Stinky Bugbear Versus The World

Friday night, 9:30pm, opening round of the NASCRAG tournament.

The young man in front of me has zeroed in on the two most important words on his character sheet: "STINKY BUGBEAR." It's not written in all-caps, but he clearly sees it in all-caps.

STINKY BUGBEAR.

It is both an instruction and a challenge. And he has decided to grab it with both hands and wrestle it into submission.

"Man, we're dumber than monkeys."

"What does this place look like again?"

I describe a beach scene: remnants of a luau, a dock, a door in a cliff wall. Because the PCs have lost a large portion of their memories, they only recognize the boat tied to the dock as "a wooden floaty thing."

"I SMASH THE FLOATY THING INTO THE DOOR!"

"Okay... Um... Strength check," I mutter.

"24!"

I forgot that Stinky Bugbear has an ungodly Strength score. OF COURSE HE DOES! HE'S A STINKY BUGBEAR!

The PC single-handedly heaves a 12-foot outrigger canoe over his head and begins plodding up the beach toward the cliff.

"You get halfway up the beach, give me another Strength check."

"Crap. 13."

"Your arms begin to give out under the enormous weight..."

Fortunately, Stinky Bugbear has a friend. His friend is Skinny Goblin. "I help him carry the canoe!" shrieks Skinny Goblin enthusiastically.

Two Strength checks later and they are hurtling a 600-lb. dugout canoe toward the door in the cliff face. They don't know that the door is unlocked but I'm pretty sure it does not matter.

"Roll to hit as you try to ram the door."

"Crap! Natural 1!"

"As you plod up the beach, you trip over a gnarled root near the door! The wooden floaty thing impacts in the cliff next to the door and shatters!"

Skinny Goblin shrugs. "I look around for a tree to climb," he says.

"I headbutt the tree!" says Stinky Bugbear.

It's going to be a long night.

"Hey, you guys over there! We found a room! I took 3 points of damage!"

The party enters a large laboratory complex. Almost every room has some sort of elaborate science-based puzzle in it. This does not please Stinky Bugbear. Stinky Bugbear is not a science-based kind of guy.

"What does the sign on this door say?"

"DANGER: RADIOLOGICAL HAZARD"

"Ok, whatever. I kick it in."

Stinky Bugbear flails his way from room to room like he's flogging a pack of baby seals across a Canadian ice field. He leaves most of the party behind, except for Skinny Goblin, who insists on trying to ride on Stinky Bugbear's shoulders. "Dude, how tall are you?" Skinny Goblin keeps asking over and over.

"Dude, I am seven-foot two! You are NOT riding on my shoulders."

The two of them take turns head-butting each other.

"I have a secret babe scoring system. Dude, I'm serious - I couldn't make that shit up."

The twosome reunite with the rest of the party in the Chemistry Lab. They are dragging a dead monkey in tow.

"What's in this room?" huffs Stinky Bugbear, annoyed at its ostentatiously science-based nature.

I sigh and describe the room AGAIN. I've already listed its contents once for the rest of the party, now I have to review. Fortunately, the party used the absence of Superbear and His Incredibly Squeaky Wondergoblin as an opportunity to thoroughly ransack the area.

"You see some open cabinets and a few pieces of lab equipment. Some spaces on the table seem curiously empty."

My words do not dissuade Stinky Bugbear. Stinky Bugbear does not trade in words, he trades in DEEDS. His mouth wrinkles into a frown of effort as he looks at the illustration of the lab.

"What's this?" he says, stabbing a stubby finger into the picture of the chemistry setup.

There's a certain disadvantage to having wonderfully-detailed illustrations. The players assume the things they see actually have a purpose.

Stinky Bugbear points at a random flask filled with bubbling liquid. "What's this?" he presses.

"It's a flask filled with a blue, tar-like liquid."

I am totally making this shit up.

Stinky Bugbear blinks, trying to think of the LEAST scientific thing he can do. "I pour some on the ground."

Uhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

"Okay, it starts to burn a hole in the floor, but it evaporates as it sinks in. So the hole leaves this odd, conical shape in the stone."

Dungeon-Master Improvisation 101: It's all in the little details.

"Cool. Acid. I take the flask."

If you have ever run even a single session of Dungeons & Dragons, you know this is the point at which everything began to go horribly, horribly wrong.

"Ok, I'm gonna start running around dancing and yelling 'shiny knife'!"

One room in the complex is explicitly off-limits. The authors take many, many pains to explain that there is no way into this room prior to a pre-determined event related to the plot.

Stinky Bugbear pours acid on the doors to the room and kicks them in.

I think there's no way in hell this should work, it's way too early. But one of the authors is DMing with me. "Fine, you kick in the doors," he says.

Being the author has its benefits.

The party enters a large auditorium set up for a scientific presentation. A highly-sophisticated machine sits up front near the podium. The Bugbear and Skinny Goblin immediately set to dismantling it like a bunch of Texas creationists taking on an 8th grade biology textbook.

They make short work of the machine, although the goblin does get briefly magnetized.

The party fumbles with the podium, looks around at the exits, and leaves. They wander into the Genetic Testing Lab and begin randomly eating frogs.

I check my watch.

"I'm going to stand against the wall and act like a statue."

Between bites of frog, the party can hear murmuring from out in the hallway. Hundreds of witch-doctors in clean white lab coats are shuffling down the passage and headed toward the auditorium. Apparently this is a conference of magic-users and they're all gathered together for an important presentation.

The party freezes, unsure what to do about such a large number of powerful wizards.

Stinky Bugbear knows what to do.

"I run down the hallway, yelling, swinging my dead monkey over my head, and -- with a huge bellow -- I kick in the doors!"

The rest of the party looks at him pie-eyed. Even Skinny Goblin thinks this is suicide, and he's the one who took a carving knife to the 60,000 volt Soul Transmogrifier.

"What... are you trying to do?" I ask.

"INTIMIDATION CHECK!"

"Okay... give me a roll." I have little faith that a Stinky Bugbear swinging a dead monkey over his head is going to intimidate a room full of 10th-level wizards. But it's worth a roll.

"Um... 12."

By all rights this guy should be Kentucky Fried Chicken. End of story, please hand me your character sheet, turn in your dice, and oh, by the way, here's ten dollars, go get me a Coke and some Twizzlers.

But I decide to cut him some slack. I am nothing if not a generous DM.

"Okay, Intimidation check 12... A half-dozen wizards in lab coats glance over their shoulders at you and snicker. One of them says 'THAT guy will never get published.' Then they all go back to discussing the best way to secure a grant."

Stinky Bugbear has just been ignored. I think this is merciful. He thinks it is torture. Stinky Bugbear did not cultivate that stink or whirl a dead monkey over his head so he could be IGNORED.

"Oh YEAH? Well I grab one of those guys by the collar and throw him at the dude speaking on the stage!"

I pause. There is a fine line between heroic and recklessly stupid. Unfortunately, that line evaporated about the time Stinky Bugbear started head-butting trees.

"Okay, just to recap..." I say in my trademark Unnervingly Low-Key DM Warning Tone^TM, "You are going to grab one of these 10th-level wizards by the collar, lift him over your head, and hurl him at the Ogre Magi standing at the front of the stage. Yes?"

"YES."

Stinky Bugbear is undeterred. The commitment is admirable. Entirely misplaced, but admirable.

"Give me an attack roll to grab a magic-user."

"31!" Stinky Bugbear does ONE thing and he does it well: HE PICKS SHIT UP.

"You loft the witch-doctor over your head! Roll your attack to throw your hapless victim into the speaker!"

"Okay!" Stinky Bugbear gathers his dice with enthusiatic gusto. "Ummm.... 14."

Hello, Kentucky Fried Chicken? Yes, I would like to order the Stinky Bugbear Fumble Bowl? Yes, the extra-large. No, no sides. Can I get that for delivery? Really? Right away? Terrific, thanks.

I shoot him the weary DM look that says You Should Have Seen This Coming.

"Okay, you flounder the witch-doctor awkwardly off to one side as you loft him down the aisle. He issues an anguished scream as he flops in the middle of the auditorium, ten feet in front of you. A heartbeat later, two hundred wizards turn on you. A pulsing blare echoes throughout the complex as their eyes blaze with eldritch power. Roll for initiative."

Right about now, the rest of the party is glad they stayed with the frogs.

"We have to kill SOMEBODY."

Stinky Bugbear fingers his dice. He's not going down without a fight. The 20-sider hits the table with that inimitable falsetto crack of cheap plastic against particle board.

"Seven." Stinky Bugbear can feel his doom encircling him, but he maintains a glum air of determination.

I roll for the ogre magi and his small army of wizards... Four.

Simple math will tell you that in a room of two hundred wizards, a conservative ten percent of them will have Improved Initiative. That means 20 ten-die fireballs going off on tick eight.

However, simple math is boring and has no interest in furthering the narrative. Simple math just wants to get things over with. I look at the four. It is a precious gift that Lady Luck has served up to me. It is a delicious, tantalizing opportunity to see Just. How Far. This Guy. Will Go.

"You win. Your initiative."

The player's eyes light up with inspiration. "How far to the speaker!?" he says.

"How far to the OGRE STANDING IN FRONT OF THE TWO HUNDRED WIZARDS?" I ask.

"Yeah."

"Thirty five feet."

Skinny Goblin can't contain himself. "Charge!" he squeaks.

I pause for a moment. I want to make sure that Stinky Bugbear knows exactly what his options are. After all, I am nothing if not a generous DM.

"It's 35 feet to the front of the stage. At the back of the stage you see a door. It is cracked slightly and leads out to the beach."

"Yeah, whatever," he huffs, "I run down the aisle and dive behind the ogre chief."

"You... dive behind the ogre magi?"

"Yeah! I run onto the stage and dive behind him just as all those fireballs go off."

As I mentioned, there's a fine line between heroic and stupid. This guy just redefined it.

I take a deep breath for a moment's worth of consideration, and sigh. "Okay... gimme a roll..."

"29!"

The Jump mechanics in D&D 3.X are notoriously clunky and lead to a lot of unheroic, embarrassing failures. Fortunately NASCRAG has never been particularly concerned with mechanics.

A slight, incredulous grin twitches at the corner of my face.

"Okay, you charge down the aisle! On either side of you, wizards trace intricate glowing symbols in the air as ioun stones rise from their collars and magical tattoos crackle with arcane might! Beams of energy leap from their foreheads, arcing toward the stage with a terrible roar, and converging... JUST as you kip over the ogre magi and tumble safely behind his back. The stage erupts in an umbrella of sorcerous destruction! Gales of malevolent power engulf the area and turn the stage into a seething storm of chaotic destruction! When it's all over, you stand scorched amid a gelatinous pile of smoking ogre magi bits."

Skinny Goblin looks across the table in wide-eyed wonder. "DUDE" he says.

"Yes! YES! YESSS!!!" shouts Stinky Bugbear in triumph, "Do I even have any hair left?!?"

Not the first question that springs to my mind, but one worthy of an interesting answer.

"No," I tell him, "Though you narrowly manage to survive, your hair is completely incinerated. You are naked, pink, and hairless. You stand knee-deep in a chunky pile of simmering flesh -- which is saying something because you are seven-foot two. You now smell... like a burnt dog turd."

The player bats his eyes at me, nonplussed. "Whatever," he says, "I've eaten worse."

"Dude, we killed a monkey and I'm dragging it around and I'm gonna use it like a flail!" *high-five*

Later, after it was all over, we had to award a score for each character.

One one end of the scale is zero, with the note "The party would have been better off killing this character."

On the other end of the scale is nine, which indicates "The best role-player I have encountered all year."

Honestly, I could see it both ways.

-Tom, who misses gaming with Charbs.