I have been plagued with bad rolls throughout my many years playing tabletop RPGs, and this curse has now followed me into videogames. But in the case of Lightforge Games' collaborative RPG, currently known as Project ORCS, the bad rolls often spawn the most entertaining consequences. Case in point: a botched attempt to thwart an arcane ritual that left my party to deal with an out-of-control lich.
With the scene set, the adventure could begin. Hiding behind a wall and shrouded in darkness, we could see the cultists getting up to no good, but we also clocked a little furry creature, a cubling, who looked like a cross between an ewok and a furby, who was also sporting some nifty goggles. We beckoned him over to have a brief chat , during which he directed our gaze to something near the cultists.
Even with my token, my roll wasn't an unmitigated success. I had to pick another bane. The result was that my attempt to disrupt the ritual and summon the resident of the sarcophagus was only half-done. Enter the lich. Instead of joining our side, this undead nasty decided to side against everyone, murdering one of the wolf pups before bearing down on one of the cultists' skeleton pals.
The battle ended when the lich killed off the final cultist, but we still had a problem: we'd freed a lich, and the blacksmith, who we'd been trying to rescue, was not particularly happy that we'd unleashed this evil upon the world. Another sway attempt was necessary, and thank goodness for my silver tongue. I managed to talk the blacksmith into letting us actually complete the ritual, which would bind the lich to a dagger.