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BeerMug Paladin
2013-12-28, 03:25 PM
I want to hear stories about characters that behave in ridiculous ways. Not characters that are ridiculous themselves, mind you, but do things that no sane person would think to do, that only a player character would think is okay.

The most ridiculous thing I could think of as an example is this. The player party killed an evil dragon, and one player had some armor created out of the dragon's thick hide. Later on, the player wanted to use a good dragon as a mount. While wearing the dragonhide armor.

Imagine approaching a dragon claiming to want to be friends and to ride him around while wearing dragon skin. How would that conversation even begin?

I'm sure I've heard of other ridiculous actions, but that's the best I can think of for the moment.

Forrestfire
2013-12-28, 03:55 PM
I'd imagine that if dragons are color-coded for convenience in this campaign world, then the good dragon would congratulate him for killing the monster and maybe comment on how tasteless the armor is.

TheFamilarRaven
2013-12-28, 04:01 PM
I've had a player roll a bard, didn't like it, so he multiclassed to Ninja of all things, charged at a Bullette and was promptly ripped apart in the first round by Leap. It was pretty glorious. :smallbiggrin:

The Fury
2013-12-28, 04:11 PM
So this guy looks outside a window of an inn in an abandoned town. What does he see? Why, demons in the streets seemingly on patrol. Demons as far as can be seen really. That's a lot of demons. So, the rest of the party is wounded, or low on spells, or both. Also they're asleep. So how does this guy do? Hide? Wake the party? Lead them quietly to safety? To Heck with that! LEROY JENKINS!

So the Druid's the next person to wake up. Now, he's low on spells too, he's used up Wildshape for the day. What does he do?

LEROY JENKINS!

Shockingly neither of them made it. Such impeccable strategy too.

BWR
2013-12-28, 04:25 PM
In a Dragonlance game we met a steam-mech the size and shape of a big dragon, piloted by a mad gnome. It couldn't fly, but had steam-powered springs it used to jump around on. It was trampling all over the place and the guy tried to crush us. It could jump something like 200 meters per jump and with the casters almost out of spells, us poor melee folks tried to hack at it. Thing is, it would land, power up for a round and then jump away, then back on us. We were taking a pounding. So I got the bright idea to tie myself to its feet next time it landed so I could keep hacking at it.
the DM ruled that my spine snapped like a rotten twig the next time it jumped and I ended up being slung around like a broken meat puppet until the rest of the party destroyed it¨.

The Fury
2013-12-28, 04:39 PM
In a Dragonlance game we met a steam-mech the size and shape of a big dragon, piloted by a mad gnome. It couldn't fly, but had steam-powered springs it used to jump around on. It was trampling all over the place and the guy tried to crush us. It could jump something like 200 meters per jump and with the casters almost out of spells, us poor melee folks tried to hack at it. Thing is, it would land, power up for a round and then jump away, then back on us. We were taking a pounding. So I got the bright idea to tie myself to its feet next time it landed so I could keep hacking at it.
the DM ruled that my spine snapped like a rotten twig the next time it jumped and I ended up being slung around like a broken meat puppet until the rest of the party destroyed it¨.

In your situation, I confess my own ridiculous action would be to stand around staring at this absurd contraption mouthing "What the what?" for at least a round and a half. Then promptly get squished.
Seriously, is this sort of thing par for the course in Dragonlance? That sounds like something that Dr. Robotnik would drive around.

BWR
2013-12-28, 04:55 PM
Not really usual, no. It's something the DM thought would be funny. And it was, even when I killed myself in a stupid manner. Tinker gnomes never made anything quite so amazing (and amazingly functional) in his games again.
They did make an automatic bathhouse, though. You had to roll on a chart every time you used it to see what happened to you. If you were lucky, you got clean. This sort of thing is usual, however.

Zavoniki
2013-12-28, 06:03 PM
One of my players in a super hero game going to the President of the United States to arrange a press conference explaining that super powered people exist. Then:


Stating that they(super powered people) are declaring war on Humanity
Killing the President on Live TV

CoffeeIncluded
2013-12-28, 06:48 PM
I had a player, in the middle of a random encounter fighting alligators (that I accidentally called crocodiles for some time) in a sewer, leap onto the back of a wounded alligator in the water, draw her blades, scream, "ALL HAIL ELSEE, QUEEN OF THE CROCAGATORS!" and proceed to spend the rest of the combat rolling absurdly well on ride checks to stay on the back of this bucking thrashing alligator before being thrown off.

And she then proceeded to mournfully say, "Bye Mr. Sparklescales," as the wounded, thoroughly freaked-out alligator swam off at top speed.

mephnick
2013-12-28, 07:39 PM
I had a green dragon that had taken control of a bandit town for amusement and delighted in killing people out after curfew (or defying some other random rule he set up). I prefaced this all to the players who were eventually caught out after curfew (rogue, ranger), the idea was for them to sneak or otherwise get to their safehouse. Should have been relatively harmless, I wasn't going to kill them with a big dragon at a lowish level, and there was plenty of cover to make it.

The rogue decides the best course of action is to step out into the open and attempt to bargain with the thing, when he failed to convince the dragon that he was a buddy, he flat out insulted him a couple times (in character).

So he died.

Lucid
2013-12-28, 08:36 PM
Good idea: Using your summoned undead as trapkillers.

Bad idea: Letting your summoned undead smash all the doors, then run full speed into the rooms until they hit something, alerting everything in the vicinity.

Arkhosia
2013-12-28, 08:39 PM
A wizard charging into battle armed with only a dagger.
He was level 1

A_Man
2013-12-28, 08:48 PM
Now, I had a valid in-character reason for it, but seriously, Absolutley no sane person would do so.

See, we were facing a foe who had this amaizing power. He could manipulate darkness, hide in the shadows, and teleport. So..... My character (who could Copy powers with a touch, mimick powers by sight) wanted to Copy the power (mimick was for 1 round, and at half power).

The foe, wounded, teleported to an enemy helicopter which took out our tank character, and, guess what? My character teleports right after him, trying to Copy the l33t power. XD

Somehow I survived, but we all thought it was a Game Over for me. XD

Mastikator
2013-12-28, 09:47 PM
Enter one of my earlier characters
> Is a guard for a caravan
> A huge troll walks up to caravan and kills one of the crew, then starts walking casually away
> We can't possibly defeat this troll.
> My character runs up to troll to jump on its hunched over back to try to ride it.
> Fail, kick it in the buttox instead.
> Troll turns around looking angry
> Attack, hits head with critical damage, instantly killing the troll

A session later.
> Javelin with rope tied to it.
> Rope also tied to me.
> Throw javelin at the giant bird that is picking the crew one by one up and into the ocean.
> Miss, the giant bird picks me up
> Throws me into ocean
> Goodbye suicidal character

Angel Bob
2013-12-28, 11:23 PM
In our last session, the PCs arrived in a town called Sweetville, where the villagers were frantically cooking and baking a vast assortment of sweets, pastries, and other sugared foodstuffs. The mayor explained to the PCs that the village had some nasty and dangerous neighbours downriver*, but in exchange for an annual tribute of sugar-food, the neighbours had agreed not to murder the villagers horribly. However, the villagers were distressed because the nearby ogres had kidnapped their head chef, one Mr. Crumpet, and he was the only one who knew the neighbours' favourite recipe of fizzy drink.

I expected my players to pick up on the obvious quest hook and embark on a journey to slay the ogres and save Mr. Crumpet. I was half right. The first reaction of the party leader was to make a knowledge check and see if he knew the recipe. He and I both agreed he'd need a natural 20 to come anywhere close... which, of course, is what he rolled.

Well, naturally. His character has a history of rolling good checks to remember information in fields he has no business knowing. Since we operate mostly under the rule of funny, his character happens to have extensively researched the culinary history of this drink and how it was developed by his people, the elves, several centuries ago. He also happens to know exactly which ingredients and the general recipe they'll need in order to make it. So the party decides that the leader will stay in Sweetville and help with the preparations, while the rest of the party goes off to slay the ogres.

Also, the party's grizzly bear stole a chef's hat and developed a passion for gourmet cooking. This was a bizarre session even by our standards.

*Though the players didn't ask what they were, the neighbours in question are a homebrewed race of intelligent wasps, which is why they're so keen on sugar-stuffs. The closest they came to inquiring was the following exchange:
NPC: We've got some neighbours downriver, not the friendliest type... quite dangerous, really.
PC1: Do they have a different colour of skin? Humans always seem worried about that for some reason.
NPC: No, I'm afraid they don't have skin.
PC2: ...Well, that does not make me feel any better about this situation.

Delwugor
2013-12-28, 11:41 PM
The most incredulously ridiculous thing I've ever seen done was a guy playing a Ranger in Paladium Fantasy. He decided to go hunting for our dinner, but did't have a bow, traps or anything useful. Don't ask me why.
He comes across a rabbit, draws his sword and changes after it. The rabbit jumps across a stream and our gallant ranger attempts the same. Fails the jump and can't get out because of his chain mail, we ended up pulling him out when we stopped laughing.
Elmer Fudd has nothing to compare with hunting a rabbit using a sword and in chain mail.

BeerMug Paladin
2013-12-28, 11:47 PM
Come to think of it, I thought of a better example of a crazy character action. One of my players in a game I ran really wanted a mount. Not a horse, though, basically anything and everything but a horse.

The party fought a group of phase spiders that were scavenging in a local forest. I believe he tried to climb up on it and ride it as the battle was taking place. Essentially being a grapple check against something larger and stronger than his character, he failed.

After the battle, he checked around to see if any of the phase spiders were still alive. Finding one, he took out some rope. Now here's where you're thinking that he's going to tie it up and try to find a way to domesticate it. Nope.

He tied himself to the monster, and when the extraplanar spider woke up hours later, it fled (returned to its home plane to hide) with him tied to it. I gave him a 50/50 chance to vanish with it. And he did.

The party had no access to extraplanar magic, so he had to make a new character.

Passive Pete
2013-12-29, 12:02 AM
. . . Sigh . . .

So there's this one Monster Campaign, everyone's a race from the Monster Manual or something. The entire party is riding horseback (except for the minotaur, who's running) as fast as they can go, because they need to be somewhere fast. And the party alchemist, who's just in this campaign for the laughs, pulls his mirror out of his backpack for no apparent reason. This here mirror reflects the sun. . . right into the ninja's eyes. The ninja goes spinning off his horse, tumbling over rocks and through ditches, and finally slows to a halt, unconscious. The alchemist of course, feels terribly sorry for his actions, and tries to brew something up to heal him. And of course, and these things go, he fails. He gets a "black liquid" instead of a healing potion. The alchemists stares at his creation for a few seconds, shrugs, and injects it into the ninja. Now. . . I don't recall what exactly happened, but I'm pretty sure he died or something. The minotaur carried him the rest of the way.

:smallsigh:

TuggyNE
2013-12-29, 12:59 AM
The party had no access to extraplanar magic, so he had to make a new character.

What, you didn't let him make Survival rolls to try to stay alive on the Ethereal long enough to tame it with DC 45 Handle Animal checks? :smalltongue:

Geostationary
2013-12-29, 01:10 AM
I'm strangely consistent in getting players to have their characters willingly tear their hearts out, both metaphorically and literally. The first time was kind of purposeful and ended poorly for him (his was a tragic character), but the second time involved negotiating with someone who had declared war on the PC and her familia. During a brief negotiation, the player was trying to decide on how to show her good faith. In discussing possible displays, we jokingly suggested that she tear her heart out and give it to the marshal she was negotiating with. Several moments and "wait a minutes..." later, she was tearing out her own heart while delivering dramatic lines affirming her goals and moral stances. It remains to be seen if this was, in fact, a good idea, but it got the marshal off her back for the time being.

Alroy_Kamenwati
2013-12-29, 03:04 AM
I had a dwarf air pirate entirely keen on being comic relief. In our campaign there was a magical fruit that contained seeds to replant a god tree. If you ate the fruit, there would be no magical tree. The magical tree was elvish so the dwarf didn't like it. So he ate the fruit and went into a magical coma. His adventures ended and I made a new character but in the end his elf best friend who was undead cared for him for the rest of the eternity. :smallcool:

BeerMug Paladin
2013-12-29, 04:00 AM
What, you didn't let him make Survival rolls to try to stay alive on the Ethereal long enough to tame it with DC 45 Handle Animal checks? :smalltongue:

I told him that regardless of whether or not his character would be killed in the next few minutes, he would not be able to return from the ethereal plane (at least for a long, long time) and almost certainly would not be able to tame the wild animal. He was fine leaving off at that point.

Actually, I did something similar in a game once, our party was attacked, surrounded and utterly outnumbered. I had my character use his last few moments by himself to climb into a bag of holding and break it. It was a one-way trip, but even if I had only been alive a minute longer, it still would have given that character more time to live, so I count it a victory. I believe it was a tpk situation, actually and a couple other party members had already been killed by that point.

As for the spider-rider, I think he just liked trying to accomplish things he thought was cool. Failing spectacularly (and amusingly) was probably a big part of the fun for him.

Edenbeast
2013-12-29, 04:27 AM
I've seen lots of silly things happen, but probably the most rediculous was the following scene:
We're exploring the underdark, I'm not sure what we were looking for, but at some point we came across a chasm. Now, you have to realize both sides of the chasm are at the same level. We have two options: either make a detour, or, somehow get across the chasm.
While we are standing there debating what to do, one of my party members has the brilliant idea to throw a lasso the other side. He tries and succeeds, getting the hoop around a rock on the other side. "Now what?" We ask the player, and he simply says "Now I'll swing to the other side"... Mind you, both side of the chasm are at the same height, we tried to explain this to him, but he was determined to swing across "just like Tarzan!" It made completely sense to him, so the DM asked him if he was going to swing "yes" he replied, and off he went. I admit, we all drank a few beers already, but his character wasn't below average intelligence, and I'm sure we tried enough to convince him he'd get himself killed. Both in game and out game. This guy was in his 20s, like the rest of us.
The DM made one roll, and explained "you jump, and you swing! ... Straight into the wall half-way down the chasm. Because of the force with which you smack into the wall, you let go and fall down deep..."
Still the player did not understand how this was possible, he should have swung across... in a straight line, horizontally... I suppose physics wasn't his strong point.

GrayGriffin
2013-12-29, 10:58 AM
Attempting to intimidate an abstract mind-affecting power and some trees with a psychic aura that was causing our party to get separated.

Somehow, I rolled high enough to succeed both times.

hymer
2013-12-29, 11:17 AM
One PC looked an awful lot like the local bad guys, and so scared the locals of the town they arrived at. He nearly got into a fight at the bridge getting into town. Cooler heads prevailed, and two guards were assigned to be his minders, to keep him in line and to calm the locals. He then proceeded to intimidate them to drink alcohol while they were supposed to keep him under control. Another PC was also present, but for some reason they dealt with it by rolling opposing Initimidate checks, and the PC minder lost... :smallsigh:
Anyway, things kinda spiralled from there. Needless to say, thretening the local guards is generally not the way to get on the local ruler's good side, which the other PCs were trying to do in the mean time.

Tanuki Tales
2013-12-29, 11:46 AM
They did make an automatic bathhouse, though. You had to roll on a chart every time you used it to see what happened to you. If you were lucky, you got clean. This sort of thing is usual, however.

Sounds like a Bloody Stupid Johnson to me. :smallamused:

Yora
2013-12-29, 01:23 PM
I once had a party exploring a ruined keep when they came upon a collapsed part of the floor on the upper floor. They had only explored a fifth of all the passages, but the halfling thief decited to try to jump over the pit.
He fell down, broke lots of bones, landed in a swarm of fire beetles, and drew a pack of worgs to the scene.

BWR
2013-12-29, 04:36 PM
Sounds like a Bloody Stupid Johnson to me. :smallamused:

Tinker gnomes are part of DL's stupidity, but they're awesome stupid, not just annoying stupid like kender tend to be.

hymer
2013-12-29, 04:40 PM
Tinker gnomes at least kill themselves (and each other) with their stupidity. That takes some of the sting out of it.

The Fury
2013-12-29, 08:07 PM
I knew someone that hired a mercenary to hunt down and kill a monkey. This particular monkey was acting creepy, see, though that had largely to do with the fact that the monkey was a player character. While not exactly stupid, I'd say that it was still pretty ridiculous.



They did make an automatic bathhouse, though. You had to roll on a chart every time you used it to see what happened to you. If you were lucky, you got clean. This sort of thing is usual, however.

New potential, possibly suicidal action: Use the gnomish automatic bathhouse.

scsimodem
2013-12-29, 11:35 PM
I think it would be cheating to mention the stupid things some of us did in Exalted (that's kind of the point). Still, before the feature presentation, I thought I'd make mention of an incident wherein my dragon-blooded (featured in the avatar to your left) got captured by a female solar (dawn caste, I think). I'll spare the details of the escape, but it involved seduction followed by combat by bad touch. I got a 3 die stunt every round, and that's all I'm going to say about that.

This crazy story, though, was for a Star Wars character (saga). I was playing a scoundrel and the pilot. We were tasked with capturing an enemy transport...each...on the ground. I can't remember if they told us to capture it full, but that's the way it happened. Another party member hacked his transport and played around with the air processors to knock the crew unconscious. I, on the other hand, grabbed a toolkit and played Bavarian Fire Drill. I talked most of the crew out of the cockpit while I pretended to fix it. The one guy who stayed to watch me work, I simply started pulling stuff out of the bag and then said 'Hold this' and handed him a live and primed grenade. He pretty much got this look on his face that said, 'awwwwww.' He decided not to comply, but told me this first (stupid), so as he tried to make the grenade go off, I Sparta kicked him from the cockpit and sealed the bulkhead, allowing me to take off in peace. Mission accomplished.

In an earlier campaign, I also had to abort a plan to lure a (Sullustan) rival into attacking him in Remnant space so he could sue the guy's pants off, since Remnant courts would railroad the alien.

Avilan the Grey
2013-12-30, 04:30 AM
Here's the thing, that has been repeated since the second DnD session ever in history:
If the DM asks "Are you SURE?" with lifted eyebrows when you say what your character will do next... don't. Just don't.

Case in point:
Character who decided to avoid an ambush in a room by jumping out the window (third no, I think it was FIFTH floor), turn in the air, fire both guns at the enemy, then turn again and land in the wagon full of straw rolling by outside.
Reality soon followed. Cutting damage from glass. Missing both shots. Failing to turn all the way. And landing behind the wagon, since it moved faster than he thought.

Also, death.

BWR
2013-12-30, 05:02 AM
New potential, possibly suicidal action: Use the gnomish automatic bathhouse.

Yup. Tinker gnomes are fond of using steam power. So sometimes the hot water got a little too hot, released valves were unfortunately placed, the brushes got a little too intimate or energetic, etc.

Erth16
2013-12-30, 09:27 PM
So my Dm says to us "Be as crazy as possible, just not evil or unnecessarily destructive." Well ok then. We get sent off on a mission, and we get into our transport helicopter. Well, most of us that is. The martial artist said he wanted to show off by clinging to the side of the helicopter, and my insane gunslinger decides to one up him, by hanging onto the blades as the helicopter is in flight.

The Dm was somehow cool with that, so we fly our way to the drop point, and the others parachute out. I just let go. Miraculously, the Dm says I land on the back of a giant bird. Well, instead of parachuting down from there, I force the birds flight towards the roof of the target building, shoot it in the base of the neck, and crash it into the roof, making a nice hole.

I was somehow the only one to leave unscathed from the mission.

The Fury
2013-12-31, 01:18 AM
Yup. Tinker gnomes are fond of using steam power. So sometimes the hot water got a little too hot, released valves were unfortunately placed, the brushes got a little too intimate or energetic, etc.

Hm. Not quite dangerous enough. Are there automatic shavers too?

Dundee15
2013-12-31, 01:46 AM
The party had to rescue a contact that had been recently captured by the enemy and held in a compound with 40' walls, the plan was to grab him and teleport out using 2 of our character's 30' teleport encounter powers (Caylar and Raygar). The DM ruled that they could bring 'friends' on a TP but needed a firm grip, now the smart way to do this would be to have both players grab the prisoner and each other and then double TP... what happened was something out of the circus.

Raygar was next to the prisoner and TP'd 25' up and 5' over to the wall as Caylar jumped off the wall to catch them mid-air and TP the rest of the way up... DM ruled they needed 2 natural 20's to pull this off and lo-and-behold they pulled it off.

had they failed they would have been surrounded, prone, injured (one of them bloodied) and separated from the rest of the party. (DM briefly thought about ruling that none of us had checked the identity of the prisoner that we grabbed but decided against it.)

BWR
2013-12-31, 03:33 AM
Hm. Not quite dangerous enough. Are there automatic shavers too?

You took 1 or 2d6 pts of damage on an average run through the machine, which is enough to seriously inconvenience most people in D&D. IIRC you could get up to 4d6. There may have been razors involved, but I can't remember them Not that you needed that. Let's just say those brushed could get very intimate (and could have been softer) and leave it at that.

Wraith
2013-12-31, 05:56 AM
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is a dark and grim setting that does not normally allow for hilarity. And yet, we managed.

My friend J. was playing a Dwarf Trollslayer - an inhumanly strong, enormously proud creature who had sufferedan enormous personal tragedy and had as a result sworn to seek his own death by attempting to kill the biggest, most dangrous creature he could find - when the wagon caravan we were travelling with was attacked by Chaos Beastmen - misshapen, bestial creatures of filth, blood and violence that came from the darkness with the intent of gorging themselves upon sweet, sweet manflesh.

The Trollslayer hid under his wagon. :smallsigh::smalltongue:

While under there, he found a group of human children who were cowering in fear of their lives, as befits a belligerently suicidal Dwarf. Apparently.

To whom, the Dwarf handed out torches and lanterns, and Intimidated them into running out into the surrounding forest as a distraction, so that he could find his friends (us, the other players) and ask them how best to escape their predicament....

In the same campaign, I was playing as a Blood Bowl player (Blood Bowl being the Old World equivalent to the NFL, where Orcs and Goblins pummel Elves into dropping an inflated pigskin on a grass pitch, while Minotaurs go nuts and start eating the referee) who was a little bit punch drunk and had retired for 'medical reasons'.

His "armour" was actually his cherished Blood Bowl padding and uniform. His Unarmed Combat skill was actually him 'blocking' the opposing players, and as such he spent the entire campaign Grappling everything. Everything. Orcs. Beastmen. Ogres. Knights in shining platemail armour. Once, even said-Knight's horse. It went better than you might expect, truthfully. The Vampire, though.... Not so much. Lousy Block/Dodge cheese....
I really enjoyed that character. :smallbiggrin:

BeerMug Paladin
2013-12-31, 09:15 AM
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is a dark and grim setting that does not normally allow for hilarity. And yet, we managed.

Yeah, a group can significantly alter the entire tone of a game. The funniest game I was ever a part of was a d20 Call of Cthulhu game, thanks to weird players, zany rescue schemes, and a thoroughly unfit game system for cosmic horror.

"The high priest pinned against the wall with your truck looks at the stick of sweaty dynamite in your hand, and says, 'I'll survive that. Will you?'"

The Fury
2013-12-31, 02:51 PM
You took 1 or 2d6 pts of damage on an average run through the machine, which is enough to seriously inconvenience most people in D&D. IIRC you could get up to 4d6. There may have been razors involved, but I can't remember them Not that you needed that. Let's just say those brushed could get very intimate (and could have been softer) and leave it at that.

Oh dear. They take off unsightly body hair along with that pesky first few layers of skin, eh?



"The high priest pinned against the wall with your truck looks at the stick of sweaty dynamite in your hand, and says, 'I'll survive that. Will you?'"

Not quite. That was actually the Sheriff that said that line, and he wasn't pinned to a wall with a truck at the time.
The guy threatening the Sheriff said he took the sweaty dynamite out of my back pocket though. Because that's where I keep sweaty dynamite apparently.

We did pin the high priest to a wall with a truck though, and he did survive being dynamited along with the truck. Though if I recall correctly it was close and the blast very nearly killed him.

edit: Now that I'm thinking of it, that whole game was ridiculous character actions and very little else!