What is the most scary thing your PC's have enver done?

[oxinabox]

My PC's scare me alot.
I mean it's one thing to trick a barbarian NPC, (who was on the same carridge as them) to shake a orb given by a devil (who told them not to shake it), when they didn't know it would explode and take them all with him.

But it's another thin g when they knowingly take huge risks.
For example they had a lever with would change a letter that was displayed, on a cogged wheel.
If they got it wrong they would be plunged in to the negitive energy plane.
With a good theivery check they worked out that the correct letter was either 'X' or 'Z'.
So what do they do?
PC1:"I'll roll a d6 1,2,3 then 'X', 4,5,6 'Z' "
PC2: "yeah, Ok"

Luckly they rolled four, Massive mental sigh of relief, out would DM Grin.
That would have been perfect time for a game end but it was easly in the peice.

What have crazy risks have PC taken that scared you?

[riddles]

had a dwarf PC, whose family had been disgraced by his grandfather go before the dwarf council after redeeming himself (almost) by killing an ancient dragon.

he challenged the king to armed combat in front of the ENTIRE council for the crown.

stupid boy

[BobVosh]

DM-"You see a large 13 headed hydra on your journey, just kinda splish-splashing around. There is..."(level 7 party)

PC-"I shoot it."

DM-"What? Ok...fine. The hydra seems shocked for about a second. Then it charges like this (does a funny motion hard to show via internet) and eats you." (Party DDoors away/other RLH)

Honestly it seems to be the random flavortext that will scare the PCs/encourage them onto pure stupidity more than anything else.

[Rhiannon87]

DM-"You see a large 13 headed hydra on your journey, just kinda splish-splashing around. There is..."(level 7 party)

PC-"I shoot it."

DM-"What? Ok...fine. The hydra seems shocked for about a second. Then it charges like this (does a funny motion hard to show via internet) and eats you." (Party DDoors away/other RLH)

Honestly it seems to be the random flavortext that will scare the PCs/encourage them onto pure stupidity more than anything else.

Heh. Reminds me of a classic story in my gaming group...

There was a guy who no longer plays D&D with us. He was in a party that was riding across the plains towards some town. The DM, for flavor, mentions a dragon wheeling dramatically across the sky.

Biiiiig mistake. This guy is an archer, and says he wants to shoot the dragon. He rolls a critical hit. The dragon swoops down and starts attacking while the rest of the party books it. The guy keeps shooting at the dragon right up until he and his horse are eaten. He never managed to hit it again after that first shot.

[Scarlet Tropix]

For me it was definitely the time when my party, stranded without their airship (usual means of conveyance/home), decided to stay the night at the home of a mayor who had hired them to negotiate peace talks to a city wide rebellion.

"Why Corona", you say, "That doesn't sound scary at all".

Oh but wait. I didn't get to the part where my distrustful, paranoid PCs had infiltrated, burglarized, and vandalized the Mayor's private mansion looking for incriminating evidence, in the middle of the night, less than 10 minutes ago, shoving said mayor himself out of a second story window and attracting the town guard before running off into the night screaming "For the Resistance!"

So in other words, they did all that, killed a few guards, and ran off screaming into the night, only to about face as soon as they got over the nearest hill, walk in the front door, and ask the limping mayor to be put up for the night.

No one had seen their faces during that whole encounter, but darned if I wasn't facepalming during that entire conversation.

[Umael]

I don't think there is anything my players could do in-game that would scare me.

Dismay me, exasperate me, shock me, stun me, but not scare me.

Unless my players did something in-game in a way that implied they would, in real life, do something that would be grounds for being scary. A half-orc barbarian PC is not scary, even when crashing the NPC's state dinner in a tutu, but a player raising his replica battle-axe and giving a war cry might concern me just a tad.

[Callos_DeTerran]

DM-"You see a large 13 headed hydra on your journey, just kinda splish-splashing around. There is..."(level 7 party)

PC-"I shoot it."

DM-"What? Ok...fine. The hydra seems shocked for about a second. Then it charges like this (does a funny motion hard to show via internet) and eats you." (Party DDoors away/other RLH)

Honestly it seems to be the random flavortext that will scare the PCs/encourage them onto pure stupidity more than anything else.

Had a similiar event. Only had two PCs (and two npcs to round things out) in the group and they were on a ship. So, as flavor text, I had a flight of wyverns fly by in a nice V-shape to give the voyage a bit of a majestic touch...only for the druid (a PC) to fly into the air and begin debating outloud if they should attack the 4-5 wyverns. At level 5 I believe.

The end decision was 'yes' and, oddly enough, they won.

[quick_comment]

I had the PCs meeting with some sort of high cleric guy. The cleric was corrupt, and I had only dropped the barest hints of that on the players yet.

Anyway, they are meeting with him, and one player, a psion, for some reason, manifests hypercognition. I think it was to determine how difficult the quest he was giving them would really be. He chooses to phrase his question (written on an index card to me) not as

"How hard will this job be"

but

"Whats with the cleric wanting us to go on this job"

He then discovers the cleric is corrupt, and attacks him. In his temple. Surrounded by more clerics, paladins and crusaders, about 3 levels earlier than I had planned, and not only did the party not have a chance to buff, but he didnt even have any evidence to convince the party or the other clerics.

It was very nearly a TPK, except the party rogue remembered that they were owed a wish by a pit fiend. They did not want to use it initially because its from a pit fiend, its obviously going to be a horrible wish. So they call in their marker, demand that he use his wish to teleport them to their HQ. I let the pit fiend not mess with their wish because it was explictly in line with the powers of a wish.

[subject42]

Honestly it seems to be the random flavortext that will scare the PCs/encourage them onto pure stupidity more than anything else.

The DM in one of my games is afraid to add flavor text after we sent half of a city and a warehouse full of bulls into a hallucinogenic frenzy.

[Delaney Gale]

We played Texas Hold'em with the Deck of Many Things.

[Delwugor]

For me it was definitely the time when my party, stranded without their airship (usual means of conveyance/home), decided to stay the night at the home of a mayor who had hired them to negotiate peace talks to a city wide rebellion.

"Why Corona", you say, "That doesn't sound scary at all".

Oh but wait. I didn't get to the part where my distrustful, paranoid PCs had infiltrated, burglarized, and vandalized the Mayor's private mansion looking for incriminating evidence, in the middle of the night, less than 10 minutes ago, shoving said mayor himself out of a second story window and attracting the town guard before running off into the night screaming "For the Resistance!"

So in other words, they did all that, killed a few guards, and ran off screaming into the night, only to about face as soon as they got over the nearest hill, walk in the front door, and ask the limping mayor to be put up for the night.

No one had seen their faces during that whole encounter, but darned if I wasn't facepalming during that entire conversation.

*hefts axe in dwarven salute to such audacity*

[Yukitsu]

Apparantly, anything that ends with me saying "All according to plan..."

[FMArthur]

A player almost had his PALADIN spontaneously try to rape someone. I still don't know what made him say such a thing. I don't run that sort of game and we'd been playing this campaign for long enough for him to know that. I've known him for a long time, but if he hadn't reconsidered and apologized... well, the fall of his paladin wouldn't have been the only response I'd have given him. It was completely out of character, both for the paladin and the player behind the paladin.

[valadil]

I'm assuming "enver" means ever, not never. I don't like pointing out typos, but this one can be interpretted in two opposite ways.

My gnome wizard mouthed off to Tiamat after a disjunction blew up 3 artifacts. I don't think I'll top that one any time soon.

[EmperorSarda]

White Wolf Exalted...

Orgy in the underworld with a few undead. The females of the group got pregnant and I think the male lunar as well...

[Umael]

My gnome wizard mouthed off to Tiamat after a disjunction blew up 3 artifacts. I don't think I'll top that one any time soon.

Somehow, in one of the first 3.0 games I was in, we managed to piss off Tiamat by breaking something sacred to her. I think we were 1st level at the time, too.

(We didn't actually encounter her, mind you. Just... had the mountain shake a little from the divine metaphysical roar crossing over.)

[Delwugor]

White Wolf Exalted...

Orgy in the underworld with a few undead. The females of the group got pregnant and I think the male lunar as well...

An old character of mine most likely has the claim to being the only person to ever sleep with a Succubi and live - not just one night but 2.
The party did a small favor for an evil being and as a thanks Goshin was sent one and given a temporary immunity to their peculiarities.
After the second night he was completely wore out and couldn't take anymore. The third night she showed up again and wouldn't take no so he had to literally fight her off and chase her away. The GM was awesome about that and I loved the "catch" to the thanks.

[Korivan]

Well...we had a campaign that used magical flying ships. This one character would literaly jump off one ship, fall at least 20-30 feet onto another ship below and then take on the whole crew, try to pilot into another ship, then jump at the last minute and do it again on another ship. He did this to three ships, landed on the ground. This wasn't a "holy crap run away" scary for us, but sure was scary for the ground commander when the guy landed right infront of him with his wounds still regenerating.

The "other" kind of scary was a different player tried to use charm or compulsion spells on his fellow PC's to steal/kill for him. Other times he would have his character rape NPC's often after we recieved the reward and the rest of us left. That DM allowed it, after about an hour or so(the DM said we couldn't act on this because we were never around or the charm spells erased our memorys of what happend), the 3 of us besides the guy and dm just left, never looked back.

[Elfin]

Had a similiar event. Only had two PCs (and two npcs to round things out) in the group and they were on a ship. So, as flavor text, I had a flight of wyverns fly by in a nice V-shape to give the voyage a bit of a majestic touch...only for the druid (a PC) to fly into the air and begin debating outloud if they should attack the 4-5 wyverns. At level 5 I believe.

The end decision was 'yes' and, oddly enough, they won.

Crazy Druidzillas.

[Hawriel]

We played Texas Hold'em with the Deck of Many Things.

Been doing that for years. My character shuffled in the deck of illusion.

[Tharivol123]

Not Texas hold-em, but we did play blackjack with the Deck of Many Things.

We rescued a Cleric that was being help prisoner by the BBEG and offer his support. We accepted his offer for help, but since our wizard didn't trust him (or anyone, really) we ended up giving him a shovel instead of a real weapon.

After a few "creative idea sessions" our DM always freaks out when we mention the possibility of buying, multiple bags of holding, an immovable rod, or specifically go looking for a Deck of Many Things.

[Cedrass]

One guy we don't play with any more had a Good Cleric of Helm.

One day they come back to town, ask a mage about an item they found, but the mage knew nothing. He decided to burn the house. And then the Village for wanting him to pay for his crime.

...

He had to roll a new character...

[The Mentalist]

I played a Chaotic Neutral Druid/Sorcerer Gestalt once (In this case Chaotic Neutral means bat**** bonkers; not the usual for me but the DM was getting a bit railroady) He let me develop a spell that would apply templates to animals.

Note to self: A plague of frogs is a bit more nasty when they're all Titanic.

The best part is he runs a persistent world and my creatures are still there.

[Scarlet Tropix]

More in the line of fear, there was another time where my PCs were investigating a statue that had a sphere of annihilation set in the center of a series of twisted metal. They found it after clearing out a bunch of nihilistic cultists who enjoyed not just death, but prevention of afterlives.

It was just supposed to be a ceremonial sacrifical pedestal with an ornament that any of our entirely magic based and knowledge loaded party could identify just for mood purposes, but on that particular day they all seemed to forget they had knowledge checks. I rolled for them behind the scenes out of mild irritation and wouldn't you know they all failed horribly (Two 1's and a 5).

So of course they started messing with it. Dropping objects into it, dropping corpses into it, etc. They still don't catch on. I'm afraid they're going to start trying to touch it, so I have one of them detect very powerful, dangerous magical energy on the end of a rope they had dipped in and out of it.

This only makes them more excited. I start trying to describe the various interactions with it in more unpleasant ways, trying to give them the hint to back away.

Then one of them says "I think I'm going to stick my hand in it."

It was only the fact that my eye twitched that stopped him from doing it. He caught the nervous reaction and suddenly being hit with a wave of realization he changed his mind really quickly.

Things got better after that, but it scared the heck out of me while it was going on.

[Dust]

It was a generic sci-fi game. The PCs had been smuggling illegal goods from spaceport to spaceport for months, but this time managed to get caught. Unknown to the players, they'd been carrying things far more dangerous than they were aware, so they had an entire ARMADA gunning for their collective asses. When they were stopped by a massive fleet (the smallest ships had crews of about ten thousand apiece, and there were 15-20 ships) and informed that they were being boarded, the players grabbed their guns and threw on some space suits and shouted back at the offending Commander "Oh, yeah? Not if we board you FIRST!"

They proceeded to cut the power to the communicator, open the doors of their ship and leap out, slowwwwwllllly floating towards the main fleetship (which was still several miles away) and firing their tiny laser pistols at it.

My players still tease me about the look on my face that I got when I realized that, oh god, they were SERIOUS.