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slay_4_pay
Seeker
65 Posts |
 Posted - 14 Dec 2007 : 22:12:19
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I'm sure something like this has been done plenty of times before, but I didn't see one when I was surfing through the topics. So, if you have a funny story from the gaming table how about sharing it. I've got a pretty good one.
My party is on a dungeon crawl when we came a across a piece of parchment on the dead body of an unlucky failed adventurer. The problem was, no one in the party could read. Yes, the tragedy of adult illiteracy, the bane of the uneducated adventuring party. I was a barbarian so of course I couldn't read, but to my suprise neither could the ranger, the thief, the bard, or the priest in my party. We had no way of knowing if the parchment was an important clue necessary for the completion of the adventure or a grocery list. We ended up having to leave the dungeon and make our way back to town in order to pay a scribe to read the parchment to us. It was pathetic but hilarious.
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Brynweir
Senior Scribe
USA
436 Posts |
Posted - 15 Dec 2007 : 00:05:40
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I shared this story at the Inn, but I'm sure many of you never get there, especially the lurkers, so here it is again.
Long before my character started working as a mercenary, she was a thief, and she was often paid to break into houses and ‘retrieve’ lost items. Her best friend, Tomas, was also a thief, but he spent most of his time picking pockets, not burgling houses.
One night he asked if he could go along, just to get some experience. The job was supposed to be pretty easy. We had to break into a cloth merchant’s business and recover a ring. The ring was supposedly a keepsake that my employer’s husband had given her. The cloth merchant had been her lover and taken the keepsake when she broke off the affair. He used it to blackmail her into keeping the relationship going, or so I was told.
Anyway, we were told that the doors and windows on the ground floor were trapped so that they could only be opened from the inside, but the second floor was relatively unguarded. Tomas offered to do the hard part and climb in through the second floor window and let me in. He went in and I heard a yelp followed by a thump. I figured that he had alerted the house and I wasn’t really sure what to do. I couldn’t very well climb up, but I also couldn’t leave my friend. So I did something else that seemed to make sense at the time. I went and knocked on the front door.
Several minutes passed and someone came to the door. It was the owner. He tried to send me away and shut the door. I pounded until he opened it again. He threatened to call the watch if I didn’t leave, and I told him to go ahead. He tried again to shut the door. I started making such a racket that some of the neighbor’s came to their windows, and he again said he’d call the watch. The fact that he hadn’t already told me that he had no intentions of calling them. So I did.
He was stunned. When the watch arrived, I told them how he had kidnapped my little brother and was holding him upstairs using him for the gods knew what. I began to sob uncontrollably until the leader of the watch agreed to check it out. They came back with Tomas looking a little mortified, but none the worse for wear.
The merchant, on the other hand, was acting so suspicious that they decided to search his house. They found several items and documents that he should not have had. After rushing us out the door, they arrested the merchant and his two employees. I never heard what happened to them.
Needless to say, I never took Tomas with me on another job.
Our DM was laughing so hard we had to take a break before we could finish up that night. |
Anyone who likes to read something that's really dark and gritty and completely awesome ought to read The Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks. You can check out a little taste at www.BrentWeeks.com I should probably warn you, though, that it is definitely not PG-13 :-D
He also started a new Trilogy with Black Prism, which may even surpass the Night Angel Trilogy in its awesomeness. 
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Chataro
Learned Scribe
Singapore
114 Posts |
Posted - 17 Dec 2007 : 14:34:47
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| How on earth does a bard and cleric stay illiterate? |
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slay_4_pay
Seeker
65 Posts |
Posted - 18 Dec 2007 : 04:22:21
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quote:
Originally posted by Chataro
How on earth does a bard and cleric stay illiterate?
You know I asked the very same question as we were traveling the two or more days back to town in order to find a scribe.
But in fairness to the priest, he wasn't a cleric. He was a Crusader of Tempos and he was from the same Reghedmen tribe as me. So, I guess it is plausible that he could be illiterate. Especially, considering we were still 1st or 2nd level, and he and I were fresh off the tundra.
As for the bard... beats me, I guess he was just a crappy bard. |
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Lady Fellshot
Senior Scribe
USA
379 Posts |
Posted - 18 Dec 2007 : 05:58:25
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| Maybe he came from a oral tradition culture ;-) |
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Rinonalyrna Fathomlin
Great Reader
USA
7106 Posts |
Posted - 18 Dec 2007 : 15:15:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Lady Fellshot
Maybe he came from a oral tradition culture ;-)
I was thinking the exact same thing. |
"Instead of asking why we sleep, it might make sense to ask why we wake. Perchance we live to dream. From that perspective, the sea of troubles we navigate in the workaday world might be the price we pay for admission to another night in the world of dreams."
--Richard Greene (letter to Time) |
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Aravine
Senior Scribe
USA
608 Posts |
Posted - 18 Dec 2007 : 15:39:25
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| well, a bard is understandable, I guess. |
The brave don't live forever,the cautious don't live at all |
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slay_4_pay
Seeker
65 Posts |
Posted - 19 Dec 2007 : 00:17:36
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Ok, here is another one. It's kind of a long story but I thought it was pretty funny.
Our party set out to save a girl who had been kidnapped by a group of lizard creatures (they were a creation of the DM, alot like Lizard Men but stronger and smarter). One of our players had just started a new character, a 1st level Wild Mage who was adventuring with us for the first time.
We were in the swamp tracking the lizards when we ran into a fairly nasty breed of hydra. It wasn't long into the fight before we realized that our weapons were useless and decided to try fire. Luckily I carry a couple of flasks of Greek Fire for just this kind of occasion. We all gather together, coat our weapons in the stuff and light them while simultaneously fending off multiple attacks from the hydra. The Wild Mage (who was standing well back from the fighting) chose this moment to let loose his only remaining spell: Nahal's Reckless Dweomer. He didn't manage to shape it into a magic missle. Instead he let loose a wild surge that extinguished all fires in a 60' radius. We eventually got the stuff re-lit and killed the hydra.
A couple of days deeper into the swamp we run into a Lizard patrol. we are chasing them to stop them from warning the rest of the Lizards that we are in the area. Some of the Liards engaged us while others kept running and a Lizard shaman casts an entangle that cathes several of the Lizards and the whole party, except for, that's right the Mage. He runs off the path and into the woods to get around the entaglement and runs into three of the Lizards. He hits them with a sleep spell which thanks to the Wild Magic turns out to be stronger than normal. All three of the Lizards go down and he is able to dispatch them with his dagger (not bad for a 1st level Wizard all on his own). Of course, in character, all the rest of us saw was the mage run into the woods and leave us to fight our way out of the Entanglement and deal with the rest of the Lizards. Once we were free and the Lizards dead we continued down the path where we met up with our bungling, cowardly (at least in our character's opinions) wizard.
Later during the big final battle we are fighting several of the Lizards including the king of the Lizards who is flying around on a Wyvern throwing spears at us and a Lizard Shaman and Lizard mage who are on top of an old tower throwing spells down at us. Once again the Wild Mage lets loose with a Nahal's. This time he switches bodies with the Lizard mage on top of the tower. He pushes the unexpecting Lizard shaman off the tower to his death and then goes down inside the tower not only and frees the girl but gets her tie him up and gag him. So, when the body swap wears off the Lizard mage is helpless. Once again of course in character all we see is our mage lose his mind in the middle of the fight start screaming in gibberish and attack his fellow party members, who were then forced to knock him unconsious and guard his prone body during the fight.
So when all is said and done our mage has behaved quite valiantly and been resourceful as well as very lucky, and all in all has done REALLY well for a 1st level mage.
But in character he appeared to be a screw up, a coward, and possibly insane.  |
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Lady Fellshot
Senior Scribe
USA
379 Posts |
Posted - 19 Dec 2007 : 01:27:54
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All right, here's one.
The party (human ranger, half orc druid, halfling rogue, human rogue) is sent out to rescue a magistrate's daughter kidnapped by pirates (not very original I know, but it was a one session game). The party finds the island where they are holding the girl and encounter their first problem. Three of them can't fit into the small land-side cave entrance that they find and the halfling refuses to go down into a partially submerged cavern without back up. The druid in the party changes into a snake and goes down to look around. The druid vaguely sees three blurs before the bad guys see him and decide that snake would make for a good dinner. The druid escapes and tells everyone else that the are three creatures down there and that one of them nearly chopped him in half. He also mentions that the cave air tasted salty. So they start looking for the sea-side cave entrance.
They find the general area where the druid thinks that the cave would come out and start looking from the seacliffs for a sign of the cave. The ranger spots a merman (favored enemy) swimming into a narrow seacave. The ranger tells the party that he wants to go down the cliff face and follow the merman. So the human rogue rigs up a sling from some rope and everyone starts lowering the ranger down to the water, intending for the ranger to do some quiet reconnoitering and tell them what's going on as they secure and climb down the rope. The ranger gets impatient and cuts the line, splashing to the water 40 ft below and somehow missing all the rocks. The ranger leaves the party to secure the rope and come frantically after him while he swims into the seacave and finds two hobgoblins and a human looking man with a glaive waiting for him as well as the merman.
After a prolonged fight (lots of really lousy rolls for both PCs and DM) that nearly kills two party members and gives one lycanthropy (the man with the glaive was a were-tiger) they rescue the girl. And then chew out the ranger for losing his cool over seeing a one of the merfolk. No one could believe that he cut the line from 40 feet up in unknown waters and then survived to tell of his idocy. He was also the only member of the party that didn't suffer from any hits.
How fickle the dice :-P |
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slay_4_pay
Seeker
65 Posts |
Posted - 19 Dec 2007 : 05:11:36
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You know what they say: Tymora protects fools, drunks, and righteously pissed off Rangers.
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Lady Fellshot
Senior Scribe
USA
379 Posts |
Posted - 19 Dec 2007 : 06:04:06
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| Well, the DM certainly wasn't going to do it, may as well be Tymora :-) |
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Funny Stories
