Unassuming Local Guy |
One of my favorite Pathfinder moments (or any such gaming medium, whether playing or DMing) goes as follows from DMing Reign of Winter
But it always amused me that two lines of text, something so mundane and innocuous derailed the game for almost an hour and half.
My question to you is, what is the smallest or most mundane sounding thing that either derailed or caused chaos/hilarity in your game?
Silent Saturn |
You don't need to bump a thread if it's only been an hour, you know.
Years ago, the group and I were low-level and we had a few days of downtime to try and earn some coin. We decided to roleplay out the profession checks. My barbarian's profession was "courier", so I told the GM I was going to all the farmhouses and cottages on the outskirts of town and volunteering to bring letters or packages into town for tips.
The GM, recognizing an adventure hook when he saw one, decided that the last letter I delivered for the day was actually a letter entreating the recipient to help the sender explore some nearby cave to recover a lost bag of jewels. The recipient took one look at the letter and said "Oh, not this guy again. Listen, son, go tell this guy he can find someone else for his daft treasure hunt. Hell, go find the treasure yourself if you're looking to earn some coin. Who knows, maybe he's telling the truth after all." With that, he shut the door on me.
The rest of the players heard this and immediately assumed that:
1) The story of the treasure was a hoax,
2) The letter writer was a notorious hoax perpetrator,
3) He had nefarious motives for trying to get people into that cave.
The really interesting part is that all of these conclusions seemed to be drawn from the assumption that EVERY LETTER I HAD DELIVERED ALL DAY was from that same guy. I (and the GM) had assumed that I had gone all around the outskirts of town collecting a few pieces of mail from each house and delivering them. The rest of the players, however, spent a good ten minutes convincing themselves that we had discovered a medieval 419 scammer. It was quite an entertaining train of thought to watch play out, before I finally interrupted to clarify.
Looking back, maybe I should have rolled with it. I bet the GM would have had fun introducing a "master of forgeries" as a villain.