# Worst role-playing experience?



## heavensblade23 (Apr 26, 2008)

Anyone got any good stories about players, or even just a campaign, that went off the rails in a particularly memorable way?


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## rossik (Apr 26, 2008)

i dont have a very good, but we were playing something modern, and the player shoot at a car and it exploded!

than, he shoot ate a motocycle...and it exploded!

the game master wasnt very reallistic (like we spent 18 hours to get to the top of the statue of liberty)


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## Kelek72 (Apr 26, 2008)

I heard from a guy one time about his game where he "saved" another player's character from a 300' fall by hitting him with a warhammer for a critical just before impact.  

In another game, the characters went to modern day New York... where a "drow" group assaulted them. Glad I missed that game!

I once played in a game where our characters heads were cut off but we awoke as just heads resting on a shelf and an imp pee'ed on my brothers head...fun.


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## heavensblade23 (Apr 26, 2008)

Kelek72 said:
			
		

> I once played in a game where our characters heads were cut off but we awoke as just heads resting on a shelf and an imp pee'ed on my brothers head...fun.




That's from a published adventure.  When you do get your body back, if you don't specify you put your head back on your shoulders 'carefully' you lose -1 CHA.

These stories, while amusing, aren't really what I was looking for.  I want EPIC failure, like the DM that charmed a player's paladin and had him rape a commoner, in detail, creeping out the entire table and I think leading to the dissolution of the group because of repeated creepy incidents like that.


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## Jerrand Redband (Apr 26, 2008)

*the rifts experiment*

when i was running a Rifts campagin my players went really crazy with the whole from anywhere theme in are group we had Spider-man, a Robotech fighter piolt and his broken veritech, a tech mechanic (fixing the plane that was in pieces on a flatbed), Daffy Duck,
and a dragon who was polymorphed as an elf that did have his memories it was to crazy to run because everyone had a different goal and want to go off in differtent directions had a split group for a couple sessions


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## Rechan (Apr 26, 2008)

I left a group where one of the players played a Dwarf with 6 charisma. She was _real convincing_, because I just wanted to strangle the player. Interrupting other people, yelling at us, and otherwise just being belligerent. 

In another game, a guy (who was asked to leave) literally took five minutes describing his character walking in.


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## Aeric (Apr 26, 2008)

I once played in a Ravenloft game which was dungeon crawl after dungeon crawl...nothing scary about it.  The DM used those 3-D dungeon tiles for each level of the towers we were exploring, and it took longer to set up a level than it did to explore it.

Oh, there was one thing scary about that game: the guy playing the dragon disciple.  After he was kicked out of the group, I discovered that he was an 'otherkin' who genuinely believed that he was the soul of a dragon trapped in the body of a human.


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## Melhaic (Apr 26, 2008)

I usually DM, but I took a break for a week and allowed one of the players to run the game. His girlfriend was playing a female swashbuckler type character, and she was followed by a couple of guys in the opening scene and they attacked her and forced her into an alley (they surprised her, and won a grapple) where the proceeded to attempt to rape her. She managed to kind of take one guy out, but the other kept going and actually managed to get her pants off and his "sword" out...Needless to say it was getting weird and Sara was getting pissed. Finally, I just declared that my character was there, and got past the scene.

He wasn't done yet, not at all. We (the PCs and an NPC companion) were to meet with a noble that was setting up an expedition to find a lost doohickey. We get to a dining hall, and an NPC kender is also a guest. While we are figuring out what our mission is/do som planning, the kender proceeds to steal things from the characters _without a roll_ . The kender, of course, was nigh impossible to hit (a 17 from my 4th level fighter missed) and somehow (DM fiat) escaped

All of this aside, he is a really good _player_ , and a good friend, we just don't allow him behind the sceen anymore...


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (Apr 26, 2008)

heavensblade23 said:
			
		

> Anyone got any good stories about players, or even just a campaign, that went off the rails in a particularly memorable way?




I was in a sci-fi campaign. The game system was a new one designed by the DM, and we were the alpha testers. Joy. The setting was a "prison planet". I joined partway in the campaign; we were in a regular part of the city; the north had been taken over by "the warlord" and we were facing off against him. We had a lot of fun creating alliances to fight him (since we couldn't take on an army by ourselves). We had less fun exploring the high tech rules and finding an NPC, Onyx, who was a ridiculously powerful cyborg (with most of his human brain missing).

My character was a gunslinger and doctor. However, we got into combat so rarely he literally only got to shoot a pistol thrice in the campaign. (And once at another PC! Although he had a good reason. A very good reason.) In the first session he was taking on a whole army, so ended up borrowing another character's area-of-effect weapon. (Which meant I gave up an opportunity to learn how my character fought in the rules.)

At the start, through a very contrived scenario (involving absurd luck, and the DM taking over your character if you horribly failed a mental skill roll such as Tactics) one character, a midget named "Bleyes" (for her blue eyes) got control of a mecha. There was a lot of wrangling over that, as she was missing some of the skills necessary to control one (eg weapons skills). She insisted on using the machine guns, ending up nearly killing our own allies twice in a row before she consented to use the much-easier-to-use flame thrower. Giving Bleyes a mecha was a mistake. She had a temper that would go off anytime someone would call her short... and it wasn't in a funny way, but a campaign screwing way. (This was literally what wrecked the campaign.)

We found out that the critical failure rules when my character started healing wounded PCs. One character was mortally wounded in the chest and guts. I fixed those. He was heavily wounded in the arm (not as badly). He lost said arm. Oops! With the literal exception of my own character, every character was wounded throughout the entire campaign. (One character, a "Captain", generally avoided combat, but since he was also a driver he still got injured a lot. Critical miss rules, remember.)

And here the campaign would begin to break down. After the relatively fun battle, we entered a doldrum. I don't recall exactly why we never faced the warlord's forces for a long time, but we didn't. We spent a lot of time getting new tech and some of us abused it. (Getting armored skin, super-strong limbs, etc.) I avoided all that. The DM seemed to be deaf any time I asked about the neural interface for the mecha, but honestly I didn't care that much. I wanted to adventure, not playtest rules we'd hardly ever use.

Here's an example of one bad session/day, from my PoV:

One player was a cybernetician (he made cybernetic limbs, which considering the brutal combat rules put him and I in high demand). He figured he would make a deal with the Blood Halos, a gang that controlled the part of the city to our west. The Blood Haloes existed solely to kill things; they were basically all crazy. He figured he could talk them into aiming their guns at the warlord (who was some distance to the north). He didn't tell anyone where he was going, didn't bring backup or even big guns. He tried using his social skills on the obviously psychopathic gangsters and they took turns shooting him. The bleeding rules were brutal. He eventually managed to contact me through the radio. Naturally I told other PCs what was going on. I got the best driver to get us there quick, and took Onyx, on the grounds that he was so ridiculously powerful that even the Blood Haloes might refrain from shooting. I also brought a bribe - a large number of guns - because diplomacy takes more than sweet talking people. You have to give them something they want. It worked. A little common sense goes a long way, right? My character had to spend hours patching up the cybernetician.

An otherwise good player had a warrior/sniper character. *On the same day* as the above incident, he received a secret communication from a source north of the wall (where the warlord held sway). He didn't bother to radio any other PC, since this was "secret". He went on his own (oops!), met the contact, and was ambushed by two of the warlord's operatives. An exciting battle erupted. The contact died (d'oh!), the two operatives died, the PC was very nearly dead. Just washing up from patching the idiot from the previous incident up, I got a call from him. Why the heck didn't he take backup? Didn't he realize some of us carry (and are expert in the use of) small concealable weapons like, I don't know, pistols? I guess not! So I had to fetch the (otherwise well-played) PC out of there, and patch him up too. I ended up spending so much time healing other PCs I was literally taking penalties for not sleeping. (It was reasonable; patching those two guys up took 16 hours.)

In a session I missed, Bleyes got into a bar brawl (someone called her short when she danced on a table) which resulted in her goring the Captain with her spiked helmet. In the next session, I showed up and my character had to heal the Captain's "masculine" injury. (Yuck.)

And the incident that wrecked the campaign. There were only three of us that day; myself, Bleyes and "the Captain" (a military officer and driver).

Finally we got a large alliance together. We met in a kind of parliament building, while most of the soldiers gathered in a tavern. One filled with alcohol. Keep that in mind.

Our PCs had discovered a supercomputer that could keep track of soldiers on both sides of the conflict. We were running scenarios, and each one showed our grand alliance would be defeated by the warlord. However, the warlord was really close to finding a secret weapon; if we didn't attack now, it would be too late!

At the political meeting, Bleyes was randomly called short by one of the politicos. She couldn't even tell which side the shout had come from. She got angry and swore revenge. Fortunately, the security guard picked her up and dropped her on the other side of the building from her mecha. Bleyes had a slow speed (due to being short). Crisis averted, or so we thought.

She later went to the bar while my character and the Captain were talking to the AI. By purest chance the Captain's player was out of the room when this happened. Bleyes wanted to find out who had called her short as some of the politicos had gone to the bar, but no one owned up, and eventually the bartender insulted her (by calling her short). She got her giant pink mecha and used the flame thrower on the bar. So there went most of our allied soldiers... as our AI suddenly informed us. (Over 400 casualties. Oh, and a big fire.) The Captain's player was very surprised when he came back. Seems we had to babysit the psycho PC, or something. *Rolls Eyes.*

So, to wit. Big fire, that our characters had to put out to save the civilians. Dead soldiers. No alliance, so no hope of beating the warlord. (I mean, we were already likely to lose, and now this...) Great move there. Oh, and people were so stupid they didn't even notice *the giant pink mecha attacking our own guys!* They thought it was an invisible mecha. (The DM was rather heavy handed in trying to keep Bleyes in the campaign. And by rather I really mean extremely.)

Naturally I took the psycho into custody before things got worse. Unfortunately things just conspired against me. Bleyes was an electrical genius and all-round mad scientist, and so I knew that for her to escape from a prison was easy. I had to use some kind of hooked together cubicle to keep her prisoner (a cardboard prison). It wasn't much taller than her. Many players were gone that day and they (and all the NPCs) were run like morons, so no help there. One NPC got drunk and tied up our entire radio system. Even if I could have contacted Onyx, I couldn't have used him as a guard because he'd follow Bleyes' orders as well as mine (literally). I wasn't going to let a psycho tell Onyx to go on a killing spree. The Captain (the player was a good friend of Bleyes' player) threatened to shoot me for treason. So my tired character had to literally guard Bleyes by himself. And was very tired due to all the surgeries he had to perform (people had gotten limbs burned off, etc).

Bleyes complained (reasonably) that there wasn't a bucket to take a leak in. Naturally I couldn't count on an NPC to get a bucket for me, I had to leave the makeshift prison and get one myself. The whole time I knew Bleyes would try to escape as no one was watching her. Good thing she failed her skill checks ... barely. I literally could not find a bucket. Apparently my own character didn't keep a bucket at his home. Or something stupid like that. I had to use a helmet I found, as no other bucket-like object was available within reasonable walking istance. I tossed that over, and Bleyes was angry at being given a helmet to use... it was too small, or something. But just big enough to give Bleyes the boost needed to jump out of the prison. That's when I had to use my tranq-pistol on a PC. Since I hadn't fired a shot in many sessions, Bleyes' player couldn't believe I could actually hit her character. (She was small, gives a good bonus vs attacks.) When she found out my shooting skill was better than my healing skill the player said I was playing the worst doctor ever. Then something else heavy-handed occurred (the AI went evil, Onyx went slightly nuts, etc) and we all had to evacuate the building. We didn't have handcuffs. I had to drug Bleyes (and since she was smart, had to try it twice; psycho isn't necessarily stupid).

That was the last session I attended. I don't know what happened since and frankly don't care.


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## Rechan (Apr 26, 2008)

I had a druid villain who was insane. The players found out after the fact that she was insane due to a miscarriage. 

This really upset the female player in the group. She hadn't had one herself, but she accused me of immaturity because I was being light on the matter.


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## Mechnomancer (Apr 26, 2008)

These stories, while amusing, aren't really what I was looking for.  I want EPIC failure, like the DM that charmed a player's paladin and had him rape a commoner, in detail, creeping out the entire table and I think leading to the dissolution of the group because of repeated creepy incidents like that.[/QUOTE]

I gotta ask why you or anyone would want to hear stories like these.  These storries are beter left taken to their owners' graves.  Your post count leads me to belive you are a troll, but i'm willing to give you the benefit of a doubt.  rpg.net has what you seem to be looking for.  look at the 2 creepy gamer threads, but i will not provide a link.


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## Tewligan (Apr 26, 2008)

Mechnomancer said:
			
		

> I gotta ask why you or anyone would want to hear stories like these.  These storries are beter left taken to their owners' graves.  Your post count leads me to belive you are a troll, but i'm willing to give you the benefit of a doubt.  rpg.net has what you seem to be looking for.  look at the 2 creepy gamer threads, but i will not provide a link.



Hey, Mechnomancer. Two things:
a) It's really rude to accuse someone of trolling, when there's really no evidence of it.
b) People LOVE hearing about games that go wildly wrong. It's a scientific fact.

Everyone else posting in this thread is contributing stories of games gone awry, without complaining that they're so serious that they should be taken to their owners' graves. If you don't like the subject matter, perhaps you'd be better off avoiding the thread rather than threadcrapping?


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## Nellisir (Apr 26, 2008)

I once played a creepy little girl with a lollipop, a distinct lack of empathy, and massive telekinetic powers.  We were supposed to search a building for some guy, so she "cleared" each floor. By ramming a Cadillac through them.  We eventually found the techno-thingy that was doing something we needed to stop.  She hit that with a van.  I don't think the GM was expecting it.  We only played one session.


On the other hand, it was a pregenerated character at a Gameday, so we were only going to play one session anyways - and creepy psychic girl/kid with an emotional handicap is a well-established cliche.

I don't remember the system, or who was GMing it, but I still think they were a bit surprised at exactly how much weight the little princess could -easily- toss around.


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## Darrin Drader (Apr 26, 2008)

I started this new group a couple years back to play some Darwin's World and I invited a couple of my co-workers to play. About half an hour before the game was to start, one of the guys gave me a call and asked if it was OK if he brought a couple more players so we had a more complete group. I thought the guy was reasonably aware that I was looking for "normal" people. Unfortunately, as it turned out, he had no ability to distinguish between normal and obnoxiously f***ed in the head. I knew that it was not going to be a very enjoyable night when the three of them showed up eating Taco Bell. OK, not that big of a deal, but why couldn't they have downed them in the car on the way over rather than bringing that smelly stuff in?

So one of the guys he brought was some dude who clearly took this stuff way WAY too seriously. And even though he was in my game, which I was trying to get off the ground, he was always talking about his other character in another campaign, and how he was the boggest baddest barbarian who had this enormous sword (which he could wield because he had Monkey Grip) who always went around kicking his party member's asses when they made him mad. At one point during the game we got bogged down because he was misinterpreting a rule pretty badly and wouldn't agree that I had the authority to interpret rules as I saw fit, being the game master and all. He was in his twenties, but he acted like a very immature highschooler. Oh yeah, he also had his other character's name tattooed on his arm. Dude, that might be cool if you're Vin Diesel, but for you, it's just lame.

So the other person was the girlfriend of the guy I invited. She was one of these very outspoken experts on everything, despite having no education beyond highschool (I asked what her degree was in, very politely, the next time I saw him). We were running a Darwin's World game, starting them out in one of the vaults, as per one of the adventures posted to the website. It begins when the vault's main computer melts down and they're forced to leave. Before leaving, she made certain that they took time out of their escape to hit the toilet and take all of the feminine hygiene products in the bathroom. I suppose that's the first thing people would load their pack full up on rather than food or survival equipment.

Needless to say, I only wanted one of the guys to come back, for another game, but by I ended up just scrapping the whole thing so I didn't have to deal with it again.

I'm sooooo glad I have a group now composed of actual long-time friends.


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## Evilhalfling (Apr 26, 2008)

Both of my campaign meltdowns were due to out of game factors - rent on a shared  apartment, player taking too many drugs, player getting weird religion (although later he left the cult and rejoined the gaming group.) 

When the game went off the rails you roll with it, or quietly change DMs, perhaps even toss a player.  (the single guy who creeped out our wives, the annoying brother, the hyperactive GF, the youngling who lost a character every other session, etc.)


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## Brimshack (Apr 26, 2008)

This too probably isn't what you're thinking of, but I remember a real epiphany came once when a couple friends and I had spent the entire weekend on a road trip. Since it was Spring Break and I didn't want to go a whole week without playing, I called a game for the following Wednesday and two players said they'd show. After about 3-4 hours of doing nothing but bickering, because we were all just that damn tired of each other it was getting pretty ugly. I remember looking up and saying; "this isn't fun, let's call the whole thing off." Both players left laughing and we made a point to skip the game that coming weekend. When we started again, I completely ignored the previous session, like it didn't happen. I'm sorry to say that there are a few other campaigns that could have perhaps continued if I had just done that once or twice along the way.

Honestly, I think the most common sourec of disaster in a campaign is stickig with the same group and the same campaign for too long. Eventually people tire of it and something gives.


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## Vegepygmy (Apr 26, 2008)

Whisperfoot said:
			
		

> I knew that it was not going to be a very enjoyable night when the three of them showed up eating Taco Bell. OK, not that big of a deal, but why couldn't they have downed them in the car on the way over rather than bringing that smelly stuff in?



I call shenanigans.  You're not a gamer; you're my mother.


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## moritheil (Apr 26, 2008)

heavensblade23 said:
			
		

> I want EPIC failure, like the DM that charmed a player's paladin and had him rape a commoner, in detail, creeping out the entire table and I think leading to the dissolution of the group because of repeated creepy incidents like that.




There is a horror story floating around on the net about how an Argentinian DM was forced to run a game for a bunch of armed, drunken mafiosos (or whatever the proper term for the local equivalent is.)


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## Zelligars Apprentice (Apr 26, 2008)

The original Creepiest Gamer thread (now closed):
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=133489&page=1&pp=10

Creepiest Gamer thread, part 2 (just when you thought it was safe to go back to the gaming table):
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=369229

Some (very well written) creepy game stories by Al Bruno III (click on the *Binder of Shame* link to get to the stories):
http://albruno3.tripod.com/

Enjoy!


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## roguerouge (Apr 26, 2008)

Tewligan said:
			
		

> Hey, Mechnomancer. Two things:
> a) It's really rude to accuse someone of trolling, when there's really no evidence of it.
> b) People LOVE hearing about games that go wildly wrong. It's a scientific fact.
> 
> Everyone else posting in this thread is contributing stories of games gone awry, without complaining that they're so serious that they should be taken to their owners' graves. If you don't like the subject matter, perhaps you'd be better off avoiding the thread rather than threadcrapping?




Seconded.


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## Silver Moon (Apr 26, 2008)

For the worst game-dynamics situation I would say it was during a city adventure that I was DMing that got totally out of control by a player's over-the-top interpretation of what having a "Chaotic Neutral" alignment meant.

The party are doing some shopping when one decides to go buy some chainmail.   He and his two buddies head over to an armor shop and enter where they see suits of ringmail and splitmail on display.   The charcter asks about chainmail.   The shopkeeper apologizes that he doesn't make chainmail but gives them directions to another armorer and even adds "Mention my name and he'll give you a discount."  The character thanks the armorer and hands him a gold piece.

The character then pulls out his sword and stabs the shopkeeper to death, taking back the gold piece.   The character's buddy asks "What did you do that for?"   The first character replies "He had my gold piece."    Meanwhile the third character slips out and alerts the City Guard to the murder.     So the next fifteen minutes of game time consist of the pair of charcters attempting to hide from and escape the guards, with the third character doing everything he can to help the guards find them.   

Eventually they are cornered with a row of archer guards on both sides of the street blocking their escape.   The non-murderer character then starts to pummel the other one.   So the guards just stand there watching the fight.  The murderer eventually is knocked unconscious and the other then starts to bash his head on the cobblestones.  The Captain of the guard tells him to stop and he charges the guards.  So they open fire, eight arrows hitting and killing him.    

The player then throws a tantrum, saying that as the DM I acted totally unrealistically, killing off his character for no reason!  I tried to point out that it was his allies who one had killed an unarmed shopkeeper and the other had turned them in, plus the fact that he had ignored the warning from the captain and chose to attack them.  The players unite though and complain that I had overreacted to the situation!    


As for the worst player-dynamic situation (posted recently elsewhere but worth repeating).....

My weekly gaming group began in 1982 back when I was in college and my best buddy enthusiastically wanted to play. But the girl he was dating at the time would not allow him to do anything without her so he rolled her up a character so that she could play too. For the next six months she was the bump on the log, who had no interest in the game. She was also angry that one of his ex-girlfriends also played in the group, which was not helped by the fact that this same player helped with her character development too, making both of their playing characters sisters. 

I iniitally thought that maybe she just didn't like the character he created for her and suggested to both us them that she roll one up a new one she might enjoy more. She did, a sneaky thief, and did enjoy playing more, using it to get revenge against a male player who she now hated worse than the ex-girlfriend. First she set up his playing character to get blamed for a theft that she did. Then two games later she killed his playing character in-game. 

It turns out that the murder was her 'swan song' as she then convinced my buddy to do other things on game nights the next two weeks, during which the other characters moved on without them. But he still wanted to play and asked me if I could set up a pick-up game to bring their characters back into the game. None of my regular players were interested so my Buddy convinced two of his other semi-gaming friends to join them. 

So myself and two other guys block out a night for the pick-up game. The couple are 45-minutes late in arriving and we promptly begin. She sits and says not one word while the four of us game for an hour or so. She then declares that the two them have to leave. This annoys not only myself and the other two friends as we have all been enjoying the game plus storywise they still aren't even close to catching up with the other game. 

This conversation gets exacerbated when we discover the reason they have to go - she wants to watch a program on television (this was in pre-VCR days). I offer to let her watch it on a tv in our home but that is unacceptable to her. The other three of us turn to my buddy, as we had all changed our plans to play this game at his request. He says nothing, stands up, and leaves with her. Needless to say, the two of them don't return the following Sunday.

He and I stay buddies but the only games he comes to again for the next eighteen months are ones that take place when she is out of town. He starts his own gaming group which includes both guys who were at the pick-up game but she eventually sabatages that too and it folds. When he eventually breaks up with her he rejoins our game on a weekly basis, which lasts for two years until he starts dating (and later marries) a Fundamentalist who convinces him that D&D is evil.


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## rossik (Apr 26, 2008)

Zelligars Apprentice said:
			
		

> The original Creepiest Gamer thread (now closed):
> http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=133489&page=1&pp=10
> 
> Creepiest Gamer thread, part 2 (just when you thought it was safe to go back to the gaming table):
> ...




mm. i remember those...preatty creepy


im happy that i dont have a story like taht to tell 


btw, what was the name of the game with the severed head, loosing CHA and so on?


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## roguerouge (Apr 26, 2008)

Zelligars Apprentice said:
			
		

> The original Creepiest Gamer thread (now closed):
> http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=133489&page=1&pp=10
> 
> Creepiest Gamer thread, part 2 (just when you thought it was safe to go back to the gaming table):
> ...




Just. Wow. After one guy's horrific story of a player who was so intense he would  himself rather than leave the table, he wrote "we couldn't complain, and it was a low price to pay for gaming." To which I'd have to disagree. 

And that's not even one of the five worst stories in this 500 page thread.


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## Don Ventresca (Apr 26, 2008)

I remember the 1st time I played D&D, I was a Paladin and we had been fighting a Goblin in a sort of ware house, finally we cornered it in a sort of Lunch Room. The Fighter killed it w/o mercy. I then preformed a Spot check and found a tankard, someone then cast Detect Magic, and it appeared to have something in it. I volunteered to drink it and because I didn't know how much detail we were supposed to put in drank the whole thing, becoming a drunk for the rest of the game. At about 1AM a councilor came by (we were at a camp you see), and told us to wrap up. The DM did so by making a Red Wyrm come and burn us all to a crisp, except me. I in my drunken stupor promptly fell off the board. How's that for a bad experience?




			
				Silver Moon said:
			
		

> So myself and two other guys block out a night for the pick-up game. The couple are 45-minutes late in arriving and we promptly begin. She sits and says not one word while the four of us game for an hour or so. She then declares that the two them have to leave. This annoys not only myself and the other two friends as we have all been enjoying the game plus storywise they still aren't even close to catching up with the other game.
> 
> This conversation gets exacerbated when we discover the reason they have to go - she wants to watch a program on television (this was in pre-VCR days). I offer to let her watch it on a tv in our home but that is unacceptable to her. The other three of us turn to my buddy, as we had all changed our plans to play this game at his request. He says nothing, stands up, and leaves with her. Needless to say, the two of them don't return the following Sunday.
> 
> He and I stay buddies but the only games he comes to again for the next eighteen months are ones that take place when she is out of town. He starts his own gaming group which includes both guys who were at the pick-up game but she eventually sabatages that too and it folds. When he eventually breaks up with her he rejoins our game on a weekly basis, which lasts for two years until he starts dating (and later marries) a Fundamentalist who convinces him that D&D is evil.




Dumb Fundamentalists the same sort of people stopped the club I had set up at school.


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## The Green Adam (Apr 26, 2008)

*The Game That Shall Not Be Named!*

There was this one campaign...I was merely an observer and not a participant but what I witnessed left scars that I am still working to heal. Many of the players have running in-jokes to this day where they shudder at the campaign's mention and say that the 'self-help meetings' have really done wonders.

It was a Power Rangers-like superhero campaign, special in that some players were heroes, others villians and the most common opponents were npc giant monsters. The GM heavily favored the villians causing no end of frustration for the heroic PCs. Also, it made the overall campaign seem odd as the genre would normally have the heroes more successful. 

Eventually, the complaints built up and the intention was to fix the issue. In a hugely epic adventure where the PC Hero base was invaded by the enemy, I watched the GM shoot down two or three weird by good ideas by the players, railroad them into one section of the base and generally force into play the idea that only by accessing one area could the day be saved. When it finally happened, an entity was released that had time control powers and reset the entire campaign back to an earlier point in the story. While it did sort of fix the problem, it made anything cool you've done over the passed 3 months non-existant.

The looks on the plays faces, good guys and bad guys alike, the tension in the room...my heart sank. I almost gave up the hobby to become a sports fan or a stamp collector or something.   

AD


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## jdrakeh (Apr 26, 2008)

Whisperfoot said:
			
		

> I knew that it was not going to be a very enjoyable night when the three of them showed up eating Taco Bell.




 Eating fast food makes you a bad gamer and/or an abnormal person?


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## hong (Apr 26, 2008)

moritheil said:
			
		

> There is a horror story floating around on the net about how an Argentinian DM was forced to run a game for a bunch of armed, drunken mafiosos (or whatever the proper term for the local equivalent is.)



 IIRC that's in the RPGnet creepiest gamers thread, it's a Brazilian DM, and the players are armed, drunken police death squad members.


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## Kesh (Apr 26, 2008)

jdrakeh said:
			
		

> Eating fast food makes you a bad gamer and/or an abnormal person?



 Taco Bell is rarely considered food.  (I still eat it on occasion though.)

I think the real issue there is the lack of courtesy. If you need to eat, let the others in the group know first. That way, you're not eating in front of other people who might be put off by what you're eating/hungry themselves.


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## heavensblade23 (Apr 26, 2008)

rossik said:
			
		

> btw, what was the name of the game with the severed head, loosing CHA and so on?




I'm fairly certain it was a Ravenloft Adventure if that helps.


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## pawsplay (Apr 26, 2008)

I was in a Vampire game where we were instructed to make neonate characters of about five years experience, all closely tied to their sires, and of differing clans.

The Storyteller's boyfriend, on the other hand, played a Scottish werewolf skilled in ninjitsu who wielded nunchaku, stuck in time by a mage's curse for 300 years until accidentally released by meddling Sabbat mystics. No, I don't know how a Scottish werewolf learned to use the nunchaku.


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## Kelek72 (Apr 26, 2008)

heavensblade23 said:
			
		

> I'm fairly certain it was a Ravenloft Adventure if that helps.





Yes. It was my first Ravenloft adventure at a convention and it was an unbeatable swordsman on horseback who cut off our heads.
We ended up in the lich-lords castle (he ruled a domain but I forget his name). At the end of the game, all the other players were dead and my dwarf stood alone facing the lich. I kept making save after save as the DM chose spell after spell from the PHB to throw at me. I doubt the lich even had a list of memorized spells. Finally the DM triumphantly declared "Forcecage! You're left to starve to death. No save."

Weird thing is, people were congratulating me like I had won. It was my first convention and I was a little freaked by the crowd that had gathered as my dwarf made his saves.


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## Nifft (Apr 26, 2008)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> No, I don't know how a Scottish werewolf learned to use the nunchaku.



 Obviously part of the MacNinjae clan.

Cheers, -- N


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## ejja_1 (Apr 26, 2008)

My worst adventure ever was a game where a friend invited me to come over to another friends house for 3rd ed. We sat down and were handed some pregenrated characters that were both drow rogues, armed with standard weapons and equipment. So far no big deal, even though im not a big fan of drow.
We were introduced to the rest of the party wich were also all drow, again no biggie not my tastes but not a big deal.
Then we began the adventure....
Two of the drow stood out from the rest in the following manner.
The first played by someone we will refer to as Biff, was equipped with some strange magical items. 
The first item was a cart of everything you can imagine...
The party needed flint and tinder to start a fire, bam the guy pulls it out of his cart...
One of the players needs a bed roll as he can't find one on his character sheet, bam he pulls a spare out of his cart....
My character and another start gathering leaves and branches to help make a screen to help keep our campfire from being seen from outside the camp, bam he presses a button and the cart extends it sides to surround the camp fire and our campsite...
WTF?
Ok whatever we can deal it's a one off and might still be fun yet right?

So we move on to our first encounter the next day.
We suprise a small group of ogres.

Biff and the other character who was played by...wait for it...wait for it....
The DM, charged the enemy as they both had rediculously high init.
They slaughtered the enemy before anyone else could act.
This happened twice more before I got up and left after making a comment about how Biff and the DM should get a house together and have kids.


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## rgard (Apr 27, 2008)

Here's epic for you...

The DM lived with his girlfriend and she played as well.  We played at their place.  The DM's girlfriend's character always survived and always happened to find choice magic items.  

During our last session, the BBEG ignored the girlfriend's character (who was closer to the BBEG and most definitely a greater threat to the BBEG) a Paladin and disintegrated the only other PC (a dwarf fighter) within site, who happened to be down at -4 hp.  Of course the girlfriend's Paladin killed the BBEG and once again, got the best magic.  Best magic in this case was lawful good aligned armor and horse barding.

The player of the dwarf was visibly annoyed, but kept quiet.  He then said he had a bit of a headache and was leaving early, but took a detour to the bathroom.

Apparently, he did an upper-decker on the way out.

That was our last session in that campaign. 

Thanks,
Rich


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## Dannyalcatraz (Apr 27, 2008)

Generally, most of my bad experiences have been minor, mostly Plots on Rails or Killer GM type things- a huge, ancient Red Dragon in Room #1 of a dungeon being entered by a party of 1st level PCs?  Really?

However, a few players stand out for me:

1) The guy who smelled like he was homeless.  He wasn't.  He was co-owner of the house that he and 2 of the other gamers in the group lived in.

2) The booger-flicker.  He thought nothing of digging for gold and flipping the results at the wall.  Thank goodness I wasn't the host.  Why the host tolerated it, I have no idea.

3) A guy who invariably played royalty as if they were beyond the law- even the laws of other countries- in the style reminiscent of that "He can't talk to me like that" thread here.  Many were the NPCs he killed on a whim in various campaigns.  Looking back, I worry about that guy.

The most memorable campaign derail I can think of was when a player actually got his PC exiled for openly prosetlyzing a religion counter to the ruler's.  The player and the DM didn't see eye to eye on why this happened, or even that it could or should happen, and after an hour or so of argument, the campaign ended.

Fortunately, not only were they good role-players, they were good buddies and we all still game together with no hard feelings.  Just not in that campaign anymore.

***

Another city, another group, another game, another time- I was in a supers campaign, and the party was going out to confront a particularly dangerous group of villains, and we knew we'd be outnumbered.  We managed to find 2 mercenary snipers to provide fire support, and went on the mission.

This apparently was cause for the GM to believe that they would make the scenario unchallenging to the PCs because...

In the hours before the confrontation, the 2 _professional_ snipers were unable to find a single location in the chosen encounter area- full of tall trees and buildings- from which to take a shot.  As a result, they never did.

It was a 20 minute (game time) melee, which the PCs just managed to survive.  On the plus side, our hired snipers didn't get hurt (or even shot at), nor did they expend any of their expensive ammo, while pocketing their full checks!

We didn't play another game with that guy behind the GM's screen.


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## heavensblade23 (Apr 27, 2008)

rgard said:
			
		

> Apparently, he did an upper-decker on the way out.




Never having been the victim of an upper-decker, I'm curious how you find out.


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## billd91 (Apr 27, 2008)

I've been involved in the total derailment of a DM's plans at least twice, neither of which caused the complete breakup of a gaming group or campaign. It was all done in a reasonably friendly manner. We just completely derailed the DM's plans.

In the first one, we had 3 dwarf PCs and one pirate. Rather than go on the planned adventure to liberate an orc-held fortress, we decided to strike out for the wilderness and go prospecting. Three years later, we returned to civilization with fabulous mineral wealth, never having done a thing about the orc-held fortress.

In the second one, we were playing a series of oddball chaotics like my elven priest of Erevan Ilesere and Dur, the dim-witted evoker. We were hired by a woman who had a treasure map that others were trying to kill her to get. We were supposed to protect her and get her to the destination. We didn't really focus on that very well, though. First, Dur got us into trouble when we rode into town on a stolen wagon (technically it wasn't so much stolen as we took it from the gypsy-werewolves who tried to kill us). The locals attacked us and he retaliated with a fireball... the started a major fire the swept part of the town. Then, in another town, my character used his magical and thief abilities to "haunt" the inn to bilk the innkeeper out of exorcism fees. It didn't completely work and my PC spent the next several months in a jail. I won't even bring up the PC that was a dwarven cannibal who set the local orphanage on fire. We wondered why the DM had taken to bringing a bottle of Tylenol to the game sessions...

Both were complete and utter derailments, but there were no hard feelings.


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## billd91 (Apr 27, 2008)

heavensblade23 said:
			
		

> Never having been the victim of an upper-decker, I'm curious how you find out.




For those of you new to the term:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Upper+Decker


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## Silver Moon (Apr 27, 2008)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> I was in a Vampire game where....




On the subject of Vampire, back when my wife and I were on Convention Staff at a local gaming convention we had some major issues with folks running a midnight Vampire Live Action Role Play (LARP). Several players left the designated room during the game, moving it out into the hallway, while the plotline reached a rather sexual point.  Guests in more than one room heard the moans and screams and called down to the front desk. Convention staff and security had to shut down the game and send the people on their way.   

The next day when discussing this with organizers of another convention we found out that we had it easy compared to them.  The prior year the same Vampire gamemaster had run a LARP at their convention that involved role playing out a human sacrifice. At that point in the module the college-aged woman being offered up as the sacrifice dropped her robe, wearing nothing underneath.  

They then used a stage-prop knife with retractiable blade that dribbled blood that was played out so realistically that several gamers thought they actually just witnessed a murder and left the room to call 911 on their cellphones to report it.   Receiving simultaneous 911 calls of a murder, the Police arrived very quickly.    The game dispersed at that point.   The convention organizers rather than the gamemaster were deemed to be the responsible parties and had to go down to the police station.   They managed to avoid having to go to court but did have to pay legal fees to get the matter resolved, the cost of which took all of the profits that the convention would have earned.


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## Cassander (Apr 27, 2008)

Aeric said:
			
		

> Oh, there was one thing scary about that game: the guy playing the dragon disciple.  After he was kicked out of the group, I discovered that he was an 'otherkin' who genuinely believed that he was the soul of a dragon trapped in the body of a human.




What, exactly, is scary about that?


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## cr0m (Apr 27, 2008)

My very, very good friend ran his first D&D game for our group. He was all on about how epic it was going to be, how he'd planned it out until 20th level, etc. We were pretty pumped. The first session we found out our 1st characters had all been named as beneficiaries of a murdered wizard who owned a magic shop. As none of them knew the dead mage, this was supposed to spur us to investigate his death.

We looted the crap out of that magic shop. Then we held a fire sale and with the ample proceeds we raised the dead wizard, in order to ask him who killed him.

This sorta wasn't in the plan. When the wizard came back to life, the DM had him threaten to kill us and flee from us. We were sorta nervous about what would happen if he recognized most of his best magic items on us, but we followed him back to the shop.

The shop promptly exploded in a ball of fire, leaving "not even a scrap of him to resurrect". That's when we decided to quit for the ever. He's a great guy though, and it was a rookie DM mistake.

I once let the players in my AD&D game make a magical axe imbued with psionic powers of teleport, time shift and healing. To say the party barbarian was unstoppable was an understatement. So how do you deal with a Conan-type who can stop time, teleport behind you and hit you over the head with a battle axe, and his psionic ally who can dominate and/or psionic blast anyone who isn't also a psionic? Naturally the BBEG had a team of teleporting skeletons sheathed in adamantium that could shoot... lasers out of their eyesockets.

Fricken lasers. It was an arms race, what can I say? 

Same campaign, I had the players find a small white snake while rafting. I decided that if they attacked it, it was an animal beloved of a certain god who was sure to wreak havoc on them. If they befriended it, it was a deadly poisonous agent of the BBEG. They befriended it and it killed the barbarian.

Don't worry, he got raised. But the player was pissed, because it so obvious a catch-22, and the barbarian was notorious for beating impossible odds and had never died in 9 levels. Plus the Con loss.


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## Tewligan (Apr 27, 2008)

Aeric said:
			
		

> Oh, there was one thing scary about that game: the guy playing the dragon disciple. After he was kicked out of the group, I discovered that he was an 'otherkin' who genuinely believed that he was the soul of a dragon trapped in the body of a human.






			
				Cassander said:
			
		

> What, exactly, is scary about that?



Because it's such a ridiculous thing to believe that I would be a bit doubtful of the person's grasp on reality and how they deal with it. Because dragons aren't real, it turns out.


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## Cassander (Apr 27, 2008)

Tewligan said:
			
		

> Because it's such a ridiculous thing to believe that I would be a bit doubtful of the person's grasp on reality and how they deal with it. Because dragons aren't real, it turns out.




Is believing one's soul is somehow draconic any more unreal than believing that a sky god throws down lightning bolts or that water can be magically turned into wine or that the placement of the stars at someone's birth somehow controls their destiny? Are you afraid of people who believe these things? Do you also question their grasp on reality?


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## Nifft (Apr 27, 2008)

Cassander said:
			
		

> Is believing one's soul is somehow draconic any more unreal than believing that a sky god throws down lightning bolts or that water can be magically turned into wine or that the placement of the stars at someone's birth somehow controls their destiny? Are you afraid of people who believe these things? Do you also question their grasp on reality?



 Only when they vote. (Hey look, now it's religion AND politics!)

Can we get back to role-playing horror now?

Thanks, -- N


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## Lord Mhoram (Apr 27, 2008)

Rolemaster.

We had been playing for a while, and was up against the BBEG of the first big adventure/story arc. The GM had set things up well, and it was going to be a tough battle.

Now Rolemaster (for those that don't know it) uses crit tables.  A lucky roll can kill someone in one shot. It also is open ended, that a really good dice roll can be added to by another (and how well you hit really influences how much damage you do).

So my monk has highest initiative, and I open end on my first attack. twice. With that roll I get a really good crit table. I roll perfectly on my crit. Dead BBEG. Part of the problem of Rolemaster - those kind of things can happen.

All the players cheered. The DM looked rather annoyed.

The next session he declared he was going to roll all of the players combat rolls himself, behind the screen.
I handed him my sheet and said "Well you might as well have the character as you are going to play him" or something like that and left.


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## Chimera (Apr 27, 2008)

Bad experiences?  More than my fair share, so those of you who don't have any?  Slackers!  I'm taking yours for you!  Thank me!

1>  Game groups where otherwise previously intelligent people suddenly become "this game has to be run on the easiest possible setting and we don't do more than hack things down - no thinking, no possible challenge allowed" players.  I've had my last two games than I've run suddenly veer into this territory.

Me (GM) blatantly says "You need to do X".
Players say "No, that's not important.  We need to do (insert wild hair here).
Me (GM, remember?) says "Um, NO.  You need to do X in order to compete this adventure".
Players say "No, I don't think so.  _That can't be right_.  We need to do (improbable act)."
Me (?!?!??!?!?!!)  Thinks/outright says "How can 'GM says' = Can't Be Right?"

2>  The game where I was clearly invited, but when I showed up, the GM just kept repeating "I didn't think you'd come".  Next he showed me his closet full of every rule book ever printed and his 5 linear feet of printed off PDFs and warned me that he was a stickler for the rules and would hold me to X, Y and Z.  Because I'm playing a Wizard, he tells me that I'd better account for every single spell component and how many of them I have, and that they'd better be available in this (cold region) area or... (tells me story of player he screwed by never allowing him to cast a spell again because the component wouldn't be locally available for gathering.)  When I took _Eschew Materials_ he initially tried to rule it out because it wasn't in the PHB (*IT IS*), despite him earlier pointing out how many rule books he owned and used.  Got mad because I took it.
Then we have encounters well above our level, where enemy spells seem to last indefinitely, not the duration given in the books.  Our four first level PCs end up fighting a Goblin Shaman with a +2 Cold weapon.  WHAT???  Oh, and that was AFTER the one armed Owlbear skeleton.  We're all killed except the Rogue with the Diehard feat, who is at -9.  He and the goblin stand toe-to-toe for something like 10 rounds without either managing to be killed (the GM having gone from open rolling to rolling behind a screen) when suddenly, two other goblins run in, kill the first goblin, take his weapon and run out the door.

The GM accuses me of having read the adventure because I figure out something amazingly easy.  Gets a mite too hostile about it for my tastes.

Then the kicker, the idiot tells me by e-mail that I'm no longer welcome because....

"_You're a rules lawyer and we like to play fast and loose with the rules._"

(See Chimera laughing and waving good-riddance!  "Goodbye Liar!  Goodbye Hypocrite!")


3>  Late 80's, Game Store.  Large game with too many players, won't allow more.  Kid sitting by himself who wants to play.  Gets me and other guy, he runs a game.  His world has One City, One Road, One Dungeon.  The World of (Rectums).  Seriously, every single person we meet, even the guards and barmaids, are obnoxiously rude and try to intimidate us out of our money.  EVERYONE.  One encounter in the dungeon, doesn't go real well, but we get a very small (too small) amount of money.  We go back to town.  Rinse and Repeat general jacka'ery.  Other player decides he has better things to do and wanders off.  I try the intellectual approach and try to talk to the kid about this bad game, asking how I'm supposed to be "having fun".  He just smiles and cackles.  I decide that *I* have better things to do and quit, which leads to much whining about "WHY???"  But it's too late and I'm not up for more shenanigans.  I explained why and you laughed.  This tells me that you're beyond hope.

Next week, I return.  I get a spot at the larger game.  Kid still sitting by himself, trying to sucker others into playing.  Only this time, when it looked like he got someone, I stood up and advised them to the contrary.  Kid was really upset that I was ruining his fun.

He wasn't there the next week.


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## Chimera (Apr 27, 2008)

*Public Service Hijack*




			
				Tewligan said:
			
		

> Because it's such a ridiculous thing to believe that I would be a bit doubtful of the person's grasp on reality and how they deal with it. Because dragons aren't real, it turns out.




Otherkin don't bother me much.  I've met more than a few.  It's the few rare ones however, usually the 'dragon' ones, who get lost along the way.

I've known two Dragonkin who got too into it, divorcing themselves from their Humanity (and thus, their sanity).  One died of a heart attack in his mid-30's (having gone completely off the deep end and believing that the strokes and other physical trauma he was experiencing were signs of 'transformation' and not signs of DYING).  That one became dangerously angry with me, and viewed it as the biggest offense he'd ever recieved, when I told him that he was human.

The other one is about half-way down that same trail, having lost himself in the same paranormal conspiracy theories (in which he believe he has an active part).

So my advice for dealing with Otherkin is:  Take a close look at how their view their Humanity.  If they're divorcing themselves from Humanity, they're divorcing themselves from Sanity, and you'd best keep that in mind in dealing with them.


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## Kheti sa-Menik (Apr 27, 2008)

Chimera said:
			
		

> *Public Service Hijack*
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Holy......whew....I just read a little bit on these people.  Talk about being seriously divorced from reality.  I thought these websites I found on "otherkin" were gaming websites...but they're not.  These people think it's *real*.  Wow...just wow.  These folks are free and roaming the streets.  That is scary.


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## nerfherder (Apr 28, 2008)

Cassander said:
			
		

> What, exactly, is scary about that?



I'd be scared if someone I'd booted from my group could transform into something that could BURN MY HOUSE DOWN!!!  :-O


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## Sparafucile (Apr 28, 2008)

I went to a game at a gaming store, where my character received a Staff of the Magi, a +8 Bracers of Armor, and a Wand of Lightning Bolts (10th level). The character I rolled up with 6th level. everyone else in the party was decked out in similarly powerful gear.

The second and third encouters lasted 1 round each, and then there was some inner party conflict between 2-3 of my fellow players, which lasted about two hours and ended in 2 PC deaths and someone throwing a die at the wall.

I didn't go back.


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## Umbran (Apr 28, 2008)

Folks,

Around here, we don't make fun of other people's spiritual beliefs.  Period.  Let the otherkin thing drop, now, and move on.  Thank you.


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## Fallen Seraph (Apr 28, 2008)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> I was in a Vampire game where we were instructed to make neonate characters of about five years experience, all closely tied to their sires, and of differing clans.
> 
> The Storyteller's boyfriend, on the other hand, played a Scottish werewolf skilled in ninjitsu who wielded nunchaku, stuck in time by a mage's curse for 300 years until accidentally released by meddling Sabbat mystics. No, I don't know how a Scottish werewolf learned to use the nunchaku.



While not as bad, reminds me of one player in my _Promethean: The Created_ game. I had set the game up, so they were all newly awakened Prometheans in Colorado (near the border to New Mexico). 

The two players made up reasonable characters. 

One a Osiran who awoke in a rain-filled bathtub in a old fallen apart shack, with simply a scratch on the wall saying "danger lies to the south" (it was a Zeku in New Mexico). He soon become quite intimate with road signs, always following those leading "north" and began to view people as those who were "lost" always walking in any direction.

The other a Galatea, she was created by a deranged Centimani in the Mountains, the Centimani had provoked the ire (through months of living there so Disquiet built up) from the nearby town. They killed the Promethean and rescued her, though finally through turned their ire against her. As such she has a love-hate relationship with humans.

Then we got to the final character, he was a Tamuz and had decided he was going to have a mentor lord who was to train him in the art of the Samurai and the Katana before he mysteriously disappeared. Needless to say, a Tamuz wouldn't be involved at all with lordships or Samurai (especially not in modern day Colorado).


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## KingCrab (Apr 28, 2008)

Kelek72 said:
			
		

> Yes. It was my first Ravenloft adventure at a convention and it was an unbeatable swordsman on horseback who cut off our heads.
> We ended up in the lich-lords castle (he ruled a domain but I forget his name). At the end of the game, all the other players were dead and my dwarf stood alone facing the lich. I kept making save after save as the DM chose spell after spell from the PHB to throw at me. I doubt the lich even had a list of memorized spells. Finally the DM triumphantly declared "Forcecage! You're left to starve to death. No save."
> 
> Weird thing is, people were congratulating me like I had won. It was my first convention and I was a little freaked by the crowd that had gathered as my dwarf made his saves.




I ran that same module back in my 2e days and (once my players realized that getting their heads cut off wasn't going to be the end) really enjoyed it.  It wasn't the most serious if the ravenloft modules, but it was fun.


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## mara (Apr 28, 2008)

Second worst gaming session involved a game of V:tM with my old group.  The DM had the brilliant idea to invite a couple friends to join in without asking the rest of us, who brought their own characters.  One problematic quirk (among many) of this group was that characters were assumed to exist in a shared universe, so characters would be swapped between games without modification and were generally assumed (primarily by the DM guy, even when someone else was running, much to the annoyance of anyone else trying to run a game) to exist "off stage" even if they weren't featured.  By this logic, these friends were able to bring in characters whom had been allegedly given D&D-like experience (WoD players should be cringing now) by "their other DM".  In addition, in their old game they were in charge of hunting whatever category our characters were, which I can't remember at the moment, so of course they were here to try to take our characters out. 

Needless to say, this was a disaster.  None of the regular players were happy about this, but the new people were huge and overtly racist and homophobic to the point where I think we were playing possum on some level in hopes they wouldn't kill us.  The session was basically a hopeless fight between us and their characters.  In a fit of frustration I had my Path of Lillith Malk scream out a prayer to Lillith to express my character and her player's growing annoyance at being unable to do anything while these random goons stomp us for no reason...

...and summoned Lillith.  And produced a demand from the female half of the goon squad that I write her spells in the future.  This pretty much ended the session and there was much silent rejoicing.  Afterwards we tried to watch an episode of Escaflowne, during which it became clear that the guy could barely read the subtitles.  Said couple broke up shortly afterwards so that was the last I saw of him.

The group split (again, this is after the molester with pedophilic tendencies left, IIRC) over playstyle differences and varying opinions on the subject of soap.  The actual dissolution took far longer than it should have due to the Geek Social Fallacies (If they change and wash, we get to keep our SAN points...  right?  RIGHT?) and my desire to not be beaten by my brother at home, but I came out of it with the soap loving half of the group that occasionally commiserates with the FLGS owner, who had to deal with them after we were free, much to the depletion of his air freshener.


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## Dlsharrock (Apr 28, 2008)

Silver Moon said:
			
		

> The convention organizers rather than the gamemaster were deemed to be the responsible parties and had to go down to the police station. They managed to avoid having to go to court but did have to pay legal fees to get the matter resolved, the cost of which took all of the profits that the convention would have earned.




You have to ask yourself why they let them come back?? Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

My worst experience was part of my best, unfortunately. The first D&D group I played with back in the 80s. My DM was a biker called Tony who I worshipped (the best DM in the world bar none and the reason I fell in love with RPG) and all players got on really well. I lived for Sunday sessions and we played a really great campaign for a looong time taking in lots of the really great modules, like All That Glitters. Classic stuff. I've never forgotten it.

Up until the end the players, and PCs, gelled perfectly. I was a youngling and still learning so my PC (Bivotar) got the nickname Biv the Div for his less than considerate methods of progressing (while the group huddled and discussed the best methods for opening a door behind which they 'meta' guessed a trap might be lurking, I passed DM a note that Div was having none of this faffing about lark, took a long run up and shouldered open the door. Lucky for me everyone was willing to resurrect old Div).

The bad bit came when one of the players started whining that his parents wanted him to allow his younger brother to join the game and practically railroaded the DM into saying yes. We played at each others houses on a rota basis and we were in danger of being banned if we didn't make room. Suffice to say the brother arrived and promptly made his presence known as a) a rules lawyer (my first) and b) an assh*le. Worse still, the brothers clearly hated each other and spent the entire time bickering. One of the last sessions I attended we played approximately two hours of D&D and endured in silence approximately 3 hours of nitpicking, arguing, accusations, _dice throwing_, tantrums and so on. There was also one infinitely amusing  tug of war with a character sheet. It haunts my dreams still.

It upset me, and my short sighted parents noticed I was seeming rather down after game sessions. They naturally attributed it to D&D having 'negative effects' on my young psyche and promptly told DM that I wouldn't be attending again. Well- it was the 80s and in those days D&D was on permanent probation, _and_ they'd only recently watched Mazes & Monsters. Bl***dy Tom Hanks.


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## Moff_Tarkin (Apr 28, 2008)

This one was a really bad experience due to the fact it happened over a decade ago and the DM still makes fun of me for it.

Let me set the background. I was new to D&D and admittedly there were a lot of things I didn’t know. For example, I thought all thieves automatically knew were the thieves guild was in town. So we reach a big city and the DM goes around the table asking everyone what they are doing while in town. He gets to me and the conversation goes like this. VERBATIM!

GM: What are you doing in town?

Me: Well where is the thieves’ guild.

GM: I don’t know, why don’t you ask that guard?

Me: (a little angry at the DM’s joke) Where is the thieves guild!

GM: The guard says right this way sir.

Me: I didn’t ask the guard. I am asking you.

GM: The guards beat you up and haul you off.

Now I was a new player, and it was foolish of me to think all thieves knew were the thieves guild was located. But I fail to see where in that conversation I asked the guard for the location. The funny thing is, the DM agrees that the conversion I just posted here is word for word correct. He still thinks I asked that guard were the guild was.

This guy always made me feel stupid until I started playing under other DMs. In other games I am always intelligent and come up with genius ideas to defeat the bad guys and bypass traps. But every time I played his game my character was a bumbling idiot who’s every action ended in complete failure. I wonder why I “magically” got stupid when I played in his games.


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## Silver Moon (Apr 28, 2008)

Dlsharrock said:
			
		

> You have to ask yourself why they let them come back?? Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.



Maybe it wasn't clear in the post but it was two different groups of convention organizers and two different conventions, the second group (that I was with) not finding out about the other group's problems with this gamemaster until after we had mentioned of our problems the night before.    Neither group would let him run at conventions after than and word was spread to other conventions in the region at that point.


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## Calico_Jack73 (Apr 28, 2008)

I was running a Mage the Ascension game and had a problem player.  He wanted to play _something_ but didn't really want to play Mage.  The rest of the players were getting into the spirit of a sandbox style game... actually going out and finding the action.  He had his Virtual Adept working at a Babbages store, come home, heat up a TV dinner and watch TV.  That was it... the player had decided that unless I dragged him into the game that he wasn't going to do anything to help the story along.  Every time I came back around to him I asked him what he was doing and he just kept replying with some mundane action.  5 hours into the game he decided to have his character go to bed after he had done every mundane thing you can come up with in his apartment.  He had the gall to gripe about the game afterwards... I pointed out to him that the Technocracy LOVES mages like his... they don't DO anything which makes them harmless.  I never played with that guy again.


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## Ipissimus (Apr 28, 2008)

On V:tM: Yup, turns out those rules about not touching are there for a reason. Can't count the number of times someone touching someone else appropriately caused problems in live RP. Unfortunately, none of them were game breaking in my xp, so I can't share there.

As for everything else, where do I begin?

The first player who broke one of my games was a stickler for detail. At first, rather harmless detail, like what he had for breakfast or choosing a vintage of wine. Had the most detailed character description I'd ever seen that took up ten pages alone. THEN the problems start. Casually asking the DM what the time of day is and, upon discovering that it was morning, informs us all that his character (a woman, though he was a man... nothing unusual there, though) is going to the toilet. He then proceeds to describe the act of going to the toilet in excrutiating detail based on the contents of his meal 8 hours previous. I'll spare you the details, but she was on a high fiber diet.

Ok, we're all getting freaked and the DM's moving us on and we're trying to ignore this crazy dude. We think he gets the hints we're dropping like great boulders every time he starts up (amazingly, toilet activities are the ONLY thing this guy describes in full detail). Then, we camp for the night. And this guy says that his character is going to stay up and masturbate, loudly. I don't know whether he was pissed off that we wouldn't listen to his scatology or if it was just another of his perversions but several of the players got up and left and we kicked this dude out of the house so fast it took a moment for his eyes to follow.

We were so traumatized that we didn't play for a few months before starting up again from scratch.

I'll also remember unfondly the day I played with a bunch of college acquaintances. Please note: this was an all-male party. We're palying along, everything's going ok, then the male dwarf fighter gets killed by a lightning bolt. It was from a Behir, I remember that distinctly and you'll know why soon. So the encounter ends and I tell the DM I'm searching the area for loot, as you do. One of these guys gets a thoughtful look in his eye and says to the DM: "I rape the dead dwarf."

Maybe I have a more highly developed imagination than most people, but the image sent chills down my spine. The dwarf's player is coughing and spluttering but he's dead and can't to a thing. Whether to annoy the dwarf's player or whatever, the rest of the group quickly takes up the cry of 'Rape the Dead Dwarf' and soon it turns into a gang rape. Sickened, I get up and tell everyone I've got to go. As I was leaving, I heard cries of 'Rape the Dead Behir'.

The poor DM... it was his house, so he couldn't leave but he refused to DM with them after that.

So, in-game shinannigans killed another campaign I ran, this time in Shadowrun. Picture the scene: The runners need to break into an ultra-secret research facility outside Seattle. It's fairly small on the surface, fenced off except for the gate, and I clearly describe to them the guard tower that overlooks the entire compound. Their solution to infiltrating the site: drive up to the front gate in their ordinary street car and cap the guard at the gate. Note that the gun they used was not silenced.

So there they are, the guard bleeding to death on the sidewalk next to their car and BLAM! A sniper shot takes off one of the side mirrors. One of the players panics and says "I open the car door and drag the body of the guard into the car!" Don't ask me what this was supposed to solve. The rigger's player takes exception to this, however, saying "No you're not, you're not getting blood on the interior of this car!" The other guy says to me "I pull him in anyway." The rigger's player says "I reach over the back of my seat and physically restain him!" I pointedly ask what the third player is doing and he just shrugs, so I'm on my own.

Blam! The sniper (think he's shooting from the guard tower? Yup, you guessed right) puts a bullet through the engine block. The players realize this but none of them seem overly concerned that someone's shooting at them or that their car is disabled. The rigger and the guy in the back seat get into a proper wrestling match while the third just sits their doing nothing. Finally getting sick of it I just said "Ok, the third shot goes through the gas tank, the car explodes and you're all dead."

That was the last game of Shadowrun I played with that group. Somehow, they all agreed that yes, they knew they were being shot at. Yes, they knew that the car was disabled and they agree that the blood stains on the interior would have been a minor problem compared to a bullet going through the engine. And the character who did nothing agrees that he probably should have done something, even if it was just running away. But somehow, I'm a killer DM...

Go figure.


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## Chimera (Apr 28, 2008)

Reminds me of my one and only foray into _Shadowrun_.

Our first session lasted eight hours.  Eight freaking bloody hours spent on ONE very short combat.  The guy running the game had never GM'd before and insisted on looking up every detail to make sure he was running the combat correctly.  It was excruciating.  The first round took FOUR HOURS.  We were begging him, pleading with him to just do something and move on.  But he insistently sat there rumaging through rule-books looking for things because he wanted to do it properly.  I started going through the rulebooks, starting with THE INDEXES, finding what he needed because in all his effort, he never bothered to _look at the (expletive) index!_.  He'd just rummage through the book, back and forth, trying to find it by scanning.  By the end of the night, all five players were on him about GETTING IT DONE AND MOVING ON and three of us were looking things up for him.

He got better after that, primarily I think because the message was "We're not doing THAT again!".

Then we got into a situation where we had to go to Chicago and steal a truck.  I'm playing a Physical Adept (think D&D Psychic Warrior/Monk) who is an outlaw martial artist with a price on his head out west.  We get the trucker down and he's on the ground with me standing over him.  He (foolishly) orders his truck's AI to kill us.  Ok, you're at my mercy and you order your truck to kill me.  I'm an outlaw runner.  What do I do?  I stomp him, roll exceptionally well and kill him outright.  Massive damage, DEAD.

The GM goes nuts, telling me I didn't have to kill the guy.  Then he has me haunted by the guy's ghost, because I wrongfully killed him.  Over and over, just a constant drone through that session in the next about how I didn't have to kill the guy.  I got seriously annoyed and told him to knock it off.  Unfortunately, then he starts telling me OUTSIDE THE GAME what a horrible person *I* am because I killed that NPC.

Seriously.  

(I guess I misunderstood _Shadowrun_ and it's theme.  Who knew my GM thought we were all Paladins??? )

A month or so later, I went into Divorce.  Since he had been a friend of my psycho ex for years, he decided that everything she said about me was true ("She would never lie to us!" - true quote) and combined with my poor gaming character, I must be the worst form of human imaginable.


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## Ipissimus (Apr 28, 2008)

Damn, Chi. I hope you don't let that moron spoil Shadowrun for you, it's a great game if you grok it and it sounds like you do.


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## rexartur (Apr 28, 2008)

I only run published modules, but I really try to get into monster-think when I DM.  At one point the PC's were mopping up a goblin lair.  Word got back to the goblin matron that "monsters" had come and were killing all the warriors.  Unfortunately I slipped in too deep and didn't realize until I looked up at the horrified expressions of the faces of the players how far I had gone.

The matron, having heard stories of these "monsters" that took no adult prioners but did only-Maglubiyet-knows-what with little ones, drowned her charges and bashed her own head against the wall of the cavern, rather than become a plaything for the beasts.

I described the room and the aftermath of her actions in detail, and only the lack of reaction caused me to look up over my screen.

Yup, a little too far.


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## Evilhalfling (Apr 28, 2008)

Okay I played a whitewolf game that mixed vampires, werewolves and a mage 
the vampire tried to swindle the werewolf, badly. The werewolves raged and killed the vampires, the mage after trying reason with the others, fled. 

The second time I played this combo - with different players, exactly the same thing happened, except that it took 4 sessions instead of half of one.


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## Storminator (Apr 28, 2008)

I was at a local convention, painting minis. In the background a Call of Cthulu game is going on. Something about the haunted lighthouse and Maine and a ship.

So one PC goes into the library to Google haunted lighthouses...

For 20 minutes. It might have gone longer, but I couldn't stand listening to it and had to leave.

PC: I type in haunted lighthouse.
GM: You get 1.2 million hits (a short summary of the 1st page of hits follows)
PC: I type in quote haunted lighthouse endquote.
GM: You get 327,000 hits (a short summary of the 1st page follows)
PC: I type in quote haunted lighthouse endquote plus Maine.

I couldn't believe how long it went on.

Oh, and his google-fu was weak!

PS


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## Dragonbait (Apr 28, 2008)

2 situations, same GM: 
We had a GM who liked to run GM vs. PCs style of adventures. However, she would change the rules to let her win, without telling us. She would then get very angry if we came out on top! Lose-lose

The same GM made an Oriental Adventures kind of game. We introduce our characters and and so on. The game becomes a murder-mystery. We spend 9 hours playing, and the GM appears to be randomly rolling to see if we find clues or not. We start quizzing everyone in town. The locals will stop to answer our questions even at the risk of harming the workings of the town and after we tell them to keep working (a long story in itself where the GM wanted us to get in trouble with the local lord) The mysery ends after 9 hours. Well it turns out that we should have asked a specific question to a specific fisherman who was out on the lake while we were investigating to actually find the 1 stable clue. Any physical evidence was located in the woods but the gm was rolling randomly (1:6 chance) that we would find it and so we never did. AND we should have known that the murder was an elf because the GM mentioned an elf at the beginning of the town description while we were still making our characters.

What..
The...
Frell?


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## billd91 (Apr 28, 2008)

Storminator said:
			
		

> I was at a local convention, painting minis. In the background a Call of Cthulu game is going on. Something about the haunted lighthouse and Maine and a ship.
> 
> So one PC goes into the library to Google haunted lighthouses...
> 
> ...




Someone at the table should have been telling the Keeper that this was the reason PCs had the skill Library Use - so they wouldn't have to play out the minutae of actually doing the search.


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## Oryan77 (Apr 28, 2008)

Ipissimus said:
			
		

> As for everything else, where do I begin?



Geez, I thought it was bad when I had a player that would nit-pick the details.

I once had to spend 30 minutes arguing with a player that kept trying to hook up with a random NPC woman but insisted that she be "the hottest girl in the tavern". No matter how many times I kept telling him, "I'm not telling you her Charisma score but you definitely think she's hot", he kept saying, "You don't have to tell me her score but I want to know how much better looking she is compared to me" (he had like a 14 Cha). If I'd say, she's a bombshell & you assume she's out of your league, he would reply back with, "but bombshell could mean she has a 16 Cha for all I know". Then I'd say it again, "I'm not going to tell you their Cha score" and I'd describe another woman he saw that was good looking. He's still saying that I don't have to tell him the Cha score but he'd ask me again, "How good looking is this woman compared to my character?"

I had no idea what he wanted me to say other than tell him, "She has an 18 or higher Cha". I kept trying to end the conversation and move on with the game but he kept it going for 30 minutes. Finally I got frustrated and loudly told him that he finds a girl with a 30 Charisma, they go to his room and have sex, and he wakes up in the morning. By that time he knew I was pissed off and I think we ended the session there.

I was still pretty new to DMing at that time and I didn't learn the art of ignoring an annoying player & keeping the game going rather than stopping to argue with him. I actually recently talked to him about that bad habit of his and he games with us again.


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## Sparafucile (Apr 28, 2008)

Ipissimus said:
			
		

> Damn, Chi. I hope you don't let that moron spoil Shadowrun for you, it's a great game if you grok it and it sounds like you do.




I sympathize with Chimera. That same thing happened when we played Shadowrun. Only we spend the entire session with the Decker trying to hack a phone booth. That was a bad gaming session. I believe that was second edition though . . . I've heard they fixed that problem/class.

I've been meaning to pick up the latest stuff and check it out, but no one I know is motivated to play anything but DD right now.


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## Numion (Apr 28, 2008)

I don't have many horrible RPG experiences since I play with close friends. Once me and one of my friends decided to check out a game at a local gaming club. We were about 13 at the time (yeah it shouldn't matter, but it did, sadly). 

The first session was just to make characters, which is usually a good idea. Especially in this case since we chose to never attend an actual game session with the gaming club. We didn't even make it thru the character generation session.

But that's getting ahead of things. We go there, get to making the characters. The game is Rolemaster, and the other players who were hanging around (two highschoolers + one player in his 30s + the DM a guy in his 20s) had already made their characters. The system was familiar to us, so we just started throwing dice and making the characters. The other players and the DM seemed to be pretty nice guys.

Then the character generation session started to go horribly wrong with my innocent question "So what characters did you guys roll up?" I just wanted to know so that we'll get a well rounded group. First the dude in his 30s pipes up:

Dude in his 30s: "I'm playing a half-ogre lesbian."
Us: ". . . " just unbelieving stare from us
Dih30s: "Yeah the DM allows half-ogres from this supplement .. I rolled that Ogre was the father, but we ruled that out as _impossible_.", taking the wrong cue and thinking we were unsure about the validity of his chosen race.
Us: ". . ." 
DM, probably thinking that the look on our faces is again because of the H-O race: "Yeah, consider what would happen if an ogre had sex with a human female. The woman would burst! Heh, heh."
Us: ". . . lesbian?"
Highschooler: "Yup, and I'm playing a bi-sexual halfling!"

DM, getting in this know-it-all lecturing mode: "You see, nobody in his right mind would go on dangerous adventures. All the adventurers in my campaign have to be a bit mental; all the player characters are sexually deviant - it's very good for roleplaying. I've got these custom tables for your characters too, you can roll for your own sexual deviancy."

At the time I didn't even realize how wrong it was to label sexual preferences as mental illnesses, or how wrong it was to go into that kind of stuff with 13 year olds. I just changed knowing looks with my friend, and we started to come up with excuses for leaving "Um .. we'll finish these home .."

I've kept the memories suppressed, but that experiment killed RPGing with anybody but my friends for me. I've not played at cons, game shops, clubs, etc.. since the incident.


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## apoptosis (Apr 29, 2008)

Played a Werewolf game.

The DM had a story that he was going to tell (a sadly incredibly boring story). His NPC led us through a mission where we had no say in what to do or choices to make (the NPC made all of them).

The final 'part' of the story was a large battle with evil Faeries. It lasted several hours and our honest to gosh only decision we could make was to choose to either bite or claw, hours of only choosing biting or clawing, it was like playing Pitfall but without all the wonderful variation (some younguns might not recognize this game). We actually had no other choices.

Talk about a GM being able to single handedly destroy the desire to ever play a game.

He was forbidden to ever DM again.


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## SSquirrel (Apr 29, 2008)

When I was in college a guy who was friends w/some of the folks I played Star Wars d6 and Call of Cthulhu with was looking for one more person to round out his D&D game.  I said sure.  Turns out Dino was a film major who fancied himself quite the storyteller.  He had designed the role of my character to be the son of a king blah blah blah.  So second session we ever play (possibly even first it's been 13 or 14 years now) I get to the game and warn everyone that I'm super tired, up late studying and had an early test.  We're playing for about an hour or so and the game is dull as can be and I'm operating on 3 hrs of sleep and his couch was awful cozy...wake up a lil bit later to find we were attacked by a cave bear while investigating a cave and heh ad just eaten my throat.  Of course, i was the cleric in the group.  They manage to stabilize me and get me back to town where they are able to heal me..mostly.  My voicebox is shot and the healer gives me a bottle of about 20 pills.  If I take a pill I'll be able to speak for 2 minutes.  These are the only pills he's EVER going to be able to make me.  I tell the DM this is a)unfair, and b)highly stupid if he wants me to ever cast any spells.  He then says something about how I shouldn't have fallen asleep.  Needless to say, I never gamed w/that guy again.


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## hong (Apr 29, 2008)

Storminator said:
			
		

> I was at a local convention, painting minis. In the background a Call of Cthulu game is going on. Something about the haunted lighthouse and Maine and a ship.
> 
> So one PC goes into the library to Google haunted lighthouses...
> 
> ...



 Think of the LARP possibilities!


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## Dlsharrock (Apr 29, 2008)

SSquirrel said:
			
		

> He then says something about how I shouldn't have fallen asleep. Needless to say, I never gamed w/that guy again.




I actually would sympathise with your GM in this case (edit: though he shouldn't have exercised his resentment in-character).


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## evileeyore (Apr 29, 2008)

Silver Moon said:
			
		

> On the subject of Vampire, back when..




Why do so many sad tales I've heard start with either those words...


...or "Hey, lets all play ourselves, it'll be fun".



Anyway two of my non-Vampire LARP related "and it killed the game" stories...

The ST had an Immortals system (I don't remember the name *, I probably never actually knew it), she'd cut the covers off and put the pages in slip covers, in a 3-ring binder (she did this all her softback rpgs).  To make it "fun" we were all supposed to play ourselves (first clue it was destined for "bad").  To stat us out we rated ourselves (run children, run fast) on a scale of 1-10 in different categories.  We weren't allowed to actually read the rules, we'd have to learn the game through play (second clue everyone should run).  So the game had been going for a bit when she asked me to join, she said "I think you'll bring a unique style to the game..." (clue 3 for those keeping score... unique styles often clash)  I show up, she hands me a character sheet "based on what I think your like", it looks alright... a bit more than I think I am, but hey, its a game right (it wasn't too far off, some average, some above average in only a few spots, nothing "uber", except "Movement" but then I used to do track and field and this was a group of "gamers" [read fat-***es]... so I rolled with it).

First session was pretty cool.  Everything went smoothly, I was introduced during a huge "boss battle", I was (in character) thinking it was "all a dream" so I start using "powers" like all my buddies were.  No biggee...  we all escape, travel for about a week or so, fleeing big bad enemies, along the way my two best buds explain the "what is going on" thing (we're all Immortals and real, other people have no souls, this world is just a "dream" that connects the other "real" worlds, etc).. its all good.  Then after 6 sessions one guy realizes "Hey, he wasn't 'awoken' like we all were".  A mini arguement breaks out, its explained that in order to 'awaken' them, ie make them believe this whole "Immortals Crap" was real, they were shot.  My two buds were all "Hell no, he's up to speed" the rest of the group (6 more guys, 9 players total) were all "I got shot, he gets shot".

Here it goes left folks.  I say (in character) "Shoot me, I will kill you."  Now we all have different powers (some of us have one, some have two or three), one guy can go invisible, one does energy damage with his hands, one can turn into metal or crystal, one is telepathic, etc.   I can move, shape, and sense through inanimate objects and heal myself and others.  Anyway... they decide to shot me and my two buds (they got in the way).  I heal us, the 6 laugh and do the whole "Hey man, now your one of us".  I just say, "You six are dead.  You just ain't stop walking yet".

Two sessions later I seal them in a 20 story building and cause it to implode.  Then sift through the rubble and remove their "Vox", the seat of their "souls".  Evidently as long as this isn't destroyed (and it can only be destroyed by an Immortal) they'll come back.  I heal my buddies, pass out doing so.  When I awaken my buds ask "What now?  If you 'eat' those voxs you'll incorporate them and thier powers".  I ask, "So how do I destroy them forever?" with a wicked smile on my face...  at this point the six guys are pissed.  Apparently the ST had a firm "Your character dies, your out of the game" policy.  Session ends with me thinking about it...

Luckily for those 6 my hours changed at work I couldn't make anymore games.  So I phoned in my plan to teh ST and she implimented it.  Basically track down their "spirit place" and force grow their bodies with a single defect in it, a "tattoo" that reads "I was killed by EvilE for being a putz" in the "Immortal" language on their foreheads.  My buddies thought it was hilarious and rolled with it...

Game disolved about 6 sessions later when the 6 found out it was "permanent" unless they destroyed their bodies again... and they didn't trust each other enough to be at that level of risk...

HAHAHAHA. **


Second story, same game system, same ST, my two buddies , 4 new guys and the STs littel sis... anyway the ST and my buddies had raved about me enough the ST's fiance and the other four relented to asking me to join.. again game had been on going for a bit and the ST had run a bunch of "mini-sessions" for the other peeps, so she gave me a list of powers I could choose, or I could choose to be better at what I knew I could do, or I could be "better" in general (upgrade stats)... anyway I choose to be better at what I already knew and a general increase in stats, like wahtever ya know?

I was added by a "Neutral" party as an "Observer" to the group based on the notion "I knew these guys" and they needed help from the "Neutral" group I was a member of (all Immortals mystically get religious/political affiliations when they remember being Immmortal, WTF?  Whatever).

Anyway game runs smotth for about 6 sessions (bizarre how the session count correlates), every session I either keep pace with or manage to show up the boyfriend.  Its just my natural "Roll with it"-ness I'm guessing.  The dice rolled my way and I didn't hero worship his ass (like the 2 players he brought did).  The group is split in half, me and my two buddies (who think its great I'm "beating him", whatever), the boyfriend and his two buds, and the STs littel sister who rubs on whoever will piss her sister off (the boyfriend mostly) but she is seriously trying to play us (me and bf) off each other.  I'm not having it and he is mostly trying to avoid it (good choice).  So  is getting tense, the ST is on a slow boil over the sisters behavior and the two groups are in a slow build of one-ups-manship.

Last session has the ST doing a "personal" sidebar with me while half the group is off getting food.  Boyfriend is there, little sister is there, but pretty much everyone else is out.  Boyfriend is getting angrier and angrier and I can't figure out why.  Sidebar is going well, I'm getting loads of info (about how to do use the "other" powers I had) from my pastlives (something Immortals can do, either most commonly by battling and "consuming" the past life, or more rarely by negotiation as I was - both held extreme dangers).  Anyway bf is getting angrier and angrier and lil sis says somethign along the lines of "I didn't know we could any of that stuff" (meaning the negotiations) and bf boils over "Yeah, and he wouldn't either unless he read the rules!"

SCREECH!  WTF?  I'd never read the rules.  "Hell," I sez, "I don't even know what game this is".  /shrug
"BULL!"    "I the only one who was supposed to be allowed to read the rules!" he yells at the ST...

Aha.  Now I get it.  I'm thinkin, okay, simple enough to solve.  I let this "Alpha dog" bs cool down and just stop one upping him.  I can roll that way, was only trying to outdo him because he was such a damn snot and lording his crap over the other players.

Then the others return and lil sis says to the boyfriend "You know, you shouldn't be so worried about who she's let read the rules.  You should be upset about who she's been sleeping with."  The look of guilt on everyone's face but mine was pretty damn funny...***


END OF GAME

* Funny.  I just googled "Immortals" and "Vox" the only two terms I could remember... the name of the game was Immortals:  the Invisible War.

** Why I laugh?  I used to be known as "[Real Name] Destroyer of Worlds" because I destroyed all the poorly run politically imbalanced Vamp LARPs I been in (roughly two per year)...  so "breaking" table top games has a special place in my cold dark heart.

*** Apparently she'd been sleeping with the other players in the group...  for quite a while too.  Damn, wish I'd known, she was pretty good looking.


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## Ipissimus (Apr 29, 2008)

Sparafucile said:
			
		

> I sympathize with Chimera. That same thing happened when we played Shadowrun. Only we spend the entire session with the Decker trying to hack a phone booth. That was a bad gaming session. I believe that was second edition though . . . I've heard they fixed that problem/class.
> 
> I've been meaning to pick up the latest stuff and check it out, but no one I know is motivated to play anything but DD right now.




-winces- I have to admit, a bad DM who doesn't know what he's doing will kill Shadowrun pretty quick. Part of the problem is you just don't design a Shadowrun scenario like you do a DnD game or most other RPGs. The DM has to be on the ball, set up situations where everyone can have a part and at the same time give the players absolute autonomy to do things their way. It's a great challenge for everyone, honestly. I highly recommend 4th edition even if you don't end up playing the books contain some of the best RPG material ever printed.

Ok, ok, end proselytizing. 




			
				Dlsharrock said:
			
		

> I actually would sympathise with your GM in this case (edit: though he shouldn't have exercised his resentment in-character).




OR you could give your buddy a break and realize that no gamer falls asleep at the table unless they're half-dead. People are more important than the game.


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## SSquirrel (Apr 30, 2008)

Dlsharrock said:
			
		

> I actually would sympathise with your GM in this case (edit: though he shouldn't have exercised his resentment in-character).




I DID warn him at the outset and it had been staying up late studying for a test.  If I drank and I had been on a bender the night before, sure, but I don't even drink   if it had been "hey your throat was ripped out, but we got you healed, try not to fall asleep in the future" I wouldn't have had an issue.  But when he basically says "hi you fell asleep, now you don't get to do anything your character is supposed to do ever" that just isn't cool.

Ipissimus>I knew maybe one person in that game, the DM was a friend of several friends of mine and they liked my RP style and recommended me.  But yes, exactly


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 30, 2008)

evileeyore said:
			
		

> * Funny.  I just googled "Immortals" and "Vox" the only two terms I could remember... the name of the game was Immortals:  the Invisible War.
> 
> ** Why I laugh?  I used to be known as "[Real Name] Destroyer of Worlds" because I destroyed all the poorly run politically imbalanced Vamp LARPs I been in (roughly two per year)...  so "breaking" table top games has a special place in my cold dark heart.



You're an evil person indeed! 



> *** Apparently she'd been sleeping with the other players in the group...  for quite a while too.  Damn, wish I'd known, she was pretty good looking.



Ever wondered why she invited you _again_ in her group, even after you "broke" the first one? Why she created a character that basically was a compliment to you in the first game? 

Talk about missed opportunities.


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## TracerBullet42 (Apr 30, 2008)

*Don't think I've posted this here before...so here goes*

I'll share my awful Lord of the Rings game experience from GenCon '06.  I'd like to point out before the story, though, that Decipher was very cool about the situation and sent me a copy of the rulebook, a DM screen, and an adventure to compensate me for the crappy game even though it wasn't their fault.  Anyway, without further ado, I present to you the story of the worst game of all time.  Enjoy!

(or wince in sympathetic pain, if it suits you.)

_Next on my schedule was a good ol' Lord of the Rings game. I had played in a game last year in which the party was comprised completely of hobbits and was an absolute blast (except for that one loud guy at the table, but that's another story). I was very much looking forward to another journey in Middle Earth. I had no idea that I was about to play "The Worst Game Ever." I use capital letters because I believe that this should be the definitive "Worst Game Ever" to which all other bad games should be compared. Yeah, it was that bad. I'll choose my words carefully, so that you might experience my pain without having to physically endure it. 

Again, the GM is late. Not as late as the first game, but still a good ten minutes late. When he does arrive, he ignores our table for a bit and apologizes profusely to the table next to us, for there is a full group of people waiting to play in a Star Trek game that his company is responsible for and will have no GM at all. When he eventually gets over to our table, he asks if any of us have brought our own characters. Nobody did. The GM is not pleased at this. He only has one copy of some sample PCs that he begrudgingly allows us to use. It is at this time that I would like to cite part of the official game description: 

"Bring your own Middle-Earth Campaign Setting character to play, or use any of the available pre-made characters."

Now, why is this part of the description if they intend for us to bring our own PCs? Oh well, the GM begrudgingly gives us each a pre-made character to play, but says, "Do not write on these. I'll be needing them back. Please don't smudge them." (I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt with the word "please." I do not recall if that word was actually used or not.) So I look over the character that I am handed. At the top of the sheet is written "Dwarven Weaponsmith." He does not have a name. The GM goes around the table asking everyone to name their characters. Nice touch, I thought. Nice touch, until he tells one of the players that their suggested name wasn't "elvish" enough for their elf character. He then told the player a new name to use. 

Yes, folks, he was one of those guys. He was a self-proclaimed Tolkein-ista. I prefer the term Tolkein-nazi. As the adventure went along, he repeatedly (and proudly) pointed out things within the adventure that were inconsistent with the LotR books or the Silmarillion. (He claims to read them all three times every year.) He also took every opportunity to remind us that the books were FAR superior to the movies, and seemed insulted that one of the players at the table had " never even read the books."

At the start of the adventure, our travelling party came upon two groups of non-friendlies fighting over the rights to a large steer that had been slain. I suggested to the group that we leave them to settle the difference between themselves, since it is none of our business. The GM informs me otherwise, however. He says something to the effect of "You're a dwarf...you're not fond of either of these groups and would want to get involved." I relentingly agree. (I should've walked away from the game at this point.) 

So the game goes on...and on...and on. And even then it goes on a little more, complete with more references to the superiority of the books to the movies. Anytime there is something that needs to be "learned" in the game, one of the elf PCs "figures it out" because "you're an elf...you would know that." Yes, this DM was an elf fan-boy...big time. Elves can do just about anything. There was even a time when a group of wandering elves wandered past the group singing a dirge, and the entire party had to roll Will saves to resist their charms and follow them...forever. When asked about what would happen if our whole group failed, he said something like, "The adventure would be over." Only two PCs saved, by the way...I'll leave it to you to figure out if they were elves or not. 

Towards the end of the game (finally), the camel's back was broken. The final straw followed the only funny moment of the game. The party had discovered, in the distance, a man beaten, bruised, and restrained to a pole with ropes. The hobbit, being played by a 10 year old boy, sneaks over, away from the party, to the disheveled man. The man is inches from death, and pleads to the young hobbit to just put him out of his misery. The kid thinks about it for a bit and then utters the words, "Ok. I'll give him his mercy killing. I'll stab him in the face." The table erupts with laughter. It was kinda funny. But then, remember that final straw I was talking about? Yeah, here it comes...

The GM tells the boy that the hobbit would probably have a very hard time killing this man. That it is something his people are not used to doing. I mentioned that I thought we should try to save the man. The GM then says to me, "No, you wouldn't want to save him. You're a dwarf. He's just a man."

It was at that point that I pretty much tuned out the rest of the game. I'm not exactly sure what we were doing but the end result was that we flooded a valley, killing a bunch of bad guys...or something like that. I just rolled dice when asked, periodically looking at the clock. Yes, that's right, the game not only was bad, but LOOOOOONNNNNNG. When it was finally over, the GM asked if anybody would like to stick around for part three. (Apparently, it was part two of three.) I gave my answer by leaving my sheet (not smudged or written on, by the way) and just walking away from the table...not saying a word. The dealer hall beckoned. 

And thus, my "Worst Game Ever" event was over...and there was MUCH rejoicing. (YAY!)_


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## Ipissimus (May 1, 2008)

Unfortunately, that reminds me of another game that broke since it was set in LotR as well. Not as good as yours, Tracer, but relevant.

(BTW, Tracer, I do sympathize there. But then, I like pointing out to Tolkein nazis that JRR had absolutely no concept of pacing or relevance with examples and seeing them squirm  )

So, a buddy of mine convinced us all to play Middle Earth RP, the Rolemaster variation. I played an Elf wizard, another guy played a dwarf fighter-type and finally we had the equivalent of a human rogue. Things went normally for a while: we walked around a bit, had some RP and then finally settled in an Inn for the night.

While sleeping, we were attacked by a couple of Orc bandits and what I can only describe as the mother of all frustrating battles ensued. The other two grabbed their melee weapons and set to, we had one Orc each. I grabbed my crossbow, figuring that I was dead if I got into melee with the Orc but none of us could hit and do significant damage for ages.

My Orc closed with me and I started taking penalties with the bow, so I flung the crossbow aside and took the heavily armed and armoured Orc bandit on with my bare hands. My puny, low strength, elf wizard snapped the Orc's neck with one blow. I then went about beating the other two Orcs unconscious... only I was SO good that I killed them both by accident.

The other two PCs balked at that, I thought the whole thing was rather silly and we never played Rolemaster ever again.


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## awayfarer (May 1, 2008)

Ipissimus said:
			
		

> So, a buddy of mine convinced us all to play Middle Earth RP, the Rolemaster variation.




You probably could have left it at this.


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## Dlsharrock (May 1, 2008)

TracerBullet42 said:
			
		

> I prefer the term Tolkein-nazi.




This isn't restricted to DMs. I've DMd in Middle-Earth before (and right now on Enworld actually) and have come across my fair share of 'purists' who corrected me on every little detail:

DM: it's a full moon, so you can see the approaching band of orcs quite well, though they can't see you as they're too preoccupied with squabbling.
Player1: reign my horse toward the overhang so they can't see me. 
Player2: yeah, I'll do the same
Purist-Git: um, actually, you did say that this evening was September 10th, and actually it wouldn't be a full moon. Look, if you check this chronological calendar marked with the moon cycles which I downloaded from www.pastytolkienfanswithnofriends.com you can clearly see the moon is in the first quarter. Anyway, you wouldn't get orcs in this region of Beleriand because Melkor never used the south gate of Angband, he always sent his legions through the north which was unchallenged by the Elves and... (so on)

On the other hand, I do my best to keep things as close to the known setting as I can, and not just in order to pre-empt the purists, so maybe that makes me a Tolkien-Nazi.. yikes! I certainly try not to waffle on about it though, and the DM you talk about sounds like he had a serious rod up his backside.


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## Teflon Billy (May 2, 2008)

I've posted this before, but it never really gets old...

One of my players (well-thought-of RPG industry freelancer, the late *Nigel Findley*) asked if he could bring a friend from work to our weekly game. My near-instant response: "Certainly!" (more players cut from Nigel's cloth would add to the group immeasurably).

Due to circumstances beyond his control, Nigel was unable to attend or get ahold of his work-friend to tell him. So the guy shows up anyway. No problem so far.

We invite him in, get him a coffee, and let him play the character of a guy who had just recently left the group (A Were-tiger). The system was GURPS. This is where we join the story....

*Dramatis Personae*

Fraser: Playing a Human mercenary
Ian: Playing a Human wizard
Mike: playing an elf bard.
Myself: Playing the frustrated GM
El Creepo: Playing the Were-Tiger.

*Teflon Billy*: Ok, so you guys are in the tavern where we ended last session, as you are sitting at the table...

*El Creepo*: Is there a serving wench around?

*Teflon billy*: Um, sure. "what would you like stranger?"

*El Creepo*: I'd like your company for the evening. I am a very wealthy man.

*Fraser*: Does that gnome who was here last week still want to sell us a potion?

*Teflon Billy*: You don't see him aroun...

*El Creepo*: What is her answer?

*Teflon Billy*: Huh? Oh, she laughs and mentions that her husband, the hostler, would likely have a thing or two to say about that.

*El Creepo*: Hrrmmm

*Mike*: Ok, so what are we going to do about the head in the box we found? It claims it's the rightful ruler of Cros Mogmun right? Do we believe it?

*Ian*: Well, I don't. But I think we should try and...

*El Creepo*: Where did the serving wench go after we spoke?

*Teflon Billy*: Upstairs, said she was calling it a night and thanked you for your patronage.

*Mike*: I give her an extra gold piece and tell her "the pleasure was all mine" and give her a sly bardic wink.

*Fraser*: Anyway, we should definitely get that gnome to...

*El Creepo*: I'm heading upstairs.

*Teflon Billy*: For what?

*El Creepo*: How long does it take me to get up there?

*Teflon Billy*: Not long, less than a minute, it's only a three story building.

*El Creepo*: Can I use my tracking to find out where the wench went?

*Teflon Billy*: (pause) okaaaaaay......(rolls some dice) she's in the third room on the third floor.

*El Creepo*: I'm going there.

*Ian* (puzzled) What's up?

*El Creepo*: I'll knock on her door.

*Teflon Billy*: She answers and asks "what do you want?"

*El Creepo*: I push my way into her room and explain to her again that I want her for the night.

*Teflon Billy*: (getting pretty fed with this guy already and we aren't 2 minutes into the game) Yeah, well...she explains _again_ that she is a married woman, and while she is very flattered, she is simply _not interested_. Get me? 

*El Creepo*: Well, what she's _interested_ in means very little to me. (gestures to his character sheet) Am I this strong without switching to my tiger-form? How do I make a roll to grab her?

*Teflon Billy*: _What_?

*El Creepo*I'm going to try and pin her down. Can I do that with one hand so that I have the other one free?

*Disbelief all around the table*

*Fraser*: I'm rolling danger sense...

*Ian*: I'm preparing a fireball starting now...

*Mike*: I load a silver bolt into my hand crossbow...

*Teflon Billy*: (rolls dice) Danger upstairs! Third Floor! Third Room!

*My Guys*: a ton of babble translating as "we charge upstairs"

*El Creepo*: Can they react like that? They don't know what's happening up here.

*Teflon Billy*: You grapple the serving girl easily enough...she draws a knife from her bodice and makes a called shot stab to the vitals (rolls dice) well, she hit.

*El Creepo*: Only silver can hurt me...

*Teflon Billy*: No, silver damage doesn't regenerate, but you still take the wounds. In this case, 3 for her roll, tripled for impaling to the vitals is 9.

*El Creepo*: Well, I'm still up. I guess I'll have to kill her...she should've just cooperated.

*Teflon Billy*: *shakes head and grumbles* Make your roll.

*She is badly injured, but still up*

*Teflon Billy*: Gentlemen, you arrive...

*El Creepo*: That seemed awfully quick

*Fraser*: Tough !

*Ian*: I unleash my fireball at him (El Creepo's character is burned for a lot of damage…added to the knife wound he is pretty banged up).

*Mike*: I'll send a silver bolt into his torso (The damage is not huge, but is non-healable)

*El Creepo*: What are you guys doing!!!????

*Silence + glares*

*Teflon Billy*: You're up

*El Creepo*: I jump out the window!

*Teflon Billy*: Ok, make a jump roll (he fails) damage to both his legs breaks one, sprains the other and puts him unconscious.

*Silence*

*Teflon Billy*: Well..._that_ was fcuked up!

* A confused babble erupts where El Creepo claims that he was told we were mature and could handle mature themes*

Unbelievable to me to this day!


We had never met this guy before
His first action upon meeting us was to try and roleplay out a rape scene
He started this basically as I said "you all meet in a tavern"
he was going to do this in the presence of someone he worked with!

It's one of the few times in my gaming life when I actually "hit the reset button", announcing that none of that had happened and calling the game for that week.


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## cr0m (May 2, 2008)

At the risk of offending the very nice guy who ran a one-shot of Ars Magica at a local hobby shop, here's one of my worst. He was a really nice guy who I could tell genuinely liked the system, but didn't have a lot of experience running one-shots.



			
				An Open Letter to an Ars Magica GM said:
			
		

> If the flyer for your Ars Magica one-shot advertises "best magic system in any roleplaying game", make more than two of the seven pregens mages.
> 
> If not, make sure that of the other five mundane characters, one does not start the game cursed.
> 
> ...


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## billd91 (May 2, 2008)

Teflon Billy said:
			
		

> I've posted this before, but it never really gets old...




It may be old, but it still brings a smile to my face whenever I read it.


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## Silver Moon (May 3, 2008)

Teflon Billy said:
			
		

> I've posted this before, but it never really gets old.....It's one of the few times in my gaming life when I actually "hit the reset button", announcing that none of that had happened and calling the game for that week.




That's amazing!  The most inappropriate thing that ever happened with our group was a novice DM having an NPC bard sing a song about V.D. (to the tune of the Willie Nelson song "To all the girls I've loved before").   His girlfriend was very embarassed.


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## Chimera (May 3, 2008)

Teflon Billy said:
			
		

> *El Creepo*: Well, what she's _interested_ in means very little to me.




This is the point where I would have turned to his co-worker (who unfortunately, didn't show up in your example) and say;

"What are the people in your office going to say about dillweed here when they find out that in the first couple of minutes of gaming with people he'd never met before, he tried to have his character rape the married barmaid?"

Him not having shown up, I would have cut dillweed off at this point and sent him out the door.

_"Oh, wrong answer.  But thanks for playing.  Unfortunately we don't have any lovely parting gifts at this time, so please make your way quickly out the door before the end of the commercial break..."_


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## hong (May 3, 2008)

Ipissimus said:
			
		

> Unfortunately, that reminds me of another game that broke since it was set in LotR as well. Not as good as yours, Tracer, but relevant.
> 
> (BTW, Tracer, I do sympathize there. But then, I like pointing out to Tolkein nazis that JRR had absolutely no concept of pacing or relevance with examples and seeing them squirm  )
> 
> ...



 The only reason to play Rolemaster (or MERP) is for the chance to roll on those sweet, sweet critical tables. Stumbling over an imaginary, unseen turtle FTW!


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## Dlsharrock (May 3, 2008)

Is this thread turning into 'creepiest person I ever roleplayed with?' 
Cool:

El creepiest guy was at college and we will refer to him as Lord of War. He refereed a Paranoia game and about five of us played. Two were RPG novices, so god only knows what they made of gaming after that.

To set the scene: we'd planned to play in our usual spot around the living room or dining room table, in comfort, with crisps and Coke, usual game sort of setup. But this game was at LoW's house and his mum was unexpectedly home from work. She was one of those austere, fussy kinds of mums whose house always sort of sparkles and smells of vacuum cleaners. She banished us and we wound up in LoW's spider infested shed, squatting on upturned milk crates and trying not to breath in too much dust. LoW was a big person and sat on the highest box in the shed, so he sort of loomed over us in a fleshy kind of way. To say it was cramped would be an understatement.

IC, We were a bunch of back-stabbing  mercenaries sent offworld to rid a colony of some troublesome aliens. We were given a cool jeep covered in scary weapons and I remember, to give him credit, LoW went to a lot of trouble to repaint an Action Man jeep and cover it in Airfix bits and bobs so it looked the business with our miniatures in it - in true Paranoia style we didn't use official minis, we used Star Wars figures, one guy had an Obelix action figure kitted out in GI Joe clothes, another had one of those brown plastic soldiers that come in a set of about 200, and one cross dressing Action Man in a Barbie outfit (under deep suspicion for subversive behaviour) towering over everyone else. In Character he was the same height as the rest of our PCs of course, but it added to the fun and naturally he was designated driver .

So I had high hopes for a generally enjoyable experience. Then it all went a bit strange.

The game was basically a rip-off tongue in cheek version of the Aliens movie, with the Aliens holding the colonists in an underground lair and our motley crew coming to rescue them. All good fun. But when the combat started, Lord of War surprised us all...

You know when nine yr olds play at war and pretend to shoot one another and they sort of stick their tongue  between their teeth and make that '_rrrrrrrrrr_' sound to simulate a machine gun? Well, he was doing that. For every combat action we and the NPCs/enemies took. It might have added to the general silliness, but he was _really _getting into it, with these intense eyes and his cheeks all puffed out, spittle flying everywhere (remember, cramped shed). And when a grenade went off, he'd do the explosion noise... Brkssssshhhh! and use his hands to mimick things blowing up! 

He even did the ricochets, 'pteeow peeown!'. 

All the humour drained from the game along with the colour from our faces and when LoW called up asking me if I was going to attend the next meet I made an excuse. Everyone else did too. He really had no idea why his game suddenly came to a shuddering halt.


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## rgard (May 3, 2008)

SSquirrel said:
			
		

> When I was in college a guy who was friends w/some of the folks I played Star Wars d6 and Call of Cthulhu with was looking for one more person to round out his D&D game.  I said sure.  Turns out Dino was a film major who fancied himself quite the storyteller.  He had designed the role of my character to be the son of a king blah blah blah.  So second session we ever play (possibly even first it's been 13 or 14 years now) I get to the game and warn everyone that I'm super tired, up late studying and had an early test.  We're playing for about an hour or so and the game is dull as can be and I'm operating on 3 hrs of sleep and his couch was awful cozy...wake up a lil bit later to find we were attacked by a cave bear while investigating a cave and heh ad just eaten my throat.  Of course, i was the cleric in the group.  They manage to stabilize me and get me back to town where they are able to heal me..mostly.  My voicebox is shot and the healer gives me a bottle of about 20 pills.  If I take a pill I'll be able to speak for 2 minutes.  These are the only pills he's EVER going to be able to make me.  I tell the DM this is a)unfair, and b)highly stupid if he wants me to ever cast any spells.  He then says something about how I shouldn't have fallen asleep.  Needless to say, I never gamed w/that guy again.




The DM sounds like a loser.  It's silly to do that to the player.


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## jdrakeh (May 3, 2008)

Since it seems that many people here are operating under the impression MERP is identical to Rolemaster with regard to system, it seems worth mentioning that it isn't. Not at all. Though derived from Rolemaster, the original MERP game is less than 130 pages long _in its entirety_ and excludes some of the more infamous aspects of Rolemaster (including invisible turtles). Of course, this is the interweb -- don't let facts get in the way of exagerration for effect!


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (May 3, 2008)

jdrakeh said:
			
		

> Since it seems that many people here are operating under the impression MERP is identical to Rolemaster with regard to system, it seems worth mentioning that it isn't. Not at all. Though derived from Rolemaster, the original MERP game is less than 130 pages long _in its entirety_ and excludes some of the more infamous aspects of Rolemaster (including invisible turtles). Of course, this is the interweb -- don't let facts get in the way of exagerration for effect!




Maybe people *are* just mixing them up. I've been in that boat. (I once debated how bad Palladium was with someone, but we couldn't get our facts to agree. It turned out we were discussing different editions, and I'd gone through the much worse one.)

Also, what is an invisible turtle?

Speaking of Palladium...

I've already posted in this thread, so this isn't the *worst* campaign I was in, but it was pretty bad. I'll try to avoid mentioning rules, as I'm not sure I can blame the DM for that.

The DM could be easily bribed. This was not a good sign. One character (a dwarven longbowman - yes, you read that right) bribed him to use a backgammon die as his damage. (Due to a special magic weapon.) He did have to suffer from a random curse that he wouldn't find out immediately.

My character was a thri-kren. Yeah, that wasn't bright move. However, it actually wasn't overpowered except for the psionics, and a human (or other sane race) psychic would have been equally overpowered.

Because my character was a thri-kreen, he got a horror factor. It was a low one, so not game breaking. Needless to say, this made it difficult to maneuver in cities, which is as it should be. Unfortunately, the DM went overboard. I found myself followed by guards (no big surprise there), who were gently trying to escort me outside of town (again, no surprise). I was still in town for the adventuring stuff, though. Then I ran into a homeless guy, who was so surprised (he basically stumbled out of a dark alley and bumped into me) that he made a horror save, and critically missed the save. Instead of running in terror, he had a heart attack on the spot and died.

The guards, thinking I could kill people just by looking at them, became more insistent about shoving me out of town. (Ironically, with my broken psionic powers, I could kill people just by looking at them, but I certainly wouldn't abuse it by killing random innocent people!)

Out of town, I tried to go hunting. It never worked out. The first time, I tried jumping at a deer. Lo and behold, the critical misses struck again. I rolled high on attack, the deer critically missed its save. Splat! Way to much splat! The meat was spread so far and wide I couldn't even find a scrap of it. (The next hunting expedition failed through usual, non PC-screwing means.)

Later, we ran into a forest deity, or something like that. She "blessed" me by making animals walk in front of me and drop dead, for several weeks. Needless to say, a member of a species obssessed with hunting didn't find this appealing.

Finally, the encounters were too easy. The harpies, for instance, never used ranged weapons. (We were fighting them on a ship. They could have toasted us easily.) Eventually the DM was pulling out angels to threaten the party effectively.


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## Teflon Billy (May 4, 2008)

Chimera said:
			
		

> This is the point where I would have turned to his co-worker (who unfortunately, didn't show up in your example) and say;
> 
> "What are the people in your office going to say about dillweed here when they find out that in the first couple of minutes of gaming with people he'd never met before, he tried to have his character rape the married barmaid?"
> 
> ...




Hey, what can I tell you? We were younger then and unused to odd crap the world would throw at us.

Our reflexes regarding such behaviour are more finely tuned these 12 years later


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## Chimera (May 4, 2008)

Teflon Billy said:
			
		

> Hey, what can I tell you? We were younger then and unused to odd crap the world would throw at us.




True enough.  I did some pretty crappy things when I was young, and have put up with some really unpleasant things in groups because I didn't want to start a fight.

So take my response as a "If I was thinking and had my spine wound up properly...".


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## Treebore (May 4, 2008)

I wish I could share my worst gaming experiences with you, no I don't. I'm glad I have successfully edited them out of my memories.

Now the ones I have allowed myself to remember don't measure up to what you have shared here, so I won't bother with those either.


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## Darrin Drader (May 4, 2008)

Teflon Billy said:
			
		

> Hey, what can I tell you? We were younger then and unused to odd crap the world would throw at us.
> 
> Our reflexes regarding such behaviour are more finely tuned these 12 years later




Well, that certainly beats out my crazy woman who was obsessed with sanitary napkins in a post apocalyptic setting.

I am reminded of another bad game I got sucked into. A guy I know through various assorted family and his friends (highschoolers at the time) were having gaming night, and me being the special gaming celebrity, I got invited to play. The guy I knew was running the game, and I don't think he quite understood that people had some amount of freedom of choice in the game with the non-combat stuff rather than it being essentially a choose your own adventure.

It got bad when the group found a barn for the night.

Dude I know - You guys are about ready for bed.

Player 1 - I there a loft?

Dude I know - Yes.

Player 1 - I want to go sleep there.

Dude I know - you head up to the loft where there is a lovely white sheep....

Without Player 1 getting a chance to change his mind, back off, or anything, he was obtaining unlawful carnal knowledge of this sheep, and the description was a little too graphic for me to believe that the dude had no firsthand experience with it. I should also point out that he did in fact raise sheep.


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## scourger (May 4, 2008)

My worst gaming experience was showing up one weeknight at a friend's house with all my dice, books, minis & maps to run a game and only he was there.  The other five "friends" who were also scheduled to play skipped, including the one who lived at the same house (plus I worked with the guy and he didn't even bother to tell me all day that he wouldn't be there).  I offered to run the game just for the host, but he wisely chose to spend the evening with his girlfriend.  I went home, watched TV & didn't DM for that group again for a year; and only then because my weekend group broke up.  In retrospect, I guess they were trying to tell me that they weren't enjoying that game.  Ironically, I really liked it and even had my best short story ever come out of it.  

The worst thing I ever saw was a friend's book getting urinated upon by the toddler son of a DM I found for us.  In hindsight, I think the kid just wanted his dad's attention.  That whole place was a mess.  My buddy never went back but I gave a couple more tries before quitting.


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## Dlsharrock (May 4, 2008)

Treebore said:
			
		

> Now the ones I have allowed myself to remember don't measure up to what you have shared here, so I won't bother with those either.




And we haven't even had the Brazilian death squad guy post yet. Although essentially that wasn't a game ending experience as far as I know. In fact, if memory serves, the psychotic goons, corrupt cop and seedy prostitutes thoroughly enjoyed themselves and the DM went on to enjoy many more games (not with them, admittedly, possibly due to the fact that all the players had an average mortality rate of one game session- OUT OF CHARACTER!) Wow. I'll never forget that story as long as I live.


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## Silver Moon (May 4, 2008)

Whisperfoot said:
			
		

> ....you head up to the loft where there is a lovely white sheep..... I should also point out that he did in fact raise sheep.



It's people like that who give those of us who do raise sheep a bad name.   I will point out that the hay goes up into the loft, not the sheep.  Sheep can't climb ladders and if they were up there they would continue to eat all of the hay until they got sick (and you'd run out of hay pretty fast).


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## Treebore (May 4, 2008)

Sheep can't climb ladders? M goats can. At least the 3 month old ones can. The adults stayed off of my roof. When I took the ladder down, so did the 3 month olds.


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## jdrakeh (May 4, 2008)

(Psi)SeveredHead said:
			
		

> Also, what is an invisible turtle?




It's a reference to a 'joke' entry on the Rolemaster/MERP critical fumbles table (it does, in fact, appear to be present in MERP despite my earlier assertion)*. The result in MERP reads "Stumble over an unseen, imaginary, deceased turtle. You are very confused. Stunned 3 rounds." It's basically an inside designer joke attached to an otherwise ordinary fumble result of 'confusion'. Representing it as anything other than a deliberate joke (which detractors of the system often do) is more than a bit disingenuous 

*It's tucked away in a less obvious manner on the MERP table, thus my overlooking it initially (I've never once rolled the result in more than five years of playing MERP, though I have fallen victim to it in Rolemaster more than a few times).


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## Darrin Drader (May 4, 2008)

Silver Moon said:
			
		

> It's people like that who give those of us who do raise sheep a bad name.   I will point out that the hay goes up into the loft, not the sheep.  Sheep can't climb ladders and if they were up there they would continue to eat all of the hay until they got sick (and you'd run out of hay pretty fast).




Yeah, the thought had occurred to me, but at that time I was more concerned with getting out of the game before my character ended up doing something repulsive without my input on the matter to take up the argument.


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## cignus_pfaccari (May 5, 2008)

Treebore said:
			
		

> Sheep can't climb ladders? M goats can. At least the 3 month old ones can. The adults stayed off of my roof. When I took the ladder down, so did the 3 month olds.




Nope!

Our cats lived in the loft.  I'm sure the sheep would've enjoyed going up there, and there was a ladder, but they weren't able to.

Brad


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## Silver Moon (May 5, 2008)

Treebore said:
			
		

> Sheep can't climb ladders? M goats can. At least the 3 month old ones can.



Yes, I have seen goats climb ladders.   Several of our sheep are of the Finn breed, which is closely related to goats and while they are very smart and good climbers a ladder is beyond their abilities.  

Now to get back on topic, I'll add that I was once forced to suffer through what should have been an excellent RPGA game but turned out to be a disaster thanks to the DM.   The module was written by PirateCat and KidCthulhu and featured eight clerics of different alignments working together as a team.   They were some of the best characters I have ever seen, but every time any of the players started to role play the DM would object, feeling that doing so would "waste time and prevent us from finishing the module".   So he railroaded us through every encounter, ignoring any role playing we did attempt, and the module ended an hour before the scheduled time!


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## Chimera (May 5, 2008)

Silver Moon said:
			
		

> every time any of the players started to role play the DM would object, feeling that doing so would "waste time and prevent us from finishing the module".




The nerve of you players!  Attempting to waste the GM's time by _Roleplaying_ in a Role Playing Game at a Role Playing Gamer's Association event?  I mean, just what the fudge did you think you were doing???     

I hope you complained about the GM.


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## Ipissimus (May 5, 2008)

jdrakeh said:
			
		

> Since it seems that many people here are operating under the impression MERP is identical to Rolemaster with regard to system




That's funny. My GM for that game had several books, most of which were full of critical hit tables. They were more than 130 pages long. I can't really comment though, having not played Rolemaster and never having any interest in it (particularly not after that game).


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## Silver Moon (May 5, 2008)

Chimera said:
			
		

> I hope you complained about the GM.



Wouldn't have done any good, he was a good friend of the convention's organizers and from a purely mechanical/game rules standpoint he was a competent DM.   But the following year when my wife and I became the RPGA Coordinators for two different conventions we made a point to never use him as a gamemaster in our games.


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## pawsplay (May 5, 2008)

jdrakeh said:
			
		

> Since it seems that many people here are operating under the impression MERP is identical to Rolemaster with regard to system, it seems worth mentioning that it isn't. Not at all. Though derived from Rolemaster, the original MERP game is less than 130 pages long _in its entirety_ and excludes some of the more infamous aspects of Rolemaster (including invisible turtles). Of course, this is the interweb -- don't let facts get in the way of exagerration for effect!




Admittedly, it did leave out the option of being a double-jointed freak who could throw things well, but was paralyzed by pain during rainstorms. And the method for learning spell lists was slightly different. and in Rolemaster, class bonuses to skills were optional. And MERP did condense two or three unarmed attack/natural weapons tables down to one, much more confusing, table.


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## pawsplay (May 5, 2008)

Teflon Billy said:
			
		

> It's one of the few times in my gaming life when I actually "hit the reset button", announcing that none of that had happened and calling the game for that week.




You know... I can sort of sympathize with the guy. I mean, were-tigers are not super nice. And gritty, amoral antiheroes can be a diversion. Still, that's not something you just spring on a group of strangers. Nor did it seem to serve a useful purpose. That is a very strange story.


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## billd91 (May 5, 2008)

Ipissimus said:
			
		

> That's funny. My GM for that game had several books, most of which were full of critical hit tables. They were more than 130 pages long. I can't really comment though, having not played Rolemaster and never having any interest in it (particularly not after that game).




He was probably using, what, _Arms Law_, _Spell Law_, and _Claw Law_? They're not directly part of MERP, they were part of Rolemaster and thus they'd be quite compatible, if I remember correctly.


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## SSquirrel (May 6, 2008)

Dlsharrock said:
			
		

> And we haven't even had the Brazilian death squad guy post yet. Although essentially that wasn't a game ending experience as far as I know. In fact, if memory serves, the psychotic goons, corrupt cop and seedy prostitutes thoroughly enjoyed themselves and the DM went on to enjoy many more games (not with them, admittedly, possibly due to the fact that all the players had an average mortality rate of one game session- OUT OF CHARACTER!) Wow. I'll never forget that story as long as I live.




Brazilian Death Squad DM 

Yeah that's just plain weird.  It's a repost from the original thread.  Amazing the things that typing: Brazilian death squad rpg will bring up in google 

More tales of the bizarre from rpg.net, the Ruptrued Halfling 

"Oh, and I even managed to find the Ruptured Halfling story.

Rose was a halfling character this guy made up for my husband's GURPS game. I suppose we should've spotted the trouble back when he described her response to the male halfling character as 'flirtatious'-- his definition of 'flirtation' apparently being 'dry-hump her pony's saddlehorn and moan.'

Anyway, in a later session we had some kind of fight with orcs who ambushed us from the cross-sides of an intersection of corridors. The guy, who had (and doubtlessly still has) a hard time visualizing how his "clever plans" ignore certain aspects of physics and/or the current situation, did an acrobatic dodge or tumble to get to the other side of the two Orcs in the front line -- oblivious to the fact that there were four more behind them. After the maneuver, the tactical disadvantage of his chosen position dawned on him. My husband notes that Rose is now disarmed and more or less surrounded. "So, what do you do?"

His response: "I say 'I WANT SOME!' and lunge for the nearest orc's crotch."

Everyone is silent for a long moment. My husband decides even the orcs are taken aback by this and the targeted one pries the deranged halfling off him. "Holding you at arms' length, the orcs have a short conversation in orcish, with repeated mutterings of 'Mongo' followed by a short burst of laughter."

Mongo-- a tame Ogre working for the orcs-- shambles forward. There was no need to describe what happened next except that everyone was amazed Rose survived and the tale of the Ruptured Halfling became legendary."


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## hong (May 6, 2008)

What shall we do with a ruptured halfling?
What shall we do with a ruptured halfling?
What shall we do with a ruptured halfling?
Deep down in the dungeon?


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## Ipissimus (May 6, 2008)

billd91 said:
			
		

> He was probably using, what, _Arms Law_, _Spell Law_, and _Claw Law_? They're not directly part of MERP, they were part of Rolemaster and thus they'd be quite compatible, if I remember correctly.




Honestly, I don't know. That guy had a ton of Rolemaster and MERP books though, so it's quite probable. All I remember were how my eyes bugged out incredulously when he showed me a book full of critical hit tables.


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## hong (May 6, 2008)

Ipissimus said:
			
		

> Honestly, I don't know. That guy had a ton of Rolemaster and MERP books though, so it's quite probable. All I remember were how my eyes bugged out incredulously when he showed me a book full of critical hit tables.



 Oh, COME ON! Don't tell me you didn't find them AWESOME!


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## Evilhalfling (May 6, 2008)

Another terrible gaming experiance from TMNT.  I was playing a mutant river otter, 2 other PCs were mutant animals and the DM's friend was a Cyborg from heroes unlimited (theoretically compatible). Although it was before MDC, he had them, something like 3000 ? SDC to my 90ish he also had a grenade launcer that did 1d4x100 damage.  He would lord this over the mutant animals.  

Eventually I got fed up and used a psionic paralyis on him.  He failed the save, but apparently shooting him in the head with my .45 revolver just did regular damage.  I had a box of 50 bullets. It wasn't enough. His uber-gernade launcher was inside a robotic component and could not be disarmed without going through the SDC pool.  I don't think I tried any clever plans, but i don't think the GM would have let them succeed anyway... 
The GM was playing by the RAW, and logic be ****ed. 
His first action on when my psiparalyis ended to drop a ground zero grenade.  He marked off another 200 SDC, I marked off my character, the gernade also destroyed our objective, and the game ended there. 

I blamed the DM more than the other player, for allowing an arrogent and unbalanced PC into the game.  The group had a lot more fun in Paranoia where backstabbing, meaningless death and an unbalanced party were all expected tropes.


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## SSquirrel (May 11, 2008)

Zelligars Apprentice said:
			
		

> Creepiest Gamer thread, part 2 (just when you thought it was safe to go back to the gaming table):
> http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=369229




BTW, the first post (and the bit of clarification provided in post 30) may be the single most disturbing thing I have ever seen on the internet.


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## Wik (May 11, 2008)

(Quick note:  All of the names here are fictitious.)

You know, I couldn't think of my worst RP experience when this thread first came up.  I had bad RP experiences, to be sure - the time I was stuck with a bunch of hardcore gamer nerds who were REALLY involved in the game, the GM who felt it was his goal to "win" and laughed at our group when our three 4th level characters couldn't defeat three 3rd level ogres, and the slightly psychotic GM who had many awful house rules and would "punish" us if we tried to play a thief or bard.  But none of them really seemed all that bad;  unpleasant, yes, but nothing to compare with Brazilian Death Squads or most of the things here. 

But then I remembered an incident from years ago, when I was around sixteen or seventeen, and fond of using a hodge-podge of second edition D&D kits and the Skills and Powers book.  Anyways, here's the tale:

I used to live in a small town called Sooke.  Like many small towns in the "wilderness" of B.C., Sooke is filled with drinking and drugs.  Growing up in Sooke requires a certain familiarity with both;  there really isn't much else to do.  We had an arcade with a billiards table for all of six months, and I know of at least three guys (myself included) who have passed out, totally drunk, on that table before the arcade was closed.

I hung out with the stoners, despite the fact that I have never touched the stuff myself.  I've never done acid, or mushrooms (though I have PICKED mushrooms - in Sooke, you jump at any chance to do something new, and picking mushrooms with friends is fun.  And, also, it's technically not illegal, which is always a good thing for teens).  But I did game.

My group of friends were all pretty closeknit, and we got into gaming together.  At one point, I was running a fairly heavily modified Forgotten Realms 2e campaign, set in the Dalelands.  I had taken the name "Feather Falls", and turned it into a locale that was much cooler in my mind than the paragraph or two in the book.  We would game at my friend Y's house every week, the five or so of us.

Y got into D&D because her deceased father used to be heavily into it in the early 80s, and she wanted to "connect" with him somehow, since she had been really young when he passed away.  She was also a huge fantasy reader, and had written many "fantasy novels" of the typical feminist slant.  I should also mention that her name actually was taken from J.R.R. Tolkiens _Silmarillion_.  She was pretty hardcore.

Now, Y's mom was a hippy, as could be expected (it is Sooke, after all).  And all of my friends were stoners, except myself.  While we had many games where everyone would "toke up" before play, it really just helped to settle people down and get them into the mood.  So I never discouraged it.

But then my genius buddy James decided that it'd be fun to game on acid, or mushrooms.  I can't remember which drug they were on, some years later, but I do know we had done a lot of mushroom picking that summer, so it was probably Shrooms.

Anyways, everyone in the group beyond myself took those shrooms, and we started playing.  

At first, the adventure was running fairly smoothly.  While Y would occasionally get a little too fascinated on local flora and fauna ("The bunny _looked_ at me?  Whoa..."), really, I thought the game was going well.  I knew they were distracted, and so I made sure my adventure would be easy to follow, and things were going okay.

Then came the ogre.

I don't remember how they got there, but I do remember describing the ogre in a bit of detail.  It had a foul reek to it, and stood well over even the tallest character's head.  It had a necklace of human-sized skulls, and held a tree as a club in one hand.  The lair was littered with bones and debris, and the very earth was stained with blood.

"Time to die, fleshbags!" It roared out.  I felt I was doing great as a GM, and I was really getting into things.  Then I looked up.

Jim had a deathgrip on one of Y's pillows, and was completely white-faced.  Roy just had his jaw open.  Winona was laughing hysterically, with a tinge of panic in her voice.  Noam, the only who was still in "reality", was looking at everyone else with a touch of fear.

And then Y started shrieking.  Loud, ear-piercing shrieks of pure terror.  She started grabbing her dice, and throwing them at me with such force that I was using my GM screen to deflect them, ricocheting the projectiles with a bullet's velocity into glass, ceramics, and the wall.  Two picture frames were shattered by errant d20s.

"Get away from me!  You won't eat me!  You won't eat me!" She screamed over and over again, weeping.    She then grabbed a large ceramic unicorn (I think it was a unicorn, at least) and started swinging it in wide, violent arcs at me.

The group scattered in every direction.  Jim ran into a corner, and Roy dashed out into the attached basement and out the door to the farm fields outside.  Noam and Winona started shouting "Y, calm down!  It's okay!"

"Get her away from me, man!" I kept saying, trying to stay out of the reach of that ceramic unicorn - she got damned close to hitting me a few times.  

Eventually, between the three of us, we were able to calm her down to the point where she was merely hyperventilating.  But the rest of the night she was having a "bad trip" - Roy was too, though only Jim knew about it at the time (Roy had dashed into the bushes after the ogre encounter, and Jim followed him to look out for his friend).  When Y's mother the hippy got home, she was able to help her daughter through the trip, having gone through it herself.  

Funny thing was, she wasn't angry with anyone about it.  She understood what D&D was about, and told us later it was a pretty stupid idea to mix hallucinogenics with it (I agree).  But she laughed it off, and told us not to mix those two things again.  

Since then, I have a rule at my games - no drinking, no drugs, and if you're going to toke, you have to do it before the game.


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## Ukyo the undead (May 30, 2008)

The Unicorn Swinging made me spill in the monitor, thank you.


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## Kesh (May 30, 2008)

That is the greatest story ever.


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