Most Embarassing Champions Moment

[Cosmic Man]

Nothing defines a team better than how well they handle a loss. At least, that's what I'm told.

(This was played as part of the Zodiac Conspiracy)

Superbowl Sunday! Our Heros have 50yd line seats (in civilian ID) when Mechanon comes streaking across the sky, bent on a course of destruction. My character, Cosmic Man, after finding a place to change, takes to the sky to battle the metal menace.

"Face the power of my photon blast!" I shout as I reconfigure my (not quite cosmic) power pool to give the aforementioned blast. 6-6-6 is the skill roll and *BOOM*, down plummets Cosmic Man, a victim of his barely controlled energy.

Right in front of the Super Bowl crowd... at halftime...

And then it gets worse.

The rest of the team held off Mechanon long enough for Cosmic Man to wake back up (and get his Photon Blast working), and take the metal menace down. That's when several members of the Zodiac show up.

Cosmic Man gets the old move-through from Aries, and spends the rest of the fight imprinted in a cement wall. The Mad Basher got driven into the ground like a nail. And our Green Lantern wannabe got left with the wonderful Mind Control command of "Macarena".

At least we didn't get dressed as mimes.

Needless to say, when we did get our revenge, it was SWEET!

[Koshka]

It wasn't a loss, but the GM should have been redfaced after this one:

First game of new campaign. GM has gotten all of us together by saying we all won a free first-class plane trip (to a specific place and at a set time). The plane gets to cruising altitude, the villains on board the plane announce the hijacking*, and the entire first-class compartment charges to the restroom. He hadn't looked at the sheets first, he'd just assumed the characters would either be Public ID or have Instant Change. Instead, we were all Secret ID and change-clothes.

*I should perhaps mention this game was long before 9-11.

[Superskrull]

This happened to me when I was running (as opposed to playing) in a Champions Universe game and crossed over to a DC/Marvel game world.

The players had been tracking down the person/persons (they weren't sure) who had been altering their world's continuity and causing heroes to vanish and others to appear. The heroes had tracked down the temporal energies surrounding the affected heroes and a half dozen of them, both PC & NPC smashed into the lair of the Time Master from Classic Enemies. During the fight the PCs were transported to Chronopolis, Kang's transtemporal city.
They started exploring and were quickly detected and set upon by the Anachronauts (paranormals from various times gathered by Kang) and Apocryphus (a powerful Eternal) soared into the air and announced, "Feel the power of the Last Eternal, intruders and die!" So saying he cut loose with a 5d6 RKA of cosmic energy from his eyes into the chest of Jon-El, son of Con-El. Jon-El was half Daxxamite and disgustingly powerful so I figured he could safely be shot first without a fatality right out of the gate. I needn't have worried. I nailed him dead center of the chest with a 6 to hit. I followed that up with the damage roll; 2, 1, 1, 1, 1 and 1 for the stun multiple. :o The player rolls his eyes at me and the characters responds to the assault with a bored, "Y'know, we can go back around the corner and then try this again."
Naturally Apocryphus howled in impotent rage and the brawl was on. Every time I botch a damage roll now and one of the players involved is present I'm told I'm rolling like an Eternal again. :)

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Superskrull
This happened to me when I was running (as opposed to playing) in a Champions Universe game and crossed over to a DC/Marvel game world.

The players had been tracking down the person/persons (they weren't sure) who had been altering their world's continuity and causing heroes to vanish and others to appear. The heroes had tracked down the temporal energies surrounding the affected heroes and a half dozen of them, both PC & NPC smashed into the lair of the Time Master from Classic Enemies. During the fight the PCs were transported to Chronopolis, Kang's transtemporal city.
They started exploring and were quickly detected and set upon by the Anachronauts (paranormals from various times gathered by Kang) and Apocryphus (a powerful Eternal) soared into the air and announced, "Feel the power of the Last Eternal, intruders and die!" So saying he cut loose with a 5d6 RKA of cosmic energy from his eyes into the chest of Jon-El, son of Con-El. Jon-El was half Daxxamite and disgustingly powerful so I figured he could safely be shot first without a fatality right out of the gate. I needn't have worried. I nailed him dead center of the chest with a 6 to hit. I followed that up with the damage roll; 2, 1, 1, 1, 1 and 1 for the stun multiple. :o The player rolls his eyes at me and the characters responds to the assault with a bored, "Y'know, we can go back around the corner and then try this again."
Naturally Apocryphus howled in impotent rage and the brawl was on. Every time I botch a damage roll now and one of the players involved is present I'm told I'm rolling like an Eternal again. :) Yeah, that's good. I don't know if this is that embarrassing but it sure was mind-numbingly stupid AND it made me uncomfortable as gm. I was running a game at a con using Marvel Superheroes long ago (I hadn't discovered Champions) and one of the players (Superskrull knows him as... Wes) had his groin placed in a telekinetic vise. His solution: (He had crystal transformation powers) "I will turn my crotch into crystal." Well, he made his yellow feat roll to change his crotch into ?crystal? and then I told him to make a red Con feat roll to stay conscious as his private parts shattered into millions of fragments. Man! that was wierd.

[Superskrull]

Originally posted by Agent X
Yeah, that's good. I don't know if this is that embarrassing but it sure was mind-numbingly stupid AND it made me uncomfortable as gm. I was running a game at a con using Marvel Superheroes long ago (I hadn't discovered Champions) and one of the players (Superskrull knows him as... Wes) had his groin placed in a telekinetic vise. His solution: (He had crystal transformation powers) "I will turn my crotch into crystal." Well, he made his yellow feat roll to change his crotch into ?crystal? and then I told him to make a red Con feat roll to stay conscious as his private parts shattered into millions of fragments. Man! that was wierd.

Ah, yes. Many of my gaming experiences with Wes were like that. Thankfully, he didn't play much Champions. Prefered the wacky fun of Monty Haul D&D. Fun guy, complete headcase though.

[ProfessorM@ss]

Originally posted by Cosmic Man
Nothing defines a team better than how well they handle a loss. At least, that's what I'm told.
<snip/>


My number one worst moment was when we had to disable a nuclear bomb. My PC was in charge of getting and defending a nuclear scientist. So, here we are, flying to Arkansas, into the heat of superbattle, when we get fired on.

My character shields the scientist with his body. And gets stunned. GM says, "Make a Dexterity roll to hold onto the scientist." And I flub it. Utterly. Three 6s.

Scientist falls. I proceed to swoop down to save him. I get shot again, and get KOed...and why? Because I said, "I don't want to dodge. My DCV will handle it. I want to fire back while I grab the scientist."

Scientist goes splat.

I wake up with five minutes left to get the bomb. I decide that my character, with some science skills, will disarm said bomb. The GM sympathetically says, "Cool. Roll me a Demolitions roll, and we'll give you a +3 from all your science skills."

Only a 17 or an 18 would flub it. I rolled a 17.

I would like to say, in my defense, that I believe the annoyed looks I got from the other PCs were entirely unwarranted...while we wrote up new PCs.

--->M@ss

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by Koshka
It wasn't a loss, but the GM should have been redfaced after this one:

First game of new campaign. GM has gotten all of us together by saying we all won a free first-class plane trip (to a specific place and at a set time). The plane gets to cruising altitude, the villains on board the plane announce the hijacking*, and the entire first-class compartment charges to the restroom. He hadn't looked at the sheets first, he'd just assumed the characters would either be Public ID or have Instant Change. Instead, we were all Secret ID and change-clothes.

*I should perhaps mention this game was long before 9-11.

I picture a line of supers holding up the 'wait a second finger' in line fror the bathroom... :D

[Talon]

I GM a lot, so most of my moments are goofs by my players instead of me. :)

My favorite dates back to one of my first junior-high school campaigns, right after Champions III came out. Despite not reading comics, I somehow came up with a Cosmic Power Pool character who looked like the Silver Surfer -- but as he was unable to speak, he was known as Mute.

The heroes were attempting to infiltrate an aerial base, and landed on a lower entryway. The base's security systems picked them up, and a camera swiveled to point at the frontmost hero. "Identify yourself!"

The player thought for a moment, then the light of inspiration came into his eyes. "I'm Mute!" he proclaimed proudly.

It hit him about two seconds later, as the base's alarms began to go off. :)

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by Superskrull
Ah, yes. Many of my gaming experiences with Wes were like that. Thankfully, he didn't play much Champions. Prefered the wacky fun of Monty Haul D&D. Fun guy, complete headcase though.

We once inherited a 'little brother' that tagged along with this other guy that played with us. The little bro had the nickname of 'digger' because he was always picking at his seat.

ANYWAY, Digger is sitting in on a game of "Lords of Creation" back in 1981 and the party (which were normal detective types) were attacked by an 500 lb. Tiger. Digger, who is playing aguy in a wheel-chair (don't ask) yells out. "I block the tiger!"

The room got dead quiet and all eyes turned on Digger, we had to take a recess because his brother was beating him up.

[Agent X]

Originally posted by MisterVimes
We once inherited a 'little brother' that tagged along with this other guy that played with us. The little bro had the nickname of 'digger' because he was always picking at his seat.

ANYWAY, Digger is sitting in on a game of "Lords of Creation" back in 1981 and the party (which were normal detective types) were attacked by an 500 lb. Tiger. Digger, who is playing aguy in a wheel-chair (don't ask) yells out. "I block the tiger!"

The room got dead quiet and all eyes turned on Digger, we had to take a recess because his brother was beating him up.

ROFLMOL!:D

[lemming]

i think my most embarassing moment was when my scientist/martial artist fell off a building I forget how high, but she had a phase before landing.

So she goes splat, not very hurt, but a friend's PC comes up and asks "Hey Ice Pirate. Didn't you just install boot jets into that suit?" :eek:

[Agent X]

Originally posted by lemming
i think my most embarassing moment was when my scientist/martial artist fell off a building I forget how high, but she had a phase before landing.

So she goes splat, not very hurt, but a friend's PC comes up and asks "Hey Ice Pirate. Didn't you just install boot jets into that suit?" :eek: Too hilarious.:D

[Gary]

I once had a midget speedster martial artist named Quickling. In an encounter with Godzilla, I was trying to think of something useful that I could do. In a brilliant flash of inspiration, I decided to martial throw Godzilla! This was before the 4th edition cleared up that you can only throw your pushed strength. Anyway, we couldn't find anything in the rules against it, but my GM decided to use common sense despite my desperate pleas... :(

[Agent X]

We had a throwaway game where I had everyone fight Godzilla. One of the players decided a great tactic would be to fly up into his face and blast him between the eyes. Well, Godzilla responded with Atomic Breath and... the character died immediately. I still don't know what that guy was thinking.:confused:

[Enforcer84]

I must admit my most embarassing moment was this:
my character, Purple Haze considered himself a Superman-esque boyscout hero. In a succession of games he:
1) Threw a Police Car at a robot, not checking to see if anyone was in it. ( A prisoner was)
2) turned the robot carcass over to the government and they mass produced them and created a martial law type system for the US.
3) tried to shield himself and his partner Ace, from a police assualt that really, neither were in any danger, so he knocked over an amphatheatre, KILLING EIGHTEEN POLICEMEN. We could have just left.
4) I killed ACE when he was mind controlled and attacked me and I did 27 body on the one hit I landed.

It took about 4 months for me to accumulate these errors. It was so sad.

[Derek Hiemforth]

Mine was actually an out-of-game slip of the tongue. I had created a new character -- an android whose abilities centered around communication with and control of machines. His name was going to be "Interface."

So I'm telling my buddies about this new character, and the words are tumbling out faster than my brain can keep them organized. I tried to say, "My new character is an android named Interface." It came out, "My new character is an anderfish."

Somehow, the character was never played. :D

[SuperBlue]

Not really emberassing as much as it was player stupidity...

In my first champions game, I was playing a energy projector (4d6 Flame Blast as only attack) with invisibility and flight that was built by the GM.

Anyway, I was trying to get a hotel room, but the place was booked up due to an Extreme Sports Competition. I said "I hate skaters..." as I walked out, and one of the other PCs (A girl named Frisbee) got really pissy with me, and this lasted until I had to leave.

During the same game, we were sneak attacked (he litterally dropped in on us) by some guy who could transform into a Hydra-esque creature, and he landed ON ME.

What's really bad is, I BSed my character's name and called him Vicks (I was obsessed by FF3 on the SNES at the time), and the group thought I named him after the medicine, and made fun of my cuz of that...

I just now realized how much of a geek I was back then... Oh well.

[Keneton]

One time during a very late night gaming session, my charcter Keneton was greeted by the ruler of this planet we were saving. I was very tired and hardley paying attention when The GM quipped....

GM: "Bob! Wake up man, what are you doing the king is staring at Keneton? Everyone else is showing some reverance."
Me (half asleep): " I curtsey!"

I never lived it down. The Mighty Keneton does a big purple power curtsey!
_________________________________________

In another game Foxbat toke over a McDonalds plant and trapped the PC's in a vat full of dehydrated onions and Mcrib Sauce. To make matter worse-Bulddozer had won the fight dressed upa s a new Villain "Big Mac!" The characters will never forget this humiliating defeat.
:eek:

[Keneton]

My friend Mitch had a mentalist with low active point attacks. He ego attacked a 4 year old and didn't stun her!

Even worse (this is pre UMA days when Mental Powers worked on animals without an advantage) a dumb dog made his breakout roll against him when he tried to orderhim off with Mind Control:rolleyes:

[Tamashii2000]

Ok, Here goes. The group I gamemastered for back in the early 90's included several 'megabricks' Strength 70 to 80, massive stun and defenses., you know the type. One of the villian groups manage to defeat them, and lock them inside a cell. Now the cell was a box with no doors or other ways in or out. The 'door' was a phase system built into the walls, once activated you stepped through the wall and into another room. Well "Crusher" wakes up and winds up a hay maker.... at the same moment the groups tech guy had already escaped and was rewiring the security system to open up the cells. Shockwave (another big mega brick) was standing near the 'cell door' to hold off the villians untill all the players were freed.

Tech guy makes his die roll, just at the same moment that Crusher threw that haymaker. As Shockwave was easly defeating all the bad guys I rolled his unluck (3d6) and he ... rolled 1,1 and 1.

Crushers fist goes through the 'phase door" and ends up hitting Shockwave.... who flys acrost the room and into the power generators... knocking out the power and knocking out the phase doors..... there by trapping Poor Crusher back in the cell.

We called it the wall that dodged.

[zakueins]

How about "players to villans"?

We were running a game of Champions set in the late '50s/early '60s, teenage heroes, and we were up against Dr. Doom himself.

(Yep, THE Dr. Doom. We'd stuck into the Lavertian embassy via the sewers, as Dr. Doom was about to pull the Kryptonian Generals out of the Phantom Zone using a Phantom Zone Ray projector stolen from Superman's Fortress of Solitude, and he had mind-control bands for the generals and everything-he even made sure to steal enough Kryptonite, just in case....)

Anyways, the players wake up after getting thrashed by Dr. Doom's robots, escape their death traps (mostly by thinking their way out), get their foci, and go after Doom. During the battle, my PC (a martial artist/gadgeteer/brick) was "playing unconscious" on the floor when Doom came by.

I asked the GM if I could use acrobatics as a 0-phase action to leap to my feet and whack Dr. Doom into the wall. He said yes. I did it, rolled my dice to hit and rolled....

A three.

House rules said that a 3 or a small range of numbers greater than 3 (I forget which, I think it was 1/6th the to-hit roll or something), means you have considered to have rolled the max for the damage-all 6's and all 1's on the knockback dice.

On a 20D6 Double Knockback attack.

One game inch away from a force field, then a solid concrete wall, one inch past that.

Dr. Doom's feet were sticking out the wall when it was done, and he was OUT (-30 stun, GM option to recover) of the running. That brought such a smile to my face.... :)

[Hermit]

In one of my first "Lords of Justice" campaigns, I was running my friends. While not total newbies, they sometimes forgot things... so Poltergeist ends up encased in an ice block.

Later, Jamerson Lord (NPC patron of the team and former super hero) asks, "Why didn't you simply walk through the ice?"

The player had forgot her character had desolidifcation.
;) She groaned, both OOC and IC. We teased her a bit, but assured her everyone had those moments.

Naturally, I'll not tell MY moment without sizable reward or threat. :)

[lemming]

Originally posted by zakueins
How about "players to villans"?
For some reason I was expecting a story more like the time in the first game of a campaign.

The campaign was set in the gritty future and we were supposed to play more vigilante heroes. I wound up writing up The Chromosone Avenger, Living Filter for the Gene Pool.

So we get a setup and the GM randomly decides that I'm at the monitor when a call for help comes in. We rush to a casino where there's a bunch of supers who we trash. We wind up killing one. And in acting like the anti-heroes, we beat up the manager of the casino who was directing the supers against us. I think we tossed him down some stairs. Turns out, he called us and the other team to help him against some enforcers. Whoops!

The game really took a downward turn after that. My only excuse was that this was in the middle of a gaming marathon and I was sleepy.

[Marchwarden]

My most embarrassing moment? My very first Champs character, Scrap-Iron. A revenge-minded power-armour type, he built his suit so that he could exact personal vengeance against the superpowered ruffians who had destroyed his life's work, and against all their ilk as well.

Well, no PA hero ever wants to get caught in a fight while unarmoured. Scrap-Iron was worse than just "unarmoured" at the particular moment when the base got ambushed. It was an excellent time for a strategic retreat...but first, due to the source and nature of the attack, he had an Enraged roll to make. He failed.

He even failed the DEX roll to keep the towel on as he charged in.

Amazingly, he survived his short-lived stint as the Naked Avenger...but never lived it down.

[tmutant]

While in a campaign GM'ed by my friend Fred, I was playing a character based on and named the Beast. Complete with blue fur. A group of super terrorists took over a school, and tied up all the kids in the gym. They were all surrounded by wooden desks, covered in gasoline. The head bad guy had a Zippo, ready to go. I snuck in through a skylight to recon the situation. One of the other players, playing a giant brick (3 or 4 levels of growth, STR in the 80's or 90's) arrives outside, doesn't check in with our team leader, and charges thru a wall. The head villian is about to throw the lighter, I jump down, grab lighter with my pre-hensile feet, land acrobatically on my hands, and am turned to stone by one of the other bad guys. I come out of it at GM's option. Standing in a water fountain in front of our Headquarters.:D

[tmutant]

Bump. I love this thread. Along with the Dumbest moments thread.:D

[Mayday]

Some teams and some characters are just doomed. Dice hate them.

So I had this female Magneto heroine. She had souped up flight speed and there was this villainess that we could NOT defeat, or even touch although the GM swears she was nothing special. The whole series of encounters with her were messed up, but my personal 'moment' came when I was being chased by half a dozen military style helicopters armed with missiles and machine guns through a very tight canyon maze.

Not enough room to get up to speed and pull out of range while carrying my team mate (an armored brick) so I used him as a body shield (he was unconscious from the last fight with her) and eventually got shot down because it never occurred to me that all I had to do was fly UP.

[BoloOfEarth]

I played in a group for a few years, and had a few weeks where schedule conflicts made me miss a few game sessions. The other players got together with the GM and decided to have some fun...

I was running Plastique, who could spray plastic in sheets, individual entangles, and could even mix in an explosive agent that triggered if the entangle was broken out of in one shot. He rolled around on roller skates with these tanks on his back containing the different chemicals for his attacks.

My first game session back, I was out on patrol when I run into some gang members. I decide to "wrap them up", but when I fired the plastic, all that comes out is pink paint. I tried to throw up a wall, and purple paint sprays all over everything. Then the GM informs me that the wheels on one skate are falling off, and that the stitching on my costume is coming apart. By this time, the other players can't hold in the laughter any longer. They hired the "gang members" to lure me into a fight so they could laugh at me. Imagine a half-naked superhero holding onto the remains of his costume, trying to beat a hasty retreat on one good skate.

[Karma]

Originally posted by BoloOfEarth
I played in a group for a few years, and had a few weeks where schedule conflicts made me miss a few game sessions. The other players got together with the GM and decided to have some fun...

I was running Plastique, who could spray plastic in sheets, individual entangles, and could even mix in an explosive agent that triggered if the entangle was broken out of in one shot. He rolled around on roller skates with these tanks on his back containing the different chemicals for his attacks.

My first game session back, I was out on patrol when I run into some gang members. I decide to "wrap them up", but when I fired the plastic, all that comes out is pink paint. I tried to throw up a wall, and purple paint sprays all over everything. Then the GM informs me that the wheels on one skate are falling off, and that the stitching on my costume is coming apart. By this time, the other players can't hold in the laughter any longer. They hired the "gang members" to lure me into a fight so they could laugh at me. Imagine a half-naked superhero holding onto the remains of his costume, trying to beat a hasty retreat on one good skate.

Frank:"So my paladin took on the Demilich with one hit point remaining while everyone else ran away???"
DM: "Its what we thought your character would do"
Caption: Frank misses one game session.

That kind of thing is just cruel. Yes they got a good laugh but it beggers belief that Plastique would have been stupid enough to let anyone close enough to tamper with his stuff. the Player might have missed a few Game sessiuons but that doesn't mean the character was sitting there in a catatonic state while his 'teammates' set him up.

[Mayday]

One of my early games as a GM the villains took a liking to the heroes. Invited them to all her high society social events knowing that their code of chivalry would not let them attack first.

Some of the more high spirited (and young) villains on her roster lured the heroes out on a call and kept them busy all day long, and when the heroes finally got home that night all the lights were on in their two story house and it had been sealed then turned into a giant fishtank.

ALMOST broke his code of chivalry, but he ended up staying the night at the villainess's mansion while the intrepid ones responsible put everything back to rights.

[Captain Obvious]

I think my most embarrassing superhero role-playing experience was just about every time we played Marvel Superheroes. You would think a guy with Amazing fighting skill could hurt someone every now and then, even if his strength was just Good. I guess it was my fault, because I was too stubborn to just re-roll a new guy....

This other experience didn't embarrass me, but it couldn't have been good for the guy it happened to. I was GMing the group through the adventure To Serve and Protect, wherein a well established hero group suddenly goes rogue, and throwing around harsh punishments for trivial offenses. A few early encounters in the story are scripted so that the Protectors beat the PCs (not too hard, since the Protectors had some pretty good tactics as I recall). We had one guy whose character was some kind of high-tech psycho-killer (he didn't quite 'get' the whole superhero idea...come to think of it, given some of his fantasy exploits, I don't think he really got the idea of a team...). Anyway, as the other PCs start dropping and the Protectors start looking at him as the biggest current threat, he starts thinking about running. He's low on END, though, so he decides to TP a short distance away and hide for a recovery or two. He teleports right into the Mens' room in the mall they're fighting at. When the Protectors found him, a couple of phases later, he was whimpering in a stall, still unable to fight or run....

[BoloOfEarth]

Originally posted by Karma
That kind of thing is just cruel. Yes they got a good laugh but it beggers belief that Plastique would have been stupid enough to let anyone close enough to tamper with his stuff. the Player might have missed a few Game sessiuons but that doesn't mean the character was sitting there in a catatonic state while his 'teammates' set him up.

I let that go because it was all in fun. Besides, I got my revenge a year or so later when I was GMing a Fantasy Hero game with the same players. The mastermind behind Plastique's fiasco missed a few games, and I suggested something similar.

That player character (we'll call him Chump) used a bow and arrows as well as a specially-made staff with a spear point that extended with the push of a button. The other players took all the arrows out of his quiver while he slept, replacing half of them with arrows whose fletching was messed up to make them fly off target, and the other half with, well, half-arrows (only the fletching and part of the shaft). They also replaced his staff with one made of balsa wood, with a spear tip that flew clean out of the staff if he pushed the button. They then hired a group of toughs to ambush the group (as a "training exercise").

When the ambush started, Chump started firing arrows. I rolled randomly, and the first three arrows were all the "fly wrong" variety. When they veered off target, he says, "They have some sort of missile deflection spell!" Holding our laughter in, the other players and I said, "Yeah, sure, that's what it is!"

He then closed in to HtH range and pushed the button. When the spear tip popped out and landed at his feet, the look on his face was priceless. It only got better when he whacked the first guy with his balsa staff.

Yes, he should have known that the staff and arrows were different, but I decided he didn't notice. Payback is a b****, ain't it?

[TheQuestionMan]

Imagine your hero leaping recklessly into a bank being robbed by several thugs with high tech weapons . No match for you .

Move Through on Armored Glass Bank window fails ... prat splat against the window . Did I mention you Stunned yourself .

Next you recover and charge through the bank door and straight into the guns of 3 high tech blaster rifles . Did I mention that the Knocked Back through the Armored Glass Bank window and into the street and that your stunned again .

You recover from stun and some of your poise when the getaway Van tries to do a Move Through on you and you fail to Dodge and your Knocked Back into the intersection and on coming traffic .

You live and recover conciousness , but your debue as a superhero not going exactlly as planned .

The paramedics , Police and Media response is not exactlly good either.

A couple of days later in you Mundane ID your doing some banking and the same Thugs try to rob it while your there . Time for some payback right .

As the Thugs take up position you see your opportunity and leap to your feet and plant a Offensive Strike on Thug#1's chin . Before they can react you vault the bank counter ( fail your Acrobatics Roll ) fall on the floor and Sweep Thugs#2 and 3 off their feet .

You grab one of their high tech blaster rifles and shoot Thug#4 across the room , but the it jams ( Act.14-) . He shoots you and the Knockback blasts you into the safe . Thug#2 pushes it closed . Did I mention your stunned .

The thug's escape , but without as much loot and the Bank manager opens the safe when the Police arrive . No costume to hide your ID and the Bank knows who you are .

My personal worst

[Alien Knight]

My personal best would have to be when the Blue Scarab (and the Sidekick Squad) responded to a report of a super-powered robbery in a penthouse suite atop a tall building overlooking the city. The Scarab burst in through the balcony, suprising the three villains and made a rousing speech.

"Surrender villains! You are no match for the righteous might of the Justifiers!"

That was about the point I realized I was alone. The Scarab was the only member of the team who could fly. Crossfire and Zoom were still lumping it up the stairs.

[tmutant]

**Yeah, just doing a little dredging, scraping some stuff up to the surface.**{Heavy machinery noise in background}:D

[Enforcer84]

Grand Mantis, before the "Grand" part was added once did a leaping side kick at a villain who turned desolid and he flew over the balcony. Was in the hospital for two months revoering from his wounds.

[Trebuchet]

12 years ago when my campaign started, two of our five players had never played Champions before. So Mentor ran a simple scenario as GM while the two superheroes, Catseye (MA) and G-Force (Demi-brick android), got to fight some terrorists in London who have seized the Queen's husband. Simple, right? I was there to lend technical assistance over their shoulders.

Anyway, the IRA terrorists are holed up in an abandoned office building while the police and newsmedia vans gather at a perimeter a couple of blocks away. At this time no one has ever seen a creditable superhero; reports of such foolishness were mostly from World Weekly News, etc.

Anyway, our two heroes slip past the police perimeter and change into costume (Catseye) and superhero form (G-Force). They come out from the alley where they had changed and charged across the street towards the terrorist positions. Three terrorists on the third floor open fire at each character from the windows. G-Force has sufficient defenses to basically ignore the bullets hitting him, but Catseye has no Resistant defenses at all; just a 33 DEX and 7 SPD (Our team's second fastest martial artist.). So by dodging and weaving he narrowly avoids being hit as he finally reached the building and gets out of the line of fire. He's standing right below the terrorists on the 3rd floor window, thankful he's still in one piece after all that flying lead that whizzed past him. Then G-Force turns to Catseye and says "Pardon me, but you can turn invisible, correct?"

D'oh! :D

Tune in next week when G-Force finds out the hard way that RPGs are different from AK-47s, and learns that "Duck!" shouted in combat does not refer to flat-billed waterfowl...

[JmOz]

My most embarising happened in an AD& D game.

I'm playing a CG Minotaur Priest of some war deity, and a fortress is being besiged (The fortress was dedicated to my God), well essentialy we were behind the fortress, the besigers were in front, and some geography was keeping us apart. We knew the besigers would break in soon, and I wanted to (Had to) help with the defence...

Tinker Gnome came up with a way to get me in...It was called the "Fastball Special", essentialy a catapult with a chair instead of a basket...

I did it...

Minotaurs have horns, I got mine stuck in a wall, 25' up

Became known as the "Battle of the Minotaur flag"

[aylwin13]

Originally posted by Trebuchet
... G-Force turns to Catseye and says "Pardon me, but you can turn invisible, correct?"

D'oh! :D ROFLMAO :D
This is the mirror image of an incident that one of my ,then, brand-new players had. He was a shadow/darkness type and 2 of his powers were full invisibility and total silence (on himself). He was trailing a normal whom he was supposed to covertly keep safe. Therefore he followed behind the doctor (invisible and silent). The doctor was walking down a city street, in a seedy part of town, heading to a secret meeting. The villian who was after the doc had set up an ambush. Our hero was too far behind the doc to stop him from walking around the corner and into the killing zone. He tried yelling and waving, but of course the doc couldn't see or hear him. Needless to say the doc was turned into swiss cheese by the agents' blasters. It was a tough lesson, but a humorous one none the less.

[Brandi]

First combat in the first Champs game I ever played. One of our guys, a techie called Flash, gets knocked out; however, the rest of us are busy engaging other VIPER agents and can't get to him right away.

Did I mention that Flash had a Damage Shield 0 END Persistent?

He'd melted through the concrete floor of our base and was about 5 or 6 feet down below that before we could get to him, mercifully not having hit any underground powerlines or water mains or GAS MAINS along the way....

[gewing]

I hated it when I went to martial throw the bad-assed half Demon type, and the GM (who had made a similar ruling years before) casually informed me that the target had density increase to the point he weighed 10,000 lbs. (something like that) Since I was a low level martial artist with about 25 str, (5 from density increase) this really chaffed my hide.


Originally posted by Gary
I once had a midget speedster martial artist named Quickling. In an encounter with Godzilla, I was trying to think of something useful that I could do. In a brilliant flash of inspiration, I decided to martial throw Godzilla! This was before the 4th edition cleared up that you can only throw your pushed strength. Anyway, we couldn't find anything in the rules against it, but my GM decided to use common sense despite my desperate pleas... :(

[gewing]

We ran a fantasy camaign that turned out almost a Dark Campions/D&D cross. I was running an 8'tall character (think kind of half ogre) that couldn't hang onto money. He tended to buy "toys" at every opportunity. Once we were trapped in a tomb when the iron lid slammed down on us. After MUCH effort, we managed to break out of the trap.

About that time I remembered the "melt Metal" wand he had picked up a while ago... iirc 2d6 cumlative transform, metal to molten metal, change back by pouring it into a mold of the right shape. :( They NEVER FORGAVE THAT.

On another night one of the other characters had been SECRETLY playing "lets create a minotaur" using a magic Gene splicing belt. He was keeping his cows in MY barn, and my herder came to me wild-eyed and said I had to get down there... (other character was a con man who on about the 4th night of the campaign tried to recruit some troops. Rolled a 6 on his fast-talk and a 3 on his oratory, iirc- new religion founded!)

He tried to convince me that the human headed calf was the fault of one of the other characters "I Don't know, He's Crazy"
but rolled an 18 on fast talk! He was more shocked that he failed against my character... the known gullible one

[SirViss]

This happened not too long ago, to another player. All the players had 2 characters.

At one point, VIPER ambushed 2 PCs and both of them needed to be hospitalized. Two weeks of game time and about 6 sessions went by before the second character of one of the unlucky players also got injured. Looking at his character sheet, the player (and thus his character) said:

Mongoose (MA): "Hey guys, I can heal people!"

We all had a laugh, as he realised that he could have gotten his second character back in action, and also one of the team leaders...:D

[Tim]

Start mental reveiw of past games....

Not thos, not yet.

TimS.

[lemming]

Hmm, my character Ice Pirate sure got her share of embarassing moments.

She and another super-thief, Cat broke into a neo-nazi outfit to hack their computer. We flawlessly sneaked past the guards and security systems and made it to the computers. We then turned to each other and said,
"Ok, let's get the info"
"Um, i thought you had Computer skills?"
I think we took the computer back with us along with some art. After that we both trained on computers...

[Tom McCarthy]

The players are traveling to Destruga, Dr. Destroyer's mobile island base.

Wall-E: So what altitude is the island flying at ?
GM: The island doesn't fly.
Wall-E: I thought it moved ?
GM: Yes, but it doesn't fly, it sails.
Wall-E: It has a big sail ?
GM: (sigh) No. It's a mobile, non-flying island but no sails.

[johnflang]

I have a Champions character who is a wizard called Wiz. I was at an auction in Mass. monitioring who bought some magical artifacts. Of course, agents were used to make the purchases. So I snuck in after hours found the filing cabinent where the infomation was stored. I wanted to open the cabinent in a way that was undetectable. I had to travel back to Washington DC, get a team member with the apprioprate skills and travel back to pick the lock on the file cabinent. It took years to live that one down.

[dbcowboy]

So, we were playing a scenario where our team and our main opponents have been pulled into an alternate fantasy reality. To return to our world, we're forced to track down three pieces of an ancient artifact before our opponents can. No problem, basically 3 battles our GM had designed so that we'd win 2 and be forced to make a final assault on the bad-guys base to get the third.

For what was suppose to be his "easy" fight, we decided that my electricity based character Voltage (hasn't everyone had a hero named Voltage?) would call out the code word "Blue Spot" just before he did his area-effect flash attack, giving my teammates time to avert their eyes. It was all planned, the battle started off great, the scene was tense, my phase came up and I said:
Flash!
Blue Spot!
ooops
Blinded everyone in the room, teammates and all. The enemy speedster ended up following the wall (still blind but touching it with his hand), ran into me, grabbed me and slammed me 4 hexes into the far wall very, very unconscious. Needless to say we lost this easy fight but did manage to win the final assault and get back home.

[Susano]

Let's see if I can recall all the sordid details...

This has to be the worst set of introductions to a bunch of new supers I have ever seen. It goes something like this.

(BTW -- I just watched this mess, I wasn't in it... yet.)

Okay, here's the set up. The Art Museum is being robbed by a supervillainess named Crystal. This event is witnessed by Player A. He dashes into the restroom and changes into his... uh.. costume (jogging suit and ski-mask). Running out, he tells Crystal to stop. She turns and says "Who are you?" Player's response? "I... don't have a name yet." Silence reigns... Anyway, they fight.

This scene is witness by Player B. He trots his character over and decides to help save the day by activating his Instant Change and adopting his Heroic ID. Did I mention his name is "The Amoeba"? Two cops freak and open fire. One hits, maxes on Body and Stun and puts our hero (who has NO resistant PD) down for the count. (He did have Regen BTW).

Sooo... across the street, Player C sees what's happening and has his character swing into action. Swinging across the street, the character lands on a car roof and spouts: "Name's Blackout and you better stop messing with the space freak and the superjock or it's lights out!" GM: "Make a Presence Attack" Player: "Uh... a 4" Us: "Way to go, I don't think even the cops notice you!"

Eventually Player A (later known as Jackhammer) and Crystal start hitting each other with a police car. WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! GM rolls some dice... GM: "The car is burning and is going to explode" Jackhammer: "What! Crystal is in there I have to get her out!" US: "You've been hitting her with a CAR! Do you think a 12d6 gas tank explosion is going to slow her down?" GM: "BOOM!!! Oh, and by the way, Jackhammer? You know that mystery disad? It's x 1 1/2 from fire..."

[DocMan]

Since the other undead threads did so well, I'll resurrect this one too.

Bump.

Doc

[White Heat]

...

Doc
__________________
Now that I've posted, someone will be along shortly to correct everthing I've just said.

Umm, no we won't. :snicker:

[JMcL63]

Mine was an early game with my renegade ninja who had set out to destroy the evil that spawned him. He was dealing with a minor bankjob, a goon got a lucky hit with an energy blaster, and down my character went. His ED was puny, my GM had noticed, and he decided to bring this to my attention. This was rectified asap. ;)

[teh bunneh]

My sneaky-thief/wizard character "Vixen" broke into someone's house to check out what was in his safe. She tries to open the lock, using her considerable thiefy skills. She fails, so she tries again, and again, and again, for an hour. The lock is just too hard.

The GM finally says, "That lock is so difficult to pick, it would take magic to get it open."

I sigh and say, "Sure, but how am I going to find a wizard at... this... time... of... oh, yeah."

It's been years since I did this, and the other players still haven't let me live this down. Now, when someone forgets crucial character information, we call it "Having a Vixen Moment." :snicker:

Bill.

[CrosshairCollie]

I've managed to avoid most *huge* embarassments ... most of my losses have been good fights, and I triple-check all character designs for gaping holes like 'no resistant defenses' and the like. Can't say the same for some of my past gaming associates.

I saw someone who had 'Enraged when he takes BODY damage' throw a punch at someone with a Penetrating Killing Damage Shield. He hit, took Body, went Enraged, kept punching, kept taking BODY, and eventually killed himself on the damage shield.

Huge RKA, Armor Piercing, Area Effect, No Range. No Personal Immunity, No Resistant Defenses. "It's the Stupendous Splat-Man!" I think we've all seen one of these.

My favorite embarassing moments, however, came from my Fantasy HERO game (4E). The first was a running gag ... we had a Swashbuckler named Alan in the group. He was good, pretty typical for a buckle-swasher ... good DEX, defenses were poor, but he was hard to it ... unless you used a hammer. If you used a hammer, you would always hit him at least once. In the crotch. ALWAYS in the crotch. And 4E hammers had +1 Stun Multipliers, so ... yeah.

In the same game, our barbarian tracker is trying to hunt down a Forest Drake. He rolls an 18 (more properly, I rolled it for him ... secret check) on the Tracking, but he finds the tracks. He follows them for a while, then he notices that four humanoids on foot have joined the dragon, because the tracks are overlapping.

About twenty seconds later, someone realizes what this means, and turns around to see the Forest Drake point-blank behind them ... it'd been following them around in a circle. :) One thorn-breath blast attack later ...

[Chuckg]

My favorite embarassing moments, however, came from my Fantasy HERO game (4E). The first was a running gag ... we had a Swashbuckler named Alan in the group. He was good, pretty typical for a buckle-swasher ... good DEX, defenses were poor, but he was hard to it ... unless you used a hammer. If you used a hammer, you would always hit him at least once. In the crotch. ALWAYS in the crotch. And 4E hammers had +1 Stun Multipliers, so ... yeah.

Reminds me of a person I knew, in a vampire game.

His Toreador martial artist was celerity-maxed, it was supreme, it was unstoppable. The man was like Jet Li on vampire crack, with an Old World European veneer. He was awesome, badass, and handed out the pain to things that scared the piss out of 99% of the planet.

... unless he was fighting a Gangrel.

Vs. Gangrel, he would almost always botch, and they would almost always crit. Every single time. In one infamous incident, he killed a 6th generation Sabbat bishop with his first attack... and then spent the rest of the fight unsuccessfully trying to damage its 9th generation Gangrel henchman pud.

And this was with two customized Glocks firing white phosphrous bullets.

Edit -- for those who don't play Vampire, this was the equivalent of swooping in, punking Batman cold -- *punking* him *absolutely* -- on your first Phase, and then spending the rest of the Turn getting your ass kicked by Robin.

To this day, we mock him mercilessly (like, oh, right now, with this post I'm writing *eg*) with the fact that he bears the Curse of the Gangrel.

[Lanith]

I wasn't present, but heard this story from some friends. The heros track down some baddies and chase them into a danceclub. All the normals run, the heroes wade in, except The Clown. (I don't remember The Clown's true name though) The Clown runs into the DJ booth, locks the door and finds a copy of "The Duck Dance".
While "The Duck Dance" plays on infinite repeat, a bad guy stands menacingly at the door and snickers at the weakling Clown, so Clown decides to move-through out the window. Short run, hop, Splat! The Clown KO's himself on the glass, not realizing it's plexi-glass.

[Pendaran]

that was a slightly inaccurate account of the fight, it was a 6th sabbat archbishop and her entire inner cluster of henchmen that I took out in one round.

And then the Gangrel...

It was like Superfriends, and I was Superman, and everybody gave the Gangrel kryptonite. For the entire campaign.

[Chuckg]

Or, like you swept in and punked Batman and the entire rest of the Bat-Family -- including Cassandra "Little Miss Ninja Goddess" Cain -- in one phase.

And then the Spoiler beats you up for the rest of the turn.

[BcAugust]

*sighs* I said I was sorry already about that. geeze, next time I'll roll in secret.

Oh, my most embarressing moment. Well, other then newbie mistakes... Oh, yeah. Nox. Besides the totally embarressing fact I forgot to mention that she was taking her name(and possibly powers) from a greek goddess, and that another player hunts down instances of the gods working in this world...

Ok, Demon fight. My character is already completely mindscrewed from earlier(My character, who doesn't know the source of her power, throws her +40 Pre fear attack at a Demon member, who decides to worship her as the Queen of Shadows....), does pretty much nothing during the fight(rl reason: I spaced out and forgot half my abilities). Then, the DEMON leader, who's bound at this point, calls out a phrase in Latin... we have a demon show up, and in Nox's only decent roll the entire session, she hits and does... no damage. Mainly because it turns out to be a mental illision... (I missed it out of game completely) and then blew two other rolls to find the members who fled. By the end of that session, I was completely reminded never to play tired again.

[Kal'daka]

I was gming a group in the No Tolerance era of late 1990's comics. Where superheros were mistrusted and hunted and feared by most governments.
Well the villian they were fighting in this was a multi billionaire businessman, but of course he was also a vampire. Well the group was investigaiing one of his companies warehouse for illegal bio wpns and of course ran into the villian and his cronies... a mix of vampires and hi tech henchman. They were doing a pretty good job of beating the tar out of the henchman when the master villian tried to escape...needless to say they noise and destruction had alerted the local law enforcements SWAT team ..specializing in taking on supers... well as the master villian escaped through the warehouse he came across this SWAT team and with a mixture of his public ID and vampire charm informed the LT that he was being attacked.....
When the group reached the door the team spokeman came forwrd first .. they saw that their master villian was protected by this SWAT team.. well another character behind him decided to try to strike at the villian with her prehensile hair around the spokeman in the doorway ... she rolled 6 6 6 ... so for effect I had her role again to see where her attack actually struck... this time she rolled 1 1 1 ... down goes the LT of the SWAT team... critically hurt ... the rest of the SWAT team seeing their Lt go down respond ...the target .. the PC in the doorway ... with no resistant def... after the insuing battle ... more villians reinforcements arrive...the bullet ridden barely holding on PCis approached by the master vampire... long winded speech... the master villian turns the PC... it save his life but made for some interesting rping the rest of the campaign.....

[Magmarock]

A couple of months back, my martial artist, Tiger-Eye, was caught up in a grab and about to be obliterated by the giant electro-acidic goo creature that held her in it's grip. I was desperately trying to figure out if she could use her Contortionist skill to wriggle out when I was finally reminded- by everyone at the table- that she could just Teleport out.

Doh!

Another time, I forgot to turn on her Force Field and she nearly died by a single attack that normally would have only stunned her. Since her FF does not use END, I have now stated that anytime we go into combat, Tiger-Eye's FF will be turned on- even if I forget to say it- as long as she is aware that she is in combat. The GM was nice enough to allow this.

Now, where did I put those Ginkgo biloba pills?

Mags

[st barbara]

Well, let's see. There was the time we were attacked by a Wendigo. "St Barbara"was clawed (got too damn close, and he was quicker than I thought !) and was in danger of being transformed into a huge hairy monster. "St B''s comment wa along the lines of "But I don't wanna be a huge hairy monster" and she was quite upset about it. "Blackwing"the team's brick (think a huge gargoyle type figure) made a somewhat unkind comment about "full body waxing"and "St Barbara"turned around, localised her force field to her hand and flattened the big lug ! The rest of the team were highly amused at the sight of an eight foot or so character being knocked flat by a five foot two inch,hundred and five found teammate. Even "Blackwing"saw the joke, after "St B"had calmed down and apologised !

[Ben Seeman]

My flying speedster has this AoE 1 hex Hand Attack that she uses in conjunction with her Passing Strike. (Yeah, I know. I hadn't realized how cheesy this was until after everyone gave me grief for it)

Regardless, there we were in the middle of a fight and one of my teammates was engaged in HtH with a villain. In fact, he'd just finshed performing a Grab maneuver and so had the baddie in place.

So what do I do? I fly by this guy and give him a whack with my Aoe Passing Stike. I hadn't realized then that my teammate was also considered to be in that same hex.

I knocked them both out.

Oops.

I've since removed the AoE aspect of the power. Too cheesy.

[Rapier]

The little bro had the nickname of 'digger' because he was always picking at his seat.
Hmmm. I went to High School with a kid we all called Diggin Dennis, cause he always had his hands in his pants (making furious motions). Creepy.

[Rapier]

my character's name and called him Vicks
The Mentholated Deep-Heating Hero! Rub him on your chest and breathe easier!!

LOL!

[Katherine]

I designed an Illusionist with Instant Change, any outfit once with sfx her clothing was illusionary. Once she had to rush to the scene of a battle from a shower. Of course, this was the battle where she got KO'ed. So long secret ID, Hello, Playboy.

[Blue Jogger]

At the risk of "Me too"ing...

I had a character with shapeshift. And he was hiding the fact that he was a shapeshifted demon that was trying to avoid detection by passing himself off as a hero.

First combat, car was thrown with 80 STR and I tried to catch it with my 45 STR without realizing what a huge gap 35 STR was. Anyways, my character goes unconscious and reverts back to normal form.

First adventure, all the fellow PCs learn the horrible secret that I swore I would never reveal. Of course, he denied it as soon as he regained consciousness and shapeshifted.

"You're a demon!"
"No, I'm not! Do I look like a demon?"
"Drop the act, you were unconscious, we saw you."
"Maybe that was an illusion that I looked like a bat-eared winged demon."
"We never said anything about wings..."
"Ah ****!"

[Theron]

My PC: Troubadour, the premier martial artist of the Vanguard Comics universe. Dex 27, Speed 6, enough levels in Martial Arts to amp his Martial Dodge DCV up to a 20.

The Opposition: The Gourmand. A SPD 4 culinary themed Paul Prudhomme clone.

The Fight: He managed to get the drop on me and held his actions so that he had two in a row. He hit me with an area-effect NND from his oversized pepper grinder, then wrapped me up in an Entangle (a giant crepe).

Then he tried to feed me to his teammate's giant mutant ants.

[Metaphysician]

My character, Diomedes, is a genius normal type, ala Batman. Team tactician, field leader.

I forgot to buy Tactics. Even though one of my superskills uses it as the base.

*oops*

[Zeropoint]

Well, there was this one time I was playing my psychokinetic FBI agent, and I was trying to find my way out of an abandoned Viper base that we had dealt with earlier. I climbed about halfway up a ten-story ladder before I remembered that I could fly. That's not the embarrasing moment, though.

That ladder eventually led to the sewers. Since it was dark and smelly in there, I decided not to hang around, and teleported out. Agent Trent has Safe Blind Teleport, but I don't know how far underground the sewers are, and I don't want to teleport right in front of a truck, so I teleport 100 feet straight up.

That's when I realized that I didn't have my Flight on.

Lucky for me, I had my force field up, and only KO'd myself when I hit the street.

Trent usually only teleports when he's at least hovering, these days.

Zeropoint

[Champsguy]

I'll leave out the stories about rolling 18s to hit, or doing a PRE attack and averaging 2s on the dice.

The most embarrassing...

That's probably when Superboy (son of Superman and Lois Lane), and the Falcon (son of the Marvel Falcon, raised by Captain America, and trained by Batman) were trying to stop the Controller from taking over the world. Most of the heroes had disappeared (what we later discovered was that the Secret Wars were taking place). Those who weren't were gradually being mind-controlled by the Controller. Thus began some of the biggest screw-ups in the history of gaming.

So the first guy we run into is a super-powered martial artist that the GM had played in another game. It just so happens this "other game" was my Dragonball Z-level martial arts campaign. So he promptly trashes us. Humbled, we decide to cheat. So we change into our secret IDs, follow him back to a coffee shop, and use some slight-of-hand rolls to slip Ex-Lax into his cappuchino. 20 minutes later, he's in the toilet stall. That's when we heroically kick open the stall door and blast him unconscious. We put Reed Richards' magic "not be mind controlled anymore" hat on the guy, and we're good.

So we're in the sewers, tracking down the Marauders, who are trying to kill the morlocks. And we find two of them off by themselves. One of them appears to be made of crystal. The other is an asian guy, so we figure he's a super-powered martial artist, like the last one. We've got the drop on them, so we figure we'll ambush them. So Falcon throws a sonic grenade into the area, just as I fly in and sucker-punch the asian guy. Well, Prism (as we found out his name was) isn't made of crystal. He's made of glass, and has a large susceptability to sonic attacks. Scrambler isn't a super-martial artist--he's a power nullifier. So Scrambler, of course, fails his 15- Armor Activation, giving him a total of 3 PD, and I roll like 17 Body. He rockets backwards into the sewer wall, again failing his Activation roll, leaving him somewhere in the "very instantly dead" range. Prism, meanwhile, has thousands of micro-fissures criss-cross his body as soon as the sonic grenade goes off. Then he falls to the ground and shatters. We killed two villains in one phase. Both of us turned to the other, pointed, and said "Murderer!!!"

So finally, we run into J'onn J'onzz, and through a combination of good rolls and brutal tactics, we manage to defeat him. We say, "Hey, he's a telepath. He can use Cerebro. We can just plug him in, and he'll be able to free everyone from the Controller's grasp instantly!" So we take him to the X-Mansion, plug him into the most powerful telepathic computer anywhere, and watch him go to work. Yeah. We forgot to put Reed Richards' magic "not be mind controlled anymore" hat on him before we did any of this. We figured that we'd knocked him unconscious, so he had to be fine. Yeah.

[Theron]

This one was actually JI, not Champions, but it fits the mold. We were playing the crew of a mercenary air circus. We'd been forced down in the jungles of Central America and were about to confront the Mesoamerican themed Big Bad.

We were dragged before his throne, and he fixed us with an evil glare. At that moment, one of the PCs made an appropriate wisecrack. The GM stiffened, rose up and said,

"HUSH!...You...fellows..."

After we stopped rolling on the floor laughing, we agreed he could hit the 'Retcon Button' so that the baddie actually said, "Silence, Dogs!", but from that point forward, "HUSH!...You...fellows..." became our battlecry of extremely poor results.

[Supreme]

Most embarrassing Champions moment? Well, that'd be the time I got the entire team killed...

See we were fighting these aliens bent on invading Earth. We took over one of their space-craft and were using it to chase after another one. Well, we were having such difficulty piloting this strange, alien craft that I thought it would be simpler to ram the two crafts together. Both were powered by nuclear fission reactors. Kaboom. I thought the team mentalist could teleport us all to safety (this was in the days before megascale). Nope.

[knightguard]

Which he had to deal with for a few hundred years..The character has evolved several times since its creation..and still gets himself in a mess..lol..Yes the character he is talking about was mine that was shot and later turned...He has gone from being a half vampire to a lycanthrope..The character is still trying to get use to the more ferile form..Also now has to deal with a bunch more..

[Chuckg]

A friend of mine is at present in an online RP thing, where...

... ok, it's science fiction, currently on board a small merchant ship that's being hijacked. The hijackers' objectives -- they're some type of political terrorist, apparently -- is to kidnap the Baron, a passenger, and get the ship to whatever rendezvous they've set up. They struck just after the ship went into jump, which is about the only thing they did right.

(Note -- the hijackers are the NPCs. Why am I posting this in a thread about stupid player moments? That's at the end.)

You see...

* Despite having the ship's security officer -- it's *only* security officer, given that this thing is only slightly larger than a free trader -- as their double agent, they neither managed to smuggle any weapons heavier than sidearms on board, nor did they accurately ID the # and provenance of sidearms available to the crew.

* At present, the hijackers control the bridge. And /only/ the bridge. They not only have failed to secure Engineering, they apparently haven't realized the necessity of doing so.

* Compounding the idiocy, despite the fact that they are not at present in control of the life support controls, and they're not even guarding them, apparently -- neither the hijackers nor their hostage are suited up.

* And last, but not least, these hijacking geniuses have no navigating officer among their number.

(They did have someone qualified to replace the engineer, but that someone bit it during the initial assault, apparently because the dread space pirates here never read the part about keeping essential prize crew personnel out of the first wave.

Of course, the fact that one of them /was/ a ship's engineer, and yet they have /not/ realized the prime necessity of securing the engineering spaces, makes the scenario doubly incomprehensible.)

The sad thing is, at present, these space piracy Darwin Award candidates are /winning/... because with the exception of my friend, the new player, the PCs are even less tactically ept than the hijackers.

I'm advising her to just pull the plug and quit the game, really.

[Rapier]

At some point, the GM should be stepping up and pointing some of this out. Lets face it, not everyone has much experience in storming starships. :) The GM should be pointing out the advisibility of storming engineering and gaining control of the three key points (bridge, engineering and life support).

Poor thing. She should bail. Sounds like the GM doesn't have all his dice in one sack.

[Chuckg]

The DM is the one controlling the space pirates, remember.

The PCs are the ones who are /losing/ to the space pirates. :nonp:

[gewing]

Is the DM deliberately setting things up so the PCs can win?


The DM is the one controlling the space pirates, remember.

The PCs are the ones who are /losing/ to the space pirates. :nonp:

[KA.]

There are some things on this thread that I find a bit disturbing, not so much in the details, as in the style of play that some people seem used to.

I admit that players can come up with some stupid ideas.

But in some games it seems like the gameworld is a little too stacked against them.

Maybe it is just the shorthand form of the examples, but I get the idea that some games seem to play out like this:

We are going to play a game of chess, via email.


I have already made several opening moves for each side.
You will not be told if you are playing white or black.
The board has been numbered 1-64, but you will not be told where the numbering starts or which way the numbers run.
You will not be told where the pieces are located.

To move, you will state the number of a square.
If one of your pieces is on it, you will be told that you can move.
Then you will state the number of another square.
You will be told if the piece you are trying to move can go to that square or not.
If it can, the move will be allowed, but you still won't know which piece you moved, or where it ended up, or if it took one of my pieces.
I will respond by telling you two numbers, indicating the starting and ending squares of my move.
After a few turns, I email: "Checkmate! You fool! You walked right into that one! How could you be so stupid?" :mad:

I just see a lot of stories where the GM obviously set up the PC's to fail in ways that they could not possibly have anticipated. And that their "failure" is based on the fact that they can't possibly know every piece of information about the gameworld that the GM does, or that their character would if they were actually in the gameworld.

GM: "You are on a spaceship. A man bursts into your cabin and begins to fire some sort of weapon at you. What do you do?"
Player: "I Dodge, trying to get under the bunk."
GM: "Moron! Don't you know that an Epsilon 6 Nano-Blaster will put a hole in the hull of a spaceship. It would have only done stun damage to you. Now you get sucked through a tiny hole in the hull and you die in space.
Start making a new character, and don't be so stupid next time.
Meanwhile the ship decompresses and everyone on board dies.
All the rest of you make new characters too."
Rest of Group: "Way to go man. Thanks for getting us killed!" :rolleyes:

GM: "The Mayor is giving a speech. Your character is flying above the area while on patrol. You see a man in gray clothes on top of a building. The man is laying down near the edge of the building, and seems to be holding something."
Player: "I fly in to take a closer look. What do I see?"
GM: "As you approach the man, he hears you and turns to look up at you.
The object appears to be a rifle.
Meanwhile, down below you hear a scream. A man with a knife just leaped out of the crowd and stabbed the Mayor.
Way to go stupid, you distracted the SWAT team member that was on sniper duty!
Now the Mayor is dead, and you are going to be seen as part of the conspiracy.
What do you want to do next?"

I know those are a bit extreme, but it seems like some of the "bonehead" things that GM's laugh at, are based on things like:
"You should have known that the natives of Planet Epsilon V always run at you shooting as soon as they see you. It's their normal method of greeting new people. Your shooting back has caused a diplomatic incident."

I'm not complaining as a Player, I end up GM'ing most of the time.

But I see a big difference between a Player shooting at a large tank marked "LP Gas" with a flamethrower, and causing the end of the known universe by hitting the wrong button on the food replicator.

Since I know that there is no way that a Player can see, hear, touch, or smell, everything in the game world, I don't set things up so that tiny mistakes, that the character, in possesion of all that information, would never make, lead to disaster.

I agree that players should try to get the details before charging in blindly, but I also find it ridiculous when GM's pull crap like:
"As you walk into the warehouse you bump into one of the Ninja Robots."
"What?"
"Well, it seems there are hundreds of Ninja Robots standing in the middle of the warehouse."
"You didn't tell me that when I said I was looking through the window!"
"You asked if you saw anyone in the warehouse. Anyone refers to people. Ninja Robots aren't people. You didn't ask if there were any objects in the warehouse, now did you?"

:sick:

KA.

[Rapier]

There are some things on this thread that I find a bit disturbing, not so much in the details, as in the style of play that some people seem used to.
I understand where you are coming from. I guess I just assumed that we were getting the shorthand version. I know that my players have done some pretty embarrassing things. :)

[BcAugust]

Is the DM deliberately setting things up so the PCs can win?

I think so, but if the other players don't start thinking...

[Moody Loner]

Yeah It was looking like the GM was setting up the hijackers to lose, and the PCs weren't cooperating.

Been there.

[Chuckg]

Yeah It was looking like the GM was setting up the hijackers to lose, and the PCs weren't cooperating.

Been there.

Well, my regular DMs know that if they're going to hit me with this kind of scenario, I want better quality opposition so that I have something to really beat my chest about once I've made my kills. Dammit, there's no point in hitting tackling dummies!(*) :)




(*) Well, OK, there is one point, and that is gratuitous orc kills. But nobody /bases/ an adventure around those. I mean, that'd be like trying to eat a cake that was all frosting.

[KA.]

I understand where you are coming from. I guess I just assumed that we were getting the shorthand version. I know that my players have done some pretty embarrassing things. :)

True. Mine have done some stupid stuff too. :nonp:
We have one player that is nicknamed Bizarro.
He doesn't exactly do stupid things, it is just that if there is one dangerous possibility out of 6 safe ones, he always picks the dangerous one.
Not out of recklessness, just out of bad luck.
They are going through a wizard's castle.
The other player will check 10 drawers.
He will be the one to say: "Let me check one for a change!" when they get to the one with the trap.
He is the guy who listens at the one door that is really a shapeshifting monster.

We have kidded him before about his "Bizarro powers".
Bizarro Strength - It only works to break valuable things he wants to keep.
Bizarro Danger Sense - does not warn you of danger, it just leads you right to it.
Bizarro Dexterity - Only works for useless things like juggling or pratfalls, never for combat.

As far as my rant, I do realize that we are getting the shorthand version of these stories, but I have also seen examples of this type of thing on other threads. This is just the first time I happened to get riled up enough to say something about it. But, I can see it as a style issue. Some players and GM's might just prefer a more adversarial game. As long as everyone playing is on-board, I have no problem with that. I just hope that people who are new to Hero understand that it in one, of many, ways the game can be run.

KA.

[KA.]

I seem to have killed this perfectly good thread.
Let me attempt a bit of CPR.

Sometimes players really do stupid things, and sometimes they are funny.

I was GM'ing for a friend of mine.
I had worked out a fairly standard "Viper kidnaps heiress" plot. The heiress was being held in a small suburban home, and four agents with Blaster rifles were guarding her.
Now I didn't really know much about Viper, I just figured they were like COBRA from GI Joe. For some reason I always pictured those guys wearing helmets with visors. Which means that when I built them, I gave them a few points of Flash Defense.
My friend, playing solo, had created a 250 pt version of "Earth's Sorcerer Supreme". He tracked them to the house and was preparing to mount a rescue attempt. He was creeping up to look inside the window, to scope out the situation, but his Danger Sense went off. (The Viper Agents had lookouts looking through both windows. They would have spotted him instantly.)
So, he decides to use his Flash Attack.
Segment 12 - Player - He conjures up his Magical Flash Orb and tosses it through the window. Then rolls for effect. 4 Body, I think.
He says, "Okay, my SPD should be higher than theirs, so on my next phase I am going to run to the door and open it. They should be Flashed for a while, so I should have a chance to snatch the heiress and get out before they can see."
Segment 12 - Viper Agents - None of them are Flashed, it did not make it through their Defense. All the attack did was let them know that someone was coming. Two are already covering the windows, but the door is also in their line of fire. After all, they are on guard just waiting for a rescue attempt. The other two cover the door, and all four hold their action.

Segment 3 - The Sorcerer runs to the door and throws it open. That has used up his action for this Phase. He is now standing framed in the door.
"What do I see?"

Me: "You see four Viper agents in visored helmets pointing their blaster rifles at you. And now they are firing!"

I think, with Knockback, he ended up KO'd out on the front lawn somewhere.

The good news is, since the Viper agents were there to guard, not fight heroes, they just closed the door, laughing, instead of taking him captive or finishing him off. They did not want to go outside in case it was a trick.

Now this wasn't a set-up. I didn't know he even had a Flash Attack. And I sure didn't know he was going to do what he did. I just put Flash Defense where it seemed logical to have it, and the rest unfolded on its own.

It's not my fault that from then on the character was called:
"The Silly Silly Sorcerer Supreme" :D

KA.

[GoldenAge]

I don't know if it was embarrassing but...

On one hand I had a player running a Martial Artist named Cricket. He was awesome and one of the few disciples of the mysterious Peacock Master...

On the other I had an evil Asian cult whom had spent the last 1000 years trying to destroy the Peacock Master's guild. They called themselves the Death Wind clan. (All of this is in Mandarin Chinese so these translations are loose at best). The Death Wind had cultivated a young girl since birth to become their greatest assassin. Her name was Hemlock, protégé of the deadly Havoc (another female assassin).

From here it's important that you know that both Cricket and Hemlock were teenagers!!!

I spent a good 3 months building up a scenario that would eventually lead to a confrontation between Cricket and Hemlock, where I was certain that Cricket would be severely wounded or killed. Everything went as planned and the meet took place...

Confronted by Hemlock and fearing for his life Cricket decided to do something that I never would have anticipated...

Instead of fighting or fleeing, he pulled off his cowl, flashed a dazzling smile (he was quite comely) and asked Hemlock if she wanted to go get a slice of pizza!!!

His presence attack worked and the two left for the nearest pizzeria to "get to know one another". Even though I was totally bamboozled, the unusual moment lead to years of great stories involving the two. Fantastic!

To this day we refer to it as... Abort to Martial Date!

[teh bunneh]

This is an "Embarassing for the GM" moment...

We were playing GURPS IOU (funny game, think Teenagers From Outer Space in college, with conspiracies). I'm playing a young goddess (well... goddess in training) with all the classic "bad" Greek God tendencies -- bad temper, vengeful, never lets an insult go unanswered, bloodthirsty, ect.

The Cthulhuesque Gods of Chaos are descending on our small town, wrecking homecoming week. We are trying to stop them. A monstrously huge Evil God From Beyond The Stars is stomping down the street. I fly up to his face, crackling with divine energy, and say "Are the Gods of Chaos looking for any interns this summer? I've got my resume here..."

The GM stared at me for a full minute, then quietly got up and left the room. I was afraid I'd done something horribly wrong. When he came back a couple of minutes later, he said he had to leave because he thought he was going to explode with laughter. I had caught him completely off-guard, and he wasn't prepared for it. We still give him sh*t about it to this very day. :rofl:

I pwned him for the rest of that campaign. :D

Bill.

[BoloOfEarth]

Sometimes the embarassment is not the players, nor the GM's, fault. Sometimes it just happens.

I borrowed (okay, stole) a plot from a book once, involving a woman who inherited a house from her father, but her brother wanted it. The father was an inventor and developed a way to broadcast electricity, and the key to it was hidden in the house. The woman didn't want the house (her father had abused her when she was young) and wouldn't set foot in it, but she didn't want the brother to have it (I think he had tried to follow in their father's footsteps). The brother got some help to force her to sell him the house, and the heroes got involved helping the woman. Of course, she didn't share the whole abuse thing with the heroes until quite a ways into the plot.

It was at that point that one of my players tells me that the father's name is exactly the same as her best friend's father. (I used the same name as was in the book, it's not a wholly uncommon name IIRC.) No, the friend was never abused by her father, but that made the whole thing uncomfortable nonetheless.

[TheQuestionMan]

Long running (18yrs) GURPS Yrth Campaign.

The group consisted of several characters of varying experience. The most senior character learned that a 300yr old Wazzifi Wizard possessed Grimoires that he desired.

We manage to gain maps and plans to an ancient fortress and temple. We planned our infiltration down to the last second and last grain of sand. We stand in the Great Library with total freedom to search for the Wizards Grimoire.

"NOBODY COULD READ OR WRITE ARABIC"

A very frustrated group vanishied into the night without leaving a trace.

OMG, we almost died of embarressment.

The GM had an evil grin that lasted for months after.

Eventually the group learned to read and write Arabic. From that point on we refused to travel into a foreign land without being able to speak and read the local and ancient languages.

Lessons learned

QM

[Radar]

My hero, Radar Rider, who had a vibrational power elemental control, had an arch-enemy by the name of the Tradesman, an assassin/merc type bad guy. He had contingency plans every time our group met up with him and riled RR to no end, especially since he'd failed to completely stop more than a couple of his plots. I wanted to see him brought to justice, true hero style since he was a casual killer with a smart mouth.
After tracking him to his island base, I set out after him myself, finding him just in time to engage in a chase across the sky. I targeted his jet pack and he bailed out of the rig, deploying a hang glider to make his way back to the ground. I tried to entagle him with some vibro bonds, so he would glide painfully but not fatally to the ground.

I blew my roll.

So the Tradesman's glider folded and he plummeted to the ground, killing him. I was pretty irritated with myself and the dice at the time, since I really wanted to come off as a noble hero and see justice served. In the end, his body was stolen from the morgue and a few months later, a villainess named the Protege, with the same style of dress and tactics, began a campaign of revenge against me.
The GM was pretty good at making sure mistakes came back to haunt you.

[Arac-4105]

An embarassment two-fer for everyone:

First is my fave Champs character, a Spidey clone (not literally). I took to calling it "the one-hit wonder" for all the times I'd gotten into combat and been plastered into GM's Option in the opening round.

Second involves this character and some friends exploring a Viper base. When confronted with a large, garage-style door, my character started lifting it. It barely budged, so the team brick and my character team-lifted the thing. Only when we got it totally open did the GM let us know that it was supposed to roll to the side...

[proditor]

Hmmm...I remember the following one from a MSH game. We were all playing Aliens in a sort of Guardians of the Galaxy campaign. I'm the Kree Super Soldier with the Shift X strength (Gotta love the Ultimate Powers book...) my buddy is a skrull with outrageous mental powers including this one that basically short circuits every function in your body short of your heart beating and your lungs working; and he has force bubble projection. There are 4 other aliens, ranging from Blasters to Martial Artists.

We run into Gladiator of the Imperial Guard...

Now I'm immediately all for talking this out as I know he can kill the entire team without breaking a sweat and I start laying it on thick.

What we did not know: In one of his write-ups, Gladiator has this psionic shield of almost perfect defense. You needed to beat like Shift X or something ridiculous to even affect him. But, if you could not pierce it and you rolled below a certain percentage, (25% iirc) the power was reflected back on the attacker and if you rolled even lower, Gladiator probably doesn't notice he's attacked.

So there I am, smooth talking Gladiator, when my buddy announces: "While he's distracted, I'm going to nail Gladiator with the mental disruptor."

Many rolls follow.

Gladiator glances over his shoulder and sees our skrull mentalist, now reduced to a ball of protoplasm, covered in all sorts of bodily efflugence and wrapped up in one of his own force bubbles.

Gladiator: "That happen a lot?"

Me, smiles nervously: "Oh yeah, he's completely worthless, but we feel bad for him so we let him tag along."

Gladiator nods. "Awful kind of you. Well, you seem nice enough, glad I didn't have to start ripping off your limbs and beat you to death with them or anything."

Me: "Yeah, us too. Have a good day...Sir,."

[odinraven]

Here's another "Players to villians" embarasment.

My friend was a first time gm and we were fighting a giant with ice powers. He was suposed to be enough to give our whole party a chalenge but he made a couple of errors, not the least of which was allowing one PC to have an auto fire killing attack based on arrows and find weakness. My character was a chain weilding martial artist that focused on trips and grabs. I managed to get lucky and trip the giant. Then my bow weilding friend makes a called shot to the giants unprotected groin, having made his find weakness roll in his last phase.

Needless to say the giant had an groin full of arrows. Embarassing enough. However it gets worse. The giant had enough stun to stay awake for that devistating attack (unfortuantly for the giant), but a telekinetic in our party got the idea of pulling the arrows back out....

[Matt Frisbee]

My most embarassing moment happened in the very first campaign of Champions I ever played, way back in 1981. To disclaimer it a bit, I had no idea what I was doing when I designed a 200 point character for a 250 point campaign, the guy (I called him Erg) actually did more damage with his fists (4d6) than with his energy blast (3d6), but could fly, which was about the only cool thing about him. I'm partnered with an underpowered brick with so much defense that a direct hit with a tactical nuke is about the only thing that will hurt him -- called Gibraltar.

The two of us are taking on a big baddie who obviously has us outclassed, but we're still trying to do the hero thing. Problem is, his defenses are shrugging off the best energy blasts my character can muster and the baddie is too mobile and too quick for Gibraltar to lay a glove on him. The battle, if one can call it that, reaches a parking lot, and I get "a wicked cool" idea.

And that's where the real trouble starts.

My idea is to have Gibraltar flip the cars over, remove their gas tanks and throw them toward the villain, while Erg blast the airborne tanks to make oversize molitov cocktails. The hole in the plan is that Gibraltar can't hit the broad side of a parking garage and Erg isn't much better, and soon flaming death is raining down on all the surrounding blocks and the villain is getting away.

Both of the characters had to make a new start with new names and costumes in a different town because they were facing felony counts of arson for the fracas...

Matt "We-were-all-newbies-once" Frisbee

[incrdbil]

Heroic Paladin, going into combat, utilizes a potion of Giant Size. Party gnome illusionist, has some improved invisibility spell, and was actualy shrunk at the time.During the fight, he was reduced to zero hit points--still plenty of time to save him, right? Well, if only the party and the Paladin knew where he was. Sadly, before he was found, the Paladin stepped on him. Squish.

[Black Rose]

My most embarassing moment happened in the very first campaign of Champions I ever played, way back in 1981. To disclaimer it a bit, I had no idea what I was doing when I designed a 200 point character for a 250 point campaign, the guy (I called him Erg) actually did more damage with his fists (4d6) than with his energy blast (3d6), but could fly, which was about the only cool thing about him. I'm partnered with an underpowered brick with so much defense that a direct hit with a tactical nuke is about the only thing that will hurt him -- called Gibraltar.

The two of us are taking on a big baddie who obviously has us outclassed, but we're still trying to do the hero thing. Problem is, his defenses are shrugging off the best energy blasts my character can muster and the baddie is too mobile and too quick for Gibraltar to lay a glove on him. The battle, if one can call it that, reaches a parking lot, and I get "a wicked cool" idea.

And that's where the real trouble starts.

My idea is to have Gibraltar flip the cars over, remove their gas tanks and throw them toward the villain, while Erg blast the airborne tanks to make oversize molitov cocktails. The hole in the plan is that Gibraltar can't hit the broad side of a parking garage and Erg isn't much better, and soon flaming death is raining down on all the surrounding blocks and the villain is getting away.

Both of the characters had to make a new start with new names and costumes in a different town because they were facing felony counts of arson for the fracas...

Matt "We-were-all-newbies-once" Frisbee
You know, someone should keep track of SNAFUs like these, and use them as "random" encounters when PCs are out and about. I mean, you could build (and by build I mean fake) a couple-three decently amusing challenges at 125+75 and let them cause some damage. You show up, clean house, and get to look good for the Live at 5 news crew.

[Satyrkat]

Ok, this one's me running the game I hate to say.

Flying semi-brick/energy projector with some disads against hurting females.
He's flying about 100' up and encounters a demon chick.
Red skin, horns, wings, big sword, the whole 9 yards.
What does our hero do...entangles her.

Bye-bye flight with gestures.
I completley forgot he could do that. :confused:
Sword can't help and I only gave her a 15 str.
Splat.
That was a night of quick improv. :) Luckily I try to have a couple of agent groups figured out for things like that.

[Justicebringer]

1989... My first Champ game, playing a Brick.. I had no understanding of rD at the time and the GM missed it when he okay'd my character. Our grp is fighting a bunch of fairly low lvl street punks, two which cyber'd up. One is using a morning star as a weapon. Keep in mind I am feeling like a minor god for having trashed three punks with baseball bats already so as I turn and see the morning star swing in my direction I thought it would be cool to counter punch the head of the morning star.. I pictured the metal shattering into hundreds of pieces, lol.... I recall my comment was, "What do you mean what are my resistant defenses?" Needless to say my hand liquified and good part of my forearm shattered. Quick retirement for that one ;-)

[DocMan]

I had a very short lived character in an online champions game many years ago. The setting was a world conquered by a Teknomagic Warlord who ruled with an iron fist. The players were members of the resistance trying to free the world from his grip.

The other players were prisoners in a transport plane, being taken for execution. My character was a gadgeteer who could re-configure his custom modules into just about anything he needed. I successfully snuck onto the plane while in flight. Instead of going to free the others first, I decided to try to sneak up to the cockpit and take over the controls. I figured that the prisoners would be guarded, but the pilots would be easier targets.

Well, the ship is on autopilot. And the pilots are wandering around the deck, stretching legs, getting coffee, etc. I had just opened the cockpit door when they came back and see me from down the hallway. They pull guns and open fire. On Autofire. I get hit, but am protected by my Ballistic mesh suit which goes rigid under impact. But the knockback throws me (and the missed shots) into the control panel for the plane. I died in the resulting explosion.

With the power out, the others were able to get out of their cells and bail out of the plane before it crashed. But they never knew what happened, and they never even MET my character.

Needless to say, I created a new character for that game...

Doc

[jkwleisemann]

Uhm... dude. I find myself thinking 'hosed' on reading that. I don't know the GM, but I'd call foul on the massive explosion....

[Matt the Bruins]

Who made the plane's instrument panels, the set designers from Star Trek?

[bubba smith]

i'm chuckling at these moments

[BoloOfEarth]

Here's some embarassing moments from some of my players' characters, most having to do with critical success rolls.

One superheroine, Tempest, had an ongoing antipathy with the local VIPER Nest leader, Kilowatt. Coming into one battle with VIPER, she said, "If Kilowatt is there, HE'S MINE!"

He was there, and Tempest tried to blast him, but didn't do much damage to him. At that point, he fires back and gets a critical hit (rolled 3 ones). In my game, that causes automatic max damage. Tempest was one-shot KO'd. And the other players will never let her forget the "HE'S MINE!" line.

- - - - - - - - - -

One (4th edition) Champions campaign, the heroes were frequently pitted against Genocide. This had several embarassing moments for the heroes, mainly because they really weren't trying to kill anyone, but the dice had other ideas.

I had re-written the Genocide Pawns, with one type of agent getting a homing missile launcher. If it missed (and it wasn't too close quarters) the missile would loop around and make another try next Phase, and the next, until either it hit the target, a Turn had passed, or the missile crashed into something else (and exploded). The missile itself could hurt a super, and would cause serious injury (but probably not be fatal) against agent-level characters like the Pawns.

So, one of the heroes disarmed the Pawn carrying that and decided to use it against one of the other Pawns. He fired, and the target Pawn got lucky and dodged the first shot. The next phase, the hero fired again at that Pawn, forgetting that the first shot would try again, and again. The Pawn's luck had run out, and both missiles hit, killing him instantly.

In another battle, a hero was chasing after a Pawn who was armed with a backpack-fed grenade launcher, and the hero specifically targeted the backpack. The hero rolled a critical success (max damage, remember). I believe an Unluck roll was made also, resulting in all of the grenades cooking off at once, leaving behind just a pair of smoking boots.

Toward the end of the campaign, one superheroine, a cyborg named Xris with an autofire pistol (something like 2d6 RKA), got the drop on a mentalist. IIRC, that was literal -- she had done a legsweep, and he was lying on the ground. The next Phase, she opened fire on him before he could mess with her mind. She rolled a critical success, and to make matters worse he failed his armor's Activation roll. That was his only resistant defenses. As she's standing over the now-headless mentalist, one of her teammates walked up, looked down at the body, slapped her on the back, and said, "Good job, Killer."

[DocMan]

After reading these stories, I am kind of shocked that in all the years of playing Champions on and off, we've never actually killed an NPC.

Doc