The joys of DMing: your most fun/finest/greatest experiences when being a DM

[AnonymousPepper]

I'm a newer DM so I don't really have much to tell, but I did have a fantastic little experience last night that prompted me to make this thread.

The party in my 3.PF game, level 3, consisting of a Tiefling Magus, an Elven Generalist Wizard, a Human Archaeologist, a Human Paladin of Asmodeus (LG), and a Gnome Alchemist, had settled down to camp in front of a gorge that they had been unable to come up with a way of crossing. They ended up sending for a courier early in the day to grab a nice long ladder (I've implemented an on-the-road purchasing service, but there's a delay between placing their orders and receiving them), decided to make all their purchases while he was there, and were now waiting until the next day for the courier to return with their goods. Of course, they were on the outskirts of Drow territory in Xen'drik... so when they settled down for the night, a chance patrol happened upon them.

The fun bit came when I was able to draw three consecutive "oh s***"s from the party this night. The first was from the Archaeologist when he realized he'd traded away his whip earlier in the day and thus had no weapon until the next day. The second was from the Magus upon receiving a max-rolled 14 damage from one of the Drow at range. The third was when the Paladin, OOC, put the pieces together (2d6 on a bow? 40ft movement?) and realized the party was fighting Scouts. Which drew another round from the rest of the players.

(Except the Elf, who calmly took a page from my book when I played a wizard in his campaign, and just Webbed them. Stupid sexy munchkins.)

Better yet was what happened later, when the Wizard proceeded to hit one of the Drow with a flaming sphere, who critfailed the reflex save, and thus all of his gear ended up getting destroyed except his armor (barely)... including his gold, which the Wizard was then dumb enough to try to pick up when it was a molten pool on the ground.



What are your best moments in DMing?

[Quantumphear]

Im pretty new to DMing, and my players are very inexperienced. The games I've had have included a large amount of skepticism and harsh decisions - "cmon guy's, he's just an NPC, who cares if he dies?"

It's taken a while, but finally I think I've done it in the last session we played:
I've made them care about the game and the world they're in.
What was supposed to be a 15 minute intro with a low-level werewolf hunt turned into a expertly executed plan to capture and cure the werewolf, which led to an hour of raging discussion and debate as the party was split between giving this ex-werewolf a pardon (since he had no control over were-form) or putting him in jail forever (since he didn't come to authorities even though he knew something was up).

Eventually, the issue was eventually resolved with the ex-werewolf being tasked with a quest for redemption.
Now, this may sound like a party conflict (which we know is a very bad sign in most cases), but I was awestruck that my players were fully involved. Everyone roleplayed their characters masterfully, and the way that they struggled for this NPC (both with very good arguments on both sides, by the way) is something that I have never been able to get out of them in almost two years of playing.

I would have to say that particular moment is the most satisfying I've had as a DM. Seeing your players give their all as characters to this world you've created is fantastic.

[Kazudo]

It's a small thing. It really is.

The group had a long-running contact. One which had a few in-game jokes about him. His name was Bonjoshi, but the group called him Banjo. He liked it, they liked it. He was an intelligent, very old assassin who had retired. The joke surrounding him was that he'd never actually killed anyone and was, in fact, the "plausible fall-guy" for the Guild of Assassins for so long that he just had a reputation which preceded him. He turned a few leaves and started his own agenda, sometimes coinciding with the players. They had to call on him since their own mage had gotten himself killed from the ankles up (violently), and he happened to be practicing magic now.

One episode when they brought him with them, they went to investigate some evil warlord in a very lawless land. They charged the front gates, weapons out, and were met with resistance. After some combat, they went into the house. Out of sheer necessity, they split up with Banjo and the group's resident skillmonkey heading downstairs to root through some documents in hopes of finding more information about the guy, possibly tying him to some crimes, while the other group went upstairs to demand his surrender.

After some more combat, the upstairs group went into his chambers and found him formidable. Amidst the combat with his guards, the group's primary combat specialist charged him head on and dueled him during the combat.

Meanwhile, Banjo and the skillmonkey had found no evidence of criminal activity. All at once, Banjo found some paperwork which made him run up the stairs after the group just in time for the warlord to be thoroughly killed. The game we were playing in didn't have resurrection as a thing for added dramatic effect.

Banjo ran into the room, flung himself on the warlord and wept bitterly for a moment, cradling his head in his hands.

The man was his son and was innocent of all crimes. His men had only attacked because of how the group approached and the place they were in.

While I described the scene, my players actually misted up and required a few minutes to regroup before getting back to the game.

It's one of my crowning achievements of being a GM in my entire decade-long career.

[iceman10058]

my issue when dming in the past was always monster encounters with the group i play with. even knowing how good they are and how well they can adapt, it is hard to make a challenge that they don't walk through. one time, i set up an under ground temple to this custom worlds goddess of madness and fear, and as they go through, they encounter a room that is pitch black, and they cannot see into it even with dark vision. so the rogue/assassin decides he has a super high hide and move silently check, he will just pop in there and see if he cant find anything. a couple minutes later after some one on one time with him, the rest of the party hears him scream. so they rush in and they all see their worst nightmare. you see, i just finished looking through heroes of horror and saw how awesome the phantasmal slayer was, and the party had never heard of it, in and out of character. so i continue to walk through the rest of the party as they are dealing with an incorporeal monster and with some rule fudging so there is no tpk, they all wake up an hour later, but now are tainted or scarred in some way. one character has split personalities, the mage now has to risk getting further tainted every time he casts a spell, the clerics magic is now chaotic, and so on and so forth. now the party cannot stop playing cause the game took an unexpected turn, and they all have unique challenges, some of them even helped me come up with them for their own character. the game is still on going, with characters reaching epic levels soon, still scarred and now stuck in a horror game where they have to literally keep the world from devolving into madness and fear while holding their own off at the same time.

[Threadnaught]

Refluffing the Tarrasque as an Eldritch Abomination that exists to destroy the world. Then introducing the ruins of Taltasqua, where an infinite number of abominations were spawned from it.
The creepiest things for my players, have always been throwaway stuff I put in to lure them toward the things I want to actually creep them out.
The Tarrasque itself being Intelligent and knowing it's status as the God of Destruction, periodically asked for the PCs to speak to it. Those monologues gave it the status of Quest Giver. :smallamused:
Taltasqua was filled with horribly mutated creatures and an unusual concentration of Dire Animals and Fiends. There were a bunch of unmodified Tarrasque roaming the countryside around Taltasqua and the ancient blood drains still had a bit of Tarrasque blood lining the walls and floor. It was eating the flesh of a recently deceased adventurer.

A map leading to a lost treasure of Taltasqua, a stone tablet with it's own heartbeat. At the location this took them to, they attempted to burrow through a wall to get around a CR1 Pit Trap, at around level 10-ish. After digging through 1' of stone, the Druid (yes, that ******* Druid) reached a wall of flesh and chose to keep digging into the fleshwall, which immediately began to bleed. Where the blood landed it repaired both the flesh and the stone. The blood that landed in the corridor did nothing.
Further in, row after row of sarcophagi, with a clear panel where the inhabitant's face was visible. Some sarcophagi had no lid, with varying levels of a clear liquid in them. Inside the sarcophagi with lids on and intact, were creatures, they looked like Humans, but different, some more than others. Some were perfectly human, while others looked exactly like a miniature Tarrasque and many others were at various stages between. Some loked as though they were sleeping, while others had their facial features locked in an eternal rage having obviously drowned some time ago. They heard thumping coming from one of the sarcophagi and decided to check it out, they saw one drown right in front of them. At some later points they heard the grinding of lids being removed from some sarcophagi. They decided to just rush to the "treasure" and get out as quickly as possible.

They never went back, if the game continued much further afterward, they'd have realized that they made a mistake in not reburying the research facility.


The main city they spent most of their down time was at one point, under attack by the advancing Frostfell. northern barbarians were using Fimbulwinter to change the environment to better suit them.
There were also the Gray Elves who couldn't use Magic, all of them were some kind of Psion. They were also attacking, one rainy stormy day the northerners tried turning the rainstorm into snow and cause as much chaos as possible in their favour and someone was sent to protect the docks from the raging storming seas, no point in letting the city flood before conquering it.
The Gray Elves were at the docks causing trouble, by burning all the ships, the entire city guard were busy, either keeping people out of the dockyards, fighting the Gray Elves in the docks, keeping order in the streets and investigating a series of murders.

That was pretty much half of the campaign. :smallamused: