Lalalei2001
Explorer
So that means stories of DMs who don't know the rules are welcome 
Stupidest things PCs/DMs have done
- Thread starter Lalalei2001
- Start date
I was running a one shot adventure with a large group. The game was rather high powered with a high mortality rate. I set up a small puzzle in a room. The group found a number of chains hanging from the ceiling. Underneath each chain was a pedestal with a plaque that read a short clue.
The trick that they had to pull the chain in the correct order to open the door and continue onward.
The group solved the puzzle without much dificulty and there was one chain left unpulled. The plaque read "Never pull this chain".
I knew that at least one of the guys could not restrain his curiosity and, as I predicted, he stated that he wanted to pull the chain. The rest of the group (save one other guy) left the room.
He pulled the chain.
A wail of the banshee fileld the room.
The guy who pulled the chain made his save.
The other guy didn't.
The trick that they had to pull the chain in the correct order to open the door and continue onward.
The group solved the puzzle without much dificulty and there was one chain left unpulled. The plaque read "Never pull this chain".
I knew that at least one of the guys could not restrain his curiosity and, as I predicted, he stated that he wanted to pull the chain. The rest of the group (save one other guy) left the room.
He pulled the chain.
A wail of the banshee fileld the room.
The guy who pulled the chain made his save.
The other guy didn't.
Lalalei2001
Explorer
^ That sucks for the guy that didn't pull it. 
Deepfire
First Post
there should be more incidents in 24 years of gaming, but I just remember two really stupid ... 
1. A really OLD story, it happened, when MERP was new, a friend of mine and me played a dwarf and an elf - Krischan, worldst-best-GM, gmed us (Krischan, mail mich mal an, versuche schon lange dich zu kontaktieren!).
We found some magic rings, which were "ONE WAY ONLY" - so we couldn't take them off after wearing them. We (Players) were young and extremely inexperienced in rpging - so we just used them without thinking any further. Of course, the dwarf (benni, the fighter) got the ones ideal for wizards but bad for fighters, the elf (me, the wizard) got garbage. (Don't remember any details, my long-time memory is quite bad). The dwarf got rescued by the elf some sessions ago, so he would do anything to help his long-eared friend. So we decided in our brightness to "remove" two fingers of the dwarf and "re-fit" them with a magic potion. It - of course - didn't work. Well part of it worked, thou (the part "remove two fingers" with an axe).
2. just a few years ago: GURPS fantasy, the tredroy adventure. Two wanna-be-thieves (a good friend and my girl) were entering the tower of a dead necromancer. The tower had a walled garden, this wall had a nice, large iron door with a huge lock. Both thiefs stood before the wall/door and thought about, how to enter the garden. After a longer discussion, they climbed over it near a tree with lots of problems (both had very low strength values) and experienced a nasty glass-covered top-of-the-wall.
Some cuts later they were in the garden.
>snip adventure<
The Thieves found the corpse of the dead Necromancer and decided to take it to their patron as an evidence for fulfilling their job. So, they crossed the garden, discussed longer how to cross the wall (their was a bustling city out of the garden), put the corpse in a large carpet and climbed the wall again, this time with a heavy corpse (and their still low strength value ...). Sweating and swearing they reached the other side, rested with their backs to the wall, took a deep breath and marched away with the carpet/corpse to the end of the adventure. We ended the evening, emptied our wine-bottles, said goodbye, and than I said to both of them "by the way, the door in the wall was not locked"
my english is a bit rusted, so please ignore any errors.
1. A really OLD story, it happened, when MERP was new, a friend of mine and me played a dwarf and an elf - Krischan, worldst-best-GM, gmed us (Krischan, mail mich mal an, versuche schon lange dich zu kontaktieren!).
We found some magic rings, which were "ONE WAY ONLY" - so we couldn't take them off after wearing them. We (Players) were young and extremely inexperienced in rpging - so we just used them without thinking any further. Of course, the dwarf (benni, the fighter) got the ones ideal for wizards but bad for fighters, the elf (me, the wizard) got garbage. (Don't remember any details, my long-time memory is quite bad). The dwarf got rescued by the elf some sessions ago, so he would do anything to help his long-eared friend. So we decided in our brightness to "remove" two fingers of the dwarf and "re-fit" them with a magic potion. It - of course - didn't work. Well part of it worked, thou (the part "remove two fingers" with an axe).
2. just a few years ago: GURPS fantasy, the tredroy adventure. Two wanna-be-thieves (a good friend and my girl) were entering the tower of a dead necromancer. The tower had a walled garden, this wall had a nice, large iron door with a huge lock. Both thiefs stood before the wall/door and thought about, how to enter the garden. After a longer discussion, they climbed over it near a tree with lots of problems (both had very low strength values) and experienced a nasty glass-covered top-of-the-wall.
Some cuts later they were in the garden.
>snip adventure<
The Thieves found the corpse of the dead Necromancer and decided to take it to their patron as an evidence for fulfilling their job. So, they crossed the garden, discussed longer how to cross the wall (their was a bustling city out of the garden), put the corpse in a large carpet and climbed the wall again, this time with a heavy corpse (and their still low strength value ...). Sweating and swearing they reached the other side, rested with their backs to the wall, took a deep breath and marched away with the carpet/corpse to the end of the adventure. We ended the evening, emptied our wine-bottles, said goodbye, and than I said to both of them "by the way, the door in the wall was not locked"
my english is a bit rusted, so please ignore any errors.
moritheil
First Post
prospero63 said:
This actually worked out just fine in my campaign. The VoP paladin/cleric of Pelor spent a lot of time trying to talk the character back into the light and making it absolutely clear that she would pack up and leave if any corpses were animated. (After putting said corpses to rest.)
Lalalei2001
Explorer
Our party was deep in a dungeon, and we came to this dead end room at the bottom of a 20' deep shaft. It had braziers in the corners at the bottom of the shaft, and an ornate carpet on the bottom of the shaft.
One panel on the wall of the shaft was covered in an intricate pattern etched into the rocks. Our party did EVERYTHING we could think of. Moved the braziers, moved the carpet, our mage cast knock spells. We were stymied.
Couldnt figure it out. This went on for what seemed like forever (In reality it was the best part of a five hour long Saturday RP session). At one point, we even burned the carpet, and used the ashes to trace out the patters on the wall ointo the floor where the carpet had been.
Finally, in total exasperation, our DM had another player who had gone back to scout out for posssible secret doors 'come across' another one of the carpets.
As we unrolled it, the DM 'accidentally' let slip that the pattern on the carpet was identical to the one on the wall, and that the two rings (that we missed totally) on the wall sort of matched the holes in one end of the carpet. Hang the carpet on the provided hooks, cast a knock, and BOOM, the passage opened.
DUH.
We all felt rather stupid for that one.
One panel on the wall of the shaft was covered in an intricate pattern etched into the rocks. Our party did EVERYTHING we could think of. Moved the braziers, moved the carpet, our mage cast knock spells. We were stymied.
Couldnt figure it out. This went on for what seemed like forever (In reality it was the best part of a five hour long Saturday RP session). At one point, we even burned the carpet, and used the ashes to trace out the patters on the wall ointo the floor where the carpet had been.
Finally, in total exasperation, our DM had another player who had gone back to scout out for posssible secret doors 'come across' another one of the carpets.
As we unrolled it, the DM 'accidentally' let slip that the pattern on the carpet was identical to the one on the wall, and that the two rings (that we missed totally) on the wall sort of matched the holes in one end of the carpet. Hang the carpet on the provided hooks, cast a knock, and BOOM, the passage opened.
DUH.
We all felt rather stupid for that one.
prospero63
First Post
moritheil said:
Yeah, I allowed it because I saw the potential to have some good role playing, and it gave me an easy way to get the players some background info on where they are (RttToEE). Unfortunately, this is what actually transpired (to the best of my recollection)...
Necromancer and the party meet, a bit contentious, but they agree to travel together for the time being. No one knows the guy is a necromancer. They know he is some kind of spell caster who used to be in cahoots with the bad guys, but he got betrayed and "saw the light". Party accepted him under the old, an enemy of my enemy...
The first real encounter is in an old haunted dwarven forge. The party never quite figures out that they are dealing with undead initially. They thought invisible caster with TK, some kind of mind effecting caster running around throwing compulsions left and right, etc. The forge spirit can control weapons and is decimating the party while the barbarian's weapon is being compelled by the spirit to do some serious damage to himself. The priest of pelor asks if he wants him to be held because he's going to kill himself at this rate. He agrees, priest holds him. The important lesson in spell casting etiquette is of course to ask before casting spells on your party members if they could be harmful. Weapons are still flying around and attacking. No one has figured out the source. Suddenly two undead owlbears show up in the middle of the party. Immediately the priest of pelor blasts them out of existence. The new necromancer says "hey, if you don't want any of my help, fine". In the middle of combat, so it wasn't a great time to settle the issue. They decide to press on into the next room hoping that once they leave the first room the attack will cease. Necro charges in, rest of the party follows suit, cleric drops the hold (barbarian was never going to make the save). Barbarian heads in. Shortly, the barbarian is once again compelled to harm himself. Necromancer decides that to help out, he will cast ray of enfeeblement. So to recap...
1) New guy has summoned undead into the midst of a good party led (largely) by priest of Pelor. Totally unapologetic about it...
2) Party is fighting what they suspect is some kind of ghost or spirit, but can't quite nail it down
3) In the midst of a substantial battle against unseen enemies, thought to be some kind of undead he blast the barbarian with a ray of enfeeblement - no courtesy "hey do you want this", nothing. Just wham. His response to a "what in the hell are you doing" was "hey, I'm just trying to help"
So, the warmage that has been hanging out with no targets makes a move and says "do I have a clean angle" (he has a rep for hitting other party members accidentally). With that, he blasts the crap out of the necromancer. The barbarian then does a leap attack on him and finishes the job. About that time someone figured out with no weapons in hand, you can't attack yourself and the party repeats.
Eventually they do some research (and use some sendings) to figure out that it was probably an incororeal undead creature, probably hiding in the solid objects and peeking out to deal with the attacks (which was indeed the case, they just never made a spot check to figure it out). Next time the go back (they had to leave a magic weapon behind... oh, and a necromancer... hehe) the fight should go much easier as the cleric will basically ready an action for when the spirit exposes itself. Classic case of an encounter being way more difficult than it should have been because they just had no idea what to do...
The sorcerer got extra XP for that session as he tends to be quick on the trigger and I had actually expected him to blast the guy much sooner...
Fun times... Now the guy is playing a monk with a VOP... we will see if that goes over better...
moritheil
First Post
prospero63 said:1) New guy has summoned undead into the midst of a good party led (largely) by priest of Pelor. Totally unapologetic about it...
2) Party is fighting what they suspect is some kind of ghost or spirit, but can't quite nail it down
3) In the midst of a substantial battle against unseen enemies, thought to be some kind of undead he blast the barbarian with a ray of enfeeblement - no courtesy "hey do you want this", nothing. Just wham. His response to a "what in the hell are you doing" was "hey, I'm just trying to help"
So, the warmage that has been hanging out with no targets makes a move and says "do I have a clean angle" (he has a rep for hitting other party members accidentally). With that, he blasts the crap out of the necromancer. The barbarian then does a leap attack on him and finishes the job. About that time someone figured out with no weapons in hand, you can't attack yourself and the party repeats.
Fun times... Now the guy is playing a monk with a VOP... we will see if that goes over better...
That doesn't appear to have been a very intelligent necromancer.
I'd say the party gave him the benefit of the doubt.Lalalei2001
Explorer
I wonder if that monk fared any better. I'm guessing not.
prospero63
First Post
Lalalei2001 said:
The monk missed the last session. Verdict is still out.
Same player, Friday game though... his psywarrior's body is currently being dragged by the party dire wolverine... some horrible dice rolling combined with suspect tactics...
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