Clever Players

They find and kill a raging large mimic.
Next room, a smaller mimic is in there (they figured it out). The Elf decides to pet it gently, not kill it. The mimic really liked it (it used to be a wizard's pet), I really want them to have a bag of holding kinda deal, and they love their new doggy mimic with legs.

They usually murderhobo everything, so this was surprising.

One of my players, back when 5e was still all new and shiny, managed to just plain outsmart me.

I don't mean he did something I hadn't thought of and let him do it, I don't mean he thought of a way to get around something. I mean, he actually beat me fair and square on the rules and turned an encounter around

>Playing through a module
>They come across an island inhabited by Lizard folk
>Launch an attack
>Lizardfolk and Lizardfolk leader approach the group at high speed on their little river raft
>They get into battle stances. Start fighting off the Lizardfolk.
>Battle is going badly for them as they're wildly out numbered and one of them was split off from the rest of the group for more than several rounds.
>They all trade blows back and forth until it's only a Warlock and the Lizard folk King
>The warlock then hits the king, and moves away.
>About to roll to attack
>"I have the mobility feat. If I hit, I get to move away."
>Oh, okay. Lizard king has slow movement, can't quite make it up to the player without a dash
>Second round, warlock stabs the lizard king, moves away
>Lizard king has to dash
>Third round, same thing
>Warlock is just pecking the lizard king to death
>My brain shuts down from DM mode to Board Game mode, trying to think a way around this
>Lizard dashes, can't do anything else
>Warlock hits, runs away
>Eventually, I suddenly remember "Oh shit, ready action is a thing"
>Warlock hits for a critical, manages to kill off the Lizard King
>Fuck

I dunno if it was just a brain fart, but I got absolutely defeated expertly there.

>GM'ing a game of Paranoia
>One player decides to just lay in a culvert and scratch himself while sleeping, despite getting a call to report to the briefing room
>Completely ignores all summons
>Issue a kill voucher for his disobedience
>Assault drones fly into the area and begin looking for him.
>He steps out and approaches the drones
>Manages to convince the drones that a nearby terminal is actually the person with a kill voucher issued
>Convinces one of the drones to pick him up with its pincers and fly him to the briefing room

I need to check that D20 and make sure its not weighted.

OP here, i guess i can tell my own story since i forgot to last night.

>Rouge and ranger sneak into slaver compound
>Rouge rolls 1 for stealth
>Ranger forced out of hiding to help
>Both fuck up and get captured by slavers, thrown into a cell and tied up
>whoops.jpg
>Cleric, Wizard, and Fighter are worried about being outnumbered trying to save them.
>Plan for there to be an escape sequence with the rouge and ranger
>Suddenly fighter has idea
>Has wizard shrink him
>Hides in cleric undergarments with most of important equipment, also shrunken down.
>Wizard and cleric walk up to slavers
>We_surrender_suckers
>Wizard and cleric taken to same cell as rouge and ranger
>Fighter cuts everyone free

They proceded to just straight up destroy the slaver compound from within, it was pretty great
>Cleric and Wizard walk up to a group of slavers

>Scifi setting
>Player gets a smartlink rifle to reduce dice penalty while hipfiring
>Never hipsfire again, only use it to look around corners with the gun

>Players are hunted on a space station
>Fleeing over the airlock with EVA suits
>Instead of hiding in outer space or fleeing they forcefully open the airlock from the outside the moment the guards enter the airlock to follow them
>Boss and his 4 goons get sucked fast into outer space, killing them without using one bullet.
>Surviving goon grabs one of the players while get sucked in outer space
>Player kills him with the engine/RCS of his suit

>Rouge

Shit
and i fucked up the last line too

>puzzle in DnD
>player actually solved and enjoyed it

Feelsgoodman.avi

My players are whiny, unappreciative cunts. They bitch about not enough RP when I give them combat and then bitch about not enough combat when I give them RP. Puzzles are the only time they come together and they usually fail them altogether.

Had one session where the party had to invade a castle, one guy asks "are there any far puts nearby?" This is taking place in literally Hell, so I give him a roll to see if there were, and he passed.
Which led to him seiging the castle with barrels of burning tar, because obscene-strength, fire immunity and flight. All the demon residents that weren't Invulnerable were in for a bad day.

I love this kind of feel-good story.

ahhh yus

Puzzles are fun as fuck

Mine usually just want to "RIP AND TEAR!"

Great now I wanna make a rogue with red clothes.

My players really wanted a starship to run around the universe in from level one. Not content with using public transit or taking jobs to make money they just stole one and flew it to the closest nation that was hostile to the one they stole from. Then they took public transit in steerage class because nobody checks the records for steerage class and stole another ship, kidnapping the crew. This one crashed but they got a distress beacon working and blackmailed the only remaining crew member. They then tracked him down and killed him quietly in a back ally so he couldn't tell the authorities (and to get their money back).

What really got me was their final attempt. They made friends with a shady NPC and helped commit fraud in such a way that the NPC collected insurance money and was paid a small sum by them while they got the ship and a fake license. They also changed the paint job and modified the exterior with some random armor plates and turrets to make their fraudulently obtained ship look different.

I wrote this up a long time ago, and it was screen-capped. That group was great, I miss having them as players.

>They then tracked him down and killed him quietly in a back ally so he couldn't tell the authorities (and to get their money back).

Jesus they don't want to fuck around

Player was a lawful evil tiefling warlock in curse of strahd campaign
In the city were the burgeomeister is planning the festival of the sun.
Anyways he manages to persuade a dinner reception for the entire party of dwarves, humans and a dragon born while the elf rouge sneaks through the house to find the good stuff. Things are going well until he slightly insults the burgeoumeister.
Manages to talk his way out of improsonment for the entire party.
Every one is exploring the house after dinner, party is kind of pissed with tiefling so they make him go to bed.
Rogue find the sword of the sun and unfortunately has to kill a guard to prevent him self from being discovered. He dons the guards armor.
As the ranger and the fighter are exploring the library the half demon head of security sees the rogue and begins to question out side the library and it's not going well.
Roll for initiative senpai
Clerics are sequestering the tiefling when the alarm is raised.
Tiefling dashes from the room to be greeted by about 10 guards. He just runs past them screaming protect the burgeoumeister and succeeds his persuasion check. He gets to the top of the stairs with the entire group of guards a flight of stairs behind him, turn and casts but in hands melting them all.
Fast forward, everygoddamn thing on fire now. Barely manage to kill a ghost, and the half demon. But the ranger dies.
Tiefling still decides not every thing has been explored and runs through the burning house to the attic. Where the burgeoumeister got him self killed with a botched teleport spell leaving his son In tears.
Outside the house is being surrounded by cultists of strahd.
Tiefling accosts the youth demanding he cast magic to kill those surrounding them or get them out of there.
House is a blazing inferno at this point.
Kid says I can't do any of those things as can barely cast magic.
I thought I had the guy at this point but I shit you not he goes well looks like theirs a third option.....

Part of the attic walk had been blown out from the rxplosion of the failed teleport. He grabs the kid and jumps from the top story using the kid to cushion his fall. Kid dies tiefling just get up and dusts him self off.

5e D&D

I setup a sidequest where they had to find a lost girl. Last sighting was an apple orchard out of town. Investigating the area got them to find clues and tracks which led them away from the orchard and into a cave. The wizard, who had darkvision walked in and saw the manticore sleeping at the end of the cave. He used light and decided to sneak in and failed his stealth check. Battle ensued and the party killed it.

The dragonborn paladin decided to carve the beastly remains and cut the head off. The fighter and wizard investigated the cave and found the girl sleeping and chalk drawings inside stick figures and a crudely drawn manticore inside. They woke up and the girl asked where was "Manty" and to their horror, the party realizes they acted harshly. The dragonborn paladin, with the head of the manticore, put on the head of the manticore on his head and used it as a mask and got on all fours and pretended to be one.

It wasn't clever, I guess but my god the laughter it brought to the table I made him roll for it and he got a 19 which the party fooled the girl and eventually convinced her to go home and that Manty had to go back to its family of Manticores far from this land.

>Be me.
>Trying to get some of my friends involved in TTRPGs, so we're playing D&D 3.PF.
>I'm GM.
>Just to ease them into the genre, I'm running with very loose rules.
>Party is Fighter, Sorcerer, Ranger, and Rogue
>Send on the standard "kill vampire" quest.
>Party stocks up on buckets, Holy Water, and stakes.
>Ranger makes a check to change to wooden stakes into unfletched arrows.
>He succeeds.
>Party goes to Vampire's mansion.
>Opens door.
>Sorcerer summons a Celestial Owl.
>Party sends in owl, carrying a bucket of Holy Water.
>Owl finds Vampire, reports its whereabouts, it's asleep.
>Party rushes down, dumps ALL of the buckets, filled with Holy Water onto the Vampire.
>Then the Ranger starts unloading the "stake-arrows" into the Vampire.
>Me: "Okay guys, it's sufficiently dead."
>Party loots and leaves, Fighter lights the mansion on fire.
At this point, we took a break from playing for a bit and brought in a new player, who rolls a Wizard, oddly enough.
>Next quest: clear out the Kobolds from Fort Notimportantenoughtohaveaname.
>Party goes to the Fort, lures all of the Kobolds into many, many pits filled with stake-arrows.
>Party is trying to figure out how to clear out the next floor down.
>Sorcerer asks to see the spells he can use, I say sure.
>He takes the book for a few minutes, leans over to the Wizard, whispers something into the Wizard's ear.
>Evil grin.gif
>A plan is formed.jpg
>Wizard calls a huddle. They talk for a few minutes, then all nod their heads.
>Party waits a day, while gathering spears for… something.
>Sorcerer and Wizard choose their spells.
>Like I said, very rules-light game.
>I look at their spell choices.
>Nothing but Summon Monster spells.
>Oh god.png
>Sorcerer: "I summon wolves."
>Me: "Roll 1d6 and add your level to see how many wolves you summon."
>Rolls a 5.
>Wizard: "I summon eagles."
>Me: "Roll."
>Rolls a 6
>Sorcerer: "I summon monkeys."
>Me: "Roll."
>Rolls a 4
>Ranger: "I give the monkeys spears."

I love it when my players find cool combo's like that as well as I quickly have the enemies they use it against replicate it back to them which I think makes sense in a realistic world. Enemies would learn tactics off of the players.

This has resulted in my players not bothering to think of anything interesting and just to basic attack which is pretty lulz.

I had a campaign where i only had one player so i gave him a bunch of party members. He had a point where he had to sacrifice one party member, but instead chose to give up his own character.

Cont.
>Me: "Roll a handle animal check."
>Rolls a Nat 20.
>The monkeys each take 3 spears.
>The monkeys now obey the Ranger.
>Ranger: "I tell the monkeys to get on the wolves."
>They do.
>Wizard: "I summon…OCTOPI!"
>Me: *Laugh* "Roll."
>Rolls a 5.
>Ranger: "I give the octopi spears."
>Me: "Roll."
>18
>The octopi now have 8 spears each.
>Fighter: "I tell the eagles to pick up the octopi."
>Rest of the party backs him up.
>Rolls a 19.
>Entire party: "We send 'em down the stairs!"
>I roll a d100 to calculate how effective the attack was.
>Natural. Fucking. 100.
And that is the story of how a level 3 party cleared out a fortress full of Kobolds in under 12 rounds.

When you ignore the rules of the game anything is possible!

Perhaps Dungeon World would be a better fit for your group?

>Be playing Continuum
>Four IRL long campaign
>Big bad was an upspin Gemini of one of the players
>After four real years of playing, they finally manage to corner him in their timeline
>BBEG offers players an impossible choice
>Either bomb Atlantis in your timeline, or he does worse in his.
>The younger Gemini of the BBEG takes a third option.
>With the BBEG trapped in his upspin, he pulls his gun out and kills himself.

I've been sitting here for ten minutes trying to think of something but no, my players have never done anything remotely clever that I can recall. Even when they make characters based around being clever schemers, it always feels like I have to fudge and fix things behind the scenes in their favor so that they can feel like they've cleverly manipulated the situation.
If I don't do this, it feels cruel and unsatisfying to watch them realize how retarded they actually are when things blow up because they didn't foresee that trying to cheat the devil for three wishes while giving nothing in return, using nothing more than a childish language trick, might not be such a genius plan.

Go be an autist somewhere else.

...I'm not sure if this counts, but there was a time when one of my group's players took over DMing for a scenario.

It was a basic meatgrinder corridor. A massive single lane rush through a street literally covered with enemies, to kill some annoying fuck standing at the far end with a gigantic blasty-cannon thing pointing down the lane. It was gonna be pretty tricky to get up there.

Then the sniper asks how long the corridor is. It turns out that it's 200 meters... Well within the range of his tricked-out anti-material rifle. On his initiative pass, he lies down on the spot, takes aim and fires a called shot at the Big Bad's completely-exposed head.

Crit. Big Bad is splattered all over his penis-extension anti-tank cannon thingie.

Scenario over. Back to the main game. (After the temp-DM spurged a bit, of course. He was the combat-heavy mage-type, so he was a little miffed we sidestepped his scenario.)

Yeah, story was neat but its not smart, they just didn't understand why it was stupid. What is duration?

> YOU'RE HAVING FUN WRONG
> STOP HAVING FUN WRONG

I did a game that never went anywhere that openrd with my one player facing down a pack of six magic wolves. He climbed a tree but didn't have any ranged weapons. He did have rock climbing equipment though, so he pulled out a bunch of pitons and used the heavy metal spikes to take them out from above. In retrospect this is the obviois solution to wolves, but I just wasn't prepared for him to do it, and had to give the wolves an extra power to keep the tension up(it fit the theme and honestly improved on the creature without making them stronger, so it stayed on their statblock afterwords).

Like i said about it- its a neat story and was surely fun, but it wasnt a clever plan, given that thats not how the spell works... at all.

Was this just before your ultra-cool GMPC rolled up and scared the wolves away for the PC?

Would have been a pretty cool introductary moment for that player's character.

But you're operating under the proviso that gaming the system is what makes a clever plan. If the rules were different, or they were playing a different system, would it change the core 'Summon Weapons, Summon Minions, Use them to clear' plan?

It's the plan that is somewhat clever - not how they munchkined the rules.

>Group approaches dungeon
>Dungeon has a gatekeeper, pretty standard Sphinx-type thing where you have to beat it at some kind of game of wits
>Someone has to volunteer to beat it
>4/5 of the group has average intelligence, last guy is super low
>The dummy volunteers, everyone else kinda mad but can't do anything
>Dummy challenges the gatekeeper to a game of chess
>??? From the group, even I don't know where this is going
>Another thing to note: dummy is really good in skills like deception/persuasion
>Dummy does what we expect, about to lose against the gatekeeper
>Suddenly shouts "Behind you!" to the gatekeeper
>Spins chessboard so he's on the winning side
>Roll for deception
>Natural goddamn 20
>Gatekeeper is completely dumbfounded, lets the group pass

>Clever players

Circlejerk thread about how DM's put the spotlight on one guy and fudged the rolls in his favor, so that the scene would be (artificially) AWESOME and memorable.

>PLayer swings sword at thing
>OOOHHH BRO YOU TOTALLY HIT HIS WEAK POINT AND DID ONE TRILLION DAMAGE FUCK BRO THAT WAS AWSOME

There are multiple posts in this thread of multiple players working together to do something clever.

Nah, he killed two wolves and then the rest ran off. It was my first time trying to GM, so i started with just him. I think i sent him into a mibi-dungeon to track down a necromancer that kept attacking farms in the area, but that was all that happened.

>clever player makes up a plan that completely ruins the story and structure of your session
>game night ends hours early

That may be so, but if your plan hinges entirely on ignoring the rules, thats also not clever.

Besides, resolving an entire dungeon with one die roll is fucking stupid. I would have given the players tactical control of the summoned creatures and let them figure out how far they got, if i allowed it, because one die roll is BS.

Also also, the octopuses all died of dehydration three rounds after they were summoned.

>Extremely high level wizard dude spends several sessions to plot out time-travel fuckery in order to beat the BBEG's cabal of clerics, all the players in awe and are frequently sharing email/notes to each other during and after we roleplay.
The moment he has all the set-pieces and flips the country-spanning plan in motion he faces the 'Time Travel Failsafe', fails, and is erased from history, memory and the timeline is adjusted so that it is as if he never ever existed.

>Clever Vampire Hunter guy tries to trap a "Evil Industry" CEO 999 year old Vampire by inventing and 'selling' the Vampire a VERY well put out digitized international airport customs solution. (with the help of goodguys.inc).

The plan is to start tracking the hidden vampire clans holdings and tap into the 'ancient artifact' business. Using the vampire relics against their owners, and eventually turning the families against themselves. All while gaining extreme intelligence of their legal and illegal Vampire globalist agenda.

A lowly evil inc receptionist does Clinton number on the Vampire Hunter and his family, he retires the character after a couple of his dependents vanish. The 999 year old Vampire doesn't even ANYTHING of what transpired and he doesn't care, and is now in possession of a efficient, benign and extremely profitable airport security plans that he quickly hires some guy to put to use and sell to foreign countries.

>World is controlled by AI's run amok, every single week the AI does the equivalent 20.000 years of improvements and discoveries. It's incapable of upgrading itself by hardware but is able to cluster segments of itself that take on it's own unique ego

Party after MANY 'apocalypse' adventures decides that the best course of action is communicating with the few benign off-shoot cluster of AI's that at least TOLERATES human presence anywhere near it's compounds and to put forward moral, ethical philosophical truth claims that validates human existence in the universe.

You're a cunt

cont. After a hefty amount of trials and tribulations they finally manage to directly communicate with a branch of the AI that doesn't imminently eradicate the mere presence of humans.

The CHARACTERS find themselves unable to articulate any great philosophical arguments that the PLAYERS have been planning and studying for IRL weeks.

Turns out the 'Main' AI let out a highly sophisticated meme to prohibit this type of interfacing with AI during the first month it was turned on. A lot of events, and weird places and people the players have meet have been slowly infecting them with this meme and renders them completely unable to DEBATE against anyone smarter than themselves no matter how hard they try.

Circlejerk thread about how one lonely user gets his kicks shitposting because he's never been in a good pen and paper group before

"good" RP groups does the splotlight thing ALL THE FUCKING TIME.

It's a core tenant of roleplaying, "hogging" or "sharing" the splotlight is as old as roleplaying is.

Sounds like you're just some lonely asshole who's spending all his time reading and buying RP books but you only ACTUALLY roleplay once a year or something.

Either that or you're extremely new.

Am I right ?

Not exactly clever, but I did have what I can only describe as an "anti-That Guy" at my table for quite awhile. He wasn't the opposite of a That Guy, in fact pretty much everything he did made him a That Guy but he never actually got any of the hate that a That Guy would normally get.

Some of his antics include:
>Single-handedly derail an adventure to the point where it had to be scrapped entirely
>Attempted to burn down the village where another PC was born
>Successfully burned down a section of a city
>Fought with other PCs over every magic item
>Refused to participate in a combat because another PC wouldn't call his character by his name
>Every character name he makes is a pop culture reference
>Every character he plays is an asshole
>Still manages to be one of the best roleplayers at the table
>Also legitimately a funny guy
>Never took the game the slightest bit seriously
>We were also friends in real life, so that probably helped

Admittedly, a lot of his early problems were due to him having absolutely no idea how RPGs worked. He actually felt pretty bad after wrecking one of my adventures because he didn't realize that I wrote everything myself, didn't stop him from continuing to wreck adventures in the future, though. He got a lot better once his first character got killed by another PC when he nearly killed a party member- I think he finally realized that his actions with the game have consequences.

Funnily enough, I got an actual That Guy in the same group a little further down the line. In retrospect, the That Guy's shenanigans were tame compared to those of the anti-That Guy, his personality was just far more abrasive. (He also didn't have the benefit of being funny or a good roleplayer.)

I guess it just goes to show who is and isn't a That Guy is a matter of the person playing a character rather than the character they are playing.

Sounds like he's just a "that guy" with his characters, and NOT "that guy" in real life.

>waaaaah the fighter did something cool and i didn't waaaaah

Did you bother reading the rulebook or did you just take the player's word for it

Well, this requires a bit of a backstory

> Players are the champions of Gods
> All holy warriors, the first in centuries after a lengthy war between humans and Gods
> They're sent on a quest to rid of some Cultists, who seek to destroy the Gods and instate a single 'God' over all of humanity.
> Goes pretty well at first, party uses an old relic to learn that one of the bigger cultists are hiding in an old fort
> Old fort is the same one used at the end of the human versus God war.
> Players find the cultist and nearly kill him, only their shitty rolls and bad tactics let him get away.
> Feeling pretty bad.
> All this sudden, one player starts rolling perception for every room, checking it over

See, this normally wouldn't be a problem, but the old treaty between Mortals and Gods were kept here. This was the last fort held, (and it was part of the reason it was used by the cultists.) so it still held the treaty.

> Dude finds a hidden room where the treaty is preserved.
> Rolls natural 20 to break the spell concealing it (fucking wizards and their arcana)
> Ruins the entire plot by finding out the horrific secret before even confronting the BBEG.

I mean, I was proud the dude found the treaty, i was just pissed he ruined my campaign in doing so. The cultists were actually people still fighting the Gods, and trying to get rid of them for their oppressive behavior. The 'God' was a rebel God who sided with humanity, but was cast out due to his pity for humans. The 'Evil' guy was the one looking out for all of the mortals.

Hey, now they can have their own personal chester.

You've pretty much described prep-time in comic books and such.

I like clever players, but they are why I roll improv-style much more than I plan. It's worked out for the best in the long run

> It's advanced Dungeons & Dragons
> DM using a called-shot table with critical effects.
> BBEG were mostly unimaginative wizards. Barely good ones. Been that way for 2 or 3 campaigns.
> Guy rolled a gladiator, specialized in Net & Trident.
> Turns out from under a net, it's difficult to avoid called shots to the head.

The very neat thing that got out of it is that bad guys began to diversify.

Star Wars Saga. We played competitively 2 groups at once, One with Bad Guys, One with Good guys, for a MacGuffin chase.

Character is a Gamorean noble. Take the talent that makes him rich as fuck. Gamos get one free Exotic Weapon Proficiency of their choice. Picks Flamethrower.

He designs and build droids. Also use feat from Force Unleashed to start his own company and hires us.

Designs a tiny medical droid with the broken Medical Droid talent, skill training and focus in Treat Injury, a reflex defense through the roof. The thing can hold 3 medpacks (carrying capacity), and had two modes of transportation: Walking and a very limited form of hovering.

The thing was the best healer we could have hoped for, and its heuristic processor meant it gained levels when we shared some XP with it. Except for the prototype our Gamo Leader had, they would fall into uselessness if they heard a specific codeword.

Due to the simple model's tremendous success on the field, DM dubbed it a tremendous success on the market as well. The other group of PCs thought THE DM had a genius idea designing that droid and came to rely on their own. Started to pour a lot of XP in it. Without checking its base programming. And frankly, who would.

When the two groups faced each other, they realized the power some words can have. Suddenly, a lot of invested XP went down the drain.

Players are never clever.

The thing was dubbed "Med-kito". A few, less successful models were inspired by it, but never achieved the same amount of sales.

"Mech-kito" was clearly a success. "Shield-Kito" (Level in Soldier, In Harm's Way talent) never really took off as a combination of the shield and low HP/Treshold made it costly to buy and maintain.

Destroy your router, virt

Sounds like you need to get some imagination and start improvising some more user.

>octopi die 18 seconds after being removed from a body of water
sure thing senpai

Not him, but aren't you the one who is not reading the thread good enough that you're missing the posts where the whole group collaborated together to make something cool happen?

Take a chill pill and stop sperging out senpai

player was a complete that guy
>3.5 with a house rule that you don't gain levels beyond ten, simply because it wasn't worth it.
>guy played a Rg5/Clr2/Brd2/Ftr1
it was a moderate magic, semi-realistic feel setting where character balancing was encouraged. fatal flaws were present.
>This guy balanced too well. He ended up being probably the best character in the group because of it and pissed everyone else off. he played a CN and did it well. spent way too much time watching george carlin. during the course of the game, he slowly moved to the CE range (assasinations, robberies etc.)
>Finally, came upon hostage situation completely unexpectedly. I expected the player to really not give a fuck. he didn't at first.
>finally realizes there was a small child in the group of hostages.
>strode out of cover and offered to make a deal with their captors
>paid them off out of pocket and we walked out of the encampment without issue.
>prisoners were from a village these brigands destroyed. little girl's parents were killed
>we gather resources and destroy the bandits, get the money back plus justice for the town
>player adopts the child
>cuts off ties with assasin's guild
>ends up creating a pretty cool story arc
>we raise the girl over time, years pass in game, the girl helps him back into the light
>eventually the girl becomes a crusader for the church he belonged to, led a long career helping many people
>helps save a town from a vampire infestation, but falls in battle, sacrificing herself
>she transforms into an angel, the human being a vessel for a fallen archon that sought redemption, hundreds witness her ascension.
>player's fatal flaw was that he was schizophrenic and saw the divine in everything (his CN alignment starting) turns out that he actually did see the divine, and the little girl was a shining beacon.
>the vessel was cannonized posthumously and interred. the archon continued under disguise as part of our party once the pc passed away.

They started a vampiric civil war on innistrad, effectively wiping out almost 80% of the vampire population. They did this by creating tensions between houses. They also killed a fuckton of werewolves by luring them into various traps.

after finding the girl, the player ended up being pretty cool. stopped being so much a that guy. It was clever storytelling that led to me liking his ideas. the other players had no idea for months that there was a reason for what he did. to this day, he still plays the "that guy card" once in awhile, but he does it well enough that he more than makes up for it.

bump

I once had a puzzle room that had a narrow corridor that had a pool of "water" in the middle. It was really long, somewhere like 100m, and there was only one sign in the room: "Do not disturb the water."

The pool turned acidic if any splashes were made. The point of the puzzle was that they could breathe under the water so they could just waddle through as long as they did so carefully.

But one of my players had another plan. His character was able to go into the shadows of other people. So, his character asked another character raise their sword (An artifact that creates light), made another character stand in front of the light, creating a large shadow across the room. The character jumped into the shadow and jumped out on the other side.

It was a clever subversion, but sadly it didn't help any of the other characters trying to cross the gap. It still sticks out as a really clever way to approach the situation.

Yes they are.

You don't have to give people xp because they killed frogs for hours. You control the pace of the game, not them

That's not what I saw in that JAV.

None of my stories come from cleverness. All my players usually just brute force a strategy, and then luck out on dice rolls.

Bashing players is so much more fun, but okay.

Once way back during my early days of DMing in D&D, I played a game with some new players that had never done RPGs before. They were in a hallway and noticed a trap, something on the floor that would ensnare them if they stepped in the area. I think it was like a bear trap thing or something. I figured they would try and disarm the trap, but the one guy just took the body of a goblin that they slew earlier and threw it into the area and set off the trap. After that, it was pretty safe.

I'm not sure why I didn't think of that possibility before, but I'll have to admit that was definitely an eye opener for me. Hopefully I gave them some bonux XP for that, I don't remember.