Dumbest/funniest deaths

[Doctor DM]

Everyone has seen (or has been) that memorable kill. But I was wondering what's the most ridiculous, funniest, or just plain stupid death you've ever seen?

I'm thinking PC's, but heck, it could be an NPC, villian, or even an innocent bystander.

I'll start:

I was not actually part of this, but I witnessed it in the back room of my local hobbyshop. Unbelieveable.

Now, we all know about the Hand and Eye of Vecna, right? You cut off you own hand or take out your eye and replace it with the Artifact. Well, this party came upon the so called "Head of Vecna".

So... they decide, hey, this must work like the other Artifacts of Vecna, you just have to cut off your head, and replace it with Vecna's, and you get super powers!

First PC gets his head cut off, dies. They attach the head of Vecna to him, nothing happens. They wait a couple minutes, still nothing happens. He just stays dead.

2nd PC says oh, maybe something's just wrong with him. I'll try it. Cut's off his head. Same deal, nothing happens. He's dead too now.

3rd PC, the cleric says, oh, well, maybe it didn't work for them because they don't have any magical powers, you have to be a holy spell caster. HE CUTS OFF HIS HEAD TOO. And proceeds to stay dead. Now 3 of the 4 PC's have killed themselves, and nothing at all has happened with the "Head of Vecna".

So the FOURTH PC says: "I'm getting the *@%$*! out of here!"

I couldn't believe the stupididty.

 

[AuraSeer]

I couldn't believe the stupididty.

I can't believe your story.

The Head of Vecna tale has been around since at least 1996. I've heard dozens of people relate it in first person as if it happened to them, but on further examination, they always turned out to have been repeating a story they'd heard elsewhere.

 

[Doctor DM]

Ah ha! You got me! Curse you and your knowledge (BS) skill!

Yeah, I got that from my buddy who said exactly what I did, but I belived him.

(I feel like such a noob)

I'll post another one then, I just have to choose...

 

[just__al]

We're guarding a caravan that's travelling through the "troll shams" so named for all the trolls that inhabit the area.

Youngish, spry, wiry, observant, NPC wakes up my character to say he heard something. Thinking he was a competent scout and not say a 1st level expert with alertness, I tell him to check it out and wake me back up if he sees any thing that needs to be dealt with.

He did wake me up... with his screaming. 1st level expert vs 3 trolls....

I honestly pegged him for a competent scout/rogue. Funny gaming moment though...

 

[Doctor DM]

Ok, here's one then (allthough the head of vecna is still the best, )

This one was playing BESM, a really fun anime game.

We had to go into this evil organization's base, and the best way to get in was through the supply train station. So we took over the high powered train, and found out that they knew we were coming, and had set up a block and closed the doors.

We decided to crank it up to full speed and just ram through it. So we all strapped ourselves in tight and hoped that we would survive the crash. Except for our flame powered samurai.

I don't WHY he did this, but he was really into cool anime stlye special effects. So he said, I'm going to climb up and ride on the top of the train into the base, that'll be so sweet.

We were all like ok buddy, good luck with that.

So he was up there barely hanging on, when he realized just how fast we were going and that we were going to smack right into a building. He tried to get back in, but it was locked, and he started panicking.

Then right before we collided into the doors he tried to safely jump off, but he sort of tripped, and we were going so fast that even though he jumped off the momentum carried him into the side of the building. He just CRASHED into it for a bunch of damage, fell twenty feet and landed awkwardly on some barbed wire for a little more, and then as the back of the crashed train started to blow, took even more.

However, he staggered up bloodied and dazed, but still alive. Only to see that he was surrounded by about 20 guards. They asked for his surrender but he attacked instead. Critical faliure, stabbing himself. The guards then beat the snot out of him.

The rest of us only suffered minimum injuries and went on to defeat the bad guys, but he, in his quest for coolness, died a horrible death.

 

[werk]

My story happened I don't know how long ago and involves some friends whose names I don't recall...and a Gazebo!

 

[Jolly Giant]

I was DMing a party of newbie players once. They were wading through an Everglades-like swamp (because they were too cheap to spend gp on a boat! ), and were attacked by an alligator. Thanks to an incredible series of unlucky rolls from the PCs, the rogue died and the ranger survived with only 1 or 2 hp.

The remaining party scrambles onto a tiny island and sets up camp there. Then the ranger says: "I'm getting back in the water to practise my swim skill..."

I stared at him and said "Are you sure???", and all the other players tried to talk him out of it as well, but he insisted. Of course, his splashing around attracted more gators, nobody made their spot check, and the first gator killed the ranger with a single bite.

The ranger's player looked really surprised, and said "...but we killed the alligator!"

The five other players, and myself, chorused: "You thought that was the only gator in the swamp?!?"

 

[mcrow]

I was playing Tales of Gaea once and my character was a 6th level Kolba (halfling) Mage. In the system the game uses you can have spells backfire on you. Well I rolled very very poorly when casting flame breath and the result of the backfire was that my head blew off with flames spewing from the stump that was my neck.

 

[Storyteller01]

Not so much a kill as a KO...

I was running a Shadowrun game for some new players in Hawaii (stationed in MCBH).

After finally finding the BBEG at a corporate shindig, the party is getting frustrated. They finally have this guy, and he's getting away! The leader decides 'I have rope! I'll Australian repel after the elevator!'. Good idea, and I didn't see the need to quash a new player. He smashes a window and out he goes! Makes the rolls, catches up while running down the side of the building.

The player decides to try and shoot through the elevator ceiling. Makes his rolls to get onto the elevator, but it's too thick for his Predator. He jumps off and keeps pace with the elevator.

It's at this time that the mage body guard FLIPS OPEN THE REPAIR HATCH on top of the elevator. Player is totally floored that he didn't think to look for this. Worse, while repelling he has no way to dodge. One combat spell later, the character takes a nasty fall and the BBEG gets away.


Second example; a bit more recent (last Sunday!):

Our players are in a open top walker vehicle trapsing through a swamp. After a while the group wades into a colony of living leaf swarms (a 3rd party critter). The creatures can become tentacles or swarm. Two are pinning the vehicle with tentacles while the rest attack the party. Everyone's taking damage, and it's wounding to boot!

Our Unfettered/Psion (who isn't taking damage due to DR) decides 'It's area effect! I'll shoot the vines with 2 grenades!'. Could NOT be talked out of this action. Note that these are 7th level characters, and each grenade does 6d6 fire and piercing.

When it's all said and done, all the swarms are destroyed, the vehicle lost 1/3 it's hp AFTER a hardness 10 for both blasts, and our two primary spell casters are down to single digits. Since the unfettered has evasion, he came out with no damage. The kicker: he's completely unapologetic for what happened. As far as he's concerned he had his fun.

 

[Thanee]

Ah ha! You got me!

Head of Vecna was the first thought that came to mind, when I read the thread title.

It's really quite well-known these days.


There you go... not quite RPG, but still kinda on topic...

http://www.darwinawards.com/

Bye
Thanee