My players have unknowingly presented me with a problem.
==> Never expect things to always go as you want, naturally. :)
Situation, 30-35 pirates will end up attacking a residence where some prominent city figures are meeting. There were four routes they can take and i had planned for the pirates to split up in groups and hinted via an NPC forces could be split to stop them.
Now the party has rallied allies that match this number, but instead of deviding forces they plan to bunker down at said residence, this will result in a 70 (including the 5 party) people battle royale. On 1 map, and possibly inside the residence as well.
Otherwise having the smaller skirmishes would be easy to arrange, but now..
So, with what actions did your players surprise you?
Good or bad
Kingmaker - beginning of chapter four. My players got wind of upcoming trouble two months prior to when the chapter was supposed to start, and ended up subverting/preventing a good deal of that chapter's plot by acting early.
Rise of the Runelords- They find armor. Gargantuan armor. Three of them climb in it, wait for the enemy, and the strong one throws the other two and the armor around them at the enemy.
This happened twice.
The party met a dragon, and...
Hilarious!
In a White Wolf crossover style game-
After a few sessions of facing eldritch evils, and defeating great threats, and averting doom, my players wanted a break from dealing with everyone else's problems, and wanted to take time to deal with their lives. So, when news reports began about a monsterrampaging across central Canada (a Gangrel elder possessed by an aspect of Beast of War), they decide to... ignore it.
Television footage, newspapers, people talking in fearful whispers, nothing swayed them to action. I eventually decided that Beast of War was unimpressed by the resistance provided and simply left, after slaughtering a few million people.
Another time, in the same chronicle, the players inadvertently freed an Elder being who hadbeen ssealed away in fragments to prevent her power from being used. She had a nearly humanoid form, and claimed to be the designer of humans from when the Elder Ones created them as servants. In reward to those who freed her, she granted each a single wish. One player surprised me by making the same kind of wish as in the manga "Ah My Goddess", that is wishing that she'd stay as his companion. That created all sorts of unexpected consequences.
I have one guy right now... the one guy who throws the wrench in everything and is the only one to make me have to take a time-out to recalculate what happens next.
One time, he's playing a Goblin Gunslinger. Party's about 4th level, negotiating in the local Viking-analogue town that's about to be overrun by giant ants. Their mission is to save it. Talking to the weasely guy who's in charge simply due to lineage. His 'advisor' is clearly an evil Necromancer whispering things into his ear to not trust the party. Party rolls good anyway, convincing him to be helpful to them. Necromancer pulls out a bag, starts reaching into it.
"I sunder the bag." "You know, technically you can't, but I'll let you shoot it anyway. Lots of penalties though." He rolled high enough to not care.
BLAMMO!
Bag hit, full damage, pops. The Necro was opening the bag to consult with his boss, a Shadow Sorcerer (not the bloodline, the creature type) with more levels than the party put together, along with her 4 elite guards and 4 other Shadows. She was to be an encounter WAAAAAAY later in the campaign as she was pulling the strings behind the whole thing. Oops!
I roll for her. 1. She flubs her Sense Motive and freaks out, thinking high level heroes have been sent to slay her. Begins casting multiple defense spells and orders her guards to provide cover. Minion shadows attack. (Incidentally, this saves the party.)
Party has no magic weapons yet, aside from the archer who won a pack of 10 +1 arrows in an archery contest the day prior. He rolls like a god and manages to single-handedly pop one Shadow, then another the next round. The rest of the party is booking at top speed outside the great hall. Of course, he stretches his luck too far and decides that since these guys are chumps, he'll take 'em on alone while the party retreats. 4 rounds later he rises as a Shadow.
The rest of that session involves them running like mad and trying to escape the city before the inevitable Shadowpocalypse. They make it and hide in a dungeon.
Later the people controlling the ants burn the town down.
Needless to say, they failed their mission, but in such epic fashion! Nobody was too worried about it, but it completely sidetracked my plan of a big Braveheart style combat that would have been like Starship Troopers, but with Vikings VS Bugs.
One player surprised me by making the same kind of wish as in the manga "Ah My Goddess", that is wishing that she'd stay as his companion. That created all sorts of unexpected consequences.
Except for becoming an item, am i right?
One player surprised me by making the same kind of wish as in the manga "Ah My Goddess", that is wishing that she'd stay as his companion. That created all sorts of unexpected consequences.Except for becoming an item, am i right?
Yeah, the only transformations were her continued genetic life shaping experiments.