farashasilver:

karrius:

D&D players will always come up with the most bizarre, workable solutions to problems when you least expect it.

In one game I ran, the party needed to find a magical artifact and didn’t have any idea where it was at all. So they decided to use Commune to figure it out – but Commune as a spell only lets you ask yes or no questions, and get an answer out of it. So they took a map of the continent, drew a line down half of it, and asked “Is the artifact on this half of the map?”. They then continued, narrowing the artifact’s location down further and further, until they were able to pinpoint the exact building in question.

This reminds me of the last campaign I was in, when my husband played a Telepathic Psion. When we were coming up with our inventories at the beginning of the game, everyone else is putting down normal shit like horses, packs, travel provisions, money.

My husband asked for a bear trap.

The DM (who happened to be coolkidmitch) asked him what the hell he could possibly need a bear trap for, to which my husband only said, “You’ll see.” After about twenty minutes of figuring out what this bear trap would weigh, the skill my husband would have to roll in order to use it, and a bunch of other minutiae, my husband had a bear trap in his inventory.

Now, all of us kind of forgot about the bear trap while we were adventuring along on our escort quest (during which my husband’s Psion regularly tried to convince one of our employers that there was a golden acorn/tree of life/fountain of youth/whatever the fuck in the forest so she would wander off and get herself eaten by bears – she was really rude) until we run into a situation where we’ve been surprised by the locals and nobody can draw a weapon without causing a real problem.

My husband pulls the bear trap out of his saddlebag, holds it out to the nearest goon, and says the goon needs to roll a will check. When asked why the goon needs to roll a will check, my husband calmly replies, “He’s being offered the fanciest hat he’s ever seen in his life, and he really wants to put it on.”

Moment of silence around the gaming table as all of us realize that my husband is trying to end the encounter by convincing a goon to put a bear trap on his head like a hat.

The goon failed the will check.

crossroadsdimension:

underscorex:

It’s usually done so humans are presented as “average”. In my conception, humans are the daredevils. The one thing a human loves more than watching another human do something horribly unsafe is doing something unsafe themselves.

It’s said that the stout and serious dwarves invented the first staircase, but it was a human who came up with the idea of surfing down the staircase on an oaken shield.

Elves have lived in the great Hometree overlooking the Mother River for untold ages. It was a human who first had the idea to jump out of the tree and into the river.

That’s the other thing – dwarves are stout and hardy, but like the stone they came from, once they break, they’re broken. Humans recover impossibly fast by the standards of other races. They’re also the first ones to get up after an explosion or cave-in, with a cheerful “I’m okay!” They can’t take as much as a dwarf, but nobody beats humans at getting back up again and again and again for more punishment.

The Hobbits appreciate Human vigor, their good cheer, and certainly their lusty appetite for food and drink, but the utter glee with which humans will attempt to harm themselves or their fellows in a misguided attempt at “fun” is horrifying. Their rituals and celebration – they let themselves be charged by bulls! – are seen as a testament to human ingenuity, creativity, and utter lack of good sense.

The humans who are most highly regarded by their peers are those who excel at SOMETHING. Dancing, throwing, singing, fighting – humans love watching other humans be excellent at things, even something otherwise pointless and wasteful, like throwing knitting needles into melons.

They are, to a fault, resilient. No Elves would DARE return to a failed settlement. The land is cursed and the dead walk there. Humans will rebuild the same castle over again with the same standing stones.

TL;DR – only humans would invent the X-Games.

Humans are Weird: Fantasy Edition

prokopetz:

Concept: An X-Files-esque conspiracy thriller that’s basically two completely different games depending on which agent you’re playing as at the time.

When you’re playing as the Down to Earth agent, it’s a straight-laced police procedural adventure game – spot the clues, interrogate the witnesses, etc. Realistic graphics, subdued jazzy soundtrack, psychologically plausible personalities and motivations, and so forth.

When you’re playing as the True Believer agent, however, the game goes full gonzo. Many NPCs who appear human from the Down to Earth agent’s perspective appear as various supernatural beasties (werewolves, mothmen, etc.) and have completely different dialogue trees. Some areas become inaccessible because they’re barred by hazards that only the True Believer can perceive, while new areas open up thanks to doors and passages that don’t exist for the Down to Earth agent. The graphics and soundtrack become more stylised, more colourful, and more grotesque.

You can switch viewpoints at any time, unless you’re in an area where only one agent is present. It’s never made 100% clear which agent’s perspective is “real”, if indeed either of them are, and the gameplay actively obfuscates the truth; one puzzle’s solution might rely on the True Believer sneaking into a building using an entrance that only exists for her, then letting her counterpart in, for example, while another might depend on the Down to Earth agent’s ability to simply walk through an obstacle that only the True Believer can see. Items taken from one version of reality can freely be used in the other.

In the end, the twist is that there’s no twist. Neither agent’s perspective is proven wrong, and they go on with their lives, each thinking the other is crazy.