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Gaming Horror stories

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FastJack:
I posted the Gazebo story elsewhere and also mentioned the 20-something kids that didn't know who Gygax was, so I figured I'd put this thread out there to share any horror stories you may have. Doesn't have to be Shadowrun, but extra Rep points if it is...  8)

I'll start:

Me and the missus (now ex-missus) had moved to Virginia because of my job in 2001. When we got down there, we started looking to join a new gaming group to satisfy the addict- ... er, enjoy the hobby. The first group we went to sounded good. The DM had been running 3.0 for while and he had two other players, but recently lost two players so there was an opening. He told me he was going to run us through The Sunless Citadel and to be prepared to provide a backstory to our characters. No problem, we'd done that before.

The game was set to start at 3, so we got there about 15 minutes early to get through introductions and get a feel for the game. After everyone was introduced, the DM gave both of us a 'booklet' of pages, asking us to fill it out (not right away, but definitely before the next game). Now, I'm all for detailing the character out a little more than Ork - Axe - Strength, but this was a 20 page questionnaire and form that required you to plan your character from 1st through 20th level and list every feat/spell/skill that you were going to take. That was the first three pages; the rest was just as asinine. 1st warning flag up and waving.

We put that aside for the game. Normally I plan my characters out anyway since I tend to get OCD on character development and my ex used to just so she would understand every part of the rules she needed to. So, the DM then had to step out to make his daughter dinner and we got a chance to talk to the two 'regulars', guys he'd be gaming with for years. Turns out they've been playing Sunless Citadel for about six months and have gone through about 5 other players. They were just starting to tell us that the DM has very clear distinctions between Character/Player knowledge, when he came back into the room. 2nd warning flag up.

As we started playing, we were at the very beginning of the adventure. Our characters met up with the regulars (who had two brand-spanking new characters - 3rd warning flag) at the camp of an army near the entrance of the citadel. The other characters wanted to purchase some holy water, but the DM refused, (asking them "Why do you need holy water?" with warning look. Regulars began grumbling - 4th warning flag). Neither I nor my ex had created a cleric, nor stocked up with holy water, and the regulars looked dejected. We then went into entrance. Now, if you haven't played Sunless Citadel, the first encounter in the adventure is a room with a Shadow in it. And the shadow drained characters of their Strength, and if he got the Strength to 0, the character died, and rose the next round as a new Shadow. 5 warning flag.

As we entered the room, the wifey and I discovered that the DM had run the group through this room many, many, MANY times. And because the first adventurers had critically failed and went TPK, there were now over a DOZEN shadows in the room. And, TPK. 6th warning flag.

Even after this, we were pretty sure that the group was disaster, but we stuck around to just feel out what would be next. Well, the 7th and last flag came up because we were sitting there talking about how we needed to roll up new characters, but the DM wouldn't allow any of us to roll a cleric. Because we had no idea there were undead! So, he's forcing his regular guys to roll-up Bob's Cousin characters every time and not allowing them to take any steps to prevent another TPK.

*sigh* We were scheduled to play for another four hours, but ducked out with an excuse that we forgot we were meeting friends for dinner and never went back. As far as I know, those poor bastards are still trying to get through the Shadow room...

Dead Monky:
Yeesh.  I've never had anything anywhere near that bad.  The worst I've ever had are games where the players roll HORRIBLE, as in nothing over a three six times in a row, while the monsters all roll critical hits and get balls out lucky on everything.  At that point, I usually just say "screw it," call it a game, and reset everything like it didn't happen.

Doc Chaos:
Heiliger Herr Jesus... thats just like some greek part of hell! Trapped forever, never to be able to clear the first room, after which there would be... freedom. Peace. Oblivion...

Mooncrow:
Something I posted on another forum:

One of my players had been bugging us to run a campaign for a while, apparently he had GMed quite a bit in college and missed it.  So, we got to a decent stopping point in the one I was running, and I felt like a turn as a player, so we said yes.

To start off with, we had asked him for a lower powered campaign; we wanted to be a nameless wandering band for a while, since we were coming off a 5 year campaign.

Within 10 minutes of starting we stumbled across the Legendary Lost Armory of Somethingorother, where the necromancer found a staff that automatically summoned up a Legendary Death Knight Warrior, my elf ranger found a gourd of sentient sand that made me invulnerable and also automatically attacked my enemies for me, the barbarian had some axe whose former owner possessed the bearer, granting incredible strength and stamina, but losing control of himself, etc.

From then on, the GM basically played our characters - the way out had been blocked by falling stone, and there was only one way forward. So, the rest of the night we got to listen as he told us how our awesome gear was slaying armies, and eventually gods, and every 5 minutes we got to roll a d20...

To be fair, he was an interesting storyteller; it was basically like a 4 hour long Final Fantasy cutscene, and when my character was done absorbing the essence of some god and taking his place, I was done.  So, I stood up to go, and he tells me that the real adventure had just started, and this was just the gearing up portion so that we could survive the combat to come...

He was quite upset that everyone else voted to have me GM the next week :P

Casazil:
I can't say I've ever really had a horror story a few bad games but real horror nah.

Had a GM once get all cranky at a player so the GM spent like 4 hours of our time  >:( chaseing his character to capture him.

When he finaly did (massive chase all through Seattle) the player woke up in a cage and he told the GM screw you his character was biting off his toung and swollwing it the GM thinking ok fine try the player made the roll  ;D

After that he had us all captured and questioned then killed to which we all made the same min/maxxed Troll Adepts and proceded to case trouble in the next game.

For the life of me I don't get why he stopped running games  :P

Now as a Missions GM I run the adventures as per the papers in front of me I'm sure other have horror stories of my GMing. (I'm trying to do better give me time)

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