More Funny D&D Stories

[lytokk]

I might not know 5e, but is a miss in that system a critical failure? I thought that was just on a 1? And even then it was a house-rule. Kinda makes me not want to play 5e if thats the case.

[angeliza]

@lytokk
No. But our DM rolled a twenty for the goblins. So anything not near that fails...so I keep getting a hard time of things. I actually think she may be doing something wrong...it IS her first time DMing. However, I'm new to D&D, so I don't know for sure.

[ComaVision]

@lytokk
No. But our DM rolled a twenty for the goblins. So anything not near that fails...so I keep getting a hard time of things. I actually think she may be doing something wrong...it IS her first time DMing. However, I'm new to D&D, so I don't know for sure.

I haven't played D&D 5 but I have read the rulebook, and frequently play 3.5. Missing doesn't mean your sword goes flying/you fall over/etc.

[DireSickFish]

@lytokk
No. But our DM rolled a twenty for the goblins. So anything not near that fails...so I keep getting a hard time of things. I actually think she may be doing something wrong...it IS her first time DMing. However, I'm new to D&D, so I don't know for sure.

Reading your post she is doing a lot of things wrong. She is making a lot of rookie GM mistakes and getting rules wrong. Even though a 1 is alwayse a miss on attack roles that doesn't mean you take damage and lose equipment. Even if you are houseruling that 1's cause "random crit failure bad things" to happen your sword getting stuck in the tree on a 13 is just bad DMing. There is no reason to take away your players ability to fight for mediocre roles.

She also should have went over your players abilities with them before the session. It sounds like they all went into mele and none of them knew about there spells -at all-. You should take some time to read the PHB and go over the classes with the new players so they have a better understanding of what they can do.

[angeliza]

Reading your post she is doing a lot of things wrong. She is making a lot of rookie GM mistakes and getting rules wrong. Even though a 1 is alwayse a miss on attack roles that doesn't mean you take damage and lose equipment. Even if you are houseruling that 1's cause "random crit failure bad things" to happen your sword getting stuck in the tree on a 13 is just bad DMing. There is no reason to take away your players ability to fight for mediocre roles.

She also should have went over your players abilities with them before the session. It sounds like they all went into mele and none of them knew about there spells -at all-. You should take some time to read the PHB and go over the classes with the new players so they have a better understanding of what they can do.

Ah, thanks. I'll try to go over it with her and the other players. Thankyou for your advice, guys!
Hopefully the next time we play, things will go better, and i will STILL have some interesting stories to tell.^^

[cougon]

Ah, thanks. I'll try to go over it with her and the other players. Thankyou for your advice, guys!
Hopefully the next time we play, things will go better, and i will STILL have some interesting stories to tell.^^

You're also going to want to look at the rules regarding death and such. There are no negative HPs in 5E and the system for death is much different than previous versions. Your mage would have been fine for at least a few rounds.

[mythmonster2]

AD&D game, playing a Halloween session with my group. I'm playing as a paladin. The gist of the session is that we were invited to a party when the host realized that he had, *gasp*, forgotten the candy. So we have to go trick-or-treating at the four houses on the street. Each house would only give us candy if we did certain things, basically minigames. The first three went fine (well, we lost someone in the first one, but that house was "safe" and he just respawned). The fourth house had a fight with undead as its thing, and we were able to handle that just fine. However, after killing the undead, a skeleton comes out a door and basically goes, "Oh goddammit, who let those guys out? It's gonna take forever to clean this mess up." Rest of the party was amused, but my paladin... "Wicked undead!" and a swing for 3 damage. The skeleton told the rest of the party to leave, and then dumped a 20d6 fireball on me. Turned out the four houses were the four horsemen of the apocalypse, and I'd just hit Death. Did I mention we're 3rd level? On the bright side, our party did need a cleric...

[Yukitsu]

Been a while since I've been in a game, but this is for the Shadowrun campaign I've been running for a few sessions now.

Me: OK, so there are camera and news feeds of you three shoveling viscera and bloody chunks from the back of the half exploded armoured truck into the street with your gigantic spirit stripping that stuff off the pavement and shoving it into your van. They can see a guy gushing blood in tatters being rolled out the back of what is left of that thing as both vehicles cruise down a municipal road. You all get one point of notoriety and public awareness.
Player 1: Yeah, can't really argue that.

Player 2: Wait wait wait. we could get through the entire thing if one of us took the novacoke, we don't all have to take it.
Me: I never thought I'd hear my players ever say "Wait guys, only one of us has to do cocaine to complete this mission!"
Player 1: We could be doing meth instead, that looks like it would work too.
-In the end, they settled for just using long haul.

Player 1: OK, so I'm up for 4 days, after that I'm out, but I guess we should really be done by then.
Player 2: Or you'll be scrambling around like maniacs in Heathrow when you just topple over.
Me: At that point, this basically turns into something like a Guy Ritchie movie.

Me: You guys are about one botched roll away from the news article "Virtual Disney World Massacre" going up on the matrix tomorrow.

Me: You know, despite all of the deaths that have occurred to date, and all your attempts to the contrary, it's rather amusing to me that you lot have still failed to actually kill anyone.
Player 3: Yeah, but isn't that considered a good thing?
Me: Only if you weren't trying so hard to kill people.

[kalgeron]

so in the first session of a pathfinder campaign our rogue wasn't there so we played without her it was the first sesion so it didn't really matter im playing a barbarian and my friend is playing an alchemist. i arrive in a town and five minutes later hes managed to blow the entire thing up. we then get arrested and put into a section of the army known as the suicide squads the town were in is invaded by a battalion of ships and a couple dirigibles. after about 30 rounds of combat ( were i expertly used what i had to make a bottleneck around the beach and 300 most of the zombies) i then grab the alchemist and put him and me in and me in a catapult (against his will) and land in the balloon. we to shorten the story we win and now have a dirigible so my friend says lets name it after that town i burned down so we look to our dm and he explains he named the town before either of us decided to go theire the towns name .... was Hindenburg. then next session our rogue comes in and looks at the name of our ship and says huh that's were my charechters wife lives

[Drake2009]

Yay, more people. So the story.
Me: Human cleric
Squishyface: Sorcerer goblin (its his nickname that he hates)
Andr: Cant remember name, Android fighter
HappyGoGunny: Gunslinger with a musket and a sonic stun gun.

This is a pathfinder game where spaceships crashed like thousands of years ago and stuff.
Were inside the spaceship. we open a door and find some plant thingies. One is really big, with a cool hammer.

Fight begins, after some fighting, i step back and cast comprehend language.

Junior: Please let me kill them!!
Chief: no, we need to grow the tribe.
Me: I try talking to him
Dm: doesnt understand
Chief: i know you are trying to communicate, but i cant tell what you are saying!
Goblin:I try goblin!
Dm: nope.
Me: argh...
Me: OH I KNOW, Drow sign language! (i took this as a joke, cause it was funny.)
Me: *begins to dance IRL and ingame* You know this?
Chief:.....Yes!
Us: WHA!
Party: sees me start dancing and chief guy nodding a lot.
Me: stars questioning him
Chief: answers, then eventually attacks again.
Fight continues, and i get knocked out, they surrender after the gunslinger attacks with the stun gun
Me: (after being healed up) *continues to dance irl* continues questioning
Chief: You dancing is getting annoying, does anyone speak undercommon? i understand that
Me: *whispers to goblin* you speak undercommon?
Goblin: Yeah, why?
Me: no reason.
Me: ....Nope sorry! *continues dancing*
Party irl: Facepalm....(the goblin tried to metagame it, but dm stopped him.)
Later....
DM: he takes you into a room, and shows you 4 dead bodies of your fellow worshippers of brigh, all laid out honorably, like a shrine.
Me:....They worship Brigh.....God of MACHINERY!
Party: LOL
After that, we lead them out of the ship, and show them another guy who had mold over him like the brigh follower, they take him with them as they leave.
Later that evening out of campaign
Dm: You realize those were chaotic evil creatures? they only wanted to get out of there, so they could keep converting people.
Me and gunslinger: Ehh, whatever, the town and people by the ship are safe, and now its not my problem!

[PendragonSpirit]

2nd Edition D&D game. My character is an elven mage/rogue. This character is TERRIBLE at making rolls for thief skills (seriously, BAD), and despite having a fairly high lockpick skill (around 65-70%), regularly rolls in the high 80s or 90s on percentile dice. He has broken more locks than he's opened, and once nearly drowned while performing a Houdini-style escape from a tank filling with water (he had to be saved by the party fighter, who bargained for his life.) At one point, the party is incapacitated by the villain, who chains them all to the wall - everyone EXCEPT for the rogue. He leaves a single lock pick and a sword (a magical, semi-sentient sword, owned by another party member, which hated rogues with a passion and damaged them if they so much as picked it up.) The party BEGS the rogue not to try picking the locks, but instead to ACTIVELY hurt himself by cutting the chains with the sword which hates him. Of course, I didn't listen, and proudly argued I could free them without nearly killing myself. Three successful lock pick attempts and one severe botch (00) later, the dwarf is dangling several feet off the ground by a single wrist, and the pick has been broken beyond use.

I took the damage and cut down the owner of the sword, who freed the rest of the party.

----------

Another time, same character. We had been graciously aided by a friendly church, which was located in an unsavory party of town. My rogue, in classic "his heart is in the right place" style, uses some pull he has with the Guild to "make sure nobody goes near that church." The Guild took this entirely literally, and prevented ANYONE from going to the church. When we came back some time later, the church could not figure out why people stopped coming and donating, and were considering shutting their doors. I then had to pay the Guild for services rendered, as they had TECHNICALLY done what I had asked.

----------

Same character, some time later. Due to some divine intervention and a near-death experience, my character had lost his rogue levels and made them up in wizard levels. Our group was staying the night at the home of a friendly farmer, and my character was tasked with keeping the kids entertained. We played hide-and-seek, and my character hid in an outhouse. When he heard the kids getting close, he cast "Alter Self" (or some similar spell, I don't recall exactly which) to assume the form of a large troll. Kids open door to outhouse, large troll comes rushing out, kids flee in terror. Later, I was told to behave and help put the kids to bed. So I told them a story, ending it with "...and then I died!" while casting Wraithform. Cue screaming children running out of the house and into the night.

[LordofPlataea]

Hello all! First time poster in this thread. I have read the other thread, as well as this one and I think it's about time for me to contribute.

I am the DM for a Pathfinder group who seem to delight in screwing up as massively as possible. Case in point:

Cast: who and what the players were is of no consequence as they all did the same thing (keep in mind, however, I did have 3 10 year veterans of DnD who really should have known better. )

We had just begun the Tomb of Horrors and, though many shenanigans ensued, this one takes the cake. I shall spoiler the rest in case you haven't run the Tomb of Horrors.

Spoiler

Show

Somewhere within the Tomb, affixed to a wall, there is the relief of a demon's head, jaws agape, with naught but darkness filling its mouth. The relief is or is not green, I can't recall, but my players sure believed it was and, thanks to a cryptic poem, they believed it was their ticket out.

So they inspect it, check it for traps, detect magic on it, even throw things into the mouth. After witnessing a few tossed coins being sucked into the mouth, the players decide, as a whole, that the mouth is obviously a portal and they should climb into it.

The first up is the rogue (one of two in the party so no real loss) who climbs up to the mouth, moves his head towards the mouth and is promptly pulled off his feet and sucked in. After calling his name and receiving no response, the other party members huddle up and have a lengthy conversation about what they should do next. I'm confident at this point that someone would see the nonsense of their plan and put a stop to it. At the end of their conversation, one of my Veterans says to me, "I'm crawling into the mouth."

I'm standing there, mouth literally agape, scrambling to find a way to stop him without breaking immersion and completely drawing a blank. So I just watch in mute horror as yet another character is sucked into the mouth.

At this point, everyone is set on crawling into this thing, so I spring into action. I give the relief a palpable aura of evil(party of good who should have thought twice), everyone near it is feeling uneasy (no save), and I'm forcing will saves on anyone who even attempts to touch the head. Sadly, all for naught.

Eight characters, one at a time, willingly crawled into this head and, short of Deus Ex Machina, there was nothing I could do.

After the last character had crawled in, there was a moment of silence. The party waited in eager anticipation of what lay next in the tomb, I sat in stunned horror at what had occurred. I stood up, closed my books, and said, "Congratulations everyone, you have all willingly crawled into a Sphere of Annihilation," then walked out.

At the time, not so funny. In retrospect, we laugh everytime we talk about it. It's become one of those things in our group where no matter how bad you may screw up an adventure, it's never quite as bad as the above story. Hope you've all enjoyed! Cheers.

[Milodiah]

Reminds me of a quote from an RPPR playthrough of Call of Cthulhu...

"You guys do realize we're walking right into Ross's trap, right?"
"What trap? I'm not doing anything, you guys are building the trap yourselves! You're over here like, 'Ooh, yeah, can we add some spikes to the trap? Maybe electrify it or something?'"

[ellindsey]

DM: spends ages writing up an adventure involving a forgotten fortress full of monsters and treasure, arranges for the players to find the diary of the last guy there with instructions on how to find it...

Players: meh.

Random encounter Dryad: and it's been ages since I last heard from the Forest Queen...

Players: WE NEED TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FOREST QUEEN!

DM: Dammit, that was an ad-lib! I don't even know what happened to her! I haven't written that part of the world yet!

[Dimers]

DM: spends ages writing up an adventure involving a forgotten fortress full of monsters and treasure, arranges for the players to find the diary of the last guy there with instructions on how to find it...

Players: meh.

Random encounter Dryad: and it's been ages since I last heard from the Forest Queen...

Players: WE NEED TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FOREST QUEEN!

DM: Dammit, that was an ad-lib! I don't even know what happened to her! I haven't written that part of the world yet!

Zen And The Art Of The Gentle Railroad: a while back a terrible person kidnapped the Forest Queen and took her to the forgotten fortress full of monsters and treasure. As a side benefit, that helps explain the local ecology -- monsters eat the plants that grow up around her and the wild birds and beasts that are drawn to her.

[Khedrac]

is promptly pulled off his feet and sucked in

And that's your problem. If air is rushing into it, it should have been obvious before they got close, and from both your description and the standard description that is not the case - so no way is he sucked in for going close.
Now if he touches it he is still not sucked it - how much of him is affected depends on how you rule it, but "sucked in" does not happen.
Chances are the party can still do what they did, but it gives them a lot more of a chance to investigate and work out something about what is happening.

[Illogictree]

And that's your problem. If air is rushing into it, it should have been obvious before they got close, and from both your description and the standard description that is not the case - so no way is he sucked in for going close.
Now if he touches it he is still not sucked it - how much of him is affected depends on how you rule it, but "sucked in" does not happen.
Chances are the party can still do what they did, but it gives them a lot more of a chance to investigate and work out something about what is happening.

Actually, that's part of the Sphere's mechanics - anything you stick partially into the sphere is immediately drawn in entirely. It doesn't use air suction, so there IS no "air rushing in" to give warning.

The character in question went and stuck his head straight into the sphere BEFORE this happened, in case you missed that.

[The Random NPC]

Actually, that's part of the Sphere's mechanics - anything you stick partially into the sphere is immediately drawn in entirely. It doesn't use air suction, so there IS no "air rushing in" to give warning.

The character in question went and stuck his head straight into the sphere BEFORE this happened, in case you missed that.

I'd think that air pressure would cause the rushing of air. After all, the air is effectively next to a 0 atm hole.

[bulbaquil]

I'd think that air pressure would cause the rushing of air. After all, the air is effectively next to a 0 atm hole.

By that logic the entire room should be airless, since the Sphere wasn't in an airtight container other than the room (which is probably itself not airtight, meaning the entire dungeon and possibly - depending on how long ago the Sphere was placed there and how airtight the dungeon is - the entire planet would also be airless).

[The Random NPC]

By that logic the entire room should be airless, since the Sphere wasn't in an airtight container other than the room (which is probably itself not airtight, meaning the entire dungeon and possibly - depending on how long ago the Sphere was placed there and how airtight the dungeon is - the entire planet would also be airless).

Eventually, yes. But that's what permanent portals to the Plane of Air are for.

[Inevitability]

A Sphere of Annihilation is a device of ultimate horror, an artifact with the ability for near unlimited destruction. It also is frequently used by evil wizards in their lairs.

I think whatever wizard creates SoA would think to cover them in a few spells to prevent 'nonliving, nonmagical air' from rushing in.

On the other hand, Acererak is undead... Wait. I got it. To add to its deathtrap-ness, it will be drained of air if I ever run it.

DM: You stand for the entrance of the ToH. Two large sealed doors with skulls carved into them prevent access.
Players: We open them!
DM: The moment you start moving the doors, air starts rushing in. You are all dragged along, past several traps (roll me 45 saving throws, please) and through various doors and secret passages which all have been opened, probably for this exact case. The air current drags you into a small black sphere it is flowing in. You are dead, please make new characters.
Players:

[Milodiah]

DM: You stand for the entrance of the ToH. Two large sealed doors with skulls carved into them prevent access.
Players: We open them!
DM: The moment you start moving the doors, air starts rushing in. You are all dragged along, past several traps (roll me 45 saving throws, please) and through various doors and secret passages which all have been opened, probably for this exact case. The air current drags you into a small black sphere it is flowing in. You are dead, please make new characters.
Players:

It's not so much railroading as an entire rollercoaster made out of murder.

[Mono Vertigo]

DM: You stand for the entrance of the ToH. Two large sealed doors with skulls carved into them prevent access.
Players: We open them!
DM: The moment you start moving the doors, air starts rushing in. You are all dragged along, past several traps (roll me 45 saving throws, please) and through various doors and secret passages which all have been opened, probably for this exact case. The air current drags you into a small black sphere it is flowing in. You are dead, please make new characters.
Players:

That's beautiful, and Gygax must be crying a single tear right now, wherever he is.
(Whether that's a tear of joy or consternation is debatable.)

[bulbaquil]

I think whatever wizard creates SoA would think to cover them in a few spells to prevent 'nonliving, nonmagical air' from rushing in.

Yeah, that's how I'd justify it. The Sphere of Annihilation's external "membrane" exerts a magical buoyant force that matches the surrounding air pressure and prevents air from rushing in. This buoyant force is insufficient, however, to stop things exerting more force against the membrane than the ambient air pressure, such as raindrops, thrown coins, and curious adventurers.

[Templarkommando]

This all occurred in a 2nd ed campaign.

There of course was the time that a Centaur Cleric (whose name I forget) was pranked by a Human Cleric (whose player was really bad at naming characters. He put P.L.L. as the name, so we all called him Pikachu Lord Larry).

We're all sitting in a pub. The barmaid comes and gets our drink order, and Pikachu Lord Larry slips away from the table. While we're waiting on our drinks, he spends the next 5-10 minutes convincing the bartender that he should put horsemeat into the Centaur's beer or else it will be taken as an insult. Finally, the barmaid shows up and plops down a mug of ale mixed with horsemeat which of course is highly offensive to the Centaur. We laughed at this of course, because cannibalism is funny - and we weren't even in the frozen land of Nador.

Pikachu Lord Larry was a follower of a deity of his own making known as Saint Fu. This was particularly funny whenever someone was really long-winded so he would invoke his deity St. Fu. The DM justified the abilities of PLL to cast spells claiming that the spells were actually granted to him by an amused deity of chaos - since St. Fu didn't actually exist.

My Character was a Chaotic Good Human fighter named Andromar, who might as well have been Lawful Good. This character wasn't especially smart, and so the party's rogue (a miscreant by the name of Daenir) convinced Andromar to purchase a hat of disguise for Daenir's use. Not knowing that Daenir was chaotic neutral (almost chaotic evil) he proceeded to take the hat and go on a murder spree. Andromar finally discovered Daenir's misdeeds after following him to a stable and discovering an empty building. Upon further inspection Andromar discovered a murdered stable master buried in some straw - Daenir had murdered him on the rather tenuous premise that he had been cheated. At this point Andromar swore never to purchase anything for Daenir ever again, and began planning to kick Daenir out of the party - however the issue of the murdered stable boy needed to be tended to first. Andromar proceeded to take the corpse to a nearby temple and ask to pay for a resurrection. I could of course afford this, but at a significant loss of cash upon casting. The priests also demanded that the murderer should be apprehended as part of the exchange for casting the resurrection - to which the murderous Daenir responded "Well! Let's go get him!" There's more to that story, but that's the funny part.

[LordofPlataea]

Milodiah:

It's not so much railroading as an entire rollercoaster made out of murder.

Can I please sig this? I've been laughing about it for 20 minutes lol

[Inevitability]

Not knowing that Daenir was chaotic neutral (almost chaotic evil) he proceeded to take the hat and go on a murder spree.

[Insert long, thread-derailing discussion about how this behavior isn't CN, but more like Stupid Evil or very, very CE here]

[Milodiah]

Milodiah:



Can I please sig this? I've been laughing about it for 20 minutes lol

Feel free.

[Yukitsu]

DM: You see two doors with a man guarding each. One always tells the truth, one always lies. Think carefully before you ask.
Me: Do I get more than one question?
DM:

[Dire Moose]

These didn't happen in any of my adventures and I forget where I first read them, but these really are too good not to share:

(first)
DM: As you enter the ice cave, you see a small hole in the wall to your left.
Player: I reach in and feel around.
DM: You feel extreme pain as your arm is ripped off.
Player: Holy crap! I stick my head in the hole to find out what happened to my arm!

(second)
The characters are in a tavern.
Player 1: I get up and sing a song. *rolls Perform check, fails*
DM: The patrons boo at you and start throwing things.
Player 2: I throw a soggy carrot.
DM: Would you like to make an attack roll for that carrot?
Player 2: Sure. *rolls natural 20*
DM: Critical hit, roll to confirm.
Player 2: *rolls another natural 20*
DM: Wow, possible instant death. Roll to confirm.
Player 2: *confirms roll, death by soggy carrot*