As a DM your players will pull stupid things every session. We all have those story’s we share and laugh together with our group. The fondest memories are made this way, and the in-jokes will always abound. Below are two stories from two different groups I’ve run and how they fooled me or created funny situations.
The Gods
This campaign is I am running for my brother and his friends. Being new to D&D I eased them in with the setting from my Broken Lands campaign but a new adventure, heading to a city named Erena and fighting in an Arena. My brother had approached me a few days before the campaign started and asked me to approve two gods for his character to worship. ” Bulriticus and Shitemus. They are the gods of random luck.”. Now some of you may see where this is going, but I didn’t. I approved the B.S. gods for my campaign.
The Players Realization
Grim (my brother) sought out a place to worship his gods. This being a good role-playing opportunity they went to the Orcish Enclave Drullburd. There the group found a small pair of statues, two bulls. At this point, the rest of the players realized what was happening. Apparently, it was a running joke in their group.
“Wait no you didn’t!”. That phrase was uttered multiple times by the different members of the group. The laughter carried on for a while, and I was dumbfounded that it slipped by me so easily. Looking back, I realize how simple the name was. I should have caught it, but I’m happy I didn’t.
Improvisation
Now the player’s had to discuss, how does one worship the B.S. gods? Eventually, they settled on human sacrifices. A side-plot of an elf named Lark they bullied resurfaced once more. He attempted to kill them, but they fought back instead of capturing him and, one of his companions decided to sacrifice them. Now I didn’t want to reward them for this, so I looked through my favorite subreddit r/d100 and found this. As a reward they got the Boon of Jelly Form: You can transform yourself into a you-shaped blob of fruit jelly. Including your muscles, nervous system, and brain. This is completely useless in almost any situation, and if the players are eaten then they die. I did impose a 24-hour time limit just in case they did transform. After all they need a way out.
What it meant to the Players
This changed the course of the campaign. The players loved the idea of getting really bad gifts for doing terrible morally grey things. Most of them changed their alignment and, a lot of character development happened. This led to a few more terrible boons to be dished out, including but not limited to the ones below.
Boon of Stylish Facial Hair: At the start of each day, a new form of facial hair will appear on your face. Gives advantage on charisma checks involving barbers, as they are entranced by your magnificent whiskers.
Boon of the Flagpole: Whenever you challenge someone to a fight, a flagpole appears in an unoccupied space 5 feet away from you.
The Door
The story behind this one is simple, the woods near the city of Arten house an undead horde. The Player’s known as the Hell-Raising Strangers have infiltrated the mansion the necromancer lives in. The group is on the first floor. One of the characters is Leroy Jenkins, and his main weapon is a door.
Hiding
The group had all rolled successful stealth checks, the lowest being 15. Now they all hide in various rooms off to the side of the hallway. They see a man, who just woke up, walking down the hall to grab food. Leroy gets an Idea, the main light source is the lamp coming from the man walking down the hallway. So he slides the door out onto the floor, 19 stealth. He patiently waits for the person to be right over the door and Lifts the door onto its side, trapping him. Stealth of 18, Perception roll of 4. The man walking trips and catches himself, 18 Dex saving throw, and then Leroy moves the door. Natural 20 on stealth, and another failure on perception and Dex.
Annoyance
“JERRY, What is a door doing down here?” The man annoyed he smashed his foot in is yelling towards the stairs at the end of the hall, near the common room.
“WHAT?” The reply rang out from upstairs.
“I said what is a door doing down here?” The man more annoyed began to walk to the stairs.
“What?” The reply rang out louder this time.
The Players
The players decided the best idea was to quietly wait in the shadows. Still hiding they listened as the man rain upstairs to go get Jerry. What happened next was me doing outlandish voices as arguing happened. Eventually, Jerry was thrown down the stairs and dragged to the door. A debate sprang up between the guards, which one of them played the prank?
More people joined in until eventually the necromancer himself came down. This whole time I was rolling perception checks and never rolled above a natural 6. The group waited until the necromancer was by the door and then struck! After a surprise round the Necromancer was quickly cut down, and his guards who were recently awakened surrendered.
A Simple But Fun Plan
This can be taken as multiple lessons. But I don’t see any of them as bad. With a group that rarely surprises me this much, the experience gained from them being cautious was great. And winging an entire conversation between what ended up being 6 unique characters was a blast. The group was laughing at the antics and arguments of these random villains that were confused by a door. It is another one of the proudest moments I’ve ever had as a Dungeon Master
Another Reason To Run D&D
The players make a D&D game. It is stories like these that define a game, and define a DM. One can easily tell a good or bad, rookie or experienced DM just from how they react to situations like this. I hope this encourages you to actually run a game, it is well worth the hassle to find a group as a player or DM and experience this madness yourself! So go out there and find a group, create your stories and share them here or anywhere you can!
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