Worst/Most Ridiculous Gaming Experience Within a Homebrew Campaign

[TerraDave]

To top it all off, he was immensely proud that his world was shaped like a d20. He loved to tell the story about how he couldn't reconcile a flat sheet of paper to accurately match a round planet, so he just drew off 20 triangles and decided that the world was literally shaped like a d20--each section was flat, so his maps were accurate to the actual shape of the world, but it was still basically round.

The rest of that stuff was kinda dumb, but this has a degree of brilliance to it.

Well that, and the giant chickens.

 

[wally]

Many years ago, when I was creating my first big homebrew, I decided to use contour lines for mountains rather than just a mountain looking image.

Well, after four months of real time gaming in this world, someone was looking at my map and said, "Hey! This river that comes down out of that mountain is going back uphill. How can a river travel up a hill?"

My first response was, "Magic!"

Needless to say, I haven't really done maps with contour lines since.

-wally

 

[That One Guy]

I played in a homebrew made by a guy who I knew through a mutual friend. I didn't know what kind of player he was or what game we were going to play but I was asked to play in his game. It turned out that not only was this game going to take place in a homebrew campaign, but we would be playing a set of rules that he made himself.

So I finally went to his house with my friend and learned that there was going to be 9 players in total, + the GM and that they have already played two sessions in the past. The rules were explained to me (a very brief explanation) and I made a character. He was sort of a ranger/druid type character.

Anyway, the GM made the people in his homebrew very magic-phobic. He made it clear that magic was universally feared, hated and outlawed. So what was everyone playing??? Well half were fighters who upheld this hatred for magic and the other half were..well..magic users.

The one and only session was basically half of the party was fighting the other half for using magic....imagine. I politely excused myself out of the game and went home.

Not sure what the GM was thinking making a world where just about everyone hated magic and then allowing so many magic users didn't make sense. Of course everyone was going to fight.

I did something similar once... except that there were different nations who had different opinions of magic. The PCs started in an angry against magic region, but most were magic users or from the region that was impartial, and one's home country (although she didn't use magic) was the one nation that was okay w/ arcane magic. I think one PC was going w/ the party to spy on the magic-using nation. Also, bardic magic was allowed, so the party line was, "I'm a bard." It had high points and weak points. One of my worst bad dm moments happened towards the end of the game. They had been protecting a magic user for weeks to get him to the magic-okay society. In some town a spell is cast and a witness tags the npc as the guy. He's going to trial. The PCs try to persuade the township and guards that the NPC was innocent, but no dice roll will convince them - he was going to trial barring anything but a 20. ...I still feel like jerk for that. However, compared to what some of you people's dms have done... I actually don't feel as awful. Thanks! ^^

 

[PatrickLawinger]

Hmmm,
Well, maybe I am the bad DM, but I was the DM for this one. This was a 1e/2e hybrid game that had actually been going on for quite some time.

The PCs run into a tribe of more "modern" lizardman (something they knew they could encounter, it was part of the world) who are clearly pretty hostile. The lizardman chief walks out to talk with the party bearing several holy symbols and a very nasty-looking weapon. Now, he challenges the party to one-on-one combat with a PC of their choice (not a fight to the death btw). The party has to either leave his lands or one of them has to fight. If they win, they get free travel through his domain, if they don't, they will be attacked and killed if they come back onto the tribal lands. Basically, they were taking a shortcut that they knew was risky.
Somehow my description of the chief triggers a memory in one of the players. He says, "Oh this is like a X warrior in (bookname-sorry, never did actually read this book)." He goes off on a tangent about the book, in an effort to get people back on track I let them all know that this is NOT based on that book and that I never read the book he was talking about.

It didn't matter, his character convinces the party to SURRENDER. That's right, they could have simply said, no, we're sorry we didn't mean to trespass and left. OR the fighter or ranger could have fought and most likely won (the chief was mostly decoration). INSTEAD, they surrender. By this point I have to "ruin" the whole thing by actually saying, "Listen, guys, you can fight, or you can leave, but if you surrender they will take everything you have and sell you as slaves." (this was actually something they should have known but I had to make it VERY clear).
THEN the player above tells me what the Chief is SUPPOSED to do-based on the book he read. He actually got mad at me because the simple NPC didn't act like a character in a book he just read. He actually stormed out.

The party decided that his character surrendered as "tribute" to the tribe so that they could pass through the tribal lands freely. The game was over that night, but it continued the next week and went on for another 2 1/2 years so I like to think I didn't really screw up as the DM there. The player actually came back a few weeks later and continued on in that campaign without any further problems. His new character was a paladin that vowed to his god never to surrender under any circumstances, it provided some interesting moments later on.

Edit: Okay, in an effort to keep it short I didn't really explain how the lizardman character was related to the homebrew campaign setting nor did i really explain the fact that the characters and players had been playing in that world for over a year and KNEW about the various types of lizardmen in this particular part of the world, etc. Basically, everything they knew about the campaign world got tossed out due to a book one person read and they got ready to act completely out of character.

 

[El Mahdi]

Had another game that went like this:

Our group was getting together for our regular game. Our DM at the time was PCS'ing (that's moving to a new assignment at another base for you civilians), and most of his game books had already been packed up and shipped. Pretty much all he still had with him was PHB, DMG, MM and his folio of personal characters (his and his wife - also in the group).

He tells us to make some high level characters (I don't remember the exact level but it was something like 10th to 15th level - which for us was high level since we had never played a campaign past 10th with the group). I decide to make an Arcane Archer Kit (2E AD&D Half-Elf Kit). The main ability of the Kit was you could cast touch-range spells on to arrows and fire them for effect when they hit.

So, we start the game. We're told we're just be-bopping along through our own personal lives (none of us know eachother or are anywhere near eachother) when we are suddenly teleported against our wills to the chambers of a very high level wizard (the DM's PC). The Wizard introduces himself as "Sir", because what-else do you call a 50th level Wizard! He says that he brought us here because he's really busy with research but his wife (one of the players) is bored and bugging him for attention. His wife (player and character) is a high level Asassin (20+ I think). Our job (and we don't have a choice) is to accompany the Asassin on a "Tour of Monsters". So with a wave and a "have fun" we are forcibly teleported again and find ourselves in a wilderness area.

Well, we talk amongst ourselves a bit, introduce ourselves, and decide what to do. The Asassin apparently knows exactly where she wants to go and sets off. With no other choice we follow. Now at this point I'm thinking, is nobody actually going to roleplay at all. Everybody just seems to be going along with it. I mean, I'm a pretty high level bad ass where I come from. I don't take very kindly to being force teleported, babysitting, or being put in dangerous situations without having a choice, so I start thinking of a way to get out of this.

The DM starts randomly picking monsters out of the MM. After a couple of monsters (the first of which was a Shadow Dragon, I don't remember what the second one was), our DM picks the Tarrasque! First of all there is no way we are high enough level to fight this thing, and no-one has a wish (remember 2E AD&D). So we use a time proven tactic and run-away.

By this time I'm tired of this so I finally strike upon a plan. I enchant an arrow with Hold Person and fire it at the Asassin. The Asassin looks at me and says "what the hell are you doing?". So I say, "right now, I'm rolling to hit". Super Asassin then says, "whatever, I have Gloves of Missile Snaring". One caught arrow and a failed saving throw later the Asassin is held. I walk up to her, hold a knife to her throat, and yell to the sky at large, "Sir, get us out of here or your wife is toast!". Abracadabra, we're back at the Wizards chambers.

So after some discussion of compensation, and the other players looking at me like I'm nuts, we set off again on a more survivable tour. In the end it wasn't too bad, but DM railroading with in-game and outside-game nepotism kind of rubbed me the wrong way.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Hey, I had a d20 shaped world back in 1985! That makes me beyond cool.

So, we're playing in this ancient Role Aids module called the Assassin's something or other thingy. (Except it wasn't ancient since this is 1985.) We find out that the bad guys are doing something in a building. We go try to spy on them. The DMs (yes, a couple) say "there are no windows".

@wally - I thought I was the only one that ever happened to! I no longer feel alone.
WTF?

There are no windows? It's a house in a city. Oooookay. Oh, did I mention that we all got superpowers? One apiece? That instantly got nerfed to nothingness the minute we could do something effective with them? No, I guess that got lost in the rest. Heh.

 

[Edgewood]

the player above tells me what the Chief is SUPPOSED to do-based on the book he read. He actually got mad at me because the simple NPC didn't act like a character in a book he just read. He actually stormed out.

This sounds more like an issue with the player and less about your Dming style. I don't think you were at fault here.

What did he expect? A disclaimer at the beginning of the game saying "NPC's appearing in this game are purely fictional. Any semblance to characters in other works of fiction are purely coincidental!"

At any rate, the idea of having his character surrender for the benefit of the group was hilarious.

 

[Dragonbait]

Hmmm,
THEN the player above tells me what the Chief is SUPPOSED to do-based on the book he read. He actually got mad at me because the simple NPC didn't act like a character in a book he just read. He actually stormed out.

I think there is a little more in that statement: I have a feeling he thought that primitive cultures did A or B with people who surrender to them, not enslave them.

If he really thought that you were following a book's script and this was never done before, then.. Well.. He's kooky! Fortunately there was no further incident, eh?

 

[PatrickLawinger]

I think there is a little more in that statement: I have a feeling he thought that primitive cultures did A or B with people who surrender to them, not enslave them.

If he really thought that you were following a book's script and this was never done before, then.. Well.. He's kooky! Fortunately there was no further incident, eh?

Well, it is hard to describe a homebrew setting and keep a post short. I did add an edit with a little info. Basically, the PCs (and players) KNEW all about the lizardmen and their culture. They knew that a lizardman's status goes up considerably if he catches a human (dwarf, elf, orc, whatever) and enslaves them. They also knew that, despite this, lizardmen aren't necessarily looking for a fight, but they do defend their territory.
The player just couldn't get some character from a book out of his head. That would have been fine, but he was able to convince the rest of the players to do something their characters simply wouldn't have done. It was a strange situation.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Nothing as bad as most of those stories, but I did play in a very short homebrew game whereupon my first character died after being turned to stone, my second character was paralyzed and killed by ghouls, and my third character was kept waiting to appear by the DM for an hour.

All in one night. Argh.