There's times where things just kind of go horribly wrong and if the GM wants to keep things realistic they have to keep the train wreck going, an example that comes to mind for me was the backstory for the father of a Rogue I played, who was the blacksmith of a small mining town.

My Rogue (through shenanigans involving a gazebo, don't ask, I was more naive then) was placed into his father's mind through a kind of interactive flashback, but it was all for naught as the end result was still the same: Steele was to meet his fate fighting the corrupt mayor and his cronies, who were conspiring to destroy the village and reap the benefits of what little remained. He kissed his wife, who was crying in their house with their unborn son, picked up his hammer, and marched out his front door to meet the officers and met his end in a rain of bolts and arrows.

Pretty much everyone that was playing at the end of that game was pretty emotional, especially since this was the first game I'd ever played and I was trying desperately to find another path to keep Steele alive.

Well think that sets things up for story time today.

Today's topic: Times the game got unexpectedly deep.

Man, you write a great webcomic. One of the best, next to Darths and Droids.

Have you ever read 8 bit theater?

Carry on, my wayward son. There will be peace when you pop a cap in his ass.

Sorcerers and Soulgems? I think it's on hiatus.

Panel 4 was the most powerful panel in this comic, huh? How did that even happen?

So I just wrapped up a campaign a week ago that's been running most fridays for about two years now. The general concept is a Pathfinder version of the A-Team, if the A-Team worked in a bar(paladin was head bouncer, rogue was the collection agency, bard was the local celebrity musician, wizard was the traveling salesman who got pulled off sales after he was mind-wiped into burning down half a city, dwarven cleric is the brewmaster and co-owner of the bar). When things happened in the region they were the ones sent to sort things out. It had a minor splash of Mistborn added to it as well, in the form of allomantic powers and the Jandra(an extraplanar species that basically eats people and reforms their bodies around their bones to assume their shape).

In one arc they're traveling to a music festival where the bard is performing and the cleric is selling refreshments, with the rest along as security. They get there and the place is empty and covered in a strange mist. Long story short this is their intro to the Jandra and they end up coming across one that's more intelligent and peaceful than the others and befriending it. They name it Jane and it returns with them to the bar, becomes a bouncer under the paladin's mentorship and develops a minor crush on the bard. From time to time it joins them on adventures, especially after the cleric had to drop out and I gave it more intervention/healing abilities to serve as a party healer.

In the closing arc the party finds the portal back to the realm where the Jandra come from(Jane had been looking for his way home from the begining, the owner of the bar was helping him). The group had also come across a group of catfolk from a dimension on the other side of that portal which had also opened into their world and was causing trouble. The rogue(also catfolk), who had amnesia of his life prior to preteen years, discovers that he is from that other dimension. He also discovers that after wandering into a naturally forming portal he was captured by one of the devils that sometimes take up residence in the morphically suggestible Jandra realm, experimented on, had his soul condensed into the mysterious crystal that was embedded in his hand, and sent through to a new realm as a sort of door stopper to keep both portals open so that this devil could use the jandra realm as a fortress for invading two mortal realms.

They defeat this devil but that doesn't change the cyrstal situation. If the rogue goes back to the place he's spent the last fifteen years then the portals remain open, exposing both realms to infernal and abyssal incursions. If he goes back to where he was born, but cannot remember, both worlds are safe.

The party is completely blind sided by this situation. I'd hinted that the campaign was coming to a close when talking about some new ideas for a campaign but none of them saw this coming. The rogue considered the NPC Alchemist that ran the bar as basically his father. He doesn't want to leave him, but also knows he can't stay. The party decides 'if you go, we go with you'.

And as they decide this Jane starts thanking them for their help, and saying he'll use what they've taught him to defend his realm and teach his people to stand against another devil incursion. Suddenly they're realizing...Jane's home now. That no matter what they do they're losing the seven-foot morphic muscle-bound teddy bear they've all grown attached to. The paladin is, in real life, visibly distraught when he realizes this. I wasn't sure if he was going to cry, punch me, or both.

In the end though they say their farewells and step through the portal to a new world. End on a joke about turning the bar into a franchise with a new location.

That sounds like a epic story.