That One Time

[James Gasik]

We all have gaming stories. I know I do. I'd like to hear some others. Specifically, about the incidents that frustrated you the most. The absolute worst.

This isn't about Bad GM's (though certainly, they are responsible for such), I'm talking about terrible experiences in otherwise decent games. I got the idea after recounting a tale about how a monster had an ability that made me waste a powerful one-shot magic item. But I'm not going to tell -that- story.

Instead...

We were playing in a 4e game with a DM who liked to reskin enemies. We had ventured into the heart of a dormant volcano, finding ourselves facing Fire Elementals, Fire Archons, and basically, anything immune to fire the DM liked. As our Sorcerer was a Fire Elementalist, this was pretty annoying.

Then we get to the final battle, and a skeletal dragon rises from the lava before us- a Dracolich! This proved to be a tough fight, and afterwards, the DM looked to the Sorcerer and said "I don't know why you didn't use your fire attacks."

We looked at the DM, aghast. I don't remember who found their voice first, but someone said "but the Dracolich was immune to fire?".

"Oh it wasn't, you guys didn't even ask."

"IT WAS SWIMMING IN A LAKE OF MAGMA!!!!"

"Oh that was just for dramatic effect, come on guys, it was cool, like a metal album cover!"

I'd like to say we pelted him with dice, but we were gaming in the back room of our FLGS, so it didn't seem proper.

 

[aco175]

Back in 2e days the PCs were traveling down the trade road and came upon a campsite with a merchant wagon who offered them to stay and enjoy his fire and food. The thief tried to sneak into the wagon but was prevented by a trap and a lock. In the middle of the night he and the mage bypassed the locks and traps to sneak in and find the treasure that was surely there. The wagon was filled with books he was delivering, like a pallet of A5e books being brought to market.

The books were his own life's work about cooking and preparing mushrooms. In the morning the thief threw one of the books at the merchant saying, "You read this sh!@#." Lots of laughter ensues. The quote still comes up this day amid campaigns. The book even manages to surface in old tombs and vaults as well.

 

[Morrus]

We had ventured into the heart of a dormant volcano, finding ourselves facing Fire Elementals, Fire Archons, and basically, anything immune to fire the DM liked. As our Sorcerer was a Fire Elementalist, this was pretty annoying.

I had that exact experience. An entire adventure where my attacks did nothing.

I learned lightning bolt instead. Next monster? Flesh golems.

 

[FangTheDelectable]

Never, every game was perfect, because we were playing with friends.

 

[Fenris-77]

Yet more evidence that Force damage is an important thing to have the back pocket of your robes.

 

[James Gasik]

Never, every game was perfect, because we were playing with friends.

Really? Well you must be the luckiest gamer alive. Although I guess from a certain point of view, that can be boring as well.

 

[amethal]

I had that exact experience. An entire adventure where my attacks did nothing.

I learned lightning bolt instead. Next monster? Flesh golems.

One of the PCs in my group is a magus built around using shocking grasp as often as possible.

I decided to convert the (excellent) old Dragon adventure "Temple of Poseidon" to Pathfinder. It was more of a "thematic" conversion than a faithful update of the original, so I threw in a load of monsters I thought would fit and be interesting, and which I hadn't made much use of in previous campaigns. So we had Sea Drakes, Denizens of Leng, a Shambling Mound, various oozes, etc.

Pretty much everything turned out to be either immune or highly resistant to electricity. It was purely accidental, and I think the player believed me when I told him I hadn't done it on purpose ...

 

[payn]

Once had an old school GM returned to run us through a 3E module. He thought that DR5/Bludgeoning meant that the skeletons had DR against bludgeoning and all other types worked as normal...

 

[Jd Smith1]

Back around 2003, I was running a long-term Hackmaster campaign (not my choice of system, but so it goes). The players were up against an evil guy called The Ant Master, who was terrorizing the local countryside. Thinking to be clever, they arranged a meeting in a large empty field for the next day. They set a pavilion, and secretly left a ranger to keep watch against any treachery. Naturally, they were planning treachery.

So the next day the AM shows up, orders his body guards to move 200 feet north from the pavilion while he met wit the NPCs whom the group worked for.

The party immediately moved 200' south of the pavilion, and prepared to assassinate the AM.

Then the ground beneath them collapsed (giant ants had tunneled there during the night, undetectable by the watching Ranger), and the party had the fight of their lives to escape, losing 3 PCs in the process. We narrowly avoided a TPK.

To be honest, I didn't think they would fall for it...but they griped about that for years.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I'm reminded of the time in 4e my brother spent about two hours doing nothing because his warlord never made his saving throw to break free of a paralysis effect from the dragon everyone else was fighting. He wasn't even in the same area as the battle, so he wasn't even taking damage or responding to anything in game. His turn would come up, he'd roll garbage, and sit there not playing D&D while he was playing D&D.

Which, really, seems to be a bit of a theme here, not being able to do anything in the game you're supposed to be playing.