Mind-numbing stupidity

[Pteryx]

Has a player ever completely stunned you with his utter idiocy? It happened to me tonight in a game I was running. Granted, this guy has a reputation for being stupid, and I've seen him done some stupid things in the past... but walking up to the town guard when he knows his character is hunted, asking for the captain of the guard, and having his character introduce himself under his real name, expecting to be able to then proceed to ask to train with them rather than being recognized as a wanted murderer, has to take the cake. :eek:

Does anyone else have stories of that caliber? -- Pteryx

[Rachel]

Originally posted by Pteryx
Has a player ever completely stunned you with his utter idiocy? It happened to me tonight in a game I was running. Granted, this guy has a reputation for being stupid, and I've seen him done some stupid things in the past... but walking up to the town guard when he knows his character is hunted, asking for the captain of the guard, and having his character introduce himself under his real name, expecting to be able to then proceed to ask to train with them rather than being recognized as a wanted murderer, has to take the cake. :eek:

Does anyone else have stories of that caliber? -- Pteryx

I can't even come close to touching that story. lol

[Vondy]

The player who decided to stop the fleeing super-sub by shooting its reactor core with his uber-blast while the entire team was aboard at depth of two miles comes to mind....

[Derek Hiemforth]

Originally posted by D-Man
The player who decided to stop the fleeing super-sub by shooting its reactor core with his uber-blast while the entire team was aboard at depth of two miles comes to mind.... Heh. I actually had one of my characters do this, although the circumstances were different. :)

She was a fire-projecting mutant energy projector, and she'd been captured by Genocide. They were holding her captive aboard a nuclear sub, and based on information she learned through the course of the adventure, it was clear that they planned to experiment on her, extract her mutant abilities, and kill her. Simply fleeing wasn't feasible. She was too weakened, and they had her heavily outgunned. They did make one mistake, though.

The room where she was being held was very near the reactor core.

Although she regretted the necessity deeply, she decided her only option was to break out of her room, and blow the sub up by detonating the core. You see, her primary mutant power was the ability to absorb heat and redirect it. So she expected that she could survive the blast... even if her captors didn't. So she make it go kablooey, blew the sub to kingdom-come with all hands aboard, and was left with 1 BODY.

It was a turning point for that character. She gained a new Disad, which under 5th Edition would be a Social Limitation (Dark Secret: She once killed a sub full of Genocide and Raven agents, a fact which is not generally known). And she also had a total rework of her powers. Where once she absorbed and redirected heat, this incident overloaded her absorbing ability such that now she absorbs so much heat she actually redirects cold. (She went from fire-based to ice-based.)

[Pteryx]

Originally posted by Derek Hiemforth
Heh. I actually had one of my characters do this, although the circumstances were different. :)

Ah, but you see, your story is one of careful planning, not jaw-dropping idiocy. ;) She didn't kill the rest of the team, she knew she could survive the blast... -- Pteryx

[Ghost Archer]

Early in the history of the Wild Hunt, in answer to a call for help, the team's fledgling heroes hop aboard the group's Huey Hog and race, at 150 mph, to the scene. Now one of the group was a Rambo wannabe and carried lots of military hardware, including a LAW rocket or two. At an altitude of some 2000 feet, our hero rolls back the door on his side and peers out at the approaching battle site. "I see them," he proclaims proudly and unlimbers his first LAW, extends the tube, shoulders the weapon and fires at a steep downward angle. Interestingly enough, a Huey with the door on the opposite side closed, does not contain the back blast of a LAW worth a damn. Not only that but JP5 jet fuel is just libel to take offense to intense heat. Suddenly our hero and his NON-flying group of friends find themselves in an earthbound trajectory with flaming wreckage all around them. Did you know superheroes, for the most part, don't bounce? And that terminal velocity hurts? Soldier of Fortune was not long on group tactics or long for the group.

[Mark Taylor]

Well, from a recent Traveller game, the player who, just having discovered by questioning a henchman that the gang leader the party were looking for had a secret base in the city's disused subway system, killed that henchman before asking where in the subway system. Of course, it was a BIG subway system down there, not to mention a time-critical mission...

[Edsel]

Once while playing a victorian-era RPG one of our players found himself following one of the villian's henchmen. When it became obvious that the thug was up to no good, and once he'd realized that the fellow was carrying a gun, he blurted out "THIS MAN'S GOT A GUN!".

This attracted the interest of a nearby Bobby. The player was informed by the GM that the Bobby was now looking at him. Which is logical since the cop was looking toward where the shout had come from. The player upon hearing that the Bobby was now looking at him, freaked out and started to run. The Bobby seeing a man now fleeing gave chase. To top it off the player was carrying a gun as well.

The result was that the thug escaped and the player managed to sick the cops on himself, eventually resulting in an overturned hansome cab in the middle of Trafalgar square.

[MarkusDark]

I can't remember any for certain but am sure I have had quite a few.

One I do remember was a game of modern day setting and someone who was insulted in a McDonalds believed he could literally gouge out the person's eyes and simply claim self defence and the police would let him off scott free.

[Killer Shrike]

{shakes head}

Dont get me started. I have to get SOME work today ;)

BUT from recent memory, the Breaking-of-the-Staff-of-Power on an Avatar of Tharizdun, doing very little to him but vaporizing dozens of allies and almost all the PCs of a very large group still sticks out, and that was almost a year ago.

We had one player who's general outlook was so muddled and misguided with a certain paladin that "Lawful STOOPID" became an oft-heard out of game comment.

Theres a long series in fact from recent memory, but they all take too much exposition and context to relate.




And then there's the subject of stupid _players_ vice stupid _characters_.

Perhaps the most stupid player Ive ever seen was this guy named Downing, or Downey, or something along those lines. Being a really stupid guy named Downey, you can probably already guess some of the epithets directed at him. He was so stupid and slow witted that it didnt matter what character he was playing or what he was doing -- it was automatically stupid. As soon as he opened his mouth or took an action, rampant stupidity ensued. In fact, by comparison, every other stupid thing that anybody else ever did while he was around went completely under the radar, because it was still 500 times less stupid than the least stupid thing Downey was guaranteed to do within that same session. He made the whole universe look Stephen Hawking smart just by comparison.

Some classic Downey bits include the fact that he didnt know, and apparantly could not comprehend, that 3 rights make a left or conversely 3 lefts make a right and that 4 of either in a row is a loop. Since party members would often come to the conclusion that they were much better off (and safer -- he had a tendency to piss off NPCs) without him and leave his character behind, and Downey was too dim to take the hint and would try to follow, there were a multitude of scenes where Downey was trying to catch up with the rest of the group. Invariably you could lose him in any city simply by taking a right, a left, a left, and then a right, putting you back on the main road. Meanwhile Wonder-twit would get himself lost wandering in a squared circle taking a right, then a right, then a right, then a right, then a right -- get it? Even when the GM described the locality and/or pointed out HE WAS GOING IN A #$@@$%%# CIRCLE, his genius-worthy solution was to reverse his path and take a left and then a left and then a left and then a left.......get it?

We are talking about a Darwin Awards candidate in the making here. Beyond stupid really, and directly into !@(%-tarded. It lead to a whole new category of stupidity, known as the Downey Standard and used descriptively as Downey-stoopid, which only passed out of usage when all the players that had experienced it were mostly gone.



I do like the sicking of the Bobbies upon oneself bit as really stupid behavior though. Thats almost Downey-stoopid.



And remember, that is why EVIL will eventually triumph ---- because Good is STOOOPID.

[Fitz]

The most jaw-droppingly stupid thing I've seen recently was in a lowish heroic-level Fantasy Hero game, during a ship-borne battle against corsairs, in which one of the characters decided he wasn't going to stick around and endure their arrows, but would carry the battle to them.

So he jumped over the side, didn't he.
To swim to the enemy ship.
In his mail hauberk.

I just couldn't believe it. What really irritated me though, was the way the player bitched and whined about the fact that I ruled that he would sink like a stone the instant he hit the water.

[MarkusDark]

Originally posted by Fitz
I just couldn't believe it. What really irritated me though, was the way the player bitched and whined about the fact that I ruled that he would sink like a stone the instant he hit the water.

Not to cause michief, but I wore an 18 guage Mail shirt, knee long and sleeves to the elbow, and swam the length of an olympic pool as part of a demonstration. Wasn't easy and I wasn't wearing boots, helm, sword and shield but then again, I'm no Norseman. ;)

[Derek Hiemforth]

Originally posted by Fitz
I just couldn't believe it. What really irritated me though, was the way the player bitched and whined about the fact that I ruled that he would sink like a stone the instant he hit the water. What was the character's INT? Not to defend stupidity, but we need to realize that our characters -- who actually live in their worlds and have life experiences the players lack -- will grasp basic concepts that might elude us. We might forget that the mail shirt will make us sink, because we're not really warriors, we're not really at sea, and we're not really wearing a mail shirt at the time. It's much less likely that the character would reasonably forget that he'd sink if he jumped into the water while wearing a mail shirt... after all, he's got the dang thing on. :)

If I had been the GM, I would have said something like, "As he considers jumping over the side, your character realizes that it will be exceedingly difficult -- perhaps impossible -- to swim while he's wearing his heavy mail shirt. Do you still wish to proceed?"

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by MarkusDark
Not to cause michief, but I wore an 18 guage Mail shirt, knee long and sleeves to the elbow, and swam the length of an olympic pool as part of a demonstration. Wasn't easy and I wasn't wearing boots, helm, sword and shield but then again, I'm no Norseman. ;) What're you? Some kind of ubermensh or something? :D Psychopath! Quick, somebody stop him before he straps on plate for the return lap!

[MarkusDark]

Originally posted by Killer Shrike
What're you? Some kind of ubermensh or something? :D Psychopath! Quick, somebody stop him before he straps on plate for the return lap!

Actually, I am quite scrawny. Maybe that was why - wasn't carrying as much mail. ;) And I wouldn't have done it if it had a deep end. The thing is that you can't really swim like you normally do. It was more of a cross between doggy paddle and breast stroke to stay afloat and move. And trust me, I was WELL winded by the end of it.

It is nothing I would suggest you jump into a pool and try as it is something that requires you getting used to but it is possible. Now as for plate, I never had the nerve nor the money to get a good suit of plate made for me. But remember that scuba divers often need to wear 15-20 pounds of belt weights to sink properly and can still surface. A shirt only weighs a few pounds more and we are talking about rather strong people back then.

[Fitz]

Originally posted by Derek Hiemforth
If I had been the GM, I would have said something like, "As he considers jumping over the side, your character realizes that it will be exceedingly difficult -- perhaps impossible -- to swim while he's wearing his heavy mail shirt. Do you still wish to proceed?"

I was not quite so helpful as that, but I did say "Do you really think that's a good idea?" before committing him to his action.

The point you made about the character being less likely to forget about the fact that he was wearing about 40lbs of assorted steel things than the player is well taken, but in this case the player had made such a big deal of getting armed up as soon as they saw the corsairs that I honestly didn't think it was possible for him to discount it. Hey-ho, just goes to show.

On a slightly different tack, the same group of players is pretty good at dealing with character stupidity.......

Sitrep: The party are out trekking across the wilderness. A huge thunderstorm is approaching rapidly, and they decide to take shelter and let it pass rather than try to navigate through it in unknown territory. The woodsy rangerish character with the excellent Survival skill piped up and said "Don't worry, I'll find us a good campsite" and proceeded to fumble her Survival roll with a natural 18. "Look!" she said, "I've found an excellent little sheltered gulley to keep us out of the wind and rain, and there's even a creek at the bottom of it so we won't have to go far for water!"

Long story short: they didn't have to go for water, the water came for them :)

I was highly impressed by the way that though all the players could see what was coming a mile off, they all continued to play as though they actually trusted the word of their wilderness expert. I love that.

[lemming]

Originally posted by MarkusDark
It is nothing I would suggest you jump into a pool and try as it is something that requires you getting used to but it is possible. Now as for plate, I never had the nerve nor the money to get a good suit of plate made for me. But remember that scuba divers often need to wear 15-20 pounds of belt weights to sink properly and can still surface. A shirt only weighs a few pounds more and we are talking about rather strong people back then.
Know any waterpolo players? Our training was often to wear weights and tread water with our arms above our head.

[Snarf]

I used to have a downey-ish player that set off explosives by shooting them at point blank range.

[Stephen Mann]

AD&D game, stupid player is playing a dwarf fighter wearing Boots of Speed. We're camped several miles outside of a city, wondering how we're going to the find the certain somebody that we're looking for. We don't know the city and or anybody in the area.

Dwarf volunteers to scout ahead. Zoom!

Dwarf finds a farmhouse with Ma and Pa Kettle sitting on the porch. Dwarf says Howdy and asks if they know So-and-So. They indicate that they do. Zoom!

Dwarf (to the rest of the group): I found some people that said they know So-and-So!
Group: Did they tell you where he lives?
Dwarf: Uhhh, I didn't ask.
Group: Well, go back and ask!
Dwarf: Zoom!

Dwarf asks the Kettles if they knew where So-and-So lived. They said that they did. Zoom!

Dwarf: They know where So-and-So lives!
Group: So where does he live?
Dwarf: Uhhh, I didn't ask.
Group: Well, go back and ask!
Dwarf: Zoom!

This continued for a while, as it never occurred to the stupid player that he could ask compound questions. We didn't outright tell him that he could (our morbid curiosity on how long this could continue prevented us), but we did drop broad hints.

[Old Man]

Originally posted by lemming
Know any waterpolo players? Our training was often to wear weights and tread water with our arms above our head.

So it would be safe to assume that it requires quite a bit of practice/stamina/skill in order to pull off swimming with a load. Might even be worth having to spend character points on it. I think the most important thing to consider is whether the character has arms and legs free.

*You polo players are bums, sure you can get your belly buttons out of the water, sure you can skip shot from 10 yards, sure you can tread water for half an hour...but uh...what was my point? I forget.

[Old Man]

Shadowrun campaign

The players have an aggravating tendancy to say "Yuri" after I say "OK" or "'kay". I instituted a policy of having vampires show up if they did this as a penalty.

Anyway, a vampaire shows up and attacks the group troll. The augmented troll punches the vampire to little effect. The vampire does some damage to the troll. The troll punches the vampire again. The vampire does more damage to the troll. The troll punches the vampire yet again doing very little damage. The other group members are struggling through a mob of people to help the troll and finally one of them says "Hey, why aren't you using your combat axe?!"

Other story:
The party is made up of mostly good characters averaging lvl 5-6. A new character is introduced demanding that he have an Ogre as a mount. The DM agrees that it is ok. The party travels to a city and the character with the Ogre mount is allowed in with no questions. My character is given a hard time because he is carrying more than a few weapons. I didn't play again because the stupid level of the DM was just too high.

[Shanester]

This was a fellow that would fairly quickly tell another player how long it would take for his character to fly to the moon. It was the subtle, day to day trivial stuff that escaped him.

First, he insisted that the three-foot long swords attached to wrist bracers were not retractable, and he never took them off. Bathroom jokes soon followed.

Next, he used a thermal detonator on a typical Star Destroyer turbolift - killing several stormtroopers and decimating the elevator car. The group still needed to get down several floors however.

His solution? Place a storm trooper helmet over each hand, place each hand against the walls of the shaft and slide down with the help of his freakish strenght. The kind GM asked first "why are you placing the helmets on your hands?" to keep my hands cool while sliding. Not only did he try and conveiniently forget the massive swords that would get in the way, he refused to take the hint when several players pointed out that Star Wars shafts are FRICTIONLESS.

The novelty of actually holding your own body up just by the arms while trying to slide down anything caused the GM to refuse him to do it. The player demanded - vehemently.

So the character stepped into the shaft and fell all the way down into the jagged wreckage of the elevator below. Which cause several more minutes of whining until the player just left.

[Bartman]

We had a AD&D mage that set off fireballs in a 10'x10' room three adventures in a row consistantly killing himself and burning the rest of the party each time. It was only after we pointed out that his next ressurrection survival role was going to dip below 50% that he begain to pay attention to the minimum volum needed to safely fire a fireball.

[Le Schtroumpf]

Upon opening the door to his room at the inn and finding five assassins with crossbows trained on the door waiting for him the party Ranger stands backlit by a torch in the hallway and asks "Who ordered the Pizza?"

[Mordacius]

Some favorite moments:
- Back in the days of high school AD&D, the PCs were exploring the Isle of Dread (hostile, dinosaur infested), and they came across a village of cat people. They decided to be cagey, and send in the party Bard to scout it out: he had a Bardic instrument to cast Invisibility, so he'd be safe despite his poor sneaking skills. Good planning: the spell lasted a while.

Except the Bard decided to cut purses while he was there, instead of doing his job. Until his Invisibility spell wore off, which he could only recast by singing loudly. And he sucked at Move Silent/Hide In Shadows in broad daylight. So he hid behind a building someplace, and decided to wait for the rest of the party or nightfall, whichever came first.

Meanwhile, the others got bored with waiting, and went into the village. The cat people were friendly enough, and arranged for them to see the town headman, negotiate for supplies, etc. So, all was salvageable. That is, until the party Monk spotted the Bard, and shouted, "Hey Robbie, why aren't you invisible?"

I laughed until I cried. And then they were kicked out of town.

They got kicked out of a lot of towns.

(This is the same group where someone once started a lethal tavern brawl in Gamma World by ordering a glass of milk in a seedy, Mos Eisley sort of tavern. An NPC made some comment about him, and he countered with "You don't drink milk! You don't have strong teeth and bones!" And then he punched the guy. Would've been fine, but some other rocket scientist drew a gun, and all hell *really* broke loose...

This is also the same group where two characters on watch decided to ditch the rest of the party and go look for treasure in the middle of the night for essentially no reason.)

Ah, good times... :)

- I was once a newbie at Shadowrun. Not really grokking the background, I made a souped up Street Samurai. Even bought an assault rifle with grenades and incendiary rounds for extra kick.

This was great until we hit some Talismonger's shop, tried to take him out. I blew open his window, and dove through...right into the waiting arms of a Fire Elemental. I was good at Dodging, mind: the Elemental only caught me for like 1 box of damage after I burned my combat pool. No sweat.

But then we rolled to see if my rounds cooked. They did. And they set off my spare clips, which set off my grenades, which resulted in 24 additional boxes of damage, which resulted in me spending the other half the night writing up a new character.

I never actually stopped playing insane gun bunnies, but I did remember to look before leaping, the next time that kinda thing came up. :)

[Mark Taylor]

Originally posted by MarkusDark
I can't remember any for certain but am sure I have had quite a few.

One I do remember was a game of modern day setting and someone who was insulted in a McDonalds believed he could literally gouge out the person's eyes and simply claim self defence and the police would let him off scott free.

Sounds like what my group calls "D&D culture shock" which is what usually happens when a player used to playing D&D set in a standard fantasy world encounters for the first time a game with a more realistic or reality-based setting. It can also happen when a former D&D player encounters a considerably more lethal combat system for the first time. Such as the time one of my now regular players, playing Call of Cthulhu for the first time, stepped right out in front of an angry cultist who was carrying a loaded shotgun. Oops. He didn't make that mistake again after he'd finished creating a new character.

[Mark Taylor]

Originally posted by MarkusDark
It is nothing I would suggest you jump into a pool and try as it is something that requires you getting used to but it is possible. Now as for plate, I never had the nerve nor the money to get a good suit of plate made for me. But remember that scuba divers often need to wear 15-20 pounds of belt weights to sink properly and can still surface. A shirt only weighs a few pounds more and we are talking about rather strong people back then.

This strikes me as something that could easily be handed by the encumbrance rules in most game systems. All they need to do is answer the question "at what level of encumbrance can one still float?". It may not be an exactly scientifically accurate way of handling the problem but it should be good enough for gameplay.

[Mark Taylor]

I was once handed a pre-generated character sheet in a game because there was no time for me to make a character of my own. The character had very low intelligence. Ever since then, nobody ever let me play a stupid character again, because "I do it too well". :D

[badger3k]

Originally posted by MarkusDark
Not to cause michief, but I wore an 18 guage Mail shirt, knee long and sleeves to the elbow, and swam the length of an olympic pool as part of a demonstration. Wasn't easy and I wasn't wearing boots, helm, sword and shield but then again, I'm no Norseman. ;)

Try it in 14 gauge galvanized steel, European 4 in 1. Might be a little different (I don't know - I can't swim with fins on):)

Actually, mine weighs about 15 lbs (I'm not that big), so it wouldn't be too bad probably. Now my brothers chain hauberk weighs around 40 lbs or so, that might cause trouble for most people, except soldiers swim in boots, clothes, and packs, usually weighing more (and cloth soaks up water too).

Most of my stupid experiences lately involve fireballs - casting them into a too-small room while standing in the doorway. Casting one at a dragon 10' away, with the whole party standing around you - almost killed the druids animal companion wolf, killed all the horses...

Then the time the party came upon a town of slaughtered halflings. They start going through bodies when the roving guard patrol shows up. Do they explain? Nope - when told to drop their weapons they attack, winning but making them hunted by the city guards.

Then I won't even get started on the one champions player who wanted to be "just like GI Joe"...

[Dr. Anomaly]

My story concerns a player who is rather quiet and overly thoughtful; he often has to be prodded by the GM (me) into ACTUALLY making a decision. Usually it's a good one, because he's been mulling it over for a while. In this case, however...

Nevermind the system in question; it was a fantasy setting with magic, and leave it at that. His character is an expert with blades, throwing knives in particular and carries a brace of them. In this particular scene, he and the other PC had tracked down the evil Count behind a lot of very bad political machinations and assassinations. They confront the Count in a secluded private retreat of his, but he declines to turn himself in to the authorities, because he's one of the ruling elite. A fight ensues; the first good bit of the fight involved the PCs finding out the hard way the Count was a VERY competent mage in his own right, and no slouch in the reflex department. Fortunately the blade expert was also very nimble and good at dodging, as well as knowing a few minor anti-magic spell disrupts. Finally the Count is on the defensive and the blade expert is closing in. The Count casts a rather nasty spell that reverses damage done to him...stab him with a spear, it comes out of his body without leaving a mark but YOU have a bleeding hole in your belly...that sort of thing.

The blade expert throws a knife at the Count, hitting him squarely. I describe how the knife falls to the floor, bloodless, but a sharp stabbing pain indicates the presence of a wound on the blade expert's body, in the same place he hit the Count. He looks puzzled for a moment then said "He's not hurt? I better try again!" Repeat results. Repeat puzzled statement. Repeat attack. And so on and so on. I kept waiting (and all but waving a billboard) for him to figure out that no physical attack was hurting the guy, but every time the blade expert *tried* to hurt the Count, he hurt himself instead. He never did. Finally I had to flat-out tell him what was going on. He STILL didn't seem to understand. Finally I had to give up and say "Look, you'll never hurt him with a physical attack under the present circumstances. Trust me on this." He then switched to grappling so he could get skin-to-skin contact and engaged him in a mental duel of wills, which he eventually managed to win when the other PC recovered enough from her fight with the Count's aid and joined the mental combat.

To this day, I *still* don't know why, even after I'd explained it, he just didn't seem to get it. I even talked about it with him for some time after the game, explaining IN PAINFUL DETAIL what the spell was and did, and it STILL didn't seem to get through. Given that he's usually a very savvy thinker, it left me feeling totally baffled and rather frustrated. :rolleyes:

[DigitalGolem]

My story also concerns a knife-thrower, oddly enough. He crunched the system to max out his knife-throwing in every possible way, to the point that his melee abilities suffered. And so, he never fought hand-to-hand, preferring to hurl knives (he carried 24!) into melee. Miraculously, he never knifed a friend in the back by accident.

Then along came a spider...several, giant, poisonous, deadly spiders, in fact. The entire party grabs for their ranged weapons of choice, hoping to kill the spiders before they're close enough to bite anyone. Incredibly, mister "I'm the best knife-thrower in the universe" draws his rapier and charges into melee with the giant poisonous spiders!

Dead. In. Ten. Seconds.

The rest of the party lived--having successfully killed off the spiders in ranged combat.

My other favorite "stupidity" story is really more of a pet peeve, 'cuz there's always some moron in the game who doesn't know any better. Inevitably, in the midst of a pitched battle, someone will decide to "help" his party by tossing off a darkness-type spell which blinds all the PC's, leaving the opposition unfazed. Never fails. :rolleyes:

DGv3.0

[Damon_Dusk]

I'm still chuckling about this one to this day and have to tell it whenever there's a stupid moves discussion:

The old Robotech RPG and the guy playing is a master at pulling off the most idiotic maneuvers in the book. The funny thing is, it usually wound up putting the rest of the group in the hospital for weeks, but the GM found it so funny, that he usually made the guy out to be the hero, get a promotion, all that and more.

Anyway, so Captain Tardo is flying his Veritech outside the SDF-1 on a training mission, taking down targets with his missiles, etc. After he runs out of ammunition, he decides to return to the SDF Hangar, and in the short flight back he has a great idea: Let's try a "Simulated Kamikaze Run on the Hangar Bay!!"

After crashing his Veritech Fighter into the hangar, destroying 6 other fighters, putting himself in traction for months, and nearly dying in the process (he probably would have if the GM didn't fudge it to keep him alive), the GM has the Commander commend him for pointing out an inherent weakness in the SDF-1's defenses and promotes him again. The story still cracks me up to this day.

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by badger3k
except soldiers swim in boots, clothes, and packs, usually weighing more (and cloth soaks up water too).


When I was in the Marine Corps part of our swim qual is swimming with an ALICE pack & rifle, full cammies, and boots. Its a bit heavy, true

BUT

There is a way to pack the ALICE pack with a pair of combat boots wrapped in a parka to create an air pocket, making the pack kinda floaty. Its total bull$#!^, becuase nobody packs that crap anyway for real, but its a nice theory, and more importantly the packs used in swim qual are already set up that way so you dont have to fuss with it.

As an aside, the most fun part of swim qual is jumping off of a 30 foot high board in cammies & boots, with a rifle into the pool. Lucky for me Im a Florida Native and could practically swim before I could walk :D

[Magmarock]

Let's see... we had a guy in our D&D group, about a decade ago, who would do some pretty dumb stuff. More PCs would die whenever he was playing the game.

A good example was when the party was in a flying crystal castle which was hidden on a cloud, looking for a certain magic gem. They found it in the lower level, imbedded in the clear crystal floor. So what does this guy do to get the gem out? He cast ROCK TO MUD without warning anyone he was going to.

Everyone got FLUSHED, because the area of effect was beyond the thickness of the castle's foundation, and they all fell miles to the ground. A few of them managed to save themselves with Feather Fall and Flying, but the PC who caused the fiasco went splat.

Other things he did was: Cast spells that would disrupt his own partymembers' spells and cause chain-misfires and, oh yeah, he also ran a fighter once who hit a remoraz(?) with his sword and when the blade was completely melted, he got so mad that he PUNCHED the creature. This action burned his arm to ashes up to mid-bicep, almost instantly. He thought his arm was in the creature until he pulled it back and saw it was gone. His PC feinted. Another Player took pity on him later on and used a Wish spell to replace the fighter's arm.

Let's just say that with this guy, dumb stuff was *always* happening.

Mags

[Edsel]

A group of low level characters in a D&D game of mine long ago.

The thief gets his hands on his first magical weapon, a dagger +3.

The very next encounter they have is with a group of orcs. Everybody opens up with ranged weapons, including the thief who throws his brand new +3 dagger. Sure enough he hits and so does just about everybody else. The Orcs decide that these people may be more than they can handle so they turn and flee.

Last time he saw the dagger it was still stuck in that retreating Orc.:D

[ahduval]

Playing DeadLands, our party finally made our way into Dodge (much the worse for wear).

The stupid player in this case was playing a US Marshall, who happened to be black. He(the player and the character) got fixated on a female NPC, to the extent that he shadowed her around town.

Sensing trouble, I decided that my Huckster would make his own arraingments, and would meet up with the group the next day.

The female NPC went back to her hotel room. The marshall attempted to book a room in the same Hotel, but the hotel did not allow blacks to stay there. One of the other PCs decided that he would book a room there (probably to spite the first player, as he refused to allow said player to stay in that room.)

So, to attract the second character's attention/scare him/convince him, the marshall took out his pre-bundled sticks of dynamite (6 sticks wired together) lit them and threw them into the room. They managed to play Hot Potato for a few seconds, but eventually the sticks rolled onto the balcony where the other player couldn't get to them.

Of course the dynamite exploded. Fancy Hotel is now on fire.

And this when the GM says to the stupid player, don't you have "Heroic","Oath",and the "Obligation" Hinderences. Well, you hear screams of terror from the trapped hotel guests.

So his character had no choice but to risk his life to try to pull people out of the Hotel, trying to save them from the fire he started.

The character eventually failed a vigor check and expired.

[Amnesia]

Well I'm sure we all have moments when we think back and think "Tell me I didn't just do that!"

Personally I have a tendency to like attempting things that will blatantly not help ensure a long prosperous life. But to be fair I tend to do them mainly for the humour aspect, although must admit that sometimes not everyone seems to appreciate the humour, but they usually do once a few months have passed after the traumatic event <sigh>.

I mean sure you can always do what your supposed to, but that can get a bit boring sometimes, that’s when I take it upon myself to liven (no pun intended) things up, just a little mind you.
Example: PC's fight their way to a big temple, they need to get in, temple has huge doors with massive knockers. Now the correct thing to do is first listen at the door, then maybe oil the hinges and slowly open the door a crack to check what’s inside. But we all know this, that standard operating procedure. So I decided that my character walks up and picks up the knocker and goes knock, knock (small knocks, not, lets wake up the dead knocks) but in good old huge knockers on huge metallic doors fashion the knocks go off like Big Ben bong’s. My PC's statement... “Oops!” Just as we get attacked by Temples guardian... Anyway we survived it, just (my pc almost got ripped in two). Later Pc's ask me what the hell my character was thinking... My Answer was that her mom had always taught her to knock before entering (with a sheepish grin of course), anyway most players just shook their heads, they didn't think it was that funny till a few months later they were talking about that campaign, and how funny it was, in a sad kind of way.

I think that most times players do something stupid is when they just plain forget something but then gain there can be a place for a little stupidity in the game, as long as the intent is in the right place. At the end of the day people get together to play the game to have fun, so as long as the stupidity can be worked to make the game a little bit more fun, fair enough, mind you so long as it doesn't detract from the fun.

Well.... that’s my 2 pence worth... say do I get any change for that ?

[Nightshade]

I was playing in a game where we had 3 Rangers, 2 Paladins, and me, playing a Jester (2nd Ed. D&D). Before the group had all met up, two of the rangers were walking their horses into town. They came across some Giant Centipedes. They decide that these are far too dangerous to let stay around, so they attack them. The GM reminded them that these were animals (Rangers, hint, hint), but they didn't seem to get it, and attacked anyway.

Well, the centipedes attacked the characters, poisoning all of them and paralyzing them. These creatures are so weak, they couldn't muster a whole hit point damage, so the GM ruled that they were eating the players, but at a rate of 1 HP every other round.

Just then, one of the Paladins shows up. Deciding to help these poor Fighters, he tried to get his horse to stomp on the centipedes. The good news was that he missed the other characters. The bad news was that the centipedes bit the horse, which, of course, failed its saving throw, falling. The Paladin then realized that he needed to make a riding check, which he failed, meaning that the horse did indeed fall on his leg. The centipedes decide to go back to eating the Rangers.

Enter, then, my Jester. Bouncing along, she found this scene very humorous. Here are three pretty large, obvious warrior types, slowly being eaten by giant centipedes. The Paladin convinces her to help them. So, she pulls out the only weapon she has: a whip.

Being first level, her chance to hit wasn't great, so she accidently hit the first Ranger (who groaned rather loudly).

Before taking her next swing, she casually asked the Ranger to hold very still... :D

Nightshade

[Stephen Mann]

Story #1:

The game was DC Heroes, and Mr. Stupid was playing Deathstroke the Terminator because he was kewl.

Deathstroke is teamed with Batman, Robin, and Hawkman. There's a gang war between the Mafia and a tong from NYC taking place in the sewers. The PCs descend into the sewers to try and stop the fight.

Deathstroke corners an unarmed goon by a gas pipe. The player says he'll shoot the guy with his blast-staff. I point out the problems with this if he misses. He assures me that Deathstroke can't miss at this range. So, of course, he rolls a critical failure.

I judged that he hit the line and ruptured the pipe. KA-BLOOOOEY!

There's now a huge hole in the street, damaged buildings on either side, and hundreds of injured civilians. The goon is killed and Deathstroke takes significant damage.

The player, pissed at me for hurting his character, lines up his blast-staff with another gas line and fires another blast. I warned him how stupid this was, but allowed him to roll dice. He successfully hit the pipe, and KA-BLOOOOEY!

The player was shocked nearly speechless when that explosion killed Deathstroke. I tried to explain that Common Sense trumps Kewlness, but I couldn't get through to him.

Rather than allowing him to create another character, I assigned him Moon Knight.

Story #2:

So, Moon Knight and the rest of the gang are mopping up after the gang war. This involves investigating a cargo ship down at the docks (at night). Moon Knight checks out the cargo while the rest of the group searches the rest of the ship.

Down in the hold, MK finds lots of boxes holding big cans of baked beans, but no evidence. While searching, he's discovered by goons with guns. He needs to take out the light illuminating the hold (the goons are good shots), and throws his throwing ahnk at the light. Unfortunately, it's not heavy enough to break through the wire cage around the bulb. However, a can of beans does the trick and the hold is blanketed with darkness.

The next several rounds are filled with tense, gripping action as Moon Knight stalks the goons in the hold, knocking them out with big cans of baked beans to the back of the head.

After the fight, I congratulated him on his successful fight. Not only because I didn't have to do as much prompting about heroic behavior and game rules, but because the role-playing was much better than his usual.

His response was to quit the game because I wouldn't let Moon Knight have a blast-staff. Sigh.

[Vanguard]

Ok . . this isn't exactly stupid (well the first two aren't) more just along the lines of not thinking.

1) Playing a shadowrun game a friend of mine was playing a completly unagumented Merc (she wanted a challenge). So after some game play and alot of fast talking and such she managed to get herself a full suit of Medium Security armor. Now . . the team was hitting a manor in a wooded section near the border of seattle and they did a fine job fighting their way through the various things I put in their way. Now, the merc is standing at the door and puts her ear to it and I tell her she hears all kinds of ratchetting and clicking and clacking. She pulls back, nods to herself and then promptly kicks the door open.

Needless to say the 5 guys behind the door open up on her and the resulting hail of bullets knock her off the porch and back a good ways and it's up to the Mage to keep her from dying.

2) Shadowrun again. This time . . a decker is in the matrix hacking his way to some information. I ask him where he's going and he says the Renraku mainframe. I ask him THE Renraku mainframe and he says yes. I wait a few minutes and then ask him one more time to be sure and he agrees. So I let things progress and have him roll to see the Trace and Report program. He sees the program take off and completely ignores it and continues on about his business. He and the rest of the team were alerted to the fact that they had been found by the smoke grenades that came through the window of their hotel.

Like I said . . not stupid but more along the lines of just not thinking things through.

[bcholmes]

Originally posted by Pteryx
Does anyone else have stories of that caliber? -- Pteryx

In a Hero-rules Star Trek campaign, the PCs were sneaking up on a camp of evil bug-monsters that had invaded a colony. Suddenly, one of them, worrying about quick escapes, asks: "Did we ever establish whether or not the atmospheric instabilities interfered with our communicators?"

Me (as GM): "Uhm, no. You didn't test communications."

PC: "I slap my communicator to see if it's working."

Me: "Two things happen. First, your communicator responds: 'USS Arkadelphia. We read you, away team.' Second, the evil bug-monsters all turn and look in your direction."

[lemming]

I think I've explained this one before, but some may of not seen it.

A new campaign is starting up and I write up a quick character, "The Chromosone Avenger, Living Filter for the Gene Pool". It was a future, gritty game or at least that's what was explained to me.
Other mitigating evidence, this was when there were probably two or three games a night except on weekends when there were more. I was GMing almost every night. (Not that any of the games were high art, but anyway.)

So I think I was working on something else at the time when it's declared my character is on monitor duty when a call for help comes in. So we scramble to the casino where the trouble is. There are supers there that give us an attitude so we beat them up, one them gets killed. The manager gives us problems, so we interrogate him by throwing him down some stairs. About then, the actual villians attack... :rolleyes:
Hmm, seems someone didn't get the right info... Though none of the other players caught it either... Kind of changed the tone of the campaign to an even darker tone.