Here endeth Case Study 1.
So, time passes and Luke finally gets his own decks – samurai, and the U/B Broodstar precon. He is hilariously bad at magic, managing to get into a board winning position and then do nothing except grin and threaten people he can’t attack with… uh… attacking if they don’t do what he wants. He then sulks whenever he doesn't win, which is all the time. Meanwhile, the status of my own decks is improving, although some of the ones that he used at the start have to be sleeved. As he grows more unkempt, and I can breathe alarmingly clearly when he is around, I begin to suspect that perhaps his crystallized sweat is what makes the cards sticky. These decks are sleeved, with the exception of one particularly sticky deck, which is incinerated.
Around this time, we decide to play a uni house game of 3.5. A DM is nominated and we start on the game. The game is hilariously bad, and full of DMPC, railroading and badly written “original fiction” from the DM, who based the entire campaign on his 218 page book-in-the-making. It’s another story altogether, but one I might rage about some time. For posterity Luke’s character background read like this:
“I am the leader of a small gong of thieves. We were hired to steal a jewel from the thing of the land. We was were in an inn when we were approached by a powerful stalker, who made us go.”
He played a CE rogue, in a party of neutral and good PCs, in a setting full of LG NPCs, whilst telling them that he was CE, and would love if they would help him stab the party up. He then sulked at everyone when he got imprisoned, shoved down holes for being obviously evil, used as a shield, etc.
Then, of course, he decided to run his own game. Case Study 2.
CASE STUDY 2: Being a study of THAT GUY being the DM
So, as sceptical as we were, 3 of us rolled up 4th level characters and sat down at the table. This case study will be presented as a Blow-by-blow.
L: Ok, you’re on a ship.
P1: How did we get here, why are we here?
L: You just woke up on the ship. You’re going to another land.
P2: Uh, well… ok. I’ll have a look around. Is there anyone to talk to, or anything that looks vaguely important to look at?
L: There’s nothing important to look at, and you are locked in your cabin.
P1: Right, well, if the situation’s the same for me, I’ll use my open lock skill to try and pick the lock on my door open. [Roll: something like 25]
L: You can’t. It is magical, and breaks your lock picks.
P1: …
<Some time passes, with us trying to interact with the world and being told that we can’t.>
L: Suddenly, the ship starts to roll around, and you can hear lightning overhead. The doors swing open on your cabins.
P2: But wait… weren't the doors….
P1, P3:
shrug
P2: Ok, anyway, we head up onto the deck. It’s been about 5 minutes since the doors swung open, right?
L: About that. Everyone seems to have abandoned the ship. The skies are dark; it’s a big storm! A huge wave, must be about 100 feet high, rises up to crash down onto the ship – make reflex saves!
<Saves turn up 5, 15 and a natural 20>
L: You all manage to leap out of the way.
…
<We assume that a hole opened up in the 100ft high wave, which is why we all managed to not be hit by it, and why the ship didn’t sink. We manage to find our way to an obviously unsafe life raft, which sinks the moment we get away from the ship. We make our checks to swim, failing miserably, and are informed that we’re drowning.>
P3: … and that’s me unconscious too.
L: You all wake up; you’re in a cell, which looks like it’s made out of a cave.
P1: Wait, what?
L: It was all a dream, although you can’t tell how you got here. A man in full plate suddenly appears in front of you, laughing. “Haha, now that you are captured, the resistance has no chance to defeat me!”
P2: Uh… what resistance?
L: <ignoring> He then teleports away. What do you do?
P2: Well, I’ll try and pick the lock on the cell we’re being held in. <Rolls>
L: You can’t
bile-grin, once again, I notice the sweat, including the massive sweat patches under his arms.
P1: Well, ok, I’ll try and kick the door out then.
L: On closer inspection, the cell is closed by a completely invisible, indestructible wall of force.
…
<And so we wait, until his DMPC turns up and dispels the wall of force somehow.>
P3: Gosh, we’re all really impressed. Who are you?
DMPC:
Blah blah blah leader of resistance blah blah, getting killed at dawn or something, different coloured eyes.
P2: Great, so you can help us out of here.
DMPC: Yes, if you’ll help me.
<At this point, Luke does an IC flirt with P2. The look on P2s face was priceless, and I’ll remember it until the end of time.>
((For those who ask, he was taking the back door into becoming a doctor – he hadn't quite got the grades at school, so he was doing a chemistry degree and then a doctorate. Incidentally, if I ever find out he’s working near me, I’m signing up with Bupa, even if I have to remortgage my house.))
So, we eventually get out of the prison, and find our way to the armoury of the castle (!!) that we’re in. At this point, Luke takes great relish in describing all the magical armour in front of us, unguarded, and the guns (yes, guns, in 3.5 – he’d “homebrewed” them – 1d12+Dex damage, 17-20 x3 crit.) and the gunpowder. Doing what any sensible group of players would do in this situation, we took three guns each and tried to take the armour.
L: Uh, you can’t… it doesn't seem to move off the stand.
P3: No problem, I have 20 strength, We’ll take it with us!
So we set light to a trail of gunpowder and ran like buggery whilst the castle exploded. Cue a huge weepy scene from the DMPC that it won’t be enough to stop the BBEGs army of thousands (who reside in the one castle, that we blew up with them in it, for the record) from assaulting us in the morning. We get whisked away to a faggy tree village full of elves who sing and frolic while they try and get the guns off us. No dice, we threaten to shoot any elf who tries – for once, they get the message. However, in the morning, the armour has miraculously disappeared. The army is also attacking, so we rush down to see if we can help.
As it turns out, the army was attacking in groups of three, and the elves were not around at all. So, we lay into the army of three, defeating it easily with our guns of destruction. And then another group of three. And another. And Another. For an hour. As we’re getting bored, the BBEG turns up, along with a good 20 of his minions who surround us.
L: And you won’t be able to kill him, because he’s a level 30 wizard in full plate!
sickly grin at everyone, because he’s obviously the greatest DM alive and deserves praise
P2: Fine, I shoot him then. Stuff it. <Rolls a 20. Then a 20. Then a 20>
P1: AHA! Instant death!
L: Uh, you shoot at him and just before the bullet hits he teleports away, shouting curses! His army breaks and runs.
…
P2: But wait… if we killed all those soldiers, and then him, doesn't that mean we get EXP from the encounter?
L: Y-essss…
P2:
Now frantically thumbing through a DMG And since that’s X groups of level 5 soldiers, and one level 30 wizard… that’s enough to make us… Level 17!
P3: OH GOD WHAT
Falls off his chair
L: At this point, you all wake up in a throne room. There's the wizard there laughing at you. “And that is why you must never be set free!” He laughs, before disappearing. You are in a force cage in the throne room, but there is a woman in the room that you recognize.
P1: Wait… no, I cba.
At this point, one of our friends, whom I shall refer to as Nairda (he’ll understand why) walked into the room. I, being player 1, promptly ripped my sheet in half, and offered him the bottom half. He graciously accepted, and roleplayed the combat legs of my character, whilst I took charge of the skills torso. The game was called 10 minutes later, when we had another dream sequence.
Here endeth Case Study 2.
