NEVER ASSUME ANYTHING

[DerVVulfman]

Trust me guys, I didn't come up with this.
I got this from a youtube video recounting pen-n-paper RPG stories.
Unfortunately, no names were attributed.

NEVER ASSUME ANYTHING

So our group had been playing this module called the Temple of Elemental Evil for quite a while, and a friend of mine joined the party. She was new to D&D, so she kept quiet most of this, assuming we were experienced players and knew what we were doing.

We stumbled across a hidden room in this evil temple that felt pure and holy. Inside we found another secret door, leading to a dark room that felt overwhelmingly evil. Inside was a coffin with a vampire inside, a stake through his heart. For some reason we thought that if we removed the stake he would spring to life and attack us, so we prepared all of our spells and weapons, removed the stake and...

... nothing.

Since he didn't attack us, we decided to cut off his head, put it in a sack and burn his heart on a flaming sword along with his body. My friend thought an easier solution would be to move the vampire next door into the holy room, but didn't say anything since she thought we would know what's best.

We returned to the nearby village to tell the church what we had done and to show off the vampire's head. Unfortunately, the head we presented was that of the Prince and High Paladin of the Realm. The evil room in the temple had an illusion spell on the prince, and had we just moved him into the other room, the spell would be broken and we could see his true form.

Moral of the story: if you are new to D&D, never assume the players are smart and know what's best.