Discussion D&D moments that surprised your DM/GM

Ok, so I played an assassin rogue(5th edition), basically we were investigating the whereabouts of some children sold off to slavery so we basically bribed our way up to the head honcho of the whole slave market of the city and arranged a secret meeting, so word got out that we weren't shy in forking out gold for information, before the negotitiations started I persuaded the other party to let our muscle stand outside so that no one could go in or out of the room, and so me and the DM roleplayed the whole negotiation thing, the DM was so impressed that we actually went went with diplomacy that he gave me inspiration nd when reached a conclusion heres how it went:
Me: "I proceed to put the pouch on the table, opened it and took the dagger I placed beforehand and stab him in the eye! Is he surprised? (Assassinate feature gives be auto crit if target is surprised so I asked)
DM, shocked at the turn of events shouted "of fucking course he's surprised, I thought you guys were going to settle this peacefully!

 

This is not a personal experience of mine (all roleplay games I played always ended up on the GM giving up or getting bored halfway) but these should be included in all discussions in roleplay plots:
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/The_Henderson_Scale_of_Plot_Derailment https://1d4chan.org/wiki/That_Guy_Destroys_Psionics
Here is a bit of an offensive story that I read a few years back and found memorable: http://imgur.com/a/TmIlB
Here is also a site with stories of other's experiences: https://tabletitans.com/tales

 

that was a very excellent negotiation

 

I remember a guy telling us how he would play a rogue orc, without caring about stealth but only intimidation, so each time time some guard spotted him he would intimidate them until they had to give up trying to catch him, all of this while shouting "YOU DID NOT SEE RUCK!!!!"

 

Oh this one its easy.

The moment sheldon stunned howard and Steward then proceeded to kill the hostaged santa . ah big bang theory so gold.
Well its the onky d&d i know hahaha

 

Missing a shot at point blank range

 

I got so sick and tired of the GM using NPC's to call my character what its class is, until one campaign I lied what my character class was and played my character that way, it was nearly the end of the campaign when the GM thought we had no way out of the situation, i reveal what he was, my meathead fighter unleashed a 300 d6 spellstorm.

 

During one of my groups campaign we had to hunt down this group be lead by a mysterious creature, which turned out to be a Rakshasa. We fought our way through the group and finally get to the Rakshasa. DM decided to make the Rakshasa female, and as you can see where this is going, one of my teammates decides he is going to woe her and we all laughed at that idea. After a lengthy conversation and incredible dice rolls he succeeded in making the Rakshasa fall in love with him. DM was so shocked that he succeeded that he needed to put the session on hold cause he didn't have any plans for this event and had to come up with some new plans.

Came back for the next session and the Rakshasa joined our group. She was with us for many campaign until she eventually died to a dragon devastating our group that we tortured and killed the dragon in a very gruesome way in revenge. Which also shocked the DM that we found a way to torture a dragon.

PS Torturing the dragon caused all of us to fall a little in our alignment. Which caused our paladin multiple times to ask for forgiveness, the rest of us took as a symbol of pride.

 

So, this was back in 06 i think, 3.5 rules.

We had a campaign going, about 9 of us or so, in school, after school i should say, the dm was a science teacher. we had this whole elaborate campaign going, not sure if the dm invented it or it came from somewhere else, but the idea was, we ran into this super powerful dragon who had a pastime of turning into an elven gentleman and getting wasted at human parties. In the most recent party, he met a girl who was the love of his life, but he was too drunk to remember who it was. All he remembered was that it was a princess of the kingdom, and there were currently 7 such princesses. Our job then, was to investigate each of the princesses and see which one talked to a strange, silver-haired elven man at the kings ball.

So through our campaign, we met with three of them, one was leading a merchant guild, one was a socialite, and the other was a wizard, and none were the one we were looking for. So we moved onto the next ones. As it went, one had joined an elven resistance movement, she forsook her position as a princess and joined the rebels in the forests. Meanwhile, another princess was leading an elite army to burn down the forests.

Now i should mention, that for most of us, this was our first experience with dnd, and we all had very nonstandard, nonoptimized characters. I played an elven warrior who wore full plate mail and duel wielded scimitars. anyone who remembers the 3.5 rules will know exactly how bad of a character that was. Our sorcerer though the idea of arcane spell failure was hilarious, so he deliberately wore scale mail, and our cleric decided he wanted to be a 12-year-old human who didn't wear armor, who didn't use offensive spells outside of summons, and who lugged around a heavy crossbow one size too big. Very strange team indeed.

Anyways, we had this whole epic battle where we defended the forest, and then we were planning to counter attack the Princess's army, but we had a problem. We were playing in school, and the school year was almost over. So for the last week of school, we all stayed after school to try and get closure for our campaign.

And on the last day, we succeeded on our surprise attack on the army's camp. we burn down their fort and captured the princess. we were frantically trying to negotiate the princess's surrender, but she was a loyal knight type, and wasn't having it. Meanwhile, the last buses were getting ready to leave, in fact, a few already had and we lost half of our players.

Now, part of how the story went, was that our cleric, the 12 year old, got captured, and was trying to reason with the princess, he came close, but before he could make any real progress, our sneak attack happened.

So here we all are, about ready to run out of the room and catch the bus, when this conversation takes place.

12 Year old Cleric "Please Princess, we've beaten your army, just surrender and we'll turn over the prisoners."

Princes General "Never, my honor will not allow me to surrender. I must fulfill my orders, i must defeat the rebelious elves and burn down their forests."

12 Year old Cleric. "but you are beaten, it is too late, and i know you are a good person, you shouldn't be fighting the elves, they are citizens of the nation too, the king has violated the sanctity of their forests with his logging operations, if he pulls back, there is no reason to continue this. Even your sister has sided with them."

Princess General "I know, I do not wish to fight my country men either, but i must follow my orders."

12 year old Cleric "Please reconsider princess."

Princess General "I can not. If you want my army to stand down, you must kill me, for i shall never surrender."

12 Year old Cleric "Okay."

And then he slit her throat with his dagger.

And while we were all like, "WTF just happened?" He ran out of the room to catch the bus.

And that was the end of the campaign.

 

It was my first time playing, 3.5 edition btw, I was a bard. The adventure opened with three of us waking up in a prison, no recollection of the night before. The dm said later that his intentions were for our characters to get to know each other and then head to court the next day where there would be a convenient opportunity to break out. Not how it went down. Instead we got the attention of a nearby guard, grabbed him through the bars and took his keys, the other two guards on duty came over, my companions started fighting, and I slipped through the fray to run down the hall and up the stairs, intending to get my gear from the storage room before backing up my friends. Unfortunately, as I crested the top of the stairs, my friends 2v3ing behind me, 8 guards including a captain, fully armed, all turned to look at me. Queue panic. I immediately spouted some crap about an archmage and a necromancer waking up and going crazy, and that they had to run before it was too late. Roll bluff, nat 20 baby. The guards all scramble out the door, barricading it from the other side, conveniently leaving me alone with chests full of prisoner's belongings. I grab my gear and a few weapons, help my friends knock out the guards down below, and we group up in the room upstairs. One of our characters' backstory involved ecoterrorism to an extreme degree, and he had insisted on having a bomb to start the game with, which, of course, was with his belongings in one of the chests. In the other chests we found some black robes, so the other two put them on, cast faery fire on themselves, blew up the door, and I ran out through the dust 'terrified', yelling things such as "bloody hell" and "run!". The guards had been nervously standing around the door, weapons drawn, and since they recognized me they let me hide behind them, as they were kind of preoccupied with the wizards in front of them. Roll for bluff again, another nat 20. The guards run, and we walk out of there high on life. Looking back on it, the dm probably gave us some leeway since it was our first time, but it was awesome.

Later on in the same campaign, I assassinated a village leader because something about him and the village in general seemed off, figured I'd nip it in the bud before things got out of hand. I stand by the decision, in fact he weirded me out enough that I threw him in the nearest furnace I could find to make sure he wasn't coming back. Doing it stealthily was a pain in the ass. I found all sorts of weird inexplicable things in his house. The mystery of who he was is something we never solved, but the dm told me later that I kind of skipped an entire 3 sessions worth of playtime when I did that, and that throwing him in the furnace was a good idea.

Lastly when we killed a troll in a dungeon, the blood that splattered on the floor caused it to glow and reveal strange carvings, so I figured logically I should find out why... By spreading my blood all over them. After stabbing myself and dumping out a liter of blood, there was a flash of light, my wound healed, and all the blood/carvings we're gone. From then on I had to roll willsaves every time my turn came around, I rolled high on all of them so I wasn't worried about it, but the one time I rolled low I was borderline forced to insanity and started attacking everything in sight. Turns out I had been possessed by an ancient drow shaman. Pretty sure the reason the campaign got ended before we really did a whole lot of campaigning was because I just wanted to watch the world burn... It was fun tho ☺️

 

@4myzelf

"THE DOMINATOR"

the dm wanted to influence the party to be good- so he gave us a rod of healing...

the party wrapped the rod in barbed wire and turned it into a shovel-like torture device.

they shoved the rod where the sun don't shine- and healed the target to prevent death.

thus an item of goodness- turned into the most feared thing in the kingdom- actual name: sodominator.

 

In an old game of ADD2 in a low level campaign, I played a bard build on the stealthy caster of low level and cantrip illusions type.
We were trying to help protect a countryside group of towns from regular invations of greenskins from a big and dark forest.
During an alamo-styled defense half of the group (my character included) got captured, our cage was hanged from the ceiling of the big bad guy (an ettin, some sort of two headed ogre for those that don't know) that enjoyed tauting and teasing us for a week and half long as the other part of the group was mounting a rescue/revenge mission, gearing up and making a big plan, training peasant and such...
During this time using an heavy helping of fool's gold, message, other cantrips and goods rolls of bluff, I made the Ettin and his lieutenants unhealtly interrested in a rusted toy crown, making them think that it was an artefact destined to the true ruler of these lands...
Unfortunately there was only one crown and two heads, so with a few well placed telekinesis and ventriloquism spells (to make it look that one of the heads stole the crown while the other one was asleep, start the insults festival and making them think that the other head got physical), the two heads started a fight, the DM made a few rolls in front of us to show how it went and it ended in the critical table with one of the head crushing the other one eyes which retaliated by strangling its opponent and breaking his neck.
As their boss killed himself and using the confusion that ensuied, with 2 or 3 messages to some of the more "malleable" lieutenants a faction war started in the greenskin camp (all were persuaded that the crown called them and that they were the destined ones).

When the peasant punitive force supervised by the other players came later, all gun blazing they were surprised to easily enter in a devastated camp with a few heavily injured green skin survivors locked in a mudfight over a tiny rusted toy crown, while we were quietly having a merry supper made with what I could swipe with telekinesis still in a cage hanging from the ceiling of the bigest hut of the camp...

After that the DM always rolled behind the screen for criticals .

 

too bad that my country doesn't have this game

 

i've got another one to add.

After school ended and summer break started, one of the kids in my group decided to host another game at his house, he'd be the dm. I ended up inviting two of my friends from a different school, so it was me, my two friends, the DM who was a classmate, his younger brother who was 14 or so, and then 3 of the dm's friends, although 2 of them would miss the first session.

so, before the game starts, everything was really strange. Me and my two friends show up at his house, and his mom greets us, his dad was at work, he was in the shower, and his brother was outside doing stuff. And his mom was deaf. He never mentioned this. Do you know how weird it is to meet your friend's mom, and then realize you can't actually communicate in any way?

Then, to further make the whole thing strange, his two dogs, hug Siberian huskies, come running over. And both of them have no eyes. no eyes, just empty sockets where they used to be. The guy has a deaf mom and two eyeless dogs. Again, as a dog lover, i can't fully describe the weirdness of having two happy dogs come running over to you, bending down to pet them, and looking into two empty holes in their face.

anyways, finally, the session starts. We're starting at a high level, 15 specifically, i remember this, because our starting gold was 200k. Wealth by level chart says that is level 15. so we make our characters, doing the standard agonizing over whether or not i should get a +2 shield and armor, or jus get a +2 weapon. Is acid better?, or fire? Ring of protection, or amulet of natural armor. Gloves of dex +4 or +6.

Eventually, we settle on it. Me and my friends are all multilclassed confusions, the DMs friend was a bard, and his brother was a monk. More importantly, his brother spent all 200k gold on a ring of elemental command water because the dm had told us the campaign would take place on a bunch of islands.

I mentioned that spending all of your gold on a single item was, 1, a terrible idea, and 2, technically against the rules. DM over-road that, the monk got the ring.

So we start the campaign. first thing, it became apparent that the dm ripped 90% of the campaign off of Pirates of the caribbean. 2nd, it became apparent he was an awful dm.

My friend was playing a character that was mostly a druid, but his role playing aspect was that he was actually terrified of nature and animals.

the campaign started with all of us being random passengers of a ship, that gets attacked by pirates, and then in the middle of that fight, a giant kraken. So druid guy seems massive kraken and goes, "Nope, i'm out." and runs by turning into a dolphin.

Dm goes, no, you can't run, there's a whirlpool around the ship.

Druid goes, okay turn into a seagull.

Dm goes, and a hurricane.

Druid goes, Freedom of movement.

DM goes, a coral reef explodes and hits you in the head, you get knocked out and fall in the water.

Druid goes, okay, so i drown?

DM goes, no, you're fine, the entire boat gets destroyed, captain jacky pigeon comes and fends off the Kraken, you all wash up on the shore, but all but 3 of your items are gone.

Druid goes, er even me? i was in a seagull form.

DM goes, yup, everyone, pick 3 items, the rest are gone.

Monk goes, yippy, good thing i only bought 1 item.

rest of us go, "!@#$%

a this point, the campaign began it's death spiral. All of us were pissed due to the start, and i was ultra pissed over the ring. I made it my goal to annoy the heck out of the monk over the ring, constantly trying to steal it, even claiming to the local guards that it was originally mine and that the monk stole it from me. I mean, who are they going to believe? the guy with the magical armor, magical weapon, and magical shield, or the guy who looked like a beggar and only had a magical ring. Hip hip horray for bluff checks.

So session one ended on that note.

We come back the next day for session 2, and the DM's two friends are there. The dm figures it was a good idea to introduce the two new people, buy having them enter a fight with the rest of the party. he extremely violent party that had large amounts of interpersonal conflict. things go poorly, and we killed the two of them. And my other friend who was playing some kind of half undead spell caster that focused on fear effects, and who called himself Mr. Terror, desecrated their bodies.

At this point, the pirates of the Caribbean story line was falling apart, we weren't doing what the dm wanted, and the dm was trying to do that by having Captain Jacky Pigeon (that was literally his name) keep showing up and forcing us to do things. There was 0 plot or anything, the dm was just like, level 30 pirate dude shows up and says go east. We wanted to keep looking for a rescue of this island, but the dm just told us no. There was zero explanation of why we should be doing anything.

So we get forced to go east, encounter an old, dilapidated port, and decide we should take it over. DM was not on board, so level 30 Jacky shows up and decides he needs to knock us all out so we can "wake up" at the next story point.

So we split up while trying to run from Jacky, and i happen to find the monk, with the ring. Monk with no equipment outside of a single environment dependant ring was a lot weaker than i was, so i beat him, then cut off his fingers and stole his ring.

At which point, he began to cry, and left the table.

So the dm got really pissed, and then declared the game over, and then we never spoke again.

 

Our DM was not well. He used stories from Heavy Metal magazine/graphic novels for our adventures. Since I used to sit near him I was always the bearer of bad news for the party since the DM would whisper things to me like "You notice in the shadows the guards taking out giant black dildos" (Yes that kind of DM). I obviously bolted and jumped out of a 3rd floor window to the next building. I eventually died because I was eaten by a giant zombie's testicle.

I wish I remember the name of the graphic novel.

 

Situation that most surprised me as a GM: Players wandering through my campaign settings version of hell and deciding to sacrifice the corpse of a Phoenix to the altar of Kanestus, the Goddess of Death because they wanted a shortcut to the Golden Forest Plane. They were carrying it around randomly in a large bag of holding for some time and I'd forgotten about it. My reaction was for Kanestus to ressurect it as an undead coldfire phoenix, and be pleased by their offering (opening a portal as they asked).

Runner up: Players trying to come up with a plan to get by an OP Adamantine Golem. After a long discussion, one guy says "F*ck it! I pray to Saulm to smite the villain!", and... rolls two natural twenties on his Religion roll. I facepalm, and Saulm (the Fire goddess) rides down on a fiery chariot and obliterates it, completely subverting the stealth operation. I force said player to choose Champion of Saulm for his Epic Destiny as a result though.