The Dumbest Role-Playing Game Decision I Ever Witnessed

For those who don’t play role-playing games much players are presented a scenario by a Game Master and if there is any doubt as to the outcome, dice are rolled to determine the outcome.

Once while in high school I was running a session involving the old TSR Adventures of Indiana Jones game.  Not the best game mechanics but I decided to give it a go.  The players were presented with a canyon that they needed to get across.  Falling in would be certain death due to how far down it was, but I’d have probably given the players a break had they tried something half ways intelligent and it didn’t work.

The player playing Indiana Jones climbed down on a rope. I told him he was at the end of the rope and still couldn’t see the bottom.  Either he or another player had their character throw a rock down.  I rolled the dice just to not be too blatant about things but told the players they couldn’t hear the rock hit the bottom.  I think the players tried one or two other things to try to get a sense of how far down to similar effects.

The final decision of the player playing Indiana Jones? He… let go of the rope.  Sigh.  Well, I helped the players as much as possible, but I didn't want to spoon feed the players a victory; there has to be some challenge after all.  Having all but spelled out that the drop was too far down too survive, I had to declare that particular version of Indiana Jones deceased.  Ah well.