Shortest game of Traveller I had ever Refereed.
The PCs had just exited jump in Regina system hoping to sell their cargo, all legit. A patrol cruiser approaches them and requests that they heave to and prepare for boarding in order to perform a routine customs inspection. My plan was to introduce the Captain of the patrol cruiser as a recurring NPC and patron. For no apparent reason, the PC Captain decided that he wanted to fight a ship twice his size with military weapons on it under the legal authority of the local government and with a shout of, "We do not recognize your right to inspect us! Open fire! All guns!" space combat ensued. Two rounds later I was looking at a TPK. To this day, I have no idea why the PCs decided to get ate up with stupid and commit suicide like this.
So share with me your own stories of Players who just got Ate Up With Stupid and really screwed themselves over.
The PCs traveled to the fae realms, where they found the aftermath of a battle between the fae and another force. The wyld was blackened and dead everywhere, sword cuts in the bodies looked festered and dead, and vegetation was completely destroyed. The invader's bodies seemed to have melted, but the PCs found a quiver of arrows nearby that had created a 20' wide dead zone just by sitting in it.
Needless to say, a little while later, one of the fired it at an orc shaman. Which was locked in combat with two PCs. The aftermath was, well, all of a sudden the two remaining PCs were recruiting people to explain why half the table was busy making new character sheets. The funny thing was the person who fired it said she figured it was a bad idea even as she told me what she was doing. Yeah.
They also buried an elemental orb that was burning through any material they put it on. For a few months. They remembered it, they just couldn't think what to do with it. Wasn't really where they left it when they went to dig it up.
Quote from: jeff37923;843875Shortest game of Traveller I had ever Refereed.
The PCs had just exited jump in Regina system hoping to sell their cargo, all legit. A patrol cruiser approaches them and requests that they heave to and prepare for boarding in order to perform a routine customs inspection. My plan was to introduce the Captain of the patrol cruiser as a recurring NPC and patron. For no apparent reason, the PC Captain decided that he wanted to fight a ship twice his size with military weapons on it under the legal authority of the local government and with a shout of, "We do not recognize your right to inspect us! Open fire! All guns!" space combat ensued. Two rounds later I was looking at a TPK. To this day, I have no idea why the PCs decided to get ate up with stupid and commit suicide like this.
So share with me your own stories of Players who just got Ate Up With Stupid and really screwed themselves over.
I remember we had a counter-terrorism scenario that took place at a local mall in one of our games (this was pre-9/11). I don't recall the precise details but I think the PCs were basically agents in charge of resolving the situation, which involved hostages and a list of demands. The player leading the effort decided to take a firm hand and the standoff ended in about five minutes with the entire mall being blown to pieces and several player characters dying in the process (we had a rescue team on the inside).
Both very old examples, over a decade ago:
After exploring a giant , abandoned Elven spire, successfully avoiding the patrols of the new dark elf masters of the whole thing (the players knew very well that there were some kind of bad guys looking for them), the players finally reach the top of the cyclopean tower, which includes the cold ashes of an old signal fire and a massive gong, one player's first reaction was "I hit the gong". Informing everyone in there that yes, there are intruders here and exactly where they are.
Same player, same campaign, different character: the group come across a paralyzed centaur impaled on an obviously magic spear. Said centaur -a demigod and the general of the forces of apocalypse - had previously appeared several times before in legends, tapestries and so on that delivered the necessary exposition for the campaign's background. The players knew that it was a demonic general and completely immortal. They even had brief telepathic contact to that thing (I felt clever and quoted AM from I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream to make absolutely clear how he thought about people). That player's immediate reaction: "I pull out that spear."
A medium combined-arms company of mercs in a battletech game (one of the players wanted to be a tank commander, so I let him), I think the heaviest 'mech was an Archer. They brush up against a (published) house Marik company of heavies (the CO drove a Battlemaster); I emphasized time and again how outclassed they were.
Six dispossessed players later, they were telling me the encounter was a dick move. One of the players insisted that it was wrong because it was unbalanced and there was no way for the party to "win". I countered with this crazy notion that sometimes you've got to back down from fights, and his contention was that I didn't "understand" RPGs.
Didn't game with him again.
Quote from: jeff37923;843875So share with me your own stories of Players who just got Ate Up With Stupid and really screwed themselves over.
I was the stupid.
Cyberpunk 2020. The corp found our hideout, and sent an AV-4 to take us out. We heard it flying up, and instead of retreating with the rest of the group, my character grabbed his assault rifle, stuck his head out the window, and sprayed bullets into the AV-4.
The AV-4 proceded to hose down the building with rockets. End of character. :D
I take that kind of stupidity as a test. The players are testing me to see if I'm a pushover in much the same way my kids and my students test me to see what they can get away with. If you cave in and let them have their way "in the interests of the game", you've lost all respect. If you stamp it out, in this case with a TPK, you've drawn the line and either they'll leave or learn to respect your game. If they leave, you've still come out on top because you really don't want to be the only pussy in a room full of dicks.
This was as a player.
Our party of around 7 or so name plus level characters had had a number of rather bruising encounters that in-game day, when after we had camped out for the night and set a rather paranoid watch up a player decided to bring in a new character. This new character tries to sneak up on our campsite and when spotted by our sentries is challenged with the call of "Friend or Foe" (we were trying to give the guy a chance). The new character replied in an omnious manner with "Friend...for now." I'll leave the rest to your imagination.
Quote from: jeff37923;843875Shortest game of Traveller I had ever Refereed.
The PCs had just exited jump in Regina system hoping to sell their cargo, all legit. A patrol cruiser approaches them and requests that they heave to and prepare for boarding in order to perform a routine customs inspection. My plan was to introduce the Captain of the patrol cruiser as a recurring NPC and patron. For no apparent reason, the PC Captain decided that he wanted to fight a ship twice his size with military weapons on it under the legal authority of the local government and with a shout of, "We do not recognize your right to inspect us! Open fire! All guns!" space combat ensued. Two rounds later I was looking at a TPK. To this day, I have no idea why the PCs decided to get ate up with stupid and commit suicide like this.
So share with me your own stories of Players who just got Ate Up With Stupid and really screwed themselves over.
It was ... SPACE MADNESS!
Quote from: Ratman_tf;843935I was the stupid.
You too, eh?
Pathfinder campaign, level 7, I'd just switched out my aer gunslinger for Azok, a half-orc oracle built to be a blind fighting tank; heavy armor proficiency, scent tracking, combat buff spells, the works. First combat was against some bandits riding gryphon-like mounts raiding a caravan we were guarding specifically to encounter them. Of course Azok couldn't just call up obscuring mist in the middle of the party - he was the only one who was any good at fighting in sightless conditions, so he sprinted out in front in the first round to set up an area of darkness without gimping everyone else.
The first enemy action was to cast lightning ball right where he'd been when he cast his spell. I failed the reflex save. And Azok is fully encased head-to-hell in heavy steel armor. Next enemy action was one of the gryphon-likes swooping down into the mist and taking a chunk out of him smooth as silk. This should have been my wake up call; sadly whoever was playing me at the time failed to roll under my wisdom. We're not even halfway through initiative in the first round and Azok's HP is already in the single digits. At this point I think the DM took pity on me; the other enemies attacked the rest of the party.
Unfortunately, in the second round I somehow got it into my head I was going to do something clever, which never works out well. I figured I'd play to his strengths and turn things around; he moved away from the bird beast but stayed in the mist and healed up a bit. On its action the gryphon-like promptly followed right to him and delivered the killing blow.
Turns out my half-orc wasn't the only creature in that combat tracked by scent. :o
An unarmoured nobleman with a rapier, hidden in the water of a marsh, witnesses a heavily armoured guy with a glaive, who meets another man and slaughters him. From the dialogue exchanged, he understands it was an act of vengeance for an unknown crime. The survivor has demontrated skill with the blade and with magic, since the system doesn't have armour impeding spellcasting and is quite influenced by GURPS, TRoS and Runequest:).
For unknown reasons, the PC decides to charge the armoured guy with his rapier, coming out of the marsh.
Without blinking so much as an eye, the GM rolls and announces that the guy intercepts him while he's still in the march up to his knees and cuts off his hand on the first attack, with the next roll being aimed at the neck, with similar results;).
The player announces that the system being playtested is stupid because it's too easy to die:D!
This is on my website (http://www.soltakss.com/stupid1.html), but could do with repeating:
Even after playing RuneQuest for 14 years, it never ceases to amaze me how stupid some characters (and players) can be. Here is a selection of the stupid things which my players have done over the years. A special mention has to be made of Andy Edgell, who played Masher and Broze Demonslayer, whose escapades, both as part of Roleplaying games and in the real world, had to be seen to be believed.
Whilst camping out on a beach in the South of Prax, the party were all asleep with the exception of Broze Demonslayer. A group of Gorps bubbled out of the sand (I had just watched Blood Beach and thought that gorps were probably funnier) and moved towards the sleeping party. Broze, who was always on single figure POW, decided to try for a POW gain roll and disrupted the gorps for a couple of rounds, allowing them to reach and engulf the party, destroying that nice iron armour. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Zak was on a scenario where the party found a pyramid and had to climb it to reach the top. Zak, being a paranoid character, decided to Spot Traps and criticaled the roll, even though it was at -100%. (He was an excellent Trap Spotter, second only to Derak "Who has the best Spot Traps? Oh, he's dead - he fell down a pit" The Dark Troll and Masher, who spotted traps by setting them off with alarming regularity, anyway I digress.) Zak saw something coating the pyramid. With a great flourish and pantomime, Ady, Zak's player, proceeded to mime himself wiping the substance off with his finger, putting it to his lips and trying a Taste Analysis - another critical roll determined the substance to be POT 20 contact poison which killed Zak. Now, Ady was a Rules Merchant par excellence and drew attention to the rule whereby Taste Analysis prevented the effects of the poison, only for the GM to elaborately pantomime the tasting of the poison with the addition of staring in surprise at the finger coated with contact poison. Ah well, you had to be there, I suppose. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
In Dorastor, the party travelled through the day and reached a great pool of Darkness which had not been there when they last passed by. Unwilling to enter the darkness at night, the party decided to camp about a mile away and investigate in the morning. They put out watches and went to sleep. When Broze Demonslayer was on watch, he became bored and decided to investigate the Pool of Darkness on his own. Off he goes for an hour or so, until he finds 20 or so Scorpion men, including a couple of Rune Lords and a Queen. Having seen them, he runs back to the camp, leading all the prepared scorpion men after him. When he arrived back, did he warn the others? No, he sat down and pretended that nothing had happened until the scorpion men charged in on a "surprise attack" and caught the party sleeping. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
After that little escapade, the party did not trust Broze to be on watch and made him wake them up at the slightest sound. I had many a happy hour as a GM having owls hooting and making him wake people up. Of course, the one time he did not wake people up the "owls" were a party of hunters signalling to each other. It's fun to be a GM sometimes. We had a scenario soon afterwards with a magic item of a bracelet with a button on it - when the button was pressed the person weraing the bracelet was awakened regardless of how deeply he was asleep. My character had first pick on the Treasure Table and I took this above all the good items, crystals and matrices available. I had a magical statue, 6 inches high, which could follow basic instructions. I ordered it to stand beside me and if anything not part of the Party came into the camp at night it was to press the button. Thus, I was protected from Broze when I was not running the scenario. Ha! Ha! It came in handy a few times, too.
The party had encountered a group of dwarfs in Balazar and stopped to talk to them. After a minute or so, the dwarfs suddenly attacked the party, for no apparent reason. What had actually happened was that one character at the back had decided to cast Disrupts at the dwarfs because "Dwarfs are always loaded". Fortunately, he was on horseback and rode off as soon as the dwarfs attacked, so he was OK. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
The party was doing an investigation scenario, where they were trying desperately to find certain clues, but were getting nowhere. Finally, they retired to the local inn to sleep and settled down in their rooms. The GM, relenting slightly, caused two NPCs to stop beneath the windows and began to talk, telling important details about the plot. Broze Demonslayer, true to form, leaned out of the window and shouted "Shut up, will you, we are trying to get some sleep". Stupid, stupid, stupid.
After I ran a scenario in Dorastor which figured a Vampire Tigerson who, when transformed into a Tiger, had STR 105 and a 7D6 damage bonus (not bad for RQ2 and fully within the rules), one of the other GMs in our campaign looked through the bestiaries and found that Were Sharks trebled their STR when they transformed, so a Vampire Were Shark would have 126 STR, or thereabouts. His next scenario was a watery one, with the Pcs on a boat in the River of Cradles. One night, there was a splash as this Vampire Were Shark swam towards the boat. Only then did the GM remember that being immersed in flowing water destroyed Vampires. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
The PCs were attacking the Tower of Lead in Dorastor, which was a Vivamort Temple in my campaign. Bolgar, Brother of the Bull, was walking with the party when he was hit by a spell effect which seemed to come from a nearby wall. He took a look and saw a small hole which he immediately Teleported through, meeting a Basilisk which he hit with his sword, cutting it down. He then peered through the holes in the basilisk's cell, looking to see what he could see. In the meantime, the basilisk had been healed (it was a sorcerer's familiar) and took a good hard look at Bolgar. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
During the same scenario, Bolgar, once again, came to a huge iron-bound door with a small grill set into it. He carefully took out a mirror and raised it near to the grill, in case there were basilisks in the room, and looked into the room through the mirror. All he saw was a room with a raised dais on which sat three empty thrones. "It's OK, the room is empty" he said and proceeded to pick the lock on the door. It was only after I had collapsed into a fit of giggles that the other PCs decided to look through the grill to see the thrones occupied by the Queen of the Tower and her two most powerful Vampires, surrounded by ten or so Vampire guards. If only I hadn't succumbed to the giggles. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Zak was on a scenario where he met a Lunar HeroQuestor who had a Moon Sword. Zak, hating all Lunars and wanting a Moonsword attacked and killed him, grabbing the Monnsword as he fell. The Lunar failed his Di, as did his allied spirit, so Zak gained a functional MoonSword (at the time they were not owner only items, this soon changed but not for this sword). He went away crowing, as only Zak could, and met up with an NPC who was someone's prisoner. I can't remember the details but the party freed him and he challenged the Wind Lords to a duel as a test of bravery and honour. Zak agreed, being the only Wind Lord, and gave him the Moon Sword to fight with (it was not attuned, was a 2 handed scimitar and the NPC would only have a 20% attack chance). "Gee, Thanks" said the NPC who rolled under his POW of 10 to bug out with the Sword. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid.
Masher was on a scenario where there was a simple trap in a room - step in a certain place and a slab of stone fell down and blocked the way out. Masher, true to form, found the trap by setting it off. As the slab of stone came down, he threw himself towards it shouting "Don't worry, I'll stop it" and put both his hands under the slab. Have you ever tried to catch a slab of granite 6 inches thick, 15 feet high and 10 feet long? What happens is that the granite proceeds to hit the ground with a satisfying thus, leaving behind a Great Troll with two bloody stumps. We laughed and laughed. Then, Masher tried to pick the slab up by glueing his stumps to the stone. We couldn't play for about ten minutes afterwards. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Several over the years, all of them resulting from a player mindset of "what repercussions?".
Shortest version, Traveller: One player had two PCs (twins). The party had been tracking down/chasing someone who had sabotaged their ship and finally caught up to him. Chase scene ensues, ending up on a subway car full of people. It looks like the bad guy is about to get away, so the twins open fire on him.
With shotguns.
They ended up serving life sentences on a Prison Planet, and it's still talked about today as an example of what NOT to do...
I was the DM, and rather than a description, I'll just give you an actual quote:
"Yeah, I like this plan. Let's spend a night in the village and then pretend we have the Plague. I wonder why it didn't work."
Note: what the party was trying to achieve involved the cooperation of the village and did NOT involve torch or pitchfork.
AD&D 1e many years ago (I was the DM). The three PCs enter an underground temple of obvious evil. There is a corridor with two openings on the sides, and a large opened bronze door at the end. There is noise coming from one of the side openings. PCs look carefully and discover four or five orcs digging a room, their backs facing the opening (so they don't see the PCs). Seeing they have the advantage, the PCs decide a surprise attack... and enter SCREAMING like madmen. Fight ensue, but now it's the PCs whose backs face the opening (so they cannot see who may come). Unknowingly to them, there was an orc cleric in the room beyond the bronze door... The screams alert him; he comes and casts Hold Person. The three PCs fail their save... :rolleyes: Then the orc cleric slits their throats, ending the adventure in a TPK less than one hour after beginning the session.
Forges of Nuln. The PCs in my campaign were investigating the possibility of some kind of chaos conspiracy surrounding the construction of the largest and most powerful cannon ever made by the Empire. They suspect the cannon may be sabotaged. They know there's a cult involved and some bizarre murders.
The day of the Cannon's first presentation and firing, and they haven't been able to get the authorities to listen to them. They get to the bridge where the cannon is going to be fired. I'm thinking at this point "huh.. are they going to try to stop the firing? That's bold!"
No.
They just stand there, watching, as close to the front row as possible, waiting like idiots at ground zero with the full knowledge that something awful is all but certain to happen.
Later on, after the cannon blows up, shoots warpstone everywhere, and two of the PCs are dead and the rest royally screwed, the players all come to agree that it was the weirdest thing that ever happened, like they all KNEW it was a terrible idea but somehow just all had a collective brain-freeze of any common sense.
Hrm. I can think of a number of instances as a GM where a single player has been eaten by the stupid, but I can't think of any instance where an entire party abandoned all common sense.
I must be lucky.
Quote from: Werekoala;844021Several over the years, all of them resulting from a player mindset of "what repercussions?".
Shortest version, Traveller: One player had two PCs (twins). The party had been tracking down/chasing someone who had sabotaged their ship and finally caught up to him. Chase scene ensues, ending up on a subway car full of people. It looks like the bad guy is about to get away, so the twins open fire on him.
With shotguns.
They ended up serving life sentences on a Prison Planet, and it's still talked about today as an example of what NOT to do...
We had one of those except it involved white phosphorous grenades and a spaceport.
That would be me and my peeps, at our first Traveller game. Circa Jan-Feb 1978.
Exiting the service we successfully hijack an 800 ton Imperial Merchant by bypassing the airlock security system to gain access to the bridge. We space the crew in a lifeboat, and fly off to another subsector where we begin our browncoat survivalist career, ...only the Imperium Navy has been notified of our 'piracy'.
As we take on a full cargo load and proceed to exit the newest Spinward Marches system we are in, we are intercepted by three (3) Imperium Heavy Cruisers all 800-1,000 tons. After a short fight instead of ejecting in the lifeboats and making our way overland on the planet below us, we heed the Imperium Navy call to 'surrender', after our starship is shot up.
The public executions of the 'Pirates' by the Imperial Navy on the planets surface a couple of days later were magnificent.
Shortest RPG game I ever played. We played less than an hour before I had to roll up a new character... a character who died about three hours later after being run over by an Armored Car on some planet where we dropped in on a Civil War in progress.
One of our party received got a scout ship as a mustering out benefit on the second go round. Things went somewhat better after that, but character creation wasn't the only place in Traveller where characters died fast and gruesome deaths.
Last session of AD&D a couple weeks ago.
We're playing the Oasis of the White Palm, exploring a heavily trapped and warded tomb complex. We find a treasure trove that includes a necklace. We've found a couple cursed items already. Remember, this is AD&D.
Kevin: I pick up the necklace. What does it look like?
DM: It has stylized designs on a pattern of interlaced gold. It looks valuable.
Kevin: Hmm. Maybe I should try it on.
Me: You're not really going to put the Necklace of Strangulation on, are you? Seriously?
Kevin: Actually, I want to check it out. I put it on.
DM: It is, in fact, a Necklace of Strangulation. You take 10 HP of damage a round. There's nothing you can do to remove it. Five rounds pass and you're dead.
Me: [Laughing until tears roll down my cheeks].
Quote from: Haffrung;844623DM: It is, in fact, a Necklace of Strangulation. You take 10 HP of damage a round. There's nothing you can do to remove it. Five rounds pass and you're dead.
Now this is exactly the sort of thing that I hate in RPGs.
5 rounds of "nothing you can do"?
Prise it off with crowbars
Pour lamp oil around it and try to slide it off
Get strong fighters to stick their fingers in it and pull it open
Try to hack it off with an axe (admittedly, a risky strategy, but better than dying)
Or, my favourite, hacking your head off, removing the necklace and applying a mega-heal to put your head back on.
I would much prefer to run around like a soon-to-be-headless chicken for 5 rounds, trying to get the damn thing off than being told there's nothing I can do.
Quote from: soltakss;844666Now this is exactly the sort of thing that I hate in RPGs.
5 rounds of "nothing you can do"?
Well, not quite 'nothing you can do'. AFAIK, in most versions of D&D it takes a
wish spell to remove the damn thing.
QuotePrise it off with crowbars
Pour lamp oil around it and try to slide it off
Get strong fighters to stick their fingers in it and pull it open
Try to hack it off with an axe (admittedly, a risky strategy, but better than dying)
None of that stuff works, though.
QuoteOr, my favourite, hacking your head off, removing the necklace and applying a mega-heal to put your head back on.
That'd probably work. :)
We played a fantasy game (I think it was set in GM's own universe) where my young shape shifting fox spirit (with all 9 tails) is adventuring. She explores tunnel on her own and sees a tomb (sealed with all kinds of ancient curses and scriptures describing someone who is essentially a roughly similar person to Witch King of Angmar of Tolkien's novels) with a following text on top of grave: "If I would live, you would tremble."
My characters first thought: "Great, I'll raise him up and ask him to teach me sorcery!"
The look on GMs face was priceless. He never saw it coming...
Quote from: Nikita;844687My characters first thought: "Great, I'll raise him up and ask him to teach me sorcery!"
The look on GMs face was priceless. He never saw it coming...
But, it's so obvious! That's what I would do.
Quote from: Haffrung;844623DM: It is, in fact, a Necklace of Strangulation. You take 10 HP of damage a round. There's nothing you can do to remove it. Five rounds pass and you're dead.
I don't play with asshole GMs ... not more than once, anyway.
I was running Stars without Number and the party come across an pre scream space station. They got the environmental controls working. Just as the station became pressurized the morons blow out the walls killing everyone by means of explosive decompression. Than they went all social justice warrior on me threatened to give me a beat down, "It wasn't fair I killed of all their precious characters and ruined their universal oneness. I never gamed with them again.
Quote from: Ravenswing;844719I don't play with asshole GMs ... not more than once, anyway.
Nothing asshole about it - simply playing AD&D by the book. The 'you can't do anything about it' was because it was the end of the night, we were getting ready to pack it in, and the DM knew that there wasn't anything the player could do. And we're all long-time friends, so everyone had a good laugh over it. This was the fourth PC death in the adventure, and nobody ever complained.
Quote from: Haffrung;844723Nothing asshole about it - simply playing AD&D by the book. The 'you can't do anything about it' was because it was the end of the night, we were getting ready to pack it in, and the DM knew that there wasn't anything the player could do. And we're all long-time friends, so everyone had a good laugh over it. This was the fourth PC death in the adventure, and nobody ever complained.
And YOU as another player actually called it. Can't blame that on the DM. Clearly players knew about cursed treasure, and one tried to talk the other out of doing something stupid.
At least everybody got a good laugh out of it.
Quote from: soltakss;844019Now, Ady was a Rules Merchant par excellence and drew attention to the rule whereby Taste Analysis prevented the effects of the poison, only for the GM to elaborately pantomime the tasting of the poison with the addition of staring in surprise at the finger coated with contact poison.
If he'd just licked the pyramid, would you have let him rules lawyer his way out of it? :D
Quote from: soltakss;844666Or, my favourite, hacking your head off, removing the necklace and applying a mega-heal to put your head back on.
Quote from: K Peterson;844682That'd probably work. :)
An ideal opportunity to try out the Head of Vecna (http://www.blindpanic.com/humor/vecna.htm)!
Quote from: Kellri;843946I take that kind of stupidity as a test. The players are testing me to see if I'm a pushover in much the same way my kids and my students test me to see what they can get away with. If you cave in and let them have their way "in the interests of the game", you've lost all respect. If you stamp it out, in this case with a TPK, you've drawn the line and either they'll leave or learn to respect your game. If they leave, you've still come out on top because you really don't want to be the only pussy in a room full of dicks.
Amen to this. I wish more GMs understood this. Once you back down from the TPK they've brought down on themselves, you may as well as just give everyone max XP and a +5 sword and call it a day.
Quote from: Ravenswing;844567Hrm. I can think of a number of instances as a GM where a single player has been eaten by the stupid, but I can't think of any instance where an entire party abandoned all common sense.
I must be lucky.
Yeah, in my case it only ever happened once; but boy was it stupid.