DMs and players, What is the dumbest thing you’ve seen a player do Part 4

[@remraven6443]

I was taken prisoner by some NPCs and the parties face confronted them at the bottom of the tower. When player was told that I was dead and gone, he assumed they were telling the truth, and with some elaborate plan knocked the tower over, which actually killed me. When we reminded him insight checks were a thing, he looked dumbfounded.

[@jonathancarlson6127]

Or the NPC was psychic.

[@remraven6443]

@@jonathancarlson6127 definitely wasn't psychic

[@Nobody-ik5gm]

@@jonathancarlson6127 yes my friend, he was just an idiot and a true representation of what a incompetent, now and then thinking party leader looks like.

[@thewrustywrench21]

Hardly his fault for not metagaming. It depends if him the player knew you were alive or not. Also you being held prisoner is kinda dumb on the dungeon masters part. I mean for the story it makes sense but it’s lame you just had to watch them play

[@cloud1973]

@@thewrustywrench21 Yeah - Could've tried to escape though.

[@johnnnysaint01]

I had a character in one of my games think that if he drinks dragon poison and then let’s the dragon swallow him that he could then vomit out the poison and kill the dragon getting out alive. For a moment the rest of the party considered this then someone with some sense finally speaks up. “Wait if the poison is strong enough to kill a dragon wouldn’t melt you, a human?” And then all the holes in the plan unraveled

[@skeepodoop5197]

I've seen myself fall off a cliff into shark infested waters while wearing splint, meaning I couldn't swim out. Ended up burning an action surge to double dash back to shore while being absolutely torn apart by what was basically a Megalodon.

[@funnyblog100]

My bard in a campaign I was in kept surviving injuries that should have killed him. Whenever something bad was going to happen to him the dice seemed to straight up say no with some lucky nat 20's. Over the course of the campaign he had been impaled three times and dropped off a cliff and that still didn't finish him off. The party found him at the bottom of the cliff unconcious in a pool of water and he didn't drown because we were on a diving mission before this and he had a breathing apperatus in his mask.

[@spartanhawk7637]

I picture this as your character running so fast that he started running on water

[@PerfectPhoenixLPs]

I was running a Homebrew Zelda-like theme Campaign, and my two players(Ranger and Barbarian) went on a seperate path to check in on a PC's family. Along the way, they started fighting an ice-enchanted Moblin. The fight was close and the Moblin was on its last legs, and then the Barbarian, in his stroke of genius, decided to hit the enemy with his Ice Hammer. Instead of dealing 'damage', he actually healed the Moblin considerably, because he rolled a crit. And it proceeded to knock the Ranger unconscious. That was the closest to death the Ranger ever got.

[@OneColeGuy]

I’ve got a good one for this. My younger brother was playing his first dnd character, a low INT goliath paladin. Between the low score and it being my brother’s first couple of times playing and that low INT, that character made lots of poor decisions to the point that his god gave him a special 19 INT awakened shrub (it was a nature god) to counsel him and steer him in the right directions. The party was investigating a corrupt high priest who they suspected of siphoning the temple’s tithes to the BBEG to help support the kingship he had gained through the power of a wish spell. Since they weren’t sure of the priest’s guilt they decided to let my brother’s character seek an audience with him alone since he was a religious man. Once he was alone with the high priest he rolled some high persuasion (he was oath bound not to lie) checks and confirmed their suspicions. Unfortunately, he also managed to give away that they were on to him and the priest was obviously about to call for the guards. The awakened shrub noticed this and told him, “Shut him up! Knock him out!” So, my brother decides to pull out his maul and divine smite the crap out of this man. He was a non-combatant npc and had very low health, so the resulting holy blast not only killed him on contact, but also threw his body into the roaring fireplace. I would remind you that this was with five armed guards at the door in a temple in the middle of silent prayer. The hit was loud enough to wake the dead, and the only reason he didn’t die that session is because he hid himself in the pile of coins spilled behind the desk and the guards investigating rolled absurdly low, with multiple nat ones.

[@Gate_Of_Gluttony]

Well, it's not stupid if no one finds out, to be fair

[@Hercules1-v9m]

My personal rule, it ain't stupid if it works.

[@HandsomeLongshanks]

The "I'm gonna fail so hard i actually succeed" tactic

[@Jack-lo5me]

Had a party of players that was basically just me and my friends doing a small time, one-shot, homebrew thing of DnD. The numbers were more about what made sense then actually factoring into specific calculations. All of my friends wanted to play something different. One of them was this hippo-guy who was dressed in full pirate attire, was constantly drinking, but was a Crackshot with his blunderbuss. I gave him a special skill that if an enemy was running from him and he fired his gun, it would have massive advantage. I gave each player a broken unique skill, just to be a bit extra. The quest had been set up. Talk to the Baron of Raxford and ask him about the goblin attacks in the area, which had been more troublesome because the gobbos had gotten their hands on some guard equipment. When they walk into town, they make their way to the pub. …. Now, I told my players before hand that the land they were in was a human country. All of them had chosen to play as what was basically humanoid creatures. As a fire breathing bipedal lizard with an axe, a man with wolf features(basically they designed their character to be a werewolf but during nights they were ALWAYS atleast a bit wolf-ish, unless it was a new moon), and a 7’7” pirate hippo with a massive gun come into the pub, people start panicking, scattering. Slightly annoyed, my Hippo player says “I shoot my gun into the ceiling to get everyone’s attention.” I ask him “…. Are you sure of that?” And he says “Idk, it seems pretty cool.” I tell him to roll. He shrugs and does so, thinking it was how effective his intimidation was, but was actually his accuracy. Natural 20. I describe how as he shoots the gun, everyone DOESNT just stop what they are doing, and instead they begin to hide under tables and out of sight of the monster who was shooting up the place. I have the player roll for Luck. Low stat, Natural 1. I describe how a Nobel man had seen this motley crew enter the pub, and decided to not go in for a sec. When he heard the gun go off, the man runs off to go alert the guards in the city. Critical Accuracy, Critical Fail Luck, Advantage against fleeing targets. The Nobel, who was actually the Baron of Raxford, got a bullet straight through the brain as it fell out of the sky. The rest of the campaign was spent on the run, escaping prison, and otherwise them being a gang of rouges. Ironically, none of them actually was one. Overall… pretty good one-shot.

[@raymondenived7064]

Hey I just wanted to say, your videos kinda inspired me to play DND. In one of your videos, at the end, you said, " Go find a game to play, just do it," and I did! I found a game store that has weekly games and I'm now playing. So thanks for the inspiration!

[@jonathancarlson6127]

May the rolls be with you!

[@CYOD]

Hope you get stories to tell us on this channel soon :D

[@jonathancarlson6127]

One party member always hid their roll behind their sheet and handbook, and was always dropping the 20 with the 20 side up trying to get it to land flat and then just acting like they rolled before hand if they got over a 17. It got to the point where one party member referred to his rolls as "p*rn ads" cause they were always proclaimed to be 18 and over. Eventually he was allowed to roll earlier than when asked, but his roll was always verified and made permanent for the next check. Eventually we all started rolling our 20s when he did, first as a joke, but the game moved a little smoother because the DM could just check our rolls ahead of a moment and calculate the actions without a pause in the game.

[@codyouellette6936]

I've played with someone who did this. They also had the worst dice to try and verify cause there was so much ornate detail work that you couldn't see the numbers. Eventually, we just had to start telling them to roll again and actually roll the die.

[@cultofloki8361]

One of the other players, who was playing as a white dragonborn, fired a cone of frost breath at an enemy who was also clinging onto another players’ character who was at very low health. The other Character died and the player had to make a new one, but the enemy was basically unphased.

[@KitsuneCentral]

Hah! Wasn't expecting an AVGN reference! XD BTW, it's Laughing Joking Numbnuts... Thank's for the laugh.

[@lexington476]

We were in an old castle, we were in an old barn with very old hay, we run into some goblins or orbs or something. I was carrying a a torch, I decide to pull out my crossbow. the DM asks where do you put your torch, I say I set it down on the floor. The wooden floor of the second story of the barn filled with very old hay, yes the barn went up in spectacular fashion. We barely escaped out the second floor by roping down.

[@jordanhansen5934]

“It may not be the smart thing to do, but it is the MAGNUS thing to do” The Adventure Zone

[@ericb3157]

reminds me of a running gag in the graphic novels: "Magnus rushes in." "Magnus rushes by." "Magnus rushes on." "Magnus rushes OUT!'

[@KamiRecca]

We were gonna climb a wall, but it was a rough wall that would involve several decently hard checks. in a pure mathematical sense it is better to deal with One realy hard check than several decently hard checks. So instead of climbing that wall, we took the catapult way to its top. Worked too. For most of us... The Paladin finaly managed to leave his mark on the world. Even if it was only an outline.

[@lorenzocassaro3054]

Right after I described to my players how the Fae they were facing was basically turning into a living woodchipper (after it had already ripped a man's head off, barehanded), one of them told me: "I jump into it and punch it" This was Chronicles of Darkness, btw. For those who don't know, in that game you play as regular humans.

[@RobertPatrician]

I've DMed for about 400 sessions spread out across 12 years. This one stands out to as me as the dumbest thing a player has ever said. Picture if you will, a D&D campaign set in a mostly abandoned city. It was a center of agriculture during a worldwide famine curse half a century ago, but when the curse was lifted there was no more reason for the city and everyone who could leave did so. The common thread of the party was that they had each inherited significant land in the city, land that was currently near-worthless but could be immensely valuable if the city was brought back to prosperity. This is one of my favorite adventure hooks, as it lets the party have a variety of alignments and personal motivations, while ensuring they have a common goal. We get a new player to replace one who had to leave, and he's playing a thief. He inherits a few warehouses, one of which contains an underground lair with tunnels that lead all over the city. What does he do with it? **He burns it down**. I confirm REPEATEDLY with him that he wants to burn it down, he says yes he's burning it down. And as the party watches in disbelief as he burns down the warehouses, he says the single stupidest thing I have ever heard in a D&D game. "I want to use forgery to commit insurance fraud." It took me a few minutes to be coherent enough to explain how many things were wrong with this. 1. Insurance fraud requires that you buy the insurance BEFORE the fraud. 2. The player had not even confirmed that insurance was a thing in this world. 3. What company is going to insure empty warehouses in an abandoned city? 4. Even if he DID have insurance, the most optimistic value of the warehouses (Since you can't insure a thieves hideout) was only 120 gold. The starting gold for the current party level was thousands. 5. If your forgery is so good that you can commit insurance fraud, why did you need to actually burn down your own property? 6. The party was level 5, but this was a high-power world. That put them at the level of "Journeyman adventurer" not "Hero of the western kingdoms." If insurance was a thing, they'd be able to detect the non-magical forgery of someone who doesn't even know the name of an insurance company. 7. You are playing a halfling in a world of magic and dragons, and the very first thing you want to do is commit insurance fraud. If this was a real life game I would not let you in my house. He got VERY insistent that his forgery skill was good enough to commit the fraud. It was near the end of the session so I said "Fine, your forgery succeeds. A letter arrives for you with 120 gold, the value of the warehoues." He was very happy. After the session was over, I informed him that he would not be invited back, as his first action has been to sever himself from the thread that bound the party together. And nothing of value was lost.

[@patricksocha6930]

We were playing the Curse of Strahd campaign and one of the party members was playing a Tabaxi with a cat like nature, like knocking glasses off of tables and such. Well, we entered a building with some things in cabinets, one of which being called Mother’s Milk. The Tabaxi obviously went and drank the whole thing. Causing him to have to periodically make saving throws due to being poisoned.

[@lordbiscuitthetossable5352]

Man. I chuckled at the people rushing to knock themselves out. Just let them have their damn heroic sacrifice. Lol

[@ALegendarySol]

My college plays using Westmarches, and in one of our campaigns we were exploring a temple to retrieve a box that her dogness (yes you read that right) needed, so she sent us to an alien planet to find it. Inside the temple we were warned that there were "false treasures" and to beware of them. The party consisted of a paladin, a rogue, an artificer (me), and a cleric. After going through several traps, we made it to a throne room, and in it were two sarcophaguses. After searching the room, we found an eyeglass, which when looked into, revealed a secret corridor past the tombs, but was only accessible to the one looking through the eyeglass. Since the rogue had the eyeglass, and we were confident he would be able to escape whatever situation he got himself into, we let him go into the secret corridor..and that was our first mistake. In this corridor, there was a MASSIVE amount of gold coins and treasure such as ornamental swords, vases, gems, etc, but in the middle of it all was a statue of a golden goddess. We couldn't communicate with the rogue, so we just had to place our faith in him while we waited outside and examined the sarcophaguses. Out of character, we were ALL sussed out, knowing exactly what was going to happen, but our rogue wanted to have fun and see where it went, and honestly, we all wanted to know what was going to happen when the rogue did rogue things. This was the second mistake. The rogue took a bag full of gold, and nothing happened. Then, the rogue decided to, and I quote, but his hand in the goddess's mouth. The goddess statue opened its eyes, which were now pitch black and oozing necrotic liquid from its eyes as well as its mouth, dealing a lot of necrotic damage to the rogue and blackening its hand. After its eyes and mouth fully opened, it SCREAMED as the room shook and he BOLTED out of there (a little additional note here, the room we rented in the college had a problem with the lights slowly fading to black and was a constant issue for the whole year. As our DM mimicked the scream the goddess made, the lights INSTANTLY went out instead of dimming like it usually did, which actually made us all pretty spooked since it was a REALLY, REALLY good banshee-like scream.) As he returned to our side, the sarcophaguses opened as an undead lich couple rose to fight us. Our party was around level 5-8, so we were confident we could kill them...but no, we were getting EMBARASSED. The room filled with bugs and insects and pests and what not, forming a large circle on the ground under the liches, dealing a good amount of necrotic damage each time we started or entered the field on our turn, and that wasn't the scary party. For about 6 or so turns, we kept failing DC saves to prevent ourselves from having our bodies temporarily highjacked and being forced to move towards the liches. The person closest to the liches was the paladin since they couldn't move in time and were getting hit by all of the bugs and the liches, almost killing him. The entire time this was happening, the liches weren't even focused on us. They were bickering with one another about past grievances, literally like an old, undead, married couple...we had a british accent. Finally, after several turns passed, one of our party members managed to break free and hit one of the liches with a spell. It died instantly. The next turn, I broke free and blasted the other one. Died instantly as well. After we finished the mission and gave her dogness her box (which was just a stupid chew toy), we found out that the liches only had ONE HP. So, we were getting ragdolled for almost 30 minutes by a pair of royal british liches, almost lost our paladin, and then almost TPK'd due to the ever looming threat of the pool of creatures under the liches...all because we sent the rogue into a room full of treasure and his desire to put his hand in a statue's mouth.

[@ericb3157]

that part about the lights reminds me of a gag in the online comic "goblin hollow" by RhJunior: they are playing D&D in the dark because their power is out. DM: "as you cast the spell, a blinding flash of actinic light fills the room-" and JUST THEN the power comes back on and makes a bright flash! EVERYONE goes "AAAAACK!"

[@minimishapsgames894]

Level 20 group accidentally opens a portal to the Land of the Dead. The being that came forth was an immortal cursed ex-wife of the land's king, and it was revealed that she was coming after the king's adopted daughter (NPC) and the daughter's new wife (the group's Wild Magic paladin) to trade either of their souls for her access back into the world. The group has enough tricks to turn the hunt into a high-stakes game of hot potato with the princess and paladin. It was actually going awesomely, one character would teleport the princess away, another did illusions, and the fighters tried to distract the single-focused death-spectre with attacks and shouting. What I didn't anticipate was one of the players (a bard if you must know), simply stepping through the portal. It had already been established that souls aren't allowed to stay in bodies in the Land of the Dead, or in other words hit points don't exist there. The group was able to pull the dead body back through the portal and eventually restore the soul to it, but we got a new saying about curiosity after that.

[@crimson3491]

New DM here, the party was captured by guards and wanted to escape from jail but they wanted to check for traps before they walked down the hall, but they didn’t have a rogue, so our goblin decided to pay an elderly woman in the cell next to them to walk down the hall and the woman fell into a spike pit, our goblin then wanted to jump over the pit so I had him roll for it and he rolled a nat 1, so he fell into the spine pit and died😂

[@Ghost-fc9hw]

Long Jump. When you make a Long Jump, you cover a number of feet up to your Strength score if you move at least 10 feet on foot immediately before the jump. When you make a standing Long Jump, you can leap only half that distance. Either way, each foot you clear on the jump costs a foot of Movement. This rule assumes that the height of your jump doesn’t matter, such as a jump across a stream or chasm. At your GM’s option, you must succeed on a DC 10 Strength (Athletics) check to clear a low obstacle (no taller than a quarter of the jump’s distance), such as a hedge or low wall. Otherwise, you hit it.

[@kaseymathew1893]

I once saw an NPC try to "tackle" an eldrich being made of energy, thereby vaporizing himself.

[@ShalkaChannel]

BURNT FINGER DEATH TRAP is an amazing name for a grindcore band

[@WarChallenger]

So, here's an instance where being dense actually SOLVED the problem. We were faced with a puzzle, where a key inserted into a plus-shaped key hole would act as an input analog stick. We started guessing inputs. My first intuition was to feel my way through the puzzle's combination by listening to the mechanism for when the spring went back due to a false input. Up was good, right and it reset. Our resident warlock told me to input "up, down, right, left" for North, South, East, and West. That prompted a joke argument about the true acronym out-of-character, where I argued that my food-motivated minotaur would 100% know the acronym, "never eat soggy waffles," and that he would be adamant that this was the correct order, if it really was based on directions. Then comes the real density. More so than the brass metal on the door! While we planned to search for the actual written combination, I jokingly said in the voice channel "Just on a hunch, I'm going to try 'up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right.'" I then hear a light fist slam on the DM's desk through the VC. Not angry, but just disbelieving. Turns out, that WAS the combination, and my retro gaming side managed to bumble its way into the correct answer for the puzzle.

[@starsong7495]

5:13 - 5:20 | Paladins, at least in 5E D&D are not restricted to playing only Lawful alignments. Alignment restrictions exist for Paladin in Pathfinder and if I recall older D&D editions (I can't say, I have only played 5E and PF), but it is not something that was carried over!

[@ShadowDude6488]

We were playing a homebrew campaign, going through a cavern to flush out some cultists. The next part is seperated by a 5 ft wide crevice which my half-hill giant healer couldn't follow through. However instead of sending 1 person to scout ahead, 3 players rush in which include the human blood hunter, the warforged bard, and the human sorceror? On the other side, there were 5 cultists and the cultist leader, which down all except the bard with a fireball. Luckily the DM allowed me to use Prayer of Healing to bring the characters back as it was a prepared spell (plus to fix the dumb moment that just happened). After they're back up, everyone else goes in to attack the cultists, but I hestitate of course. After a while, I'm asked to follow, which goes about as well as you'd think. So I'm halfway in throwing Healing Word to my teammates and Bless until the encounter is over where I can be helped out. I would also use Spare the Dying on fallen enemies so we can get extra reward money.

[@41217beingbored]

For one of my first times DMing, I did a 5e Halloween one-shot for an RPG group at a local game store I frequented. The party, i believe, consisted of a cleric, two fighters, a druid, a wizard and a warlock. I decided to do a mind palace dungeon crawl where the players would enter into the mind of a powerful warrior that was rendered unconscious to grab some important information that could turn the tide of a war. Each room that the adventurers' traverse would be a twisted version of a cherished or haunting memory of his and I created each room by reinterpretation of different cards from the Deck of Many Things. I had my NPC only stress three things for them to know: 1) This powerful warrior had trained his body and mind to fight back, 2) If you remember what you have on your person, you would be able to create a version of it in the mindscape and 3) if you "die", your consciousness will jump back into your original body. One of the rooms they entered led them to a dark foggy forest where a totem stood in the middle of a clearing. Scattered through the forest were a bunch of statues each showing a humanoid's visage of pain and sorrow. The cleric rolled a good enough perception check to notice that all the statues were facing towards the totem and decided to confirm it by walking backwards from the totem to one of the statues. I didn't think this was a dumb idea, but it was a perfect time to reveal my monster. Once he reached the statue, the cleric confirmed what he was suspecting but also saw a large snake tail loosely wrap around his legs. When he tentatively looked up, he saw a Medusa looking over him searching for whomever was making noise. Sidenote: There are certain monster that are so ubiquitous that I expect and allow metagaming to happen. I expect it with monsters like vampires and werewolves and when I introduced a Medusa, I could immediately see the players' minds start going into overdrive. You just can't help it. The first thing that some of the players did was make sure they "remembered" that they had a reflective item in their bags (it might've been the first time i saw people pay attention to their inventory list) before hiding. The druid actually had a mirror in his bag and used his owl familiar to do a flyby carrying the mirror to quickly flash freeze her. Unfortunately, due to a very bad roll, the owl ended up smashing the mirror in the Medusas face instead. Roll Initiative. Everyone was trying their best to hit the Medusa or get her attention so that she would release the cleric, and everything was leading to me doing that. Then it was the warlock's turn. The player herself might be considered a "that girl" by the standards of internet gaming culture and she ended up not only doing the dumb thing but putting the characters in a worse situation than was already happening. She first casted Darkness centered on the totem. The darkness enveloped most of the forest ending just before her and the other adventurers. This could have been pretty smart but as a warlock with both eldritch evocations and sorcerer metamagic options, she decided to take darkness as a spell but not Devils sight (which lets you see through magical darkness) as an evocation. So now she can't see what's happening there and neither can anyone else. But she wasn't done. She then used quicken spell to bonus action cast create bonfire in the center so that she could burn the Medusa. I and a few other players could see something immediately wrong with this plan, including the cleric. That conjured my first "Are you sure you want to do that?" as a DM as well as noting that she wouldn't be able to see where she casts due to there being a literal dome of darkness that she just created. She argued that she knew where the fire would be placed because she's aiming for the same spot where she centered darkness. Despite my warning and because she was adamant, I let her roll to see if she could do it, and she casted it dead on. Now the Medusa was taking damage but so was the cleric who would probably look like a witch burning at the stake if anyone could see it. The Medusa wouldn't let go of the totem because now she didn't know where she was being attacked from and decided to stay in a defensive position. On top of that, the other adventurers had disadvantage on attacks, some of which ended up being critical fumbles (which was something i did only for that game). The cleric ended up accidently taking more damage from his allies than from the monster right on top of him. The other players urged her to drop concentration on darkness so at the very least they could distract the medusa to get her away from the cleric, but she refused stating " it's a Medusa and if she can't see us, she won't be able to turn us into stone." This went on for a good 3 or 4 more rounds and eventually the cleric ended up dying. Thankfully a character dying was in the plans for this campaign as the first person to die would see the sudden twist ending. But that wasn't how i or anyone else expected for it to happen. And even with so years under my belt now, my friends and i go back to that as being one of the dumbest moments that we were involved in.

[@ericb3157]

this reminds me of a video by "Puffin Forest" called "read your spells before you cast them!" it also involves a Darkness spell that helped the monster-AND the GM saying "are you sure?"

[@Wraith41186]

On introducing his new character to the party, charging into the camp in a panic, he admitted to his character had ordered troops to massacre a village, every man, woman and child

[@postapocalypticnewsradio]

PANR has tuned in.

[@voidfloof]

Hi PANR!

[@postapocalypticnewsradio]

@@voidfloof hi floofy! How ya doin big cat?

[@Wolfsbane909]

"what does this button\lever do?" that was the last thing they heard when an giant mushroom cloud bloom was seen from the distance...

[@gabeclement1131]

I'll preface this by saying that half the players were drunk on this occasion, but half of them WERE sober: The entire party got into a fight with some monsters. At the beginning of the fight, they also killed a cop, for pretty much no reason (they might have thought he was possessed, or something, but he was just a cop.) So more cops arrive, and barricade the party in the building, with the monsters, while they set up a guard line in the street. The party, then, for some reason, decides to start an active shootout with the cops outside. During this time I describe the monsters using this opportunity to repeatedly attack members of the party, asking them what their response is after each attack. They proceed to ignore the monsters COMPLETELY, until every member of the party is dead.

[@dr4c0r3x5]

The totem barbarian started yeeting Kobolds like javelins over a castle wall until he unconsciously yeeted the halfling rouge and turning him into a stain of the wall.

[@princealigorna7468]

Were any of them infecyed with the Plague or a pox or anything like that? Or was it just throwing funny little lizard men over the walls for shits and giggles? Basically, was there a tactical advantage y'all were trying to gain?

[@dr4c0r3x5]

@@princealigorna7468 Oh yeah they're were tactics, once the Kobolds made it past the wall they were going to decelerate with parachutes that the Artificer made, once on the ground they were to start stealing weapons, tools and food before making their way to one of four small tunnels to get out of dodge. Unfortunately the halfling was their mentor and he got turned into a ketchup spot on the outer wall the Kobolds now felt honor bond to avenge his death.

[@Maddmax26]

One of my players, playing a Barbarian, attempted to pour salt water to rust a suit of animated armor in combat. They expected the suit to instantly rust.

[@pixeltyphoon1790]

"Hello Peter Pan, I am here to touch your prison pocket." I had to take a walk after hearing that.

[@MitchT97]

Splitting off from the party and giving Strahd the bird in his own house. This another fun tale from Solomon Grey, the one after Strahd’s heart. The physical unbeating organ. Not his affection. We were closing in on Strahd soon and the party decided to take a moment to take stock of what we had and heal up before what we figured was our fight with Strahd. I was identifying a staff, the priest was healing another character, and a few party members were making sure the room we were in was secure. When no one happen to be looking the Warlock/Fighter decided to walk down a few corridors and directly into the boss room. Now in their defense they probably wouldn’t have gone had they known that was where Strahd was waiting, but going off on their own they knew the risks. The door closes behind them and at first they just talked. Strahd extended an invitation to join him and remarked how futile it would be to fight. To which the pc replied with flipping Strahd off telling him he could screw himself and there was no way he was going to join him. Strahd just smiled. And proceeded to charm them. So before we could even fight Strahd we had to free fighterlock from the charm. They’re still alive but have gone down twice since due to the damage inflicted before we could snap them out of it and we left off last session with this character and another making death saves and a dead npc. Do not split the party.

[@SpecterSquash]

Once convinced my party the safest way to escape from a tower filled with archers was to run in a straight line because it was the fastest. No one died but we were messed up by the time we got out of their full range

[@tigroslynx5507]

I had a player who normally plays melee fighters. One game he decided to go archery. He forgot he was an archer, facing a powerful foe. His last words were, "I charge. "

[@sanguineaurora8765]

I'm the GM. Lvl 3 party. A player of mine (playing a Jester type of character.) Is thrown into the prison for causing mayhem. He had a +1 dagger (which he stole) and his jester clothes on him. Guards take his items and give him prison clothes and put him into a cell where a middle-aged woman is sitting. Women is actually a senior in the Thieves guild. She is planning her escape and asks the Jester if he wants to join. She is both the way out for the Jester, and a plot hook for the party so the adventure can continue, since the Jester destroyed the previous hook by stealing from the Local wizard. Anyway, Woman pulls out a hairpin from her messy hair and unlocks the door and tells Jester to follow her. They sneak out of the prison and Woman asks Jester to consider joining her in the guild and says she could use people who aren't afraid of getting her hands dirty once in a while. Jester... however.. turns back... Walks back into the prison. Walks up into the barracks Finds the guards on duty And asks for his items back.. He literally goes back to ask for his items. To the guards of a prison Which he escaped minutes ago He gets thrown back into the jail. Then guard captain figures if he escaped once he would do it again. So they cut his hands. Needless to say, in the peculiar chart that shows the correlation of "Fucking around" and "finding out", that guy was pretty high up.

[@x86ed]

A brand new campaign, level 1 players did everything they could to confront a young white dragon after spending the equivalent of 3 in game days. Tried throwing side quests in the way and having NPCs tell them how dangerous it was but they were dead set. Not only that, but 2 of them went after the dragon while one chopped up a manticore and was trying to sell the meat town. So as you can imagine it didn’t end well.

[@manaraysteve9031]

The one we’ve all seen. Not checking for efing traps lmao

[@PrincessYolda]

Ghost of Saltmarsh spoiler! Our Psyknight (high int, but played him stupid because he got his psy powers from brain damage) found a trident of fish command and was eager to use it. First "Fish" we encountered was the good damn Kraken (our dm obviously wanting us to run away) and we told the player OUT OF CHARACTER about legendary resistances and the krakens high stats. He still decided to try it, got bitch slapped and rolled a new character.

[@csmead209]

We didn't listen when the alarm spell went off in our tavern, and got framed for a crime.

[@chubbyanimalenthusiast70]

Player here my party mate used a staff of striking on a rug of smothering WHILE I WAS INSIDE OF IT yah I died and that kids is why you should always have a cleric in your party

[@randomperson8375]

does it have to be a cleric specifically or does any healing-oriented character work?

[@chubbyanimalenthusiast70]

@@randomperson8375 I guess any healers would work but so far the cleric is the mvp with really good spells and is the only one who hasn’t died (also he worships a big block of cheese and his religion is called cheddism)

[@FnrrfYgmSchnish]

I guess that paladin took the Oath of Public Urination.

[@s--h1584]

Because I'm a writer, my DM asked me OOC to help edit a dairy prop that detailed a cursed object. When we encountered said cursed object that sane day, my character immediately attuned to it. DM thanked me for not metagaming. I wasn't conciously avoiding metagaming. I just didn't think it through.

[@sharkjumpingwalrus6744]

You could say the paladin would have pissed his powers away. Sounds like his actions should have pissed off the higher ups. He sounds like a real golden child.

[@michaelventre3035]

i have a really good one. my party consists of a rogue, wizard, paladin, fighter, and sorcerer. it’s a home brew campaign and the party was preparing to go to a dungeon that they found out about from some cultists they killed. while preparing in the nearby town, the sorcerer decided to play his pipe of haunting to prank his party members. it backfired, actually scaring a bunch of surrounding villagers. guards came over and demand that he hand over the pipe and leave the village. the sorcerer in his infinite wisdom decided to cast the friends cantrip on the guards ( 1 minute duration btw ) because he wanted to keep the pipe. he passed the persuasion roll because he had advantage, but a minute later when the cantrip wore off the guards realized they had a spell casted on them. they found and arrested the sorcerer. the paladin, who had just did a big favor for the guard captain, decided that instead of trying to convince him to let his friend go, he ran in guns blazing trying to break him out. he got swarmed and the rest of the party realized that if they didn’t save him he would die. this resulted in 27 guards, including the captain, being brutally murdered. they are now outlaws…

[@williamepler2901]

My second character in Morkborg was in a dream cave and entered a room with a cauldron of fire. I saw a pressure plate and chose to step on it, assuming it did something. The something was close the doors in the room, and we barely got out before the cauldron of fire cooked us alive

[@spartanhawk7637]

Probably me when I used a pair of magnetic boots to walk on a ceiling and become a walking turret. Went great till a fireball came at me and I couldn't dodge.

[@Gate_Of_Gluttony]

On the topic of direwolves, the last session I played in our current campaign, our rogue decided to attempt to lasso a direwolf that attacked us, so they could befriend it. The rogue failed constantly, and it took the rogue jumping and tackling it from one of one of our two druids' backs after they wild shaped into a war horse. So now, next session I, as the other druid, and running back as another war horse to the path where the entire rest of the party is to pick up paladin brother so he can heal the direwolf for the rogue to tame. I bet the DM regrets having a direwolf encounter in the mountains lmao

[@codyouellette6936]

My party was wandering lost on Chult after being stranded there by the eventual BBEG. Off in the distance, they hear roaring sounds. The groups Goliath Paladin decides that the best course of action is to strip out of his armor, drop his weapon and shield and go running off into the woods to find the source of the sound. When he gets there, he finds 2 Girallons (large 4 armed gorillas) having a territorial dispute. He strides out into the clearing and tries to intimidate both Girallons, rolls terrible, then decides to fist fight both 4-ARMED gorillas. By the time the rest of the party caught up to him, he had been punched into what I could only describe as meat paste.

[@Klipse11]

@7:27 In the south “bless their heart” means something very different.

[@Humbersweet]

One of our players accepted tea from a high fae thus signing a contract with it where he from then on had to give them "something interesting" once per month or his life would be forfeit. He managed to give the fea a rift leading to the realm of a forgotten grim reaper and we've yet to see the consequences of it.

[@maximushaughton2404]

Mine was a party of about 8 players. I was DMing Ruins of Undermountain (2e). The party had managed to get to level 2, when, going down a long corridor, they came across a big door, to the side, that was locked and traped. It was so well locked and traped it took 2 rogues 1/2 an hour to work out how to get though it. After the door was opened they saw another locked door a bit like the last one, and the only thing between them was a deep wide pit, with spikes at the bottom, which they could just make out. One of the rogues had an item that gave him spider climb, so he went along the wall and opened up the other door, after which the party worked out how to cross the pit. Once everyone was over, i discribed a vast cave area that they could not see the other side of which was in shadows, when the rogue with spider climb, declared that he wanted to go down the pit to see what was at the bottom. So the entire party that was left all turn around, in the doorway, to watch him climb down the pit, with their back to the cave area. In the room was something a kin to a Ankeg that came out of the shadows. All the party, appart from the rogue down the pit, failed a supprise roll and were flat footed, with an attack from behind against their AC's, and because they were in a door way, were all in a 5 foot area. So acid spit attack it was, they all failed and the party wiped, from 1 attack. After it was over I asked them, why after getting though an area that screamed do not enter, and in to a big cave, which they could not see the otherside of, did they not keep an eye on the cave, they all said they didn't trust the rogue and that's why they all turned around to watch him.

[@justinc882]

as a DM, Players at level 5 encounter some pirates. Bad ass NPC they are friends with point out that these pirates rule the northern sea and the worlds two largest navies avoid them. Party 2 levels later get a boat for helping a town. First thing they say 'We should go raid those pirates we found!" One ass kicking of a fight later, they find out the pirates were also slavers and had weapons with the mercy enchantment so the players were all captured, lost all their magic items and got sold into slavery. Made for an interesting time skip and adventure reset.

[@SkyHighHero]

Saw a player shout repeatedly to the DM that they wanted to jump off a cliff 60ft into a river instead of just following the path like everyone else (we were being chased by evil plants). He immediately went unconscious and rolled a nat 1 for his first death save. I then went and saved him with my potion of climbing (yes you read right) and he started full-on bawling for about 30 minutes and never muted his mic during that time. Genuinely one of the most baffling moments I've ever had in any gaming situation.

[@eotkavle5712]

Got invited to an epic level campaign, and one of the players got trapped in a trap that started heating his armor to super high temperatures. Instead of just taking his armor off he wanted to save time, so he used his ring of 3 wishes to wish for all the metal off his body... he had metal augmentation... including his eyes. After he fell to the ground in a pool of blood he tried to use the ring to undo it, but the ring was metal too 🤦‍♂️

[@Nat-20_dnd]

OK before we start, u should know that this about a Player make more a interesting decision, then being stupid , so our party consisted of me a goblin rogue a shapeshifter choleric we will call S and Aarakocra fighter we will call A so we found a very creepy looking puppet that could talk and was magical called Tim. Tim followed us around and both S and A got very close to Tim and liked him a lot however I never really trusted him at first I didn't have anything against him I was just suspicious and a little creeped out however, the more we travelled with Tim the more I realized Tim was evil first, he watched my character while he slept looking like he was about to do something to him then Tim stared at me while I was keeping watch for the night with his facing forward, but with his head completely turned backwards to look at me, imagine I how a owl can fully turn its head around its body then, later, after doing research on Tim are party, found out that Tim was created by an evil tricks God and was a demon however, both S and A still wanted to keep Tim around despite the fact, I said that we should probably ditch him so later on both S and a fell into a pit trap and Tim actively try to stop me from helping them by casting silent so I couldn't hear them asking for help luckily I managed to hear a little bit of them asking for help before silence was cast so i attacked Tim trying to stop Tim before going to the pit to help A and S out and well, even after stabbing him, Tim was fine, and run all the way down to wear a and s were trapped after my character manage to get down into the pit where they were trapped i told them what Tim just tried to do but they would not believe me saying that Tim was with them the whole time they were in the pit cut to us exploring a cave and finding a creepy ritual site after looking around, Tim asked s to sacrifice herself for him she immediately agreed to it and despite my best effort to try to do to stop it, Tim managed to successfully kill her and then after seeing s die who my character regarded as a very good friend he snapped and cut Tim in half with his dagger however, since the ritual was performed and from Tim's empty puppet party emerged a giant skeleton spider and so me and A are now going to have to face the giant skeleton spider also, for anyone who read through this whole thing thank you 😄

[@_Spex_]

I have a couple of stories from my party's shenanegins. The first was from our blood hunter (Who's really against hurting animals to the point she started getting upset when I started hunting in MineCraft, Bless her heart tho) Who accidentally injured a direwolf pup. This got the entire party chased down to our destination, which cornered us there. What did our blood hunter try to do? PET THE DIREWOLF MOMMA TO TRY AND APOLOGIZE. She's really fun to play with, don't get me wrong, but sometimes the entire party just goes 'Bless your Heart' because of the shenanigans she pulls. Second story is with the Party simp (In a not so good way). Guy was a paladin, and prettymuch simped over every female in the party (Kinda akward but funny until he started getting pissy over us calling him out). Then we reach the end game and what does he do? WRITE A LITERAL FUCKING POEM AS A CONFESSION TO THE ONE PLAYER WHO'S BF WAS THE DM. Once that was rejected he doubled down and lied to that same player saying that he got laid and expected a congradulation or something. TLDR; dude tries to pull a Mr. Steal yo girl with the DM, goes poorly.

[@BrenTenkage]

In Skulls and Shackles (spoiler for Book 4) The player was playing a martial class...but actually had 8 constitution points. He was playing spheres of power class...I think he was banking on manvaurs to protect him. The cyclops chieftan one shot him with a nat 20 crit

[@lupussilvermoon7341]

Okay, this happend in a lone wolf game, which basically is D&D 3.5. My GM uses a LOT of homebrew stuff, just for fun, and everytime a new player joins, he/gets an unique entrance. For example, I started the game in the claws of a goddamm dragon. Well, a few weeks ago, a new player joined, and as this was a session inbetween adventures, we were all in our small town, stocking up or skyrider (a flying ship) with supplies. So, the new player walks into town, straight into the tavern. What he didn't know, was that our towns bartender was actually a witch. The new player walked up to her (in his defense, he was pretty new to the game) and asked if she had any quests for him. She replied: "I do, but are you brave and strong enough to actually help me?" He naturally said yes. So, she mixed him a drink, and asked him to, well drink it. He did. And our GM has him roll on the randow potions table which he, for some reason, has. He rolls attract Animals. And he's like, "Oh, thats not to bad." It was. As it turns out, the potion mad him extremely tasty to ALL animal. To a level where they actually got addicted to his meat. So a few random crocodiles and some town pets start eating him. But here comes the bad part. Remember when I told you that we were loading up our skyrider with supplies? Well, among them was a herd of 25 cows. They stormed into the tavern, and also started eating the new players. The party eventually managed to kill all the animals, but that had to be one of the strangest sessions I ever participated in

[@rebasack21]

This was the first long term game i had ever been in. Our party has been trapped in this underground dungeon for a long time and we eventually stumble into a hidden treasure room that holds a bunch of magic items. I found a magic bow that has a special attack i can use once a day for example but otherwise is a +2 bow. Among the items found is a pair of gauntlets glowing bright angry red to our cleric who is using detect magic and says as much. Everyone in the group except one at our table jumps a little being told that. The one who didnt react.. was the one whose character was holding them. We tried to tell him dont wear those! Despite the meta gaming, this was a game for new players and thus was allowed, he put them on. all of us (minus the cleric i wont talk about her) facepalmed as the DM explained all the negative effects he now faced. NOW he believed us that red glow ALWAYS evil. And i learned that from being a bookworm not from D&D! Eventually he had to have his hands literally chopped off to remove the gauntlets.

[@jettblade]

The dumbest thing I've had a player do involved a spike trap. I ran a Final Fantasy Tabletop game inspired by by old JRPGs PS1 era but not just limited to FF, it was very short lived having just one session before the local gaming store closed without telling anyone including their employees except the two that kept their job. Well the beginning dungeon had some obvious spike traps that were there to block the path some and safe guard some treasure. There was a switch to turn it off somewhere further down the dungeon. Well this one character wanted to see how the trap worked and threw a spare hat on to the trap which didn't go off since it was too light for the pressure plate. Well this other character thought he'd be slick and do a handstand on the trap to get the hat and showboat. He didn't make the check and I made a mistake, still a relatively new GM. I didn't scale the trap down. I didn't think a player would intentionally set off the trap let alone set it off with their face. There is a crit system I was using and he would have take a 8 foot spear to the face which would have killed him outright. I did some number fudging and he only took about 12 damage instead of the 240 damage he would have taking, he only had 80 HP. He ended up having the one trap that was not functioning right.

[@0PercentImagination]

A fellow player in the latest session we had did something pretty dumb, firstly the context was we'd just escaped from the reach of 'the empire' including some of its most powerful people (thanks to the player in question no less) teleporting to a faraway hideout location with the intent to contact a member of a resistance group we were helping out. For obvious reasons we talked about how we wanted to lay low and not get any attention for us which this player especially agreed upon and yet suddenly they decided it would be a good idea to pickpocket a mysterious old man (who is important enough to have his own image prepared) and break into a magic store. Cue them almost being murdered by mimics whilst a good chunk of the party were haggling for normal prices at an inn nearby. They escaped, temporarily stole money from the Innkeeper of all people (who turned out to be linked to a well known underground broker), and left town once one of the NPC's called them out on it leaving a very angry (and powerful) magic store owner looking around for his stolen goods. Theoretically we could get out of this but there is also a decent chance of being put into a situation where throwing that players character under the bus is the only option making it a really dumb move even if some of the stolen goods are quite nice.

[@jonathancarlson6127]

"Are you with the Empire?" "We're wanted by them." "So, you're with the resistance?" "No, we're wanted by them, too." "So, who are you?" "Screwed. We're screwed."

[@SamWeltzin]

Player was playing a rogue but took a feat to become proficient in greatswords because greatswords do 2d6 damage. Our group still says, "I use my greatsword" whenever we do something stupid or talk about someone doing something stupid.

[@georgemeyers7172]

I don't get it.

[@SamWeltzin]

@@georgemeyers7172 The guy invalidated his class because, on the surface, a greatsword does more damage than, like, a short sword or other rogue weapon.

[@georgemeyers7172]

@@SamWeltzin But?

[@SamWeltzin]

@@georgemeyers7172 You can't sneak attack with a greatsword. Look, I don't know what you're doing here if you don't know even the basics about D&D. XD Like, not trying to gatekeep, but if you don't even have the minimum amount of knowledge necessary to understand why something like this is dumb, it's just kinda frustrating having to explain, and you're not going to wind up laughing anyway. This anecdote is not for you.

[@georgemeyers7172]

@@SamWeltzin Actually that is funny now that you mention it.

[@negatron313]

A player was using werewolf Paladin, up to this point we had thought he was a Shifter, decided to cast Moonbeam on enemies in a wild magic zone at lvl 11, rolled on the table Confusion was also cast. Dm asked him which spell he wanted to concentrate on, he chose Moonbeam, not a single enemy has ever failed the saving throw against Moonbeam.

[@Handcuffed_Unicorn]

Lvl 1 groupe enters a goblin cave, at the first encounter of the goblin cave, the barbarian tried to intimidate them by screaming to the top of his lungs... 19 on the dice. He warned the entire cave of their presence.

[@ExoduS_AU]

At the start of the Hoard of the Dragon Queen adventure, you start in a town being attacked by a Dragon that is flying overhead and doing strafing runs with its breath attack. One of the players, a Ranger with the 'favored enemy - dragons' feature. Declared "I hate dragons, I'm going to shoot it with my bow!" ... We tried talking him out of it, saying there's no way a brand new adventurer is going to take on a dragon on their first foray into the world. He wouldn't have a bar of it, kept saying "My character hates dragons, I'm going to attack the dragon" The rest of us pretty much unanimously said "good luck with that" and ran away from him. He was then upset that he died.

[@aienma6660]

Had this one kid try to play 'main character' and didn't like my character (or me for trying to give him very helpful advice), who was the eldest and strongest in the group... and dad of the group. He was new and still getting accustom to how we all played, and how the group worked. He wanted to prove to me, that my character wasn't special... and he could do everything I did. My character was a goliath Barbarian/Monk... with over 20 strength (belt of giant strength) So I hit hard when I attacked He challenged my character to a fist fight... he was a mage... in heavy armor... with very low strength and dex. It did not go as he planned... nor how I planned... he stopped coming back after his character died.

[@thespelsheepington6664]

In a game I was running, the players managed to kill a musket-wielding assassin. As I'm describing the assassin falling, I start describing their necklace. Before I EVEN finish, the paladin goes "I catch the amulet with my teeth." It was a cursed, intelligent item. An unholy combination of a Scarab of Death and an Intellect Devourer. He was lucky he had a hero point.

[@jesseyancy1160]

I've seen a player of mine have to get knocked out by the party 3 times in a session to keep him from continuously antagonizing the recently pacified enemy pirate armies. The 4th attempt tpkd the party

[@Sicarius_Avindar]

Oh boy. So, in my current main campaign, we had this one player. He went through 4 characters, everyone else still on their first. We're still on our first *Years* later. He even got banned from having initiative above 0 by the DM and Party on his third character. First character? Killed by the party since she was a CE serial killer in a party with two LGs and a CN, and she decided to drop the charade. Second Character: LG Inquisitor who suffered from Lone Rogue Syndrome. +16 Initiative due to archtyping and minmaxing. He got eaten by, in order: Wyvern, Wyvern, Owl Bear, Wyvern, Black Dragon, Owl Bear. Third was a War Priest, who never took Healing spells. Died three times to Bleeding, twice disembowled by rushing in when Party was prepping, then finally Died to Poison. Last up was a Sniper Gunslinger, relied wholly on Stealth... one session. He rage quit after the Black Dragon, ya know, could see him since it had good Perception, rolled well, and he rolled poorly. Turns out, dumped con. Single breath attack instakilled him.

[@williamsrdan]

My character woke up in an inn, after a few days unconscious after Nat1ing drinking Dwarven Death Ale, I decided to roll to open the door of my room, for silliness, because I was drunk IRL, too...Nat1.... I set off a bolt trap that had already been deactivated several years prior....

[@TopaT0pa]

I love the fireball story! :D

[@godzillagamer7512]

in my second session ever, my 250lbs dragonborn PALADIN thought it was a *great* idea to rob a rich home... alone. and he wanted to jump into the top of the third floor of it. he failed and crashed through a wall, he then rolled a 1 and yelled at something, so we spent the next 3 SESSIONS GETTING HIM OUT OF JAIL

[@ericlin7775]

My player decided to walk into two, not one, detected glyph of warding to "find out" before getting the group's agreement and also backing out of default glyph's blast radius. It was a total of 50+ damage on two blast that hit multiple teammates.

[@el_n0g]

I was, and still am, DMing a homebrew campaign with some friends. One of my friend’s characters was an eccentric goblin artificer. The party had been kidnapped and forced to mine enchanted crystals for a vampire. They decided to stage an uprising, and stormed the castle that the vampire was in. A huge fight broke out between the party and their fellow workers, and the vampire’s guards and thralls. My friend playing the artificer, after accidentally shooting several of his own men with bad dice rolls, decides to ask on his turn “are we standing on a rug?” I say yes, everyone is standing on a frayed rug He then asks “can I animate it?” (I had given his character the ability to animate objects if they were small or quite simple in nature) I say yes, but if he rolls low it will be devastating “It’ll be fine” he says *nat 1* I then describe how the rug ends up ensnaring everyone on top of it with its frays, which the vampire’s guards could easily escape from with their actually sharp weapons Yeah let’s just say that their group of roughly 30 workers became 8 *very* quickly

[@saiconjr]

Our barbarian and bear-druid were having a contest of strength on the top of our Galleon-class sea vessel when our wizard came up from below decks because earlier he had challenged the barbarian to a strength contest for later in the day. The wizard then decides he would like to watch the remainder of the contest from the mast of the ship while playing some instrument of some kind since that's where he often perches when he plays the video game Sea of Thieves. Our DM asks "Are you sure?" The wizard cheerfully replies "Yup." So the DM has him roll a dexterity save because he's trying to climb a semi-narrow pole over the roiling ocean on a rocking boat. He would have needed a high die roll anyway but I think he got something low like a 4 or 5. So the DM describes how he tries to move out on to the mast but his feet slip on the moisture collected from the sea. Luckily our DM has pity and allows that he fell prone to the mast rather than drop him into the briney deep. Unfortunately for the wizard, he didn't anticipate how much the dice gods dislike stupidity, because on his next check to get to his feet he rolls a natural 1. So the DM explains that as the contest ends, we hear the "Whoop" from the wizard as they slip off the mast and fall towards the sea as our session comes to an end.

[@anonomusperson]

the fireball story is rather cool!

[@Daionor]

I was the dumb one a while back Be me, playing with group of friends in a tomb of horrors adaptation We each got the choice between 3 level 11, 2 level 12, or 1 level 14 character Choices as follows: Me, level 12s, scout (rogue) and investigator (wizard) J1: Chose 1 level 14, made a fighter J2: chose 2 level 12s, one ranger, other one can't remember Friend: 2 level 12s, 1 cleric, 1 can't remember Other friend (OF): DM Game starts off with an orb of annihilation on a pedestal (described as a pitch black orb in which no light seems to reflect). Instead of letting my wizard figure out what it is via detect magic, fighter sticks his sword into it. Makes a dex save to save himself from getting pulled into it along with his sword. Succeeds, doesn't get obliterated, but loses his sword. Little while later, after a couple close calls with deadly traps, we enter a room. There's a large tapestry on one side, and nothing else adorning the room. I have my wizard cast detect magic. Tapestry lights up with illusion magic. investigator then proceeds to pick up a rock and throw it at the tapestry. It wasn't that kind of illusion. It was a green slime glamoured to look like a tapestry. Half the party is in the room. Including the ranger's animal companion. Everyone gets dex saves to sprint out of the room, only 3 people make it, including the ranger, but not the animal companion. Felt really bad for that one, especially since the fighter got hit by it too. Ended up losing more and more characters as time went on, until the cleric was the only one left and ended up crushed by a moving floor trap.

[@tennagon3822]

Insulting a high level npc to her face immediately before the thrashing I absolutely deserved. On the bright side, it did serve as an adequate distraction for our sorcerer to sneak past, so hey, not a total loss.

[@Crazael]

One time, during the first session of a campaign, my then girlfriend was playing a wizard and, in the first combat encounter, entered a 15 foot x 15 foot room with a guard in each corner. Her response was to cast Fireball. I had to roll a reflex save to close the door (with her still in the room) and thus survive the detonation. She did not make a new character and basically stopped playing after that since she was never as into it and was mostly there to be with me and our friends.

[@everythingsalright1121]

Thats a shame. If she wasnt as into it she couldve played a sidekick or something

[@Nemares]

TLDR: the vacuum of space is really dangerous when you need to breathe. I was GMing a Dark Matter game, and for more reasons than I feel like going in to, they were tying off a person in a space suit to chuck them at an anomaly they came across, well, two people were needed for this, they both had space suits on, and a third said he wanted to be in the hangar while they are doing this... I made sure to ask multiple times what he was doing to prepare, while the 4th player piloted the ship to within range of the anomaly, each time stating he was just doing something with his pet robot... I even asked before he went into the hangar, and a last time before they opened the outer door. I had to rule that because he didn't even hold his breath, that the oxygen was immediately pulled from his lungs when the hangar decompressed. He tried to misty step behind the inner door, but because of the vocal component, couldn't cast it. After a couple rounds of suffocation damage I reminded him of the birthday present he got a week prior (I do custom magic items as presents, nothing game breaking, but works for their aesthetic and the setting), which saved him, since the other two in the hangar were too busy to notice what was happening to him.

[@nonya9120]

Geezer here... By far, not just a murder hobo. Seen lots of those. For context, a open table at the local shop. A half dozen of us regulars with years gaming together. A tight group, but open to newbies. New kid shows up, claims to have played before. Asked some of the usual questions. Then he sat back and created a fighter, human. Great, easy and we always needed a keen blade. The DM gave him a chance to get familiar and the rest of us went off to the cafe for lunch. Getting back, he announces he needs one more night to prep. Ok, we all were curious to say the least. Then he explained he had rolled horribly on gold and needed to get some gold up for armor and so on. Now we are all intrigued. Normally with a new character joining, well we keep a fund for that. This kid, waits for night. Goes to the ally, like the first one he comes too. Sets himself too, and yes I almost remember the quote. "I'm taking up a position on a rubbish pile. Careful to have good footing to sneak down when any drunks come by. Then kill them, I had just enough for a two handed sword.". The very first time any of us had ever encountered a murder hobo. And it was a incompetent idiot. Lol. Gaming on.

[@baconthedarklord970]

Saw a fellow player use a match. To set someone on fire. In a wooden stable. With straw covering the floor. I ended up taking the one survivor of the goons we were fighting and bolted out the front door, being cut off from the party thanks to what was at this point a raging inferno. And ran straight into about half the city guard, who had come to check out the noise. The only reason I didn't die horribly is because the dice gods showed me favor when I rolled deception for telling the guards that this guy was a horse thief, and his buddies set the place on fire to cover their escape. The worst part? The character could have just cast firebolt if they wanted to set someone on fire that badly.

[@scorpioperk1137]

A few in our campaign: -"I want to make a deal with the near death hag." -"I drop my trousers, and start sh&%ing on the castle wall." (In plane view of the guards) -"I pocket the pulsating, humming gem." -"All I said was-" (After being threatened to be punted through a wall if he spoke one more word) -"I wish to shoot [party member] in the back." (Nat 1s, hits the charging owl bear instead) -"I try to remove the gem." (gem explodes, multiple successful checks later) "I wish to do so again." -"This is an intervention, you have a problem and will stay-" (Chase scene immediately, as they forget to remove ANYTHING from the genie warlock they tied to a chair + ceiling)

[@Nyghtking]

I stupidest thing I remember doing in D&D was something I did knowing it would be stupid, but also had some in character logic behind it. I went out into the woods by myself, out of sight of the town, I did this because I wanted to hunt creatures and I was looking for something like a bear, and I figured my odds were better if I was further away from the town, but I knew if I got in trouble that would probably mean I couldn't run away. I went by myself alone, it was because two players had pent the last hour or so roleplaying with each other and I was kind of board and wanted to do something, I didn't bring NPCs with me because I didn't want to risk them dying if things went bad. Finally I encountered a group of 5 wolves, I figured if I could kill them in one shot I stood a chance, but my 17 AC would have to carry me in the fight. I ended up dying because the wolves had more then 10 HP each so I couldn't one shot them, and they managed to hit me 3-4 times which dropped me to zero HP and I failed my death saves. All in all it wasn't a surprise to me that it happened because I knew what i was doing was extremely risky.

[@LordBaktor]

Character A goes into dark tunnel, yells "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaa......" (tell tale sign of someone falling a long distance). Character B sprints into the same tunnel yelling "ARE YOU OKAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaa..."

[@JameSeraphim]

I'm in a game at a board game shop with a couple teenagers and they just do stupid shit for no reason, and they're super loud. Lmao I'm getting so old.

[@zinmaster24]

Soooo. In my campaign we had this guy. His character was some sort of homebrew vampire/fish person hybrid. We'll call him "Fishstick." Fishstick had a habit of trying to be evil and by his player's own admission "fall into traps and come out bloodied and beaten." At the very first fight of our campaign he grabbed a magic artifact that we just got and proceeded to stab it and break it. The resulting magic backlash caused 30 points of damage nearly killing one player and heavily injuring my and two others plus the enemy. That was at the start of the campaign barely 2 sessions in. In session 3. The very first town we get to happens to be the capital of the continent that we find ourselves in. Fishstick decided to attack a town guard. A very well known and respected town guard. Well it didn't go over so well as one might expect. He gets captured and put on trial a session later. Luckily thanks to one of our other players, Fishstick gets to live due to plea of insanity. Well a few sessions later we took a mission to collect flowers for a painter. Turns out that this painter had lost his entire family in a demon attack while they were out on a picnic and when he came back to town, the guards thought he killed his own family. So they imprisoned him for like a month and tortured him the entire time. Well Fishstick's player heard this through metagaming and decided he would burn the painter's house down with him alive inside of it as an act of "mercy killing" because the painter (by the players admission) was insane. Keep in mind that Fishstick had never actually had a conversation with the painter or been inside his home to see the painting of the painter's dead family to make the connections. The rest of the party stopped him while my character ran to get the guards. Fishstick didn't live past another session after that.

[@captainrail88]

One of my players decided to eat a mimic. Then asked what it tasted like and if it was safe; in that order as I remember. So I quickly look at the monster manual. Then say "the idiots at wotc didn't think someone would try that so they didn't put it in the book." With an unceremonious book over the shoulder I ruled mimics as to be like the pufferfish, in taste and the fact that there's that one tiny little bit you could safely eat.

[@dane4073]

That gunpowder exploion when I rolled for it was 1164 damage

[@emberthecatgirl8796]

If you’re choking on suffocating gas (since you can’t get poisoned), then it’s probably too much gas for an ignition

[@ala5530]

Oh, I've got a few, mostly from the same player. Don't get me wrong, she's a lovely person, but gods above and below, she does not think things through. Bear in mind, this is not a full list of contenders for her own persoal "dumbest things," but: 1) wearing full mail, jumped (well, bellyflopped) from the top of a tower onto the flagstone courtyard 70 feet below in an attempt to make a diving charge on an enemy (this was in a WFRP campaign, so she did have Get Out Of Death Free cards in the form of Fate Points, but still); 2) uttered the phrase "It's only bees, what's the worst that could happen?" before deliberately poking not one, not two, but FOUR hornet's nests and aggro'ing the swarms of mutated insects in each. Simultaneously. (Same campaign as the previous one, that incident stripped her of her last Fate Point, so the character got away with 'only' a fatal allergy to vespitoxin, a minor mutation, and a nasty case of Neiglish Rot). In D&D, she's played characters that 3) thought it was a good idea to kidnap slave children and take them out of the mining colony they lived in, across the wards that would make their heads explode (this lead to a 2.5 hour IRL argument while we tried to explain to her that kidnapping children is wrong). This is AFTER we found out about the wards. Next morning, as the party was leaving town, we still had to pull a small child out of her pack and return it to parents (also slaves) before the head-splodey happened (in fairness, we had encountered said child by rescuing them from a mine collapse earlier, so 'child in danger, must save' was stuck in her head); 4) characters that were sent to get help (the rest of the party) while the tanky paladin fought a rearguard action, only to turn around and cast Shatter on the building the pally was in, burying them under literal tonnes of rubble (the Paladin did not survive); 5) and a character that decided to cross a river on a makeshift rope bridge wearing full plate (worth noting, the party included characters who were capable of and happy to ferry gear over the river using Misty Step and other teleportation-type abilities, but no, she was determined to keep all her gear on regardless), carrying a small library in her pack, and with a massive tower shield. Needless to say, when the rope inevitably snapped, it took concerted action from the rest of the party to save her from drowning.

[@darkbribe777]

JoJo's bizzare adventure campaign. Party was trying to infiltrate a corporate tall building. After noticing how difficult it was to go into an active building during daytime without being noticed was (they were doing well so far, despite this). They decided to backtrack to the backside of the building, which they used to sneak it. They climbed to the top of the building from the outside and then threw an aircraft carrier (Very big ship) on it, because one guy's ability was able to turn toys into their real life counterparts. (They would not have weapons or fuel, but I thought when I okey'd it, it might create so cool roleplay moments). Causing a 9/11esc situation that certainly killed the BBEG right hand man and goonies, but also killed all the innocent workers in the building as well as 200 other civilians from the collateral damage of the collapsing building...

[@josephradley3160]

Session zero of a campain with a mix of newbies and experienced players and a first time DM. Enter the Dragonborn Bardbarian (Barbarian that plans to multiclass as bard) with a greataxe strung as a lute and an intelligence score lower than a potato. Rolls low enough on performance that the barkeeper throws a bottle at him. So what does he do? Breath weapon the barkeeper. The barkeeper ducks behind the bar. So he swings the greataxe, burying in the bartop so hard that he damages it getting it out of the bar. So before the main campaign starts he's a wanted man with a damaged weapon and nothing to show for it.

[@belegur8108]

We once travelled overland in a contested borderland with 2 countries at war. We had a hireling, to guide us over the border, when, just as we reached a hill top saw a group of a dozen people at the foot of the hill. The guide immediately shoutet "Deserters!" pointing at the group downhill. Our wizards instant reaction? "Fireball!" Well, since we where level 8 and the npc group ordinary peasants ( and in no way any soldiers of any involved country...) only had 4hp, it was a very short encounter. P.S: after the next rest, our wizard, when memorizing spells for the day, noticed 3 pages missing in her spell book and lets say Fireball was not an option for the rest of the campaign P.P.S. and at the end of the campaign said wizard did an amazing stunt with teleporting right under the nose of a cloud giant, then chain lightning up the giants nose at point blank, frying its brain ... insta-kill

[@TheMisterMittenz]

Had a player make a Centaur Warlock-Barbarian after not reading the rules on rage. They cast fly during a fight with a storm giant, then raged after flying up to the thing's head. Not sure if it was a good thing or not, but the cleric had a diamond on her to fix that mistake.

[@shadowrider9735]

Playing the FFG Star Wars RPG My sweet, oblivious ass did not realize that when my DM asked me: "...Shadow, you *do* know what a Rathtar is, right?" it was DM-speak for: 'are you SURE you just want to go hunt this giant monster solely made of tentacles and teeth with just one other party member?' We had a bad time

[@connorpayne7324]

Had a player decide to jump infront of a moose, charging at 100 kmh. The moose was also possessed by a demon. The player almost died

[@buckysgirl4945]

Half Elf Ranger Rouge: tris to move stealthily on a branch (nat1) falls out of branch. He then tries to set the foe on fire (nat1) sets the tree he fell out of, which is behind him, on fire instead. Me: "Stop helping pleas".