Funny/Epic/Legendary moments

[Mr. Death]

Last night was a fun session, the climax of my other game. Again, the climax was on two fronts (I tell you, challenging a party is much easier when you can break it down into groups of two or three).

The group was trying to get an amnesiac phoenix-woman to Egypt in time for the Summer Solstice (specifically, a temple in Ancient Heliopolis, which is important to the Phoenix myth).

They arrive in Egypt and I throw out a bunch of compels--the Phoenix and the Seer have to hurry to reach the ritual site, a spirit (who'd made a deal with a villain selling the seer for her life) was compelled to join them and make up for that deal; the Warden, however, was compelled to stay and fight (but doesn't know what, yet). They step out of the Way, and are greeted by the another character...who immediately decks the Warden, who was greeting her with open arms.

I'll note here that said party member, a half-demon, had dipped off for her own side adventure that only one of the other players was around for, and the other two never asked about, where she was ambushed by a villain exploiting her demonic nature, putting a powerful binding spell on her to discard her humanity. The Warden's player missed this session, and had no idea what was coming. The half-demon's character, however, had been eagerly awaiting it (and even more eagerly for a different reason, when the Warden's player was absent unexpectedly and we had to postpone the game).

The Phoenix and Seer jack a Harley Davidson and make a break for it, pursued by two demons and the aforementioned villain, who leaves the Half-Demon behind with a trio of Hecatean Hags to beat down the Warden. As part of it, the Half Demon transforms into a winged, clawed, hooved demon.

So on one side, we had a thrilling highway chase, and on the other, an emotional confrontation between friends. The former includes the villainous warlock and the Seer trading spells until the Seer tags him with a bolt of lightning. At which point I mention to the Phoenix's player that she spots the back of a ramp truck up ahead.

Now, part of the amnesiac's deal was that I'd been compelling the character to not reveal her true nature or powers because she didn't remember, letting them come out a bit at a time, and I wanted to save the best for last. So that side of the fight ends with her jumping the ramp, ditching the bike, grabbing the Seer, and sprouting flaming wings to make the trip to the temple. A nice touch being the painful transformation of the half-demon contrasted with the painless, glorious wings of the phoenix.

On the other side of it, the Warden manages a few solid maneuvers, which he tags as a compel to a soulgaze with a little help of the half demon's adopted father (who sneaks up on and blows one of the Hags' heads off). Through the soulgaze, he manages to free the half-demon's mind, and they quickly make short work of the Hags, leading to one of the more genuinely emotional and touching moments we've had so far in the game.

It was hilarious watching PVP--at one point there was seriously a chance of three or four fate-point-based rerolls all on one turn. And I've discovered my players seem to like playing the Boss Fight sometimes--one of the best moments in a previous game (in the Mega Man X verse) had the party tank unexpectedly turned on the players.

[Wyntonian]

This is why I play DFRPG. You, sir, are awesome.

[Mr. Death]

Last night, as the Fenris wolf spent half the fight distracted by conjured up Kanye West shades and getting The Song That Doesn't End stuck in its head, I was reminded why I let one of the players play a pixie.

During the finale climax of my longest running game, the players were up against Ragnarok; one wizard one-shotted a goddess (after spending the whole fight maneuvering), three of them (an Egyptian temple dog, a werewolf, and the aforementioned pixie) took down the Fenris Wolf, and then they banished Nidhogg back to Hel with a MacGuffin, the power of friendship, and an eldritch abomination that had been living on the other wizard's head for the last several games.

[zakmo86]

I'm the GM of a Roll20 game and have a player whose character is a Spirit of Loss (or Regret). The Spirit has lost its memories and the player plays it very cheeky and brash. Especially where corporeal creatures are concerned.

During the final session of a story arc, the group was facing down a warlock who was attempting to summon an Outsider. Before the session, I gave the player a choice between statues his character could possess to use in the battle (a la Bob and lion statue in Skin Game). He chose a Buddha statue. Two players in the group snuck into the warehouse-lair of the warlock, while the Spirit/Buddha smashed his way through like an enlightened Kool Aid Man. The first round of minions he encountered ran away out of confusion and fear rather than being taken out from physical conflict.

The game gets better. As the other players are attempting to take out the warlock and his last minions, the ritual to summon the Outsider finishes and a portal to the Outside opens inside a magic circle. The other players are trying to figure out how to safely close the portal behind cover as the warlock and crew rain down magical attacks. From out of nowhere, the Spirit/Buddha rushes the portal, breaks the circle and launches himself at the Outsider. He narrated his high Athletics roll as him throwing himself through the portal, tackling the Outsider before it could come through to this side. For just a moment, I sat there with my mouth hanging open, thinking, "He just killed his character..."

But the player has one more trick. Earlier in the game I gave him and another player pins from the Summer Court that would transport anyone pricked by them into the court of a powerful Summer sidhe who was seeking a pair of twin sorcerers that had been brainwashed by the warlock. The players were suppose to save the twins and deliver them to the sidhe who would offer sanctuary. The player "pricks" the statue with the pin, transporting him to the court of this sidhe.

I stumbled through the rest of the combat in shock and glee. It was the funniest, most epic moment so far. It launched a new story line I hadn't really thought much about and now there's a Buddha statue collecting moss in the lands of Summer. In another session, the same player surprises me when he asks the spellcasters in the group to help him with a ritual to turn a portion of the NeverNever into his demesne. They were successful and now the game is going a completely different route than I first imagined.

This guy constantly surprises me in the best ways possible.

Z

[Mr. Death]

Before the session, I gave the player a choice between statues his character could possess to use in the battle (a la Bob and lion statue in Skin Game). He chose a Buddha statue. Two players in the group snuck into the warehouse-lair of the warlock, while the Spirit/Buddha smashed his way through like an enlightened Kool Aid Man.

I've been giggling like an idiot at that description for the last few minutes.

Thank you.

[Ruan]

We've had some fun moments in the campaign that I've run.  I'd need access to one of my player's notes to really post up (he has a list of the best quotes from sessions).

Buuuut...

Probably some of the most fun came from what I chose to use as a 'first boss', letting the players (and to a lesser extent myself) figure out the game.

Basically, I created mogwai - as in, classic Gremlins movie style, don't feed after midnight, don't get wet, mogwai (with liberties taken - for instance, they need to deliberately choose to breed instead of it happening automatically).  Their leader was powerful enough to use a glamour and ran a Chinese restaurant with... dubious ingredients.

At that time, we had two apprentice wizards, a were-ox, and one I can't remember what he was playing.  They ended up getting into a fight with the mogwai in the forest, which could've been bad for them... except (with no 'fudging' from me) the mogwai were constantly, consistently failing miserably at everything they did.  With fireworks and traps and everything.  Which worked perfectly, because epic fail is kinda what gremlins do best, even when it's happening to them.  Eventually they defeated them, and then eventually their boss as well, but it didn't end there, somewhat to my surprise.

They ended up... well, not exactly adopting, but took in one of the mogwai.  They ended up calling him Mog, since when they asked him what his name was he said "Mog... wai?"  Effectively, one of the apprentices ended up taking him in, and he lived in the fridge.  It was something of an ongoing joke for quite awhile, because every so often he'd pipe in from the fridge and they'd shut him up with a corndog.  And he kept getting bigger, and bigger...

Later on in the campaign, a black court vampire attacked the house - they didn't think Mog was safe, so they told him take all the corndogs and run down to the river.

... yes, they told a mogwai to run outside at night, to water, with a bunch of food.

Soooo they dealt with the black court vampire, and then the vampire's master... only to soon after hear about strange sightings and disturbances down by the river.  Sighing, they geared up, and went to investigate... to find Mog holding a rave in a run-down old shack, MUCH bigger, very urbane (think Brain-Gremlin from Gremlins 2), with a bunch of smaller mogwai following after him.  After a bit of talking, they find out that the ones causing the disturbance is a splinter group that broke off from Mog's 'tribe'.

They investigate (it's winter at this point, by the way), and they end up confronting Wai - the leader of the splinter sect.  It turned out that the main reason that they split off from Mog's tribe was that they don't like corndogs - HERESY!  Only problem was, instead they were hunting livestock and the occasional pet - given time, it might have even escalated further.  The group challenged the tribe to a fight, but they didn't want to hurt them, and the mogwai tribe was more in the mood for mischief and fun anyway...

Cue epic snowball fight that lasted the last half of the session - the kind that can only occur when one of the (by now) wizards in the party is a water mage.  Who, of course, won in the end, getting Wai with a huge snowball and taking him out.

After the more serious arc prior with the master black vampire, the players all appreciated the breather, and had a lot of fun with the session.  Much laughter and shenanigans were had, they got some solid roleplay in, and they had a combat where no one actually got hurt.

Fun times.

[Powderdry]

One of my characters is an earth mage with a penchant for gravity. He likes to turn gravity off for certain players when they did something stupid. He made two of the party members into balloons.

[Lakaz]

So i was running a game set around the fae, set in a sort of blend of the Dresden Files universe and The Secret World. A summer fae hired the Phoenicians (Kind of a much, much less scrupulous version of Monoc Securities) to kidnap Jack Frost and the Green Man of the Spring during the solstice to interrupt a ritual to end summer and begin winter in the world.
We had four players, only two of whom are relevant to this story. We'll call them Player 1 and Player 2. Player one was an active member of our group, playing a sort of elementalist/spirit talker who communes with the elements, and also the face of the group. Player 2 was married to player 1 IC'ly and OOC'ly, being her husband, and was clearly just along because his wife asked him to come. For the opening first half of the starting session he pretty much said nothing, when intereacted with he mostly shrugged and murmured something non-commital. I was cool with this, he made it pretty clear he didn't much want to be here (Although he was never rude about it) and i didn't want to force him to play if he didn't want to so i eventually stopped trying quite so hard to get him involved.
Anyway, right at the end of the game the party came across a squad of phoenicians out in the woods with a campervan, having crashed into a ditch. The party came along pretending to be passers by looking to help whilst really looking for clues inside the van, and a social encounter started, the party trying to keep up the act of just being some passers by (And finding nothing but a bunch of digging equipment, like shovels and whatnot). Player one failed a few rolls and one phoenician punched her inside the van and drew a gun. At this point we hear a voice, IRL, going "I hit the phoenician on the back of the head with a shovel".
It was player 2, and i swear to god everybody looked around for a moment or two wondering who was speaking, because nobody had heard him properly speak all game. He continues "They had digging equipment right? So i hit him on the head with a shovel". As it turns out, there is ONE way to get player 2 to take part in the game: Threaten his wife, if only ic'ly.
A roll later and the phoenician is unconscious and the other slips away (There were only two), and the group decide to question the phoenician and player 2 goes into full-on "Psycho cop" mode, putting a bucket on the phoenician's head to blind him, striking the bucket a few times and, i quote "Saying things like 'if we don't get home soon to watch Downton Abbey i'm gonna snap'". The poor guy never stood a chance, and spilled everything he knew more or less on the spot.
P2 sadly seems to have gone back into "Non-commital murmur" mode, and we've gotten very little out of him since, but it's only been one session since then, and if i ever want to get him involved again... i now know what to do

[Jabberwocky]

A currently broke Red Court vampire: "F*ck this! I'm supposed to be the horror of the night! Not to be dragging myself through the city on a tram!"

:-D

[Taran]

I just need to add this as it just happened.  (19 refresh game) Long story short:

Hired by a secret Greed Eating White Court Vampire to take a 7 tonne bomb (largest non-nuclear bomb built) into the Deeps to destroy the White Court Leadership.  After my character fights his way down to the centre of a meeting in the Deeps (my character had killed Lord Raith the previous evening which is why they were meeting), I approach the detonation site but, suddenly....

the bomb goes off prematurely....

[blackstaff67]

I'm GMing a DFRPG and not all the layers have read the novels.  We finally get done explaining to this gentleman (who didn't want to bother reading the books, just wanted to play) about the differences between the Red, White and Black Court Vampires, their various powers and the like.  He looks at us and says:

"This Jim Butcher guy, he role-plays a lot, doesn't he?"

[Hogeyhead]

Alright I have finally finished reading this thread, so I will now contribute.

So session before last I was minding my own business in my Mansion (resources 5 and filthy lucre) you know helping a native American shaman cast a ritual to banish a Nagloshi, when the Red court decides that this is a good tome to attack with 45ish vampires. 3 out of 4 players are present, but as I live literally surrounded by the red court (they occupy all the mansions around me, I just don't feel like moving, oh I'm a warden and they know that, it's coo) I doo have like 3 dozen heavily armed guards and 2 enherjaren on staff.

3 red court go direct for me with supernatural everything I fill all my consequences except my extreme before conceding (a guard helps me back into the house). Despite this the fight goes well and the ritual just barely succeeds because of a potion I gave the shaman earlier (we sort of maybe didn't understand how magic items worked then it probable would have failed it we used the actual rules, but I digress). Eventually all the red court are dead, and only injuries on our side (massive ward on the mansion). However I'm feeling somewhat vengeful.

At the beginning of the last session I spend a fate point to declare that they will attack my compound again the next night. I have everyone who could hex anything leave my mansion, then I have my guards pretend to prepare a final defense, and pretend that most of them are dead or incapacitated. Meanwhile I hire re-enforcements from Monoc securities (resources like ten-ish?), and have my two resident einherjaren rig my entire grounds with explosives (a declaration of resources 7 that I'd had that in my vault).

Stuff happens and while downtown talking to some red court we hear and explosion. My butler later told me that the attacked with 120-160 red court and that their casualties were total (many didn't die outright from the explosion, but my men had brought in the big guns from the vault, like my mini-guns etc plus a chopper or two full of enherjaren and Valkyries). Three of my men died and one of my einherjaren (he'll get better though).

I come back to my mansion and it's surrounded by police firefighters and FBI. They ask me a few pointed questions about just what was going on. Why was there a massive explosion? What's with all the blood? Why do you have a small army armed with fully automatic weapons? Why is there an AA gun on top of your mansion? There are strange rooms in your Mansion, do you worship Satan? Another Player (who I have hired as my lawyer) declares with a scholarship roll of 8 (plus 3 on the dice) that I do in fact have licenses for all the guns even the AA gun on top (it's there for historically significant reasons), the explosion was technically not illegal under a fireworks act, and why yes you did find strange rooms in my mansion, I'm rich so obviously I'm extremely eccentric. Also that blood isn't human go ahead and test it.

To avoid a month of house arrest with one of those ankle things I'd inevitably hex I pay for labs to test the blood. So in the down time I spend a week with the FBI while my butler sees to my comfort. The place is guarded and I'm a gest so I just stay in like a reception room mostly. I'm going to need to renovate a bit (though my wards saved my mansion (mostly)), thankfully professional extortion-ism pays well.

[Lawgiver]

Added to that, a 10-shift success doesn't necessarily mean the character hits harder, or even hits at all--it means the character succeeded at whatever they're doing really, really well. In the case of magic, that tends to mean controlling the power really well--i.e., less chance of anything happening by accident.

A 10-shift success on a Weapon:5 attack could just as easily be the wizard blowing up the floor in front of the goon, having the goon surrender after seeing what the wizard is capable of. It doesn't have to mean that anyone was injured at all.

Isn't there an option in the "quality" talk about that that indicates that instead of improving quality of outcome, you can reduce the time it took to do it?  So with that many extra shifts, perhaps instead of taking the character's entire exchange to do that... the excess shifts shorten the task down to a supplemental action and he still gets his exchange turn?  Not sure, but seems reasonable.

[Hogeyhead]

Isn't there an option in the "quality" talk about that that indicates that instead of improving quality of outcome, you can reduce the time it took to do it?  So with that many extra shifts, perhaps instead of taking the character's entire exchange to do that... the excess shifts shorten the task down to a supplemental action and he still gets his exchange turn?  Not sure, but seems reasonable.

Actually there is a rule. If you succeed by x you can choose to have another non attack action for x shifts. I don't know where that is I just know I read it. I believe it's in the combat section.

[Sanctaphrax]

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