Hah, one of my worst, though in a banal sense, RPG sessions was also Shadowrun. At a convention, I, and some of my friends, signed up for a Shadowrun demo session since we'd never played it and as a group we'd been eyeing it off. Come time for the session, we all turn up at the allotted table. Twenty minutes later, no ones there, we eventually go and find an organizer who then goes and finds the guy who's meant to be running it. He turns up, and after the organizer wanders off, complains at us that he doesn't want to run a session, he merely signed up as a session runner to get into the convention for free. He then says he's got nothing planned, so if we want to play, we'll have to make characters, oh, and he didn't bring a copy of the rulebook or character sheets/pens/paper etc. At this point, we, as a group, left. Then, being buddies with the guy running the convention, I dobbed the douche in.
David Nash Yep, especially when the three day con was 30$ for a pass for the whole thing. (This was in Adelaide near a decade ago, it was also the first RPG/Gaming event done in Adelaide).
RPing being stuck in a traffic jam and missing out on the whole situation going down that you are trying to get to sounds like a great comedic RP situation. However beyond that, yeah, sounds pretty bad.
Wow! I've never laughed so hard at the description of a bad rp session. That was so funny. I'm sorry you had to go through it, but thanks for sharing it. Never had the desire to roleplay making toilet!
Not to be a necromancer and raise an old video from the dead. But this reminds me of a D&D campaign from 15 years ago. Each PC would benefit depending upon how well the DM knew you. I was new to the group so I got shafted. One of the other players had been friends with the DM since middle school, so he was the All-Star. Since your PC only got XP for what he or she killed (house rule) and that character killed everything he ended up twice the level and with twice as many magic items as everyone else. My character got so far behind that he more-or-less became a sidekick that tagged along.
@Serkath His plot prep consists of writing down a story and hoping we follow it to the letter. If we don't he starts flailing in the wind, not at all able to cope with all this deviation.
At least there is one thing good that came out of you RPing being stuck in traffic. It gave us a good laugh. Sounds like a case of GMBeingadickatitis. Luckily it's not to contagious.
I remember three instances of shit or taking a shit playing important roles in my role playing career. Needless to say i don't want to go back to those atrocious sessions we played and i already hated them back then.
Okay, I have a supernatural detectives games I run (A combination between World of Darkness and MIB), and honestly, I could take that plotline you were describing, and make it work. In fact, the next time I run it, I might just use that plot, and see where it takes the group I run with.
@UltraEgg98 Nope, the GM did not plan the chronic bowel disruption in advance. The hospital thing got out of hand for him (he didn't expect us to make the moves we did) so he just made up a load of random bollocks on the spot.
Practically every line in this is delivered with perfect comedic timing. This must have sucked to experience firsthand, but listening to your recollection of it is hilarious.
Um... Was your DM running a comedy game- and a really bad one at that? The shitting segment did actually have my laughing my ass off. Did he make you roll a Fortitude save in order to clinch your sphincters shut?
I was actually thinking more along the lines of: Cast invisibility, wait for the guy who caught him to leave, then attempt to free oneself. Incorporeal is, as far as I know, limited to a critter power (Mist form)
I know the feeling of a bad game. I was recently DM'ing a vampire game and it was horrid because at first it started very well but it became a clusterfuck because of myself and the players, i sadly wrote myself into a corner and none of the players where helping. The players and I where getting into arguments because some did not even roleplay or pay attention to the story I had wrote and it became worse because some players just left the room while I was talking to them and fell asleep because they refused to sleep before coming to the game at noon. When I said let's try another game they kept saying "No your going to finish this one first" when they did roleplay they wanted to just do masquerade breaching things and I wouldn't let them because they where meta gaming and not justifying why their characters where doing these things. It fucking sucked
@Wintersome Apparently the end of the scenario had a moderately good car chase scene, although I imagine if there had still been five characters both mine and Andy's would have been relegated to being stuck in traffic again. The problem with the GM is that he only accounts for what he has written. If you deviate from his plot, he's totally clueless as to how to proceed. He's an enthusiastic player though.
@Samwise7RPG I'm a relative youngling, old timer! Traffic & Toilets is an RPG I have no intention to ever play again. I think the worst part of it was that the game had absolutely zero to do with Shadowrun. My character had magical abilities, but not one opportunity to use the bloody things. No cyberware either.
I was in a trail cathulu game and we met an underworld enforcer, and being a respectable citizen at the time i tried to arrest him. We bocked off the door so he couldnt escape, but he jumps out a window climbing down a rope, so we cut the rope, but its apparently now a metal cable. he escaped but we kept the cable, and an indestructible rope has proved pretty handy so far in the campaign. This plot armour sort of backfired.
I understand your pain, I've seen a gamemaster, my gamemaster, in fact, who had a Genie npc, who basicly appeared one day and asked, if any of us had eaten. One of the players said "Yes" so he snapped his fingers, and you can guess what follows. Gamemaster was really pleased with himself, to this day has no clue why we all got up and "dumped" his game.
Oddly enought one of the first questions I ask any new GM i play with is "Do i need to take a shit?" I use this question because well, it tends to get the man's attention, and i then explain, if my character has a waterbottle do i need to tell you he's drinking from it or he dies of thirst, if my character buys five days worth of food do i need to make a point of saying he will eat when hungry, and do i need to tell you my character voids his bowels reguarly so he doesn't die of constipation?
Loved the episode of Law & Order when Ice-T solved a case involving a serial killer by looking up the victims review history on Yelp. I also remember when my dog started reading me some hilarious poetry! You should have seen his fa... what do you mean I haven't taken my medication? Wha... no? Why yes, blue pills would be lovely, thank you!
Laxatives during a crucial investigation is not a funny joke in an RPG. I shudder to think what could've happened in my C.J. Carella's Armageddon game had I been incolaxatated.
I know w.hat you mean about the GM makes the game. I'm normally fond of D&D in its various editions but i played one at a con that was just bizzare. The best I can say of it is the mini set up was very cool (full 3d dungeon) and the DM actually handled the rp side well even with using minis step by step (not just combat). The problem was the DM was ridiculously literal. If you said "I open the bag" he interprited it as ripping it open (like a kid on christmas morning) and getting the dust inside all over. After a couple more I learned to take it super slow and lay out every action in excruciating detail it just slowed everything down and we were at a con so time was at a premium. He was running a multpart session and I opted not to come back.
This whole fiasco reminds me of a "gaming horror-story" that I read on the web a few years back about the surreal experience a few guys had with Deadlands. If I can ever find it again, I'll post a link. It is so horrendous that you'll wonder if it isn't fiction while simultaneously breathing a sigh of relief that at least it wasn't you who had to experience it first-hand. Worth reading, much as your horror-story was worth watching!
My group had a similarly horrible experience with pathfinder (a great system) , and we are writing a novella about our experience. We experienced much the same as he did too.... player favoritism, poor narration, bad story... so it is a great idea!
I stumbled across your channel while trying to find good descriptions of the Vampire clans. You are my hero now. You and your wonderful pronunciation of the word ALOOF! This reminds me of my old GM who's games were based around him showing you how pathetic you were in the face of his godly NPCs. We did a game where he specifically told us to make our characters "non-combat based" characters. 1 night in, we are visited by a Justicar who beats the crap out of us.
I had a similar experience last night where me and a couple of players were ignored by the gm for basically two hours, had no idea what was meant to be going on and then were arbitrarily attacked to try and force involvement. And I was the bad guy for just asking if we could skip the arbitrary attack as I had no idea what the relevance of it was...
Oh my lord...ohhhh....I'm typing this ...right now, at 6:03 AM, Chicago-time....to let the Gentleman know that this video has destroyed me. I have sat on my couch the last 2 minutes laughing, and laughing, totally tearing up ....and finally, mustering the strength, in between waves of side-splitting laughter....to get up and race cross the room to pause the video, so I could collect myself. Why ? The bit where he's describing the laxatives...is INSANELY funny. The best part- he stays calm !
That's one of the most hilarious stories I've ever heard. I was dying from laughter. Sorry, but that GM should never be allowed near a gaming table again.
I absolutely relate with the idea that often the system is not the problem but often the combination of GM, setting, and players. My best experience in RPG'ing was in WoD:VtM and the worst experience was also in WoD:VtM. The story, development of NPCs, the complexity of the story, and the cohesion of the player troupe. Instead of a deep political intrigue game mixed with horror, we were forced to roleplay flat twink character in a simple, railroaded universe in the latter game.
@DangerRuss666 1.) He's integral to the running of our club, 2.) he's a friend, 3.) people are always worth giving another chance. I'm sure in a couple of years I'll try playing one of his games again, just in case he's improved.
@Nejira Well as a player he's pretty damn good. He's always enthusiastic, never afraid to have his characters risk danger, and always puts his best effort in. When he wants to run we occasionally let him on the off chance that he may issue a nugget of gold. It apparently has been known.
@Deckof51 Exciting isn't a word I would use to categorise this purgatory, but I'm glad you found it to be an experience. Should we ever rp in real life, we shall have to attempt to do Shadowrun justice.
Truly, it was. Especially as he spent the whole time after the game battering on about how rare it is for a Justicar to appear at all since there are only about 6 of them in the US, apparently. The game was set in Chicago and featured my Malkavian, who believed he was trapped in a computer game, answering the door to the Prince with the masterful line of "Lodin, please wait." Yes, by that point I'd given up and decided to just give him reasons to kill my character hahaha :)
Beginner's guide to GMing a tabletop RPG session" Step 1: Remove head from ass. Step 2: Read plenty of books to learn the best way to put a story together! Step 3: Be original/imaginative! Step 4: NEVER ignore certain players, unless they deserve to be ignored! (And, if that's the case, remove them from the game/room!) And finally, Step 5: Do not Roleplay the players taking a shit, unless it's part of the storyline that you've created!
@VoraxTranstellaris Well I'd agree if some of us were decking or doing research, but there were no Shadowrun elements in this game at all, excluding the dwarf and elf in our group.
Yea, that's pretty much what I got out of it too. Me, and the group that I game with will get together once every other Saturday(about twice a month) and get in about 6 to 9 and a half hours worth of gaming in. We'll usually start anywhere between noon, and 3:30 in the evening, then game until 10:30. That's our usual quitting time. We never game past that. We just like to play games where you can make some progress, even if it's very gradual progress.As long as we're making some kind of progress
Hello there sir! Recently found your channel and I'm really enjoying your videos. It's been far too long since I played or ran a game of anything, I now feel inspired!
30 people have been traumatized by being stuck in 40-minute traffic jams. :-p Anyway, your GM was definitely a lousy GM. I've run campaigns for people whom I've loved and for people whom I've absolutely despised. And despite all that, I've done my best to make each one of them feel wanted and welcome _because..._ 1) ...our actions reflect on our quality as GMs and other arbiters, and fairness is a desirable quality in an arbiter. 2) ...just because I despise a player doesn't mean that the _other players_ in the troupe don't like that player, and alienating the despised player might alienate the other players as well. 3) ...if I give the despised player a chance to prove him- or herself, I might actually come to _like_ him/her. (Granted, that never actually happened, but it was a good ideal to pursue all the same.) Shadowrun itself isn't a bad game, though; I played an Orc Rigger who drove an 18-wheeler around (as an independent operator) and ran his own pirate radio station out of it, and he was a spot of good fun. Games like Obsidian _are_ inclined to be bad but, like you said, good players and good GMs can salvage those games too. I got together with another player (one of my longtime friends) before we started playing an Obsidian campaign, so my character in Obsidian was a motorcyclist who was also an Elvis impersonator -- right down to Elvis' accent, mannerisms, appetite for peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches and everything else -- because he was a lifelong member of a religious cult which believed that Elvis Presley was the Second Coming of Christ, and my friend's character was his perpetually nervous Steve-Buscemi-like twin brother who had a phobia for damned near everything. So between the two of us, Buck and Chuck Walker stood head and shoulders above the rest of the player-characters, and we made the most of that short-lived campaign before our GM at the time (who had the attention span of a gnat) suddenly dropped the Obsidian campaign and let me get back to running my pan-World-of-Darkness campaign for the lot of us. So every one of us gamers has the responsibility to make even the suckiest of games _not_ suck. Go forth and desuckify, comrades. :-)
First rule of running a game: Allow players to participate meaningfully in the game unless their own actions make exclusion inescapable. Somewhere further down the list: If the GM cannot spontaneously generate game-appropriate content at an arbitrary level of detail, she should prepare enough canned material for one entire extra gaming session, in case the first bit falls apart. If she has not prepared, she should tell her players as much, and open the table for alternative entertainment.
I was in a game where I was the lord of a region and I'd managed to convince the majority of the druids in the neighbouring *several countries* to migrate, set up shop and declare a new druid homeland. I went for a walk in the forest one day, reasonably confident in my safety. And was "ambushed" by approximately four *thousand* pavise crossbowmen.. Another session where I'd built up a character I was pretty proud of. Was blown apart by all involved before even saying hello to the party..
I think for role playing sitting in traffic you were using the wrong system. I would recommend. the white wolf spin off game. "Commute, the gridlock" Also I think the GM's depiction of the Birmingham police force was spot on realism.
I thought that may have been the case, but there was no conclusion to be found that ended with, "the killer was a mage, able to teleport and stop time, that's how he committed his murders." I am still perplexed about the mentioning of the victims driving cars - it would've maybe worked if it turned out the murderer was a car salesman, ridiculously murdering all the people that bought cars off him for whatever reason. Maybe. It's a head scratcher.
Hilarious. Laughing throughout. Back in the day my buddies and I went to a game convention and decided to play in a D&D game. The DM turned out to be this fifty something year old, fairly overweight woman. Which wasn't at all a problem. We'd all played with women as players and as DM's before in various games. Where it became a problem was when the DM described how we were all called to meet in a tavern by a mysterious benefactor and that the benefactor was this beautiful 20 charisma succubus and we all had to roll saving throws or fall in love with the succubus or be unable to resist the urge to have immediate sex with her. The details are a little fuzzy. I remember at least a pregnant minute of us looking at one another in shock and fear with our mouths hanging open...and then my friend said in a near panic - I stab my friend in the neck! Seeing the chance to escape my other two friends immediately said that they were also stabbing one another in the neck in a manner that would insure the fastest possible death. While the DM was to shocked to respond I had my character, the last survivor of the party walk around and coup de gras the others before charging headlong out a nearby window and falling two stories onto my own sword. I think the entire game ended in an epic fifteen minutes from when we sat down at the table, and this was a paid convention game where you had to spend a couple of dollars for tickets for each four hour game session. In retrospect I often wonder if the poor woman was deeply mentally ill and I feel a bit bad that we probably upset her when our reaction to being confronted with some bizarre offer to roleplay a gang bang in a convention D&D game turned into all of the players immediately and swiftly killing themselves to avoid the experience.
@clackclickbang I haven't yet. I may get an opportunity just after the new year as one of my groups is losing a player. In the ensuing chaos as we decide how to continue forward and who to bring on to replace him, I may get an opportunity for a one-shot session (which will be Bioshock Infinite if I have anything to say about it!). I will keep you posted!
@clackclickbang This is my favorite of all your videos Gentleman ! I love this ....I recall the first time I ever listened to it - you had me laughing SO hard...I could not stumble / crawl the 10-feet from my couch where I was sitting listening at the time, to the keyboard to pause the vid and collect myself ! "The Laxatives had pretty much disembowled us !" - STILL is hard to say without cracking up entirely. Well played sir, well played indeed ! This is superb.
lmao, you are far more patient than I am. I'm sorry you had to go through such a horrid session! Unfortunately, GMs have the power to make almost any game a lot of fun or a complete nightmare. Some GMs make the problem of coming to game sessions very unprepared, and any GM that doesn't care much about player involvement like that isn't a good GM, in my opinion. Though, good video! That was hilarious. XD
I got a question for you. What makes a really good pen and paper rpg game? Also, what key factors would you need to create a custom pen and paper rpg mechanic?
I have the Starship Troopers RPG pocket book. I've been considering running a game with it. How was it in your opinion (I haven't watched any other videos yet)? Also curious if it needs balancing as, far as I can tell, it was based off the D&D 3E ruleset.
That is some absolute bad luck and pretty bad plotholes in storytelling. I think that game leader could have and should have made some alternative decicions to improve the game for everyone's delight. -With approval of other players if not mistaken. It's also rare occassions where interference is required. If I'm not totally mislead, misinformed and would defiinetelly like to know more to improve. My worst case storytelling rpgs were that what ever the group of friends at that time planned, none bothered to actually follow the rules set and storylines planned ahead. That one ended with one of them becoming extrely jealous that I even dared to keep forum for them to play and one who I though that I could trust to handle moderation permissions to; ended up highjacking the whole forum kicking everyone out. After that I haven't really been touching rpgs ever since.
It is "Space 1889". You said 1899. Shadowrun is a good game; maybe the individual circumstances of your game went sour. A good GM keeps things moving or jump-cuts to action like a movie. The only time something ever happened in a car was when Agents J and K helped an alien give birth to a squid in MEN IN BLACK. But my favourite cyberpunk game was CYBERPUNK 2020.
''Lifes a gamble! BE LUCKY''
The best damn line ever spoken by the gentlemen.
Hah, one of my worst, though in a banal sense, RPG sessions was also Shadowrun. At a convention, I, and some of my friends, signed up for a Shadowrun demo session since we'd never played it and as a group we'd been eyeing it off. Come time for the session, we all turn up at the allotted table. Twenty minutes later, no ones there, we eventually go and find an organizer who then goes and finds the guy who's meant to be running it. He turns up, and after the organizer wanders off, complains at us that he doesn't want to run a session, he merely signed up as a session runner to get into the convention for free. He then says he's got nothing planned, so if we want to play, we'll have to make characters, oh, and he didn't bring a copy of the rulebook or character sheets/pens/paper etc. At this point, we, as a group, left. Then, being buddies with the guy running the convention, I dobbed the douche in.
What the hell, the guy just told you straight he did it to get in for free? What a stingy git.
David Nash Yep, especially when the three day con was 30$ for a pass for the whole thing. (This was in Adelaide near a decade ago, it was also the first RPG/Gaming event done in Adelaide).
Im not typically an advocate for tattling but he screwed you all over and ruined the entire bit. He deserves to be banmed from future functions imo
RPing being stuck in a traffic jam and missing out on the whole situation going down that you are trying to get to sounds like a great comedic RP situation. However beyond that, yeah, sounds pretty bad.
It was comic to record and rant about, but no fun to play.
The only thing I don't really understand about this story is why you let this guy GM for you more than once.
What a crappy (pun intended) GM, sounds like he just didn't want the 2 of you in his game. That and he was completely unprepared.
"...arguably, a game of Synnabar or FATAL could be brilliant, if your DM was brilliant."
This is the exact moment when I hit Subscribe.
This GM sounds like a sadist.
Wow! I've never laughed so hard at the description of a bad rp session. That was so funny. I'm sorry you had to go through it, but thanks for sharing it. Never had the desire to roleplay making toilet!
That session would have broke a lesser man. I salute you for not turning your back on the hobby after that septic session
It’s 2023! See you in Birmingham in two weeks (I’ve signed up to try one of your games). Please check the traffic report before setting off.
I'll be travelling up on Thursday. It should be fine!
Not to be a necromancer and raise an old video from the dead. But this reminds me of a D&D campaign from 15 years ago. Each PC would benefit depending upon how well the DM knew you. I was new to the group so I got shafted. One of the other players had been friends with the DM since middle school, so he was the All-Star. Since your PC only got XP for what he or she killed (house rule) and that character killed everything he ended up twice the level and with twice as many magic items as everyone else. My character got so far behind that he more-or-less became a sidekick that tagged along.
@BigBeatDM55 I'm glad you enjoyed it!
@Serkath His plot prep consists of writing down a story and hoping we follow it to the letter. If we don't he starts flailing in the wind, not at all able to cope with all this deviation.
At least there is one thing good that came out of you RPing being stuck in traffic. It gave us a good laugh. Sounds like a case of GMBeingadickatitis. Luckily it's not to contagious.
The first time rolling dice an hour into an adventure, and it's a 'taking a shit' check. Love it!
I remember three instances of shit or taking a shit playing important roles in my role playing career.
Needless to say i don't want to go back to those atrocious sessions we played and i already hated them back then.
Okay, I have a supernatural detectives games I run (A combination between World of Darkness and MIB), and honestly, I could take that plotline you were describing, and make it work. In fact, the next time I run it, I might just use that plot, and see where it takes the group I run with.
@UltraEgg98 Nope, the GM did not plan the chronic bowel disruption in advance. The hospital thing got out of hand for him (he didn't expect us to make the moves we did) so he just made up a load of random bollocks on the spot.
Role playing stuck in TRAFFIC, 80s BEATS, and POOR ANNAL CONTROL!
that sounds AMAZING!
Practically every line in this is delivered with perfect comedic timing. This must have sucked to experience firsthand, but listening to your recollection of it is hilarious.
Um... Was your DM running a comedy game- and a really bad one at that? The shitting segment did actually have my laughing my ass off. Did he make you roll a Fortitude save in order to clinch your sphincters shut?
@Komeister No! We can't kick him out; he's like family. You know, the kind of family you keep beneath the stairs.
I was actually thinking more along the lines of: Cast invisibility, wait for the guy who caught him to leave, then attempt to free oneself.
Incorporeal is, as far as I know, limited to a critter power (Mist form)
@Backfromthedeadguy I'm glad you liked it!
I know the feeling of a bad game. I was recently DM'ing a vampire game and it was horrid because at first it started very well but it became a clusterfuck because of myself and the players, i sadly wrote myself into a corner and none of the players where helping. The players and I where getting into arguments because some did not even roleplay or pay attention to the story I had wrote and it became worse because some players just left the room while I was talking to them and fell asleep because they refused to sleep before coming to the game at noon. When I said let's try another game they kept saying "No your going to finish this one first" when they did roleplay they wanted to just do masquerade breaching things and I wouldn't let them because they where meta gaming and not justifying why their characters where doing these things. It fucking sucked
Sounds like your DM hated you.
Birmingham as the location for science fiction escapism. Excellent. I wouldn't even go shopping there.
@Wintersome Apparently the end of the scenario had a moderately good car chase scene, although I imagine if there had still been five characters both mine and Andy's would have been relegated to being stuck in traffic again.
The problem with the GM is that he only accounts for what he has written. If you deviate from his plot, he's totally clueless as to how to proceed. He's an enthusiastic player though.
@Samwise7RPG I'm a relative youngling, old timer!
Traffic & Toilets is an RPG I have no intention to ever play again. I think the worst part of it was that the game had absolutely zero to do with Shadowrun. My character had magical abilities, but not one opportunity to use the bloody things. No cyberware either.
His is the name that shall not be spoken.
I was in a trail cathulu game and we met an underworld enforcer, and being a respectable citizen at the time i tried to arrest him. We bocked off the door so he couldnt escape, but he jumps out a window climbing down a rope, so we cut the rope, but its apparently now a metal cable. he escaped but we kept the cable, and an indestructible rope has proved pretty handy so far in the campaign. This plot armour sort of backfired.
geez this sounds like somthing from one of my early game sessions, when i say early i mean when i was 13 yrs old
Thanks for the kind words!
I understand your pain, I've seen a gamemaster, my gamemaster, in fact, who had a Genie npc, who basicly appeared one day and asked, if any of us had eaten. One of the players said "Yes" so he snapped his fingers, and you can guess what follows. Gamemaster was really pleased with himself, to this day has no clue why we all got up and "dumped" his game.
Oddly enought one of the first questions I ask any new GM i play with is "Do i need to take a shit?" I use this question because well, it tends to get the man's attention, and i then explain, if my character has a waterbottle do i need to tell you he's drinking from it or he dies of thirst, if my character buys five days worth of food do i need to make a point of saying he will eat when hungry, and do i need to tell you my character voids his bowels reguarly so he doesn't die of constipation?
Loved the episode of Law & Order when Ice-T solved a case involving a serial killer by looking up the victims review history on Yelp. I also remember when my dog started reading me some hilarious poetry! You should have seen his fa... what do you mean I haven't taken my medication? Wha... no? Why yes, blue pills would be lovely, thank you!
Laxatives during a crucial investigation is not a funny joke in an RPG. I shudder to think what could've happened in my C.J. Carella's Armageddon game had I been incolaxatated.
I know w.hat you mean about the GM makes the game. I'm normally fond of D&D in its various editions but i played one at a con that was just bizzare. The best I can say of it is the mini set up was very cool (full 3d dungeon) and the DM actually handled the rp side well even with using minis step by step (not just combat). The problem was the DM was ridiculously literal. If you said "I open the bag" he interprited it as ripping it open (like a kid on christmas morning) and getting the dust inside all over. After a couple more I learned to take it super slow and lay out every action in excruciating detail it just slowed everything down and we were at a con so time was at a premium. He was running a multpart session and I opted not to come back.
Maybe when the guy disappeared, it was like a video game glitch and he just reappeared else where, lol.
This whole fiasco reminds me of a "gaming horror-story" that I read on the web a few years back about the surreal experience a few guys had with Deadlands. If I can ever find it again, I'll post a link. It is so horrendous that you'll wonder if it isn't fiction while simultaneously breathing a sigh of relief that at least it wasn't you who had to experience it first-hand. Worth reading, much as your horror-story was worth watching!
'Come and see' made me laugh so hard!
I know you had a terrible time, but i find this utterly funny. You could write a satire novel out of it :D Unbelievable!
My group had a similarly horrible experience with pathfinder (a great system) , and we are writing a novella about our experience.
We experienced much the same as he did too.... player favoritism, poor narration, bad story... so it is a great idea!
I stumbled across your channel while trying to find good descriptions of the Vampire clans. You are my hero now. You and your wonderful pronunciation of the word ALOOF!
This reminds me of my old GM who's games were based around him showing you how pathetic you were in the face of his godly NPCs. We did a game where he specifically told us to make our characters "non-combat based" characters. 1 night in, we are visited by a Justicar who beats the crap out of us.
It's the song by The Who at the end of CSI.
I had a similar experience last night where me and a couple of players were ignored by the gm for basically two hours, had no idea what was meant to be going on and then were arbitrarily attacked to try and force involvement.
And I was the bad guy for just asking if we could skip the arbitrary attack as I had no idea what the relevance of it was...
So basically you were playing the movie, "Cobra", but set in the ShadowRun future.
@eldersprig He was summarily shot around the back of the chemical sheds.
The GM doesn't know mysteries, does he?
Oh my lord...ohhhh....I'm typing this ...right now, at 6:03 AM, Chicago-time....to let the Gentleman know that this video has destroyed me. I have sat on my couch the last 2 minutes laughing, and laughing, totally tearing up ....and finally, mustering the strength, in between waves of side-splitting laughter....to get up and race cross the room to pause the video, so I could collect myself.
Why ? The bit where he's describing the laxatives...is INSANELY funny. The best part- he stays calm !
That's one of the most hilarious stories I've ever heard. I was dying from laughter. Sorry, but that GM should never be allowed near a gaming table again.
I absolutely relate with the idea that often the system is not the problem but often the combination of GM, setting, and players. My best experience in RPG'ing was in WoD:VtM and the worst experience was also in WoD:VtM. The story, development of NPCs, the complexity of the story, and the cohesion of the player troupe. Instead of a deep political intrigue game mixed with horror, we were forced to roleplay flat twink character in a simple, railroaded universe in the latter game.
There's a game out there where you roll about breathing...
Do you want to spend one willpower point to avoid shitting your pants for the next minute?
@TheCaptainhat Ha! I'm glad you found it useful!
Role-playing the process of taking a crap. Now I've seen everything. Why did I laugh this much?
I was pissing myself laughing at your description, made a crap session sound brilliant.
@DangerRuss666 1.) He's integral to the running of our club, 2.) he's a friend, 3.) people are always worth giving another chance. I'm sure in a couple of years I'll try playing one of his games again, just in case he's improved.
To piss of the GM, I would have said: "I'll just shit myself".
@Deckof51 1. Hurrah! 2. Oh shite. Well, I thought I sounded vaguely like Alan Moore.
I'm much more into improv than planning.
I failed my system shock roll and peed a little from laughter.
@Nejira Well as a player he's pretty damn good. He's always enthusiastic, never afraid to have his characters risk danger, and always puts his best effort in. When he wants to run we occasionally let him on the off chance that he may issue a nugget of gold. It apparently has been known.
@Deckof51 Exciting isn't a word I would use to categorise this purgatory, but I'm glad you found it to be an experience. Should we ever rp in real life, we shall have to attempt to do Shadowrun justice.
Truly, it was. Especially as he spent the whole time after the game battering on about how rare it is for a Justicar to appear at all since there are only about 6 of them in the US, apparently. The game was set in Chicago and featured my Malkavian, who believed he was trapped in a computer game, answering the door to the Prince with the masterful line of "Lodin, please wait." Yes, by that point I'd given up and decided to just give him reasons to kill my character hahaha :)
Beginner's guide to GMing a tabletop RPG session" Step 1: Remove head from ass. Step 2: Read plenty of books to learn the best way to put a story together! Step 3: Be original/imaginative! Step 4: NEVER ignore certain players, unless they deserve to be ignored! (And, if that's the case, remove them from the game/room!) And finally, Step 5: Do not Roleplay the players taking a shit, unless it's part of the storyline that you've created!
isn't it funny how the pains of one can bring others joy. Thanks for sharing was very funny.
@VoraxTranstellaris Well I'd agree if some of us were decking or doing research, but there were no Shadowrun elements in this game at all, excluding the dwarf and elf in our group.
Yea, that's pretty much what I got out of it too. Me, and the group that I game with will get together once every other Saturday(about twice a month) and get in about 6 to 9 and a half hours worth of gaming in. We'll usually start anywhere between noon, and 3:30 in the evening, then game until 10:30. That's our usual quitting time. We never game past that. We just like to play games where you can make some progress, even if it's very gradual progress.As long as we're making some kind of progress
Man when I feel down I just watch this video laugh my ass off and get better after. Thank you for this hilarious video gentleman.
Hello there sir! Recently found your channel and I'm really enjoying your videos. It's been far too long since I played or ran a game of anything, I now feel inspired!
@SaudiLindsey4 I'm glad it amused you!
30 people have been traumatized by being stuck in 40-minute traffic jams. :-p
Anyway, your GM was definitely a lousy GM. I've run campaigns for people whom I've loved and for people whom I've absolutely despised. And despite all that, I've done my best to make each one of them feel wanted and welcome _because..._
1) ...our actions reflect on our quality as GMs and other arbiters, and fairness is a desirable quality in an arbiter.
2) ...just because I despise a player doesn't mean that the _other players_ in the troupe don't like that player, and alienating the despised player might alienate the other players as well.
3) ...if I give the despised player a chance to prove him- or herself, I might actually come to _like_ him/her. (Granted, that never actually happened, but it was a good ideal to pursue all the same.)
Shadowrun itself isn't a bad game, though; I played an Orc Rigger who drove an 18-wheeler around (as an independent operator) and ran his own pirate radio station out of it, and he was a spot of good fun. Games like Obsidian _are_ inclined to be bad but, like you said, good players and good GMs can salvage those games too. I got together with another player (one of my longtime friends) before we started playing an Obsidian campaign, so my character in Obsidian was a motorcyclist who was also an Elvis impersonator -- right down to Elvis' accent, mannerisms, appetite for peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches and everything else -- because he was a lifelong member of a religious cult which believed that Elvis Presley was the Second Coming of Christ, and my friend's character was his perpetually nervous Steve-Buscemi-like twin brother who had a phobia for damned near everything. So between the two of us, Buck and Chuck Walker stood head and shoulders above the rest of the player-characters, and we made the most of that short-lived campaign before our GM at the time (who had the attention span of a gnat) suddenly dropped the Obsidian campaign and let me get back to running my pan-World-of-Darkness campaign for the lot of us.
So every one of us gamers has the responsibility to make even the suckiest of games _not_ suck. Go forth and desuckify, comrades. :-)
Before I read Garth Ennis,
I thought the mask was something you wore on St. Georges day.
Alas, you are correct. My apologies. I have been to Birmingham many times and it's a lovely city.
Dude that sucks, i love my dm/gm hes so laid back, imaginative, helpful, and is and most of the group are actors so we are awesome at roleplaying.
Ah, FATAL. Game of nightmares.
First rule of running a game: Allow players to participate meaningfully in the game unless their own actions make exclusion inescapable.
Somewhere further down the list: If the GM cannot spontaneously generate game-appropriate content at an arbitrary level of detail, she should prepare enough canned material for one entire extra gaming session, in case the first bit falls apart. If she has not prepared, she should tell her players as much, and open the table for alternative entertainment.
I was in a game where I was the lord of a region and I'd managed to convince the majority of the druids in the neighbouring *several countries* to migrate, set up shop and declare a new druid homeland. I went for a walk in the forest one day, reasonably confident in my safety. And was "ambushed" by approximately four *thousand* pavise crossbowmen..
Another session where I'd built up a character I was pretty proud of. Was blown apart by all involved before even saying hello to the party..
I think the GM might have read FATAL...
I hate to disappoint, but it is my real accent.
I think for role playing sitting in traffic you were using the wrong system. I would recommend. the white wolf spin off game. "Commute, the gridlock" Also I think the GM's depiction of the Birmingham police force was spot on realism.
I thought that may have been the case, but there was no conclusion to be found that ended with, "the killer was a mage, able to teleport and stop time, that's how he committed his murders." I am still perplexed about the mentioning of the victims driving cars - it would've maybe worked if it turned out the murderer was a car salesman, ridiculously murdering all the people that bought cars off him for whatever reason. Maybe. It's a head scratcher.
@HeathbrookBadhwar I'm glad you found some enjoyment from my pain.
Hilariously Horrible! Rolplaying Traffic Jam and rolling to take shit!
Clearly the snipers partner rescued him!
That GM sounds like he regularly plays FATAL.
I dislike that an East 17 video is apparently related to this one.
Hilarious. Laughing throughout. Back in the day my buddies and I went to a game convention and decided to play in a D&D game. The DM turned out to be this fifty something year old, fairly overweight woman. Which wasn't at all a problem. We'd all played with women as players and as DM's before in various games. Where it became a problem was when the DM described how we were all called to meet in a tavern by a mysterious benefactor and that the benefactor was this beautiful 20 charisma succubus and we all had to roll saving throws or fall in love with the succubus or be unable to resist the urge to have immediate sex with her. The details are a little fuzzy. I remember at least a pregnant minute of us looking at one another in shock and fear with our mouths hanging open...and then my friend said in a near panic - I stab my friend in the neck!
Seeing the chance to escape my other two friends immediately said that they were also stabbing one another in the neck in a manner that would insure the fastest possible death. While the DM was to shocked to respond I had my character, the last survivor of the party walk around and coup de gras the others before charging headlong out a nearby window and falling two stories onto my own sword.
I think the entire game ended in an epic fifteen minutes from when we sat down at the table, and this was a paid convention game where you had to spend a couple of dollars for tickets for each four hour game session.
In retrospect I often wonder if the poor woman was deeply mentally ill and I feel a bit bad that we probably upset her when our reaction to being confronted with some bizarre offer to roleplay a gang bang in a convention D&D game turned into all of the players immediately and swiftly killing themselves to avoid the experience.
@clackclickbang I haven't yet. I may get an opportunity just after the new year as one of my groups is losing a player. In the ensuing chaos as we decide how to continue forward and who to bring on to replace him, I may get an opportunity for a one-shot session (which will be Bioshock Infinite if I have anything to say about it!). I will keep you posted!
@clackclickbang This is my favorite of all your videos Gentleman ! I love this ....I recall the first time I ever listened to it - you had me laughing SO hard...I could not stumble / crawl the 10-feet from my couch where I was sitting listening at the time, to the keyboard to pause the vid and collect myself !
"The Laxatives had pretty much disembowled us !" - STILL is hard to say without cracking up entirely. Well played sir, well played indeed ! This is superb.
lmao, you are far more patient than I am. I'm sorry you had to go through such a horrid session! Unfortunately, GMs have the power to make almost any game a lot of fun or a complete nightmare. Some GMs make the problem of coming to game sessions very unprepared, and any GM that doesn't care much about player involvement like that isn't a good GM, in my opinion.
Though, good video! That was hilarious. XD
Did you throw that GM's Mountain Dew bottle against the wall before you left that day?
HAHAHA "I have never role played going for a shit before." Fucking priceless!
@AlekTrev006 Well I'm glad someone was amused by this session of absolute hell!
I got a question for you. What makes a really good pen and paper rpg game? Also, what key factors would you need to create a custom pen and paper rpg mechanic?
@Grimlore No, he just ignores PCs. He can only focus on a couple it seems.
I have the Starship Troopers RPG pocket book. I've been considering running a game with it. How was it in your opinion (I haven't watched any other videos yet)? Also curious if it needs balancing as, far as I can tell, it was based off the D&D 3E ruleset.
Awhh man. And I thought that I had some bad experiences. Brutal. I love your re-enactments though.
That is some absolute bad luck and pretty bad plotholes in storytelling. I think that game leader could have and should have made some alternative decicions to improve the game for everyone's delight. -With approval of other players if not mistaken. It's also rare occassions where interference is required. If I'm not totally mislead, misinformed and would defiinetelly like to know more to improve. My worst case storytelling rpgs were that what ever the group of friends at that time planned, none bothered to actually follow the rules set and storylines planned ahead. That one ended with one of them becoming extrely jealous that I even dared to keep forum for them to play and one who I though that I could trust to handle moderation permissions to; ended up highjacking the whole forum kicking everyone out. After that I haven't really been touching rpgs ever since.
It is "Space 1889". You said 1899. Shadowrun is a good game; maybe the individual circumstances of your game went sour. A good GM keeps things moving or jump-cuts to action like a movie. The only time something ever happened in a car was when Agents J and K helped an alien give birth to a squid in MEN IN BLACK. But my favourite cyberpunk game was CYBERPUNK 2020.