How My Players Derailed My Entire Tabletop RPG Campaign I Had Planned (I was okay with it)
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- čas přidán 8. 12. 2017
- My tabletop RPG game, Fantasy Age, got derailed a few sessions in and ended up going way differently than I had planned. I had a lot of fun running that one! Enjoy
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Once on the moon, they hear a soft voice. It's far, far away.
"Iiiii warrrrrrnnnned youuuuuuuu"
Yup...
And then they hear another voice coming from their heads “Do not worry for Abserd! Shall help you throughout this difficult journey!”
Take us to the moon, take us to the moon woo-OOAAH
And then, you hear a voice "Arrows!? You really are of your father! THE DEVIL"
@@vizonegames1368 And then you hear it again
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIII WAAAAAAARNEEEEEED YOOOOOU
A rule of thumb I've seen for dungeons: "Dungeons NEED treasure. The more the players explore and find nothing, the more they will become utterly convinced that the treasure is not only bountiful, but incredibly well-hidden."
This is very true when i was doing D&D with my pals the GM always sent us on quests, but lack or no rewards at all. So when we do quest more then half of the team will try to rob and loot the NPC at times destroy property just to get coins or items. You can guess how many of us where " neutral" and the hand full of "good"
@@STbattlefront I had a DM that did something similar. Was very stingy with loot and the players had to come up with inventive ways to make ends meat because going on adventures was a net negative for them what with the costs of potions and gear maintenance. When I joined in, I made a character at their level and had more gold then the entire party of 5 combined because in 3.5, when you start a character at higher levels you also start off with the gold you're expected to have at that level. Needless to say, I was promptly jumped and robbed blind by the rest of the party the moment they saw me pull out a bag of gems to bribe some mercenaries.
@@OmegaZyion oh God you'll be a prime target for are party for supplies.
This can be headed off in some campaigns with a single line. "Looks like another group of adventurers got here before you and took the loot." Your party will now spend the next 6 sessions looking for this group of adventurers (who don't exist), but you can feed them parts of the story as you move along.
Everyone always forgets to loot the weapons and armor... Retail, a shortbow sells for 25 gold. Even if you only make half that, ten goblins equals 125 gold that a lot of people just leave laying on the ground. All the weapons those skeletons and stuff have is pure money. If they happen to be wearing armor...wew lad. A breastplate is 400 gold apiece. Now you might be asking "how the heck do I carry fifty swords?"
MULES my friend. Mules. A mule costs 8 gold and can carry 425 pounds of junk. Odds are, unless you're trying to carry something ridiculous like a giant metal door, or your GM is a real stickler on carry weight, that will be treated as effectively infinite carry weight. If your GM is actually the kind of stickler that weighs every item (and you haven't run for the door) and you find one mule isn't enough, just buy a few more. They're eight gold apiece. Cheap as dirt as adventurers go.
"my first party got sent to the moon"
".....That's rough buddy"
I approve.
I’m never happy
A Pony sounds like MLP backstory
Unexpected Avatar
I feel as if I should be offended by this sent to the moon. Business.
At least your characters lived. I had a doorway and described it as such: "Beyond the door, there is only blackness. And the air about is pulled into this blackness. It as black and ominous as a hole of annihilation (which was to be used later to destroy an evil artifact)."
Just 2 hours earlier the group had decided that they should never split up, by the way. So Billie says "Oh I bet this is a portal and not really a hold of annihilation" and he steps in.
They see him consumed by they hole. (ANd I said "he appears to be consumed by the hole which acts just like a Hole of Annihilation!" Also, my eyes are now wide open shocked.
The other players look at me and say "Well, we agreed not to split up the party" and one my one they step in.
After they were all 'annihilated" (but they didn't realize it yet) they said "OK let's light a torch and see where we are. Steph? Where are we? .... Steph?".
Meanwhile I'm packing up the campaign, and passing out blank character sheets. "Why are you giving us blank character sheets?....Steph????" Sometimes, huh?
"If your friends would jump into a Hole of Annihilation, would you jump too?!"
@@apieceoftoast768 No.
Just seems like when you have something which is a "Hole of Annihilation", it usually isn't in these types of games. There are some plateformer games in which you bottomless pits but alot of exploring games have actually lead to secret paths or stuff and exploring down is part of the game. To suddenly have a "bottomless pit" is an unfair game choice and is really punishing because it likely goes against the natural rules of the game. It makes sense that people would be sceptical and in fact, I'd be pretty pissed, assuming the campaign wasn't already clear cut with this type of mechanic. Based on the fact that the PCs agreed to stick together, tells me that they were used to surprises, which they had to be prepared for.
Like it or not, people expect some mystery or intrigue in a story. Not every cigar is also a holy mysterious relic which is a key to a whole secret side quest but when you leave a key, people are gonna' want to examine it and try to use it on whatever they already have. That rule about Chekhov's gun springs to mind.
If it was me DMing - which I admit I have zero experience doing - I'd just say "Real talk: interacting with this black void just kills you. Its needed for something later, obviously, and is a bit of lore, for this story." I know it would break the fourth wall but that is better than everyone dying to something stupid because they didn't know better. Either that or saying the black hole thing repels living people and you can't use it now.
Haha! Sheep jumping off a cliff heh!
Why would there be an easily accessible door to something so dangerous!? Was there at least some form of warning or lore that they missed? You can't just put a giant red button in the middle of a wall and not expect everyone who walks by to at least ask about pressing it, or just going for it.
And this ladies and gentlemen is why improv is one of the GM's most valuable skills.
Carl Mohr Thankfully i'm great at improv
yes! yes! YES!
Something along the lines of "You realize that you need 'Magic Mcguffin' (Patent Pending) to open the door," proceed by *Scribbles down that the BBEG has a Mcguffin* could of prevented this boat fire.
DM!
This is exactly why I took an improv class
Ben: Creates obvious bait for players that screams IMPORTANT
Players: Take bait
Ben: :0
mad at myself i know the meme
I'm sorry I would probably just set the DC for activating the temple to something to ridiculous, like 50, then have an item which grants a crazy bonus on that save specifically, and a moderate bonus so they don't just toss it
@@colinz226 Some DMs make a 20 a success no matter what. This means that 5% of all impossible actions always succeed in their worlds. Then they complain that "their players" break their games. There are locks that can't be picked without the right tool, but in these DMs worlds they get picked by a first level goblin with a twig one in twenty times.
@@ratholin In the Obelisk encounter, the fighter's axe swing failed with a crit. Maybe the Adventurer's League follows different rules beyond his control, but it seems like Ben is at least open to playing crits both ways.
Also tried to hint them to do other things. They refused to do so.
"When I grow up, I want to go to the moon!"
Puffin: "Why wait?"
Puffin and ASDFMovie, I approve.
Desmond the moon bear!
How did I get here?
The end.
"When I grow up, I want to go to the moon!"
Puffin: "*Please* wait"
That made me laugh hard when I first saw it
Mogis, god of slayer
Desmond the moon-bear
"How did I get here?"
The End!
ASDF, for those who don't get the reference
@@willc6577 I'm not sure that would help them understand either
@@kainuipenaloza9395 all they'd have to is google asdf tbh
Don't forget the second one.
In defense of that Dwarf, I *totally* would have thought it was time-travel.
They were on top of a mountain and there was no tower, time travel doesn't explain a room on top of a mountain becoming a room on top of a tower in the middle of the sea.
lil chris tuten they went forward or went back and the tower is inside the mountain, the room had been destroyed by the sands of time.
@@miadestroyerofworlds5735
How would the tower be inside the mountain?
Also how would that mountain in the middle of a countryside end up in the middle of the sea with the mountain gone but the tower still standing?
Eh, it's pretty obviously a teleportation circle. Travelling in time is much more unusual in D&D than teleportation.
And then the world ended but they survived because they were on the moon.
lol, that would be hilarious
Unless this is majora's mask, in which case they went down with the world in just 3 days.
666
until they starved to death
@@amycupcake6832 huh yeah.....
Player: "So how do we get back? Ben?... Ben?... Ben?..."
Ben: "Welp, that's it for today's session!"
You didn't think this through, did you?
Yeah planning ahead is kind of a necessity in case of Story Ran Games and Dice Rolls as well
Just have the request a divine intervention teleport if they have a cleric.
When the party do something that leads in a totally unexpected way that you haven't prepped for, there's absolutely nothing wrong with saying "well that was cool, I didn't expect that. We'll pick it up next time!" and planning content.
It's not railroading (since he let them activate the portal) and its not bad GMing since he didn't just want to totally improv a key development.
ngl I would've done something dumb but simple like leave a magical gateway they can use to get back but theres indicators that it conveniently only has one charge remaining
@@MonkeyChessify just wizard of Oz that shit. he described the city, obviously the answer is there or pointed to from there. This is improv. And that's 2 steps with back fill from known stories you can manipulate at will.
Just go with it.
The easy fix would've been; the portal simply doesn't activate. Their knowledge-type checks would tell them that it worked at some point, but now just doesn't. Blah blah blah, it stopped working ages ago, maybe somewhere down the line the players can quest to find a way to fix it. Gotta be able to adapt on the fly when players get themselves into things they aren't supposed to do yet.
Yes, portal should need a key......which can be found later.
But if he's trying to sell that the world is real, then the logical decision would be to let them play.
@@Ben-xj2rf I see one person actually listened. lol
@@rainingcomplete3018 there's a city...in the distance. It clearly isn't the end
I think one problem is the amount of work that goes into making a chunk of the scenario. They skipped all prepared content and ben probably was turned off to the derail as these guys he plays with are folks he's known for a time.
Ahh, the naivete of not putting loot at the end of a dungeon.
I check the entire tower for illusionary walls!
Wait did the DM just say there's unlit torches on the walls? Man that's gotta be the puzzle. Lighting all the torches didn't work? I detect magic, no magic? Gotta be like, mechanisms. Break down the walls that treasure's around here somewhere.
EXTREME TOMB RAIDING!!
shouldve at least had a chest with a handful of gold or something just enough for them to say oh i guess thats it or maybe HAVE AN ACTUAL KEY TO THE GATE TO THE MOON
@MrCompassionate01 nothing here yet, I know I manual dismantle the entire tower brick by brick, checking each one with detect magic. I then hire seventeen ships to transport the bricks 1 mile due north and rebuild the tower there. Do I find anything?
Yes, after months of meticulous effort, you found that you were wasting your time.
But seriously what happened on the moon. We need a follow-up.
We do!
Nothing, just nothing happened
A hastily thrown-together plotline, most likely.
Yeah, I'm invested now
yeah i kinda wanna know how he continued the next session
Next session: Wasn't that a great illusion effect? Your party was seeing what was actually on the other end of this currently non-functioning teleportation device. Once it wears off, you find a pile of gold.
LOL
I was playing a Superhero RPG a few years ago, and my character was a centuries old being who decided it was time to reveal his existence to the world, so he does a video stating the truth about himself, and even splicing in some footage where he shows off his abilities. This was his first official action in the game
The DM glared angrily at me. When I asked him what I did to anger him, he stated that the BBEG was going to reveal HIMSELF to the world and gain sympathy as a 'lost' alien who defends the planet. Kinda hard to do that when someone beats him to the punch.
Sounds like a great nemesis setup- "You jerk! I WAS GONNA DO THAT!"
I'd play it off as a Captain Zod angry at Superman for stealing his Thunder
...And so they were stuck on the moon until they died from malnourishment, the end.
They eat bird person first. Tha Moon wings!
there was a city on the horizon
Exactly. There are people there. There should be food, water, etc.
He just has to go home and plan an entire campaign for them to reactivate the portal from this side.
Every party needs a wizard, and every wizard should know how to plane-shift. Or open an interdimensional portal, whatever.
Rick Sanchez Wizards eventually learn how to teleport and such, but probably not by the 6th session of a new campaign.
You know you could just say there are keyhole/empty slot on the device and the party don't have the item yet, so either they start a quest to find it or leave the device alone for now
well i mean, he did say there was a city nearby so instead of asking the DM what they needed to do they probably should've gone into the moon town to find some information.
I would assume some key religious figure, knowledge, or artifact would be required for the circle to activate, rather than being strictly on a lunar cycle schedule or anything. Like, it require both a certain day and a certain item to activate the magic, sort of thing
One time when I was playing DnD, the DM described a cruel kingdom that had like this huge slave trade market. Instead of trying to get our parties memories back (we mysteriously lost them before the campaign started), I started a rebellion against that kingdom. It was great. We ended up having to do quests to earn the loyalty of the other kingdoms to our rebellion. That’s how I derailed my campaign.
Seems like the smart thing to do would be for the GM to decide that regardless of what the player rolls, this location isn't coming into play yet. GMs have that kind of discretion.
I mean... there is also a reason why a lot of magic features require a caster of a certain level to activate, and not just a high DC
The worst thing my players ever did, was abandon the bounty and plot hooks I set up, and instead decided to start a race war between the merfolk they’d attacked and the pixies they’d robbed... this was in the second session. There goes all my planning...
You think that was a problem ? Try handling a bunch of Nazi elves who murdered an entire human village including children and sick elderly, and then whine because protect against evil affects them lol.
XD
Awesome
@@cruzwindu777deffsff4 I would actually do something much worse. See in Xanathar's guide to everything there are Paladins of conquest. More specifically hell knights. Paladins who have strayed so far into darkness that they make pacts with the lords of the 9 hells in exchange for greater power. Meaning Asmodeus would send his top to collect the parties souls personally to drag them to hell since these paladins value the rule of law over the balm of mercy. In other words at that point I wouldn't even warn them I would have these hellish knights be an enemy encounter. Basically they would have daedric looking armor covered in barbed wire and spikes. They would just be whispering their sins. I would be like well congrats you committed enough sins to get the attention of the lord of the nine hells. Have fun battling his knights.
@@funnyblog100 based off the protect against evil comment, I'm guessing it was 3.5. 5e doesn't have many things that affect you based on your alignment.
"Can we use this magic circle to get back?"
See, this is the part where you say: "Yes, absolutely, it will be open for another day. Meanwhile, there's some weird caves nearby you can explore, might have some cool stuff. You probably shouldn't venture out very far, though. Don't want to get stuck on the moon, right?"
Alternatively, when it becomes obvious they are searching the moon temple for loot or secrets, let them find something so maybe they'll be satisfied. And when they figure out that the magical device will only work on a specific date, don't actually tell them when that date is.
I get you shouldn't railroad but I think it's admissible to improvise a bit when it's in the best interest of the players.
Or tell them that specific date and require them to wait real world time (example 30 minutes per day) while in the tower.
Yes, this.
Or you keep with the, "No, it was sealed off years ago...make an arcana or investigation check." Players discover the runes are intact except for one/+ missing piece(s). Improvise them scavanging the moon's temple for the missing rune plate, or blue prints/ journal to make a new one, all while discovering the abandoned, dusty bones of the insurrection that led to the temple's abandonment. No history needed if everyone was dead and everything except what they need was destroyed. Keep them there by the temple's breathable atmosphere and an obviously dangerous and impassable seal that was meant to keep the portal away from any later plans for moon exploration (think Hyrule castle in Wind Waker). Improvise clues inside about possible links to the Moonweaver and/or werewolves (for obvious, cultish reasons), and use high level automatons or golems that are passive until attacked to keep them looking instead of fighting.
As soon as players take an interest it is not the DM's job to get frustrated that they like something you don't want to use right now. It's the DM's job to make it interesting. When you know hints aren't working either use that time to cheese it for later, or create some ultra guardians to discourage immediate exploration. If they want to TPK that's on them, but any DM can spawn a major challenge rating creature roosting or an ancient humanoid/automaton/npc that tells them to "return with _insert item here_ to..." or KOs one to send a message.
Undomaranel perfect!
Or just say:
"Seems like you cannot get back, maybe explore the moon?"
Then you can either play on moon or have the natives kill them on sight. Both are pretty good solutions in my book.
Kinda reminds me of my run to a dungeon where they had to find a demi god and convince him to tell them how to open a gateway to another plane. All my npcs pointed out that it's crucial they try to get that information or the evil wizard behind that gateway would build an army and destroy their city. I did everything in my might to lead them to the right path. As players can be they decided to try and kill him... a demi god. Well. After a huge and long fight with the demi god our team of 5 players managed to defeat him. AC 21 and 500ish hp, 3 legendary actions to stun them, deal massive damage or save himself... they defeated him(they were lvl 9, no multi class). Well. 3 of them got knocked out but the remaining 2 just fricking rolled brilliantly. After the 40-50 minutes long fight, they wanted to loot him. They found his amulet and sword. That's it. No idea on how to open the gateway, no further leads. They were like: "uhhh...what do we do now?" I told them that they failed their actual quest and as they do not know how to open the gate the story would end right there. Eventually on the next session they heared that 4 other heroes (of my other campaign) managed to open the gateway and save the city of the posing thread. All the npcs would tell the story and keep mentioning on how awesome those heroes are and how much they got from the king for saving essentially the world. Man they were pissed, haha. That happened 5 years ago andthey continued other stories with me as they seem to like my way of DMing. Even now after 5 years, as a running gag, I keep mentioning the great heros that saved the land. They even met all of them in a cross over episode and the reactions from both sides were hilarious.
Sorry for the long post that propably only 2 or so will read. But to those who did, thanks.
ZounaForPeace that's fantastic i love how the fate of the kingdom didn't rest on their shoulders even tho they thought it did. in my game there are some notable other adventures and this could very well be a possibility
Thanks for reading that wall of text! I figured, if you imagine a world full of adventureres, there is no way that your group would be the only factor to save the multiverse. Others would surely find another way... Things like that make your campaign seem more immersive in my opinion. Try it out, hell why not make a group of npcs the "true heroes" and see how your group of players will react. Will they aid them on their quest? Or will they sabotage them to become the real heroes of the world. Good luck on your campaign and remember to have fun while you're at it.
ZounaForPeace, awesome job!
While I disagree with ending the game, I like doing cross overs.
I played an Evil female halfling wizard, who was part of the party who worked for a half dragon Warlord. We went on many missions for him, including trying to get some magic spear that could kill any dragon. (Sadly for him, it didn't work on Tiamat.)
She did meet up with an orc on a mission for a peace alliance and got pregnant. Her boss's mother (a black dragon) took her in & trained her.
But not cause she cared. She thought the baby could be used as a tool maybe.
And after she gave birth, she was booted out.
Along the way, we met this dwarf who was actually elminster in disguise. He gave us all gifts. The cleric got Mystra's holy book.
He was not interested & threw it on a fire. My character took the book.
After that campaign ended we played another. This time as heroes.
They ran into a female orc wizard who helps them. They needed a chakram to free the gods, and a black dragon had it.
They sent the dragon fleeing from her home, & looted it. They didn't bother to explore other tunnels though.
The orc cast a spell & disappeared. She rerurned a minute later holding a baby and a big ring (like Xena's - chakram).
Then she took off her hat of disguise. She explained she stays in disguise mostly cuz she used to be bad and people around there don't like her.
And so they helped each other....
Point is, if you do it right, crossovers can be awesome.
If you're wondering why my character took the book?
Well, she was a wizard. Even though she had philosophical differences with Mystra, she still considered Mystra the ultimate icon or symbol of what she wanted to be. And could not let her book be disrespected!
It got me wondering, what would be in such a book?
In addition to beconing a stronger wizard, she also had some levels of cleric as well. (Not unlike Elminster.)
@@CurlyFromTheSwirly Why are you asking if you wonder what would be in the book?
It’s been two years and I still want to know how they got off the moon.
And then three more years have passed
@@guilhermegaspar752 And then three more months have passed
@@user-jt9vm4xq1i And then three more months have passed
@@user-jt9vm4xq1iand then 5 more months
@@user-jt9vm4xq1i Half a year has passed! And during that time, nothing of note has happened!
Players always derail, no exceptions. I only had two players. They were playing as Kobolds that just had their cave raided by mercenaries and were the only survivors, and wanted to find a new place to live and rebuild. Then, they discovered that there were two places they could go: a village to the east or an ancient previous kobold cave system to the west. A large mountain blocked the path to the north. They decided to go to the city first, which was fine. Turns out it had been attacked by a clan of gnolls that had also been targeted by the mercenaries. Now, the leader of this warband was actually going to speak with them and either accept them as temporary members to get their vengeance or give them further locations to explore. They managed to sneak attack and kill two of the gnolls and eventually barely managed to escape. Alright, I figured they would go to the west now, since it was the only clear option.
Nope, they decided to climb that mountain instead. I had them encounter a few hungry and bloodthirsty goblins that tried to eat them. Since they actually did a lot of hunting on the way there, they had enough food to satisfy the goblins. The goblins informed them that they were hunting a traitor that had stolen from their leader, but they hadn't had any luck finding food so their hunger overcame their senses (This was already established goblin behavior in the game). This traitor was going to be the next quest giver, since he was going to offer them assistance in finding a new home if the party would help him escape. They took one look at this traitor after they found him and decided the other goblins that they bribed were the better allies. They took his head on a spear.
Alright, I could roll with this. The goblins informed the party that their tribe was near the top of the mountain and that they would return with the head and speak with their leader on the party's behalf. Now, the only thing they knew about this leader was that he was obsessed with shiny things, so they collected anything shiny that they could find. It was mostly sparkly stones and the like, but the leader was satisfied with their offering when the other two informed him of the party's assistance with the traitor. From there, they ended up taking quests to strengthen the goblin camp and turn it into a true fortress. Eventually, they even became the first non-goblin members of the tribe and led a raid against the village and headman that hired the mercenaries in the first place. The turned this into truce between the other monsters that were being driven out, including the gnolls.
In the end, what was supposed to be a pretty simple quest to find a new home turned into a campaign of uniting the monster races and eventually overthrowing the humans in their part of the land. It didn't go anywhere close to how I expected, but it was a blast and really helped me get better at improvising.
Lol
And it was all started by two Kobolds. Two. Fucking. Kobolds.
That sounds awesome I wish my players actually tried to derail the story with something interesting.
My players keep deraling the campaign too... it's kind of annoying, but on the other hand, i don't really judge them for that. They just think they do what's right - and can you really blame them for not taking the obvious options? (Which may aren't even obvious to the players) I once made a campaign in Pathfinder with a king which was on war with another king because of a gold mine of high value. The King was greedy, and as the adventurers got hired to clear out the mine from monsters which infested it (mainly gnolls) they found a hidden entrance (which was supposed to be impossible to find, but one of them had a wand of detect secret doors and decided to use it) which leads to a drow city which was WAY over their level currently. I had planned on this to occur way later on when they find clues about this drow city in an ancient drow temple, but they had to use that damn staff and already see it.
They managed to survive the first encounter (i had no idea how powerful barbarians can be...), but were close to death. The one who hired them immedietly told the king about it as they returned and reported about the drow city. The king then came personally along with alot of elite guards. In the end the King came out with another crown, which was cursed. The Mage in the group saw it and managed the roll with a natural 20, so he could tell it's cursed. However the King didn't listen to any of them at all and was riding back to the castle, the elite guards around him - though some of them died in the city. They decided to follow the King back to the castle and were trying to contact someone important about this, so that they could do something about the cursed crown.
The King was ill and had strange green skin, but on the next day he surprisingly "recovered" as the citizens told them.Instead of waiting a while as i thought they would have, which would've lead to a Paladin contacting them as he knew about the cursed crown, they decided that "no one would believe their story now that the crown is cursed" and decided to go back and contact the other King, which was on war with the cursed one, and tell him about it. "Because they would rather have a new King as a cursed, greedy old one."
In the end what SHOULD be a clearing out a mine, it lead to a campaign where they allie with one King to take down the cursed one. They weren't supposed to find out about the city, and would've found the crown once they actually would be powerful enough to clear it out. Interesting what path it can take simply because the players aren't powerful yet.
NotWellKnown that was a great story, sounds like really fun game
Honestly, this sounds really cool. Sure, there's no way back home, but a fantasy moon adventure would have me really excited. And you can't blame the players for being curious and wanting something more from an area with obvious significance.
i mean you could always add a way back, say add a beholder who closed the portal since beholders come from space
Moon adventures are something I've seriously thought about. My WIP setting has a bit of lore where basically its greatest mortal wizard known to history ("Zil'kahim of Burjalquamar - The First Astromancer", for anyone who really cares) tried to create a portal to the moon thinking he might discover a source for more potent astromancy there. Unfortunately for him, the effect was something similar to what you see at the end of Portal 2 and he, along with most the bricks of his tower, was sucked into the vacuum. No one else really knows what happened to neither him nor the tower. They just saw the ruins and decided "Whelp... Better ban astromancy just to be save".
Details I've yet to flesh out will hopefully explain how he managed to survive. I'm thinking something along the lines of effectively being stranded on another rule breaking plane of existence but also being able to access the ethereal demi-plane of the moon where you won't need air.
To the wizard's excitement, he did discover the means of more powerful astromancy and is now powerful enough to essential function as a Great Old One patron. He's at this point merged with his plane but he reaches to mortals on the material plane seeking to train them enough to finish what he started: Create a conduit for the magical power of the moon that can make its way into the material plane and work as an amplifier for astromancy.
Mostly bringing this up because I honestly haven't seen other people think of the moon as its own plane of existence where adventures might be had. I'm still in the infant process of fleshing out my own stuff, but perhaps Zilkahim discovered an ancient people living on the moon and they essentially started worshiping him to the point where he actually became a lesser deity (the moon is already sort of a boarder plane between the material and the astral plane in my cosmology, most likely). If there are people and culture then there can be adventures.
All I know, is that I at least have some cool stuff if a player wants to be a GOO warlock (a goolock???), but hasn't decided on a specific idea for a patron. Hell, I might even homebrew it as its own pact and present it as an early multiclass option for a player to discover.
oO PPH Oo
Here's a crazy idea then, what if you tried to build him as the villain?
If astromancy is banned then perhaps if this Mage/lesser deity creates a following on the material plane then that group is driven into exile, and despite them not being hostile various events end up being blamed on them.
It could be something along the lines of them being pinned with the blame for a wizard going mad or some such, or even being blamed for a completely unrelated Mage groups activities.
But yeah, just an idea, I'll stop myself before I get too enthusiastic though, I don't have enough time to DM properly anymore. 😅
Not crazy at all :)
In fact, I already have it worked out so that his apprentice declared herself the Last Astromancer and assisted in the ban. Everyone aimed to make her the second and last astromancer. Nonetheless, there has since been several mentions of people declaring themselves the 3rd, 4th and even 7nth astromancer. Most of these have been dealt with, but the fact that many of them are unconnected worries the Arcane Council of Burjalquamar. Eventually, it makes sense for someone to enter hiding for a bit longer and start to orchestrate a collection of followers.
The villainous part can be that they are on the path towards doing something even more dangerous than what Zilkahim did and that, this time, it won't just be a tower that disappears. I've also toyed a lot with the idea of an external force using the knowledge of astromancer to try and make a weapon. If all it takes is an opening to the vacuum of the moon plane to destroy a well warded tower. then prolonging the opening of a bigger portal might potentially be usable as an arcane weapon of mass destruction.
Goldenboy, the attacking monsters doesn't really seem reasonable given what was described (remote, hidden location and they had already explored the entire tower). You would actually have an easier time making up solutions for after they are transported. It's the moon where air breathable. If your players buy that they'll buy anything there since things are already strange.
In the interest of just making the campaign keep going, I might just have them arrive at the moon to settle their curiosity and then have some railroading to fix it all.
_A strange, alien being vaguely resembling a crippled, elderly man stumbles up to you carrying a large flat stone on the back with great difficulty. The creature looks you in the eyes and you hear a voice in your mind saying "You! You're here! You shouldn't, but you are? Quickly! There isn't much time. Take this! Bring it to Master Alnur." He places the stone in front of you, his arm trembling with the strain of doing so. It appears to be some kind of strange rune stone with peculiar carvings around the edges, circling around a single triangle in the middle, except you only see blank stone where the runes would intuitively be. He then starts clasping an amulet around his neck. It's a piece of triangular black metal with a silvery gemstone inside it. "This is goodbye, old friend", you hear the voice say before the creature yanks the amulet of its neck and quickly forces it into the triangular slot on the stone. It lights up with unrecognizable runes where before there were only a blank canvas. The creature's eyes turn black and he collapses before you as the light from the alien runes shines blindingly brighter and engulfs you. You instinctively close your eyes and as you open them, you find yourselves on a dirt road in the middle of open grassland. The rune stone lies on the ground before you but is no longer lighting up... What do you wanna do?_
After that point it's time to change the details you had prepared for the future so they still fit what just happened. Allow the players to interact with the stone and maybe even freeing the amulet or have new readable writing appear on the stone under the light of a full moon. That should hopefully satisfy them and leave them to discuss among themselves as you figure out what to do with it all in the future.
Ended up being too lengthy for a reasonable "cutscene" unfortunately. The gist is to describe something mysterious and give them a new task and souvenir before a dying entity transports them back. Do so quickly before the players feel too strong a need to go "Wowwowwow! I cast hold person before he does anything else". You can obviously work around that by saying it's ineffective and maybe the being isn't a humanoid, but the damage is already done if they ask. The souvenir doesn't have to be an alien stone template. It can be a staff or a ring if you imagine the players won't settle for anything but something they imagine they can attune to for combat purposes.
Derailed a campaign once after two 1/1000 rolls. DM let us build our own custom PCs, and one guy gets an arm made of a mineral which, if hit, triggers a 1/1000 roll of different effects with 2 percentiles. He learned he could clap and trigger it, so our campaign fell apart about the same time the sun turned black, and a bunch of holes opened up in the ground of a goblin village releasing hundreds of bees, at the same time. He also accudentally 1/1000 gave the effect to all magic users in 1 mile for a day, only magic user is our mage, casts basic spell, 1/1000 chance he instantly trains and calls the nearest dragon in the world to our position, 3 actions before its free. He had it kill goblins, fly us to its layer, and because it was well beyond our level, flew itself into a volcano for us while we looted its treasure. Upset DM informs us that on pure luck we skipped the entire campaign, the gonlins were supposed to ask help with the dragon, the dragon was actually the final boss 2 full dungeons away, and we effectively ended the campaign multiple hours early on bullshit rolls something like 1/100,000 odds.
LMAO
That’s actually hilarious omg
BTW, I have never seen d1000 rolls before. 3d10?
Correct math would be 1,000^3 which is 1,000,000,000 so 1/1,000,000,000 which is 1 billion for those who aren't good at counting zeroes (and yes, that is the correct plural).
Stupid GM is stupid...
an ant managed to get inside my TV during this video, to which I thought it was part of it before I went to swipe it away out of habit...it didn't move further solidifying my thought that it was a part of the video...then I paused it and it kept moving...I was never more shocked about something so small
I remember one time My Dm had to end early. His words were something akin to "out of the massive amounts of options I had written, you guys chose the ONE thing I was not prepared for..."
Lucas Aires unfortunate then that he wasn't able to in that particular case. It was still a great campain and we played several hours before that happened xD
Next time, if your players roll a critical sucess on something mysterious they are not suposed to activate yet, just have them discover what it does. Tell them its a portal to the moon, but the magic is erratic and won't work properly. Then when you want them to come back, you say that there have been sightings of a shaft of light eminating off shore, hint that it's around the area where they foind the moon temple, and BAM, now your players know it's time.
At least tell them it's a portal to the moon on success, so that if they go to the moon and get stuck there, it was their fault.
That is why you place specific locks on it, sort of like: Bring 8 medallions symbolizing the lunar phases to this location or have some kind of staff or sword be inserted into a pedestal to activate it.
Or just dont use a stupid house rule... "critical success" is not a thing on ability checks
Love how he used freaking Kerbal Space Program music as foreshadowing
Imagine showing up for this session, ready for some hours of dnd. Then 10 minutes in the session ends because the dm did not plan for the campaign to get this derailed, and needs to plan something for the players to get back
a temple "to the moon" is actually very clever! because its usually a shortening of a temple for giving praise to the moon! Neat
It does give a whole new meaning 'to the moon, Alice'.. OKAY I just dated myself.
Wait, wasn't that just the original meaning to that catchphrase? Different context, but same meaning.
Meanwhile, in a parallel universe where I was running the campaign:
"How...how do we get back?"
*Evil GM Grin*
Condorito I would have said you need to double crit a disadvantage roll get back...
Nah, if I were GM, I would have them explore the dead city, and wait until one of them cracks and declares themselves the dead god of a dead plane. THEN, it's time for them to find the library.
It having got there , THEN look: a single, one-use, "return to earth" item so they know to be ready the next time they use the portal.
Love the subtle foreshadowing by using the Kerbal Space Program soundtrack as they discover the spire.
1:37 That bit gave me an idea for a fun food item; it never goes bad and fully restores itself at the start of every day, but it has a chance to randomly catch fire every time it’s restored itself, increasing every time it’s eaten.
The critical success is not a djinni. It is okay to let it fail. In fact, in a situation like this it's great for that to happen to let the PCs known what they're attempting is impossible. The rules still apply, the character can't just say "I'm going to gain a level" or "I'm going to search the garbage can until I find Mjolnir," doesn't mean it happens even on an 'instant success' roll.
well search garbage to find Mjolnir, i would just fuck with my player and make him search till he is 100 years old, and dies right after finding it xD But thats just because people who says things like that are cheaky fuckers, and deserves to be fucked with. But true, also he could just have created a component, or a ritual for it to work along with the roll. So just rolling to activate it requires a hidden component.
"I'm going to gain a level. Nat 20!"
A demon emerges from the shadows intrigued by your desire. You ask of the price and he responds with a smile "None needed, this one's free of charge". With a snap of his fingers he disappears to his hellish domain. You feel a surge of renewed strength flow through you. Enjoy your necromancy level, noble paladin.
"I'm going to search the garbage can until I find Mjolnir. Nat 20!"
Beneath the scraps of food and old parchments, you hand touches strong steel handle inside. Frantically, you pull the rubbish out of the bin, scattering it across the floor around. To your surprise, you witness the full form of your discovery, the storm hammer Mjolnir. A smile emerges on your face, your trials have paid off, your destiny awaits as one of the old Norse legends. You speak a sacred oath to Odin and grasp the ancient handle. With an almighty heave you dislocate your arm trying to raise the hammer upwards. You were not worthy.
Samuel Cole haha, brilliant, that would probably be the best possible way to deal with them wanting to gain a level while still allowing it. Bravo 👏
Samuel Cole
Ooh fun! Now do "I do a standing, verticle leap to the top of the Cliffs of Insanity, stabbing the climbing orc on my way past. Nat 20".
@Daniel Gehring "I do a standing, vertical leap to the top of the Cliffs of Insanity, stabbing the climbing orc on my way past. Nat 20"
Your group stands before the ever growing threat of countless orcs pouring down from the Cliffs of Insanity. The village of Dun to your backs, your compatriots grasp their shaking weapons tightly, readying themselves for a lengthy battle, however you sense divine providence upon this day. The feeling swells from your feet and with the gift of the god Mercury, you leap unhindered to lofty heights. You shuttle upwards, racing past the rocky cliff and the swarming orcs, throwing a dagger into their numbers. Higher and higher you soar towards the heavens, until you slow and backflip onto the top of the cliff, triumphantly facing outwards across the plains of Crowek.
A slow clap behind you echoes out and you turn around to see the orc-king Uthem the Defiler surrounding you with his army. "Impressive, this meatbag's got some talent on him. He'll make a fine addition to my circus." You realise you're alone and outnumbered. Far below, your former friends start the endless battle without you.
The old words ring true "Never split the party"
Don't forget that as the GM you can freely modify the plot. A GM is allowed to mess with little things to guide the players along the story or improve their experience :D
I dunno. It's tricky deciding how much a GM should retcon his plot.
On one hand, freely changing things can make the story adaptable. On the other, letting everything continue to move forward as if the campaign is a "what-if" of the planned storyline makes the whole thing seem more real.
The "what if" is basicly set up with the expectation that things go south. Derailing a pre-set campain is like swimming you just need a little time to do it everytime.
I'm so glad I found your channel. I love your stories. We've all had similar experiences: players getting unexpectedly ahead of the campaign, the tom-foolery of a Deck of Many Things, horrible annoying NPCs, weird encounters from module adventures... they all sculpt how we learn to DM. You, sir, are a hilarious story teller. Cheers!
When you present something to the party they usually expect some reward or discovery at the end of it before they let it go. They seek a sense of accomplishment. They often latch onto things that are presented, and they don't always choose the parts you want them too. Just have to prepare for as much as you can, and when that fails be flexible.
I JUST got back from dming a DnD session where the players JOINED THE CULT OF HASTUR THAT KIDNAPPED AND LOBOTOMIZED THEIR FRIEND.
Tyler Detert dude i have a group who've only played one session and I KNOW that one of these guys is already thinking about going darkside. Probs gonna have to write her into become a full on villain. Its madness!
Make them walk door to door asking people "have you seen the yellow sign" also if you have a bard give her a few pages of the scribt "the king in yellow"
I once played a game where the paladin got cursed and joined Asmodeus's minions as a result, the barbarian followed him instead of trying to save him because he was his only friend, and the cleric (who had been separated from the party when this happened) stumbled into a group of cultists and said "sure I'll join, what the heck". It ended very quickly after that.
It was the cleric's first time playing, and he said he was doing it so the cultists wouldn't kill him, but they cursed him the same way they cursed the pally, sooo... I mean, props for not metagaming.
A player on my game found a little book on a woman's closet; the woman appeared to be a druid, but the book was filled with necromantic spells; the symbol on the cover was the Hand of Vecna.
"What is that?", the player asked.
"Perhaps you've heard about it, why don't you make a history or religion check, whichever suits you best?"
"Look, I rolled a Natural 20!", the happy player yelled.
"And even so, you seem to have no recollection of ever seeing this symbol."
Many, *many* games later, when they found out who the druid served, the player was awestruck because she understood that rolling a natural 20 on getting information about *the God of Secrets* wasn't gonna get her anywhere.
If something is meant to be *impossible* , then *don't let it happen* , period.
And seriously, blaming this on the players makes no sense. What about just making the Portal remain open for five minutes, enough for them to realize the situation and jump back? What about adding a questline in the moon city for them to reopen the portal? What about having a sailor NPC from their boat yell about how one of his crew came about this and his old shipmates jumped through the light and were never seen or heard from ever again? What about tying the portal's activation to an artifact that isn't on the Island and would need to be recovered before using it, during which process the group would find out about where the portal would take them so they could make a more informed decision? What about having them fight a group of weird Moon monsters as soon as they leave the portal, and upon doing so release a prisoner from the creatures that is a member of the moon society and informs them of another portal on the opposite side of the Moon that works opposite to this one, only being able to send people to the Earth?
Being a DM isn't writing a story and then giving up because your player didn't talk to the right NPC that would get them to go collect the apples that allows them to see the shady figure escaping the city which, upon being chased, leads them to the secret meeting of the Kobold Tribe which will drive the entire plot. Being a DM is realizing your players will never get anywhere close to the apples and finding a way to get them to see the shady figure even so.
"What about adding a questline in the moon city for them to reopen the portal?"
Pretty sure that's why he ended the session there - he didn't anticipate that they'd be able to solve it, let alone be willing to wait for the stars to align afteward, so he had to come up with something that he had no expectation for them encountering that early on.
@Mordirit your story of sailors stumbling upon an ancient structure, finding secrets of the cosmos and terrifying alien abominations. Sounds like my vacation to R'lyeh.
If he doesn't know, just tell it "Your character doesn't know", if u give him the chance to make a test it means that he might know it.
I'd set a DC for 30, and with a Nat-20 she only reached 23; I made a rule for myself that when it comes to gods, rolling 20 doesn't automatically mean success, only if you meet the DC; surprisingly enough, the Thief was really good in history and could have hit that value on anything above an 18, sadly he wasn't the one doing the check and wasn't interested on it either.
According to the description, they ended up having a questline on the moon. And apparently he had a lot of fun
The old quest line only works in dnd if you have a preist/paladin that wants to kill every werewolf, vampire and demon
the old quest line?
This is a great example of why improvisation is a necessary skill to be a good DM, and why I almost never run modules anymore. You give players the ability to unknowingly shoot themselves in the foot without any real warning.
6:00 "So how do we get back, Ben?"
*Ben realizing they have no way back right now*
**Shits pants**
"I have a lot of things planned this weekend" is code for "I have a loooong quest to write up now."
The Moon People will gladly reactivate the portal for you... IF YOU CAN DEFEAT THEIR CHAMPION IN SINGLE COMBAT!
And that way you set up a TPK to make new characters back on earth. Or you could just make a city campain on the moon
Improvise.Adapt.Overcome.
Festus Omega and the moon people have weaponry of future immune to magic. Yes adventures!!!
AND HE'S KNOWN AS "THE KRAKEN"!!!
the moon people is a simple folk, they don't have a lot to do, so they need the entertainment of a battle arena.
BY AZURA, BY AZURA.......
Is.. is that the KSP music in the background?
Appropriate, isn't it? :)
That intro went from 0-100 real quick
I mean if you spawn the tower and the players explore it and don't find anything, treasure, plot, items, they're not just gonna leave. They'll think that there's a purpose for this structure. They'll think that by just leaving they'll miss out. So I think you should've at least put some kind of cool reward in the tower to signal "Yep, you guys did it. You properly explored the tower. You may leave now without fear of missing out on other cool stuff." But that's just my thoughts.
That´s the general problem with random encounters, they are random as f***.
my old DM did kinda the same to us."here old cave, you find some gold, some time later found out it had the magic item that we needed to beat the boss
Or put in a storyline about them on the moon so they can get a reward and get themselves back to earth also.
Never underestimate the players' ability to focus on the campaign bits you just tossed in for flavor. I once had my party encounter a ghost ship that sailed right through their ship. They had a glimpse of fighting, a man beating on the door of a cabin, and a woman inside, surrounded by flames, singing to a baby in a cradle. It was just flavor - the world being full of mystery and stuff like that - but the players became obsessed with finding out what happened on that ship.
My players literally befriended a Gnoll who I had no intention of even naming. It is now part of the party
Feeble Cursed One well, what happened to him? Did ya kill him off or Did he stay with the party till the end of the campaign?
This happened YESTERDAY. I'm still deciding how to deal with him haha XD
Feeble Cursed One AND THEN A GIANT EAGLE PICKED MCGNOLLEY OFF THE GROUND. THE END
Feeble Cursed One
Clearly the gnoll will succumb to the whispers which the Mad God has implanted in his head, at a most innoportune time (a while down the road), only for the party to discover an object of sentimental value (a crude wooden figurine of the gnoll and the party slaying some previous enemy) that showed where his true heart lay, though he met an untimely end.
new to the channel and d&d. love your videos too. wanted to say thanks for putting music references in description or else i would have spent years looking....the moon concept here was really cool also
This is when you go "Uhhhhh AKSHUALLY!! You need a magical umm, uh- OH YES a key!!! Indeed, ergo, yes yes, you need a special key to activate this magical device!"
The description of the moon portal beam being activated and used was beautiful.
Agreed, voice acting I don't think was his thing, but despite that, it was wonderful to listen to.
The derailing wasn't really the players fault. All they needed was to be able to go back, or even travel to a different temple down on the planet. I'm not sure how they could have known that any of that would of happened.
It was a good idea, but needed better design so that it doesn't destroy your storyline because they were curious.
I'd just like to give kudos for that music choice. Really brought out the wonder factor.
Sometimes you have to make stuff up on the fly to keep your group moving in the right direction.
Whoah that is actually an amazing story. As a player I would have been absolutely stoked to try and figure out how to get back, and maybe have some adventures on the Moon, as well as you know, try and learn as much about the Moon as possible. As a GM I would have been even more stoked that the players even managed to pull this off, because it would mean a giant shift in campaign dynamic and tons of new plot and adventure ideas. This is absolutely not the players "derailing" a campaign; This is the players doing something unexpected to move the story forward in a new and exciting way. There's an old saying that I stick by and it has served me well as a Game Master: "If the players do something different or better than what you originally intended, pretend it was your idea in the first place and reward them accordingly".
Agent Boogeyman My fav GM made huge world and many quests and stuff he tried to make us do. He tried to derail a bit sometimes but we players had often different interests. This is why i respect him as GM: he was able to improvise. Most of the time we couldn't tell if the quest we ended up doing was something he planned in case of we didn't head for main quest or if he came up with that on the spot. He did tell us about that always at the end of the session tho.. but while we played we often had no clue.
If i get new gm ever again i hope that he can do both: plan and improvise when needed
the best kind of gm is the flexible kind, weather that be to bend around the parameters of the characters or story
Agent Boogeyman
As a player Id probably want to adventure on the moon. Learn moon stuff. Sure, 50 million gold is nice but, fuck man, we're on the fuckin moon.
In that scenario, I'd imagine it'd be a good place for a snack/washroom/stretch break for 10 minutes. Lets the players digest it, and more importantly, if the GM didn't expect that to work, for the GM to quickly throw a general plan together. Improv is still necessary in this case, but giving the DM 10 minutes could make that adventure go from cool but not right to out of this world.
I have a saying for that as well:
"No plot survives the first group session"
I think the players did what was logical to do. The campaign was set up as an open-ended adventure. They knew that, presumably. So, since there was not fixed adventure that they "should" be doing at any point in time, it's logical for them to explore and "do" whatever they come across. Without any guidance otherwise -- either via story/game elements or the DM explicitly telling them -- what they did makes sense.
If the result was not desired, the DM could have easily fixed it at least a couple times: 1) They fail to understand how the portal works, or when it works. This is why critical successes should not be a thing, IMO, for anything besides attack rolls. (In D&D 5e, that's the way it works.) 2) When they find themselves on the moon and want to get back, the DM says, "Sure, the portal opens again in X days." Either way, problem solved. The DM has ultimate power in his world; he is not beholden to the notes he writes down before the game session.
Would probably be in roughly 20 days, lunar cycles and all that taken into account
In which time they would most likely starve/dehydrate. Seems like the end to me.
They have magic, just cast create food and water. And presto majesto! you got yourself a nice little picnic.
If they have it. He said this was pretty early, and it is a 3rd level spell. Also, they could probably find food in that city in the distance.....if it isn't abandoned.
One, not dnd.
Two there was a city nearbye
three: Its the sign of a good gm who goes with the unexpected (in this case opening the portal) and makes something out of it, which we don't know if he did or not. He clearly needed to think about it and called the session there but no idea if they kept playing the game or not
This sounds like an absolutely amazing adventure, I wish it were a module or something so I could play it.
If something is cool and shinny, the P.C.s are usually gonna investigate it until they reach a pay off of some kind. It's good to make a world feel real, but sometimes this sort of thing dosen't work cus the P.C.s have no idea what is and is not significant in the world. In this case an adaption on the fly probably would be the best way out, they don't know your making it up on the spot unless you let it show. It's a good object lesson on the psychology of players and the necessity of sacrificing realism for the name of fun. It's a game after all.
Thanks for sharing this. And the fun animation.
Campaigns never EVER go according to plan. PCs always go "off the map". I find it's best not to plan out too much, just have lots of material that you can use to improvise with when the PCs inevitably do something unexpected. Adventures that result from PCs doing unexpected things are my favorite because it's as much of a surprise for me (the DM) as it is for my PCs.
That is all true but in this case the PCs did not go off the map. The DM railroaded them off the map with his teleport obelisk and then has the lack of self awareness to come on here bitching about them going off his map and derailing (oh the irony) his plans.
@@Norvik_-ug3ge i disagree. If he was railroading he'd never let them use the portal to begin with even though they had all the requirements to use it, since a railroading DM would know that doing such a thing would end the campaign early.
@@Norvik_-ug3ge Honestly as a DM this vid erks me. He put something mysterious in thier path. No loot, nothing cool. Made it seem important. Fucked them all by sending them to the moon, and then just decided they couldn't get back. No this is not a good experience for players. Also love how annoyed he seemed at his players for HIS fuck up. Don't want them to be able to activate the island now? Make it need a key, or just make the roll fail. Nat 20 doesn't have to be a automatic win. "I lift the frost giant and throw them with my 13 str" nat 20. "THAT MEAMS I DO IT!" Ive had a bard try to saduce a minotaur skeleton with a nat 20. I was like no... it doesn't conceive of you as attractive. Also something super important like a magic plot island shouldn't be on a random encounter list! Write it into the plot when your ready to deal with it for fucks sake.
Honestly looking up more of his videos, most of them are him making mistakes and blaming his players for it. Sounds more like the DM is struggling with his narcissistic disorder rather then trying to tell a meaningful story with his players. Seriously non of your games sound fun, also judging from how many different games you seem to go through it doesn't sound like you have any that last. Hopfully your inferiority complex isn't the first intro your players had to d&d :(
@@michaelpro7092 You realise he exagerates for humour and make himself the butt of the joke. (He's playing up the old 'concerned DM watching the players suceed at something stupid' trope for comedy)
Take his Abserd video for example, in it he protrays his fellow players as fustrated at his character weirdness but in the actual livestream (which you can find it in said video's descrption) when he introduces Abserd his fellow players find it hillarous, one of them even says 'I love you Ben' inbetween laughter. He doesn't inculde this in his videos because isn't a narcissist that wants to dump praise on himself.
He doesn't go through a lot of new games quickly, he's just been playing D&D and a lot of other TTRPs for a long ass time. (Largely, with his group of friends)
Oh and:
Title of the video: "How My Players Derailed My Entire Tabletop RPG Campaign I Had Planned (I was okay with it)" - Notice the part in brackets
Descrption: "My tabletop RPG game, Fantasy Age, got derailed a few sessions in and ended up going way differently than I had planned. I had a lot of fun running that one! Enjoy"
DM sets up huge "This Way To The Adventure" sign. Party follows it. DM is sad. The end.
My DM-ing philosophy reads as follows: "There are a LOT of things happening in the world, most of which is not your level."
The DM just ran a true sandbox campaign. This is what happens when the DM doesn't fudge things behind the scenes.
As DM, you should not be afraid to say “No, you will not be going that way yet”. Use a strange magic compulsion to leave, if necessary.
@@SvenTviking If that ever becomes really necessary, you're probably a shit GM.
@@joshuabacker2363 Yeah. Imagine if you're a player, you say "I want to go here" and point to something on the map, and the DM just says no. No reason or anything. That would suck
How to successfully complete a campaign.
Step 1: ...
YOU DERAIL THE ENTIRE THING
My DM’s first time:
My Party: We are literally going to ignore every call to adventure and go the opposite direction.
Sir, your first mistake was making a story line. The second was assuming the players would follow whatever you had in plan
Yeah as a Player myself Whatever the Dice Says Goes and it fits with My Saying: Whatever Happens Happens
what
We were on a mission to save the kidnapped princess. We barely defeated the big bad boss and the temple started crumbling. We barely escaped as the temple collapsed. Forgot to release the princess from the dungeon. Doh!
Colin Roberts my mates and I were fighting a mini boss that was a priest turned out that the priest wasn't a miniboss and was actually the person we were supposed to help so we kinda ya know destroyed the entire campaign before it started
Wait, what, how?
Oh well, nothing that a few disguise checks on a random orphan can't fix. "Here is your actual daughter, your majesty. Definitely didn't lose her. Nope, not at all. Also she's a bit tired so probably best for her to go straight to bed. Anyway, speaking of payment..."
That could’ve led to players trying to colonize the moon, and fighting aliens and whatnot. Maybe discover the lost civilization that created the temples. So many possibilities, ya just gotta let them play how they want.
We already have Starfinder.
Raithel Solspark True, but still
They've derailed so much they're puffing around sodor.
TOOT TOOT!🚂
Exactly!
Given that the moon of the Forgotten Realms is basically a smaller planet with a surface wide illusion spell on it, I could totally see this in a 5th edition module.
I seriously can't stop laughing at the ending... Also I can hardly wait to hear what you do next game night!
Hmm, seems like you can get rid of the chance of them using it by mistake by having it require some sort of key. You also can use the key as a reference to get them to come back and use the teleport circle. I do really like the idea of going to the moon in a session, sounds dope.
I do not think they where ment to go there. XD It seems more that it was just a cool part of the world they where in. a way to make the world look bigger and whatever. And I mean... if they needed a key, they could probably roll something to try to unlock it anyway. And if he still got a 20 on that then we would be at the same place.
"You seem to be missing some magic item to activate the circle" "You find a small cache of magic items" "Some being of emmense power interferes with the ritual and tells you you aren't prepared for this journey yet and sets you on a series of tasks to prove your worth". It sounds like you need to be a bit more flexible with your scenario.
I mean it sounds to me like the exact opposite. Now he was flexible, allowing a critical roll to get them to learn the secrets, when they really shouldn't have. Needs more divine intervention to push them forcibly into the direction of the adventure.
Worst case, they'll go "oh yeah!?" at the divine intervention and spend the campaign hunting down god-killing artifacts, instead of a Kraken.
@@Daealis i mean if they do get god-killing artifacts they'll probably be ready for the moon tower, not to mention you could have the kraken be one of the stepping stones to getting such artifacts anyway
your story tellling is beautiful
this is honestly the best of your videos
hold on... so you dropped the party... on the moon... with an atmosphere... within sight range of a moon city... and they wanted to go back to earth?
i dont say my plans when im playing is any good but becoming the king/queen of the moon sounds like a good feat to have accomplished
Manipulating the complex electoral kingship of a lone city of the moon. Or just assume power through a coup fueled by divine fervor. De-railed campains are best campains.
you should always plan for players to do stuff like this. because, if I where your player, I would try to do the exact same thing . who wouldn't ?!
Over planning NEVER works for me. I simply throw together a simple framework and expect the players to do all sorts of crap I didn't even think about. So I guess I plan on being forced to improvise :P
You don't need to overplan, just make it situational
good ambiance music for that spire encounter during the whole moonlight xD
I really like the concept of the portal here. I feel like I might use this, but make it so that you need a certain time of the month(rather than week), only revealing the time that it would work when they roll strong arcana or investigation and having a way to randomly determine how many days they'd have to wait and warn the players to check whether they have enough supplies. I also think I'd have the portal be able to send them back (perhaps with some extra requirements like reactivating it through a quest) at the same point of time in the month giving them a side quest of needing to somehow survive through the month (with the people on the moon not using or acknowledging the currency of earth). I feel like it could be really cool as a massive sidequest that could earn them some neat stuff as well.
Yeah, I'll have to call this one bad planning. Your almost "Breath of the Wild" approach is a very nice idea, but players derail campaigns. It's what they do. It's at least 70% of most RPGs I play.
If I don't want my players to hang around some place "yet", then I would put up signs that they weren't ready for it, either technically or power-wise.
For example, if there's super dangerous monsters that are meant to come up after the Kraken involved, then include a few murals of monsters eating krakens (or even physical corpses). Or maybe let them fight a single enemy like it's a boss, only to scout and notice that it's actually a regular mob that usually attacks in packs(which would give them a nice XP reward for the detour).
In your case, your problem was not going far enough with the technical countermeasures. Instead of once a week, why not once a month, which ties in with the moon thing much better? Or even a full year? Players are stubborn, but impatient. Make coming back here a very clear agenda, with a better reason of "why not now?".
Better yet. why not make this whole temple lack a physical component-or even some master craftsman levels of maintenance-so that they'll actively try to leave and complete this as a side quest?
Agreed. Being in control of the story means you can do whatever you want. If you don't want your players somewhere, all you have to its make it inconvenient. If that still doesn't work and it would be a campaign ender, make them roll a knowledge check or an insight check with a two to pass, and just tell them bluntly and outright, this isn't meant for you yet. It might fuck the flow of the story, but it won't stop it completely
Suchega Uber Even more subtle than that, would be for the temple to do nothing. Like get to the light that shines, but it falters and disappears quickly. This would let the players know that the temple has significance, and that it does something, but also that they are not at the right time or have the right power level to activate it. They decide they need to move on, then discuss it again later.
it was all badly planned and not a fault of your players.
Also for God's sake, you can just talk to your players even about plot, players can know things that their characters don't...
You can even put a power gate right at the end, you can put a hard cap that the magical user of the party simply is not powerful enough to use the device, perhaps he should return later when he amounts more experience and learns more of the device. You could also use your quick wits and add in that certain artifacts have to be gathered to open the portal and this can open up many different branching story lines. Perhaps they form an alliance with someone who already has a piece or someone with the locations of the pieces, maybe a fellow group is hunting down the pieces and they come into conflict with them. You could define this as railroad, but it's better than them getting into an area where everything is going to shit on them or you will have to redesign a ton of things to make it work. You could even add the caveat that they can go back down, but the circle is waning in power and the more they use it the less likely it is to work. They will for sure go back down most likely, but they will know they can return, but when they do they should be fully prepared as such to not waste travel times.
I've long ago learned to just roll with it. I stopped pre-planning campaigns because of the fickle natures of my players. That having been said, I DID start doing a semi-open ended campaign written by myself lately, and if the players go somewhere I havent written anything for yet, I just invoke The Shareware Demon which blocks their path and says "You are not ready to go here yet. Buy the full version of our game!"
Joke's on them, the kraken keeps it's phylactery on the moon!
Cole Erickson don't you mean krakolich?
This is a horrifying idea I want to use
I totally need to see what happened next lol this is awesome
The KSP tune threw me for a loop the first time 😂
This isn't any old fog this ... THIS IS ADVANCED FOG!
spongeboob
in DnD saying enchanted fog is redundant in DnD all fog is enchanted its never JUST a morning fog.
Im going to have to use that. Just straight up banish them to the moon. Wanna kill the big bad. Well tough get off the gods damned moon first.
Zachary Hawley 🤣🤣🤣
Even better if you're a fan of MLP.... oh lord. But wait. isn't there a city on the moon? Soooooo shouldn't there be someway back or a quest in that city?
@@Prince_Smugarina No Citys on the Moon is Schooby Doo not MLP
'Gods damned moon' wow, I've found someone who says gods too! YAY!
Left4Cake not to be that guy, but "banished to the moon" actually was MLP. at least, it's the most prominent example in recent memory due to how the fandom took it and ran with it. (also, the show referenced the event at least twice more, once even in an alternate universe.) Last Airbender did it before that, and probably others before that. more recently than MLP was Portal 2.
There was a quest we picked to do last out of 3 to find missing wood. It turned out that the wood was being used by a cult of vampires due to them needing ash for a spell to block out the sun. They were using a crematorium to hide their actions.
I'd really love to play one of these types of Tabletop RPG's. Currently in love with the text ChoiceScript adventures available on the Phone.
Something I have learned very early on. If you don't want it to happen, don't give it a DC. If you give something a chance of happening, the players will find a way.
Honestly you don't always need DCs ever. If the mage knows enough he will find it, if circumstances allow. If you decide it will take three tries for the fighter to break down the door, then it can take three tries and the dice be damned.
D&D is a tool for creating stories, not some terrible pen and paper ripoff of a video game.
An easy way to remedy this would have been to have the tower need a specific scepter in order to activate the portal, and they're critical success could have been to realize that the portal was activated by an item that they did not have
Or the critical success could’ve rebounded and forced them out of the tower.
The point though, was that he was trying to do a "true" open world. No plot devices to block off certain content, just let the players go where they will. Gating off that bit because "you're not meant to go there yet," would defeat the purpose.
@@CatacombD would it though? They could then make their goal to find it
Gotta say I'm loving these vids
I don't get to play as much as I'd like so these videos let me live vicariously through your stories XD
I really want to know what happened to the rest of that moon "plot".
Letter M $10 says he talked them into doing something else.
Oh they died
He could've totally made a quest to reopen the portal.
"How do we get back?"
Respawn.
duo1666
They jump. Wait until the earth's gravitation pull is weakest and their jump roll is good enough and then they just switch gravity wells. Hope they packed Feather Fall.
And also "summon air elemental"...
This is making me want to derail a campaign by creating a spaceship that is an army of low level mages casting "catapult" on an airtight vessel that my 20thlvl Wizard and the party Cleric can just infinitely sustain ourselves in as we travel to space!
Heck; I could just create a *lot* of scrolls of catapult as a 20thlvl Wizard and hire up an army of peasants. (seems a bit of a dick move for the DM to not allow that) I'd have to mind control the peasants so that none of them would fuck up our escape trajectory, though... hm..... would Sorcerer for all the Duplicate Spell options be better? Wizard has access to more spells, maybe I'll bring a Sorcerer along.
Maybe if we brought the druid along we could terraform the planet we land on...
sqrtle, bring the warrior along to in case of resistance from other species(remember beholders and mind flayers come from space!)
Sqrtle
There is an old setting for 2.0 called Spelljammer that was D&D set in space. The books are rare but I'm sure you could find a copy online to look over.
I played in a campaign once where my friend's character, who had an absurdly high blacksmithing skill, started handing the DM blueprints of strange, useless "art" he would make each week until you could see that, pieced together they formed a mech suit. Once the DM got the hint he rolled with it, ramped up the encounter difficulty, and just let the guy (and eventually all of us) start playing what was essentially Voltron vs. Demons. [It ended badly because my friends Knowledge:Robot Manufacturing skill was not as good as his blacksmithing skill.] I imagine if you just started building a Challenger space ship the same would probably happen.
That thing you friend did sounds awesome.
Yeah, I like Spelljammer a lot, being able to derail any campaign into spelljammer is part of why that idea seems awesome to me.
The opportunity to make your group go 'what' is another reason why it seems awesome. Similarly to your friend (when I think it's appropriate and the DM won't mind TOO much. Heh), I cannot help constructing Machiavellian plans.
In our most recent campaign, the first bigbad was this Evil noble/wizard with contacts all throughout the realm and was a dangerously unstable rising star in politics. My bookish, Neutral, level four Wizard with a bunch of calligraphy under his belt and who had forgone attack spells entirely for stuff that manipulates the environment and controls enemies ended up screwing over the DM..
This was a high level wizard (compared to a bunch of level four players), but also very paranoid. Sessions before we were supposed to fight him, I killed him by orchestrating a plot that involved the warlock Eldritch Spear-knockbacking him into his own latent-Cloudkill plus repeating crossbows trap and then me casting Grease into the doorway that was now between him and us and also unloading a lot of Ballbearings. He got a few spells off in the rounds before he died, but fortunately they only hit the tanky group members (would have one shotted my low Con mage). The Warlock (who was relatively tanky and able to stay close) kept on readying Eldritch spear and pushing him back into the Greasedbearings. Mind you it all could have gone extremely wrong if not for a nat 20 on a charm saving throw by our MVP roller Warlock.
We then proceeded to use various party members' Alter Selves plus not a little forging to pick up his political career and keep on exactly the power-hungry course he was going beforehand. Fortunately all of his head underlings were all unquestioningly loyal with negative wisdom modifiers (except for two, who we also killed), or it would not have worked. (Also good rolls when it came to all the guards wondering what the yelling from the mage's quarters was about, we just had the barbarian poke the already-whiny Bard with an axe and some performance rolls for fright about some monster or other)
(Mind you, this was a political intrigue/open world homebrew campaign, so this series of unfortunate events is more appropriate and less asshole-y than it would be in a module based campaign on rails. I try to keep the insanity to semi-appropriate levels.)
This was perfect wish I could play with you keep it up 😊
I want to hear a LOT more about that campaign!
This reminds me of the time one of my players just slaughtered an innocent baker. Nope there was no reason. The baker wouldve eventually helped them with a puzzle. We have 2 good- aligned characters that just watched.
texotrash I literally can't read this without laughing.
That's called an alignment shift. Players are unreasonably agitated by those.
Sounds like the mating dance of the murder hobo
Hate to say it, But there were like a hundred different ways you could have prevented them doing this, And the fact they activated a magical circle in a clearly mysterious and MAGICAL place, was to be expected. this ones on you.
Also, he could just retcon the fact that they can't go back.
Why go to the trouble of saying it's closed off on the other end if they weren't even supposed to go to the other end in the first place? Why have it work at all?
Hell, just DENY THEM the ability to go, BECAUSE you yourself said, it wasnt working on the other end, You dont create a plot hook so goddamn juicy and have it lead to nothing.
I have to agree this whole mess is the DMs fault not the party's. Either the circle should have required some sort of item/s to activate it or there should have been a plan for if they got lucky with the dice roll.
alternativley a better thing to do rather than retconing the no way beck home thing would have them on a moon adventure were the moon town's residents all under some sort of mind altering spell and after some digging it's revealed that the town was invaded by a beholder who has taken up residence there and closed up the door so no adventurers could oppose them, that way its fun, rewarding,cool, and on topic since beholders do come from space!
see? problem solved! since the beholder was the one to close the portal, you could just say after defeating him the portal re-opened! done, everyone is happy and got something out of this, now you can get back to the story.
see? its not *that* hard i came up with this in a few minutes (huh i should probably DM, that was actually fun)
Ben: Hey guys! Lets leave!
Everyone else: It's time for number two THE MOOOOOOOONN!!
"fighting transdimensional devourers on the rings of Saturn"
Not gonna lie, that sounds epic as hell
I don't think that the campaign was really derailed. You made a place (a cool one at that) and gave it significance and an exciting function. The players found it, used it, and experienced something cool, but scary and foreign. Now they need to figure it out somehow with a vast unknown expanse before them that could be anything. Honestly, you have a great setup here.
Except for the potential level and gear gap. And all the relevant knowledge they probably needed. As it is, they're not just fish out of water, they're fish in a desert.
Everything is up for change by the DM. You just need to make sure you aren't stubborn and are willing to change your plans.
Flexibility is key. If you're too rigid in your campaign design, it's possible for the players to break the game.
That's not to say the moon needs to be level appropriate for them, now that they're there. Just come up with a way for them to get back home; and find a way to inform the characters. Also show them that they are vastly outmatched if they stay on the moon. If they want to go home, come up with a quest for it. If they want to stay, well, they're eventually going to run into enemies that are too powerful for them. If they die, that's on them at that point. If they survive, reward them.
They'll either decide to head home; or they'll eventually bite off more than they can chew. And if they (somehow) end up surviving and thriving on the moon - then they're probably strong enough to take on the Kraken when they do go home. As for the sidequests they failed to complete; just assume that the worst possible thing happened in each case. And just run with those concepts.
Precisely. It's important to allow for new circumstances in your campaign, and let all possibilities thrive, but by no means does this mean that you should baby your players.
You put in a hidden tower of incredible power in your campaign, and you didn't think they'd use it?
To be fair I've had the complete opposite once, I put in an artifact that two seperate people, and a journal referenced.
They were supposed to use the artifact, and that would set up the rest of the campaign.
They did not, they checked for traps, searched AROUND the artifact, detected magic, and finally after much deliberation.... they left it behind and traveled to the other side of the world.
I suppose they thought I was trying to trap them or something, like "Ha! We outsmarted him!" but you shouldn't try to outsmart the dungeon master! the dungeon master is on the side of the players, even if they do control the monsters.
I ended up running them through a few sidequests, like through a forest touched by Selune's influence which has glass-like leaves that massively amplify the moon's radiance causing werebeasts to run wild every night except for new moons and eclipses.
So of course; they were like "no fuck that, I don't want to mess with werebeasts" despite how they were FAR stronger than the strongest werebeasts in the game.
So they avoided the forest too, then there was was one more I had like half completed where Centaurs needed their help against dark elves, but one player was then like "I fucking hate centaurs, they're such a stupid concept, like seriously? horse people?" and refused to help them, and the party followed.
I even made something up on the spot about necromancers raising zombies to pillage villages.
Fucking PCs, they always fuck something up. I've been running dnd5 ed for quite some time, but my newest campaign eneded in TPK on the first session evening when one of the players decided to go ahead and THREATHEN the King in front of his royal guard and court. So yeah, level one PCs versus level 16 guards. We sat next 3 hours - me speechless, them making new characters. Oh, and of course I had to rewrite whole fucking campaign.
I wonder sometimes why am I GM? It's sometimes way more frustrating then rewarding.
Just put the key to leave under the artifact.
@Cephalos666 I think the best way to avoid that sort of thing is to instead of having the level 16 guards attack immediately, Have them surround and attempt to capture the PC's then you can run an escape attempt. And you mold your story that they escape to another kindom, when they're given the same quest by another powerful entity in another way (assuming the problem is a world scale problem).
Alternatively you alter the campaign so that king is now the BBEG and his forces chase them across the continent.
@PaladinGear15 for your artefact, make it a puzzle, or insert a surprise NPC thief climbing the tower as the heroes make their way down. The thief asks if the players have seen a artefact of great value, magical ability, and the rest of the plot. If they don't take the hint, have the thief trigger the scene.
Hindsight: the players may kill the thief... but the artefact draws the thief's blood towards itself and activates anyway! Deus Ex Plot.
@Aaron Tate - yeah, except the PCs drew their weapons and started the fight. Guards were merely trying to subdue them, but when the first one was killed, they went "k bloodshed" mode.
Thank you for being the kind of video maker who makes the screamy parts soft
I agree with your concern about the necromancer coming back.
One of the significant orcs in Middle Earth: Shadow of War is a Necromancer...and had necromancer followers.
What happens when you kill him in story missions the first time?
He's revived by his own followers. :P (Oh yeah he also revives some other orcs you may have killed hours before at this same point. so...good luck.)