The lovely stupidity of some players...

[Crowe]

In the Game im currently running, the Players were deep inside an underground stronghold of the Yuan-ti.

They stumble across the Temple, and after dispatching the Priests and their acolytes are searching the temple for loot.

I've described the Temple.. including the large statue of the Snake god with its shiney jewelled eyes.

Now this cult of Yuan-ti have been a thorn in the players sides for a while... they're the main Henchlings of the campaigns major bad guy.. and they have had a habit of leaving deadly traps behind, using nasty magic spells and all sorts to screw the characters over...

So.. i describe the Jewelled eyes, but .. the Rogue having made a very good spot roll.. mention that the eyes look "a little odd.. something not quite right about them"..

She climbs up the Statue..checks the eyes.. notices the strange rune at the back of the gem.
The rest of the Party are trying to persuade her that its a trap..not to touch them.. but she digs one out anyway.

A Prismatic Sphere springs up...centred on the Head of the statue..trapping the rogue inside.

This is where the insanity kicked in... rather than wait to see if the Party could come up with a way to free her.. she announces "Im going to jump"..

She actually made it through the first three layers of the sphere before she died...

 

[JeffK1966]

stupidity of some players...

Well, back in 2E days, I was involved in a fairly high level, high magic campaign “Play Yourself” campaign. Our party was mainly fighters, however, and we hooked up with a dwarven caravan through the Underdark on the Realms. Since it was Play Yourself and we were a group of gamers zapped into the Realms, we could use our book knowledge in game.

One day on our journey, the dwarves start retreating in terror, hopping up on the wagons, etc – shouting out something like “devils” or similar. The DM then describes to us an incoming small beast scurrying along at a good clip, looked like an armadillo with large antennae coming out.

I blanked out on what it was, but I took a swing at it and my sword melted to nothing. Realizing I was in trouble, I hopped out of the way.

The next guy in our group then took out his precious +3 battle-axe and swung at it. It melted away. He then pulled out his spare +1 battle-axe and swung away. That battle-axe melted away. Finally, he gives up on weapons and decides to use fisticuffs, as he has gauntlets of ogre power on – so +3 to hit and +6 to damage in the old 2E days. Unfortunately, gauntlets are mostly metal and those melt away upon contact as well.

Finally, my PC wore the creature down with a wooden staff… but, the guy who had taken on demons and dragons was stripped of his most powerful magic items by a lowly rust monster.

It wasn’t that he had lost one item and then ran away, like me, realizing it was a rust monster,. he kept going at the thing again and again, losing item after item. I would have helped, but I was dealing with other emergencies at the time. The rust monster was a distraction, basically.

 

[jollyninja]

ok, yet another one that i remember doing back in the days of my 2e/1e hybrid games

through circomstances that i did not know at the time (potion mixing rules) my character had gained the ability to fly permanently. he was a drow elf ranger who used, you guessed it, two, count them two scimitars (my second campaign ever, you'll like this next part really). after years of hard work he actually got accepted into the local millitary as a scout. the nation was at war with a kingdom of orcs who had unboknownst to my character allied themselves with my character's former city. anyway, my character actually built himself a bit of a reputation in the other army for coming out of nowhere and wiping out most or all of a scouting party by using his ring of invisibility to get close. i got ambitous and tried to end the war singlehandedly by taking on the drow alone. i flew into their main camp and snuck up close to the leader's tent. right into an antimagic field. five feet in front of his elete guards. who tackled me and held me until a dispell magic could be cast. and then tortured and killed my character. my character was branded a traitor because he never told anyone where he was going and served as a great propaganda tool for the human's war effort.

 

[Deedlit]

Ok, 2 things

1.We were on an assassination mission, trying to kill some high-ranking person. While the rest of the party was smart and acted like nothing was going on, one of the 1st level characters pulled his dagger on the guards. He was lucky the guards only put him in prison.
2.A few sessions later, said player has a different character, and the rest of the party was getting really annoyed by him. When a battle began, he mooned the lone enemy in melee range, and got a dagger stuck up his ***. We stabbed him in the back and put the idiot out of his misery, and won the battle anyway,

 

[drakhe]

Some more heroics

How about these:

One campaign, I was playing one part of a woodelf twin. We were the last survivors of our tribe (massacered by Zhentarim)
So one time we had to run fast being chased by a hunting party with warhounds and all. My sister/twin decides to try and hide in a tree (being wood-elf and all) but does so in plain view of our persuers. Naturaly the three HUGE warhounds are barking up the tree. To try and get herself out of the situation, she gets out her rope, throws it towards another tree and swings tarzan like ... or so she tried. Off course she falls to the ground (the rope didn't even have a noose or a loop or somethin) and gets COMPLETE ripped to bits by the warhounds. (point of note, this was our very first session of a new campaign!)

In that same campaign, I also get to do my silly bit. Imagine a wizards tower WITH THE DOOR OPEN ! Since I was a rogue/sorcerer, I wanted to talk the wizard into teaching me some stuff. So silly me wanders off into the tower (rest of the party getting themselves installed in the local inn) and snoop arround. Neat stuff: wooden dog, some golem/constructs and a cool mirror that didn't show a reflection but a nice freindly meadow. Oh and that wooden dog ? I noticed that same self dog running in the meadow. So there's no harm in touching the mirror right ? Well, Ishkla Waterbirch is still running after that dog inside the mirror

Or me again in another campaign (this time Warhammer) I play a scrawny, puny, skinny fellow that has a habit of stooping. Hearing a coach thunder down the road, I decide to help the poor frightened passengers (since I notice the driver is not well) and jump straight between the wheels. So there I'm left with one wound. Ouch. But then the DM decides to punnish me some more by having the stable boys from a nearby Inn put some leeches on my arm "to clean and thin the blood" So there went my last wound. (Some healing potion and a nights sleep later, I plundered local money purses for 6 gold and 14 copper, so there)

Finaly some stuff I had happen as a DM: While running the Sunless Citadel, the party has just defeated a bunch of goblins (one of those being high on mushrooms, he looked friendly enough) They had retrieved Azangund (a dwarven made artefact that can raise the dead) and decided to try it out. The bard in the party blew the whistle and raised one of the freshly slain Goblins (yeah you guessed it, the one high on mush) They promptly name the critter Screety and try to have him follow orders. Seems like one word (or rather one verd) commands worked well. So the Bard being who he is promptly points to the party rogue and orders "KISS" Shamble shamble SMACK... I'm looking forward to the day the Rogue gets even...

Also in the Sunless Citadel, Meepo the Kobold Guide (and keeper of the Dragon) sprints into the room where Calcryx (the 4 year old white dragon he was guarding) was found, gets himself blasted with the dragon's cold breath. By the time the icy shards melted, Meepo was caried home by his relatives ... in a spunge

 

[Piratecat]

Back in the early days of 2e, I had one player who was really frustrating. A rules lawyer with almost no interpersonal skills, he'd gladly turn on party members at the drop of a hat.

After his PC was killed, he brought in a halfling thief. A halfling thief whose highest skill (by far) was pick pockets. And, as everyone in the group guessed, a halfling thief whose personal goal was to rob the party blind and then flee.

He was very inquisitive... stealing party treasure and reading everything he could in the hopes it would grant him more power. The PC playing the wizard decided to eliminate the headache. They were in drow caverns, and he passes me a note, "I cast explosive runes on a drow dagger and subtlety drop it." Sure enough, I mention that the halfling sees a dagger on the ground near a wall.

"Mine!" he yells. "I pick it up. Does it feel magical?"

"Well, it's made out of adamantine," I answer.

"Yeah!" He turns to gloat at the other players. "Suckers, I saw it first." Then he turns back to me. "Is there anything on the blade?"

I answer, "Why, yes. Yes there is. A rune of some kind."

He says, "Yeah! I read it. What does it say?"

I answer, "Boom! It's explosive runes. Make a... whoops, no saving throw if you read it." I roll dice, and the halfling drops to -19. See ya. Best PC assassination I've ever seen, poor guy.

Later, he said, "Man. I make one comment about you being easy on players, and you kill my character!" I didn't have the heart to tell him it wasn't really me.

 

[rounser]

Heh, that belongs on the "DMs don't kill PCs, PCs kill PCs!" thread too...

 

[mzsylver]

i didnt witness this story occuring, but it was passed down to me.

a group of adventurers were in a dungeon and, of course, do the silliest thing possible: split the party.

enter the idiot.

the idiot is wandering about scouting by himself and runs into a huge group of goblins... so he starts running away and hits a t intersection. he ends up taking the incorrect way and hits a dead end. so he quickly hurries back to the intersection, hoping to go the other way, but hears noise around the corner.

not looking around the corner or peeking or anything...

Idiot: I throw myself upon my blade.

DM: What?!?!

Idiot: Ya, they're not gonna take me alive.

DM: But you don't even know what "they" are.

Idiot: Doesnt matter. I THROW MYSELF UPON MY BLADE.

DM: Um... alright...

the players never did find out what was coming from that other direction...

 

[hong]

Later, he said, "Man. I make one comment about you being easy on players, and you kill my character!" I didn't have the heart to tell him it wasn't really me.

Come on, PKitty, you were still an accessory after the fact. And didn't it feel good?

1E days, back in high school, in the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl.

Remorhaz.
Thief.
Backstab attempt.
Pretty fireworks.

Teh Enb

 

[JeffK1966]

Re: stupid players

OK, back in 2E days, we were playing a long term, heroic campaign in Kalamar and were attempting to save the world from a coming Apocalypse. This story involves the same person that boxed the rust monster with his gauntlets of ogre power, but this was a regular by-the-book D&D campaign.

Our PCs had just survived the first part of the campaign and had gotten up to around 4th or 5th level. The next part of our journey was a long journey to another nation. We had to take a ship for about 6 weeks to arrive at our destination, assuming no problems along the way.

Along the shipboard journey, we were to escort a beautiful, charismatic elven princess who was leading a part of the rebellion against the evil Kalamaran Empire.

One evening, most of the PCs were asleep on what had been a generally uneventful journey - other than our party thief conning a few pirates out of some coin a week or two earlier on a stop over. Hey, he got with some fantastic dice rolling – three straight rolls of at least 18, if I recall.

But, the alarm went up that we were being attacked by “Sea Devils” sailor slang for Sahuagin. Since we were asleep, the DM ruled that those that made a CON check could act on the next round, while those who failed it had to wait until the following round.

In the mad scramble, the DM said the first wave of PCs and sailors would randomly go up any of three hatches in the deck. The elven princess, who was also a 2nd or 3rd level enchantress (low hit points!), and the party’s 5th level human fighter (good hit points!) heroically made their CON checks and scrambled up the front hatch together by themselves. They were confronted by six spear wielding sahuagin.

So, you would normally think a brave fighter on a mission to protect/escort a beautiful elven princess would charge the sahuagin in an attempt to draw the attacks? Or maybe, he steps in front of her to shield her while she casts a spell? Maybe he even pushes her down so incoming spears won’t hit her?

None of those heroic actions. He turns tail and jumps back down the hatch, leaving the princess’ cheese in the wind. Jumps, mind you.

But wait – there’s more. While he was jumping, the PCs that acted in the 2nd round were starting to scramble up the ladder towards the hatch. Of course, he fails his DEX check while crashing down the hole and slams into the oncoming cleric and rogue and a couple of sailors, who fail their DEX checks and they all land in a heap at the bottom of the boat, simple prey for a sahuagin net.

So, what should have been a tough, but winnable battle turned into a bloodbath. Most of the sailors were killed and the PCs were down spells and a lot of hit points.

This left us easy prey for the angry pirates who had been shadowing us since our thief conned them out of some coin…

After that, we made up an out of game song after Marcus Cole (the PC’s name)… “Marcus Cole, Marcus Cole, halfway down the hidey hole.”

The best thing was that the woman playing the elven princess had just started in our group and was too polite to call out his cowardice in front of the group in game. And, since it was a mad scramble, nobody else in the group knew anything in game.