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I wrote in a previous article that your most memorable moments in role-playing games are usually the results of your most spectacular failures. This came to mind when one of my players asked me to create a top 10 list of the best moments of our campaign that had just ended. Strangely, nine of the ten, were blunders, mishaps, and catastrophic events for the players--but they were awesome!

So here's my finest moment in an RPG.

My character from an old 2nd edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign was Grimbernne Ironshanks, dwarven fighter; Tons of hit points, covered in steel mail, and hell on wheels with a longsword. Gruff, rude, opinionated, yet somehow a natural born leader.

Fast forward a few years.

We spent literally months of campaign time working our way to the lair of an ancient red dragon, living in the mountain ruins of an ancient dwarven kingdom that he had laid waste to generations ago. We discovered deep in the ruins a dwarven arch-lich, a former subject of the kingdom, who for the last two hundred years has been doing nothing but forging a powerful dragon-slaying sword. He handed the sword over to us, then vanished into dust.

In the chamber of the ancient red dragon, Grimbernne rushes the dragon wielding the sword. The dragon unleashes his most terrifying weapon, a fiery blast of dragon breath, but I am totally prepared for it. I'm wearing a ring of fire protection, wearing red dragon-scale armor, and an arumvorax cloak. The only way I'm failing this save is by rolling a...

(clatter) "...1..."

I suck up 88 points of fire damage. Except now, all of my items need to roll saving throws against magical fire. Fortunately metal has a great save against magical fire, so the only way a +5 dragon slaying sword will fail and be destroyed is if I roll a...

(clatter) "...1..."

Yes, I charge into battle wielding a sword that his been magically forged for the last 200 years by a dwarven arch-lich for the sole purpose of slaying this ancient red dragon, and it is vaporized before I even get a chance to swing it at him. We laughed and laughed and laughed. Sure we managed to kill the dragon anyway, but I'm pretty sure that dwarven arch-lich came back and is forging a sword just to kill Grimbernne with...

Hey Matt, glad to see your active as a writer contributing to RPGing! Hehe.

I'll cite a few incidents from recent games. I'm running a 3.0/3.5 campaign for a bunch of roleplaying noobs. The party consists of a elven druid, a female half-elven rogue, a halfling rogue, and an Umberkin Barbarian (basically a human with "giant" blood...with half-orc stats, more or less mixed in with some AGOT feats). This, by all means, is NOT the most ideal group....and here goes some of their "blunders" and then some...

1. Krunk's Gold Gone!!! Krunk Mad!!! - Krunk, the Umber Barbarian, and the halfling thief recently acquired several weapons and rings...thinking that the loot might contain magic items they hire Alderan the Blue, a local mage to cast Detect Magic (they have no idea what it's called...). The two had to pool their funds together to pay Alderan 10gp (which at this point is A LOT of money for them). Lo and behold....none of their items glow and thank the gods a few items glowed on Alderan or he would be mush at the end of Krunk's fists.... Little did they know, Nazgrax the Druid can cast Detect Magic as a 0 Level spell. Krunk was quite pissed after I told the story to a friend.

2. The Death of Big Bertha - The party attempts to infiltrate a bandit band, but must go through initiation by bringing back one farm animal from one of three nearby farms (basic theft). The party approaches a local farm, and decides to parlay with the farmers. The Druid Nazgrax an half-elf she-rogue Kiko (don't ask) meet with the farmers late night and begin negotiations (which includes the druid blessing the summer harvest). Meanwhile, Krunk and the halfling are hiding out near the pig pens....and they get a bit itchy and start sneaking over to snatch themselves some pork. Right as the Druid was going to negotiate a deal to get a large pig, Krunk attempts to steal one of the piglets from Big Bertha, the "great mother pig" of the farm...in her attempts to rush and attack Krunk (and the halfling who is having a hard time trying to grab one of fifteen piglets) she trips (rolled a 1). Next round, Krunk continues to capture piglets (and at this point the farmers ring the alarm thinking that Krunk and the halfling are part of the bandit band attacking the farm)...and Big Bertha again attempts to boar rush him....and again she trips (another 1)!!! The farmers now rush out of the meeting hall....grabbing pitchforks and torches and Krunk and the halfling manage to crawl out of the pen just in the nick of time...(and I say to the players...if I roll another 1, Big Bertha suffers a massive stroke or something and dies....and I toss my lucky blue 20 into the air....and it lands....1!!!!). Big Bertha rushes and suddenly stops, keels over thumping into the ground, and blood gushes out of her mouth, noses, and ears.... The farmers find her dead, cry out as their main cash pig dies, and goes on a rampage seeking out the bandits that killed their precious pig! Fortunately, the leader of the bandit band also is a Umberkin,,,and Krunk screams out...I am the Bandit Lord, Muwhahahahaha!...or something like that as he grabs the halfling, shoves a piglet into his pack, and runs like mad. Well...the farmers end up giving the Druid and Half-Elf two large pigs, free of charge, as long as they hunt down and bring them the head of the vile bandit lord that killed their precious Bertha.

The group is quite comical...I'll post more of their weird antics as they explore the realm of D&D and roleplaying. Ugh. My favorite comment so far, quoting the female half-elf, who actually is a female player, "I don't like the fighting, can we do more stealing?". Great.

Ming

A few of mine in as short a structe as I can:

-In a vampire game I killed 152 (+2) people because none of us had Dominate... and we got away with it.

-In a 2nd d&d game (at 5th level) the wizard and I were plotting (the rest of the party loved to talk for hours between actually doing things), and during one such down time the wizard rolls his new toy, a gate cube, well it comes up w/ the random side... it opens a portal to the 6th level of hell... I learn from him that things can only come through if invited... so I taunt one of the denizens that I can see. It stepped through, we fought, I got it down to 14 hp (by myself) before it dropped me to unconciousness. When the DM said, "Okay, the ranger passes out and falls over", the party perks up and gets a description of what they (now) notice happening 30 feet away. The paladin freaks out, charges, and smites the big nasty dealing (wait for it) 14 points of dmg. For the rest of our time together he told the story of how he banished a demon.

-In the same game (2nd lvl) I crit fumbled with my longbow and hit myself in the head for triple weapon damage. Almost died. The next game I showed up wearing a Steve Martin arrrow headband. :-D

-That same character drew from a deck of many things and got annihilated in a conflaguration of white flame, leaving behind only the intelligent, artiface sword that the party believed had possessed him. They sold it because they believed it was evil.

Ah yes! I can certainly commiscerate with that longbow fumble!

Years ago, a friend of mine ran a game set in Conan's worldThe campaign used the basic Champion's Hero system (then called Fantasy Hero). With 10-12 players and weekly sessions, this entertaining, but bloodthirsty GM averaged about 1 death per game.

So! My character was a one-eyed Stygian (Egyptian) mercenary with a fascination for snakes (and their poisons) named Slink.

The worst: Slink managed to fumbled a crossbow tipped with 'Black Lotus' poison (the deadliest in the game) and shot himself in the foot - not only nailing his foot TO THE BOTTOM OF THE ROWBOAT he had been shooting from, but also requiring me to roll 8 or less on 3d6 to LIVE! I made the roll, then had to think fast for go down with the ship...

The best: Slavers, riding pteradactyls, had KO'd 3/4's of the party in an ambush using 'Gold Lotus' sleep bombs. The few left awake to resist were getting picked off by aerial mounted artillery that followed. Slink knotted one end of some climbing rope to his war mattock, and tied the other end to a palm tree. Climbed said tree while saving vs. sleep poisons, dodging more bolts, and pteradactyl swoops. Then tossed the mattock out to closethesline the enemy (ala Return of the Jedi) - ewoks scene. I made a couple ridiculous rolls to connect, and then survive.