Funniest DM/player faux pas

[billd91]

We were playing an adventure and getting around in a area where there were two frog/toad like species. They were, I think, based on the grippli (relatively small) and the bullywugs (bigger and named the toadar) but redesigned for my friend's home campaign. The little ones, who were dominated by the toadar, for some reason found laughter lethal. If you got them laughing, they would convulse and die.
The toadar came after us and sternly asked us what happened over the death of one of the little frogs. One of the players didn't miss a beat and I'm not even sure if he intended to pun but said, "We don't know, he just croaked!"
We laughed around the table for a good long time.

 

[Toras]

Yugoloth Archfiend is monologing, going on about the quality of evil and how he's going to win.

"So what is it you wish, what do you desire"

My response, being mildly creeped our and damned if I was going to show it.

"Are you hitting on me?"

 

[Wik]

Ah, yes. Screwups. Gotta love 'em.

I personally love the first episode of STAP. There's a street on the city of Sasserine that is home to some bad guys. It has a fairly mean-sounding name, but that's it. Later on in the adventure, the PCs are supposed to go there.

However...

After the first encounter, I gave the PCs the map of sasserine, and they decided to explore a bit. One player quickly says: "Hey! I want to go to X alley!"

I had to RP an encounter with the villains (only the players didn't know they were villains). Not really a faux pas, but funny.

****

One of my favourites also isn't a "blunder", but rather bad luck. I really wanted to play Omega World d20. I nagged at my best friend, my brother... everyone... in the hope of getting a game going. Everyone seemed fine with it, except my best friend.

"I can roll up a character with lobster claws?"
"Yes."
"Then no, I'm not playing. That's stupid."

It took me MONTHS to convince him to play in this game. I wound up using guilt to get him to play - I had bought him this kinda cool christmas present, and he had got me zilch, so I quickly said "hey, you could play Omega World".

"Okay... but if I get lobster claws, I'm not going to play."
"Yeah, don't worry about it. There's a 1% chance of you getting lobster claws."
"Fine." *rolls dice*
"Looks like your mutation is... lobster claws."
"Dammit."

Ever since, whenever a player has to make a roll where he needs a certain number to avoid failure, people around the table make their hands into lobster claws and go "click click click!". Lots of fun.

 

[Himoura]

Not sure if its one of those urban myths or what not, but heres a story my DM told me, not sure if he saw it or it happened to him

but a player (forgotten his name) was bugging his DM to be able to play as a vampire, and of course the DM was like no way, it went on for a while til finally the DM gave in and started a new session/game. the setting:

"Your all dancing around a bonfire while a vampire burns inside it" he'd started a game in the dark sun world (or what ever its called) where there is a few suns and always daylight.

When i first heard that story i though it was really funny

 

[Berandor]

Not sure if its one of those urban myths or what not, but heres a story my DM told me, not sure if he saw it or it happened to him

but a player (forgotten his name)

With this beginning? Yep. Urban myth.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I have a bad habit of adding things like "sort of" to my speech. It crops up more often when I'm ad-libbing. The PC's were at the docks looking through a spyglass and wanted to know what the could see. I told them there was sort-of 2 ships sailing out in the harbour. One of the players asks "So are they ships or what?"

Now every time I add sort-of to my speech he asks me if they really are what I'm describing or if they are "sort-of" something else.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Wik]

I have a bad habit of adding things like "sort of" to my speech. It crops up more often when I'm ad-libbing. The PC's were at the docks looking through a spyglass and wanted to know what the could see. I told them there was sort-of 2 ships sailing out in the harbour. One of the players asks "So are they ships or what?"

Now every time I add sort-of to my speech he asks me if they really are what I'm describing or if they are "sort-of" something else.

Olaf the Stout

We had a GM a year or so ago who would say "basically" a lot. And I mean, a LOT.

"It's basically a small room, with what's basically a table propped against one wall. There's a few empty bowls and cups on the table - basically, they just finished lunch. It's basically an empty room."

"So, there's nothing in it?"

"Basically".

Of course, he didn't know he was doing it. After one session in which I started cringing everytime he said "basically", me and my brother set up a tally board to keep track of how many times he said it. Everytime he said the word, we'd secretly check down one on the tally board. At the end of a three hour session, he had said "basically" over a hundred times.

Once we told him about it, he would punch himself everytime he said "basically" and really screwed up play. We felt sort of bad about it. Basically.

 

[Oryan77]

*warning, this may make grandma wave her finger at me*

This just happened lastnight:

The PC's just finished the end of Sea of Blood which I was DM'ing for them. They were all discussing the kinds of rewards they might get for completing their mission. They were talking about receiving gold, gems, all sorts of things. One of our female players told the group, "Maybe the King will give us all a golden shower".

It turned out that she meant to say a golden globe or something. I'm not even sure if she knew what a golden shower is, but she didn't speak for 10 minutes after that. Partly because she was embarassed, and because we were laughing so hard she wouldn't have been able to get a word in.

The thought of everyone celebrating the PC's conquest and the King rewarding them with a golden shower just had me in tears. It didn't help any when I was picturing the Burger King guy as the King....no wonder he has that funny smile.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

We had a GM a year or so ago who would say "basically" a lot. And I mean, a LOT.

"It's basically a small room, with what's basically a table propped against one wall. There's a few empty bowls and cups on the table - basically, they just finished lunch. It's basically an empty room."

"So, there's nothing in it?"

"Basically".

Of course, he didn't know he was doing it. After one session in which I started cringing everytime he said "basically", me and my brother set up a tally board to keep track of how many times he said it. Everytime he said the word, we'd secretly check down one on the tally board. At the end of a three hour session, he had said "basically" over a hundred times.

Once we told him about it, he would punch himself everytime he said "basically" and really screwed up play. We felt sort of bad about it. Basically.

Are you sure that wasn't me? I also have the same problem with "basically" as I do with "sort-of". The players starting asking me "so is it, or isn't it then?" when I kept using basically.

I have now asked them to point out to me whenever I start using words like that. I don't punch myself when I do though!

Olaf the Stout

 

[Hypersmurf]

After one session in which I started cringing everytime he said "basically", me and my brother set up a tally board to keep track of how many times he said it. Everytime he said the word, we'd secretly check down one on the tally board. At the end of a three hour session, he had said "basically" over a hundred times.

I've had lecturers who did this - one was, indeed, 'basically'; one was 'let's say'; and one was 'okay?'. We did the tally thing for one of them

I also had a class I taught (teaching extension science to a bunch of 11-12 year olds) pick up on the fact that I tended to hedge all my explanations with 'theoretically'. I'd tell them what was going to happen before we'd set up an experiment... but it was always what was going to happen, 'theoretically'. ('cos, of course, sometimes it didn't work even though the science said it should ) They started parroting the word every time I said it. Made me realise just how much I hedge when I teach

-Hyp.