TRW Strips #129
Added 2024-09-03 03:30:23 +0000 UTCIn DnD, as in life, you can never predict how people are going to act. The last pages of this story are an homage to every game master who had their well-laid plans dashed because the players behaved unexpectedly. It could be that your players take everything deadly serious until your story needs them to and then they inexplicably start dicking around or, as in this case, a bunch of selfish screwups suddenly become a well-oiled combat machine only in the precise moment that doing so would fuck up your plans.
I only ran a couple of small campaigns myself with very small parties in my time, so I don't really have any stories of my own grand schemes being foiled to share. But it did happen occasionally when I was a player. Our exasperated game master would just have to throw up his hands and say something like "Look, you just fucking can't go in there, okay!?"
If you've got any stories of your own I'd love to hear them. Meanwhile this TRW adventure is nearly complete!
Comments
What made it worse was that we hadn't done anything outrageous, especially since the objective given to us was to track down the leader of a group of cultists. In hindsight I'm pretty sure his plan was for the bigwigs to all be running while we got engaged in a fight entering the warehouse. The problem being that we had logically concluded we should surround the building before making any moves which led to an immediate confrontation and the subsequent handwave that cancelled out our efforts
TheFirstSword
2024-09-06 01:10:51 +0000 UTCMan that is quite the calamity there! It's good that you were all able to take it in stride though.
Reinbach
2024-09-06 01:03:36 +0000 UTCYeah that's the worst. With many of the groups I was in I think a good half of our playtime was spent listening to others argue about mechanics while angrily pointing into rule books.
Reinbach
2024-09-06 01:01:57 +0000 UTCHe should indeed save them! XD
Reinbach
2024-09-06 01:00:38 +0000 UTCThanks! I was happy with that line. :)
Reinbach
2024-09-06 01:00:22 +0000 UTCProbably the smart way to go about it. But Kal is too proud! XD
Reinbach
2024-09-06 01:00:08 +0000 UTCGood lord that does sound random. XD
Reinbach
2024-09-06 00:59:43 +0000 UTCAin't it always the way. XD
Reinbach
2024-09-06 00:58:58 +0000 UTCYeah it can be a delicate balance to maintain at times, I imagine. Making the players think they're in control when you're actually trying to direct them a certain way.
Reinbach
2024-09-06 00:58:01 +0000 UTCUnderstandably so. XD
Reinbach
2024-09-06 00:56:54 +0000 UTCIncluding a wish spell is always asking for trouble. XD
Reinbach
2024-09-06 00:06:18 +0000 UTCIf online dnd a thing I might have to give it a a shot
Phil Token
2024-09-06 00:05:16 +0000 UTCWell it's not too late to give it a try if the interest strikes you. As I understand it it's easier than ever to find groups online.
Reinbach
2024-09-06 00:04:32 +0000 UTCOh man, I feel this one in my bones. Without going into too much detail, I set my players up with a hostage rescue, one that required them to save this ally who was more or less on their way to the gallows. The problem was we were running a roguish campaign, with everyone carrying different and conflicting motivations. Even their reasons for saving this NPC weren't completely aligned. Furthermore, a rival gang leader was also involved, trying to kill their ally on the road. Sounds simple, right? MY PLAN was to have the players stop the brigands, open the carriage, and "Oh no! Wrong carriage, we were setup!" kinda thing. Some reveals about who was pulling the strings, BBEG appears, maybe takes them hostage, you get the gist. WHAT HAPPENED was...well, they didn't open the carriage and due to some in-character differences, PVP broke out, resulting in a PC actually dying. The BBEG showed up and was just kinda...there, watching what was happening, trying to stop it somewhat, as it did interfere with his plan, but also like...kind of just stunned by the turn of events. Also the players were actually strong enough (and rolled well enough) that upon seeing the BBEG, they managed to just crush him too, even as beat up as they were. I mean, it was great, in a way, certainly a memorable session, and all the players were cool about it, but still. Definitely not what I thought would happen. It was probably just bad planning on my part, but I never felt so blindsided by my players before or since. The moral: "DMs plan and players laugh"
AintAsGoodAsIOnceWas
2024-09-05 09:07:54 +0000 UTCCan't stop the signal!
Coffee Sunshine
2024-09-03 10:53:18 +0000 UTCAs a DM I have to say i enjoy quite a lot when my players do this , coming with a smart solution that i did not foresee. That said, what I absolutely dislike is whenever a player doing bad faith rule interpretations and/or constant rule arguing when the things go wrong to avoid death or loosing a fight.
Graci
2024-09-03 10:23:14 +0000 UTCNo plan survives contact with players. Those thirteen undead warriors sound like they'll be devastating in Kal's next campaign, though!
Daniel Schwartz
2024-09-03 09:37:08 +0000 UTCI love the 10% increase to fuss raising. π
Nikuthulhu
2024-09-03 06:54:26 +0000 UTCAs an occasional GM, I admit that if they wanted to take a swing I'd let them. I'd probably warn them at the outset that "Oh by the way, this is gonna be punching above your weight class. But it's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off."
Kyman201
2024-09-03 04:47:46 +0000 UTCAdmit it. The 13 undead warriors are all modeled on the Castlewood High cheer squad, aren't they? And Kal's face in panel four was mine about two weeks ago when my players threw me a curve ball. One of my Star Wars players is a literal Disney Princess, on the run from her home planet. She recently learned her father the King had lied about her having been assassinated so that he could destroy a political rival of his. The princess and the rival teamed up to go back to her planet and expose the King's lies. Their clever scheme to expose the king fell apart due to betrayal, and I *expected* they would try to infiltrate the palace and contact the Queen and use her help. Nope. The party looked at me and said, "Clearly the only solution is to leave the planet and then highjack the broadcast booth at the Space Superbowl so the Princess can expose everything to the whole galaxy in the most WTF way possible".
Squid Hills
2024-09-03 03:58:52 +0000 UTCThose big! Brown! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOBS!!! I love Evil Necro-Nady! Also yes this is a recurring problem. The last time I ran an online game I had an issue with a player who was playing his character as "take charge" and inadvertently threw my entire campaign off the rails when he decided to visit the scene where villains had previously attacked. I wanted a fight scene early, so I was left making robot duplicates of the villains... but forgot about a player left at the base, who thus missed out on the fight for a MONTH (it was a play by post). A friend's had his campaign messed up because we heard a lady say she was nearly kidnapped by some guys from a certain place... and instead of investigating we all went back to the hotel room because we had a fight to prepare for. So he instead had mooks attack us in the hotel room XD.
ScuzzBucket
2024-09-03 03:46:53 +0000 UTCBig rule of GMing is if you don't want someone to die, don't even give the players the remote chance of killing them. One group I played with went all out chasing down an enemy leader, because that was the mission we were given, fighting through hordes of enemies to finally triumph in taking her down. The GM then had her climbing aboard a ship in the distance afterwards because it turns out he meant for her to be plot critical. Really sapped the wind out of the campaign when he did that one.
TheFirstSword
2024-09-03 03:44:41 +0000 UTCI mean. We had a campaign once where the DM gave us a boss Litch that was supposed to wreak us. But my level 10 paladin rolled some nat 20s and absolutely destroyed him in Two turns while shouting Samuel l Jackson's Bible verse from pulp fiction. The DM was a bit cranky for the rest of that session.
Slaughterbug
2024-09-03 03:39:34 +0000 UTCIn my previous campaign, my DM granted me a wish spell at like level 2 for saving a unicorn. I asked if he was sure, cause that's super bonkers and he said it was fine. Fast forward to the climax of the campaign and the magical mcguffin we've been searching for to do the thing that finishes the campaign turns out is possessed by a super powerful demon and is killing one of my party members. So I do the natural thing and wish the item away to save my friend. And then we couldn't finish the campaign...cause the thing we need is now gone forever. Oops.
llCDll
2024-09-03 03:37:56 +0000 UTCLove the illustration and story never played any dnd but after seeing baldurs gate 3 wished I woulda tried it looks awesome
Phil Token
2024-09-03 03:34:19 +0000 UTC
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