Stupid Player Syndrome

[TheAuldGrump]

And the number of players who just do not think about consequences...

The Party is travelling along the road to a frontier barony when they see an orc walking along the road to town.
Not hiding.
Not carrying any weapons.
Not wearing any armor.
Just walking along the road into town.

So they kill him and take his head into town, for some reason expecting a bounty.

The Baron had a peace treaty with the orcs, and in come these yahoos boasting of their easy kill. So there was a fair trial, and the party was hanged by the neck until they were dead. (Orc orphan: 'Where's Daddy?' Orc Widow: 'Daddy isn't coming home son.')

From the Baron's viewpoint this was about the best thing that could have happened, he got to prove to the orcs that he was honoring the treaty, sieze the party's goods, and the party looked like a bunch of troublemakers anyway... Costing him nothing.

Or the person who attacked a hobble bush... (A bush used to tie up your horse outside of roadside inns) For some reason he thought that it was a monster.

Or the party who decided that it was faster to swim the river (analgous to the Rhine) rather than go three days out of their way to cross at a bridge or ferry. The only survivor was the only one with Swim, who was also the only one not to jump into the river...

Or the person who decided that the person wearing robes in the tavern was obviously a wizard, and since wizards aren't allowed to use offensive magics in town it was safe to 'pick on the guy in the dress hur, hur, hur.' Can you say Shao Lin?

The Auld Grump

 

[hong]

Or the person who attacked a hobble bush... (A bush used to tie up your horse outside of roadside inns) For some reason he thought that it was a monster.

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me. These things have a nasty habit of growing up into a gazebos, you know.

 

[Storyteller01]

My group had been playing Dragon Star when this happened.

We were on a desert planet trolling around in a hover jeep, searching out some bad guys. For no reason, our fighter decides to cover the pilots eyes. Wouldn't have been bad, if the pilot didn't roll a 1 on his control check!! (but the fighter thought it was funny...)

Needless to say, the vehicle crashes, and is irrepairable. Players are suffering from exposure and sniper fire, since the bad guys found them first. Then the fighter decides to charge 1000 feet, planning to kill the snipers...

 

[TheAuldGrump]

And when I was playing Call of Cthulhu (back when I got to play instead of run) the party always insisted on doing things just to get a check in the skill so they could roll for experience.

In one case we helicoptered towards the enemies base, then they wondered how the baddies figured out that we were there. The only people who didn't get shot were me and Bethany. While the rest of the party was running around the island (about 100 miles from Hawaii) She and I were dressed as tourists, taking pictures and finding things out (I bought a huge fish, then had one of the natives photograph me holding it and a fishing rod), while they went scampering around in camo. (Need to get our Hide skills up!) Guess which group found out where the baddies were hiding...

The Auld Grump

 

[kigmatzomat]

Shadowrun
The GM has attempted to kidnap the (very experienced) party to kick off a storyline. Unfortunately, the mage (me) had dumped enough karma into initation that I was able to ignore the drug penalties and free the party. Unfortunately, our psycho samurai attacked the driver of the hijack vehicle with his dikote claws; decapitating him....and leaving us hurtling through space and time without a driver. Thank god for autopilots...

D&D 2e
The guy who normally plays a wizard decides to play a fighter and makes him a stubby tank of a man with the spiked iron WWI german helmet. We encounter a reinforced door that he decides to smash. He waves off the rogue (me) before I can examine the door. I also noticed the GM specified the door swings out so he's got a hard task and I decided to sit back and enjoy the show.
Stubby "puts his head down and charges" (exact quote) and then fumbles the roll, embedding his helm into the door. The inhabitants, a trio of trolls, open the UNLOCKED door, hard, slamming Stubby into the wall. The rest of us retreat a bit to get into a better position. Stubby (again) fumbles try to extricate his helmet from the door and begins to wail plaintively in character for help. The trolls, who had not noticed him, begin the assault on his exposed rear. It takes us 4 rounds to drive off the trolls, during which time he could not get his helmet out of the door. The mage, irritated, tries to pull him free and succeeds the first time.
However the truly merciless mocking doesn't begin 'til someone notices his character sketch.
"Hey, is this accurate?"
"Well, I can't draw muscles too well but yeah, that's him."
"So....he always walks around with his helmet chinstrap untied?"