The Devil is in the Details


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


One of my favorite Pathfinder moments (or any such gaming medium, whether playing or DMing) goes as follows from DMing Reign of Winter

AP Backstory:
After the portal in the first book Snows of Summer there's a town called Waldsby. Once visiting the inn the PCs meet the innkeeper and his wife who through aggressive hospitality try and get the PCs to drink tea. Unbeknownst to them the innkeeper and his wife work for the BBEG and one of the teas is a "tea of suggestion" when drunk imparts a suggestion as the spell to the PC of "leave town". The innkeeper gives it to whom he deems the party leader (most likely the fighter type)

The Fallout:
The fighter fails his save in private and receives the suggestion. He immediately states that his character walks out of the inn and out of town. The party is super confused and goes after him. They unsuccessfully try to convince him to return or stop. He continues to state his character is walking. The party eventually subdues him and ties him up. They have no idea what to do or what is going on. The fighter comes to and remembers nothing and is pissed. Eventually they go back to the inn to confront the innkeeper starting a fight.

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?


Bump-a-lump

Sczarni

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.

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