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!

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.

Check the time, it's Loopy O'Clock

For DM, Ravi and I, dice inevitably happens at the end of the day, usually on Friday or Saturday, once we've had time to do everything else for the day, get our ducks in a row and whatnot. This way, when we finally sit down to game, we can go as late as we want and our schedule for the next day allows. It could be midnight, it could be three, four, five in the morning. It all depends on what time one of us needs to be in bed, how much fun we're having, and how much material the DM has for that night. There's one other factor, though: the game is almost over when the clock hits "Loopy".

I can't remember where the term "Loopy o'clock" came from, but it's a familiar term for our gaming sessions. Do you remember this post? This is what happens at Loopy o'clock. Someone gets the giggles, and the giggles are infectious. The other will start laughing, DM will inevitably say "Calm down, it wasn't that funny," and we end up laughing harder. The later it is in the evening and the longer we've been up, the more likely it is to hit the magic hour. There's nothing standard that sets it off, either. The setting can be completely serious or lighthearted, mid-fight or in-game downtime; it can be something said in-character, out-of-character, a roll gone wrong, a roll gone RIGHT, anything with the slightest bit of humor in it. Most likely, it's something that at an earlier time would not have sent us flying into fits of laughter. That's what Loopy o'clock does: the funny get funnier. It brings several minutes of game distraction (sometimes to the point of ending the game early), LOTS of snorts (What are we up to on your count, Ravi?), and that feeling of lightness that comes after tears roll down your face from laughter. It gives you a high you can get while still being completely sober, and it feels good, man. Sometimes we can pull past the magic hour and keep on playing, but more often than not, Loopy o'clock marks time for the game to be slowing down so we can get some much-needed sleep.

So the next time you sit down to play after a long day, the hour draws late and a giggle fit descends upon your game, check your watch - it's Loopy o'clock.

Happy rolling!

You Don't Always Have To Kick Down The Door

We've finally had a few chances to sit down and play D&D lately - life has been getting in the way for both of us playing. Ravi's classes are working towards graduation (You can do it, sis!!) and DM and my weekends have been mostly preoccupied. However, two of our friends have been able to make trips down to visit us on Sundays, and we've happily pulled out the dice for a new game the past two times they've made it here.

The game, run by our friend Matt, is more focused on large-scale battles than D&D usually is, usually us versus three to ten enemies harder than us and a dozen to twenty smaller, easier enemies. We've had to focus much more on strategy and conservation than with a normal dungeon crawl. After two sets of long combat sequences (3 to 6 fights each) and one gained level, we were given the option to pick a goal: kill the hobgoblin king, take out a well of demons, go kick someone out of our territory, or stay there in case of attacks on the city. We chose to go after the hobgoblin king; we had already seen him at least once, but he ran away. So, off we went. We arrive relatively unscathed and find ourselves facing a dozen or so hobgoblins and ogres, with an ettin (a two-headed ogre) behind us. Roll for initiative, right?

Have you ever heard the concept "Walk like you know exactly what you're doing"? Meaning, look like you belong and you can go anywhere. Rather than draw our weapons and fight, we rolled Bluff checks. And rolled Bluff checks. And rolled more Bluff checks. We bluffed and argued our way right through the gates. Do you remember how Han and Luke found Leia without being caught in Star Wars IV: A New Hope? They marched Chewbacca down the halls like stormtroopers escorting a prisoner and killed the guards in the prison itself? Yeah, we did that with DM's Warforged. We avoided probably an hour or two realtime of large combat, broke two other humans out of the prison to help us, and got the jump on about 7 hobgoblins before they knew what hit them. In the end, we got our man with relative ease thanks to a very high summoning scroll Bryan, our other player, had just bought.

It's odd to think about strategy in D&D. It's usually so easy to just kick down the door and barge in. You don't NEED to consider alternatives. But there really are plenty of other ways to use your skills: bluff, intimidate, and diplomacy combined with known languages all allow different forms of negotiation with an enemy (provided they're not mindless. Don't try to negotiate with a zombie. It won't end well for you.) Hide and move silently can help you skirt around a group of enemies, as can climb and some cheap climbing tools. These are all good tactics to consider using when there's the possibility of avoiding a fight. Will you get the experience you would have from straight-up fighting? Not always. That depends on the DM. But if you're low on HP, badly outmatched, or just don't feel like fighting, try a different tactic. You don't always have to kick down the door.

Our Geeky Wedding

You've probably figured out by now that DM and I are married. We've only said it several times. He was my DM when we started dating in 2004 and he continues to be my DM today. Our relationship was built around a mutual love for all things nerdy. So when we finally tied the knot June 5th, 2010, I felt that we had to have some touches of Geek in it. A traditional wedding is anything but what we were looking for, so we didn't go with it. We were outdoors at lunchtime in the mountains, serving sandwiches and homemade chips from a local restaurant to 60ish of our closest friends and family. It was a perfect day, and everyone had a good time. What made it the best, though, was that we were completely unabashed by the geeky little things we did to make the wedding our own.

DM's sister-in-law offered to play violin for us as we walked down the aisle. A very sweet offer from my matron of honor, and one I was happy to accept. Primarily because she's a talented violinist who already knew how to play the Legend of Zelda theme. My brother-in-law convinced her to learn it, and they in turn convinced us (it wasn't hard) to use it. I was more than happy to walk down the aisle after tying the knot to Link's theme. I had walked up it to Zelda's Lullabye, so really, it only made sense. I am not ashamed that I was married to video game music - both are beautiful instrumentals with strong, happy memories behind them.

After a few queries of whose idea the music had been from the few friends who recognized it, there was another nerdy treat awaiting them. Atop our wedding cake sat this little pair:

Those there are a pair of Zaku II SD models from the Gundam series. DM and I painted and assembled them ourselves, mounted them on a piece of plywood we sanded and washed thoroughly, and posed them in the closest position to holding hands as we could - crossing axes. And yes, the "bride" one is holding a small fabric rose. No other cake topper we could think of could express "us" as well as this homemade geek topper, and our friends and family seemed to agree. It was small and simple, but it was undeniably "DM and Indeah".

That was all the geek we infused in the wedding itself, but with a lunch reception, we had the rest of the day ahead of us. Most weddings end with people going home and going to bed as it's usually late. Ours? All us "kids" in the area got together at the local arcade where we proceeded to drive go karts, play a Singles versus Couples laser tag match, and played arcade games until the place closed. Yep, going to an arcade is how we decided to spend our wedding night, and I don't regret a moment of it. 

If you're still waiting for your Mr. (or Mrs!) Right, let me leave you with some advice: when the time comes, there's a ring on your finger and you're planning the big day, don't be afraid of "what other people will think" about the little things. It's your day, and there's no one that day will be more important to than your and your future betrothed. Make it your own, and don't look back. You won't regret those little touches that let who you and your loved one are shine through.

Happy rolling!

Your Biggest Gaming Goof-up

It's a safe bet that as big as D&D is, as many rules there are, classes and feats to choose from, it's going to take a while to get used to it all. Everyone's bound to screw up at some point. Your character died because you forgot to add your strength modifier to damage and didn't kill the big baddie before he could kill you, you forgot to increase your spells per day for a few levels, I'm interested in hearing what your story is for your biggest gaming goof-up. Post in the comments, or email us at girlsrolling20s@gmail.com Don't be shy. We don't bite... often...

For me, my biggest mistake was about character growth with my first character. She was a CG half-elf rogue named Ranel. I'd made her for another game before I started college and joined my first group. She'd really only been played once, and I wanted to use her again when I joined DM's game. I started around level 7 or 8, I believe, and Ranel was originally very low level. With DM's help, I upgraded her to the proper level and joined in the game.

A few levels later, I was getting worried about her. Our game was somewhat combat heavy, and I was afraid she wasn't strong enough to survive the combats much longer. I think I was spending a good amount of time hiding versus fighting. DM took one look at my character sheet and was absolutely shocked! I remember he even later commented he was amazed I'd survived that long in the first place. Newbie me had completely forgotten to add my Constitution to my HP each level! I was just taking the base roll of her d6! I occasionally still do this. I may have also been forgetting to add my feats and ability score points as I leveled. Basically, if it wasn't explicitly stated in the Rogue section of the player's handbook, I screwed the pooch leveling her up. After that, DM had to sit down with me a second time just to get her back up to normal. I'm just glad my major newbie mistake didn't end up biting me in the butt and costing me a character that I ended up taking to epic. That would have sucked.

How about you, Ravi?

Incidentally, my biggest mistake I ever made was actually WITH Ravi... and could have cost me the character, had the rules of the fight been different. I was fighting a demon until first blood (half hit points), and I was actually doing okay... he still won, though. The next fight, I realized I forgot to add my Favored Enemy: Evil Outsider bonus to my damage rolls... a whopping +6 PER HIT. I felt like an idiot.

Happy rolling!

Screw the Box!

Ravi here, with a story that my sister and brother-in-law LOVE. Ehehehe, this is a good one.

See, at one point or another, you're going to run into a DM that either hates the players in general, hates female players, or just hates you or is on a powertrip and wants to drill home "I'm the DM so my rule is law", which is true and understandable. If the laws are fair. Otherwise, as with a tyrant king, there will be a revolt. And it will not be pretty. You know, the guy who won't let you do anything, but tries to pigeonhole you into a place where you're practically just a useless observer. If you haven't been there, trust me, you will (might, not necessarily) be eventually. A little outside-the-box thinking will help you avoid having to throw up your hands and quit, and will show everyone else that you mean to roll with the best. *rimshot*

About a year ago, I was desperately searching for a new group. I didn't have anyone to play with In person. We were playing over video chat, and I REALLY wanted to play a game. Well, lo and behold, the guy who sat next to me in one of my classes had a character sheet sticking out of his folder. I pointed to the sheet and asked him, "Is there a group on campus that would let me in?"

Like most guys, he was a bit shocked, because a girl was asking him this question, then he proceeded to inform me that, yes, his group was going to be starting a game next week and I'd be welcome to join. I followed him after class to meet the DM and listen to any house rules and such. The DM started with telling me there were no house rules, but as I started to ask what the other people were playing and what I was allowed to play, I started to get the idea that this guy was a total edited to keep the rating Thank you, Ravi.

I prefer physical, straightforward characters. Ranger, Beast Heart Adept, Fighter, Barbarian, these classes make sense to me, and the party only had one hitter and one tank (it was an eight or nine person group), so I figured another hitter would be okay. I was immediately told that, no, I could not be a hitter, I had to be a caster. Okay, fine. I asked if I could be a dread necromancer, which was met with "no necromancy in the campaign." Okay, that's a universal rule, I can live with that. I asked if my caster could be a lich, to which I was initially told no, only good-aligned characters in the campaign. Well, we have a few evil aligned characters in the group, but okay, no big deal. When I asked him about good liches, the DM told me that was acceptable if I could make a convincing backstory for it, but he doubted that I could. Around here, I started to get irritated. I asked what starting gold and items were. I was told 200k starting gold. For a level 21 character. For those of you less familiar with the game, a level 21 character is supposed to start with OVER ONE MILLION GOLD The starting gold for a character is meant to cover everything they could have gained while in an adventure with normal treasure. A level 21 character starts with 1 million gold because they have been doing this a long time and would have gear, weapons, and armor strong enough to handle combats that could threaten them. 200k starting gold is enough to outfit a level 12-14 character. The DM either intended to not give them any form of threatening combat, or kill them all in the first game. At this point, I'm starting to realize, this guy is either a phenomenal jerk or he really doesn't want me in his campaign.

Nevertheless, I was determined. I plopped down in front of my computer and consulted with a few friends who knew what they were doing. I pulled out Libris Mortis, and decided that the Evening Glory diety would be a good starting point for my backstory. Indeah's husband who has been playing since before 3.0 and has almost encyclopedic knowledge of the game pointed out to me that Malconvoker was an excellent class for what I wanted to do. Finally, a couple of us put our heads together and figured out the gold issue.

So, I had a good lich Malconvoker who had become a lich because she and a Shiradi (read: beefy elf angel, immortal and all that jazz) fell in love and he was terrified of losing her after a close call. The process of becoming a lich fulfilled Evening Glory's ideals of eternal life through undeath, and Malconvokers are summoners... they are good summoners that summon evil creatures then bluff them into fighting for the good guys. In short, I could do everything the evil guys could now.

But, this little adventure into getting around obstacles gets better. To solve the money problem, we simply bought fourteen scrolls of gate. In short, I could summon two genie-type creatures, each of which could grant me 3 wishes. For each scroll. And while there's no wishing for more wishes, you can always wish for more scrolls of gate. INFINITE WISHES! It's a good thing this was for another game. Ravi would spend all the wishes on beer.

Finally, Indeah's husband decided to do a fun thing for me. He made the stats for my character's supposed lover. Basically, it was a 40+ hit dice creature that could ruin any boss the DM could possibly throw at us and completely rules-legal. I could summon him at any time using the scrolls of gate, and, even though a named creature does not have to pass through a gate, he had no reason not to because he begged my character to become undead and therefore immortal in the first place. It was beastly, and its challenge rating was listed simply as "oh god what."

After we had had our fun, I turned in a copy of my character sheet as well as the Shiradi's sheet and a list of my possessions. After reading "one set of clothes, one phylactery, fourteen scrolls of gate," the DM actually called the first player I'd been introduced to, begging him to let me know that I would be given 750k extra starting gold if I removed the scrolls from my inventory. I informed them that I liked my current setup better, and asked if he'd read my backstory yet. The group received an email a few days later saying that the game had been called off.

I couldn't game with that group anymore, but, after being treated the way I was, I really didn't want to. Never let yourself get pushed around by a bully DM. D&D is a game, you're supposed to have fun. If the DM is making it impossible to enjoy, then it's not worth your time. Besides, I had proven a point: girls can still be as beastly as the guys, even with obnoxious restrictions. Granted, I had a little help... which I am eternally grateful for... but I was rather pleased with the outcome.

Happy rolling.

That's What I Said.

Ravi here.

Picture, if you will, a painstakingly crafted horror setting. The PCs Indeah here in blue. I'll be your happy little asterisk today. PC is Player Characters for those of you not familiar with the terminology yet have narrowly escaped being burnt to a crisp and falling to their deaths. They are trapped in a hellish hole, surrounded by lifeless piles of destroyed constructs, heaped up to the point that they are a part of the terrain itself. A slight breeze carries nothing but a slight chill throughout this pit of twisted materials and bodies. There is nothing but stillness and silence, like a calm before a necromantic storm. All who enter here should be terrified.

Indeed, even the creatures traveling with the PCs are unnerved. A large wolf lets out a nervous fart to punctuate this fact. Now, the adventurers are scared and distracted. Suddenly...

...someone lets a "that's what she said" joke rip. And another. And another. Suddenly, there goes the spooky atmosphere and the session devolves into total chaos and childish giggling. Every DM's Dungeon Master, AKA Game Master (GM) or Storyteller worst nightmare. Games have distractions. It's nigh unavoidable, and it's just something that happens when you get several people together. Player 1 remembers something funny that happened to them last week and wants to tell Player 2. Player 3 makes an off-color joke. Player 4 actually passes gas. Someone wants dinner or a snack. A session will rarely go without a single interruption until the DM says "And I think that's where we'll end the session tonight."

Or, you know, an average night for our DM. He spends hours crafting these scenes and encounters for us, only to have them utterly destroyed by a stray joke gone awry or some unforeseen half-baked solution that completely derails the encounter, and, sometimes, the entire campaign. Luckily, the DM is very patient with us, and generally recovers, because, after all, even the best-laid plans can fail. Unfortunately for him, though, we are endlessly amused by conspiring against him. Not that we actually try to. The poor dear plans such intricate dungeons and complex fights, and then a roll goes astray, or ours shoot high, and suddenly the dragon we shouldn't be able to survive without casualties is face first in the ground begging for his life, while none of us are scratched (I was proud of that one...).

Happy Rolling!