My players are so silly

[TheNobleDrake]

I had a great session this evening and wanted to share some of why I keep smiling and laughing whenever I think about my play group's recent forays into DCC - which is easily my favorite game, the favorite of one other player, a close second favorite for a third, and has had many a praise heaped upon it by the other players.

The party (5 of 7, at least... two players not in attendance had the good fortune of their characters being assigned to wagon guard duty) was heading into a dark and dreary forest. Their quest was to find a perfect specimen of a particularly rare breed of pond flower and deliver it to the temple within the same forest... the King of Elfland didn't really say much more on the matter, and is holding a good half of the Elf's stamina until the quest is complete.

While planning their expedition, the party was ambushed by centaurs that outnumbered them 3 to 2. One of the party fell in the initial barrage of arrows... the Elf, who happens to speak centaur, opens communication saying "we come in peace! Do us no harm!" to which the centaur leader replied "give us your selves and belongings, and we will considered not harming you."

The Elf didn't like the sound of that and attacked... but very, very quickly the party members were all beaten nearly, or completely, to death - starting the combat with full hit points and every resource at their disposal (except for some of the Elf's ability points) and only slightly outnumbered, they all get brutally beaten.

The survivors (I count having your body taken back to camp as food as your body being recovered) wake up to find themselves caged in a camp of some sort, with a few other people in the cage with them (the two characters to replace those that died).

Heavily wounded, unequipped, and with nearly zero plan... the party waits for a chance to escape.

That chance, apparently, came early in the morning - and it played out very, very oddly.

First, a character calls in their favor from the Fates asking for a hungover guard to absentmindedly drop the key to their cage as he walks past, and makes the Luck check for it.

with key in hand, the party then formulates a strategy consisting of "I will try to use this spell (war horn of elfland) through this now broken drinking horn, and with that distraction we will run into that hut, grab supplies, and flee into the woods."

The spell works, calling forth 10 trollish spearmen, 4 brownie slingers, and 2 hob footmen delivered by rainbow...

In the following rounds, as the centaurs within the camp start pouring towards the party and battling through the wall of conjured soldiers, not a single member of the party falls and everyone escapes... well... I guess you call it an escape when you lay waste to the entire camp and kill nearly 20 centaurs because, unlike the first time you faced them, the Halfling is spending luck in droves to help hits land and the Thief is doing his best to utilize backstab with his crossbow... while the Elf and Cleric in the party actually cast spells instead of just use weapons...

My silly players keep doing that too - they get slaughtered in "easy" fights because they don't expend resources or push their luck (either literally or through casting spells) and then turn around and topple fights with the odds stacked against them - full of moments like the enlarged to ogre-size Elf charging into battle with centaurs to knock one out in a single blow and retrieve his stolen mithral two-handed sword, or the Halfling diving into combat naked with nothing in hand but his trusty pair of swords and coming back out cover in blood... every drop of it centaur blood.

I keep giving them the advise "play more awesome," and they seem to not realize that I mean for them to do so in the "easy" fights too.

[meinvt]

What you don't realize is that getting captured was part of *the plan*.

In any case, it makes for a great story!

[GnomeBoy]

*envy smilie*

I game with five other guys. Most of us DM/GM on a random rotating basis. Last year, I finished up nearly three years of DMing (while the group reformed from moves, family obligations, etc.). There are two guys with longish campaigns (a year?) ready to run. So I have no idea when I will really get a chance to dish out some DCC for them. But I want to. And after reading this, the more so.