RPG a Day #13 Flood

 

I’m going to try and take part in the #RPGaDay writing prompts for 2021. The idea is there’s a prompt every day that asks you to write about something in RPG’s you really like. There are a couple of alternate prompts offered but I’m going to try and do the main one every day. If you want to try it yourself, you can head here for the calendar for this year.

I’m going to pivot flood into talking about something else. It will all tie together, I promise. I watch live streams and check out different game sessions from time to time. Recently I’ve seen a couple of players make two identical statements that I’ve said on a few occasions. Actually, I’ll bet a lot of us have said them. The first was, “this is a bad idea.” This wasn’t an in character statement and it wasn’t something to said to anyone at the table. It was the player talking out loud about an idea they’d had and we’re trying to figure out why their character wouldn’t so it.

The second statement is made after some amount of time had passed was proceeded by the game master asking a question, “What are you doing now?” Then it comes, the player sighs, leans back in their chair, stops scouring their character sheet for answers and then makes the second statement, “Fuck it.” This is followed by performing the bad idea.

I’m not going to talk about either of the ones I witnessed because of spoilers and people who watch these streams may not have reached that point in the story. Instead I’ll talk about one of mine that happened during a flood. See, it all fits.

My barbarian, Brac, was on a ship out-sailing a flood brought on by a massive pod of Aboleths traveling across the worlds. We are sailing a galleon through a giant magic tunnel that has been submerged by a tidal wave. A gigantic Aboleth breaks into the tunnel and attacks our ship. Its fifteen feet or so in front of the ship and is slamming the bow with its tentacles.

I’m low in the initiative order and won’t be going for a most of the turn and start thinking about my turn and that’s when I say it. “That’s a bad idea.” We’re at a convention and I’m not there with friends, we’re all using our favorite characters, and none of us are really set up for ranged combat. People are attacking the tentacles and doing damage, but it doesn’t feel like enough. I’m digging through my character sheet for something I can do that’s not the one idea I’ve had because there has to be a better option. Then the DM looks at me and says, “Brac, what are you doing?”

I take one last look at my character, I already know what feats and abilities I’ll need to use but maybe there’s something else I can do.

Nope.

“Fuck it. I’m charging up the bow, leaping off the front of the ship, landing on the beasts back, and attacking it with my hammer.”

To the teams credit there was some debate over why I shouldn’t do this. It was a spectacularly bad idea. I had to use two feats, a daily ability, my one daily use on my boots, and a racial trait just to get the athletics check to require a 4+ on a D20 to succeed. While that is a very small chance of failure, missing still meant I was going to plummet into space and would lose a character I’d been playing for about three years. We covered my ranged attack which was not great, attacking the tentacles which felt pointless, and trying to fight the smaller monsters that were on deck that were being handled by the rest of the team. In the end I jumped.

I landed on the aboleth and started attacking it with my hammer. When it finally died and the fight was over I needed to get back to the ship. Unfortunately, in order to get to the aboleth I’d used up a lot of one shot abilities. I could technically make it back to the aboleth if I rolled a 23+ on a D20. Which if you have a passing understanding of math will know is impossible. We did have a bard who could have given me a bonus to the roll bring it from hell no to mostly screwed. However, part of this being a bad idea was I knew this was going to be the case going in. I expected Brac to die.

Fortunately one of the players happened to have mage hand and was able to use it to get a rope to me as the Aboleth died and sank into the depths. I survived.

It was still a bad idea.

However, it was an amazing story. Each of the streams I watched where this happened I saw the same thing. A bad idea that was absolutely a bad idea, but was completely in character, and ended up being a great story. Also to be clear in the streams only one of the ideas worked. The other one went spectacularly bad.

Now for the point. It’s okay to have a bad idea. Personally, I think they’re brilliant. If you have one you should go for it every once in a while. There are a couple of caveats to this. First, make sure the only person who will suffer the negative consequences in you. If my idea didn’t work, Brac ended up in space, the rest of the group would be fine.

Second try not to look for bad ideas, there’s almost always a better solution to the problem, do that instead. I spent a long time trying to find a different plan for Brac on the ship that day. Five other players, several NPC’s, and a chunk of monsters took actions before my turn came up and I spent all of that time trying to come up with a better idea.

Finally, don’t expect an epic story to come out of it. I got one, this time. There have been other plans that didn’t work or ended badly. Like I said, it only worked in one of the streams I watched.

Other than that don’t be a dick about it. Let the other players offer options if they have them, don’t do something stupid to be funny, and try and respect the other people at the table. “It’s what my character would do,” is not a get out of jail free card.

Anyway, that’s my story that took place during a flood and why you should occasionally have a bad idea. Yes, I know it’s a very week connection. I’ll also admit that I said exactly two things to myself before writing this and you can probably guess what each of them was.

Anyway, I’ll see you all tomorrow for Safety.

Until next time. Stay safe and be well.