Playing D&D With Porn Stars and Also The Founder of the OSR and The Head of Lamentations of the Flame Princess

 

Two very short stories from playing D&D last week:

So if you know anything about Caroline Pierce you know...

Wait, let me rephrase, if you know anything about Caroline Pierce playing D&D, you know she has terrible luck. Like: the worst. Dice you should throw away. Whole characters you should throw away.

However, last time she tried out a new set of dice someone gave her. It has always been my feeling that gift dice roll better. These seem to. They have cats on them. She is currently playing an elven ranger named Elaria who is beginning to not be a total fuckup.

Also important to know Kimberly Kane is playing a cleric of the Great Grub--usually worshipped by goblins but there's no accounting for taste.

So the job is this:

It's an investigation. A number of travellers have been found dead along the pilgrimage route to the Cathedral of the Infinite Maggot--the party is asked to investigate and solve the problem.

After a day's travel, they come upon the first corpse, dead on a high branch:

Elaria, being a ranger goes up to investigate.

"The pilgrim appears to be human, it looks like its impaled on a thick branch and then had the skin peeled off in strips on a branch.

"So it's like a giant shrike or something got them?"

"Ummm, yes, pretty much exactly like that."

There's no point in making someone roll when the player skill is just right there.

"What's a shrike?" Michelle asks.

"They do that," says Caroline, "they're birds that kill other birds by impaling them on branches and stuff. The call them butcher birds. I found one in my back yard when I was 5!"

Well that's the end of the investigation part.

"I'm just gonna show you guys the name of the adventure"

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As you may know, I also play a weekly game with Jeff Gameblog as Referee, two trans gals, a war refugee and Lamentations of the Flame Princess head honcho James Edward Raggi IV, the man who wants to bring you gritty horror solidly grounded in the real world 17th Century.

As usual, if you miss a session it just goes on without you. And I missed last session.

I log in and James looks soooooo excited.

Jeff starts talking--and James goes "Can I tell Zak what we're doing!??"

And I roll my eyes because whenever I'm not around things go real sideways real fast.

"Ok, what are we doing tonight James?"

"We have to go to the moon to mow the lawn!"

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Weekday Side Quest

Since I have a large game group with players who shift in and out week by week I've been experimenting a little bit with what you might call solo side-quests.

The idea is they keep players up to date when they miss a session or two, plus they deepen that players' connection to some part of the game world relevant to their PC.

For instance:

A few weeks back, Dave's cleric of the Black Grip-Olaf--lost his arm. This is a big deal as spellcasters need to be able to gesture freely and that's hard with one arm that isn't actually, like, there. He asked if there was a Temple of the Black Grip nearby that could regenerate his arm.

The standard choices would be:

-Mean DM says No

-Nice DM says Yes

-Make Dave try to convince the whole party to go on a Quest For Dave's Arm even if Dave won't be there for weeks at a time in the middle of the entire continent being invaded

Instead, one monday evening I set up some miniatures on a table and just texted Dave this:

I further texted some details on the tactical situation:

The general mechanic I'm using for this mass battle is: 2 guys square off and each roll a die, high roll wins, so big dice are good, small dice are bad.

Dave texts back:

Dave further elects to hide his D30 giant skeleton guy underneath the giant skull thing on the left of the map and have it spring out only when goblins roll up.

Further, once the fight starts, he carefully deploys some Fog Cloud spells to confuse the goblin advance and channel them into places where they're easy to take out.

We can watch the battle progress round by round, with the goblins (mostly on square white bases) coming up from the bottom:

The Grip sends the bulk of its forth to the left of the screen and a few elite units go right:

A detachment of goblins probes to the right and gets wiped out by the elite forces. A fog cloud covers the goblin left.

This channels all the goblins through the center...

And they get wiped out as undead pour in from both directions!

The Black Grip wins!

Olaf gets a new arm (but it's a skeleton arm).

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The Trial of Tor Gunnar Magnuson

 So when last we saw our heroes they had rolled on the Carousing Table and all had gone sideways.

I actually made a diagram to keep it all straight

So this time, I set things up to deal with the consequences:

Olaf, halfling cleric of the Black Grip shows up with a skeleton arm, a replacement for an arm he got torn off a few sessions ago, he is hanging with, Bleezy aka Cargin, the sea-elf wizard—who is hungover. They’re in the sumptuous apartments of Arvikk, a humble dealer in silks who they rescued from some toad demons a while back.

A servant comes in and tells Arvikk they their pal has been hauled into the courthouse.

Tor the barbarian starts the session hauled into the Port Gobelins courthouse, charged with arson. 

The good news is: he has a witness in his defense—Bob the Ranger!

The bad news: he’s a pig.

The magistrate asks Tor who his attorney will be—he can name anyone in the city. He names himself!

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Horg the half-orc wakes up in bed next to…the court wizard!

The court wizard thanks Horg for a wonderful evening but says “Look, sugar, I gotta go, I am expected to testify agains that rapscallion Tor who burned down the entire port district!”

Horg casts Charm, the court wizard rolls a 3 and so they get back in bed--thus missing out on opening arguments

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Glutenberg the half-elf and Oni-Baba the witch are in yet another inn, having both been absent last session.

Oni-Baba decides to go buy some armor. But….the door to room is locked from the outside.

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Tor’s opening argument is powerful: he speaks of the Magnuson family’s long history of…something? I forgot, but he rolled well. A dissenting NPC cries “I lost my home and all my children were burned alive!” but nobody listens.

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I call up Christoff, who has a cold, and put him on speaker.

“Hey Christoff, you’re a pig. But you’re the only witness at Tor’s trial for arson. What do you do?”

“Can I talk?”

“Um, no.”

Then I squeeze the pig toy

“Is the witch who turned me into a pig there?”

“Uh…(roll roll)…yes!”

“Ok, I’m going to hop off the stand and go over to the witch and try to, like, charm her.”

“Roll Charisma”

“19!”

“The witch looks into your piggy eyes and feels sympathy for your plight! All eyes fall on the witch!”

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Meanwhile back in the bedroom, the court wizard, under the influence of Charm, reveals that he framed Tor because he (the wizard) is secretly colluding with the chaos hordes outside the city gates preparing to overtake Port Gobelins and burning the Port District clears the way for the raiders to enter.

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Glutenberg and Oni-Baba discover they’re just one of dozens of folk locked in their rooms by chaos cultists who are preparing for their fellows to invade. Fighting begins in the streets!

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Eventually most of the other party members make their way to the courthouse. Olaf secretly gives Tor a potion granting him 18 Charisma. Tor’s doing great up there, lifting up witnesses and impressing the entire crowd with his strength.

Suspicion then is thrown on the witch!

The witch throws suspicion on the Court Wizard!

Bleezy says fuck it man! and casts Dispel Magic on the Court Wizard, revealing him to be a creepy goat-headed cultist!

Horg is really mad at Bleezy because this also ruins her Charm hold over him which she was gonna use to manipulate him into…something…

This dramatic moment was captured here:

Several other members of the courtroom rabble reveal themselves to also be creepy chaos cultists.

They start just killing citizens.

A general melee begins

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After getting past the initial wave of chaos warriors, the players are finally all together and have a big argument about what to do.

Save Port Gobelins?

Run back into the dungeon?

Become exporters of fine silks?

Steal a ship?

Which ship?

Eventually Tor get sick of all this talk, runs up to one of the chaos warriors’ ships and goes “Who do I have to kill to take over this ship?”

He still has an 18 Charisma so the chaos rabble goes: “That guy!”

They have a fight using the Red & Pleasant Land duelling rules, Tor takes a wound to the leg but the other guy gets both his arms cut off.

The chaos warriors cheer their sexy new captain “TOR! TOR! TOR!”

Where to sail?

Given an ocean’s worth of options, the party sets sail for Nephilidia, the continent of aquatic vampires.

No accounting for taste I guess.

There's A Very Simple Explanation for All This (reader participation time)

 

Game day yesterday. Got to use the Compendium (get yours today!) for the first time since it arrived in the mail, which was fun and convenient...

...the players found a Dealer In Fine Silks in a cage held by some toad demons in the megadumgeon. They were escorting him back to Port Gobelins after finding him in a cage only to find (after a very dramatic archery contest--thanks dice) that Port Gobelins was besieged on all sides by warriors of chaos.

Since the dungeon originally began at Port Gobelins, they then took him all the way back to the dungeon, reverse-traversed it and popped up back where they started over a years ago, inside the city under siege.

But Here's What I Need Your Help With...

The real chaos came when these long-suffering adventurers, after many battles and negotiations, arrived back in the besieged city and rolled on the Carousing Table. This was the last action of the evening, and here are the results:

-Bleezy the Sea-Elf wizard has a massive hangover (the least of it)

-Bob the Ranger was turned into a pig by a witch on account of lewd advances. (He got better. Bleezy has Remove Curse in old school and in 5e this only lasts an hour, so either way it was temporary).

-Horg the half-orc wizard has offended a local military officer (no small thing in a city under siege)

-Tor the half-ogre barbarian has offended the court wizard (I didn't know Port Gobelins had a court wizard)

-Horg has woken up in bed with the court wizard

-Tor has burned down an entire district of the city and everybody knows (again, no small thing during a siege)

So here's my thought:

While the Carousing Table is a mere chart and the PCs were too black-out-drunk to see any plot or narrative connecting these six events, I am sure there is one. And I am sure it is the seed for next week's adventure.

So, here's the contest:

What happened last night? What Coen Brothers-esque dominoes fell that explains all of this? How does it lead to intrigue in the next session. Best answer gets some free RPG pdf of mine that they don't already have.

If you need background, Port Gobelins is here, on the coast:

...and it looks a lot like Venice and there are little masked goblins running around pretending to be children:

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Megadungeon Map

click to enlarge

The players find this somewhere in the megadungeon, showing how the areas connect, where the Gate of Six Keys is and where the keys are.

It's All True.

Yes, it's true. We're porn stars and play D&D.

So last time we played, the PCs faced off against a tyrannosaurus in a cavern knee-deep in a pool of blood.

So this week, in honor of game day, they made a dinosaur-island covered in mashed potatoes. This is because they are awesome.

Here's video of Charlotte Stokely pouring a gravy volcano over it...

This is the situation as it stood last weekend, as per Stokely's instagram....

The module's available in The Store if you want it...

They beat the dinosaur by making it fight its own shadow...

Then advanced into the Palace of the Necropharoah!

Where they ran into a sphinx (played here by a manticore because I don't have a sphinx miniature). The sphinx will answer questions, we'll see if the players manage to ask anything useful.

This isn't a diss, in the game Jeff runs that I play online, we've had 2 wishes for weeks and still can't decide on anything useful to do with them.

You're Welcome, Universe

So, ok.

I play Slorm.

Cleric of the only true god and horrible goblin. 

Also, oddly, voice of reason in the party because everyone else in the game is a lunatic.

Principally: James Edward Raggi IV, publisher of Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying, but also the OSR-founding GM, the two transfolk and the bard-playing war refugee.

Now, you may know about James Edward Raggi IV as an author and, perhaps, if you've been to an online playtest, as a game master.

What you probably do not know is that, as a player, James, is a megalomaniac game-breaking chaos munchkin of circa-1982-letters-to-Dragon-Magazine proportions. He is the kind of guy who would hear about the Head of Vecna, then immediately try to figure out how to turn himself into a hydra.

Like, I'm pretty sure this was him:

So anyway, after several days spent going through an interdimensional tech-over-our-heads dungeon we arrive near the top of the Pyramid of Whereverthefuckweare.

We are at a room with a vast and sophisticated machine.

Slorm, as is his wont, barks at the party halfling to squeeze through the gears and plasma inverters to investigate this machine, on the end of a rope. She does so.

Soon Weenie the halfling is looking at what Jeff describes as "A hole in the floor leading back through time to the creation of the universe".

We are all eager to understand this phenomenon and use it to get xp. So Slorm sends a sausage to Weenie down the end of the rope.

you have no idea how useful these have been in the campaign so far

Weenie the halfling drops a sausage into the moment of the big bang.

Then Jeff grins and says the most terrifying thing he can ever say, which is:

"Ok, there's a random table for this"

Fuck fuck fuck.

Then he says "You're going to want to roll low"

FYI: Jeff has, after the session, pulled back the veil and shown us one of the items on this chart:

14. PC's home star(s) go nova

I knew it was going to be bad. We just threw random pork into the moment of creation.

Even worse, James Edward Raggi IV, publisher of Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying who plays Graham the fighter, suddenly has a gleam in his eye. Slorm does not like any of this.

Weenie then rolls a 1! The lowest roll.

It turns out the universe is, thanks to the sausage, all now more graceful and kind that it had once been. We are all given a choice of either undoing one past event we didn't like in the campaign or leveling up. Outstanding job Weenie!

James Edward Raggi IV, however, barely stops to write this down, then goes "So Graham excuses himself for a few minutes, then comes back with a potion vial now filled with white liquid. He..."

"NO!"

I know this man. Slorm knows this man. All the guys and girls and theys in the game know this man.

It is clear that James Edward Raggi IV is attempting to pour his cum into the moment of the universe's creation.

"What?" he says "everyone and everything in the universe will be me! I will rule all!"

Slorm explains that while the various players are no stranger to sexual content--despite it not having coming up much in the campaign at this point--the gods who have Blessed, Heroismed and Healed Graham the fighter many times during the last year or so, do not want his cum on them while they are trying to create the universe.

After much acrimony, Slorm manages to avert this outcome.

James Edward Raggi then throws a fit on his Facebook page.

Anyway, if you aren't all part James Edward Raggi IV now, you're welcome.

Hail Slorm.