Tales you have to tell about teaching new players?

[Gamerlord]

Well, I have one, I just had the D&D session for the week, and a friend of mine came over while the session was on, and he wanted to try it out, a player who was playing multiple characters offered to let him try one, he started playing a Tiefling fighter (This is 4e), so, I gave them a quest to hunt down a dangerous Sadar-Kai bandit, after a short battle, he offers them a treasure map (Which really leads to a completely empty ruin, save one VERY angry construct, but they don't know that yet :smallbiggrin: )and 50 GPs, in exchange for his saftey, they accept, for reasons I cannot comprehend. Afterward, they go back to town, and the mayor asks them if they have slain the bandit yet, chaos breaks out as this happens:

Me(as mayor) : Wait, where is his head?
New guy(As fighter): Uhhh....well......
Invoker: He is dead! We just.....forgot the head!
Me(OOC) : Roll bluff
Invoker(OOC): *Roll* oh-no, 3.
Me:(as mayor): You lie! What happened to him?
Cleric: He ran off!
Me(OOC) : Roll bluff
Cleric(OOC): *roll* ARGH! 5!
Me(mayor): You lie! guards!
New guy(As fighter): They let him get away!
Ranger: He is lying! He made the deal!
New guy: She did!
Ranger: He did!
(Repeat last two sentences x100)
Mayor: THAT IS ENOUGH!
Mayor: You! What did you see?
Avenger: They made the deal! They both are lying!
Fighter and rest of party: NO! SHE DID!
Avenger(OOC): It is only fair, you didn't even let me get a say in the matter!
Mayor: Enough! Guards, place them all in jail until they stand trial for assisting a criminal!

So, you have any tales to tell about teaching new players?

[jmbrown]

First thing my players learn when I'm DM'ing: never give the DM ideas.

*PCs are crossing a scenic stone bridge across a serene river*
Player 1: I wonder if any bridge trolls live around here.
Player 2 jokingly: We should've brought three rams.
Me: As you approach the bridge, a scrag leaps out from his hiding hole and stops you.
Scrag: Who dares cross my bridge without offering a tribute t--
Players: We can take him. CHAAARGE!

The battle ended with half the party dead. This was an 2nd edition game so not every battle is balanced against a magical number and it's generally easier to escape from monsters. Buuuut, golden rule of playing #3 is to never retreat.

Never.

[Gamerlord]

First thing my players learn when I'm DM'ing: never give the DM ideas.

*PCs are crossing a scenic stone bridge across a serene river*
Player 1: I wonder if any bridge trolls live around here.
Player 2 jokingly: We should've brought three rams.
Me: As you approach the bridge, a scrag leaps out from his hiding hole and stops you.
Scrag: Who dares cross my bridge without offering a tribute t--
Players: We can take him. CHAAARGE!

The battle ended with half the party dead. This was an 2nd edition game so not every battle is balanced against a magical number and it's generally easier to escape from monsters. Buuuut, golden rule of playing #3 is to never retreat.

Never.

With my players, the three rules they themselves made are:
#1: If you don't know whats ahead, or if you want see see if that monster is hungry, push the bard in.
#2:Everything dies.
#3: For everything else, RUN!

Yeah, they aren't the brightest bunch, and bards have the highest fatality rate in our campaigns, mostly because they see them as expendable, for reasons unknown.

[Saintjebus]

I had a character give me ideas once. He failed a survival check pretty badly when they were in flatlands. The conversation went this way:

Me(DM)- You fail. You're lost. you have no idea where you are.
Ranger-What is the weather doing?
Me-It's cold, but clear.
Ranger-Id've thought it would at least be a snowstorm or something, since I failed so badly.
Me-Ok, it's a blizzard. Everyone make Endurance checks.

[gibbo88]

We have a player that seems intent on getting negatives from the DM where roleplaying would suffice. The most recent example of this is in Tomb of Horrors where she got a PC slaughtered by a trap she thought she had disarmed...so she asked if she had a negative from this for the next time she tried to disable a trap...cause we needed to make it easier to die in Tomb of Horrors...:smallfurious:

Needless to say we saw it coming halfway through and the rest of us started talking very loudly over the top of her.