D&D Shenanigans

[walkertexasdruid]

I am sure that many of you out there have had interesting things happen while D&Ding, some good, and some bad. Well recently I started playing a Kender named Ash, who seems to have the uncanny ability to make good things happen when bad things are supposed to happen, namely when you roll a natural failure 1.

In one instance, he tried to sneak attack using a sling stone from his hoopak, rolled a one and managed to kill a squirrel in a nearby tree. He got experience points for that critter. In another he rolled a one in a similar circumstance and th stone bounced off the sword of a teammate in mele combat with an orc and he killed that orc, all the while aiming for something thirty feet in the other direction.

There are many other things I could mention, but I would like to hear from you. What unusual or funny things have happened while playing D&D, or any other RPG?

[EVILNess]

Oh my goodness, I'll only get into it if there is a consensus allowing a giant wall of text.

[Ravashak]

Personally, I prefer to have paragraphs instead of a single block of text xP

[Amake]

The most interesting thing that's happened to me from playing any board games was reading the big old list of things whatshisface aren't allowed to do, you know what I'm talking about. Vorpal forklifts and feeding the Tarrasque its own weight in iron and stuff.

Yes, this happened to me because someone else was playing D&D and I read about it. My life is that exciting.

[EVILNess]

First, some background information on the world and character as I have discussed my shenanigans before, also they were great threads full of many awesome stories...

From D&D Gold/XP Equivalency (is now general D&D playstyles thread)
1st Post
2nd Post
3rd Post
4th Post

From Fucking Awesome DnD Moments/Campaigns
1st Post
2nd Post
3rd Post
4th post
5th post

There was also a post I could not find where I broke the party that killed me mentally and they they declared fealty to me and started to assist me in my quest to destroy those pesky pillars. It was awesome.

Since I last posted we have destroyed all but one of the pillars holding reality together, the loss of the additional pillars has had some interesting effects. When we got down to one pillar things started to slightly bleed together from one dimension to another, and we spent a few sessions defeating encroaching beings invading our cities.

We discovered that the energy put off by the pillars was fatal to them, so being the resident expert on the pillars I and the other magically inclined PCs devised a kind of man made crystal that put off the same energy. We fashioned some weapons out of it and gave it to the army to fight the small fry while we defeated the bigger threat.

I also fashioned some mini Pillars so that these outsiders couldn't come into my lands and to stabilize the bleed over effect so that I didn't wake up in a fiery hell dimension one day. The rest of the world however, is in ruins. Strange eldritch beasts, faceless horrors, and more wander the world now. Hundreds of thousands of people find themselves magically mutated, many more dead, and the people are looking to me to get them out of this.

It's kind of odd, I haven't changed... my party is still kinda responsible for destroying the world and here is everyone looking at us to lead them to a promising tomorrow. The survivors call my party Gods in the Flesh and Those Who Lead. A whole religion has sprung up around us and our quest to destroy the last pillar.

Suckers.

[Viridis]

Not D&D, but a wondrous oven gave me a robot puppy once. I love our GM.

[Vauron]

Wouldn't the crystals act like pillars and keep you from getting that power you have been striving for? Or do they intentionally lack that feature?

[McTahr]

My rogues tend to make people regret playing with me.
I was playing a pirate (rogue/bard/fighter, bard for sea chanty + glibness) and since it was the first game, the DM was being especially generous in "party-meshing" circumstances. I spent the first session doing everything possible, caught or not, to rob the entire party, aside from the barbarian, if only 'cause she was the only person there who'd hit me in real life. Wound up, I ditched them with an inn bill, hoofed it to the market, disguised myself as the medieval equivalent of a bag lady, and still somehow managed to get caught, only to pull off some sleight of hand and cheat them again.

The entire campaign was spent making sure I got "boat funds" to take care of our "boat" that we basically stole, that didn't actually need maintenance, along with making sure to steal everything that wasn't nailed down. I had about four times as much gold as any character, roughly 50% of the entire party's wealth. (4-5 regular players)

Aside from that the character was completely combat ineffective and spent his time doing flips and sea chantys and other bitchin' feats, like swinging off chandeliers, riding flaming bedrolls into seas of zombies, and generally just the coolest thing I could imagine someone with +20 tumble/balance/etc. doing.

Oh, and he had three fake names, each one being an identity to another, so that it worked out to layers of lies, etc.

[Eltargrim]

I'm running a Spelljammer campaign right now. Gives me licence to pull all sorts of sci-fi shenanigans.

The first one, though, is just my players being resourceful. First session they were to escort a dying girl and her father to another sphere (read: planetary system) to find a religious artifact that could heal her. She was supposed to die on the trip, but the cleric whipped out a delay disease spell. All the healers had tried so far was to cure the disease, but slowing it down, even for a day, was enough.

The sphere they were travelling to was supposed to be on the verge of war. Having nothing planned beyond the father, named Gaeta, making a bargain with devils for the girl's life, the war got jump-started, and the ship entered an active war zone >_>

Dodging a few errant projectiles (Newton's first, bitches), they attempted to approach the planet, got intercepted, and were boarded. The crew (PCs) promptly surrendered. Gaeta went below deck to make the pact, and was inhabited by an infernal spirit. He was supposed to be the harbinger of fiendish cooperation that would later lead to the end of the Blood War, but the combined forces took him out D:

So, being the bastard that I am, instead corrupted his pact; the daughter is now a warlock with a resting spirit inside of her. In about a year, she'll head to another sphere, which is where the Blood War has spilt out onto the Material Plane (It hasn't spread further due to the way interplanar travel works between spheres, ie it doesn't). Apocalypse time

This is all unbeknown to my players. They got their reward from the daughter (who isn't aware of her corruption), and went off to get a new contact. They got a job from a merchant named Niska. Contrary to the name, he's not a gangster; in fact, he's an agent of the local order of paladins, known as the Order of the Teutonic Light. Given that two-thirds of the party is heavily evil, he sent them into a trap.

It was my intent that the party attempt to retrieve a "package" from an incoming ship. This "package" was a silver dragon egg, and the ship it was on was full of psions and paladins. The idea was that they would fail, and run away; maybe even a PC would die. This group's been pretty cocky in the past, and I want my world to be harsh. What happened was...a bit different. Nobody died, but the paladins did capture one of the non-evil characters, and got a gooood look at the rest of the party (One was essentially a sapient gorilla with 4 arms. Very distinctive).

The paladins placed a Quest on the captured PC, to hunt down the rest of his party and report their position. Instead he decided on revenge. Went into Niska's shop, and started shooting off Energy Rays of fire. I had previously mentioned the "No Smoking" signs, flammable warnings, and the Helm of Brilliance in the store -_- Explosions happened. Significant explosions.

Did I mention that his shop was on an orbital platform?

In any event, Niska was able to escape, but the PC was hit by a Prismatic Ray, and was shifted to another plane. Now he's in my NPC stable.

The rest of the party was hunted for a bit by lantern and hound archons, given the description of the party. Most of them could disguise themselves, but the ape? No chance.

One PC, on a mission of his own, decided to eliminate this risk of detection. He (swordsage) and the warforged artificer decided to decapitate the ape while he slept. The player of the ape was not amused >_>

In short, a third of the party died, and I didn't kill any of them. My players are...interesting.

Wall of text D:

[Sir Pinkleton]

I'm currently in a Dark Heresy game. Warhammer 40k stuff, if you're not familiar.

So, our first session we're sent to a planet. We were on route to the inquisitor training camp somewhere, but this planet was on the way there, and they needed immediate help (apparently space travel takes a long time).
So, it's basically like Hoth in appearance. It's a mining planet, as well. Apparently, one of the miner's found something one the way down, and then Grim Dark stuff happened. The foreman guy there sent in a contingency of soldiers, and they didn't return. The only guy they've brought back from the mine is insane, and constantly talks about "slithering" things all over his body (also, he was in a straight jacket and tied to a pole in a tent). We get some grenades, and head on down. takes a few hours, and apparently most of the party can't jump across a gap without possibly killing themselves. I guess I should explain the party:

• Psyker: 65 year old woman. very creepy, white porcelain skin, wears all black. Psykers channel the powers of hell to do stuff (basically, she's our "magic user"). She can do things like heal once every 6 hours (any time in between and we make a "toughness test" to see if we get hurt instead), she can float, reverse gravity for herself, inflict pain to make our opponents more useless, and these are her minor powers. She's planning on getting another power later on that will allow her to either make the target entirely forget something major (a sibling, for example) or just destroy their mind outright. Also, if she rolls a 9 (DH is a base 10 system) something bad happens. anything from "You now don't know what the color green is like" to "the psyker is now a host for a daemon. Run away or die."
• TechPriest: Covered in bionics, if he isn't already then he's planning on becoming more machine than man. he's good with anything that involves technology. nothing much else to say.
• Assassin: Shoots things from far away, and is good at being sneaky.
• Arbitrator: Lawman. fights for justice, no matter how miniscule or dangerous. Kind of like Judge Dredd.
• Guardsman: Me! Basically, an infantry soldier. I start off with some pretty decent armor that covers my entire body, and I have a pretty good lasgun too (laser rifle, is what lasgun really refers to).

Anyway. I jump across that pit, the psyker floats, everyone gets hurt, we see the usefulness of having a psyker around (healing normally, without a psyker, can take days or weeks to heal. A psyker can heal us up to 5 HP. I start with 13 HP, one of the highest of the group. Take note)

We go in, and immediately see some Grim Dark, mutated people. we kill them all fairly easy. at one point, I open a door and it opens to a small room. Inside, fellow guardsmen are disemboweled, their intestines on the wall. Insanity and corruption plays a vital role in DH, in the form of points. I reach a point where I now have a fear of my allies dying. This is important later.

We reach the final, small chamber, where we had seen a pink glowy aura previously. turns out it's whats causing corruption. instantly, it sends out a wave, which corrupts two of our people (the psyker gains hardened skin, aka one more armor point all over. Assassin gets numbed senses). It also expels a demon, who is confused. We all go first.

Instantly, the psyker inflicts pain. So now the daemon is confused and writhing in pain. The arbitrator tries to get in close, because he has a shotgun. can't make a shot this round, though. then, I try to throw a grenade behind the demon (there's a little alcove thing) but I miss. The grenade sends the psyker against the wall, bringing her to -1. She's still conscious though. Then, other people move in; they also can't do anything this round. Then, our surprise round ends, and we start again.

I don't remember much, but the arbitrator moves up and shoots it pointblank. The daemon proceeds to sever his right foot, and render him unconscious. Other people shoot, and I hit it in its head for massive damage, killing it. unfortunately, there's such a thing as killing too hard. his head exploded, and the daemon went up in flames! he ran around for a round, and everyone nearby (aka everyone) had to make an agility roll to avoid him, or get set on fire. The arbitrator hilarious catches fire while unconscious, as does the assassin. The psyker tries to put out the arbitrator and fails, so he dies. the tech priest and I try to put out the assassin, and barely save him. however, just after that, I notice the arbitrator is dead.

Combat is over, but I'm flipping shit, and run the hell away. I exit the small mining area where the Grim Dark stuff happened, which involved going through a heavy metal door, and closing it, then going into the fetal position. The psyker, at -1 health, also goes ape shit. Apparently she has a character related problem, and shoots the already nearly dead assassin (though it takes three shots; she's not good for shooting). She did this partly because she forgot about the full healthed techpriest. But we didn't want to retcon it (apparently she was laughing maniacally while she shot him). The Techpriest walks over and hits her on the head, knocking her out. He tires her up, puts her in a dark corner, and leaves. Seeing me outside the entrance, apparently he was afraid I'd go crazy like the guy outside in the tent, so he did this thing that Techpriests do: he has a voicebox, and can make a loud feedback screech. In game, this means -10 to all of our rolls (it's a d100 system, in case I forgot to mention it earlier). Techpriest then walks for the entrance. hours pass, and I eventually get out of my freaking out stage. At the exact same time, the Psyker wakes up. As she's untying herself, I walk back in, and call out for my comarades. She calls for help, and after she's untied, she explains to me how "the techpriest went crazy, and shot the arbitrator! We must catch up to him and kill him, before he reaches the entrance and speaks lies to the Commisar!" (The guy who briefed us about the situation, topside). I agree. We run.

The techpriest has only been walking now. Unfortunately, the player is bad about meta-gaming, so he tries to impede our progress, and later, waits at the tunnel with his gun trained at the darkness. Because, yunno, there might be more daemons. We catch up, the Psyker tries to kill him, I ask him what the heck is going on as he's running, and he's able to bring up the point that, were he the murderer, why did he kill the arbitrator, and not the psyker? I've been running for hours now, so I slow down to rest, deciding that we should have the commisar sort it out. The psyker is understandably worried, but concedes.

The techpriest gets out first, and is pulled to interrogation. The psyker and me follow, also pulled in for questioning. The psyker is able to convince the commisar that she's speaking the truth, which is quite the feat. The DM is unsure of how to have the game go now, and I offer to have nothing be done. we're the inquisition, so technically the commisar doesn't have any say over us anyway.

So after all of that, 2 team members are dead, I don't trust the psyker or the tech priest, the psyker knows the truth and will be constantly trying to get the techpriest dead to tie up loose ends, and the techpriest knows the truth, but doesn't have my support, since he screeched me when I was busy being scared shitless.

So yeah. Wall of text. Nice story, though.