Stupid Player Syndrome

[Amaroq]

My favorite misuse of a fireball didn't involve catching the party directly. Oh no, it was much better than that. After adventuring through a large cave network for several sessions, the party had discovered an underground lake, with an underwater (completely submerged) channel to another portion of the cave complex. They swam through it, and on the other side discovered a large cave filled with trees; some form of bio-luminescent fungus along the roof of the cave appeared to provide the light source. Down in the grove, there were a large group of fairly low-HD bad guys.

Mage: Fireball!.
Rest of party: "Nooooo!"
DM: Uhhh.... are you sure?
Mage: Yeah! I can take 'em all out with a single spell!

Well, he was right about that... but there wasn't any way to put out the ensuing forest fire. Fortunately, it burned itself out fairly quickly, when it had consumed all of the oxygen in the small, completely contained, cave system.

TPK by suffocation and smoke inhalation, anyone?

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My D&D survival instincts were honed by playing with the legendary Mr. Owen, who used to run a summer-school D&D session in San Diego. "As a DM," he warned 20 to 25 kids every session, "I am lawful evil. I will do anything within the rules to 'get' you, but I won't go outside of the rules published in the core rulebooks."

It was Darwin at his finest: players whose characters died were done; by the end of a session, perhaps two to four characters may have still been standing, and it was a badge of honor amongst my gaming friends to have a character who survived one of Mr. Owen's sessions. Of course, the other players made some spectacular stupid-player moves....

My all-time favorite: the high-level cleric carrying two artifacts ("You can bring anything you want to the table. It won't help you.") who wanders away from the party. By himself. Off of the random-encounter table, he bumped into the lich who was the 'final encounter' for the session; unlucky, that. Rather than use either of the wondrous powers of his two artifacts, he opted to turn the lich in his first round.

He never got a second round, and let me tell you, a lich armed with two artifacts and warning that the party was coming was a *much* harder encounter for the six still standing than the original lich would have been....

 

[velm]

I have seen a few 'interesting' choices on the part of the players. I have witnessed a mage try destory a door in dungeon environment with a lightning bolt. lightning bolt on reinforced door = crispy pile of mage. To this day, I had no idea what that guy was thinking.

Most of the funny moments were just misunderstandings between the DM and the players:

We are entering a town and the ranger, who was VERY new to playing said to the DM:
Ranger: I am looking for sin
DM: Um, ok. well, you go down some side alleys for a bit and find a brothel.
Ranger: Huh?
DM: Well, you said you wanted some sin.
Ranger: No, I said 'Inn.'
DM: Um, ok.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Except R decides to pursue the fleeing gaseous spawn. Doing so provokes an attack of opportunity from the STILL ACTIVE AND DANGEROUS spawn.

Without metagaming, it's difficult to determine this. It could just be moving to a more tactically advantageous position.

Besides - if you don't kill it now, you just have to kill it later.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I have seen a few 'interesting' choices on the part of the players. I have witnessed a mage try destory a door in dungeon environment with a lightning bolt. lightning bolt on reinforced door = crispy pile of mage. To this day, I had no idea what that guy was thinking.

Probably that lightning destroys trees and melts metal to slag...

 

[velm]

Probably that lightning destroys trees and melts metal to slag...

Well, the dm decided that since the door was reinforced, that the lightning bolt basically hit the door, made a nice char mark on it and bounced back toward the caster.
It brought him to -8, or so, if i recall.

 

[Piratecat]

Ah, that wacky 1e & 2e bouncing lightning bolt. I saw a character ace himself that way. He opened a door, saw something looming in the darkness in front of him, and let loose with a lightning bolt; the room was too small to contain it, it reflected, and dropped him to -10. Ironically, the stone statue of the horse that scared him wasn't appreciably harmed.

 

[Storyteller01]

Had a character play a lizardman fighter. He decided he wanted some poison, since he was in a gnome village, gnomes being known for making such things if you know how to ask.

He's method: "I walk in to a store and ask for poison."

After being told that such items weren't sold, he tried a different tact: I walk into a store and ask for poison. I tell them that I'm an exterminator, and I need it for work."

After walking down the same street with this act, the gnome constabulary (did I spell that right?) gets wind of a lizardman looking for poison, taking the appropriate action.

I've never seen a lizardman pinned in a stores back room by gnomes, using illusions and magic. Funny as all get out, and the player didn't even get to kill anyone! Heck, the gnomes managed to take him alive!!

 

[Storyteller01]

Have to say the worst case of the stupids I encountered was from myself.

I had just started a character in a homebrewed game a friend of mine had set up. I played something similar to a druid, meeting the group in town.

The storyline set by the DM was that the players were to infltrate the fort, assassinating the warlord. Of course, I didn't pay attention, so I decide to go warn the warlord of impending danger (good guy that I am).

We ended up running a new adventure... escaping from prison.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

One of my group's old members was very good at understimating fireball volumes. He managed to destroy the big huge cool library in RttToH with a delayed blast fireball, and caught the party in it, of course.

He was also really bad with Chain Lightning, including casting it on someone right in front of him, while they and the rest of each respective party were standing on the back of a zaratan.

Brad

 

[Hitokiri]

I had one PC when I was GMing that was so pleased that he had bought the best suit of armor of anyone in the party, and how he had the best AC in the party. the player isn't able to make the second gaming session, and another player takes over his PC at his request. The players are ambushed and the players says "I attack with my.....my.....HE DIDN"T BUY A WEAPON!?!?" Yeah, the player blew all his starting cash on armor and didn't have so much as a knife to use in a fight.

In another game, I was running a wizard (around 4th lvl) and traveling with a fighter and a paladin. We are trying to clear an old castle of a band of ogres that have moved in. We enter a room and find the ogre chief and his ogress bedding down there. Winning init, my mage moves in with his quarterstaff and engages the chief, seeing him as the larger threat and being out of spells. I did so expecting my two tank companions to move up and support me. Instead, they both charge the unarmed ogress, leaving me to dance with big and ugly. I actually managed to last about 6 rounds before I go down, and the fighter and pali had still not killed the ogress!!

One of my own rather stupid moments (most, like this one, occur when I feel Im getting railroaded and have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the plot). "Lord Soth? I cast magic missle.....what do mean nothing happened, I cast it again!". Yeah, not one of my brighter moments.

Shadowrun: Had a player that needed to talk to a talismonger. He goes in and strikes up a conversation, pretending to be interested in the guys wares. Ends up walking out with a 300K nuyen talisman he can't use because he isn't magically active, just for an excuse to be there.

Im sure I've got more, but it's late. probably post more later.