where he was, stood up in his stirrups, raised his sword, and shouted, "COME OUT AND FIGHT, YOU MISERABLE @#$+ß&%*!!!" at the top of his lungs. Seconds later, a giant ball of darkness appeared on the road ahead. Before anyone could react, one of the characters was telekinesized off his horse and hurled into the canyon beside the road. He took 20 dice of damage and became a memory. Every one of his companions bolted -- except for the paladin, who roared, "SHOW YOURSELF, DEMON!!!" (The rest of the players screamed that they were riding away all the harder.)

The darkness fell away and there was the demon, not Demogorgon but it hardly mattered as it was one of those brutal 11-HD Type IVs. It grinned through its boar's tusks and traced a symbol of fear in the air as the paladin spurred his horse and charged the monster. The paladin made his saving throw and cut through the demon with his sword -- easy enough to do as the demon was a projected image. The demon just laughed.

Enraged, the paladin began cursing the demon in language that most of us assumed paladins would scarcely admit to knowing, much less using, but the most telling insult was "coward." I figured that any demon worth his evilness would take offense at being called a coward by a mere mortal, so the projected image vanished -- and the real demon appeared on the road, roaring out its own challenge. It began tracing another symbol in the air as the paladin charged again.

The paladin made his saving throw and struck at the demon -- and his sword bounced off the demonís hide, as the sword wasn't powerful enough to affect the monster. The paladin's player realized his character had only one weapon left that might do the trick. Wheeling his horse around and coming back for another charge, the paladin drew his dagger +2, then leaped off
his horse and tackled the demon.

Had this been any other player, I would have pointed out the usual problems involved in leaping off a charging horse in plate mail to tackle a 10'-tall demon with a dagger, but the paladinís player had that look on his face that said he was really into it. He wanted that demon badly. He got it. Screaming and roaring, the paladin and the demon tore into each other, dagger against claws and teeth. The paladin slammed home every attack, but so did the demon. Worse yet, the demon began to levitate itself and the paladin over the road. Dice rolled, blood flew, hit points plummeted, and the other players began shouting, "Get 'im! Get that thing!"

The demon died at an altitude of about 100'. Its levitation spell shut off. The paladin, still attacking, clung to the demonís body all the way down. When the rest of the party finally mustered the courage to ride back, they found the paladin -- in the single digits of hit points, but alive.

"Got 'im," said the paladin, brushing himself off.

A legend came to life that evening, though we had not meant to create one. We had courage, heroism, danger, and excitement, all there in the rec room of an Army barracks far from home. Ten years later, the thrill and the glory of that paladin's triumph still live with me. It doesn't matter that the paladin wasn't even my character.

I like a lot of things about roleplaying games -- the friends, the laughter, the bad puns, the munchies -- but creating a legend is the best part of all. It sure beats playing bridge.

Quote from: JoeNuttall on February 02, 2022, 05:19:11 AM

Quote from: Wrath of God on February 02, 2022, 04:38:04 AM
Damn I'm even not againt "enchantment spells in hamlet Ridiculus stopped working, Magic Guild send their most famous enchanter Kanye West to investigate. Go figure." but when it's given as a method to depower PC's because their powers are wonky or unwieldy for GM's that's bad.

In The Keep on the Borderlands, which was supposed to teach newbie DMs how to write adventures, Gary gave all the undead Amulets of Protection from Turning (and that amounts to 68 magical amulets) - apparently because he thought the numbers required for turning were too low. Incidentally this is corroborating evidence that the numbers for turning are one of the few bits taken wholesale directly from Dave Arneson!

I didn't know that, thanks! Interesting stuff!

Yes. Was going to mention the amulets in Keep on the Borderlands.

Figured there was enough weeping and gnashing of teeth at the inhumanity of the oppressor DM for these snowflakes to endure. Schedule thre another trip to the fainting couch!

   Clerics turn undead too easily?  Hmm, Gygax might have been right about that one... I've been thinking the same thing lately.

   Just about to put a party through the Keep on the Borderlands, and after reading this thread i'm scrapping the amulets of
protection against turning altogether, rather than have to explain the existence of the silly things.

   Just going to increase the amount of undead to keep the challenge level the same and let the cleric have his fun turning a few,
at the end of the day, i'm the DM and if i want 'em to fight some skeletons then that's exactly what's gonna happen.

Quote from: Sanson on February 08, 2022, 03:59:56 AM
   Clerics turn undead too easily?  Hmm, Gygax might have been right about that one... I've been thinking the same thing lately.

   Just about to put a party through the Keep on the Borderlands, and after reading this thread i'm scrapping the amulets of
protection against turning altogether, rather than have to explain the existence of the silly things.

   Just going to increase the amount of undead to keep the challenge level the same and let the cleric have his fun turning a few,
at the end of the day, i'm the DM and if i want 'em to fight some skeletons then that's exactly what's gonna happen.

Yes - I ditched the amulets too when I ran it for the same reason. Increase the number of undead, or put in some of a higher level if you think it needs it!