Enough about rules... Lets share some RP Stories!

It started when Gary Marvel said "I just need to you do this quick thing. Put a white shirt on, paint your face white."

I was playing the BBG for the weekend, and the PCs needed some funky ritual stuff to do a wonky Stake of Woe rit that would take me out. One of the things they needed was the spirit of an unborn elf. Elves in the Deadlands (NH chapter) can't reproduce because there's been some badness to the world that's gone on... hence the name 'Deadlands.'

Anyway, they had a contraption that would catch a spirit... Gary thought they would chase me around the field (I came in following two old elves, who, because of their age, could see/hear me) and his instruction was "If they're holding the box and hit you, or touch the box to you and you get it, go into it." He figured 5, maybe 10 minutes tops.

HA!

It turned into a two hour mod of epic elfy roleplay. I could physically affect anyone, but only elves/stone elves/dark elves could see and hear me. So the pointy-eared PCs are trying to figure out how to help others like me, and I keep telling them that all I want to do is be born. The turning point happened totally by accident.

Keely (elf, guildmistress of the Healer's Guild) asked me what my name was. I looked at her and said "I don't know. I don't have one until I'm born." They figured that sucking me into the box would consume my spirit, but if they didn't, my BBG was going to continue on her merry, love-9-ing-the-nobles way. So I got this amazing story from the guildmaster of the celestial guild about what it means to be an elf and protect the world from necromancy to preserve life, and at this point we're all close to tears. I agreed to step into the device, partly because I understood getting rid of the Withering, which necromancy helped further, would help all the other spirits be born. For that particular spirit, it was because of one thing that Keely said:

She told me she wanted another child, and that she would keep hoping and keep asking for one. And she gave me a name, and told me to remember it. She'd hope for me, and I could hope for her, and maybe, if the world heard us, we could both get what we wanted.

I did a three count, put the spirit in the box, and walked out of the building with tears streaming down my face. I went, beside my car in the parking lot (only a minute or two walk away) and sat, still crying, for the next twenty minutes. It was the most immersive, most emotional thing I've ever done in game.


(Stacy, the girl who plays Keely, sent me part of her writeup later that year. In it, a really old, really screwed up elf came to her, and told her that a spirit kept coming to him, telling him it wanted to be born, and it knew who it's mother should be. So he did some crazy stuff, and the spirit had a place to go. OOG, Stacy was pregnant, and wanted the pregnancy IG, so it was a perfect way for the whole thing to come full circle. I cried again when I got that email.)
 
That certainly was a wicked poker game. :D
 
It was a dark night on a cold October and the PCs had just managed to finally cack I want to say Muckhead, and a couple of the other Kings of Halloween..which happened to activate the NPC I had been playing.

The module was slated so that 3 elves of a specific type could open the crypt. And so it was that Black Forest and Baron Rorii, and Dame Daralassia rolled up on the door. Door opens, undead elves tell them to go away. The 2 sets of 2 are quickly dispatched, and the PCs roll into the crypt. As they're inspecting what was built to be a switch back, they notice that their liquid lights, or any light at all stops at a certain point in the cavern. Daralassia starts telling the story of this Imladari hero who had died for the town, and that this might be where her body was entombed. (The good spirit inside of the NPC) She finishes telling the childhood story and we kick on the red rope light, and the incant for a CoP is heard. The PCs shove themselves into the crevice with my back turned toward them, and slowly I turned around in full hot foam skull mask, makeup prosthetics, white contacts, skeletal gloves, long gnarled ears, a wig to my knees and a black robe, and hissed in their direction.

I don't think I've seen so many wide eyed players in my life. The RP would bounce back and forth in discussion of who she was, and what she was doing. I hobbled around inside the circle, speaking slowly, hissing, refering to myself as 'we', etc etc. One of the players actually dared to come up to the edge of the circle, and I leaned over her, and her eyes got wide as she leaned backward.

At the end of it, I believe my words were "Death is only the beginning." and then sank into the ground, which killed the circle. I don't think I've ever seen people leave a large treasure chest behind that quickly, or have to be convinced to go back into the crypt to go get it. I put my white headband on, trapsed back into NPC camp, and considered it a success :).
 
Something that needs to be known before much of this makes since is that my caricature knows almost nothing of her own race and her back story has her raised as an orphan of a dead family line far from her home vale with no one to teach her of her history, race, heritage, or land leaving her a bit of a outcast to everyone, and seeking any information and connection she can find with her own.

It had been just over 2 years of her partying and travailing and defending a land she new little to nothing of when she fist came to call it home, and now would willfully die to protect.

the bugs a endless army from another pain swept threw the land a grate plague , we had been doing everything we could to hold them off and fight them back, but there numbers grew ever still to the point there where 1000s up one 10,000s for every one of us in the fight.

And it seamed every time we struck at them, that they would fold back 10 fold at us.
we had calmed a war in the uprising with the waking dryads not many months earlier and when one of there leaders came panic struck to the tavern screaming fire in the hart of the forests we thought for sertan it was the lava elementals glumes or what ever blasted fiery things they where before back from the earth below.

but when we arrived we found a grate clearing in the earth scared by the flames, and bugs, lots and lots of bugs, many and more powerful then most the fights we had seen before, and in the mettle of them a man made of fire as if he was the element its self, the flames that made up him seams to be contained with in his form and bent by his will till they where not just a part of him but he was a part of the fire.

the bugs surrounded him and where standoffish from him and as we approached they attacked us, the man stood and watched, for a wile many of the defenders of the town thought he might be on side with the bugs, but then as we could not fight off the last of the bugs and where being forced back, despite are numbers, he stepped forward flames left in his wake and binding round him as he moved, he struck a fiery blow and burned the last of the bugs till none remained, he was asked why his did not step in earlier if he was as powerful as he seemed to show him self to be, and his answer was short and sweet, because I wanted to see how you would fair and handle them.

And so he saw are fleeting attempt in what I know would of most likly of been narrow victory or frailer and retreat.

he was able to clear up a many things having to do with the origins of the bugs and the time line and store of the enemy we all faced and there history upon this plain. and then a many of the defenders returned to the tavern wile only a handful of us 4 or 5 maybe 6 remained and spoke with him more, I waited till very one had made there words with him and goodbys where being said having spoke nothing with him and simply watched and listened, and asked, as he seemed to know so much of the history of the land and of its struggles and being that he clamed to be and shortly there after was proven to be over 2000 years old.

Do you know of the bleekwood I asked him, the place my kind calls home?
he told me back then before the bug queen came to are plain the 1st time that it was a place of lush life spring forth in bounty over that rivaled by no other land.
his words painted a land that made my hart weep, and then he told me of how it became the desalt lifeless gray scare known as the bleekwood as all of the wood folk have known it to be for the past 2000 years.

he said that the guardian of the vale had been killed and that magic required in the sealing a way of the bug queen all throws years a go, had shattered the land, and split the land and scared it and killed the place the vale the home my people had more so then many other parts with in the land, and with that and his short temper he cast out and left this plain bake to the fires from witch he had come, and the small group of us walked back tot he tavern, I trained behind, no one seemed to notice in the pick blackness of the night the river of tears falling from my face, I held tight the breaths and gave no sound as I could not bear to be seen crying in front of the ones I was with, each of them men I respected and leaders, some whom would of seen tears as weakness.

I managed to swallow my pain as I got in to the tavern I stood back from the table where the group I am a part of haggled and bid over loot and its splits.

I did not hear when I was asked a question and it tock some one but 5 foot from me to scout at me to bring me out of what ever mantle distraction I had su-come to, and as I looked up and went to answer the simplicity of the question my voice cracked from under me and some of my friends there at the table took notice and asked me if I was all right just having now seen the tears I had been weeping for the last 20 mines.

Never was a feeling of being alone so strong as to be felt in a room full of people.
and I turned and left the tavern in a pace that if it had been any faster would of had to be called a run, I went out on the deck in to the cold night air and cried openly weeping off the balcony a flood of Walter off my face, his words burned in me like the flames he had been made from and for the life of me I could not quench them.

One of the goal came out and asked if I was all right, I was not but they could not understand what it was I needed, they where not like me they could not feel the paint I felt for a home long dead.

I pushed them a way and they left me to cry it out as they put it...

Not to long later copper threds came by my friend from the group tock some hint from my dismissal of him and knew to seek one of my own race to come and comfort me,

And he came over and asked if i was alright,

my mouth tripped over the words to express what I had learned that night from the man of fire and he tried to calm me telling me that it only confirmed what he had always thought was likely that the vale are home land was once lush and green with life but had been dead for far to long, and he told me there was things being done in hopes of one day healing the land we called home, and I told him something I had dared not to tell him in the 2+ years we had fought along side, that he had been the 1st of my own race and own kind that I had met since I was a child and my mother and father had died, he did not realize how much he mint to me, he did not understand that I had little to no memory of the land I called my home and that I had not made my pilgrimage to it as many much younger then I would of as they came of age.

the home vale was a form concept to me the place I cried for was a bead time story and my disconnection from it had scared me in the hart, and born that night was a new flam the words of a stranger and of a friend would merge to drive me to take a path I had not considered before, and has changed how my little healer sees much of the world, and will forever more.

I should note that wile crying out on the deck not less then 8 NPC’s and some staff had come by and asked if I was all right and I had to brake RP and throw then a smile and let them know I was fine and that despite being red in the face and crying real tiers that it was all IC and that I was fine other words, even if my healer was having a mental brake down.
 
I've got 2 stories. One as a PC that is short and humorous. One as an NPC that is long and awesome. First, short.

At the end of a game day, Iftikhaar called me (as Virid) over to a table, and gave me a handful of coin. Not being aware of any social convention for splitting loot, I didn't see any particular reason he would be giving me money at that time, so I asked, "What's this for?" To this, he responded, "Oh, you exchange it for things."

*facepalm*





The first part of this next story sounds like a war story, but the main memorable part is the RP afterward. Here's a map I drew. Circles are pillars. There are tables and stuff I didn't draw.

I'm the healer of a group of guards protecting a public house in a backwater area and the noblewoman who was assigned to it. A gypsy (Itzack) walks in and pays for his room. We keep an eye on him, but when the doors burst open as the PCs rush in to try and take it, I'm fairly near the back door, and when my attention turns, he gets off a waylay. Bad day for him, because I had a magic armor on, and returned fire with a confine and a KB before the PCs could get very far. No time for gloating, though, because it's now chaos in there, and as I'm desperately trying to get healing spells off into my fallen comrades, a dark elf (Arannin) unleashes into me from halfway across the tavern (slightly up and left of the fire pit, from my map) with silence activatables. "Activate I curse you with silence!" "Spell shield!" Now I'm trying to remember the incant to give myself another spellshield. "Activate I curse you with silence!" I barely dodge behind a pillar (the topmost on the right), which gives me the half-second I need to remember the incant and cast my other spellshield. "Activate I curse you with silence!" "Spell shield!" Now I'm out of spellshields, but it looks like he's also out of silences, and turns to attack someone else, whose back was likely turned. Victory is temporarily mine!

That battle did not actually end well for me, though. That character dies, but that's not the end of his story, because he resurrects at the guard house a few miles away, and the next morning he has to lead a daring recapture attempt, sans the spells he used the previous night, of course. That battle went worse than the first, because even though we were prepared this time, we were no longer on the defensive. So I'm bleeding out next to the back door, when OOG I hear somebody say, "No, don't kill that one." So, they first aid me, bind my hands, and lay me on a bench next to a table (the lower one of the only table I drew).

When I come to, I attempt to surreptitiously open my eyes, and see a blade on my chest, extending behind/above me. When I look to see the source of the blade, I see the upside-down face of a biata (Iftikhaar), who says something like, "Good morning." "Hello." "I would like to have a chat." "Am I allowed to sit up for this chat?" After thinking for a bit, he agrees to let me sit up, but warns me not to attempt to leave the bench or call up additional mana. Not that the two packets in my hand did me any good while my hands were bound. As I sit up to face away from the table, I survey the room. All the high-level PCs are around me at the table, some of whom I recognize from wanted posters that had been posted in that very room. Shibboleth (an important plot NPC) is directly behind me, with I think Roan and Kiarra on either side. Iftikhaar is to my right on the bench, and Arannin is standing at the edge of the bench to my left.

Once I am seated, Iftikhaar explains, "All the other guards are dead. How this conversation goes will determine how you leave. Now, we have a few questions to ask you." Me: "I assume if I answer these questions, you will let me live?" Him: "No, you will most likely die at the end of this conversation no matter what happens, because I find it unlikely you will forswear the Dalkani. But, look at me." Now our faces are inches apart, and he is staring directly into my eyes. "Do you recognize me?" I nod. I recognize him both as a face from the wanted posters and as a biata, a race we had tried to eradicate a while back. "You know what my people can do." I nod again, in acknowledgement both of the fact that his group just took and kept the common house, and so has some serious fighting chops, and because I have a vague idea that biata have mind powers, and am suddenly very afraid of them. "How this conversation goes will determine whether you show up in the earth circle flopping like a fish because I have told you lungs not to work." I gulp, then turn to sit straight on the bench, and respond, "So noted."

He then proceeds to ask me question after question about the state of the guard house, if there are going to be any more attacks, how strong they are, and if the noblewoman is at the guard house. I am the model of cooperation, and answer every question with a plausible lie. If I tell them anything that was correct, it is by accident because I don't know the answer. Though I am afraid of Iftikhaar's threats, I am also afraid of returning to my superiors having betrayed the Dalkani.

There is a moment of silence before Iftikhaar asks Arannin if there is anything else they need to ask. Arannin responds, "No, but do you want to give him anything to make sure he's telling the truth?" and begins looking through his pouch. Iftikhaar is in the middle of responding, "I dunno, that seems kind of rude," when I get up and bolt for the back door. Most of the involved PCs are behind the table, and I manage to skirt around Arannin and the staircase that extends over the table. Any other PCs in the tavern are scattered and too far away. Iftikhaar is right behind me as I push the bar to open the back door and begin running as if my life depends on it, because it does. I'm still at 1 body and no way to bring myself back up without somehow unbinding my hands, so I keep running down the trail that leads to monster camp. I see two figures in the distance on the path, and I hear behind me, "Jack! Behind you!" I begin making plans to narrowly skirt them when I notice they are OOG, and I just keep running. It's starting to look like I've left my pursuers behind, having been unprepared for a chase. I run several more steps, am now out of visual range of the PCs, and within sight of monster camp, and call "Does anyone choose to follow?" No response, and I have avoided a second resurrection in one day.

When I get back to monster camp, my fellow guards greeted me with, "It took you long enough, but you're just in time. We're going to be kobolds." I respond with, "No, we are not," then collapse on the floor.
 
phedre said:
It started when Gary Marvel said "I just need to you do this quick thing. Put a white shirt on, paint your face white."

(I cried again when I got that email.)
Click to expand...

Awe...I had no idea this had such an impact on you. That is really nice to know.

A lesser npc would have ignored that opportunity and neglected the heart of this game.

Thank you,
Gary
 
Hmm. First event I ever played (which was NERO-NJ, the first "Ashbury" game), I had come with a sword and thoughts of being a brave warrior type.

...and the sword failed. Fortunately, someone was nice enough to teach me how to make spell packets in a hurry and lend me a dagger, so I ended up a Celestial scholar.

Now, I'd used up all of my spells fighting wandering monsters with the town, but I REALLY, REALLY wanted to go into the woods and explore. Someone had suggested to me that I hire some help, and I had my starting money- so when I saw a promising tall florentine swordswoman, I did. And lucky me, she not only said "Sure!" but said her two friends would help. Her two big friends with a twohanded sword and a sword-and-door (never mind board!) style. Wow, best handful of copper spent ever!

We barely get two steps away from the woods when a dozen goblins leap out and attack us- and my new friends rip them to shreds, one-and-two-shotting them. And then graciously tell me to loot the bodies. I am stunned with how kind my new friends/hires are being to me- back then, monsters had XP chips that you turned in for build, not the current system. And they'd just let me have a bonanza for a little newbie.

As I exult, the then-Baron Nordenn and his retinue show up walking out of the woods, and the woman starts to vanish into the bushes. I say "That's a noble, he's a nice guy!" and big-ol-swordman says:

"Shut up and sit down, you miserable fool. We're from the Cult of the Cryptic Shade and we're here to kill the Baron. Say a word and you'll join him.". I have done the worst, stupidest thing ever- I hired a pack of lich-loving killers for bodyguards, and the Baron thinks I'm one of them.

After a brief bout of honor combat with two of the Baron's knights, the cultists drop one in a fair fight and then double-team the other, sending the Baron into a tiff and charging in with the other fighters. The female assassin proceeds to stab one of the healers in the back into the ground and goes after the one helping the downed knight...and I don't even think, I just stand up and stab the assassin in the shoulder.

She casually guts me with one swing, and as everything goes black, I feel the Baron's greatsword hacking my back to ribbons for good measure.

The healer notices I attacked the cultists, not her...and bandages me up enough to have me dragged back to town in the middle of a pack of angry guards along with the female assassin. Who turns out to have a loose tongue for enough gold, and starts telling the Baron about all the horrible, nasty, THINGS that are in the Cult and coming to town that night.

The Baron looks around at his guards (who can't read or write), then glares at me.

"YOU! CAN -YOU- WRITE!"
"yessir"
"GET HIM A QUILL AND PAPER! YOU, WRITE ALL THIS DOWN!"
"*terrorized squeak*"

And so Saul, newbie scholar did learn of all the horrors of the night to come before anyone else did, and was released for lack of any crime to charge him with after much verbal browbeating. Dirty, mostly dead, hungry, without a spell or a coin left to my name, I find a building wall under a window and just slump down, feeling completely destroyed and after a minute or two, I hear through the window...

"If only we knew what the Cult was attacking us with!"

In an act of newbie desperation, I say quite loudly "I do!"

And so poor Saul was quickly invited into the Mage's Guild, plied with tea and rice cakes (and alchemy), and pumped for every bit of information possible while being mended, protective'd, and quickly given a job "bodyguarding" the guildmistress at the time, an ancient (and RL in her 60's) elf named Morel (for short). That the mages were the nicest people in town quickly cemented my desire to keep playing a mage instead of being beaten up while swinging swords, a character I got to play for eight years and dozens of adventures and delvings into things I really shouldn't have.

That I actually managed to do it quite well and begin the rise to becoming Guildmaster years later myself is another tale entirely... :)
 
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