Your favourite variation on "Rocks fall, everyone dies"

[Aquillion]

True, he had a lapse in judgement this one time. We all had a good laugh afterwards. He worked the plot points back in when we got back to town.

But more than that, if one ranged sneak attack killed him, this druid couldn't have been too tough anyway. I mean, what if the rogue has won initiative? They'd have won just as easily.

That sounds less like the DM getting angry at the party for disrupting his plans, and more the DM belatedly realizing he just hadn't calculated the CR for his boss fight right.

[The_JJ]

The dragon's listing in the Gm handbook in a system I used to run simply read. "What ever you need to kill the charactors."

[Ridureyu]

Suddenly being told, "Roll four saves."

If any one save is under a natural 20, you die. The assassins got you!

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Suddenly being told, "Roll four saves."

If any one save is under a natural 20, you die. The assassins got you!

...Assassins? Any decent fort save will beat them.

[Ridureyu]

Nope. Super-special poison. Only a natural 20 passes, got to roll for all four.

Of course, if you do roll four twenties, you have a loaded die, and must reroll.

[Zer Kaizer]

Damn, you dudes are evil. Lol

[Naleh]

The BBEG is trying to crash an asteroid into the Earth. After a long campaign you defeat him, but can't deactivate his doomsday device in time. The asteroid hits and humanity is wiped out.

Rocks fall, everybody dies.

[Assassin89]

Although it hasn't happen in the campaign I am currently in, I anticipate that a certain situation might occur. One of the players is a Goliath who bullrushes zombies and other undead into the walls. The DM might become annoyed by this strategy and decide

"You break the supporting wall of the windmill. the ceiling collapses on everyone, killing them."

Or for a non TPK

"You break the wall of the windmill and you fall off a 100 ft cliff"

[Flickerdart]

Or he could just, you know, ambush you in a field. Without walls.

[Bayar]

Thread necromancied, everybody's banned.

[Yukitsu]

Although it hasn't happen in the campaign I am currently in, I anticipate that a certain situation might occur. One of the players is a Goliath who bullrushes zombies and other undead into the walls. The DM might become annoyed by this strategy and decide

"You break the supporting wall of the windmill. the ceiling collapses on everyone, killing them."

Or for a non TPK

"You break the wall of the windmill and you fall off a 100 ft cliff"

The latter is both plausible, hilareous, and the specific reason that I like illusionists.

[Brauron]

One time, in a Call of Cthulhu campaign I was running...

The PCs are in a Silent Hill-inspired town, looking for the campaign's McGuffin. Two cults (one dedicated to Cthulhu, the other a particularly misguided cult of Hastur who think they're working for St. Michael) are also looking for the artifact for various sundry reasons.

The two cults are engaged in a Mexican standoff, guns drawn, the PCs more or less right in the middle (the cults are on two sides of a room, the PCs are halfway up a staircase leading to the next floor.

One of the PCs (a park ranger heavily reliant on his elephant gun) runs up the stairs to look for a window to climb out of. He hears, from a room down the hall, a child's voice, saying, "Mama? Mama, I'm scared...I need you Mama..." and he goes to investigate.

The "child" is a 7 foot tall mutant Deep One with limp, useless wings, tentacles on either side of its mouth, and big blind eyes.

PC loses a rather large amount of Sanity, enough to gain an insanity. I asked the player, "Would you like me to assign your character's insanity, or would you like to roll randomly for it?" He declared that he was master of his own fate, and would roll randomly on the chart.

It came up "Suicidal Mania."

The PC then throws himself down the stairs, screaming, and shoots the leader of the Cthulhu Cult with his elephant gun at point blank range, getting a chest full of buckshot from the cult leader's second in command, killing him. All hell then breaks loose as the cults both open fire.

All the PCs (except for Mr. chest full of buckshot) just barely escaped with their lives.

I think the player who had been playing the elephant gun-toting park ranger was lucky to come away from that session with his life. The other players were furious with him for nearly getting them all killed.

[Zenos]

One time, in a Call of Cthulhu campaign I was running...

The PCs are in a Silent Hill-inspired town, looking for the campaign's McGuffin. Two cults (one dedicated to Cthulhu, the other a particularly misguided cult of Hastur who think they're working for St. Michael) are also looking for the artifact for various sundry reasons.

The two cults are engaged in a Mexican standoff, guns drawn, the PCs more or less right in the middle (the cults are on two sides of a room, the PCs are halfway up a staircase leading to the next floor.

One of the PCs (a park ranger heavily reliant on his elephant gun) runs up the stairs to look for a window to climb out of. He hears, from a room down the hall, a child's voice, saying, "Mama? Mama, I'm scared...I need you Mama..." and he goes to investigate.

The "child" is a 7 foot tall mutant Deep One with limp, useless wings, tentacles on either side of its mouth, and big blind eyes.

PC loses a rather large amount of Sanity, enough to gain an insanity. I asked the player, "Would you like me to assign your character's insanity, or would you like to roll randomly for it?" He declared that he was master of his own fate, and would roll randomly on the chart.

It came up "Suicidal Mania."

The PC then throws himself down the stairs, screaming, and shoots the leader of the Cthulhu Cult with his elephant gun at point blank range, getting a chest full of buckshot from the cult leader's second in command, killing him. All hell then breaks loose as the cults both open fire.

All the PCs (except for Mr. chest full of buckshot) just barely escaped with their lives.

I think the player who had been playing the elephant gun-toting park ranger was lucky to come away from that session with his life. The other players were furious with him for nearly getting them all killed.

I LOL'ed at that. I have fortunately not had to throw rocks on my players. Or had a Shadow of Doom growing larger under my feet.

[Deth Muncher]

Thread necromancied, everybody's banned.

Actually, probably not.

The qualifications for TN are it has to have fallen past Page 3 AND not have had a post in three months.

This barely beats the last one, by a matter of days.

[R4ph]

One night me and some friends got really bored, and started talking about the rules for archery in nWoD. Now, the rules can get quite horrible, especially when you buy the full fighting style merit from Armory. And we, being bored, started trying to figure out just how broken we could get it. Now, one of the people present was our resident rules lawyer and powergamer. So, with his help we came up with the following:

1 Werewolf, with Primal Urge 10, leting him have 10 strength and 10 athletics. With a specialty in Archery. And some gifts that boosted his strength obscenely.

5 mages, some of whom were arch-masters, the rest of whom were masters. All of the 5 were sacrificing themselves to push their own life force into boosting either the bow (which was an artifact), the arrow (which was thaumium, and dealing agg), or the werewolf.

This meant the bow was dealing obscene damage (we rolled it a few times, and got something like 300 successes - which means 300 agg damage - average health in WoD is 7...) at a range of 1.6 miles.

Ever since, our GM has been able to kill player schemes by threatening that we would find out what was happening 1.6 miles away...

[Ascension]

Actually, probably not.

The qualifications for TN are it has to have fallen past Page 3 AND not have had a post in three months.

This barely beats the last one, by a matter of days.

With this in mind, I'll go ahead and post...

Moon falls, everyone Wookiee dies.

[Greengiant]

3.5 D&D.

As DM
The party had this one rogue who really overplayed the thief thing. Even if it was nailed down they would try to steal it. It caused a lot of problems for the party (including getting them on death row, almost killed by a group of paladins, having an orc's greataxe in the cleric's kidney(he got better), and being forced to run from a mob of enraged dwarves) So I decided to devise a little trap. It goes something like this.
Me: You come upon the campsite of two human females and male gnome. They are sitting around a campfire eating. You notice that they have a fancy looking gold staute of a dragon.
Half Elf Bard: Alright, I'll walk up and see if we can rest at their site and share information.
Me: Alright, the gnome greets you and offers you a place by the fire to talk for a while.
Troublesome Human Rogue: I'll sneak up and try to steal the statue.
Me: I thought as much. You touch the statue and are instantaneously turned to dust. It was guarded by a powerful spell put on it by one of the human females, who is an Epic level wizard.
Rogue: What!? Thats bull! Don't I get a Will save or something?
Me: No. It's magic. Deal with it.
(she got the message after that)

-SNIP-

Let me just say, this may have just hit close to home, and I may not know all the background, but that sounds just like the inability to think of a more interesting solution. Maybe the campfire pair spelled this statuette to safeguard it, and maybe this rogue really needed to be killed, but seriously, could you not think of a better solution?

Have a curse on it, make it a plot hook. As a DM, I wouldn't see the rogue's kleptomania as a problem to be dealt with, I'd see it as a potential game-enhancing experience. Have him somehow learn his lesson, give him a curse or something, and have him try to get a solution to this curse. By the end he will want to turn himself in to get a solution to his problem, and will probably become a much more conservative thief in the future.

I could understand if you made an inconsequential item that the rogue should have the sense not to take something that would bring about his demise, but making something you know he will take kill him just sounds... not fun.

[Egiam]

It is a very memorable story!


Also, allow me to provide the story of Eric and the Gazebo for those that have not heard it.

Spoiler

Show

ED: You see a well groomed garden. In the middle, on a small hill, you see a gazebo.
ERIC: A gazebo? What color is it?
ED: [pause] It's white, Eric.
ERIC: How far away is it?
ED: About 50 yards.
ERIC: How big is it?
ED: [pause] It's about 30 ft across, 15 ft high, with a pointed top.
ERIC: I use my sword to detect good on it.
ED: It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo.
ERIC: [pause] I call out to it.
ED: It won't answer. It's a gazebo.
ERIC: [pause] I sheathe my sword and draw my bow and arrows. Does it respond in any way?
ED: No, Eric, it's a gazebo!
ERIC: I shoot it with my bow. [roll to hit] What happened?
ED: There is now a gazebo with an arrow sticking out of it.
ERIC: [pause] Wasn't it wounded?
ED: OF COURSE NOT, ERIC! IT'S A GAZEBO!
ERIC: [whimper] But that was a +3 arrow!
ED: It's a gazebo, Eric, a GAZEBO! If you really want to try to destroy it, you could try to chop it with an axe, I suppose, or you could try to burn it, but I don't know why anybody would even try. It's a @#$%!! gazebo!
ERIC: [long pause. He has no axe or fire spells.] I run away.
ED: [thoroughly frustrated] It's too late. You've awakened the gazebo. It catches you and eats you.
ERIC: [reaching for his dice] Maybe I'll roll up a fire-using mage so I can avenge my Paladin.

The above is Copyright © 1989 by Richard Aronson. Reprinted with permission. The author grants permission to reprint as long as all copyright notices remain with the text.

Ah... now I get the munchkin card The Dreaded Gazebo!!
That had been bugging me.

[Golden-Esque]

We stayed up really late one night to finish an encounter, and I was personally getting crabby.

My character had a grudge against another character in the party (typical Wizard vs Fighter thing) and I was trying to brainstorm creative ways to get back at him (most of them involving clever uses of Prestidigitation and Baleful Polymorph.

Let me rephrase an earlier quote; we were ALL getting tired and needless to say the DM and I got into an argument about whether or not I could use Prestidigitation and Permanency to shrink all of said Fighter's clothes by getting a kid to model them and adjusting them to the new wearer's size.

"Several thousand meteors crash through the heavans and impale you, dealing 30d6 damage." The DM then dumped his bag filled with d6s on the table.

"Make a Reflex Save. 40 or higher saves."

"Uh ..."

"You're dead."

"How is the rest of the party not dead?"

"The gods hate you, they're Nox-Homing Meteors."

So after that we all crashed and laughed about it the next day. Was I dead? Nah, but I never got to shrink that fighter's clothes either ...

[Skaven]

We were attacking a Drow fortress in the underdark. We were all pretty drunk at the time, except the DM. We were running out of spells. For some reason, it felt like a really good idea to everyone involved that when we found the guards sleeping chamber, that we should use these beds to rest and regain our spells.

DM: Are you.. are you SURE.. you want to rest in the middle of assaulting this Drow fortress?

Party: Sure, like in Baldurs gate.

I don't think anyone woke up.

[Kalir]

Thread necromancied, everybody's banned.

Yes, I screwed up. I apologize. You do not need to tell me that I suck any more beyond this point, as I already know and it's getting to be a fad.

Good one for players not accepting a plot hook: "You ignore the request from [x] and decide to live out the rest of your days peacefully farming. Unfortunately, all of the training in using a spiked chain to throttle a man from 20 paces proves impractical for keeping cows healthy, and you die by middle age, destitute and alone."

[Dienekes]

Not exactly rocks fall everyone dies but I think it's similar.

We were playing Paranoia, and a series of events happened that were so random and hilarious that involved the GM to laugh for over 6 minutes straight (we started timing it).

It was declared that due to these events the Computer exploded and destroyed the world

[RPGuru1331]

After an extended session of dickery and annoying the ST

"Luna Falls, you all die"
"...I Heavenly Guardian Defense (Perfect Defense that automatically blocks everything) Luna?"
*Censored for profanity, but words to the effect of 'Rassin Frackin Solars'*

Strangely, the most politically astute of us recognized that this was still a death sentence. 4 Anathema surviving the destruction of like, a huge chunk of Creation mea n s Sidereal assassins..

[Nerd-o-rama]

This hasn't happened yet, but in a certain campaign...

"It's a Gundam!"

[Dairun Cates]

"Friend Computer Loves You"

[Liliedhe]

Wendigo comes out of the bushes, everyone dies.

And, my personal favourite: Undead Master Shedim possessed mammoths arrive, everybody dies. (both Shadowrun)

[RMS Oceanic]

To deal with a singular troublesome player:

"Congenital heart defect. No save."

To deal with somebody trying to make Pun-Pun:

"Congenital tail defect. No save."

[Kris Strife]

You hear the words 'Cossack Buster' shouted in a Russian accent and see a flash of red light before being vaporized.

You see a troll wdaring a watch helm, badge carved into one arm, carrying a siege ballista with a full sheath of arrows. He's facing away from you, and starts to put the ballista over one shoulder. You heara twang and take 563974 damage, no save.

an internet two whoever gets both references.

[Gardakan]

My group : Frenzied Berseker Half-Orc level 15, Sorceress Half-Elf level 14, Cleric Human level 15, Paladin Human level 15, Rogue Human level 15, Rogue Human level 15(Yeah there two rogues in the same groupe...)


The group have finished to fight a group of 4 vrocks...

In the order of the initiative it's now the time to the frenzied berseker to play. He try to be out of his rage but roll a critical miss. The Cleric and one of the two rogues were a - 4 hit points. So the Frenzied Berseker swing two of his 7 attacks at the paladin and score a critical hit for like 70 damage. The 34 that follow kill him. The Frenzied Berseker take a little step by a swift action(feat) and followup on the sorceress and the other rogue. The Frenzied berseker have a ability to ignore the death... the frenzied berseker was at -57 hp... so everyone die and we begin a new adventure... without frenzied berseker...

[Sstoopidtallkid]

You hear the words 'Cossack Buster' shouted in a Russian accent and see a flash of red light before being vaporized.

You see a troll wdaring a watch helm, badge carved into one arm, carrying a siege ballista with a full sheath of arrows. He's facing away from you, and starts to put the ballista over one shoulder. You heara twang and take 563974 damage, no save.

an internet two whoever gets both references.

Detritus and his Powerful Build+Monkey Grip Crossbow with Tunneling, Flaming Burst, Splitting, and every other missile enhancement on it.