Now, I've been a RPGer for awhile, and I think I've experienced a few really stupid events by sadistic and/or clueless DM's over the years. These are the kinds of things that make you want to throw dice, argue, yell, strangle the life out of the fool who is torturing you, and generally show more testosterone than the average pro wrestling interview contains.
That being said, here are my nominations for the Hall of DMing Shame.
The Polar Bear
This nomination brought to you courtesy of my DM Vern.
I had a Snow Elf (from Dragon Magazine). As you may have guessed, they have some minor resistance to cold. Further, he was a 12th level druid/ 10th level Ranger (First Edition). A pretty outdoorsy character, hey? Presumably somewhat used to bad temperatures, especially given the class and level. Further, he was currently shapechanged (as the 9th level wizard spell) into the form of a polar bear. Add all this up, and you would imagine this guy would be well at home in a winter environment. I sure thought so, to my regret. The temperature was 40 degrees fahrenheit (that's above freezing). And what does Vern tell me? `Save versus frostbite'.
Deersicles
This nomination brought to you courtesy of my DM Vern, again.
Same character, the Snow Elf, but a different winter. My companions were chilly, so they started a campfire. No problem. But it seems they still hadn't mastered this skill, and they proceded to set the forest on fire. No problem, I could see it happening. I decided to use a summon weather spell to call down a freezing rain to put the fire out. I didn't get rain, I got snow. Okay, I could see this too, this wasn't a weather control spell, so it's not 100% accurate. Fine. But then Vern let me know that it was coming down hard. REALLY hard. I singlehandedly called down the worst blizzard to ever hit that portion of the world. The snow piled up and eventually it reached the 40 foot mark. Okay, I could see this happening too, magic can be unpredictable. But when I decided to summon a deer to ride out of this mess, Vern told me there aren't any. Actually there were some, but they're all dead. Excuse me? It seems that when it snows a deer will stand stock-still, and let the snow pile up on itself. Vern is from Montana, and was very insistent about this point. I thought that perhaps this might be true, but NOT IF THE STUPID DEER IS GOING TO BE BURIED ALIVE!!! Oh, all the other animals also decided to hang around too, so every creature in the forest wound up dead. I should've just let the fire burn the place down. If any deer experts out there can corroborate Vern's mass deer suicide as truth, let me know, and I'll type up an apology. (But I DON'T think this is gonna happen.)
Big Bad Xorns
This nomination brought to you courtesy of my DM Vern.
Same character, the Snow Elf. My elf had been granted a few miles of inhospitable mountain terrain on which to settle his people in return for services to the Prince of Ulek. However, the Prince granted me land that belonged to some OTHER kingdom. Okay, I suppose I shouldn't have trusted him. At any rate, upon moving in, I discovered that there were 40 stone giants and 2 xorn already living in the area. The stone giants all decided to support my rule, and I decided that they should kill the xorn. I figured that since they are roughly equal in power, I might lose about 5 giants or so. Acceptable losses. Well, at the end of the fight, there where TWO LOUSY STONE GIANTS LEFT! Vern, come on! Xorn don't have hit points in the 5 digits!
So It's Gonna Be War!
This nomination brought to you courtesy of my DM Vern.
Same character, the Snow Elf. My elf, as previously mentioned, was ruling a mountaintop in somebody else's kingdom. This didn't bother the king, since the area was worthless, and none of his subjects lived there. Besides, I was keeping the TWO LOUSY STONE GIANTS quiet. Well, my mistake was rerouting a small river. I moved it so my snow elves would have a reservoir. At any rate, some people miles away from the mountain decided they missed that river. So they formed an army to rechannel it. I didn't think much of it. Then they went to a nearby forest and got an army of elves to support them. `Okay,' I thought. `I've still got the high ground.' Then the elves convinced the faerie races, pixies, sprites, leprechauns, brownies, etc. as well as some treants, centaurs, etc. to form a third army to march against me. `Hmm,' I thought. `Well, I've still got TWO LOUSY STONE GIANTS!' Then they petitioned the king, who, greatly angered that a small river never used was rerouted, decided to send the kingdom's entire army against me. So, now I was faced by 4 major armies (and they were armies, not mobs, militias, or irregular troops), who had mobilized and were ready to ascend the mountain in the space of 8 hours. How did I get out of this fix? I pointed out that `THERE ARE 6 OTHER RIVERS AND STREAMS GOING INTO THAT AREA, YOU BLIND MORONS!' The four armies collectively said, `oh' and went home.
20th Level Chambermaids
This nomination brought to you courtesy of my DM Vern.
Luckily I was able to avoid this one. My friend Will Hutchinson had a fighter/cleric (of Loviatar) of about levels 9/10. For some reason I was never quite clear about, he found his cleric fighting the chambermaid assigned to clean his inn room. All his spells, scourges, swords, magic items, etc. were for naught. That chambermaid kicked his butt with a feather duster she used for a club. Hutch's cleric had to flee for her life, with an angry chambermaid in hot pursuit. Hutch escaped, but his cleric commited suicide an hour later, unable to live with the shame of losing this badly to a chambermaid. Hutch shouldn't have taken it so badly, as the majority of NPCs in Vern's campain were extremely high level. (Oh, Vern confirmed later on that she was 20th level.)
Speedy Bandits
This nomination brought to you courtesy of my DM Vern.
I was using a Bakali lizard man (from the Time of the Dragon boxed Dragonlance set). So, here I am fighting 6 thugs in a castle. After 4 die, the other two decide to run away, and I chase after them. I'm about 10 feet behind them, and they run into a room, and lock the door. Cute. I run THROUGH the door, smashing it down (thanks to giant strength) and POW! I'm hit square in the chest with a ballista bolt. What did this prove? That two people in plate mail can outdistance an unarmored lizard man, then shut and lock a door, load a ballista, aim it, and fire it into the poor reptiles chest, all in about 2 rounds. It also proves that whoever owns this castle is smart enough to keep seige weapons on the third floor of his castle, in windowless rooms, that don't have doors big enough to permit the weapon from being removed, just in case his thugs are being chased by a lizard man.
Rich Merchants
This nomination brought to you courtesy of my DM Vern.
I'm a dual-class magic-user/monk in a party of three characters. Our intrepid party is hired by a merchant in distress. It seems his daughter has been kidnapped by a group of bandits, who are demanding 100,000 gp for her safe return. Naturally, we agree to rescue his daughter for him. And just as surely, we are successful. And our reward? The merchant gives us 1,000,000 gp EACH, plus several of the ships from his fleet still filled with expensive cargo, along with trading rights he's established. Since nobody wants to become a merchant sailor, we attempt to sell the boats, cargo, and trading rights. We are successful, to the tune of 3-4 million more gp each. Naturally, everybody retired immediately afterwards. After all, what is left to adventure for? We have 250 tons of gold each, how much more could there be out there? Talk about your Monty Haul... My real question is, why didn't this obviously wealthy merchant just pay the piddling (to him) 100,000 gp's?
Leaving Town
This nomination brought to you courtesy of my DM Vern.
I was using a drow mage/assassin 1st/2nd. We were doing some adventure, and Vern told us that we HAD to go to some other city to complete the adventure, I don't remember why. I DO know that nobody really felt like leaving the city we were in for the stupid reason he gave us, but we were resigned to our fate. Well, we left the city, and as soon as we left, Vern said `Let me check for wilderness wandering monsters.' Uh-oh. Vern rolled, and a wyvern came streaking out of the sky, hell-bent on turning us into shish-kebabs. No chance to evade, it's here. Since we were all 1st or 2nd level, everyone but myself and one other character died. When we asked Vern why he killed our characters with so deadly a monster, he replied, `Hey, you left town. And wyverns live in the terrain like you were in.' VERN! YOU MADE US LEAVE! YOU FORCED US OUT OF TOWN! From that day on, the wyvern has been renamed the `Why Vern?'.
Poof!
This nomination brought to you courtesy of my DM Vern.
As mentioned, Vern had lots of high level NPC's everywhere. If you thought that the Forgotten Realms was ridiculously oversaturated with high level mages (and you'd be right), you haven't seen anything. In Vern's campaign, you couldn't sneeze without hitting one. Now, the weird thing about this is that they all seemed to have gone to the same school of magic, or had the same master. I say this because every one of them had the same high level `Poof' spell. It worked like a teleport, but with no save against it, no chance of spell failure, no resistance possible, and an unlimited range. It also automatically went first in the round, regardless of speed factors, hastes, etc. It could also affect any number of individuals. These mages all seemed to love this spell, as there were at least 2 dozen unrelated mages who seemed to keep using it on our characters. Lest I forget, we also ran into a 0 level book-keeper who developed a varient of the spell. This one first created an unbreakable, impenetrable force field around our characters before it `poof'ed us to the far side of the continent, all in a single round. Oddly enough, try as we might, we could never latch onto this spell, or any variant of it for ourselves.
Be Careful with Vorpal Swords
This nomination brought to you courtesy of my DM Vern.
I'm a 16th level cavalier, and my cavalier weapon of choice is a long sword. My weapon is an intelligent vorpal long sword. I'm fighting someone and I roll a 1 for my hit roll. Vern tells me to roll again, and I roll a 20. Vern then happily announces that I've just cut my own leg off. Those of you who worship critical hit tables will see nothing wrong with this, but for those of us who expect a highly experienced fighter not to run themselves through using their own weapon will see this as slightly absurd.
Sour Grapes
This nomination brought to you courtesy of my DM Vern.
Same character, the cavalier. So, being high level, my character decided to settle down on an estate, and let peasants work the land, or do whatever it is that peasants do. I decided to raise sables, as I thought they were better than minks, and it was not as common as the typical plant farming. Vern gave me no problems setting it up. (Which really surprised me.) I also made a tidy sum per year on the farm's proceeds. I felt pretty content with this, until I found out what was going on at the farm next door. That farm was owned by another PC, MacAuthveer, whom we all just called `McCavity'. He was a drow fighter/thief and raised grapes on his farm. At any rate, right after he set up the farm, and before he had a chance to grow ANYTHING, the king (that none of us ever knew or helped in any way, even indirectly) decided that this guy was going to grow the greatest grapes for wine in the kingdom, and promptly bought him out every year. McCavity's annual income? 1,000,000 gp's. He was smart and promptly retired. Yeah, I crabbed a bit for having a cheap sable farm, and him being a millionaire grape farmer, but Vern just said, `Hey, you can grow grapes too, if you want.' I didn't. I kept the sables, just to show `em. Besides, I wasn't really worried about it. It's more of a case of `More power to you, if he let you get away with it. Nice going, McCavity.'
Evil Stinks
This nomination brought to you courtesy of my DM Vern.
Same character, the cavalier. Well, there I was on the sable farm, and I received word that a two-headed dragon (red and blue) moved into the neighboring mountains. I decided to go slay the beast, along with McCavity and one other yahoo. We headed out towards the sight, me full of adrenalin to vanquish the beast, and the other two reluctantly following. Actually, I had to practically drag their unmotivated butts along. Well, I put up with about an hours worth of their whining about how much they didn't want to do this, and it steadily made me feel more and more disgusted about the whole thing. Finally, I just got so ticked off, that I said forget it, I'm not going either. We all turned to leave and Vern shrank all of our characters to 1" tall. No, there was no save, this is Vern, remember? I guess he felt that we would want to fight the dragon if we were smaller. I was fed up though, and said I'm going home. That's when Bozo 1 and Bozo 2 decide to get into it. They come up with a way for us all to regain our normal size, which we do. Then they try to convince me to come with them to fight the dragon. Incredulous at their 180 degree change in attitude, I refuse and, ignoring their entreaties, I return home. They do likewise. At home, I sit, fester, and brood. The dragon, meanwhile, flies down and kills all the sables on my farm. I sit there. Then it kills all the peasant workers. I sit there. Then it burns up all the vegetation on my territory. I sit there. Then it destroys every building but the manor. I sit there. Then it tears the manor down around me. I sit there. Then it returns to the mountains. I finally stand up, pick up my lance+2, and head off towards the mountains. When I got there, I strode right into the dragon's cave, march right up to one of it's heads and said, `Just what the *&%$* do you think you're doing?!?!!' The dragon, somewhat taken aback, says that `the land reeked of evil, and I intend to clear it.' True, my cavalier was lawful/evil, but up until this point, had not been a major blight on the world. So I said, `Your cleansing method is to wipe out a few hundred sables? And how about all those peasants? Were they all evil? I was almost positive they were all just trying to earn a living and get themselves and their families by. Tell me, was the grass evil too? Why not just come and attack me, you stupid @#$*&.' At this point, I walked out.
So I'll be a major blight then...
This nomination brought to you courtesy of my DM Vern.
Same character, the cavalier. Well, not having an estate anymore, I went to the neighboring one and slaughtered the family living there, the guards, etc. and moved in. The dragon followed and wrecked this place too. I went to the next estate and did the same as before. The dragon did likewise. This went on for 9 estates. Congratulations, I have finally lived up to being an evil character. I'm still trying to figure out how Vern figured this was a good dragon though. Made me a butcher, and slaughtered hundreds of innocents...
Surround the Place!
This nomination brought to you courtesy of my DM Vern.
Same character, the cavalier. Finally, at the 10th estate, the dragon stopped following. Vern finally realized that I wasn't going to fight the thing. So... a new bad call. He had the king of the land the dragon and I had been ravaging decide to act. He sent his entire army (all of it) to surround the manor so that I could not escape. Apparantly, he has no other use for them, such as guarding his borders. Well, I sat there in the manor, and refused to come out. They didn't attack, they all sat there surrounding the house. I'm sure there was a point to this, but it was lost on me. The front door was open.
Drow Princess
This nomination brought to you courtesy of my DM Vern.
Same character, the cavalier. So, in the house I sat, and outside waited the kingdom's army. And I hear a noise in the throne room. I wait, and a huge number of drow come tunneling through the floor. They tell me that if I will return to their underworld with them, and lead their army into victory against the opposing drow forces they will make me a drow princess. I refuse. VERN! I'M HUMAN! I CAN'T EVEN SEE IN THE DARK! Besides, where in the underworld is a cavalier supposed to ride a horse?!?!?
When Is a Noble Noble?
This nomination brought to you courtesy of my DM Vern.
Same character, the cavalier. The cavalier decided to enter the Arena of Death II, since the original she did not attend was apparently a true test of one's power and ability. Problem was, this year the rules changed and it was decided that a sponser was needed for all entrants. One possible sponser was a noble of any type. `No problem', I said. `She's a Baroness, remember? She'll sponser herself'. This didn't fit in Vern's plans and he said that that's not good enough. So who is good enough?
Sponsors
This nomination brought to you courtesy of my DM Vern.
Vern decided that the possible sponsers would be gods, extreme archmages (Mordenkainen, Bigby, Elminster), archdevils (Asmodeus, Mephistopheles), demon princes (Lolth, Demogorgon, Orcus), and kings, emperors, and the occasional prince. Wow, there must hve beeen quite a crowd available for that Arena Vern...
Dancing Swords are Deadlier Than Vorpal Swords
This nomination brought to you courtesy of my DM Scaz.
One game the PCs all decided we had enough of each other. Everyone started to attack each other in a final battle. As it turned out, the final three came down to my cleric, my thief, and another person's paladin. He sent his dancing sword to kill my cleric, and I retaliated by thrashing him. He died two rounds later. Meanwhile, the DM must not have ever read the sword's description because he said that it killed both my guys. Never mind the owner was dead and that it only dances a limited number of rounds. Also at it only attacks one target. And that I had 70 and 30 hit points left. He simply said, `The sword kills you both.' Wow, what a way to go. Good thing the guy didn't have a Holy Avenger.
Blackballs
This nomination brought to you courtesy of my DM Melissa.
I'm using a D&D magic-user/werebat (from PC4) of 13th/7th level. Also, he's a 3rd circle necromancer from the Glantrian Gazeteer. Anyway, he's exploring a dungeon with several of his wives, who happen to be vampires or nosferatu he created. I've hasted everybody, and there is a nosferatu thief of 5th level and with an 18 DEX at point. We see a room that nobody's infravision can penetrate. I decide it's full of darkness spells and halt everybody outside of the room, so that I may dispel the darkness before we enter. As we do so a blackball comes flying out of the room, and automatically hits the unsurprised hasted unarmored 18 DEX thief nosferatu before she has a chance to do anything. Can we say `I just felt like killing a character?'
Tough Merchants
This nomination brought to you courtesy of my DM Melissa.
Same character, the magic-user/werebat. So there I was, trying to raise money for a few needed coffins, and thought, `Hey, why not sell Continual Light items? People could use those, permanent, no oil needed, perfect!' So there I went, to several merchants to sell some of these items. They all refused. I tried reasoned argunments. They refused. I tried multiple charm spells on multiple merchants (save at -2). They all made all their saves every time. I cried foul. Missy explained that all the merchants were max level. Merchant level? No, adventurer level. 10th level elves, 8th level halflings, etc. In disbelief, I said the heck with it, kidnapped the halfling shop owner, and sold him to Glantri as a spell component. He should've bought the continual light item...
Bounty 1,000,000gp
This nomination brought to you courtesy of my DM Melissa.
Same character, the magic-user/werebat. Missy decided that the halfling I kidnapped was the son of the King of the halflings, and before the Glantrians dissected him he was able to escape long enough to send a short note home. Instead of something like `Help me! A Glantrian mage is going to cut me up! Rescue me here!' he wrote `A Cynidicean mage kidnapped me! Here's his description. Make sure he dies!' The note took about 10 minutes to go from Glantri to the Shires (Fed-Ex should be so good.) And within 15 minutes of that, everywhere on the continent were wanted signs for my mage. For a 1 million gold piece bounty. You'd think he'd have offered to ransom his son back. Or just buy a few crummy continual light items...
Stalin's Island
This nomination brought to you courtesy of...
This was just a ridiculous set-up. A new campaign, and we all live on a small island, only a few miles across, almost completely covered with a forest, save for a mountain range dividing it in half. On this small island is a human village, a band of nomadic elves, a village of monsters (minotaurs, mongrelmen, etc) and a batch of powerful independent major monster. Again, this is a small island. It also has no contact with the outside world, since only the minotaurs have boats, which they only use for off-shore fishing.
No, we haven't even gotten to the ridiculous parts yet. I'll have to come back to this.
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Updated 31 Dec 00.