PDA

View Full Version : Your favourite variation on "Rocks fall, everyone dies"



FMArthur
2008-08-10, 03:43 PM
Okay, "everyone dies" is a bit rare. Usually it's just a single player who's screwing up the DM's plans, delaying the game unnecessarily, or attacking the random NPCs for the sheer joy of it. From a players' perspective, sometimes it's just plain funny to see inexplicable DM magic happen. Hell, I've even been the victim of a few, and found it very amusing.

I'll share one: I was playing a game alongside one of the silliest characters ever. Basically, his oath as a Kensai was to defeat the strongest creatures he could find in battle. So when he heard about this supreme god-dragon that created the world we were in, he starts wasting everyone's time going from cleric to cleric in the big city to find out how to contact the god. Now, this is a character concept so poorly thought out that he was inevitably going to meet an early fatal end, and everyone knew it, so it wasn't a surprise that the DM eventually decided to indulge him. So he finds this entire clergy of clerics willing to help him, where they had to do months of preparation, and it costs him all of his money and the promise of his immortal soul. The ritual is made to be able to communicate a short message and force the attention of the god onto himself, and that's all.

"I, [character name] of Keldesar, challenge you to a duel."

And nothing happens. They wait for a while in the church for the dragon god's reaction, and there is no response. We all think that it's the DM being mean for wasting everyone's time with this charade by making it actually being a total waste. But no; when he walks outside, the landscape bends upwards in the distance, and twists slowly around to reveal the face of a dragon, whose back the world must've been resting on. A deafening roar (knocks every peasant unconscious) is heard, followed by a flash of light as the player's character explodes with enough force to deal near-death damage to the PCs standing 100 feet away and collapse the big church, killing the clergy.

"Damn. So does my soul go free, since the people I promised it to are dead?"
"No. You don't get an afterlife. You retroactively did not exist. None of the others even know what just happened."

It was this DM's crazy mind that brought me into D&D in the first place.

SadisticFishing
2008-08-10, 03:50 PM
That's not "rocks fall, you all die!" that's..

"Okay, I start an avalanche."
"... what?"
"I start making loud noises and causing earthquakes."
"Okay.. um, rocks fall. You die."

I've never had any of those moments, really, because we're not that bad lol.

Saph
2008-08-10, 03:58 PM
Players: "Let's go hunt a sandworm!"
DM: " . . . What?"
Players: "We're hunting a sandworm!"
DM: "Um, okay, you find one."

I've told this one before, but I've yet to see it beaten as the stupidest player death I've ever seen. Here's the story. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=72052)

- Saph

Deth Muncher
2008-08-10, 04:12 PM
Well, although the campaign basically degenerated into blah and the DM hated it, the explanation for our campaign ending was "The Ring of Random Action explodes, the universe ceases to exist."

Said ring was a Cursed Item (which I never picked up on) that worked akin to the Rod of Wonder. I abused it, a lot. Such fun things happened like:
-Extending the length of a sandstorm by 20 rounds
-Giving everyone herpes (although that was when someone else played my guy)
-Causing a dry riverbed to explode in flames

And oh so many more hilarious antics that made the party want to kill me IRL.

OOTS_Rules 2
2008-08-10, 04:26 PM
Nothing will beat the legend of the Gazebo.

Moff Chumley
2008-08-10, 04:37 PM
DM: "You are seduced and murdered by the evil overlord's daughter."
Players: "Can you... give us pictures of the evil overlord's daughter?"
...
Players: "Can my next character be seduced by a different overlord's daughter?"


:smallcool:

The Glyphstone
2008-08-10, 05:02 PM
I chuck meteors at my players when they misbehave. Completely with whistling noises and slowly growing shadows...it's gotten to the point where they freak out if I narrate whistling of any kind, even if it turns out to be a gnome walking past whistling his favorite song.

Doomsy
2008-08-10, 05:21 PM
There was the time the pilot of our starship in d20 reinvented the kamikaze as a group activity. Without asking the crew. It killed the BBEG, ourselves, and annihilated the plot in about five minutes of frantic rolling.

I think that counts nicely as a player-initiated rocks-fall moment. Or in our case - a cruiser going at about seventy percent of lightspeed.

ArmorArmadillo
2008-08-10, 05:43 PM
Black hole localized on the party cleric.

Lord Lorac Silvanos
2008-08-10, 05:55 PM
Players: "Let's go hunt a sandworm!"
DM: " . . . What?"
Players: "We're hunting a sandworm!"
DM: "Um, okay, you find one."

I've told this one before, but I've yet to see it beaten as the stupidest player death I've ever seen. Here's the story. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=72052)

- Saph

It is a very memorable story!


Also, allow me to provide the story of Eric and the Gazebo for those that have not heard it.

ED: You see a well groomed garden. In the middle, on a small hill, you see a gazebo.
ERIC: A gazebo? What color is it?
ED: [pause] It's white, Eric.
ERIC: How far away is it?
ED: About 50 yards.
ERIC: How big is it?
ED: [pause] It's about 30 ft across, 15 ft high, with a pointed top.
ERIC: I use my sword to detect good on it.
ED: It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo.
ERIC: [pause] I call out to it.
ED: It won't answer. It's a gazebo.
ERIC: [pause] I sheathe my sword and draw my bow and arrows. Does it respond in any way?
ED: No, Eric, it's a gazebo!
ERIC: I shoot it with my bow. [roll to hit] What happened?
ED: There is now a gazebo with an arrow sticking out of it.
ERIC: [pause] Wasn't it wounded?
ED: OF COURSE NOT, ERIC! IT'S A GAZEBO!
ERIC: [whimper] But that was a +3 arrow!
ED: It's a gazebo, Eric, a GAZEBO! If you really want to try to destroy it, you could try to chop it with an axe, I suppose, or you could try to burn it, but I don't know why anybody would even try. It's a @#$%!! gazebo!
ERIC: [long pause. He has no axe or fire spells.] I run away.
ED: [thoroughly frustrated] It's too late. You've awakened the gazebo. It catches you and eats you.
ERIC: [reaching for his dice] Maybe I'll roll up a fire-using mage so I can avenge my Paladin.

The above is Copyright © 1989 by Richard Aronson. Reprinted with permission. The author grants permission to reprint as long as all copyright notices remain with the text.

Mr Pants
2008-08-10, 06:09 PM
In my first game with a new DM I may had made the mistake of asking for an airship, a usual antic of my characters of the small size persuasion. Anyway I had forgotten that this is a no-nonsense super-serious DM so he had a cow fall from the sky onto my character. After he took it back and threatened me I ate a lot of steak and got several dirty looks from cows.

vicente408
2008-08-10, 06:14 PM
It is a very memorable story!


Also, allow me to provide the story of Eric and the Gazebo for those that have not heard it.

ED: You see a well groomed garden. In the middle, on a small hill, you see a gazebo.
ERIC: A gazebo? What color is it?
ED: [pause] It's white, Eric.
ERIC: How far away is it?
ED: About 50 yards.
ERIC: How big is it?
ED: [pause] It's about 30 ft across, 15 ft high, with a pointed top.
ERIC: I use my sword to detect good on it.
ED: It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo.
ERIC: [pause] I call out to it.
ED: It won't answer. It's a gazebo.
ERIC: [pause] I sheathe my sword and draw my bow and arrows. Does it respond in any way?
ED: No, Eric, it's a gazebo!
ERIC: I shoot it with my bow. [roll to hit] What happened?
ED: There is now a gazebo with an arrow sticking out of it.
ERIC: [pause] Wasn't it wounded?
ED: OF COURSE NOT, ERIC! IT'S A GAZEBO!
ERIC: [whimper] But that was a +3 arrow!
ED: It's a gazebo, Eric, a GAZEBO! If you really want to try to destroy it, you could try to chop it with an axe, I suppose, or you could try to burn it, but I don't know why anybody would even try. It's a @#$%!! gazebo!
ERIC: [long pause. He has no axe or fire spells.] I run away.
ED: [thoroughly frustrated] It's too late. You've awakened the gazebo. It catches you and eats you.
ERIC: [reaching for his dice] Maybe I'll roll up a fire-using mage so I can avenge my Paladin.

The above is Copyright © 1989 by Richard Aronson. Reprinted with permission. The author grants permission to reprint as long as all copyright notices remain with the text.

Ha! Wow. That's great. Now, to check the homebrew forum for a statblock for a sentient gazebo...

chiasaur11
2008-08-10, 06:17 PM
In my first game with a new DM I may had made the mistake of asking for an airship, a usual antic of my characters of the small size persuasion. Anyway I had forgotten that this is a no-nonsense super-serious DM so he had a cow fall from the sky onto my character. After he took it back and threatened me I ate a lot of steak and got several dirty looks from cows.

Your definition of "no nonsense" is "kills right out of Doug Tenaple"?

Man, your idea of crazy DMs must be a sight to see.

Mr Pants
2008-08-10, 06:27 PM
Your definition of "no nonsense" is "kills right out of Doug Tenaple"?

Man, your idea of crazy DMs must be a sight to see.

He was just trying to intimidate me. My idea of a crazy DM is one that actually let me have an airship that I dropped boulders off of to do dozens of d6s in damage. There was another one that let me buy hookers and reanimate them into mercurials. That wasn't dnd though.

Hal
2008-08-10, 08:48 PM
I just flashed this (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a3/UK_road_traffic_warning_sign_falling_rocks.png)at my players everytime they started getting unruly. It was moderately effective.

xPANCAKEx
2008-08-10, 09:24 PM
whistling and road signs... what else do people use to signify imminent player-induced TPK?

Mr Pants
2008-08-10, 09:45 PM
whistling and road signs... what else do people use to signify imminent player-induced TPK?

A distant "moo" that comes closer every second.

Ascension
2008-08-10, 09:47 PM
One of my DMs had a crazy epic or near-epic level Inevitable show our level 5 party the video footage of himself singlehandedly destroying all the sentient life (other than pixies, nymphs, dryads, etc.) on an entire plane.

Then, holding the macguffin we were after in his hands, he demanded to know why we had slaughtered all of his warforged guards without so much as trying to negotiate with them first.

One of our players then asked him if he was going to give us the macguffin.

I thought we were done for.

Since we had also killed a cult of necromancers who had been trespassing on the plane before he had become aware of their presence, we ended up getting off alive after agreeing never to return to the plane ever, ever, ever, ever again, unless it was with the news that we had completed some huge thirty or forty part quest for him. Still, closest any of my parties have ever come to being killed where they stood.

Incidentally, said Inevitable had been "reprogrammed" by a group of nutty druids who apparently thought the best way to save nature was to kill everyone. And he wasn't actually the BBEG or anything. We just ran into him in the middle of a "routine" sidequest.

tyckspoon
2008-08-10, 09:49 PM
A distant "moo" that comes closer every second.

Herd of exploding two-headed brahmin?

ColonelFuster
2008-08-10, 09:53 PM
A moo, heard between midnight and dawn, is an omen of impending death.
Growing up in the weird country of the Key Peninsula teaches you some ODD stuff.

Best "rocks fall, everyone dies?"

"You see a flood of soldiers coming over the hill. After wondering why they do not thunder across the plain, you realize that not one of them is wearing armor."
Monks.
Why? Because my friend Wesley, a physics student, played a power-gaming monk once. Regardless of what any forums say, it was well known in this group that monks were not to be dealt with.
The reaction? We stopped joking around. There were to be no more hate crimes against Changelings Sharn. And later, no more hate crimes against Silver Flamers in thrane. And later, no more hate crimes against Shifters in random towns.

spamoo
2008-08-10, 10:02 PM
Player: "I climb onto the (injured) dragon's back"
DM: "Ok... it flies off the ground while trying to shake you off."
*Amazing Grapple Checks*
Player: "I stab it."
*Amazing rolls again*
DM: "It dies... and you start falling... fast..."
Me: "Don't worry! I'll cast feather fall!"
*Casts feather fall*
DM: "You fall to the ground safely. The dragon's corpse falls on top of you. You die..."

Arbitrarity
2008-08-10, 10:32 PM
That makes no sense at all. You'd fall slower than the dragon corpse, so you'd either land on it, or it would hit you on the way down, and be slowed to your speed, or it would hit you, and go faster than you.

Also...

"The thunderbird grabs you and flies up"
"I wrestle out of it's claws, and begin climbing up"
*High DC climb checks, and some attacks later*
"Ok, so it's dead. You're 800 feet up."
"Um.."
*notes summoned hippogriff*
"Will that hippogriff come try to rescue me?"
"Makes sense..."
"Ok, so I try to land on it!"
*Reflex saves, dexterity checks, and some aiming later*
"You land on the hippogriff, fall 200 feet, and it's duration expires. You fall 100feet onto the edge of a cliff, which I assume you try to grab onto?"
"Of course"
*Failed climb check*
"You fall off the cliff. A distance later, you hit the ground, taking 28 damage"
"Great. I'm still alive. I drink 30 healing potions."
"You get really, really drunk"

monty
2008-08-10, 10:37 PM
That makes no sense at all. You'd fall slower than the dragon corpse, so you'd either land on it, or it would hit you on the way down, and be slowed to your speed, or it would hit you, and go faster than you.

Not necessarily. Its wings could still be open, which might increase its relative surface enough to make it fall more slowly than you.

Revanmal
2008-08-10, 10:41 PM
"Earthen bodies of great size move rapidly in a downward direction, perpendicular to the ground. Spirits leave the mortal coils of all those in your adventuring party."

"Stop talking like that."

"F*ck you!"

Collin152
2008-08-10, 10:48 PM
"You've been Mindraped. You are, efectivly, no longer the same person. Give me your character sheet."

strayth
2008-08-10, 10:54 PM
Back in 2nd edition, or rather toward the earlier 2nd edition, thieves could only get 99% on Find Traps. My thief, a human named Noram, was leading the party through a very large lair. The party consisted of Noram (20 thief), Sorek (16 Fighter/Mage), Dera (18 cleric), Kolack (19 dwarf fighter) and Miya (I think 17 half-elf druid). Our DM was very sick of Noram being so talented with the trap finding- I'd never once, not even in the lower levels, let down the party with the traps.

Then one fine day he clacked the dice behind the DM screen and said plainly as ever, "You didn't find anything." Okay, so we press on.

Well, not okay and we pressed down really. The entire ceiling, and six stories above this level, collapsed. It all caved in. Not only did we lose the treasure and target we were going for, but we all died. Even the dwarf.

The thing is, we were all too busy laughing to feel down about it. I still remember leaving my forehead on the desk for something near ten minutes, laughing and groaning in turns.

Colmarr
2008-08-10, 10:57 PM
It's not a DM-fiat TPK, but it's certainly a TPK that the DM didn't see coming:

We played an Eberron campaign based on the Dirty Dozen, where each PC was pardoned from death row on the condition that they serve the Silver Flame until released.

To ensure compliance, an artifact-like object was inserted into each of our chests. The objects would detonate if triggered by the church, or if any attempt was made to disable or remove them.

In the course of the third session of the campaign, we recovered a brief case from a MBEG. When we opened it, we triggered the anti-magic field trap inside*. The chestbursters all promptly went off.

A messy end to what was a promising campaign...

*The case was going to be used to crash an airship by disabling its elemental ring.

Tengu_temp
2008-08-10, 11:21 PM
"You're caught in a four-way battle between a titanic robot, a super-powered magical girl, a cosmic horror, and a sentient planet. There are no survivors."

chiasaur11
2008-08-10, 11:29 PM
"You're caught in a four-way battle between a titanic robot, a super-powered magical girl, a cosmic horror, and a sentient planet. There are no survivors."

I'd demand an oporttunity to roll for initiative.
Sounds almost survivable.

monty
2008-08-10, 11:31 PM
"You're caught in a four-way battle between a titanic robot, a super-powered magical girl, a cosmic horror, and a sentient planet. There are no survivors."

All right, this is a good opportunity to test my new character. His name is Carlos Ray Norris.

Dr Bwaa
2008-08-10, 11:39 PM
DM-inflicted TPK:

"We're going to be playing the Tomb of Horrors today."

This player (gnome artificer) rarely showed up anymore, and approached me the day before saying he didn't have time to continue playing.
DM: In your path stands a short, charred, grotesque figure. In a horrible, gurgling voice, he shrieks, "Give me the gnome!"
PCs: we charge him!
DM: a Wall of Fire 20 feet high separates you from view of the disfigured burn victim, and Melkor (the aforementioned gnome artificer) develops a mysterious bubble around him.
Melkor: I attack the bubble!
DM: Nothing happens, but the bubble starts floating into the air, with you inside.
PCs: we hold it down!
DM: No, you don't.
Melkor: I fire my crossbow at the bubble.
DM: Your bolt shatters. You take one damage as the splinters shoot into your eyes. The bubble continues to rise; you're sixty feet up. You see the burned gnome (for it was, in fact, an old "friend" of Melkor's, come back from the dead as a Blood Magus after Melkor blew up half the Academy) flying a bit in front of you now.
Melkor: I have a brass key in my inventory. I use that!
DM: Not so much luck as failure. You continue to rise, and are eventually carried off into the distance over the mountains, as the other gnome flies high above you, watching your progress.
Druid: I wildsh--
DM: You don't like him, remember?
Druid: Oh, right. He did flamethrower my animal companion.
DM: Yes. Yes, he did.
PCs: We keep walking.


Player-inflicted TPK (or at least largely):

"I jump into the demon's mouth."

Player 1: I Mind Blast the wizard (a PC), steal his spellbook, and ask the townspeople to haul me out of the chasm, acting as an innocent woman.
*successful climb checks*
DM: You are now on a rope 75 feet up, twenty-five feet from the top, and safety. Player 2, you wake up (at 0 HP).
Player 2: What do I see?
DM: You're missing your spellbook, there's a rope nearby with a woman near the top, and your staff is on the bonfire (used to be a tavern).
*spot check*
DM: and you see the woman up the rope holding a familiar large tome that looks very out-of-place.
Player 2: I Magic Missile the rope.
DM: Player 1, a bolt of energy hits the rope above you, severing it. You fall 75 feet, and take [roll] damage.
Player 1: That knocks me out, at -2.
Player 2: I go over to him.
DM: It's your spellbook, all right.
Player 2: I slit his throat. *max damage with the dagger*
Player 1: Weak.

EDIT: Please define "Epic."


"You're caught in a four-way battle between a titanic robot, a super-powered magical girl, a cosmic horror, and a sentient planet. There are no survivors."

The_Werebear
2008-08-10, 11:58 PM
One that a DM I had used when one player got unruly:

"You explode. The rest continue on their way."

spamoo
2008-08-10, 11:59 PM
Not necessarily. Its wings could still be open, which might increase its relative surface enough to make it fall more slowly than you.

That is what happened.

chiasaur11
2008-08-11, 12:22 AM
All right, this is a good opportunity to test my new character. His name is Carlos Ray Norris.

You just rewrote your old "Bill Brasky" character sheet, didn't you?

sleepy
2008-08-11, 12:25 AM
pertinant information (http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20080609)

turkishproverb
2008-08-11, 12:40 AM
"You're caught in a four-way battle between a titanic robot, a super-powered magical girl, a cosmic horror, and a sentient planet. There are no survivors."

This...this has happened to me. (Never play BESM with the teenage version of myself. It ends very badly)

Feralgeist
2008-08-11, 12:51 AM
"Table flips, DM gets tackled."

DM-fiat deaths with no rules or chance involves are BS, especially just cause a player isn't doing as expected. If a DM pulled that on me, i'd go ape.

That being said, i don't care if it's odds that are HIGHLY stacked against you, with a very low survivability chance, but if its just a "you die", SOMEbody's getting a mountain dew bottle transplanted right next to their kidney.

Drascin
2008-08-11, 12:54 AM
My standard method is death by Mon Calamari cruiser bombing run. It is generally warned by it looming overhead.

"But... aren't we in Eberron?"
"Yup! ^^"
"But that was... I mean... A ****ING STARWARS CRUISER?!"
"Yup again! Now, please, are you going to stop being such jackasses or shall I order it to fire?"

Knaight
2008-08-11, 01:00 AM
"Your magic alerts the really powerful spirit you summoned earlier who broke out after you blessed them to load them up with physical power. This time the spirit has a shell of iron with veins of magma, and is moving really fast. You die"

This normally doesn't work, but since my interesting player is back(he was in Mali for a year, and came back today) there is a really powerful pissed of spirit with additional blessings out to get them. My players created a recurring enemy for me.

Rei_Jin
2008-08-11, 01:02 AM
Geez, how many times have I used those words?

Rocks fall, you all die


The only thing that's more fun than that, is to tell them

The ground opens up beneath you all, and you fall to your deaths. Rocks fall on top of you, crushing your corpses, before the hole closes up again, sealing your destroyed bodies for all time.

They tend to stop for a few seconds, and look at me like I just kicked a puppy. Then we start up again, sans the hole in the ground.

Of course, the second one is more simply...

You fall, you die. Rocks fall on top of you, and you die again.

kjones
2008-08-11, 07:52 AM
Player 2: I Magic Missile the rope.
DM: Player 1, a bolt of energy hits the rope above you, severing it. You fall 75 feet, and take [roll] damage.


Clever play, but unfortunately, Magic Missile can't be used on inanimate objects. Presumedly for this reason.

Jayabalard
2008-08-11, 08:17 AM
"Table flips, DM gets tackled."I'm only saying this because I care - there are a lot of decaffeinated brands on the market today that are just as tasty as the real thing.


DM-inflicted TPK:
Player-inflicted TPK (or at least largely):Neither of these are TPK's

Dausuul
2008-08-11, 09:22 AM
The last session I ran included a battle with a black dragon that took place in an ancient dwarven ruin. The stonework had been badly damaged over time by the dragon's acids, and the pillars holding up the roof were just about ready to collapse. When the dragon belched acid over two PCs and four pillars, and the PCs saw the acid eating into the pillars, they realized they were in danger of a very literal "rocks fall, everyone dies" moment...

(The roof did not in fact collapse - the PCs immediately ran for the stairs in order to engage the dragon on less dangerous ground, and the ongoing acid damage wore off before it could destroy the pillars. But watching them realize the danger was quite gratifying.)

AKA_Bait
2008-08-11, 09:29 AM
Clever play, but unfortunately, Magic Missile can't be used on inanimate objects. Presumedly for this reason.

I'd have let that slide anyway, even though technically you are correct. Mostly because Animate Rope would do the job just as well, is the same level, and the other PC tried to kill him.

Sadly (or not so sadly), I have never had a really TPK either as player or DM so I don't have a ton to contribute here.

Dr Bwaa
2008-08-11, 10:22 AM
my stuff
Neither of these are TPK's

Good point, though, there being two examples in each category, and one of each being a real TPK, I feel slightly validated :)


I'd have let that slide anyway, even though technically you are correct. Mostly because Animate Rope would do the job just as well, is the same level, and the other PC tried to kill him.

That was the decision of our DM, too. We all tend to play things pretty loosely, anyway, with regards to the rules :)

DareTheRogue
2008-08-11, 10:26 AM
In only the most messed up players mind did i ever see this happen.

Pixie(with gun and gunpowder): well we are besieging the orc fortress in the morning right?
GM: Yes you will be.
Pixie: can i talk to you on the side...
GM: Yes you may.

20 minutes later

GM: Morning comes, your Pixie friend looks a bit tired but all of you got some good rest.
Me: Well lets go then.
GM: you approach the fortress. No one seems t be awake yet.
Pixie: awesome we can sneak in and kill them all while they sleep.
GM: umm ok. is that what you all do?
Me: sure it makes things easier, we just need to be quite.
GM: you all get inside after a bit of trouble at the gate. Everyone still seems to be sleeping, in the center of the courtyard you see a few orcs sleeping together on the ground.
Gnome(throws small explosives): I throw a bomb at them.
GM: your serious aren't you?
Gnome: yeah.
GM: Roll to hit.
Gnome: natural 1
GM: you miss roll direction and range for where it goes.

2 minutes later as they refigure out how this works.

GM: the bomb rolls by the wall.
Pixie: Wait, what? NO I DIDN'T.
GM: the bomb rolled by the wall.
Pixie: give me a new character sheet.
Me: Why?
Pixie: I spent all night lining the walls of the fortress and filling barrels full of gunpowder from my bags of holding. Two Type 4s worth.
GM: let me see how much damage happens...
Me: will it kill me? and everyone else?
GM: no orcs are going to survive, and the party is probably dead to, why?
Me: forget it new characters, AND NO EXPLOSIVES!!!





on a side note, we actually have a book with a living Gazebo in it... it ate someone.

Thorosofmyr
2008-08-11, 10:31 AM
My personal favorite was "Tarrasque-chan". We were playing a fairly high powered pretty modded BESM d20 game, and "Tarrasque-chan" was a running gag.

The BESM d20 series does have a MM, and its own version of the Tarrasque. Its stats are pretty beefy, but we decided we needed a little more flair to really make it a problem. So we decided to slap 20 levels of magical girl on im.

It spawned several jokes of being consumed with the power of love. He never really killed any PCs, but it's definitely my favorite variation.

Tadanori Oyama
2008-08-11, 11:09 AM
As a DM I had two I liked.

The first was in an early campaign and technically had plot backing. Party was supposed to be saving this town, weird things going on, and they were wasting time hunting for gold, extorting people, typical player things. I'd been a DM for all for three sessions so I responded by throwing the plot at them: all at once.

Their in the tavern playing around when a pack of wererats, coupla devils, and evil tiefling cleric all kick in the door and roll initative. Second round of combat the "boss", a Mindflayer, blows out the backdoor and gets hold of the barbarian's head.

Not really a Rocks Fall, but it felt like it at the time.


Second one is in Eberron.

The party is traveling to Sharn but they refuse to make any progress. Finally I tell them about this weird stones they've just discovered. Rogue and Fighter climb onto them and consider which of them should hit them first. I guess they thought the things had gold in them. That's when Lightning Rail came through, along the conductor stones the players where standing on.

Mr Pants
2008-08-11, 01:05 PM
Herd of exploding two-headed brahmin?

Nope, what is it?



A moo, heard between midnight and dawn, is an omen of impending death.

heheh
maybe my DMs herd of that

Tymire
2008-08-11, 01:12 PM
Actually you are wrong the first one was a DM-inflicted TPK.

You forgot the first line of the sentance:

"We're going to be playing the Tomb of Horrors today."


:smallbiggrin:

Aron Times
2008-08-11, 01:14 PM
"Everyone gets banished to the Far Realm for an eternity of Warhammer-esque torture."

tyckspoon
2008-08-11, 01:37 PM
Nope, what is it?


One of the random map encounters in Fallout 2. You start just a few steps away or even right in the middle of a herd of brahmin (cow-like livestock with two heads). They walk toward you mooing and then.. blow up. 20 exploding cows crowded around 1 character = dead character (the rest of the party tends to be a little farther back, but it's still game over when the main character bites it.)

thegurullamen
2008-08-11, 01:44 PM
I forget the exact circumstances, but after a very lengthy discussion about wild magic, my wild mage character and what kind of effects could spring up with twelve different spell effects ending simultaneously at midnight in near proximity to one another in a wild magic zone, our DM got fed up.

"Midnight strikes. You all turn into pumpkins. New game."

To be fair, we hadn't progressed the plot in three sessions.

Leliel
2008-08-11, 02:02 PM
First warning-

"You have a strange feeling that you are beginning to annoy the Emperor of Mankind."

Second warning:

"You have a vision of the Emperor of Mankind shaking his fist at you."

Destruction:

"Using his psychic powers, the Emperor teleports you into his inner sanctum, and revives just long enough to fight you.

You are in a mono-a-mono battle with a physical god.

Do I need to explain what happens next?"

And no, this isn't for a Dark Heresy game-just any game where the players start to annoy me.

Totally Guy
2008-08-11, 04:02 PM
I'm thinking of doing a variation on the theme. I'm going to have a load-bearing boss which is kept in check be a noble guardian. When the party ask why he doesn't kill the baddie, he'll look up, think of his time in the town above the dungeon and state "If I do... rocks fall, everybody dies" just as hommage to the line.

Chronos
2008-08-11, 04:08 PM
SurleySeraph came up with a nice picture for situations like this, in another thread. You round the top of the hill, and see this:http://img158.imageshack.us/img158/241/spikedchaintarrasquesf0.png

Behold_the_Void
2008-08-11, 04:21 PM
If it comes down to it, I just put this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9P5_R1pwh90) on.

AslanCross
2008-08-11, 04:27 PM
My personal favorite was "Tarrasque-chan". We were playing a fairly high powered pretty modded BESM d20 game, and "Tarrasque-chan" was a running gag.

The BESM d20 series does have a MM, and its own version of the Tarrasque. Its stats are pretty beefy, but we decided we needed a little more flair to really make it a problem. So we decided to slap 20 levels of magical girl on im.

It spawned several jokes of being consumed with the power of love. He never really killed any PCs, but it's definitely my favorite variation.


I dub this Magical Apocalypse Monster Girl Tarrasque-chan.

...why do I get the strange urge to actually DRAW this? :smalleek:

My version:
Monster Manual V has an entity that is worshipped by an eccentric cult of Mind Flayers. It's called Thoon.

I statted it out as an Uvuudaum Psion 20.

thegurullamen
2008-08-11, 04:30 PM
SurleySeraph came up with a nice picture for situations like this, in another thread. You round the top of the hill, and see this:http://img158.imageshack.us/img158/241/spikedchaintarrasquesf0.png

Okay, one thing I don't get. Is that thing breathing Gargantuan spiked chains or is it being physically fished out of a portal? Either way, it's horribly "not good", but if it's the latter, what the Hell is just off-screen?!

tyckspoon
2008-08-11, 04:47 PM
Okay, one thing I don't get. Is that thing breathing Gargantuan spiked chains or is it being physically fished out of a portal? Either way, it's horribly "not good", but if it's the latter, what the Hell is just off-screen?!

Limits of the rudimentary 'shopping and source images used.. it's actually supposed to be *wielding* a Gargantuan spiked chain as a mouth-weapon (Savage Species, probably.) after having used one of the ToB Shadow-teleport maneuvers to pop into the middle of a luckless group. Spiked chains as a breath weapon would be pretty awesome, tho..

monty
2008-08-11, 04:48 PM
Okay, one thing I don't get. Is that thing breathing Gargantuan spiked chains or is it being physically fished out of a portal? Either way, it's horribly "not good", but if it's the latter, what the Hell is just off-screen?!

No, it's wielding the spiked chain, breathing fire, flying, and teleporting. It's the re-feated Tarrasque from the other thread.

Bayar
2008-08-11, 04:55 PM
DM: Your animal companion dies.

Player: Huh ? Dies?

DM: Yeah.

Player: But why ?

DM: He had rabies...


Oh, and death by rat-flail (http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=110)

AlexanderRM
2008-08-11, 06:38 PM
Incidentally, said Inevitable had been "reprogrammed" by a group of nutty druids who apparently thought the best way to save nature was to kill everyone.

Actually has some logic to it. Humans have this weird tendency to threaten nature. Maybe they might have left the animals, good elves, whatever similar stuff (and, of course, druids) alive, but that would have to be a pretty complicated reprogramming.



First warning-
Second warning:
Destruction:
You are in a mono-a-mono battle with a physical god.

I'm considering making a god know only as "the master" (guess ;)) if I ever DM...



However, I think the Room of Death (http://www.headinjurytheater.com/article73.htm) (or even a "house of death") would be the best surefire way to kill off an entire party.

chiasaur11
2008-08-11, 07:10 PM
Actually has some logic to it. Humans have this weird tendency to threaten nature. Maybe they might have left the animals, good elves, whatever similar stuff (and, of course, druids) alive, but that would have to be a pretty complicated reprogramming.

Nature tends to try to kill nature too.

Humans are just better at it.

AlexanderRM
2008-08-11, 09:07 PM
Nature tends to try to kill nature too.

Humans are just better at it.

Are you referring to such phenomena as animals killing each other? Because I'm really not seeing druids or fey "trying to kill nature".
In that case, there's really no harm done to nature as a whole. There's one less of this type of creature in the forest (or wherever), sure, but now this other type of creature has a full stomach. And if the creature got killed because it wasn't good enough to exist in the environment, then, well, that's natural selection.
Humans, on the other hand, come in with bulldozers (well, not in the classic D&D campaign, but you get the idea) and destroy the entire forest in which this drama was taking place.

Unless that's not what you were referring too, but I can't think of what else it might be.

However, this risks getting off-topic, so... whatever.
P.S. I'm still putting down "Druid who wants to destroy human civilization to save nature" on my list of character ideas.

Chronos
2008-08-11, 10:20 PM
Humans, on the other hand, come in with bulldozers (well, not in the classic D&D campaign, but you get the idea) and destroy the entire forest in which this drama was taking place.And if the denizens of the forest can't withstand or recover from that, that's natural selection, too. The only difference between the changes humans make to the environment and the changes other organisms make is one of scale, and it's not always the humans that are on the larger end. You want environmental devastation on a truly epic scale? How about an organism which replaces a quarter of the atmosphere with one of the most corrosive chemicals known, a substance so reactive that it can only persist in nature through constant pollution by it? The blue-green algae pulled off that trick billions of years ago.

monty
2008-08-11, 10:57 PM
You want environmental devastation on a truly epic scale? How about an organism which replaces a quarter of the atmosphere with one of the most corrosive chemicals known, a substance so reactive that it can only persist in nature through constant pollution by it? The blue-green algae pulled off that trick billions of years ago.

I really never thought about it that way.

As for the humans vs. nature thing...human effects aren't really natural selection, after a point. No amount of natural selection can make something immune to blunt force, for example (well, there's magic, but that's a different thing entirely).

Colmarr
2008-08-11, 11:17 PM
Reply to Chronos. Spoilered in an attempt to avoid derailing the OP's thread.


And if the denizens of the forest can't withstand or recover from that, that's natural selection, too.

Not true. Natural selection refers to creatures evolving out of a need to survive. Humans long ago passed the point that we needed to do anything to "survive". The only thing really threatening us at the moment is us.


The only difference between the changes humans make to the environment and the changes other organisms make is one of scale, and it's not always the humans that are on the larger end.

Actually, I think the main difference is not scale, but SPEED.

How long did it take that blue-green algae to effect that change? Preliminary net research suggests in excess of 4 billion years.

Conversely, how long has it taken humanity to smog over most cities in asia, clear vast tracts of rainforest, import ill-suited species into otherwise inaccessible areas, and (assuming the science on global warming is correct) begin heating the world to potentially catastrophic levels?

Waspinator
2008-08-12, 11:59 AM
My standard method is death by Mon Calamari cruiser bombing run. It is generally warned by it looming overhead.

"But... aren't we in Eberron?"
"Yup! ^^"
"But that was... I mean... A ****ING STARWARS CRUISER?!"
"Yup again! Now, please, are you going to stop being such jackasses or shall I order it to fire?"

The amusing thing is that you actually could use the stats for a Mon Calamari cruiser if you wanted since I'm sure one of the Star Wars d20 or Saga Edition books has it. It could TECHNICALLY not be DM fiat since they could maybe fight the thing.

Hmmm.... Wizards vs Lasers. Sounds like fun. :smallcool:

monty
2008-08-12, 12:04 PM
Hmmm.... Wizards vs Lasers. Sounds like fun. :smallcool:

Well, we all know that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Falrin
2008-08-12, 03:16 PM
A tribe of goblins were attacking a small village at night.

The PC's are sleeping in an inn and wake up hearing some distant battlenoises.

They see a few hunters franticly fending of +/- 50 goblins with +/- 10 Wolf Cavalery. they knew these guys and had trouble fighting 4 of them.

Afther a few moments of discussion the LvL 3 fighter & LvL 3 wizard decide to leave the inn and hide in the townsquare (behind a well).

Goblins are pooring in, Cavalery units ride onto the square and start shouting orders. Goblins are spreading to nearby houses.

At this moment our lovely fighter decides to charge on of the cavalery and jumps out of hiding.

the wolfs charges (ride-by), the goblins swarmed and they went down before they even start thinking this might be a bad idea.

Chronos
2008-08-12, 08:59 PM
Natural selection hijack:Quoth Colmarr:
Not true. Natural selection refers to creatures evolving out of a need to survive. Humans long ago passed the point that we needed to do anything to "survive". The only thing really threatening us at the moment is us.Actually, natural selection has never been about survival, per se. It's all about reproduction, and some humans are still better at reproducing than others, so there's still human evolution going on. Survival is only important insofar as it's tough to reproduce when you're dead.

Actually, I think the main difference is not scale, but SPEED.

How long did it take that blue-green algae to effect that change? Preliminary net research suggests in excess of 4 billion years.OK, I'll concede this point. 4 billion years is too high a figure; it's debatable whether life has even existed for that long, and most of the oxygenation of the atmosphere occurred long ago. But it still almost certainly took a lot longer than some of the things humans are doing: Even the Sahara Desert only took a few tens of thousands of years to create, and a lot of things humans do have timescales of centuries, decades, or even years.

In regards to monty's point about blunt force, a great many things have actually adapted to a post-bulldozer world. I don't know of many that can withstand a direct hit from a bulldozer, but plenty of things can get out of the way, or re-establish themselves behind the bulldozer. There are now more deer than ever before, and pigeons and rats are so ubiquitous in cities now that it's hard to imagine what they did before.

Deth Muncher
2008-08-12, 09:34 PM
Another hijack.



There are now more deer than ever before, and pigeons and rats are so ubiquitous in cities now that it's hard to imagine what they did before.

Well, obviously, rats and pidgeons didn't exist. They spontaneously came into being when the DM invented them to go along with cities.

In seriousness though, the "post-bulldozer" world is an interesting idea, as to what exactly would happen should humans cease to be an interference.

So interesting, in fact, that I believe the Discovery Channel made a CGI-Documentary about it several years back. It'd be worth taking a look.

Collin152
2008-08-12, 09:52 PM
"Sun rises, everyone burns."

Chronicled
2008-08-12, 10:47 PM
"Sun rises, everyone burns."

I really, really like this, but can't help but be disappointed that you didn't write:

"You wake up. Surprise! Everyone's been Mind Raped."

Collin152
2008-08-12, 10:57 PM
I really, really like this, but can't help but be disappointed that you didn't write:

"You wake up. Surprise! Everyone's been Mind Raped."

Hey, that's an even better Mindrape one. Steal!

monty
2008-08-12, 11:57 PM
"Sun rises, everyone burns."

Vampire campaign?

Collin152
2008-08-13, 12:03 AM
Vampire campaign?

...Hey! That works perfectly!
Yeah, Vampire campaign. Vampire game.

chiasaur11
2008-08-13, 12:31 AM
"Sun rises, everyone burns."

Sun FAILS to rise, everyone slowly freezes to death.

Philistine
2008-08-13, 08:18 AM
"The sail on the horizon belongs to the pirate ship Revenge, flagship of the Dread Pirate Roberts...
There are no survivors."

Mind you, I've never actually seen it - but if it did happen, it'd be a favorite. :smallbiggrin:

AlexanderRM
2008-08-18, 07:09 PM
A Formian swarm. Small- or Medium- sized creature, swarming. That would be rediculously tough. Would be good if anyone ever makes giant campaign or something.
There's also the interesting consideration of a single half-fiend ant, facing a "typical" first-level party. Even if the fighter and rogue could hit it with fine size+ high dexterity+ half-fiend natural armor bonus+ whatever else, damage reduction 5/magic means it would be pretty hard to injure, so combine that with spell resistance and resistance to energy, and you have a single ant attacking the PCs once per round for one damage, and it only has 1 HP, but they can't actually hurt it. Of course, they could just run away... I wonder how a DM could make it so the players HAVE to defeat an ant?


Neither of those would quite be RFED, though. It's just that the first one could probably kill all the players in most non-epic-level campaigns.

Colmarr
2008-08-18, 07:58 PM
Natural selection hijack continues (and resolves):


Actually, natural selection has never been about survival, per se. It's all about reproduction

Fair enough. I meant survival of the species (a.k.a. continuous ability to reproduce on a self-sustaining level). I think our positions are actually the same once the miscommunication is resolved.


OK, I'll concede this point. 4 billion years is too high a figure; it's debatable whether life has even existed for that long, and most of the oxygenation of the atmosphere occurred long ago.

I did say preliminary net research. :smallsmile: But again, we seem to agree aside from the details.

DarknessLord
2008-08-18, 08:04 PM
"The sail on the horizon belongs to the pirate ship Revenge, flagship of the Dread Pirate Roberts...
There are no survivors."

Mind you, I've never actually seen it - but if it did happen, it'd be a favorite. :smallbiggrin:

Do that, and any swashbuckler (or a number of other classes) worth his salt would insist that this would lead to them becoming the next Dread Pirate Roberts....

But then you have your next campain. :biggrin:

Viddaric
2008-08-18, 11:02 PM
I have never done, nor seen either of these, but if I DM, then I will use one or both of these:

stratigy #1: add a new high level NPC wizard. he will become the party's "bazooka", frequently taking one for the team. however, there is a catch. the wizard wields a magical staff of "whacking people who play out of charachter" or "whacking people who piss off the DM" or "whacking people who avoid the rails". the wizard is too good to ditch, so they have to either follow the DM's agenda or get many painful bruises on their heads. a truely annoying player will be dead within ten rounds if this wizard is within 100 feet of them. :smalltongue:(by the way, make sure that the players cannot steal, nor destroy the staff. put some protection charms on it, and maybe give the wizard good spot and listen checks)

second:

DM: ok, would you please stop (whatever the players are doing that is pissing the DM off)?:smallmad:
Player(s): no, we like doing that.:smallyuk:
DM: alright, anyway on with the dungon. your secret door search reveals a stone sticking out of the wall, as well as a door sized rectangle of stone which is lighter colored than the rest of the wall.
P: I press on the stone.
DM: the rectangle slides sideways, and inside is an empty-looking room with black walls.
Ps: we enter the room.
DM: as soon as you are all in the room (or everyone who is annoying you, leaving the others outside) the wall-door slams shut behind you! strange runes appear in the hundreds on the wall. (at least one of the players) reads the runes. they say "exploding runes":smallamused:

you can guess what happens next, and don't forget to make the room small enough to dammage them all greatly after reading at least five of the runes, or make it so that the runes set each other off.

Chronicled
2008-08-18, 11:10 PM
I have never done, nor seen either of these, but if I DM, then I will use one or both of these:

stratigy #1: add a new high level NPC wizard. he will become the party's "bazooka", frequently taking one for the team. however, there is a catch. the wizard wields a magical staff of "whacking people who play out of charachter" or "whacking people who piss off the DM" or "whacking people who avoid the rails". the wizard is too good to ditch, so they have to either follow the DM's agenda or get many painful bruises on their heads. a truely annoying player will be dead within ten rounds if this wizard is within 100 feet of them. :smalltongue:(by the way, make sure that the players cannot steal, nor destroy the staff. put some protection charms on it, and maybe give the wizard good spot and listen checks)

OR you'll end up with a campaign painfully similar (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=665) to "DM of the Rings." After a little while your players will either try to slit that wizard's throat (once the wizard is asleep), or ditch them (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=740). It wouldn't even be about acquiring the staff, just about removing an annoying NPC. Too good to ditch you say? There's no such thing. Uber-DMPCs are rarely the right way to go about things; most people I game with don't like having their characters stand around while the DMPC does all the cool stuff.

Heck, to quote Shamus (no slouch of a DM, there) himself:

If you send along a high-level NPC of great majesty and power to accompany the party, you need to realize that the players will treat this character like a bazooka: The NPC will become a weapon used to solve a problem in the bloodiest and most expedient manner possible, and then discarded without ceremony.

chiasaur11
2008-08-18, 11:30 PM
That's not true.

Most players would try to keep a Bazooka.

Not so the DMPC.

monty
2008-08-18, 11:31 PM
Has the Room of Death been mentioned yet?

Jothki
2008-08-18, 11:36 PM
"The sail on the horizon belongs to the pirate ship Revenge, flagship of the Dread Pirate Roberts...
There are no survivors."

Mind you, I've never actually seen it - but if it did happen, it'd be a favorite. :smallbiggrin:

On the note of things that I've never seen happen:

"Suddenly, the Spelljammer lands on you. Roll Reflex."

Dr Bwaa
2008-08-18, 11:42 PM
DM: An Orc walks up to you and taps you on the shoulder.
PC: I turn to him, and say "Hi."
DM: You are all teleported, along with this Orc, who was in the middle of explaining that his name is "Orc," into a dark, thick forest. The trees are very old, and very twisted and bent. Roll Spot.
PC: *any spot roll*
DM: You see a broken sign on the ground. After wiping it off, you see that it reads "Welcome to Fangorn For---"
PC: &#$!

Viddaric
2008-08-19, 12:31 AM
'scuse me for being a newb, but what is fangorn forest? (I can only asume that for-- is forest)

Kyeudo
2008-08-19, 12:36 AM
'scuse me for being a newb, but what is fangorn forest? (I can only asume that for-- is forest)

It's from LotR. Full of tree people who don't like orcs. As in "squish on sight and don't bother to check for collatoral damage."

Dr Bwaa
2008-08-19, 12:51 AM
Linky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fangorn)Linky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huorn):)

EDIT: Kyeudoninja'd.

Chronos
2008-08-19, 12:52 AM
As in "squish on sight and don't bother to check for collatoral damage."My, my, how hasty.

Thanatos 51-50
2008-08-19, 12:57 AM
"The Great Hand descends from the Sky, wielding the Great Eraser.

He attacks your character sheet.
Roll 4d6b3 six times..."

Sebastian
2008-08-19, 05:13 AM
My standard method is death by Mon Calamari cruiser bombing run. It is generally warned by it looming overhead.

"But... aren't we in Eberron?"
"Yup! ^^"
"But that was... I mean... A ****ING STARWARS CRUISER?!"
"Yup again! Now, please, are you going to stop being such jackasses or shall I order it to fire?"

"IT'S A TRAP!!"


Sorry.

Sebastian
2008-08-19, 05:14 AM
Second one is in Eberron.

The party is traveling to Sharn but they refuse to make any progress. Finally I tell them about this weird stones they've just discovered. Rogue and Fighter climb onto them and consider which of them should hit them first. I guess they thought the things had gold in them. That's when Lightning Rail came through, along the conductor stones the players where standing on.

That is more than a bit unfair, should not almost everyone in Eberron know how a lightining road looks like?

Ashtar
2008-08-19, 06:44 AM
Mists come down and engulf the party. You wander in them until you find yourself in a desert. (Welcome to Kalidnay!)
You wander, half dead with thirst until you are quickly captured by Templars, and put to death in the Arena to please the crowds.

And this is for non native to Athas players: "Your divine magic doesn't work here (no gods on Athas) and no you can't use you arcane spellcasting (you don't know who to defile / preserve)."

This happened three times with one of my previous DMs... He would do Planescape / Ravenloft games which would systematically end with us dying in Kalidnay. At the time, I was the DM for our Dark Sun games... where one of his characters had died while exploring the ruins of Kalidnay.

LordMalrog
2008-08-20, 02:29 AM
Cthulhu wakes up, and asks the party where the bathroom is. *entire partys heads explode*

Mina Kobold
2008-08-23, 11:08 AM
here's a more understandable version of the fangorn one:
DM: you see a valuable stone laying on the floor
PC: I grab it!
DM: you are in a strange dark place roll spot
PC: (any result)
DM: you recognice a sign with red bloodlike letters spelling "welcome to the 8th hell". so what race shall your next character be. :amused:

chiasaur11
2008-08-23, 12:13 PM
here's a more understandable version of the fangorn one:
DM: you see a valuable stone laying on the floor
PC: I grab it!
DM: you are in a strange dark place roll spot
PC: (any result)
DM: you recognice a sign with red bloodlike letters spelling "welcome to the 8th hell". so what race shall your next character be. :amused:

The proper response is: "I roll diplomacy".

Renegade Paladin
2008-08-23, 12:17 PM
I roll all my dice. At once. They take that much damage.

After this GenCon, the damage potential has roughly doubled. :smallbiggrin:

NEO|Phyte
2008-08-23, 12:20 PM
I roll all my dice. At once. They take that much damage.

After this GenCon, the damage potential has roughly doubled. :smallbiggrin:

Is that all? I roll them to see how many times I need to roll them for damage.

Deth Muncher
2008-08-23, 11:05 PM
My, my, how hasty.



Agh! I seem to be suffering from Freemanic Paracusia. (http://xkcd.com/462/)

Thanks a lot.

Staven
2008-08-23, 11:22 PM
DM rolls a percentile, not even caring about results.

DM: What the blood guard of the ages didn't get to say before you killed him in cold blood was that his mortal coil was why he was The blood guard of ages.
Player: So?
DM: So the earth becomes sentient and punishes you for your insolence. It eats you.

EndlessWrath
2008-08-23, 11:43 PM
We don't call it Rocks fall... We call it the DM's Mighty purple lightning bolt.

although my favorite was from my last game...

Thor aims his mighty Purple Lazor (yes its spelled this way purposely) at you.
me: oh sh-....
A mighty lazor strikes you from deep in the heavens. Quick roll this.
The DM hands me a d20.
i roll a 19. "Awesome what do i add?"
this
He undoes his rather large dice box... and lets loose all the dice.
now multiply this by seven-
"awe crap...
-hundred. Thats the damage done to you by Thor's Minor Purple Lazor.

all this cause I spent too much time screwing around and making fun of his Gnome bard =P
go figure :smallconfused:

Dr Bwaa
2008-08-23, 11:51 PM
Thor aims his mighty Purple Lazor (yes its spelled this way purposely) at you.
me: oh sh-....
A mighty lazor strikes you from deep in the heavens. Quick roll this.
The DM hands me a d20.
i roll a 19. "Awesome what do i add?"
this
He undoes his rather large dice box... and lets loose all the dice.
now multiply this by seven-
"awe crap...
-hundred. Thats the damage done to you by Thor's Minor Purple Lazor.

Nice touch :smallbiggrin:

D_Lord
2008-08-24, 01:03 AM
I never had to use this but I came up with it. For really annoying or dumb partys.
You sure you want to touch that black jewel that had all those traps around it. The one on top of a blood stained pile of gold. Ok you are portaled to the Lord of Nightmares, your souls destroy them selfs to get away from the terror. Or for annoying players my newer one. You see a purple robed figure, it's head is see through and looks like a purple fire. Chainsaws come out of it's sleeves. Roll interve.
Meet the Randomizer!:amused:

Dr Bwaa
2008-08-24, 01:12 AM
DM: A commoner walks out in front of you. Roll Initiative!
PC: What??
DM: Roll it!
PC: *roll*
DM: Alright, the commoner goes first. He casts Summon Lynch Mob IX *any roll* Ooh, looks like they hanged ya. Sorry.

*****ALTERNATE ENDING!*****

DM: Alright, the commoner goes first. He attacks you, but he simply hurts his hand on your armor. The Twelve Lords of Chaos go next. ...You should just throw that thing out *gesture to character sheet.*
NOTE: As far as I am aware, I just made up the Twelve Lords of Chaos, so stop beating yourself up asking what it's from =P

FMArthur
2008-08-24, 02:12 PM
Not a kill, but something from my latest session of frustratingly stubborn players.

Player: "Okay, so we've not-so-gently interrogated this villager. What do we find out?"
DM: "Um, that he's in a lot of pain and wants to go home."
Player: "Let's go find someone else." *coup de grace for continued secrecy*
...Later
DM: "Okay, these villagers don't know anything, and none of them are disguised villains I'm trying to surprise you with. Stop abducting them."
Player: "All right, we ask the poor guy who the most educated man in town is, and where we can find him."
...Later still
Player: "How could this noble have lived 50 years and only obtained 10 ranks in Knowledge (useless crap)? We kidnap his daughter. Maybe she has ranks in Knowledge (treasure hunting)."
DM: "Suddenly, Ouroboros uses Greater Celerity and appears before you. He restrains his various auras that would kill you instantly, and uses a Maximized, Extended, Empowered Time Stop to give you a long, hard look for 15 straight rounds."
There is silence at the game table for a few seconds..
"It's your turn now."
Player: "Uh... we go to the pub and look for quest hooks?"
DM: "Yes, you do."

BRC
2008-08-24, 02:25 PM
You suddenly gain perspective of yourself and all your actions in comparison to the universe, the sheer scale of this makes you feel so puny and insignificant that you have an existential crisis, curl up into a ball, and cry.

DiscipleofBob
2008-08-24, 02:38 PM
It was the final boss of this tri-shot dungeon crawl where we were all playing characters made up by the DM using the generic classes from the PHB. Against all odds, we beat bosses who were way beyond their level, the lowest of which was a level 10 Druid/Vermin Lord, the highest so far was a level 16 tri-greatsword wielding warblade. We went from level 3 to 5. The final boss (as I later found out), was a level 18 Blackguard with at least the Half-Golem and Tauric templates as well as some undead template (caused by the blackguard somehow merging with his nightmare and undead servant.) We really didn't have a chance, but that didn't stop us from winning before, so we tried our best to hurt it. Eventually, the disembodied voice of our comrade who died in the previous fight tells us to "Use the Rock!" The rock being a small rock described as having "a lot of magical power," but we couldn't tell what it did. So, we follow the advice, throw the rock at point-blank range. The DM's eyes widen at the "point-blank range" part.

The conversation went something like this:

DM: "Roll me up 4 touch attacks."
Us: "4, 7, 7, 20."
DM: "Okay, now someone look up the damage on a maximized, empowered meteor swarm."
Us: "..."

Basically cut to the test footage of the atom bomb as the boss, the dungeon, and us were blown to atoms.

chiasaur11
2008-08-24, 02:46 PM
You suddenly gain perspective of yourself and all your actions in comparison to the universe, the sheer scale of this makes you feel so puny and insignificant that you have an existential crisis, curl up into a ball, and cry.

Of course, Immortal Tippyesque wizards may get a save. There's no way they don't make a long term massive impact.

Chronos
2008-08-24, 03:56 PM
Of course, Immortal Tippyesque wizards may get a save. There's no way they don't make a long term massive impact.I don't think even Tippy's wizards generally have any impact beyond their own galaxy... Maybe not even that much.

To put this into some semblance of perspective: Take the Hubble Deep Field (http://www.sciencemusings.com/blog/uploaded_images/HUDF-777866.jpg). Shrink that down to the size of a sewing needle, held end on, and hold it at arm's length. Make enough other copies of that to completely surround the space around you. Now look at one of the specks of light in that image. That's a galaxy. Tippy's wizards affect less than a single one of those specks.

tribble
2008-08-24, 08:32 PM
18 (insert age) (insert color) dragons fly down out of the sky. roll for initiative.

Dr Bwaa
2008-08-24, 08:34 PM
I don't think even Tippy's wizards generally have any impact beyond their own galaxy... Maybe not even that much.

To put this into some semblance of perspective: Take the Hubble Deep Field (http://www.sciencemusings.com/blog/uploaded_images/HUDF-777866.jpg). Shrink that down to the size of a sewing needle, held end on, and hold it at arm's length. Make enough other copies of that to completely surround the space around you. Now look at one of the specks of light in that image. That's a galaxy. Tippy's wizards affect less than a single one of those specks.

If that's not a challenge to a certain Playgrounder whose name rhymes with "Hippie" and starts with a T, I don't know what is :smalltongue:

Vexxation
2008-08-24, 08:59 PM
I don't think even Tippy's wizards generally have any impact beyond their own galaxy... Maybe not even that much.

The smallest action has repercussions, ever-growing ripples that affect the entire universe around you... a small kindness can inspire hope, while a minor cruelty can cause a greater evil to be served...
[/Kriea]

But yeah, Total Perspective Vortex is a beautiful way to kill.

Collin152
2008-08-24, 09:02 PM
I don't think even Tippy's wizards generally have any impact beyond their own galaxy... Maybe not even that much.


Tippy's wizards could affect the fabric of reality.
I think that impacts the universe.

Shades of Gray
2008-08-24, 09:04 PM
Once my players were fighting a Stone Golem.
Our Fighter jumped off a cliff to get to him (the golem was in a chasm)

"You jump, unfortunately it's a long way down, however you manage to land on the golem, roll falling damage for both of you"

*rolls*

Ummm... You fall, rock dies...

The player survived, the golem ( who as weakend) died. I love Irony.

BRC
2008-08-24, 09:05 PM
But yeah, Total Perspective Vortex is a beautiful way to kill.
That sounds like an awesome name for a ninth level spell, Will Save or feel so insignificant that you lose all motivation to do anything.

Flickerdart
2008-08-24, 09:08 PM
Tippy's wizards could affect the fabric of reality.
I think that impacts the universe.
The Butterfly Effect is maximized when the butterfly can bend space-time to its will.

Vexxation
2008-08-24, 09:08 PM
That sounds like an awesome name for a ninth level spell, Will Save or feel so insignificant that you lose all motivation to do anything.

Yeah, but the material component is a pain...

Wait! Spell Component pouches are generally considered to hold however much of a component you need. (Yes, I realize that's limited to "normal" components, but work with me here...)

And the Vortex runs on cake.

Ending world hunger now costs, what, 5 gold, and has never tasted so goooood!

chiasaur11
2008-08-24, 09:14 PM
Yeah, but the material component is a pain...

Wait! Spell Component pouches are generally considered to hold however much of a component you need. (Yes, I realize that's limited to "normal" components, but work with me here...)

And the Vortex runs on cake.

Ending world hunger now costs, what, 5 gold, and has never tasted so goooood!

But...
[overusedmeme] The cake is a lie! [/overused meme]]

Vexxation
2008-08-24, 09:18 PM
But...
[overusedmeme] The cake is a lie! [/overused meme]]

Ah, but it's not!
If you watch the entire end of the game, it pans across a room *full* of GLaDoS's replacement cores, as well as a very lonely-looking cake on a table, complete with lit candle. So, while Chell was never getting the cake, it was, in fact, waiting for her

Chronos
2008-08-24, 10:34 PM
Tippy's wizards could affect the fabric of reality.
I think that impacts the universe.Isn't that what all wizards do, by definition? That still leaves the question of scale.

Collin152
2008-08-24, 10:40 PM
Isn't that what all wizards do, by definition?

Nono, as in, universally.
Alter reality for everybody everywhere.

Like, inverting Gravity, universally. I'm sure that's not beyond the capabilities of a level 21 wizard.

Vexxation
2008-08-24, 10:41 PM
Nono, as in, universally.
Alter reality for everybody everywhere.

Like, inverting Gravity, universally. I'm sure that's not beyond the capabilities of a level 21 wizard.

Huzzah for Gating Solars!!

Collin152
2008-08-24, 10:43 PM
I'm pretty sure kiling a god would also impactthe universe.
Tippy wizards could do that.

monty
2008-08-24, 11:02 PM
Like, inverting Gravity, universally. I'm sure that's not beyond the capabilities of a level 21 wizard.

When the brokenness of epic casting is taken fully into account, I'm pretty sure literally nothing is beyond the capabilities of a level 21 wizard.

thegurullamen
2008-08-24, 11:17 PM
You're all assuming, of course, that the world of your average D&D campaign is much like ours and that the sky eventually gives way to the infinite vacuum filled with a million bajillion googleplexes of stars, the most insane depths of space, Cthulu's lost auntie and Gan's naval lint all in that order. Who's to say the sky doesn't just give way to the elemental plane of air or that the stars in the sky are the souls of the most evil fiends, trapped and slowly burning out over the course of human history? This is a world where mages can cast KNOCK WISH for the gods' sakes!! Sometimes logic takes a backseat to the unstoppable duo of Awesome and Badass.

Also, never forget that this is a medieval setting where some of the most irrational beliefs of the human race (monsters and magic spring immediately to mind) are not only true, but undeniably so. That said, maybe the Earth is flat and smack dab in the middle of the cosmos which is a series of spheres containing planetoids and pretty lights and nothing more. Should this be the case, to affect the Earth is to affect the universe or at least the best part of it.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-08-25, 10:43 AM
My best way? Kobold Rogues. With Crossbows, maxed Dex, and a religious hatred of (party member's favorite clothing). Hide+Move Silently, surprise round. Roll a couple d100s, declare all of them target the player you want dead, then roll attack and damage. Once he's dead, the Kobolds die easily to the rest of the party.

Then, when it's all over, look at him and say "HOW THE HELL DID THAT KILL YOU?!? It's a MOOK BATTLE! Against KOBOLDS! BELOW YOUR CR!"

He may well cry. ;)

BigPapaSmurf
2008-08-25, 12:20 PM
I dont kill PCs unless they ask to be killed, unfortunately they are pretty stupid on average.

DM: You have unwittingly triggered the device and the walls go black, from the darkness emerges twenty or more very large demons all wielding flaming executioner's axes. They surround your party and prevent your escape...
Lvl 5 PC: I attack the nearest one.
DM: ... oh... ok.. You are cleaved in twain.

I also had to put traps on most of the valuables as this PC would immediatly run to grab whatever he could. I'd call him a munchkin, but that would be insulting to munchkins.

Dairun Cates
2008-08-25, 03:18 PM
Running Paranoia XP. Players are examining what is essentially a 2nd edition D&D trap dungeon. Think Tomb of Horrors. Someone sees gems in the ceiling and wants to take them to R&D. There's a chain connected to them. He climbs up and unplugs them. The lakes drains and sucks everyone into a hole where they're trapped with a shark and then the ceiling gives way... and well...

"Rocks fall, everyone dies, next clone."

chiasaur11
2008-08-25, 03:49 PM
Running Paranoia XP. Players are examining what is essentially a 2nd edition D&D trap dungeon. Think Tomb of Horrors. Someone sees gems in the ceiling and wants to take them to R&D. There's a chain connected to them. He climbs up and unplugs them. The lakes drains and sucks everyone into a hole where they're trapped with a shark and then the ceiling gives way... and well...

"Rocks fall, everyone dies, next clone."

Wait. He did that... in Paranoia?
What kinda daisy skipping innocents we dealing with here?

And can I interest them in some Nigerian real estate?

Maryring
2008-08-25, 05:18 PM
Hmm, I guess my favourite variation of "Rocks fall, everyone dies" is

"A Balor teleports in. He is hungry. You're dinner."

Course, if the party is actually capable of dealing with a Balor, you add some HD and stats to make him more powerful. :smalltongue:

AlexanderRM
2008-08-25, 06:47 PM
Total Perspective Vortex is a beautiful way to kill.

Sigging that.



Ummm... You fall, rock dies...

And that.


The Butterfly Effect is maximized when the butterfly can bend space-time to its will.
And that.




Yeah, but the material component is a pain...

No, it's a focus component.
You have to present a universe to the subject.



Nono, as in, universally.
Alter reality for everybody everywhere.

Tippy Wizard: Okay, I use my alter reality ability. Could I see that DMG for a second?

Also, this idea intrigues me... could someone direct me to instructions on how to become one of these?
However, I don't think a 21st level wizard could alter reality for everyone, everywhere. That's way beyond the capacity of a 10th level spell, no matter how large the XP and material component costs are.

Vexxation
2008-08-25, 06:54 PM
Also, this idea intrigues me... could someone direct me to instructions on how to become one of these?
However, I don't think a 21st level wizard could alter reality for everyone, everywhere. That's way beyond the capacity of a 10th level spell, no matter how large the XP and material component costs are.

If you Gate in enough Solars to donate spell slots, anything is possible. You could even use the Gate'd Solar's Wish to Wish for a Scroll of Gate.

tyckspoon
2008-08-25, 06:55 PM
However, I don't think a 21st level wizard could alter reality for everyone, everywhere. That's way beyond the capacity of a 10th level spell, no matter how large the XP and material component costs are.

Short answer? Epic Spellcasting using bound spellcasting Outsiders (Couatls/Solars/Epic Force Dragons/etc) to contribute to a Ritual casting. Given a sufficient timescale to perform the bindings an arbitrarily high Spellcraft DC can be mitigated to 0.. which makes researching any Epic spell practically instantaneous (I think it still nominally takes a day) and free, as well as costing no XP to cast. The only reason a wizard under Tippy's program doesn't affect the entire universe is because he has chosen not to. It's well within his capacity.

AlexanderRM
2008-08-25, 07:08 PM
If you Gate in enough Solars to donate spell slots, anything is possible. You could even use the Gate'd Solar's Wish to Wish for a Scroll of Gate.
Okay, uh... first, how do you get the donate spell slots thing?
and second, I'm not sure there are enough solars. I mean, I got the impression that solars are pretty rare.

Also don't know what a "ritual casting" is. Is this 4.0 or just non-core 3.5? Or some borrowed old rules?


Come to think of it, I recently came up with an easier plan:
#1. Summon a Glabrezu.
#2. Get the Glabrezu to use wish to give you the ability to cast wish without restrictions. (according to the creature description, it can use it to grant a mortal humanoid "whatever he or she desires"- but it's one of those "there is a price to pay" things.
#3. Wish for some ability that lets you cast an indefinite number of wish spells per day.
#4. Wish for whatever else you want.
#5. Profit.
I now must make a wizard character and try that out. :smallbiggrin:

monty
2008-08-25, 07:09 PM
Exponential growth is a wonderful thing, isn't it...

monty
2008-08-25, 07:11 PM
Okay, uh... first, how do you get the donate spell slots thing?

Epic spellcasting rules.


and second, I'm not sure there are enough solars. I mean, I got the impression that solars are pretty rare.

Where does it say that?


Also don't know what a "ritual casting" is. Is this 4.0 or just non-core 3.5? Or some borrowed old rules?

Again, epic spellcasting.


Come to think of it, I recently came up with an easier plan:
#1. Summon a Glabrezu.
#2. Get the Glabrezu to use wish to give you the ability to cast wish without restrictions. (according to the creature description, it can use it to grant a mortal humanoid "whatever he or she desires"- but it's one of those "there is a price to pay" things.
#3. Wish for some ability that lets you cast an indefinite number of wish spells per day.
#4. Wish for whatever else you want.
#5. Profit.
I now must make a wizard character and try that out. :smallbiggrin:

What is that, alternate path to Pun-Pun?

Vexxation
2008-08-25, 07:34 PM
Okay, uh... first, how do you get the donate spell slots thing?
and second, I'm not sure there are enough solars. I mean, I got the impression that solars are pretty rare.
The heavens are infinite, like the Hells, so in an infinite space there are infinite inhabitants.


Also don't know what a "ritual casting" is. Is this 4.0 or just non-core 3.5? Or some borrowed old rules?
It's 3.5, Epic Level stuff wherein other spell casters can offer up spell slots to pool for one big spell or spell creation. Since Solars have both Wish and spell slots, they make ideal candidates for Gate abuse.

snowbard55
2008-08-25, 07:59 PM
3.5 D&D.

As DM
The party had this one rogue who really overplayed the thief thing. Even if it was nailed down they would try to steal it. It caused a lot of problems for the party (including getting them on death row, almost killed by a group of paladins, having an orc's greataxe in the cleric's kidney(he got better), and being forced to run from a mob of enraged dwarves) So I decided to devise a little trap. It goes something like this.
Me: You come upon the campsite of two human females and male gnome. They are sitting around a campfire eating. You notice that they have a fancy looking gold staute of a dragon.
Half Elf Bard: Alright, I'll walk up and see if we can rest at their site and share information.
Me: Alright, the gnome greets you and offers you a place by the fire to talk for a while.
Troublesome Human Rogue: I'll sneak up and try to steal the statue.
Me: I thought as much. You touch the statue and are instantaneously turned to dust. It was guarded by a powerful spell put on it by one of the human females, who is an Epic level wizard.
Rogue: What!? Thats bull! Don't I get a Will save or something?
Me: No. It's magic. Deal with it.
(she got the message after that)

As player
i'm going to level here. We deserved this. The party(consisting of a human sorcerer(me), a half-orc fighter, a human druid, and an elf ranger) had ignored the campaign altogether and started just raiding villages and murdering innocents. It goes like this.

DM: You come across a peacful farming village.
Party: We raid it.
DM: Are your sure? There are puppies in it.
Party: So? We'll make zombie puppies!(I had Animate Dead)
DM: OK, I warned you. Turns out the village was actually a Lich's castle under an illusion. Unfortunatley, you've already barged and the Lich has blasted you and raised you as his unholy zombie minions.
Me: But...puppies.
DM: You were not the first one to think of zombie puppies.

Zombie puppies is now our running gag. :smalltongue:

Pie Guy
2008-08-25, 08:45 PM
"Asmodeus pities you enough to put you out of your misery."

Renegade Paladin
2008-08-25, 08:56 PM
We don't call it Rocks fall... We call it the DM's Mighty purple lightning bolt.

although my favorite was from my last game...

Thor aims his mighty Purple Lazor (yes its spelled this way purposely) at you.
me: oh sh-....
A mighty lazor strikes you from deep in the heavens. Quick roll this.
The DM hands me a d20.
i roll a 19. "Awesome what do i add?"
this
He undoes his rather large dice box... and lets loose all the dice.
now multiply this by seven-
"awe crap...
-hundred. Thats the damage done to you by Thor's Minor Purple Lazor.

all this cause I spent too much time screwing around and making fun of his Gnome bard =P
go figure :smallconfused:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73NTtRuMn3E

:smallbiggrin:

infinitypanda
2008-08-25, 09:17 PM
Cthulhu wakes up, and asks the party where the bathroom is. *entire partys heads explode*

My favorite variation of that is, "Cthulhu falls, 1d3 PC's die."

metalbear
2008-08-25, 09:47 PM
While my DM generally doesn't punish us with Rocks fall from the sky, he takes a more sinister rout for punishing us. After killing a number of undead guarding the tomb of a wizard my warforged fighter accidentally triggers a magic mouth and it says something along the lines of "you fools, blah blah blah". The party then made fun of the DM for using such an old cliche'. Once we open the sarcafigus and see a corpse holding a shining sword. Being a new player (my first time playing) I yell "Dibs" and my character reaches down and his hand passes through the illusion and brushes against something hard and circular. I then have him grab it. Lo' and behold it is a cursed rock and leads to a number of shenanigans that ends up with us using it to rob merchants and other NPCs. We never continued that adventure, when asked why we were not playing it anymore he said "Cursed rocks fell from the sky".

Aquillion
2008-08-25, 11:28 PM
Ah, but it's not!
If you watch the entire end of the game, it pans across a room *full* of GLaDoS's replacement cores, as well as a very lonely-looking cake on a table, complete with lit candle. So, while Chell was never getting the cake, it was, in fact, waiting for her
Did you pay attention to what the cake-making sphere said? I don't think you'd want to eat that cake. I'm not even sure it does qualify as cake.

chiasaur11
2008-08-25, 11:37 PM
My favorite variation of that is, "Cthulhu falls, 1d3 PC's die."

Shoulda worn your tinfoil hat.

More people had the sense to use those, CoC would have people making it out alive and sane.

Waspinator
2008-08-26, 12:25 AM
I've always wanted to do this:


The party is fighting a giant bird. They manage to shoot it down, only to have it fall on and crush some important NPC. His dying words would be: "Remember... when rocs fall.... you die....."

infinitypanda
2008-08-26, 01:59 AM
Shoulda worn your tinfoil hat.

More people had the sense to use those, CoC would have people making it out alive and sane.

Considering how many things kill your SAN score just by looking at them, maybe tinfoil glasses would be better :smallcool:

chiasaur11
2008-08-26, 10:52 AM
Considering how many things kill your SAN score just by looking at them, maybe tinfoil glasses would be better :smallcool:

A guy in a tinfoil suit would be the CoC equivolent of a batman wizard.

Nothing could stop you!

snowbard55
2008-08-26, 03:59 PM
This one was a little earlier today actually.

So we managed to defeat a band of evil, crazy druids and find their tree-house..thing...In it their was an important looking staff covered in blood red runes. The party monk grabs it without thinking and the DM says "Um..yeah...hold on" He does some rolls. "Yeah...you just took 565 damage." The monk was outraged. The DM responds "Well, you just grabbed a cursed staff." The monk demanded to know why it was never hinted at. "Well, I had hoped you would be smart enough not to touch the staff with blood red runes on it in the evil druid's house! Just start making a new character."

Not as funny as other stuff, but still...

Dr Bwaa
2008-08-26, 04:11 PM
This one was a little earlier today actually.

So we managed to defeat a band of evil, crazy druids and find their tree-house..thing...In it their was an important looking staff covered in blood red runes. The party monk grabs it without thinking and the DM says "Um..yeah...hold on" He does some rolls. "Yeah...you just took 565 damage." The monk was outraged. The DM responds "Well, you just grabbed a cursed staff." The monk demanded to know why it was never hinted at. "Well, I had hoped you would be smart enough not to touch the staff with blood red runes on it in the evil druid's house! Just start making a new character."

Not as funny as other stuff, but still...

Not that I'm against the ruling or the strategy of giving the party something they shouldn't just grab (I do this all the time), but that is an absurd amount of damage. He could have just said "you die," but instead he rolled? What did he roll? Assuming average damage (as it's a large number of dice, so it's reasonable to say the average will be close the the actual result), 565 damage corresponds to about 162d6, or 87d12, or 54d20! Just what was he rolling back there??? :smalltongue:

snowbard55
2008-08-26, 04:35 PM
Yeah, our DM is funny like that. I get the feeling that he didn't actually roll all that, but fully intended to. :smalltongue: Its probably not the exact amount of damage. What I'm trying to get at is that it was his version of "You die." :smallwink:

Also, that does happen alot, the something we shoudn't just grab being put in our path thing. Just last session their was a small amulet that turned out to attach itself to the party wizard and give him Int drains. We're trying to get it off. We're considering just cutting it off and then quickly healing him. :smallbiggrin:

Kami2awa
2008-08-26, 07:06 PM
Not DM induced, but player induced, was the death of a Call of Cthulhu party when one of them decided to puncture an oxy-acetylene tank with the torch. The resulting explosion destroyed a haunted house, 2 nearby houses, an evil sorcerer, all his minions, and they entire PC group.

PS: I've no idea if this would happen in real life, but the group were losing the final battle with the sorcerer, almost all of them were dead or mind-controlled, and this seemed like a good way to close the case...

tyckspoon
2008-08-26, 07:10 PM
Not DM induced, but player induced, was the death of a Call of Cthulhu party when one of them decided to puncture an oxy-acetylene tank with the torch. The resulting explosion destroyed a haunted house, 2 nearby houses, an evil sorcerer, all his minions, and they entire PC group.

PS: I've no idea if this would happen in real life, but the group were losing the final battle with the sorcerer, almost all of them were dead or mind-controlled, and this seemed like a good way to close the case...

For Call of Cthulhu this is pretty much the best possible ending: You're dead, but so is the insane cultist/sorcerer/mind-boggling abomination/whatever. It's been mentioned, but for CoC the standard 'rocks fall' runs something like "Cthulu is awakening. Half of you go irrevocably insane as reality itself screams in horror. The other half of you have your eyes explode and die the next round, when you see him."

snowbard55
2008-08-26, 07:13 PM
Not DM induced, but player induced, was the death of a Call of Cthulhu party when one of them decided to puncture an oxy-acetylene tank with the torch. The resulting explosion destroyed a haunted house, 2 nearby houses, an evil sorcerer, all his minions, and they entire PC group.

PS: I've no idea if this would happen in real life, but the group were losing the final battle with the sorcerer, almost all of them were dead or mind-controlled, and this seemed like a good way to close the case...

Thats a great idea!:smallamused: Sort of like the time we lit the fuse to a keg of oil when we were losing to a group of really POed Drow whose female leader we may or may not have sexually harrassed:smallwink:

EDIT: That explosion only killed the drow, 2 of us, and started a forest fire. Guess we're just lucky.

hotel_papa
2008-08-26, 08:24 PM
I've always wanted to do this:


The party is fighting a giant bird. They manage to shoot it down, only to have it fall on and crush some important NPC. His dying words would be: "Remember... when rocs fall.... you die....."

...Do you hear me when I pray to you?


HP

Colmarr
2008-08-26, 08:32 PM
For Call of Cthulhu this is pretty much the best possible ending.

Interestingly, the only game of CoC I've played ended with us crash-landing our light plane on a mesa and seeing demons and horrors closing in from all sides.

We had earlier visited a military installation and discovered a nuclear device, which one of the less sane members of our party had attached to the end of a club.

As the horrors closed in, the player said "I bang the club on the ground".

I guess you could say "Everything falls. You die".

Duos Greanleef
2008-08-27, 12:49 AM
I've been DMing for a group since 4E arrived. Last Friday was our last session since I'll be going to school an hour and a half away.
I figured a good "rocks fall" was in order...
After a ridiculously difficult encounter with a Young Black Dragon, Chillborn Zombie, Vampire Spawn, Zombie, Specter, Shadar-Kai Chainfighter, Blazing Skeleon and a Ghost Fighter, (that the PC's defeated sans Cleric) the Dragon started speaking in a mix of Draconic and Infernal. From the tile in the middle of the cave arose a Dracolich which presented the PCs with two options:
1) Serve as his undead concubines for the remainder of eternity:yuk:
or
2) Be banished to a plane of existence where the only thing that ever happens is an ambient, continual playing of 1980s Power Ballads:eek:
...
After agreeing that both options were equally evil, most chose the Power Ballad Plane. I proceeded to play "Heaven" by Bryan Adams.
:smallbiggrin:

Dr Bwaa
2008-08-27, 12:57 AM
After agreeing that both options were equally evil, most chose the Power Ballad Plane. I proceeded to play "Heaven" by Bryan Adams.
:smallbiggrin:

You have my sincerest congratulations. Well done indeed.

Waspinator
2008-08-27, 02:08 AM
...Do you hear me when I pray to you?


HP

Sorry. You'll have to shout.

snowbard55
2008-08-27, 04:38 PM
Player: I cast Magic Missle on the darkness.
DM: The darkness casts Maximized Meteor Swarm on you. You're dead.

Lappy9000
2008-08-27, 05:00 PM
What the characters see:"With a tumultious rumble, the entire world shatters to pieces as your party is strewn across the landscape, tumbling aimlessly into the empty void of the great beyond."

What the players see:
"Oops, sorry guys, my DM screen (honkin' black folder) fell down on the game board again."

Doomsy
2008-08-27, 05:03 PM
Interestingly, the only game of CoC I've played ended with us crash-landing our light plane on a mesa and seeing demons and horrors closing in from all sides.

We had earlier visited a military installation and discovered a nuclear device, which one of the less sane members of our party had attached to the end of a club.

As the horrors closed in, the player said "I bang the club on the ground".

I guess you could say "Everything falls. You die".
Giving your PCs access to a nuclear weapon in a game where you can lose your sanity in one round or less seems like a really fun way to play Russian roulette.

I think my favorite TPK in CoC was when a party interrupted a cultist ritual towards the end and surprisingly survived. But then one of them read the last half of the passage the leader was reading.
Did I mention he tended to read outloud without noticing it as a character trait?

Come to think of it. About eighty percent of my 'rocks fall' experiences have been initiated by the players more than the DM. I think they count just because most of the time the DM has cheerfully rolled with it rather than bothered salvaging it by then. Not much you can do when the players get all lemming like besides make it spectacular.

Aquillion
2008-08-28, 12:12 AM
Giving your PCs access to a nuclear weapon in a game where you can lose your sanity in one round or less seems like a really fun way to play Russian roulette.

I think my favorite TPK in CoC was when a party interrupted a cultist ritual towards the end and surprisingly survived. But then one of them read the last half of the passage the leader was reading.
Did I mention he tended to read outloud without noticing it as a character trait?
Why would he read anything (aloud or otherwise) in CoC, if he didn't specifically have to? Much less a cultist's most horrifying ritual texts?

BobVosh
2008-08-28, 01:48 AM
Honestly why would you play a character who can see in CoC? Senses to also avoid include: Hearing (the terrorifying roar shatters your mind), touch (the sensation of a slimy and spongy surface is the first thing you notice after landing. Take 3d6 san as you realize you landed on...), Smell (Elder gods and cultist HATE baths), and of course taste. (The rum cake is too delicious for any mundane to have baked. Take 50 san as you realize Martha Stewart is not of this world.)

I haven't exparienced too many tpks, but I have played a game where the same guy died 5 sessions in a row, and not his fault. Grant and I did something stupid, and he just happened to be nearby and picked on. Superb.

Prustan
2008-08-28, 07:42 AM
I haven't exparienced too many tpks, but I have played a game where the same guy died 5 sessions in a row, and not his fault. Grant and I did something stupid, and he just happened to be nearby and picked on. Superb.

Details! You say something like this, you have to tell us what stupid things you did that got the other guy killed 5 sessions in a row. :smallbiggrin:

Grey Watcher
2008-08-28, 08:30 AM
...and of course taste. (The rum cake is too delicious for any mundane to have baked. Take 50 san as you realize Martha Stewart is not of this world.)...

As long as she doesn't bring The Shaper with her, I guess we'll be able to survive. (A Sanity-Shatteringly Tasty Rum Cake from the Beyond to anyone who gets that reference.)

BobVosh
2008-08-28, 09:01 AM
Details! You say something like this, you have to tell us what stupid things you did that got the other guy killed 5 sessions in a row. :smallbiggrin:

I was at work and had nowhere near the time to write it all without getting thoroughly annoyed (what are these guests doing here in my hotel, when I'm cruising the nets?)

First background on the game:
We were (original party...only one left from it (6 players)) slaves in Thay. Start off with 1 level in an NPC class. No adept. Unsurprising we were all Experts or Warriors. One rule in the party: you must be stealthy, we don't care how, but you must be hidey. (Hidey is a GREAT word, I recommend it to one and all) We escape, end up working for a red wizard, and sent to a city slightly outside of Thay.
First Death
After arriving we are told of a young noble doing bad stuff (round up bums to sell as slaves, etc.) We find out his father disappeared under "mysterious circumstances". So we decided to check out this young mans rather impressively defended castle/Mansion/Fortress of DOOM. We therefore ride on up and dismount just out of sight. We send up rogue 2 wizard 1 Expert 1, hereafter referred to as "Grant". He jumps the wall, after getting cut by some glass. Lays a bedroll on it for people not to bleed. Throws rope over, etc, we all sneak in.

Thereafter we spend about 3 hours IRL time trying to enter the stupid house. Glass windows that don't open, guarded doors, no secret entrances we can find, etc. Then our ranger walks off and is spotted, and claims this is because how the map was drawn. Well swarms of level 1 guards come and do their stuff. Our level 1 Rogue/Cleric of Brandobaris (halfling god of thievery and trickery) comes help, which makes me feel bad and stick around for a while along with Grant. After we decided it was more hopeless than it originally look we take off for the wall where our rope is still. Grant climbs like a fly, i use the rope semi-proficiently, and am halfway up. The cleric is right there.

Out teleports the first wizard awaken by the guards, and he reads from a scroll "fireball." Grant and I make the reflex and evasion out of it. The poor cleric is charred. Over the fence we go. 2 people are captured, 2 escaped and one is fried. And the last guy was a noshow.
Second death
So all we learned from that was...He likes to not be invaded in the night. Well we had a lead about an assassin. We therefore check into the 3 guilds that may have more information. We go to a halfling/dwarven weapon traders group. Dead end. Mage guild. Worthless guys have to have some time to scry. Sisterhood of unmaidenly arts (local fences.) 2 dead ends we decided they would be nice and unimportant.

So they ask our face to go right in and talk to the leaders (the front part is just like a desk. So our NEW cleric of brandobaris struts on in. The sister in the front closes the door, after following...and stabs him in the back with sneak attack. At this point we decided we probably shouldn't be so trusting of a thieves guild. He managed one stab, but he was locked in a room with 5 of them.
Third death
After thoroughly killing all the rest of them, we see evidence of someone having slept in a nonbarrack room. Also some notes to another Red wizard (the guy we were sent to spy on.) Something about a hunting lodge, which our noble has two of. I believe we decided the far one was more likely as it was further. Great logic. After arriving we find out there is a secret way in through the fireplace. Classic.

Led to a drow underground meeting area with all these "gateway" doors. Turns out all the doors that look pitch black in the middle, had giant teeth, and looked thoroughly horrible were just magic dark in a one way darkness spell. So all the drow saw us the second we came down, and we didn't seem em. Wandered around, pissed off the dm by using Deflect arrow on a magma hurler's throw. Killed some drow. Male ones btw, that worship the drow god of males and hating surface dwellers.

We find a nice pool in there. I was going to be sneaky about it, and try to figure out if it was ok to drink etc. Grant decided to make his familiar drink. The ferret turned white. This led to a water fight. Turns out...evasion is good for this sort of thing. However it was a cursed fountain, with various weird by not really bad effects. I gained 2 fingers per hand, and left damp footprints everywhere. The thing that makes this bad is...our brand new cleric of mask (decided human this time) is splashed with water that makes him drool...REALLY fast. Dc 15 concentration check for spells with vocals.

End up fighting another drow with stupid darkness everywhere, as usual. He dies because he couldn't cast healing spells, or anything of use.
Fourth Death
The young noble's old man was in there, and he got us all happy about rescuing him. Rich noble +Happy=Money. Simple formula. Then we realized Old man + No riches as he was kidnapped = :'( adventurers. So we regroup with his loyal followers. Plan is they distract we sneak in through the secret door to the Fortress of doom. Er...mansion.

We learn of a way through the sewers. Fight 2 water monster things (thank god for 2 dusts of dryness...or whatever that dust is called.) Some drow. We decided to do this just before midnight as our new mask cleric, you guessed it Sean again, could prepare. Well we start looking around, and grant goes up the stairs...leaving our praying cleric alone, which noone thinks about. Drow that got away comes back and stabs the poor man...coup de grace.
Fifth death
Well we ruled that he had a prodigy along, and he plays the follow just so he wouldn't miss out on the next session, sneaking into the Doom Mansion. We only play once a month, and it didn't seem right. So another cleric of mask. For the first time, FULL cleric. Our dm kept making him take rogue or other multiclassing and he folded as he was weak willed. We end up in the last room with the BBEG. Fighter, Cleric, and wizard are our 3 guys to take down. I kept calling the Fighter a barbarian to annoy the dm because it was a halforc.
ANYWAY, we take down the wizard in a silence spell, gang up on the cleric
and the fighter beats down all but Sean, Grant and I. At this point I had levels in shade and Grant in that weird Mask transformation template that is in FR. So we grab the young nobles body (i sneaked attack with a sap so he wouldn't be dead after we start beating with some lethal) and does a small teleport down to the sewers. I run. The cleric gets mowed down. As a shade I moved at 60 a round. Or 70, I don't remember. On the way down I tell guards that I was summoning reinforcements to the noble's room, come help....32 bluff. Repeat. So Grant and I live, while the 5th noble cleric of mask is killed. 5 sessions in a row.

Really the worse one was the water fight.

black dragoon
2008-08-28, 09:48 AM
Wow...Five times that's...awesomely terrible luck right there.

Vexxation
2008-08-28, 09:57 AM
*tales of clericy death*

Wow, I have to say, it doesn't really seem like you guys did anything wrong. I mean, sure, you left him alone for a bit in the sewers and you trusted the thieves guild, but yeesh! It's like the DM just wanted him to die.

"Oh, you leave him alone? He gets ambushed and Coup de Graced."
"Oh, you let him talk to thieves? They don't like you so they attack him."

That's just malicious, if the guy died every session five times, cut him some slack. Not one time was completely his fault, and if you only play once a month, that's five consecutive months of character dying. That would be less than fun. For me.

BobVosh
2008-08-28, 03:56 PM
Wow, I have to say, it doesn't really seem like you guys did anything wrong. I mean, sure, you left him alone for a bit in the sewers and you trusted the thieves guild, but yeesh! It's like the DM just wanted him to die.

"Oh, you leave him alone? He gets ambushed and Coup de Graced."
"Oh, you let him talk to thieves? They don't like you so they attack him."

That's just malicious, if the guy died every session five times, cut him some slack. Not one time was completely his fault, and if you only play once a month, that's five consecutive months of character dying. That would be less than fun. For me.

We had a water fight...in a cursed fountain. We were ambushed about every 3 rooms by drow. The cleric was alone for about 30 minutes before this happened.

I also said it wasn't his fault, we did something stupid and he paid for it. The DM strongly hinted we shouldn't have gone to the Mansion of doom. The rogues already proved they would assassinate, and we let one of ours go in alone showing his back and letting them get a flank while the rest of the party twiddles their thumbs in the waiting room.

Oh, one last thing. That fighter had 3 hit points left. So close but we had no way to tell so we ran. I did take the craven feat for a reason...

snowbard55
2008-08-28, 04:57 PM
Earlier today our campaign almost came to a close with a "rocks fall" moment.

First, some backgroud. The party consisted of a Gnome 4th level Bard/8th level Cleric (Me), a Halfling Rogue, a Human Wizard, a Human Barbarian, and a Half-Elf 9th level Sorcerer/3rd level Ranger. We were on a mission for the local Druid coven thingy to clear out some of the extremist Druids in the area. So we had been in the forest killing the Druids and taking their stuff and it was going pretty well (except for the death of our Monk, now our Barbarian, see earlier post) We get to their base of operations, a small grouping of tents and crudely built huts. So, we're hiding in some bushes a little ways away (about 10 or 20 feet) and it goes something like this.

DM: The Druid leader, a male elf, stands up on a rock before the congregation roughly 10 feet from you and begins to..
Rogue: I Sneak Attack him.
DM: Hmmm?
Rogue: I Sneak Attack with my bow. I'm a rogue.
DM: Yes..but..you were...fine...
(the proper rolls are made)
DM: He's dead.....(very long pause)...But he had a bomb in his chest. You all die.
Us: WTF!?
Turns out he had intended us to have a big showdown with the druid leader who was going to dispense plot points. He retracted the bomb in chest thing and made us fight all 20 or so 9th-10th level Druids when we would have had to only fight the 10th level boss. Although we did barely survive that.

I just found a Druid with a bomb in his chest very funny. :smallamused:

BRC
2008-08-28, 05:02 PM
Earlier today our campaign almost came to a close with a "rocks fall" moment.

First, some backgroud. The party consisted of a Gnome 4th level Bard/8th level Cleric (Me), a Halfling Rogue, a Human Wizard, a Human Barbarian, and a Half-Elf 9th level Sorcerer/3rd level Ranger. We were on a mission for the local Druid coven thingy to clear out some of the extremist Druids in the area. So we had been in the forest killing the Druids and taking their stuff and it was going pretty well (except for the death of our Monk, now our Barbarian, see earlier post) We get to their base of operations, a small grouping of tents and crudely built huts. So, we're hiding in some bushes a little ways away (about 10 or 20 feet) and it goes something like this.

DM: The Druid leader, a male elf, stands up on a rock before the congregation roughly 10 feet from you and begins to..
Rogue: I Sneak Attack him.
DM: Hmmm?
Rogue: I Sneak Attack with my bow. I'm a rogue.
DM: Yes..but..you were...fine...
(the proper rolls are made)
DM: He's dead.....(very long pause)...But he had a bomb in his chest. You all die.
Us: WTF!?
Turns out he had intended us to have a big showdown with the druid leader who was going to dispense plot points. He retracted the bomb in chest thing and made us fight all 20 or so 9th-10th level Druids when we would have had to only fight the 10th level boss. Although we did barely survive that.

I just found a Druid with a bomb in his chest very funny. :smallamused:
CHOOO CHOO, I think I hear a railroad.



Yeah, DM's should remain aware that "Kill it quickly" is always a viable option in a players mind.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-08-28, 05:31 PM
He was going to monologue. Monologue=flatfooted surprise round. What did the DM expect?

snowbard55
2008-08-28, 05:41 PM
CHOOO CHOO, I think I hear a railroad.



Yeah, DM's should remain aware that "Kill it quickly" is always a viable option in a players mind.

True, he had a lapse in judgement this one time. We all had a good laugh afterwards. He worked the plot points back in when we got back to town.

I remembered another such occurance in a different campaign with a different DM. It was me (a human Fighter), a dwarf cleric, an elf wizard, and an elf bard. We had just engaged the BBEG's top minion when the bridge we were on collapsed due to, shall we say strutural damage, we had brought upon earlier while using a catapult on a huge legion of ogres and zombies. Everyone involved failed all checks attempted to save themselves. Everyone died. We laughed for days. :smallbiggrin:

Kalir
2008-12-13, 06:00 PM
I managed to circumvent that by making my BBEG a rogue who's terrified of fights and has a cloak of dimension door. Since he's meant to be a recurring villain, the first time the party ranger tried attacking him partway through his monologue, he got an anarchic dagger in the chest. He lived (but it was close), and the guy got away, but it's a good way of ensuring they don't try to shoot him partway through.

In my high-school days, when I was younger and thought DM cosmic curbstomps were cool, my favorite was death by colossal banana slug.

Edit: Yeah, yeah, I'm a screwup.

AslanCross
2008-12-13, 07:04 PM
Really sorry to say this, but:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v312/AslanCross/Thread_Necromancy.jpg

KeresM
2008-12-13, 09:30 PM
We were supposed to barter with a lich for a particular magical item. My character was not in a good mood at this point, and when the lich started stating his terms, said 'screw this' and used a wand to summon a shark to fall on the lich. She then walked up, grabbed the item, and walked away, followed a moment later by the dumbfounded party.

Next time we encountered said lich, the GM cackled and said 'whales fall. KeresM needs to make a reflex save or die'

The lich wasn't intended to be a villain or even someone we were supposed to encounter more than that once. But it was too good for the GM to pass up.


Sorry-missed the date.

Aquillion
2008-12-13, 10:05 PM
True, he had a lapse in judgement this one time. We all had a good laugh afterwards. He worked the plot points back in when we got back to town.But more than that, if one ranged sneak attack killed him, this druid couldn't have been too tough anyway. I mean, what if the rogue has won initiative? They'd have won just as easily.

That sounds less like the DM getting angry at the party for disrupting his plans, and more the DM belatedly realizing he just hadn't calculated the CR for his boss fight right.

The_JJ
2008-12-13, 10:28 PM
The dragon's listing in the Gm handbook in a system I used to run simply read. "What ever you need to kill the charactors."

Ridureyu
2008-12-13, 10:39 PM
Suddenly being told, "Roll four saves."

If any one save is under a natural 20, you die. The assassins got you!

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-12-13, 10:42 PM
Suddenly being told, "Roll four saves."

If any one save is under a natural 20, you die. The assassins got you!...Assassins? Any decent fort save will beat them.

Ridureyu
2008-12-13, 10:47 PM
Nope. Super-special poison. Only a natural 20 passes, got to roll for all four.

Of course, if you do roll four twenties, you have a loaded die, and must reroll.

Zer Kaizer
2008-12-13, 11:07 PM
Damn, you dudes are evil. Lol

Naleh
2008-12-13, 11:31 PM
The BBEG is trying to crash an asteroid into the Earth. After a long campaign you defeat him, but can't deactivate his doomsday device in time. The asteroid hits and humanity is wiped out.

Rocks fall, everybody dies.

Assassin89
2008-12-14, 09:50 AM
Although it hasn't happen in the campaign I am currently in, I anticipate that a certain situation might occur. One of the players is a Goliath who bullrushes zombies and other undead into the walls. The DM might become annoyed by this strategy and decide

"You break the supporting wall of the windmill. the ceiling collapses on everyone, killing them."

Or for a non TPK

"You break the wall of the windmill and you fall off a 100 ft cliff"

Flickerdart
2008-12-14, 10:55 AM
Or he could just, you know, ambush you in a field. Without walls.

Bayar
2008-12-14, 11:03 AM
Thread necromancied, everybody's banned. :biggrin:

Yukitsu
2008-12-14, 11:21 AM
Although it hasn't happen in the campaign I am currently in, I anticipate that a certain situation might occur. One of the players is a Goliath who bullrushes zombies and other undead into the walls. The DM might become annoyed by this strategy and decide

"You break the supporting wall of the windmill. the ceiling collapses on everyone, killing them."

Or for a non TPK

"You break the wall of the windmill and you fall off a 100 ft cliff"

The latter is both plausible, hilareous, and the specific reason that I like illusionists. :smalltongue:

Brauron
2008-12-14, 12:54 PM
One time, in a Call of Cthulhu campaign I was running...

The PCs are in a Silent Hill-inspired town, looking for the campaign's McGuffin. Two cults (one dedicated to Cthulhu, the other a particularly misguided cult of Hastur who think they're working for St. Michael) are also looking for the artifact for various sundry reasons.

The two cults are engaged in a Mexican standoff, guns drawn, the PCs more or less right in the middle (the cults are on two sides of a room, the PCs are halfway up a staircase leading to the next floor.

One of the PCs (a park ranger heavily reliant on his elephant gun) runs up the stairs to look for a window to climb out of. He hears, from a room down the hall, a child's voice, saying, "Mama? Mama, I'm scared...I need you Mama..." and he goes to investigate.

The "child" is a 7 foot tall mutant Deep One with limp, useless wings, tentacles on either side of its mouth, and big blind eyes.

PC loses a rather large amount of Sanity, enough to gain an insanity. I asked the player, "Would you like me to assign your character's insanity, or would you like to roll randomly for it?" He declared that he was master of his own fate, and would roll randomly on the chart.

It came up "Suicidal Mania."

The PC then throws himself down the stairs, screaming, and shoots the leader of the Cthulhu Cult with his elephant gun at point blank range, getting a chest full of buckshot from the cult leader's second in command, killing him. All hell then breaks loose as the cults both open fire.

All the PCs (except for Mr. chest full of buckshot) just barely escaped with their lives.

I think the player who had been playing the elephant gun-toting park ranger was lucky to come away from that session with his life. The other players were furious with him for nearly getting them all killed.

Zenos
2008-12-14, 01:44 PM
One time, in a Call of Cthulhu campaign I was running...

The PCs are in a Silent Hill-inspired town, looking for the campaign's McGuffin. Two cults (one dedicated to Cthulhu, the other a particularly misguided cult of Hastur who think they're working for St. Michael) are also looking for the artifact for various sundry reasons.

The two cults are engaged in a Mexican standoff, guns drawn, the PCs more or less right in the middle (the cults are on two sides of a room, the PCs are halfway up a staircase leading to the next floor.

One of the PCs (a park ranger heavily reliant on his elephant gun) runs up the stairs to look for a window to climb out of. He hears, from a room down the hall, a child's voice, saying, "Mama? Mama, I'm scared...I need you Mama..." and he goes to investigate.

The "child" is a 7 foot tall mutant Deep One with limp, useless wings, tentacles on either side of its mouth, and big blind eyes.

PC loses a rather large amount of Sanity, enough to gain an insanity. I asked the player, "Would you like me to assign your character's insanity, or would you like to roll randomly for it?" He declared that he was master of his own fate, and would roll randomly on the chart.

It came up "Suicidal Mania."

The PC then throws himself down the stairs, screaming, and shoots the leader of the Cthulhu Cult with his elephant gun at point blank range, getting a chest full of buckshot from the cult leader's second in command, killing him. All hell then breaks loose as the cults both open fire.

All the PCs (except for Mr. chest full of buckshot) just barely escaped with their lives.

I think the player who had been playing the elephant gun-toting park ranger was lucky to come away from that session with his life. The other players were furious with him for nearly getting them all killed.

I LOL'ed at that. :smallbiggrin: I have fortunately not had to throw rocks on my players. Or had a Shadow of Doom growing larger under my feet.

Deth Muncher
2008-12-14, 02:00 PM
Thread necromancied, everybody's banned. :biggrin:

Actually, probably not.

The qualifications for TN are it has to have fallen past Page 3 AND not have had a post in three months.

This barely beats the last one, by a matter of days.

R4ph
2008-12-14, 02:51 PM
One night me and some friends got really bored, and started talking about the rules for archery in nWoD. Now, the rules can get quite horrible, especially when you buy the full fighting style merit from Armory. And we, being bored, started trying to figure out just how broken we could get it. Now, one of the people present was our resident rules lawyer and powergamer. So, with his help we came up with the following:

1 Werewolf, with Primal Urge 10, leting him have 10 strength and 10 athletics. With a specialty in Archery. And some gifts that boosted his strength obscenely.

5 mages, some of whom were arch-masters, the rest of whom were masters. All of the 5 were sacrificing themselves to push their own life force into boosting either the bow (which was an artifact), the arrow (which was thaumium, and dealing agg), or the werewolf.

This meant the bow was dealing obscene damage (we rolled it a few times, and got something like 300 successes - which means 300 agg damage - average health in WoD is 7...) at a range of 1.6 miles.

Ever since, our GM has been able to kill player schemes by threatening that we would find out what was happening 1.6 miles away...

Ascension
2008-12-14, 05:27 PM
Actually, probably not.

The qualifications for TN are it has to have fallen past Page 3 AND not have had a post in three months.

This barely beats the last one, by a matter of days.

With this in mind, I'll go ahead and post...

Moon falls, everyone Wookiee dies. (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Yo%27Gand%27s_Core)

Greengiant
2008-12-14, 06:56 PM
3.5 D&D.

As DM
The party had this one rogue who really overplayed the thief thing. Even if it was nailed down they would try to steal it. It caused a lot of problems for the party (including getting them on death row, almost killed by a group of paladins, having an orc's greataxe in the cleric's kidney(he got better), and being forced to run from a mob of enraged dwarves) So I decided to devise a little trap. It goes something like this.
Me: You come upon the campsite of two human females and male gnome. They are sitting around a campfire eating. You notice that they have a fancy looking gold staute of a dragon.
Half Elf Bard: Alright, I'll walk up and see if we can rest at their site and share information.
Me: Alright, the gnome greets you and offers you a place by the fire to talk for a while.
Troublesome Human Rogue: I'll sneak up and try to steal the statue.
Me: I thought as much. You touch the statue and are instantaneously turned to dust. It was guarded by a powerful spell put on it by one of the human females, who is an Epic level wizard.
Rogue: What!? Thats bull! Don't I get a Will save or something?
Me: No. It's magic. Deal with it.
(she got the message after that)

-SNIP-

Let me just say, this may have just hit close to home, and I may not know all the background, but that sounds just like the inability to think of a more interesting solution. Maybe the campfire pair spelled this statuette to safeguard it, and maybe this rogue really needed to be killed, but seriously, could you not think of a better solution?

Have a curse on it, make it a plot hook. As a DM, I wouldn't see the rogue's kleptomania as a problem to be dealt with, I'd see it as a potential game-enhancing experience. Have him somehow learn his lesson, give him a curse or something, and have him try to get a solution to this curse. By the end he will want to turn himself in to get a solution to his problem, and will probably become a much more conservative thief in the future.

I could understand if you made an inconsequential item that the rogue should have the sense not to take something that would bring about his demise, but making something you know he will take kill him just sounds... not fun.

Egiam
2008-12-14, 07:10 PM
It is a very memorable story!


Also, allow me to provide the story of Eric and the Gazebo for those that have not heard it.

ED: You see a well groomed garden. In the middle, on a small hill, you see a gazebo.
ERIC: A gazebo? What color is it?
ED: [pause] It's white, Eric.
ERIC: How far away is it?
ED: About 50 yards.
ERIC: How big is it?
ED: [pause] It's about 30 ft across, 15 ft high, with a pointed top.
ERIC: I use my sword to detect good on it.
ED: It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo.
ERIC: [pause] I call out to it.
ED: It won't answer. It's a gazebo.
ERIC: [pause] I sheathe my sword and draw my bow and arrows. Does it respond in any way?
ED: No, Eric, it's a gazebo!
ERIC: I shoot it with my bow. [roll to hit] What happened?
ED: There is now a gazebo with an arrow sticking out of it.
ERIC: [pause] Wasn't it wounded?
ED: OF COURSE NOT, ERIC! IT'S A GAZEBO!
ERIC: [whimper] But that was a +3 arrow!
ED: It's a gazebo, Eric, a GAZEBO! If you really want to try to destroy it, you could try to chop it with an axe, I suppose, or you could try to burn it, but I don't know why anybody would even try. It's a @#$%!! gazebo!
ERIC: [long pause. He has no axe or fire spells.] I run away.
ED: [thoroughly frustrated] It's too late. You've awakened the gazebo. It catches you and eats you.
ERIC: [reaching for his dice] Maybe I'll roll up a fire-using mage so I can avenge my Paladin.

The above is Copyright © 1989 by Richard Aronson. Reprinted with permission. The author grants permission to reprint as long as all copyright notices remain with the text.


Ah... now I get the munchkin card The Dreaded Gazebo!!
That had been bugging me.

Golden-Esque
2008-12-14, 10:04 PM
We stayed up really late one night to finish an encounter, and I was personally getting crabby.

My character had a grudge against another character in the party (typical Wizard vs Fighter thing) and I was trying to brainstorm creative ways to get back at him (most of them involving clever uses of Prestidigitation and Baleful Polymorph.

Let me rephrase an earlier quote; we were ALL getting tired and needless to say the DM and I got into an argument about whether or not I could use Prestidigitation and Permanency to shrink all of said Fighter's clothes by getting a kid to model them and adjusting them to the new wearer's size.

"Several thousand meteors crash through the heavans and impale you, dealing 30d6 damage." The DM then dumped his bag filled with d6s on the table.

"Make a Reflex Save. 40 or higher saves."

"Uh ..."

"You're dead."

"How is the rest of the party not dead?"

"The gods hate you, they're Nox-Homing Meteors."

So after that we all crashed and laughed about it the next day. Was I dead? Nah, but I never got to shrink that fighter's clothes either ...

Skaven
2008-12-14, 10:59 PM
We were attacking a Drow fortress in the underdark. We were all pretty drunk at the time, except the DM. We were running out of spells. For some reason, it felt like a really good idea to everyone involved that when we found the guards sleeping chamber, that we should use these beds to rest and regain our spells.

DM: Are you.. are you SURE.. you want to rest in the middle of assaulting this Drow fortress?

Party: Sure, like in Baldurs gate.

I don't think anyone woke up.

Kalir
2008-12-15, 01:24 AM
Thread necromancied, everybody's banned.

Yes, I screwed up. I apologize. You do not need to tell me that I suck any more beyond this point, as I already know and it's getting to be a fad.

Good one for players not accepting a plot hook: "You ignore the request from [x] and decide to live out the rest of your days peacefully farming. Unfortunately, all of the training in using a spiked chain to throttle a man from 20 paces proves impractical for keeping cows healthy, and you die by middle age, destitute and alone."

Dienekes
2008-12-15, 03:09 AM
Not exactly rocks fall everyone dies but I think it's similar.

We were playing Paranoia, and a series of events happened that were so random and hilarious that involved the GM to laugh for over 6 minutes straight (we started timing it).

It was declared that due to these events the Computer exploded and destroyed the world

RPGuru1331
2008-12-15, 04:58 AM
After an extended session of dickery and annoying the ST

"Luna Falls, you all die"
"...I Heavenly Guardian Defense (Perfect Defense that automatically blocks everything) Luna?"
*Censored for profanity, but words to the effect of 'Rassin Frackin Solars'*

Strangely, the most politically astute of us recognized that this was still a death sentence. 4 Anathema surviving the destruction of like, a huge chunk of Creation mea n s Sidereal assassins..

Nerd-o-rama
2008-12-15, 05:48 AM
This hasn't happened yet, but in a certain campaign...

"It's a Gundam!"

Dairun Cates
2008-12-15, 05:53 AM
"Friend Computer Loves You"

Liliedhe
2008-12-15, 06:54 AM
Wendigo comes out of the bushes, everyone dies.

And, my personal favourite: Undead Master Shedim possessed mammoths arrive, everybody dies. (both Shadowrun)

RMS Oceanic
2008-12-15, 06:59 AM
To deal with a singular troublesome player:

"Congenital heart defect. No save."

To deal with somebody trying to make Pun-Pun:

"Congenital tail defect. No save."

Kris Strife
2008-12-15, 07:15 AM
You hear the words 'Cossack Buster' shouted in a Russian accent and see a flash of red light before being vaporized.

You see a troll wdaring a watch helm, badge carved into one arm, carrying a siege ballista with a full sheath of arrows. He's facing away from you, and starts to put the ballista over one shoulder. You heara twang and take 563974 damage, no save.

an internet two whoever gets both references.

Gardakan
2008-12-15, 07:32 AM
My group : Frenzied Berseker Half-Orc level 15, Sorceress Half-Elf level 14, Cleric Human level 15, Paladin Human level 15, Rogue Human level 15, Rogue Human level 15(Yeah there two rogues in the same groupe...)


The group have finished to fight a group of 4 vrocks...

In the order of the initiative it's now the time to the frenzied berseker to play. He try to be out of his rage but roll a critical miss. The Cleric and one of the two rogues were a - 4 hit points. So the Frenzied Berseker swing two of his 7 attacks at the paladin and score a critical hit for like 70 damage. The 34 that follow kill him. The Frenzied Berseker take a little step by a swift action(feat) and followup on the sorceress and the other rogue. The Frenzied berseker have a ability to ignore the death... the frenzied berseker was at -57 hp... so everyone die and we begin a new adventure... without frenzied berseker...

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-12-15, 08:33 AM
You hear the words 'Cossack Buster' shouted in a Russian accent and see a flash of red light before being vaporized.

You see a troll wdaring a watch helm, badge carved into one arm, carrying a siege ballista with a full sheath of arrows. He's facing away from you, and starts to put the ballista over one shoulder. You heara twang and take 563974 damage, no save.

an internet two whoever gets both references.Detritus and his Powerful Build+Monkey Grip Crossbow with Tunneling, Flaming Burst, Splitting, and every other missile enhancement on it.

Tyrmatt
2008-12-15, 09:14 AM
A friend and I are relatively veteran RPGers and we were in a game with 2 newbies and an old-hand DM. At the start of a campaign, we were in a mine, fleeing from the routing of a victorious army.

So we're navigating this twisting mine as fast as we can and can hear these soldiers gaining on us. Eventually they catch up to us and we fight. The rogue gets off a great sneak attack and kills one of them and me and the fighter flank a second (I was a cleric) and the fighter uses his evil scythe thing to kill the second. Their commander decides the odds don't look too hot after we wound her and she tumbles away and sprints off down the passage.
My turn. I turn to my team mates and say "Want me to try and stop her?" "Yeah go for it, before she alerts any more of them."

So I cast Searing Light (or whatever the campaign flavour variant was) and make my rolls. Which fail epically. But the DM rules the spell flies and hits the ceiling of the mine.

She goes quiet for a minute and rolls a few dice. And says "Rocks fall..."
I went absolutely pale, thinking I'd killed the party in the opening seconds of the campaign. "...Roll 2d6 to see how much damage you sustain" Me and friend fell out of our chairs laughing, leaving two confused newbies wondering why it was so funny.

Mind you, this was the DM who liked to keep a few encounter tables half visible behind her screen and every so often just make dice rolls to creep us out. Or play on our paranoia that something was ALWAYS afoot which ended up with me making an orc cry because he'd had to eat his own mounts to survive the winter...
Oh and the goblin who contracted an STD from the barmaid in the tavern we spent our first night in...

ThePhantom
2008-12-15, 11:49 AM
You hear the words 'Cossack Buster' shouted in a Russian accent and see a flash of red light before being vaporized.

an internet two whoever gets both references.

Ran of Bob and George.

Kris Strife
2008-12-15, 12:40 PM
So half an internet each to Sstoopid and ThePhantom

Hzurr
2008-12-15, 04:40 PM
The BBEG is trying to crash an asteroid into the Earth. After a long campaign you defeat him, but can't deactivate his doomsday device in time. The asteroid hits and humanity is wiped out.

Rocks fall, everybody dies.

*sigh* Sounds like someone didn't learn the ocarina song to keep the asteroid from hitting the earth...

(asteroid, moon, same difference)