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Rewarding creative failures
The session I ran last night was part two of an elaborate infiltration into a castle. In part 1, my players made it over the outer curtain and into the mage's tower without so much as a shout from the enemy through the judicious use of fly, invisibility and silence spells.
In part 2, they launched their raid on the main keep - (more of a reinforced manor house, really). This time, most of the group charged the main entrance, and a successful bluff check by the rogue who was disguised as a guard convinced the sentries to open the door.
The lone exception to the mass charge was the bard, who decided instead to circle around behind the main building to create a distraction outside the kitchen door. The idea was very creative, but far from successful. The bard, under the cover of invisibility cast a ghost sound spell that created the sounds of pillage, rape and crying women pleading to be let in. The trouble was, all the guards in the building were caught in melee with the rest of the party and a. couldn't hear the sound, b. were focused on confronting the immediate threat, and c. knew the keep had been converted to an all male military base with the exception of the servants quarters, which were nowhere near the noise. So the bard continued to pound away through most of the fight until he finally conceded that his scheme wasn't working.
Once he realized his good idea wasn't bearing fruit, he switched to calling the team's secret code word, "bunkbed!" over and over until the sorcerer broke away and opened the back door for him.
So, here's my challenge. One of my players had a good, out of the box idea that failed on the surface and ended up causing the character to miss most of the fight. While its intended effect was a failure, I feel I would be remiss if I didn't reward the effort.
Therefore, I think I am going to unleash a rumor on the game world about a mystical and malevolent force/spirit called the bunkbed banshae which manifests in moments of impending doom. The banshae cannot be seen, but it's presence can be determined by the horrific wailing of female spirits and the repeated cries of "bunkbed! bunkbed!"
Anyone else have similar instances of good ideas gone wrong which demanded some sort of reward?
In part 2, they launched their raid on the main keep - (more of a reinforced manor house, really). This time, most of the group charged the main entrance, and a successful bluff check by the rogue who was disguised as a guard convinced the sentries to open the door.
The lone exception to the mass charge was the bard, who decided instead to circle around behind the main building to create a distraction outside the kitchen door. The idea was very creative, but far from successful. The bard, under the cover of invisibility cast a ghost sound spell that created the sounds of pillage, rape and crying women pleading to be let in. The trouble was, all the guards in the building were caught in melee with the rest of the party and a. couldn't hear the sound, b. were focused on confronting the immediate threat, and c. knew the keep had been converted to an all male military base with the exception of the servants quarters, which were nowhere near the noise. So the bard continued to pound away through most of the fight until he finally conceded that his scheme wasn't working.
Once he realized his good idea wasn't bearing fruit, he switched to calling the team's secret code word, "bunkbed!" over and over until the sorcerer broke away and opened the back door for him.
So, here's my challenge. One of my players had a good, out of the box idea that failed on the surface and ended up causing the character to miss most of the fight. While its intended effect was a failure, I feel I would be remiss if I didn't reward the effort.
Therefore, I think I am going to unleash a rumor on the game world about a mystical and malevolent force/spirit called the bunkbed banshae which manifests in moments of impending doom. The banshae cannot be seen, but it's presence can be determined by the horrific wailing of female spirits and the repeated cries of "bunkbed! bunkbed!"
Anyone else have similar instances of good ideas gone wrong which demanded some sort of reward?
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Comments
The possibilities are endless, but here are a few:
NPC becomes enamored with the heroic efforts of the PC, and now sees that person as their mentor-- they refer back to the incident with alarming frequency, and with each retelling of the tale it becomes more hyperbolic.
NPC loses respect for the PC, and this becomes a source of conflict and RP for the player to overcome (this only works if the player enjoys this sort of challenge/ RP element)
Those two examples are allowing for RP possibilities as the reward-- some DMs award XP for good RP, Im not sure how you handle it, so that could be an additional reward as the player handles the NPC business.
These are more immediate: Have a tiny side quest set up, that you can pull out for just such an occasion. A brick drops on their head, and in their stupor they have a vision-- which you can run a round of during each round that the main party is acting in the 'real world'. Or, a passerby presents a tempting target to chase (maybe they stole the PCs weapon or coin purse and took off). You can imagine, the side quest is very very dependent on the circumstances of the game. But keep it in mind, it works if you have someone stuck in a different physical location. ANother trick you can try is the Out Of Body Experience-- especially if they have any sort of magic or psychic powers that might work with this-- wherein they project part of their consciousness either (1) to the main scene where the party is, but all they can do is talk! No physical manipulation allowed, magic optional. Meanwhile, their body would be vulnerable however. or (2) the mind/ brain link concept, where somehow they gain control over part or all of another PC's body. Maybe they control the right side, or the sword arm, or just the legs. Hilarity (and frustration) ensues. Why did this happen? Maybe a leprechaun was walking by, or a pixie... or maybe an evil mage tried to use mind control but screwed up his ritual magic, and the players just happened to be caught in the crossfire.
Anyway, hope this helps. RP after the fact, or tiny side quest/ out of body experience are my main go to methods under the circumstances you lay out.
I think it's excellent that your characters try out of the box things, even if they fail. They must needs be rewarded, as it will encourage more thinking and roleplaying in the future. I like the idea of the Bunkbed Banshee becoming a persistant world rumor as a reward. An interesting way of it circling back to the character is to maybe have a similar event happen to the characters. I'd enjoy seeing something like that happen, for sure!
A lot of my examples of "good ideas gone wrong", have actually been "Terrible ideas gone worse."
On multiple occasions, I have presented players with a seemingly innocuous problem, and their response was generally "Kill it with fire. It's the only way to be sure." Of course, when these actions are committed in broad daylight, in the presence of guards, and the person they're killing with fire is a civilian, a reward doesn't really cut it. There are only so many times you can cry "Self Defense!" and have it stick.
Your characters don't seem to have that problem. Maybe the next time something similar occurs, have something unexpected happen. Maybe *something* is attracted to the sound, and comes and busts down the door (from the wrong side - the side with the bard, perhaps.) Then, the bard has a way to join the combat, and the party gets a new and interesting threat that they have to deal with, and figure out how it got there. It could even be the start of a new adventure!
I don't even know what to do when Character's critically fail their common sense checks like that - in his case, he got thrown in jail. Then he started moping around (as if I were the kind of horrible person who would throw him in jail with zero chance of survival - if I wanted to that, it'd be faster to kill him.). It led to some great roleplaying, but jiminy crickets...
I've also been wanting to incorporate an encounter to help the party's paladin realize that it might not be socially acceptable to constantly magically scrutinize everyone you meet to see if they're evil. I have already rolled back the power of the detect evil spell to align more with the 3.5 rules so that the only things that give off a discernible evil aura are clerics, undead, outsiders and other really powerful beings.
Still, part of me finds it amusing to picture this slightly dense, but very beautiful armored woman sort of squinting at everyone she meets trying to magically judge them.
My advice is this: run an encounter where the paladin can squint away, but for some reason, a nearby traveller detects as evil. Not that they are, of course, but a curse had made them so (There's a spell for giving auras to things, so it's not a far stretch.) But make sure that this is revealed only *after* the person is persecuted, and he doesn't understand why. Maybe that understanding will cause the squinting/judging to lessen? Teach her the errors of her ways?
Rase, that reminds me of a character I played a few short times who was "evil", but actually had a "curse" (or the good equivalent) on him that made him act good. It was a good aligned group so he always made snide comments and then helped everyone who crossed his path. hahaha
Our paladin, and in fact the whole group has a bit of the, "if it's evil, kill it now!" issue going too. It made for an amusing session when the group was consulting with a creepy looking sage. The paladin thinks, "creepy = evil" casts detect evil, only to find out that the only evil aura in the area was coming from the party's monk. I had been secretly building a backstory plot with the monk revolving around the fact that he has been possessed by part of a demon's soul since birth. They weren't quite sure what to do with an evil entity trapped in a good body, especially when they learned that exorcising the demon would likely cause the soul to snap back together bringing it to full strength. The ensuing intervention made for a highly entertaining session.
I've been meaning to play up the results of that intervention more, because the bard really pissed off the demon inside the monk. I think I may work in the threat of some pvp violence very soon.