Vrock_Summoner
2017-10-01, 04:57 AM
Players have a tendency to go against your expectations in a tabletop game. Many (including myself) argue that this very element of surprising and spontaneous creative input, and the ability of the GM to adapt to it, is the main thing giving tabletop gaming an edge over, say, story-heavy video games, as far as interactive storytelling goes.
Sometimes, your players go to an unexpected NPC for help. Sometimes, instead of going down either path in a dungeon fork in the road, they tunnel through the wall. Sometimes, they resolve a long-term conflict with a major adversary through diplomacy rather than a climactic battle. Sometimes they really build upon the framework you gave them, proving through conviction that their story *will* be grander (in its own way) than that of any other party in similar circumstances.
Other times, one of your mecha-piloting, giant monster-fighting teenage heroes hatches a crack plot to reshape international politics by uniting Africa into a global superpower.
Mind, this was in a Neon Genesis Evangelion game, so a character jerking governments/organizations around is the exact opposite of the usual order of operations.
The character more or less specializes in snooping, which I expected him to use to get in on the background conspiracies in the game. Instead he made his own, hacking into NERV's database and pulling up schematics and info to send to Saudi Arabia, so that a few months down the line, he could kick off his gambit, having the government fake an Angel attack so NERV would send an Evangelion and pilot (with himself being the natural choice for diplomatic reasons, since he was the only pilot who spoke Arabic), then use an EMP generator (which his AT Field would protect the Eva and its power supply from) to knock out the communications systems of the surrounding conventional forces, shoot them all out of the sky and sea, while ground agents seized the mobile support platform powering the Eva. They beat a hasty retreat to a facility built into an old mine shaft while NERV is scrambling to piece together what happened. By the time the story is clear, he promptly makes a global stunt by submitting himself to a trial by the United Nations entirely over international broadcast, limiting their ability to act based on secretive information, and through sheer persuasive skill regarding the benefits of his actions, leaning on how much the U.N. needs the natural resources Saudi Arabia exports, and some sabotage, more or less gets himself publicly exonerated, leaving himself open to engage in "peacekeeping" to unite the fractious entities of Africa into one coalition where he has... rather a higher status and standard of living than he did as a high school student and NERV pilot.
What about you guys? What's your favorite (or at least most memorable) experience with a player throwing you such massive curveballs that you're left speechless? Generally I don't mean people who are just being dumb and disruptive for no reason ("oh, so you're just gonna spend the session flirting in the bar? Uh. We kinda need you for the dungeon? I don't want to run this please?") but rather players who play seriously and just come up with/pull off things that leave you with little to do but clap proudly and/or pick your jaw up off the floor.
Sometimes, your players go to an unexpected NPC for help. Sometimes, instead of going down either path in a dungeon fork in the road, they tunnel through the wall. Sometimes, they resolve a long-term conflict with a major adversary through diplomacy rather than a climactic battle. Sometimes they really build upon the framework you gave them, proving through conviction that their story *will* be grander (in its own way) than that of any other party in similar circumstances.
Other times, one of your mecha-piloting, giant monster-fighting teenage heroes hatches a crack plot to reshape international politics by uniting Africa into a global superpower.
Mind, this was in a Neon Genesis Evangelion game, so a character jerking governments/organizations around is the exact opposite of the usual order of operations.
The character more or less specializes in snooping, which I expected him to use to get in on the background conspiracies in the game. Instead he made his own, hacking into NERV's database and pulling up schematics and info to send to Saudi Arabia, so that a few months down the line, he could kick off his gambit, having the government fake an Angel attack so NERV would send an Evangelion and pilot (with himself being the natural choice for diplomatic reasons, since he was the only pilot who spoke Arabic), then use an EMP generator (which his AT Field would protect the Eva and its power supply from) to knock out the communications systems of the surrounding conventional forces, shoot them all out of the sky and sea, while ground agents seized the mobile support platform powering the Eva. They beat a hasty retreat to a facility built into an old mine shaft while NERV is scrambling to piece together what happened. By the time the story is clear, he promptly makes a global stunt by submitting himself to a trial by the United Nations entirely over international broadcast, limiting their ability to act based on secretive information, and through sheer persuasive skill regarding the benefits of his actions, leaning on how much the U.N. needs the natural resources Saudi Arabia exports, and some sabotage, more or less gets himself publicly exonerated, leaving himself open to engage in "peacekeeping" to unite the fractious entities of Africa into one coalition where he has... rather a higher status and standard of living than he did as a high school student and NERV pilot.
What about you guys? What's your favorite (or at least most memorable) experience with a player throwing you such massive curveballs that you're left speechless? Generally I don't mean people who are just being dumb and disruptive for no reason ("oh, so you're just gonna spend the session flirting in the bar? Uh. We kinda need you for the dungeon? I don't want to run this please?") but rather players who play seriously and just come up with/pull off things that leave you with little to do but clap proudly and/or pick your jaw up off the floor.