Campaign Disasters!

[RangerWickett]

I cheat all the time as DM.

Okay, let me rephrase that. I don't prepare stats for badguys, except when I want to remember something specific or if I want to make a fight particularly tough and memorable. Usually, the PCs wail on the bad guy until the bad guy gets a chance to use his cool nifty trick (most good bad guys have one, like polymorphing into a dire bear and crushing the life out of a PC [I don't kill them, just knock 'em unconscious], dispel magicking flying PCs who are chasing after him [my fly spells don't featherfall if dispelled, and so the one Dragon they fought almost never got touched], or opening a gate to the Abyss to let in demons).

Of course, then the PCs do something cool (the half-dragon kobold orders the rest of the party to back off while he repeatedly strafes the dire bear with his breath weapon, just out of claw range, or the water mage summons a celestial orca in mid-air over the Dragon to knock it to the ground, or the party priest remembers the vision he'd had and realizes that if he apologizes to the demon, it will be powerless).

That's the way I like to run things. Coolness from the bad guys, followed by coolness from the good guys, who thus manage to save the day. Dice just get in the way of good storytelling, so I never give solid answers in statistical terms. The PCs roll their attack roll and damage rolls at the same time, and I tell them in narrative form what happens. It gives me more flexibility, and it convinces them they're still playing a game, rather than taking part in collaborative theater.

 

[RangerWickett]

However, more on topic, there have been some times when the games have just sucked, because I suppose my players aren't quite as cinematic as I am. They assume that they have to stop everything, and of course they don't believe there's such a thing as a fight they have to run away from. Buggering idiots.

Anyhoo, one such example occured about a year and a half ago. A group of Orcs in a fleet of ironclad ships were doing a lightning-quick invasion of a major city so they could gain hold of the city's magic school and library. There were hundreds of Orcish ships all ramming their way through the frozen winter harbor of the city. The PCs new that the Orcs were trying to find information about the location of a powerful artifact, long-ago buried in a heavily guarded tomb. The Orcs wanted the city so they could find in the library and the school the location of that artifact.

The artifact was a magical torch that, when lit, allowed everyone seeing the flame to teleport wherever the bearer wanted to travel. It was used millennia ago by an Orcish empire that ruled the world, transporting hundreds or thousands of soldiers around the world instantaneously. With the torch, the Orcish invasion force would be able to teleport its entire army from their home country to the captured city, or to anywhere else it wanted to attack.

I'd intended for the PCs to try to head off the Orcs, getting to the tomb before the Orcs could, and I'd planned all kinds of niftiness to go on during the course of the quest. The first stage on that quest was to rescue some of their friends who were on a ship in the harbor (and thus right in the path of the invasion fleet). But instead of heading out to round up their friends and teleport away, or maybe even try to free the ship, instead the party spellcasters (Wizard 17 and Cleric 17) both start summoning water elementals: some elder, some greater, even some just huge ones. Then they send the elementals out to start capsizing Orcish ships.

Checking the rules in the monster manual, I found out that it was indeed possible for these guys to knock over even really big Orc ships, but I figured that, at best, the elementals would take a minute or so to reach the ironclads, and then could only capsize one or two before the spell would end. I explained this to the players to let them know it was a valiant effort, but they could probably only stop 10 or 20 ships out of the whole fleet.

"That's right," said the party wizard, and then he turned to the party's rogue/bard. "Harley, go tell the wizard school to send all its casters out here to start summoning elementals. There's easily a few hundred students there, so we should be able to stop 'em all."

I admit that I lost my composure there. Sure, I was used to PCs taking out dozens of monsters at once, even taking on a trio of Red Dragons in one adventure. But stopping an entire invading force of several thousand warriors. That grated on my nerves.

I managed to maintain control long enough to figure out that an invading force of Orcs probably had magic users of its own that could dispel some of the elementals, so eventually the players decided to 'give up' (grumbling that I wouldn't let them win) and they went to go on with slightly less disruptive heroics. I know the mantra of a good DM is to take what the PCs do and run with it, but some activities just strain my sense of drama. To me, having two characters stop an entire army (without even having to wade into the fray) is just as silly as the whole whirlwind attack-great cleave-bucket of snails trick (which was my idea in the first place).

The next few hours of the game went well, and we ended on a high note with the PCs getting into an aerial dogfight aboard a pair of airships, resulting in the PC's flying caravel ramming into the Orcish armored zeppelin, with a gloriously huge fireball engulfing both ships. Then the next day we continued, with them traveling to location of the tomb, where they fought a guardian and then fell victim to a trap that sealed them in a tomb filled with anti-teleportation magic (to make sure that the torch wouldn't somehow teleport itself out, and to keep looters from teleporting in).

The PCs managed to get the torch, and get out of the tomb just barely alive, exhausted from the traps and guardians, when a second Orcish zeppelin appeared overhead.


And then three-quarters of the group left. It was the evening of the pre-screening of "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back," and one of our players was going back to college the next day. And the players could have gone to see the bleeping movie the next day, but noooooooooo, they had to see it that night, and leave our game on a cliffhanger that was never resolved, because one of the players moved away and never came back.

That's my most bitter gaming moment. I still blame my players for killing one of the nicest games I'd ever planned.

 

[Ulrick]

Worst campaign disaster eh?

I had a campaign last a 1/2 hour.

Yep.

After characters were created, I started running them through a Dungeon adventure.

After the PCs got the plot hook, they realized they need to consult the town scribe/taxpayer to discover the location of the bad guy's lair.

Of course, the scribe is corrupt. He'll only give the info for a bribe of 50gp. The PCs had the money. It would have set them back slightly. But they had the money.

After the first round of negotations, the halfling thief jumped on the scribe's dek and put a rapier to his throat. As the halfling made his move, the scribe pull a chord which summoned the guards, who through all the PCs in jail.

I was so mad at the stupidity, I folded the campaign.

 

[Knightfall]

After the first round of negotations, the halfling thief jumped on the scribe's dek and put a rapier to his throat. As the halfling made his move, the scribe pull a chord which summoned the guards, who through all the PCs in jail.

That's bad... almost as bad as when one PC tried to intimidate / blackmail a king.



What was he thinking?

 

[Ulrick]

I have no clue what he was thinking.

I have no clue what the other players where thinking when they said they'd back him up, either.

 

[paqman]

Ah, the memories that bring a good laugh.

A little bit like the other one posted before, a 2 year campaing was destroyed by a newbe player.

We were playing an evil campaign and I think we were in mid levels at that time, like 6th to 8th approx., (2nd edition BTW). We had to enter a time locked city once and the portal to enter that city, lost in time, was guarded by some kind of lich/death thing. In other words, a demi god.

The guardian asked only one thing of us to enter, 50gp / person. We only had platinum so we suggested that, but the guardian said only 50gp would do. You know, the kind of thing/key you really need to have, no alternatives. So we argued with it for a while and eventually, the newly arrived Chaotic Neutral Minotaure Barbarian(A very baaad combination BTW) decided that he had had enough of arguing and hit the guardian with his bag of 500 PP. The guardian is thrown back in the portal, next round he comes back, throw a Chain lightning at all of us (We were on a small rocky bridge 100 feets high BTW) we all got highly damaged, the small rocky bridge was destroyed also by the lighting and we all fell down to our plumeting death. We all died of the fall, save the Minautor.... end of story.... literally.

The guy never played with us afterward And since then, Chaotic Neutrals and Minautores were banned forever from our gaming group.

The PP bag storry always brings a very good laugh when we re tell it for the nth time.

 

[TeflonBilly]

I have to say that i have had many bad campaign stories. the first was one in a low level campaign . my party was taking too long to decide what to do i thought that i woudl take the lead and hoped that they would follow me. well, they didn't. my wizard then encountered a group of spiders. what happened was that the spider landed on my shoulders ad beging to bite. well my only choice was to try and knock them off with my hand. so the spider got an Attakc of oportunity and drained the remainder of my strength. during this my brother(who was dming) made the rest of the group go upstairs since we were playing in our basement. so after i didn' come back they decided to try and find me. first they go the wronf way, they finally get to the spiders. now the bad part happens. the spiders have brought me up in my web while my toad familiar is hiding in my hat. so guess what the monk does. he freaking throws alchemists fire into the stupid webbing even hough i practically told him that was where i was. i ended up at -8 and my toad, thankfully, -9 before we were stabalized and healed.

 

[TeflonBilly]

i figured if i kept on typing it would get too long
My second horible experience was wih spiders again but in a dfferent campaign but same people, but giant spiders. we weren't even supposed to eb there. we had to find the next place to go to find these keys for the campaign. i had no clue where to go to so i decided that we shoud go to these cracks we found ina holy temple. for some reason i didn't pick up on the hints of every one tryign to tell us not to go into the temple. so the druid(same one who set me on fire) says we can burrow. he could summon a xorn, of course they dont burrow but phase. of course he goes on about burrowing for 10 min.until i tell him i could just teleport us in.so i teleport us in and we continue down one of the cracks. one of the rooms we come into is filled near the top with web. of course there are 2 humongous spiders there. now i have to fill you in one the past week, this all started out with my other brother playing a paladin, we clear out akeep starting at 1st level an finish at 6 and he takes leadership and role a 20 on diplomacy and te townpeople we saved vote him leader for life. well, he just died to a freaking 11level kobold sorcerer. then, the druid dies to a green dragon and is resurrected. what happens with the spider is that i ends with me trying to save the fighter who is at -9, i hasted last turn and proceed to teleport over to the fighter and try adn give him a potion of cure moderate wounds. hwoever he wasn't out of range of the spider and i get hit and am drained of my strenght. now guess what the druid is doing. he got webbed and to try and escape by, get this, turning into a stupid cheetah im just dumbstruck adn decide to let him do it. so we are all cucooned and taken up to the ceiling. so what i do to save the party once again is have my owl go to the door and beging hooting VERY loadly. the preist makes a very lucky listen check and hears my owl. so he come and saves us. the most embarressing thing i probably had o experience. the worst thing is that i didn't even get to deliver the potion to the fighter and he made hs stabalize so i could have kill the spider an all would have been fine. however, afer we are rescued, we are further banned from the town for a month. this town was one we were going to try to join our "country"(more like one keep and a thorpe) anyway, the tesure was a previous saints wepon, a +4 longsword of shocking by the grace of my brother he didn't give me failure and aloofeness. thank god my brother came back from his trip and hi paladin was resurrected by his god and finally rejoined our group. that was sure one long explanation

 

[Black Omega]

I managed to maintain control long enough to figure out that an invading force of Orcs probably had magic users of its own that could dispel some of the elementals, so eventually the players decided to 'give up' (grumbling that I wouldn't let them win) and they went to go on with slightly less disruptive heroics. I know the mantra of a good DM is to take what the PCs do and run with it, but some activities just strain my sense of drama. To me, having two characters stop an entire army (without even having to wade into the fray) is just as silly as the whole whirlwind attack-great cleave-bucket of snails trick (which was my idea in the first place).

There is the mantra that a good GM takes what the PC's do and runs with it, agreed. But nothing in the mantra says NPC's have to be idiots.

In my game I talked quite a bit with players over ideas of how armies work in a DnD world. Both how spellcasters would work, tactics to counter them, how they might be protected against the countermeasures. An orc army having spellcasters to protect against spells makes sense. An orc army without magic would have no chance of success.