I was reading the entertaining Alexandrian articles (who pioneered the Three Clue Rule), and he has several articles about situations where his players unexpectedly upset his campaign plot ideas(The Alexandrian - Tales from the Table and The Alexandrian - Tales from the Table). Either through a remarkable flash of insight or sheer dumb luck, the players kill off a major campaign villain too early, or gain access to an area that you hadn't counted on any of them having the means to gain access to.
Most of these leave us as DMs floundering to replace a crucial villain who's just had his ticket punched prematurely, or finding a way to keep resourceful PCs from getting their hands on the Vorpal Superlaser about 10 levels before you wanted to them to. Here's my story of what happened to me in a recent campaign.
The PCs had just saved a frontier village from the plot of the evil nobleman who had conspired to have the village overrun by marauding monsters from the surrounding wilderness. They had informed the town's constable of the situation, and went to confront the mayor in his home.
They found him in his study, sitting behind the desk. In one hand he held a glass of white wine, and in the other a loaded crossbow pointed at the PCs. I allowed a Perception check: successes showed that the end of the crossbow bolt was smeared with a dark amber substance, and very high Perception checks showed that there was a generous amount of a dark amber liquid suspended in the wine glass.
WHAT I WANTED TO HAPPEN: The "poisons" on the two items were designed to look identical; however, they were not. The crossbow was tipped with a truly deadly poison, but the wine was laced with an alchemical substance designed to slow heart rate and simulate a death-like state. His plan was to give a stereotypical villain tirade, shoot the NPC constable with the poisoned crossbow bolt, and then drink the wine; ideally, after narrowly saving the life of the Constable (or not, it was a Skill Challenge), they would find the mayor's "lifeless" corpse and leave him for dead. He would then regain consciousness after the sedative wore off, and escape his grave to torment the PCs as a recurring villain later in the campaign.
WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: As above, except after they saved the poisoned NPC:
Party's Cleric: "I don't want this evil mayor guy coming back as a zombie or something. I cast Gentle Repose on his body."
Me: "Uh ... (after reading several times that Gentle Repose targets "a corpse") ... your ritual fails."
Party: "How can it fail? I passed my heal check. I pray to my deity to prevent this dead body from rising as an abomination from the grave."
Me, uncomfortable: "You feel as though you performed the ritual perfectly, but something about the ... uh ... materials you're working with prevents you from completing the spell."
So, they worked it out pretty quickly that he wasn't actually dead, and proceeded to rectify that situation. And just like that, the scourge of this frontier town and major bad guy in the campaign to come got put down while he was having a nap.
So what about you guys? When have your players thrown a monkey wrench into your best laid evil plans?
Most of these leave us as DMs floundering to replace a crucial villain who's just had his ticket punched prematurely, or finding a way to keep resourceful PCs from getting their hands on the Vorpal Superlaser about 10 levels before you wanted to them to. Here's my story of what happened to me in a recent campaign.
The PCs had just saved a frontier village from the plot of the evil nobleman who had conspired to have the village overrun by marauding monsters from the surrounding wilderness. They had informed the town's constable of the situation, and went to confront the mayor in his home.
They found him in his study, sitting behind the desk. In one hand he held a glass of white wine, and in the other a loaded crossbow pointed at the PCs. I allowed a Perception check: successes showed that the end of the crossbow bolt was smeared with a dark amber substance, and very high Perception checks showed that there was a generous amount of a dark amber liquid suspended in the wine glass.
WHAT I WANTED TO HAPPEN: The "poisons" on the two items were designed to look identical; however, they were not. The crossbow was tipped with a truly deadly poison, but the wine was laced with an alchemical substance designed to slow heart rate and simulate a death-like state. His plan was to give a stereotypical villain tirade, shoot the NPC constable with the poisoned crossbow bolt, and then drink the wine; ideally, after narrowly saving the life of the Constable (or not, it was a Skill Challenge), they would find the mayor's "lifeless" corpse and leave him for dead. He would then regain consciousness after the sedative wore off, and escape his grave to torment the PCs as a recurring villain later in the campaign.
WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED: As above, except after they saved the poisoned NPC:
Party's Cleric: "I don't want this evil mayor guy coming back as a zombie or something. I cast Gentle Repose on his body."
Me: "Uh ... (after reading several times that Gentle Repose targets "a corpse") ... your ritual fails."
Party: "How can it fail? I passed my heal check. I pray to my deity to prevent this dead body from rising as an abomination from the grave."
Me, uncomfortable: "You feel as though you performed the ritual perfectly, but something about the ... uh ... materials you're working with prevents you from completing the spell."
So, they worked it out pretty quickly that he wasn't actually dead, and proceeded to rectify that situation. And just like that, the scourge of this frontier town and major bad guy in the campaign to come got put down while he was having a nap.
So what about you guys? When have your players thrown a monkey wrench into your best laid evil plans?
Players outwitting you should be something to cherish - let them hear you brag them up to other DMs. My very favorite moments are when they do things like that.
