Dumbest thing you've ever had a player do?, Or that you have done as a player? Options

[Vegetaman]

After playing D&D v3.5 in college for a few years, I finally convinced that group of guys that I should run a game of SR3 for us (as I was having an itch to be a GM). So I set it all up, we had 4 players in a decently balanced group. The dwarf weapons specialist, the troll street samurai, the human martial artist, and an the elven mage.

So, second mission out (first mission was just a light bar fight altercation and a tussle to capture a small time gang leader in the Barrens)... Our elven mage, with a body of 1, decides that she doesn't need to wear armor because she wants to "strut her stuff" in a leather bikini. AND she wants to stand right in front of the door...

Elevator door opens after these guys just shot up the lobby of a mid-tier megacorp (I couldn't believe they'd pull out unsilenced weapons after 15 minutes of bothering with sneaking around, but hey, that's ANOTHER story (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif) ) and the two security guys on the guard station across from the elevator open fire with pistols.

Poor little elven mage gets deep sixed by the most disgusting rolls I have ever seen and had to hand of god her way out of it (I didn't have any ideas on how to handle it gracefully, so I let fate happen to have a poor wageslave walk in front of the door and get blasted by their own corp security). (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

[SpellBinder]

Mentioned it a few times before around here, but I'll gladly say it again. In SR4a, had a magician player overcast at Force 10 a ball lightning spell at someone less than three meters away. Drain didn't knock him out, but his own electrical damage did... Along with the entire opposition, hostage, and his teammates.

[Critias]

Not sure if it was the dumbest, but it was the most unlucky.

I once had a Troll Combat Mage (archetype, in SR3) player decide that winging a concussion grenade around in an urban firefight was a great idea, despite not being any good at it. The team was in a few intersecting hallways, and he managed to screw the pooch pretty hard and land it square in the middle of them. Chunky salsa rules for the hallway containing (and rebounding) the blast, and next thing everyone knew, they'd all taken Deadly Stun (and several of them, having already been plinked and roughed up a bit, were overflowing well into Physical damage). Whole team was down, Troll included, in one kablooey.

And all because he didn't want to worry about the drain of a Stunball.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Leatherkinis attract bullet magnets, heheheheh.

On the topic of stupid...




I had a run (which was itself a sub-run of another Run,) where the Ancients wanted the players to hijack a Vory shipment containing an untagged, stolen military nanofax. The nanofax was coming up on a container ship from south america, so they had a few days to plan. I (and the Ancients) were expecting them to 'jack the truck in heavy traffic under an overpass or something.

They decided they would just switch the routing info so the container got put on a different truck of their chosing, and they could then hijack that truck. It's not easy to hijack a rigger's big-rig in a Vory convoy. It's a lot easier to hijack an unmanned Wal-Mart truck that has mistakenly had the wrong ISO shipping container placed on its back; or they could have even used a tractor trailer they had hijacked from a hacker group who had hijacked it much earlier.

Well, it was a bit of a tricky challenge; I decided that there was a two-key routing authentication on the containers, with a backup third key. Basically, the ship's manifest, and the container's RFID tag. If they matched, null sheen, it went on the truck. If they didn't match, they were checked against a backup copy of the manifest at the shipping company's HQ (under much heavier IC, of course,) and whichever destination had a two-out-of-three agreement it went to. (If all three disagreed, then the ship's skipper had to get involved.)

They had a plan. It was tricky, but it could have worked. The plan was to have the team's hacker, an AI in powerful Rating 7 hardware, hack the ship and change its manifest, then have a Force 6 Spirit of Air fly out the cyberninja to the ship while it was at sea off the coast of CalFree so he could swap the RFID.

I spent rather a lot of time detailing the ship, its crew, its security set-up. Specifically, I noted that the ship's spider was a former 'runner using heavy metal hardware, and if any of the crew got involved with the cyber-ninja, it would be a Scottsman Adept practicing the caber toss for the Seattle Highland Games. So the cyber-ninja could have theoretically wound up having a telephone pole hurled at him.

The hacker's turn to hack came up. The AI snuck in, started sniffing around; the security set-up was very, very good, but she was hot enough to slice through it undetected. She scanned the ship's node, and found that the security spider had hacked herself an Admin account, not content with the Security access she had been given by the company. She also found the manifest, scanned it for a data bomb, defused a data bomb on it, corrected it the way they wanted it corrected.

That was it: just scrub the trail and leave, right? Well, no. She decides to edit the accounts file, to demote the hacked admin account to a security account. In doing so, she sets off a data bomb and alerts the spider, who jacks in, and IC was auto-launched.

Cybercombat was engaged in. Did I mention that this AI's first, last, and only recourse in cybercombat was "BLACK HAMMER!" So she immediately escalates to lethal force against someone she had no reason to pick a fight with (she did that earlier, too, spilled some teenage hacker's brains out for no reason whatsoever,) and starts to get the upper hand because, hey, AI, and she twinked out using the Cascading attack options and others which I really shouldn't have let her have. Some lucky rolls allow the security spider to stay alive for a round of combat, and she realizes she isn't going to win, so she sends a command to physically open the breaker to the ship's communications array, severing the connection and preventing the AI from killing her.

Naturally, of course, this put the ship on high alert, and since the records weren't scrubbed, they knew exactly which container the hacker had messed with. And since the ship's captain knew it was full of something illegal (though he didn't know what,) and since the loss of communications and the overt attack meant a Firewatch team was hired to secure the ship and get it safely to port, they dumped the container overboard and scrubbed it vigorously from their logs.

All because the AI decided to frag with someone she had no reason to frag with, just to wag her matrix peen. That's how the group's Run went from "Oh drek, this is gonna be nasty" to "this is gonna be a piece of cake" to "now we're on a plane to San Fransisco with an Ancients Lieutenant to hire a boat to take us up the coast."

[Vegetaman]

That concussion grenade story reminds me of my human street samurai tossing a white phosphorus grenade and somebody else tossing a frag grenade in an apartment building during combat. I'm amazed it didn't kill us all (it nearly did though), but the run quickly fell apart after that incident...

Leatherkinis attract bullet magnets, heheheheh.

On the topic of stupid...

That was it: just scrub the trail and leave, right? Well, no. She decides to edit the accounts file, to demote the hacked admin account to a security account. In doing so, she sets off a data bomb and alerts the spider, who jacks in, and IC was auto-launched.

That's the sort of things that cause other runners to murder their team mates... Or at least put them in a bag and toss 'em in the sound.

[FuelDrop]

That's the sort of things that cause other runners to murder their team mates... Or at least put them in a bag and toss 'em in the sound.

Kinda difficult with an AI, i suppose...

[GiraffeShaman]

I had a player in second edition that decided to make a character around the concept that he had a really cool car, "similar to Kitt from Knight Rider." to quote him. He wasn't really a rigger either. Just a merc/street sam type. But he did blow hundreds of thousands of nuyen on this thing. I don't recall the mechanical details, but you can imagine. And it was feasible to have a character start with 1,000,000 nuyen back then.

Anyway, he had a second character, an elven sniper, that he had played more. One game he got it in his head that not only does he like this sniper character better, and he's played him more and thus has more karma with him, but damn, that's a really cool car. Wouldn't it be great if he could somehow combine the sniper and the cool car?

So yes, naturally he decides to murder the "cool car character" with his elven sniper. (We always play our current games in Seattle in the same timeframe) So of course not wanting to lose my GM Guild membership, I allow him to kill his other character, then immediately have Lonestar arrest the elven sniper, removing both his characters from the campaign.

[MaxMahem]

I've a number of dump player stories, but after discussing it with my fellow players, I think this one takes the cake.

I gave a full breakdown here, but basically a character managed to get himself arrested before the very first meet with the Johnson of the very first run of the campaign.

How you ask? Well he thought it would be a good idea to go for a ride on the NYC subway into Central Park with a huge troll bow thrown over his shoulder and in a gillie suit. Technically at the time, the Troll bow was not illegal, but his absurdly powerful cybearm was. So the NYPD busted him for the arms.

[FuelDrop]

I've a number of dump player stories, but after discussing it with my fellow players, I think this one takes the cake.

I gave a full breakdown here, but basically a character managed to get himself arrested before the very first meet with the Johnson of the very first run of the campaign.

How you ask? Well he thought it would be a good idea to go for a ride on the NYC subway into Central Park with a huge troll bow thrown over his shoulder and in a gillie suit. Technically at the time, the Troll bow was not illegal, but his absurdly powerful cybearm was. So the NYPD busted him for the arms.

I was going to make a pun about him being 'armless, but all things considered...
Hold on, he was bringing a Ghillie suit to a meet? You know, the places where the Jonson is conducting 'legitimate business' without attracting attention?

[MaxMahem]

I was going to make a pun about him being 'armless, but all things considered...
Hold on, he was bringing a Ghillie suit to a meet? You know, the places where the Jonson is conducting 'legitimate business' without attracting attention?

I tried to cut the player as much slack as humanly possible. This wasn't his first game of Shadowrun, but his first in a while. He persisted in his course of action despite multiple chance to abort.

[Draco18s]

Posted this one in the other thread.

New player, run to destroy an R&D project at a fireworks factory. We blew up their project (and yes, it was an explosive). Building on fire and all of us running for the exit with Lone Star all of 2 minutes away, the newbie says, "I'm going to use my grenades and rig up some traps."

Yeah.

He makes it out of the building and tries to steal a car. He sees one of the other PCs--a mage, IIRC--and essentially kidnaps her, gets her to cast a that spell that alters your clothing (so he looked like a fireman) tries to bluff his way past the cops and fire crew, then tries to hijack a moving car, whereupon the mage cast Alter Memory on him and started screaming for help.

He was arrested for arson, which he confessed to, as having "woken up and decided to blow up a fireworks factory." He didn't get to resist the spell for another 6 months. We worked it out to be two years before he recovered his original memories.

Just about every decision the player made post-setting-the-building-on-fire was a bad one.

[Eratosthenes]

I've a number of dump player stories, but after discussing it with my fellow players, I think this one takes the cake.

I gave a full breakdown here, but basically a character managed to get himself arrested before the very first meet with the Johnson of the very first run of the campaign.

How you ask? Well he thought it would be a good idea to go for a ride on the NYC subway into Central Park with a huge troll bow thrown over his shoulder and in a gillie suit. Technically at the time, the Troll bow was not illegal, but his absurdly powerful cybearm was. So the NYPD busted him for the arms.

I was in a game where that happened, except the meet was in a club, and the bouncers were being...difficult...and wouldn't let the ork in. So he attacks them. One ork, two trolls.

He spent some time downtown for that.

[CanRay]

Once watched a Troll Tank almost die from a bottle of purgative.

[RHat]

Once watched a Troll Tank almost die from a bottle of purgative.

AKA "Canray's Favourite Story"?

[tasti man LH]

This story comes from during my first time ever playing in a TRPG, and is thus far the only campaign I was a player (since as of late I've been mostly GMing...although that should change soon since now my group is going to try the whole "cycling through different GMs" thing).

This particular game was a round of D&D 4E

*large amount of boos*

Oh, CALM DOWN! Be a good sport, dangit!

So our DM was running us through Keep on the Shadowfell. So we were inside the Keep, and we reached one of the caves inside it. At first glance, the cave looked like it was completely empty. And, naturally, our curiosity was enough to keep up inside the room instead of saying "screw it" and just moving on into the next room.

Our first stupid mistake was to violate the golden rule of D&D 4E: "Don't split the party". We all spread out in the room looking for whatever we were supposed to be finding. When it looked like we weren't finding anything and how weird it was, I said something along the lines of "Well, unless if they're all on the ceiling..."

To which our DM started laughing.

And somehow, everyone else thought this wasn't an issue and continued doing what they were doing.

And soon, our DM dropped a shit-ton of bugs on us, because sure enough, they were all hanging out on the ceiling, waiting for their next meal to come by.

I don't completely remember what happened after that, although I do know for a fact that none of our characters died. I think my character (a half-orc ranger, for those that are wondering) got close to dying, but he pulled out ok. I think one other character got close to dying, but that was about it. Naturally, there were issues in that we were all spread out over the cave, but we were eventually able to regroup and smash up the bugs. Thankfully, a good chunk of them were minions, so they dropped with one good solid hit.

Lessons I learned that night:

-If the D/GM starts laughing, and it isn't at a joke someone told or if he isn't pouring over funny YT videos, be prepared for rolling thunderous death.
-Never. Split. The fucking. Party. In D&D 4th.
-Perception tests are awesome and a much needed skill. In every single TRPG ever. No exceptions.

[ElFenrir]

Well, as my signature said, the Magnetic Hands incident, which we always now call the 'six losing options.'

So the party involved...well, okay, there wasn't a party involved with the incident which is what the problem was. I had an albino troll big game hunter, more of a sniper specialist, though he came and went from the game because I worked a weird schedule at the time(before I couldn't really play in it at all, maybe a handful of times.) My buddy played a heavy weapons guy(also a big game hunter.) There was another mage(who was more of a huge dude who could hit really hard with a sword and loved fire spells), and then the other guy, the cybermage. He was the one who took part in the incident.

Essentially, there was a ransom incident with that character's sister. There was also a nest of griffon eggs on a very high up plateau somewhere. Now these eggs could have fetched a lot of nuyen. So, naturally, rather than asking the party for help(and people would have), he decided to go up there alone. Now he was well armed. He was a Sorcerer, with some good physical 'ware, had things like hand razors for melee, a really kick ass SMG for a gun, and a lot of offensive spells. He also had some goofy 'ware, like an oral whip, magnetic hands, and other odds and ends. He was a capable character-but still, some stuff you just don't do alone. (He also lacked an Athletics skill. That's important to know for later. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) )

So he decided to go alone to this plateau. First off, a baby griffon appears(no parents there yet.) It squeaks at him. He proceeds to blow it away with explosive burst-fire. Okay, laughter and facepalming ensue. He gets the eggs in a bag.

An enemy team ended up tracking him(he didn't pay much attention) and is up there in a helicopter, and they demand for him to throw them the eggs. Now, he had several options open to him here.(He already picked the first losing option by not taking the team with him.)

A. Hand them over.

B. Use some of the explosive burst-fire to possibly gun down several of the people inside-the copter itself had no weapons on it.

C. Possibly negotiate. (He had no Negotiation skill.)

D. Launch a big nice AoE spell into the copter, probably messing them all up severely, even if it was a Stunball.

...He picked 'E', which was do a running jump to the helicopter to grab onto the rails with no Athletics skill.

Oookay. So the GM, my buddy(they're all very close friends of mine, btw, so everyone else was sort of watching in curious horror at what was unfolding), is trying to be nice to he decides it's close enough that he can make it on a low roll. He misses the actual floor of the copter but then hangs onto the rail. However, his Magnetic Limbs are not too awesome at holding up his rather heavily cybered body. So the combat mage in the helicopter actually *offers his hand* because hey, they don't want to lose the eggs, they get him in the copter, they get the eggs, he lives.

...He proceeds to then use his Oral Whip on the combat mage, which was nicknamed 'french kissing the combat mage.' This did nothing since it wasn't monofilament or anything and the mage had an armor jacket on.

He THEN decides, again, with no Athletics skill, to try to swing UP into the helicopter.(Nickname: the Sanctuary Swing.) Well, this time the roll didn't go so well so he started falling. So the GM makes one more attempt to save him by having a friendly pilot nearby hovering there trying to maybe grab him. Hey, we play pretty cinematic. Well, he misses, and ends up what is essentially giving the guy a high-five on his way down to the water below, which we now affectionately call the 'High-Five Dive.'

And so it ended. None of us could figure out why he managed to pick every single terrible option open to him. It's like he *invented* terrible options to pick. This was during a 2e game around...1996 and we still laugh about it to this day. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[Sendaz]

A run gone south ended up with a firefight on a fuel dump near the corp research lab. I figured they could blow it to cover their escape.

They blew it up alright,

while still in the middle of it.

I repeatedly warned them about the fuel drums and other flammable/explosive items all around them, but for some reason they had holed up in the middle of it all thinking they could blow it all up and ride it out inside a thrown together shelter of a flipped over truck and a few pallets.

The flames could be seen about 10 miles away and the shockwave broke out the window of the nearby lab a quarter of a mile off.

[toturi]

A run gone south ended up with a firefight on a fuel dump near the corp research lab. I figured they could blow it to cover their escape.

They blew it up alright,

while still in the middle of it.

I repeatedly warned them about the fuel drums and other flammable/explosive items all around them, but for some reason they had holed up in the middle of it all thinking they could blow it all up and ride it out inside a thrown together shelter of a flipped over truck and a few pallets.

The flames could be seen about 10 miles away and the shockwave broke out the window of the nearby lab a quarter of a mile off.

Actually it doesn't sound all silly once you read the reasoning for why they did it.

Many of the stories don't actually sound silly once you realise that there seemed to be a mismatch between the game the GM is running and the game the player/s are playing.

[CanRay]

AKA "Canray's Favourite Story"?

It's become so, yes. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Stahlseele]

I had my Troll try and box against a Feathered Serpent.

[Draco18s]

I should regale Dumpshock with the story of Beartown sometime. It still makes the player groan in shame.
(To be fair, it was totally in character)

[Barticus]

Player characters were trying to infiltrate a Corp facility without being detected and came upon a security guard making the rounds. The Street Sam decided he had had enough with all this sneaking stuff and declared he was going to shoot the wage slave with his silenced predator. The silenced predator with the ex explosive ammunition. The run did not go well although the PCs survived (barely) by running away deciding that their lives were more valuable than their street cred.

[Method]

Player: *knock knock* "Room Service"
<scilence>
Badguys: <Gunshots through door>
Player: "What page is character generation on again?"

[Aberrant]

While totally in character, this is my moment of IC shame. 4E. Heavily cybered AND drugged up Elven Sam named Jacknife. We're on what should be a milk run to show a Japanese Porn starlet a good time around Tokyo. However, a Kitsune decides to play doppleganger and tag along.

Now, Jacknife was grad-a Bang bang in a fight. But he was low on brains and high on cram. After getting sick of tryign to differentiate the two (we were without an awakened PC for the run) he decides he has had enough and just shoots the one he was pretty sure was the shifter in the head.

He chose... poorly.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Player characters were trying to infiltrate a Corp facility without being detected and came upon a security guard making the rounds. The Street Sam decided he had had enough with all this sneaking stuff and declared he was going to shoot the wage slave with his silenced predator. The silenced predator with the ex explosive ammunition. The run did not go well although the PCs survived (barely) by running away deciding that their lives were more valuable than their street cred.

Well... The bullets were silent when they left the barrel!

Personally, I just assume that every character has the common sense trait without paying for it: if someone is doing that, I'll just flat-out say "You're firing explosive rounds - they make noise, you realize that, right? That's going to defeat the point of the silencer."

Player: *knock knock* "Room Service"
<scilence>
Badguys: <Gunshots through door>
Player: "What page is character generation on again?"

That's... Not really a stupid player trick if they were actually in a hotel.

While totally in character, this is my moment of IC shame. 4E. Heavily cybered AND drugged up Elven Sam named Jacknife. We're on what should be a milk run to show a Japanese Porn starlet a good time around Tokyo. However, a Kitsune decides to play doppleganger and tag along.

Now, Jacknife was grad-a Bang bang in a fight. But he was low on brains and high on cram. After getting sick of tryign to differentiate the two (we were without an awakened PC for the run) he decides he has had enough and just shoots the one he was pretty sure was the shifter in the head.

He chose... poorly.

Wait, wait, wait...

So you had a porn star and her kitsune doppleganger and their first idea wasn't to rent a studio and film some twincest?