Why I Don't Like Palladium Vampires
I feel kind of lucky that I haven't been branded as part of the aforementioned group of morons yet.
I'm not exactly up on my role-playing systems. I dabble here and there, but it's never been something that I've actively studied... I'm too busy watching anime and making zany webpages for that. I have a quite a few games that I'm participating in, although they're kind of at a standstill at this juncture, either due to lazy/stressed out GMs, or GMs that want to get rid of half the morons that played in our last campaign.
My often overzealous compatriots tend to run over or ignore the things I say, and whenever I have to figure out what kind of numbers are required to kill something, sneak around, or do something cool, I invariably ask "okay, what do I roll?" I have to find some pretty patient people before I'll feel comfortable.
My point is that I'm really, really green. I feel kind of lucky that I haven't been branded as part of the aforementioned group of morons yet. Maybe it's just because I'm almost cute enough to elicit sympathy from the poor schmucks.
Anyhoo, we had an event of sorts recently, where a whole bunch of people made themselves into roleplaying characters, using Palladium rules. We were going to be romping around in a world that was exactly like our campus and its surroundings, so we knew where pretty much everything was. I kind of flattered myself a little on some of my stats, in the hopes that I wouldn't die instantaneously, and after squabbling with my friends about why their Physical Beauty ratings are too low, we finally got down to business.
After seeing a freaky phantom clock tower that made me think I was in the midst of an episode of Buffy, I ended up breaking off into a very small group: namely, me and my neighbor and good friend Dan. We, being the crazy and silly morons that we are, went trotting off-campus by ourselves, hoping to find James, the resident Buffy expert who would probably have a few ideas on the freaky clock tower bit, and wanting to pick up some sharp things from our respective apartments.
And you know that thing they say where, if you're in a horror flick, you don't ever, ever go in the basement alone? Well, it was kind of like that.
Dan got assailed by some scary-buff dogs, and then the door to the apartment I was in slammed, and I was faced with a vampire. She took a couple swipes at me, and then I, wooden sword in hand, tried to stake her. I rolled a natural 20.
Our friendly little vampire became paralyzed and looked very uncomfortable in general... so I, still being in the Buffy mindset, thought "hey, cool, I just killed a vampire!" and promptly pulled out the wooden sword in case there were more vamps about.
That was really, really dumb.
Vampire lady came back into commission, and managed to get ahold of me a couple times and almost bite me, which would have turned me into a friendly vampire myself, had it succeeded. You see, instead of being faced with friendly, Buffy-esque vampires that go poof into fine powder when you stake them, they gave me the more John Carpenter-esque brand: you stake them, then decapitate them, and then burn them. Needless to say, I was pretty annoyed.
After a laborious string of attempts to re-stake her, I finally did it, despite the fact that dice hate me and I can't roll for crap. That time around, I did it right, with the whole fire and decapitation bit, and she became all nice and dead for me. So, I left the apartment.
While I was inside the other apartment wrestling with the now-dead vampire, Dan had gotten killed, but my friend Aleisha had arrived, so now it was me and her. She and I decided to get some knives from my own kitchen, and then we headed for the door.
When we reached the door, we were greeted by Zach, who was also GMing the game. At the beginning of the game, we had heard him scream bloody murder, and then we found the remnants of a body that now looked a great deal like if someone spilled Campbell's Chunky Soup on the floor. We had previously assumed that it was his body, so upon seeing him alive and well, I got the oh-so-icky feeling that I was in for a world of hurt.
He killed me in two hits.
I learned later on that he was actually the master vampire, so I was supremely annoyed that I didn't put up more of a fight, because it would have been incredibly cool if I could have killed the master vampire single-handedly. But I figured it was pretty neat already that I managed to stake, decapitate, and torch a vampire before I died. Upon discussing it with James, who was the other GM, I figured it was pretty okay, since it did take the MASTER vampire to rub me out.
And then, as we walked towards my apartment door one night, James suddenly pointed to the emergency fire hose stationed RIGHT NEXT TO MY DOORWAY, and said "you know, water does lots of damage to Palladium vampires."
Lousy rat bastards.
My often overzealous compatriots tend to run over or ignore the things I say, and whenever I have to figure out what kind of numbers are required to kill something, sneak around, or do something cool, I invariably ask "okay, what do I roll?" I have to find some pretty patient people before I'll feel comfortable.
My point is that I'm really, really green. I feel kind of lucky that I haven't been branded as part of the aforementioned group of morons yet. Maybe it's just because I'm almost cute enough to elicit sympathy from the poor schmucks.
Anyhoo, we had an event of sorts recently, where a whole bunch of people made themselves into roleplaying characters, using Palladium rules. We were going to be romping around in a world that was exactly like our campus and its surroundings, so we knew where pretty much everything was. I kind of flattered myself a little on some of my stats, in the hopes that I wouldn't die instantaneously, and after squabbling with my friends about why their Physical Beauty ratings are too low, we finally got down to business.
After seeing a freaky phantom clock tower that made me think I was in the midst of an episode of Buffy, I ended up breaking off into a very small group: namely, me and my neighbor and good friend Dan. We, being the crazy and silly morons that we are, went trotting off-campus by ourselves, hoping to find James, the resident Buffy expert who would probably have a few ideas on the freaky clock tower bit, and wanting to pick up some sharp things from our respective apartments.
And you know that thing they say where, if you're in a horror flick, you don't ever, ever go in the basement alone? Well, it was kind of like that.
Dan got assailed by some scary-buff dogs, and then the door to the apartment I was in slammed, and I was faced with a vampire. She took a couple swipes at me, and then I, wooden sword in hand, tried to stake her. I rolled a natural 20.
Our friendly little vampire became paralyzed and looked very uncomfortable in general... so I, still being in the Buffy mindset, thought "hey, cool, I just killed a vampire!" and promptly pulled out the wooden sword in case there were more vamps about.
That was really, really dumb.
Vampire lady came back into commission, and managed to get ahold of me a couple times and almost bite me, which would have turned me into a friendly vampire myself, had it succeeded. You see, instead of being faced with friendly, Buffy-esque vampires that go poof into fine powder when you stake them, they gave me the more John Carpenter-esque brand: you stake them, then decapitate them, and then burn them. Needless to say, I was pretty annoyed.
After a laborious string of attempts to re-stake her, I finally did it, despite the fact that dice hate me and I can't roll for crap. That time around, I did it right, with the whole fire and decapitation bit, and she became all nice and dead for me. So, I left the apartment.
While I was inside the other apartment wrestling with the now-dead vampire, Dan had gotten killed, but my friend Aleisha had arrived, so now it was me and her. She and I decided to get some knives from my own kitchen, and then we headed for the door.
When we reached the door, we were greeted by Zach, who was also GMing the game. At the beginning of the game, we had heard him scream bloody murder, and then we found the remnants of a body that now looked a great deal like if someone spilled Campbell's Chunky Soup on the floor. We had previously assumed that it was his body, so upon seeing him alive and well, I got the oh-so-icky feeling that I was in for a world of hurt.
He killed me in two hits.
I learned later on that he was actually the master vampire, so I was supremely annoyed that I didn't put up more of a fight, because it would have been incredibly cool if I could have killed the master vampire single-handedly. But I figured it was pretty neat already that I managed to stake, decapitate, and torch a vampire before I died. Upon discussing it with James, who was the other GM, I figured it was pretty okay, since it did take the MASTER vampire to rub me out.
And then, as we walked towards my apartment door one night, James suddenly pointed to the emergency fire hose stationed RIGHT NEXT TO MY DOORWAY, and said "you know, water does lots of damage to Palladium vampires."
Lousy rat bastards.