Ah, the stupid things PCs do...

[MerricB]

A fortnight ago, I ran my first session of Call of Cthulhu (ever!) Alas, the sequel has been postponed a fortnight due to players having other commitments... so on a weekend where GenCon is happening and I'm not roleplaying, I thought I'd share this short anecdote from the CoC session with you:

The group are exploring a museum. They discover a African diorama, of which the centrepieces are missing. Ah, yes - that's because they've been magically animated and are stalking the characters.

Exclaiming "A Tiger?! In Africa?!" they look in some surprise at this animated tiger attacking them. One of the players gets the right idea and her character runs for the door. The other two players decide to have their characters stand and fight: one armed with an empty shotgun which he uses as a club, the other armed only with his fists.

Fists against magically-animated tiger. OK...

The tiger disembowels one of the PCs, the other PC faints as he fails his insanity check.

Third PC runs for the police. A policeman returns, sees the bodies of the two PCs and goes to investigate... luckily for the PC who fainted, his character hasn't been killed, allowing the smart PC to drag him away and escape... as the policeman is eviscerated by the tiger.

Ah, Call of Cthulhu. What a great game you are.

Cheers!

 

[Wik]

Yeah, Cthulu is a blast. It's really one of the few games out there where players can have fun watching their PCs freak out, get mauled, or panic. I had one CoC game where the two players (both girls who were getting into RPGs to better connect with their boyfriends, both of whom hated D&D but loved Cthulu) spent an entire session on a cruise ship, trying to figure out who (what?) was tearing people apart. Best part was when they woke up, and they were the only people left on the ship...

...they had their characters curl up into a ball, and cry. It was the most realistic portrayal of what someone would ACTUALLY do in that sort of situation. It was a lot of fun.

As for PC stupidity, I've had my fair share of them. A recent favourite involves the PCs going into an underground winery and doing some light exploration, knowing that one of their allies (a drow princess) was on her way to meet them. So, our party explores the winery, does their dungeon-crawling, and then decides to rest in the main entrance hall while waiting for the drow princess to show up.

They hunker down in the first underground room, with the alchemist placing a bunch of traps on the main entrance. With the entrance blocked by traps, and the rest of the dungeon cleared, the group all goes to sleep.

They are awakened by the sound of a very angry drow warrior princess, who has just triggered a bunch of fire traps and is now about ready to kill the alchemist.

 

[MerricB]

I've been reminded of another story... when the rogue of the group was sent off to do some scouting in a pitch black cave. Of course, he couldn't see in the dark, so he carried a lantern with him.

At the point that he tried to sneak around, I pointed out it was rather hard to do that when carrying a light. Agreeing with me, his character then extinguished the light!

It was then that the dire wolf pounced. He never returned to the rest of the group.

Cheers!

 

[Wik]

I've been reminded of another story... when the rogue of the group was sent off to do some scouting in a pitch black cave. Of course, he couldn't see in the dark, so he carried a lantern with him.

At the point that he tried to sneak around, I pointed out it was rather hard to do that when carrying a light. Agreeing with me, his character then extinguished the light!

It was then that the dire wolf pounced. He never returned to the rest of the group.

Cheers!

BRILLIANT. one of those great classic RPG moments. NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY! When will players learn?

And this reminds me of an oldie, back when my brother was around eleven or so (he's in his twenties, now).

He wanted to play with us, and I relented and let him. He proceeded to make a fighter-y sort (this was in 2e) with a Katana. And then there was a fight with goblins, coming from the north and south.

He charges the goblins in the north, blocking the shots the archers and making taking out the north with area effect spells impossible. He hits a goblin, but doesn't land a kill. one of the fighters goes to help him out with the northern goblins, while the rest of the party focuses on the southern group.

My brother's character then charges the SOUTHERN group, drawing opportunity attacks from many of the goblins to the north. He gets hit. Multiple times. But, he crashes into the ranks of the southern group... again blocking shots. Now the archers and spellcasters cannot fire at either group of goblins, because both have a fighter in it (and each fighter is now outnumbered).

Next round? Brother's character once again charges the northern group... again drawing OAs and the groans of the rest of the group.

What's funny is that he was completely stunned that his character died. And that the rest of the group didn't mind.

(For what it's worth, he's a regular player with us these days, and he's a much smarter player... at times. )

 

[MerricB]

BRILLIANT. one of those great classic RPG moments. NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY! When will players learn?

And this reminds me of an oldie, back when my brother was around eleven or so (he's in his twenties, now).

Wow. That takes a certain flair to muck up that way.

A session or two after the Dire Wolf incident above, the group ended up fighting an ettin. It was quite a bit tougher than them: they probably should have run away. Instead, one character charged the ettin whilst the rest shot it with missile fire. Unfortunately, none of them had Precise Shot, so the meleeing character was providing cover for the Ettin.

All of this was acceptable (if dim) behaviour for these characters though. What happened next was exceptional:

The character in melee died. So one of the *other* characters charged it whilst the rest hung back shooting arrows (to very limited effect).

Once that character died, guess what happened? Yes... a third character charged in. This repeated until all of the PCs were dead. It was the *silliest* TPK I've ever been involved in.

There was one player who couldn't make the session. He was extremely surprised to find out he was the only surviving party member the next session!

Cheers!

 

[Wik]

Wow. That takes a certain flair to muck up that way.

A session or two after the Dire Wolf incident above, the group ended up fighting an ettin. It was quite a bit tougher than them: they probably should have run away. Instead, one character charged the ettin whilst the rest shot it with missile fire. Unfortunately, none of them had Precise Shot, so the meleeing character was providing cover for the Ettin.

All of this was acceptable (if dim) behaviour for these characters though. What happened next was exceptional:

The character in melee died. So one of the *other* characters charged it whilst the rest hung back shooting arrows (to very limited effect).

Once that character died, guess what happened? Yes... a third character charged in. This repeated until all of the PCs were dead. It was the *silliest* TPK I've ever been involved in.

There was one player who couldn't make the session. He was extremely surprised to find out he was the only surviving party member the next session!

Cheers!

Oh, that's a win, right there. Because you're describing a whole new ball game.

When one player mucks up and does something stupid, or says something silly (like our rogue, who recently said "Actually, I'm uninvisible right now"), it can at least be understood. But when the entire group's dynamic is pure stupidity, that's something else entirely.

And pure awesome, at that.

I have dim memories of my players being in a fight, everyone saying "this fight is too hard, and we need to run" and then no one running... and fighting another round. Next round someone else would say "wow, we really need to run" followed by everyone fighting. This went on, until one of the players said "wow, that fight was really hard. We should have ran" while rolling up a new character.

That's about as close as I can get to your "Ettin Incident".

 

[Lanefan]

A session or two after the Dire Wolf incident above, the group ended up fighting an ettin. It was quite a bit tougher than them: they probably should have run away. Instead, one character charged the ettin whilst the rest shot it with missile fire. Unfortunately, none of them had Precise Shot, so the meleeing character was providing cover for the Ettin.

All of this was acceptable (if dim) behaviour for these characters though. What happened next was exceptional:

The character in melee died. So one of the *other* characters charged it whilst the rest hung back shooting arrows (to very limited effect).

Once that character died, guess what happened? Yes... a third character charged in. This repeated until all of the PCs were dead. It was the *silliest* TPK I've ever been involved in.

I just love players like that. And I bet they were all laughing themselves silly by the time they got done.

There was one player who couldn't make the session. He was extremely surprised to find out he was the only surviving party member the next session!

Hell, I'd have lobbed him in too, at the end; just to make a clean sweep of it.

Lanefan

 

[Fifth Element]

We had a new player in a 3.5 D&D game just last week. I told her that the great thing about playing the game is that you will always have several different players offering ideas as to what to do next...so you can always pick the worst one!

 

[MerricB]

I just love players like that. And I bet they were all laughing themselves silly by the time they got done.

Hell, I'd have lobbed him in too, at the end; just to make a clean sweep of it.

Lanefan

Well, he *was* playing a new character anyway. His previous character had died 3 sessions before. It happened like this...

...I started up this game running the Saltmarsh series. In any case, the group reached the sahuagin lair in "The Final Enemy" and just couldn't get in. They tried assaulting the door (with their friendly villagers) and got a couple of the villagers killed.

Now, this annoyed the remaining villagers (you got my brother killed!) and they unhappily got back into their boat and started going back to town. This player's character, a smart-alec gnome, started mouthing off to one of the villagers whose brother had just been killed.

"One more word from you, and you're going over the side!"

"I just wanted to say..."

*whack* Gnome knocked unconscious, and thrown overboard... in chain armour... and he promptly drowns. Much nodding of heads amongst the other players, as the gnome was really annoying them as well.

Of course, the gnome *was* trying to apologize, but he'd been just so incredibly annoying, the "shut up or die" actually happened this session.

Cheers!

 

[barbarianguy]

That is definitely something I wish I could have seen...