Achievement Unlocked: Broken DM

Ravi here.

I know we've talked about derailed sessions before, but there's a special level of derailed that happens when you manage to break the DM. And by break I mean incapacitate for the rest of the session due to laughter, stupidity, or some combination thereof. A couple of sessions ago, I had the wonderful privilege of breaking our poor DM.

Backstory: we had just accidentally woken up a really really old red dragon, and Indeah and I were rushing as fast as we could to warn some flying elves in the mountains. Of course, elves being elves, the archduke did not take us horribly seriously despite the fact that you could actually SEE the dragon and we were waving a couple of his enormous scales at anyone who would look. Someone manages to get some safety measures put up, while the archduke is accusing us of awakening the dragon for the express purpose of ruining his day. My character, being the hothead she is, was starting to retort angrily. Indeah, the smart one, covered my mouth and tried to make nice while the dragon circles closer and closer. Ravi generally continues to try to talk through her sister's hand, but to no avail. Eventually, the archduke orders his guards to "get these gibbering twits out of my sight!"

Of course, Ravi was having none of this. She threw off her sisters hand and shouted:

"I'LL GIBBER YOUR TWIT!!!"

Aaaand that's how we ended the session early.

Happy Rolling!

Achievement Unlocked: Broken Character

So, wow. Long time. My bad. Life got away from us with DM and me buying our house. Lots of stuff happened that wasn't all good, but it's all fixed now. For the first time since October, Ravi and I finally got the play again this weekend, and I thought "you know, I've ignored GR20 for FAR too long." Imagine my surprise logging on and finding OMG! We're still getting viewers! Like as many or more than when we were updating regularly. So at the very least, to say "Thank you" to all the people finding us through Pinterest and google searches, Indeah is back and ready for action! And hopefully Ravi will be too. :) I'll make you guys something nice too.

This weekend was a weekend for gaming. DM ran two games, Friday night the one with our friends M and B, and Saturday with Ravi. And Friday night, DM did something that I imagine all DMs secretly want to do. He pushed all the right buttons, said all the right things, and in-game, while in-character, pushed B's paladin right over the edge. What we witnessed that night was the messiest in-character breakdown I have ever and will ever seen.

On the second day of this campaign, we were given the task of finding the mayor of a small town and delivering a package to him. When we arrived at the village, the mayor, along with several others, had been taken by werewolves into the Forest of Madness. Sounds lovely, right? Quite the tourist spot. So our three-man party of B's paladin, M's inquisitor and my warmage delved into the woods. A few days later, we found a few of the werewolves, beat the heck out of them and M did his thing with the remaining one (there's a reason his class is called Inquisitor). We learned that the mayor had been handed over to someone else to get him OUT of the woods. Greeeat. Insert trying to find our way OUT for several sessions, clambering over an out-of-commission aqueduct and nearly getting killed by a giant enemy crab. (Fun fact, it wasn't the crab that nearly killed us. It was the lack of ranks in Acrobatics to stop B and M from falling to their deaths after we killed the crab.)

Friday night, we finally made it past the aqueduct. Into more forest we went, finding an abandoned outpost. We took out a medusa who had made herself a nice statuary there and found one lone, beaten werewolf. A quick fight later and he was subdued. B went around the corner to let M do what he does again. B's a paladin, he's upheld to the law and good, and the cost of doing or aiding chaos or evil is high for him. But what you don't know doesn't hurt you, right? So M would get our information, and B would look the other way while he did it. "So," M asks, "Where's the mayor?"

"I don't know!" cries the werewolf. "Someone took him."

You could almost hear the "snap". B removes himself from his hiding spot, grabs the werewolf and starts shaking him while yelling "WHAT is SO DAMNED IMPORTANT about this mayor?! Is he made of CANDY?!" Anger is understandable, it's been days and lots of near-deaths, and we're no closer than we were when we started. B, the character who upholds all that is lawful and good, shanks the wolf. Instant death on a defenseless enemy. Definitely evil. But that's not enough for B. B wants to know what the hell we're doing all this for now. He wants to know what's in the box we're meant to deliver. He declares himself as mayor and demands to open the box. At this point, DM and I are laughing so hard at B's reaction, I'm in tears, and DM is holding his sides. Every time we get a chance to breath, B interjects with "WHAT'S IN THE BOX, DM?!" and we collapse into more laughter. Finally, finally, DM and I compose ourselves enough for DM to describe the box. Inside is a letter. The letter...contains orders to evacuate the village we left more than a week of gametime ago.

I think every DM, no matter how kind, longs to push all the right buttons to make one of their players snap in-game. DM not only did this, but with a class who suffers greatest for breaking his alignment. I can only hope that this is the beginning of a very amusing downhill slide.

Happy rolling!

Big News for Indeah and DM!

Sorry there haven't been posts the past few weeks. DM and I have been running around like chickens with our heads cut off, and we will continue to for the next few weeks. You see, yesterday morning, DM and I officially became homeowners! A beautiful 1969 ranch house on a quiet dead-end street will be the site of all of our future gaming experiences. We just have to move in without killing each other first... but that's an adventure we'll have when we get to it! First, we've got to fix the place up a little before we move.

I wonder if we can make this more enjoyable by looking at it as leveling up?

Tableside Treats: Peanut Butter Brownie Bites

A few weeks ago, my boss had a baby shower at work (and now has a beautiful baby girl!) and due to me going on vacation, I didn't get the chance to throw into the pot to get her a gift. So, to make up for it, I offered to supply some treats.

Now, since I joined Pinterest, I went scanning all my favorite cooking blogs to save the recipes I wanted to make in one convenient area, so when it came time to decide what to make, I went scanning my "dessert" pins and found THESE.

Peanut Butter Cup Brownies
Recipe from Baked Perfection
Makes ~40 mini-brownies

1 box of your favorite brownie mix
1/2 cup peanut butter chips
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray or grease 40 mini-muffin cups. (Grease liberally, as these WILL stick if not. PAM works great here.)

Prepare boxed brownie mix as directed. Spoon batter evenly into muffin cups (about 1 heaping teaspoon). Bake for 13-15 minutes or until top is set and a toothpick inserted into center comes out slightly wet. After brownies are out of the oven, wait for centers to fall. This will happen upon cooling. If not then tap the centers with the back of a teaspoon to make a hole for the peanut butter. (I ended up needing to use the teaspoon and it worked great)

Place peanut butter in a small microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on high for 45 seconds then stir. While brownies are still warm spoon about half a teaspoon of peanut butter into the center of each brownie. Top with semi-sweet chocolate chips and peanut butter chips. Cool completely in pan.

***********

These are heaven in bite-sized form. They're like Reese's Cups if Reese's Cups were made of brownies instead of chocolate. So good, they do not last. I went to work the day of the party with 36. I came home with two. TWO! The entire batch of 39 didn't last more than 24 hours. Not even the s'mores cookies were that popular (although I admit I didn't take them all in on one day). My own mother's made two batches for various events, and she said that both batches were gone by the time she managed to get to them. If you make this, be 100% sure to save a few JUST for you! And I don't need to tell you guys how perfect these are for a game night snack. They're a clean finger food, so just put them on a platter or in a bowl once they're cooled and you're good to go!

Happy rolling (and baking!)

Like Board Games? Read Roll a D6

Sorry folks, no big update today, things got a little hectic this week. So instead of a big post, I'm just going to plug a new blog belonging to a friend's husband, Rolling a D6. If you like board games and want to get reviews and stories about new, unusual or obscure games, give it a look, and tell them GR20 sent you. :)

Geek Gear: The Blade Runner Umbrella

When I think about what led to my geekdom, I keep getting drawn back to my father. As a child, I watched a lot of things with my family. With my mom and grandfather, we watched stuff like Early Edition, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Touched by an Angel. With my dad, though, I remember Star Trek: TNG, DS9 and Voyager, Babylon 5, and wrestling. We'd sit on the couch watching the original Star Wars films for days when it came on TV. I was indoctrinated into the world of Sci-Fi from my earliest memories thanks to my dad. One of his favorite movies is Blade Runner. It wasn't one I saw until I was older, but when I finally did, I loved it (what I could understand at that point, at least). Now, it's been a long time since I last saw it. I remember the plot, the characters, but some details escaped me. Like the umbrellas. I didn't remember the shafts of the umbrellas were lasers until I found this.

Thinkgeek Blade Runner Umbrella

Yeah, I'm not going to forget the umbrellas anymore. Because I want one. I know what Dad's getting for Christmas this year.

You Never Forget Your First

Do you remember your first ever session of D&D?

I got introduced to tabletop gaming the summer before I started college. Once every week, I went to the local store to play some random game with random people. We'd play three sessions, then new games would start. The store sold every tabletop game you could imagine and I got my hands dirty with some less common ones. Over three months, I lost two characters to one DM (the man had an actual "graveyard" for his kills!) One of the last games I joined in there was a classic D&D. We spent the first session just making our characters. I'd only used pre-made ones so I needed a lot of hand-holding. At the end, though, I had my first D&D character, a half-elf rogue named Ranel. The next Thursday, I sat down with the group, dice and character at the ready, to go on my first D&D adventure.

If you asked me what we did that game, I couldn't tell you. There was some kind of dungeon crawl, possibly some undead. What I do remember, though, is the pair of immature kids' characters making jokes at my character's expense across the table from me. When I got fed up, I simply said, "Cut it out. You know I could kill you both in your sleep." One scoffed back, and the DM stopped the game. "I just want to see something. You two, roll listen checks. You, move silent check." We rolled. DM looked at our results. "Congratulations, you failed your listen checks while sleeping. If this were actually in-game, Ranel would have slit both your throats with coup-de-graces."

Surprisingly, for the rest of that game, those two kids left me alone, and Ranel eventually moved with me to college, becoming my character for DM's game. She eventually became the leader of the team and continued to survive until level 25 or 26, where the game went on hiatus indefinitely from being epic-level broken. I think I owe some of my love of rogues to her, and even though I'll never remember who the DM was, I owe him one for that little interruption to show that girls can game with the best of them.