Plan W: A Tribute

[arachnekallisti]

"Okay, so let's call that Plan W."
"Why, what were Plans A to V?"
"I don't know, but they've got to have been better than that one."
- overheard in an Amber game.

There's always some moment in any tabletop RPG when the party ends up committed to a plan that made perfect sense at the time, but which really should make any objective observer go "Y'what?!"

In my last D&D game, an NPC suggested the following plan to our PC group:
"So we'd like you to steal the secret papers from the vault under the mayor's mansion. No, it's OK - we've got a plan to get you in. You just have to audition for this snuff play, right, then if you survive you'll get invited to the devil-worshippers' after-party at the mansion, so you can get them drunk and break into the vaults."
For some reason, we ended up agreeing to it.

Can anyone top this in the Bloody Stupid Plan stakes?

Comments

[sesquipedality.livejournal.com]

I think most of our plans in Election were roughly on a par with this.

[arachnekallisti.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, Election. I think my favourite was "let's deal with the possibility that our Infomancer has been compromised by going into a dreamscape based on his favourite video games".

The thing about Unknown Armies, though, is that it does provide a context in which "let's get Prince Harry to pull a sword from a stone live on stage and so break the PM's claim to be True King" makes perfect sense.

[prochytes.livejournal.com]

The old and awesomely named 2nd ed. module Die Vecna Die! (still one of my favourite slices of D&D, though more for the flavour than the construction) has a final section that only works properly if the PCs decided to graft portions of Vecna's own body on to themselves in the penultimate one. That's right: you need to have made the decision to install bits of a undead mad demigod as wetware to have a chance. If you opted for the Flesh of Vecna, you had to flay yourself first, or get one of your friends to do it for you ("Willow... I kind of need a favour...").

The much-missed Living Greyhawk Campaign was also a happy hunting ground for such schemes. Thusly:

1. In "Memento", the great bard Cordo Ghent comes up with an ace plan to steal a MacGuffin from the bad guys. The PCs will swim through the sea for half a mile in a storm, assault the enemy ship (shades of Roger Moore in North Sea Hijack), and then swim back again. He did provide potions of swimming, which was some comfort.

2. In "To Hell and Back", the PCs are smuggled into the enemy base by being polymorphed into animals that the bad guys have acquired For Laboratory Purposes. Somewhat steep moment when the paladin had trouble remembering the procedure that turned them back once they got there...

3. The Holy Y-Fronts of Zagyg, in "Folly".

[ignisophis.livejournal.com]

The BSP which'll always stick in my mind was from the "Inheritance" freeform, in which the PCs played gods and each one had a great deal of power and influence over certain aspects of reality. A certain god of war (played by Michael Sweeney) had power over weapons. So naturally one of his rivals (possibly Ben Mann's god of insects, though I may well be misremembering there) set up an ambush for him involving... a whole bunch of men with guns! ~facepalm~

On the bright side, this did give the god of war the opportunity for a priceless "I shall crush you like a bug!" riposte ~grin~