Most Memorable / Funniest RPing Moment(s)

[djg_p]

Over the years, I've had to laugh at some Traveller moments, be it in RPing or in print.

My most amusing moment happened many years ago when I was refereeing five players in a scenario using the MT rule set.

Two of the PCs were military characters and had obtained FGMP-15s along the way. This party decided to try and hi-jack a TJ Frontier Courier that was located at a local Starport. I started to laugh at the Players as they tried to disguise the heavy personal weaponry and smuggle it into the Starport, then through Customs, then through Security checks, then through Baggage handling, etc ... then finally onto the Starship without detection.

The Players decided to disguise the two FGMP-15s as portable arc-welders (with all the trimmings). They also had a couple of slug throwing rifles which ended up being disguised as something else.

After about 4 hours playing (putting the players through manipulative hell) and having the PCs pulled up by various security and asked questions, the Players were not only sweating and panting, they were also knackered. They were tired.

I had to laugh at the end when all the Players indicated to me that they felt that they have just been through the wringer twice in one day. Seeing the expressions (of panic, fear, relief, apprehension, then another bout of panic) on the Players' faces will be something that I won't forget.

What humourous / memorable Traveller moments have other people had?

 

[Mår Ekkertsen]

Originally posted by djg_p:
Over the years, I've had to laugh at some Traveller moments, be it in RPing or in print.

We had a Marine Officer. He'd been canned by the service at the peak of his career and wasn't too happy to have found service on a far trader tossing cargo.

He grew depressed. (Actually, the player wanted a new character.) After failing to develop any 'human' relationships with any of the other crew, in desperation he stole the safety over-rides for the air lock and tried to space himself. He was so certain and so ready to set his living flesh to float in the vacuum.

The captain was on the bridge when he made his move and allowed the over-ride. Seems the captain knew the ship was already on the tarmac in port but that piece of information hadn't made it to our poor ex-marine and he never noticed the landing--until he landed face first on the tarmac.

After some medical recovery time, he came back to the campaign a new man, filled with life and the heart of the action in sessions that followed.

We talked about the swan dive onto the tarmac for years. And, see, I still am.

 

[Tanker]

The first time I refereed a game, with my two main Traveller buddies named Tom and Robert, I pulled the old "when you sneak out the back door, you find yourselves surrounded by guys in battledress pointing PGMP-13s at you. What do you do?" Tom looked at me and said, "Ok, we'll fight." Robert gave him this look that I can't describe adequately, and quickly said, "I push Tom down and say, 'My friend's delerious! We surrender!'" We still laugh about this.

We still laugh about the end of the session too. Their characters were after a cache of Ancient artifacts, which various better funded and more heavily armed groups were also after. I got the guys with the big guns into a firefight, and in the confusion Tom and Robert made off with the goodies. Which turned out to be merely ancient (small a) artifacts. But it worked out ok. Robert's character enjoyed the "Space Invaders" game, while Tom's liked the "Asteroids."

It was a lot of fun for something I made up in about 30 seconds.

 

[rkatz]

I am rather new to this as a GM...but the group I play with has a couple of "cerebral" types (their characters, INT of C) along with one of my co-workers, who is also smart but much more seat of the pants (his character has an INT of 5).

The two who have high-INT characters are constantly reminding the other "well if you had ANY intelligence you would see that..."

What doesn't help is that Paul (the INT-5 character) in one of our first adventures tried to climb a ladder in his spacesuit WITH his gun out. He was reminded it would be hard to climb a ladder with just one hand...so his response was "OK...I'll carry it in my mouth like a pirate!!"

Kind of hard with your spacesuit helmet on!javascript:void(0)
ROFL He does not hear the end of that one.

As an afternote, he still tried to climb the ladder with one hand and failed the DEX throw...severely bruised his tailbone...javascript:void(0)
Devil

RKatz

 

[Liam Devlin]

Originally posted by Tanker:
The first time I refereed a game, with my two main Traveller buddies named Tom and Robert, I pulled the old "when you sneak out the back door, you find yourselves surrounded by guys in battledress pointing PGMP-13s at you. What do you do?" Tom looked at me and said, "Ok, we'll fight." Robert gave him this look that I can't describe adequately, and quickly said, "I push Tom down and say, 'My friend's delerious! We surrender!'" We still laugh about this.

We still laugh about the end of the session too. Their characters were after a cache of Ancient artifacts, which various better funded and more heavily armed groups were also after. I got the guys with the big guns into a firefight, and in the confusion Tom and Robert made off with the goodies. Which turned out to be merely ancient (small a) artifacts. But it worked out ok. Robert's character enjoyed the "Space Invaders" game, while Tom's liked the "Asteroids."

It was a lot of fun for something I made up in about 30 seconds.

_______________________________
Ahhh spontaneity!

Loved it. Those stars look good on ya too!

 

[Liam Devlin]

[/QUOTE]We had a Marine Officer. He'd been canned by the service at the peak of his career and wasn't too happy to have found service on a far trader tossing cargo.

He grew depressed. (Actually, the player wanted a new character.) After failing to develop any 'human' relationships with any of the other crew, in desperation he stole the safety over-rides for the air lock and tried to space himself. He was so certain and so ready to set his living flesh to float in the vacuum.

The captain was on the bridge when he made his move and allowed the over-ride. Seems the captain knew the ship was already on the tarmac in port but that piece of information hadn't made it to our poor ex-marine and he never noticed the landing--until he landed face first on the tarmac.

After some medical recovery time, he came back to the campaign a new man, filled with life and the heart of the action in sessions that followed.

We talked about the swan dive onto the tarmac for years. And, see, I still am.[/QUOTE]
_________________________

 

[DrSkull]

I was refereeing a game where the PC's had just sort-of kidnapped a pirate/smuggler and were hustling him across a space station to find a quiet corner in which to interrogate him.

I decided to roll 1 random encounter. It turned out to be a "News crew". For some reason Geraldo Rivera leaped into my mind and so was born "Julio Solaris" of Galactic News. The players ended up beating him sensless.

Later I brought him back covering the PC's "thuggish and shockingly represive" actions against local rebels. The PC's ended up beating him senseless again, while they were disguised as memebers of the rebel organization, , locking him in a low berth, and then "rescued" him at the end of the adventure when the rebels were defeated.

 

[Liam Devlin]

dg_P, Nice choice of topisc btw. Kudos!!!
I'm cross posting this from Ship's Locker:

"Seems Craig our GM had this new adventure booklet, Our ship ( a rather battered A2 Far trader, sound familiar) had a Jump drive part malfunction shortly after arriving in system in Aramis.
Cut to the chase..we didn't have the $$$ for the part (with me so far?), But we did have a job offer from a vilani "businessman" MR Khaashkinuun (or so he called himself).
In order to get what we wanted, he wanted us to participate in a scheme of his against a rival. (Industrial Blackmail/ corporate espionage). problem is, we didn't trust this guy...So Doc O'Malley, my Scout (with a Med+4) dropped off his little nano-body-bot in the guys' aquarium.
Now the bot was small enough like what we have nowadays to transmit back what it sees back to the physician/ surgeon watching his screen, as it travels into the body. The ear piece, I left in his potted plant near his perscomm by the desk(after dropping a pack of gum..bent down and planted it, straightened up with the gum).
what we "saw" and "heard" the next two days caused us to think he'd double cross us.
But thats another story how we "fixed him, got the cash, and got off ARAMIS.'

same story..continued...

So, we get the job done for this guy, but we do it a day before we told him we would. That evening we gather at his house for a final "once over "briefing, payment arrangements, etc. Except we hadn't a real plan on how we were going to turn the tables on him.
I decided (Doc O'malley, ret Scout) I'd create a diversion..so I went upstairs with these cupcakes (female escorts as Craig described them), and let the retired RADM PC (medical Guy)Dave and Former Marine Commando (Brian) do the talking, Ed was eating the chips and dip trying to horn in on conversation, sound important, Steve And Chip (brothers) were making out with their cupcakes (off stage)while the drama unfolded. This was great roleplying, but it was in its second hour when I got that look in my eye GMs dread:
When I sit down in my mind and ask myself, "What would Bugs Bunny do in my shoes?"

SO I pulled out my tranq rds in the fresher, loaded my snub pistole, shot the gal. Left her in the bedroom upstairs. Called over one of KhaashKinuun's goons, told him the girl had collapsed, he goes in, shot him in the back. Tossed him in the bedroom too, on the bed.
went downstairs to the "Admiral"(Dave), whispered aloud that both ",had collapsed for some unknown reason", could he check on it?
Dave played it off well. "Doc, you were supposed to leave those bio samples on the ship!"
Mr Khasshkinuun's ears pricked up.(he's a professional blackmailer amongst other things--here was a handle on us for leverage--so Craig/ GM thought...)
"I couldn't leave em there, the ship's powered down, I had em in my carry all. Fer cryin out loud. I turned my back and she'd opened one!"
"Mr K" sent his remaining two goons up stairs with me to check it out. I shot em both. ED turned around from the chips and dip too late, Steve and chip returned fromupstairs (they'd tied up their cupcakes and gagged them, Nice guys that they were.)and shot Mr K with a tranq rd each.
Silence set in.
I took charge with my vid camera, and Steve and chip carried Mr K upstairs where we made a lurid Vid and two copies. (Use yer imagination--counter blackmail), while the others hacked into Mr K's desk computer files, raked out his cash from the safe.
Steve and Chip and I split off in getting away from Mr K's house, while the rest took what Mr K was blackmailing several folks with their way. They escaped back to the ship/ starport in the airraft. Seems they had been watching Mr K's house (THey? we never learned who They were).
Craig got confused as we stopped off the tube to the Traveller Aramis TL-13 version of 7-11 (it was late at night), and bought some things after we realized we were being tailed. we bought an asortment of stuff (toiletires etc). then we stopped off at the tube station adkjacent to Strport and each of us with our bags of goodies checked out a safety deposit locker, and locked em up, and with empty hands,(we taped the evidence to our bodies under our coats) returned to the ship. And Steve made a stop at the local Post office for stamps and envelopes, mailed some things to the ship from the bags of stuff)
Kinda long, but we did this part of the adventure
in twenty minutes (we'd been at it for eight hours on the weekend, in the dorm basement).
It was spontaneus, and funny too.

The three bags contained(Craig asked us, cuz the tail men used their skills to open em up!

)
Several bags of chips, some rubber bands, and paper clips, a box of feminine hygiene items, two packs of Condoms, a roll of duct tape, A roll of scotch tape, Three ⌧ mags,(1 each bag), And the "Aramis Enquirer" and several other Tabloid papers).

Only when we'd all gotten back to the ship did Craig ask where the blackmail evidence was.

We all got a laugh out of that, even Craig--i wasn't supposed "to go down like that" (those CT adventures where Pcs Must get captured"--well, we'd had that getting broken down on Aramis to begin with..!)

 

[djg_p]

Hiya Liam,

Originally posted by Liam Devlin:
dg_P, Nice choice of topics btw. Kudos!!!

Well .... being a Lone Star, numerous conversations with information and story sharing is a must. That is why these Lone Stars are always used by Travellers as they transit from one point to another somewhere in the cosmos.

The universe can be a funny place.

 

[Liam Devlin]

"Well .... being a Lone Star, numerous conversations with information and story sharing is a must. That is why these Lone Stars are always used by Travellers as they transit from one point to another somewhere in the cosmos.

The universe can be a funny place.'
_______________________
As I discover daily! Stars fer you lad! Beat me to this idea you did. Kudos twice over (shamefully, I can only vote once. Keep up the good work!

 

[Liam Devlin]

DR Skull posted-"I decided to roll 1 random encounter. It turned out to be a "News crew". For some reason Geraldo Rivera leaped into my mind and so was born "Julio Solaris" of Galactic News. The players ended up beating him sensless.

Later I brought him back covering the PC's "thuggish and shockingly represive" actions against local rebels. The PC's ended up beating him senseless again, while they were disguised as memebers of the rebel organization, , locking him in a low berth, and then "rescued" him at the end of the adventure when the rebels were defeated"
____________________________________________

Craig, (the GM above in my earlier post) tossed one "Horrendo Revolvo" and his news cast at us on Llewolly (planet of the Dandelions)...but we outran him. I liked your version better!

 

[Nearside]

This goes back a long way. Probably 1987 or 1988, at the height of our Traveller campaign.

I remember my longest running PC, Hanston J Spencer, discovering after what seemed like an endless series of chases and battles (both combat/financial/covert) against his arch-enemy, a man named McCall, the revelation that McCall and Spencer were brothers.

This sounds very soap-opera, but I swear to god, that revelation after probably two years of play stunned the heck out of me.

I remember sitting at the nearby bus station, waiting for my bus home after the game, reeling in shock from the events of that game. Fourteen years or so later, I can still remember how that felt. We had a kick-ass GM who made our lives miserable with his villains, and therefore, very memorable.

 

[PapaGolfWhiskey]

Remind me if I've posted this story on these boards. It's my favourite 'war story' from my university gaming days. I get deja vu now every time I go to tell it again.

It was a west end games 1st edition star wars campaign.

Our adventures during the term had been roughly concurrent with episode iv: one of our early missions for the rebelion had us as part of a the chain of couriers that got a critical data disk about a new imperial battle station to other links in the rebel chain, JUST ahead of Darth Vader showing up out of hyperspace. On a later mission, during some side business we learned of Imperial forces headed to the planet Dantooine.

The grand finale of the semester was a mission to disable some key reactor controls at the heart of the death star so that when a certain jedi wannabe fired his torpedoes the thing actually exploded.

The memorable moment (actually there were several but...) comes as we grabbed a lift tube for the core area. There were a pair of them. As we boarded the left hand one, the speaker grille demanded our security clearance in a robotic voice.

Our 'outlaw' stated "-I'll- give you my clearance1" and drew his blaster.

We jumped on him and tied him up but it was too late the voice interface was fried... sputtering and sparking and saying "...FSSTT..Clearance" over and over.

Our 'Tongue tied Engineer' immediately went work, doing some quick crosswiring and amazingly enough getting it to accept a babbled string of numbers as a security code..

"... wel-come a-board lord va-der"

COOOL! we all thought, as we slapped the engineer's back and he buffed his nails in pride.

The Tube lift door opens and we find ourselves confronting a major detachment of the bases forces all in parade formation and those without masks looking as if they'd really rather be somewhere else.

OOC of character we whisper to ourselves. "They think -WE'RE- Vader Cool! we'll just pretend to be an advance party, tell the to carry on and get out of here."

We strike lordly poses and begin to step boldly from our left hand lift tube when the GM stops us with a look and says:

"The . Other. Door. Opens."

"Oh S$#@$ we're going to die"

We didn't.. not then. but I suppose that's a story for another day.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Garf, remind me not to get into elevators with you!

 

[Bruce]

The most stunning, for me at least RP moment was when after a long running campaign in the spinward marches my character discovered that she was an inadverdant key in the start of the 5th frontier war.

It seems, one of our NPC's, a one Phaldo Thirel [yes, do the math, that's Adolph Hitler, I did'nt realize it till YEARS later, shows I was really into the story] had taken over two planets. Dinom and Dinomn. He had raised the workers up and had martialed the forces of "democracy" and become chancellor. We thought it was cool, one of our NPC's making good and all.

Well Phaldo came to my character, Doris Starblaze Dehaiviland one day and asked if her shipyards could make some 100 and 200 ton merchants and scout type ships for the Dinomn confederation. Well i jumped on it! Yes, I had megacredits in my eyes!!!

Well this really put my compnay on the map, so to speak. Well the game progressed and I did'nt think much of it. The bookwork was being done, the ships were made and delivered. It was all good.

Well, until we learn that 100 ships had all been used as weapons to blow up the starports of 100 primary systems all across the marches!!!

At the moment, we were stunned, until *I* was really stunned to find out that it was Phaldo and it was the 100 ships that i had made for him!!!!!

I am sure my GM, John, I am so sure he loved the look on my face. Oh I was pissed. I was so mad. I had been so thoroughly played that I did'nt realize until then!!!

You wonder how all those people feel in the con movies or on the old mission impossible show when they find out they been played? Oh, i found out.

So, that started the 5th frontier war and our playing out the secret of the ancients adventure and one of our more "militant" players getting the "star trigger" to blow up Dinom to end the war.

But the ironic thing here is I actually came out better..after the media disaster..we did damage control. I donated 1 credit out of every 2 credit purchase of a havacola cola purchase and gave it to the war orphans fund...that brought back the good karma!

So, the moment was...that single instant when I knew i'd been played, set up months and months in advance!!!

Now if that is not embarrassing...I don't know wha t it...

But you know what? I remember it fondly!
And it did help later on that I messed with the GM in my CoC game...*evil grin*

Bruce
The Man Behind the Curtain

P.S. No cheeseburgers today, I'm saving them for you Liam... [Devil]

--------------------
Don't just eat a cheeseburger, eat the HELL out of it.

 

[Tom Schoene]

From my most recenty Traveller campaign, very short-lived, unfortunately. I was running the BITS adventure "The Khiidkar Incident" (M:0, nobles vs. pirates, very swashbuckler-y)

[Begin Session 1]

Scene opens with the party at the end of a long and fruitless anti-pirate patrol. Their liege lord has just sent a somewhat testy message asking what, if anything, they've accomplished and instructing them home post-haste to report. I must have made it sound that he was severely pissed off, not just a bit arch. Anyway, our hero (Count Julian Talaton) decides that he can't go home completly empty-handed. He wants a gift for his lord Duke. On being informed that the Duke is a big game hunter of some repute, he decides that some novel animals would be an appropriate gift. The more dangerous the better.

So they go off to the docks looking for anyone with a cargo of big, nasty animals to sell. (Needless to say, this is TOTALLY unexpected and I'm improvising wildly at this point.) They eventually find a trader who is very willing to dispose of a cargo of Denevian devil boars. (Hey, I said I was improvising). Well, the boars are duly bought. Now the party realizes that they have a middling-sized patrol ship, not a cargo ship. The only cargo space available is in the ship's boat. This will be important later.

Well, having finally got the boars stowed, they take off for home. Jump is largely uneventful, aside from the reek of devil-boar permeating the entire lower deck. But just as they emerge, the recieve a distress call, Turns out the pirates they are seeking have just struck the Duke's home system. They've raided a passenger liner and our heros are the only ship close to the scene, so they charge to intercept. Several rounds of fire are exchanged, damage is done, and the pirates make a narrow escape proceeded by the requisite taunting. (Hey, it's the first session; you don't expect them to be caught so early, do you?)
[End Session 1]

[Begin Session 2]
As the pirates jump out, the party turns their attentions back to the liner. There may be survivors, though the pirates have been ruthless thus far. The Marine boarding party is called away, only to discover that the ship's boat -- in which they were to travel -- is now loaded with very agitated devil-boars. After much shuflfing, they get the boars into the ship (stuffed in a large air-lock IIRC) and board the merchant, discovering some vital clue or other.

Needless to say the Duke is not impressed. Before he was merely annoyed. Now he's very angry indeed -- the pirates have hit his home system and his appointed pirate-chaser was off gathering wildlife! To cap it off, the Duke's daughter (the would-be scientist) discovers that devil-boars are endangered and should on no account be hunted. The Baron is severely crestfallen, and the devil-boars are packed of to the zoo.

Things went rather down hill from there.

 

[N.I.C.E. Labs]

I have a few instances that were funny, memorable or both

Starting a game session by telling the players "When you wake up...." is always fun

When I ran the adventure "Memory Alpha" I wish I had a camera... The adventure starts with a patron wanting to hire the party for a job that pays stupid amounts of money, but it so secret they have to agree to a memory wipe. In the middle of the players debating whether or not to take the job the patron takes out an envelope full of cash, says "A pleasure doing business with you." and walks off. The look on the players' faces of "Oh @#$@! What did we just do?!" was absolutely priceless!

One time we nearly blew a gaming session at one of our player's expense...he was playing a vargr. For the next three hours it was one dog joke or pun after another

I had a group where one of the players was this mousy 'Nials Crane in Space' type of guy. One night after a successful bout of reverie after an equally successful job, he wakes up in his hotel room....with the sisters of the very gruff, often violent, and very protective Marine we have in our party. At that moment the Marine, who was sleeping upside down in the closet (it was a GOOD party) has awakened and was out in the common area of the suite. It was hilarious watching my player not only try to keep everything a secret from the Marine, but try to sneak the girls out of his room without them luring him back into bed.

 

[Tanker]

Originally posted by N.I.C.E. Labs:
I have a few instances that were funny, memorable or both

Starting a game session by telling the players "When you wake up...." is always fun

HA! That was one of our favorites too! It was NEVER good. For the characters, that is.

 

[N.I.C.E. Labs]

Originally posted by Tanker:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by N.I.C.E. Labs:
I have a few instances that were funny, memorable or both

Starting a game session by telling the players "When you wake up...." is always fun

HA! That was one of our favorites too! It was NEVER good. For the characters, that is.

</font>[/QUOTE]Hehe indeed

If memory serves, the last time I used that the players had been shanghai'd as asteroid miners.

Fill the weekly quota and they'd be given food and life support for the week

There were there for 6 months before they were able to figure out how to escape

 

[Maspy]

OK the post said RPGing moment, not specifically Traveller... Here goes.
AD&D 2nd Ed. I was a big strong Ranger fighting my way into a cave of nasties (orcs, ogres, bugbears can't right recall that detail...)to rescue hostages. The entrance was narrow, only room for one other to fight next to me. My brother in arms...Enthrall the Orange, warpriest of Tempus. Desacrated a temple to Orcus and was cursed...his skin was bright orange. Didn't matter much, because he was always in his armor. Though it was a shock when he would raise his visor... (He thought the curse was actually a blessing from Tempus, to make him stand out)
A) One of the benefits granted to Tempus' Priest was the ability to go berserk.
B)We were using modified crit tables ala Rolemaster.
In this battle to enter the cave, Enthrall and My Ranger, Oerdin, had some good luck and scored a good bit of crits... A few of these involved hitting arteries and spraying blood everywhere. We were drenched in humanoid blood. BEcause of the number of crits the battle didn't last longer than Enthrall's Beserker Rage. For my own safety and the safety of the others I was forced to subdue him until he regained his senses... As the hostages broke free of their cage they rounded the corner and get to see a large armored man, dripping in blood man pounding a another man off the floor, also dripping with blood.
"Oh, um...we're here to rescue you."

Maybe you had to be there, but we were ROTFL...