More Funny D&D Stories

[WarforgedTank]

I have a story I really like to tell my friends, and they always seem to get a kick out of it.

I played a kender (I know, I know) in a game for a while. My DM even made a custom chart he rolled on everywhere we went to see what I would find in my pack every time we made camp for the night. Well, at level 1, we were in an inn, and I found this super ornate box that I couldn't open, no matter how hard I tried.

Fast forward a few levels, and we're settling in for the night, and I dump my pack. The box is still there. Party leader (a fighter, if I recall) asks why I still have the box if I can't open it. I tell him I'm sure I have the key for it somewhere, I've just misplaced it. Argument about how the box technically isn't mine, and how there's no way I would have the key ensues. As we're arguing, I'm trying random keys from a key ring my character carried. Last key on the ring causes the box to open. Inside is a pair of +3 daggers. I'd lifted that box from our quest giver at level 1, and kept it the whole time.

First time we got into combat after that, my kender was promptly killed because he jumped in front of a great axe meant for our wizard.

Table got a pretty good laugh out of it. Wanted to resurrect me. I declined. lol

[WaspIV]

In the campaign I am DMing, 3 lvl 1 players managed to tame a Worg.
The sorcerer cast sleep on it (lasts 1 minute. Since each round of combat = 6 seconds, the sleep spell lasted 10 rounds), and then the druid with +6 animal handling began petting it, while the fighter and sorcerer began hunting animals to feed it.
1 headless squirrel, a jackrabbit and 2 deer later, I decided to actually give them something to fight. A black bear (rolled 24hp) lumbered across the path about 70 ft from the fighter, who of course fired her heavy crossbow at it. She had been rolling pretty good, but failed her shot this time. The sorcerer then fired with her light crossbow. This one hit, but for minimal damage (2, I think?). Not to be outdone, the fighter moved towards the bear and fired again, this time hitting for decent damage (7?). The bear charges the fighter, misses with the bite, but manages to hit her with claws for 8 damage, bringing her down to 4 hp.
The fighter retaliates with her greatsword, and makes an easy hit (she rolled an ability score of 18, and gained +2 str for dragonborn) for 11 damage. She then yells at the sorcerer to let her kill the bear, but the sorcerer ignores her and shoots at the bear again, for exactly 4 hp. just enough to kill the bear.
The fighter, in rage, charges at the sorcerer and attempts to punch her, but the sorcerer easily dodges the blow.
At this point, the Worg starts to wake up, so they stop fighting. The sorcerer goes back to drag her dead deer to the pile of animals, leaving the fighter to drag the heavy bear. I made her roll strength checks in order to drag the bear (at half speed), which she aced. The +5 str modifier made it pretty easy to beat DC 15.
Of course, petting a sleeping Worg with +6 animal handling, and feeding it a large pile of dead animals is, in my book, a surefire way to tame a Worg. So now they have a pet Worg, ready to face the next adventure.

If you guys liked this story, I have a couple others.

[LIL_JAMIL]

There WAS one story that comes to mind which I played recently, which taught me that literally anything , ANYTHING can happen in dnd (it is quite long but perfectly worth the wait) . The luck of these events still blow my mind. let me set the scene : 1 experienced DM, 3 first timers and a broken, broken set of charisma rolls.

Our DM was running the great linear adventure Curse of Strahd and was running it well. All the events altered just a little so they were a little more interesting and on top of that a great rp DM . I was running my third level wizard Waldo who had a ridiculous charisma score and great int but was just a little senile. We had been tracking down a small gorup of hags who were cooking children into pies....

Anyone who has run this campaign knows the encounter with these hags is very dangerous for characters approaching 4th and 5th level and our DM was looking more than a little nervous as we crept towards their hideout ( a tall decrepit windmill) . This was where the fun began.

A crit persuasion and some charmwork later one of the hags is cooking merrily inside her own oven. Then as the rest of the party sneaked inside my wizard with a mischievous smile cast disguise self modelled perfectly on the first hag. ANOTHER crit persuasion and some lucky strength saves later and another 5th level spell-caster was bundled into her own oven (the DM was now crying with laughter). The last persuasion test ended up a bust however, waldo ,ever resourceful, attempted to push the hag down the stairs.

1

This is the story of how waldo got thrown in an oven by an ' irate ' hag for an attempted groping.

[TheGreyWolf1600]

I have one too. So this was my first game, we were playing old fashioned 2e, and I was soloing an elven fighter. The game had just begun, first session, and my reason for going out to adventure (made by DM) was that a bunch of Kobolds had attacked and raided my village, and I was the only guy to escape. A little while later, after managing to befriend a wolf that formerly belonged to a kobold, I was at this tavern. I ordered food and stuff, then somehow ended up in an argument against the ethics of slaying kobolds with a group of kobold hunters. I was defending the kobolds. Anyways, melee began, and I got lucky and knocked one of the two guys out with a kick to the jaw. I then said "I take my meal and sneak off to another table" under the impression that the whole tavern was fighting. It was just me and the two guys. Later on, I managed to annoy the leader of an aquatic elf coastal village. He gave me the option of some test to be let free. He listed the test of strength, then I cut him off saying I'd take that. It was back when I thought a 14 strength was really good. I then had to fight their best warrior there. I was getting my ass handed to me, and the DM saw an opportunity to introduce another PC. So a new PC enters and saves me from the guy, when I'm on the ground and disarmed. The guy was a male ranger, played by my mother (it was a family game for us), and she shoots the warrior in the head. So then we get locked up. We either escape, or wait 'til morning to be judged. We then cut up the sheets, except for one, and put them in a bundle. We lit it on fire, kicked the door down, threw it at their boats to create a distraction. It was like flaming confetti burnt their boats down. We then ran away. I was playing a chaotic good guy, with no animal handling profiencies. In that game, I STILL have the wolf with me. Anyways, first session idiocy for you.

[Paladinatheart]

5th Edition Game

DM: ME
Players: Paladin, Warlock, Monk (Just turned level 6)

They are all excited to be level 6 and the paladin is like "hey I have Aura of Protection, that gives you guys a bonus to your saving throws equal to my Charisma modifier (which was +4) if you are within 10 feet of me!" Of course it is great and this paladin really focused on buffing the players more than being a melee unit (Tank, etc). So he works with Aid, Bless, and now has this Aura of Protection to buff up the characters. In addition the Paladin has Inspiring Leader feat.

Of course the players decide now that they want to go to the waste lands to fight a dragon. I tell them they are too weak but they insist. I decide a Red Wyrmling is too weak but a Young Red dragon might do the trick..I drop the HP of it down a few notches and change one or two stats to give the group a fighting chance but that is about it.

Session starts of where the group (to their joyful surprise) encounter a Young Red Dragon with a damaged wing (to explain for decreased HP and so it cant fly to also give them a fighting chance) that has been pinned down by a large boulder. It is out in the open with one or two small lava pits nearby but nothing extraordinary in the environment. They could easily surround the Young Red Dragon but wait the Paladin has a better idea.

The paladin convinces the party that with his Aura of Protection that they all get a +4 bonus to their saving throws (and this player tells the others that the Dex Save DC is 15 for a Fire Breath attack...which it isnt because it is 17 but I just tell them to stop metagaming). But the player continues to talk about his last campaign with another group where he and a few others defeated a blue dragon that spewed out Lightening Breath in a straight line, though it requires a Dex save, it will only target one of us. But no worries because with this bonus provided by Aura of Protection we have a better chance of surviving to get close enough to kill the wounded red dragon. Plus, it is already wounded and they just have to finish the job.

The monk thinks it over and is like "wow if I am with in 10 feet of this Paladin then my Dex Save with go up to 11, and with Bless I get an additional 1d4 bonus to my saving throw so I practically cant fail the save". Note the Paladin has Dex 10 (+0), so he figures well I can get a bonus to my non existent Dex Save and he tells the group he will buff their HPs. The Warlock also figures well "now my Dex Save goes up to 7 I should be ok along with the 1d4 bonus from Bless spell!" The paladin, as mentioned before has the Leadership feat, so with this and Aid spell each of the group members HP is increased by 15. And thanks to Bless spell their rolls (saving throws, attack rolls) are buffed with 1d4. So they are all excited and ready to move forward.

As you can imagine the whole encounter didnt go as planned.

The young red dragon was not paying attention to the group at first but as the players neared the dragon I had them roll a stealth check: the Warlock and the Monk succeed but the Paladin rolls a natural 1. He practically trips and falls making a huge sound as his armor bangs up against the stones on the ground, that attracts the attention of the young dragon. The players glared at the paladin.
Since the Young Dragon was approached by the group of 3 players all huddled next to each other gladly reaping the bonus of the Aura of Protection granted by the Paladin, they were a prime target for its fire breathing attack. I felt bad for them but, as a responsible DM, I had to play the part of the dragon. Once they came in range I used the Fire Breath, which causes a 30ft Cone of Fire to reach out and catch the entire group. They all roll their Dex Saves but everyone rolls a 1 except for the paladin who rolls a 3 but with no dex modifier his +4 bonus and 1d4 bonus to his saving roll would not have been enough to reach the DC 17 to at least take only half damage.

They look at the paladin contemptibly and with terrified looks watch as I roll 14d6 (instead of the 16d6 cause I was trying to go easy on them) where I roll mostly 5s and 6s and they take 74 damage each. They are all toast!

So as you can imagine, they were all attached to their characters they raised up from Level 2. They looked so somber about their losses and ontop of it they didnt even get a chance to strike at the dragon once. So I told them it was a bad dream they had the night before their march into the wastelands. It was an omen in their dreams telling them not to go there, for now at least.

Since then they keep their distance from each other, no matter how spectacular the Aura of Protection is.

[Dimodidude]

One time, my group was playing 4e and we were invading Vera's base. (I don't remember the campaign) my friend Dan played an eladrin swordmage, who was very athletic. His character was buff as hell XD. My other friend, Joshe, (three joshes in our group including dm) has a human monk. I played a dwarf ranger, and he had "intense experience" meaning I could choose a small skill. My dm allowed this due to my character being weak. I chose to dual weild crossbows and reload both as a minor action. I also had a Warhammer and short sword. That day, the only other person there was a druid, but she left way early. An NPC called Lyla the Queer also was there. So we had a bunch of beef with this particular water Elemental named Vera because she was supplying weapons to The Demon King. This was obviously a problem but later on we found out she did it will need to get him out of her hair. However we still had to have an encounter because Lila had messed up and gotten into a trap. Vera said that she would only let Lyla go if we entertained her. Using my dungeoneering skills I made a set of double six dominoes in 10 minutes in game. Apparently Vera doesn't like losing and we found that out the hard way. Although one of our characters left mid game to go into a room with another siren (this was Dan.) Needless to say he came out of that room about 30 minutes (in game) later missing 40 gold pieces. So anyway long story short we saved a Lyla and obtained some gear in the process without battling the water Elemental but we all were pretty mad at Dan for tricking himself. He replied with "hey as Long as I get my D*** sucked!" Our party was mostly comprised of Juniors and one senior and like two freshmen so we were obviously a little immature.

[WaspIV]

A little further into the campaign I am running from the last story.
The party had rescued another PC, so were now up to 4 PCs and a pet Worg.
Still at lvl 1, they arrived in town, looking for a dwarf, who they had heard could train them in combat. When they find him, he condescendingly sends them out to find him a dwarven Warhammer before he will train them. (In this world, the dwarves are nearly extinct, and dwarven weapons and armor are rare.)
They hear that there is a small cache of dwarven equipment guarded by an unknown monster in a nearby cave, so they decide to go see if there is a Warhammer in cache.
As they approach the cave, they perform several perception checks, but find nothing.
Entering the cave (the entrance of which is a tight squeeze for the Worg), they perform several more perception checks ("I look at the ceiling."), but again find no signs of a monster.
Several dead bodies, ranging from several days to several months old litter the floor, causing the Worg to snuff rather hungrily. Along one side, there is a raised dias with a crudely carved statue of a demon standing in the middle. And along the back wall were 2 chests and a small pile of golden jewelry and trinkets.
None of the PCs knew about gargoyles, and I wasn't about to ruin the surprise, so the examination of the statue was cut short by the discovery of a Warhammer in one of the chests (LARGE chest, mind you.) As they gathered around to look at it, the gargoyle started moving. Its first attack was a complete miss (for both bite and claw.), and before it could attack again, it was grappled by the Worg.
The players gathered around and began beating it, knocking bits of stone off here and there. The gargoyle managed to break free once, but was immediately grappled again.
The Sorcerer, impatient with how long it was taking to kill the gargoyle, decided to use her latest acquisition, a ring of fireball*. WHILE THE PARTY IS GATHERED AROUND THE GARGOYLE!
When the smoke cleared, all the PCs and the Worg were down with -4 to -11HP, leaving the gargoyle standing in a pile of dying bodies.
Not wanting a TPK, I made the gargoyle take the Warhammer back, swear at the PCs and then leave.

3 of the players managed to stabilize, but the 4th and the Worg both died.
I had to have a talk OOC with the players about their options, especially with the dead Ranger, who was quite upset over her dead Worg.
They decided to cut off the tip of the Worg's tail, and a finger off the dead Ranger. (typical, right?).

I was feeling bad, so I let them find a wizard capable of casting resurrection in the little town where they went to recover. Only, they didn't have 1,000 gold to pay him.

Finally, after scraping together every coin they had, selling all the gems they'd acquired and finding a buyer for their potion of greater healing, they managed to get the Ranger resurrected.

The Ranger now wanders around with a footlong section of a Worg's tail, trying to scrape together enough gold to afford another resurrection spell.
AND the party must either go track down the gargoyle, or find another dwarven Warhammer.

* before anyone says "OP", this sorcerer LOVES using the sleep spell with disastrous (to my encounters) results. I dare not have the party meet creatures with a combined total of less than 30HP, or she will put them all to sleep, and then the Fighter with her +5 damage will demolish them before they wake.
So, I gave the fireball ring a side-effect, which is that it removes her ability to cast other spells while wearing it.

[Vessyra]

I'm the DM, and today, I had the joy of rolling THREE NATURAL TWENTIES IN A ROW!

It was for initiative. And the monsters still ended up going second to last.

[Spookykid]

Not sure if this is funny or sad but here goes.

Level 3 party, going back to where an evil necromancer lived. Didnt kill each other last time and just talked.

This time they were set to kill it. They get to the main entrance chamber filled with zombies, use some nice tactics and take them all out. Good job.

They know the main door autolock and dont bother figuring out how to unlock it. Umm ok sure. They ready some spells and the barbarian bashes down the door to go farther in. Welp, that set off the trap that they forgot was there. They all take the hit and loose the spell slots because its a hallway with another door at the end. Ahh yea forgot about that too. Same plan for this door? Really??? Ok if you insist, barbarian bashes it in while spell chuckers have spells preped. No trap but dont see anything in the room but dont actually go in. Loose the spell slots. The barb stands there while they come up with a new plan. I the main entrance room they gather around while the wiz ritually casts detect magic. Umm really? I cant not have the necro which is actually a level 5 wizard drop a fireball on them. I pretty sure he had plenty of warning. Boom everyone but the barb drops. He gets swarmed by zombies and dies. Death saves for everyone! 2 people actually roll 20s so they pop up with 1 hp. No where to run because the locked front door. Ooops, party wipe. It was funny for me and a couple players because these characters were never meant to be played longterm. Several other players were way to upset, so i had to taunt them the rest of the weekend.

[NazfangDaRokk]

D&D 5E, lv 6 party. I play a Barb/Fighter named Ferrus. He's tough as nails, stronger than an 2 oxen, and dumb as a post, but sometimes he has pretty good ideas.
Our DM gets clever with the campaign, often throwing in home brewed monsters or scenarios, just to see what we'll do. This time, he took a page from Shadow of the Colossus. So we're fighting this 80' tall, 120' long rock-bear-gollum-thing, and doing pitiful damage. Luckily it only had melee attacks, and they were easy to dodge. Our bard is straight up nuts (true chaotic neutral), so she decides she would like this gigantic monster to be a sheep. She casts polymorph and the colossus crit fails its save. It is now a sheep.
Now, the party is faced with a dilemma; if we hit it, it goes back to massive. If we wait an hour, it goes back to massive. Ferrus then does the only reasonable thing he can think of. He hops on his broom of flying, grabs the sheep (that is the size of a volkswagon beetle), and heads straight up. For 25 minutes (or so, he can't count that well) he flies straight up, and when he reached about 2800', lets go of the sheep. The colosheep instantly dies upon impact from 280D6 falling damage (roughly 1000 points of damage) and immediately reverts back to being the impossibly huge creation it was, while still carrying the momentum of a 280 story fall. Neverwinter, being over 80 miles away, felt the impact tremors. The party had successfully slain the colossus and was thanked, warily, by the magister of Neverwinter, and was politely asked to try not to break anything.

[TrT8r]

I honestly feel bad for our DM sometimes. He keeps on trying to kill us, but we just keep on summoning giant spiders and eagles, or throwing biscuits to detonate traps, or letting the ranger set everything off. He just can't win.

[thorr-kan]

I honestly feel bad for our DM sometimes. He keeps on trying to kill us, but we just keep on summoning giant spiders and eagles, or throwing biscuits to detonate traps, or letting the ranger set everything off. He just can't win.

FAIR WARNING: I may define things differently than your DM.

It sure *sounds* like he's winning:
creative players
nonstandard solutions
the patented Ranger-Trap-Detection-System (tm) (I prefer the patented Halfing-Trap-Detection-System, myself)
razor thin escapes

Sounds like an awesome time.

[Vessyra]

Nay! Tha elf-trap-de'ection sys'em (tm) work tha best!

[thorr-kan]

Nay! Tha elf-trap-de'ection sys'em (tm) work tha best!

Since it was my halfling who was originally being used as the trap detection system (friggin' troll players characters...), I patented it.

It took 15 years, but I was able to get back at one of those players. He made the mistake of playing a halfling sorcerer in World's Largest Dungeon. My half-orc gleefully used him to detect many, many traps.

Revenge is sweet.

You make a telling argument, and your idea intrigues me. I wish to subscribe to your newsletter. That being said, I believe halflings' small sizes and strong senses are superior to elves' strong senses when being deployed as a trap-detection system, at least when deployed by a medium creature.

(ETA: Spelling. Always spelling.)

[JBPuffin]

My party took out an entire troop of goblins using a goblin corpse, a successful Linguistics check and another successful Persuasion check, and an Unseen Servant. Also a rock trap that rolled exactly enough damage. Their dice love them...

[Vessyra]

That goblin killing Ruben Goldburg machine plan sounds hilarious.

As for the newsletter, I was unfortunately was the elf in question, not the dwarf, so I had a very close-up view of the pro's and con's of the Elf Trap Detection system. We recently used the dwarf's stealth system (knocking out anyone who sees us), the dwarf's house infiltration system (smashing the glass) and the dwarf's lock-picking system (axing the lock).

My elf can't actually tell anyone of the pro's and con's of the system; as you may have noticed above, I used the past tense for the elf. I am now a halfling.

But enough marketing! Now for today's story.

We were playing a one-shot due to reasons lost to the mists of time. Our newest member was known for his horrible, horrible luck, and so was trying out different methods of dice-rolling in order to get numbers above ten. He had decided to try swinging his hand parallel to the table then turn his hand so the dice fell out onto the table. And it was working! It was working so well, he started using great weapon master! Then, he was about to roll his attack that was sure to be the killing blow against the Terrifying Monster. He swung his hand, sending the dice rolling along the table...

Then, somehow, the die curved and rolled back towards the edge of the table, and landed perfectly in the centre of my friend's hand.

I still have no idea what happened, but hey, at least he got to re-roll it into a twenty.

[TrT8r]

Today, our party was raiding a temple of elemental evil fire. We come across a room with 2 barriers and an altar in the middle, which we know contain fire elementals. Figuring there is no way around them, one of the party attacks a brazier, releasing the elementals. Keep in mind that all of us except for one hexblade are all grouped in a hallway.
Then, we got stood on by a fire elemental. We all caught on fire and I evacuated that area, into the main room. After a few rounds of most people being on fire and taking heavy damage, one of the elementals died, leaving two, one heavily wounded. My familiar dies, and the other party members decide to teleport themselves out of the dungeon to heal.
This would be fine, but I WAS NOT IN THE TELEPORT AREA. Neither was the hexblade. Two warlocks are not any match for an elemental. I started running for my life while the hexblade whittled down an elemental. I light on fire but can't stop. So two flaming tiefling Warlocks are booking it while shooting off eldritch blasts. After a few rounds, we manage to finish them off, right before our party returns at full hitpoints.
Later, after having rested, we come across some cultists in heavy armour, four to be exact. One sneak attack and 2 wands of lightning bolt later, only 1 remains (They killed my familiar with lightning), but there are still 2 spellcasters and some ogres. They throw two fireballs. I counter the first, and the hexblade is about to do the same, but then decides that, and I quote "Well, you guys abandoned us.". So we take a fire ball, but me and him make our check and have resistance, so we took a negligible amount of damage.
All's well that ends well, I guess. EXCEPT FOR MY DEAD FAMILIAR.

[hotflungwok]

I registered just to add to this thread. I've been gaming for 20+ years, in many different systems, and have a lot of stories.

Spoiler: Ugh Think Too Much

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2nd Ed AD&D game in Sigil, the thing we were looking for had been stolen and was inside a building we had just finished scouting out. It was dark inside, and we saw shadowy figures with loaded crossbows in all the windows. So of course we start planning on what we're going to do. You go here and I'll cast this spell and then he does this and on and on and on. We had been at it for half an hour without consensus when, during a lull in the conversation, the fighter went 'Ugh, think too much.'. All of us had a moment of 'Well, he's not wrong.', and I mimed raising a sword in the air and yelled 'Charge!', and so we all just ran screaming at the building. Turns out there was only a few defenders in there, the crossbows were real but the shadowy figures were wooden cut outs. We made short of work of them and found the thing. The player didn't know that, he was just bored with all the talking.

Spoiler: Wizard Fight

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The main bad guy in the story above was a wizard who cast all of his spells and then fled before we could take him down. Our wizard had also cast all of his spells already and was waiting outside 'in case any of them tried to escape'. So the main bad guy runs into our wizard outside, and they attack each other. Two low level 2nd Ed wizards with no spells trying to hit each other with staffs. They went 10 rounds of combat without doing any damage before we got to them, and then the party just stood there and watched the spectacle for at least another 5 rounds. There was much giggling and commenting on the prowess of mages in general. Finally, the bad guy hit our wizard for 1 whole point of damage. He yelled 'Help!' and our fighter charged forward and killed the bad guy. Thus ended the Battle of Those Two Idiots Outside the Warehouse.

Spoiler: I Smite Thee

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I was in college, playing 2nd Ed AD&D in one of the older buildings at the school with a group from the gaming club. It's around 11 PM or so, and raining cats & dogs outside. We're in a big battle with the big baddie and it's been a tough fight right from the beginning. Half the party is down, the wizard is out of spells, but the big baddie is the only one left, and the paladin is up to bat. He says he's using his last smite, and all of the players are on the edge of thier seat watching, cuz this could end it. The player raises his hand and yells 'By Heironeous' power I smite thee!' and threw his die. And at that moment lightning struck nearby, with a deafening boom that shook the building and made the lights flicker. After it quieted down we looked for his d20 to see what he rolled, and couldn't find it (it rolled off the table). The DM said 'You know what? That gets you a 20. Roll damage.' The big baddie died, we won.

Spoiler: Prove It

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2nd Ed AD&D, playing a newly rolled 1st level wizard. Each of the characters were doing their own thing in a new town prior to meeting, and my character heard there was a big library here. So I walk up to it, and get stopped by a guard.
'Only wizards are allowed in the library.'
'But I am a wizard!'
'Oh yeah? Prove it.'
So I cast Sleep on him. I stepped over the now snoring guard and went into the library. A few minutes later he came running in and wanted me to fill out some forms, which is apparently what I was supposed to do to prove I was a wizard.

Spoiler: Kill Me

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One of the characters I played with in a TFOS game was a human inventer type. Squishy, but always had weird gadgets, usually given to him randomly by the GM. One of them was an basketball sized AI controlled coffee machine that hovered and followed him around. Sometimes hitting a button dispensed coffee, sometimes it sprayed boiling hot chocolate in a random direction. In one episode, one of the many recurring baddies summoned a big dragon and set it on us. Some of the characters engaged the dragon in melee, the inventer hid so he wouldn't get toasted. So when he pops his head out to see what's going on a few rounds later, he finds that the dragon is facing away from him, fighting with the other characters.
To the GM: 'The dragon doesn't notice me?'
'Nope.'
'I'm right behind it?'
'Yup.'
'I grab my coffee machine, push all the buttons at the same time, and ram it where the sun don't shine. And then run.'
Once we got done laughing, the GM described the sudden look of confusion and then shocked horror on the dragon's face, which prompty vanished back to where it came from. The coffee machine remained behind, and fell to the ground after the dragon disappeared. The display on the front planel just said 'Kill Me'. Also, we found out later that after that any attempt to summon a dragon to our area always failed, because no dragon would answer the call.

Spoiler: That Was Different

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So I'm over a friend's house and we're about to play the last game in the campaign (D&D 3.5), at least for a while, because two of the players are expecting an imminent addition to their party. Tara & Mike show up. Tara is very pregnant. She's due in a few days, but her doctor says it could be any time. We make all the jokes about having boiling water and towels standing by, and how she's going to want to play just one more round before she has to leave, etc. Game play commences. Two hours into the normally six hour session, Tara announces that she has to go to the bathroom. She has said this every 20 min or so for the past 2 hours, so we thought nothing of it. She stands up, frowns for a second, and then announces that her water has broken. This is greeted with laughter and then stunned silence at the look on her face. She's not kidding. Her husband jumps up, begins frantically shovelling everything on the table into their bags, and then helps her up the stairs and out to the car. They leave. We were one player short going into it, and now we've only got 2 out of 5 players. So, the D&D game was called on account of childbirth, a first for me.

Spoiler: Levitate

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Same group as the one above, an earlier adventure had us in the depths of a tomb looking for the Bad Undead Thing that was causing trouble. We finally came to a large ornate room with a stone sarcophagus in the middle. On top of the sarcophagus was a big stone lid. We arranged ourselves around it, and got ready for the fight. I cast Levitate on the lid and raised it up about 10 feet. The Bad Undead Thing, a mummy of some sort, sat up, and began telling us all in a Scary Voice how we were doomed and what he would do with our corpses and... and I stopped Levitating the big stone lid. One earthshaking thud (and one tableshaking facepalm from the GM) later the now very angry and very injured mummy rose up out of the rubble to attempt to make good on his threat. We dispatched it quickly.

Spoiler: Dire Tiger Storage

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Playing in a Pathfinder Adventure Path, we made it into the big baddie's castle and was in the process of clearing it out. I think we were 13th or 14th level at this point. Before we opened every door we did the usual arranging and buffing and doing makeup, etc. Only we found that door after door held nothing of any interest to us behind it. Empty rooms, bad artwork, broom closets, like 10 rooms in a row at least. So we're standing in front of the next one, and yet again we start arranging our minis at the unmarked normal looks doors.
Me: 'Why are we doing this? There's going to be nothing behind this one either!'
Another player: 'You don't know that.'
'The last ten had nothing. Look at all the spells we wasted. We all listened at the door, there's nothing in there. See?'
And my wizard opened the double doors, only to reveal the dire tiger waiting behind it, which pounced on him and took him out in one horrible flurry of claws, teeth, and screaming. The other party members killed the tiger, healed me, and never let me forget it. After that we always took time setting up before a door, cuz you just never know.

[Vessyra]

I need to try a 'wizard fight' one day. That story was friggin' hilarious. It was also odin', thor' and loki' hilarious, too.

The high-level group of adventures that I DM had been wandering through dungeons and battlefields, doing good and getting loot. So far, they had accumulated a total of 15,000 gold pieces, along with several magic items. So they were shocked when they opened up the portable hole of their latest enemy to discover that this monster had accumulated a total of three hundred THOUSAND

Copper pieces. They had just discovered 300,000 thousand copper pieces, and 100 copper=1 gold piece.

A few sessions later, they found themselves in a foreign city on a whole new continent, and were eager to purchase some magic items. It was then they discovered that this city, along with the rest of the country, only deals in two currencies: electrum and copper. Their 15,000 gold pieces was now just shiny and heavy. The players starting making relatively minor transactions using huge amounts of coins, spending 40,000 cp on a bag of holding, and 15,000 on three standard potions of healing. It was quite interesting for the players to look at money that wasn't platinum or gold; one player didn't realise that he even had electrum pieces, let alone hundreds, and another player browsing through his various wealths discovered that he had somehow gain more than one hundred thousand silvers pieces (10,000 gold), meaning that he was richer than the rest of the party put together!

[TheYell]

The party, which by accident was all guys forty or older, found a cult of human sacrifice under a town, and two survivors who said everybody from the Elders on down were members.

So, we decide to lynch the Elders.

The GM was in his twenties, and this was totally off his radar. He didn't have names or stats for the Elders. He didn't draw a battle map or put out miniatures. He wasted an hour having guard after guard try to grapple us and tie us up and knock us out.

We slew all but one, who confessed and named names.

The town fled our wrath, and our GM tried to guilt us by saying we had slain an innocent Elder. We declared him guilty of presenting a damn bad defense.

Session ended with the party in possession of an abandoned town, with the sole remaining resident named Mayor, our ranger appointed Sheriff, and our GM vowing vengeance.

I just found it funny to make a railroad run a dirt road uphill out of sheer grit.

[hotflungwok]

More

Spoiler: He Rolled What?

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Played in a Mekton game at college, the group numbered 10 or more at times and most battles took a while. In Mekton, energy weapons can be connected to the mek's power source, meaning it doesn't use ammo, and can fire as long as the mek is intact. This was expensive construction-wise, so it was generally only used on little guns, like anti-missle weapons. The max range of a weapon was the weapon's range squared, and shooting at a target beyond the weapon's range meant a hefty penalty. However, if your weapon doesn't use up ammo, you might as well fire it from long range, you could get lucky. It was standard practice for most of us to take a potshot at long range at the approaching enemy using our anti-missile laser, hoping to roll a 10 (which exploded). So my first big battle with the group, my mek (which didn't have an energy anti-missle weapon) gets targeted by an enemy.
Enemy rolls a 10 to hit, and 9 on the 2nd dice. I'm hit.
Where? Rolls a 1: head.
If an attack beats the defender's roll by 10 or more, it bypasses the mek's armor and goes straight to the internals. His did.
Rolls to see which internal was destroyed by the hit: cockpit.
First shot of the game, I'm out. The battle took 4 sessions, 4 weeks to resolve. It's funny now I guess.

Spoiler: The Battle Goat

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During a D&D 3.0 game (we had just switched from 2nd Ed) our group found out that the kobolds in the area we were trying to take care of were going to attack a town. We went to the town to help them defend, and try to take them all out in one go. As we were going through our various abilities to plan what we were going to do, one of the players announces that he has a Bag of Tricks, something he got randomly a while ago. We laugh a bit, and add it to the list, hoping to get something useful. So when the attack begins, the character reaches into the bag and throws out... a goat. All of us groan, thinking the battle just got that much harder. However, that goat accounted for 8 kobolds by himself with his 1d4 headbutt, and never once got hit. It's actions saved characters from going down twice. By the end of the battle we were cheering on the mighty battle goat, and were sad to see it go. When we left the successfully defended town, the mayor was talking about erecting a statue to it.

Spoiler: You Don't Get to Talk Any More

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Playing a 1920's Call of Cthulhu game, we were asked to investigate the disappearance of a college professor. We go talk to his wife first. At this point he's only been gone one day, but it's really out of character for him. As we get information out of her, we begin offering suggestions of where he might have gone. One of the players, running a French gendarme (?), suddenly says 'Perhaps he was brutally slaughtered?' in this heavy (outrageous really) French accent. The whole table stops and looks at him in stunned silence. Then the GM announces that the professor's wife starts crying, some of the players try to comfort her, and one of us says to the French character 'Youre not allowed to talk anymore'. The player didn't understand why what he said was bad cuz it was obviously a possibility, and had to have it explained to him.

Spoiler: Make Me A Sandwich

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Call of Cthulhu again, this time Horror on the Orient Express. We are in Italy, and have been poking around a house controlled by Brown Shirts looking for information. We get seen and a fight ensues. It ends when one of the characters grabs a sub-machine gun off of a Brown Shirt about to gun us down, and kills the last three of them with it. A group of them coming out of the house sees this, and when the character turns the gun on them, they surrender. So he marches them back into the house, and holds them at gunpoint in the kitchen where he discovers they were in the middle of lunch, while we ransack the place looking for the information we think is there. The GM is going from player to player asking 'What are you doing?' When he gets to the character holding the sub-machine gun, the player says 'I want one of them to make me a sandwich.' He doesn't speak Italian, and the Brown Shirt thugs don't speak English. So the character grabs one of the Brown Shirts out of the group, and pushes him over to the lunch laden table, and starts bellowing instructions at him in English and pointing with the barrel of the gun. 'Make me a sandwich!' 'Cut the bread thinner!' 'I said roast beef not ham!' 'More mustard!' With the GM miming the Brown Shirt's terrified actions, somehow he eventually manages to make a sandwich.
'I keep my gun pointed at the guy's face and I take a bite of the sandwich, how is it?'
'It's pretty good.'
'OK, I push him back to the group and don't shoot him in the face.'
'He looks relieved and confused.'

Spoiler: I Throw A Rock

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Playing MERP (Rollmaster lite, exploding % rolls), we're trying to sneak past a guard into a ruined fort. The hobbit, who is good with throwing things, speaks up:
'I throw a rock past the guard so he looks away from us.'
'Roll it.'
02
'Ok, you actually hit the guard with your rock. Make a hit roll.'
99, 89
'Um, wow, ok, that's a crit, roll it.'
97, 60
'Your rock cracks his skull, he drops to the ground unconscious and is bleeding to death.'
'So we can sneak past now?'
'Sneak past what?'

Spoiler: Don't Fire That in Here

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In a one shot Paranoia game, we're going somewhere 'completely safe' to deal with 'nothing dangerous whatsoever', so of course we've all been outfitted with various types of heavy weaponry including a cone rifle (think bazooka or RPG). Unfortunately, the Variety Pack of shells that came with it have no labels on any of them. Most of the time we tried to keep him from firing it cuz we didn't know what would happen and didn't want to end up gibbed or gassed or buried under rubble, which of course frustrated the player. So we're trudging through the sewers looking for 'nothing unusual at all' with orders to 'report back if you find anything unusual'. At some point we get attacked by a giant octopus type thing that is trying to grab us with its tentacles from underwater. The guy with the cone rifle says he's gonna shoot into the middle of the tentacles. Once again we try to stop him from firing, but he insists that if it goes off underwater we'll be protected from most of the blast. So the GM has him roll to see what kind of shell he used. The player rolls something very high, the GM consults his chart, his eyes go wide and after a second he tells us to all mark off a clone. We look at each other, and the guy who fired it asks what kind of shell it was. The GM just grins and says 'nuclear'.

Spoiler: The Dungeon Maker

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Played a home brew 3.5 game with some friends, heavy on dungeon delving. We're going through this old ruin, mapping as we go. A twisty tunnel leads us into a large square room with many exits going off in all directions.
So we just pick the exit closest to where we came in, and continue exploring. This leads to a dead end.
We go back to the big room, and go to the next exit. That one takes us down a long empty tunnel that ends back in the big room. We're a bit confused at this point.
So we pick another exit, 20 feet then a dead end.
The next exit is a short hallway that leads around to the exit right next to it.
One of the exits leads to a hallway ending in a secret door, which opens into the in the big room.
There were no other rooms, just long empty tunnels, and we spent an hour mapping all of it. We're all well and truly confused now, so we ask the DM what we're missing. He says 'Oh I found some dungeon making software and I'm trying it out. This is the first randomly generated map it gave me, unedited.' Cue simultaneous facepalms.

Spoiler: It's Cloth

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Playing a 2nd Ed AD&D module, Temple of Elemental Evil I think, when we come across a Cloak of Elvenkind. Two of us are elves, so the DM gives us a good chance to recognize it without having to ID it. Both of us roll %, trying to get under 50: 99, 98.
The DM stares at our rolls for a second, and goes 'Well, it's definitely cloth.'
'It's cloth?'
'Yup.'
'We think it's cloth?'
'You pretty sure it's cloth.'
'Its cloth.'
'With those rolls you're lucky you don't think it's beef jerky.'
So the phrase 'It's cloth' came to mean 'I rolled so bad I couldn't find my own butt with both hands and a scrying pool.'

Spoiler: That Poor Mite

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Pathfinder Adventure Path (some details changed to avoid spoilers), we're in a dream dimension where the big bad guy is, and we're getting close. However, getting this far has really drained us, so rather than risking a TPK right at the end, we're looking for a place to rest for the night. We found a way to get to an extra dimensional space earlier, to get there you have to stand in a marked area and think of something specific. The extra dimensional space is a large opulent bedroom, with bookshelves and clothes racks and a big spread of food. So we eat, read, and sleep for the night.

When we wake up the food has been replenished, the books are back on the shelf, and the bed is made. We realize everything has been reset. A bit of scrying reveals that all the things we killed yesterday are back, and a good number of them are converging on the entrance to the room we're in. Some of them are going to be there before we're ready (memorizing spells, making bombs/extracts, etc), and they're probably all going to be holding actions waiting for us. So we come up with a plan.

We summon a mite, explain to him how to get out of the extra dimensional space, and that we need to him to scout ahead for us. I cast an illusion on the mite so it looks like our group's barbarian. We arrange ourselves on the area and wait for the mite to go first, then we go right after. The mite appears, triggers all the held actions, takes a truly heroic of amount of damage, and vanishes. We pop in, lay down some serious smack, and then run before more ugly can show up. We beat the big bad, go home, and erect a statue to that poor mite.

[Khedrac]

Playing MERP (Rollmaster lite, exploding % rolls), we're trying to sneak past a guard into a ruined fort. The hobbit, who is good with throwing things, speaks up:
'I throw a rock past the guard so he looks away from us.'
'Roll it.'
02
'Ok, you actually hit the guard with your rock. Make a hit roll.'
99, 89
'Um, wow, ok, that's a crit, roll it.'
97, 60
'Your rock cracks his skull, he drops to the ground unconscious and is bleeding to death.'
'So we can sneak past now?'
'Sneak past what?'

Sounds like a really good group, but on that one you were very lucky the GM was being kind...

I would expect that to be:

'I throw a rock past the guard so he looks away from us.'
'Roll it.'
02
That's open ended - keep rolling
99, 89
'Um, wow, ok, that's a bad fumble, roll it.'
97, 60

And your character totals themselves with their attack roll of negative 186 and a fumble roll of 153 (though I don't remember crits and fumbles being open-ended - possibly you got two crit results, 97 is usually pretty lethal (the table went over 100 because crits could get + 20 to them).

[hotflungwok]

He did actually roll a second time after the 02, I just forgot to include it. We laughed when the GM said it hit the guard, and none of us expected it to do anything but alert him, so we were surprised when the GM asked for a hit roll. That character had points in throwing things, he was good at it. While we didn't expect a crit, we also didn't expect damage. I dont think the GM expected a crit either, and just went with it when it happened.

[Khedrac]

He did actually roll a second time after the 02, I just forgot to include it. We laughed when the GM said it hit the guard, and none of us expected it to do anything but alert him, so we were surprised when the GM asked for a hit roll. That character had points in throwing things, he was good at it. While we didn't expect a crit, we also didn't expect damage. I dont think the GM expected a crit either, and just went with it when it happened.

That makes more sense - still sounds like a great group.

[Vessyra]

A sprite seated atop a kobold atop a halfling atop a goat atop a goliath atop a giant goat. The sprite and kobold are also members of the most dangerous mercenary group in the multiverse.

This has been a DM's advice on why not to give your parties obscene amounts of gold! (As well as copper and silver) They will abuse it in the weirdest ways you can think of.

The goliath is currently going through withdrawal from the deck of many things; I assume good stories are to come.

[thegoldsmith]

Ok so This is my first post here and I'm throwing up a funny story from my first ever campaign i played in.
to set the scene
(Me) a Blue Dragonborn Necromancer with a dream of a Circus run by black magic
(A) a Wood elf ranger who spent their time high and climbing buildings
(B) a High elf Paladin of Sune not so secretly a princess of a major elfish nation
(C) a A Human thief who was possibly the only full sane member of the party
(D) a Rock Dwarf Cleric of the Sun who had seemingly got his cleric powers the same way as Kuo-toa

We were hired to save a hostage from Half-Orc to gain favor with a high ranking criminal we needed. So after brutally murdering him we saved the hostage from what was essentially a crime den after convincing our way unharmed inside. Our ranger left through the window get to the roof and gave us a few seconds warning to hide or escape a patrol of guards on the way....we got as far as the Lobby/Bar. Now here is where it gets interesting. I'd already cast Alter self earlier because I was Wanted and didn't have any other way to disguise myself, so I shifted to look like a human and sat at a table next to the party and started drinking an abandoned drink just before the guards came in...I was thinking that I'd come with the ranger and break them out because they were covered in the Half-Orc's blood and the Hostage had ran screaming from the building from my natural 1 in calming them down. After a moment the DM decided that the guards would arrest everyone in the building. I think it was to advance the plot. This is the funny part. My character stood up walked over to the Captain of the Guard and and tried to convince him that he could not do that without a warrant. roll's 20. I then continued in that track and convinced them not to arrest my blood soaked allies. roll's 20. I ended up getting a large bonus in gold for saving an important location in a criminal empire by convincing a Captain he needed a warrant, without even being sure that warrants were a thing in this particular city or World.

[dehro]

How we were almost defeated by a river, twice.
A party of 6, headed towards the city of Baldur's Gate as we play Hoard of the dragon Queen.
We're spread over 3 different river barges, each holding two of us and our respective ponies and horses.
The first obstacle are the rapids. The first barge makes it through, the second one capsizes and the third one is damaged. During this time we lose all but one of the horses, our half-elven sorcerer risks drowning only to be saved by our halfling monk in an unusual feat of strength.
We regroup and split over two of the barges for the remainder of the journey.
Half a day later, we're ambushed by ogres who use a spiked net to block passage under a bridge. This time 2 out of 6 risk drowning, one has to pay off the ogres to make it out alive, the last remaining pony is left to his own devices when the people on his barge jump ship. He dies horribly, killed by the spiked net, as we lose yet another barge.
Crammed in the last remaining barge and with a belly full of horse meat, we make it into Baldur's Gate and make an entrance not unlike that of Jack Sparrow in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie.
We don't like rivers anymore.

[ShadowUmbreon]

5e

Scene/Backstory: I'm newish to the group, started at level 5.

The crew:
Ur'onk - Barbarian; who loves to F*** anything female. He has to make saves to try not to.

Xera - Fighter; has nearly same health as Ur'onk, the sort of brains of our group.

Shadow (Me) - Ranger; I just sort of try to do my best. Got a Pseudodragon named Dusk.

Kibb - FaerieDragon; Sticks near Xera, loves Ramen.

The Story:
We just arrived in Xera's home city. Me and Ur'onk are part of a crime family and are tasked with killing a duke of sorts. Ur'onk wonders off and learns about a deadly sickness, and we are trying to help Xera with family matters, in a sense.

Well something me and the DM brought into the game is Fairy Dust, which shrinks whatever it touches down to fairy size. I bought four viles of it, well while I was doing this Ur'onk went to a casino and drank and eventually passed out in the lawn of Xera's house. Now Ur'onk is very proud of his crotch, so when I saw him passed out I took one of the viles and poured it on his crotch.

When his character woke up he went from proud to super depressed. He tried to figure out who did it and this happened.

Ur'onk: (to Xera) did you do it?
Xera: No
Ur'onk: *Rolls to insight. 19
Dm: He seems to be telling the truth
Ur'onk: (to Me) did you do it?
Me: No
Ur'onk: *Rolls to insight. 4
DM: He seems to be telling the truth.
(Ur'onk's player gets up and curls up on the ground while the rest of us are crying laughing. So much so we had to end the game early because, and I quote, DM: "I can't follow up after that")

Next session the Ur'onk had to ask a doctor to fix his crotch, but now if he does something wrong we threaten him with a small crotch.

[Vessyra]

How we were almost defeated by a river, twice.

Water... the most deadly thing in dungeons and dragons. My first ever character had flaw: fear of the sea but, as he quickly found out (I began in an oceanic part of the campaign), fear of the sea isn't a flaw, it's a reasonable and necessary survival instinct.

Fear the water. No matter what armour you wear, no matter what your skill bonus, it will kill you.

[farothel]

This one is from Vampire, Dark Ages.

We had to stop a ritual to call up a demon and place it inside the body of a 4th generation Gangrel (with access to all the Gangrel's abilities and all the demon's abilities as well). We had managed to find out where they were going to do this and we also managed to get some allies. Arriving at the square we saw a number of smaller demons, ghosts and some Baali vampires and quickly a combat started.

My character, a true Brujah thief named Antonio, wasn't really a combat character and certainly not against supernatural beings. So I decided to help in another way. In the middle of the square, a Baali was doing the ritual and for that she needed a chalice (which had been stolen and had put us on the track of these cultists). She was holding this chalice and mixing her blood and that of sacrificed mortals into it.

So Antonio went into obfuscate (going invisible). While some of combattants had enough Auspex or other abilities to see through my obfuscate, they were in combat and had other things to worry about. Moving closer to the main Baali, he simply grabbed the chalice out of her hands and with his potence crushed it, thereby stopping the ritual and after the Baali teleported away, reducing the problem to a mop up action against the smaller demons, ghosts and other assorted hanger's on.

It was quite funny to have all this build-up, the suspence of the big battle and then the anticlimactic end of 'I walk up to the person holding the chalice, do a dexterity+legerdemain roll to snatch the chalice and then simply crush it with my supernatural strength and that was it'.