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Gaseous Anomaly
2009-07-30, 02:09 PM
Let's hear it guys, how did you mess up the DM's plans for the characters, and how badly.

I was recently in a 2nd or 3rd level adventure where we had to infiltrate the mansion of a rival Don of the major city we were in. He was about to release a newer version of his sunscreen (the campaign was in a desert), and our Don wanted the formula, as well as other intelligence, if we could find it.
We disguised ourselves as guests and whatnot for the party that the Don was having, and during the party, our cover was seriously blown. Instead of beating feet out of the place, we decide to slaughter all the 20+ guards, which included a few class-level guards, and a lycanthrope with a few levels in fighter.
Our paladin hit a recurring NPC with a critical hit with his glaive, had gloves of ogre strength, and was under the spell bull's strength, and ended up dealing over 50 pts of damage. The NPC failed his save, and would have died if he didn't magically teleport away before.
I ended up holding all of the party guests with an exploding disk to cover our escape. every last one of us became wanted men, and the DM had to create another adventure just to get the bounty off our heads, and we end up messing that one up too.
Our group is a DM's nightmare.

dethkruzer
2009-07-30, 02:20 PM
Hmm this reminds of a case when me along with a group of frineds had just started a 3.5 campaign. i remember that our mission was something like "Go talk to person x, he will give you further instructions", but we ended up doing sidequests, including trying to solve a fight between two rival families.

As fate would have it, it ended in massacre and "person x" had plane-shifted somewhere else. the gm had been writing the campaign for over a week.

Mongoose87
2009-07-30, 02:27 PM
Immediately before getting into the bulk of our session, our party received a warning that we would have a choice to make between two options, and that neither option was correct. It was supposed to be foreshadowing something we wouldn't see for a while, but we took it to refer to the civil war we stumble upon shortly after. So, rather than taking the offer from either side to kill off their rivals' elite squad, we arranged for negotiations between the sides, and ended up deposing both leaders.

Piedmon_Sama
2009-07-30, 02:39 PM
Killed a CR 3-4 Animal at 1st level, a challenge I and the other player were supposed to handle together. I did it solo before I'd even met the other player's PC. Our DM severely underestimated what a Barbarian with 23 Str raging can do. :smallbiggrin:

Kallisti
2009-07-30, 02:51 PM
Our DM once ran a no-magic game where, let me point out the obvious, there is no magic. Anyone with powers that appear to be magic must be a demon or other moster. The campaign world was under siege by outsiders...

We're in this dungeon, and we meet an NPC who's supposed to be recurring. Guess what? He's a wizard, left over from the previous civilization. We all scream, "DEMON!" and charge him. Three rounds later, he has the choice of running away or killing all of us, so he runs, because the DM didn't want a TPK. Then we get XP for defeating a level 20 wizard, because he ran.

Also, in a different game, there was this dragon we wre fighting, and an invisible cleric using shield other to suck up half the damage we send the dragon. The cleric is meant to be a boss many levels from no, hanging out invisibly to check us out as potential minions and give the dragon a little help. But our warlock has see the unseen up at all times, and sees him. So we beat the dragon unconscious, and our barbarian coup-de-grace's it, then our cleric uses close wounds to keep it from dying, because in this campaign the death threshold went down to -2xCon modifier. Then we do this a bunch of times, and invisi-cleric dies off, because he was taking half of all this damage. We all gain two levels, because the rules say that's the maximum you can advance at once, and we sell his epic magic items to get about triple or quadruple the money we should have at that level...

Blackfang108
2009-07-30, 02:56 PM
Mostly by existing.

I have a very chaotic mind, and never act the way my DMs think I will.

In one campaign, it's come back to bite us in the ass.

JeenLeen
2009-07-30, 03:01 PM
We just got to a turning point in our campaign. There are four of us in a Dimensional Locked country. We, lv 20, are fighting a group of probably lv 25-30 ToB chargers. We are losing badly, dying at least one person/rd. The druid decides to escape using Master Earth.

DM gets a puzzled look, checks the spell, and says, yeah, that works.

The rest of us are captured and imprisoned for six months. In the meantime, the druid rejoined our allies who are fighting a losing war. In the next game, the three of us are to be freed and have some mission before it makes sense for the druid to rejoin the group. (Worked out well as that player has to do something this weekend, so the rest of us are meeting for game and he'll catch up later.)


Earlier, we killed an thief NPC who was suppose to open a special locked chest. Ended up okay, but gave the DM a moment's pause.

Cyrion
2009-07-30, 03:59 PM
Our 2E campaign opened with humanoids and giants conquering the city we started in, and the party had to run for it. The DM was a blaster at heart and was bound and determined that neither my cleric/mage nor the fighte/mage in the party was going to see magic missile because it messes things up with insta-damage. Instead, I got grease...

This spoiled his plans when we ran into a hill giant (we were first level). I'd guess that he meant it as a plot device, but we figured that there was no way we could outrun its rocks without TPK, so I greased it. A few failed saves later and we'd taken it out and left the DM wondering how it had happened.

The Glyphstone
2009-07-30, 04:02 PM
In the middle of the Shackled City campaign path, we had infiltrated an evil noble's mansion and were crawling around underneath its catacombs. A three person party (psion, wizard, barbarian), we ran into some nasty monsters and the Barbarian ended up unconscious and bleeding out with relatively unhurt enemies menacing us - the solution we came up with on the spot was to have mr. psion Planeshift all three of us to Ysgarde before the Barb finished bleeding out, so he would get a free True Ressurection.

Unfortunately, when the Barb woke up and discovered where we were, he refused to go back and wanted to explore this plane of endless battle and fighting for a bit. Not really set to do anything without our meatshield, this sent the campaign off on a completely different tangent for three or four sessions.

daggaz
2009-07-30, 04:44 PM
I got invited into a RL group of guys I had never met before, who were well into an Eberron campaign.

My character, a dwarven cleric with War and Travel domains, is introduced as the captain of the guard in Shar, where the party is at a big well to do party, hunting after the BBEG who they are sure is a vampire.

Now, they arent really planning on killing him here, as they are too low level, they lack definite proof, and its a big social pompous place full of folks who wouldnt be happy about murder, regardless of the reasons.... so they let me in on the details, as a security precaution. I am the captain of the guard, after all...

In the party, the vampire lets a few hints drop thru actions of his true nature, and I make the prerequisite knowledge religion checks to call him on his evil vampirism. I raise the alarm and call in the guards, and the other PCs square off for the challenge.... so far so good, far as the DM is concerned.

Lucky me, I roll a twenty on initiative, and go first. My first action? Cast silence on the vampire. I was worried about it casting spells, after all. The DM's face just dropped.. then he frowned, then we had a long, very quiet fight replete with a rat swarm before the vampire narrowly escapes the guards in a cloud of bats.

After the session, the DM nearly exploded... I HAD A WHOLE EVIL MONOLOUGE READY!! IT WAS ALL SET UP! TEN SESSIONS WAITING TO MOCK THE GROUP AND SET UP THE REST OF THE PLOT, AAAARRRRGHHH!!!


Hahhahahaha :smallamused::smallcool:

Milskidasith
2009-07-30, 04:51 PM
Our DM once ran a no-magic game where, let me point out the obvious, there is no magic. Anyone with powers that appear to be magic must be a demon or other moster. The campaign world was under siege by outsiders...

We're in this dungeon, and we meet an NPC who's supposed to be recurring. Guess what? He's a wizard, left over from the previous civilization. We all scream, "DEMON!" and charge him. Three rounds later, he has the choice of running away or killing all of us, so he runs, because the DM didn't want a TPK. Then we get XP for defeating a level 20 wizard, because he ran.

Also, in a different game, there was this dragon we wre fighting, and an invisible cleric using shield other to suck up half the damage we send the dragon. The cleric is meant to be a boss many levels from no, hanging out invisibly to check us out as potential minions and give the dragon a little help. But our warlock has see the unseen up at all times, and sees him. So we beat the dragon unconscious, and our barbarian coup-de-grace's it, then our cleric uses close wounds to keep it from dying, because in this campaign the death threshold went down to -2xCon modifier. Then we do this a bunch of times, and invisi-cleric dies off, because he was taking half of all this damage. We all gain two levels, because the rules say that's the maximum you can advance at once, and we sell his epic magic items to get about triple or quadruple the money we should have at that level...

It sounds more like your DM doesn't understand that having an epic cleric sit around and do nothing while you (strangely) decide to keep a dragon's HP floating up and down and has epic wizards not deal with people attacking him by nonlethal means.

Seriously, what caster in epic levels would be dumb enough to let himself get killed by sitting around while you beat up something he was channeling the damage of? And why wouldn't he break concentration on the shield other? Why did the DM think it would be a good idea to have a recurring wizard NPC at level 20 not do something nonlethal to the party instead of making him run?

AstralFire
2009-07-30, 04:55 PM
You gotta give him props, though. When he uses high level NPCs, he's not afraid to let the PCs take control of the game rather than just using them to make a railroad.

d13
2009-07-30, 04:56 PM
(...)
had gloves of ogre strength, and was under the spell bull's strength, (...)

They don't stack :smallwink: :smalltongue:


Let's see... I had rolled amazingly good stats (say, two 18s, one 17, one 16 and two 14s) and was playing a monk, focused on grappling, just because.

I don't remember the level, I remember the BBEG sniping at our raft, from a bridge. An encounter we were supposed to run (paddle) away from.

Me: - "I jump to the bridge"
DM: - "You, what?!"
Other players: - "What the hell...?"
Me: - "I jump to the bridge. I have a jump modifier of [obscenely high number], I can certainly make it with a good roll"
DM: - "Fine, roll"
Me: *rolls* - "17 + [OHN] :smallbiggrin:"
DM: - "Everyone, you see d13's character pretty much fly up to the bridge, and engage the enemy!
d13, the dark figure stabs at you with a poison dripping blade! What's your AC?"
Me: - "Uhmm... 23"
DM: - "23?! Ok. Your innate reflexes let you deflect his blow like nothing. Your turn now".
Me: - "I grapple him, and jump to the water".
DM: - "You what?!?!?"

A couple of good rolls later...

DM: - "Y'know... That was supposed to be a recurring character :smallannoyed:. Go play Playstation or something while I sort out what the hell to do now :smallsigh:"

Totally Guy
2009-07-30, 05:00 PM
In my game, after a fairly climactic encounter the players said...

"We all will now get onto a big boat and sail away from this place in a random direction and I'm sure something exciting will happen! We're explorers now!"

I had to work so hard to write material for that. I'd not even thought about the possibility of that.

Jergmo
2009-07-30, 05:03 PM
My first character ever, the mad elven wizard Ulaundr. An assassin attacked him specifically in the woods, and his companions were still asleep. He was a level 3 wizard. I shot at the assassin with my crossbow and tried to get a second shot in but it missed, so instead, I shot it with magic missile and the DM got really mad because I was so determined and killed it, because he wanted it to get away and show up later.

In another friend's campaign, Amer Gustavo, my level 1 halfling rogue, caused two towns to boil down into total chaos with his wild antics, the first domino being sending a barrel crashing into the first town's constable who was harassing the other PC involved because he got blamed for Amer's prank on a couple of passed out drunks. This led to the entire campaign being derailed, and the DM had to improvise the whole thing.

Random832
2009-07-30, 05:12 PM
Me: - "I jump to the bridge"
DM: - "You, what?!"
Other players: - "What the hell...?"
Me: - "I jump to the bridge. I have a jump modifier of [obscenely high number], I can certainly make it with a good roll"

Your jump check should have had a circumstance penalty from jumping from an unstable surface, and logically if you'd succeeded you should have sunk the raft.

d13
2009-07-30, 05:55 PM
Yeah, I know.

Tell that to the DM :tongue:

Mr.Moron
2009-07-30, 06:09 PM
Your jump check should have had a circumstance penalty from jumping from an unstable surface, and logically if you'd succeeded you should have sunk the raft.


Awesome > Logic.

Haven
2009-07-30, 06:13 PM
Your jump check should have had a circumstance penalty from jumping from an unstable surface, and logically if you'd succeeded you should have sunk the raft.

I figure it works the the same way as how wuxia characters jump obscenely high; they can do so even if they're standing on a thin limb of bamboo, without breaking the bamboo.

But yeah, awesome > logic.

theMycon
2009-07-30, 06:35 PM
By refusing to accept that I'm just a spectator.

I had one DM who held a strong mutual hatred with me, tempered by the fact that my then-boyfriend was one of his best friends and wanted us to get along*. So I played. Put up with the random, incredibly obvious disdain, and even found a way to profit from it. One example included my proceeding to make a fair & reasonable deal to some NPC, after providing him with lifesaving help, rolling a nat-20 on diplomacy, and being simply told "get the **** out fo my face", followed by someone with half my charisma score & no diplomacy ranks rolling a two on "just give it to me" and getting exactly what I'd asked for and a bonus. This was actually pretty easy to manipulate, as long as I asked for something immediately before the girl of the party she got it no matter what it was.

However, it made sure I was more of a "spectator" than most of the party, but we were all basically there to watch his NPCs play out his story (and occasionally get some nice bling). Many nights involved two NPCs bickering, pointing out they could kill us all with a snap of their fingers, saying we had something they needed, and then standing & watching as we fought random encounters, then sauntering off without any good reason. He loaded the rest of us level 4 & 5 folk down with 60K+ worth of goods- whatever item he thought was "cool" at the time. I didn't care, being a VoP guy. So he proceeded to hand us some artifacts that the "bad guys" wanted, and refuse to give us any information on them. Then insist I had to cary them, and they sapped my VoP powers because I had some very valuable stuff.

Hey, a cleric of travel with no items & no VoP ain't too bad- you can still be a fighter with somewhat better saves & no bonus feats. But when you're simply not allowed to participate or get anything, you get a bit pissy.

So... I waited 'til the next time there were three NPCs around, handed them each whatever artifact the guy to their left wanted most, and then started a bidding war with the rest. As I recall, the entire world was destroyed.



*It later became obvious that said DM was a Jewish-supremacist eugenicist who literally wanted me dead for making a crack about myself being "half-Jewish"**. He also attempted to rape a girl on more than one occasion, succeeded on one occasion, and got kicked out of college for plagarizing everything he considered "just busywork."
Less extremely, said boyfriend was an emotional black hole. Not a bad guy, and very fun to be around, but completely incapable of realizing other people have feelings, or that there's more to life than "make money, have fun". He's now engaged to some girl with a lot of money & no self-esteem.


**Dad's Israeli from way back- if you look in the book of Exodus, you see our name a half-dozen times, and we can trace it that far. However, I hold no religious ties whatsoever.

Haven
2009-07-30, 06:45 PM
As I recall, the entire world was destroyed.

"Interesting, if true."

Sorry your DM sucked so much BTW ><

AstralFire
2009-07-30, 06:51 PM
Wow. I believe that actually beats Xallace for worst DM ever.

JMobius
2009-07-30, 07:06 PM
DMM Maximized Celestial Brilliance cast by a Radiant Servant of Pelor, when the major threat he'd spent ages designing was a zombie apocalypse. Legions upon legions of low level zombies.

Whoops.

Skorj
2009-07-30, 07:52 PM
DM in exposition mode: You have released [the BBEG] from his millenia-long imprisonment. He is relatively weak now, but slowly regaining his strength. If allowed to return to his true power, he will be nigh-unstoppable by all the resources of [campaign setting].

Party: How tough is he now?

DM: If you attack immediately, you may all be killed. If you can obtain [plot coupon] quickly, you can probably take him.

Party: How long do we have?

DM: It will take [BBEG] at least a week to gather the strength to leave this place, at which point he will be much harder to defeat.

Party: OK, we run. We head back to town, and hire a ship for another continent. Let some other schmucks deal with it!

DM: What what what???

Party: Oh, yeah, first we introduce ourselves and tell him that we're sparing his life cause we think he's a cool guy and we're his friends. Just in case he does win against the combined forces of this continent.

We did this so often that is became the signature of our group. We'd measure our success in a campaign by the number of unstoppable menaces we had survived loosing upon unsuspecting civilizations. :smallbiggrin:

FoE
2009-07-30, 08:06 PM
This is why, when I DM, I only play episodic adventures. No campaign, no way to see it all come crashing down.

FlawedParadigm
2009-07-30, 08:23 PM
Man, I would pay money to have Mr. Welch post in this thread.

That said, my own biggest DM screw was fairly mild, and didn't even involve his *plans*, but still, the group's reaction...

Basically, we had a DM that just plain hated all Bag of Holding/Handy Haversack, or any other extradimensional carrying space. I just wanted one as an ultra-quiver for explaining how I'm carrying over 100 arrows (D&D archery is much less lethal than its mediaeval European equivilant, and generally requires far more arrows than time period archers would have needed) on my person. This DM basically found ways to explain away why you couldn't carry much of anything but coins, totally round gems, and bunny tails in. Basically, just about everything could cause a rip, tear, puncture, or other damage to such a space, given enough time and jostling about, so it wasn't *safe* to carry most things in. Arrowheads, of course, much less entire arrows, whose shafts might break and become splintery, were right out.

Of course, about five seconds after this, I say, "Alright, I'll wrap all the arrows in towels up to the fletching, leaving the heads covered, but loosely, so I can still draw arrows at relatively decent speed." There's a heavy silence in the air as everyone turns to me, a couple of them (the DM in particular) gaping. The DM, finding his tongue, goes, "You know, no one's suggested that before. Makes sense."

Of course, as the players glance at me in awe - this is a NOTORIOUSLY stubborn DM - I add, "Well, I've read the Hitchhiker's Guide. Of course the first solution I'll try applying to any problem is a towel." Cue laughter from the rest of the group (4 of 6 who have read the Guide laughing the loudest, but even the other two know a bit about it.) Seriously, this is how I think. My first thought when confronted with most problems is "Is there a way I can solve this with a towel?" I'm weird, yes. And I brought a towel to watch the movie. A beach towel. So yeah.

Xallace
2009-07-30, 08:33 PM
I think our best goes to one of my roommates. He was playing a tibbit shadowdancer (I had a warforged ranger and we also had a human bard). We were all wanted by the law, being a crew of sky pirates, and halfway through the first session the tibbit gets captured. Well, he had tried to escape in cat form, but the guards caught on and managed to wrangle him in.

When the tibbit decides not to change back from cat form, the guards decide to lock him up in the dungeon anyway. So, there we have a tabby cat chained to a wall in tiny shackles, trying to figure out how to escape. Suddenly, he remembers his shadow companion.

The tibbit commands his shadow to kill the guards. The guards, killed via strength drain, become shadows. These shadows fan out and begin feasting on other guards, and soon the whole prison is shadows, under the command of the cat. Now, realizing that this is no way to escape, the tibbit's player says... well, "screw it," and commands his shadow to command its spawn to spread out across the city...

Well, our characters survived, and have managed to spread stories of Shacklecat and the apocalypse that befell the city of Drose. "The Legend of Shacklecat" is now a synonym for out-of-character decisions that go horribly, horribly awry.

I do realize that rules may not support what happened, but hey, could make a pretty cool module.

SilverClawShift
2009-07-30, 08:35 PM
We did this so often that is became the signature of our group. We'd measure our success in a campaign by the number of unstoppable menaces we had survived loosing upon unsuspecting civilizations.

Then...

Forgive me for asking, but why play the game? What did you actually get together at the table for? I tried to think of a creative way a DM could turn that into an interesting game session...and I'm failing.

Arakune
2009-07-30, 08:39 PM
He also attempted to rape a girl on more than one occasion, succeeded on one occasion, and got kicked out of college for plagarizing everything he considered "just busywork."

**Dad's Israeli from way back- if you look in the book of Exodus, you see our name a half-dozen times, and we can trace it that far. However, I hold no religious ties whatsoever.

Wait, WHAT?! WTF!!! When do you knew that?

On a diferent note, quite a long lived family you have.

Milskidasith
2009-07-30, 08:53 PM
You gotta give him props, though. When he uses high level NPCs, he's not afraid to let the PCs take control of the game rather than just using them to make a railroad.

I can kind of commend him for not railroading, but for *insert deity here's* sake making your enemies act absurdly stupid because the PCs got a neat idea that works if they have an idiot ball or giving the PCs exp for beating an epic character because he decided not to kill them all with one spell is not a good thing.

PairO'Dice Lost
2009-07-30, 08:59 PM
Then...

Forgive me for asking, but why play the game? What did you actually get together at the table for? I tried to think of a creative way a DM could turn that into an interesting game session...and I'm failing.

Evil campaign, obviously. I had one group respond to the BBEG's description of his evil plans with "...okay, then, looks like we can't do anything about it. You hiring at the moment?" Fortunately, I'd anticipated this reaction and so had planned for it, and a very nice campaign resulted.

theMycon
2009-07-30, 11:38 PM
Wait, WHAT?! WTF!!! When do you knew that?

On a diferent note, quite a long lived family you have.

They started, ah... coming out of the wood-work about two days after the university found out about his plagarism. I learned later that said ex- of mine had known about the "success" for about a year but just hadn't talked about it because the DM had convinced them he was "really, really sorry" and he "really thought she wanted it that way". They stopped buying it, and told everyone (and, eventually, the police) soon after more women came forward with the accusations.

Also, yup. There're lots of us running around, though most've changed the spelling some time in the past 200 years.
Might as well make this fun: One of the sons of Jacob, most common change is to "double-up" on the last letter.

9mm
2009-07-31, 12:30 AM
I haven't really messed up plans yet, but so far we've managed to get our dm to take a quick break to think TWICE, first by having the sorcerer, instead of walking to a a sleeping orge and waking him up, becomes the quest giver and flat out kills the orge with the party's help.

Then we throw him for a loop BY NOT ATTACKING the spooky people in the tavern over a dead body. I quote "I've run this 6 times, and I never had a party not attack these guys before."


of course he gets his revenge by knocking one of us to zero each session, it's like clockwork.

Origomar
2009-07-31, 12:51 AM
I remember i was DMing a solo campaign (my first one) and the (dont remember level) fighter got a easy simple side quest for xp to go save this old ladys farm from bandits, and that she was afraid her son was going to try and take them on and die in the process. So he went to the farm i had him roll a spot check(the farm was in the woods, honestly it doesnt make a lick of sense but it just was) i said he saw 4 people one was on the ground with an arrow in his chest dieing another was tending to him then there were two other people looking around paranoid. Then i have him roll another spot check and he sees two arrows shoot out of the trees and instantly kill(lucky crit) two of the guys.


So basicaly he ends up chasing the old womans son who shot the bandits for like 5 rounds because he thinks hes a bandit and the other guys are good:smallannoyed:


Another thing that happened to a friend of mine was he was in a city being chased by this gang i think it was. They were almost caught up and then the group bard(him) gets shot with an exploding arrow, after some thinking he decides to say good bye to his friends leaps into the crowd of people and they escape. Later in their adventures they have a gnome bard in a wheelchair, that makes cameo appearances.

Forbiddenwar
2009-07-31, 01:23 AM
As a DM, I've been thrown a couple of curveballs. A requirement for being a DM is being able to think on our feet.
One time a party was suppose to go to a crypt to investigate the disappearance of a friend. After planning out the crypt, they decided to go to a tavern and "talk" to someone who gave them their last job. Because it went south, they blamed him. So I let them, changed the character all around from lawful good who was just trying to help to chaotic evil who was secretly trying to kill them. I liked where it was going so I went with it, even though I had no sets, no characters, nothing planned for it.

Another time, just a small curveball:
DM: okay, you killed the huge viper.
Barbarian: I cut it open and search it from tail to mouth.
DM::smallconfused: huh? (quickly tries to figure out the time it take for a huge python to digest a meal and the percentage that anything durable was eaten in that time) (rolls and it came up 100%) you find a ring with this graven image: (quickly dudles something on a piece of paper and thinks, "now, do I add it to the plot or not")

Skorj
2009-07-31, 02:01 AM
Then...

Forgive me for asking, but why play the game? What did you actually get together at the table for? I tried to think of a creative way a DM could turn that into an interesting game session...and I'm failing.

We were a neutral party, so it did catch him flatfooted the first time. We broke for dinner about then, and the campaign continued seamlessly after dinner. :smallcool:

The thing is - this guy was an insanely good DM, and we generally played in extreme sandbox mode. Typical campaign would begin with over 200 pages of written background and no scripted adventure - just several planets to wander around on. We were trying to see if we could acutally catch him unprepared, and it was so fun to actually do so we had to make it a running gag.

Once you see this DMing style and get the hang of it, nothing the players can do can do can trip you up in a game-breaking way. He has handled this stunt since in a different way each time, from simply smiling and adding a new political faction (he probably had planned that years before we did it) to having the result be so dangerous that vast and powerful forces of good beyond our comprehension simply held us accountable and drafted us to go fix the problem now, when it was 100 times as hard (we had basically let the Snarl-equivalent loose), to having the BBEG become our buddy, and tell the forces of good as much. :eek:

Man, I miss those campaigns.

Evilfeeds
2009-07-31, 03:23 AM
Thought Id add my own experience, as a DM:

The players had a fairly simple mission (go talk to the wizard and protect him when the bad guys burst in). They decided that theyd take a detour by the pub and get wasted first.

One of the characters (chaotic evil half orc, held in line mostly by the other players) decided rather than pay the 1 copper, he'd go to the bathroom and sneak out the toilet window. He gets stuck (natural 1 on a climb check), and ends up basically smashing a hole in the wall to escape. The innkeeper comes through to see the noise, panics, and calls the guards.

Rather than admit fault and pay the fine, they resist arrest, and (long story short) one character dies and the rest spend the night in jail.

When they *finally* get started on the mission, they find that (surprise) the bad guys have been and slaughtered the wizard they were supposed to protected. They return to their masters (the pcs are all slaves) and get severly punished, partly for disappearing, and partly for failing.

Everyone agreed it was the best damn adventure we've had.

mikej
2009-07-31, 04:21 AM
One word, Cometfall.

Our DM set up this epic encounter with a mature adult Red Dragon. I'd recently, as the Druid, picked up Cometfall and readied three ( I was a newb, like to roll tons of d6's :smallsmile: ) for this encounter. So we see the Dragon ( which we later find out was it's female mate ) fly at us from the deep air shaft in the mountain. My immediate responce was to cast Cometfall. Dragon continued to fly up while the comet flew down. It hit, the Dragon failed it's save, was knock proned, and fell to it's rocky death below. At the time we don't know much about max falling damage. We'd spent a few minutes after, discussing terminal velocity, the future scenario of proning air bond foes, and the time per round. Soo the DM was a little disturbed be this.

After we venture down the shaft and past the splattered Dragon. We ventured into a huge chamber filled with lava and a island of treasure at the center. We quickly find out that there is another Dragon still around. It was hiding near the ceiling, also it was invisible, waiting for us to make a move. Our Monk ( after a potion of Spider Climb ) climbed up the walls and was ambusbed by the lurking Dragon. Now it was completely visible to all of us. Soo, after initiative roll, my immediate responce was to cast Cometfall. It hit again, the Dragon failed it's save again, was knock proned again, and fell to it's rocky death below again. This time fell on it's valuable treasure. He didn't ask how many I preped. Now the DM was utterly shocked and politely went into the washroom to say a few choice words.

" soo, how about that Feather Fall?"

Dhavaer
2009-07-31, 04:32 AM
Rolling a natural 20 on a knowledge check to identify to name of the BBEG. Hard to say for sure, but it bypassed a good chunk of the adventure.

mistformsquirrl
2009-07-31, 04:46 AM
@TheMycon - *jawdrop*

... wow. I've had some horrible DMs; but that... kinda blows me away with the horribleness <x.x>

---

As for me...

/shame - I very rarely ruin a DMs plans. I'm one of those people who, although relatively intelligent, prefers simple and straightforward solutions most of the time. (Though I do get particular moods where I prefer something more convoluted... but usually if I can do something simple, I will.)

Which of course plays into most DM's hands, because that's exactly what they want/expect since it's easiest to manage >.>

I mean soemtimes I do something unexpected; but it's never so far 'out there' that the DM has to do a re-write ya know? (Like, attacking a castle head on when we were supposed to sneak in... we still ended up at the same point; we just did it the hard way.)

Oh! Now that I think of it I do have one exception <^_^> from the only time my brother DMed. Admittedly this is still pretty straightforward; and mostly my brother's mistake, rather than me being particularly clever... but it qualifies!

I was playing an Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil. Yes, I realize now they're kinda ridiculous (though I still love them; very enjoyable) - and we're facing down the BBEG after he's just attacked an allied warcamp we're staying at.

Said BBEG is a nasty half-dragon half-orc who, in physical combat, could easily crush any of us. He can also fly due to his wings; and being a rather intelligent Evil Overlord (he's apparently read The List) - has a fair stash of magic items. In other words: He's a credible threat even with a high level arcane spellcaster in the group; as he has enough backup gear that he can replicate a lot of the effects I can do or dismiss them. (I forget exactly what class he was though; but I think it was Barbarian - it's been awhile though.)

Anyway - BBEG's minions swarm in; pretty much swamping us. The rest of the group starts taking on the minions, since BBEG is flying, and I'm the only one in the group able to do that.

Me, in my infinite wisdom, decide to challenge him with my ULTIMATE ARCANE POWER - and flew up to duel him. ... this should have ended with me very dead; because I am not a genius at using arcane spells. I like to blast and use flashy stuff; and while Stone Skin (which I cast) helps; this is the kind of guy who can hit you for 60 easy.

However, my brother, and thus BBEG, forgot my prestige class. He charged, and I pulled up an instant Indigo veil (I think that's the one - the "Turn you to stone if you fail a save" veil) - and he failed his save.

So you end up with a half-dragon statue narrowly missing me in mid-air that crashes to the ground.

Said BBEG was supposed to return several times; being the end-boss of the campaign. However being turned to stone he couldn't use any of his clever magic items <,< and most of his mooks were already being rolled up by the rest of the group.

<. .>;;; Oops.

Myrmex
2009-07-31, 05:26 AM
LOL & Shacklecat.

I am going to have to use that one.

KillianHawkeye
2009-07-31, 09:13 AM
LOL & Shacklecat.

I am going to have to use that one.

Yeah, it's a good story. Too bad the Shadowdancer's Shadow can't actually create spawn.

Civil War Man
2009-07-31, 10:31 AM
Dark Sun. My character is a rogue working for one of the Merchant Houses (he claims to be a legitimate merchant, but the party is skeptical since I could afford metal weapons). We are part of a city militia, and tasked with delivering a trade contract to another city. An agent of my Merchant House contacts me, and informs me that I must alter the contract to include my House under any circumstances (the original contract was from a rival House).

So less than one day into the journey, I botch a stealth check and the party catches me tampering with the contract. I come up with the least believable, half-assed excuse possible....and the rest of the party decided that they didn't care enough to try to find out what I was actually doing. We arrive at the city, and the magistrate botches his Sense Motive check (it was a 3.5 port of Dark Sun), and accepts the contract. The party quickly realizes that the contract managed to change to a different Merchant House during the trip...and decide that none of them cared enough to expose the deception.

My character instantly became a made man, and we drew upon the resources of the Merchant House constantly in order to accomplish our goals. When the campaign ended, the DM informed me that his plan was for my character to fail, resulting in him being forced to leave the Merchant House, so during the entire campaign we would also have to contend with assassins being sent after me.

Instead, I resolved my character's entire plot in the first session.

Eon
2009-07-31, 10:42 AM
well the first group I played with I was new to the game and therefore did basic stuff. The group I play with now is pretty much railroaded beyond belief. we were put into a dungeon immediately for some wierd reason, when we finished that dungeon we magically were forced to go to a certain area. then we had three options on where to go. we did 2.

Leon
2009-07-31, 11:42 AM
A spell called Weighty Chest in 2e.

This spell cast on a object made it triple the weight of any creature other than the caster when touched

We knew we were going to be battling a group of Fake/Fallen Helmites who rode dragons, we also have a Elemental Galleon with Heavy Balista set up to fire broadside style

We total caught the DM off guard with this, he expected us to fight them conventionally (which we did o some degree when we got boarded)

One fallen Helmite managed to get away and become a somewhat minor pest later on but all the others died with their very heavy Dragons
i recall one dragon being hit with at least 3 bolts, one of them took out one of the towers of the temple we were protecting, one survived the initial attack as it was a glancing shot that tore back out due to its weight

2 Weeks of careful planing and co-ordination was very worth it for the look on the DMS face once it was unveiled


Another was a Game of WHFRP that i was unwilling dragged along to, i had been expecting a nice night of making my friend lay his cryx down in defeat repeatedly but he was persuaded to come to a game night with his regular group and i got roped in too (the GM wasnt too happy about it aswell, but i'd just made the trip from across the city to get there)

the normal group was heading somewhere and my PC a Hunter that happened to be part of the caravan, well seems ok, boring guard duty etc
we happen upon the survivors of a bandit attack on a small village off the path some way

ok we'll look in to it and make our way off, i'd gotten bored with it by now and sick of the incessant whining of one of the other players (who was a real brown noser to the dm)

but i wasn't going to make a deal about and mess it up for the decent people in the group (yet)

Anyway we arrive at the village and try to sneak in (some of us did - the rest walked in making noise)
those of us that sneaked made it past the ambush that got the ones who were not.
It came own to a bloody brawl that resulted in most of the group capture, some incapacitated and my Lone hunter refusing to give up and surrender even in the face of having other members of the party punished for my resistance (what did i care what happens to them - i had a one shot Hunter with no ties to the group)

By this time i was having a ball, it had to end eventually and my Hunter went down in combat with the bandits big guy after he had run out of bolts and been forced off the roof he was sniping from
at one point some of the capture members of the party were heartened my continued Resistance and almost escape but were betrayed by the brown noser

I'm told that the after effects have had a long lasting effect on that group of gamers - that particular game never quite recovered from that night.

(With hindsight i consider it revenge for what they did to my WHFRP Character back when i used to play with them regularly - i had to take a break from the game for a while so my PC got to carry a lump of Warpstone that we had found and was basically driven mad and killed off while i was away, wasn't very happy with that bunch for a while)

xPANCAKEx
2009-07-31, 12:19 PM
a a gurps campaign i joined:

i joined playing the sergent of town guard (with a co-hort of guardsmen at my disposal) with the existing group consisiting of a band of basically wandering adventurers

the mission was to basically take out the leader of a group of bandits at a camp they had previously scouted out. The GM thought we'd insert into the camp and perform a quick surgical strike, take out the leader, and get out of dodge.... erm...... NO

we ploughed in through the main entry way, and subsiqantly spent the next few months-worth of session battling it out in the camp, slaughtering the majority of them, despite being out numbered around 10-1 (10 guards, all only marginally better than the average bandit + me + 4 other PCs VS about 100 average bands bandits + 5-10 abover agerage bandits + leader + wizard)

he definately did not see that coming. Nor the groups refusal to withdraw whenever presented with a decent opertunity to do so... nor did he see one of the players touching a chest covered in red warning runes, burning much loot

Aedilred
2009-07-31, 12:30 PM
In a quasi-steampunk (homebrew D&D setting) we once took a detour to a mysterious town in the centre of which was a mysterious tower apparently in control of everything. We spent two hours of in-game time- in reality an entire session- trying various ways of getting inside (even one of the other players was getting a bit frustrated by this point). Later on the DM confessed that the main reason he hadn't let us inside was that he hadn't mapped and statted the interior. Nevertheless our various failtastic attempts became one of the most memorable features of the campaign.

Later on, we boarded an enemy battleship guarded by a load of monks who he'd obviously prepared specially for the task of scaring us off. We observed them for one round, and then took them apart. Once we'd penetrated the bridge and "taken command", we ended up with the battleship floating over a heavily armed military fortress, who knew that the ship was in enemy hands and had reinforcements waiting to come aboard and total us. It seemed our only option was to teleport out to our waiting intercept vessel, flee and hope for the best.

On the way to the teleport, I had a bright idea and grabbed a microphone, and issued an order to all guns to open fire on the fortress. The resulting exchange of fire wrecked the fortress and crippled the battleship, while we made our bid for freedom.

We were fortunate that we had a DM who (although he was slightly bitter about the monks) generally found our going off the rails more entertaining than our following the script, and was prepared to rule in favour of whatever seemed like more fun rather than shutting us down when we tried a novel solution.

Brauron
2009-07-31, 01:06 PM
Our lack of action in the first session of the last campaign I played in resulted in a town being destroyed by oozes.

There was a corrupt "exterminator" who made a living breeding dire rats and a homebrewed ooze type called Breeder Oozes. He'd let them loose in town, then charge money to round them up. He hired us to take care of some dire rats, with the intent that they'd kill us and he could charge more for his services. We killed the dire rats, but killed him instead of taking care of a second "problem" of a warehouse full of Breeder Oozes. We left town shortly thereafter, and the Breeder Oozes reproduced out of control and consumed the entire town.

scsimodem
2009-07-31, 01:38 PM
My first DM was a sandbox DM who encouraged creative solutions, and my group even threw him for a loops sometimes. Subsequent DMs have figured out how to put back doors on their back doors and escape hatches on their escape hatches just to make sure one brilliant solution doesn't ruin the whole story.

My first instance of...I'm going to describe it as skullduggery... was when we had a player leave the group. To write out his character, the DM had him kidnapped by the BBEG and put in a mind blanked room in a country we had never visited on the far side of the continent. We were a party of all wizards, so, staying in character, we scryed the everloving crap out of everything he ever owned in order to try to find his location. Finally, next session, we had a couple of players who weren't going to be there long, a monk and a fighter, when we had this brilliant idea. We sent the dude a sending. We actually called the player to find out what his character would do. He sent us back a description of the room using as many words as sending allowed, minus two, which he used to say 'powerful casters.' After several failed attempts from that description (one of which landed us in the middle of a NASTY desert), we finally teleported into the room, threw up antimagic fields, and let the melee guys handle the two level 18 sorcerers (we were around level 10). Then, we got the hell out of dodge. No biggies. He was an in-party NPC for the remainder of the campaign.

Then there was another adventure I played a wizard in. We were on an airship, and he was trying to split the party. Half were to fall off the airship during the battle and the other half were to stay on. People started falling off, but I had fly and kept getting them back on. The DM threw a big strong guy at the party, flying in on a flying mount. He was supposed to use lots of bull rush and similar stuff to get us off, but I cast ray of enfeeblement on the mount, crit with it, and the mount was too weak to get him there and fell out of the sky. At the end of the encounter, only one person had fallen off, so the DM threw a NASTY reflex save at all of us as the airship crashed. About half of us passed.

Eventually, the DM started planning his encounters around our creativity. He'd throw situations at us with no solutions but what came from our twisted minds, planning on fudging it if we failed epically enough to derail the campaign. We never did. One solution involved casting prismatic wall, then dispelling it one layer at a time until we could evacuate through the 'teleport to another plane' layer.

Umael
2009-07-31, 01:50 PM
Well, since we are doing ways our players have messed up our plans as DM's...

As DM, I don't really plan more than one session in advance, although I have lots of idea of how I want the campaign to go. I start with where the party is at ("A") and figure out where I want the game session to end ("B"). How to get from "A" to "B" is up to the players and it determines where the end of the next game session will be ("C"), something I don't know yet.

Also, I have to use a degree of tolerance between B, where I want the game session to end, and B', where it actually ends. Usually it's pretty close.

But there are two times, in the same campaign, where my players threw me for a bit. As in, you could call B' close to B if you said that ending up in Alaska is close enough to Russia.

I was running a d20 Rokugan game, which has a fantasy Asian setting strongly influenced by feudal Japan. Most of the party (per my request) were playing bushi samurai, with at least one shugenja and one courtier (also per my request). Not a lot of combat, lots of role-playing.

#1

One of the newer players had been playing a ronin for a while, but he wanted to retire him. He mentioned this to me, and I told him that was okay. The party (mostly Crab Clan) was negotiating with the Unicorn Clan (the two Clans were engaged in a conflict with an army on both sides of the field). The PCs, acting as officers in the army for this conflict, were in the tent with the Crab Clan general and the rest of his officers, as well as the Unicorn Clan general and HIS officers.

I figured the negotiations would break down and the ronin would just "happen" to get killed during the oncoming battle.

Well, the negotiations broke down all right.

Middle of the Unicorn Clan general's speech (pretty much just "sabre-rattling", or the Rokugan equavalent), the ronin draws his katana and strikes down the Unicorn Clan general.

There is moment of silence, followed by the rest of the players going, "You did WHAT?!?" I'm sitting there, shaking my head and pinching the brow of my nose, trying to frantically figure out what would happen next.

The rest of the samurai there, Crab and Unicorn alike killed the ronin (who offered no resistance), and then the Unicorn officers left, decrying the "dishonor" of the Crab. The Crab Clan general (Hiruma Ken, I think) had to commit seppuku over the shame of it, putting one of the PCs in charge (Hida Ryushin). The PCs went on to lead the Crab to victory, but then they had to go and report back to their leader, Hiruma Kage, the Daimyo of the Hiruma family (one of the five families that make up the Crab Clan).

When they got there, Hiruma Kage looked less than pleased.
Hiruma Kage: Tell me, why did you find it necessary to have Hiruma Ken, our general and my uncle commit seppuku??
All players (OOC): Uncle?!?
One of the players (OOC): Oh, ****!
Hida Ryushin: But... but... we won the battle!

(Hint: In Rokugan, WINNING a battle because one of your members does something DISHONORABLE like striking down the enemy general under the banner of truce does NOT excuse the fact that one of your members did something DISHONORABLE, especially not if it results in your general having to commit seppuku. Insult to injury when said general happens to be your daimyo's uncle.)

P.S. No one was EVER allowed to play ronin again. This was something the players decided, not me.

#2

Many game sessions later, the PCs were to go with Hiruma Kage into the Shadowlands in a bid to retake Kyuden Hiruma, the ancestral home of the Hiruma. The Shadowlands is the tainted place where all life is twisted and foul, goblins run amok, the dead raise to kill, and oni (demons) rip apart entire legions of troops. Staying too long there can corrupt a person and make them decay, physically, mentally, and morally. Many years ago, a force of Shadowlands creatures attacked and took Kyuden Hiruma, ousting the Hiruma and making them flee to safety behind the Kaiu Wall. It has been a humiliation to the family and a stain on their honor. Hiruma Kage, naturally, wants to lead a force to free the castle and rid it of its Shadowlands infestation.

I had it planned so that they would successfully take the castle, but that reinforcements would arrive from the Shadowlands, forcing the Crab (including the PCs) to abandon the castle. However, Hiruma Kage would insist on staying behind and dying there, fighting the Shadowlands. I figured that the PCs would just be taken in by one of the other Crab daimyo, or maybe they would all become ronin.

The PCs would have none of that.

They physically constrained Hiruma Kage and carried him, struggling, out of the castle and back to Crab lands.

The weird thing is, according to canon, that very thing had happened to Hiruma Kage, where his lieutenants had to forcibly remove him from Kyuden Hiruma when he refused to leave the doomed cause. In my game, I just assumed that it had already happened and he was attempting a second go at it. Apparently, the PCs ended up writing themselves into the same spot as canon (that or history repeats itself).

Xallace
2009-08-02, 12:23 PM
Wow. I believe that actually beats Xallace for worst DM ever.

A couple days late, but I hadn't seen this post; yeah, yeah, I think that wins. And I am so sorry.

Also to stay on topic, I'd like to give one from one of my other roommates (livin' with three people, all play DnD...). I was not part of this campaign:

So there's this demon, right? He's a demon of darkness. A terrible, murderous, unstoppable demon of darkness. He only comes out at night, kills and eats a bunch of people, then retreats to the underground.

My roommate's party is on a quest to stop this beast. From what I hear, this was the culmination to some sort of epic mystery/horror campaign. I dunno too many details leading up to it, but...

It's pitch black, and the demon fight is about to begin. My roommate lights a torch, and for some reason the DM looks horrified.

Roomie: What?
DM: You light a torch?
Roomie: Well yeah, it's pitch black. Plus you said the demon has been hanging around in pitch black-ness for how long now?
DM: Thousands of years.
Roomie: Yeah, so it's pupils are dilated as @#$%. I light a torch.

And so they blinded the horrible demon and killed it in two rounds.

hawkboy772042
2009-08-23, 01:20 PM
I'm playing a first level campaign with another friend of mine. He's playing a half-orc barbarian and I'm playing a halfling rogue. The DM is trying to have us introduced by having my character (naturally) accused of stealing something.
So I'm running down the street with the stolen merchandise and the other PC apprehends me. Instead of simply getting captured, we talk for a little bit then I agree to come along with him, but at last minute, run between his legs and punch him in the balls, then run off. After a fit of laughter, the DM had to make another encounter to make us join together as a party to start the adventure.

Sliver
2009-08-23, 02:06 PM
So I DM for a group of friends and the party gets sent to some tunnels that were uncovered to find some missing people.. They find out its populated with some kind of elves that are enslaved due to having high psionic powers by a race that uses them to create crystals that anyone can use to power up items. The remaining elves are weak, having all the strong ones taken away, and it is established that they don't have any fighting spirit so the party fails to convince them to attack. So they go alone, 3 level ones.. On the way I give them one elven female that could act as a heal bot (they almost never think about healing.. the first fight got their fighter to almost death and they waited 3 days for him to heal..) and they go on..
They reach the town and under cover enter it. The only kinda experienced player stays behind with the elf to question her about her wierd acting when they got near the town so the other players, the fighter and rogue went on..
One guard approaches them and asks what do they seek inside.. So the rogue goes "we search for some people that went missing around here.."
I am shocked.. The experienced player is shocked, starts questioning the dude's motives, I don't resist even tho his char' isn't there, cuz really...
But the player is sure, they had a quest to find those people, might as well ask around..
Not wanting to kill them off, really tho I should have.. The guards take them to a building, which I describe as built with black bricks and a skull above the door.. And they don't get the hint..

End up fighting in a simple arena battle and escaping right after with other prisoners.. Not their plans or anything, they just kinda follow any lead I give them and aren't really creative or anything.....

Temet Nosce
2009-08-23, 02:50 PM
Uh... Lets see here. I think the complete derailment of a major campaign through use of charm person, a few custom items, explosive runes, poison, and massive amounts of torture would be it. Among other things I kidnapped the head of his order of Paladins, killed his family (by gifting them barrels of distilled booze with explosive runes carved inside them and dispelling them once they entered their heavily guarded house), tortured him and sacrificed him to a demon. Collected the DM's NPCs as slaves (including a pirate captain, a doppelganger, and a Paladin I turned to blackguard after having her murder her own leader), started up a sex slave trade, and subverted a major city/nation gaining land, a title, and a Wizard's abode there.

This was all at a low level while the party was supposed to hunting and killing a Basilisk for its hide.

In other games I have in order, blown up an entire army using improvised explosives, burned down the DM's dungeon, turned a wagon into a poor mans nuke (fuel air explosive), and killed off a major NPC before we ever got to meet him in person IC by using sonic damage to destroy his entire palace. Oh, I also one shotted the major villain for our entire party on accident (I just wanted to stop the villain speech before it began).

Things on my to do list: Flood a dungeon/cave area by diverting a river, use minor creation to put enough contact poison into a dungeon to kill everything off without entering, scry and die a major villain, use Apocalypse from the Sky to destroy a major nation... at least, actually use Locate City bomb in a game, turn the moon into a invulnerable base armed with nuclear weapons and a computer, oh... I'd also like to learn Basket Weaving. I'm worried that might be a bit broken though.

Myshlaevsky
2009-08-23, 02:54 PM
They started, ah... coming out of the wood-work about two days after the university found out about his plagarism. I learned later that said ex- of mine had known about the "success" for about a year but just hadn't talked about it because the DM had convinced them he was "really, really sorry" and he "really thought she wanted it that way". They stopped buying it, and told everyone (and, eventually, the police) soon after more women came forward with the accusations.

Also, yup. There're lots of us running around, though most've changed the spelling some time in the past 200 years.
Might as well make this fun: One of the sons of Jacob, most common change is to "double-up" on the last letter.

Sounds like he could be psychopathic.

Clovis
2009-08-24, 11:29 AM
On a D&D 3.5 game we wiped out an entire colony of lizardfolk by using a very potent poison. Problem was that the DM had intended this colony to be our allies in a war against the Sahuagin. He let us roll with it until the genoside. Then he had the three offenders from our party (who'd spread the poison) to be transported to the lizard god's own plane. This god was fairly po'd and began transforming the three persons into lizards, bit by bit :-) After a bit of atonement the lizard god was mollified enough to remove the lisping hiss, the thick skin, the budding tail...

Mathius
2009-08-24, 12:29 PM
First character I ever made was a half-elf warrior. I made him out of the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons players handbook in 1988. We were supposed to face an ancient great wyrm red dragon as a final bad guy. During the first ten minutes of the adventure (our first encounter) the dragon showed up, having heard that heroes had been dispatched to foil his plans. We got all of the standard rolls. I made my fear save. Everyone else didn't. I attacked the dragon by leaping off of a inn and rolling a 20. My DM told me to roll again. Another 20. He then pulled out his home-brew critical hit table and had me roll a d%. I roll 00. I ended up cutting the dragon's head off and killing him. I got all of the experience for him and ended up somewhere around fifth or sixth level with one attack. He told me to go home as he had to retool the entire adventure thanks to me.

Good times.

KeresM
2009-08-24, 12:44 PM
I played a kender.

FlawedParadigm
2009-08-24, 01:14 PM
I played a kender.

The sad part being this requires absolutely no further information to make total sense. And that I had to use almost four times as many words to say that.

Jack_Banzai
2009-08-24, 01:26 PM
Forgotten Realms, 2nd edition.

I (12th level druid) and two compatriots (9th level cleric, 10th level fighter) were being asked by the mayor of a village to drive away a goblin encampment about twenty miles from the village as the goblins were raiding supply caravans that usually headed through the village. Riding out to the encampment, I snuck up quietly in panther form with the cleric and fighter remaining behind. I asked the DM what the condition of the weather was. He said that it looked like a stormfront was about to break, for effect I think - he was very much about setting the mood.

BIG MISTAKE!

Instead of entering the encampment and kicking goblin tail, the cleric and I just stood back and used Call Lightning until we had melted the entire goblin camp into slag. Not only did we fail to obtain any treasure (it had all been melted and/or vaporized) or recover any goods for the village (ditto) we also destroyed the MacGuffin that was going to lead us on the trail of the campaign and killed the witch doctor who was going to make a prophecy about us. Oh well!!

Drevius
2009-08-24, 09:41 PM
My messing up the dm's plans came out of nowhere due to the fact that i was essentially playing autopilot for a good little while, not really knowing much about the dm's custom world where one giant city essentially sends settlers out to create more towns/outposts and destroy demons and artifacts and be rewarded insanely. I missed all that and came in with an archivist...with all the vows under the sun...and spontaneous healing and maxed out diplomacy which I almost never used since we mainly fought demons without any languange and everyone tended to be on friendly terms with us npc wise. Anyways on one of the parties downtimes and after i had said i was plane shifting to celestia for a bit and maybe learn a thing or two from them (and then proceeded to go on auto pilot for a pizza run). When I returned the s*** had hit the fan and the BBEG had warped in and was wrecking our frontier town with two tricked out balors in tow. I thought since I was still in Celestia and had an insane modifier for diplo as well as a host of bonuses to changing good aligned creatures I made a plea to the angels to help tip the scales in our favor, rolling a nat 20 on the diplomacy. The dm deepstriked in a large group of solars and various other good outsiders to help the PC's and the bad guy was going to make his "I'll get you next time gadget" speeches when I Dimensional anchored him and the army and PC's proceed to beat the ever loving crap out of the BBEG who was supposed to be recurring until the very end, oops. The campaign didn't last much longer.

Shadowtraveler
2009-08-24, 09:46 PM
"The Druid summons a hippogriff and flies to safety"

Best start to a horror campaign ever.


We did a do-over next session.

Yukitsu
2009-08-24, 09:48 PM
"Shoot, OK he's paralyzed."
"I put his face in a bowl of water."
"He was supposed to die and go to Valhalla..."

I had this conversation as well:

DM: You're dramatically changing the world political climate, and obsoleting all the tactics that all the armies use with nothing but rocks and commoners.
Me: Yeah, I'm a relevant part of this world, not a passive observer.
DM: But you're level 2, and that was the king of the druids...

Lycan 01
2009-08-24, 10:10 PM
Despite preaching against it ever since I first sat in the Keeper's seat, the only time I ever played Call of Cthulhu, I took the "kick in the door and shoot everything" approach.

I must say, even though I got shot in the shoulder and spent the rest of the game in shock, it was worth it to take down the BBEG with a point blank shotgun blast AND buy us an opportunity to drag out the guy we'd gone to Innsmouth (CoC fans should realize how bad the situation was if we were there...) to save in the first place. How was I supposed to know the back door I kicked in was the room where the victim was being held hostage? :smallbiggrin:

I don't think there were any hard feelings... Although that was the first and last time the guy ever Kept a Cthulhu game. It was also the first and last time I got to be a player instead of a Keeper... :smalltongue:



There was also the first time I ever played an RPG, where I paid attention to an obscure detail and defeated that session's BBEG, who was a dragon with a love of teddy bears, by throwing a dead Kobold wrapped in rat fur at him.

The next session he tried to show us who was boss. When the game got silly (We got sucked down a toilet, and had to escape from a sewer full of French Knights throwing "poo" at us. I almost got knocked into negative HP by human excrement! :smallfurious:) we started to complain. He decided that rather than address our complaints directly, he'd just make our characters stand in line to meet the DM. I, personally, did not appreciate being relegated to the back of a line of UBER-monsters just because I didn't like playing a game that made no sense. I responded by taking control of the situation........... Ah, who am I kidding? I forced my way to the front of the line, leaving my allies to scuttle along behind in shock, kicked in the door, lept across the room, and brought my claymore down on the DM's face.

It just gets worse from there. We got teleported to a room full of mushrooms, there was no way out because the key to the exit had been somewhere... else, an angel appeared to reprimand us, and I kinda... splashed lantern oil on the angel and tried to light it on fire. It teleported away, so I asked what happened when the lantern oil landed on the mushrooms and was ignited by the torch.

If I recall correctly, the result was comparable to a nuclear blast... :smallcool:


A democratic vote of 3-to-1 elected me as the group's new DM right then and there on the spot. :smallbiggrin:

Tyndmyr
2009-08-24, 11:04 PM
My inventory typically starts with the following:
caltrops.
Six bags of marbles
twenty fishhooks
A crowbar
Six flasks of oil
rope
Needle and thread
Grapnel
razor wire
Block and tackle
A live duck

Plus whatever other mundane items I can manage to list before the DM starts giving me odd looks. Sometimes I even take weapons and armor. The rest of the party has developed this odd habit of trying to take me now whenever I utter the worlds "I have an idea", though...

Seffbasilisk
2009-08-25, 09:03 PM
I was playing a Paladin of St. Cuthbert with some obscure feat that let me Smite chaotic foes as well as evil ones.

The plot was supposed to go along the lines of: We fight some imps for an item, it curses us, we go on a long quest to get free of the curse, and figure out what the item does to stop the baddies.

I realized that as a Paladin, it was my job to lead the party to safe harbor. So instead of going in the plot-prodded direction, we went to the Theocracy. Petitioning the good churches, and name-dropping our Cleric as often as possible, I managed to get them to meet in council. There, the rest of the party provided a host of spells (prestagitation to clean my armor, dancing lights to give me a back-lit appearance, etc) to give me circumstance bonuses to my diplomacy check. Now, completely untrained in diplomacy, I made a long speech, and rolled. Nat 20. Combined with high charisma (Paladin), and all the circumstance bonuses (party) I ended up starting a crusade.

With the full support of the highest level clerics, we were de-cursed, and the item was found to impart the information that the election in the nearby Mageocracy was about to be rigged. So we took the army of clerics and fanatics...

And invaded the Mageocracy. There, we proceeded to clap almost everyone we saw in irons, and ended up looting the main tower (center of government). With the help of a few Bags of Holding, we managed to even 'liberate' chairs, doors, etc.

We eventually let the crusade rage on it's own over the continent, while we, the party, personally invaded the desert-kingdom. It's original name is forgotten by all of us, but after we brought what I called "The Scourge to the Wicked" which involved slaying numerous dragons, entire cities worth of evil people killed on a detect and smite rampage...

We renamed it Kenya. And imported lions.

We then took over a diamond mine, and proceeded to fortify a base, re-educating the youngsters and training a generation of Clerics, Monks, Druids, and Paladins to follow in our footsteps.

The DM made the poor decision to let me outlay our defenses...needless to say, nothing ever breached our walls.

Now, a tad more detail. I'd taken the Troll-Blooded feat, which grants Regeneration 1 bypassed by fire and acid. So sometimes I'd do a little show where I'd take one of the evil folks we'd rounded up and give them a dagger, take off my fullplate armor (exposing myself to the sun and fatigue) and tell them this was their one chance to strike me down. When that failed, I'd usually 'Call' my armor on, and summon my Lucerne Hammer to my hand.

This immunity grew in strength as I took levels in Bone Knight, and I eventually reached the point where when a 'halfling' tried to argue us out of our Crusade and I did a Mounted Charge (Ride-by Attack, Spirited Charge, Lucerne Hammer...) and it DIDN'T DIE, I knew it was something powerful in disguise. I ended up beating it's initiative and it died before it ever made a move, reverting to it's form as a Gold Dragon. One of our cohorts at this time took the Wyrmgrafting feat, and I ended up with black and gold scales, giving me resistance 35 to Fire and Acid, DR, and a few other things.

When a Blue Dragon attacked our base, and was not only driven off by the automated defenses, but hunted down by the party and also slain...the DM abandoned the game.


...after crawling under the table and crying there for a while. She'd done this a few times, and ended up doing it a few more in the campaigns to come. Needless to say, I'm running the 3.5 game now.

expirement10K14
2009-08-25, 09:08 PM
I was playing a Paladin of St. Cuthbert with some obscure feat that let me Smite chaotic foes as well as evil ones.

The plot was supposed to go along the lines of: We fight some imps for an item, it curses us, we go on a long quest to get free of the curse, and figure out what the item does to stop the baddies.

I realized that as a Paladin, it was my job to lead the party to safe harbor. So instead of going in the plot-prodded direction, we went to the Theocracy. Petitioning the good churches, and name-dropping our Cleric as often as possible, I managed to get them to meet in council. There, the rest of the party provided a host of spells (prestagitation to clean my armor, dancing lights to give me a back-lit appearance, etc) to give me circumstance bonuses to my diplomacy check. Now, completely untrained in diplomacy, I made a long speech, and rolled. Nat 20. Combined with high charisma (Paladin), and all the circumstance bonuses (party) I ended up starting a crusade.

With the full support of the highest level clerics, we were de-cursed, and the item was found to impart the information that the election in the nearby Mageocracy was about to be rigged. So we took the army of clerics and fanatics...

And invaded the Mageocracy. There, we proceeded to clap almost everyone we saw in irons, and ended up looting the main tower (center of government). With the help of a few Bags of Holding, we managed to even 'liberate' chairs, doors, etc.

We eventually let the crusade rage on it's own over the continent, while we, the party, personally invaded the desert-kingdom. It's original name is forgotten by all of us, but after we brought what I called "The Scourge to the Wicked" which involved slaying numerous dragons, entire cities worth of evil people killed on a detect and smite rampage...

We renamed it Kenya. And imported lions.

We then took over a diamond mine, and proceeded to fortify a base, re-educating the youngsters and training a generation of Clerics, Monks, Druids, and Paladins to follow in our footsteps.

The DM made the poor decision to let me outlay our defenses...needless to say, nothing ever breached our walls.

Now, a tad more detail. I'd taken the Troll-Blooded feat, which grants Regeneration 1 bypassed by fire and acid. So sometimes I'd do a little show where I'd take one of the evil folks we'd rounded up and give them a dagger, take off my fullplate armor (exposing myself to the sun and fatigue) and tell them this was their one chance to strike me down. When that failed, I'd usually 'Call' my armor on, and summon my Lucerne Hammer to my hand.

This immunity grew in strength as I took levels in Bone Knight, and I eventually reached the point where when a 'halfling' tried to argue us out of our Crusade and I did a Mounted Charge (Ride-by Attack, Spirited Charge, Lucerne Hammer...) and it DIDN'T DIE, I knew it was something powerful in disguise. I ended up beating it's initiative and it died before it ever made a move, reverting to it's form as a Gold Dragon. One of our cohorts at this time took the Wyrmgrafting feat, and I ended up with black and gold scales, giving me resistance 35 to Fire and Acid, DR, and a few other things.

When a Blue Dragon attacked our base, and was not only driven off by the automated defenses, but hunted down by the party and also slain...the DM abandoned the game.


...after crawling under the table and crying there for a while. She'd done this a few times, and ended up doing it a few more in the campaigns to come. Needless to say, I'm running the 3.5 game now.

That was... EPIC.

Seffbasilisk
2009-08-25, 09:19 PM
That was... EPIC.

That was levels 6-9...and his name was Sigor.

Lycan 01
2009-08-25, 09:26 PM
I don't know if I'd hate you or love you if I was your DM... :smallconfused:

Rayzin
2009-08-25, 09:39 PM
As a DM, i'd probably get fed up and say that some dark god starts a crusade against you. And that a dark avatar/messiah has emerged to kill you. They should be even more powerful or of equal power.

How the hell did your DM let you do that? How....:smallfrown:

Alejandro
2009-08-25, 09:53 PM
They started, ah... coming out of the wood-work about two days after the university found out about his plagarism. I learned later that said ex- of mine had known about the "success" for about a year but just hadn't talked about it because the DM had convinced them he was "really, really sorry" and he "really thought she wanted it that way". They stopped buying it, and told everyone (and, eventually, the police) soon after more women came forward with the accusations.

Also, yup. There're lots of us running around, though most've changed the spelling some time in the past 200 years.
Might as well make this fun: One of the sons of Jacob, most common change is to "double-up" on the last letter.

Of the 12 sons of Jacob, I can't think of any whose last name, when the last letter is followed by the same letter again, sound common to me. Benjaminn?

Seffbasilisk
2009-08-25, 10:01 PM
As a DM, i'd probably get fed up and say that some dark god starts a crusade against you. And that a dark avatar/messiah has emerged to kill you. They should be even more powerful or of equal power.

How the hell did your DM let you do that? How....:smallfrown:

I have a high Charisma score and lots of ranks in Diplomacy IRL.

Like: I've convinced people to let me throw knives at them.

Words alone, after they knew I'd been practicing for some time and in all likelyhood would not miss.

Milskidasith
2009-08-25, 10:03 PM
You either hang out with really crazy people or are really good with words... I don't think anything is enough to convince me to let knives be thrown at me.

Sintanan
2009-08-25, 10:42 PM
Simply put... I played an Anthropomorphic Half-Fiend rabbit with Improved Critical+Lightning Maces setup and a pair of +1 soulbreaking resin kukri.

My partner in crime was a holier-than-thou cleric with exalted spells.

We worked together through a partnership of "I'm here to make a name for myself, and you need to stop fly up to the BBEG and full attack him. A few high rolls later onto a flat-footed foe means the BBEG is at level 1.

The BBEG spent the rest of his life being drug around in chains to all the little villages he terrorized to be stoned and healed back up (roleplaying and a high Diplo roll allowed me to convince the Cleric this was for the best).

The session ended with Ixxin having a new footstool.
While this wasn't exactly end-the-adventure-here, it did keep the pair of us from spending 3-4 sessions running through ruins and dungeons after the BBEG. I gotta give props to the DM for being able to run with our TP(NPC)K.

GallóglachMaxim
2009-08-28, 03:37 AM
In the first game I ever played, the DM started us off with an NPC who was supposed to set up the story, give us some exposition, and then die, but he never did.

First he was meant to drown when our cart went off a cliff and into a river, but we pulled him out. Then we were grabbed by a cyclops, who planned to take a nap and then eat the NPC, some good climb checks, sneaky familiar work and a burning hands spell later, and the cyclops punched himself in the crotch to death before ever getting that meal. Then, in a city, he tried to leave the party by getting a job, but my wizard's unorthodox approach to self-improvement got everyone arrested, and having been arrested on his first day, he was fired. This character finally took out his frustrations at being saved from plot so many times by killing and eating another npc, then trying to beat someone to death with a severed head (one of our clerics stepped in to stop him at that point).