Dumbest group you've GMed for

[Daryk]

I'll forward you what I sent...

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

I just remembered one guy I had in a group for a while.  He was super vocal about not wanting to fight rats because "they're noob mobs and not a challenging monster."

He brought this up every session, despite my never having thrown any rats at the party.

Finally, though, I got tired of it since he refused to stop even after one of the other players said it was getting annoying.  So I arranged for the party to have an encounter with "Abyssal Scourge Rats," which were brown bears with the Fiendish template that inflicted Filth Fever with their bites.

After his character was nearly eaten, he got the message and knocked it off.

[DOC_Agren]

Okay it is not my group but a GM I know who running a Dark Heresy Group for 4 players (Arbite, Cleric, Guardwoman, & Adept) rank 5/6 operating for the 1st time fully undercover, not overt members of the Inquistion.
While operating in new planet "think like Wild West", investigating Smugglers, the team endup staying in hotel in a small village while waiting to travel farther inland overnight.  They had a few drinks with supper in the bar and then went to bed.
Unknowning that the a gang had decided these travelers well, were ripe for a robbery/murder.   2 team of 3 mook gunslingers (1 armed with sledgehammer and revolver, 2 with a pump action shotgun and revolver, 3 armed with a revolver) line up on each door to the rooms they are staying in back by 1 "experienced gunslinger" with a SMG and a revolver.  Not that this group should really be a challenge for these 4, but they never posted a Watch, so the 1st clue they had anything was wrong was sledgehammer hitting the door lock and then the shotgunner slamfiring the shotgun into the room.  Had 1 door not taken 2 sledgehammer swings to open, we might be talking party kill (as the Arbite and the Cleric were caught by surprise in that room for 1 round).   

Okay so what group of experienced players doesn't keep watch at night????

End result
Guardwoman shot twice once from shotgun in the left leg, right arm by revolver
Adept shot in the chest by revolver and in right leg (trying to stop the bleeding)
Arbite shot twice by shotgun 1 body other head (min damage)
Cleric shot once in Head by Shotgun still kinda functional, revolver to head (blew a fate point to avoid death)

Guardwoman with autopistol on full auto dropped most of the team hitting her room
Adept got 1 hit with heavy pistol he had into a mook head
Cleric drew his pistol hit nothing
Arbite grabbed his combat shotgun and blew away the team hitting his room and then made to to the hallway to asssit the next room

[DarkSpade]

Okay so what group of experienced players doesn't keep watch at night????

I have never once played any RPG where the players bothered with a watch when they were staying in an hotel in a town.  Was this a really small town with a bad rep or did they know they were being hunted? 

[Daryk]

No Shadowrun in your experience, then?  ???

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Yeah, usually keeping watch in town is only done 8f the place has a seriously bad rep or they know someone is targeting them.  Also, it's difficult to have an effective watch if they're in separate rooms.

[DarkSpade]

No Shadowrun in your experience, then?  ???

To be fair, I've only once been part of a shadowrun game that got far enough for the players to actually need rest and they had a reliable safe house to do so.

[DOC_Agren]

Yeah, usually keeping watch in town is only done 8f the place has a seriously bad rep or they know someone is targeting them.  Also, it's difficult to have an effective watch if they're in separate rooms.

Did the place have a bad rep, not to them they were strangers in a strange land...  but was like any Wild West style town, and they took no security measures outside of locking the door.
The group that hit them, had no connection to the their target just want the wealth the "tourist" brought with them.

No Shadowrun in your experience, then?  ???

oh yes, any cheap motel u always keep 1 or more up and alert while you are running.

To be fair, I've only once been part of a shadowrun game that got far enough for the players to actually need rest and they had a reliable safe house to do so.

A reliable safehouse!!!! 8)  I know groups I've played with who would still have made sure 1 person was assigned security and rotated thur

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Yeah, that was a mistake on their part but not really an extreme one.

Also, even in a dangerous Wild West town, the typical dangeris still more likely to be pickpockets or burglars rather than an outright shootout. Gangs like that would be more likely to pick a target that they'd ambush outside of town.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Oh, here's one I was reminded of.  I was a player in the group, but this guy's antics deserve a mention here.

Can't remember the player's name anymore, but let's call him Edgy the Edgelord.

D&D 3.0.  Party is first level.  He's set to join the game.  He's playing a wizard.

The party is in town.  He announces that his first level wizard is going to go into the roughest bar in town.  Once there, he starts to loudly complain about "being forced to associate with such riffraff."

He unsurprisingly angers most of the patrons.  Rather than attempt a charisma check to cool things down, he announces that he's going to cast a spell.  Now, people who've played 3rd Edition probably remember that casting a spell while someone's in melee range with you provokes an attack of opportunity.  He did not.  His character was immediately set upon and beaten senseless.

The guards were, of course, summoned.  And what was discovered upon his chest but a tattoo of the (un)holy symbol of Vecna, and a search of his bags revealed other items proving that he was, in fact, a Vecna worshiper.  Something that was banned in that kingdom.

Edgy the Wizard was executed on the spot.

He'd never even introduced his character to the party.

[Greatclub]

I wasn't actually the GM, I was playing battletech a table over. This was about two years back.

The group was on the younger end of teens, their parents using the store as cheapish babysitting. One guy was playing D&D like it was a MMO - kick in the door, attack the closest thing heading your way. The rest of the PCs were getting wroth at the fact he kept NOPEing their scouting, diplomacy, and anything resembling planning or tactics, to the point where they had their PCs kick the crap out of his PC. Sock party with swords, and they left him too low on HP to survive running ahead again.

Kid was literally crying at the table. Hurt to watch. He smartened up a little, but I think changed groups later.

[garhkal]

I'd have had the very next monster, be something that could paralyze him, and then watch as the other pcs just LEFT HIM in the doorway, while they escaped.

[Cannonshop]

I wasn't actually the GM, I was playing battletech a table over. This was about two years back.

The group was on the younger end of teens, their parents using the store as cheapish babysitting. One guy was playing D&D like it was a MMO - kick in the door, attack the closest thing heading your way. The rest of the PCs were getting wroth at the fact he kept NOPEing their scouting, diplomacy, and anything resembling planning or tactics, to the point where they had their PCs kick the crap out of his PC. Sock party with swords, and they left him too low on HP to survive running ahead again.

Kid was literally crying at the table. Hurt to watch. He smartened up a little, but I think changed groups later.

I'd have had the very next monster, be something that could paralyze him, and then watch as the other pcs just LEFT HIM in the doorway, while they escaped.

as a GM, I would've used a trap, or had him run into an environmental hazard instead.  a long enough fall and he could be stuck at the bottom with 1 hitpoint, then the other players get to roleplay debating whether or not to save him before the fungus gets too bad.

[Prospernia]

I wasn't a GM, but in D&D, a player was searching some bones for treasure and found something slimy and green so they picked it up with their bare-hands (Green-slime).

In an Aerotech game, a player thrusted all his fighters to max-speed, and ran out of fuel shortly; most hit asteroids.

[monbvol]

Just had to share this even though I was not GMing.

Since the regular group is in a bit of flux right now we decided to do a one shot level 1 campaign.  First idea a Plasmoid Barbarian but decided not to go that route.  Then I said screw it since I was being indecisive and used D&D beyond's randomized character creation option constrained to 1st level.  Got a Satyr Rogue that absolutely would have died in the first combat(AC 11 with Leather armor and a 10 Dex but a 16 Strength can't remember the rest of the stats).  Second try I got a Mark of the Sentinel Human Wizard named Pheobe Ragewillow with the background of Pirate Strength 8, Dex 14, Con 18, Int 11, Wis 12, Cha 10 with the cantrips Blade Ward, Dancing Lights, and Shape Water.  For 1st level options it gave me Charm Person, Distort Value, Earth Tremor, Illusory Script, Silvery Barbs, and Snare.  With Mark of the Sentinel giving a 1/d casting of Shield I have declared the character Brick Wizard.  I find it absurdly hilarious despite being nearly completely ineffective.

[Makariel]

I had an interesting group when GMing Shadowrun. The run was fairly standard, until part of the group tried to sell out the other part to the megacorp that was their target. I ended up having to put the two parts of the teams into different rooms, as the characters went to great lengths to work against each other, and devised devious plots to kill each other. Two characters were dead by the end of all this, and a feud had started that would last until the end of the campaign.

[Sartris]

My brother in law recently forced me out of retirement to DM a 3.5 campaign. He tried to play like medieval grand theft auto. He thought storming the mayor’s residence and killing the city leader would somehow make him, a third level barbarian, in charge. I mean never mind the city leader is a retired 15th level bard (and like a dozen guards); the logic was astonishingly dumb. I would have let him die horribly but I didn’t want to spend another three (3) hours rolling a new character

So now we’re doing a crash course in How Not To Die. The last session’s lesson was “Sometimes the Wizard casts fireball at you.”

[monbvol]

I'm getting to know the feeling.

Since we had a couple people missing someone else decided to do a 5e level 3 campaign yesterday.

We were told to make characters that were part of a group of semi-cadets that had been getting trained to become part of a city guard.  Honestly if I were DM I would of told a couple of them to try again with their character concepts.  I think you'll see what I mean as I give the party rundown.

So we wound up with a Minotaur Rogue whose background was a Pirate.

A Wood Elf Beast Master Ranger who I'm pretty sure took the Outlander background.

A Simic Hybrid Artificer background unknown.

Me as a Plasmoid Circle of the Moon Druid with the Mercenary Veteran background.

The problem child murder hobo.  Yeah no matter what that player puts down on their sheet that's what they end up being.  They claim Chaotic Neutral or even Chaotic Good but I have yet to see them play anything other than text book Chaotic Evil.  Some sort of small race Circle of Wild Fire Druid so yeah all about causing problems.

The Minotaur wound up being the party leader.  It was them or me and narratively it made very little sense for it to be my character for reasons a bit long to get into.

Our task was to investigate reports of slave trading coming from a apartment complex with a commercial zone on the first floor with a courtyard.

But because we had zero party cohesion, one member not paying attention to the task given to us, and no attempt at any sort of plan well things got stupid fast.

I knew this was coming so I gave up any hope of playing a serious character and decided mine was very curious about feeling the textures and shapes of EVERYTHING they could.

So when we went into a shop that's what I did.

The Minotaur was trying to go undercover, the Ranger was flashing their badge a lot, and we got no where with our task.  So we left.

We had a pointless conversation with our boss.

Then we went back.

We finally start focusing on our task a little.  Find a door that looks suspicious in the merchant shop in the complex.

I get told we're going to check it out.  So we roll for initiative so we can decide who is doing what in the shop.  The problem child wins and chooses violence.

No attempt at diplomacy or persuasion.  Just straight to Firebolt at one of the shop guards.

Yeah.  It went worse from there.

Honestly I do find myself becoming a little exhausted with this trend in my gaming group.

[Sartris]

I ran a short campaign in college where one of the players decided this was his chance to live out all of his… romantic inclinations. I made it clear I wasn’t going to indulge him beyond the normal CHA related shenanigans in service of the party objectives. This apparently did not sound enough like No. After a couple sessions of setting DCs extremely high I inserted a new barmaid. A bored succubus on vacation. He was dead within ten minutes.

[Daryk]

That's a little more than a fireball, but it sounds like it was EARNED...  ::)

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

He went out the way he deserved to.

[DarkSpade]

He went out the way he deserved to.

And possibly the way he wanted to.

[Prospernia]

Most character-deaths are they over-estimate their skills and abilities.

"Don't worry; I can fast-talk them, look at my stats!".