DISCLAIMER***** Some Carrion Crown: HoH spoilers! *******
My players arrive in town at the beginning of the first module. Things run smoothly, the funeral wraps up, and the NPC (Kendra) invites them to her home to await the reading of the will.
All agree and begin to leave...except for one particularly skeptical and observant player - the summoner.
Using a 'pay my last respects, can I have a moment alone' line to ditch the group, he stands solo in the cemetery and asks if anyone is around.
Instinctively, I know what he's up to, and according to the module, it was something he wasn't supposed to suspect until later...I didn't want to involve the Church of Pharasma at the time, as I wanted their presence to be dramatic and building, rather than acolytes stalking around the graveyard in the rain. However, someone HAD to be there to dissuade/observe him.
"Yes," I reply, drawing the word out. "Two grave tenders have just begun to shovel dirt onto the coffin."
The perfectly charismatic player repeats himself to them, wipes a "tear" from his eye, and leaves me no choice but...
"Of course, we're right sorry for your loss. The Professor was a good man. C'mon, Flint (first name I could think of on the spot)," the older man says to the younger. "Let's go tend to the verge behind the Selsey plot (first last name I could think of on the spot)."
The player makes a Perception check to see if anyone else is observing him...and my freckle-faced farm boy creation with no Stealth to speak of is watching the well dressed stranger from behind the crypt he and his older comrade had just moved on to.
"What kind of man can't leave another man alone with his grief?!" The summoner yells, pointing at Flint. "I asked you once, more kindly than is my nature, but I will NOT ask you a second time!"
The player intimidates the ever-loving corn out of poor farmer Flint, who had instantly become a suspect in the player's eyes. Flint, a terrified fifteen year old freckle-faced kid, drops his rake and sprints away in fear... which of course makes him even more guilty.
The player... (please don't, please don't, please don- Oh ***) ... gives chase, and thus begins the 'graveyard chase scene' less than twenty minutes into the first module.
"He's a thickheaded lad, but he means no harm!" The older grave tender calls, but I can already see another player jotting down notes. ("Did he says Selsey plot?" That player asks. "Something's up with the Selsey plot.")
Eventually, the player catches up with a winded and wide-eyed Flint, who I've been working so hard at making seem completely nonthreatening and incompetent, using phrases such as: gap-toothed farmhand, and flailing adolescent. It was too late, however. Flint had two strikes: Spying and fleeing. I can hardly blame anyone, I'm thinking as the Summoner instructs his Eidolon to grapple Flint, and then drags him up the side of a mausoleum.
"TELL ME HOW YOU WERE INVOLVED IN THE PROFESSOR'S DEATH!" The Summoner roars.
"I-I don't know! I didn't do nothin'! I'm just workin' here to make some extra coin, I swear!" Flint screams, hanging upside down in the eidolon's grip, and over the edge of the mausoleum.
"Really? Because I think my eidolon is beginning to lose her grip..."
"NOOOOOOO!" Flint wails, now crying.
How did we come to this, I wonder, laughing out loud now and allowing the ruse to play out.
Eventually, the Summoner releases poor Flint, checks the grave, returns to the party, and the story gets back on track... but I swear, it was the most unexpected and hilarious derailment I've ever experienced.
So forum brethren...
What was your funniest/craziest/most out-of-the-blue game derailment?
Fiendish Dire Duckweres. A bit tired to tell the story at the moment, but if people want to hear it I'll post it tomorrow.
MattR - Wow...just wow.
Tribal, I'd love to hear it, lol....
Okay Kingmaker Spoler ahead.
During the second part of the Kingmaker ap when you are trying to discover there is a werewolf in your town causing problems, one of the players rolled a natural 1 on a roll to identify what was killing people. Normally I don't do the 1s auto fail and 20s auto succeed on a skill roll, just if you fail it's spectacular and if you succeed it's spectacular. Mind you the other person who rolled who was the party brain passed with flying colors, still this happened.
Summoner: I got a 1.
Me: Did it pass?
Summoner: Nope
Me: You're not quite sure what caused the attack, but the bite marks look like the could have been caused by a large duck.
Now at this point things could have gone back to the regularly scheduled kill the werewolf session, but the character would not be convinced and another jumped right in with it.
Summoner: It had to be a wereduck.
Psion: No these are clearly wolf bites, it had to be a werewolf.
Alchemist: I'm with the summoner, those are duck bites, but they are so big it had to be a fiendish dire wereduck.
Now we are all laughing our backsides off at this point, because they are going for it with everything they have. Three party members continue working on the werewolf issue, while the summoner and alchemist goes looking for a fiendish dire duckwere.
It was only about a 20 minute derailment, since the other players were working towards the real goal, but those two rid their town of ducks, the price of feather pillows dropped for a while, and no duck will live in their town anymore.
LOL!
Somebody seriously needs to stat up a Fiendish Dire Wereduck...easter egg boss???
My summoner player is also the DM of a looooong running game, and I remember a story he told me once:
He had a large, like 10+ sized group at the time, and he's describing the scenery as they are traveling.
DM: The trees lining the packed dirt roadside slowly pull back as you crest the hill, at the bottom of which, a wooden bridge spans the length of a lazily flowing river that winds its way through the valley.
The party stopped and began discussing tactics for crossing said bridge, as no bridge can EVER just be a bridge...especially a bridge with a description! So the DM sat and inwardly laughed as his players blew a GIGANTIC load of defensive spells and cautiously approached in battle formation, making Spot checks the entire way...
Of course it was just a bridge.
But to this day whenever we encounter something, we ask ourselves, "Is this actually a magically warded and hideously trapped door....or is it just a bridge?"