Players Surprising GM...

[Tdata]

This can be for any game. For those who have GM'd, what are some of the more memorable ways that your players have surprised you, that you can remember.

One of the ways I have been, in my limited GMing experience, is when I was running the D&D bought campaign where the players are in a magical pyramid(I don't remember the exact name but it is 4e). One player was a druid and another a battle mage I guess you can say. They had the druid summon as many rhinos as she could and just have them plow through the level they were on knocking open/down all doors while the spellcaster cast the spell to summon lots of eyes to scout. This way obviously they could see what is to come on the level. Of course, the NPCs know something is going on.

 

[the Jester]

Instead of going through the dungeon, the party brought the whole thing down with earthquakes and transmute rock to magma spells.

After the first time they did it, it wasn't a surprise anymore.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Waaaaay back in the mid 80s, when I was but a wee DM I was used to the typical 'hack and slay' (as it was known then) style of player, which I regularly had much fun killing and destroying.

That's when a new kid came to school and started playing with us. He was playing a paladin and use his Detect evil 60' radius (yeah, that's what it was back then) on a group of unknown interlopers they heard coming down a corridor. Having passed a room that had an old, decaying four poster bed, he ushered the party back into the room, took a flask of lamp oil, ripped the canopy and sheets off the bed and soaked them in oil, when the group approached (they were your standard orc raiding party) he flung open the door, threw the oil soaked fabric upon the orcs and the party mage hit it with burning hands......

I was so stunned by the sheer chutzpah of the actions, I forgot to roll for rot grubs in the old bedding....

Ahh, to be young and clueless, needless to say I've been hoodwinked many, many more times in my DMing career, but that one will always hold a very special place in my heart. (or would it be stuck in my craw?)

 

[Dice4Hire]

If my players do not surprise me frequently, I'm gonna wish I had different players.

 

[Heathen72]

In a campaign a friend of mine ran long ago, one of the starting characters was an evil sorceress's apprentice. She more a slave of the witch really. She only knew a couple of spells - taught to her so that she could do menial work around the tower, but she was smart in how she used them.

We were still low level when we came up against one of the pompous villains of the piece. He was a couple of levels higher than us. He had flown in to a clearing where our characters were camped and alighted on a tall boulder in front of us and started to monologue. He was quite obnoxious, frankly.

The Sorceress's apprentice cast grease on the boulder under his feet. He was not flying at this point, and he slipped and fell prone to the ground at the base of the menhir. 3 quick attacks from the rest of us, a couple of 20's and he was dead before he could get up. The GM just stood there with his mouth gaping.

So sweet. We were lucky too, he probably would have wiped the floor with us had he the chance. But that's what you get for monologue-ing

 

[Hand of Evil]

THEY RAN AWAY FROM THE BIG BAD!!!

for some reason, they started talking and someone said, "some of us are going to die" and the players were too tied to their characters to face that. So, they left before the climax of the game. Every time we played, I kept telling them how much more powerful he was becoming, the lands around his stronghold becoming the dark lands, cities falling to his hordes.

 

[Swedish Chef]

I surprised the GM at a Convention once. It was AD&D 2E, not M&M, but was a fun surprise nonetheless.

The 2E module was written for the Con, and the players were a mixed bag of Drow Overseers, Lackeys and slaves. The story was that an uprising occurred and this small group was trying to escape.

I don't remember all the characters, but there was the Drow Matron, my human wizard (who was in love with the Matron and had been her lover for some time. Although he was LE, he wanted to bring her to the surface to save her), 2 dwarf slaves and 2 other characters.

Based on my character write up, I saved the only teleport spell I had until the very end. Then, during the climactic battle, I "advised" the slaves/lackeys on how to best position themselves for defense of the room we were in (which was rather large). Once battle was joined and the others were yelling at me to start casting spells, I turned to the DM and said "I touch the Matron, recite my teleport spell, and leave these fools to their fate".

Apparently, during all the playtests prior to the Con, and even at every other table at which this module was run, the human wizard player always chose to die defending the Matron. No one expected a LE wizard to actually leave behind slaves and lackeys and hightail it out.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

#1) Running a PC in a party that was going through the Demonweb, I had my PC drop an Instant Fortress as a deadweight on a BBEG. *squoosh*




#2) In another adventure, two of my fellow players had a plan: they got the thief behind the Lich, but instead of doing an ineffectual backstab with a weapon, he used his position to "backstab" the creature by cramming a Helm of Opposite Alignment on its head. There was a momentary pulse of magic before the Lich's intense evil caused the thing to simply fall to pieces. It was a nifty try, though.




#3) As a DM, I had to helplessly watch as a party ambushed my BBEG Necromancer. Let me preface this by saying that the NPCs didn't have an initiative roll over 5, and the party didn't have one below 10.

The Paladin walked up to him in the market and said something to the effect of "Sir, I have something for you," and quick-drew her sword and stabbed him before his bodyguards could react. She critted. She also nearly maxed out her die rolls. The BBEG just barely made his save vs. massive damage. From locations elsewhere in the market, the rest of the party struck. Only a couple of strikes missed. This time, the BBEG failed his saves and died.

The guards, flatfooted, finally react and start to charge assorted targets.

Round #2- yes, that all happened in the first round- the party has initiative again. Those who had actually been engaged by guards continued to roll well, and the guards were single-shotted. Last guy to go for the party was the Druid, who changed every party member into ravens (which were the state bird, by the decree of the BBEG).

...And they flew away, leaving a stunned crowd murmuring around shocked guards and a dead ruler.

Oh, yeah- this was in the first 20 minutes of the evening's scheduled play.

 

[Thunderfoot]

<SNIP>
Oh, yeah- this was in the first 20 minutes of the evening's scheduled play.

Sooooooo, who wants to play RISK?

I had a bunch of no level Bugbears flee and barricade themselves in a room to escape a 2eAD&D party. No problem, except the wizard had Lighting Bolt memorized - spell description a bolt arcs from the point the WIZARD DECREES within the range of the spell. He stood in front of the door, cast the spell and had it issue 2 feet in front of himself. The room was a 20' x 20' storage room....Lets see 40' long bolt, 20' long room, 3 bugbears with 15hps a piece, 1 bounces doing 9d6 per pass, save for 1/2(*roll* no saves), roll for damage... (no 1s).... Yeah, there wasn't too much left of the poor beasties but the smell of burning fur and ozone that hung in the air.

 

[jasper]

1. ok. Tickleberry the party's thief when captured in a simple back alley brawl. Confesses in a full court. In front of the whole party and half of the thieves guild to being a thief. She was only charged with public brawling. Then starts pointing out party /guild members as fellow thieves. The city did have laws against thief. To include lost of hand, prison sentence, and death.
2. In speaker of dreams module, found the bbeg and avoided 2/3 of the encounters at the same time.
3. In a peaceful villiage which was beening taken over by bbeg. The party killed 1/3 of villiagers either due to loose targeting of weapons and spells. It is zombies oh my! Fireball the pier. Forgetting the fishermen on the pier. Pulling an albino out of his home an trying to stake him. The villiage was emptied 1/3 by bbeg, 1/3 by the group. And the last 1/3 ran away from both of them.
4. Ran away from 2 magic items killing major plot lines.
5. Slapped the grandmother (who wore combat boots and had nasty backstabbing rep) of the king. Resulting in the 2 npcs deaths I was running to round out the party. And the party fleeing to barrier peaks for safety.