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Ah, the stupid things PCs do...
- Thread starter MerricB
- Start date
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Ouch.
I mean, I can kill characters with the best of 'em, but this is beyond even my talents!
Lan-"where's my character sheets!"-efan
Player stupidity abounds and I'm hard-pressed to think of which is the most stupid I've witnessed.
However, the OP was about CoC and that reminds me of a CoC game in which a female player wowed the GM by deciding that her character was going to stand up on a table in the library of 1920s Miskatonic University wearing a low-cut evening gown and sing "Love Me Tender".
As the player was a great singer, she gave a brilliant rendering.
Not a "stupid" thing, but certainly a memorable CoC moment - given that, in game time, those lyrics would not be penned for around 30 years (though the tune "Aura Lee" would probably be well known at the time).
For stupid - after due consideration - I'll have to go with a Traveller game in which some of the crew of our Free Trader (captained, as it happened, by the same player who sang "Love Me Tender" in CoC) ignored repeated signage saying "No Spacers" and other less grandma-friendly variants of same and wound up in a Miner's Bar. In the midst of the increasing hostility against the ship's landing party from the miners in the bar, one PC (whom I shall not identify as I'm still acutely embarrassed by the incident) decided to "defuse" the situation by discharging a shotgun into the air and shouting "All right, just calm down!"
And that, Your Honour, is when the brawl started.
We ended up having to phone the police ourselves and get ourselves arrested just to get out of the bar alive. We were fined and kicked off the planet under threat of imprisonment if we returned.
However, the OP was about CoC and that reminds me of a CoC game in which a female player wowed the GM by deciding that her character was going to stand up on a table in the library of 1920s Miskatonic University wearing a low-cut evening gown and sing "Love Me Tender".
As the player was a great singer, she gave a brilliant rendering.
Not a "stupid" thing, but certainly a memorable CoC moment - given that, in game time, those lyrics would not be penned for around 30 years (though the tune "Aura Lee" would probably be well known at the time).
For stupid - after due consideration - I'll have to go with a Traveller game in which some of the crew of our Free Trader (captained, as it happened, by the same player who sang "Love Me Tender" in CoC) ignored repeated signage saying "No Spacers" and other less grandma-friendly variants of same and wound up in a Miner's Bar. In the midst of the increasing hostility against the ship's landing party from the miners in the bar, one PC (whom I shall not identify as I'm still acutely embarrassed by the incident) decided to "defuse" the situation by discharging a shotgun into the air and shouting "All right, just calm down!"
And that, Your Honour, is when the brawl started.
We ended up having to phone the police ourselves and get ourselves arrested just to get out of the bar alive. We were fined and kicked off the planet under threat of imprisonment if we returned.
malcolypse
First Post
one of my best stupid pcs stories stars yours truly in a coc game.
evil cultists had captured some innocent woman and were preparing to sacrifice her in this old tin shed, so i layed out my plan for a rescue.
the rest of the party looked at each other and shook their heads at me. "there's nothing we can do. there's three more of them than us and we have one shotgun, your axe handle, a two by four, and a pocket knife, which means that one of us won't even be armed. we're leaving quietly."
i flipped out on them and started to go rescue her by myself. they wisely grabbed me, put a hand over my mouth and started draging me away. i decided to throw my axe handle at the party member with the shotgun, as a futile jesture of protest, since everyone else was holding me and he was covering our retreat.
i missed my throw in the worst possible way. i missed him and hit the side of the shed, which rang like a church bell. the others dropped me and ran, and i ran with them.
the players were very unhappy with me, even though their pcs understood, i guess.
evil cultists had captured some innocent woman and were preparing to sacrifice her in this old tin shed, so i layed out my plan for a rescue.
the rest of the party looked at each other and shook their heads at me. "there's nothing we can do. there's three more of them than us and we have one shotgun, your axe handle, a two by four, and a pocket knife, which means that one of us won't even be armed. we're leaving quietly."
i flipped out on them and started to go rescue her by myself. they wisely grabbed me, put a hand over my mouth and started draging me away. i decided to throw my axe handle at the party member with the shotgun, as a futile jesture of protest, since everyone else was holding me and he was covering our retreat.
i missed my throw in the worst possible way. i missed him and hit the side of the shed, which rang like a church bell. the others dropped me and ran, and i ran with them.
the players were very unhappy with me, even though their pcs understood, i guess.
malcolypse
First Post
oh, same game and same character was my all-time best pc death ever.
we were in some forsaken temple to unspeakable creatures in the middle of the desert. turns out we were the second group to arrive to deal with the situation. the first were government agents, who had brought an arsenal of weapons and were prepared but undermanned. two of their agents were laid in one corner of the first room, very visibly dead.
they told us that they were ambushed on their way in but had forced the cultists further into the building. they talked about why we were there and basically conscripted us to help them. the other pcs are talking to the agents for a while, and i get bored.
i'm wandering around the edge of the room trying to avoid human contact since my pc is pretty far gone at this point and tends to do and say things that get the party into trouble. being just sane enough to know that i'm not a valuable conversationalist, i'm the over by the weapon crates and the bodies.
then dead-agent-steve gets up. he has about twenty bullet holes in him and isn't breathing, but he stands up and starts coming towards the living people.
the leader of the agents says, "don't worry, that's steve. he's not hurt as bad as he looks."
now, having some prior experience with zombies my pc knows one when he sees it and the dm rolls for my sanity loss. and i suck it up. he flips to the chart of insanities in the back of the book and rolls. he looks at me, looks at the book, and then jerks his head at the door to the next room.
he tells me that for the next fifteen minutes, my character is suicidal. he expects a charge at the zombie or into the back of the building to do as much damage as possible.
back at the table, i ask him if there are any .45s in the cache. he says hes there are and i pick one up. another pc, well aware of my characters tenuous grasp on sanity and tendency towards twitching and mumbling has been keeping me away from sharp objects for days of game time notices and yells, "he's got a gun!"
i look around the table at all the other players, who look more frightened of me than of the monsters and cultists.
i end on the one who yelled the warning and say, "no, it's all ok." then i mime raising the gun to my temple and pulling the trigger.
end result, horror the players could bite off and chew when they realize that their pcs were also potentially a threat to themselves. the gm and i were very proud, i think, of the impact of that moment. i still miss that character.
we were in some forsaken temple to unspeakable creatures in the middle of the desert. turns out we were the second group to arrive to deal with the situation. the first were government agents, who had brought an arsenal of weapons and were prepared but undermanned. two of their agents were laid in one corner of the first room, very visibly dead.
they told us that they were ambushed on their way in but had forced the cultists further into the building. they talked about why we were there and basically conscripted us to help them. the other pcs are talking to the agents for a while, and i get bored.
i'm wandering around the edge of the room trying to avoid human contact since my pc is pretty far gone at this point and tends to do and say things that get the party into trouble. being just sane enough to know that i'm not a valuable conversationalist, i'm the over by the weapon crates and the bodies.
then dead-agent-steve gets up. he has about twenty bullet holes in him and isn't breathing, but he stands up and starts coming towards the living people.
the leader of the agents says, "don't worry, that's steve. he's not hurt as bad as he looks."
now, having some prior experience with zombies my pc knows one when he sees it and the dm rolls for my sanity loss. and i suck it up. he flips to the chart of insanities in the back of the book and rolls. he looks at me, looks at the book, and then jerks his head at the door to the next room.
he tells me that for the next fifteen minutes, my character is suicidal. he expects a charge at the zombie or into the back of the building to do as much damage as possible.
back at the table, i ask him if there are any .45s in the cache. he says hes there are and i pick one up. another pc, well aware of my characters tenuous grasp on sanity and tendency towards twitching and mumbling has been keeping me away from sharp objects for days of game time notices and yells, "he's got a gun!"
i look around the table at all the other players, who look more frightened of me than of the monsters and cultists.
i end on the one who yelled the warning and say, "no, it's all ok." then i mime raising the gun to my temple and pulling the trigger.
end result, horror the players could bite off and chew when they realize that their pcs were also potentially a threat to themselves. the gm and i were very proud, i think, of the impact of that moment. i still miss that character.
Swedish Chef
Adventurer
One of the funniest/stupidest things I've seen came in a campaign a few years back. I was DM.
The start of the campaign was less than heroic. The party is investigating the disappearance of a friend in a small town and stumble upon some cultists. They confront them in a warehouse and are forced to retreat with one PC unconscious. Our house rule is that if your PC is knocked out, he's out/recovering for 8 hours, as he's suffered grievous wounds.
So, party returns to the local inn (which is run by a cultist) and they lay out the unconscious PC. For some reason, they head out to do some more searching, leaving the poor soul unattended.
3 hours later, the party returns to any empty room. So now they know they have to go looking, but they decide to wait until morning.
Except the thief. Who goes out alone, without telling anyone else.
The next morning, the party wakes up to discover the thief gone (captured the night before). The party of 6 is now down to 4. So, what is a good party to do? That's right, they split up!
The fighter winds up stumbling upon the leader of the cult (the local cleric), and barely escapes his clutches (lucky will save!), and manages to make it back to the rest of the party. The party later receives a ransom note for the 2 missing PCs.
So, knowing it is a trap, the party travels to the meeting point and stand out in the open, with no plan or idea of what to do. One pitched battle later, the one remaining conscious player is leading a group of horses with 3 unconscious party members strapped to the backs back into town.
They finally wised up, starting planning things, and eventually rescued the other 2 players.
The thief, however, didn't fully learn his lesson. A few sessions later, he has discovered a secret cache in a wall. He fails his Detect Traps roll, reaches in, and snatches his hand back just in time from the guillotine blade trap. So what does he do? Looks, sees the trap has reset itself, so he reaches in again!
His reflex roll the second time was a 1. It took them some time to save up for a regeneration spell.
The start of the campaign was less than heroic. The party is investigating the disappearance of a friend in a small town and stumble upon some cultists. They confront them in a warehouse and are forced to retreat with one PC unconscious. Our house rule is that if your PC is knocked out, he's out/recovering for 8 hours, as he's suffered grievous wounds.
So, party returns to the local inn (which is run by a cultist) and they lay out the unconscious PC. For some reason, they head out to do some more searching, leaving the poor soul unattended.
3 hours later, the party returns to any empty room. So now they know they have to go looking, but they decide to wait until morning.
Except the thief. Who goes out alone, without telling anyone else.
The next morning, the party wakes up to discover the thief gone (captured the night before). The party of 6 is now down to 4. So, what is a good party to do? That's right, they split up!
The fighter winds up stumbling upon the leader of the cult (the local cleric), and barely escapes his clutches (lucky will save!), and manages to make it back to the rest of the party. The party later receives a ransom note for the 2 missing PCs.
So, knowing it is a trap, the party travels to the meeting point and stand out in the open, with no plan or idea of what to do. One pitched battle later, the one remaining conscious player is leading a group of horses with 3 unconscious party members strapped to the backs back into town.
They finally wised up, starting planning things, and eventually rescued the other 2 players.
The thief, however, didn't fully learn his lesson. A few sessions later, he has discovered a secret cache in a wall. He fails his Detect Traps roll, reaches in, and snatches his hand back just in time from the guillotine blade trap. So what does he do? Looks, sees the trap has reset itself, so he reaches in again!
His reflex roll the second time was a 1. It took them some time to save up for a regeneration spell.
Excellent Nightmare Fuel. Did that unhinge anyone else?
malcolypse
First Post
nope.
they were all, mostly, much more sane than i was at that point. one pc had a habit of steping out of the room right before something sanity shattering happened. one started out with more sanity than any other two party members combined. one was already insane and had become emotionally detatched from reality, and so didn't suffer from sanity loss for seeing it. the last one had told the dm before the game that if my character caused any more trouble for the party that he might have to have an accident, and so was unmoved.
Malcolypse, could you please use capital letters? Using only lower case makes your posts very hard to read.
Cheers!
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