When PC turn your campaign upside down, quit or rebuild?

[Voneth]

My campaign took a interesting turn once.

I planned for an invasion of the PCs nation. It was a high level game and I thought the group would become this cliché of generals, counclers and spies. Nope the wizard opened up an interdimsional portal and ushered his buddies though.

So instead of this whole siege and military campiagn I had planned out, I had to rewrite the series so that the group could become freedom fighters who used gurriela tactics and teleportation to win the day.

Never planned for it, but in the end it was just as cool.

Anyone have a similar upset in their campaigns that also ended up being just as much fun, if not more so, than the original plan?

 

[KnowTheToe]

Love the title, it sounds like a cheezy 50's comic book lead.

 

[Fenes 2]

I started a campaign where the main goal was to liberate a country and restore the rightful ruler. The PCs infiltrated the invaders, gaining their trust by working for them and gathered information. They became renowned heroes of the invading country... and stayed that way. Then the player of the PC that was planning to become ruler switched characters, and the whole "lets switch sides and become Zorro-like freedom fighters"- plan was never implemented. Nowadays the PCs are working for the new order, and became rich and powerful. Instead of battling occupation troops they root out rebel scum and hunt down evil wizard heretics.

It helped that the campaign is more shades of gray than black and white - both sides, the invaders and the invaded, were not good, but neutral and evil, respectively.

 

[Eosin the Red]

I have had one or two end up like that. As long as the PCs provided momentum the story did fine but when they jump plot rails and they just stand there looking for the little bald DM dude to show up and tell them that Venger went that away - it flounder I did not know what to do and niether did they.

I have floundered 2 vampire and 1 mage story lines when the DM could not adjust to unorthodox approaches (i.e. I did not like the pit he wanted to put my character in so, I fixed a few things - or I chose not to involve myself in certian situations (Elesyums) and he could not figure out how to get around that.

 

[Airwolf]

I've never had that happen to me when I DM. I leave lots of gray areas for the PCs if they decide to leave the story line I have developed. I have had minor side trips but never a trashing of the adventure/campaign.

On the other hand, I as a player, did completely trash one DM's entire campaign single handedly. The story is still told, on occasion, by those who witnessed it.

It sounds like you did a great job adjusting to the tactics used by the PCs.

 

[Privateer]

On the other hand, I as a player, did completely trash one DM's entire campaign single handedly. The story is still told, on occasion, by those who witnessed it.

Aww, c'mon... tell us what happened. I could use a laugh or somesuch. If it's legendary enough to still be talked about, I want to hear it!

 

[Voneth]

I left my first post a little generic since this board focuses on fantasy and DnD alot, but I thought I'd add a couple of details.

The game was acutaly the SAGA Mavel super hero game and the invasion was from aliens. The character who took my campaign for a spin was indeed a wizard, more of the Sorcerer Supreame type instead of DnD type.

But he did use his magic to open an interdimensional gate to avoid being caught in the invasion. From that point we went on to do the whole freedome fighters from another dimension.

 

[Drawmack]

Campaign synopsis. The world's economy is being trashed by a gigantic band of gypsies who live in a moving city. They travel around the world selling stuff cheap. They purchase in mass quantity and get great deals then pass the savings on. The problem is goods have been devalued. Save the world's economy.

Fifth session is the first encounter with the moving city and here's how it goes.

Entire Party: We go into town to do some shoping.
Rogue: I'm not joining you, be out of there by sunset.

Rogue: The whole city is covered wagons
Me: Yeah
Rogue: It's all really flamable then.
Me: Well Yeah but
Rogue: The stuff all touches each other
Me: Yeah but
Rogue: I wait for dark then torch the city thereby fixing the world's economy.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I do find this an interesting thread. A great opportunity for both war stories and theory.

In my own campaigns I rarely have problems with this, but I tend to build fast and loose based on how the PCs respond to the setting and events I create. Plot mostly builds itself.

Have had wonderful sessions where the PCs went totally perpendicular to what everyone else in the world was doing and the NPCs were then forced to respond.

In one episode the PCs decided to go into an unusual and abandoned section of town to create a 'super sweet ride for us and our phat lewt' and disturbed an army that had been building up there for weeks. They had ignored all the clues and had no idea it was there, but they didn't know that and attacked the city early. The city forces crushed them, but blamed the PCs for aggravating the bandits and kicked them out of the city.

Fabulous adventure involving little effort on my part but for the cackles of maniacal laughter.

In fact I try very hard to make the players as unreliant on me as possible, though I will fudge this ethic in order to prevent the game from bogging down. Nothing worse than the players arguing over what they are supposed to do in a room or forgetting what people told them earlier.

As a player, I have ruined more than one DMs plotline and I honestly do not know how I did it except on one occasion. In the end, one of our DMs refused to play with me except to have me run NPCs to fight the other PCs and the other started running evil campaigns.

 

[Zappo]

I haven't ever had a campaign turned upside-down by my players. Like Airwolf, however, I did kill one (actually two, but in the same way) campaign. Both times the DMs quitted and restarted (and no, I don't feel bad about it - they were both agonizing anyway).