Tales of party insanity: An example

[Reltzik]

Below is an example of insanity by a party of PCs, as of last night. Not "we did stupid, irrational things to accomplish our ultimate, reasonable goals" insanity but "we did questionable but entirely rational things to accomplish our utterly bat**** insane goals".

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Pathfinder (not that system matters), set in Forgotten Realms. Party consists of:

Me: A beardless dwarven barbarian, whose main test for whether to do something is how awesome it would be if it works, rather than any consideration of the odds of failure. (His favorite word is "awesome".)

Eli: Tyr-worshipping Summoner, whose sister has turned into an evil villain, and he is convinced against all evidence that she's being magically controlled, and is not entirely rational where she's concerned. Also, he tends to react violently when party members make moral decisions that he objects to.

Soranya: Oracle. Worships the idea of abominations and tentacle monsters lurking in the dark places between planes. Thinks they're cool and awesome in a "ooooh! aaaah!" sort of way. Also, has a tendency to get impatient and impulsive, and is definitely more a me-thinker than a team-thinker.

Eustace Harpel: Yes, one of them. A wizard specializing in save-or-suck. Also specializes in getting lost anywhere. His goal in life is exploration, always ending up somewhere he's never been before, usually by accident.


Our quest to date: Race Eli's sister to an artifact that opens and controls portals. We've been... less than stellar in our performance. As we come up on the final encounter, we know that the sister and her gang are ahead of us. We encounter her, and despite Eli's attempts at diplomacy, I charge in and attack (because Soranya's already been shot up), and they escape through the portal with the artifact, closing it behind them. After Eli attacks me some for "driving her off", we wrestle him down and he calms down a bit. We start looting. Then....

Eli: "Screw it. UMD to activate the portal blindly. I'm going after her."

DM: "... really. It's an ancient artifact... ARTIFACT... constructed from a time when the rules of magic WORKED DIFFERENTLY, and you're just trying to activate it blindly?"

Eli: "Yup!"

Soranya: "The moment he starts fiddling with it I'm hiding in the far corner."

Eustace: "Me too."

Me: "This sounds AWESOME! I try to aid-another on his check."

DM: "You don't have UMD."

Me: "Nope! I said TRY."

Eli: "I roll a 36."

DM: ".... fine. Those of you IDIOTIC enough to be standing right in front of the thing take *roll* 28 damage of pure energy as it snaps open in a way that it was never meant too. No DR, no resistance, nothing."

Eli: "Okay, I take the damage on my Eidolon, I'm still up."

Me: "... I'm now unconscious and 2 hit points from death."

DM: "Those of you still awake can tell that the portal isn't working right. The coloration is off, the crackle of the magic is wilder and different."

Soranya: "Knowledge planes, is this still connected to Faerun or is it going somewhere else?"

Eustace: "Spellcraft or knowledge arcana, what's wrong with it?"

DM: "You can't tell. It could be connected to anywhere or even nowhere. You don't have the first bleeping clue where it leads. If you were dumb enough to go through, you might end up stranded on another plane, or-"

Soranya's player grabs her miniature and flies through with a "ZIP" sound. Literally less than a second later, Eustace does the same.

DM: "...."

Eli: "I go in after my sister!"

DM: "...."

Me: "Is it time for me to make a stabilize check?"

DM: "....."

Eli: "I shove a cure potion down his throat and drag him through!"

DM: ".... ... ... ."

Me: "Sounds AWESOME!"

DM: "...."

So anyhoo, we're now adventuring in Krynn.

[TheDarkSaint]

I wish I was in your game group. That sounds so much fun :)

[jindra34]

I wish I was in your game group. That sounds so much fun :)

I so second this thought. And seriously how did the DM not see that coming?

[darksolitaire]

I think I'd love to play in your group. Not sure I'd like to DM in it, though :smallbiggrin:
I also love the way your decisions just fly, and you ended up in Krynn.

[veven]

Dm's should know better than putting tempting looking portals anywhere if they don't expect the players to go through it haha. It's happened to my group twice.

The first time we were dungeon crawling trying to find a Gnome alchemist who went missing and we came upon a huge whirlpool of energy in the lower levels of the dungeon. We discussed it and for some reason decided to jump through (we had found the gnome at this point. He had been petrified so he had no say). We ended up on the other end of the game world. Took us almost an in game year (and like 20 sessions) to return to our home. When we did we were not pleased to find that the DM's planned story had still taken place and without us to help our home town had been destroyed by a dragon haha. The quest home made for an awesome campaign in and of itself though.

The second time I was DMing and the party had been kidnapped by slavers and were flying through the astral plane to a portal to Sigil to sell their slaves.
An astral dreadnaut attacked the ship and they managed to escape. They saw the pulsing conduits that connected the ends of portals together and knowledge checks told them they should probably avoid touching them.
The Chaotic-Stupid Catfolk scout decided he was going to anyways and ended up in the Gray Wastes. He made a bargain that he didn't quite understand with a couple of Yugoloth in return for them helping him find a way to sigil. Eventually they are going to catch up to him when it's least convenient and demand his soul or something haha.