Ever had your players do something you hadn't ever thought of them to do?
Mine went and talked to an old retired merchant dwarf, tried to nick a crystal ball of his, and are now trying to exorcise the dark beings within.
I hadn't even planned having the Dwarf in the campaign before this, I just told that the party saw doors in hills as they entered Dwarf Lands and figured that hill dwarves live in hills.
This is 90% of what RPG parties do.
You can spend days crafting locations and NPCs and quests and plot hooks, and then you mention a random detail off the cuff and suddenly it's the only thing they care about.
It's why I'm a primarily improv GM these days. I tried preparing stuff but it basically never got used. All I really need is a few statblocks I can grab if I need enemies for a fight, and otherwise basically everything else is off the cuff.
>>46990919
I knew this would be what happened most of the time, but I didn't expect this shit to happen.
System is D&D 5e
>The party is given a mission to escort a shipment from the human lands to the dwarf capital
>The party is told of the hill dwarves
>They decide to knock on the door
>at this point I am fucking panicked because I didn't expect this to happen and this is my first campaign as a DM. I Make up a generic retired merchant guy, he gives the party a feast because the paladin and a cleric are carrying the banner of the biggest military order in the continent
>A druid goes and explores the dwarf-hole
>asks what he sees, I panic again, make up stuff about trinkets, including a crystal ball
>druid uses detect magic
>I figure fuck it, everythings magical.
>He goes and asks the dwarf about his trophies, especifically the crystal ball
>I make up a story about the dwarf and his caravan getting lost in a blizzard, finding a cabin where an old lady lives, getting captured by un-formly horrors and then manage to trap the horrors within a crystal ball, but the old lady has to sacrifice her soul for it to work
>As a reminder of his failures and lost friends, the dwarf takes the ball as a memoir. And to keep it sealed, of course.
>The Druid, being a half-demon, tries to speak infernal to the crystal ball, agitating the horrors, while taking the crystal ball back to it's place in a glass cabinet.
>Night falls, the half-elf wizard steals the crystal ball
>Frames the half-demon of it
>The night-elf sees a vision in a dream I actually prepared for the half-demon to see, but whatever.
>The half-elf is intrigued, and wants to continue
>I brew up some bullshit about her seeing a dream where she is in a wooden cabin in a snowy forest, she ventures into the snowy forest
>sees dark figures
>tries to use magic, doesn't work
>tries to knife it, doesn't work
>runs back to the cabin
>the horror is in the cabin
>as she is about to get raped, she wakes up
(cont)
>>46991218
>she wakes up, goes to the cleric's room
>opens the door, the door creaks thank's to a botched sneaking roll (a botched sneaking roll while she was stuffing the ball into the half demon's bag was what made the cleric think the druid was sneaking about)
>on the last moment she goes to the half-demon's room and takes the ball
>tries to cut herself up and smear the ball with her blood to achieve... Something?
>she rushes into the cleric's room with the ball and almost cries about the horrors and shit (great roleplay desu, and it's his first session too)
>after some shit, the cleric is now exorcising the horrors from the crystal ball.
I have no fucking idea how it came to this, nor do I have any fucking idea how I managed to come up with all this shit so easily.
I wonder what they'll try to do next.
>>46991337
Good work man, being able to improvise all of that shit is a very important skill to have
>>46991385
I'm just fucking wondering how far through the Henderson Scale we are going to go by the end.
Hopefully not through the roof.
>>46991337
Oh, also, the wizard wanted to steal the crystal ball after she had learned via identify that it had these eldritch fuck-horrors inside. Before that, the druid was thinking about stealing it I think but he decided against it after I showed him the same fuck-horrors lurking inside.
Before this, the party also tried to murder each other for a dozen 10 gp gems.
I gave all the party members different loot, and the druid rolled the best, and finds 7 gems.
Because he's an idiot, he immediately tries to get the whole party to leave the cave they were in. The Paladin, who figured something was aloof, ends up almsot beating his skull in with his hammer. Meanwhile the halfling bard and the half-elf wizard manage to get away with the stuff they didn't tell the party about.
I would've expectet the half-demon to be able to hide his gems, too, but alas.
>>46991337
The fucking cleric chopped off his finger as a sacrifice to his fucking God. I have no fucking words for this.
Which exorcised the evil spirits from this plane of existence.
And then he says ''All happens under the eyes of Ireus (his god), now go to sleep.'' to the half-elf wizard.
I am at a loss of words here. Goddamn.
Had a player in DND game actually hire a lawyer on retainer to take care of problems. Did not expect that.
>>46992281
Good group and roleplayers, GM.
I would suggest giving your cleric the crystal ball or some other blessing to make up for the lost finger, but don't let me tell you how to run your game.
>>46992281
Asside from wanting to shamk each other over minor treasure, this sounds like a great group and game.
>>46996067
>>46995544
Yeah, these guys really make me appreciate the effort I put into things.
Now I just need to figure out what kind of a reward I give to the half elf and the cleric. I was thinking of giving the crystal ball as a keepsake along with a homebrew feat which gives them advantage on wisdom saving throw against mind-altering effects from fiends and undead.
>>46998623
I'm hung up on the part where the party just undid a binding that the old dwarf's former companion sacrificed her soul to put in place. I'd be surprised if that didn't come back and bite them in the ass.
>>46998868
I contemplated on that but decided against it. After all, they just wanted to make the spirit-being-things fuck off so they can't wreak any havoc ever, even though the only thing they've done for decades was howling in a fucking crystal ball.
The divine-magical-fuck-explaining-shit binding was made by a powerful cleric, and after doing fucking everything in his power and desperately calling for his God to help, the party-cleric managed to make the shadow-beings vanish. Only after that was the binding undone, and no shadow-things seemed to have escaped the ball.
I might reuse similar things later on, in this campaign or another one, but I don't think I'm going to punish them for this. That being said I have no fucking idea why they decided to try and fuck with it in the first place, but oh well.
>>46998934
That's fair.
I wouldn't advocate punishing them for it anyway. It definately has potential as a future side plot or something further down the road but that's entirely optional and up to you.
As far as random side points go it was very well done, bravo for the improv OP.
Twice now, my players killed major villains way early.
I'm not mad as much as I am impressed.
