Best campaign moments

[Evilhalfling]

Best moment was ending my 2nd ed campaign, It lasted 4 years took 4 years off (for colleage) and the resumed. The two remaining characters were a Paladin and wizard, with a new cleric and gnomish companions.
They journied to the Abyss - a layer owned by Kali. She was the patron of Hextor (she gave him multiple Arms). The paladin had deadened his own skin, for protection. It had turned gray and lost feeling. The cleric sacrificed his life to close a portal that was letting demons into thier home plane, the others had to jump through a random portal. They ended up in a Its A Wonderful Life world where they had never existed. It was mostly overun by demons, with a few last stongholds of humanity. The mage shrugged and prepared to plane shift to his home, an enchanted tower that he had concieved and built - he carried the final ingrediate he had needed (the soul gem of ghost archmage) The paladin grabed a random horse and rode out into the dawn to fight his way though the hordes, looking for the demon lord that he had once prevented from entering this world.
As he rode through the gates his horse sprouted wings becoming his first, long dead mount, a pegusus. As the sun hit his skin it changed to the Invulnerable gold of Heriounous, and he felt his god riding with him.

The End.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

That....is awesome....

Thanks!!! That will always be my standout moment in that campaign, I think, and there were many, many great moments. I should also add that she ended up having to kill him to save her own life.

 

[Nightcloak]

The player actually screamed, and nearly burst into tears at the shock. And when I say player, I don't mean her character. She was so caught off guard by this that we had to stop the game so she could calm down.

Yeah... I'm VERY proud of that one.

That....is awesome....

I agree with CE. It doesn't get any better than that. Talk about a moment in time.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

Thanks again, you guys. I think that's my strength as a DM. I am no fool with the rules, but I'm more of an intuitive, seat of the pants DM when it comes to the mechanics. I prefer to create memories of the games that the players will always treasure (for good or ill... lol) rather than making sure they remember that 5 foot step.

A nasty trick I've learned over the years (I've mentioned this in another thread) is to find out what people are scared of in real life, and when they least expect it, spring it on them. Some examples are:

The girl who played that ranger in the above story was deathly afraid of snakes. Couldn't even watch them on tv. So in one adventure, the floor of a ruin gave way and she plummeted into a pit of (nonpoisonous) snakes. But it was enough to completely freak her out.

My brother is horribly arachnophobic, and once, while playing his dwarven cleric on a rescue mission to a Drow stronghold, found his beard infested with spiders of all sizes. He was so shaken up he had to drink three vodka shots to calm down.

Another player was scared of wasps in real life. His character, poking his head into a dark corner, brushed a normal wasp nest. Just the thought of the insects buzzing around his face made him go pale.

My sister played in one of my very early groups, and once while I was describing larval carrion crawlers hatching from the corpse of a dead man, she ran from the room and became ill.

So while I might not know the ins and outs of grappling right off the top of my head, I really try to set a scene, and I think I do a pretty good job of it.

 

[Blade of Desecration]

This one happened a while back. One of the other members of my and Mr. GR's gaming groups was DMing this one (it was his own campaign, not a jointly DMed one). Party consists of a drow paladin (me, using a variant I found online that was well balanced and didn't have quite as strict a code. I normally don't play paladins, but I was doing an example paladin to show player #3 how to RP one, since he always seemed to play them as smite happy maniacs) a Deep Imaskari wizard (Mr. GR), and a half-drow monk. This was a mostly Underdark campaign in the Forgotten Realms, and no, I was not playing a Drizzt clone. At this point, we'd come to Waterdeep after some stuff in Skullport. Now this problem stems from the fact that player #3 has occasional problems remembering certain aspects of his character (read: race). That and he had insanely bad luck.

DM: Alright, you come up amongst some shacks in the slums.
Me: I put up my hood, and put on some gloves.
DM: There are some kids playing around outside. There’s also a guy leaning unconscious against a shack wall, obviously starving to death.
Me: I'm gonna walk over, drop a few gold on the starving guy, and walk off towards a slightly wealthier part of the city.
Player #3: I'm gonna' walk over and watch the kids.
DM: They take one look at you, and run away screaming.
P3: Huh?
Mr. GR: Dude, you're half-drow, so you look like a full drow! Get out of there before they tell someone.
P3: Should I knock them out?
Everyone else: NO!
P3: Oh yeah, I'm lawful good, right.

Some time later and after a bit of other junk.

DM: You arrive outside of a tavern.
Me (after having used a disguise kit to make myself look like a surface elf): I walk in and order a drink.
Mr. GR: Same here.
P3: Same here.
DM: Oh god, here we go again. You look a frigging drow!
P3: But I’m wearing a hood!
DM: Yeah, and remember you’re also wearing a short sleeved monk shirt. They can see your
arms! They all start pointing and screaming!
P3: Alright, I’m jumping out the window.
DM: OK, but remember that there are people outside.
P3: I run around to the other side.
DM: People are streaming out of the door on this side, but there are still a few escape routes.
What you gonna do?
P3: I’m gonna jump through that window there!
DM: If you would please look at the map, you just jumped back through into the tavern again.
P3: Crap! I’m jumping back out and running!

He manages to get away from the mob, but is running through the streets. The other two characters have been trailing after him.

DM: Alright, they are still after you. There is a brick building here, with a large sign in fro with the Waterdeep crest on it. There are also plenty of buildings around. The street is empty.
P3: I'm running into the brick building.
DM: Why?
P3: To shake off pursuit!
DM: You just walked into a guard garrison. There are soldiers sitting all around.
P3: Uhoh...
Me (walking in): Where are the prison towers, I'm supposed to deliver this prisoner to them.
DM: They give you directions to the prison towers.
Me: I grab him and drag him out the doors.

We get just a little way down the street when...

P3: You know what? Skip that, I'm no one's prisoner. I'm marching back in there, and they either accept me or the don't.
DM: What!?
P3: I march back in there. I walk up to the closest guard and start singing "Why can't we be friends."
Me and Mr. GR: Oh god...

Be aware that alot of other stuff happened that day, to this same PC (this was all in one meeting), including Mr. GR having to pull him out of an indoor market where the monk had ende up knocking everyone out to make sure no one told the guards.


We still poke fun at him about it.

 

[Mr_GrinReaper]

You forgot about the part in the tavern where i turned him invisible so he could get away.... THEN he jumped out of the window....... I was loling so much, and whats worse, I had to pretend he was an enemy and send a summoned owl after him....

 

[Blade of Desecration]

You forgot about the part in the tavern where i turned him invisible so he could get away.... THEN he jumped out of the window....... I was loling so much, and whats worse, I had to pretend he was an enemy and send a summoned owl after him....

Yeah, that was kind of sad. In all fairness, we were all pretty tired by then, but still, what kind of a stupid move is it to jump through a glass window when you're invisible. Sometimes he really needs to think a little about his surroundings...

And remember, that meeting also spawned the gnoll line.

 

[ChaosEvoker]

@DMC
Seriuosly man, you need to host the next campaign for the DMF. I want to get the ever-loving crap scared out of me

@BoD (heh or CotDS, WHO KNOWS?)
Holy crap, that guy must have an IQ lower than that of retarded broccoli. Please tell me it washis first time playing the game (which in this stroy is BARELY an excuse)

 

[Mr_GrinReaper]

Well the thing is, he would have a harder time scaring us, b/c he doesn't know us in person, so he doesn't know for example that I fear [sblock]bugs[/sblock] of all sorts..... Oh-no now hes going to use that against me, better put it in a spoiler

Naw, I'm sure we've all had days where everything goes wrong... Well that was one of those days for him in our campaign, like the day where i stole some stuff and then lied bribing the gaurds....

But that campaign was a fun one though, even though we were all on the scale from lawful good to neutral, but we all thought the others were evil.... So yeah that was fun fun.... and funny, but the gnoll line is a classic...


"Its a Gnoll, Kill it!!!" LOL, and this was talking about a lawful neutral gnoll in a tavern, who was a little antisocial...

 

[Blade of Desecration]

Naw, I'm sure we've all had days where everything goes wrong... Well that was one of those days for him in our campaign, like the day where i stole some stuff and then lied bribing the gaurds....

But that campaign was a fun one though, even though we were all on the scale from lawful good to neutral, but we all thought the others were evil.... So yeah that was fun fun.... and funny, but the gnoll line is a classic...


"Its a Gnoll, Kill it!!!" LOL, and this was talking about a lawful neutral gnoll in a tavern, who was a little antisocial...

Yeah, he's a good player, and no, it wasn't his first time playing, but we were all playing pretty late at night so we were all kinda out of it.

Yeah, and that was kind of funny with everyone thinking everyone else was evil.
An explanation to everyone else about why we were all convinced IC that everyone else was evil. You see, they had been hired by an evil organizaton called the Iron Throne. But the monk and wizard didn't know they were working for an evil organization. They thought the Iron Throne was just a merchant guild. My paladin knows that the Iron Throne is evil, but doesn't know the others don't know that, so I think the other two PCs are evil. So, since I'm infiltrating, I act evil so that they won't be suspicious. But because of this, they think I'm evil, and I think they're evil, and nobody knows that none of us are evil. Yeah, it was weird.

And the gnoll line was used again later that meeting in an attempt to let the monk escape. To bad it didn't work though.