Showing posts with label fantasy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fantasy. Show all posts

Accidental Munchkin

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Accidental Munchkin

Panel 1 - INT - Front shot, DM (Early-Mid Twenties, overweight, glasses) hunched over a desk, hands in hair distressed. RPG style books in front of him, some dice strewn across the desk and some pages of notes.

DM
Crap, game night is tomorrow and
I still don't have a villain yet.
What am I going to do?

Panel 2 - Close up of DM's eyes, wide open with surprise looking down at desk

DM
Whoa! Thats an awesome ability!

Panel 3 - DM scratching his head flipping through some pages.

DM
I thought I saw something earlier that'd
work really well with that... but
where was it?

Panel 4 - Behind DM, digital clock above him shows time as 9:34 PM.

DM
Oh hey! That'd work well with it
too...

Panel 5 - Digital clock above him shows time as 10:28 PM.

DM
Oh and this... and this...

Panel 6 - Digital clock above him shows time as 1:06 AM.

DM
Holy crap this one's awesome!

Panel 7 - Digital clock above him shows time as 3:12 AM.

DM
Finished! This villain is going to
challenge them for sure!

Panel 8 - white text on black background

TEXT
THE NEXT DAY...

Panel 9 - EXT - Dense Forest background, trees broken, areas burnt to crisp, blood splatter everywhere, a Giant lying dead with huge gapping cut through its stomach

Panel 10 - Heavily armored Knight with head chopped off lying next to body which is slumped against a tree.

Panel 11 - A bloody pile of robes with a wizard hat laying on top of it and a tome next to it

Panel 12 - Weretiger Man looking horrified at his bloody claws. The 3 bodies laying behind him in the background.

WERETIGER MAN
Dear gods... what have I done!

Panel 13 - INT - Large table with 4 people sitting around it, one of the people is DM. DM sits behind a GM screen looking horrified like the Weretiger Man.

PLAYER 1
Dude you're a total munchkin!

PLAYER 2
What were you thinking throwing
us up against that guy?

PLAYER 3
And it was the first enemy too!

Panel 14 - Closer down to the table looking across it to DM, the three players on the peripheral of the frame

DM
I... I didn't mean to! I swear!

Panel 15 - Wide Shot, Players exiting the room, DM sits there depressed.

PLAYER 1
That was so lame.

PLAYER 2
Way to over-powered.

PLAYER 3
I never got to use my wood
carving skill...

Panel 16 - Close up of DM sad and depressed, single tear rolling down his cheek.

DM
I just tried to make it challenging...

END

Explanation - Something incredibly similar to this happened in a game I ran. Thankfully the ending wasn't as dramatic. I decided to fudge the rules to get a happier ending then what this DM got. But it's a problem I feel I run into too often. It's not that I try to make villains over powered, I just know the rules and spend, literally, hours making characters, trying to find the best way to get what I want out of it. Munchkining is, in my opinion, when a player tries to find every rule and every loophole, that they can find in order to make theit character the most unstoppable killing machine the game has ever seen. The problem is that I accidentally munchkin. I usually don't take advantage of loop holes but I do spend a great deal of time looking up rules, because making a character is a lot of fun for me, so I do it well. I also do try to keep at least one gapping flaw in enemies for players to take advantage of, even if that gapping flaw is slightly hidden... Oh well.
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Misspelled

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"What the hell, Karen?!"
Karen snickered behind her hands. "I... I didn't know this would happen, I swear!"
"Well fix it!"
"I don't know how, James. It’s a miracle I pulled it off in the first place. This isn't something I do on a normal basis you know."
"That’s exactly why I was worried about you casting that spell in the first place!"
"Well we need to find that guy who stole our amulet, or we're never going to get back home. So are you going to be a good boy, or do I need to try and find a new spell to cast?" Karen started to flip through the thick ragged pages of the worn leather tome.
James groaned, but he couldn't think of any other way. Neither of them knew how to track someone through the woods, or through anywhere else for that matter.
"Well... how do I...?"
"I'd imagine it’s exactly how you've seen it happen. The dog walks around sniffing the ground."
"But don't I need something from the guy to sniff first?"
"Wait... I think I remember seeing..." Karen started to look on the dense forest floor. A light brown handkerchief lay over some bushes. She picked it up and looked back to James. "He dropped this when he was wrestling with you for the amulet. Sniff it."
"Isn't that a handkerchief?"
"Yeah so?"
"So he's probably wiped off sweat with that, and blown his nose in there, and-and... god knows what else!"
"Do you want to stay in this... whereever this is, forever?"
"Of course not."
"Well this is our only lead back home. So stop being a bad dog and sniff the handkerchief already."
"Only if you stop with the good boy, bad dog stuff."
"Fine." Karen smirked a little and held out the handkerchief. James walked over still getting used to the fact that he now had four legs. He leaned in and sniffed the handkerchief hesitantly. It was amazing how vivid the smells were. Sure the smells were strong before but suddenly he could distinguish this smell from the thousands of others flooding his nose.
"It so weird. Its like having high-def for your nose! Everything’s so crisp and distinct!"
"Good boy." Karen smirked.
James growled a little bit at her, annoyed by her taunts.
"Oh quiet and hurry up before the scent fades or something."
James sighed a little and started to sniff around. The strong sweaty stench of the man was all over the area.
"He was defiantly here."
"Well I could have told you that you dolt. Start heading where he went and follow his scent."
"Right, right." James started off where their mysterious mugger ran off, sniffing along the way. Karen followed close behind.
Her eyes looking over the spell page she had used not more then an hour ago in the comfort of her own bedroom. Now she was in the middle of some dense forest. She didn't know exactly how they had gotten here, the spell book was suppose to have been a joke, a fun way to past the night. But then the amulet had glowed and, with a feeling of being pulled through cold syrup, they had found themselves here. It was clear that if they ever wanted to get back, they had to find the amulet again. 0 comments