2004 in-game regret

[Voadam]

As a DM, setting up a situation where the focus and action could have been on the PCs and putting it in the hands of an NPC.

One player is a respected high level dwarven fighter cleric of the knowledge god. They were visiting his home city and he was at the library temple talking to another priest, a loremaster one, and asking about info on stuff from a current plot line. They get a summons because there has been a murder of a guildmaster and they need a speak with dead to investigate. The player does not have swd prepared. I had them both go and the loremaster asked the PC for advice on the questions to ask with speak with dead. In hindsight I should have had the priest formally agree to do a legend lore before the summons came so he'd be occupied and couldn't handle the summons instead leaving it to the respected high church rank PC with a scroll of speak with dead from the library.

Don't have the PCs help out an NPC do things when the PCs can do it themselves.

 

[Wombat]

...not being able to game more, either as player or GM...

Technically my game runs every two weeks, but due to holidays, family outings, etc., we gamed at best 45 times. I would want much, much more than that.

 

[howandwhy99]

As a Player: life was good in 2004. Though I should have ditched the sour grapes archer character I had sooner. He was just so perfectly fit for the particular adventure/world.

As a DM: No DMing in 2004. That needs to change, but I don't have a venue (which also needs to change).

 

[Greylock]

Biggest in-game regret? Not taking the hint when the first rope snapped. We shoulda gotten the heck off that damned rope-bridge right then and there.

Cost us two great characters, but the replacement Elf has become essential in his own way.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

I'd take back the triple-natural-1-in-a-row (ok, the third was just a "I wonder what I roll now" roll, as the character was already dead - first failed ref save on empowered fireball, the next failed fort save against massive damage).

 

[the Jester]

As a player? Forgetting to SET MY FRICKIN' DODGE BONUS!!!

As a dm? Underestimating the deadliness of four con-damaging breath weapons at once.

 

[Arnwyn]

None that I can think of...

2004 was a good year.

 

[Voadam]

I'd take back the triple-natural-1-in-a-row (ok, the third was just a "I wonder what I roll now" roll, as the character was already dead - first failed ref save on empowered fireball, the next failed fort save against massive damage).

Our party paladin was happy it happened when he was attacking and not when he was making saving throws. Which would have been, as he put it "You die, You die again, and you die again!"

 

[mearls]

My players' regret can be summed up in one, simple sentence:

"DON'T TOUCH THE ALTAR!"

Two party members died at the hands of an evil altar in Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. Half the party almost drowned in an ancient sahuagin temple when they fiddled with an altar. The other half almost died when they couldn't leave a sacrad, sacrificial pool in the same temple alone. When I ran Tomb of Horrors, we lost PCs to the fake good chapel before the entire party got into a shoving match trying to push each other through the item stripping archway. (All of them except for the magic-user died at the tilting passage, BTW.)

My own regret is not being more attuned to the group's social dynamics. I'm better now, but there's been a few times when the players have gotten into arguments that I could've cleared up by stepping in.

My biggest success has been in taking a much more active role in speeding up the game. If the players get tied up over something, I have no qualms over saying "Don't worry about that yet" and plowing on the with the action. For instance, if they're worried about carrying a big, heavy treasure out of a dungeon, I'm not afraid to just tell them I'm going to fast forward over the trip back to town, rather than check for random encounters or throw anything else at them that might require them to worry about their speed. It's meta-gamey, but we get a lot more done and have a lot more fun.

 

[Sidereal Knight]

Player Regret: not getting out of my old group sooner.

DM Regret: not taking more time to plan/prepare for game sessions.