Best gaming moments both glorious and stupid.

[Patrick Johnston]

So anyone who has been GMing for long enough has likely had a a plethora of moments that stick with them as either a shining beacon of hope that your players can overcome any obstacle if they try hard enough or as an abject example of how a highly intelligent talented group of people can screw up a basic task. I would like to hear those stories from the you guys if anyone would like to share.

I have two of the second type that come fresh out of last weeks play session. (I will admit I'm putting portraying the characters in a specific manner for comedic effect. Overall my players are not typically foolish or stupid and even when they make bad decision can usually give me a solid reasoning as to why they did it. That being said every part of the stories is one hundred percent true.)

1. The session starts with the group inside an Inn. One of the players has just been suplexed by a shadow fey trickster disguised as a chair (long story). After staring on in perplexed horror the Innkeeper demands that the strange fey man leave the Inn and when ignored tries to eject him forcibly. So after decapitating the innkeeper the fey leaves and the party is split on what to do. One player immediately leaves the inn. One player leisurely leaves the inn while still holding his ale. One player checks the innkeeper to figure out what the hell happened. The rouge decides to steal the innkeepers belt pouch and apron. So a few in game days, and several interrogation later the investigator has gathered the party in a room and explained that they are murder suspects because A) the party has obviously been lying to him since they had different stories when questioned apart B) By their own admission the party were the last ones in the inn when the innkeepers belt pouch was stolen and his safe was robbed (note: the party didn't rob the safe. The fey turned invisible and did it to screw with them). C) They found the innkeepers bloody apron in the possession of one of the party members. At this point they all collectively turn and stare at the rouge. Later the player clarified that he didn't realize the apron was bloody.

2. Later that same session the party is accompanying two dwarven merchants and come upon a bandit ambush. A tree across the road with 5 visible bandits, the leader of whom demands a payment of 100 GP per wagon to pass. 2 of the party spot 10 bandits to the side of the road hidden with crossbows ready. So when the party initiates combat they take a full volley of 14 bolts as a prepared action from the bandits and then another 14 as the bandits go second, nearly killing one merchant and the sorcerer. The party then gives up and pays the 250 GP to pass unmolested. After going down the road a ways the party rests and starts debating whether or not to go back and try and retrieve their gold. The merchants offer to reimburse the party the 200 GP the bandits asked for originally if the party just keeps moving. So naturally the party waits for nighttime and sneaks back to try and ambush the 15 man bandit party (one of whom is a bandit captain). After a fairly successful ambush with the ranger killing two bandits the parties only tank rushes in to the middle of the bandit camp and promptly gets cut down. The remaining 13 bandits proceed to beat down the party rouge and sorcerer leaving the ranger the only one standing. The bandit captain Picks up the unconscious sorcerer and shouts "If you don't come out I'm executing your friend." To which the ranger responds by shooting him twice. The bandit captain then beheads the captive sorcerer.
I was actually trying to get the ranger to give up so I didn't have to kill the party. The bandit captain was just going to strip them off their coin and weapons and let them go.

So what are your best stories from D&D either epic or decidedly not?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Personally epic: one of my AD&D characters held the bridge against the City Watch. This enabled the party- including his “good buddy” the thief the Watch was pursuing- to escape safely at the cost of his life. At the next session- which I missed- the party, realizing the thief’s treachery turned him in, set the record straight, and donated the “Wanted” reward to a local orphanage in my character’s name.

GM epic: a group I was running planned furiously behind my back on how to handle a pan encounter with the royal personage they had successfully IDed as the BBEG (Necromancer!!!). At the next session, they executed their plan flawlessly...aided and abetted by traitorous dice! The Paladin walked up to him and knelt, said something about the noble class and their duty to their people, and came up swinging. The initiates rolls had the party going first, the BBEG second, and the entirety of the royal guard absolutely flat footed in surprise. She rolled 20, 20, 19- almost killing him outright, but he made his save vs massive damage. The rest of the party lit into the royal guard, except the Druid who was mysteriously holding an action for some reason. The BBEG could not muster himself to do diddley-poo (no rolls over 8), and was dropped at the end of round 2 when he triggered an AoO. At the beginning of round 3, the party Druid turned the party into ravens, escaping into the sky and blending in with the BBEG’s pet flock.

At the end of round 3, the royal guard were no longer surprised, and were free to act, whoopie-freakin’-do.

Personally terrible: it’s a tie.

1) in a Dark Sun game, my dwarf character (with maxed Con) made the tactical decision to charge through an enemy spellcaster’s poisonous cloud spell (forget which one). With his Con, he was nearly immune to lower-level poisons and magics...

He then proceeded to fail a sequence of d20 and d100 rolls against poisons and magics- including his system shock roll- that the DM (a math geek) equates as being as nearly unlikely as winning the state lottery. In campaign terms, he charged into a magical cloud of poison he should have been able to shrug off, keeled over choking so hard he went into shock, and then died from shock.

2) I quote myself from 2009:

You play enough D&D, you get events like that.

For us, it was at the beginning of a campaign.

We were attacked by Harpies, and the quick-thinking Druid hit them with an Entangle as they did a strafing run through some foliage- snagged them all!

That was when the dice went sour.

We only had a few PCs with ranged weaponry- a guy with a bow, a guy with a throwing hammer, one with a sling, and the Wiz had a dagger.

The guy with the Hammer is venturing into the area of the Entangle to retrieve his hammer and the Wiz' dagger.

Most of the to-hit rolls were low. When we did hit, no attack did more than 3HP damage. We finish off the first Harpy just as the Entangle is starting to expire...

So the Druid does Entangle #2...and our futility continues. The dice continue to stay as low as a soldier under fire.

The guy with the Hammer is, by now, having to venture into the area of the Entangle to retrieve arrows that have missed. The PC with the sling is now using rocks.

Harpy #2 is near death but still fighting and Harpy #3 is untouched when Entangle #2 is expiring, so the Druid pops Entangle #3.

My PC and the hammer-thrower are apologizing to the Harpies- in character- for the cruel deaths that we are inflicting upon them...especially after the hammer-thrower retrieved the Wizard's dagger out of the still-living Harpy#2 so the Wizard could throw it again. But he doesn't leave the Entangle area until after he stabs the dying Harpy with that dagger to finish it off.

By now, all of the arrows have been used, either striking the Harpies or being broken downrange. EVERYONE ELSE IS THROWING ROCKS.

The last Harpy dies just before Entangle #3 does.

All of this time, our DM has been flabbergasted- absolutely red faced and flustered- at the action. "F$%^&ing Entangle! That spell is broken!" *rant*rant*rant*

To which the Druid's player huffily responded "Well, it was either that or Create Food & Water! The Harpies could have had a meal and a bath!"

LOLs abounded.

3)

At a later date, we were playing RIFTS, and one player had lost track of the fact that someone else had already found what the party was looking for and was bugging out. He burst into the camp's mess hall, all fierce, black and deadly in his captured SAMAS armor...only to encounter unarmed kitchen workers. They had no clue as to what he was looking for, despite his demands and threats, backed up with displays of physical violence (breaking tables, firing his weapon, etc.) FINALLY, someone in the group got his attention and told him we had accomplished the mission and he left.

We chose that moment to break to get drinks for the kitchen, and I started with: "Imagine these guys, 10 years from now...(w/Mexican accent- we're in Texas, after all) "Miguel, Lupe and I were just minding our business, when some madman burst into the mess hall firing his big gun and making threats. We had no idea what he wanted...I think he was high!" "Yeah...maybe he had the munchies something fierce...and he was all like "Where are the Oreo Cookies? C'mon M-F! WHERE ARE THE OREO COOKIES!"

At that point, everyone lapsed into similar accents and "role-played" aspects of his attack as a stoner in SAMAS with the munchies...with him supplying the appropriately altered dialog for his PC.

We laughed like it was a Cheech and Chong movie, and didn't game for the rest of the night.

"WHERE ARE THE OREO COOKIES!" is still a show-stopper for that game group.

GM terrible: I was asked to introduce a group of my gamer buddies to 3.5Ed. I had a good idea for a campaign, but couldn’t find the right critter to use as the main threat. I home brewed one up: the Dark, a type of low-level demon that had been unleashed on the world, with aspects of undead Shadows, but with a vulnerability to light of any kind. They had some minor mind control abilities to make their opponents choose attack methods OTHER than those that emitted light (a Wis based save was involved to decide whether or not he PC used what they wanted or not), and could drain strength for a few minutes.

As the campaign progressed, the Dark proved less and less challenging, and the campaign finale was a virtual cakewalk. As the group was packing to go home after that session, I realized my error: they should have been draining WISDOM. That would have dovetailed with their mind control ability, making them much more durable against the spellcasters who wer their main threat. After a certain point, the wizard had no difficulty lobbing lightning bolts and fireballs over the demands of the Dark. That flaw made them paper tigers.

 

[darjr]

Gah, so many.

Latest bad one is I made a player cry at GaryCon! So many dead Grung, she couldn't handle it.

I was as surprised as her.

Little did I know that she was the soon to be mother in law of our room mate at the Con!

 

[Eltab]

Awesome moments:
Both in one session - facing Arauthator in his lair, Rise of Tiamat. I had amp'ed up the dragon to make it able to handle maybe-8 players all focusing fire on it. I planned out three turns of what the dragon was going to do, to wipe out "intruders into his lair".

1) Round 1: Arrow of Dragon Slaying gets a critical hit. I had just done some IRL hacking and coughing to indicate a solid hit with a regular arrow; I was hoarse and short of breath when the Ranger's nat-20 came up. I took a deep breath and said, "You heard all those sound effects I just put out? Put them on the second arrow instead." He proceeded to roll better-than-average on every last one of all those dice - including Hunters Mark and the Colossus Slayer feature and whatever else he had Alpha Strike'ed me with. Arauthator took 1/5 of his total enhanced HP in one blow.

2) Round 4: I had frightened half the group and most of the rest were making Death Saves. The Paladin (I think) saved from Frightful Presence and ran over to the Bard, stabilizing and awakening her with 1 HP just in time for her turn. She had a Staff of Healing that I had handed out as treasure a while ago. She pulled out the staff and used the top-end power. She then rolled so many high dice that every member of the group and Arauthator too if I had been so inclined were healed to full HP and there were STILL extra healing HP floating around the room. (I later ruled that she smashed the staff down on the ground, releasing its power and incidentally snapping it; I was going to convert it into a Staff of Frost as a memorium of the battle.)
Round 7: Arauthator crashed into a slushy pond, slain as he attempted to flee.

It took us three-and-a-half hours to play out the battle; it took our characters about 60 seconds.