Here we go, greatest hits: good, bad, funny and everything in between. These are our stories, the ones we tell around the table to our old and new RPG friends and even to those that don’t play. These are our legends, our moments of epic triumph and failure; these are the funny moments that stopped a game short because no one could stop laughing or were too teary-eyed to continue.
As always, if you want to see your stories in a future Issue, just Contact Us and we’ll make it happen!
EAT IT, LINK!
My Role: Player
System: Legend of the Five Rings
Relevant Info: If a player overcomes a Target Number difficulty by a lot, it’s considered an Epic Roll. This usually means an increase in damage or effect, but it could also mean fun stuff happens.
When I first joined this campaign, I didn’t play using my own character, but that of a friend. He couldn’t make it and it was the last session before another member of the group left the country, so we had to play. I was there and took control of his Crab Clan Ninja badass.
Infiltrating a corrupted temple in the Shadowlands, we found secret passages and avoided most of the guards. The passage led to a room with two Oni guards and there was no way around them. Being the scout, I was the closest one, so it was my turn to attack, stepping between the monsters to hit the left one.
I rolled my dice and not only overcame the creatures’ armor, but also scored an Epic roll. I rolled for damage and dealt twice its hit points total, so with that and the epic roll the GM said I had also killed the other one.
When the others asked how it looked, I took over and told them: “I pulled a ‘Link’, I Spin-Slashed them, cutting them in half!”
DEAF EARS
My Role: Player
System: Legend of the Five Rings
Relevant Info: Some players just don’t listen
The campaign was Shadowlands focused, so we were infiltrating yet another dark temple. This time around however, I was playing my own character, a Phoenix Shugenja (a mix of priest and sorcerer) and the party’s only caster.
Once inside, I quickly identified the runes and sigils lining the walls and told the rest of the group that they were magical alarms and they would go off if I even attempted to cast a spell.
In the first large room, we hid behind pillars and waited for the two patrols to either get out of sight or come closer to take care of them. One patrol came closer and the other stayed on the far side. Our resident ninjas took care of the closing patrol but managed to kill only one of the guards, the surviving one alerting his comrades.
With the other patrol running towards us, the group’s Glass Cannon, a Lion Bushi (Swordsman) told us his plan: “I’ll rush them, kill one of them for sure. The other will drop me, and then the Shugenja heals me…” The GM said nothing and he rolled dice and did the actions while he spoke, giving me no time to remind him.
The Lion rushed the guards and butchered the first, but left himself open to the other’s attack. The damage was enough to drop him, but one of our NPC companions put the guard down before he could deliver the finishing blow.
Once the combat ended, the Lion started pestering me for healing and we all looked at him funny. “I can’t cast!” I told him, and he replied, “Since when?” And then in unison the entire room said “From the start!”
When I was explaining everything about the sigils and the alarm system, he was too busy checking numbers on his character sheet and didn’t pay even a little bit of attention, resulting in his near-death experience.
We had to drag his sorry ass with us until we found a secret passage with no sigils, where I could patch them all up. After that, he made sure to pay attention.
On a side note, for me it was a pain in the ass session, because I couldn’t do much. The upside was my character was as much a menace with a Sword as he was with magic.
J’accuse! (aka FTS!)
My Role: Player
System: Legend of the Five Rings
On the same mission as before, we closely avoided the Big Bag Trio, three NPCs over whose heads I could almost see “Final Boss” signs. Climbing the different levels of the temple, we finally reached a room where we found the target of our mission, a missing Samurai, a beautiful and very badass woman (like most in Rokugan).
She told us to go, that her mission wasn’t complete yet, but I noticed something iffy about her and on a kickass perception roll, I noticed her skin looked strange, as if it didn’t fit her body correctly. Even worse, I saw there were ‘seams’ in it. I rolled for knowledge and identified her as a Bog Hag, wearing the skin of our lost warrior. I called it out and the Crab Ninja quickly cut her in half, but her death scream called all the guards to the room and we’d lost the stealth factor.
Guards started coming from above and below and our only escape option was reaching the sewers and leaving through there. Fighting was impossible, but even so I was grinning madly. When they asked me what I was so happy about, I just told them: “I can cast!”
It then became obvious to all of us why the GM had set up those magic alarms just to counter me: I was highly destructive. Between earthquakes and fireballs we made our way down blowing shit up, eventually jumping and rappelling down the space between stairs and then to the sewers.
With guards and Oni right behind us, I collapsed the sewers on top of them as we reached the entrance, with a combination of Fire and Earth spells.
No one came after us and I never stopped grinning!
