Greatest Moment While DMing

[sirwmholder]

Everyone has a character that has had a really great story... though how many really great moments did you have DMing? Where something you prepared just clicked or flying by the seat of your pants you wove this amazing adventure... I know that is the goal of all DM's but sometimes we may even surprise ourselves. Those are the moments we DM for... the story is for the players and the DM generally takes a back seat... but sometimes the story envelops the the DM as well and it's just so rewarding.

Several years ago I ran a short solo adventure with a friend of mine. The encounter included him coming in contact with a powerful psion. This roleplay session was intense... since I knew my friend so well... I just knew what questions his character was going to ask... the psion, reading his character's mind, answered the questions quickly and even interupted the last question with a simple answer, "Yes". Even now, years later, we talk about that faithful meeting and it still gives him a goose bumps.

So how about it, what was the greatest moment of DMing for you?
William Holder

 

[MojoGM]

The campaign was SPELLJAMMER, there were two PC's based on the Rock of Bral (which in my game was orbiting the planet Toril in Realmspace). Nightwind the elf wizard and Kraswyn the half-elf bard had many adventures together, but while working on Toril Nightwind was killed in action (giving his life so his friend could escape). Nightwind was buried, the player rolled up a new character, a Paladin, and life continued.

Some time later, a mysterious new enemy emerged on the Rock of Bral. He seemed to know a lot about them, and appeared single-minded in making them suffer, particularly Kraswyn. After several encounters with lower-level flunkies they uncovered a note from the "boss" to his subordinates giving them instructions. Kraswyn seemed to recognize the handwriting, but couldn't quite place it. His player said "Damn, I wish Nightwind was still around. He was always better at keeping track of this stuff".

Then came the fateful night, on a dark Bral street after a fight with some other flunkies that their enemy revealed himself to them. It was Nightwind, back from the dead and with a distorted memory of what happened to believe that his friend abandoned him and left him to die. Even Nightwind's player exclaimed "Man, that's freaking awesome!"

It was such a dramatic reveal that both players were stunned. They never saw it coming.

We still talk about that sometimes...

 

[Morpheus]

Recently, we've been playing Eberron and I've been running Eyes of the Lich Queen. There is a battle underneath Dreadhold where the PCs have to escape and get back on their ship. My PCs had a foreshadowing (I ran the battle for a few rounds) of the battle and at the end, one of the PCs had to jump to get on the ship. I stopped the battle there...Fast forward and the actual battle is taking place, and with the help of the player, the foreshadowing comes to fruition. Unfortunately, he didn't make the jump (neither did two other PCs), but we all agreed on the coolness factor and the fun we had with the battle.

 

[Evilhalfling]

At the end of a campaign the party is in a 100' underground sphere, a Kaorti Cyst. They just finished killing most of the Kaorti archwizards, but the Chairman of the board is still alive. The party finds a far-realm nexus point, and the Paladin walks over and thrusts the "Sword of Normality" into the nexus. Its his intelligent far-realm bane weapon who's main goal is to get adventures to settle down and lead normal lives. (+10 to proffession farmer and innkeeper)
The rest of the party dashes into thier anti-magic shell. Knowing the Paly, and the sceanery will be toast. The Parties undead henchman, an undead halfling ectolocator, dashes the other way and teleports the Paladin away at the last second, winning his redemption, and freedom from unlife. The party is left untouched at the bottom of a 100' deep smoking crater.

The paladin is later retrieved from the "Tower of Deception" a teleport trap dungeon from WoTC free adventure downloads. This is the very location they recruited the undead halfling from, and one of the few places that you can teleport to from a magical maelstorm.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

In a 2e game, I had a ranger encounter an abusive ex lover I pulled from her bio. He did everything he could to get her back, even adventured with the party for awhile. He did try to rough her up once, and was expelled from the party. His parting words were "I'll never stop loving you and we will be together someday."

A few adventures later, the party is slogging through the sewers of a ruined city when they are beset by a large pack of ghouls and wights. Just as things look their darkest, the ex lover appears (he'd been tracking the party for a year) and wades into the fray. His appearance buys the PC's enough time to escape, and the last thing the ranger sees is him pulled into the pack of ghouls and disappearing from sight.

Fast forward a year (in real time), and the ranger and the rest of the party are exploring the ruins of an old castle. A wight attacks them, and during the fight, the ranger realizes the wight is her ex lover! He isolates the ranger and is making his move to kill her, hissing "I told you we'd be together!" As she feels her life begin to drain away, she thrusts her sword into him and kills him.

Afterward, the player tells me that was the most emotional encounter she'd ever had, because of the way I'd handled the whole affair. I was extremely proud of the job I'd done, because the look on her face when she found out the wight was her lover was priceless--genuine shock.

 

[Wandering Star]

Afterward, the player tells me that was the most emotional encounter she'd ever had, because of the way I'd handled the whole affair. I was extremely proud of the job I'd done, because the look on her face when she found out the wight was her lover was priceless--genuine shock.

Awesome. That was enjoyable just to read.

 

[Darklone]

The party was scrying one of the BBEGs... (I usually have more than one in my campaign and enjoy their interaction).

The BBEG was meeting another BBEG (both with small parts of their armies) for a truce or even an alliance. The meeting is interrupted by a knight in black armor whose attack causes the two armies to start fighting... both of them thought the other one brought an assassin to kill their leader.

As the unconscious form of the black knight is bound and escapes with one BBEG on their flying carpet while the one army wins the battle, the players get a good look at the sword of the knight as he drops the weapon... and it's the sword of the groups paladin (the player made a new char and kept that char somewhat around).

The players were pretty shocked...

A year later, at the final battle, that paladin had been turned into a vampire blackguard riding on a black dragon.

At that point, the players were even more shocked as they realised whom they are fighting

 

[carborundum]

Call of Cthulhu many years ago. We'd been playing all Saturday and it was now after midnight. Pitch dark outside and candles inside - spooky spooky spooky! The party were approaching the vampire's lair under a whiskey distillery in the Orkney Islands and had just realised they'd have to crawl under one of the big copper stills to find the tunnel entrance.
I slowly started to realise that they weren't just arguing in character about who would go first, but were actually real-life scared! And that's when it happened...

Stu's character said f*** it, I'll go first. He started to crawl in, dismayed that he had to leave all of his stuff behind and go barehanded just the squeeze into the gap. Once he was in the tunnel, his own body blocked out the light from behind so I only described what he felt in his fingers, and occasionally against his face.

"Cobwebs ... probably. That's probably a spider, or a centipede or something. It doesn't smell like a rat anyway."

Coincidentally, I'd been playing with an long, thin elastic band behind the DM's screen and this shot silently off my finger, bounced off the ceiling and landed on Stu's upturned face as he mimed his burrowing!

He squealed like a girl! Like a girl, I tell you! Jumped off the bed and tumbled around the floor clawing at his face, shivering and twitching. Brilliant!

 

[Fallen Seraph]

LMAO! I have always wanted to get my players that genuinely scared during play.

That is awesome, you did a great job!

 

[Asmo]

Cool stories, keep ém coming!