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. 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. 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]

Re: Most Embarassing Champions Moment

 

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.

 

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...

[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!

[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?"

[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?"

Too hilarious.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Guest 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.

[Guest 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.