This is a thread to share stories of situations where you were absolutely sure a PC or PC party were leading themselves to certain death (bonus points for if you felt they were making an incredibly stupid decision leading into that), and yet somehow against all expectations they lived through it.
I can't remember the exact details, but the PCs were in the Vault of the Drow and wound up trapped in a small building. The module said that if this happened and if they didn't get out in X amount of time, I was supposed to tell them that they all fought bravely, but were eventually overcome by the sheer numbers of the drow and their minions, including all manner of summoned demons and the like.
This would have been the end of a long campaign, so I decided to at least do them the service of going down with all guns blazing, John Wayne Alamo style.
A few hours later, after they'd killed about a billion hit points worth of demons and drow, I decided that maybe the bad guys needed a morale check after all.
I had a GURPS PC survive a point-blank shot to my unprotected head.
Apparently the human skull has a DR of 3.
I had a player defeated in lone combat a mutated bear I've expected (and rolled for) would be a problem for an entire party. He started off with 2 critical hits, and the rest was history.
In Harm's Way: Pigboats Playtest - The Clusterf*ck
Sometimes something so wrong will be soooo right!
The session started with the four boats of the wolfpack beating feet out of Osaka harbor. Commander Jerkin radioed all boats to head south around Shikoku and Kyushu to get to Nagasaki. It would be a three day journey.
The next night, as they were on the surface, all four boats picked up a plane flying at the edge of the SD RADAR's range, about 6-7 miles out, dogging the pack. The commanders of the four subs were discussing this over the radio, when Cmdr. Hunt of the Remora figured they were probably eavesdropping on the sub's radio chatter. He said to Jerkin "Well the target is Oita, up to the left of the passage into the inland sea, right Commander Jerkin? Right sir?" Silence from Jerkin. "Isn't that totally correct, sir?"
Jerkin replied "Oh, uh, right! All boats, turn to starboard and head up towards Oita."
Now Hunt had meant for the Japanese plane to overhear that - which it did - and assumed Jerkin would go the other way. Jerkin didn't know how he could communicate this to the other subs without using the radio. He could have sent Morse code over the SONAR, but he decided instead to go up to the minefield across the strait and all a bullhorn conference.The subs headed into the strait and he called for the subs to gather together in front of the minefield. As they started to form a close square, the Signals officer of the Barracuda told Cmdr Montgomery that he thought he saw something fleeting and small on the scope, but couldn't tell what it was. unfortunately, Cmdr Montgomery didn't tell the others.
As they gathered and began shouting to each other in a square, the commander of the Japanese 2-man midget sub patrolling the minefield - the fleeting and small contact - couldn't believe his fortune. Here were four American subs, two overlapping two, in the most perfect close range shot he could dream of. He fired both his torpedoes, one at the leftmost sub, the other at the rightmost, and if they missed, they should definitely hit the ones behind.
The Commanders were interrupted by screams from their Signals Officers below - "Fish in the water! From starboard!" The men at the AA guns of the Seahorse and Remora, on the right hand side of the huddle, fired at the torpedoes lancing toward them, and blew both just before they hit. The explosion rocked all four subs severely to the left, throwing the XO Joe Lewis from the Seahorse's bridge; all three officers, Cmdr Montgomery, XO Tom Wiggins, and Weapons Officer Alan Peterson along with three of the four lookouts from the Barracuda's bridge; Cmdr Hunt, XO Howard, and all four lookouts from the Remora's bridge; and Cmdr Jerkin and three lookouts from the Clownfish's bridge.
In a flash, Cmdr Bullock on the Seahorse, whipped out the rope he always carried with him and lassoed Mr. Lewis, who had broken an arm and a leg in his fall, handing the line off the two of the lookouts. He ordered the other two into the rubber raft while he accelerated to starboard.
On the Barracuda, the only one left in the bridge was one lookout. He screamed "Man overboard! MEN Overboard! Hell! Everyone's overboard!" The Signals Officer called for the Engineering Officer to take command and for the ship to go forward full. He began running forward as the boat accelerated forward. Cmdr Montgomery LUCKily landed on a nearby dolphin, who allowed him to latch on. Wiggins was totally prepared for this - he was always prepared for everything - and splashed cleanly into the water, inflating his Mae West. Mr. Peterson had a rougher time, breaking his left arm and leg in the landing, but he managed to surface and dog paddle with one hand and leg.
Commander Hunt LUCKily latched onto the horns of a floating mine, as he couldn't swim a stroke, and shouted for rescue. On the Remora, XO Red Howard caught the rope rail broken off from the cigarette deck as he flew through the air, and climbed back aboard.
Cmdr Jerkin landed well and began swimming, looking for his men, but he could see nothing in the night.
All four Signals Officers informed their bridges - although no-one but a solitary lookout was on the Barracuda's bridge - that a large group of surface ships were coming up fast behind them. They had walked into the trap they had set themselves.
Red Howard ordered a shot strait back with the stern tubes, two each at two of the four old destroyers he saw speeding towards them in the aft TBT. He then ordered a right hand turn to follow the Seahorse. Two of the four torpedoes hit, sinking one ship, the other two going through the wreckage. Behind the four destroyers, a light cruiser opened fire with its six inch guns.
Bullock on the Seahorse ordered a difficult 90 degree shot from the stern tubes, sinking one destroyer and damaging another as they swerved to fire torpedoes at the American subs. Meanwhile the Quad Heavy AAs slammed into the midget sub, which sunk in a trail of bubbles, though no one was sure just what it was.
On the Clownfish, Mr. Vanderbilt ordered the deck gun to fire, sinking the damaged destroyer.
Cmdr Montgomery's Dolphin LUCKily went after the Barracuda, and caught up with her as she entered the minefield, dolphins being very fast. Cmdr Montgomery clawed his way up to the deck, panting with exertion as the Barracuda plowed into the minefield, not hitting ANYTHING through pure random chance.
Shots from the cruiser began splashing all around the Barracuda. LUCKily one banged off her hull, deflecting into the ocean. LUCKily another had a defect and curved past over the periscope shears. LUCKily, a third shot missed the Remora ahead, as the exploding destroyer under it knocked it upwards a bit. The PCs were just about out of LUCK...
The Seahorse was curving around, and loosed a salvo from its bow tubes at the last destroyer, which sank. The quad heavies shot two torpedoes out of the water. The five inch deck gun began shooting the cruiser, damaging it. The Remora also shot up torpedoes with its AA guns, and fired the front 5 inch deck gun and the rear 4 inch gun at the cruiser, hammering it and sinking it.
The Barracuda's Engineer finally got to the bridge, and panicked. He did manange to order some men aft to man the AA gun, but could not get any situational awareness of where the barracuda was and what she was doing. Cmdr Montgomery got to his feet, shouting "STOP THE BOAT! WE'RE IN A MINEFIELD!", then ran forward to the bridge. With incredible good fortune, the Barracuda still had not hit a mine. Cmdr Montgomery got to the bridge and ordered all full reverse, just in time to stop them from finally hitting one directly in their path.
The rubber boat had meanwhile picked up Hunt and Jerkin along with two lookouts. The Barracuda backed slowly the way she had come through the minefield and out. She picked up the rubber boat, and all left the area to go far out to sea, where the commanders finally got back to their boats.
This was a crazy, confusing clusterf*ck, and everyone enjoyed the hell out of it. It was one of our best gaming nights ever! the action set in right away, and never slacked off right to the end. Sometimes a screwup is the best thing that could have happened in a game!
-clash
I was playing classic World of Darkness years ago.
The group and I were being slowly pursued by this Hunter, and his harrassment went on for over a year of weekly playing. We never knew the guy's name - I found out he was a de-frocked Priest - so we all called him "Holy Joe"
At a certain point we all agreed this little asshole had achieved "Favored GM NPC-Status" and the GM was fudging to keep this little fucker alive. Not that we were going out of our way to kill the guy, quite the opposite, while he was hunting us, snooping around, he often showed up in the middle of other nasty things going on and by all rights should have died. The GM said he had "True Faith" (/wank wank) and that God was looking out for him. (GRR)
Confrontations with lupines, Sabbat, a cadre of ghoul cops (SWAT team no less), a couple of mad-scientists, a few enemy Primogen - yeah this guy survived it all. And he was getting dangerously close to killing one of us.
So finally we took over a section of Chicago - and this asshole killed one of my two ghouls that had been with me almost from day one. It had to end. "Holy Joe" had to die and I had the plan. Only the GM struck before I could.
We were so paranoid that half of the group was sleeping the days away in one another lair's. Mine happened to be in an basement beneath a coffeehouse I owned and let my thralls run. Holy Joe shows up and smashes a station wagon full of gasoline laden drums through the front window. The *entire* group was sleeping in the basement in a bunch of armored coffins (I was nostalgic). I was trying desperately to force myself awake - I blew Willpower - I could hear Holy Joe whistling as he lit the basement on fire. I kept a sawed off shotgun in my coffin and used my heightened hearing to gauge when he was close to my coffin.
I was the only one who made the wake-up roll - I burst out of the coffin, shotgun ready to go. I had *14* dice to roll, my difficulty was ONLY *4* and I won initiative...
Die asshole!!! I rolled *ZERO* successes and *SEVEN 1's*. Everyone was as startled as I was. I remember the GM smugly looking at us and saying "True Faith."
So my shotgun blew up in my face - and I Frenzied. Next thing I know - I'm horridly burned with tons of aggravated wounds. I have Derangements (I was terrified of my own supernatural powers now) - and the whole group died except me.
So it wasn't a TPK - almost...
I have a world of darkness story. New world of darkness if your wondering which version I am talking about.
Narwick is a side game setting in Wanton Wicked chat site that was pretty successful. It was heavy crossover and I only got involved at the very end of Narwick 1.0. I actually wish I shown up earlier because it was one of the few nWoD chat games that I loved playing in and I am highly picky with those. I been through so many failed nWoD chats that warrants that.
I chosen to play a mekhet khaibit vampire who is a spirit hunter with access to special spirit discipline in the book of spirits. Point is my vampire was hanging out with two other vampires at the beach till it started to rain and four guys suddenly appeared. They manage to capture us in which we got dragged into the hedge.
Yep kidnapped by changelings and they had back up with two large hobgoblins. Three of the four guys were spider men and not the marvel comic book hero kind either. Our crafty ventrue did try to use dominate with a great success. The two large hobgoblins were duking themselves and I tried to get untied. I failed, but at least the two hobgoblins knock themselves out before the leader torpor the ventrue.
Later that night one of the spider men thought it was a nice idea to torture my mekhet with a sharp rock. Of course I was too busy remove the magical hedge spun rope that was holding me. I was half way done before the spider guy move into the tent, but instead of noticing a mekhet getting untied the spider decided to remove clothing from her torso. So yeah my mekhet had another reason to get untied.
Let me interrupt here for a moment to address something. To be fair out of game I knew two things. One the ST did not want to do a rape scene which I don't blame him nor want to do that. Second it is against site policy so even if he wanted to do that he can't, or he gets ban for life from that chat. Just saying this before people go, "OMG RAPE!" So why did the spider rip off my vampire clothes? To see my vampire bleed I guess. Look I am questioning its intelligence already as my vampire is clearly half way untied. Now back to the story.
So yeah my vampire gets even more frantic with the bindings. Especially with the sharp rock hitting her back. Eventually she gets untied and waits for the spider to get close enough to bite. The spider never failed to disappoint and my vampire lunge at him with a terrible bite and blood drain. Got two turns worth of blood before spider man kicks my mekhet away and pulls off a contract. Now melee damage is going to hurt me and I am at half dice. Things were not looking good so I had to think fast.
My mekhet did the only thing she can do. She pick up that sharp rock and flung it to that changeling. She did 8 success of lethal damage to him. The luckiest throw I had ever seen. Spider man screams as it dies so now the others are alerted. My vampire tried to awaken the other vampires with her own blood to no success. Out of character those players were not on, but in character I felt like my vampire should at least try. So I had to run to warn others.
Lets just say running out of camp site of slave trading changelings and into the hedge at half dice with penalties to perception is just as bad as it sounds. I jump out of the pan and into the fire. So here is my mekhet. Lost in the hedge and pretty much blind at this point if it wasn't for the auspex benefit. Eventually by sheer luck I made it into a hollow that is guarded by a falcon hedge beast that can talk. This is where my vampire found out that goblin fruits can provide vitae as well. She made a mental note about the place.
So with hedge beast aiding her by making a deal with it the vampire goes back into the hedge. She got jump by another changeling, but with full vitae with no penalties it turns out a piss off khaibit can beat up changeling quite easily. So that changeling transform into a tiny bird and flew away.
Eventually my vampire manage to get out of the damn hedge and back into the city. A few weeks later my vampire had a pretty nice hollow that she can use for a little hide out and easy transportation. ST thought it would be too game breaking if I bought vitae producing goblin fruit, but the hedge beast pretty much became a pretty good retainer.
Quote from: The Butcher;738065I had a GURPS PC survive a point-blank shot to my unprotected head.
Apparently the human skull has a DR of 3.
Skull DR is 2. Your character may have had DR 1 Toughness which would make it 3. :)
This has been known to happen in the real world with shitty Japanese WWII officers pistols.
Quote from: The Butcher;738065I had a GURPS PC survive a point-blank shot to my unprotected head.
Apparently the human skull has a DR of 3.
Try having a metal pole completely through your head. Look up Phineas P. Gage.
Back on topic.
While not RPG related, still funny.
Locust (me) vs Atlas (not me)
Was the only one left of a squad jumped by an Atlas while we were all in little mechs, A Jenner and a few locusts. Atlas was closing in for the final kill and I was plinking away with the laser. Hit-and-run-run-run-cover-cover-cover while the Atlas pilot was getting increasingly frustrated that I was obstinately not giving up the ghost. He was rolling particularly badly and succeeded in totally missing me with two AC20 barrages, all four MLasers and the damn SRM!
Finally he clipped me with the LRM20 and blew off both legs. He came in for the kill with the AC20 and I got initiative and fired the laser in ye-ol least-act-of-defiance.
Head hit. Critical location. Pilot Killed.
Quote from: Exploderwizard;738144Skull DR is 2. Your character may have had DR 1 Toughness which would make it 3. :)
Correct on both counts. :)
Quote from: Exploderwizard;738144This has been known to happen in the real world with shitty Japanese WWII officers pistols.
Quote from: Omega;738151Try having a metal pole completely through your head. Look up Phineas P. Gage.
I know; I've worked the trauma room at a hospital in a very bad neighborhood. I've seen shit. :D Still unusual, though, and kudos to the GURPS crew for modeling this. I'd be a major GURPShead if character creation wasn't such a pain.
In a recent DCC game, my youngest player decided that he would send his 3rd level wizard totally alone into a dungeon I had designed to be quite tough for the entire six-member party. I was sure he was doomed, unless he ran like hell or hid somewhere waiting for the others. Instead he charged in there and offed everything in his path.
Session before last in Ernie's game, I had almost died victim of a werewolf ambush. Against all odds, and without silvered weapons, the party defeated the beast (a worthy mention for this thread already). A bishop of evil knew of our existence and cursed us the following night while resting at Crom Caemloch. Our party woke in the center of the fifth level of the Hobby Shop Dungeon.
We fought a manticore right away, then other critters, such as a black pudding, and we somehow survived, due in part to cunning, but mostly luck. Then the shit hit the fan: we got ambushed by a group of three trolls who surprised us from the rear. The druid Marhorn (Mark Allen's character) died as we escaped and found a secret door in extremis. A few more encounters later (with a giant slug, then kobolds), going up and up through the levels as we explored, we finally made it back to the surface. With just one casualty, but everybody in the low HPs, no more cures, nothing. A party of 2nd average level (we have level 1s, and I have the character at the highest level in the group at this moment, 4th).
I know the dungeon. It's a miracle we made it in that good a shape. Really.
For sheer blind luck....
oWoD game. A couple of Hunters are chasing the PCs. One of them Seamus the Gangrel is sitting in a McDonalds outside some hick town in Texas. He is waiting for the rest of the party who aren't going to make it (another story).
One of the Hunters is over the road packing an RPG with a custom naplam enhanced shell. He shoots he scores. First thing the PC realises is the shot coming directly towards him.
Hits, damage explodes Seamus takes 11 aggrevated damage.
Seamus has 4 points of Fortitude. He rolls 8 and 3 10s tens, explode. 6 and 2 more 10s, 8 and a 10, and a 7. The Mcdonalds is blown to crap, glass, screaming kids, fire, naplam.... Seamus walks out dusts him self off. "Not enough gun!".
And I thought I was being harsh taking out an unsuspecting PC with a aggrevated damage weapon.
I was running a CP2020 game, and the players were at the climax of a plot arc, which was a big battle going on inside an old, abandoned arco. Three of the players are up on a balcony, shooting down into the soldiers that had rappelled down from a breach point in the roof and were fighting against a corporate strike team who were in the arco for the same goal as the players.
One of the players has been playing his Rocker as a junked-out lunatic the entire time, and he started to get bored with being up on the balcony. So he turns to his Bodyguard (another player) and says "Let's head down there and bust some heads!" So the bodyguard's player says "I'll go push the button on the elevator."
The Rocker thought that would take too much time, so he took a running start, then jumped off the balcony.
"I'm going to jump across to the ropes in the middle and slide down!"
The whole group stopped. I'm not a killer GM (well.. that's a lie; I was running CP2020, so you wind up that way sort of by definition), but there's just some things that I can't let people get away with, and rampant heroism is one of them. So I started tallying all the numbers. "Don, what's Markie's Luck?" "Seven." "And you're using all of it?" "Yeah." "Ok.. so.. with everything else... that looks like about a 40 Difficulty. With all your numbers.. I'm going to need to see an 18 on the die, right now, or Markie's a grease spot."
If you're not familiar with CP, it's rolled on a d10 that explodes on a 10. So I was asking him for a 10 then an 8 or higher.. not too bad, I guess, but still long odds (about 3%).
So, beaming in the face of the party's bated breath, Don proceeded to roll a 27.
Markie sailed out into the void, coat flapping, and caught the rope one-handed, then swung down (he was wearing an armored glove and coat, so no rope burns either), landed at the bottom and danced a jig around the rope singing about how he was the Lizard King and could do anything.
The bodyguard quit right there. Just walked off the job. He wanted nothing to do with trying to protect someone who was going to risk himself like that.
Quote from: RPGPundit;738908In a recent DCC game, my youngest player decided that he would send his 3rd level wizard totally alone into a dungeon I had designed to be quite tough for the entire six-member party. I was sure he was doomed, unless he ran like hell or hid somewhere waiting for the others. Instead he charged in there and offed everything in his path.
Did that player level up for his/her troubles?
Quote from: Snowman0147;738988Did that player level up for his/her troubles?
He got quite a bit more XP than anyone else in the group that session.