The interaction between in-character and out-of-character knowledge is a beautiful thing.
In the campaign I'm DMing, two NPCs the party has dealt with are the Six-Fingered Man and Padma Illindra. The Six-Fingered Man was so named because he's a yuan-ti mutant of some kind, and has, obviously enough, six fingers: 3 on each hand (claws, to be precise). I don't know what YOU were thinking of.
Padma Illindra was a mob lieutenant, known for being a loudmouth who bragged about how buttkickingly awesome she was. It also happens to be the name of the swordsage I played in AOW, who liked dealing silly amounts of damage to hapless CR 15 monsters. No, they're completely different characters, I don't know what YOU were thinking. (In fact, the mobster Padma turned out to be a doppelganger assuming the other Padma's identity, something the players found out AFTER they kicked its ass, but I digress.)
Less wacky note: in a previous campaign, the knight in the party had been getting into a relationship with the female assassin NPC/DMPC, and he's finally decided to tell her his true feelings for her. Now I run an accessories-heavy game with battlemats, minis et al, and the players know that battlemat == fight. And, while he's talking, I get out the battlemat and start putting minis down, including one for him and one for her. The knight starts to lose his composure, but he manages to finish his speech. "Would you like to know MY true feelings?" I says. "What are they?" he says. "...YOU CAN DIE LIKE A DOG, YOU SONOFABITCH!" I says, "take... 75 damage!" Turns out it was ANOTHER assassin disguised as the real one, but that's another story.
Anybody else have tales of using metagame knowledge in entertaining ways?
In the campaign I'm DMing, two NPCs the party has dealt with are the Six-Fingered Man and Padma Illindra. The Six-Fingered Man was so named because he's a yuan-ti mutant of some kind, and has, obviously enough, six fingers: 3 on each hand (claws, to be precise). I don't know what YOU were thinking of.
Padma Illindra was a mob lieutenant, known for being a loudmouth who bragged about how buttkickingly awesome she was. It also happens to be the name of the swordsage I played in AOW, who liked dealing silly amounts of damage to hapless CR 15 monsters. No, they're completely different characters, I don't know what YOU were thinking. (In fact, the mobster Padma turned out to be a doppelganger assuming the other Padma's identity, something the players found out AFTER they kicked its ass, but I digress.)
Less wacky note: in a previous campaign, the knight in the party had been getting into a relationship with the female assassin NPC/DMPC, and he's finally decided to tell her his true feelings for her. Now I run an accessories-heavy game with battlemats, minis et al, and the players know that battlemat == fight. And, while he's talking, I get out the battlemat and start putting minis down, including one for him and one for her. The knight starts to lose his composure, but he manages to finish his speech. "Would you like to know MY true feelings?" I says. "What are they?" he says. "...YOU CAN DIE LIKE A DOG, YOU SONOFABITCH!" I says, "take... 75 damage!" Turns out it was ANOTHER assassin disguised as the real one, but that's another story.
Anybody else have tales of using metagame knowledge in entertaining ways?
That was beautiful. I might Yoink it.
