MY GREATEST DUNGEONS & DRAGONS STORY

A few years ago, a bunch of us from work would pile into a cold shack-like garage, gather around a billiards/ping-pong table and play Dungeons and Dragons. Yes, yes...nerrrrrrrrds, but who cares! We had a great Dungeon Master (Brett) who knew how to provide amazing and original adventures that went well beyond the usual hack-and-slash affairs. For the record, we weren't the kind players that would "speak in character." Just "I'm throwing an ax into the kobold's cock and balls!" "Okay, roll." "18! YES!" "The kobold's cock and balls are mashed in by your ax and he's down. Nice hit."

One of the characters, played by Kevin Gamble, was a wizard-like character who was more like an alchemist/scientist type character and for months, his character was just waiting for the perfect opportunity to use his special weapon: A primitive black-powder hand gun:

The weapon requires a lot of patience to use and needs three components. 1) The Gun 2) The bullets 3) the powder. Black-powder is needed and 1lb is required for one shot. The weapon takes 5 rounds to reload and the player must remain still whilst reloading. The user must have exotic weapon proficiency/firearms and there's a chance that the gun may not work or even explode. Needless to say, this weapon is rarely used and it's not uncommon for a Dungeon Master to outlaw them altogether from the game. But the weapon suited the character Kevin created so our DM allowed it and Kevin was ITCHING to use it but the opportunity to do so never arrived until months into the game.

So one one adventure, our party found ourselves needing to cross a rope & wood-plank bridge which spanned a fort's two towers. We had quickly disposed of the one tower's guards and now needed to cross over to another tower via this bridge. Our party met some resistance from the tower by way of some ranged weapons; crossbow bolts and arrows. Maybe some magic missiles? I can't really remember. We rolled for initiative (who gets to attack first) and I won. My fighter character (a Gnoll btw) wore magical "Wings of Flying" (what else are wings really good for?) so I quickly soared over the span and landed on the bridge just in front of the guards and began attacking. Kevin quickly pulled out his gun and began the long and tedious task of loading it. My team then started to fire their ranged weapons and I was in the cross-fire, being pelted heavily by friendly fire. I was quickly losing blood so I opted to drop off the bridge altogether and get out of harms way (I fell gently as I also wore a "Ring of Feather Fall! Sounds sissy but it saved my sissy flying ass many a time!). After 3 or 4 turns of loading this thing, Kevin's character was finally going to use this exotic weapon that his character had been bragging about from the beginning of the adventure and he was stoked! Kevin's character lifted the gun between the shoulders of two other party-members and excitedly yelled "SAY HELLO TO SCIENCE, BOYS!!!!" and pulled the trigger--which means, rolled the 20-sided die which turned out to be a "1." Which is a big miss. In our rules, a miss is a miss, and if you miss with a "1" it's a BIG miss and you have to roll again and the last thing you want is another "1" or something really bad is going to happen.
Kevin's second roll produced a "1." "FUUUUUCKKKK!!!!" Everyone erupted in laughter and Kevin's head sunk. The DM finally spoke, "Okay, Kevin, the gun backfires and explodes in your face dishing out 30 hit points worth of damage to your character. Andrew and Jason, your characters both get hit by the explosion causing 25 damage and 27 respectively. Andrew and Jason, you're going to both need saving throws against your dexterity or you'll fall off the bridge..." Both Andrew and Jason miss their saving throws and are launched off the bridge, falling 30 feet and lose more hit points. Kevin basically killed himself and two others all in the name of this science that he kept yappin' about.