Stupidest things PCs/DMs have done

[Bibamus]

Bacon, that is the most horrifying story that I have ever read. You win, hands down. However, I will post my story just for the sake of it.

Shadowrun, 3rd ed.
Seattle, September 25th 2057
An NPC has completed a data-run on Ares and stolen some very hot, very nice (unspecified) program. The Street Sam (myself), the Merc, and the Mage are called to protect him until he can be safely extradited to Tir Tairngire. After taking out a helicopter with a hand greande (just don't ask), we hightail it to the Merc's hidey-hole in the Barrens. We arrive and payment is then discussed. The Street Sam and Mage take money, but the Merc decides to take a copy of the program. Fair enough, might be some really cool ICE. After the run is successfully completed, he lets it be known PUBLICLY that he has a copy of Ares' latest software. After a short discussion in the hallway with the Mage (who was the experienced GM and the current was literally a virgin GM), the GM has a potential buyer contact the Merc with an offer and a meeting in a restaurant's back room for exchange. The Merc duly arrives and walks straight into the back room. His last thought is, "Why is everything lined in plastic?"

A suitable end, and one that might deserve a place in the CLUE file. I still claim that Bacon wins the thread with PCs who couldn't take hints if applied with tac-nukes.

 

[STARP_JVP]

Another player I used to know did some fairly dim things as well. Notably:

* In a Vampire game, the group were on the tail of another vampire group who were devout Catholics in Paris. This player assumed that because of this, they 'obviously' hung out at Notre Dame cathedral. As the GM pointed out later, even if the group HAD hung out around a cathedral, there are HUNDREDS of cathedrals in Paris - why would it be Notre Dame? The worst part about this is that NONE of the other players argued the point, and they all ended up staking out a cathedral for no reason.

*In a Shadowrun game, the player decided he needed a LinguaSoft, so he got one installed. Installing Cyberware takes weeks, and he did this right in the middle of a mission, putting himself out of action for two whole sessions. And WE had to go help his colleague who got herself in trouble because he couldn't act.

Another player I had doesn't normally do dumb things, but he has this constant habit of hitting other PCs whenever they so much as touch his character, In one adventure, I used a sleep spell on him, and after he failed his safe he attacked me with lethal force and nearly killed me (my character, not me). Another time, the PCs were caught inside a burning building. Rather than run, he stayed to fight, and when another PC tried to push him out of the way, he drew his weapon and attacked the guy, killing him, and he STILL got killed by the fire. If he'd just let the guy go past there wouldn't have been a problem, but he wasn't (and still isn't) capable of letting his character be injured. Even when I'm the one doing the injury as a DM, he will NEVER withdraw from a fight, even if he's hopelessly outmatched, until whatever hurt him is dead.

 

[Baramay]

Boy, I hope the player who did this does not read this. lol I was running a group through GDW's Dangerous Journeys. Yes, what Gary Gygax right after DnD. The adventure was low magic set in the England area. Farms were suffering blight and people were moving away, or selling their land but then turning around and working on the same property. The villians were a witch's coven ploting to swindle the land away. There were two players investigating. They both had to get jobs. The one was hired on as the blacksmith's apprentice because he was strong. The other was hired to work on a farm. Once they started to ask alot of question the coven decided to scare them off with a fake book on devil worship will many illustrations. The book was planted on the farm under a barrel. As the player drew the water the barrel's cant increased slightly. He began to investigate. The barrel had show marks in the dirt that it had been moved recently. He checked inside the barrel-tar on wood. He checked outside. He traced back the barrels path to where it originally came from-under the edge of the barn. He summoned up his nerve and tasted the water-brackish. Finally he started to empty the barrel. As he did it the cant slightly increased-he stopped in wonder. The other player looked as if he was having an epileptic seizure. He had his hands clamped over his mouth stiffling his ability to say anything and shaking back and forth. This was torture to him since his character was not there. I showed the player using a prop, one of those metal football wastecans. I tilted it so the one side was about two inches off the ground. Still the player was confused. He decided to return the barrel to the barn so he would not get blamed for moving it. Lo and behold a book was under the barrel. To add the icing to the cake. He started to peruse the book. Not wanting to get caught with it on the farm and thinking the farmer could be involved. He started walking to town at dusk to meet up with his friend. Curiousity took over and he sat down to read the book on the edge of town, just minutes before the sheriff was making his rounds. The sheriff asked what he was reading and I think he tried to hide the book or proclaimed he had just found it and started to show the sheriff. Well, that caused him to be thrown in jail. Afterward he told me that Dangerous Journeys was a terrible world. I had not realized how dangerous they could be.

 

[Baramay]

I have to say Athas provided the best atmosphere for foolish play. It was our start to playing and the three of us each made up three characters. Play started with us being slaves in a huge rolling prison being taken to Tyr to work ourselves to death building a ziggurat for the insane sorcerer king. Elves attacked and the massive building stopped. The three of us worked together to free ourselves of the restraints. We chose not to free anyone else. (Athas has two suns and in the open desert the most precious commodity is water.) We waited until the fighting had stopped for a while to go topside. After searching for a while we found some hidden water,one waterskin each. All weapons and armor had been stripped from the dead by the elves. As we were enjoying our find, desert raiders can upon us and demanded our water. They had patchwork leather armor and broken weapons(basically not quite as good as a non-broken), if memory serves me correctly there were about six of them. Not wanting to gamble my new found freedom, I tossed the open waterskin across the floor. The raiders scuttled after it not wanting to lose a precious drop. I ran out the door. Another character feeling this was the way to go did the same with the same result. The third guy, I can only guess, felt confident in his high strength or the fact that we were 3rd level. He turned wild-eyed and challenged the raiders. Later we found him in a pool of his own blood. Fortunately for him rounds were longer at that time and thus it took longer to die. What happened next is was not stupid but it was funny so I will include it here. He went to get a view from a high vantage point, in doing so we saw a lush area of plants and water in the distance. Since I was stronger I was carrying the wounded guy and the other player ran to get water. As he entered the oasis the plants wrapped around him and started to drain his blood. I heard his scream and ran to help. When I saw what was happening, I asked the DM what my chances of getting in without getting attacked would be. He had me roll an intelligence check and succeeding he told me "almost impossible." I picked up a flower, tossed towards the struggling ally and said goodbye old friend. Later that night as I was helping the conscious but helpless injured guy across the desert, a huge snake with eyes of a fly appeared. I dropped the injured guy to run. The snake proceeded to fanged him and carry him off into the night. From then on my character chose the path of survivor and is still alive today.

I now feel the need to include my own stupid act. Funny how it is harder to remember ones own fauz pas. Recently, as a matter of fact, we were told that a business in the city was owned by an ogre and a sign in front read "elves and halflings will be axed on sight." The person who told us about it also said he was keeping the fact a secret from an elven epic friend. A short time later we had asked the elf to help us on a diplomatic mission. While traveling to our destination, I was at a loss for conversation so I blurted out "what do you think of that place with the elves will be axed sign?" I quickly realized my blunder but she would not let it drop until I told her everything. I think subconsciously my love of elves wanted these racists dead. Of course, everyone has an excuse. In the end she sent us to the place polymorphed into elves. We beat them up but did not kill anyone. In the end we could only hope that being defeated by those of the pointed ear was embarassing enough to change them.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

PatrickLawinger, very funny!
Bacon, the situation you described takes the cake. There are words in the language to describe the actions of the PCs, but none of them can be uttered on ENWorld.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Okay, here's my contribution:

I was running a game for a bunch of players I didn't know very well, and they entered a dungeon that was essentially the ruins of an ancient high-magic-tech civilization. Lots of old 50s style control panels with lots of coloured buttons and gauges and stuff, but all related to magical tech. They were there performing a brief exploratory mission to recover some mcguffin for a patron. They entered, discovered the mcguffin without too much trouble, and then left, having explored the entire area except one small part of the complex that they discovered was the home of a group of kobolds.

Now, two of the players decided that they needed to lay claim to all the treasure that these kobolds must be hoarding. The kobolds hadn't bothered them yet, but they decided to march in there and kill the lot of them for lots of phat loot and XPs. The party rogue had decided he didn't want to pick on a bunch of kobolds for no reason, and left along with the cleric and the psion. The two players left behind, a fighter and a ranger, were both dead set on raiding the kobold lair.

If you know anything about kobolds, you know they like to set traps. They're very good at it, too. So their lair was peppered with falling-block traps, poison needle traps, acid spray traps, etc. Lots of low-CR traps that added up to a minefield. Again, the rogue had left already.

I figured that after one or two traps, they'd decide they couldn't handle it and leave. But nooo...after a few darts and falling bricks, they licked their wounds and kept going. They heard scrabbling feet as the kobolds ran around in tunnels in the walls, and snickering each time they set off a trap, which seemed to make them even more determined. They couldn't open any of the locked metal doors to get at the kobolds, but it didn't seem to occur to them that this was an unbeatable roadblock to their plans. At one point a hole opened in the wall, and they could hear kobolds on the other side. One character stuck his masterwork longsword through, and a group of kobolds, awaiting this, grabbed it and yanked, tearing it out of his hand and through the hole. By this point, most of the secondary saves for the poisons were kicking in, and they decided to go with the better part of valour and get out of there.

So, to the amusement of the rest of the party, the two escaped the kobold lair, not having laid eyes on a single kobold, down about 20 points of Str and Dex between them, barely able to stand from the poison, and missing a masterwork longsword.

 

[Lalalei2001]

Never ever bother a sleeping dragon, as my party's mage found out the hard way.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

That reminds me of the long ago article about Tucker's Kobolds, Dr. Awkward.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

A while back, in our Eberron game, a player who's usually very tactically astute made a bone-headed mistake.

We were going into an old Cannith facility per our Johnson's request. We were going into what we knew was an office complex, or at least had been at one point. The spirit shaman/marshal decided that he would walk down the hall, past unopened doors, to get into the office. Obviously, a clear violation of procedure.

So, the door he's nearing opens and a quartet of undead come forth. The fighter and ranger advance to support. The off-the-cuff plan is to hold them in the hallway and have fire support from the wizard and arcane trickster. Not a terribly great plan, given that the undead explode when you kill them, but such is a melee character's lot in life, right?

Then one of the side doors opens, with another quartet of undead, and we're cut off from the casters.

Many rounds later, the spirit shaman/marshal is dead, having been exploded on one too many times. The initial mistake that he made was compounded by the fighter (me) going up to support rather than having the spirit shaman/marshal fall back.

Brad

 

[Lalalei2001]

Another short-lived mage casted a lightning spell in a pool.