Most Unexpected Moments In Your Campaign

[Olaf the Stout]

Tell me your stories of unexpected campaign moments, where the players have done something that left you scratching your head and thinking “What the……? Did that just happen”

The biggest unexpected campaign moment I had was when I had a group of assassins attack the party. They were a group of female assassins that were hired to stop the PC’s from investigating a murder. They broke into the party's hotel rooms and attacked them in their beds in the middle of the night.

Since the PC’s were asleep they didn’t have any armour on or have much in the way of weapons or magic items. Also, since they were staying in 2 rooms the party was split up. Not exactly an ideal situation for the PC's to be in. A couple of PC’s were taken down into single digit hit points but the party managed to succeed in capturing all 4 assassins.

After pumping them for information about who hired them, etc., they decided that they would let the assassins go, without taking any of their weapons, equipment or gold from them. Not only that, the party also willingly gave them some of their own equipment so that the assassins could “prove” that they had successfully completed the hit. They did plan on meeting up with the assassins after they had received their payment but unfortunately circumstances meant that the party wasn’t able to.

So not only did my PC’s let the assassins who attacked (and nearly killed them) go without taking anything from them, they also gave them extra stuff! The assassins also got to collect their payment for the job, even though they didn’t complete it!

To makes things even weirder, one of the PC’s set up a date with one of the assassins. He didn’t end up being able to make it, but I found it amusing (and perplexing) that he wanted to date someone that had tried to kill him.

So what about in your campaigns? What have your players done that you didn’t expect?

Olaf the Stout

[Hellzon]

Originally Posted by Olaf the Stout

To makes things even weirder, one of the PC’s set up a date with one of the assassins. He didn’t end up being able to make it, but I found it amusing (and perplexing) that he wanted to date someone that had tried to kill him.

Well, if loved ones are often endangered in a campaign, hooking up with a cold-blooded killer sounds like an investment.

[arscott]

'Cause that worked out so well for Daredevil.

[ppaladin123]

[Minor thread derail]

Yay! This forum is about sharing gaming stories and wisdom again!

[/minor thread derail]

[Piratecat]

Back when my campaign was 2e, the pcs had just leveled. I had a cool adventure set up: the PCs had to sneak into, or fight their way into, a giant termite mound which had been taken over by a mercenary band. Their job was to find the Mercenary captain and capture him alive. Epic and flavorful, right?

TomTom the psionicist says "look what I can do now!", goes ethereal and scouts the burrows, getting a brief peak at the Captain.

Velendo the cleric says "and look what I can do!" Then he summons a freakin' aerial servant, described the captain (thanks so much, TomTom, really), and tells the servant to go retrieve him.

Then the party sits back and has a picnic while the servant rushes off on his errand.

15 minutes later the servant emerges with a struggling, shouting captain, and the whole group runs for the coast -- without ever having set foot inside my dungeon.

--

My second choice would be when they decided to solve the problem of an evil flesh-weaving cult by casting earthquake and collapsing the entire dungeon complex on their heads.

[Moleculo]

Not my PCs, but my brother was in a campaign where the PCs were supposed to assault a giant pyramid looking for some macguffin. They used locate object, lo and behold it was in the pointy top of the pyramid. So instead of plowing through the base and working upwards, they blasted a hole in the top of the pyramid and my brother flew up on his mount and plucked it from it's resting spot. Probably the last time the DM put the guards outside of the treasure room, let alone put the macguffin at the top of the dungeon.

[Whimsical]

When the players can break your dungeons with high-level spells and effects, it can help to change what an adventure site means.

With high level gaming, I like to think BIG! The entire multiverse is the "dungeon," teleport/wind walk/plane shift is the "hallway," the target location is the "room," and if that location happens to be secured against direct entry, then the surrounding structure and wards is the "walls" & "door".

Each "dungeon room" for a 20th level party could have been the entire "dungeon" for a lower level party. And each relevant adventure site could be spread out enormous distances, including between planes, but it's just a Gate and a Teleport away.

This is how I don't care that a high level party can move through walls with ease and avoid entire sections to get the toy surprise at the bottom of the cereal box. This is how high level divinations and movement magics makes the game instead of breaks the game. This is just how high level parties work.

Monte Cook's Design Secrets: High Level Adventures is the article that had it all click for me in my head, and I learned how to stop worrying and love the bomb.

[Mallus]

This happened early in our current 4e campaign, forever altering it's course.

• The PC's rescue a dire boar sow meant for the fighting pits during a violent dockworker's protest.

• The party's ranger decides to adopt the pig.

• The party decides to get the pig 'blessed' by a local cult of a dog god.

• While transporting the pig to the temple, the party inadvertently starts a false religion around her, while attempting to mollify a crowd of rabble who were pitching rotten vegetables (this is what happens when you mix inappropriate skills, a crazy idea and high rolls into a Skill Challenge).

• The absinthe-soaked party mage converts to the religion, and much to everyone's surprise, can now heal in her name.

So the party is a church, at least part of the time, and it's order of knighthood.

[Joshua Randall]

The pair of PCs were both goody two-shoes types, a fighter/cleric and a ranger. They were investigating the deaths of several gladiators and (thought they had) traced it back to a rival gladiatorial stable-boss, Volpone. (Yup, this was from a Dungeon magazine adventure.)

PC #1: I will put on my hat of disguise and pretend to be a comely lass, so I can lure Volpone away.

DM (me): Yeah, well, just keep your dirty thoughts to yourself. Anyway, you do so and he starts following you.

PC #2: While he's distracted, I will break into Volpone's house.

DM: Isn't your character a fire'n'brimstone kind of preacher-man who believes lawbreakers should be smote mercilessly? Breaking and entering is a crime. Plus, you completely lack any rogueish abilities.

PC #2: Whatever. I cast stone shape on the embrasure of the window and make an opening.

DM: Uh, okay. You rummage around and find some documents showing that Volpone has been skimming money from his own gladiators and keeping it for himself. But, you don't find anything implicating him in the murders.

PC #2: How much money?

DM: [I make up some number.]

PC #1: I lead Volpone back to his house where we will blackmail him...

PC #2: ... into cutting us in on the deal.

DM: !!!

Thus began my players' PCs' careers as crime-bosses. (And thus ended their tenure as "heroes" in the traditional sense.)

[Stormtalon]

Originally Posted by Moleculo

Not my PCs, but my brother was in a campaign where the PCs were supposed to assault a giant pyramid looking for some macguffin. They used locate object, lo and behold it was in the pointy top of the pyramid. So instead of plowing through the base and working upwards, they blasted a hole in the top of the pyramid and my brother flew up on his mount and plucked it from it's resting spot. Probably the last time the DM put the guards outside of the treasure room, let alone put the macguffin at the top of the dungeon.

Something like this happened in a campaign I ran. Party was assigned to clear out a tower infested by devils, and, as happens, the leader of the devils was at the top, with a nice balcony and view. 99 times out of 100, this particular party will choose the "kick in the front door and kill everything" as their main tactics. Not this time. They scouted, they climbed up, hit the head devil first and then started fighting their way down.

And then, on the third floor, they inadvertently triggered the destruction of the entire tower. A combination of Enlarge plus Iron Construct on the Warforged Juggernaut was just too much for the ancient floors of the tower to handle. Between a broom of flying and a couple other flight options, they made it out (though the Juggernaut had to climb up from the basement and slam thru the back wall to get out before the collapse).

[Cadfan]

I had a 3e game where I permitted a War Weaver prc. I thought it would be cool to include someone who helped everyone actually work together for a change.

What it really did was amp up the game's power level an incredible amount.

I rolled with it, since I knew the game only was going to last for a semester. The wildest moment probably involved raiding a hobgoblin fortress by flying over on griffons piloted by allied warriors, leaping off, and landing in the fortress with the entire 8th level party benefiting from feather fall, invisibility, bull's strength, bear's endurance, cat's grace, enlarge, haste, and prayer.

I let them play out the campaign as super paratroopers of doom. They had a good time with it, even though it really wasn't what I had in mind when I started running the game. If it had been a long term campaign I would have stomped on this at some point, but I relax a bit when I know there's a predetermined end point to their shenanigans.

[Akaiku]

Well, in my most recent game, a 7th level starpact warlock girl held down a gibbering mouther. Sigh@high rolls. I guess that's not as cool as your stories though....

[Evilhalfling]

The game started in a city run by necromancers, they had a couple of adventures and had run into three or four important city factions.

Meanwhile, this world had a running grapevine that talked about what the high level NPCs were up too: wars, world saving missions, feuds, unexpected lesbian pregnancies etc...

One of the news stories from the grapevine mentions a series of high profile actors being killed & beheaded in a distant city. The PCs decide to abandon the current plotline, hike cross country and attempt to solve/stop the crimes.

PCs level 4, NPC villian 17th. They won, out-maneuvering him to at first disguise their identity, and foiling attempts to quietly dispose of them. They turned other power groups against him. During the final confrontation, they fled the city to avoid being killed in the crossfire.
It was a much better campaign than the one I was planning.

[Olaf the Stout]

Originally Posted by ppaladin123

[Minor thread derail]

Yay! This forum is about sharing gaming stories and wisdom again!

[/minor thread derail]

Yeah, I miss these sorts of threads. These used to be around the place a lot on EN World. Now they seem to only pop up every now and again. That's why I decided to start one.

Olaf the Stout

[Jhaelen]

Originally Posted by Moleculo

They used locate object, lo and behold it was in the pointy top of the pyramid. So instead of plowing through the base and working upwards, they blasted a hole in the top of the pyramid and my brother flew up on his mount and plucked it from it's resting spot.

Yep, I remember us dodging an extended dungeon crawl with a similar method. In our case it involved the use of two potions of gaseous form, though.

There was another adventure that should have been about entering a gate to a different plane. Since the DM thought the other plane would be pretty tough, he decided to place a treasure room before the gate room. Naturally, we plundered the treasure room and never bothered actually entering that gate...

[Tewligan]

In 1e campaign I'm DMing, the party had fought their way deep into the tomb of an ancient and infamous bandit king. Along the way, they learned that Brekkar Hundred Hands apparently had some demon blood in him, with plenty of dire descriptions, frescoes, and hints scattered throughout his tomb. Finally, after plenty of undead and unpleasant traps, they force open the door of a chamber containing an 8' tall dessicated corpse sitting motionless on a stone throne, holding a weapon in each of his four hands - I had plans for him to animate and fight the party once they crossed the threshold. Instead, the characters huddled just outside the door without entering, and discussed their next course of action in panicked half-whispers. Eventually, they decided that the rather ominous-looking Brekkar had been doing just fine left undisturbed for the past few hundred years, and they didn't really need whatever treasure he might have anyway. With that, they quietly closed the door and carefully made their way out of the tomb complex, saddled up their horses, and hightailed it back to town.

[aboyd]

Originally Posted by Olaf the Stout

What have your players done that you didn’t expect?

One from a game I play in, one from a game I DM.

As players running through the Freeport trilogy, we made it through all the quests to save Freeport, except the very last part. We stood at the lighthouse mere hours before it would turn on and send out its evil beacon. We were rested and ready to enter. Then one of us shrugged, and said, "We're neutral. Wouldn't it keep some balance for evil to flourish in the world?" The rest of the players agreed. We got on a ship, sailed away, and left the city of Freeport to its destruction.

Five levels later, the DM is still trying to work out the effects that has had on the world.

Now for the game I DM. My players had come across an overly well-defended town run by a lawful good lord. He had a military background, ran a tight ship (no thieves' guild or assassins' guild at all, not enough leeway for crime to flourish much), and the citizens were pretty thankful and proud of it. But my players, who at the time were almost all neutral good, had done a forced march to get to the town before nightfall, and were under exhaustion effects. When the guard wouldn't let them enter, the players intimidated him, and were jailed for threatening an officer. They became furious. When they were brought before the lord of the town to be released, they instead got into a shouting match and were re-jailed, and then eventually escorted to the town's perimeter. The players deemed the lord of the town to be the villain of my campaign. So now this party of do-gooders has a long-term goal of overthrowing a respected, lawful good leader.

Needless to say, that was unexpected.

[WotC_GregB]

One of the most unexpected and memorable moments in my campaign was in the climactic fight of the campaign arc. The characters had failed their skill challenge to quell the swirling vortex in the center of the room. The characters didn't know where it led, and as they concluded the fight, all of them began to be pulled toward the center. They tried to escape, but only one PC succeeded. He, along with two of the important NPCs made it to the exit.

He then closed the door on them and braced it shut.

It was the end of the campaign, and the vortex didn't lead to their deaths, so they were forgiving. Nonetheless, I sort of expected all of them to get sucked in, or else none of them. I never considered such an amusing betrayal! Fortunately, it gave me lots of fodder for the next campaign arc.

[Stormsparrow]

Just last week, our party, composed of an incredibly varied and disfunctional lot of characters, stumbled upon the lair of a green dragon. The dragon seemed more than happy to barter with us and was cheerfully asking us what shiny things we might trade for macguffin in question. Unfortunately, our stab happy Paladin decides to take a poke at the poor dragon leading to a fight that should have resulted in a TPK.

Somehow we make it through with only one casualty and a badly wounded rogue. Our cleric makes an attempt to heal him, only to critically fail and push him into a lake of acid. Wracked by guilt, he jumps in after him, forgetting that he doesn't know how to swim. While this is going on, the bard gets upset with the paladin and decides to convince my antisocial warlock that he is plotting against us.

When the cleric, having failed to save our rogue, pulls himself from the acid water, he is greeted with the sight of his two party members murdering the paladin in cold blood. The bard, who has gone completely insane, then forces my warlock to put on a suspect necklace which subsequently possesses him with astral spirits.

My warlock murders his two remaining companions, but only after desperately attempting to tear the necklace from his chest while screaming "I'm so sorry!" The cleric was his only friend.

So everyone died and now my warlock is the villain of the next campaign.

It was supposed to be a dungeon crawl.

[Nightson]

Start of an adventure, PCs have woken up confused in an empty room with no memory of who they are or how they got there

*after some interparty dialogue*
DM: You hear footsteps from the room beyond, someone is coming.
*party hunkers down*
DM: The door opens, several humanoids talking to themselves are coming in...
PC: I shoot the first guy in the face.
DM: ...what?
PC: I chaos bolt the first guy. *rolls* Sweet critical hit.
DM: ...his brain explodes.

And so I tossed aside my two pages of potential dialogue with the NPC captain of the squad and eventually every single thing I prepared for the adventure.