What are your D&D "Darwin Award" Stories? #5

[@fateric007]

I swear that stealth checks are the bane of our parties existence. We still try anyways despite the fact we all wear heavy armor.

[@davea6314]

A good option is to make sure that each member of your party has no more than breastplate and shield. Add a 14 dexterity and the armor class is 18. Breastplate and shield has no penalty to move silently. Also heavy armor is uncomfortable to wear for extended periods of time...

[@PrincessAmanante]

I’m just imagining: “I sneak in!” CLANK-CLANK-CLANK-CLANK

[@niaford690]

use charisma instead. when spotted, intimidate them with "YOU DO NOT SEE GROG"

[@TrueZero2]

@@niaford690Ah yes, angry stealth.

[@niaford690]

@@TrueZero2 breadbarian uses rage against the machine

[@professorsponge1554]

8 words: "I want to lick the Sphere of Annihilation."

[@lukasz88888888]

Anyone counting on it being Black Hole-chan?

[@professorsponge1554]

@@lukasz88888888 No, that character has a fixation with licking things because they come from a salt flat island. and that player had to RP the rest of the session as if they had no tongue.

[@rordongamsay8478]

That's fucking legendary.

[@realPurpleOrb]

This has the same energy as soldier repeatedly taking the amulet when playing TF2's dnd in one Halloween comic.

[@VL-Secondary]

Did they at least find out what a Sphere Of Annihilation tastes like?

[@spartanhawk7637]

Probably last session of my pathfinder game where I told a demon she was ugly. Didn't die but I did get backhand slapped straight through a wall.

[@robby2289]

that is GOLD

[@josephbeckett2330]

I mean, she is...

[@MasterZebulin]

"Dayum, bitch! You ugly!" (Falcon Punched through wall)

[@kensprivateinvestigation2128]

Tell me why I immediately imagined when colossus backhanded Deadpool into the windshield of a car in the first Deadpool movie.

[@alvinmitchell6359]

Our party had just defeated a bbeg. The bbeg was in the process of summoning a demon who was crawling through a portal while we fought. Killed him before the summoning was complete, but there was still this portal. One player, in spite of everyone telling him "it's a portal to hell" decided that instead of destroying it, he wanted to see where it went. That was the last time we saw that character...

[@sethb3090]

I have a character who's reliant on not just a portal to hell but a portal to a volcano in hell to craft this ridiculously rare magical super glass. Normal forges can't do it, gotta use hell lava. Occasionally he has to break halfway through because some demon found the other end.

[@MasterZebulin]

Lol, reminds me of that one death in Quest For Glory 3.

[@trifontrifonov4297]

One of the OG classics. The DM had cannons in his campaign. The fighter had a flaming sword. They were raiding a military base. The fighter started smashing barrels with him sword to find whats in them. Gunpowder is kept in barrels. Older than the internet.

[@VL-Secondary]

lol

[@connormeriwether4486]

Well, Fighter is now pieces at best.

[@danadnauseam]

My rogue once triggered a knockout gas trap. When he woke up, I had him smash the trapped chest with his axe. Retrigger. Second fail. Back to sleep. Fortunately not fatal.

[@chickencurry420]

Never died in a DnD game but I heard about this one dude who played a low intelligence ork that tried to self-sacrifice to save the party's lives and die a hero. He rolled a nat 20 and was able to save the party without dying but then decided his character became obsessed with the "die a hero" part. He then spent the rest of the session trying to get himself killed unnecessarily since he felt he messed it up the first time and it didn't count. Basically his character became suicidal because he thought that self-sacrifice was the thing that made it heroic.

[@datmanydocris]

The party I was in for one campaign found an artifact that allowed anyone who used it to cast a more powerful version of the Wish spell. For some reason, despite my stern suggestion against doing so, the party gave it to the chaotic evil fighter for safe keeping. What resulted was the destruction of the whole continent.

[@kaseymathew1893]

"Sands of Time" wasn't where I was expecting that last story to go. I assumed the mysterious dust was drugs and/or explosives.

[@Kualinar]

Or some sort of poison...

[@victoralexandervinkenes9193]

Time loop shenanigans ensued

[@jessegd6306]

I was expecting the chest to be a mimic getting balls-ass-high off of cocaine while chewing someone to death.

[@ditrixgenesis781]

Soft-locking the ax death was brutal. I love that

[@crackedjabber]

So this happened a few years ago in a long running evil game. This was a group of old school players, everything had a consequence. We were exploring in the underdark and gotten to a fairly high level. Someone from our friendly local gaming store wanted to join in on the fun. He rolled up a rogue with the help of a few of us. During character creation, we pointed out that this was the underdark and unusual senses were the norm, as the party's other sneaky character, I specifically pointed out a couple of feats he would want to have. He watched us play a couple of sessions, and then was given the opportunity to join the game. He decided to lurk in the shadows until the 'right time.' Fair enough, we had pretty much all proven that we were a bunch of bastard, so best to ease into things. He... did not do that. Instead he waited until we were in combat and tried to pick my pocket. My character was a half black dragon with a particularly bad temper. He had watched this character get angry and solo a hydra. Certainly the best target to try and rob unannounced. He rolled a really high stealth check, got in close... and the DM stopped him. 'Let me see your character sheet' new player hands over the character sheet, DM checks the feats, asks if the new guy is absolutely sure he wants to continue, then turns to me and says 'you detect someone sticking their hands in your pockets with your blind sight.' The specific feat the DM was looking for was Darkstalker. Darkstalker would have forced me to oppose his rolls to hide. Darkstalker is a feat I specifically pointed out to him as being essential in the underdark. Darkstalker is a feat he decided he didn't need because he has such high skills. On my initiative, I made a full attack against the fool with his hand in my pockets. His AC and HP were not up to the task. A half dragon with Shou Disciple and Exotic Weapon Master going to town with a bastard sword reduced him to around -120 hp. Of course since this was an evil campaign, we immediately raised the character... as a zombie. Waste not want not. We used it to set off a few traps in the next session. New guy did not come back. Which was fine, he was a bit of an ass at the best of times.

[@rmartinson19]

There's one campaign I played in that immediately came to mind with this video's prompt. You know how sometimes it seems like there's always one player in the party that is just genuinely stupid? Yeah in this group, Zack was that guy. Anyway, it was a simple "smash-and-grab" style dungeon-crawl campaign, where we were exploring a sort of "Mines of Moria" knockoff deep under a mountain range. We come upon a very sinister-looking throne room, with a skeleton sitting on the very spiky, evil-looking throne. This skeleton is covered in dust and cobwebs, but the crown, ring and scepter the skeleton still has are all pristine and very fancy and expensive looking. We do a Detect Magic on the skeleton, and oh boy is it just full of uber-powerful magic. We do a Detect Evil on it, and would you believe it? The thing is surrounded by a miasma of pure EVIL. The party immediately decides that this skeleton and/or the jewelry it's wearing are super-duper-mega-cursed, so we agree to move on and look for loot in the next chamber instead. We go to the next chamber and start looking around. After a minute though we realize "Wait, where's Zack's character?" Zack apparently completely missed the veritable forest of red flags those royal artifacts raised, as well as our whole discussion about how it was obviously cursed. He decided that he wanted his character to have some bling, so he stayed behind to loot the skeleton on the throne. Let me be clear, this was not Zack convincingly RP'ing as a dumb character, this was Zack himself making remarkably dumb choices. So he puts on the ring from the Skeleton's finger, and feels a strong urge to put on the crown. Will Save. Zack fails, though admits he was going to put it on anyway (we all look at him in disbelief and facepalm). He puts on the crown, and feels an even stronger urge to pick up the royal scepter. Will Save. He fails, and picks it up. Zack grins at the rest of us around the table, obviously thinking he just pulled one over on us by taking the most valuable loot for his own character. Another, much harder Will Save. Zack fails, shrugs and declares that he's going to go catch up with the rest of the party to show off his loot. The DM stops him and says "No, you don't. Your body no longer answers to you, and an ancient, evil presence has taken up residence in your mind, controlling your body. Congratulations, you are now possessed!" Zack's possessed character went on to murder almost the entire party, only stopped when the last character standing activated an ancient pit-trap that dropped him into a seemingly bottomless abyss, where he fell to his death. Zack was furious with the DM and the player who killed his character and demanded to know why they did that to him. We had to explain where he went wrong about three times before he finally got it. He was still sulky and whiny about it for a while, and didn't play too many more sessions with us after that.

[@sithy4330]

Playing Twin Headed Serpent, Pulp Cthulhu when, we had someone decide to shoot the lock off of a red painted door. Generally this wouldn't be much of a bad thing, till you realize we were in the middle of a strip mine and a metric frick ton of TNT was on the other side of this door. "Killed" half the party with that while the other half were suddenly in a target rich environment as everyone from the mine came pouring out to check what that noise was.

[@Ouroboros0977]

If you include dark heresy (Warhammer 40k ttrpg) a team managed to requisition an artillery barrage from friendly forces to soften up or eliminate their target. All they needed to do is find it and pass an easy navigation check to leave them with clean up. They critically failed the check and read out their own coordinates.

[@marcor815]

My very first session had indeed a darwin award moment. We were still low level and had to move to an island. DM makes us meet a pirat who would move us there. (The pirat was an NPC so far). Instead of paying the pirat for the trip one member of our group had the glorius idea: „if we kill the pirat we can take over the ship.“ Well the pirat was ment to be the BBEG at the end of the campain, so us lv.~4 players against a I think it was a lv. 15 boss with a ship full of minions. If we hadn‘t had a druid who just unlocked transforming into water animals and transformed into a whale to escape with the group in the mouth, we would have died on that ship.

[@caolanochearnaigh9804]

So, we were playing a Pokémon homebrew 5e game. The druid decided (extremely stupidly) to insult a Lucario, who in my campaign, react extremely violently whenever they are insulted. The Lucario didn't even bother to use his Aura attacks on the druid. He walked up to him calm as a breeze, gathered all of his strength and proceeded to backhand the druid across the face so hard that he instantly died. You can imagine what would happen if you were on the receiving end of a backhand slap from a Lucario....

[@connormeriwether4486]

Death by Lucario Backhand.

[@caolanochearnaigh9804]

@@connormeriwether4486 Yep... It has a MASSIVE Piercing damage bonus, due to the spikes...

[@crona3316]

Did they play as Pokémon or were they trainers?

[@caolanochearnaigh9804]

@@crona3316 They were trainers. In my campaign, Pokemon are DANGEROUS when angered. If they're the small and cute ones though, they don't deal huge damage. Think Jigglypuff from the anime.

[@crona3316]

@@caolanochearnaigh9804 I see. That sounds cool than. And I always like a slightly more realistic take on Pokémon junk like you did.

[@TsujiCross]

11:24 AFAIK Relentless Endurance specifically states it only works “if you’re not killed outright”, so I think it was either a relatively low fall damage roll, an oversight from the GM or a merciful ruling that saved him.

[@emmanuelgrossiordmayen3906]

Played Dragon of Icespire Peak with some friends. When they went to Gnomengard and fought the mimic, the barbarian asked to throw the paladin at it and he accepted. The paladin got stuck. The paladin got one-shot. Luckily didn’t die by a single hit point ( thank the gods for the DM screen )

[@jetho9859]

I've played that as well. If you want to know some stuff about the campaign I played in, I included information in this comment. My PC was a Dwarf fighter with mimic paranoia, so that part was fun. I think at one point I joked about using the sticky mimic goop to invent sticky notes. Some other PCs were a Blue Dragonborn paladin that used to be a criminal, a Tiefling fighter, a Gnome (don't remember the class), and a Human wizard. There was a sixth party member, but they left early on. My party also had a lot of pets. Cashew the squirrel, Bugs the rabbit, Techno the pig, Pumba the boar (not sure how to spell the name), and Bulbo the boar. One of the party members almost died in session one due to a crit from an ochre slime. I feel a bit bad for reminding the DM that crits exist. Expanding pole shenanigans were also fun (lifting the gnome, using it as a magic weapon, etc). I don't regret keeping it. The dragon fight was pretty easy since two party members had Fireball. In the end, we took the dragon head back to the main town and used it to prank the mayor. Thank goodness we passed our stealth checks.

[@Jessie_Helms]

Oh boy oh boy, do I have a story for you. A 2 for 1 actually. So in my Pathfinder 2e game I was playing Nimir Antonovich, a Barovian who, after the campaign ended, got scattered into my GM’s homebrew world. Eldritch Trickster rogue with the witch dedication, cursed background, and spec’d as a thrown weapon rogue. A very mixed bag of too many ideas at once. But god I’ll always love that idiot. Anyway, I’d already established a pattern of over using Message, with several NPC’s being like, “Uh, whatcha messaging there bud?” Well, Nimir and Umi (cleric) were having a duo session as I and their player could make it that night. Umi, being a water elf, decided to check out a small lake on the way to our destination town. There she saw a Kelpy- think a demon water horse, like the old tales of mermaids- and Nimir saw it too. Now, as bad as he was with people (+0 to charisma), Nimir was very smart (+4 int and expert in nearly all intelligence based skills). I ask if I can roll Occultism on that thing to determine if it’s bad and the GM goes, “It looks at you and _says_ neigh.” “Uh yeah, I want to throw a knife at its kne-“ “I run up and say hi!” -Umi. It scooped her up and immediately dashed to the bottom of the lake, Nimir unable to react in time. Now, Umi can breath under water, which the Kelpy didn’t know. So they’re literally just having an awkward post-murder attempt conversation while Nimir is just shouting _shitshitSHITSHIT_ while trying to get to Umi. He didn’t have a swim speed, but he couldn’t just stand there and do nothing, so he started to try to swim anyway (he had mediocre athletics so he made most of his checks). That’s when he sees Umi and the Kelpy just casually chatting, and I made my mistake. “Uh, I guess I cast message and ask if she still needs help?” “Okay, you open your mouth while 20 feet underwater and immediately start drowning. You’re instantly unconscious. Make a fortitude save- and if you crit fail you’re instantly dead.” Cue Umi freaking out, me freaking out, and the GM realizing I’d somehow found a way to turn the only safe person in the situation into the most imperiled person in a single action. After 2 turns of Umi trying to get closer and Nimir making his saves, but the damage going up by 1d6 per turn, things were looking very very bad. That’s when Umi failed 2 diplomacy checks in a row to convince the Kelpy and decided to Hail Mary for an athletics check to break free. _Nat20_ Then came Nimir’s turn. DC 35 check, instantly dead on a 30 or lower. The GM made me roll publicly and… _28_ I’ve never shouted “HERO POINT” faster in my life (on demand reroll similar to inspiration). 31- barely not-instant-death. The next turn it took Umi 1 action to reach Nimir, 1 action to pull out a potion of water breathing she’d bought on a whim the session prior, and 1 action to give Nimir the potion. Then it was a race to land and we kicked the Kelpy’s ass. But we joked several times about how Nimir made 3 separate saves where _instant death_ was on the table in what was supposed to be a silly side quest. -- Oh and now for round 2 of “How will Nimir almost die?” This time, also a “buddy cop episode” with Maxwell the fighter, Nimir checks out a missives board in a tavern. Among the notes for a missing dog, a jerk insulting local turnips, and an out of date festival, was a wanted poster for Jenta- the Spider- someone Nimir immediately recognized as a fellow Barovian who’d been tossed into Atrea (the homebrew world). Nimir grabbed a few of the papers and hurriedly got Maxwell’s attention to go get a room. He then proceeded to _insist_ they go find that missing dog. I said out of character, “Oh, Nimir is entirely not emotionally ready for this and is in full denial mode.” The GM has Maxwell roll perception and Nimir deception, I rolled terribly and he rolled amazingly, which I was fully down for. Maxwell just said, “Hey, if you’re determined to help a dog I guess that’s a good thing to do…” So the GM is scrambling to come up with NPCs, locations, and clues on the spot. We end up speaking to the dog’s owner and getting a last known location. We roll well on survival and find her chilling in a corn field in a small clearing munching on an ear of corn. “Uh… I slowly approach and tear off an ear of corn to give her.” “Okay… roll a reflex save.” Apparently there’s a vine-blight like creature with organic flash bangs, so Nimir and Maxwell start fighting this thing totally caught off guard. Now here’s a little fact about Nimir and Maxwell. Nimir had the highest AC at 22 (24 with Nimble Dodge) and second highest HP (around 50). Maxwell had the highest HP (around 60) and second highest AC at 21. We got _rekt_… *hard* Nimir was getting strangled and was literally down to 5 HP, with Maxwell dropping to well below half, before we finally killed that thing. Of course, we returned the dog, who ended up being pregnant, and our reward was Nimir was promised a puppy once the litter was had, and the guy gave him a potion of healing to help a little.

[@kh6853]

So in summary, you dove into a lake and then opened your mouth, then you almost died and got a puppy.

[@Jessie_Helms]

@@kh6853 I think the puppy was before the near drowning but yes. Nearly died in a corn field while “doing the right thing!” (Avoiding childhood trauma) and a few days later nearly drowned after opening his mouth 10 feet under water. Nimir did sadly die _in the shadow fell of all places_ a few sessions later. But that wasn’t a Darwin Award situation, he went out like a badass (tanked 3 hits all dealing 20+ damage, meanwhile the rest of the party _combined_ had less than 30HP). I’m so glad he _nearly_ died in such comical ways but _actually_ died in a very impactful, meaningful, self-sacrificial way.

[@archellothewolf2083]

One of these days my party's Lemming story is going to make it into one of these videos.

[@everfree4175]

Oh I think I got a good one. It was my very first DnD game, my friend (who was the DM) invited me to play with a bunch of other people who I've never met before. we were playing a fantasy version of a Zombie apocalypse (where it was just one city that suddenly became overrun with Zombies) And I learned real quick of what kind of Party I had to deal with. While I play a DM made character Quick-Claw (a female Tabaxi rouge) Everyone else was either a fighter or a barbarian (one of which really like jumping through windows). I was trying to play to my class's strength with stealth and trickery. The rest of the party didn't give me a chance, screaming into battle every chance they got. When I had to skip a session for real life, the DM was kind enough to let me play a solo session, so I didn't feel left out. Giving the excuse that I was 'scouting ahead' with a guard when I was missing and that is where I started. It was then that I was introduced into one of the top enemies of this campaign, a Wraith. Of course, neither me nor my character knew what that was, but thankfully the NPC guard did knew and saved my stupid ass when he grabbed my hand and made a run for it. A barley missed Fireball brought the lesson home, Don't mess with those things. In the next session, I was reunited with the party and after meeting the leader of the now refugees of the city, my party decided to go underground to find out more about our enemy. Low and behold, just a few stories underground, was not one, or two, but THREE wraiths! I tried to tell my party that we can't beat them, but as usual they ran in, axes bared right into danger. I tried to help but all of my shots from my Crossbow simply weaved through the undeads' ribs, and their heroic charge quickly turned into a heroic last stand. When I saw that our best fighter decided to just simply tackle both himself and a wraith into a shallow pit where no one could help him, I knew that the fight was done, so I did the only thing that my character would do in this situation. Run Like HELL. Those players died calling me a coward, But at least I was still alive.

[@Gerilyn2003]

Playing Elfquest. Our characters are up a tree when we hear a call to come home to the Father Tree. Friend has his character jump out of the tree rather than climbing down. Rolls a 1. Broke his neck and died instantly. This was the first roll any of us had ever made in the game. We'd played for 1 minute after making our characters.

[@CrizzyEyes]

What kind of player asks for an adventure to be scaled up 3 levels past their own, without even knowing that spectres are immune to non-magical weapons?

[@samloyd9287]

My party was traveling through the mountains, sneaking through enemy territory on our way out after having killed one of the BBEG’s main underlings. While crossing a rickety ass bridge, we saw none other than the BBEG himself, flying towards us on his dragon mount. We had a small amount of time to react. While the rest of us scrambled to jump off the mountain with feather fall and hide, the wizard decided to cast fog cloud. Strangely enough, the suddenly appearing cloud of fog on a snowy mountain seemed somewhat out of place to the BBEG and his dragon. Cue breath weapon. Cue wizard dying outright from said breath weapon. Casting fog cloud has been a running gag ever since.

[@turtlequeen2641]

upon discovering a magical pool of molten silver in the forest one of my players decided to drink it, and died (obviously). the magic of tge silver tried to ressurect her as an undead, but the party, panicked by her revival, immediately cut her head off and threw it in the lake. canonically she's still down there suffering agonising burns for the rest of eternity

[@goreobsessed2308]

I've had a lot of these over the years. My characters tend to be cocky and confident and I don't mind dying to stay in character

[@Alacrity199]

11:13 lol, you've referenced CR before but i think this is my favorite 🙃

[@Merrsharr]

Back in the day in 3.5, I played a Draconic Heritage Sorcerer with fire breath. We must have been 6th level since I had just picked up the Major Image spell. We were raiding a goblin camp that had allied with one or more ogres, making short work of the small fries by herding them together with illusions and frying them with area spells, when I underestimated an ogre's movement speed, found myself at the business end of a heavy club and barely clung to life with a small 1-digit number of HP left. As charisma caster I knew what to do, dropping on the spot and playing dead with a successful bluff. To prevent the ogre from making sure I was dead, the party knight (fighter in full plate) got between us and engaged it in melee, but got flanked by a hobgoblin. As my turn came around, I found I could angle my fire breath to hit the hob and the ogre without hitting the knight, and at 6d6 probably dealing enough damage to finish them off. However, the DM ruled that this was only if I was upright, and options were limited by being prone: there was no way to hit the giant without also frying the knight. I couldn't get up without catching an attack of opportunity from the ogre, so I trusted the knight to keep its attention and cleared his back by frying the hob. Unfortunately a 15 ft cone of fire is not exactly subtle, and even a dumb ogre realizes that the fire spitter who just turned a full health hobgoblin into ashes is a bigger threat than the canned food poking him with a toothpick. Thus my firespitter was turned into hot mush (in 3.5 you die when your HP hit -10, the attack took me to -16 or so). The DM was somewhat anxious, because that was my first character death (also his), but I didn't complain, accepting that it was my own fault for trying to be badass with barely any HP left while within melee range of an ogre. The whole thing turned out better than that one time when I trusted the fighter to make his safe and Color Sprayed a group of low-level bandits surrounding him... He and one bandit were the only ones to fail their saves.

[@Scarletraven87]

That dragon situation required only one stealth check.

[@tacohut555]

I ran a homebrew version of the 5e Out of the Abyss module. Group is around level 12 or so and gets to a purple worm nest to get a purple worm egg that was needed for a spell. While the group’s wizard avoids detection and is trying to pry free an egg, the group’s Dragonborn Paladin decides to try to kill the purple worms on egg watch. In addition to the worms I had homebrewed a keeper/protector of them who came in to assist the worms. Party struggles with most spell casters nearly out of spells and most of the group is well below half health and the paladin was knocked unconscious and had failed two death saves before the group’s cleric was able to get in range and was only able to get him to around 15 hp with one of his remaining spells. Of note, Paladin was already out of his Lay On Hands pool and didn’t take any healing spells himself as he focused on damage/buff spells. At this point there is still one purple worm left that hadn’t taken any damage and hadn’t entered the fray as it was too far away to sense the other battle. First thing the paladin does after coming back to consciousness is…rush the other purple worm. Worm proceeds to down the paladin, swallow the groups barbarian who eventually did make it out with 1 HP after the worm was killed, and a third character (sorcerer) also ended up dying. Cleric tried to keep them alive best he could before they went down, but he ran out of spells. Sorcerer and Paladin both end up failing 3 consecutive death saves. And that was how an over confident paladin ended up getting himself and another party member killed and nearly a third party member.

[@jsrisonline2226]

I actually have one for this. I was DMing this game, one of my players was playing a homebrew class that I think came from a Final Fantasy module he found but reminds me more of the Kinsect staff from Monster Hunter. It was a very mobile melee class all about jumping around the battle field with a spear. The party took on a quest to accompany a group of dwarves up a nearby mountain to gather some resources. On the way up the group was attacked by wyverns, I described the scene as "you are all on a road winding around the mountain, there's not much room to move and the edge of the road is a drop to certain death." LITERALLY SAID "CERTAIN DEATH!!!" This player got the highest initiative, None of the wyverns had landed or attacked yet and I described as they formed a line flying next to the road waiting for an opportunity to pick off one of players. Player: I want to vault off the side of the cliff to attack a wyvern. Me: Are you sure about this? There isn't any ground underneath them Player: Yeah, I'll be fine Me, looking at the ability again: This ability clearly says you land *next* to the target of your vault this would mean you'd fall Player: I know what I'm doing Me: are you? Trying to land on the wyvern? Player: uhhh, yeah I guess I can try that... Me: ok, roll to hit then roll an opposed grapple I guess the player does hit the wyvern and does a decent amount of damage but rolls a nat 1 to grapple. At this point the entire table (excluding this player) is silently facepalming this very avoidable death. I describe as he heroically leaps from the cliff onto the back of a wyvern, plunging his spear right between the wings of the dangerous creature, to which the wyvern responded by spinning, causing the character to lose hold of the spear plunged into the wyverns back, and fall down a sheer cliff face. Player: wtf why did you kill me? This character is all about jumping around I should have been able to vault back over I called for a break shortly there after.

[@nature_laughslast6438]

In our group we were exploring a cave system and saw an underground lake in the area. Suspecting possible treasure or another hidden area my buddy decided to wildshape into a creature that could swim to explore it. The rest of the party refused to go into the water for obvious reasons. Our Druid then wild shaped into a platypus. As you all suspected.. yes, he went into the water and got eaten by a monster. That event created one of our groups signature phrases. whenever someone suggests something stupid.. “never go full platypus”.

[@jacemonster5]

That Sands of Time one at the end was cool! I assume in its original trap form it would reset the character to right before they stepped on it, or something, so they’d keep trying to enter the room, and take a first step, and then a first step, and then a first step, and then a first step..

[@TheRewasder97]

We were doing a campaign that started with us getting attacked on a ship in the middle of the sea. We were in the lower decks and the druid casted "call animal help" or something like that. So, some sharks break holes open and start attacking, but being sharks one failed a die and killed one in our party. We were trying to no avail to close the holes so we tried getting out of the ship. With the ship quickly sinking, one of the group said to do a long rest because we were quite battered up. I looked at him and said: "You want to make a long rest in a sinking ship?" He immediately changed his mind for whatever reason. We tried a couple of times but never managed to get past the ship xD

[@jondawson7911]

This was a Darwin award pre game. Starting Keys to the Golden Vault, Sorcerer using standard array puts 8 in CON... So -1. He had 5HP total and got one shot by the first enemy he encountered.

[@athenaraines]

CON as your dump stat. Yep, classic Darwin Award.

[@WriterGirl90]

In the group I play in, I’m the player with the most Darwin awards. I’ve had a character burned alive by a red dragon (while trying to help another player), had another one squished by a giant boulder, a third character ran into a pit of spikes and another one killed by an invisible beholder. The last one was brought back and I’d evidently learned some lessons because the epilogue of that campaign took us to level 20 and she was the only one from that group who was still alive. Given that she was a level 6 paladin and a level 14 zealot barbarian with a penchant for eating her enemies (she was a Lizardfolk) and an intelligence of 6, I think I deserve some credit for her still being alive despite the opportunities for dumb stuff she found!

[@alexanderthegreat6682]

My first campaign ever, I got the party killed by convincing them we could successfully negotiate with the green dragon. Thankfully since it was our first game the friendly neighborhood retcon wizard showed up to save us

[@VL-Secondary]

Isn't negotiation normally a good strategy against a powerful opponent?

[@alexanderthegreat6682]

@@VL-Secondary the problem is that green dragons are the most clever and manipulative variety, all we did was allows ourselves to get ourselves trapped and lined up perfectly for slaughter

[@Asteelyman13]

I just had a recent one. For certain reasons, two party members were separated from the rest of the group. One of them was tied up, and the other had to leave and dunk himself in water to prevent himself from dying (diseases are fun.) Anyways, the one party member didn't want to bring the tied up guy with him, but also didn't want to leave him just tied up on the ground, so he decided to stuff him in a nearby crate. The problem is, the crate he opened and promptly overturned to empty contained several volatile and explosive crystals. One chain reaction later, and both characters are dead and hurled off a mile high cliff by the explosion.

[@0spidey1]

This was a Cyberpunk 2020 demo we played at a convention this weekend. We got an item we were supposed to bring back to our fixer - a small box. We opened it. Inside was another, more ornate box that read "Property of Arasaka Corporation". Me and the other player immediately said not to open it. We got into our car. On the way, our third player decided to open it - against the wishes of his own coin flip. We proceeded to blow up in less time than our player could throw it out the window.

[@MasterZebulin]

Please tell me it was nuclear.

[@VidelxSpopovich]

First mistake was trusting anything labeled Arasaka.

[@G-Forces]

In a campaign I was our druid was being chased by a dire wolf and decided it was a good idea to escape by jumping into a well and turning into a goldfish mid air, he rolled a nat 1 and the dire wolf rolled high. A goldfish uas 1 hp so he instantly died.

[@tysondennis1016]

"Goldfish Dive" Keyleth's stunt lives on in infamy.

[@mikewithington4755]

Tried jumping over a river via stepping on stone. Drowned

[@MusicaX79]

Had a party member grab two other members and jump down a mine shaft into... a nest of ghouls... yeah. my forever DM friend PMed me "WHAT DO I DO!!!" cause he didn't want to kill two players becasue of one idiot. I told him they willingly went, splat them. Mind you one of them was my wife's charecter. None of them were mad about it.

[@Nemares]

While playing CoS, one of our group decided they wanted to try to sneak up on some vampire spawn, while half the group was outside. When they were inevitably detected by the 3-4 vampire spawn, they then tried to deceive them into thinking they were also a vampire spawn, which failed epically. Then, instead of trying to retreat or anything, they jumped on the body that was actively being eaten to further attempt deceiving them.... needless to say they were subsequently killed and turned into a vampire spawn, and rescuing them and curing their vampirism is now a side quest for the group.... their second character voluntarily contracted lycanthropy to try to save the group and due to the exact circumstances, ended up staying to lead the werewolf pack that had a recent power vacuum... especially since the second character would have been OP with all of the extra immunities and resistances, and that's coming from me, my group's min/maxer, the person whom single handedly caused the aforementioned power vacuum.

[@Sneaksatacks]

I have one. I was a sea elf druid, and our ship was about to be boarded by pirates. We were hidden hanging off the side of our ship from ropes, ready to swing around and board the pirates when they got close. We swung around, between the two ships, down below out of sight when I realized I could see through a porthole into the enemy ship, and made a quick and brilliant decision. I cast flaming sphere inside the pirate's ship, and then had it move to the general area the powder room would be. The resulting explosion did take out the pirates, but due to our proximity half the party was downed and we took significant damage to our own ship. We had little chance of surviving a direct confrontation anyway, (we were meant to be captured,) but everyone was super surprised and everybody's characters were a bit upset with my character for nearly killing us all.

[@evanbaldwin2794]

The best one I have is from the session before I joined the campaign. Also, minor spoilers for Strixhaven. In the main lobby area of the Strixhaven campus, there is a decorative fountain of magic. Probably had no importance other than a cool decoration for what was essentially DnD Hogwarts. The fountain included a pool of magic at the bottom. One of the players decided that it was a good idea to dive into this pool of pure magic. And that is how Strixhaven had a student casualty on its first day of school.

[@TheTabascodragon]

Was playing a session with relatives, and my brother's character, a pretty low level rogue, got drunk as fuck at a tavern. after being highly belligerent to pretty much everyone in the building he got kicked out. The rest of the party figured he'd head back to the inn we were staying at to sleep it off so we didn't follow him. He drunkenly wandered into a nearby forest to take a piss and runs into a huge ass horde of zombies the DM had intended to save for a later occasion. Instead of running, he decided to fight the whole horde by himself. He was so drunk he could barely stand so he got ripped to shreds pretty much immediately.

[@jesseyancy1160]

I had a player who took out the entire party while receiving a Darwin award. His character was a human fighter but his backstory was that he was a Longshore cursed to be a human. Now the party is trapped on a flotilla of pirate ships, they're low on health, and have just finished making a cease fire between two groups of fighting pirates when our award winner gets brought back to 1hp. He then proceeds to without warning attack the pirates, thus starting the fighting all over and getting the entire party killed

[@williamchancellor1522]

I was dming a heavily homebrewed sci-fi campaign, where magical creatures where extinct, but people used them as inspiration for machines of war, (giant death robots). As a way to introduce the equivalent of a dragon, (essentially a walking turbo tank), I had them come across a heavily damaged one stuck in a mostly collapsed building. The idea being that they might try and finish it off but fail due to their weapons not being strong enough. Instead, one of my players tried to walk up to it and talk to it, while it was blaring warhorns and aiming its cannons at him. Needless to say he would have died if I hadn't saved him by describing the cannon miss-firing due to a badly bent barrel, and promptly exploding. He took a lot of damage, and the rest of the group teasingly dubed him "dragon tamer"

[@mattf967]

I have so many just from one party. There was the time the party went into a castle that was perched high above the city without a moat and after stealing a bunch of stuff, the Artificer decided to leap out of the window to get away. They did not realise that when they said the words 'I run and I leap from the window' I would assume they meant that they run and they leap from the window because doing so dropped them 300ft down and instantly killed them. There was the other time the party had found a legendary enchanted Banner that the BBEG and his minions were looking for. They also had a job to clear an old mansion of zombies. They decided to have the great idea of telling some of the BBEG's minions that they had seen the banner in the possession of the Necromancer's at the mansion and when the Captain of the minions asked 'Well what did it look like?' the Paladin deadass pulled out the banner he still had on him and said 'like this'.

[@echohanna]

We call this "getting Jimmy'd" after the player it happened to first (and most often) Elderscrolls GURPS party has captured a large number of ork bandits, using a balista we had nearby, a group decides to make a break for it, one party member goes after them, and as soon as they are around a corner, and having not yet been disarmed the turn on him, and he got wrecked, with no chance for backup since the rest of us were busy and he was out of view of the balista as well

[@anon0092]

I'm just imagining like, a cartoon scenario with that last story of the barb constantly dying, and getting more frustrated, each time XD " Oh *shunk* Come *shunk* The *shunk* F@CK *shunk* ON!!"

[@Mooskym]

I have one that a friend of mine told me once. He was DMing for a group that had to find info about some evil governor or something, I don't remember, and no one is willing to talk to them about it. Eventually they find a paranoid beggar that will talk to them, but only if they prove they aren't demons. At this, the party's paladin jumps up shouting heroically that he is no demon, and would do anything to prove it, so the npc takes out an iron dagger and says that he must stub him (the paladin) with that dagger to be convinced. The paladin agrees and opens his arms saying "I'm no demon", the beggar says "you have armor" so the paladin takes his armor off, gets totally naked and stands before the beggar saying "do it, and see that I'm no demon". Well, with the paladin bare-chested and unwilling to dodge or defend against an attack coming straight to his heart, the DM was left with no choice but to declare the paladin dead with no saving-throws or anything.

[@Mutantroosta.Gaming]

gold-fish dive? marisha and her druid dive

[@brinwulf]

Some of our heroes where taken prisoner by the (then unknown secondary) antagonist. They escaped their cell and the enemy fortress but where robbed of their entire gear. The knight, who came from an influential family and had know issues getting new gear (we were near the end of the campaign) wanted his (nonmagical) plate armor back, so he went back in. As a knight, his stealth capabilities where lackluster at best. The group decided not to help him on his suicide trip. He miracelously made his checks to the armory and put on his armor. THIS send his stealth checks to the bottom of the mariane trench... Because I am a darvinist DM, I had no mercy left and long story short, his head went on a pike. He literally had to use a npc, because there was only one battle left in the whole campaign. Happend in 2017 in the "Jahr des Feuers"-Campaign of the german "The Dark Eye"-Game

[@grindcoreninja6527]

My friend unknowingly jammed his hand in a bag of devouring and failed every saving throw my DM could think of.

[@johns9652]

2 stories, both mine. Story 1, playing a ranger, and the party was invading a lair, there was a giant trapdoor ala the one in the James Bond movie where the volcano crater actually covers a hidden base. The rest of the party, due to being faster initiative and movement, were able to cross the floor of the crater door to get into melee on the other side. DM tells me I can either move now, and move next turn to get into combat, or I could attempt to jump over the slowly but inexorably closing door. Failed jump check by 1, beg DM to let me have the "pull yourself up" roll. Failed that too. Left hanging on the edge, with the giant crater lid slowly closing. DM: You're out of actions, but as a free action, you could let go... Me: How far down is it? DM: Beyond your vision range. Me: Ummm. DM: You're running out of time, take your free action to drop, or no? Me: I can't decide. DM: Then you're gonna die by being cut in half by a giant closing door. Me: Well then, I guess that's what happens, as my character is too petrified with fear to do anything else but watch his impending doom. Story 2: Think I was playing a fighter, honestly don't remember. Going through a dungeon, encounter several "Skull Traps" (I think d6 damage per skull... to be fair, I don't truly feel this is a Darwin, but he insisted it was, I think it was a first level spell, only meant to do a bit of damage while being scary, but...) I later encountered a room with a Drow woman in a cage, suspended over a pile of skulls. "I try to talk to her". Neither of you seem to know a language you can use to communicate. She is obviously in distress. Ah well, Drow or no, I should at least try to let her out of the cage...perhaps If watched closely, she could join me for a bit, and we can at least help each other escape this place, even if we part ways and never see each other again. I will go investigate the cage, see if I can bend the bars or something. DM: It's hanging over a PILE of skulls. Me: What, you want a climb check or something just to go up a little mound?" DM: You're climbing? Me: Yeah. DM: Starts rolling the biggest pile of d6s I've ever seen. Me: Whoa, wait a minute, wtf you doing? DM: Rolling to see how dead you are. Me: What? DM: Look, I gave you clues, you already encountered Skull Traps, now you just climbed a MOUND of skulls... Me: ... ohhhhh Hey, wait, that's not fair! I mean, to be honest, he did give me clues that skulls were deadly in that dungeon, but I was like 2nd level, NOT expecting an absolute death scenario...there were enough skulls there that even if every single skull was 1 damage, I was dying regardless.

[@Daos171]

Here is an idea for a vid: “What music do you listen to during character creation?” Mine is the Song “Prayer” from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, on a 30 minute extension.

[@drchunkalicious]

i actually respect the hell outta that dude who played the suicidal BH-attacking sorcerer. he played his character dammit

[@adeimousragnarok8150]

To no ones surprise the guy who always plays an Elf asked "why isn't there a Vampiric Tarrasque?"..... .... .... .... ....

[@Dedanoid]

I remember playing a T-Fling Bard named Ash. He was a young adventurer who joined a band of misfits for fun. There was a dragon in the land that would randomly find them traveling pretty often and they had to fight it off. One day Ash decided he was done with this Dragon and wanted to slay it. It attacked his party and he jumped in its back… not much he could do after it started to fly. It did a barrel roll and Ash was able to hang on, the earth got further and further away as the dragon took another barrel roll. This time Ash wasn’t so lucky… in fact his luck ran out. His friends watched him plummet hundreds of feet into the earth until Ash was much like his name… just chunkier ;)

[@roberthebert2826]

this was both bad luck and darwin award material. One time my party (They were like level 9) were chasing a Warlock through the woods while his 2 Air elementals and 2 Air Myrmidons protected him and ran interference. The party Druid decided to cast Conure Animals to summon a bunch of Giant Owls to pick her up and fly after the Warlock, immediately catching up. She however, neglected to have the owls grab any of the rest of the party (The Paladin, Warlock, Fighter, or Wizard) which meant she was nearly 60 ft ahead of the rest of the party and alone with the boss. She also forgot that she was bloodied. The boss then turned around and shot her with a Lightning Bolt. She failed the save and he rolled high on damage, so she dropped to 0 hp and then got a failed death save by falling 15ft once all her owls vanished. Now she was down with a failed death save in front of a myrmidon and the party were busy. I can't remember how exactly but the party managed to catch up and push back the myrmidon and the paladin was about to lay on hands her when.....nat 1 death save, three failed saves. Dead.

[@digifreak90]

Mine was a small one. In the session we were doing an arena gauntlet and one of the enemies was a minotaur. I was a level one Bard (the group I played with at the time didn't really do full campaigns, more so just series of one-shots), and I was using Vicious Mockery at the Minotaur while its gate was opening and didn't think to duck back behind the nearby pillar. The Minotaur attacked me because I was insulting it, got to use its Charge feature, and dealt 27 damage. I had 9 max HP, so I just died instantly. (The battle mat we were using had a blood smear as part of the design, so we joked that that was what was left of my character.)

[@RedJester68]

Playing AD&D, party's knight tries going down a dry well...by diving straight down thirty feet. Because it's AD&D and everyone is so squishy, he died instantly.

[@HyperJohnua]

I got a player in my game, were playing a pirate multiverse traveling themed role master game My body has used all of his session drives points twice, (this are rerolls on anyones roll) both times hes uses his last reroll on mundane things such as playing his violin, while it is risky hes playing his character the way he wants and i respect. As of this comment hes yet to die from those risks

[@Chris-tw4gg]

The time our level 8 monk decided to solo a Death Tyrant. Needless to say, he got petrified and turned to ashes. He learned nothing.

[@michaelroy7754]

I had a dwarf wizard give his life to save the party from a golden golem. Threw a lightning bolt at it which allowed it to immediately move into melee with the caster using the spells electrical energy. Poor Morin Bouldershoulder lost his head but his friends were able to escape.

[@strangeworldsunlimited712]

Just shy of 30 years ago (god I'm old) I was running an AD&D 2nd edition game (god I'm old!). My wife was playing the closest thing a 2nd edition character could get to a 5th edition Dragonborn, and a wizard too boot. Her and 3 others made up the team of four. Early in the campaign (luckily for them) they encountered a cave near the road they were traveling down. The ANTI-paladin in the party (yes, you read that right) decided to investigate, so the other three joined him. Deep into the chasm they went until they found a small chamber. It wasn't a dragon in the chamber, but whatever it was (30 years ago, I don't remember) attacked the party, was a bit too much for them, and so they started to leave. My wife was just high enough level to have Delayed Blast Fireball amongst her spells, and decided to cast it as a parting gift for the attacking creature. The fireball filled the room, killing the creature and destroying whatever treasure was there. But tte blas😂radius was bigger than the chamber, and the excess flames and heat exited through the only outlet available: the cave they were all standing in. It was only because they had just started, and my wife invested so much time into her character, that the party was blown out of the cave, a bit brused, a lot charred, but still alive.

[@gutsFunnyman]

Near-miss darwin: our monk decides to jump down a well filled with snakes (for no reason mind you), provoking them and starting combat. Both snakes crit, and our monk is almost dead. Were it not for me (Yuan-Ti), the snakes would have finished her off. To this day we still dont know why she did it.

[@HeavyMetalMouse]

A tiny mage riding on a big half-orc's shoulder into combat? It'll work for a while... but at some point, they'll have to get... *Beyond Thunderdome*

[@zweihaunders5019]

Absolutely flabbergasted that this video mentions a campaign I was in ...never tell me the odds

[@JMAssainatorz]

The monk screamed I CAN TAKE IT!... To a fireball....At low health....Twice.

[@Blargerhonk]

I actually have one this time. We were playing curse of straad and were going through the one part that has the scarecrows with the relic in them. We were split up. Me and one player got the relic and escaped the undead invasion. The third player walked into the scene. I think the dm was being nice because he had them frozen and unresponsive. The player decided to poke and produce them and even push one over. After no response and many warning to move along from the DM he then decides to "coup de grace" the downed undead boi... at this point 3 things happen: 5e doesn't have coup de grace in its base rules, second all the undead finally move and he is easily dead. Didn't even fight just a "welp I'm dead".

[@tcp3059]

"Goldfish dive". Love the reference.

[@TheHighborn]

"we're basically gods" jumps of a cliff. Classic

[@VidelxSpopovich]

When you’re a monk you can do that and easily survive lol

[@entrippyZ]

the video inspired me. im not playing soon but somebody should make a tiny gnome cleric that could fit inside a backpack and teach them to use a shortbow. then have the barbarian wear said backpack into battle. if they didnt know shortbow, they could use a reaction whenever the barbarian used spinning slash to add their slash into it, and they would get their turns as normal just with 0 mobility until an action is spent to exit the backpack. while in the backpack, enemies have disadvantage on hitting the cleric unless they are behind the barbarian. the barbarian can also spend a bonus action to throw the backpack at things, im sure theres a use for this.

[@robertpowell1464]

One of my players jumped into a bonfire in hell to try and extinguish it. She thought it mighta been powering the nearby attacking skeletons, but it wasnt. I asked if she was sure, which we joked about often meant certain death when the dm says that, and she said yes. Tried having her roll for a save and she failed. She became a crispy briquette almost instantly. The party also had no means of saving her as she was the party healer. They then tried sending her body through a portal out of hell but all of those were blocked at that time and the body ricocheted off the portal onto the ground. They simply (with great laughter and players permission) looted her body and moved on.

[@dethkruzer]

I've had a number of descriptive character deaths in games I run, but I don't think I've ever used the word "crispy" in that context.

[@waldorffordlaw9529]

Squared up with Strahd once, dropped me in a single round and went back to tormenting the Paladin....

[@theboulder027]

Oh hey my time loop story finally got into one of these videos! Nice!

[@nicholascarroll2698]

"Goldfish Dive"... Marisha Ray is now immortal.

[@dwaynemontgomery1851]

got my head ripped off by a ghoul once, then i pointed out my strength of the grave feature from shadow sorcerer and the fact that it works even if your killed outright, i had to roll a 19 or 20 to servive, i rolled a 19 and then casually put my head back on like it was totally normal

[@Amarok1886]

Our crew once found a barrel full of "black sand with a faint scent of sulphur". I was playing a ranger who used a rifle regularly and recognized gunpowder, the party's dwarven fighter DID NOT. I went back to our wagon to make room for it so I could put it to use. Session ended and I couldn't make it to the next, "went on a long hunt/rest", when I got back the dwarf, our mage and rogue are dead. Dwarfus held a torch over the barrel and wiped out most of the party. Left me and the party's healer all alone, not so bad actually, on the path back to town my ranger fell in love with the tiefling who was self-concious about her failure to save the party. I got to actually say "Don't let it bother you, no one can cure stupidity"

[@jolmerhier]

Candlekeep mysteries, Joy of Extradimensional Spaces. This happened a couple of months back. The party clears the entire mansion, they have everything they need to escape. Nobody has any spell slots left except sorcerer who has just one, but they decide not to have a long rest. They already had interacted with the (friendly)Faerie Dragons in the gardens, when the sorcerer decided it might be time to get revenge for controlling his movement for a bit, as a joke(as they do). He tries to figure out where they are by ear, and rolls a nat20. Then he casts mage hand to try to push one. He fails, and the rule we're using is on any failed magic, he rolls for wild magic. Long story short, the faerie dragon gets some damage, and attacks him. One of the other party members tries to convince the dragon to let it go, and succeeds. Then the sorcerer says "I take my shortsword and attack the dragon while he's distracted". I ask "are you sure." He says he is. He is now playing a bard, and understands that if the DM asks if you're sure, he's not asking a question. He's informing you that you are not, in fact, certain of this at all.

[@Eco-wx3jd]

No one died in this campain, but this is worth the mention. We had a human paladin in our group and I dubbed him sir stupid. First, he attacks the 11 year old boy we saved the room before after my elf wizard released gas when plucking a mushroom. Next room, after meeting some new party members and battling some skeletons, The Paladin grabbed a sword with some dark magic or something. Next room, after I snatched a Crystal ball, a fricking Angel comes out of the pedigram on the ground, chained up, and the boy steals its soul. Roll for initive. The boy is a 1000 year old demon who happens to be the BB and the ruler of the abyss. One session, I got chucked into the floor. That same session, he uses the blade he got to stab the demon. He *sigh* HEALED IT!

[@vancarson440]

My Sister Shot a Bar keep yesterday, there 14 other on lookers and they all shot back. Short story shorter, she is dead.

[@jameswillis5682]

"The Goldfish Dive." A classic😂

[@seath8055]

I had someone in my party try breaking an Ancient Red Dragon's egg... in front of the mother... At level 3... his death did not even warrant a saving throw. For context, the dragon was supposed to actually give us a quest because well, it was bored, found it amusing, and didn't really want to spend the effort to snuff out some ants. The DM decided to just use it as an "intimidation" bit to salvage the situation so the rest of us wouldn't just get TPK'd

[@greendragonfly4831]

You open the thing. Which fills you with more dread? A: 'Make a Dex save DC23' 2 - 'Roll Iniative!' Or D... DM sighs, rolls half their dice and pulls out a TI-85

[@GG-Gamer1]

Futuristic Setting of a TTRPG thats still in a Beta: We (pirates) just looted a bunch of stuff from a cargo ship, including a very special thermos-shaped container. After checking what was up with the container, it was revealed that there was some tech being used to prevent whatever was inside it from ever touching the thermos. Kinda like keeping a metal orb suspended by magnets or something. One GENIUS party member, decided 'im going to drink it!'. Before anyone could react, he had run into an escape pod with the thing raised and ready to unscrew. We, being sensible pirates, blasted his arm off with a laser. The container went flying, and before it could land and break open, a party member activated the pod and had it shot into space. Turns out: It had a sci-fi substance inside called 'strange matter'. Thing about strange matter, anything it comes into contact with also become strange matter until there is nothing else to come into contact with (AKA, the whole planet, ship, etc has been changed), at which point the mass of strange matter 'disappears'. The idiot PC died, and we all yelled at him OOC for his stupidity, because it was VERY OBVIOUSLY a stupid idea, which the character WOULDVE KNOWN it was a stupid idea. Also, we needed it to get a 'true good ending' for the game. Yeah. I'm still angry.

[@MechbossBoogie]

Honestly, the last campaign I played in was one big Darwin check. I blame myself for the most part, because every time something came up that we, as the rulers of that country, were supposed to take care of one of the other players would immediately chime in that they would handle it and then promptly did nothing about it. At a certain point I stopped caring what their roles were I just went and dealt with everything one by one, right down the list, because all of that inaction was snowballing hard and I know the other players had more or less given up on the campaign, but I still wanted my character to live. We're talking two years worth of playing on weekends a couple times per month worth of inaction and they wondered why I was doing so much better in my court than they were in theirs. I can tell you it wasn't because they were on the outside and I was mostly on the inside. It helped, but I was spending almost half of my kingdom's income in defending their lands. I would have been doing a lot better if they'd have been better at diplomacy with our neighbors, but here we are. So I didn't feel bad when I swept across their lands and dealt with the problems, then routed half the party from their roles. We were supposed to work as a group to fix the problems of the kingdom, instead half the party just spent their time working on gathering a harem or doing other things that had nothing to do with the reason we were there. Two of them were actively working against the rest of us and another one was working against us but I'm not sure if it was on purpose or if he was just trying to do something cool and another player had more or less given up on the campaign about half-way through and ended up sabotaging the whole thing before he left. The DM didn't help, either. Anything we said, did, didn't say, or didn't do was used against us. If we went into detail about something to make sure we wouldn't get punished for not being detailed enough he'd complain that we're wasting game time, so we'd be brief for the sake of expediency and we'd get punished for it, then we'd go back to getting detailed about the things we were doing and we'd get punished because he was "bored."

[@LEWS316]

While playing in Dark Conspiracy (DND horror set in a dystopian slight future world) our Dm decided to run the film Temors as a campgain mission there was a sinilar creature in the game beastiary list but she adpated it to be the true graboids of the movie rather that the game version that was basically an acid covered octopus alien thingy that could move through rock and swallow a pc whole (instant death in that game). So we get to the point similar to the movie where we are all up on rooftops with a graboid moving around town trying to collapse the buildings to get to the tasty humans there was 4 PC and 6 NPC's all armed with guns. but yeah shooting through dirt is not good. one of our players a reformed ish THAT GUY decided that insead of trying to reaction shoot the graboid when i reached up out the ground trying to grab at him (he was on top of a tipped over articualted truck) he pulled some old unstable tnt he had looted from a disued mine and lit the fuse and threw it NAT1 it landed next to the trucks gas tank KABOOM! he was thrown clear of hisperch and before he could stand up a graboid grabbed hold and started trying to swalloh him (1d6 turns til you are swallowed then take crushing damage til you die, break free or are rescued) fortuneatly he rolled a 6 so had 6 turns of struggling and fghting to live. Unfortuneatly in some of the worst dice rollingluck i have ever seen he rolled 6 nat1 str checks to escape and was swallowed hole. long story short we got him out of the belly but he had 1 hp left on his head and chest, his arms and legs had run out of hp and had basically been disolved. he was given a choice medivacced out and cybernetic limbs or mercy killed and roll a new character. he chose the mercy killing as cyber limbs are laien tech and he didnt trust them. that was his 3rd charcater in 1 year. fist one got sniped by police for brandishing a gun in a non firearm state, 2nd one jumped off a bridge ro try and grab a fleeing enemy and and got hit by a big rig that squashed him flat. Sadly he died during the pandemic, Miss that guy he was a funny player even in death scenes

[@chefdeadpool8481]

So i was running this one campaign that was based off of Infinity Train. My players for a few weeks were doing good, each week was a new world that they had to figure out how to escape from. Well finally we get to this one world where the party figured it out way faster than i had planned, so i quickly threw together another world... this one inspired from Rick and Morty. The world was New York, but with all the people replaced with sentient chairs and tables. My players decided that this was their favorite world. They started a race war between the chairs and tables, then wanted to fix the conflict so they could be seen as heroes and recruit these creatures as soldiers. That was their overall plan, the way they tried to execute it? 9/11...... yeah they high jacked an airplane and flew it into the tallest buildings they could find.... then were surprised when i said that they all died in a firey blaze.... I honestly did not expect them to do that.

[@jasonrustmann7535]

I once had a group chasing goblins through a thick forest, one player kept going after the rest gave up, i had chase music going and everything, i had the one remaining player keep making rolls to follow the goblin he was chasing, while in the form of a panther (moon druid) after a very poor roll, i cut the music and tell him he's lost the tracks, he says he keeps running full speed until he catches up with him, after a couple more rounds of just full sprinting through the woods, he goes full speed running off a cliff face, i let him roll for fall damage, and he did so much to himself he knocked himself out of wild shape, and unconscious in canyon, bled out all alone in a hole lol

[@Geese3]

*dies from dragon* *gets revived* *killed dragon* "I'll be far more careful" *falls down stairs* *dies again* I now am always warry of stairs, they're up to something at all times.

[@sethb3090]

I tell you what, the ranger and sorc in my first campaign were all about this. Session 1: we have combat with a few default orcs. Sorc forgets he has spells, draws his dagger and runs in to stab in melee with two of them. (we're level 1). Third session: we've gone to investigate a lighthouse and killed some kind of devotee of Talos inside. A violent thunderstorm blows up. There's a lightning rod on the roof. Sorc: _maybe if I touch it I'll get powers._ Also third session: We're looking for treasure in a sunken ship. My character is a lizardfolk so he's doing the diving. There are sharks. After a few minutes, sorc and ranger decide I'm having all the fun and make a precarious ice raft with Shape Water. Sorc ends up falling overboard with the sharks. Ranger finds a shark 5 feet away and sticks her face in the water to Speak with Animals. Session 4: we found an elf village overwhelmed by spreading darkness that's engulfing the forest. The elves are fine, but there are lots of shadows moving towards us. Ranger and sorc both announce they'll hold out their hands and see if they're friendly. The warlock and I spent so much time keeping them from getting Darwin awards...

[@sirfuecksalot90]

Not fatal, but it should have been if not for quick (and merciful) thinking by the DM. On a first session of a new campaign, a 1st time player buddy didn't get the memo that, "so you meet in a tavern..." is basically a moment to wrap the group together and get moving. His response to trying to party-up was, "I don't know you people...." and he decided to wander out into the street alone, walking straight into a cloud of fog that people were going missing in. Despite EVERYONE'S warnings, he did it and ended up missing and tortured for 3 sessions before we found him. His punishment was having an arm lopped off by a succubus, but I guess it's better than rerolling a character on your 1st day.

[@postapocalypticnewsradio]

PANR has tuned in.

[@shidderalpha2293]

I had a cleric try to 1v1 one of the main story bosses once, FIVE LEVELS BEFORE HE WAS SUPPOSED TO(yes i warned him). Needless to say he died. After he died, i told him he wasnt supposed to fight the boss until the end of the modual and he went "oh, well that was stupid of me."

[@Ensign_Nemo]

In the original S1 "Tomb of Horrors", there is a fixed Sphere of Annihilation, but it isn't labeled as such because that would make the trap far too obvious. It appears as simply a large black spot inside a carving of a demonic-looking monster. My character stuck a ten foot pole into it. The DM asked me ""How far?" I answered "About a foot." He replied, "You now have a nine foot pole." I stopped there, having established to my satisfaction that something bad happened to things that went into the dark spot. The other player decided to jump into it. I advised against it. He did it anyway. The DM wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to him. That was it for him. I played solo for the rest of the session, which was a bit socially awkward, as we mostly ignored the other player for several hours, and we were visiting him at his place. I did finish the module and found the real demi-lich and we killed it, but in retrospect I think that the DM gave me a bit of help at the end. I figured out the traps and secret doors playing solo, which was quite a challenge. The pre-rolled characters from the module, whom he was running as NPCs to make the party viable, actually killed the 'boss'. I guess he didn't want to do a total party kill, and it would have been a bit anti-climatic to find the demi-lich and then get scragged because I didn't have a character with any of the *very* few abilities that could actually kill the damn thing. There were about a dozen spells that worked, or a hit from a +4 or better weapon from a paladin, or throwing a gem from the pile of loot, and that was about it.

[@matthewlee8032]

Party in a city with warring noble families. Publicly aligned with one so enemies to the other 3. While exploring the harbor theres a suspicious accident where a crane drops a crate on some dockworkers and in the chaos a child runs up to them and says theres one more injured guy down this alley. Players already know its a trap. Perception check reveals to characters someone is trying to hide on a roof above the body. Wizard runs in anyway "because its what my character would do". Gets ganked immediately and then gets mad he didnt get to participate in the fight.