Gaming Stories

[Erasmus1966]

This story is at least a quarter of a century old, maybe a bit more.... and it was using the venerable AD & D 1st edition rules...

My character, an elven mage, and his cohorts (all around level 15-18 I think), were desperate for cash... after many advetures robbing banks, stealing the Crimson eye of the little yellow god etc etc (and one very odd situation where we were hired to ruin our patron's rival's business (it was a restaurant)), we were hired by a mountain village to eliminate the huge bird of prey that was munching happily on their flocks...

By force of habit, whenever my character was about to enter combat he cast Polymorph Self (for those of you who don't know, a kind of lesser shapeshifting spell), and this he duly did, as we crept up to the nest of said large raptorial avian...the bird was away, but there were eggs, which we proceeded to break (Homage to Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, methinks).... then mummy-bird appears, swoops down, grabs a random (yeah right) PC... that would be me...

I'm knocked down below 0 HP, Polymorph Self ends, giving me back 12 HP....I wake up, spell-less, and suspended in the claws of a large bird that was circling at approximately 3000 feet... thinking quickly, I manage to worm one arm free, and grab the magic wand I'd found in the previous adventure and not had a chance to identify... 'Here goes nothing', thinks I...

Wand use 1: a Live rhinoceros appeared in mid-air and had little time to become aware of its own existence before it plummetted to the ground, decorating a small portion of the World of Greyhawk with ungulate giblets

Wand use 2: A stream of live butterflies

'Oh', thinks my character... 'It's a Wand of Wonder' (random (again, yeah right) spell effects to be determined by rolls made by the DM)....

Wand use 3: grass sprouts on the belly of the beast

Wand use 4: Flesh to stone.........

For a few moments, my character was suspended in the talons of a Rock Roc....

They couldn't find enough bits to resurrect....

Edited March 17, 2013 by Erasmus1966

[seneschal]

No last-chance Save roll for try No. 5?

[Erasmus1966]

Er...no...

I don't think we could find a 'Save versus being crushed to death by a 1000 ton statue falling from 3000 feet'...Bend Bars/Lift Gates just didn't seem to cut it...it wasn't technically death magic, though it was just as effective...

Plus I think even I found it so funny that I didn't protest.... and my PC was subsequently used as the God of Magic in a setting we developed afterwards

[BMonroe]

I'm sure I've told the story before, but...

Running an RQIII game, circa 1988 or so. Homebrew setting, and the PCs are being charged by a mob of mutant orc-like things. So, the chief of the monsters charges one of the PCs, and fumbles his attack roll. Checking the chart, he loses a piece of armor. A random roll tells us he's knocked his helmet off.

Shenanigans happen, and then it's the next turn. The mutant-orc-thing attacks the same PC again, and Fumbles. Rolling on the chart, he's hit himself for critical damage. ROlling again, we discover that he's killed himself in the head.

After the laughter dies down, we take a moment to reflect. The bad guy leader runs up, knocks off his own helmet, and then sticks his axe in his own head.

At which point, the other orc-mutant-chaos-monster-things surrender to the PCs, and their obviously superior magic.

[Erasmus1966]

Zomben, your story pretty much explains why my old DM, who was ever in search of a 'better' role-playing system (better than AD & D), only tried RQ ONCE... In his first combat, he apparently cut himself in half in the first round, so that was the end of that idea

[BMonroe]

Awesome. Greg Stafford once told me about his baboon PC that fumbled and bit its own head off.

[Rob]

Awesome. Greg Stafford once told me about his baboon PC that fumbled and bit its own head off.

You HAVE to share this! I need to know how it's even possible. Please tell me you remember!

[BMonroe]

It was something where the baboon was using a bite attack against an opponent, fumbled and rolled the "hit self, do critical damage" result. Then they rolled the location, and it was the head.

[Erasmus1966]

There IS such a thing as sticking too closely to the rules

It reminds me of a discussion I once had at school (far too far in the distant past for me to think about):

Me: (Noting my friend had a sticking plaster on his ear) How did you hurt your ear?

Him: I bit it by accident

Me: How did you manage that?

Him: I stood on a chair

[BMonroe]

I think in the end, they decided the baboon had cracked his skull on his opponent's armor or something. But that was after the initial hilarity died down.

[Link6746]

First ever BRP campaign I'd hosted. I had one player at the time, who was looking for more at the time (Now we have two and a potential third).

Post apocolyptic setting (With mutations table, modified to replace Anthro with Psi-Mutant, and two mutations at start- SAN damage for each Psi power learned that counts against max normal SAN like Mythos):

First few sessions went off rather well.

4th Session: I created a challenge that was meant to make the character run from it- A series of outlaw traders raiding an old military depo. The player managed to take out the entire 14 man raiding party by hiding behind cover, shooting, throwing weapons, etc, from a particular rock. He used up all his morphine and bandages, and survived with 4/12 hit points left. Finally, the kids assisting the raiding party were given a flare gun, threatened, and sent off while intimidated, and the remaining two adults followed them. The resulting loot was enough to buy him the Psi Mutagen, and the resulting increase in social status it brought.

Two sessions later, him and the other player (who rolled Psi-mutant on one of her initial mutations) both critically fail psi checks while trying to keep a horde of mutated wild dogs in a junkyard at bay, seemingly one after the other (though one player succeeded their first one). I roll their SAN damage, and one of them gets 6 from the mental stress. Temporary insanity (Paranoia). The rest of the fight was complicated by the fact that the wolves were still active, and one of the players had to constantly roll IDEA to prevent being paralyzed with fear. Again, they barely pull through. the both of them are left having to grab the items and run in their truck, dashing away like madmen to avoid death.