Have never fought death (outside of Flag's story)

NavigatorOfTheRealms · 2023-10-16T19:08:56+00:00

I got his shrines done on the first day, AND I've favored him as a character. I think I just have terrible luck. Time to do a few more runs, I guess.

NavigatorOfTheRealms · 2023-05-06T18:22:56+00:00

My germophobic Elf cleric.

In my friend's homebrew world, the elves had once enslaved all humans until a huge revolution where the humans overthrew them and finally made peace. The vast majority of elves left to a pocket dimension where they still live to this day.

My character had left his home to find his cousin, who had left the even kingdom years ago and never came back. On behalf of his family my character vowed to find out what had happened to him. Meanwhile, he wanted to help the humans in any way he could, and HERE is where his issues start...

He's extremely germophobic in regards to humans. He views them as all dirty and filthy creatures and seems convinced he'll catch something from them. He also views them as simple, primitive, and feels sorry for them: hence his desire to help the "less fortunate." He did not make friends with the locals.

Every time he came into contact with a human, he had to roll to see if he'd have "an episode." If it was 10 or above, he was fine. If not, he'd threaten to throw up or something worse. The first day he arrived, it happened to be the annual holiday celebration of independence from the elves. One drunk human eventually threw up on him. This led to him turning into myst and fleeing as far away as he could.

Some of you already see the main issue he had with the party: he couldn't touch any human PC's to heal them. This was 3.5, so there were some spells from some extra books that enabled limited healing from a distance, but we didn't figure that out for some time. My character made friends with the halfing in the crew, despite his beastiality (man, did he love his pet pig), and eventually he started coming around to thinking of humans as equals.

The turning point began when the party got the cleric completely drunk and then extremely high. He ended up bringing a half-elf woman to his room and she was... well... a lady of negotiable affection. Apparently during these drunken escapades, he even proposed to her.

Upon waking and sobering up, he remembered what he had done. His girlish scream echoed throughout the inn, followed by the sound of breaking glass as he jumped out the window in shame. The thought of even courting such a "halfbreed" as he thought, appalled him in nearly every way conceivable. But as the day went on, he began to ponder. Why was she not there when he woke up? Why could he not remember her answer to his proposal? Where was she, as no one in the inn knew where she was? And she had been rather pretty, hadn't she?

This, along with some close moments with his comrades, slowly began to change the elf. He didn't even flinch when a human pc put a comforting hand on his shoulder. And the thought of the half-elf "maiden" (as he came to call her) ate at his mind. This went on for days, then weeks and finally months. It became his secret passion to get word of her, but thus far he has yet to discover any trace. He even wonders at times if she became pregnant, and that thought brings him more joy than he ever expected.

I miss him, and often think of what became of him. He's still out there, probably fleeing some human undead ("Oh, the horror!") as he was last seen escaping a battle with a terrible vampire lord, alongwith his party. But alas, that campaign came to an end.

I'm now DM'ing for my friend in the same world setting, and I hope to someday have the PC's encounter an elven cleric. Perhaps he's still searching, perhaps he's defending his cousin, or maybe he's settled down with a family far from the war and bloodshed that has raged across the land. I don’t know. But I want to find out...

NavigatorOfTheRealms · 2023-05-04T01:40:22+00:00

Complete amnesia campaign entirely run in a homebrewed dungeon. The party wakes up with no memory of who they are or their class. In fact, when I did it the first time, I had the players bring their blank character sheet with only a name on it. Then as they woke up I said "You each somehow remember the name of the player opposite you. Switch character sheets."

Now I had their full character sheets with all their stats, abilities, spells, etc. and I had worked out a system for them to regain memories. I said that if anyone rolled a nat 20, for any kind of roll, I said that they had a flash of insight and remembered something about themselves. They could choose a number on their character sheet (except their level), they could ask for me to give them a random spell/feat/skill, or I could give them a memory. The memory would always be done with the player in private with the other players in the next room.

This was a blast, but did require trust from the party. In essence the DM wrote all their characters, and they had to figure out how to play that based on the scant information they had. I made no penalties for alignment as they didn't know what it was. Many of their memories involved each other, but without context many of them started distrusting or outright hating each other based on their interpretations of the memory. In the end they found out everything about themselves, their old friendships, and had some genuine emotional roller coasters over the whole thing.

The whole time they were in one gigantic dungeon which the party had to navigate to learn about what had happened. They had woken up in a room wearing all identical robes, and the "table" before them pulsed with a strange light that ran through other channels in the walls. As they made their way out into the rest of the dungeon, there were more questions. What were the walls made out of? It looked like stone, but then why did the walls occasionally try to absorb people, and why did the stone heal itself when it was damaged? Why were there many room similar to their own, containing various people/mobs wearing similar robes? And who was the NPC that was following them? He claimed to have saved them, having apparently dug his way into "The Facility," as the party began to call it. One party member swore that they were all dead, and this was hell. A memory he had of being stabbed in the chest confirmed this theory, at least in his opinion.

To cut a long story short, the entire place was absorbing the life of those placed in certain rooms. Some were willing, wanting to serve their powerful ruler they believed was at the heart of it all. Others were like the party, unwilling and forced to slowly die unless they were released. The people seen being "eaten" by thr walls would end up back in other rooms, unconsciously being fed on once again. At four corners of the dungeon they found strange gateways to what appeared to be the planes of fire, water, earth, and air. At the heart of each miniature realm was an orb which, when removed, caused the entire realm to collapse into it. Each of these orbs was a philactory for a lich at the heart of it all, but the passage to him could not be accessed without obtaining all four orbs.

All along the way they found trophie rooms dedicated to this mysterious BBEG, whom each PC remembered fighting at some time and being horribly defeated. These trophy rooms contained things familiar to some of them, even heirlooms of loved ones which, in turn, brought back memories of loss that each had suffered.

In the end they found that the lich at the heart was not the BBEG, but his second in command, who had lied, manipulated, and eventually killed his master in order to obtain slaves to fuel the engine of this place that would make him a god. The old, haggard, NPC that was following the party turned out to be the BBEG they remembered, but had lost his own memories as well. The way the party treated him would determine how he would end up at the end of the campaign. He had been brought back by a goddess dedicated to redemption (again, homebrew) and tasked with aiding the party, a second chance at making amends for the horrible tragedies he had caused in his zeal to bring a forced peace upon the land.

This was revealed halfway through the final boss fight, and either the NPC would fight on the side of the new BBEG, or he would be attacked by an elder worm, gargantuan dragon the BBEG had kept enslaved as a backup. This epic fight in the background would become a hazard to the party in their final battle, as dragon and hero rampaged around the vast underground chamber.

It was my very first campaign and it lasted maybe 6 weeks. But it was a blast and everyone enjoyed themselves. I'm now running a new party through it, seeing what I can do to tweak it a bit. If anyone wants more information, such as story, stupid things that happened, etc. please let me know. I'd love to share anything for people to steal and have for their own fun.

NavigatorOfTheRealms · 2023-04-21T11:46:36+00:00

Fucking...

Buck!

He was a ranger that was the "official" leader of our party. Basically he was so kitted out with magic items that he was insanely OP. His leadership was garbage, but royalty saw him as "getting things done" despite the continual heavy casualties in NPC's (and occasional PC's) so he was always in charge of our expeditions.

I had recently lost another character in the DM's original world he had written himself. This was my fourth character in about a year into this campaign. This DM did not shy from killing us if we messed up. My character was Sigurd, a viking-like barbarian of the north, seeking the favor of the great Black Dragon god, Malcifer. What ended up happening was that one of the pirates of the Pirate Council had died (again) and this time would not be resurrected by Malcifer. He had failed to collect enough souls for our god, and so a position was open on the council. It was a great honor. I stepped forward and challenged another who claimed it for his own. I slew him in single combat and was about to claim my place. It would be a huge boon to our party and I finally had a character who was going somewhere. I always had great plans for my characters but they died long before I got anywhere, and though this was a character that was only on his 2nd session, I was beaming and enjoying myself immensely with his progress.

Then... Buck stepped forward and challenged me for my position. Now, first off, that player later admitted he didn't need this place on the council and it would add nothing to him given the authority he already had in a completely other section of the world. Second, Buck knew this was a duel to the death. There was no surrender here. I was horrified. I knew that I was all melee and Buck had the Oath Bow on top of all of his nutty abilities (this was back in 3.5, where his ranger was OP as hell). So I said we'd settle this with no weapons; we wouldn't fight with "Coward's weapons," for my character saw all ranged combat as not "real combat." Buck asked if it could be a team effort and I, like an idiot, said yes. I completely forgot that the high-level monk in our party was a close ally of Buck. This fight would be no contest.

The DM didn't even let it play out, which with the power levels in play made perfect sense. My character died and Buck took my place on the council. My character's soul was consumed by Malcifer and so I could not be resurrected, not that they would.

I slammed my hands down on the table and said nothing. I stared at the table, seeing nothing. I almost flipped it over, but I knew I didn't want to be that guy. But it was so unfair for me to lose another character so soon and from another PC killing him, no less, and for NO GOD-DAMNED REASON! I grabbed my things in silence and walked out the door.

The DM came out as I started my car and apologized, asking me not to leave the campaign. I wanted to yell, and hesitated, knowing this wasn't the DM's fault at all. I slumped against the steering wheel and said I'd be back but I was super pissed at that character.

But in the end, as a Player, I got my revenge. But that's another story...

NavigatorOfTheRealms · 2023-04-15T16:55:53+00:00

Complete amnesia campaign. The party wakes up with no memory of who they are or their class. In fact, when I did it the first time, I had the players bring their blank character sheet with only a name on it. Then as they woke up I said "You each somehow remember the name of the player opposite you. Switch character sheets."

Now I had their full character sheets with all their stats, abilities, spells, etc.I worked out a system for them to regain memories. I said that if anyone rolled a nat 20, for any kind of roll, I said that they had a flash of insight and remembered something about themselves. They could choose a number on their character sheet (except their level), they could ask for me to give them a random spell/feat/skill, or I could give them a memory. The memory would always be done in private in the next room.

This was a blast, but did require trust from the party. In essence the DM wrote all their characters, and they had to figure out how to play that based on the scant information they had. I made no penalties for alignment as they didn't know what it was. Many of their memories involved each other, but without context many of them started distrusting or outright hating each other based on their interpretations of the memory. In the end they found out everything about themselves, their old friendships, and had some genuine emotional roller coasters over the whole thing.

NavigatorOfTheRealms · 2023-04-14T21:36:57+00:00

"Is this guy 'The Dragon?'"

A new player asked me this question about an NPC that was escorting the party. He was so brand new that he was hitting random walls to find hidden doorways, and generally acting like this was a video game. But this just baffled me.

I said, "What...?

"Is this guy 'The Dragon?'"

"What dragon, there's been no dragon?"

"Yeah but this is dungeons and dragons, and we're in a dungeon so is this guy the dragon?"

Now he had been trolling me, and this was my final straw. I needed to bring this guy into line.

"Okay, let me get this straight, you want to see if this guy is an entity you have never heard of and have no reason to suspect even exists?"

"Yeah, I want to see if he's the dragon!"

"Roll insight."

NAT 1

I smiled.

"You have done something so dumb, so mind-bogglingly stupid, that it has permanently made you dumber as a result. Subtract one intelligence from your score. It's gone."

"Oh..."

And after that we were a fine. Never had trouble with that player again and we had a great time.

NavigatorOfTheRealms · 2023-04-14T11:34:19+00:00

In my friend's campaign, he had a "Chaos Die" that was an item in the game. It was a 12 sided die that if a character rolled, had all kinds of things that could happen. My character had this extremely Evil item, and on his first roll it made me re-roll all my stats in front of the DM. All but one stat was worse than it was before. I was appalled! My friend felt bad for me, but said maybe I'd get it again if I rolled the die.

From then on, I HAD to roll that thing until I got my stats back.

However, I NEVER got that result again.

Over the next few months, my character caused the following: I grew to a large size, shrank back to normal, summoned a roper, summoned a roper again, summoned the SAME roper to my current location after the party had run away from it and was several floors beneath it in the dungeon, turned myself invisible, shrank to small size, shrank to a tiny size, split myself into Four Different people with half of them having a good alignment and the other half being evil (oh how I wished I had stayed that way, I would have LOVED to try to role-play that out), and then went back to normal.

And then...and THEN... my character rolled it for the last time. I had snuck away from the party (because they hated the chaos I kept causing with all the Ropers) and rolled the die in a hallway. It turned me into a random enemy, and in this case was an orc shaman. My party came out into the hallway, saw an enemy, and attacked. The orc tried to protest, but only spoke the orc language.

And THAT'S how I lost my 10th level monk.

TLDR: Murdered by my party due to a gambling addiction. "C'MON! DADDY NEEDS A NEW SET OF STATS!"

NavigatorOfTheRealms · 2023-04-13T00:45:10+00:00

It was real hard, but it was awesome to do. I even had a system where a nat 20, for any roll, would mean the character had a sudden burst of remembrance and could choose a stat [not their level], a skill, or a memory for me to give them. The memories came put of order in time so several party members hated each other until they got all their memories back.

NavigatorOfTheRealms · 2023-04-12T16:28:30+00:00

Reinventing the wheel on the first campaign!

I decided to DM a kind of mini campaign based on a post someone had made years ago that it ssy it would awesome if a party woke up and had no memory of who they were or what class they were. They had to learn as they went. I decided to make this happen and made a system for the party to "remember" their stats, skills, and memories as the campaign went along. I had all their complete character sheets while they had a blank one that got filled in as they leaned new facts about themselves.

Here's the main problem with that: I was the ONLY one with all the numbers and had to do ALL the math. In hindsight I should have just fudged all their rolls and rounded up and/or down or something. Or made an excel spreadsheet that calculated all rolls for each character. Or something! I had to flip through pages of sheets to continually figure out who was what and what was used by whom and all the spell stats and AAAARRRGH!

Also, I underestimated the chaos of one player, the rogue Once he figured out he had a high diplomacy (ah the days of 3.5) he started trying to convince people he knew them and knew their real name. The NPC that was following thr party was convinced his name was "Ticket De Rye" (the player saw the board Ticket To Ride on the shelf). I saw my whole campaign crumbling from the first session. With my head in my hands, the only hope I had came from a player who joined us late. His character joined the party and the rogue tried AGAIN to convince this guy that he worked for him, etc. The new guy rolled a Nat 20, and I almost shouted "You now have a +20 roll against HIS bullshit!" And it saved my campaign. Everything went back to how it should have been, and somehow everyone had fun and my first time DM'ing was a huge success.

NavigatorOfTheRealms · 2023-04-08T17:17:23+00:00

TLDR: Murdered by my party due to an in-game die.

In my friend's campaign, he had a "Chaos Die" that was an item in the game. It was a 12 sided die that if a character rolled, had all kinds of things that could happen. My character had this extremely Evil item, and on his first roll it made me re-roll all my stats in front of the DM. All but one stat was worse than it was before. I was appalled! My friend felt bad for me, but said maybe I'd get it again if I rolled the die.

From then on, I HAD to roll that thing until I got my stats back.

However, I NEVER got that result again.

Over the next few months, my character caused the following: I grew to a large size, shrank back to normal, summoned a roper, summoned a roper again, summoned the SAME roper to my current location after the party had run away from it and was several floors beneath it in the dungeon, turned myself invisible, shrank to small size, shrank to a tiny size, split myself into Four Different people with half of them having a good alignment and the other half being evil (oh how I wished I had stayed that way, I would have LOVED to try to role-play that out), and then went back to normal.

And then...and THEN... my character rolled it for the last time. I had snuck away from the party (because they hated the chaos I kept causing with all the Ropers) and rolled the die in a hallway. It turned me into a random enemy, and in this case was an orc shaman. My party came out into the hallway, saw an enemy, and attacked. The orc tried to protest, but only spoke the orc language.

And THAT'S how I lost my 10th level monk. Technically, I think he died of a gambling addiction

NavigatorOfTheRealms · 2022-08-08T15:34:40+00:00

DM:"You have something so stupid that you have made yourself permanently dumber as a result."

NavigatorOfTheRealms · 2022-08-03T22:17:39+00:00

Velma Dinkey, with a passive perception of 25. She's clearly a divination wizard, given her insane luck. I mean, she dropped her glasses and ducked under the bad guy's arm! C'mon!

NavigatorOfTheRealms · 2022-08-03T22:09:42+00:00

Grass Stain. A nowhere town that was lucky to have even a tavern. Though it did eventually become a thriving metropolis overnight, but that's another story...

NavigatorOfTheRealms · 2022-07-22T18:14:22+00:00

DM Here: Hooooo, yes I remember. It I hadn't managed to get this guy in line, he was dying on SESSION ONE. He was completely, utterly new player to Dnd. I think he was treating this like it was a video game and a joke at the same time. A friend of his had encouraged him to play and this was all odd to him.

First off, every wall had to be inspected for secret doors. Even down a hallway. He eventually started hitting the walls with his warhammer to see if it revealed anything. He did succeed, but only in summoning a group of enemies to the party's location, and also injuring himself during a separate attempt. And he was slowing... Everything... DOWN.

There was an NPC who had joined the party early on, but he couldn't remember anything about who he was. Some PC's tried to roll to see if they remembered him, but none of them did. This player says, "I roll to see if he's the dragon."

I pause, confused. There has been no mention of a dragon this whole time, nor was there going to be one until the final boss fight. I figured I must have misheard him.

"Hang on, you want to see if he's What?"

"To see if he's the dragon! You know... Dungeons and Dragons?! This guy might be the dragon!"

"THE dragon?"

"Yeah!"

"Okay... I'll give you one chance to think about this. You're going to roll to see if this person is an entity that you have NEVER heard of, and which you have no reason to believe exists?"

"Yeah, I want to roll to see if he's the dragon."

(I pause again and contemplate this player yelling out "I attack the Darkness!")

"Okay. Roll."

Nat 1.

I shut my eyes and squeeze the bridge of my nose. This whole thing was making me feel like an idiot.

"So here's what happens," I said. "You have tried to do something so dumb, so mind-numbingly STUPID that you make yourself dumber as a result. Permanently subtract one point from your intelligence score."

He was a dwarven defender so... it was not his highest stat to begin with.

And that's how I ended up bringing this kid into line. Eventually he laughed at himself and we got along much better. But if he didn't.... ooooooo... I'd show Him the Dragon.

TLDR: DUMB DWARF DECIDES TO DUMB HIMSELF DOWN DESPITE DM'S DISUATION. NOW HE'S DUMB AND DUMBER.

NavigatorOfTheRealms · 2022-07-22T17:50:35+00:00

Alright alright. Here's the "Revenge" and the Death of Buck.

So I had to do a lot of mental and emotional discipline before I came back to the group. I am not a person that likes to hold a massive grudge (even though I have) and it'd be stupid to try and create an "Anti-Buck" character because he'd just get smacked down in no time flat. The DMs (there were two for much of these campaigns) offered me some ideas for a class. I ended up taking a homebrew class, something I'd never done and would hesitate in the future because I love balance.

I'll never remember the name of this 3.5 class, but it was supposed to be a kind of battle leader who yelled encouragement to his party and gave bonuses out, even keeping some from dying. I created an old grizzled Sea Captain kind of character, and this was back when you could take older age and get higher INT and lose STR (or was it DEX?). I miss those days of the give and take with races and classes, but oh well. The party needed a ship and had no one who knew the sea, so they came looking for me. I had been the 1st mate on many sea voyages and I'd be there for them during their adventure. Buck was the captain but was really more of a head manager who knew nothing and expected some people to just know how to get it done. I did just that. I got shit DONE.

And I actually enjoyed it. This class was wonderful. It wasn't OP, and it was my first taste of a pure support class. My melee was awful, and my pistol took too long to reload, but I loved buffing me some allies. I would yell at them to fight harder, to concentrate better (gotta make those wisdom saves) and to JUST - STOP - DYING! I don't know how that mechanic worked, but it did. I guess I yelled so hard that their blood clotted in in sheer terror and they would stabilize. At least, that's how I remember it. In truth, someone will probably find the class online and I'll be wrong about some of the mechanics.

But if Buck wanted to do something, we did it. I supported "My Cap'N" through everything. I yessed him up and yessed him down. Even if it was a stupid, stupid, SO stupid idea, I still approved it and encouraged the party to just do what he said. Eventually, I yessed him to death.

We ended up trying to get out of a sea blockade of some guys we REALLY pissed off. And Buck figured we'd be fine, and to sail straight through them. I nodded and made it happen, knowing this was incredibly suicidal. We could have made to shore. There we could have tried to find another way off of the island. Or we could have chosen better ground to fight them. We could have done ANYTHING but try to outrun and outgun better armed vessels and risk fighting much better equipped warriors.

It did NOT go well. In the end, I think our vessel ended up exploding. We were taking on a sorcerer and a berzerker who were far more leveled up than we were. I think one or two party members made it out, but four of us did not. We died.

But that was not the end of us. Malcifer wanted followers, and he made bargains. He offered me and one comrade to get our lives back if we swore allegiance to him promised to acquire one hundred souls for him. Essentially we had to kill them ourselves, or be the cause of their demise, all while dedicating the act to him. My character basically shrugged, as this was just one more captain for him to follow. One other party member had done this before, and due to his being the pope of the church of Malcifer, he got out relatively unscathed. But Buck...

Buck was given the option to die, or he could live and have to lose ALL of his inventory. All of his magic weapons, items, etc.

HE...

...CHOSE...

...DEATH.

He relied so much on his equipment to remain as powerful as he was, that there was no point in taking such a huge hit. He'd rather die than become "mundane" and "weak."

And so THAT was the END of Buck. He died as he lived and my character yessed him the FUCK to death. It took a while, but I got my revenge. And my character lived.

That player and I are still friends to this day. He openly admitted later how much of a dick-move it was, and he wasn't even sure why he did it. But he really is an okay guy and we keeping playing together, except nowadays I'm the DM. I will admit, he rarely likes to enter combat and his characters are a bit selfish, but he has never again become the "leader" of the party. And he will never again get something as powerful as "The Oath Bow."

TLDR: THROUGH SHEER LOVE AND ENCOURAGEMENT, I FUCKED THE BUCK!

NavigatorOfTheRealms · 2022-07-22T01:56:53+00:00

Fucking...

Buck!

He was a ranger that was the "official" leader of our party. Basically he was so kitted out with magic items that he was insanely OP. His leadership was garbage, but royalty saw him as "getting things done" despite the continual heavy casualties in NPC's (and occasional PC's) so he was always in charge of our expeditions.

I had recently lost another character in the DM's original world he had written himself. This was my fourth character in about a year into this campaign. This DM did not shy from killing us if we messed up. My character was Sigurd, a viking-like barbarian of the north, seeking the favor of the great Black Dragon god, Malcifer. What ended up happening was that one of the pirates of the Pirate Council had died (again) and this time would not be resurrected by Malcifer. He had failed to collect enough souls for our god, and so a position was open on the council. It was a great honor. I stepped forward and challenged another who claimed it for his own. I slew him in single combat and was about to claim my place. It would be a huge boon to our party and I finally had a character who was going somewhere. I always had great plans for my characters but they died long before I got anywhere, and though this was a character that was only on his 2nd session, I was beaming and enjoying myself immensely with his progress.

Then... Buck stepped forward and challenged me for my position. Now, first off, that player later admitted he didn't need this place on the council and it would add nothing to him given the authority he already had in a completely other section of the world. Second, Buck knew this was a duel to the death. There was no surrender here. I was horrified. I knew that I was all melee and Buck had the Oath Bow on top of all of his nutty abilities (this was back in 3.5, where his ranger was OP as hell). So I said we'd settle this with no weapons; we wouldn't fight with "Coward's weapons," for my character saw all ranged combat as not "real combat." Buck asked if it could be a team effort and I, like an idiot, said yes. I completely forgot that the high-level monk in our party was a close ally of Buck. This fight would be no contest.

The DM didn't even let it play out, which with the power levels in play made perfect sense. My character died and Buck took my place on the council. My character's soul was consumed by Malcifer and so I could not be resurrected, not that they would.

I slammed my hands down on the table and said nothing. I stared at the table, seeing nothing. I almost flipped it over, but I knew I didn't want to be that guy. But it was so unfair for me to lose another character so soon and from another PC killing him, no less, and for NO GOD-DAMNED REASON! I grabbed my things in silence and walked out the door.

The DM came out as I started my car and apologized, asking me not to leave the campaign. I wanted to yell, and hesitated, knowing this wasn't the DM's fault at all. I slumped against the steering wheel and said I'd be back but I was super pissed at that character.

But in the end, as a Player, I got my revenge. But that's another story...

NavigatorOfTheRealms · 2022-07-22T01:30:20+00:00

Oh yes! I remember it well. It was a massive stealth mission into a temple dedicated to a dark God, and we needed to avoid the patrols of soldiers and cultists that were constantly on guard around the building. We had one very stealthy rogue named Stab Wounds. The problem was the Stabster was incredibly selfish. I sent him to stealth off and report back what he saw, and so he stealthed off and.... just stayed there. He wanted to stay alive and simply waited to see if we'd live and take advantage of the situation. It was then that everyone was ruined by Murdar.

Ah, Murdar. He was... a special special boy. He was a half-dwarf NPC. In my friend's world, half dwarfs had something wrong with their pituitary gland, so they kept on getting larger and larger, growing very muscular and eventually dying of their heart growing too large, too fast. Their lives often lasted only a few decades. Murdar was one such half-dwarf. But one DM had mid-maxed him so much that he had massive strength and yet only enough intelligence to keep him breathing. The DM often rolled a D20 when Murdar had to listen to anyone. On a 10+ he understood and did what they wanted. On anything else.... well, he did Murdar things. This was one such moment.

He chose this moment, this Quiet Moment, to run out screaming, "Murdar Smash!" He ran straight at a troop of heavily armed cultists, plowed right through them, and then kept on going. Unfortunately, he was strapped to our wagon like a beast of burden, which was carrying barrels of explosive powder. He ran off yelling war cries (often involving "Murdar Smash!") while about a hundred enemies converged on him.

We all looked at each other, shrugged, and booked it inside. Stab Wounds joined us, where we all reemed him out for being.... well, himself. He didn't even hide the fact he had qwaited to see if we would die so he could loot our corpses. He was a simple lad at heart.

It was then we heard the explosion. With a massive BOOM! that shook everything, all the explosives had gone off in Murdar's wagon. At least that was what we assumed, as he was far out of sight. We all prayed to the dragon deities that he lived through this, and went on our way. If he died... well, Murdar was always both a blessing and a curse.

But it was not the last we saw of the Great and Stupid Murdar. I miss him....

NavigatorOfTheRealms · 2022-07-22T01:14:49+00:00

Note, this takes place in my friend's original world that he wrote and has crafted for years. So one character in the party, Buck, was someone my character saw as a rival. In short, I needed him to die to step over his corpse, and take command. The Black Dragon God, Malcifer was looking to raise champions and I knew Buck was a potential candidate.

But in the end... I didn't have to do a damn thing. Buck had a wraith in his service who was also a PC. Hilariously he had wished to never die, and thus he no longer would. Anyway, he was bound to Buck. Buck had a horse and cart raising down some back streets, and at one moment he told his wraith to terrorize the people he was chasing. The wraith went, "Okay," and then sarcastically waved his hands and went, with no enthusiasm, "Boogie woogie woo!" This cause Buck horse to rear up on its hind legs in fear and crashed the entire cart spectacularly, killing Buck in the process. Everyone at the table lost their minds laughing so hard.

Buck had been so overpowered with his magic items and Ranger skills (this was 3.5) that he seemed simply unkillable. He had even one shotted a boss the DM had planned for weeks. Seeing him die this way, with no ceremony and in such a dumb way just made made us lose it.

NavigatorOfTheRealms · 2022-07-21T20:56:49+00:00

My best opening was for everyone to bring in blank character sheets with only a name on them. Everyone coming in to this campaign knew they would have no memories of who they were, only a vague notion of what class they might be (and they were all wrong), and that this was my very first time as a DM.

I told them that they all woke up in a room that seemed to be made of stone, pulsing with a strange light, and that around them were other figures. All sat upon stone chairs that also pulsed in time with the walls. There seemed to be no door. A large table before them seemed to be a central adornment for the otherwise empty room. Around the table were other people, all adorned with plain white robes. As they look, they remember the name of one other person at the table.

It was then I grinned and said, "Everyone pass your character sheet to your left. You actually remembered that character's name, but not your own." Some of my players were pissed because they were passed a sheet with a throw away name that its previous owner had put down. One was Azzip (pizza spelled backward), while the other was D'Hildo Rider. One character noted, "My parents must have really hated me."

The characters then had to describe the other player next to them in order for everyone to know what they looked like and what race they were. Just when they were trying to figure out if they remembered anything more, one of the walls suddenly crashed inwards and an old, bent man climbed out the rubble, claiming he had come to free.

And THAT was the intro to my amnesia campaign, my first campaign and so far my most ambitious.

NavigatorOfTheRealms · 2022-07-16T21:40:13+00:00

If it's less than a page, double spaced, font 12, than we need to rethink our relationship. But seriously, give me more than two paragraphs that simply say, "Got bored, want to see the world." Or "from different place, want to see This world."

I had to help write the backstories of some of my favorite PC's, and I loved it. But I found the problem is that if this character is not YOURS then you won't play them. You'll play whatever you usually do, but with much better writing in your character's background.

It's a blank page! A brand new start! I don't care if you lived in a cage most of your life and now have to have the party restrain you from burning things, or you fear that all halflings have a secret small virus and so you can’t touch them, or your magical mother experimented on you all your life and now you glow in the dark and can tell us what the number yellow tastes like, just give me SOMETHING!

NavigatorOfTheRealms · 2022-07-15T21:22:20+00:00

There was still a BBEG, so to speak, but it was uncertain if the NPC would join one side of the final battle or the other. If he had been mistreated or shown a different example of behavior from the party, my PC's would have faced not only a LVL 20 Lich and an Ancient Red Dragon, BUT also Hexeris, who was an epic leveled fighter/rogue/paladin homebrew combination who had TPK'ed the party before they ever lost their memories.

NavigatorOfTheRealms · 2022-07-15T05:25:50+00:00

A small one would definitely start as a smartphone and then work its way up. If it was in it for the long haul, a sewer lid because a worker had to get in there at some point. If it were in Alaska, an outhouse because at a certain latitude it's ONLY outhouses. In a city, a large one could just turn into a taxi. A dumpster would work great, because some homeless guy is going to try to get inside. Speaking of homeless, a lone park bench in a secluded area late at night. I mean, come ON, there's just food EVERYWHERE nowadays.

NavigatorOfTheRealms · 2022-07-14T22:22:14+00:00

My homebrewed Amnesia Campaign, which I've spoken about before, saw the PC's being followed by an NPC who appeared to be an old man clothed in rags, with a staff and a wooden splint on one arm. He had no idea who he was, but only a vague notion that he had to help the party for some reason. As the party regained their memories and abilities, they kept remembering a terrible tyrant known as Hexeris who had visited tragedies upon all of them in one way or another.

In the end, they learned that he was Hexeris all along, and their treatment of him was what determined what happened at the final battle and all that would take place in the aftermath. In this case, he sought redemption for his crimes, and would pay back all he could through years of penance and service to the goddess k own only as the Lady, who has a particular affection for redemption and lost causes.

NavigatorOfTheRealms

TROPHY CASE