7 Ways D&D Players Destroy Their DM's Plans 

Entry #1: Assume your players are dumber than you think. Entry #2: Be prepared for when your players are smarter than you think.

Players: "What's your name, mister random NPC?" DM: screams inside.

My DM friend once summed it up by saying "Give them a door and they'll jump through the window"

I’m playing my first ever campaign and so far we’ve adopted a platypus and made it our mascot, spent a full thirty minutes figuring out if dwarves float, completely derailed our DM by not killing a ship full of pirates and instead convincing them that they needed a vacation, and spent too long shopping for hats. I’m having the time of my life!

Alternative title: Things Johnny hasn‘t quite forgiven the oxventurers

The 8th way players destroy a DM's plans: answering "Yes" when asked "Are you sure?"

"Without hurting or disadvantaging anyone why don't you..." The next day, "Alright skeletons, how is it going?" "Orphan walls done." "Orphan walls? You mean orphanage?" "Orphan bones make good mortar, orphan walls." "I said not to hurt anyone!" The featureless bone face managed to convey a sense of accomplishment, "Broke neck, fast death, no pain." "Oh, for... Surely death is a disadvantage?" "Skeletons very dead, not so bad."

“we are convinced this rat is in on it” yep sounds like the average dnd player

"I'm only 14 years old!" This videos off to a great start

The bard seducing an NPC who was supposed to be a one note character, making them a recurring character with complex backstory

I've learned one thing as a dm, when you give a npc an interesting backstory, they'll side line them. One off npcs with one purpose, heck some random person off the street and you're players will demand to make them into honorary family members.

*as there’s wolves chasing us* My dad: I have oil, I need a match. My brother: *throws him the oil* My dad: Throws the oil on the wolves then a lit match. Me, a first time DM: You haven’t used your weapons once it’s been four hours.

Without disadvantaging anyone, rebuild the orphanage. Skeletons: stand around doing nothing because it disadvantages them to do manual labor.

D&D is not: "The Players vs the DM." Not ever. It is *Always*: "The Players *AND* the DM... ...vs the Dice."

I can just imagine there being a situation where one of them goes "Should we use the Meat Grinder" and the enemies are INCREDIBLY confused as to why their suddenly all giggling

14:11 I love how Ellen's the only one who's horrified by, "Orphans, boss," while everyone else just laughs.

“That’s my in, lets kill some children” is the most interesting quote I’ve heard in a while

DM rule #1: *Never underestimate the player's ability to do whatever you never planned for your adventure*

I remember one of my group members, the DM's husband, our druid, would use storm of of thorns to seal off a doorway and then use thorn whip to yank them through the storm of thorns, utterly shredding them and utterly covering us in what we called, "human salsa," and I was regularly used as a human shield by our rouge.

"At first, his intentions were pure. Which I feel describes the the Oxventurers as a whole pretty well." All except for Prudence, who had had the opposite transition.

I remember that my DM once planned "Oh, yeah. I'll have them fight against a purple dragon." Now, keep in mind that this is 5e, where there are no purple dragons at all. The DM full on homebrewed a boss in. But then, during a bit of chit chat as they were approaching where the dragon would ambush them, *the tiefling was recounting during his childhood when he used to play with a purple dragon.* This was completely unprompted, it's not like he had any plans or anything. This complete non-sequitor had basically invalidated the encounter. When the dragon did eventually ambush them, he was just "Eyyy, it's my homie Vernus." Who says roleplaying can't help you avoid encounters?

"Maybe they're friendly?" - Me at the start of _every_ encounter

The thing that strikes me about this is how honest Johnny is to the characters and the game. He could just say “no, you can’t” but instead he finds ways to say “yes” and work it in.

"Local skeletons rebuild the orphanage using the orphans as building material"

"ALL I WANTED WAS FOR THEM TO GO AND TALK TO SOME FURNITURE SALESMAN!" Needs to be on a t-shirt.

Johnny: “I desperately don’t want these people to have to kill a child” Also Johnny: “Yes! That’s my in! Let’s kill some children!”

So, in my first campaign, I ruined my DM's plans by IMMEDIATELY breaking the law. While in prison, I grabbed a brick out of the wall to use as an improvised weapon, and used my massive brain (and rage) and unarmored chutzpah to beat the guard to death with it and escape. He was really unprepared for our entire campaign to exist with myself as a fugitive.

Ah, the expression on my DM's face when I once ALMOST talked our whole party out of a fight with a dragon by rolling a 20 on intimidation. That memory shall always brighten my day. *wipes a tear*

When the kind, caring druid ends up causing more bloodshed than the evil tiefling warlock servant of Cthulu, I think its safe to say something has gone horribly wrong. Or horribly right. Or both.

"That's it I'm turning the quest around." This is my new slogan when my players go way off the rails.

First time DMing I watched this 3 times in order to prep myself with sage advice from the master. The one peice I particularly clung to was beware of flimsy characters as I knew the girl I was going to be playing with was the kind of person to make friends with everyone she can and I didn't want to have the prison guard incident happen. So I made sure I had a name and general backstory for every single living intelligent character. Keyword "Living..." ...she ended up ignoring all of them and instead made friends with a robot I had nothing planned for!!! (It was actually really adorable and allowed for extra tension in the final boss, but still!!!)

"Is there a brothel in this town?" At EVERY SINGLE TOWN!

The worst words to hear from a player: " Yes person in fireball distance".

DM: you walk into a room that has a pentagram on the floor and a red ball in the corner. Oxventurers: Let's use these to summon cthulu

Imagine the skeletons rebuilt the orphanage but used parents to make mortar so there would be newly made orphans to fill the new building

Those final words.....I love it. D&D is all about the TABLE having fun. Those moments of "derailing" for the DM are pure moments of the players thinking as their CHARACTERS and not as themselves. My players ignore the massive plot hooks I'm throwing at them left and right, and I want to pull my hair out, but thinking on your feet as the DM is what makes that role just as fun as playing a level 10 War Mage.

" *Is* *your* *chair* *business* *being* *affected* *by* *some* *new* *competitor* *on* *the* *market* ?"

To be fair to Johnny, he always looks like he has everything totally under control even if he is actually screaming internally.

Next time they go out chasing nowhere just go "And there, you find a merchamt, selling crimson earring, and he says 'crimson earrings, only crimson earrings over here' " And if they don't get the indirect, just make a fisherman show up and punch the merchant in the face saying "Oy, ye can't sell your earrings here, this be the red herring market" Then just make him sell red herrings to the party. If they still don't get it after that, burn their houses down.

Merilwens meat grinder is by far, one of the best D&D stories I've ever heard... And I know someone who is OBSESSED with fish and LITERALLY rolls to find out what fish there are in any given body of water, which I found absolutely hilarious. He and his fishues.

Never underestimate the power of a low INT character to accidentally buy some drugs and walk into a brothel.

"I really want to mash these orphans up!" - Johnny Chiodini 2019

When I was DM In a dungeon that was converting humans into different types of monsters. The final boss was this massive giant on steroids with a couple minions. The party left, went to the tavern, bought all the liquor, booze, alcohol, etc you get it. While the boss was sleeping one party member manages to get both minions to fall asleep while on duty. The party placed their soon to be fireworks display all round the monsters and the boss. My final boss, my plan, along with the minions, literally went up in flames. The wooden support beams of the dungeon they were in collapsed and the party died too shortly after.

One time I gave my player a huge starting plot, a wizard academy brainwashing students to take over the world, a large golem being built to destroy entire cities in seconds, ancient conflicts coming to the present, and... My player just left the city. He didn’t care. He just, y’know, up and left.

I once saw a quote in a warhammer book that really applies to all this: "A plan never survives first contact with the ennemy"

Honestly, Alfred Strangetide the baby Professor is one of the greatest characters to ever be derailed into existing and I hope we see him again!

Anyone else notice how often Dob is the derailing party? Actually, either Dob or Merilwen...

I really like Johnny’s view on DM’ing cause it’s so true, if it’s party vs DM no one will have fun cause your just trying to make the other miserable all game long. But if it a collaborative story telling it’s just fun!

One time our DM was trying to be an ass and present us a "mysterious, potentially unstable" potion in one of our earliest encounters. He described it as "bubbling red liquid with the slightest yellow glow and slightly-warmer-than-room-temperature to the touch." So I asked "Is there a label?" There was a moment of silence and he replied with defeat "Yes. It's a potion of Cure Light Wounds." I think that counts as derailing because almost a year later he told me his newbie-GM brain thought it would be a good idea to evaluate how paranoid the PCs were with magical objects when there were mundane solutions in front of us. For a few sessions after that I felt compelled to ask "Is there a label?" every time we came across magical objects. Lol

10:26 A group I played w/ once had a prison guard who we were meant to either Drug or otherwise incapacitate in order to break free from a slaver's camp. One of the more charismatic character stepped up and instead of simply coaxing him to let us go free or anything like that, they straight up convinced him that what he was doing is wrong, talked him not only out of being a slaver, but managed to get him to help with breaking all the other slaves out and killing off the other slavers. From there we convinced the DM to make a character sheet and play him for the ENTIRE REST OF THE CAMPAIGN. He was quite literally an NPC who existed for no purpose other than guarding a jail cell and we ended up making him a part of the party up until the very end of the campaign itself. Side note: This campaign was also being run as a "World building" campaign, to set up things that are to come later on since our DM wanted to make his own setting. At the end of stopping the potential cataclysm that was at the base of the campaign he made our characters into demi-gods to establish other religions in the setting he had set up, this included the slaver-turned-hero. So, in total- We coaxed a slaver guard who was meant to be a one-time NPC into helping us save the world, at which point he became a demi-god who is now a benchmark in every campaign to come in that setting as he is a widely worshiped figure by slaves hoping to attain their freedom.

DM: "Brettonian Knights disdain ranged weaponry." Player: "This is not a ranged weapon friend tis a barrel of oil." Me, a Bard: "Roll to Charm."

I live for my players going wild and encourage them to get crazy with their solutions! Letting them follow their own leads has brought about some of my favorite moments in our games. In fact, my 2 players for my main campaign solved a murder mystery together wherein a sleazy hotel owner had kidnapped and held his rival’s daughter hostage, ultimately knocking her out and leaving her in a walk-in freezer to die. The guys followed all the clues and found her body literally frozen, but each guy has a laser sword, so they actually thawed her out. Then, my Paladin asked if her body was essentially preserved in that freezer, and I told him it was. He then wanted to blast his healing spell full force into her and dump every spare point of health he had to revive her. We rolled for it, and it was a massive success! I never planned on having her as an NPC in the story, but thanks to the players, we’ve got a whole brand new character to help flesh out the world.

"Such a great antagonist..shame if the bard *seduce* them"

If u think derailment only happens with npc, my team caprured a goblin and our dm had to invent a whole story arc for this random enemy

The first one actually happened to our party, when the DM made the mistake to describe an abandoned mansion in a city just a little too well and we went there to explore instead of doing literally everything else he had planned for us

I remember when I derailed my DM’s plans... I was playing a Dragonborn barbarian (very original, I know) and we had just killed an ochre jelly that came through some rubble in the walls. I decided that I wanted to break through to the other side. Rolled an 18. Combined with my dumbass barbarian strength, I had a 22 right there. I broke through the wall from the 3rd room of the labyrinth we were in to the last. *Barbarian is dumb*

The “accidentally avoid or totally obliterate the boss battle” trope is the THEME of this campaign.

"How much damage does a whale do?" That reminds me of a similar question I've heard about a Vampire the Masquerade game, it was something to the effect of "I never thought I'd have to figure out how much damage holding the spinning tire of a motorcycle against someone's face would do."

Luke: All Caps, GO TO THE DOCKS YOU IDIOTS! Mike: DON’T go to the docks!! Luke: Sorry, I will get there Johnny! Johnny: Case in point.

Never forget when Johnny gave the 30 lads all a name in preparation but no one asked

"And that was my downfall. Because then they had a whale that they could later weaponize."

I was so happy to see Literally Everyone Else In The World.

I once had a group de-rail my game, pretty badly. Some context, they had completely ruined a circus by killing the man who charmed all the creatures in the circus (not even the bad part) and then, after spending some time in the town (the capital city) they went to the biggest academy. The ranger tried to sneak into the school which was on lockdown so his best plan, was to set an actual fore in the courtyard. After some shenanigans the ranger got caught and the party was taken into the protectorate (a clan in the city which is basically just upper class guards). The artifice caused a large fight to break out and eventually they killed an ENTIRE WORKFORCE OF ADVANCED GUARD PERSONNEL. Then they fled and escaped the city.

Never....ever....EVER include flavor text that can be fixated on to even a small degree

I once dm'd a game where the players were supposed to deliver a shipment, and along the way they witnessed an attack and were supposed save the victims. They did not save the victims. They didn't deliver the shipment either. They tried to take over the city. It did not work out.

"To solve this mystery we just have to think like the DM" *This is going nowhere guys seriously just talk to the--* "TO THE DOCKS!"

I love how andy almost always knows what's going on and Luke is almost always causing the problems.

“You don’t know it yet, but this is the greatest day of your life.”

Me (DM): "You arrive at a T-intersection; the road to the left leads to the capital, to the right, the way meanders through a valley and towards the distant mountains... Players: "We cut our way through the underbrush and go straight ahead!" Me: *sigh*

St. John the Long-Suffering. Patron saint of DMs, babysitters, and substitute teachers.

We need a new version of this! I’d love to see what the have done to Jonny in the last couple years.

I'm still a very new DM and my players have pulled me through most of these lol. 1- Fixated on a minor detail: They spent 45 minutes trying to figure out how to weaponize roast beef sandwiches because I mentioned they were the lunch special in the tavern they're staying at off handedly. 3- Going rogue with NPCs: They stole a bandit's mechanical legs, refuse to call their main quest giver by his actual names, and in our first ever campaign, kidnapped a goblin and kept him around as a mascot. 5- Boss avoidance: They managed to convince a green dragon the cultists they were going to fight was actually plotting against the dragon and got it do kill them instead. Also, they managed to deceive their way through half a dungeon, because Goblins make shit insight checks. 6- Surprisingly powerful spells: Had a player learn and abuse the hell out of the spell Catapult. Many things were flung into enemies for a surprising amount of force damage.

My first campaign I ever DMed, my party killed the NPC who was supposed to be their ally and spent the next five sessions working for the villain. I had to throw out all my notes. I got John Hammond'd. Life found a way.

I'm surprised D&Dad's hair is still a luscious brown and not a stark grey

"I really want to mash these orphans up, cause I think it'll be so funny"

Just recently, thanks to the spell “suggestion” we not only skipped a boss fight, but ended up befriended said boss and learned from him about another NPC that we can potentially add to our burgeoning army.

That last bit cracked me up. When I used to play D&D, our DM came up with a big long quest for us to honor a friend of ours that had died. Part of that quest took us thru a forest full of elves. Since our friend always hated elves, the DM decided that these elves were not friendly. We were being overrun with elves when someone in the group had the idea to light the forest on fire. The idea was that we throw out all of our lamp oil and booze and then Willie (dead friends brother) would throw a lamp and light it so we could escape. Our DM doesn't give any breaks tho, so after Willie threw the lamp he looks at him and says, don't you wish you would have lit it? So, then it comes to my turn, natural 20 Fireball. We ended up burning down an entire elf kingdom and our DM had to completely redo a section of the quest since the Elf Kingdom was a later part lol.

The most interesting thing about this video is hearing Mr. Chiodini talk about coming to understand these things. I DMed my first adventure back in 1983. It was a disaster. But over the past 36 years, I've learned a these same lessons (and many more), and they mainly come down to: "Don't tell the story in advance." A lot of people have trouble with the idea that you can't script out a tabletop RPG in the same way you can a computer/console RPG. So, if you're running _The Witcher_ or _Dragon Age_ (or _Dungeons and Dragons_) as a GM, you're simply not going to have the same level of control that the writing staff at CD Projekt Red or Bioware can exert. So detailing a story to the same degree is always going to backfire. P.S.: And here's a candidate for a #8 from my own experience... Halting the catastrophe that's supposed to be unfolding before their eyes. Players are experts at finding ways to interfere with the foolproof plan that your villain has to set something off. So if it absolutely, positively, *needs* to happen, then it takes place off-camera, while the players are otherwise engaged.

"if you want to really mess them up, give them lots of little things to fight" he says as i'm being mobbed by cliff racers in my game

"You're a terrifying DM!" "GOOD!"

I would buy a shirt with "you can't make a good adventure without breaking a few paladins" on it 😂

You wanna know how badly our party derails the campaign? Our DM literally had to make an NPC party member just to keep us in line.

This is still one of my fav pieces of behind the scenes. I'd really love an updated version of it, maybe with some examples from Blades and/or Deadlands with Luke and Andy.

'"when they just picked him up and pinned his arms"...I, the DM, too, felt picked up and pinned.

Never played D&D, but I have to say, Merilwen's Meat Grinder is one of the best stories I have ever heard.

We once found an assassination contract from the king in a burglars pocket. One person didn’t know what that was so she pocketed it and told nobody

On my first session ever, my players got suspicious at a literal rope laying in the forest. That rope was not even supposed to be there. Took them 20 minutes.

Me as the DM: Ha, you couldn't ruin any of my plans because I didn't really have any.

Johnny to all other DMs: You don't just simply give the Oxventurers a weponized whale

Some of the faces Johnny shoots his players are like "Thanks, dickhead". I guess seeing other DMs getting so hopelessly derailed makes me feel better for not being good at it.

A year (prolly more) on, and I still think Johnny (sp) is still one of the best DMs I've seen. Too few DMs are willing to change their vision to tell an entertaining or intresting story.

It is the DM's job to be flexible. What makes D&D great is that the players are not limited, by what a developer thought they might do.The players make their own decisions, and have to find their own solutions to problems.If you are going to stop them from doing anything you weren't expecting, you are a railroader. It sounds like this guy knew what he was doing, and was able to roll with his player.

Lol, the meat grinder. Reminds me of my first time DMing. Me: ok so the bard is now putting on a show for the other guests in the hotel. Dragonborn fighter: I’m gonna provide him with pyro technics. Me: what? DBF: I use my breath weapon. Me: um, ok, roll damage. DBF: What? Me: roll damage. DBF: -happens to roll the maximum- Me: haha what shenanigans, 4 people died in that fire.

My first DM gad an interesting new player moment: the party had to get into a tower whose only features were blue spots. The newbie walked around the tower, asked what they saw, and was told that one spot looked like a door. They said they walked into the door shape. Everyone joked that they hurt their nose walking face-first into a wall, but the DM had this look on his face, and went "No, guys, she's right, that's the way in." In my defense, I'd already seen that gimmick in a book.

In my current main campaign, I've had all of these happen: 1) In a dungeon, they came across an empty chest. After noting it was empty, they spent the next 20 minutes doing every possible check they could on it. Even animal handling. 2) After a grueling fight on a raft to get to some caves, they arrived and heard some alarms going off. They were supposed to go right and deal with the sailors looking their way. Instead they made a straight rush to the boss. 3) So many to choose from...they're convinced that a Hunter they came across is a Vampire, so whenever they see him try to assault him with garlic. Said Hunter they also pushed to being governor of a town that had evacuated to a fortress after the Hunter's lodge was destroyed, the town was attacked by a dragon, and the party had killed the mayor. I've also had to make a pretty respectable priest an asshole because the priest's deity doesn't care for undead and the party's cleric is a necromancer. 4) The party is fond of making requests that I just didn't go along with. Nothing too crazy as in the video. 5) The party has mostly been good at taking out the bosses. However...there's one dungeon in their first campaign that they never actually did. It might have been one of the more challenging ones. But the idea was that they would negotiate with some Wererats who would agree to leave a mine if their former home was liberated from some Orcs and Ogres. Instead the party just killed most of the Wererats, and the remainder were sent off to a Gnome stronghold...which the party had mostly killed previously because they had gone crazy. 6) At one point, they came across a squadron of Orcs and their Half-Orc leader. Said Orcs promptly attacked, throwing javelins and instantly killing the party's centaur companion. At that the Half-Orc smirked, looked at the party, and declared "Three to go." One casting of a Necklace of Fireball later, the party's Sorcerer returned the smirk and declared "One to go." 7) The Gnome village is the best example here, but they also killed a Town's Mayor, declared a Hunter to be in charge now, and requested that the village move to a secure fortress.

“Get to know your players’ instincts so that you can give them options they’ll gravitate to that won’t break the story” is really top notch advice (love all the little advice bits at the end of each segment, actually), and a super fun process to go through as long as you don’t mind a little chaos parsed throughout some of your sessions. First and only time I DM’d thus far, I put a very eerie, very sus, maybe-an-eldritch-horror-you-don’t-know child in the middle of an abandoned town, and my players ALMOST succeeded in convincing the child that they could be his two dads and they would go traveling together so he wouldn’t have to be lonely. So now I know I can either nudge or avoid their “adopt everything” instincts via the right amounts of cute and mysterious. And yes, if they had adopted the child, it would have utterly broken the game. xD

I've turned an unimportant NPC important! In my very first ever campaign I refused to let my party kill a goblin that attacked us, and se we took him along and he ended up becoming the goblin king. Good times.

Just as an aside, I like how often Corazon and Merilwen in cat form end up doing things together. It's so very fun!

I love it when you set up a scenario where all the players need to do is talk to someone or inspect something, and instead they run in shouting "Leroy Jenkins" and killing everybody. "That goblin you just slaughtered, guess what, he's the dude who was gonna tell you where the enemy went".

Very recently, I had intended for my players to engage in an intense roleplaying challenge. Essentially, the first mate of the airship they’d chartered got fed up with the captain’s recklessness and decided to stage a mutiny. I’d planned to have the characters make their case to the crew members who sided with the first mate and convince them to stand by their captain a little longer. What does my buddy’s ranger do? He grabs the first mate, stuffs him into a barrel head first, seals him in, then paints the words “MUTINOUS BASTARD” on the side of it. At least we all got a laugh out of it.