I have been working on my
NaNoWriMo novel using Dungeons & Dragons mechanics because I am not very creative and want my scenarios to be a little more haphazard. Well, with all this re-immersion in role-playing, along with
The Spoony One's Counter Monkey Stories, I have been reliving many of my own role-playing tales.
If you have never played D&D or any role-playing game, think of it this way: it's a play where all the actors have not read the script, most of their actions are dependent on a roll of dice, and a narrator (GM, Game Master, or DM, Dungeon Master; the guy describing the action) is your asshole friend. Role-playing stories are often entertaining because with a good GM the roll of the dice can be awesome to behold ("You cut the dragon in half with your fist while cursing his mother!") or just plain goofy ("You miss the dragon completely and hit yourself in the balls."). Most of the time the game is rather mundane ("You hit the dragon and it takes 5 damage"). A good GM makes it challenging while telling a story. A bad GM will either try to kill your characters or softball you in a cut and paste story. For the most part, my GM was a good guy that chose the wrong group to play with.
I really only played in three real campaigns: a D&D game that ended with Thunderdome and total party kill, a D20 Modern game that ended with a sniper and rocks falling in a major metropolitan area, and a LARP I guested in where I was an invisible fairy and Santa Claus in the same night. This story is part of the D20 Modern game and a guy that I will refer to as the "Worstest Medic Ever" or WME.
D20 Modern is essentially D&D in a modern setting where your characters come from all walks of life. Magic can be involved, but it is often under-powered and almost useless (if you want a modern/future RPG with magic, play Shadowrun). The players are gathered together in a crew to pull a heist, save a hostage, or any other modern scenario. Our crew included a lone gunfighter/gambler, a noble Marine sniper, an ex-Mob assassin, and the Worstest Medic Ever.
Now, I do not remember the whole story, but somehow we ran afoul The Mob. While out on a heist for the MacGuffin Thingie in the museum, we were ambushed. Through a series of really bad rolls, everyone was knocked out except the medic. The medic, instead of trying to revive our players like a fucking medic, leveled the shotgun he had no skill in using and attempted to take on the six badass dudes that had just cut down his partners. He lost.
Little background. The guy playing the medic did not understand how to play a medic. He wanted to run into every scenario guns blazing and healing himself like Rambo chewing on stuff that would make a billy goat puke. As much as we attempted to explain to him that he was a support character, he would not have it. In any other game of D&D, this would result in natural selection, the character would get his dumbass killed and learn from the experience. Normally. In this case, the WME had the luckiest damn rolls I had ever seen. He ran into rooms full of enemies and somehow walked out free and clear every damn time. If he got near death, he would roll to damn near defibrillate himself back to life. The GM wanted him out of the way, and the ambush was how he planned to do it.
The ambush was a setup by the GM. We were destined to lose. Why? The Mob needed a medic because the head of the family was dying. After they took us all down, they kidnapped the WME and took him to their stronghold. They would make him save The Boss, accidentally feed him some information we would need to know, then tie him to a chair in the basement to wait for the rescue party. Several scenes of fun roleplay for the WME to get the game back on track interspersed with us fighting to get into the stronghold. Once we rescued him, we would all kill The Boss, therefore taking down The Mob and walk off into the night as heroes. It was a good plan by the GM. Damn it if not for free will.
Here's what really happened: the crew woke up to find the WME missing. We noticed a homeless guy standing by that witnessed the entire thing, including hearing who took him. The ex-Mob assassin guy had knowledge of where The Boss lived and that it was lightly guarded due to his arrogance (or something). We went to gear up to kill bunches o' mo-fo's.
Meanwhile, the WME woke up being dragged into a very posh bedroom. Armed men surrounded him. On the bed was a very sick old man. He was told to fix The Boss or die. He fought one of the guards and got a gun, holding The Boss at gunpoint. The guards overwhelmed him and (because it was a good role-playing) the GM said The Boss was impressed and repeated the offer of fix him or die. The WME attempted to poison The Boss medically, but failed. Due to his repeated insolence, he was taken down to the basement and handcuffed to a chair. On the way to the basement, he learns that if The Boss had died, all them men would probably defect to the other mob in town due to non-payment or something. Effectively, all the WME had to do was wait to be rescued then tell the crew to kill The Boss and all this would be over.
This was the point where the crew was supposed to assault the stronghold where the men were fighting half-assed. Easy, to be sure, but we all just wanted to get into the story and finish the campaign. But the WME had other plans.
Turns out he took a bunch of skills in acrobatics and lock picking. Why a paramedic would need to pick locks or do acrobatic stunts is beyond me, but the GM had allowed the character to be built that way so he let the guy try. The WME failed to pick the lock of his handcuffs, but he did manage to stand up in such a way that allowed him to move around. The door to the basement had been left open, so he decided to make his own way out. Keep in mind this meant walking with his hands cuffed behind his back to a chair.
He gets out of the basement and stumbles into a guard. Somehow, he fights the guy to the floor and knocks his gun away. Then he utters a phrase that even left the GM stumped.
"I'm gonna try to use my medical knowledge to bite his throat out."
Yep. This guy decided his medic, handcuffed to a chair and duck walking around an enemy stronghold, had lost his damn mind and could use his medical know-how to rip a man's throat out with his teeth.
The GM, in an "are you shitting me" position, told him he could either try to attack like a madman or use his knowledge, but not both. If you are that out of your mind, you do not get to use your mind. So the medic decides to try to use the chair to knock the guy out.
He fails. Sorta.
What he manages to do is trap the guard underneath him while he sat on the chair. Now he is full blown trapped, if he moves the guy can get up and beat him down. At this point I think the GM just wanted to have a funny scene for us to come across. But WME is not done.
He figures that because now he is sitting down he can use his knowledge to cause as much pain to the guy as possible so the guard would pass out. He passes his check and begins repeatedly and savagely kicking the man in the groin.
The GM gives in. He tells WME that this is what he is doing for the rest of the encounter. The crew goes into action, using explosives to cause a diversion and the assassins knowledge of the base to guide us to the medic. We find him, still kicking the defenseless man in the groin. It turns out the man the WME has been torturing is the assassin's friend who he promised to help get out of The Mob. In a rage, the assassin kills WME with one shot to the head. All that struggling wasted.
We continue, the tortured friend telling us about the sick Boss. We go upstairs, cap the old man, set fire to the stronghold and go home. The campaign continued (far longer than it should have, ending in TPK) but WME was never, ever revived and the guy playing him soon quit the game.
Here's the lesson: Know your role when role-playing. If you play a medic, then heal people. If you want to kill guys, take a class that kills folk. You are part of a group, not a lone man. Also, the GM might be your friend, but if you fuck with his story your character will meet an untimely end.
Yesterday marked the passing of George Whitman, owner of the Paris bookstore Shakespeare and Company. The world has lost a treasure. I fear this passing is indicative of the passing of a generation, a lifestyle of print media. May we continue with our electronic books with wild abandon but remember those free markets that came before us. NYTimes
The Palmyra Public Library of Palmyra, PA has entered into a fundraising agreement with the Stream Energy electrical company. The agreement is simple, the library switches to Stream Energy (nope, not "steam," I read it wrong at first and thought of librarian's shoveling coal) and convinces their patrons to also do the switch. For every patron they get to switch, they get $4 per month for however long that person keeps an account. 