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Warior4356
2013-12-18, 02:15 AM
So this is a thread for us to post the Evil/Awesome things our DMs have done or we have done as a DM.

So for this story to make sense you need some context. When I'm dming if you powergame your character, I powergame my characters too. Now in this particular instance the party was following one of the villians into a dungeon. The party knew the villian was a wizard who used a lot of illusion spells, what the party did not know was that the gnomish illusionist was a shadow craft mage. I had a lot of fun making that dungeon, the traps for the most part confused the party like fake blades and such. But the part of the dungeon that they still are cursing me about was the mini boss fight room. The floor of the room was an illusion so every meat shield in the party belived the ilusion and fell through the wizard bard and cleric made their will saves. At this point they are freaking out, the floor restores it self so the non believers can't be pulled up and have to go around from the start. In the mean time for the 11 rounds of sprinting it takes the fighter, barb, and paladin to show up, the 4 iron golems in the room had taken out all but the cleric. They still curse me for that one.

SimonMoon6
2013-12-18, 11:00 AM
One of the PCs wanted to resurrect his dead wife. Resurrection/Raise Dead spells weren't easy to come by, but there were rumors that the Rod of Seven Parts could bring someone back to life (this was 1st edition where artifacts were customizable so they could have virtually any abilities... also being 1st edition, you didn't expect to be able to purchase any spell you wanted whenever you wanted to, though there were some rules for it in the DMG).

So, he went on a long quest to find the various parts. Fortunately, once you have one part, you can find the next part. At the end of this quest, he found out that he had started with the second part and therefore he had parts 2-7 only.

So, then he had to go on another quest to find part 1. And when he finally found it and attached it, he discovered the (customized) drawback that applied when adding the 1st part to the rest of the rod: his gender changed.

So, he *could* resurrect his wife, but he didn't see any point in it if he was stuck being female.

(Eventually, things *did* work with the help of a brain transplant... but that's another story...a story involving the transplanter accidentally dropping the PC's brain on the floor during the surgery, causing the PC to lose some INT permanently.)

Elkreeal
2013-12-18, 11:06 AM
Info:
This campaign went from a homebrew world to a 4e darksun campaign with some alterations:
-The party was all petrified in their world, and instead of having them all "killed" they lived throughout the ages letting enough time elapse until a darksun world made sense to exist
-The Gods aren't truly dead, they got tired lost hope and or the willingness to be evil, they stopped caring, so they asked Vecna if he could force a secret to be kept in the world for all eternity, the secret of their existence.
-Some races were tweaked or story was added for it to make sense, for example, the existence of dargonborns and goliaths: extinction of the races a long time after we were petrified and before we "awaken", so the sorcerer-kings have no idea for example dragonborns had existed before.

They were preserved because they fell to the botton of the ocean while petrified, after that they were un-petrified by a psionic student that was leading an excavation after a looooong long time.

We were playing and the sun was setting, we were looking for a barbarian dragonborn tribe after discovering that dragonborns somehow here were magically created and discarded, we had a dragonbron Cleric|Paladin of Bahamut that wished to pass on the teachings of Bahamut by staying with the tribe (he was going to change his character), the party has had some weird headaches and memory lapses when they speak of the gods, and did not make a high enough check to recognize Vecna's influence in their minds and memories.
The dragonborn tribe was amazed at the fact they never saw a dragonborn with wings (bozak or kapak can't remember, he was named O'Reely) and were curious to our presence there and we justified ourselves with some good diplomacy checks and they allowed O'Reely to stay and pass on his teachings. We drank and feasted one last time and left sadly promising to return one day.
After one week (in-game time) the focus shifted to the tribe again, he had been teaching the dragonborn tribe day and night. In the distance O'Reely spotted a couple running from a medium reptilian creature ( A Nothic Eye of Vecna disguised as some kind of reptile, a good bluff check made it appear real enough), the couple quickly ran behind O'Reely in his shinning armor and he stood to protect them, suddenly O'Relly felt deafened by a shrieking and thunder-like sound from behind him. The couple was actually a couple of Secrets of Vecna and he was surrounded, we came back months later just to realize there was absolutely nothing there, no trace of the tribe ever existing.

At this point we were Lvl9, O'Reely and the dragonborn tribe had little chance of making it out alive. The monsters were lvl 19 and 22.

geeky_monkey
2013-12-18, 11:14 AM
I was DMing for a group of low level players (Lv 3-4), who weren’t really paying attention.

Their characters were walking across an open plain on their way back from a dungeon crawl, but the players were busy chatting OOC and fiddling with various electronic gadgets. Clearly I needed to regain their attention.

I banged my fists on the table and explained that the skies had darkened as a huge shape flew overhead, one that they quickly realised was a massive Ancient Red Dragon which had dived out of the sky and was hovering barely 20ft above their heads.

To their horror I made them all roll a saving throw, which all but 1 player failed.

Her character was the only one that managed to avoid the huge mountain of dung that fell from the sky as the laughing dragon flew off after cr*pping all over the party of insignificant adventures he’d spotted on his way past.

The party had to trudge to the nearest village covered in faeces, where they all suffered a -2 CHA penalty until they got themselves cleaned up.

2 (real life) years, and many levels later the players finally tracked down that dragon after making it a major goal of the campaign!

Warior4356
2013-12-19, 02:22 AM
My next one is of me being a player. This campign started with us all being clerics (the social position not the class) of stendar. You know how when a pc party enters a lair they kill every minion in sight and go for the leader? Well in this case we were the minions and the evil party came after us. We were the only survivors. I myself got energy drained passed out and woke up cruified to a tree.

WbtE
2013-12-19, 03:21 AM
The characters tried rushing a young blue dragon and got their heads handed to them. (It was that nasty dust cloud encounter at the start of the 3e Temple of Elemental Evil.) Most of the party managed to run away, but they had to leave a man down. Once they'd regrouped, they decided to do the decent thing and parley to see if they could have their comrade's corpse back to give him a proper burial.

I had the dragon talk to party alright, but he was using their dead friend as a ventriloquist's dummy.

Warior4356
2013-12-19, 12:01 PM
I think our dm got this from this fourm.

goblin is at the end of a hall taunting the fighter

PC:I charge the goblin
DM:You step in a bear trap
PC:I pry it off and keep running
DM: No, you step on a pressure plate and a dire bear falls from the ceiling, roll for inintive
PC::smalleek:

tulebast
2013-12-19, 12:33 PM
My favorite evil DM moment was in a 2e game years ago. The campaign started with the characters tasked with finding some artifact that a wizard wanted. He never said why he wanted it, nor why he couldn't get it himself (despite being powerful enough to have teleported each of them from random sections of the world to start their quest), just some vague comment about how they were the ones fated to retrieve it. As payment, he promised each of them one wish.

Well, after sending them off with a prophetic rhyme to guide their way and several interesting and wacky adventures later, they managed to find the item and got teleported back to the wizard, who did indeed grant each of them a wish/boon. Some of the most memorable:


The Half-elf that wanted Storm Giant strength. The wizard transformed her into a Storm Giant, and she retired from the party ('cause, you know, Storm Giants have better things to do than hang around with PC losers...)
The Halfling that thought Storm Giant strength was too greedy, and asked for a belt of Fire Giant Strength. However, the belt was "always on", meaning the Halfling would exert full strength at every opportunity. Made the first tavern interesting when he kicked the door off the hinges and broke every glass/mug that he attempted to drink from. [Eventually, the party managed to figure out how to remove the belt, which seemed to resist most efforts to take it off.]
The leprechaun (NPC they'd picked up on the quest) wanted a pot of gold, if only for the novelty of understanding why all the humans were so obsessed about it. He was given a small chamberpot, made of gold. He still couldn't understand what all the fuss was about and buried it.
The cleric that wanted a Staff of Baldur, which the wizard casually handed over. For several months, the cleric would laugh at the party for being too greedy with their wishes and getting hosed, although the player was occasionally concerned that he might have gotten the personal Staff of Baldur and that the god was somehow tracking him down to get his item back. But no, it turned out that he did indeed have a Staff of Baldur, with exactly one charge remaining and it turned worthless the first time he used one of its special abilities. [Though I did point out to him he was right, he was the only person in the party who didn't get hosed by his wish--it was not my fault he neglected to determine how many charges remained before using the staff...]


My second favorite time was when Tiamat granted everyone in the party a boon. Ah, good times.

The Fury
2013-12-19, 08:40 PM
PC:I charge the goblin
DM:You step in a bear trap
PC:I pry it off and keep running
DM: No, you step on a pressure plate and a dire bear falls from the ceiling, roll for inintive
PC::smalleek:

Ha! Ha-HA! I get it! Bear trap! Bear. Trap! (By the way, those would be my last words in that situation.)

The best I got right now is a story about an inept DM and a trolling player, would that be inappropriate? Maybe I'll come back if I can think of something better.

Warior4356
2013-12-20, 12:12 AM
Ha! Ha-HA! I get it! Bear trap! Bear. Trap! (By the way, those would be my last words in that situation.)

The best I got right now is a story about an inept DM and a trolling player, would that be inappropriate? Maybe I'll come back if I can think of something better.

Sounds good

2E Phoinex
2013-12-20, 01:43 AM
haha, well one of my players wanted to play a Paladin in a party full of chaotics. (incidentally that is the preamble for a number of our favorite memories of games gone by. I'm sure we are not the only group.)

Any way, in his very first adventure he may have told a lie and agreed along with the rest of the party to help a black dragon protect her eggs. His Paladin abilities were suspended by his deity who didn't like liars or those who help evil. (who'd of thunk it? Paladine was who he worshiped by the way) Seeing his god was displeased, he moved to immediately to redeem himself by crushing the dragon eggs.

At this point one of the gentler souls of our group jumped to the defense of the eggs for he firmly believed that nothing was born evil and the baby dragons were innocent. This lead to an argument, which lead to a wrestling match, which logically led to both players falling into an acid pit. Both managed to survive thanks to some acid resistance effect that I don't remember but they were hurt pretty badly especially the Paladin's ego.

But wait there's more.

Later, in order for the paladin to recover his lost powers he had to confess his sins to a priest and do a penance. Well he was a little snotty to the priest in recounting his tale so the ancient cleric responded "My son you must learn humility, go to this man with whom you quarreled and submit yourself to him as his willing servant. Do all that he asks of you as you would for your church and if you can endure him then in the eyes of Paladine you will be found worthy"

One week and several embarrassing events later including a couple nipple piercings the Paladin's powers were restored. (It's worth noting that this wasn't the last time that this particular player was enslaved by another member of his party)

The Fury
2013-12-20, 02:05 AM
"My son you must learn humility, go to this man with whom you quarreled and submit yourself to him as his willing servant. Do all that he asks of you as you would for your church and if you can endure him then in the eyes of Paladine you will be found worthy"


...Knowing what I know of Chaotic-aligned player characters and their opinions on Paladins, hours of self-flagellation seems like a much kinder penance. Gotta hand it to that priest though, when it comes to penance the church of Paladine doesn't mess around!

RustyArmor
2013-12-20, 08:33 AM
Back in the day we had multiple DMs often doing one shot games or just campaigns when we had enough devoted players for one. One DM was rather hack and slash and rarely used monsters intelligence. Even dragons would just land in front of us and attack as we hack and slash at it. The one time we sat around and one of the players was saying how weak and lame dragons are and I was defending them saying played right they would kick butt. Which turned into me doing a one shot dragon slaying quest. Keep in mind this was 2nd ed game.

I let them pick the dragon, they all jumped on white almost instantly. All eight of them were 10th level and I let each of them pretty much have six magical items they want outside staff of magi and other artifacts and any mundane gear they wished. And they were decked out, most picking belts of storm giant strength, vorpal weapons, ridiculous armor, etc. They were all set they knew they were going to kick this things butt to no end.

After long struggling with snow and ice they found a cave and ventured in. Watching out for a dragon they found the first trap. A deep pit filled with icy water. Did any of them have boots of north? No. Ropes or other items of climbing? No. Potions or items to Fly? Nope. Half the group drowned in the icy depths do to heavy armors with no reasonable means of getting out of such. Some of the members finally got to wall to start climbing only to look up and see the dragon grinning at them and greeted them with saves vs. breath weapon. Did anyone have resistance to cold full well knowing they were fighting a white dragon? Nope. So between icy blast of breath and dropping ice chunks at the party no one even made it to the ledge and weakest of dragon kind didn't take a single point of damage from a well armed but poorly geared adventuring party. And I had a whole cave complex drew out for them to explore too :smallsigh:

CombatOwl
2013-12-20, 09:26 AM
(If there is already a thread of this please direct me to it)

So this is a thread for us to post the Evil/Awesome things our DMs have done or we have done as a DM.

So for this story to make sense you need some context. When I'm dming if you powergame your character, I powergame my characters too. Now in this particular instance the party was following one of the villians into a dungeon. The party knew the villian was a wizard who used a lot of illusion spells, what the party did not know was that the gnomish illusionist was a shadow craft mage. I had a lot of fun making that dungeon, the traps for the most part confused the party like fake blades and such. But the part of the dungeon that they still are cursing me about was the mini boss fight room. The floor of the room was an illusion so every meat shield in the party belived the ilusion and fell through the wizard bard and cleric made their will saves. At this point they are freaking out, the floor restores it self so the non believers can't be pulled up and have to go around from the start. In the mean time for the 11 rounds of sprinting it takes the fighter, barb, and paladin to show up, the 4 iron golems in the room had taken out all but the cleric. They still curse me for that one.

I once paid the party in copper coins (seriously, they were being given a quest by a church at a major pilgrimage location--most of what the church had available was copper coins). It took them a full session to figure out what to do with them, since they weighted more than they could feasibly carry. The town had a magic item shop, but as per my usual rules, I just rolled on my chart for that settlement size to see what they had, and none of it was useful to anyone in the party.

It ended up being something like 5,000 pounds of copper coins.

Let's see... that same campaign had quite a lot of **** moves. Including an evil ranger who strung up 1HD animals around his base just so he could shoot them then use arrow eruption. Arrow eruption is quite nasty with a brilliant energy compound longbow, a 22 strength, deadly aim, and the vital strike chain. Unlike normal traps, they don't peg trapsense or anything, and perception just reveals a disabled rat.

Lord Torath
2013-12-20, 10:39 AM
I think our dm got this from this fourm.

goblin is at the end of a hall taunting the fighter

PC:I charge the goblin
DM:You step in a bear trap
PC:I pry it off and keep running
DM: No, you step on a pressure plate and a dire bear falls from the ceiling, roll for inintive
PC::smalleek:How do they keep the Dire Bear alive? Does it enjoy being cooped up in a small little compartment? Or do you not worry about that, and just assume that the sheer mass of the dead dire bear will be a sufficient deterrent?

That's one of the things I've always wondered about chests "trapped" with living snakes or centipedes or scorpions or <insert your favorite small venomous monster> inside them that attack anyone opening them. How do you keep the poor nasty things alive?

Jay R
2013-12-20, 10:39 AM
I'm currently running a game with the following plot.

The party had noticed an aura of Evil slowly growing in the forest. They traced it down to a single keep, and then to an amulet worn by the gnoll in that keep, which had a very strong aura of evil. They have now destroyed that amulet, and the forest feels less Evil.

They are quite proud of the fact that this is the first major effect that they have had on the world. And it's quite true; it is.

There are two more similar amulets at other places in the world. Sometime between when they find the second and the third one, I expect them to learn the origins of the amulets. They are the three items preventing demons from entering the world. The Evil that they sense isn't the amulet; it's the Evil trying to get in, being blocked by the amulet.

If they destroy all three, ...

CombatOwl
2013-12-20, 10:53 AM
How do they keep the Dire Bear alive? Does it enjoy being cooped up in a small little compartment? Or do you not worry about that, and just assume that the sheer mass of the dead dire bear will be a sufficient deterrent?

Trap works better when the bear is unhappy about being cooped up.


That's one of the things I've always wondered about chests "trapped" with living snakes or centipedes or scorpions or <insert your favorite small venomous monster> inside them that attack anyone opening them. How do you keep the poor nasty things alive?

Holes in the sides, and good training to return to the chest after eating, drinking, etc.

Fiery Diamond
2013-12-20, 11:20 AM
I'm currently running a game with the following plot.

The party had noticed an aura of Evil slowly growing in the forest. They traced it down to a single keep, and then to an amulet worn by the gnoll in that keep, which had a very strong aura of evil. They have now destroyed that amulet, and the forest feels less Evil.

They are quite proud of the fact that this is the first major effect that they have had on the world. And it's quite true; it is.

There are two more similar amulets at other places in the world. Sometime between when they find the second and the third one, I expect them to learn the origins of the amulets. They are the three items preventing demons from entering the world. The Evil that they sense isn't the amulet; it's the Evil trying to get in, being blocked by the amulet.

If they destroy all three, ...


My reaction: Why did the forest feel less evil after they destroyed the amulet? Is the evil being redistributed to the other amulets, which are now doing extra duty? Because that seems to be an iffy explanation at best, and it's the only somewhat reasonable one I can think of. If I were your player, I would feel a bit ticked.

Mikeavelli
2013-12-20, 12:28 PM
I'm currently running a game with the following plot.

The party had noticed an aura of Evil slowly growing in the forest. They traced it down to a single keep, and then to an amulet worn by the gnoll in that keep, which had a very strong aura of evil. They have now destroyed that amulet, and the forest feels less Evil.

They are quite proud of the fact that this is the first major effect that they have had on the world. And it's quite true; it is.

There are two more similar amulets at other places in the world. Sometime between when they find the second and the third one, I expect them to learn the origins of the amulets. They are the three items preventing demons from entering the world. The Evil that they sense isn't the amulet; it's the Evil trying to get in, being blocked by the amulet.

If they destroy all three, ...

You read Goblins (http://www.goblinscomic.com/08122007/) don't you?

Jay R
2013-12-21, 01:53 AM
My reaction: Why did the forest feel less evil after they destroyed the amulet? Is the evil being redistributed to the other amulets, which are now doing extra duty? Because that seems to be an iffy explanation at best, and it's the only somewhat reasonable one I can think of. If I were your player, I would feel a bit ticked.

Because the evil of the Death Lord's home universe could be felt through the amulet, since he is always trying to destroy them. It's like there are three metal locks on the prison door, and he's been keeping a welding torch on each one, trying to melt through it. It doesn't work, but those spots are certainly growing hotter. Now that the lock is gone, he's not trying to melt that spot any longer, and it's much cooler. The other amulets are far enough away that any change to them hasn't been felt in that part of the world. They aren't doing extra duty; it's just that all three locks must be destroyed for the door to open.


You read Goblins (http://www.goblinscomic.com/08122007/) don't you?

No, actually. But the guy who helped me develop this might have.

Slipperychicken
2013-12-22, 12:09 AM
I think our dm got this from this fourm.

goblin is at the end of a hall taunting the fighter

PC:I charge the goblin
DM:You step in a bear trap
PC:I pry it off and keep running
DM: No, you step on a pressure plate and a dire bear falls from the ceiling, roll for inintive
PC::smalleek:

That's AMAZING. I haven't laughed that hard in weeks!

If I ever GM a game, I want to include one of these "bear traps" :smallbiggrin:

JHShadon
2013-12-22, 01:00 AM
I think our dm got this from this fourm.

goblin is at the end of a hall taunting the fighter

PC:I charge the goblin
DM:You step in a bear trap
PC:I pry it off and keep running
DM: No, you step on a pressure plate and a dire bear falls from the ceiling, roll for inintive
PC::smalleek:

Reminds me of this comic (http://silverbirch.deviantart.com/art/IT-S-A-TRAP-180793524).

InQbait
2013-12-24, 04:51 PM
I was playing a Dwarf Fighter and I specced him out to be a really tough, tankish character. I gave him Great Fortitude feat, Toughness, etc. This was Pathfinder btw.
So our group goes up against 2 necromancers. 2 necromancers. That's it. In the middle of the woods somewhere. In the first round, one of the necromancers already has a spectral hand up and my character is still sitting on the wagon. The necromancer casts Ghoul Touch on my character through the spectral hand. Fortitude save. Fail. My character was paralyzed for the WHOLE combat. It wasn't that long of a combat, 5-6 rounds or so, but that ticked me off, cuz I did not get to do anything at all. :smallmad:

Later in that campaign, I wanted to stop playing that character because he was getting boring so I had in mind that he would take a long journey back to his dwarven home in the mountains. Didn't happen. Instead, my new character, an Elf Cleric of Earth and Madness, exploded my old character using magic and out of the gore and smoke appeared my new character. I was ticked :smallmad:

Calinar
2013-12-24, 11:29 PM
Hmm... I've done quite a few things to my party since I started DMing a few years ago, some of my favorites are:

Bearded dwarven women.

A massive gelatinous cube pretending to be an underground lake.

An evil artifact sword that the party took to a powerful wizard to have identified, which took over the wizard and caused a ton of havoc.

An empty room with only a chest and a mimic disguised as the exit door.

Kidnapping the naive PC who wandered off alone looking for an omelette shop.

Having one of the BBEGs seduce the horny bard and mind control him to frame the party for murder.

JDarkshadow
2013-12-26, 08:49 PM
Having one of the BBEGs seduce the horny bard and mind control him to frame the party for murder.


I love murder mystery campaigns, Please elaborate. Who was murdered and how did the Bard frame them?

Calinar
2013-12-28, 01:13 AM
I love murder mystery campaigns, Please elaborate. Who was murdered and how did the Bard frame them?

Alright, but at least one of my players lurks around on this forum and the plot hasn't been fully resolved, so I can't reveal the entire story. The setting is Eberron.

While he did switched to wilder within the first 2 levels, he still plays his violin and acts like a typical horny bard, so we still call him a bard. The bard has taken to the typical bardic tradition of sleeping with a new tavern wench every night. After a big mission where they bring back a demon bound in a sword to their employer, a powerful artificer named Keveric who specializes in binding elementals, the bard decides that today is his birthday since he hadn't chosen a day for it yet. So, they head on down to their favorite tavern, have a party, and get drop dead drunk. The bard heads to the roof and the mysterious women who had given him some valuable information earlier in the campaign follows him up, seduces him, and mind controls him.

He wakes up in the morning and can't find her, so he gets together with the group and heads to Keveric's lab to see if he had made any progress with the sword. They find the lab ransacked, the sword missing, and Keveric dead with a Keeper's Fang in his back. The guard and inquisitives arrive, of course, right when they pick up the Fang. They confiscate the Fang, cast object reading and other divinations, arrest the party who stayed, and chase the Bard and the Rogue who escaped out the window. It's not long before the Bard and Rogue do a jail break for the party and flee the city together.

They have a few loose theories on their framing:
It was done by a group of at least two women, known by the titles the Tigress (the one who seduced the Bard) and the Huntress (one they met later). They have enough influence to pull strings within the city guard. One of Keveric's assistants work for these two and provided them inside information (they have narrowed it down to one of the three). And lastly, they know the sword was their objective, but otherwise have no clue why they were framed.

My players have lately come to believe that anything good that happens is really a trap. I have no clue where they got that idea from, everything is a trap. Except for actual traps of course, those are road signs.

originalginger
2013-12-28, 01:35 AM
I'm not sure if this is 'evil' or not, since it was largely a result of the players acting rashly and not thinking through their actions, but i think its funny, so here goes.

High magic, somewhat steampunk setting. The world is made up of a single large continent, about the size of Eurasia, and an Australia sized island subcontinent where the VERY evil Elven race lives, as well as numerous island chains.

The party consists of a Geomancer, a Marksman, a Mechanic/Engineer, and a Chemist. They are reasonably high level, and have a small armored vehicle with a light cannon and a good bit of supplies.

The party is tracking the source of a plague that has befallen a few small rural villages located inside of a large valley.

Below them lies a system of caverns, and above them a large stone dam in the mountaintops that's purpose is to regulate the flow of water that supports fishing communities and trade in the highlands, and irrigates the relatively barren lowlands to allow enough farming for the residents to live comfortably. Basically the dam was holding back a huge lake, only allowing a small river to flow though the lowlands.

They know the plague is originating from the caverns, but they assume it is the creatures that live there that are causing the problem.

In fact, it is a result of dark and ancient magics contaminating the water supply.

I more or less expected them to explore the caverns, fight some bad guys, maybe a monster or two, and eventually figure out that they need to either seal the entrance to the cavern or somehow divert the course of the water so it doesn't pass through the caverns. This, of course is not what happened.



Instead, the chemist builds high-explosive cannon ammunition, and they load it into to the armored truck's cannon. The Marksman then takes aim on the dam, hitting the weak points discovered by the Mechanic/Engineer's natural 20 roll, and the Geomancer stars tearing down large chucks of the dam with his magic as the explosives waken it's structure.

They take the whole damn dam down. Millions upon millions of gallons of water come crashing down into the valley all at one. The idea was to flood the caverns and kill everything inside without having to actually put their lives at risk. I was stunned. It would actually have been clever, except the plague was water-borne, and they had never actually been to the top of the mountain rage to see how much water was up there. Session ended, and the players felt triumphant.

But I, as the DM had to work out how to handle this. I COULD have been nice and kept damage to a minimum, but instead I decided to rule where the logic of the situation took me. I ruled that the players had inadvertently triggered the apocalypse.

On the highlands, the water source had been utterly destroyed.

Fishing yields dropped 90% for nine cities situated on the banks of the (now nearly empty) lake. Trade all but stopped, as there were no longer the essential waterways. No fishing and no trade, meant no money, and the people were left with basically nothing.

On the lowlands, it was even worse. The cities nearest the source of the flood were basically destroyed due to the massive flash flood. For the length of the valley, over 200 miles, the water level in the once rather tiny river rose six feet overnight, flooding farmlands, forcing people out of their homes, and basically ruining the geography and economy of the entirely of the lowland

Then there was the issue of the plague. Of course, pretty much all of the survivors of the flood caught it, and they started dropping like flies, and of course, that much water isn't easily contained.

When I followed the geography along, it turned out that it was unavoidable that the water would reach the largest river of the southern potion of the continent. That river feed into dozens of smaller rivers and streams, spreading the plague to millions. It was terrifying.

75% of the population of the southern third of the continent, including the capital city were killed by the plague. This brought trade with the northern areas to a stop, as production stopped, and most cities were quarantined. Since most of the farmland was in the south, that also meant starvation in the north. Which meant the north had less people able to work, and less production, and could send less aid to the south.

And so the cycle continued until the entire country collapsed.

Taking advantage of this, the evil (and incidentally fully self-reliant and plague-resistant) Elven Nation rose up against the weakened continent, and waged all out war. Of course they won. Mass genocide, complete cleansing of the race of men.

And that is the story about how the world of men ended because the party tried to take a clever shortcut to avoid a relatively simple dungeon.

One of the best campaigns I have ever run.

TuggyNE
2013-12-28, 02:11 AM
75% of the population of the southern third of the continent, including the capital city were killed by the plague.

Given that the Black Plague "only" killed around 25-30% of Europe's population at the time, and was one of the most deadly plagues in history, yes, that was evil.

Reyne
2013-12-28, 04:20 AM
On the other hand, disease killed more than 90% of the indigenous population of the Americas (thanks to lack of immune response, etc.) So 75% death rate for a plague caused by "dark and ancient magics" seems justifiable.

Depending on world power level, though, one might expect high-level spellcasters (if they exist) to take collective action and forestall the carnage.

BeerMug Paladin
2013-12-28, 09:17 AM
I don't have any especially great evil-DM stories to share, but I do have this from a (mostly) silly game.

After surviving a couple of deadly encounters and schemes, the party was trying to do something about the king's advisor, who was their antagonist. He was slowly trying to spread tyranny throughout the kingdom and make the place much more lawful-evil inclined. The PCs scoped out the castle, and discovered it was very well guarded and secure. There was little they could do to storm it or attack. Their antagonist never left the castle, as far as they knew.

They discovered that the castle did, however, get a special delivery of food from a restaurant delivery person a couple of times a week through a back door. The door itself was guarded at all times and secure except for the deliveries.

Simple plan, they found out that it was delivered from a Spicy Chicken restaurant, and decided to just steal some of the uniforms, get one of the deliveries, and pose as the usual delivery teams. The players decided they would eat before pulling off their plan and decided to get extra servings in order to see why their nemesis was so keen on the stuff.

Not bad, actually! Quite spicy, and an oddly unique flavor for chicken! Apparently, the villain had good taste.

Later on, they discovered that the restaurant sold butchered humanoid meat. Human, in particular, was the kind they tried. Several of the players immediately said their PCs were sick, and one player decided their PC would give up eating meat 'just to be sure' for the rest of the campaign.

That player eventually became a vegetarian. I like to imagine that was my doing.

The Fury
2013-12-28, 12:47 PM
I don't have any especially great evil-DM stories to share, but I do have this from a (mostly) silly game.

After surviving a couple of deadly encounters and schemes, the party was trying to do something about the king's advisor, who was their antagonist. He was slowly trying to spread tyranny throughout the kingdom and make the place much more lawful-evil inclined.

Was that what he was doing? I thought we were just after this guy because he stuck us in jail and sent those dopey assassins after us. As near as I could figure the Spicy Chicken Guy didn't really have an agenda, he was just a jerk.

Samshiir
2013-12-28, 01:25 PM
I am running a game right now where the party is protecting a young elven girl from a league of assassins. They don't know why assassins are after her, that is still a part of the mystery.

I talked to one of my players outside of the game and asked if he would play a villian for me. I explained that a doppleganger assassin will infiltrate the party, knock his character out, and take his place within the group. The player would be controlling the doppleganger that was pretending to be his real character, while his real character was captured and detained in some other location.

The transition went seamless, and the player roleplayed the position fantastically. The doppleganger had time to study the real version of the character, so the creature knew how to act...but it still wasn't the real character. The player did a fantastic job roleplaying a creature that was pretending to be his character, and it was fun all around. Even better, we managed to work together to fool the rest of the party, even though we had dropped several hints (some rather bluntly) that something wrong was happening.

The time came that the doppleganger attempted the elven girl's life. Earlier in the story, the girl had started dropping early signs of having a crush on the player's character, and every member of the group loves her dearly.

The player's doppleganger self stabbed the girl through the sternum with a dagger, killing her. It was a successful arc of the story, and I felt as though I was simply backseat DMing the entire chapter because the player took control of the villian so well.

BeerMug Paladin
2013-12-28, 03:09 PM
Was that what he was doing? I thought we were just after this guy because he stuck us in jail and sent those dopey assassins after us. As near as I could figure the Spicy Chicken Guy didn't really have an agenda, he was just a jerk.

Yes, that was what he was doing. I guess it was either a long time ago, or I didn't get that across very well.

The Fury
2013-12-28, 04:41 PM
I was also a latecomer to that campaign. Maybe that had something to do with it.

INDYSTAR188
2013-12-28, 05:47 PM
I was DMing for a group of low level players (Lv 3-4), who weren’t really paying attention.

Their characters were walking across an open plain on their way back from a dungeon crawl, but the players were busy chatting OOC and fiddling with various electronic gadgets. Clearly I needed to regain their attention.

I banged my fists on the table and explained that the skies had darkened as a huge shape flew overhead, one that they quickly realised was a massive Ancient Red Dragon which had dived out of the sky and was hovering barely 20ft above their heads.

To their horror I made them all roll a saving throw, which all but 1 player failed.

Her character was the only one that managed to avoid the huge mountain of dung that fell from the sky as the laughing dragon flew off after cr*pping all over the party of insignificant adventures he’d spotted on his way past.

The party had to trudge to the nearest village covered in faeces, where they all suffered a -2 CHA penalty until they got themselves cleaned up.

2 (real life) years, and many levels later the players finally tracked down that dragon after making it a major goal of the campaign!

This.... this I like! I think that's pretty awesome!

The Fury
2013-12-29, 09:31 PM
I wasn't so sure about posting this earlier, because the DM in question wasn't so much evil as he didn't know what he was doing. Consider it keeping the thread warm until something better comes around.

Spoilered for length

This was your archetypical DM who's ambition for storytelling outweighed his ability. Things were not off to a good start when our starting village appeared to be three day's travel to the nearest body of water, (the ocean,) and we were supposed to protect a supply caravan going there for... stuff. Of course I had to be the one to ask, why is there not a village at the ocean instead of the middle of nowhere? Monsters apparently. Now, we were about level 3, my character was a Paladin, member of the town guard and fairly low on the totem pole-- I was thinking we probably had enough force to defend a town from sea monsters that might attack. Not so much as it turned out. I was also given a mentor figure, which might've actually been cool if he'd been characterized and actually did mentor type stuff-- like offer or provide council or something. As it was, Mr. Mentor was just a stoic "cool guy," that didn't even bother to say that he had no time to explain.

On our way back from fighting Sahuagin with character levels we found our town apparently under attack, though there was a conspicuous lack of actual enemies doing the attacking, plenty of buildings on fire though. Now being that my character's a guard and a Paladin, she's got a sworn duty to protect this village-- even if she does think it's set up all stupid. Thankfully Mr. Mentor knew that the place to go was the mayor's estate so we ran after him, and there was some token evil wizard who's just killed the mayor. Mr. Mentor's not taking this lying down though, so he attacks the Big Bad but not before he casts Wall of Force to separate the player party from the fight. So we're treated to a cutscene of the evil wizard guy roundly defeating and killing Mr. Mentor. My character reasons that she's probably the highest ranking guard now, seeing as how the rest of them are apparently all dead so naturally she has some questions about what's going on. So she starts asking Big Bad:

Me: "Just who are you anyway?"

Big Bad: "Me? My name is... unimportant."

Me: "What? No it's not! Just what do you want with us anyway?"

Big Bad Unimportant: "Oh, I heard a rumor that there was gold under your town."

Me: "Trust me, there's isn't."

Unimportant: "Perhaps...perhaps not."

Eventually we get how this is going to go down: We clear out of here-- all the villagers are now refugees because Unimportant is moving in with his gold-mining operation. Meanwhile, the party along with the displaced villagers need to find a place to relocate and hopefully find help for dealing with this jerk. The best closest possible place for this is the Capital, it's three months' travel away. Hang on, what?

So three months later, I'm only skipping over the three months because the DM did, we arrive in the Capital. Yay. Except the king won't see us because he's too busy with "important stuff." This is where I point out both out of character and in-character that what Unimportant did is almost certainly considered an act of war, but apparently the king's just got a lot on his plate right now. As it is, we're told by the Capital's guard to clear our little refugee camp out of the city, so we grudgingly relocate to some ancient ruins we saw on the way over. I use the term "ruins" somewhat loosely because they were actually quite nice and it didn't take a jiffy to clear out the monsters living there. Indeed I had to wonder why there was no one living there. Most notably there was a ring-shaped device in the town square, after a while the DM gave up trying to describe it and said, "It looks like a Stargate."
After deducing that it was magic, and a device the party then tried turning it on with Use Magic Device, after one of us got an absurdly high number we got to learn that we definitively have no idea how it works.

That was the first session, after a long period of the DM not showing up there was not a second.

Whew! That was way too long, wasn't it?

GungHo
2014-01-02, 03:19 PM
Werewolf game. One player kept asking about silver bullets. I ignored the first couple of times, but he just kept going on and on, asking in and out of character where they could get silver bullets. In one scene, they were fighting Wyrm agents led by a Black Spiral Dancer that was far more powerful than any of the party near a busy road that had basically come to a standstill while everyone was horrified by the battle (I was attempting to give them an opportunity to flee). The guy asked again about silver bullets, and so I cursed and then I had everyone make an alertness roll, followed by an athletics roll. Those who failed got creamed by a Coors Light truck.

Jlerpy
2014-01-02, 05:23 PM
Werewolf game. One player kept asking about silver bullets. I ignored the first couple of times, but he just kept going on and on, asking in and out of character where they could get silver bullets. In one scene, they were fighting Wyrm agents led by a Black Spiral Dancer that was far more powerful than any of the party near a busy road that had basically come to a standstill while everyone was horrified by the battle (I was attempting to give them an opportunity to flee). The guy asked again about silver bullets, and so I cursed and then I had everyone make an alertness roll, followed by an athletics roll. Those who failed got creamed by a Coors Light truck.

Wow. That's just ... stupid.

Warior4356
2014-01-02, 05:37 PM
The players or the GM?

Jlerpy
2014-01-02, 05:51 PM
The players or the GM?

Assuming that the player had already been told they weren't getting silver bullets, but kept harping on about: both. :smallbiggrin:

ReaderAt2046
2014-01-02, 07:42 PM
I think our dm got this from this fourm.

goblin is at the end of a hall taunting the fighter

PC:I charge the goblin
DM:You step in a bear trap
PC:I pry it off and keep running
DM: No, you step on a pressure plate and a dire bear falls from the ceiling, roll for inintive
PC::smalleek:

My DM did that to us as well, though we were in the Elemental Chaos at the time.

Ionbound
2014-01-02, 07:47 PM
I am running a game right now where the party is protecting a young elven girl from a league of assassins. They don't know why assassins are after her, that is still a part of the mystery.

I talked to one of my players outside of the game and asked if he would play a villian for me. I explained that a doppleganger assassin will infiltrate the party, knock his character out, and take his place within the group. The player would be controlling the doppleganger that was pretending to be his real character, while his real character was captured and detained in some other location.

The transition went seamless, and the player roleplayed the position fantastically. The doppleganger had time to study the real version of the character, so the creature knew how to act...but it still wasn't the real character. The player did a fantastic job roleplaying a creature that was pretending to be his character, and it was fun all around. Even better, we managed to work together to fool the rest of the party, even though we had dropped several hints (some rather bluntly) that something wrong was happening.

The time came that the doppleganger attempted the elven girl's life. Earlier in the story, the girl had started dropping early signs of having a crush on the player's character, and every member of the group loves her dearly.

The player's doppleganger self stabbed the girl through the sternum with a dagger, killing her. It was a successful arc of the story, and I felt as though I was simply backseat DMing the entire chapter because the player took control of the villian so well.

Wait, what? She died? Oh dear...

Samshiir
2014-01-03, 11:38 AM
Wait, what? She died? Oh dear...

Well, thats what you guys had thought at the time, so thats why I wrote it like that.

So yes, it turns out the girl actually did survive, but nobody knows how. This is actually the second time she has miraculously survived an assassination attempt.

illyahr
2014-01-03, 11:57 AM
In a 3.0 game I was DM'ing once, we had trouble with a player who was a total spotlighter. He was playing a Paladin, so he was the face of the group and did the most interacting with NPC's, but OOC he would demand more game time than was fair. This wouldn't have been as bad, but he spent most of his non-combat time flirting with female NPC's.

He played it LG (telling the girl directly that he was interested but there couldn't be anything more than a night together as he had responsibilities, generally playing straight so there were no misunderstandings) but it was done so freqently that it was cutting into other things.

To curb his spotlighting a bit and to get everyone back on track, he eventually discovered that he had lost his Paladin abilities. He complained that I had already OK'd is in-character behavior and I said it wasn't the behavior that had done it but was a consequence of something specific he did. When he asked what it was, I told him to find out. I was the DM so I wasn't going to tell him. :smallamused:

They asked a priest and he directed them to a small (nearly) abandoned temple. When they went in, they discovered one of the tavern wenches that the Paladin had bedded looking after a baby. A couple DC 5 Knowledge checks later and they all realized that a human woman could not bring a baby to term in only a couple weeks. This was when the woman revealed herself to be a succubus. :smallbiggrin:

The succubus gloated at making the Paladin lose his abilities and Plane Shifted away, leaving the baby behind. If the Paladin had performed anything that resembled a LG character (taking and raising the baby for Good, dropping the baby off at a temple, even killing the child if he had a good enough justification) I would have had him get his powers back. Instead, the player rage-quit and accused me of being a bad DM for basically forcing character growth. :smallannoyed:

We didn't miss him. :smallamused:

Jlerpy
2014-01-03, 03:46 PM
In a 3.0 game I was DM'ing once, we had trouble with a player who was a total spotlighter. He was playing a Paladin, so he was the face of the group and did the most interacting with NPC's, but OOC he would demand more game time than was fair. This wouldn't have been as bad, but he spent most of his non-combat time flirting with female NPC's.

He played it LG (telling the girl directly that he was interested but there couldn't be anything more than a night together as he had responsibilities, generally playing straight so there were no misunderstandings) but it was done so freqently that it was cutting into other things.

To curb his spotlighting a bit and to get everyone back on track, he eventually discovered that he had lost his Paladin abilities. He complained that I had already OK'd is in-character behavior and I said it wasn't the behavior that had done it but was a consequence of something specific he did. When he asked what it was, I told him to find out. I was the DM so I wasn't going to tell him. :smallamused:

They asked a priest and he directed them to a small (nearly) abandoned temple. When they went in, they discovered one of the tavern wenches that the Paladin had bedded looking after a baby. A couple DC 5 Knowledge checks later and they all realized that a human woman could not bring a baby to term in only a couple weeks. This was when the woman revealed herself to be a succubus. :smallbiggrin:

The succubus gloated at making the Paladin lose his abilities and Plane Shifted away, leaving the baby behind. If the Paladin had performed anything that resembled a LG character (taking and raising the baby for Good, dropping the baby off at a temple, even killing the child if he had a good enough justification) I would have had him get his powers back. Instead, the player rage-quit and accused me of being a bad DM for basically forcing character growth. :smallannoyed:

We didn't miss him. :smallamused:

Wait, you retroactively decided that one of his former one night stands was a succubus?
An evil outsider, which he would have been able to automatically detect?

I'm inclined to agree with the player.

turbo164
2014-01-03, 03:53 PM
Wait, you retroactively decided that one of his former one night stands was a succubus?
An evil outsider, which he would have been able to automatically detect?

I'm inclined to agree with the player.

Succubi have Int 16 and Charisma 26. Pretty sure that's enough to find someone to cast Undetectable Alignment on them. :smallconfused:

Slipperychicken
2014-01-03, 04:09 PM
He complained that I had already OK'd is in-character behavior and I said it wasn't the behavior that had done it but was a consequence of something specific he did. When he asked what it was, I told him to find out. I was the DM so I wasn't going to tell him. :smallamused:


1. Paladins only fall for willingly committing evil acts.

2. This means that they can't fall for things they didn't know about, or didn't intend to do.

3. The rules allow him (and every other creature who lays eyes on the Succubus) at least one Spot roll to see through the disguise (change shape (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#changeShape) only gives a +10 to Disguise).

4. And Sense Motive checks to notice each of the Succubus' lies.

5. The Paladin would also have scanned her with Detect Evil. She would need a spell like Undetectable Alignment sustained or re-cast at least every 24 hours, however.


Those points lead me to believe that you were acting like a railroading jerk.

Warior4356
2014-01-03, 04:34 PM
I'm given to agree with you.....

Jlerpy
2014-01-03, 04:49 PM
Succubi have Int 16 and Charisma 26. Pretty sure that's enough to find someone to cast Undetectable Alignment on them. :smallconfused:

I always forget about the dumbness of Undetectable Alignment.

Slippery chicken's points stand though.

Warior4356
2014-01-03, 04:58 PM
well this is a thread of evil GM's so just let it lie and stop bashing him post moar stories

turbo164
2014-01-03, 05:09 PM
I always forget about the dumbness of Undetectable Alignment.

Slippery chicken's points stand though.

Yep, I agree with him too. "Not spamming dispels on everyone you interact with" should not an act evil enough for Falling. Better Disjunction that begger before you throw a coin in his hat, lest you fund an evildoer! :smallwink:

Undetectable Alignment is a useful tool for when you want your players to have to actually *think* to solve a murder mystery (Search the place, Gather Info, Sense Motive, wonder if the missing teapot has any connection etc) rather than spam Detect Evil on the butler (now, as for Speak With Dead on the victim...). But in this case it was a definite Evil DM story.

Jlerpy
2014-01-03, 05:38 PM
well this is a thread of evil GM's so just let it lie and stop bashing him post moar stories

You're quite right, I apologise.

Scootaloo
2014-01-03, 08:21 PM
When I followed the geography along, it turned out that it was unavoidable that the water would reach the largest river of the southern potion of the continent. That river feed into dozens of smaller rivers and streams, spreading the plague to millions. It was terrifying

Unless every single river / stream on your map is at sea level and thus tidal, this couldn't happen. Large rivers do not become smaller rivers; it goes the other way, since water always follows the path of least resistance - an obstacle in a river won't split the river, it'll just divert it down the easiest path. And if every single river / stream is sea level and tidal, then they're all brackish or outright salt, so people drinking the water have problems beside the plague.

Ahem.

I really don't have any "evil DM" stories; about the best I have is a "Stupid Storyteller" story from the World of Darkness games.

In specific, playing in a Mage the Ascension game, our characters had to deal with a Marauder (basically a mage that has gone totally loco and lives in their own private reality.) TO convey this chaotic, mad mage, our storyteller had it summon extradimensional beings from beyond the ken of mortal minds...

basically, it was a 40-foot Pikachu made of hormel chili. And no. no one was asked "areyou a god?" before this kaiju-chu started stomping around downtown Los Angeles.

This was dumb enough, but then the ST realized that it wasn't powerful enough, so she had it basically ignore absolutely everything we did, from one guy's attempt to banish it with Spirit magic (it being extradimensional and all) while my mage tried to use Matter to encase it in earth (electric-type being weak to earth and all... hey! The character was fifteen, it was in-character!)

Eventually the Marauder - who was riding a fluorescent pink pterodactyl - got bored, left, and the financial district of Los Angeles found itself flooded by four feet of hormel chili, with beans and cheese.

Like I said, not evil but a definite "why are we doing this?" moment

The Fury
2014-01-04, 12:59 AM
basically, it was a 40-foot Pikachu made of hormel chili.


Is anyone else thinking of the bit from Ghostbusters? "CHOOSE THE FORM OF THE DESTROYER!"

Only it goes a little differently:

"OK guys, the Destroyer's gonna be the first thing one of us thinks of, so don't think of anything."

Moments later the gigantic Pikachu made of chili shows up

"... Right, who thought of that? Why would anyone at all think of that?"

illyahr
2014-01-04, 07:21 PM
1. Paladins only fall for willingly committing evil acts.

2. This means that they can't fall for things they didn't know about, or didn't intend to do.

3. The rules allow him (and every other creature who lays eyes on the Succubus) at least one Spot roll to see through the disguise (change shape (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#changeShape) only gives a +10 to Disguise).

4. And Sense Motive checks to notice each of the Succubus' lies.

5. The Paladin would also have scanned her with Detect Evil. She would need a spell like Undetectable Alignment sustained or re-cast at least every 24 hours, however.


Those points lead me to believe that you were acting like a railroading jerk.

1. Rule 0. He willingly slept with an evil Outsider and got her pregnant. He didn't fall so much as was put on review.

2. He knew she would get pregnant. She requested it, he failed his Sense Motive.

3. They all got rolls. She had maximized Bluff and Disguise.

4. See post 3.

5. Ring of Mind Shielding. Core ring, 8000 gold. He even noticed the ring but said nothing about it.

Aside from all that, this guy OoC was basically Tarquin and was disrupting the game. If he had done anything at all in-game, he would have gotten his powers back.


Wait, you retroactively decided that one of his former one night stands was a succubus?
An evil outsider, which he would have been able to automatically detect?

I'm inclined to agree with the player.

Not retroactively. It was an active encounter in a bar. They had been attacked previously in a library, a stable, and a general store in the same country. And not automatically. It's an at-will ability, but he has to actually use it.

Slipperychicken
2014-01-04, 07:41 PM
1. He willingly slept with an evil Outsider and got her pregnant.

Was his character aware that the woman was really a succubus?

Warior4356
2014-01-04, 07:57 PM
For the last time this thread is for DM's to say what they did to the players. DROP IT.

MonochromeTiger
2014-01-04, 08:02 PM
Is anyone else thinking of the bit from Ghostbusters? "CHOOSE THE FORM OF THE DESTROYER!"

Only it goes a little differently:

"OK guys, the Destroyer's gonna be the first thing one of us thinks of, so don't think of anything."

Moments later the gigantic Pikachu made of chili shows up

"... Right, who thought of that? Why would anyone at all think of that?"

if given the choice of what monster will likely kill you always decide on the most absurd thing you can think of. the monster will either be too weird to be effective or be so amazingly strange that your death is memorable for all of eternity.

Necroticplague
2014-01-04, 11:32 PM
I have one coming from a mixed NWOD game. We like to play it a bit like Paranoia: each of us uses a different splat, and we all know this out-of character, but can't start offing each other in-character until we have a good enough reason to get the rest of the party to help. So we were some kind of national emergency response team, and ended up helping at the sight of a nuclear meltdown. Partway through helping survivors out of the wreckage of the plant (or more frequently, body retrieval), when a very large sections of building started to collapse on me. Thinking I was alone, I used Titanic Vigor to hold the thing up. Turns out, I wasn't alone, and a survivor did see me. Some unlucky rolls later, I see her undergo Disquiet, triggering my Torment. So now I had to rampage until i was out of pyros, or for a few minutes, whichever comes latter. And as a zeke in a nuclear plant, I essentially had an endless pyros supply.That worked about as well as it sounds. I finally got out of Torment after offing the rest of the party except for the changeling, then barely beating the Wyld Hunt he called.

ReaderAt2046
2014-01-05, 01:36 PM
One time in an Avatar: The Last Airbender campaign, we were playing a group of Fire Nation characters trying to escape a corrupt general who'd accused my character of being an Earthbender (my character was a fanatical Firebender). So at one point we're in the upper room of an inn and some waterbender pirates are in the lower levels looking for us. We all need to get out the window, and most of the party just jumps. I declare that my character is summoning big wings made out of fire and using them to fly. Since that doesn't work, the DM decides, entirely without consulting me, that I had instead used rocket-style propulsion and burnt the town to the ground. To make matters worse, one of our players had died the previous session, and when his new character showed up he was from that town and pissed about the fate of his friends and family.

The Fury
2014-01-05, 01:47 PM
OK, I should probably preface this by saying that I'm not trying to make serious criticisms here. This is, after all, a thread about bad DMs. I'm just commenting on the absurdity. OK? OK.


One time in an Avatar: The Last Airbender campaign, we were playing a group of Fire Nation characters trying to escape a corrupt general who'd accused my character of being an Earthbender (my character was a fanatical Firebender).

Really? That seems like a pretty easy thing to clear up.

General: "Prove you're not an Earthbender!"

PC: "OK." *bends fire*



So at one point we're in the upper room of an inn and some waterbender pirates are in the lower levels looking for us. We all need to get out the window, and most of the party just jumps. I declare that my character is summoning big wings made out of fire and using them to fly. Since that doesn't work, the DM decides, entirely without consulting me, that I had instead used rocket-style propulsion and burnt the town to the ground. To make matters worse, one of our players had died the previous session, and when his new character showed up he was from that town and pissed about the fate of his friends and family.

OK... was Sozin's Comet in the sky at the time or something? I mean, I can sort of see how one Firebender might accidentally destroy one building that way, but an entire town?

ReaderAt2046
2014-01-05, 02:34 PM
Really? That seems like a pretty easy thing to clear up.

General: "Prove you're not an Earthbender!"

PC: "OK." *bends fire*

Actually, I did exactly that. The DM simply ignored it.



OK... was Sozin's Comet in the sky at the time or something? I mean, I can sort of see how one Firebender might accidentally destroy one building that way, but an entire town?

I don't know how that happened either, but it wasn't the Comet (this was a couple of years before the show).

Xervous
2014-01-05, 04:40 PM
Actually, I did exactly that. The DM simply ignored it.



I don't know how that happened either, but it wasn't the Comet (this was a couple of years before the show).

The DM ignoring you firebending is simply STUPID, not EVIL...

Warior4356
2014-01-05, 04:46 PM
I'm personally inclined to say its both.....

MonochromeTiger
2014-01-05, 05:03 PM
I'm personally inclined to say its both.....

stupid: "what? you mean you weren't joking when you took that action that would've won you the trial? ah well too late now you were already executed."

evil: "I don't know that fire looked awfully rock-like to me, I don't think anyone believes you."

The Fury
2014-01-05, 06:26 PM
Actually, I did exactly that. The DM simply ignored it.


Maybe the General concluded that since you can firebend, and he already decided that you can earthbend, you must be the Avatar?



I don't know how that happened either, but it wasn't the Comet (this was a couple of years before the show).

OK, I got nothin' then.

Slipperychicken
2014-01-05, 06:46 PM
Maybe the General concluded that since you can firebend, and he already decided that you can earthbend, you must be the Avatar?


The general is corrupt, so he could just be is almost certainly using the accusation as an excuse to throw him in jail. Besides, he could get a pretty hefty bonus for catching the Avatar...


And if he can set it up so the PC can't firebend while captive, then it doesn't matter what the truth is. In that sense, it's much like real life corruption: your accusations don't have to be true, or even plausible, to have someone tossed in jail.


EDIT: Personally, I would have had the general come up with a much more plausible lie: Claim the PC is an earth-nation sympathizer or spy. Then you can keep him locked up as long as you want, and it's practically impossible for him to prove you wrong.

TechnoWarforged
2014-01-11, 11:35 AM
OWoD. Me playing as a Malk began the campaign by walking back to his apartment and found the windows to his room was open. Instinctively I went to close it only to trip a wire setting off a bomb doing Aggravated damage.

My Character did managed to run to the showers to put out the fire that was on him, grabbed his few belongings before the authorities arrived, but that was probably the meanest trap I've ever encountered especially in the beginning of the campaign.

Too bad the game ended after a few sessions :(

Slipperychicken
2014-01-11, 02:50 PM
OWoD. Me playing as a Malk began the campaign by walking back to his apartment and found the windows to his room was open. Instinctively I went to close it only to trip a wire setting off a bomb doing Aggravated damage.


This is the kind of thing I think of when I think "trap", because if someone's trying to kill you on a budget, he isn't going to rig a room to slowly fill up with water.

Jay R
2014-01-12, 12:23 PM
Actually, I did exactly that. The DM simply ignored it.

At that moment, you have to decide if the DM is:
a. simply being stupid.
b. railroading you to where his next scene is, or
c. giving you an important clue that the "general" isn't what he claims to be, and it's just an excuse to attack you.

ReaderAt2046
2014-01-12, 05:56 PM
At that moment, you have to decide if the DM is:
a. simply being stupid.
b. railroading you to where his next scene is, or
c. giving you an important clue that the "general" isn't what he claims to be, and it's just an excuse to attack you.

Probably C. We found out later on that the general was a turncoat, and working for the Water Tribes.

Slipperychicken
2014-01-12, 06:04 PM
c. giving you an important clue that the "general" isn't what he claims to be, and it's just an excuse to attack you.

He already said the general was corrupt. Officials trump up charges like that all the time.

The Random NPC
2014-01-12, 07:21 PM
I'd think the General would choose a crime that's less ridiculous, like enemy sympathizer.

Threadnaught
2014-01-12, 08:01 PM
One time in an Avatar: The Last Airbender campaign, we were playing a group of Fire Nation characters trying to escape a corrupt general who'd accused my character of being an Earthbender (my character was a fanatical Firebender).

Really? That seems like a pretty easy thing to clear up.

General: "Prove you're not an Earthbender!"

PC: "OK." *bends fire*

Actually, I did exactly that. The DM simply ignored it.

Prove you're not an Earth Bender, prove you're not a Wizard, prove you're not an assassin sent to murder me in my sleep.
Prove there's no deity, no sandy claws, no ghosts, no aliens. In attempting to prove the existence of something, the greatest argument you can possibly make, is to challenge those who deny it's existence, to prove it doesn't exist. As it's impossible to go far enough, but it's all to easy to go too far.

Instead of proving that you knew how to Bend Fire, thus supporting that you're the Avatar. You should have proven that you are in fact a Fire Bender, and supported your position in the Fire Nation's military by killing the general with your Fire Bending.


Edit: Latest session.

After defeating an Atropal Scion, my players are handed a map on a stone tablet. One character out of all of 100 (including important and unimportant NPCs) is capable of reading and understanding it. It tells of some treasure hidden in an ancient super soldier research facility, said super soldiers are to be used as a weapon against all the civilization's enemies. Did I mention the map pulses because it has a heartbeat?
Strike one.
They travel to the fallen empire and dig their way into the facility and find a few low level traps still working, in order to avoid falling down a pit trap without attempting to jump over it, the Druid (yes, that guy) tries to bypass it by digging a path around it through the wall. He digs through one foot of stone when he reaches a layers of flesh, which begins to bleed as he digs into it.
Strike two.
The bleeding fleshwall scabs over. Mending the stone where the blood touches. So they continue on and get deeper into the research facility, they end up in a large chamber filled with sarcophagi. Each sarcophagus has on it a transparent plane, through which humanoid creatures can be viewed. They appear to be suspended in some liquid. Some of the humanoids look perfectly human, others look like the campaign setting's ultimate big bad. After finding several empty sarcophagi with varying levels of the liquid, to show how long their occupants had left. They hear banging from a nearby sarcophagus, they turn around to look at it's inhabitant who is furiously attempting to beat his way out, he notices them and is attempting to escape with increased ferocity in order to rid his home of it's intruders. He drowns in front of them, unable to escape.
Strike three.
My players are absolutely terrified right now, they expect Undead (my favourite Type) at any moment.

Then they see a pair of eyes in the dark. The owner of these eyes is very much alive.

Science is fun. :smallbiggrin:



Maybe I should run a horror campaign some time. :smallamused:

Jay R
2014-01-13, 12:38 AM
Probably C. We found out later on that the general was a turncoat, and working for the Water Tribes.

So showing him you were a firebender meant you were his enemy. His action was exactly correct.

ElenionAncalima
2014-01-13, 09:26 AM
We had a definite example of trolling from our Pathfinder GM.

We have a player who is a wizard that is geared towards crafting magic items. We had some downtime, so she has been working on crafting stuff for the party, as well as some stuff to sell at her shop.

During this time she recieved a letter from a potential patron, with a list of items that he would like her to craft for him, stating that he will pay her three times what the items are worth, as long as she keeps it on the downlow. While none of the items that he wants are illegal, together they paint a questionable picture. Some of the items include love potion, belt of charisma, magically binding shackles, Boots of Expiditious Retreat, ect.

The trolling is that he sent this invite to the one non-morally questionable player. The rest of us are doing the math and pointing out that she will be making 3 times the profit on something that she already only pays a 1/3 of the price to make. We also are trying to argue that none of the items are illegal and she could be jumping to the wrong conclusion. However, she is adamantly refusing on principal. She writes the man a polite letter, refusing the job.

A few weeks later she recieves another letter, stating that he badly needs these items and would be willing to pay ten times what they are worth. At this point the gold total is in the millions. We are basically meta-game trying to convince her to take it, just to screw the gm over...since he is clearly just messing with us and banking on her not taking it (we would be so over-wealthed it would break the game). She still refuses on principal.

To make matters worse, he has insinuated that theremight be a totally legitimate reason for the combination of items.

Angel Bob
2014-01-13, 09:44 AM
Edit: Latest session.

After defeating an Atropal Scion, my players are handed a map on a stone tablet. One character out of all of 100 (including important and unimportant NPCs) is capable of reading and understanding it. It tells of some treasure hidden in an ancient super soldier research facility, said super soldiers are to be used as a weapon against all the civilization's enemies. Did I mention the map pulses because it has a heartbeat?
Strike one.
They travel to the fallen empire and dig their way into the facility and find a few low level traps still working, in order to avoid falling down a pit trap without attempting to jump over it, the Druid (yes, that guy) tries to bypass it by digging a path around it through the wall. He digs through one foot of stone when he reaches a layers of flesh, which begins to bleed as he digs into it.
Strike two.
The bleeding fleshwall scabs over. Mending the stone where the blood touches. So they continue on and get deeper into the research facility, they end up in a large chamber filled with sarcophagi. Each sarcophagus has on it a transparent plane, through which humanoid creatures can be viewed. They appear to be suspended in some liquid. Some of the humanoids look perfectly human, others look like the campaign setting's ultimate big bad. After finding several empty sarcophagi with varying levels of the liquid, to show how long their occupants had left. They hear banging from a nearby sarcophagus, they turn around to look at it's inhabitant who is furiously attempting to beat his way out, he notices them and is attempting to escape with increased ferocity in order to rid his home of it's intruders. He drowns in front of them, unable to escape.
Strike three.
My players are absolutely terrified right now, they expect Undead (my favourite Type) at any moment.

Then they see a pair of eyes in the dark. The owner of these eyes is very much alive.

Science is fun. :smallbiggrin:



Maybe I should run a horror campaign some time. :smallamused:

Okay, this is suitably bizarre and frightening, which wins my approval... but I must be missing the connection to "Science is fun". What exactly was going on here? :smallconfused:

The Random NPC
2014-01-13, 10:39 AM
Okay, this is suitably bizarre and frightening, which wins my approval... but I must be missing the connection to "Science is fun". What exactly was going on here? :smallconfused:

I think SCIENCE! is happening (or has happened) to the BBEG, and they just brought a key component into the lab...

Threadnaught
2014-01-13, 04:16 PM
Okay, this is suitably bizarre and frightening, which wins my approval... but I must be missing the connection to "Science is fun". What exactly was going on here? :smallconfused:

Super soldier research facility.

The setting's ultimate BBEG was imprisoned and experimented on. Several biological samples were taken and integrated into new technologies as well as biological weapons like the aforementioned super soldiers.


Of course, the BBEG in question is just doing what it is supposed to do. Perceptions just paint it as the one being the world's nations are willing to unite against. Though the torture it endured twisted it's personality enough to make it enjoy what it does.



By the way the map is just a map. :smalltongue:

DSmaster21
2014-01-15, 10:42 AM
Although I am the normal DM for my group, we had just arrived in town with some lovely shinies early in a campaign and some of us were interested in spending while others wanted to "invest" (buy equipment geared toward stealth and upgrade to masterwork thieves to tools. So another player offered to handle the players who wanted to spend their money while I went in the other room to work with the rogues and such.

Anyway we (I do often have gmpcs mostly because I like to play and rarely do my friends want to dm.) are off robbing houses and such and narrowly make an escape and are heading back to the tavern/inn to meet the others when my friend calls from the other room saying he doesn't know how to handle the situation.

I arrive back in the other room and am brought up to speed on the current situation. Evidently the barbarian decided he needed to go potty and asks the innkeep where the bathroom is (forgetting of course that a bathroom is where the bath is and the latrine outside is what he should have asked for.) So he is pointed upstairs and the Temp-DM describes the nameplates on the doors as soon as the word bathroom leaves his mouth the barbarian announces that he will undo his pants and go in. Temp-DM had mapped the building out and the bathroom he entered was the women's bathroom. He walks in pants on the floor just as an elven woman steps out of the bath. At this point I am called back in.

I say that the women opens her mouth to scream and the barbarian says I interrupt her and try to intimidate her into silence. He even said in character what his barbarian said. (It was almost a year ago) He then rolls rather high an 18-19 I think and so the player stands up and does a pelvic thrust and since he was just acting in-character I took that to be as well. I said that the woman started to back up pleading with him to stay back and then she slipped and fell with a scream and hit her head and passed out. I was intending for him to pull up his trousers and make a run for it before anyone arrived. Nope he says his character will go over to check on her. So the concerned patrons run in to see a half-naked half-orc leaning over a unconscious elven woman. So he got arrested. And then we had to flee town because we decided to bust him out.

Yeah, I consider that to be one of my few evil me stories because most of my players are quite sensible and don't require being hit over the head with bricks made of clues for them to do anything. I do have some stories about how I interact with one player in particular though but I am not sure whether I would consider myself evil for it because when I do something to screw them (him) it is usually because they (he) did something first.

Manly Man
2014-01-15, 10:48 AM
I once had a DM who liked to hang the threat of rape over the heads of any female characters wherever they went. I didn't stay for very long.

BeerMug Paladin
2014-01-15, 11:42 AM
I once had a DM who liked to hang the threat of rape over the heads of any female characters wherever they went. I didn't stay for very long.
Whoa, you met one of the designers of FATAL?

A Pathfinder game I'm currently running is low magic and low power (It's based in the Wesnoth setting). The party healer is one of those fixed-spell-choice dealies (an oracle) and so can't select any spell which might be convenient for the players to have periodic access to.

One player failed a blindness/deafness fortitude save and has no way to reverse its effects. Since it's a low power setting, there are no nearby NPCs they can pay to remove or heal it. The character is therefore blind for the foreseeable future. He is built as an archer.

The Glyphstone
2014-01-15, 11:47 AM
Whoa, you met one of the designers of FATAL?

A Pathfinder game I'm currently running is low magic and low power (It's based in the Wesnoth setting). The party healer is one of those fixed-spell-choice dealies (an oracle) and so can't select any spell which might be convenient for the players to have periodic access to.

One player failed a blindness/deafness fortitude save and has no way to reverse its effects. Since it's a low power setting, there are no nearby NPCs they can pay to remove or heal it. The character is therefore blind for the foreseeable future. He is built as an archer.

A setting whose power is just high enough to cast the level 3 spell Blindness/Deadness, but too low for anyone to be able to cast the level 3 spell Remove Blindness/Deafness? That is a very specific level of power.:smallconfused:

Slipperychicken
2014-01-15, 11:52 AM
A setting whose power is just high enough to cast the level 3 spell Blindness/Deadness, but too low for anyone to be able to cast the level 3 spell Remove Blindness/Deafness? That is a very specific level of power.:smallconfused:

Or the 3rd level spell Dispel Magic, for that matter.

And you can't just torture the original caster until he dismisses the effect? Because the duration is Permanent (D).

BeerMug Paladin
2014-01-15, 12:20 PM
A setting whose power is just high enough to cast the level 3 spell Blindness/Deadness, but too low for anyone to be able to cast the level 3 spell Remove Blindness/Deafness? That is a very specific level of power.:smallconfused:
5th level characters are fairly rare in the setting. Like I said, low power. Also, the problem isn't that they couldn't get a cure from a cleric of suitable level, it's that there aren't any near where the party is at.

Blindness/Deafness is also a 2nd level wizard spell, which is the class of the NPC who cast it.

Or the 3rd level spell Dispel Magic, for that matter.

And you can't just torture the original caster until he dismisses the effect? Because the duration is Permanent (D).
The party doesn't have that spell in any of their lists. And the original caster is dead because the party didn't think to try that. I don't ever remember reading the Permanent (D) spells end when the original caster of them dies, but I don't think I've ever run things or had them run that way before.

The Fury
2014-01-15, 01:33 PM
A Pathfinder game I'm currently running is low magic and low power (It's based in the Wesnoth setting). The party healer is one of those fixed-spell-choice dealies (an oracle) and so can't select any spell which might be convenient for the players to have periodic access to.

One player failed a blindness/deafness fortitude save and has no way to reverse its effects. Since it's a low power setting, there are no nearby NPCs they can pay to remove or heal it. The character is therefore blind for the foreseeable future. He is built as an archer.

Well, thankfully the player's actually been really cool about what happened. What's weird is that thanks to some pretty amazing luck, the blindness isn't actually as big a setback as it reasonably should be. Crazy. And hey, to our credit we're working on finding a cleric that can cast Remove Blindness/Deafness!

Slipperychicken
2014-01-15, 01:37 PM
Well, thankfully the player's actually been really cool about what happened. What's weird is that thanks to some pretty amazing luck, the blindness isn't actually as big a setback as it reasonably should be. Crazy. And hey, to our credit we're working on finding a cleric that can cast Remove Blindness/Deafness!

You guys should totally pump his Listen checks and maybe dip Warblade to get "Hearing the Air" so he can pinpoint people without vision. Then have him be a blind archer and win at everything.

GybeMark
2014-01-15, 01:43 PM
Samshiir, I love your doppleganger story...

Mine is a bit of a long one:

Our characters woke up at the beginning of the adventure and were told that we had been drugged with multiple poisons. The hook was that the poisons were all "in balance" for now, and the we could do things normally, but as the adventure went on, some poisons would break down and we would succumb to the others (suffer greater and greater penalties until death). This was also the (DM fiat) reason something like neutralize poison wouldn't work -- it would neutralize some poisons before others, and we would die from the remaining ones.

All this was a device of course. We (the players, as well as the characters) had a number of coloured liquids in front of us and had to collect clues throughout the adventure as to what the correct mixture was to cure ourselves. That part was actually pretty fun, as the DM had set up shot glasses with different boozes/mixers.

Some of the clues were good puzzles, but most were too involved for my taste (decoding cryptograms, logic puzzles, etc). One clue was different from all the others in that it was very simple... "green is a component of the antidote". Once we collected all the clues, they didn't make sense -- there was no possible solution for the other clues to "work" if we include the green vial, but that was the one we KNEW to be correct. Some failed fort saves, and one dead PC later, we figured out that blue + yellow = green. Back to kindergarten for us...

The Fury
2014-01-15, 01:51 PM
You guys should totally pump his Listen checks and maybe dip Warblade to get "Hearing the Air" so he can pinpoint people without vision. Then have him be a blind archer and win at everything.

Eh. He's not my character and I don't like telling other players what to do with theirs. Besides, if this player's seriously thinking about going the blind archer route, he's probably already thought of stuff like this.

illyahr
2014-01-15, 03:21 PM
A fun little trap room I created a while back had a Doppleganger Rogue who had a Hat of Disguise and a Blindfold of True Darkness. He was in a funhouse mirror maze, but the mirrors were magical. Any time one of them was struck, it would cast Mirror Image on whoever hit it. Mirrors had 15 HP, DR 10/cold iron, and resistance 10 to all energy types except sonic.

Doppleganger would wait until someone attacked his reflection, then use his Hat of Disguise to hide among the copies. His Blindfold of True Darkness gave him Blindsense so he could still attack the original characters without penalty.

I was trying to make the party bard feel relevant with his range of sonic based attacks. The party thought it great fun to play some metal music while the bard went crazy with Sonic Burst. :smallsmile:

stavro375
2014-01-15, 08:26 PM
A Pathfinder game I'm currently running is low magic and low power (It's based in the Wesnoth setting).
Suddenly I want to know how you turned LotR Wesnoth into a low magic setting.



After defeating an Atropal Scion, my players are handed a map on a stone tablet. One character out of all of 100 (including important and unimportant NPCs) is capable of reading and understanding it. It tells of some treasure hidden in an ancient super soldier research facility, said super soldiers are to be used as a weapon against all the civilization's enemies. Did I mention the map pulses because it has a heartbeat?
Strike one.
They travel to the fallen empire and dig their way into the facility and find a few low level traps still working, in order to avoid falling down a pit trap without attempting to jump over it, the Druid (yes, that guy) tries to bypass it by digging a path around it through the wall. He digs through one foot of stone when he reaches a layers of flesh, which begins to bleed as he digs into it.
Strike two.
The bleeding fleshwall scabs over. Mending the stone where the blood touches. So they continue on and get deeper into the research facility, they end up in a large chamber filled with sarcophagi. Each sarcophagus has on it a transparent plane, through which humanoid creatures can be viewed. They appear to be suspended in some liquid. Some of the humanoids look perfectly human, others look like the campaign setting's ultimate big bad. After finding several empty sarcophagi with varying levels of the liquid, to show how long their occupants had left. They hear banging from a nearby sarcophagus, they turn around to look at it's inhabitant who is furiously attempting to beat his way out, he notices them and is attempting to escape with increased ferocity in order to rid his home of it's intruders. He drowns in front of them, unable to escape.
Strike three.
My players are absolutely terrified right now, they expect Undead (my favourite Type) at any moment.

Then they see a pair of eyes in the dark. The owner of these eyes is very much alive.

Science is fun. :smallbiggrin:



Maybe I should run a horror campaign some time. :smallamused:
Instead, you should try to ramp up the tension/horror/TPK potential of each quest hook until your party reacts to one by screaming "NOPENOPENOPE" and running away.

BeerMug Paladin
2014-01-16, 05:33 AM
Samshiir, I love your doppleganger story...

Mine is a bit of a long one:

Our characters woke up at the beginning of the adventure and were told that we had been drugged with multiple poisons. The hook was that the poisons were all "in balance" for now, and the we could do things normally, but as the adventure went on, some poisons would break down and we would succumb to the others (suffer greater and greater penalties until death). This was also the (DM fiat) reason something like neutralize poison wouldn't work -- it would neutralize some poisons before others, and we would die from the remaining ones.

All this was a device of course. We (the players, as well as the characters) had a number of coloured liquids in front of us and had to collect clues throughout the adventure as to what the correct mixture was to cure ourselves. That part was actually pretty fun, as the DM had set up shot glasses with different boozes/mixers.

Some of the clues were good puzzles, but most were too involved for my taste (decoding cryptograms, logic puzzles, etc). One clue was different from all the others in that it was very simple... "green is a component of the antidote". Once we collected all the clues, they didn't make sense -- there was no possible solution for the other clues to "work" if we include the green vial, but that was the one we KNEW to be correct. Some failed fort saves, and one dead PC later, we figured out that blue + yellow = green. Back to kindergarten for us...
"Guys, guys! I found out if you mix blue and yellow you get an entirely new color! I call it... Blellow!"

As I was reading this, I was expecting this to work out differently. I thought it wasn't making sense at the time because none of the players were even poisoned.

I was expecting the antidotes were the actual poisons.

Suddenly I want to know how you turned LotR Wesnoth into a low magic setting.
Simple. Super-scant treasure and magic items and levels from Wesnoth generally arrive in Pathfinder like this.
Lvl 1 -> (1-2)
lvl 2 -> (3-5)
lvl 3 -> (6-8)
lvl 4 -> (9-11)
lvl 5 -> (higher)
Considering level 2 units in Wesnoth are fairly hard to get and level 3 units are even rare treasures, most every character in the setting has 1 or 2 levels only. Levels 3-5 are the levels of the most important npcs for the campaign. Higher than that is only a few people in the setting, period.

As the party is level 6 right now, that makes the party canonically more competent and powerful right now than just about anyone they've ever met. Because magic is so rare, the party sorcerer is going to take an item crafting feat.

In one or two more levels (assuming they survive) they're going to likely be setting renown heroes and go down in history as some of the most important people who ever lived. By that point the campaign will probably end and they'll also canonically be 'capped' at their retirement level for the rest of their earned, peaceful lives. You know, if I decide to run a sequel campaign 30-60 years later.

Warior4356
2014-01-25, 11:16 PM
I love that transformation of the setting. You win one cookie.

YossarianLives
2014-01-26, 09:07 PM
One time I made the party delve into a old haunted manor.

It turned out there were no ghosts. Just swarms and swarms of intelligent badgers.

They hated me soooooooooo much

HardcoreD&Dgirl
2014-01-26, 09:46 PM
I once had a DM who liked to hang the threat of rape over the heads of any female characters wherever they went. I didn't stay for very long.

I played a Deadlands game with a jerk who had taken the flaw RANDY on his character sheet. He not only made sexist comments about my character but once out of game decided to 'LARP' trying to feel up my character... once he stood back up and got ice for his jaw he was pissed. He took it out on me in game even after everyone (finally) said he went too far.

In game his Native Shaman tried to Rape my Texas Ranger with a power that says if he touches me I fall asleep... but when I read it I wake up to any physical trama, I argued rape would do it. I almost killed his character (he got away chipping the damage and hid).

so in game the next time I saw him I drew both pistols, called initiative, got 4 cards, used 2 for Loaded for bear (upgraded my 3d6 pistol to 3d10 pistols) then used my last card to fire 4 shots... all called shot head.

The DM said "WHAAAIT. this has gone too far you can't kill each other..."

My response "Are you kidding, in what world do you think My character can not do this?":smallfurious:

The DM said "What can I do to stop this."

I decided to end it right then and there by quitting the game. I found out that the game didn't make it much farther anyway....

Winds
2014-01-26, 10:01 PM
I played a Deadlands game with a jerk who had taken the flaw RANDY on his character sheet. He not only made sexist comments about my character but once out of game decided to 'LARP' trying to feel up my character... once he stood back up and got ice for his jaw he was pissed. He took it out on me in game even after everyone (finally) said he went too far.

In game his Native Shaman tried to Rape my Texas Ranger with a power that says if he touches me I fall asleep... but when I read it I wake up to any physical trama, I argued rape would do it. I almost killed his character (he got away chipping the damage and hid).

so in game the next time I saw him I drew both pistols, called initiative, got 4 cards, used 2 for Loaded for bear (upgraded my 3d6 pistol to 3d10 pistols) then used my last card to fire 4 shots... all called shot head.

The DM said "WHAAAIT. this has gone too far you can't kill each other..."

My response "Are you kidding, in what world do you think My character can not do this?":smallfurious:

The DM said "What can I do to stop this."

I decided to end it right then and there by quitting the game. I found out that the game didn't make it much farther anyway....


...Because someone in the group getting decked hard enough to fall to the floor wasn't a hint that maybe that isn't an appropriate theme?

souridealist
2014-01-26, 11:26 PM
@HardcoreD&DGirl - can't blame you for any of it, what a scumbag. "Randy" is not the same as "rapist," holy hell.

On-topic: One time I had a DM who managed to get every player character more or less dancing to the tune of a different evil being.

- Our warlock had the Hand of Vecna attached and occasionally taking control of him to kill those good enough at learning secrets to annoy Vecna
- our wizard had an artifact spellbook full of nastiness (it required blood sacrifices to unlock more nasty, DM-created spells, and he didn't pump it up enough to really get it going, but what it had was bad enough)
- I had a major-artifact intelligent dagger named Dosan, the Drinker of Souls, and oh but that was a manipulative little f***
- and our fanatical cleric was getting personal favors from someone we thought was Pelor. Spoiler alert: IT WAS NOT.
It was, in fact, Asmodeus.

Oh, and by the end of the campaign we were on a mission from the gods, who were planning to use-and-kill us because if we could complete the mission, we were just too powerful to be safe...


Don't get me wrong, it was a fun game, but I came home each week with my brain wrung out.

Warior4356
2014-01-27, 01:55 AM
@HardcoreD&DGirl - can't blame you for any of it, what a scumbag. "Randy" is not the same as "rapist," holy hell.

On-topic: One time I had a DM who managed to get every player character more or less dancing to the tune of a different evil being.

- Our warlock had the Hand of Vecna attached and occasionally taking control of him to kill those good enough at learning secrets to annoy Vecna
- our wizard had an artifact spellbook full of nastiness (it required blood sacrifices to unlock more nasty, DM-created spells, and he didn't pump it up enough to really get it going, but what it had was bad enough)
- I had a major-artifact intelligent dagger named Dosan, the Drinker of Souls, and oh but that was a manipulative little f***
- and our fanatical cleric was getting personal favors from someone we thought was Pelor. Spoiler alert: IT WAS NOT.
It was, in fact, Asmodeus.

Oh, and by the end of the campaign we were on a mission from the gods, who were planning to use-and-kill us because if we could complete the mission, we were just too powerful to be safe...


Don't get me wrong, it was a fun game, but I came home each week with my brain wrung out.

Well come dont leave us hanging give us some details on the campign you hooked me.

Raine_Sage
2014-01-27, 02:59 AM
Oh oh I actually have a story for this.

So I'm running the campaign in question and want to find a way to introduce the players to a plot hook dealing with a growing crime syndicate taking root in the city. Now one of the characters is an Assassin who pretends to be a bard in order to avoid getting slapped in irons the day after they set foot in the city. He's very good at bluffing so the city guards are happy to welcome this perfectly humble bard into their midst.

He starts dating one of the named NPCs on said guard and early quest givers named Jake and after levels 1-3 their relationship becomes mostly a piece of background fluff, occasionally brought up but more or less just something to add some depth to the character and everyone in the group thinks it's pretty cute.

So I'm thinking, hm a crime syndicate would want to remove any honest guardsmen from the ranks. And who better to do that than an assassin. So one session Aerin (the assassin) gets a note from his guild contact about a job. He isn't given a name or a face, just a specific time and location and the knowledge that the target will be wearing a heavy black cloak when he arrives. Despite all the secrecy Aerin still takes the contract and heads to said location to wait for the mark. Sure enough he sees a tall figure in a hooded black cloak leave one of the houses at the designated time and is about to fire an arrow when a well timed gust of wind blows back the hood revealing the mystery mark to be none other than his boyfriend.

I have never heard a group of players all shout "NO!" in unison like that before. The assassin's player actually got really upset about the thought of having inadvertently killed his boyfriend so the arrow only grazed him, as a result of Aerin pulling the shot at the last minute. Aerin then proceeds to run like hell and manages to get back safely. Sure enough the next day his boyfriend comes over to tell him about the crazy night he had last evening and gee there sure have been a lot of shady happenings going on recently...

Plot hook successfully introduced, at the cost of giving half the table a minor heart attack. I honestly didn't think they'd grown so attached.

RurouniKakita
2014-01-27, 05:50 PM
Oh oh I actually have a story for this.

So I'm running the campaign in question and want to find a way to introduce the players to a plot hook dealing with a growing crime syndicate taking root in the city. Now one of the characters is an Assassin who pretends to be a bard in order to avoid getting slapped in irons the day after they set foot in the city. He's very good at bluffing so the city guards are happy to welcome this perfectly humble bard into their midst.

He starts dating one of the named NPCs on said guard and early quest givers named Jake and after levels 1-3 their relationship becomes mostly a piece of background fluff, occasionally brought up but more or less just something to add some depth to the character and everyone in the group thinks it's pretty cute.

So I'm thinking, hm a crime syndicate would want to remove any honest guardsmen from the ranks. And who better to do that than an assassin. So one session Aerin (the assassin) gets a note from his guild contact about a job. He isn't given a name or a face, just a specific time and location and the knowledge that the target will be wearing a heavy black cloak when he arrives. Despite all the secrecy Aerin still takes the contract and heads to said location to wait for the mark. Sure enough he sees a tall figure in a hooded black cloak leave one of the houses at the designated time and is about to fire an arrow when a well timed gust of wind blows back the hood revealing the mystery mark to be none other than his boyfriend.

I have never heard a group of players all shout "NO!" in unison like that before. The assassin's player actually got really upset about the thought of having inadvertently killed his boyfriend so the arrow only grazed him, as a result of Aerin pulling the shot at the last minute. Aerin then proceeds to run like hell and manages to get back safely. Sure enough the next day his boyfriend comes over to tell him about the crazy night he had last evening and gee there sure have been a lot of shady happenings going on recently...

Plot hook successfully introduced, at the cost of giving half the table a minor heart attack. I honestly didn't think they'd grown so attached.

I wouldn't put that under Evil DM story but awesome plot hook introduction. To be evil you would have had to leave the identity of the target of the hit till after they where killed and had the PC live with the fact they killed their boyfriend.

souridealist
2014-01-27, 07:03 PM
Well come dont leave us hanging give us some details on the campign you hooked me.

Awww! I guess the entire campaign is basically one long Evil DM Story, so:

Basically, we were hired to take out a previous (epic-level) player party, who had come into possession of rings that made them untouchable to the gods, at least directly. As they'd already killed one god of lust (who, I believe, was an ascended member of yet another party - the DM ran all his games in the same universe) this made the pantheon PRETTY NERVOUS. So they hired us to take them out. And then planned on killing us, to avoid creating the same problem over again. Meanwhile:

- Vecna, via the hand (and later eye), would occasionally use our warlock to kill anyone who was spreading truth and secrets around the mortal world, or who just knew more than Vecna liked to have people know. Sooo, most of the people who could help us work out where the plot was going. (The girl playing the warlock roleplayed the everloving Hell out of it, it was great.)
- Asmodeus was trying to turn us all against the gods, and making some pretty good points considering, you know, we were on the gods' hit list even if we did everything they said; he got the warlock and the wizard both on this side (along with a druid who I didn't mention before because she was a late entrant and couldn't make it to a lot of sessions; she was pretty much an evil power in her own right)
- The cleric never really sided with Asmodeus, and was determined to continue serving the gods, but was willing to use the gifts of Asmodeus to do so. "I'll take the flowers, but don't call me." (DM explained, post-game, that she was the subject of a bet between Asmodeus and Pelor.) It almost didn't matter, since she was an absolute fanatic and spent most of the game getting progressively more unhinged. When interparty conflict led to the warlock fleeing the area, she razed a city to bring him back.
- and my dagger, Dosan, just wanted to kill as many things as possible and annihilate their souls, making them permanently gone, unresurructable, without an afterlife, et cetera. Whether or not I really wanted to kill them, although mostly I had some very strong moral objections to destroying souls.

The end result was that I decided that if I was going to be a helpless pawn of someone, it might as well be the gods, and also that they had a point with the "too powerful to be allowed to exist for the sake of the common good" thing. So I got the ability to kill everything around - myself included. Used it in the middle of the final confrontation, with the whole party also attempting to use me to help kill the BBEGs and then take me out, since the warlock had both the Hand and Eye of Vecna and could just know what I was planning.

...it was long enough ago that I really cannot emphasize how well most of the chaos came from the DM playing us against each other. My character was not a natural backstabber; she was a CG grumpy painfully lonely halfling who considered her party the only people she had in the world. And the DM still got me to try my best to wipe them from existence. The guy was a legend on campus.

Individual moments:
- "Great! Roll every type of save." (This happened twice in one session. I searched every single thing twice after that.)
- Cleric: To demonstrate my God-given powers, I turn into an angel.
DM: Great! You turn into an angel. Everyone else, she turns into a pit fiend.
- "He's holding a strange, metallic rod, thick and heavy. [It was a heavy bolter from a different campaign setting.] He turns around and unloads it into the cleric."
- "Of course, the gods now know that you're considering a bargain with Asmodeus to turn against them. Think fast."
- "Is there anything I can do to not die?" "You could try cutting off your leg." (Enemy wizard cast an epic-level spell with a name along the lines of Necrotize Tissue. Our wizard did not make his fortitude save.)
- "I'm getting rid of this dagger as soon as I can." "Okay. I'm sure it'll be really easy to get rid of an intelligent artifact dagger with the returning enchantment, but good luck with that." "....."

I know there's some great "Aw, crap" moments that I'm forgetting - it was around a year ago.

Warior4356
2014-01-27, 09:19 PM
That is awesome

Mr Beer
2014-01-27, 09:25 PM
In game his Native Shaman tried to Rape my Texas Ranger with a power that says if he touches me I fall asleep... but when I read it I wake up to any physical trama, I argued rape would do it. I almost killed his character (he got away chipping the damage and hid).

so in game the next time I saw him I drew both pistols, called initiative, got 4 cards, used 2 for Loaded for bear (upgraded my 3d6 pistol to 3d10 pistols) then used my last card to fire 4 shots... all called shot head.

The DM said "WHAAAIT. this has gone too far you can't kill each other..."

My response "Are you kidding, in what world do you think My character can not do this?":smallfurious:

LOL, if he's cool letting characters rape each other, he should certainly be OK with revenge murders.

Raine_Sage
2014-01-27, 09:54 PM
I wouldn't put that under Evil DM story but awesome plot hook introduction. To be evil you would have had to leave the identity of the target of the hit till after they where killed and had the PC live with the fact they killed their boyfriend.

Haha, I was originally planning that though, but crossed it out because I didn't want to emotionally break the character. The group role plays seriously, he probably would have turned himself into the town guard the next day for suicide via execution. (player confirmed later that yeah they probably would have needed to roll a new guy if it had gone down that way).

It still feels evil to me because everyone had such a huge NOPE reaction. I kind of wish I'd thought to take a picture.

veti
2014-01-27, 11:01 PM
The DM said "WHAAAIT. this has gone too far you can't kill each other..."

That's not so much an evil DM, as an incompetent DM failing to deal with an evil player. I'm not surprised the campaign didn't go the distance.

("can't kill each other"? Really, why not? You've got the skills, you've got the weapons, you've got the opportunity. "Gone too far" - yeah, if you're going to draw an arbitrary PvP line, then it should probably have come sometime before "attempted rape".)

The Glyphstone
2014-01-27, 11:09 PM
That's not so much an evil DM, as an incompetent DM failing to deal with an evil player. I'm not surprised the campaign didn't go the distance.

("can't kill each other"? Really, why not? You've got the skills, you've got the weapons, you've got the opportunity. "Gone too far" - yeah, if you're going to draw an arbitrary PvP line, then it should probably have come sometime before "attempted rape".)

It should come before "out-of-game groping", actually...

Mr Beer
2014-01-27, 11:47 PM
I mean, I would certainly veto the character on character rape scene as described but assuming my bizarro world self had allowed it the previous game or something, I would ensure that the intended retribution would go ahead smoothly and fatally.

Samshiir
2014-01-27, 11:47 PM
I started running a new Hunter: The Vigil game for my buddies this weekend. There were 4 players, each playing a Hunter.

I started the game with a mission briefing from their commander, telling them that an allied spy was captured and being detained in a room on the second floor of a hotel. Their mission was to get in, take out any hostiles, and get her out.

The mission went well at first. The team first captured the security room of the rather high-tech hotel (I run my WoD with roughly Marvel-level tech). Using that, the team located the spy and saw that there were several men with pistols, assault rifles, SMGs, and a shotgun guarding the room she was in. Some men were in a room playing poker, while a few more men were guarding the spy in the room adjacent to that. The team would have to move through the room with the men playing poker before they could get to the room with the spy in it.

The team executed the first room very efficiently, taking most of the poker-players down before they even knew what was going on. Unfortunately, this meant that the guards in the spy's room knew that something was coming.

The team was smart, though, and decided to have one player climb outside the window, climb over to the neighboring window, and ambush the room from the outside while the rest of the team blasted through the front door.

All hell broke loose, and there was a major firefight. The Hunters took bullets to their armor and shot down some of their enemies, but the enemies had made superior cover from tables and were using the spy as a human-shield.

When the villians threatened to kill the spy by putting a pistol to her temple, one of the Hunters decided to sprint in and rescue her, even though he knew this would make him an open target to the combined firepower of his enemies. He made a quick, makeshift plan with the Hunter outside the window. The window-shooter made a called-shot to the head of the villian that was holding the spy, killing him. When he dropped, the Hunter that charged through the fire tackled the spy, knocking her prone, and the Hunter used his high-tech armor to protect her from enemy fire.

Then the spy...suddenly 'vamped out' (Think Buffyverse style, :smalltongue:) and bit the Hunter. The Hunter was so wounded at this point that he was taking serious penalties, I also stripped him of his Defense since he was prone, and gave the Vampire "Spy" massive bonuses because the Hunter was laying on her. The player reluctantly agreed, and took the damage like a champ. Even though it was only one Health drained, it was enough to knock the Hunter out, which quickly led to the end of his life, since the rest of the team were still dealing with the firefight.

-The player was exstatic that he managed to die in the very first session. (This is not the first time I've done this in a game.) He was angry at himself because he thought back to earlier things I had said about the spy that were obvious hints (in retrospect) that she was a Vampire. After finishing up the remainder of the fight (to include the rest of the team taking down the Vampire with relative difficulty), the dead-character's player started making a new character.

I told him that there was no need, because the Vampire digitally disappears, the villians digitally disappear, the walls and the hotel and the team's weapons and armor all digitally disappear, as well.

The team's commander walked into the training room, pulls up the "dead" character, and starts yelling at him (Samuel Jackson style) about how he should not have fallen for that simple trick. As a Hunter, he should have known that the girl was a Vampire, and that "every single nooblet soldier that runs that training exercise falls for that trap and 'dies'".


...The player was angrier when he knew I didn't kill his character than when he thought I did... especially after I turned my laptop toward him and showed him my notes of the chapter, which were dated several days prior, proving that the training scenario was my plan all along and that I didn't just DM-God my way out of a PC-Death.

I have ran that scenario several times in my DMing career, and I must say that the "Every single nooblet soldier that runs that training exercise falls for that trap and dies" statement is absolutely true.

The Glyphstone
2014-01-27, 11:55 PM
So, I'm not entirely clear why the character's choice was a bad one. Their mission is to extract the spy, presumably alive. If he's wearing body armor and she isn't, that makes using his armor to protect them both a sound tactical option. Presumably she had a Blush active, so short of certain Tier 3 Conspiracy powers, he wouldn't have had any way to determine she was a vampire, and thus their extraction mission had already failed before they were even sent in.

If they were deliberately sent to rescue an 'allied' known vampire, but not told this, that's even worse - their 'commander' intentionally gave them bad intel so that they would 'die'.

Samshiir
2014-01-28, 12:04 AM
So, I'm not entirely clear why the character's choice was a bad one. Their mission is to extract the spy, presumably alive. If he's wearing body armor and she isn't, that makes using his armor to protect them both a sound tactical option. Presumably she had a Blush active, so short of certain Tier 3 Conspiracy powers, he wouldn't have had any way to determine she was a vampire, and thus their extraction mission had already failed before they were even sent in.

If they were deliberately sent to rescue an 'allied' known vampire, but not told this, that's even worse - their 'commander' intentionally gave them bad intel so that they would 'die'.

It was just a test to see how well the group pays attention to the hints that I drop about her being a Vampire, such as very pale skin, extreme calmness. The commander even told them that there was a significant possibility of Vampires on the mission, and issued the team incendiary bullets. Of course, they ignored the hints and took the mission at face value.

Now, that is not to say that the player made a poor decision. He executed his mission to the letter, and suffered because he didn't pick up on my clues to the twist. I make the game's scenarios, but I don't write in how the group executes their way through them.

I will use the knowledge of these players that I gained this chapter to tailor future chapters of the game to the their needs.

EDIT: I think it should also be noted that this was the first time I've ran WoD, and none of my players had played WoD before. The other times I ran that scenario were in SWSE.

The Glyphstone
2014-01-28, 12:14 AM
It still seems a little unfair to have the commander chewing out the newbie for falling for the 'trap' when it was baited with incomplete mission info....though if they knew the spy had been captured by vampires/vampire minions, and ignored all the hints that she had already been compromised, I guess there is no excuse.

Samshiir
2014-01-28, 12:19 AM
It still seems a little unfair to have the commander chewing out the newbie for falling for the 'trap' when it was baited with incomplete mission info....though if they knew the spy had been captured by vampires/vampire minions, and ignored all the hints that she had already been compromised, I guess there is no excuse.

The commander chewing the character out was a real-world joke. I had based the character off a friend of ours that the entire group knows and loves. It was all in good fun! :smallcool:

The Glyphstone
2014-01-28, 12:36 AM
Alrighty then.

Though I do agree it is an Evil DM story.:smallsmile:

TuggyNE
2014-01-28, 01:57 AM
Alrighty then.

Though I do agree it is an Evil DM story.:smallsmile:

That's the thing about these stories, a lot of them are so evil (or otherwise boggling) they break through one's reserve of "oh yeah, this is supposed to be a thread of horrors" and make you go "WHAT?!?"

BeerMug Paladin
2014-01-28, 02:36 AM
That's the thing about these stories, a lot of them are so evil (or otherwise boggling) they break through one's reserve of "oh yeah, this is supposed to be a thread of horrors" and make you go "WHAT?!?"
My thoughts exactly. I once started a campaign by throwing a first level party in a jail a full day's travel into a giant crocodile infested swamp, and the guard on duty was a single skeleton wearing full plate and wielding a bastard sword. (Crazy-high AC!) I think the party consisted of two barbarians and a rogue. (No turning undead, no healing and no magic missile!)

One character died in the escape and subsequent return to the city. That's basically about as evil as I've ever been so far. But I have plans.

Oh yes, I have plans, indeed.

Warior4356
2014-01-28, 03:35 AM
Im going to contribute something that happened to me as a player. This was a forgotten realms campaign to start off. Our party was about level 4 at the time and the church of pelor hired us to kill some ogres attacking a towns livestock. However when we got there we learned the cleric in town converted them and they worshipped pelor. However they were still eating live stock. They did not know any better, to make matters even more morally confusing a paladin showed up to help us. He was about level 10. Basicly it all went to violence at once, the problem was each player though some else had the right idea. A few of us went for the ogres i held back doing nothing as the druid (neutrality and all,) so the cleric and mage and fighter along with the high level paladin started slaughtering the ogres. This was all well and good until the paladin said something I dont remember what, it pissed off our chaotic neutral bard. (As a player he is slightly unhinged so he rp the character perfectly). He decides to pull out the magic item we found last dungeon since it was a magic instrument we let him hang on to it, this was a horn of valhalla. He blows it. 7 level 3 barbarians appear and proceed to kill the paladin with alot of good rolls. So now the npc preist is pissed the ogres are dead as is the high level paladin. So we take his body and the preist back to the main temple. He gets ressed and after we explain everything to the church we get paid and the paladin lets it go.

The point of this story is the whole adventure is one huge mind ****.

Marlowe
2014-01-28, 10:28 AM
I've had a dungeon explode due to the BBEG converting the entire mass of the place to Chlorine Trifloride

To be fair, she gave the PCs warning, and gave them a way out.

Ionbound
2014-01-28, 10:52 AM
Good ol' CF3...Not as fun as FOOF, but it's pretty close.

Warior4356
2014-01-28, 03:12 PM
I used create matter to make a cubic foot of francium one time we were in a dungeon fighting a bbeg not smart just mean and tentacly I showed the dm the math of the francium. he cried a little. we are no longer allowed to use chemistry

EDIT: Also worst thing to make with create matter ever is dioxygen difluoride (O2F2)

Threadnaught
2014-01-28, 09:01 PM
That's the thing about these stories, a lot of them are so evil (or otherwise boggling) they break through one's reserve of "oh yeah, this is supposed to be a thread of horrors" and make you go "WHAT?!?"

Including mine?


I once started a campaign by throwing a first level party in a jail a full day's travel into a giant crocodile infested swamp, and the guard on duty was a single skeleton wearing full plate and wielding a bastard sword. (Crazy-high AC!) I think the party consisted of two barbarians and a rogue. (No turning undead, no healing and no magic missile!)

I like to remind my players about that time a CR1 Human Skeleton (with a Great Axe) almost killed the 2nd level Druid. I especially like to remind them that they only survived because I called off the Skeleton, citing that it had been ordered to drive of intruders, not destroy/kill them and it had driven both characters away. That ******* Druid still argued about it though, until I asked him if he'd prefer it if I'd killed his character. Oh yes. :smallamused:

The other player had a 3rd level Wizard (he spent less time melodramatically roleplaying) at the time, who was largely ignored during combat, for not attacking the Skeleton until it retaliated against the Druid. He could've probably taken the Skeleton, even if most of his Spells were Cold based. If I didn't use Undead so much, maybe people would've called him Cornetto. :smallcool:

TuggyNE
2014-01-28, 10:25 PM
Including mine?

Nah, that's just creepy and weird. :smalltongue:

USS Sorceror
2014-01-28, 10:54 PM
I sent my players up against a character who was 8 levels higher than them in my Pathfinder campaign. I admit this as a mistake, but the party sorcerer didn't take kindly to needing to be reincarnated.

Threadnaught
2014-01-29, 08:12 AM
Nah, that's just creepy and weird. :smalltongue:

Aww. :smallfrown:

Should I remind you that the super soldier research facility is only the most recent event in the tale of that ******* Druid and his Wizard friend?
Oh yes, the campaign setting is a powder keg, and there's a dozen people ready to light the fuse. :smallamused:
Not even a pair of Tier 1s (in my players' hands) can stop an army of Psions, a barbarian invasion, a walking mountain of ice (Ice Assassin of God of Destruction... Kinda), the entire Sahuagin military with a Kraken's backing, a desert infestation and a Demonic invasion. All independent of eachother, but at the same time.
On top of all that, the God of Destruction is to be released and he is pissed at how the lesser creatures (including the other gods) have treated the world.

"I would feel bad about destroying your world, but you're horrible creatures and I hate you."

The_Werebear
2014-01-29, 11:22 AM
This is my fault for allowing myself to be put in the situation, but the DM exploited it so ruthlessly. Spoilered for Length.


So, I was playing a Paladin of Freedom, a roaming warrior and do-gooder of the Nomadic tribes north of the setting's main city of an E6 campaign, an analogue of Constantinople. The city was conquered by a relatively (RELATIVELY) nice Devil Cult two decades ago. My character's father was part of those who failed to defend it, and an uncle was in the cult that took it over. I've joined up with a band of cousins who lived closer to the smaller city to the north that the Good aligned people fled to.

We're trying to figure out what to do about the city when we get news that a cult of a dead god is trying to resurrect its masters to the south in Egypt. They've gathered a huge (tens of thousands) swarm of undead to assault a temple of their equally dead rival to steal the remnants of his power to do it with. As we're not interested in that happening, we go south with contingents of warriors from the steppes and the exiles (totaling about 500), and meet up with a contingent from the Devil Cult. They're perfectly civil, and explain that they really don't want a god being resurrected in their back yard by a chaotic evil cannibal cult. They've brought some Necromancers to even the odds against the undead.

I meditate on it, and decide that the greater evil takes precedence. We have familiar and cultural ties with the other city, and are hoping to at least make peace, if not convince them of the Error of Their WaysTM.

While preparing the in the desert, my Paladin finds a +2 Holy Bow. It also happens to be intelligent and capable of telepathic communication with me, where it starts telling me to purge evil with holy fire. My character is level 4 at this point, so this is in downright divine blessing territory considering the size of the army we're up against. The rest of the party is much more suspicious, especially when it goes into loving detail about burning and tormenting evil. They insist we have it checked. So, the party sorcerer goes over it with a fine toothed comb. Then the party cleric. Then a higher level cleric NPC. No one finds anything, not that that allays PC suspicion. I take it to the Devil Cultists, trying to show that I trust them, and have them check it. They too vett it as a simply, pure weapon.

So, we defeat the Dead God cult in suitably epic defensive action (the ground troops hold at a river while the priests and mages repeatedly ritual Sunbursts to throw into the enemy undead, while the rest of the party leads a cavalry raid into their rear, killing their leadership and freeing their captives). The army goes home, and we travel as a party to the altar of the Dead God. We fight our way in through the dungeon to the actual sanctum sanctorum, killing his priesthood. But it's not enough. We can't actually destroy the altar itself and break his power on the world permanently. Another group could try to bring him back.

At this point, I've been listening to the bow go on a LOT about burning evil, and I ask if there's anything it can do to the Altar. It asks what I will give to the cause. I say I will give anything up to my life itself to break that evil forever.

The bow immediately breaks character, revealing itself as an Imp who has been possessing the weapon. It accepts the deal I unwittingly offered, and chooses my "soul" as a thing I possess that it will take, then unleashes a bolt of Hellfiretm on the Altar, melting it. As in, Mephistopholes' Hellfire. I instantly and spectacularly fall, and have had my soul stolen by Devils. As a now Ex-Paladin of Freedom.

Oh, by the way. That Devil cult was a cult of Mephisotopholes too! The DM later revealed OOC that the good aligned people who had inspected it had not beaten the imps "hide" roll to conceal itself in the bow. The Devil cultists had found it, and had been ordered to not spill to beans to me.

I had to run about 6 sessions (and travel to freaking MOSCOW from Constantinople) before I was able to get an atonement from our Divine Patron, a Ghalee Eladrin, who'd been running things behind the scene to get us to work against the Devil Cult. She was able to restore my powers, but not save my soul. My character died before that, and was taken to the nine hells, as per the stolen soul. At that point, she broke literally every Divine rule, put a strike force together, and stole my character's soul back from hell, causing the death or capture of an unknown number of CG outsiders, as well as taking a permanently unhealable wound that, as far as we know, is slowly killing/corrupting her.

So, little guilt there too, that my Paladin caused the death of so many philosophically aligned outsiders, as well as the marring of his divine patron (who, of course, he was also in Courtly style in love with). I love that DM's campaigns, and it was a lot of fun to RP, but man that was EVIL on so many levels.

geeky_monkey
2014-01-29, 11:35 AM
I say I will give anything up to my life itself to break that evil forever.

You clearly said up to your life itself. You soul is far, far more valuable than your life.

A lifetime lasts maybe 80 years if you are lucky, your soul is eternal.

The_Werebear
2014-01-29, 11:42 AM
I talked with my DM later about it. He said that in any planar court but a Fiendish one, it wouldn't have stood a challenge. But in a Fiendish one, they can bring up the precedent of Liches and others who trade their souls for eternal life. He also admitted that the imp (and by extension, he) had utterly screwed my character in that deal. The opportunity had been too great to resist, all he was initially looking for was to slowly turn me into a Knight Templar who would split the Steppe Warriors from the Exiles to make the exiles easier to absorb back into Constantinople.

Heck, if I had managed to GET to a fiendish court, I might have been able to win the case and get my soul back there. But, I didn't make it before I ate all 8 heads of an Electrohydra's breath weapon at 17 HP. While standing in knee deep saltwater.

Tass
2014-01-29, 01:26 PM
I used create matter to make a cubic foot of francium one time we were in a dungeon fighting a bbeg not smart just mean and tentacly I showed the dm the math of the francium. he cried a little. we are no longer allowed to use chemistry

EDIT: Also worst thing to make with create matter ever is dioxygen difluoride (O2F2)

Francium is overrated.

You imply that you are talking about the chemistry of it, in which case there are much more powerful elements. Simply sodium would be more efficient. Francium is heavy, and only one of its electrons is really involved in the release of chemical energy. Albeit that one is very loosely bound.

Of course this is all overshadowed by the nuclear explosion that would ensue, since all of Franciums isotopes have short half-lifes. But again here you could make much more potent choices. 22 minutes is short, but way too long to really make a bang.

Velaryon
2014-01-29, 01:39 PM
I've got one that I can tell. This is from a 3.5 campaign set in western Faerun.

Spoilered for length:
Up until this point in the campaign, the party has mostly been doing odd jobs that only loosely relate to one another (I didn't have a particular story to tell, and was mainly DMing because no one else wanted to at the time). Whenever the party reached a new city, they would head to the local mercenary guild office and see what jobs were available. Some were serious jobs that involved fighting things, some were easy stuff. This time they picked a couple of jobs that looked relatively easy, but turned out to be more than they bargained for.

Both jobs related to a dance contest that was to take place in a couple of weeks. One job was from a half-orc named Og! the Smasher who wanted backup dancers for his "break dancing" routine (which involved him breaking things while he danced). Surprisingly, two of the PCs (the centaur fighter and the elf bladesinger) had ranks in Perform (dance) so they volunteered for the mission.

The other two (human warlock and dragonborn dragon shaman) took up a job as bodyguards for a woman who was entering the contest, but claimed to fear for her life. She told them that she needed protection until the contest and was willing to pay, so they took the job.

A quick OOC aside: the dragonborn of Bahamut was LG, but his player tends to play all his characters as Chaotic Stupid regardless of their class, backstory, etc. As DM, I consider it my solemn duty to have as much fun at his expense as I possibly can. I gleefully set up traps for him, knowing full well that he will step into them every time. Luckily, he's a pretty good sport about these things.

So while the centaur and elf are off practicing their dance routine, the other two are escorting this lady around the city as she shops, practices her own dance steps, and wanders the city scouting her competition. She also tries coming on to the warlock, but he's happily in a relationship and gets bad vibes from this woman so he's having none of it.

The dragonborn, however, is more easily manipulated. She convinced him to run off several of her competitors, "for their own protection" since the city was crawling with thieves' guilds. One one occasion however, he tried to scare off an elven girl whose brother (a level 3 or 4 fighter) was her bodyguard. His attempts to scare them proved fruitless, so the dragonborn ended up brutally murdering them both (this is what I meant about playing all his characters Chaotic Stupid). Bahamut was very generous and offered him once chance to repent, but that's another story.

When the dance contest finally arrives, the two halves of the party get back together to witness the event. The prize money for this contest is so high that at least five thieves' guilds are trying to lie/cheat/steal their way to victory. As a result, nearly half the audience is armed, and tensions are running high before the contest even starts.

By the time Og! the Smasher's turn comes up, those tensions have nearly boiled over. When his "break dancing" gets going and he starts smashing up the stage, people in the audience start brawling. Soon enough, it's a full-blown riot.

The dragonborn is asked by his charge to retrieve the prize for her "for safekeeping." He actually goes and grabs it, though I don't know if he was actually going to give it to her or not. He never had the chance, as members of two of the thieves' guilds saw him going for it and attacked. What finally ended up happening is that the party grabbed the prize and ran for their lives, thus becoming thieves themselves in the process.

The long-term result is that they were drawn into a four-way gang war among the various thieves' guilds and had to root out all the corruption from this city, which they did admirably. The dragonborn ended up betraying the party (and Bahamut) and dying on the end of the centaur's lance during the climactic showdown. The player now has another character and has been less evil with this one.