Best RPG stories?

We've got a ton of excellent players and GMs here. I know most of our players have been playing RPGs for years if not decades...so long story short I know you must have some amazing stories from RPGs you've played up. I bet many members of the forum would appreciate hearing some run-downs of your greatest hits or most memorable moments.

I'll start with a couple stories from when I first started playing RPGs in college. It was sort of a mess because even though I had never played any pen and paper RPG before, I was GMing a rogue trader game, so was in way over my head. It was fun but I had no idea WTH I was doing (and neither did my players, as they were all first timers and didn't know up from down in 40k lore). You all would cringe about how far-removed we got from 40k lore and atmosphere, but nonetheless we all ended up having a great time and played fast and loose with the universe and rule set.


Couple good stories from that game though....

The party gets a distress signal from a fellow Rogue Trader by the name of Solar Siegmund who is being held hostage by pirates on an orbital station. According to him, the pirates had surrounded the station with raiding vessels and they were in a bit of a standoff. However, Solar promises that should they rescue him, he will let them make off with (most of) the archeotech he discovered on the station. I should note that the vessel orbited a nearby black hole, but had grav-repulsors keeping it at a safe distance.

Feeling sympathetic because he was a fellow RT, the party sets off to rescue him. Brief montage of the party blasting the pesky raiders to smithereens. Party boards the orbital station, where they are meeted by Siegmund's aides, who say he is beyond this door. The party enters the door, the door gets locked behind them, and they are now trapped in a room with a combat servitor while Siegmund makes off with the loot.

A battle ensues where the party is fighting this combat servitor with a massive gatling gun. They're taking pot shots from behind cover. A giant boom resounds throughout the station, and Siegmund smugly announces over the intercom that he has blown up the grav-repulsors. So, you know, now they're drifting toward a black hole, and they've barely put a dent in this servitor. The station starts creaking and groaning as it is pulled with stronger and stronger gravitational force toward the event horizon.

Guy with mag boots has an idea and tells everyone to don their voidsuits. He then locks his boots to the floor and tosses a melta bomb across the room at the reinforced viewing glass across - the thin barrier between them and space. BOOM. The resulting vacuum sucks all the shipping containers and the servitor out into space, leaving behind the guy with the mag boots who rolls some clutch agility rolls and grabs his pals as everything else flies outside the station (halo 2, anyone?). The pilot then also makes some clutch rolls and flies past the opening, whereupon mag boots guy turns off his boots and they fly into a docking bay on their ship (named the Nostromo, naturally).

To cap things off, the pskyer of our party used "compel" on the pilot of the enemy ship to make him fly into the black hole. Totally against the rules (I didnt check the range and was but a noob) but TOTALLY AWESOME.

Dear God, where should I begin?

These are from WFRP games.

In one story a naked PC Slaaneshi cultist use a Half Action in his first turn to manouver a Khornate Chaos Lord, who came to the fight riding a Chaos Dragon, to plunge to his death off a narrow bridge across a chasm. I haven't seen our GM so pissed before and our group's Khorne fan, which is me, packed up and went home.

Long story short and skipping on the background, in another episode there was a civil war within a Dwarf hold and my character, fighting through ranks of enemies, got to kill the opposing side's pretender to the kingship. I was like "Hell, yeah!" But later found out that by killing the pretender I eliminated one of the main bad guy's internal enemy so that asshole could just ride on without challenge and ended up destroying my character's entire clan...

At one point a Dwarf PC was caught by some guards at a monastry to sneak about and tried to apprehend him and told him to surrender his weapons. He didn't comply and so killed the two guards and went on a full-plate-and-great-weapon killings spree because "they wanted to take my weapons from me".

How does a chaos dragon fall into a chasm? Dragons can fly....right???

Sent from Topic'it App

In my most memorible D&D game.....

I started with another guy in a second session. During the first, the characters had a opium-laced sex party and one guy turned into some kind of beast and murdered everyone.

So we come in, and are tasked by authorities to solve this henious crime.

First problem, they wont let us into the inn room where the party-killing happened. So my druid summons his mount -- A horse sized winter wolf -- and I cast spider climb on her.
So me and my HORSE SIZED WOLF MOUNT are casually walking up the side of a 3 story building till we get to this room, where my wolf catches the scent. We follow and find the guys hungover in a ditch. Then we turn them in.

At this point, the players were getting bummed because they like this beast-mode guy. So me and the other new player, decided to bust them out during the very public trial/execution instead.

One they tied the guy to the stake and started the witch burning fire (In a colliseum enviornment) I suddenly summon my wolf and charge the festivities while the other new guy takes out archers from afar.
I charge and try to pass by and cut the ropes, but instead roll a 1 and hit the PC instead. When the guards react, I roll a second 1 and hit him yet again.

Hilarity ensues.

So, The guy taking care of archer dissapears into the shadows, but I am obviously in a bad situation. However, I convince them that I was trying to kill the guy and not set him free (due to all the ones I had rolled)

So the new guys got away and the ones who cause the shenanigans had to roll new guys anyway.

bobarctor1977 wrote:

How does a chaos dragon fall into a chasm? Dragons can fly....right???

Sent from Topic'it App

Forgive me for not being entirely clear. The Khornate guy came to the fight on a dragon but then dismounted because he wanted to fight in single combat and he thought it wouldn't be fair to bring his dragon along to this single combat with a naked Slaaneshi cultist who came out to meet him. The Khornate packed a daemon blade, Chaos Armour and the whole thing, so he thought it would be a easy fight anyway.

We where playing Dark Heresy, I had a cybernetically resurrected tech priest (he had originally died by overloading his powercore and taking out a Slaugth overlord but that's another story) and we where attacked by a Kill Team from another Inqusitor and they had an armoured car while a sniper had overwatch. My techpriest, with the amount of Toughness and armour from bassicly being a cyborg stood in the road and it hit him and promptly crumpled as my character stood his ground.

This allowed our assassin to slip away into the building with the sniper and used his mine trap against him as my tech priest beganf whaling on the guys in the truck.

Was an IRL sandbox game (the one that inspired me to do Vortex here). Setting was urban fantasy where a giant world war just ended. The losing faction retreated into a massive underground bunker complex and that's where our players started.

Life wasn't peachy in the bunker with multiple factions vying for control of some kind of ancient machine in the middle of the bunker. The area the ancient machine was also the only neutral ground in all of the bunker.

My character, Butch, was a human combat medic working for the remaining military forces. He caused some issues in the neutral zone so he decided to make up for it by running an aid station there. Problem though was that a player created faction started a massive fight and the wounded were pouring in to the neutral zone. I do my best to handle the situation but orders from higher up came down to stop treating the wounded do to supply shortages.

Butch tried to explain what was happening but the crowd turned on him (failed charisma). Butch is pissed he was stuck in this situation by his leaders and wants retribution. Who to turn to for help though?

Well, he goes to the most hated and feared group in all of the bunker, the Purge. The Purge are a faction mainly consisting of orcs who believe they were stuck in purgatory and only by killing everyone else in the bunker can they go to their promised land. Luckily for the rest of the bunker they don't have the means to wage war effectively against the other factions. That and their leader is more of a demagogue than a warrior.

For my medic one of his abilities from being apart of the military faction was access to its supplies. After some good rolling he acquires the tools of war that the purge have been lacking. Finally, he bargains with the demagogue leader to give him control of the Purge. The old leader agrees to it happily as it's a weight off his shoulders.

Then while the player lead faction and the military faction go to battle for ultimate control of the bunker the Purge roll in from out of left field with orcs in power armor, armed with rifles, and zealous hate the other factions couldn't compete with. The military faction is destroyed and the player lead faction is broken. Butch then walked through the after math of that battle in his new blood red power armor and the leader of the Purge which has become the most powerful faction in the bunker.

That day everyone learned to not fuck with Butch the Butcher.

Bob - THAT is why Rules aren't the end all of what makes a game. They serve their purpose sure, but when players have badass ideas then sometimes it pays to let them at least attempt to succeed. Keep your players involved and engaged and the game will be rad. Besides, that dude deserved to fly into the black hole, the sucker punching, bitch.

So, great.

Solodice wrote:

Was an IRL sandbox game (the one that inspired me to do Vortex here).

That game sounds awesome. Logistically speaking, how did a sandboxy game like that work IRL? Was everyone around the table with the GM at once or what? Be curious to hear more details.

Sent from Topic'it App

Iron and Metal wrote:

Bob - THAT is why Rules aren't the end all of what makes a game. They serve their purpose sure, but when players have badass ideas then sometimes it pays to let them at least attempt to succeed. Keep your players involved and engaged and the game will be rad. Besides, that dude deserved to fly into the black hole, the sucker punching, bitch.

So, great.

I absolutely agree but to be honest I didn't even realize that was against the rules. We just let that character use compel on anyone for the longest fucking time before I checked the rules and noticed the range restriction haha.

Rogue Trader was probably one of the worst RPGs I could have possibly picked as a GM who was a complete noob to PNP RPGs, playing with a group of complete noobs as well. It wasnt really open ended or sandboxy at all, I just gave my players normal quests and we went from there. I picked it up because I was a 40k nerd and figured it would be just as easy as DND...but I guess it all worked out in the end haha.

Also have a story about that game and how one PC turned into a demon to betray the rest. I'll post it later

Sent from Topic'it App

bobarctor1977 wrote:

Solodice wrote:

Was an IRL sandbox game (the one that inspired me to do Vortex here).

That game sounds awesome. Logistically speaking, how did a sandboxy game like that work IRL? Was everyone around the table with the GM at once or what? Be curious to hear more details.

Sent from Topic'it App

We didn't play at just one table. We moved around and interacted with other players. We had some players who were mini-GMs who would oversee stuff if the actual GM was busy. If we had business with an NPC we would schedule some time with the GM. Big events were done like a normal game when characters were all present in one place.

We also played with the rule that if you overheard other players talking about plans or anything else then it was fair game. So if you were up to something you better be doing it out of earshot of your enemies. Turned the game into Game of Thrones (or a Game of Bunkers as I called it).

It worked out well for those who embraced the sandbox and actively pursued their goals. Some players had a harder time with the game do to a lack of player agency and doing stuff without being prodded to do so.

Solodice wrote:

bobarctor1977 wrote:

Solodice wrote:

Was an IRL sandbox game (the one that inspired me to do Vortex here).

That game sounds awesome. Logistically speaking, how did a sandboxy game like that work IRL? Was everyone around the table with the GM at once or what? Be curious to hear more details.

Sent from Topic'it App

We didn't play at just one table. We moved around and interacted with other players. We had some players who were mini-GMs who would oversee stuff if the actual GM was busy. If we had business with an NPC we would schedule some time with the GM. Big events were done like a normal game when characters were all present in one place.

We also played with the rule that if you overheard other players talking about plans or anything else then it was fair game. So if you were up to something you better be doing it out of earshot of your enemies. Turned the game into Game of Thrones (or a Game of Bunkers as I called it).

It worked out well for those who embraced the sandbox and actively pursued their goals. Some players had a harder time with the game do to a lack of player agency and doing stuff without being prodded to do so.

Huh. Sounds pretty interesting. Feels way easier to manage playing by post...guess I'd have to see it myself to fully understand how that would work.

Here's a hilarious story. It probably won't be as funny when I tell it was it was to live it. Set in the year of 1914 in a military RPG campaign.

Anyway so we're taking defensive positions for a mass combat with the enemy, and in special little woody knoll on our right was the scene of the most hilarious melee fight. The funny thing was that it came down to melee, with both sides essentially pouring in what reinforcements they had to hold this place that could potentially create stagging ground for further attacks on our right flank. And in this the enemy's artillery opened fire on the knoll, while the melee was ranging.

I saw the GM's open rolls and every turn it was like 2-3 of them and like 10-12 of our guys getting blasted. Hence an expression for the new tactic of "melee and artillery".

We lost the battle big time and our entire batallion was destroyed and the survivors surrendering or sent running and scattered. Our brave sergeant took a horse and left the squad,or what was left of it, to fend for itself when defeat was clear.

Lots of memories from this encounter.

This was back in high school, so I apologize that my numbers aren't exact. So, this was playing a game system called Wolsung, which is a free formy kind of system with pretty loose rules, set in a magic infused steampunk fantasy world. Your actions are backed by d10's equal to your level in a skill, (a +3 = 3d10) and you roll to meet or exceed a target number. Exceeding by a certain amount, called a raise and based on the target, allows you add another hit of "damage" (which isn't always physcial, it may be someone's reservations about giving you a piece of information, or the distance between you and someone you're chasing/running from).

Anyways we're playing a Cthulhu style game, fish men take over a town, you fight them off and chase them across the globe trying to stop their evil god summoning ritual. I'm playing a troll hunter who uses a bow. Well its the very end of the campaign, we've chased them all the way to the southern pole, where Cthulhu himself sits encased in stone and ice. The fish men have set a series of obelisks up which magically thaw the atmosphere, slowly freeing Cthulhu from his icy stone prison. We had a stealth based demolitions expert who ended up being perfect for setting charges to blow these obelisks. Away he goes, and proceeds to stealth up the the obelisks and place charges. The idea was pretty simple, set all the obelisks to blow such that they all fall in and torch the elder god. The stealth roll went great, the charges, not so much. He rolled bad enough that we didn't even know the charges would go south. We all set up for the big fight to clean up the merfolk, and we blow the charges.

Instead of a cascade of beautiful obelisk destruction, a few of them fizzle, a couple obelisks fall in, and the end result was us speeding up the process and lightly crisping our least favorite god. So up wakes the grumpiest octopus in the southern hemisphere and all hell breaks loose. Everyone's trying to fight off these merfolk, where my gigantic troll hunter pulls back the ballista he called a bow, aiming straight for the big stupid cephalopod's face.

There's a special rule for character death in Wolsung, the only time a character can die (aside from GM rulings) is by going Va Banque. I forget the exact rules on it, but you get some extra dice and they explode, while failure meant your character is shamed/retired/killed etc.

So big troll fires this arrow, and I figure if the whole world is about to be sucked into hell, I might as well bank everything on this shot. He goes Va Banque, and I roll a big handful of d10's. almost everything explodes. Where a regular roll to hit is somewhere in the range of 20-30, I rolled over 60 on the first set of exploding dice. I ended up rolling over 100, for a total of 20+ raises on the elder god. The GM gave us all a look and picked up the GM screen. Behind it was a small tower of gambling chips, representing Cthulhu's hp. We all watched as she made another tower of tokens to represent my hits on the boss. Exactly the same as his current hit points. She just says "Well, you shot him in the eye, into his brain, killing him instantly. The merfolk all fall dead, having lost the force that animated them. See you next week."