Friday Nonsense: Funniest Gaming Fails

[Reynard]

We have all been there: the dice go bad, or someone makes a terrible choice and everyone ends up rolling on the floor with laughter. Let's share those stories today!

This happened a very long time ago, playing BECMI. My oldest brother was the DM, and my middle brother was playing along with a couple other kids. I was probably 11 or 12.

We were traveling through the wilds, returning from the dungeon laden with loot, when we left the edge of the forest onto a wide open plain. Out in the tall grass was a herd of wild cattle -- all cows inm fact. Soon enough, we saw the massive bull apparently made of iron watching over his harem. We decided we were going to skirt the herd and avoid trouble, just because we did not know what a giant iron bull might be capable of.

Well, almost all of us did. My middle brother decided, for a lark, to shoot an arrow at the bull when we were halfway clear. That bull, of course, was a BECMI Gorgon and it immediately charged our party.

Now, I was the youngest brother. So, naturally, I was given the worst horse, and was forced to carry the heaviest but least valuable loot (all those copper pieces). So it was no surprise that as everyone else escaped (including my brother who created this problem) I fell behind and was breathed on. Soon there was a permanent statue of my mounted cleric Clarion in that field...

But that was not the end of Clarion's indignation. Real time months later, the campaign was leading to The Isle of Dread. Along the way to catch a boat, my brother and friends decided to stop by that field and pick up my statue. I was playing anew character by then, but was excited that we had finally reached high enough level that Clarion could be restored! Alas, no. They put the statue on a cart, brought it to the docks, loaded it onto the ship and finally, in the middle of the sea, dropped it into sea to be forever lost.

Why? For the look on my face, apparently.

Ah, to be a youngest sibling.

 

[payn]

I got a doozy for y'all. Its Battletech but I dont care because the story is stone cold hilarious.

The set up;
Battletech is crunchy and then some. Memes galore demonstrate how many charts exist to adjudicate just about any situation. Most of the time a game runs pretty smoothly. Though, once in a while you enter a rabbit hole of domino effects that require even the most veteran players to break out the numerous texts and work through it like M.I.T math students working on a proof. Sometiems it leads to hilarious places.

So, we had a weekly meet up that was a random force build game. For reference, in BT you have "Battle Value" score that balances out a game. (Its like CR of 5E so not perfect by any means). Every player builds a force of equal BV which could be a few big units, or several smaller units. Occasionally, a whipper snapper comes along thinking they found the secret to min-max supremacy. This usually entails taking a light weight unit, but loaded with lots of guns, and dropping all the skills as low as possible. Think point buy min maxing and using certain multi-classing to optimize into a pun pun.

We are a very welcoming bunch and love getting new players into the game. Occasionally, we get a new player coming in hot thinking they are going to show the old timers how its done. This is the story of Randy and his attempt to do so.

Game night;
We all start to shuffle in and get out our gear, lay a game board down, and start to form teams. The new guy Randy is all smiles. He places his single light weight unit ont he table and declares he was able to make it work by reducing his shooting skill to 0 (meaning he is most likley always gfoing to hit) by increasing his piloting (meaning he is going to struggle to keep upright...forshadowing...). A few eye brows raise followed by "are you sure?" questions. Randy is positive and so we take our places and begin the game.

The map is a city. That means lots of cover, which Randy is very excited about. What Randy didnt anticipate was controlling his mech at top speeds on a paved surface. You see in Battletech you have two speeds for units. Cruising is akin to walking and very easy to accomplish. Then, there is flanking which is running and can require piloting checks particualrly on paced surfaces. Randy is about to get a crash course on the subject (pun intended).

Several players move their units and then its Randy's turn. He looks around the table and shouts, "watch this!". He proceeds to flank run speed 80% of his considerable movement and then tries to turn. "Ok, you need to make a skid check for this manuever Randy" Randy scoops his dice and looks at his sheet and says a 6 should be no problem on 2D6. Rolls a 3. This is where the books start to come out.

First, we determine how far Randy moved his mech, so that we know how far it is going to skid on the ground before stopping. In this case a considerable distance. So far, in fact, that his mech crashes into a city building. You might think it stops there but nope there are random charts for determining impact, whether the building has a basement (it did), how much falling damage the mech takes, how much damage the building takes before collapsing (enough to do so) etc..

Half way through claculating and reading the rules its pretty clear Randy's mech has been destroyed and the pilot killed 4x over but we kept going. Eventually, Randy has had enough and starts collecting his gear, frown on face, his ultimate plan foiled by a bad dice roll. I look at him and say, "where are you going? I'm STILL WATCHING THIS!" Randy stares at me for what felt like 10 seconds before yelling "eff you" and running out of the store.

We never saw Randy again after that. Though, to this day, we never under any circumstances begin our turn by saying, "watch this!"