wayfarer-v:

pantslesswrock:

thesoundandtheponies:

Someshing you may not know about me… My bad self DMs for an almost weekly Dungeons & Dragons group (because dork awesome). If you have never played, I highly recommend finding someone who can guide you through the learning curve and giving it the old college try.

A few weeks ago, one of my players found their character (a level 8 wizard named Abadon) in a really bad spot— separated from the rest of the group and just a turn away from irreversible death at the hands of a very powerful wizard. Having already exhausted every obvious possibility for survival, he began scrambling through the notes and spells and items scrawled in every margin of his character sheets, looking for some means of saving himself. He tells me Abadon pulls out the Charming Dreamcatcher, an item that allows the user to control the actions of an opponent to a point (don’t worry, I am careful with item creation), provided that the user can keep sight of his target through the center of the dreamcatcher. He tells me that he uses it to force the enemy wizard to “Uhhm… Teleport to his mother’s house!”

I’m like, “But then you won’t be able to see him anymore, and he’ll just teleport right back!”

Eager to defend Abadon’s rationale, another player chimes in with, “No way, he’s a member of the prestigious Red Guard, so he probably NEVER visits home! He just appears at home and mom’s just gonna let him leave? UNLIKELY.”

So I grab my dice and do a bunch of rolls to determine if mom’s even home, and of course she is, and the players are going crazy trying to convince me of how overbearing and controlling this particular guard’s mom is.

They are just tickling me with all of this, so I say, “Okay okay, we’ll do opposing Diplomacy checks. I’ll roll for the Red Guard wizard, and one of you rolls for mom.” As they roll for mom, one of them says (in their best Mrs. Costanza voice), “I haven’t even met your girlfriend, for cryin’ out loud!”

The above picture was the result. I rolled a paltry seven, and they totally dominated me with a 20. Abadon was able to escape death because he sent an enemy home to his mother, who then guilted him into sitting down to a home-cooked meal. “You’re always out guarding this, or killing that— never any time to visit your poor mother!”

Best encounter ever.

this is fantastic

moodymodron