What was the quickest that a PnP game went south for you...

[Saihung423]

So, a group of us decided to play Warhammer a few decades back (shyut yer mouth youngin!) and one of my friends decided to play a rogue.

There was another player with my namesake that this rogue could not stand...he was playing a dwarf berzerker or some such.


The DM begins the game, us all starting in a tavern. Within the first MINUTE, the rogue decides to pick the berzerker's pocket (because he didn't like him in RL) and promptly gets caught.

*SNICK*

There goes the rogues hand. There goes our rogue. And the game devolved into several petty arguments.


We never picked that one back up or even really played that night.

To this day, I GUARANTEE if the rogue and berzerker met again in RL....they would argue about that incident.


(My ranger slunk off into the shadows and abandoned hope of finding a party at that tavern:P)

[Lonnbeimnech]

For me it was one time our DM decided he was going to roll the characters and assign the players to them, complete with backstory and personality.

I just could not bring myself to giving a ___ about my character, some sort of holyer than thou cleric. He went renegade pretty quick, framed our paladin for murder, burned down an inn in a battle with city guards, ran off with a purveyor of carnal wares. Ya know, the usual.

[Gkar]

Well I had this one DM who actually reminds me a lot of Turbine programmers. You see he made this rather cool seeming adventure but there was always just ONE way to solve it. If you came up with something that wasn't what how he expected/wanted you to solve the problem then suddenly there was some house rule or change to the game or epic monster of death or something like that which made no sense to FORCE you to do it the way he wanted. After the first couple incidents the game became unfun quickly. After a combat that went in a direction the DM didn't want was resolved with "He kills you", no roll, no save, no explanation, just "he kills you", not even on his turn, one of the players quit and invited us over to his place the following week for a new D&D group.

I don't think that ex-DM spoke to any of us for months after we "betrayed him" lol

For me it was one time our DM decided he was going to roll the characters and assign the players to them, complete with backstory and personality.

I just could not bring myself to giving a ___ about my character, some sort of holyer than thou cleric. He went renegade pretty quick, framed our paladin for murder, burned down an inn in a battle with city guards, ran off with a purveyor of carnal wares. Ya know, the usual.

/chuckles

As a DM I'd have you as a player in one of my games any day, you sound like the type of player who keeps things interesting for the DM.

[Saihung423]

I think the actual fastest a game was abandoned was when I was trying to get 3 people into D&D. They weren't the best candidates for a thinking game like D&D.

I believe it ended when I pulled out my sack 'o die and my adventure notes (ergo: a book sized sheaf of papers).


This was back in the late 80's....I think my Mom ruined it by coming in and telling us Who's the Boss was on tv.

They had a man sized crush on Samantha....(so what if I liked Mona). I blame Tony and Angela really. Their daughter was too attractive to us kids.

[Vlakulor]

I was almost always roped into being DM, and I got pretty good at it, so I'd usually keep the game on track rather well (though there was usually a lot of PC ego juggling). I remember one time I'd gotten complacent about my great DMing abilities and designed a really interesting combined adventure that started with a short dungeon-crawl, which led to clues linked to a mystery that also eventually connected to the imperial politics of my fantasy world. I wanted to roll this out, but my regular group wasn't meeting at the time. I ended up trying it on a group of D&D newbies. We got through the short intro dungeon crawl part pretty well (with a lot of gentle coaxing from me and a couple favorable "bends" of some dice-rolls). The problem started the moment they got out of the dungeon. I had included a magic item tailored to each class, with some capabilities that would help the group later on when they faced the real, major bad guy down the line. One of the PCs took three of these items, grouping up with another player (his girlfriend in real life) to deny another PC of ANY loot. The result was a complete stoppage of play as everybody got into a drag-out argument that went on for HOURS. I tried cute little "the DM wants to move on now" hints like having NPCs physically try to break up the fight and loudly announce that the fate of the Empire was a little more interesting right now, but the PCs were having none of it. Eventually, I got tired of trying to babysit a bunch of twentysomethings acting like kindergarteners and just picked up my books and dice and walked away.
You have to remember with people who are totally new to P&P RPGing that it's best to bring them along with a group that already knows how to play, or go really slow and be very rules-intensive until they start to get the hang of it.

[M4st0d0n]

There was this Call Of Cthulhu session when a friend decided to go pulp and buy some dynamite, thinking he could solve the case and slay the abominations with good ol' explosives.

When he missed that sanity check he revealed himself as the party's worst enemy.

[cru121]

I recall two memorable low-level TPKs.
First time we ran into a bunch of crocodiles who attacked with bite and tail in the same round. (DM messed up)
Second time we refused to pay most of our gold to a troll at a bridge. (We messed up.)

[TrinityTurtle]

Well, it didn't kill the campaign, but I did derail the adventure hooks quite a bit. I had a strong D&D tabletop background, but my husband (when I met him) and his friends pretty much had only ever played Rifts. And being the 'new girl', I decided to jump in and try it. I had a wee bit of trouble understanding sdc and mdc damage (two entirely separate strength scales for those who have never played, think one for the average un armored human and one for dragons) and I was in the dragon-level category. We were trying to intimidate a dude into information, and I decided to punch him to show him we meant business and would start...well...torturing him. Let's be honest about it right?

SO....dm asked if I pull my punch. I"m thinking in terms of a female human and say no, I put all my body into it. And um...sorta vaporized the dudes head. Still living that down. Understood the scales after that!

[Chauncey1]

This was over 20 years ago I think...
But none of us were what I'd call seasoned veterans of PnP.

It was Ravenloft.
We lasted 10...15 minutes tops.
Everyone died a horrible death.