Ok...Ummm...What Now?

[Hugh Neilson]

Since "Games Gone Awry" is now dead, how about discussing the topic (or something similar) here? I believe the original point was "A player did something totally unexpected, effectively derailing the game. How did it make for an interesting game? How did you get it running again?"

 

I had one recently in a Champs game. Our characters were transported to a different dimension. The occupants looked very different from us, and were asking us to surrender peacefully. My teammates were not really responding.

 

Now, I'm playing an "Impulsive, Impatient and Impetuous" character [yep, that's a Psych Lim...] with a substntial Magic VPP. Making matters worse, the dimensional crossing has somehow screwed up my mind link with the more sensible individual who normally keeps a bit of a rein on him. Normally, he'd follow the lead of his teammates, but they aren't leading.

 

So the first thing that comes to mind is "Get us out of here". One very nice INT roll later, he realizes he should get the rest of the group too. VPP roll for a Megascaled Teleport Area Effect, selectinve, 1 hex area (accurate) Teleport usable against others and

 

"We're all going 50 miles due north."

 

Followed immediately (by me - no one else had recovered enough to comment) "Except I have no clue which way North is so you better roll it".

 

Now, aparentkly we were supposed to either surrender, go down fighting or go down running. One or two escapes would have been fine too since we would eventually connect up again. Everyone gone wasn't so great.

 

And my teammates were less than thrilled when we landed several miles out in NY Harbour. Although I did note they were much quicker to react to "I can try again!" than they had been to "Put your hands in the air and surrender", so I guess it had some positive effects.

 

[For you completists out there, the Coast Guard picked us up - apparently blue lightning bolts attract attention wherever you go - and got us back in the game. Good old Coast Guard!]

[RavensPath]

Re: Ok...Ummm...What Now?

 

Thanks for continuing what I had started! And that's all I will say on Games Gone Awry.

 

We ended a 15 year D&D campaign with a twist the DM had not expected. Many of the years had been searching for weapons that were designed to slay demons that had been during the last demonic invasion. One of the special abilities was that an a natural 20, if another natural 20 was rolled the demon was dead, killed instantly.

 

Got to the demon price, realized we were fighting an image, fighter figured out where the prince was and attacked. And rolled two 20's in a row. The DM sat there stunned as he never thought it would happen in the final battle. But it did and the game was over. Needless to say we got lots of XP for it.

[sinanju]

Re: Ok...Ummm...What Now?

 

I joined a new gaming group after moving cross-country and started an "Expendables" campaign once. The PCs were all scouts on an STL "sleeper" ship (rather like Aliens). When the ship got to a planet, they were awakened to explore and either approve or reject a planet for colonization. I gave the players the option to be either volunteers or draftees; most chose to be draftees.

 

They arrive at the first planet and I first realize what sort of people I'm dealing with. The level of paranoia and caution they exhibited (first, we hover the drop ship over our chosen landing site to fuse the soil into a meters-thick plate of glass, we seed the area with sensors, begin erecting our temporary fortifications while the other guys back in the ship's machine shop start turning out the REAL stuff....) completely derailed all my campaign ideas. I simply wasn't prepared for their style of play.

 

On the other hand, the paranoia, personality conflicts and backstabbing amongst the PCs was highly entertaining anyhow. The alcoholic dropship pilot nearly killed them all on their first landing. One PC punched him out. While he was unconscious, the PC doctor implanted a remote-controlled "wondergland" that dispensed sober-up drugs. From then on, whenever they got ready to fly, the doctor zapped the remote and the pilot found himself "so sober your teeth hurt."

 

Two other characters commandeered the ship's com laser to send a message to their lawyers back on earth trying to get their convictions overturned and, failing that, get a restraining order against the NPC Captain and First Officer (Captain Stern and Hanover Fist) to keep them 100 yards away at all times. Douglas "Strangely" Brown, another PC, made a habit of going where no man had gone before in the realm of seeking out new taste treats on every planet...which entertaining results.

 

Alas, the game folded shortly since I was out of my league. But rather than flee the group, I hung around, learned how to work with them and launched a revised Expendables game. This one was eerily reminiscent of Stargate (before the movie, mind you) down to the big metal ring, the metal walkway leading to it, the underground, heavily-defended base, etc.

 

The gate took them to alternate dimensions, but they couldn't get any info about the other side short of stepping through. Nor could they take anything they couldn't carry with them. I promised the players I wouldn't put them into a lethal environment, but no promises otherwise. The players got together and calculated just how much weight 12 men could (barely) lift and shuffle through the gate with in the 30-second window. Then they presented me with a multi-page list of everything but the kitchen sink, starting with an inflated liferaft (in case of water landing), to which they were all clipped by climbing harnesses. The raft contained food, water, medical supplies, cold/desert gear, weapons, ammo, toolkits, survival equipment, climbing equipment, scuba equipment, mountain bikes, etc etc etc. Once they stepped thru the gate, they dropped the raft, surveyed the area for threats, then determined what equipment they actually NEEDED for the next three days, detailed some NPCs (half the team was NPCs) to watch the raft, and the PCs did the exploration.

 

This was not at all what I'd had in mind, but they'd beaten me fair and square, so that became SOP. That game lasted considerably longer than the first one.

[teh bunneh]

Re: Ok...Ummm...What Now?

 

One of the PCs got kidnapped by a baddie with a fetish for hunting. He lured the rest of us to his lair and challenged us to a "Most Dangerous Game" type scenario, with the kidnapped PC as the prize and death as the reward if we failed. We had no choice but to agree.

 

He drove us out to the point where we were starting and told us, "The game has begun."

 

I asked him, "So we're starting right now?" "Yes," he answered. "You have twenty four hours to find your teammate... or you will all die."

 

So I pulled out my hunting rifle (generously loaned by the baddie, who wanted to make sure we were giving him a good challenge) and shot him dead, right there.

 

The GM was so stunned that she had to go into the kitchen for 10 minutes just to wrap her mind around it.

 

Bill.

[Blue]

Re: Ok...Ummm...What Now?

 

I think I wasted all my best stories on the unfriendly thread. Oh well. Maybe I'll remember something else.

[Magmarock]

Re: Ok...Ummm...What Now?

 

So I pulled out my hunting rifle (generously loaned by the baddie, who wanted to make sure we were giving him a good challenge) and shot him dead, right there.

 

The GM was so stunned that she had to go into the kitchen for 10 minutes just to wrap her mind around it.

 

 

Man that woulda sucked if the hostage was in a timed death trap and the dead villain was the only one who knew where the hostage was...

 

 

Mags

[Chuckg]

Re: Ok...Ummm...What Now?

 

Or if the villain had handed you the rifle and gone "You'll find the ammo at the first checkpoint." Which is, of course, far enough away that by the time you've found the ammo, he's long since found the exit.

[Chimpira]

Re: Ok...Ummm...What Now?

 

Ok. I was in this Heroes Unlimited game where the GM said aloud that he hoped that our characters come out low powered. (We were rolling randomly for our powers and what not). I rolled up a character with Divine Aura and Energy Absorbtion. Another PC that I was with rolled up a guy with alter self and mechano link. We both made guys that used to work for the government. Since the GM said he wanted low powered I tried to even go the extra mile. My guy was so shaken and disgusted by what had happened to his previous team during an assignment, he stopped using his powers and became a pit fighter. (The plan was for him to only use the powers as a back up when the fit hit the shan but to try my best and rely on the environment I was in.)

 

The other PC and I were recruited to look into a mysterious ship crossing into American waters that would not answer any hails. At the briefing, the GM told us that they believed that dangerous terrorists were in command and planned to use the ship to launch an attack on American soil. The other PC and I looked at each other and said "blow it up." The GM looked uneasy for a couple of seconds and said that they were not sure what was going on with the ship and they needed us to investigate. I shrugged and asked if we could have satellite imaging of the ship. He, immediately feeling that we were back to where he wanted us to be, tried to dazzle us with how good their tech was with that. I, then, said "Do we have any Coast Guard nearby?" He looked uneasy again and said "yes." I smiled and asked them to send them to the ship and see if they just had a communications failure of some sort. We watched as they entered the ship and did not return. We looked at the GM and said "Blow it up." But the GM said that they still could not launch anything at it and needed for us to board the ship. We shrugged and went along (not wanting to go out of our way to destroy his storyline that he was so protective of as it seemed the campaign revolved around us entering the ship). We were going to have about 12 hours before the mission started and we asked if we could be equipped. The GM said yes and the other PC and I went to work on the list. We presented the list to the GM (nothing illegal or super tech just a lot of stuff you could grab if you had access to a military armoury or anything equivalent to that) As we were leaving and asking about our equipment the GM gives us a couple of handguns and some flack jackets. He tells us that they had no time to find the equipment. The other player and I look at each other and just let it pass.

 

Long story short (I know, too late) We get aboard the ship and using the other PC's Mechano-link we get a video feed of the whole interior of the ship and see the enemy send a large attack force to attack Los Angeles. We, also, see the enemy spending a considerable amount of time loading up a boat. For some reason the GM never imagined that we would try to steal this boat. We steal the boat, after fighting a Mega Damage creature. Yep, Mega Damage. (This was the game that he wanted us to be low powered). We could not even scratch him. Lucky for us the objective that the other PC and I had was to steal the boat, which we accomplished, even though I was almost killed from one hit from a .50 heavy machinegun (they had three in the interior of the ship that could swivel 360 degrees. As far as I could tell they could not be moved out of the ship and were placed deep inside the ship so that the only forces they could hit would be their own.). We start looking through the boat and find a linkup to some type of computer system that has all the enemies and our allies outlined from space. I think that it some type of targeting system and tell the other PC to change it so that the signals are all mixed up with half the enemy being targeted as well. (For some reason that bit is never referenced again and nothing happens) We look through the ship and find two (count them) two guns after they had been loading this boat for about half an hour. (The men that we were working for confiscated them from us and returned dangerous prototypes that could blow up on us later) I, even, had a hard time finding a first aid kit to treat my wounds but he relented and allowed me to find one.

 

Needless to say, I quit playing that game eventually.(even after having a chat with him about why I was having a hard time with it) The GM was a friend and I felt horrible about stopping playing but I (and the other people that were playing) were leaving each session angry. We all kind of just walked away from it. He later told me that he had big plans for the boat, the targeting system and everything else we screwed up for him.

[teh bunneh]

Re: Ok...Ummm...What Now?

 

Or if the villain had handed you the rifle and gone "You'll find the ammo at the first checkpoint." Which is' date=' of course, far enough away that by the time you've found the ammo, he's long since found the exit.[/quote']

 

Yeah, that woulda sucked. Lucky for us, the GM never thought of it.

 

Man that woulda sucked if the hostage was in a timed death trap and the dead villain was the only one who knew where the hostage was...

 

She was, and he was -- it was one of those "You have 24 hours to find her or she'll die, and I'll be trying to kill you the whole time" deals. So we still had to find the hostage, but at least we didn't have to deal with him hunting us. Made life so much easier.

 

Bill.

[Chuckg]

Re: Ok...Ummm...What Now?

 

You know, it's at this point that my characters -- at least, my Iron Age characters -- shoot the guy somewhere disabling but not immediately lethal, and then start playing a game called 'pain management'. Specifically, for every question he doesn't answer, he gets to manage some pain.(*)

 

 

 

 

(*) Thank you, "Nodwick".