Worst thing you ever did to your players

[brionl]

I've been digging through my junk room, disposing of misc crap from the last 30 years or so and I ran across my original Traveller stuff from my campaign in '77 - '79.

It was back in '79. We'd all seen Star Wars about a dozen times, and I'd just read Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster. All the players were excited to do Psionics, but I'd never cared for it much, especially in Hard(ish) SF.

So I decided to give them what they wanted. More or less. On a water planet, they ran into an old man named Okie Ben Fenokie who told them he was being persecuted by the Imperium. And sure enough, on the news screens were wanted ads for him. He told them he could teach them to use their psionic powers, and he knew where to find a psionic amplifier artifact. They managed to smuggle him up to their ship (400 ton custom job). While they were making preparations to depart they got hailed by a big old cruiser (100,000 tons or so) and told to stand by for boarding because they had a wanted criminal on board. They decided to run for it and got away, no shots fired or anything.

So they got to the uninhabited planet a couple of jumps away and everybody landed in their pinnace leaving the ship in orbit. They all went searching through the temple for the amplifier gem. After a dungeon type adventure they found it. Then Okie grabbed it, said "So long, Suckers!", teleported up to their ship and absconded with it.

A couple of weeks later the cruiser came by and rescued them. The Captain said, "Well Duh. I told you guys he was a criminal."

I was going to have them chasing after him for a while and eventually get their ship back, but that's when I joined the US Navy and the campaign ended.

 

[Treebore]

:lol:

I had a scene similar to that just last night in my Belt Strike game.





"*** BELTSTRIKE SPOILERS ALERT****









3 of the pirate thugs ambushed the party while they were searching the platform.

Meanwhile the other 5 boarded the unsecured ship of the PC's.

Fortunately the PC's went to the platform control center and locked down the hangar before the pirates could get away with their 400 ton ship. Then the computer and comms guys worked together to hack their own ships computers via the Comms system to shut their ship[ down so the pirates couldn't do squat.

Then using their computer over rides they boarded their own ship and used a stun grenade to take out all 5 pirates with one blast, since they all had to do a check versus 5 to 7 points of stun after armor.

 

[BP]

... The Captain said, "Well Duh. I told you guys he was a criminal."...

:lol: Sounds like your group got everything they were asking for! :lol:

(Anyone who hasn't read Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster is missing out - ditto for the Brian Daley Han Solo novels).

 

[justacaveman]

This was for a TNE game.

The characters found an asteroid that had a hidden bioweapons laboratory inside. There were cold sleep modules that had some of the original laboratory personnel inside. These survivors were infected with a virus that rewrote their DNA. The resulting creatures had a thick carapace that protected like Combat Armour, claws capable of rending metal, high STR and END, could survive up to 30 minutes in vacuum, were telepathically linked, highly intelligent, and homicidally xenophobic.

This was a super-soldier program that had gone wrong. All of the info was in the computers, but they never bothered to check before opening the modules. They stayed on the asteroid long enough for the survivors to change, and had to fight their way back to the ship, only to find that the engines had been disabled. They had to fix the engines while try to prevent the creatures from cutting their way into the ship with a plasma torch they escaped only to find that one of the PCs was infected and starting to change. They were lucky that they had downloaded the research data from the lab. They froze the victim and were able to develop a cure after returning to base (The victim was frozen for months, and the cure took most of their money.).

 

[Sir Brad]

A hand full of Planted Vemene Agents, Micro Fine Wire and the ability to switch off the Inertial Compressors. after they had the rest of the Vemene Agents Mop out the Stateroom for the third time the Vemene Agents became very compliant with their line of questioning, half the hired crew quit the ship at the next port, none asked for outstanding pay or severance.

 

[BP]

Killed them all - doesn't get much worse than that! :twisted:

(Unless you count killing them again!)

 

[brionl]

Killed them all - doesn't get much worse than that! :twisted:

(Unless you count killing them again!)

Naw, kill them and they just roll up new characters. Taking away their stuff is really dirty pool.

 

[BP]

Killed them all - doesn't get much worse than that! :twisted:

(Unless you count killing them again!)

Naw, kill them and they just roll up new characters. Taking away their stuff is really dirty pool.

Oh - ahh - I see! I think this post was meant to be - Worst thing you ever did to your players' characters? My bad...

(Ok- very poor humor - but, hey, its generally all I've got)