• The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!

Uncannily prescient PCs.

Thanee

First Post
Right at the beginning of an adventure we went into a church of a good deity and the paladin declared out of the blue, that he detects evil (which he really does not do at every opportunity).

Needless to say, that the priest was in fact the BBEG.

That shortened the adventure considerably. ;)

Bye
Thanee
 

log in or register to remove this ad

I have one player (my first and longest player) who goes back and forth between the 2 extremes of "Why would you think that?!?!?!" and "Are you reading my mind...or just my notes"

in 2e he had a druid who's personal goal was to find a legendary forest called the 'emarald wood' where green trees grew above an emarald mine...the wood was easy to use, but once it 'died' (aka was cut for more then a week) it was as hard as a gem stone...

it was a full sand box when they left there area in the south... the ranger and the druid somehow cut a path directly to (includeing takeing a boat at one point) to the damn forrest...
 

coyote6

Adventurer
I was running a long-term modern day GURPS supernatural/superhero/conspiracy/special ops campaign, where the fact that there were people (and other entities) with superpowers was a secret to the world at large. Thus, PCs were concerned with keeping their powers on the QT. I was also using mysterious prophecies, shifting alliances, groups-within-groups, and lots of long-term plotting & clue-planting. It may be the best game I ever ran, and it ran for a decade or so.

So, the PCs had previously heard rumors that, somewhere in the world, there was a centuries-old (at least) immortal, dubbed "Enigma". It was a legend, part of a prophecy. The PCs know that the shadowy villainous conspiracy they oppose wants to find Enigma, and take him out. The PCs' organization is also really interested in finding him, mainly because the bad guys seem to want him out of the picture. (The NPCs all referred to the alleged immortal with male pronouns.)

Another, separate (seeming), mystery involves one of the PC's backgrounds; this PC was, power-wise, a Wolverine clone -- claws, regeneration, etc. Origin-wise, he was the result of pre-WWII Nazi experiments, intended to create ubermensch. (I don't remember when the PCs knew that Enigma had something to do with said experiments; they might have known.) Important thing that the PCs didn't know: unlike the PC, the Enigma could control "his" regeneration powers.

The PCs had also learned that there was a nurse that might have worked on the experiments that had fled Germany, and been pursued various places. They eventually want to track down where she ended up, as she may have left useful info.

This is all spread out over weeks or months, and many sessions, and interwoven with other adventures, mysteries, and fights. Also, lots of ninjas.

So now the PCs are once again dealing with an arms-smuggling gang in SoCal that seem to have some sort of ultra-tech or magical healing gizmo. Several of them have been seen to hit themselves with autoinjectors full of quick-heal drugs. This is a tech that the bad guys have, but the good guys don't -- and said good guys would like it, as GURPS combat can be painful. :)

The PCs have had a few violent encounters with the gang, trading shots (sword, bullet, etc.) and getting a bit frustrated (especially the katana-wielding PC) that the leader always manages to escape, thanks in some part to her use of the quick-heal injectors (note here that the gang leader has never ever regenerated in any way, except after using the quick-heals). They finally decide to negotiate with her, to find out her source for the quick-heals, and try to get some for themselves; they manage to have a less violent meeting. PCs and gang leader parley a bit, verbally sparring.

Then the player of the nigh-immortal PC begins to think aloud, and proceeds to tie the missing nurse to the gang leader (I can't recall the chain of evidence now -- this was more than a decade ago!); but the player & PC conclude that the gang leader is in fact the nurse who fled Germany. "But that was 50 years ago, and you don't look that old. So you'd have to be . . . You're Enigma!"

I did not expect anyone to figure that out for a long time, as I didn't realize there were anywhere near enough clues for anyone to tie it all together; I had done my best to toss in enough red herrings to make it seem like the nurse could have, at best, identified Enigma. In fact, I'm pretty sure there weren't the clues to do it; the player just made the intuitive leap. And nailed it.

I was floored.

The fact that the katana-wielding PC decided to simultaneously shutdown the Enigma's protests and denials, and vent her (the player character's) frustration, in one fell "I run her through with my sword" swoop was just icing on the cake.

It was frikkin' awesome.

(FWIW, from the other thread, the arcane archer & katana woman had the same player; the cloudkilling wizard and the claws-and-regen guy were the same player.)
 

The Green Adam

First Post
Not sure if these fit but...

POSSIBLE SPOILERS I suppose:

Game: Villains & Vigilantes
GM: Me
Sitch: Using a slightly alerted version of the original Ravenloft module as the home base/hq/fortress of one of our arch-enemies, a Vampire who in life was a Mutant who could teleport. The Sunsword from the module is lost somewhere in the building, lost by a World War II hero killed trying to take down the villain.
Upset: While our Supernatural Ghost Hero holds off the Vampire baddie, our patriotic themed Batman/Capt. America guy realizes our Iron Man guys armor is Solar Powered. Our superstrength guy fashion a cross shaped nozzle/cap over the Armored fellows blaster so he can proceed to fire a beam of cross shaped sunlight at the Vampire's chest. :confused:

Game: Champions (3rd Ed.)
GM: My pal Will (Ultimate Champion Guru)
Sitch: I was out sick one session and another player used that session to manipulate events so that my character was framed for an action that would pit my Alien Empire against another player's that my people had an uneasy truce with. War was declared and the galaxy was in turmoil. The Princess of my people (who was a possible love interest for my character) ends up turning to the true culprit of this tragedy for help.
Upset: When I return and hear what happened, most of the other players are sure there is nothing I can do to change things. I discovered an in-game way of discovering the truth based on a clue the other player left. Then, I remembered we had a Cosmic Treadmill like device in our 'trophy room'. Using my superspeed, I ran backwards, reversed time and proceeded to undo and/or unveil the fiendish plot it took my opponent an entire session to construct in a manner of minutes.

I love Superhero games, lol.

AD
Barking Alien
 

LostSoul

Adventurer
Over 20 years ago I'm playing Keep on the Borderlands with my brother. He's the DM, I'm running the whole party.

I was exploring with a mixed-race party and thinking, "Man, I never use infravision. I should try it out." I only had the elves and dwarves go into the room. At which point they see a humanoid creature, her hair writhing like snakes. A medusa!

I figure that my brother either gave off some kind of hint that I picked up on. If he did, neither of us picked up on it.

A year or two later we're playing Under Illefarn. I'm the DM, and my brother's running the party. He comes across a Stone Golem; the PCs were around 3rd level. He freaks out and says, "Peace!"

Which is the password to get it to stop fighting.

More recently: I was playing Houses of the Blooded. We're at a big party and there's lots of scheming going on. My PC's only village was burned down by the husband of the host, so I'm trying to screw him over.

This NPC is trying to advance in rank from Count to Marquis, and to do that he needed 3 Marquis to support him. Two of them had taken a blood oath to protect him and they couldn't break it. One of them was willing to go against the NPC but the oath was stopping her.

Earlier in the three-day party I stole a valuable gift from the NPC's tent; using the game's mechanics I said that it was a dagger that could dispel magic. I was only able to get in the tent because the other PC distracted the guards (by challenging one to a brawling match).

Anyways, the NPC creates an opera that's designed to make fun of the PCs. It's established that the actor playing the other PC looks just like him.

After the opera we get a servant to stab the still-loyal Marquis to end the blood oath between all of them. He sees the dagger and says, "How did this end up here? It was a gift to the Count. Someone must have stolen it. We should talk to the guards at his tent, see if there was anyone snooping around."

At which point I say, "Yeah, I bet it was that actor in the play. Talk to the guards; I bet they saw him." HAW HAW! He looks just like the PC, so he's screwed and we're in the clear.

Two lives ended for a minor political advantage. Well worth it.
 

Chaoszero

First Post
I don't know what it is about the small sized characters, but their eccentricities always lead to wisdom.

The very first DnD game I was in was a quest to find a wizard who was implicated to have killed all of the PC's families years ago. We were all gathered by an NPC bardess who offered us the chance to seek out the wizard and get any payback we require. She was nice and very helpful with the party throughout the adventure.

Sometime later, after a notably bad defeat, we were feeling down and the Bardess offered to take us to a portal that would bring us closer to the wizard, but with a side-trip into the Nine Hells. At that time, the (quite-insane) gnome wizard jumps toward her and says "YOU! You sabatoged us! You work for the evil wizard!" then, in his insane fashion, suddenly forgot what he was talking about and we went on with the adventure.

Of course it turns out the gnome was right after all. She did sabatoge the fight and was leading us toward doom at the behest of the wizard (for some reason).

In a later game (one that I DMed), the players were entering a cave in a steamy volcano in order to get the MacGuffin to give to an NPC as part of a chain quest. I had decided ahead of time that the main cavern was a false lair, a dead end leading to the volcano heart. The builder of this old lair had placed a secret door just inside the entrance to the left that leads to the true lair, leading to the MacGuffin and the secret to opening the door was knocking three times on the stone wall concealing the passage.

So the players arrive and the halfling monk, seemingly without reason, walks just inside the cave, goes to the left and knocks on the wall as if to say "Hello? Anyone home?" The wall opens and the path to the true lair is revealed. And the halfling (not missing a beat) looks to the other party members and casually says "Well, who's first?"

I am amazed to this day.
 

Whimsical

Explorer
I was playing in a 2nd ed. AD&D game that was just starting up. Since I wanted to properly represent the 19 INT that my gnome thief/illusionist had, I assigned him the personality character template of Jupiter Jones from the Alfred Hitchcock's Three Investigators series of books, which helped me play my character as smart as I could possibly play him. So, the DM starts the game by having my character's aunt in hysterics tell us that her buiness is haunted and that she won't go back but if we could just please check it out for her. I said that her house could be haunted, or that someone may be trying to scare her so that she would sell her property cheap to them. The DM gave me a horrified look of shock, formed his hand into the shape of a gun, then shot me dead. :) After resurrecting myself, I tried to calm him down by pointed out that my character doesn't KNOW this, he's just guessing. And see? He's taking the cleric along just in case he's wrong. So, we continued playing. But I did knock the wind out of my DM's sails.
 


Ambrus

Explorer
Just as the 2e lightning bolt spell seems to have been the downfall of many a would-be hero in the goofy players thread, uncovering and defeating a disguised/concealed vampire appears to be the reoccurring key to victory in this thread. That must be indicative of something. Hm.... :heh:
 


Voidrunner's Codex

Remove ads

Top