Worst Decisions Your Players Have Made?

[SangoProduction]

In my Pokemon Tabletop United game, one of the characters was a channeler (basically super empath, connecting minds with their pokemon). Pretty neat character, and the player was very self-driven, allowing me to improvise around their desires.

Well, in comes a crystalize glitch. Simply described as a large diamond with a remarkably evil aura. When they went to the oracle about it, the oracle freaked out and left the building altogether. (In hindsight, even though that is what the oracle would normally do, I should have dropped actual information before having them leave. Or at the very least, coincidentally had some magic item or another in the shop vaguely identify it. They were, after all, actually interested in the plot hook.)

So. The channeler decides to channel the evil gem. (Now, it's not a pokemon, so not truly within the rules... But rules are a bit loose in my games. It was allowed.)

And the next about half hour is kind of wiped from my mind, but I do distinctly remember the entire party panicking about the mind-space war that was taking place, trying all sorts of magic to break the bond. (Ultimately culminating in a timely escape, where the now exhausted channeler and her much better-off allies fought the manifestation that was drawn out from the gem.)

---
So, you got any stories of bad decisions your players have made?

[quetzalcoatl5]

The second big arc of a campaign I ran had a female NPC Ranger who a devil was trying to claim the soul of because it was so pure, with the clear intent to be that the players save the Ranger and set her up as a local hero (or perhaps traveling companion) and instead the players decided to resolve the situation and prevent the devil from claiming her soul by murdering her.

[ngilop]

My players happened upon a larger event wherein the local orc tribe had lost their chieftan (natural means, actually). Now, there were like 3 (i think) sub chieftans who were vying for control of the tribe (ya know via violence).

They had killed off all but one and thereby rendered only that lone sub chieftan as the one in a position of authority. They track him to the GNomish enclave he had recently conquered tucked into a cliffside (think something like Petra).

I described them finally coming out of the woodline and seeing the facade of the buildings in the distance and then mentioned the sun was beginning to dip and it was starting to get dark, with the entrance to the enclave being maybe another hour's walk away.


They all decided to just set up camp, right there in plain view right outside the woods. Then when captured, instead of surrendering (i was going to allow them an out to escape minus all their gear) they decided to fight, which... turned out as you expected it would.

[RNightstalker]

The party ubercharger decided to charge off the boat in the middle of the sea to attack a kraken or a giant squid or something...he was on the boat, in mithral plate armor, and decided to jump off the boat, into the sea to fight a creature that lived in the sea...

[Darg]

They decided to go teleport crazy to try out the 5 minute adventuring day. Let's just say they teleport much more responsibly now.

They decided to have a shoving match right next to the edge of a sacrificial volcano over treasure. Most of the characters didn't survive.

One character jumped off a flying mount to kill a creature midair. They failed their ride check to remount.

[Buufreak]

So, you got any stories of bad decisions your players have made?

They decided me being the DM was a good idea.

[pabelfly]

Recent "worst" decision I have made with a character:

For context, my character is a straight Fighter and I play him like he's an eighties action movie hero. Our party is riding an airship, and we're chasing down pirates on another airship. The two airships are both descending very steeply.

Me: My character wants to know if he thinks he can jump from this airship onto theirs.
DM: *Laughs in bad player idea*. Okay, roll an intelligence check.
Me: *Rolls a natural 1* Okay, 10 intelligence and a natural one... one.
DM: *Laughs harder in bad player idea*. You think it's an amazing idea.
Me: Never let it be said I won't roleplay my character. Since my character thinks this is an amazing idea, he's going to run, make a huge leap off the edge and try to land to their airship.
DM: *Still laughing in bad player idea*. Okay, roll me an athletics check and a jump check.

I got a 30 and a 34 for the checks (and this is 5e, so these are amazing numbers), and somehow my high rolls, DM fiat and a wind updraft saved me from what should have been certain doom for my character. Still, it was pretty funny and everyone had a good laugh.

[Bad Wolf]

The second big arc of a campaign I ran had a female NPC Ranger who a devil was trying to claim the soul of because it was so pure, with the clear intent to be that the players save the Ranger and set her up as a local hero (or perhaps traveling companion) and instead the players decided to resolve the situation and prevent the devil from claiming her soul by murdering her.

Did your players solve the issue of an underfunded orphanage by burning it down?

[Kurald Galain]

When battling a dragon in its cave, the party rogue decided to abandon the fight to sneak around and get treasure, while the party wizard decided to engage the dragon in melee with a magic sword he found. No, this was not a gish build. The rest of the party, since 40% of their team was not meaningfully contributing, decided to withdraw. The wizard was too slow to actually do this, ate a full attack from the dragon and predictably went SPLAT.

[Bohandas]

My players happened upon a larger event wherein the local orc tribe had lost their chieftan (natural means, actually).

Natural natural or natural for a pre-5e orc tribe chieftain?

[SimonMoon6]

The setting was a mosaic world (influenced by the 1980s Secret Wars comics, the Green Lantern: Mosaic comics, and Jack Chalker's Wellworld novels). Each section of the world was a 1000 mile by 1000 mile square (approximately) with its own rules (like "superpowers work" or "high tech works" or "you have to sing to do things") and its own civilization taken from another world.

In each of these pieces of the mosaic, there was a special MacGuffin, a gem that would power up the PCs in certain ways (which they needed so that they would eventually become powerful enough to fight the Big Bads of the game) but also had other properties. One of those properties was that if it was taken out of its square, the entire region that it was tied to would vanish (presumably disintegrating everything that used to be there). The PCs would occasionally encounter empty squares where this had happened before, leaving just an empty void.

Well, you can probably see where this is going. One of the PCs found a gem in one of the superhero squares. He then went off to show it to the other PCs to power them up too, but they were over in another square and... only after he left that square with that gem did he realize what he had done and he lamented the fact that he was now a greater murderer than anyone else in all of history.

[quetzalcoatl5]

Did your players solve the issue of an underfunded orphanage by burning it down?
Close. They burned down a church to give a community a project to work on together.

They also dressed up as clowns once to sexually assault a 13 year old 20th level sorcerer who was terrorizing a town the way that one Twilight Zone/Simpsons Tree House of Horrors episode had. They figured that would break his spirit. This is where they dubbed themselves "The Fellowship of the Honk" after using their honking noses as a gag.

Also they had a Belt of Gender Reversal that they would slip on each other when sleeping as a prank.

[ngilop]

Natural natural or natural for a pre-5e orc tribe chieftain?

..natural natural I guess?

Not sure what you are getting at. I mean like real wood earth, 3rd planet from the sun in the milky way galaxy nautral causes.
Hence why their wasnt a single orc to take over the chieftanhood. Orc just didn't really think ahead on succession other than, beat the old guy to death and you are the new one.

[lylsyly]

They decided me being the DM was a good idea.

We have one of those. the 7 of us all take turns DMing. When it's Cherry's turn we all cringe and start rolling up a few extra characters ;-). we all go from 3 to 12 and with as much gaming as we do every week it's 2-3 months. Not Cherry nonono. 1-20 and it's not just Tucker's Kobolds, it's Tuckers everything!!! Plan to die early and often!! And she just twisted my ear because she's watching me type this:smallsmile:

[Eldan]

They got into a riddle contest with a dwarf (fairy tale dwarf, not D&D dwarf.) Where one of the conditions was that everything they said had to rhyme, which they agreed to. Then I offered them to abstract the entire thing a bit, make a few rolls, just narrate how the battle went. They declined, said this was fun, they wanted to play it out.

THen not a single one of them could think of a single rhyme.

Edit: the other one was when they were investigating a monster based on childhood fears and one of them decided to go into the dark basement alone, when the lights were out because of a storm. Didn't even think about it, just heard that the library's press archive was down there and they wanted to investigate it. Gave them at least three strongly worded DM hints.

[Fero]

GURPS- Inventor tries to make an anti robot device but fails an instead makes a device that makes all robots/AI go crazy in a large AoE.

The PCs have a mission to infiltrate a heavily guarded millitrlary base. The Inventor decides to take his device on the mission. The party's face and tank are both robots and refuse to go with him. The party's snakeman doctor stays on the ship (couldn't make the session). As such, the inventor goes with a child from a tribal world and a psionic labrador retriever (who was a very good girl), neither of whom can speak.

The inventor tries to smooth talk the guard to let him in with the child and dog. However, the inventor has the social skills of a squashed grape and fails miserably. The guard is human but is flanked by a pair i
of automated gattling laser turrets. The PCs are not armed or wearing armor. The inventor panics and activates his device. The gattling laser randomly target and rip the Inventor to shreds (the dog and kid escape).

Luckily, the snake doctor has been secretly Cloning and uploading neural patterns of the party. However, he made the Inventor's clone minature (I think about 12"). As such, the player was able to keep playing a minature version of his character.

Maybe not the dumbest, be certainly one of the most memorable.

[Vaern]

I once saw a paladin get obliterated trying to solo an encounter that the rest of the party backed away from, having realized how far out of our league we were. He interpreted his immunity to fear as meaning that he was not allowed to be afraid to back down from a fight. As far as bad decisions go, knowingly charging headfirst into certain death is an easy way to top the list.

[Biggus]

Close. They burned down a church to give a community a project to work on together.


They know that "murderhobo" is meant to be pejorative term and not a life goal, right?

[Cortillaen]

This was a Shadowrun game, and the crew had just gotten the details of a job (extract a defecting corpo guy & make it look like a kidnapping) and started planning how to break into the facility and grab the guy. About the time we settle on our plan, the Rigger slams his tricked-out van through the front of the facility, pops up a pair of machine-guns, and hoses the large room full of office workers.

Note that the character 1) does not know where in the facility the target is since he announced he wasn't interested in the planning and left to get food before we got that information; 2) doesn't know anything about the facility defenses; 3) has been warned that, while killing guards and Lonestar is fine, needlessly killing Joe Schmoes just trying to survive will not be tolerated; 4) has just triggered a Lonestar response force; and 5) is about 15min away from the rest of us.

Through a mixture of GM mercy, some panicky improvised plans, and some lucky rolls, we actually escaped with the (slightly shot up) target and everyone more-or-less alive, but the Rigger was face-printed, the target's defection was exposed, and both the Rigger's van and my car were basically junked. Of course, the Rigger's survival was only temporary since I hit him with a lethal dose of Narcojet, had a hacker drain his accounts, sold proof of his death to our former employer (looking for a scapegoat), and sold the corp we had just targeted the corpse of the psycho who killed dozens of their people and aided the defection of a valuable worker.

Oh right, later on two other characters decided that double-crossing and trying to blackmail Tir Tairngire was a good plan. Whole lotta bad ideas going around in that group.

[Quertus]

This is in the 3e forum - did you mean to put it in the general RPG forum?

In 3e… I don’t know about my players, but I Tainted my Tainted Sorcerer enough that they fell unconscious. Oh, I guess my players never take Knowledge: Religion on their Cleric characters - does that count?


They decided me being the DM was a good idea.

Hard to imagine a better answer to a thread like this! :smallbiggrin:

[Spore]

We played the intro dungeon to Curse of Strahd, which is hard as nails and likely leads to character deaths. No one died surprisingly, because people were savvy in mechanics and I was fair enough with ambushes granting options do find them out.

In the underground crypt, they let the family heirlooms lie (worth about 50gp, but with a deadly shadow fight attached). They then turn towards the main sacrifical chamber faced with a horrible amalgamation of sacrificed bodies. A gigant monstrosity able to eat them whole. Basically a chase sequence through a crumbling catacomb, not an upfront fight.

And the barbarian decided to jump the beast and fight it 1 on 1 with some magical support. He entered its maw and was never seen again. Dumb tactical decision, but great roleplay. The child prodigy wizard vanished a few rooms ago (the player quit) and he wanted to protect the rest of the party.

[Quertus]

The setting was a mosaic world (influenced by the 1980s Secret Wars comics, the Green Lantern: Mosaic comics, and Jack Chalker's Wellworld novels). Each section of the world was a 1000 mile by 1000 mile square (approximately) with its own rules (like "superpowers work" or "high tech works" or "you have to sing to do things") and its own civilization taken from another world.

In each of these pieces of the mosaic, there was a special MacGuffin, a gem that would power up the PCs in certain ways (which they needed so that they would eventually become powerful enough to fight the Big Bads of the game) but also had other properties. One of those properties was that if it was taken out of its square, the entire region that it was tied to would vanish (presumably disintegrating everything that used to be there). The PCs would occasionally encounter empty squares where this had happened before, leaving just an empty void.

Well, you can probably see where this is going. One of the PCs found a gem in one of the superhero squares. He then went off to show it to the other PCs to power them up too, but they were over in another square and... only after he left that square with that gem did he realize what he had done and he lamented the fact that he was now a greater murderer than anyone else in all of history.

So, what you’re saying is… they split the party. And, yeah, that’s definitely a bad plan, even if it doesn’t usually result in a million square miles literally becoming null and void.

Also, really cool setting idea. I am totally stealing… I mean, creating a derivative work (that will be almost but not quite entirely unlike… no, too late, I already have 2 ideas of varying degrees of similar… Dagnabbit, I’m up to 3, and I’m quitting while I’m ahead!)


They know that "murderhobo" is meant to be pejorative term and not a life goal, right?

Unlike the Dread Gazebo, a church isn’t usually alive to qualify for the “murder” part of murderhobos.

[Biggus]

Unlike the Dread Gazebo, a church isn’t usually alive to qualify for the “murder” part of murderhobos.

Did you read their previous post which that bit followed on from?

[Gnaeus]

I ran Tomb of Horrors. A party of 5 characters all followed one another into the sphere of annihilation, under the theory it was a gate.

[MonochromeTiger]

The second big arc of a campaign I ran had a female NPC Ranger who a devil was trying to claim the soul of because it was so pure, with the clear intent to be that the players save the Ranger and set her up as a local hero (or perhaps traveling companion) and instead the players decided to resolve the situation and prevent the devil from claiming her soul by murdering her.

Technically they did complete the objective. Her soul is beyond the reach of the Devils trying to claim it, and since she's apparently so pure it's attracting them she's pretty certain to go to an afterlife that's fairly comfortable and nice. They did it in a terrible way but if their only requirement for success is "don't let the Devils get her" then mission accomplished. If they were actually trying or even caring about setting her up as a local Hero or traveling with her then it would be a different story but then again it would also be a story where they didn't decide killing her to deny their enemy a win an acceptable plan.


Close. They burned down a church to give a community a project to work on together.

Technically another case of mission accomplished by dubious means. Bonus points for the fact that they also gave the community a common enemy in the band of arsonists plaguing them.


They also dressed up as clowns once to sexually assault a 13 year old 20th level sorcerer who was terrorizing a town the way that one Twilight Zone/Simpsons Tree House of Horrors episode had. They figured that would break his spirit. This is where they dubbed themselves "The Fellowship of the Honk" after using their honking noses as a gag.

This one is definitely a bad decision. The last two are bad decisions thinking morally but do technically fit within the context of reaching their stated goal. This one is not only morally horrendous but tactically, strategically, and by any measure of logic, objectively bad to the point that it raises questions of how they got this far.

I'd ask the same for how they got here morally but you've already established they consider murdering their supposed allies and burning down parts of towns acceptable means to get what they want so I don't doubt their alignments are all Chaotic-Edgy.


Also they had a Belt of Gender Reversal that they would slip on each other when sleeping as a prank.

Potentially traumatizing in the wrong circumstances if not brushed over for a joke but given the implication they got away with their plan involving the Sorcerer who was a minor I'm going to take a wild guess this campaign isn't/wasn't going into things like an exploration of gender identity and self image in the event of sudden unplanned transformations. With that assumption in mind if they've done it before odds are they have some way of fixing it if the person it was done to objects so not sure I'd categorize it as a bad decision just a strange choice of prank.

All in all, not the first party of Adventurers I'd turn to if I needed someone saved or something protected but only one thing in this list I'd consider a complete abandonment of the stated objective. Seriously though how did that kid not just fireball the lot of them?

[Eldan]

If we are counting edgy 13-year olds (at least mentally), I'd like to nominate myself, against the spirit of the thread, in my first ever game.

So, for a bit of context, my first character was Istari Dark... Darkblade? Darkleaf? I don't actually remember. I named him in English despite only speaking German at the time, that shows you how edgy it was meant to be. He was the setting's only known dark elf (we just used player's handbook races otherwise, and the DM never put in any other dark elves in that campaign), which meant that he was exiled from his high elven homeland for being too dark and mysterious, so he could never ascend to his rightful throne. He was also a lawful evil wizard who lived alone in the forest (with no survival skills, at level 1) and, despite being a wizard, mainly used a longbow, the coolest of all weapons.

Anyway, that part is just painful, not the actual worst decision. I would instead like to tell the tale of how I died during our first session.

We were scouting out an orc warband, which was threatening a nearby city. We managed to sneak up two sentries and take them out without too much noise, but as we were looking down from a hill over the camp below and counting soldiers and supplies, this happened:

DM: "You hear a patrol coming up the hill towards you."
Player 1: "I run away into the forest."
Player 2: "I run away into the forest."
Baby Eldan: "I loot the bodies first!"
DM: "The patrol is really quite close and you're alone. Maybe you should run away."
Baby Eldan: "I will run away, I'm just looting both bodies first!"
DM: "You hear a lot of orc coming up the hill, are you sure?"
BE: "Yes! I'm just looting those bodies, and then I'm running away."

This was the day I learned that:
a) Looting is not instantaneous, this isn't Baldur's Gate
b) Not every creature in this game actually has useful loot
c) If you die at level 1, you can't reload a save

[Biggus]

I named him in English despite only speaking German at the time


Just wanted to say congratulations on your English, I've read a lot of your posts and never once suspected you weren't a native speaker.

@OP: sorry for multiple posts without contributing to the topic, I've tried to think of a good one but I haven't got anything to match the other stories here. If the thread were about most spectacularly bad luck you've seen, that would be different...

[Khedrac]

I think the worst decision of any of my players was back in the early days of 2nd Ed AD&D...
The party came across a black archway containing blackness. The archway was decorated with glowing black runes (yes, black glowing n black - a neat trick).
After they correctly identified it as a portal, the party thief decided to listen at it and promptly rolled a 100 iirc. I said that she heard the sound of a piano being played.
So then the thief decided to step through the portal despite the rest of the party saying "don't" and me as DM asking multiple times if she was sure; it was, of course; a portal to the Abyss.

I let her off lightly - her body came back out a bit late still alive with no memories of what happened, but her face covered in "decorative" scars (forming obviously evil runes) that reduced her charisma. I think the response was "elves can't have a charisma that low!"

If you are reading this Penny, yes, it was you, and I have never seen anyone beat that since!

[Septimus]

I ran Tomb of Horrors. A party of 5 characters all followed one another into the sphere of annihilation, under the theory it was a gate.

I did that too :smalleek:

[Buufreak]

I ran Tomb of Horrors. A party of 5 characters all followed one another into the sphere of annihilation, under the theory it was a gate.

I want to say wotc had an animation of exactly this, but it was essentially a montage of them trying anything they can think of before and/or while jumping into the mouth.

[Cygnia]

Well, the lvl 1 bard with an AC of 10 decided to go into melee with a ocher jelly last night...

[Remuko]

Well, the lvl 1 bard with an AC of 10 decided to go into melee with a ocher jelly last night...

why was a level 1 bard even encountering a CR 5 Ocher Jelly? why did a level 1 bard have AC 10? a bard without dex bonus? AND without armor? i dont think theres any not bad decisions here. the player making a bard with no armor or dex bonus to ac, the bard attacking the jelly in melee, the dm having a CR 5 enemy somewhere the lvl 1 bard could even encounter it...

[Cygnia]

why was a level 1 bard even encountering a CR 5 Ocher Jelly? why did a level 1 bard have AC 10? a bard without dex bonus? AND without armor? i dont think theres any not bad decisions here. the player making a bard with no armor or dex bonus to ac, the bard attacking the jelly in melee, the dm having a CR 5 enemy somewhere the lvl 1 bard could even encounter it...

5e game (first time players with the exception of my husband), standard array, dwarf bard, player chose dex as his dump stat, so even with armor his final AC was 10, group was doing one of the two opening quests [specifically tailored for lvl 1 parties, btw, so the ocher jelly IS part of the adventure) from "Dragons of Icespire Peak" from the Essentials Kit -- the one where you try to get the 2 dwarven archaeologists to leave their dig site. Party chose to assist the diggers in clearing out the site first.

And you know what? While us "experienced players" would kvetch and moan about this, these players LOVED it. Plus, I got to teach 'em about death saves. From a mechanical standpoint, horrible idea. From a social standpoint? They were getting invested! Something really refreshing about introducing new folks into the hobby who aren't minmaxing meta'ing in every little detail a GM puts down. They are having fun!

And the hubby's cleric got him healed afterwards, so it was a good learning experience for him.

[icefractal]

I ran Tomb of Horrors. A party of 5 characters all followed one another into the sphere of annihilation, under the theory it was a gate.ToH to an extent, but this trap especially, trick players by exploiting OOC considerations, IMO.

Specifically:
1) "We're going to go along with the adventure the GM prepped, we're not just going to ditch it because one door is weird."
2) "If the party ended up accidentally split, we're going to take the path that reunites us, not just abandon that PC."

In the context of being a special challenge module that people go into with a different mindset, it's fine. As part of a normal campaign, IDK ... are "reject any suspicious plot hooks the GM presents, they're trying to trick you" and "abandon the other PCs if things get dicey" really lessons you want to teach? 😛

[Buufreak]

They are having fun!

I think that really summarizes the true worst decisions that have ever come from this hobby. If you aren't having fun, then why are you playing at all?

[Remuko]

5e game (first time players with the exception of my husband), standard array, dwarf bard, player chose dex as his dump stat, so even with armor his final AC was 10, group was doing one of the two opening quests [specifically tailored for lvl 1 parties, btw, so the ocher jelly IS part of the adventure) from "Dragons of Icespire Peak" from the Essentials Kit -- the one where you try to get the 2 dwarven archaeologists to leave their dig site. Party chose to assist the diggers in clearing out the site first.

And you know what? While us "experienced players" would kvetch and moan about this, these players LOVED it. Plus, I got to teach 'em about death saves. From a mechanical standpoint, horrible idea. From a social standpoint? They were getting invested! Something really refreshing about introducing new folks into the hobby who aren't minmaxing meta'ing in every little detail a GM puts down. They are having fun!

And the hubby's cleric got him healed afterwards, so it was a good learning experience for him.

ah 5e, i admit to knowing little about that so things could be way different. this is the 3.5/pf subforum so i assumed the story was about one of those.

[Gnaeus]

ToH to an extent, but this trap especially, trick players by exploiting OOC considerations, IMO.

Specifically:
1) "We're going to go along with the adventure the GM prepped, we're not just going to ditch it because one door is weird."
2) "If the party ended up accidentally split, we're going to take the path that reunites us, not just abandon that PC."

In the context of being a special challenge module that people go into with a different mindset, it's fine. As part of a normal campaign, IDK ... are "reject any suspicious plot hooks the GM presents, they're trying to trick you" and "abandon the other PCs if things get dicey" really lessons you want to teach? 😛

Curiously, that group was comprised of vampire larpers. So if I taught them anything about leaving other PCs to die I'd be proud and astonished. Every member of that group had betrayed and or abandoned others to their deaths on multiple occasions. Their PVP threshold I would call unusually low.

[MonochromeTiger]

ToH to an extent, but this trap especially, trick players by exploiting OOC considerations, IMO.

Specifically:
1) "We're going to go along with the adventure the GM prepped, we're not just going to ditch it because one door is weird."
2) "If the party ended up accidentally split, we're going to take the path that reunites us, not just abandon that PC."

In the context of being a special challenge module that people go into with a different mindset, it's fine. As part of a normal campaign, IDK ... are "reject any suspicious plot hooks the GM presents, they're trying to trick you" and "abandon the other PCs if things get dicey" really lessons you want to teach? 😛

Personally I'd say it's a bad decision to agree to play ToH in the first place. Don't get me wrong, it can be run and played with the right mindset and everybody going into it knowing what it is. Problem is "what it is" is pure hostile DM "kill all the player characters or cause random lasting changes that can completely screw up their character concept because it's funny" nonsense straight from Gygax.

It isn't a "hard dungeon" because of the difficulty of the encounters, it's a "hard dungeon" because you've got things that punish players for engaging with the dungeon and the traps are less "you can solve this if you're clever" and more "you die outright." Use the only visible entrances instead of actively announcing you're going over every inch of the walls for secret doors? slight chance you go somewhere else, high chance you just die outright and can't be resurrected. Inspect a certain room for too long? "You're instantly crushed flat, you die, no save." Try to engage with something you need just to progress? That's also a trap, enjoy eating damage if you don't spend time finding a work around for something you shouldn't even know is going to happen. Even getting into the dungeon itself has ways you can just fail to find the entrance completely.

It's not a dungeon for running with players you like it's Gygax's idea of how to punish powergamers and problem players and get rid of characters people think are overpowered that somehow got published as an actual dungeon. The only lessons it really teaches are "sometimes the DM really is out to get you" and "that jolly looking guy people love for starting D&D had a serious sadistic streak."


Curiously, that group was comprised of vampire larpers. So if I taught them anything about leaving other PCs to die I'd be proud and astonished. Every member of that group had betrayed and or abandoned others to their deaths on multiple occasions. Their PVP threshold I would call unusually low.

Makes sense. Vampire, especially from what I gather of the LARPs, is pretty heavily motivated by a sense of everyone out for themselves and most of the action being intrigue and internecine wars instead of the outside threats that you either waltz through or should be trying to avoid. If what you're used to playing is something that encourages you to look at everyone as a betrayal waiting to happen your team spirit isn't exactly going to be high.


For my personal entry. Had a player who did most of the bad decisions in their group, they'd always have a reason for it but that reason always ended up being some variant of "I may have forgot an important detail that makes this really bad in retrospect" or "well it had a chance of going well this time."

The worst case was when, to the horror of the rest of the group, he was off on his own during a planehopping adventure looking for mercenaries to help with an upcoming fight and decided to walk up to a Devil to ask him. The group knew this Devil personally, he was a repeating enemy that always ended up getting his contracts to be completely one sided with so many loopholes he never even had to do anything. On top of that he was a combat powerhouse compared to the group and had consistently nearly killed them when they fought and successfully got away when he started losing, so the group had agreed the last thing they want is him actually targeting them or taking too much interest in them and their business. This player decided "wait he's a Devil he has to follow his contracts, I can get him to fight for us and bring a few of his friends and we'll have him on our side for once" and proceeded to negotiate alone without anyone nearby to intervene.

I did the standard "are you sure" about 10 times. I gave him multiple skill checks to notice that maybe this wasn't the brightest plan and that there are some major inconsistencies in the contract. I outright mentioned it was a really bad idea to come to a Devil in general and this Devil in specific to try getting help. I even went over bits of the contract verbally hoping he'd notice the obvious loopholes. He kept going, completely confident in his plan ignoring all the warning signs with the rest of the group loudly reacting to the disaster happening in front of them being tuned out to "focus on his big moment to help."

All of this and he promptly signed his character up for a "service of the Devil's choice to be collected at his convenience with a duration no less than one year and no greater than a century" and the understanding that he'd try to get the rest of the party to help, all in exchange for "the willingness to help if it doesn't conflict with other goals and interests." In other words "I get to make you do whatever I want for up to a hundred years, which will probably involve you dying, and in exchange I say I'm willing to help instead of actually helping and even that I can cancel because I've got nothing to gain from fighting for you."

Then to make it worse as soon as he signed he turned around and said to follow him to the party for the fight, the Devil followed, reached the party, and said "well I'd like to help but this would ruin my work with the people you're trying to fight. Oh by the way contract complete, time to start on your side of the deal" and of course it inevitably ended in a fight and the party having to leave themselves exposed to their original enemies for in game weeks while they try to find a way to get their friend out of the contract and finally kill off a Devil that had repeatedly outclassed them the whole campaign.

[Endless Rain]

My players came across an abandoned ship that was just raided by privateers from an enemy nation. One of the bodies on the ship was a drow Infernal bloodline Sorcerer, in uniform as a high-ranking officer of the enemy nation that raided the ship, who unmistakably would've been hostile to the party. Against the advice of the rest of the party, the deceased crew (via speak with dead), and the dead guy himself, our Shaman resurrected him.

He promptly robbed the party, mocked the Shaman for being stupid enough to "give him a second chance", and went on to be a recurring villain for the whole plot arc.

[Spore]

why was a level 1 bard even encountering a CR 5 Ocher Jelly? why did a level 1 bard have AC 10? a bard without dex bonus? AND without armor? i dont think theres any not bad decisions here. the player making a bard with no armor or dex bonus to ac, the bard attacking the jelly in melee, the dm having a CR 5 enemy somewhere the lvl 1 bard could even encounter it...

1) Encountering high level monsters in the wild is part and parcel of a believable open world. It should invoke the feeling of progress when you come back and are suddenly strong enough to fight it.

2) Maybe the Bard is a strength build without armor (people sleep without medium or heavy armor). Maybe the player wants their bard to have Dex 10. This is still a game of make believe, and not an optimized tabletop army.

3) Ochre Jellies and other oozes are regularly just "harmless" side attractions. Too slow to chase people, often parts of a trap (chosen for their damage rather than CR) and as such the bard really gone out of their way to fight it. Part of the "AC 10" thing may also be because of dissolved armor which is kinda overly simulationist on the DM's part since (metal) armor doesnt instantly evaporate when in contact with acid.

I read @Cygnias post now. Largely what I assumed, but come on, give the flipping dwarf medium armor already!

[Darg]

2) Maybe the Bard is a strength build without armor (people sleep without medium or heavy armor). Maybe the player wants their bard to have Dex 10. This is still a game of make believe, and not an optimized tabletop army.

I gotta agree. Personally I'm a fan of simply using the non-elite and elite arrays for the simple fact that it adds depth to character building and player interactions because there are more limitations in the 3-19 range than there are in the 20+ range. That and it makes things like static bonuses seem more important and dramatic like how a barbarian going from 12 strength to 20 from rage and bull's strength seems like a bigger leap as you've quintupled your bonuses compared to going from 18 to 26 where you've only doubled them.

As you've also said, some people want to play the strong chiseled Adonis bard that doesn't have the dexterity to play a lute but has the lungs of a god. There are ways around this weakness such as the battle caster feat and mithril armor. It might take awhile to do so, but it might simply be what that player wants to play that the game allows to play. There are a plethora of ways to support such a character. That said, they'll want to play as though they'll likely be hit if attacked, but it's not much different than playing a monk early levels.

[Cygnia]

The bard is totally my favorite character in the party: Dad Jokes Dwarf!

(he admittedly also forgot he had spells -- and I forgot to remind him about that. Fortunately, that's now bee fixed.)

[Arael666]

Recent "worst" decision I have made with a character:

For context, my character is a straight Fighter and I play him like he's an eighties action movie hero. Our party is riding an airship, and we're chasing down pirates on another airship. The two airships are both descending very steeply.

Me: My character wants to know if he thinks he can jump from this airship onto theirs.
DM: *Laughs in bad player idea*. Okay, roll an intelligence check.
Me: *Rolls a natural 1* Okay, 10 intelligence and a natural one... one.
DM: *Laughs harder in bad player idea*. You think it's an amazing idea.
Me: Never let it be said I won't roleplay my character. Since my character thinks this is an amazing idea, he's going to run, make a huge leap off the edge and try to land to their airship.
DM: *Still laughing in bad player idea*. Okay, roll me an athletics check and a jump check.

I got a 30 and a 34 for the checks (and this is 5e, so these are amazing numbers), and somehow my high rolls, DM fiat and a wind updraft saved me from what should have been certain doom for my character. Still, it was pretty funny and everyone had a good laugh.

Not trying to be mean or anything but I wholeheartedly dislike rullings like this. Rolling a one shouldn't make your character not have common sense.

[JNAProductions]

Not trying to be mean or anything but I wholeheartedly dislike rullings like this. Rolling a one shouldn't make your character not have common sense.

I don't think "Misjudging the distance between two falling airships" qualifies as not having common sense.

Making the jump without flight qualifies as not having common sense, but since the poster you're responding to specifically said they're playing the PC like an 80s action hero, I think that's why they did it. They were clearly considering it before they rolled the check-the check just had them misjudge the distance badly.

[137beth]

Close. They burned down a church to give a community a project to work on together.

They also dressed up as clowns once to sexually assault a 13 year old 20th level sorcerer who was terrorizing a town the way that one Twilight Zone/Simpsons Tree House of Horrors episode had. They figured that would break his spirit. This is where they dubbed themselves "The Fellowship of the Honk" after using their honking noses as a gag.

Also they had a Belt of Gender Reversal that they would slip on each other when sleeping as a prank.

I really hope I never play with your players. I also hope for your sake that these are your former players.

[pabelfly]

Not trying to be mean or anything but I wholeheartedly dislike rullings like this. Rolling a one shouldn't make your character not have common sense.

Eh, it's not like this character of mine and common sense are more than casual acquaintances (hence my intelligence and wisdom scores). I thought it was a reasonable way for my character to behave.

[CockroachTeaParty]

I was running Savage Tide. We were getting close to the end of the campaign, and one of my players was a wizard rocking some high octane PC hubris.

The party needed to have an audience with Orcus, the demon prince of undeath. They were given a letter of introduction from Igwilv that would essentially help convince Orcus to join an alliance against Demogorgon.

Before going to Thanatos to talk to Orcus, the wizard player decides they should open the letter and read it, then make a forgery of the letter and re-seal it so that nobody would know they had read the letter.

He reasoned that 'nobody puts ranks in Forgery!' and thought he was being super clever. Of course, nobody in the party has ranks in Forgery, so they need to hire someone to make the Forgery. They go to Sigil to find the best forger they can, and the forger charges them an exorbitant amount of money to make such a dangerous forgery (hazard pay, plus being the best forger in the city, etc.) I forget how many tens of thousands of gold they spent to make this forgery.

Anyway, they finally get to Orcus's throne room. They hand him the letter.

I then have a hilarious amount of fun describing Orcus taking out his tiny reading glasses, examining the letter, and bellowing in fury at the clear forgery.

They had a statblock for Orcus, and he had max ranks in the Forgery skill.

Orcus punished the wizard character by stealing 40 years off his maximum lifespan or something. It was hilarious. They could've avoided the whole thing if they had just handed over the stinking letter in the first place.

[SimonMoon6]

I just remembered this one from a while ago. I'm not sure if the decision was necessarily bad but it did have unintended consequences.

The setting was a multi-genre multiverse. The PCs had occasionally encountered this guy (or entity) who was from beyond their multiverse. At one point, one of the PCs was given the option to ask this guy any question and he would answer truthfully. (Admittedly, this was a bit of a setup, knowing what this particular PC was like.)

So, the PC asked this guy about the true nature of reality. Well, in this particular setting, reality was a form of entertainment created by higher-dimensional beings. However, this entertainment was predicated on the people in the multiverse not knowing that they were being watched. And now that one of the people (the PC) knew that he was being watched for entertainment, these higher dimensional beings no longer had any use for the multiverse, so it disintegrated. Basically, the entire multiverse died because this PC asked the wrong question.

They were eventually able to stitch together a new (much smaller and stranger) multiverse from the limbo of nothingness, but the game didn't last too much longer after that.

[Buufreak]

forgery

To what end? What good was this actually doing, creating a second letter addressed to Orcus that was fake? What benefit did this possibly provide for the wizard or party?

[AnonJr]

I was running Savage Tide. We were getting close to the end of the campaign...

Quick question, without completely derailing the thread, how was the Savage Tide run? We've looked at it from time to time, and may again when our current campaign has run its course.

[Tzardok]

To what end? What good was this actually doing, creating a second letter addressed to Orcus that was fake? What benefit did this possibly provide for the wizard or party?

If I understood it correctly, the forgery was there because they had broken the seal on the real letter to read it. Nothing a mending spell couldn't have solved (unless there was some kind of magic on the seal), but why easy if it can be complicated?

[Wildstag]

I had a buddy argue that because my character had a beerhat, and those were developed irl in the 1985, his character should be able to use Shocking Grasp as a defib to bring an unconscious character back into the positives. Dude was an EMT at the time too.

Anyway, that's how my -13 hp dwarf (pathfinder) healed back to -1 after four days but was brought closer to death (-15).

GM allowed it for some reason.

[Gruftzwerg]

So, you got any stories of bad decisions your players have made?

Hmm... what could that be..

Bad decisions.. hm..


"Picking me as DM when I'm in bad mood!" :smallfurious:

[CockroachTeaParty]

To what end? What good was this actually doing, creating a second letter addressed to Orcus that was fake? What benefit did this possibly provide for the wizard or party?

I honestly don't know. My player was so convinced he was getting one over on a demon prince he didn't stop to think of any other of the myriad options available to them. It was just silliness. This is a bad decisions thread after all.


Quick question, without completely derailing the thread, how was the Savage Tide run? We've looked at it from time to time, and may again when our current campaign has run its course.

Savage Tide was a good old goof. I would recommend it! Lots of piratey nonsense to be had.

[icefractal]

Maybe he thought the letter was, like, a general letter of approval from Igwilv that they could use for any demon lord? And so by making copies they'd be able to recruit multiple for the price of one? Reading the letter should have corrected that, but maybe he was already too focused on how cool fooling a demon lord would be and stopped paying attention.

[Elenian]

Ooh! Okay!
It's not strictly relevant, but the setting was a world shaped like a helix with a basketball-sized sun bouncing back and forth down the middle. The gods had recently been killed when the strategic planning board of a gnomish megacorp decided to create an artificial magic monopoly by destroying Mt Olympus with a huge cannon.

PCs are investigating a string of thefts and come across a hidden installation where parties unknown are melting down the holy symbols of dead gods and building a submarine to sneak into hell and retrieve magic from the dead

What I'm saying is that the tone is decidedly silly.

The party breaks into a hidden room in the installation where they find black candles, sacrificial knives, and a pentagram with a demon in it. The demon, who is called "Mr Demon", engages them in conversation. The PCs realize that Mr Demon is very smart and well-informed, and naturally ask if he could identify something for them. He says sure, but he needs to examine it up close. PC hands him the item, breaking the summoning circle in the process.

That's not the bad decision yet.

Mr Demon laughs uproariously, draws himself up to his full height, and asks if they have any last words. One PC, herself a gnomish artificer, thinks for a second, says "can we make a deal?". She proceeds to offer an exchange: the other PCs souls in exchange for her life and some cursed soul-energy (crafting XP).

Of course, you can't just bargain away someone else's soul without their consent, so she has to spend the next sessions attempting to engineer situations in which her 'allies' will be compelled to sign away their souls to the powers of darkness (eg she arranges for the Lurk to fall out of an airship, hoping he'll sell his soul to survive the fall).

It was hilarious but somewhat detrimental to the party's long-term success.