Really Bad Decisions, Retardedness you've witnessed ingame Options

[ElFenrir]

I am HOPING someone has a worse story than this one.

Happened in a campaign a couple years ago. Party consisted of:

Hermetic mage/sword expert, human
Cyber-sorcerer, human, and the one who ended up FUBAR
Human heavy weapons expert
Troll hunter/rifleman, big game hunter(me)


It was a different type of campaign, we were all critter-hunters rather than typical shadowrunners.

Well, stuff lead up to a situation involving griffons, and these griffon eggs in a mountain. Apparently a hostile groupe wanted the eggs for some reason...we were supposed to get them also. Would have been better if we all went to the cliffs together of course, in case hostile group attacked...we had faced them two nights before, managed to cut down their numbers by 2, but the decker, combat mage, and one other member of the group remained.

So, the cyber-sorcerer gets the bright idea to go to the mountain himself for the eggs...he wanted to sell one or two of them for nuyen to pay ransom for his kidnapped sister. Noble enough intent, sure, but he went about this allll wrong.

Rather than explaining to the rest of the group what happened(we'd probably had been willing to help!), he goes alone to the cliff.

First thing he does is grab the eggs...the parents were not present at the moment(i guess the GM was being easy on him), but there was a baby. It was tiny, it flew up and it squeaked at him. It was harmless.

His answer?

Shots of explosive ammo from his heavy pistol.

Group: :|

Ok. So after the brutal slaying of the harmless baby griffon, he takes the eggs and leaves the cave. A helicopter was waiting for him outside. In it was a pilot, the decker, other group member and the combat mage. They said to hand over the eggs.

He could have used said heavy pistol to blow hole in combat mage...he had Wired Reflexes 1, a good pistol skill, and the combat mage was the SR2 archetype...he could have easily gone first, and in SR2, he could have gone AGAIN, taking out the pilot probably, and crashing chopper. Or he could have mana bolted the pilot. They were hostile toward him, making it clear if he didnt hand over eggs he'd die. Or he could have handed over the eggs. He had many options. What did he do?

He attacks combat mage with his Oral Whip.

Group: :|

Ok, so after leaving a small scrach on mages arm, I guess he found it too amusing to drop him dead on the spot...so he asks again.

The player then proceeded to announce he was going to jump onto the helicopter. With no athletics skill.

Group: :sleepy:

Unsuprisingly he does not make it and is now hanging onto the rungs of the thing. They have him now, they could have helped him in if he agreed to turn the eggs over. He said he was going to hang on with his magnetic limb system or something. Not enough to hold a person for long, so what does Mr. Non Athletics do?

He tries to swing up into the helicopter.

Group: :eek:

He fails again and begins falling. The GM, beside himself with laughter, gave him one more chance to live...there was someone in another hovering aircraft below him that was going to attempt to catch him somehow. (I dont even know at this point). Well, he fails again, 'slaps hands' with the guy, and plummets hundreds of meters to his demise in the ocean.

Group: :|
:rotfl:

We call that the 'six losing options'...he picked the WORST thing to do in every situation. No thought whatsoever was put into this. We have not left said player alone about this for two years...we always think back to the situation of 'murdering innocent fuzzy things, french kissing the combat mage, going into the Sanctuary Swing(swinging from chopper like the Hunchback of Notre Dame), and to the High-Five Dive.

So, anyone else have any stories of sheer either bad luck or utter stupidity you have seen in a game? Please tell me something worse happened in the past.

[wagnern]

The only shame is he took those poor griffen eggs with him.

Unfortanatly I have no bad decision stories to rivle this. The worst I have is of a street sam, who hearing we were going into the ork underground and would most likley find trouble brought with him a gernade launcher with five clips of 20 rounds each (if I remember correctly) a belt full of normal gernades, and twenty pounds of high explosives in his backpack. Another Sam decided to throw a white phosperous gernade up on a balcony. For some reason the occupants of this balcony took offence to this and kicked the gernaid back down. It hit the first Sam and he exploded in a plume of super hot flame. Then the insane amounts of explosives he was carrying cooked off. Total Party kill, Total bad guy kill, Heck the Starbucks that was above us was destroyed as the cavern colapsed.

So from now on I encourage other players to shy away from white phosperous and never carry more explosives that a gernade or two. Ya, some of the above was bad luck, but why would you need that much explosives? And throw a gernade up onto a balcony above you?

[The Grifter]

Here's a pretty good one. It involves:

Human Physad (my character)
Troll Bear Shaman
Human Rigger
Human Decker
Human Street Sam


After making a dataheist from a Mitsuhama facility, our characters were ambushed by a cyberzombie sent after us. The rigger, shaman, and decker were in the parking garage below us in the rigger's van. My character and the street sam Unload on this thing with our SMG's. Finally, after a running gun battle through the building, we make it to the parking garage. The Rigger sends up two drones, who get promptly wasted by a grenade launcher. The sammie and my character jump on motorcycles, drive them full speed at the cyberzombie, then ditch the bikes, dumping them into the damned thing's legs. It falls over all messed up, then activates it's articulated LMG and starts blasting us. My character takes a Moderate wound, Street sammie is at Serious by now. We're hunkered behind a Ford Americar, armed only with Pistols and a dwindling amount of ammunition (one clip left apiece.). Suddenly, instead of providing cover fire or fragging HELPING us, the rigger gets the bright idea to close the van up and get out of there. So, there goes our team and support, and here we are with nothing between us. After a few lucky shots we disable the zombie enough so we can run, and catch the van that has since stopped, due to our other teammates finally knocking some sense into the rigger. Needless to say, that character NEVER provides overwatch for us again.

[shadow_scholar]

ElFenrir, what a great story! As for the stupid stuff I've seen, I've forgotten most of it, but the one that stands out is the one that happened the first time I ever played SR. The group had just finished an extraction run and we were getting some downtime in a bar when a fist fight escalates into a fire fight. LoneStar shows up and I book it, but the other street sam sticks around thinking he might be able to get off because he technically didn't start anything, so the stupid modifiers add up (young player, never played a game like this, etc.) and when LoneStar asks him who he is he responds with, I kid you not, "I'm a Street Samurai!"

The Star did exactly what they're gonna do when they hear something like that and he never played with us again.

[hermit]

Ooooh, a person formerly in my group loved explosives too! It's not quite on par with the cybermage gryphon hunter, but it's still pretty stupid.

Well, I guess it speaks volumes of the player that his charatcer had no name. He never bothered to make one up. Through at least 10 sessions. We affectionately called his character C-4, for his one and only passion. He always had some 5 kilos of that stuff with him, and another 20 (!!!) in the trunk of his car.

So, eventually, he ended up in a park, together with the rest of the runners, and we came across this cop patrol. Harmless guys really (hey, this wasn't Redmond, it was Bellevue, and the cops there are a tad more laid back), and C-4 had nothing better to do than to insult the cops. Completely without a reason! Naturally, the cops would have none of that, so they pulled their batons.

Their *shock batons*. electrical shock batons.

All of us said "Dude, tell us you wrapped your stuff with antistatic foil!"
The player replied: "No, why should I?"
We all went on yelling at him abot how plastic explosives and electricity interacted.

Thankfully, our GM had a good day, and asked what that nameless character had for demolitions skill. Since he had it at 7, the GM said that the char was smarter than the player and concluded he had wrapped the C-4 into something isolating it from the electric shocks he got when both cops went at him (he had no Unarmed to speak of).

One session later, he seemed hell-bent on pissing off one of our girl players (whose charatcer was even more vengeful than average with her). Again, for no particular reason. She did something really not in character and did NOT kill the nameless character outright. She used gel rounds. Granted, it was a long burst, and he still gained deadly stun and a light wound. But really, her character would just have killed Mr. Nameless.

When he woke up again, he threatened that he'd blow up the character's flat.

Noone's ever called that guy again to inform him about our gaming group's sessions.

[Dawnshadow]

Elf Adept
Elf Street Sam/Sniper
Dwarf Street Sam

Elf buys an old, dirty id, and pays his decker friend to clean it up enough to pass a credit check.. fast and dirty. So, the decker routes stuff around so that it checks the elf's account.. switches the 'deceased'.

The dwarf takes the id, and goes to rent the group a van. The two elves are outside, the adept trying not to kill the sniper. Eventually, she heads back to the jackrabbit. The Dwarf, on the other hand.. hands over the id, gets it checked, and fails the test to notice the person hitting the security button. Eventually the sniper gets suspicious and bursts in, and the secretary panics and pulls a hold out pistol. A few minutes later, Lone Star arrives.. and the elf runs.

Now.. the adept was getting worried, so she went down to see what was going on.. and watched the sniper get tackled by Lone Star.

A little bit of metagame reasoning later, since the other two players were fairly inexperienced at SR..

The Adept goes and starts bluffing the 'Star 'What's going on officer?'.. and after a few social skills rolls, manages to convince them that not only is she completely uninvolved in their botched identity theft, but that she's the innocent wife of the sniper. They're hauling the other two away, she has to go down to the station as well for some routine stuff, but they let her go back to the car to get her purse, with only a single escort. She gets away clean, the escort wakes up with a headache.

Run continued.. she sold the dwarf's jackrabbit to the fixer for spare parts, paid the Elf's bail.. made the elf pay her back for the jackrabbit and bail out the dwarf.

Everyone ended up dead or arrested in the end though.

edit: Err.. made the elf pay her back the money she spent on bailing him out. Didn't pay the dwarf back for the jackrabbit. She was making a killing that run, until took a 5 success SMG burst in a surprise round. She was using a silenced weapon, Dwarf used a non-silenced and brought out all the guards at once..

[Herald of Verjig...]

Playing through a stock run that should be imminently obvious to everyone who ever played it, we have three PCs.
1: A dwarf with too many actions and a shotgun
2: A sorcerer designed around one of Raygun's pistols and some fun support spells
3: A ninja adept who had a ranged weapon skill, but I can't remember what it was

We are at an intersection. Some of the Renraku Red Samurai Wannabe Squad has dropped in and a semi with backup for them has also arrived. The dwarf and sorcerer are hiding behind some buildings, shooting when able (the joys of partial cover).
Ninja: "I charge the closest one."
Somehow he makes it uninjured and cuts the guy in half. This actually repeats for most of the grunts who aren't taken out by a large calibur slug before he can arrive, but the ninja does take a few hits.
By the time the backup gets out of the truck, the ninja is carrying his sword in one hand and a suitcase in the other. The main backup just looks at him as he picks up the second suitcase (the two mages had been removed by some sniping from the intersection). It is made fairly clear that the main backup doesn't attack him as he was prone and behind the suitcase. It is also made fairly clear that there is a very large gun tracking him even when he is prone behind the suitcase.
Ninja: "I get up and run for (insert some sort of mild cover that was over 30 meters away)."
GM: rolls many dice "You definately want to dodge this, the TN is (insert base dodge + full auto modifier)."
Ninja: not enough successes
GM: "Well, you scaled it down to deadly from the dodge, no improvement from the resistance test. With the previous damage, you are into overflow, and have only a box to go."
At this point, the two at the intersection begin considering ways to work around the large metal freak who just gunned down their ninja.
End summary, one PC dead, dwarf got a multi-thousand nuyen sword to sell at her leisure, and there is a well defended semi truck in the middle of the barrens. (the joys of influence and time)

[The Grifter]

I've noticed, anytime someone creates a ninja chaacter, it's the first PC to bite the dust.

[Herald of Verjig...]

Oddly enough, that player has made various characters and his first ten or so (which included many combat varieties, not just ninja) each died on their first run. His first PC to actually survive was a very clear copyright infringement on Batman.

[Emmeric]

This happened about seven years ago or so, but still gets brought up from time to time.

The Scene: Two sammies, trying to sneak through some sewers, hiding from a TON of corp security guards who are searching for them.

GM: "Investigating the sound of hushed talking, you peek around the corner and see the silloettes of three security guards standing close together, blocking the 4-way intersection that leads you out of the sewers. Meanwhile, the sounds of many booted footsteps are starting to grow more distant behind you."

Usually Bright Sammie: "I slowly unsling my genade launcher... Carefully take aim... and fire a shot between all three guards."

- Sound of dice rolling.

GM: "Ok..."

Other sammie: :|

Usually Bright Sammie: "10 sucesses!!! ... Oh wait... grenades make... NOISE!"

GM: "Yes."

Usually Bright Sammie: :dead:


EDIT: I don't know what our deal is with grenades, but I just remembered another time someone "gently tossed" a genade during yet another stealthy situation. Good times...

[Belle Anderson]

Try this one for size…It’s mostly SR…just seriously tweeked but close enough IMO

The set up: One Team needs to steal 3 items from 3 different casino vaults in synch and escape. (The GM admitted to being inspired by Oceans Eleven for this one)

The Players:
Covert Ops/Psion (Me!)
Bounty Hunter/Tactical Leader
Pilot/Muscle
Mechanic/Demolition Expert
Assassin/B&E Specialist
Actress/Covert Ops (The Star of the show…as you shall see)

We only has sessions once a week you see and we had spent close to 6 WEEKS doing recon, set up, planning, plotting, getting bugs into camera systems to track guards, getting swipe cards and codes for getting in and out of places, securing employee uniforms and fake Ids, going undercover as guests of he casinos when we actually decided to pull off the heist.

Enter our Actress…not just any actress mind you, but the most famous actress and everyone adores her and she's also a novice artist, an anime voice actress all this crap was background info the player made up during sessions... you know, to make her become even more of a self-important drama queen. BTW the GM is now seriously regretting allowing the player to pull this shit, and has taken steps to forbid it. But I’m getting ahead of myself and can you already smell the disaster on the wind?

Our Actress bumped into an NPC, and took an ‘attraction’ to said NPC who also worked at one of the casinos we were gonna rob. The group was hoping the Actress would use this guy to get more details of how the hotel worked and such maybe get introed to some of the higher ups to get the info we still needed to succeed. No such luck, the player decided that the Actress would ‘Fall in LOVE’ with said NPC. Even going so far as to spend the night with him…and fail to deactivate her subdermal mike and transmitter before her ‘night of passion’

Needless to say my char was on watch that night (keeping her com on incase of trouble) and is still undergoing therapy ~_~ I of course reported to the leader of this merry band during the next team meeting what had occurred and before our Fearless Leader could do anything…the Actress, horrified that her ‘Maiden Reputation’ was now ruined…attacked me. Yes you read that right, full out lunging for the neck screaming obsenities ATTACKING. Remember we are undercover in a BUSY CASINO, somebody called security about the screaming in the next room. We ALMOST got busted, thanks to the quick thinking of our Demonotions Expert we barely escape and sends the Sec Team away but our Ids are now in the beady eye of the Casino Sec Teams.

Ooooh wait it gets WORSE!

The Actress called her ‘Lover Boy’ to meet her, and asks if they can talk in private, he agrees…and does the unthinkable. She’s so ‘In LOVE’ with this guy that she told him her true identity. Yes you read that right to she told a random casino employee that she met less than 72 hours ago that she was ACTUALLY a World Famous Actress in disguise. For some insane reason she didn’t spill the mission. Well you can guess what happened next. Her ID is blown to hell in a handcart the Press descend…World Famous Actress afterall…it’s all over the TV. And the rest of the team takes ONE look at the instant Media Circus and FLEES like Rats from a sinking ship. Sec runs a sweep of her room for her saftey and of course finds the gear we had already gathered for the heist and she’s taken into custody.

The Char was killed shortly after that, and the player was pissed. He left the group never to return and we were all relieved by THAT one.

[Syd]

[Smiley]

We're in an Ares bunker in Death Valley, 2 levels down from the surface. The alarm has been sounded, the security riggers alerted, the cavalry fast approaching, and the only elevator back up is locked. We've found the rigger room and, after an exchange of gunfire and the dispatching of a drone of destruction, we've got the riggers prisoner and are trying to... persuade them to unlock the elevator and turn off the alarms. We 3 physads are discussing what to do to them to inspire them to do what we ask, when we hear a rather loud explosion. We all turn to see the mage standing by the doorway to the rigger room, and everything in there is DEMOLISHED. Everything used to control the alarms, the elevator, the whole works. There was silence for a few seconds, and the subsequent exchage went a little something like this:

3 physads: WHY?

Mage: The security rigger told me to.

(General chaos.)

[Cynic project]

Well,I would have to say that I have seen the worst character ever built.

It is a 120 point game.
Drawven(8 points in the game I am in) magic adept(30) with 1.6 mill to start(35 points). I think about 46 points on stats) and at least 18 points into skills.

The dwarf got 35 free spell points and spent more on initating. He started the game with like 3 force one spells, and a magic rating of I think 3. Maybe 4.

He takes 1 mil and buys a life time high life style.

His adept powers are killing hands m, and increased reflexes 2.

I think he may have put 18-22 points into skills.

He has an ass load of flaws.

This Drawf's only good thing he has going for him is that he can react some what fast. But he lacks any real combat power. He has a lot contacts, but doesn't really use them.

[The Grifter]

We have a human street sammie that spent 30,000 of his starting nuyen on throwing knives, yet has a throwing weapons skill of 1.

[Cynic project]

How much money did he start out with? I mean 30K out of 1000K is a joke... That is just something you cna look back and say, um idid nto know what to buy, or I wanted my charatcer to get good at it durring game play. That is a hook.

SPending 1 mil on a life style, that would basiclly cost you 10 charatcer build points is recockulous.As with 25 points you could get 650K and put five months down on a high life style.

[The Grifter]

He started with 90K.

[Emmeric]

Not to fill this post up with my long winded stories BUT... I recalled another cherished gaming story that fits the Players Making Really Bad Decisions and, different from most stories posted so far, they actually got away with it! As the GM, this one about floored me.

OK. So back whenever the Shadowrun Missions book came out, I nipped down and picked up a copy of it and decided to do a one shot with my group. Now I’m usually a fan of the premies, and I thought this one could be really fun. The one in the book about the Special OPs mission trying to stop the magical religious cult really caught my eye (I don't have my books with me, so whichever one that was), so I called my friends up and we got together to run it.

Anyway, the two players decided to be speed zombies ("What? Endless government funding for our gear? No street index? Well allllllllright!" :cyber: ). Previous to the game starting, I thought the mission would be too tough for just two players by themselves, but man was I wrong...

From what I remember (like I said, I don't have my books and it was a long time ago), basically the mission was to stop some crazies in a magical cult. Some charismatic dude had duped a bunch of magically active people into believing he was an angel or something… Anyway, they were all held up in a mountain base and the mission was to sneak in and assassinate their leader 8) .

So the two black ops characters parachute in undercover of a light snow storm or something equally dramatic like that. They do a quick recon on the outside of the base, make two AMAZING stealth test (both had test successes in the 20s), silently take out some guards, and sneak into the room with the rigger/security operator. Black Ops character #1 holds his silenced weapon to the surprised rigger's head while Black Ops character #2 wraps him in duct tape (yes, even black ops guys need their duct tape), and then attaches a bunch of C12 to the poor rigger, equipped with a remote detonator.

Black Opts character #2 whispers to the frightened cult rigger: "You see this?" *holds C-12 in front of his taped face* "If we think the alarm has gone off, I’ll push the button and you go 'BOOM'. Got it? So stay put..."

Then they both sneak out the room, leaving the terrified rigger to contemplate the bundle of C-12 taped to the side of his head. A couple of doors, and a few more sneaky tests later, both of them sleaze into a room, only to surprise six or so young girls entering from another room. The sudden appearance of the Black Ops ninjas understandably frightens the girls, who are all between the ages of 12 and 18 (all very innocent looking, with long, flowing hair and trailing white dresses), and amidst some whimpers and shocked screams, the girls turn into doves and try to flee back out the way they came. What is the players' response?

Both players: "FUCK! MAGES!!!"

They then both declare that they're giving the fleeing doves/girls all “the guster they can muster," in way of FULL AUTO BURSTS OF ADPS ROUNDS. As super speed ninjas, they waste the doves, which then turn back into the form of dying/dead young girls, in something like a combat round. I tried to paint the picture of the horror they should feel at realizing that these girls intended them no harm (Lots of "the blood spreads over her white dress..." and "She looks up at you with confusion before her eyes glaze over"). What do the characters do? They high five each other ( :eek: ) and then Black Ops character #1 goes "Hey, do you think our full auto bursts set off the alarm?" Black Ops character #2 replies, "Yeah... Probably..." *Picks up remote detonator... BOOM!*

What follows is a giant blood bath of epic proportions, during which I quickly realize that either 1) I failed to mention anything about "needless casualties, civilian or otherwise" in their mission briefing, or 2) I did, and they don't care. Over the next hour or so, the characters try to herd fleeing cultists from room to room, into one large Church area. Finally it ends when they meet Michael (the cult leader, complete with illusionary angel wings or something like that), who has surrounded himself with children and OTHER OBVIOUS CIVILIANS as a form of protection from the blood thirsty PCs. Being the speed demons they are, both characters charge into the room, act WAY before anyone else can, and hearing me describe the scene, here is there responses:

Black Ops Character #1: "I empty my magazine of APDS rounds into the general direction of the leader. Next pass, I'm gonna reload and do the same again. I’m gonna keep doing this until nothing moves."

Black Ops Character #2: "Yeah, and while he does that, I throw as many concussion grenades as I can."

It turned into another total blood bath… Finally the characters left the smoking, bloody pit that had once been a base, completely remorseless and victorious.

It's weird because I've played with both of these guys for years and years, and they're usually not so vicious, although every now and then they just turn MEAN ("Shit, I don't have the intimidation skill... And I don’t want the +4… Fine, I take out my combat knife and start cutting off inch square pieces of his skin and searing the wound shut with my lighter until he tells me what I want to know. Roll some dice or something, but he WILL talk." Wow...) :spin:

[Emmeric]

[hunter5150]

Let me preface this by saying I am a generous GM. Sometimes to a fault.

The team consisted of

Rigger
Physad
Herm Mage
Gun Bunny
Rent-a-Cop

The team needs to get into this particular complex. Cant remember what for. In an attempt to make their infiltration easier they decide to cut power to the building. After some luck and some good ideas they find the main power feed to building and break it.

When they get to the building they notice all lights are on. After a little exploration they discover a large generator behind the building. You know the kind that comes on automatically when power is lost. They decide to shut down the generator. I decide that I want the chars to earn this cred so I want the power up. The physad decides to stick a large chunk of earth in the exhaust pipe of the generator and cause it to shut down.

Physad : I stick a dirtclod in the pipe.

GM : You notice the generator begin to vibrate and the dirtclod is shot out of the pipe with a loud thump sound.

Physad: How thick is this pipe?

GM : Its, you know, pipe sized.

Physad : I use my STR of (ungodly troll strength) the squeeze the pipe closed.

GM : (being generous) You sure about that?

Physad : Yep.

GM : You squeeze the end of the pipe so that it is sealed off. The generator begins to vibrate again and the end of the pipe suddenly blows apart. Kinda like the end of the shotgun in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

Physad : Hmmm. I'm going to climb on top of the generator and squeeze the end of the pipe closed again but this time I'm going to hold it closed with my bare hands.

GM : (being very generous) You're kidding right?

Physad : Nope.

Gm : (being more genrous than Mother Theresa) You sure thats a good idea?

Physad : MmmHmm

(sounds of lots of dice rolling)

GM : Everyone roll reaction.

Everyone Else : What for?

GM : To try and avoid getting splattered by bits-o-troll.

The physad was pissed but hey I gave him three chances.

[mmu1]

[The Grifter]

[Arethusa]

Makes more sense than an invinvible, vicious backup generator.

[edi]

Also, it occurs to me that you may have mixed up steam turbine and steam engine. Nuclear reactors all use steam turbines to generate electricity.

This post has been edited by Arethusa: Apr 21 2005, 11:02 PM

[hermit]

I dunno, but assuming the generator pushes the steam/exhaust out at quite some pressure, this action would have cost the troll his hands, at the very least ...

[Arethusa]

Could have cost the troll his hands. And that's about it.