You know, i really have no idea. It just came out and seemed like an apt description for what the guy was being. It just sounds kinda dirty, doesn't it?

Ditto what ShadowPhoenix said.

Its a lot like acting or any other performance art. Only RPing is a TRUELY interactive performance art.

Hmmm....do you think we could use that to attract more people to RPing? The RolePlay industry has never really had a catch phrase. I mean, "Just Roll It" doesn't send quite the right message. Ok, ok, maybe a truthful message but not a very PC (politically correct) one.

Since I don't hold out much hope of the Clue Files ever ressurecting itself, I'll post a story I submitted once here. This occured the third time I ever GMed. I can see now that I was a bit of a railroader back then, but really...

THE PREMISE: One of the crew's former teammates got captured by Lone Star, handed over to Ares, and turned into a cyberzombie prototype, and is now stalking his former friends.

THE PRINCIPAL CAST:

Sloppy McSeconds: AK-toting Ork sammy. INT of 2.
Blap: Ork with an Ares Stoner HMG. INT of 2.
CK: Albino Ork with a shotgun and a bike. INT of 3 (he's the brains of the operation).
Taka: Made by a new player, a Biowared rigger with an INT of 10 (Finally! A voice of reason! But the player shows up late...)
The GM, myself.

VITAL INFO: Each member of crew is 20000 nuyen in debt for one reason or another.

CLUELESSNESS OF NOTE: Consider the intelligence attributes. Is it possible to be too in character?

In the last session, the team has just discovered that one of their old runner pals, Twitch, has been turned into a badass cyberzombie with move-by-wire 4 and lots of other goodies, and he's not too pleased that none of the crew could save his hoop. He's already destroyed the crew's favorite hangout, and they're looking for revenge.

So, I give them a call from the Yakuza offering work. I expect that they'll head over to Yakuza territory, when sloppy says, "I'm going to call my junkyard contact."

GM: Uh, ok. You call and he wants to meet in person.
Sloppy: OK, I head over.
(The rest follow)
GM: "So, Sloppy, what do ya need?"
Sloppy: "I need to look up the location of a Van, possibly confiscated by Lone Star six months ago." (He gives a description and plate number for Twitch's van)
GM: Huh?
Sloppy: Twitch loves that Van, man!
GM: (And he also loved that bar he just blew up...) OK, well, he looks it up and tells you it's in another junkyard. Way across town.
Sloppy: We go there.
GM: (Sigh) OK, it'll take you an hour.
(On the way)
Sloppy: "Guys, I have the best idea."
Blap: "What is it?"
Sloppy: "I don't know exactly, but it involves Twitch's Van and lots of explosives!"
CK: "Cool!"
GM: (Oh my...) OK, you get to the junkyard. He looks through his files, and says that the van was compacted into a 3 by 3 meter cube a week ago. (That'll do it, right?)
Sloppy: How much for the cube?
GM: (Chokes on soda) What?
Blap: We want to buy the cube.
GM: But... it's just a... Alright. "Well, regulations say I have to recycle this junk, so I'll need some money to smooth over bribes. So, say, about 6000 nuyen?" (Heh heh heh...)
Sloppy: "We'll take it!"

Sigh. Keep in mind that all the players need to raise 20000 individually for various reasons. I let them buy the cube. Even having to haul the thing across Seattle to their hideout doesn't phase them. (Ork strength, Ork brains. Damn.) They head over to the Yaks, and are told that they need to kidnap a Mafia capo. I've been implying to the crew that the Mob knows something about Twitch. They're told that they need to steal a limo and pick up the Mafia guy, and that a rigger (the fourth player) will be sent over to help them out. So they go back to their hideout, and what do they do? Discuss their plans for the run? Check their equipment?

No, they're talking about what type of explosive to stuff in the damn cube!

Finally the fourth player shows up, and I work him into the game by saying he has a call from a fixer briefing him on a job, and saying to head over to where the rest of the crew is staying and assist them. An intelligence of ten! Finally someone to talk some sense into the crew!

Well maybe not:

Taka: I walk up to the door to the hideout and turn the knob.
GM: It's locked.
Taka: I take out my pistol and shoot the doorknob!
GM: (Eeep.) Roll Intelligence, TN 2.
Take: Heh. Eight successes.
GM: You see a doorbell.

Hmmm. Well, he gets inside, and asks how the prep for the run is going. Sloppy starts telling them all about Twitch, and their plan for the cube:

Sloppy: "We're going to hook it up to a nuke..."
CK: "No, where will we get a nuke from!? Just use C-12."
Sloppy: "Fine, fine. Then we're going to lure him in..."
GM: (Takes a stiff drink) Taka, roll intelligence, TN 3.
Taka: Seven successes.
GM: You realize that they have no idea how to contact Twitch, nor do you think it likely that Twitch will want to go after a crushed cube of his van.
Taka: (Tells them this)
Blap: "But he loves that van!"
Sloppy: "He'll do anything for it! Now, you have fireproofing on your armor, right?"
Taka: "Yeah..."
Sloppy: "Maybe you could, like, stand near the cube and call out to Twitch, taunting him to come in, and when the bomb goes off, your fireproofing should protect you, right?"
GM: Taka, no roll required. This is, bar none, the dumbest idea you've ever heard, and you've been to Troll Eco-Activist meetings.
Taka: "Dammit, that's fucking idiotic! Will you shut up and stop going on about the fucking stupid cube..."
Sloppy: I attack Taka with my shock gloves!!!

Then, the person PLAYING Sloppy gets up, tackles Taka's player to the ground, puts his hand on Taka's player's face, and starts making zapping noises. Everyone’s laughing, Taka's player gets up, and smiling, says "You bastard!" to Sloppy's player, and laughs.

GM: Taka, resist 10D stun, no combat pool.
Taka: Uh, no successes.
GM: Sorry, you get knocked out.
Sloppy: "Oh, bitch, who's talking smack now!"
GM: Good job. You just knocked out your rigger. The run is in two hours, by the way.

I leave it as a creative exercise to the reader to figure out how the rest of the night went. But here's something to get you started: it involves three very drunk Orks driving a corpse in a limo through Mafia territory, shooting everyone in a pinstriped suit.

Damn, I miss the Clue Files....

This is good, though. Let's keep it going. This is what i had in mind.

Extreme pedantic a mudwhistling sometimes requires extreme responses. By extreme i mean situations where you don't want to play under that GM anymore, and are just trying to extract a bit of fun.

P.S. I would recommend writing down actions that you can later tell the GM about though.

OK, I got one:

Back in the day my group and I played A LOT of D&D and we were the most amoral group of munchkin fraggers that you could ever see. I may have been the only one to play an Assassin by class but everyone played one by trade. Mind you, we had tossed out alignment a ways back.

When we first switched to 3rd ED, I came up with the idea that it would be fun if we all play "good guys". I convinced one of the other players and every one else fell in line.

Our DM didn't know what hit him. After the first 2 hours he finally gave in and said "Alright, you guys saved the kids in the burning house, helped the guy w/ the broken cart, saved the girl from the rich rapist and, this is what kills me the most, didn't rob the unprotected merchant. I don't know what to tell you. Go to the store and buy all your stuff for the dungeon."

I know it sounds lame but it was like "Scare Factor for DMs w/ Amoral Groups."

It was priceless.

My, this thread has certainly taken off in a very short time span...

Anyway, back to the discussion at hand.

**short bow**

Domo.

BTW, thanks for the link in your sig. I'll be there tomorrow.

Me and Kev lit some patchouli incense and had a quick kumbaya before things got too heated.




Oh, and that mudwhistle thing, too.

Squire said everything I ever really tried to say on this thread, but much better.

Thanks for the nod, Smiley. Right back at ya.

BTW, I know its a faux pas, but does your name have anything to do with Nightsky's fan fiction?

And for that matter, does anyone know if the Nightsky author frequents these parts?

We had one GM who had a tendency to railroad us. We didn't like it. So we hijacked the helicopter that was taking us to the arcology, shot down our escort of six attack choppers, and flew to Fiji.

He was a much better GM after that point.

Yeah too bad CLUE files are dead.
Maybe someone else can take over? Like, Ancient History?

Probably I'll GM for my group this week, so next week there will be a couple of horror stories. But in fact my players can do little to startle me. Only if they will start to act rationally, but nah - it will never happen. There is one rational guy in the team but he is ignored in planning stage. And planning stage always goes "Should we attack? Yeah, let's go."

Well, it's a story we and the GM can laugh about.
Heh heh...I like you guys

We don't GM for the same guys (you are pretty pretty far away, as I remember), even if their thinking, erm spinal cord reflexes are the same.
My deepest compassion to you

That's what happens when people go from computer RPG's to table RPG's.

Nothing, however, is worse than going from console RPGs to Shadowrun and seeing how the "healing" "spells" "work."

The CLUE files were basically a permanent version of this thread. Or, actually, what this thread was intended to be. A compilation of really really stupid things players have done. I think it's gone forever, though, unless you know something i don't.

Sometime last February or so there was a thread about restoring them, and Karen dropped in and then ended up making a new "coming soon" site, but nothing ever happened from there. Link.

~J

So it is a list of stories with a button/link for 'Add your own tale of woe'?

Gimme 24 hours...

No no, far more than that. The saintly lady who ran it was an artist. She'd take the submissions, then edit them extensively. Apparently she was quite picky, and it shows in the quality of the stories up there. I suspect she won't turn it over to anyone else, even if that means it dies, however you're welcome to make your own story site if you'd like, and maybe link them or something.

I'm worried that with just a submit button and no editing, you'd get a lot of very long, very unfunny posts and it would sux0r.

Whereas the CLUE files "r0x0rz your b0x0rz."

She said specifically that she wouldn't turn it over to anyone else in the aforementioned thread that sparked the brief moment of life.

~J

The CLUE Files archive is still around:

http://archive.dumpshock.com/CLUE/

A former friend of mine once played a Troll Shaman named Paco. He insisted that Paco be Mexican, and devoutly Catholic. I don't remember how we resolved him being a shaman and still follow Judeo-Christian doctrine. I think we decided that he thought his totem was merely a manisfestation of God, and still felt really guilty about not following God straight up (Catholic, remember?) or somesuch. It actually was a great opportunity for hilarious roleplaying, so no one really objected.

Anywho, we had many misadventures with Paco. I was playing the team leader, and would often have to be the one to clean up after him.

The most memorable was an incident where we were doing some legwork and casing for a smaller paranormal research company. They had a nice three or four story building not too far from downtown, with offices, a reception desk, Starbucks across the street, etc. My character, Syd, tracked down an NPC decker to look up stuff on this company. While the decker and our fixer were digging dirt on these folks, Syd traded off with our sneaky/assasin-y/hit-man guy watching the building non-discretely--figuring out the workshifts, noting what sort of clientel come by, counting vans going in an out of the garage, the usual.

After the info came back from the NPC's and several days of casing the place, Syd et al starts rounding up the necessary gear and making arrangements for the run.

Except Paco.

Paco has all the gear he ever needs on him at all times (I think we had to beg him to at least carry a pistol). So Paco is bored while everyone else is spending a few days prepping, and decides to get a little more intel on his own. Paco tells Syd that he's going to case the place some more while everyone else is busy. Syd thinks that's a fine idea and sends him on.

Merely casing this place isn't good enough for Paco. He goes to the local flower shop, and buys a gaudy display of flowers in a basket. He then walks into the front door of the building, at 2:00 in the afternoon, and announces to the receptionist that he's got a flower delivery for someone upstairs. Paco didn't get a delivery boy uniform, or name tag, or _anything else_. Just his plain ol' street clothes. Envision an 8 ft tall Mexican Troll, wearing a black frock, with a poncho thrown on top of it, a large crucifix dangling around his neck, telling this lady that he works for the flower company and would like to deliver some flowers.

The GM gives Paco the benefit of the doubt, and has him roll an etiquette test (albeit with significant modifiers for the circumstances). Paco, of course, doesn't have a damn bit of etiquette skill, and fails horribly.

Secretary: "If you leave the flowers here, I can see they get to the recipient. Who's the delivery for?"
Paco: <bad hispanic accent>"Oh, it's for <grumble something under breath>. But I have to deliver it _personally_. Could you just let me up?"</bad hispanic accent>
Secretary: "I'm sorry. Policy doesn't let those without clearance outside of the lobby." <hits silent alarm repeatedly>

This banter continues until some goons show up and ask Paco why he's there. He still sticks to his flower delivery story. So, they jump him, knock him out with a crazy-go-nuts stun baton, tie him up, and haul him downstairs for interrogation. Interrogation is rather uneventful, but funny to listen to.

The GM kinda likes having Paco around because it's funny, so he has the goons throw Paco into a van to transport him to another location (I think they were going to an Aztechnology site). The goons stop for lunch, and Paco wakes up hog-tied, naked but for a shroud he can barely see through on his head, in the back of the van. Paco manages to bash open the door, roll out and inch-worm to a payphone. He dials 0 with his nose or something, and gives Syd a call. He informs Syd that he's in trouble, at some fast food restaraunt naked and being hauled somewhere by goons.

The team mobilizes to track where the phone call came from, jumps in our party wagon and comes to the rescue. The goons didn't notice Paco worming around until they are done with lunch, so there is enough time for the team to jump them and free their shaman.

At this point, Paco is seriously pissed off. While everyone else waits a few more days to see if things changed (now that the target is aware that somebody is interested in them), Paco decides to take justice into his own hands. At 2:00 in the afternoon, he walks into the front door of the target _again_. This time, we're there reconnoitering, and start screaming at him over the radio to get the hell out of there. The receptionist immediately recognizes him, hits the alarm and ducks under her desk. He then throws all the dice he can into a monstrous fireball spell. He burns some karma so the drain doesn't drop him then and there, and gimps away before goons show up. Some goons follow us and we have a fight to get away.

The baddies are out:
- one $10/hour secretary
- a few thousand dollars to rebuild the lobby

Great job Paco. Even though his run was totally screwed, our GM almost laughed out of his chair.

This is good... i want MORE.

We had a bunch of misadventures with Paco, mainly because our GM didn't have the heart to kill him (although the PC's eventually did). I've forgotten most of them now... I kinda wish I'd written them all down for posterity.

Is this why he's a "former friend?"

Ummm... 'NO' would have sufficed, but ok.

Eh, sorry. It's late and I'm feeling talkative. I should head home.

I liked it. I'm not alone if having fucked up friends I guess. :\

Too much information is fun. Beats having to wrench out vital information from Js every job...

~J

I was running a game with my group once. They had a week to pull a data retrieval run from the third floor of a Humanis Policlub building. This club was well-funded. They had all kinds of money for support and also security, so I didn't skimp on the guard detail (had 10 shock troops on the second floor at all times, two on top of the building, a few in the lobby, and a bound Force 6 Fire Elemental). I also had the building watched by a security rigger in a FAB-ed interior room.

The runners had to retrieve a damning piece of evidence from the third floor of the building. The humans in the group decided to case the place one day to check out the interiors. They dressed up in street clothes (not hard with their wardrobes) and went to the rally. The Humanis members were eager to meet new recruits and since this was in a bad spot in town, offered them some soup from the soup kitchen.

The "master of disguise" in the group decided to cast her best illusionary spell and pumped a few sexual pheromones into a goggling 'captain's' direction, and it wasn't long before he was trying to get her upstairs to his office. Meanwhile, the ghoul in the party charges from the alley across the street yelling obscenities and screaming nonsensical things. I might add that he's not wearing any pants or underwear... bare nekkid from the waist down.

(this got the first "What the fuck?!" from me as the rest of the group started snickering... they're all up to something, I thought.)

He runs into the lobby office and starts spraying the desks, walls, and guards with his ghoul urine... yes, he starts pissing everywhere. The other gutterpunks and hopefuls that are in there at the time naturally get annoyed enough to start a fight with the ghoul. As soon as this happens, the other human runners rush into to start escalating the fight.

("Uhhh... is this what you guys really want to do?" I say to the players... they're all looking at me with grins.)

I'm like, whatever... I'm not fudging anything this time then. So I proceed to have the security rigger pipe in over the loud speakers, "Cease this disturbance immediately!" Just as that happens, the mage casts Mob Mind. He gets just about everyone, including the mage in on the fight. The ghoul runs back out of the lobby to the alley... only one guy chases him (who coincidentally got knocked unconscious in an ensuing fight, then eaten partially). When the chairs are flying around the room, a potted plant hits the wall, and a computer terminal is broken on the head of one of the guards, the security rigger lights up the alarms and lights and proceeds to lock the entire place down. Blast doors clang shut on all the entrances and gas starts to flood the room. Everyone gets knocked out.

(I'm sitting there thinking, what the hell was that all about?! I didn't expect this as a "case job".)

The players are all laughing before I can continue.

"What's so funny?" I ask.

"We just wanted to see how fast and extensive their security was."

I had to be fair. None of them were carrying any identification and they've all managed to keep a silent enough rep that they're not really known by face. The guards couldn't really tell that it was done on purpose, so they let everyone go. I had them question some of the runners (along with the rest of the recruit wannabes), but they couldn't piece anything together. They walked away having witnessed all of the security measures that I planned for them.

I gave 'em all an extra 2 karma for that. It got us all laughing and it definitely exposed all the secrets I was going to try and spring on 'em.

That is one of the coolest ideas I've heard. They earned that karma

Wait a minute...I've got a ghoul in my campaign...oh he'd better not...