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Betrayal at…Krilloan
In my youth I was a nerd. Oh yes – I know that it’s hard to imagine. Surely I couldn’t have been one of the geeky losers; I who became awesome and cool in every way? Well, no, I wasn’t. I was pretty damn cool – I simply had nerdy interests like programming my Amiga, reading copious amounts of geeky literature, and role-playing. The last bit is something I’ve all but forgotten these days, but reading about the Disappointment in the Demonweb Pits made me recall an amusing series of events.
It all began when a friend of my brother’s introduced me to Drakar & Demoner, a Swedish “equivalent” to Dungeons & Dragons which takes place in a world called Ereb Altor. All in all it’s probably a pretty shitty system, but it served nicely as an introduction into the weird world of role-playing games. Table-top ones, that is; I had played several CRPGs before this. Go Ultima IV! Anyway, I quickly decided that this was great fun so I got my own set of rulebooks for D&D. The Swedish D&D that is. I also found some friends who were interested in trying it out.
The first roleplaying session I had with my friends was…interesting to say the least. More than a dozen people who had never roleplayed before sat around, trying to grasp the concepts of this strange way of playing a game. Some had an intuitive understanding of the possibilities: a pair started making out in a bar in-game, and went to do the nasty in a tent. Another person wanted to find people to mug. Yet another tried to explore the town. Then, of course, there were others who just didn’t get the appeal at all and wanted to kill everyone so we’d be over and done with the session. All in all it was pretty amusing for most involved, and eventually I ended up with two or three regular players. Alas, they had no idea of how to be Dungeon Master (or as we call it in Swedish: “game leader”) so I ended up with the task of making up stories for them.
Then, just as now, I was a lazy bugger so I mostly bought pre-written stories and modified them slightly for my group. Essentially, I removed the parts involving lateral thinking, logic, or any attempts at non-linearity – those things were too complex. (Do I sound bitter? I don’t mean to sound bitter. Really.) One of these pre-written adventures I bought wasn’t just an adventure: it was a whole city called Krilloan and a large campaign which took place inside the city. When I was just about to set loose my little group of brawlers inside Krilloan, we received an unexpected addition: another friend of mine had heard of our fantastic exploits and wanted to join in.
Sounds great, huh? The problem was that this friend was a bit…well. More geeky. “More geeky than what,” you ask, whereupon I reply: “More geeky than just about everything.” This is the kind of person who, when asked what kind of music he listens to, answers that he listens to in-game music from computer games. Yes. Well. Anyway… To put it bluntly: the other people in my role-playing group found him irritating and obnoxious, and really didn’t care much for his being part of their exclusive group. Still, I couldn’t very well tell him that so he ended up making a character and joining the campaign anyway. Ain’t I a real softie.
Things went okay for a session or two, but eventually the others got really annoyed at the geekier of us geeks, and decided to have their revenge. They communicated through notes with me that they wanted to covertly purchase black masks and black cloaks, and coordinate an ambush on the geek character. They attacked him in a dark alley, mugged him, and slit his throat. Game over. But he got to create a new character and join in again instantly (through some story-telling magic) so no real harm was done. And it was frankly pretty awesome to see his confusion during the following sessions, where he discussed with the others who could have been behind the attack. “It must have been this baron we’re after! He must have hired some assassins!” The others nodded and agreed – that must have been it.
Things were fine for another two sessions or so, until the group found a magical chalice. This was an artifact belonging to an evil church, but that didn’t stop my usual brawler players from being stupid.
“I try sensing some magic off this thing.”
“Oooh, you definitely feel the radiant magic emerging from the chalice! It’s just full of power…”
“Hmm.. So, guys.. What do we do with it? Hey, I know! Let’s pour some wine into it!”
“Oh, nothing happened. Well, it’s a chalice, so…I’ll try drinking the wine from it.”
This is where the geekier guy chimes up.
“No! Dude! This is an artifact from an evil church – you can’t drink from it! Who knows what will happen?!”
The brawlers got quite annoyed at this sensible interruption and growled: “Well, you drink it then.” Of course the geekier person of the crowd refused; but it was too late. The other players held him down and forced his mouth open while they poured the wine down his throat…and then he fell down limp, stone dead.
“Well. Damn. I guess he was right!”
My friends were real bastards.