First off, I don't really care if my PCs die. I just like them to die as a big bad hero, preferably by saving someone's bacon from the fire.

Today, playing a D&D game, I might have set a new personal record for being completely useless. No actually, make that next to useless.

The group gets a high level NPC to teleport them into a location that they think some hostages are being held. Scrying helped them track down the big bad to a valley some considerable distance away from the PCs.

The problem is that there was some kind of anti-magic effect going on at the targeted location and the PCs are redirected into a trap. This was going to suck.

The group manifests into a 30' deep wide circular pit. Surrounding the pit are four 40' high circular towers. Each tower has two archers on top of it.

We all have to make a saving throw to avoid disorientation effects from the teleporting mishap. Of course I fail my damn roll like three times in a row. So the effect on my PC is that he takes two knees and barfs his guts out for 18 seconds. This is just enough time to get two arrows in the back while the rest of the party is trying to get out of the pit with climbing gear.

Finally, my Fighter stops hurling and manages to follow the thief up his rope. Just as my Fighter is about to crest the ridge of the pit, two more arrows slam into his back taking him into la la land. That's right, a 25' fall back into the pit.

My Fighter bleeds out while lying in his own vomit, not having done a damn thing for the night. Useless... no near useless... since I guess he did manage to soak up about ten enemy attack attempts before dying at the bottom of the pit.

The only death that I can think of that might be more embarassing would be the story I read about someone getting knifed in the junk by a Leprechaun and left to bleed out.

It was just one of those nights where you didn't know whether to laugh or cry.


Do you have any sad stories to share about your PCs: Stories where you just didn't have any luck the entire game or where you had a quick and gruesome death early in the session?

Quote from: PaladinCA;358586It was just one of those nights where you didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

There are days when you're straight outa The Savage Sword of Conan and days when you're straight out of Oglaf.com (NSFW NSFW NSFW!).

Both can be equally entertaining.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;358587There are days when you're straight outa The Savage Sword of Conan and days when you're straight out of Oglaf.com (NSFW NSFW NSFW!).

Both can be equally entertaining.

This is true. I was certainly entertained. I laughed so hard my sides were hurting. Combined with the heartburn from my slow cooked BBQ Beef, I was in a world of pain. It was great.

Glad to hear this was entertaining for you!

I didn't take it so well when, on pretty much consecutive sessions, my hefty barbarian managed to be knocked out on single blows to the head at the commencement of the big fight. What annoyed me, I suppose, was that I'd pretty much created the character to "break the mold" of other character's I'd been playing with the group. Which is to say, he wasn't supposed to be a sneaky trickster. And here he was, f***ing up at the thing that he was supposed to be good at.

I think those incidents were probably a factor in the GM going back to the drawing board with the homebrew system he was using; it was a lot more satisfying after that.

Well, sometimes the dice results are so miserable that you can't do a damn thing about it. Better to laugh at the rotten luck I think...  Not that it wasn't frustrating to spend the rest of the game session doing nothing at all.

While the gang and I were batting 'bout the 2nd ed. AD&D long ago, I had a dwarf type who would fumble nearly every 3rd roll.  Consistently.  And it didn't matter what the roll was for either.

I simultaneously got annoyed at the dice (many d20 would be tossed into the parking lot with a cry of, "You've failed me for the last time," which got me a passel new d20s from the group that Christmas) and torturous of the character as I put him in situations where rolling would be required, like jumping from a wagon at a pursuing rider on horseback and so on.  But the damn dwarf wouldn't die!

I can feel your pain, the 3.5 group I'm in is running through the Shackled City AP, and I spend about the first half of the last session rolling up a new char...  my old one isn't dead, just that he is stuck in a prison plane and they have no way to get to him...  It was interesting rolling up a new pc without a computer, it's been awhile. I certainly missed etools a time or two.