Great Moments in YOUR game...

So...

What has been the most brilliant and/or amusing moment in your game in recent memory?

Discuss...

Djeta Thernadier said:

So...

What has been the most brilliant and/or amusing moment in your game in recent memory?

Discuss...

Click to expand...

Last session, the PCs "rescued" the cousin of one of the PCs from the evil Dominion. They had to fight in a Pit against summoned monsters with her. When they get out, they find out that she has changed and is a royal b tch and wants nothing to do with them. One of the players actually went across the room because he was getting so upset at her. I live for moments like that... (It's ok, Hal, I won't tell them who it was... )

I've mentioned this one before but...

I recently ran a supernatural horror game using Call of Cthulhu.
The primary antagonist was an incorporeal demon that interacted with the world by possessing mortals (think of the movie Fallen).

So anyways, the party consisted of 5 players who were trapped (along with a large number of NPCs) in a large ski resort hotel by a severe snow storm/avalanche.

It goes without saying that one of the hotel guests was possessed by Beliar (the demon) at the time they were cut off from the outside world.

The plot was your typical...."Find out what's killing everyone & stop it before it gets us!"

The party eventually realized they were dealing with an evil spirit thanks to a former priest who had been driven to madness due to his "gift" of Second Sight.

The party was slowly whittled down one by one (partially thanks to a co-operative player who handled her "possession" brilliantly).

In the end there were only two players remaining, each of whom was convinced the other was possessed by the demon. They ended up locking themselves (along with the priest) into the main lounge while pointing pistols at one another. Each was determined to "prove" to the priest that the demon possessed the other. After several hours (in game & real time) of trying to outwit one another they ended up blowing each other away.

One character wasn't killed outright (-5 hps) and his last vision of this world was of the priest chuckling while leaning down & whispering in his ear..."Be sure to say hello to your ex-wife for me, adulteresses are quite popular where you're going...."

The paranoid tension of the two players trying to outmaneuver one another was absolutely perfect. It was one of the few game sessions where the players with dead characters had more fun watching those still alive...

In my old campaign, the final session:
The party's escaping the enroaching kobold army by flying north in an airship, when they pick up on the trail of a former party member, a frenzied berzerker who's gone completely off the deep end and is carving a path of destruction through the countryside. They pull behind him and initiate combat, using bungee manuevers and catapault stones to stay out reach while bleeding him to death, and nearly getting killed each time they get within swinging range. One of the party members goes insane and heals him, forcing them to kill him again.

The party, after defeating him for the second time, slumps in relief, when they hear a voice say from behind them, "Well, you just made my job a lot easier".

They panic. In and out of character.

I've never inspired such fear in my players before.
Demiurge out.

A few sessions ago, the group (who were on a diplomatic mission to a number of orc tribes) found themselves suckered into putting up two of their members to take part in simultaneous one-on-one duels vs. the orc chief and the shaman who were trying to forge the orcs into a horde. The two combatants chosen were the party half-orc fighter/barbarian (vs. the chief) and the diplomat paladin, who is not optimized for combat (vs. the shaman).

Before the fight the group retired into a tent as did their opponents and just layered the two with all kinds of buff spells. And then they stepped out, and the other tent fell over and a twelve-foot tall orc emerged. I've never seen people as shocked at a simple enlarge person spell

Then the fight began, and I had a stroke of genius. I got the players of the two non-fghting PCs to roll the dice for the orcs, and I think they were even more stressed about the battle than the involved PCs' players, praying for low rolls and apologizing profusely when they didn't get them.

The chief and the half-orc PC ended their fight in 2 rds. inflicting horrible damage to each other. The chief, on something like 5 hit points, landed a couple of hits that took the PC to exactly 0 hp. Able to make a single attack that would automatically take himself to negatives, the half-orc connected, beheading his opponent and collapsing on him. Everybody cheered (in and out-of-character).

And then they realised that by the rules of the duel, they couldn't heal him till the duel was over. Round by round would go by, with his already negative hp total going lower, and the poor paladin desperately trying to defeat his opponent (the enlarged shaman), who was beating the heck out of him. Finally, at -9 hp, the half-orc stabilized, to another round of celebration.

And finally, down to single digits in hp, the paladin brought down his opponent and collapsed to his knees, thanking his deity.

I don't think I've ever seen the entire group as stressed during a single combat, not even when they were TPKed.

Not too long ago in-game, the one of the PCs was killed by a wyvern, but got one final action to end her life. She used it to hurl her battleaxe at the wyvern, killing it. It was so cool, and one of those times the dice dictate a really dramatic scene.

shilsen said:

Then the fight began, and I had a stroke of genius. I got the players of the two non-fghting PCs to roll the dice for the orcs, and I think they were even more stressed about the battle than the involved PCs' players, praying for low rolls and apologizing profusely when they didn't get them.

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Our group is about to start doing something like this. Rather than have the DM roll to see if a monster hits, we'll roll to see if we defend against him. Part of me thinks this is cool....kind of like the fate of our PC is trul in our hands...

But of course, there's always the knowledge now that if I roll a lousy roll, I've essentially just done a lot of disservice to myself...

Not *quite* the same thing , but I'm sure it will add a new level of tension to rolling the dice.

Nice stories so far. Threads like this are always fun.

I have to say my favorite moment was when the party traded the barbarian (a PC) to the insane fragment of an evil diety's broken soul for a bundle of sticks and two sacks of stones.

Well, in the game I'm a PC in, my monk was nearly raped by an old hag in the last adventure Long story, and I won't bore you with the details, but suffice to say, I kind of had no way of re-paying her for a lesser restoration spell (that had nothing to do with any of the six abilities...) and so she suggested an "alternative paymet" with that crazy old hag look in her eyes, and grabbed me. Scared for my humanity, I grappled her, threw her to the ground, and jumped on top of the nearest building to spend the remainder of the night up there very paranoid...
In the game I DM, the new character with a STR of 20 demonstrated her strength for the group upon joining by picking up our half-orc druid with one hand

Djeta Thernadier said:

Our group is about to start doing something like this. Rather than have the DM roll to see if a monster hits, we'll roll to see if we defend against him. Part of me thinks this is cool....kind of like the fate of our PC is trul in our hands...

But of course, there's always the knowledge now that if I roll a lousy roll, I've essentially just done a lot of disservice to myself...

Not *quite* the same thing , but I'm sure it will add a new level of tension to rolling the dice.

Click to expand...

I haven't used it normally, at least partly because combat goes a lot faster to have me rolling the dice for the NPCs. But in that one situation it worked very well (besides the tension it made sure that the non-involved characters had something to do). Hopefully you'll find it work that way for you too.