Just what the title asks. What delicate conspiracy did you lay before your players, only to have them wildly misinterpret things and go after the wrong 'BBEG'? What helpful ally did you present to your players, only to have them get suspicious and murderknife them? When did your players finally get their hands on the super-magical, defeat the BBEG macguffin only for you to realize they thought they were supposed to... eat it?
Most of these errors can probably be traced back to us, if only for a failure of imagination (failure to imagine how players might get the wrong idea). But I bet there are some funny stories out there.
Right now, my players have had a crisis of confidence so I thought it would be a good time to introduce them to the "B team". Since they have failed in a handful of plot sensitive missions, I created another team of adventurers and they have been out in the world, righting wrongs and generally being a thorn in the BBEG's side. I thought meeting these guys and learning they are not alone in their fight would help boost my PC's morale. I even had a team building adventure all planned. My PC's have managed to stay under the radar recently, but the "B-Team" has been targeted for assassination. This is all happening in a big town and I figured my players could catch wind of this, save the day, and boom, new big happy alliance. So far things are progressing nicely as my PC's have made contact with and become super-tight with... the assassins. These evil, necromancy-ish cultists somehow seemed WAY more trustworthy than the adventurers so my players cozied up to them. And they have bought - without question - the cultists lies about those sketchy looking adventurers. My PC's are already thinking about taking their own action against the "B-Team" and practically speaking I think IRL the assassins would try to use my PC's to do the job for them and then clean up any mess afterward. That might give me an opportunity for a last second, "Hey wait, we're not the bad-guys!" save, but who knows? I've been dropping some painfully obvious hints (the cultists are wearing freaking robes with the BBEG's trademarked logo on them) and my players do not want to see what's right in front of them. I'm worried the "B-Team" might be doomed....
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PC - Ethel - Human - Lvl 4 Necromancer - Undying Dragons * Serge Marshblade - Human - Lvl 5 Eldritch Knight - Hoard of the Dragon Queen
DM -(Homebrew) Heroes of Bardstown *Red Dead Annihilation: ToA *Where the Cold Winds Blow : DoIP * Covetous, Dragonish Thoughts: HotDQ * Red Wine, Black Rose: CoS * Greyhawk: Tides of War
It's probably simpler to list what players get right. :-)
I have a town in game. As soon as the PCs entered town, the chief guard sought them out and interviewed them about their intentions. When bandits were reported on the road, the chief left town before dawn the next day to try to bring them in. When a hole opened in a street and the PCs investigated, the chief guard arranged for ropes to lower them down. When the PCs came back up there were barricades blocking the hole and teams of townsfolk to pull up rescued people on ropes, all organised by the chief. He had notified the parents of the kids who fell in the hole, so they were all waiting. When the PCs reported the hole was clear, he went down with a deputy to gather clues. When clues pointed to a local merchant, he went personally to interrogate the merchant.
Yet a couple of weeks ago, I overheard one player in the game say to another, "We can't reply on the sherriff in the town, he's useless. Can't do a thing."
Players always seem to miss clues. Part of it is probably communication- I know there are things that I should make more clear, but don't because in the moment I don't lean on my notes and stress how dangerous/important/interesting something is. Other times, it's the dice. If everyone just doesn't notice something because their passive checks are a bit too low and the dice decide that no one is getting above a 10 on this check, then things get missed there, leading to potentially massive implications being missed.
I think a particularly memorable one for me was a lich's phylactery that a party took out of a labyrinth. Every phylactery has to be destroyed in a different way, and one particular method for destroying this phylactery was to eat the beating heart contained in a glass jar. It was hidden behind a sphinx who was very distractable, but also way more powerful than the party (since we had a couple players drop mid session, taking a five player group down to two after a player death to just awful dice luck). The Drunken Master monk, who was notorious for eating things, got his hands on the phylactery. They proceeded to run from the sphinx through the labyrinth (because instead of ducking through the side room, with one party member distracting the sphinx and the other grabbing the phylactery, one decided to just run past him and provoke a fight), with the monk having taken the heart out of the jar after realizing that it (the jar and the heart) couldn't be destroyed with their weapons. They eventually escaped through a combination of good luck on the dice and DM generosity (I made the sphinx a bit more clueless about the labyrinth than it should have been) and the quest giving NPC destroyed the phylactery with a magical effect. Afterwards, the monk's player even told me that he considered eating it, but didn't- even though his character is notorious for eating things that should not be eaten. The fact that the party got into combat and didn't check the side room basically invalidated all my hints and story points that they didn't end up getting from the sphinx or the environment, and my gambling on a player doing what the player always does didn't pan out.
But, sometimes you slap players in the face with things. Give them a rune inscribed skull that serves as the key to a box containing an ancient evil and have NPCs warn them that it's dangerous and do the "Are you sure?" DM warning message and have them proceed anyway? Welcome to the Lich in a Box incident.
While walking through an underground passage they came across a wooden box. They immediately started inspecting it with the highest suspicion ever. It... was just a wooden box... So, there they went: "Throw an investigation check." The first one threw miserably - "It's just a box, you don't see anything weird about it." - the second player tried it too - "It's still just a wooden box that you can open." Eventually they opened it. It was empty... They spent about 15 minutes jumping around this box while shitting themselves. It was amusing, but so unnecessary, especially when they didn't even investigate the rest of the underground passage, figuring out where the box came from and whatnot.
Me: introduces a chaotic evil jester villain named Grimm
1. make him the leader of a criminal guild 2. make him absolutely insane because he has voices in his head that require eating souls to quiet them 3. gave him a bone dragon pet that the players had to fight at one point 4. when the players needed a magic item from an ancient temple, he got to it first and made the players do a mission for him to get it back
and for SOME REASON the players always bow and treat him as a hero whenever they see him.... I'm not kidding
Just what the title asks. What delicate conspiracy did you lay before your players, only to have them wildly misinterpret things and go after the wrong 'BBEG'? What helpful ally did you present to your players, only to have them get suspicious and murderknife them? When did your players finally get their hands on the super-magical, defeat the BBEG macguffin only for you to realize they thought they were supposed to... eat it?
Most of these errors can probably be traced back to us, if only for a failure of imagination (failure to imagine how players might get the wrong idea). But I bet there are some funny stories out there.
Right now, my players have had a crisis of confidence so I thought it would be a good time to introduce them to the "B team". Since they have failed in a handful of plot sensitive missions, I created another team of adventurers and they have been out in the world, righting wrongs and generally being a thorn in the BBEG's side. I thought meeting these guys and learning they are not alone in their fight would help boost my PC's morale. I even had a team building adventure all planned. My PC's have managed to stay under the radar recently, but the "B-Team" has been targeted for assassination. This is all happening in a big town and I figured my players could catch wind of this, save the day, and boom, new big happy alliance. So far things are progressing nicely as my PC's have made contact with and become super-tight with... the assassins. These evil, necromancy-ish cultists somehow seemed WAY more trustworthy than the adventurers so my players cozied up to them. And they have bought - without question - the cultists lies about those sketchy looking adventurers. My PC's are already thinking about taking their own action against the "B-Team" and practically speaking I think IRL the assassins would try to use my PC's to do the job for them and then clean up any mess afterward. That might give me an opportunity for a last second, "Hey wait, we're not the bad-guys!" save, but who knows? I've been dropping some painfully obvious hints (the cultists are wearing freaking robes with the BBEG's trademarked logo on them) and my players do not want to see what's right in front of them. I'm worried the "B-Team" might be doomed....
PC - Ethel - Human - Lvl 4 Necromancer - Undying Dragons * Serge Marshblade - Human - Lvl 5 Eldritch Knight - Hoard of the Dragon Queen
DM - (Homebrew) Heroes of Bardstown * Red Dead Annihilation: ToA * Where the Cold Winds Blow : DoIP * Covetous, Dragonish Thoughts: HotDQ * Red Wine, Black Rose: CoS * Greyhawk: Tides of War
It's probably simpler to list what players get right. :-)
I have a town in game. As soon as the PCs entered town, the chief guard sought them out and interviewed them about their intentions. When bandits were reported on the road, the chief left town before dawn the next day to try to bring them in. When a hole opened in a street and the PCs investigated, the chief guard arranged for ropes to lower them down. When the PCs came back up there were barricades blocking the hole and teams of townsfolk to pull up rescued people on ropes, all organised by the chief. He had notified the parents of the kids who fell in the hole, so they were all waiting. When the PCs reported the hole was clear, he went down with a deputy to gather clues. When clues pointed to a local merchant, he went personally to interrogate the merchant.
Yet a couple of weeks ago, I overheard one player in the game say to another, "We can't reply on the sherriff in the town, he's useless. Can't do a thing."
Sheesh.
Players always seem to miss clues. Part of it is probably communication- I know there are things that I should make more clear, but don't because in the moment I don't lean on my notes and stress how dangerous/important/interesting something is. Other times, it's the dice. If everyone just doesn't notice something because their passive checks are a bit too low and the dice decide that no one is getting above a 10 on this check, then things get missed there, leading to potentially massive implications being missed.
I think a particularly memorable one for me was a lich's phylactery that a party took out of a labyrinth. Every phylactery has to be destroyed in a different way, and one particular method for destroying this phylactery was to eat the beating heart contained in a glass jar. It was hidden behind a sphinx who was very distractable, but also way more powerful than the party (since we had a couple players drop mid session, taking a five player group down to two after a player death to just awful dice luck). The Drunken Master monk, who was notorious for eating things, got his hands on the phylactery. They proceeded to run from the sphinx through the labyrinth (because instead of ducking through the side room, with one party member distracting the sphinx and the other grabbing the phylactery, one decided to just run past him and provoke a fight), with the monk having taken the heart out of the jar after realizing that it (the jar and the heart) couldn't be destroyed with their weapons. They eventually escaped through a combination of good luck on the dice and DM generosity (I made the sphinx a bit more clueless about the labyrinth than it should have been) and the quest giving NPC destroyed the phylactery with a magical effect. Afterwards, the monk's player even told me that he considered eating it, but didn't- even though his character is notorious for eating things that should not be eaten. The fact that the party got into combat and didn't check the side room basically invalidated all my hints and story points that they didn't end up getting from the sphinx or the environment, and my gambling on a player doing what the player always does didn't pan out.
But, sometimes you slap players in the face with things. Give them a rune inscribed skull that serves as the key to a box containing an ancient evil and have NPCs warn them that it's dangerous and do the "Are you sure?" DM warning message and have them proceed anyway? Welcome to the Lich in a Box incident.
While walking through an underground passage they came across a wooden box. They immediately started inspecting it with the highest suspicion ever.
It... was just a wooden box... So, there they went: "Throw an investigation check."
The first one threw miserably - "It's just a box, you don't see anything weird about it." - the second player tried it too - "It's still just a wooden box that you can open."
Eventually they opened it. It was empty... They spent about 15 minutes jumping around this box while shitting themselves. It was amusing, but so unnecessary, especially when they didn't even investigate the rest of the underground passage, figuring out where the box came from and whatnot.
not exactly "got this wrong" buuuuut....
Me: introduces a chaotic evil jester villain named Grimm
1. make him the leader of a criminal guild
2. make him absolutely insane because he has voices in his head that require eating souls to quiet them
3. gave him a bone dragon pet that the players had to fight at one point
4. when the players needed a magic item from an ancient temple, he got to it first and made the players do a mission for him to get it back
and for SOME REASON the players always bow and treat him as a hero whenever they see him.... I'm not kidding
Quest goal: "Find out how the BBEG gained its power and escaped from the mysterious island."
Endgame:
BBEG: * wants to start a monologue *
Players: "KILL IT!"