What are the biggest story twists you've played?

[Lupine]

This goes for both DMs and Players. What was the most biggest twist you've ever had the (mis)fortune to expeirance. What was the most fun?

Also, I'm thinking creating a story where the players end up making a massive mistake, in trying to stop a villain. This mistake would be so large that they would end up having to ally with the villain, if they want to correct their mistake. Would you good people --as players-- find that fun?

[16bearswutIdo]

IMO, mistakes only work if they aren't forced on the character. If, through some knowledge the PCs didn't ask about BUT COULD REASONABLY HAVE, they make a mistake and have to correct it that can work well

Example of good narrative mistakes:
Player McPlayerson is given the quest to go free the quest giver's friend from jail. McPlayerson asks no questions and frees his friend. Oh no the quest giver's friend is a bad guy. Could have been avoided by the PC asking questions and making rolls.

Bad narrative:
Player McPlayerson is given the quest to go free the quest giver's friend from jail. McPlayerson attempts to get a great deal of information out of the quest-giving NPC. Turns out the quest-giving NPC is a level 20 evil wizard with max ranks in bluff and the player has no chance of knowing the details of the quest. There is no indication to this. McPlayerson goes and frees his friend. Oh no the quest giver's friend is a bad guy. McPlayerson feels cheated because he RP'd his way through but was given an unsolvable unfixable problem.

The implication to your post sounds like it'd be pretty railroady, where you're basically assuming your players actions "They would HAVE to side with the villain" etc. Personally, I would not find that enjoyable.

[Tawmis]

I don't know if this counts as a twist...

But in a game I was DMing - one of the players (a cleric) was given a Holy Visage of "Go save the Dryad at this forest, before she's sacrificed upon the Great Tree, which holds down a great and evil spirit that she keeps in check. If she's slain, the spirit will be free upon the world and bring chaos and disease!"

The party is thumbs up to doing the quest, obviously. So they begin to travel on foot, on a week long journey. Along the way, random encounter - Bandits! - the party fights and defeats the Bandits. One of the players is like, "Well these dudes had to come from somewhere! If I search them can I find out where they came from?" Me, thinking, I will bluff something, say, "Sure." He rolls a Natural 20. So I explain he finds a map, that details a hideout in a hillside, three days in the opposite direction (thinking they won't go for it until AFTER the rescue the Dryad). Not the case. They ended up deciding the bandits will have gold and they can buy horses. So they go for the bandits. So I improv an entire encounter of Bandits in a hillside, with a boss, with this gauntlet that is cursed... Party defeats them, heads BACK to the town (4 more days) - get to the town, buy horses - ride to the forest - and everything is pretty much dead in the forest and they discover that the spirit (a fallen angel) has broken free! (Now they have a big bad that they will eventually fight!)

And my world is a "living" world - so all the games I DM happen to impact the world. So another group I DM got a quest to investigate what's going on in said woods, because this town who uses the forest for lumber refuses to go in there because of this odd feeling. Well, they find a dryad who claims to be the sister of the deceased dryad and trying to keep the forest from being corrupted - and she claims there's demons trying to stop her. Well "she" turns out to be a green hag drawn here by the travesty of what happened. The "demons" she's referring to are the Centaurs of the woods trying to kill her because they know she's a green hag. She gives clues; because she's so cocky (and if you're familiar with the D&D Cartoon), she warns them that "The witch has white hair." (But she's actually stroking a white rabbit - white hare).

Party fell for it, accidentally killed some Centaurs before one of them realized something was wrong and realized it was all a part of an complex illusion. They teamed up together and took down the Green Hag. (Then promptly told to never return)

[Lupine]

IMO, mistakes only work if they aren't forced on the character. If, through some knowledge the PCs didn't ask about BUT COULD REASONABLY HAVE, they make a mistake and have to correct it that can work well


That's fair. True, they will not have to ally with the villain, but it would be much easier for them if they did (He would be able to more readily supple men in arms and arms). Potentially, they could try to turn the remaining noble houses, but this would be difficult, as many of them would be loyal to the tyrant, as his claim to the throne is legitimate. That said, the players will probably not think to check the personality of the person, instead placing him in power as an attempt to shore up some political chaos. Nothing they couldn't find out if they wanted to, but I highly doubt they'd think to check. I will, however, have to find a way to drop some clues.
The villain disguises himself as the head of a noble house, but "by night" (cliche, I know) he runs a crime organization. All this is done to create a large military under his control, equipped with high quality arms and armor. He is unafraid to steal, kidnap, blackmail, and assassinate as needed. Every action either strengthens his power, or destabilizes the region. His overall goal is to break up the empire, and free his home region.

[da newt]

I like the trope of a 'bad guy' trying to hire the party to do a thing for them - if the party never stops to question the morality of the task at hand, they accomplish a dastardly deed with evil consequences, then they have to go back and try to right the wrong.

I also like a bit of moral ambiguity - which side is the good side, which is the bad ... I think too often adventures are unrealistically simple good guys vs monsters.

[Laserlight]

The party said they wanted more politics and intrigue, and included a high ranking aristocrat with a crime-fighting secret identity. So I designed a city for their home base and the political part.

First quest was to investigate the slave market, find a particular barbarian captive and return him to his tribe. The captive had been bought by a noblewoman who re-sold him a few weeks later. The party found this out and went to ask her who she sold him to...except they never actually asked her. Instead, they killed her, her two lovers, her elderly cook (collateral damage), most (but not all) of her guards, and set her house on fire. The druid wildshaped into a giant snake in a city which hates and fears the snake cult. They sent an illiterate barbarian to ransack the noblewoman's office for clues. They left a couple of witnesses and physical evidence proving who committed these crimes. The aristocrat was high rank enough that I could exile them instead of sending them to the block, but it still meant writing off all the prep work I'd done for their home city. They never did get back to it.

[Yakmala]

Our party of good and neutral aligned characters ending up allying with Hell... For the greater good.

We started out fighting the minions of Hell, first on the Prime Material Plane and then in the Nine Circles of Hell. We actually did quite well. In fact, we did too well.

Turns out that the forces of Hell, while undeniably evil, were the buffer keeping the Chaotic Evil forces of the Abyss from invading the Prime Material Plane. By taking out a few high ranking Devils, we unknowingly weakened Hell's defenses, allowing the Abyss to get the upper hand.

Faced with a lesser of two evils scenario, we had to join forces with Hell to fight a pair of Demon Princes and restore the balance.

Nobody was happy about it, especially the party's Paladin, but it was either team up or risk the start of the Apocalypse.

[Damon_Tor]

The first campaign I ever ran started with the BBEG kidnapping the PCs because they were prophesied chosen ones. Very original, yes, I know. They escaped their cells and started exfiltrating his castle as expected, but when they finally confronted him and he did his "join me" speech they decided that, yes, yes they would.

So the campaign became one of conquering the world for a dictator. It wasn't exactly an evil campaign; the BBEG was a tyrant and he was ruthless and whatnot, but he was competent and ran a pretty good kingdom all things considered, a kind of a Dr. Doom character. It was the sort of campaign that wouldn't have worked at all if the PCs had been chaotic, but thankfully none of them were.

[ShikomeKidoMi]

I like the trope of a 'bad guy' trying to hire the party to do a thing for them - if the party never stops to question the morality of the task at hand, they accomplish a dastardly deed with evil consequences, then they have to go back and try to right the wrong.

I once did this, where the party was reached out to through old military contacts by a guy who gave them missions. The guy was obviously shady... but also seemed obviously incompetent. His attempts to be circumspect always drew more attention to himself-- dragging a table into a corner and putting out the nearest lamp so he could sit in the shadows for example and the first few missions he gave them did advance the agenda of their country in a clear fashion (though not always scrupulously). Later ones were a little less transparent, but still seemed in line. So they ended up dismissing him as comedy relief and asking very few questions. A few missions later and they've discovered they've been used as catspaws by a Rakshasha to crack the seals on a sealed elder evil and have to hurriedly scramble to fix it before a Rakshasha overlord breaks out (some of his minions were already crawling out of the sealed area). It turned out that their employer was intentionally playing the buffoon.

Everyone quite enjoyed the twist.