Dawning Moments of Player Realization

[Muz]

Ah, few things are more amusingly satisfying for a DM than when some sort of information about the campaign suddenly dawns on the players, especially when it's a realization of something either scary, terrible, or just really cool. (Or a combination of the three.)

Case in point- in tonight's session, a particular PC found an unidentified wand. Long story short, after figuring a few things out, it suddenly dawned on her that what she had was the insanely dangerous/fun Wand of Wonder. I believe her exact quote was "...Oh, CRAP. " (Facial expression included.)

So anyone else got any tales of similar revelations? (I guess mine wasn't really a "tale," so much as a quickly related situation, but...you get the point. I guess my forum-storytelling needs work. Maybe if I toss in some vampires.)

[unlit.candle]

In our last game I was searching for the Drow that killed my wife. Another party member snuck into the drow city and broke her out and set her free not knowing who it was. Later I found out from an arch mage who it was and look at the other player, out of character and freaked.

Whole goal was to find and destroy this person and he let her get away. ARGH!!!!

[ken-do-nim]

When one of my players found out his character was the heir to a certain position yet there was a prophecy that this heir was to be sacrificed, he quipped, "My character had better have a child really soon!"

[shaka gl]

The party i run found one of their companions (an elven swashbuckler) when his chariot was under attack. This elf, Milthalas, was the only survivor. But he had been hit in the head and was now with amnesia. One of the corpses of the other elves identified him as an Elven Prince, so Milthalas, who seemed to be a very skilled fighter, was his bodyguard. When they got back to the Order where they get their missions, they were told that the new Elven King (he had killed his brother, the King, and all of his sons; so was now the King) really wanted Milthalas dead for being the only evidence of his betrayal. They were hiding a couple of games, until an elf, Galyrion, showed up to kill him.
Galyrion: Dont you say hello to your cousin?
Milthalas: My WHAT now?!
Galyrion: Oh, so your amnesia is true. Well, anyway, die!
They fought and Galyrion died. Then, Dunlop, the highest member of the Order, said:
Dunlop: Milthalas, im sorry about this. I thought you already knew the truth. You arent the prince`s bodyguard. You ARE the prince.

Men, the looks on the faces of my players, especially Milthalas`s, was GREAT!

[Matthew]

Best one in recent memory was when a seemingly loyal Henchman (Cohort) turned out to be a traitor after ninety or so sessions and a good two years and more of playtime. Several of the Players are still unwilling to accept that he acted with compulsion, the others connected up the dots...

[Viscount Einstrauss]

Recently, the party I'm DMing decided to run from what, according to several ABYSMAL spot and knowledge: nature checks said, appeared to be centaurs. They were in a large army caravan, and wanted to keep their troop fresh for the march, so tried to run in the opposite direction to get away while the PC's matched them. It wasn't until towards the end of the fight with the "centaurs" that one of them FINALLY made a knowledge check high enough to realize that they were not, in fact, centaurs- they were LAMIAS. I then proceeded to explain to the character that got the good check what a Lamia was and how, despite being physically weak, they often laid careful traps to lead enemies to their doom.

At this point, the whole party stopped and thought "Oh, right. They're only dealing 1d4 damage when they hit". This is when their army suddenly encountered a nest of hungry purple worms that they marched straight into because of running from the lamias.

They lost some of their caravan, and I chuckled.

[Muz]

Ooooh, amnesia. I like that idea. Mind if I steal it?

[shaka gl]

Ooooh, amnesia. I like that idea. Mind if I steal it?

Not at all. Just have in mind that my players dont usually read non core manuals, so if there IS something that can magically cure amnesia or something like that, and your players find, youll have to be prepared. Just that. Now, hope you have fun!

[Muz]

Not at all. Just have in mind that my players dont usually read non core manuals, so if there IS something that can magically cure amnesia or something like that, and your players find, youll have to be prepared. Just that. Now, hope you have fun!

That assumes the afflicted person knows they have it.

[Deathcow]

Amnesia's such a handy plot device, isn't it? Sure, a bit cliched and all, but the classics never die. Don't you agree?

[Mewtarthio]

I'd have to agree with you there. Though the whole "You are the prince" thing is kinda predictable after a while. I prefer the "My love! I've spent the last twenty years looking for you!" "...I'm sorry, I don't remember you" trick: It's so much more cruel. Even better is when you meet them in a busy setting and they act as if they've never seen you before. Let 'em stew in dread and confusion for a little while, heheheh...

But I digress. Back on topic, you!

[The 8th Sin]

My group was given a lift by the cliche good aligned pirates who were sailing down a river. They didn't give money to the poor or anything, but they never kill anyone and often save lives or give people rides. Conflicts arise as the riches of the entire ship (they were vast) were stolen one night. The suspicion fell on one of the crew, and she was restrained and questioned. She managed to get a message to the PCs that she was innocent and needed to escape. The PCs decided that since there was no way that she could be hiding the riches, she must be telling the truth. They helped her escape and as they watched her from the ship, she waved at them and said "Thanks. I'll be careful to not get caught next time!" She reaches into a bag of holding and holds up a fistful of money (she hid the bag of holding on the ship and retrieved it while escaping.)

[Douglas]

This stunt my DM in a play-by-chat game pulled had the entire group laughing for a while:

An old silver dragon (not sure of actual age category) had given us a quest for one of the party members to join his clan. Specifically, we were supposed to retrieve three items, one of which was a gold feather. After the party went to considerable effort to get a solid gold feather from a behemoth eagle who had already rewarded us with one such feather earlier (he grows these things naturally, apparently), we came back to the dragon and proudly presented our collection of items. On getting to the feather, we were greeted with this line:

"GM: Dragon: Wow. I do belive this is the first time anyone actually fetched a feather actually made of gold. Normally, they just hunt down one of the gold finches native to these parts....."

The feather was as super-sized as the bird, btw, and weighed a few hundred pounds.

[Malachite]

I like that last one :D

[Just Alex]

The party managed to go a solid 4 months running around with what they thought was a human Rogue/Plot Device. During a major battle whering said plot device battles his nemisis Marilith while the PC's are fighting several Balor and other such demons, the Marilith drops a Greater Dispel, revealing Plot Device to be a Death Slaad (while dropping several party buffs)
Half the PC's promptly try to kill the Slaad, until the party wizard points out that the slaad is the only one that know which way to go.

Creepily enough, the LN wizard gets along great with the CN Death Slaad. The Death Slaad has drawn the greatest enmity from the party's CN rogue.

[Replacement]

Party Member: Ok guys I know that 5k gold is a pretty decent bounty but we are going to have to put aside the hunt for that bandit lord and his crew off till later, there is a new gang moving into our turf and I've scheduled a meeting with them about the area and tribute.... wait a second.... ahhh crap!

[purple gelatinous cube o' Doom]

sounds like the time that I played a hobgoblin fighter, that loved to loot everything. You can just imagine the look on my face when I picked up a ring out of a sarcophagus that was cursed with mummy rot. Then in order for me to get healed our cleric had to rest. But, since wouldn't have worked out so well (the whole massive amount of check thing over 8 hours was bound to fail). So, to fix it, we ended up using a rod of wonder to turn me from flesh to stone and back (but not before they got the right percentages, which took like 20 rolls). It was all very amusing.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

I just remembered an older one from the beginning of our campaign-

The group's fighter//rogue ran into a wolf as a random encounter while the rest of the party was asleep. He got into a fight with it, but instead of finishing it, he decided to subdue it, heal it, and spent the rest of his watch actually training it to be his pet. He made significant headway before he himself had to rest, making the wolf friendly with him. The next morning, before the fighter//rogue wakes up, the barbarian//fighter wakes up hungry and, due to low intelligence, decides that the wolf was tied up so that breakfast would be fresh. After two attack rounds, the fighter//rogue wakes up and yells at him after he realizes that I just cleverly RPed the barbarian into attacking his beloved wolf for meat.

[skrue_luse]

A good one from way back in 2nd ed. FR.

The party was mainly composed of grim faced stoic types. 2 paladins of Tempus, a piestess of Tempus, a dragon slayer, a Ftr/Thf, a Ftr/Psi and a war wizard with an average level of 7-8. All of us had been tapped by the crown to schlep from Waterdeep all the way past the spine of the world to slay an anient white wyrm(age category 11 or 12).

Now, the last member of the party was a bard who wished to chronical the heroic adventure to come. This was a new player who had wasn't around for the planning phase.

The dawning moment came after about a dozen or so sessions, when the party was about 2- 2 1/2 weeks from the beast's lair. The bard overheard one of the paladins discussing their supply situation.

DS: "How are we fixed for food?"
Paladin: "We can make another 3 weeks if we cut back to half rations."
DS: *nods sagely*
Bard: "But its almost 5 months back to Waterdeep."
Paladin: "Close to it."
Bard: "So what are we going to eat on the trip home?"
Party: *stares at bard*
Bard: "What?" *looks at the party*

Suddenly it dawns on him, the party only packed enough for the jurney there because they felt it was a suicide mission. The look of shock and horror on the player's face was priceless.

Bard: "Oh... oh..."

[Akennedy]

When my players killed the BBEG when horrifically weakened and found a rod with a button on it. Of course, the curious player, i believe to be a cleric or a barbarian, decided to press it. Later the wizard used identify only to find that the rod was a rod of ressurection bound to "Sul'Thraze" <name of BBEG>. Player's weren't happy :P.

[Lord_Kimboat]

We had one in an interactive. Six months before a city had been destroyed by a an ancient red dragon and we brave adventurers (about 20 of us) were heading back in to loot and see if there were any survivors. Everyone was, as you can imagine, a little paranoid about the dragon still being around.

We actually found several, including my group who found a little old lady who had locked herself in her cellar and lived off of her preserved fruit and vegetables since the attack. She even gave some to us and we noticed, as she dropped one of the bottles, that she was missing the little finger on her left hand.

Our group escorted her to the rest of the survivors and one group was tasked with taking them back to a surviving city nearby.

A little while later, another group found some dead warriors from the initial attack of the dragon. They knew it was from the attack because aside from the charred corpses, one of the fighters had a magic sword and near it was a severed claw from the dragon.

Just as our group remembered the little old lady with the missing finger a few survivors from the group escorting the civilians appeared saying the dragon had "appeared out of nowhere."

Ooops.