#ari's og campaign

[greyias]

I take it all back -- this is the best conversation in the entire game.

[seawolvesanddragons]

In retrospect, The Maximum Ride series makes a lot of sense if it was the narrative of the characters in a DnD/RPG game. 

Like, six friends are playing as the flock, with their one seventh friend as the DM who is rather lenient with what he lets them get away with, because he’s just trying to tell the damn story. 

They all dumped their highest stats into dex, constitution and strength and practically ignored charisma, intelligence and wisdom, to the DMs horror. 

They all forgot to come up with names and decided them last minute, which explains why they got “Gazzy, Iggy, Fang, Maximum, Angel, and Nudge” with no last names. 

The DM is trying SO hard to keep the story on track but the players keep making random decisions that throw the story off for weeks at a time, and the DM has practically given up. Like when they went to Disney World instead of going on to investigate the Enemy’s dungeon. 

The DM had all these plans for a horror dungeon at the basement of the school in book two that would level them all up but instead of go to investigate it the players just ignored it and kept trying to “find their parents” (a plot point the DM hadn’t planned for them at all, and is scrambling to try and throw them off of). He literally tries to chase them into it by having an NPC (Sam) the character Max was dating lead them there when they are fleeing, and instead the character roundhouse kicks him and the whole party flees. A month of campaign planning down the drain. 

Max’s Player:“I roll to try and read the data we stole from the Institute”  DM (resigned): “Ok, sure”  Max Player: 15!  DM: It’s a bunch of numbers that make no sense. Absolutely none.  Fang’s player: I roll for the same thing.  Fang’s player: Nat 20!  DM: It’s a bunch of numbers that make no sense.  Nudge’s player: Maybe it’s coordinates! 

*DM slams his head on the table* 

The Voice is literally the DMs self insert power to try and get the characters to return to the story. The players almost never listen to it. 

Ari has this amazing, incredible backstory/arc the DM planned and he’s pissed that due to low rolls Max’s character killed him in the early days of the campaign. He brought him back just for spite, and he was killed off halfway through the arc. The DM hasn’t given up though. 

Angel’s player was absent the first several weeks and so she started off kidnapped. 

Max’s player can never remember what color hair she gave her character. 

They keep getting magical items/leveling up and getting feats that give them their new abilities (breathing underwater, telempathy, invisibility, etc) but the players frequently forget that they have them and rarely use them. 

Iggy’s player kept getting terrible visibility rolls, so he just decided he would be blind. 

Ella and Ms Martinez were supposed to be on time npc’s, but the party liked the DM’s voice so much as Ms Martinez that they demanded more of them. 

After their campaign ends (Book 3) they want to keep the characters for a short, one shot campaign. The DM was taking an enviromental class at the time and all of his planning was done during that class, so there were some strange influences. 

The DM got too busy or wanted to be a character or something after the one shot, so another friend joined as the DM. It was his first time and he didn’t really know what the first DM had planned, so he kind of cobbled it together. After a few weeks he got too busy too, so he dropped and another person had to step to be DM. This kept happening. This was all supposed to be part of the same campaign, but the villains and tone kept shifting, as well as what the DM let them get away with. 

One DM got irritated with Fang’s player and created Dylan just to annoy him.  

Fang’s player went on study abroad for a while, so the DM had him leave the party; occasionally when he skypes in they make up what his character been doing in the meantime and he meets up with the party for a little while. 

The OG DM returned, was horrified to see what happened to the once neat campaign he had attempted, and literally ended the world. The players still continued somehow. 

Angel’s player really wants to play a lawful evil a/o true neutral character and so she keeps having Angel make grabs for power and be controlling. 

The DM hates Total. The party outvoted him. 

[screamingtofu]

It’s super likely that my og dnd campaign is going to implode soon with a few of the players leaving because of some irl drama and we’re looking at just canning the campaign and starting again which super sucks because I liked playing my cleric boy ... but it does mean I get to make a new character. So this is Ari Mistvale - Earth Genasi Zealot Barbarian

She grew up in a small orphanage run by a particularly loving if strict Drow matron from the church of Selune and after years of watching friends come and go, she decided to spend her life protecting the people around her, so a jump to becoming a town guard wasn’t a hard one. One day after several years of routine guard duty with several incidents where her temper got the better of her, she’s called to help out one of the old priests that used to help rehome the kids from the orphanage, he’s retired now but still very well connected and respected and she finds evidence that he was selling some of the children from the orphanage into slavery or worse. When Ari confronts him about it, he tries to bribe her and when that doesn’t work smugly mentions that everything he did was technically legal, that he can’t be held responsible if children disappear once they leave the safety of the church, it is a dangerous world after all and it’s her word against the word of a well respected and influential church leader and something inside her snaps and in a rage she breaks the priest’s neck and then resigns from the guard to try and find anyone involved

[greyias]

*WHEEZE*

PLEASE TELL ME SOMEONE HAS ILLUSTRATED THIS

[greyias]

Okay, so I'm just now being able to boot into BG3 since the latest patch (long reasons, another post entirely), and decide everyone needs to wash the blood off before we go puzzle diving and talking to small children.

But the patch apparently changed some things...

Behold! The entire party, each with a bar of soap:

It is the exact same bar of soap via the inspect menu for each party member.

So then why, I ask you dear readers...

...are three of my idiots shoving this bar of soap in their mouth and gnawing on it like a starving animal?

Meanwhile, Shadowheart:

is using her bar of soap like a normal person.

[greyias]

[greyias]

Only good decisions found here.

And even better saving rolls.

[greyias]

Do you two want me and Gale to go wander over near the lava so you can make out in peace?

[greyias]

CIRCUS CIRCUS CIRCUS CIRCUS

yesyesyesyes ARI GETS TO GO TO A CIRCUS

[greyias]

OH SHIT BUSTED!

ARI! QUICK! THINK SEXY THOUGHTS

Oh no! We somehow went too sexy!

Or not.

Now we're just getting roasted for our taste in men. Perhaps Z'rell is not a big fan of the 100k friends-to-lovers slowburn thing we've got going on.

[greyias]

Hey you hear that! Lae admits we've got one (1!) whole advantage

[greyias]

I think this is the most important decision I will ever make in this game

[greyias]

Welp... looks like it's about that time.

[greyias]

"Surely, surely this won't work again will it?" I ask myself

as Ari pulls out her lute for the prison guards after Astarion invisibly unlocks Florrick's cell.

AND YET

They all mad dash across the prison and gather around her to listen to her sweet, sweet rendition of Old Time Battles. The guard outside the front door is still sawing logs, so he's not looking either as Gale opens Florrick's now unlocked cell door, leads her just outside the visual range of the open doorway the impromptu concert is happening in, and then--

DIMENSION DOORS himself and Councillor Florrick all the way past the door and into the hallway! Then again down the hall to the storage room we unlocked and opened the way to the outside. The rest of the party scrambles after them, being sure to close Florrick's cell door behind them ("what prisoner? There never was a prisoner in this cell you must be mistaken!") and into the the sekrit exit, closing the storage closet's door as well to cover their tracks.

None of the impromptu concert goers hear any of this racket, they're too enthralled in the sound of Ari's music. Abruptly, just as soon as the song started, she finishes with a quick excuse about needing to be somewhere, running for the front door shouting "no no, no need for tips" as they pelt gold at her retreating form in thanks for the unexpected song that brightened the dank prison cells.

Ari runs out to the Wyrm's Crossing drawbridge, downs a Feather Fall potion in one gulp then jumps 80 feet down below, sprinting to the crack in the side of the prison just in time to greet the rest of her party who are helping Florrick out into the sunlight. The first she's seen since she was unexpectedly sentenced to death several days ago.

Gale apparently gets credit for the save, and I guess he did burn two level 3 spell slots to bust her out, so I suppose it's fine. And a 100% nonviolent prison break was had, and no Flaming Fists were harmed in the production of this post.

[greyias]

Me on my first bg3 playthrough: I'm going to use unique save games so I always know what each one means

Also me: what the fuck is this

[greyias]

YESYESYESYESYESYES

LET ME HUG THE ROBOT YES

okay that's just a little tight there buddy but--

OKAY. MYSTRA. What are you doing to your followers that they all need so many damn affirmations of affection? Including creating magical hugging robots? I am going to march straight up to god and give her a stern talking to.