jetpack_monkey | A rock, a rock, my kingdom for a rock

Yesterday's D&D game was a classic example of how the players really help form the world. One of my NPCs, Anton (the servant of a powerful lord), had gotten himself into a bad situation (after being goaded by

diannelamerc 's dwarf cleric and failing a Wisdom check that I will sometimes make as a save against Stupidity). Instead of helping,

brokenallbroken 's human fighter used his action to lean against a large rock to have a laugh. I hadn't put a rock on the map, but it amused me, so I dropped a D12 down to represent the rock.

Two trolls then dropped down, a delayed consequence of the bad situation. I had balanced this encounter with the idea that another NPC, Helmar, would be present, but earlier in the session the players engaged in some impolitic fighting with Anton over the terms of the job they were on. Helmar noped out at that point for character reasons and I didn't adjust my plans accordingly. Oops.

Anyway. This probably would have been a TPK (and/or I would've had to come up with some really weird justification for the trolls not to just kill everyone), except there was this rock smack dab in the middle of the map. The Trolls took up too much space to really maneuver around it on one side and it also limited their ability to get past each other. So basically they were having to constantly move in a C-shape around the map instead of just mowing through the players.

It was touch and go, but the party survived, largely because one player wanted a rock upon which to do a bit of character business (and also there was a Helm of Teleportation).