Everyone (including all of us, I'm sure) has done some pretty dumb things in games.  I've seen countless players  pull all kinds of dumb or ill-advised actions over the years: deliberately jumping off of 10+ story buildings, pissing off hostile NPCs that vastly outnumbered them, trying to make an impossible and highly dangerous manouver or action -- and failing miserably, and tons of other hilarious actions that rapidly lead to their death.

As a general rule, I try very hard *not* to kill off player characters. It can be disheartening to lose one's favorite character, especially if it's a high-level one that took years to build. Players will get severely injured and incapacitated, but usually they will live on fight another day. However, players will often seal their doom with unwise actions.

I'm sure *everyone* here has some of those. Share 'em.

Here's a few of mine:

A. Leapt To Their Doom

- AD&D 2nd Ed, Original Ravenloft module (the one with that kick-ass castle and featuring Strad). Sometime in the very early 80's. 4 Players.

Basically, they were 12-stories up on a narrow stone bridge between two towers. In front of them was a flat-topped stone tower, about 12' in diameter, with a curved staircase penetrating the interior. Strad showed up behind them and cast a "Improved Phastasmal Force" (an illusion) in front of them of two black dragons swooping out of the heavy black clouds right in their face out of nowhere. What happened next wasn't too pretty:

In a quick action, they all said, "We're going to jump off the side of the tower!"

 I said, "Are you really sure that's what you want to do?"

Yes they did and over they went.

 (Still trying to 'save' them, I made them all roll 'to hit' in order to jump over the parapet. Of course, they all made their roll.)

They fall eight stories and then smashed through some stained-glass windows (on the roof of the Sanctuary) and fell *another* two stories, before finally impacting on  hard oak benchs cemented into the floor. They all died. The falling damage was something like 110 points each - and nobody had that many HPs. Plus, some of them were wearing heavy metallic armor. Essentially, their guts were airbrushed all over the inside of the the Sanctuary.

When I explained to them what they had just done, they all said, "Why the hell did we do that???" - ROFLMAO.

B. Unfamiliar with Blast/Effect Radius.

I could tell you fifty of these.  I've seen players fire or throw grenades inside a vehicle they were riding in; I've seen them do it in a wharehouse full of gasoline tanks.

Or by firing off a area-effect spell in a small, confined area and getting caught in the blast. For example, a 1st Ed AD&D Fireball should not be cast at a foe in a narrow stone corridor.  Yet, I've seen people do this at least 100 times - blissfully unaware of of the blast radius until it's too late. Or, technologically speaking, firing a high-explosive rocket launcher at a foe inside a wooden sailboat - that you are also in - is probably a bad tactical choice.  But people do this all the time without considering the possible consequences.

What are some hilarious deaths you've encountered in your games?

Way back in Shadowrun 1 for whatever reason when I designed the storage room that held the information the PC's were looking for I had designed in, and in game narrated extensively about a twelve foot thick ceiling, carved from marble that was engraved with magical ruins. The players had managed to infiltrate pretty close to it, but got into a running gun battle as they made their final approach. A discussion on tactics between two players turns into a semi serious In Character conflict, and another player decides to have his character break up the argument by firing his grenade launcher into the ceiling-pumping off not one but two fragmentation grenades.

We all literally just stopped and stared at him. I asked quietly, "Are you sure this is what your character would do?" He nodded enthusiastically and replied, "Yeah." The other players then voiced some concerns about this-but he wasn't having any of this and rolls his dice. Which at our table is kind of the seal the deal. Had the other players not expended karma to force a glitch on him it would have ended with a total party kill.

That's hilarious. =)

I once had two character try to *ram* an aircraft carrier with a predominantly wood-constructed speedboat.

You know, any time the GM says, "Are you sure you want to do that?" -- That should be a clear warning to the player to really consider what they are doing.

Well, there was the paladin who was killed while hunting a moose in one of my Rolemaster games.  He failed to sneak, it looked at him and then turned away deliberately ignoring him.  So our hero beaned it with his sling and it turned with a snort and charged.  He readied his mattock but it attacked before he could swing, driving his ribs through his lungs and heart and flinging his armored form high into the air.

The party found an animist to res him but that left him as a devoted servant of the very structured and stuffy church beholden to those nature loving hippies

(rules break down is that the moose got initiative the paladin readied his weapon and the moose moved into range in the snap phase, the moose attacked getting an E impact (or was it krush?) critical...)

Thanks for sharing.

Quote from: David Johansen;490605He readied his mattock but it attacked before he could swing, driving his ribs through his lungs and heart and flinging his armored form high into the air.

Ah, classic Rolemaster critical hits. Gotta love 'em!

For me, one of the most memorable would have been when the PCs in Forges of Nuln had been tracking for like a week the fact that someone was going to sabotage the great cannon that was to be unveiled, and were pretty sure that they were going to try to make it blow up; and so at the unveiling... they went and stood out in front as close to the cannon as they possibly could.. Incredibly, only one of them actually died, though others had to use Fate Points.

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Quote from: Blazing Donkey;490606Ah, classic Rolemaster critical hits. Gotta love 'em!

Hmmm, yes ...

Played it once, rolled up a dwarf tank, took 3 hours. Started playing, took an arrow in the eye that turned my brain into slush. Took 5 minutes. Never played it again.

I was running my group through G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King and one my players declared that his elven archer was going to jump down a chute into a lava pit.  To be fair he didn't know a lava pit was down there but I did describe the increase heat and intense glow coming from somewhere down the chute.  I even reiterated it when he told me what he was doing.  Twenty d20 worth of fire damage later he's looking at me stunned as I explain what happened.  His only response was to say that he thought the chute went up instead of down.

Quote from: soltakss;490696Hmmm, yes ...

Played it once, rolled up a dwarf tank, took 3 hours. Started playing, took an arrow in the eye that turned my brain into slush. Took 5 minutes. Never played it again.

Well, jeez! If ya can't take a joke...

-clash

In a homebrew AD&D game many years ago we had an arogant player who claimed his paladin could beat anything in a duel, the fun part was when he rolled his attack dice and fumbled so badly that he basically beheaded himself with his own sword(we used a pilfered hit location chart from another game for duels and a fumble resulted in you tripping or in his case harming himself).

There was also the time when my very drunk gnome thief decided to try to sneak into the mayors mansion for abit of late night pilfering and due to the minus's from being drunk and the fact it was pitch black outside managed to slip and fall off the roof of the mansion and into the lake below, the lake incidentally was on the other side to where i should have been in the first place and contained a rather nasty tribe of kua toa who feasted well on his dead body that night

Quote from: flyingmice;490699Well, jeez! If ya can't take a joke...

-clash

The joke works better when you have six clones

In my last fantasy campaign, the Wolfen were a race of atheist steeped in alchemical lore (which they used to create potions that juiced them up) and a fondness for firearms. During the course of an adventure (during the early days of the campaign) the PC paladin challenged a Wolfen senator to a duel. At the appointed time, the two met, the paladin drew his broad sword and got shot in the head while saluting his opponent.

Regards,
David R

Once while playing a ranger AD&D  1e, I stealthy killed my my way in to a jail house where an adventuring companion of mine was being held awaiting the noose. When I reached him at last, he cried out to the gaurd as I was working the lock on his cell door. I had no idea what his motivation was, but I stopped working the lock and spent a couple of rounds putting arrows into him while he cowered at the back of his cell. Once he was dead, I killed my way back out of jailhouse, and fled into the forest.

Ah, jr high...

As it tuned out, this guy could only think in terms of PvP I think I killed him at least two other times, both in Boot Hill. Each involved stupid ass betrayals like the one above.

Thanks to everyone for posting. Some hilarious reads, indeed.

Here's another of mine:

In a Shadowrun game, the runners managed to trap themselves on the 20th floor of a building. They blew up the elevator and stairs when they found out that security had been alerted and were on their way up.

So the Rigger managed to make a sling that hung between two helicopter drones. Using it, they were able to let one character at a time down onto the roof of a nearby building.

While this was going on, though, a dragon (who was head of security) was *above* them on an upper floor. He arrived in the room just as the last character was about to leave.

The character had 2lbs. of C-4 and he set a timer for five seconds and then ran to leap out the window.

He tripped, fell down, and then got blown out the window by his own explosive.

In another hilarious WFRP situation, I had one guy nearly end up dying because of a combination of very unlucky rolls when falling off a tree. But I don't mean like, a giant redwood; no, the guy was maybe 5 feet off the ground. He lived but only because of a Fate Point.

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