The topic for this month's contest was:

"What's the most evil thing your GM has done to you?"

The winner of these beautiful prizes is:

Tahlvin! Congratulations! Now you can enjoy these two fine promotional ducks and use the very same briefcase that I have abused over the years. No seriously. I've fairly-well abused the briefcase. Mike could really tell you some stories. But anyways...

Congratulations!

This month we actually got several entries. Here are the results (as always, spelling errors are the fault of the authors):

8. "Hey! I'm Joe Isuzu!" by Anonymous.

I can't go into too much detail for legal and safety reasons, but my GM tried to break up my fiancee and I, and then tried kill me in real life. With his bare hands. I still have nightmares and my head hurts from where he (being 150 pounds more than me) beat my skull in.

7. "Honorable Mention Even Though Not Quite on Topic." by Thorn.

Okay, so this wasn't done to me. It was, in fact, one of the thankfully rare instances of GM-defending-his-player-girlfriend that Caz and I have had. (It was still early in our relationship, and so I still occasionally thought it cute, though I still was really really against it morally. Really.)

So, we're playing Werewolf, and the gist is me and the other two players are teenagers who've just had their First Change recently, and this is our first big dealio "mission". Given to us by the gods, no less. Yeah, we were important little whippersnappers. We even had a magical were-bear mentor-guy on our side.

Anyway, so one of my fellow 'pack-mates', in the midst of some argument or another (details lost in time), calls me a very naughty c-word. (It was "cunt". Did you guess it? Or do you need to do time under the dunce cap?) Well, shortly thereafter, my compatriot notices his pants have become tight. And not a happy 'my pants are tight' sort of thing, either. Oh no no. Like an OD of Viagra, and this was back when Viagra was still in its testing stages and nobody knew what it was. My foul-mouthed fellow's problem continued to, er... escalate, and before he (and we) figure out what had happened and why, his trouser snake had reached two feet in length, girth not described. Finally, he apologized to me for his uncivilized behavior and his problem abated.

6. "Thank God They Weren't In a Ziplock." by Alec Hunter

We were in a Hackmaster session, and, as anyone who has played can testify, it's is a gnarly game. However, once in a while, our GM enjoys putting us in a 'Torture Session'. We had just excaped the Inn, where a large brawl had occured. Running through the city, we run SMACK into a female non fighting Cleric and three guards. We were a party of six, including two fighters, a battle mage, a fighting cleric, an assassin, and barbarian. We could have taken them easily. I was playing a fighter, and turned to my buddy and smiled, saying "Easy EP's. On my mark... GO!"

At this point, the rest of the part drop their weapons and surrender. Me and the other fighter were aghast... We could have EASILY taken them on. while we were staring, uncomprehendingly at the rest of the party, we were captured and thrown in jail. The GM had said "Well, if you guys are stupid enough to do that..." and proceeded to have the Evil Clerics torture the living daylights out of our characters. Branding, hot irons, rack, EVERYTHING. The half orc barbarian was screaming and going berserk every other second, so they were especially rough on him. Every time he passed out from pain, he would, and I quote "Taste the soothing taste of a healing posting flowing down your throat", and it would resume anew. The barbarian was a whole half hour game time.

The battle mage was a pyromaniac insane man... Every time they would brand him, he would laugh and scream and cackle, demanding more, saying "This all you got, punks?! BRING IT ON!" Finally, they poured molten lead into his back, and it spread through his bloodstream and solidified, killing him in long, agonizing, lengthily described minutes.

I tried fighting back. The HEAD Cleric Evil Man took care of me PERSONALLY. He made plants grow out of my palms, before hacking them off and using them as flower pots. Then, I went off to the dungeon for my round of branding. Finally, we were thrown out onto the street, wearing only sackcloth robes. The brandings were magical in nature, and glowed the symbol of the Cleric Evil Man through out clothes. Where ever we went, people would see it, and know. This just added insult to everything he had done. It also made us ultra-focused to putting his head on a pike. Both the GM and the villain.

We eventually got it all rectified, through time travel and paradox... Which led to a session where we were locked into a Bag of Hefty Capacity, A class (Fifteen cubic mile area) for a month, with only a weeks worth of water. A small lake filled with poisonous pirhana's was involved.

5. "Brendon Fraser is a Wussy." by Adam Schwaniger

Our GM sent us up against mummies in a tomb. Pretty standard stuff, except the evil wizard's lackeys put satchels of gunpowder surrounded by nails in the mummies' abdominal areas. We no longer consider fire the best way to kill mummies...

4. "It's Like Dallas All Over Again." by Mike

When I was in college, I played briefly with a group of unreformed Deadheads, most of whom were about 10 years older than I, but still living in their parents’ basements. GM duties rotated among two or three guys, and the most memorable of them was Drew. He wasn’t a bad GM all the time, but he wanted every game to be on par with epic level fantasy novels, and sometimes it took a bit of shoehorning.

Drew ran a pretty decent AD&D2 campaign. I joined late, and on the night my character debuted, the group stopped at a gloomy inn in the wilderness that could have dropped straight out of a Scooby Doo episode. Just like a bad horror movie, circumstances managed to separate most of the group, and everyone watched in horror as the new guy (me) was decapitated by guillotine style trap in my room. I was part of the team 20 minutes, and already I was dead. Everyone was mortified, but it’s not like I had a whole lot invested in the guy, and I could always come up with a new character. But then the rogue drowned in a room that slowly filled with water. And sadly, Drew gave him a good 20 minutes to roleplay escape attempts before the foregone conclusion came to pass. By the time the group’s leader (a fully armored paladin) dropped into a coffin-like pit and was devoured alive by rats, the rest of the group realized they were all doomed. Pissed off, everyone set about creating new characters as Drew forced the rest of them, one by one, to play out their own death scenes.

It took the entire evening to play out this little farce, and then at the end of it, Drew concludes with, “…and then you all wake up.” It was all a dream. A horrible, horrible dream. Bastard.

3. "Oz." by Jabberwock

The ST for a game of Exalted arranged a Dragon-Blooded game - I had never gamed with this fellow before, but he had a reputation for being a clever and entertaining ST. Oh, he was clever, all right. He got exactly what HE wanted.

He told us all that it was going to be a very politically-oriented game, and that we should all focus our characters' political abilities and connections - combat would be a small factor. We took the time to detail our characters' friendships or rivalries, favors and liens. We were all getting very enthused about playing these characters and vying for our houses in the bid for the Empire. Ten minutes into the first session, he introduces some fellow who has no social skills or connections but is a kickass fighter with command over a squad of the Imperial Guard.

Because we've been taking political positions this guy doesn't like, he arrests us all "on the sly" (we were in the flippin' Imperial court!) and has us secretly shipped to a secret prison (his words, those). This prison is full of political prisoners and cruel gaolers. Once we've been there for most of the session and tried three separate jailbreaks that have all been ruthlessly quashed (both by the in-game warden and the fellow who was turning out to be an out-of-game warden), we finally figure out that what he wants to run is a prison drama.

So: While the "social" requirement was vaguely correct (what about the dumb prison tough?), all the connections and feuds we had worked out between us were pointless and wasted. And none of us wanted to play in a prison drama, anyway - we wanted the high politics of the Empire.

2. "Mike is an Ass." by Kyle

I can't even remember what my character was, but for some reason I think it was a human fighter-- or maybe a ranger. Steve was some sort of druid or cleric with a staff of luck. Mike, of course, was the DM. I remember we were mid-level.

While travelling across the country side, we happen to encounter a timelord who encases me in a large area force field, while Steve is trapped outside. A hooded figure with a wickedly powerful magic sword appears before me and engages me in combat. He's obviously about the same level as me, but his sword is kicking my ass. Then my dice came through for me.

I rolled a natural twenty, and then rolled another twenty on my grievous wounds check. I rolled a d100 and we checked the grievous wounds chart-- SEVERED HAND! I cut off the bastard's hand, which quickly led to my killing him. After he's dead, I picked up his sword and unhooded him, only to discover-- It's me! All the world went white.

I then reappear inside the forcefield wearing a robe, but I still have the magic sword. Across the way is me from the past. We begin fighting, but this time I have the upper hand because I have the sword. After a bit, me from the past scores a grievous wound and cuts off my hand. Crap. Steve (making some miraculous wisdom check) realizes what's going on and tries the only thing he can: he breaks his Staff of Luck in half and releases all it's power at the forcefield. This breaks the Timemaster's power and the chain of events that was going to lead to my death. Needless to say, Steve helped me kill me from the past (an interesting choice- couldn't he have killed me in the future so that I could still play my character with two hands?).

So I got a kick ass sword and lost a hand- not the trade off I wanted.

1. "Stupid is as Stupid Does." by Tahlvin

We were sent to Hell, where we bribed passage across the river Styx. We were heading towards a castle in the distance, when the following exchange occurs:

GM: "You come to an intersection in the road. Straight ahead several miles is the is the castle. What do you do?"

Me: "Let's go right and see if we can find some way in other than the direct route."

GM: "After a couple hundred feet, the road comes to an end."

Me: "Okay, let's go back and try the left road."

GM: "After several hundred feet the road comes to an end."

Me: "Okay, we'll continue on anyways, road or not."

GM: "You can't."

Me: "Why not."

GM: "You just can't. And by the way, there's an army of tens of thousands of devils marching up the road towards the castle."

Me (now frustrated with the GM): "Fine, I turn and charge the army."

GM: "You can't."

Me (even more frustrated): "Why not."

GM: "You just can't."

Me (really frustrated now): "Fine. Tell me what I can do."

GM: "You're captured by the army and taken to the castle, where you're imprisoned and your gear is taken from you."

Thus ended that gaming session. Needless to say, that was the last time I played a game with that GM. This was a typical exchange; most of his adventures were very linear, where players were forced to take actions he had already planned out for them, rather than having any semblance of free will.