D&D General This is why I game.

[Hussar]

Ok, bit of set up. I picked up the old(ish) Owlbear Run module from the WotC site back in the spring when they were giving away all that free stuff to get people gaming. Figured it would be a nice light hearted adventure to toss at my group. The players jumped right into the spirit of the adventure too, which is really nice. Essentially, the adventure is, you have to transport an owlbear between two towns before the other three teams transport their owlbear. It's goofy and fun.

So, as a side bit, I decided the last encounter of the run, the party would stumble across a desecrated temple. I wanted to do a bit of foreshadowing, introducing a major baddie (Thessalar the lich) by having the owlbear they were transporting be a polymorphed, cursed druid of the temple. Thessalar had desecrated the temple, polymorphing the druid into an owlbear (Thessalar in Greyhawk lore is the source of owlbears) and killing the temple's avatar. All this was somewhat a long time in the past and, while I did leave a nasty baddie in the temple for the PC's to beat upon, I figured this was a fairly throwaway encounter and a bit of fun.

Enter the Wild Mage and his list of 10000 wild surges.

The encounter started off pretty much as I had anticipated, the party went into the temple, the polymorphed druid regained his sanity long enough to do a bit of exposition and the nasty baddie pops up and combat ensues. Wild Mage triggers a wild surge. On a list of TEN THOUSAND possible results, I got, "Target's attacks cause any transformed target to regain its former shape".

Nasty baddy beats on the owl bear and POOF, owlbear is now a druid. Party dispatches nasty baddy and now have to complete the race and somehow convince the race judges that the druid is, indeed, the owlbear they started with.

In a thousand years I could not have predicted this. The chain of events leading up to this result were so completely random that it was just hillarious.

Being utterly left speechless in surprise at the outcome of events in game. That's why I game.

 

[Ancalagon]

This is fantastic. Those moments are priceless

 

[rgoodbb]

Yep, the randomness and how everyone reacts can really be pure gold.

 

[Hussar]

Funny thing is, this campaign features characters that actually worship chaos. And it's turned into one of the most... coincidental campaigns I've ever run. They started off wanting to buy the inn in the town they were starting in. As an opening adventure scenario, I had some nasties from the Far Realms portal into the inn and start the festivities.

The only casualty, entirely random, was the inn's owner.

Now we have the completely random event of the druid becoming human again. It's been freaking hilarious.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Wait, wait! That can’t be why you game! You didn’t describe a single overpowered build, it did not involve any epic magical items, and you didn’t describe how many +s were involved.

Seriously, great story!

 

[DEFCON 1]

I absolutely love the 10,000 wild surges table. The two times I've had players take Wild Mage I've had them use that table rather than the one in the PHB. So much more crazy and interesting.

 

[nevin]

very first time my wife played we were delving in undermountain and Dm decided it was time for us to run so a Banshee attacks us. As we all prepared to run, my wife pulls out her scroll of silence casts it on the weapon and we proceeded to chase the banshee through the caves. All us experienced gamers sheepishly following our newb player who thought outside the box.

The conversation was so perfect. "I cast silence " "ok but since your a new player i feel like I should warn you banshees have a really good save, and it goes after you do" "that's ok I cast it on my mace" DM mouth open. Party mouths open.

My other favorite memory. long ago I let my 7 year old son play the big bad two headed troll. Everyone thought it was a great idea. I explained to what a troll was what it could do how strong it was. First thing troll picks up a large war horse and throws it at the cleric. I look at my son with a quizzical look and he says "what, you said it's really strong" I nod. Cleric "I guess I duck?", battle goes on they corner him at a cliff just before the troll dies my son. " I jump off the cliff into the river" again I give him that look.. "Troll's regenerate right? " I nod feeling like a complete idiot realizing my son is playing the monster better than I would have because it's new and he's having fun wheras for me it's just another troll. That two headed troll still roams those mountains and picks his fights in really high places that he can jump away from. And I try to find that fun creative spot when I DM

 

[Swarmkeeper]

This one?

https://centralia.aquest.com/downloads/NLRMEv12.pdf

Whoa!

 

[Eltab]

DM'ing Arauthator (in Tiamat), giving him his own voice, getting half the PCs down to making Death Saves, they rally to defeat me, and going home with a sore throat that night.

 

[jayoungr]

I picked up the old(ish) Owlbear Run module from the WotC site back in the spring when they were giving away all that free stuff to get people gaming. Figured it would be a nice light hearted adventure to toss at my group. The players jumped right into the spirit of the adventure too, which is really nice. Essentially, the adventure is, you have to transport an owlbear between two towns before the other three teams transport their owlbear. It's goofy and fun.

This sounds like fun, and I missed the giveaway. I looked for Owlbear Run at the DM's Guild but couldn't find anything under that title. What's the proper title of the adventure, and/or where can I find it?