[tacticslion]

@synkr0nized: I've also yet to fight a gazebo.

Originally Posted by synkr0nized

@tacticslion Ha. Infiltration of organizations is funny. Does that happen often in games?

Honestly, I've no idea, but oddly I've just realized that most of the last SEVEN GAMES I'VE PLAYED IN I'VE (usually led) TAKEN PART IN THE INFILTRATION OF AN ORGANIZATION. THE HECK?

No seriously:
- my paladin half-elf talked his way into joining an organization trying to waken a stoned (ha) avatar of Hextor;
- my Ranger (the half-giant/drow) talked his way (or rather let someone else talk their way) into being the (false) "ally" of a tiefling who wanted to kill a bunch of people (later she became a party member);
- my red wizard infiltrated a corrupt red wizard tharch's place to replace him (corrupt meaning against Thay itself);
- my sorcerer talked his way into becoming chief advisor for a lizardfolk tribe (hypnotism is your friend; it was run by a black dragon, I'm still waiting to see what happens the first time they meet);
- my wife's shapeshifting telepath telepath has in turns (with a different identity each time) a) taken over a ruthless band of racist half-elves, b) taken over some slave-trading pirates d) made herself into a prominant member of two (very different enemy) houses in the city e) made herself an important member in an enclave of racist elves and f) taken over more than one tribe of orcs and ogres.

Including the 4E campaigns (one of which I described above), that's almost a quarter of my gaming experience - more. I'm pretty sure that's not normal. Honestly, before you asked, I was thinking maybe it wasn't that common, but there you go.

Originally Posted by synkr0nized

I DO know there is a tale of going in this one place, more or less killing everyone, and being mistaken for them later.

I kind of figured most gaming groups would get to this kind of thing eventually, but apparently we do this more than most? I have also realized it might be even more often, but my wife and I generally roll up characters with mad persuasive skills (and/or magical/psionic compulsion skills) and usually go to town with those - effectively we convert our enemies without having to "infiltrate" as such. Being confused for the very people you slaughtered, though? Nice touch.

Originally Posted by synkr0nized

though in fairness I do have a lot of fun sitting around with friends and cracking jokes.

Really that's one of the selling points compared to MMORPGS or other distant 'relationships' - you get to sit around and enjoy people's company (though too much of that can drive a DM to supreme aggrivation, let me tell you from personal experience... not that it caused me to repeatedly kill off most of my players or anything... more than twelve times in that game*.

Originally Posted by synkr0nized

That may be needless background. I don't know how common these kinds of things are

Actually you're right on target. That kind of background info on the characters is good because it sets the stage for us to know what's going on, and presents things clearly to us. Welcome to the thread!

Originally Posted by synkr0nized

-- in a "boss fight" of sorts, deciding it wasn't getting us anywhere as a decent number of the party had taken damage, I charged the guy and took him out the window, fought him a turn or two on the way down, and then floated myself while he splatted.

Ariel battles (and defenstration) are some of the best. One of my players' characters one time teleported an enemy the party had talked to (temporary) non-hostility to the upper edge of a ten-mile high no-teleport zone, proceeded to have a magical duel with her as they plummited, and counterspelled the freak out of her every attempt to get out of there alive, ultimately using flesh-to-stone on her and gust of wind the round before she hit the ground. It was awesome.

Originally Posted by synkr0nized

-- My character generally hating everyone who wasn't him (part of how we set him up and also to give me an excuse to be quiet in-character), so when people did stupid things it was often just assumed that those moments would be when I actually talked in character.

I had a player once, who hated everyone who wasn't him. Does that count as similar?

Originally Posted by synkr0nized

-- A halfling... tiefling? party member got in some kind of racism/millenia-of-hate fight with an NPC when we were walking around this one place that made me think of something like Mos Eisley; instead of helping him, I started taking bets (made a whole lot on that, and impressed a lich somehow by doing so; we later ripped one of the bug guy's arms off, his protests aside, to give to this same lich as part of a deal)

Yeah, there's basically a "halfling-tiefling" race, though I forget what they're called (in the Fiend Folio, I beleive). Basically - hey look, it's an evil halfling race, why not, we've got it for all the others (Dwarves [duergar AND durzagon], elves and half~ [fey'ri, drow {and draegoliths} and half-drow], humans [tieflings], half-orcs [simply full blood], and half-fiends for everything else)!
Also: liches can be fun. One character in a game I was in actually bound a lich to their service forever. Of course, that was annulled shortly thereafter when the lich was raised from the dead, but there you go.

Originally Posted by synkr0nized

-- fought and defeated an enemy toward the end of the thing that was literally a tornado that wielded at least 4 blades

Awesome! I might've seen a similar monster in the MM2 (3rd Edition), but I'm not sure**.

Originally Posted by synkr0nized

-- the same tiefling from above had wild surges, and the player had a 100-sided die (haha wtf) that he used for this. Needless to say, half the time or more when this happened there were pretty amusing results.

I'm afraid I'm not sure what "wild surges" are in your campaign. In mine they're a Wilder class feature that makes such a character limitedly more powerful. Oh! I'm presuming it's something either like a rod of wonder (very random and whimsical crap happens when you push this button) or a wild magic zone (very random and bizzare crap happens when you cast a spell). Yes? That sounds fun. Also: d100? Seriously? Wut. Sounds fun, if aggrevating.

Originally Posted by synkr0nized

I don't remember all of it in much detail and am biased to what I did myself, but I did have some fun. When I think about that game, it almost makes me want to do that again. Of course the other good part was all of the out-of-character conversation and nonsense.

We encourage this sort of behaviour around these parts. And we're all biased to what we did ourselves. You're cool.

Originally Posted by synkr0nized

These kinds of things might be common occurrences in games, so sorry if this is a pretty boring addition to the thread.

Regardless of how "common" such occurences are or aren't, each one is still unique and thus interesting - and yours are certainly both unique and interesting! I, for one, have never traded my bug-ally's arm to a lich (or any of the other things you mentioned)!

ADDENDUM: I spent the last two and a half hours, plus most of an all-nighter on the computer working on a finals project (this post was worked on around the project this morning). So, when I was about to submit reply, imagine my horror when the power went out, crashing the computer. I was ready to SCREAM. I prayed, ate some breakfast, calmed down, and turned the computer back on and: it was saved. ALL of it. Even the stuff on websites that can't be saved (my school website). Even this post. So, yeah. Just thought I'd fyi.

EDIT:
*this campaign was (more than) kind of crazy: I had a 120 year old human sorcerer with a yak familiar, a svirfneblin psion (telepath), a half-giant barbarian, a human swashbuckler, and a very fat human shadow-weave wizard (with a fire genasi phobia and an orgy fetish who was a fanatic of Mystra). Plus there was the guy who showed up as a) a dwarven cleric, b) a human Red Wizard, and c) a human druid, before letting me 'borrow' the Worlds Largest Dungeon and completely dissappearing from the earth. Then there was the guy who was an egomaniac and kept trying to get a TPK when he wasn't the center of attention. This party died more times and effectively were BEST FRIENDS FOREVER with the local druids (in spite of my best efforts to the contrary) so they kept paying for re-incarnations or raise dead spells. More or less a typical session would go:
Me: Hey, everyone, I'm glad you're here, so this is what happened last time we actually played...
Player 1: Oh, hey, did you see that show last night...
Me: Guys, we can talk about that later.
Player 2: Yeah, and what about this movie...
Me: Uh, guys? Can we focus? Hello? Can anyone hear me?
Player 3: Uh-huh, oh such and such gossip...
Me: Guys, I'd like to actually play our game this time!
Player 4: well in my opinion, she suffers from...
{THREE HOURS OF TALKING LATER},
Player 1: Well, I've gotta get back to work. It was fun talking to you guys! Geez, DM, you kind of suck! We never actually play anything in this game.
Me: Three hellfire dragons with max HD spring forth from the Gate that has take THREE FREAKIN' HOURS TO FINISH!
Them: But wait, that doesn't make any sense! We wouldn't just stand there and let them!
Me: Tough! You've been less than 50 yards away for FOUR gaming sessions! None of you have listened to me this entire time. Your entire point of being here, need I remind you, was to stop the cultist who - less than 50 yards away - have been opening this gate this entire time. You sat around and let them. Now deal with it.
They would and would usually proceed to bravely run away, while a few of them die (the living grabbing ashes as they run), blame the problem on someone else in the universe, do a few hit-and-run and get just enough XP to gain the levels they lost plus one.

**Correction: I was thinking of a "RageWind" - a kind of undead made up of a funnel cloud shrapnel/sharp pointy weapons - mixed with a Shrapnyl - a type of Raggamoffyn which is a kind of spontaneous magical "construct" also made of sharp and pointy weapons. Both are in the 3rd Edition MM2. It could have been a multi-limbed invisible stalker, or more likley an ad-hoc rule for a djinn in whirl-wind form, an air elemental, or the DM could have made it up completely. Still, it sounds like a cool idea!