Gaming Stories

[Nurian]

Anyone have a good gaming story?

Last Thursday, we're playing D&D, and our Druid was speaking to a seer and asking about his destiny. Facetiously, I said, "Look in the frying pan on the stove. See that pancake? That is your destiny!".

Our next fight, we go up against two archers on an elephant. We kill the archers but the elephant follows his last orders, attack the Druid. In one full attack, he goes from almost full health to -8. And they doubted my prophecy!

[Eric the Grey]

Here's one of my favorites: (I was not involved, but heard about it from one of the party members)

DM: You enter the cavern and see a huge Black Dragon.
Player: Cool! We kill the dragon and take it's treasure.
DM: ... <rolls dice. rolls more dice.. rolls yet more dice>
DM: Ok, You kill the dragon. Two party members are dead, one has lost both legs, and one an arm. I'm going to get some food, you decide who takes what and let me know when I get back.
Players:

Thus was born SMACS. S. M. (GM's initials) Advance Combat System

I've yet to have a chance to use it, but I'm waiting...



Eric the Grey

[gremcint]

Warning, this may offend those without a sense of humour similar to mine.


DM: You continue walking along the passage when all of a sudden something flaming comes out of the darkness.
Me (Interrupting the DM and saying this with a very large lisp): OH MY GOD look at those curtains.


Background: Me and Friend told to come up with a number of superhero characters that would go through American Idol like auditions.
some examples were: The invisible mute, The vanishing corpse, flatman, goatse (can transmit horrifying images to people's minds). And more that would take to long to explain. The best moment was though: (we both roleplayed these characters) My friend was playing the part of One-Ton and handy (large guy with multiple personalities with the extra personality being a sock puppet on his hand) partway through the conversation with the judges I had handy say: I'm just happy I'm on the left hand.
My favourite character that I came up with for the auditions was: Bozangas, she could detach and regrow a certain part of her body and then have them act like various types of grenades.


Then there was the superhero game where I was responsible for several nuclear explosions.

[LingualMonkey]

From several years ago...

In what is surely the first ever recorded instance of this in a D&D game, my party had a potion of blue dragon control and encountered a blue dragon. And thus, a plan was hatched to kill the dragon and run away with its treasure.

We planned our assault on the dragon for an hour. Our plans, and we came up with many, all started with the phrase "We'll use the potion of blue dragon control. When the dragon makes its save, we'll do XYZ..."

Finally, after epic planning, spelling and buffing up, one of the characters quaffs the potion and in we run. The blue dragon...failed its save and was completely under our control. And we had no idea of what to do.

After laughing at us for five minutes, the GM, still gasping for breath, commented that it was the first time he'd ever seen a group of characters stumped by their overwhelming success.

* * *

Once at Gen-Con, a friend and I were helping to playtest a new RPG for a game company. Through chance (or possibly because of karma), I was given a character who was rather significantly off-kilter--crazy, impulsive, and not really able to figure out that actions have consequences. During the course of our adventure, this character made two noteworthy contributions to the gameworld.

1) In this post-apocalyptic (very, very post) world, the party was investigating a large facility. We as players had determined that it was the control room for a hydro-electric dam, but the characters didn't know this. We'd managed to restore power to the room and were confronted with a bank of dials, switches and buttons. Because I was impulsive and insane, I asked if there were any green buttons. There were. I shouted, "Green is a color of power!" and slammed the closest green button to me. The GM (also the co-creator of the world) sighs and asks me to roll percentile dice to see what happens, low roll is good, high numbers bad. Roll result--09. I restored power to the dam.

2) Shortly afterwards, I decided I needed a headcovering for our trek across the desert. I killed a rat, skinned it, and formed the skin in to a hat. Another character had significant fashion sense, and asked the GM how the hat looked. Again, I was told to roll percentile dice, same rules as above. Roll result--03, critical success. Rat hats became the newest fashion trend.

Sometimes, insanity works.

[Setsunaela]

One time, at our last gaming session, our GM was having our one-shot characters play against sentient penguins, statted approximately even to gnomes. My gnomish character was indeed happy to not be fighting huge monsters but I digress. One of the penguin casters cast Tasha's Maniacal Laughter on our fighter, and our GM described it thusly: "You are standing there, contemplating how you are going to dissect the next enemy with your Greatsword, when it suddenly strikes you that you are in a battle with... PENGUINS. You look at the one in front of you, and see it flailing its wings about in an attempt at intricate movements, and it strikes you as hilarious. You will spend the next four rounds rolling around on the ground in hysterical laughter"
later in the battle, when she made a will save against paralyzation, he told her "you are struck with the sudden urge to hold very, very still. You then realize, Hey! I'm fighting here! No time for standing still!"

our GM was pretty awesome with descriptors, rather than "you failed your will save, you're laughing for four rounds" or "you made it, moving on."

[El Pollo Guerrera]

1) I truthfully don't remember it happening... but my friends tell me that during a game of CyberPunk (2nd edition), wherein I was playing two different characters (one was an arrogant solo [fighter], the other was a high-strung techie [repaired stuff]), I got into an arguement with myself... for 5 minutes. The GM had to stop for about half an hour before he could carry on after that...

2) In another game (still CyberPunk), I was a fixer (street-crime businessman type) who was just starting out. One night, our hideout was infiltrated by a experienced group that needed my negotiating skills (to arrange a trade for a collegue that was captured)... My character, half asleep, gets up to go to the fridge and finds a ninja-like figure in my way. I (that is, me the player) am thinking that I (that is, my character) would just shrug this off as either a shadow or a dream, and I'll be fine unless it talks to me... but I don't tell that to the GM. So, I (my character) just stands there.

And the GM is looking at me, waiting for me to do something.

And I'm just looking back at the GM, waiting for him to do something.

After about 2 minutes, the figure says "It seems...", and I let out the loudest, shreikiest, girliest scream I could come up with.

Again, it took a while for that GM to recover.

3) I don't play a lot of RPGs now (too many of the real good players have left), but I will sit in on a game on occasion, just to pass time, and provide voices for NPC, help some of the other players with rules, etc.

So, during one of these, the group had to visit some weapons research lab and when they got there, a killer robot was shooting up the place. It seems that the researchers' standard answer to "will it work?" is to turn it on and try it. And it got away. As the group huddles behind a quickly deteriorating table, I (as one of the scientists) pipe in with this statement:

"There's an awful lot of lag time while targeting... There's no way that Jensen should have made it out the door like that... When we get this thing shut down, you're going to have to crank up the processer, OK?"

The key to a great reaction is, wait until the GM is drinking something...

[Akasa]

Just last gaming session we made it to the top of the tower we have been sneaking our way into(we went through catacombs to get there) and find a fight going on. Fight ends we heal the humanoids and they say they will guard the bottom while we take on the master of the tower on the top.
We teleport in and there's a ritual going. We know we have to stop that. Then the bad ass mace our Warlord was using which was the head of an ogre the goblins thought of as a god disentigrates in his hand and, oh hell we have to fight him full power. He's been reborn.
At one point he throws the Sorcerer who is doing mad damage over the edge of the cliff. She got a hold and is hanging on a shelf. Since I am teh one who can do this I run and leap off the edge of the tower fall a little bit towards here then turn on my Wind Walker power.(Genasi wind aspect power) Grab her and fly us back up into the fray.
The guys cheered our damage maker back and the comment "Only you would be so crazy as to jump off a tower." Were uttered.

[edible_hat]

Player: I don't like this character anyway. I try climbing up the rope, knowing full well that anything other than a 20 will result in the whole temple collapsing on top of me.

GM: *rolls dice* You won't believe this... it's a 20.

[draggar]

Being rather new to Spelljamming, a MU decided to cast fireball during ship to ship combat. In the Phlostigon (sp?). Yeah.... It was messy.

One player had a very fast ship and had a tendency to not track where his projectiles went (don't forget - no gravity in space). He fired his ballistas then tried to swing around to flank the ship... Right into the path of the ballista shots that didn't hit the ship.

Ever get stepped on by a megafauna?

[CaroPhoenix]

I haven't gamed in a while. Child Rum likes to stay up and be the Official Greeter to the "Game Parlors" - that's what she calls the gaming group.

Anyway, I went to Gen*Con last in 2007. Mr. Rum & I were playing a Living Eberron mod. I had my Assimar Bard. She had a charisma of 17. She was a bard for the Church of the Silver Flame.

Anyway, there were 2 gnolls in the party. I was telling them what I did. (She was a prostelisizer(sp is definitely wrong, but I don't care) for the church - getting people to join because she loves her church very much). However, the gnolls mangled the word so badly it came out as "prostitute". And whilst explaining that as a prostelisizer I was also nice and giving and taking care of those in need, the gnolls said I was like a Mommy. I agreed.

So ... to make a long story short, the gnolls equated the common word "prostitute" with "Mommy". In the first encounter, as the party is trying to fight a flying ship, the gnolls see a family off to the side (a child, a husband & wife). They run away from the battle screaming: "We'll save you prostitute! We can't let the prostitute be killed! They're the best things around!"

Yeah ... I don't know how I get myself into these things.

[Lace Neil Singer]

I don't game any more; the guys I used to game with have all gotten other interests now. -.-

This used to happen pretty much every time, and always makes me laugh remembering it, even now. XD Basically, before the game started and everyone picked out characters, the three guys who I gamed with would fight over who'd be the rogue, the dwarf or the warrior. None of them wanted to be the mage; partly I think cuz they wanted to have swords or axes or bows and partly cuz the picture on the card of the mage looked kinda like a girl. XD So I'd be the mage.

During the game tho, they'd all whine cuz of all the spells that they couldn't use, that I could. Duh.

Also, there'd be occasional fights where the DM would be directing us to do something tedious and we'd refuse, then he'd just have us standing around doing nothing til we got bored of that and be forced to do the tedious thing, like taking peasants to safety. That is tedious cuz there is NO looting involved. -.- Why can't we loot the peasants? They owe us! By the way, this DM would generally make up his own quests; they'd be based on games or books in some ways, but wouldn't follow an already set story. Probably cuz he knew we'd rebel. XD

[draggar]

I was in an adventure once that required the addition of one thing:

sanity checks.

Our party encountered a group of slaads.

One sladd was wearing a big white hat. He was Chefs Slaad.
One was wearing Roman style armor - he was Caesar Slaad.
One was wearing wings - he was Chicken Slaad.

They were looking for a spy and then an enchanted set of Russian-looking clothing came running around the corner.

All the slaads shouted: "There is the spy! Russian Dressing!"

[4love]

Most of my 'stories' are more one-liners that you had to be there to appreciate. There are one or two, however...

So I've been playing in a weekly 3.5 D&D game that is already about three years old, and still going strong. This whole time I've been playing as Leora, Halfling Rogue. We started at level 1. Sometime during our first or second session, she pulled off a Sneak Attack against an orc, and it occurred to me- what 'weak point' could be low enough for a halfling to attack effectively? No, I'm not talking nut shot, that would be mean. So now we have a running gag that Leora collects kidneys.

We also like to work the occasional reference into the game. Things like "Guys, I don't like that our lights keep going out. Are we going to get eaten by a Gruu?" A few sessions ago our party Ranger got Confused (btw, Ruin Chanters are deliciously horrible to fight). As he's coming out of it, our DM hands him a note and tells him to read it aloud. Guy playing the Ranger hasn't read what this references, so it comes out beautifully confused... "Millennium Hand and... Shrimp?"

Kudos if you get it.

[lordlundar]

Oh these are priceless!

Let's see. One game I was in, playing a fighter/mage, we are in a standard, run of the mill dungeon and we come across a pack of lycanthropes (were-creatues). Well, we were doing fine, had magic and silver etched weapons, so it wasn't too bad.

Then I rolled a 1. Critical failure. GM rolls for direction the sword flies at. Then rolls the attack roll, which was a critical hit, then rolls on the skills and powers critical hit table (we were using it) for location, then damage scale, then damage. Then repeated his rolls.

End result? The sword flew out of my hand, right at one of the lycanthropes, impaling him in the chest. Said sword took the pinned one and continued going into another lycanthrope who was next to a wall. The sword impaled both of them in the chest and pinned both of them to the wall, with enough force to kill them both.

One of my more impressive kills.

[Dreamstalker]

From 4 years of running a Ghostbusters game with a group who was as crazy as I, I can only recall this one story:

One of the new human recruits (supposed to be Venkman's son) was notably inept and annoying--he would constantly ruin ambushes, attract things a sane person really didn't want around and generally piss everybody off. We were never sure if the player was actually trying to sabotage the game (look pal, if you think it's dumb you can not play). We would toy with him whenever possible

The setup for this particular scene was, the succubus from the first movie was back (somehow). The entire backstory wasn't really necessary, only that Ray wasn't going to get too close to it. We also had a werewolf on the team. For some reason, the succubus wouldn't make a move as long as the werewolf was within touching distance of Ray, so things weren't too crazy yet.

Brainless: *looks at Ray* OK, why don't you try to bait this thing?
Ray: *deathglare*
Everyone else: O_o ...a normal person wouldn't suggest that.
Werewolf: Seeing as you suggested it, why don't you spearhead this wonderful plan, hmm? *bares claws*

Brainless is getting zero support from the others, so in a misguided sense of self-preservation, he did. Unsurprisingly, nobody followed along (one would think that alone would indicate what you were about to do was Bad).

Not only was the succubus unusually easy to dispose of, it also disposed of him in the process.

Someone later (not Brainless, he did try to resurrect himself but an alert GM nipped that in the bud) managed to call up Hastur and get him to help the team O_o That was when the decision was made to involve sanity checks for certain things.