Why I Love Being the DM

Two moments stand out in my mind.

1. A player of a human wizard wanted to add to his character that he had elven blood in his lineage, for the express purpose of gaining Arcane Archer later on, and cajoled me for about ten minutes trying to convince me.
   I frowned in thought for a moment, which made him smile. Then I grinned widely, and said "Okay."
   He refused.
   Moments like that are always fun.
2. The same player DM'ed a REALLY good and REALLY mean Star Wars game a few years ago. I, and the other players, were involved in screwing up the Star Wars timeline. His plots were so convoluted, that we had to use Flow Charts to figure out all the different power groups, and how they were related, and what they wanted. We all smiled and stared in disbelief at the machievellian web we were SMACK in the middle of.

When I sit down at the table to run a game, I have a pretty good idea what I'm going to be doing. It's the surprises that make it worthwhile for me.

Two sessions ago, the characters were investigating a massacre up at a monastery. I'd planted two superstitious guards up at the site of the monastery to drive the PCs off and give them clues; but midway through the conversation with the superstitious guards, I realized they weren't superstitious at all. The monastery really *was* haunted by the ghosts of the massacre, and the ghosts would be perpetually reliving their final battle, and would draw the PCs into the battle, giving them important clues in the process. I excused myself from the table, wrote up stats, and prepared quickly for a creepy scene. So that's the first kind of surprise: when I as the DM come up with something I wasn't expecting at all.

The battle played out well (in the next session). The shadowdancer's player came late, so a different player handled her PC in the beginning, and tried to have the shadowdancer's shadow attack the ghosts of the shimmering monks of the moon goddess. I explained that the shadow's strength-draining attack was probably ineffective against undead, and that as an incorporeal creature the shadow couldn't grapple (house rules), so that player had the shadow back off.

But when the shadowdancer's normal player showed up, she thought about the situation and realized that the monks' shimmering was probably related to their worship of the moon goddess, that they were glowing with moonlight. So, ignoring the rules, she decided her shadow would slip up onto one of the monks and shroud it in darkness, blocking it from the light of the moon.

I was caught completely unawares by this tactic, but it was very cool. Not only did I decide that it worked; it also temporarily freed the ghost from reliving the final battle and enabled the shadow to exchange a few brief lines with the monk before it collapsed into true death.

So that's the second kind of surprise: when the players do something unexpected and cinematic.

Those are my favorite DMing moments.

Daniel

my tuesday players are currently in an unmapped bit of wilderness and i am basing the whole area on thomas moran paintings. i worried that they might not "get" the coolness of it but they seem to eb highly impressed when the get to the waterfall or the valley edge or the mountain base and see-

or-

they recently had a big battle here-

I love the moments when I have the players full attention and nothing else matters in the world to them but what I say next. Which is only superceded by the cries of anguish or shouts of truimph by the group after I tell them what happened.

It's the little things.

The last session of our monthly RttToEE game, the party was just starting a big battle (they didn't know exactly how big yet) when I informed them that they heard some drums starting to beat in the distance. The fight went on for a LONG time (over 25 rounds total) and I would periodically update them on the status of the drums ("They are pounding away at a fevered pitch now."). Near the end of the fight, when they were all fairly beat up and getting low on resources, the following exchange took place:

Me - "Suddenly..." *the room becomes totally silent and every player is giving me their undivided attention* "...the drums stop."

All the players collectively - "@%#$^!!11!"


It's that moment, where they know that their lives/their mission/the fate of the world or whatever is important at the time, hangs in the balance. Whatever decisions they make next and how the dice roll will determine the course of the campaign and the fictional lives of these characters that they've breathed life into.

At those moments, I, like the players, am riveted to the game.

I love coming up with stuff on the fly. One time the party was making its way through a large swamp to a village on the other side. They were going to camp out on some ruins, but I made a few mistakes with the descriptions and the players thought it was still inhabited.

So.. it was.

I made three inbred hicks, including Old Bill SlackJawed McGimly, and had a lot of fun with country accents

The whole shock and awe thing is what I live for as a DM.

Speaker In Dreams SPOILER AHEAD!










In the final battle as the evil Mindflayer is revealed to be the one involved in all of the behind-the-scenes machinations in Brindinford, the look on my players faces as the realize that they are indeed face-to-face with a legendary Mindflayer was worth all the hard-work and prep-time it took to get them to that point.

I love to see just how my players can mess with my plans.

My party:

A human male Paldin - God of Justice and Warfare
A human female Bard - chaotic good w/a NG Fighter (8th lvl)
A halfling female Cleric - God of healing, motherhood, protection, ect.
A dwarf male Fighter/Mage
All the PC's are 8th or 9th level.

The situation: They are trying to track down an organization that they have an ongoing war with (a necromancer/blighter group).
They got a clue that is they went to a city and asked for a "hit contract" that they would beable to get a lead on the organization's local leaders.

I expected them to approch and question the point of contact. A retired Mob strongarm that now acted as a information source and go between.

Instead they came up with a cover story that included a very pubic fight between the bard and the cleric over the bards behavior around the Paladin. The bard then went to vist the NPC by her self only to have him die in front of here from a tankard of poisoned ale.

So the group is split, the enimies fractions instead of thinking that the group is after all of them, now is not sure who killed who. (They do know that the bard was wanting to make contact with the assisan guild). The results is several attempts to take out the bard and intergroup rivalry amoung the bad guys that is spilling over into everyday life in the city.