Uncannily prescient PCs.

[Ambrus]

The opposite of Kitsune9's Players who are just goofs thread, I'd like to hear anecdotes that showcase instances in which PCs acted with astonishing prescience, either tearing straight to the heart of a mystery or executing amazingly effective tactics without any reason to believe that their choices would be dead on. Here are a few examples that left me mouth agape when they occurred:

Once a party I was DMing was trying to figure out how to get the MacGuffin from the very powerful BBEG's manor house safely. While investigating the matter, the party is approached by a kindly though vindictive NPC who tells them of the vendetta he has against the BBEG because of the deaths in his family that the BBEG had a hand in carrying out. He tells the PCs about the secret information he's uncovered concerning BBEG and the manor in hopes of helping them to strike a blow against his hated enemy. Later, once he's left, the PCs regroup to discuss what they've learned and to formulate plans. That's when one of the PCs offers her opinion about their benefactor: "I don't believe his story. I think he's actually somebody in disguise, maybe one of the BBEG's kids wearing a hat of disguise or something, who's out to lead us into a trap of some sort." She was mindbogglingly close to the mark; the NPC was in fact the BBEG's adult daughter sporting a hat of disguise and using a false identity that she'd carefully cultivated for the sole purpose of ferreting out her family's enemies. This persona had an established reputation, friends in the city and even a rented apartment and part time job to round it out; some details of which the party had observed themselves.

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In an example of a lucky coincidence and uncanny insight, I once had a party traveling along a path running parallel to a river in the center of empty grasslands late at night. Then they hear the howling of wolves in the distance drawing closer. Without pause, the druid in the party cast water walking on all the PCs and the lot of them rush to stand in the center of the river. Then the wolf pack arrives and begin padding hungrily along the river bank as if uncertain of what to do. The problem was that the wolf pack had been brought together by a vampiress who had a beef with the party; she was naturally in her wolf form and was using the pack as camouflage. Once she catches up to the party she sees that they're all clustered in the middle of running water; the only spot within miles that she couldn't possibly reach them. She's left to wonder: How did they know?!?

So she's stuck on the shore with her pack hoping that she might catch the eye of the PCs and succeed in charming them to come ashore. Unfortunately for her, the beast-tamer ranger (a 2e PC kit allowing telepathic communication with animals) of the group starts discreetly communicating with the members of the pack to inquire about their purpose. When she tries to initiate a telepathic dialogue with the vampiress however she gets nothing at all since it isn't really an animal. That's when she blurts out: "That one! That's the vampiress!" All manner of martial and magical force is suddenly brought to bear by the entire party on the shore-bound vampiress in wolf form. All the while the vampiress is still wondering: HOW DID THEY KNOW?!? as she orders her minions into the water after the party as she runs for non-existent cover.


I have to say, even though it's as jarring as imaginable when one is the DM, this is the kind of stuff I absolutely love to see as a DM and strive for when I'm a player. I love to see NPCs caught with their pants down.

 

[kitsune9]

My players know something is up when I try to keep a straight face. Sometimes role playing is like poker, your face can be dead-giveaway for when you're feeding a horse-pocky byline to the players from the NPC. No Sense Motive check is needed when it comes to me DMing.

Good thread idea!

 

[ExploderWizard]

The mixed blessing:

I was running a 3E conversion of Against the Cult of the Reptile God for my group and they managed to find the shortest possible route through the dungeon straight into the spirit naga's lair. They were not prepared for such a foe and the majority of the party died.

Since then, any shortcut the party finds to a given destination is referred to as going straight to the naga.

 

[JediSoth]

This isn't my story, but one that was related to me at Gen Con a few years ago.

A friend of mine was running an adventure called "Feast at the Hungry Tiger Inn." It used a variant of Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved rules, called Jade Oath; basically the Oriental Adventures of Arcana Evolved. In Jade Oath, there is a race called "mandragorans," basically a plant-based race. The main villain of the adventure was a mandragoran vampire, and was pictured in the Wayne Reynolds artwork that is being used for the cover art (and on the GM screen my friend had).

One group was told that the artwork held clues to the adventure (why they were told that, I don't know), but figured out that they were looking for a plant-race vampire, saw a gnarled tree outside of the inn and burned it down at the very beginning of the adventure.

The gnarled old tree was essentially the vampire's coffin. Burning it down either greatly weakened her or destroyed her outright, and the DM now had to improvise a 4 hour con game.

 

[Ambrus]

The gnarled old tree was essentially the vampire's coffin. Burning it down either greatly weakened her or destroyed her outright, and the DM now had to improvise a 4 hour con game.

Absolutely brilliant!

That reminds me of instances in which one of my players demonstrated his uncanny knack for finding hidden treasure. Once, while exploring the townhouse of an NPC wizard, the group made their way down to the one room basement which was being used as a wine cellar. I mentioned that one wall had a wine rack while the other hand three casks of wine lined up against it. After a moment's thought, the player decides to smash open the third cask on the right only to discover that it held no wine, but did in fact contain the wizard's secret spellbook. Even after having found it he didn't even bother smashing the other wine casks or searching the room (which held no other secrets); they simply abandoned the basement with their prize in hand. Uncanny...

 

[El Mahdi]

When I was stationed in England, our DM was running our group through the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh trilogy. Part one of the adventure went really well: we investigated the mysterious house, found out about the weapons, and followed them to their destination - end of book one and on to book two.

Part two starts with us stealthily sneaking into the caves where the weapons were delivered. However, we weren't stealthy enough and find ourselves surrounded by a large group of the Lizardmen who inhabit the caves. The leader of the group steps forward and says "Drop your weapons and surrender". Now, I'm not exactly sure what was in the rest of the second book but I'm sure it probably involved a fight with a subsequent exploration of the Lizardmen lair, with PC's eventually forming an alliance with the Lizardmen. "Eventually" being the key word. As it turned out though, when the Lizardman leader delivered his ultimatum, we as a group just kind of looked at eachother for a second, shrugged our shoulders and said "Okay" - simultaneously dropping all of our weapons. Our DM just kind of sat there with this "Now What" look on his face. One quick roleplaying scene later, where the Lizardman explained they needed the weapons so they could retake their home from Sahuagin invaders, and us deciding to help them - and Part two was over. Completing just a few pages of the entire book.

I really felt sorry for our poor DM. I'm sure he had all kinds of stuff prepared, but hadn't really gotten anything from book 3 ready yet. It made for a rather short gaming session.

Oh well. Best laid plans and all that.

 

[Abciximab]

A while ago in a 2nd edition game I played the one and only paladin I have ever played in my adventuring Career. It was an old Dungeon adventure, Nymph’s Reward, I think was the name of the adventure.

A Nymph approached the party with a mission, her sister was sick. She had been poisoned or placed under some type of spell by a Hag and our mission was to enter the Hag’s lair and find the antidote. We stepped back to talk it over before accepting the mission. One of my adventuring companions said, “Well what do you think?”

To which I replied, “I think the Hag got into a fight with a powerful Mage and has been polymorphed into the Nymph we see before us and for some reason she cannot enter her lair, perhaps because her guardians would pulp her before she could convince them of the truth and she wants us to get her one of her potions to negate the effect.”

“Really?”

“Nah, just kidding, let’s do it.”

So we went on the mission, got the potion, she drank it and sure enough she turned back into the Hag. She then proceeded to kill the prisoners we had just rescued and came very close to killing us as well.

Afterwards the DM tells me that I had the plot almost exactly (She had been cursed by her fellow Hags for some reason) and he had made quite the effort to keep from busting out laughing when I described the plot at the very beginning. He made up for that in the end as the hag mopped the floor with us.

I was actually almost sure of it at the end, but no one else was buying it and I figured the Paladin would keep to his word to help the lady in distress.

 

[heirodule]

I was running a new Living Greyhawk Keoland mod at a convention, along with several other GMs. There was a nasty fight where you entered a room and the lights would randomly flicker (IIRC) off, and when the room was dark you'd be attacked by three Barghests. And more barghests would attack every time the room was dark again.

This was a tough fight for many. There was a trick, though in that when you enter the room there are some rats scurrying around (3). The rats are what turn into the barghests.

For one GM, when he described the room, one player immediately said, "I kill the rats". The look on the GMs face was priceless.

 

[Piratecat]

GenCon 2000, brand new to 3e, last slot on Sunday and everyone is exhausted. I was running a RPGA module where the players play the iconic heroes (Jozan, Mialee, Regdar, etc.) The heroes had to go meet a salamander noble deep in the underdark. The salamander refuses to meet with them unless they give up their weapons.

"I have a bag of holding," says Jozan's player. "We can put the items in there." So +4 weapons go in: a warhammer, a staff... and then Regdar's player has to give up his +4 greatsword. "Fine," he says, and he mimes drawing the weapon, turning it point down, and dropping it into the bag.

I just stare at him. "Can you show me again?" I ask.

"Sure," the player shrugs, and makes the exact same movement: draws the blade, flips it around, drops it into the bag point-first.

"Okay," I say, "there's a ripping sound and the bag gets much lighter." His sword pierced the inside of the bag and banished all their weapons into the astral. The players were appalled. Now they were weaponless and still had to meet with the salamander, who of course threatened to kill them right there because they were unarmed.

"YOU want to kill us?" Mialee's player roleplayed growing furious. "We've had an awful day. Attacked constantly, harried and betrayed by foes, and now THIS FOOL, she points at Regdar, "destroys EVERY SINGLE ONE of our weapons! Arrgh! I could kill him myself! Man, I wish we had those back..." Her voice trailed off, and a sly smile crossed her face. Very quietly she finished the sentence, "in a limited sort of way." And then she crossed limited wish off of her spell list.

The fight was glorious.

 

[amysrevenge]

I was introducing two of my non-gamer friends to D&D. I ran the boxed adventure The Night of the Vampire, which I still have but don't recall the details of. The gist of it was that you eventually figure out the dude is a vampire and fight him, but initially you have no idea there even is a vampire, let alone who it is.

I don't remember why or how, but I do remember the PCs heading downstairs for some reason early in the afternoon (there was a party upstairs, hosted by one of the vampire's cohorts). Through blind luck they stumbled upon a casket, opened it up, and staked the sleeping vampire. Before they ever spoke to him. In the first hour of playing.

I closed up the module, and awarded the XP.

A year or two later, one of the players confessed in secret that, even though I had been careful to hide all other references from their eyes, I had missed one thing - on one of the player handouts was the name of the module - The Night of the Vampire. They knew all along, and as new gamers were not quite ready for separating in- and out-of-character knowledge. But they sure did a good job of fooling me...