Quote from: cranebump;935416In short, random shit is awesomely fun. :-)

Yes, cranebump, it certainly is, so let's celebrate those random results - an awesome randomly generated event or encounter, a(n un)lucky roll which reverberated through the campaign - in our roleplaying experiences.

For our Boot Hill campaign, I created random tables to populate the saloons of Promise City with patrons, A few of the entries came from the Fastest Guns Who (N)Ever Lived tables in the BH rules and The Dragon article series, and thus it was that my character found himself playing poker with John Chisum - yeah, that John Chisum - and Clay Allison - yeah, that Clay Allison. Allison came out on the short end of the game, and when my character left the saloon, we rolled for a random encounter that came up Gambler - another random reaction roll indicated that the Gambler was looking for a fight, and thus it was my character found himself brawling a drunk Clay Allison on Main Street in Promise City. My character, Eladio, managed to knock out Allison, but not before taking three stab wounds from the killer's Arkansas toothpick, and going forward he'll carry with him two souvenirs of the fight: a scar on the side of his face that runs from his ear to the curve of his chin, and Allison's knife, for which he's having a custom sheath made which matches the rest of his rig.

So what's your story?

Shadowrun, players just finished a mission and were heading home in a damaged vehicle. RAndom encounter on the way back - Lone Star patrol! All kinds of holy shit erupted (the PC van was a HEAVILY modified, it was more tank than van). It was the best part of the night.

It was the players' second foray into the Hill Giants' Stronghold (G1, personalized for my game).  Some key modifications, I added an old well that opened into an area off of 16 on the dungeon level and the Keeper was actual an "Ogre Magi" and in my campaign they are closer in size to a hill giant and close enough in appearance that disguise is pretty easy.  (The Keeper was a spy for the Frost Giants)  The Keeper also had a Stone Wall scroll.  The Keeper, being smart, knew the well entrance was a weakness so had a plan in case the PCs showed up there.  Draw the PC's into the big corridor to 1, then read the scroll to divide the party, send orcs etc. through room 8 to hit the other half of the party from the rear.   The PC's as expected "snuck" down the well, and made there way to the corridor to 1,  the Keeper was able to draw them in and then went to read the scroll and he failed!  You can fail to get magic off in my game, typically it is a very small chance, 1-3%.  I make the PCs roll so play fair and make the opposition roll, the Keeper hit that 1%, scroll failed, the Keepers plan fell apart from there on.  In fact the PC's used a Wall of Fire to split the Keeper's forces.

Ours was with Marvel Advanced- there were three of us.   We had been playing a 5 year campaign and were high end heroes- lots of Amazing, Monstrous, Unearthly and a Shift X for stats.  For whatever reason, our fearsome threesome encountered three normal thugs in an alley doing whatever nefarious things thugs do.  We decided to take em out, cat playing with a mouse style.  The three of us couldn't roll higher than a 09 during the entire battle.  Meanwhile, the normal thugs kept rolling red FEATs on everything they did.  The "fight" ended with one of us getting tossed into a dumpster (my character- think he got grandslammed) another with a garbage can rammed over his body, and the other ran off while getting pelted by garbage.  The three thugs high fived one another and declared us punk ass bitches.  I think the GM docked us karma for that one.

PolyCon game convention OD&D one shot - hunt red dragon to its lair and slay it. In the climactic battle, the party of 6 slug it out with the dragon and things go badly, the bloody smashed dragon breathes and all the PCs fail their saves, leaving only one fighter standing with just 1 HP facing a dragon with 14 HP and 1 breath left. We roll initiative...the fighter wins and goes first, the player stands up, gives a mighty monologue as the fighter hurls his sword into the dragon's maw. He crits with a natural 20, then rolls the maximum possible damage...exactly 14 HP...slaying the dragon.

The table went nuts.

...and I described that as the dragon died, its final breath became imbued into the sword transforming it into a +2 Sword of Dragonslaying.

...and as awesome as that sounds, that climactic moment met its anti-moment a year later. I ran an OD&D dungeon crawl with at least 5 combat encounters where not a single monster scored a hit against any PC. I remember having two trolls incapable of rolling enough to hit an unarmored mage, and the PCs saved against every single spell and effect they encountered. It was laughably bizarre and after a while, the players kept a running tally just to compute the odds of my dice rolling lame streak. They would laugh hysterically every time I switched D20s only to keep rolling like I had a D6.

Dungeon World, current campaign. Wizard comes up snake eyes on consecutive rolls, then generates a series of backfire effects that warp reality, thus destroying the monument they were investigating, turning 4 stone creatures into one, big, stone creature, and, finally, summoning a naga from a list of random monsters.

Same campaign, spell backfire. Loud noise summons nearby hunting dragon, who eat all their ponies. They negotiate passage by giving up a magic item. Vow to return. The dragon and its kobold minions were on a WM list I got off wizardawn. Now, they're in the campaign.:-)

Bughunters game, amazing engine system, years ago. Marines on mission to irradiated section of earth, requires a special inoculation. For shits & grins I rule there's a 3% chance the shot can kill you. Just created PC gets a 02. He dies. New,character. We all laugh. (I would not do something like this today, but that really was funny).

Off the top of my head i remember playing a Cleric of Thor in ad&d. He had a Con of 12 or something, anyway, no Con bonus to hits. We played the campaign to 4th level, and at the end my boy had 31 hit points. Just a single digit away from 4 maximum hit point rolls in a row.

I'm running a Lamentations of the Flame Princess campaign using as many of the wonderful modules as I can. The starting setting is 17th Century Europe during the Thirty Year War, but I'm tying the hodgepodge of setting and weirdness found across the books by having an interplanetary and inter-dimensional war taking place to take control of Earth. (Many of the evil factions involved use human sacrifices for power. Earth, with its rich population, would make a wonderful cattle-pen.)

The PCs had stolen an item called The World Stone from the Duvan'Ku temple in Death Frost Doom. The World Stone allows agents from Carcosa to travel back to the planet of Carcosa to report on their efforts. (The Duvan'Ku cult and Carcosans are mortal enemies, with the Duvan'Ku cultist wanting to create gods they can master, and the citizens Carcosa serving their dark gods.)

The Players had traveled to Munich on their way north to investigate one of several mysteries they'd heard about. But while in Munich they decided to poke around for rumors about the Duvan'Ku. I had already moved the ruins of The God That Crawls from Britain to under Munich and made the God That Crawls one of the experiments of the Duvan'Ku. Since five hundred years ago there had been horrible rumors of strange goings on the PCs did, in fact, find rumors about the Duvan'Ku. They stayed in Munich (rather than traveling north) tracked down the ruins, and adventures began.

They managed to get out (losing only half the party) and decided to stay in Munich and go back to ruins of The God That Crawls to clear it out.

Since I knew they'd be staying in Munich I whipped up an Encounter Table. (They had killed a Catholic priest who helped keep the The God That Crawls a secret, and the guards were on the look out for the murderers)

Encounter: 1 in 6 per day
If Encounter, roll d6
1-2 Town Guard on the hunt for the killers confronts them
3-4 Civilian Militia on the hunt for the killers confronts them
5 Agents from Carcosa looking for the World Stone they took from the Duvan’Ku shrine confront them
6 Agents of the Duvan’Ku, aware this group has invaded their shuttered shrine to the south and now are poking around in their shuttered catacombs in Munich want to kill them

On the 4th Day I got an encounter. I thought odds were good it would be people after them for the murder of the priest, but it was Agents from Carcosa! A sorcerer and several men-at-arms. I really thought, "This isn't what we need right now. The focus is on the ruins under Munich." But I stuck with it. There was some cloak and dagger stuff, and then a fight, with the Sorcerer bringing reinforcements track them down when they were coming out of the ruins of The God That Crawls laden with treasure. A final battle ensued, where the PCs killed all the Carcosans but one.

They captured this man. I made a reaction roll. A 12!

Now, the world of Carcosa, you may have heard, is a horrible place -- full of dark gods and slavery and human sacrifice. The landscape is bleak and food and water tough to come by. (Which is why people turn to the dark gods for help.)

It thought, looking at the Reaction Roll of 12, "He loves earth. This is fucking paradise to him. He wants to befriend the PCs!" And so he did.

The PCs fed him, got him shelter. They began learning about Carcosa from him and began learning the Carcosan language. This drew them deeper into the plots of the Carcosans. They also discovered the method the Carcosans use to travel to Earth (it is a one-way method, which is why the World Stone is required to get back).

All in all all sorts of terrific roleplaying moments, as well as all sorts of colorful exposition about how they might rescue three of their companions from Carcosa got delivered all because I rolled a 5 on that Encounter Roll. I never really thought about what that roll would mean until it arrived, and I never could have anticipated how much fun (pretty much two sessions worth) of play would come out of it.

I was running an arena game for a new player. GURPS tactical combat and the player has no knowledge of the game system - it's all being done in English. He has a not very strong or competent fighter armed with a javelin. He comes up against his first foes, a group of four goblinish types with small axes, but they are not expecting a fight and are spread out. I expect him to run pretty quickly, but instead he says he wants to stab the one nearest to him in the throat. That's going to be a hard target, but he hits, and the first foe is collapses stunned and gurgling. The others rush in and he similarly describes choice body parts for skewering and keeps making his hit rolls over and over despite wild odds. The room ends up looking like something ridiculously powerful came in and played with its food. His killing spree went on till the end, succeeding by not knowing the odds and trying for deadly attacks and making rolls with crazy luck.

Case 1 - The greatest 0-Level Dwarf in history
The GM is using randomly rolled Quirk tables, you could have demon blood, an extra finger, etc..  Anyway, I roll up "Zero Level" based on the rules from N3 Treasure Hunt.  So we're investigating some caves, that leads to a hidden humanoid lair and my Dwarf comes up against an Ogre.  One hit and I'm done.  But, the Dwarf manages to not only live, but get the killing blow on the Ogre. (We were fighting in a hallway, so only two of us could fight it and the other guy was a 2e style bard).  Later, we manage to rouse the alarm and get the whole place up in arms.  While the rest of the group is getting away, so they can notify the local outpost what is going on out here, the dwarf (not being able to outrun the orcs anyway) makes a stand at the entrance.  He kills the first few that show up, so they wait until the Chieftain shows up.  My Dwarf recites his clan lineage and challenges him to a one-on-one fight under the Eye of Gruumsh and in the Shadow of Dumathoin.  Well, he lasted 5 rounds.  That, plus the rest of the time before the Chieftain got there allowed the rest of the party to get away.  GM just couldn't hit me, or roll more than a point or two of damage when he did.

Case 2 - Don't Roll a 1
Group of AD&D characters, low level, 3rd-5th is hopelessly lost trying to make it through some mountains, and decide to head through a pass they know is extremely dangerous.  They encounter a Stone Giant.  In this campaign, the GM used the much tougher 2e Giants and Dragons and also used those Dragon Articles for larger weapon damages etc... In any case, we're looking at a TPK.  Months ago, the party had killed an evil wizard and carefully searched the whole place finding a single dose of what they were able to identify as a contact poison.  The character who had it, dug it out of his pack while the rest engaged the Giant, a couple rounds later, with one PC mauled, and another one negative and dying, the Giant got hit with a single dart.  Save vs. Poison - 1.  Instant Death.

Case 3 - There's something wrong with our Robot.
So we're playing Rifts, and the characters are Coalition Soldiers, currently doing the Long Walk, the first tour all new recruits do, basically a perimeter foot patrol of the Chi-Town nation, so that soldiers get to see firsthand both what they are fighting for in the towns and villages along the perimeter, as well as what they are fighting against.  Anyway, unbeknownst to them, one of their number is actually a new type of ARCHIE-3 designed infiltrator borg.  The player playing this borg didn't even know it was a borg.  So,  several sessions in, they are in a tough combat, and to hit, dodge, parry, etc...  the player rolls Eight 1's in a row during combat... Eight.Ones.In.A.Row.  Needless to say, during that fight, the Borg gets hit good, and the other players see that he's actually not flesh and blood underneath the armor.  Their Sergeant (a PC who had survived a previous Tour himself with honors) had specifically requested to be requisitioned any experimental gear, so the PCs simply thought he was a new kind of Skelebot.  So when they get to the next base, they check in and the Sergeant during his report tells the Duty Officer calls the Borg PC in and says "There's something wrong with our Robot.  It needs a targeting system recalibration."  As the Sergeant is heading back to barracks, the group hears the Alert Siren wail as the base starts to go on lockdown and the Borg explodes taking part of the base with it.  An eye-opener for the PCs as they become aware of the job title of Imperial Intelligence Inquisitor.

Case 4 - You rolled a WHAT?
So we're in Castle Greyhawk, and we're rolling an encounter (the GM always had us roll for Random Encounters).  Well, we'd been playing MERP, so the idea of open-ended rolls was being applied here to encounters.  So, on a d100, this player rolls 394.  We encounter a crazy old wizard who, after some extremely entertaining conversation, reaches into a pouch and pulls out something that looks like a large framed backpack with steel arms, handles, levers, buttons, etc...  He tells us to have fun, but if we leave, don't take the pack with us, and disappears.  Turns out the device is an artifact, Zagyg's Dungeon Maker, and with it we can create tunnels, rooms, doors, traps, etc with a complicated series of dials, switches, etc...  Well, the party was here for a purpose, to find The Book of Names, a demonology text that would be needed to try and stop the plans of Lareth (yeah that Lareth, who in this world wasn't serving Lolth but Nerull, and a decade or so later was an extremely high level Priest trying to bring back Tharizdun to complete the Ultimate Death - the destruction of everything) so, since we were at that point hopelessly lost and had been for days, we used the backpack to tunnel straight the Hell out of Dodge and deliver the Book.  Yes, we left the backpack behind - piss off Zagyg? - not even we were that crazy.

Case 5 - You rolled a WHAT? (MERP edition).
Here's where that GM got his open-rolled encounter ideas.
Long story short - Sauron has the Ring.  Very dark campaign setup, won't go into the "How" here.  Anyway, one of the PCs rolled a Noldor for his race (which in and of itself is a ridiculously low chance) and rolled the highest social class (now we have our second crazyass roll).  So we have a PC who is the son of Glorfindel.  He has an elven sword forged by Celebrimbor himself, but is cautioned to be careful in using his power and make sure he remains unseen by the Eye.  So the PCs are in the "Brown Lands" the area East of Anduin between Mirkwood and the Emyn Muil.  They are scouting the area, looking to see if Orcs or Easterlings are going to be making a push to secure the east riverbank.  So, out here, where they are, nearly anything is possible to run into.  They roll a crazyass open-ended encounter roll and get a Fell-Beast (no Nazgul rider).  An extremely difficult opponent, but not a guaranteed TPK.  Well, as it comes down on them, the Elf-Lord throws back his cloak in all his glory, draws his Sword of Power ready to strike as the Fell Beast comes in.  Well it doesn't, the Fell Beast passes about 10 feet overhead and then wings South East towards Mordor.  At that point the PCs bag ass for the Anduin.  A Noldor Lord with a Sword of Power, so close to Mordor, this deserves a proper response from The Enemy's best tracker.  The night after they cross the Anduin, they get a visit from Khamul the Easterling.  Most of the PCs flee in terror.  Elf Lord - dead, Sword - gone, Dunedain warrior who had the courage to stand - left alive but poisoned with a Morgul Blade, and the only other PC to stand, a Woodsman tracker, left alive but dying, missing an arm.

Traveller. Our far trader cargo hold is filled with high ticket trade goods - computers and cybernetic parts - representing pretty near all of our trade capital, meaning if we lose this load, we're back to square-fucking-one.

And we get hailed by a patrol cruiser for 'inspection.'

As the ship moves to intercept, we attempt to reach the starport control for confirmation on the ship's identity, but we're being jammed - all we have is radio, not tight-beam laser comms - so now this whole thing is looking sketchy as hell. In Traveller pretty much anything that hits your ship costs you millions of credits to fix, but a hit on the cargo hold would destroy tens of millions of credits in goods, so we fire a spread of three missiles and throw up a sand screen. The patrol cruiser's ECM kills two of the missiles but the third gets through, causes a critical hit, and the type T disappears in a big flash and now the starport's signal comes through loud and clear, warning us that a known pirate is closing on our position. "Not any more," we radio back.

Well, here's one from last night:

Dungeon World: For all intents and purposes a "boss fight," depending on how the PCs handled it. They wake up an old crone in stasis, while carrying around the trapped spirit of her long dead lover, a Knight. The knight has gone insane from trying to cross over to the other side (she having put him there out of guilt over his death, which she feels she caused long ago--unable to transfer his essence into a new vessel, she's laid clues to his knight brethren about how to find the place--unfortunately, they never got the memo, and she and the knight have been laying in wait here for a looong time).

Anyway, Crone is a high level magic-user. Awakes, wants a new vessel for her lover. They don't want to release his spirit because the way it spoke creeped out the cleric. Demands, etc., then Crone loses it and off they go. Things look bad. Mage can't counterspell anything because she's a tad tougher than he is. Warrior is beat up, and she's targeting him with her big, bad disintegrate spell (or version thereof). On top of that, her guardians have activated, and party is about to face some nasty, bronze golems the next round, unless they get a miracle. Since it's an active action on her part, I decide to have the player make her casting roll for her. Now, she just needs a fucking 3 on 2d6 for this to work. That's it. A 3, and she casts with a consequence (likely losing the spell). So, warrior player rolls.

Fucking snake syes. SNAKE EYES! The last time this came up, their mage had to roll twice on an arcane backlash table, so guess what? Crone has to roll twice, too. First thing that comes up -- spell backfires with an undesirable affect at twice the power it originally has.  So, the moment of doom turns to triumph. The spell usurps all the wards in the room, turning them in on her (basically "integrating" rather than the opposite). Knight's spirit is released, zooming into her. The magic activating the golems joins in, and Crone, who's been levitating and firing off magic with impunity, implodes before their eyes. Battle over.

She was down to 2 HP's anyway, so one more good shot and that woulda done it. But snake eyes....Jesus Christ, snakes.

It was rather unbelievable, to say the least.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;936135Traveller. Our far trader cargo hold is filled with high ticket trade goods - computers and cybernetic parts - representing pretty near all of our trade capital, meaning if we lose this load, we're back to square-fucking-one.

And we get hailed by a patrol cruiser for 'inspection.'

As the ship moves to intercept, we attempt to reach the starport control for confirmation on the ship's identity, but we're being jammed - all we have is radio, not tight-beam laser comms - so now this whole thing is looking sketchy as hell. In Traveller pretty much anything that hits your ship costs you millions of credits to fix, but a hit on the cargo hold would destroy tens of millions of credits in goods, so we fire a spread of three missiles and throw up a sand screen. The patrol cruiser's ECM kills two of the missiles but the third gets through, causes a critical hit, and the type T disappears in a big flash and now the starport's signal comes through loud and clear, warning us that a known pirate is closing on our position. "Not any more," we radio back.

Hehehehe...."Not any more..." Nice.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;936135Traveller. Our far trader cargo hold is filled with high ticket trade goods - computers and cybernetic parts - representing pretty near all of our trade capital, meaning if we lose this load, we're back to square-fucking-one.

And we get hailed by a patrol cruiser for 'inspection.'

As the ship moves to intercept, we attempt to reach the starport control for confirmation on the ship's identity, but we're being jammed - all we have is radio, not tight-beam laser comms - so now this whole thing is looking sketchy as hell. In Traveller pretty much anything that hits your ship costs you millions of credits to fix, but a hit on the cargo hold would destroy tens of millions of credits in goods, so we fire a spread of three missiles and throw up a sand screen. The patrol cruiser's ECM kills two of the missiles but the third gets through, causes a critical hit, and the type T disappears in a big flash and now the starport's signal comes through loud and clear, warning us that a known pirate is closing on our position. "Not any more," we radio back.

A thread winner if ever there was one