I had a lot of fun writing that and the story DOES pick up a little past there but the campaign has not gotten close to a conclusion. I did not expect this to get noticed a year later, cheers! Fun fact: I actually did not initially know where I was going with that when I made that sudden outburst, I just started talking and the horror dawned on me internally as I was saying it. Oh as an edit: If anyone has further questions I'm more than happy to answer them. Also something I only just now noticed *I* got one detail wrong, Chains wasn't a druid, she was a Wu'jen. I assumed she was a Druid at the time because that's what the player always used and didn't actually state her class until later, this IS corrected in the rest of the ongoing series, but I guess I forgot to make the edit on the first one.
You’re OP? Wow, that was some detective work, even managing to use the other PCs’ backstories to piece the plot together, and neatly derail it to avoid being framed as the starters of a war!
Probably the biggest mistake that gm made was having the captin of the guard let the prisoner go free and ignoring all the kidnapping crimes he should off arrested them then let them escape he would look less corrupt. When government official or high ranking law enforcement ignore large scale crime it usually points to wide spread corrupt or some sort of conspiracy. Still impressive you went from corrupt guard to oh this country made a deal with rival country to start a war with a third country hats off to you.
The World was Faerun so a lot of that was just remembering factoids about that world, though the core of my argument did revolve around his own description of the current setting
I totally agree. I would have been tickled pink that they paid enough attention to catch the twist before it played out. I'd only be mad at myself if I had accidentally made it too easy to figure out. But the best thing is this doesn't mean the campaign is over. Play it out, man!
@Unknown User yeah. I always get confused at people getting mad when security companies get breached. Like of course they do. They're the ones being targeted by massive resources. Nobody cares what your daycare earns in a month karen. They're protection because they protect you. Not make you immune. Like a vaccine not being 100% effective but still helping a lot
This is life, folks. Whole parties of adventurers can't solve a simple puzzle in a dungeon designed for 5th graders, but they will perfectly understand your deliberately obfuscated political quagmire by the third encounter.
Humans find maths and logic harder then empathy. At least most do, as almost all of us spend time around other people to learn empathy and make predictions on what people say, but not a lot of us spend all our time doing riddles.
To be fair I'm good at puzzles too. But I DON'T begrudge anybody who doesn't believe that because I've also been that DM who double and triple checks to ensure that a 3 year old could work out the solution to your conveniently color-coded trap mechanism and still watch a group of grown manchildren spend 4 hours practicing the infinite monkeys theory.
Gotta be honest, as a GM, I'd have been ridiculously proud of that player. Sometimes having your plans smashed in one fell swoop is just hilarious and amazing.
After the player's amazing discovery. My next words as DM would have been... "And what do you plan to do about it?" Right or wrong, that's the plot now.
HONESTLY if this is one of my players, i would be so proud! And maybe, give him some not so heavilly cursed item, with some way to break or especific activate the curse.
My experience as a DM has been Carefully crafted subplots: subverted by group in ways I didn't expect Simple puzzle mechanic: eldridge blast it till something else happens
Still better than things i've seen happen... several times. All things plot wise major, small, etc. Point in dirction 1... party... ehm, so story isthat wayright? We'll turn180 and go thaaaaaat way. Beenin a party where thedm brought such an over the top premise we just turned arou d amd'nope'-ed the heck outta that. (You don't set a group of lvl 1 pcs against a SENTIENT, MOVING SWAMP... sowe didtjeonly sensible thing, turned around pretending we never saw that. Similarly, we spent 7 months of irl weekly sessions (counting for about 5 months of ingame time) in the same FREAKING castle having nothing todo but randomly go out to do... SOMETHING. This reaulted in, a 150 meter long, 30 meter wide segment of ancient witchwood trees getting incinerated necause our sorcerer got pissed and basically kamehameha'd (she got permissionto burn all her apell slots on scorching rays and bc of homebrew items, that included 9th lvl slots as well) the haunted forrest that ko-ed her twice already without a way to resist, our druid reviving that segment of forrest and accidentally overdoing it meaning that a 150x30m patch of wood turnedash, became 3x as tall as the remaining forrest. Me technically 1-shotting a mini bossfight that was meant to be done with 4 of our 7 ppl group (again yea homebrew, this time weapons and spells) since i got a homebrewed haste on me which gave me 2 extra turns worth of stuff inthat turn after i receaved healing which went into a cursed gauntlet i had fused to my arm, so the first spell of an element would be absorbed and my attacks dealt that instead... and bonus damage of that type. And then i just burned EVERYTHING in 1 turn of ultimate monk annihilation attack, 3 rounds worth of attacks, 3 flurry of blows... oh and let's not forget that all of that gets multiplied by 4 , because my wrist mounted multi whip thing had to roll an attack for each of the 4 whips on it... while still somehow counting as unarmed. So 1 attack from my character woyld default 4 hits already if i hit, so when the dm finished calculating damage, he just closed the laptop and hung his head. (I never claimed he was good at balancing homebrew). Not long after we ended up killing the god of death and another god, had our cleric go power crazy when he got all the pieces of ancient armor + sword + shield that was stuff of myths and given to him by a dragon from the dawn of time, we saved 1 city from internal civil was because the assassins guild there ended up imploding, which led to our sorcerer (member of said guild) eventually becoming their leader, unintentionally blowing up her birth city when she tried to destrpy the guild'ssecondary hq, having our sorcerer turned into anavatar of evil and destruction because poor rp inthe group and our dm subtlely but not so subtly making clear he had a bone to pick with her, taking away her control of her character and telling her to attack the party.... and i ran a campaign myself where thing derailed in a glorious dimpster fire ofcomedy, party got to a city, accidentally caused a coup when the daughter of the duke returned, kinda demanding answers, they helped her, dad dies because thing were misunderstood (learned the hard way that in an isekai campaign the words finish him are dangerous when thr pc nearest to the former duke is the rogue who had a mental breakdown after hearing there was no way back) in an emotional situation, daughter's uncle tales dukes place and party got a mansion (can't be murder hobo if u got a home, right) but since i clarified ramancewith npcs was allowed at the start and aditional summoning systems were in place i accidentally created a tabletop dating sim roleplaying game... how did i fix that? Throw a dragon at it, finally got tjem on the road again by lobbing a dragon at the city in the middle of acity council they had been invited to and threw them the plot hook that dragons generally don't come thisclose to the city, let alone land on the wall... finally they got the hint, and i kinda got them vack onthe main story... without revealing a damn thimg about it... story wise, that was meant to be vague af, since that worlds gods brought them there to fix problems neither they nor the world's own ppl could, and neither of those knew a damned thing about what was causing it and yet, they had already been VERY close to tje campaign's bbeg
Yeah, I imagine someday playing a priest of the God of Door Smiting. Use your Channel Divinity to cast Knock. Doors are chains on our free will and must all be sundered!
Unravel the dm's plot twist way ahead of schedule, is an achievement. But do that same thing while drunk, in and out of character, that's what separated histories from legends.
@@warboss3686 Well from my perspective it was simple mathmatics: They looked at a 6ft tall woman built like an amazon and said "Yeah... That's the one we're gonna hand an explicit threat too" The message had to be *very* clear so others of that level of intelligence could not misinterpret it. I'd say it was received *transparently*
I love it when the DM has such good worldbulding that you can deduct what's going on and doesnt just make things up to pull the rug from under your feet.
as a fellow DM I cant but help to applaud the astuteness of that player for figuring out the plot so quickly. on a side note I would try in anyway to make at painful as possible for them to leave Tethyr weather it involves legal battles with the capitol guard for digging in areas where they shouldn't or having to deal with a major hive of goblins on they're way out. Thats some good thinking and deserving of a new plot to play around the already broken one
I'm the normal DM for my group, so when one of the players decides to run a module or something, and I do that stuff early on, they get very discouraged and stop offering to DM. I guess years of DM cause me to think along those lines to the point where I see the plot a mile ahead. But I have had it done to me too, and after the initial WTF, I have to admit how proud I am for piecing it together so quickly.
On one hand, props to the DM for making such a detailed world. I doubt most would consider all those minutia listed in the video and for the Sherlock reveal. On the other, maybe the DM should have left less smoking Chekhov Guns hanging on the walls. If they figure it out too fast, that can derail the plan you put so much effort into.
My players always come up with stuff that surprises me. If I left any weakness in a scenario that can be e exploited to break the current campaign, and they don't outright find it, one of them will most likely trip on it.
I would LOVE for that level of sleuthing to happen at my table. My preferred system, Palladium Fantasy, gives lots of XP to people who can use good deductive reasoning in character, and putting all those pieces together at once, especially early in the campaign, is almost a guaranteed level-up by itself. Well played!
@RyuRaven I would happily allow a momentary slide into "idiot savant" status, especially if they played up how hard it was to spit the thought out with a limited vocabulary.
I played in a campaign back in 1988. I was an eleven warrior\mage\thief. By playing my character properly, I stunned the DM by skipping 3sessions of investigations. Went right to the home of the big-bads in session one!!!
I had a game for my students in AP History, and one of them recognized I was re-enacting the Boer War, but between Human settlers and Lizardfolk shamans.
"They took exception to that...so I killed two of them." "The third I knocked out, dumped in a trashcan, and took back to the bar, not be fore honoring my promise...with extreme prejudice."
You have to hand it to both the DM and the player - the DM for having ironclad internal logic to their lore, and the player for being invested and clever enough to piece everything together. Beautiful union of stellar minds.
Hey, it wasn't an easy puzzle, but a player figured it out anyway, and that's plenty of gameplay value to be had. Might leave him scrambling for a plan B, but it's more fun than railroading them.
Every time I watch one of your videos I get an ad for a product that you voiced for lol there is no mistaking your voice. It’s awesome that you are doing voice work for ads. Side note yet another amazing story
This reminds me of the time in my 7th sea game that a musketeer earned the nickname Batman for uncovering the queen had arranged to have herself kidnapped based on shoes, a hairbrush, and tile discoloration on the roof. An entire extensive multi session investigation with leads for every player's skillset thwarted because I couldn't in good conscience say that the Queen would expect a musketeer to be knowledgeable about how fast shoes wear out.
It's called Genre Savvy. Sometimes it's like "Wait, haven't I heard this story before?" Then, depending on your character's stats, maybe they've heard of something similar, in so far as their world is concerned.
So cool! The chaotic evil pirate queen brawler seems like the least likely character to go full Sherlock Holmes and solve the big, mysterious nation-wide conspiracy going on behind the scenes, but there you go! This player is a true role-playing genius!
Me as DM: "....I hate that you figured out all of my months of planning for this session in a matter of minutes, but you gain an additional level for figuring it out. Nice job. Now come back next week as I need to plan out SOMETHING for us play now."
I would totally congratulate that player and definitelly reward them in some way. I really like it when players put that extra effort to understand what is going on in the background of the story. Especially when they pay attention to details. ^_^ GJ!
I think this is sooooo not a wasted plot. Props to the player who figured it out, but now it is time to stop the corruption, the players would need allies, both in low and high places. Also props to the GM who thought up a very cool setting for his party.
I always love stories where a player or two put pieces together and find out big stuff just by doing so. Perhaps it's because I'm often the same, putting pieces together we've been fed.
Something similar happened to me literally last week during the first session of my players first ever campaign. I introduced a character who was a pink hair, pink skinned, eladrin elf Bard. He was part of the adventuring party that saved the world 250 years ago from a Mind Flayer tyrant, and I wanted this basically level 20 Bard to just keep showing up whereever the party was as a somewhat comic relief, but to also give advice to my new players as an incredibly experienced adventurer. I wanted the surprise to be he was the BBEG, and all the advice he was giving was was actually just getting the party to further his plans. As a joke in my first session, one of the party said "what if he's the bad guy" and now it's become an inside joke to not listen to anything he says for the rest of the campaign, ruining all my plans as a joke. Gotta love this game.
If i were the DM i would be mad at the amount of work lost but super proud of a player piecing it all together that fast. It would only make me want to test them further.
This is some great detective work. I had a character who was a Kensei Monk or a war god Chaotic Neutral that insulted everyone he saw as stupid. Like a spymaster who was caught unaware of his own castle being attacked. He figured out who the bbeg was and what he was up to and allowed his party to unknowingly help him all because of his philosophy.
I have a guess, I’ve just gotten to the part asks for the party to find her grandfather. I think that this place uses children to pretend that there family is missing to bait adventurers into looking for them, uncovering clues which lead them to an abandoned part of the city, they’ll then be kidnapped and turned into slaves. Edit: nope.. nope, nope, nope...
on one side i feel bad for the DM, on the other damn good job by the DM. all pieces were in place to put the puzzle together, that's good DMing, it's just the risk that good DMing like that can result in someone actually figuring it out, meaning things may take a turn.
I didn't uncover a whole conspiracy, but I did have a similar experience. I have a few characters who are siblings so I can use a similar backstory with different experiences. They all grew up on a farm with their father who had started getting very sick when they were still young. Their mother passed a few years after their youngest was born. My wizard, the oldest daughter went to school and started learning alchemy to make medicine for their father. My rogue, the youngest daughter, got abducted while she was trying to make money for the family, she then killed her kidnappers to get away and when news of this got out she was conscripted to be essentially a secret agent for a noble or royalty, whatever will work in the current story. For this game, I wanted to play a paladin, he stayed home and took care of the farm until their father died. After the funeral and unsure of what to do with his life one of the sisters suggests he should find a way to be kind for a living. Thus we have Alistair Vyn Requim; Paladin Initiate of the Hands of Pelor. (Praise the Sun!) When my party made it to the capitol city of the land we were in, the church gave me a mission to find an elder paladin who had gone missing. When I found him I discovered that paladins were being kidnapped and converted into Death knights. After barely escaping with my life, I went back to the church to tell them what I had found. I was told by the elder to go and get some rest. During my long rest I was told to make a perception check, which I failed and got woken up with a dagger in my side and 2 less hit points. I wrestled my attacker and cast the light cantrip on their cloak so I could try to follow them if they got away. Unfortunately for me, the DM said "she jumps out the window and cuts off her cloak on the way down" So we didn't get to interrogate her for information. The next day we managed to get an audience with the Queen to let her know about what was happening in her city. Long story short, I waited outside while other members of the party met with the Queen because we had one person who was playing the character of "I'm not giving up my weapons." While we were waiting outside the DM was narrating to the rest of the party what was going on with their meeting with the Queen. They tried to explain to her what it was that I had found, but she seemed unconcerned with this information. It became very apparent that the Queen was in on this conspiracy as well. It was at that point It was at that point I couldn't help myself but exclaim "OH MY GODS!" Everyone naturally looked at me and asked "what?" I said "nothing just keep going" I had had a realisation but not one that they thought that I was having. The party that met with the Queen was taken to the dungeon, and we spent the rest of the session breaking them out. Afterwards the DM was starting to wrap everything up and I said "hold on I have one more thing that I want to do." He looked at me rather confused, and I said "I want to go back to the alleyway where the assassin escaped from." When I got back there I called out "Euodia! If you are still here show yourself! " Still confused, the DM asked me "what are you talking about?" When I said "that's my sister's name," His eyes grew wide and his jaw fell. He sighed and said "come with me." We went into a different Room for a private discussion, And As soon as the door closed he turned around and said "how in the hell did you figure that out?!" I said "once you let it out that the Queen was in on this conspiracy, I remembered my sister's backstory. Then I am attacked by an assassin while flat footed and asleep and SHE only dealt 2 damage. It made perfect sense. " I didn't totally unravel his campaign but I did get an insider who he said he wasn't planning on bringing in for at least 5 sessions.
I feel bad for the DM, but shit like this is why the game is so fun! somebody will always WOMP the DM, and it becomes a story to tell and adds so much investment to the game.
IT DID HAPPEN AT MY TABLE! Players guessed that their group patron was actually a BBEG second-in conmand, it was such a Marvolous story, I implemented it instantly, and had to work overtime to convince them they em were wrong. best decision ever!!! Because they really bought into him, and the inevitable betrayal hurt so much more!
Honestly, I'd be proud of these people for figuring it out. Because now you get to play the part of a conspiracy that knows only a party of nobody adventurers, half of them thieves, knows the truth outside your organization and one of them is already connected to your plan of obfuscation. Story goes from intrigue to running for your life because you're the bad guy...While the actual bad guy is right on your heels!
As a player, I notice subplots long before they're supposed to be revealed and unless my character has a crazy high Int, I don't say anything until everyone else seem to start picking up on it. As a DM, I don't feel bad for him at all. He shouldn't have given out all that information so early if he really wanted it to be a suprise... Sprinkle it throughout the game instead of an info dump.
Apparently the figher's player had a lot of points in Gather Information too, as well as extensive knowledge of the political landscape of the area. I actually almost had the players in a campaign a couple of years ago trip over the big bad too early. While meanwhile missing other bad guys. It was a homebrew setting, the characters were adventuring in a barony that was right across a mountain range from a hostile country ruled by necromancers that worshipped Vecna, who over the course of the campaign were gearing up and marching to war with the country they were in.. the barony being the first stopping point. In the meantime they were dealing with a vampire lord and his minions that were trying to destabilize the country from within. They completely missed the vampire who was posing as a diplomat from another country. Who had a ring that protected her from the sunlight. And several times showed up to listen in on conversations that she had no reason or right to listen to. But the already dominated Baron never objected to. They didn't find out about here until they were following a plot to spread disease through the water supply had killed hundreds before they stopped it and traced it back to her. The one that they nearly tripped over was the 'second season' enemy I had been working on... And their direct boss most of the time. The Baron's third child acted as his vizer and assistant. She often was championing the party, grooming them for positions of power in the Barony... loyal to her. Especially when they 'saved her life' after her elder brother went 'insane' and killed her younger brother.... clearing two steps for her to ascend to the throne. The players had suspected her of the problem with the vampires and the disease, before the so called diplomat was exposed. So she planted evidence using her invisible imp in the rooms of the vampire that implicated her in the deaths of her brothers. But it was a very near thing of blowing pretty much my entire second season out of the water months before I was even finished with the first season.
Not so much a LOT of points, it is a cross class skill. My character had been written to have effectively been stranded in this city for over 3 months, not really under arrest, more 'confined to to capital pending the conclusion of the investigation' myself and the crew were under for our involvement in the slaves our ships captain was caught smuggling. Kheltra talks to a LOT of people and 3 months (I think, this was over a year ago irl) was more than enough time to get a grip on the local situation. As for the time the investigation was taking, my ship and crew were being set up to take the fall if the conspiracy was ever uncovered. (Or rather, Luskan as a whole was being set up using us as a patsy.)
There would be some frustration, but at the end of the day, if my players were invested enough to pay attention and figure out my plot like that, I'd be elated. I'd have to pull a Truth from FMA:Brotherhood "Correct, alchemist!"
In my head the fight scene with the muggers was preceded by OP doing one of the slow motion fight choreography planning things from the RDJ Sherlock Holmes movies during the banter. *Sherlock Holmes theme plays*
I didn't do anything to this extreme, but I did solve a part of a problem really early on. We were stuck in a dwarven mining town. They were having some issues with the mines and we were asked to help. Basically, the miners said that all mining had been ceased because of sabotage by a rogue individual. I discovered through observation of how the map was arranged that no, mining had not stopped, expansion outward from a specific tunnel had. The taskmaster or whatever thought this rogue was trying to stop ALL mining, but failed to realize that all mining BUT one path had been ruined. As the rest of the party was trying to figure out who was the sabotuer, I exclaimed after minutes of thought and silence "It's not sabotage..." to which everyone at the table looked at me. "It's not sabotage, the person in question is trying to force the mining down a specific path. If you look at the map, you can see how every time the miners try to start a new tunnel it gets ruined, but the main tunnel is never impeded. Whoever is doing this WANTS you to mine something, and they know what it is." This led to what became a reveal of a villainous 3rd party as the cause, a powerful magic gem as the prize they saught, and some high stakes "who will get it first" action. It was a good time.
In situations like that you need to adapt, improvise, and overcome. Just because the party knows doesn't mean things are going to stop progressing, and worst case scenario the plot can get new fall guys.
The plot still carried on, it was just a bit of a role reversal where WE had the upper hand on the great value illuminati because they didnt know they were sus'd out immediately.
You know. I gotta admit as a DM I'd actually kinda love this, but mostly because I know that with a group this ambitious? No way they're leaving something as profitable as a war alone, and I'd also wager good money they're going to try and play at least two sides against each other. Games like that? You barely need to plan anything outside large scale actions as backgrounds for the PCs to plan around and exploit.
I returned to this after almost half a year to report in and I like your style so this is where I'm putting it (Also I've been drinking again and this made me laugh the most) At first, the plan was to run to the Lord's Alliance and inform them of what was going on so they could band with Amn and take Tethyr and Calim off the map. Now, I have become Azula and decided to make a go of gaining control of this conspiracy from within through two other players while simultaneously feeding Amn just enough information to not lead their military into a trap. I think the endgame has turned into our party declaring hegemony because an evil character I intended to have redeemed by the party ended up corrupting all of them one by one instead and I've just sort of accidentally become the leader.
First I need to applaud. Are you sure you were just crew on that ship and not part of the admiralty? Because that was some excellent military dissection/deduction. And to answer our fine narrator. As a DM, no. Most of my parties are lost on side quests to ever figure out intrigues like this. Several sometimes stupid things in my campaign making them slap their foreheads as they realize they were kinda ignoring the issue in front of them. As a player, uhm sort of? I once in a campaign were there were rebels outed an imperial spy because the secret clandestine meeting had public postings about it for all rebels to arrive at a camp and discuss strategy. And it was the worst 'clandestine' thing you could do. And I once short circuited a campaign because an NPC had an out of character reaction to me. So I rolled to disbelieve the illusion. Turned out the campaign setting itself was an illusion test and we were not supposed to figure that part out. . . oops.
Kheltra's relationship with the Luskan Navy is... Complicated at best The SHORT version is, she's honorary. She was found among their number as a stowaway after breaking out of prison but rather than turn her in, they liked her demented mindset and how quickly she learned the way of the pirate so they hid her in plain sight
I remember once in a while me or one of my friends went and said something that was either on the nose for a lucky guess or blurted out something that the DM must have decided to put in as the story which dumbfounded the one who said it out of character
Man, Player INT and WIS beating a Campaign is Legendary Rarity occurance. I really do feel bad for the DM for he has suffered a fate worse than being victim to Metagamers and Murder-Hobos. Mind you, Murder-Hobos often ruin Campaigns by being lucky at killing certain NPCs. It is not every week when you see someone actually think and also have good INT and WIS Rolls so the DM could not stop their Character. XD
The only thing it really "ruined" was the twist, we still had to deal with it the difference is that WE now held the advantage because they didnt know that we sus'd them out. The next step was figuring out how far up the chain it went once they did something to us that demanded retaliation. In Kheltra's Case, her motivation to fight them came when they stole her boat
There’s a funny story of the luckiest unluckiest player. Basically, the BBEG was incognito, so the player chose to cook for him. Nat 1. The dish was rendered inedible, but the player, not knowing that they were dealing with the disguised BBEG, decided to roll for Deception to get him to eat it. Nat 20. The BBEG then started to choke, and the player, who was near a large stained glass window with the BBEG, tries to save him with a Heimlich maneuver as a Medicine check. Nat 1. The player accidentally suplexes the BBEG out of the window, and with a Nat 20 in Acrobatics, manages to grab the window ledge. The BBEG dies from fall damage, and their evil nature is exposed when they explode into demonic ghosts and fire. The DM cries from laughing too hard. And then explodes into demonic ghosts and fire. And that’s the story of the luckiest unluckiest player, whose simultaneous stroke of good luck and bad luck resulted in them killing and exposing the BBEG.
in an investigative oneshot there was some kind of time alterating creature with very subdole false hydraish clues placed all over the city, and i figured it out in 40 minutes absolutly ruining the 13 hours session we had planned....
I have only the utmost respect for this player like I’ve pieced together conspiracies but never something like this. I wish for there success in stopping the war or avoiding it entirely.
I threw towels imbued with magic on top of a wraith that couldn't move at the time so it got stuck for two rounds of combat and was last initiative leading the boss fight to be more of a beat the pinata
My current campaign's BBEG is a Changeling Druid. The party's met them multiple times (actually saved their life twice), yet only one player has suspected anything close to that so far (even though my only race restriction in Session 0 was no Changeling PCs. Quite a hint imo) Will share the story with the internet once the BBEG reveals themselves to the PCs for what they are
I have my own story, once in a campaign we we're in a battle and the archer of are group says "I shoot a arrow at a tree behind them and the dm asked him to roll and he rolled a Nat 20, And the dm was the person who sets up there campaign to easily change and he said "when the arrow hits the tree a click would come from the tree and the tree would open and a book would fall out" and too make it short we discovered a journal too a adventurer and there was a map and on the map's location we found a cave that lead into a hollow-earth type place that looks like a broken kingdom
I had a lot of fun writing that and the story DOES pick up a little past there but the campaign has not gotten close to a conclusion.
I did not expect this to get noticed a year later, cheers!
Fun fact: I actually did not initially know where I was going with that when I made that sudden outburst, I just started talking and the horror dawned on me internally as I was saying it.
Oh as an edit: If anyone has further questions I'm more than happy to answer them. Also something I only just now noticed *I* got one detail wrong, Chains wasn't a druid, she was a Wu'jen. I assumed she was a Druid at the time because that's what the player always used and didn't actually state her class until later, this IS corrected in the rest of the ongoing series, but I guess I forgot to make the edit on the first one.
You have my utmost respect.
Accidental Sherlock Holmes
That's even _more_ awesome.
You’re OP? Wow, that was some detective work, even managing to use the other PCs’ backstories to piece the plot together, and neatly derail it to avoid being framed as the starters of a war!
Probably the biggest mistake that gm made was having the captin of the guard let the prisoner go free and ignoring all the kidnapping crimes he should off arrested them then let them escape he would look less corrupt. When government official or high ranking law enforcement ignore large scale crime it usually points to wide spread corrupt or some sort of conspiracy. Still impressive you went from corrupt guard to oh this country made a deal with rival country to start a war with a third country hats off to you.
honestly if i was the DM I would be flattered that they remembered so much of the world lore that they managed to put that together.
The World was Faerun so a lot of that was just remembering factoids about that world, though the core of my argument did revolve around his own description of the current setting
I totally agree. I would have been tickled pink that they paid enough attention to catch the twist before it played out.
I'd only be mad at myself if I had accidentally made it too easy to figure out.
But the best thing is this doesn't mean the campaign is over. Play it out, man!
I feel like this is the essence of the "I'm not mad, I'm actually quite impressed" meme
You know what? I ain't even mad.
So impressed... it hurts... a lot
"You ate the whole wheel of cheese!"
That DM should have protected his secrets with Nord VPN.
I really wish I used this line, lol
He's actually smart for not. Who wants a VPN that was recently breached?
Fuck you take my +1, even if River is correct :P
If only I had more hands so that I could applaud you without it sounding awkward.
@Unknown User yeah. I always get confused at people getting mad when security companies get breached. Like of course they do. They're the ones being targeted by massive resources. Nobody cares what your daycare earns in a month karen. They're protection because they protect you. Not make you immune. Like a vaccine not being 100% effective but still helping a lot
This is life, folks. Whole parties of adventurers can't solve a simple puzzle in a dungeon designed for 5th graders, but they will perfectly understand your deliberately obfuscated political quagmire by the third encounter.
Humans find maths and logic harder then empathy. At least most do, as almost all of us spend time around other people to learn empathy and make predictions on what people say, but not a lot of us spend all our time doing riddles.
@@traceable7875 I've never thought of it that way, but that's a really good point!
@@timwoods2852 Thanks!
To be fair I'm good at puzzles too. But I DON'T begrudge anybody who doesn't believe that because I've also been that DM who double and triple checks to ensure that a 3 year old could work out the solution to your conveniently color-coded trap mechanism and still watch a group of grown manchildren spend 4 hours practicing the infinite monkeys theory.
@@traceable7875 Well, that explains a lot about that rather funny phenomenon I observed.
Gotta be honest, as a GM, I'd have been ridiculously proud of that player. Sometimes having your plans smashed in one fell swoop is just hilarious and amazing.
Extra xp from me
After the player's amazing discovery. My next words as DM would have been...
"And what do you plan to do about it?"
Right or wrong, that's the plot now.
Im guessing that murder was supposed to be what makes the party the scapegoat
I almost feel bad for this DM but damn, all this in one session is impressive
This is like drawing the vizier card from the deck of many things.
You could look those place names up on how to pronounce them so it doesn't sound so bad.
Dayum, that's impressive
HONESTLY if this is one of my players, i would be so proud! And maybe, give him some not so heavilly cursed item, with some way to break or especific activate the curse.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the GM had to seriously change the campaign story towards the party now inciting a rebellion after that revelation
My experience as a DM has been
Carefully crafted subplots: subverted by group in ways I didn't expect
Simple puzzle mechanic: eldridge blast it till something else happens
Still better than things i've seen happen... several times. All things plot wise major, small, etc. Point in dirction 1... party... ehm, so story isthat wayright? We'll turn180 and go thaaaaaat way. Beenin a party where thedm brought such an over the top premise we just turned arou d amd'nope'-ed the heck outta that. (You don't set a group of lvl 1 pcs against a SENTIENT, MOVING SWAMP... sowe didtjeonly sensible thing, turned around pretending we never saw that. Similarly, we spent 7 months of irl weekly sessions (counting for about 5 months of ingame time) in the same FREAKING castle having nothing todo but randomly go out to do... SOMETHING. This reaulted in, a 150 meter long, 30 meter wide segment of ancient witchwood trees getting incinerated necause our sorcerer got pissed and basically kamehameha'd (she got permissionto burn all her apell slots on scorching rays and bc of homebrew items, that included 9th lvl slots as well) the haunted forrest that ko-ed her twice already without a way to resist, our druid reviving that segment of forrest and accidentally overdoing it meaning that a 150x30m patch of wood turnedash, became 3x as tall as the remaining forrest. Me technically 1-shotting a mini bossfight that was meant to be done with 4 of our 7 ppl group (again yea homebrew, this time weapons and spells) since i got a homebrewed haste on me which gave me 2 extra turns worth of stuff inthat turn after i receaved healing which went into a cursed gauntlet i had fused to my arm, so the first spell of an element would be absorbed and my attacks dealt that instead... and bonus damage of that type. And then i just burned EVERYTHING in 1 turn of ultimate monk annihilation attack, 3 rounds worth of attacks, 3 flurry of blows... oh and let's not forget that all of that gets multiplied by 4 , because my wrist mounted multi whip thing had to roll an attack for each of the 4 whips on it... while still somehow counting as unarmed. So 1 attack from my character woyld default 4 hits already if i hit, so when the dm finished calculating damage, he just closed the laptop and hung his head. (I never claimed he was good at balancing homebrew). Not long after we ended up killing the god of death and another god, had our cleric go power crazy when he got all the pieces of ancient armor + sword + shield that was stuff of myths and given to him by a dragon from the dawn of time, we saved 1 city from internal civil was because the assassins guild there ended up imploding, which led to our sorcerer (member of said guild) eventually becoming their leader, unintentionally blowing up her birth city when she tried to destrpy the guild'ssecondary hq, having our sorcerer turned into anavatar of evil and destruction because poor rp inthe group and our dm subtlely but not so subtly making clear he had a bone to pick with her, taking away her control of her character and telling her to attack the party.... and i ran a campaign myself where thing derailed in a glorious dimpster fire ofcomedy, party got to a city, accidentally caused a coup when the daughter of the duke returned, kinda demanding answers, they helped her, dad dies because thing were misunderstood (learned the hard way that in an isekai campaign the words finish him are dangerous when thr pc nearest to the former duke is the rogue who had a mental breakdown after hearing there was no way back) in an emotional situation, daughter's uncle tales dukes place and party got a mansion (can't be murder hobo if u got a home, right) but since i clarified ramancewith npcs was allowed at the start and aditional summoning systems were in place i accidentally created a tabletop dating sim roleplaying game... how did i fix that? Throw a dragon at it, finally got tjem on the road again by lobbing a dragon at the city in the middle of acity council they had been invited to and threw them the plot hook that dragons generally don't come thisclose to the city, let alone land on the wall... finally they got the hint, and i kinda got them vack onthe main story... without revealing a damn thimg about it... story wise, that was meant to be vague af, since that worlds gods brought them there to fix problems neither they nor the world's own ppl could, and neither of those knew a damned thing about what was causing it and yet, they had already been VERY close to tje campaign's bbeg
Yeah, I imagine someday playing a priest of the God of Door Smiting. Use your Channel Divinity to cast Knock. Doors are chains on our free will and must all be sundered!
Unravel the dm's plot twist way ahead of schedule, is an achievement.
But do that same thing while drunk, in and out of character, that's what separated histories from legends.
I would think that Sherlock Holmes would be very proud of that deduction. Even if it is part of an DND game
Thanks, I literally only worked that out because I started talking and *nobody* stopped me
I wish Sherlock Holmes were non-fictional and alive, he would be an amazing player on a D&D show/podcast
I would want Moriarty as the DM
"If you touch me with that club I'm going to break it off inside of you."
That is the BEST response ever lol
The image is so hard to come up with but the answers I have are horrible
“And they took exception to that”
*Alucard flashbacks intensified*
@@warboss3686 Well from my perspective it was simple mathmatics: They looked at a 6ft tall woman built like an amazon and said "Yeah... That's the one we're gonna hand an explicit threat too"
The message had to be *very* clear so others of that level of intelligence could not misinterpret it.
I'd say it was received *transparently*
"But not before I honored that promise... with prejudice."
@@BadBomb555 "a screaming garbage can that made funny noises when you smashed it against the ground lid first"
This cult is like Elder Scrolls NPCs in how they're like "YOU WON'T ESCAPE ALIVE!" *flashcut to all except one dead to be tortured*
Let's not forget that last one still shouting you won't escape alive while your toruting him
DM:They’ll never see this coming
The player who just beat the Daganrompa comic minigame:I WIN!
The fastest procrastinator in the west.
were I that DM, I would be leading an applause for that player. That was amazing.
Applause, and a bonus lvl up for picking apart the plot so fast
PJ: You May Have Outsmarted Me, But I Outsmarted Your Outsmarting
That's nothing, I once had to outsmart MYSELF!!! ;o)
I love it when the DM has such good worldbulding that you can deduct what's going on and doesnt just make things up to pull the rug from under your feet.
as a fellow DM I cant but help to applaud the astuteness of that player for figuring out the plot so quickly. on a side note I would try in anyway to make at painful as possible for them to leave Tethyr weather it involves legal battles with the capitol guard for digging in areas where they shouldn't or having to deal with a major hive of goblins on they're way out. Thats some good thinking and deserving of a new plot to play around the already broken one
I'm the normal DM for my group, so when one of the players decides to run a module or something, and I do that stuff early on, they get very discouraged and stop offering to DM. I guess years of DM cause me to think along those lines to the point where I see the plot a mile ahead.
But I have had it done to me too, and after the initial WTF, I have to admit how proud I am for piecing it together so quickly.
On one hand, props to the DM for making such a detailed world. I doubt most would consider all those minutia listed in the video and for the Sherlock reveal.
On the other, maybe the DM should have left less smoking Chekhov Guns hanging on the walls. If they figure it out too fast, that can derail the plan you put so much effort into.
My players always come up with stuff that surprises me. If I left any weakness in a scenario that can be e exploited to break the current campaign, and they don't outright find it, one of them will most likely trip on it.
I would LOVE for that level of sleuthing to happen at my table. My preferred system, Palladium Fantasy, gives lots of XP to people who can use good deductive reasoning in character, and putting all those pieces together at once, especially early in the campaign, is almost a guaranteed level-up by itself. Well played!
@RyuRaven I would happily allow a momentary slide into "idiot savant" status, especially if they played up how hard it was to spit the thought out with a limited vocabulary.
You'd soon realize that your DM just went along with your explanation since it made a better story than what they had in mind.
Wow, that's a better idea than what I had. I'd better write it down.
I played in a campaign back in 1988. I was an eleven warrior\mage\thief. By playing my character properly, I stunned the DM by skipping 3sessions of investigations. Went right to the home of the big-bads in session one!!!
Not sure what's better, the entrigue the GM had planned, or the character that figured all that out. Also, the pic/animation is top notch as always.
Got here faster than she uncovered the conspiracy.
Bravo
This character reminds me of my own one-time pirate brawling beauty...
And I love it.
I had a game for my students in AP History, and one of them recognized I was re-enacting the Boer War, but between Human settlers and Lizardfolk shamans.
6:06 commendable! Imagine it was a hard fit, YIRBEL LIVES!
"They took exception to that...so I killed two of them."
"The third I knocked out, dumped in a trashcan, and took back to the bar, not be fore honoring my promise...with extreme prejudice."
You have to hand it to both the DM and the player - the DM for having ironclad internal logic to their lore, and the player for being invested and clever enough to piece everything together. Beautiful union of stellar minds.
That was pretty awesome. I probably wouldn’t have figured it out. The story’s you find are pretty great.
Hey, it wasn't an easy puzzle, but a player figured it out anyway, and that's plenty of gameplay value to be had. Might leave him scrambling for a plan B, but it's more fun than railroading them.
Fighter in Adrian Monk voice: "here's what happened..."
Every time I watch one of your videos I get an ad for a product that you voiced for lol there is no mistaking your voice. It’s awesome that you are doing voice work for ads.
Side note yet another amazing story
This reminds me of the time in my 7th sea game that a musketeer earned the nickname Batman for uncovering the queen had arranged to have herself kidnapped based on shoes, a hairbrush, and tile discoloration on the roof. An entire extensive multi session investigation with leads for every player's skillset thwarted because I couldn't in good conscience say that the Queen would expect a musketeer to be knowledgeable about how fast shoes wear out.
Ok, this needs more info, and needs to be made into one of these videos.
@@Revan_7even I can write it up if someone is interested. I ended up marrying the player of Musketeer Batman so the story is a favorite ;)
@@pinkpirate5 please tell us, wise one
Good GM for having economy and ecology figured out. Good player for paying attention to more than what is right in front of them.
It's called Genre Savvy.
Sometimes it's like "Wait, haven't I heard this story before?" Then, depending on your character's stats, maybe they've heard of something similar, in so far as their world is concerned.
So cool! The chaotic evil pirate queen brawler seems like the least likely character to go full Sherlock Holmes and solve the big, mysterious nation-wide conspiracy going on behind the scenes, but there you go! This player is a true role-playing genius!
Me as DM: "....I hate that you figured out all of my months of planning for this session in a matter of minutes, but you gain an additional level for figuring it out. Nice job. Now come back next week as I need to plan out SOMETHING for us play now."
Clearly it took longer than 5 min, the videos over 10!
I didnt lie, it only took five minutes.
I did not specify which five minutes
@@Rebellions Noice
@@Rebellions a reply both fitting for the situation and your character
I would totally congratulate that player and definitelly reward them in some way. I really like it when players put that extra effort to understand what is going on in the background of the story. Especially when they pay attention to details. ^_^ GJ!
I think this is sooooo not a wasted plot. Props to the player who figured it out, but now it is time to stop the corruption, the players would need allies, both in low and high places. Also props to the GM who thought up a very cool setting for his party.
I always love stories where a player or two put pieces together and find out big stuff just by doing so. Perhaps it's because I'm often the same, putting pieces together we've been fed.
Something similar happened to me literally last week during the first session of my players first ever campaign. I introduced a character who was a pink hair, pink skinned, eladrin elf Bard. He was part of the adventuring party that saved the world 250 years ago from a Mind Flayer tyrant, and I wanted this basically level 20 Bard to just keep showing up whereever the party was as a somewhat comic relief, but to also give advice to my new players as an incredibly experienced adventurer. I wanted the surprise to be he was the BBEG, and all the advice he was giving was was actually just getting the party to further his plans.
As a joke in my first session, one of the party said "what if he's the bad guy" and now it's become an inside joke to not listen to anything he says for the rest of the campaign, ruining all my plans as a joke. Gotta love this game.
If i were the DM i would be mad at the amount of work lost but super proud of a player piecing it all together that fast. It would only make me want to test them further.
That guy is top tier enthusiast when it comes to investigation.
Damn that's both epic and frustrating.
So cool how they figured it all out very quickly, but now the DM has to do some re-writes.
This is some great detective work.
I had a character who was a Kensei Monk or a war god Chaotic Neutral that insulted everyone he saw as stupid. Like a spymaster who was caught unaware of his own castle being attacked.
He figured out who the bbeg was and what he was up to and allowed his party to unknowingly help him all because of his philosophy.
I have a guess, I’ve just gotten to the part asks for the party to find her grandfather. I think that this place uses children to pretend that there family is missing to bait adventurers into looking for them, uncovering clues which lead them to an abandoned part of the city, they’ll then be kidnapped and turned into slaves. Edit: nope.. nope, nope, nope...
Like your edit, nope.... waaay worse
on one side i feel bad for the DM, on the other damn good job by the DM. all pieces were in place to put the puzzle together, that's good DMing, it's just the risk that good DMing like that can result in someone actually figuring it out, meaning things may take a turn.
I didn't uncover a whole conspiracy, but I did have a similar experience.
I have a few characters who are siblings so I can use a similar backstory with different experiences. They all grew up on a farm with their father who had started getting very sick when they were still young. Their mother passed a few years after their youngest was born. My wizard, the oldest daughter went to school and started learning alchemy to make medicine for their father. My rogue, the youngest daughter, got abducted while she was trying to make money for the family, she then killed her kidnappers to get away and when news of this got out she was conscripted to be essentially a secret agent for a noble or royalty, whatever will work in the current story.
For this game, I wanted to play a paladin, he stayed home and took care of the farm until their father died. After the funeral and unsure of what to do with his life one of the sisters suggests he should find a way to be kind for a living. Thus we have Alistair Vyn Requim; Paladin Initiate of the Hands of Pelor. (Praise the Sun!)
When my party made it to the capitol city of the land we were in, the church gave me a mission to find an elder paladin who had gone missing. When I found him I discovered that paladins were being kidnapped and converted into Death knights. After barely escaping with my life, I went back to the church to tell them what I had found. I was told by the elder to go and get some rest. During my long rest I was told to make a perception check, which I failed and got woken up with a dagger in my side and 2 less hit points. I wrestled my attacker and cast the light cantrip on their cloak so I could try to follow them if they got away. Unfortunately for me, the DM said "she jumps out the window and cuts off her cloak on the way down" So we didn't get to interrogate her for information. The next day we managed to get an audience with the Queen to let her know about what was happening in her city. Long story short, I waited outside while other members of the party met with the Queen because we had one person who was playing the character of "I'm not giving up my weapons." While we were waiting outside the DM was narrating to the rest of the party what was going on with their meeting with the Queen. They tried to explain to her what it was that I had found, but she seemed unconcerned with this information. It became very apparent that the Queen was in on this conspiracy as well. It was at that point It was at that point I couldn't help myself but exclaim "OH MY GODS!" Everyone naturally looked at me and asked "what?" I said "nothing just keep going" I had had a realisation but not one that they thought that I was having.
The party that met with the Queen was taken to the dungeon, and we spent the rest of the session breaking them out. Afterwards the DM was starting to wrap everything up and I said "hold on I have one more thing that I want to do." He looked at me rather confused, and I said "I want to go back to the alleyway where the assassin escaped from." When I got back there I called out "Euodia! If you are still here show yourself! " Still confused, the DM asked me "what are you talking about?" When I said "that's my sister's name," His eyes grew wide and his jaw fell. He sighed and said "come with me." We went into a different Room for a private discussion, And As soon as the door closed he turned around and said "how in the hell did you figure that out?!" I said "once you let it out that the Queen was in on this conspiracy, I remembered my sister's backstory. Then I am attacked by an assassin while flat footed and asleep and SHE only dealt 2 damage. It made perfect sense. "
I didn't totally unravel his campaign but I did get an insider who he said he wasn't planning on bringing in for at least 5 sessions.
That was fascinating personally love when my players are that quick Witted.
Well that escalated quickly!
I feel bad for the DM, but shit like this is why the game is so fun! somebody will always WOMP the DM, and it becomes a story to tell and adds so much investment to the game.
IT DID HAPPEN AT MY TABLE! Players guessed that their group patron was actually a BBEG second-in conmand, it was such a Marvolous story, I implemented it instantly, and had to work overtime to convince them they em were wrong. best decision ever!!! Because they really bought into him, and the inevitable betrayal hurt so much more!
Honestly, I'd be proud of these people for figuring it out. Because now you get to play the part of a conspiracy that knows only a party of nobody adventurers, half of them thieves, knows the truth outside your organization and one of them is already connected to your plan of obfuscation. Story goes from intrigue to running for your life because you're the bad guy...While the actual bad guy is right on your heels!
I mean, props to the player for actually picking up clues and the DM for setting it up so well.
Pirate lady is a god with information management.
DM: HOW THE HELL...
Player: ELEMENTARY my dear Watson!
As a player, I notice subplots long before they're supposed to be revealed and unless my character has a crazy high Int, I don't say anything until everyone else seem to start picking up on it.
As a DM, I don't feel bad for him at all. He shouldn't have given out all that information so early if he really wanted it to be a suprise...
Sprinkle it throughout the game instead of an info dump.
DM: *golf clap* So, you figured it out, Ms. Holmes. Brilliant.
XD
Apparently the figher's player had a lot of points in Gather Information too, as well as extensive knowledge of the political landscape of the area. I actually almost had the players in a campaign a couple of years ago trip over the big bad too early. While meanwhile missing other bad guys. It was a homebrew setting, the characters were adventuring in a barony that was right across a mountain range from a hostile country ruled by necromancers that worshipped Vecna, who over the course of the campaign were gearing up and marching to war with the country they were in.. the barony being the first stopping point. In the meantime they were dealing with a vampire lord and his minions that were trying to destabilize the country from within. They completely missed the vampire who was posing as a diplomat from another country. Who had a ring that protected her from the sunlight. And several times showed up to listen in on conversations that she had no reason or right to listen to. But the already dominated Baron never objected to. They didn't find out about here until they were following a plot to spread disease through the water supply had killed hundreds before they stopped it and traced it back to her.
The one that they nearly tripped over was the 'second season' enemy I had been working on... And their direct boss most of the time. The Baron's third child acted as his vizer and assistant. She often was championing the party, grooming them for positions of power in the Barony... loyal to her. Especially when they 'saved her life' after her elder brother went 'insane' and killed her younger brother.... clearing two steps for her to ascend to the throne. The players had suspected her of the problem with the vampires and the disease, before the so called diplomat was exposed. So she planted evidence using her invisible imp in the rooms of the vampire that implicated her in the deaths of her brothers. But it was a very near thing of blowing pretty much my entire second season out of the water months before I was even finished with the first season.
Not so much a LOT of points, it is a cross class skill. My character had been written to have effectively been stranded in this city for over 3 months, not really under arrest, more 'confined to to capital pending the conclusion of the investigation' myself and the crew were under for our involvement in the slaves our ships captain was caught smuggling.
Kheltra talks to a LOT of people and 3 months (I think, this was over a year ago irl) was more than enough time to get a grip on the local situation.
As for the time the investigation was taking, my ship and crew were being set up to take the fall if the conspiracy was ever uncovered. (Or rather, Luskan as a whole was being set up using us as a patsy.)
There would be some frustration, but at the end of the day, if my players were invested enough to pay attention and figure out my plot like that, I'd be elated. I'd have to pull a Truth from FMA:Brotherhood "Correct, alchemist!"
I can just picture the DM going "what in the god damn-" and just leaving the table
Honestly really clever that they figured that out. Im impressed.
In my head the fight scene with the muggers was preceded by OP doing one of the slow motion fight choreography planning things from the RDJ Sherlock Holmes movies during the banter.
*Sherlock Holmes theme plays*
i love sherlocking stuff. including future monsters events and other future things importance.
Diametrically opposed Rogues....I see the Hamilton Reference and I love it.
As an occasional DM myself you are my favorite kind of worst player rotflol!!!🤣
I didn't do anything to this extreme, but I did solve a part of a problem really early on.
We were stuck in a dwarven mining town. They were having some issues with the mines and we were asked to help. Basically, the miners said that all mining had been ceased because of sabotage by a rogue individual. I discovered through observation of how the map was arranged that no, mining had not stopped, expansion outward from a specific tunnel had. The taskmaster or whatever thought this rogue was trying to stop ALL mining, but failed to realize that all mining BUT one path had been ruined. As the rest of the party was trying to figure out who was the sabotuer, I exclaimed after minutes of thought and silence "It's not sabotage..." to which everyone at the table looked at me.
"It's not sabotage, the person in question is trying to force the mining down a specific path. If you look at the map, you can see how every time the miners try to start a new tunnel it gets ruined, but the main tunnel is never impeded. Whoever is doing this WANTS you to mine something, and they know what it is."
This led to what became a reveal of a villainous 3rd party as the cause, a powerful magic gem as the prize they saught, and some high stakes "who will get it first" action. It was a good time.
In situations like that you need to adapt, improvise, and overcome.
Just because the party knows doesn't mean things are going to stop progressing, and worst case scenario the plot can get new fall guys.
The plot still carried on, it was just a bit of a role reversal where WE had the upper hand on the great value illuminati because they didnt know they were sus'd out immediately.
You know. I gotta admit as a DM I'd actually kinda love this, but mostly because I know that with a group this ambitious? No way they're leaving something as profitable as a war alone, and I'd also wager good money they're going to try and play at least two sides against each other. Games like that? You barely need to plan anything outside large scale actions as backgrounds for the PCs to plan around and exploit.
I returned to this after almost half a year to report in and I like your style so this is where I'm putting it (Also I've been drinking again and this made me laugh the most)
At first, the plan was to run to the Lord's Alliance and inform them of what was going on so they could band with Amn and take Tethyr and Calim off the map.
Now, I have become Azula and decided to make a go of gaining control of this conspiracy from within through two other players while simultaneously feeding Amn just enough information to not lead their military into a trap.
I think the endgame has turned into our party declaring hegemony because an evil character I intended to have redeemed by the party ended up corrupting all of them one by one instead and I've just sort of accidentally become the leader.
Nah man, I don't feel bad for that DM. I envy that DM. Those players sound insanely competent. Lol
It's the "with prejudice" for me LOL
I have had “that guy” players in my game. So I feel for you as a DM to another DM, when a player figures this stuff out.
I hope that how the hell was more just a surprised question of amazement than frustration/anger.
First I need to applaud. Are you sure you were just crew on that ship and not part of the admiralty? Because that was some excellent military dissection/deduction.
And to answer our fine narrator. As a DM, no. Most of my parties are lost on side quests to ever figure out intrigues like this. Several sometimes stupid things in my campaign making them slap their foreheads as they realize they were kinda ignoring the issue in front of them.
As a player, uhm sort of? I once in a campaign were there were rebels outed an imperial spy because the secret clandestine meeting had public postings about it for all rebels to arrive at a camp and discuss strategy. And it was the worst 'clandestine' thing you could do. And I once short circuited a campaign because an NPC had an out of character reaction to me. So I rolled to disbelieve the illusion. Turned out the campaign setting itself was an illusion test and we were not supposed to figure that part out. . . oops.
Kheltra's relationship with the Luskan Navy is... Complicated at best
The SHORT version is, she's honorary. She was found among their number as a stowaway after breaking out of prison but rather than turn her in, they liked her demented mindset and how quickly she learned the way of the pirate so they hid her in plain sight
This is one of my top five favorite videos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I remember once in a while me or one of my friends went and said something that was either on the nose for a lucky guess or blurted out something that the DM must have decided to put in as the story which dumbfounded the one who said it out of character
as a dm i would've given that player some kind of int based feat for figuring that out so fast
DM: trying to run a campaign*
Player: "im abou to ruin this mans whole career"
1:27 got me thinking "Two Virginians and an immigrant walk in to a room, diametrically opposed foes"
And... that all happened in five minutes?!...... YOU ARE A DETECTIVE
Man, Player INT and WIS beating a Campaign is Legendary Rarity occurance. I really do feel bad for the DM for he has suffered a fate worse than being victim to Metagamers and Murder-Hobos.
Mind you, Murder-Hobos often ruin Campaigns by being lucky at killing certain NPCs. It is not every week when you see someone actually think and also have good INT and WIS Rolls so the DM could not stop their Character. XD
The only thing it really "ruined" was the twist, we still had to deal with it the difference is that WE now held the advantage because they didnt know that we sus'd them out.
The next step was figuring out how far up the chain it went once they did something to us that demanded retaliation.
In Kheltra's Case, her motivation to fight them came when they stole her boat
There’s a funny story of the luckiest unluckiest player. Basically, the BBEG was incognito, so the player chose to cook for him. Nat 1.
The dish was rendered inedible, but the player, not knowing that they were dealing with the disguised BBEG, decided to roll for Deception to get him to eat it. Nat 20.
The BBEG then started to choke, and the player, who was near a large stained glass window with the BBEG, tries to save him with a Heimlich maneuver as a Medicine check. Nat 1.
The player accidentally suplexes the BBEG out of the window, and with a Nat 20 in Acrobatics, manages to grab the window ledge. The BBEG dies from fall damage, and their evil nature is exposed when they explode into demonic ghosts and fire.
The DM cries from laughing too hard. And then explodes into demonic ghosts and fire.
And that’s the story of the luckiest unluckiest player, whose simultaneous stroke of good luck and bad luck resulted in them killing and exposing the BBEG.
I would admit defeat for this, however I always have a 3rd and 4th backup xD I'd love to DM for these players.
poor DM, that was impressive what was already thought up and it would have been even more so if they had the chance to continue it.
Never underestimate your players. They have ways of figuring through every mental trap you put in a campaign in ways you would never expect.
I mean, you gotta at least admire the detective brain on that one. Holly crap!
When you solve the Scooby-Doo mystery before the ending. Transcendent!
I think Matt Mercer said it best, "seldom am I this impressed yet frustraited by my players at the same time."
in an investigative oneshot there was some kind of time alterating creature with very subdole false hydraish clues placed all over the city, and i figured it out in 40 minutes absolutly ruining the 13 hours session we had planned....
I have only the utmost respect for this player like I’ve pieced together conspiracies but never something like this. I wish for there success in stopping the war or avoiding it entirely.
Ultimately, my plan went from "run" to "figure out how far up it goes, and then rat them out to the Lord's Alliance"
I love playing in Faurun.
I threw towels imbued with magic on top of a wraith that couldn't move at the time so it got stuck for two rounds of combat and was last initiative leading the boss fight to be more of a beat the pinata
It would be pretty cool to see a story with a changling
My current campaign's BBEG is a Changeling Druid. The party's met them multiple times (actually saved their life twice), yet only one player has suspected anything close to that so far (even though my only race restriction in Session 0 was no Changeling PCs. Quite a hint imo)
Will share the story with the internet once the BBEG reveals themselves to the PCs for what they are
@@Patches2212 yo that sounds sick
I have my own story, once in a campaign we we're in a battle and the archer of are group says "I shoot a arrow at a tree behind them and the dm asked him to roll and he rolled a Nat 20, And the dm was the person who sets up there campaign to easily change and he said "when the arrow hits the tree a click would come from the tree and the tree would open and a book would fall out" and too make it short we discovered a journal too a adventurer and there was a map and on the map's location we found a cave that lead into a hollow-earth type place that looks like a broken kingdom
i like the art!