Biggest Shock!

[Singingcrow]

Biggest Shock!

A little preface, I'm currently in a ongoing game & have been playing for the past year & 1/2. We just discovered a week ago that the entire storyline & campaign background was a false reality! We now find ourselves in a new world with a different history & have to rediscover all that we knew.

I have to give KUDOS galore to my G.M. for carrying this charade off for over several years & not breaking stride.

 

So my question is this, what's been the biggest shock to you that you ever received in a gaming scenario?

[Certified]

Re: Biggest Shock!

 

Biggest Shock: There was no spoon

[Tech]

Re: Biggest Shock!

 

I can't think of the 'biggest shock'. However, I did pull off a hilarious (to me) shock on players recently. A couple characters were fighting a brick, who'd stolen a bag of jewelry. Another well-known hero shows up and puts the finishing blow on the brick, ko'ing the brick. He then says it's better if he takes it back to the store since these two new heroes aren't well-known like he is. After taking the bag, he superleaps away, leaving behind a costume of the well-known hero. It's Halfjack. The brick gets up, having faked the ko and uses tunneling to get away. The two original heroes stand there stunned. As GM, I gave them subtle hints and even a perception roll - which they didn't catch/make. So, I had a good laugh on the players, who took it well.

[Houston GM]

Re: Biggest Shock!

 

Biggest Shock!

So my question is this, what's been the biggest shock to you that you ever received in a gaming scenario?

My last campaign ended a month ago. It was a follow-up to a previous campaign that had occurred 16 years earlier (game time). At the end of the previous campaign, the PCs had fought a supergenius who had been making clones of superheroes.

 

For the follow-up campaign, the PCs were teen supers (14 or 15 years old). I didn't tell them that they were all clones of adult supers. Instead of being force-grown to adulthood, they'd been implanted (in vitro) into their parents.

 

I immediately started dropping hints about their origins. One PC had his senile grandmother as a DNPC. Even though the PC had Disguise, Acting, and sight-based shape-shifting, he described his grandmother as "always able to recognize me, regardless of what I look like." A few sessions into the campaign his grandmother mistook him for "Jesse". A moment later she recognized the PC and realized he wasn't Jesse. When the PC inquired, he learned that Jesse was a friend of his grandmother's that had "died when the aliens attacked."

 

Shortly thereafter, the PCs encountered a teenaged version of an adult PC from the previous campaign. (The teen was a result of the same cloning program.) They even remarked (out of character) on the similarity between the teen and the ex-PC.

 

Later in the campaign, they encountered the same ex-PC (now as an NPC). I pointed out to the one with Eidetic Memory that this person's powers manifested in the exact same way as the teen's powers did.

 

There were several other clues dropped, but the players never caught on until the last session. In that session, one of the PCs (who had water powers) ran into the original version of himself. The original looked at him and said, "Now this is just freaky." At that point it finally occurred to the player that they were all clones.

[Shaddakim]

Re: Biggest Shock!

 

My last campaign ended a month ago. It was a follow-up to a previous campaign that had occurred 16 years earlier (game time). At the end of the previous campaign, the PCs had fought a supergenius who had been making clones of superheroes.

 

For the follow-up campaign, the PCs were teen supers (14 or 15 years old). I didn't tell them that they were all clones of adult supers. Instead of being force-grown to adulthood, they'd been implanted (in vitro) into their parents.

...

There were several other clues dropped, but the players never caught on until the last session. In that session, one of the PCs (who had water powers) ran into the original version of himself. The original looked at him and said, "Now this is just freaky." At that point it finally occurred to the player that they were all clones.

 

 

Very cool and well done.

[penemue]

Re: Biggest Shock!

 

Woo.. Biggest Shock was definitely when the Teen Hero team accidentally destroyed the universe and then had to put it back together. Definitely a really good chance to Retcon the campaign after 25 years of baggage. The players loved it as the Teen Heroes remembered what the universe "used to be like" and were constantly surprised by the consequences of their arbitrary choices. Now that those characters are graduated and more "adult heroes" they are exploring the new world like explorers, finding subtle and some not so subtle changes to the world they thought they knew. Kind of adds a whole new meta-layer to the game.

[Manic Typist]

Re: Biggest Shock!

 

Houston... amazing. What were their reactions like?

[Singingcrow]

Re: Biggest Shock!

 

Woo.. Biggest Shock was definitely when the Teen Hero team accidentally destroyed the universe and then had to put it back together. Definitely a really good chance to Retcon the campaign after 25 years of baggage. The players loved it as the Teen Heroes remembered what the universe "used to be like" and were constantly surprised by the consequences of their arbitrary choices. Now that those characters are graduated and more "adult heroes" they are exploring the new world like explorers' date=' finding subtle and some not so subtle changes to the world they thought they knew. Kind of adds a whole new meta-layer to the game.[/quote']

 

That is sort of what we're going thru right now & it's interesting to see what players are resistant to changes in the history & which aren't. I'm a little bit lucky because I've only been playing with the group for a relatively short time & I'm not too attached to the histories.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: Biggest Shock!

 

I just killed off the empress of the player home empire in my fantasy game. She has been the Empress for over a game century and 15 real life years. ( it was my wife's idea when i said I thought the campaign needed a shake up) It stunned the players and galvanized them like nothing in along time. Spawned a lot of good role playing.

[HawksmoorSD]

Re: Biggest Shock!

 

I have a long standing game world that I use that has a lot of familiar characters and ideas that my friends who were playing know. Anything we all enjoyed from novels to Marvel and DC to a few video games and movies were tossed in. For example, there was a Superman clone named Champion who's first name was Clark, random showing up unstoppable green monster named Komodo who just wanted left alone, giant fire breathing radiation eating dinosaur and so on.

 

Anyways I set up a U.N. sponsored team that was led by a retired Bruce Wayne. He'd been forced to retire because The Joker actually managed to hit The Bat in face with an acid flower and cost him his eye. I had it set where he was a Nick Fury type and hand picked his team and everyone was absolutely enamored with working for him and loved the pep talks. Lots of role playing with the grumpy old man and his being moody and domineering. The players loved it. They never questioned any comments he made like "Its against the law to send you into that country so I can't send you. As of now you're on leave for 3 days and I do not want to see you. I have other things to do that will completely occupy my time." and he'd walk off leaving the folder about the problem sitting in front of all of them. They jumped all over it because it was the "right" thing to do.

 

They knew there was someone highly placed behind all that was going on. Bruce even pointed it out to them. They were dealing with an intelligent foe who was good at not being seen and moving behind the shadows. Flunkies who had vile jobs but never knew who their boss was. The players were ready because Bruce has their backs. How can you fail when The Bat is your leader?

 

Everything was going along fine till they found out that he'd went off the deep end from having his face scared and worked himself into the position so he could pick a team he could control with no questions asked. That way he could have a world which would be a much safer place ran under his correctly placed hand where little boys didn't need to be afraid.

 

Violence perpetrated by people who can't be found? Check. Governments collapsing due to said violence? Check. Heroes used to scare other heroes into line? Check. Heroes who felt dirty and wanted to hate me for a well run villain they could not find? Check.

[Snapdragon]

Re: Biggest Shock!

 

Biggest shock: everyone (except for me) was playing a villain pretending to be a hero. Everyone else thought they were the only 'under cover' villain as well.

The sad thing is, as a 'hero team' they were incredibly effective.

[JmOz]

Re: Biggest Shock!

 

Two Stories

 

a former GM had told us we were playing a game he had picked up at gencon called Spec Ops, where you all played soldiers

 

So we spent two months real time (once a week, 3-4 hours a session) invading Iraq looking for a downed AF Pilot

 

The second month was slowly getting through a vast complex, where the inhumanities we saw...well Hitler would be proud, one tribe basicaly being kept in cages and burned to a crisp...nasty stuff

 

Anyways we get to the lowest basement, and find the cell our guy is in, we blow the door with some C4, he looks bad, starving, unkept, uniform is ribbins, barely able to stand, I (yes my dumb ass character) rushes in, tells him everything will be ok, start to half cary him out

 

 

When he bites me, and my GM pulls out a GM screen for "All flesh must be eaten"

 

 

My personal favorite one I did was in a champions game

 

My Character was named the Brute

 

He was a nuclear (and in comic tradition general) scientist who while working on a new type of atomic bomb got irradiated, afterwards he would transform into a brick that looked something like a cave man

 

Would run around saying things like BRUTE SMASH, etc...

 

Anyways after playing this guy for 3 months or so, we are stoping a certain Dr from launching a mind control satalite. The Dr gives a speach about how we cannot defeat his master plan as the satalite will be in postion in 2 minutes and none of us know how to stop it blah blah blah

 

I then pass a note to the GM, he says roll 3 dice, I roll something around a 9 (It's been a couple years)

 

The Gm says "Ok Brute goes over to a computer, scratches his head a minute and then smashes it to bits, On the screen you see the rocket start to arc back towards earth, you figure it should crash land in the Atlantic ocean."

 

The other players were like "What did you do", etc...

 

In character I said "It was obviouly being controled by that computer so I destroyed it, destroying it's guidence and making sure it crash landed somewhere safe"

 

But you were bruted out, your a (Idiot) while powered up

 

Int 28 is stupid?

 

That's in your human form

 

No that's in both forms

 

WHAT

 

Ohh yah, one of my disads is "Likes to play practical Jokes"

 

I had a bunch of paper plates (With Pizza greese on them) thrown at me...a couple dice to if I recall

[Eosin]

Re: Biggest Shock!

 

In a FH game - The players ran across a wounded dryad. Her tree was splintered and nearly destroyed.

 

Now, the players were on an urgent mission to deliver a sealed letter from a powerful warlord to the most powerful wizard in the region. Already some weird stuff had happened. For Example: The party was delayed a few days by bad weather when they got to Red Gorge a small town of 600 people the place was smoldering from an attack. Everyone was slain save for a few shepherds caught in the hills. The shepherds indicated that an enemy army had attacked and methodically killed everyone within the town walls looking for something. The shepherds spoke of hags traveling with the army - and hags are one of the most feared creatures in the game. Hags are a fecund species driven to breed.

 

This and other "strange happenings" let the party know whatever they were carrying was dangerous!

 

Back to the Dryad. The party healer and tank does a little lay on hands action. By night fall he was cozy with the 30 COM Dryad. Needless to say, he got in touch with nature that night.

 

Fast forward 2 days. The healer is rifling through his pack when I comment that he notices the scroll case isn't in his backpack.

 

There is a moment of terror and confusion before the player screams - "it was a g$#*@& HAG!" How he linked two and two together was whip sharp but the look on his face was abject desolation. He had lost the "vital" message and he had mated with a hag.

[Singingcrow]

Re: Biggest Shock!

 

I have a long standing game world that I use that has a lot of familiar characters and ideas that my friends who were playing know. Anything we all enjoyed from novels to Marvel and DC to a few video games and movies were tossed in. For example, there was a Superman clone named Champion who's first name was Clark, random showing up unstoppable green monster named Komodo who just wanted left alone, giant fire breathing radiation eating dinosaur and so on.

 

Anyways I set up a U.N. sponsored team that was led by a retired Bruce Wayne. He'd been forced to retire because The Joker actually managed to hit The Bat in face with an acid flower and cost him his eye. I had it set where he was a Nick Fury type and hand picked his team and everyone was absolutely enamored with working for him and loved the pep talks. Lots of role playing with the grumpy old man and his being moody and domineering. The players loved it. They never questioned any comments he made like "Its against the law to send you into that country so I can't send you. As of now you're on leave for 3 days and I do not want to see you. I have other things to do that will completely occupy my time." and he'd walk off leaving the folder about the problem sitting in front of all of them. They jumped all over it because it was the "right" thing to do.

 

They knew there was someone highly placed behind all that was going on. Bruce even pointed it out to them. They were dealing with an intelligent foe who was good at not being seen and moving behind the shadows. Flunkies who had vile jobs but never knew who their boss was. The players were ready because Bruce has their backs. How can you fail when The Bat is your leader?

 

Everything was going along fine till they found out that he'd went off the deep end from having his face scared and worked himself into the position so he could pick a team he could control with no questions asked. That way he could have a world which would be a much safer place ran under his correctly placed hand where little boys didn't need to be afraid.

 

Violence perpetrated by people who can't be found? Check. Governments collapsing due to said violence? Check. Heroes used to scare other heroes into line? Check. Heroes who felt dirty and wanted to hate me for a well run villain they could not find? Check.

 

 

This sounds like something our GM would do... I hope he doesn't get any ideas...

[Theron]

Re: Biggest Shock!

 

I'm going to post this one, even though I never actually got to use it. The premise of the campaign was that all of the PCs were "Nu-Men," artificially-grown superhumans, created by PROJECT NU-MANITY.

 

The Awful Truth of course was something different. They'd been kidnapped by the project, mutated in horrid experiments to give them superpowers, then had their memories wiped. Over time, the old memories would begin to assert themselves, a stranger on the street would mistake them for someone ("But you can't be John! He died six years ago!"). How they handled this news would determine the direction of the campaign.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Biggest Shock!

 

Biggest shock, from a fantasy game:

 

My character was actually the son of the Lady of the Lake.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Biggest Shock!

 

Just because some watery bint gives birth to you doesn't make her your mother. In a properly constituted society, each community would be, not some patriarchal family, but an anarcho-syndicalist commune....

[A_Pail_Rider]

Re: Biggest Shock!

 

My personal favorite one I did was in a champions game

 

My Character was named the Brute

 

He was a nuclear (and in comic tradition general) scientist who while working on a new type of atomic bomb got irradiated, afterwards he would transform into a brick that looked something like a cave man

 

Would run around saying things like BRUTE SMASH, etc...

 

Anyways after playing this guy for 3 months or so, we are stoping a certain Dr from launching a mind control satalite. The Dr gives a speach about how we cannot defeat his master plan as the satalite will be in postion in 2 minutes and none of us know how to stop it blah blah blah

 

I then pass a note to the GM, he says roll 3 dice, I roll something around a 9 (It's been a couple years)

 

The Gm says "Ok Brute goes over to a computer, scratches his head a minute and then smashes it to bits, On the screen you see the rocket start to arc back towards earth, you figure it should crash land in the Atlantic ocean."

 

The other players were like "What did you do", etc...

 

In character I said "It was obviouly being controled by that computer so I destroyed it, destroying it's guidence and making sure it crash landed somewhere safe"

 

But you were bruted out, your a (Idiot) while powered up

 

Int 28 is stupid?

 

That's in your human form

 

No that's in both forms

 

WHAT

 

Ohh yah, one of my disads is "Likes to play practical Jokes"

 

I had a bunch of paper plates (With Pizza greese on them) thrown at me...a couple dice to if I recall

 

:rofl: Oh man, that's a blast!

[Korvar]

Re: Biggest Shock!

 

I'm going to post this one' date=' even though I never actually got to use it. The premise of the campaign was that all of the PCs were "Nu-Men," artificially-grown superhumans, created by PROJECT NU-MANITY.[/quote']

 

OH THE NU-MANITY!

 

 

...sorry.

[A_Pail_Rider]

Re: Biggest Shock!

 

OH THE NU-MANITY!

 

 

...sorry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Beetle]

Re: Biggest Shock!

 

I ran an FH campaign where the PCs were attempting to stop an unidentified evil sorcerer from gaining 5 powerful magical stones and using them to ascend to godhood. After acquiring one of the stones (the bad guy already had 2), the party went to the hidden city of wizards to consult with them, only to find it destroyed (yes, I ripped off Barbara Hambly…). The only clue was badge of a rearing gryphon that one of the city guards had ripped from an attacker’s clothing (the attackers had taken their dead with them)

 

The PC wizard of the group knew that not all the powerful wizards lived in the hidden city. After thinking about things, he decided the most powerful wizard left was the court wizard of the neighboring kingdom who was old and reputed to be senile. But they figure he's their best bet for getting help, so the party travels to the capital city of that nation to seek an audience with the guy, show him the stone they had.

 

When they arrived a couple of sessions later, I described his tower in great detail, including the coat of arms of the wizard’s personal guards – a rearing gryphon. Nobody blinked. I followed with the obligatory “make an INT roll” – they all failed. So the party is standing at the entrance to the tower for 20 minutes, chatting with the guards while waiting to be admitted. Finally, one of the players turns pale and asks “what did you say their badges looked like?”

 

Mr. Evil Sorcerer was very thankful that they brought one of the artifacts right to his front door.

[Manic Typist]

Re: Biggest Shock!

 

What happened next??

[Beetle]

Re: Biggest Shock!

 

They were able to escape from the sorcerer's tower without the stone. Eventually they got the remaining two stones and successfully defeated the big bad in a suitably epic battle - although a couple of party members didn't live to see the end of it.

[Houston GM]

Re: Biggest Shock!

 

Houston... amazing. What were their reactions like?

They quickly started putting additional pieces together. At the beginning of the campaign they had been contacted by a woman who became their primary contact for the duration. At one point they were worried that the aliens might be able to scan them and figure out they were metahumans, just like she had. She replied, "The method I used isn't available to them."

 

After the big reveal, one of the players immediately realized that she knew they were metahumans because she had a list of the in vitro fertilizations.

 

And they realized that the long-term plan for defeating the aliens was already in place. There was an army of teenaged metahuman clones that were on the verge of coming into their powers. (I doubt that any of them remembered a cryptic comment than an NPC made about the metahumans getting "reinforcements"....)