Funny situations in the Realm of Dread (Possibly Spoilers)

[HuManBing]

Bumping this thread for great justice.

We played 2nd ed. when I was in Britain. A few entertaining things cropped up.

* I had to rename the Barovian dialect. I think I called it Baltorok. In the normal rules, it's called "Balok". Anybody familiar with the British term "bollocks" will know why I couldn't have my horror campaign featuring a load of citizens running around and "talking bollocks".

* I also had to rename the killer in Invidia who saw Aderre causing problems for her parents. The term "Midnight Slasher" roughly equates to "nocturnal urinator" in UK slang. So my players always collapsed into laughter when the "midnight slasher" struck again, leaving a terrible mess on the floor.

* We had a housemaster in high school who was a real character. He would say the most outrageous things in a perfectly normal Oxfordian tone of voice. e.g.

"The camping handbook says here you should bring a pillow. However, I feel it's simplest just to use whatever's handy. Twigs. Branches. Leaves. Dead baby, etc."

His voice was very distinctive too. Needless to say, I used his voice as Azalin's in all my campaigns, and Azalin would often say things that mixed the heartless and the macabre.

"Yes, I did have some hopes for him. But after two years in the field, I have realized he's more use to me dead than alive. At least now he stays where I put him..."

[Brandi]

Now I have this rather strange mental image of Stephen Fry as the voice of Azalin.

[HuManBing]

Actually, his voice was somewhat closer to Hugh Laurie rather than Stephen Fry.

It had the posh overtones of Laurie but without any of the flimflammery. If you imagine Clint Eastwood's growl, but in a posh Oxfordian accent, you've got my housemaster.

And that's Azalin in my campaign. Soft spoken and dignified because he is used to commanding respect.

Edit: Also, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie both were Cambridge. But you get what I mean.

[steveflam]

Funny thing is I know Laurie is British but have only heard him doing Dr House or Stewart Little's father,,, oh well LOL

[HuManBing]

He acts alongside Stephen Fry in Blackadder and Jeeves and Wooster. The two of them also had a comedy duo show in the early 1990s.

Laurie's voice is usually a "startled posh" voice.

"What on earth do you think we should do, Jeeves?"

"What could any fine upstanding soldier have against this magnificent mag?"

[Drinnik Shoehorn]

* I had to rename the Barovian dialect. I think I called it Baltorok. In the normal rules, it's called "Balok". Anybody familiar with the British term "bollocks" will know why I couldn't have my horror campaign featuring a load of citizens running around and "talking bollocks".

* I also had to rename the killer in Invidia who saw Aderre causing problems for her parents. The term "Midnight Slasher" roughly equates to "nocturnal urinator" in UK slang. So my players always collapsed into laughter when the "midnight slasher" struck again, leaving a terrible mess on the floor.

Y'know, I think this must just have been the group you played with, I've never had any trouble with Balok or the Midnight Slasher...

[HuManBing]

Your group was clearly more mature than mine. We played while we were in high school, in a boys-dominated boarding school, back in the days when getting an illegal drink was considered a great badge of courage, and copping a feel was considered the highest form of forbidden fruit known to mankind.

(Well there was one guy who actually had sex when he was 15 but he was gay so that didn't really count. Strange how in our testosterone-laden innuendoes and smutty references, something as "hands-on" as that slipped by the censors.)

((And no, that guy wasn't me .))

[Lord_Pruitt]

I can't remember which adventure my old high school group was playing (yes, this happened that long ago), but they were searching a dungeon. They came upon a closed door. Opening it, they saw a typical dungeon crawl 10 x 10 room, that was a pit which descended into darkness (as in no floor at all). So this one guy, says "My character goes in and looks down."

Everyone was quite and glanced at each other. "What? What is it?", he said, about the time everyone was handing me their d6s. "What are those for?" he asked. One of the other guys just looked at him, "Damage. You just walked into a pit."

With the realization of what he had just done, his expression was priceless.

[Korumil]

One of our characters, the illustrious archivist Mensick Kalkhov, has "inherited" a museum in Dementlieu. For multiple reasons we are, for intents and purposes, going on a tour of the major domains of the Core and along the way, whenever encountering anything particularly strange, Mensick pops into view with a set of metal tongs and a glass vial for another "sample!"

This, however, means that through our journeys he has collected an awful number of glass containers that he keeps on his person at all times, "for safe keeping."

Our group often jokes about an adversary who does his research and upon confronting us his first action will be to cast Shatter upon poor Mr. Kalkhov. We assumed every container would act as a small dagger and a foe might cause aproximately 38d3 damage should he wish it, reducing Mensick into a pile of thin crimson strips.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Has he specifically mentioned that he's labelling the vials? If so, it'll be amusing when he realizes he has no idea what's in each container or where it came from.

I've helped to clean up a university science building's basement IRL, and that was true of an astounding number of carefully-prepared slides there.

[order99]

Does Masque count?

Our group had made the mistake of going straight from one long, nerve-wracking Masque campaign into...another Masque campaign, under a new DM. As a result, the players(myself included) had no time to decompress. Needless to say, it became a rather, um, ODD adventure or two that made our poor DM blow a gasket or two:

DM: All Right, I QUIT. NOW. Let me tell you why...

Terry, you were very brave going after those lurching Undead with only a Tenderizing Mallet and a Gutting knife. And I have to admit, gutting the carcasses and hiding them with the other meat in the warehouse was great-if DEMENTED-way of keeping the Peelers off your back...but buying the entire stock and opening a MEAT PIE SHOP??? Don't look at ME when you end up with sharp, pointy teeth, glowing red eyes and frellin' hooves on your feet, you just earned a DOZEN DP checks, "Sweeney Todd", let's see how many take...

Alice, I realize you're a Suffragete, I know you have a chip on your shoulder-and I realize one of those Whitechapel victims was an accquaintence of yours...but don't you think there are better ways of catching the maniac than running an ad in the Times CHALLENGING HIM TO A BODYCOUNT CONTEST???!!! Okay, stalking rich influential men on Downing Street has a certain, well, ironic counterpoint...and leaving thier organs intact but skinning them instead...seriously, are you trying to CATCH the Ripper or PROPOSE TO HIM??!!!?!

And YOU. (me. ) I realize that a Vampire took your mother. But every.encounter.is.not.a.Vampire. I could live with you waving a Crucifix at everything that moves-pretty funny really-and I realize you've failed TWO Madness checks...but that does NOT excuse you dragging children from the Workhouse, dosing them with Laudanum and using them as BAIT!! It most CERTAINLY does not excuse soaking thier clothes in lamp oil and guncotton with a stick of dynamite and a slow-burning fuse and turning hapless WAIFS into Vampire LAND MINES!!! Even worse that you actually GOT one that way, along with the entire Rookery...

So I quit. This is supposed to be a game of subtle Gothic adventure horror, not the Legion of Mad, Bad Victorian Supervillians...

Then our DM fell quiet. Then he Grinned, a nasty grin.
DM: Be back next week, new characters. See ya.

Next week, our DM showed up with the Masque Boxed Set and a copy of 1st ed. Gamma World...and so began the mad, mad story of Blackstone's Freakshow, a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen-style saga of lost worlds, clockwork gadgets and blood-drinking Pod People! Our first assignment-terminate our previous PC's with EXTREME pedjudice. It was GLORIOUS.

Lesson learned-you can overload on even your favorite games, always have a backup plan.

[Brandi]

I gotta admit, whatever you guys were doing, it wasn't Ravenloft.

Sounded pretty fun, though!

[NeoTiamat]

An interesting and moderately amusing moment in my current game.

This occurs in Souragne, and the two characters in question are a slightly twitchy Voodan whom we shall call Henri, and a skeptical, atheistic Borcan rogue whom we shall call Samael (Me).

The village we're at is laying out the dead in accordance with Mr. Misroi's decree, and as we're passing, DM calls a spot check. Henri succeeds, and sees a rather dubious Loa chatting amiably with the dead spirits.

He panics, and in a purely reflexive reaction, waves his bottle of rum at the Loa and the spirits in a very 'Get ye back!' manner.

I'll quote the rest. (It was a PbP.)

Samael:
Samael was continuing his gentle persuasion of the villagers [Diplomacy 8+10=18] when he heard what sounded distinctly like the slosh of a liquor bottle. Samael had been around a great many liqour bottles, and that was decidedly the sound of a liqour bottle.

Murmering apologies in his impeccable Richumelese, the Borcan turned around to find Henri waving what was undeniably a liquor bottle in the direction of the shrouded corpses, an expression of utter horror writ large on his face.

Samael blinked a few times at this. He padded on silent feet to just behind Henri and glanced over the Souragnien's shoulder, and saw nothing amongst the dead. He nodded to himself. Must be religious hysteria or something. With exaggerated care, so as not to disturb the obviously deranged Voodan, he placed a single hand on Henri's shoulder.

"There, there... it's allright... you look like Boritsi just foreclosed your home. Why don't you give me the bottle and we'll go inside. I doubt the dead people want a drink."

Henri:
Henri shook his head, and turned his gaze to Samael, looking a bit less forclosed upon, and more curious. "Nevermind, Samael. He's gone."

Samael:
"Of coooourse he is......" The Borcan draped a long arm around the Voodan and continued in his 'talking to crazy people' voice, at once gentle and skeptical. "Tell you what. We'll leave the villagers to this and go get something to eat, alright? You'll feel much better then."

Samael reached out and deftly snatched the bottle of rum from Henri's unyielding hands. [Sleight of Hand/Take 10: 10+11=21 vs DC 20] He tilted the bottle back and let the golden coloured alcohol pour down his throat. After a few swallows, he raised the bottle to the day's dieing light and examined it, nodding with approval.

"Legions, I needed that." The Borcan cast a sidelong glance at Henri. "Come, lets go inside and have a drink or five, we could both use them."

What can I say, I'm easily amused.

[order99]

NeoTiamat, I can but wish for brilliant dialogue like that in my games-it happens, but not nearly enough...
Brandi-It WAS fun, but in no way did it resemble Ravenloft or Masque. It did get all the nuttiness out of our systems and let us get Gothic again though(ie, back to acceptable levels of Weird).

[NeoTiamat]

More Henri and Samael amusement.

Samael has just finished explaining the whole background of the adventure to an NPC, including how he was attacked by a giant shambling mound called the Parlmofait.

Samael:
"We know there's at least two Parlmofait's running around right now. One of them is a big swamp-muck thing humanoid in shape, the size of a barn, with four long, thick vines for moving and four fast vines for lashing out at inoffensive Borcans. It's the thing that probably killed all of the lumberjacks and attacked Francis."

Henri:
Henri sighed. Although Samael was being as blunt as a cudgel to the head, he did hit pretty much the major points. Slipping into Sourangien, he spoke. "The Parlmofait that didn't try to kill you and Vanklyn said that if we showed up in his grove again, he'd kill us. Other than that....a pretty accurate account."

Samael:
"How, pray tell, do you define grabbing me by the foot and trying to drag me into the water? I certainly hope it wasn't vine-thing trying to be seductive."

Samael shuddered.

"Now that is a frightening thought."

Henri:
Henri actually smiled, a bit amused."Oh, I in no way deny its attempt to kill you. What i see as a mild inaccuracy is your claim of being inoffensive."

Samael:
Samael adopted an extravagantly innocent pose, a combination only slightly less believable then that of a chaste prostitute.

"Now, now, have you ever seen me do anything the least bit wrong?"