That One Die Roll

Hey there!
In my effort to hear some fun stories from other people on the site and their games, I have another question for you!

I love to just do character play and if I never roll a die in a game, I can still have plenty of fun - but dice (or other randomizers like cards) are still an integral part of many games.
What were some moments in a game you've been in where the whole game changed because of the outcome of a single die roll? Just those real nail biters...

In one Things from the Flood game I've been playing in for a long time, a story arc ended with a whole bunch of characters trying to break a strange time loop to free a character who had been believed dead for almost a year at that point and two others who had also managed to get themselves entangled into it. My partner and I set up the stakes, decided what would happen if we only got one success, two successes or no successes at all. The lives of at least three different characters were hinging on only this one dice roll.
Everything turned out well. Everybody survived and we got the best possible outcome but that was a really exciting moment and multiple characters could have died or been changed forever if this had gone wrong!

In another game I played in, my PC failed the equivalent of a death check and died. Of course, that alone is enough to change the direction of a game but since, because of some other factors, this led to the decision to retire the game, my character went out in an explosion of the magic she had charged up her body with before and killed basically everything in the immediate surroundings. And then evil won and it was a total downer to everything.
But at least my character went out with a literal bang 😄

Back in college decades ago, during a D&D (white box) game, our party ran into a basilisk. We argued that that since the basilisk was a lizard as were dragons, and dragons were sometimes asleep when encountered, the basilisk might be asleep. The DM eventually agreed (I assume just to shut us up) and gave us a 1% chance. For our gaming group, high rolls were good, and I rolled a "00" (or 100) on the percentile dice.

The party cheered loudly. I raised my arms in celebration and knocked over the neat stack of beer cans in the dorm room. The party was able to dispatch the basilisk in one round.

Many years ago, in a D&D 3.5 tabletop group I used to attend Thursday nights after work, I was playing this one fun dwarf, Gilling Skullbowler. Good guy, that one.

Anyway, the game was getting towards the end- and we had surprised the bodyguard of the main antagonist in a "parlor" of sorts (specific details omitted to protect the pure-eyed). The goal was to take him out separate from his boss, making it easier to deal with him, and later, his boss. Things had not been going well all night as we kept missing important attacks by a point and failing important rolls by a point or two.

Nevertheless, in one scene, my hearty, gravelly dwarf faces off against the bodyguard- some insane high-level monk. Finding all too late how much in vain my character's reliance on weapons and armor was, it quickly became obvious how the unfavorable and downright cruel Dice Gods had it out for me. After the monk literally wiped the floor with my dwarf (at one time he sent me sliding across some large sauna hall), he said I was a worthy opponent (only because, during that battle, out of my entire party, I had sucked the least) and then hit me with a successful Quivering Palm. For those unfamiliar with the monk ability, within so many days after the successful hit, the monk can simply will you to die; if you fail a specific roll, you do. Just... plop to the ground, like some scarecrow fallen off its roost.

Not surprisingly, the monk managed to escape, which did not bode well for my character. The next day we received a message at our allegedly "hidden" layer (note the air-quotes) addressed to me with the word Goodbye on it. Hours later, the DM informed me the monk willed my death. Thankfully, the DM even went out of his way to give me 2 actions to prepare. The team cleric cast whatever spells he had that could help and everyone crossed fingers, sacrificed fruits to forgotten gods and held hands like an old summer camp fireside hymn.

Failed.

Died.

12 character levels, gone in a humiliating instant.

However... in all fairness, it was great in its own bittersweet way. Think about it- this was 18 years ago and I still remember it this vividly.

Back in the 80s in my first game I had got my chaotic good cleric up to level 8. This was in a slow burn campaign. Level 8 was months of playing.
After treasure splitting I ended up with a magical helm. I put it on and I got a paper note from the DM.
You are now Lawful Evil and one level higher. Or you can choose death. Now level 9 was a big level then. You got higher level spells.
I had played my cleric as very invested in his church, so I chose death.
I asked the DM if my God had seen my sacrifice. He told me to roll % and 95-99 he noticed and I would be recognized as a martyr in the church. 100 and he would restore my life and lift me to level 9.
BOOMSHAKALAKA! Good old 00.

Over 35 years later and still my best roll.

I was in a D&D 3.5 game maybe 10 years ago, playing a net-and-trident Fighter. We were up against our big bad, a scary necromancer, and we just couldn't get a handle on him. I tried to trap him in my net and rolled a critical success. Beats me what the rules were on this, but the GM said he was restrained now and would have some terrible penalty on casting spells. It was all we needed to finish the guy off!

I know this seems somewhat pedestrian, but I've never been so happy to crit with a net before. :)

yes sometimes failure can be a good as success, you usually just don't enjoy it as much in that instant.

If it was that meaningful and memorable to you, then it's not pedestrian. I hope your team rallied around you and bought you a cake. Or a pizza. Or a beer (age dependent).

In my current IRL 5E game, we had a character die on a lightning bolt, cuz I rolled REALLY well on the damage. Like I went and did the math cuz it was such a good roll and it was 97th percentile... Anyway, PCs were only like Lvl 4 and in the middle of the High Forest so no standard means of resurrection available, but the player wanted to keep playing that PC.

So I worked with them on coming up with a way to resurrect them that became a multi-session detour through the forest and Feywild, changed the Domain of the PC (they were a cleric) from War to Nature (they were resurrected by the Grandfather Tree), and resulted in permanent changes to most of the other PCs (lost memories, aging, and literal draining of color) due to various fey chicanery.

And so yea, this really good damage roll and associated PC death lead to this quest to resurrect them and it has shifted the feel and course of the PCs themselves and the entire campaign. Was pretty cool.

Points for improvisation.

That one die roll that changed everything:

In my IRL group, I am the GM of a political intrigue D&D 5e game where my players are gaining favor in the royal court. There are 20+ NPC's each with their own agenda, backstory, quests etc. (I use social network analysis to keep track of it all)

Anyway, during a ball, a fire djinn, reveals himself.
I have all the nobility run away except a few who are brave and ready to defend. I decide that one of them has a wand of wonder, that he activates. My players laugh at his futile attempt until that one die roll. The wand produces a point-blank fireball that kills several low-level nobles, including the wand wielder. The fire djinn is, of course, immune to fire damage.

When the dust settles, the entire social structure of the royal court has changed as some in the social network suddenly have been removed.

Mine is the story of that one die unrolled.

The tale of the banshee's initiative

It's my second game DMing on GP. We're playing Uncaged. Uncaged is an anthology of one-shots that subverts tropes regarding how women have been negatively stereotyped in mythology. I think the party are level 4.

This one is La Llorona - Latin American folklore about the ghost of an infanticidal mother. Yeah... not exactly my usual lighthearted knockabout game.



The module is ambiguous and light on detail about what's going on, but there seems to be a woodland hovel where generations of battered, victimised, betrayed, and gaslit mothers have lost children. The town is flooded after a nearby dam broke. I decided that the La Llorona isn't the ghost of any one of the mothers; it's the agony, torment and heartbreak of all these mothers manifested in physical form. La Llorona is dammed up anguish.

Anyway, the book stats La Llorona as a banshee, CR4, but with a wicked wail ability that can drop party members.

CR4 should be just about okay, but it's on the margin. I don't want a one-roll TPK, so I turn to probability theory. I work out the chance of the banshee winning the initiative, the probability that all party members die in the wail, the probability that all the healers drop, the probability that enough damage can be dealt before the thing starts wailing, the probability that...

The numbers check out. It'll be tough, but if it's a TPK then it'll be down to some awful dice rolls, not an overpowered choice of baddy. A lot will ride on the banshee's initiative roll.

The party solve the puzzles and arrive at an abandoned temple to the goddess of motherhood. They see the dark mist creeping from the cave.

Buckle up and warm those dice. It's on!

Runekyndig's cleric, Eria, steps boldly forward and delivers a powerful speech of catharsis. It references Hemmingway's baby shoes, Dresen and Moana (although I confess I missed the latter) - it's clear that heart and work went into that post.

After everything that's happened in the adventure, it's a post to draw tears.

Oh.... What the hell do I say now?!

"Nice speech, dude. Roll initiative!"?

Nah. I might be new to PbP, but if ever there was a medium that should reward narrative power, then it's PbP.

Eira's words broke the dam, La Llorona was released, and the Banshee's initiative die was never rolled.

Working out the probabilities was still fun though.

That was one of my favorite moments here on GamersPlane