Handwave
I think Drax must be my spirit animal. That’s because I like winning. Even in RPGs where there isn’t a proper win condition, I still like winning. For some people that might mean leveling all the way up to 20. For others it might mean surviving a particularly punishing combat. It might even mean betraying the rest of the party and writing an epic 17-part story about it on 4chan. But for me, it’s about coming up with an idea that “just works.”
Here’s an example. I was running the same 5e social rogue we met last week. The party fighter had been mind-whammied by my treacherous bitch of a cousin. Poor dude was magically convinced that he needed to “restrain me for my own good,” and he was prepared to use force to do it. Grappling shenanigans ensue. I manage to wriggle free, and now I’m left with the classic mind-whammied-party-member choice: do I try and beat the stupid out of my ally, or do I come up with another plan? Well if you know 5e rogues, you know that the class comes equipped with something called cunning action. Long story short, the ability basically says “you always win the footrace.”
“I’m just so terribly confused,” I say, hand to head. “If only a big strong father figure could talk me out of my strong-willed ways.” I feign crying, flip my cousin the bird, and begin to run away from the encounter. The mind-whammied fighter follows, muttering curses about “this wayward girl.” The rest of the party follows, and my bemused DM is left to watch the farce play out. The plan “just worked,” and I was allowed to write the scene as I saw fit.
For me, that’s the most rewarding thing about RPGs. My DM could have sent reinforcements to chase after us. He could have dropped the portcullis and trapped us in the courtyard. He could have simply given the fighter PC a chance to roll Insight vs my Deception skill. But he didn’t do any of these things. He was amused enough by my idea that he actually ceded a little bit of his control, allowing a player to dictate the scene. My contribution to the mutual story was good enough that it “just worked.” My friends were entertained, my narrative input was adopted, and I earned the ultimate thumbs up: a handwave.
How about the rest of you guys? Have you ever come up with a cool/clever/surprising idea that earned a, “That’s awesome! You know what? It just works,” from your GM? What was it?
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Can you tell the name of the 17 part story. The only thing I can think of is Tale of an Industrious Rogue and that has 19 parts.
You would hear my tale? Only the brave and true of heart are worthy of this secret lore (that I totally didn’t make up)! If thou wouldst hear, then thou must prove thyself. Journey deep within the bowels of the internet. Confront all 4 Chans and slay the great demon Rhed’it. Come back to this place with a scrap of the True Source Code, and then shall I unfold to you the story (which I hasten to remind you, I totally didn’t make up).
so basicly it turned into a benny hill moment ? Did you play the music 😛 ?
As I recall, the Benny Hill concerto was a cappella.
We once teleported something very heavy into the air to drop onto a dragon.
Did you go with anvil, grand piano, or Acme brand safe?
Giant cannon, actually.
As a DM, my players had to face a difficult encounter with a Demilich in 5th e. First few rounds were going in the floating skull’s favour when the barbarian remembered his favourite way to remove a head was with a bag of devouring. He grappled the skull and the fighter helped him shove it into the bag. The demilich’s strength meant there was no getting out. I’m there’s some technicality I could have pulled out w/ the “living” specification the bag has it was too clever and interesting an idea to not let through.
I dread the day my party remembers that they own a bag of devouring.
My party loves to use it as an interrogation tool. Very rarely do I not see it in a session.
Oh, my players have a knack for coming up with creative solutions to the crap I throw at them – I could never list even a fraction of them.
One random example that comes to mind from one of the late-game scenarios of a campaign we recently completed involved the party being confronted by one of their most hated enemies for the last time. This recurring villain was a necrmancer/conjurer, who had fallen in with bad company and was using a lot of borrowed power by this stage.
Anyhow, when the party confronted him he was in a bubble of protection formed by a wall of force and a magic circle against evil – that to protect him from the gargantuan fiery undead shadow abomination he had just summoned to do away with his old rivals (we were in the caverns under a dwarfen hold, and it was promptly dubbed “the balrog”)
It was set up to be a fight of epic proportions. It began as such, too, with the “balrog” intant-killing the NPC druid the party had convinced to help out and basically wreaking mayhem on all of them.
Then one of the party used his action surge, teleported inside the forcewall (beating the DC); hit the summoner for enough damage that he flubbed his concentration and dropped the forcecage, and then used a bonus action from a feat he had taken at character creation but almost never used to shield-bash the hapless caster that critical 5′ backwards out of his own protective wards. Everyone else, including the monster, had a turn before the caster could try rescue himself.
Then the party backed off and watched in bemusement as the monster turned on the conjurer and tore him to pieces.
I could only applaud the player really, especially, since this was a plan that couldn’t have been more than 10 minutes in preparation. It was just too neat, to plain damn awesome for me to try undermine it.
That all sounds like it’s within the rules to me. I mean, it is no doubt a cool moment. But for me the “rule of cool” gets invoked when something is too awesome to let the rules stand in its way.
If this dude had tried to shield bash his way through the forcewall, and if he’d invoked some plot-specific thing to help it happen (e.g. his rage; his deity; the power of friendship), then I think we’re talking about “rule of cool.”
“Your shield bash deals… 20 damage. Technically, the wall of force has 120 hp. It drops anyway because I think that would make a cool narrative moment.”
Yes, perhaps it wasn’t outright “rule of cool”, but I was impressed enough that had a rule gotten in the way, I probably would have quietly lifted it!
That’s how you know it’s a good session right there. 🙂
Yo, thought I’d inform you that your “I like winning” link in your description now redirects me to some credit application bullshit website. I assume the domain elapsed and someone else bought it, then used it to host some automatic ad redirection service.
Thanks for the heads up. Fixed.
That could entail leveling all the way up to 20 for some folks. Others can interpret it as making it through an especially grueling battle.
This reads as a non-sequitur. Are you replying to a specific comment?