Times players have made GMs go "WHAT!?!"

By immortalfrieza, in Star Wars: Edge of the Empire RPG

Our EotE GM once told me after a game he'd been thrown off track and had to re-write a chunk the adventure because we’d peacefully talked with some NPCs and made a deal with them. He'd apparently not considered that we'd try anything other than either violent coercion or just violence.

Same group playing Necessary Evil (Super Villains V Alien Invaders) when we needed to destroy an alien held manufacturing site. The rest of the party starts discussing how to sneak in and wreck the control room.
My Mad Scientist PC: “Why sneak in? All we need to do is steal a cement mixer truck, a load of nitrate based fertilizer and a few barrels of diesel.”
GM (with his head in his hands): “and I just know your character has the skills for that doesn’t he?”
We went with this, it was the first time I created a mushroom cloud in an RPG.

My other group is known for breaking plots/campaigns/GMs with weird stuff.-

GM: "Player A, are you trying to pimp out player B's character?"
Player A: "Yes."
Player B: "I have no problem with this."

From a Vampire the Masquerade campaign where I was playing a Tremere (vampire wizard) who had a high science skill and had just picked up the ‘Lore of Creation’ power.

Me: "So this power lets me create anything up to the size limit? Including high tech stuff like computers and loaded guns that contain complex chemicals and materials?"
GM: "Yes"
Me: "At any range so long as I have line-of-sight?"
GM: "Yes."
Me: "So I can create things over a target, so it drops on them?"
GM: "Yes, so long as what you create is not bigger than you are."
Me: "Great. Have you ever heard of a chemical called chlorine trifluoride?"
GM: “……”

Vampires can’t handle fire, chlorine trifluoride ignites on contact with anything (including stuff like asbestos), burns hot and cannot be extinguished. Later in that campaign I used the same trick to summon up “my body weight in nitroglycerine”. This was the second time I created a mushroom cloud in an RPG.

Edited by Konrad1980
28 minutes ago, Konrad1980 said:

Me: "Great. Have you ever heard of a chemical called chlorine trifluoride?"

Getting my engineering degree they showed us this video during the final class before we graduated. Its an absolute riot.

@GM_Needs_A_Xanex Thank you for that. I needed that

"...meaning it will kill you now AND kill you later..."

I had one last weekend that made everyone go "Wah-huh?!?"

So they're breaking into the tower block of a rich dude, and as rich dudes tend to do, there's a room of "Look at all my cool artifacts and relics" room. Tapestries, statues, books, artifacts, ancient weapons and the like, some exotic some mundane. As they were running out one of the players asked

"Anything that looks like a jedi or dark side artifact?"

"Sure, go ahead and roll a yellow and a red die. If it comes up a triumph, there's a Jedi knickknack, if it comes up a despair, there's a dark side artifact."

*ROLLS*

"What happens if I get both?"

Go figure! What are the odds (well, 1 in 144, but never tell me the odds). So now I have to come up with something really good for these things to do! :)

1 hour ago, Desslok said:

I had one last weekend that made everyone go "Wah-huh?!?"

So they're breaking into the tower block of a rich dude, and as rich dudes tend to do, there's a room of "Look at all my cool artifacts and relics" room. Tapestries, statues, books, artifacts, ancient weapons and the like, some exotic some mundane. As they were running out one of the players asked

"Anything that looks like a jedi or dark side artifact?"

"Sure, go ahead and roll a yellow and a red die. If it comes up a triumph, there's a Jedi knickknack, if it comes up a despair, there's a dark side artifact."

*ROLLS*

"What happens if I get both?"

Go figure! What are the odds (well, 1 in 144, but never tell me the odds). So now I have to come up with something really good for these things to do! :)

Clearly both a sith and a jedi artifact...

I'm thinking of (spoiler incase my players wander by)

perhaps something that works in conjunction with the other. Connect them both together and they get to ask the magic 8 ball one question. Or maybe a device that points them to a super cool lost Thingie. It's still a work in progress.

3 minutes ago, Desslok said:

I'm thinking of (spoiler incase my players wander by)

perhaps something that works in conjunction with the other. Connect them both together and they get to ask the magic 8 ball one question. Or maybe a device that points them to a super cool lost Thingie. It's still a work in progress.

And of course you have to consider the consequences of a despair on the roll to use such artifacts....

On 2/3/2020 at 9:49 AM, kmanweiss said:

Players were trying to break into the Bespin central banking system by capturing a banking droid and hacking into it without (to steal transaction information, not cash) raising any alarms. Everything went according to plan. But when they finished the hack they realized they had this fully functional droid evidence/witness that would be a problem. Ideas were brainstormed. Memory wipe, kill and toss in a dumpster, etc, but every plan had flaws that could lead back to the party. My hope as the GM was to use one of those flaws to have law enforcement track them down.

Then someone got a crazy idea. Toss the thing off the side of the city. No evidence, no witness, the droid just goes missing.

The next day rumors start swirling around the underworld that a banking droid was found on a gas mining rig in a lower orbit than the city and law enforcement was investigating.

The players split up that evening, and tossed several more banking droids over the side of the city, then made a statement taking responsibility as some anti-government, anarchist terrorist group they made up. They even recruited some patsies and started creating an actual organization, then they tipped off the cops as to where a meeting was being held in order to get the organization busted. It turned out to be quite an over the top cover up to their crime.

This is basically every Wraith Squadron / Rogue Squadron book :D :D

12 hours ago, Desslok said:

I had one last weekend that made everyone go "Wah-huh?!?"

So they're breaking into the tower block of a rich dude, and as rich dudes tend to do, there's a room of "Look at all my cool artifacts and relics" room. Tapestries, statues, books, artifacts, ancient weapons and the like, some exotic some mundane. As they were running out one of the players asked

"Anything that looks like a jedi or dark side artifact?"

"Sure, go ahead and roll a yellow and a red die. If it comes up a triumph, there's a Jedi knickknack, if it comes up a despair, there's a dark side artifact."

*ROLLS*

"What happens if I get both?"

Go figure! What are the odds (well, 1 in 144, but never tell me the odds). So now I have to come up with something really good for these things to do! :)

A Jedi artifact corrupted by the Dark Side?

Oooooh, I like it. I'll be 'avin that!

9 hours ago, immortalfrieza said:

A Jedi artifact corrupted by the Dark Side?

6 hours ago, Desslok said:

Oooooh, I like it. I'll be 'avin that!

Hmmm...reminds me of something I haven’t thought of in ages. Had a young Nightsister in one of my groups, and the player desperately wanted to find a kyber crystal. With a good roll, they found a crystal, but it couldn’t be used in a lightsaber. Instead, it would add a Force die to any Stealth roll, and allow them to use a dark side pip for an auto success without flipping a Destiny point, but take conflict as normal.

She never used it.

Edited by Nytwyng
5 hours ago, Nytwyng said:

Hmmm...reminds me of something I haven’t thought of in ages. Had a young Nightsister in one of my groups, and the player desperately wanted to find a kyber crystal. With a good roll, they found a crystal, but it couldn’t be used in a lightsaber. Instead, it would add a Force die to any Stealth roll, and allow them to use a dark side pip for an auto success without flipping a Destiny point, but take conflict as normal.

She never used it.

My Nightsister character would like to use that! :D

21 minutes ago, RuusMarev said:

My Nightsister character would like to use that! :D

Feel free. Doctor Strange/Juggernaut reference in the name is optional. 🤣

http://myswrpg.com/crimson-crystal-of-cytorrak/

I've had a few of these kind of moments playing Star Wars:

In one of the pbp's I run on here I had an enemies raid a spacestation and still ships. It was all going to plan until two players decide to stow away onboard one of the ships, just as it is about to hit hyperspace. It's not often when a party splits and it can be measured in light years ( @Edgehawk and @SithArissa , you know who you are :-p)!

In an ic game I run I've had a jedi and gungan scout trapped in energy cells on a star destroyer that was breaking up in atmosphere. As it was shaking the jedi fakes banging their head against the cell to get a medic to open it up and allow him to escape. The gungan character saw this plan and tried to mimic it, but didn't realise that the jedi had faked the injury. The result was the gungan almost unconcious on the floor and the whole room smelling of burnt fish. To be fair it did get them out of the cells.

The gungan among other things also believed they could hear a divine power when they licked a reptile due to hallucinations and ended uo living in the ships vents. It makes a fun character

During a missing to infiltrste a university, rather than just sneak in the party fake the comouter system ro make it look like they were visitng professor's to do a medical lecture. During this lecture one of them stunned the other with now warning to show the effects of a gunshot wound. The shot character decided to ham it up for vengeance and played dead, causing a mass panic in the class, emding in a rescue attempt being needed to get the shooter back from the imperials who arrested him.

During a christmas special (the Talz who Stole Life Day), the same players trscked some stolen supplies (including ammo and explosives) to a talz camp. They all snuck into the camp, and all was going well until the scout decided to roll a thermal detonator into the tent with the supplies and the boss. This unsurprisingly blew up everything they came to get and got 2 of them killed.

There've been some other examples of these moments, but these were the big ones.

Just had another one today.

Clone Wars campaign, and we’ve been playing a variation on the Battle of Muunilinst from the Clone Wars micro-series. We picked up from last time with us right outside the room San Hill was in, our objective being to capture him. My Jedi Knight tried to convince them to open the door and surrender, but I failed the roll. Door opens to reveal 3 minion groups of battle droids, 2 manga-guards directly protecting Hill, and right in front of us, 2 droidekas and Durge. Initiative settled, we had a PC slot at the top. I did a Force leap as a maneuver right next to Hill, grabbed hold of him, warned off the magna-guards with my lightsaber, and rolled a Coercion check to give them one last chance to surrender. Success with 6 advantage. Hill surrenders, deactivates the droids, and Durge flees.

The GM prepares his first drink of the day about 10 minutes into the session.

On 2/10/2020 at 5:25 AM, Konrad1980 said:

GM: "Player A, are you trying to pimp out player B's character?"
Player A: "Yes."
Player B: "I have no problem with this."

I've had this in different games before (not Star Wars, yet). Had to outright tell everyone in one game that I was not going to allow this, in part due to my distaste, and in part due to the fact that we were meeting in the Memorial Union at our University. We were playing a kids game in D&D (all of the players were college age, but their characters were pre-teen). Last thing I wanted was someone overhearing something and reporting us to campus police. Plus, ewww.

On 2/12/2020 at 3:23 PM, Desslok said:

So now I have to come up with something really good for these things to do!

So, maybe something that's both Sith and Jedi...

SETI ? ;)

On 2/10/2020 at 6:25 AM, Konrad1980 said:

Vampires can’t handle fire, chlorine trifluoride ignites on contact with anything (including stuff like asbestos), burns hot and cannot be extinguished. Later in that campaign I used the same trick to summon up “my body weight in nitroglycerine”. This was the second time I created a mushroom cloud in an RPG.

Anything from Derek Lowe (see Things I won’t work with ) usually gets my vote.

But then I did recently watch the episode where Adam Savage was trying to work with nitroglycerin (see Savage Builds: Nitro Explode Aganza ).

On 2/16/2020 at 2:47 AM, Edgookin said:

I've had this in different games before (not Star Wars, yet). Had to outright tell everyone in one game that I was not going to allow this, in part due to my distaste, and in part due to the fact that we were meeting in the Memorial Union at our University. We were playing a kids game in D&D (all of the players were college age, but their characters were pre-teen). Last thing I wanted was someone overhearing something and reporting us to campus police. Plus, ewww.

Don't blame you for disallowing it when they were playing pre-teens, I'd have done the same.
The group I was in was almost competitive when it came to bad taste and lowering the tone.

On 2/16/2020 at 6:32 AM, bradknowles said:

Anything from Derek Lowe (see Things I won’t work with ) usually gets my vote.

But then I did recently watch the episode where Adam Savage was trying to work with nitroglycerin (see Savage Builds: Nitro Explode Aganza ).

Derek Lowe is great, I was reading bits of 'Things I won’t work with' when explaining to the GM what the stuff did.

Thanks for the Adam Savage link, thats my lunch time viewing sorted 🙂

So here's one ...

I had my players be part of a skulduggery guild, and they were assigned to a "rank promotion qualification" suicide job: live capture a foppish ISB agent from a diplomatic gala on Umbara. There were several acting agents on sight they didn't know about, but had the chance to rework their plan and ask around...

What I expected the ladies to do?
- they'd go in recklessly guns blazing, because one's a merc murder hobo
- talk to others and get info about this EXTREMELY shady job that their boss didn't even trust, maybe make some informed decisions?
- they'd pull an inception double-con "we're here to save you from traitors" (they basically had access to a robust disguise kit to dress as proper guests)

What did they do?
- literally the first suggestion out of the askijian murderhobo's mouth: "let's dress up like [women of the night], take him to a bedroom, and club him over the head!"
- and the twi'lek bombshell smooth talker went full in on this ... which I did not expect at all from her player ... and forced the aski to take point
- and they bee-lined straight into the mission without talking to anyone else
- additionally, then they took some glitterstim (that one of the characters was addicted to), and drugged the agent's drink

I'm honestly not sure why I didn't expect them to play the bardic mantra of "seduce everything" ... but they did.

Edited by thinkbomb

I was a player in this scene, but I think it fits the bill.

In a D&D game my character was a merchant, and all the other PCs were variously on my payroll in one way or another. We were in a distant land looking for new trade opportunities when my character was killed. Being that their lucrative pay would cease with my unexpected demise the other characters quickly looked for, and located, a cleric that could bring me back to life. The cleric was the high priest of a significant temple and was willing to perform the task. In exchange the other characters would have to agree that I would provide unspecified "favors" to the cleric. The characters (and the PCs) all looked quizzically at each other. Then one of them stepped forward and said:

"Favors? What kind of favors? Do you mean sexual favors?"

The GM was caught out for a moment, then quickly had the character seized, and his right had cut off for blasphemy.

The other characters quickly agreed to the unspecified favors.

The irony for me is that I remember so many WTF?!? type moments in many games over the decades, but I mostly remember the reaction and not the events that lead up to it.

I do distinctly remember one Paranoia! game where we were protecting an AI tank that was supposedly indestructible, and it was our purpose to make sure it survived long enough to get to the testing grounds the next day or maybe it was later that week. We had many situations come up that were incredibly and wildly successful, but the strangest was when it came time to actually hit the thing with a tactical nuclear explosive at the test grounds. The tank naturally disappeared, and everyone thought it had been destroyed.

But about a minute later, we were looking up in the sky and we saw a tiny dot. I immediately screamed “RUN!!!!” The GM looked confused, and he said “which direction?” To which I replied “It doesn’t matter, so long as we all run different directions!” I instinctively knew we were all going to die if we just stood there waiting for it to come down and land on our heads.

As it it turned out, that was apparently the one and only answer that could be given that would result in our continuing to live. The GM was rather surprised — and unhappy — that he had not been able to kill any of our clones for that entire adventure.

Paranoia! And Teenagers From Outer Space were two games that I could only play about once a month. They were just too exhausting otherwise.

Edited by bradknowles
Clarify and correct typos

On reflection, there was that time we decided to do a frontal assault on Teemo’s palace. My Wookiee Maurader was killing everything in sight with his paired vibroaxes, and his Klatooinian buddy was raining death and destruction with his heavy repeating blaster, but what really blew the whole place up was the crazy *** Duros that decided to take a droid power core and turn that into a planetary scale improvised explosive device to kill Teemo himself, and managed to take out half the building as well.

It is a miracle that any of us survived that one....