Now I don't expect folks to remember the last time I filled in, but in one post I talked a bit about HackMaster 4th Edition and how many thought it was a joke game (it wasn't) because of some of the comedic elements (easily removed/ignored), but I mentioned, and still ascertain, that players are players and you can have the most serious game in the world and they'll still interject humor where it doesn't exist, and in some cases needs to be.
I was running a game of HackMaster 5th Edition, using the Garweeze Wurld setting, which was made for 4th Edition and is the backdrop for the Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine.The new edition of the game is rather magic light and the old was really magic heavy. In the very last Wurld Tournament for HackMaster 4th Edition the Gawds were destroyed as well as all magic and allegedly the whole planet. I just advanced the timeline something like 10,000 years and the planet wasn't destroyed, but the loss of magic changed most everything. In the new campaign magic was slowly coming back into the world as new Gods were reaching out. The thing is, for most people magic wasn't even a fairy tale.
Anyway, enough supposition. This was a serious game and since I was playing with adults there were some adult themes and stuff I'm probably never going to type about and normally would NEVER condone in a RPG game, well at least a public one.
The players weren't quite the normal murderhobos, having established themselves as competent "troubleshooters" for their village. They've proven themselves capable a few times already and when a badly injured rider came into town with reports he was tracking an band of orcs.....well the party was going to go investigate. Orc raids were a seasonal problem and it was a little too early in the year, but the village elders activated the militia (conscription was a thing) and asked the party to investigate...tomorrow. The party was already wiped from the day's activities and needed to rest and get some suicide daggers from the blacksmith before heading out.
Remember those adult themes? Well Orcs in HackMaster were really a bastardized race that procreates pretty much through rape. It's pretty messed up, but it was a known thing (not something I made up!!!) and the party were all females, and were warned in-character.
Anyway, the party got up 1st thing in morning to head off where the orcs were last seen and then found out that one of the PC's parents, a retired Knight, had headed out the day before with some militia, specifically because he didn't want his daughter facing orcs, even though it was against the Elder's wishes (rank has its privileges...)
The party rushes to catch up and while the earlier group has a good 14 hour lead, they are able to make good time since they were able to easily follow the slower group's track once they went off-road. The party catches up just as the battle is underway and the battle is not going that well. The party manages to turn the tide and it is clear that the orcs are going to lose, but not before the Half-Orc leader, unbeknownst to anybody is a Cleric. The Cleric's final parting gift was a Cause Wounds spell, which was enough to bring the Knight down to zero hit points.
This Cleric got away and there is some more big back story, but basically this was the introduction of what was to be a recurring villain in this campaign. The secret that magic was back in the world and true clerics existed was a HUGE deal. The players already knew there was magic, hell, they technically had a magic user in the group, but seeing clerical magic....evidence of the new Gods, was big. I'm doing my best here to solemnize the significance and let the implication wash over the players, like I'm some bad-ass world-building story teller or shit......
I ended up making a graphic for the bastard, for shits & giggles, since I was documenting the campaign in a blog.
This....this is the kind of thing I mean about players interjecting humor into your serious campaign. You can't fight it, you just have to deal with it. In the end, we're all just doing this to have fun, right?
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