Beautiful Bob Blew Up the Hovercraft

Every other Friday I preside over a 4e campaign.  Calling it "4e" is more than a bit of a stretch, as I add new magic and new rules every single session and it ends up being "D&D - Carl's (gonzo/sci-fi/morally relativistic) Flavor" whether we are playing Mutant Future or Dungeons and Dragons, 4th Edition.

I have gotten in trouble before claiming that 4e and Mutant Future and Labyrinth Lord and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and B/X  et al are all functionally the same thing in the moment of true immersion in game play.  I still stand by that point, but I will content myself with noting that no matter for what edition I play Dungeon Master, the players will always surprise me.

A couple of weeks back, I was totally flabbergasted when Beautiful Bob activated the overload circuit that he had built into the ship at its creation (the entire hovercraft is a magical item created by the party, indestructible by normal means) and let loose all the magical energy stored in its battery in a tremendous explosion to prevent it from being towed to an unknown location.  Maybe even more surprising, the other players did not protest at all.

A tiny bit of back story:  the party was exploring a completely alien planet in another dimension, having left the hovercraft behind well hidden in the canopy of the jungle, guarded by the brothers Beobob and Beebul of the fierce people.  The hovercraft was the destination of the matched teleporter coins each party member held as a get-a-way option.  The hovercraft held Hammer's alternate mechanical/magical bodies (a Warforged Barbarian at character creation, Hammer has subsequently bound his soul and intelligence into a magical crystal that can be mounted in different bodies, allowing him different builds and classes as long as he keeps the same base INT, WIS and CHA scores).  The hovercraft held the largest piece of meteorite metal the party had found, an amazing natural battery capable of storing tremendous amounts of power... which the party had charged completely full by draining a giant whirlpool portal to another dimension.  The hovercraft had 20 rail guns constructed of Brood X leg blasters linked to the central battery with focusing lenses harvested from the eyes of the brood of Kariki Kalos.

And Beautiful Bob blew it all up without a second thought.  Honestly, the hovercraft was the one thing that had made travelling around in the jungle during the wet season feasible, and its firepower when fully manned by native gunners was a powerful deterrent to the devil bounty hunters and everyone else that the party has pissed off so far.

Of course, the party already has plans for how to make an even better hovercraft...