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<< RM Moments Homepage | 1 | 2 | next >>
I was the GM of a long campaign. Everybody started at first level and tried silly stuff. There were several unforgettable moments.
1) The party is attacked by squirrels. Five first level characters, and five squirrels. The lay healer is in plate mail, wearing a full helm. The squirrel manages a stun result on an A tiny, so the squirrel is slashing at her nose. The magician comes over and says, "Hold still. I will knock the squirrel off your face with my morningstar." Needless to say, the magician fumbled the attack. Of the five squirrels, four are killed by a halfling ranger with a sling and one by an orc thief with short sword.
2) Earlier in campaign. Friendly old man riding a camel stops to give the party advice. Old man is a 9th level cleric sent to give them directions to castle. Party member tries to pet the camels nose and the camel bites him. Party consists of first level characters. They attack the cleric killing him immediately, but then get chased around by camel. Fighter attempts to make acrobatic dive under camel to open its guts, but manages to break sword on critical hit. Character says, "I didn't know magic swords could break!" Campaign is restarted. Same player had fighter in 2) and magician in 1).
3) Later, same campaign. Party is attempting to rescue a party member (the halfling ranger) trapped by a huge orc warlord in a tower. Astrologer fails perception test horribly, and convinces party that there are no orcs inside- it is really an illusion. Orcs are amused when the Astrologer (Fred) opens door and catches twenty-plus arrows in his chest. The Lay Healer tries to slam the door shut, but another character (Brock the barbarian) rushes in first. The lay healer turns and runs, Fred stands for a bit, and Brock runs up five flights of tower stairs. The orcs downstairs focus on Fred and the fleeing Lay Healer. The orcs on upper flights react slow, and miss Brock entirely. The garrison of over 100 orcs (including most leaders) chase after the lone lay healer (with running spells active). The barbarian runs into the warlord, fights for a few rounds, and manages to throw the warlord down the stairs. Brock takes a minute to free the halfling (made up as a jester) before the warlord comes back up the stairs. Eventually Brock and the halfling manage to defeat the warlord. They then take so much time stripping the body and searching for special herbs that the garrison returns. Brock, being none too bright, jumps out the 5th story window. Brock being a big powerful barbarian proceeds to shake off the effects and starts running. The halfling just bars the door, before climbing down a rope.
4) Same campaign, earlier. Party is in the mountains. Fred the Astrologer spots a group of demons at the base of the mountain. Orc thief decides to have fun, makes a snowball, and throws it at the demons. After some silly open ending (396 on a siege engineering maneuver?), the snowball forms an avalanche and stuns 40 demons for one round while they try to figure it all out...
One of the great times I ever had using the Rolemaster System was when I had the opportunity to GM Rolemaster for a group of players with various gaming backgrounds. I ran a campaign centered on a very crafty and utterly evil Mentalist named H. Lecktor. I mean this NPC had some awesome spell lists such as: “Anticipations”, “Mind Attack” and “Presence” along with a “101” Intuition!
There was a myriad of adventures pitting the party against this clever and resourceful NPC and his assortment of cronies. Eventually the group tracked the Mentalist down to his woodland retreat.
During the climactic battle, the group was mostly concentrating on the Mentalist’s henchmen who were guarding H. Lecktor, thus giving him time to prepare an Obedience II spell (Mentalism Companion) in the hopes of getting 2 of the parties group to not take any further hostile actions. The group was doing alright, but the henchmen were taxing the group pretty well. Anyhow, when it was time to roll for the Mentalist spell, I rolled an “02” (which was low ended). To make a long story short, the spell result wound up being bad for the caster: “You remember a childhood incident that was traumatizing, you lose the spell & operate at –10 for five rounds”. (Due to the roll, the subtractions were doubled). I had my marquis NPC at a “–20” for 10 rounds as opposed to having two of the Player characters effectively out of combat!
During the next round, one of the group broke through the defensive line and attacked the Mentalist. That character fumbled his attack weapon (Your mind is wandering, spend the rest of the round clearing your head)! The battle proceeded for a few more rounds with the party eventually becoming victorious.
What we all really enjoyed was how varied the system is. After the session, we all agreed on one thing: Where can you ever have that type of outcome with those other D-20 systems???
H. Lecktor the Mentalist
I was playing a 10th level mentalist named Fund. Mentalists have always been one of my favorite character classes despite what I've read on many e-boards about them being the weakest of the pure spell users. I think the singular rule that they ESF (extraordinary Spell fumble) with a 10 compared to 20 for other realms when not using hands automatically puts them a step above the others, particularly in social situations when discretion is called for.
Fund was on watch. The small gang of adventurers, a fighter, magician, a cleric and the mentalist, were camping near the edge of a marsh. Due to the game master's unrelenting skill when rolling creature checks, they had been harried relentlessly by a variety of undead. The fighter was exhausted and the magic users were nearly out of spell points. They needed 8 hours sleep to rest or "recharge."
The night was moonless with countless stars providing light to the eerie landscape. Fund complemented his natural senses with an occasional "Presence" spell pushing out into the darkness to see what lurked there. He had been on watch for approximately 2 hours when he sensed a powerful presence about 100 yards from camp. Switching to a "Feel" spell, he was surprised to find that it was a unicorn!
Having never seen a unicorn before, Fund decided to sneak up for a closer look. After several excellent stalk rolls, he was looking down a gentle slope to a shallow pool of fresh water. There in its entire splendor was the unicorn. Its pure white coat seemed to drink in the starlight and release it in palatable magical waves that made Fund's skin tingle. As it dipped its head to take a drink, Fund's attention was drawn to the foot and a half white horn on its forehead. It looked to come to a needle-sharp point and there was no doubt in Fund's mind that the creature knew how to use weapon to its fullest and most deadly abilities.
Suddenly, Fund came up with an idea. "If he could convince this magnificent creature to stand guard, then the undead and any other nasties that wandered by would not bother the adventurers. Everyone could get a full night's sleep.
With Fund, thought and action were practically synonymous. This quality had often saved the lives of him and his friends and at times, it had jeopardized them. He did not know if the beautiful creature could understand human speech although he knew it was intelligent. So rather than startle it into fleeing by talking to it, he stood up and threw a "Mind Merge" spell. The results were almost instantaneous and were disastrous.
Whether the creature interpreted Fund's intrusions into it's mind as an attack or whether it just didn't like being bothered, no one will ever know. What is known is that as soon as Fund threw the spell, the creature lowered its horn and attacked Fund with lightning speed.
The next morning, Fund's companions found him lying beside the pond where the unicorn had tossed him. There was a large hole in his chest cavity through the heart and out his back. A look of terror and disbelief still clung to his face. Tracks in the soft earth were all there was to testify to what had happened there in the darkness of the night.
As much as I know, one shouldn't let the experiences of one character influence the future actions of another character, ever since that day, all of my characters have had a healthy respect for unicorns and think twice before "Mind Merging" with a wild creature, even one that is supposedly good in nature.
Fund Mentalist, NJ
It all started as an innocent hike through the mountains. Three dwarves (Bill, Bobb and Pete) were given the task of carrying a piece of Mithril to a rival dwarven clan to end a disagreement. These three dwarves were played to the utmost by the characters. Bill has a black beard, Bobb has a red one and Pete’s is blond. All of them were pretty dumb and were prone to being duped. When they figured it out though, the can’s of whoop ass opened.
They were all 6th level fighters so the travel wasn’t hard and they made it to the Sundgold clan in about a week. I won’t mention the poison ivy on Pete’s backside, but it was a humorous moment. As they approached they were asked why they were there. They told them, but the guard didn’t believe them. So they just sat there and waited. After about two weeks they got sick of watching those guys thumb wrestle and let them in. It was obvious to everyone that they fell out of the stupid tree and hit every branch. Anyway the Clan Lord Belstram accepted the gift, but asked a task of them. There were two giants in a valley nearby who were making life difficult on this clan. There veteran warriors were off battling Orcs in the west. The Lord didn’t want to chance losing any of his clan so he asked this favor of these three.
Of course they accepted enthusiastically. Now Bill was the smartest of all so he decided to sneak up and see what this was all about. He looked down in the valley to see the giants at the southern end, some three miles away. This was an open valley with trees only at the northern end where the dwarves approached. So Bill decides to make a tactics roll. As GM I make all of these type of rolls and I roll a 1, then backed it up with a 96 twice and a 77 for a total –270!! My mind started going and here is what happened.
I told Bill that the best thing to do was to build a ballista. So they went about it using their wood craft skills, leather skills and military skills. I must let you know that they only had stone skills, so they didn’t know what they were doing. Bill being full of pride didn’t let the others know he didn’t have a clue what was going on. Of course the device didn’t work and after ten days they looked up to see the two giants approaching. The dwarves get ready and decide to send Pete out to flank the giants, while Bill and Bobb charge up the middle. As they run out onto the field the giants don’t see a real threat since they continuously haven beaten down the Sundgold clan dwarves.
As they charge the giants decide to kick the dwarves. The first giant wins initiative and charges at the same time Bill charges. I roll a total of 206 on the kick and Bill goes flying across the field, through the air. It is at that moment that Pete looks up to see Bill fly through the air between the posts they made. You see they tried making a ballista, but only made goal posts. Pete falls down laughing while Bobb goes flying through the air for another score. Needless to say they finally got up and kicked the giants butt.
We laughed so hard at those dwarves getting kicked through those goalposts that we had to stop play for about 30 minutes.
My friends, my little brother, and myself are started our campaign about three months ago. The party started out with eviL (my friend's nickname) playing Darcil, a half-elf Rogue, "Messenjah" (eviL's brother) playing Drisan, a wood-elf Magician, Bob (my little brother) playing Terrin, playing a high-elf Thief, and me being the GM.
The party accepted a job for some big, scary mercenary guild known as the Blackblades to go steal from a big, scary organized crime ring across the boarder. The Blackblades made them bring Kailea the grey-elf Warrior Monk and Khendric the half-elf Bard. The party distrusted Kailea and Khendric from the start... much to my dismay. Until later, but we'll get to that :)
The party + 2 (the PCs didn't really count Bardy and Monkess as "party members") made their way to the big city where their targets were pretty quick. The Bard, who just happened to have a rope, grappling hook, *and* a few ranks in Rope Mastery, told the group they should wait until nightfall before assaulting the target building. The party agrees. Khendric tells the group there's a tavern near to the target building where they can wait out the remaining few hours of daylight.
While the party is kickin' back in the tavern, some random guy walks in, looks the party in the face, says "Pfah!" and walks away. Terrin is most put out, so he tries to make a diving tackle at the guy. The following conversation ensued:
Me: "Bob, you don't have any ranks in Tackling..."
Bob: "I know."
eviL: "You're gonna get messed up if you fumble..." [Side note here.
Terrin has acquired a new nickname at this point. He has become known as Terrin
Fumble Evador]
Bob: "Yeah, what's your point?"
Messanjah: "What the heck. It's only attacking some guy we don't know
in a country we've never been to with an attack he knows nothing about. Let
'em do it!"
Me: "Whatever."
Terrin fumbled. No-one was surprised. They weren't even surprised when the guy turned around and pulled a sword on ol' Fumble. The Magician sighed a huge sigh and cast Shield on himself. The Rogue whips out his katana with great haste and comes to the aid of the slightly-foolish thief. The Bard and the Monk stay back. Ol' Fumble gets up just in time to catch a shirukin in the back of the head from the random guy's buddy. A round and two corpses later, the party drags Terrin's almost-dead body to a temple. But this is no ordinary temple! This is a temple that you'd find in... well, no-where else, really.
The local cleric who lives in the temple is delighted to see Terrin's almost-corpse (Terrin has about two rounds to live at this point). After haggling over price for another round, the cleric *pays* the group 20 silver for Terrin's corpse. Darcil and Drisan exchange confused looks as the psycho-priests perform some strange rite on poor Terrin. Miraculously, Terrin comes back to life. Aren't I nice?
Night falls and the party attacks the big bad organized crime ring. The Bard flings his grappling hook on top of the building and they go into an attic through a trap-door on the roof. After a minor scuffle, Khendric and Terrin help Kailea get Drisan (stunned due to spell failure) and Darcil (can't walk due to slashed leg muscles) back onto the roof. Kailea has the object they were looking for, so it's no biggie that they never made it out of the attic. Oh yeah, before I forget: they sat Darcil, who happened to be the heaviest member of the group, on top of the trap door so the baddies couldn't come up.
But wait! Remember how I told you that the party didn't like Kailea and Khendric? Well I made them be secretly evil. Khendric and Kailea scamper down Khen's rope. Terrin tries to stop them from stranding the origional party. Terrin and Khen begin playing tug-of-war. After a few rounds of pulling, Kailea burns the rope and the two now-evil people flee. Drisan, who has come out of his stunnedness, pulls out his longbow and shoots Khen in the calf, causing a bit of bleeding. Sounds of horse-hooves on cobblestones reach the trio's ears...
Four riders come into view. One grabs Kailea, one grabs Khen, and a third keeps coming. Drisan nocks an arrow, aims it at Khen's fleeing heart, and... breaks his bow string. Darcil, being the most level-headed member of the group, pulls out *his* rope and begins setting up a way down so they can fight this mean rider who helped their enemies. Remember those psycho-priests who resurrected Terrin? Well, the group probably shouldn't have trusted them, because Terrin started feeling heavy... and crazy... and like jumping 20 feet onto an armored foe on horseback...
So he did.
The rider was killed instantly from this untraditional mode of violence. So that's three riders. The forth drew his sword and charged Terrin, who had just regained control of his mind. With agility that would have turned Jackie Chan green with envy, Terrin flew up the rope that Darcil had dropped him. Within 30 seconds of game-time, Terrin had gone from the top of a building, to killing a rider in the streets below by jumping on him, and back up again.
I bet you're just dying to hear what happened to Terrin in later gaming sessions. The trio started off on the hunt for their enemies after healing up. Drisan and Darcil mentioned getting a healer of some kind to travel with them, but Terrin wouldn't hear of it. "We don' need no stinkin' healers," were his words, if I recall correctly. That line of reasoning proved to be his undoing. The trio had tracked Khen and Kailea to an under-ground dungeon. They busted into an orc barracks. Darcil and Drisan did *extremly* well against the orcs within, but alas, poor Terrin lived up to his nickname. He lost two rounds to a weapon fumble. The orc, however, hit with his two-handed axe, scored a D 83 Slash crit, and Terrin was killed. Again.
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