TALK ABOUT BLOWN UP IN MY FACE

[DerVVulfman]

Trust me guys, I didn't come up with this.
I got this from a youtube video recounting pen-n-paper RPG stories.
Unfortunately, no names were attributed.

TALK ABOUT BLOWN UP IN MY FACE

This is probably cheating because I was the one who pulled the stunt (with some help) and it was a Mage: The Awakening campaign, not D&D.

The general idea was that our characters were part of a large governmental organization dedicated to fighting supernatural threats. Okay, not the most original, but the GM had been reading a lot of Hellboy, so... forgivable.

We set out on a mission - our hook being that someone was fixing to steal a priceless artifact from a museum, which unfortunately (and unbeknownst to the curators) possessed immense magical power.

When we got there, however, it became clear we were in over our head. This wasn't a theft; this was an assault. We were engaged with automatic weapons and only survived because our typical armament (magic which we used minimally to avoid paradox, and pistols) were supplemented by body armor and semiautomatic rifles.

One particular enemy stood out. He had an essentially impenetrable magical shield, and he managed to trash us after we'd gotten through his minions. Everyone was either incapacitated or so low on health they couldn't reasonably engage him.

So I decided that my character - mind-controlling, persuasive, rich, slick, and amoral Mastigos Warlock that he was - had just about enough of this arrogant jackwipe with his magic shield. And with no preamble, I ran up to him, jammed my rifle into his belly at point blank... and made use of a feature the GM really shouldn't have allowed - the underslung grenade launcher.

The GM looked at me.  And he gave me the lowest possible chance allowed by the game system, above actual 0, to succeed at actually doing any damage to the man.

I made the roll.

I succeeded in getting through his shield. And not only did I live through it - but the villain did too. Mostly charred and bloody, but he was still alive...

UNTIL one of the other characters - mostly incapacitated - made a similarly incredible roll, with a 9mm pistol, by spending all his fate dice at once to game the system and add extra chances of success.

The paltry damage he did was enough to take the guy down.

There were a few moments of silence. The GM collected his thoughts. And that was, to this day, the only time I've heard the words:

"Congratulations. You just killed the last boss in the first episode."

Kids, the reason old campaigns and modules like 'Tomb of Horrors' or 'Temple of Elemental Evil' or 'White Plume Mountain' make you wade through dungeons and traps is because if oyu give the players access to the main villain early, they will kill it. Or die trying.

And then all your pristine, perfect little binders that you stayed up until 2:30 am assembling... are for nothing.

And if it doesn't, we bring a cleric or a rust monster.