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...at least, that's what the [[Game Master]] thinks.
 
Meanwhile, the players have decided that the huge scope has made the world shallow, it's only "elegant" if you like a [[Cliché Storm]], the plot was lifted straight from the [[Adaptation Decay|third remake]] of something, the setting looks like it came from ''[[Manos the Hands of Fate|Manos: The Hands of Fate]]'' with the [[Serial Numbers Filed Off]], and the so-called [[GMPC|supporting cast of NPCs]] are either cookie-cutter stereotypes or [[Mary Sue|Mary Sues]] who make the ''players'' feel like the supporting cast. It's about halfway through the campaign, and the players have decided that everything is only going to get worse. The time has come to strike a blow for freedom, for better plots, and against this idiotic [[Game Master]]. The players go [[Off the Rails]].
 
This can take many forms, but at its core, one (or more) players disrupts the Game Master's carefully-crafted plot by killing an important NPC, revealing an important secret, or just refusing to go where the plot demands they should go. Or maybe they just switch sides.
 
If the [[Game Master]] is inflexible, either the GM ignores all actions that disrupt his plot (a.k.a. [[Railroading]]), or [[Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies|drops a whole ton of rocks on them]]. Or pauses the game to confer with his players about them ruining the adventure. A more creative [[Game Master]], on the other hand, will take this player revolt and run with it, spinning a new plot out of the threads of the player's actions. Of course, good [[Game Master|Game Masters]] rarely have their players revolt on them in the first place. A party going thoroughly and maliciously [[Off the Rails]] is often a herald of the end of the gaming group, or at least the end of one person's tenure as [[Game Master]]. Alternately, if there's just one player who's dissatisfied and he keeps grabbing the throttle and gunning the train, that player's character may be subject to [[Bolt of Divine Retribution|a lightning bolt on a cloudless day]], or [[Death Note (Manga)|sudden violent chest pains]], or a [http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20080609 drive-by mauling by a mind flayer that leaves everyone else untouched]. (Or the other characters may just kill him or her.) The [http://1d4chan.org/wiki/The_Henderson_Scale_of_Plot_Derailment Henderson Scale of Plot Derailment] has been invented by 1d4chan (the wiki for all things /tg/) to measure just how far off the rails a game can go, named in honor of the legendary Old Man Henderson.
 
This trope is effectively the player's version of [[Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies]]. Compare [[Total Party Kill]], where the game-ending disaster comes from incompetence rather than malice or loss of control over the game. Note that this doesn't apply when [[Indy Ploy|there were no rails to begin with]].
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== Film ==
 
* In ''[[The Addams Family (TV)|Addams Family Values]]'', Wednesday does this in the middle of a Thanksgiving play while playing Pocahontas. After citing the future transgressions made against the Native Americans, she burns the "pilgrim" cast at the stake.
* Maximus in ''[[Gladiator]]'' manages to derail a gladiatorial reenactment of a battle (that his side should have lost). It's even [[Lampshaded]] by the emperor.
* In ''[[Mazes and Monsters]]'', Jay Jay ruins his group's current campaign by [[Violation of Common Sense|having his character jump]] [[Too Dumb to Live|into a spike pit]]. He does this with the express intent of starting a new game, with himself as the Game Master, to make use of his idea to [[LARP]] in the local steam tunnels.
** [[The Spoony Experiment (Web Video)|Spoony]] [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] this in his review of ''M&M'', pointing out the GM's [[Thousand-Yard Stare]] as the mark of a Dungeon Master who's fully aware that his entire game has just gone Off the Rails (he even uses this exact term).
* A near-literal case in [[Tron]]. During the light-cycle game, one of Sark's [[Mooks]] crashes into a wall, de-rezzing, but leaving a glitch in the wall's side. Flynn decides "what the hell" and runs straight for the glitch, escaping the Game Grid. Tron and Ram think he's [[Crazy Enough to Work|completely glitched, but decide he might just have the right idea]].
* In ''[[The Cabin in Thethe Woods]]'', {{spoiler|Marty and Dana escape the boundaries of the kill-zone by breaking into the underground facility through the Redneck Torture Zombies' grave}}.
 
 
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* The book 'The Munchkin's Guide to Power Gaming' features another hypothetical example, in which a GM wants the players to go into a dungeon, but 'all they want to do is find out what's down the road from the dungeon entrance'.
* ''[[Honor Harrington (Literature)|Honor Harrington]]'' telegraphs much of the plot if you understand [[Horatio Hornblower|what the story is based on]]. Then someone goes ahead and nukes Napoleon...
 
== Live Action TV ==
 
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jhjwkR5RZM This] ''[[Robot Wars (TV series)|Robot Wars]]'' fight. A 4-way free-for-all begins with {{spoiler|House Robot Shunt getting flipped onto its side in the first five seconds of the match}}. [[Hilarity Ensues]] from there. Outrageous stuff from the fight includes {{spoiler|the Refbot falling into the Pit [[Of Doom]], the OTHER House Robot getting caught in a 4-on-1, and a ''washing machine landing in the middle of the arena''. Yes, that last one is true}}. The result is eventually decided when {{spoiler|two robots suicide into the pit}}, leaving what's left to move on. "What's left" being "Not much".
** Weaklings. Another match involved a one-on-one fight between two robots. One won almost immediately, flipped both House Robots and was only caught out by the Flipper randomly going off midmatch.
*** What about the numerous times when Razer celebrated winning a match by trying to destroy one or both of the House Robots? {{spoiler|It managed it in the Southern Annihilator. Poor Matilda...}}
* ''[[Star Trek]]'': Holodeck simulations in [[Star Trek]] were often portrayed as futuristic LARP. As such, characters ([[In -Universe]]) would occasionally go [[Off the Rails]] by doing things that seemed logical to them but didn't make sense within the simulation.
** In the [[Star Trek: Voyager|Voyager]] episode "Night", Tom Paris has Seven of Nine play a [[Damsel in Distress]] in his Captain Proton simulation who gets captured by Satan's Robot. Instead of following the plot, Seven takes the most logical route, opens a convenient hatch on the robot, and [[Are These Wires Important|pulls out its wiring]].
*** It goes really [[Off the Rails]] in ''Bride of Chaotica!'' when {{spoiler|photonic aliens mistake it for reality and declare war on Chaotica}}.
*** Likewise when Seven uses the Leonardo da Vinci holoprogram for a little time to herself.
{{quote| '''Janeway:''' Master da Vinci doesn't like visitors after midnight.<br />
'''Seven:''' He protested. I deactivated him. }}
** In the ''[[Star Trek: theThe Next Generation]]'' episode "Qpid", Q drops Picard in the middle of a [[Robin Hood]] fantasy-world and tells the captain that if he doesn't rescue Maid Marion (who is his [[Love Interest]], Vash), she's going to be executed by Sir Guy of Gisbourne. Both Q and Picard are quite surprised when the eminently practical Vash agrees to marry Sir Guy, as it makes more sense than some [[Honor Before Reason|stupidly heroic rescue plan]].
** Another TNG example: in the episode "Elementary My Dear Data", mere minutes after Geordi and Data enter a [[Sherlock Holmes]] holo-novel, the plot begins when a man supposedly attacked turns up with a policeman. Data at once solves the entire case (which is supposed to be the length of a full novel or a film) by firing a short barrage of questions at the man and ripping open his jacket to reveal evidence that he is a counter-agent. He was remembering how the original novel went. Unfortunately, he had read all the original novels. Geordi storms off. The next time goes no better because the computer attempts to simply pastiche elements from the novels, and (let's repeat) Data had read them all. The ''next'' time they try a holo-novel, they accidentally ask the computer to create "an adversary capable of defeating '''[[Exact Words|Data]]'''". Cue virtual!Moriarty, a holodeck construct [[Game Breaker|capable of interfering with the basic systems of the Enterprise]]. Cue mass [[Oh Crap]] from the crew.
** In the [[Deep Space Nine|DS9]] episode ''Our Man Bashir'' featuring a [[James Bond]] pastiche, Bashir's character [[It Makes Sense in Context|helps the villain destroy the world]], and the poor computer almost has a nervous breakdown trying to keep the simulation running. Probably why they came up with the Vic Fontaine Holo-Programme, which was designed to operate off the rails, and only caused a major problem when its actual story arc kicked in and it stayed on them.
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* ''[[Good News Week]]''. The show was ''supposed'' to go from 8:30 to 9:30, but they always ended up getting distracted by a humourous aside or five. Now it's supposed to go until 9:45, and usually finishes around 10:05. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCwFJ4hCJww Wanna] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXTPsGxmM0I know] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z_6gRRxayY why?]
** As of 2010, the show is supposed to go until 10:00, and it's ''still'' overtime.
* ''[[Whose Line Is It Anyway?]]'''s Irish Drinking Song about "yelling the wrong name in bed". [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3uAismSOxk Meow].
* In the ''[[Myth Busters]]'' [[MacGyver]] special, Adam and Jamie are put through a series of challenges to test their [[MacGyvering]] abilities, set up by Tory and Grant. The final challenge involved creating a signal that could reach a certain height. Tory and Grant set up the surroundings to provide all of the materials needed to build a potato cannon, which results in quite a surprise when Adam and Jamie build a kite instead, using the [[Chekhov's Gun|rope that they were tied up with at the very beginning of the segment]].
** In another episode, Adam and Jamie made a challenge for each other: to build home-made hovercraft using household materials and under a budget and have a race with the machines they build. Both at first conform to the rules. [[Hilarity Ensues|Then Adam begins cheating]]. He ends up spending twice the budget on a truly ungainly "hovercraft" that requires him to flap his arms around while wearing press board "wings" and getting pushed by assistants to the goal line.
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* There are a great deal of stories of clueless players derailing ''[[Shadowrun]]'' games available at [http://web.archive.org/web/20070404045719/http://archive.dumpshock.com/CLUE/index.php3 The C.L.U.E. Files]. Fine reading for anybody who enjoys dumb player stories.
* A [[Memetic Mutation|legendary]] example is the story of [http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Noh Noh]. A DM had his players, on a spiritual quest, encounter what he thought would be a simple virtue challenge: a powerful magic rapier and magic chain shirt on a pedestal, guarded by a little girl (actually a [[Artificial Human|spiritual construct]]). The little girl could [[Welcome to Corneria|only say two things]]: "No" or -- if a "No" answer would be misleading -- "Please do not take these items". The party spent fifteen minutes talking to her, assuming she'd suffered trauma of some sort. Then the bard played a song to see if he could get a reaction from her. He rolled high, so the DM let the little girl [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|shed a]] [[Single Tear]]. The party's response: they fell in love with her on the spot, declaring her [[Moe Moe|the cutest thing ever]] and deciding to ''[[I'm Taking Her Home Withwith Me|keep her]]''. The little girl kept going back to the items, so the party eventually went back, gave them to her, and ''then'' took her with them. The DM, conceding defeat, arranged for her to gain a mind of her own, and the party made her their mascot, naming her Noh (as that was her response when asked what her name was).
** And they completely ignored said items in favour of Noh. Those are D&D players we are talking about, so such a reaction is a [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming]] by itself.
* What happens when a player decides to tell the GM's [[Marty Stu]] to [[Talk to Thethe Fist|talk to the gun]]? Read the saga of [http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=240126 "Fuck you, Strake!"]
* The RPG [[Spirit of the Century]] makes a point of encouraging the GM to run with any derailments by making highway systems rather than railroads and paving as they go. On the other hand, it does allow you to offer Players rewards for having their character perform actions suggested by the GM, so long as it has something to do with the character's Aspects, which the Players choose to begin with.
* Inherent in ''[[Paranoia]]'' to such a degree that many GMs recommend not installing the rails in the first place. (Especially since by the first 'station', everyone will probably be dead.)
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** Whoa. Now we know the true identity of one of Lovecraft's recurring characters "The Terrible Old Man"!
** 4Chan has not only fallen in love with Henderson, but they even came up with [http://1d4chan.org/wiki/The_Henderson_Scale_of_Plot_Derailment The Henderson Scale of Plot Derailment.] One Henderson means that your actions have completely derailed the plot. TWO means you have screwed up so badly that the game itself is no longer salvageable, everything is dead, and the game has to be started over... just not in that universe.
* The end result of the GM's plot getting between a ''[[Deathwatch (Tabletop Gamegame)|Deathwatch]]'' kill team and [http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_N1UanV4-p4/TxNMFj9YvWI/AAAAAAAAAM4/upeuPWtERTY/s1600/SpaceWolvesDemotivator.jpg loot.]
** The Plot would still be derailed, but it is easily fixed. If they run before the Avalanche, they get crushed while trying to lift off. If they go after the Avalanche, the enemies burn their way out of the bunkers and slaughter them. The next team will choose another way.
 
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** Many games also have bosses who will [[Limit Break|unleash particularly unpleasant abilities]], almost always including restoring their health to full, when they're hurt badly enough. However, the earlier ones can't handle said bosses being ''killed'' instead of dropped to low health, and they simply die early despite having the ability to restore themselves.
** There are examples of this in very early games, however. In [[Super Robot Wars 2]], destroying Cecily's mobile suit near the end will prevent her from appearing again as an allied NPC later on. In [[Super Robot Wars 3]], certain cutscenes can be skipped outright with the proper application of force on bosses when the game expects you to just destroy mooks. And then there's F/Final, where even [[Neon Genesis Evangelion|Angels]] can be killed prior to their intended death scene.
* ''[[Portal (Video Gameseries)|Portal]]'' and ''[[Portal 2 (Video Game)|Portal 2]]'' are both linear games. The plot, however, involves you going completely off the rails with respect to whatever plans the AI [[Mission Control]] has. In the first game, you escape from GLaDOS' [[Death Trap]] and wind up literally taking her apart in order to avoid her vengeful wrath. In the sequel, it happens no less than three times: first, when Wheatley derails GLaDOS' plans to murder you; second, when Wheatley manages to derail his own plans before they even get started by {{spoiler|smashing you into the elevator shaft and dropping you into Old Aperture}}; third, when you escape {{spoiler|Wheatley's}} [[Death Trap]] in "The Part Where..."
* The game [[I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream]] makes this an intentional example. AM, the maniacal AI that puts the characters into each situations expects the characters to give into their weaknesses. If the players proceed to conquer their [[Fatal Flaw|Fatal Flaws]] and prove AM wrong, then this enrages him so much that it will initiate a [[Logic Bomb]]; then the characters are given the opportunity to take down AM once and for all.
* It's a [[Running Gag]] in [[Nippon Ichi]] games that, if you try to go [[Off the Rails]] by ''winning'' a [[Hopeless Boss Fight]], [[Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies|the world often gets destroyed]]. Since you kind of ''need'' the world to continue the story, you have to [[Nonstandard Game Over|start all over again]].
* ''[[Fallout]]'' 3's plot involves talking to about a dozen NPCs, each directing you to the next NPC, until you meet the one person who can unlock the door to {{spoiler|the Citadel}}. A faster way involves trading your only weapon for lots of ammo crates (each filled with 1 bullet) and building a big staircase out of them to get past the locked door.
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Skip straight to {{spoiler|Little Lamplight/Vault 87}} [[Replay Value|if you already know how to find any of these places]]. }}
*** The developers did anticipate a couple of these skips. If you already know where your father is when talking to Three Dog, then the reward for finishing his quest will change from Three Dog telling you where your father went to Three Dog telling you where a weapons cache is located.
* ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'' has a few major factions that you can ally with to complete the game. Performing quests for each faction may make opposing factions warn you that they'll stop accepting your support if you persist in helping the other factions - if you continue, you'll no longer be able to progress in their missions (though they will remain non-hostile as long as you don't). You can then make all three major factions mad at you - possibly by meeting with their leaders, killing them, and [[I'm a Humanitarian|eating their corpses]] - which will give you [[Bragging Rights Reward|a special perk]]. This leaves you only one way to beat the game - going off the rails the three factions built and '''taking over Vegas yourself''' with the help of {{spoiler|Yes Man}}. Unfortunately, it's impossible to go off this rail since {{spoiler|Yes Man}} is more or less immortal, and doesn't even care if you open fire on him repeatedly {{spoiler|since his programming will just be transferred to another securitron if the one he's in is destroyed.}}
* ''[[The Nameless Mod]]'' includes a few ways for the player to go off the rails, including {{spoiler|having one of the ''endings'' dependent on going off the rails several times}}.
** Specifically, Trestkon as the PC {{spoiler|must complete 3 out of 5 possible actions that are considered "impossible" in-game (such as getting access to Despot's apartment when your character doesn't have the in-game knowledge of how to do so). Completing these actions leads the Narcissus Entity (the in-game AI director of, well...everything) to [[Break the Fourth Wall]], leading to an opportunity for the player to take Narcissus' place a small time later}}.
** Additionally, should Trestkon {{spoiler|kill Scara B. King in person rather than banning him at the end of the game, Narcissus will kill you for breaking the game}}.
* There's a point in [[Deus Ex (Video Game)|Deus Ex]] where you are ordered to kill an unarmed NSF higher-up (Juan Lebedev) who knows a lot about what's going on -- and is willing to tell the player. Halfway through the explanation Anna Navarre will show up and order you to finish the job. You can either refuse (Anna will kill him and get annoyed with you) or do the job yourself -- or {{spoiler|waste Navarre (causing Alex Jacobson to freak out) and Lebedev will complete the explanation of what's going on}}.
** It's that the game in no way suggests that this third way is an option and it's entirely up to the player to decide to {{spoiler|betray the side he's working for and murder his partner}} that really sets [[Deus Ex (Video Game)|Deus Ex]] apart from other 'non-linear' RPGs.
** However, most plot-critical NPCs are invincible until they've outlived their usefulness to the plot. For example, Walton Simons, Joseph Manderly, Anna and Gunther are all invincible until {{spoiler|UNATCO betrays you}}. However, you can kill Maggie Chow before you even speak to her.
** The sequel does this much more. The player can kill anybody they have access to, assuming they have at a functional weapon on them, no matter how important this person is, and the plot adapts. In fact, at one point you can trap two characters who the global society depends on in a room, and irradiate them to death.
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** Pass the {{spoiler|Human World}} bill in Disgaea 1, and you'll get an opportunity go invade {{spoiler|Earth}} instead of moving on to {{spoiler|Celestia}}. This leads to a couple mildy difficult encounters, followed by a final showdown where {{spoiler|General Carter turns into a Prism Ranger, you beat the crap out of him, and then take over the earth.}}
*** "Etna Mode" from the PSP/DS remake is all about this, since it's about what would happen if Laharl died at the beginning of the game.
** Defeating [[Disgaea Hour of Darkness (Video Game)/Characters|Laharl]] in one of Disgaea 2's [[Hopeless Boss Fight|Hopeless Boss Fights]] treats you to an ending where he blows up the planet in retaliation.
** Replaying the stage where you fight {{spoiler|the ghost of}} Mao's father in Disgaea 3 nets you an ending where pretty much none of the plot threads are resolved.
** If you kill [[Hopeless Boss Fight|Feinne]] the first time you encounter her in ''[[Soul Nomad and The World Eaters]]'', this leads to a fight with Asagi, who blows up the planet after beating her (it's even lampshaded by Gig). {{spoiler|The Demon Path}} is something of a campaign based solely around this, since it begins with {{spoiler|Revya accepting Gig's [[Deal Withwith the Devil]] and ''killing [[Big Good|Layna]]''.}}
* An in-universe example of sorts takes place in ''[[The Reconstruction (Video Game)|The Reconstruction]]'', but not by the main characters. Throughout most of the game, {{spoiler|the Watchers seem like the main masters of the plot, with some kind of grand scheme that your guild has been working towards}}. But then {{spoiler|suddenly, the [[Big Bad]] derails everything by ''killing them'' and taking over the world}}.
* ''[[Golden Sun Dark Dawn]]'' is basically ''about'' your quest being derailed by the bad guys, who have [[Railroading|their own agenda they want you to fulfill]]. Your Psynergy Vortex business can wait, right? {{spoiler|[[The Stinger|No, it couldn't.]] }}
* ''[[JFK: Reloaded]]'' is all about you trying to recreate the JFK assassination. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOSFafsloes But what] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TZpgCLN9Cc&feature=related happens if] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXOx6XKhZeA&feature=related you decide otherwise?]
 
== Web Comics ==
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** One strip had Matt crying to a friend about how his characters had not only derailed his adventure by killing everyone, they had also summoned Elder Gods to destroy the game universe. They had been playing ''[[Bunnies and Burrows]]'' (a game where all the characters are ''normal, mundane rabbits'').
* ''[[Darths and Droids]]'' imagines ''[[Star Wars]]'' as a tabletop RPG in a universe where the films never existed. The entire plot of all six movies comes about because "Qui-Gon" and "Obi-Wan" go Off The Rails during the first five minutes of Episode I.
** Another example happened offscreen in [[The Princess Bride (Filmfilm)|a fantasy campaign]] they played between the first and second movie, when the characters let their [[Munchkin]] be killed by the main villain, left him dead, and after they killed the villain resurrected him and joined his side.
** Another offscreen example in a campaign with [[The Roleplayer|Annie]] as the GM. Her planned campaign would've been the plot to the ''[[Twilight (Literaturenovel)|Twilight]]'' series, but the players, with their [[Kill'Em All]] mentality at the first sight of vampires and werewolves, turned it into the plot for ''[[Van Helsing]]''.
** A couple of the "alternate" strips go Off the Rails:
*** In ''[[The Wizard of Oz|Magicians & Munchkins]]'', everybody decides to be a [[Min-Maxing]] [[Munchkin]], including the GM, whose [[Final Boss]] is an all-powerful Wicked Witch with the drawback of "[[Weaksauce Weakness|Vulnerability to Water]]". Which the players accidentally discover 3 Sessions earlier than the GM intended them to.
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* ''[[Irregular Webcomic]]'' has two of its storylines being characters in roleplaying games. When time travel is introduced into both storylines, the PCs quickly disrupt the timeline, preventing events that for them have already happened from happening, resulting in paradoxes that contribute to the destruction of all reality. It should be noted that the DM was dead at the time (his disappearance is noticed in the "Space" storyline), so he was unable to prevent this catastrophic derailment.
* In ''[http://as.crowdedstreet.net/something/ Burning Stickman Presents...Something!]'', one of the protagonists knocks the plot, which had been a retelling of ''[[Mega Man X]] 4'', off the rails by {{spoiler|[http://as.crowdedstreet.net/something/209.html stopping Zero from killing Colonel]}}. {{spoiler|Possibly [[Lampshaded]] with [[The Watcher]] character [[Precision F-Strike|dropping the F-bomb]] when he finds this out.}}
* In ''[[Homestuck (Webcomic)|Homestuck]]'', a number of events have conspired to doom the kids' ''Sburb'' session: Jack, who was meant to offer a means of helping the players dethrone the Black Queen before the Reckoning, gained access to a.) a weapon of unbelievable power and b.) nigh-omnipotence, and immediately began to destroy not just the Sburb session he originated in but also ''other'' sessions. Having learned that their game was doomed, Rose searches for a way to break the game because winning it in the traditional fashion is no longer possible. It appears that, [[Foregone Conclusion|in the future]], she is ultimately successful.
** After scratching the original session, the new Alpha session is already going [[Off the Rails]] before the game even starts. The agents of Derse are killing dreamselves before the game in violation of the normal rules, and someone has repeatedly tried to assassinate Jane on Earth.
* A very common plot seen with the ''[[Knights of the Dinner Table]]'' comics. In some strips they manage to go off the rails before the adventure ''starts'' because they refuse to listen to they guy who's supposed to tell them what the adventure is. In one, after they've stolen the king's silverware during a banquet and therefore had a huge battle with the guards rather than be sent on a quest, B.A. finally storms off after Bob says the adventure was much better than he expected, and Brian recommends he get the other modules in that series.
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* [[Things Mr. Welch Is No Longer Allowed to Do In An RPG]] is a long list of attempts by somebody who seems to be the Casey Jones of games gone off the track.
* Several times in ''[[Ruby Quest (Roleplay)|Ruby Quest]]''. They were ''not'' supposed to [[Dungeon Bypass|smash their way into that medicine cabinet with a crowbar]]. Because they'd gotten in, they could tranquilize Stitches instead of killing him, and they then stuffed him in a healing locker [[Video Game Caring Potential|with the photograph of everyone standing around happily for when he wakes up]]. {{spoiler|Later, he attacks [[Implacable Man|Ace]] at [[Big Damn Heroes|the last moment]], saving Tom from having to make a [[Heroic Sacrifice]].}} Weaver also hadn't even considered that they'd try to save {{spoiler|Jay}} or {{spoiler|have Tom use his [[Running Gag|MANLY PHYSIQUE]] to [[Shut UP, Hannibal|kill Filbert instead of letting him tempt them with information about their past]]}}. All of which actually gave them a ''better'' [[Earn Your Happy Ending|ending]]. Putting the hand in the pneumatic tube, however, [[Brick Joke|was just silly]].
* [[The Spoony Experiment (Web Video)|Spoony]]'s story about [http://spoonyexperiment.com/2011/10/20/counter-monkey-vegan-steve-and-the-djinni-of-jengai-fomogo/ Vegan Steve and the Deck of Many Things] is a living testament to this.
** In a ''[[Vampire: The Requiem]]'' LARP, Spoony's character was [[Railroading|forced into joining the local]] [[Church Militant]] [[Railroading|sect]]. His response was to use his character's extensive knowledge of Chemistry to produce enough plastic explosive to level a city block, then snuck it into the local Prince's sanctum.
** Spoony also tells the story of a ''[[Star Wars]]'' game he ran, where he decided to have Darth Vader cameo...which, unfortunately for him, inspired the players to completely abandon their previous mission and focus entirely on trying to kill the Dark Lord of the Sith. He says this taught him the hard lesson that you do ''not'' include established characters in an RPG, lest such an event happen.
** In his "[[Thieves' World]]" story, Spoony relates the tale of a campaign that accidentally went off the rails when a character impulsively flung an acid flask at a figure entering through a door in a cultist's lair - and ended up hitting the party's benefactor, a semi-immortal champion of the setting's god of war, critting him and burning half his face off. What follows becomes a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] for both Spoony as a DM and for his players, as he rewrites the campaign around this moment to turn the benefactor into the [[Big Bad]], and the players eventually organize a peasant army against him and his minions.
* Seen in [[Tales From the Table (Web Video)|Tales From the Table]] as early as the first episode.
 
 
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