[RPG] Are We Being Punk'd?!?

Last night was the restart of JR's Hellfrost campaign. Before game, he had emailed all the players and laid out how things were going to start and asked if we had questions. There wasn't any discussion on the list or any indication that the scenario was out of line, so he got things ready on his end and we showed up.

I had no idea what I wanted to play, and had thrown out at least 2 ideas prior to showing up at game session last night. Finally in a fit of desperation and mirth, I looked through the Savage Worlds Deluxe book and decided to alter a template.

I was quite literally JOKING when I decided "hey, a pirate sounds cool" and adapted said character template for play. I asked if boating would be helpful, and JR's reply was pretty ambivalent, so I discarded "boating" as a skill in favor of something else.

AND the scenario involves a long boat ride. Just my luck, heh.

JR's games are known for being just a little "over the top", but with serious themes and interesting plots. We're hacking away at the situation, with ridiculous jokes and laughter, when things went suddenly WEIRD.

The main NPC is hiring the party to travel from X to Y. The trip is a good solid 2 months of road time, and goes through some interesting and possibly not-so-friendly territory. We're negotiating our fee and the NPC is a right cheap bastard- so he's been tough to bargain with. Our group doesn't have a face, but we're doing our best given the situation. A member of the party decides to try to negotiate for a guide to be sent along with the group. The NPC is not interested.

NPC pretty much says "hey, I hired you guys to do this job. How you do it is up to you, but I am not giving you anything other than what we agreed on."

And here's where we get Punk'd.

The member of the party who wanted the guide just stalls. He essentially sits on his idea and won't let it go- no matter what JR or any member of the group says. He also refuses JR's offer of another character- it's all or nothing for this guy. It gets pretty heated- the rest of the group does not understand why he's doing this, and then he breaks out of character and is in essence, trying to bully JR into doing what he wants.

JR is trying to figure this out -on the fly. He genuinely and truly wants EVERYONE in his game to have a good time, and this one holdout is causing major friction on that point. JR had no intention of sending or running an NPC, and certainly doesn't want to reward this player for refusing to compromise in any way. But he also doesn't want to tell a player, "get lost". JR (and the rest of us) are kind of sputtering, trying to figure out what to do. Things come to a dead stop- which is another thing JR hates to have happen.

After a few minutes of "what the heck is going on", two members of our group sort of try to ignore it and move the plot along. I am honestly considering leaving the game because I am just not sure I want to deal with this guy's shenanigans. The other guy at our table is notoriously quiet and is typically not saying a word. JR is trying to herd the holdout back to the plot. And it's really, really awkward.

At this point, TheDude takes JR outside for a few minutes. I decide to make a different character for a variety of reasons. I make a guide- but not to placate the guy with the demanding attitude, but because the group genuinely needs someone with some road skills. One of the PC's uses party funds to "hire a man" and tada, I'm not a pirate.

JR comes back from his pow-wow with TheDude, and we are firmly shoved back to the story.

I'm playing Lannar, a plainspoken, loyal and honorable guide. Lannar is also a male, and well- I am not. I have very obvious lady parts, and there are more than a few misspoken "she" or "her" comments. So I adjust my "name tag" to say "dude" underneath my name. My "boss" adjusts HIS name tag to say "also dude" which adds some desperately needed levity to a very weird situation.

I'm going to stop here and say it. I said it to JR and I said it in front of the offending person. But not this plainly. Here it is, laid out.

I have NEVER seen anyone do that, ever. I have NEVER seen anyone break character and DEMAND something from the GM in such a petulant, disrespectful and juvenile way. 


I've seen (or heard about) some serious "dick moves", but this one takes the cake. I started playing RPGs as a bratty 12 year old that wanted to be catered to- but nothing I did even comes CLOSE to this level of insanity. I've heard of people stopping the game to tell the GM, "hey, you suck" and quitting. But I have never seen a guy basically try to bully the GM into doing what he wants like this before. 


I am firmly in the camp of "the GM is in charge" camp, so this one really broke my brain. I honestly and sincerely do not understand this guy's point of view or reasoning and it just baffles me as to why he would do this- and feel justified doing it. 


There was absolutely no remorse, no backing away from the position, no sense of hey, maybe I am wrong. He just sat there like he was perfectly in the right to expect his requirement to be met and damn the rest of us if we didn't agree. 


I'm worried about the party dynamic from here forward given that this guy has shown his hand that he is willing to derail the whole group to get what he wants. I'm hoping that we have a better handle on how to address it from here on, but I don't want to deal with that again. It was truly and honestly unsettling, and a little infuriating. 

I want to be clear that JR didn't do anything wrong in the setup, in playing the NPC, in being clear about what was happening. He was fully in charge at all times until the guy just derailed the session. 

I don't want to put JR on the spot.

I would like to hear- how would YOU have handled the "derailment"?

[RPG] KnightErrantJR's Hellfrost Game #1

I had a wonderful time recently, playing in the HellFrost game that KnightErrantJR is running at my FLGS.

For those that don't know, Hellfrost is a TripleAce product officially endorsed as a Savage Worlds supplement. It's very, VERY fantasy, which is a change for me.

JR decided to do something a little different for determining the "get the group together" and sent us fun little emails, each personalized to our individual characters. Here's mine, with a little flavor thrown in.

You have been in New Asper long enough not to get in trouble.  This is a good start.  Many new faces, some of them handsome enough to linger on for a few minutes, at least.

New Asper isn't the most amazing city, from what you hear, but it's a solid place, and a good sized one at that. 

For some reason your eyes are drawn to a large house on the street, with a few alleyways on it's sides.  You wonder for a moment what the place might be, and who might live there, when you feel that someone is behind you.

As you turn around, you find a man that you can see through.  If you didn't know better, you would think this might be a ghost.  Is it a ghost? 

"Tyco.  You flirt with trouble and with adventure.  I have a mate for your curiosity.  Follow me."

The man is clothes in rotted clothes and has sunken eyes, but appears to have once been a handsome Saxa man.  His neck, wrists, and waist is encircled in etherial chains, and he moves through you . . . so cold . . . and heads to the house.    

You know you shouldn't, but you follow, and after winding around a hallway or two, you see flickering lights.  In the room you find a circle of braziers, burning incense, and the room has other inhabitants, just now working their way out of the corners.

In the middle of the room is a word, apparently written in something that looks quite a bit like blood

So there is some cryptic writing on the ground... huh. 

No, not that kind!

yeah, like that...

Anyway, despite being a well versed traveler, Tyco doesn't recognize the writing. She's trying to figure out what to do when it dawns on here that there are 6 other guys in the room with her, and they all came in the room by different doors. This is more than a little freaky. 

Everyone in the room seems disturbed by the writing, and wonder what it says (as well as what to do). Some mumble, some ask out loud, some try to stay inconspicuous, but all seem more than a little alarmed when a member of the party starts addressing the town guard loudly, asking them to find a sage to read the writing. Another member of the group takes the gent aside and reveals to him what the writing is (Murder) and the loud fellow now begins asking about the tenant of the home- again to the guard. 

After some fits and starts, the group quietly retreats to the house and it is discovered by a variety of means that the home used to belong to a noble who traded wine, but had recently died of a very transmittable disease. The house is supposed to be under quarantine for at least another week, so being inside it is probably unwise. All of us except one are unwittingly healed of the disease by a member of the party who is acting really, really weird. 

Somewhere along here [OOC: I honestly can't remember how this came to pass] it is either decided or deduced that this noble's death might be the handiwork of a local death-and-mayhem God cult. 

It is then decided that someone from the group should try to infiltrate this cult, and the "rogue-iest" rogue type ever gets elected (or volunteered, I am not sure). 

The group travels to the cult hideout and the rogue descends the stairs and knocks on the door. (I swear I am not making this up!) Somehow he gets in and hangs out for a bit, but the cultists decide to give him an "initiation test" in an attempt to get rid of him. 

They ask him to bring as many of the poor, homeless, beggars and prostitutes he can find to them so they can give them "presents". This apparently sounds like a good thing to our "friend" and he leaves and then reports this to us. 

We then come up with a brilliant plan to act drunk and that we are following the guy to a new party to get even more drunk. 

(Our party comprises of 2 Engro, a Noble Anari (I think?) , A FrostDwarf, 2 Finnars and another guy I can't remember. We don't "gel".) 

We get inside and there is a brief fight where the cultists are defeated pretty quickly, and we manage to get some information out of them. Apparently this isn't really a Death-God cult as much as it is a fraternity for "get-back-at-Saxa" with some debauchery thrown in. YAY. 

The cultists are apparently brewing something up at another location, and it is almost ready according to the guy we get the information out of. We go to the other safe house and 

then things get really weird. 

Instead of going inside and investigating, or checking for guards, or anything like that, the plan is to burn the place down. THEN, the group tries to send the rogue (whom I've managed to sort-of befriend) inside to check it out but asks him to torch the place while he's at it. 

This plan doesn't really go over well with my pal, who isn't keen on being the messenger or the designated fire-starter, after we've spent so much time trying to avoid authorities. 

An examination of the basement of the hideout reveals an abattoir with what used to be people hanging from hooks, with pustule bags of infectious disease being grown in their abdomens. All of them save one are still "brewing", but there is one that looks as if the wormy bag o' sickness got away via the "sewers".  (There's definitely some leniency on reality in this game...)

The fire starts, the hideout burns down, and we are on the way to the home of the noble in our party when we are summoned quite forcefully to the home of a Duke. 

Said Duke wants to hire us as consultants and troubleshooters to investigate whatever goings on may be occurring that the regular consul and nobles might not want to hear about...

and thus ends the first session....