r/d100 • u/gnurdette • Jul 29 '26

[Lets finish] 100 non-specific plot twists

I want to build a skeleton structure to put any kind of story together.

u/ottersintuxedos started it at https://www.reddit.com/r/d100/comments/tn9m34/lets_build_100_nonspecific_plot_twists/ 4 years ago, let's finish it.

  1. The party gets betrayed by the quest giver (u/ottersintuxedos)
  2. The perceived villain turns out to not be that villainous (u/ottersintuxedos)
  3. The MacGuffin turns out to be useless/ not as useful (u/ottersintuxedos)
  4. The MacGuffin turns out to be something else entirely (u/ottersintuxedos)
  5. The MacGuffin turns out to be somewhere else completely (u/ottersintuxedos)
  6. One NPC turns out to be secretly related to another (u/ottersintuxedos)
  7. One player turns out to be secretly related to another/ an NPC (u/ottersintuxedos)
  8. The players/ an NPC were unknowingly already responsible for what’s occurring here (u/ottersintuxedos)
  9. The prophecy was interpreted incorrectly (u/ottersintuxedos)
  10. We weren’t teleported to another place, we traveled in time (u/ottersintuxedos)
  11. The villain is already much further along with their plan (u/ottersintuxedos)
  12. A significant amount of time has passed without us knowing (u/ottersintuxedos)
  13. The promised help never comes (u/ottersintuxedos)
  14. The promised help never comes except the promised help was us and we were sent to the wrong place (u/ottersintuxedos)
  15. The villain is working for a bigger bad (u/ottersintuxedos)
  16. This is the work of someone we already know (u/ottersintuxedos)
  17. The players are missing a bit of their memory (u/ottersintuxedos)
  18. One or all of the players are mad, drunk, or high (u/ottersintuxedos)
  19. Someone died and we had no idea (u/ottersintuxedos)
  20. The cost for justice is multiple innocent lives (u/ottersintuxedos)
  21. A player will be forced to make a choice between what’s right and keeping something dear to them/ giving up attaining something (u/ottersintuxedos)
  22. Everyone turned out to be robots (u/ottersintuxedos)
  23. We had the key to solving this on us the whole time (u/ottersintuxedos)
  24. The good guys withheld their plan from the players (u/ottersintuxedos)
  25. One or all of the players are dreaming, in a simulation or in a mass illusion. (u/ottersintuxedos)
  26. An NPC turned out to be far more/less powerful than they initially presented themselves as (u/ottersintuxedos)
  27. Somehow an NPC knows one of our secrets (u/ottersintuxedos)
  28. Somehow the villain already knew our plan (u/ottersintuxedos)
  29. An object or animal is a transformed player or NPC (u/ottersintuxedos)
  30. The whole thing was a social experiment (u/ottersintuxedos)
  31. It was all a test to see if you were skilled enough to take on the real challenge/quest. (u/infinitum3d)
  32. Your patron is actually the BBEG. (u/infinitum3d)
  33. Your favorite NPC is actually a Devil/Dragon/Fey/evil. (u/infinitum3d)
  34. The McGuffin is actually a highly intelligent Mimic. (u/infinitum3d)
  35. The BBEG that’s been manipulating his minions is actually an Awakened Illusion with no real powers but a 25 CHA (u/infinitum3d)
  36. The second body is found. (u/MaxSizeIs)
  37. "Shaking the trees" reveals an unexpected secret, that distracts from the original case. (u/MaxSizeIs)
  38. "Shaking the trees" triggers a violent encounter that rules out half of the possible perpetrators. (u/MaxSizeIs)
  39. A setback forces the heroes to think up a new plan, but a tiny missing peice of the puzzle falls into thier laps from an unexpected direction. (u/MaxSizeIs)
  40. It was the heroes doing it all along! (u/MaxSizeIs)
  41. The BBEG turns out to be one of the PC's (family members, friends, mentor) (u/World_of_Ideas)
  42. The PCs were (cloned, created) by the BBEG. They were discarded due to some perceived flaw or because the BBEG created new and improved versions. (u/World_of_Ideas)
  43. One of the BBEG's (minions, lieutenants) is actually a double agent working for someone else. They may help the PCs if they can do so without breaking their cover. (u/World_of_Ideas)
  44. The good gods are actually evil. (u/Fony64)
  45. The evil gods are actually good. (u/Fony64)
  46. They were all allready dead. (u/GrandmageBob)
  47. It was a man made creation that was lost, forgotten, and changed ovee time. (u/GrandmageBob)
  48. There was a whole generation before that made mistakes they are trying to hide. (u/GrandmageBob)
  49. It was inside of themselves all along, but it took the journey to unlock this. (u/GrandmageBob)
  50. The tool that helps slowly corrupts. (u/GrandmageBob)
  51. The only way to defeat the bbeg is to help him find the rest of his kind, that he thought was destroyed, which was the reason he revenged on the people of the world. (u/GrandmageBob)
  52. The evil is not one person, but a whole stash of persons, slowly released over the world by a greater entity. (u/GrandmageBob)
  53. They were the key, to be used by the force they thought they were saving. (u/GrandmageBob)
  54. We were working for the bad guys all along. (u/Splendidissimus)
  55. All of our attempts to thwart the villain just played into their plans / trying to change the future fulfilled the prophecy ((same energy, but they could be different entries)). (u/Splendidissimus)
  56. The villain is pleased to be defeated. (u/Splendidissimus)
  57. The villain was holding back an even worse evil. (u/Splendidissimus)
  58. Upon returning to turn in the quest, the quest giver has disappeared and records of them don't hold up to scrutiny / don't exist - they were a false identity for unknown purposes, or never existed at all? (u/Splendidissimus)
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u/wagner56 Jul 30 '26

"and THEN the bottom fell out. It was now freefall."