General Stupidity... A senechal's reminiscence

[Draigh]

Stupid things I've seen PCs do in TRoS:

1: Fighting a 9' tall enraged Grizzly.  On horseback... with a dopplehander.

That one didn't work out too well for the PC.  He died from internal bleeding the next morning.

2:  Dropping white from and agressive stance in a large melee... against a guy with a glaive.  

This PC took a level 4 wound to the knee, and wasn't much fun for the rest of the party to haul around untill they all got killed.

3: Punching a city guard in the back of the head in front of his buddys.

Take a wild guess at what happened next.

4: Charging a tower full of crossbowmen by yourself after your buddy just got shot in the gut.

here's how the dialogue went...

Senechal: Ok, dude... ouch.  What's your AR?

PC #1:  4 I think. Yeah, 4.

Senechal: Good... You'll probably live then.  Level three belly wound.

PC #2: Right then... CHAAAARGE!!!

The rest of the party: *sound of crickets chirping*

Senechal: Umm, ok.  Well, you crest the rise in the bridge and start running toward the iron door of the tower.

PC #2: Iron door?  Well, whatever, my character would charge anyway.

Sensechal to the rest of the party: Well, you guys hear " 'CHAAARGE!' *stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp* *THWAP* and then a gurgle.  It's followed shortly by a sound somewhere between a slap and a thud.  It sounds like a body hitting the ground.

PC #2: OK, well, am I there yet?!? What do I see???



Ok, well, there's my four favorites.. You guys got any funny ones to post?

[Jaeger]

You and Ashren Va'Hale should really exchange notes.

Because from what he told me... damn.

[Draigh]

well, tell him to toss a few of them up here... come on guys, i know somebodys got some funny "Stupid PC tricks" to share

[Dan Sellars]

Is this stupid in general or just in TROS? (I don't mean RL but that does have possibilities...)

Dan.

[Draigh]

Well, I'd prefer TRoS, because it seems that stupidity pays off quicker in this system than any other I've played, but what the hell, any game system would work I guess...

[Ashren Va'Hale]

one of my players created a PC who is only proficient in unarmed combat,I thorw a great ape hef at them for funn. He charges  it and tries to punch it, the hef laughs and kicks him in the gut.

other player in the group tries to buy initiative from a wolf hef, he pays the 11 die activation cost and raises its ATN by 3, then he uses all his sas to win the contested roll. now he has 1 die left, he rolls and misses.

Level 4 to the pc's face, instant ugly flaw and insta brain damage.

then there was the guy who decides that his 5'4 120 pound yonish unmarmed combat guy would like to wrestle that big stahlnish guy in good armor with teh dagger. He burned no less than 3 luck points that bout to save his ass

then a different group of Pc's chase the villains into a church, they see fifteen to 20 of them heavilky armed with bows and swords go into the churhc, Thus they decide in theri brilliance that they should charge in directly through the front door. alone, just the two of them.

yeah, that went bad for them .

[Callan S.]

Draigh, it almost sounds like your players would prefer a different system. Particularly when their fighting such powerful foes again and again in a system when a kid with a dagger is a threat.

[Krammer]

Here are some stupid things my PCs have done.

1- This guy, not the brightest, decides that by playing his flute, he might be able to lull an enraged Hef to sleep. Why? I have no idea. Luckily, he had allies kind enough to save him before he could be killed.

2- This one was actually discussed in a different thread, but I'll tell it anyway. The same player, with a different Character, decided that he could run all of the way across a large room, jump over a very mean looking warrior, dodge his attack, an kill an archer before the archer could release his arrow. Luckily for him, the Seneschal let him live. (i dont know why)

3- This is the one that probably tops off the stupidity. It was whe my group had first started playing, about a week or two after TRoS was released, and the PC's were part of a revolutionary force. They were covertly going into a big party at some nobles house, in which they were to find some information on how the local government was trying to get rid of them.
  Well, during the party, one of the PCs decided that it would be to his advantage if he were to mix some sort of a sleeping drug into the drinks at the party. At this time, another PC, who was watching this, decided that it was a stupid idea (which it was) and then executed a very stupid plan. he whips out his crossbow, (who knows how it got into the party) and shoots the guy who is drugging the drink. Well, the bolt didn't kill the guy, (unfortunately). All of the guards in the manor house leapt at the guy with the corssbw, bringing him down. you would think that with ten guys on you, rolling the dice to see if they could get a hold of you was necessary, but the PC did. at this point, the Seneschal stopped doing what the guy wanted, and let him get taken away. that was most definitely the worst session ever played by my group.

sadly enough, the same player was in each of those examples.

[Rico]

Oh, i've got a good one. This character was a very smart person. One day while in a bar this character decided that it would be funny to sit on a tough looking guys lap. Upon sitting the tough looking guy painfully pulls out his dagger(The character was really fat) and stabs the character in the but. Then the character jumps up and kills the guy. Some guards see the fight and go to stop the character but somehow the character gets good rolls and kills the guards. The character runs out of the bar with people chasing him and he had his axe raised in triumph. The Seneschal, me, that had had enough of that character, made a lightning bolt strike the raised axe and the character got zapped.

[Swordmagnet]

How bout this: a player just would not leave the tavern without getting into a fight. He was a big,dumb type and was convinced his strength of 7 was enough to beat anyone into a pulp. BTW, this was our first session of TROS. Anyway, he proceeded to act stupidly and squared off against someone much smaller than himself. The NPC danced around him until he was fatigued enough and then landed an incredible blow to the big guy's chin. Level 3 wound, broken jaw, knocked out...  

The PC had to play the rest of the session with a -3 CP from Pain. He learned his lesson though, and turned out to be the best tactician of the group.

[Mike Holmes]

The Seneschal, me, that had had enough of that character, made a lightning bolt strike the raised axe and the character got zapped.

Bad form. You ought to have played it out. Have the rest of the guard alerted, and hunted the guy down. If the player doesn't learn that the reasons not to do anti-social things is that the world will react badly, then they'll never stop this behavior. All you taught the player was to fear the GM's random moodswings.

I'm afraid that a lot of what's being called stupidity here I'd attribute to problems with conflicts of play style. Which bodes ill for the games in question. Because the players in question aren't going to get "smarter". The only way to adress these problems is out of play.

Mike

[Mitchy]

This is actually from a DND Campaign, but this is the same group I'm about to Introduce to TROS.

They had jsut killed an Evil High priest in town and were trying to affect an escape. They could see hordes of accolytes and guards rushing out of the temple on the hill and filtering out into town. This is a walled town, with a river running though it. The party was near the wall and near the river and considred swimming away. The Ranger (And for some reason the leader of the party) decided that going into the wilderness would be bad as that's what they were expected to do and would be easily tracked. It was decided to go to ground in town. So the headed to a large house next to a stable (The Horse-trainer for the town). The mage went alone into the stable, the rest of the party to the front door. The Dwarf (CHA 6) knocked. When it was answered the Dwarf Announced, "We need to hide here." and pushed his way in. This started a combat, where the townsman and his middle son were killed. THe mother ran upstairs. Mean while the Mage finds the Eldest Son engaged in some act of debauchery with a townsgirl in the loft of the stable. He climbs up (surprisingly Stealthy) and casts an Area of Effect Fear Spell.  They boy makes his save (amazing) and draws a dagger. The girl fail and jumps from the loft and breaks her leg. The wizard casts burning hands to kill the boy, but also ignites the straw in the loft. Back inside the Necromancer has gone upstairs after the mother. He kicks open the door behind which is a screaming baby. The mother fires a crossbow bolt at him and misses wildly, he uses Chill Touch or somesort to send her to her gods. Then he scoopes up the baby and places it inside one of the large pockets of his robe. The bell tower on the house (all the houses had unique bells as this was a town speciality and export) begins to ring. The Thief and Ranger run up their to find the youngest son (The baby was a daugheter) ringing the alarm bell. They cut him down. However many guards people are converging on the house. THe party runs out to see the stable consumed by a blaze (as if the bell wasn't enough to bring the guards down on them) and the mage looking panicked. They all take off to the river to swim out of town and affect their escape. I forced all party members to move their alignment one step closer to Cahotic, as many of these actons were carried out by allegedly lawful people.

This is probably the best example of chaos caused by my party members. I expect a lot of death, and near death experiences in TROS, but for some reason I'll think they'll be okay as they tend to do the unexpected (making my life a living nightmare)

[Draigh]

these were the PCs? The good guys?

Am I right here Mitchy?

@Noon:

None of my examples are my current gaming group, they were either converts or first time gamers.  So, yeah, you're probably right there.

@Krammer:

yup, that sounds pretty stupid.

@ Rico:

I don't get the moral of your story there... Is it that you shouldn't let people play idiots in your game? Or that players in your game should "beware the GM"? I agree with Mike there, bad form.

@Mike:
Before I run a game of TRoS to any players, I try really hard to impress upon them the fact that their actions do have repurcussions, much like the real world.  I let them know that they can't get away with some of the things they did in their old gaming systems, etc, etc.   Sometimes, it just doesn't work.