D&D 5E Players of EN World: Tell us about your biggest in-game screw up.

Fauchard1520 · Oct 24, 2017

For me it's all about making the wrong assumptions, usually involving statuary (as pictured here).

What about the rest of you guys? When did you accidentally kill the king / destroy the maguffin / word the wish poorly? Let's hear your tales of d'oh!

jasper · Oct 24, 2017

In a homebrew I think was Rise of Tiamat. We were just below line of sight and listening in on a briefing. The boss was tell the LT some details. My barbarian attacked. Result. 1 KO pc, 1 pc missing thru a portal.

When I was dming.
The party had rescue one of the princesses of a kingdom. Foiling the grand mother plans. Oh grandmother wore combat boots. One pc slammed grandmother. They discover one granny was a retired eighth level fighter, the red face guard was a polymorphed dragon. The party ran away to Ravenloft to be safe.
Same group. I was running a NPC cleric to round out the party. We found Strahd in his coffin. Second round I turned him. Oppps. The group thought I did on purpose.

Nevvur · Oct 24, 2017

Are you asking specifically about experiences from the player side of the table, or are you counting DM screw ups, too?

Most of my gaming has been on the DM side, but I do have a few memorable stupid-me moments as a player. One of them involved me playing a GoO Warlock named Kaid. The idea for his patron, Vorshiathrax, was partially inspired by Hermaeus Mora from Skyrim's DLC, Dragonborn. Books sacrificed to Vor appeared in his realm, but he valued unique and original manuscripts much more than copies.

Our party snuck into the house of a seaside town's mayor one night. We found his journal and took it along with a handful of shiny trinkets (...we weren't exactly the good guys in this game). Kaid hadn't done any sacrifices in awhile, and while the boring old journal of a provincial politician wasn't the most interesting thing Vor might read, there weren't any copies of it at least!

The next day, we had occasion to meet the mayor in the open. He lamented the loss of the journal, and after some prying he confided it contained code language used to unlock the main vault of a powerful mercantile guild he used to work for.

Kaid earned some very upset looks from his companions. Fortunately, another adventure was just on the horizon!

cmad1977 · Oct 24, 2017

Hewing too closely to the written adventure.

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Nostalgia Ward · Oct 24, 2017

I once created an in-game puzzle for my players to solve as a way to avoid a fight with a rock golem. It was an elemental puzzle, where they needed to move some stones into a certain pattern. One of my players remarked, "this sounds an awful lot like The Fifth Element." Other players agreed. I hadn't seen the film at the time, so it was kind of embarrassing to have them mercilessly mock the puzzle. I ended up making them fight the golem, which resulted in a TKO. The group disbanded shortly thereafter. I'd say that's one of my biggest D & D blunders.

JPL · Oct 24, 2017

As a DM, I killed a PC elf named Blackleaf, and then the player also died by his own hand. This was back in the eighties, when that sort of thing happened all the time, but it still haunts me.

The Crimson Binome · Oct 24, 2017

In the game I ran, the players came across a powerful artifact after vanquishing a great evil: The Eye of Caven. The warlock wanted it for his own use, and the paladin wanted to destroy it, so the compromise solution was to sell it.

Although they did manage to get a good price for it - more money than they knew what to do with - the probably-evil necromancer who won that auction was already in possession of the Hand of Caven, with which she was able to enact a cycle of infinite Wish spells and ascend to godhood in the past, thus conquering the present.

Croesus · Oct 24, 2017

Playing a squishy wizard in an AD&D campaign. The GM says "You see a golden pea coming down the hallway toward you." I interpret "coming down the hallway" as rolling along the floor, so I say "I catch it." Turns out it was a fireball spell. Oops...

Same campaign, different encounter. My wizard is flying around, playing hide and seek with a red dragon in a large hall with massive pillars. Even though the GM used miniatures, I got distracted and ended my movement literally in front of the dragon. One flame breath later, wizard was a grease spot on the floor.

jasper · Oct 24, 2017

In AL game. I forgot to restock my healing potions supplies before the adventure. We had no healer. I also forgot to take what few healing potions I had.
Then a green dragon came out.
I laughed. And tooted my own horn. Horn of Blasting that is. Umm I failed the roll. I had 1. That is 1 hit pt left. Then it was the top of the round. And guess who went first.

Fauchard1520 · Oct 24, 2017

Nostalgia Ward said:
One of my players remarked, "this sounds an awful lot like The Fifth Element." Other players agreed. I hadn't seen the film at the time.

A buddy of mine ran a Firefly game in Savage Worlds. He wound up recreating the riverboat scene from Maverick verbatim, "Turn in your guns" and all. He'd never seen the movie either. Dude still gets red-faced whenever we mention it.