Describe a failure that became amazing

Looking at this question at the beginning of the month i saw that it might cause me some trouble. ~ Amazing? As in “I can’t believe he screwed that up! What are the odds?” Or maybe “amazing” as in the really epic spell failure where Lee’s character Hans managed to open a rift in between worlds & let out an unspeakable horror in session six of Lamentations in Prussia.

For some gamers failure seems to be anathema. Personally, I love it. Not that I go looking to fail, far from it. However, I love to “play to find out” what happens. While there are many things that contribute to this discovery, having the intention to do something & having things not go as you planned certainly lets you “find out” what really happens in a hurry. However it looks, a failure to achieve a specific outcome may close that door, (metaphorically or otherwise), but it always opens another door of possibility (or two or three).

My runner up is a silly failure, but a fun one. In an Iron Falcon Game that Jason Ran last year, I had a double failure that became amazing. Rolling up my first character gave me a 3 Wisdom. This is not good in that game. This is the guy that tries to pet the skunks because they’re cute. (I feed the skunks near my house and go out to watch them, so it’s possible I rolled myself). I rolled up a more suitable character named Sir Vantes (remember my thing for stupid names?), & Jason let me keep “Dim” as the torchbearer. Opening the dungeon door we were set upon by goblins, & my second failure was losing initiative. Sir Vantes was run through and died on the spot. I took over the torchbearer with the 3 wisdom & the rest of the game was about this normal man with no common sense avenging the death of his master. ~ It was silly & stupid, but none of us will ever forget it.

However, my real answer is from All for One ~ Nights to Remember where we experienced several failures. The most crucial one was during an encounter with “Alice”, a vampire we had thought we defeated many sessions ago. Phillipe found himself having to defend a nearly helpless Brisecouer & a quite helpless Eugenie. Phillipe gallantly attempted to wrest the damsel in distress from the vampire as Alice levitated Brisecouer’s former lackey to her certain doom, but alas! I failed.

At this point I became willing to negotiate with the Nosferatu, and this seemed to intrigue her. The end result is that my musketeer has promised to eliminate her rival and usurper, one Oliver Durand, who is about as dangerous of a human foe as you might encounter, (not to mention that he would be surrounded by a multitude of capable guards & minions). This is only slightly less disagreeable than working for an instrument of the devil himself.

None of us could have predicted this turn of events, but failure made it possible.

What will happen? ~ We must play to find out.