Last year I covered my biggest failure as a GM. This year I figured to do a complete 180 and do my biggest success as a player.
This is definitely tougher than last year. Last time I had to qualify failure within a large body of work. This time it is a sparse series of choices.
Pastuphan: My GURPS Humanx alien raccoon who could barely make it through the first adventure (based off a Chip 'n Dale Rescue Ranger episode I might add) to fighting off swarms of Verm in the final adventure.
Prego of Lyon: a mutant human with lion like features (and photosynthetic skin) in Gamma World 4th edition. How our group got through Famine in Far-go I'd beyond me.
Valerius and Yuri the Healing Guy from a Basic D&D game. They both got to fifth level!
E.B. Borgstrom and Banjo Joe, my two Call of Cthulhu characters who survived, and didn't do much, mind you.
Cephas: My stock AD&D Elf Bowman who has had many a Christmas adventure, when we're not running Toon reject elves?
Believe it or not, unless I take a stretch and start including my Rifts Cyber-Knight, a Werewolf from a one-shot World of Darkness session, a Star Trek: Next Gen dude, a radio operator from Recon, or numerous forgetable super hero one shots, there's not much else to work with. And I can't begin to include convention PCs, like William of Arinka and Marino Hernandez, Star Wars tramp freighter captain. I primarily GM, and have been doing so for nearly 25 years.
That being said, here's my top 3
#3 - Gary the Flying Guy: Gary was my character given to me for my very first game of TWERPS (The World's Easiest Role Playing Game.) He was the helicopter pilot during a zombie apocalypse (It was '94, we were always ahead of the curve). His strength was 4 and he got +1 to all piloting rolls. That's it. It was such a revelation to play such a basic and simple character. Plus it involved more quick thinking that die rolls for the group to survive. I don't remember if the Kermitnator made an appearance (Yes, the Kermitnator, a cyborg amphibian from the future), but such a rules light approach stuck with me ever since. Ironically, I have most of the TWERPS books at my desk at work today. Great material to develop the Gnomish Space Marines.
#2 - Sabeth Joachim: Outside of GMing RPGA stores, I rarely got a chance to be a playing for a in-store session. That whole running a business, dealing with customer, etc. just got in the way. The one time I did was a 2nd Edition AD&D run by Mike Dalcin. Like most harried store campaigns, it was an eclectic mixture of newbies, junior high munchkins, and slackers with nothing better to do on a Thursday night. Of course, this means that my character was thrust into a leadership role, barking order, soothing egos, and trying not to get slaughtered before we left the town on the first quest. Sabeth was probably the most "average" character stat-wise, a simple fighter in a crowd of handbooks, kit, and sub-classes. The difference with her was with my years of tactical GM experience, I took 1% of that and kept her out of trouble. I also realized that the regular attendees had two issues: 1. They were more ravenous with magic items "they could use" than a regular group and 2. We had no thief. Sabeth solved both issues herself. Despite being one of the more dominant (and surprisingly effective) characters, she would defer magic items like armor and weapons to appease the others. She faired quite well enough with studded leather, a minor dex bonus, and penchant for avoiding combat. However, she did take an extra share at the bottom, which meant all-class scrolls, miscellaneous potions, and a ring of invisibility fell into her lap. She became the party pseudo theif/scout and somehow did not die, despite all the traps, pits, and poisoned needles thrown at us.
#1 - The Naked Roast Nazi: First, a shout out to Todd in Pen Argyl, PA! Second, yes, you read the name right. Todd was a regular miniatures customer at Griffon Game. I think he may have been the main person responsible for the expansion of the Reaper line. With the store closing, we struck up a conversation and I was invited into his home game. It was a big honor, as I believe he had been playing with the same crew for somewhere around a decade and had just finished up a five year weekly campaign. With a hybrid 1st/2nd Edition game with cherry picked parts of all the fantasy heartbreakers thrown in for good measure, I figured I'd start with a concept character, and if he died, I'd go more in depth into the system with the next one. With DM approval, I went with a Halfling Wizard with some cooking non-weapon proficiencies. Todd's response? "Hey, why not?"
The campaign was definitely sandbox, mid-risk, low sandbox to be exact. We wandered around the wilderness, following rumors of treasure. My little wizard (his name lost in the epochs of time) found little use with a sling, a dagger, and a staff that usually doubled as the spit for whatever we were killed for food. It wasn't much, but life was good.
At some point, we had killed a bear, or boar, and had set up the spit to roast it. We had set camp at the edge of a lake and he rest of the party wandered off to see what they could see, gather herbs, etc, leaving me with the food... and the laundry. When the roast was done I stripped down to nothing and bathed myself and our spare clothes at the same time.
The absolute perfect time for three goblins to smell our food and wander into camp.
Waist deep in the water (and still naked) I ran out to grab the only nearby weapon... my staff/spit. Trying to scare them off, I screamed for help and swung the roast beast meancingly.
And rolled a nat 20.
One goblin out for the count, I shimmied the food off my weapon and went after goblin #2. Hit. Dead.
As the party began to return, they saw the halfling, naughty bits exposed, beating the third goblin with what was a moment previous, a cooking implement.
The halfling's name wasn't used from then on out, just Naked Roast Nazi. In this world we assumed it meant "Brave Halfling Warrior" rather than nude fascist chef.
Almost as funny, until the time that work got the best of me and I had to drop out, the halfling could only hit if he was in some state of disrobement. Fully geared up, he could hit a lake if he was droppred into the center of it.
...and that's all I'm going to say about that.
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