Honey, I Summoned a Demon

David Johnston2 · 01-12-2020, 10:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celjabba

Which is why you should not use the rules made for adventuring, with the artificial probability constraint of the game mechanic, to extrapolate worldwide or industrial results.
That way lies madness.

<shrug> Actually in this case I'm fine with it. Many's the person I've seen complaining that the default fantasy setting is impossible with GURPS Magic because industrial magic would be too transformative. This mechanic establishes quite adequately why that's far from an automatic proposition. And if you want an industrial magic setting, then you change the default rules for your non-default setting.

Johnny1A.2 · 01-12-2020, 11:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

<shrug> Actually in this case I'm fine with it. Many's the person I've seen complaining that the default fantasy setting is impossible with GURPS Magic because industrial magic would be too transformative. This mechanic establishes quite adequately why that's far from an automatic proposition. And if you want an industrial magic setting, then you change the default rules for your non-default setting.

It also provides a practical reason for the old story-default that mages are secretive and discourage public knowledge of their secrets. Along with self-interested power preservation, there would also be the fact that the more magic gets used, the more the chance of a disaster.

It also gives anti-magic zealots a reason to be the way they are, other than irrational zealotry. A practice with a built-in risk of demonic appearances is going to be seen as suspect by many people.

AlexanderHowl · 01-12-2020, 11:19 PM

Agreed. One of the more interesting variations that I have experimented with is assigning a particular type of demon for every College. It add flavor that is missing from the default demons.

For example, succubi are associated with the College of Healing while incubi are associated with the College of Mind Control. In the former case, succubi do not attack their summoners, they seduce them, and they exchange their proficiency in healing magic for sexual favors that they use to change local societies, allowing them to lead their neighbors into excess and sin. In the latter case, incubi do not attack their summoners, they mind control them in order to victimize them, and they use their mind control to take over local societies, allowing them to turn their neighbors into their worshipers and slaves.

DAT · 01-13-2020, 12:09 AM

There is a long, but funny, story. This took place about 12 years ago, …

It was the first GURPS game with a new group. It was a Dungeon Fantasy game and the PCs were a Special Ops team, on a mission to extract two captured agents and a metal box from some goblin raiders based in some caves. They were infiltrating to the caves, moving along a shallow rocky river, when a patrol of Worg Rider scouts ambushed them. It was a pretty intense fight, and the PC made the tactical mistake of separating (newbie mistake), and left the party’s High Elf Wizard alone against a Worg and Rider. The Wizard got off a 6D Explosive Lightning bolt against the Worg, a direct hit doing decent damage and the Worg failed its HT roll dropping it dead, and causing the goblin rider to be injured (partial shielded by the Worg’s body) and thrown (causing more damage). I was using “worthy” rules for the goblin, so he got rolls to remain conscious, avoid dying, and not be stunned from the electrical shock … and exceed on all of them (highest roll was a 5). I had the goblin get to its feet and start talking smack (“That almost hurt Elf, I think I’ll eat your eyes out”, “That all you got, my weakest woman’s love bites hurt more than that did”, “I hear if I twirl my sword in your ear just right, I can slurp your sweet meat out through your nose after I bite it off”, etc.) as it slowly (reduced move from damage) walked towards him (making HT roll to remain conscious the entire time). The High Elf Wizard keeps throwing lightning bolt after lightning bolt into the goblin as he backs into the river (between drinking Paut potions), but the goblin (making all his rolls, with 3s and 4s) keeps coming. The rest of the party, a rider less Worg, and the last Worg and Rider team finally all become aware of the fight and all start towards the goblin and wizard, with the Worg only a few seconds away while PC help is a few seconds after that and the Worg and Rider maybe a second before the help. High Elf Wizard is desperate, and starts concentrating on a new spell, Lighting Stare (because is does more damage). The goblin at this point is within 2 or 3 points of -5xHT and auto death and the Worg wasn’t in great shape either, 1 point of damage before becoming slowed, but the players don’t know this. The High Elf Wizard’s player makes the roll to cast and the dice come up 6-6-6, Critical Fail. Howls from around the table as I open up GURPS Magic and turn to the Critical Spell Failure Table, and tell the player “Roll again”. Once again, the High Elf Wizard’s player rolls and the dice come up 6-6-6, summon a demon (but I don’t tell them that yet). I turn to a table of random demon traits, and have the player feed me rolls as I write down the results. The demon is a 9’ tall, with horns/spines sticking out of its body, has a high DR, is immune to lightning, and attacks with a 20D lightning bolt attack. The players are watching opened mouthed, wondering what is going on, as I prepare.

The High Elf Wizard was in the river, with the only dry land within 5 yards being a flat boulder a yard or so across in the river, which I had previously described as unstable and shifting if weight was put on them, requiring a DX roll to stand on, approximately equal distant from the High Elf Wizard, the Goblin, and the Worg that had just run up before the wizard’s spell had gone off. So the rock is the place I decide the demon would appear.

Back to play, I describe the wizard’s spell “… fizzing and an arc going over to the rock where a loud sharp crack sounds and a large black, yellow, and blue cloud with a sulfur smell forms, and a larger 9’ tall blue humanoid shaped creature with spikes/horns sticking out all over its body appears. There are white-blue electric arcs shooting across between its spikes. The creature sort of stubbles on the unstable boulder it appears on (I make a successful DX roll for it) and it lets out an ear shattering scream; everyone within 20 yards need to make HT rolls or be stunned." The Worg fails, but High Elf Wizard and Goblin make it and can act. The Worg has the highest speed, and successfully rolls to recover, but is just standing in the river for its second. The other PCs, with higher speeds that the wizard start running along the riverbank towards the Wizard. The High Elf Wizard’s player declares his character is turning towards the nearest river bank and forest/tree cover and running full out away (I think one of the other players, more familiar with D&D and new to GURPS, made a comment of more experience points for us), but the Wizard's player asks if his character noticed which direction the demon is facing. I had forgotten to determine that so I think I declared something like, “1 is towards you, and clockwise from that”, and rolled a 3, which meant the demon was facing directly at the goblin. The goblin goes next, and makes its only failed roll of the night, as it decides to curse at and attack the demon. I think the other player, had thought that they could take on the demon. One of the other players joked about “10gp on the goblin”. When I put 20 d6 into the rolling cup, the players did a collective “oh cr*p”. I rolled all 5s and 6s for 112 damage, and described the goblin as near vaporizing as it exploded and small bits were flung 100’ or so in all directions. The High Elf Wizard character’s player, the only one who had played GURPS before made the remark “now you know why my character is running”.

The other PCs scattered into the surrounding forest the start of the next turn. The High Elf Wizard character made it out of the river and a couple yards up the bank by the end of his turn, but not into the trees, while the Worg was 2 or 3 yards behind. The demon zapped the Worg that turn and a bit blew through to seriously injure, but not drop (successful HT rolls) the running High Elf Wizard. The last Worg and Rider were taken out the next turn, and other bodies and trees blasted as the demon ranged from its perch in the river over the next few minutes.

The PCs all got back together after an hour or so and continued the mission. The player of the High Elf Wizard, role playing the arrogant Elf Wizard to the hilt, declared the demon summoning was all planned, and a clear indication of his superiority. He got MVP for the game that night.

The players continue to talk about that game to this date.

Alden Loveshade · 01-13-2020, 02:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DAT

There is a long, but funny, story. This took place about 12 years ago, …

It looks like I'm not the only one who makes notes of his games....

01-12-2020, 11:19 PM	#3
AlexanderHowl Join Date: Feb 2016	Re: Honey, I Summoned a Demon Agreed. One of the more interesting variations that I have experimented with is assigning a particular type of demon for every College. It add flavor that is missing from the default demons. For example, succubi are associated with the College of Healing while incubi are associated with the College of Mind Control. In the former case, succubi do not attack their summoners, they seduce them, and they exchange their proficiency in healing magic for sexual favors that they use to change local societies, allowing them to lead their neighbors into excess and sin. In the latter case, incubi do not attack their summoners, they mind control them in order to victimize them, and they use their mind control to take over local societies, allowing them to turn their neighbors into their worshipers and slaves.

01-13-2020, 12:09 AM	#4
DAT Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Idaho Falls, Idaho	Re: Honey, I Summoned a Demon There is a long, but funny, story. This took place about 12 years ago, … It was the first GURPS game with a new group. It was a Dungeon Fantasy game and the PCs were a Special Ops team, on a mission to extract two captured agents and a metal box from some goblin raiders based in some caves. They were infiltrating to the caves, moving along a shallow rocky river, when a patrol of Worg Rider scouts ambushed them. It was a pretty intense fight, and the PC made the tactical mistake of separating (newbie mistake), and left the party’s High Elf Wizard alone against a Worg and Rider. The Wizard got off a 6D Explosive Lightning bolt against the Worg, a direct hit doing decent damage and the Worg failed its HT roll dropping it dead, and causing the goblin rider to be injured (partial shielded by the Worg’s body) and thrown (causing more damage). I was using “worthy” rules for the goblin, so he got rolls to remain conscious, avoid dying, and not be stunned from the electrical shock … and exceed on all of them (highest roll was a 5). I had the goblin get to its feet and start talking smack (“That almost hurt Elf, I think I’ll eat your eyes out”, “That all you got, my weakest woman’s love bites hurt more than that did”, “I hear if I twirl my sword in your ear just right, I can slurp your sweet meat out through your nose after I bite it off”, etc.) as it slowly (reduced move from damage) walked towards him (making HT roll to remain conscious the entire time). The High Elf Wizard keeps throwing lightning bolt after lightning bolt into the goblin as he backs into the river (between drinking Paut potions), but the goblin (making all his rolls, with 3s and 4s) keeps coming. The rest of the party, a rider less Worg, and the last Worg and Rider team finally all become aware of the fight and all start towards the goblin and wizard, with the Worg only a few seconds away while PC help is a few seconds after that and the Worg and Rider maybe a second before the help. High Elf Wizard is desperate, and starts concentrating on a new spell, Lighting Stare (because is does more damage). The goblin at this point is within 2 or 3 points of -5xHT and auto death and the Worg wasn’t in great shape either, 1 point of damage before becoming slowed, but the players don’t know this. The High Elf Wizard’s player makes the roll to cast and the dice come up 6-6-6, Critical Fail. Howls from around the table as I open up GURPS Magic and turn to the Critical Spell Failure Table, and tell the player “Roll again”. Once again, the High Elf Wizard’s player rolls and the dice come up 6-6-6, summon a demon (but I don’t tell them that yet). I turn to a table of random demon traits, and have the player feed me rolls as I write down the results. The demon is a 9’ tall, with horns/spines sticking out of its body, has a high DR, is immune to lightning, and attacks with a 20D lightning bolt attack. The players are watching opened mouthed, wondering what is going on, as I prepare. The High Elf Wizard was in the river, with the only dry land within 5 yards being a flat boulder a yard or so across in the river, which I had previously described as unstable and shifting if weight was put on them, requiring a DX roll to stand on, approximately equal distant from the High Elf Wizard, the Goblin, and the Worg that had just run up before the wizard’s spell had gone off. So the rock is the place I decide the demon would appear. Back to play, I describe the wizard’s spell “… fizzing and an arc going over to the rock where a loud sharp crack sounds and a large black, yellow, and blue cloud with a sulfur smell forms, and a larger 9’ tall blue humanoid shaped creature with spikes/horns sticking out all over its body appears. There are white-blue electric arcs shooting across between its spikes. The creature sort of stubbles on the unstable boulder it appears on (I make a successful DX roll for it) and it lets out an ear shattering scream; everyone within 20 yards need to make HT rolls or be stunned." The Worg fails, but High Elf Wizard and Goblin make it and can act. The Worg has the highest speed, and successfully rolls to recover, but is just standing in the river for its second. The other PCs, with higher speeds that the wizard start running along the riverbank towards the Wizard. The High Elf Wizard’s player declares his character is turning towards the nearest river bank and forest/tree cover and running full out away (I think one of the other players, more familiar with D&D and new to GURPS, made a comment of more experience points for us), but the Wizard's player asks if his character noticed which direction the demon is facing. I had forgotten to determine that so I think I declared something like, “1 is towards you, and clockwise from that”, and rolled a 3, which meant the demon was facing directly at the goblin. The goblin goes next, and makes its only failed roll of the night, as it decides to curse at and attack the demon. I think the other player, had thought that they could take on the demon. One of the other players joked about “10gp on the goblin”. When I put 20 d6 into the rolling cup, the players did a collective “oh cr*p”. I rolled all 5s and 6s for 112 damage, and described the goblin as near vaporizing as it exploded and small bits were flung 100’ or so in all directions. The High Elf Wizard character’s player, the only one who had played GURPS before made the remark “now you know why my character is running”. The other PCs scattered into the surrounding forest the start of the next turn. The High Elf Wizard character made it out of the river and a couple yards up the bank by the end of his turn, but not into the trees, while the Worg was 2 or 3 yards behind. The demon zapped the Worg that turn and a bit blew through to seriously injure, but not drop (successful HT rolls) the running High Elf Wizard. The last Worg and Rider were taken out the next turn, and other bodies and trees blasted as the demon ranged from its perch in the river over the next few minutes. The PCs all got back together after an hour or so and continued the mission. The player of the High Elf Wizard, role playing the arrogant Elf Wizard to the hilt, declared the demon summoning was all planned, and a clear indication of his superiority. He got MVP for the game that night. The players continue to talk about that game to this date.