Sometimes we want to come out with something brilliant, creative, great and amazing to solve situations in the most surprising way possible so other people in the table acknowledges how witty we are.
But sometimes we are the only ones who see our actions as creative, while the rest of the World only see them as plain stupid.
I'm starting this thread so we can post stories where players come out with the most unexpected, bizarre and farfetched plans and you just think: «what in the hell was he thinking about?»
This happened in a Dark Heresy game. We were trapped at a war ravaged planet and our goal was to get out of there ASAP.
We had a kinda new player whose character had a couple of gas grenades. He spent half an hour making complex equations and writing some sort of blueprints while the rest of us were roleplaying other stuff. After that time, the GM asked him what he was going to do. He gave the GM a lengthy and complex explanation about how he was going to tie the grenades to his back and use them to propel himself outside the planet. The GM tried to explain why it was a bad idea but the player wanted to try anyway. Nothing could convince him not to. So the character almost choke to death and didn't lift an inch above the ground.
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I had a player try to tie a trip wire to two sand dunes (no not with spikes or anything directly to the sand dunes.)
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Note: I am a player, not a GM.
1. A group of PCs fell into an opening in the ground, which dropped them into a subterranean lake. One of the players thought that he should be able to throw a rope back up through the opening so they could climb out. He wanted to tie the rope to a quarterstaff and throw the staff through the hole. It didn't matter to him that the hole was 30' directly above him, or that his PC was floating in water while trying to accomplish this feat. He thought he should be able to do it.
2.Same player, different game. One of the PCs had been captured by villains, who were holding her with a gun to her head. The villain with the gun announced that the other PCs should not move or he would shoot the captive. This player's PC was just far enough away that there would have been a penalty to a ranged attack. So he announced that he was "taking one step forward to reduce the range penalty." He did not understand that taking a step forward constituted movement and that therefore the villain would shoot his PC's comrade. (Luckily the PC who was shot survived.)
To this day, our group still make jokes about "taking one step forward to reduce the range penalty."
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I've told this story before, but the players had captured and were trying to interrogate a lizardfolk who had information about the Yuan-Ti army that was advancing on the city. So far nothing had worked, so the next day they were going to torture him. The cleric, being the only one in the party with a conscience, decided to make a potion that would help deaden the pain for the hapless victim. I rolled the Alchemy check and it came up a 1. The cleric only had like 3 ranks in Alchemy to begin with so he failed miserably. When he gave the prisoner the concoction he died a horrible, twitching, and foaming death. The rest of the players were pissed and began calling him the Sinister Minister and the Pastor of Disaster.
As a GM in two separate campaign it worked out that I captured the same player's character and had the villain held him hostage. Both time a player (different player each time) decided the solution was to stab or shoot through the hostage. I decided that was the last time I would take any of his characters hostage.
This is a story I heard...a player playing a minotaur declared he was going to step over a 10' wide pit. The GM tried to explain to him he can not do it...he insisted he could because of his 10' reach. He of course fell down the pit.
Same player who was the leader of a group kept sending the insanely loyal Bard upfront to check for traps...the Bard of course found all the traps the hard way. It was not till the campaign ended that the player realized bards had no ability to find and remove raps.
Oh I got another one. I was playing Fighter two handed-sword I was the party leader and known for getting things done. One of the other players was known for getting himself killed.
he made a different character this time decided he wanted to play a monstrous race so he makes a Minotaur. The DM did an intro for him apparently escaping captivity from some drow-elfs killing them and getting a bit bloodied himself. I think the plan was for him to find our group and ask us for help. however as soon as he saw us ax still in hand covered in drow blood. he charges at us full speed. Now we had already fought Minotaurs this campaign and they were a real hassle last time.
My fighter says "I got this" draws his great sword and readies for a charge. If I remember correctly he made a centaur next...
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We had an alchemist in our WotW campaign. The player just wanted to pick funny stuff for his character and roleplay in a goofy way. He was useless in combat, aside from targeting other PCs with his bombs.
He picked a tumor familiar, and when he was with the other PCs he roleplayed the «birth» scene from Alien to present his familiar. He cried while the familiar came out from inside him, asking someone to stop it and acting as if he didn't know what happened.
I (the GM) adviced him not to do that. He didn't listen.
The other PCs, naturally, attacked the familiar. The alchemist went mad, saying that the creepy thing was called «Witty» and that it was very nice.
The other characters asked a simple question: «can you control it?». They wanted to be nice to the player not killing the familiar and forgetting everything.
«No, I can't»
I, as a GM, had a talk to the player telling him not to go that way, becayse he was going to have his familiar killed. He went on threatening to kill all the PCs if they harmed «Witty».
I don't allow PVP in my campaigns so I had to talk all of them into making their characters come to an aggreement, but they should have killed the damned tumor-thing.
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In the same game, we were fighting a barbarian. According the initiative order, the first one was a Dwarf Inquisitor, then the Barbarian enemy and then the rest of the party:
Dwarf: I attack him! I will kill him before the other PCs steal the glory from me!!
GM: Are you sure? You have 1 HP remaining and he looks almost full health. You could step back, heal yourself and go back.
Dwarf: Of course I hit him! I am a dwarf with a powerful dwarven weapon. I am going to crit him and kill him. Because I am a dwarf and dice owe me this!
His weapon was a Dwarven Waraxe (Crit 20/x3). Not magical. Not even masterwork quality. Of course, no buffs or judgements remaining.
GM: Even though you would score a critical hit, he will survive. And he is focusing you.
Dwarf: Dice owe me this! I have not scored a single critical hit in all the game! And this one (looks at me) has already scored two!
My weapon was a Falchion (Crit 18-20/x2).
Dwarf attacks and manages to hit the barbarian. No Critical hit. Barbarian gets angry. Barbarian strikes back. Critical hit. Dwarf dies (he would be dead even though it was not a critical hit).
Dwarf Player: AARRGHHH!! DICE HATE ME!!!!
I wish you were exaggerating here, but this is just what happened.
He is the kind of player that always blames dice and bad luck for everything.
If a fellow wizard manages to land all his spells because he uses no save spells and his own wizard casts only SoS spells having a low INT score he will keep blaming the dice for not being able to make his spells work while saying the other wizard is extremely lucky.
When told to pick gear or feats to increase DCs he says he doesn't want to because it's «cheating».
And actually, he had all his judgements remaining... He just kept forgetting to use them.
He's not a new player, BTW. He's been playing D&D 3.X since many years ago.
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The dice owe me this... *snerk*
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I did have a player once whose low-level sorcerer had a penchant for never using his spells and instead charging in with his spear because he wanted to "save them for an emergency". Like, almost every combat he was in there making Aid Another rolls because he didn't ever want to cast Magic Missile.
Until the session he died--party had tracked some goblinoid bandits to their base, which was protected by a few thorny, dried-out hedges, a few concealed pit traps, etc. The sorcerer insisted that he would go in and cast Charm Person on the goblin barbarian leader. I'm not sure what the endgame was supposed to be but he wouldn't be talked out of it, and when the party tried to ignore his plan and light the hedges on fire he stood up and hailed the camp then walked in.
The goblin leader even failed his Will save, but the rest of the bandits saw this sorcerer casting a spell on their boss so they attack. Hedges were burned, the bandits were defeated but the sorcerer died Round 2 because he got charged by 5ish goblins.
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The same player who played the Inquisitor mentioned before played a Wizard in a former campaign.
He never understood why he was overrun when he possitioned himself with Invisibility cast in the middle of a charge between the PCs and the enemies.
His character died later that session when he decided he wanted to waste his action in trying to intimidate a regiment of high level knights with fear immunity. He had low CHA and no ranks but he thought I should give him a big bonus because they knew him and hated him (he also reasoned, in the same line of «I will crit because.I'm a dwarf with an axe» that «they will fear me because I'm a wizard»). He had some prepared spells that had allowed him to leave the place unharmed. But he decided to intimidate them instead of casting anything. So they just charged him and he was finished.
My players just faught themselves, they had controversial characters, the clerica wanted to bully the mad sorceror into lawfullness abd they anded up fighting each other, stalking and tricking, until the sorceror was captured, handed to authorities and executed (his fellow bard went to jail), so now the players have made new characters and seem to be getting along, though with that pain in the butt cleric i doubt it'll hold up (our ranger has already grappled with him once because he was being stopped when trying to get some scrolls)
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My first story is from almost half my life ago. And, to be frank, I suspect a lot of details are just plain wrong, because things don't seem to add up as I try to remember it. Either way, I'll recite what I recall.
So, quick one-shot game. Plotline is basic, but a bit grandiose. A bandit gang has gotten large enough to basically count as a mercenary army, so a large force is being mounted to crush them once and for all. Our group was brought together as a strike force. Our job was to attack the leaders, who were known to be quite powerful, while the army handled the main bandits. We had an assistant NPC, a rogue/ranger type (This was 3.0 edition, no slayer here.) meant to guide us silently to where we needed to be.
So, we attack. Our group advances, gets to the leader's tent. GM's 'cool' NPC (Don't worry, he's gotten better over the years about GMPCs) pulls out twin hand crossbows, takes out the guards, and then leaps away.
Now, I think it was explained (Though perhaps not clearly) that our group's sole purpose was to take out the leaders, or at least keep them busy while the army attacks the main bandit force. The DMPCs were just there to get us to the leader's tent. Evidently half our group either missed this, or didn't care. So half of us, being very gung-ho types, charged into the tent immediately to start combat. The other half got upset that our guide up and left us, and wandered off (AFTER we had charged into the tent) to find him. Which meant the leaders, that were supposed to be a challenge for a full group, were only facing half our members.
I seem to recall one of the guys who didn't run in and charge actually wading through the main battle between the bandits and the army, looking for the commander of the army, demanding to know where our guide went. Who responded with typical "What the hell are you doing here!? You're supposed to be fighting the leaders!"
I guess our guide wasn't supposed to join in the fight, but when the GM realised half the team didn't actually take part in the fight they were supposed to, and wanting to avoid a TPK, he had the guide awesomely cut his way in through the top of the tent and shoot more instant death hand crossbow bolts.
(Okay, the GM doesn't sound too good here with an obvious GMPC, but like I said, he's gotten much better over the years.)
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Different group, different GM.
So, first adventure for the group. Simple mission, they're all working for the crown, and were told to retrieve a scroll stolen by some bandits. Their employers warned them repeatedly "Don't read the scroll!" They insisted it contained powerful magic that simply could not be handled by normal minds, and would drive a person insane just looking at it.
The group proceeded, killed the bandits, and got the scroll. And, of course, the wizard of the group cracked it open and read it. And, of course, he went insane.
Now, this could be understandable if he felt they were lying, or hiding some dirty truth. But the guy admitted that he read it not because he didn't believe his employers, but because he wasn't paying attention, and didn't hear anything about it driving you insane. Yeah, the player was the sort who'd never focus on anything that wasn't combat or loot related.
After that, the player decided the group wasn't a good fit for him, and left. Hence where I came in.
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Final story involves something much more recently. We had this one player who was enthusiastic, but had absolutely no tactical sense. This worked out decently when he played a Barbarian and was expected to charge into combat. Not so much when he was playing a sorcerer.
First issue was he kept trying to make his sorcerer a melee combatant. He picked the dragon bloodline, focused on his claws, and picked up levels of Dragon Disciple, purely to get better at melee combat.
Two instances come to mind as to poor decision making capabilities. First was his sorcerer using fly to zoom well ahead of the group to stop a fairly well-armed group we were trying to catch up with. Now here, he was pretty tactical, using flight and invisibility to easily catch up to them, but remaining hidden.
Well, the fireball did do a number on their horses, but the group was powerful enough (Especially with his reduced caster levels) that it didn't do that much damage to them. Oh, and they had enemy spellcasters as well. And it wasn't Greater Invisibility he cast. Several Dispel Magics later, and he was surrounded by a rather well-armed and prepared group. Now, as he was getting pummelled, casting Transposition on the leader of the group so HE was the one getting pummelled was hilarious, but a short-lived respite.
We found our sorcerer tied to a tree later with his hands and tongue cut out.
Later on was another bit of horrid tactical planning. It started when we were walking through a small town, but it turned out to be an ambush by the same group we had fought above, but now with reinforcements.
Our (Regenerated) sorcerer was ready for this! Not only were his claws out and set to go, but he had a new spell/ability. (I forget) It sheathed him in an aura of fire, dealing fire damage to anybody that got within melee range of him.
Several problems:
1) As mentioned, we had fought these guys before. Which meant they were aware of some of our tactics. Especially our sorcerer's love of fire. And since they had spellcasters, that meant Fire Resistance among pretty much everybody.
2) Even if they didn't have fire resistance, the damage wasn't THAT amazing. I think it was only 2d6 or 3d6, or something similarly minor. He was convinced this was awesome, though, and charged forward, confident that everyone would be too scared to get in melee range with him. I mentioned above, but these guys weren't 1st level warriors. Most had quite a few levels on them, and while 3d6 would hurt, it wasn't unmanageable.
3) The best part. He would charge into the middle of a group of enemies to maximize the damage of his fire aura. Most of the enemies were fighter/rogues. That he would get in the middle of. So they could flank him.
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More about the Intimidating wizard I mentioned before:
He was obsessed with fire. So much that he didn't want to pick any spell that didn't involve fire because he was afraid that other party members tried to get him to cast that spells. I had to convince him to take such spells as Invisibility to keep himself alive and he was still unsure they «fit the concept». We tried to get him to play a sorcerer, as he just wanted to spam a few spells, but he hated them just because «they are not wizards and they suck».
They were at an army fight, trying to break a siege. The enemy army had many spellcasters, both clerics and wizards.
So he decided to cast Fly on himself and nuke the enemy army. He didn't go invisible, he didn't cast protection from arrows (not that he knew the spell), nothing to protect himself aside of Fly.
He was wearing a ring which was given to him as a gift and he didn't know what it could do (not that he tried to investigate). It was a counterspell ring with Dispel Magic stored, so when anybody casted Dispel Magic on him, the spell was countered.
The first time the enemy tried to dispel the Wizard's Fly spell the ring came to action. I made him being targeted by a single Dispel Magic the first round so he had the time to question his strategy and go back to a safe place. «A single cleric saw you, now he's pointing at you and everybody is looking» I said.
He first went on a rant about why I had given him such an useless magic item. The ring had just saved his life and he still thought it was useless because it wouldn't allow him to cast more Fireballs. They were still around level 6 and he was hoping the ring was some kind of world crushing artifact.
Then I asked him what he was going to do. I expected him to answer «Get out of here». His answer was more like «How they dare to cast something on me? They are not even wizards, they are clerics! I'm going to blast them all so they fear me and stop attacking me!»
He was able to cast a Fireball that probably killed 1 or 2 low level rookies. Then he was targeted by many Dispel Magic effects in a row. The archers didn't shoot him because they wanted to capture him alive.
The wizard fell in a non-paladinesque literal way. He didn't even have his Feather Fall prepared. He was knocked out by a bunch of D6 of falling damage and captured.
While I went on with the other players, he went on a middle hour rant about how stupid the enemies were keeping him alive because he was killing them all with a single spell when he woke up. Guess what, kid? The enemies have stripped you out of all your bat crap.
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guy really needed a kinecist instead of a wizard. Me and him would of had some harsh words complaining about the magic item.
You know, all this just goes to show that it's not just player characters that often dump one or more mental stats . . . .
I remember one game from summer 1982 (AD&D 1st Edition) in which one of several short-lived groups I was in had this Halfling character who had a fixation on throwing rocks everywhere. So of course he ended up aggroing all sorts of things on us. It wasn't because he was a Halfling. It was because he was that player.
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No kineticist, as it was 3.5, but this guy is against anything magic/mystic that is not a wizard. He judges everything by not very accurate stereotypes.
About the ring, I gave it to him because I knew he liked to go full aggro and I thought that it would allow him to have some defenses without having to do anything. I thought it fitted him perfectly. I felt like he was spitting me at the face for giving him that useless ring (that could have saved his life).
Another player, same campaign. This one wanted to play an equivalent to a Slayer Dwarf from Warhammer in D&D 3.5. He refused to wear any armor or to play a Barbarian (because he didn't want to be insane, he said), he wanted to be a Fighter. And he wanted to survive. More specifically, he wanted me to magically make his character survive against all odds.
One of the first battles of the campaign. The PCs are level 3 and part of an army. They are in a massive battle, and they have to take care of a boss that is surrounded by a bunch of low level mooks. The PCs aggree to let their own low level troops engage the enemies while they slowly make their way through the mob to reach the boss. All but the Dwarf.
He wants to ignore the low level mooks and engage the boss, who is kinda far. So he goes by his own through the enemy lines, gets a lot of AoO in the way and before he gets near to the boss, he realizes he's half dead, so he retires, gets attacked by more AoO, and moves to the back of his own army to get some healing. He has already lost a lot of turns. When he is healed, he tries the same strategy again. Same ressults, back for more healing. And he tries again! Finally the battle is over before he is able to do something, as he has wasted all his actions going forward and back all the time.
After that he starts blaming the combat system, as it is flawed. He doesn't believe there is not a way to avoid being hit by low level characters. «Oh, there is one» I tell him. His eyes shine: «What is it?» «Get an armor».
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*snipped flame wizard story*
You know, if that player ever played Planescape: Torment, I think they'd go nuts when they see Ignus...
He did burn down half the Hive...bless his fiery little withered heart
I played a Character that was a complete pyromaniac. Super fun toon, not to bright. The party sorcerer realized if she did small fire spells she could keep me reigned in. Their biggest mistake was to send me after supplies... they learned after the first time however so kudos to them. also leaving me alone was right out.
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LoL. Never send the pyro for supplies. Should post that on «1000 things not to do...» thread.
The fire obsessed wizard I was talking about was so smart that when they went inside an active volcano to hunt a red dragonspawn (something similar to a half-dragon) prepared only fire spells and then complained for being useless. He blamed me for making everybody inside the volcano have fire immunity or at least be highly resistent to fire.
They knew they were going into a volcano with enough anticipation to allow him to learn new spells if he wanted.
o_O I mean... I... wow.
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Also, he tried to bring down a fire elemental by casting fireballs after I allowed a knowledge check to realize it was immune.
It was a test to recover an object from a place that was being protected by an Elder Fire Elemental. He insisted on doing it himself because it was fire-related and didn't want other PCs to interfere. After having to run away, the Druid just flew by the Elemental, taking an AoO, grabbed the object and let the Elemental alone. The player of the Wizard was stunned because he hadn't thought of not fighting the elemental.
He left the campaign before it ended. The final enemy was an advanced white great wyrm. The PCs/Players had a hard time fighting it. Some time after the campaign ended Dalindra and I were talking to him about the last fight.
«If my wizard was there, he'd have defeated the dragon with a single fireball» he said.
«He had a very high SR» Dalindra answered.
«And he had Resist Energy cast on himself. And a ring of evasion» I said.
He looked so very scared.
«That's nothing any dragon would do. I would never have a white dragon do that. White dragons are stupid»
Then he went close to say that we were having wrongbadfun for setting encounters like that.
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People like him is why I have become far more selective with who I allow to play in my games.
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To the credit of the overconfident sorcerer in my tale, he didn't blame the GM. Or, at least, not at the table. I heard he was disappointed with how ineffective his character was, but he seemed to accept this was either his lack of optimization, or the game not allowing for his concept. Leastwise, I never heard from the GM that he got angry e-mails from him.
He did leave the game, but that was due to real life.
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dot
I've witnessed a friend of mind complain there was nothing he could do in a fight because his Roc animal companion(large size) couldn't fit down the five foot wide hallway without squeezing, and because if it did that there wasn't any place for it in the room anyway.
This same fight, another player died because he didn't use his teleportation-sequel ability to get out of the room. Three mummies kill him quickly, and I fireball the room once every ally was out of it(like I'd told them to do the first round...)
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I'll stop bashing the poor fire wizard for some time. Seriously, he might not be the sharpest knive in the kitchen but he's not always so bad!
Today I'm bashing Dalindra... Just a bit. He's a good player. He does great roleplaying. He's... probably reading this thread, too.
Not all the players who take unexpected decissions are fools or bad players. Sometimes things just keep being more and more messed up. And then, you end killing your own party.
This happened a long time ago in a Call of Cthulhu game. Dalindra was playing a naive English gentleman, I was playing a curious French naturalist. We were both fairly new to roleplaying and totally new to Call of Cthulhu. I had never lost a character in my whole life and I usually got very attached to my characters (I still do). Fortunately this one was pregenerated and I wasn't too attached to him... because he had one of the greatest deaths ever!
We went into a monastery and ran into a ghoul-like creature. I was unexperienced enough to try to fight it, so it left me unconscious with a single hit.
Everybody ran, but Dalindra stayed back to save me so our party split (never split the party!). Dalindra got lost and found the monastery's basement, where a strange looking snake man was performing some kind of ritual inside a pentacle. He held a sacrificial dagger. He looked... friendly?
«Humansssss. I am humanssss friend. Lets me sssssave your friend» the creature hissed.
I was dying. Dalindra was desperate. So he did the more logic thing you can do in a Cthulhu game. He believed him. He gave my barely alive body to the cultist so he could heal me.
Dalindra was so immersed in the game that he didn't even consider he might be doing anything wrong. You should have seen his face when the cultist stabbed me in the heart and a dark mist started covering the whole room!
Dalindra thought fast and charged the cultist, throwing him outside the pentacle and taking his place. The mist swiftly devoured the cultist, but Dalindra was safe inside the pentacle.
The mist talked to him, trying to make him come out of the pentacle, but he stayed there all night until it was already in the morning. He was desperate.
«Come out. I'll let you go» said the mist. He was desperate enough to believe it, so he left the pentacle...
And that's how he ended being posessed by an avatar of an avatar of Nyarlathothep (I can only remember the Spanish name).
The GM told us that, had he stayed inside the pentacle, he could have left unharmed in the morning. But the poor englishman had trust issues... he was too trusting.
I was given to choose between playing a new character or helping the GM with roleplaying minor NPCs. I chose the latter so I was able to see what happened behind the curtains and get the whole picture of what happened the next months of story. AND IT WAS EPIC.
Dalindra kept roleplaying his character the same way at first, but slowly making him more and more alien and creepy as the posession grew inside him. His character was more and more sinister and more and more emaciated. He started to manifest strange powers.
In the end he was completely lost. The other party members ended attacking him and, already fully posessed, he slew them all, only to be consumed by the posession shortly after that.
The only survivor was the young journalist, who had ran away a week ago and ended his days in an asylum.
I enjoyed this story a lot being only a watcher because I always knew what was going on and the GM allowed me to watch all the private scenes as long as I kept my mouth shut, which I did. I have to say that the story was great and Dalindra did one the most creepy roleplaying ever. I never regret having lost my character because it made a wonderful story.
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Sorry for double posting. I feel guilty for bashing all my players, so I have to repost this story I have already told as a proof that I DO THE DARNDEST THINGS too:
It happened more than 10 years ago but it's still one of the stories that my gaming group most remembers.
It was in a Vampire: the Masquerade game. We started the story as humans and the GM picked the clan who embraced us.
So I was playing a weird kind of vampire who needed to consume not only blood but also the flesh of her victims to avoid being seriously weakened. I could gain nourishment from a corpse if it was a very fresh one.
As part of the story, my character was being hunted by justice and I had to leave my hometown to avoid being caught.
So I ended in Las Vegas (which was full of vampire hunters, by the way), trying to keep a low profile. But I had to feed and I didn't want to kill anybody. My character didn't want to be the monster they thought she was.
So she came up with a brilliant plan. She was going to fake her own death in front of an hospital so they declared her dead and took her to the morgue.
Don't you think it was a great idea? If you don't, you're probably more clever than I was at that time. I was not a very experienced player and fast thinking is not my thing.
So my character went to the hospital's door and just let herself drop dead. As she was a vampire, she didn't give any signs of life. Anyway, the emergency services came and started trying to resuscitate her by all means possible. It wasn't a nice experience.
She was finally declared dead and taken to the morgue. Success!!!
The doctors then said they were going to procceed with the autopsy inmediately. They undressed her and put her into an autopsy table. OK, maybe not such a big success...
Fortunately, she was finally left alone so she thought: "It's my oportunity! Let's eat!"
She started looking for a fresh corpse (instead of just realizing she had an awful idea and just running away), but before, she covered herself with a sheet. She suddenly heard steps coming. She didn't want to get caught! She had to run away!
So she found a window and, as it wasn't very high she jumped from it. She was not the most athletic person in the world (believe it or not she was a very intelligent doctor, even though she wasn't a very fast thinker) so she botched her roll and the sheet got caught in the window, leaving her outside the hospital in a crowded place and completely naked, with everybody looking at her. And now remember she was trying to keep a low profile to avoid being caught.
She was terrified, so my storyteller made me roll to see if my character went on a coward frenzy (more or less equivalent to a panicked status in Pathfinder). Another botched roll, so I spent a point of willpower to take a last rational action.
My storyteller asked me: "What are you doing before you start running naked in the middle of Las Vegas?"
I quickly answered: "I cover my face so people cannot recognize me."
Everybody laughed, thinking I was joking. "No, really, that's what I do"
"OK" answered the storyteller, laughing.
So my character ran as she was on fire, completely out of mind, while covering her face. The storyteller rolled again to randomly determine where my character ended, being a 10 the best luck possible, 1 the worse. I think he rolled a 1. So when I recovered I had tripped on a vampire hunter and fallen on him. A naked vampire tackling a vampire hunter. That couldn't be a good thing. I apologized and continued running, far, far away.
The vampire hunter just took out a notebook and scrapped something on it while looking completely dazed.
By the way, after all that odyssey, my character was still hungry.
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And that is how Kileanna's vamp doc learned to order delivery :)
Great story though Kileanna, needed a good laugh, and nice to see a little less super grim dark in folks vamps, I like it!
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Fast food is great. You pay for the pizza, you get the guy who brought the pizza as a bonus xD
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It's like a two for one meal deal!
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My Malkavian is definitely going to remember that 'combo meal' next time he's got some free time away from his night job.
Kileanna, you've got some of the best stories on the thread. If you have any more, I'd love to read them!
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My memory is hazy because this was back in '03 or '04. Our group had been playing for just under a year in 3.0/3.5. We had made it to 5th or 6th level when two of the party members were shockingly and tragically killed in a non-combat encounter. One of them was our party's bard who had a fairly elaborate backstory and a final wish to be buried in his homeland. (The player left explicit instructions that his character did not want to be raised, even if we had the money to do it.)
We discussed the events a bit offline, trying to figure out what we wanted to do next: go back to finish the dungeon where the two characters had died, or abort and take on the side quest of burying our friend. We started the next game session still in this discussion state, and because we were a large group (I think there were eight of us back then) of course it was like trying to decide by committee and the discussion just wouldn't die. We probably spent two hours of our monthly, 7-hour game session with nothing but talk.
So. The GM announces that, while we are sitting in the common room of the inn having this discussion, another bard comes in and starts to play. And sing. One of her songs tells the tale of a young man who had fled his country in haste because he had the misfortune of falling in love with someone, and that love was forbidden, and so on and so forth, and that his only wish upon his death was to be returned to his homeland and buried, and a message delivered to his one, true love, and also have a statue erected in his honor on the border as a sort of thumb-in-the-eye to the people who chased him out.
There were loads of details that I can't remember 13 or 14 years later, but about 1 minute into this we realized the story in the song was about our dead bard.
Thinking this was GM fiat, we decided on the spot that our next course of action was, of course, to go on the quest to have our friend buried and said statue erected because DUH.
So we did.
Several months later, we learned the truth: another player in our group was getting tired of the bickering and endless discussion. He also happened to be playing a half-orc barbarian who was similarly bored and frustrated in-character. So he arranged with the GM to pay for another bard in town to come sing this song and make up a bunch of details so that the party would actually stop talking about doing something and just do something.
The moral of this story?
Don't play D&D/PF in a party of eight. Forget all that nonsense about "action economy". There is nothing "economical" about eight players.
Several months later, we learned the truth: another player in our group was getting tired of the bickering and endless discussion. He also happened to be playing a half-orc barbarian who was similarly bored and frustrated in-character. So he arranged with the GM to pay for another bard in town to come sing this song and make up a bunch of details so that the party would actually stop talking about doing something and just do something.
This is glorious.
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Kileanna, you've got some of the best stories on the thread. If you have any more, I'd love to read them!
Thanks KC! I think I could write a whole book with them! I have very creative people at my gaming table, both in the right and wrong way.
I could go on for hours talking only about the «the dice owe me/ fire wizard» guy.Like that game where he was given a sword that was said to have an ancient evil trapped inside and should never be taken off of its sheathe.
We were in a difficult situation, facing inminent doom.
GM: You hear a voice coming from the sword: «Unsheathe me and I'll give you the power to save you all»
HIM: OK. I unsheathe the sword.
Next thing we know is that we have all been KO'd.
HIM: What happened?
GM: You pulled the sword out of its sheathe.
HIM: You told me to do it! You cannot tell me to do it if you don't want me to do it! You tricked me!
GM: Congratulations, you have released to the world a bigger menace than you were facing.
HIM: You tricked me!
----
This one has been told before, and it was a creative solution but it quickly became one of the most popular stories among my group.
It involves the Fire Wizard, the Forward and Back Dwarf and Dalindra the Druid.
They were crossing the mountains and the Wizard found a small group of goblins attacking some sheep. He casted a Fireball so he could kill the goblins and cook the sheep. Most of the goblins survived and ran. The wizard stayed there, eating the charred meat. Dalindra and the Dwarf came, and while Dalindra scouted the land wildshaping as a bird the other two set the campament. The Wizard never mentioned that he had let the goblins escape.
So they were caught unawares when the whole goblin tribe attacked!
They were too many so they had to pick all their stuff and run away from the goblins. There was only one way, as the mountain was quite sharp.
Dalindra saw them running but decided to stay away watching from a distance.
Finally the two were about to get caught. Dalindra wanted to help but:
1. Didn't want to harm the goblins as she felt they were just defending their territories.
2.Didn't want to be harmed by the goblins just because her friend did something stupid.
So she checked her resources and came up with an idea: she'd cast Call Lightning to hit the loose rocks atop of the mountain to create an avalanche between the goblins and the party.
I told Dalindra's player that he could hit the rocks but it might not cause an avalanche at all or even cause it in the wrong place. The player was OK with it, so each time the lightning hit a rock I rolled randomly. Many lightings didn't cause any effect. Another one blocked the PCs way. The last one caused an avalanche that buried them alive!!!
The goblins left them for dead and went back to their settlement. Both characters were injured but alive so it was a success. But the other PCs never allowed Dalindra to come close to a mountain ever again.
Shortly after, they had to take over a city between mountains. Dalindra suggested causing a controlled avalanche as a strategy. The other party members looked at her like they wanted her dead.
-----
I told that they never allowed Dalindra to come close to a mountain again...I lied.
What is more dangerous than Dalindra on a mountain? Dalindra inside a fire mountain.
They had to go to an active volcano, with magma currents flowing everywhere and a high chance of a volcanic eruption. They had already finished what they were doing there and getting out. They had recovered a minor artifact: a necromantic staff carved from the skull and spine of an elf.
Dalindra is a NG elven druid, she worships life. She thought the staff was a corruption and a blasphemy and wanted to destroy it.
She tried to hit it with weapons, with spells, she tried everything to destroy it and nothing worked. So she threw it to the flowing magma.
I had to make a big decission here: do I go by the rules and say that the staff is not destroyed or do I take the opportunity to increase Dalindra's legend?
The decission was clear. I say:
«The staff is destroyed, releasing a huge wave of arcane energy. The whole place trembles, the magma currents start flowing more and more quickly and it seems like the whole place is collapsing»
They manage to get out in time to see the volcano erupt violently. I get descriptive narrating the devastation.
Dalindra did it again.
-----
By the way, I loved the bard story!
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Now the dwarf doesn't let me go near his home. He fears I tear down the mountain!!
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By the way, Dalindra. I have to do this, I really have. They have to be warned.
To anyone interested in Dalindra's destructive tendencies, here is her destruction account:
-Caused an avalanche that buried her party alive. Nobody died.
-Advocated for causing an avalanche to take over a city. They didn't listen.
-Caused a volcanic eruption. The creatures inside the volcano had fire immunity and managed to escape. The party had evacuated the people living at the ruins at the base of the volcano before so nobody died but the ruins were covered by lava (Pompeii anyone?)
-Caused a simulacrum of an avalanche to scare some ogres away. She did, but she scared her party away too. No material or personal damage.
-Destroyed a whole small city with Control Winds. A few people died in a collapsed building that they thought to be empty, the rest of the population (who were hostile, as they had been corrupted by the boss) were forced to take cover inside other buildings that were left unharmed. So a whole destroyed town but close to zero dead people.
-Caused an avalanche who killed dozens of people without even being present or noticing it... Wait, she didn't cause that one, but they tried to blame her for it anyway.
-Was present when a whole city made of ice erupted to swiftly turn into a lake of fire! Her implications on that one are unclear but legends say that her only presence caused the eruption. She almost died there trying to save evil minions from being burned to death.
-Collapsed a whole Demiplane with the size of a large city by killing the BBEG who created it. That was the main goal of the adventure, and the only way to avoid it was not killing the BBEG but she did it anyway.
So:
Dalindra's destruction level: CE
Dalindra's death recount level: NG
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Wow Talk about a huge fan of Avalanches
If they were only avalanches...
I have the theory that when you pick the Natural Disaster hex you just gain the ability to summon a Dalindra.
Of course, when I played Dragon Age: Inquisition with Dalindra she had the idea of evacuate Haven... WITH TWO AVALANCHES!!! I couldn't stop ROFLing for quite a long time!!
Kenders and Avalanches. I suppose it's my brand.
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^Now we need a Bestiary entry for that . . . .
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Had a veteran player using a rogue not check for traps an archway of skulls that registered as STRONG NECROMANTIC magic when examined by Detect Magic. She just walked up and plucked a gem from one of the eye sockets, triggering a 20d6 blast of negative energy. Those that failed their saves took 76 points of damage. And that was nearly everyone in a 7 member party. No one allowed her to even bother checking for traps the rest of the night, using the cleric/rogue (with a much smaller chance of detecting traps) to do that job.
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My S&S party (I'm the GM) has the best «rogue» ever!
They are a mostly balanced party, besides the only character who has many skill points is a bard, so she has to pick most skills herself.
They are good at spotting traps, but they can't disable them!
So they are relying on putting some distance between the party and the trap and using a Summon Monster II wand to see what happens to the poor creature!
It has worked fine so far, until they were affected by a Symbol of Insanity that had a wide range.
But the summoned octopus made its save!
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Do you remember that fire obsessed wizard from some posts ago? Here is another story (I remind you he was a veteran player):
We were in a fire themed dungeon and the wizard was complaining about how useless his character was. He was complaining that the GM had picked on him by giving almost all the enemies some kind of fire resistance. Of course, we had spent a full day researching the dungeon before going in and we knew what we were going to fight. He still prepared Burning Hands, Scorching Rays, Fireballs... and nothing more. Not even Resist Energy.
Well, we managed to get to the boss: a Red Dragonspawn. With inmunity to fire, of course. The wizard just sits down and lets the rest of us to manage the fight. The dwarf fighter chickens out (but that is another story). The human fighter and me (elf druid) manage to beat the Dragonspawn after a very hard fight. Time to loot.
The wizard just sees the weapon the Dragonspawn was wielding: a fire whip. A +1 Flaming Burst Whip of Speed with some other powers I don't remember. It was very, very pricey. We start talking about how much we can get from it.
Wizard: I want that whip.
Dalindra: Are you sure? You don't even have whip proficiency. We could sell it and buy something more useful.
Wizard: It's a FIRE whip. I want it.
Human Fighter: Are you going to buy Exotic Weapon Proficiency? That would be very cool!
GM: I remind you that your wizard circle forbids every weapon besides staff or dagger.
Wizard: I am not going to use it. I just want it. Because fire.
Ok. Because fire. We agree to let the wizard keep the whip. Then we proceed to divide the rest of the loot.
Wizard: What is my share of the loot?
Dalindra: What?! The rest of the loot worths far less than the whip. You will have to "pay" for the difference with future loot.
Wizard: WHAT? I am not going to pay for an item I am not going to use.
Human Fighter: Have you changed your mind? Do you want to sell the whip?
Wizard: NO!
Dalindra: Then, what do you want? To keep the whip for free?
Wizard: Of course! I should not pay for it because I am going to store it in my Bag of Holding and never use it. I just like it.
The full party: º.º
We could not believe what we were hearing. We were adamant about not letting him have the whip for free, so at the end he agree to sell the damned thing. Of course, he was very upset. He started to say that he was going to steal from us while we were sleeping to buy the whip. He wanted to, but he never dared. Lucky guy.
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That would be the last game we had problems out of the fire mage. maybe a new one just like him but that particular one would no longer be ticking.
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My S&S party (I'm the GM) has the best «rogue» ever!
They are a mostly balanced party, besides the only character who has many skill points is a bard, so she has to pick most skills herself.
They are good at spotting traps, but they can't disable them!
So they are relying on putting some distance between the party and the trap and using a Summon Monster II wand to see what happens to the poor creature!
It has worked fine so far, until they were affected by a Symbol of Insanity that had a wide range.
But the summoned octopus made its save!
Karma still works I see
I remember!
The same guy wanted to play a character who planned to create a new spell which allowed him to summon a lot of weapons from his bag of holding and throw them as an AoE spell.
So he wanted the other players to give him all the weapons that were looted, just for using them on his future spell.
When I said that by no way I was allowing him to do that he didn't change his mind at all. He still thought I'd allow him that spell in a distant future.