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View Full Version : "Dear God of GMing! What have I done?!"



Tanuki Tales
2013-07-15, 10:43 AM
The general purpose of this thread is to share the stories of the worst thing(s) that you have done as a GM/DM/Storyteller/etc. to your players that you didn't mean to do. This can either be because of your own ignorance/inexperience at the time, because of not fully thinking through what your players were trying to do at the time or doing exactly what they asked and against your better judgement or for whatever other reasons.

Personally, I can't think of anything, but my brother had one such occurrence splendidly unfold a year or two ago:

We were playing an Eberron campaign game with Pathfinder rules in effect. The party make up for this particular excursion was as follows:
A Dwarven Cleric played by yours truly.
A Warforged Fighter who had a deep hatred of humans and had an entourage of other Warforged he was trying to convince of the same.
A Changeling Rogue posing as a wizened old gnome. She ended up with an entourage of four goblins and an ogre.
A Human Duskblade.
A Warforged Alchemist.

We were tasked by a Cyre Reclamation Society to go into the Mournland to both explore it and return any artifacts we found while also mining for a valuable ore created by the Day of Mourning. Pretty bog standard adventurer's fare and we took to it easy enough.

A day or two into the Mournland is when everything went south though. We had come across the remains of a small city/town and had begun to investigate it (instead of heading back) when we came across a strange man in a cloak. He warned us that if we valued our lives we would travel no further in the direction we were heading. Of course, the Duskblade and Fighter would have none of that and threatened the man. Cue a small horde of Dolgrims pouring out into the destroyed main street while the cloaked man disappeared.

We killed them eventually, with the Duskblade, Fighter, and Rogue running after where they assumed the cloaked man had gone. The rest of us had no choice, not wanting to be responsible for splitting the party. The cloaked man appears again and warns them one last time before disappearing into a nearby, abandoned mine, but not before revealing him/itself as a Dolgaunt.

Ever the kind of folks to poke the sleeping dragon in the eye, the trio go into the mine and drag us along. It's pretty empty and featureless and stops abruptly at the back with a deep shaft opening in the floor. The NPC Warforged get sent down to investigate before everyone else climbs down.

Cue the sound of crunching metal and the ground shaking violently. One of two of the NPCs get out and start booking it (along with the rest of the party) before a Purple Worm bursts out of the ground. With its Daelkyr master astride it.

See, my brother couldn't rightly remember the CR of the Daelkyr and he had figured that all of us level 8 adventurers, plus the nearby regiment of Karnathi troops (the Rogue and Duskblade were Karnathi agents and had been sent to infiltrate the mining operations) would be enough to handle things long enough for the party to realize they needed to get the hell out of dodge.

At that point, the DM's chair was kicked over to me by unanimous group decision, since I'm better at running larger scale battles than any one else (my brother included). I agree after making sure that everyone wanted to do this and that no one wanted to run for their ever-loving lives. I had the Daelkyr monologue for a bit to buy them enough time to run and get the Karnathi troops, but I played things seriously from that point on.

Suffice to say, the regiment got slaughtered, the Purple Worm decapitated (brilliant piece that; the Rogue and Duskblade managed to use a riding owl they had purchased earlier to get a bag of holding over the Purple Worm's head [we play BoH that way] and cut it. They unfortunately thought the Daelkyr was in there too), the Alchemist driven insane and killed via suicide-bombing the Daelkyr and everyone else but the Duskblade and Rogue horribly murdered.

See, their Bag of Holding Trick had amused the Daelkyr so much that he spared them, turned them into a pair of toads and proclaimed he'd keep them on his mantle as pets.

I regretted not a single ounce of any of that, but my brother still has not lived it down. Nor will the group ever let him for that matter. :smallamused:

Brookshw
2013-07-15, 05:26 PM
Okay. Campaign was probably eight or nine years ago at this point. The game was intended to be high powered dragon slaying and the characters were well above the wealth by level curve. I think this was pre 3.5 but can't recall anymore. Party level was approximately 8-9 or so and headed off to challenge a white dragon.

I figured the dragon entered his lair through an underwater passage, which the party heads down. They weren't particularly well prepared to be traveling in the water, lots of heavy armor, no particular specialized spells or gear in this regards. Next thought in my mind is that a dragon, even a white, would probably have some form of minions around to help protect it's home, so I throw three polar bears out there for the party to fight.

What I hadn't realized until we started rolling dice was that the polar bears have a swim speed, a bite attack, and a decent grapple. The mauling began. The party gets thoroughly grappled and shredded while desperately trying to make it to shore, generally just getting pinned and being stuck where they were, being chewed on. Of the five that entered the water only the cleric survived long enough to reach land. Sadly that simply left him to deal with the dragon solo.

I had not expected for a moment that bears would effectively TPK a party of mid level high geared characters that had been designed to fight dragons. To this day I'm convinced that polar bears in water are one of the most deadly encounters.

navar100
2013-07-15, 06:07 PM
1. Too many puzzles for a particular dungeon. I still use the dungeon but modified.

2. No combat at all experiment for a one-shot convention game. Different adventure than 1. Don't even remember the plot. Will never do again.

Kane0
2013-07-15, 07:07 PM
I was running a rather standard dungeon crawl for a party of 5. Being a relaxed group and I an inexperienced DM things were going alright for most of it. No tpk fights, a couple interesting parts of the dungeon and a lot of jokes being thrown around. Until they hit the chamber of the obligatory dragon. It all went downhill in less than 3 rounds.
See, the party was informed that the dragon was White (color coded for your convenience!), but it was actually a Grey (Fang dragon). All their preparation for a cold based enemy went out the window as they were mauled with Con and Bleed damage. They retreated at the first opportunity but two of the 5 party members bled to death on the way out.
I think I gave those players a phobia of bleed damage that day.

Edit: Oh, and one other time we were having a one shot run by one of the players and the guy thought that 'at-will' meant 'as a free action with no daily limit', so our encounter with a pair of Imps at level 2 ended very badly.

Calinar
2013-07-15, 11:45 PM
I had an encounter planned for a dungeon that involved a cursed sword that held the mind of a powerful wizard. It would possess whoever picked it up and give them spellcasting abilities of a wizard equal to the level of whoever picked it up and would act on a separate initiative. Essentially this would make it a fight against 2 opponents with one shared health pool and one less player (we had a large group so the loss of a player for one fight would be no big deal), a bit difficult, but not too hard.

So, the wizard picks the sword up and makes the save, no big deal, I can wait, then hands it to an NPC warblade with low will saves, he makes it to. So they sit there examining the sword and can't make heads or tails of it so they bring it with them. So I'm thinking that I'll just spring it on them later, one of them will touch the thing eventually. When the reach the city, the wizard decides it would be a good idea to take the sword and sneak off in the middle of the night to find someone to identify it, he makes the save again. He decides that since it's probably an artifact level item, he should get the most powerful wizard he can find to identify it. Now, the city is home to the largest mages college in the human kingdoms and the player goes straight to the head of the item crafting department and gives him the sword. I roll the save for the wizard, he nat 1's.

The sword immediately take hold of a wizard twice the level of the player and effectively doubles his strength. I just tell the player he blacks out after feeling a fiery pain because he wouldn't have survived a pair of empowered fireballs being an wizard with a Con of 8. The other players come out of the inn to find the college on fire and pull their friend out of the wreckage. They eventually pieced together that they let a mage with power at about level 17 loose in a world where level ten is considered the best of the best.

Amphetryon
2013-07-16, 10:01 AM
Players did not Spot the Evil McWizardington whom they had come to fight. . .

Round 1: Solid Fog. None of them had FOM or Trueseeing active.

Round 2: Black Tentacles. Yo, dawg, I hear you like BFC. . .

Round 3: Vortex of Teeth.

Round 4. . . "So, new campaign?"

:smallredface:

Scow2
2013-07-16, 10:07 AM
I had an encounter planned for a dungeon that involved a cursed sword that held the mind of a powerful wizard. It would possess whoever picked it up and give them spellcasting abilities of a wizard equal to the level of whoever picked it up and would act on a separate initiative. Essentially this would make it a fight against 2 opponents with one shared health pool and one less player (we had a large group so the loss of a player for one fight would be no big deal), a bit difficult, but not too hard.

So, the wizard picks the sword up and makes the save, no big deal, I can wait, then hands it to an NPC warblade with low will saves, he makes it to. So they sit there examining the sword and can't make heads or tails of it so they bring it with them. So I'm thinking that I'll just spring it on them later, one of them will touch the thing eventually. When the reach the city, the wizard decides it would be a good idea to take the sword and sneak off in the middle of the night to find someone to identify it, he makes the save again. He decides that since it's probably an artifact level item, he should get the most powerful wizard he can find to identify it. Now, the city is home to the largest mages college in the human kingdoms and the player goes straight to the head of the item crafting department and gives him the sword. I roll the save for the wizard, he nat 1's.

The sword immediately take hold of a wizard twice the level of the player and effectively doubles his strength. I just tell the player he blacks out after feeling a fiery pain because he wouldn't have survived a pair of empowered fireballs being an wizard with a Con of 8. The other players come out of the inn to find the college on fire and pull their friend out of the wreckage. They eventually pieced together that they let a mage with power at about level 17 loose in a world where level ten is considered the best of the best.

You should have let them know they made a Will Save, to prevent this disaster.

Nich_Critic
2013-07-16, 10:12 AM
In the first campaign I DM'd, I thought that it would be neat to have a rebel force in a parallel demi plane, and that the players could choose side in a civil war and play that conflict out. Naturally, they had to travel back and forth between this demi plane, so to make things easy, I had the rebels teach them the ability to travel to the demi-plane with a DC 15 concentration check. At level 1.

Suddenly, this ability was the only thing that the players would use, totally ignoring their other abilities. See, they were special and could do the trick, but their enemies couldn't, so the prime tactic was to grapple an enemy, transport them to the demiplane, let go, then transport back. One of my PC's even surrendered to the enemy, got both of them to grapple him, then transported them both to the demiplane. It turns out level 1 characters with no save planeshift at will are a bit overpowered.

TheWombatOfDoom
2013-07-16, 10:37 AM
One time I ran an epic evil campaign. (mistake one) At one point, the party realized they had no reason to do the mission they were currently on, and ditched it. Instead they took over a kingdom, gathered followers, summoned tons of creatures, and committed a complete genocide of the entire elven nation. I did manage to kill two of them, but I literally had to DM over a million troops between the two sides, and it was over within an in game hour. The actual session turned into an all nighter. (mistake two) I was exhausted by the end.

Alejandro
2013-07-16, 10:53 AM
In one of my very first games (AD&D 2nd Ed) I GMed for three dwarves who were brothers and fighters. They discovered an underground orc smithy and captured three vorpal swords from the defeated orcs (who did not use them against the dwarves, mind you.)

The three dwarves then became the terror of the countryside's monsters.

Yeah, I really didn't grasp the treasure tables.

Angel Bob
2013-07-16, 11:53 AM
One time I ran an epic evil campaign. (mistake one) At one point, the party realized they had no reason to do the mission they were currently on, and ditched it. Instead they took over a kingdom, gathered followers, summoned tons of creatures, and committed a complete genocide of the entire elven nation. I did manage to kill two of them, but I literally had to DM over a million troops between the two sides, and it was over within an in game hour. The actual session turned into an all nighter. (mistake two) I was exhausted by the end.

I don't see where you went wrong. That sounds like an AWESOME evil campaign.

TheWombatOfDoom
2013-07-16, 11:57 AM
I don't see where you went wrong. That sounds like an AWESOME evil campaign.

It was fun. But it wasn't a campaign in the end. It was, lets see how much we can break the world before the DM can stop us. :smallbiggrin: It was fun, but as the night progressed I allowed poorer and poorer judgement to take hold as I got more and more tired. :smallsigh:

Tanuki Tales
2013-07-16, 12:51 PM
@Scow2: Just because they were aware they had to make Will saves doesn't mean they would have caught on. Nor would it mean that disaster would have been prevented (the wizard was already something of a rat and being he was a wizard, probably a paranoid one at that).

@Nich, Wombat and Alejandro: How exactly was any of that to the detriment of the players? :smallconfused:

The thread is about the worst thing you've done to your players by accident, not the worst mistake you've made as a GM/DM/etc.

Scow2
2013-07-16, 01:09 PM
It was fun. But it wasn't a campaign in the end. It was, lets see how much we can break the world before the DM can stop us. :smallbiggrin: It was fun, but as the night progressed I allowed poorer and poorer judgement to take hold as I got more and more tired. :smallsigh:
But... isn't that the definition of campaign?

TheWombatOfDoom
2013-07-16, 01:10 PM
@Scow2: Just because they were aware they had to make Will saves doesn't mean they would have caught on. Nor would it mean that disaster would have been prevented (the wizard was already something of a rat and being he was a wizard, probably a paranoid one at that).

@Nich, Wombat and Alejandro: How exactly was any of that to the detriment of the players? :smallconfused:

The thread is about the worst thing you've done to your players by accident, not the worst mistake you've made as a GM/DM/etc.

I'd consider it an unsuccessful campaign because it turned into a battle between me and the players, instead of an actual campaign. Worst thing I did was allow them to have such a sandbox approach to the world. I see your point though. Alright so at the end of the battle, I had the elven leaders make a last defense against team evil, and they were enchanted with epic spell reflection. Two spell casters targeted two of the leaders, then were required to make a save as thier own spell was redirected back at them. Both spells were death spells and they died after failing their saves.

I guess it isn't the worst thing, but man did they cringe.

Still, as the whole situation began to unfold more and more, I couldn't help but say, "Dear God, What have I DONE?!"

Nich_Critic
2013-07-16, 01:36 PM
In my case, the campaign quickly became stale, since the players had no motivation to advance. But sorry, I think that I misunderstood the point of the thread :)

Quorothorn
2013-07-16, 02:09 PM
Okay. Campaign was probably eight or nine years ago at this point. The game was intended to be high powered dragon slaying and the characters were well above the wealth by level curve. I think this was pre 3.5 but can't recall anymore. Party level was approximately 8-9 or so and headed off to challenge a white dragon.

I figured the dragon entered his lair through an underwater passage, which the party heads down. They weren't particularly well prepared to be traveling in the water, lots of heavy armor, no particular specialized spells or gear in this regards. Next thought in my mind is that a dragon, even a white, would probably have some form of minions around to help protect it's home, so I throw three polar bears out there for the party to fight.

What I hadn't realized until we started rolling dice was that the polar bears have a swim speed, a bite attack, and a decent grapple. The mauling began. The party gets thoroughly grappled and shredded while desperately trying to make it to shore, generally just getting pinned and being stuck where they were, being chewed on. Of the five that entered the water only the cleric survived long enough to reach land. Sadly that simply left him to deal with the dragon solo.

I had not expected for a moment that bears would effectively TPK a party of mid level high geared characters that had been designed to fight dragons. To this day I'm convinced that polar bears in water are one of the most deadly encounters.

Now that's a fun story, though I imagine less for the poor players at the time.

In fairness, it would have been as bad or worse if the dragon had entered the water: whites ALSO have a swim speed, a bite, and a higher Grapple than a polar bear assuming at least young adult age (thus CR8), and can freely use their breath weapon while swimming...they don't have Improved Grab, though, at least. :smallbiggrin:

Bulhakov
2013-07-16, 03:39 PM
In an attempt to force a few players to show some empathy when dealing with prisoner NPCs, I had two players play the roles of those NPCs (as their characters were busy "looking the other way" while the prisoners were being interrogated). This unfortunately backfired turning into a very emotional recreation of the Stanford experiment, effectively ending the campaign (luckily everyone remained friends OOC, we just stopped gaming together).

More details in this thread:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=284616

DM Rage
2013-07-16, 04:14 PM
1. On one occasion I devised a trap where there was a room with a gold goblet in the center (this idea may have come from an old module as well). I think it was a magical item that I called a "relic" which was more special than a regular magic item. They are walking through a castle and see the goblet on a pedestal in the center of the room. The door way is open - there is no door, just an open stone arch. They decide to cautiously go through the door. The lead player bumps into an invisible wall. They try many ways to break down the wall blocking the goblet room but do not succeed. My greedy treasure hungry group would not give up until they had acquired every piece of treasure they could get their hands on. The magic user then gets the idea to teleport into the room. He casts the spell. My next description was something like " the goblet can no longer be seen. The entire room is a thick opaque red color interspersed with flesh colored patches. A great deal of red fluid and red chunks are dripping out the door and onto the floor. Several of you were sprayed with a viscous and warm fluid emanating from the door." They finally figure out that the whole room is filled with transparent crystal and the red color is the remains of the magic user, his whole body smushed in-between the microscopic spaces between the crystal. The magic user was very angry.

2. On another occasion I really wanted my group to fight a dragon so they fought a red dragon at level 2 or 3 at the bottom of "Castle Mystemere". I cursed myself for allowing a party of low level characters to kill a red dragon. As the players gained experience with the game they (quite rightly) taunted me relentlessly for this. I tried to explain that "it was only a baby dragon" and added lamely "and it had a cold". Renewed taunts and jeers. I later tried to bring a one armed dragon with an arrow through it's head back as a recurring villain - every time I did so all hell would break loose and the mouthiest guy in my group would say "I shot that dragon through the HEAD". It was pathetic.

Alejandro
2013-07-16, 05:00 PM
@Scow2: Just because they were aware they had to make Will saves doesn't mean they would have caught on. Nor would it mean that disaster would have been prevented (the wizard was already something of a rat and being he was a wizard, probably a paranoid one at that).

@Nich, Wombat and Alejandro: How exactly was any of that to the detriment of the players? :smallconfused:

The thread is about the worst thing you've done to your players by accident, not the worst mistake you've made as a GM/DM/etc.

In my case, it broke the game. The PCs could now kill anything in their path, which is no fun for them or me, nor could I just take the swords away without a lot of angry players.

Souju
2013-07-16, 05:14 PM
1. First campaign i ever ran, I didn't really grasp what "racial hit dice" meant. And neither did the player who started as a minotaur in a lvl 6ish campaign. Needless to say I had a LOT of problems coming up with anything that could provide a worthwhile challenge without killing the rest of the party (this campaign had some crazy rules, though, so i actually COULD get away with killing the party over and over. To this day it's the only campaign we've ever played that didn't end with everyone dying AND actually got a sequel to boot. That we never finished.) before finally just giving up and making him reroll (as a much more entertaining Troglodyte paladin)

2. Several campaigns later, I had another weird campaign setting (though it was only weird in that literally ANY type of creature could appear. Random encounters were truly random in this campaign.) and was trying to find/devise boss fights. At one point just to get the plot moving towards the end, I thought of abusing the spell Blasphemy and just hauling everyone off to the final dungeon (so it'd be a prison break and stuff) and even chose a boss with a bunch of spells specifically designed to take control of characters.
Problem was, I didn't notice it at the time, but this CR 16 creature had a CL of 20. Now, using normal logic told me that a CR 16 creature probably wouldn't even have a 16 CL...but nope, some 3rd party sourcebook i cribbed the beastie from decided to have a monster with At-Will Blasphemy, CR 16, and CL 20. Even if they WERE lvl 16, this monstrosity of game design would've ruined their day. Since not everyone was lvl 11, there were many deaths and only one escape. Oh, it could fly, too -_-

Trinoya
2013-07-16, 06:09 PM
I once saved the entire party from a TPK of their own design. :smallsigh:


Worst mistake I ever made as a DM. :smallfrown:

Calinar
2013-07-16, 08:29 PM
@Scrow2: Eh, no, even if I had seen it coming I still would have let it turn out the way it did way. I had him go hide in the mountains building up his power base for the rest of the campaign, I'll use the uber wizard and the PC who eventually joined with up with him for a set of BBEG's in another game. All in all it was pretty hilarious and totally worth it to see the looks on their faces.

Tanuki Tales
2013-07-17, 11:51 AM
I once saved the entire party from a TPK of their own design. :smallsigh:


Worst mistake I ever made as a DM. :smallfrown:

And that was the worst thing you've done to your players how?

@Bulhakov: Geez. I think that's the king of the thread currently, even though your group severely overreacted as far as I can tell.

Magesmiley
2013-07-17, 12:25 PM
While I wasn't GMing this one, I was helping...

A long time ago (it has to be about 25 years or so at this point), a friend of mine decided to run a Marvel Super Heroes game and run us through the Secret Wars module. In it, each of the players played one of the Super Hero teams (Avengers, Fantastic Four, etc.). The module was designed to roughly parallel the comic series. I happened to have ended up with Magneto, so I was essentially sitting out the first major battle for the heroes. The GM offered to let me help run the villains.

For those familiar with the comic, the first major battle was, for the most part, a cakewalk for the heroes, with a number of the villains being captured. Not so our game. A combination of insane rolling and some slightly unorthodox tactics on my part resulted in a massive victory for the villains, including the deaths of several of the heroes and some others becoming very screwed up. The campaign went downhill from there. I don't think that we ever played MSH again after that campaign.

Elvenoutrider
2013-07-17, 12:36 PM
My only TPK as a dm came from my party riding a ship to their next adventure. they encountered a naval ship of the enemy nation and decided to engage. Given that this was a naval vessel and the pcs were on a pirate ship, they were at a disadvantage given the enemy crew's greater discipline and training. however they should have been able to handle it. After circling the vessel trading shots from seige weapons and arrows for a few rounds, they moved in to boarding range. during the melee they main threat revealed itself as a sorcerer of the same level of the party. I did not intend this battle to be too difficult just a filler after one of the players expressed interest n a naval battle so I figured a character of the party's level with some soldiers wouldnt be too bad.

Before the fight the sorcerer summons a shark to help protect his men and deal with enemies. During the boarding action the party rogue ends up in the water... Ill let you all fill in the blanks on that one.

Opening round of combat, before revealing himself, sorcerer dominates the party's frenzied berzerker.

Second round, with the party distracted, the caster flies up above the deck of the pc's ship and casts a maximized scorching ray at the party wizard. he did not survive.

by round three, thanks to some unlucky rolls, the enemy troops took a clear lead in the battle over the pcs allies. With three party members down, the remaining cleric and bard had to deal with the berzerker and the caster. over the course of this the cleric killed the barbarian when he could have tried to dispell the domination effect. this caused an enormous amount of animosity. The bard wound up held and the sorcerer just stuck to blasting spells at that point.

Not sure what the lesson is here but I definitely made some mistakes with the encounter design

Trinoya
2013-07-17, 01:33 PM
And that was the worst thing you've done to your players how?


Because my players simply presumed I was being a big mean old DM and hated me for it, oblivious entirely to the fact that I was going out of my way to not kill off their characters.

One of the players involved roams this board. He could better describe the player perspective of total contempt they had for me in that moment. I literally went from 'greatest DM in their eyes':smallcool: to 'BURN HIM AT THE STAKE!' :smallfurious:

Segev
2013-07-17, 04:15 PM
The two worst things I can think of that I've done to my players in D&D games...

Both boil down to the same thing: Gave them Wishes.

In one campaign, due to plot, there existed tombs of ancient despots wherein humans gained the (Sp) abilities: Quickened Limited Wish and Wish. Each usable at will.

Why was this horrible to do to the players? Not all of the party was human, but the unfairness of it wasn't the issue. No, the issue was the utter terror with which the humans' players held these tombs. What horrible, cruel, terrifying thing was the DM going to do to them if they used this power? Could they use it accidentally?

Some got brave enough to test it on some things. I forget what; they weren't too terribly important. None were brave enough to so much as wish for stat increases. They found at least three such tombs during the campaign, and each time, they got more and more terrified.

What would I have done to them? Not a thing. It was as string-free a set of free wishes as any D&D player could have wanted. But they were petrified of it.


2) A lower-level game, this time. Portals to elemental planes are opening all over a human and dwarven city, and the party had traced the cause to a wizard's tower. Turned out that the wizard was trying some summoning experiments, and screwed up. He died. He did have a failsafe set up to let him switch things off...but he died before he could use it.

Said failsafe was a ritual that anybody - even a non-spellcaster - could follow (using specialized tools and implements prepared for this in advance) to summon an Efreeti bound to grant three wishes.

I had some definite ideas in mind for how the party could use them. It would take one Wish to close up all the portals. That left two others. (Due to other plot, they had a bevvy of wererat-infected kids from another town, and were questing to find a cure. I had determined that one wish could cure one kid, if they wanted; they chose not to spend them taht way.) The players promptly took the discussion OOC. For twenty minutes. Then, one of them got a phone call and had to step away. He told me, privately, what he was going to do if the party hadn't made a decision by the time he came back.

More than a half-hour later, they were still dithering. I couldn't even contribute through the two NPCs (one of whom was the efreet) present, because they refused to take it IC, lest one of them accidentally say "I wish..."

Note that I had not insinuated any gotchas, nor had the efreeti made any threats. They were simply terrified of the possibility of making Wishes, yet enticed by the possibilities. They wouldn't discuss it IC, as well, because the Efreeti was mildly annoyed that he was called, and had asked them to wish with alacrity so he could go home.

So, when the one player who got the phone call came back, his character rolled her eyes in exasperation and made the three wishes she thought most important: The portals closed; the wizard who had done it back alive; and to be prettier than her sisters.

I figured that last one was a wish for a +1 Charisma.



I don't know what it is about Wishes, but I do know that giving players access to them for some reason seems to be worse than threatening them with CR-inappropriate encounters!

DM Rage
2013-07-17, 04:52 PM
The two worst things I can think of that I've done to my players in D&D games...

Both boil down to the same thing: Gave them Wishes.



Casting a wish in games I played always consisted of 3 steps:

1. Announce the making of a wish - DM and group immediately depart the table and start a movie or game.

2. Drafting the document - Write out a 10-15 page legal document (single spaced) describing the exact specifications of the wish. The clause "it will not appear through my leg" is always inserted after the C. Miller versus the Dungeon Master case of 1994. Document proofread by other players.

3. Consequences - the DM reviews the wish and invariably finds something wrong with it. Terrible consequences and knock on effects.

Segev
2013-07-17, 05:45 PM
Yeah, sometimes DMs try to be "clever" about consequences. Sometimes players try to be too clever by half, prompting such "cleverness."

Neither was the case in either of these situations. Now, I understand, they feared I was going to be "clever," so wanted to be careful, particularly in the "free wishes!" scenario. That, I can fully understand, smelled suspicious to them!

But seriously, there was a clearly spelled-out intended use for one of the three wishes, and the other two were one-offs. It was a 3.5e game. Wish has clearly-defined "you don't get screwed if..." uses.

Cealocanth
2013-07-17, 06:32 PM
Here's how it went down. The campaign is placed in the middle of the D&D equivalent of warring countries in the middle east. The party has been recruited into the woefully under-equipped militia of a tiny city-state in hopes that they would be able to defend the town from the potential hostile takeover enacted by a black dragon the party met on their first adventure.

I wanted to show the party what was actually at stake and show them just how resourceful their enemy is, so I staged an assault. The town would be attacked on two fronts simultaneously. One would be a group of mercenaries raiding the town by approaching the town through their docks, and the other would be a group of necromancers and undead spawned in the middle of the town by an undercover cultist. The party was forced to go to one fight, and then the other, but whichever fight they chose first, the other would become more difficult.

They went with the portal, and easily managed to fend off the small horde of zombies and skeletons with the help of a few militia members. Then they set off to the docks to kill the mercenaries. Exhausted of daily powers and mostly all their healing surges, the party decided to fight yet another encounter, more difficult than the first, because if they didn't it'd mean the town would be destroyed.

And so they did. The first wave of enemies were destroyed with what little they had left, but the mercenaries had another trick up their sleeve. See, the dragon, in the time the party spent closing the portal, used summoners in the cargo holds of the ships to summon a horde of ravenous wolves, which were then released onto the docks. The relentless waves of wolves and pirates soon overpowered our weakened party, and the tank, of whom the entire campaign was centered around, was torn to shreds by the monsters. The town would have fallen as well, if not for a brilliant save by the rogue, who managed to sneak onto the enemy ships and start a fire in their lower decks, sinking the vessels and with it most of the hounds.

My mistakes? Overwhelming the party without giving them enough resources to truly defeat the attack, and expecting them to succeed against the equivalent of four encounters worth of monsters with little to no rest in between. It definitely showed what real danger the town was in, but at the cost of what almost became a TPW.

Tanuki Tales
2013-07-18, 07:28 AM
Not sure what the lesson is here but I definitely made some mistakes with the encounter design

Not to play a full caster intelligently if your group isn't used to a full caster being played intelligently? :smalltongue:




What would I have done to them? Not a thing. It was as string-free a set of free wishes as any D&D player could have wanted. But they were petrified of it.


So, when the one player who got the phone call came back, his character rolled her eyes in exasperation and made the three wishes she thought most important: The portals closed; the wizard who had done it back alive; and to be prettier than her sisters.

I figured that last one was a wish for a +1 Charisma.


Freaking hilarious. Not "Skyrim proved itself right; Bears are more deadly than Dragons" hilarious like Brookshw's contribution, but still pretty funny.


But seriously, there was a clearly spelled-out intended use for one of the three wishes, and the other two were one-offs. It was a 3.5e game. Wish has clearly-defined "you don't get screwed if..." uses.

Creatures that grant wishes can twist them and screw over even safe, "all there in the manual" wishes though.


My mistakes? Overwhelming the party without giving them enough resources to truly defeat the attack, and expecting them to succeed against the equivalent of four encounters worth of monsters with little to no rest in between. It definitely showed what real danger the town was in, but at the cost of what almost became a TPW.

Well, they could have always retreated. But that sounded like quite the fun session, even if 4th edition isn't my cup of tea.

Now I wonder if we'll get some non-DnD examples; like White Wolf or Deadlands or something.

JediSoth
2013-07-18, 08:17 AM
This happens to me about once every campaign, it seems. The first time was when I gave a Mercurial Greatsword to a character back in the early 3.0 days, who had Improved Crit (it may have been a Keen Mercurial Greatsword; they stacked in those days). He one-shotted a wyvern when he was something like 4th or 5th level and did more damage than I thought was possible in one attack. I later grew suspicious of his rolls; I think he was cheating, but still, that was one unbalanced weapon.

Later, I had a gnome necromancer be the BBEG of a campaign armed with a Staff of Power. Naturally, part of his "going out" plan was to break the staff if things seemed dire. Unfortunately, I (as a GM) totally blew my Mathematics Skill and grossly underestimated how much damage it could possible do. I wiped out 4/6 PCs. I didn't really intend for the campaign to end in a near-TPK.

Another goof was when I made up some prop scrolls as part of a treasure hoard. One was a map, another was general fluffy information, and the third (which, naturally was the first one opened) was inscribed with "I prepared explosive runes this morning." :smallbiggrin: Umm..once again, I underestimated how much damage it would do and nearly caused a TPK. Sure, it was hilarious in hindsight, but I felt bad. Since then, I've been REALLY careful when trying to figure out how much damage ONE effect could do when compared to the average party HP.

Back in the 2E days, I had a plot going with Dragonslaying and all that and I introduced an NPC (a dragonslayer by trade), who was intended to help the players through some of the finer points of the plot (since they had a tendancy to shoot first and ask questions later, fruitlessly, of my NPCs. They came across a Deck of Many Things, and in the spirit of things I had him take a draw, too. Everyone else received fairly innocuous draws, or at least, nothing that ruined the game. Naturally, for my star NPC and the driver of the plot, I drew Donjon. Instant imprisonment. Instant end of that plot thread. Oops.

Kol Korran
2013-07-18, 08:17 AM
three stories, first from a recent game, others from a long finished campaign.
-------------------------------
Our group recently decided to change genre and game system to a post apocalyptic, Fallout-like world, In the FATE core system. The main story was that their town was attacked by some ghoul like mutants, and after fighting their scouting party off, the party investigated and found they came from ruins of a near by town, and decided to form their own scouting party, and investigate.

Now, one of the party members was a rich merchant in the town, who had some beef with the town rulers, The Jenkins clan. They decided to send some people with the party, for "help". This will become important later.

Some gaming time after, and the party find that these mutants are using an old rundown chemical plant to rest in. surveying it, they decide that there are a few obstacles and opportunities to deal with in the plant. So... they decide to split the party. Two go to disable the left over security systems and perhaps plant some explosives, another goes to try and free some tribals, and the merchant? he stays behind, in the big truck, to offer a quick getaway if need be. And the support? Oh, they'll stay with the merchant as well.

Now, I was planning on infiltration into the plant, maybe some subtle work, and maybe using the chemicals to blow the place sky high. But as infiltrating party members got deep enough in the plant's grounds, I decided it was time for treason by the Jenkins.

I didn't quite think it through, just thought it was good timing. He managed to survive, but between them shooting at him, the truck blowing up and crashing at the plant's gates, and more, well... it was safe to assume the party's cover was blown up. Did i mention there were hundreds of the mutants sleeping inside?

Long story short, this turned into a daring and desperate escape, where they got out but the skin of their teeth, their initial plan blown to hell, the party MUCH more separated, and close to dead. The merchant ran away with the motorcycle of another party member, and later managed to help rescue them, but everything turned up to a really big mess! :smallbiggrin: Infiltrating the plant? Not on the plans anymore... The party was haggred as well after that escape.

Luckily enough, FATE is a magnificent system to improvise in, and we managed to turn the story elsewhere, in a quite satisfactory manner (I love it when these opportunities crop up), So all's well ends well?
------------------------------------------
An old D&D campaign (In my sig if you're interested). I don't usually run dungeons, as I find them limitating and somewhat annoying, but as a break from my usual stuff, I made up a "Vault of an ancient necromancer wizard" type of dungeon, for the group to have fun with. They were around level 9 I think?

Anyway, at one point they enter a huge hall, with a large road leading to the far wall in the middle, and one the sides piles of huge piles of frozen bodies of elves, from millenia ago., the walls and ceiling were entirely black. Sure, the party suspected undead, but they were thinking corporeal undead, as in zombies of the elves. A few spells, and they moved on.

As they got to the middle though, the real danger appeared- the walls and ceiling started leaking... shadows! again, by the hundreds of them (I like massive hordes :smalltongue: )The party got togehter, cursed and started fighting them, but they were surrounded, and draining touch attacks proved... far more effective than I expected.

They found the "slaves" overseers, (Bone claws wielding nercomatic whips) and managed to destroy them, but with the entire party other than the cleric one touch away from becoming shadows themselves. (The party rolls all the dice, so I can't fudge). The cleric managed to withstand because he long ago scribed a scroll of "ghost armor", which he nearly forgot about.

This was not a good place in the game for a TPK, There was no plausible explanation at this point (Which I thought might be tough, but not THIS tough), so this was a lucky break. My players still sometime mention it.

And I thought to add two more overseers...
------------------------------------------------
Same campaign, near the end. This isn't exactly a story of how I almost wrecked the game, but how I missed a splendid chance to make it so much better!

The party had to make an emergency voyage over a long distance, and long story short, managed to take passage on an astral ship, captained by a mysterious captain, who demanded a special price of them. The party refused, and fought the captain, destroying it, but then the ship stopped in the mid astral, with no way to move it. The ship gave some inkling as how it needs a new captain, but the transition felt like a... final thing. They didn't like the idea. This is how a session ended.

One of my players (The merchant and cleric from previous examples, a resourceful fellow) often gives me a ride to the meeting place, and on the way we discuss things. on the way to the next meeting he gave me a suggestion- they were heading towards the final destination of the campaign. what if his character talked to the ship, vowing to become the next captain if it will grant them this one last journey, after the final adversery was beaten?

And here is where I made my mistake- I had allready planned a sort of skill challenge/ battle of wills between the ship and whomever takes the helm, tryign to navigate the ship to the set destination. So when it came up in play I played it as the ship refusing the offer.

It would have been so much cooler! so much more fun! and the players would have enjoyed it so much more if I accepted his offer! I later tried to have him make a similar sacrifice, but it felt forced, and not exactly coming form him, so... :smallsigh:

ALWAYS be open to what the players suggest! :smallwink:

Alaris
2013-07-20, 12:04 AM
I once saved the entire party from a TPK of their own design. :smallsigh:


Worst mistake I ever made as a DM. :smallfrown:

Of our own design!? I blame you for that TPK!


Because my players simply presumed I was being a big mean old DM and hated me for it, oblivious entirely to the fact that I was going out of my way to not kill off their characters.

One of the players involved roams this board. He could better describe the player perspective of total contempt they had for me in that moment. I literally went from 'greatest DM in their eyes':smallcool: to 'BURN HIM AT THE STAKE!' :smallfurious:

You WERE a HORRIBLE DM! You were trying to kill off our characters!

>.>

Okay, we may have missed about 12 hints in regards to NOT doing something foolish. <.< And then went ahead and did what we shouldn't have done. And the DM saved us.

And we have LONG SINCE apologized for this, Trinoya! Stop holding it over our heads.

My Own Worst Deed as a DM: Let's see... I could go down the list, see what's the worst thing..
.

Threw a Chaos Beast at them when another player was absent (and thus, his character was being controlled by another player). This resulted in the character dying, after being used as a meat shield for the player controlling him. Not cool, but I guess a Chaos Beast is a bit much for a 5th level party.

Created a Prophecy for the main plot of my campaign, involving "4 Heroes who must band together, to defeat the 4 aspects of a Deity, or he will ascend to godhood and bring doom and gloom, yada yada." This was horrible for this reason... the PCs apparently don't know how to listen to prophecies. At the end of that particular questline, they decided "Screw the prophecy, let's take only TWO PEOPLE to defeat the aspects." And then they became upset with me when they failed the quest.

Provided the party with an interesting dungeon. At the end of this dungeon, they found out a spell was being cast... an EPIC spell full of great power. One of the party members insisted on staying until the end, because you could learn the incantation for the spell. So he, the only character that could teleport them out before it went off, decided to wait until the last possible moment to try to teleport them out. None of the rest of the player said anything to him (like "Get us out of here NOW!") So, he waited until the last moment, learned the incantation, and ATTEMPTED to teleport. He rolled a 1. >.> So... the party promptly died to the Dragon Slave spell. (Before the playground gets upset at me, I had plans incase they did failed to get out... they went on to have a quest in the afterlife).


Yeah... >.>

Trinoya
2013-07-20, 12:16 AM
And we have LONG SINCE apologized for this, Trinoya! Stop holding it over our heads.

NEVER! :smallyuk:



Provided the party with an interesting dungeon. At the end of this dungeon, they found out a spell was being cast... an EPIC spell full of great power. One of the party members insisted on staying until the end, because you could learn the incantation for the spell. So he, the only character that could teleport them out before it went off, decided to wait until the last possible moment to try to teleport them out. None of the rest of the player said anything to him (like "Get us out of here NOW!") So, he waited until the last moment, learned the incantation, and ATTEMPTED to teleport. He rolled a 1. >.> So... the party promptly died to the Dragon Slave spell. (Before the playground gets upset at me, I had plans incase they did failed to get out... they went on to have a quest in the afterlife).
[/LIST]

Yeah... >.>


Man, that was great when I learned that spell! :smallbiggrin: Oh the looks on their faces when I rolled that 1... and apparently, according to them, the joy on mine. ^_-

One of the players was so mad at me over this he actually moved out of the house and went to live with his parents again. No, I'm not making up that last part. I guess I should be impressed that the fictional actions of my fictional character that ultimately had no negative consequences for his fictional character could have such a profound impact on someones life.

That said: I DID learn the spell :smallcool:

Arkhosia
2013-07-20, 12:51 AM
That said: I DID learn the spell :smallcool:

Well at least you got to test it out, most likely. That'll teach the angels for waking up everyone with their glowy-ness and stupid songs!

Alaris
2013-07-20, 01:42 AM
Well at least you got to test it out, most likely. That'll teach the angels for waking up everyone with their glowy-ness and stupid songs!

I... what... huh?

I'm so confused.

Trinoya
2013-07-20, 01:44 AM
Well at least you got to test it out, most likely. That'll teach the angels for waking up everyone with their glowy-ness and stupid songs!

I did actually! I killed 99.9% of the paladins in the world with it and fell'd most of the major religions.

Alaris
2013-07-20, 01:46 AM
I did actually! I killed 99.9% of the paladins in the world with it and fell'd most of the major religions.

Well, felling most of the major religions was more the Deity in question that the party failed to stop from ascending. Though I will admit that killed the majority of the Paladins in the world with that spell.

Payback is coming. I assure you.

Trinoya
2013-07-20, 01:47 AM
Well, felling most of the major religions was more the Deity in question that the party failed to stop from ascending. Though I will admit that killed the majority of the Paladins in the world with that spell.

Payback is coming. I assure you.

I fear no payback. My granddad is, after all, the god who ascended ^___^

Alaris
2013-07-20, 01:50 AM
I fear no payback. My granddad is, after all, the god who ascended ^___^

That is true... what kind of DM would I be if I didn't bring karma upon you for what you have done.

Nonetheless, enough derailment of this thread... ^_^ Things are interesting, that is all I will say.

Fates
2013-07-20, 02:13 AM
My players were once investigating an old gnome stronghold (gnomes are extinct in this particular campaign) and so I decided to make it a particularly silly and somewhat cruel dungeon (the gnomes had become somewhat paranoid due to certain factions trying to destroy them as a race; all very grim, I'm afraid).

First mistake I made was foolishly thinking that an assortment of my hand-made riddles would be an enjoyable, thoughtful and refreshing break from combat-heavy adventuring. It was not. The players spent a good half hour shouting answers at the riddle-door before finally spewing out a synonym to the correct answer. I thought the riddle was easy enough, but apparently not. When they ran into two more later, rather than reading the riddle they simply had the warlock use hammer blast repeatedly to bore navigable holes around them.

Next was the elaborate/cruel traps. These included but were not limited to: a non-concealed spike trap with a concealed one on either side of it, spell-traps of touch of idiocy and suggestion, the suggestion being to drink as many of the dozen elixirs of love nearby that they could (this caused two heterosexual male characters to actually marry with the help of the party cleric, and to this day they are still technically wed), a magically-fortified greatsword made out of solid gold, the hilt of which coats the wielder's hands in sovereign glue, a treasure chamber that was completely engulfed in an invisible ooze, and a spyglass that produced a blurry picture of a naked member of the race/sex to which the user is most attracted, which, if the viewer attempts to adjust the focus, stabs him in the eye with a hidden, spring-loaded poisoned knife. While the players in the long run were able to look back on these things and laugh, it angered them quite a bit at the time, and later the party ninja threw a halfling NPC off of a moving dragon when he mentioned he carried gnome blood. :smalleek:

I also learned that a party of 7th-level tier 2> characters with little access to magic items are NOT well equipped to deal with an aquatic hydra in exceptionally murky water and multiple swarms of undead locusts at the same time, even if it was their own damn fault. :smallannoyed:

Tanuki Tales
2013-07-23, 09:24 AM
My players were once investigating an old gnome stronghold (gnomes are extinct in this particular campaign) and so I decided to make it a particularly silly and somewhat cruel dungeon (the gnomes had become somewhat paranoid due to certain factions trying to destroy them as a race; all very grim, I'm afraid).

Hehe, learned fear and hatred of gnomes. One of my groups learned that as well when our DM/GM threw a group of gnomish pirates at us. We boarded their ship and discovered, to our pain and anguish, that the thing was honeycombed with hidden panels, tunnels and compartments. We were neck deep in tunnel combat in the middle of the ocean. :smallbiggrin:


First mistake I made was foolishly thinking that an assortment of my hand-made riddles would be an enjoyable, thoughtful and refreshing break from combat-heavy adventuring. It was not. The players spent a good half hour shouting answers at the riddle-door before finally spewing out a synonym to the correct answer. I thought the riddle was easy enough, but apparently not. When they ran into two more later, rather than reading the riddle they simply had the warlock use hammer blast repeatedly to bore navigable holes around them.

Do you happen to remember any of the riddles?


Next was the elaborate/cruel traps. These included but were not limited to: a non-concealed spike trap with a concealed one on either side of it, spell-traps of touch of idiocy and suggestion, the suggestion being to drink as many of the dozen elixirs of love nearby that they could (this caused two heterosexual male characters to actually marry with the help of the party cleric, and to this day they are still technically wed), a magically-fortified greatsword made out of solid gold, the hilt of which coats the wielder's hands in sovereign glue, a treasure chamber that was completely engulfed in an invisible ooze, and a spyglass that produced a blurry picture of a naked member of the race/sex to which the user is most attracted, which, if the viewer attempts to adjust the focus, stabs him in the eye with a hidden, spring-loaded poisoned knife. While the players in the long run were able to look back on these things and laugh, it angered them quite a bit at the time, and later the party ninja threw a halfling NPC off of a moving dragon when he mentioned he carried gnome blood. :smalleek:

These...were freaking hilarious! I might just steal some of them, if you don't mind.


I also learned that a party of 7th-level tier 2> characters with little access to magic items are NOT well equipped to deal with an aquatic hydra in exceptionally murky water and multiple swarms of undead locusts at the same time, even if it was their own damn fault. :smallannoyed:

Now here's a story I'm interested in hearing.

Alejandro
2013-07-23, 10:50 AM
That's why it's a good idea to avoid riddles most of the time. They always seem easy when you wrote them or at least know the answer. If you must have a riddle, always make solving or not solving it tertiary to the adventure, IE the game can progress whether anyone bothers with solving it. A good example would be an extra, bonus treasure sealed behind a portal that can be opened by solving its riddle; but the treasure is not related to the story or necessary, it's just a bonus.

A good example of a bad riddle is, ironically, the riddle to open the Moria door in the Fellowship of the Ring. If the party didn't solve it, the 'adventure' cannot progress. It seemed fine on screen or in a book, since it's scripted that Frodo will solve it, but if you think of it as a tabletop game, most of the PCs were sitting around bored, since they could not solve the riddle and had nothing else to do, other than throw stones in the water...

Scow2
2013-07-23, 01:08 PM
A good example of a bad riddle is, ironically, the riddle to open the Moria door in the Fellowship of the Ring. If the party didn't solve it, the 'adventure' cannot progress. It seemed fine on screen or in a book, since it's scripted that Frodo will solve it, but if you think of it as a tabletop game, most of the PCs were sitting around bored, since they could not solve the riddle and had nothing else to do, other than throw stones in the water...I think you forgot a relevant link. (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=680)

FabulousFizban
2013-07-24, 03:18 AM
Four words: reverse gravity acid pit.
They still haven't forgiven me.

I also have a lying horse named Ted that my players try to kill on sight now.

Also, tesseracts. I've never seen people get frustrated so fast. "HOW DO I MOVE IN THIS F******G THING?!"

DigoDragon
2013-07-24, 08:10 AM
I once saved the entire party from a TPK of their own design. :smallsigh:
Worst mistake I ever made as a DM. :smallfrown:

I did that once, though it was only half the party that was in danger of dying... but yeah, it was the less intelligent half. The other half took months to forgive me because saving them maimed the campaign pretty badly.

What happened was that the less intelligent half got greedy when they were helping a white dragon. The dragon wanted to prove his innocence in a situation and if the PCs agreed, they could call upon this dragon for a favor later (True, white dragons are usually evil, but this one had honor). Anyway, the duller half of the group tried to rob it blind, and in a series of very poorly planned out moves, they got a nearby village destroyed (as well as a large number of innocent people killed).
I should of let the duller PCs get killed too instead of having the dragon leave after its rampage.

Also, since the smarter half of the party didn't know it was the duller half that caused the mess (in character) they couldn't do much about it.

Raum
2013-07-24, 08:34 AM
Many years ago in a world far away...ok it was 2nd Ed Shadowrun...I once let the PCs get away with stealing a GMC Banshee*. Needless to say we reset a few things shortly afterwards. Live and learn! :smallwink:

*For those unfamiliar with Shadowrun, the Banshee is a light tank with VTOL capability.

The Fury
2013-07-24, 11:29 AM
Here's a protip: When DMing in a style meant to parody bad DMing, all you're really doing is bad DMing. Yes, I've done this.

Also, never include a gladiatorial arena in your campaign. Just don't. I did this once and it just turned the rest of the campaign into the PCs engaging in pointless gladiator matches.

Tanuki Tales
2013-07-24, 12:47 PM
Also, never include a gladiatorial arena in your campaign. Just don't. I did this once and it just turned the rest of the campaign into the PCs engaging in pointless gladiator matches.

I've...read this before. Now I have to remember where.

Trinoya
2013-07-24, 06:15 PM
I did that once, though it was only half the party that was in danger of dying... but yeah, it was the less intelligent half. The other half took months to forgive me because saving them maimed the campaign pretty badly.

What happened was that the less intelligent half got greedy when they were helping a white dragon. The dragon wanted to prove his innocence in a situation and if the PCs agreed, they could call upon this dragon for a favor later (True, white dragons are usually evil, but this one had honor). Anyway, the duller half of the group tried to rob it blind, and in a series of very poorly planned out moves, they got a nearby village destroyed (as well as a large number of innocent people killed).
I should of let the duller PCs get killed too instead of having the dragon leave after its rampage.

Also, since the smarter half of the party didn't know it was the duller half that caused the mess (in character) they couldn't do much about it.

Ouch!

To be fair, I once had a player completely sabotage a plan (a plan that was succeeding) because it would be her last session and because she felt her role in the plan (to distract nobles by doing noble related activities... with her noble...) wasn't big enough.

She summoned the BBEG.

To this day my players believe her character will be the final boss.

nedz
2013-07-24, 08:29 PM
A good example of a bad riddle is, ironically, the riddle to open the Moria door in the Fellowship of the Ring. If the party didn't solve it, the 'adventure' cannot progress. It seemed fine on screen or in a book, since it's scripted that Frodo will solve it, but if you think of it as a tabletop game, most of the PCs were sitting around bored, since they could not solve the riddle and had nothing else to do, other than throw stones in the water...

Hey I did this once, and it worked very well. The party were all dwarves trying to get into an old dwarven mine via a huge iron door with a riddle on it — blatant rip-off sure, but that actually helped.
"To open this door speak the name of the smith"
Now the first answer I got was morresey :smallsigh: but they worked it out quite quickly. The answer was Morodin

I have done riddles badly in the distant past though, so you do have to be careful.

TheWombatOfDoom
2013-07-25, 06:29 AM
That's why it's a good idea to avoid riddles most of the time. They always seem easy when you wrote them or at least know the answer. If you must have a riddle, always make solving or not solving it tertiary to the adventure, IE the game can progress whether anyone bothers with solving it. A good example would be an extra, bonus treasure sealed behind a portal that can be opened by solving its riddle; but the treasure is not related to the story or necessary, it's just a bonus.


See, I get around this by giving multiple ways of going places. The elven leader says -

"We have a secret passage that could get you into the barbarian lands without them detecting you...but its filled with traps and puzzles. This paper will be able to tell you how to get through the passages, but it only talks in riddles. You could also cross above surface, and fight your way through. If you're careful, you could probably get through alright."

"Either way, you could die. *shrug* You live in dangerous times. You might die if you stay, too. We could be attacked tomorrow. Well, I'll leave you to it."

-That way, the group had a choice. They chose the riddled passages, and while there were riddles that literally blocked their way forward until they solved them, they had chosen it to be that way. :smallwink:

Kikon9
2013-07-26, 10:36 PM
In one of the first campaigns I ran, the party had freed a group of three Halfling prisoners on the way to an important dungeon. The party decided to equip the Halflings and bring them along, because it would take too long to bring them back to base. I hadn't planned for this, but decided the party could probably keep the Halflings from dying, so I let them do it with a few diplomacy checks.
So the party is going through the dungeon, and in one room, I threw a group of Wraiths at them. Now, what I didn't think about was the fact that Wraiths in 4th ed, when they kill something, bring it back as another wraith. So the party goes in, and the Wraith phases through a wall and kills one of the Halflings, which rises as another Wraith. Several rounds later all the Halflings were dead, the party had seven Wraiths to deal with, the Fighter was unconscious, and the Wraiths were between them and the entrance to the room. Everybody was on low HP, so they had to flee down a level into a room filled with zombies. Surprisingly, nobody died, but everybody was unconscious except for the wizard, who had to drag the party members out through the dungeon's back-entrance.

Scow2
2013-07-26, 11:04 PM
Surprisingly, nobody died, but everybody was unconscious except for the wizard, who had to drag the party members out through the dungeon's back-entrance.
Because Halflings aren't people?

Arkhosia
2013-07-27, 01:11 AM
Because Halflings aren't people?

I think he was probably referring to the PCs.

The New Bruceski
2013-07-27, 02:47 AM
Because Halflings aren't people?

Nobody important died.

Arbane
2013-07-27, 06:48 AM
Naturally, for my star NPC and the driver of the plot,

I think I found your biggest problem, and it wasn't the Deck of Many Things.


Yeah, sometimes DMs try to be "clever" about consequences. Sometimes players try to be too clever by half, prompting such "cleverness."

Neither was the case in either of these situations. Now, I understand, they feared I was going to be "clever," so wanted to be careful, particularly in the "free wishes!" scenario. That, I can fully understand, smelled suspicious to them!

But seriously, there was a clearly spelled-out intended use for one of the three wishes, and the other two were one-offs. It was a 3.5e game. Wish has clearly-defined "you don't get screwed if..." uses.

You poor, naive fool.

This is Dungeons and Dragons. NOBODY cares what the snivelling carebear wimps who wrote Third Edition say in the "Wish" spell description. It is a sacred tradition, handed down from Gary Himself, that ALL Wishes are granted Monkey's-Paw-style (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JackassGenie). NO EXCEPTIONS.

Forbiddenwar
2013-07-28, 01:02 AM
i got a somewhat funny story, not necessarily a huge mistake, but it still haunts me.

This was in a PbP solo game, the character was relatively powerful, high tier class, good stats, level 3. Was able to survive some pretty difficult skirmishes without flinching.

So I thought a zombie bear would be a good challenge for them. (I think it calculated at a CR 2). Spent a few hours learning all about applying templates and crafting a beautiful description for when the character comes face to face with one in a cave (a good distance away, of course)

But perhaps my description was too . . . descriptive. Something about the rotten corpse of a large animal with glowing red eyes in the dark, etc . . . must of hit a wrong cord, because the next thing I know, this power player who wasn't afraid of anything said, "I run away!"

So, I won? I guess? And all the planning for the battle, an epic clash of man vs undead beast, went up into digital smoke. Never underestimate a good description.

After that, if I really want to scare a party, I just pull out a zombie bear (dire for higher levels)

BWR
2013-07-28, 07:12 AM
I've done plenty of smaller things. Misread an ability, misjudge an encounter, made a bad call, fail to properly convey the situation.

But there are two real screw-ups that stick with me.
The first was my second Dragonstar campaign. The first ended a bit unfortunately with a near TPK - only one survivor out or 6.
The second was supposed to be a sort of Firefly in the Dragon Empire game. There was enough of this but I had recently reread the Ringworld books when the players failed a Navigation check and their starcaster malfunctioned. Excellent chance to send them to the Ringworld.
In short, lots of annoying adventures to try to get home which ended up with most of them dead on Gehenna, failed escape attempt from the Yugoloths.
None of the players enjoyed the Ringworld bit, and dying like they did was just insult to injury.
Lesson learned: if something seems like a really cool idea, think it over carefully first and see if it fits in with the purported theme of the game.

The second was the Star Wars, Mandalorian Wars game I ran immediately following this. I though the Mandalorian Wars was a fun period and there should be plenty of opportunity for the PCs to have some serious action and feel as though they were the big shots (apart from Revan and the Exile).
Mistake 1: I thought I'd steal a note from Ars Magica and let the players have 1 Jedi PC and 1 Soldier PC. It should have been 1 PC plus a number of mooks. This just split the game time between two increasingly divorced stories.
Mistake 2. This should be mistake 1: I did not think things through or properly plan the entire campaign in advance. I didn't have a plan for what the PCs were supposed to do. They just went from adventure to adventure without any real feel for the state of the war or the advance. I totally failed to show, not tell. Sure, there were some fun adventures and some fun action scenes and a properly climatic showdown with one of their number who had fallen to the Dark Side, but I entirely failed to show how their efforts helped or hindered the war, to show their parts in the bigger picture.
Mistake 3. I failed to learn my Star Wars lessons properly. No real BBEG for them to learn to hate. Plenty of Mandalorian atrocities, but no nemesis. no real dramatic situations for them to lose anything but pride.

After that, I went back to basics. Almost literally, running a Mystara campaign and throwing old Basic modules at my players. A year and a half later and we are having a blast with simple stand-alone adventures and (so far) no great storyline.

Tanuki Tales
2013-07-30, 05:56 AM
The second was the Star Wars, Mandalorian Wars game I ran immediately following this. I though the Mandalorian Wars was a fun period and there should be plenty of opportunity for the PCs to have some serious action and feel as though they were the big shots (apart from Revan and the Exile).
Mistake 1: I thought I'd steal a note from Ars Magica and let the players have 1 Jedi PC and 1 Soldier PC. It should have been 1 PC plus a number of mooks. This just split the game time between two increasingly divorced stories.
Mistake 2. This should be mistake 1: I did not think things through or properly plan the entire campaign in advance. I didn't have a plan for what the PCs were supposed to do. They just went from adventure to adventure without any real feel for the state of the war or the advance. I totally failed to show, not tell. Sure, there were some fun adventures and some fun action scenes and a properly climatic showdown with one of their number who had fallen to the Dark Side, but I entirely failed to show how their efforts helped or hindered the war, to show their parts in the bigger picture.
Mistake 3. I failed to learn my Star Wars lessons properly. No real BBEG for them to learn to hate. Plenty of Mandalorian atrocities, but no nemesis. no real dramatic situations for them to lose anything but pride.


But how did any of that screw them over exactly? Sure, you didn't impact the drama you were hoping to, but was it to their detriment?

BWR
2013-07-31, 01:54 PM
Mostly because I had this grand vision of immense galaxy-spanning conflict and amazing feats of valor performed by the characters and what I gave was a bunch of minor actions adventures that felt cut off from the rest of the galaxy. Just saying "Oh, and a few more planets have fallen to the Mandalorians" doesn't really have the same impact as having the players fight valiantly for a system have it fall anyway, seeing entire sectors vanish behind the enemy, seeing the infighting amongst the politicians of the Republic, the rise and fall of Revan.

Basically, I failed to show, not tell. The players were subjected to a game that was inferior and poorly thought out. It could have been so much better, but I failed to think things through properly.

Alaris
2013-08-01, 03:01 PM
Ouch!

To be fair, I once had a player completely sabotage a plan (a plan that was succeeding) because it would be her last session and because she felt her role in the plan (to distract nobles by doing noble related activities... with her noble...) wasn't big enough.

She summoned the BBEG.

To this day my players believe her character will be the final boss.

She will! I'm convinced of it! 100%!

*Grumble*

The plan was going SO FREAKIN' WELL! Like, it shouldn't have been... but we managed to keep it going PERFECTLY! And she had to just... be a.... @#(*&@* about it... >:(

Trinoya
2013-08-02, 12:53 PM
She will! I'm convinced of it! 100%!

*Grumble*

The plan was going SO FREAKIN' WELL! Like, it shouldn't have been... but we managed to keep it going PERFECTLY! And she had to just... be a.... @#(*&@* about it... >:(

If it makes you feel better to this day I'm completely dumbfounded that you all succeeded on every challenge, obstacle, and obstruction that I placed in front of you, except for a door... And I think you all could have taken the upstairs guards if not for the BBEG basically getting the military guards to show up.

Could have been worse. She could have done all that she did (she attacked the guards at the castle for some reason I still can't fathom on top of summoning the BBEG) and then implicated all of you individually by name...

Thankfully she was turned to stone before she caused anymore damage.