Dumbest things done in game

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We have all done it. We have all decided to take a risk or known somebody who wanted to try something insane in game because they were on a streak of luck and wanted to see how far they could ride it. This, this is for the failures of those times. Also, just poor decisions.
For example, I was playing a game of D&D with my uncle playing the part of the DM (he was not always a merciful god, but a fair one) and my party and I were in the Underdark. I had been roped into playing the rogue on this game, since the sister of a friend who played with me regularly wanted to play the cleric and the role of magic user was taken. Okay, fine, then I will have mega acrobat skills and have bows be my main weapon. I had not been planning for the Underdark... So, we are working our way down a ravine that we have no idea how deep it goes, and have had all sorts of spidery enemies up our collective butts the whole time. I have been hitting all my rolls like nothing, and... I got cocky. I decided that I was going to jump a gap... I critical failed my roll, and decided to try to shoot a grapple up to my party... I hit the cleric... Critically...

 

I thought you were the only one who plays healers?

As far as dumb things go, probably 90% of things my group does. It's one long streak of bad luck and poor choices. Everything from charging a boss head on with a low-level mage to tripping head-first into lava and losing all hair in the process. This chapter they wanted to be sneaky, so they picked the only entrance in the whole dungeon that leads directly from the surface to the boss (by sheer luck). I should have probably sealed the doors or something, but I wanted to see how things would turn out.

Not to bash the players or anything, I've been guilty of it plenty of times when I was in the player's seat. The first rule of gamemastery is actually, "All players are idiots and should be treated as such." It comes right after rule 0 (i.e. "The GM is always right.").

 

It is funny, I actually told the group that THAT was the reason I play healers. I can't get cocky with the jumpy-jumpy-woohoo if I can barely jump. Mind, I play warclerics and the like when I play D&D and even if that specific class is not available I usually just build em up to be that way anyway...
My uncle laughed and told us there were two things the party could do. Try to go down after us, or leave us for dead and we would be forced to make new characters. They chose to leave us, and he had us roll to see if either of us lived. Funny enough, we did, but when the party ended up getting to the bottom, they found an insane cleric who was swinging the head of her fallen friend as a flail.

 

Oh, I knew I forgot something. There are no critical skill rolls in D&D, so you were either playing it wrong or houseruling it for comedic effect (which we did quite often as well).

 

Yeah, as far as i know, at least in 5th edition, critical success' (20's) and fails (1's) only apply to death saving throws (instant recovery to 1 hp on critical success, fail 2 death saving throws on a critical fail) and on attack rolls. (double damage dice on critical success)
That said, it wouldn't be the first group to houserule them to apply to skill checks as well, and it can lead to some quite hilarious events taking place in your game, so i'm all for it.

 

It was the same in every edition of D&D as far as I can remember. We usually didn't do the whole automatic success/failure, but exceptionally good or bad rolls generally meant a somewhat modified result regardless of whether the roll was successful or not. It often led to some pretty fun situations, like a tavern being renamed to Moonwalk Bar after I rolled a 20 on a Perform (dance) roll to moonwalk out the door.

 

I've never played PnP, nor indeed have I ever known anyone IRL that plays it, but I would totally do dumb shit if it was funny. Who cares what happens to the character if I can have a good laugh out of it.

 

Well, of course - that's pretty much a given with most games.
This is more about the rules and how your DM decides to rule them - normally you aren't able to crit fail/succeed on skill checks (perception, sleight of hands, etc) i've played games where the DM houseruled that they could, and it opens up more opportunities to insert fun little bits when you do. So rolling a 1 on picking a lock doesn't just mean you fail - you actually fail so spectacularly that you somehow manage to upgrade the lock, making it as good as new and even harder to pick.. (what happens is usually up to the DM, think creatively here.)

 

At that point, you should have just made a hole in the wall instead.

 

I've done plenty of dumb things: intentionally setting of a magic mouth (bringing the entire fort to the party), taking on a storm giant with a third level thief (if only that backstab had landed), mixing Everclear with Peppermint Schnapps....

My favorite "dumb gamer story" comes from the early days of D&D:

From Steve Jackson Games website....

Many years ago (back when we all were still playing D & D), I ran a game where I pitted two groups against each other.

Several members of Group One came up with the idea of luring Group Two into a trap. You remember the Hand of Vecna and the Eye of Vecna that were artifacts in the old D&D world where if you cut off your hand (or your eye) and replaced it with the Hand of Vecna (or the Eye) you'd get new awesome powers? Well, Group One thought up The Head of Vecna.

Group One spread rumors all over the countryside (even paying Bards to spread the word about this artifact rumored to exist nearby). They even went so far as to get a real head and place it under some weak traps to help with the illusion. Unfortunately, they forgot to let ALL the members of their group in on the secret plan (I suspect it was because they didn't want the Druid to get caught and tell the enemy about this trap of theirs, or maybe because they didn't want him messing with things).

The Druid in group One heard about this new artifact and went off in search of it himself (I believe to help prove himself to the party members...) Well, after much trial and tribulation, he found it; deactivated (or set off) all the traps; and took his "prize" off into the woods for examination. He discovered that it did not radiate magic (a well known trait of artifacts) and smiled gleefully.

I wasn't really worried since he was alone and I knew that there was no way he could CUT HIS OWN HEAD OFF. Alas I was mistaken as the Druid promptly summoned some carnivorous apes and instructed them to use his own scimitar and cut his head off (and of course quickly replacing it with the Head of Vecna...)

Some time later, Group one decided to find the Druid and to check on the trap. They found the headless body (and the two heads) and realized that they had erred in their plan (besides laughing at the character who had played the Druid)...The Head of Vecna still had BOTH eyes! They corrected this mistake and reset their traps and the Head for it's real intended victims...

Group Two, by this time, had heard of the powerful artifact and decided that it bore investigating since, if true, they could use it to destroy Group One. After much trial and tribulation, they found the resting place of The Head of Vecna! The were particularly impressed with the cunning traps surrounding the site (one almost missed his save against the weakest poison known to man). They recovered the Head and made off to a safe area.

Group Two actually CAME TO BLOWS (several rounds of fighting) against each other argueing over WHO WOULD GET THEIR HEAD CUT OFF! Several greedy players had to be hurt and restrained before it was decided who would be the recipient of the great powers bestowed by the Head... The magician was selected and one of them promptly cut his head off. As the player was lifting The Head of Vecna to emplace it on it's new body, another argument broke out and they spent several minutes shouting and yelling. Then, finally, they put the Head onto the character.

Well, of course, the Head simply fell off the lifeless body. All members of Group Two began yelling and screaming at each other (and at me) and then, on their own, decided that they had let too much time pass between cutting off the head of a hopeful recipient and put the Head of Vecna onto the body.

SO THEY DID IT AGAIN!... [killing another PC]

In closing, it should be said that I never even cracked a smile as all this was going on. After the second PC was slaughtered, I had to give in (my side was hurting)...

And Group Two blamed ME for all of that...​

When Morte mentioned the Head of Vecna in Planescape: Torment, I almost fell out of my chair laughing.

 

I did not realise that comment actually referred to something like this. The more you know

 

Does it count as dumb if you wanted that outcome?

At least one party I was in came to blows with each other regardless of whatever the storyline was (we were supposed to go on an adventure??)

We played an unofficial expansion pack on D&D where half the party was aligned good, with most of that half being demon-slayers (very very lawful knights with more spell casting than paladins-the DM enforced the lawful bit, failing to comply to the rules may result in losing powers at the worst time). The other half of the party was generally aligned evil with most of them being half-demons.

Did the party have to start killing itself off.. I don't know.. maybe.. maybe not.. but it sure happened.

 

It wasn't in an RPG but in an RTS. My brother was telling me I was about to hit the load, not the save button. I told him to shut up or something equally as polite. And I got what I deserved. Then he took pity on me, and I realized what a bad person I'd been.

 

Bit of a necro, but felt that it was better to necro a good thread than to start a new one for my own story.

Bit of background: My friend Eric is obsessed with using Greek Fire (AD&D 2E). We are tracking a guy down, and this second guy, Corvair told us he was in a cave, which was filled with ogres. So after magically incinerating his guards and beating him to death (accidentally) we see a riot.

The rioters were dragging this guy out of the local inn (which they lit on fire) while screaming "Down with the tyrant". Eric thought that it was someone who had helped us, so he charged in. We all got dragged in. Our mage was unconcious and the rest of us weren't doing too good. (30 armed villagers to five of us) So Eric tells us to back off. We drag our mage away, taking AOOs, and Eric, on his initiative, says, "I'm gonna throw some Greek Fire." This is the one time we approved of it. With two bottles (of 5), he killed twenty-three of them. Two more died from ranged attacks. The rest ran to the hills. We asked about the guy we had tried to rescue. He was underneath some melted corpses. And he had become one of the corpses. Turns out, we had the wrong innkeeper. And the Greek Fire was more potent than we thought. We walked off after figuring out that these people were basically enslaved, trying to find our original quarry.