So I'd like to share a little story-time. It's a simple story, but a long one. It's about a fellow known as Jack; I say 'known as' because that was just what he went by online. Jack was a fellow we met in an MMO, and ended up joining our online D&D campaign.
Jack wasn't, originally, a bad guy. But Jack became a bad guy. He became worse.
He became THAT GUY.
This is the story of Jack, That Guy, the only guy in more than a decade that we had to uninvite to a normally no-limits D&D Campaign.
So here's the basics of the campaign: we met up once a week over first Ventrillo and then Skype, using an assortment of online tools to run a rather successful campaign. We played D&D 4e because it was still the new kid on the block, and as we mostly met through modern MMOs, it really did appeal to most of us.
Names are gonna be changed to help preserve SOME anonymity. We had one guy we called Old Man; he was actually early 30s, but he had no teeth left because he was of the "any problems just yank it" camp, and he apparently had a lot of problems. He'd also been playing since a young kid, AD&D 1st and all that.
There was Nick, who was actually the youngest of us, but was wise behind his ear. Also top-tier min-maxer, but didn't give people shit if they weren't.
We had Sarge... No one's really sure how that name came up. It was probably involved in an old game character that stuck to him.
There was me, and my RL boyfriend. Many gay jokes abounded, half of them from us.
Aaaaand then there's Jack.
Jack had actually ended up volunteering to be the GM for the first campaign. Had a whole homebrew world worked out, awesome. Helped me and BF make our first characters as we'd not in 4e before. Helped me make a dwarf cleric. Except he was using half 3.5 rules, and wasn't paying attention to whether the powers were using Strength or Wisdom (especially since I was main-statted as Int, despite that not even being a thing in 3.5).
This was chocked up to obstinance rather than sabotage, we got things fixed after the first week. But that's also where the story started: our folks ended up called to fulfill a grand quest, we would be the ones to foil the next cycle of the return of the Dark Lord.
> BF: This sounds most ominous, what is the Dark Lord's name?
The Dark Lord.
The BBEG's name was *literally* The Dark Lord.
Everyone's bullshit meter starts pinging.
Pretending to be professional about it, we soldier on. We have to go to the Generic Temple Of Destiny, fight the Guardians and absorb their power. Vague and childish hints about our 'destiny' are dropped by the Guardians as they're defeated, but defeat them we do because we are awesome. We then go out to adventure to level up and fight the OH SHIT IT'S THE DARK LORD ALREADY.
Super-mage pulls a YOU SHALL NOT PASS moment, bad-assedly holds back TDL's minions, we bust-ass back into the temple to bunker in. Super-mage casts a spell. We're put into stasis for five, THOUSAND, years. Because the Dark Lord arrived early, that threw the cycles out of whack, and though the world was changed it wasn't conquered or destroyed. Now we have to go figure out how to prep for the REAL big battle.
>>44508388
>tfw no gay boyfriend to play /tg/ with
Why bother living. But carry on, just stating my interest in your story.
So, there we are, five millennia in the future. Despite that, the technology of the world hasn't advanced at all. Even for D&D we're a little suspect of that. So now we have to go to each of the continents, which are each attuned to a different element, to unlock each individual person's "Guardian Powers." Thankfully this was well before Avatar: The Last Airbender came out, or we'd be making jokes about THAT instead of humming the Samurai Jack theme.
The first continent is the Earth Element. I think that was our Ranger, fittingly. Especially since we end up in a dungeon that takes place inside a giant, ancient spirit-tree. That was infested by a demon. In the shape of a giant spider.
>MFW we realize our first "real" adventure is the Great Deku Tree, from Ocarina of Time.
So our next shenanigans takes us to the Land of Water, I think this was to boost up our Druid's powers. Of course, we've now learned that our "unlocked powers" will only come into play when fighting the Dark Lord, there's no in-game benefit except for storyline, and to serve as good milestones to end up leveling up.
We've also noticed several trends: every fight is basically us against singular, giant monsters; after every fight we end up back at Super-Mage's place (because of course he survived) for rest and recovery; essentially, we all realize we can now blow every single daily power each fight, because we'll always get extended rests. The ROFLSTOMPING COMMENCES.
That said, our venture through the Water Continent is remarkably entertaining, and we fight interesting (if simplistic) enemies. Druid gets boosted, we now go to the Land of Fire, aka an entire continent of lava flows and shit, to get my dwarf-cleric his powers.
That Guy Jack gives us his first truly great bit of bullshit: we defeat a "15 foot tall Platinum robot." We all start laughing like madmen, because a single platinum COIN is worth 100 gold, and this is a 15 foot tall robot made of them, we're level like 4, we're about to retire.
>GM Jack: "Platinum isn't really worth anything in this world."
He's lucky that we're online and can't actually flip a table.
You have my attention, OP
>>44509131
That sounds exactly like a generic JRPG. Hell that is essentially the plot of the first FF. The lack of advancement isn't THAT far fetched for D&D. In the PF setting, some of the big bads went into stasis for 10 years after evil fish men destroyed most of the world with asteroids, with little advancement other than a few shitty flintlock weapons.
Go on
After that week's game, the rest of us get together at another point and have a meeting. We're all getting tired of the way he runs things, but the one who's closest to Jack decides to have a chat with him. Apparently they have a breakthrough, he promises to get better.
We really should have known better.
On our way to get to the Air Continent for our next unlock (I forget who it was for,) we get side-tracked by an invitation from Sir Bumbledouche, whatever his name was. He's heard of our adventures and we're gathering to beat TDL, and he knows of a mystical artifact we can use to speed things up. He's also David Bowie. Again, this was before Venture Bros. had David Bowie as the Sovereign, I think Jack was just traumatized as a kid by Labyrinth.
So we go out and find the Horn of Splenda or whatever, beat another Giant Solo, come back with it. David Bowie smiles and blows the horn, and the outer walls of every city in the world crumble.
>what
Thousands of planar portals open up around the world. Dark forces begin pouring out.
>what
David Bowie starts laughing and reveals himself to be The Dark Lord. Even a nat-20 insight check had revealed him to be on the up-and-up, so we at least ask him to reveal his true form. NO, TDL IS LITERALLY JARETH THE GOBLIN KING AS PLAYED BY DAVID BOWIE.
Before we can virtually-lynch our GM, we get dragged by our mage adviser to his pocket dimension hide-out. He's yelling at US for helping TDL, despite the fact that both IC and OOC we literally were not allowed to know that.
We're yelling at HIM for not giving us more information ahead of time. This is when we can hear Jack scrambling to try to cover his own ass, and he goes, "Well, it wasn't MY idea to do that, it was HIS." Points to a dude in the corner we never noticed. An old man in a gray cloak with a pointy hat, and a cage with seven golden canaries.
My dwarf cleric of Moradin soils himself as he recognizes the mortal form of his god's best buddy, Bahamut.
>>44509418
*10,000 years
>>44509131
>Thankfully this was well before Avatar: The Last Airbender came out
Wait a fucking second.
Avatar the Last Airbender started airing in 2005 and ended in July 2008
Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition was released in June 2008
Even if you started playing the second it was released ATLA would still have been nearing the end of it's last season.
YOU'RE A FUCKING LIAR
>>44509615
I'm pretty sure that none of these stories are true at all. If they weren't, there would at least be pictures of character sheets of screenshots of Roll20 games being posted during these story time threads.
Still fun to read though.
We are now rioting both in-character and out. I at least try to keep it on the rails enough and, as a cleric, go up and "humbly ask" in the most Dwarven way possible of the god, "What the sweet slappy shit is happening here?"
>Bahamut: You and your companions were chosen to be the next round of Guardians. You will finish unlocking your powers, and then you will once more defeat the Dark Lord and send him into regress."
"Is he actually stronger than you and the other gods?"
>Bahamut: No, we do not get involved in mortal affairs.
"BULLSHIT!" Yes my level 4 or 5 dwarf literally told the dragon-god to his face, "bullshit". The GM goes to great lengths to explain that "the Dark Lord literally cannot be destroyed, it is a cosmic force, only the Guardians can defeat him and put him back to sleep for another few centuries. At that point we return to the Temples and wait for the next Guardians to come and claim their power."
>Us: Wait... You mean we don't even get a ticker-tape parade or some shit? We beat the big bad guy, then immediately go into stasis and wait for other level 1 noobs to come and kill us?
>Super-Mage: No, not stasis, you'll be awake and waiting for a couple thousand years.
And that was when both our party decided to let the world come to an end, and we the players decided to not let Jack be the DM any more.
After a lot of whining and complaining we at least gave him the option of staying in the group as a PLAYER, while Old Man picked up the reigns as GM.
And after I get back later, I'll reveal Jack's final transformation in That Guy: Ultimate Form.
>>44509663
The stories are quite true. However, it was done over Skype and MapTools, using the original 4e stuff and eventually the offline builder. None of us bothered to keep screenshots.
>>44509615
I am not a liar, but I *am* an idiot.
THIS CAMPAIGN WAS NOT BEFORE ATLA WAS RELEASED AND I APOLOGIZE FOR SAYING SO.
This campaign was before any of us were *into* it. Not a one of us watched the show before it ended, believing it to be over-hyped nonsense. Then a few of us ended up watching it begrudgingly after the fact. I, for one, fell in love with it and caught every episode of Korra during premier.
The game WAS run in 2008, however, before there was even much out for it. As more was release, shenanigans increased exponentially.
>>44509675
None of this sounds that bad really. Some pretty trite fantasy stuff, but I've played worse games and had a lot of fun.
Does he do something awful later or is this it?
>>44509967
>And after I get back later, I'll reveal Jack's final transformation in That Guy: Ultimate Form.
seems like there is more.
>>44509675
>And after I get back later, I'll reveal Jack's final transformation in That Guy: Ultimate Form.
Decent build-up, but you're making a big promise here.
>>44509265
>GM Jack: "Platinum isn't really worth anything in this world."
kek
Based troll jack.
I HAVE RETURNED WITH PIZZA.
Okay so here's where Jack goes from "shitty GM with bad ideas" into That Guy mode. The first few weeks of Old Man running the campaign go fairly well. There's a few 3.5 vs 4e debates, but nothing horrible. Jack is playing his Raven Queen worshiping, scythe-carrying druid, everyone's mostly enjoying themselves.
Jack is slowly mutating into a munchkin, but we're keeping him in check. Or at least, we're out-munchkin-ing him. Then he misses a week, no lead-up. No that's fine, happens to everyone, he's back the next week, apologizes, we move on.
He misses the week after THAT. And then another week. On at random intervals in between D&D games, but missing those nights. We eventually kill off his character and move on.
He finally comes back and literally *cries* over the fact that his character is dead. How much time and effort he put into it, all this stuff; we finally relent, let him back into the game with a new character. First week of that goes by fine.
Second, third weeks of new character, no-show, no explanation. His character dies again.
STUNNINGLY, Jack returns the next night. Again throws a fit, this time angry instead of cry-baby. We alert him that we're giving him one last chance; since the START he has given us nothing but bullshit both in-character and out-of-character, with only random bits of actual fun directly involving him. He swears he'll behave. Makes himself a dragonborn (hence the original image in the thread.) And things IMPLODE.
>>44510562
go on
>>44510562
Did any of you talk to Jack about what was going on with him? Like, maybe he was skipping sessions because of stuff in his life? I know it's not necessarily your problem, but it might have helped.
>>44510562
Please continue
>>44510669
We did in fact talk with Jack, and that leads into the current bit of the story. He always had some excuse for missing things; half the time it dug himself in deeper though because it was stuff he had known about before hand but NEVER TOLD US.
His character is introduced immediately after we slay an ACTUAL dragon. We have a bit of fun pretending that "the big one pooped him out" and such things. He gets noticeably butt-hurt, but we eventually move on. The night ends well enough, we even get to say things like "It was good gaming with you properly again, Jack."
The next night his computer dies. Through mutual contacts he gets hold of me, who is a TOTALLY NOT PROFESSIONAL COMPUTER GUY, but at least knows how to diagnose and figure out whether it can be fixed yourself or if you need a pro involved. He gives me his cell phone number, and I spend over an hour on the line with him, getting his computer BASICALLY running again, save for just waiting for a few huge things downloaded.
Jack spends another 10 minutes thanking me. The next week in our MMO games he's so nice to me, the next D&D session is golden, and we're good again.
The next week, he's running late. I get the brainstorm, "Hey, I have his cell phone, I'll call him up."
He's on a train! "Oh, you're coming home?"
>"No, I'm going off to visit my sister's family."
"Ah... Last minute things come up, I guess, since you didn't tell us?"
>"We had this planned for like a month now, and my sister's more important than D&D, I don't have to tell you guys everything. Oh by the way, do me a favor and lose my phone number."
Then he hangs up on me. SO THAT'S THAT. I take an hour of time walking him through PC 101 beginner bullshit that he should have already known. *I* play the peacekeeper more weeks than not trying to stand up for him and give him the benefit of the doubt. *I* convince everyone to give him another shot. He tells me to lose his number after NOT His character serves as the meat-shield for my sorcerer to obliterate just... everything that stands before us, and he dies horribly.
>>44510961
Copy and paste can suck my balls.
>"He tells me to lose his number after NOT telling us ahead of time that he had plans one night, despite us specifically asking him as well as generally in the group to let us know ahead of time if you won't be there, doesn't matter the reason."
>>44511014
Wow. what a cunt.
So that was the end of him gaming with you guys, right?
>>44511014
Please let there be moar!
About 5 minutes before we break for the night, Jack joins into the call, having just gotten home. We tell him he's done. He flips his shit.
In retrospect, I sit down now and look at the That Guy listing to see what applies online.
"That Guy always always does loud and bad imitations when he plays," Oh yeah.
"That Guy will always bring so much cheese to the table that the other players instantly become lactose intolerant and choke." Nick, our min-max master, despised him because he not only metagamed he intentionally misread rules to "make it legal."
"That Guy never bothers to learn the rules, but will happily crash play to a halt every single turn." He once got into an argument over whether or not it 'made sense' that his rogue would get back-stab without combat advantage because he was "always trying to get behind the guy."
"That Guy will exploit every loophole in the rules to his advantage or require an utterly anal level of rule following whenever it suits him." When someone else tried to pull shenanigans HE HIMSELF pulled, he always somehow now had an exact page number to quote.
"That Guy will try to fight against the party and consider himself clever (because he's "winning"), but will ragequit when the party kills him." Well that's literally how he left.
"That Guy inserts his creepy fetishes into everything, and is the reason men are banned from playing women in your group." Not women, but lizard-folk. We're pretty sure he was a closet-furry.
"That Guy has tendency to get really mad over nothing." He never got mad over anything worthwhile, but he was always getting mad.
I really could have, if this was still *does some mental math* six or seven years ago when I had it all fresh in my mind. I remember the time that, as a GM, he suddenly retconned that a table was made out of solid metal because someone tried to damage it, but then threw a temper tantrum when HIS druid with a scythe couldn't auto-lop-off the leg of a table because he wasn't strength based and his scythe wasn't strong enough.
The night ends about 45 minutes late after we take and explain to him why, precisely, he was being an ass-hat. In true That Guy fashion he never learns his lesson, instead constantly winging about us "ganging up" on him and "not treating him fairly."
Nevermind all the shit he pulled on us, ICly, OOCly, or just no-showingly. Those were all reasonable and excusable. WE were the problems.
And that's the story of how Jack, King of the That Guys, was kicked out of our D&D campaign, not with a bang, nor a whimper, but one last whine.
Maybe next time I'll tell the story of the maybe-transexual playing the self-mutilating winged half-drow... I *definitely* remember the details of THAT one.
>>44511318
I have had similar that-guys, though all our gaming occurred in meatspace.
My main That-Guy was constantly harping about how we were supposedly misreading every single rule that came up. while being an asshat.
I had him GM a one-shot, and the other players all pulled the same shit he usually pulled. At the end of the session they told him they were doing it on purpose to show him how obnoxious he was being.
I asked him if he learned anything, if he would stop being so obnoxious (asked him nicely). He said he learned he needed to be obnoxious more.
I disinvited him after the following session, when I saw he wasn't just in a bad mood that day after seeing what he had been putting everyone else through, but was actually serious about becoming more obnoxious.
>>44511228
ive just read everything. u know that feeling inside you, that feeling like the blood is boiling from RAGE? Yeah, I am coming through this right now. I would punch this mofo so HARD.
>>44511318
>the maybe-transexual playing the self-mutilating winged half-drow
You've intrigued me. You must tell us now. It is the only way.
>>44511318
>Maybe next time I'll tell the story of the maybe-transexual playing the self-mutilating winged half-drow
Nuh uh, you tell that story NOW, broh.
>>44511423
Well do you play anything atm?
>>44511511
Yeah, I have a weekend-long event of gaming once a month.
>People arrive friday,
>12-16 hours of gaming on saturday
>12-14 hours of gaming on sunday.
Currently playing Pathfinder and a homebrew fallout campaign with rules the GM found online.
Recently finished a Shadowrun 5e campaign and a d20 Conan game got dropped for fallout.
Before that we also had a Pokemon Tabletop United game, Rolemaster 4e, and I was running EotE with lots of homebrew.
And then we fill the time between campaigns with EDH.
One GM is talking about running nWoD Changeling 2e; and I've been soon adding in my WIP fantasy-heartbreaker Pathfinder thing with a homebrew setting.
Why?
>>44511702
well you are playing them offline. just curious.
>>44509265
>each of the continents, which are each attuned to a different element
>"15 foot tall Platinum robot."
>GM Jack: "Platinum isn't really worth anything in this world."
Motherfucker, this campaign really WAS based on Avatar ... before it even came out.
2Spooky4Me
>>44511768
Yeah; I've never been able to get into online tabletops. the closest I used to get was NWN1 multiplayer RP servers, and I gradually lost interest - also all the typing RP bugged me.
I learned that a good chunk of what I like in tabletop is the face to face interaction.
But yeah. I still get in gaming. I get in less tabletop gaming than I'd like, but all the gaming I can really fit into my schedule.
These days I also help GM a Mythology Themed Fantasy LARP 1/mo. I may just be helping NPC it soon though.
>>44511901
>nwn1 rp
muh nigga
>>44511809
No Platinum is actually worth a lot it's just that "the purer the metal the less bendable it is"
I mean...those robots in Korra were still bullshit because to make that many and that tall and have everything a non bendable Platinum (even as like a mix for use of parts) it'd require depleting their fucking planet.
>>44511969
I used to play on the Myth Drannor server.
Played a moon elf ranger, IIRC. Also played a war-cleric at one point, and a sun-elven wizard.
Been so long (like, 2004) that I remember basically nothing else about it.
Oh! Someone got executed during a GM plot, and we grabbed part of him and put it in a jar, and went to have the guy raised; and the GM cockblocked us despite that being totally how resurrection works.
And then more and more GM fiat and GM favoritism douchery cropped up and eventually I stopped playing.
>>44512105
Yeah. Nwn1 now is even worse - bunch of erp servers and shitty pvp slayers. and cheaters. Nwn2 is not better tho.
>>44511995
Apparently in Avatar world, it's actually fairly common, thus not that valuable.
That's why the could have enough to build mecha and not have it cost enough to bankrupt entire empires.
>>44512154
>bunch of erp servers and shitty pvp slayers. and cheaters.
>cheaters
Local characters? Otherwise I'm not sue how they're doing this when chargen happens serverside.
>Nwn2 is not better tho.
I hear that.
I went back to ry singleplayer again, but NWVAULT is dead and gone now, and so seem to be all of the fantastic modules that used to be around.
Ended up just dicking around in Infinite Dungeons and the original campaigns instead.
>>44512235
multiplying items mostly. but it was 2013 stuff.
Well thats a depressing story OP. Hopefully Jack gets his personal life straightened out, and can become a good member of another gaming group in the future. Maybe Im just extra sensitive right now or something, but I feel bad for Jack and hope hes doing ok.
>>44508503
>The BBEG's name was *literally* The Dark Lord.
I don't really have any trouble with that. Satan literally means "The Adversary", Lucifer means "light bearer". Not names so much as titles. Like, God is...a god. The name's not too relevant (and if the BBEG had an actual *name*-name, how would anyone even know it?)
>>44511318
>the story of the maybe-transexual playing the self-mutilating winged half-drow
You are putting another story when?
>>44511462
>>44513755
I'll post up the self-mutilating drow crazy bitch tomorrow. I'm currently feeling like i'm coming down with a cold, took a boat-load of medicine, and am going to bed.
>dm runs a solo game for me
>it's pretty rad
>suddenly Behir
>it grapples and pins me to the ground
>it uses its extra hands to undress me
>it starts licking me and playing with me
>it finally eats me
>DM audibly climaxes in the Skype call
fuggg
>>44514160
I assume that is not what you had signed up for. heh.
>>44509663
>I have journal with photo of everyone's character sheets from the games I play
Really?
>>44514160
Should have rolled to pin
>>44514423
NTGB I have that for almost all the games I play.
But that's because we store our sheets on google drive, and I'm the one who makes the character sheet templates everyone uses.
