WILY E. COYOTE'S SCHOOL OF QUEST

Fishing For Danger

Leave it to ‘The Red Darron’, a thief, to solve all problems of dungeoneering with a ten foot pole. Sound familiar? Try this then: In the first corridor, the party finds a skull. So, Darron suspends the skull from one end of his pole with a ridiculously long braid of the elf’s hair that he ‘pilfered’ from him, thereby making a fishing pole of sorts. He proceeded to gently let the skull rest on every 10’ section of dungeon floor, its weight sure to trigger any pit traps. What it DID accomplish was attract the attention of a rather large, rather hungry troll hiding IN one of those pits, which yanked the skull into the depths, to be followed by the pole and its bearer—the elf, it seems, cut off his other braid because, as Darron said, he was a ‘leaf eating loser obsessed with symmetry’, and used the ‘rope’ to tie Darron to his own pole. The GM, favoring a dramatic twist in a game whose drama had been stolen by Darron’s ridiculous tactics, let the monster feast rather well. Perhaps the elf said it better: "He was fishing for danger, and he caught the big one, and bit it . . ."

Bhut Camp

After completing a long, weary journey, the party stopped to rest at a monastery. The party magic-user, using his incredible powers of foresight (like, sneaking a peak behind the GM’s screen in the weeks prior) was obsessed with the thought that the monks were actually a new monster called ‘bhuts’, a vampire-like nasty. Heeding his advise (otherwise the entire party would be worthy of entry in the Hall Of Shame for ignoring someone who practically read the adventure), they all holed up in their guesthouse during the night. Quite proud of himself, he began jokingly referring to this place as ‘Bhut Camp’, reflecting on his great military training (reading magazines and watching movies).

However, he still did not feel safe, and though being about 99% magician, he insisted on setting a deadly snare in the hall in case the Bhuts came that way. His snare, consisting of 40 blessed +1 swords was quite a tiger-trap. He felt he didn’t need any skills at setting snares because he went into great detail about its mechanics, even accounting for the speed at which he ASSUMED the undead could run down the hall, and accordingly set a tripwire about 30’ away, so once triggered, the swords would mesh together just as the bhuts were running by. Alas, such rolls, even when they have more than a 1% chance of success, were to be made secretly by the GM, who was now being VERY picky about roving eyes behind his screen.

When the inevitable attack came, and the party had to flee (they forgot that their guesthouse had a front door, which they left unguarded), our mage was first to run—right into his own trap—which did NOT go off, but in his believing it altogether useless because it did not spring, tried to pull free one of the 40 blessed swords to use against the undead that followed, an act which DID trigger the trap (based on his very thorough explanation of its mechanics earlier), and cut him into hundreds of little pieces. I guess it’s back to basic training for his new character.

Frustrated with mapping, ‘Rock’ decided to break through the wall with his magical mace. As if missing the secret door by 10’ wasn’t humiliating enough, he never bothered to go out into the hall and simply walk around the 10’ thick wall he spent 8 hours smashing through. On the other side was a tribe of warrior-women, who laughed at his ‘stick’. Thinking they were referring to something else, Rock charged! Little heed did he pay to the GM’s description a moment before, which had summarized the 8 hours of relentless pounding and how it had worn his mace down to a stub. Both the party and the warrior-women later referred to him as ‘Rock Hard’, some sort of double or triple meaning about the size of his head, or what was left of it when all was said and done.

The Log Attack

How do you plow through a bunch of orcs guarding the gates? Why, cut the mast off your ship, stick spears all over it, and push it through the orc ranks like a wall of wood and metal. It worked until the orcs simply walked around behind the party and backed them up against their own spears. How humiliating, outsmarted by orcs! The guy who thought of it, however, was smart indeed, clever enough to have others carry out his idea while he watched from a safe distance. But when his idea failed, and the orcs turned towards him, he had another idea—run for the ship! Too bad it had no mast and so it couldn’t get up any wind. After all, what good is a ship with no sails? The orcs had plenty of firewood over which to cook their newly sautéed heroes.

Roller Coaster Crusaders

An entire platoon of Knights and NPCs, 32 in all, invade the wizard’s castle, seeking to rescue the captive princess (how they would divide her up would have been an interesting story, unfortunately we never got to learn it, because . . .) they came to a mine shaft complete with carts. Rightfully deciding that the GM has watched too many movies, they expect that soon they will have to steer the carts at high speeds, so in order to minimize the dexterity rolls necessary, they link all the carts and characters together with a chain, so that only one person, the lead, needs to make the roll. Yet why they put the guy with the LOWEST dexterity in the lead is a riddle none of them could later answer, for one bad check caused a 12-car, 32-man pile up in the bowels of the castle. I think you could hear the evil wizard laughing all the way back in town.

Scumhunter Sucks

Somewhere in midtown Manhattan, gang warfare had just spread several city blocks, because the GM finally got a second map. And with gangs come super heroes, ready to set up shop and thwart all world-threatening crimes, like graffiti. This particular ‘hero’, known as ‘Scumhunter’, decided that HIS new base will be the auto wrecking yard. Exploiting a loophole that gives him millions of dollars, he proceeded to be build an indestructible dome over the yard, and then went about turning the wrecked cars into secret hero hot rods, despite the GM’s warnings that his future adventures would be ‘urban’, mostly against humans, and therefore points would be better spent in building intelligence and detective skills. But Scumhunter spent zero points in such matters that ‘a clever player can always compensate for’, and made himself and his base contenders for Zeus and Vahalla. Now, maybe the criminals would steer clear of this place, say, several city blocks clear, or maybe we’re just underestimating the level of crime in New York.

Finally, Scumhunter emerged and, well, began hunting scum. During his first five minutes on patrol, a wild chase began. Having dumped all his resources into guns and armour, his vehicle had little or no control at high speeds. What followed was a mathematical certainty, according to the laws of physics as presented by the game’s rules, if not those of our world. Scumhunter’s car lost control at a corner, careened two blocks aside, and he hit the thrusters just in time to also hit his indestructible dome, its impervious metal slope making a convenient ramp into the stratosphere.

When Scumhunter finally fell to earth, he managed to live, though the ‘immortality’ rule did require him to be unconscious for several rounds—because he lacked ‘intelligence’ enough to regain his equilibrium any faster. During this time, the gangs came out in droves—all one guy of them, his gunbelt of spraypaint cans put to good use, as he proceeded to colorfully write ‘Scumhunter sucks’ on the side of both car and superdome, take his wallet and make a getaway—in a rather normal, broken down, earthly car.

And, of course, Scumhunter’s player forgot that ‘the color yellow’ was his one and only weakness (the price paid for such high abilities and powers), which was the primary color used by our friendly, neighborhood hood for making a big yellow stripe down Scumhunter’s back.

What’s This Lever Do?

Battlebiarki the Viking was leading a group of brave heroes through an ascending mountain maze, and near the top, they came to a 30’ square room, with a lever on the wall between the two doors. Battlebiarki just decided to pull it, causing the floor to fall away, dropping the entire party 11,000’ to their doom. Battlebiarki, meanwhile, hung on to the lever. And despite being only 15’ from the door, and trying to make a not-so-difficult dexterity check to leap for it, he decided to let go and drop, hoping that one of the party’s bodies below would have a better chance at breaking his fall than he would of making the dex-check. He seems to have overlooked the fact that a 2-mile fall would liquefy all the bodies upon impact. Nobody bothered to ask how he had intended to get back up the shaft even if he’d survived.