Topic: Hello, by way of a funny story

[Kemengon]

Greetings all,
Long time Rolemaster (2&FRPS) Fan & GM of 18 years, only now getting on to the forums.  Having lurked around this sight for a long time, I figured I should properly say hello and give my my thanks for keeping this great game alive (and a special shout-out to J. Dale for his very helpful character sheet generator).   
I figured I would enhance this introduction with an account of my groups’ favorite one-off adventure way back in the day – done very much as a simplified RM2. Each of the PC’s played an animal familiar of a Ranger, with heavily specialized character creation: A Bear Fighter; a spider nightblade, a bird bard and a thief raccoon.  They were technically wild, but we agreed their intelligence had been boosted through years of interaction/magic with the ranger.
The adventure was built around rescuing a stolen artifact from traveling gypsies who had taken advantage of their poor (drunken) ranger.
As GM I had planned for the PCS and the NPC ranger  to work together, but the raccoon, well, that is the PC himself, was rather mischievous, and with great difficulty, but a lot of stealth, wound the shoe-laces of the ranger together as a prank, causing him to fall – I thought an A impact would be fitting, but wouldn’t you know, a high roll put him right out. What followed then was a group of animals running off to recover the artifact, and getting into a lot of trouble: a bear breaking and entering the wrong house, but ultimately making off with their food; the spider in almost continuous risk of getting eaten by woodland creatures, the bird chirping a lot to no effect.  Finally having botched an attempt at stealthily taking back the necklace, the raccoon turned on his pursuers and on a max role for tiny claws and a 100 on his B Slash, managed to disembowel one of them!  The others fled in terror, and the animals returned to the wounded (and still hung over) ranger, victorious.   It was so much fun, we never dared to run another adventure, since it couldn't be followed. 

So has anyone else had similar stories from trying really unorthodox races/species to test the bounds of the rolemaster system(s)?

Cheers,
Kemengon

[Riemumieli]

I once wanted to play a ninja turtle using RoCo VI and OrCo and but my GM was against it.

[RandalThor]

Welcome Kemengon.

That does sound like a lot of fun, I think my current group would get a kick out of a game like that. I can only do the silly/humorous stuff in small doses myself, like Paranoia or Toon which I can only play as one-shots, but it could be a great tension breaker for when the main campaign gets serious.

[yammahoper]

Welcome.

I started a game with two orcs both sentenced to prison in the classic Tunnels and Trolls module NAKED DOOM.  Essentially, prisoners are stripped naked and with crossbowmen firing at their fleeing backs, sent into the dungeon to die (there was a far more nefarious reason for the prison, but we never go there because...).  In their first encounter, both orcs drowned at the enchanting charms of a water nymph.

10 minutes in and both players were dead.  I thought fast.  My answer was both descended to orc hell were eventually after processing, they were picked to perform a difficult and dangerous mission, as undead, that was akin to a suicide mission on a magic dead world (earth).

What followed was a marvelous time.

[Marrethiel]

Welcome to the forums.
We were discussing critical results and the role playing experiences they can cause in our last session. It is one great and unique thing about RM.

[Cory Magel]

Welcome!

Oh man, that gives me an idea to potentially run a session that is nothing but 'familiars' in a city setting.  (i.e. the PC's play a group of familiars being partially directed by their 'owners' instead of their own characters).  I bet the players would get a kick out of that.  Great idea.

[Kemengon]

Thanks for the greetings, and glad I could be of some inspiration. I certainly know that breaking up a campaign with something unorthodox can be a good thing (also provides the GM of something of a breather). I like that idea Cory - especially as the urban element would be different.  Ours was a lone highway type environment, but an urban adventure would be great (I'm thinking dogs, housecats, mules, etc.)  Certainly a shapechanging curse on a current group of PCs would be a fun idea as well! Might be an alternative to the usual James-Bond-style imprisoning of the PCs after an unexpected defeat. 

[yammahoper]

I wanna be a Reese Monkey Thief.  Throwing OB.  Hmm, thrown poo...

[RandalThor]

I wanna be a Reese Monkey Thief.  Throwing OB.  Hmm, thrown poo...

That would be handled on the "Splat-and-Puke" attack table, with vomiting criticals.

[Cory Magel]

I like that idea Cory - especially as the urban element would be different.  Ours was a lone highway type environment, but an urban adventure would be great (I'm thinking dogs, housecats, mules, etc.)

Exactly.  Mice, Rats, Dragonflies, Birds, Cats, Dogs, etc.

[Turbs]

MOUSEGUARD!

[Cory Magel]

lol... I've just about justified running a Redwall (Brian Jacques) campaigns haven't I?

[Spectre771]

As GM I had planned for the PCS and the NPC ranger  to work together, but the raccoon, well, that is the PC himself, was rather mischievous, and with great difficulty, but a lot of stealth, wound the shoe-laces of the ranger together as a prank, causing him to fall – I thought an A impact would be fitting, but wouldn’t you know, a high roll put him right out. What followed then was a group of animals running off to recover the artifact, and getting into a lot of trouble: a bear breaking and entering the wrong house, but ultimately making off with their food; the spider in almost continuous risk of getting eaten by woodland creatures, the bird chirping a lot to no effect.  Finally having botched an attempt at stealthily taking back the necklace, the raccoon turned on his pursuers and on a max role for tiny claws and a 100 on his B Slash, managed to disembowel one of them!  The others fled in terror, and the animals returned to the wounded (and still hung over) ranger, victorious.   It was so much fun, we never dared to run another adventure, since it couldn't be followed. 
Cheers,
Kemengon

That is an absolutely fantastic twist on a session.  I'd love to use that idea in a campaign.  The familiars are NPCs anyway.  Why not have the game from their point of view.  The best twist was the Ranger being taken out of the session from a crit and the animals left to fend for themselves.  That must have been such a great session to sit in on.  Thank you for sharing with us.

[Frabby]

One guy I know told me of a long-time campaign he and his buddies played back in the day. Their group eventually split up as they couldn't play regularly anymore, and the campaign ended.
He then devised a "prequel" adventure for one session where the players got their own characters... as ten-year-old level 1 children, instead of high-level as they used to be at the end of the campaign. (The campaign characters all came from the same village.) From what I've been told they had a blast. Things like evading your parents, or being back home by sunset, became plot-relevant problems.