Oh, man. :[

So I'm running Mask of the Pirate Queen and the players are just about to do the raid on The Vault. In keeping with working everyone's various backgrounds and so forth in, I'd modified a few things. Long story short, one of the PCs is a runaway Saleucami nobleman who fled an arranged marriage looming on the horizon. One of the mission hooks was him being intercepted by said fiance and asked to look into the bounty because the PC's family has business interests that have been harmed by the Queen's activities and he really should make an effort to keep up the appearance of maybe caring about his family. In reality, it's all a bit of courtly intrigue. The PC's fiance IS the Pirate Queen and she's been trying to draw him out of hiding this whole time and rope him into a bizarre style of courtship that only makes sense to deranged noblepersons.

...and last night, said PC just predicted the whole thing. (During an in-character conversation, mind.) So what's the best way to go forward? Right now, I'm thinking it's best to just go forward, but really try and pass off the false end of the first episode as the real one. Then a distracting side-quest or two happens before the Episode 2 hook comes up. In the mean-time, I cross my fingers and hope everyone forgets about that annoyingly correct conjecture. OR we just plow ahead with the PC's Fiance filling the role of the Would-Be Usurper and make that whole plot more of a side-line.

The second idea is one I like less because it doesn't cause as much conflict between player obligations and motivations, and it's still kind of the same thing. So I guess my question is "in addition to recommendations, what sort of things do you do as GMs when you find out that you and your players know each other far too well and you still want to give them a little surprise every now and then?"

I had something similar happen before where a pc had guessed the plotline. So in a bout of GM anxiety I changed it all up because PCs can't know this stuff, right? Looking back on the experience, wrong.

I wouldn't do that again for 2 reasons.

1 - The story just came out wonky. It was pointing to path A, then switched to path B, before a forced hard turn to path C. It came off forced and not near as interesting.

2 - I realize now I took away that player's victory. I mean, as much as you try to separate player from character there is and always will be some 'meta'. Because the player is the character. You can't help that unless you play by yourself, in which case, congratulations, you're a crappy novelist.

By changing the story on the fly JUST because my Dbag player was smart enough to figure it out before MY select moment of reveal (how DARE HE) was just petty and took away what could have been a satisfying moment of victory for the player when it was confirmed that the player was right all along.

So, for my own experience, I will just roll along as I had planned regardless of what the players did or did not guess ahead of time. Give them their victory and try to be more clever next time.

Thanks a lot; that's really good advice- it's nice to know that the first inclination was the better one. It's also wise of you to note that it's our job as GMs to reward the players for their cleverness, not to surprise them.

I'll make some minor changes on the fly; but like Wrenn said, I don't think it's a good idea to make major changes just because of a good conjecture. That said, nothing wrong with throwing in some red herrings along the way; you can preserve the storyline while keeping your players second guessing themselves.

It's good advice. I've also done sort of the opposite. I've had players speculate about something and although they were wrong I thought their idea was way cooler than mine, so I switched things up to make them right.

1 hour ago, Ahrimon said:

It's good advice. I've also done sort of the opposite. I've had players speculate about something and although they were wrong I thought their idea was way cooler than mine, so I switched things up to make them right.

I do this regularly...in the spirit of "steal from the best" since my players have pretty good imaginations. Though if I can think of a good twist on it in time, I'll definitely do that too.

Same goes for if the players predict...it can be a little disappointing at first, but it's better not to deny the player's sense of satisfaction at reading the play. That said, if I can think of a twist that doesn't invalidate everything and still makes the story progress properly, I'll do that as well.

Our GM likes to leave little bread crumbs and he's quite pleased when the implications of the denouement finally falls into place.

So be happy when the PC's are as brilliant as you are.