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<< RM Moments Homepage | 1 |
First, the setup: I was GMing a group in a world/adventure almost entirely inspired by the artwork on the covers of the Rolemaster books. I had moved through my "magical item bonanza" phase of GMing (we were all pretty young) and was now in my "if there's a rule in the book, it applies" phase.
And now, the story:
The party had evolved over many months of play (this turned into a pretty epic adventure); there was the fatherly cleric, the rowdy rogue and, most importantly, the hapless, always-getting-in-trouble, everybody-loves-her Maiden-always-in-distress (she was a PC, not an NPC).
We came to what would end up being the climax of our huge adventure (I had delusional bad plans to take it farther, but alas, I grew up). The group was in a sky-faring city filled with monsters, the Head Monster of which was responsible for many things magical and mean going on in the kingdom below. A sort of Balrog-typish creature, who I played as the maniacal villain quite well because I am, myself, maniacal.
Events (that is, the dice, since I used them to decide everything and never deviated from whatever strange path they set me on) conspired to fling Maiden-in-Distress and Evildoer over the side of a balcony and hurtling through the sky towards the ground so very far below.
But wait! Ms. Maiden reminded me of something; back in my "magical item bonanza" phase, she had acquired a twig from the Iron Tree of Fate. Wrestling it out of her belt pouch, she made her wish and snapped the twig.
Huzzah, the Evil Beast was defeated; the world was saved. Ms. Maiden had used her wish to send the Demon to another world, where he would no longer be able to wreak his magical havoc on our poor kingdom.
After the Fair Maiden became a Fair Stain on the Ground, she realised that she really could've wished herself to safety; as gravity would conspire to take care of the Demon itself.
All that, and I didn't even make her take an Intelligence roll to realise her mistake!
Once again the “stick foot in mouth” member of the group has messed up the plan, story, and the characters in the game. It just so happens our group is all 2nd level characters that have finally been able to leave home and do some adventuring. The only problem is, one is only 15 years old. Not that it would be a bad thing, except that the person behind the character seems to “stick his foot in it” with out even trying very hard. Now this hasn’t been the only time he has done this. We have played many other campaigns and the same thing happens. It’s just this time he not only messed it up for the characters but also the GM was totally lost at first as to where to go next. ( We have done this to the GM so many times that you would think he would be use to it by now.)
The group meet up with a nice fellow in the middle of nowhere named Strat. It turns out he is a shape shifter and plans on going to a near by town to sell his wares. When we arrive he tells us of a nice and very “safe” place to stay in the town. We find the house and all goes well. We all thought it strange that they locked us all in for the night, but they told us we would be safe there. After a very bumpy night the door released and myself with the 15 year old went out to find a healer to help fix some serious wounds we had received a few nights before. We decide to meet up with the rest of the group later.
As we went through the town we came across a familiar symbol that happens to be very ancient. Our group seeing these symbols before from our land, knew that this symbol meant there was an ancient transportation portal somewhere with in this large church looking building. Even better we found out it was a place where they healed people. We thought these people inside must worship the symbol. We thought it funny that they did since we knew what the symbol did.
We entered the church and observed a man take water to his hand and ran it from his forehead through his hair. The 15 year old did this too. I being a bit smarter then that, only but my finger in and touch my forehead. A healing happened quickly and as we were about the leave the 15 year old starting to talk to a priest who had bowls out to collect money. He told him that our group worshipped the same symbol (even thought we didn’t), and that he wished to talk to the head priest because he needed to pray to the symbol. I of course was trying to get him to shut up, but of course it fell on deaf ears like always. As we left the 15 year old decided to get a tattoo on his stomach of the symbol where as I told him he was nuts and he shouldn’t do it. Nevertheless I was ignored again.
We learned that night, that the symbol was used by the un-dead in the town and the shape shifters battle the un-dead. Now because the 15 year old told the un-dead “our” group worships the symbol, we have all been marked to be turned to the un-dead as well and have been branded with a magic symbol on our foreheads. The shape shifters decided to transform one of the group into a shape shifter to protect the group. The shape shifters have told us we all must become a shifter to take the branded off our heads. One by one the group is turning into shape shifters whether they want to or not.
So once again the 15 year old has screwed us all over. Personally I would love to give him to the un-dead group. Unfortunately it wouldn’t change the fact that we are all marked to be changed into the un-dead. Life would be so much easier if the 15 year old would just shut up and listen for a change.
You have to hand it to players. In the last game session the party was figuring out what to bring with them to clear a goblin horde out of a set of underground ruins ( Okay, it was a twisted form of Dungeon Crawl). One of the party members, a Knight named Sir Garren, initiate of a holy knightly order, suggested we bring along some lard to cook with. At which point another member of the party, a Mystic named Lynea asked if he was planning on making "ginger fried goblin". At this point in time I asked if they wanted to hire a high level fire elementalist and buy up all the lard of the kingdom so that they could deep fry the dungeon... After this the game had to be stopped as somebody else asked how we would know when they were "done" and another player responded with, "they'll float".
The party (all around 10th level) had been hired to stop a bandit lord that was extorting tolls from the merchants that traveled through the mountain pass that his small Fortress controlled. We figured that the best way to handle the situation was stealth. We would sneak past any off the roving patrols in the pass. Then we would go over the wall at night and take out the bandit chief.
Everything went perfectly until we had reached the top of the wall surrounding the fortress. We were all covered with unseen 1' and were trying to move quietly. Then the paladin tripped over his own feet (a really bad open-ended low maneuver roll). He fell to the catwalk with a loud crash, broke his invisibility and alerted all the guards on that section of the wall in both directions. As the rest of the party took up positions to surprise the guards as they rushed the paladin, I had a brilliant idea (I was running a 10th level elven mage). I asked the GM if the breeze was blowing parallel to the wall? "Well, yes it is," he responded after rolling some dice. Ahha, I thought. I decide that I would cast a stun cloud right in front of the paladin and the wind would blow it along the wall right through the guards on that side of the wall, decimating them.
After a successful casting of the spell and getting a couple of crits that really weakened the guards that were leading the charge from that direction, I reminded the GM that the wind would blow the cloud along the wall. With an evil and slightly maniacal grin, he chucked and then informed me that the wind did indeed move parallel to the wall pushing the stun cloud through the entire party and then the guards in the other section of the wall.
The cloud did really minor damage to the party as it passed through. Until it got to our only healer. I remember that the critical was for 25 hp and several rounds of stun. I breathed a sigh of relief. Then the GM continued reading "...if wearing a metal breastplate, heart and lungs melted...", I stopped breathing. The healer was AT 13, a chain shirt (metal). Oops!
The cloud passed through the other guard, causing enough distraction that we were able to escape.
I told the party, as they glared at me (especially the dead healer), that I learned several things from this lesson. Always be specific. Ask which way is the wind blowing. And since I had never killed a party member before he was worth 5x the experience and I was now a lot closer to going up a level :)
I am James from NZ and used to be a HUGE Rolemaster fan, I usually played GM but not always. Great to see your website! Here is a little moment from one of our games.
It was a while ago now when a group of our friends used to regularly meet for weekends of continuous Rolemaster. This particular time our band of adventurers were flat broke after a particularly error-prone raid on a castle and we desperately needed fast cash to get re-equipped and get to the next town. We split up into two groups to double our chances of making some cash. Myself (Arnie the barbarian) and my companion (Sir Cum Size the duelist) had managed to get a "job" that involved killing a powerful local man in exchange for a bag of money.
We hatched a brilliant plan. We tracked the victim down to a local Inn of disrepute (they always are). I bribed the owner to let me into the victim's room where I concealed myself under a bedside table (I had a cloak of hiding - pretty cool!) Meanwhile, my duelist companion had bribed the cook and slipped poison into the meal that the victim had order for room service. My companion was to bring him his soup in his room and if the poison failed or just made him sick instead of killing him I was to leap out and finish him off before escaping out the window—a cunning plan!
But things started off badly. Sir Cum Size was a duelist and my friend Jerome played his character true to form. Whilst walking from the kitchen to the target's room with the lethal bowl of soup Sir Cum Size was insulted by the passing comments of a local in the Inn. True to form he immediately challenged the rascal to a duel, which was nosily fought out in full view of the customers. Luckily, Sir Cum Size was able to (eventually) defeat his opponent and, bloody, tattered and close to death he returned to deliver the poisoned soup.
The intended target was understandably suspicious when he opened the door—his meal was late in arriving, cold and delivered by a man covered in blood who had obviously just been in a fight. He immediately drew his sword and attacked. Seizing my moment, I leapt out from my hiding place and rolled a fumble - I fell over, blew the element of surprise and missed my attack. Sir Cum Size promptly lapsed into unconsciousness after the first blow, leaving me to fight the enemy on my own. Pretty soon the noise attracted the attention of the victim's friends (who were drinking downstairs) who stormed into the room waving their swords. Panicking, I picked up Sir Cum Size and threw him out the window (causing him still more critical hits). Badly wounded and under assault from multiple attackers I dived out of the 2nd story window myself.
I had diving as a secondary skill but I needn't have worried. For one of the only times in my life I actually rolled a 99 when I needed it. I dived gracefully to the ground stunning my enemies and saving the day.
Needless to say I have a few stern words with my companion and we still didn't have any money!
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