Sorry about this
massivly huge post... think it's worth to read it all if you feel you can though...
I have only tried Boffer stuff for like half an hour at one time during a Swedish RPG convention, called Gothcon (Swedens biggest and oldest RPG con... not really any commercial stuff like I see in like usa etc, but rather all about the playing of all kinds of games connected to these hobbies (pnp, LARP or Lajv as they are mainly called here (think it's a "swedification of Live, that's how some people with really bad english skill pronounce live... "lajv"), tabletop wargames, boardgames, cardgames, etc)). I found it enjoyable and fun, but we never got into it. We already played so many other stuff that any more would have been to much.
Hmm... *eyes the part about the DnD reference* I asume that with this one you mean the kind where you don't actually "fight" with any weaponry really at all, but it's more of character acting where you use either dice or other means to check if what you do succede... then if that is the case, then yeah, I have done this on just about a hand full of times.
Last time was almost 9-10 years ago I belive. But it was not DnD (DnD is really not very popular at all in Sweden, we have our own DnD... called DoD in short
("Drakar och Demoner", "Dragons and Demons")... the Swedish PnP RPG that is to Swedish RPG'ers, what DnD is to the English speaking worlds RPG'ers and maybe even large parts of the entire worlds RPG'ers).
The ruleset we played was World of Darkness, specificly Vampire: The Masqurade... so yes... we where Vampires. Not any of that fancy glimmering and angsty teen types of Vampires though... even if several people actually wheres still teens...
Last time I did one I was in my very early 20's.
But since I was, and still am, a very shy guy, the 2 characters that I have used where always pretty none importent (by my own request), and I usually played them very silent types of chars.
First one was a Toreador who really did not really have any particular purpous for then to be around, his "skill" was supposed to be that of an artist (drawing, painting and that stuff, since I do enjoy doing that... i keeped running around with a Spawn comic in my hand all the time... pretty silly really). He was really young as a vampire, at the most 20 years. I did how ever slowly turn him towards acting as a bodyguard (extreamly weak one mind you, he was mainly speed specked with no real skill in any type of fighting) to the leader of the Toreador (and the town). She had basicly been manouvered by others into the position of the Prince (the Vampire leader of a town) of that town (mainly since her character as weak and controlable by these people). So I had felt that there where to few of us really, so even if my character sucked I could maybe do something useful.
The second one was a Brujah, who I from the start wanted to be modeled towards being a bodyguard for the Brujah's leader, funny thing with him was that the GM had made a mistake with my character when he created him (they asked us what we wanted to be/have, and created them for us), instead of giving my character Presence (basicly supernatural charm and attraction, includes scaring people), he accidentaly gave my character auspex (basicly supernatural senses and extended perception). This is a dicipline that Brujah's do not naturaly have from the start. When I realized it after having Lajved for a few hours, I told the GM, and wondered what he wanted to do. He basicly said that since he made the msitake, I could keep it if I wanted to. At which I said "Hell yeah, I'll keep it!". Good diciplin for a bodyguard to have, to be able to see what others can not, could protect my master better that way. My characters look though was a bit... silly really... remember that I mentioned Spawn above... well I decided I would "go all out" this time... wanted to paint my entire face and all, to "look scary" or what ever, useful for a bodyguard again. So I thought "Spawn's mask looks kind of scary... I will do that"... so I did his normal look the first night, and the second night I did an alernative one that was only black and white. And also to be better in fights I had him carry a bag in his hand with a alluminum baseball bat in it, and since it was slightly to long for the bag about 20-25 cm of it (roughly 8-10 inches) af it was inside my hoodies right arms sleeve. This was also so that it was hidden ingame... and really outside of the game as well, so if actual cops drove by they would not see some guy wielding a baseball bat. My idea was that at any sign of trouble all I had to do was let go of the bag, and let the rest of the bat slide out of my hoodies sleeve, and I would instantly have the bad in my hand and usable.
There are a few thing with each character that really stands out for me though though. Specific things that happend with both of them.
With my Brujah since I had mistakenly gotten Auspex, I made sure to use it, every now and then checking around me to see if something was up. At one point the Brujah clan had a private meeting, to discuss delicate matters about what to do, and how to get power and what not. As the members where getting inside the room one of the stonger Nosferatu's snuck in using his Obfuscate (it's a power that creat some kind of illusion, making them virtually invisible) to spy on the meating. Of course I let that be, because incharacter I am not supposed to know that. But I feel that once the door was closed, was probably the time where my character would make a check with Auspex, just in case. Now clearly, my character was not really that good with the skill, I think he was at the most 50 years as a vampire (had been a Swedish military man back then in the 40's), and I only had like 1 in the diciplin. Here I of course I now now did the sign to show I was using the skill (putting your index and middle finger at your temple), and then I looked through the room from where I was standing. I then put up the "out of character sign", holding up one of your hands closed in a fist. I go over to the Nosferatu to explain (whispering of course) what I did just in case he missed it, and so we can compare our skills and come up with how many times I would need to win over him with "rock-paper-scissors" for me to see him. From what I remember was that I needed to win 3 times in a row, where I belive all he had to do was at the minimum have it a draw atleast 1 time to win over me (I think this was how it was, or how it worked, I might remember it wrong, all I know was that all the odds where compleatly against me). So we start, first time... I win. Second time... I win! 3rd time... I win!!!
I remember that he looked at me a bit shocked, and then how his face turned to an "oh crap, someone just saw me... inside the room of a secret meeting FILLED WITH BRUJAH'S!". Brujah's are some of the most short tempered, powerful, and violant vampires out there... they are basicly anarchist to, and fighting is something they truly enjoy... meatheads most of them. XD
I returned to my spot, and put my hand back down and waited a few seconds, acting that I looked around, saw him but did not actually look at him so he would ingame be aware of it. Then slowly I started to walk around the table, not really directly at him, but more so trying to get behind him. As I got behind him I suddenly turned towards him and basicly slammed my right hand down on his right shoulder hard loudly exclaiming "Vad har vi HÄR då?!", means basicly "What do we have HERE then?!". Unusualfor me since I really don't like talking infront of people, and there was about 7-8 people in there, but I felt that it was pribably best if I did it that way to if nothing else make sure the Nosferatu dropped out of Obfuscate, but I made sure to use my Potence (superhuman strength) on his shoulder to make sure he did not get away. As I proclamed, everybody stopped talking and quickly turned around, first looking at me, and then their eyes gliding down to the Nosferatu infront of me (the guy was atleast a head and a half shorter then me)... I could litteraly feel in my hand/arm him shrinking down in acted fear. And then loads of things happend, people talking angry, our Leader giving orders and what not, then told me to make sure we locked up this "rat" somewhere so he did not get away and all that. The only thing in the room that could be "used" as some kind of makeshift place was a big room high closet like box for school material (we where in a school), pretty sturdy. So I brought the "rat" over to it, opened the doors, and realized there where no actual room to put him in there, it was all shelves... So I basicly said "pick a shelf", he looked at me confused and slightly frightened... "Pick a shelf I said" again, squeezing his shoulder with my Potence, he made a sound in pain and said "ok ok ok ok... that one" and pointed. At which point I now explained to the GM that what I did was lift this guy up, "folded him" in half (you know how some people can bend so far forward that their head are between their feet and such, that was my idea), and squeezed him inside the closet on the shelf he had picked. To which the GM looked at me, then at the Nosferatu, and then shrugged his shoulders and smirked at the Nosferatu and said "Done!". That was to me, the defining moment of that character during the Lajv, I had cought one of the higher and powerful Nosferatus, and we now had proof that they where actually spying on us and all. I don't remember wha thappend after that, but it did not really matter to me.
The second thing that is memerable for me about that character was the day after our last game night, when everyone had gone home, and the few of us who lived in town where gathered at the home of the GM. We talked about the weekend and all. The GM at this time told me "Did you know that everyone where talking about you, and where afraid of you?", I raised my eyebrows and went "What? No... I did not know that... what do you mean, why would they be afraid of me?!"... because really, I was not a very powerful character, one of the youngest at the Lajv and all... or atleast that is what I knew since I had asked for that (did not really want to be some kind of character with actual power and real responsabilities, other then my bodyguard stuff). First of all, basicly since he was the GM (main one out of 3), he of course got to see what happend almost everywhere, he knew the story, what most people where doing, plotting and all that, and if not he soon did since the other 2 GMs would inform him of it. And basicly, almost everybody where at one point or another during meetings and groups getting together and what not, talking about me. Basicly wondering... "Who the hell is this guy? Have you seen him befor? And what the hell is up with the make-up? Where did he come from? How powerful is he, I mean, he IS the bodyguard for Brujah's leaders... the most powerful Brujah, and maybe the most powerful Vampire here... that guy must be powerful, otherwise why would he even use him. Did you hear?! He cought that Nosferatu, you know, one of their bosses. What's in his bag?" And it keeped apperantly coming up through both nights. On top of that the GM explained to me that when ever I came walking through the first floor corridor (where most vampires hung about, plotting, observing, listening in on each other, and what ever), it was almost like the parting of the seas, people instantly moved out of my way and pressed up against the walls to let me go past. Strange thing is, I never noticed, not a single time. And of some reason, I felt... proud when he told me, like I had acheived something, without actually even doing anything at all (exept cathing the Nosferatu). Heck I am even smiling right now as I am writing this.
This next one is a REALLY long one... sorry, but it's the main one...
None of those things above are anything on what I did with my Toreador. That Vampire I mentioned above that had been put as the Prince of the town, was at this time the Prince. Some several of us where in her office, and there came a knock and it was some messager with some writen message for the Prince. She (I know, unsusual to call a She as a Prince, but that's how it is) got it and started reading. It was some message from someone I do not remember who, that stated that a conspiracy had been sniffed up, and they knew where these people where, pretty close by, and that reinforcment was needed to take them out. Unfortunatly there where not that many of us (think we where 5 or something), so the Prince told me and two others to go and help, with her second in command staying with her. I protested since I was her bodyguard (her only "actual" bodyguard really), but she ordered me to go, since this wa simportent. We go to where we where supposed to, nobody there, not a single soul, something was wrong... clearly. But maybe they where just late? We waited 5 more minutes, but nothing. Then the GM came down to us and, but nobody else, so I was getting even more suspicous now (off character of course). The GM basicly told us "You hear several gunshots from the direction where the Princes building is." I instantly get into action, I tell the GM that I burn a blood and start my Celerity (superhuman speed), my main diciplin, the only one I had actually put anything more then 1 on (think I had 3 or something). I also say that I run to the Prince's building, obcviously. Eventually I get back to the corridor (we only had 2, it was a really small place, think it was some building for Swedish scouts or something). At this point the GM stops me, and tells me we are now in a time pause. That's basicly when so many importent things are happening at the same time they need to slow it down to almost get into a semi--simultanious-turnbased thing. I do how ever see that out Prince runs past the door towards the left wall in the room where there is a large window (somehting like 1,5x1,5 meters big, roughly 5x5 feet), and her second in command follows, and then how a 3rd guy follows behind them. I recognized the guy as being one of the people who played on of the stronger Tremere, which are Vampires that have managed to learn how to use a dicipline called "Thaumaturgy", which basicly is a type of blood magic with many different types of paths to go down though, including one dealing with casting fire.
The GM goes down towards the room and talks to the other GM to know what is happening etc. He comes back and tells me basicly what I saw just happend befor (what I already knew probably happend). The GM tells me that just as I get up the stairs (there actually where no stairs... because this was only a 1 floor building, but the princes building was supposed to be atleast 6-7 floors tall, so we had to "pretend"... that particular corridor acted as about half a dozen or more different corridors for different places and buildings
) the Prince ran by, followed by her second in command, and then the Tremere, and that I can just barely see that the wnidow has been opened and it seems like they are climbing out. Now he tells me what I did not see/know though... the Tremere stops so I can still see him in the doorway, and raises his arms towards the window and start to "do his thing" towards where the otheres went. Then the GM tells me, what do you do? I am aware of that this particular Tremere does have the ability to cast fire, not good clearly. I ask if my previous Celerity activation is still availabel to use, no, so I tell the GM that I burn another blood to activate Celerity. I then tell him that I intend to run as fast as I can towards the doorway, in through it, straight for the Tremere, and then as violantly push him up against the piano (it is one of those really short and tall ones), and then basicly turn sharly left to go for the window and potentually follow the others out and catch up with them. I felt this was my best option, because I am not strong enough to deal with the Tremere in any type of fight, this way I maybe might make him lose his focus on what he tries to do and stop him. GM says ok, and goes back to the room where the other GM is talking with the ones there, then explains quickly what is about to happend, they do some test to see if the Tremere notice me etc (I am guessing atleast), let the two other characters have time to climb out the window, set it all up, and my GM returns and says... "Go!". I set of in a semi-run/jog/plod/what ever kind of a thing it might have been, I get to the doorway, go through it, reach the Tremere and give him mild push (we are really not supposed to go full out of these things, just sort of represent what is happening), he had no time to react and is pushed up against the piano (losing his focus and any type of change to retaliate, luckily), and then I turn to the left and go for the window. Heres where things go... what to say... not really crazy, but somewhere along those lines. As I turn towards the window I start seeing things in almost a bit of a slow motion, I remember that I seem to pick up a lot of information of what I see infront of me, more so then I would expect in the no more then 2 seconds that follows. When I turn to the window I see that it is one of those windows which opens sort of a the bottom and top, by being attached halfway up the hight of the window, so when it is "fully open" half of it sticks outside of the window, and the other half sticks inside, and it 's full window basicly is horizontal, which then leaves about 70 cm of open space above and below the window (70cm since about 10 is the thickness of the window it's self). I start moving towards the window intending to climb out, but of some reason my brain seem to kick in that "This is serious, you need to get out of here as fast as possible, you do not have time to climb out, it's to slow." This is where the slowmotion stops, and everything rather seems to speed up massivly, far beyon a normal speed.
Even though I had to do the push, and then turn 90 degrees towards the window, I still retained some levels of momentum, forward speed, so befor I knew it I was at the window, and in a lot less then a split second (it seemed atleast, not sure how much time it actually was), rather then slow down and take my time climbing out, like the otheres had, I slighly bent down, stuck my hands out infront of me, and pushed off and threw my self out the window through the bottom opening.
As it was happening I remember the thought of "What the hell are you doing?!" ran through my mind. Pretty much isntantly things went... more wrong... the heels of my feet, hit the inner edge of the window ponting inwards into the room, and due to my sneakers they get stuck there, next thing that happends ins basicly that my body bends forward, downwards as I bend at the waist. At which point I realize just how far down to the ground it still is, on the inside the window was maybe 1-1.2 meter of the ground (I guess 3-4 feet), but on the outside the bottom of the window was at about 1.8'ish meter of the ground (6 feet... I am my self a smidgen over 6 feet). At this point my feet are relesed from the windows edge, and I sort of half slide out of the window, I just barely notice the bike stand below the window as the palms of my hand breaks the fall. The ground unfortunatly not soft, it was a sort of asphalt but not compleatly, a much rougher kind, where you have like 2-3 milimeters small stones sticking up everywhere... you would rather want to slide on asphalt on your bare skin then this surface... it's like there are massive amounts of small lose stones on the asphalt, exept not lose at all, I seem to also rememberhaving had two of those metal twisted things for a bikes tire between my arms at this point. Here is where things seem to slow down again for me.
Because the next thing that happends, due to the somewhat forward momentum I still had, I started to fall "forward" so basicly would land on my back, I am not compleatly ready for this though, so not only does my arms sort of buckle under me, my waist does not really feel it wants to be straight either, so it starts to bend. Next part is a bit hazy at best, I basicly fall down and somehow in all of this I get a weired kind of "forward flip" going, and my body seems to og into compleat autopilot or something, because I can feel how my body "moves" in the right way to use this forward momentum to... I don't know make my upper body lift up from the ground as my legs bent at the knees so my feet his the ground and then broke the forward motion of the legs by digging into the asphalt. I guess here is the good part about the ruggedness of the ground, because now I feel how I am basicly rising up onto my feel from this momentum, getting up standing on my feet: Here I somehow am aware of that my Prince and her second in command had moved of to the right (saw them at the corner of my eye), and I even am aware of that at an angle towards my left infronto of me there where 3 other Lajvers standing having a out of character smoke break (I know I saw all have a semi-raised fist up as they smoked), don't actually remember who they where, just that they seemed shocked. I now feel how I delibratly starting to lean forward to my right, to keep the momentum going, and how my right legs at the same time starts to lifts a little and bends at the knee, lifting my right foot from the ground, as my left leg seem to push of a little. This results in that I start getting a right turning going, and I do a semi medium sized quater of a circle as I turn my body towards where the two others went, and as the turn leveled out in the right direction, the right speed of time seemed to return as I sprinted of. Reaching the two others like.. .I don't know 30 seconds later, and then slowing down jogging with them some 50 or so more meters befor we stopped and raised ou right hand in a fist to indicate that we had run of, so we could come back out of character.
As we where walking back I could feel how my heart was pumping like crazy, I had this almost windlike murmuring in my ears that pulsed with my heart, and everything around me almost seemed to be... brighter... even if it was in the middle of the night with only some street lights around to light things up a bit. The adrenalin was also pumping through me on almost overdrive, and the whole way back I was completly unable to calm down, actually the rest of the night I befor we stopped LARPing I was on a constant "edge" and alert and what not. When we came back the the building there had gathered a crowed outside think it was all of the people at the Lajv, lots of pairs of eyes on me obviously. The other two with me wondered what was going on, and I think someone started to explain. People talked to me, don't really remember most of it, mainly only someone saying "Hell I thought you had killed your self." At this point I throw a eye towards the wallwhere the window is and I get this feeling of "Damn that's much higher then I thought it was..."... I then look down to the ground below the window and see that the bike-stand there has moved, the side where I landed was like a meter out from the wall (3 feet) and the other edge was stil lagainst the wall. I also here notice that on the ground there is double folded paper, at which point I realize that my charactersheet that I had in the large front pocket of my hoodie was no longer there, I also find my pen by the paper, and my glasses... which I don't actually remember if I had had on, or if I had had it in my hoodies front pocket.
The really strange thing is that except for the palms of my had being a bit sore, and a part of the left side of my back (halfway up along it) being a little bit sore with a small bruise (I think it was from the bike stand), I was compleatly fine, not a single scratch, no blod no nothing, not even in my hands. Very strange... same as when I flew over the handlebars on my bike several years befor, where the only thing that really happend was being a little bit sore in the palms of my hands, and a long L shaped rip in my jeans along the entire length of the right thigh. I almost hit my head in a lamp post that time.
And I am not embelishing anything here, my memory of it was better for some time after it happend clearly, some months or so. And my memory is not always the best with many things, but things like this are almost burned into my brain because they where so... unusual and... I don't know... rememberable clearly. But more then that... hard to really explain it. *smirks a bit* Right now I almost feel a fraction of how I felt back then, almost like my body is anticipating it or something, being ready to kick start things if "something" is about to go down. Heh... feels sort of good.
Edited by Grimm Wulf, 13 December 2011 - 10:31 PM.
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It is not for the faint of heart. We have broken limbs, caused concussions, and damaged our bodies all in the name of fun. And thats when things go as planned. lol.
Blackfire1, on 13 December 2011 - 05:00 PM, said:
