Games Sessions Gone Horribly Wrong–When Reality Crushes Fantasy
The Role-Playing Search Engine
Update: Welcome Stumblers! If you are interested in this post, then you should also check out The Tale of Jacques, my award winning tale of the world’s dumbest gamer.
Every gamer has one game session that just “went wrong.” Whether it be a car accident on the way to the game, a house set on fire by the DM’s candles or collective food poisoning from “Circle-K” chili-cheese hot dogs, we all have at least one tale of a nightmare game session. Rather than let these great tales fade into oblivion, post your best stories in the comments and share with the world. There are no prizes, save the knowledge you amused gamers across the globe and posterity will know of your courage in the face of a bad game session.
I will start. In my youth, I regularly played at the local taxpayer’s league offices from dusk till dawn on Friday nights with John, Joey, Wes and myself. John had delusions of a political career and thought the taxpayer’s league was a stepping stone. They elected him head of the organization. This fact probably had a great deal to do with him being the only serious applicant. Anyway, at about 9:00 PM one Friday night, John, Joey and Wes go out for a beer run. Twenty minutes later Joey and Wes, winded from running, return to the office.
“John got arrested.” said Joey, flat toned. Joey was mellow to the point of coma most of the time, part of it was personality and part of it was constant use of the local cash crop.
Wes, somewhat high-strung and lacking any “mellowing” agent in his system, starts to panic.
“Ohmygod,omygod, They just arrested him! What are we going to do?” Panic, panic, panic, etc, ad infinitum
My thoughts focused on more important matters.
We were in a particularly bloody game of “Diplomacy” and I needed John’s naval support to eject the Russians from the Baltic Sea.
“We have to get John out of jail,” said I.
Several calls to John’s relatives and a friendly bail bondsman springs the wayward gamer from jail. 90 minutes later, I had my ally back, Joey was still mellow and Wes kept repeating the same thing over and over again.
“I can’t believe you guys are just going to keep playing! John was in jail and you just want to keep playing. Doesn’t any of this bother you? How can you be so calm?”
We continued the game, spending most of it making fun of John for not paying his speeding tickets. John swore up and down that he would resolve the issue on Monday. He did not follow through and got picked up again the following game night. We got him out in less than an hour that time. We knew the procedure and cut a few corners.
So ends my tale. Share your tales of woe in the comments sections and let us all learn about gaming in the face of adversity.
Trask, The Last Tyromancer
About the Author: Trask is a long-time gamer, world traveler and history buff. He hopes that his scribblings will both inform and advance gaming as a hobby.
I’m that dreaded beast, a smoker, and was out of cigarettes. Just before a Cyberpunk 2020 game, my SO at the time said he’d walk to the 2 blocks to the store and buy a pack so I’d get off his back. It was dark and not a great neighborhood, so I didn’t want to go myself.
He returns, winded, talking about how this guy jumped him on the way home. They fought, my SO won by kicking the guy in the kneecap and returned.
During the game following, he suddenly had new insight on brawling moves and kicked out alot of shins and caps that night!
We never really had nightmare sessions, but we did have a nightmare Mage. He was the kind of player that sword that he knew everything about D&D and could recite entire passages from the books. That was all well and good until he needed to cast Magic Missile. Ladies and Gentlemen, I swear to you that the boy could NEVER remember how many damned magic missiles he got to fire or how much damage each one did.
When ever it was his combat turn, I would usually go out, take a bio break, come back and he’d STILL be looking it up. We always yelled at him saying that he just cast the spell. He should have remembered.
Levian Windshowl
Ok, not exactly real life invading, but still the worst session I’ve had in my admittedly still short roleplaying experience.
So here’s the synopsis: my character a level one trumpet archon, lawful good, paradigm of justice, yadda yadda yadda. another Unusual character was a half-ogre, big on brawn, low on brains. We had been hired to retrieve a gnome village’s guard krenshar, y’know, those hyena things that can pull the skin off their face. So we set out, our ranger finding cave with several krenshar inside. we couldn’t recognize any of them, so we decided to take them back to the village. We fought for a bit, using nonlethal damage, and then the half-ogre takes a swing with his greataxe. He rolls a 20. he gets max damage. it adds up to about 40 points. krenshars have about 20 hit points.
…
The DM rules that the krenshar has been tenderized. so we beat the other krenshar, tie them up, and tote them back to the village. The gnomes don’t recognize any of them, and tell us that they would have been fine if we told them their guard was living happily with his kind.
…
F-ck.
I might have ya beat. we were playing a game of D&D and we called our nightly game break to aqquire pizza – pepsi – and herb. note the last one for later.
so first things first, we call for the pizza. then we send out the ladies for the pepsi – i was the GM and one of the players had a great idea – he was the type who holds up every battle to consult his compendium of books to see if he can contort a loophole (and he tried for everything imaginable).
He pulled out the “book of erotic fantasy” and said he wanted his orug (half ogre/half orc) to become a nudist and take up the tantrist prestige class, as it is “in a book”. i balked at this but accepted.
The women get back and he is snickering. then the pizza man arrives and one last delivery to show up, so he thinks. I set the game break to happen right before a major battle – the players were told before the break the town was under siege and the players had to break enemy lines and end the siege.
So, he walks up to the group NAKED and traded some powers (psychic warrior) for spells. He decided to cast “disrobe” on one of our female players, to our suprise and used a “charm” to make her lust for him. But the third delivery came and i said “Hold that thought man, you know you can’t direct the actions of others.”
so he looked up the charming rules, suggestion rules, command rules and began writing an essay on WHY he is allowed to force a female player to want to have sex with him before battle so he can get his powers while we all go into the back room. 2 blunts later, we come out and he says “YOU! ME! SEX! NOW!” pointing at my girlfriend.
a flurry of “what the hell!” and a black eye and he reminds me that he means “in game”. we all remembered what his plan was, so she made her will save and passed, then drew her scimitar, and made a called shot for castration. crit – confirmed and i made him keep his class that requires him to have sex to gain spells.
now, he had no way to gain power – and had to walk around nude to expose to everyone his new trait, which i declared gave him a -20 charisma penalty when dealing with others. BUT its not over – he had the leadership skill, and wanted a new piece, so he looked up flesh golems and asked about “Vecna’s severed….”
i didn’t give it to him, but he got cursed by a wizard who changed his gender – to represent the castration, his labia was closed and he had no more dignity. she promptly threw herself upon her sword and the player never attempted to “monty python” my game again.