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The (supposedly) complete story (or maybe the Urban Legend variation):

The Head of Vecna
   Many years ago (back when we all were still playing D  & D), I ran a
game where I pitted two groups against each other. Several  members of
Group One came up with the idea of luring Group Two into a trap.  You
remember the Hand of Vecna and the Eye of Vecna that were artifacts  in
the old D&D world where if you cut off your hand (or your eye)  and
replaced it with the Hand of Vecna (or the Eye) you'd get new  awesome
powers? Well, Group One thought up The Head of Vecna.
   Group One  spread rumors all over the countryside (even paying Bards
to spread the word  about this artifact rumored to exist nearby). They
even went so far as to get  a real head and place it under some weak
traps to help with the illusion.  Unfortunately, they forgot to let ALL
the members of their group in on the  secret plan (I suspect it was
because they didn't want the Druid to get  caught and tell the enemy
about this trap of theirs, or maybe because they  didn't want him
messing with things).
   The Druid in group One heard  about this new artifact and went off
in search of it himself (I believe to  help prove himself to the party
members...) Well, after much trial and  tribulation, he found it;
deactivated (or set off) all the traps; and took  his "prize" off into
the woods for examination. He discovered that it did not  radiate magic
(a well known trait of artifacts) and smiled gleefully.
   I  wasn't really worried since he was alone and I knew that there
was no way he  could CUT HIS OWN HEAD OFF. Alas I was mistaken as the
Druid promptly  summoned some carnivorous apes and instructed them to
use his own scimitar  and cut his head off (and of course quickly
replacing it with the Head of  Vecna...)
   Some time later, Group one decided to find the Druid and to  check
on the trap. They found the headless body (and the two heads)  and
realized that they had erred in their plan (besides laughing at  the
character who had played the Druid)...The Head of Vecna still had  BOTH
eyes! They corrected this mistake and reset their traps and the  Head
for it's real intended victims...
   Group Two, by this time, had  heard of the powerful artifact and
decided that it bore investigating since,  if true, they could use it
to destroy Group One. After much trial and  tribulation, they found the
resting place of The Head of Vecna! The were  particularly impressed
with the cunning traps surrounding the site (one  almost missed his
save against the weakest poison known to man). They  recovered the Head
and made off to a safe area.
   Group Two actually CAME  TO BLOWS (several rounds of fighting)
against each other argueing over WHO  WOULD GET THEIR HEAD CUT OFF!
Several greedy players had to be hurt and  restrained before it was
decided who would be the recipient of the great  powers bestowed by the
Head... The magician was selected and one of them  promptly cut his
head off. As the player was lifting The Head of Vecna to  emplace it on
it's new body, another argument broke out and they spent  several
minutes shouting and yelling. Then, finally, they put the Head  onto
the character.
   Well, of course, the Head simply fell off the  lifeless body. All
members of Group Two began yelling and screaming at each  other (and at
me) and then, on their own, decided that they had let too much  time
pass between cutting off the head of a hopeful recipient and put  the
Head of Vecna onto the body.
SO THEY DID IT AGAIN!... [killing another  PC]
   In closing, it should be said that I never even cracked a smile  as
all this was going on. After the second PC was slaughtered, I had  to
give in (my side was hurting)...
And Group Two blamed ME [Mark] for all  of that...

Other horror stories:
Riddles
Some other anecdotes:This one is legendary in my  circle of
aquaitances, and whats more, it's not a player quote, its a GM  quote.
Party approaches bridge guarded by humungous troll with equally  sized
two-handed troll maul. The party stops short of the bridge .
The  troll looks on and shouts 'SEND FORTH YOUR BEST RIDDLER!'
There is heated  argument about who is the best riddler among the players...
'I should  go!'....'I have the best intelligence' etc...
Finally one of the players  marches up to the troll. 'I'm the best
riddler!' he announces  brightly.
The troll splats him dead. 'I hate riddlers.'

Drow  Quests
   A long adventure where at this point the party was captured by  drow
because of something they tried. Now the drow wanted to send them on  a
mission, as it amuses them to use good PC´s. For the quest they  wanted
to cast a geas on the PC's, there is no save for that if you  accept
it. So I asked the players to leave the room, all except one.
To  him I described what happen:
   He was tied with his arms and legs in a  position reminiscent of a
turkey, set on a platter and an apple was put in  his mouth. Some
carrots were put on the side and he was served on a table.  Then a drow
matron asked him whether he would "please" accept a geas to do a  quest
for her, apple still being in his mouth. Now seated around the  table
were about 4 lesser demons, with a fork in one hand and a knife in  the
other who at that moment started banging their utensils on the  table
and saying "NO! Don't do it, don't accept her mission please!!"  I
role-played by banging my fork/knife at that moment. In one case when
a  PC was still in doubt, the demon started delicately and happily
pouring gravy  over him.
Needless to say, all PC´s accepted the mission.

Some One  Call a Witchdoctor?
   Our party was attacked by monster and one character is  knocked up
pretty bad, but still alive and conscious, so the party's  barbarian
remembers that the shamans from his culture uses some herbs to  cure
wounds. So he makes an INT check and rolls a one. He then grabs  some
poison ivy and tries to stuff it down the injured guys  throat,
resulting in an even more injured PC. The injured PC tries to tell  the
barbarian about the hurting but the barbarian didn't speak  common...

To the Rescue
   We were playing 2nd Edition AD&D,  mid-high level, around 12-ish if
I recall properly. We were on a hunting  expedition to rid the kingdom
of a menacing green dragon. We approached what  was reputed to be the
dragon's lair, and were ambushed! The dragon used his  magic and breath
weapon on us from out of reach, and things were grim. He  even got a
bit cocky and started fighting us on the ground. Then we got  lucky,
and injured his wing so he couldn't fly. Things started to swing  back
in our favor.
   Then, disaster! The paladin got smacked hard and  dropped. The
player of the paladin was upset, but his bonded war horse was  still
around. So he claimed it wanted vengeance, and he kept attacking  with
his horse.
   The next round, disaster again! The ranger was mauled  and dropped.
He also kept attacking with his animal friend, this time a large  brown
bear, pumped up with magic. Soon, PC's were dropping left and  right.
The last PC dropped without the GM noticing. The bear's turn  in
initiative came up, and he rolled a 20! The maximum damage strike  was
enough to topple the mighty dragon!!!!! At this point we realized  the
horrible truth. The only survivors of the encounter were a bear and  a
horse, the entire party was dead. Oh, the shame. We had to start  over
again with new characters, none of us could live with the shame.

Eric and the Gazebo
Copyright 1986 by Richard Aronson (Original Story)
Let  us cast our minds back to the early days of fantasy
role-playing... In the  1970's, Ed Whitchurch ran "his game," and one
of the participants was Eric  Sorenson, a veritable giant of a man.
This story is essentially true: I knew  both Ed and Eric, and neither
denies it (although Eric, for reasons that will  become apparent, never
repeats it).
The gist of it is that Eric... well,  you need a bit more about Eric.
Eric comes quite close to being a computer.  When he games, he
methodically considers each possibility before choosing his  preferred
option. If given time, he will invariably pick the optimum  solution.
It has been known to take weeks. He is otherwise in all respects  a
superior gamer, and I've spent many happy hours competing with  and
against him. *Even today, if any player in our group takes  an
unreasonably long time to decide what to do, he draws calls of  "Hurry
up, Eric." So if you imagine pauses before any Eric response, with  the
word pause to indicate an unreasonably long pause, you'll have  the
flow down pat.
Ed, on the other hand, is very quick witted, of the  general school
that if you do the wrong thing quickly it may work out better  than the
right thing slowly. His pauses were usually signs that players  were
asking something very important or unbelievably unimportant.
So...  Eric was playing a neutral paladin (Why should only lawful good
religions get  to have holy warriors? was the rationale) in Ed's game.
He had a holy sword,  which fought well and did all those things holy
swords are supposed to do,  including detect good or evil (by random
die roll). He was exploring some  lord's lands when the following
exchange occurr.
Ed: You see a  well-groomed garden. In the middle, on a small hill, you
see a  gazebo.
Eric: A gazebo? What color is it?
Ed: (Pause) It's white,  Eric.
Eric: How far away is it?
Ed: About 50 yards.
Eric: How big is  it?
Ed: (Pause) It's about 30 feet across, 15 feet high, with a pointed  top.
Eric: (rolls dice) I use my sword to detect whether it's good.
Ed:  It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo!
Eric: (Unusually long pause, even for  Eric) I call out to it.
Ed: It won't answer. It's a gazebo!
Eric: (Pause)  I sheathe my sword and draw my bow and arrows. Does it
respond in any  way?
Ed: No, Eric. It's a gazebo!
Eric: I shoot it with my bow (rolls to  hit). What happened?
Ed: There is now a gazebo with an arrow sticking out of  it.
Eric: (Pause) Wasn't it wounded?
Ed: Of course not, Eric! It's a  gazebo!
Eric: (Whimper) But that was a plus-three arrow!
Ed: It's a  gazebo, Eric, a gazebo! If you really want to try to
destroy it, you could  try to chop it with an axe, I suppose, or you
could try to burn it, but I  don't know why anybody would even try.
It's a @#%!$*&  gazebo!
*(author's note: Ed was in the army, and no, he did not say  @#%!$*&.
The letter count has not been changed for the linguistically  curious.
Clue: it was a gerund.)*
Eric: (Long pause - he has no axe or  fire spells) I run away.
Ed: (Thoroughly frustrated) It's too late. You've  awakened the gazebo,
and it catches you and eats you.
Eric: (Reaching for  his dice) Maybe I'll roll up a fire-using mage so
I can avenge my  paladin...
At this point, the increasingly amused fellow party members  restored a
modicum of order by explaining what a gazebo is. This is solely  an
afterthought, of course, but Eric is doubly lucky that the gazebo  was
not situated on a grassy knoll.

Sneaking up on Dragons!
Party  finds a sleeping dragon & hoard. Lawfull stupid Palladin decides
he must  slay yon evil beast, of course he has to cross an underground
stream first.  QUIETLY he removes his armor and sword and tells others
to throw his sword to  him after he crosses. The Palladin crosses and
signals for sword, the dragon  is still asleep.
DM: "Roll a d20 to throw the sword to him."
Player:  (rolls a d20) "A One!"
DM: "Crit fumble, you impale the palladin with his own  sword."
DM (asking palladin): "You're about to pass out, what do you  do?"
Palladin (cold bloodedly): "I scream."