The players responded to it well. It only lasted for a single session. They were mistaken for school children and forced by a teacher to go into school for a day. Once locked inside their dorm I gave the players a freehand at trying to escape from school (every kid's dream), which they successfully completed.

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Scratchit: But he's a cripple!
Blackadder: He's not a cripple, Mrs Scratchit. Occasionally saying "Phew! My leg hurts!" when he remembers to wouldn't fool Baldrick!

In my d20 modern game, my players used a 1930s type fire extinguisher to take out eight dog-sized spiders. I was quite impressed by their efforts as the fire extinguisher was more effective than either their hand gun or their bruiser's bastard sword.

After spending three hours (in game only fortunately) figuring out how to open a warded door the two high Intelligence PCs then chose a much simpler way to open the second locked door. They had their bruiser throw himself at it. Why? Because they had left their latin dictionary upstairs. That was their reason for the change in strategy.

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Nihil est ab omni partum beatum.
(Nothing is an unmixed blessing)

Some people never learn.

One of my players has a tendancy to mess with unifdentified magical objects, figuring it's easier to just find out what they do the hard way.

Case one: A magic mirror. Turns out to be mirror of opposition. Yay for evil twins!

Case two: A wand. Specifically, a wand of wonder. I arbitrarily choose an obscenly common word as the command that sets it off. Now I'm just trying to make sure they get the message. I really would rather they not die, so start being careful.

Case three: A magic belt. "I'll just put it on and see what it does. What's the worst that could happen." Enter the belt of Gender Change. :D

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I swear, now you're just doing it to piss me off.

Gender Change must be a fun surprise to spring on players. I'll have to remember to do that to one of them sometime.

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Scratchit: But he's a cripple!
Blackadder: He's not a cripple, Mrs Scratchit. Occasionally saying "Phew! My leg hurts!" when he remembers to wouldn't fool Baldrick!

I am particularly fond of that curse. Its a purely roleplaying change that can really challenge some players.

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Nihil est ab omni partum beatum.
(Nothing is an unmixed blessing)

So now he has boobies, and a wand of wonder (thike the Goblin's Sheild of Wonder) that goes off every time he says the word "the".

And the only other female PC, a half elven mage, trying to console him by telling him he make a very pretty girl.

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I swear, now you're just doing it to piss me off.

I think I pissed my Dungeon Master off a couple of weeks ago. My character is rather arguementative (being a wizard and all he sees it almost as a sport) but unfortunately was arguing with a female bat creature which had magical powers. I could note the DM was getting a little annoyed by all our players slow progress and I suspect I might have pushed him over the edge when he decided to have the batgirl cast a spell that would remove my mouth. My wizard being what he is (a highly intelligent man with a mind of a 7 year-old) decided to continue the arguement by writing down whatever he had to say. Needless to say this got the Dungeon Master even more vexed and a few written exchanges later my man had been turned into a girl. He'll get turned back into a guy eventually (the Wizards' Guild has a belt for these types of magical accidents) but it goes to show what can happen when you cross a Dungeon Master.

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Scratchit: But he's a cripple!
Blackadder: He's not a cripple, Mrs Scratchit. Occasionally saying "Phew! My leg hurts!" when he remembers to wouldn't fool Baldrick!

Ah, vindictiveness. Its a virtue for DMs.

For longer than I liked, I ran a game with twelve players including one who drank 5L of Coke a session (conservative estimate). One fight took all morning and after six o'clock when the canteen closed ending the cola supply, Mr Hyper started to come down off his caffeine high. That made for some interesting DMing challenges.

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Nihil est ab omni partum beatum.
(Nothing is an unmixed blessing)

Did this bloke have any teeth left?

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Scratchit: But he's a cripple!
Blackadder: He's not a cripple, Mrs Scratchit. Occasionally saying "Phew! My leg hurts!" when he remembers to wouldn't fool Baldrick!

My first ever AD&D session, so long ago I can barely remember it - we are adventuring (duh) and we find a wyvern. The DM rolls to find out who it picks up, and my brother's character is the unlucky one lifted into the air. So we bring the thing down (my brother's character took some damage from the fall). So we go on a bit again, and the DM rolls to decide wo the ankheg sneaks up at. Ding ding ding! My brother's character gets eaten.

VkmSpouge:

I think I pissed my Dungeon Master off a couple of weeks ago. My character is rather arguementative (being a wizard and all he sees it almost as a sport) but unfortunately was arguing with a female bat creature which had magical powers. I could note the DM was getting a little annoyed by all our players slow progress and I suspect I might have pushed him over the edge when he decided to have the batgirl cast a spell that would remove my mouth. My wizard being what he is (a highly intelligent man with a mind of a 7 year-old) decided to continue the arguement by writing down whatever he had to say. Needless to say this got the Dungeon Master even more vexed and a few written exchanges later my man had been turned into a girl. He'll get turned back into a guy eventually

Oh right, that was fun.  My character and our group's rogue even offered to do your character's hair ... Surprisingly enough your wizard was not amused about it at all.

...

About a decade ago I used to play a RPG called "Das Schwarze Auge" (The Dark Eye). For one adventure we had a DM who's newly achieved DMing power went to his head.

One of the characters, a cleric (or something similar to a cleric in DSA), lost an arm in a battle and prayed to his deity to (at least) heal the wound.

The DM asked him not only to announce the prayer, but speak it. (Okay so far ...)

After a few moments time of thinking of a good prayer's text (the DM let a stop watch run meanwhile), the cleric spoke his prayer.

Unfortunalety the DM did not accept the prayer and now asked the player (not the player character, but really that guy sitting at the table) to go down on his knees and say the prayer again.

After much discussions, the player of the cleric did so. Now the DM announced with an evil grin on his face that the cleric did not got back the right arm he lost in battle, but surprisingly enough has now two arms at his left shoulder.

(No need to mention that we never ever allowed that one DM to be DM ... again ... ever. )

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Loyal Worshipper of Teagan D'Rynn.

Nice. I feel better knowing I'm a lame DM and not an evil DM.

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I swear, now you're just doing it to piss me off.

This is a good a place as any to post this...

Just recently, one of my regular DM's decided to take a break from running his HARP (High Adventure Role Playing) game. To filll the gap, I put my hand up to run a game as a stop-gap until he was ready to DM again.

My choice of game: the classic adventure module (recently updated for D&D 3rd Ed.) "Tomb of Horrors".

The novice D&D'ers among you are probably going "who the what now?"

The veteran players among you that are familiar with this particular adventure are probably finding themselves reaching for a fresh character sheet and their favourite stat-rolling D6's out of sheer instinct.

Basically, this module has a well-deserved reputation as one of the deadliest adventures ever published. And it has lived up to that reputation so far.

The summary one and a half game sessions in:
- Rooms explored: 5.
- Deceased characters: 5 (a Total Party Kill from a single encounter).

Morrigan's character (a Cleric/Wizard/Mystic Theurge) survived the longest, but only because the Beastie had to spend the time (about 5 rounds) tearing (literally) through the party heavy hitters; and then she cast Expeditious Retreat and fled into the swap. Unfortunately for her, this Beastie can fly and has pretty good eyesight...

Not really all that hilarious, but I enjoyed it immensely.

The players are creating new characters and trying again afresh. I'll try to post regular updates as to their status. Hopefully they'll do better this time...

But it *is* the Tomb of Horrors.

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'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' - Arthur C. Clarke.
'Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.' - Gregory Benford.

My priestess should have run when the gargoyle turned the raging half-orc barbarian into salsa then slammed him against the wall.

I got nine rounds at a full pelt run with expeditious retreat into the swamp. Nine rounds before the four armed monstrosity came screaming out of the sky and rent me limb from limb. Nine rounds.

Not that I am miffed, not sirree. I pulled my Dirge Singer out of the Book of the Dead and I am going to song of grief that garden ornament. Then I have a paladin I want to try out. And a barbarian/cleric. And a tiefling druid. And when they all die, I'm going to trot out my poison using, bow specialist ranger/assassin. Then when she dies horribly, I'll find someone else...

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Nihil est ab omni partum beatum.
(Nothing is an unmixed blessing)

Scary stuff, I really wouldn't want to tackle the Tomb of Horrors, it sounds...horrible.

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Scratchit: But he's a cripple!
Blackadder: He's not a cripple, Mrs Scratchit. Occasionally saying "Phew! My leg hurts!" when he remembers to wouldn't fool Baldrick!