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soir8
2011-04-02, 12:24 PM
So, I've been reading the "Habits that kill fun in a session", and as I love the opportunity to bitch about something, or laugh at another's stupidity, I rather enjoyed it. But there are some people who saw the whole thread as nothing more than petty whining... which I suppose is fair enough. It is rather petty, and we were sort of whining at times...

So, I thought I'd start a thread with a more positive goal; to discuss those moments when the players in your campaign do something entirely unexpected and awesome, and you feel proud to have them at your table. Or, when they play into your plans so completely that you feel like you're the best DM/GM ever.

Here's a couple of examples;

The PCs in my latest campaign had gotten off to a bad start, getting killed by a Dire Bat within minutes. On their second attempt, they took down the bat before it even got close, and then went through the rest of the dungeon without a hitch. The precise moment at which I felt most proud of them was when they turned the goblin ambush I'd designed as a lethal meat grinder into an effortless slaughter. First, the wizard gets lucky and spots the goblin sentries in their hiding places. Then, the gnome scout sneaks past them and uses ghost sound to distract them while he and the wizard get in place to shoot them. They take out both sentries, and then get really clever.
The wizard sends his familiar flying up to one of the sentry posts to see what's up there, and has his familiar nudge down the goblin's rope, allowing the two PCs to climb up to the sentry post just in time to avoid being seen by the 4 other goblins who have come to investigate the gunshots. As they examine the fallen body of one of their comrades, the wizard casts grease, and the goblins are promptly slaughtered in almost the exact same way I was expecting the PCs might die.

Then there was the previous campaign, in which I'd created a hit-and-run character with feats and magic items carefully chosen to make him the ultimate opponent for the two PCs who had so far bulldozed their way through every single encounter. The fight went beautifully, as every round the PCs did something to highlight the abilities I'd given him. "I use the stance that gives me blindsight!" sorry, you still can't spot him (thanks to the Darkstalker feat), "goddamnit! he never stays close enough to hit!" (spring attack, bitchez) "There he is! I grapple him... what? he just slips free?" (ring of freedom of movement ftw), "Aha! I cast wall of stone around him, let's see him get out of that!" (lol, cloak of arachnida, spider-climb lol!!!)

Eventually, I had him run away after finally taking a few hits, but if he'd stayed around I think there's a fair chance he could've taken down the two players who, up until then, had thought they were practically gods. So, so proud :D

So, anyone else have some stories to share? When have your players made you proud?

slaydemons
2011-04-02, 12:55 PM
mine is quite simple really as I don't have very many experiences as I might of helped him by writing it. (the person is near illiterate having the same ability to read as a 3rd grader) instead of doing what he would any other time for a character, this guy was in no way a noblemen or somehow descended from a god, and that made me proud as this is like a turning point where he isn't trying to hog the spot light to himself, and that made me happy as well

soir8
2011-04-02, 02:50 PM
Good to hear :)

I wish I could get my little sister to behave. She likes D&D, and wants to play, but gets upset if she's losing. If she rolls badly, she will immediately pick up the d20 and roll again, hoping she gets away with it before I see the first roll. She never does.

slaydemons
2011-04-02, 03:28 PM
Good to hear :)

I wish I could get my little sister to behave. She likes D&D, and wants to play, but gets upset if she's losing. If she rolls badly, she will immediately pick up the d20 and roll again, hoping she gets away with it before I see the first roll. She never does.

tell her its not about losing or winning its about playing the game

soir8
2011-04-02, 05:42 PM
tell her its not about losing or winning its about playing the game

Her response is "don't care, still gonna win".

Not that I'm too concerned. If I ever really want to get her into a proper game, and not just random dungeon crawls, I'll take the time to explain to her the whole co-operative storytelling spiel. As is, I'm fine with letting her treat it like a combat board game.

Not many people around these parts who are proud of their players, it seems...

slaydemons
2011-04-02, 06:13 PM
Her response is "don't care, still gonna win".

Not that I'm too concerned. If I ever really want to get her into a proper game, and not just random dungeon crawls, I'll take the time to explain to her the whole co-operative storytelling spiel. As is, I'm fine with letting her treat it like a combat board game.

Not many people around these parts who are proud of their players, it seems...

They might be but its harder to remember small moments of being proud of the hours of lawls from goofing off

Ezeze
2011-04-02, 07:56 PM
I was DMing for a few friends once. They met the mayor, who was going to ask them to go into a dungeon inhabited by goblins, and one of the players states "I don't like this man. I'm rolling Sense Motive to see if he's lying to us." She rolls fairly high and, since he was telling the truth, I told her she doesn't think he was. She promptly responded "no, I still think he's lying, I just think he's really good at it." She spent ten more levels mistrusting him and giving him dirty looks whenever she saw him :smalltongue:

Then there was a time on a ship going through a storm. At one point the PCs needed to make a reflex save or be tossed from the ship. They all made it, but the chaotic good bard asks "did anyone fall into the water?" I hadn't rolled for the sailors, but I figured "yeah, this one guy..." "I jump in after him!" Another party member threw down a rope and together they hauled the guy back onto the ship, and a reoccurring NPC was born! They carefully protected him during fights, made him look good, and later convinced the captain to promote him. They spent a few years on land, then when they needed a ship again, I made it so that "Spenser" was now a Captain and more than happy to help out the party that had saved his life. Good times :smallbiggrin:

Hyudra
2011-04-03, 12:00 AM
It's a 3 party nobility themed 3.5 game on PbP. Three rival factions each aiming to get their individual side to take the crown.

The bastard prince of a foreign nation greets an event held in his honor by marching a previously hidden army into the tent and attacking all who are present. The three factions are all there - the Loyalists (who want the idiot prince to take the crown), the Regents (who want a noble - probably one of them - to temporarily take the throne until the king's technically illegitimate & infant child takes the throne) and the Rebellion, who are wanting to topple the nobility, and are guised as servants.

In the course of the fight, the bad guy kidnaps the idiot prince and sends a squad of soldiers out to hunt down and kill the illegitimate child that the Regents are wanting to support (more or less). The remainder of his army sets the town on fire. The general assumption on my part was that the individual factions, having (finally) met and interacted with one another, would go their separate ways to handle their individual crises. All well and good, and I was prepared for a few wrenches to get thrown in the plan.

What wound up happening, however, was that one of the Regents didn't go to save the child, but cast invisibility on himself and followed the Loyalists, who were after the enemy prince and the crown heir. In the course of the battle, the enemy dropped the heir off the side of a bridge and into the water.

The Regent beguiler, out of sight, proceeded to summarily dispel the dolphin that was summoned to rescue the boy, and created an illusion of the boy being rescued and carried downriver.

It was a subtle trick, but the Loyalists polished off the bad guy, and proceeded to venture downriver to find where the Prince had gotten off to. All the while, the prince had sunk to the bottom of the river beneath the bridge.

I loved it, personally. It was exactly the sort of scheming and trickery that I'd hoped for when I started the game.

Knaight
2011-04-03, 01:30 AM
Its hard to think of specific examples for my high roleplaying group, they manage to perpetually be the sort of players a GM as bad as I am doesn't deserve to have. However, there are a handful that emerged from the more casual group, of which one needs only minimal explanation.

Understand that any roleplaying at all is rare in this group. They like their combat, they like their problem solving, and as such roleplaying is to be cherished. So the cases where someone does a good job are special. Primary among these was an instance where an NPC was threatened, and managed some pitiful defense. The short version is that the entire group was fighting a single heavily armored elite soldier of some sort, and just pulling ahead, so the soldier grabbed their accomplice, a nymph with some healing power, and demanded healing. Instead, she throws a completely innefectual punch, leading to the following exchange:

Player: I leap towards the soldier while yelling "That's my girl!".

It doesn't seem like much, but it was actual roleplaying, fit with prior established relations to the nymph, and was voiced extremely well.

Bibliomancer
2011-04-03, 01:45 AM
In the turning point of the first campaign I ever DMed, the party had been roleplaying all session and wanted to level up. Since I hadn't had any combat planned, I improvised...somewhat hastily. They were attacked by bandits wielding repeating swivel ballistae from a position on a nearby hill.

In the process of charging the hill, one of the players (a CG swordsage) was killed. The character was carrying 12,000gp in gold at the time. Right at the end of combat, the NG cleric, with 3 hp and 1/4 of his spells left realized that he didn't want the CE rogue getting his hands on that loot, so he said 'I burn all my remaining spell slots for the day to send [the swordsage's body] directly to my god in the Blessed Fields of Elysium.' I allowed it, and the rogue and LN (tending E) fighter turned on him. Both missed. I then gave this character a one-off use of the word of recall spell as a reward for his character's piety and he escaped.

That was the moment that the campaign (which had gradually been tending evil) flipped to be a dual good/evil campaign, with each player having one character in each party. And it all started with one cleric saying 'No, you DON'T get to loot that corpse.'

Milo v3
2011-04-03, 03:31 AM
An hour and a half ago me and my friends finished a play session. It was the first adventure for the campaign and it was one of my players first time at D&D.
Everyone was level one with barely any experience.

The group:

Darrius Greyhilt (Dragonborn (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Dragonborn_(Keran_Race))Paladin of Dylian)
Serena (Dunesti (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Exiled_Elves(Keran_Race)) Rogue)
Erevan (Karmainian (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Karmainian(Keran_Race))Wizard)
And me the DM obviously

Me: You enter the room said to hold the remains of the kooblds old leaders. Inside was four golden coffins and an altar. On the altar was a Golden Dagger.
Serena: Don't desecrate the dead.
Darrius: I examine the gold dagger from afar.
Me: It appears to be made of a golden metallic substance. Other than that it is a perfectly normal looking dagger. You also note that Sparky (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Spellshine_Homunculus_(3.5e_Creature))flies around it and starts glowing Black.
Erevan: I pick it up (With a huge grin on his face).
Serena: Swear's in Draconic
Me: (Laughing manically) The Golden Coffins open to revel bones, which fly into the centre of the room to form a huge cyclone of bone. The bones then clump together to reveal a Skeletal Dragon. It then opens it mouth and lets out a beam of Pure Negative energy. It hits Erevan burning his flesh and ruining his robes.
Erevan: I swear in every language I know.
Serena: (She has a fear of Powerful Undead) I run out of the room swearing.
Darrius: I use my draconic breath to blast it with positve energy.
Me: Erevan you're in serious pain and are barely standing up. Serena you trip on the Rumble in the ruins making you fall to the ground. Darrius you breath has barely any effect, but it turns its Skeletal head towards you.
Serena: I start crawl away through the rumble
Darrius: I Stand and fight (He wasn't very bright)
Erevan: I cast dancing Lights around it to distract it and run.
Darrius: Thanks for the support.
Me: The Draconic Skeleton barely glimpses at the lights but is distracted long enough so that he can escape. You reach the ruins but didn't reach the rubble so you don't get tripped. The Dragon then quickly aims at the dragonborn and melts the flesh of the armoured paladin.
Me (Whispered to Erevan): You notice the dragon is transparent.
Erevan: Laughs for 3 minutes straight.
Darrius: I slash at it with my Longsword.
Serena: I continue crawling.
Erevan: Laughs and pats the dragon on the nose. Its and illusion you idiots.
Darrius: Wait so I'm not about to die.

It was hillarious and it was completely improvised. I felt so awesome tricking them.

Iceforge
2011-04-03, 04:57 AM
In my last session which was the first session of a new game, I was proud of my players for making a very funny, but also effective way of solving a problem that I had in no way predicted.

We started a Naruto campaign, and for those who do not know that setting, they are basicly playing young kids who got magical powers in the form of special ninja hand seals (everyone in that setting is basicly a fighter/wizard, not entirely correct, but gives you the gist of it)

So they are tasked with switching some documents and they know the bandits who are currently in possession of the documents are staying at an inn in a small village, so they arrive there, and enter the Inn.

Now, the way I was seeing this going down, they would keep an eye on the bandits and find a way to sneak into their room and steal the briefcase and put their own identical one it's place during the night using their powers or something.

Instead, they used the fact that they are, YOUNG KIDS with powers, and instead of using any of their powers to do this mission, one of them goes outside with their briefcase and waits in a nearby alley, then one of the two remaining inside the inn loudly accussed the inn keeper of inappropriately touching him.

At this point, Im more busy laughing than directing NPC actions, and in the chaos that ensures as everybody is getting uppity with the pervy inn keeper who is crying about what he is being accused off (and the PC rolled so high on bluff that even the inn keeper was doubting if he accidentially touched him in an inappropriate place), the other runs over, quite obviously stealing the briefcase, not even trying to hide it, and darts for the exit, and quickly, 2 of the bandits are in pursue, but a bit behind as they got confused by the entire situations too.

He runs past alley, does a little switch aroo with the one there who quickly hides and he runs out in the open with the fake briefcase, once the pursueing bandits are close, he "accidentially" drop it, pretends for a second if he is considering picking it up again, but then "flees" the scene, while curses and deaththreats are being shouted at him.

Alright, so 1-1½ hour of gameplay was done and overwith in 15 minuts tops, but was proud of how exceptionally entertaining they made my evening, and I should have seen it coming, as we had agreed they would play a sneaky group with questionable morals compared to most other ninja's, so why not accuse the inn keeper of being a pervy child molester, if it furthers your goals?

Was done in again the next evening, when I was playing as a PC in a campaign lead by one of the players, and a young boy at an inn did same to a member of our party, in a sneaky way to get us to meet with a high end thief in the city by having the city guard seize us

Combat Reflexes
2011-04-03, 11:29 AM
This afternoon I had a player that made me very, very proud :smallsmile:

This guy (both his character name and his real name is Odin) and his group are traveling to the next dungeon - the Slaughterguarde lab - and come across a rock formation in an open spot in the forest. In front of the rocks, there is a little bundle of cloth, and the cries of a baby can be heard. It was a little half-elf baby, next to her dead mother.

Now EVERY other player I've ever met would either a) abandon or kill the baby or b) give it a one-way ticket to the nearest orphanage. But not Odin the Bard.

Odin picks up the little thing, and improvises a small cradle so he can carry it around. The whole adventure grinds to a halt as Odin makes camp in the forest and tries to conjure up some milk to give to the tiny half-elf.
The baby spends the night in his bedroll. Odin sleeps outside.

The next day, the party comes across a small city, but Odin still refused to hand the baby to the orphanage. When they entered the dungeon, the baby was still in his arms, and Odin continued to carry it and re-fluffed 'Inspire Courage' as 'calming the baby' and used Countersong to silence it while sneaking. :smallwink:


It was very sentimental (especially because I usually run a torture-dungeon-crawl-kickthe****outofthings-party)

I think I will let him keep it.

begooler
2011-04-03, 12:45 PM
We are playing a three person (evil) campaign where we are taking turns DM'ing. It's my turn to DM. Today the players visit a sage. They sit around, drink tea, and solve some riddles she gives them. She lets each person choose a prize for solving the riddle.
Nick, the scout, chooses the option of being invisible for 24 hours. As all three players walk out of the sage's house, he disappears.
At the same time, the party happens to be attacked by some invisible stalker elementals in the alleyway. Since Nick is invisible, and won't speak up so that the players know not to shoot at him, he gets attacked by the other PC's during the fight. After they kill the invisible stalkers, he slips off.

Nick breaks into a warehouse he had been wanting to investigate after he saw a suspicious NPC entering it the other night. He finds some vials of a drug in the basement, but doesn't have a way to identify it.

Nick takes the vials, then slips into the town guard's stables and takes a horse. (He only manages to do this because % dice determined the guard was sleeping, and then the guard failed listen checks to wake up.)

With the horse, he travels 6 hours to the next town, Cupre, where the PC's were previously questing. He wants to go there, because he has a love interest that lives there, who is also an alchemist.

Nick arrives in Cupre, where he finds the alchemist having drinks at a tavern with a bard named Clairence. (This party previously spent an entire session coming up with a plot to kill Clairence, because they thought he was annoying. At the time, they were supposed to be doing something else entirely.) Nick decides to test the drug's effects by slipping it into Clairence's mead. (The drug is Vodare, which makes one catatonic on an overdose, but a single dose simply imposes some social penalties.) Clairence begins acting like an ass, which is not too far from his typical behavior. The alchemist decides she wants to go home.

Nick follows the alchemist home, then starts talking to her. Somehow, he manages to stop her from being completely freaked out by him showing up on her doorstep in the middle of the night while invisible. He spends the night with her, and gets her to identify the drug in the morning.

Then he rides the 6 hours back to town where the other PC's are, just in time for lunch.