Lazaron: "My minion is mere steps away from executing his plan years in the making to fulfill my every desire" Also Lazaron: "Resurrect? Pff, no! I like him I'm keeping him." Not the brightest patron around I see.
first thing I thought that makes me think the story was made up. How possibly has he met and made deals with all of these influential people without the rest of his party knowing? Unless they were running solo sessions which kind of defeats the purpose of playing dnd in a group imo
@branvy if your character is doing shady things behind the backs of everyone solo session are perfectly reasonable as you are still doing other things with the group on regular times. It's a perfect way to keep player and character knowledge from being a thing because if the player doesn't know, there is no possibility of accident metagaming. Not to mention solo dnd is a thing same with one on one games.
@@Master_the_Gameour dm allows secret actions when the party is not together one PC member is a spy I figured it out and he doesn't know it's been pretty fun
I kept the fact that Strahd was in the party disguised for over a year. They never studied the module, nor kept good notes. If they did, they might have noticed the guy they bought magic items from was shifty, and always invited into places.
Our forever GM is a bit of a master of the long con. In our first campaign, we were being guided by our setting's goddess of adventure, Yiazval, in a campaign to stop the god of conquest, Zanarlos. However, around two-thirds of the way through the campaign, we started getting hints that things weren't as they seemed. We kept finding important objects where when we touched them, we'd have visions of ourselves in a more modern setting, with different identities, interacting with a boy that resembled Yiazval as he slowly took ill. Eventually, with only two sessions left to go, we discovered the truth - Yiazval and Zanarlos were estranged husband and wife, and she was somehow using our timeline to sustain their deathly ill son, keeping it in a time loop of Zanarlos constantly invading, and our characters rising up to stop him. In our final campaign, we refused to hand over the macguffin artifact we'd been chasing the whole time, had our levels reset to 1 as Yiazval angrily lashed out at us, but eventually managed to reach out to the child, stirring him from a coma that he'd been in for years, allowing us to safely break the simulation. The setting has changed considerably from that first campaign, but there is still one truth that remains. Yiazval and Zanarlos once loved each other. And both of them still love the Nameless Child, who still exists just out of reach from the world. Sleeping. Waiting. But destined to awaken to an unknown and glorious purpose.
Hey there! This is one of the players in the campaign that Lex spoke of. Thing is, there was a BAD ending that we accidentally got before we got the good ending. When we reached the child, one of our party members (a kitsune gunslinger) was able to get a Perception check successfully done, spotting the unconscious child. Unfortunately, one of the other party members saw a door and pried it open, causing us to wake up in the real world. Unfortunately, this resulted in the child still being in a coma, never to wake up again. Many tears were shed that day as the boy passed away... Luckily, our DM was kind and merciful enough to let us go back to moments before the door was opened and the DM let us get the good ending told by Lex here.
Courage's story sounds like an example of bad DMing to me, there were so many options of ways to handle that without throwing away all the effort the player had already made, ways that would've been much more clever and interesting than "Whoops, you died, your efforts were all for nothing!"
Honnnestly, the DM could have had the coup go through anyways. If Courage finessed all these NPCs to his side, including the dragon, then one of them should have been the designated second-in-command. Fuck the patron. It sounds like enough people were displeased with the other guy's reign to still go through with it anyways. DM just got too lazy to help the player out and trying to run the coup without him
I'm not so quick to blame the DM. This could have been bad luck in a random encounter; the player was moving around alone in dangerous areas, after all. Furthermore, if this player was doing things behind the backs of the other players, what if another player was doing the same thing, and arranged him to be assassinated?
@StinkerTheFirst but he didn't have to write in an excuse to prevent the player from being revived why would the demon want his soul preventing him from reviving if he was just about to achieve the final step of the plan he was doing for that demon the demon literally had his main goal within his grasp and yet he chooses a singular soul of one of his followers instead? It's not like if he didn't claim the soul that moment he'd never get it so I'm pretty sure that was just an excuse by the dm
The first story is a bologna GM. The campaign actually sounds epic too, but to be killed and never have the already actions come to fruition, is a travesty. I would've made the coup still happen, just with another, more evil guy as the one takin over, and the evil army can hint at what a good job courage has done to pave the way for this event...
Quite a bit of context to this one, but here goes... So my character started out as the captain of a mercenary (Pirate) ship, and had been ferrying the entire party around from island to island for most of the campaign thus far (I think we were level 8 at the time). I had recently found a weapon created from the claw of an Ancient Cosmic Dragon God(Though we didn't really know that particular detail yet), and my character was slowly being corrupted by it, and only the DM and I knew this at the time. Over our voyages, we had met many NPCs and forged several different alliances. But the DM had been clear that a major regional conflict had been brewing the whole time, and eventually, war broke out and we were forced to choose sides. My character, being the ship's captain, chose to make a vote with his crew and we rolled dice to determine our allegiance. My crew and I, along with one other player, chose to remain as mercenaries and offer our allegiance to the highest bidder, while the other three players chose to join the resistance against a despotic queen. My ally and I were preparing to say our farewells and take the other party members wherever they needed to go, but one of them felt betrayed by our decision, as he had risen to a prominent leader in the resistance with my help. So in a classic case of "If you aren't with me, you're against me", he chose to attack us while our backs were turned. My ship was greatly damaged, and several of my crew were killed, including my first mate. Though they were all NPC's, I had committed to the role and sought revenge on their killer. He escaped with the other 2 party members who allied themselves with him, and though they didn't approve of his actions, they were unwilling to abandon him. After this we had to split our D&D sessions, because we were effectively plotting against each other. The thirst for revenge only quickened the corruption that the dragon claw (Called The Talon of Triarch) held over me. I wanted to destroy them completely. My first move was to visit the queen that my former party had chosen to go to war against. Previously, she had tried to offer her hand in marriage to one of our other party members (who was a prince, son of the former emperor) but he had turned her down. Now returning to her months later, recently having been granted the title of a Lord, I offered my hand to her, which she graciously accepted. I already had several ships and a thousand men at my command, but now I had whole armies at my beck and call. Eventually, Rhys (The man who butchered my crew), knowing that he couldn't hope to best me in a large scale battle, challenged me to a duel. Even though he was a more powerful character than I was, I accepted. I had a plan. First, I sought an alliance with the 4 Witches. (In the mythos of this campaign, they were similar to the Fates and the Furies from Greek Mythology, so basically Demi-Goddesses who each had complete control over a specific type of magic) I appealed to them in every way that a Nat 20 Charisma role would allow, and eventually they joined my cause, which we sealed with a black magic blood pact. And finally, I went on a quest to retrieve the other artifacts of the Dragon God, Triarch, including his Eye, Wing, Fang, and Scale. These items were scattered across the world after he was defeated by Mance Pennhurst, the 1,000 year emperor and father of Nymphus (The prince who turned down the Queen), and this was the first time they had been reunited in a millennia. Then I put the finishing touch on my plan: using a ritual performed by the witches, they bound my soul to these artifacts, effectively making me a living conduit for Triarch. Now, if I was killed, it would effectively resurrect the Cosmic Dragon God in my place. The day of the duel came. (It had been about 3 months in real world time, I think we were level 11 or 12 by this time. This was the first time the whoIe party had been back together since the attack on my ship) I used my newfound station as a King to make it a vastly publicized event, and one of the Witches who specialized in portal magic opened up viewing points so people from all over the world could watch. Rhys and his partners had done a lot on their own to increase his power for the battle, and it became pretty clear that we each possessed the power to one-shot each other. It was just a matter of who landed the first hit. We rolled for initiative, and Rhys went first. He slew King Jerick Florinson, his former captain, in one stroke of his sword. The player jumped up from the table and laughed in triumph, but his victory was short-lived. After spending the first few seconds acting upset, I slowly smiled and said "...then the last shackle of Triarch has been broken". Everyone quickly went quiet. The DM and I locked eyes, as I nodded and soflty cackled. We were then given the description of a scene where my body gets up, glowing with red/black energy, as stormclouds swirl overhead to approximate the shape of a vast dragon, it's wings spanning the horizon, it's head eclipsing the mountains, and the look on my rivals face was absolutely priceless. Right then, he knew, He Had Fucked Up...
Sounds amazingly like something that could become a great book or show, honestly. What happened in the end after the dragon was set free? World enslavement? The world ending? I’d love to know.
@@heavenlycrow3961 Once I had announced myself as a resurrected god, I put the other party members in a stasis spell, and then announced to the viewing portals that they all should kneel before their new master. The DM made some rolls to determine how many of the spectators were shaken enough to submit, and then, as per the DM's instruction, I announced "The First to Kneel are the First to Die" as I absorbed the power of 80 millions souls, reduced to shriveled husks. At this point, the rest of them were dumbfounded. But as Triarch prepared to finish them off, the DM hit the rest of us with the twist (One that he and I had totally planned out) See, this campaign was the continuation of another one we had done a couple years previously, and canonically, 30 years had passed in this world since then. My old character Au-Tok, an Elven Monk, showed up and did a sneak attack stunning strike on my now-possessed character, and I manage to rescue the party through a portal to a pocket reality that I had conjured (The DM let me have some cool artifacts to make this happen) Then, in a sort of ceremonial gesture, I surrendered the character sheet of the Dragon King to the DM, as he was now OP as fuck and had become the campaign's new Big Bad. I reprised my role as my old monk, albeit with some cool new powers, and the other players were given access to their old characters as well. But this pocket reality we had hid in, and managed to rescue others from, sort of worked like a reverse hyperbaric time chamber from DBZ. Instead of time passing faster inside while the outside world moved at a normal pace, every day we spent in safety means a year had passed in the outside world. After spending one month training, preparing, and taking regular recon missions into the real world, we were finally ready to track down the one thing that could potentially heal the ruined and now enslaved world: The Shackles Of Creation... Let me know if you want to hear the conclusion 😉
As the party emerged out of their time bubble, they saw a drastically changed landscape. Many human cities have been razed, and are now overgrown with vegetation. The wilderness has flourished. Humanity, not so much. What remains of the words sentient races is now subjugated by the dragons, who rule with an iron fist. The party quickly realized they were outmatched by the sheer number of powerful beasts that are virtually everywhere now, but one of the older members believes that he knows of an artifact that could possibly turn the tide and remake the world to how it was before Triarch took over: The Shackles Of Creation. With these, the wielder could effectively remake the world to their will, but the cost of such a power is that they will forever be bound to the spirit of the world, unable to leave the extra-dimensional abyss where the shackles are to be found. The first thing we did was find the Void Witch, one of the 4 demigoddesses mentioned earlier. This one in particular had dominion over space, and even though she had sworn service to Triarch through deception, she was not necessarily forbidden from helping his enemies. We had to sneak into a heavily guarded fortress to get her out undetected, but we managed it with little challenge. Once we had secured the Percival the Void Witch, we quickly traveled to the Abyss and began our search for the shackles. We encountered many frightening enemies in our search, and when we finally found the shackles, King Jerick (Possessed by Triarch) was waiting for us. He gave a long winded monologue about how the world was already as he liked it, and he had no need for the Shackles. But there was no way he was going to let us have them and tear down everything he'd built. The battle was long and fierce. Percival was immediately brought under the control of the Dragon King, and multiple players were reduced to negative hit points, and when it seemed all hope was lost, Nymphus, Son of the Emperor and Brother of the Void Witch herself, begged his sister for help. It all came down to a dice roll to see if her love for her brother could break Triarch's spell, and he nailed it. While the Dragon King was distracted giving his supervillain speech, Percival seized the Shackles for herself, and everything went white. When we came to, the world had been changed back. Back before the apocalypse, before the war that preceded it, and even before the assassination of the 1,000 year emperor. We had been given a second chance. Jerick had been returned to his old physical self, but the influence of Triarch was no more, and he was able to retain his new powers and the memories of the last 30 years. We all did. The spirit of the Dragon God was cast into the cosmos, where it still flies on to this day. But it was the end of the road for the Void Witch. Percival was able to use the last of her connection to the material plane to conjure up an apparition of herself to communicate with us one last time, thanking us for allowing her the chance to redeem herself, and to say goodbye to her brother. It was a pretty emotional session, and we were all a little too drunk by that point to collectively remember much more than a lot of teary-eyed revelry to celebrate the end of what was an 18-month campaign by that point. The End...?
So far, my best long con has been the reveal of the BBEG in a Star Wars 5e game. The players had been helping a young togruta woman, who worked with an Archeology group, collect artifacts that contained extremely dangerous sith rituals so that they may be destroyed. Well, they took a mission to go to a planet known as Nathema to obtain an artifact that could allow one to consume the force energy out of every living thing on a planet. The group began their decent to this world, but the force users had to start making wisdom saves as they got lower in the atmosphere. This planet was completely dead. There was no wind, no bugs, there were piles of clothes on the street where people used to be, and no plants. To the force users, it felt like the force itself had been ripped to shreds and devoured. Two of the members, one a force sensitive and the other a droid, went out to find the holocron in a large tower made of obsidian, only to find it missing. When they returned to the togruta to tell her what happened, they found the place deserted. After some searching, they find the assistant, who was an ex-jedi who left the order on good terms, dead via a lightsaber stab through the back, with his own lightsaber sitting neatly on top of the wound. One of the players had an ability known as psychometry, which allowed him to see the "memories" implanted on an object. He used this on the lightsaber only to witness the ex-jedi find the stash of artifacts that was supposed to be destroyed and then be stabbed in the back. As the jedi began dying, the togruta woman's voice began talking. But not to the jedi. Instead, she speaks directly to the players character, thanking him and their group for getting everything she needed to become powerful enough to take over the galaxy and destroy it if she must. Only one of the players was ever suspicious of her, and I had never heard someone shout, "I told you so!" so quickly.
I had an in-game long con, but the surprise was spoiled before the first session because my roommate (who was also in the game) didn't realize I was planning to keep it a secret. My character was a dragon in disguise. A very young dragon, but a dragon. Her egg was stolen, and changed hands on the black market a few times, until it eventually wound up in the hands of a Halfling merchant who was planning to set up shop in the area of Eberron called Q'Barra. Q'Barra is mostly populated by lizardfolk and dinosaur-riding halflings, so he bought what he thought was a lizardfolk egg and planned to raise it as an adopted child, so he could put on a good public face with the locals. What hatched, however, had wings and crawled on all fours. "That can't possibly be a dragon," he thought, "because a dragon egg would be both far more expensive than I paid (Someone in the chain of hands didn't believe it was actually a dragon egg, or just didn't know at all and guessed) and would also be incredibly stupid and dangerous for me to have. So this has to be some creature I'm not familiar with that just kinda looks like a dragon." So he named me Princess and gave me a pink collar. A year or so later, I start to talk. "Father" is now in a state of perpetual ulcer. He's always treated me well, but he's scared to death of a dragon catching wind that he has one and ever treated it as a pet. Princess, however, doesn't understand this kind of issue, and refuses to let Father take way the collar ("It was the first gift you ever gave me! I *love* it, why would you take it away from me?") or change her name, and he doesn't have the heart to make her cry (or want to take the risk of the consequences if a dragon shows up and finds her heartbroken or something). Things went okay, though he was always nervous whenever a suspiciously wealthy/opulent traveller came through town. Unfortunately, he didn't really have a lot of books on dragons, as dragons are exceedingly rare outside of their own kingdom that they created and don't allow humanoids into. So eventually Princess decided to "explore the world" to "find out more about herself and about dragons", and snuck aboard a ship that was setting sail for Q'Barra for the founding of a new port town. Since the twist was spoiled from the start, I decided to make her really bad at pretending to be normal, which honestly turned out to be more fun than hiding it probably would've been. The first roll of the campaign was me sneaking onto the ship, and I got a nat 1. So, being caught by the guards, I pointed at the party and went, "That's my brother!" "Which one?" "Uhh, that one!" "...The orc is your brother?" "Yyyyyes?" "The orc WOMAN is your BROTHER?" "...Oh! No, I mean, that one!" and pointed at the actual halfling in the party. Helping out on board the ship (and flaunting the "typical halfling" 20 strength every chance I get), one of the sailors says "Well, we can always use another pair of hands, I guess." To which Princess replies, "Hands! Yes! I have those! See? Fingers and everything!" before wiggling her fingers with total pride. She is intensely curious about anything related to dragons. She proposes talking to the dragon leading the enemy forces before fighting it, going as far as to volunteer to be the one to lead the talk. She's upset when everyone else dismisses the idea and continues to make plans to kill it. She intuitively understands Draconic, and doesn't understand why others don't. ("What do you mean? How else would you express that idea? ...I always did wonder what the point of Common was, but everyone insists on speaking it, so I learned it.") Her blue hair wasn't that strange of an appearance to be questioned, so it got a pass. When talking with the leader of the friendly Lizardfolk tribe (which use Draconic, but heavy metaphor, "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" level), the leader realizes Princess isn't a full adult and says, "This one is a hatchling!" Now, the Draconic word for "hatchling" is the same as the word for "child", so that by itself didn't arouse suspicion. Her response of "I'm not THAT young! I'm almost seven!" did get her an odd look from the party's Diplomat who spoke Draconic. Which Princess noticed and then added, "...teeeeeen?" awkwardly. During a fight with little flying critters, she gets mad about not being able to hit with her dagger (having no proficiencies with human weapons at all) and pounces one, Grappling it, and trying to bite its throat with halfling teeth. Everyone's pretty weirded out, but eventually just roll with it because "She's always a little weird". I had a sort of "soft rule" that if I was ever reduced to half my max HP, I'd consider the fight "serious" and drop the disguise. I also kept trying to get closer with the party members one by one, ask them their thoughts on dragons, how they'd react if they met one, that sort of thing. It finally happened (every time I was reduced below half before, I'd end up getting healed before my next turn and so she'd chicken out of revealing herself) during the confrontation with the Bad Guy Dragon when they raided the Friendly Lizard Village and we rushed to their aid, except I went from "over half" to "two hit points" in one round, so I said screw it, let myself burst out of clothes, and took to the air to fight the flyer raining ranged attacks on us, much to the surprise of the player characters. (Well, except one, who was bad at separating player knowledge from character knowledge. His reaction was "I freaking KNEW IT!" and I scolded him with "No you didn't. You knew SOMETHING was strange, but not THIS.") Sadly, the campaign has been on hold for months because of scheduling issues, and all I've heard is that the DM "wants to continue it at some point", but there's no telling when or if that will actually happen. Ah well.
This is adorable, I love her. So sad to hear your game is on hiatus. :c I've got a dragon hiding among my party right now too, an NPC I rolled up from a random encounter who, when I rolled her traits, I kind of groaned to myself "Oh no, there's no possible way this dingus doesn't just decide she's joining the party without anyone's consent..." LOL She's a goofball and I love her but like-- I really hope none of my players *see* this, but the fact she's there hiding in plain sight and nobody can know yet is driving me crazy! She's taken the guise of a feline Shifter (because cats and dragons totally have the same energy) and she's a Path of the Ascendant Dragon monk, so nobody questions why she has ice breath, nor why she has a ludicrous 50ft of movement. (Hypothetically possible with Swiftstride shifter + monk + mobile feat) her quirky behavior like her funny way of speaking they chalk up to her just being a weird kid, and stuff like her making a point of collecting treasures also they handwave because "Eh, guess she took the discipline pretty literally." Same with why she knows Draconic (being able to *speak* it is extremely rare) She's only a young dragon, so it's not like she's supremely wise, but she's more traveled than she seems to be, and they figure "Well, monk." She's also got some innate spellcasting, but I've made plenty of weird characters that don't quite align to a class standard (because they're NPCs lol) so they don't suspect a thing even from that... The only *real* giveaway is how she's WAY more durable than she has any reason to be. Girl got crit by an Inflict Wounds and I use crunchy crits (bonus dice are always max damage) so that HURT. Easily did over 50 damage in one hit, and the girl was still standing. That wasn't even half her health, but as far as anyone else knew she was standing on her last legs and putting on a tough face. There was also the moment where she *grappled a wyvern* out of the air by grabbing it by its tail, slamming it into the ground, and then this tiny fucking catgirl pins down its tail, grabs it by one of its *fangs* when it tries to bite her, then pulls its head down to stare it down at eye-level and yells at it in draconic... And that thing *fled* afterwards. ...But honest to god half of that was just dice gods letting her be a badass. The only reason she could even attempt the grapple was because I ruled her "true size" wasn't Small like her disguise is. But the wyvern genuinely failed its saves, both against the grapple and the ensuing *fear* save because, *you know, dragon.* ...But I somehow don't think they suspect anything from that one either because 1: nobody in the party speaks draconic, 2: monk, I guess, LOL. I'm just *waiting* for the moment when they have a run-in with a powerful lackey of the big bad again so she can show her true form and blow everyone away because "IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW."
A silver? A gold would be funny, considering they hatch at medium size. Imagine a halfling staring up at the gold dragon wyrmling. I'm a big fan of the dragon in disguise trope myself, my gold whenever I get to play him does the same. There's a myth-weavers game I'm in right now who introduced himself as a paladin of bahamut (its a gestalt game, he has two paladin levels), and a squire to a platinum knight (all true). Its all open knowledge OOC, but IC no one suspected a thing, but thanks to having a sorcerer level, I gave him a raven familiar that likes to taut his Master whenever he fails to hit things with a sword and suggests he 'isn't fighting like he knows how to' and 'isn't taking it seriously'. The big 'wtf' IC happened when they met some kobolds, and so my paladin says he's going to assume a guise more amiable to them, and turned into a kobold himself. I'm debating when the true form comes out. For the proper wool over the players eyes, a game I ran had my mother as a player character in it. She and I are a lot alike, we like playing odd characters. So I was quite surprised and entertained when she said she wanted to play a silver dragon that was trapped in elven form. I immediately agreed, we'd use the rules for a savage progression, and I gave her a magic amulet that would allow her to use her dragon stats in humanoid guise. It got even better later, when another player (sadly a problem player) wanted to play a RED dragon that was shrunken down and reduced in strength. And I immediately had their backstories linked without their knowledge. They were rivals, whose antics had gotten out of hand, and so the council of dragons had stepped in and punished both by diminishing their powers (which fucked with their knowledge and memories). Sadly the problem player left before that part of their backstories could come out, and the game ended before anyone discovered she was a silver dragon the entire time. (Much to the sadness of the kobold player, who worshipped the Silver Dragon Goddess Tamara, but always got along with my mother's character anyway, lol).
Love the plant infiltrator. A sleeper agent who doesn't know he is? Very cool. Grrrrr. And we don't know if the vamp survived. Great story. Where's the ending?
Lupines (Werewolves) are no joke, especially to Kindred (Vampires), and the Gangrel is surrounded by people who know he's a liar. He's getting out by the skin of his teeth, if at all.
I love the idea that Courage from the first story was just actually a cool dude, like, "Oooohhhh, sorry dude... I kiiinda gotta overthrow you. Like, nothing against you, I just have my own goals. It's not you, it's me"
I once dmed a one shot mini campaign where a king send some adventurers get him some sandals. The only thing i "forgot" to mention to the players is that in rhe kingdom they where in sandals was a name of a vey specific type of sand bird that loojed like an ostrich. Roleplaying as the shopkeeper and giving them the "why would i have that in my armour shop" followed by the side eye was just too good!(in the end,after fighting a huge mama sandal they figured it out with my help and completed the mission)
Not a long con, but it is awesome none the less. I had recently started playing D&D again at my local game shop and decided to play a human bard, my first successful character as my first one didn't get to shine due to a stupid DM not knowing how to deal with a player that missed one session. So it is my first full session in the campaign and we are playing in Midgard. I was freed from a cage by the group and joined in the middle of a fight to help kill a succubus and free a nobleman. Afterward we track down the last noble and found out who was behind it, an astrosphinx who wanted to take over the city. Upon learning this we got aid from two spellcasters to help fight it, and oddly enough it was held up at the inn that was to be our reward. We encounter it and start fighting in the Inn, when the astrosphinx teleported us(except the two spellcasters) to another plane of existence, ending the session on a cliffhanger. The next week we come back and the DM says we are teleported to a void like space with nothing but a rainbow going in one direction to walk on. So we started walking forward as it was our only choice, when the ravenfolk rogue decides to lick the rainbow. He makes a saving throw and fails, making him and everything on him permanently indigo colored. As we continue, we start joking about if there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, while feeling like it has been forever since we started walking. We eventually got to the end of the rainbow where we see a dead end with barrels, crates, a bed, and a cauldron filled with gold and a leprechaun standing on it. We then realized we had all forgotten that it was saint Patrick's day, causing me to laugh uncontrollably, while the DM was also pulling off a thick irish accent to where we couldn't hardly understand him, which was the point. We then explain to him the situation we are in and he gives us a way out with a one way teleportation stone, but only if we can beat him in a duel. If we lost we would be his slaves, so we asked for more than just the stone for extra compensation. At first we thought of taking all his gold as he could always make more(don't ask how, it's disgusting), but it was too much to carry on just our person. He then draws out his sword, with a green blade, causing us to ask, " hey what's that sword?' He replies "it's the shamrock slayer", prompting us to ask for the sword as an extra part of the deal with the stone. He agrees and we begin the duel with him, and you guessed it, his lucky charms. After me getting downed and several lucky charms killed later, he yields, giving us the sword and stone. Upon being teleported back we find we were only gone for 5 minutes which was still bad considering the two guys helping us were still there fighting. When we get there they are holding the Sphinx in place with a fire ring, as they had no spells left, and neither did we. With a little bit of effort we just barely managed to beat it, and as it turned out, the DM intentionally made its health too high for us to take it down before it teleported us, just so he could run the holiday session. We didn't mind as it was funny and it gave us a cool weapon to use. I decided to cast identify on it and ooooohh boy did we hit the jackpot. Legendary long sword at lvl 4, a luck blade with 3 wishes, and a whole bunch of other perks that were useful to spellcasters. At the end of the session, me, the rogue, and the barbarian roll a D20 for it, with me just getting one higher than the Barbarian, winning the sword.
In my first ever campaign (Curse of Strahd) I worked with one of the players (now my partner) on a timeline of events where a younger Sergei Von Zarovich fell in love with an Elven woman who went to Faerun with Sergei while he trained as a Cleric of Lysander. A few years later and the two of them had a daughter (my partners PC) who had never even heard of Strahd until visiting Barovia years later as, when Sergei died after meeting Tatyana, his wife was grief stricken and went to search for him. Cut to about 15 out of 30 sessions of CoS (almost 5 months) and the party are fighting a red Dragonborn Veteran in an abandoned house in Vallaki. My partners PC goes down in the combat and dies. During her little cutscene, she makes a deal with the Dark Powers who reveal (to both the PC and the other 3 players) that she is Strahd’s niece. The looks on their faces were priceless and it’s one of the greatest reactions to a plot twist I’ve ever seen as a GM.
For 7 levels (Roughly 9-10 months real time) I hid the fact that my Goliath rune knight had gone into stars Druid. Since level 6 I had been taking levels in Druid and using none of the features that didn’t over lap with my other abilities and only revealed it all when we caught up to the Goliath who my character had been chasing since level 4. At which point I finally used starry form and started stacking runes on top of it to create the aspects of the giant’s god, a large six armed winged Goliath with horns and a halo, as I gradually beat the other Goliath into the ground as fiery chains held him in place. The complete and total confusion on my friends face as they realized I had been essentially playing a level 6 character for the last 7 levels (and mostly keeping up) was great.
In my Warhammer Fantasy game I kept my apprentice witch status hidden from everyone both in real life and in game until she became an Ice Maiden; which took like irl 2 years or so? I think the mystery around my character added some flavor to the campaign; and there was a reason to it. If the witch hunters of the empire would know what I was, they would hunt me, and they are very powerful; now ice maidens are considered priests to the eyes of the empire; and they wouldn't hunt them down as it would be a clear offense to Kislev, where they come from.
The party had been tasked with clearing a clock tower that the yuan-ti sorcerer Kagayaku’s friend (to be wife) had been living in since the city they started in had been destroyed. In the fight between the demonic shadows that had “evicted” said NPC, one of them dropped the clock tower bell on Kagayaku, which knocked him smooth out, and a nat 1 and death save, he bled out under the bell tower. Luckily, the power of the sorcerer had attracted the attention (by accidentally destroying the city they were in as a child) of a rather powerful demonic being, who granted them life, at a price. They were occasionally possessed by this demonic creature. Kagayaku then multiclassed into barbarian, and his rage was actually the demon taking control. Took ten in-game years to realize hey, maybe the demonic screeching coming from the raging barbarian is a bad thing.
4:37 "it feels wrong" depends on the table and the player. Some people would be pissed. Personally, I've asked my dm to not fudge roles on my account and to let me die if it happens. Our campaign is 90% Roleplay, and if my characters' mistakes lead to a sudden death, I honestly want to keep that as part of the tale. I have my own plans that my death would ruin, but that's literally the chaos of life, and I'm ok with that.
I once played D&D with some former friends on WoW. My DM was the guild lead, and he liked doing things .. strangely. He liked to play 'realistically'; which usually meant we weren't allowed access to anyone else's character sheets. Mistake one. He also gave every player (four of us; a Paladin, a Cleric, a Rogue and me, a wizard) one boon each. we could burn this boon, and anything we said, went. Mistake two. The campaign laster for four years. We were on a long journey to hunt down and destroy a demon lord terrorizing a country. In game time was like... 2-4 years. Now, we only knew what we could infer about our party, and not even the DM had Character Sheet access. My character would sit back in combat and only use Magic Missile. No one thought anything of it. At the end of the campaign, everyone had burned their boons for stupid shit... except me. We storm the castle, and just as we are about to open the gates, I say 'I want to use my Boon.' DM pauses for a while, clearly confused and says '...okay...?' So my character pushes open the doors, walks right down the lavish red carpet... And sits in the Demon Lord's throne and says 'Damn... So glad to finally be home.' Long story short, I offered the party a way out, but most didn't take it. Rogue was a klepto, so he did, but paladin was typical paladin, and cleric was in love with paladin. At the end of the day, paladin died to a point blank Level 9 fireball, and Cleric was mind-wiped into my concubine. Was never allowed to play again.
My fighter character drew the dunjon card from the deck of many things. For 5-6 sessions a rescue party was formed and took a journey to Purgatory to find him. Secretly I worked it out with the DM that my fighter would go insane from time in Purgatory and become a barbarian. When they finally find him he plays it cool, happy to see his friends but then turns around and under the influence of the big bad goes into a rage and attacks them (including my temporary character, a sorcerer).
The vampire lord (I've mentioned this jerk before) bbeg met, joined the party, and masquerading as a rather renowned (and well known, liked and trusted) vampire hunter, got the party's help in hunting down his vampire 'siblings' (competition for inherited power) as well as eventually tracking the party into destroying his sire (in reality just weakening the sire enough that he was able to finish the job and ascend to his vampire lord role) Things that helped - a ring that 'suppressed life signs' (so he could 'pass unnoticed among the undead' - really a ring that suppressed the tattoo and hid his alignment) and, unseen, a hidden magical tattoo that gave him warmth, warm breathing, and a pulse. He also had (unknown) an adamantine shell around his heart, and an adamntine gorget collar (when asked, it was ostensibly to protect from bites, but actually was to prevent beheading, and hide his transformation scars) - he explained his lack of reflection and vampiric vulnerabilities as part of an incomplete attempt to make him a vampire, leaving him as a dhampir, (and also the blame for the justification of hunting vampires in general) - kept the charade up for over a year of sessions. When the party finally put it all together, he'd already 'gone away for a little rest and vacation ' Once he vanished after the death of his vampiric sire, he began phase two - to become a favored of Orcus - but that's another story...but once they tracked him down, saw him as a fully adapted vampire lord wizard/fighter with the soul-eater PrC, and put it all together what'd happened....whooo... I /never/ saw so much hate for a villain in any game I've run before or since - the sheer amount of betrayed trust and misplaced loyalty...it was breathtaking. I think the players were even 'personally' mad at me for a few weeks
@MrRipper (Long Con Story) The game takes place in Star Wars Saga (which counts, it is basically D&D in space), during Knights of the Old Republic era (I believe shortly before the first game). Our GM ran two games at once: One with Light-sided players, one with Dark-sided players. Running around to get MacGuffins that betrayed their positions if kept too long. And the campaign took place just when the expansion book "Force Unleashed" came out. Force Unleashed was... meh. But in it lied one feat, and set of mechanics, to set up an organization. Comes in Garthog, Gammorean Noble (dark-side-ish), with a chip on the shoulder against Jedi (his only son taken to become a failed jedi, isolated and never to be seen again), played by a caricature of an INTP best friend. He comes with the idea of basically being the bank, face and strategist of the group. A de facto leader. And the soon-to-be leader of Kito Corp (tm). What is difficult to make in these games is a decent Healer. It took a huge amount of resources for a character to sink in over the first 3 levels to be remotely useful. Skill Training, Skill Focus, and talents. So Garthog designed one. The first prototype, Med-Kito (portemanteau for Medical Moskito) was born. A Tiny Medical Droid with talents, skills and feats that made him nothing short of awesome (used two base stats modifiers instead of just Wisdom, healed more HP than normal when the roll exceeded the base DC). The thing could hover for a while and land to sting you with mounted-in medpacks. Very minimalist, by restricting movement, the thing was way under 5k credits. And with training in acrobatics, a high dex, and a tiny size, was hard to touch. He first wrote a note to remain unread by the DM until called for (which included a rather high Use Computer check no one actually cared to see if it was possible, so the GM ignored it too), then he marketed the thing and sold it at large. The droid was so friggin' efficient on our team, the GM kinda had to have his NPCs begin to use some just to keep up. *And the enemy PCs had to admit Med-Kito(tm) was a friggin good droid design **_"that the GM introduced"._* Here I have to point out how awesome the GM was with this. He did not take credits for Med-Kitos / Kito Corp. But he did not correct the other group either when they assumed it was his invention. So the light sided guys bought one. And why become decent at healing when you got such a beast on your side? Worth every "half-a-share" or XP sank into it, that's for sure. They came to love theirs as much as we loved ours. Now, due to our one-in-a-billion smart Gammorean leader, the MacGuffin race had to be over soon. Instead of giving our MacGuffins to NPCs, or hiding them in trap-filled places, our noble (class-wise, he was ruthless) leader left them on empty ships in slow orbits around uncolonized star systems which he kept the coordinates for. So it ended with both groups clashing against each other. First thing that happened, our Bounty Hunter turned on us. In a plot we did not see coming, at first lured in by money, they managed to have the bounty hunter redeem himself and try to eliminate the very corrupt and cruel Gammorean corporate leader (that alone would be worthy of being a long con story, but there is more). Being more than half-way decent in combat and alone with the boss which was not, it should have been an easy fight. Except that his gear had been purchased and upgraded by Garthog. So Garthog knew he had no jet pack and no magnetic boots. So while the Hunter went after him, he took his flamethrower, which still dealt damage on a miss, and aimed at the space-window. The Bounty Hunter was sucked out, and I can't recall if he lived, but his contribution was over. When our leader finally joined us, he spoke a single sentence in Gammorean. "Die, Jedis". And the GM was then instructed to read the note. Instantly, every Med-Kito (except for the original) had a malfunction, their memory core overclocked until they melted. This, combined with the fact we were a little stronger and tactically savvy, gave us the victory. As some spent force points to remain alive (but still defeated), he spoke a few sentences about the foolishness of not knowing all you can about who you dealt with (his knowledge of the Hunter's inventory kinda saved him), and then "set them free"... out of the SAS, far away from the ground.
My character is a monk and I often make myself the joker of the party for over a year now, little do they know my characters is an apostate of the midnight lord Zon-Kuthon that was reformed by a wondering monk years prior, the plague oracle in the group recently cast a spell on me to stop me from talking so I think it’s time to grapple him and deal non lethal damage till he agrees to know that stuff off after this boss fight and show him Albel The Wicked ain’t about that, also they think my name is gùy even though I never said it was lol I initially told the my name was Rykzen during session one, they all laughed and said “no really what’s your name?” “Well I don’t know what to tell you” “we’ll call him gùy till he comes up with a real name” which saved me from having to roll a bluff check. So next session should be interesting if we survive
My player character, Axaro L Woodtalker, was a Ghostwise Halfling woodcarver (with a Haunted Backstory) from Willowbreak. Axaro was was at the gates of Willowbreak, his tiny village, when a red dragon attacked, burning up everything, and everywhere became flames. He barely dodged the dragon's blasts that immolated his friend standing next to him, but Axaro was set aflame. The fire killed everyone and left him badly burned and scarred. He staggered blindly into a spring. "I ran blindly into the woods, but everywhere there was charred animals, torched trees. I fell unconscious into a forest spring. Silvanus rescued me from the water & healed me. My first sight of him was as a fearsome angry horned hunter with burning white eyes, stag antlers and shaggy brown fur. He restored my burned body & gifted me with the druidic wildshape power I now posess. It was Silvanus, again, that taught me, and sent me out. My scars are a warning to any that cross my path. Now I speak for all the dead: the charred bodies of my neighbors, the host of animals, & all the trees that were destroyed. I do not see dragons as part of the natural balance, so I shall do my part to remove them." As he has gained experience as a Circle of the Moon Druid (with a level of barbarian for fun), Axaro's anger has grown toward dragons and he has vowed to destroy any he encounters. His Charisma score is 8, in part due to his hatred of dragons, (he even views dragonborn with disdain) but its largely due to his burns and the discoloration of his body and hair from the dragonflame and the magical spring. Most halflings have brown hair, his yellowish blond hair and his scarred orange hued skin makes him stand out even more. Now just a bit of background. The group I play with has about 12-15 players, 3-4 dungeon masters, and everyone rotates around in a shared D&D world. So, one weekend you may have Bill for your DM and 5 players, next weeked is Bob with maybe 6 players, while Ben (Yes, their real names) will DM for another group of adventurers. So to keep the levels stable, all the players started at level 1 in January, and became Level 2 in February, and so on. You can of course die and have to reroll, or find a unique artifact, and/or other things that make your player characters unique, even beyond the race and class you played. Its now August and all the player characters are level 8, or share 8 levels total in their multiclass. After months of playing with the same rotating group of adventurers, nobody figured out Axaro L Woodtalker's secret... the small discolored halfling with the love for the woods and its denzens was in fact, the Lorax from Dr. Seuss. (A Lorax Woodtalker) "I speak for the trees!" (drum snare)
So this has been going on for three years real time. My character is a kobold that claims they are a "mighty dragon" and will argue with you if you claim otherwise. Arix always speaks in the third person and is a dim cinnamon roll with an 18 charisma and impulse control. Arix has a secret. Arix is possessed. Arix once was Aeris a female kobold sorcerer. But the draconic bloodline that gave her her powers was descended from an evil ancient dragon that had become a dracolitch. The phylactery of said dracolitch was it's bloodline. So it possessed aeris. Unfortunately there wasn't enough intelligence to work with so now this ancient evil is stuck in the head of a little kobold that claims Arix are a mighty dragon. Arix came about by combining Aeris name with Malascorix, the dracolitch. There have been some hints over time but the party hasn't figured it out. I ghost tried to possess Arix once and Arix golden eyes flashed red and a deep voice said " I don't think so, this head is full!" and terrified the ghost so that it avoided Arix the rest of the fight.😂
Sort of did that with Paranoia a long time ago. Worked out decently enough for a bit, as the players didn't die in the first 4 sessions, but that is actually a rarity in Paranoia.......
Agreed on that first story. That sounds like shitty DMing. Lazaron would've resurrected Courage himself with how close he was to achieving the goal of having a kingdom on the mortal plane. DM played all of that, got it to the end, and then he just dies? Absolutely not. Bandits aren't going to defeat somebody that powerful to begin with. I don't see how that happened. At all.
More of a con between me and the DM, but I don't care- it is awesome! The campaign itself is a very much homebrewed one where the world is experiencing timeline 'overlaps' per say as more of a minor thing (even I don't know what the full story is, since it's still undergoing), but I play as a Lavakin called Hestia who's main playstyle is effectively Smash Bros Lucario logic- the more damage she takes, the harder she hits. Nonetheless, one of the recurring characters that the DM throws at us for some 'escape sequences' is a hulking knight in heavy black armor simply called The Executioner, who was a part of a shadow organization that was all about keeping the balance of good and evil in the world balanced. However, what my group doesn't know of so far is that Hestia, the Lavakin that can use her own health as a resource to deal more damage, is a part of that very same organization that The Executioner is a part of.
I, as a DM had completed a campaign of Curse of Strahd where Strahd's throne was replaced by one of his last living relatives, Lyssa von Zarovich. The next campaign I ran was Rime of the Frostmaiden and I did a prequel of Legacy of the Crystal Shard. The party had a NPC Tiefling paladin named Missionary that helped the party often, looking for resources and people willing to join their new kingdom as citizens. The group had spent months both in game and out of game trying to stop a war that could take Ten Towns (and their own town that they founded). They dealt with the Chosen of Auril and accepted Missionary's proposal of him funding their new town if they accept being honorary members of citizenship and will march if called upon by their queen of their homeland (Missionary had never mentioned the location (avoiding all questions on who/where this queen resided whenever the party brought it up in comedic fashion)). At the end of the prequel that would have a 7 year time skip for RotF to take place, one of my players joked, saying 'Imagine if his queen was Lyssa' at which point, the entire party came to the realisation and panicked since they didn't put two and two together until that moment.
i managed to get a gun with infinite ammo. lemme explain. I had decided for a halloween oneshot to make a character based on Korekiyo shinguji, a danganronpa character i was fond of. I was having trouble picking a class, but then an idea popped into my head. Sure, sorcerer or warlock would be better themeing, but what's better than Kiyo with a gun? So i gave him the Artificer class and promptly learned there was no possible way i could make a gun in the one-shot. that's fine. i had fun anyways, and got a magical cloak. pretty cool stuff. The week after, DM tells me i can use my character in the main capaign, he's decided to throw out our old main capaign (With our agreement) And said we need to either use out characters from the one-shot or make new ones. So i go with the oneshot character. First session i realize if I get the artillerest subclass i can give Kiyo a cannon, which is pretty close to a gun. funny, eh? But then i realize at the level i was at i could get a woodcarving kit. Now, don't ask me on the specifics of this, but i can make a gun with the materials i now have. So after the session ends I ask the DM if theres guns in the campaign. He says yes, as long as they aren't OP, and that they'll be expensive. (He didn't realize i intended to MAKE IT.) I thank him, and look over my infusions. right smack dab at number two is whatever that infusion for infinite ammo is. and guess who just finished a long rest? Next campaign, my plan shall be set in motion.
My campaign takes place in the Sword Coast after the event of the Lost Mines adventure where I have two long cons going that they’re about to find out. They quest they’re on has been about a high priest of a church in Neverwinter who is on the run for attempted conspiracy to overthrow the Lord Protector and hiding a teenager who he claims is the last of the royal bloodline that was nearly wiped out in the eruption of the mountain nearby some 40 years ago. Throughout the story the party has maybe seen one or two hints this is not the case almost magically missing any other clue and disregarding the ones they found. Now they’re in theyve broken into the lower vaults of Neverwinter and are at the door where it is said the Crown of the previous king lies but the door will only open in the presence of royal blood and the crown will harm anyone who is not so as well. Oh the door opens, but not because the boy. Upon going in they’ll find out through certain means that it was in fact their Fighter who was the long lost heir. The information that had led the priest to the boy was a misunderstanding in where the last lady of the royal house had fled and a wrongful assumption of the time of her pregnancy leading to the wrong conclusion. In fact a secret second long con i have if they ever did deep enough is that the priest in fact was the grandfather to the Fighter because the last lady of the royal family and him had shared a secret love in their early years before he’d swore his oath. This and the pregnancy fell not long before the eruption that wiped out most of the city so no one had known she was already pregnant with the fighters mother who was left at an orphanage some months after due to being hunted by assassins. So not only is the Fighter the true heir, he’s been with his grandfather this whole quest. They boy they’ve had along is the long lost child of a noble who is in the city just not who they had originally thought.
My character had a magical traumatic brain injury and thought he was a girl. The other players knew something was different but they didn’t know what. It was a good six or so sessions of wacky RP
In our groups first campaign, we frequently brought items of interest to a curios shop run by an elderly tiefling man named Archibald. He was particularly interested in an ancient dagger my character possessed, which ate the soul of any being killed by it. The campaign ran for just over 2 years, and it wasn’t until around 14 months that Archibald revealed himself, while we were fleeing the crime scene where we had murdered the evil baron of the land. While we rested on the floor of Archibald’s shop, he stole my dagger, and cast the party into the Shadowfell, where we spent the next 2 or 3 months worth of sessions (we play weekly). Our DM still claims he made it obvious, but every player disagrees. It always brings us a laugh when it comes to deciding wether or not to trust a new npc in subsequent campaigns.
139 sessions where the big villain of the campaign was every single Kingdom leader they heard about or encountered. They players kept right on plowing through, doing exactly what the collection of "villains" wanted them to do, none the wiser to the fact that the leaders of the 9 major kingdoms were in fact a group of polymoprphed dragons exerting their dominance across the world. Centuries those 9 dragons directed and controlled everything. The leader of the 9 was the very Queen who contracted the players at the start of the campaign. Hints were dropped. Messages, notes and conversations were seen and noted by the players, and still they didn't realize it. It wasn't until the players triggered a temporal distortion (on accident) that outright showed them the first meeting where the whole "divide the world into sections of territory to control everything", including the dragons changing themselves into the humanoid leaders that they realized it. 4 years of campaign and play. They ended up loosing and suffering a TPK when they decided to crash the "once every 10 years" meeting of the leaders of the major Kingdoms. It isn't exactly a good idea for 6 players to try and fight 9 dragons plus their Beholder, Illithid, Gargoyle, Giant guards and various ARMIES at once. (I even warned them, when they were discussing their plans, that it was a very bad idea, and it would be best to take them on individually instead of as a collective. They did not listen..... I even told them that there was going to be things like that stuff......) Each of the 9 Dragon Lords had 2 Beholders as part of their retinue. 1 dragon and 2 Beholders is not an easy fight for 6 player characters to begin with, 9 dragons and 18 beholders at the same time is an impossible task for ANY group of 6 players. They just didn't listen. It's okay though. 4 years of campaign, everyone was having fun.
In a current campaign we’re in, I’m currently playing the twin brother of one of the other characters. Except (and both the guy who plays said character and our DM know this) I’m actually a changeling. So far, we’re about ten sessions in, and none of the other characters have picked up on it (though I’ve been dropping subtle hints, such as perfectly mimicking some of the other characters and creating a “perfect” disguise with a disguise kit.)
My players don't realize there is a member they have had in and out and against the party. Who's patren is the BBGE, and acererak is going to take over in the end. When they take out the atrapol has fallen they will hear a loud shriek of pain. Turn to see Sil Nfyre squirming on the ground as his skin ages and withers away. I have basicly been with them using the staff of the forgotten one, which ID the BBEG's weapon for 1.5 years. They never asked.
I’m a fairly new dm, and I wrote a home brew campaign where the party is asked to escort an elven wizard entertainer (essentially a magician who performs magic for the common folk who don’t see it very often) to the Capitol of the neighboring kingdom so he can 1: escape a mafia he accidentally made angry and 2: learn the origins of a extremely powerful book which he stole from said mafia (which is why they were mad at him and trying to kill him). The magician had built up a pretty large fortune from three-hundred years of being a very popular entertainer, and he offered to pay the party a massive amount of money to escort him. They accept, and spend a long journey and about a third of the campaign bringing him to the Capitol of the other kingdom where he knows a friend who can help him discover the origins of the powerful book he possesses. One of the players was actually a member of the mafia in disguise (for some context, the mafia served a very powerful ancient dragon who worshipped a very powerful sorcerer/necromancer who tried and almost succeeded to conquer the world in a war that happened 800 years prior to the game). The party member was tasked with making sure the book arrived safely to the Capitol of the other kingdom, where the dragon would lead a massive attack on the city with the army of the ancient sorcerer who had returned to life. The book was actually the physical embodiment of a god’s power that had been linked to the ancient sorcerer which made the book the source of his power which is why he had come back to life instead of dying (kind of like the one ring in lotr, the book needed to be destroyed in order for the sorcerer to truly die). When the party arrived and the city was suddenly attacked by a massive army, the real twist wasn’t that the party member had been a double agent the whole time, it was that the elven wizard entertainer was actually a level 20 wizard who had defeated the ancient wizard in the war that happened 800 years ago. He was actually a legend told about throughout all the kingdoms and he was called the most powerful wizard to ever live. He was presumed dead after he disappeared after he killed the ancient sorcerer, but in reality he lived, but started going by a different name and trade, since he wanted to leave his old life behind him, and didn’t want the immense pressure of being a legendary hero weighing on him the rest of his life. This is really long, apologies to anyone who read all the way through.
Had a pirate game (didn’t manage to finish it due to a smol emotional crisis that I have since recovered from) but anyway I gave the party a ship but they didn’t have anyone to keep it repaired, so I gave them a little kobold with scales blue as lapis who just so happened to be both a shipwright and a hobbiest historian on a massive magufin the party didn’t know about that being the mythical baybalon garden, there were several things I did to give hints about him namely after my players got masks with passive detect magic one of them noticed he had a polymorph spell on him and when confronted he simply said it was to make his scales prettier which they somehow bought, a while after this the campaign ended but if it had continued he would have kept working with the party until they assembled baybalon at which point he’d reveal himself as an ocean dragon / minor god of costal storms and would have kicked them out and start a full on war with them Didn’t get to see it out but it would have been glorious! Oh and his name with the party was literally Neptune like the Roman god so I’m surprised they didn’t think about the weirdness more
DM friend dropped D&D for a couple of years and did StarWars TTRPG. Decides to attempt to convert one of his homebrew campaigns to a D&D campaign, and a ton of things didn't translate well. Jedi became Paladins, Sith became Oathbreakers, whole bunch of stuff. I knew from practically the start that this was a conversion, as my character gave it away, and I snatched up the most hilarious one. I was a smuggler, who was approached by an old performer and was asked to get his Vardo Wagon that was stolen from him. Cheat the thief in a game of cards and win it, return to the performer to return it and the performer just fades away in front of me. Free Old intricately decorated Wagon with faded paint. AND it had a Pooka bound to it that swaps from a big lion to a Leonin that couldn't speak Common. It's name? THE CENTENIAL LION! The pooka's name was Chompers. The only other person to figure it out was the Paladin, but he kept quiet, as he smelled the con. The Paladin Order was just called "The Order", their general greeting/farewell was May the Strength be with you. Had to deal with traitors, enemy Oathbreakers, yadda yadda yadda. The badly converted parts were they had problems that required some effort to fix, but could be easily fixed with Paladin spells. Someone stole the Orders Holy Icon? Locate Object, it was in the traitors bunk. Someone poisoned the food supplies? Purify Food and Drink. We have to capture and imprison someone who was manipulated and guilted into breaking their oaths? Command "Repent". Stuff like that. The Paladin ended up getting the title "Knight Captain Obvious" and the group collectively decided that the Order was filled with Kronks. As the campaign neared the end, the DM really started hamming it up with the references. It wasn't until the final battle cutscene where the BBEG goes "You underestimate the dark side of the strength" where the facepalms and headdesks happened. The Paladin tried to do the NOOOOooooo! but cracked up laughing. This was six sessions over three months to accomplish. I think someone would have caught onto it if we played every week instead of biweekly.
In my current campaign I decided to make my character be a sort of sorcerer where my bloodline wasnt anything like a choice, where it was demonic in nature and my "familiar" is the demon that controls me, by the name of Nor. When doing basically anything Nor can choose to roll against my willpower, and if he wins he takes control until I can beat him, in which case my dm whispers me (this is online) what actions to take. To help hide this Nor hides as a Raven like a familiar, and I was given primal magic rather than what demonic would normally give. The dm also lays claim to a certain amount of my skill and feat slots when I level, to their discretion, assumedly building to something down the line. I'm not privvy to this information but if I'm NOT the BBEG, I'm pretty sure I'm the mini boss. So far I've only LOST control once, and even as a shapeshifting, ranged sorcerir the custom stats the demon takeover game me let me damn near oneshot a mob we were fighting. I casted darkness before it happened so noone saw, so its still very much a secret.
I played a human fighter 7/thief 6 in an earlier version of dnd. I was in a long campaign and I guess something I did the wizard in the party did not like. He cursed and transformed me into an ogre magi. In the transfer I missed the save that let me keep my knowledge that I had been human, I now thought I had always been an ogre mage. But I had done a favor for a god and was granted my levels and knowledge of my classes and what had been done to me. But the wizard didn't know this. So I gathered my fallen equipment and ran off. Party thought they would take everything but DM ruled in my favor as it did not say I was an idiot and would leave my equipment behind. I also carried party gold in my only bag of holding. Then I made a deal with the DM so I could bring my character back into the game. Now rule was you are not allowed to kill a fellow player character if it could be avoided, even if it's in your nature to kill them. Example; I am playing an Ogre mage with a taste for human flesh. I am allowed to join as long as my nature is kept in check and I have other adequate human flesh to eat, and the party does not find out. So I use the polymorph abilities of my ogre magi and create a series of characters to bring in and to change out of. For next 6 months playing every weekend, Friday evening to Monday morning, I would play and leave and bring in a different character each time. The rest of the party knew nothing about what I was doing. Now the deal I made was I need to eat at least 1 human a week to keep my cravings under control, and this would keep the party safe. The DM agreed 💯 with the deal. So I played and I waited, and the reason I kept changing characters was to keep the people playing of the fact the it was always the same person. Then finally the DM made the error that allowed me to take advantage and have my revenge. I waited until my character had been 3 in game weeks without human flesh and during this time I played my character like a junkie needing a fix but fighting for control. The DM did not take the hint. So one night my character is on watch and finds out that a group of orcs was not to far away, about 15 to our 5. Now also during this time I have preparing for this day since the agreement with the DM. I have gathered special and specific items of magic to help me with this. So the wizard that turned my character was playing a 2 year long character from level 1 through 16. Now also I was no gaining XP for my character but was still playing. So that night I am on middle watch and I know the orcs are out there. So I use an item and paralyze the wizard then silence the area magically. Then I make enough noise outside the silence to call the orcs to our location. While they are coming this does take a few minutes I proceed to have my revenge. I walk up to the wizard who failed his save vs the paralyze and tap him to make sure he is awake and aware. The I change forms to my old human form and then to my ogre magi form and slowly very slowly reach down and bite through his neck severing his jugular and then start chewing off his fingers one by one. And when the orcs arrived I was still in ogre magi form so I just told them what to do in the attack as I walked away with my human flesh. I did not play in that game anymore but I think the wizard learned the error of their ways and so did the DM. I was already set to join a different group and they knew what I was doing as my good bye. My reasons for what I did are these, 1 the wizard should not have done this. 2 the rest of the party did not help or complain. 3 the DM did not stop the wizard and that let the wizard, or the person playing the wizard think he could get away with it. 4 I used there rules to full advantage against them. And they could not stop me. Good luck and have playing dnd.
DM allowed me to build my characters clan so i had them be Deer Shifter worshipers of the Raven Queen and shadows. My characters was a strength warlock who wielded a greatsword and made a pact with Orcus so once she killed enough people would grant her immortality because shifters lived very short. My character would only kill people that accepted a duel to the death so no one expected her to be evil. Just a battle hungry maniac. After alot of time in the game and certain requirements met she went to a temple of the Raven Queen denoucing Orcus and gouging out her right eye. The other players were in disblief for a bit.
16:55 Few problems with that. One: the Beast. Every vampire in the World of Darkness has an inner voice that gets louder and more insistent the more they abstain from blood. This voice usually suggests awful ideas, in a bloodline-specific flavor. In Gangrels, it's aggression, feral behavior. Even if he were acquitted here, and allowed to leave that court with his unlife, sooner or later the Beast would cause a problem that he or the Garou couldn't fix. Two: the guy joined the tribe under false pretenses. When that came out (as it inevitably would have come out) that casts all of his actions up to that point in a self-serving light. Especially if his "nudging" targeted the Sabbat primarily, and left the local Camarilla alone. Three: I'm not as familiar with Garou lore, but I believe there's a quasi-religious motivation to make an example of the interloper. Working with a vampire at all, even unwittingly, is a breach of the tenets which drive lupine society, especially since it was able to operate unchecked for months. So yeah, if the guy is lucky, he'd get a dignified walk in the sunrise.
Sort of doing one now though I suspect the party knows out of character do to seeing my application to join the game, and comments that were made. My character is a Yuan-ti Draconic Sorcerer / Archfey Warlock. Using her Warlock powers she hides her true looks. She is NG. The long con is hiding it as long as possible. I did give the DM ways to reveal it to the party though most are though indirect means.
I created a lizardfolk that is essentially Virgil from devil may cry, and his patron and savior from slavery is Tiamat, now he wants to set her free from her prison in avernus as repayment for her giving him the power he needed to save himself. I am essentially going to play him in a way that he will be smart about getting the power he needs to both set her free and impress her.
For my first DnD campaign as DM, one of my friends asked if he could betray the party at the end, which, long story short, he does, but then the rest of the party except for the strongest one there also sides with the villain, who proceeds to one shot the last guy in the party on account of my homebrew Nat 20 attack I gave him. The weird thing is, he would've killed the final boss in his next turn if I hadn't rolled a Nat 20
It took almost exactly two years to the day - and I checked - to reveal to my party that I was playing a changeling, and not an elf. All the foreshadowing was there, of course. Didn't have any racial magic or the higher movement speed of a wood elf, didn't have darkvision and gratefully accepted the goggles of night ("it enhances vision so why not"), never ONCE took a long rest with the rest of the party, and knew a whooooole lot about the fey, and the feywild. The look on the veteran player's face (the bard) when he realised that i HAD been hinting at it the entire time - PRICELESS.
Another story from Dan the insane 12 year old DM... So Dan has me and my brother going on a quest to rescue a farmer's stolen chickens. We go to the evil sorcerer's castle, the sorcerer who had stolen the chickens. Why would a sorcerer need chickens? Who knows. There's also an NPC paladin with us. His name is Valieuv or Valium or something silly like that. So we go and fight these basilisks in the sorcerer's castle. Somehow I know that basilisks can turn you to stone, maybe from playing Nethack or something. But these basilisks don't, and I don't mention it to Dan; they're hard enough to kill as is. After defeating the basilisks, we spot some little boxes in the corner that have miniature chickens in them! Thinking these are the farmer's chickens, we grab them and continue on through the castle. Every so often Dan interrupts the incessant basilisk slaying and chicken collecting to inform us that Valieuv has picked up one of the the "chicken in the boxes" to twist its neck. No, I didn't realize what that meant until much, much later. Anyway, we kill the rest of the basilisks, collect the rest of the chickens, and return to the farmer. What thanks do we get? "These aren't my chickens!" So what do they look like? They're green and lizardy... The chickens we had to rescue were the basilisks we'd been slaying! Fortunately Valieuv offered to buy the chicken in the boxes for 10 silver pieces so it wasn't a complete loss...
The 'white wolf roleplaying system' is better known as World of Darkness or Storyteller, and that gangrel is dead as fuck. "The only good leech is a dead leech" is a truism among werewolves, for mostly good reasons, and werewolf society is VERY xenophobic against most of the other supernaturals (most supernaturals are, to be frank). Although I had a reverse experience to that tale, I had a werefox that infiltrated vampire society (a gift that made him not have a scent, some alchemy to quiet his heart beat, and other such trappings to blend in). He didn't hide his nature for too long, but he very quickly got assigned to being the advisor to teach others how to avoid getting on the bad side of the local shifters.
with permission of the dm: i was allowed to play a half spider half human (forgot name) covered in sheets and a mask with eyeholes on different hights to disguise itself as a malformed centaur. my character was so paranoid about being discovered that i was allowed advantage to detection to everything VERY close to me. but disatvantage to anything at any other distance. the secret got almost revealed afther the party was forced to reveal their biggest fears. mine was not not be able to escape the NEXT house fire. (hinting at: "kill it with fire"). how i got discovered? my character would always collect armor pieces that were scavenged to wear (i was only allowed a piece every so on that was in good enough condition). 1 party member held count to what i was putting on and realised afther the 6th piece that i put on my legs, that i was not a centaur.
I was the Dm of a great campaign for 2 years (Horranthor!!). My long con, i never once rolled dice. I had a bag of marbles with a few rocks. I just scryed the bones as it were. Almost killed my group, never let it get dull, acted to part when i rolled a 1 or a 20, maybe my monsters saved at inappropriate times and failed spectacularly in others. I had dice strewn about to keep the illusion up and even had a few d20 sitting on 20 just to call the players over and show them my rolls.. 10/10 would con them all again. My wife/Druid is the only one that knows and it was not till after the campaign ended. My new DM is trying it but i know the signs. 😂
Wasn't a dnd campaign (earthdawn) and we had 2 characters died and new characters were added. About 6 months of gaming and it turned out they were spies and manipulated our party to help an evil kingdoms plans to damage our kingdom. King got assassinated , we damaged magical defenses, helped them gain magical war devices. Then said thanks morons and left with an armada of airships. It was amazing
Not so much a long con, but a D&D one-shot in Ravnica. Each of the party members got their choice of a pre-con character for a specific guild (the factions of the setting) for a simple mission: an experimental Iron Flask containing something volatile had gone missing, it's up to the party to get it back; I even wrote up a mission briefing from each character's superior officer. They go into the sewers and fight through waves of Kraul, a hivemind of bug-men led by a death-priest, the device falls from the priest's body as he's killed mid-flight, and the party goes to retrieve it. They start arguing over who brings it back, and precisely what their goals were. The Izzet (the guild that made the device, known for volatile magic machines) want it returned and unopened because it's their property and it contains something dangerous. The Selesnya (one of the nature guilds) wants it either taken or destroyed, as its ability to seal Elementals is too powerful for their guild that makes use of elementals for defense. The Azorius (the law guild) want it taken as evidence that the Izzet are making devices beyond their legal allowance and without regard for regulations. It took about a minute before everyone stopped and turned, one player explicitly asking "DM, did we all have different missions from the start?" Of course, everyone forgot that the volatile magical device fell from about 20 feet in the air, and it explodes to release the Living Spell Fireball that was trapped inside. They barely escaped with their lives (Fireball on cooldown is very powerful against a level 8 party in tight spaces).
Does getting the party to travel through all 9 layers of Hell only to tell them that the item they are looking for is back on the first layer count? I’ll drop the full story if anyone’s interested.
Yeah, that, and I would've done it partly because I didn't want to see someone making an evil character out of a race already with a stigma of evil. I know, there's probably a stereotype of a completely good tiefling character, but ffs, that's pure evil that this guy was doing, not just being an asshole. But yeah, first reason is more important. At the same time, I wouldn't have been so unceremonious with it, or at the very least, I would've had it be very difficult and have there always be a sizable chance of failure via outside forces so that it wasn't so "oh I've got this ez" like it sounds like it was. Though to be honest? I wouldn't have allowed that BS in my game to begin with, because while that's pure genius, it ruins the efforts made by the party to come out on top and the DM to help that be believable and feel worthwhile. You work so hard to make an epic story of good against evil...only for evil to suddenly win in the end by being sneaky? We play this to escape reality, not perpetuate it! The other players aren't gonna go, "Wow, you're brilliant, that was cool, well-played," they're gonna go, "WTF is wrong with you, you asshole!?" and hate you forever. Yes, it's just a game, but this kinda stuff is deliberately cruel.
Not very long as sadly the game didn't last for more than a few months but Doziros was my neutral evil bard masquerading as a cleric. The party never noticed even when a new player who actually worshipped the god Doziros claimed to worship joined in. I was trying to drop hints that Doziros isn't quite what he seems buuut the party had already decided he was a goody two-shoes. For example, I proposed we didn't kick some homeless children to the street after we got information out of them but to put them to work instead. I even sent them to our party rival to spy on him and said we could just pay them in sweets since they had no idea how valuable such service would actually be. I also cast silence on the children when we were kidnapping them. Apparently that showed I was goody two-shoes as the warlock who was there with me was going to poison spray them.
As a regular white wolf World of Darkness player I can tell you that werewolves are notorious for killing things for no good reason. An entire tribe of werewolves (think subspecies not social group) was wiped out by the other werewolves for being too different. A tribe of the werebears were also wiped out because they wouldn’t share their magical gifts with the werewolves. The entire species of werebats were wiped out for pretty much the same reason.
bbeg was the blacksmith everyone would go to and seek help with and would send the party out on missions. my tifling claric of the death domain was alined with the bbeg, but pertended to be on the good guys side. after the party in final session of arc 1 ( we do arcs we start the second one in a few mounths ) a hero of the party we saved is saved and i proseed to lure him into the woods where bbeg and other minions are. dm narates me being cornered and attacking hero guy we saved and i narate how i reveal my true side as i knelt to the bbeg and called him master. the other players where silent. so stunned that they did not understand right away what was going on till it was to late. now my pc comes back in our final ark as on of the 5 bbegs minions
Currently on going The Ship AI in the HALO campaign is going corrupt, and is slipping data to the insurrectionists that the players are fighting (15 years before the covenant invasion)
0:24 Open world D&D? Awesome. 0:50 Good... or is it? This IS a "long con" episode... 1:46 Props to the player! 4:23 I wish Courage had survived. That player had a perfect setup for a revolution. Unfortunately, I don't have 9th-level spell slots, so no wishes will be granted for me. 4:39 Yeah! The DM could have used that! 5:45 This will be interesting. 7:07 Oathbreaker, anyone? Or maybe Lawful Evil Conquest? 7:24 I hope you made him BEG for his life (see what I did there?) 7:42 And everything makes sense. College of Swords? 7:54 First thing I thought of. 8:09 WOW. 10:13 I hope you found a different DM. 12:02 Epic. 13:09 That was awesome. Sorta gave me Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories vibes. 13:46 Congrats to that player! 14:00 I hope none of the players were actual furries. 16:02 Ugh. 17:03 I should hope so.
To get my girlfriend to play DND, I had to do a little over power campaign. Dragons that were cursed by a god to be dragon born. Level 10 got the keep their breath weapons. I had the first encounter be a turn and run. 60 kolbolds, 10 of them winged. Instead my girlfriend, pink dragon convinced them she was a god. So she now has a hoard of little kobolds. Fast forward a few sessions it's the bbeg. Um let me ask if you heard of the villager rail gun. Yeah let's just say she split the kobolds into groups of 15, then commands them to pass something forward and at the end throw the said item. Yeah so she made the bbeg into a red mist as the freaking kobold cannons were throwing bottled breath weapon of her cousins dragon (purple) and so after the that I found out he had convinced her to let the kobolds stay back till that moment. 😂
4:36 The character was pulled into hell. Could have been raised. Personally. If i refused bring him back. I had another use for him. It also seems to me that the dm didn't want to see the party split through conflict. So before the plots got used this was a logical way to kick that. Problem seems to be the game didn't last long enough for the villain version to pop back up. Would have been much better to communicate with the players about the issues a dm might have had with inter player conflict.. So they could work through the issues.
Not really a con, but in a long-running game, the players encountered a drider-like monstrosity named Petrath, the Darker Death. He returned a couple of times, so the players never forgot him. They also found a set of statues, one of Petrath, one of a scorpion/human named Unkalban, and one of a centipede/woman named Antimay. The players never got the Peter Parker reference.
not D&D, but instead Mutants & Masterminds (think D&D for superheroes). Anyway i had a villain called Jack O'Lantern whose entire shtick was pretending to be a pumpkin headed demon, rather than a petty human criminal.... In reality he was just a guy in a powered suit with a dmeonic looking theme. Eventually players caught on & his entire shtick was rumbled: Luckily he escaped from the feds. A couple of months later, a different group of players meet the guy out of of costume, looking down on his luck, crying out for help. Turns out there really was an eldritch creature from a mystical realm, Jack O'Lantern he had based his villainous identity on & it was pissed. It had been hunting him down & had something big planned he needed the heroes to stop, before it killed him. He talked them in to going back to his run down shitty 1 bedroom apartment he'd been hiding from the feds in, but refused to go in (citing a fear of Jack being in there), so the heroes handcuffed him to the stoops metal handrail & went inside to get all of the guys notes & insane scribblings on what he thought Jack had planned. They get inside the apartment, but as soon as they do they hear the guy scream in agony & run out to see nothing but a pile of ash where he had been standing & the handcuffs still closed, back hanging from the railing, charred on the inside. Players realise he'd been right & had been killed by the real Jack O'Lantern & now armed with the papers they know he's heading towards the museum to steal some ancient tablet, so they rush to the museum to fight a group of fire stone demons & save the tablet from being stolen & win. The heroes are victorious. What players didn't realise is that the entire thing was a con job. There is no REAL Jack O'Lantern, the villain just pulled the same con job a second time, convincing the players that there was a real Jack O'Lantern. He then proceeded to "die" to firey immolation, but in reality used a one use teleporter to escape, don his NEW Jack O'Lantern costume, before releasing summoned magma creatures at the museum to make it look like Jack was after the completely useless, not at all magical tablet. Meanwhile his real crew robbed the government facility on the other side of town, that was holding a large quantity of money, planned for destruction. So he got a pay day, he distracted the heroes so they couldn't stop him getting his real pay day, he got his costumed identity back & because the heroes reported his civilian ID as having been heroically killed while stopping the REAL Jack O'Lantern, the feds were no longer hunting him.
Not a sidequest to court some dude's daughter 😂😂 I would be cringing if my DM unveiled that as a sidequest... Just feels really bro-ey. Unless you meet the daughter and she's a fully fleshed out character that has her own goals
Well I guess both Courage and Lazaron were both dummies. The former for not having a contingency plan in place in the event of his death, and the latter for both not protecting his herald and claiming his soul. Also the DM for not building a story around the shenanigans Courage had pulled behind the scenes, I mean either the NPCs do an insurrection because the player group let their favorite person die; or the kingdom quickly falls into disarray because Courage was the one keeping everything running.
Yeah I feel like the dm intentionally screwed the player since if he was meant to rule the kingdom as lazarons herald why would lazarons prevent the resurrection cause now he has no spy in the kingdom and would have to install a new one with no political power whatsoever
currently in the middle of a long con. i might of slipped hints here or there but in case they somehow find this comment, and it turns out that the party's NPC artificer gets kidnapped by another dragonborn artificer because the DMs had even better plans than me with my own, currently MIA dragonborn artificer... don't say i didn't warn you. >:D
Gotta say my Courage story opinion. Yes it felt wrong that they went out that way. But sadly it also rings all too true to the game itself. Rest in peace Courage. May your ambitions be fulfilled in future story.
Vampire dude in the last story's character most likely died. World of Darkness campaigns are wacky nonsense of weird varieties, and even if a vampire was to help werewolves for whatever reason. The moment a werewolf finds out one of their closest friends is a vampire. It's still usually "Yeah, you gotta die. Sorry." That is quite literally the lore of the game. Doesn't really matter what faction you belong to as a vampire either, or what kind of vampire you are. Vampires are typically the most hated of character creatures in WoD. Also unironically the weakest depending on what level of vampire you are. The only vampires that would arguably be strong enough to compete with the other supernatural beings of WoD is a Malkavian, and that's just because of how Malkavians are.
Noun. Its an elaborate confidence game that develops in several stages over an extended period of time wherein the con man or swindler gains the victim’s trust, often bypassing small profits with the goal of reaping a much larger payout in the final maneuver:
@@AshBlossomWorshiper wow.... So... It's like constructing a plot twist so big that since the start everything was going the way you planned and no one had any idea of it?
Courage’s player here. Later in the campaign the DM revealed his own long-con by having Courage return as… okay I’m sorry I can’t do this to you guys, I’m not actually the player. Just wanted to keep your blue balls going 😛 but if the real player is here, we all want to know even more! 😫💦
"My DM was an asshole". Yeah, if the long-con is you were helping the BBEG the whole time, that's gonna be galling. The one about the werewolf-actually-vampire sounds like more fun for all involved; a great opportunity for roleplay.
Tdlr party about to die to a demon gets save by one of the pc that turns out to be one of the highest men on the Cain of command Ok so my story is not form dnd but some space like game can’t remember right now but this story come form my dad my dad was playing a engineer and him and the party after a while were sent out to deal with a demon problem and they were getting their ass kick the demon was about to kill the party with one last blast but a Magic shield shows up blocking the demon attack now the party was confused no one had that ability but then they turn and see my dads character holding his hand out the demon rightfully confused try’s to say something but for get shot through the head because in this ttrpg your back story was decided by rolling you roll well oh look your ranger bad your some random guy my dad rolled really and I mean really well and what he got was best way to explain 40k inquisitor so after they killed the demon because they were criminals not my dad he was to hi up on the Cain of command so it was my dad who had to judge them so he gets all geared up in he armor gets his book that just the space bible and says…. Your all free to go and then just leave and all of the party royally had the shit beating out of them they were being tortured for information by the army and then my dads engineer come back beaten up just as bad as them and they all leave all confused as was my dad the same guy that saved them or the engineer he was both
