Re: (TFT) "Roleplay" over rules

["Quite Confused" <Confused3141@hotmail.com>]

So I'm gonna play in this scenario and there's about 7 of us and I'm
unfamiliar with the system so I ask this cat to give me a hand in generating
a character. Well much could be said as to why, but rather than digress I'll
just say that when I presented my character to the GM he picked it apart at
a glance. "Well your a such and such and it specifically says that they can
only have a STR of so and so but YOUR STR is yadda yadda, etc. etc. etc. but
the game is fixing to start so go ahead and play him cause you don't have
enough time to roll another one."

I was chastised. I'd been playing games so long by that point that I'd long
ago realized the pointlessness of cheating and now I was being told to play
an illegal character. It really stuck in my craw. So I resolved to kill my
character. But not in some pointless way, rather something like a charge
against insurmountable odds. Go out in style. Little did I realize.....

You see I started playing RPG's in 1976. Most of you are well aware of the
state of gaming in that era so I won't belabor you with a history but I will
mention a social trend that developed a few years later. RPGs got affiliated
with devil worship in the public mind. This had a very odd effect on the
groups that I played with. It seemed to us that the public thought
role-playing involved dressing up in costume and running around in the steam
tunnels under the University while performing satanic rituals.
Bah humbug said we they don't know what their talking about, but at the same
time
we backed way off the acting out in favor of "following the rules". It was
the rules that were teaching us math. It was the rules that were helping us
with our spelling. It was the rules that were making us better critical
thinkers. Then I got this illegal character.

You still with me? I'd resolved to kill my 'cheating' character. The
scenario we were gonna play seemed custom made for the task. We were a small
band of mercs hired to protect this huge boat that was set adrift down a
major river from hijackers until it reached the sea. Sounds simple enough
until you realized that some of the hijackers were actual armies. This
revelation spooked the other PCs but I was calm in my resolve. Then the
first attack came.

It was the Dwarfs, working for one of the human kingdoms. The humans had
lined up
on the banks of the river and the dwarfs had brought some of their toys. In
this case
it was cannon that shot fasteners for these long rope bridges. Four of these
attached to the ship two on each side and the ranks began to advance two
abreast. Here's my
chance I think and I leap to defend one of the bridges single handedly. Even
though the character was a bad ass the simple law of averages was bound to
get me at some point so I decided to go out in style. I'd never actively
tried to kill off a character before so I tried to think of the most
dramatic exit I could come up with. When buying equipment I'd dropped some
coins on a holy symbol (don't ask me why, sometimes the oddest equipment
proves useful) so when the GM asks me what I'm doing this turn I physically
stand up in my chair and pronounce in a loud voice; "I tear the holy symbol
from my neck, throw it at my feet and yell out for all to hear 'If any man
passes this point then may my god damn my soul to hell'".

To say that there was stunned silence in the room after my turn is
overstating the effect but there was a reaction. How was the GM gonna handle
THIS? seemed to be the question as everyone turned from me to look at him.
The GM got this quizzical smirk on his face and he leaned back in his chair.
He grabbed a rulebook and thumbed quickly through it. He then took a deep
breath and began his explanation.
It seemed the GM was so tickled by this display that my character was
granted favor
from his god for the duration of the combat (hefty combat bonuses). The
result of all this was that my guy practically ROUTED the boarders on his
bridge while the others fought them off more conventionally. Not only was I
not
dead but remember how I said there were like 7 of us? Well my guys stand
allowed there to be 2 of us at each of the other bridges so we got away from
the whole encounter and my guy was a little like a hero. But things had just
begun and
I was still gonna get this illegal character killed if "I" had anything to
do with it.....

The next encounter. The Dwarfs again. This time they were helping another
kingdom who's armies were massed on a single bank. The Cannon this time were
loaded with huge grappling hooks attached to bronze chains. A half a dozen
of these things stuck into the side of the ship and they began to reel us
in. There was nothing we could do about it because the army on the river
bank all had bows. The sky was dark with their arrows. So all our characters
are huddled against the deck wall nearest the enemy to shelter from the
archers and I think I've spotted another way to go out strong so I declare
to the GM that my character "screams his loudest war cry and leaps down onto
one of the chains that's pulling us in". Everyone thinks I'm crazy. So the
GM asks me what I'm gonna do now that I'm hanging from a chain fixing to
become a pin cushion. I tell him that I try to beat through the chain with
my weapon. He thinks about it (the main problem being that no one was
supposed to try something like this so how do you roll to hit for hundreds
of guys a round) and comes up with a method for handling the situation that
results in my guy breaking the chain (I said he was a bad ass) but being
shot up pretty good in the process. There were still 5 chains left so I go
for the next one and get through 2 more and am working on the 4th when it
happens. I took that 1 point too many and the GM gives a fitting description
of my character slipping beneath the water. Relief. I'd done it. And not
only was the cheating character gone but it had been an excellent encounter
that was entertaining for everyone and the other guys finished what I'd
started so everyone else got away from that encounter too. Mission
accomplished.

So I THOUGHT.....

Remember how all this started in the first place? Remember how I said "I'm
unfamiliar with the system"? Well it turns out that there was this bit about
"divine intervention". This could be used to bring back a dead character.
This was used to bring back the cheating character.

I won't bore you with the rest of the war stories from that adventure
(although if Ang Lee directed a movie based off those stories it'd be pretty
awsome) but I will point out that something had changed by the time my
character was revived. Everyone was putting a little more "style" in their
descriptions. People were actually pantomiming some of their more complex
actions. Characters were actively looking for opportunities to be a hero.
This was hardly all my doing, I'm just telling it from my perspective, but
everyone had a great time and all agreed that it was the best adventure we'd
been on in quite some time.

Oh yeah, the cheating character? Well everyone got off the boat just before
it went out to sea so I told the GM that he'd stay on the boat and ride in
into the whirlpool in the middle of the ocean. In effect I turned him over
to the GM. Seems like allot of trouble to go through just to make an
NPC............ Maybe one day I'll tell y'all about the time my knight vowed
to ride naked for a day and it saved his life.

Jay
"The early worm deserves the bird."
R.A. Heinlein
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