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RPGaddict28
2014-02-20, 01:22 AM
We always talk about the horror stories, but never about the good stories.

My favorite was: Our party was going into this spooky scary extra-planar ghost artifact realm. My wizard rolled a natural 1 on a will save, and would have had tried to murder the other PCs, but someone else got a natural 20. The DM ruled that his 20 made up for the auto-fail of my 1, and we used my total score of 14. But, this isn't the good part. The nat. 20 guys said to my PC "Don't stop believing." Almost of all us broke out into song. Everyone who sang got a single XP.

Earthwalker
2014-02-20, 08:24 AM
I have been blessed with some very good GMs over the years.

The first Gmed Runequest 2, set in the world of Glorantha. His main strength was a incredible knowledge of the world and the abiltity to share this wonderful mystic place with us. We still tell stories now of where we went and what we saw and generally the trouble we got into.

The next GM had no big world to run around in, generally adventures took place in a small town in the middle of no where and we had no idea of the world around us. This was DnD 3.5 in a home brewed setting (if you could call it that). The GM was an entertainer, his NPCs were fantastic and that’s what kept us interested in the world / story. I still remember one session where we were just talking trying to decide our next course of action, we had three NPC present and the GM slipping between these character as we argued for a couple of hours.

The thris GM always did excelent work fitting a character into a story. He was running Earthdawn (I love the world, hate the system) and was playing a weapon master. The GM managed to work with the bits of the system we all liked and managed to fit all our charaacters into the story. I really liked the relaitionship between my character and an NPC thief.

No specific stories, the problem is it was more the experience of playing then grand battles or great moments. Still I wanted to add to a GOOD GM thread, just to show there are good GMS

Talos
2014-02-20, 04:22 PM
best story: in Germany with some army guys and civilians and a German national. rob the German was our DM. SUPER AMAZING guy. we are at a con and get into this RPG tourney. the room we are in is huge like 20 tables of gaming going on. we are in a real time 4 hour block of hard core gaming. players and DM are being scored separately. we have to find an item, rescue the girl and get our before time runs out. ok mage, 2 fighters, rogue and a cleric. we have ate up a lot of time chasing red herrings. Finally we find our quarry but as fate would have it also the BBEG too so the fight is on. Rob starts destroying us with this BBEG. finally spells running low and fighters running our of potions the cleric throws a low level heat metal spell at the BBEG. he has a choice get out of his full plate or fight us in it and lose his spells because of the damage he is taking. FAILS his check to decide which he should do loses his spells. We go NUTS screaming and yelling cause we knew we had him then. 19 tables of gamers stop dead silent and the roaming judges come to our table. THAT was a great day in gaming.

we got second as a party and rob got first as a DM.

Defiled Cross
2014-02-21, 09:11 AM
Third campaign into my Dungeons and Dragons career finds me (Seiben) strapped to a sacrificial alter with a blade to my throat. My cousin (Ide), and companion at the time, rounded the corner, pockets ladden with loot from the cellar.

My dementor, a wickedly beautiful Necromancer (Amnell), turned her attention to Ide and instructed him that no harm would befall me if he laid down his weapons, came into the room, and have a "conversation" about an apparent misunderstanding.

While no doubt a ploy, Ide did not even entertain the idea, quickly turning on a heel and fleeing the fortress with as much speed as he could muster. Subsequently, and in a similiarly expeditious manner, Amnell opened my throat.

Next session finds Ide struggling along a trail, notably tired from having to lug around so much treasure. Just as he passes a clearing, a terrifying growl fills the air, and from the dense forestry lining the path on either side emits forth a pack of Dire Wolves..

..and atop the Alpha sits the reanimated Seiben. Ide did not attempt to run, however, instead dropping his parcels and belongings to unsheath the double-bladed battleaxe he had nestled on his back. No remorse, no apologies, nothing. So I, in turn, did the same, brandishing an enchanted Ugrosh before dismounting the beast (who, with the others, formed a circle around us).

What proceeded was the most intense and long battle I have ever had the pleasure of rolling. Fighter (Seiben) v. Barbarian (Ide) pitted in a battle of strength and fury, blood and death.

In the end, it was me who came out victorious, rending his head from body in an incredible display of exertion..

...before lifting it high in the air to the approving howls of the watchful wolves.

:smallbiggrin:

Jenrock
2014-02-21, 09:49 AM
One of the best games of which I've ever been a part actually consisted of three adventures with three different parties and their interaction with a single haunted castle, all concocted and run by a single DM.

For the first adventure, we all used NPC classes at first level. The local duke invited the village to a party. When Billy, the ghost of his son, decided to start raising the dead, it became a horror-adventure just to fight/sneak out of the castle while trying to avoid skeletons and the angry ghost child.

Later, we all played adventurers with a religious bent. We were investigating a cult that had appeared around the castle. My character's brother was a paladin who investigated the cult earlier but disappeared, and my character was obsessed with finding him or his body. The DM arranged it so the finale consisted of single combat against my greatsword-wielding ex-paladin of a brother. I eventually had to get some help from the party, because he was wiping the floor with me.

Lastly, we came back as level 15 characters (and I finally got to play a swordsage). We went to the castle to put Billy to rest, but he finally made us understand his torment- his father's neglect, his murder, and his poor burial. We conducted Billy away from the material plane not as enemies, but as givers of solace.

In a group where nearly all our games were one-shots, this really stood out. We still reminisce about this arc to this day.

imaloony
2014-02-21, 11:02 PM
I've mentioned this before, but I always gave the credit to the player when the DM deserved just as much credit.

So my buddy was playing this Thief/Illusionist Kender in an AD&D campaign named Smidget. We make it to this world's capitol: Omnicore. While there, the player says to the DM "Can I make a religion?"
DM: "Knock yourself out."
So he begins preaching the word of "The Great Kitty Deborah." As he put it, the universe exists within the eye of The Great One (When she blinks it's night time, ect), and one day, a great war caused The Great One to cry, which shattered her eye and sent the shiny all over the world.
As such, her priests would gather all the shiny objects they could find, pile them up, and bless them while dancing around them singing "PRETTY PRETTY SHINY SHINY PRETTY PRETTY SHINY SHINY."
So the player tells the DM all of this and says he beings preaching about this religion. The DM makes a roll behind his screen. "You have a follower," he announces.
The DM told us later he made something like 8 rolls on percentile dice with very low chances of working (Kender being ADD to the max and there being a dozen of these stupid religions running around and such), and something like 7 of those rolls succeeded, making the religion grow with each success.
It's around this time that one of my characters (A cleric of Isis) catches wind of this religion. Furious that he would be preaching about a false god, my cleric goes ape**** on him and begins giving him the lecture of his life, just chewing him the hell out (This is all in-character. OoC we were all having a blast with this and none of us were angry, of course).
DM: "So, are you calling the wrath of your god down on him?"
Me: "Hell yes I am."
The DM rolls some more dice.
DM: "Smidget, you hear a voice in your head. It tells you to stick out your hand and repeat a phrase."
Smidget complies, and a light appears in his hand.
DM: "Your cleric recognizes this as a Clerical 'Light' spell."
Immediately, in-character I start to rationalize that Smidget is an Illusionist, and it's clearly just him trying to screw with me. UNTIL:
DM: "Cleric, you hear your god speak to you. Isis says: 'I feel something powering him. It's faint, but there is a divine presence behind him.'"
We all stare at the DM, slack-jawed while he laughs his ass off. He explains that NONE of the books had a Kender god in them. As such, with such an enormous following and the immense faith he constructed, Smidget had literally CREATED a god for Kender.
But wait, it gets better. Less than a week after leaving Omnicore, we go to an island to deal with a plot-point for our Samurai. We end up fighting some enemies of his family and literally end up flash-freezing a mansion followed by blowing it up with a fireball.
When we went back to the town, obviously the townsfolk were scared ****less of us and wouldn't talk to us, which makes sense considering how we just completely annihilated their leader.
At that point, Smidget steps up and says "Come on, we really don't mean you any harm! Those were the bad guys!"
The DM pauses and makes a roll, and then laughs his ass off. He says a Halfling steps out from a building, points at Smidget, and yells: "THE PROPHET!"
This stupid religion had spread faster than we could physically travel as a party. And it was glorious.

Now my friends, THAT'S what it means for a DM to let you have an impact on his world. (BTW, the next campaign we started, set in the same world 70-80 years later, the religion is STILL around and doing well.)

ReaderAt2046
2014-02-22, 01:29 AM
So there's this guy at my college who is a bit of an A:TLA fan and wrote a homebrew system (loosely based off of the Mistborn Adventure Game ruleset), and likes to run campaigns in it. So a couple of semesters back, I got into one of his campaigns. We were all supposed to be Fire Nation citizens, so I played a very patriotic firebender. About the third session in, the local general turned out to be a traitor working for the Water Tribes, and he accused me of being an earthbender and tried to arrest us all. My character was thus forced to resist arrest and turn against his country and God. For the rest of the campaign, the GM and the other players kept pushing my character's buttons, and the party almost killed me a couple of times.

So far, so good. Now we come to this semester's campaign (I'm a few weeks in at the moment). My character for this campaign is actually a descendant of my old one, a wise, upbeat, and honorable Fire Sage. The other members are the new Avatar (earth-based, young, and a complete Party Pony), and his other three bending tutors. So about half an hour into the first session, we get sucked into the past, and by the end of that session, my character is screaming and threatening to deep-fry the Mary Sue DMPC.
Everything in this new setting seems designed to turn my character into a screaming lunatic. To start off with, this setting is full of energybenders. Now, my character knows energybenders are eldritch abominations who can and will rip your soul out of your body, and the only rational response to finding yourself in the presence of an energybender is to immediately throw every joule of fire you can muster at it before it drags you into Hell.
Then to make matters worse, the energybenders act like a race of Mary Sues, and even lecture me for "damaging" my soul with firebending. Remember, my guy is a Fire Sage. There is no more offensive statement they could have made. And finally, the rest of the party seem totally taken in by the energybenders, perfectly willing to accept them as human and normal.
Around halfway through the third session, I've had enough. IC I storm out of the building we were in and go fuming off into the night. (The only thing that kept me from torching the village that we had landed in out of sheer frustration was a perfectly timed act of kindness from a village girl, who happened to be bringing the party dinner at just the right moment to meet me on the way and offer me some of what she had brought for the party).
OOC I pull the GM aside and tell him that my character is within an inch of giving up on the party entirely and deciding to backstab them.

At that point, the GM revealed that the whole point of the past few sessions, for me at any rate, had been to push me to that exact point. The GM had planned the entire arc around the premise that I would be driven to the point where I felt it my duty to backstab and betray the party. But not in any sloppy or ineffective way. No, the GM and I would work together to bring about the party's downfall. Already, the GM had laid plans to grant me power and advice, and from that moment forth, my character finally had a mission he believed in with all his heart-to kill the Avatar and purge the energybender corruption from the Avatar Spirit. In the very next session, I met the ghost of Princess Azula, who has basically been serving as my Spirit Guide to help me follow the torturous plans of Destiny.

And for an extra level of awesome, by working with me to backstab the party more effectively, the GM has ensured that I'll play nice until the perfect moment to strike, and has thus removed the immediate threat to his campaign's fun factor.

tl;dr. Mary Sue eldritch abominations turn out to be designed to promote supreme character development.

Arbane
2014-02-22, 03:33 AM
In the very next session, I met the ghost of Princess Azula, who has basically been serving as my Spirit Guide to help me follow the torturous plans of Destiny.

:smalleek:

If Azula approves of your plans, I strongly suggest you reconsider them.

Sir Pippin Boyd
2014-02-22, 05:44 AM
The best DM I ever had deserves a damn medal.

The game I was playing in was an E6 Gestalt game using Gnorman's E6 compendium (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13624524) as a source for classes and stuff. Naturally, this was a high powered game with some extremely diverse PCs. Mine was a Changeling Scoundrel (Phantom) + Blue Mage (Mountebank). While capable of some effective CC casting in combat, the character was focused on out-of-combat. As what is basically a rogue/mage gestalt, his pool of skills was tremendous, and he was excellently optimized in a lot of skills. He was able to use this to manipulate the world around the party pretty well and resolve a lot of would-be-difficult tasks using elaborate bluffs (The kind where you have to get involved and set it up, not the kind where you cast glibness and roll a die)

We played this game through, did some quests, killed some bad guys, and it was generally a lot of fun. Despite my own meddling and subterfuge shenanigans, the DM was able to incorporate all of that into the story rather than blocking it or letting it take over the game which was great. After we downed the boss, the DM told us to roll up new characters with the same rules to be played in the same setting. That time around I played a slow-witted fighter type, and very early on I found a magical talking sword that told me I was the chosen one and had to use it to complete an epic quest to save the world.

At this point I rolled my eyes pretty hard, this story seemed silly and cheesy, and constantly following this sword's advice seemed kind of railroady. After the party's wizard and cleric found out my sword could talk, they got curious and tried to Detect Magic in its direction. Strangely, all attempted Detect Magic spells in its area automatically failed. We asked it why, and it said that it was willfully shielding us from its magical aura so that its blindingly mighty magical might didn't blind us.

Little later in the game, we tried to sneak invisibly into a bad guy's lair but we set off a trap that dispelled invisibility in the local area. Enough, apparently, that it revealed an additional invisible person travelling with our party that we hadn't known about. We tried to grab him, and though he was *extremely* dodgy about it, we managed to capture him and interrogate him.

Turns out its my own changeling from the previous game. The sword we'd been carrying around wasn't magical at all. It'd been a completely ordinary sword that this invisible guy had been using illusions to grant the appearance of intelligent speech. He'd been counter-spelling every attempt we made to cast any spell that might accidentally find him following us around, and using this whole magic-talking-sword thing to trick us into doing jobs for him.

So I pretty much got played by my own tricksy manipulator guy, and it was a pretty epic moment. Every part of what the DM had done had been acceptable under RAW (plus Gnorman's) and I couldn't even feel cheated because it was entirely in line with the character.

Trinoya
2014-02-22, 06:37 PM
I had this DM, he's a pretty cool guy, and doesn't afraid of anything (except for all those things he afraids of).

He was a bit shy at getting his start, so I basically wrote his campaign world up for him. Everything from maps to geopolitical systems. I pretty much designed his world from scratch for him. Provided names, NPCs, you name it, I was there for him.

When the first session was run I wasn't invited, I was actually requested to not sit in. This was in my own home no less.

Needless to say, it wasn't cool. Things happen though, and because I wanted him to succeed I kept it cool and on the down low as it were. I kept writing for the DM, continued to expand his world, all the while watching from afar.

DM finally invited me to his game and apologized for not doing so sooner. He was pretty beat up about it. I told him not to worry about it, and that it was all good.

He explained that his confidence was nill, it was shattered around me due to my experience as both a DM and a player. He was really concerned I'd steamroll his game.

What makes the story one of the best was that this DM actually explained and expressed what his problems were. It took him a bit, but he actually decided to talk about them rather than hide behind other issues.

It may not seem like such a big deal to most, but having a DM who is willing to listen, or even admit a mistake... that pretty much was the best thing he could have done in my eyes for one reason.

All of that time spent prepping him? All that work on his world and on getting him ready to DM? I can say none of it was wasted. Not a single bit of it.

I forsee him becoming a great DM.

ReaderAt2046
2014-02-22, 07:46 PM
:smalleek:

If Azula approves of your plans, I strongly suggest you reconsider them.

I did point out that this happened after my character made up his mind to backstab and kill the Avatar, right?

Arbane
2014-02-22, 10:54 PM
I did point out that this happened after my character made up his mind to backstab and kill the Avatar, right?

It's still not a good sign.