Crazy, hilarious, or awful things that have happened in D&D campaigns

[Noma Galway]

So, I didn't see a thread for this, and if there is one it is buried crazy deep in here. If there is one that I didn't see, I apologize. I wanted to do a thread with crazy things that have happened in Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. This includes bad DM stories as well as "What did he just do?" stories.

One thing that happened in one of the campaigns I was in: We found an orc camp, and there was a druid (I was an elven druid) who had created this fort with living trees. They were going to sacrifice a nymph, so as the druid I went to rescue her (after disabling the opposing druid). There was also this huge fighter we were barely making a dent in. There was a gnome wizard (or sorcerer, I don't know which) who was an NPC that polymorphed the fighter into a squirrel. This was when I go to free the nymph. Well...the rest of the party decides that they want to kill this squirrel. So they tie it up, place it on a rock, and perform a coup de grace on this squirrel with a majorly enchanted falchion. The squirrel was reduced to a few chunks of charred flesh. Then they got the arcane caster to polymorph it back, and the armor was apparently still whole, so we took that. That is probably the funniest thing that has happened in a D&D campaign that I've experienced.

So what are your crazy, awful, or hilarious things that have happened in your campaigns?

 

[Ireth]

I dunno if this counts, but a while back in the Dragon's Egg game, my elven knight had his dominant hand (his left) ripped off by a warg. His next attempt at attacking with his off-hand resulted in a critical failure, plus a -2 penalty for using his right hand. So the roll ended up as a freaking -1!

 

[Noma Galway]

-1? And I thought just natural ones were bad!

 

[McBeardstache the Hairy]

So in my Pathfinder group, we were investigating a town looking for allies (well my party was, my lawful evil magus was just looking for powerful artifacts). A carriage almost ran our party over as we entered the town, and said carriage made it into the town square, where it was surrounded by a bunch of guards and a mob. My party found out that the carriage belonged to the city official who was not at all liked by the townspeople.
And this is where it escalates. Our rogue decides to buy some rotten tomatoes and chuck them at the carriage. While he does that, my character, under an Illusion of Calm, decides to set the cart on fire. Somehow, the rogue ends up getting knocked out by the city guard, our resident paladin slaughters six guards in self defense before getting captured, our party leader gets caught trying to break them out, and I'm picked up for walking too close to the building.
During the resulting interrogation, the guard decided that they, not me though, were all involved in an assassination plot that involved chucking "sorcerous tomatoes" at the city official. The rogue was released because he caved and said that the plan was conceived by the "top hat man" (who I'm not sure exists or not), I convinced the guard that I, the only evil character in the party, was a model citizen, and the party leader and paladin were sentenced to death for "arson, murder, and hooliganism". It was tragically hilarious.

 

[Noma Galway]

Seriously? Your paladin? That's funny. I have some serious appreciation for that...I don't like paladins at all. That may have just made my day.

 

[Rinzei]

I only tried it once, and it was a starter session really. My friend played GURPS, so he DMed for us. I had only done text-based roleplaying in messengers and forums, and our other friend had done no roleplaying to speak of. So the DM gave us a simple quest to start with of killing a troll. Between the two of us, we got it down.

Then the DM asks, "You've slain the troll! Good job - So what do you do next?".
Immediately, my friend goes, "I stab [my char] in the back!"
Me: "WAIT, WHAT."
DM: "Ha ha, okay - how do you do it?"
Friend: "I attack her head-on!"
Me: "But that's not my back..." <-- Imagine the post pitiful, child-like, naive whimper of speaking here.

The DM was in stitches - and my friend lost his rolls anyway, so he died. GG, man, gg. Not the greatest story, I'm afraid. The session didn't last much longer than that, unfortunately. DM did a Weirdness check, and it turned out we had been fighting in an arena for a noble's pleasure the whole time. We then headed to the tavern, and things fell apart at that point.

I really wish I had people nearby to play with to give it another go. All the funny stories really make me wish I had a good group going.

 

[Noma Galway]

That's a good one...reminds me of my old party's rogue, in a way, with bad rolls and weird actions. He once climbed a tree (which he did manage to do), then tried to swing from tree to tree silently while hiding to check out what was going on. He failed his balance check, so he hit the dirt hard. The DM rolled damage, and the damage literally knocked him out. I don't remember if my druid or a friend's ranger ended up healing him. But he wasn't the greatest rogue...didn't quite have the correct thought process.

 

[Devor]

As an online DM I had my regular game, sure, but I also had a grab bag of scenarios that I came up with for "pick up" games when I was looking for new players.

One of them had the tavern erupt in a big bar fight, only to end at the end of Round 2 with the bartender wishing the fight to end by writing in a journal with a powerful artifact which, inevitably, would somehow wind up in the hands of the random level 1 players. I would spend the rest of the game messing with their wishes.

In another pick up scenario, I would whisper to a player, "You are a Doppleganger, here to kill the others. Get someone alone, kill them, replace them, and have your real character enter while they play the Doppleganger." You can imagine how that went.

Another pickup scenario involved the tavern (it's always a tavern in the pickups) progressing into a poker game with the PCs, a barkeep and a halfling. The table gets overturned, a giant wyrm breaks through the floorboards and attacks them. After a a round or two, the halfling's initiative roll would quietly disappear. Eventually the barkeep - because the players never figure it out - calls attention to a few details, which reveal the wyrm to be a card from the deck of illusions. The halfling made off with their money.

Ohh, then there was the other pickup game that led characters to fall in love with an NPC and then help a cow give birth to triplets. That one was always fun.

 

[Noma Galway]

Haha, those are great! As a player, I've learned not to leave obvious loopholes in my wishes.

 

[Devor]

Haha, those are great! As a player, I've learned not to leave obvious loopholes in my wishes.

There's always one, if you're wishing on the fly.

 

[Noma Galway]

I think the buzzing would be a bit loud if I were ON the fly.

I know there is...but if I have time to think it out, I will.

 

[Devor]

The way that it worked, whatever you wished for would come true through a set of elaborate coincidences. So if you wished for wealth, the moment you finished writing, the door would open, and someone would enter to reveal that your grandfather died and left you a hidden fortune. Or an NPC nearby would reveal themselves to be a wizard and cast a spell, and it would all look like it somehow would've happened if you had never wished for anything.

So it was a lot of crazy random fun happening for one session, and no matter how many times I ran the scenario, it was always as surprising to me as it was to them.

 

[McBeardstache the Hairy]

My Pathfinder group now has a rule against using the Create Water spell to sink a ship.
We also may not reduce halflings to Tiny size and sit on them.
And our characters always make perception checks to see if the weather is perfectly clear so as to prevent further flying in lighting storms. It took us three character deaths to realize it was a bad idea.

 

[Noma Galway]

Create Water to sink a ship? That's a beautiful idea . Why were you sitting on halflings? They don't much like that, you know.

 

[Caged Maiden]

I was DMing a game and a guy made a bad roll and his mule got stolen when he left it in the road in a thief-heavy town. Turns out all his stuff was on the stupid animal and he actually got so mad it happened, he got up and went home. I mean... it's just a game.. and if all your equipment is on your mule... might want to put it in a stable rather than leave it standing in the road...

 

[Noma Galway]

Yeah...stables were invented for a reason. My old DM would have just laughed...until the guy walked out. That seems a bit extreme.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

I played a barbarian in a LARP and was hit with a weakness spell. I RP'd as if I thought the spell did nothing, and struck the caster with a pathetic damage of 1 (instead of 5). He hit back, so I threw myself down the hill. I guess my fall was convincing so it looked like I was really knocked high in the air. I landed on a hill and there were dry leaves covering the ground so I got a lot of distance in the air, plus more distance from sliding/tumbling on the ground.

I tried to get into the acting side of it. There were theater people staffing the game, so competition was tough. I almost took it a bit far when I jumped in 4-foot-deep water to fight a…goblin, I think. And the time I jumped on an actual campfire was too far. But it was a hell of an entrance, and I had work boots on. The fire went out when I jumped on it, and smoke was billowing around me. They had to pause the game though… in part because my claws were on fire. (The barbarians could earn a wolf form.)

 

[JRFLynn]

In the first group I ever joined, I played a paladin. Being the only girl in said group, and the only lawful good character, the creepy DM thought it was a great idea to have his halfling rogue "grope" me. This impish fellow was an integral NPC to the plot, but yeah. I didn't like that. So, I take out my sword intent on swatting him away, but instead I rolled a crit and lopped the guy's head off on the first strike.

I laughed so hard, but needless to say I didn't stick around.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

That's awesome!

I wonder what the DM was thinking.




DM: (thinking) A girl player, finally! How can we make the only girl in the room feel welcome? I know, we'll molest her character!


[30 minutes later...]


DM: "That's the fifth girl to leave our group. Guys, what went wrong?"

Bob: "I don't know. I thought she'd be a keeper since we cancelled 'Porn Hour.'"

Tim: "Yeah, and I didn't tell any fart jokes. What gives!"

DM: "You can tell one now."

Tim: "It's no fun without a halfling for my orc to fart on."

Bob: "Yeah but... now that she left, does the halfling's death even count?"

DM: (consults manual) "Yes."

 

[Noma Galway]

Haha . That is highly amusing. I've been missing a lot of sessions recently because a family member has been having health issues, but when I come back, I find out that my party has released an evil god into the world...Good going, guys. It was bad news. My GOOD druid (of course the rest of my party is evil) is very not happy. And she gets to hunt down our rogue to get the sword back to seal the god again. Fun stuff. I love my campaign right now .