Best DM and Player stories.

[gadren]

So, it seems like there are always new "Worst DM / Player" threads popping up on this forum or its subforums.

As fun as horror stories are, how about we try for something positive?

Tell us about your awesome DM, or player, or something else great that's happened during a D&D session!

[Tiri]

I remember once when the rest of the party was in negative hit points, the 10 Str bard with 8 hit points managed to defeat 3 bandits with a longsword and then stabilise all of us. We were so happy two of the players stood up and cheered for the bard.

[Fri]

My cleric player once convinced the attacking sky pirate that his pants are the holy relic the pirates are looking for. It was so ridiculous that I allowed him to roll for it, and he's successful.

[Vereshti]

It’s not a D&D story, but it’s a good one nonetheless. The campaign was in a sort of multiversal crossroads, so we had a party consisting of a Hobbit, a robot from Isaac Asimov’s writings, a plant dragon, and Alberich from Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar. In the boss battle of one session, we faced a Caster from the Fate/stay night series, who wielded two artefacts: a golden medal with the power of life and death, and a badge of creation magic. In the battle Caster summoned canisters of chlorine gas and other poisonous weapons that sapped the party’s vitality, but they won out in the end.

After the fight, the GM revealed that Caster was based on Fritz Haber (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Haber), who won the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing the Haber-Bosch process (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process), which has saved millions of lives from famine by allowing practical production of nitrogen fertilizer, but was also used by Germany in WWI to produce raw materials for explosives. Fritz Haber was also influential in the development of chemical warfare. This was a really cool choice of opponent, as most of our gaming group are chemists!

I've got a great gaming group overall, a real bunch of These Guys (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/This_Guy). Props to the GM for a great campaign with a well-crafted story and campaign world, props to the other players for blizzards of puns, good food, and good times!

[Megasaber4000]

I had used speak with animal to talk to horse once.
i asked why the long face

[Pex]

My previous DM's smile. Seriously. Whenever I figure out his plot device, that instance that defines the situation the party is in or solves the conundrum we're facing, he gives me this smile that tells me I nailed it. He's happy that I figured it out, and the party saves the day acting on the information. I miss those moments.

[Fri]

I had used speak with animal to talk to horse once.
i asked why the long face

Welp. Sorry everyone. Thread won. We all can go home now.

[The Fury]

This is a worthy thread, so I'll go ahead and bump this. I was a little hesitant, especially my favorite player is just about everyone else's idea of a bad player. He always made games fun, even if he was crazy, and that was his virtue. Even if he resorted to PVP a few times, which I normally hate. After a while I started to think of him as one of the inevitable challenge for the party to overcome, and he was usually an amusing challenge too. I'll leave stories about him for a different thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?373664-The-Worst-player-you-ve-ever-had-seen-been-heard-of) though.

My favorite DM has a particular philosophy in storytelling where every character should get "their moment," and that this should extend to RPGs as well. It's one thing to just have that be a philosophy, it's another to actually apply it and he did. In just about every game he ever ran, every PC got a moment where they were awesome-- even the characters that were mostly jokes up until that point.

This is also a DM that gave PCs character arcs, which I love! He even incorporated PC backstory elements into the campaign-- which I guess actually isn't too uncommon, though most DMs I've played with seem to think PC backstories are there to inform the character, not influence the campaign. After you come to think of that as the standard, when someone does something different it feels... significant.

[Spartakus]

My favourite story happened in a session of "Das schwarze Auge" (The Dark Eye)

After arriving at an Oasis the players immediatly looked behind a waterfall so I skipped most of the adventure and went right to the final battle.
In the fight against the Big Bad (some kind of half-dragon) one of the wizard placed a suggestion on him forcing him to go to the caravanserai. Everyone looked baffled at him what purpose was in sending him to such a crowded area and, more important, away from the group.

The answer:
"Well, we left this squad of dwarfen elite dragon-hunters there!"

So I skipped the final battle as well

[BWR]

My players are pretty awesome for putting up with me. I guess I'm doing something right since they've been playing with me for 3-12 years (depending on the player) but I often see (and hear about) the bits I get wrong.

Another good choice was our VtM group for the Brussels story. The ST was not forthcoming or particularly fair - rules were (mostly) rules but apart from that things almost never went our way - everything went to hell, the PCs hated eachother and paranoia ran rampant and there was even some pvp as a result of the relentless political backstabbing and maneuvering for scraps of power and prestige. We all loved it. The ST poured **** on the fan and we asked for more. It was probably the greatest single adventure/short campaign I've ever played and was a blast from start to finish.
Then the ST decided to run one of the published Gehenna stories with almost all the same players and it was pretty bad. Moral of the story: don't run adventures as published if the story and events are stupid.

[ThePrez1776]

Quite long post discussing our DM and an interesting role-playing moment. Spoilered for convenience. Warning: Minor ick discussed in role-playing moment


My group is still playing the same campaign that introduced us all to roleplaying games, a campaign that has been running for seven years. We're all first-year students in university now, and we've all been friends since middle school. The DM is the father of one of our players and he invited us all to play so he could get to know his son's friends better. He's been running games for 40 years, so he has a fair share of experience. Since he was our first DM and really the one who introduced us all to RPG's, he really had the opportunity to teach us the genre very well. His instruction has made all of us into very good players who roleplay well in-character, are practiced in tactical combat, and we think things through to come up with solutions to the complex situations we're presented with. I think it's been very helpful having him as our DM not just because of the way he runs the game but how he's taught us how to play RPG's.

That aside, he's a very good DM. After seven years of playing the same campaign, every session we meet new, fresh, memorable characters who are all very well-acted. He does accents of all sorts (Russian, Spanish, Indian, Irish, Australian, etc.) and each character we meet is very distinct in their manner of speech and their actions. I'm constantly impressed by the adventures he writes all by himself, and the freedom he allows us in the game. The party can take the story pretty much any direction we can think of, and he can adapt without missing a beat. He does have some problems, such as his lack of organization in many cases, but overall he's pretty much single-handedly made our party of nine RPG gamers for life.



An unusual occurrence happened in our last session. In all our time playing, we've never been able to truly stump him, but one of our players managed to pull it off. The party had gone to meet the king of an elven city-state, who happens to be a good friend of our wizard. He's supposed to have important information on a war we were curious about. However, the king really hated humans, to the point where he hunted them and they could be shot on sight in the city. Our wizard was able to persuade him to make an exception for our party members, but our human party members also really hated him. At one point, we're invited to lunch with him, but during the entire meal our paladin/physician keeps doing things to intentionally antagonize the king. She makes racist jokes against the elves and bragged about human superiority. The king grumbled and was offended, but he had made a promise to our wizard, so he let it go. After lunch, we were all having drinks. The physician leaves to go powder her nose, then comes back a few minutes later. We've tried his special wines (which were made with human souls), and she offers him to have a bit of one of her favorite drinks. He agrees and she pours him a glass. He has the taster take a sip, but it's not poisoned, so the king drinks it all. Afterward he coughs and says it's a unique flavor, but not for him, to which our physician responds "Well, most people don't drink it in, they just pee it out." She had filled the flask while in the restroom, and actually got him to drink her pee. (Our campaign is very very serious, pretty much as far away from the wild inappropriate shenanigans some groups prefer.) Our DM was shocked, and declared a 15 minute break while he would figure out how to respond. To date, this is the only time any of us have seen him stumped. He likes to award XP for good roleplaying, and he gave her 2000 for that moment, the highest amount he's ever awarded for roleplaying.

[Vercingex]

We have a good group of players, and we rotate off doing GM duties. However, I want to give a shoutout to one of our more regular GMs for being just absolutely stupendous.

As an example, for one campaign he created this magnificent villain. He was always civil, courteous, and seemingly open with us in his dealings. He would always offered us tea, and even tried to console us after a PC death with a hug. While we knew he was up to something, we could never oppose him because he always seemed to be doing the right thing. He opposed slavery in his home city, and his major political rival was an evil lich. How could we side against him?

This villain's greatest moment occurred when one of our players, a paladin, died fighting the aforementioned lich. The villain petitioned the church to make the paladin a saint. And it's worth noting that while the villain eventually did launch his evil scheme, the villain never once personally betrayed the party, or tried to harm us in any way. It takes brilliant GMing to pull off a villain like that.

[Gamgee]

I conquered a planet for me and my fellow PC's in Rogue Trader.

Ever since then I haven't been invited back by the GM and he doesn't want to continue that game. But the players are all fond of that game and remember it well.

When all the players seen me the first time they said I reminded them of C3P0. By the time I left they said I was clearly Palpatine.
:smallcool:

Best players/gm I've ever had. Also the reason he didn't want to keep running it was he had no idea where to go after his plot was derailed. I even managed to kill the BBEG before he even got to reveal himself.
:smallbiggrin:

[The Fury]

We have a good group of players, and we rotate off doing GM duties. However, I want to give a shoutout to one of our more regular GMs for being just absolutely stupendous.

As an example, for one campaign he created this magnificent villain. He was always civil, courteous, and seemingly open with us in his dealings. He would always offered us tea, and even tried to console us after a PC death with a hug. While we knew he was up to something, we could never oppose him because he always seemed to be doing the right thing. He opposed slavery in his home city, and his major political rival was an evil lich. How could we side against him?

This villain's greatest moment occurred when one of our players, a paladin, died fighting the aforementioned lich. The villain petitioned the church to make the paladin a saint. And it's worth noting that while the villain eventually did launch his evil scheme, the villain never once personally betrayed the party, or tried to harm us in any way. It takes brilliant GMing to pull off a villain like that.

This bad guy comes off as a real mensch. So I gotta ask then, for my own curiosity, what was his evil scheme? Also, what tipped you guys off that he was up to something?

[Vercingex]

We have a good group of players, and we rotate off doing GM duties. However, I want to give a shoutout to one of our more regular GMs for being just absolutely stupendous.

As an example, for one campaign he created this magnificent villain. He was always civil, courteous, and seemingly open with us in his dealings. He would always offered us tea, and even tried to console us after a PC death with a hug. While we knew he was up to something, we could never oppose him because he always seemed to be doing the right thing. He opposed slavery in his home city, and his major political rival was an evil lich. How could we side against him?

This villain's greatest moment occurred when one of our players, a paladin, died fighting the aforementioned lich. The villain petitioned the church to make the paladin a saint. And it's worth noting that while the villain eventually did launch his evil scheme, the villain never once personally betrayed the party, or tried to harm us in any way. It takes brilliant GMing to pull off a villain like that.

This bad guy comes off as a real mensch. So I gotta ask then, for my own curiosity, what was his evil scheme? Also, what tipped you guys off that he was up to something?

Alright, story time. Apologies for not making this concise.

In our game, the dominant political power was an empire ruled by metallic dragons. While the dragon's rule was absolute, the dragons ruled fairly and well, and the empire prospered. One of the smaller powers was a slaveholding magocracy called the Black Tower (not a deliberate WoT reference) where only casters could vote- this is where our villain comes in. Our party had heard that there was a chance we could end slavery by contacting a powerful mage named Helsenn Devir (our villain). Devir wanted to extend the right to vote to non-casters, and free all the slaves. We knew this would benefit him politically (who else would the freed slaves vote for?), but we went along with it.

The first real hints as to Devir's plan was that he opposed the idea of dragons ruling humanoids- a sentiment many of us agreed with. Getting rid of the dragons would mean that the Black Tower would be the strongest political force in the world, with Devir as the most powerful man in the tower. We were leery of handing one man so much power, especially as we knew so little about him.

Eventually, we eliminated Devir's rivals, and the Black Tower became a free society- with Devir as the most powerful man in that society. Years passed, when we heard that Devir planned to make war against the Tyrant- a man who controlled a city-state whose entire citizenry had been Dominated. We decided to delve into Devir's past to try and determine what his ultimate goal was. (Incidentally, Devir had a nasty habit of using bound Celestials as guardians, because they're more trustworthy than fiends). Eventually, we found that Devir wanted the Tyrant's Crown- the artifact that allowed the Tyrant to control his citizens.

We rushed to the Tyrant's palace and slew him- only to find that the Crown had already been replaced. In a brilliant flash of insight, one of our players realized what Devir's plan had been the whole time- he was going to use the Crown on the Dragon Emperor.

Teleporting to the Emperor's palace, Devir had beaten us there yet again- the Emperor was dominated. In the scuffle, we managed to knock the Crown off his head. My character, a halfling wizard and former Black Tower slave, put the Crown on with the intent of using it to stop Devir.

Instead, the Crown switched my alignment from CG to LE, and gave me a desire to rule the world (muahaha!). I Dominated Devir, forced him to drop his buffs, and had him torn apart by the Emperor. The Emperor, in turn, was killed by a PC who had agreed with Devir's ideas. The final battle was a running fight to get the Crown away from me before I could flee and alert the palace guards that someone (the rest of the party) had killed the Emperor, and then, having accomplished that, to kill the man actually responsible for killing the Emperor.

It's worth noting that Devir never once attacked us, or even sent a minion to kill us (his bound guardians notwithstanding). But even had he put on the Crown with the best of intentions, like my character, the Crown would have turned him into a tyrant who needed to be stopped. And honestly, could we trust someone who acquired so much power, even if we agreed with why he wanted it?


TL:DR Version

Every good deed our villain did also happened to increase his political power. We eventually learned that his plan was to steal a powerful artifact and Dominate a dragon emperor, making him the most powerful man in the world. We couldn't trust anyone with that kind of power. Also, the artifact made people evil (as my character learned firsthand)

[The Fury]

No need to apologize. I assumed that I wasn't likely to get an explanation that was all that brief. And y'know, I've seen the campaign villain trying to manipulate Good(ish)-aligned PCs into doing his dirty work as a plot before. Not done well though. Your DM actually did a good job with that though, so kudos.