Dumbest Moment Ever in your games

[Mayday]

I didn't do this, but a there was a brick I was supposed to hook up with. When he 'drank' electricity through Absorption he got strength and his skin hardened to near invulnerable levels so he grabs a power line and puts it in his mouth first thing, having only bought 1 d6 of Absorption....

 

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZAP Sizzle

 

Also someone's flying brick tried to do a move by on Godzilla. With no chance of succeeding.

[ChickenTomato]

Don't pee on the electric fence.

 

I had someone playing a Leprechaun (teleporter with minor magic...don't ask) decide to pee on the exposed mechanism of a space station air lock door to short-circuit it. He convinced me that since he was Irish, he could pee on command.

 

I decided that the resulting Energy RKA automatically targeted a cerain hit location.

[Jhamin]

There was the point when the heroes had infiltrated a boys summer camp they believed was a front for a master villian. When they got caught by the 19 year old counselor, the tem Gadgeteer and Brick pantsed him and ran away.

[Derek Hiemforth]

There was a character in the campaign named "Inviant," which stood for Invisible Giant. That's what his powers were... Growth and Invisibility, linked. Sounds interesting in theory, but was odd in execution. No one ever saw him when he was being a superhero, but his unconscious form would sometimes be found on the scene of superhero battles. The press even gave a name to this strange sleeping man in a costume who would often appear in the aftermath of SHIFT adventures: Narcoleptic Lad.

 

Anyway, one time a battle took place near the top of some skyscrapers in San Francisco. A news helicopter wandered too close to the fray, and was knocked into the side of one of the buildings. Its blade wedged into the building, but was still running. The copter shook as it hung by the blade, which was still trying to free itself from the building. The normals inside dangled dangerously above the cityscape.

 

Inviant went over to help. The first thing he did is yell out, "I'm coming to get you!" Now, this is back in the days when Growth gave you extra Presence, so his statement is very commanding and believable. However, they can't see him. So from the standpoint of the people in the copter, a disembodied voice is screaming that "it's coming to get them." Obviously, this inspires panic rather than reassurance.

 

Next, although the copter is reachable from the roof, Inviant climbs over the side and hangs from the building, King Kong style, while he tries to reach the copter. With one hand, he hangs on by a hole in the wall (created by the copter blade's impact), and with the other, he uses his great strength to pull the copter free. To this day, I'm not sure why he didn't just try to get the people out of the copter.

 

...or at least try to shut it down first!

 

Well, pulling it free while it's still running, the blade proceeds to smack Inviant in the face repeatedly. Since he had already taken damage previously in the super-battle, this is enough to knock Inviant out.

 

At the same time, it occurs to us that Inviant -- who weighs a great deal due to his huge size -- had been supporting his weight by hanging from an already broken section of wall. A large section of it breaks free in Inviant's hand.

 

So now Inviant is falling, unconscious, with a big chunk of wall in one hand, and a running helicopter with terrified normals in it in the other. Due to unconsciousness, he lets go of the copter and the wall. Some amazing piloting by the chopper pilot (and a stabilizing assist from one of the other heroes) enables the helicopter to right itself and land without further mishap.

 

Inviant, meanwhile, reverts to his normal, visible form, and begins plummeting toward his death. One of the other heroes -- the only one fast enough to catch the fleeing villain -- is also the only one fast enough to save the falling Inviant. So he saves Inviant, and the villain escapes.

 

The section of wall, meanwhile, hits the ground and crushes a vehicle on the street...

 

The team battlevan.

 

*sigh* Not SHIFT's finest hour.

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Don't pee on the electric fence.

 

Originally posted by ChickenTomato

He convinced me that since he was Irish, he could pee on command.

Aye, that we can do. But I wouldn't use the Irish talent like that, not at least without having enough to drink to numb the pain.

 

I had a player who was challanged to a hand-to-hand fight by a member of a gang. He immediately went for a killing strike on the gang member and ripped out the juggular. Needless to say, the hunted he had gained spent no time tracking him down and killing him. (It took 8 Turns)

[Mayday]

Ouch!

 

There was a brick I'd forgotten about. He was helping the government with an anti-drug operation. He was told a meeting was going down in a certain place and that one of their own people undercover was there so he waits on a rooftop watching this go down.

 

He asks "Who looks different?" thinking that one might have superpowers I guess. He is told that one of the two making the transaction looks different than the rest, so he leaps off the building and does a Move Through on dude's head pushing his already very high strength.... on a complete and total normal, who happened to be the government undercover agent.

 

He's in prison for manslaughter.

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

 

"Hero" who basically is a collection of guns and swords. We manage to capture Pantera and two other of Eurostar including Durok the big invulnerable guy. We dosed them with unconsciousness inducing drugs, locked her in a locker and the other two in chains in the hold of the borrowed nuclear powered bomber that the government had loaned us to get to this remote area.

 

Gun dude sneaks off from the team and opens fire with a full clip of bullets from an AK-47 at Durok. The bullets bounce off of course, and ricochet through the hold of the plane where of course, the nuclear reactor is.....

[Agent Escafarc]

Twenty+ years ago, one of my friends and I were adventuring in Module B1(Keep on Borderlands?) and attacked the "alcoves". Later when I heard the infamous "Gazebo" story I always wondered what the big deal was:D

[Willpower]

Mine has still got to be when my character Flavius, in order to stop the Eurostar from getting away, (Eurostar was trying to destroy the U.S.S. Constitution, the ship not the paper, and we were trying to stop them) picked up the U.S.S. Constitution and smashed them with it. Nothing like a self-defeating adventure.

[TheImperialKhan]

Back during the early days of it's existance Strike Force: Boston was called in to investigate a building that was packed with some kind of black goo that smelled like oil. The team detective, the martial artist White Dragon, approached the building to examine the substance.

 

Our brick Rock, an appropriate name for a brick don't you think, who was an alien silicon-based life-form, decided to see if it was flammable. Before anyone could stop him, he picked up a road flare, lit it, and threw it at the building which White Dragon, with no resistant defenses, was standing next to.

 

My character, the team techno-geek and powered armor wearer Centurion, grabbed White Dragon and threw him under cover. The cover was Centurion. Of course the building was leveled in a blast that nearly KOed Centurion despite his armor and would have turned White Dragon into a crispy critter.

 

Needless to say this incident did not do much for the team's reputation.

[Zaratustra]

The single dumbest scene I've ever seen has got to be when a band of brave young heroes called UNTIL and tried to take another hero to Stronghold for... punching a stop sign on the street.

 

... Can't believe you forgot that one, Mayday.

[TechnoViking]

In a campaign once, Deathstroke was trying make extra money illegal weapons and explosives on the black market.

 

The group tracking location of the weapons and explosive drop. At the drop there were all the members of Deathstroke, 10 normal thugs unloading the weapons, and two semis filled with weapons and explosives.

 

One of the team member teleported inside the one of the trucks. the next second, the group energy blasters fire at the second truck.

 

I asked "ARE YOU SURE?", the group answer yes.

 

I ruled it as a 10d6 RKA explosion, which set off the second truck for another 10d6 explosion.

 

It killed all 10 thugs, two members of Deathstroke and the teams teleporter.

 

Most people of the team had "Code vs Killing".

 

I gave the group -3 experience pts, tryied to forget this adventure ever happened and went out and got beer and pizza:).

 

Mike

[Gary]

I had a player who did a lot of detective work in tracking down a desolid thief who was stealing valuable items. He did a great job in tracking down the thief and managed to predict when the thief would strike next.

 

At the appointed time, he saw the thief desol into the museum. He desol'd in after the thief.

 

To make a long story short, the thief won the fight and managed to frame the PC for all the desolid crimes!

[Guest rbezold]

I had some fairly young players once who seemed to have this strange obsession with trying to find disadvantages that couldn't be used against them. One of their favorites was Berserk/Enraged, as they reasoned that anyone who would set it off probably deserved what he got. To make a long story short the brick picked "enraged when farted on" 14-8. There was a bank robbery. The heroes burst in to save the day. The bank president (who was hiding in the lavoratory) comes out to thank the heroes and cuts one loose. In the ensuing chaos, the bank robbers walk away laughing.

[DrSavant]

Dumbest moment

 

I was GMing a tabletop game of Champions a few years back and this happened;

There was a villian known as "SLICK" who could run at incredible speeds by creating oil to slide on (he was made of oil) . Well our heroes saw him rob a gas station after which he slid away. They followed his oil trail and caught up with him.

One of the players thought it would be a good idea to attack SLICK with a fire based attack.

Needless to say SLICK caught on fire and so did his trail, the one leading from the GAS STATION.

BOOOMM!!!!! No more station, no more attendent.

[lemming]

A slight explanation to my type of gaming style at one point in my life: Explosions happened all the time and if you picked up something that might be explosive, it probably was.

 

So anyway, we now go to a particular battle where the villians and heroes are fighting around a missle. One of the heroic bricks, Tamarlane, is an ex-robot. (Turned into a real boy by magic, but with all the old powers). He still relys on direction most of the time. The player has gotten frustrated that Tamarlane can't hit one of the villian Martial Artists and picks up the nearest large objects. Happens to be the missiles at which point, the other heroes all shout "NOOOOO!!!!", and Tamarlane goes "For once I'm following my own orders!"

*BOOM*

I think one of the heroes was still conscious and Allen the Unkillable man had been one body from death. (Ah, he was fine in a few seconds...)

 

I'm pretty sure a couple villians died in the blast as well. All in all, it was a fun game.

[Karma]

The Gazebo Effect in action

 

For those who don't know the 'Gazebo Effect' it is the habit of roleplayers when their characters are confronted with something with a weird name to automatically assume its a monster.

 

This was not a Champions game but a guy I knew had a character who was in his 'happy place' after being surrounded by metal bars (had a total phobia of metal as a curse placed on him by another PC after he was overheard joking about being the serial killer who had killed her friends (yes he was one of those people (both player and character) and was dreaming he was on a boat made totally of wood.

So he gets to this island (in his dream) and the GM says

"You reach the island and see it's covered with mangroves"

At which point the character started fire-balling them before they could attack him.

He was sent back to his 'happy boat' for a while.

 

Note: There were no monsters in the system (as far as anyone, including the GM knew) which had a name even vaguely like mangrove.

 

Boy I love the fact that I've seen the GE in action.

[winterhawk]

The sad thing is these were both by the same player...

 

...playing a sonic EB that requires ambient sound for powers. Goes to an NPCs house believed to be threatened by the nasty Ex-Commando with every contingency covered. The exchange went something like this:

 

Player: I ring the doorbell.

 

Me: There is no sound.

 

Player: I knock on the door.

 

Me: Your rapping on the door makes no sound.

 

Player: I send in a Sonar Ping.

 

Me: Your Sonar Ping DOES NOT RETURN.

 

Player: I kick in the door.

 

On the other side of the door is the nasty Commando guy with a white noise generator. No ambient sound. Force Field goes down and the mighty hero is one punched by essentially a highly trained normal.

***

...as the heroes on on the trail of a mystical threat which seems to be collecting random artifacts for some nefarious purpose. They invade his inner sanctum:

 

Me: Your in a library with many shelves of dusty old books. In the center of the room, on a bookstand, lit by an overhead light, is one particular tome that seems to have been read recently...the attached bookmark seems to be marking a particular page...(at this point I'm practically putting the Chuck Jones "THIS IS IT" neon arrows all around it)

 

Player: I incinerate it!

[Thirdbase]

Don't touch the EVIL artifact.

 

The team was investigating a series of Dark Magic sacrifices and killings. After tracking down the home of a deceased member of the cult, the cult had summoned in something they weren't ready for, we found a small statue of a demon. I along with the teams mentalist, we had the best set weird senses, were upstairs and another character was downstairs, the other half of the team was outside.

Upon spotting the statue I being a great Mage, tell the mentalist "Do no touch that." After examining the rest of the room the mentalist decides that the only way to get more info is to do an object read on the statue. I repeat "Do not touch that." His reply to me is "Are you ready?" and to the GM "I grab the statue." Much to his amazement a Demon appears and battle commences, fortunately we were able to defeat the demon, but could get no more info from the statue since the magic was now gone.

 

"Never touch the EVIL artifact."

[Prometheus]

While running Day of the Destroyer for my group, one of the characters, Sentinel, made a few... questionable decisions.

 

1) Sentinel is first on scene at the hostage situation involving Villians International. He speaks briefly with the police officer in charge and assures him, "I'll take it from here." He decides not to wait for his team mates- minutes from the scene- and literally charges in, using his powered armor to blast through a wall. And runs into a waiting Golden Marauder. Powered Armor + Magnetic Powers = GM's option.

 

2) The team sneaks onto Dr. Destroyer's island via the main power plant, and surprises the ten technicians on staff. One of the techies has the presense of mind to bolt for the alarm- at SPD 2. One of the team members yells "Stop him!", knowing that if the techie hits the alarm, Destroyer's army will be on them like white on rice. Sentinel charges forward with a Move Through. On a normal. He reduces the techie to a mangled and broken mess, but then doesn't have enough room to slow down. Sentinel's glowing, rocketing form blows through the outer wall, and out toward the nearby agent quarters...

 

3) The heroes have fought their way into Destroyer's inner sanctum and come face to face with Dr. Destroyer himself. He rises from his throne and begins a soliloquy, "Greetings, ladies...". At which point Sentinel (again) lauches himself toward the enemy. He reasons that Destroyer can probably take a hit from him, so he figures he'd better go noncombat. He has to travel along a tight curve to accelerate to full speed, blows some levels to make the turn, lines up with Dr. D and unsurprisingly his zero OCV attack misses. Once again he doesn't have the room to stop and slams into the wall- only this time it's DEF 23. At his speed he knocks himself instantly into GM's option, and close to death. "...And gentlemen," continues Destroyer.

 

Sigh. Sentinel's player moved to Seattle, and we all miss him.

[death tribble]

We were travelling towards the villain's base and ran into the iceberg because we were talking. And I was never allowed to forget this incident.

 

Player doing Wolverine kills a villain in a shopping centre filled with people. Basically the player overdid the Killing attack. Then turns to the horrified crowd and say 'Yes I am a Mutie'

[Herolover]

Ahh, the fun of it all.

I was the GM and I had a player that was secretly being watched by DEMON. Well, he was attacked by DEMON agents getting out of a van and luckily for him his teamates were able help subdue the agents and capture the van.

 

The group investigated the van and used it and agents to discover that the local DEMON bases' entrace was located at a local parking garage. The group wasn't prepared to attack the DEMON base and for other reasons in the campaign wanted to use the knowledge of where the base was and the fact they knew it against DEMON. The question was then what to do with the van.

 

The first idea was to park the van and fill it with high explosives so that when DEMON opened it up they would go off doing great damage. Just to put this in perspective the following situation occured several months after the first bombing of the World Trade Center when terroist planted a car bomb in a parking garage. I kindly pointed this out to them so they went with idea number 2.

 

Idea number 2 was to use the van as a plant. They wanted DEMON to continue using the van. However, they had throughly torn the van up in their investigation and it had gotten damaged in the fight. So, they fixed it and took it back to DEMON parking it in the garage.

 

I couldn't resist asking if they took it to the car wash and got it detailed for DEMON as well.

[Klytus]

The one event that springs to mind was in a Vampire: the Masquerade game I was in.

 

The characters were newly-Embraced, like the just-made-a-vampire-last-night kinda new. Well one of the characters, Geofry, thought it odd that he had not gone to the bathroom for almost a day. In spite of the fact that he didn't even have the urge to go, he went to the bathroom and tried to pee.

 

"Roll your Willpower," says the Storyteller. "This is such an un-natural thing for Vampires to do, your difficulty is 10" (on 10 sided dice, this is almost impossible.)

 

Six dice are rolled. "Ok," sez Geofry's player. "I have three successes!"

 

Howls of pain echoed throughout the house as Geofry :ahem: lost three Blood Points into the potty.

[Mightybec]

My first character had a 12d6 HA and a 35 STR. While on patrol, I came across a thug robbing an old lady. I ran up to him and said to the GM "I hit him with everything that I've got" After a bunch of rolled sixes for damage, the GM calculated that the thug was dead before he broke his back around the light post acroos the street. Needless to say, the old lady that was covered in blood and body organs, ran away screaming.

 

Mightybec

[Tom McCarthy]

So many possibilities.

 

The team teleporter sees his teammate go berserk and fears he'll kill one of the agents attacking the base (penthouse apartment of a busy office building). So he teleports the berserk teammate downstairs, into a busy office.

[CrosshairCollie]

Oh, goodness, where to start?

 

This wasn't a Champs game, but it was Supers. A villainess had bribed some college frat guys into being 'thugs' for her, basically, and they ripped off an SUV and drove it into the middle of college as a distraction while she got what she was after.

 

The Team Telepath gets into the driver's head, and starts screaming 'Stop the car', then someone inside shouts 'step on it!' over and over, so the car stop-start-stop-starts. Eventually, the driver just screams 'That's IT', gets out, and shoots both driver's side tires. This car is not going *anywhere*, between two flats and being on dirt.

 

Blaster Guy (not his real character name) decides to start shooting the car, despite the lack of necessity. The other teammates flatten the thugs, so they're not going to get away, and he's *still* shooting the car. First shot caves in the side. Second one SCISSORS IT IN HALF. And he's still shooting. "Why are you still shooting it?"

"I'm trying to get it to explode!"

"Why?"

"So they can't escape in it!"

"It's BROKEN IN HALF, and they're all UNCONSCIOUS!"

"But I wanna blow it up!"

One of the other players, and characters, also realized that blowing up the car would likely mean setting a building or two on fire, to say nothing of likely KILLING THE THUGS, so she proceeded to cover the car with a Force Wall. And the player kept trying to blast through the Force Wall.

While the PCs were 'fighting' one another, the Villain got away.