187 réponses à ce sujet

[Vortex13]

What are you favorite moments from table top gaming? Share your stories with the community; I'll go first.

 

 

One of my favorite PnP RPG characters was when my group and I played First Edition Gamma World; a post apocalyptic setting (Think Fallout). Instead of being confined to a set class or a set race I was able to create my own character and work it into the group dynamics.

 

I decided on playing as a giant mutated ant. My ant character actually won the draw on benifical mutations vs harmful ones; in Gamma World you have a mutation table that you role on to see what types of powers you get; which is part of the reason why I chose to be a mutated animal. In the game mutants are persecuted and/or feared, mutant animals even moreso.

 

I was not particularly good at combat, and my social skills were non-existant to the world outside my party; NPCs saw my character as a mindless beast at best, or a horible abomination at worst. If one had to assign an offical 'class' to my ant character it would have been pack mule, since I was an ant I could carry the entire party's inventory as well as a few members of the party.  

So far sounds pretty dull, but what I really enjoyed roleplaying that character was not how good I was at combat, or what 'role' I necessarily brought to the party, it was how my character interacted with my party, and how I roleplayed the character's motivations. 

One of my abilites was a limited form of telepathy (more on that later) and one of our party members was a mutant human with empathic abilites. So it was decided that I would be able to 'talk' through him; which also opened up potential for inner-party conflict. Since he was the only one that could understand me, he could purposely misintrupret my communications; he was the rouge-ish member of the party.

 

One of the other members of my group played as a small pure human boy, and he would always want to ride on the big ant. So the motivations I worked out with him was that my character felt a paternal instinct to protect his character. As the campaign progressed, I started to work out what my character would want to do for the long term; would I continue to travel with the party, protecting the young boy? Or would my ant want to establish a colony, and start building up a power base?

The powers that my ant had were:

Improved Strength: This normally would add 2 d 12 to my melee attacks, but me and the GM worked that into my carrying capacity, mostly becuase I had no real combat abilites and because I was playing as an ant. Mecanics-wise I could carry up to 2 tons before I even had to roll a strength check.

Symbiotic Touch: This mutation allowed my character to actually gain complete control over any creature that I attacked in melee (I roleplayed it as biting) and then holding onto my target for 3 rounds. Once in control, as long as I maintaned connection with my host I could use all of their physical and mental abilities. This initally struck my party as slightly OP, but considering that my character had the lowest armor and health of the group (only had my natual armor, people didn't make ant sized body armor) and that I had to succeed at a melee attack and maintain connection for 3 rounds, balanced it out in the end.

This power also was the one that enabled me to communicate with one of the human mutants in the party, since the GM said that the ability would more or less be "on" all the time and mutants with telepathy or empathic abilites could "pick up" my signal; though I would still have to touch them if I wanted to mind control them.

Roleplaying-wise I only used it in very rare instances since it tended to freak out NPCs as well as my party members. A party member with the possibility of permently mind controling people (if I held on to them) doesn't live very long if they run around openly using their power.

Direction Sense: My ant could never get lost, pretty self explanatory.

Wall Walk: I could climb sheer surfaces without making climbing checks. This coupled with my improved stength proved invaluable to the team when we had to break into a mutant fortress, as I could carry the team (one or two at a time) up the cliff that the fortress was built into.

[Elhanan]

On her first session in my friends ongoing PnP FRPG, my ex did an outstanding job of listening and paying attention to the DM's instructions, descriptions and storytelling. This led to one of my fave moments in gaming.

 

After carefully constructing her PC with his guidance, our party had travelled to a distant location to a dungeon location, was successful in finding a great haul, and was making our way back to our city via caravan. We had several pack animals; all fairly laden with choice loot. However, our DM had plans on relieving some of this burden by having the only bridge removed from the river due to recent flooding in the region, forcing us to choose what we could try to carry ourselves and cross the river

 

While discussing which treasure and items were a priority and which could be discarded, my ex broke her silence by asking if her boat could be useful. And Yes; she indeed had purchased a boat during her initial shopping spree, which had been OK'd by the DM, evidently overlooking that specific item on her list. And the laughter from all of the Players while the DM smoldered at having to allow one of our greatest hauls was tremendous!

 

But not as grand as the hilarity at our glee at immediately being told we had made it back to home without any more random encounters. When asked why he skipped the last weeks worth of checks, the DM irritatingly stated that nothing was foolish enough to take on an army. What army? Why the one we seemingly appeared to look like from the dust created by a caravan dragging a boat!

 

[Vortex13]

On her first session in my friends ongoing PnP FRPG, my ex did an outstanding job of listening and paying attention to the DM's instructions, descriptions and storytelling. This led to one of my fave moments in gaming.

 

After carefully constructing her PC with his guidance, our party had travelled to a distant location to a dungeon location, was successful in finding a great haul, and was making our way back to our city via caravan. We had several pack animals; all fairly laden with choice loot. However, our DM had plans on relieving some of this burden by having the only bridge removed from the river due to recent flooding in the region, forcing us to choose what we could try to carry ourselves and cross the river

 

While discussing which treasure and items were a priority and which could be discarded, my ex broke her silence by asking if her boat could be useful. And Yes; she indeed had purchased a boat during her initial shopping spree, which had been OK'd by the DM, evidently overlooking that specific item on her list. And the laughter from all of the Players while the DM smoldered at having to allow one of our greatest hauls was tremendous!

 

But not as grand as the hilarity at our glee at immediately being told we had made it back to home without any more random encounters. When asked why he skipped the last weeks worth of checks, the DM irritatingly stated that nothing was foolish enough to take on an army. What army? Why the one we seemingly appeared to look like from the dust created by a caravan dragging a boat!

 

 

 

I love when a DM forgets to take into account the players' abilities at getting out of tight situations. 

 

Though I will say that your DM sounds a lot nicer then some the ones I've had.

 

I remember a game of Traveller that my group and I played, I rolled up a scientist, succeeded in making it all the way through character creation (you can die in Traveller's CC) and managed to earn a Science Vessel as part of my character's retirement. Naturally I was thrilled to have my own Science ship, with it I could achieve my character's dream of creating an artificial intelligence; his colleges said it couldn't be done, that it was against the law, etc. but my man of science would not listen, I had the means to make my dreams a reality.

 

Unfortunately, our GM said that the Science vessel was on lone to a research company located in some far off star system, one that would take a six month round trip to get to. Luckily, it was the same system that the rest of the party had to go to for our assignment, so my character grudgingly endured the low brow antics of the rest of the crew (they were soldiers, and asteroid miners) with the knowledge that he could achieve his prize at the end of the journey.

 

Upon reaching our destination we discovered that the research company's personnel aboard my science vessel wouldn't respond to our hails. Forming a search party we entered the ship and discovered that it was overrun with genetically engineered monstrosities that had slaughtered the research group. My party quickly decided to take the Aliens approach and returned to our ship to bomb it from a safe distance.

 

So not only did my Scientist have to endure the oafish antics of the crew for three months, but when he finally arrives at his goal, the rest of the party immediately blows it up. Needless to say my character did not take that too well. 

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

My favorite PnP character of all time was the player character I played through the Call Of Cthulhu: Last Rites as. A CoC character named... Scooby.

 

Yes, that's right. I played a CoC campaign where the PCs were CoC versions of the protagonists from Scooby Doo. And it was exactly as epic as it sounds, right down to the final boss-fight, in which Velma destroyed the Final Boss in two shots. The first was a shotgun blast that did precisely nothing due to the final boss's immunity to bullets. The second was when Velma took the spear on which she had stored the heads of two of the boss's previous victims, and slammed it really hard into the boss's own skull. This did precisely as much damage as the final boss had HP. Everyone laughed for a full minute.

[Vortex13]

My favorite PnP character of all time was the player character I played through the Call Of Cthulhu: Last Rites as. A CoC character named... Scooby.

 

Yes, that's right. I played a CoC campaign where the PCs were CoC versions of the protagonists from Scooby Doo. And it was exactly as epic as it sounds, right down to the final boss-fight, in which Velma destroyed the Final Boss in two shots. The first was a shotgun blast that did precisely nothing due to the final boss's immunity to bullets. The second was when Velma took the spear on which she had stored the heads of two of the boss's previous victims, and slammed it really hard into the boss's own skull. This did precisely as much damage as the final boss had HP. Everyone laughed for a full minute.

 

 

Wow Scooby Doo Mysteries and Call of Cthulhu. Two things I never pictured happening in the same universe 

 

So was Scooby a talking Great Dane, or just a guy that really liked dogs and had a really raspy voice?

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

Wow Scooby Doo Mysteries and Call of Cthulhu. Two things I never pictured happening in the same universe 

 

So was Scooby a talking Great Dane, or just a guy that really liked dogs and had a really raspy voice?

Talking Great Dane. Apparently he'd been exposed to the mythos previously, which is pretty weird since I and apparently Shaggy's player had assumed they were fresh off normal, non-paranormal Scooby Doo type activities.

 

As for the rest of it, I hadn't pictured this before the GM floated the idea either. Apparently he wasn't the first to think of it, though: Here is where we got the character sheets we used.

[Eurypterid]

Wow, Gamma World! I remember that one. Ever play Traveller? That was another one my group played,

 

Anyway, one memory that sticks in my mind was when our group got together and played the Tomb of Horrors module. I was playing my Elf character that I'd had for a long time and was I think around level 11 or so. Anyway, we get deep into the module and I'm carrying some great items that I wanted to abscond with so decide to teleport out to freedom and safety, leaving the rest of my party to the deadly traps and monsters of the tomb. I make the roll for the spell, with only a double zero as the sole chance for error. Of course, you can guess what I rolled. Teleported right into solid rock. No chance for resurrection. Character is permanently dead. I couldn't believe it. The rest of my group were crying from laughter. Man, was I pissed. But after a while I saw the humor of it and we continued on (we were each playing two characters, so I continued with the other one).

 

I'll never forget watching those two ten-sided dice both turn up zeroes.

[Ridwan]

Every session. Our group is not so serious, and we have a ton of fun laughing our asses off at everything.

 

I think one of the few things that stood out, is my characters bad luck with women. *flirt with woman and tell tales of my exploits* DM "Roll for a diplomacy check" *rolls a 1* DM "Well despite your nice speech you gave off a creepy vibe, stared very obviously at her breast and made her scared" it's become an ongoing joke now in our group.

[Elhanan]

Recall in the same PnP game (though not the same session) that the DM had our higher lvl characters in a rather precarious situation. The DM had determined that my PC had made some situational mishap while rescuing a member of the party, and gave me a one percent chance of survival vs Death.

 

The party was split at the time; in two separate areas, and our gaming group was now located in two separate rooms. Our DM had special die crafted for his own use; black with red pips. And I was to make the fateful roll in full view with these die to him and the few members of my team. He asked high or low; whether I wanted a roll of 1 or 00, and I chose the latter. And to our surprise and astonishment, those black and red gemstones of impending doom came up 00!!!

 

The remaining gang mentioned they could hear me cheering and laughing all the way down the dorm hallway!

 

[Vortex13]

Wow, Gamma World! I remember that one. Ever play Traveller? That was another one my group played,

 

Anyway, one memory that sticks in my mind was when our group got together and played the Tomb of Horrors module. I was playing my Elf character that I'd had for a long time and was I think around level 11 or so. Anyway, we get deep into the module and I'm carrying some great items that I wanted to abscond with so decide to teleport out to freedom and safety, leaving the rest of my party to the deadly traps and monsters of the tomb. I make the roll for the spell, with only a double zero as the sole chance for error. Of course, you can guess what I rolled. Teleported right into solid rock. No chance for resurrection. Character is permanently dead. I couldn't believe it. The rest of my group were crying from laughter. Man, was I pissed. But after a while I saw the humor of it and we continued on (we were each playing two characters, so I continued with the other one).

 

I'll never forget watching those two ten-sided dice both turn up zeroes.

 

Traveller was fun, not so much for my character, but fun for me lol.

 

Your story sounds pretty typical of what happens to me after a night of awesome rolls. I spend a whole night with my character reveling in the spoils of great rolls and critical successes, but right when I really need to pass a check, or land an attack, thats when the dice decides to screw me. 

[Vortex13]

Talking Great Dane. Apparently he'd been exposed to the mythos previously, which is pretty weird since I and apparently Shaggy's player had assumed they were fresh off normal, non-paranormal Scooby Doo type activities.

 

As for the rest of it, I hadn't pictured this before the GM floated the idea either. Apparently he wasn't the first to think of it, though: Here is where we got the character sheets we used.

 

Wow. That is some in depth explanation as to why Scooby can talk lol.

[Vortex13]

Every session. Our group is not so serious, and we have a ton of fun laughing our asses off at everything.

 

I think one of the few things that stood out, is my characters bad luck with women. *flirt with woman and tell tales of my exploits* DM "Roll for a diplomacy check" *rolls a 1* DM "Well despite your nice speech you gave off a creepy vibe, stared very obviously at her breast and made her scared" it's becoming and ongoing joke now in our group.

 

 

Oh fumbling on social checks, yeah I have had my share of those.

 

I can remember when my Snake Oil Salesman on Deadlands was trying to convince a woman to purchase his patented "beauty tonic" but I critically failed the roll, and ended up (more or less) calling her fat and ugly; why else would she need the tonic 

 

Needless to say, her husband and the various other gentlemen present took offense to my attempted sale.

[Vortex13]

I like VTM but the roleplay gets really weird at times.

 

I would like to play a game in the World of Darkness setting, but I have never been able to find a mature enough group of players to do it justice.

 

I do get my role-playing fix by listening to the Knights of the Night podcasts though, they do some awesome Hunter: The Vigil stories. 

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

I would like to play a game in the World of Darkness setting, but I have never been able to find a mature enough group of players to do it justice.

You don't really need maturity for this. Hell, the group I played a VTR oneshot with had a guy who kept reviving the torpor'd vampires in the lab we all woke up in (which is not in itself immature, but he did this solely to troll the GM), a guy who betrayed the entire group to serve someone we were set up to believe was Cain, and a guy who pointed out that this made the betrayer Co-Cain. (The last one being me. Second and last time a GM ever smote me, though I have been threatened with it since.)

 

And the ending was when the real Cain appeared, showed us all his power and says "My children... I love you all... so much." My reaction was "So, is he going to give us some sort of ironic 'reward' now?" The serial reviver responded with "The most ironic. He's Hipster Cain." From here it all devolved into Hipster jokes ("He liked rock bands while they were still playing on rocks!"), and the GM found herself laughing too hard to actually kill us.

[Vortex13]

You don't really need maturity for this. Hell, my VTR group had a guy who kept reviving the torpor'd vampires in the lab we all woke up in, a guy who betrayed the entire group to serve someone we were set up to believe was Cain, and a guy who pointed out that this made the betrayer Co-Cain. (The last one being me.)

 

And the ending was when the real Cain appeared, showed us all his power and says "My children... I love you all... so much." My reaction was "So, is he going to give us some sort of ironic 'reward' now?" The serial reviver responded with "The most ironic. He's Hipster Cain." From here it all devolved into Hipster jokes ("He liked rock bands while they were still playing on rocks!"), and the GM found herself laughing too hard to actually kill us.

 

Good point, I just think that the group I play with doesn't do dark or mature very well, which is what they equate WoD as being. In fact one member of my group will actually leave the room if we start to get a little too dark for his tastes.

 

Which is funny considering he was the sadist who let my party blow up my Science vessel on Traveller 

[Jorji Costava]

Here's a quick and silly story from a DnD 3E (yes even before 3.5) campaign off the top of my head: After having no success with the "Confusion" spell the entire campaign, I cast it and a monster finally fails the save. This was pretty exciting to me; I was playing an enchanter, but the campaign was very psionics heavy (never a fan), meaning that most enemy creatures were almost always able to resist my enchantment spells.

 

After you hit with Confusion in 3E, you roll a ten-sided die each round to see what happens. First roll: I get a 9 and the monster "attacks the nearest creature." Of course that's me, and the monster's simplistic enough that that's exactly what it'd do anyway. Next round: I roll a 10, and the creature "acts normally." Of course, it attacks me again. By the third round, the monster was already dead. So I finally got someone to fail the save on confusion, and the spell still had no effect. Never cast it again in any campaign ever.

[Vortex13]

Here's a quick and silly story from a DnD 3E (yes even before 3.5) campaign off the top of my head: After having no success with the "Confusion" spell the entire campaign, I cast it and a monster finally fails the save. This was pretty exciting to me; I was playing an enchanter, but the campaign was very psionics heavy (never a fan), meaning that most enemy creatures were almost always able to resist my enchantment spells.

 

After you hit with Confusion in 3E, you roll a ten-sided die each round to see what happens. First roll: I get a 9 and the monster "attacks the nearest creature." Of course that's me, and the monster's simplistic enough that that's exactly what it'd do anyway. Next round: I roll a 10, and the creature "acts normally." Of course, it attacks me again. By the third round, the monster was already dead. So I finally got someone to fail the save on confusion, and the spell still had no effect. Never cast it again in any campaign ever.

 

Ouch. It always sucks when your character 'succeeds' at a task only to have said task make absolutely no difference.

[naughty99]

 

One of my favorite PnP RPG characters was when my group and I played First Edition Gamma World;

 

Great game! Played Gamma World quite a lot in junior high. GM'd a homebrew campaign that ran for about two years.

 

Also ran campaigns for C.H.I.L.L., Shadowrun, GURPS and of course AD&D First Edition!

 

 

I would like to play a game in the World of Darkness setting, but I have never been able to find a mature enough group of players to do it justice.

 

I bought some of the source books back in the day, but never had a chance to play this one either. Looking forward to the upcoming CCP version.

[Elhanan]

Used this story to win a small Bioware NWN contest; based on this same PnP group.

 

Our party was travelling by horseback to some far distant quest destination when we ran into a random encounter. After rolling init, we chose various tactics specific to our characters, including our female Druid who chose to Shapechange into a bear. The subsequent actions were delayed by gales of laughter when the DM smiled and pointed out that the Druid had not bothered to dismount first.

 

"Ever hear a horse scream?" 

[Vortex13]

Used this story to win a small Bioware NWN contest; based on this same PnP group.

 

Our party was travelling by horseback to some far distant quest destination when we ran into a random encounter. After rolling init, we chose various tactics specific to our characters, including our female Druid who chose to Shapechange into a bear. The subsequent actions were delayed by gales of laughter when the DM smiled and pointed out that the Druid had not bothered to dismount first.

 

"Ever hear a horse scream?" 

 

 

  Awesome.

 

 

That reminds me of a story my roommate in college told me about the group he played DnD with.

 

One of the party members in his group played as a dwarf on a particular adventure. Now to give a bit of backstory on this dwarf, he had been captured by a Drow raiding party when he was very young, and brought back to the UnderDark as a slave. This Dwarf never learned how to read or write, and the many beatings he received from his Drow taskmasters left him a little slow. Eventually he managed to escape and joined up with my roommate's party, but he maintained a deep hatred of the Dark Elves.

 

Now the current quest they were tasked with was to stop a series of attacks on various trading caravans passing through a forest. My roommate, playing as a Ranger managed to find the attacker's trail and led the party back to the enemy camp. As it turned out the raids were being conducted by a tribe of Gnolls, and as the party approached the camp under cover of night the DM described the Gnolls' camp. In it they had many spoils from the various caravans they had plundered; a bundle of fine, exotic fabrics, large sacks full of gold and jewelry, even a stash of spell books they had been using for toilet paper; in the center of the camp was a large fire pit, with a victim from the caravans; an elf merchant; roasting on a spit.

 

The rest of the party was quiet, taking in the DM's description, but the person playing as the Dwarf raised his hand and ask the following question:

 

"So what you are saying is that there is a black elf hanging on a stick?"

 

The DM nodded, and then the Dwarf player burst from cover, screaming, "Drow! Drow!" before charging into the camp.

 

My roommate and the other members of the party realized that hiding was out of the question and entered the battle. The Gnolls were surprised, so they didn't attack the Dwarf as he charged into the camp, ran right past them, jumped into the fire pit, and started attacking the dead elf all the while still screaming "Drow!" "Drow!" Needless to say my roommate and his party where too busy laughing to engage in combat.

 

Once the elf corpse was dead the DM looked over to the Dwarf player and said "You have taken 10 fire damage."

 

The Dwarf player sniffed the air and then screamed "Fire!" "Fire!" as he ran out of the fire pit; still on fire; and off into the woods.

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

There's a zombie survival game called "All Flesh Must Be Eaten" that allows GMs to design a zombie survival world to their own tastes. Things the Zombie Master can choose include the reproduction method, where you need to hit to kill the zombie, the part of the human they need to eat, and even how often they need to eat (one of the options being "I just kill for the lulz"). The system also allows GMs to give the zombies special powers, which you need to understand to understand this war story. Zombies I've met include a zombie with an inescapable grapple, a zombie with the power to spew acid, and most relevantly to this thread... a giant zombie with hardened skin.

 

My character was the party tank, but didn't have any armor. One of the party members had recently found a scalpel, which I'd learned from freshman biology is sharp enough to cut bone, much less metaphysically hardened leather. So I go up to the party member and say "Can I borrow your scalpel?"

 

That's right: my zombie survival character is wearing the skin of a slain foe as armor. And since the ZM[sic] assured me I wouldn't get infected, I didn't even clean it first. You have my permission to vomit.

[Elhanan]

In olden times, I was known for playing many deceptive Thief-type characters. After several different sessions, I guess some of the group tired of me taking from the party coffers, and decided to try and teach me a lesson. I did try to keep such thefts reasonable... most of the time.

 

In one game, I had led the group to several rich locations, deactivating traps and unlocking doors. At some point, a couple of the party stated they were going to Teleport back to town, and vanished with their shares. A little later, I was left alone with the party loot, and began to pilfer some of the better pieces It was then that I was attacked by the invisible (not teleported) members of the party, and my PC was instantly whittled down to a few hp, now bleeding to death. In my last round before passing out cold, I bolted into the room with the rest of the party and yelled, "The thieves have returned", then fell to the ground. This caused a battle with the two vs the majority of the party, and the majority ruled. They even healed me, and gave me my full share.

 

I was so happy that I almost returned what I had taken. Almost.  However, it was not too much later that I stopped playing anti-party characters; lesson learned.

[Riverdaleswhiteflash]

My 3.5 DM had a scenario where we're supposed to save the marriage of an amnesiac man who has cheated on his wife innumerable times, and who (we come to find) took out a contract on her when she tried to blackmail him into a more favorable divorce settlement. (The DM implied after the scenario was over that he found a way to purposefully blank his memories in hopes of becoming a better person.) So, after concluding that a divorce was in the works, we come to a boat the man remembers owning. It's clearly been used as an orgy den recently, and we find a financial record of a king's ransom level of money paid to a man named Geon.

 

If I want you to understand what happens next, I need to tell you some of my character's backstory. He's a nearly-entirely-human-outsider from the Plane of Shadow trying to get a foothold in the human realm in the name of the samurai clan he is a minor member of. Occasionally this consists of performing tasks for my clan, but the main thing I'm doing is just establishing myself as an adventurer. (It occurred to me that I'll become powerful and influential on my own merits just by being a successful PC, and then the organization I'm part of just piggybacks off of that.) The DM seems to have understood that as slightly more simple a motivation and modus operandi than I view it as being: when she said "Geon is an assassin" in a private message to me, I was supposed to understand that as "Geon is one of your clan." Maybe I should have anyway, but the fact remains that I didn't.

 

Now, I'm the only one who knows that the guy has taken a contract out on his wife. What the DM wants me to do is share this information with the rest of the party, and then the husband cancels the contract and begs his wife to forgive him. Instead what I do is keep the information to myself, and quietly warn the wife when we find her. (Since it hadn't yet occurred to me that the marriage might still be salvageable at this point, if I save her she'll probably be grateful and will certainly get everything, and siding with the woman is my natural instinct anyway.) Having done that, I look around for the assassin, and spot him. It's around then that the DM realizes how I misunderstood her, and when my char sees him she gives a more detailed background which explains to me exactly how I just screwed the pooch.

 

Now, my character's Lawful Evil, and takes the "Lawful" part pretty fracking seriously. Obviously, he can't let this stand, so his first move is to make a Hide check (I'm using a wizard variant that makes Hide a class skill and lets me add my INT, and I had a good number to put under DEX, so barring a Natural 1 I'm pretty much going to pass any Hide check) and then sneak over to the assassin to warn him she knows he's coming. He sneaks out the back, and then the party is alone with my comrade's target. She then shares the information I gave her with the party, and offers the rest of the party some money to off her husband. I'm still considered to be in Stealth mode, so I sneak the husband out into an alley, wait for the rest of the party to leave, and then drag him to his partner in technically-legal-business. They skip town on the floating orgy den, and the party decides that they've fulfilled the literal terms of the contract. (Her exact words were "make sure I never see him again.") We go to the woman to collect our reward.

 

We show up at her den of opulence, and conversation ensues. While this is happening, I empty out a spell slot into which I'd placed Invisible, Silent Magic Missile. (Stealth build.) The party blasts the area from which they figure the Invisible Blast must have come, and don't hit any assassins. (Except for me, but I have resistance to the element they used.) Meanwhile, the wife survives, and goes into her panic room. I ask if a small viper can get under the door. The DM states that it can. I cast Invisible Summon Monster, which the DM had previously ruled results in a monster that's Invisible for as long as it stays summoned. I send the small fiendish viper under her door, she dies, and then I dismiss the monster. The DM then awards us with a boat that's been used as an orgy den, noting that we could have gotten a better reward (including the boat) if we had managed to save the marriage.

 

It was worth it to get to perform an assassination like that.

[Elhanan]

One of my younger Players was known for his wits, guile, and intelligence, and his only game with us proved it.  He was still in HS at the time, while we were in college. To be more specific, this was during my earlier college years, as I majored in Freshman, but I digress....

 

As I recall, he crafted a Halfling Thief, and made several unusual and unique purchases in the local shops before treasure hunting in the nearby dungeons. The only other Player that evening was a higher level mage, who evidently had informed the other new Player of past events and descriptions of what might be expected. So off they went to see what could be amassed before RL curfews struck at midnight.

 

They made several successful raids in rooms that night, gathering the magical and valuable items found during their excursions. But the thief also took some more unusual items found along the way; loosened padlocks, flasks he filled with tiger's blood, wax hands severed from encountered animated mannequins, etc. When they finally discovered a location with a monster too challenging for them, he took one of the padlocks from his kit and locked the door so the enemy could not easily pursue. Several encounters were met with such MacGyver like tactics, and this was well before the show aired. 

 

At the nights end, the thief finally attempted to lift some of the better items from the Mages pack, and failed. The Mage did not take kindly to the attempted theft, and started to cast spells, so the thief bolted for the exit at the far end of the lit stone halls. While the Mage chose to cast 'buffing' spells first, the thief took an Invisibility potion, then emptied the flasks of blood and into the wax hands, and used a nearby torch to seal them.

 

He then chose to try and sneak down the hall, while the Mage started to cast Fireballs at sound heard in the halls. When one finally landed close to the thief's location, he then screamed and tossed the blood-filled hands into the hall along with a few baubles, then ran the other way; still Invisible. The Mage was properly fooled into believing that his assailant was dead, and left for home in the city, while the lower level thief tagged far behind; secure in the comfort of the higher leveled characters protection.

 

Brilliant illustration of adaptation to the environs, and one of my fave moments as a DM!