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Jon_Dahl
2013-07-26, 06:22 AM
How often do you find your adventures being shot to hell?

I tried to calculate this for D&D games and the percentage was about 30%. This is just a rough estimate though, because some adventures were partly played before they were destroyed.

Recent examples:
#1:
The current party consists of N, CG, CG and CN characters. They were given a mission to either imprison or eliminate two wizards who were living a cabin in a remote village. The wizards hadn't done anything, but they were political enemies of the NPC who gave the mission. The cabin actually had a secret door (easy to find) and the wizards were guarding its secrets. The employer of the PCs was suspecting that the wizards had something going on there, but didn't know about the secret door.

The PCs snuck around the cabin and they cast Clairvoyance and Clairaudience. The NPC wizards were just having a relaxing evening. The PCs set the cabin on fire and slaughtered the wizards as they tried to escape. They couldn't negoatiate with PCs because of Silence had been cast in the cabin. The bodyguard of the wizards rushed to the scene, only to be killed on sight.

There went the secret door... Everything I had written was wasted.

#2:
The very same party was contracted to visit the Astral Plane and find the long-lost friend of a knight.

The PCs entered the plane via planar rift with no way to return. They didn't know any way how to return back to Prime Material Plane, but they encountered the knight's friend who was in fact a well-versed planar guide. He promised to take them back to Prime Material, should they first talk to Hound Archons who were guarding a color pool which led to some secret plane. He wanted to know what the pool was.

When the PCs spoke with the Archons, it was revealed that they didn't want the NPC guide to enter because he emanated evil. The guide insisted that the PCs would help him to enter the color pool despite the Archons, so the PCs made a plan: They would turn to guide invisible and let him rush through the portal while they all stayed back. The NPC was convinced to do this with a successful diplomacy check (I never deny my players).

The NPC rushed towards the pool and the Archons caught his scent. They killed the intruder right away. The PCs were so far away that they didn't even know what was going on.

After the guide had been killed, I asked my players: "Ok, how are you suppose to return now? That guy was class A planar guide..." They had no idea. I just had to return them back to Prime Material with a Deus Ex Machina. The knight wasn't too pleased that his friend had died within 24 hours after meeting the PCs, although they swore that he was evil nowadays...

DigoDragon
2013-07-26, 06:46 AM
My players rarely if at all trash the adventure... I can recall one minor incident where the party was on a questo to retrieve pieces of an artifact before the BBEG did.
Tiamat sent a dream vision to one PC to trade his soul for her help in getting the artifact put back together (So that she can steal it). It was an obvious trap, but the dream was to provide clues to the identity of the BBEG so that the PCs have an option to take out his lieutenants and make the quest easier.

Instead the PC told his soul. I didn't expect that. And then the PC gave Tiamat the artifact because he figured Tiamat wasn't going to take over the world with it or something...

It was a big mess really.

Totally Guy
2013-07-26, 06:51 AM
Doesn't happen since I started prepping situations instead of plots. Now I play to find out what'll happen and all that zen.

Raum
2013-07-26, 07:09 AM
Once, many years ago while I was attempting to run a scripted module. Don't think its ever happened since learning to write my own.

If it does happen while writing your own adventures you're probably over planning, not accounting for player/PC goals, or both. My long term planning seldom goes beyond NPC goals and resources. Combat is seldom planned more than one session ahead. By then I should know what the players plan to do and, if I don't, I'll ask at the end of a session.

valadil
2013-07-26, 08:02 AM
Never. They've gone in different directions than I had planned. They sometimes skip a fight or three. But they've never gone so far against what I predicted that I couldn't make use of my plans.

I don't write adventures. I write NPCs. I arrange for them to be in the same room as the PCs and then we see what happens. When the plans are this vague, it's hard to trash them.

Cealocanth
2013-07-26, 09:01 AM
I'd say it happens about 10% of the time. My players tend to give in to railroad-y plots with no complaints, so they tend to follow the main progression of the storyline almost to the letter. It helps that their actions are predictable enough that I can cover almost all the bases. On occassion one of my players will pull something out that I didn't remotely expect, but that's usually a fault on my part rather than a clever plan on theirs. Things like breaking down a locked door when there's an unlocked one nearby, jumping into the pool of radioactive sludge "just to see what happens", attacking the full force of the army of the Nine Hells head on instead of trying to find an escape, and completely forgetting basic movement strategies and allowing themselves to be thrown into the Sphere of Annihilation.

My strategy is to notice and plan for the pathways laid out in front of the party, and coaxing them into following the main storyline if they stray too far. The problem with this strategy is that if it fails, it fails hard. The benifit to this is it allows me to plan what seems like weeks in advance without having to devote all of my free time into planning the game.

SiuiS
2013-07-26, 09:11 AM
The problem is you're giving out plot hooks and expecting them to be plots. For one, the secret door? Burned, sure. But the tunnel would still be there, right?

I've only had one plot get smoked, because the player in question was a jackass. We were rotating DMing as an experiment. The player wanted his character to get into dominion running and become a king by conquest. Eight sessions of set up later after having a civilized discussion with the bloke, he rebuffs all of it, shuts it down, starts three separate life/death mass combats and tries to rewrite the setting because he wanted much more specific stuff; essentially, to cut the other players out, write out his backstory and tell everyone else about it.

He also started a duel and backed off, letting the party samurai handle the duel for him because fair fights with story repercussions are, like, intimidating, maaan.


My players rarely if at all trash the adventure... I can recall one minor incident where the party was on a questo to retrieve pieces of an artifact before the BBEG did.
Tiamat sent a dream vision to one PC to trade his soul for her help in getting the artifact put back together (So that she can steal it). It was an obvious trap, but the dream was to provide clues to the identity of the BBEG so that the PCs have an option to take out his lieutenants and make the quest easier.

Instead the PC told his soul. I didn't expect that. And then the PC gave Tiamat the artifact because he figured Tiamat wasn't going to take over the world with it or something...

It was a big mess really.

Oh man. I would so do that. But then, I have a standing pact with some friends that the next time out group of nobodies is suppose to become chosen ones and stop a world destroying evil, we are killing out inevitable DMPC backup and joining the dark side.

Anxe
2013-07-26, 10:01 AM
Doesn't happen since I started prepping situations instead of plots. Now I play to find out what'll happen and all that zen.

This pretty much. They used to do that sort of stuff all the time, but I don't design adventures like that anymore.

Nearest thing I can recall in my current campaign is a bit weird. The players have two characters each, one high level and one low level. The low levels are on a quest where essentially they will not be noticed doing it. The high levels ended up doing one of the low level quests and they attracted a lot of attention. The BBEGs showed up in force. Nearly killed two people in one round before the party fled via teleport. They got the quest objective though!

Kurald Galain
2013-07-26, 10:03 AM
Doesn't happen since I started prepping situations instead of plots. Now I play to find out what'll happen and all that zen.
Yeah, that. The players do tend to take completely unexpected actions every now and then, which generally involve killing an NPC, and having to deal with the consequences.

prufock
2013-07-26, 10:03 AM
All the time. ALL THE TIME. But I've come to expect it, so I'm not surprised when it happens, and I just ad lib the rest. As others have said, I try to craft situations instead of concrete plots, but of course I do have ideas of what might happen. The players usually have different ideas that what I would expect, so I just have to roll with it.

Azreal
2013-07-28, 01:40 AM
Did you know that a Goddess can fail a will save against a level twenty sorcerer who shapechanges into an ancient gold dragon (dm allowed it for some reason)

Long story short the giant climatic battle with Tiamat ended in two rounds with a shapechange and then an implosion. My dm legit quit playing with us after that.

Herabec
2013-07-28, 03:03 AM
Did you know that a Goddess can fail a will save against a level twenty sorcerer who shapechanges into an ancient gold dragon (dm allowed it for some reason)

Long story short the giant climatic battle with Tiamat ended in two rounds with a shapechange and then an implosion. My dm legit quit playing with us after that.

....Tiamat is immune to death effects. How did that work? :smallconfused:

TuggyNE
2013-07-28, 04:29 AM
....Tiamat is immune to death effects. How did that work? :smallconfused:

Implosion is not a death effect.

Herabec
2013-07-28, 06:01 AM
Implosion is not a death effect.

It's a spell that causes instant death and allows a fortitude save, how is that not a death effect? :smallconfused:

Lanaya
2013-07-28, 07:06 AM
I've done this to a poor DM at one point. There was some kind of plot hook involving a bunch of baddies in a forest, which was supposed to take multiple sessions of work to deal with. I started a forest fire and burned the whole thing.

EDIT:


It's a spell that causes instant death and allows a fortitude save, how is that not a death effect? :smallconfused:

A death effect is one with the Death descriptor. Look at Finger of Death for example, it's listed as a Necromancy [Death] spell. Implosion is just plain Evocation. Death effects aren't just anything that outright kills, they're effects that outright kill using negative energy and other similar things which a death ward, for instance, would protect against.

Big Fau
2013-07-28, 09:37 AM
I run premade modules a lot, and my players barrel through some encounters.

Running the Shattered Gates of Slaughtergard, my players went through room L4 (the scythe trap room) and managed to trick the hobgoblins near the Howler into thinking the goblins in L3 were fighting intruders (they had been, until the party slaughtered the goblins wholesale). A successful Bluff check and a player speaking Goblin later, the Hobgoblins gathered up the three Goblins above the Howler's room and went to investigate.

Except the party had not only disabled the scythe trap, they managed to locate the control switch and kept the trap in working order. The party's Rogue wasa Dragonmarked character, and burnt her daily use of the Darkness SLA to prevent the goblinoids from knowing that the trap was active. As soon as they got into the room and tried to open the door to L3, she sprung the trap. The rest of the party was waiting on the other side of the door, and opened it when they heard the scythes start up again.

The goblinoids, naturally, panicked when the trap was reactivated (They had made their Spot checks to determine that the trap was disabled, but failed to spot the Rogue), so they ran through the door when it opened. Not before two of the goblins and a hobgoblin got hit by scythes (one goblin dropped, the other got reduced to half HP). When the remaining enemies entered L3 they got ambushed again by the rest of the party, who had taken notes of the goblins' tactics in encounter L3 and hid behind the Chikane Guild's crates.

What was supposed to be 2 encounters that merged together to form a much higher CR encounter ended up being a 1-round curbstomp. I rewarded my players for their clever traps generously. I like it when my players use their heads, even if it messes with an encounter.

TheCountAlucard
2013-07-28, 09:40 AM
Players went out of their way to derail things back when I ran the Denver Missions for Shadowrun. :smalltongue:

Deophaun
2013-07-28, 09:45 AM
The very same party...
Which I hope was now at least N, CN, CN, CN after burning a bunch of innocent wizards to death during their tea time.

Alcopop
2013-07-28, 10:09 AM
I misunderstood the title of this thread, ignore me. sorry.

The Fury
2013-07-28, 12:23 PM
I know this is thread is for DMs but hopefully this isn't bad form. As a player I used to do this all the time-- if there was a plot I'd derail it because I thought it was funny. What made it even worse is that I could usually get at least one other player to go along with it.

Some highlights included the campaign which we all played Rogues and ran around randomly breaking into houses and causing political scandal for the mayor. As soon as I encountered a plot hook I ran the other way. I did this because I am a jerk.

Another campaign I made a point of getting a ship because my character was a pirate. This allowed us to skip overland travel and transformed the campaign to a seafaring one against the DM's wishes. I did this because I am a jerk.

Finally when the players were told that the plot will diverge into what the DM called "Path A and Path B," I insisted that we will choose "Path C." I continued to look for "Path C" despite the DM's insistence that it did not exist. I did this because I am a jerk.

I'm honestly trying to be better about this now. At least I don't wreck adventures on purpose anymore. On occasion the DM will still comment after a session that he "didn't expect me to do that," and will have to revise his plans because of it.

Rhynn
2013-07-28, 04:02 PM
Doesn't happen since I started prepping situations instead of plots. Now I play to find out what'll happen and all that zen.

Same. It used to be about 50/50.

I had my enlightenment running my first Artesia: Adventures in the Known World campaign, continuing from the intro scenario in the book. I had been running things off the seat of my pants - after the initial scenario, I'd just use time between sessions to think on the consequences of (almost) everything the PCs did, and make a note to bring that stuff into the following sessions. I had spent all of 15 minutes sketching out a possible future direction for the campaign, based around getting the PCs involved in the succession conflict, and then one of the PCs "accidentally" critted and killed one of the three princes (and the major impetus of the conflict) at a tourney - pre-empting what could have been a campaign taking years of in-world time - and amazingly talked his way out of it (an accident isn't murder, after all). After a brief talk with the players, they decided on self-exile into the Highlands where they could carve out their own tiny kingdom, and everyone was happy. I was too thrilled by watching the players create a story for me to care about my foiled visions.

Now I am crazy about sandboxes and situations over plots.


If it does happen while writing your own adventures you're probably over planning, not accounting for player/PC goals, or both. My long term planning seldom goes beyond NPC goals and resources. Combat is seldom planned more than one session ahead. By then I should know what the players plan to do and, if I don't, I'll ask at the end of a session.

I agree here, yes. (With the addition that I prefer games where I don't need to plan "encounters" or fights.)

Basically, if your planning includes anything like "then the PCs will..." you're asking for them to wreck things.

Also, consequences. If the PCs trap themselves on the Astral Plane, let them find their own way out or die. (This is another reason I prefer games with simple PCs who are defined by their histories and actions, not their mechanical abilities.)

Raphite1
2013-07-28, 04:33 PM
Why do DMs allow catastrophic, intentionally-set fires to work so well? I hear about players doing this in games all the time, and DMs seem happy to allow players to almost "will" arbitrarily large and successful fires into existence.

If you hold a blowtorch up against your house, there's a decent chance it won't catch fire even if made of wood, or the fire will only affect a small area or spread very slowly. That's why arsonists often have to use TONS of accelerant, spread throughout the structure.

If you take every single burning log out of a bonfire and toss it into the forest, there's a damn good chance it won't ignite anything of consequence at all. And if a small fire does ignite, they usually don't spread more than a couple of feet before they burn out. Not every forest is drought-dry and full of dead tinder.

Silva Stormrage
2013-07-28, 05:12 PM
Last campaign which ended in a TPK was... fairly catastrophic for the world.

Fallout of the actions of the party:


They created an entirely new undead nation which proceeded to destroy and animate their homeland and their closest neighbors homeland.
They created a massive military alliance of a normally divided race which also proceed to march on their homeland and then allied with the undead nation.
Caused a civil war in their home nation by allowing their king to be assassinated and then failed to do anything about the civil war.
(I should note that all of the above were accidental and they were opposed to the undead nation)
Destroyed not one but TWO artifacts (Once again accidentally) and caused the destruction of a third through their actions but they were dead at that point so that one isn't really their fault.
Failed to stop a great wrym dragon vampire lord from being resurrected which lead to about half a continent being rendered uninhabitable as well as tens of thousands dead before it could be stopped.
As well the above actions enrolled pretty much every nation into one massive world war conflict


I had to do a 2 month time skip so I could sort out all of what they actually managed to do and what the world would look like in 2 months. Their new characters get to see the devastating results of their old ones :smalltongue:

JusticeZero
2013-07-28, 06:09 PM
Sometimes, they break the adventure, and it is awesome. Anyways, most of the hooks that you are freaking about being wrecked are a lot more malleable than you think. Underground complexes can be found in a number of places; if you destroy the original access point, leave a clue that leads to the new access point. If your players get stranded in another plane, then dig out the planar stuff and start making them try to figure out how to get back. This sort've thing is generally a speed bump at most.

CarpeGuitarrem
2013-07-28, 06:22 PM
I wish it would happen more often; it's always glorious when it does. Like when one of my players headsplodes an important NPC with a greatbow shaft and they go on the run from the fallout. :smallbiggrin:

TuggyNE
2013-07-28, 07:29 PM
Why do DMs allow catastrophic, intentionally-set fires to work so well? [snip]

TuggyNE's First Law of Realistic Homebrew and Houserules: Nobody actually knows how the real world works, and all homebrew and houserules that attempt any sort of similarity to the real world reflect this ignorance in many and varied ways.

:smallwink:

Angel Bob
2013-07-28, 07:30 PM
I know better than to prepare an intricate, complex, and compelling storyline for my PCs to follow. All I do is figure out which direction they're headed, and plan out what obstacles lie in the way.

However, this hasn't stopped them from wrecking my plans on much smaller scales. Firstly, the group fled a city under the oppressive rule of a tiefling blood mage, after wisely refusing to donate their blood to the "Sanguinary Archives". Their next actions were not quite so wise: when four watchmen were sent after them, the party killed two and let the others escape. They've spent the rest of the campaign on the run from the law.

Their second derailing came after they tore through a kobold temple, slew the green dragon residing there, and then decided to go to sleep in the dragon's treasure chamber. Since they hadn't thought to kill the rest of the kobolds before doing this, their rest was interrupted. They managed to blockade the one entrance with the dead bodies of their opponents, but this only allowed for the rest of the kobold tribe to mass outside in an angry mob while the PCs slept. I gleefully prepared an encounter with 20+ kobolds and their rage drakes... However, I wasn't expecting the PCs to recall that one of their number was a drug dealer, a detail which had been established primarily for humorous reasons. They subsequently lit his marijuana supplies on fire, wrapped the weed around the ranger's arrows, and shot them out into the kobold mob. ...Did you know that kobolds have pretty low Constitution scores? The party pushed their body wall out of the way and emerged to find a huge mob of kobolds, stoned out of their minds.

Their third and final catastrophe occurred when they stepped into the first room of the next dungeon. They easily killed the front line of monsters, but had a little more difficulty taking out the artillery support, which was positioned over a chasm. Several failed jump checks later, and half the party had plummeted to the floor below. They had literally walked into the dungeon a few minutes ago, and were already separated, to face the balanced encounters I had prepared with only 3 PCs per group. Thankfully, by some stroke of fortune, they happened to wander into the same room in time to save themselves from death at the hands of another huge mob of monsters.

My PCs can be quite inept at times, consistently make questionable decisions, and are bad at communicating their intentions to the other players. Thankfully, they have shown little interest in getting involved in the politics of the kingdom I drew up, thus saving all six provinces from what would surely be utter chaos.

Recherché
2013-07-28, 09:08 PM
I can't say I've ever had players completely wreck my campaign; go in a different direction than I expected, make me have to rejigger a few things, once or twice caused me to spend the week between sessions rewriting my notes but that's not really too bad.
While I will sometimes try to guess the general direction that my players will go I try to avoid any intricate or specific plans. I'm a major fan of the rule of three as well. If I really want my PCs to do something I try to present them at least 3 plot hooks for it and if they manage/decide to avoid all three then I start improvising. (Not to try to make them follow my plot hook but instead to try to follow wherever my PCs are going.) Generally though I'm in favor of the situations over plots approach as well.

Alaris
2013-07-28, 09:36 PM
Eh, I don't think I've had them completely ruin my adventures. I've had them FAIL at adventures, but not really ruin them.

They have caused me issues with what I wrote up, however:

1) Player A had major issues with one of the Player B's PC, and eventually forced the party to go in a completely different direction (one that the Player B's PC wouldn't follow). Thus, Player B's PC, who I wrote up an enormous amount of personal plot for, was retired.

2) Player A basically threatened to quit my campaign because the Player B's New PC was playing a Class he disapproved of (Frenzied Berserker). Now to be fair, his character was killed (and shortly thereafter resureccted) by Player B's PC) Well, Player B retired his character... AGAIN, for the sake of the Player A. This was in the middle of a dungeon that had major plot for him. Again. ****.

3) Player A ultimately ABANDONED the Player B's 3rd PC, as well as most of the rest of the party. This ultimately resulted in the rest of the party (all 2 of them now, since he forced the party to split) to fail at the main quest of the chapter/adventure. And then he tried to blame me for it. What.

So basically, I had several plots I had written completely nulled and wasted, which pissed me off. And the party ultimately failed at their big quest. Now I don't mind if they fail at the big quest... I had everything written up and prepared in the event they failed. But it's just annoying when Players seem to go out of their way to be disagreeable.

Ultimately, that chapter/adventure was a bit of a clusterfluff, and I'm going to try not to think about it. Player A is on watch for basically disrupting things over what I can ONLY PERCEIVE as a grudge against Player B.

EDIT: I've had a few derailments, which is not exactly ruining, but did throw me off.

4) A Wild Magic Event resulted in the daughter of an NPC being whisked away by a Dragon to far off lands. Player A, against all recommendations given by both NPCs and at least one other PC, decided to help the father chase down his daughter. This derailed my main plot for several months worth of game time.

Banjax
2013-07-29, 04:53 AM
Player A sounds like an asshat

Jon_Dahl
2013-07-29, 06:48 AM
Why do DMs allow catastrophic, intentionally-set fires to work so well? I hear about players doing this in games all the time, and DMs seem happy to allow players to almost "will" arbitrarily large and successful fires into existence.

If you hold a blowtorch up against your house, there's a decent chance it won't catch fire even if made of wood, or the fire will only affect a small area or spread very slowly. That's why arsonists often have to use TONS of accelerant, spread throughout the structure.

If you take every single burning log out of a bonfire and toss it into the forest, there's a damn good chance it won't ignite anything of consequence at all. And if a small fire does ignite, they usually don't spread more than a couple of feet before they burn out. Not every forest is drought-dry and full of dead tinder.

They spent several Burning Hands on the house. I agree that accelerant should have been needed, but they were so darned determined to burn the house and kill the NPCs with no quarter given, that I just allowed it.

JohnnyCancer
2013-07-29, 07:17 AM
Historically I haven't had problems with players trashing adventures. Recently I've been reading about not having any story to speak of, to just provide the setting, act out NPCs, and arbitrate results; to let the players create the story through their own antics and capers. Assuming there aren't any snags in scheduling, I'll be starting to run in this fashion this week.

elliott20
2013-07-29, 11:18 AM
All the damn time. The only time they don't is when the adventure is a dungeon crawl.

That's why now a days I play it all sandbox style, and basically just let the players take the lead in pursuing the story that interests them.

Knaight
2013-07-29, 11:26 AM
Doesn't happen since I started prepping situations instead of plots. Now I play to find out what'll happen and all that zen.

That pretty much sums up my experience as well, though I only briefly touched on plot preparation before deciding it didn't work.

Trinoya
2013-07-29, 01:27 PM
Player A sounds like an asshat

Speaking as someone who also knows player A, I wouldn't call him an asshat. More of a diva.

The guy actually moved out of a house using the excuse of a TPK in a D&D game... A bit over the top if you ask me.

I was the cause of that TPK of course, so I could be biased. :smallwink:


As for players trashing my own adventures. I had a group of players that would actively ignore plots I set up for them... and sometimes would go out of their ways to seemingly commit suicide.

I'm talking situations like, "no, don't do that, you will die if you do that!"

"I do it!"

... Caused all sorts of problems.


I think one of the worst was a player who wanted to be party leader more than anything else... built his character and everyone else made subservient characters to his, essentially people who wouldn't challenge him for party leader, or otherwise be unsuitable for it.

He retired the character after one session/combat as it wasn't working the way he wanted it to. That slowed the chapter down pretty badly...

ExtravagantEvil
2013-07-29, 03:48 PM
I set up general situations, try to predict their actions, and improvise in the unexpected, and drop out plot hooks as needed, so more often than not, things aren't ever fully de-railed.

However, sometimes things go so crazy, I have to really work to get them to the plot hooks. It was absolutely Beautiful.

Spoilered for length

The Party:
Samuel Forktongue: LN Dwarven Binder, keeps fast to his oaths, but otherwise does what ever he pleases. Seeks his wife who was stolen away into the Ethereal Plane.

Nrr Grug: Jotun (E6 Races by Gnorman. Think Half-Giant without Psionics) Barbarian type. He wants to unite the world under Jotun rule, and seeks to be worshiped as a god king, for he is right and that is what he does. The world is chaotic, and he must lay down order.

Hess: Changeling Necromancer type with access to Summon Undead

James Herondale: Knight Errant style Pilgrim, who has severed all connections to the world other than his family name, even then, he doesn't care. A wandering hero for heroism's sake. Only does Non-Lethal Damage, and has really severe ADD and doesn't care about what people say, but one god damn nice guy.


Nrr walks through the town gate and loudly proclaims (paraphrased)
"I AM NRR GRUG! YOU WILL BE FREED FROM YOUR SHACKLES AS I WILL TAKE THIS TOWN BY FORCE, PUNY WEAK MAN-CREATURES".

And is then forcibly disabled by the party with the Paladn smiting him for Non lethals, and the Binder turning invisible for a round and stealing Nrr's Spear.
He spends half of the session in the hospital unconscious.
Then, the town chases down the Dwarf and changeling. They fears the two because one's half insane shape changer, and the other is magical and a dwarf and the setting is really superstitious.
They go on a giant chase up and down town, all around, and at one point Samuel gets apprehended by the "Terrance Brothers": Terrance, Terrance, Terrance, and Terrance.
This leads to some clever bluffs to convince the guards to take them to the king, whilst in shackles, and to not have them executed.
Another set of lies coupled with Changeling Shapeshifting created the fact that people believe that Dwarven Beards are a font of magical power. Tying the beard up with the handcuffs congests the magic, making it easier to deal with Dwarves. This is obviously a lie.

This, and prestidigitation made them question whether the person in chains wasn't their brother, and so have one of the free members of their brotherhood forcibly shaved in the middle of town to see if he isn't a dwarf in disguise, while instructing the naive paladin to keep an eye on the prisoners
Jim was accompanying them, but since he's human and earned a nice reputation really quickly wasn't in shackles.

Nrr is still unconscious.

Also: Early on, James claimed, naively, thinking she could take a joke, that one of the major town guards-women had "The Face of a Mule", and I had to make the plot the way that James wouldn't fight a trial by combat to the death, and after all is wrapped up, a drinking contest.

I thought they'd go to the bar, ask around, see what's up, and then go peaceably to the king so I could run them through the dungeon I designed and start a political plot line really cleanly over the Kings legitimacy to rule and his behavior and the mix of the players modern sensibilities effecting their characters mentalities to demonstrate the major themes of the setting.
they'd be able to have fun little debates, Roleplay, really get to know some of the nobility beyond the town guard chiefs and big players in the Warrior-Nobility. Then it fell through like a stack of cards, even though I got them to take the Plot hook, by force, a lot of the nuance I wanted to give the situation was lost.

Instead, it was a Benny Hill sketch for 6 hours. I got them into the plothook eventually, but that was beautiful for me as a DM.

holywhippet
2013-07-29, 10:58 PM
I was playing in one game the DM abandoned. His cited reason was a lack of players attending, but I do suspect it was because we weren't doing what he expected us to and weren't really making any progress. The thing is, aside from killing some patrolling soldiers, I'm not sure what we were doing wrong exactly. I'm guessing we just weren't picking up on some of the clues.

CarpeGuitarrem
2013-07-29, 11:05 PM
My best story is probably gonna be when one of my players headsploded a detailed NPC with a greatbow shaft. One-shot Tarantino-style kill.

Tvtyrant
2013-07-29, 11:07 PM
Every Sunday. I made an Ogre Mage boss with a full Array of the Manticore this last Sunday called the Leatherman. He flew over the party and dropped off a Manticore for them to fight, scared them a little. They found his base in the night, nailed it up and put traps by the front and set the whole thing on fire. The Leatherman failed every save and ended up dying without a single attack.

It is quite fun actually.

Jay R
2013-07-30, 10:02 AM
I once described in great detail the magic items that were in the burned area. Since in my world magic is rare, and cannot be purchased, this was a meaningful tactic.

Another time, I was running a game of Flashing Blades (roleplaying in the world of the Musketeers and Cardinal Richelieu). After a few episodes, the PCs were always sent on missions in the rest of Europe. They were always successful, but Richelieu preferred for all that destruction to take place elsewhere than France.

nedz
2013-07-30, 04:07 PM
#1:
The current party consists of N, CG, CG and CN characters. They were given a mission to either imprison or eliminate two wizards who were living a cabin in a remote village. The wizards hadn't done anything, but they were political enemies of the NPC who gave the mission. The cabin actually had a secret door (easy to find) and the wizards were guarding its secrets. The employer of the PCs was suspecting that the wizards had something going on there, but didn't know about the secret door.

The PCs snuck around the cabin and they cast Clairvoyance and Clairaudience. The NPC wizards were just having a relaxing evening. The PCs set the cabin on fire and slaughtered the wizards as they tried to escape. They couldn't negoatiate with PCs because of Silence had been cast in the cabin. The bodyguard of the wizards rushed to the scene, only to be killed on sight.

There went the secret door... Everything I had written was wasted.

I did this to G1 once, back when it was new.:smallamused:

Why do DMs allow catastrophic, intentionally-set fires to work so well? I hear about players doing this in games all the time, and DMs seem happy to allow players to almost "will" arbitrarily large and successful fires into existence.

If you hold a blowtorch up against your house, there's a decent chance it won't catch fire even if made of wood, or the fire will only affect a small area or spread very slowly. That's why arsonists often have to use TONS of accelerant, spread throughout the structure.

If you take every single burning log out of a bonfire and toss it into the forest, there's a damn good chance it won't ignite anything of consequence at all. And if a small fire does ignite, they usually don't spread more than a couple of feet before they burn out. Not every forest is drought-dry and full of dead tinder.
We had about 2 tons of accelerant. :smallcool:
It was fashionable at the time.

I did once go through a phase where the PC's would attack and kill all of my 'talkie' encounters, and then try to talk to all my 'combat' ones. They then complained that my encounters were all hack and slay. :smallmad:

I have had similar things happen more recently, but it's quite rare: though there was the time that they teleported into a castle and killed all of the inhabitants in their sleep — just because they were giants and ogres. Damm racial stereotyping.:smallamused:

Rover
2013-07-30, 05:50 PM
I have a rogue who has a tendency to use her hat of disguise to appear as a tax collector.

She gets discovered eventually, but not before she gets a pretty penny from everyone in town.

They're good players so that's really the only annoying thing that happens.

kyoryu
2013-07-30, 06:48 PM
Doesn't happen since I started prepping situations instead of plots. Now I play to find out what'll happen and all that zen.

Yup. If you don't try to predict the players' actions, they can't derail you by doing something else.

It also means it's pretty cool for the GM to go into the game not knowing what will happen. That's kind of awesome (though, admittedly, a bit scary at first).

hicegetraenk
2013-07-31, 02:24 AM
My adventures don't get trashed. Though I do have plots planned and written, I do not prevent them from changing. Everything is able to be changed by the players actions (in a reasonable scale of course).

So let's say I plan the survival of a key person and the party somehow manages to get it killed anyway, maybe because they used a smart combination of their abilities I couldn't have imagined. If that was the main villain and happened at the beginning of the adventure - I can sack what I've written for that NPC.

But most likely, I'll adapt to the situation on the fly. I think it is very, very important as a DM to be able to think of realistic ways the world could react to something you didn't plan - immediately.
The NPCs death might result in disorder and chaos within his minions or something, others rise and claim his spot - the adventure will change, and yes, stuff that was written will go to down the drain, but not the adventure as a whole. It'll re-shape so the story can go on. I tend to make this happen quite well I'd say, because my players never noticed that happening.

Krazzman
2013-07-31, 05:45 AM
Since I am only really DMing a Pathfinder game where my players are 2 newbies and the other 3 are making my job easy... I can't really say they trash my adventure... what suck though is that a stupid random encounter gives them more problems than one designated to their weaknesses or which is more climatic. Except for the two Elementals they faced so far. They were planned and a quite rough fight.

The current plan is that an highlevel illusionist is rallying an "Orc"-Army from the Frozen North through Rashemen. He currently blocked of the Frozen North and Rashemen from the other countries so he can conquer it without any interferrence then slowly drags each country in his demiplane as he goes along.

As well as slaughtering Drow or some sort of Frost-Ninja-Mages they have quite some rough time since I have some mean magic impossibilities happen to them. The Barbarian is haunted by a Pink Teddy Bear, The Ranger saw her reflection kill herself, the Druid woke up in a Barrel full of "wine"(was blood) and other stuff.
The Witch and Samurai aren't affected with anything permanent so far. And lucky for me they still play nicely along.

Amphetryon
2013-07-31, 07:08 AM
GMing truism: No storyline survives contact with the Characters unharmed.

The thing is determining how to view that "harm." If you view the storyline as a special, sacred thing, you'll probably be happier simply writing. If, on the other hand, you view it as the things that were set in motion before the Characters got there, then you'll see it isn't trashed, it's simply taken on a new direction.

Saph
2013-07-31, 07:33 AM
Doesn't happen since I started prepping situations instead of plots.

This.

I'm not actually sure it would be possible for the players to trash one of my adventures. They could murder all the NPCs and set everything on fire, but I wouldn't call that "trashing" the adventure – I'd find it hilarious. Sure, the PCs would all die horribly, but completely self-destructive failures usually make for much better stories than yet another dungeon crawl anyway.

hicegetraenk
2013-07-31, 09:13 AM
This.

I'm not actually sure it would be possible for the players to trash one of my adventures. They could murder all the NPCs and set everything on fire, but I wouldn't call that "trashing" the adventure – I'd find it hilarious. Sure, the PCs would all die horribly, but completely self-destructive failures usually make for much better stories than yet another dungeon crawl anyway.

Indeed. The possibility to completely fail makes adventures more interesting and special. Those adventures represent a challenge, a true adventure, not just a visit in "Don't worry, we're the main characters, we'll make it out alive"-town. :)

Spacebatsy
2013-07-31, 12:48 PM
There is always the magical line:”sure you can, but there will be consequences”

I think I have a very nice set of players. They like their characters and they like the campaign, I think that’s the reason none of them tries to derail it on purpose.



Doesn't happen since I started prepping situations instead of plots.

Same goes here.
I’m a bit of a fan of sandboxes. Know the place, the people and the problems. Add PCs. React to their actions. They’ll either do a good or poor job or something in between, but there is nothing they can really derail. Overlook, sure. Misinterpret, always. But not break.



I actually made a gamble once in a Dark Heresy session when they had been sent to a planet on a mission, supposedly getting more information when they got there. During the travel however they stumbled over a hot lead to one of their reoccurring enemies. With this an hour long discussion broke out on whether or not they should follow it or stick with their original mission. It went along with the lines of “we really want to do this, but is it fair to GM? She’s been spending a lot of time preparing it” to which I replied that they should do what they felt their characters would do, and I would make the best of the situation. In the end they went with the lead. This was great, because I had no idea whatsoever of what their mission on the planet would be :smallwink:

Jay R
2013-07-31, 12:50 PM
I have a rogue who has a tendency to use her hat of disguise to appear as a tax collector.

She gets discovered eventually, but not before she gets a pretty penny from everyone in town.

They're good players so that's really the only annoying thing that happens.

Why is that annoying? It was a fun tactic, used well, that has a powerful group (the real tax collectors) trying to get her killed.

It has everything a DM could want.

Sith_Happens
2013-07-31, 01:01 PM
I actually made a gamble once in a Dark Heresy session when they had been sent to a planet on a mission, supposedly getting more information when they got there. During the travel however they stumbled over a hot lead to one of their reoccurring enemies. With this an hour long discussion broke out on whether or not they should follow it or stick with their original mission. It went along with the lines of “we really want to do this, but is it fair to GM? She’s been spending a lot of time preparing it” to which I replied that they should do what they felt their characters would do, and I would make the best of the situation. In the end they went with the lead. This was great, because I had no idea whatsoever of what their mission on the planet would be :smallwink:

That's pretty funny, actually.

Jay R
2013-07-31, 04:52 PM
Yup. More often than they would believe, the players' attempt to destroy the DM's plan crashes and burns on the annoying fact that he hasn't actually made one.

kyoryu
2013-07-31, 05:07 PM
Yup. More often than they would believe, the players' attempt to destroy the DM's plan crashes and burns on the annoying fact that he hasn't actually made one.

And if you absolutely insist on doing some kind of DragonLance-esque linear plot... I'd just get the players to actually agree to it explicitly.

hiryuu
2013-08-01, 02:08 AM
I do this intentionally.

It was on purpose that you guys found that pilotable version of the Liberty Prime in that basement after you'd been chased by the giant radiation spewing alligator, it is my intent that the jumpsuits you need to use to pilot it are primary colored, it was my purpose that when you busted out of the facility you got that giant cowboy-hat looking water tower stuck on your head. It was I who placed all the electric fence cabling nearby. It was my will that put the whole fight right next to a town named "Sparta" that happened to have a radioactive-alligator sized sinkhole next to it.

It was I who filled the irascibly convenient town with jerks you want to punch. I provided the giant cans of gasoline and lighters. Just to see what you'd do.

It's really hard to trash "my" campaign, too, mostly 'cuz it's not exactly mine, players are all complicit in this thing.

thamolas
2013-08-01, 12:34 PM
Doesn't happen since I started prepping situations instead of plots. Now I play to find out what'll happen and all that zen.

This^^

My players never trash my games because I set up a bunch of characters and possible situations and let them sandbox it out. If they bite on or create a plot line, great. If not, no big deal.

Alaris
2013-08-01, 02:27 PM
I think one of the worst was a player who wanted to be party leader more than anything else... built his character and everyone else made subservient characters to his, essentially people who wouldn't challenge him for party leader, or otherwise be unsuitable for it.

He retired the character after one session/combat as it wasn't working the way he wanted it to. That slowed the chapter down pretty badly...

Aww, come on! I mean, it's not like he only had ONE BAD ENCOUNTER where his character was knocked unconscious (not killed), and was still perfectly viable for party leader, right?

...

Right?

>.>

<.<

Yeah... that's exactly what happened. Not kidding...

BWR
2013-08-01, 03:51 PM
Rarely if ever. Mostly, my players are quite nice and willing to accept the story as presented to them without insisting on acting like jerks. Sometimes they do unexpected things, but they do not act like it is their job to run rampant over the setting do whatever they want whenever they want because "I'm a PC, dammit".
Maybe it's just me reading too much into the horror stories shared here, but I have never experienced what seems to be common: the players trying to ruin the game for lolz.

Sometimes the PCs do unexpected things. Sometimes the dice reduce a difficult encounter into a one-round affair. Sometimes they don't pick up on clues and I have to help them out if they get too stuck, but they don't 'trash' my games, and I don't trash games I play in.

And for the record, expecting players to follow an adventure isn't railroading. Expecting PCs to act decently in setting and suffer natural consequences for their actions isn't railroading. Taking control away from the PCs at critical points and disallowing all efforts to do something unexpected and forcing them to a predtermined conclusion regardless of what they do; that's railroading.

Trinoya
2013-08-01, 05:58 PM
Aww, come on! I mean, it's not like he only had ONE BAD ENCOUNTER where his character was knocked unconscious (not killed), and was still perfectly viable for party leader, right?

...

Right?

>.>

<.<

Yeah... that's exactly what happened. Not kidding...

I can't blame him...

After all...

He...

went up against the... leading man. ^_^ /inside joke.


:smallcool:

Craft (Cheese)
2013-08-02, 10:54 AM
Doesn't happen since I started prepping situations instead of plots. Now I play to find out what'll happen and all that zen.

I think it's still totally possible in situation-based prep: I'd say "trashing your adventure" means "doing something that renders all of your previous preparation null and void, so you either have to railroad the players or continue onward as if you hadn't prepared at all."

It's less likely to happen in situation-based prep, but it's by no means impossible. Classic example: You put the players on an island, map the island out with lots of stuff for them to do and explore, and the first thing they do is teleport to the other side of the world to a continent where the only thing you've come up with is the name.

Or a less extreme example that happens to me distressingly often: The players decide to obsess over exploring the one building I put on the map for flavor reasons but didn't actually put anything inside.

Kazemi
2013-08-02, 11:33 AM
I wasn't the one running it, but we found and got party wiped by the BBEG in the first dozen sessions. It was taking place in a war-torn city and one of the players new to the group went on his own side quest working through why he couldn't find certain records in any of the archives (he'd wanted to make a secret base). He wound up finding the BBEG and doing just good enough in escaping to lead him right back to our place of residence. Where we all died :smallbiggrin:

I think the player's literally afraid to play with us now, for fear of retribution.:smallwink:


How often do you find your adventures being shot to hell?

I tried to calculate this for D&D games and the percentage was about 30%. This is just a rough estimate though, because some adventures were partly played before they were destroyed.

Recent examples:
#1:
The current party consists of N, CG, CG and CN characters. They were given a mission to either imprison or eliminate two wizards who were living a cabin in a remote village. The wizards hadn't done anything, but they were political enemies of the NPC who gave the mission. The cabin actually had a secret door (easy to find) and the wizards were guarding its secrets. The employer of the PCs was suspecting that the wizards had something going on there, but didn't know about the secret door.

The PCs snuck around the cabin and they cast Clairvoyance and Clairaudience. The NPC wizards were just having a relaxing evening. The PCs set the cabin on fire and slaughtered the wizards as they tried to escape. They couldn't negoatiate with PCs because of Silence had been cast in the cabin. The bodyguard of the wizards rushed to the scene, only to be killed on sight.

There went the secret door... Everything I had written was wasted.

You really have to force the players into the area to search for something if you want them to find a secret passage ("They stole a book, return it to me"). Or having the wizards and their bodyguard flee through the secret tunnel when the place set on fire. Then the PCs would have been left wondering why the wizards didn't run out (or have the NPC complain that the wizards are rebuilding their cottage if they just walk away figuring their job was complete).

Then again, I didn't realize this until halfway through this thread, so I probably would have missed it at the time. But at least the next time my players do this to me I'll know what to do. And knowing is half the battle! :vaarsuvius:



#2:
The very same party was contracted to visit the Astral Plane and find the long-lost friend of a knight.

The PCs entered the plane via planar rift with no way to return. They didn't know any way how to return back to Prime Material Plane, but they encountered the knight's friend who was in fact a well-versed planar guide. He promised to take them back to Prime Material, should they first talk to Hound Archons who were guarding a color pool which led to some secret plane. He wanted to know what the pool was.

When the PCs spoke with the Archons, it was revealed that they didn't want the NPC guide to enter because he emanated evil. The guide insisted that the PCs would help him to enter the color pool despite the Archons, so the PCs made a plan: They would turn to guide invisible and let him rush through the portal while they all stayed back. The NPC was convinced to do this with a successful diplomacy check (I never deny my players).

The NPC rushed towards the pool and the Archons caught his scent. They killed the intruder right away. The PCs were so far away that they didn't even know what was going on.

After the guide had been killed, I asked my players: "Ok, how are you suppose to return now? That guy was class A planar guide..." They had no idea. I just had to return them back to Prime Material with a Deus Ex Machina. The knight wasn't too pleased that his friend had died within 24 hours after meeting the PCs, although they swore that he was evil nowadays...

This seems like something that I would've made an impromptu secondary specialist for and turned into its own adventure. The players could've asked the Hound Archons about this other specialist, or said specialist might seek them out when they start causing trouble.

Though I suppose it also makes a difference what sort of agendas they have going on. They might completely miss the final battle with the BBEG and arrive in a material plane ruled by him (even if all my notes have to be scrapped/recycled :smallfrown:). But if their return takes a few sessions, I'll have plenty of time to re-prepare and modify things so they can technically handle it still.

kyoryu
2013-08-02, 01:33 PM
It's less likely to happen in situation-based prep, but it's by no means impossible. Classic example: You put the players on an island, map the island out with lots of stuff for them to do and explore, and the first thing they do is teleport to the other side of the world to a continent where the only thing you've come up with is the name.

That's prepping a map, not a situation.

A situation would include factions, sides, conflict, and *things the characters care about*.

Craft (Cheese)
2013-08-02, 01:40 PM
That's prepping a map, not a situation.

A situation would include factions, sides, conflict, and *things the characters care about*.

Yeah, and your island adventure you've prepped could include all of these things and you'd still be screwed if the players just left.

kyoryu
2013-08-02, 02:28 PM
Yeah, and your island adventure you've prepped could include all of these things and you'd still be screwed if the players just left.

Why would you do that much prep without knowing that your players would be interested in it?

And if there were truly things the characters cared about, and you just didn't show them their existence, then that sounds like a pacing issue.