ITT : Derailment

ITT : Derailment

>Party has to stop this guy breaking into ancient vaults and gathering super weapons
>Manage to beat him to the next vault, camp it for a week, setting traps
>MFW they've forced a fight with the final boss on like the fourth session of the campaign
>Shrug, draw out the map, give them his stats, roll everything open
>3 level 6's plus a gold dragon wyrmling vs 3 level 5's and a level 10 decked out with magic items
>Dice go horribly against me
>All the minions fail all of their checks against a dc 13 fear from the oathbreaker paladin
>Their pet dragon recharges his fire breath round 1, they fail all 6 dex saves
>Party passes 5/6 dc20 banishment checks (one of the plot macguffins)
>They down everyone except the enemy Champion, including the BBEG, they're all bleeding out, party is practically unscathed
>The enemy JRPG party starts throwing potions around because no one was coup de grace'd
>Ended up having to action surge to recast banishment
>Finally get most of the party in the shadow realm, and kill the guy who wasn't
>But there's only like 6 rounds before the party all falls back out
>The enemy fighter is dead, the enemy cleric has no spells left, the enemy rogue is at 1 hit point from a nat 20 DST, and the BBEG has no spell slots left
>All the BBEG can do is crack the vault and flee before banishment ends
>MFW he had to give the party the treasure vault in order in the hopes of killing and robbing them later
>MFW I was expecting a TPK
>MFW I had to have the party warlock's patron show up to make sure they didn't just flee to the ass end of no where with the treasure, never to be found again

Choo choo

>Party enters haunted hospital
>Powerful spell and even more powerful spirit keeps them trapped inside
>Other spirits around the hospital along with a few hobos, some good, some aligned with the Dominant Spirit
>They are told that unless the Dominant Spirit and its minions is defeated, they can't leave
>Try to leave anyway and fail because all spirits are still around
>They give up and wait
>I tell them they are hungry and thirsty, pointing out they will die of dehydration if they just sit around
>Align themselves with good spirits and hobos to find food and water
>Then go back at waiting it out
>mfw a single session situation turned into a 10 session arc because the PCs were intent at being lazy and apathetic

God fucking forbid I make sure that the campaign doesn't end

Choo choo motherfucker

What did you expect your players to do instead of camping a vault ?

>making sure the campaign doesn't end
>he wants us to have fun

What are you, fucking gay?

Try and track him down in the city above and work from there, be it killing his allies, or robbing him, or just setting an ambush when they're not nine levels deep in a 600 year old dungeon where souls can't escape

Or rather, that's what I would have done.

They told me ahead of the session what they were doing, so I guess technically, I expected them to do this?

Sometimes, you have to accept that the players earned a different ending than the one you were planning for, and deal accordingly.

You are projecting way too god damned hard.

I rolled openly with known stats.

The only fiat was resurrecting the party warlock after the fact

I don't understand, isn't this pretty much a perfect result? You've introduced this BBEG dude, demonstrated that he could be dangerous in the right conditions, had him kill one of the party members, gave them a good fight, and had him escape to plot another day.
And you did it all without fudging numbers, forcing a "cutscene" where the PCs aren't allowed to act, or resorting to the usual "you're so far below me I won't kill you this time" bullshit.

Ok, so the "BBEG wants powerful weapons from the vault" plotline is dead, but the dude is still evil and still alive. He just needs an evil-er plan and stronger allies.

or maybe I'm missing something

Well, there's two things.

One, I had to fiat the level up, because I wanted to TPK the party, and have them all resurrected by their patrons/gods and given a level-up accordingly. In the process of that I was going to sew a number of sub-plots

But the real problem is, the vault didn't have weapons, it had schematics. I shorthanded the green text. It essentially was housing the operator's manual for an interdimensional portal, the only known copy to exist. Without those schematics (which i guess are fiatted to be indestructible) then he literally can't complete his 'evil' plan to kill the Goddess of Fear and liberate the entire elven race from her torment (and in the process start a new crusade against humanity). So now the party has these non-magical schematics, and the goddess of divination sure as shit isn't going to help him scry their location.

The only reason this may still work is because he has a hat of disguise in a setting where magic barely exists, the party doesn't know this (even though i damn near flat out told them) and knows a ritual for long range detect magic that can track down the cursed maul the party fighter can't get rid of. The ridiculous thing is that the party is rich as fuck after the vault, and he isn't, and he desperately needs to buy platemail for his allies. So, he's probably going to have to ally with the not!french mafia (that enslaved the party fighter in his backstory) to take some assassination contracts or something.

So, long story short, they caused a reversal of roles. It's now the BBEG hunting them down, instead of them hunting the BBEG down. Which set fire to my notes.

Its time to improvise.

Have them fight spies every so often to keep their location secret

Have him send minions after them, make them feel hunted. Could be an exciting new twist to have a chase campaign.

>because I wanted to TPK the party, and have them all resurrected by their patrons/gods and given a level-up accordingly.

Ah, I see the problem: you committed the classic blunder of expecting your players to fall in line with your pre-ordained narrative. That never ends well.

It sounds like your players had a great session. Good job, GM.

Actually I kind of fucked up. The paladin never got to fight after he did his channel divinity because he was the only one to fail the banishment check despite his +7. I had intended to give him direct control of the dragon, but forgot because I was running the session from memory not from notes

Still don't see the problem. Ok, he has to come up with a new plan, but now you have the additional plot hook of him absolutely HATING the party.

>I wanted to TPK the party, and have them all resurrected by their patrons/gods and given a level-up accordingly
It's probably just as well that didn't come off.

It's like if the kids in Corpse Party decided to just park their asses and wait to see how things panned out.

>(which i guess are fiatted to be indestructible)
What's stopping them just dropping them into the ocean or firing them into space if the setting has the right magic/tech?

They don't have the tech to eject them into space. Not even summoning a god (which is the game plan for next session) would do that.

As for the ocean. Hmm, I may have to have him up the ante on macguffin power levels. There is an item that could theoretically let him read the schematics regardless, it'd just be dangerous as fuck for him. It would involve breaking into a 5-cube that imprisons a demon lord, sneaking through it, and exiting in the past, when the schematics are still there.

>(which i guess are fiatted to be indestructible)
Have them resist the parties immediate attempts to destroy them, but not indestructible.

Having the players trying more and more extreme methods to destroy the plans could make for a decent campaign. Lots of travelling to new locations to meet people with new and powerful weapons, then convincing them to use them on the plans. All while preventing anyone stealing the plans. Because there will be people coming after those plans purely because they hear about how much effort the PCs are putting into trying to destroy them.

Sounds like you're an awesome DM and your party is in for a good time.

Any other derailment stories?

Remember
>A wise man doesn't plan. He steers.

>Start of new campaign
>Players awaken in a bedroom wearing oxygen masks
>Apperently the PCs were found in the wasteland with crystals imbedded in their skulls
>The doctor was able to remove the crystals successfully but unfortunately there has been some brain damage
>One PC believes that he's an elf
>A keebler elf to be exact
>Players are planning on leaving in the morning
>Doctor will give them some starting equipment then, along with their first quest
>Keebaboo decides that now, before anyone even has their starting equipment, is the best time to be lolrandumb
>Burns down the house by setting a bed on fire with an oil lamp
>Party and doctor proceed to shoot the fuck in the head and leave him for dead
>Now I have a split party and a PC whose sole motivation is finding Ernest, which, according to the Internet, is the canon name of the elf in charge of the Keebler tree

Not a major derailment but a derailment nonetheless.