Silliest thing you've seen in a serious campaign...

[Argent Silvermage]

Ducks!

I just loved the Ducks in RQ. I played one named Drake Darring.
He stared out as a shepherd and then he learned magic. He was a Very powerful fowl.

 

[Crass]

First natural 1 was for a Tumble check to reduce falling damage, actually.

Was it? I stand corrected

 

[fusangite]

Silliness is a difficult thing to negotiate in a serious campaign. Usually, you put in something silly and the campaign begins an overall descent into silliness. I think it's important, however, for verisimilitude for silliness to exist in a world, though.

In my current campaign, one of the ways I sprinkle it in is non-useful magic items. In one episode, the characters acquired a coffee table book similar to the one on Seinfeld -- only it had three forms: it could be a book about coffee tables, a coffee table and... an animated coffee table (small animated object). In that haul, the characters got a conversational ottoman which, when you put your feet up on it, dominantly possesses you to engage your guests in erudite, witty conversation.

As for the Runequest ducks, the ones in my old campaign were exceptionally silly in the players' mind because when I ran my first RQ adventure when I was 15, I assumed that the players had read the world background material I had given them. They hadn't; they were unable to understand why the local duke had had to hire a band of adventurers to deal with the fact that the local duck population was harassing the commercial traffic on his river. Why not hire a huntsman? They were pretty surprised when the ducks began talking -- one of my pivotal early lessons on the importance of description.

 

[Wippit Guud]

Wippit Guud's Top 3 Silliest Things in a Game:

#3 (as a player): AD&D 2nd, DM creates a world where there are 2 suns that are opposite of each other, so it's always day. He then allows the players to make a character from any game system, and he'll convert it to the world.

Someone made a V:TM Vampire. Died instantly.

#2 (as a player): Vampire: The Masquerade. I was playing a Malkavian, and someone else was playing a human hunter, trying to kill me. So instead, I embrased him. And thus started the game of Malkavian Tag <tm>, whereupon one character would be doing whatever:

Former Hunter: What's in the room?
GM: You see the basics of a military boot camp sleeping area. There's are 20 beds and 20 locked footlockers.
Hunter: I shoot the lock off the first footlock and open the lid
Me: I jump out and stake him.

And there's be a piece of paper stuck on the stake saying "You're It. And then he'd start doing it to me. Really distracted the game.

Note: I've been banned from 4 V:TM campaigns from playing a Malkavian, aminly because I drive people to laugh too much. Cor can confirm that if he answers, he was in the one where I was banned the 4th time.

And the number 1 silliest moment in a (to the player) serious game

#1 (as DM): AD&D 1st, Monty Hall campaign, the players had been killing off gods and stuff, and said that it was impossible for me to run a fair game and kill them off. How could I refuse such a challenge? So with the equivalent of about level 90 characters:

Without warning, you appear on a different plane. Seems like one of the levels of the Happy Hunting Grounds, where you ended up killing Bahamut of so long ago. You don't know how you got here, but you have all your equipment. About a mile ahead of you, you can see a castle which seems to be made entirely out of platnium

So, the characters go there

[/i]The doors are locked, but you chop through them no problem. Beyond lies a 500 x 500 room. The floors, walls, and ceiling are made completely of platinum. In the middle of the room, you see something glowing on the floor.[/i]

On guard, the characters walk over. When they get there, the see a glowing yellow X.

[/i] The ceiling falls on you. Given that you're 250ft away from the door, your save vs Death Spell is at -25 penalty. So... you all need 26 on a d20. Ironically, this doesn't outright kill you, but you can no longer move and are slowly suffocating.[/i]

Moral: Even at level 90, check for traps