Quote Originally Posted by Friv View Post
We played a mid-level game of D&D once in which we got into a fight with a high-level fighter and just absolutely wiped the floor with him. At the end of the fight, we had him defeated, stripped off his magic armor and sword, and then decided to let him go. He asked what we wanted, and we just shrugged and said that if he came back after us again, he'd better bring more nice magic items for us to take off him.

Later, we ended up working on the same side, and our fighter loaned this guy his own sword back for the duration of the fight.
Oooh, this one stings. I feel the pain.

Although my NPCs regularly get bullied or beaten into submission (several PCs maxed Intimidate), the humiliation that comes to mind was the one time when it felt personal, for me as a GM. It was when, in a modern-day FATE game, after shaking off/beating up the highly-trained secret service agents on their tails, one of my players exclaimed: "Wow, those guys are SO comically dumb and incompetent, they just have to be a diversion. The GM is playing us and the REAL secret agents are gonna kick our asses."
... I wasn't.

Oh well, sometimes that's the waaay the news goes.