Harken with me now, back to the days of the late 70's, when sentences with the words "computer" and "gaming" in them usually were something along the lines of "I wonder if computers will ever be used for gaming?".
Although a fledgling DM, I still played AD&D as well, in the campaign of a friend I made at a gaming con. His name was Joe, and his DM style could be charitably described as incorporating the worst aspects of Munchkin and Monty Haul genres. Let's say he was Munchkin Hall.
Anyways, Joe had a thriving campaign out in his neck of the woods (Worcester, MA), but once a week he'd drive out to where I lived (Cambridge) and ran a few of us through our own campaign. The first time I gamed with him, it was just him and me, so he had me roll up six characters and ran me through a dungeon, for, among other reasons, to see who had the potential of being a surviving, recurring character.
The first five PCs rolled up were you average, garden-variety adventurers, including a PC who would become one of my all-time favorites, an elven Fighter/Magic-User named Noro Goldentree. I needed to roll up a sixth one, and, under the eagle eye of Joe, ended up rolling up the stats for a Paladin.
Now, those of you familiar with AD&D know that you roll 3d6, six times, in order. You play what you roll. Furthermore, many classes had minimum attribute requisites. One of the toughest classes to roll up this way was a Paladin, but darned if that sixth character of mine didn't have what it took! So, I decided to take that route. I called him Alaric Greytower. Then, Joe had me roll for psionics. See, in the Appendix of the AD&D PHB, you could make a random roll, with a slightly better than snowball's chance in Hell, of having been born with Psionic ability. Joe watched, wide-eyed, as the percentiles decreed that it was so. Not only did I have the first Paladin in our campaign, I had the first naturally-occuring Psionic.
By the time I was almost through the meat-grinder masquerading as Joe's dungeon, only two characters managed to stagger down the exit corridor: Noro and Alaric, both of them down to a few hit points, and Noro's prodigous one spell for the day long used up. Four PCs dead, two barely alive, propping each other up, limping for the exit, packs bulging with treasure.
Ah, but this was Joe....and so he had to have one final shot at the pitiful remains of the party. He rolled a die behind his screen, made a face, shook his head in an unconvincing show of pity, and announced, "Sorry John. Random monster encounter. The way is blocked by a half-dozen orcs". Funny how ONE die roll determined that not only was there an encounter, but that it was also orcs, and there were six of them. Must have been one of those "wicked ultra efficient" dice I had heard so much about.
I was hosed. Six undamaged orcs versus two badly wounded 1st level characters? Desperately looking for something to use, my eyes fell on Alaric's sheet. "What's a Psionic Blast?" I asked aloud, then picked up my PHB and looked it up. My eyes went wide.
I won initiative, and announced "Alaric concentrates hard, and sends out a Psionic Blast at the orcs". Joe's jaw dropped. He had forgotten about the psionics. Once I resolved the attack, all six orcs were dead, their brains exploded out of their heads. Noro and Alaric walked out of that dungeon, rich, victorious, and more importantly, alive!!!
Unfortunately, in time, Joe managed to bring Alaric down. A group of us were running through another of Joe's dungeons, and "Steve" (yes, the guy mentioned in an earlier blog who wound up being my campaign's "Batman") had his character (a teenaged female elf....yeah, yeah, I know....) pick the lock on a treasure chest that was just sitting out in a hallway. "She" opened the chest to reveal a sword, which she picked up.
That's when Joe announced that Steve's character now possessed the legendary Sword of Kas. Or, to be more exact, the legendary Sword of Kas now possessed Steve's character. With a maniacal look of glee, Joe announced "Elleh-cim (Michelle spelled backwards...yeah, yeah, I know....) is now.....CHAOTIC EVIL!!!!!"
Well, Alaric wasn't too thrilled adventuring with a Chaotic Evil, and made some remark about how, when they all got out of this dungeon, Elleh-cim had better be on her way (meta-gaming reason #1: Playing a CE PC was verboten). And that's when Rick, who as far as I was concerned spelled his name with a silent "P", went on one of his famous anal-retentive rules reminder jags, and pointed out that Alaric's Holy Avenger, an intelligent sword that Joe had designed, actually controlled Alaric, and may not be happy to be in the presence of an evil artifact sword.
Joe's face lit up with sadistic glee as he was reminded of this little detail. Rubbing his hands together with delight, he announced that Slasher (Alaric's Holy Avenger), immediately made Alaric initiate combat with the now Chaotic Evil Elleh-cim. Initiative was rolled, and Steve won. His PC hit mine, and Joe announced that the Sword of Kas, which controlled the elf thief as much as Slasher controlled my Paladin, was activating one of its powers, namely Disintegration.
I had to make a save for Alaric, and failed miserably. Alaric turned to dust. Everyone was shocked (except for Joe), Steve looked mortified. (P)Rick helpfully mentioned that we had a Wish Ring, so we could bring Alaric back (Yes, a Wish Ring, of all things...remember...Joe = Munchkin Haul DM). Joe shook his head. "Nope! You can't do that! An artifact's powers are permanent. Not even a god can undo what an artifact does!"
And that's when I launched into the worst gaming-related tantrum I ever had the dubious pleasure of throwing, in all my years of gaming. I was furious!! Small objects were hurled at the walls of the room. "Pissed" wouldn't do my mood justice. I was unreasonably furious at Steve, since it was his character who had terminated Alaric. I was justifiably furious at Joe for just the sheer stupidity of having an artifact sword just lying around, unguarded, in an easily picked chest (Elleh-cim was FIRST level!!!!!). And finally, I was homicidally furious at (P)Rick for being such a suck-up/rules fetishist that he just had to remind the DM (as well as the rest of us...no one else had caught it, even Steve and myself) that the two swords would hate each other and wish to destroy each other's wielder.
Although there was nothing left to bury, a grave marker was erected in his memory and placed in the crypt of the castle we used as our base of operations. Although I had never said so aloud, I always felt that his tombstone read as follows:
Alaric Greytower, Paladin of God. Born: 27 A.L. Died: 45 A.L.
"Here lies Alaric, who died an utterly pointless death because our nimrod of a DM is fond of strewing dangeous artifacts all over the halls of his dungeons with no rhyme or reason."
RIP, Alaric!
