When the dice do their own thing

[Seraph]

Your owlbear issue was clearly a case of DM abuse.

Oh, I was completely aware of that. I vaguely deserved it though, I'd been causing nine circles of havoc in the game, honestly.

[Chanlin]

...even if we always spend at least 2 hours making jokes instead of playing.

If this isn't happening you're doing it wrong

[Crossbow]

If this isn't happening you're doing it wrong

Hell, if we manage to make the GM laugh, we get bonuses.

[Andara Bledin]

If this isn't happening you're doing it wrong

My crew would get so out of hand that we actually made up rules for the game of tangent and getting points was both good and bad.

Also, there had to be a rule of "back in the bag." This was applied to anyone distracted by shinies that weren't part of the game at hand. If you didn't put whatever it was you were goofing off with when it came your time to act, you got one warning of "back in the bag," and if you didn't immediately react, your character spent that action staring blankly and drooling.

It happened very rarely, but it made for some interesting reactions when the rest of the players would actually go with it.

^-.-^

[Antares]

BattleTech: After playing most of the evening in a 2 on 2 match, we decided to go free-for-all. I let my former teammate get ahead of me then proceeded to alpha strike him from behind with my Banshee-S. My target number was 7, believe. I missed with nearly every weapon. I shutdown. Then I failed an ammo explosion roll on 4+.

His response was that he really wasn't worried about me being behind him because it was a dice game and he figured I'd miss.


Twilight 2000: Our GM determined that we had too much gear and was going to relieve us of some of it. Rounding a corner in our Humvee, we came face to face with a Russian tank. The passenger and I bailed into the ditch just before the tank turned the Humvee into a smoking pile of wreckage. The tank rolled up, top hatch open with the gunner looking to finish us off.

Seeing an opportunity, my partner takes a shot. 00, a jam. Grabbing his second weapon he rolls 00 and that weapon jams. The gunner is swinging around on him when I lob a grenade into his lap. It falls into the tank and explodes, killing the crew. The tank however is relatively undamaged. We lost a Humvee, but gained a tank. That wasn't what the GM had in mind.


Victory at Sea: GenCon last year. The French are getting pummeled by the Italians and things aren't looking good. In terms of ships, the odds are close, but the Italians are undamaged. And then the French land a shot on the undamaged Italian flagship. A critical hit is scored. Location is 12, vital systems. System hit, 6, magazine explosion. Ship destroyed. That pretty much ended the Italian threat.


Fletcher Pratt: Again at GenCon. This is a naval combat system. Dice are only used to determine critical hits and torpedo hits. Shells do a set damage based on their size. Hitting a target is done by writing down the range and spread of your shells. For example, (14", 200 inches, 9 rounds, 1 inch spread) means you're firing your 14 inch guns at a range of 200 inches from your ship. (This game takes a lot of space.) The first shell hits 200 inches from your ship with it's first shell. The remaining 8 shells hit at 199, 198, 197 inches and so on.

About 6 hours into a massive 'What If' German vs. British fleet battle, the Germans have the upper hand. The British have taken a pounding early and are heavily outnumbered. The only thing going for the British is the fact that they're crossing the T. We take a break for lunch and I say things are going to change when we get back.

As commander of the British forces, we've adopted a tactic that has given us respite from the Germans as we've moved into position. I direct my flagship, and the battleship in front and behind me to concentrate their fire on the Bismark. To give overlapping fire in case we've miscalculated, we overlap our fire a bit. I hit the Bismark with 8 of my 9 shots. The ship behind me hits with 5 of 9 and the ship in front hit with 4 of 9.

At which point the guy running the Bismark throws his hands up in the air and laughs "I guess I get to go to the art show now."



But my best dice roll ever resulted in confused looks and ended up in a reroll. While playing BattleTech one of I rolled came to rest on it's point. Much like this minus the spinning. If I hadn't seen it myself, I wouldn't have believed it.

[wolfie]

You're your group's resident rule lawyer, aren't you?

No, it's just that I hate it when a situation is completely illogical.

In one adventure (I was playing a fighter), we were exploring a dungeon where the "scenery" presented by the DM made it clear that we were the first people in YEARS to go there. In one room, we had to get past a couple of pyrohydras (one of the main encounters for the adventure). The players had a tendency to react to any highly undesirable situation with "I disbelieve", hoping it was an illusion, so the DM (house rule) required us to give a reason for disbelief. I disbelieved on the grounds that since there had been nobody here for years, the pyrohydras would have had nothing to eat, and (they were held in position by a short ankle chain) there weren't any big piles of pyrohydra crap. DM accepted that as a logical explanation, I succeeded on my disbelief roll. Since it was one of the major encounters, the DM couldn't just make them "go away", and it was clear that they couldn't be real. His "spur of the moment" decision was that I could see that the "pyrohydras" were actually an illusionary aura around mechanical constructs (eliminating the need for food and the generation of crap).

Another encounter had us going against The Godson (Bane's son, a demipower far beyond our capability, but with one major weakness - any contact with silver did 2d6 damage). It's been said that you can't solve a problem by throwing money at it, but that's how we solved this one.

[Seraph]

No, it's just that I hate it when a situation is completely illogical.
/snip
Another encounter had us going against The Godson (Bane's son, a demipower far beyond our capability, but with one major weakness - any contact with silver did 2d6 damage). It's been said that you can't solve a problem by throwing money at it, but that's how we solved this one.

Oh man, you would've wanted to smack me for the time I stabbed Bahamut, then. The DM's face was PRICESLESS when he had to say "...you successfully 'launch forward and stab Bahamut', sinking your dagger into his pinky toe."

Same campaign as the aformentioned familiar AND the owlbear incident. Yes, I caused problems.

[Chromatix]

The first shell hits 200 inches from your ship with it's first shell. The remaining 8 shells hit at 199, 198, 197 inches and so on.

And that is why "crossing the T" was such a big deal back when navies still relied on guns. It's a lot harder to get range right than azimuth.

[Barracuda]

Well, that and if you "crossed the T" you could open fire with your entire broadside armament while your opponent could only reply with his forward guns.

[wolfie]

"Crossing the T" was similar to the "Line vs. column" situation with infantry during the Napoleonic wars (French used the column, British the line). The line could have everyone firing, but had no depth of reserves. The column had deep reserves, but only the front guys could fire (and being around the turn of 18th to 19th century, they only got one shot, since they couldn't reload while advancing).

If the line held, they'd massacre the column. If the line broke and ran, they'd get massacred. The British were pretty good at holding.

[Etna]

Yes, I caused problems.

The sooner a DM realizes that no matter what coolness you have set up that your "players," sometimes I have to use that term lightly, are going to **** everything up the better off it is for everybody!

[gremcint]

weapons with reach and combat reflexes will mess up most battle plans, oh it's fun playing a belmont.

[Andara Bledin]

I always end up with some oddly bizarre combat abilities.

One of the recent encounters we had in Shadowrun had my troll using a knocked-down enemy as an improvised throwing weapon - she works as a bouncer for her "day job," so I have the improvised throwing and melee weapons tables marked. I managed to knock down two more of our attackers with him, and the "Oh shit!" factor put a couple more off their marks.

^-.-^