Moments of Metagaming Magic

[Truename]

Last night's game. (Minor spoilers for WotBS.)

The party descended into the valley, evidence of the mad monks' biomancy all around them. The horrid screams of misshapen creatures echoed in the distance. Their destination: a tower they had glimpsed peeking over the treetops.

The valley's endless storms pelted them with rain as wind and mist played hide-and-seek with the path ahead of them. As they descended, the screams of rage and pain grew closer.

Finally, they reached the tower. It sat in a clearing surrounded by jagged rocks and rubble. Two horrific, mutated creatures loped aimlessly around the perimeter, like baboons at a zoo, occasionally picking up rocks and chucking them into the woods.

The heroes drew back from the clearing. A door was clearly visible. All they needed to do was distract the creatures for a moment. A hurried conversation--then their goblin mage companion cast a burst of flame into the forest! The creatures fixated on the flash of sound and light and charged. The heroes raced across the clearing to the door! All they needed was a few moments, and they'd be inside.

But then, the druid in the lead disappeared into the ground, as if the earth had swallowed him whole. The monsters would be back in moments. What could the heroes do?

"Eh, it's not fourthcore," said the hulking Goliath barbarian. "I keep going."

And that's how the entire party fell 60 feet through an illusion onto a field of jagged spikes.

 

[D'karr]

"Eh, it's not fourthcore," said the hulking Goliath barbarian. "I keep going."

And that's how the entire party fell 60 feet through an illusion onto a field of jagged spikes.

That is absolutely hilarious. In my games my players often find "hooks" to something I have not prepared at all. I listen intently to what they come up with as ideas of what it might be. I usually will end up using some of their own ideas, as its quite rewarding for them to be "right".

What I've found is that my players are a lot more sadistic than I am in most respects. They will usually assume the worst thing, and because it is their idea it is usually right.

What this has done over the years is prepare them for the worst at all times, no matter what the game system we play.

That story is so funny because we had a similar metagaming event when the players entered Castle Ravenloft. It was only the second encounter of the game and one of the players chimed in, "It can't be Strahd. It's too early to be Strahd." They then proceeded to get their collective asses kicked by Strahd. That was 7 years ago and to this day that line is still used when they encounter something they did not expect.

Well done, you have shown your DM Quality - the best.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Yeah, those kind of errors can sure be memorable.

In my own gaming group, about 10 years ago in 3e we were assaulting a pirates camp which was in a cave. After staking the place out for a while, we asked the DM how many pirates there were. His answer was "more than 10".

Foolishly, we assumed that "more than 10" meant something between 10 and 20. Not so. Instead, we ended up facing about 40 pirates, blowing through all of our spells and coming within a hair's bredth of a TPK.

So the phrase "more than 10" lives on in infammy in our group and are used to this day as words of caution.


As a totally irrelevant aside is we faced a monster the DM called "the demon of emancipation" (when really he meant "emaciation"). Now we use the word "emancipation" whenever we want to annoy him.

 

[Geffor]

First level party, commissioned to sneak into an a dragon's lair by the back way, wait until the dragon is lured away by a great hero and then find out if she had laid any eggs and, if so, steal/destroy them.

Party fights their way to the dragon's lair - huge, ancient dragon in residence.

"That dragon's far too high level to be in a first level quest, it must be an illusion."

Entire party eaten by dragon when all they had to do was wait a little while and she would be gone

 

[Truename]

"Eh, it's not fourthcore," said the hulking Goliath barbarian. "I keep going."

And that's how the entire party fell 60 feet through an illusion onto a field of jagged spikes.

My players reminded me that I left out their amazing recovery. Here's what one of them wrote:

"It was pretty awesome, if I do say so myself...

The druid was in the lead, with the artificer, the gremlin/goblin/cat-thing rider, and the goliath pulling up the rear. The druid disappeared as the Earth swallowed him up. The artificer and goliath decided to follow him down ("Eh, it's not fourthcore"), and the other guy [an NPC ] veered off.

The druid had used his daily flying power in an earlier battle, and didn't have the strength (athletics) to get a grip on the wall so took a tumble.

The artificer was in a similar situation (no flying power, not able to grab anything).

The goliath managed to grab the side, but seeing our plight, let go and dove after the artificer. He used his 1-round flying power [divine boon] and his raw strength to slow them down before they hit the ground. Then they stumbled and scratched their heads on the spikes. [The artificer also used a power that gave them damage resistance to the spikes.]

The druid changed shape and turned in to a swarm of insects to avoid the spike damage, reformed between spikes, and used his parkour (acrobatics) skills to roll and distribute the force of the landing.

Final result, the goliath and artificer took 5HP damage and the druid took 20HP damage."

Okay, okay, so I didn't kill them, or even hurt them that much, but it was a memorable night of gaming. A great example of 4e at its cinematic best.