I've decided to start posting more in depth about my roleplaying games, if at all possible, but how shall I do it?

[Poll #1374920]



Last night we played the Game I Do Not Run. The setting is Birthright, the system is 3.5. Our heroes are:

Aibghalien: Elven wizard, master of magics, and through a confluence of Birthright powers, elven bonuses, magic buffs, and good rolling, possessed of an intelligence of around 27 at this point. Regent of a land.
Wes: Barbarian overlord, dual-wielder of flaming bastard swords, solemn talker, occasionally out-of-character worshipper of Crom. Regent of a land. Pronounced uh-VAHL-ee-en.
Devlyn: Ranger, duel-wielder, striding into battle with a wolf at his side. Lieutenant to Wes, despite constant out-of-game insinuations that he's secretly working for Aibghalien the entire time.
Rhuann: Extremely somber and quiet druid lieutenant of Aibhaliegn's. Her main purpose in the campaign is interpreting Aibghalien's polysyllabic monologues. Also possessed of a wolf companion.
Sikon: Cleric of I forget what, a relatively recent addition to our campaign.

As we join our heroes, they have set forth with the aid of Golbez (yes, this NPC is in fact named Golbez) to rescue a woman who they had previously swayed from the enemy's ranks, only to have her recaptured. One powerful teleport spell later, they emerged in the tower of a fortress held by the enemy, with battle raging outside.

(When speech is IC, I'll put quote marks around it. OOC speech will not have said quote marks. I'll work up some method for falsely-IC speech...)

Aibghalien: "Shh. Everyone be quiet."

Wes and Aibghalien promptly start exchanging hand gestures that quickly become increasingly ludicrous. Devlyn attempts to disable the trapdoor at the top of the tower, at which point everyone discovers Disable Device is not usable untrained.
DM: You bash the hinges with a rock. You've disabled them, but one good push from above will send the trapdoor crashing down onto your heads.

Aibghalien: "Did you get it?"
Devlyn: "No!"

Wes pauses a moment to take a call. After his return, an offhand comment somehow leads literally everyone to burst into song.

All: Ring-ring-ring-ring-ring-ring-ring, banana phone! Doo doo de-doo de-doo!
Aibghalien: (after a moment's pause, in half-amusement, half-incredulity) We're grown men, and a woman!

With actual tactical sense, the party proceeds through the corridors, posting lookouts and preparing for battle at every turn, until they find an unlocked door. This they enter, and promptly subdue one helpless minion. Devlyn and Wes sneak invisibly into another room to bludgeon the skeletons therein. Wes botches a move silently roll and has a wildly-swinging skeleton to deal with; Devlyn meanwhile manages a 30-something on his roll, and so draws his maces to attack.

Devlyn: (rolls a 1) Aaand that mace is on the ground. (Rolls again) ...2.
Sikon: I turn undead! I use Greater Turning, so they're automatically destroyed.
Aibghalien: Let's see, according to the rules... you automatically destroy anything you have twice as many levels as anyway.
Sikon: Oh, normal turning then.
DM: Yeah, they turn to dust.

Aibghalien casts Ghost Sound to simulate the sounds of conflict outside, causing the many NPCs in the throne room the players were attempting to get into to pile outside to join the battle raging before the front gates. The characters quickly bolt into the throne room, using a Silent Image spell to spoof the watch-eye, Speed style.

DM: Golbez tells you there's a secret entrance to the dungeon in here, but you have to press the switch.
Player (I forget who, I should start taking notes): Where is it?
DM: Directly under the eye--
Aibghalien: I cast Unseen Servant. Ha, the feat pays off again! (Aibghalien has the Night Haunt feat, which allows a few free low-level spells a day. He got it primarily for the Unseen Servant uses.)

The party descends into the dungeon as we crowd a dozen minatures into 8 5-foot squares, prompting offhand jokes about uncomfortable closeness etc. Emerging into the dungeon, they spy a classic "tubes filled with strange liquid converting people into monsters" setup, plus prison spells. Patrols wander about, and the party sends Wes and Devlyn ahead to, as they put it, "Cast Detect Expository Speeches". From the skeletons' murmuring the party determines that there are many other prisoners in the cages.

Wes: "I suppose we'll want to free them as well."
Aibghalien: "Not if they're awnshegh or something like that."

Campaign note: In the Birthright campaign setting, most PCs have a 'bloodline' which is the hereditary essence of dead gods. Those who possess the bloodline of an evil god can be twisted and reshaped by it, becoming inhuman or semi-human monsters. In a recent campaign development, the most potent awnshegh (pronounced awn-shay), the Gorgon, murdered and stole enough blood strength that he was able to ascend to godhood and twist the dead evil god's bloodline to become his own.

DM pokerfaced: Wes, as you peer in the first cell... do you have Knowledge (history) or (nobility)?
Wes: Ha ha!
Aibghalien: And here I am, over here...
Wes: Contemptuously gestures Aibghalien over.
Aibghalien: (Rolls) 37. (Aibghalien has 11 ranks and a +8 bonus from intelligence to these knowledges)
DM: You recognize Rhoubhe Manslayer. (One of the most poweful awnsheghlien in the campaign.)
Aibghalien: I'd just like to point out that I called this.
DM: (Rhoubhe Manslayer is clearly around the bend, and rants in a screechy voice about how he intends to kill everyone, kill all humans, etc.)
Wes: "Yeah, I don't like you either."

Wes gets the Manslayer to agree not to kill them as long as his sanity holds, at which point the party releases him. The DM moves his figurine into their midst, next to one of the party elves.

DM: "Pretty elf, pretty elf, so pretty--"
Rhuann: "That's Aibghalien's mini..."
DM: (Brief pause) "Too long, it's been too long..." Everyone roll a listen check.

Wes and Devlyn, if I recall correctly, roll well. Aibghalien rolls miserably.

DM: Rhoubhe is next to you, ranting unceasingly in your ear. You've mostly tuned him out, but you can't hear anything over him.
Aibghalien: "Now I know what it's like when people hear *me* talk."

Moving around the corner, the party sets up positions along the hall to listen to the people inside talk -- they're arguing about how it couldn't possibly be intruders, since the magic eye would have seen them enter. Ha ha! Aibghalien begins to mess with the tubes, which are controlled by the same crystals that play a major role in the campaign, and which he has experience in manipulating.

DM: Roll to see if you can drain the tube and free the prisoner.
Aibghalien: ...1.
DM: Okay, you successfully drain the tube. The person inside slumps against the glass. His head then *explodes*.
Wes: "This is what you call 'disabling'? I like your style."
Aibghalien: "It's booby-trapped!"
DM: (as the NPCs inside the center room): "What the--? The tubes are shutting down! Get out there and fix them!" "I heard something! There's intruders, I tell you!" "There can't be intruders, the eye would have seen them! Now go fix the tubes!" The door slides open. (Places the mini in the hall outside of the door.)

Devlyn: "Hello." (The characters had plenty of time during that conversation to take up positions around the door in anticipation of this exact event. They beat the crap out of the NPC, discovering in the process that they have crystal-powered shield belts which respond to quick movements, the net effect being that the first attack in a full-attack cycle is disabled. The NPC is slain by, oddly the door falling on him.)

Aibghalien: I hope they think he just was really clumsy. I search his torso!

Wes, in the other prison cells, discovers a monk who seems sane and rational, who asks for freedom.

Aibghalien: ...let him out, and just be ready for his sudden but inevitable betrayal.
Wes: "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!"
DM: (maintain his poker face) "Someone's opened the cells! ...Intruders. *Sound the alarm.*

The party prepares to force their way into the central room, deciding the time for subtlety has passed. A brief squabble ensues over buffing rights, which ends with everyone under about +8 total Strength and a ton of hit and damage bonuses. The room inside is not large enough to allow for Aibghalien's favorite spell, Mass Enlarge Person, to the relief of Devlyn and Wes -- who, being dual-wielders, already have enough math to do on their full-attacks without calculating in yet more strength bonuses and weapon size increase modifiers.

Combat begins. Rhuann, shapeshifted, attacks one lesser NPC; Devlyn and Wes pile in to beat on another. The boss produces a gun, a weapon completely unknown in the Birthright campaign, and starts shooting Wes.

Wes: He shot me!
Aibghalien: "Look out, he's got a spring powered-crossbow!"
Devlyn: "A... what?"
Aibghalien: "Like a crossbow, but with a spring instead of a string... but I guess it shoots pellets, so..."

The boss NPC begins freeing some massive monstrosities from their glass tubes. Golbez enters the room and feebly magic-missiles some goons.

Sikon: "I turn undead, using Greater Turning!"
Aibghalien: They're... just going to be destroyed anyway... Okay, I cast a fireball from my wand.
DM: The two pillars in the room erupt in energy. They actually begin eating away at the fireball spell.
Aibghalien: Is this like the shield effect?
DM: Yes.
Aibghalien: Fortunately, I was prepared for this. Quickened Fireball! (Burning some power out of a crystal he possesses to quicken a spell as a free action)
DM: (Still poker-faced) Finally you use those crystals! I've been waiting forever! I didn't design all those mechanics for you to not use them!

The attack frees the two abominations, who with an awful lot of flavor text, begin hitting Wes.
DM: You take... 15 points of damage.
Aibghalien: So much outcry, so little outcome.
DM: The other one rolled better. 25. Oh, are you remembering to apply your damage reduction? (From the barbarian class.)
Wes: (Sarcastic glee) Whee, minus one to each! (Readies his own attack, then pauses, considering his numbers) I don't think I can miss these things. I do 68 points of damage at a minimum, is that enough to drop them?
DM: No, they have more than that.
Sikon: 68 points?! How is that possible?
Aibghalien: Two bastard swords, two attacks each, Bull's Strength, Prayer, Elation, he's probably enraged --
Wes: Enraged.
Sikon: Oh.

Wes manages to deal 81 points of damage; someone else knocks the thing out, probably Devlyn. The players start to remove the minature.

DM: No, no, leave that there. The abominations collapses to the ground and begins to shudder.
Devlyn and Aibghalien, almost at the same time: Corpse explosion.
DM: (The poker face finally snaps) How do you always see these things coming?!

Aibghalien casts Defenestrating Sphere, which knocks the boss on his ass. The denizens of the tubes begin to shuffle zombielike down the halls and into the room, while Rhoubhe Manslayer and the monk promptly and predictably go crazy and start attacking the party. Wes gets attacked by the Manslayer as the battle rages on.

Aibghalien: Wind Wall! (Tracing a box around the abominations) That'll intercept the explosion. Now, Quickened Close! (Burning some more crystal power to shut the door the mind-controlled masses were about to lurch into) That's right. I just quickened a 0th level spell.
DM: The abomination explodes! Its bloody guts hurl into the wind wall and are swept up in a gory vortex of blood and flesh chunks! Everyone roll a saving throw to not throw up.
Aibghalien: (fails) I should've just let you guys eat the damage!
Rhuann: Natural 20!
Wes: I succeed.
DM: You just throw up a little on your mouth.
Wes: I throw up a little in my mouth, then I spit it on the Manslayer.
Aibghalien: Yeah, this is a great story. Your heroics this story are spitting.
Wes: Hey, this is a great story. I can come out of this batlle saying --
Wes and Devlyn: (In a truly uncanny chorus) "I spit on the Manslayer!"
Aibghalien: My god... these crystals are cursed! As soon as I started using them, things turned into a nightmare! Exploding heads, people severed by doors, abomination guts! These things are monstrous! (pretending to read the crystal) "Property of Cthulhu, oh no!"

Wes butchers the Manslayer, then stabs him through the heart, committing bloodtheft. This will lead to all sorts of bad things the group didn't have time to work out just then. Meanwhile, Aibghalien smacks the boss NPC around with the Defenstrating Sphere some more. He fails both his saving throws this time.

Aibghalien: Finally! He flies... (rolls) 80 feet into the air. Or he would if he was outside, so instead he takes 8d6 from hitting the ceiling. Then he flies off (rolls) two squares in this direction...
Devlyn: Ha, he just smacks into the pillar and slides down it!
DM: Through the pillar?! As he flies through the pillar it just takes off his head!

We had to stop at about that point, as it was entirely too late. Next time I'll try to take better notes in the hopes of saving more information and more of our wackiness.