The Bard in Green

I got your real druid right here…

I also didn’t know he had a youtube channel and I don’t think I’ve looked at a picture of him since the 90s. I had NO idea the dude had literally turned into Elminster.

5 is right out.

Fighters acted like they were poor little victims vulnerable to mean old spellcasters

About 14-15 years ago, I was playing in a 16th level game where the DM did NOT know how to challenge us. He put us against an astral behemoth with double hit points and our fighter soloed it in one round, dealing out a whopping 2,500ish points of damage in 7 attacks. One of the toughest monsters in the game, with double hit points, and the rest of the party didn’t even get to act.

Later in that game, we abused gate spells to crash rocks into the Abyss at 80% the speed of light.

3.5 is ridiculous.

What about Dave’s Famous Bread?

The spell I want is my personal favorite restaurant Felipe’s Pizza Grotto. I’m pretty sure I know exactly what that one does.

And a random, traumatized squirrel.

I got to play this character for several sessions, but he deserved more.

A lesser Devil modified bard chef. D&D Pirate Game with a drow captain of a haunted ship.

My bard powers were all based on cooking. In order to buff the crew I had to feed them. I had a constant supply of hors d’oeuvres, tiny deserts, etc. After combat, I would heal the party by cooking 5 star gourmet meals. I fought with a meat cleaver.

My back story: I was basically on the run. I was Gold Star Master of Sauces and Boilings, 3rd Degree Initiate of the Sulfur Ovens and Bonded Sous-chef of the School of Flesh and Broth in the City of Dis, 87 years into a 500 year Sous-chef contract that I was AWOL from. I got summoned to the Prime Material Plane in order to cater a wedding party for the daughter of a shady wizard and I managed to exploit a loop hole in the contract I signed with him to leave to get ingredients and never come back. He was pissed at me for ruining his daughter’s wedding reception and my masters at the School of Flesh and Broth told him “Capture and return our Sous-chef, or else!” So he was my primary antagonist.

But I had a plan! I wrote up a contract for people to sign to try to get them to be my apprentices. By Prime Material Plane standards, I was a genuine gold star level chef. All those poor sods you see competing on Hell’s Kitchen would kill to study under someone of my skill level. Basically, the contract was structured such that if they managed to complete an apprenticeship with me, they should be able to obtain employment with kings, popes and sultans. However, if they failed to complete their apprenticeship, I would own their soul. My goal was to be a complete dick to my apprentices to the point that they would give up and run away and fail to complete their training. Then, when I had a small collection of souls, I could return to the 9 Hells and buy out my contract and get them to stop chasing me.

Sadly, the campaign only lasted three sessions.

A few of my favourite clauses from the contract:

Apprentice certifies that, to the best of their knowledge, their Mortal Soul is in sound and original condition, not bound into their body through any enchantments, curses or blessings of undeath or deathlessness (or other mystical bindings), not owed to any other being of the Lower Planes or other Outer Planar Origin, not claimed by any deity or near-deity for any purpose and in no other ways is it’s transfer into Chef’s lawful possession in the event of a breach (5.0). impeded. Furthermore, that they will NOT promise, commit, sell, license or gift their soul to any third party during the terms of this contract.

Neither party shall be liable for any failure to perform their obligations under this agreement if prevented from doing so by a cause or causes reasonably beyond their control. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, such causes include Acts of deities or near-deities, disruptions to the structure of the planes of existence, infernal war operations (the Blood War), temporal disruptions, Wishes made by third parties or other similar cause or causes which could not with reasonable diligence be controlled or prevented by the party. This clause IN NO WAY waives the obligations of the Apprentice with respect to clause clause 1.1 i.

If Apprentice abandons the apprenticeship due to unanticipated death (2.5), a grace period of 3 days will be granted, during which time Apprentice may be resurrected or otherwise returned to life (including as an undead being), upon which event Apprentice agrees to immediately and without delay return to their Apprenticeship. Failure to do so shall be considered a breach of this contract.

Just to give credit where credit is due, I’m actually running this as a Changling campaign, using the old WoD rules from the 90s. The players are a Motely who work at an Irish Pub owned by their Sidhe patron, who dies unexpectedly and leaves them the pub, which is also a Freehold. It turns out it’s in massive debt in the mortal world and faces various supernatural challenges as well.

I’m encouraging my players to make argumentative and annoying characters and to try to resolve problems with sitcom solutions, rather than combat or conflict.

I wanted to come back and tell you, because I never would have thought of it without you.

That’s awesome. I love the attention to detail for each party member (which is exactly what we would expect from you). I bet there’s a story behind the dragon skull and the piano. I wish I still had my mansion maps from that epic game (it was about ten years ago).

One of the highlights of all D&D games I’ve ever played was

• Finally levelling to the point I could cast 7th level spells, while the party was trapped on some awful demiplane where strange creatures were coming out of cracks in reality and just beating us to shreds.

• Learning Mordenkanen’s Magnificent Mansion.

• Casting it so the party had some where to go rest and escape.

• Taking the party on a tour of the mansion and getting super prissy about it. “Here’s the kitchen. Here’s the living room, no feet on the couch! The guest rooms all have private bathrooms, everybody better wash up, and send your dirty clothes to be laundered before you touch ANY furniture!”

That game continued to epic level and that character (who I had played starting from first level over the course of YEARS) created this spell using the 3.5 Epic Spell development rules. It is the best spell ever.

I’m… stealing that as the title of a module to write and run at my next gaming con…

I used to work for this company:

https://www.renaissanceadventures.com/

I spent 10 years LARPing with kids professionally. Age may be “irrelevant”, but kids imaginations are special.

This meme reminds me of two very specific incidents.

1. We’re running an adventure about zombies. A coworker has a group of six year olds. One of them is late getting picked up and we’re all hanging out together sword fighting with this kid pretending to be zombies. When the kid’s mom finally shows up, he runs up to my coworker, gives her a huge hug and says “I love zombies!”

2. I’m running a group of 8-10 year olds and they’re traveling to a big “good aligned” city in a big “good aligned” kingdom. One of them randomly decides to bust into a farm house, tie up the family, load them into their own donky cart, drive them into the city, haul them out in the center of the town square and start shouting “Slaves! Slaves for sale! Get your slaves here!” At every step of the way, I keep asking the rest of the group if they’re going to do anything about this and they don’t care. So the city watch shows up, overwhelms the party, claps them in irons and they spend the night in jail. When they’re dragged before the magistrate the next day, the rest of the party is indignant, protesting “Why are we in trouble?? We didn’t do anything!” I took great relish in (playing as the magistrate) squinting at them, nodding my head and saying “That… is why you are in trouble!”

Rifts: Your spell doesn’t do MDC, so the darkness is unaffected. Rolls dice. But it looks like the Coalition detected your use of magic…

Nobilis: You have inflicted a wound on Alissa Cavanaugh, Bearer of the Six Daffodils, Walker of the Western Circle, Viscountess of Darkness and Sister of the Familia Vortarax. From out of the darkness falls a white glove, holding a crushed daffodil. It lands at your feet, and from it’s empty fingers spills a scroll that unrolls in front of you, written in letters that are somehow legible, despite being inscribed of Darkness itself. The scroll reads “I know not how I may have wronged you, but this strike against my Estate shall not stand. If you and your Familia be not without honer, meet me on the night of the full moon on the steps of the Great Citadel in City Back, for by the laws of Angels and Devils, shall I have my satisfaction.” It is stamped with the Viscountess’s seal. What do you do?

WEG Star Wars: Spend a Force Point and roll Will. Wait, isn’t your Willpower currently “Battered?” Subtract 1D. Nope, it STILL seems as if the presence of the Dark Side is strong here. But also, you now sense a disturbance in the Force. As if someone, or something, has been alerted to your presence.

MERP: Critical hit. Roll a d100. Um… hang on let me find the table… 97? The darkness is ripped to pieces, it’s body parts scattering in a 2d10 meter radius, covering everything and everyone in dripping gore…

Dark Heresy: You attack the darkness. Gain a corruption point and roll WP or take 1d6 Insanity points. You hear demonic whispers in your head, it sounds like they’re screaming “Blood for the blood god! Skulls for the skull throne!” Also, you’ve alerted the Orks to your squad’s presence. You see a BIG ork come out in front, carrying a really big, red gun…

Tingleverse: The Darkness stares at you in surprise, then smiles. “Is that what you want?” he asks, “Do you want to be rough with me?” From out of his black depths his eyes glow with passionate intensity as you feel him yield before you. “Yes,” says the Darkness, his handsome voice husky with barely suppressed desire. “Yes! Take me! Pound me!” His beautiful asscheeks, darker than the depths of space, part before you. “I want you,” he whispers, “Yes. Show me that love is real, buckaroo!” What do you do?