BeyondReach

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ah but thats why I said "make it optional".

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If you make it optional, who would opt in? There's no benifit to opting in, so why would you? Either make it so you got no choice or make some pretty big incentive for opting in.

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Please remember to read the whole post.

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yes, make xp debt worse for everyone but also make an opt-in system where players suffer worse penalties for defeats and as is only fair, also gain better reward for the risk.

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and in an earlier post made my the same person:

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in return they gain more inf / gain slightly better rewards etc. (shiney badges anyone? Hardcore Hero or Victorious Villain.... )

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Onto my personal opinion on this matter, my highest level character is currently Level 30, so I don't know exactly how high debt rises when you say reach Level 50, but at the moment, when I die I get about 4000 XP Debt, and thus I would be very happy to have it doubled. 4000 debt is like 4-6 enemies. Which is ridiculously low.

On my character, I'm not sure whether it's because I'm a bad player, or whether I've got a bad build, but I die a lot on Villainous, which I've never rose above solo. Less than I used to, but I still die quite a bit, and I rely on Insps to survive.

Even though this is true, I'd be happy to double the xp debt. Remove patrol xp as well, as it does make xp debt pretty much pointless. If you get debt you just log out and play an alt for a bit then log back in and see your debt disappear. On an inf loss...I don't know. The best MMO I ever played had a non-lootable corpse system, as well as xp debt called vitae, where when you died you lost a certain percentage of your cash, and a selection of your items, but you could get it back by going to your corpse withina specified time based on your level and looting it, collecting the things you lost. Obviously as this is not an inventory-based game I don't know exactly how it would work, but I thought it was a very appropriate system for that game.

The biggest flaw of CoX is it's lack of a plot. Game improvements and tweaks are not enough to fill an issue. Neither are standalone TFs. Especially for something that has perhaps the worst upgrade/month out of any game except WoW. CoX needs to advance the story in every issue. I'm fine if they still adopt their random, "sometimes it will be one every six months, sometimes one a month" attitude, as long as they do everything they should be doing in every issue.

Asheron's Call, best MMO of all time, why was it so great? Because the plot never stopped evolving, and it still is evolving. It doesn't matter if there's barely anyone playing it anymore or that it's graphics are almost a decade old I still love it with a passion. It's plot is the greatest is I have ever seen, in anything.

CoX needs plot! Going Rogue will be meaningless if they don't advance the plot of Going Rogue in each successive issue, AND include factions from Primal Earth and not just Praetorian Earth. Not to mention in the issues leading up to GR - if there are any - make missions that drop hints to the oncoming invasion of Emperor Cole. Then, you would be one step closer to encroaching on the block-pixeled majesty of Asheron's Call.

((I assume by scent that means you can smell me, in that case, I guess I can only wait for you guys to show your faces ))

Hehe, too many games to count have a mercenary system. It's not as if Guild Wars came up with it first. City of Heroes would not get sued.

Happened yesterday as well around three or four. Lag wasn't so bad out of cities so I pulled through and it cleared in about an hour. Haven't been onto the game yet this morning, I sincerely hope the uber lag isn't back *crosses fingers*

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Rikti aren't Lost. They just aren't.

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Correct!
Lost are the inbetween state between human and rikti

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Well, actually THE Lost are Rikti, we just call the shift-affected humanoids The Lost, even though aren't. But the enemy group called The Lost aren't the enemy group called Rikti, so you can't say that 30+ Lost are Rikti. Because they just aren't.

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THE LOST. Lost are the awesomest. They kill my Dominator sooooooooooooo much. ALL of my characters have an origin that have at least something to do with the Lost. I'm mourning for their departure however, as my Dominator nears 30, I regret I didn't understand how awesome they were earlier, and fought them more.

ME WANT LEVEL 30+ LOST.

Oh, also I think the Clockwork are really cool. They just don't kill me as much.

[/ QUOTE ] My Omega level clearance prevents me saying any more Rikti

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Rikti aren't Lost. They just aren't.

THE LOST. Lost are the awesomest. They kill my Dominator sooooooooooooo much. ALL of my characters have an origin that have at least something to do with the Lost. I'm mourning for their departure however, as my Dominator nears 30, I regret I didn't understand how awesome they were earlier, and fought them more.

ME WANT LEVEL 30+ LOST.

Oh, also I think the Clockwork are really cool. They just don't kill me as much.

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basic bio and power set(s) is on his handbook page ..

as far as this IC shapechanging i play that he can change his face and basic body shape , basically any human male or huge slider shape ...so he ranged from beast like to ghoul like to human like to human ....

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Ah, that's a good idea. I could just use their handbook page if they have one. But, I can't really remember all those that were there (sorry, notoriously bad memory). So far I've got these down, and I'd appreciate if anyone could complete this list for me. (I'm ignoring the Corporation as I'm pretty sure they said they weren't getting involved other than supplying the explosives).

Blood Ghoul
Dr Mechano
Pistol
Tomb
Kallandra
Marie Leveau
God Killer
Wintertron

Also, I'd appreciate any recommendations of what to do for enemy groups.

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You wont need Blood Ghoul's cossie file he is a shapechanger and IC will make a new look for any crime this noteworthy

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So I should just make something up? How far does his shapechanging stretch to? Also, I will still need a short bio and his powersets.

Hey guys, another reminder that I need all your costume files, short bios and powersets in order for me to makie this mission. In order to obtain your costume files you'll need to save your costume in any costume creator, and then send that file to me at Zien(at)hotmail.co.uk. Otherwise, I either won't be able to make the mission at all, or I will make it and try to replicate their costume and guess your powersets from vague memory :P I'd really like to get started as soon as possible, so send me the information A.S.A.P.

A parcel somehow managed to find itself on the doorstep of the Blackhail base. Which was rather interesting considering Blackhail didn't have a doorstep, well on the outside it didn't. However, unfortunately there would be no one to open it for a considerable length of time. Beyond Reach had left the Rogue Isles suddenly several weeks ago and had not yet returned, Ambivalent Ecstasy and his daemon servant Nadeth had taken a trip to Cimerora while all the other members were yet to discover how to get into the base. It appeared as though Beyond Reach would live up to his name for the time being.

((I don't know what your character's definition of a murderer is, so I'll just say he caught it psychically whether it was coming to him or not))

The figure hovered slowly out of the fracture in the earth, and turned intending to head down the alleyway and out into the street, but suddenly paused as a psychic message bounded over the city. It spread out quite fast over the entire city so it wasn't too hard for him to psychically catch and extract it. As smirk curved across his face as he listened to it.

"Empaths..." He muttered. "Their deaths are so sweet...It's been too long..." He suddenly shot up into the air, crackling with psychic energy. Staring out over to the police-cordoned area, he saw there was quite a large number of heroes. A smaller group of them were currently heading to the sewers but, "...Still too many." He sighed with annoyance, hovering back down towards the earth and heading to one of the higher rent districts of Skyway.

* * *

James Howard walked casually down the street of Aerie Plaza, heading to Big John's Cafe and Diner. He stood about six feet two and had nicely-cut, dark brown hair, not too short and not too long. He wore a white shirt with sleeves rolled up high and the tails hanging out of his black trousers, which obscured his regular black shoes. Sticking out of the left pocket of his trousers was a light blue tie, while on the other side he held a worn, dark-green, thigh-length coat in his right hand, dragging it carelessly along the pavement with him.

Stepping through the door of the diner he called out to the waitress behind the counter casually, "Hey Joan, how's life treatin' ya?" He quickly dropped into a nearby seat. She rolled her eyes, walking towards him, taking a notepad and pen with her. "I'm working as a waitress in a diner, howdya think?" He had no response. "So, what'll it be?"

"Burger and fries, heavy on the fries." She took it down, heading back behind the counter. "Don't they ever smell the grease on you up in that big office of yours?"
"They probably do, but I'm too good at my job for them to make a big deal out of it," he said unmodestly, with a big stupid grin.

The appearance of the coat on the back of his chair was uncanny, and yet this mysterious figure seemed every bit James Howard, the office worker who gorges himself on greasy food well below his price-range. In fact, if you were to read his mind you would probably just hear undignified thoughts about the waitress behind the counter. However, deep inside there was still that barely audible whisper. Every psychic should breath a heavy sigh of relief as I'm taking a short break to think up a plan of action.

((Thanks for the compliment Infinitron, glad you're enjoying it, and Beyond Reach could always use another hero to contend with :P Maybe your character could drop by after all the corpses are moved

Alpha, I'm not sure how Pious wants to go with this, but this is the very beginning of the RP, so you might not want to locate me too soon I mean, you haven't even gotten any forensics or anything on the killings. Maybe I made a mistake getting too close to the crime scene, but I thought that fleeing town at the first sign of trouble might make it a bit boring :P

Maybe you should change it so you sensed all that you've described except that you have any idea where exactly this happened. You could say that you can sense that it's closer than the last death, but beyond that you have no idea.))

People farm on MA now? MA is a good way to get Level 50 quick? How's that?

I got blind invited into an MA farming team once (I didn't knwo it was MA farming, I left after we finished the mission) and I can't understand how people can farm it after the nerfs. The xp was nothing extraordinary, and you don't get xp for completing the mission. Now I cannot understand how someone could powerlevel on it. I play at a VERY slow and leisurely pace, and I think that in that mission, I think I had the worst xp/hour ratio I have ever had before (excluding times when I've racked up a bajillion debt, because I was still getting xp, I just wasn't taking all of it).

Could someone explain to me how this could possibly be farmed after the nerfs?

The dark, hooded figure floated majestically through the open hotel window in the empty next room. Just as he cleared the boundary of the building, he winced painfully, almost losing concentration and falling out of the sky. His head darted around sharply several times, as it had before he found his last victim. The figure floated in the air, clearly focusing hard. After a moment he muttered something about heroes and psychic pressure.

The faceless killer levitated even higher into the clouds, the altitude starting to make the rise considerably more difficult, but in this position he could survey almost all of Skyway City, with no intervening obstacles to stop him. Placing two of his long fingers, protruding from grey fingerless gloves on his temple, his head began to dart about randomly again until it focused on a single neighbourhood in the depths of the city. He sighed. "They've found them. I won't have long."

His eyes turned slowly towards the Yellow Line monorail at the edge of the city. After staring in that direction for several moments he shook his head, and began hovering down towards the southern end of the city, and the Land of the Lost.

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"It worked!" The sewer floor vibrated as the massive hulk of a mutate of The Lost bounded towards the Anathema walking casually along the sewer floor, oddly near the surface. Jets of sunlight shot through grates barely a few feet above it's head. "What!?" The hulk of psychic power was obviously in a very bad mood, swinging his Rikti sword against the concrete walls as he walked along. The mutate was oblivious to this.
"We surfaced them! The bodies he dumped, they're out in the open!"

The Anathema stopped in it's tracks, before slowly turning round. The expression, even on his mutated face was unmistakble. He was in a bad mood, and someone had just told him some really good news, but he was too stubborn to let it change his demeanour. "What? How!?"
"One of the scroungers, he used to be a sewer maintenance guy, he pulled some levers and stuff and boom! Water starts gushing out of the pool he dumped them in, and up onto the surface! Capes are getting involved now."

The Anathema was motionless, as if frozen in time. The Mutate took a couple of seconds to notice and started hovering in and out of his sight, but the giant didn't even blink. "Hello?" Suddenly he shook as if waking up and took in a deep breath. "He's nearby. The *******'s nearby!"
"What, THE guy!?" The Anathema didn't waste time responding, he run to this nearest manhole cover, leapt into the air and smashed it out of the ground, before climbing up himself.

There, at the end of the alleyway was the figure the lucky survivors had seen brutally murdering their brothers. He had a special taste for Anathemas for their psychic powers, but among the Lost he would kill any. Despite the ridiculous stories sprouted up about him in the last couple of weeks, the Anathema showed no fear, only unmitigated fury at the man who had brutally murdered so many of the Lost.

There was another gang of Lost only a hundred feet down the alleyway, if he could grab their attention they could swarm the murderer and kill him right here. As the Anathema turned towards them, thinking that the figure had not noticed him, he was about to call over to them when he was struck hard in the side of the head with the manhole cover, before being hit by a crushing force from above, knocking him straight through the ground.

"The Lost, when you think about it, are so very stupid." He muttered as he floated casually down through the hole he had made with the Anathema's body. As soon as the Mutate caught sight of the ominous figure it fled in terror, but was caught, motionless in the air after it's third step, held by a gravity distortion. However, the Anathema was already climbing slowly to it's feet, gripping it's sword tightly. As soon as it was upright it was struck in the chest with a hunk of rubble the villain had torn straight from the wall with telekinetic force.

In a second it was floating straight above the prone figure of the Anathema, and had lightly pressed it's index finger onto it's forehead. But it would not be as fatal as last time, the mental strength of this creature was far superior to a teenage girl who was not only suppressing her psychic power on her own, but also doing it chemically. It managed a wild swing out with it's alien sword, intending to cleave the figure in two.

For a moment he attempted to hold back the strike with telekinetic force, but to no avail, he could only dash out of the way as fast he could, but was still left with a slash across his chest. Looking down at this then back at the Anathema he shot out his hand, and slowly closed it into a fist, stopping the titan in it's tracks momentarily. He breathed in a deep, pleasurable breath as he sapped psychic power from the Anathema, increasing the rate at which his wound began to heal exponentially.

The creature was clearly on it's last legs, managing a blast of mental force before the last of it's face was destroyed by another hunk of rubble. Just as the hooded figure stopped to gloat over his victory he noticed the gravitational distortion was about to collapse over the Mutate, and so quickly dashed over there, opened a tear in space behind it and telekinetically pushed it through. The other side was a hundred and fifty feet in the air at the other end of the city.

I'd appreciate a review of my first real arc when you have the time.

The Black Skull Rebellion
ID: 171881
Description: While the Petrovic Brothers are distracted overseas, a new player among the Skulls is delving the death-cult into even darker depths than usual. What's worse than a violent, drug-dealing, death-worshiping street gang? Are you ready to find out?
Notes: I deliberated a lot whether to make the final boss an Elite Boss or not, and in the end he has ended up as an EB because when testing it i thought he was too easy to defeat for all the hype I created for him in the story. I'd appreciate extra feedback on that subject. I think it is a tough arc to solo even without him, so you may want to bring a team. I did solo it as my Dominator, but I did it very sneakily, and died quite a few times. I did not however solo it against the Elite Boss.

The tall, indistinguishable figure was entirely obscured by the shadows created by the two skyscrapers either side of him, with barely five feet between them. The light of early morning shone lightly but a few inches away from his worn canvas shoes, but he was almost entirely hidden. Suddenly the figure's head angled up sharply as though drawn by an unseen force, and he hovered slightly into the light.

Even in the plain day it was difficult to distinguish anything of him; well, at least his build portrayed a man, but it was difficult to say. He wore a thigh-length, hooded coat of the darkest green and was pulled it closely around his form with the hands he hid in his pockets. Not closed, as it had long ago lost it's buttons. Black jeans appeared almost unnoticed beneath the large coat, leading back down to the same worn canvas shoes. His features, in fact almost all of his skin were hidden; his face obscured by an unnatural blanket of darkness created by the hood.

He sighed deeply after his head was angled upwards towards what looked like a nearby hotel. He muttered something inaudible under his breath before his body began to rise high into the air of it's own accord, heading towards a high hotel window.

* * *

Jean Roads, a small, sixteen year-old, brown-haired girl sat nervously on the bed of her hotel room, biting her nails. She had never been a nail-biter, but there was just something in her mind that told her that this was a situation that required nail-biting. Oddly, her features, her clothes, her demeanour, everything about her screamed someone who didn't belong here. This was true, it was an unusual story that had brought her into a room finer furbished than her old house.

Throughout her childhood she was plagued with painful headaches at contradictory moments that appeared to defy diagnosis. Over the years she had been prescribed numerous painkillers, none of which appeared to have any real effect. The headaches would sprout up sporadically, sometimes one in a month, sometimes four in a day and the pain appeared unaffected by her medication. In fact, it was steadily getting worse.

Three months ago, she had a headache that just wouldn't stop. In the end she had to be placed in a comatose state to halt any serious neurological damage; though in truth, she was still feeling the pain even while in the coma. During this time, a professor from the Institute of Psychic Studies, Paragon City came to visit her.

After endless neurological tests to determine her condition, he concluded that she was causing the pain herself, she was automatically suppressing her latent psychic powers. He prescribed a medication to chemically suppress her psychic powers until she could travel to Skyway City where he and his team could better study her condition and attempt to her stop her natural suppression.

As Jean's thoughts wandered to the events that had brought her here, she was suddenly jogged out of them by a knock on the door. "Who-who is it?' She almost whispered, timidly.
"Hi, I'm Mr. Johnson, manager of this hotel and I've come up to make sure your stay is as enjoyable as possible." His voice was kind and inviting, but his confidence was intimidating to Jean in this strange city.

"N-no thanks, I'm fine." She wasn't quite sure what he had asked, or whether this was the right thing to respond to it, she just wanted him to go away.
"Oh." He paused for a moment and sounded like he was walking away, before he stopped and came back to the door. "Ms. Roads? It's my job to make sure that recently checked-in vistiors are as comfortable as possible, and if you don't let me in, I wouldn't be doing my job right now would I?" It was if there was meter labled "Kindness" and he had mechanically turned it all the way up to the edge.

"Oh...alright." She got the feeling he wasn't going to take no for an answer, so she just hoped that he'd be in and out as soon as possible. Carefully, she unlocked the door and opened it. Standing there was the dark, imposing hooded figure, although what was reflected in her eyes was a balding middle-aged man in a bright-red uniform.

He walked in briskly, causing her have to dash out of his path. He looked carefully around the room. "Hm, yes everything looks in order. If you need anything, just call down to-" As he turned round, completing the act that he so very enjoyed, he saw the image he had projected into her mind falter for a second.

"Wait- where did-" He knew she was going to work it out any second and with a subtle raise of his hand, slammed the door shut and met her eyes, pouring psychic force into her mind. As she attempted to cry for help he formed a telekinetic grip around her throat.

Suddenly, and even more surprisingly she fought back psychically against him, and with some considerable force. Getting frustrated he telekinetically pulled him towards and lightly pressed his right index finger onto her forehead. She was unable to scream as he invaded her mind forcefully. Within seconds the system-shock overload had killed her.

Breathing heavily, he surveyed his work. "Too short...too short..." He muttered before levitating her body over to her bed and placing it under the covers as if she was asleep. "There's always next time." He muttered as he exited the room and quickly the hotel.

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Sorry for hi-jacking your thread Marksmaid, but your questions and The Lost handing my [censored] to me again inspired me to head back into the Mission Editor and try and get my almost finished arc down from it's current position at 104%. While attempting to do that I discovered that I could not remove any of the members I originally entered from my custom group. Could anyone help me with this?

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Are any of them currently in use in another arc/mission of yours? If the problem continues i'ld just do the quick/easy solution of copying the ones you want to another group with the same name.

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They're in an arc in three of my missions, but having the same group in three missions in the same arc shouldn't cause any problems editing them otherwise...it would just be ridiculous :P

Sorry for hi-jacking your thread Marksmaid, but your questions and The Lost handing my [censored] to me again inspired me to head back into the Mission Editor and try and get my almost finished arc down from it's current position at 104%. While attempting to do that I discovered that I could not remove any of the members I originally entered from my custom group. Could anyone help me with this?

1) No, this is not possible, but it definitely should be.

2) If you right click the text you will be given a number of options to add html to the text, which includes entering things like character name, origin, archetype etc. There is no way to fill in correct pronouns as far as I know, so just don't use gender specific pronouns.

3) Yes, you can, but I think it's generally good practice to only use the ones that you can put in by right-clicking the text as the system appears to get fussy even if you just type the text in without actually choosing what you want to put down.

4) Test it as a different character, I think the best practice is to test it with every archetype, but that can be overkill. Just try testing it with the opposite spectrum archetype to your own at the minimum level you can play the mission at.

5) As far as I know you can save as many missions as you want, so save each of your five missions individually for testing purposes. I haven't actually tried this myself however, I think it would work.

6) Just go to the Architect Insp Vendor in between your missions. If you're talking about actually IN the mission, in that case just fill to your brim with inspirations is the best idea you can get.

7) Report the bug. That's about it. I haven't got this myself, but it definitely just sounds like a bug.

8) Haha, I hope that no "MA Etiquette" forms, as etiquette is such a pointless and restricting thing. Do whatever you want. People make arcs about their supergroups and occsaionally their characters all the time. Include whatever characters that you want, just don't BE arrogant. Don't have your character demonstrated as a super-powered Arch-Villain who saves the day and is soooo much stronger than the player.

Seeing as my CoX client just crashed I might as well post this here now, reiterating what I said earlier.

I plan on creating an MA arc based on the events we decided and it may be a recurring weekly thing, depending on how things go. I'd appreciate if all those who took part in the meeting could send me their character's costume files and that Pious sends me Pious Hunter's costume files.

I'd also appreciate any suggestions you all have on how it should play out, considering I am including your characters so you definitely deserve input. This is what I'm thinking at the moment (they will all be timed as they're supposed to take place in extremely fast succesion, so I'm thinking thirty minutes for the first two, an hour for the third)

Mission 1: Paragon City Map, mayhem everywhere as Pistol and others attack the district. I'll probably have the objective be something like defeat the Villains. Not sure how I'm going to be doing that at the moment seeing as I like doing things solo-friendly so I was thinking that I would make Pistol - as the instigator - a boss and the rest of those on this particular job lieutenants, but you can't make an object as kill a Lieutenant, and I don't think I should put defeat all enemies. I'll probably end up doing it as all of you as bosses.

Mission 2: Paragon City Map again, this time you need to defuse the bombs that Dr. Mechano has placed. I'll probably place a number of other villains there as optional objectives with the main objective being to defuse the bombs.

Mission 3: Paragon City Motorway Map. Probably the objectives will be Defeat Dr. Mechano (who may or may not be an Elite Boss, again I'm trying to make it solo-friendly), and maybe Secure the Portal Corp. Transports.

I'd appreciate any recommendations to expand the number of missions perhaps with plots I didn't notice, and also recommendations of what the regular enemies should be. There were several Masterminds there so I could always use a pet-like custom group, not to mention I think someone said they would get some guys from The Family to help.

Finally, could everyone in the meeting post there with the name of their character and background so I can properly represent them in the arc. Also, obviously say whether you are getting involved and which particular job you want to get involved with.

Finally finally, something that I noticed when re-reading through my post, the missions will not be as simple as that, I'll obviously add more to make them entertaining :P That's just the bare bones.

Heading into the game now, probably do a paper mission then head to Pocket D. Send me a tell at Beyond Reach if I'm late.

How do I do that? As in, /what?

You aren't serious right? You're SUPPOSED to take the [censored] out of fantasy. There are TOO many running jokes in my D&D group for me to count. I'll name one for now. My character decided to stop some urchins who were working for this Master Assassin guy from stealing something so I could find out what he was after. Unfortunately, the urchins ran off to get their boss, as soon as I realised what was going on I ran like hell. For the rest of that day I was always looking over my shoulder to see if Grilli (the master assassin) was following me.

And from then on, the other RPers in the group have been randomly shouting things like "OMG GRILLIS BEHIND YOU!" and "OMG THAT NPC IS ACTUALLY GRILLI IN DISGUISE!"

Oh, and my favourite, not so much a running joke but more a tale. In my first ever session of D&D I had rolled up an assassin-type character and my brother had rolled up a paranoid, psychopathic, compulsively-lying noble who claims that he's the Emperor of the Eastern Lands. Anyway, so in our first meeting I refused to show respect to him or acknowledge that he was the Emperor so the next morning he convinced one of the other RPers to lock me in a room so he could kill me. And kill me he did. And chopped my arm off.