THE VICIOUS HELL BASTARDS

[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.

THE VICIOUS HELL BASTARDS

This was a time when I was playing an early version of the "Middle Earth Role-Playing System", an alternate version of Middle-Earth. And in our party there was one player, playing a numenorian ranger who was an insufferable pratt.

This ranger would hang back in battle undil an enemy was nearly dead, then charge in and get the killing blow, which netted a majority of the XP. Also, whenever we were in a town, he'd humiliate and embarrass other party members in order to make himself look better, especially towards the... 'wenches'.

Finally, two other party members and myself had enough of his shenanigans.  I was an elven bard, one of the other players was a hobbit rogue and the third was a human spell caster.

We concocted a plot.

First, we started slipping notes into his pockets and saddlebags with the words "Vicious Hell Bastards". We paid random townies a couple times to come up behind him and whisper "The vicious hell bastards are waiting". This went on for a few sessions. We'd usually do this  while the player was taking a bathroom break or otherwise out of the room.

Finally, one day the ranger scouted ahead and discovered some orcs were attempting to set up an ambush. He came back to tell us, then mounted his trained warhorse and charged to the attack.

What he didn't know was that the hobbit had picked his pocket previously and replaced his healing potion with a sleeping potion. I had loosened the saddle of his horse and the caster had readied an invisibility spell which, as the ranger charged ahead, he cast on the horse while I sang a song to cause him to lose control of the horse.

The outcome was hilarious.

The horse panicked, the saddle came off, throwing the ranger into the midst of the orcs and vanished. After taking a couple of hard hits, the ranger drank his ... healing potion.. and promptly fell asleep. We killed the orcs and he got none of the experience.

The player bolted out of his chair and screamed at the DM "MAKE THEM TELL ME WHO THE VICIOUS HELL BASTARDS ARE!!!"

He never found his horse. But he did stop acting like a pratt.