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View Full Version : Here's to you unpredictable gamer. /salute



Reijura
2008-01-24, 01:19 AM
So along the lines of the best of threads, I'd like to introduce my own.

The highly unpredictable gamers.

As Gm's we all like to give our players choices and let them choose their own paths in the stories we create. Well here's mine.

The party composed of a ninja/assassin, duskblade/rogue , bard/rogue, monk. ( i know not highly optimized at all, and lots of sneak attack dice ) make it to a temple to secure a vase of magic water for an ailing friend.

Of course they get challenged by the altar guard a minotaur barbarian. After a decent fight, they have him on his knees and at their mercy and are given the option to kill or release him.

From there, the bard "fully" in character and rp'ing convinces the female duskblade to have no mercy on the minotaur and coup de grace's him.

Now that may not be so bad, but thing is that was meant to be their NPC guide for the next area they were going to. O.o So much for predictability.

Not only that, later on the assassin, deathstrikes a group of jinn that the group is having parley with, and instead of avoiding the fight, provokes him (cause he failed) and get's into the fight.

Which of course was gonna be a tribe that would've helped them as well...

Ah well, as they say the die has been cast.

Anyone else have interesting stories?

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-01-24, 01:32 AM
Did you really expect a group of gamers not to kill something?:smallconfused: Yeah, let me know how that works out for you.

Okay, homebrew setting, cyberpunk world, first mission. All of us are low level. We're supposed to collect the money from a crime lord. We spend half the session planning an assault on his mansion. (we were low level and didn't want to die) We are going to get a member into his office, then assault to draw off his guards while the member convinces him to pay up. We had sniping positions set up, had mapped out where the stealth units would climb the walls, and bought high explosives. We even had the guards likely response patterns planned. When we get his number from the hospital computer and call him, what does our face say? "Hi, this is the hospital, we've had a problem with your bill, we may have over-charged you, and"Here's where you get to finish the sentence. Was his next phrase
A)we'll send someone over to discuss it with you.
or B)Could you come over here and deal with it?
If you guessed A, then may I please join your group of sane people? Pretty please? I'll bring cookies.:smallsmile:

Snadgeros
2008-01-24, 01:38 AM
Here's to my unpredictable group! We were at the end of an undead campaign, and in one of the final rooms, we open the door to see our GM putting EVERY MINIATURE WE HAVE on the board. Yes, the entire room was filled with undead. We were expected to charge through the room and run like hell.

SCREW THAT! We can take 'em! Problem is, they keep spawning more out of these coffins in a line at the back of the room. What does one do against an infinite spawn? DESTROY!

We cleared a path for our sorcerer who booked it for the back of the room and pulled a chain lightning, destroying all of the remaining zombies AND the coffin-spawns in one giant blast. Sweetness.

averagejoe
2008-01-24, 02:01 AM
If there's one thing I can count on my group to be, it's unpredictable. I have so many stories on this count. Like the time we were attacking this den of thieves, which was on a mountain, and one of my friends (monk, who used to be the thieves' leader before the mutiny) thought that it would be a clever idea to simply run up the mountain and start a rockslide. Of course, he never told his companions this. We were mostly alright, but the NPC who was the monk's second in command was stuck on the roof and got, um, flattened.

Hmmm... that one was actually pretty tame. Let's see if I can't remember some others...

Oh, yes, the time we were stuck in this desert town, and my friend (a mummy fighter, who used to be the king of a now-dead empire. Which actually turned out to be pretty awsome. Like if Ozymandias was a PC.) kept trying to come up with ways to make us free cash. Like, when he convinced my druid to try to cast reincarnation on an unwilling soul a buncha times, so we ended up with a bunch of soulless bodies lying around. (This was 3.0, and how the DM interpreted the spell. In hindsight the ruling seems a bit fishy, but I don't have my handbook on me.) Anywho, our mummy companion decides that it would be a shame to waste all the meat, so he decides to get these 3-4 bodies, which I know included a bear and one or two humans, and turn them in to stew to sell to the unwitting populace. Not knowing anything about cooking, however, the mummy stews them in a pot of boiling water, adds a bunch of random spices, and some random alcohol, partially to cover up that human flavor. Suffice it to say, he did not get favorable modifiers on his craft check. Also, some of our more good-aligned companions felt compelled to tell the hapless townspeople that they were being fed people. We basically got run out of town.

There was one I was DMing where the players had to somehow get into a fort (basically a log fort) in order to steal something inside of it. Now, I had expected the party bard, who had a five strength, but had his charisma skills through the roof, and who had gained some fame singing in the nearby city due to some lucky perform rolls, to simply disguise his way in. (This is the same guy who was playing the mummy in the previous story.) It was kind of something I set up to give his character a bit of time to shine, because he hadn't been doing much but bard song-ing lately. This turned out to sort of happen, but not in the way you'd expect.

Rolling randomly for weather, there was a blizzard that day, and the players didn't have as much trouble as they might have sneaking in, due to low visibility and lots of noise. They managed to scale the wall, but they scaled it in the one place where there were guards on the other side, guarding the entrance to the building in the center of the fort. Now, it would not have been a hard battle, but the guards managed to raise the alarm. Quickly overwhelmed, and running out of options, they waited for a lull in the action and burst into the building itself, hoping to escape detection there. They, of course, ran into more guards. The party bard immidiately shouts, "Wait! We're on your side!" I gave him a -20 modifier to his bluff check, but he rolled high and I rolled low, and long story short the bard was able to spin a tale convincing the guards to let them see their boss, effectively bypassing the whole fort encounter.

Of course, they still had to fight the leader, who was in the only room on the second story. The leader figured out the ruse, and a battle ensued. Now, the rest of the party kept trying to convince the rogue to go downstairs and lock the door on their side, in case any of the soldiers downstairs heard the battle. The rogue was reluctant, but he ended up doing it anyways. Unbenownst to him, there was a spiked pit trap on their side of the door, which he promptly fell into upon trying to lock it. He was stuck there, slowly bleeding to death as the rest of the party tried to finish the battle so that they could save him. The pit trap hadn't meant to be a "penalty for walking" trap, it was meant to combine with other features of the encounter to make something that I thought was rather interesting, but upon bypassing it they ruined all that.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-01-24, 02:04 AM
SOYLINT GREEN IS PEOPLE?!?!!!:smallfurious:

shaggz076
2008-01-24, 06:18 AM
Here is a one of my own stories about messing the GM up big time. (This was in second edition)We were in his own world where he had these things called ice elves. Well we were trying to get somewhere before they did and we were in a dungeon. We crack open a door to see some ice elves getting owned by a Naga. We knew we would have to fight the Naga as well but the casters were seriously low on spells so we decided to secure a different room to rest and plan. The fighters didn't want to sit around making a plan so they went through the other rooms of the dungeon while the the mage and two clerics sat around comparing spells and formulating a plan. Once we were rested and the fighters returned, we went back to the room. The fighters opened the door and the casters send two dust devils into the room while the third cast entangle. Once he was distracted and entangles we then cast spike growth on the entanglement finishing the fight in just two rounds. The DM was so upset that he took away all the treasure from the fight. Now I don't know about you but I think instead of punishing us for such a good plan he should have rewarded us.

BlackMage2549
2008-01-24, 07:04 AM
I've got a few.

One session, in a typical DnD world, we were trying to infiltrate some lord's house to gain some information that we needed. The party conferred for several minutes about the best course of option, before the half-orc fighter decided to walk up to the front door. The rest of the players stared in shock as the fighter coolly walked up to the guards, and demanded entrance. When they questioned his right to be there, he pointed at his character sheet. Craft(Carpenter), masterwork carpentry tools, and a worksman outfit. He says, "Roof repair", and gets such a bonus on the check that we gained entry no problem, foiling what plans the DM was goin' to throw at us.

Another that happened recently at my behest took place in the A Game of Thrones D20 setting. I was playing the only son of a minor House, and was sent on a diplomatic mission to our neighboring House. Through some subterfuge, we learn that this neighbor is soon to declare war on my father's House, so we decide we're going to leave. When we returned to the palace(We were diplomats, we stayed in style!) to inform the guards of our "Burn it and Run" plan, we were summarily told that we would not be permitted to leave on account of us now being war prisoners. We weren't disarmed, or restrained in any way. Remember, I was playing a noble. I'm supposed to be noble and chivalrous. Unfortunately, I'm not. It was quickly decided that we'd kill the head of this rival House (Which is horrid to begin with, but worse when you do it in their house after accepting their hospitality.) We realized, however, that we would not just be able to waltz into the throne room armed. Taking a cue from a movie(Snatch), we hide our weapons in our mostly-holy man's robes, figuring he wouldn't be searched. Our assumptions were correct, as he recieved nothing more than a cursory glance. Enter the throne room : Full of guards, and nobles from various Houses that my House is supposed to be allied with, or at least on good terms with. Right there, in front of everyone, we drew weapons and murdered the Big Fat Evil Guy literally on his Throne. The rest of the room was in shock(Like I said, these things AREN'T done in this setting), but we were able to waltz out of the room unscathed thanks to a mostly-true story and one hell of a high Bluff roll.

And finally, I was participating in a high power Drow campaign (We were ECL 17), and my friend was playing a Duskblade. I was playing a Dual Wielding Lightning Mace Fighter. We encountered a group of three Huge earth elementals tasked with guarding a specific area. First thing we did was Channeled Pyroburst the lot of them for looking creepy. They do their creepy earthswim thing, and burst out of the ground surrounding the two of us. I weave into combat, landing five hits for about thirty damage(Huzzah! Damage Reduction 10/-), and quickly realize we need to get the hell out of Dodge. The earth elementals return to their guard post when we leave the area. Instead of taking the other, equally viable, corridor the other direction, we decide we're going to kill the elementals or die trying. We repeat the Channeled Pyroburst trick, and run when the elementals disappear. They still popped up for one round and whaled on us, but they didn't stick around long. We did, however, need to rest for the night so the Duskblade regained his spells. The next day, we move out to the edge of the guarded area once more. The duskblade begins casting Channeled Pyroburst, but this time the elementals earthdive before the spell goes off. Instead of bookin' it, he decides to cast the spell straight down. Between the two of us, and where he imagines the earth elementals will appear. Two rounds later, the earth elementals pop up and get blasted into oblivion by a damage roll high enough to kill both players as well. But, the poor Duskblade rolled a 2 on his check to see if it penetrated our drow resistance, and we were uninjured by the attack. The look on the DM's face was priceless when we told him that if the Duskblade had rolled higher than 11, the campaign would be over!

Kesnit
2008-01-24, 08:09 AM
The Party
LVL 3 Elf Ranger
LVL 3 Kender Rogue
LVL 2 Elf Wizard

The town we were using as a base was founded by pirates and has a strong nautical tradition. One of the big celebrations is "Swag-fest," and since one of the local captains was trying to get elected to the Council, he had paid a considerable amount to make this years fest a huge party. To open the festival, the captain gave a speech on the raised platform in the middle of the city.

The Ranger noticed a cloaked, hooded figure moving towards the platform and went to invesitgate, Rogue and Wizard in tow. When they got near the platform, the figure jumped on the stage and attacked the captain. The Ranger grabbed his bow, the Rogue his SS and dagger, and the Wizard spread his arms to cast. Together, they subdued the assassin until the city guards arrived.

The Ranger had noticed some sticky substance on the assassin's weapon, so he and the Rogue went to the jail, hoping to get a better look at the weapon. The Guard had the weapon locked up (along with the rest of the assassin's gear) as evidence, so they tried another tactic to get information on the substance. (After the Kender broke another Kender out of jail, of course! :smallsmile:)

The Rogue rolled a 28 Bluff and managed to convince the assassin that the party worked for the local crime boss (even though they had no idea who the local crime boss was until the assassin said the name). They told her the boss was pissed because she had attacked in broad daylight in front of a huge crowd, but was willing to give her a chance to redeem herself. (When asked why they had attacked the assassin if they worked for the boss, the Rogue told her they were covering for her stupidity.) They promised to come back that night to break her out of jail so she could try again.

That night, they broke into the jail and while the Ranger kept the guards occupied, the Rogue slipped upstairs and stole not just the dagger, but all of the assassin's gear.

Through all of this, the DM wasn't sure if we were actually going to free the assassin or not. (We weren't, but it was funny to keep him going!)

shaggz076
2008-01-24, 08:40 AM
The Party
Through all of this, the DM wasn't sure if we were actually going to free the assassin or not. (We weren't, but it was funny to keep him going!)

This reminds me of the time we went into a dungeon to help some Dwarves. While down there we happen across a single terrified Kobold cowering in a room locked from the outside. SO I go in and start up a convo with said kobold only to find out that the Dwarves were using him and his no deceased friends as food to keep a moster from killing any dwarves. Well being the CN character I was like " man those Dwarves are bastards. I know, do you want to come out with me and kill them for doing this to you?" Of course the kobold is more than happy to. So I make like I was going to kill the dwarves which made the DM a little shakey but after the party talked me and my new pet kobold down we didn't kill them. I did get a pet kobold though. lol

d-dave
2008-01-24, 09:41 AM
Good stories.

This one happened to me recently with my group of fairly inexperience RPers in Eberron.

The PCs had a mission to get back a statue for some rich guy. It's really an evil artifact and the rich guy is a dragon with a nasty agenda. The PCs consist of a NE Evoker, a CG Warforged Fighter, a NG ranger, and later a LG Warforged Paladin. Yeah...talk about dysfunction. They get the mission with the promise of a bunch of money when they return.

After hijinx where the w/f figher tried to kill the paladin, they end up in a small forest town (Woodhelm if you're interested). As novice adventures, they go straight to the local beer tap to get drunk. There are some folks who really don't like the warforged because of the Last War, and start to taunt them. The pally takes it in stride, the fighter though tries to start a fight. When they get kicked out, this warforged fighter goes around back and sets the inn on fire (his two vials of oil plus flint and steel). He watches it until he hears the screaming. Two of his companions gather their goods and hop in their wagon and start runing out of town. The fighter come right after them, and the militia assumes they are all responsible, leaving the Paladin and the NPC House Sevis Artificer stuck with cleaning up the mess.

So these three 'heroes' decide they are going to resuce their companions after they learn about their imprisionment and questioning from the wizards owl familar. Long story short, the fighter gets caught when he tries to hide in the bottom of a lake after he is chased out of town trying to rescue the others, and setting another building on fire. The Ranger and the Wizard benefit from the fighter's reputation as an arsonist and manage to escape and meet up with the others.

They were supposed to get some clues, some contacts and ideas for future adventures there, but since half the party ended up dead (fighter) or a fugitive, I think we're going to have to leave Breland soon.

DeathQuaker
2008-01-24, 09:48 AM
Did you really expect a group of gamers not to kill something?:smallconfused: Yeah, let me know how that works out for you.

I've actually had the opposite problem... expecting the players to kill the NPCs, when they decided to deal nonlethal damage and capture and interrogate their foes instead. Coming up with reasonable ways of how the NPCs would handle that was interesting.

They ended up with a reluctant NPC party member for awhile, in fact. (I decided the LE Ranger they spared was mad at her former employer--the party's enemy--for breach of contract and the party managed to convince her--they roleplayed this quite well--to help them for a little while). Totally not what I had planned but it was interesting.

Generally one of the first rules of gaming applies: The plot never survives contact with the PCs.

Brauron
2008-01-24, 10:30 AM
In a recent session the group I GM for found the big mystical artifact that they've been looking for all campaign, a foot-wide disk of solid gold, inscribed on one side with a spell to free Cthulhu, and on the other side a spell to imprison Cthulhu again.

They know a cult is also trying to find the disk.

So they melt the disk down into ingots.

The Disk was supposed to figure in to the end of the campaign, where they would use it to imprison Cthulhu after the cultists freed him (by the Disk or other means).

So now the cultists are still going to free Cthulhu...and the players have no way of re-imprisoning him if they succeed.

Toliudar
2008-01-24, 10:52 AM
My last real-time group spent nearly 3 years going through Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, which is a more-or-less linear (if long and complex) save-the-world-from-ultimate-evil campaign, so we set out this time to do something different. They had been on relatively good behaviour - even the player who always seems to be CN, even if his character isn't...

This time, we're playing Arcana Evolved, in the Diamond Throne setting, a setting without alignment, and often without obvious good guys and bad guys. They're in a ruined city that's slowly being excavated and explored - think gold rush, but with ancient magic and hidden treasures.

Initially, I had a very linear progression mapped out for the campaign, and they went with it...for a session. They've created four characters who don't particularly like or trust each other, so have started going off in fragmented groups, or solo, and making very little effort to share information.

Most notably, we just had a protracted chase scene that started in the bar where the PC's were drinking. The basic presumption was that, when offered what was, by their standards, a large amount of gold to follow and grab two fugitives, they would actually do it.

One did. Two others followed at a more leisurely pace. The fourth PC stayed at the table and drank the rest of the group's drink order. Even after the first PC ran back into the bar a couple minutes later and hid behind the bar from a half dozen angry citizens.

Long story short is that I'm no longer preparing a detailed, well, anything for this campaign. I'm keeping notes on events, clues and names of NPC's that they interact with, and I reincorporate them when it makes sense to. I have a couple maps, thoughts on a couple storylines that might develop as they go, and I'm letting them figure out what they want to do as it goes. It's loose, it's goofy, and it often leads to situations that bear only a passing resemblance to logic.

They love it.

So, I say, respond to the unpredictable by no longer attempting to predict. Cheers!

Lochar
2008-01-24, 10:52 AM
If they didn't bother to copy the spell to imprison him again before melting it, they deserve it.

Beleriphon
2008-01-24, 11:15 AM
So now the cultists are still going to free Cthulhu...and the players have no way of re-imprisoning him if they succeed.

My favourite was a dwarf bard that was obsessed with being snnnneeeaakeeeey. That managed to sneak into an orc camp and assassinate the orc leader in his sleep with a max damage critical hit from a battle axe. Later we proceeded to climb a tower and throw flaming mattresses that were soaked with highly alcoholic dwarven whiskey at an advancing raid of kobolds.

That was fun.

Crimson Avenger
2008-01-24, 11:25 AM
We've all had our share of brain-dead moments, and I am no exception. Right after 3ed came out, I decide it would be entertaining to try a barbarian. We were 3rd level, and we were having our first serious run in with orcs. Anyway, they are defending the far side of this narrow bridge, and have a low wall set up to take cover.

So what do I do in my moment of ultimate clarity?

Yup, you guessed it....I charge the wall, and use a jump check to clear it, landing in the middle of a group of orcs who have readied attacks, oh yeah, and a level of barbarian. The description the DM gave of my final moments was truly gruesome. The party was forced to retreat and come back for my tattered corpse later.

But what a spectacular way to go!

Eorran
2008-01-24, 11:40 AM
One of my personal favorites:
Playing a high-powered monster campaign, but all the PCs have notable mental issues. A leprechaun bard who believes he's really a dragon, a faerie dragon with an inferiority complex, and a mummy druid.
The PCs investigate a huge hurricane, and discover a floating palace at its center. They enter, get into a few fights with elementals, and advance towards the central tower. The leprechaun bard goes up first, and sees two factions fighting. One has red eyes, red skin, and horns (Efreet), the other are muscular, bald bearded guys (Djinni). The bard's decision?
"You just can't trust those bearded guys"
As I recall, they ended up crashing the floating castle and then blowing it up.

The line "You just can't trust those bearded guys" has become a long-running gag, where we will now trust just about anybody more than a bearded guy.

InkEyes
2008-01-24, 11:44 AM
We were going through the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. We were investigating an old (and highly respected) Druid who lived near town with his apprentice. The plan was to keep the druid talking while our rogue searched the surrounding forest to see if there was a reason why the Druid was acting weird. One of the Wizards in our party was famous for his suicidal tendencies (he'd rush into battle with his Quarterstaff out while screaming bloody murder) it's also worth noting that his highest ability score was in Strength. As we talked to the Druid we grew evermore suspicious. At this time one of our clerics (probably trying to outdo the Wizard) declared that he was attacking the Druid. After a few rounds the Druid somehow teleports away and his apprentice was last spotted running towards town. We were quickly tracked down by a huge town militia, and since we couldn't prove the Druid was evil, we were imprisoned. What followed was a session of breaking out of jail while killing (probably good-aligned) guards, trying to prove that the Druid was evil by returning to the ruined temple, and a TPK.

WorthingSon
2008-01-24, 11:52 AM
Ok, so I had set my party up for a moral delima. They were level 3 and had been sent to investigate why the local dwarven mine had stopped sending goods down river. They discover that goblins had taken over the mines and forced the dwarves out. They fight their way through killing all the goblins they encounter (rightfully so). Only to finally come across the women and children of the tribe they just slaughtered.

I was doing this to see how my party would ract. Would they kill them because goblins are inatly evil? Would they spare them as women and children? Well they managed to find a single female goblin that spoke common. Through her they discovered that the goblins had bin in a cave under the dwarven mine, when a druid had sealed them in. Rather than fight the powerful druid that would kill them, they tunneled up into the dwarven mine.

So the PC cannot decide what to do, the goblins refuse to leave the caves, as they are convinced the druid will get mad if they do (for good reason). And as they like to eat and live, they will not stop pushing into the dwarves mine for food and supplies.

Finally after and hour and a half of my PC debating the dwarven nobel they were escorting here originally hears of the goblin town and comes in and starts slaughtering them. So the PC now have to choose, save the (evil goblin) women and children, or kill the "good" dwarven nobel. They split 1 hides in the corner and loots the dead, 2 join the nobel and the other 2 decide to attack their party members. They still have not recovered... 2 of the PC cannot be left alone, as they WILL try to kill eachother.

Penril
2008-01-24, 11:55 AM
When my friends and I were playing in our DMs post-apocolyptic demon plane type adventure, we encountered a circular maze made of demonic plantlife. Our ever inventive DM had pu so much effort into the innards of the maze (traps, enemies etc.) and was very proud of it, untill we turned up ...
Our veraran druid had a dire wolf as a pet and, standing on its hind legs, it could see over the top of the maze and into the middle. With that, two quick dimension doors later, we hopped in, grabbed the gem and hopped out, much to his annoyance.

Unpredictable? I prefer the phrase imaginative

Blackadder
2008-01-24, 12:09 PM
An old classic

GM:Yes, you can see one of the members going in, this is the cultist house.
Player:So it's sits alone on this little hill right? Making sneaking up tough?
GM:Yes it's by itself on the hill, the lawns are well cared for, for all purposes it's open ground until you get to the house itself which has hedges growing around it.
Player:A wood house yes?
GM:Mostly... why?
Player:Right we will come back after dark, first we need to hit the market
(Several hours and a shopping trip latter)
The players had purchased about ten gallons worth of lamp oil and several tourchs, the party Rogue then proceeded to soak the base of the house in oil along with the bushes and stand ready out of sight with a cross-bow. The fighter and the Cleric readied actions by the front door, the Rogue was by the back door. The party Wizard opened the door, summoned several Fire resistant creatures into the house, then backed off as the Rogue set the place on fire.

Suffice it to say, the encounter I had set up for them as they fought through the house went for naught as I neglected to give them a back way out, wanting to make them fight to the death. Also most of the cultists failed their listen checks until the fire was well under-way. When I tried to have them escape the burning house most died to the summoned monsters, burned to death, or were quickly feathered by the waiting party.

Not my best day.

Crimson Avenger
2008-01-24, 12:17 PM
So in my current campaign, the Githyanki have gated in and are slowly taking over. Everyone knows the the Githzerai hate the Githyanki.

The party is going to investigate and outpost of the githyanki (think Daern's Instant Fortress), when they spot two critters lying on the ground at the top of a rise...off the road...looking AWAY from the party. I put two well crafted githzerai there spying on their kin who would be affable to a short partnership to take out the fortress. So what does the warlock do? As soon as I call for a Planar Knowledge check, he blasts them. When I asked what his check was , he said, "I didnt roll one. They aren't native and don't belong here."

So they round the corner, and attack the fortification without so much as scouting the area, and when the Ettin/ half-red dragon/ Cleric of Tiamat makes his appearence, things swiftly head south (you better believe there was a Righteous Might). After the battle was over, and our intrepid heroes were victorious, (but just barely so, it was really touch and go for two rounds) the warlock wants to know why I thought that it was an apropriate encounter for the party.

I put two moderately powerful, and helpful NPC's in their path.....

Sometimes you just gotta let the PC's do what PC's do.

Crimson Avenger
2008-01-24, 12:31 PM
Black Adder avatar...wait, what does that say about me that I recognize it? Have I just gotten old?

Telok
2008-01-24, 12:56 PM
If they didn't bother to copy the spell to imprison him again before melting it, they deserve it.

CoC does not work that way. Likely the spell was an integral part of the disc.

A couple years ago my group was playing Shadowrun. After a few hijinks involving such things as "capturing" a ganger by having the physical adept punch him for so much stun damage that the ganger died in one hit, we got a political job. I was the only person who had played or read Shadowrun before this. This was not a good thing.

We had two gun bunnies, the physical adept, a rigger, and my elf conjurer/skillwires-6 guy (I had a lot of bases to cover, face, magic, and all non-stealth and non-combat skills). The job was a simple one, discourage a candidate for mayor from running by putting his three top aides in the hospital for a few weeks. Easy, right? Find three people, hurt them, and vanish. Simple... I wish.

The first one went pretty well. We tracked down a lawyer to his apartment and started casing the place. This guy was on the 12th floor, security was mostly on the first three floors and the parking garage and was pretty tight too. I had a flash of insight, to the rigger "What's the lift rating on those stealth VTOL drone you use? 150 kg? How many do you have? Start pulling the guns off, we need nylon rope and duct tape. We're going in through the roof. Send up the recon drone." And it worked! The physad and a gun bunny were in! Ten minutes later the tased, impaled on a katana, and shot twice in the head corpse of the lawyer came flying out through a 12th story window. Apparently he was asleep when they found him and just, well, never woke up. A minute later a computer came flying out the window, then the two PCs base jumped from the same window. After we gathered the guys and chutes we left, fast. But not before we noticed that the apartment building was on fire behind us, at about the 12th floor too.

I missed the next session so I'm sort of vague on exactly what happened there. It did involve a hot dog cookout and political rally in a park in an AA or AAA rated police zone. This means that the first police response is within combat 1d6 rounds, video surveillance is almost total, and that's on a normal day without anything to warrant higher security like say... a political rally. They opened up with a HMG in the middle of a speech by the candidate. Then there was something about a helicopter with a minigun, and their cars being blown up, and the grenades. They were throwing grenades at the helicopter, that was hovering over the crowd (mostly prone, or fleeing), and they had no throwing skills. The grenades were landing in the crowd (mostly dying now).

To be fair they did persuade the guy to stop running for mayor. A couple heavy machine gun rounds through the torso can stop a whole lotta running.

Lochar
2008-01-24, 01:05 PM
*jawdrop*

That's a hell of a definition of subtle. :P


And I've never played CoC, so I didn't realize that. Still deserved it though.

fuzzywolf
2008-01-24, 01:16 PM
So we're playing in the Dragonlance campaign setting, and the party has taken up with a wild elf warlord leading a rag-tag army of humans, kender and wild elves to sack the capital city of the high elves. For a while, everything seems like it's going fine . . .PCs are slowly getting more evil as they raid and pillage across the countryside. They have a sudden change of heart at one point, and instead of pillaging with the army, find themselves chased BY the army for trying to stab the warlord in the face.

So what do they do? They decide to run to the high elves and trade information for protection. After some SERIOUS convincing, the high elven scouting party they find decide to take them back to the city for protection. Once they get in sight of the walls, though (the main city is on an island in the middle of a river that runs through a deep forest), our kender rogue remembers the tales of elven wealth that the warlord had rallied his army around, and he convinces the party the best plan is to kill the scouts that are escorting them. The cleric dies in the fight with the scouts, making their scrolls of raise dead worthless.

Rogue convinces the party that with the fabulous wealth of the elves at their disposal, raising the cleric would be no problem. He also convinces them that the best way into the city is to build a ballista and fling themselves over the river, over the wall, and land softly with their rings of featherfall. I make his craft(siege weapons) check secretly (he failed), and tell him that after a day of work, he builds what appears to be a working ballista. Wizard volunteers to go first after casting invisibility on himself. Wizard goes splat against the wall, leaving a very visible red smear.

Rogue decides that he needs to incorperate his bag of holding into the counterweight mechanism to give himself more lift, and he tries it out on himself. He rolls a 1 on his craft check and a 1 on his attack roll to use it, and I rule that the ballista collapses and the bag of holding gets stuck over his head. Instead of helping him, the barbarian decides to kick him in the nads, and the rogue suffocates to death. Barbarian decides to swim the river and see if the wizard is alive. Barbarian is eaten by the giant turtles that the party already knew lived in the river.

That leaves the monk alone by himself when the Ergothian lancers from the warlords army catch up to them. TPK.

That's how my players snatched death from the jaws of safety.

Reijura
2008-01-24, 01:43 PM
CoC does not work that way. Likely the spell was an integral part of the disc.

A couple years ago my group was playing Shadowrun. After a few hijinks involving such things as "capturing" a ganger by having the physical adept punch him for so much stun damage that the ganger died in one hit, we got a political job. I was the only person who had played or read Shadowrun before this. This was not a good thing.

We had two gun bunnies, the physical adept, a rigger, and my elf conjurer/skillwires-6 guy (I had a lot of bases to cover, face, magic, and all non-stealth and non-combat skills). The job was a simple one, discourage a candidate for mayor from running by putting his three top aides in the hospital for a few weeks. Easy, right? Find three people, hurt them, and vanish. Simple... I wish.

The first one went pretty well. We tracked down a lawyer to his apartment and started casing the place. This guy was on the 12th floor, security was mostly on the first three floors and the parking garage and was pretty tight too. I had a flash of insight, to the rigger "What's the lift rating on those stealth VTOL drone you use? 150 kg? How many do you have? Start pulling the guns off, we need nylon rope and duct tape. We're going in through the roof. Send up the recon drone." And it worked! The physad and a gun bunny were in! Ten minutes later the tased, impaled on a katana, and shot twice in the head corpse of the lawyer came flying out through a 12th story window. Apparently he was asleep when they found him and just, well, never woke up. A minute later a computer came flying out the window, then the two PCs base jumped from the same window. After we gathered the guys and chutes we left, fast. But not before we noticed that the apartment building was on fire behind us, at about the 12th floor too.

I missed the next session so I'm sort of vague on exactly what happened there. It did involve a hot dog cookout and political rally in a park in an AA or AAA rated police zone. This means that the first police response is within combat 1d6 rounds, video surveillance is almost total, and that's on a normal day without anything to warrant higher security like say... a political rally. They opened up with a HMG in the middle of a speech by the candidate. Then there was something about a helicopter with a minigun, and their cars being blown up, and the grenades. They were throwing grenades at the helicopter, that was hovering over the crowd (mostly prone, or fleeing), and they had no throwing skills. The grenades were landing in the crowd (mostly dying now).

To be fair they did persuade the guy to stop running for mayor. A couple heavy machine gun rounds through the torso can stop a whole lotta running.

You sir just made my day :smallbiggrin:

Jack Zander
2008-01-24, 01:55 PM
Simple scenario. PCs are getting ready to take out a goblinoid warcamp. It is surrounded by wooden walls (the kind that are basically large posts sharpened at the tip and stuck into the ground) and they can see goblins keeping a lookout in four watchtowers behind the walls.

Halfling Rogue disguises himself as a Goblin, and the Gnome Bard casts Disguise self to do the same. The Orc Barbarian and Elven Wizard (I've never had such a cliche party) law back and wait for their opportunity. The guards ask why they are outside the gates, since they do not remember anyone leaving recently. The Bard does a Bardic Knowledge check to recall the name of a goblin warrior from this tribe. He succeeds to recall the greatest of the goblin warriors. Then he proceeds with a bluff check to say that Ungar the Worg Rider made a bet with the two that they couldn't sneak out undetected, and now they have returned for their reward. Succeeds again. Unfortunately, Ungar is highly respected here, and the guards call him to see what he wants to do about his loss of this bet. While the guards are distracted, the Rogue gets cold feet and sneaks away unnoticed.

The gates open and out comes Ungar, riding his Worg, questioning this unfamiliar Goblin to him. They manage to end up in a duel, with Ungar still riding his Worg. Before anyone can be seriously maimed, however, out comes a Bugbear who puts and end to the commotion. He tell the two to stop immediately and get back inside the walls. He then punishes the Bard to guard duty for his reckless actions. The goblin atop one of two watchtowers controlling the gates is replaced by a PC now.

There it is, the perfect opportunity, and what does the rest of the party do? "You know, Disguise Self only lasts 30 minutes at your level. Good luck, we're gonna head back to the abandoned Venca temple and explore there some more."

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-01-24, 02:14 PM
An old classic

GM:Yes, you can see one of the members going in, this is the cultist house.
Player:So it's sits alone on this little hill right? Making sneaking up tough?
GM:Yes it's by itself on the hill, the lawns are well cared for, for all purposes it's open ground until you get to the house itself which has hedges growing around it.
Player:A wood house yes?
GM:Mostly... why?
Player:Right we will come back after dark, first we need to hit the market
(Several hours and a shopping trip latter)
The players had purchased about ten gallons worth of lamp oil and several tourchs, the party Rogue then proceeded to soak the base of the house in oil along with the bushes and stand ready out of sight with a cross-bow. The fighter and the Cleric readied actions by the front door, the Rogue was by the back door. The party Wizard opened the door, summoned several Fire resistant creatures into the house, then backed off as the Rogue set the place on fire.

Suffice it to say, the encounter I had set up for them as they fought through the house went for naught as I neglected to give them a back way out, wanting to make them fight to the death. Also most of the cultists failed their listen checks until the fire was well under-way. When I tried to have them escape the burning house most died to the summoned monsters, burned to death, or were quickly feathered by the waiting party.

Not my best day.

http://www.geekconclave.net/rpg-Motivational/mrwelch6.jpg

Orak
2008-01-24, 02:52 PM
Our group was adventuring though an undead heavy area. We had come upon a large coffin. The party mage walks in last and casts open on the coffin while we are discussing what to do.

After we had all died or run away the DM asks if we would like to know what was written on the lid of the coffin.

"Here lies he who should not be disturbed"

Death by open.

Yami
2008-01-24, 04:43 PM
So, my Pc's are sent to defend a town from a goblin war party, the goblins being roused by the town's wizard who hired a seedy adventuring party to steal the spell book of the goblin shaman. So the party goes through much trouble fighting off and defeating the assualting forces, unaware of the easy way out, which is to return said book.

Then a goblin raiding party led by a high level goblin warrior tries to keep them from leaving town, retribution and all that. Big fight. Goblin nearly wipes the party.

And then the party decides to capture him, because he was so awesome in combat. They then proceeded to get him to join the party. They gave him a fair share of the loot and made sure no one bothered him in towns.

I expect at lot from my players, but truely, this one I did not see coming.