DM Feats of Prowess

[zorba1994]

So, basically, this is a thread devoted to any total feats of awesomeness that you (or someone you know) has pulled off as a DM. From inventing monsters on the spot to coping with insane players, what's the most amazing thing you've seen done as a DM?

My contribution is probably relatively weak: Re-tooling an adventure I'd run several months earlier for a group of friends so that I could run it for a two player group through skype with literally 2 minutes of prep-time. Hi Synthrael!

So yeah, I'm pretty weak, but I'm sure that there are some great stories out there. Though I'm going to say that invoking SCS's campaigns is cheating; no one can match that.

[Oracle_Hunter]

A DM of mine wrote a program for tracking Encounters for 4e.

This included:
- An initiative tracker (showing who is currently acting and who's up next)
- A status tracker
- An uplink to DDI to provide pictures of the monsters we were facing

...all of which was displayed on a small LCD monitor he had purchased for just this purpose. OK, the program never quite worked right but he was certainly the Most Prepared DM I've ever gamed with.

As a minor feat, he also co-wrote each of our character's backstories such that he could work them into the campaign. For a 6 man party, this alone was impressive; that he was able to actually work all of them into his campaign (and elegantly!) was astounding. It's a shame that he left to work in NYC before the campaign was over.

Of course, he flew back for a weekend specifically to wrap up this campaign. That's just the kind of guy he is :smallsmile:

[Mastikator]

I've made a skill and specialization calculator application for Trudvagn.

[Seb Wiers]

Back in 1998, I met a guy who wanted to run a new game called "Shadowrun." He had xeroxed several copies of the entire (2nd edition) rulebook, easy to do since he worked 3rd shift in a copy store, and had a cool group of friends who agreed to play.

Fast forward 5 years, and he's the line developer for the Shadowrun game.

Fast forward another 5 years, and he's running Post Human Studios, the publishers for Eclipse Phase, probably the most profitable CC liscense game in existence.

Speaks for itself, neh? (yeah, he's a great GM, excellently prepared, etc.)

[LrdoftheRngs]

Mine's pretty weak, but I had a player who was a CN Half-Orc fighter. He came up with an extremely weird tactic: light small enemies on fire and then throw them at larger ones. I came up with a pretty good throwing mechanic on the spot, and our group still uses it to this day.

[Kurald Galain]

A cool thing I did is run a causality backwards. That is, the party was split (yeah, that happens a lot) and while I was going back and forth between the two factions, one was really several in-game hours ahead of the other. I ended up having several events happen in the "forward" party, and then switch back to the "behind" party and made sure they did something to cause those events.

[jmelesky]

I once had a group of players who were winding down on their motivation. We'd been going for a year or so, i think, and it was hard to keep energy up. One player had openly complained about being bored with her character and wishing she'd die so she could make a new one.

I pondered for a bit.

Next session was a one-shot, in the same gameworld, canon. Everyone got pregen characters, and they were in the court of the BBEG ruler. Everyone had a separate agenda, and they needed to manipulate eachother and the BBEG to get those agendas filled.

It's mentioned that there are new prisoners from the resistance (who are, of course, the PCs, captured off-screen). Suddenly the players have an opportunity to both interrogate their own PCs (mistreating them as much as they feel the need to), and to use them as pawns in the political game going on in the court. And i had a chance to portray the PCs as the strong, heroic characters all the players really wanted to play.

Of course, i have the PCs planning a jailbreak, and that unfolds in the background over the course of the evening.

After much maneuvering and manipulation (during which the players learn all sorts of juicy info about the campaign, and especially the BBEG), the session culminates with the PC escape. Now, over the course of the evening, there are established reasons for both killing the PCs (members of the resistance, dangerous, etc -- they're scheduled for execution before their escape), and for letting them live (to destabilize the BBEG and allow for a more sane replacement).

The dissatisfied player (playing a veteran military man) ends up cornering her PC (who's provided a distraction to allow for the other PCs to escape cleanly). Now, she's faced with the decision: kill her character, or let her go.

She thinks, and then kills her.

Next session, everyone arrives on-time, ready for action, re-energized and excited for the game. One player has rolled up a new character, and no longer feels in the least bit bored.

In fact, they're all so pleased with the way things ended up, that they never bothered to ask how their characters could have been captured in the first place. :smallsmile:

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Two of mine:

1) A party of 6 60th-level PCs was attempting to assassinate Asmodeus (brilliant idea, I know) and had the assistance of Levistus to get into Nessus and Mammon to prevent their detection or possibly have any way to see them coming. The archdevils assured them that to their knowledge not even Asmodeus could defeat their protections. When they gated into Nessus, they found a tray with 5 wine glasses, assorted cheeses, and a note saying "Please feel free to start without me--A."

At first they laughed at big scary Asmodeus because he only knew about 5 of them to prepare for...then one of them picked up a glass and drained it in one gulp; in the bottom was engraved "It was necessary to put in a special request because I understand your paladin has taken a vow against drinking alcohol; he can find a non-alcoholic beverage on the shelf to his right. Apologies for the inconvenience.--A." When they discovered that, in fact, of all the shelves in the room only the one next to the paladin had a glass on it, and that no other glasses had engraving in them, they left. Fast.

2) I ran one campaign where the premise was that a secret brotherhood within an elven empire had conspired with the devils to help the elves conquer the world in exchange for the devils gaining free access to the Prime. There were two parties of five PCs each in the same world (one mostly good goblin party and one mostly evil human party), and both had about the same basic, simple plans to start with. The first session went about as expected, with the PCs escaping elven troops, meeting up with some dwarven resistance fighters, etc.

By the end of the fourth session, the goblin PCs had united all of the major non-elven races in the area in a massive trade agreement under their newly-established Platinum Scales Merchanting Company, created a base of operations in a dormant volcano, and begun construction of a gigantic flying Blastoise-esque turtle-shaped stone fortress. The human PCs had infiltrated a major elven city, started turning a bunch of elven troops into spawns of Kyuss to cause chaos in the ranks, and headed to the Plane of Shadow to meet up with the Votaries of Vecna.

By the end of the ninth session, the goblin party had started destroying ancient devilish artifacts on the Inner Planes that were aiding the invasion effort, run into a Husk of Infinite Worlds from Eberron and turned it sentient to help them, and had two of their number join a yugoloth law firm in Sigil. Not to be outdone, the human party had captured a githyanki scout ship, "upgraded" it, enslaved a few hundred krinth (a race on the Plane of Shadow), and started making pirate raids on the elven empire.

By the end of the fourteenth session, the parties met up for massive battle between the turtle fortress and githyanki scout ship on the one side and a Star-Destroyer-esque flying adamantine devil fortress and a Ship of Chaos on the other, after which they led a raid into the Abyss to rescue one of their party members, then fought the leaders of the evil elves to the death in one of the BBEG's demiplanes, at which point one of them rose to demigodhood and had to be defeated by the combined might of the PCs and all of their allies thus far.

Percentage of players absolutely convinced I'd planned the whole thing out in advance: 100%

Percentage of anything (plot, maps, NPCs, etc.) created more than 5 minutes in advance of each session: 0%.

[DontEatRawHagis]

First thing, I did the Dark Sun encounter's for a gaming group and actually got a player into a good mood. He was pissed off that people didn't like the play he was in, "Street Car named Desire" I think. So knowing that my DM helped get him out of his funk made me proud. See I didn't know what happened when a Sand Elemental became bloody, so I made it that they literally were filled with red sand. He performed the final strike on the last one, charged right through it and coup de grace their summoner. Everyone enjoyed that one.

Second thing. I programmed a treason and damage calculator for Paranoia XP. A friend got pissed that I didn't use the rules correctly so I did this to simplify combat for me. After telling her that the rules are Above her Clearance level.

[Geigan]

2) I ran one campaign where the premise was that a secret brotherhood within an elven empire had conspired with the devils to help the elves conquer the world in exchange for the devils gaining free access to the Prime. There were two parties of five PCs each in the same world (one mostly good goblin party and one mostly evil human party), and both had about the same basic, simple plans to start with. The first session went about as expected, with the PCs escaping elven troops, meeting up with some dwarven resistance fighters, etc.

By the end of the fourth session, the goblin PCs had united all of the major non-elven races in the area in a massive trade agreement under their newly-established Platinum Scales Merchanting Company, created a base of operations in a dormant volcano, and begun construction of a gigantic flying Blastoise-esque turtle-shaped stone fortress. The human PCs had infiltrated a major elven city, started turning a bunch of elven troops into spawns of Kyuss to cause chaos in the ranks, and headed to the Plane of Shadow to meet up with the Votaries of Vecna.

By the end of the ninth session, the goblin party had started destroying ancient devilish artifacts on the Inner Planes that were aiding the invasion effort, run into a Husk of Infinite Worlds from Eberron and turned it sentient to help them, and had two of their number join a yugoloth law firm in Sigil. Not to be outdone, the human party had captured a githyanki scout ship, "upgraded" it, enslaved a few hundred krinth (a race on the Plane of Shadow), and started making pirate raids on the elven empire.

By the end of the fourteenth session, the parties met up for massive battle between the turtle fortress and githyanki scout ship on the one side and a Star-Destroyer-esque flying adamantine devil fortress and a Ship of Chaos on the other, after which they led a raid into the Abyss to rescue one of their party members, then fought the leaders of the evil elves to the death in one of the BBEG's demiplanes, at which point one of them rose to demigodhood and had to be defeated by the combined might of the PCs and all of their allies thus far.

I can't understand half of what you've said here it's just that awesome.

I've always wanted to DM parallel campaigns but I don't really have the time in the week for separate groups.

Also due to me not having much time most of the time I pretty much do every campaign I make on the spot. NPCs, plot points, and custom monsters have to be memorized or forgotten as I don't even write down notes for myself. I'm often the emergency DM for my group and have to pull campaigns out of thin air when our other DMs falter. I don't think anything I've ever done really matches the time, work, and dedication that some DMs put into their jobs but when put on the spot I have managed a few good examples

-Siege by an army of devils campaign, PCs conscripted into army to help defend with an accompanying NPC brigade that they got to control to help defend the walls and over time the city. Took more time for them to make characters then I did to prepare the entire thing.

-A dragon wyrmling raised in a basement by rats that burst out of the wall in the middle of combat. I was able to explain in the aftermath the why and how, and they found it believable. 100% of it was made up on the spot.

I've also heard some second hand accounts of DM prowess. A guy who had an entire world mapped out, entire plot lines happening, and the world shifting around the players. It was supposedly a very organic feel and gave the players the feeling of a world larger than themselves. Plot lines happened around them, intersected with them, and happened without them. He was also a very precise note keeper and could tell you every exact detail about every session. You could ask this guy how much damage you took from goon #3, 5 sessions ago and he'd tell you.

Of course that's all second hand, but it certainly sounds like some impressive prowess.