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View Full Version : Epic Fail = Epic Win (storytime)



Lord Tataraus
2008-11-16, 10:04 PM
So today my group had one of our last Hunter sessions (nWoD) so the story was starting to wrap up, but one character made an epic fail...and caused an epic win.

Backstory: The game is set in a mostly stereotypical nWoD world with all factions (hunters, vamps, werewolves, changelings, etc.) existing and working around each other. The group started out as humble humans who had some run-ins with the supernatural, spurring them onto becoming Hunters under the mentor-ship of a man by the name of Rath. From the start they knew Rath was not an ordinary hunter; he had some contacts and favors with a number of conspiracies (hunter groups with awesome gadgets, powers or relics). As they progressed through the game one thing lead to another and they found out the location of a mass-murdering warlock in the neighborhood, far beyond their power to stand up against. This lead to them seeking aid from a number of unlikely sources. First they helped participate in a Task Force Valkerie (para-military hunters) raid of a vampire stronghold only to find vasts numbers of vampires (at least 40) where there should have been only a few (no more than 10 or so). They soon found themselves allying with rival vampires to fight the other vampires who had allied with the warlock. Soon afterward, Rath is assassinated in an apparent mage-fight resulting in a number of huge craters. The group inherited Rath's estate and large number of favors and contacts spreading with international changeling, vampire, werewolf, promethean, and mage organizations and the War. After a war council where they outlined their strategy to take down the forces of the warlock, the began to gather intelligence on the enemies forces and that is where the real story begins...

The Epic Fail: The group arranged to meet a changeling spy in the city park (think NYC central park). As the group is waiting a hobo walks up and asks for money. One guy with the charity virtue naturally gives they guy money and hobo begins asking who they are and leads Mr. Charity to believe that this guy was their contact. At this point the hobo begins to walk away and Mr. Charity and his friend, Robot David (because that player hasn't showed in awhile and by default follows Mr. Charity), decided to follow this "contact." Mr. Charity keeps rolling amazing perception checks as the hobo keeps failing his stealth. Finally, Mr. Charity sees the hobo seemingly turn into smoke and go into the trees and he follows. Mr. Charity and Robot David keep going deeper into the "park trees" which begin to darken, the underbrush gets thicker and thorny but they still manage to out-perception the hobo. Finally, as brambles surround them and the trees are all creepy and thorny, they lose sight of the hobo and are officially lost. At this point they have two options, go forward or backward. Mr. Charity decides to go forward and after awhile the trees, darkness and thorns close in on him and he blacks out. Mr. Charity wakes up in complete darkness, lying on some pulsating, slimy, writhing surface with large slimy and many-legged bugs starting to crawl over him. He tries to create some light by pulling out his cell phone. The phone lights up, but it doesn't cast light as it should and some large bug immediately bites onto his hand and starts chewing it and his phone. After stabbing it with his knife, the bug lets go but all the slimy and many-legged bugs start to writhe faster and envelope him. Mr. Charity loses it and blacks out, gaining a major phobia derangement against large numbers of bugs.

The Epic Win: After Mr. Charity and Robot David leave, Face and Robot Ian (also not there that session) wait awhile until its been far too long and try to call Mr., Charity and Robot David and are informed that their phones are offline. Finally, their actual contact shows up with the right symbol and leads them to a safe house and is briefed on his spy mission. After the briefing, Face is still concerned about Mr. Charity and calls up another changeling contact to call in a favor to find out where Mr. Charity might be. The next morning the contact is waiting for Face and tells him that a noble of the Autumn Court (an ally of their enemy in the War) has captured Mr. Charity and Robot Davi to be used as slaves, but are offering a ransom. The group has access to 800 fae gold (homebrew currency of arcadia) and the ransom is 25 fae gold to get them back in 5 mortal years. Unfortunately, Face needs Mr. Charity and Robot David by that night, in 14 hours and its already been 6 since they went missing. So Face begins tries to get a ransom for an immediate release which totals to 800 fae gold. However, Face starts to look over their various contacts and allies and discovers that he could stage an invasion of the Arcadia and the Autumn Court. By using Prometheans (who destroy and corrupt the very fabric or what Arcadia is made of) as nukes and escorts of mages and vampire mercenaries, all backed by the coalitions in the Spring and Winter Courts, Face arranges for a mass invasion to destroy a large portion of the Autumn Court. In this setting, Arcadia and the power of the courts determines the length and timing of the seasons so if 2/3rds of the Autumn court is destroyed, then the Autumn would last only 1 month instead of 3 and its opposite, Spring, would last 5 months instead of 3 and the timing of Summer and Winter are pushed so that the current Autumn would become Summer and Winter would start earlier. Also, Arcadia does not have a parallel time line to the Material World, 1 hour in the Material World could be as much as a 1000 years to 1/10th of a second in Arcadia. Thus the invasion force is sent off.

Consequences: Face goes about his day as normal, but notices that the leaves which were brown and falling now seem to subtly fall up into the trees and turn green again. The brisk Autumn air begins to warm and by dusk Summer is back. Then 12 hours after the invasion left, Mr. Charity and Robot David enter in, terribly confused and now wholly changeling, appear. Face then discovers his invasion to Arcadia spurred a 12 year war between the seasons, causing a mass shift of power and effectively creating what human scientists call "global warming." Mr. Charity and Robot David remained in their dark pit of bugs and nastiness for 10 years, then served as slaves to the Autumn noble for another 10 years before being set free.

And that is how an entire session which was supposed to be a completely different offensive in the War was overtaken by one guy's failure at following the wrong guy, causing a massive invasion force into Arcadia and destroy much of the wild lands and disrupting the balance of power. However, we now have our next campaign: The Arcadian Invasion.

Ravens_cry
2008-11-17, 12:13 AM
Holy cripes on toast!
That has so much win, it is beyond win-tastic, it even beyond win-gasmic. It is. . .Win, in its most pure and ultimate form, the Platonic ideal of Win. I am humbled before the winningness that is the Win of this tale of most winning excellence. Win, win, win.

Did I mention that I thought it was full of win?

Elm11
2008-11-17, 06:35 AM
I know it is not mine to give as but a lowly pixie, but i think that deserves at least half an internet :biggrin:

Zen Master
2008-11-17, 06:39 AM
Once upon a time ....

We we're four characters - Knight of the Rose, Black Robe wizard, Priest of Paladine, rogue of some sort - on a flying citadel, on collision course with the tower of the High Clerist.

So ... the citadel is locked on course, and we're supposed to avoid disaster. Now, the check in question fails - twice - so we decide to try other methods. As in, lightning bolt. We lightning bolt the controls, causing them to explode - this means we now have no way of altering the course. We'd gambled for the citadel to drop out of the sky - it didn't, sadly it continued right on its way.

So ... about as epic fail as is imaginable. The good guys loose a flying citadel, and the High Clerist Tower explodes in flame and falling rock.

The massive explosion tears a rift in the planes of existance, throwing our group battered but alive, into the abyss. Through a long string of barters, negotiations and threats of violence (ours and theirs) we agree upon the terms of our return to the prime material plane - mists close in. It was that kind of deal, also leaving a certain taint upon my character, the Knight of the Rose.

In Ravenloft, we do the dark bidding of Azalin the Lich and Strahd von Zarovitz, playing through the Grand Conjunction. As all planes and realities convene, we succesfully steer our way through time and space, arriving back in Dragonlance at a time previous to the highjack of the flying citadel - allowing us to prevent the entire chain of events that led to our avoiding our own original blunder.

In a major existential occlusion event, all the pieces are tossed about and land - against all logic - in a fairly recognizable pattern. The campaign closes, the best we ever played, and the characters retire to live happy lives.

In other news, the same characters are called back into service at ripe old age, to sort out the strands of time, space and propability their own younger selves did/didn't mess up years earlier.

ahzreal
2008-11-17, 10:55 PM
Well... THAT was certainly worth the read! :smallbiggrin: Really, it was. Fairly interesting.