Come on guys, you want me to make this in the morning or something?

>>11633267

This has happened extensively and numerous times. Want my stories? They're fucking exciting.

>>11633371
Reading that made me tear up.
Good god.

>>11633470
Exciting? That sounds exciting.
Weave your webs of fantasy, storyteller.

I've seen it happen a lot. A random, crewman on an Imperial Freighter in Dark Heresy. A redshirt, who one-hitted not one, but numerous Genestealers through insanely unlikely rolls.
He earned his name and became a Majenta shirt, and died a heroic death, saving the PCs from more genestealers.

>>11633267
It wouldn't be "ham-fisted" if perhaps he was wounded and left for dead. Maybe he is missing an eye or his arm was wounded so badly that by the time he got back to safety infection had set in and they had to remove it.

>>11633470

Don't tease man. I'd love to hear awesome stories.

>>11633267

They remember him as an hero.

Why spoil it.

>>11633371
OH MY GOD

FUCKING MANLY TEARS, MAN

>>11633371

I cried manly tears.

>>11633519

AND SO BEGINS THE STORY OF CAPTAIN MAGGIE.

So the D&D world my group plays in is one of my own design. We actually have several current campaigns with different groups taking place at the same time in-game, so what one group does ripples to the other group. Anyways, in the city of Desolation Bay in it's market district was the store 'The Organ Grinder', a butcher's shop. I never had any intent for the players to go there, nor did they ever have a reason. One happened to be intrigued by the name and went in. Well he got friendly with the owner of the store named 'Captain Maggie', based on a musician's stagehand I'd seen once. She sold them some meat and went on their way.

A few days later, the PCs end up stealing a ship and remember that Maggie was a captain. They brought her the ship and *insisted* she captain it. She said she couldn't just leave her store, so the PCs went and raised several thousand gold to buy it from her, went half-way around the world to find a friend of hers to run the store, then payed to relocate THAT character to Desolation Bay.

(Cont)

>>11633647

Waiting eagerly

Had a very old, very drunk, and very dwarven former Paladin. Shows up at the worst possible times, either needing a bit of help to get out of a situation, or to cash in on a favor for saving the party's ass.

>>11633647

Over the course of the next few months of playing, the characters bring Maggie all sorts of humanoids to carve up (as time went on they found out Maggie was at one point a cannibal out of necessity) and turned their ship into a traveling butcher shop for her, including turning the cargo bay into a magical meat locker.

Cycle forward a couple of months and the players had set up an enormous world-spanning monopoly on the exotic meat trade. They're raking in copious amounts of cash and buying property, making friends with royalty in the process. Using the money they've gathered, they buy a fleet of ships in Maggie's name and fly her old flag, then begin the process of world domination by systematically destroying nation after nation, conquering them in Maggie's name and flying her flag over the burning wreckage of each capital city.

The entire time Maggie was confused of why such an enormous role was thrust upon her by seemingly total strangers.

>>11633743
Kind of an odd ending.

>>11633743
Go on.

>>11633815

The nation-toppling was the PC's idea. She was happy to sit back and let the cash flow in. The campaign is on-going.

>>11633829

Well there's the story of Axi Sylias and Ryloria Vex, if you want another howdidthishappen story.

>>11633843
We do. Start typing.

>>11633267
My advice for you, OP: a statue. Dedicate an important building in town to him with a commemorative plaque. This will tell the PCs that he has been remembered, and manly tears will be shed. Death is a tool, and a powerful one for storytelling and character development. It doesn't happen enough in D&D.

This has happened to me numerous times, but the time that stands out most was with an orphan boy that the group (consisting of two PCs) found. One of them found him surrounded by his dead family and randomly decided to take him in and teach him to be a mage and later convinced a fiendish child that they would only save him if he agreed to be the mage boy's familiar. The boy was brought along on every adventure they went on, and when they faced off against a powerful vampire, the teacher sacrificed his spellbook in order to save him. It was very touching.

>>11633371
The manly tears, they be pourin' down like rain.

Well, there was a tech priest NPC that our group (particularly our adept) took a shine to.

It... it didn't end well. I posted the full story about a week ago asking for advice on what to do. I think I still have it saved. It's kind of long, but if people want me to I'll fish it out and post it.

>>11633962
Please do!

>>11633962

/tg/ loves stories man, best thing about the board I believe, personally.

>>11633267
If you want him to survive, a later encounter could find whatever race that had attacked, Gnolls right? simply in a traveling patrol, dragging a cage with a handful of slaves. If they got a high enough perception roll they'll reconize him. Otherwise, when they attack he could call out to them.

When i make a bard, i find that Hirelings are fun to add onto your Retinue, because a bard, needs muscle to hold back the throngs of hambeasts, needs roadies to carry their stuff, whatever else a musician might need, a few silver a day provides it for you.

Saddly, these games didnt last long enough for me to connect to these people.

>>11633962

Did you ever post how that turned out?

>>11633997
OP, the email command you want is 'noko', you keep using 'noto' which does nothing.

Sup /tg/. D&D thread. pf/3e/lil bit 4e.

Been thinking about gaming today, as usual, and I read an article about the 15 minute adventuring day. They mentioned incentives for pressing on being a good idea for making the game more "heroic" and "cinematic". http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/286349-discussion-game-design-15-minute-work-day
.html

I'm inclined to think this would help. I also think paranoid players who find out that there are sometimes consequences to going nova (ambush, bad guys get away, reinforcements show up, etc).

There was a link from someone to another article,
http://www.thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/wandering-monster.html
about the death of wandering monsters that posits that most class imbalance between casters and noncasters is due to the new-ish tendency for DMs to just let players rest when they want, which encourages going nova in every fight. Where everything is designed around 4 encounters per day on average (not 4e so much), wizards being able to nova in every fight is like playing 4 characters power simultaneously. and that's not good.

Thought I'd share the articles and see what people say.

>>11633962
Oh god, is this about the xeno tech infested ai controlled one?

>>11634014
I want to know this as well.

>>11633962

Ok.

We're a pretty solid group of acolytes by this point. It's me (a guardsman), a scum, a psyker, and an adept. We have exposed and brought down chaos cults, mutant gangs, corruption within a PDF garrison, and most recently a xenotech smuggling ring. Thing is, we were a bit light on tech support within our cell.

Fortunately, in one of our early investigations we ran in to a tech priest that a group of Arbites were holding captive. Their squad was dirty, they were covering for a gang of hive rabble who were stealing any equipment they could get their hands on in exchange for a sizable cut of the profits. The tech priest had been sent down to figure out why the air filtration system for that had block had failed, and stumbled across their operation.

The Arbites were trying to figure out what to do with her when we showed up and took them down in massive gunfight that pretty badly trashed the section we were in. One of the Arbites started tossing around grenades like candy, and before we could put him down he blew a hole in the side of a big air shaft.

The floor also gave way, tilted sharply, and sent us all sliding toward a very, very long drop down through the hive. Most of us managed to grab a hold of something to keep from falling, but the tech priest's arms and mechadendrites (which weren't the sort for heavy lifting anyway) were bound, so she couldn't stop from sliding toward the hole in the vent shaft.

>>11634017
Whoops, Sorry guys. I write my threads in notepad, and I pasted it in the wrong window. for the record, interesting thread. Carry on.

>>11634022
Yup. We had another meet too, so I'll include an update at the end. Still not entirely resolved, though it's not looking good.

So our adept, for reasons which are a complete mystery to me, decided to play the hero. He did a diving save to try to grab the tech priest before she could fall and, despite his rather poor strength, actually succeeded. He rolled well enough to grab her and grab on to some piping.

However, the tech priest wasn't exactly a lightweight, what with those metal bits and all, and he hurt one of his arms pretty badly in the process. To his credit, he did manage to hang on long enough for the scum and I to shoot the remaining Arbites, climb up to a solid spot, secure a pair of lines, repel down to them, and help them up.

Once the fight was over and we had freed the tech priest, she offered to fix the adept's arm. He was decent with medicae, tried to play the gentleman and insisted that he could do it himself. He promptly botched it, and rather sheepishly asked for her help. She smiled and fixed his arm.

>>11634016

OP, here. T and K aren't even next to each other, fuck me.

We escorted her back to the little Ad Mech temple/shrine/forge/machine shop and went off to finish the immediate case we were on. Afterward, however, the adept went back to talk with the tech priest. He said that corrupt Arbites were a big deal, that he needed to file a full report on the matter with the Administratum, and that the tech priest was a key witness in the whole thing.

It was a pretty blatant lie, we all saw through it and teased him about it, but the psyker and I thought the whole thing was pretty cute. This became a semi-regular thing, he would go off to talk with the tech priest, and while the psyker and I tried to help him come up with semi-plausible reasons and coincidences by which we just happened to be in the area, eventually we stopped needing to.

The two of them hit it off pretty well, and eventually she even started crafting some gadgets for us, the adept in particular, and generally helped out with technical expertise whenever she could.

Then came the arc with the xenotech.

The group my brother DM'd for freaking fell in love with this princess who was just supposed to be a standard objective in a rescue the princess quest.

They were all about her, the kept going back and talking her and trying to do things for her and generally wasting their time wife her.

So my brother had her get kidnapped and then turned into a flesh golem.

My brother is a dick.

As things got progressively heavier, it became clear we were in deep shit. The xenotech smuggling ring was being run by a group of very high up noble bigwigs, the kind of people who could disappear us with little difficulty, who were bringing in very advanced (and in some cases sapient) xenotech for their own personal collections.

We had managed to get ahold of some of the stuff and we needed to know what the hell it all was, but we didn't know who to take it to. A lot of the planet's more prominent Ad Mech were being very heavily watched by the nobles, while others were bought or strong-armed into cooperation, and one wrong step would get us all killed. So we took it to the tech priest who had been helping us.

She was… startled by the fact that we had approached her with a bunch of highly advanced, extremely dangerous, and completely forbidden xenotech. She was also scared, hurt, and angry that we would put her at risk like that, largely without even asking if she was willing to get involved in this sort of sinister stuff. Simply coming into contact with xenotech of this level (which she now had) was very serious business for the Ad Mech, to say nothing of what the nobles would do to her if they found out she had seen the stuff.

The adept took her aside and calmed her down as best he could. He told her that we wouldn't have done this if we had known anyone else we could trust and that we would consult her next time before involving her in anything. He then promised her that he would do everything in his power to ensure that no harm would come to her. She reluctantly agreed to help us.

>>11634081
Send your brother my regards.

With her help we began compiling our case against the nobles involved in the smuggling ring, hoping that if the evidence was overwhelming enough we could report the whole matter all the way up to our inquisitor, who could maybe do something about it.

All that time we were bringing the tech priest our finds, samples of xenotech that we had lifted from intercepted shipments, acquired from people involved in the smuggling ring by hook or by crook, and just generally pilfered over the course of our investigation. The hope was that we would be able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the nobles were way outside the (already extremely generous) bounds of what they were allowed to dabble in.

It was pretty obvious that she was scared out of her mind. Dissecting xenotech was way above her pay grade, and although she wasn't one to turn down a challenge, she was still well aware that she was in over her head.

Through all of that, however, the adept was there to comfort her. He had made a promise and he was going to keep it. The two of them grew very close over the course of the investigation. Personally, I think the challenge part was just her fooling herself. The only reason she did any of this was because he was the one asking for her help.

We had uncovered a lot of dangerous xenotech, and had evidence implicating a number of nobles in the smuggling operation, when we got an urgent vox call from the tech priest (since we brought her in the investigation she and the adept had an emergency vox-caster line in case things went seriously wrong). She sounded absolutely terrified, though the signal got cut off before she could say very much. The adept promptly dropped what he was doing and ran off to find her. The rest of us followed, worried that he was running headlong into a deathtrap.

We didn't find her in the Ad Mech temple where she usually worked, we didn't find anyone. Not anyone alive anyway. The few other tech priest and servitors who had also worked there had been torn to shreds, but our tech priest was nowhere to be found. We found some of her work, though. AI-controlled undead servitors powered by the raw stuff of Chaos, animated wraithbone constructs that spat daemons at us, and a collection of audio logs that detailed her steady decent into madness and heresy.

She had been studying, classifying, and cataloging the xenotech we had been bringing her, and it was obvious that with each entry she had become increasingly enthralled by what she had found. Halfway through she had begun to realize that she was slipping, but reassured herself that the adept needed this done, and that when this was all over they would be rid of it all and things could go back to the way they were before.

Then she really started to crack. During her work she had discovered that one of the pieces of xenotech was capable of perceiving, utilizing, and manipulating the Warp much like a psyker. Combined with another piece of xenotech that would respond to chemical and electric input in precisely the right manner, she created a device that, when wired into a person's brain, essentially made them an artificial psyker.

Of course, the reason she even did any of this was that unbeknownst to any of us the Warp device had an onboard AI that was using it's abilities to subtly manipulate her into upgrading it. In her logs she spoke of it whispering to her, telling her that if she wanted to help the adept she would need its help. She had run into a brick wall studying the latest xenotech we had brought to her, a collection of wraithbone equipment of some sort that she couldn't make heads or tails of on account of not being a psyker.

At first she had decided to set the wraithbone aside and wait for us to bring in more xenotech, but the AI whispered to her that she absolutely needed to understand the wraithbone, and that she needed to use the Warp device to do so. At that point she wasn't aware of the AI, and just thought that it was her own stubborn mind, unwilling to admit defeat and leave a mystery unsolved.

She managed to resist it's prodding, at least until it brought the adept in to the equation. It reminded her that if she couldn't make some sort of headway with the wraithbone, then the adept would have to go out and risk his life again to get another piece of xenotech, all because she was to squeamish to do what needed to be done.

After that she immediately implanted the thing in the back of her head, and the AI seized control of her body.

>>11634186
WHAT A TWEEST!

Oh holy shit!

Edge of my seat here. o.0

>>11634186

Then she deserves to die.

In the name of the Emperor.

The AI, now in full control, shaped the wraithbone into the constructs we had fought and upgraded several servitors, then loosed them on the other tech priests. During the fighting she had gotten damaged, and managed to reassert control enough to send the vox call to the adept before the AI cut her off by destroying the vox-caster.

After fighting it out with the AI, she retook partial control and managed to leave a final audio log, addressed to the adept, in which she confessed that she loved him and ended saying "You saved me there once, maybe you can do it again."

We immediately left to go to the old wrecked air filtration building where we had first met her, just in time to avoid a bunch of tech priests and Skitarii showing up on the scene. She was waiting for us there, not in ambush, just waiting.

She had added a sizable amount of xenotech to her body, including a wraithbone mechadendrite sporting all manner of eldar tech, and her arms were able to mutate on the fly into pretty much any kind of machine or weapon that she wanted, obliterator-style. Her mechanical eye had also grown into a semi-organic mechadendrite that could extend, retract, and shoot Warp fire. When we arrived she started to cry, apologized for everything, and attacked.

Here's my story, 3.5 Isle of Dread or something...

Anyways, we had a PC ranger that was set up to be captain, because we were going to play a ship campaign, he quit 1 session before we got the ship. My rogue had the highest ship skill, so naturally I became captain.

>>11634232
We had my 1st mate who was a female bad-ass, basically ran the happenings of the ship, mostly picked out the crew, commanded the ship while the party was off board, all around amazing NPC. Anyways, after eventually sailing from the mainland to the island, through a sargasso, where she commanded the ship while we were killing nagas or something, and fought a hydra on the cruise there, we crashed in a storm on the island (it was like 6 DC 25 ship handling checks to make it past, I succeeded on 4 of them and I only had something like a +11) the party and 7 or 8 random npc's made it on shore alive.

Our 1st mate never made it, we stayed on the beach an extra day, and found her body in the wreckage. We carted her body 3 or so weeks south to the colony on the island past dinosaurs and badass lizardmen and shit. We couldn't save her body, so in a mountain pass we buried her with a massive tombstone and grave.
(cont.)

>>11634244

We get to the colony, and we have no cleric, let alone a high enough one to rez this girl. But we did have a gem of stone to flesh, or something, and a bard as our caster (I was rogue, we had a bard and a monk as our 3 main guys, how we survived I don't know). At this point we were building our "fort" with stone shape, or create stone wall or something from the bard. The final crafting he did was to make a human sized statue of our 1st mate, it took like two days to make.

This bard had an epic perform skill, something like +24 or something, and he made a plea to the gods, rolled like a 16 for a 40 or something, well he got his attention. In a bright flash of light our 1st mate came back to life from the statue. Needless to say, we had to get a different crew, and people didn't really like her anymore, being she rose from the dead with arcane magic. but we did.

>>11634256
>>11634244

You didn't pay much attention to the game, did you?

Over the course of that fight our priorities shifted very quickly. At first we were thinking we could subdue her and tried to be careful with her, using some of our less powerful weapons. Then when she broke out the obliterator arms we figured out that this was going to be a serious fight no matter what, and started using the heavy guns.

When that failed to bring her down we realized that killing her wasn't really in the cards, we would be lucky to get out alive. After all, she had absorb all the choicest bits of xenotech that we had brought to her, and the AI that was running the show had no compunction about killing all of us. All while she was screaming apologies.

During the fight, however, the GM was rolling something in the background. We had no clue what it was, until he smiled at one of the rolls and said that the tech priest just stopped for one round. Stopped fighting, froze up, and did absolutely nothing, then promptly went back to trying to kill us the next round.

Both in and out of character we concluded that the tech priest was still fighting the AI for control. Once again the adept did something which seemed colossally stupid to the rest of us. During the next freeze up, he ran forward to the tech priest, hugged her, and told her that he had made a promise and was going to keep it. I think he was gambling on our GM being a bit of a softy.

>>11634284

Spolier: S/he dies

>>11634284
God damn, bringing me to tears now.

>>11634306
Of course she fucking dies. It wouldn't be nearly GRIMDARK enough if she didn't.

>>11634275

It was years ago, I can't remember her name or the exact stats, sorry

It paid off. On the next roll, when the she unfroze, the tech priest retook control, turned her arms (which at that point were a lascannon and a grenade launcher) back into her normal arms, and hugged him back.

From the looks of it she's managed to keep control, for now at least. It's been a couple hours since then, and she's maintained control through all of that. The eye has retracted and stayed quiet for now, as have the obliterator arms, though that wraithbone mechadendrite seems to be a bit snappish.

There are two big problems, however. The first is the AI implant. It's buried itself pretty deeply in her skull and we don't know how to get it out. Going to the Ad Mech is not really an option, they would probably try to kill her. The second is her potentia coil. Seems like the AI upgraded it to support the increased power requirements, and it's got a very ominous glow to it that the psyker does not like the looks of at all.

...

Alright, that's what I posted last time around. Next, the update.

GrimDark has its place and can make for fun or even moving experience, but a little goes a long, long way.
When it becomes the norm, you've gone to far, and it isn't fun anymore.

>>11634375

She is an abomination. Kill her in the name of the Emperor.

>>11634388
Fuck. That.

While it usually doesn't work, I tend to throw grimdark out the window when I play Dark Heresy and aim for noblebright instead. Sometimes sacrifices need to be made even in the noblest settings, and obviously this only works with some characters and not all. But it's a breath of fresh air.

Ok, here's what's happened since then.

Good news is we managed to get the AI implant out. Took some tough medicae rolls, though our adept is pretty sharp in that area so he pulled it off. Also, the fact that the tech priest talked him through the whole thing first helped. It's currently sitting in a heavy metal suitcase, with a sizable bomb strapped to it for good measure, locked in an empty cellar. The wraithbone mechadendrite froze up and fell off, though the rest of her is just as heretical as ever.

Now the bad news. The potent coil has been getting worse. A lot worse. As in daemons clawing at the seams of reality trying to get out worse. Apparently the AI bound not one, not two, but nine daemons into the coil to supply its power requirements. One nearly managed to get out of the coil by trying to hop into the psyker, though he managed to resist it. They're all still in the coil, but it's become pretty clear that it won't hold them for long.

The AI has been having a good laugh at our expense, ranting over a vox frequency about how we're all going to die in a whirlwind of Warp fire, mutation, and the clawing of the eyes out from the sheer horror of it all. You know, the usual megalomaniacal stuff. However, it also told us that it's the only one capable of keeping the daemons under control, and if we want the tech priest to live we're going to have to put it back in control. It's been trying to make a deal with us to that end.

Now, normally we wouldn't even be considering such a deal, except the alternative is just as bad.

>>11634460
Find a way to strip out the coil and replace it. Purge it in the name of the Emperor along with the heretical AI.

Happily ever after. Fuck the grimdark.

Kill her as she is an affront to the God-Emperor and... Oh, wait, Daemons. I'm supposed to like Daemons. Right, carry on then.

You guys know about Noh, right?

>>11634460
Sounds like your DM wants this one to die/be possessed enough to want to kill you all. Or thinks highly of your problem solving skills.

More likely the former.

See, the best settings, IMO, are nobledark.

Where yes, the world is dark, and you are a BEACON OF FUCKING LIGHT.

>>11634511
As a DM, I can say that, yeah, it's probably the former. We're typically huge dicks.

>>11634511
Sounds like the latter to me. Or he's just going along without a plan at all and has faith in his PCs to figure things out so it isn't a railroad.

Sounds like a good DM.

Alright, so the alternative.

We need to yank the coil before it can explode in a screaming torrent of daemons, but we didn't have the expertise or the resources to do it. The Ad Mech would be more likely to try and kill her. We've tried to get in touch with our inquisitor, but so far we haven't gotten a response back (normal, communication up the ranks takes some time).

Only one group is willing to help us right now. They're a rival group of acolytes, and they've got a logician heretek among their ranks who has the know how to replace the coil.

Problem is they're Istvaanian. The deal they're offering is that they've give her a clean swap, non-heretical (though slightly used) parts. Apparently their heretek has a sizable spare parts inventory made up of the bits and pieces that he's pulled from all the other tech priests he's killed over the years. The price, however, is that they keep what they pull. That includes the coil.

Fortunately, they don't know about the AI, and we're planning to keep it that way. We've been trying to figure out what they plan to do with it and all the other gear, and what we've uncovered so far is not good.

>>11634511
I'm thinking he just likes to watch us suffer.

>>11634504
Still Obligatory:

The Story of Noh

My group was in a dungeon where, unbeknownst to them, they were being tested by the spiritual forces that resided within, in order to see if they were worthy of... bla bla bla, the same old shtick.

They find a secret door, and inside is a pedestal with a highly ornate and obviously magical rapier (which two of the characters used), resting upon a similarly ornate/magical chain shirt that the two other characters used.

Next to them, a young girl, with a blank expression, simply requests, "Please do not take these items." Of course, my players didn't want to pass up such great items, but they knew that something bad would happen if they just took them, they decided they needed more information before they could make a decision. Pretty standard method of action. And, the only way they could get more information was from the girl.

I didn't want to spoil everything, and more importantly I wanted this to just be a short test so we could go on to the next part. Also, since she was just the physical manifestation of a minor spiritual entity, she didn't need to do any more than fufill her task as a test giver. So, I decided she would be like a NPC from a videogame. She would only respond with "No" or, if a negative answer would confuse the players or the players decided to get crafty and ask something like "Can we NOT take these items?", she would simply reply "Please do not take these items."

The conversation was pretty much:
P1: Can you tell us about these items?
DM: No.
P2: Can we ask your name?"
DM: No.
P1: What are you doing here?
DM: No.
P3: Are these items important to you?
DM: Please do not take these items.

>>11634550
The players kept at it for a few minutes, until the bard decided to use a perform check to "Awaken her dormant soul etc." and rolled a 19. As such, I decided I might as well say that she shed a single tear.

At this point, my players could no longer stand it. And they ended up doing something I was completely unprepared for.

One of them scooped her up, put her on his shoulder, and decided they were going to take her. They quickly began to argue as to which one of them was going to carry her, completely ignoring the amazing magical items less than an arm's reach away, and talking about how she was the cutest thing in the entire world. They decided to name her "Noh", since it was what she replied when asked her name.

They then carried her through the dungeon, risking themselves many times in order to keep/protect her. After the third time she slowly walked back towards the items when she was left alone during a battle (accompanied each time with each player screaming her name), they decided to go back, put the items on her, and then continue carrying her around.

I had added this whole test as a bit of a side thing, and didn't know what to do. At the completion of the whole thing, their reward was to have a spirit bound to one of their magic items, corresponding with what virtues they exhibited the most through out the dungeon. As a bit of a side bonus (since she was practically a construct anyway), I decided that a spirit would also be bound to Noh, but the complete binding would take some time, and that the players would be able to take her out of the dungeon. My players were so happy, and they concluded that along with the rest of the adventure (which they seemed to enjoy), this was the best session they've had in years.

I feel bad.

>>11634536
Schadenfreude. Schadenfreude everywhere. DMs are dicks like that, and i'm pretty sure we're all Phobivores.

>>11634519
Seconding that.

Masterfully done, grimdark brings out the brightest noblespark - ephemeral though it may be - in people.

>>11634553
Oh my god that is the cutest thing I have ever heard ever.

>>11634553
A session that ends happily for your players is a dark day indeed. I shall now tell of some of my DM dickery through greentext.

>One of the PCs is a Necromancer.
>Prestige class he wants to roll requires some ancient tome.
>Tome can be located in the tomb of some long-dead Necromancer.
>PCs fight through hordes of zombies and skeletons to reach entrance to the Necromancer's tomb.
>Bunch of bones form into a Minotaur Death Knight.
>Said Death Knight nearly kills most of the players before they manage to escape.
>Players eventually come back with a powerful Cleric NPC.
>Cleric engages in epic battle with Death Knight, eventually killing it.
>PCs finally find book.
>Necromancer, overcome with joy, runs up to it and picks it up.
>Book turns to ash from his touch due to being so old.
>Tollface.

>>11634550
>>11634553
So much.

>>11634602
If there was not some way to undo that, I would reach across the table, pick up your DM screen, and SOUNDLY THRASH YOU ABOUT THE HEAD AND NECK WITH IT.

>>11634536
You are a quite radical group yourselves already, and these people seem the most willing to help you.
The adept needs to be there during the operation, watching the heretek like a hawk as he does the operation, with maybe both groups with weapons readied on that spot.

The valuable xenotek arm might make a better trade for the coil, see if the heretek could accept that instead

>>11634624
The players were actually pretty good sports about it, and got a good chuckle from it. He wasn't high enough level to actually go into the prestige class yet anyways, so yeah, there's a slight silver lining to all this, I guess.

>>11634640

They want the arm too. They want all of it. They would probably be asking for the AI too if they knew about it.

And from what we've gathered, they want the coil to use in a good old fashioned terrorist bomb plot. They've gotten a line in on a big extravagant party the nobles are throwing. Lots of big names, important people, and money. About 20 of the people attending control more than 80% of the planet's wealth, many of them involved in the xenotech smuggling ring in the first place.

The Istvaanians want to bomb it. Kill a bunch of people, though what they're really hoping is that some of the VIPs attending get possessed. These are daemons of Tzeentch after all. They'll take control and do what they do best, sow Chaos and heresy throughout the planet's nobility. Of course, the Istvaanians will be in a position to expose this all once it reaches critical mass, leading the Imperium to come down on the planet like a ton of bricks.

The resulting war and destruction will devastate the hive world, kill millions, and totally upset the planet's power structure. The corrupt nobility will be cast down, and the Istvaanians believe that from the ashes the world will rise all the stronger for it.

So, by comparison, the AI's deal is starting to look not quite so bad. It wants control again, long enough to build a new body for itself as well as replacement parts for the tech priest. It will then take all the heretical parts, switch to the new body, and go its own way. We don't really trust it, but the Istvaanians aren't a whole lot better.

>>11634677
Don't deal with Istvaanians.

Give the AI what it wants...but seed the new body with dickery. It's too late and I'm not clever enough to come up with good ideas, but just generally make the AI think it's getting a golden deal, and then screw it over. Implant the body with tracking tags, or fuck up the circutry, or rewire it to give the AI 1/10 of the power supply it needs, effectively cutting down on it's brainpower and making it functionally retarded. Or do something more mischevious.

Fuck over the AI. For what it did to your friend.

>>11634677
The solution seems simple, backstab the people who want to remove and keep all the xenotech and heretical hardware after they remove it, save the techpreist, fuck the GRIMDARK?

I love this thread.... ;-;

>>11634739
We've tangled with them a couple times before. They're pretty powerful. We're considering that, but the fight would be tough. They've got 4 guys, all highly skilled at combat. We only really have 3, plus the adept knowledge/heal bot. And though they're insane they're not stupid, there's the possibility that they're prepared for treachery.

>>11634729
The AI's going to be the one building the body, and while we could fuck with it, I'm guessing it would probably notice. Plus the only person with the tech expertise to do all that is the tech priest. Though a more conventional backstab with lots of explosives and the like is an option we're considering.

In either case there is, however, the possibility that they could leave something nasty behind, in case of treachery. Or they could backstab us first and go back on their end of the deal. None of the options look particularly good right now.

The GM seems pretty pleased by that fact.

>>11634536

Thanks for posting the update; this is a good story.

There is no way i can top some of the stories in here, but i have a hobgoblin shopkeeper named Crazy Eddie...he runs 7 shops at once, and has a Magic Item lottery...one of my players admitted to "paying just to watch the machine work"...it's this steampunk gumball machine sort of thing. Its a nice way to give my players items, and to introduce my homebrewed "seemingly pointless" items.

>>11634873
Make it a "you won't get the goods until we have the girl -and- she's safe." kind of thing. Might even have to offer the "AI" to them as incentive for reason why they shouldn't betray you. And then betray them with it not being the AI but a suitcase full of melta bombs.

ITT: fucking kobiyashi maru, 40k style

>>11634873
Rig the most likely exit for the AI to take after being killed with explosives beneath the floor, or hell, rig em all to remote blow, have the psyker LEAVE THE AREA lest he risk posession, and don't let the AI leave until you know he didn't install a dead man switch in your beloved techpreist to ensure its survival.

If not, he leave, you blow his ass to hell.

Help the robot build the body.

In a ship that has explosives for a hull.

Once you get your friend stabilized and daemon-free, evacuate and blow the ship.

Problem solved!

Or, if you want to get REALLY heretical, find a Chaos Cult that could use the daemons and have them suck out the Warp juice. Then it'll be empty machinery.

> and the clawing of the eyes out from the sheer horror of it all.

Sounds awesome to me. You should totally do that. You won't need them where you're going.

Once rolled a random encounter in a haunted desert, got "cursed ghost thief tries to rob campsite".

PCs catch him in the act, but instead of getting violent, just restrain him and talk to him, offering him food and water. They're so nice to him, he's moved and actually agrees to guide them out of the desert.

When they finally reach the river at the edge of the desert and cross it, the ghost thief starts fading away, his curse broken. His last words are thanks to the PCs for their kindness. Manly tears.

>>11634219
>When we arrived she started to cry, apologized for everything, and attacked.
I think that's about the worst thing I've ever heard. How marvelous.

>>11635009
That's what random encounters should be.

Post-apocalyptic game I once ran. The players were military/survivalist types, and were escorting a group of civilians through the wastes when they were attacked by the local flavor of zombies. They manage to slaughter all the walking dead, but lose the redshirts that were assisting them in the process. So the players decide to see if any of the civilians are willing to carry a gun.

At this point a twelve year old girl named Sally picks up one of the hunting rifles they had laying around.

The players all immediately decide that this is the best thing ever and place this little girls safety and well being as their number one priority. The military expert starts teaching her how to use a rifle, the survivalist is showing her tricks, the tech dude is making her gadgets to play with.

And then during one session she got shot by some military goons and the party flipped out. They razed the military encampment, burned it to the ground, didn't even bother to loot it. Not because Sally died- but because she got hurt.

>>11635073
Oh, shush Rugen. You're evil. And Dead.

Our party once encountered a Crystal Troll named Bill, whose randomly rolled treasure outfitted his cave with a masterwork armchair next to the firepit and nobleman's garb, which in this case meant a monocle, fancy hat and rings. He welcomed us into his home like a gentleman and became fast friends with our barbarian.

A few days later, we had to help local military fight off a army of hobgoblins, and Bill marched into battle alongside our party. Together our group killed footsoldiers, dire-boar cavalry, and a hill giant, but then he was killed by a squad of War Troll mercenaries. The battle was won, but at great cost.

His death almost split the party, actually, because our warlock wanted to use the magic staff from Bill's treasure trove, but our barbarian wanted to honour his memory with a viking-style funeral, as per his culture. I don't remember too much from that campaign, but I remember Bill.

>>11635073
IfeelIshouldprepareforsomething.jpg

>Find a Gnoll encampment full of slaves
>You find a bunch of slaves, only one of them is a warrior of any sort.
>The Gnolls are rather wary of intruders and people around their encampment
>Something is raiding them at night and killing their children
>PCs investigate
>Its some sort of angry pissed off ghost in black armor striking in the night
>The PCs attempt to fuck up the Gnolls, they are over run and over powered
>The ghost shows up, helps turn the tides, so does the slave soldier
>Ghost turns out to be the Captain
>Slave turns out to the Captains son
>Gnollicide

maybe bring him back as a ghost to give the players a few cryptic clues about something OP?

Have you considered playing the two groups against each other? Let the AI in the tech priest's body before inviting the other guys over to salvage what they can, AI included. It will probably wind up sabotaging them before their bomb goes off.

>>11635292
for example, in a busy market, they're sure they see this guy, walking away, back to them... they rush to follow him and are blocked by the crowds of ppl but just manage to catch sight of him ducking into a doorway... when they get there he's noth there, of course, but they find someone else who can tell them something important, or move things on in other ways... let them guess that he's helping them

>>11635280
This would be neat, bring the son back as a slave later on anywhere in the campaign, if hes around long enough have the dad show up in spirit to back him up.

Bump for the bump god!

On two occasions, we've taken NPCs and turned them into cohorts.

The first was Sleestak, one of several captured goblins put to work by the hobgoblins in our first quest. We gave them a job as laborers under a blacksmith. Sleestak, however, became the companion of our barbarian. He rolled Sleestak up as a bard who played bagpipes. Remarking on Sleestak's high charisma, I claimed that he "could pass for an ugly gnome", and that description stuck.

The second was a dwarven paladin. He was higher level than most of the town guard, and was notably bored and disillusioned with his job and the lack of evil to face. We had recently pissed off a black dragon, so I saw fit to go personally inform him of the danger. His eyes lit up at the words and he readied himself to join us in combat.

I made an internal prediction that he would perform a smite on the dragon and he would crit on it. I didn't tell anyone, for fear of jinxing it. It happened, though. The damage wasn't phenomenal due to DR, but it was a memorable outcome all the same. Our dwarven cleric adopted the paladin as his cohort from there onward.

In our last DH campaign, we had one hiveworld assassin named Nrvnqsr, played by the guy who took over GMing from me after I finished.

Nrvnqsr (Nero) Essix grew up as an orphan in a privately-run training academy on Malfi, raised as a courier/hitman for his master like all the other sudents. As the oldest pupil, when his master died he took over the academy, almost like a big brother, or a father even, to his students. He joined the inquisition to claim an heirloom symbol of office back from his late master, an acolyte who served as an acolyte himself and died in service.

In short, Nrvnqsr was a brutal, cunning, utterly ruthless, and POWERFUL (he got unnatural agility x2 at one point, and is now Rank 8) sonofabitch. He would use any tool for the job, including owning two seperate daemonweapons over the course of the campaign, one of which he still owns (Hedravayka, a bloodthirsty shrieking knife), to survive another day, JUST so he could come home and return to his children. I even gave him Peer(children) for free on account of his background.

And he was played by the most genre-savvy gamer I know, which is the scariest part about it all.

I'll never forget the feeling of satisfaction as a GM the day Nrvnqsr almost exploded in rage at our inquisitor for her actions.

When I played animal crossing I tried to have an intimate/romantic relationship with a mouse NPC.

It just didn't work out, /sigh

I'll go back to /v/...

>>11637169
The party had been tracking the BBEG of the campaign, an influential administratum clerk hellbent on discovering where our late inquisitor had hidden a plot macguffin powerful enough to destroy the sector, for close to a year of out-of-character time. In character, they'd been through hell and back, including being tortured under the Tricorn palace for close to ten years.

They'd tracked his movements to Zillman's Domain, our late inquisitor's homeworld, and where they were ordered (at the behest of our new inquisitor, a comrade of his based off Anna Navarro from Deus Ex) to find an old crone in some swamplands who may hold enough occult knowledge to help them. The party went down, in mostly primitive gear, and fought Skitarri kill-teams equipped with Deathlights, pistol-dendrites, and Feedback screeching. Nrvnqsr did it all with throwing knives.

When they find the crone, she reveals that she passes her knowledge to her daughter, only a small child, maybe 7 or so years old, and as such they are the only two people with knowledge of the macguffin.

As they exchange pleasantries, the BBEG appears in his ship above the planet, and begins glassing the surface near the party. He was looking for the crone himself, but if the party is this close, it's now or never. If he can't have that info, they can't either.

>>11637230
Conveniently enough, the crone is struck dead from the wreckage of the attacks by random junk being thrown about in her little Yoda-hut in the swamps. Their inquisitor is pissed, but she's in the middle of a space battle with the BBEG, so the best message she can send out is "Take the child and run!"

Our moritat assassin looks at the child, then the crone, and mentions he'd like to loot the corpse. Nrvnqsr tells him if he touches her he'll murder him on the spot. Nrvnqsr's from the Sons of Dispater; honour's not a big thing to him in most cases. But he's the only one who picks up the child (weakest party member physically, too), and carries her the entire two days' march across barren, glassed wasteland, defending her from everything the party faces. She wasn't too amiable before, but it seems like the sudden attack rendered her struck dumb from the trauma.

They finally join their inquisitor again, meeting her by basically rigging some fuckhuge defense rockets from an old bunker to launch and hiding inside them before being picked up in space. They have a fair bit of downtime while their inquisitor gets to work questioning her newly-acquired child.

She breaks it to the party while they're gathered together idly. They couldn't get her to tell them; she was traumatised too much. Without much time before the BBEG returned, she had to resort to Brain-Planing.

The inquisitor ordered the child's brain sliced into tiny slivers, which were then cross-referenced under viewing lenses to directly extract her memories and work out what the crone had passed on.

>>11637331
She didn't even get a chance to say goodbye to Nrvnqsr, who, upon hearing this, is incredibly not happy. He's gone through hell and back for the Inquisition. He's taken on an entire city solo before, wielded two different daemon weapons and risked his soul, just to get the job done, assaulted a chaos cruiser from the inside single-handedly, and even murdered psychic children for his Inquisitor before. But this finally does it.

He strides up to her, gives her the dirtiest look imaginable, and says,

"You're the Inquisition. The all-powerful Inquisition. And you couldn't even save a damn child."

And then Nrvnqsr walks out of the room, leaving everyone speechless. I've never felt happier as a GM.

Was running SR4. Of the many somewhat amusing things that occurred was the parties temporary amusement/attachment to a Troll.

Now this troll was just a go-fer. His job was to pick up a package and he was a bit thick. The party had a car drive up to him without anyone in it and he looked around wondering what the hell was going on. So they fucked with him some more.

That's pretty much it, but it's convinced me to render a recurring Troll odd-job guy that's a little less then bright for all future Shadowrun games. If one gets killed off another, with the exact same stats/look but with a slightly different name will take his place next time!

>>11637337
THEN WHAT? DID HE KILL THE BITCH?

>>11637483
Surprisingly, no. He ended up getting along quite reasonably with her in the end, after she bribed him with over 9000 doss of Ghostfire Pollen Extract (she's addicted to ghostfire petals from her chem-gland, which can gland the extract directly for her).

In the end, Nrvnqsr was kidnapped (he ALWAYS gets to be the one kidnapped, it's like his thing) by the BBEG, who used his orphan hitmen in a twisted sense of irony. He was banking on them not recognising him after ten years of separation.

He was very surprised to find that in his absence his orphanage had swelled immensely into a huge messianic death-cult worshipping his return. His old inquisitor had found his way to freedom, and, not being able to track him down personally, deposited his heirloom with the cult on his way through.

Nrvnqsr used his newfound political prowess of House Essix to requisition passage aboard a pleasure cruiser (during a charity ball to raise munitions for Tranch War Orphans) for the campaign's finale, because without the acolyte's intervention, there wouldn't be anyone to return to. It ended very much like The Fifth Element, with orks attacking, bombs being deactivated, and the party screaming out on a lone shuttle chased by an explosion, where they found their way planetside for the biggest boss fight of the campaign.

Nrvnqsr did it all with just an armoured bodyglove, his daemonknife, and a handcannon under his robes. He didn't even take his second pistol because his recoil-gloves were part of his carapace armour.

After the campaign ended, I can only presume he returned back to his orphanage for good. He finally made it.

I once went to extreme lengths for an NPC.

He was a level 4 fighter that I was granted from a Deck of Many Things. His name was Paul.

Paul appeared next to me after I drew the card (from what seemed like a mundane pack at first glance), a total amnesiac, he only remembered his name, how to fight, and (obviously) harbored a deep sense of loyalty to me.

My character was a CG human rogue, son of a senior guard who dropped out of the royal secret intelligence guild on moral grounds, and went outlaw. He had real guilt over his new indentured servant.

After we got out of the shithole dungeon we found the deck in, I insisted that we find out where Paul was from, so we could get his life back. After a few misadventures, all the while running afoul a conspiratorial undead cult, we returned home to find Paul's mangled corpse, and the Morghs that killed him.

My rogue went apeshit, and after we dealt with the undead, I rushed to a local magic store we had frequented before. After selling everything except the clothes on my back and spending all my money (quite a lot at this point), I bought a Ring of Three Wishes, with one Wish left.

I wished for Paul to have his real life back. His body disappeared in a flash.

Several sessions later and I am inducted into the Order of the Golden Heart, a good-for-goods-sake secret order, and after I pass the trials, who should be a fellow member but Paul, alive and well.

Much brofisting was had.

Bump for the Bump God! Bros for the Bro throne!

With an extra dash of bump.

Surely there are more stories of npc goodness?

Well mine isn't a story is a request for advice. I had an idea for an NPC or group of NPCs like this for a Twilight 2000 game. This will be the first Tabletop game my friends and I play, and I'll be DMing. I want a squad of Recon troops, veteran or elite (skilled motherfuckers) to be able to give them guidance, and help in hard places. I'm hoping it turns out like this. Any advice? Is this is a good idea?

I was running a 4e game and introduced a Dragonborn Paladin of Asmodeous turned MercyKiller who was ruling a small village with an increasingly unstable hand. As the party learned who he was and how he had come to be the lord here I really grew to like the character even if he did regularly order people flogged and threatened to feed party members to his hell hounds. Eventually he was killed by the party as part of a coup in which they exploited his adherence to honor and civilization. When we had a next game in the same setting and I wasn't DM I brought him back as a redemptive character in the form of a Dragonsoul Revenant Paladin of Erathis whose task was to earn forgiveness for his previous life by aiding the party in this one.

Bump for graet justice

Captcha: the grairvie

Make this into a monster

>>11640623
I'm sorry, I saw the word Twilight and blacked out for a moment in a horrendous surge of soul-blasting rage envisioning a bunch of tweenage girls and their mothers sitting around a table rolling dice and using pen and paper to keep track of their characters loves and crushes and vampire babies

What were you asking again?

>>11640738
Lol I get that a lot. T2K if anyone is familiar was that Post Apocalyptic game about WWIII or the 'Twilight War'. Would a squad of helpful NPCs like what you guys are reading about be a bad idea? Any advice for it?

Such a great thread.

Tech Priest story has changed my opinion about DH. I couldnt care less about DH before but now I would strongly consider playing.

>>11641916

/tg/'s DH stories have kindled my interest in the game time and time again.

A good story can make any system seem awesome, I think. That's what it's all about in the end - not the numbers, but the stories.

Pic related to awesome.

>>11642155
That was hilarious.
Fucking saved.

>>11633267

It is clear to me that you should make a scenario where the PC's must recover the Guard Captain's body for a proper burial. I suggest making the Captain privy to vital clues about a mystery or political conspiracy. That way the good guy church/clerics can perform a Speak With Dead that summons him and perhaps his son from beyond the grave to pass along vital information and impart a perilous quest that the party must now act on.

His body lies on a marble bier in the temple.
A white shroud lies over the corpse.
The hooded monks and clerics chant.
A cold wind blows.
The soul of the honored dead comes.
His voice speaks.

Outside the temple, a riderless horse awaits with the fallen guard captain's boots, placed backwards in the stirrups. The Captain's veiled wife walks the horse as it pulls the caisson to the tombs. The Guard's have lining the way so that the body may pass under their blades for one last salute. They will be called into formation by the colour sergeant and follow the caisson. It is possible that the widow will present the Captain's magical sword to the party's best swordsman.

We had not one important NPC but 5
Essentially, during one of those "our hometown is burning"-style scenarios one of the party members happened to find 5 generic kettle-helm-and-crossbow militiamen instead of treating them like NPC's however, he decided to bring them along for the ride
We managed to get them into a dungeon at some point and we made sure they survived til the end, at which point they kinda grew on the DM. They then received names and became The Merry Men, a legendary entity with the strength, speed and intelligence of 5 men. The Merry Men always moved in formation and each ran with the speed of 5 men. If one of their stats was lowered, the spell spread across the merry men, giving a fraction of the intended result to each.
They've popped up in almost every campaign that DM has run since then.

Bump for Great Justice!

All the fucking time.

Seriously, we have far too many examples of this happening, starting from the fellow street kid one PC rescued from a burning building once and since befriended. Other examples include a powerful jungle witch intended as BBEG, before the same PC switched sides and decided to become her disciple instead, at least partly reforming her in the process.

The party has also shown sympathy towards defeated bandits on at least three different occasions, teaching one of them to fight better so they could enter a streetfighting tournament, helping another integrate back into normal society by taking up defense responsibilities in a newly founded frontier city, and trying their best to make sure the third one manages to escape from a doomed city despite him trying to attack and kill them only moments before.

And don't get me started on the joke character trio of Bell, Book and Candle (pic related), the players met them exactly once, and the next thing they decide to do is travel all the way to another continent to liberate them from their evil masters. During the process they fought some other NPCs, including a group of enemy knights as well as a giant berserker, and recruited some of them to their party as well.

Finally, in our last adventure, far beneath the aforementioned doomed city, the party knew there was an adversary far out of their league awaiting them. They could've turned back, but the enemy was holding captive one NPC they had once been on a mission with. They didn't even like her very much, having had some disagreements over chain-of-command issues, but fuck if they were going to leave her there without doing nothing. The street kid I mentioned in the earliest example fell during the rescue - they took it pretty hard but still considered it a worthy death.

So basically, in 4chan parlance my group would be a huge bunch of moralfags, but it seems to be working out well for them.