I had a friend slap a knife out of a dudes hand by accident at a gas station once. The way he tells is, he was in line to pay, guy in front of him pulled a knife on the cashier, friend made a “oh shit” noise, guy turns around, friend drops his shit and somehow simultaneously knocks the knife out of the guys hand while clumsily trying to raise his own hands in a “don’t stab me” guesture. Knife dude was running for the door before the knife hit the floor.
Friend got all the praise for saving the day, but he lets us know it was all a nat 20 luck roll and divine intervention from a trickster god.
To this day, I don’t know how I managed this one, but when I was living in Bogota, there was this guy who always tried to sell me coke. Every time I saw him, he would stop me to chat. Late one night, my friend and walk to the corner store, and this neighborhood dealer guy was at the side door of the shop with some woman.
We were all trying to buy alcohol illegally the night before an election—they have a law that they have to stop selling by like 10p or midnight the night before a federal election. Anyway, I say something to the woman, asking if they’ve seen the shopkeeper. This woman goes off about Argentinians because she thought I was Argentinian. I didn’t correct her because…what was I going to say, “no, don’t worry, I’m from the US! We’ve never meddled in your country and you’d have no reason to hate me now!” So I said nothing and started dealing with the shopkeep.
She and my drug dealer buddy—I thought we were buddies, anyway—buy their beer and step off to the side. As I talk with the shop dude, I hear her continuing to rant behind me, but I wasn’t listening. This is all over the span of a couple min, the shopkeeper constantly telling me to keep an eye out for cops between our interaction. As this is happening, the dealer dude comes up and is kinda trying to talk to me while I deal with the shopkeep through a crack in the door while also keeping a lookout for cops rolling up. Dealer dude is just kinda standing there, maybe four feet away from me. Awkwardly. Hovering, really.
I wasn’t really alarmed, but I was definitely aware of him. ‘Cause it was weird. But he was a weird ass dude. Anyway, I pay the shopkeep, hand the bag of beer to my friend, and turn around to walk away. As I turn, I’m digging one hand deep in my pocket to shove my change in there. Drug dealer guy is now kinda 3/4 behind me, but out of the corner of my eye I see him lunge at me like a fuckin Disney villain, knife raised over his head, trying to stab me like he was Jafar.
Somehow i react like a goddamn ninja, and I suddenly have both his wrists in my hands, and we’re grappling as he tries to push the knife into my goddamn neck. A few seconds of struggling, him trying to stab me and me with both of his wrists in my hands before I managed to create a little space between us, so I rear back and fuckin Sparta kick this dude square in the solar plexus. He goes flying and rocks his tailbone against the curb.
Still the coolest thing I’ve ever done to this day. Fuckin nuts in hindsight. Dude was going for a straight up kill shot.
I never bought anything from him in the first place! But we were always friendly and would chat for a few min when we crossed paths.
The next night…this dude comes up to a group of us and starts talking trying to sell us shit. The next night. He didn’t acknowledge me.
I have a friend who is a legitimate badass, like “can successfully fight 5 people at the same time and win” kind of badass. Someone pulled a knife on him once and without hesitation my friend bitch slapped the dude so hard that he fell to the ground and dropped the knife. That was pretty cool.
Reminds me of my partner and I’s story of “Two Knives Guy”
So we’re looking for a place for dinner downtown at dusk and this kind of guy starts following us. We are just outside one of those bustling Italian places where there’s this outdoor seating lit by brewer’s cable and there’s like a whole bunch of people milling about waiting for tables or drinking. We are just at the edge of the crowd when behind us the guy calls for our attention.
We turn and he has a knife in each hand, one trained on either of us. I tense thinking that okay - it’s a VERY short run to safety but I am not leaving my partner, if this guy attacks I’m protecting my man. The mugger gives us his best glower and goes “GIMMEYRMMMMERRGGR”
My partner blinks as though confused by his intentions “Umm… What?”
I feel like face-palming.
"GIMMEYRMMMMERRGGR!!! "
“I… sorry what are you asking?”
The guy just looks at us like we’re complete idiots he turns to me and I just shrug. He tries one more time and my partner just goes “I don’t understand…” and the guy, who realizes somebody in that busy establishment is gunna notice what’s going on eventually just growls, feigns a slash at my partner and runs away.
When we were talking about it over dinner we broke the interaction down and we were like. The guy had a knife in each hand… If we tried to hand him something how would he take it? I dunno if we rolled a 20 or if the guy rolled a nat 1.
I had an NPC in a RPG that was kind of like this. A werewolf was going berserk in a church. The players were like “Reg! Get out of there!”. Reg sees the werewolf rip a corporate stooge in half and come running at him. He goes, “Bro. Fucking metal.”
Rolls really high on his social check. Werewolf high fives him and just runs by to go murder more corporate leadership.
I have a hard time telling what this person rolled in the knife situation. Awareness may have been like a 2. Intimidation could have either been a 2 or a 19. I mean the person had 0 idea why they had a knife, nor was considered a threat to let them leave first… or after. For all we know dude robbed the whole store, asked everyone if they had a problem staying silent and dudes just fucking munching out on a cookie. If they switch to doughnuts they could have been a 90s cop.
I was walking to the train station once when a guy said “do you want to buy this?” and showed me a flick knife.
“No, I’m alright thanks” I said and carried on walking, and he went his own way.
It was only later that I realised that was a really odd question to ask, and I might not have heard him properly. I did have headphones in at the time and there was traffic. Plus I’m slightly deaf anyway.
There’s probably some crackhead out there still wandering how he got Derren Browned out of mugging someone.
