Shadowrun, second edition. A group of 7 new players, only 2 of which had played RPGs before. The GM (who was a veteran of both RPGs in general and Shadowrun in particular) decided to introduce everyone to the Shadowrun world by way of Chicago. Yes, that Chicago.
Bug City. Emergence Day. Bug spirits eating anyone that survived the Firewatch nuke.
Our group of hapless losers included the usual cyberpunk rabble (burned-out ex-military, dwarven mechanics, etc.) and one shiny new human wagemage; relatively powerful, but very little "real world" experience. He went by "Stan"...which was actually his name. Kid didn't even have a street name yet. He spent most of Emergence Day trying to both keep his suit clean and not break any laws that might get him fired "when everything gets back to normal".
The rest of us are looting a grocery store for supplies when he realizes that he'd better help or he might not get to eat that night.
His player, one of the noobs, rolls what the GM tells him for a scrounge roll, and ends up with a pair of exploding 6's in the 10-12 range.
So, Stan (who, like his elven heroes, is a vegetarian) is daintily picking his way through the fruits & veggies section of the grocery store when he happens across The Last Cantaloupe. It's an otherwise ordinary cantaloupe that is both perfectly ripe and has survived the destruction of the city by virtue of having rolled under a box that no one else thought to check under. Stan, realizing this could very well be the last edible cantaloupe in the city, grabs it, stashes it under his suit jacket, and tries to nonchalantly head out the back of the store where we'd agreed to meet up once we'd grabbed what we needed. He's walking towards the (closed and locked) rear loading doors when all hell breaks loose.
It turns out that the grocery store we were looting had been "claimed". By a biker gang. Of trolls. It seems they objected to our group trying to "shoplift" from their store, and they responded the way trolls do: violently.
Stan, who's pristine suit is of the ordinary, non-armored variety, panics at the sounds of grenades and full-auto weapons fire, stops trying to pick the lock on the doors, and backs up behind the nearest freezer.
"I'm a mage, right?" asked his player. "Can't I just blow up the doors or something?"
"Sure," responds the GM, "you've got Fireball in your spell list right there."
"Sweet...give it everything he's got!" says the player.
"Force 6 Fireball it is." cackles the Evil GM.
Meanwhile, two of the trolls had circled around the back of the store, intent on "sneaking" in the back and shooting up our surprisingly resilient band of survivors from behind. The one Physical Adept that had been guarding the back had run forwards to help fight the trolls coming through the front doors, leaving oblivious little Stan on one side of a pair of metal doors, and the equally oblivious, but much more heavily armed, trolls on the other.
The lead troll, having fumbled around for a bit with the pathetically tiny human keys they'd taken off the store manager's body, was just reaching to put the key in the lock when there was a split second of noise and light, like an oncoming train. Suddenly, both doors and a good portion of the surrounding brick wall exploded outwards in a roiling ball of fire. Both trolls were lifted off their feet and thrown into the opposite alley wall, one sustaining massive injuries from the fire and brick shrapnel, and the other dying outright when the doors crushed him into the wall.
Stan's player had dumped his entire magic pool into casting the fireball. He wanted those doors open NOW. Again, he rolled incredibly well, and ended up with 5 or 6 dice in the 10-12 range. I realized later that based on that roll, the fact that this was Stan's first spell of the campaign, and the cinematic quality of it, the GM had fudged the damage to incapacitate both trolls at once, but all we players were thinking at the time was "That was AWESOME!"
Stan's player was quite proud of himself, and high-fives were exchanged.
"Ok," said the GM, "make your Drain roll."
Stan's player looked at the GM. "My what?"
Lit only by the flickering flames and surrounded by the debris that used to be the back of the grocery store, a small man in a dust-covered suit takes a slow step forwards. He only has time to say "oh shit" before his eyes roll back into his head and he collapses onto the charred concrete floor. As he's falling, the last canteloupe in the city drops and rolls out the hole where the doors used to be, coming to rest against the charred foot of a dead troll.
The rest of us, having killed or driven off the trolls attacking from the front, run to the back of the store to see what the hell happened. As we stand there gaping at the scene, the dwarf summarizes everyone's thoughts:
"What the fuck?"
However, Bug City is a place for action, not reason, so we grab the unconscious mage and run him out the back, anyone not carrying a mage or bags of supplies keeping weapons readied.
"Hey, look at that!" exclaims the PhysAd. "A cantaloupe! I call dibs!"