The Guy Who Dies

This is the story about my long term stint into Free Form RPGs on Forum Boards. The period lasted for about... 12 years, and the reputation that built up across several different boards over that time. It was during this time I earned my title of "old man", or being referred to as some "battle scarred veteran RPer" and such as typically (At least the sites I ended up on) almost every RPer there was between 16-23 and had maybe a "few years" of Roleplaying under their belt, if not brand new.

What always surprised me about those "kids", was their attitudes of presuming because "I've RPed for 3 years now" that they somehow knew everything about the craft. I have decades of experience and I'm still learning new tricks, new processes, new tools all the time. I never really believed it was a craft that you could just "master". So I tried to study it and was always open to new ideas.

The Guy Who Dies

There was one problem I had with Play by Post RPGs, particularly free form, that I realized fairly early on. Oh granted it still took me a couple of years before the novelty of "Always having a game" and being able to log on pretty much every day and have Roleplaying to do sort of wore off and I realized it, but here was my issue.

It tended to lack plot.

Well that's the big tag line. The truth is that they do tend to have plots, just not strong, actionable plots. I'd say a vast majority, if not all, Free Form Play by Post RPGs I've been in for any length of time (I seriously can't remember a single example off the top of my head that didn't bottom out into this after a month or so, be it ones I participated in or just read), devolved into what I called "Sit, Chat, and Fuck" RPGs. They might have claimed there was a plot going on somehow, usually related to character backstory angst, but the typical "RPG day" as it came to be was:

Wakes up.
Goes to the local bar/hangout
Meets friends, small talks with them.
May get around to brooding about some secret backstory angst that is never acted upon beyond brooding.
Get some nookie from one of the friends as romance is a good way to keep the RPG Drama going without having to do much.

This isn't to say I don't like Romance in a RPG. Quite the opposite, I like romance. But I feel it works the best as a Subplot, something that is added to the overall narrative rather than being the whole point. If nothing else is going on other than the burgeoning romance, it tends to bottom out so to speak. Nothing really stops them from hooking up (Except possible self inflicted angst), and once they do the plot is kind of effectively over and resolved, which hasn't solved the core issue of why the Romance Plot was really brought up... because no one has anything to do.

So I recognized this problem. Even when I drifted to Gaia, where they had the "Free For All" forums that at least promised organizational conflicts, battles, etc, that MIGHT give me things to do, I found it lacking. I don't know if it changed from when I was last there, but the problem had an additional layer of Non-Interactivity to it. People built these "Bases" for them to Roleplay in as part of the forum. The forum's topics almost without exception all had locations that read like what they probably were... an 18 year old's attempt to have an "edgy" and cool organization that is completely invincible and untouchable behind dozens of layers of unbeatable defenses where they could basically curl up in their isolation womb and never have to deal with someone possibly ruining their their day of sitting around and chatting.

So I realized the problem. And I eventually found the solution, interestingly enough on Gaia. A man posted up a topic that caught my attention saying he needed a rival/villain for an RP arc as he was desperate to get away from the "Sit, Chat, and Fuck" sort of Roleplaying.

That arc still ended up some of my favorite Free Form roleplaying at the time. I managed to cause the player (And his friends) a lot of misery, infiltrated their group, had an epic duel with the hero, and had so thoroughly mindscrewed every one there that by the time the duel was over, and we were both down, out, and bleeding to death the hero's own friends decide to let him die in order to save my villain instead. Good times all around.

So I found out that even Free Form Roleplaying still needs a DM, for lack of a better term. Someone who actively takes charge of the world, provides obstacles and difficulties other than self created angst. I began hiring myself out on various boards as the Villain Guy, (though I avoided using the term DM, because Free Form Roleplayers can tend to have this odd chip on their shoulder about DMs as evil egomaniacs) and gained the reputation as "The Guy who Dies".

That's the other part I realized needed to be fixed, consequences. There was a natural habit for things not to matter. Even though characters never did anything but spend money and chat they always had money. Nothing ever really went wrong. Even if an "emergency" popped up, there just happened to be a helpful NPC wandering by in the next minute or so. I found that if there's no chance you can Lose, there's no chance you can Win. I mean what impact does it really have on you of finding the legendary sword of DOOM if in the same Roleplay someone who just needed it happens to find it just laying nearby when they need it?

It sounds silly, and you might just chalk it up to bad players, but it's a fairly consistent thing in Free Form Roleplays, particularly ones that don't strive to mimic our modern reality as much as possible (At least in those ones people tend to mention having jobs and off screen time that might explain where things are happening and there's no Magic Man wizard always lurking around the corner to cast Curaga every time they get so much as a paper cut). Even when I'd see things like two "warriors" going all out on some Katana duel, with no one wearing armor, the worst that ever happens to them is they get "knocked out" or maybe a "flesh wound" that does nothing but give them a badass scar.

But here I was roleplaying the villains, and I knew if I went with the "just a flesh wound" things or Magic NPCs it would ruin the whole point of having a villain. Or at least the impact. If everytime they beat me and I was just "knocked out" swearing revenge someday I become less like Kefka, and more like Cobra Commander in full 90s cartoon mode. So I knew I couldn't force the same sort of lethality on other people to make things matter... they'd just bitch then retcon it. So I had to accept that I was going to be the only one suffering any sort of real, meaningful defeats.

My villains died before the armies of the Perfect and Inviolable heroes. A lot of them. People actually started to think I was eager to kill off characters. Though the truth as I told them was "... no... it's just that if you hit my guy in the face with a battleaxe, I'm going to treat it like you hit me in the face with a battle axe being swung by your 7' tall ungodly muscled hero, rather than just somehow get knocked out without lasting injury from a battle axe to the face."

I think the point where I really cemented my reputation as "the Guy who Dies" was during one of the "Events" on Gaia called Heaven or Hell. A weird little "tournament" combat Roleplay that honestly had a lot of irksome things about it, but I was excited to get a chance to play with such a wide variety of characters. Plus it was said it was going to be judged on "how well you played and how entertaining it was" rather than "the actual results of the roleplay", with the implication that if someone went all Invincible Hero on me and crushed me flat, I could still "win" by the fact that honestly my storytelling was better and more entertaining than just seeing someone say "its just a flesh wound!" to my actions and proceed to beat me about the face unto death.

So we're in a battle, it's a team thing, 3 on 3 with each person doing solo fights with one round "tag attacks" being usable as the guy who created this whole thing really was a King of Fighters fanboy. I honestly thought we were doing well, we were "losing" the fights in character, but we were definitely being more entertaining. I figured we had good chances to win despite the In Character result being 0-2 so far. I was the anchor match with my mostly human Bounty Hunter type character, a scrapper but not a huge power house fantasy warrior or cyborg assassin, etc. Our stage was a "Bar", which makes sense because about 80% of Gaia RP locations seemed to be Bars anyway. Least the sort of bars that people who never have gone to a bar think bars are like. My opponent was this amazonian warrior woman who went into battle in what seemed to be a bikini and high heeled sandals if I remember correctly.

... so on one hand you ahve Fantasy Warrior Woman to a T, on the other you have a guy who is pretending to be massively inebriated because hey he's a normal human and he needs as many advantages as he can get, including using stage props to pretend he's drunk so people might go easy on him at first. The rules forbid certain things I otherwise almost assuredly would have tried like setting fire to the place (After all, it was supposed to be a spectator sport) or doing anything "purposefully lethal".

So I lured Barbarella, Queen of the Amazons in by pretending to be drunk off my ass... and when she fell for it (I don't know how as I mentioned time and again the 'bottle' I had been drinking out of was still entirely full and unopened). I clocked her over the head with it figuring if she was remotely human it would at least phase her to have glass shattered over her skull, soaked in booze and shards of glass, etc. Instead I got the tone of the fight right away. Doesn't phase her, not even a flinch, and she just grabs me by the collar and uses her height and apparent strength advantage to haul me off my feet.

Well, in real life I was the "small guy" almost all my life until I had a growth spurt around 18. I was also on the wrestling team, and practiced with my brother who was 7 years old, much stronger, and taller than me my whole life. I knew how to handle this.

So I used every trick I learned in real life, attacking pressure points, going for places that were "painful" if not debilitating in order to get her to let go, using superior locks and reverses to keep ahead of what she was trying to do, just hold me up in the air and punch my face until I stopped fighting.

Eventually I had: Broken a chair over her, hip threw her through a table, broke another bottle over her, cut a 5 inch long gash along her femoral artery, punched her square in the throat... And none of this even caused the character to so much as blink as she eventually used her superior size, weight, and muscle to try to pin me down. Generally in a badly described way that had her trying to tell me that the counters I used "wouldn't work" because I used the description she provided. Such as one where she said she picked me up and held me at arm's length before going for some crushing bear hug. At which point I interrupted at "held me at arm's length" and said "I punch you in the throat since you're going for a hug and a quick jab is going to get in".

It got to the point where we were pinned down on the ground grappling, she's trying to choke out my character, and he's in this caged animal scared mode as NOTHING he's gone has even phased this woman for a moment and she shows no sign of stopping even if he's about to pass out from lack of oxygen. So he uses his last opening she provided to bite her neck and like some feral beast try to just rip her throat out.

.... which resulted in her saying her neck muscles were too strong for that to even break through the skin. Yes, effectively the strongest muscles in the human body, as I recalled as bites can produce insane amounts of pressure, couldn't even break her skin. In response to the indignation however of daring to try something that might have actually hurt her (I'm still convinced even if the bite worked it wouldn't have killed her), she decides she's "Done" with it and just goes for a neck snap.

And I let her. He's a normal human nowhere near as strong as she was, she had the positioning to do it. She snaps his neck, he dies. I knew I was effectively writing myself out of the tournament, but if that was the quality I had to look forward to, I didn't really want to look on. At the very least I knew my opponent would get all sorts of violations from killing her competitor, so I was guaranteeing my team the victory (and they had an Alternate waiting so I didn't feel bad about it). All it all it became one of the more dramatic fights I saw during that first round. It wasn't "Badass" in that it wasn't big and flashy. No one had super tech, or magic, etc, to make the big special effects. But it was dramatic in the sense that this guy who was entirely outclassed fought so well, so hard, that eventually this person he had no chance of ever beating was forced to kill him.

... then I meet the last level of "bullshit" as the judging came around. Remember this whole Tournament was predicated on, and the rules even stated, that results were basically about who was more entertaining and skilled as a writer rather than who just built a character that was so Hardcore they couldn't be beaten.

I looked at our "scores". My team won ever round. With the penalty points (Though I did get a bullshit one as I saw it for "Attempting a lethal attack" with the bite even though we all knew it wasn't going to be lethal), I just crushed my fight flat. We won in every way we were told mattered in the rules despite "losing" all 3 rounds in the roleplay itself.

We were told we "lost" and weren't moving on. The reason we were given? "Well it doesn't seem right that a team that lost a majority of the rounds, would be moved ahead in the bracket any".

...

What?

I mean seriously, WHAT?!

I knew they had some biases, they liked "Magic" (including vaguely defined Ki powers) over Technology (Though they sometimes let basic science kind of muddle magic, like the guy who is a Fire Mage is also an Ice Mage because Cold is just the absence of heat, and also an 'Air Mage" because of therodynamics on atmosphere, etc. Basically letting them BS as "I'm just good at one thing" being an excuse to be good at whatever they want), they let "Huge Guys" get away with some power gaming stuff of just ignoring effects and muscling through things because they were Huge Guys rather than because it was good writing necessarily. But the whole point was that you were supposed to be entertaining and write well. Whole... point. If I knew it was only IC results that mattered I would have brought in one of my arch mage characters and just threw the enemy into the sun or something. Who cares if it's shitty writing, I won the fight and even if they gave me a 0 score I win and advance.


But I was the only one to die, in a tournament where people are regularly getting stabbed, set on fire, frozen, pile drivered through trains, etc. I already had the reputation as the "Guy who Dies" but that forever cemented it. I don't really regret dying, it was a good dramatic moment for people. I just wish I knew that in the end only results really mattered so I could have brought a more appropriate character and perhaps gone further, and had more great moments.

Fated Roleplaying

Fated Roleplaying


This is another peeve of mine, and oddly one I take fairly personal when it comes up in games. As a bit of a lead in:

I was almost always The DM for various groups I've had since I first picked up D&D. I was the one who got my friends excited about it, I was the one who had to organize everything, etc. Even to the point where one group in particular would ambush me with DMing.

Seriously, I'd get a call, say that someone has a Game of ____ they want to try out (RIFTS, Robotech, Dragonball, various super hero games, etc, all got used in this manner), and they want me in as a player. Cool, I'm eager and excited to actually be a player for a change,  get there, we roll up characters for an hour and get sort of a plot briefing from whoever is DMing at the time. We get about 2 hours into the game, maybe through two or three scenes before the guy who was DMing told me he was "Done". He hadn't planned that far ahead. But no one wanted to quit playing. But he was "new" to DMing and couldn't carry on. "But hey, [me] is an excellent DM! I'm sure he could come up with an continuation of the adventure and take over DMing for us!"

I'd sputter, say I didn't have anything prepped, etc. They'd tell me "Oh we'll give you 15 minutes to cook something up while we go eat dinner/play a round of Smash Bros/etc".

So I learned to revel in DMing, and it kind of forced me to really appreciate the cooperative aspects of the game. Which I already did really. But having to take over for these stories that were already half laid out, the foundations set... I came to a greater understanding of what I saw as the chief joy of RPGs.

The cooperative development.

See, I saw it as something where it's not just "my story", as a Player, or a DM. If I just wanted to tell a story by my own deterministic desires, I'd just write a story, maybe share it with my friends after I finished it or something.

The fun was taking what I didn't expect, didn't add, and wouldn't have thought of and making things richer for it. My characters and settings were better due to the input of others.

Thus we enter Fated Roleplaying.

The story of Fated Roleplaying starts with me DMing a fantasy campaign for a group. The group told me that they were kind of burnt out on "standard" stuff. They didn't want to just delve dungeons, slay bad guys, get loot, etc. They wanted a more cerebral campaign that didn't wholly do away with those elements of Killing, Looting, and Delving, just that the setting had more to it than that.

So I decided to use Alignment as a Tool. Good was something you had to strive to maintain. People drifted towards Evil by letting their natures take over. Every time you were greedy, vindictive, petty, etc, it was driving you further towards evil. The world was built around this idea that it was a collapsing realm. That the Gods of Goodness and Such had been defeated in the local version of Ragnarok. This provided the backdrop of Dungeons, Looting, and Killing as there were the legions of evil as occupation forces essentially out there. If I needed someone to kill? Demons. That simple.

But it also meant that the powers of Good as DnD typically thought of it, from Healing Spells to protections and smiting were constantly fading away. The beings that granted these powers were gone after all. Still the big Positive Energy plane out there, but it was being crushed by darkness so even just random "I'm good for goodness sake" types like Paladins were losing their grips. The main conflict, and I sold the players on this up front, was the idea that the players were trying to maintain some shred of Goodness in the setting, the last of the Old Guard fighting desperately against the Darkness. That the morality wasn't just derived from "Smite Evil", they couldn't win by just Smiting Evil... evil was so pervasive that unless they set up some truly earth shattering event they'd never attrition it down enough. They had to try to be exemplars of Good Ideals to maintain as much of "Goodness" in the setting as possible for them to continue to draw power from. Their sort of obvious end goal as I pitched it to them being to somehow rouse the slumbering dragon of the vast population to elevating new gods with Pure Belief in Good to stabilize the setting, or to just try to hold out as best they could for as long as they could and make the best of a terrible situation.

At the time, I was young and dumb and it sounded oh so clever to me. But they jumped on it.

So I had 3 players. One Former Paladin of the God of Justice trying to find a way to revive him, one Thief who turned his back on his old ways when he realized just how bad being Evil really got and trying to save his own soul somehow, and a Sorceress who's stated goal was to try to "Find the chosen one" who would become a new god strong enough to fight back against Evil and win, since clearly the Old Gods failed and thus she disagreed with the Paladin on the idea of bringing them back.

All in all it was an okay group starting out. I tried to avoid pure Good/Evil decisions. I didn't want the choices to be Easy, nor did I like in games (Particularly video games) where morality choices were split between Baby Punting Psycho and Paragon of Virtue.

So morality became choices of doing what was Hard, versus what was Easy, as well as quests where you had to kind of navigate what the most important version of "Good" to you at the time. Are you going to focus on feeding starving villagers, or trying to stop the reason they are starving, or trying to relocate them to somewhere they might prosper, or use diplomacy to solve their problems, etc.

For the most part, it worked. I was a bit concerned about conflicting goals, but the players relished the chance to talk and think through their problems instead of just figuring out which combination of Effects murderdeaths their obstacles. But the problem came in the hidden "Morality" meter I had going.

The thing was, I didn't want players to know precisely where they were Morality wise, but just having to guess based on their behavior. I wanted to avoid what I sometimes saw in Star Wars games where people go "Eh, I can take a Dark Side Point. FORCE CHOKE!" sort of thing, or in D&D the tendency to go "Well... Atonement spells only got 500 XP, so as long as my evil is gaining me effectively more than 500 XP, then it's worth going evil for a bit".

The idea was that let me subtly play off the personality of the players and their characters. Evil could try to tempt them with things that were grey in shades, or even seemingly white hat options that were slowly corrupting them.

... in truth I ran into what I thereafter dubbed the "Fated RP" problem.

Here's how it went down. I had been trying my damnedest to get the players to fall convincingly. Not just something where I suddenly tell them "Go murder younglings", but by degrees and seeing just how far they were willing to go to accomplish their goals. At first it might be acts of petty theft for an obvious good. Then grand theft for less clear good, etc, until eventually I had the thief stealing for the thinnest of reasons.

If I was a better storyteller, perhaps it would have worked better. As is I was having a hard time corrupting the Paladin. He was too humble to rise to a lot of "hero bait". It made him a good straight man to be the party face. The thief had too much distrust and paranoia over his potential history of flirting with Evil, he really dug into playing the conflicted nature of what his character "knew" was the right way to do things and what he was learning was the right way to do things. The Paladin really helped him in this way, and there were honestly some great moments.

Ah but the Sorceress... she was my dog in this fight. The players of the Sorceress seemed to have a hard time really navigating the morality. The player liked it. They said they liked having to deal with issues where she just didn't have to blast things, seemed to be having fun. But often I'd catch these looks from the other players towards her like to say ".... the hell are you thinking?" as the campaign went on.

I thought it was glorious.

I had started feeding her minor options to hep on her "quest", access to research, resources, and things. And it was generally starting with the line of "well.... it's not EVIL to keep them... but it's not good". Eventually it got darker and darker. She's hording supplies other people need because it's important to her research. She's protecting these goblins that are roaming around causing mayhem because they aren't bothering HER, and in fact help her out as minor mercenaries/flunkies from time to time.

8 months of weekly sessions into the campaign I had her sliding so far into Evil that I thought no one could have doubted it. The other players certainly didn't by their own admission. Her quest to find the "Chosen One" had her start doing obviously evil things. Tracking down a "prophecy" of unknown providence. Committing atrocities because "The Chosen One" would only arise in the darkest hour when it seems evil had truly won (And thus by doing things like: Burning down a village, causing country wide famines, and helping demons gain more power she was supposedly bringing on the Savior End Game). Willing to throw innocents under the bus if it meant getting even one more spell that might make her powerful enough to solve the prophecy and find the chosen one.

And eventually... a demon manages to trick her, and convince her that she IS the Chosen One. That all the prophecies and signs point to her, and it was her destiny to rise up and destroy the world, rebuilding it in an image of light.

... which she wholly throws in with as players are just staring in shock as she starts using her magic and her goblin mercenaries to basically burn out the last of the Good Cities and Nations, going on a omnicidal march to destroy everything to save the world.

The Paladin and Thief try to stop her. She says they must be corrupt and evil to try to stop her, and that the Prophecy will save them, etc. It was badly RPed but the players didn't really want to PvP so it didn't come to blows and resulted in what looked like a parting of ways because "I just can't believe that killing innocents is right".

Now as much as I was enjoying just having thoroughly mindscrewed the Sorceress from this good champion who was looking for Fantasy Jesus to save the day, I realized this was a bad thing, so I kind of just pulled something out of my ass, had the demon who had been manipulating show up and bow to her, going on about how she had finally achieved the prophecy and set in motion the end of all that was good, she was the greatest champion of Evil and accomplished with Arch Fiends and Dark Gods could not for aeons.

... I kind of expected a "... the hell... wait... you seduced me to evil you bastard!" realization and attacking the demon. Here's what actually happened:

The Sorceress player blinked, and said "No".

I wasn't alone in being confused, everyone wondered what was going on. The Paladin and the thief looked about ready to throw down in Combat before this, just not certain which side their Sorceress was actually going to go for. So I replied stupidly in the only way I could, "No?"

"No, I'm not evil." I blink and I couldn't really tell if it was IC or not, as the player tended to do an accent for her character and that accent was missing, though it SOUNDED like something that might be said ICily. I ask for clarification.

"No, it's OOC. I'm telling you I'm not evil."

This puzzled me, I pointed towards evidence of everything that had happened. Killing innocents, condemning them to death and suffering, all in a quest to gain more power and deluding herself into thinking she was a savior even as she butchered them by the hundreds.

"No, I'm not evil. I'm a hero. I'm good. It has to be that way."

Eventually I suss out there, at the table just too perplexed to really process it, what she means. What she means is that she created her character with a predetermined outcome of "I'm the hero and I save the day". I don't mind goals happening and striving for them, but this was different. This was FATE. No matter what happened, no matter what was done, she was determined her character was the hero. And not only that, that ICily she should "know" if she was risking becoming evil, and her character who has some iron will not represented in any way I could tell, would just resist the temptations of evil and default back to good.

Not only did it kind of defeat the purpose of the game, which I was up front about... but the whole idea strikes me as wrong still, and fundamentally against the entire purpose of an RPG. It means what you do doesn't really matter, because you are always destined to be what you're going to be. At least that was the gist that I got from her at the time. It trivializes everything else, and not only that just doesn't make sense to me. The nearest I could compare what was happening to is if suddenly in 1945 Hitler just went "You know what, I'mma stop being a drugged out lunatic and example of the worst of humanity and become a volunteer nurse at some bush hospital in the Amazon treating local tribesmen", and somehow expecting the universe, and other characters, to just accept that as how things are and it's all cool.

It did lead to a climatic and fun final battle against the Demon. But as the Bad End to Chrono Trigger says "But the future refused to change". In the end the Sorceress could admit no wrong doing, and saw nothing wrong with how they were operating despite having the manifestation of Evil in the campaign having just walked up, patted her on the back and said "Good job screwing your side!" The campaign broke up, and since then I've had an irrational hatred of "Fate" as it applies to Roleplaying. Even in the most minor of ways like "No matter what happens I'm always destined to fall in love with X" or "everytime I want one someone nearby just happens to hand me a cigar for some reason". I can't help but remember this story everytime, and how what could have at least been a decent moment of remorse and an attempt at redemption, adding a whole new act to the game just instead caused it to turn into "mindless" combat for the finale and an unsatisfactory end all around.

The Fall of the Mindjacker

 This entry, and thus this blog, was inspired as I read another blog about someone else's campaign of horror...

http://irolledazero.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-sue-system-rise-of-marty.html

Go ahead and read it, it's scary, and it reminded me of this story.

Events in this, like in all things I post are true to the limit of my point of view. Some of it, particularly the things the "Cheater" was doing off on his solo sessions I only know about second hand from the DM. Of course I admit bias in my own view as I have no real idea what was going on through his head and could only look on in horror through my own eyes as he did these things.



The Fall of the Mindjacker

Whole thing with the "blood donor" reminded me of a similar sort of person I had the displeasure to play with. Not only blatantly cheating with badly baked dice to make almost his every roll a crit (We were playing a homebrewed setting for Anima: Beyond Fantasy, which if you don't know is d100 based and has exploding crits, roll a 90+, roll again and add to it, 91+ on that? Roll again and add again, 92+ on that... you see how it goes. He routinely had roll results of like 800-1000... also why he grabbed the "I can get godlike results" right from the start, as normally you're limited in how hard you can succeed as a "mere mortal", needing to get Inhumanity and Zen first to get a higher cap on your ability).

Well our DM had told me, a newbie to the system about Sheeles and how you gain power from it, minor effects, etc (Before they actually released the book revealing all of what Sheeles really were and we were kind of running them like some sort of soul bonded super familiar that rode around inside your body most of the time giving us access to unique powers/effects). My character was a Dark Paladin being played as kind of an adventuring Bard from the frozen north, a distant vaguely undefined land the DM hadn't really fleshed out, and gave me free reign to make up cultural details. We were in the Fantasy Egypt version of the Desert, and looked like we weren't leaving anytime soon. I got tired of having to make checks against sunstroke, etc.

So one night while we're camping and I'm "on watch" I use my Summoning powers to summon a very minor "Spirit of the Desert" to sheele with in hopes it'd give me some acclimatization of some sort. I had to convince it that it was worth Sheeling with me... which I failed to the point where I had to impress it in some random encounter with Evil Sand Spirit Zombie things that came after us (And really began my streak of realizing I had terrible luck in this game and had to depend on good RPing and sound planning to overcome bad dice). But I did, it agreed, I got my power.

Now this cheating asshat... I never did figure out what "Class" he was supposed to be until after the campaign and I asked the DM. Supposedly he was the Jack of All Trades class, Novelist or something they call it, I can't quite remember anything about it except that has completely average stats all around. I had figured him as a Paladin type or Warrior-Summoner since literally all I ever saw him do was make AoE attack with his Halbred (Since he had a martial art that gave him those AoE sweeps) and like twice summon up a monster to just one shot a guy (Not that he did this all that often, twice at the start of the campaign, and twice more later on to summon things he wanted to negotiate with, but honestly his response to combat 99% of the time was "I make an AoE attack with my Halbred"). Oh, also, his behavior to the introduction of any female NPC:

"What's her appearance score?" *DM looks up, we're running on 1d20 for an appearance basis* "Oh it's 16." "SEDUCTION ROLL!" No attempt to RP any sort of seduction, not even cheesy lines or something, just picks up the dice, throws it, and asks what his 900 result on his Persuasion check does. That sort of play always irked me, but generally I accept it because sometimes people don't want to put down the effort to RP some masterful bit of dialogue, or at least dialogue seems like it at the time, just to crit fail the dice and have the effort go to naught.

Anyway, this guy, he's been basically been collecting every Female NPC we've come across as his Harem Slaves due to his cheated Persuasion checks. But after I sheele up with the Desert Spirit, finally getting my desert immunity (And a few minor powers I abused later like sand manipulation and some sand attacks/barriers), with him having slept through it, decides he has to one up me. I sheeled with a minor desert spirit? He's going to sheele with the "Queen of the Succubi". Which he summons up with his cheaty roll. And then 'seduces' with his cheaty roll. Finds out the Queen there (Who ends up becoming a major plot NPC later on due to our actions rather than DM will) has to power to effectively mindjack people. Immediately uses it to "seduce" the two women he was already traveling with into an orgy with him and the queen. Granted I was there too, but he couldn't have another guy involved, that might be gay after all... -_- But clearly I was in the AoE of this Mindjacking so he had to do something with it. Decided that he wanted my character to jack off to the sight of him with three women... -_- Remember this being while I was supposed to be sleeping after having been on watch for half the night, bone tired, and instead of getting the rest I needed I ended up forced to play into his ego stroking (In character, out of character I didn't really care beyond the mild annoyance that always comes with mental manipulation basically rewriting my character for me, as nothing about the proud, stubborn, business minded bardic veteran adventurer suggested he was just into that).

Course, it goes on from there. Keep in mind this is the character as the guy described it to me in the beginning:

He is the Rightful Heir of some kingdom that got taken over by rebels. His kingdom worshiped the "Goddess of Seduction" as this jolly happy love, peace, and joy place.

Fine by me. Standard stuff, bit sexual but standard "Place was ruled by happy good divine law, then people came and took away his fancy hat" thing. I don't really have a problem with the sex in RPGs myself, I tend not to make it the focus, but I don't punish players for wanting to play the guy who hooks up with random townies or who wants to have some grand romance with the princess he saved from the evil wizard, whatever. Good to go. He said he was "Completely Lawful Good", and sought to return himself to his rightful throne and free the land of the tyranny of the rebel faction.

Now... when we get to the next town he literally splits off to "do his shopping"... which ends up being him using his new Sheele Mindjacking Powers to "seduce" (Since you know, their minds were hijacked and thus didn't have a choice but to give into their lust for him that he programmed into them) every single woman of acceptable appearance score into some massive days long orgy while we were in town with him as the only guy. Made slightly more offensive on top of that to my sensibilities as his Sheele, the Queen of the Succubi, literally said "If I do not have male essences regularly, I'll die". So he was effectively starving her to death, someone who was basically the equivalent of Michael, Archangel and right hand of his Goddess, merely because he didn't want to deal with the "Am I gay?" question for doing right by his soul partner. As a side note I treated my Sheele the same way I treated all my NPCs. Tools, yes, but useful ones I wanted to be actually beholden to me out of respect and loyalty, and if helping them with their goals/desires not only makes them more powerful, but more likely to want to help me? Go for it. Which is why by the end of the campaign my level 1 Sand Spirit had ranked up to be a respectable spirit of Nature that was magnitudes more powerful than it ever was to start with. 

Meanwhile my character is off actually getting plot accomplished, he's becoming something of "The Leader" as the various NPCs that the other guy has attracted to our team (And abandoned, as soon as he found a girl NPC he found more attractive than his last one, he basically abandoned and forgot about the last one except for 'orgy' scenes) are being trained, equipped, and treated like actual human beings who might be able to help us put down the Orkoid invasions, the sand demons, and stop the end of the world. Including the Bloodline Princess of the kingdom we're in, as I've taken what was kind of a prissy but good aligned, mostly useless character and turned her into the White Mage of healing, water magic, and ass kicking with a sense of greater responsibility as a noble, the need to set an example and take a lead in shaping her fate rather than just doing things because she's supposed to/told to.

This also includes me summoning up (Through ritual and a lot of help and prep work, and a bit of luck, as I wasn't stupidly brazen enough to just depend on the dice), basically the Arch Spirit of the Desert, Nature, Goodness, etc, to help me out with finding out the Secret Weakness of the evil artifact causing all of the stuff we're dealing with. Managed to get her help, key information, etc, after quite a bit of hard RPing. Only to have my 'teammate' suddenly show up and just Mindjack "seduce" her... yes, lets rape the one being who has both the power and inclination to actually help us win. -_-

(Also this is part of another irksome pattern that developed. He had a lighter version of what one RPGer and I used to call in our youthful ignorance "RP Quantum Superpositioning". It spawned due to this player wanting to always be "where the action was", where the shiniest loot was, where all the cool things were happening, that to the point where people split up in a town to get downtime stuff done, or for whatever reason they split up here was the standard conversation we'd have with him:

DM: Okay, where are you all going?
Player 1: To the bar, score some wenches!
Player 2: To the Temple to pray and research new spells.
Player 3: To the market to sell our loot.
Player 4: To the local lord to volunteer my time helping train with the guard/knights, keep the peace, etc. 
Quantum RPer: I go with the party.
DM: ... they party is splitting up in 4 different direction. Who are you going with?
Quantum RPer: Them.
DM: The market?
Quantum RPer: Sure.
*stuff happens*
DM: And now there's a bar fight at the tavern with Player 1!
Quantum RPer: I draw my blade and attack these drunken hobos!
DM: Aren't you at the market?
Quantum RPer: No, I told you I was with the party, I was always there!
DM: Pretty sure you said the market.
Quantum RPer throws out some complaints until finally you let him just always have been at the Bar because the fight is the most exciting thing and he'll sulk if he's denied it. So he's in combat.
*After that*
DM: Okay Player 3, while selling your loot you manage to find what you think could be a magic weapon more powerful than the merchant realizes among his "minor magical items" rack, mistakenly thought of as a +2 Longsword when it's really as near as you can figure a +2 Holy Flaming Demonbane Protection from Evil Longsword.
Quantum RPer: I take the sword and I kill the merchant if he won't let me haggle down the price to an 'acceptable' level beyond his already mistaking it for a +2 Longsword.
DM: Aren't you in the bar beating up guys? 
Quantum RPer: No, I told you I'm with the party!

Similarly this guy had a related problem. Anything I did, as he saw me as "His sidekick" rather than "Fellow Adventurer" had to be less cool than what he did. If I summoned up a beast, he had to summon up a better beast. If I solo'd an Ogre, he had to solo 3 ogres and kill them with a single blow. In this case, along with the sheele thing, and a couple of others, his character was basically trying to "out do" me and one up my actions on things that he had no idea I had even done. He was sleeping when I conducted my ritual, summoned up this great spirit (Who just happened to be Female looking), got answers from it, and basically helped solve the plot. Well, he couldn't out solve the plot on me, I solved it. There's not a higher value of solving it. So he decides he'll one up me by having sex with this spirit because that's what female things are for. Not that it's one upping me as I had no interest in "defiling" a holy spirit.

So as it looked to me ICily... he was sleeping, I did something important, and got answers. I woke him up for his shift on watch. He basically said "watch this" and for no reason what so ever, he had never been around when we discussed this spirit before, made plans, wasn't part of the ritual or the preparation, had no way at all to even know it existed, etc. He just summons up the being I worked for days to call up with a snap of his fingers. Makes a roll and due to his lack of Roleplay I can presume only came down to him basically pointing at his genitals and screaming out "SERVICE ME!!!" to what is effectively a demi god, gets away with it, and is getting off on having me watch it happen and realizing I'm just never going to be as cool as he is.)

Now, we knew from my work that this artifact effectively Ate Souls and Spat Out Demons that we were after. That the only way to defeat it for good was to go into the artifact on some sort of mystical ritual and defeat the arch daemon who was bound inside it, etc, etc, etc. But yeah. ATE SOULS. Also that it was weak to "light" and "earth", considering it was a spirit of darkness evil and necromancy.

So my esteemed adventuring buddy decided when we faced the wizard villain using this artifact (I still can't remember his name, just that I called him the Purple Armored Douchebag), he decided that he would take what was his best "ally" and accomplice, the Queen of the Succubi, a pure spirit and thus exactly what the artifact eats up, and tell her to "Grapple and sex him" him "as a distraction". Basically feeding one of our most powerful allies (Or could have been if he had been using it for anything other than Rape) to her death just so he could get a free turn to show off how hardcore he was and solo the boss wizard.

My character being actually Lawful Evil (Not that anyone remembered he was evil... because I mean come on, who expects the one NOT mindjacking people and raping them in a team is the evil one?), knew the value of good minions, and that loyalty was built on the bonds of teamwork, law, order, etc. So he risked the AoE Doom Field around the wizard to drag the Queen of the Succubi to safety before she totally died off. Used a bit of his precious Zeon (MP effectively in Anima, but it regens SUPER slow, like you need weeks to recover it if you burn it off... and I needed ever bit for the upcoming fight) to heal her so she wouldn't die from the wounds inflicted so far. Then entered the artifact to actually get shit done while the other guy showed off against the wizard.

It was an oddly anticlimatic fight for a final boss. I didn't have the zeon remaining to actually summon up our trump card, the Desert Spirit of Holy and Nature to slap down the demon. So I just tried to pray to it and hope that prayer would give my weapons some sort of blessing that would make them more effective against the demon... instead it popped her into the artifact where she just owned the demon and transformed the evil Relic into what my character ended up calling the "Hammer of Elizisha" (The spirit I called), a great holy weapon/relic of power that became one of my best tools and plot devices through the game.

But I came out of the artifact basically drained. I was tending to the wounds of the Succubus (And the Princess NPC who had been my chief ally and protege, also former 'lover' of the other NPC), basically making sure we don't all bleed out, while he tries to claim the hammer and gloat about how he now has unlimited power, once he unlocks its secrets, and how he might "finally free his homeland" with this power... I think he wanted the demon summoning that we saw it using before for reasons revealed later.

We also had one other player joining our group for that session, who wanted to join permanently. I didn't mention his contributions because they were kind of minor. We were all second level at that point, and due to the guy's cheaty rolls the Wizard was OP as hell to make it a "Fair" fight. So the guy who was an Archer Assassin and not cheating basically was entirely useless. Between my Getting Shit Done using all the leg work I had put in (That he didn't know about or wanted a part of) the obvious cheating, and the fact that said cheater also tried to claim all the loot (I was too weak to really fight him on it, and the assassin was helpless before the cheating power, as when the Assassin told him "No, I don't want to give up the hammer to you!", the player in question pulled out his dice and said he rolled Intimidate until he gave him the hammer... which annoys me even more because yeah, cheating either way and social skills against PCs are one of my peeves as is, but the IC implication is he didn't even try to ask nicely with Persuasion but just threatened and browbeat this man into cowing before his obvious superiority and desires), the Assassin's Player basically said "Fuck it, I'm done" and never came back.

Why didn't I clock out? The DM was a great guy, a good friend. When I wasn't having to deal directly with the cheater, it was a great game. It was also the reason I found as much excuse as possible to split the party.

In the end I realized that the DM's plot aside, the Real Villain was my fellow player. It was a classic story. He's cruel, he sees people as objects for his amusements, he has powers that cannot be rivaled (By cheating, which ICily I had even started to comment on about how the stars clearly had marked him, etc), he was willing to do whatever he could to accomplish his goals, and what were his goals? To get power. To make himself as powerful and as worshiped as possible.

But I knew I couldn't just take him in a fight. He'd just cheat the rolls and squash me like a bug (Though I did find out later that there was a hilarious power in the Free Magics that I could have eventually gained that would let me redirect his own attacks at his head, making his Cheaty Rolls work against him... Against non-cheaters it would be an insignificant and random power, against his "I roll 1000 attack" and the fact that his attack stat was slightly higher than his defense, it meant that after he rolled his attack it was an auto hit against him, making it a power that seemed to exist only for the express purpose of being a magic bullet to kill him, eventually I got the power just for that reason and never used it, holding it for the final showdown against him so it would totally be a surprise). So I went about the plan to just destroy him by the power of Good Roleplaying.

First off, neutralizing his Trump Card at the time, his go to weapon of Mindjacking, the Queen of the Succubi. This was... incredibly easy. On our way back from the adventure, victorious, the Queen found reasons to remain "Manifested" as much as possible and hang on me. It SEEMS that keeping someone from being destroyed forever by a soul devouring demon makes them like you... Keep in mind in this setting as well that the Goddess of Seduction was a Good Aligned Goddess, and as such Succubi aren't evil. Least aren't supposed to be. With her help I stole back the "Hammer of Elizisha" from my new Villain and made plans with her. She was starving to death effectively after all (Like 2 weeks without 'food' at this point). So I could feed her, which I did. I used the powers of RPing rather than Dicerolling (Because I rolled like shit for the most part) to 'seduce' her by not being an ass and actually helping her out to the point where she ended up effectively breaking her bond with my teammate (Not that she told him, and he didn't really notice because he was too engrossed in his newest conquests), and giving me a direct line to the Goddess of Seduction, etc, to the point where I started Gaining Elan (Basically in Anima the power to pop miracles off in someone's ass just because a Divine Force likes the cut of your jib and may or may not have bumped uglies with one of your distant ancestors). And since my entire long term goal involved making peace (Under my rule of course, because Evil), etc, that was in line with her goals, I kept gaining Elan and Elan related powers (Which I liked as they avoided me having to roll dice for effects, and using Elan Powers didn't use up any resources. I did my damnedest to get the most mileage I could out of it).... I think by the end of the Campaign I was ranked in her like top 50 people of all time with Elan 80+ or something, effective High Priest of her "Cult", and preaching his brand of her Faith (More peace, less rapey) to the world. I had aligned a "Nexus Point" to the Goddess of Seduction where we had accidentally cause a huge font of Zeon by simultaneously having the Queen of the Succubi, the Prince of the Incubi, the Holy Spirit of Nature and Beauty, and the Demon Prince of Slaughter all in the same place as the same time and unleashed some truly titanic magics to banish said Demon Prince, found her lost favored artifact, preached the Peace that she always wanted but hadn't gotten, etc.

Similarly I took all of his old conquests that he tossed aside, helped them remember that, yes, he raped them. And yes, he's a terrible person, and started gathering a huge network of contacts. Because he had a weird thing where he wanted powerful women. So the women he seduced were all queens, princesses, high priestesses, generals, etc. (Said DM who's more expert in these matters said he was doing something normally frowned upon by "the scene" in "Domming from the Bottom" where he wanted the trappings of these powerful women tying him down and other bondage stuff... but that their wills were basically broken, entirely beholden to him and he was in fact the "Master" who's every word they hung on. Doesn't surprise me.)

At this point we've basically been splitting the DM's time. We're all off on separate adventures in the same setting, meeting at different times to run our adventures, pretty much unaware of what the other was doing (excepting the broad strokes I was gettign from my spy contacts and information network). What I was doing:

Gathering up all the people he's pissed off. Using my "Bardic" nature (Yes I literally was a wandering storyteller and performer) to spread propaganda throughout the land about how he's this grand villain who traffics with demons and defiles holy spirits, mindjacks people, etc, etc, etc. Working as an ambassador of sorts. I'm the "puppetmaster", as I attribute all of MY heroics to the Princess I'm traveling with, making her out to be this god like figure who actually knows it isn't her. But the Princess has dreams of peace and unity, and realizes that I'm helping her do it, people wouldn't trust an "outsider" from this far off land covered in snow, etc. Plus Romance subplot where our relation slowly bloomed over months and there was an implicit trust and love between us. We're uniting all the warring tribes in our Alliance, and I'm giving them an enemy to focus on. The other Player.

... now during this time the other player (After I destroyed the second evil artifact before he could claim its power as his own, yes, I'm missing an adventure arc or two before this with its own bullshit here)... decided his level 4 ass, who always gets "Godlike Results", now has enough power to achieve his true goal. What was it? He's going to invade the realm of the Goddess of Seduction, the Goddess he's supposed to venerate and worship by the way... and try to Mindjack her. Of course my Succubus Ally does let him into the realm... but doesn't mindjack a goddess... not that she could anyway, but she doesn't want to. Nor do I want her to. So he tries to rely on his Persuasion check. Those that know Anima know that beings like a Goddess have something called "Gnosis" where basically they can (in limited fashion) rewrite reality. So she just laughed in his face and said No, returning him back to the mortal world as the mere human goes all "Be my sex slave and give me all your power!".

So thrown back to reality he decides he has to settle for MERELY reclaiming his throne at the head of one of the largest empires of the setting... But there's a problem, there are rebels in control. And people actually LIKE the rebels in control. He can't just kill a couple and claim dominion and have everyone cheer for him as he found out. I like to think people liked the Rebels in command as their women were no longer being kidnapped and dragged off to the castle to be sexed then executed when he's done with them...

So his brilliant plan to defeat the rebels? Summon up a legion of demons to be his army against the Paladins of the Rebels. He's surprised when a legion of demons basically look at his level 5 ass, who supposedly worships a god opposed to them, and goes "Yeah, thanks for the ticket to the mortal world, now fuck off, we're rampaging!!!"

So now he has not only rebels to deal with, who are fighting demons, but the demons as well if he ever wants to reclaim his empire. After thinking, plotting, and planning, what is his solution? Track down this Ancient Dragon, wake it up, say, "Serve me bitch and kill my enemies!"

Level 5 character, Ancient Dragon. One the DM warned him every step of the way not to mess with because Ancient Dragons were badass, hardcore, not to be fucked with. But he wakes it up and makes a demand. The Dragon who has been slumbering for centuries just laughs at him, and is kind of grumpy and hungry so he decides to attack. Cheater is like "Well screw the dragon, I'll just kill it with my godlike results!" He swings his halbred, his standard solution to everything he can't/doesn't want to mindjack and seduce at this point, and it shatters.

... cue the session grinding to a halt and him whining about it for 45 minutes and begging the DM to "reset" the game to before waking it up because this wasn't fair and he was going to die. Not like he had any hints, like the DM telling him "... this thing will eat you, and you won't be able to fight back against it at all..." point blank for a few hours.

In the end it's decided to let the Cheater escape Dragony Death by running away. So now this "Empire" he wants to claim is: In the hands of Rebels with popular support and holy paladins (How he never figured that him, looking to demons for answers and power, to use against Holy Paladins that the people like, is actually an Evil Villain I won't ever really understand). Is being invaded by a legion of demons on a rampage. Is also being snacked on by an Ancient Dragon who is hungry as hell that no one can stop.

His solution? Well this time he's going to summon up something we BARELY put down as a team. With Artifact help, and NPC help. The "Demon Prince Zanarack" or something, the Demon Prince of Indiscriminate Slaughter and Bloodshed basically. Because it clearly will follow his orders. Despite trying to kill us all last time we saw it, and the fact that he helped banish it last time and it might not like him.

.... suffice to say it doesn't listen to him. So now there's Rebel Paladin Orders, Demons, Ancient Dragon, and Fully Manifested Demon Prince gaining even more power off of all the killing rampaging through what is quickly becoming the ruins of his birthright empire.

In the end I lead my army of the Willing to free the Empire of, well... everything trying to kill it. Culminating in a showdown with the Player in question. The DM was kind of burnt out at this point so we didn't get the full conflict, nor did I get to use my full plan of Screwing him. It ended up in the first session that everyone gathered for in about 6 months, including a player who had quit due to the Cheater Bullshit earlier (Not the Assassin Archer, a later one). It got abstracted out as a couple of dice rolls and him telling us the result (I'm convinced if I had more narrative control I probably would have done better than losing 40% of my army, but not that much better as the dice hated me). In the end his latest Harem Minion got killed, and he got badly damaged, and was given a choice, Death or Exile (I probably wouldn't have given him the choice, just gimped him as hard as I could, Anti-Magic everything, and throw him in the equivalent of Fantasy Supermax Prison where he'd live the rest of his life unable to seduction roll anyone or possibly pass onto some neat afterlife until long after he had withered, maybe gone insane, or had a chance to even repent and ask his Goddess for forgiveness...then again I was playing an evil character and was in an Evil Righteous Rage at the time). He chose exile. It was revealed to him that basically he was the "Villain" at least as everyone thought of it. And that I had successfully united a continent that had known almost nothing but constant strife and warfare between the various kingdoms at one point or another into a peaceful coalition... with the Princess (And myself as her husband) at the head of, making them unite to fight the great Evil that was his character, and learn to cooperate and understand each other a bit better by having people of different creeds, nationalities, etc, working side by side for a common goal. 

... this made him cry. Legit cry, as all of the Crimes he had been accused of were listed off. He whined that I "pulled a Watchmen" on him by uniting the world against a made up villain, that he'd get revenge against me someday (Still hasn't happened), and even told me that he didn't think we could ever play RPGs together again.

... but scariest of all?  He couldn't understand how I could have accused his character of Rape. I explained that if you're using Magic to "Seduce" a women so she can't say no, and has to do what you say, and you use that power to have sex with her... yeah, that'd be rape. Which only got responses of "NO! That was SEDUCTION!"...

...

...

...

It scares me to this day thinking he's still running around in life with that attitude.

To be honest, it was a fun game. Lots of neat little bits. It was of course due to the actions of the Cheater (And me just rolling with the punches, including partnering up with a Succubus Queen) a very sexual game. As long as I wasn't dealing directly with the Cheater, and his later admitted attitude of "... well yeah I'm the hero." "What about everyone else?" "Well you're just my sidekicks." bit that added a lot of unneeded hate and tension, I had a lot of fun with it. A lot of it is still memorable. Great NPCs, good setting with nice details, it wasn't trying too hard to be clever like is often the problem with homebrewed settings. But a great DM who was willing to realize when the assigned plot he had needed to be dropped to deal with the sandbox elements and plotline of dealing with the out of control evil player, etc. Always willing to let us try stuff and derails things to go see what we wanted to see.

... also it was one of my favorite times playing an "Evil" character. In part because when the end came and I revealed I had intended to put down my "teammate" like a Rabid Dog everyone at the last session quite literally had their O_o faces going. I had seemed so "Heroic" up to that point. I risked my life to protect allies. I built a coalition based on peace and cooperation, I actually treated the NPCs with respect and helped them, I was the divine chosen servant of a Good Aligned Goddess... People had forgotten I was Lawful Evil, and thought me Lawful Good. I had told everyone first session when they asked that I was Lawful Evil. And with the caveat of "Well he's a team player, he's lawful. He's not going to backstab anyone just over trinkets or something, he values teamwork, loyalty, and honesty, etc" (Really the Evil part was just a reason for me to indulge in the chance to scheme and possibly seize power, if I was Lawful Good, or even Neutral, that usually means a level of humility that would prevent me from becoming "king by my own hand", more or less, and I wanted that story of the vagabond bard who does things that might be a bit brutal, definitely not "good" all the time, and ends up in that Conan-esque style of a leader.... who then maybe realizes he never wanted it and his grand epilogue is walking off into the sunset to do what he really liked, building up Heroes and Villains, manipulating but not ruling). I had to reveal to them my character sheet, printed off as it was on Level 1 which did say "Alignment: Lawful Evil" just to remind them. I did good things... but I also seized power. I didn't fuck the world over, but I ended up building a titanic, continent spanning empire where I was effectively it's ruler, based on my own "twisted" morality of things like Punishment Fitting the Crime (I abolished in those areas that had it the "All crimes are death" sort of nonsense as he saw it), the idea of bloodline establishing position in society but instead being based on Experience and Aptitude (So yes, screwed my own children so they didn't get to be Emperor when I kicked the bucket, also meant they had no reason to assassinate me, and he didn't have too much concern about what happened to an Empire possibly quibbling after he was gone about who was the best replacement, he had what he wanted in making the memorable story of the Empire's rise to power), and so on. But always with the sticking price of absolute Law and Order, and my character controlling it from the shadows, until he grew tired of it and wanted to move onto the next great adventure story (As technically/legally the true ruler was the Princess I had married, I had no real "power" over her other than the fact that she respected my character and our shared love).

I'm told that the Cheater eventually begged the DM for another campaign sequel where he tries to come back from Exile to "bring [my character] to justice for his crimes". But the DM had enough of his shit and made him use different dice. Considering his entire build was based on him just rolling out 900s or something on the dice, he was wholly ineffective now that his level 5 character had to deal with his only 20 ranks in dodge or something actually mattering. He couldn't even handle NPCs meant for second level characters. And thus quit his "revenge" campaign because his character was "nerfed" into uselessness.