Worst ways your players have ever messed up your plans.

[Kobold_Love]

While that other thread gives us the players' cruel perspectives, I want to hear the DMs' side to the story.

Although I am still an inexperienced DM, even I have felt the sting of PCs knocking all your hard work off the table.

So, share your gutrenching stories folks and gals.

[AstralFire]

My players have never actually done a major derail. I leave most of the minors flexible to begin with. It's kind of boring this way, really.

Zuki can tell you in the morning about The Goat Named Murray, though. That's about the most I've ever been surprised by my group.

[Mongoose87]

Worst I've ever had is the Half-Orc Barbarian giving all of the quest leads a miss and deciding to wag his schlong at everyone through a tavern window, instead. Of course, the dwarven fighter wasn't to be outdone, so he jumped through the window at the Half-Orc, starting a fight that eventually led to the guards beating them down and locking them up.

I ask you: Why is it when I try to go through the effort of not starting a campaign in a tavern, I end up in a tavern?

[Zadus]

I ask you: Why is it when I try to go through the effort of not starting a campaign in a tavern, I end up in a tavern?

Taverns must have a vibe or something. They're like mosquito lights for adventurers.


I've had players miss vital clues, but usually they've been really nice when it comes to staying on track.

[AstralFire]

Worst I've ever had is the Half-Orc Barbarian giving all of the quest leads a miss and deciding to wag his schlong at everyone through a tavern window, instead. Of course, the dwarven fighter wasn't to be outdone, so he jumped through the window at the Half-Orc, starting a fight that eventually led to the guards beating them down and locking them up.

I ask you: Why is it when I try to go through the effort of not starting a campaign in a tavern, I end up in a tavern?

...You poor thing. -pats-

[Berserk Monk]

Well, long story short, one of my PCs couldn't make it so another friend was filling in for cleric. He had to make a character sheet because we didn't have the absentee's. My PCs we so impatient to play, they decided to adventure while this guy made his cleric. The two of them went off to fight a team of werewolves. They were level two and needed a healer. One of them died. The other, he went into town and recruited an army of children to fight the lycanthropes while he blasted them with spells from behind the wall of kids. After the slaughter of the werewolves and most of the kids (actually, he may have done the CE thing and killed the children that survived; I forget), he goes to the children's parents and tells them what happened.

[Ceridan]

Oh I've had several planned out scenarios turn out upside down by my players. Sometimes it's a cunning plan on their part, other times it's all the luck of the dice.

D&D 3.5: I set up one of my players, an arch wizard conjurer, to face his brother, basically his mirror image in ability. Here I am expecting a classic wizard's duel of epic proportions. What does my player do? He casts a anti- magic field and my carefully planned battle of spell and counter spell is reduced to a slap fight of Cartman verses Kyle proportions. Cunning but Blah.

Dark Heresy: My players were on an Adaptus Mechanicus station. One decided to go snooping. He spotted a new tech priest arrived on the station and decided to follow him. I asked for a concealment test. He rolled an 01. So he follows the tech priest past several layers of security and sees the tech priest disable the servo skull assigned to guide him and then the skittari guards on some kind of secure vault. He then hacks the lock and slips in, the PC following him in with another insanely low roll. The Tech priest then proceeds to break several layers of security to gain access to some kind of electronic storage device. The player knew the Machanicum would be pissed that he had managed to break into such a secure facility, but thought that if the tech priest was allowed to take the storage device than really bad things would come of it. So he drew his power blade. I asked for a move silently. His luck finally failed as he rolled a 97. The tech priest heard him and a short fight ensued. The PC won and stopped the bad guy from unleashing a scrap code that would have made most of the station go crazy and lead to the planed running fight for the night. Dice, Blah.

[Kobold_Love]

I ask you: Why is it when I try to go through the effort of not starting a campaign in a tavern, I end up in a tavern?



Taverns must have a vibe or something. They're like mosquito lights for adventurers.

Simple solution: Have the town/village/city/dwarf fortress/whatever have a ruler who declared the settlement/kingdom be "dry" and made bringing in booze illegal.

[TheCountAlucard]

Well, actually, my players are doing it to me right now, as I type on this computer.

I was planning for some encounters involving a feral half-dragon ogre, but one of the players is wanting his character to purchase some spellcasting services. Which spellcasting services? Plane shift - he wants to visit the Seelie Court and see if he can get a blessing from them (i.e., be given the half-fey template).

Curse my open-mindedness! :smalltongue:

[Skorj]

I had a series of diplomatic encounters planned (and those are hard for me to write!). The adventurers needed to get a plot coupon from the mayor of a wealthy halfling town before they faced the BBEG. I was roleplaying the "government" halflings as particulary obnoxious and beaurocratic, as the plot was to involve the mayor's daughter and some interesting side quests and comical misunderstandings.

The players were having none of this! :eek: They (a good party, mind you, if not so lawful) decided to break into the mayor's mansion when he was away for the night, and simply steal the plot coupon. I had explained to them that this would likely end up in a fight with the town guard (never fight with the town guard!), and that there was no way that would end well with them being a good party and all. But they were determined, and I played it straight, not inventing anything new to thwart them.

They presented an incredibly good plan, clearly the result of many hours of planning between sessions, tunneled in with a shovel of mighty digging (or whatever that was called), defeated the alarms and such, which were never intended to stop mid-level PCs, and almost made it out the door before an enchatment they didn't expect on the plot coupon itself set off all the alarms (which in turn dispelled their invis and silence and the like). :frown:

They had a wand of wonder, and a few rounds before all the guards showed up. For lack of a better option, they just started firing off charges and hoping for the best. Between the summoned elephant and the accidental fireballing of the mansion, the halflings took days to figure out what had happened, by which time the party was long gone.

My only intervention to keep the game going was that I had never revealed the table of results for the wand of wander, and a bit of creative inventing of results saved the campaign. :biggrin:


Simple solution: Have the town/village/city/dwarf fortress/whatever have a ruler who declared the settlement/kingdom be "dry" and made bringing in booze illegal.

The party would find themselves meeting smugglers in the local speakeasy 30 minutes into the campaign. :smallsmile:

[Skorj]

Well, actually, my players are doing it to me right now, as I type on this computer.

I was planning for some encounters involving a feral half-dragon ogre, but one of the players is wanting his character to purchase some spellcasting services. Which spellcasting services? Plane shift - he wants to visit the Seelie Court and see if he can get a blessing from them (i.e., be given the half-fey template).

Curse my open-mindedness! :smalltongue:

That's an incredible plot opportunity! The Seelie Court never gives anything without a surprise twist, and no doubt have some "minor insignificant favor" they need to party to do that will bring the Unseelie Court down on the party in 10 levels or so when you need a new plot hook!

Man, this is a gift from the players, use it like a rented mule!

V Get your mind out of the gutter, this is a family forum. :biggrin:

[TheCountAlucard]

That's an incredible plot opportunity!That's the main reason why I'm allowing it. :smalltongue: Like I said, they just messed up my planning is all.


Man, this is a gift from the players, use it like a rented mule!Eww! :smalltongue:

[mostlyharmful]

Control M%^&*$ing Winds that is all

[Altaria87]

Basically in one campaign I let the PCs take Leadership because it was a war-based setting, so they could eventually lead an army in the final confrontation. The Druid had other plans though, amassed an army of I think it was 70 small fire elementals in the Plane of Fire, he then sets fire to a Barbarian settlement who were going to be their main diplomatic links with an extremly strong Barbarian Warlord.
Of course, I was spiteful and didn't try to fix it, so halfway through the final battle, a huge army of Barbarians storms into the back of the PC's army, going through them to get to the enemy, TPK, good times :smallbiggrin:

[nysisobli]

(party consisted of a glass manipulating swashbuckler, a vampire monk,and a radiation generating gunslinger)


Ok im playing a custom world of dnd with my party, link can be found in my signature. Its in a modern setting where everyone is superpowered (pcs).
Well they were going to the university to register the fact they were mutants. When set upon by hundreds of angry zombies(hombrewed) well they manage to get the vampire to climb the wall and pull them in with the rope. They get inside and come up with a daring escape plan. Inside they ran into a bone manipulating warrior, and a static electric girl.

Well the plan was simple, use the glass from the windows to make a sled, push said sled off the top of the building, sled over now 4000 zombies(and growing) using static electricity to hover above them all, with bone spikes attached to the bottom, with mr radiation to blast them forward. It worked about 300 feet until the spikes caused a massive amount of drag and they stopped. The only way they survived was a thinly veiled deus ex machina lol. In the end the stole a winnebago, and escaped with the recrutiers.

They were supposed to wait inside.....

[Dr_Emperor]

You know that horribly cliche, you should join team evil speech and kill your friends, well the party had some in fighting before it. The aboleth threatening their city found out and decided now was the time to convince the PCs to join it. I didn't have the time to run it before the session ended so I decided to send them the aboleths illusionary message by email.

Fun story about that if you ever want a TPK ask each of the PCs to betray the others, you don't even need a monster to be involved. Funny thing was the nooby player denied it because it would end the campaign and the "experienced players" jumped at the opportunity to kill everything.

[KillianHawkeye]

This just happened to me last weekend:

We're playing Star Wars Saga Edition. I'm running the online Dawn of Defiance campaign from WotC. The group is about halfway through part 3 (of 10), and getting ready to infiltrate the big Sabacc tournament on Cloud City to catch the Imperials in the midst of their illegal activities.

So it was the day before the tournament was to begin. The players got a message that an Imperial Star Destroyer had just arrived and launched a shuttle bringing the Imperial officier to Cloud City. This is the guy who is supposed to make the transaction with Darga the Hutt's agent during the last day of the tournament. Of course, they want to go meet it where it lands, and it looks like they wanna take this guy out. Well, I let them arrive in time to see the officer walking down the landing ramp, preceded by a dozen stormtroopers. I figured the players would shy away from a fight against 12 stormies and a 6 Cloud City police with an elevated position (not to mention the shuttle), and it worked. They had to be satisfied just getting a good look at the officer so they could identify him later. (Little did they know that the officer would be wearing his Imperial uniform for the entire tournament, making no attempt to hide himself whatsoever.)

At this point, I was hoping they were ready to go along with the Sabacc tournament like they were supposed to, but it didn't end there. The first day of the tournament went by fine. The Noble won a pile of chips, and the guys on security watched the officer like a hawk. Of course, the tournament is supposed to last 4 days, and the transaction takes place the last day, so they didn't see him do anything but win credits.

Now, here is where things started to go horribly wrong. First off, even though I threw in a bunch of stormtroopers before, they weren't exactly going to be escorting the officer everywhere he went. In fact, the adventure doesn't mention any type of security for the officer at all. Secondly, the adventure doesn't mention what hotels the officer (or any of the other Sabacc players the PCs might be interested in following) might be staying at, so I had to make up something on the spot. Finally, I was going on only 3 to 4 hours of sleep, so my ability to rationally defend against crazy player ideas was reduced.

Long story short, the party Noble (who is Force-sentitive and really flirty with the Dark Side) tailed the officer to his hotel and used her Surge power to catch up just as he stepped into a turbolift, where she Force Gripped him into submission and took him prisoner, basically destroying the rest of the adventure. Now that he won't be returning to the tournament, the party won't be able to identify Darga's agent. Unless they torture the guy, I guess. They do that way too much already, and I don't like it. I pretty much have no idea what to do next. :smalleek:

[Jalor]

My plots are flexible enough that it's nigh impossible to actually obliterate the plot. The only thing I can think of that would actually destroy most of the plot for my current campaign is the PCs randomly attacking a particular person who is important later on.

They have, however, made much of my attempts to avoid railroading entirely irrelevant. The original Faction War adventure started in a tavern. To avoid this, I came up with 7 different plot hooks for my 3.5 version and placed them all over Sigil. The first thing my players do upon arriving is yell "WE GO DRINKING!".

I also created separate adventure paths depending on which side they chose to work with. Come first session, they hand me members of all but one of the factions on one side of the conflict.

[Malfunctioned]

3.5 Edition, Standard 'Collect the tokens to stop the end of the world' plot. The group started off this session in a desert town where the duergar rogue had just been turned into a vampire....by the end of the session they had a sentient car, four giant stone guardians and two giant castles. They also established the worlds first theme park which was then populated and run by Spellweavers (MM2), the BBEG (A Half Green/Red/Black/Fiend Pseudonatural Corrupted Vampire Bard, this was partially their fault as well.) had been sent, along with his entire fortress and army, to the positive energy plane and was reduced to using his Unhallow spell-like to stay alive.

We decided to play Mutants and Masterminds after that.

[potatocubed]

One of them built a mile-high adamantium citadel.

That was pretty much the end of that campaign.

Later on, the same player was responsible for strip-mining a dungeon. He figured he could sell the stone for Stronghold Builder's Guidebook prices, and simultaneously make sure he hadn't missed any secret rooms.

That didn't quite end that campaign, but the death knell was sounding.

[Civil War Man]

I ran a campaign of Demon: The Fallen. As in most World of Darkness campaigns, the goal was to prevent the End of the World. The end of the story had BBEG rampaging through New York City in the form of a giant dragon, looking for humans the party hired to perform a ritual to seal him away.

Suddenly, the party decided "Well, I guess subtlety has gone out the window," went into their Apocalyptic forms, and started sending all manner of minions after them. Everything from the ghosts of famous New Yorkers all the way to animated buildings. Remember in the first Transformers movie where all those random machines were turning into Decepticons when they came into contact with the Allspark? One of the characters could basically do that, and did it to things like the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building.

The Technocracy had to resort to scorched Earth tactics to contain the chaos, but considering that the party were powerful divine creatures, they could actually escape containment and escalate the conflict. So the party actually caused the End of the World in the finale. I let them rebuild the world in the epilogue, however, so it's all good.

[Jack_of_Spades]

The BBEG offers the PCs a chance to gain some of the power he's after. The PCs accept. Well hell, just set the angle of the campaign 180 degrees. Also, up to that point, the party was all good aligned and was good at fighting evil.

[Forbiddenwar]

Okay the good guys have a couple of artifacts with strange, not that useful powers. they know they are important and the bad guys want them at any cost. The bad guys want them to destroy the world.(they are pieces to a key to open the prison of a snarl like thing) The bad guys are in authority so they send the city guard to the good PCs to be arrested or surrender their items. It just makes sense that they would do that. The only way out is to fight the evil city guards.

Or so I thought.

Not according to my players who just hand over their artifacts like they were worthless and walked away. So now if they don't want all of existence to end, they have to storm the BigBad citidal, without the bigbad knowing that they are there to get the items back. tricky operation considering they ALREADY GAVE permission and their hair to the bigbad(LE) to scry on them at any time.

I'm trying to figure out how this is NOT checkmate (TPK and the end of all existence) without incredible Duex EX that a 3 year old can see through.

[BRC]

3.5 Edition, Standard 'Collect the tokens to stop the end of the world' plot. The group started off this session in a desert town where the duergar rogue had just been turned into a vampire....by the end of the session they had a sentient car, four giant stone guardians and two giant castles. They also established the worlds first theme park which was then populated and run by Spellweavers (MM2), the BBEG (A Half Green/Red/Black/Fiend Pseudonatural Corrupted Vampire Bard, this was partially their fault as well.) had been sent, along with his entire fortress and army, to the positive energy plane and was reduced to using his Unhallow spell-like to stay alive.

We decided to play Mutants and Masterminds after that.
...DETAILS PLEASE!

[Mulletmanalive]

Dude, some of these players actually seem to be doing this crap to TRY to ruin your plots, which is, for me, the point where I'm unwilling to run for them anymore [not hugely good at improvising and don't have the time for dungeon design so I rely on stories].

My worst was probably when one of the players decided that shooting the guy holding the person they were supposed to rescue was a good itea because the rules said it was possible. Hit comes up in the cover range, i don't care by this point and the character gets shot.

Whole local situation turns on them and they end up getting hunted and the player has the cheek to say that this is my fault.

Another classic is in my Victorian setting where two investigators break into a house, walk into a room full of the answers to all the plot threads, don't bother lighting the lamps and then wander out because nothing was glowing...

[Kobold_Love]

Okay the good guys have a couple of artifacts with strange, not that useful powers. they know they are important and the bad guys want them at any cost. The bad guys want them to destroy the world.(they are pieces to a key to open the prison of a snarl like thing) The bad guys are in authority so they send the city guard to the good PCs to be arrested or surrender their items. It just makes sense that they would do that. The only way out is to fight the evil city guards.

Or so I thought.

Not according to my players who just hand over their artifacts like they were worthless and walked away. So now if they don't want all of existence to end, they have to storm the BigBad citidal, without the bigbad knowing that they are there to get the items back. tricky operation considering they ALREADY GAVE permission and their hair to the bigbad(LE) to scry on them at any time.

I'm trying to figure out how this is NOT checkmate (TPK and the end of all existence) without incredible Duex EX that a 3 year old can see through.

I honestly do not believe you can.

If you are attached to your setting, or worked hard on it, then I would personally try doing the adventure/campaign again, but in the trope style of a different party's perspective. So things and scenes which took place in the original run are witness by the new PCs.

[RS14]

I'm trying to figure out how this is NOT checkmate (TPK and the end of all existence) without incredible Duex EX that a 3 year old can see through.

Perhaps the PCs could lend aid from the background to some other organization. They would need to be very careful what they learned about their allies, less it tip off the BBEG, but they could thus have someone to storm the citadel. Perhaps they can attempt to divert the BBEG's attention with a suicidal frontal assault, and thereby aid their allies, like Gondor at the Black Gate.

Unfortunately, I don't see any easy way to get them involved with such an organization, unless they come up with the idea themselves.

[Lamech]

Okay the good guys have a couple of artifacts with strange, not that useful powers. they know they are important and the bad guys want them at any cost. The bad guys want them to destroy the world.(they are pieces to a key to open the prison of a snarl like thing) The bad guys are in authority so they send the city guard to the good PCs to be arrested or surrender their items. It just makes sense that they would do that. The only way out is to fight the evil city guards.

Or so I thought.

Not according to my players who just hand over their artifacts like they were worthless and walked away. So now if they don't want all of existence to end, they have to storm the BigBad citidal, without the bigbad knowing that they are there to get the items back. tricky operation considering they ALREADY GAVE permission and their hair to the bigbad(LE) to scry on them at any time.

I'm trying to figure out how this is NOT checkmate (TPK and the end of all existence) without incredible Duex EX that a 3 year old can see through.
What level are the PC's? Why haven't they invested in... false image (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/falseVision.htm), nondetection (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/nondetection.htm) or mind blank? A few (dozen) remote view traps (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/remoteViewTrap.htm)would kill Mr. BBEG in a second. And I'm like 90% sure there is an arcane version in some source book as well.

[averagejoe]

My players don't really derail much. In fact, I leave things wide open and they freeze up. I kind of have the opposite problem of most DM's I hear about; I'm willing to DM incredibly open games, but my players want to be railroaded. :smallsigh:

Of course, it is possible that players just like to get on DM's nerves.

[Forbiddenwar]

What level are the PC's? Why haven't they invested in... false image (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/falseVision.htm), nondetection (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/nondetection.htm) or mind blank? A few (dozen) remote view traps (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/remoteViewTrap.htm)would kill Mr. BBEG in a second. And I'm like 90% sure there is an arcane version in some source book as well.

umm, they are 1st level. and there is no arcane spell casters or psions in the party.

they did manage to save one item, a wand. (the cleric, my wife of all people, hid it on her person in a place that a strip search wouldn't find, yes this means what you think it means) I think I'll beef up the abilities of that one item, make it intellegent and useful. Maybe that will help. have it use nondection to give them a better chance. but now we are back at a dues ex that a 3 year old can see through.

[Elfin]

I'm not a railroading type; while I have a general story plotted out I let the PCs pretty much have free reign creating whatever kind of game they want, and I'll tailor to suit.
However, below is a pretty memorable and badass moment from my running home campaign two years ago.

So the 5th-level PCs have arrived in a large city under the iron-fisted grip of a cruel tyrant, a scheming villain who is (unbeknownst to the players) a major antagonist. A long chain of events lead up to the tyrant hating the PCs madly, and so his guards, in a dreadfully cliched manner, offer the party an "invitation" to meet with him. The players agree, although they of course know what the ruler really wants.
Before heading off to the castle where they're supposed to meet with the tyrant, the PCs want to go shopping, which I allow- the players have already been told that they can buy anything under 20k here.
The meeting ensues, and as soon as the tyrant commands the inevitable "Seize them!", the PCs roll (and win) initiative.
Succeeding on a UMD check, the party ranger casts a 12th-level scroll of scorching ray (procured on the recent shopping spree) on the tyrant, killing him.
Ah well, I think. He can easily be rezzed.
The party wizard then proceeds to cast an (also newly-acquired) scroll of trap the soul, trapping the tyrant in an (also just procured) black gemstone.
Gulp. Well, the PCs still have to fight their way out of the fortress.
Another lucky UMD check later, the cleric Greater Teleports everyone a few hundred miles away.
Apparently, the party sold pretty much all of their gear and used all of their treasure just on this elaborate scheme. It was a bit of a surprise, to say the least.

[archon_huskie]

Okay the good guys have a couple of artifacts with strange, not that useful powers. they know they are important and the bad guys want them at any cost. The bad guys want them to destroy the world.(they are pieces to a key to open the prison of a snarl like thing) The bad guys are in authority so they send the city guard to the good PCs to be arrested or surrender their items. It just makes sense that they would do that. The only way out is to fight the evil city guards.

Or so I thought.

Not according to my players who just hand over their artifacts like they were worthless and walked away. So now if they don't want all of existence to end, they have to storm the BigBad citidal, without the bigbad knowing that they are there to get the items back. tricky operation considering they ALREADY GAVE permission and their hair to the bigbad(LE) to scry on them at any time.

I'm trying to figure out how this is NOT checkmate (TPK and the end of all existence) without incredible Duex EX that a 3 year old can see through.

Well you can try introducing a second adeventuring hero party who managed to steal the items fron the BigBad citial. The BBEG then contacts the PC's adventuring party and offers them a reward to get the items back for him.

Or the BBEG can decide to use the threat of unlocking the snarl type thing as political and finacial blackmail. A last minute change of plans. The BBEG just says, "Why destory this world? I like this world. Most of my best BBEG moments have been in the this world."

[Milskidasith]

I'm not a railroading type; while I have a general story plotted out I let the PCs pretty much have free reign creating whatever kind of game they want, and I'll tailor to suit.
However, below is a pretty memorable and badass moment from my running home campaign two years ago.

So the 5th-level PCs have arrived in a large city under the iron-fisted grip of a cruel tyrant, a scheming villain who is (unbeknownst to the players) a major antagonist. A long chain of events lead up to the tyrant hating the PCs madly, and so his guards, in a dreadfully cliched manner, offer the party an "invitation" to meet with him. The players agree, although they of course know what the ruler really wants.
Before heading off to the castle where they're supposed to meet with the tyrant, the PCs want to go shopping, which I allow- the players have already been told that they can buy anything under 20k here.
The meeting ensues, and as soon as the tyrant commands the inevitable "Seize them!", the PCs roll (and win) initiative.
Succeeding on a UMD check, the party ranger casts a 12th-level scroll of scorching ray (procured on the recent shopping spree) on the tyrant, killing him.
Ah well, I think. He can easily be rezzed.
The party wizard then proceeds to cast an (also newly-acquired) scroll of trap the soul, trapping the tyrant in an (also just procured) black gemstone.
Gulp. well, he PCs still have to fight their way out of the fortress.
Another lucky UMD check later, the cleric Greater Teleports everyone a few hundred miles away.
Apparently, the party sold pretty much all of their gear and used all of their treasure just on this elaborate scheme. It was a bit of a surprise, to say the least.

How did that end? I mean, unless somebody had decided that the soul of the tyrant was worth a lot, they would be, while not completely screwed, still fairly weak due to a lack of magic items. Then again, you had two primary casters who aren't so reliant on magic items anyway.

[Lamech]

umm, they are 1st level. and there is no arcane spell casters or psions in the party.

they did manage to save one item, a wand. (the cleric, my wife of all people, hid it on her person in a place that a strip search wouldn't find, yes this means what you think it means) I think I'll beef up the abilities of that one item, make it intellegent and useful. Maybe that will help. have it use nondection to give them a better chance. but now we are back at a dues ex that a 3 year old can see through.Well assuming the standard DnD cosmology they just need to inform say, a celestial, a devil, a Efreeti or any religion ever. I don't think it should be to hard. Then they can watch the infinite number of outsiders kill the BBEG. It should be funny. (Unless the threat is to a single world and not really all of existance in which case... bye caimpaign setting.)

Also swallowing a wand sounds painful.

[BobVosh]

Also swallowing a wand sounds painful.

Wait til it comes out.

I hope you give it a huge ego and give your wife crap constantly from it. But being your wife I could see how this would be an issue.

My players have on the beginning of one module decided, on a whim, to kill the guy who hired them. Perhaps they were trope wise, as he WAS the BBEG of the module.

They have also (in exalted, remember huge life spans) decided to hide in a hole that was protected from sidereel divinations until the BBEG died of natural causes. That, gentlemen, is why you need the BBEG to do more than just want to commit genocide on the PCs race where the PCs are pretty much the only members of said race.

After several attempts I decided "screw the plot, I have npcs!" I just make NPCs, throw them in, give them generic goals. Find out who the players hate the most, and BAM! BBEG. Whop out a plot later.

[KillianHawkeye]

they did manage to save one item, a wand. (the cleric, my wife of all people, hid it on her person in a place that a strip search wouldn't find, yes this means what you think it means)


swallowing a wand sounds painful.

I do not think he means what you think he means. :smallwink::smallredface:

[Brauron]

They chose to melt down the mcguffin that the entire campaign was centered around. The PCs needed it to keep Cthulhu from rising...

[ondonaflash]

One of the rules I tend to live by when writing adventures is "The Villain Drives the Story, the Heroes are Incidental." The villain has a plot, the villain is in the process of executing that plot, the heroes unwittingly stumble on this plot and either act to stop it, or face the consequences. I even keep a timeline in the back of my mind to keep track of where the villain is in his plot. If the PCs do nothing they get a message like this:

"You awaken in the dead of night to the screams of agony surrounding you. The sky swirls with red mist, black cracks course from the eye of the storm, an onslaught of demons flies towards you, and you are powerless to stop them..." TPK re-roll characters...

Then next campaign: "It has been six months since the catastrophe, you survive and struggle with one of the few remnants of civilization that still exists, a small tribe of [species] that survives in this hellish, scorched landscape by constantly moving, avoiding the demons that roam the earth seeking mortals to torture, feeding on lone quasits wandering the wastes, you cannot even light a fire for fear of drawing more powerful demons your way, but there is hope, your tribe has found..." etc.

The Moral of the Story: Apathy kills!

[imp_fireball]

Well, long story short, one of my PCs couldn't make it so another friend was filling in for cleric. He had to make a character sheet because we didn't have the absentee's. My PCs we so impatient to play, they decided to adventure while this guy made his cleric. The two of them went off to fight a team of werewolves. They were level two and needed a healer. One of them died. The other, he went into town and recruited an army of children to fight the lycanthropes while he blasted them with spells from behind the wall of kids. After the slaughter of the werewolves and most of the kids (actually, he may have done the CE thing and killed the children that survived; I forget), he goes to the children's parents and tells them what happened.

*applauds* Good ol' CE tactics.

[mistformsquirrl]

I have one example that is - frankly, still shocking to me <@_@> Not that it wasn't a fantastic plan on their part - it was; but this is a group that until that point in the campaign had needed to be led by their noses because whenever I gave them the option to do whatever they liked, they just sat their and twiddled their thumbs.

It was... well a surprise.

Here's what happened - (Campaign setting: Heavily modified version of the Sword of Shannara universe, set roughly between First King of Shannara and Sword of Shannara)

So anyway - the party arrives at a small keep where one of the Druids resides. (think D&D Warlock to get a better idea of what we're dealing with in your head powers-wise) They've been sent on a mission to get information from him regarding the BBEG's plans as well as the movements of a nearby contingent of trolls that are acting on orders from the BBEG.

Unbeknownst to our heroes (but knownst to us!) - the druid is possessed by a demon - and has been for some time. Essentially it was all an ellaborate trap to lure out and destroy the the heroes.

It failed miserably due to a random treasure roll and players who were more clever than they'd ever let on before.

You see, during the random encounter en-route to the keep, one of the monsters dropped a ring of mind shielding (this was back in 3.0e, where said rings made you immune to any kind of mental control).

During the battle in the keep, the party's paladin dove - tackled the druid, and forced the ring into his finger.

This did several things <@_@> 1: Forced the demon out 2: Meant I had to actually write for an NPC who I hadn't planned ANYTHING for (There wasn't meant to be another way out of that encounter but combat or fleeing) 3: Subverted the entire next adventure (scouting the trolls since the druid obviously couldn't give them the info).

I was actually thrilled to see the players actually starting to think (they're not stupid people by a long shot - but most were new to roleplaying, and the couple veterans hadn't played in ages) - but it was still kind of a jaw dropping 'Wait... what?!'

True it's not the most clever plan ever by a long shot <'x'> but it's more than I had expected.

Sadly most of the other surprises I got from then on were of the 'omg you're kidding me <_ _> *facepalm*" variety.

Like one of my players thinking it would be brilliant to have his character take a poop on an inn's guest registration book because the head waiter was rude.

He was actually peeved when he was arrested <x,x> *sigh*

[Drascin]

Well, there was that time when they decided to drop the floating continent onto the sea instead of searching for the macguffin there, causing a tsunami that annihilated the whole Sword Coast...

[Elfin]

How did that end? I mean, unless somebody had decided that the soul of the tyrant was worth a lot, they would be, while not completely screwed, still fairly weak due to a lack of magic items. Then again, you had two primary casters who aren't so reliant on magic items anyway.

The PCs teleported to another large city they were familiar with, where the wizard crafted himself down to 4th level. They made quite a large profit, though, and came out of the whole business with around 50% of what they'd had before.
They weren't nearly as powerful as they had been, but they felt pretty damn awesome.

Mistformsquirrl, isn't Sword of Shannara a shameless ripoff of Tolkien?

[Forbiddenwar]

Mistformsquirrl, isn't Sword of Shannara a shameless ripoff of Tolkien?

Isn't D&D a shameless rip off of tolkien?:smalltongue:

[Elfin]

Of course, but at least in D&D you create your own stories and worlds.

[mistformsquirrl]

Mistformsquirrl, isn't Sword of Shannara a shameless ripoff of Tolkien?


Kind of yes >.>

The first book is *blatant* Tolkien ripoff. You've got Ringwraiths (Skull Bearers), Sauron (The Warlock Lord), your hobbits (a couple of pretty mediocre humans), Gandalf (Allanon), etc...

But the story finds it's own legs later on.

The story starts to get interesting when it's revealed that it's a (far) post-apocalyptic setting. There are ruins of ancient skyscrapers for instance; and a few robots... but it's all described through the perspective of people who have no idea what those things are and are used to swords and sorcery.

It's been ages since I read em though; and there were books published later that I haven't read yet.

So - yeah, it starts not particularly original at first; but it branches and grows and gets pretty solid, at least imo. >.>b

*edit*

Should mention that "Story" here I mean "series of novels".

The first book is pretty 'meh' - but later they start to really pick up imo.

[Elfin]

Ok, thanks for the explanation.

[mistformsquirrl]

Np hehe <^-^>


The first book is pretty much Brooks finding his writing legs; and until the last ~1/3 you could almost call it a LoTR fanfic >.> but once you get toward the end of the first book; and start getting to the other books later, it kinda takes on it's own substance.

(This is why the movie - if it ever gets made, is going to start with the second book; Elfstones of Shanara <'x'>b)

[mabriss lethe]

I'm running an evil game right now. All the characters are *supposed* to vile monstrosities of the highest calibre. The players...well... Evil just doesn't come very naturally to them.

The scenario was a fairly straight forward B&E with a side dish of assassination and the destruction of some vital documents. The target was a very wealthy owner of a high class brothel. Get into the brothel, find the office, off the boss and destroy his personal papers. fairly simple. I even gave them 3 potential openings to explore (an endebted club member that could get them in as guests, the deathmatch games in the basement, or going the "team charisma" route and applying as help. They opted for dumping undead exploding rats into the blind spot that was his office, then shooting out a window when they realized the blind spot was instead a suite of 3 rooms, and then attempting to torch everything and everyone from afar in the near room.

Well, they half succeeded. They killed the target and torched the room he was in....but never bothered to check to see if the relevant documents were even in the room in the first place. (they were, in fact, in a safe in the completely unexplored 3rd room of the suite.) Those documents were the instructions to the executor of his estate, instructions that included a resurrection clause. They hightailed it out of town before finding out the results of their misadventure. He's had about 2 weeks to come back from the dead, hunt down the identities of those who wanted him dead, and use his exorbitant wealth to not just destroy them, but to replace the leadership of an underground of evil cultists. What was supposed to be a fairly simple sidequest, became the creation of another BBEG in the campaign. Of course, it was an unsanctioned assassination(most of the wealthiest aristocrats in the city have taken out insurance with the guild to protect themselves and their families.) so the Assassin's Guild is also investigating.

Of course, they've gotten into trouble with so many different factions that the answer to the question: "Who is out to get them?" is simply...."Yes." So what's one more BBEG? There are something like....5 heavy hitters gunning for the PCs now. The least trouble they got into? Dealing with the colony of Deathless (Positive Energy "undead") living in the ruins of the ancient plane-hopping city buried beneath the current location. (i've been ripping off a lot of monsters from Eberron)

[VirOath]

Well you can try introducing a second adeventuring hero party who managed to steal the items fron the BigBad citial. The BBEG then contacts the PC's adventuring party and offers them a reward to get the items back for him.

Or the BBEG can decide to use the threat of unlocking the snarl type thing as political and finacial blackmail. A last minute change of plans. The BBEG just says, "Why destory this world? I like this world. Most of my best BBEG moments have been in the this world."

Or, have the world end. Literally.

Or atleast start to. The world is a big place, have the advance of it be slow. Things like Strange outsiders cropping up throughout the plane, the world slowly twisting as it becomes unraveled. Make it clear that something is obviously wrong, and that something must be done.

More often than not, I find that unexpected player actions, while they may mess up what you were expecting to run, offer more opportunities. Having the world reflect on their actions gives the players a feeling that they matter more. Which is true, unless you are going to hold their hands and DM fiat through the story. (Which I've played before. Having a DMPC godling following the party to 'bail them out' isn't fun.).

Heck, even having a dungeon planned out, yet completely bypassed? Save the maps, there might be a reason later to come back to it, or it could be used in a different location. All those monsters? Save them. It's easy to adjust them to fit a new area or reason, or even better, they might be sent out into the world now that the dungeon/fortress/thing is now useless, or that their treasure had been stolen, or something.

Plans, speeches, BBEG. Keep them. They don't just disappear, and in most cases they should have backup plans encase they died.

Nothing just disappears, every action has a reaction, a consequence, good or bad.

[Pika...]

Or, have the world end. Literally.

Or atleast start to. The world is a big place, have the advance of it be slow. Things like Strange outsiders cropping up throughout the plane, the world slowly twisting as it becomes unraveled. Make it clear that something is obviously wrong, and that something must be done.

More often than not, I find that unexpected player actions, while they may mess up what you were expecting to run, offer more opportunities. Having the world reflect on their actions gives the players a feeling that they matter more. Which is true, unless you are going to hold their hands and DM fiat through the story. (Which I've played before. Having a DMPC godling following the party to 'bail them out' isn't fun.).

Heck, even having a dungeon planned out, yet completely bypassed? Save the maps, there might be a reason later to come back to it, or it could be used in a different location. All those monsters? Save them. It's easy to adjust them to fit a new area or reason, or even better, they might be sent out into the world now that the dungeon/fortress/thing is now useless, or that their treasure had been stolen, or something.

Plans, speeches, BBEG. Keep them. They don't just disappear, and in most cases they should have backup plans encase they died.

Nothing just disappears, every action has a reaction, a consequence, good or bad.

This is why I like sandbox worlds, and why I constantly work on mine.

Odds are some of the stuff I have written and scattered across my world will not been seen for years, but if I am able to DM long enough one they they probably will.

That ancient semi-godlike patriarch of the Avariels who went rogue and was imprisoned by his fellows? Who knows when a group/party may "unlock" him, but he'll always be there on my digital maps highlighted.

That ancient artifact I stuck in a dungeon, which itself is hidden? Odds are players/groups will walk past it numerous times before they talk to the little girl who just happens to play in an area where she sees a small ring of metal sticking from the ground she can't pull out, and put together the pieces.

Sure there might never be a group who travels into that mountain range where I placed the original Tomb of Horrors. But if a party ever does. :smallbiggrin:

[fink]

My latest story is pretty mundane, the party was at the end of Freeport, ready to jump into the final set of encounters. They get buff items, potions, scrolls, muscle the Yellow Shields into providing some fodder...

Then they leave. They sneak down to the dock, jump on Scarbellies boat, pay him 5K in gold and a couple of slaves and tell him to sail as fast as possible away. Uhh, OK.

Shot the campaign all to heck.

But brings up an interesting question. What would happen if the party fails and the King in Yellow returns?

I converted some ships crews to pseudonatural beings and not being a cuthuul guru ran out of ideas... anyone got some ideas/source books for continuing?

[GoC]

3.5 Edition, Standard 'Collect the tokens to stop the end of the world' plot. The group started off this session in a desert town where the duergar rogue had just been turned into a vampire....by the end of the session they had a sentient car, four giant stone guardians and two giant castles. They also established the worlds first theme park which was then populated and run by Spellweavers (MM2), the BBEG (A Half Green/Red/Black/Fiend Pseudonatural Corrupted Vampire Bard, this was partially their fault as well.) had been sent, along with his entire fortress and army, to the positive energy plane and was reduced to using his Unhallow spell-like to stay alive.

We decided to play Mutants and Masterminds after that.

That sounds so improbable I'm inclined to ask for the rest of the story.:smallwink:

[holywhippet]

Kind of yes >.>

The first book is *blatant* Tolkien ripoff. You've got Ringwraiths (Skull Bearers), Sauron (The Warlock Lord), your hobbits (a couple of pretty mediocre humans), Gandalf (Allanon), etc...

That's not actually Brooks' fault but the fault of the publisher - Lester Del Rey. At the the time Del Rey had the license to print Lord of the Rings, so he insisted (to the annoyance of many fantasy authors) that any fantasy books that weren't LotR-like weren't real fantasy. Brooks was basically forced to make his first book a whole lot like LotR because of this, after that he got enough confidence to go his own way.

Funnily enough the books David Eddings wrote weren't LotR like and Del Rey really didn't think he could publish them because of this, but liked them too much not to.


As for derailing a campaign, I once pulled off one thing unexpected but the DM wove it into the plot so seemlessly it was as though it was always meant to be. Basically it was a Cthulu like setting (not actually Cthulu though, just dealing with monsters etc.) It was set at a mixed gender boarding school. Two character (one male, one female) had overheard the school goth chick talking with some unseen voice suggesting she was going to perform some act to prove herself. Said goth check stumbled across the female character who agreed to come and see her in her room later on.

My character hadn't heard any of this - he was busy smooth talking the ladies at a party upstairs. So when the others approached him and talked about the rendevous he wasn't thinking "oh no, something horrible is about to happen to my friend". He was thinking "the hot school goth chick, and my friend who I think is a lesbian are having a private meeting up in the goth chick's room". Instead of lurking outside of the door like the others waiting for a scream or something he grabbed a rope, a video camera and decked himself all out in black then abseiled from the room to capture the action on a video camera.

To be fair the player controlling the female character tried to resist her advances, but completely failed the equivalent of a will save. Thankfully the video recording showed up some interesting things (other than hot lesbian action) like a green aura around the goth chick.

[Elfin]

Funnily enough the books David Eddings wrote weren't LotR like and Del Rey really didn't think he could publish them because of this, but liked them too much not to.


Read the preface to the first book of "The Belgariad" and compare it to the Silmarillion.

[JonestheSpy]

Surprised no one has mentioned this one: when the party decides to split up. Holy Crom, do I hate that.

A little side scouting in the dungeon is one thing, but when you're moving from one adventure to another, and have got this nice little plotline going to get them from A to B, and half the party wants to go take a look at C,D, and F, and someone else thinks that while they're doing that he'll go vist Q and R.

I mean, on a purely meta level, how the heck do the players think that's going to work out? Half the people there get to sit and twiddle their thumbs while the DM madly scrambles to figure what's happening over with group X, then spend time with group Y, and hope they don't do something that involves them going even further apart?

And if you try to steer them back together, suddenly you're just railroading them. Feh.

[Kaiyanwang]

Surprised no one has mentioned this one: when the party decides to split up. Holy Crom, do I hate that.


So... most DM swear a lot to split the party, and your players split by their initiative?

Oh, the envy..:smallfurious:

:smallwink:

[Talic]

Probably because my parties are terrified to split up.

Whether its thieves, predators, or what-have-you, anything is more likely to deal with a lone traveller than with a group.

Oh, I remember the last time one of my parties decided that they should "split up to search the entire vampire's cave more quickly".

The fighter was dominated, and ordered to shout that he'd found an arcane rune of some sort. When the wizard got there, he came to investigate the illusion, and was promptly assaulted by the barbarian, by surprise. The cleric came over, used Hold Person to take the fighter out of the fight. The vampire then assaulted, finishing off the wizard, instructed the fighter to not resist the spell of the cleric, and fleeing. The cleric gave chase, and was left behind, as the vampire eluded him, and doubled back. Were it not for the fact that the rogue was hiding, and landed the AoO, the Vampire would have Coup-de-grace'd the Fighter, before working over the cleric. As is, the party got the wizard out, fled, and got everyone up and running. The next time in? Everyone stuck together.

[Skorj]

Okay the good guys have a couple of artifacts with strange, not that useful powers. they know they are important and the bad guys want them at any cost. The bad guys want them to destroy the world.(they are pieces to a key to open the prison of a snarl like thing) The bad guys are in authority so they send the city guard to the good PCs to be arrested or surrender their items. It just makes sense that they would do that. The only way out is to fight the evil city guards.

Or so I thought.

Not according to my players who just hand over their artifacts like they were worthless and walked away. So now if they don't want all of existence to end, they have to storm the BigBad citidal, without the bigbad knowing that they are there to get the items back. tricky operation considering they ALREADY GAVE permission and their hair to the bigbad(LE) to scry on them at any time.

I'm trying to figure out how this is NOT checkmate (TPK and the end of all existence) without incredible Duex EX that a 3 year old can see through.


Maybe too late to help, but I ran that campaign in college. :smallbiggrin:

Give them: An anti-scrying artifact
A way to not fight every guard in the BBEG's keep to get to him (access from another plane, same stealth artifacte as above)
If needed, a side-quest for an item that will partially nerf the BBEG.
A reason to care.

I spent a lot of thought and effort on 4, the rest followed naturaly (I gave them an OOC reason to care: the BBEG embarassed the party leader by tricking him and making him look foolish, which that player really had to get even with. Your psychologly may vary).

[Forbiddenwar]

Maybe too late to help, but I ran that campaign in college. :smallbiggrin:

Give them: An anti-scrying artifact
A way to not fight every guard in the BBEG's keep to get to him (access from another plane, same stealth artifacte as above)
If needed, a side-quest for an item that will partially nerf the BBEG.
A reason to care.

I spent a lot of thought and effort on 4, the rest followed naturaly (I gave them an OOC reason to care: the BBEG embarassed the party leader by tricking him and making him look foolish, which that player really had to get even with. Your psychologly may vary).

Thanks for all your help.
1) Check, intellegent eternal wand
2) A preestablished helpful NPC has given directions through the sewer system that secretly leads to the BBEG dungeons, where he is keeping the items because the ritual requires massive human sacrifice. (LE society, make it a death penalty to do anything= instant pool of blood sacrifice) They'll have a time limit and will have to contend with a few gaurds and LOTS of Traps (inspiration from tomb of horrors)
3) not needed, but I'll keep it in mind. The problem is the time component. They only have a day or so until the end of the world, not much time for a sidequest.
4) They would care about the end of the world. I'm debating letting that out so early in the game. They have another reason to care, along the lines of embarressment - One of the slightly useless artifacts was a short sword the rogue had. The chief of the guard took it and used it to stab the rogue in the back, almost killing him. ("He took MY sword? and now he is killing me with it?") The helpful NPC scryed on the sword and the chief and found that he is guarding the other artifacts. Time for a little payback.

So, between the traps and motivation, this plan of fixing the campaign kind of hinges on the rogue, who is very much on board. UNTIL HE HAD TO QUIT this morning! UGHHH.

Yes, I know it happens. I'm debating just letting a TPK and the end of all existence happen now. It would be SO much easier. This is why DMs drink.

[Umael]

Whether its thieves, predators, or what-have-you, anything is more likely to deal with a lone traveller than with a group.

And how.

"Let's split up!" is an etipah.

In my entire time of running games, the only TPK (well, almost) I ever had was when the group decided to split up in a large cave system crawling with ghouls. The only one who survived was the cleric, thanks to invisibility to undead.

[TheCountAlucard]

Surprised no one has mentioned this one: when the party decides to split up. Holy Crom, do I hate that.


So... most DM swear a lot to split the party, and your players split by their initiative?

My Friday players do this, too. "Hey, the Mages' Academy wants to meet with us about the strange, runed sword the Scout found? I know! Let's not wake the Healer!"

Luckily, they're usually fairly quick to get back together again.

[Thurbane]

Another pet hate as a DM - partys capturing/charming some minor NPC and questioning him about the dungeon (or similar).

A. You have to guess on the fly just how much the character actually knows.

B. It can totally wreck planned encounters.