Plots that have gone wrong...

[Nathal]

I'd love to hear from GMs whose plots have taken the wrong turn due to reasons other than "too-linear" design. Also, let's leave out situations where the players were just being jerks (like refusing to go on adventures at all for some odd reason)...

So, let's hear about adventures that went out of control because A) the GM screwed up the challenge level, and was too late to fix it or B) his plot hooks repeatedly failed to get the characters interest (not the player's), maybe because the PC group wasn't compatible with the adventure themes.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Ummm, player interest is character interest, if the players are not interested they will not pretend that their characters are. If the players are interested they will talk themselves into it.

I ran a scenario where the adventure ended when the bard asked the not particularly evil necromancer out for drinks, he ended up dating her... He thought she just needed to get out more, and given the way she was shaping up he was right.

And I had a game where 10th level characters ran from a bunch of skeletons who were behaving in a manner that the players did not understand - they were harvesting crops. (This was 1st ed.) Rather than find out what was going on they ran for it. I am proud of scaring 'em, but it would have been nice to run the adventure!

The Auld grump

 

[VirgilCaine]

And I had a game where 10th level characters ran from a bunch of skeletons who were behaving in a manner that the players did not understand - they were harvesting crops. (This was 1st ed.) Rather than find out what was going on they ran for it. I am proud of scaring 'em, but it would have been nice to run the adventure!

The Auld grump

LOL.

 

[Nathal]

Here's another:

You're the GM. You've created an adventure wherein a high official is kidnapped while traveling in a distant part of the kingdom. The PCs learn of this and decide to travel back to the capital city and inform the authorities of what happened, then go about their own business. What do you do?

 

[Nathal]

Ummm, player interest is character interest, if the players are not interested they will not pretend that their characters are. If the players are interested they will talk themselves into it.

Ok, that's a good point. But I was referring more to situations where "character concept" becomes an obstacle to taking on certain types of adventures. Sometimes this is due to poor character design (like a player who insists on playing a farmer who hates violence...not that I'd allow it)...

 

[Rystil Arden]

Here's mine: During a search of an evil cult's supposedly abandoned headquarters, the party's elven wizard (LN) decides that he should summon an imp and ask it for info about the cult. He messes up and summons a succubus, who demands a soul as payment for the info. The wizard determines that allowing the cult to complete their plan is worth more than one soul, since it would kill countless people, so he made the stipulation that the soul must not be his, nor anyone else's in a 100-mile radius. The info allowed the party to foil the cult's plan, but the plan had just been a fake to trick the PCs into fulfilling the cult's true plan. But before the PCs could stop that plan, the wizard got a message by owl that his father had died and his mysterious new wife who had recently showed up had disappeared. This led to a chain of events culminating in the elf wizard summoning demons in the sacred grove where elven souls transmigrate to the afterlife, in order to find out what happened to his father, and one of the demons broke free (because the demonologist he kidnapped to help him tricked him). This caused all of the souls of the elven ancestors to be sent straight to the Abyss. In order to rescue the souls from the demon army that lived there, the wizard made a deal with Bel, Lord of Avernus...and so began the storied career of Dhistan Moonshadow, who would later forfeit his soul to Bel and become a baatezu-thrall shade...Meanwhile, years later, the cult now rules the characters' country and has done so for in game (and out of game) years...

 

[F.C.Desoya]

The party was supposed to carry the intelligence of a parasite type plant creature. This owuld have led them to the entrance of Rappan Athuk. To make a long storry short...instead of helping the plant creature, the group torches the tree thus killing it!

 

[VirgilCaine]

Here's mine: During a search of an evil cult's supposedly abandoned headquarters, the party's elven wizard (LN) decides that he should summon an imp and ask it for info about the cult. ...Meanwhile, years later, the cult now rules the characters' country and has done so for in game (and out of game) years...

That is beautiful.

 

[ajanders]

Character Concept

Ok, that's a good point. But I was referring more to situations where "character concept" becomes an obstacle to taking on certain types of adventures. Sometimes this is due to poor character design (like a player who insists on playing a farmer who hates violence...not that I'd allow it)...

If you know you want to run certain types of adventures, tell your players so they can make up their characters appropriately....most notably "This will be a grim and gritty campaign involving character of dubious morality. Don't bring a paladin to the table."
If that doesn't happen, you're just going to have to follow along with the characters. Don't build or buy an adventure the characters have no interest in.
If some characters are interested and not others, let the party work it out amongst themselves. Just don't then whack the characters who were convinced to stretch themselves with alignment violation penalties.

 

[Ellie_the_Elf]

A friend and I (both of us fairly new to DMing at the time) tried to Co-DM a game once...the deal we worked out was that I'd deal with the adventure writing/roleplay parts and she ran the monsters in combat...

All went well until the climatic dragon encounter I'd planned for the end of the adventure. A few rounds in, two PCs were down and the rest in pretty bad shape. I was getting pretty confused about how they were taking such a severe beating, so quickly, when the penny dropped- we'd had a *slight* miscommunication somewhere along the way, and she was running a dragon about 4 ages categories higher than intended.

We just about managed to salvage it, but the players twigged and gave us hell for about a month after

Ellie.