Any stories out there of when the GM have been the death of the role play?

[Cpt. Lundgren]

I have been thinking quite a while about creating a thread where people can share their tips and tricks to promote role play, and perhaps what roleplay means for people. But before diving into that, I am curious about what people have runned into as a player, when the GM have managed to destroyed the role play. To broaden the available examples, don't hesitate to bring up things that isn't from a Trek or LotR game.

My own best example is from the first time I came in contact with KULT (a Swedish horror game, and one of the few that has been translated to English). I and my friend knew that the adventure would take place at a remote cabin, together with some NPC tourists. As our character concepts, we came up with a Police officer, and a (former?) gang member.

When discussing the ideas with each other, with the GM present to overhear us, we thought that those two concept would work perfect together, building in some extra dislike for the other ones character, to be able to make a perfect "enemies who have to work together to survive, and thereby maybe overcome their differences."

So what is the first thing the GM says when we are about to start; "You are old friends, and have decided to go on a vacation together." That the adventure where a simple ghost story, which not really fitted Kult at all, and there where no reason at all that our characters would have to know each other from the beginning...

[Captain Otto]

I once played a enthusiastic Jedi Knight that the GM pitted against Aliens as a crossover. The Aliens were unbeatable and the group was permanent on the run. Finally they had us cornered and our last desperate stand resulted in the death of five PC's, we spend months to develop relationships and quirks. The last straw was a roll i missed by just one Point, that resulted (on the DM's call) in a critical failure that cut another PC in half with my Sword. Shortly after that the rest of the crew perished as well.
The first and only time i left the table in disgust never to play with him as DM again

[Dan Gurden]

hmmm.

I have certainly run into this as a player, I just hope that I have never been guilty as a DM...

Call of Cthulu. We are trying to break in to a tomb, and one character hands a note to the GM and (in character) leaves the group for a moment... A second character thwarted by his lock-pick failure draws a shotgun and tries to shoot the lock... 1 critical fumble later the entire party is dead from a maximum damage roll from the ricochet of shotgun pellets.

The sole character returns from the car with the tyre iron. Which was the note that was slipped to the DM.

Trek 1. A regular movie series game. Week after week we play, and I miss 1 game due to a holiday, and return to discover that in retributtion for my absence that my character was digitally downloaded and body destroyed the week before, and that next time I should put the game before a holiday. I walked away.

Trek 2/Cyberpunk/Morrow Project/etc... This particular GM had a thing for time travel. Never as part of a plot, just incidental...
Trek. Anytime we went to warp a critical failure or success from Engineering or helm would put us at Warp 10 and we would travel in time... Oh and they made regular rolls to help ensure it happened.
Cyberpunk. Occasionally a 'portal' would open and Macross jets/Robots would emerge and strafe the PC group and the return through their portal...
Morrow Project. We emerged to watch Chuck Heston and an Ape ride away from our base under the Statue of Liberty... And then we loaded up on 1960's military kit and went hunting Gorilla...
They were weird games... unforgetable... and quite annoying at times... But it turned out to be great training for Voyager's Time shenanigans...

[Cpt. Lundgren]

I was more thinking of things that removed any point of staying in character, and just becoming pure gaming to solve the adventure. Not sure if I have any more examples, as the other games where things have been mainly not in character, that was what most people in the group wanted.

Complete show stoppers... Hm, can't recall I have encountered as a player. Have I been guilty of it as a GM? Not sure. In two games did the entire group got wasted during the first game session. Not have a clue what the opinion was about the Wild West game where they where talking at the saloon about robbing the stagecoach and walked into an ambush. But the James Bond adventure, where they made some mistake on the mission they had inside Vietnam, and had to flee. But that became quite action packed, and a couple of month a go did some of the involved players talk about it is one of their better gaming experiences despite it has been around 20 years since then.

But my second long run fantasy game did I got a bit burned out, and the gaming became a bit to repetitive for a while