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Adventurer
2013-03-08, 11:55 AM
Continued from the now-locked PC Stupidity Stories (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34561) and PC Stupidity Stories II (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=116632) threads.


The party I DM has an Elf Rogue whose player was the one who first approached me asking to begin a D&D campaign... and who subsequently proved she should never have played D&D in the first place, as will become evident from these stories. Never mind that she hardly ever payed attention to what was happening in the game outside of battles, and that her motivation for joining the party was to find an old acquaintance of hers who had disappeared, yet when an NPC told her in our 3rd-4th session that he had information about his whereabouts, she couldn't remember who he was or even that she was trying to find him... it's the snippets that follow which take the cake.


* At some point, someone stole the party's Dwarf Fighter's axe, and by the time the party discovered and followed his tracks, they came across the axe planted on the dead body of a member of the city guard. Half the party went to look for more of his tracks, while the Rogue and another member of the party, a young Wizard, stayed there to inspect the scene. At that point, they heard lots of footsteps and voices that indicated that the city guard was heading towards their way (that this was a ploy so that they would be framed for his murder should be pretty obvious). The Wizard, who was an easily-scared fellow, told the Rogue in great panic that they should leave immediately. And what does the Rogue do? She pulls out her sword and instantly places it on her teammate's throat, saying IIRC that she doesn't like his tone. So the scene the city guard gazes upon is an Elf standing above one of their mates' dead body and about to kill a young man... She's lucky the other half of the party returned at that moment and pulled off some amazing diplomacy (both good dice and good roleplaying) so that they only took them in for questioning...

* The party found a Ring of Feather Falling which they decided they'd give to the Rogue. While staying at their inn, a caped figure approached the party and made an unethical proposal to them, which they refused. The Rogue then was told by another member to follow the caped one as he left the inn, which she did and she saw him jump up to one of the first floor windows (let's just say that figure is someone very strong) where their rooms were located. She went into the inn and up the first floor to give chase to him. He noticed her upon arriving and jumped off the window and started running, so she jumped from the window as well. It was at that point that I notified her that since she was wearing the Ring of Feather Falling, it'd take a long time to reach the ground, giving the caped figure a huge headstart, and let her know that taking it off would allow her to give chase. So, because she was so determined to catch that guy... she refused to take the ring off, and continued falling slowly as her target was running away and disappearing amongst the crowd.....

* The party now had a very important mission to pass through an Orc encampment in the wilderness. Around the encampment was a short barricade with several guards, and the party was hiding behind some bushes within a few metres of it. Thanks to two large-scale diversions the party had orchestrated, all but one of the guards left their post, and the one that remained at some point turned his back at them, so the Rogue was urged to open the path for them. So she goes (forgetting to say she was moving silently for the umpteenth time, but I let that one go) , jumps over the barricade, walks towards the distracted Orc guard... and walks past him, finds a tree and climbs it, because she wanted to see what the situation with the Orc encampment was. Then she majestically jumped off the tree, wearing that same Ring of Feather Falling from the previous story, allowing the guard ample time to spot her falling and call reinforcements before even she even reached the ground. The rest of the party rushed to defend her, and had to stand against ~30 fully-alerted Orcs because of that. If unexpected reinforcements hadn't arrived at the nick of time, we'd have a TPK right there.

Mr. Mask
2013-03-08, 01:15 PM
At the start of the first session for many of us, we were told we couldn't attack the darkness. My first action: "I befriend the darkness."

AntiTrust
2013-03-08, 01:56 PM
Then she majestically jumped off the tree, wearing that same Ring of Feather Falling from the previous story, allowing the guard ample time to spot her falling and call reinforcements before even she even reached the ground. The rest of the party rushed to defend her, and had to stand against ~30 fully-alerted Orcs because of that. If unexpected reinforcements hadn't arrived at the nick of time, we'd have a TPK right there.

Had it been my group of friends they would have looked at each-other from behind their nice cover and went "No no, lets see what happens" as the orcs take care of the pesky rogue problem for them.

Slipperychicken
2013-03-08, 02:11 PM
At the start of the first session for many of us, we were told we couldn't attack the darkness. My first action: "I befriend the darkness."

DM: "You may not befriend the darkness either"

Player: "I seduce the darkness. We're not just friends anymore" [natural 20]

DM: :smalleek:

Mr. Mask
2013-03-08, 02:20 PM
DM: "You may not befriend the darkness either"

Player: "I seduce the darkness. We're not just friends anymore" [natural 20]

DM: :smalleek: As the relationship progressed, the player wanted to marry the darkness. Unable to fight against the strength of their love any longer, the DM invented a Princess of the Night NPC, and had the ceremony as the focus of the next session.

Macros
2013-03-08, 02:26 PM
Well, I had an... interesting session a few months ago.

We're playing D&D 4e, with a boisterous human paladin of Bahamut (me), an easy-going shifter battlemind (retooled as a polar bear), a somewhat naive gnome warlock and an halfling rogue with an alignment somewhere south of neutral. After a somewhat okay first contact, we're all hired to guard a mysterious cargo on a merchant ship for the time of the travel. Somewhat shady, yes, but hey, one must make a living, and we should have time to investigate during our journey. First thing first, we set up a night watch, fairly standard procedure. That is when it all started to go to hell.

I'm taking the first watch, nothing to signal. The rogue is up next. Fairly unsurprisingly given his profession (and the player behind it, I must add), he decides to start his watch... by stealing the warlock's sceptre and hiding it in the "sanitories" (pretty sure ships did'nt have those at the time, but not the point), in the smelliest and dirtiest place he could find, before happily going back to his duty (well,if breaking in every place he could break in on the ship can be considered his duty), and waking up the gnome warlock once he's done.

Said gnome pretty much instantly figure that she is missing something, and went on to search for her working tool, which she eventualy found. As you can imagine, she was pretty ticked off, managed to single the halfling as the most likely culprit (not that hard to do, really), and decided to exact revenge by cleaning her soiled implement on the halfling clothes. His reaction was instant stab in the leg.

Hence the paladin and the battlemind are woken up by the fight between the two diminutive strikers, who at that point didn't pull any punches, with sneak attacks and warlock curses flying low. I'm pretty sure a fire spell was used at some point, but the DM probably decided we had enough trouble as it was without putting fire to our own boat in the middle of the ocean. We tried to break the fight by way of grappling, but quickly realized it was of little use ("Ok, my turn, I make an acrobatics check. What's your reflexes, again ?"). On the very next turn, the rogue dropped the warlock. And then joined him in unconsciousness when the usualy quite peaceful, but at that point deeply annoyed battlemind smashed his head with a warhammer (frankly, if he hadn't, I would have, at that point).

This is the moment the captain of the ship chose to come and check on what all that ruckus was about. Needless to say, he was less than amused by the behavior of the party. Especially when we found out that someone had entered the place where the cargo (that were supposed to protect) was put. So, it ended up with two party members tied up, a ruined reputation and a good deal of consternation. As we agreed, "we're the worst party ever".

stupiddDice
2013-03-08, 02:27 PM
I once had a player who was playing a walker of the wastes try to sell salt to a salt merchant, who essentially told him to buzz off. So the player tried to use one of his class abilities to blow cursed sand in his face. The merchant passed the reflex save and called the guards, starting a chain of events which resulted in his character committing suicide to avoid becoming another party member's slave.

In the same campaign I had the party escorting a caravan, which came under attack by by a hydra. So this one player, realizing that destroyed wagons would be full of goods, started throwing tanglefoot bags at the wagons while the hydra almost killed the party, until the party cleric killed him.

Lord Torath
2013-03-08, 02:53 PM
I'm always utterly amazed at the number of parties I read about here (GitPG forums) that end up looting the caravan/shipment they have been hired to guard...

So much for that plot hook....

Macros
2013-03-08, 03:02 PM
I'm always utterly amazed at the number of parties I read about here (GitPG forums) that end up looting the caravan/shipment they have been hired to guard...

So much for that plot hook....

Well, it makes kind of sense, sadly. If the PCs were hired, that means the rest of the escort is not deemed sufficient (or worse, the whole security is in PCs hands), and no matter ho high the pay is, common sense dictates that the shipment is more valuable (that, or your employer has a poor grasp on economy). So, for characters who are not pillars of virtue, there is a great deal of tentation there (I once avoided this kind of outcome as a DM by way of "sure, you could do that. But it would take a bit of time to roleplay all that, and you said to me you were short on time this afternoon..." Kind of low, but, hey, it worked !)

AntiTrust
2013-03-08, 03:07 PM
I'm always utterly amazed at the number of parties I read about here (GitPG forums) that end up looting the caravan/shipment they have been hired to guard...

So much for that plot hook....

That's what they get for hiring a rag tag group of strangers

Kurald Galain
2013-03-08, 03:17 PM
I was running a dungeon crawl adventure, mostly mazes, monsters, and traps, and fittingly enough the end boss was a dragon. The five-man party was level 10, the dragon was a young adult red. CR13, supposed to be a tough challenge but doable if the party goes all-out, which I expected they would for the final boss. So the party's melee guys get buffed with flight spells and the like, and the heroes charge forward to engage their foe...

...or so I thought. The party rogue had other plans, stealthed immediately, and snuck away to find the dragon's treasure. Okay, so make that a four-man party instead of five...

...or so I thought, because the beguiler in the party figured the dragon would have good saving throws, so instead opted to spend several rounds stabbing the beast with his rapier. Okay, so that's effecitvely a three man party.

Yeah, that didn't go too well. The party managed to get the dragon to about one third of its hit points when the cleric figured they wouldn't make it, called for a retreat, and promptly ran off. Since the cleric was nowhere near melee range, this was easy enough. The two main melee guys were both fast and flying, so they broke off combat and made a break for it. The rogue wasn't even on the battlefield any more.

That left the aforementioned beguiler, who was also in melee range, and who was not in any way a gish. One full attack later, he took over a hundred points of damage, and gained the new name "snack".

GnomeGninjas
2013-03-10, 03:04 PM
* At some point, someone stole the party's Dwarf Fighter's axe, and by the time the party discovered and followed his tracks, they came across the axe planted on the dead body of a member of the city guard. Half the party went to look for more of his tracks, while the Rogue and another member of the party, a young Wizard, stayed there to inspect the scene. At that point, they heard lots of footsteps and voices that indicated that the city guard was heading towards their way (that this was a ploy so that they would be framed for his murder should be pretty obvious). The Wizard, who was an easily-scared fellow, told the Rogue in great panic that they should leave immediately. And what does the Rogue do? She pulls out her sword and instantly places it on her teammate's throat, saying IIRC that she doesn't like his tone. So the scene the city guard gazes upon is an Elf standing above one of their mates' dead body and about to kill a young man... She's lucky the other half of the party returned at that moment and pulled off some amazing diplomacy (both good dice and good roleplaying) so that they only took them in for questioning...

* The party found a Ring of Feather Falling which they decided they'd give to the Rogue. While staying at their inn, a caped figure approached the party and made an unethical proposal to them, which they refused. The Rogue then was told by another member to follow the caped one as he left the inn, which she did and she saw him jump up to one of the first floor windows (let's just say that figure is someone very strong) where their rooms were located. She went into the inn and up the first floor to give chase to him. He noticed her upon arriving and jumped off the window and started running, so she jumped from the window as well. It was at that point that I notified her that since she was wearing the Ring of Feather Falling, it'd take a long time to reach the ground, giving the caped figure a huge headstart, and let her know that taking it off would allow her to give chase. So, because she was so determined to catch that guy... she refused to take the ring off, and continued falling slowly as her target was running away and disappearing amongst the crowd.....

* The party now had a very important mission to pass through an Orc encampment in the wilderness. Around the encampment was a short barricade with several guards, and the party was hiding behind some bushes within a few metres of it. Thanks to two large-scale diversions the party had orchestrated, all but one of the guards left their post, and the one that remained at some point turned his back at them, so the Rogue was urged to open the path for them. So she goes (forgetting to say she was moving silently for the umpteenth time, but I let that one go) , jumps over the barricade, walks towards the distracted Orc guard... and walks past him, finds a tree and climbs it, because she wanted to see what the situation with the Orc encampment was. Then she majestically jumped off the tree, wearing that same Ring of Feather Falling from the previous story, allowing the guard ample time to spot her falling and call reinforcements before even she even reached the ground. The rest of the party rushed to defend her, and had to stand against ~30 fully-alerted Orcs because of that. If unexpected reinforcements hadn't arrived at the nick of time, we'd have a TPK right there.

Featherfalling still let's you fall 60 feet per round, jumping off the 1st story of an inn or out of a tree won't take as long as you make it seem. I think that your later two examples are examples of the dm not knowing the rule rather than the player being an idiot.

W3bDragon
2013-03-10, 04:31 PM
Featherfalling still let's you fall 60 feet per round, jumping off the 1st story of an inn or out of a tree won't take as long as you make it seem. I think that your later two examples are examples of the dm not knowing the rule rather than the player being an idiot.

Actually, its both. Perhaps the DM didn't know the rule on falling speed while featherfalling, but it doesn't change the fact that the player, who has been told how the ring works during example two and had already used it by example three, still didn't adapt accordingly and acted in a manner that betrayed his complete lack of attention as to the situations he's in, thus behaving in a stupid manner.

RandomNPC
2013-03-11, 08:41 AM
Mines more of a Player than a character being goofy.

Remember the comic, #50 I think, about Nale and Elan, "I'm a Bard" followed by "I'm a Rogue, Fighter, Sorcerer, specializing in enchantment."

Well when this guy DMs bards get double xp because he thinks they're so weak. He's playing in three games, the same character in each one, Bard1, Cleric2, Fighter4 Rogue1(so far in my game). Dual hand crossbow with a reloading enchantment. Trying to get the dual wand wielder feat so he can heal everyone, completely negating his crossbows he's spent all his money and feats on, because he plans to buff when he can't heal.

I generally don't mind a silly build, but this is the third game a week he's got a similar build, and everyone else is a solid tier 3 and up. Now he want's to make a more bardic character with two wands who uses them to play the drum and works UMD into bardic music so he doesn't have to stop his music.

EccentricCircle
2013-03-11, 09:32 AM
So upon being locked in a dungeon room lit only by a large brazier in the centre the party start searching for a way to unlock the door, they find some very small holes in the walls concealed within the carvings. Fearing a trap they look closer, and I describe that these holes are circular, about half a cm across and that a faint hissing sound is coming from them.

They immediately concluded that tiny snakes were going to come out of the holes and attack them. so started blocking them with rags.

Meanwhile the highly flamable gas that was causing the hissing sound filled the room and reached the brazier...

GnomeFighter
2013-03-11, 12:01 PM
So upon being locked in a dungeon room lit only by a large brazier in the centre the party start searching for a way to unlock the door, they find some very small holes in the walls concealed within the carvings. Fearing a trap they look closer, and I describe that these holes are circular, about half a cm across and that a faint hissing sound is coming from them.

They immediately concluded that tiny snakes were going to come out of the holes and attack them. so started blocking them with rags.

Meanwhile the highly flamable gas that was causing the hissing sound filled the room and reached the brazier...

Sounds more like poor explanation than player stupidity. Very funny outcome, but you should be able to tell the hiss of gas as being diffrent to the hiss of snakes.

Raimun
2013-03-11, 12:52 PM
The worst I've seen must be a knight's charge towards 10+ enemies armed with pistols. Alone. Even when it's clear it's impossible to reach any of them. When there's plenty of cover available.

All that move accomplished was that the lone knight was the only PC inside the range of their pistols. I still can't believe he actually survived that and only dropped unconscious.

Kalmageddon
2013-03-11, 02:26 PM
Well there was that one time that a techno-barbarian charged a low-flying aircraft using his jetpack, while wielding a chainsaw.
Let me recap the outcome with a single word: SPLAT!

Libertad
2013-03-11, 03:23 PM
One time in a Star Wars game, we were discussing plans on how to assault an Imperial base. I wasn't paying attention, so I ended up charging into the most heavily armed area instead of sneaking in. The entire party got captured due to my folly.

scurv
2013-03-11, 04:51 PM
I think the best one I have is defrocking a paladin in the initial one on one that I give to people who wish to play those classes.

Apparently the player felt that a child thief should have both arms removed at the elbows and their face branded and both eyes blinded to send a lesson to other would be thiefs....2 minutes of dialogue would of found the ringleader who was picking up orphaned children to induct them into a life of crime.

I told the player that when they showed up they were playing something other then a paladin, unless they could provide me with some form of source lore to support their action.
<edit> as a note, the palidin was not a member of the law of the land and the proscribed methoud of dealing with theft was something more along the lines of indebted slavery in the kingdom he was in.

Slipperychicken
2013-03-11, 05:43 PM
Apparently the player felt that a child thief should have both arms removed at the elbows and their face branded and both eyes blinded to send a lesson to other would be thiefs....2 minutes of dialogue would of found the ringleader who was picking up orphaned children to induct them into a life of crime.


Paladin... of Tyranny?


EDIT: Even the most brutal legal systems take only one hand for theft. He might as well have killed the kid, since he's pretty much guaranteed to starve from there unless he can score a Regeneration.

Doorhandle
2013-03-11, 08:24 PM
Well there was that one time that a techno-barbarian charged a low-flying aircraft using his jetpack, while wielding a chainsaw.
Let me recap the outcome with a single word: SPLAT!

Which is a shame, I would totally let that work.

havocfett
2013-03-11, 11:32 PM
Paladin... of Tyranny?


EDIT: Even the most brutal legal systems take only one hand for theft. He might as well have killed the kid, since he's pretty much guaranteed to starve from there unless he can score a Regeneration.

The most brutal legal systems execute thieves.

Kalmageddon
2013-03-12, 03:37 AM
The most brutal legal systems execute thieves.

You just end up with a bunch more murders because instead of robbing you a thief might as well just kill you and get rid of the witness, since his punishment will be the same if he gets caught.

Jon_Dahl
2013-03-12, 03:55 AM
D&D 3.5:

PCs enter a forest of wood elves. One of the more powerful wood elves speaks common and, by request, leads the PCs to a cave of goblins.

One of the PCs invites the wood elf lady to accompany them to the cave, but she refuses. Another PC senses that she's hiding something. The thing is that she's pregnant, but doesn't want to talk about personal things with the PCs, whom are total strangers.

The PCs defeat the goblins and their gauth master. After that they want a reward: Some information from the elves, which is related Knowledge (geography). They don't know this obscure information.

Immediately after this, one of the PCs threatens to kill the elves because the lady was hiding something. The elves are surprised about this and demand an explanation. They explain that the elf lady was hiding things about the goblins.

I sigh - very, very deeply - and explain that the lady was hiding something when they asked her to join them. She wasn't hiding anything about the goblins. It was clear to the players, but for some reason they just decided that the lady was conspiring with the goblins and needed to die... But only after they've asked for a reward. WTF seriously?! :smallfurious:

Lawleepawpz
2013-03-12, 08:51 AM
At the start of the first session for many of us, we were told we couldn't attack the darkness. My first action: "I befriend the darkness."

Ohh, you think darkness is your ally?




Anyways, I once chased the Spoon of misfortune (a wooden spoon with a hole in the middle. Can't be used to eat) into a sea monster. Told IC and OOC that I'd die if I did. First PC death of the group XD

Angel Bob
2013-03-12, 09:34 AM
I have a bunch of stories from our last 4E campaign, which featured a kleptomaniac Psion, an enabriated Ranger, a moronic but incredibly lucky Paladin, and an insanely OP Wizard who'd convinced the DM to give him an encounter utility power that let him fly his speed... sustain minor. An encounter power.

Anyway, so without further ado:

Don't Split the Party:

The kleptomanic Psion was best friends IRL with the party's Rogue; both were partners in crime in the game (and in the next campaign we played as well).

We found ourselves spontaneously facing a young red dragon for no real reason (our DM wanted us to level up soon and isn't huge on plot). The encounter actually should have been fairly easy for our group, but we were all terribly new to D&D -- plus we faced a huge setback momentarily.

See, as the dragon announced itself, our good old Psion greeted it heartily and attempted to befriend it. Since she was a shardmind, the DM ruled that the dragon decided to add this hunk of crystals to its hoard, so it grabbed her and tossed her in its cave. She leapt up as it flew away and was about to follow when she noticed the cave full of gold.

The party Rogue immediately resolved to get in that cave as quickly as possible. To her credit, her plan was clever enough: the DM had given her a Poke Ball, so she asked my Warlord to absorb her in the Poke Ball and then lob it across the battlefield. By the grace of the DM, it landed in the cave, and the Psion released her friend. They spent the next half-dozen rounds stuffing thousands upon thousands of gold into their various bags of holding while the rest of the party died.

Eventually, even the bags of holding ran out of space (the DM was a Monty Haul kind of person). Not to be defeated by something as simple as weight, the Psion simply stuffed the remaining gold into her cloak and boots. After six rounds of slaughter by a dragon that had both our Paladin and my Warlord in single-digit HP, the Psion finally headed back towards the battlefield with a speed of about 1. Thankfully, the dragon was still within range of her attacks.

My Warlord, for no reason really, requested that the Rogue toss him any magic item she'd found in the hoard. The DM decided to be silly and request a Dex attack vs my Reflex to see if I could catch it. Being a tactical Warlord with abysmal Dex, I failed entirely to catch it and was knocked out by a sword to the head, joining the Paladin on the ground.

Here's the entertaining bit: since our Paladin's player was out, I was playing both him and the Warlord. (This is possibly why both were in negative HP right now.) I had a history of abysmally low dice rolls; the Paladin's player had a history of never rolling lower than 16. On our death saving throws, the trend continued: I rolled a natural 20 on the Paladin, who leapt back into the fray and got dropped again, only to get another natural 20 and repeat that action. My Warlord, meanwhile, bled out over three rounds and ultimately died from a fumble. We all had a good laugh over that one.

A Band of Traveling Minstrels:

I replaced the Warlord with an Ardent who had a 20 Charisma and insane social skills. Long story short, we wound up in an alternate universe where our party had turned evil, split, and were now ruling two cities locked in war.

Naturally, we decided to take the plot hook, so we strolled up to the guards of one city, who commented on how some of our party looked suspiciously like their sworn enemies. My Ardent smiled and simply said, "We are a band of traveling minstrels!" Given that I had something like a +bazillion Bluff at this point, the guard absolutely believed me and was about to let me through --

At which point our Psion unleashed an Intimidate check, claiming she was the Psion from THIS universe who ruled this city, and the guards had better let us in or else be torn to shreds. Now is probably a good time to mention that since her focus was on telekinesis, her Charisma was somewhat below par. One failed check later, and my Ardent was muttering angrily, "I said 'traveling minstrels.' But no, people don't want to be minstrels, they want to be led away in CHAINS..."

There are countless other stories, including one where my Wizard intentionally started a tavern brawl and got mauled by a druid, but the exploits of the kleptomaniac Psion really take the cake. And any gold in the vicinity.

Slipperychicken
2013-03-12, 10:09 AM
I sigh - very, very deeply - and explain that the lady was hiding something when they asked her to join them. She wasn't hiding anything about the goblins. It was clear to the players, but for some reason they just decided that the lady was conspiring with the goblins and needed to die... But only after they've asked for a reward. WTF seriously?! :smallfurious:

Dude. If you need to make a Sense Motive check against someone, nine times out of ten, you're best off killing him when you get the chance. Especially if they're hiding something.


"She's hiding something" roughly translates into "This woman is screwing you over so hard; either trying to kill you or deny you loot, but I'm giving you a chance to stop her".

Lord Torath
2013-03-12, 12:02 PM
Sort of a "What the DM says" "What the Players Hear" mismatch?

Kid Jake
2013-03-12, 12:56 PM
I've posted this one before in a different thread, but I'd say it fits in here better.

It was my first attempt at DMing a game and I was trying to run a solo adventure for a friend of mine, we were about 15 and neither of us had any real experience.

I'd set up a murder mystery so that he could be slowly introduced to the social skills and then have a scrape or two without being overwhelmed all at once, although it didn't really work out like that.

It opens up with there only being one witness to the killing-spree, an elvish nobleman who's carriage driver had been killed and who intended to return home the moment he found a replacement. The player, a dwarven rogue/fighter gestalt was suspicious of the nobleman immediately, although I pointed out after a Gather Information check that he didn't seem to be in town for the first handful of murders.

Deciding he should probe this some more, he pays the nobleman a visit at his room and finds that he's freshening up in his bathroom. I figured he'd take this opportunity to do some sleuthing, but...he surprised me. He immediately begins stealing the man's clothing. All of it. As much as his stubby little dwarven arms can carry, he stuffs into his pockets; his pack; his bags; and everything else he carries. He stashes it in the room across the hall and then runs downstairs to rent the room. I'm perplexed by this point, but I want to see where he's going with this.

He comes back and the nobleman's out of his bath, buck naked and trying to find something to cover himself with. He asks the 'kindly' dwarf in the hallway if he's seen anything and the player responds by drawing his handaxe and threatening the elf back into his room. The elf asks what's going on and the player replies 'I have your clothes, and now you're exactly where I want you.'

Not liking the unpleasant innuendo in that, the nobleman shouts for his bodyguards in the next room. They enter and see their naked boss being threatened by a well armed dwarf, and still have the decency to ask what's going on instead of jumping to conclusions. The player, still thinking that this is a valid strategy, shouts that he has this man's pants and if anything happens to him, they'll never see them again.

Initiative is rolled and the guards win. They draw their crossbows and ready an attack if he tries anything towards the elf and ask him calmly to please step away from their boss. The dwarf (crazed look in his eye I imagine) responds by running towards the 10th floor window and leaping out. I asked him several times if he was sure about that and he just responded that he needed to regroup.

Needless to say, the fall dropped him. He hit 0 hitpoints and I figured I'd have the guards come down, patch him up and chalk it all up to a misunderstanding. Instead he uses his last movement to crawl into a ditch and hide. Once again I asked him if he was sure and he said he couldn't afford to be taken by 'the enemy'. He follows through with is plan and rolls a 20 to hide. The exertion drops him to -1 and he passes out. The guards come out and search fruitlessly, all the while he's bleeding to death under a pile of leaves.

Ultimately he dies in his ditch with me never having made a single attack roll against him, and is found by a group of halfling children playing ball about a week later. His only response is: 'This game is hard.'

evil-frosty
2013-03-12, 01:07 PM
So I am in a Rise of The Runelords campaign currently playing a very low charisma dwarf druid named Dagnabit. We are currently in the second module, where all these ghouls pop up and kill people. We arrived at this asylum which currently has a patient who is the only witness to one of the murders. We find out he is too far along in the process of ghoul fever to save him. And he loses it as we tried talking to him. We knocked him out, and I stabilized him to see if he could still be saved somehow.

At that moment is when the necromancer who uses the dead patients as experiments came up from the basement, and the paladin questioned him and found this out, combat ensues. We kill this old man, in his very own home. (Murder hobos seem like an apt description at this point) While half the group is looting the basement, the good doctor is wailing about some thing or another. We revive the crazy guy and try questioning him again, but we get nothing out of him, and we find out that no matter what we do he will turn into an undead. The paladin then gives my scythe wielding druid permission to decapitate the helpless man. I as a player said 'I gleefully behead him'. The paladin took offense at my joy at the task, and tried to punch me as a slap on the wrist. He missed so in retaliation, I cast the spell Light on his codpiece making his crotch glow a heavenly gold color. The rogue/bard then tried to cast grease on me for some reason, I proceed to make the save, and cast Create Water on him, saying 'Bad rogue, no!'

Earlier in the campaign before the paladin joined, I was running around with the head of the main villain of the first module as proof that what we said was true, that cause the party to be upset with me a bit too. I did it for the silliness though since we struggled a lot through the first module for various reasons, and thought we could use the silliness.

hymer
2013-03-12, 01:23 PM
After that they want a reward: Some information from the elves, which is related Knowledge (geography). They don't know this obscure information.
[...]
they just decided that the lady was conspiring with the goblins and needed to die... But only after they've asked for a reward. WTF seriously?! :smallfurious:

Well, obviously you have to get the info before you kill'em. That's just good murder-death-kill sense.

dps
2013-03-12, 02:01 PM
That's what they get for hiring a rag tag group of strangers

That explanation doesn't really cut it when the party members are supposed to be either Lawful or Good.

Angel Bob
2013-03-12, 08:21 PM
Oh, one more thing. Not sure that this counts as PC stupidity, but it is rather annoying. We introduced a new character recently, who plays a dwarf cleric of the Raven Queen. I allowed the one-step rule, so she chose to be Lawful Good.

When the other party members found out about this, they were quite alarmed -- and I was, in turn, bewildered that they were so alarmed. After all, the party consists of two True Neutrals, a Chaotic Good, an unspecified, and a Chaotic Neutral (bordering on Chaotic Evil). Yet they became very riled up and emphatically stated that she really should be anything BUT Lawful Good. They strongly suggested Neutral Good, or even Lawful Neutral (of all things!) -- anything but Lawful Good.

I'm completely stymied...

Sith_Happens
2013-03-13, 03:41 PM
Oh, one more thing. Not sure that this counts as PC stupidity, but it is rather annoying. We introduced a new character recently, who plays a dwarf cleric of the Raven Queen. I allowed the one-step rule, so she chose to be Lawful Good.

When the other party members found out about this, they were quite alarmed -- and I was, in turn, bewildered that they were so alarmed. After all, the party consists of two True Neutrals (possibly three; one player hasn't specified an alignment), a Chaotic Good, and a Chaotic Neutral (bordering on Chaotic Evil). Yet they became very riled up and emphatically stated that she really should be anything BUT Lawful Good. They strongly suggested Neutral Good, or even Lawful Neutral (of all things!) -- anything but Lawful Good.

I'm completely stymied...

Obviously most of your players have had one too many run-ins with Lawful Stupid characters.

illyrus
2013-03-13, 04:07 PM
The party suspects the priestess (NPC adept) of worshiping an evil goddess. The party also happens to have a minor artifact that in their hands would be harmful to the priestess but could also be used by the priestess. The party knows the powers of the artifact. They decide to confront the priestess to see if they can prove if she is evil or not and the following transpires:

Evil Priestess: "Can I see that [artifact] for a moment?"
PC1: "Sure" I hand it over to her.
PC2: "Can we get that back.... uh... please?"

She actually did hand it back to them, then convinced them that it would be entirely too much trouble for them to keep and that her church would be willing to store it safely for them until they day they needed it. They agreed. It was one of those "Are they actually going to be this stupid.... holy... yes they are" moments where I'm trying not to bust out laughing.

holywhippet
2013-03-13, 05:49 PM
Back when I was playing Dark Heresy there was one player who had an ability to come up with unexpected, and often crazy stupid things to do.

For one game we were exploring some mines when we came across two doors opposite each other in a passage. We opened one and find a low level demon (I forget the name) in one of them. The tech-priest in the party went first and noticed the room was full of promethium (basically petrol) tanks so starting a fire fight in there was an inherently bad idea. He side stepped out of the doorway and warned the rest of us about the fuel. The idea was to battle the demon in the corridor. Next up was Mr Crazy Ideas who was playing a dual automatic pistol wielding scum. He contemplated for half a minute before deciding that his character wouldn't really understand the significance or danger of the promethium tanks with regards to bullets - despite the warning of the tech-priest. So he stepped into the doorway and let fly with both guns. He only needed one bullet to miss in order to set the tanks off. He rolled poorly so he only hit with one bullet. We had to burn off fate points to survive.

In a later game my character (an adept) had been killed and Mr Crazy had been taken in for questioning by the local law enforcement officers. He wasn't actually responsible, aside from not picking up the medicae skill which would have let him stabilise my dying body despite being recommended to. He was allowed to make a "phone call" which he used to contact the local astropath for the inquisition who sent off a request for aid. Then the head officer came into the room he was in and told him he was under arrest for suspicion of murder. The most advisable response in this case would be to inform them he was in the service of an inquisitor. Worst case scenario would be that they'd hold him in custody until his story was verified. In the 40K setting, only morons, lunatics and heretics openly defy the inquisition. Mr Crazy wasn't interested in being arrested thinking these officers might be conspiring against him. So he decides to shoot his way out. Keep in mind he is inside of a police station (so to speak) and they don't skimp on the weapons budget in this setting. He gets lucky to start with - he lobs a grenade which takes out two of the three people trying to arrest him then shoots the other one. This sets off alarms of course. So does he run and hide? No, he tries to make an emergency repair on the communication unit which was damaged by his grenade. It doesn't work. So he steps out into the corridor where a dozen heavily armed officers are waiting for him. Once again, he decides to open fire - but just with his pistols this time. Needless to say it didn't end well for him.

Angel Bob
2013-03-13, 05:51 PM
Obviously most of your players have had one too many run-ins with Lawful Stupid characters.

That's the thing: we're still a relatively new group, only about two years old. Well, I suppose that might be "old" by some people's standards, but the point is that most of these players have never played RPGs with any other groups.

We have experienced two Lawful Good characters before, in a separate campaign. One was my dwarven cleric (basically Durkon), the other a deva invoker (played by the guy doing the avenger in the above campaign). The deva in question wrestled with his alignment a bit, especially after he and the party's doppelganger rogue collaborated to con a random passerby into buying a suit of armor for an exorbitant price, but ultimately the group never experienced too much trouble from their Lawful Good alignment. So I'm really rather confused. Ah well, perhaps this is a subject for another thread.

Amidus Drexel
2013-03-13, 09:38 PM
Evil Priestess: "Can I see that [artifact] for a moment?"
PC1: "Sure" I hand it over to her.
PC2: "Can we get that back.... uh... please?"

She actually did hand it back to them, then convinced them that it would be entirely too much trouble for them to keep and that her church would be willing to store it safely for them until they day they needed it. They agreed. It was one of those "Are they actually going to be this stupid.... holy... yes they are" moments where I'm trying not to bust out laughing.

Oh, god, that is perfect. :smallbiggrin:

The PC's in the last campaign I ran did a bunch of stupid things, but they would never have given up any loot. (the greedy bastards) :smallamused:

----

So, what follows is (what I consider, anyway), quite possibly the dumbest thing that party did. There were dozens (probably around 50 or so) of smaller incidents, (and only a handful of them ended in PC death :smallamused:), but this is the worst (that I remember, anyway).

So, the party is on the run from the law for stealing several thousand gold from a bank. (It was pretty impressive, actually - I'm surprised they got out of the city in time). So, while fighting a bounty hunter, one of the party members is knocked unconscious by the bounty hunter (through a combination of lethal and non-lethal damage).

The bounty hunter offers to exchange the guy's life for information; basically, both sides would just back down, no one would die, and both sides would get some useful info to boot. A short OOC discussion ensues, (sans the unconscious character's player), and they decide to attack the bounty hunter anyway, thinking they can just kill him without any sort of compromise.

Betrayed, the bounty hunter takes his next turn to coup de grace the character, and then runs away to collect the bounty. The only people not completely surprised by this are me and the player of the now-deceased character. Apparently they forgot it was a hostage situation.

Doorhandle
2013-03-14, 03:39 AM
Oh, one more thing. Not sure that this counts as PC stupidity, but it is rather annoying. We introduced a new character recently, who plays a dwarf cleric of the Raven Queen. I allowed the one-step rule, so she chose to be Lawful Good.

When the other party members found out about this, they were quite alarmed -- and I was, in turn, bewildered that they were so alarmed. After all, the party consists of two True Neutrals, a Chaotic Good, an unspecified, and a Chaotic Neutral (bordering on Chaotic Evil). Yet they became very riled up and emphatically stated that she really should be anything BUT Lawful Good. They strongly suggested Neutral Good, or even Lawful Neutral (of all things!) -- anything but Lawful Good.

I'm completely stymied...

Show them a Lawful good paladin of Asmodeus.

Let the brainsplosions commence!

Dread Angel
2013-03-22, 07:47 AM
So my group is a bunch of rather experienced players (about ten years of weekly games under my belt, same with my buddy, our GM has been playing about 15 years, and the other two are new but quite good at it, better than a lot of vets i've gamed with). I usually GM, and we usually play Pathfinder. Eventually, because I begged off GMing for the next few weeks to prepare the next set of my campaign (massively detailed city-as-dungeon), which I hadn't had time to create due to exams, our cleric, Felix, decided to GM.

So our group (with the GM having the most experience with the system, but still very little at all) delved headfirst into Shadowrun. Keep in mind, none of us players have ever even played a GURPS system before, so there was a bit of a learning curve here.

We have four characters:
Jace, a valorous and foul-mouthed human mage.
Vesheth, a street-sam elf who has shock gloves and loves using them.
Hans, our rigger-driver-pistolero dude.
Aaaand my character: Siodachan, an elven Adept, the party face and world-class hacker.

The mission: We were hired by the manager of an up-and-coming pop star called Melody to stage a kidnapping on the eve of her debut album release to boost her sales.

Plan one - I sneak into her hotel room and convince her to simply go along with it. Either that or I knock her out and really kidnap her. Either way.

However, our group got into discussions and as we had her itinerary for the full day, set up a full tactical approach involving everyone. This, for the record, was my idea......I came up with this whole plan, and as it went suddenly and massively pear-shaped, my fellow players threw various things at my head.

So. The NEW plan:

She's giving a concert. Vesheth will approach her driver, and knock him senseless with his taserfists. He will then steal his clothes, pour whiskey all over him and deposit him somewhere else in the city in an alley somewhere.

The mage will alter my appearance to match her manager's. We replace her driver with Hans. Jace's job is to keep on concentrating and maintain the body-change that keeps me looking like Yuri, her manager. I will then order the bodyguards to wait as I have private things to discuss with her. We drive off, Hans and I with Melody. I will convince her to go along with it by the time we get to the hotel, otherwise knock her out. Either way, we reach her hotel (still following her itinerary at this point), transfer her and I into V's car. Hans goes and disposes of the other car, and we all meet back up, and after two days dump her back in the hotel.

This plan was epic and would have worked perfectly...

...except.

Oh, the except.

Felix, the GM: "The backstage door opens, and her troll bodyguards step out, followed by Melody herself, and --"

And at this point, my brain kicks in and I moan "Oh, bloody ****..."

"And Yuri as well." Because OF COURSE HER MANAGER IS GONNA BE THERE.

So. Raven, I think to myself, it's now time to display my stellar improvisation skills.

So I leap to my feet, throw my arms wide, and dive fully into character.

"YURI! MY BROTHER!!!" in a full Russian accent.

.....yeaaaaaah. It went wrong from there. Ended up with Hans getting shot and fleeing, me making a rapid exit, and us going with plan A in the end anyway....

...I just charisma'd my way into her release party and convinced her to sneak out with me. Worked like a charm.

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

I retired that character rapidly out of sheer shame. I'm now playing a Russian ex-special-forces troll weaponmaster with cyberarms and lots of nice shiny sharp objects including a monofilament whip, called "Whiplash".

GigaGuess
2013-03-22, 03:01 PM
I GM'ed for a while on a semi-freeform MtG styled RPG online. In the process, I landed having to do a personal Guild related quest (At level 3, a character could take another color of mana by joining a guild) for a character who, basically, managed to jump several levels due to a long-wait bonus on a quest.

The problem lay in a simple issue. This person could NOT roleplay. The concept of a nuanced, complex character eluded him, so he played a total Marty Stu. He entered into this quest, seemingly looking to have the Boros garrison to be fawning at his feet over his obvious superiority. This being the guild delegated to militaristic discipline, I figured the easiest way to handle this was to have him coping with a slightly watered down Sergeant Hartman drill sergeant. I knew I was in for a treat when I had a roleplayed sparring match when he threw his sword at me, and I pulled a Spartacus more or less, have it fail, leaving him unarmed and overwhelmed, and he wrested control of the rest of the cadets having them encircling me. I was irked, but decided to give him some social interaction in the quest...a female recruit who started to show some interest in him. Long story short she was coldly rebuffed to the point of being ignored more or less. Finally, out of options, I decided I'd go to him...he clearly has his own ideas for what should happen so I aksed what he wanted to see. I was told to make something up to build his character along. I was...displeased.

So I did.

I felt the player's most obvious journey would be one of humility. To learn that he will need to fall back, and to ask for help. So in an event, I had him find a sealed urn, which was shaking. He picked it up, and it was scorching hot to the touch. He stood and watched. I had it shuddering violently and gloing. Still he did nothing. It was flashing, bouncing around, EVERYTHING I could tell him to run, evacuate people, TELL SOMEONE...still he stood, witing for something to happen. And it did.

After the explosion, the biggest thing they found was his thumb.

Sith_Happens
2013-03-22, 08:25 PM
I felt the player's most obvious journey would be one of humility. To learn that he will need to fall back, and to ask for help. So in an event, I had him find a sealed urn, which was shaking. He picked it up, and it was scorching hot to the touch. He stood and watched. I had it shuddering violently and gloing. Still he did nothing. It was flashing, bouncing around, EVERYTHING I could tell him to run, evacuate people, TELL SOMEONE...still he stood, witing for something to happen. And it did.

After the explosion, the biggest thing they found was his thumb.

Did the urn have the Izzet insignia on it? Because that would have been the most obvious sign for him to get far, far away from it.:smallbiggrin:

GigaGuess
2013-03-22, 10:58 PM
Did the urn have the Izzet insignia on it? Because that would have been the most obvious sign for him to get far, far away from it.:smallbiggrin:

Honestly, I should have. But I thought flashing, arcing and searing hot was enough of a "Get the hell out of here" sign.

Apparently he was waiting for a demon or something to pop out.:smallconfused:

TuggyNE
2013-03-22, 11:03 PM
Apparently he was waiting for a demon or something to pop out.:smallconfused:

And just how would that have changed the outcome any? :smalltongue:

GigaGuess
2013-03-23, 10:29 AM
To this day, I'm damned if I can figure it out.

Scow2
2013-03-23, 11:40 AM
What he should have done was grab the artifact, and start running away looking for a safe place to toss it so it can explode harmlessly or summon a demon at a safe distance. But yeah, standing there watching is stupid. Can't even quote, "Somedays, you just can't get rid of a bomb!" if you do that.

GigaGuess
2013-03-23, 12:01 PM
Admittedly, he did grab it, at which point I told him it was too hot to hold. That said, he never even tried to find other ways to carry it.

illyrus
2013-03-23, 04:26 PM
Ninja is asked with a secret note to assassinate someone and not tell anyone else in the party he's been hired to do it. He does the deed and brings back the head in a bag to the woman who hired him with the rest of the party in tow. As a note the rest of the party did not know OOC of this assignment either:

Ninja: I have something for you, *places the bag on the table*
Woman: What's this? *looks inside* Why... why would you bring me such a horrible thing?
Ninja: I thought you wanted him dead, this is proof.
Woman: No, I never asked for that, I never wanted this, please... please take it away.
Battledancer and Cleric: Yeah, she never asked for that.
Ninja: ...

*after the game*
Ninja(OOC): Can I say something?
DM: *sees where this is going* Sure
Ninja(OOC): She hired me to kill him, so there was supposed to be payment but I guess she wasn't telling the truth about paying me.
DM: So the thing is, when you are sent on a secret assassination mission and told not to tell your friends, you don't come back with your friends and present the evidence and expect her to actual admit to the whole thing. That sort of defeats the whole purpose of being sent on a secret assassination mission.
Ninja(OOC): ...oh

---
Mission from the same NPC:

The party accepts a contract to catch a vampire. After prepping for it they arrive at the vampire's stronghold and the following conversation occurs:
Cleric: So, did anyone remember to buy stakes?
Party: ...oh ****


Edit - As a note this is the same group as my earlier post.

scurv
2013-03-23, 06:31 PM
Fresh off the presses.

Jail break and wrists are bound together with little more then a foot of chain on the chars.

Warrior (19 str ) see's a pirate in-front of him, who has his back to him. Warrior opts to reach for the pirates front facing rapier that is in its sheaf.

DM and rest of party rolls system shock roll at obvious setup for a neck-snapping chock hold maneuver that was passed up

As a side note, Warrior took all but two of his hp's ( Neg 8) before tthey subdued the pirate. Apparently the pirate knew enough to quick draw out his daggers for close quarters combat.

Kalmageddon
2013-03-23, 06:40 PM
Ninja is asked with a secret note to assassinate someone and not tell anyone else in the party he's been hired to do it. He does the deed and brings back the head in a bag to the woman who hired him with the rest of the party in tow. As a note the rest of the party did not know OOC of this assignment either:

Ninja: I have something for you, *places the bag on the table*
Woman: What's this? *looks inside* Why... why would you bring me such a horrible thing?
Ninja: I thought you wanted him dead, this is proof.
Woman: No, I never asked for that, I never wanted this, please... please take it away.
Battledancer and Cleric: Yeah, she never asked for that.
Ninja: ...

*after the game*
Ninja(OOC): Can I say something?
DM: *sees where this is going* Sure
Ninja(OOC): She hired me to kill him, so there was supposed to be payment but I guess she wasn't telling the truth about paying me.
DM: So the thing is, when you are sent on a secret assassination mission and told not to tell your friends, you don't come back with your friends and present the evidence and expect her to actual admit to the whole thing. That sort of defeats the whole purpose of being sent on a secret assassination mission.
Ninja(OOC): ...oh



Classic!
I have a similar story to tell!

The group is asked to go on a secret mission, to escort a nobleman on a trip while a decoy draws attention somewhere else. Seems straightfoward enough, right?
The evening before their departure the warrior of the group is at an inn and a charming female npc approaches him and basically start asking a lot of questions about him.
Instead of getting suspicious he starts boasting about his accomplishments while the rest of the party, which in-character wasn't there, is making silent gestures to him OOC to not trust her. He is totally oblivious and when she asks "so what will you be doing tomorrow?"
the warrior goes
"I'll be on an important mission"
At which point I have pity for the poor guy and say to him OOC.
"*Cough* it's a secret mission"
Warrior, correcting himself IC "I'll be on an important SECRET mission".
Cue the whole party facepalming at the same time. :smallbiggrin:

Archmage1
2013-03-24, 12:11 AM
Players, after breaking into a goblin infested mine, proceed to do decently well, until they decide to let a goblin go. He promptly runs away, and gathers reinforcements, and comes back, almost prompting a TPK(Only reason it did not was because I spread out the attacks, and went for the highest Health first).
(Just to make things more interesting, they fought in such a location that the druid could not use his entangle, which would have made things simple. He was forced to summon a wolf instead, to buy time(The wolf died in a round, after eating 2 nat 20's.)
So, ok, I figured they have learned their lesson.
Next battle... goblin flees, they do not try and catch him.
So, they wander along, and reach the entrance to the chieftain's chamber. Where I prompt for listen checks, and tell them that there are large numbers of goblins coming their way(more than they could fight)
So... they head back to a chamber, place a stone with light in the passage, and wait for the goblins. No attempt to hide, although, after some prompting, they did build a flimsy barricade.
Well, the goblins promptly find them, and the party is more or less massacred(Amusingly enough, they repeatedly wanted the druid(who was out of spells) to cast entangle(they knew that he was out of magic). I choose to have the party taken prisoner instead.
At which point they ask me to roll to see if the goblins "have their way" with any of them. Yea.

Vknight
2013-03-24, 01:07 AM
From a Shadowrun game
Get into this secret base steal a thing
Steal a proto-type plasma weapons schematics and destroy the actual weapon.

Bad Choices(All the same guy)
-Taking the Meditating Mages Pants in the security office
-Shooting a guy without a silencer on the gun next to another guy and expecting them to not notice
-Not following said guy
-Not turning off the security feed so they don't have your face on camera
-Stealing the actual proto-type and leaving the schematics
-Trying to use the weapon when 1 proto type the character has seen explode
-Trying to fight a adept with a sword in melee when your the stealth/sniper
-Fighting the adept even though he is a Troll and your a Elf and you have damage from triggering a security system earlier
-Purposefully triggering the motion and laser sensors
-Not setting up your sniper rifle to the Tri-pod that would let you smart-link and use the gun well inside the building to give yourself cover
-Instead give it to the Hacker
-Try and punch his way into a helicopter without any major strength abilities and trying to use the now partially exploded plasma weapon to then threaten the pilot
-Jump from the 7 story building to escape
-Onto the hackers car well yelling drive
-Not taking his camouflage suit with him when he went inside the building

Same guy
Different game 1 year before that. 1 and a half years ago.

-Attacks a bartender because the guys a half-elf
-Attacks the guy after its been stated he is the old captain of the watch
-Doing this at level 1
-Being surprised when the guy pulls his flintlock and puts a hole in your chest
-Trying this again with 5 characters over 1 session
-Trying to set the guys house on fire and getting arrested for it
-Trying to kidnap the guys adventuring Druid Daughter
-Paying thugs to attack group of city guard and then trying to burn down the house cause there can only be one patrol
-Trying to fight the biggest guy in the pit(The prison was a pit in the ground), said biggest guy being a Half-Dragon whose got a actual sword in the prison.
-Trying to bribe the half-dragon for his sword the only metal weapon besides pick-axes in the place
-Trying to escape the pit through the exit out into the underdark which the prisoners have sealed off. After the Half-Dragon who has beaten him twice said is dangerous
-Trying to seduce a female drow with a scimitar to his throat
-Trying to make a deal with her after she has told him to be quite or have his tongue removed
-Threatening a wizard to get a new tongue
-After said wizard has created a stone wall to save his life

Felandria
2013-03-24, 01:16 AM
We encountered a giant frog, the dwarf got the idea to allow the frog to swallow him so he could use his spiked armor to squirm around and tear up his insides.

Yeah, that didn't work, luckily we got the frog to spit him out before he died.

TuggyNE
2013-03-24, 05:11 AM
We encountered a giant frog, the dwarf got the idea to allow the frog to swallow him so he could use his spiked armor to squirm around and tear up his insides.

Huh. Why didn't that work? Might be inefficient, but it's certainly a thing you could do.

Sith_Happens
2013-03-24, 06:15 AM
And just how would that have changed the outcome any? :smalltongue:

There would have been a lot more partying involved. For the Rakdos' definition of "party."


At which point they ask me to roll to see if the goblins "have their way" with any of them. Yea.

"*rolls* They do. Specifically, 'their way' is to tie you up in the corner and throw rocks at you for fun."


-Trying to seduce a female drow with a scimitar to his throat

This one I could actually see working. Well, at least the "seduce" part itself, probably not the "not be horribly enslaved" part.

DontEatRawHagis
2013-03-24, 08:27 AM
Two guys in a group I'm in a playing Halflings. They kept asking if the Female Halfling reporter(NPC) was single to an Information Broker.

Information Broker: This is why I don't work with Halflings...

Tallai
2013-03-24, 09:13 AM
Running a one-shot of Dark Heresy, the team were sent to assassinate a duelist pair in an arena. The designated marksman decided quietly to sit in the stands as the others signed up as duelists in an attempt to put them down on the field. "I'll watch with my rifle," he told the team, "And when my shot lines up I'll hit 'em from the stands."

Their first duel was just a warm-up, and after a critical fumble removed the primary gunslinger's pistol from combat, he was removed from the field on a stretcher. The marksman sat there watching the entire time.

The Marksman did not tell us (not even the DM) that his goal was to let the two duelists get wounded in a routine event and that the rest of the team didn't need to get themselves hospitalized at all.

Kurald Galain
2013-03-24, 09:58 AM
Well... this is not as much stupid as it is rash, and quite in character for the PC involved. Nevertheless, to put it mildly, they could have planned this better...

The PCs were asked by a group of dwarven craftsmen to investigate the disappearance of a few dwarven miners. While searching the mine for clues, they fought a few monsters and got some loot. One of the things they found was a magical dagger that would return when thrown.

Since none of the party used daggers as a weapon, they decided to sell it. One of them knows a fence working for the local thieves' guild, so three of the five PCs decide to meet him at a shady tavern to make the sale. While this thief is examining the dagger, they chat a bit and try to get some local gossip out of him, and quickly realize that he knows more of the disappeared dwarves and is hiding something.

So the most aggressive of the PCs stands up angrily and draws his sword. Yes, in the middle of a crowded tavern, and while the thief is still holding this magical dagger. Another PC tries a quick check to get the dagger away from him, but fails. Several people in the crowd quickly turn on the PCs; after all, they are the aggressors, and are meeting in a tavern chosen by the thief. In the ensuing brawl, two of the PCs settle for defending themselves and trying to calm down the crowd. That left the main aggressive guy facing off with the thief, who was out of direct melee range but holding a neat little throwing dagger.

One lucky crit later, the aggressive guy was unconscious on the floor (yeah, being crit with a sneak attack is rather nasty), and the thief decided this was a good moment to get out of dodge. The PC's first thought was that at least he has the magical dagger back; but no, it was a returning dagger. So one healing spell later, the one PC rushes out the door after the thief.

Need I point out that chasing a thief into a dark alley all by yourself is not all that great? Especially if that thief earlier proved capable of seriously injuring you? Yep, the thief runs around the corner, turns around and readies his throwing dagger in case he's being chased. Fools rush in...

killroy726
2013-03-24, 01:37 PM
The latest game I was involved with had a Wild Mage Goblin who uses his wild magic like its going out of style.

Anyway longstory short after a lot of tom foolery the Goblin turned himself affectionately attracted to my character on a failed wild magic roll. My character who was a standard Wizard hated the goblin anyways because wild magic is unrefined and disrespectable in his eyes. And now that the goblin was trying to make adavnces toward my character these acts sent him over the edge and actually drove my character through a alignment change and to the side of evil. I dont blame the player who played what the dice given him it was just very traumatic for me (I actualy havent played D&D since)

Felandria
2013-03-24, 02:20 PM
Huh. Why didn't that work? Might be inefficient, but it's certainly a thing you could do.

Too much slime in the frog, essentially.

He squirmed, but he couldn't really move enough to do any damage.

Still, it led to a trend of characters getting swallowed by larger creatures, it happened a total of four times, I think.

holywhippet
2013-03-24, 09:22 PM
I was playing in a 4th edition D&D game and we were sneaking through "enemy" territory on a rescue mission. I put enemy in quotes because basically we were allied more or less with one town against another and we were in the territory of the latter, but our being their enemy wasn't well known at that point. So we'd killed about two patrols on the way in because, you know, murder hobos and such. When we were close to the town we tried talking to try and get past another patrol.

Problem is, my warlord was the only person with a good level of diplomacy and the DM was treating this as a skill challenge. So I was trying to talk my way past the guards single handedly, er, mouthedly but some of the other players decided to help out. They'd say something to try and help our cause and the DM would ask them to make a roll for it - either diplomacy or bluff depending on what they were saying.

Remember how I said I was the only one with a decent diplomacy skill? Well, their assistance just dug us in deeper and deeper as they'd have needed really good rolls to succeed. I think I had to win about 2 checks to get past them then finally I botched a roll. We ended up agreeing to go in with our weapons peace knotted.

That campaign fell apart soon after. I think our DM had certain ideas in mind but we were going in completely the wrong direction.

DontEatRawHagis
2013-03-24, 10:36 PM
Today's session involve a ground chase between us and a Elf half Demon. We corner her and ask her a bunch of questions. I make an insight check and realize she's telling the truth. But the Fighter still wants to turn her into the guards or kill her.

Fighter: She's evil.
Elf/Demon: Its not my fault. I'm just misunderstood.
Me: See she's just misunderstood. No killing.
DM: Do you want to roll an insight check on that?
Me: No, why would I? :smalltongue:

Ekul
2013-03-25, 12:28 AM
So, I was DMing my players solo before they meet up in-game. Level 1, but we all know each other pretty well. I have a habit of having my NPCs masquerade as giving helpful advice, but actually scamming the players. One of my players never falls for it- (sometimes he's too paranoid to accept what is obviously actual help) and one of my players falls for it every single time. Now, normally it's not that bad, but I have to admit that he has risen to an outright violation of common sense recently.

Okay, small recap here, I typically portray "Assassins" and "Rogues" as having being rather unfriendly towards each other, with Rogues not killing if they can avoid it, and assassins not asking questions if they can avoid it. (The quotation marks indicate that these are not classes, but archetypes. Yes, my players do understand the distinction.)

Additionally, in this world, magic items are both rare, and usually indicate that you're a part of a cult- so they raise a lot of questions if you use them in public.

One of my players is an assassin. He completes his first successful kill by lobbing an alchemist's fire through the window and then, when the guy starts screaming, rushes in to stab him, then rushes out. He loses the crowd, and then removes his disguise. Okay, that's inelegant, but it gets the job done. So, he goes towards his second target. This one is well guarded, so he decides to get help from the Rogue's Guild. He finds the guild, and rendevouz with one of their members to see if there's a way to get into the building without raising the alarm. The rogue asks why a self-proclaimed assassin would ask the rogues for help, but the assassin tells him that he's not affiliated with other assassins. The rogue then claims that all weapons and magical items will set off an alarm if you try to breach the perimeter of his target's house (a glassmaker), and then shows him a map of the top floor. The assassin's player has his character leave the guild and promptly tells me "I dig a hole in the closest place where nobody's watching me, then I put all my items in the hole."

Naturally, I was astounded. Last time I GMed him, he got his money stolen by a mere shopkeeper. And he was playing a 10th level WIZARD. Surely he would bury his items farther than that.

So I did what GMs should NEVER do: proposed 'are you sure', and said something to the effect of "What, aren't you going to bury them outside the city or something" and he said "Nope, closest place to me.".

Well, I let him do it. Then he went to the building to find armed guards inside the house. He was surrounded by about six of them, and had the audacity of threatening them. They patiently gave him a short period of time to explain himself and after being taunted, one dropped his health to one immediately. He then promptly made a risky move to leave the house, survived, and went back to his hole to find that-surprise surprise- the professional theif had stolen from him. He was infuriated, and went to the district's guards which had been already bribed by the rogue's guild.

So, basically, his enemy had told him that his items would set off an alarm in a merchant's house - (a blatant lie in a city where magic is basically a crime) - so he left his items behind where a known liar and thief could find them and approached a well guarded building unarmed and threatened all the well armed occupants.

Kurald Galain
2013-03-25, 07:43 AM
Players not expecting NPC thieves to, you know, steal from them is a recurring theme in this thread :smallamused:

geeky_monkey
2013-03-25, 09:16 AM
A few years back a member of a group I DM’d for asked to bring his cousin along. He said he’d played D&D many times so I got him to roll up a character and join the game in session (I retconned it so he’d been one of NPC scouts the party had along to speed things up).

The party (Lv 8-9ish) were scouting an advancing army. They were tasked with getting a rough size of the army and trying to work out which border fort they were likely to attack. It was a pure recon mission.

New guy decided to charge the General of the army. Despite the fact I’d said there were about 5000 soldiers.

Needless to say he was unsuccessful in his attempt and died.

Apparently I was a “rubbish DM” as it was my responsibility to "make sure the heroes always won”. He then spent the next 15 minutes sulking, playing music on his phone and generally being annoying until I threw him out the house and reset the game session to a point before he’d charged.

illyrus
2013-03-25, 10:06 AM
PCs capture a madman (actually a demon) that builds traps and throws poor people in them to watch them suffer. They get him to lead them to his dungeon in the wilderness and go in from sort of the back way allowing them to see how many of the rooms are trapped as well as passing a control room with a bunch of levers. I figured they might post someone here, at least the NPC they hired to tag along but no.

They then enter the main chamber. Note that they can see this is the chamber anyone entering from the normal methods would eventually be fed into if they survived the earlier traps.

Inside they can see several rooms behind locked doors filled with riches. There is a keychain with labeled keys sitting conveniently at the table in the middle. They use it to unlock one of the doors to the sound of a bunch of gears turning in the ceiling to the room they're in followed by the door swinging open to the first treasure room.

They turn to the madman/demon and ask him what all that was. He responds that it was just some gears and weights moving as part of opening the door.

Party: "Oh okay that makes sense"

As they open each door I describe the sounds they hear more and more but they keep going. As they unlock the final door the trap is sprung. They scramble for safety while the demon takes the chance to teleport out.

They would have been left to rot if the NPC standing by the exit door hadn't proceeded to roll a natural 20 on his reflex saving throw to leap out of the room as the door slammed shut. They made sure to complain to him though when it took him an hour to figure out how to reset the thing from the earlier control room.

tommhans
2013-03-26, 03:09 AM
hehe many classic stories here so far^^ i love how many people just rush towards an epic death against 5000 bullets, always a good move ^^ the wizard in my party usually is good but in level 2 in dnd next he was ****e :P i mean he had 9 hp and 11 in ac and not alot of spells to use, so he used his quarterstaff against a manbearpig alone, i as a tank was several feet away so i couldnt help, but he was so lucky, the bear managed to only give him 4 hp in damage which was the minimum, the bear couldve killed him totally if he hit better :P but i managed to come to the rescue and slay that bear with my dual wielded swords, but yeah that was not the first time he had done something as stupid as that , luckily he has gotten more spells now so hes not in that many melee combats anymore :p