Characters from Different RPG Systems Try To Lift A Rock
OD&D: If you're strong enough, you lift the rock.
D&D 3.x: If you're strong enough, you lift the rock. If you like lifting rocks, you should check out this new prestige class based around rock-lifting.
D&D 4: All classes can lift the rock. They just do it differently.
Rolemaster: Roll to lift the rock. Now roll on the "rock lifting fumble table." Your arms fall off and bone shards impale two of your friends.
GURPS: Calculate the weight of the rock, your carrying capacity, your own weight, and the modifiers for terrain. Then roll to lift the rock.
Vampire: Roll to lift the rock. If you botch, you drop it on your foot and betray to the world the travesty of humanity you've become.
Mouseguard: It's not whether you lift the rock; it's what you lift the rock for.
Fate: If you're strong enough, you lift the rock. If you're not, maybe the rock killed your parents or saved your life. Spend a fate point and lift the rock.
Mutants & Masterminds: If you're strong enough, you lift the rock. If not, use a power to lift the rock. Any power. Fish telepathy, maybe. Go crazy.
Car Wars: Lifting a rock would entail getting out of your car. Don't do that.
Apocalypse World: Roll Under Fire to lift the rock. If you fail, Spacedog and his gang shoot you in the face.
Smallville: How much do you love the person trapped under the rock? Do you also love justice? Roll both those things to lift the rock.
Leverage: Roll to lift the rock. You succeed. But you rolled low, now Carmichael's men are coming to investigate!
Lady Blackbird: How badly do you want to lift the rock? Roll that. If you succeed, play out an emotional scene with the rock to get your dice back.
Nobilis: You lift the rock and reveal the gaping maw that is the darkness beneath the universe. It takes your shadow from you, and you understand that nobody has ever loved you like your shadow loved you, but it is too late. A thing lifted can never be put down again.
Danger Patrol: Do you want to lift the rock? Or do you want to lift a rock... in space? While it's on fire? And monkeybots are trying to pull off your head? And you're soaked in rocket fuel? Is that enough DANGER FOR YOU??
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Legend of the Five Rings - Bent down to lift rock, rough and gray in crystal beauty, you don't notice death.
Exalted - Before you can lift the rock, you have to go on RPGnet and discuss the best Charm build so that you're doing it right. Then you realize the mechanics are all broken. You eventually give up and move on to other things, but damn was that rock pretty.
Cthulhutech - The rock tries to rape you. It's all brutal and dark and scary. You can't do anything about it.
Paranoia - The other members of your team shoot you for trying to engage in unassigned activities with the property of the Computer.
HERO Games (4ed) - Multislot: Rock - (5 points) * +1d6 HA (m10 points), 1d6 EB (m10 points). You go and check if your math is right, but give up.
FATE - You demand your GM give you a Fate Point for acting on an Aspect's compel that requires you to pick up that rock!
Rifts - You bend over to pick up the rock. The rock is made of MDC material! You throw it through at a barn. The barn collapses. You sell broken fragments of MDC road asphalt as weapons of mass destruction.
Mage the Ascension - You pick up a rock. Were there witnesses? Were they Sleepers? The implications of each option boggle your mind.
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay - You pick up a rock. You develop horrible mutations and an urge to worship the daemons whispering in your head. Maybe the events are related; it's hard to say.
Eclipse Phase: Just because I look like a rock doesn't mean I don't have perfectly human desires such as not being lifted unless I ask. I mean, really.
Leverage: We'd arranged for that rock to be lifted three days ago. The timing was perfect.
Runequest - Calculate the Size of the rock. Roll your STR vs the rock's SIZE on the resistance table. If you succeed you lift the rock. If you fail, roll again and hope to roll lower this time.
Call of Cthulhu - Calculate the Size of the rock. Roll your STR vs the rock's SIZE on the resistance table. If you succeed you lift the rock and are now able to see the blasphemous, indescribable, writhing, squirming, squamous horror that lies beneath the rock. Roll D100 versus your current Sanity. If you succeed lose 1 point of sanity. If you fail, lose 1D10 points of sanity. Now see if you have gone temporarily insane.
Teenagers From Outer Space: You lift the rock, only to find out that the rock is actually a peculiar-shaped alien from Epsilon Delta and now everyone thinks you two are dating.
Magic The Gathering: Tap rock to add 2 red mana to your mana pool.
Shadowrun: Spend two hours with your team planning who will lift the rock and who will provide cover fire. Once the rock is engaged it turns out you underestimated its mass and the plan falls apart, so you just struggle and kick your way through. When you report your sloppy but successful execution of the mission to Mr Johnson, he fucks you over.
Fighting Fantasy: You lift the rock. Test your Luck. If you are unlucky, it falls and crushes you to the ground. Your quest ends here.
Werewolf the Apocalypse: Perform the minor rite of Begging Forgiveness of the Rock-Spirit, shift to Crinos, throw rock at a formori.
The One Ring: You pick up the rock and become Weary. If you throw the rock away you can get some fatigue points back.
Dark Heresy - You pick up a rock. You develop horrible mutations and an urge to worship the daemons whispering in your head. Maybe the events are related; it's hard to say. You have cyberware.
Rogue Trader - You pick up a rock. You develop horrible mutations and an urge to worship the daemons whispering in your head. Maybe the events are related; it's hard to say. You have cyberware and a spaceship.
Deathwatch - You pick up a rock. Your faith in the Emperor keeps you pure.
Ars Magica - You pick up a rock. 187 years ago, this rock was a stone in the Covenant of your teacher. Let's explore the magical history this rock has seen.
GURPS - Divide the weight of the rock by your Basic Lift to determine how many hands and how much time you need to lift the rock. If it's too heavy you could try rolling for Extra Effort.
Kult - You have a rock. God hates you.
Wushu: Describe how awesomely you picked up that rock.
Trail of Cthulhu - You automatically pick up the rock because there is a clue underneath. You make a 1-Point Geology spend to realize the rock is a part of the world and part of something so much larger and more important than your pitiful human scale. Your mind shatters and you run gibbering down the streets of Massachusetts.
Apocalypse World - Go on. Have sex with the rock. You know you want to.
Rolemaster: Roll to lift the rock. Now roll on the "rock lifting fumble table." Your arms fall off and bone shards impale two of your friends.
GURPS: You have No Manipulators and zero Strength, as you are a muffin. You carefully place your delicious, blueberry-studded body on the ground and turn your concentration to lifting the rock with your Telekinesis instead.
Hero: You can lift it once. After that you have to spend points on it.
Pendragon: You'll have an easier time lifting the rock if your Lord wants you to do it, or if you're planning to use it to brain a Saxon.
Changeling: the Lost: Pick up the Rock. Check for Clarity loss for changing your environment.
Toon: Picking up the rock is probably easy. What's really neat is that if you're sufficiently stupid, you can let go of it without putting it down.
3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars : You pick up the rock. After the mission, other players try to get you demoted for doing something other than just killing bugs.
Dragonlance - The Fifth Age (SAGA) : You pick up the rock and curse the Narrator for not making an action out of it so you can weasel your way out of a crummy card in your hand.
Paranoia: That rock is above your clearance level, citizen! Your teammates kill you when you lift it anyway.
Fireborn: shift points from Earth, Air and Water into your Fire aspect so you have the best chance to lift the rock. Hmm, this rock reminds you of another one, one you saw back when Atlantis was being built and you had wings and scales and could breathe fire. Roll your Fire aspect again to see if you lifted it back then, too.
Feng Shui : You pick up your signature weapon rock from a now displaced 1990's timeline, it provides +2 AV so you can take out an extra transformed animal ninja Mook who is attacking you. Then you have to dive away from the explosion as the cyborg demon who killed your master blows up the noodle Shop that was your Feng Shui site...
Munchkin: You're level 9, and the Harmless Rock is level 1, so before you can lift it there's a flurry of cards and now you've just been killed by a Radioactive Humungous Harmless Rock From Hell which is the Last Of Its Kind (with help from its Clone, its Evil Twin and an assortment of Wandering Monsters).
Promethean: The Created - You lift the rock and become human.
Savage Worlds (non-wildcard): You try and lift it, if you are built for strength you lift it, if not you just look silly and probably end up shaken due to the embarrassment.
Savage Worlds (Wildcard): You try to lift it despite your weakling stats, you fail but fate suddenly smiles on you as you spend a benny, ace your wildcard die, ace again, ace again and somehow lift the 1 ton rock clear over your head.
Dark Heresy: You investigate the rock and realise it's probably covering the entrance to the cult hideout, so you arrange things such that the strongest man in the hive will be passing and owes you a favour (+20%), you have a huge lever nearby (+10%), Wedges to bang into the hole as you go (+10%) and finally start dosing steroids (Unnatural strength trait). Then you lift the rock easily. People insist on telling you that you are too weak to lift the rock while you juggle it.
Rogue Trader: You are certain that the rock is worth money. You begin an endeavour to corner the trade in system for Cargo Servitors, which you do by cunning, talent, and ruthlessness. You bribe several officials to allow you to lift the rock in peace, and intimidate the local ecclesiarchy into giving up their claim that the rock is holy. Finally you requisition a reaver titan using your connection to the mechanicus, which lifts it up and puts it in your bulk lander, which you fly to your enormous ship, and then have 2000 crewmen drag it with ropes to the cargo hold. Whereupon you forget why you want it and begin to wonder if you could steal the titan....
DeathWatch: You pick the rock up, hurl it at a horde of twenty men , and kill 14 of them through sheer unadulterated Awesome.
Vampire: You must lift the rock unwillingly, lest your inner Beast drive you to become the kind of person who lifts rocks by choice. You must lift the rock in secret, lest a human see you lifting the rock and recognize in you the curse God set on Caine. You must lift the rock in darkness for you are no longer such a creature as can tolerate the sun.
Gamma World: You overcharge your Rock-lifting Tentacle Alpha power and fail the check. Your friends around you are beaten to death by crazed tentacles. Ten minutes later your newly generated party is fighting space monkeys on the moon.
Scion: If you can lift the rock, it means you focused on Strength instead of Dexterity, so nobody views you as a threat anyway.
Fiasco: You lift the rock. Half an hour later, you're bleeding to death on the streets of Shanghai, dressed in a stolen airline pilot's uniform and wondering where it all went wrong.
AD&D 1e/2e: Either make a simple Strength check (roll under Str on a D20)
or
Make a bend bars/lift gates roll.
or
Make a Lift Rocks NWP roll.
or
DM says, yeah you've got enough Strength to lift a rock of that size
or
RP it out, borrowing the Mage's quarterstaff to use as a lever, drawing on your Fighter's military engineering background to determine where to put the fulcrum, etc.
or
DM by fiat rules the rock unmoveable.
Carp endlessly on the internet about how the lack of rock moving rules tends to end up favoring the last option.
Pokethulu: You summon your greatest thulu to lift the rock while the adults watch and go insane.
Pathfinder: "Lifting the rock" An exiting adventure path in six parts taking the characters from level 1-17, wherein the adventurers must find out a way to lift the rock, then locate the rock and use what they have learned to finally overcome the epic challenge of lifting the rock.
Rogue trader: First you must defeat all the orks living inside the rock, then blast it into tiny pieces with your nova cannon and have your cargo haulers lift the pieces.
Reign: Roll Territory + Sovereignty to move every rock in all of your lands into those of Neighborland. GM justifies it by reminding you that you have a ton of land but people are getting tired of your insane demands.
Jovian Chronicles: You match velocity and vector with the rock. After attaching your exoarmor to it, you expend some reaction mass to alter it's vector, reversing it. Then the Venusian bank steals it.
Deadlands: The rock is glowing green, shaped like a skull, and emits a sound like the screaming of a thousand damned souls. You later sell it to the local mining office for a tidy sum. They light it on fire and use it to power a robot.
Blue Planet: The rock is underwater, so you hire a freelance Orca to haul it to the surface for you. It turns out it's a sting operation though, and the GEO arrests you for illegal prospecting activity.
Dragon Age: You life the rock. A Grey Warden corners you for investigation into your rock lifting prowess and possible taint of magic... you toss 3d6 to hit and earn some wondrous stunt points... spent on dropping the rock on the GW's foot, so you can disappear.
Munckin RPG: If you defat the rock, it's lifted.
D&D 3e: Normally the beefy fighter would lift the rock, but the druid can wildshape into bear and do it better then him.
Promethean the Created: You pick up the rock. Roll your Azoth pool to see if the rock hates you. It doesn't yet, but it's only a matter of time. Best abandon it now before things progress as they always do.
You want to lift the rock, because that would make sense, but first you have to investigate it's connections to Shadowlaw first, but your investigative skills suck, because you designed your character to be physical, because that's what you expected out of a Street Fighter game, and who's bright idea was it to make a storytelling/ roleplaying focused rpg out of an arcade fighting game, anyway?
TORG: You are a Storm Knight from the Cyberpapacy attempting to pick up a rock that's in the Living Lands. Due to the fact that both of your arms are cybered, you must roll versus Reality. You fail the roll thus disconnecting from the Cosm, making both of your arms stop functioning. You spend a Possibility and re-connect. Later in the game, you draw a card from the Drama Deck and realize that the rock turned out to be your Nemesis and you will face it again in the future.
Hunter the Vigil: You and the rest of your team-mates use a coordinated Tactic to attempt to move the rock. Unfortunately the rock resists with it's Dread Powers of Giant Size, Strange Form and Crushing Blow. In the end the rock is moved but your best friend is dead.
Hunter: the Vigil: Your cell has been watching this rock for weeks. You're pretty sure that it's some sort of terrible monster. If you work together and employ some tactics you just might lift that bugger and save the block from its stony threat. Sadly, Steve lost his job after skipping work for two days to stake out the rock.
Changeling: the Lost: Is that rock a clever trap by your Keeper? Maybe. But I didn't fight my way though dozens of her minions and the Hedge itself to run away from some rock. Me and my Ogre buddy are gonna pick it up and fling it right back into my Keepers domain!
Werewolf: the Forsaken: This rock spirit has clearly overstepped its bounds. Rocks exist to be moved. Me and my pack are gonna shift that rock good. Then we'll dump it in that neighboring pack's territory, just to show them who's boss.
Geist: the Sin Eaters: Whoa! This was the rock that was used to kill Flubby McCrooner, the famous third-rate lounge singer. I'll just use one of my awesome powers to lift it up and then forge it into an item that'll help me sing show tunes. What's that, terrible entity who kept me from dying? I should instead use it to bludgeon several Shringers to death? Screw you, I already got you doughnuts!
Shadowrun 4th: Does anyone know why the Johnson hired us to lift this rock? Ah, I see. The rock is really a fake hiding spot for a key to a hidden cache of incriminating evidence. Here's the plan, then. We'll lift the rock, copy the key, and then deliver it to the Johnson. But only after we've cleaned out the place ahead of time. Because I really could use the cash to fix this 'ware, and I know Wizzer there needs some new lodge supplies...
Mutants and Masterminds: I don't feel like looking at the Time and Progression table to figure out how much damage the rock is gonna do. Just use your Strength modifier and wing it. Hell, for a Hero Point I'll even give it the Penetrating extra. Natural 20?! Well, hot damn, Galactus goes down like a chump!
REIGN: Lifting rock require a company of might 4 or higher. Raising a team/morale ain't gonna be easy.
