Arcana! -Outlander
Ooo, the Outlander gives an Outlandish ask! :D
|| Arcana - What is your most crazy/insane/bizarre tabletop experience? ||
Well, there was the time I was going to make-
:P
Okay, there are a few contenders for this title, but one of them is more me complaining than anything and several are the results of me being a DM and catering to things my players requested (tags: H.P. Lovecraft, Powerpuff Girls, kaiju, body horror). Since this said “experience,” I’m taking it to mean “things that I witnessed,” so I’m going with the following story.
Back in my freshman year of undergrad, shortly after I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, I was on scholarship probation for poor grades (because 300+ blood sugar will do that). Thus, I decided not to join in the following campaign, though now I really wish I had. I was, however, present for some of the later sessions.
The DM decided to run The Standing Stone, a 3.0 module that was part of the Ashardalon storyline (they’re all loosely connected, unlike a true AP). The party was composed of:
A half-orc barbarian min-maxed for the lulz. By that, I mean Str 20, Int 3. During my first semester (prior to the campaign), I had taken an intro to Linguistics course, so was able to tell the player that a chimp has a vocabulary of roughly 200 words. She went for 300 or 400 (I forget exactly; I recall there being 150 in one language) divided between Common and Orcish (more Common than Orcish).
A wood elf ranger (archer) invoking Record of Lodoss War with how he moved through the forest canopy. After some sort of disaster (which would have fit the module had he been a wild elf), he was left alone in the wilderness for quite some time during his formative years.Meaning he wasn’t feral, but he was fairly naive.
A gray elf wizard, either Lawful Neutral or Lawful Good (and a worshiper of either St. Cuthbert or Heironeous).This one irked me because it was clear he was going for the Int racial bonus over anything remotely having to do with characterization.
A dwarf fighter, played by someone who was kinda dumb. This came forth in the game.The barbarian named him “The Carpet-Face.”
A CN half-elf rogue who claimed to be an acrobat. (Everyone referred to him as such with audible scare quotes.)Knowing a stooge when he saw one, he quickly befriended the naive ranger. They became a unit.
Another character who was in it so briefly that I keep forgetting about it. Probably another elf/half-elf and maybe a fighter, unsure on alignment.
You may be wondering why there were so many elves in this campaign. It’s purely coincidental: of the people playing elven characters, the only one who did so regularly was the one who wasn’t in the campaign much. The (half-)elf characters’ classes, however, are spot-on for the players in question (minus the one who wasn’t ever there): one was an Eagle scout, one always played mages, and one was considered our IRL rogue.
Now, minor spoilers for an outdated module no one runs: the town in question has an evil Tiefling mayor up to no good and a ghostly paladin (with ghostly steed) terrorizing the populace. It’s still a full paladin, meaning it’s Lawful Good.
At some point, the “acrobat” figured out (largely through paranoia) that the mayor was evil, so the “acrobat” killed him. The DM admitted that the "acrobat’s” player was correct, but said that since his reasoning was so poor, his character’s alignment would shift to Chaotic Evil.
As I recall, no one in the party (save possibly the ranger) knew that any of this had transpired. Because “acrobat.”
Not long thereafter, while the party was out of town, the ghost paladin appeared before the party (like it does) and attacked the “acrobat.”
The wizard managed to make the right check (Spellcraft or Knowledge [religion]) to figure out that the ghost (whom they heretofore did not realize was a paladin) had used smite evil -- meaning that the ghost was a paladin (LG) and probably aligned with the wizard’s religion, while the “acrobat” was evil.
So the wizard attacked the “acrobat”.
The ranger tried to come to the "acrobat’s” aid. Thus, you have the "acrobat” and ranger attacking the wizard.
The dwarf didn’t like this, so tried to defend the wizard.
The barbarian (for whatever reason) ripped off The Carpet-Face’s carpet from his face.
In the end of the fight, I know the ranger and "acrobat” escaped together and the barbarian ended up wandering off on her own. I don’t recall if the wizard or the dwarf survived.
Like, the level of campaign ending shenanigans that ensued was on the order of a TPK, yet the DM had done very little to instigate it.
It was beautiful.
