RPG.NET rant #3 A Night At The Inn, A Day At The Racists

RPG.NET rant #3

A Night At The Inn, A Day At The Racists

originally posted to RPG.net on 08-22-2002 10:31 PM:

WARNING THE FOLLOWING STORY IS TRUE AND IS ALSO VERY VERY POLITICALLY INCORRECT. READ AT YOU OWN PERIL. ALSO BE WARNED SPELLING AND FORMATTING ERRORS ABOUND.

Somehow I found myself back in El Disgusto's basement, Psycho Dave had decided it was his turn to try and run D&D. El Disgusto, Weasly Crusher, Cheating Bastard, Deviant Boy, Short Attention Span Larry and yours truly were the players. I was curious to see how Psycho Dave ran a game. I was sure it couldn't be as bad as Deviant Boy's dungeon where the treasure horde was a room filled with bound naked halflings and staves with Permanency and Grease spells cast on them.
How wrong I was. How wrong I was.


Psycho Dave: "Still shaking from your encounter with the Giant Shrunken Apple Head Woman and make your way to the in. The rain is cold, cold like cold rain."

El Disgusto: "I continue to ride underneath the wagon... ninja style!"

Psycho Dave: "You realize that no one even knows you're there yet."

El Disgusto: "Good."

Psycho Dave: "You do realize this is the third session of the campaign."

El Disgusto: "The ways of the ninja are hard to understand and inscrutable."

Psycho Dave: "Fine. Roll to see if you hang on."

Me: "We need to be on guard, we still don't know who brought us here and why."

Weasly Crusher: "My fighter is ready for anything, except for creatures that drain life levels. I refuse to enter into any dungeons or tombs."

Me: "Uh, you know this game is DUNGEONS and dragons."

Weasly Crusher: "I worked too damn hard to be second level to loose it over some damn wraith."

Short Attention Span Larry: "Hey cool! Cinemax!"

Deviant Boy: "Hey cool! Shannon Whirry!"

Me: "Are you here to game or what?"

Short Attention Span Larry: "I can do both. Just let me know when its my turn to fight the Shrunken Apple head Woman."

Psycho Dave: "After a few more hours of travel you finally find yourselves at the Inn. This is the place where you will finally meet with your employer the mysterious wizard Shickelgruber in the morning."

Cheating Bastard: "Why is that name so familiar?"

Me: "I stop the wagon in front of the Inn."

Psycho Dave: "Roll for it."

Me: "This is getting a little out of hand now."

Psycho Dave: "Roll for it."

Me: "I need to roll to stop the damn wagon?"

Psycho Dave: "You're the one that said that you were just all of a sudden stopping the wagon. Ever heard of slowing down before you stop."

Me: "I didn't think I had to be that specific. Ok I slow the wagon down and-"

Psycho Dave: "Too late. You said it. Roll to see if you can stop the wagon without crashing, or do you want to bitch and whine some more."

(Roll)

Me: "Crap."

Psycho Dave: "OK the cart flips over. Everyone else make a save versus death. Yes you too Larry."


As you can see I soon realized that Psycho Dave ran a game in roughly the same way that Warwick Davis in the film Leprechaun granted wishes. Everything you said your character did was scrutinized for some way to screw you over and the dice ruled all. He was the only guy I know who used a random monster encounter chart for Call of Cthulhu. You haven't lived until you've had a character go mad because he saw a nightgaunt sitting in a restroom stall reading a copy of the Necrnomicon.



(Roll)(Roll)(Wander over to the table and Roll)(Roll)(Roll and a nudge)

Cheating Bastard: "A perfect 20!"

Weasly Crusher: "I can't believe the wagon fell on my head."

Cheating Bastard: "I can't believe your eyeball popped out, what kind of crit tables are these?"

Psycho Dave: "The manly kind. I've been coddling you with those Arduin critical hit tables for too damn long."

Short Attention Span Larry: "Am I bleeding to death?"

Psycho Dave: "No."

El Disgusto: "Since my ninja was under the wagon I sprint into the shadows and observe the party.

Psycho Dave: "Roll for it."

(Roll)

Short Attention Span Larry: "Am I bleeding to death?"

Me: "Uh... where is Lamont?"

El Disgusto: "My parents took him camping. Get this, the damn vet says the dog is suffering from stress. Stress! What the frig does a damn dog have to be stressed out about?"

Deviant Boy: "Well if I could lick myself I sure wouldn't-"

Me: "Why didn't you go?"

El Disgusto: "Camping? Why would I want to go camping? Nature kills! Haven't you learned anything the wilderness encounters tables?"

Deviant Boy: "I walk into the Inn for a drink."

Me: "What about the wagon?"

Deviant Boy: "Leave it it's not like we paid for it or anything."

Psycho Dave: "So you all walk to the Inn? Make a dexterity check to see if you slip in the mud."

Short Attention Span Larry: "Am I bleeding to death?"

(Roll)(Roll)(Wander over to the table and Roll)(Roll)(Roll and a Nudge)


The Inn was a kind of medieval strip club with all the wenches wearing thongs and dog collars and that's about it. We found a table and got drinks and waited for the wizard to arrive. Some of the girls tried to offer us lap dances, those who got them had to Save versus Petrifaction.


Me: "I survey the room and take a drink."

Psycho Dave: "Save versus poison to see if you get drunk."

Me: "No! This is bullshit!"

Psycho Dave: "Just roll the damn dice for God's sake."

Me: "I'm a dwarf! A dwarf! There is no way that a Dwarf would get drunk on some pissant human ale."

Psycho Dave: "Hmmmm. I see your point."

Short Attention Span Larry: "What have you got to drink here?"

El Disgusto: "Nothing."

Short Attention Span Larry: "Didn't your parents leave you any food?"

El Disgusto: "They left me some cash for groceries but I decided it was better spent on Warhammer minis."

Short Attention Span Larry: "Ok I'll get a glass of water."

El Disgusto: "The HELL you will. If you dirty any of those glasses I will have to wash them and I am not going there. Drink from the tap or not at all."

Weasly Crusher: "I look for someone to pick on."

Cheating Bastard: "I help him."

Psycho Dave: "Make detect traps roll."

Deviant Boy: "I buy one of the wenches for the night."

Psycho Dave: "Make a Charisma check.... oh and Ab3 roll a d20."

(roll)(roll)

Psycho Dave: "Ok you find a companion for the night and Ab3, you failed your Save versus poison and get stinking drunk."


Being drunk in a game like this is not a good thing, the GM 'simulated' drunken behavior by letting each of the other players dictate what your character did for five minutes. So as my dwarf sang show tunes while dangling from a chandelier with a half-full spittoon on his head. The night at the Inn rolled on.


Me: "You know it's like midnight now, maybe we should just fast forward ahead to the morning so we can meet the wizard."

El Disgusto: "Oooo! Oooo! His dwarf is all drunk and now he's whining!"

Me: "I am not whining and hey at least my character is involved with the party."

El Disgusto: "You're just pissed because you're not a ninja. How are things looking on the roof anyway?"

Psycho Dave: "It's still raining."

Deviant Boy: "Hey I'm taking that saloon whore John Norman style."

Short Attention Span Larry: "Who?"

Deviant Boy: "John Norman... wrote the Gor novels... they taught me everything I needed to know about women."

Me: "So how is that whole restraining order thing working out anyway?"

Deviant Boy: "I'm done with her. I think this girl from the movie theater is hot for me though. There's something about the way she says to me 'Want Butter Flavoring'?"

Weasly Crusher: "What about me? When do I get my barfight?"

Psycho Dave: "Well you do see this scrawny nervous looking kid at the bar."

Weasly Crusher: "I walk up to the kid and give him a shove."

Cheating Bastard: "I follow him."

Psycho Dave: "The kid is at the bar nursing a Shirley Temple."

Me: "I don't think that a medieval tavern would serve Shirley Temples."

Psycho Dave: "Fine. He is drinking an Ye Ole Shirley Temple."

Weasly Crusher: "I shove him."

Psycho Dave: "Roll to hit."

(roll)

Cheating Bastard: "I tell the kid- 'He doesn't like you.'."

Psycho Dave: "The kid cringes and says 'I'm sorry.'."

Weasly Crusher: "I shove him again!"

Cheating Bastard: "I say 'I don't like you either. You just watch yourself. We're wanted men. I have the death sentence in twelve kingdoms...'"


I knew where this was going, I think Weasly Crusher was the only one who didn't realize. The only thing really surprising about the whole thing was that thanks to Psycho Dave's homebrewed Crits and Fumbles tables his Samurai somehow managed to behead himself. Eventually my character regained some degree of sobriety and retreated to his room to wait for the morning and the dread wizard Shickelgruber but the night at the Inn had no end in sight.


Psycho Dave: "You fail your roll and slip in a puddle of blood. Roll a d6 to see how many teeth are knocked out."

Cheating Bastard: "I challenge the damn Viking to an arm wrestling match!"

Weasly Crusher: "They say your head can live a little while detached from your body, I try to call on my god."

Deviant Boy: "I'm still doing the saloon whore!"

Me: "I would think you'd be sleeping by now."

Deviant Boy: "My character is like me, he can do it for two three hours before he finishes. Women love that."

Me: "Really?"

Deviant Boy: "Especially Canadian women."

Short Attention Span Larry: "Is it ok if I look through your comics?"

El Disgusto: "Is it Ok if I beat you with the Stick of Pain? My ninja breaks into their rooms and snoops around."

Psycho Dave: "Roll for it."

(roll)

Me: "Why can't you just meet up with the damn party and not do all this weird stuff?"

El Disgusto: "He's a ninja! I'm ROLE-PLAYING!"

Cheating Bastard: "I head up to my room. I want to get that Resurrection Scroll out of my Bag of Holding."

Weasly Crusher: "Geez how many magic items does your character have?"

Cheating Bastard: "Ninety-six."


How did he end up with 96 magic items? Allow me to explain. The way they set up high level D&D games in my neck of the woods was to have you roll up your character and then roll once on the treasure tables for each level they needed your character to start at. Psycho Dave had planned his campaign for 12th level characters and above, so Cheating Bastard's character was a 12th level Wizard-Cleric-Fighter-Thief-Illusionist-Druid-Ranger-Bard with limited Psionic abilities. His explanation, really lucky die rolls had allowed his magic user to get ahold of a Wish Ring with the maximum wishes. The Wishes had prolonged his life and allowed him to pursue multiple career paths so that now he had a small magic arsenal stored in a Spelljammer craft that he had held in a bag of holding.
A good thirty minutes of game time was eaten up by this long drawn out explanation of the origin of the 12th Level Everything man. I suggested that we all have our characters go to sleep so we can meet with our employer the morning but no one else seemed to be interested. Deviant Boy kept going into lurid detail about his escapades with his girl for the night. Weasly Crusher kept whining about his head. Short Attention Span Larry kept quiet, no surprise since he was busy trying to play the game, watch Star Trek and read a Gor novel. El Disgusto continued to break into our character's rooms and pilfer our things, until he crossed paths with Cheating Bastard's bag of holding. Cheating Bastard kept his familiar in the bag as a kind of guard dog. So the stealthy ninja ended up having his ass handed to him by a Quasit permanently polymorphed into Rush Limbaugh.
I didn't understand that last bit either but I couldn't bring myself to ask.


El Disgusto: "Untie me! The other ninjas know I'm here!"

Cheating Bastard: "Once he's tied down face first on the bed I check and see how the fireplace pokers are heating up."

Psycho Dave: "Roll a d20."

(roll nudge)

Cheating Bastard: "I'm so awesome, another natural twenty!"

Psycho Dave: "The pokers are white hot."

El Disgusto: "You can't do this to me! I'm a ninja!"

Cheating Bastard: "I get the hottest, sharpest looking poker and approach the bed."

Me: "Why are we doing this?"

Cheating Bastard: "I'm teaching him a valuable lesson."

El Disgusto: "My character flexes every muscle in my body at once!"

Psycho Dave: "Why?"

El Disgusto: "To weaken the ropes! What are you stupid?"

Cheating Bastard: "My character presses the end of the hot poker against the ninja's buttcheeks."

El Disgusto: "You'll pay for this! You'll all pay for this! Hastur! Hastur! Hastur! Hastur! Hastur! Hastur!"


I for one never thought I would be glad to see the arrival of a member of the Cthulhu Mythos. Hastur showed up and stomped on the Inn killing everyone. I don't ever recall being so happy but sadly in a game like this death is fleeting, only trauma and humiliation endure.
The party found themselves resurrected in the crater where the Inn had been. A figure in brown and black robes stared at us. After some preliminary insults he led us through a strange looking portal.


Psycho Dave: "The Wizard Shickelgruber leads you through a portal and you find yourself on a wasted landscape. Tall dark chimneys belch ashes into the sky. The air is filled with the stench of burning flesh."

Cheating Bastard: "You sure we're not smelling the ninja's ass?"

El Disgusto (Waving the Stick of Pain): "Don't make me use this!"

Psycho Dave: "All around you strange devices and men in dark uniforms are walking around doing stuff. The wizard explains that he needs your help to get the Wand of Orcus."

Weasly Crusher: "Why?"

Psycho Dave: "To explain the wizard leads you through a metal gate with the words WORK LIBERATES engraved into it. He takes you to this huge pit filled with emaciated bodies. he explains to you that he needs to use the Wand to turn these bodies into undead so he can beat back the armies invading his land."

Me (My high school education kicked in right about then): "Wait just a goddamn minute here-"

Psycho Dave: "The wizard pulls back his cloak revealing his piercing blue eyes and small dark moustache."

Me: "We're in a concentration camp? So we can help Hitler win the war?"

Deviant Boy: "What's he paying us?"

Psycho Dave: "Gold teeth."

Me: "You're kidding right? You can't be serious."

Cheating Bastard: "This is cool, kind of a 'Shindler's Lich'"

Me: "This is unbelievable! I wasted six hours of my life for this?"

Psycho Dave: "Yes it is unbelievable but we're here to play a game not debate the so-called Holocaust."

Weasly Crusher: "How many gold teeth does it take to make a gold piece anyway?"


Very calmly and quietly I began to pack up my papers and dice. I promised myself I was just going to leave, not make another scene. I didn't know if I'd ever game again, I was pretty sure I had hit rock bottom. It didn't feel like I had expected.


Short Attention Span Larry: "Hey you big liar! I thought you didn't have anything but water. Look at all these bottles of Mountain Dew you have stowed under the stairs."

El Disgusto: "Stay away from those!"

Short Attention Span Larry: "What's the big deal, I just want a glass or two. Heck I'm so thirsty I'll give you a buck for the whole damn bottle."

El Disgusto: "No! You don't understand! That's not Mountain Dew."

Short Attention Span Larry (Pausing in unscrewing the cap on one of the bottles): "Huh?"

El Disgusto: "It's- it's urine."

Me: "That's funny I thought you said urine."

El Disgusto: "It is urine, I don't like to go upstairs to the bathroom when I'm watching TV so I go in the bottles and throw them away later."


Being a wannabe horror writer I often describe people having skin-crawling sensations, I had never truly experienced it until that very moment. I looked around the room, realizing now that there half-full bottles stashed everywhere. Some were crusted with age and other substances.

This I realized was rock bottom.



Me: "When do you throw these bottles away?"

El Disgusto: "I'll get around to it sometime."

Me: "I need to go home now. I need to go take a shower."

Psycho Dave: "What about the game?"

Me: "I trip and fall on my sword-"

Psycho Dave: "Roll for it."

Me: "I fall on my sword again and again- UNTIL THE HURTING
STOPS!!!"

And then I went home and never, ever played D&D again and I certainly never drank another bottle of Mountain Dew.