Story is Dead and They Killed Him

I've never had an RPG group like this. This is a catalog of the adventure-destroying, best-worst group of people you could ever GM for.

[storyisdead]

Things said at last night’s RPG session

“I use my remaining goblins to steal the Easter Bunny’s cloaca.”

-- Verorka Salt, ork PC

I highly doubt context will make this better. Well, funnier maybe.

[storyisdead]

How to Train Your Basilisk (pt 1)

This session had far too many crazy things happening in it for one post, so this one will be episodic. 

Game: Shadowrun 5E (Cyberpunk + Fantasy)

Scenario: Interlude between 5 and 6

So, it started with one roll.

"I want to train my basilisk." The basilisk had been a spoil of war. A fresh little hatching stolen last time the team was on a 'Run. It's not an unreasonable idea. Basilisk are Awakened lizards, intelligent enough to become guard animals (even if their base instincts are to eat anything smaller than they are). The situation was relaxed enough. We were between missions, just figuring out how characters were spending their experience and money. Perfect time to train your dragon—or, lizard. We discussed the difficulty of the task, and what of Mugsy's skills would apply, if any. After some brief calculations, we came to an Extended Test, which means he can roll multiple times, once for each day spent training this death lizard.

But we only did once.

He rolled his two dice. Mugsy is a dwarf automechanic with a bad attitude, a machine gun, and no skill in animal handling, But, he was using Youtube tutorials to get a boost. The dice came up snake eyes. A pair of ones. That's two misses, and no hits. Critical Glitch.

A Glitch is what happens when your character messed up. A Critical Glitch means the gods, the universe, or sheer random chance has gone out of its way to make your bumbling mistake tonight's entertainment.

Now, you might think the result of this would be obvious. The basilisk attacks him. But, my friends, your critical glitches do not get to be so mundane when you're currently working in secret for a chaos god. Oh no. Mugsy flips on a youtube tutorial, turns to his Augmented Reality monitor, turns around to get his pet, and there is a vacancy in the shape of a basilisk, and an air vent swinging on it's hinges.

Mugsy calls the team. "Guys. I think you need to come over." He doesn't inform them until they arrive that there is a baby killer lizard loose in the air vents of their apartment complex. The least dangerous aspect of this situation is blowing their cover as a secret shadowrun hide out.7/2018

Two other players can make it to this impromptu session. Georg (pronounced George), an accountant for a minor dragon, and the world's most boring man. At least, boring until you make him mad. He carries about 3 gigatons of fire on his person as alchemic items. The other character is … a bit of an oddball. He could be a post in and of himself. For now, just think of Hopps as a werebunny pro wrestler with lightning magic. That's about the shortest description I can give him.

A brief roll of dice decides the weather for this random session. Critical Glitch. It's raining like a monsoon.

The crew managed to arrive, and after Georg judges Mugsy harshly for losing a valuable asset, they go about attempting to get the basilisk back.

First leaping into action is Hopps. He sprung to his feet, ran to the airvent, and shouted hysterically for the lizard to come back. Mugsy, maybe just trying to get him to be quiet, tells Hopps to patrol outside. His precious pet lizard in danger, Hopps wasted no time. He dove for the window in his signature wrestling move: attacking butt first with lagomorphic speed.

Or, tried to.

While not a glitch, he didn't roll well, and his butt bounced off the glass and sent him sprawling to the floor. Only, for the glass to then crack, break, and let a monsoon amount of rain pour into the apartment.

Success (for Hopps)! He dove out the broken window and began his patrol, still shouting hysterically for his pet lizard.

With Hopps out of the room, they arrived at the first legitimate idea: lure the basilisk out. They went across the street for a bucket of KFC and placed it next to the air vent. After waiting awhile and causing the west wing to smell like fried chicken, they gave up. Lizard ain't biting.

Georg and Mugsy recalled Hopps, and they stepped into the halls to try to hunt this lizard down. The first bit of bad news awaited them. Someone hired an exterminator to get rid of the banging in the vents. Which is a problem, because now something actually is banging around in the vents.

Mugsy tried to distract this honest-troll of an exterminator with conversation, while George and Hopps race against time to find the lizard before the exterminator does. Hopps, suddenly remembering that basilisks have a petrifying gaze, upturned the KFC bucket over his head, wandered blindly up and down the hallways, and shouted, "Chicken Wing! Chicken Wing!" Which, while being the basilisk's name, also gave strangers no confidence in Hopp's sanity.

At this point, Mugsy has glitched.

On assessing the motives of this good ol' country troll, he comes to the conclusion that the exterminator  is actually a double agent sent from the big corporations to spy on them and plant bugs. New goal: lead the exterminator down an alley, hit him over the head, and dispose of the body.

And there is still a magical murderous lizard loose in the airvents.

[storyisdead]

Hired merely to get a manager fired, my Shadowrun players just sabotaged a Burger King so badly that the only recourse was to bulldoze the building, and that was just the property damage, let alone the Yelp! reviews. 

More on that soon.

[storyisdead]

River Dance

Game: DnD 5e, Zelda hombrew

Session: Pre-1st

We had come to the end of the dungeon. We didn't know it yet, but our GM had set up a high level encounter that had a great chance of wiping out our party. Two skilled witches and their Lizalfos guard chanted around a mysterious object, a magical vase hovering three feet off the ground.

Up until now, the dungeon had been threatening, but not insurmountable. Our heroes, Zekim the Zora spearman (spearshark?), and Aesir the Rito traveling minstrel, had conquered mobs and traps with creativity and swordwork.  After a short rest, we came in sight of our goal: the missing trade caravan, kidnapped and brought underground by the witches.

Luckily, Aesir is practically a ninja on his feet and stealthed his way around the corner, spying out the situation. The traders had been tied up and gagged in a haphazard manner, some facing the wall, some facing the room, with their goods spread out all around them. Aesir gestured for the kidnapped Hylians to be silent and returned with Zekim to plan their ambush.

Now, Aesir has a few magical items on him. The Coat of Useful Things, a Mandolin of the Bards, and, most importantly, a Ring of Spell Storing. Sneaking back around the corner, he prepared his first spell, Magnesis. Magnetically taking hold of the Lizalfos' mace, he brought it up, and smacked the witch right on her knee. The Lizalfos, having the intelligence of two regular lizards, stared at his mace confused.

The red witch unleashed a torrent of curses. “You fucking idiot! Hold Still, you absolute nutsack!” With the last verbal component and a gesture, Hold Person caused the Lizalfos to freeze all his muscles solid and fall over with a pitiful whine.

One down. Now for the other two. As silent as an owl, Aesir cast another spell of magnesis, this time into the trade goods next to caravaners. Lifting a box of silverware overhead, he dumped it around the witches, in a trail back to the door.  

The witches had only one chance to escape what came next, a single dice check on their reaction to this unforeseen shower of forks, spoons, and butter-knives. The blue witch passes her check, and began to turn and face the Rito interrupting their ritual. The red witch?

“Get down! Cutlery!” Red tackled Blue on to the floor; onto a bed of silverware. Conductive silverware.

Aesir lowered his ring down to a fork and unleashes all the remaining spell slots. A lightning bolt arched between all the dishes and sent the witches shaking violently on the floor.

Then, Zekim came in. Running through the door, he spotted two Ganon-worshiping magic users sprawled on the ground, and did what any good Twilight Princess fan would do in this situation. Finishing Blow. A nine foot tall, several-hundred pound Zora shark-of-a-person leaped into the air, and came down point first into two frail old ladies, spearing them like a toothpick through a sandwich.

Aesir moved next. Darting in with Rito speed, he slapped one old lady across the face and cast Silence! No more spells for Blue.

That left one angry, high level, rage filled witch with a fish standing on her, and a single chance to burn him to cinders where he stood. Our DM rolls and consults a spell table. In this panicked moment, what spell does Red call to mind?

“Dance, fucker!” The witch slapped his knee and cursed him with Irresistible Dance. Now, this giant Zora was dancing a jig on top of two old ladies pinned to the ground with a spear.

No spells at her disposal, Blue unsheathed her knife and began stabbing violently at the jigging flippers of the Zora. And like reverse Dance Dance Revolution, Zekim's smooth moves guided his feet away from each point of the knife.

Red failed to survive the next round of assault, but Blue shook off the Silence. From her quietly mouthing the word, suddenly comes a “........ DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!” As the dagger kept chipping stone right where Zekim's foot last stood before he swept it up in a stabbing river dance.

Blue joined her sister in cursing our descendants from the afterlife in the next round. 

While this is the end of that dungeon, I'd like to direct you to the prospective of one of the Hylian traders, tied up and facing the wall.  From out of silence he hears …

“You fucking idiot, you absolute nutsack!” “Get down! Cutlery!” “zzzzeebrrbrbrbarbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbr!” stomp, stomp, stomp! STOMP! CRUNCH!!! “Dance fucker!” rhythmic shuffling “…......DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!”

Finally allowed to turn around, the Hylian beholds a Zora and a Rito, completely unscathed, a pile of knives and forks, and the two of the most powerful mages they could ever hope to meet lying on the floor with size 25 bootprints up and down their bodies. Oh, and the zora was still dancing.