Stupidest things PCs/DMs have done

[Dark Dragon]

This happened last session. It is a two-parter.

Part 1)
The party (a human bard/barbarian, a human monk/wizard/enlightened fist, a human druid, a reincarnated elf fighter (former human), a reincarnated kobold rogue (former halfling) and a very young brass dragon) are looking for some sinister guy who may have some valuable informations.

One day, the party rests in an inn. The wizard is writing a spell in her book, the dragon sleeps in a cozy fire, the rest is hanging around.

Then that sinister guy walks in. The dragon is the only one who knows the guy. So he waited until the guy took place and secretly informed his friends.

The bard, the fighter and the rogue tried (quite harmlessly) to provoke a fight, but the stranger stayed calm.

After some more insults, the guy left the inn and waited outside, hidden behind the door. The bard followed him, pretending to smoke some tobacco. The rest of the group didn't follow.

When the bard closed the door, the stranger barred it with a kukri and drew his heavy pick.
Initiative was rolled.
The bard didn't fight well and got his skull crashed with a critical hit in round 2. The blocked front door prevented the rest of the party to help in time, except for the dragon who went outside through the back door.
Nevertheless, the rogue managed to blast the door away with his ring of the ram and the party could join the fight. The stranger fell to the dragon's sleep gas and was tied up for later interogation. The bard was dead, though.

The point: Smoking kills...

Part 2)
Same party, some minutes later.
The druid, the monk and the dragon went for a nearby forest. There, the druid started to cast reincarnate on the bard. Houserule: Casting Time 1 hour.

Meanwhile, the fighter and the rogue guarded the unconcious stranger. Then, the local ruler, a very smart countess, arrived with her bodyguard, because the had heard of the fight. She asked about the incident. The rogue told her almost everything... The countess went to see the guy.

She recognized the stranger and asked the fighter and the rogue to leave the room. Both denied, fearing that the countess may help the stranger to escape...

First, it was a battle of words. Then the fighter and the rogue drew their weapons and attacked BOTH the bodyguard and the countess...It was very clear that the two would not last for long against the two PCs. When the countess shouted for help and tried to escape, the fighter knocked her out, at least dealing only subdual damage. Then the two grabbed the stranger and fled.

The rest of the party was unaware of that and showed up at the inn with a new party member, a gnomish bard...and at the inn, they met a very furious countess...

Point: Law is for whimps. But the two players played out their PC's chaotic alignment very well.

 

[Lalalei2001]

"I stab myself in the chest to see if Kevlar is knifeproof as well as bulletproof."

 

[Thurbane]

In my first game of Twilight 2000, my character, based on Higgins from Magnum ( ), decided to charge a T-72 tank armed with...an Uzi and a hand grenade. After realising how entirely ineffectual my weapons were against the armor of an MBT, I started running around the tank, figuring if I stayed out of the direction the gun was pointed, I'd be OK.

...I totally neglected to consider the machine gun also mounted on the tank.

 

[robberbaron]

Hmm, lemme see......

3.5 Nightfang Spire; bit of a ruck with some shadows and shadowmastiffs. The party had not taken the time to fully check out a hallway before opening doors and out came hte undead. The Ranger (archer deathmachine) moved toward a shadowmastiff and went clean through the floor, down a razor-lined chute and out into the open air......whee......thud. Of course, the undead mutt just watched as it hovered over the hole.

1e game; party were investigating an underground complex deep in the Chaos Wastes. After dealing with the opposition, the party took notice of the enormous fish tank, full of odd-looking beasties. Paladin shot an arrow (max. damage) at the glass as they were leaving (in a fit of pique) then got lofted 200' into the air above the entrance by the pressure of water from the alien sea (on another planet in the PMP) the portal of which she had just unsealed.
The large body of water created, when the pressures equalised, was called the Kirin Sea, in her honour.

3.5 game; party in mountains get set upon by a couple of Behirs. The barbarian type charged one, and got picked up in its mouth, taking most of his hit points in the process. Psion, who can only see the back end of the Behir, Energy Balls it, turning barbarian into charcoal brickette.

Palladium; 2 characters roped up to more safely climb a cliff. One (let's call him Neil) gets to the top and starts moving around, looking for an entrance, the other (call him Rob ) gets most of the way up before falling off. Neil gets dragged across the clifftop and describes a clean arc through the air to land a couple of hundred feet away from the cliff, in a bit of a heap. And a bit of a mood.

 

[Elemental]

That's from the famous last words list!

I recognised a lot of his contributions from the now-defunct site Blaize O'Glory's RPG Graveyard. Still, it is funny to read them again, regardless of originality.

 

[STARP_Social_Officer]

How many of the people who've posted so far have been designers or developers of RPGs? I'd love to see some posts from Gygax and others on this topic.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

How many of the people who've posted so far have been designers or developers of RPGs? I'd love to see some posts from Gygax and others on this topic.

I guess people are always careful when game designers are around: If you do something stupid in a regular game, you're laughed at by the other players and the DM, and maybe make some message boards. Mess up with some game designer around, and you might read about it in the next rulebook. Having a Gezebo Moment, so to speak.

 

[Thurbane]

Back in a 2E game I was playing my namesake character, thurbane the wizard, and had polymorphed myself into a dwarf to infiltrate a pub and get some info (Thurbane was a fairly well known hero at that point, having just completed a major quest with his party).

The innkeeper thought I was a bit suspicious (he didn't recognise me as a paying guest, but saw me coming downstairs from the lodging rooms), so he asked my name...

My response?

"Thurbane!...uh, um...not THAT Thurbane..."

 

[Moon-Lancer]

i dont want to be rude, but it takes two to tango in some of these cases.

 

[lazarus1020]

It has taken me a while to read through all of this but I have to admit in my 15 years of gaming experience I have had a few moments of gaming stupidity.

1) Very similar to some earlier posts. The party was traveling through a underground passage into a Giants castle. As they are going down one hallway the party sees "a strange glistening black substance on the wall." The great mage says," I lick it." No more verbal component spells thanks to a Black Pudding.

2) This one happened back in 2e when I first began playing. Our party was in service to a powerful lord and had to get our orders from his arrorgant court wizard Dowen. Our Dwarven fighter Balak was getting very upset at Dowen and says I take out my great axe and cleave the little boney gezzer. The DM just laughed as he told Balak his axe passed right through the illusion. We leave the castle without our reward due to Balak. Freddy, the guy playing Balak, asks the DM who he sees outside the castle. Just a common guard the DM replied. I punch him in the face was freddy's response. Balak was wearing guantlets of storm giant strength and the gauntlets of ogre power. He was plus 20 to damage and hit for only 24 pts of damage. The first level guard died from a broken neck and Balak got to see the finer side of the king's dungeon.

3) Earlier in the same campaign the party had infultrated the private tower of Dowen in an attempt to kill the source of much of their frustration. In one room we found a cage with a large powerful looking troll. In perfect common the troll told us that it was a beautiful maiden, who had refused Dowen's advances and begged to be freed. Denny, playing Gape, a talented elven mage/assassin decided to help the poor lady. Needless to say the troll nearly killed us as he gloated over the greatness of his master who had given him greater intelligence than the foolish party who had let him free. Never trust trolls in a cage no matter what they say.

4) Later in this campaign we were attempting to infiltrate the lair of Slaad and came face to face with a Elder toad which was worshipped as a deity by the Slaad. In two sustained rushes the party had barely scratched it. Our dwarven fighter had Gape pour all of his deadly poisons onto him. He then styepped into the hall and hollered,"EAT ME" The toad gladly complied and the DM laughed as he prepared to roll the toads save which we were informed before hand could only fail on a ONE. The old motto came true as the toad croaked as the DM rolled the dreaded one. It was the funniest momment as we cut the drarf out of the dead toads belly.

these are the ones from when I was a player, I will write the ones from my DMing days later