The second campaign I ever ran was the Lost Mine of Phandelver (the first campaign was a homebrew that lasted exactly half a session and ended in a TPK). At the time, I was but a foolish DM who was still trying to remember the difference between an attack roll and a damage roll, gave players far too many actions during their turns, and played with awful homebrew like crit tables.
My party had made it to the ruined village of Thundertree. After the rogue snuck through some ~~bushes~~ twig blights and died, I had to introduce a Druid character to cast reincarnation on him so that we could keep momentum going.
As the Druid was bringing the rogue back to life, the monk decided to explore the village some more. He enters an abandoned home.
You look around you and see furniture weathered and worn, strewn about the room. Plants are growing up from cracks in the floor. There’s nothing of interest here.
The monk decided to climb onto the roof. With a great acrobatics skill, that’s easy. He asks to roll a perception check.
You see the decimated village of Thundertree all around you. Most of the buildings are falling apart. The only building that looks to be in moderate repair is a tower on a hill.
“What else do I see in the distance?”
Umm, let me check a map… Well, the town is surrounded by neverwinter wood. It’s autumn, so the leaves are an array of red, gold, and orange. You can see a river winding through the woods, and near the horizon where it enters the sea, with the city of neverwinter sparkling like a jewel in the setting sun.
…
“I take 5 turns to admire the view.”
You pause and appreciate your surroundings, letting yourself burn this image of beauty into your memory. Now what?
“I jump down into the bushes below.”
As you descend, you realize these are not bushes, but twig blights. They attack you - and get a critical hit! Let me roll on the crit table to see what happens to you.
…
They’ve gouged out your eyes.
You are now blind.
Well at least the last thing you did with your sight was admire a scenic landscape.
That was the day we stopped using crit tables.
Yea this is why crit tables never seemed like a good idea to me