You know you're in trouble when...

[LibraryOgre]

...the minotaur is the voice of reason.
...your cleric of Bahamut is threatening a beggar with death for asking for money.
...sane tactics for the defender involve staying out of the way of the strikers and leaders.

Anything else that indicates your part is in trouble? ;-)

[arguskos]

...the party artificer decides to just "join the other guys. They have better items."

...the BBEG gives up on his plan out of anger with the party, and dedicates himself to eradicating them from the universe.

...the rampaging dragon takes the parties advice about "settling down and raising some kids" to mean "establish an evil empire of half-dragons that I can rule."

-argus

[AKA_Bait]

...the paladin is actually considering murdering the baby.
...the barbarian is the best option to talk to the king.
...the prophecy indicates your party specifically. Like, by name.

[BRC]

The DM is grinning.
The DM is rolling Die and checking his notes without saying anything.
Any member of the party asks "Whats the worst thing that could happen?"
Your barbarian just punched an old man on the side of the road. That old man will turn out to be a demigod, this never fails.

[ravenkith]

.....your party consists of a warlock two tanks and a paladin...and your adventure starts with '...the mists roll in and engulf you..."

[TheThan]

The party actively hampers their own progress… with no treachery on the part of the DM.

Spoiler

Show

Seriously this happened to me (as the DM) in a starwars D20 game. I gave the players a ship, they sold it. Thusly becoming stranded on the planet they were on. I gave them a quest; they killed the quest giver and couldn’t complete it. They’re supposed to wait until a certain time at a certain place to complete a quest, they wander off.

Gah!

[Zenos]

You're resort to the halfling wizard to break up sewer grates.

[Blackfang108]

...The DM STOPS smiling.

The 3 INT Half-Orc is the party Skillmonkey.

the 3 CON Wizard is the party Tank.

The Healmonkey is Evil. (I actually have a party like this. Granted, it's an evil campaign, and I have healing as well.)

[Duke of URL]

... you let the Rogue handle all of the treasure because everyone else is too busy.
... your battle plan begins with "the monk, the samauri, and the warmage are our offensive punch..."
... the DM has asked you for the fourth time, "are you sure you want to do that?"
... the new guy wants to try a kobold paladin

[FinalJustice]

...the DM not only stopped smiling, but seems very upset and competitive.
...the tank fighter decides to ignore the brute lackeys and charges the BBEG Wizard.
...the DM says 'your character wouldn't behave like this, x, y or z are not important to him!'

[arguskos]

...your character wakes up in a bed with a half-orc male. Your character is a warforged juggernaut, replete with armor spikes. He looks at you and says, "was it good for you too?"

-argus

[Zenos]

You see kobolds peeking down at you from murder holes...

[streakster]

...fire does not, in fact, kill it.

[Swordguy]

...the homepage on all the players laptops is set to the CharOp Forum - except your wife's
...the GM.looks around nervously before the game starts and asks "Nobody's seen the SAW movies, right? And nobody minds LARPing?"
...you crest the ridge to see a mighty army spread before you - 10,000 Awakened Gazebos spread across the plain.

[valadil]

This actually happened in our GURPS game two days ago:

We were infiltrating an evil temple and stumbled across a statue of a Maralith with shiny red eyes. Naturally we figured the eyes were gems, so the human swashbuckler and the dwarf tank (myself) climbed up the statue, using the arms as a ladder. When we got there we noticed that the eyes weren't actually gems, but it was black stone glowing red. Oh well, it'll still be valuable. I handed off a spare pick axe to the human and we each sat on a shoulder and work on the eyes. As we chipped away at the statue, more red glow emanated from the cracks we made. The mage told us that from what he knew of demons this would be a dangerous one to fight and is likely somehow a guardian of the temple. Well, this was probably still good loot, but on the off chance if it was a maralith and such a danger to us, we'd rather fight it alone than when it has friends. So we kept on chipping away at her face. Amazingly, the statue wasn't actually a maralith. When we finally broke the head off the statue burst in an AoE of lava, and every save my stubborn and greedy dwarf was burned severely.

[Zenos]

...And neither does water.

[Akisa]

DM: We're updating to system x

[Ganurath]

...your DM facepalms.
...the barbarian makes a Survival check to "find a random encounter."
...the party's plan is to use the new guy as bait. For the dwarves. This plan was put forward by the party dwarf.

[chiasaur11]

...fire does not, in fact, kill it.

That makes no sense.

Perhaps you didn't use enough fire?

[tokonaut]

.....The evil cleric says take it easy on the guy...

[arguskos]

...the 1 hp characters live longer than the dwarf fighter with 17 AC and 6 hp at level 1.

...said 1 hp characters actually outlive more than a few of the dwarf's subsequent charaters.

...the kobolds DON'T destroy the entire party in horrible ways.

...when Plan A (fire) fails, when Plan B (more fire) fails too, and when Plan C (run away while using fire) ALSO fails.

-argus

[BRC]

The Party wizard prepared nothing but Fireball, Scorching Ray, Magic Missile, and Acid Splash.

The caster wears medium armor because "It's only a 30% failure chance".

Fire, More Fire, Even more fire, Water, Lightning, and sharp heavy things fail to kill it.

The Powergamer decides to DM, and ensure you that the encounter CR will be appropriate...

Your Sword is talking to you, and telling you to kill.
The bad guy has a name.
You Are Playing Paranoia, Citizen...

[arguskos]

The bad guy has a name.

This has won the thread. Congrats.

Also, when the BBEG decides he is just going to surrender, because the "cute fluffy kitty asked so nicely" when referring to the Catfolk Frenzied Berserker.

-argus

[Duke of URL]

... okay, you've been spending time on the ChapOp boards, but so has the DM.
... after "going nova" and getting ready to rest up, you hear, "roll initiative".
... you're being hauled away by an insane Paladin to a distant city to answer for crimes you have no idea you've committed.
... the DM says, "hey, we have a new player for tonight. She's my girlfriend, and she's never played before, so I'm going to help her."
... when pressed about what old module the DM has converted for the session's adventure, he finally admits that it's "Tomb of Horrors".
... jumping off a cliff has a better chance of survival than standing and fighting.
... the DM has a Mary Sue actually named "Mary Sue".

[theMycon]

... the druid brings a far-side(TM) calendar with him. For inspiration.

[Edge of Dreams]

...the DM says "give me a couple minutes to write up the stats for this guy".
...the army of metal men marching towards your city has angels for backup.
...your opponent's damage rolls are measured in kills instead of hp.

[Telonius]

... anyone utters the words, "Don't worry, you'll only miss on a ..."
... you see a statue. Ever.

[Zenos]

The enemy golem army has glowing green eyes and the DM described them as "skeletal, wielding long staves also glowing an eerie green".

[AKA_Bait]

... you notice that your DM has a page from GitP open and the thread title begins with "That Damn..."

... the Duke's crown is missing and the party rogue looks a little too innocent.

... you ask for healing from the party cleric and they respond "I'm not that kind of cleric."

[FMArthur]

...Olidammara has decided to make your party the unluckiest group in the world (happened! Was hilarious! Good times had by all!).
...The party somehow comes to believe that leaping across a 35ft canyon is the only way to go and is in fact the key to their salvation.
...The party comes up with an elaborate plan to assassinate the king and assumes (based on no information, with no dissent, no questions and no Gather Information) that it puts them in charge.
...The party's only "healer" is a shelf of potions of CLW kept far away in some NPC's basement.