Your, best WTF moment in gaming.
 

I just wanted to start a forum allowing DM's; and maybe even players to voice there vary own, most special WTF moments. These are moments that had every one face palming at the table while one player fights with the DM about something so ridiculous, no one even has a clue as to what they should think, say, feel, or do.

Mine is with a player called Simmons; he brought a gurps Fall Out campaign to a halt over a gunsmithing argument. He wanted to create an old fashioned hand cranked Gatling gun out of old pipes from a meat hook machine used in a butcher shop. The gun was to have 6 rotating cylinders (made from the pipes) with a rusty nail used as the firing pin that was to be reset with rubber bands. The gun was to fire 50 cal HMG ammo; and I would of given it to him on a successful role. But he wouldn't budge on one tiny aspect...... He expected his contraption to be on par with an actual TL 6 HMG. I was willing to draw up a custom gun based on the Simmons's margin of success but we insisted that his gun could only do no less the 12 d6 damage per shot; just like the HMG offered in book.

We argued for an hour over weather or not the gun could even exist or not (which in all honesty it couldn't) and every time I tried to say no, and focus on the other players we would draw up different plans for his gun and hold them up to my face over the DM screen. Needless to say it didn't end well for him. Oh he built it all right, just weight until he fires it and it malfunctions hehehe.

P.S. just for argument sake he stated that the bullet does the damage and not the gun, however I believe that the bullet is dependent of the gun's engineering for it's eventual accessory and damage. Any gun nuts out there who may be able to shed light on this argument?

Re: Your, best WTF moment in gaming.
 

The damage done to the target is done by the bullet and is a function of the mass of the bullet and the amount of energy imparted to it by its propellant.
However, the amount of energy communicated to the bullet and where the bullet ends up are functions of the design of the weapon. Energy that goes into (say) blowing up the weapon in the users face does not end up in the bullet. Any character with the knowhow to build such a deathtrap would know not to ... rusty pipes and nails aren't safe with a .22short zip gun, let alone a beast like .50BMG.

Re: Your, best WTF moment in gaming.
 

Not a gun nut, but I'm pretty sure that the expanding gases have to be efficiently trapped by the barrel to acheive a bullets maximum damage. Otherwise a lot of energy would be lost.

[EDIT] ninja'd. Kinda.

Re: Your, best WTF moment in gaming.
 

The pipes he's recycling are most unlikely to have the right internal diameter, and won't have rifling groves on the inside. They are also very unlikely to be strong enough to take the pressure (about 55,000 pounds per square inch), but that's OK, because an improvised breech definitely won't be strong enough, and anyone standing behind it is going to be injured or dead. Standing anywhere else nearby is unhealthy too, mind you. Zip-guns are a lot easier to make, because .22 ammunition is a lot less powerful. By bullet energy .50BMG is over 100 times the power of .22.

My greatest WTF recently was the final session of a Pendragon campaign that has been running nearly 20 years. The whole Arthurian gloomy end-game, Mordred seizing the throne, the whole bit. Along comes a messenger. Miss X, a young woman whom we've suspected for a while was a member of the Pendragon family, "is the daughter of Arthur and Guinevere!" The players just sat there, occasionally opening or closing their mouths, for upwards of a minute before anyone managed to say "But how?"

Re: Your, best WTF moment in gaming.
 

Keep in mind, part of why modern weapons use so much metal is that rifling is actually sub-caliber... to get the same delivered velocity, a smoothbore needs less powder and pressure if the round is a good fit (as with a lubed minne ball). As long as the round releases the pressure faster than the walls deform, no problem. Also, to fit the casing, you need a pipe diameter over the bullet's caliber... almost all casings are significantly over the bullet's; up to 1mm, depending upon round.

and half-inch inside diameter metal pipe is READILY available in two forms: copper water pipes (likely to deform) and iron natural gas and propane pipess, which are typically 2-3mm thick walls. Ream the iron a touch, and slide a copper down it, and you've a replaceable barrel sleeve...

In theory, one could also use one of the plastic pipes; PVC pipes could easily be nested to increase effective thickness of walls, but are likely to have melting issues.

Re: Your, best WTF moment in gaming.
 

Mine was explaining a classic 'pay me to be quiet scenario'. A hotel porter/assistant knocks on pc's door and asks for a price to confirm to the G-suits down stairs that the pc is not here.

Pc's response, here's some money to tell them we are here... followed by a shrug by the hotel porter and the other Pcs going ape. The party runs to the roof to jump roofs and a small shoot out on the roof.

Re: Your, best WTF moment in gaming.
 

I not long ago posted here the story of how during a recent game our group was stopped by an avalanche of snow in the plains, and despite driving an all-terrain vehicle hauling a trailer full of snow removal machines, we could neither drive over the snow nor make a dent in it.

As a GM I ran a one-shot last year: a GURPS Old West game in which the three PCs had cornered their adversaries in a train stopped in a tunnel. Having determined there was a fair headwind of breeze blowing through the tunnel from west to east, one player asked me if he could grab a large sack and go to the coal car to fill the sack with coal dust. I said okay.

They then spread out: A was a little ways ahead of the train car where their enemies were hiding and the furthest upwind. Not far along was B, hiding just ahead of the train car with their target, and then C, at the back of the car to make sure no one escaped out the back way.

A shook out all the coal dust, filling the breeze with blowing coal particles. B introduced an open flame to it, to set it on fire (on purpose). C stood downwind of the improvised fuel-air explosive and the flame. Each of the three was carrying a half-dozen or so sticks of dynamite. These dynamite sticks they had liberated from the cargo car, one car back from their target car. They had investigated the cargo car earlier and seen it was carrying a lot of mining supplies, including fuel oil and dynamite.




I remarked that even if we had not planned for it to be a one-shot, they certainly ensured it turned out that way.

Re: Your, best WTF moment in gaming.
 

Barrel rifling is also quite important if you want to be able to hit stuff. And I imagine most of the barrel heating is because of frictin with the rifling, so the barrel also has to be able to cope with the heat without deforming (or have a cooling system).

Re: Your, best WTF moment in gaming.
 

There was a great WTF "moment" that ran on for four hours: Princesses

But it definitely started when my players decided "Princesses live in towers so they must be virgins. We will go steal a princess!"

Re: Your, best WTF moment in gaming.
 

One of my favorites: My character--a warrior-mage--had been snagged by the bad guys for a classic virgin sacrifice--and she did qualify. With no components, she couldn't cast much of anything, and was a weak spellcaster anyways. (I was going to work late, so the GM did that to have a mini-adventure that I could get into when I got there.)

The entire rest of the party is storming in, trying a rescue. They are getting whumped on big time. I manage to get loose--knock out the big bad--equipping myself with his gear--and storm into the next room in typical sacrificial virgin clothes, with a big sword, and rescue the rescuers...

Some of the characters had typical midieval male egos (great players, playing in character--not real chauvinism...) and got a real case of fallen egos...but they survived...and never again assumed that a woman wasn't competent...