Stupid D&D tricks

The Game Room
1

I admit it: I’m a RPG fanatic from way back. I played all kinds of genres, although I was too cheap to invest in various rule books, because I was always the Game Master (or Dungeon Master if you prefer). AD&D, GURPS, V&V, Paranoia, Top Secret, Call of Cthulhu, Boot Hill, you name it. Like everybody else who has played the game, any game, I have lots of stories to tell about amazing adventures, incredible improvisations, great scenarios, and clever players outwitting impossible odds.

But forget that now. Tell me your stories of the stupidest players you ever had, the most boneheaded moves you ever saw in a game, the klutziest characters ever to grace the bone heap in the Tomb of Horrors.

I’m not talking about bad dice rolls. I’m not talking about unfortunate saving throws or evil traps. I’m speaking of times when the player commits an incredibly thick-headed lack of judgement that subjects the character to a cruel injustice or an untimely death.

My favorite mishaps came from one, count him, one player. We called him GODAG, for Good Ol’ Dead-And-Gone.

(D&D game)
Me: “You come to a river.”
Doug: “I’ll look around for a bridge.”
GODAG: “I jump in and swim across.”
Me: “Really? Okay. Your armor is too heavy. You sink to the bottom and die.”

(spy game)
Me: “The snipers continue to fire at your truck. The engine stops running and is now on fire.”
Everyone else: “Get out of the truck and take cover.”
GODAG: “I try to fix the engine.”

(sci-fi game, in planes vs. tanks battle)
Me: “Joe and GODAG, your planes are both hit. You’ve each lost control and you’re going down.”
GODAG: “I jump out of the plane.”
Joe: “I bail out of the plane.”
GODAG: “I go back and get my parachute.”

(Old West game, at the poker table with desperadoes)
Me, rolling dice: “You have lost all your money.”
GODAG: “I’ll put my guns on the table.”
Me: “Really? You reach for your guns?”
GODAG: “Yeah, I’ll bet my guns.”
Me: “The other poker players see you reaching for your guns and shoot you.”

Don’t get the wrong idea: I’m not a capricious GM who kills off players for fun. I really tried to give him every opportunity to do something useful. In the end, what we got was entertainment value.

I’m sorry if this thread is started in a bad location; I’m not really sure where it fits in best.

2

The time i bought a guard dog in ad&d … we ran out of food and well ,

as for bad dice rolls same game we were fighting a bunch of goblins in a random attack

everyone else was down … all i needed was to hit the fool i only needed a 3 or higher

I roll …

I hit my self , rolled a one

All i needed was not to hit over 5

I hiit a 20

The one time I could of been the hero i choke … I felt like charlie brown calling himself the goat lying in the baseball field

3

I once played a Drow that had been banished from his [royal] family (my alignment had changed to neutral good from fooling around with an unidentified helm). Hooked up with the rest of my non-Drow party and we head into Waterdeep. We decide to hit a few bars to pick up on local gossip. My more experienced friend tells me to keep my hood low.

I order a drink, then throw back my hood to guzzle it. The bar goes completely silent and my friend is staring slack-jawed at me from across the room.

Fast-forward past all the dice rolls – we escape through a second story window to a neighboring roof. The first floor of the bar is completely engulfed in flames (my idea of a distraction gone wrong). We hoof it to the docks where a ship is waiting for us with our quest-giver NPC.

For some reason the ship has a catapult mounted on the deck and several barrels of oil. I decide that giant molatov cocktails are the order of the day for the few ships that are pursuing us. In my excitement I grossly misjudge the distance and set a large portion of the docks on fire. [Sigh]

From then on my party nicknames me Pyro. The NPC later turns out to be a vampire who makes me his pet.

Yeah, that’s me, Pyro the Drow elf-ghoul.

4

Heh… Let’s see… there was the fighter who died when a succubus… well, drained… his fortitude beyond 0

A lv. 3 thief who tried to stuff a mercurial broadsword (naked blade) into a borrowed (from the local thieves’ guild, of course) bag of holding…

A wild mage, caught in the forest alone against a knight in full plate who tried to summon a rust monster

5

I once played an AD&D character in a campaign whose DM allowed humans to have 19 strength (he knew how to kill players anytime he wanted, so it didn’t matter) and was in a small low-level party with another novice fighter, two 3rd-level clerics and a bard. Yes, a bard. The guy wanted to play a bard. He had no idea what a bard was, but he wanted to play one.

As we creep through the dungeon, we find a door, listen carefully, then bust it down. Arrows come flying at us so I charge into the room, dodge to the side so I’m not standing in the doorway like a complete idiot, then charge, bastard sword a-singing. The other fighter follows me and we have a grand old time.

Meanwhile, the bard decides he wants to shoot arrows back at the attackers. Never mind that he can’t actually see them, never mind that in order to get off a shot he has to stand in the doorway like a complete idiot, he’s gonna shoot back, damnit! The DM tries to dissaude him with a bit of bullshit, telling the bard that you can’t keep a bow strung all the time, because the wood would warp, and unless the bard specifically strung his bow before entering today’s dungeon, firing back is not an option.

“So I’ll string my bow,” declared the bard. And he does, or at least tries to. The arrows shot at the bard (who is still standing in the doorway like a complete idiot) have a random chance of hitting the clerics, who are trying to keep line-of-sight on me so I can benefit from various Prayer spells and whatnot. Their spells are continually disrupted and wasted by piddling arrow hits and soon I am knocked out and taken prisoner, as is the entire party, and we are tossed into cells. I end up bunking with the arrow-riddled corpse of the idiot bard.

I am annoyed, needless to say. Having been stripped of my armor, weapons and a ring +1, I decide to memorably improvise. I rip the bard’s leg off, reasoning that a human femur is a very strong bone and can serve as an adequate club. I am rewarded by shocked silence around the table, though my jail-break (and my character) are both short-lived.

That was when I was playing. A few years later when I was DMing, I let the players have all kinds of goofy stuff (I was building up toward a plot twist in which the Paladin’s warhorse is lost and presumed dead, but later reappears as a pegasus) so long as it was interesting. One of them picked up a helm of brilliance and they went hunting for some wizard or whatever. After a major fiasco, the dwarf with the helm and the wizard faced each other across a field. She threw purple ray at him, he threw fireball at her and the initiative rolls tied. Net result: he vanished into another dimension, and she lost two saving throws and blew up.

Now THAT was memorable.

6

A friend of mine got into D&D when it first came out. We had some trouble fully understanding the game, but we gave it a shot nonetheless. We ended up with a player who became a starving naked fighter riding a giant chicken until being eaten by a gelatinous cube. We didn’t play much after that.

7

My mate George is a tremendous roleplaying enthusiast.

He turns up on time, runs his fair share of dungeons (which are always entertaining) and has many fine ideas, plus a great sense of humour.

When he is playing a Fighter, there is no more stout ally.
When playing a Thief, there is no more daring scout.
When he plays a Cleric, you will get full healing, no matter what the risk to himself.

But when he plays an MU, especially one with Fireball… :eek:

Episode one (The Very Real Menace)

We are in a narrow long corridor, with a low roof. The Paladin has detected evil around a bend up ahead, so the party is on full alert. George’s MU is being protected by my character (I’m also keeping an eye on the rear).
Some nasty looking other-world beings come round the corner, snarling away.
The fighters engage, smoothly blocking the corridor.
The cleric begins casting healing and protecting spells.
Without hesitation, George’s MU starts the syllables of his favourite spell.
My character instantly calculates just how far the fireball will extend down a corridor 10 feet wide by 10 feet high. (I make it 330 feet in all the monsters are about 20 feet away!)
I push the MU, disturbing his concentration.
The player who thanked me most was George, who pointed out ruefully that his familiar would have been in the blast area!
(The DM later added that the beings were fire-resistant anyway…)

Episode two (Attack of the Clowns)

So we’re on Dinosaur Island. A dangerous place, particularly with local tribesman having successfully snatched our food supplies. The Paladin looks the Druid in the eye and says we must kill one animal for food.
The Druid reluctantly agrees.
So the Thief sneaks up on a herd of small dinosaurs, sets a tripwire, and we prepare to swiftly dispatch lunch.
I think you know what is coming next!
Without hesitation, George’s MU starts the syllables of his favourite spell.
He’ll kill and injure most of the grazing herd.
This time it’s the Druid who gives him a whack with the flat of a scimitar.

8

While playing Rifts (mostly apocalyptic sci-fi with magic) a couple of players driving from Chicago to San Antonio decided to stop at a sleepy village in the midwest. Unfortuately, the one at the wheel at the time left the cruise control on for most of the trip, and didn’t realize that merely taking his foot off the gas wouldn’t slow the vehicle down.

Cruising down the main street of this one-horse town at a sedate 80 mph, he looks for a suitable space to screech to a halt without wrecking anything, and picks the nice fenced-off field behind the nearby church.

Since his pilot automobile skill is the bare minimum to turn the car on without hurting himself, he fails miserably… and plows through the church. This slows him down enough to keep from flipping over as he jerks the wheel to the side halfway through and bursts out the other wall into the aforementioned field. A few wild doughnuts later, they come to a stop and discover that the “empty field” was the town’s cemetary, and now deep ruts tear through sacred burial grounds, at times deep enough to have flung parts of bodies out around the area.

The townsfolk were not amused, to say the least.

9

While playing Rifts (mostly apocalyptic sci-fi with magic) a couple of players driving from Chicago to San Antonio decided to stop at a sleepy village in the midwest. Unfortuately, the one at the wheel at the time left the cruise control on for most of the trip, and didn’t realize that merely taking his foot off the gas wouldn’t slow the vehicle down.

Cruising down the main street of this one-horse town at a sedate 80 mph, he looks for a suitable space to screech to a halt without wrecking anything, and picks the nice fenced-off field behind the nearby church.

Since his pilot automobile skill is the bare minimum to turn the car on without hurting himself, he fails miserably… and plows through the church. This slows him down enough to keep from flipping over as he jerks the wheel to the side halfway through and bursts out the other wall into the aforementioned field. A few wild doughnuts later, they come to a stop and discover that the “empty field” was the town’s cemetary, and now deep ruts tear through sacred burial grounds, at times deep enough to have flung parts of bodies out around the area.

The townsfolk were not amused, to say the least.

10

Playing the Avengers in the pitiful Marvel Super Heroes RPG, I was Hercules. Should have been an easy battle against whomever. Needed to roll 16 or better on a D100 to hit. Missed 5 straight times. After that, Jeeves wanted to spar with me.

First time with a group in AD&D. I was my favorite - a 1/2elf mage/thief. This group would describe how they were set up for a good 5-7 minutes before opening any door, most of which were empty. I got bored, walked up to a door as they were setting up, opened it. Who knew it was the occupied room (not done on purpose either)?

Old Champions campaign, I’m a Firestorm-type character, with transmutation powers. Knocked into Toys’R’Us. It was a display of Voltron toys. I always wanted to see them come together like the cartoon (GM was nice because of the visuals as this was really pushing the parameters of the power).

Another old Champions campaign: Another player and I both have energy protectors with paranormal strength (not quite super). We’re both quite powerful with our energy, but our strength was useless against most supervillians. Yet both of us always went charging into battle fist first. He was fun, as he was one of the few I’ve played with who wanted to play the character, not the numbers.

11

But surely they only need to have the door-opening discussion once?

12

Absurd Notions by Kevin Pease has had a bunch of RPG strips recently. I’ve never RPGed, and I think they’re pretty good.

Along with the strips, there’s been discussion in the Absurd Notions Forum. Here are some comments from one thread:

“Oh, while we’re on the subject of roleplaying running gags, I wanted to add that in one D&D campaign dating back to high school, whenever our group went into any place of business – be it an inn, a bar, a blacksmith’s or even an apothecary – it was invariably run by a dwarf with an English accent. One time we pointed this out to the DM and he was quite put out. Not the most imaginative lad around.” – Craig J. Quack

13

I was going to post a couple more from that thread (it’s a good one) but I hit enter and it posted my reply rather than moving down a line. So just go check out that thread.

14

Well, there was that time the ogre slipped on a squirrel (!) and hit a tree … and the time my mage gave everyone food poisoning …

15

I had a few in Shadowrun including some highlights as:

-A mage shooting a Maglock in a GAS chamber that has big stickers that say FLAMMIBLE GAS ENVIROMENT as the klaxons warning that GAS has been released and is rapidly filling up with HIGHLY FLAMMIBLE GAS (the gms words pretty much)

Mage shot anyway, spark, and 3 floors of a research facility go WHOOMP. He did not last long after that

-A arguement on how long a guy can be dragged along ‘skiing’ on hard leather boots against wet pavement from the back of a cargo van he shot a grappeling hook on to. He managed to throw a few saves by sheer luck but then got into real trouble as he tried to be a jackass and take a curve instead of getting on the ‘easy way out’ the GM offered. GM had him pinwheel into a parked car then land on a gang of very grumpy Trolls who stomped what was not broken very broken.

-A witty guy who decided to get offended and in the face of a cop IN HIS OWN PRECINCT. The GM decided to make him a example as he had “Mr Chip on his shoulder” proceed to be buggered against his will by some guys in the holding cell after being handcuffed. This guy deserved it on sheer stupidity to want to wave around a gun at all times

16

There was the time my Bard/Mage (who liked to fight with a pair of knives) stabbed a Hellhound in the head. ::Kaboomie!:: He enjoyed the flight…the landing sucked, though. (He lived, but…ow.)

Then when my Halfling Rogue tryed to grab a handful of coins from a magically protected fountain of gold. She enjoyed the flight, too. Didn’t mind the landing, either.

17

One of my favourites : My DM was describing a cobat setting that we had stumbled into. We were out numbered and as the dice were rolled apparently out gunned. As things went from bad to worse We found ourselves cut off with one door as a means of escape. It was of course locked. Our only thief pipes up and says " I try to pick the lock". The DM at this point reminds him of the melee going on around him. Our little thief insists. The DM basically got up and dropped a 25 piece jigsaw puzzle in front of him and told him " Here, you put this puzzle together while I beat you with a baseball bat. If you can finish it before I beat you senseless, we’ll say that you get a shot at picking the lock"

Our thief got the hint.

18

I haven’t RPG’d since moving back to Pittsburgh, but this brings back some memories. Back in Hawaii, I played with a group of guys who had an exception GM. Among other things, he let this happen to me.

We were playing Cthulu, and he had given us a setup like the movie The Abyss where we were on an experimental deep sea oil drilling platform. My character had a sword cane and was starting to develop a form of paranoia involving Deep Ones. Sure enough, she was attacked by something which came out moon pool. She starts flailing away with her sword cane, getting in good shots, but it takes a lot of killing. Finally, after a certain amount of die rolling and screaming of “Die! Die! Die!”, the creature is lying dead at her feet. At this point, our GM looks at me and says, “By the way, why didn’t you use the bang stick in your other hand?” Well at least it suited the character as well as the real life person to have completely forgotten it.
:o

In a different Cthulu scenario, our GM decided he’d gotten sick of a couple of people’s shoot-em-up approach, so he taught us a lesson. We woke up one morning and found ourselves puppies. Then kittens. Then parrots, trying like mad to dial our patron’s phone number before we got found out (we didn’t succeed). Finally, we were all baby guppies. “Along comes Momma Guppy. What do you do?” To his disappointment, I think, we all went and hid at the bottom of the fishtank. I forget how the scenario ended, but it was a bit of ludicrous fun. Ravenwood (our GM), I miss you still!

CJ

19

is d&d a gctual game or is it a name given to a vast group of RPGs. I always wanted to know that. If D&D is a game how much is it???

JeDi 0nLiNe

20

D&D stands for the Dungeons and Dragons game.
There’ll be a thread on this site which goes into the history.
Basically it was invented in the mid 70’s as Dungeons and Dragons. Then came Basic Dungeons and Dragons, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Edition 2, and now there’s Dungeons and Dragons Edition 3.

There are many other roleplaying games, but Dungeons and Dragons is the Daddy. (I hope that means what I think it does!)

You can get computer games based on Dungeons and Dragons - Pool of Radiance, Baldur’s Gate.
If you want to play face-to-face, you don’t need the rules to start, just a referee (known as the Dungeon Master) and some other players.
Perhaps a local game/model shop has an advert.
Or if you give your approximate location, one of us might have a suggestion. (I’m in the UK myself).