Banana Ninjas

Samuari, Ninjas, Bananas, oh my. I will run this campaign. Or play in it if I can force someone to DM it. The silly is of exceptional quality.
LooneyDM

On the subject of Treasure...

This jolly turtle has certainly found treasure in that strawberry. If you run your games right with the right players you can give out what's known as "story rewards". These tend to be cool tidbits that are relevant to the players' characters but don't affect the mechanics of the game in a significant fashion. All in all they're a win-win for any DM who can pull them off. Merry whatever it is you're celebrating or not celebrating today. GIS is source for this image. Look for turtle and strawberry, you'll find it.
LooneyDM out

More RP Quotes

I blame the holiday for my lack of timely updates. Thus it is written, thus it shall be done. Thus I have quotes for your viewing pleasure. This should give you a window into the insanity of the people I game with on a regular basis.

From my erratic game:
Kanoa( gnome illusionist with a frog familiar)
Rasia(human druid with a dog animal companion)
They were both playing with each others extra character in the mapping program and the animals were flying around the screen.
Kanoa: Give me back my frog!
Rasia: Not until you give me back my dog!

From my real life saturday game:
Rynasia: May I eat one of his fingers?
Attapacca: I give them all the mom eye.

DM: There is a chest.
Looney: It's fully of snakes.
Vissar: Snakes on a boat.

Cecilia: There's a little christmas tag on the chest.

Looney: I would like to cast the monkey ritual.

Looney: You're not allowed to have any weapons you can't pronounce.

Tirah: I'd like to be in front. *Her mini is moved to the very front* No not way in front.

DM: What is that attack against?
Tirah: The enemy

Looney: Ker-doom
Attapacca: I'm going to sing the doom song now. Doom de doomy doom doom

DM: He fails his save.
Tirah: 10, suck em up cupcake

Cecilia: I move away willfully, does he take his opportunity attack
DM: Yes...he misses.
Cecilia: As a free action I flip him off.

Cecilia: The dragon has a lair we can loot, right?
Attapacca: Knowing our luck he still lives with his mother.

After we're attacked in our home and its mentioned that they're after Cecilia specifically
Ceclia: Did you attack me because I'm a tiefling or because I'm awesome.

Cecilia: I'm going to dye my hair and buy new clothes.
DM: When under stress, go shopping!

Attapacca: Meanwhile back at Mount Doom...

DM: What's your breath weapon?
Tirah: The dog.

DM: He misses.
Attapacca: My sword laughs at him.

DM referring to the fact that leaders in 4e rarely affect themselves with their powers.
DM: Leaders give, they don't receive.

LooneyDM out

Bad Campaigns

There comes a time in every player's career when they need to stand up and tell the GM that their campaign is retarded. As you can see, it even happened to Captain America. Telling your GM is going to be much easier since your GM isn't the Incredible Hulk and won't rip you to pieces for speaking poorly about his campaign. At least I'd hope not. Because if there's some other DM out there who has mad hulk out powers I am entirely jealous. I'd ask for your bad campaign stories but I'm sure it would get out of hand almost immediately.
LooneyDM

Non-D&D fantasy worlds

Fantasy is such a broad descriptor but yet so many people's minds jump straight to Tolkien style or Rowling style without half a thought. Bizarre stuff like a man handing out balloons to children in old style diving suit helmets doesn't cross their mind. I'll get my crazy fantasy world running yet! It shall be a grand masterpiece to rival that which has come before it!
Today's poster art brought to you by MyNameIsSwann on deviantart
LooneyDM out

Lesbian Stripper Ninjas

Nothing like a scantily clad female leading ninja clad enemies on a merry rooftop chase through an oriental styled city late at night. At least not if you're trying to run a serious game. I'm sure there's a person out there who has used a character like the pictured lady in a serious campaign and not had it disrupt the seriousness. I can imagine it happening, but I'll abstain from that for now. You know there are players out there who are playing this character seriously. There are also people playing this character ironically. Shoot the first on site, and share cookies with the latter.

Saturday Night Game Quotes!:

Klo: dan is not the jerk?
Clementine: Dan is just feisty

Klo: we need to order the golem to roll around on the burning troll to heal him up

LooneyGM: After losing and regaining Pete they decided to stop for a rest, leaving the constructs on guard duty
Pete: I wasn't lost! I was exploring.

Pete: "GIMMIE A HUG YA TWAT!"

Atargatis: Okay, I think it's time we do something very important.
Atargatis: We need to give these Dreadguards names. Or at least Nicknames.
Steely Dan: I think we should just be honest here and start calling them "the bitches"
Clementine: do I get to run the bitches today?
Steely Dan: I think you've done a pretty good job so far
Pete: Bob and Bob.
Steely Dan: how about sexybitch and uglybitch?
Clementine: George and Carlin
Yuyuko: garfield and odie?
Steely Dan: calvin and hobbes!

LooneyGM: good you're all smaller than it
Clementine: i don't like when the DM says stuff like that...
Steely Dan: I sense that it will soon try to eat us
Steely Dan: I sense this with my "it's going to eat me" sense
Klo: im sure you'll feel right at home steely
Later after the monster grapples half the party
Steely Dan: wow, for once I am free and all of you are trapped

Atargatis: "So what's our next move?"
Clementine: "I wonder if someone put them all here or if they're on their own."
Atargatis: Check them for tags?

* Clementine holds the boat in her hands.... and then places it on the edge of the river.
* Clementine says... "HOKEY POKEY!"
* Steely Dan looks uncomfortable
* Atargatis sighs
* Atargatis picks up the boat
Clementine: waaait for it
Clementine: DM is typing.
LooneyGM: The boat expands from clementine's hands into a 10 foot long craft that spans the river.
Klo: ...Hokey Pokey?
Steely Dan: Atargatis has super strength! or is crushed by the boat!

Klo: girl only!
Steely Dan: you're a boy too Klo!
Clementine: nope, Klo did a sex change a while back because we kept insisting he was she.
Steely Dan: really? huh
LooneyGM: I thought she was joking about the sex change
Clementine: yeah. no?
Klo: Looney thinks im a girl :/
Clementine: Klo, what are you?
Klo: I have no idea now

* Clementine ties the rope to the golem
* Clementine rolls: 1d20 use rope => 4
* Clementine utterly fails to tie a knot.
Steely Dan: ...
Clementine: Um... help?
Clementine: My old fingers just aren't as skilled as they use to be...
Klo: ... Just ask the golem to hold one end of the rope? It can do that right?
* BEC rolls: 1d20+2 use rope => 1 + 2 = 3
* Clementine offers the rope to someone else.
Steely Dan: ...
Clementine: ...
* Steely Dan rolls: 1d20+1 use rope => 3 + 1 = 4
Atargatis: "It's been a while since I've done any knot-tying.
Clementine: Anyone else?
Steely Dan: ...
Clementine: ...
LooneyGM: the golem can hold the rope if it needs to

Atargatis: Only one left, it can't last long
LooneyGM: The mephit joins its fellows in the river
Atargatis: I can see the future!

LooneyDM out

Horror games

There's something so incredibly iconic about a dilapidated gas station overrun by dark mysterious shapes. They look so delightfully horrific in the "will they steal your shadow or will they suddenly transform into a multi fanged horror" sort of way. Horror is so much better when it's not a run from the scary monster fest. However building the suspense of the situation is most difficult in a RPG session. I will run a horror campaign one of these days. It will be grand and magnificent classic horror with the unknown in the dark that you are afraid of instead of the silly "OMG MONSTER" stuff that you see today. Until that day comes I will wait, biding my time.
Art by Jollyjack. Again. I use more of his art than anyone else's. I should probably donate him a few dollars. Or buy more of his awesome art.
LooneyDM

Clerics (now with 75% less rant)

Isn't it grand to have a shiny white mage girl to make your point for you? I like clerics. They're one of my favorite classes. However games where clerics get to be something other than a heal bit- I mean battery are few and far between. I herefore demand that any designer who is even *thinking* about including clerics in their game shall consult with me and I shall render unto them my expertise to create a fun and usable class. Mike Mearls, I'm looking at you.

Art by saitoufly on deviant art.
Looney

Pretty Boys and RPGs

I got lazy on transcribing quotes, so have some motivation. This is likely a complete disservice to the female portion of our hobby. On the other hand, imagine how many females we'd have in the hobby if RPGs had this guy on the cover of most of the books. Of course that delves into a whole "quality vs quantity" discussion that I'm not touching with an eleven foot pole.
Looney Out.

The cast of leverage based of their roles

This is the first of several themed sets of posters. This one is based off the characters from the excellent show Leverage. I went with the best fit for each member of the team as some of them have multiple roles that they cover. Also the modern settings they run in don't exactly lend themselves completely to the roles that D&D has set up this iteration.

Hardison is 100% controller, even when he's not behind the computer screen.


Take hits and dish them out? Yup, Elliot's a defender.

Parker is really the only one of the team who comes close to striker, especially since most strikers are highly skill focused.

Sophie's mostly controller. She's got a bit of leader in her when she's not running the grifter role.

Nate is definitely a leader. Even if people aren't going to follow him absolutely, he's got the skills to back up his ideas.

The big takeaway from this huge post is that you should watch Leverage. As a GM, it will give you excellent ideas of how to pass around the spotlight during your game. As a player, it's a damn fun show.

Looney out.

Minions

Minions are a wonderful possession. Even if they are hamsters. Doubly so if those hamsters have tiny AK-47s or whatever the heck this hamsters is holding in its grubby little paws. If I had minions, this blog would update on time. That is all.
Looney

Silly quotes from the game I run

My saturday group is a good group. They're my longest running game and have been together for nearly 3 years now over several different campaigns. Without further nonsense, my lovely saturday group:

(After yet another person forgets that while Klo's player is female, her character is male)
Klo: You're forcing a gender change on my character!

Corbinus: Maybe I'll rebuild my Kenku rogue into a half ogre druid
LooneyDM: not complete rebuilding, she only changed some feats
Steely Dan: "you wake up after resting, and suddenly corbinus is a half-ogre. a wizard did it."

Mason: I totally didn't fail to hit the enemy on my first encounter.
Steely Dan: you totally did

Dwirnem: "Before he was the Black One, he was my teacher of the arcane arts."
Steely Dan: damn! my money was on him being dwirnem's brother
Clementine: :0
Corbinus: Duhn duhn duhn
* LooneyDM cues dramatic music
Atargatis: I was betting he was an official of some kind
Steely Dan: you're pretty close
* Atargatis nods in sad understanding.
Clementine: my money was on Mrs. Plumb in the Library.

Corbinus: You call this difficult...now Demogorgon is difficult...this is merely challenging.
LooneyDM: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/alumni_Demogorgon_fc1.jpg
Atargatis: Oh. My. Gawd. DoubleBaboon!

Atargatis: I had fun being reckless and getting pummeled.

Atargatis: "...Clementine, how long are these thorns going to last, anyway?"
Clementine: Um...
Klo: "Don't hug anyone"

Atargatis: Rally some gnolls and lizards and .... little... oily things?
Steely Dan: Nae, drrragons sounds more fun

Klo: we're resting and trying to figure out how to heal the golems
Steely Dan: kay
Atargatis: But because golems can't sleep, we have to find another way to fix them up
Corbinus: Now we are setting fire to the tavern to heal the golems.

LooneyDM: The darkness flows off the bridge like a dense fog. Even those of you with darkvision cannot penetrate its depths
* Steely Dan makes rude gestures
Steely Dan: I'll penetrate YER depths

Atargatis: I'm rolling my meatspace die for damage (our game runs online)

Steely Dan: but
Steely Dan: but I wanna kill 'im
Atargatis: "Next time, Dan."
* Steely Dan makes sad puppy dog face
LooneyDM as gnoll: "No listen to little man, no kill"
* gnoll makes sad hyena face

Clementine: I"m hoping we find another wand of vigor or something.
Steely Dan: steely has a wand of vigor
Steely Dan: IN HIS PANTS

Have a merry whatever the heck we're celebrating these days.
LooneyDM

Getting your players involved in a new campaign

There's nothing quite like an immediate, unignorable threat to jump start a new campaign. Whether it be an invading army of aliens or the more mundane evil wizard laying waste to the countryside. For the more subtle among you there's always the overly suspicious death or of the resident noble's favorite child. Dropping the flash bang grenade of plot on your players will quickly get them into the action. It might delay their getting into character, but at least you'll have their attention.
Monday's need to stop happening on Tuesdays! I swear there's a time bandit stealing all my mondays. An alien invasion is an entirely classic way to start a sci fie campaign. Or you can simply start the campaign years after the invasion if you want a freedom fighter campaign, or an occupied and dangerous land. Alien invasions are so terribly versatile.
This art comes to us from SID75 on deviant art.
LooneyDM

Riding in Style

Players always want the craziest creatures to ride into battle. Like this purple spiky dragon unicorn dog thing. Does no one want a warhorse anymore? You could name it Concord! It would be heroic! But no, not even a hippogriff will do any more. It has to be something entirely bizarre. Kids these days. *curmudgeons*

Quotes from my lovely real life saturday game:

DM: In a puff of light, Tirah disappears

Rynasia: Magic gloves of body cavity searching +1

Attapacca: The short sider. (referring to the d4)

Attapacca: I'll flank with our porcupine of doom (referring to my rogue)
Looney: Did you just call me a porcupine?
Attapacca: Yes

Rynasia: They don't see the huge goliath in front of them.

Looney: But we will call you 'dancing errors'.

DM: You take 1d6 pizza damage.
Rynasia: And 5 ongoing grease damage as it passes through your system.

DM: The cup is evil.
Looney: It sings showtunes to him.

Rynasia: You're just difficult terrain now (referring to my recently deceased rogue)

DM: Are you chaotic?
Attapacca: I'm a bard.

Cecilia: Why can't ranged powers be a sigil opening up underneath them?
Looney: Because lasers are cool!
Cecilia: You're retarded.

Vissar: I call upon the powers of scootch (referring to one of his powers that forces movement)

Tirah: I use blades of ass-astral fire.

Vimac: I'm going to actify boundless endurance.

Rynasia: I mark him with my hunter's query.

Attapacca: Neener neener. (after an archer missed her)

DM: It's a magic nose goblin (referring to the mini he used to pick his nose)

Cecilia: Give me back my d20s.
Vissar: You may be sitting on them.
(She was. They were under the pad on her chair)

Cecilia: I don't think I can handle more.
DM: No one is going to hit you.
Looney: Suddenly tentacles pop out of the hull! They all attack Cecilia.

Vimac: Use the pseudodragon as a parachute

Cecilia: Aren't you weakened after using that power?
Looney: Yes. Half of zero is still zero.
(Hooray for shielding clerics)

(After Vissar's annoying death in the crow's nest where he became a wight and was contemplating how to attack us)
Vissar: Could I just float down?
DM: You're a wight.
Looney: You should fall out of the crow's nest headfirst.
*Vissar's mini falls out of the crow's nest*
Tirah: Like that!

See you all on Monday
LooneyDM

Player reactions to monsters

No humor from me today so you're stuck with a poster instead. Look at that creepy/cute smile and there's no way you can't convince me you don't fall into either group one or group b. I've had this issue with the gnolls in my campaign. I made the mistake of making them talk in child-like common. Now half my players think the gnolls are adorable. It amuses me as they're *supposed* to be killing these gnolls but they're talking to them to find out their life story. It's making me rewrite plots on the fly. Good DM muscle exercise.
Art by macgreen on deviant art
LooneyDM gone

Fantasy adventures distilled

You know you want to go into the dark and foreboding castle, you know you do! Especially if your DM manages to evoke a wondrous image in your head like this poster. Besides you're a horrible player if you don't take the obviously incredibly dangerous plot hookds. Ah, Killer GMs. Don't they just warm the cockles of your heart? It's a different attitude that I simply can't fathom. Don't expect much out of me this week due to my plans to devour most of a turkey and ridiculous amounts of other food.
This original art for this bright and cheery picture comes to us from dothaithanh on deviant art
LooneyDM

Tall Tales

There are big fish and then there are fish like the one in this picture. I'm sure the original is photoshopped. There aren't fish that big anywhere in the world. We've all known players like the guy by the fish. They simply won't stop telling you about their wicked awesome charcter. Aren't you impressed by their wicked awesome character? They can tell you again how wicked awesome the character was if you didn't get it the first three times. It's Friday! It's totally Friday. I didn't forget to post on Friday! Nope! Didn't happen at all!

LooneyDM

Make yourself MIGHTY!

Fear me for I am MIGHTY!

Make yourself mighty at Make Me Mighty

I've been playing with this all afternoon. It rocks. I believe this is perfect for an exalted style game or any game where you need an over the top name + title. I'm sure you won't find any random generator like this on your DM tools websites that generate names for you.

Looney

Tripping insanity through my head

You all will love my new campaign concept. It delves heavily into the surreal and I'll be doing my best to immerse you in the game. Let me repeat. You *will* love my new campaign concept. All those arms and windows are emblematic to me of how much a DM has to manage all the different frames of player perception. Yeah, I'm spouting bullshit. I went looking for the craziest picture I could find to create this poster.
This bizarre art comes to us from deviantart
LooneyDM

Barbarians

The Incredible Hulk is the patron saint of barbarians. He grants barbarians their strength increasing rage an nigh invulnerability. He may even be Kord's long lost brother. I miss barbarians. I know they technically still exist in 4e, but they're not the rage fueled head crushers they used to be. It's just not the same man. Everything's changed. They took away their damage reduction and gave them temp hit points! I don't know if I can take it!
This artwork brought to you by the letter B, the color green and el-grimlock on deviantart.
LooneyDM

Bluffing

Because everyone knows all you have to do to infiltrate dwarves is drink and talk like a scotsman. It would probably help this elf if she covered up her freaking ears. I win at fail! I totally missed Monday's motivational post so here's a motivational post for you today. This is what bluff looks like untrained. With a natural one. With additional circumstance penalties. Needless to say, it's amusing.
In other news I'm going to do an entire series based off the 4e skills, using images from the Princess Bride. Look for those to start showing up within the next week or two.
Since you were deprived of my brilliantly humorous wit on Monday there will also be rp quotes to sate your appetite for humor until friday rolls round when I will regal you with another motivational poster.

From my Saturday internet game:

Steely Dan: I get eaten like once a game

LooneyDM: Steely explodes out of the middle of the goopy monster like some freaky relative of the Koolaid Man
Steely Dan: "OH AYE!"

Found ambigious drow art in real life and spent 20 minutes trying to decide if the drow was male or female or had armor with boobies or was partway inbetween male and female.

Klo: (( now i use mountain hammer ))
* Klo rolls: 1d20+14 => 4 + 14 = 18
VortDM: (( aren't you glad you saved it? ))
Klo: (( OH MY GOD ))
LooneyDM: (( including bless from the cleric and hero's sword bonus? ))
Klo: (( goes into a corner to cry ))
Steely Dan: (( dicechaaaaaaaaaaaaaan! ))
Klo: (( i rolled a 4 ))
Corbinus: (( Obviously Klo didn't leave a blessing at the temple of the dice gods. ))
Steely Dan: (( okay ))
Steely Dan: (( I am now calling dicechan "dicekhan" ))

Clementine: (( I saw that as dickchan for some reason before I realized it was dicekhan >.> ))
*Atargatis rolls: 1d8+4 damage! => 1 + 4 = 5
*Atargatis rolls: 1d6 punishing damage! => 1
Klo: (( dickchan works too ))

Steely Dan: (( fucking dicekhan always does that ))
Corbinus: (( I'm just worried about the wrath of dicekhan. ))
Klo: i think dicekhan might like his new title

To a repeating magic mouth spell on a statue
Clementine: We know, we know! We heard you the first time! I'm old, but I' ain't hard o' hearing!
* Clementine makes a face at the statues.

LooneyDM: The symbol is of a left hand with an eye in the middle of it (Symbol of Vecna)
Steely Dan: is it one o' them necrowhatsistisis?
Atargatis: (( I'm willing to bet that that's a veeeery bad thing ))
Corbinus: (( Well I know what that means as a player. ))
Steely Dan: (( oh shit it's Sauron ))
Steely Dan: (( we're fucked now ))
Corbinus: (( Sauron is fictional...this is real... ))

(After yet another person forgets that while Klo's player is female, her character is male)
Klo: You're forcing a gender change on my character!

Corbinus: Maybe I'll rebuild my Kenku rogue into a half ogre druid
LooneyDM: not complete rebuilding, she only changed some feats
Steely Dan: "you wake up after resting, and suddenly corbinus is a half-ogre. a wizard did it."

Mason: I totally didn't fail to hit the enemy on my first encounter.
Steely Dan: you totally did

Dwirnem: "Before he was the Black One, he was my teacher of the arcane arts."
Steely Dan: damn! my money was on him being dwirnem's brother
Clementine: :0
Corbinus: Duhn duhn duhn
* LooneyDM cues dramatic music
Atargatis: I was betting he was an official of some kind
Steely Dan: you're pretty close
* Atargatis nods in sad understanding.
Clementine: my money was on Mrs. Plumb in the Library.

That is all.
Looney out

More Character Death

I victoriously vanquished a very vexing D&D game today. My saturday 4e DM has been on a killing spree! He's killed two characters in the past two sessions! This is abominable. Do you know how hard it is to kill 4e characters? We had to have a mass fight on a boat and even then the second one nearly survived, but the leaders couldn't get to him because our climb is suck and he went up into the crows nest. The guy up there wasn't even doing serious damage, until the soon to be exterminated player arrived up there. Anyways, dead dead and hopefully not another dead next game. We're running out of characters to play...

LooneyDM

Character Death

Guess what happened to my character last time my group met. No go on, guess. If you guessed "got a new awesome magic weapon" you guessed too wrong for words. My not so beloved half orc rogue bit the dust. To be honest he lasted more sessions than I expected. However I've come to the conclusion that the striker role in 4e D&D just doesn't do it for me. I need something with a little more zing, pizazz or merely anything that does more than "get flanking, stabbity stabbity stabbity". I'm making a cleric next under the assumption from previous experience with clerics that leaders are more complicated tactically and therefore more interesting. At least that's the theory. I plan to burn this theory for all it's worth in the coming weeks. The motivator above that I created is one of the pictures from the newest telescope that NASA launched. You're looking at the death of a star that is causing the huge spectrum blooms. On the subject of character death and characters, have a bonus poster from my collection. Disclaimer: I did not create the following poster. At all. Not even a litle bit.

This is, of course, Jim Darkmagic of the New Hampshire Darkmagics
On that note,
LooneyDM up up and away!

P.S. On time for once gosh darnit!

Theoretical Homebrew system

I have to say I've not been on time recently. I blame the stars and other celestial entities for throwing off my natural circadian rhythms making me late with blog posts. I have a confession to make. I'm considering creating my own game system. I know you're all very disappointed in this revelation and I certainly deserve it. I accept your scorn and mocking so I can get on with this post.
It started when I was arguing with someone about balancing of RPGs ( I know you're all amazed that I argue on the internet) when I considered that if one wanted to have a perfectly balanced game you should use rock-paper-scissors. That got me thinking about using a system more like rock-paper-scissors instead of things like dice mechanics. The first caveat I'd like to include is I'm not making up alternate rules for rock-paper-scissors in the sense of expanding the grid. There won't be any tanks, dragons, or aliens in the sense that I make a new item and lay out a grid of "tanks beat dragons, but aliens beat tanks and so do bazookas, while silly putty beats aliens." No, I'm going to keep to the simple triangle
Say we have related abilities X, Y, and Z. X beats Y, Y beats Z, Z beats X. Instead of making a hand symbol, though hand symbols are sexy ;), each time an attack happens the attacker and defender both take a properly labelled token (improperly labelled ones will be punishable by death), hold it in their hand, and reveal it at the same time. Simple and balanced enough.
To create a variety of options without increasing complexity unduley I'll allow different numbers? levels? ranks? increments? skill? Yes, skill is the word I'll use for this. I'll notate it such X:2 to indicate ability X at skill 2. Extrapolate this to your hearts content. A different amount of skill in an ability will affect how the ability interacts with the loss resolution system.
Instead of counting wins I assert most vigorously that it will be best to track losses for the resolution system. Each character or npc will be able to take a certain number of losses before they are defeated. The end result of the defeat will be up to the victor, but dependant on the type of conflict. Not making this a hit point mechanic has advantages. First it doesn't require that defeat = death. That allows for the mechanic to be used in non-physical and non-violent conflicts. Last it allows for a hero to be defeated without taking them out of the game for an unnessary chunk of time.
I'll have players buy up abilities starting from zero. For example, you start with 4 points( how many points you have will be how many losses you can take before being defeated, convenient no?). You can use them to buy abilities up a skill on a 1 for 1 basis so you could spend 1 point to buy X up to skill 1 from skill 0. Spend 1 point in each and now you have X:1, Y:1, Z:1 with one point left over to put into one of them. I'll up X by one for fun to give us X:2, Y:1, Z:1. Other variations give us X:2, Y:0, Z:2 or X:0, Y:3, Z:1. I'm not going to list every single possibility here.
Now the important part. The effect of different skill on losses. The formula for this will be simple. The loser of the attacker/defender pair in each contest takes one loss. Now if the winner has more skill in their attack ability than the defender has in their defense ability the loser takes extra losses equal to the difference in skill. Example: If a X:2, Y:0, Z:2 player attacks a X:1, Y:1, Z:1 mook with X and the mook defends with Y then the mook takes 2 losses of the 3 total he can take (obviously its illogical for the mook to choose anything but Z to defend we'll assume the Game master pulled the token blindly from a bag since it's a mook). To explain the tie rules we'll assume the mook attacked with Z and the player defended with Z. If they had the same skill level, there would be no loss on either side. Since the player has Z at skill 2 the player would cause 1 loss to the mook. Causing losses regardless of whom attacks speeds the game up, it also
plays into some ideas I have for later.

That is all for today. I'll be funnier and more coherent later
LooneyDM

Cosplayers

I'm sure this guy dressed up like a plastic soldier from Toy Story was actually a promo gimmick, but this looks just awesome if it was an actual cosplay. I did see some plastic soldier cosplay at Arkon this year. They even had a baby monitor. Sadly they weren't the most epic cosplay I saw that weekend. That would have to go to either Samus (who was a blonde girl underneath) or the clone trooper who later showed up as Arther Rimmer. My bad on posting on Tuesday instead of Monday. I'll be more on my game for Wednesday.

LooneyDM

Comparing Players to Artificial Intelligences

AI in games tends to be bad. Not necessarily because the AI isn't working from a programming stand point, but because of game rules that the AI seems to not realized are in effect. The numbskulls in Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2 are a perfect example of this travesty. The AI has no conception of Attacks of Opportunity so it runs willy nilly across the battlefield trying to get into position to flank or defend the player's character (if you forgot to turn that option off you neener head) causing them to take lots of unnecessary damage.
I bring this up because there's always those players who don't get the rules and I'd like you to feel better about them. I'm not talking about the new players who haven't picked up the rules after one play session. I'm talking about the players who have been playing the same edition of the same game for the past several years and still don't have a grasp on the game concepts or what they're supposed to roll. For these players I suggest a little trick I learned from one of my high school teachers. Take a two by four. Write the words "Board of Education" on it. Hit said player with it when they fail to learn. Maybe you'll knock some sense into them.

LooneyDM up up and away!

On Comedy Gaming

I considered typing this post and putting it all in wingdings to make the title appropriate but I couldn't be arsed. This week I'm going to give a run down of all the comedy style games I can think of that I'd like to run or have run for me because lists are awesome. At the end I'm going to make a point about comedy games in general so read on dear reader if you feel this post needs pointedness. Otherwise read the list and hit the eject button to your left. You can't miss it, it's bright red with the words "Push Me" on it.

Call of Cthulu comedy game: Not your usual CoC game, I'd send the players off planet in a very Arthur Dent-ish traipse around the universe where they discover that the creatures from beyond aren't that mess up, it's just their method of getting here from their anti universe completely translates them wrong. IE the players fail to stop the cultist, are sucked into the unknown and find themselves to be the san loss inducing horrors once they've crossed over. I doubt this sort of chicanry would go over well so I'd save it for a one shot of some sort. Plus it mostly depends on the 'twist' and we all know how well that works for M. Night Shamalamadingdong.

The Alice in Wonderland: I'd want to start this one off with telling the players to make characters without telling them what sort of game it is. That should give me an excellent stable of randomness mess. Then they bond together and go on very basic quests dressed up in the window dressing of the world.

The Shrek: The fantasy world turned on its ear. I haven't decided if I'd warn the players or not but I'd definitely ask for them to make 'unlikely' heroes. Expect copious references to all sorts of fairy tales and mythology

Super Chibi Squad: Classic saturday morning cartoon super heroes in the vein of Darkwing Duck and Power puff girls. Rock. I'd warn the players before hand so they don't bring any of those icky dark and brooding anti heroes to the game table. I will throw popsicle sticks at them if they arrive with one of those.

The Princess Bride: A magnum opus I hope to run some day. A seemingly ordinary tale (setting yet unknown) well told with an entirely comedic bent.

Look out! Here comes the point of the post! Don't get impaled!
Comedy is like a spice. It works best when added to other themes instead of being an end for itself. You could possibly make a whole meal out of it but you're better off not trying. There point. Now munch on it and discuss as needed. Call me in the morning if your fever persists, oh wait, wrong blog.

LooneyDM

Geekdom

Yes, that is a Darth Vader head hot air balloon. Yes, it is real. Yes, it does appear to be from Italy. I wants I wants I wants I wants! Even if it's just for one ride. Even though I'm perversely afraid of heights and would probably hide in the basket the whole time. Geeks are everywhere. Someday the world will have to accept that. If it doesn't, well we've got physics on our side.

No idea where I found this. GIS for Darth Vader Balloon will likely retrieve it for you.

Looney

When your players use anime logic...

Only players who have been watching anime recently will come up with the train of logic that insists that the best way to fight giant monsters is to build a giant robot. This one is part of a Sequential Art comic. Again by the incomparable JollyJack. There are times I entirely want to find a mecha laying around so I can curb stomp the entirely ridiculous monsters you face down in a D&D game. Giant ladybugs are the least of my worries!

LooneyDM

I'm running out of game quotes!

The quotes are running thin for I've been running in the historical ones and now we've caught up. I must admit to the sad fact that we're not crazy enough to fill pages and pages of rp quotes just from one session alone. This of course means next week you get my incomparable comedy stylings instead of random humor from my D&D groups so beware. Your sides are at risk next week.

Clementine rolls: 1d20 search! => 20
Clementine: (( I find their souls! ))
Clementine: (( I keeps them in a bottle. ))

* Steely Dan yells "YE CAN TAKE ME LIFE, BUT YE CANNAE TAKE ME TROUSERS!" and charges!
LooneyDM: (( careful, they could burn the trousers right off you ))
Steely Dan: (( little do they know, our hero doesn't WEAR trousers ))

Clementine: (( Steely Dan smells funny. ))
Klo: "Women!"
Steely Dan: (( I did get a forced bath recently though ))
Atargatis: "Dan isn't a woman."
Klo: "He's wearing a skirt no?"
Atargatis: "...I suppose that's true."
* Klo smirks
* Atargatis leans up against a wall and relaxes
Klo: "i'll stay by the entrance"
Steely Dan: "It's a KILT, bigjob!"
Clementine: "Still a skirt, my friend."
Atargatis:"On second thought, I'll rest where someone entering a room can't see me immediately."
Steely Dan:"I like it fer th' extra breeze round me privates"
Klo:"All better the target"

Corbinus: I believe the correct stategy is to have Steely eaten by it until we kill it.
Steely Dan: it's an evil bubble and it's poisoning me

Steely Dan: "I backstab the book!" "you can't backstab a book" "it has a spine, doesn't it?"

LooneyDM out

Porn (it's not what you think)

There's always that one guy whose character portraits look like he pulled them straight out of Succubus Illustrated. You know him. He's a hair "off". He looks at people in a creepy way. He leers. All his female characters are lesbians. If it's creepy he does it. Maybe it's for attention, maybe he doesn't get it. Don't be that guy.

LooneyDM

No Trespassing (Adventure!)

Search your heart, you know it to be true. No trespassing always means you take that route. Especially in RPGs. Player characters are always reading between the lines like that. I need to start running a comedy game to use all these little ideas a have for random comical flavor. Either that or get better at ramming random comic flavor into the games I am running.

Picture by snowdrak on deviant art
Original Art : http://snowdrak.deviantart.com/art/Trespassing-140419434

LooneyDM

Quotes from the game I don't DM

I have to say the idea of a comedy game intrigues me, but I'm failing so badly to form coherent thoughts about it that I'm going to skip the inane mental bumblings and simply give you another taste of the humor inherent in my gaming situation. To shorten, here are more quotes from the games I play in. If the quote is labelled from DM and not LooneyDM it's a DM who is not me. Likewise, if a quote is just labelled Looney then I wasn't DMing that game.

Real life game. I don't DM this which explains why it's avoided catastrophe so far

Cecilia: I'm a badass on paper.

Looney: I flank the door. (note, I'm playing a rogue)

We found an illusion of a woman sitting on a throne. After inspecting it and determining it was of no harm and we couldn't take it with us we proceeded to explore the rest of the dungeon.
DM: The other room...
Vissar: ...holds the projector.

(On sneak attacking skeletons in 4e) Looney: I steal their bones one by one.

(On her turn) Cecilia: I love this turn!

We found some scented candles and our fighter decided they would look awesome on top of the horns on his minotaur skull helmet.
Later we decided that we needed to enchant said minotaur helmet to moo

Tirah: Whose side are you on?
Vimach: The side that doesn't get me hit!

DM: Give me perception checks
Tirah: 15
Looney: 21
Rynasia: 22
Vissar: What are we doing?

Tirah: Intimidate. There's nothing quite like the evil mom stink eye

Tirah: You are the black hearted son of a wolf bitch and carrion crow

Vissar: He takes a double shot of espresso

(While fighting a wraith) Vimach: Bad touch, bad touch!

(Singing) DM: Mummy cat, mummy cat, oh oh oh, mummy cat

DNR - Do not resurrect

Ceclia: That was a hard battle.
DM: It was hard for me to watch.

(Vimach is a goliath fighter and he dropped a nat 20 on his steath check) Vimach: I'm stealthy, I'm stealthy.

(Cecilia is a tiefling avenger) Cecilia: You're my oath of emnity *blows a rasberry at the enemy*

DM: *hums a little tune while deciding what to do with the monsters on their turn*
Cecilia: Are they going to move or just sing?

(Vissar is a Longtooth shifter warden) Vissar: I'm going to use Nature's Abundance.
Looney: Hippie.
Tirah: Flower power!

(Cecilia's diety is Xan Yae, goddess of secrets, shadows and balance) Cecilia: Does my diety prohibit drinking? I can't find it anywhere in the Player's Handbook.
Looney: Well, Xan Yae wouldn't approve if you got drunk because you'd lose your balance.

DM: What country are you from?
Tirah: Kansas!

(Running Tirah) Cecilia: She has some weird feat I just noticed.
Vissar: Are they webbed?

(Dice roll knocks Tirah's miniature over) DM: Tirah, a giant boulder rolls through the wall and kills you.

Vissar: I have a negative intelligence modifier.
Looney: I do as well.
Vissar: Team dumb unite!

(speaking about a purse a dead npc had) DM: He has a pouch on his body.
Vissar: I would love to touch his pouch.

That's all for this week's looniness. Next week we'll delve into the depths of the game I run.

LooneyDM Zanzibar

Point Buy Systems

If you've every played a point buy system, you've seen characters that may as well be snails with massive gunnery. "If I increase my max range, I won't need to move quickly!" It's still Monday where I am for another hour. I'm not late and I didn't forget, I swear on the half a baked potato I had for supper tonight! Mmmm, potato. See you Wednesday for more looney musings. I don't know where I got this picture. Probably google image search for snail.

LooneyDM out.

Crossovers

In the vein of Goofy as Thor, we have Iron Man as Peter Pan. I'd only want to see it as one of those silly fan made movies, definitely not anything official. Either way it's a silly awesome idea. It even got mentioned at Archon by Luke Ski who does geek spoofs and music. At least that's what I'd call it. You might call it something else.
Art by someone on deviant art that I can't find now. My notes say their deviant name was enjuhneer but that's not turning anything up. BIZARRE!

Edit: It's a page from a webcomic http://www.enjuhneer.com/?p=485 . The creator was so very nice to find me, so go read her comic. It's quite amusing.

LooneyDM

RPG quotes

Today I shall entertain you will various and sundry quotes from RP groups I've DM'd and played with over the past however long it's been. All names are in character to protect the guilty, except quotes from me because I stand proudly by my guilt.

From a city based D&D campaign involving the characters all being part of the same traveling performing group:

Nessa: "sooo, you want to get him drunk?"
Prosepon: "I want to get ME drunk. We've been working in the wine capital of the world for weeks now, and I haven't gotten drunk ONCE yet."

LooneyDM: (Fiera has reds and oranges, Ganut Raum blues and purples, Aleath greens and sky blue)
Ber: (I'm adhering to ALL the houses' colors)

Nessa: (back goes with everything, baby!)

LooneyDM (as guard): "Who are you all?"
Ber: (looks at his skill set)
Ber: (looks at MY skill set. Can't see his)

Short context for this one. Ber is a gnomish beguiler. He's also the only little person in a group of all humans. This makes for very interesting chase scenes, especially when other characters have to carry him for him to keep up.

* Ber rides.
Onala: (I refuse to make horse noises XD )

From a greek themed game with a rotating cast and a rules light system:

How do we fight a hydra? Well when you've got a shiny codpiece you hump it to death.

Britomeda: "Is that the same storm as before?"
Britomeda: "Everyone on tentacle alert!"

Andreas: "Miredos please don't flirt with the sea monsters"
herpicles: "I have it! they're aquatic golddiggers!"

herpicles: "we should totally take watches"
* Miredos takes herpicles' watch

Andreas: "you and your wang!"
* Herscus shushes Andreas with his wang

Andreas: (can andreas hit herscus? or maybe later)
LooneyGM: roll 2d6
dicechan: LooneyGM rolled : 2d6 --> [ 2d6=10 ]{10}
Herscus: (I'm typing while lying down, long day)
Herscus: (Typings a bit off )
LooneyGM: (if you don't want to do damage you can punch him for free)
Andreas: (okay)
* Herpicles attempts to dodge it athletically and keep it out of reach by sticking his iron bar at it
* Andreas punches Herscus for the sandal incident
Herpicles: (16)
* Herscus backflips again
Herpicles: (I keep rolling at least one 6)
Herscus: roll 2d6+4
dicechan: Herscus rolled : 2d6+4 --> [ 2d6=5 ]{9}
Andreas: (you can't roll to dodge my punch)
Herscus: (Like fuck I cant, this is RP ho!)
LooneyGM: (herpicles gets out of the way easily)
Andreas: (YOU HAVE BEEN PUNCHED)
Andreas: (FINE)
Andreas: roll 2d6+100 PUNCH OF DOOM
dicechan: Andreas rolled : 2d6+100 PUNCH OF DOOM --> [ 2d6=8 ]{108}
LooneyGM: The next goes after the singing Miredos
Andreas: (BAM)
Herscus: (Disqualified)
LooneyGM: roll 2d6
dicechan: LooneyGM rolled : 2d6 --> [ 2d6=8 ]{8}
Herscus: (I win)
Herscus: (You take 2 damage)
LooneyGM: (*headdesks*)

That's all for this week folks. Next time around I'll break out the stuff from my current campaigns.

Looney away!

Conventions

Conventions attract all sorts of people. People who make you proud to be geeky. People who leave you in awe. Ordinary people out for a fun time. People who you wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. See, ten foot poles have real life applications! I went to Archon this weekend. I will start with the bad, move to the good and silly.
The Bad:
I signed up for a spaghetti western game to try out a new system. Everyone was an iteration of Clint Eastwood. I haven't seen a single Clint Eastwood movie in its entirety for years. Second. I was scheduled to have another game the next day in the morning. The DM never showed up. The masquerade had a few meh entries.
The Good:
I still had fun playing in the spaghetti western game and ended up buying the system. For the game that the DM didn't show another one of the players grabbed Pandemic and those of us that stayed had a grand time playing that game. I purchased Tome of battle, a 3.5 D&D book I've wanted for a while. The masquerade was sweet. One of the sets of costumes was the entire doll cast of 9. I'm pretty sure they won. There was also Silent Hill cosplay, which turned into a dance number featuring thriller. I met quite a few artists and had a goodly time. I'm looking forward to it next year.

Looney DM

Familiars Part 2

How many of us have seen players get a familiar and then completely forget about it except for the bonus it grants them? I'm sure there's at least one in each group for each game played. So do your job as a good DM and make them earn those minor skill bonuses by having them clean their familiar with a fine tooth comb-err toothbrush! This post is coming to you on Thursday night because I'm going to be gone to Archon this weekend. I defy my own schedule! Take that self tyranny! Anyways I hope to return with crazy stories of mad adventure and chasing game developers around the hall with a mop and duct tape while screaming about their insufficiencies (just imagine how insane I'd be if I got drunk!)

Looney out!

Comedy Gaming: The Straight Man

Today I intend to tackle the concept of the comedy game. No really, I'm going to tackle it to the ground and give it the solid whoopin' it deserves. That said, here we roll. Given how much RPGs are supposed to focus on fun, the lack of comedy games is a tiff bizarre to me. Most likely it's because we're all being too pretentious and a silly game would simply knock the train off its wheels. Or we're already too silly at the game table for a comedy game to be much different from our ordinary games. Either way there needs to be more consideration of the comedy game as a whole. Ignoring it is like studying theater and only focusing on the tragedies and not mentioning the comedies. Sheer lunacy I say!
Today I'd like to look at the most important part of a comedy game. The straight man. Someone has to be the straight man. If you don't have a straight man then the silliness just spins out of control as participants try to one up each other to make their silliness stand out. In light of that let's examine who makes the best straight men.
The Players as a Group: Not letting your players in on the fact that you're running a comedy game can be an amusing bait and switch. Instead of fighting down boring goblins and kobolds again at first level you can have them face down dreaded dire chipmunks! Bonus points if they've got 3 sharp pointy teeth. Later on they can meet their nemesis the Pompous Pantaloon Pilferer who plans to conquer the world by cornering the market on undergarments. Running a theme can make it even better. Having them fight Jello Cubes and Perilous Pudding is all well and good but imagine the look on their faces when they run into such classics as the Gingerbread Man and Strawberry Shortcake as the major villians. That said the players may not be happy in their role as the straigh men. This can lead to them switching up and playing the silly for all its worth. That isn't a bad thing in an of itself, unless you haven't planned for the eventuality and provided a straight man to replace them. Because without a straight man you're comedy is going to fall apart.
The DM: A good choice as you can control your own level of straightmanness. This does count on the players to bring the silly, but with the right players and the right input up front it shouldn't be a problem. Just remember to have a few silly npcs along with all your straight men to keep the players on their toes. Overall I'd say this is the better choice of the two.
To explain, no there is no time, let me sum up. Whether or not you play the straight man as the DM depends on two things. First, your players ability to keep the silliness going. In most cases I doubt you'll have issues with this at all. Second, your personal desire to surprise the players with a comedy campaign. After all, dropping the players down the rabbit hole can be so much more appealing than trying to find just the right monster to challenge both your Power gamer and your Storyteller. So get out there and run a comedy game dammit!

Looney out and about like saurkraut (Motivational posters will return on Friday)

Familiar

You know you want a tiny AT-AT walker running around your house begging to be let in and out at all times of the day or night! The best familiars are the weirdest ones. I'm off to a rollicking good start here. I barely made this post in time for it to qualify for motivational monday instead of tardy tuesday. Be Motivated! Of course it's up to you to decided what you're motivated to do at this point but that's not my problem. See you in two days for a post without motivation. I mean without posters. Motivation may happen despite the lack of posters.

Looney out

Mission Statement!

"Your mission should you choose to accept it..." "...5 year mission to explore strange new worlds..." A mission statement is a brief written statement of the purpose of a company or organization. Ideally, a mission statement guides the actions of the organization, spells out its overall goal, provides a sense of direction, and guides decision making for all levels of management.
So that answers what a mission statement is but that still leaves the veritable questions of who, when, where, why, and how. As I'm only a sixth of the way done this post promises to be a dozy. I think I'll tackle why next as who, where, and how are fairly obvious at this point (with when being completely indefinite at this point). On with the show!
Why the heck would a blog need a mission statement? That's a good question, I'm glad I asked. My general hope is to avoid rambling creep that tends to percolate into most of the blogs I write. Additionally I want to keep on track and without a clear goal or schedule that's unlikely to happen as I'll forget to post and simply forget about the blog all together.
That's why a blog would need a mission statement of any sort which wraps up the post for this week.

Waitaminute. The mission statement.

The Looney DM blog's mission is to bring some much needed humor and levity to the RP community, blog or otherwise. An explanation is in order. Blogs in general and RP blogs specifically are prone to navel gazing. Even worse they don't have the decency to clean out the lint that's accumulated, they just shuffle it around, if they touch it at all. I mean really, some personal blog hygeine is definately in order. A good shot of humor to the face like an over charged seltzer bottle is just what's needed to get the spring cleaning started.
I'm going to rock a three day a week schedule for this. Monday will be Motivational Monday. I'll pop out a RPG related motivational poster on mondays along with commentary and appropriate links to the artist if applicable. Wednesday doesn't have a clever alliteration day but it will be reserved for amusing anecdotes and quotes from my personal games and stuff I find on the net. Friday will be more motivational posters along with the occasional tidbit of DM advice.

Since you've been a good sport and read through the whole of my ramblings, have some motivation to come back later.


Art by Paul Kidby. That is all.