Homeowners Association of Leng
Wererat gangs, drow matriarchies, and hobgoblin armies are a dime a dozen. That’s why we asked all our Quest Givers on Patreon to give our heroes a more obscure monstrous organization to battle. Thus it fell to Occultist to face off against the Homeowners Association of Leng. (Better luck next time to all those merfolk astronauts, tax dragons, and members of the local hag hot yoga studio who auditioned for the comic.)
Now I know what you’re thinking. That’s because I too am a pedantic nerd: How the crap is a basic-ass magic circle against evil hedging out a powerful evil outsider? Surely the HOA of Leng isn’t a summoned creature? And you’re right. It’s not. But then again, I suspect that the tentacular weirdos in yellow robes aren’t the ‘great and terrible powers’ that the Handbook references
You may recall that Occultist is something of a gamesman. She’ll “accidentally” overlook encumbrance, “assume we healed” between sessions, or conveniently forget that rolls-off-the-table don’t count when there’s a big number on the die. And while today’s dubious tactics aren’t quite on the “lying about your die roll” level, they are still all manner of manipulative. That’s because Occultist’s is employing her Bluff score against a hideous monster behind a thin protective barrier. The barrier in question just happens to be made of cardboard.
Any time you wait for your GM to call you on a complex and oft-overlooked rule, you’re doing the same thing. I’m talking about letting teleport go without a mishap roll, forgetting to remind your dominated monster that it’s not obligated to jump off a cliff, or rolling fall damage against an enemy mage after you’ve dispelled fly. Any one of these errors is easy to make, but you’re in cheaty-face territory when you “forget” on purpose.
That said, I recall a Mordheim game from my college days that I’m still proud of. It’s the one example I can conjure up of the “good” version of this technique. The players’ best heroes had all banded together in a single warband. Our game master opposed us with an Empire army. Our mission was to sneak into the enemy camp commando style. Once we’d infiltrated, we would spike the Imperial cannons before they could raze the evil haunted city we still wanted to loot. This was not an easy mission.
We were down to the penultimate round. It was well past midnight, and every gamer in the place was bleary-eyed and sleepy. Knowing that it was now or never, my orc shaman made a desperate gambit. He used a short-range teleport spell to get out of melee and into range of the artillery. If I could start my final turn within 2″ of the guns, the game was over and Team Super Friends would win. There was just one snag. My suicidally courageous shaman would have to weather three cannons’ worth of point-blank grapeshot fire.
“Pass the turn to you,” I told our GM. Then me and my team collectively waited for the inevitable. Our worthy opponent furrowed his brow. He surveyed the scene, began to estimate distances, and then a glimmer of hope shone through.
“I don’t think there’s any way I can win,” he said. “None of my units are within charge range of the greenskin shaman. He’s going to win it on the next orc turn.”
My compatriots and I held our breaths. We tried desperately to keep our poker faces intact. Because we’d been gaming for nearly eight hours at that point, and no one wanted to remind our worthy opponent that the cannons themselves were active units, or that they could easily vaporize my pesky orc.
What about the rest of you guys? Have you ever managed to bluff your way past a GM? Is it necessarily unethical? Or is it just part of the game when you let your GM forget to take an AoO? My victorious orc mob certainly thinks that all’s fair in love and WAAAGH! So employ all your cunning, read up on your Sun Tzu, and tell us all about your own fast ones successfully pulled down in the comments!
ADD SOME NSFW TO YOUR FANTASY! If you’ve ever been curious about that Handbook of Erotic Fantasy banner down at the bottom of the page, then you should check out the “Quest Giver” reward level over on The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. Thrice a month you’ll get to see what the Handbook cast get up to when the lights go out. Adults only, 18+ years of age, etc. etc.
Substituting wee men is not without risk, though.
On a critical failure, Old Man Henderson himself will begin a campaign-spanning quest for vengeance against you.
Scylla and Charybdis and MUCKLE DAMRED CULTI!
sniffs … Mormons!
I’m going to say it: this is one occasion where I would cheer Occultist’s “gamesmanship” on.
You need to be a real badass to not only buy property in Leng, but then to also bluff the local horrors into leaving you in peace!
(Also, I have a strong antipathy for eldritch abominations.)
I’m not sure anyone ever means to buy property and Leng. You just sign a deed like a hapless dolt and then find yourself overlapping other realities.
Well now my Sage/Cultist of the Elder Things/Dirty Hobo High Elf would probably take that property if it came at a good price, I mean location, location, location right? And “easy access”, well, easier access to the Library of Leng would be worth it to a Sage…
So there some sanity blasting going on, I mean the locals won’t go completely bonkers over hm and his klepto ferret familiar’s presence…
Actually had a pretty gnarly mythos dream last night. It was equal parts Alien, Half Life, and Cronenberg. I watched some flesh TV with a giant tumor baby after getting the high score stomping on cnidarians.
So like… I guess it’s a good neighborhood? Lots of community feeling anyway.
I don’t like neighbourhoods that try to feel me. The street should stay underfoot, and a building should not be nicknamed “Huggy“, darnit!
How can you not like Huggy? Huggy is always there for you!
Loving the alt text.
May the Henderson be with you.
Fun fact: using an ‘Elf on the shelf’ has the opposite effect to flamingos and wee men, causing the eldritch entities Mar’iah Carr’ei and ‘Sand’ii Klohz’ to bleed their madness months in advance of their celestial alignment.
Slay bells ring… Are ya listenin’? In your dreams… Voices whisperin’….
Silent night, holy night
All is calm, stars are right
‘Round yon virgin Mother and Child
Prepared infant so tender and mild
Sleep in endless peace
Sleep in endless peace
Silent night, holy night!
Shepherds quake at the sight!
Glories stream from heaven afire;
Heavenly hosts sing ftaghn!
I don’t quite think you managed that last rhyme.
I have it from a very old (I mean //old//) source that “fhtagn” rhymes with everything. I was advised that before I question this I should think long and hard about the fate of the ▒▒`▒▒’▒▒▒ race.
There was a young man from Nantucket
Whose fhtagn was so long he could fhtagn .
He said with a grin
As he wiped off his fhtagn,
“If my ear was a fhtagn I would fhtagn.”
I have an in universe explanation to what happened. Artillery men aren’t used to enemy being closeby and thus paniked and ran away. after all while Napaloen and the likes claim that Artillery wins wars we have WW1 to prove that no, they don’t and with out infantry line to protect them they are useless. So enjoy your victorybover those team killing bleep who you pray can do their job properly.
Oh sure. The “holy crap teleporting orcs” thing makes sense in a post hoc rationalization kind of way. That’s satisfying from a narrative perspective. But we all know the cannons could have fired in that game, and that it the GM’s fault for forgetting.
sure, but I’ve used to gentlemanny wargaming where we both play to win but in 19th century british officer way. It has to be a sporting event and jolly good time, cheating is just no biscuit. What kind of war it would be if we’d resort to such uncouth methods, what are we Mancheater United fans?
I suspect you of being an actual British person.
Finnish actually, I have few british friends so I’ve picked few cues from them.
While the spell traditionally requires such things as holy water or powdered silver, I don’t see any reason why plastic lawn flamingos cannot be a supplementary material component.
Besides, they could be filled with holy water with silver suspended in said water!
(Or Occultist could just say this is the case…)
Love me some creative components! One of the many reasons I identify with Wizard.
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/material-components-2
Personally I feel that I have a responsibility to point out rules even when it’s to my disfavor, but not good choices as such (don’t want to fall into the other extreme and engage in quarterbacking either).
I’ll have to admit that there’s room for some disagreement about what is what.
My own gut would say that I have a responsibility to say when I provoke an AoO for instance, but I wouldn’t feel the same ethical responsibility towards reminding them that their cannons could shoot the orc.
In a semi-related game to mordheim, Warhammer (fantasy battles specifically), I would feel that it would be very poor sportsmanship to “allow” my opponent to skip their magic phase entirely just because they got excited about shooting something and the shooting phase comes after the magic phase. I would feel it entirely fair not to remind them that they could use their magic dice to dispel that very useful spell I cast last turn that’s still in effect instead of casting a spell of their own.
What’s the heuristic here? You mentioned gut feeling, but what exactly is the difference between “you missed tactical option 1” and “you missed tactical option 2?”
“What’s the heuristic here? You mentioned gut feeling, but what exactly is the difference between “you missed tactical option 1” and “you missed tactical option 2?””
Interrogating my own feelings, provoking an AoO feels like something I am doing and therefore something I have responsibility for, in much the same way that I’m responsible for telling them if they can make a save to resist my Sickening metamagic ray of frost even through a normal ray of frost doesn’t give a save, instead of just assuming they choose not to.
My action/rules-widget means that it’s my responsibility.
Another aspect is that to me provoking an AoO feels like part of the action I am taking (a cost or downside). Their choice if they want to take it, but I have to say that I’m provoking it.
That doesn’t apply to the completely ordinary actions they take, or don’t take as the case may be, on their turn (though I’d still feel responsible for telling them non-choice rules that apply to that, like reminding them if the cannons have an established rune of automatic rerolling misses or something).
Finally I feel there’s an aspect for AoO specifically where I feel responsible for doing my part of “communicating the shared fantasy”. The enemy can see the opening in my PC’s defense that provoking an AoO represents, but the other people on the table needs me to tell them that so that they can imagine it. That’s in much the same way that if I wanted to drink a potion of Gaseous Form, I’d have to say I did that and turned to mist, not just “I drink a potion – pass”.
“Personally I feel that I have a responsibility to point out rules even when it’s to my disfavor, but not good choices as such…”
Ditto. Reminding someone not to skip a phase is one thing, reminding of the choices that have during that phase is another.
As for the Orc v Cannons, if the GM was skipping the “activate units phase”, reminding them to not just skip past that phase is one thing, but pointing out that cannons are a unit is another.
Now, that said as a GM I’m both a strict task master on the rules (and get kinda Rules Lawyerly as a Player sometimes, usually not when it’s immediately applicable though, just when I’m trying to hammer out how something works, but sometimes it comes up because it comes up), but I’m also pretty lenient on giving out good advice, like “And don’t forget you’re Blessed so that’s +2 on your save”. For one, I know I get overwhelmed some times as a Player and forget things, and as a GM I don’t wan tto hear later whinging about “But I would have made that save if I hadn’t forgotten my paper dude was blessed”.
I soothe my adversarial GMing conscience by handing out good advice in a suspicious manner.
“Are you sure that’s your marching order?”
“Exactly how are you opening that door?”
“I note that no one said they were looking out for an ambush. Interesting.”
I wouldn’t do the last one, I abhor “No one said they were doing this perfectly reasonable thing to do”†, but the first two are just good clean fun.
Besides in GURPS there’s a mini-mechanic for “do you get ambushed/do you ambush” (it’s basically the ‘surprise round’ mechanic) so it would be ultra-mega-bad-wrong-fun to pull those shens in a GURPS game.
† IE, ye olde “no one said they were looking up/down”, “you didn’t say you were using you’re ten foot pole this time, unlike every other time you’ve wiggled some weird glowing object int his dungeon”, “you didn’t specify you were pouring the wine into a glass‡”, etc…
‡ That one almost provoked an honest to ZOD fist-fight at the gaming table when a scurrilous GM pulled it. Like bruh, I get the “looking up”, “ten foot pole, etc, nonsense… but no one says “I pour the wine” and means “I pour the wine in the NPC’s lap”.
Oh yeah… Bruh… I’m not advocating actually following through on any of this BS. This is just “worrying things your GM says.” All PSY, no OP as it were. The point is that there’s no actual ambush, just paranoia.
As a DM i generally take a “trust, but verify” stance with my player. One of them in particular likes playing primary casters, but has a tendency to not read the full texts of the spells before declaring his turn, so its about a 65/35 chance of him getting the spell right versus missing some detail that means it doesnt do what he would want it to. Everyone who has DMed for this guy has learned to double check the spell text before letting him do anything remotely unusual anymore because he just gets so excited he sometimes misses stuff.
As far as DMs forgetting stuff in their emotional state, i think its fair game for players to not remind them. Its on each player to remember all their options, and the DM is a player too. If they panic and dont see the solution, well then congratulations on successfully using psychological warfare.
Boy howdy do I know that feeling.
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/remedial-mage
YEAH…. This is USUALLY what my problem is.
I had one of these just last night with a friend new to Pathfinder. He’s played 5e before, so he tried to do a full attack after moving because 5e essentially gives everyone spring attack… and we had to bear him the bad news that it doesn’t work like that.
He was so bummed after it he wanted to make a new character. I wasn’t running that game, but that’s a pretty big downer for the table. We’ll help him rebuild his character to fit more with his vision of course-but watching the excitement go out of a new player like that isn’t great.
Am “gamesman”, will not apologize.
I feel like the social acceptability of “gamesmanship” is pretty broad. High stakes tournament play and your opponent is about to make a blunder? Say nothing. Teaching a child your favorite game? Maybe give some advice. And between these extremes are many shades of gray.
Our gaming group rotates DM duties (sometimes), and on one occasion a friend who had never run a game or designed an adventure wanted to try his hand at both. The giant snake was right up our alley, as was the snapper-saw plant, but when the lizard men began appearing in kobold numbers but with ogre-stats, we knew the task of scaling the adventure had gotten the better of him. Nevertheless, we survived, but barely.
Finally, we got to the boss-battle–a big adult black dragon (vs. a 6th or 7th level party). We prepared our characters’ last wills & testaments.
We’d tried to be supportive of our pal and help him with running the evening, but here the rules were too much for him and he scratched his head on the dragon’s turn.
DM: Um…I guess he bites at you? I’m not sure. (Stares at the stats in confusion.)
Me: Okay. (Pushes up glasses.) Dragons have a lot of options. As flying creatures, dragons have fly-by, wingover, and slam maneuvers available. Even on the ground, there’s tail-swipe, wing-buffet– (At this point I catch the pleading and desperate looks from everyone at the table, and I remember we’re all on our last hit point.) –are all things that a much bigger dragon could do. It’s all based on age category. We’re all very lucky this one’s only capable of biting.
REST OF TABLE: Yeah! Boy, if he were any older, we’d all be in trouble.
Group Deception check only needs 50% success!
Did you manage to survive the encounter? And perhaps more importantly, did that guy ever get to run again?
A) Yes, miraculously. The DM’s wife rolled double NATURAL 20s to Crit. the dragon with a circlet of blasting–the random draw from the Critical Hit deck allowed for double damage, with an additional x13 multiplier if the target happened to be a dragon. We joked that she used her Sailor Moon “Moon Tiara Annihilation” attack to one-shot her husband’s toughest encounter.
C) Sadly, no. After the swift defeat of his dragon, that friend resumed playing his barbarian and left the DMing to others.
That’s one hell of a crit card. You should invite him to GM again. Sounds like he runs a wild game!
But is a part of the game not gamesmanship!?
Ahem. You know it’s entirely possible that everyone just wanted to go home and sleep that night, right?
I engage in a little more gamesmanship than maybe I like to admit. Less so these days, but still. OTOH, some of those gamesmen moments are exactly what make some stories so great. Would we remember The Odyssey if the titular hero wasn’t as shrewd and clever, exploiting weaknesses both real and perceived? And isn’t it our job as gamers to overcome the divides of what is and is not by any means necessary?
Is it not ridiculously awesome to stand there, looking the squishy tentacle men right in their horrific mono eye defiantly, hiding behind only a bluff and and whatever defensive bonuses you scrounged up at the time? In my experience, such that it is, these moments often make a lot of the great gaming stories.
The issue here isn’t that Occultist is successfully bluffing an NPC. It’s that a player is allowing a GM to believe that a spell does X when in reality it does not do X. I’m not certain that, “GMs should know the intricacies of every spell” is always viable (see Kelthar’s comment further up the thread).
I think that the game type makes a difference. “Are you sure you want to do that?” has no place in high level chess. It’s par for the course in TRPGs.
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/areyousure
I run a less serious game, and the strict, by the book rulings are generally treated more as guidelines. In effect, I guess I don’t mind when someone tries to do something that the rules aren’t explicit about how you can’t, and there’s a few things the rules are explicit about that I feel should be thrown out with great force.
That’s a big part of our hobby-we aren’t computers; we can arbitrarily rule things that make sense to us for whatever reason. We use the rules to come to a sort of ‘collective vision.’
But really, I look at this more from my perspective as a GM since 1994, who learned a lot over the years about trying to enforce all the rules. If getting it “book wrong” for whatever reason makes the session more memorable, enjoyable, hilariously funny, or helps everyone get their precious characters out of a dire jam… I think I’m alright with that.
Jay’s story is exactly under that logic. And what do you want to bet that the GM in that story was thinking something was up when the story shifted gears, but was like ‘eh, I’ll let ’em have this one.’?
Social hobby, social game. I play a little fast and loose, people know this, I don’t make it a big secret… but I also give out freedom and BOTD when I’m behind the GM screen. Consistency with each other I think is far more important than consistency with the rules.
It’s an interesting distinction between Kelthar and Jay. But I think the difference is when a player is trying to a do a thing that is 1) coming from an adversarial stance rather than a collaborative one; 2) against the rules; and 3) deceptive. In other words, if you’re trying to trick your GM into allowing a move you know to be illegal for the purposes of “beating” the encounter, it’s poor form. If you’re ignorant of the illegality or trying to work with the rules creatively for the sake of a better moment at the table, then game on.
The problem is, my main gaming group tends to bend or outright ignore the rules when it’s cool, and the other GMs I can think of off the top of my head tended more towards the stodgy-bookkeeping end of the spectrum.
The closest thing I can think of is a sort of inversion, where a DM interpreted the rules hyperliterally to prevent players from using hallucinatory terrain from hiding holes we wanted to dig to ambush someone, because they’d be man-made structures. (Counterarguments like “What if we summoned an earth elemental or something to do it?” and “Wait, aren’t footprints also man-made holes?” were ineffective.) That discussion continued in the DM arguing with a veteran over whether what basically amounts to foxholes would be effective, and ended with the players barely getting a surprise round before the planned battle went forward.
This was in the same adventure as our forward scouts (a druid wildshaped into a giant eagle and a small wizard) fought a brief skirmish with some manticores and had to make skill rolls to find the road, which we were belatedly informed was basically a game trail, despite being the only path the enemy we wanted to fight could have taken. Literally every player at the table thought it was a road. Also, one of the random encounters used a premade map with a clear dirt road and a bridge, which is very mockable even if it wasn’t a deliberate artistic choice on the DM’s part.
Anyways, I didn’t like that DM. He talked a big game about wanting to encourage players to think outside the box, but actually trying anything remotely outside the box almost universally ended with imps messing with the rope you were using to make your descent into an icy crevasse less perilous than just an unaided Athletics check.
After the ambush incident, I only played his games when the gaming store group was too big for one DM but too small for two, so there would actually be enough players for two.
This is indeed a different issue. It has more to do with rules lawyers than with gamesmanship. In your example, you were arguing about the interpretation of rules that both parties had in front of them. In Occultist’s case, it’s an issue of concealing obscure rules info for advantage.
Not to be too nit-picky, but …
Should it say “… deliver by written notice”? Instead it says “my” instead of “by”. So, did she give them a written notice she now wants them to deliver to someone, or is she challenging them to deliver their complain by a written notice? In the latter case, it should probably be “by”.
She’s referencing the written notice she’s entitled to by the HOA Agreement. That makes it “my written notice.”
Good job, Occultist, being able to read the language of Leng without going insane!
(Never mind legalese…)
Got it! Makes sense.
Glad I was wrong.
All hail Old Man Henderson, the Thing from Outside we needed and the man who won Call of Cthulhu!
HAIL!
Only real rule-by-omission stuff I occasionally do is not accurately calculate/track stuff like ammo or minor purchases. Mostly cause the DM doesn’t care about how much silver or copper you spent on rations or drink and such. But also cause my memory sucks and math is bleh.
I also round up most mundane shopping so that I end up with neat and tidy sums of gold (e.g. instead of being left with 201 gp, 4 sp and 7 cp, I put myself at 200 gp).
I go out of my way to track more mechanics important resources though, like crafting costs/calculations, loot splits or consumables set aside for rainy days.
I wonder if anyone has done a comparative study of D&D economies across editions? I know that gold originally did double duty as XP (the most important currency!) but it feels almost vestigial these days. Makes you wonder if we “lost the economy” at some point, or if we never really had one.
Laurel, i like this denizens way more than the ones on the Bestiary 😀
They look awesome 😀
Remind me of Little Nightmares. Also makes me wonder if there is some Bill Cipher cosplay contest on Leng. Today comic remits to that, nut i like how you made them and the flamingos and the light. Good job with the colors from the cirlce and the robe 🙂
But the bestiary version is such a cutie pie! https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/028/446/155/20200711153412/smaller_square/gunship-revolution-denizen-of-leng.jpg?1594499652
Laurel’s is better and you can’t change my mind 😀
What’s the phrase? ‘Never interrupt the enemy when they are making a mistake’?
You’re not obligated to remind the DM of how the game works, especially when you’re eight hours into play and the story is better for the orc getting to do his thing. There are worse things that you can do for cheating than not telling someone that they can blast you into pulp.
I don’t think viewing the GM as an enemy is terribly productive, in any context. The GM-controlled characters, sure, but it’s not the goblins’ mistake that the DM forgot their sneak attack damage or whatever.
In retrospect, today’s questions seems to be an exercise in “adversarial game” vs. “collaborative narrative.” In that sense it’s a bit of a sleight-of-hand that I brought in Mordheim, as that’s a tactical minis game that usually does not have a GM.
For me it pretty much depends on circumstances. But the main rule of thumb is “whatever makes the game more fun”.
Just be careful not to substitute in Wee Free Men or you’re in for a world of (shin height focused) pain. =P
Wee Free Men vs. the Mythos is a strange crossover to contemplate. I bet they’d wind up as some kind of weird ratling cavalry.
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/magical-beasts/ratling/
The ‘hag hot yoga studio’ sounds like it belongs in the other handbook.
Actually, given the average hag visage, I’d prefer you kept them as far away from the other handbook as possible!
Too late! Make a save vs. jibblies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR2aijzQQCA
I trend towards being unscrupulously fair, and point out when a GM is missing something (like a beasty having Immunity to Magic as it’s getting magic blasted) or if a 6 armed demon-naga chick really does get up to 7 attacks (6 arms + bite/tail swipe) or etc. For a bunch of reasons, one I also call out when a fellow Player is pulling some bullshit, “Yes, for the twelve time, it takes 3 actions for you fire that crossbow not just 1 the first to cock it, the second to load it, and a third to fire it, and if you want to aim, that’s a fourth action, technically a third making firing the fourth action, but I digress pedantically”…
But also because if the GM is pulling some bullshit (sometimes they forget, sometimes it just some cheese they //thought// works this way), my reputation of being “the fair Rules Lawyer” means when I call them out, it sticks. I mean sometimes I lose to rule Zero… but it’s pretty rare.
And sometimes I hear what they were thinking it could do and say “Oh, well, in that case if you swap these two abilities around and add in this other ability (making it more powerful) it does do what you wanted…” and then I get to enjoy the pained groans of my fellow Players and my black shriveled GM’s heart thrums with glee.
Lawful good rules lawyer? We salute you!
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/the-high-ground
A comic featuring leng right as I start preparing a campaign in which it’s relevant? looks over my shoulder for the cameras.
As for the question- it actually comes to a moment I recently spoke about here, actually- using my scroll of Disintegrate against the Ankou my party nearly got tpked by. I used the scroll, but forgot to roll the attack, and was about to do so- when the GM rolled the save and took the result at face value. Accepting the gm was either letting me off easy or forgot, I let it happen. I don’t even know if they’ve realized the mistake yet (or if it was intentional.)
You have angered the dice gods. Prepare for karmic retribution.
For serious though, this is a great example. On the one hand you’ve gotten away with a fast one. On the other, there’s a chance your GM was trying to throw you a bone, and that piping up would have ruined the attempt. A paladin might have said something, but I’m not sure that’s the best play for the health of your nearly-a-TPK game. At that point it’s the old “don’t admit you fouled” thing in sports (though that’s an imperfect analogy given the difference in sports and RPGs).
Looks like it’s time to war (and win) against the eldritch horrors again!