Just for some balance, what were some of your happier moments in a game.


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Two days ago, my players took a vaguely unorthodox path to neutralizing the githyanki lich queen -- they nullified her pact with red dragons, broke Gith's soul out of Hell, and convinced her that Vlaakith had squandered Gith's legacy and was no longer fit to lead the race. Gith headed off to cause a revolution, reclaim her people and toss Vlaakith off the throne. Fear for the lich-queen; she isn't long for the multi-verse...

In other words, they did a total end run around the normal invade-the-base-and-have-a-boss-fight, getting someone much more appropriate to do the work for them while they concentrate on more important matters.

It was awesome. :D
 
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I was a priestess in a campaign with a metaplot based on a Cold War situation between the Tarantian Empire (Roman-flavored) and the Gilded League (Persian-flavored). We uncovered a large, complex, and insidious plot that involved striking at various points in the Empire simultaneously by stealth. We had the resources to warn the Emperor and to take down the local plotters, but that didn't satisfy Sofia. We'd had to deal with the League more than once and they were getting up her nose. So she used Planar Ally and cut a deal with a Deva to go to the originator of this plan - not the guy in charge of the operation, but the guy who conceived the idea and set it in motion - and take him to an Imperial maximum-security prison. As he worked through the exact wording of my request and realized the implications, the DM got that look which all players treasure, the oen that tells you that you've hit the thing he never envisioned you doing and you've innocently knocked his plans into a cocked hat.

What was happening over in the Gilded Leagues was that a new and charismatic religious leader and prophet had arisen. The plan was his. Sofia had called an angel to kidnap someone analogous to Mohammed. Suddenly a politics-and-intrigue game assumed mythic proportions.

That campaign's on hiatus for other causes and Sofia still owes that deva a favor.
 

Storyteller01 said:
Pretty much what the title says. What are some of your happier moments in the game, times when players redeemed themsleves, etc.

Two stories:

The party was exploring sewers beneath a city, searching out unknown monsters that had killed some workmen. They were ambushed by a carrion crawler which promptly paralyzed, one by one, the fighters and rogue. It's down to the gnome wizard who, out of spells and refusing to abandon her teammates, wades in with her dagger. Somehow she makes all her saves, slays the crawler, and saves all the "tougher" PC's. We still talk about that one.

I don't remember why we were there, but the party was in some woods. My character, a rogue/sorcerer, was scouting invisibly when he comes across several druids worshipping at a nature shrine in the shape of some animal. I snuck up behind the shrine and cried out in my most commanding voice "Stop! I can't stand it anymore...praying and bowing, bowing and praying. And for what? Stop wasting my time. Go out and DO SOMETHING. Make a difference. Get a life, for heaven's sake!"

The look on their faces (as played by the GM) was golden.
 

Croesus said:
I don't remember why we were there, but the party was in some woods. My character, a rogue/sorcerer, was scouting invisibly when he comes across several druids worshipping at a nature shrine in the shape of some animal. I snuck up behind the shrine and cried out in my most commanding voice "Stop! I can't stand it anymore...praying and bowing, bowing and praying. And for what? Stop wasting my time. Go out and DO SOMETHING. Make a difference. Get a life, for heaven's sake!"

Gold. Pure gold.
 

At the climax of our most recent solo campaign, we set upon our ultimate nemesis and his forces in his tower o' doom. Upon the tower's apex, we fought a vicious battle. He had summoners and clerics and undead... and the summoners kept bringing in Wyverns to help the bad guys win and get the magic book they so coveted...

And they did.

Defeated, only one person stood. My female Favored Soul.

Then, the doors below were kicked in, and in trotted another group of Bad Guys. They wanted the powerful magic book that the other bad guy had taken from US. They also wanted my Favored Soul as a sacrifice to their dark God. In a fit of desperation, my FS told the new bad guys that they could have her soul in exchange for her friend's lives and, in good faith, she would help this new team of bad guys defeat her nemesis.

And they did.

And in the end, my FS told her newly-raised friends that she had traded her soul for their safety and that, in her stead, they were to rule over her Church-City and to carry on. The shadows swallowed her whole...

... and she became a slave to a Vampire Lord. He was ready to drain her holy blood dry when he noticed something unusual...

... she was carrying a child. With no father.

The Vampire Lord grinned, and decided that he would raise the child in his own Dark image. He kept my FS alive and awaited the day that the alleged Divine Child was born...

And that's where we left off.
 
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Oddly enough, it was a funeral for a dead PC. The players spoke eulogies, and there was genuine emotion around the table. It made me very proud of my players.
 

This is quite recent: We had to recover an artifact in parts (a mighty wizard's staff), and one was in Skullport (for those who don't know the Realms: It's an underground town below one of the largest cities on the continent, and all kinds of evil creatures live there - mind flayers, beholders, duergar, drow, green races...) We have to run errands for mind flayers so they give us the information we need to find the next piece, and my LG cleric of Moradin is furious about it (only the fact that the people they sent us to kill were bloothristy madmen themselves made it bearable for him).

So after we defeated a mad halfling rogue we were sent to kill (which killed our big tank, so only my priest and the dwarven wizard were still standing), a high-level drow cleric (we knew he was considerably more powerful than us. I think he was level 19, and we were level 12) shows up to take the dead halfling away, to "revive him, he's such a funny fellow." When we insisted he let the murderer there since we needed him dead, he started to suggest that he would consider it after we ran some errands for him.

That was too much for my almost paladin-like priest. He told the wizard that he didn't expect him to join this fight, but that he had to do it - better to join Moradin today than Asmodeus tomorrow - and began attacking the priest (with the wizard's help, who didn't flee).

It was a going badly for us: We hardly hit, or managed to get a spel home properly, despite his magically lowered SR. So the wizard took desperate measures: One of the pieces of the staff we already recovered could cast imprisonment 1/week at CL 19. It still was a 1/20 chance (as we were sure the drow had to roll a natural 1 to fail the saving throw), but at least it would deal with him if it got through, and it had better chances of getting past the SR.


We used it, got past the SR, the DR made a roll, looked at us - and lifted the DM Screen, showing a d20 with a "1" on it!

That got us up two levels all at once (we ignored the "only 1 level" rule since it would be dumb waiting for that one XP, but we didn't get more than just enough XP to level up twice)

A great victory for justice!
 

One of my happiest moments in gaming was oh so long ago...

My halfling thief, after his first adventure, had acquired a short sword +1. Now this was a big deal for me - it was the first time I'd had a character survive an adventure, and as far as I recall it was my first ever magic item.

So what happens in the next adventure? We get captured by orcs, and the friggin' orc king takes my short sword for himself. Eventually we escaped, and everyone else just wanted to get the hell out of there, but I wasn't going anywhere without that sword. So while the others are carving their way to freedom, I sneaked off and got the drop on the orc king and totally backstabbed that bastard into oblivion. It was sweet.

Another that I recall fondly:

We were fighting this big warlord guy, and had been dishing out some hefty damage to him, but he was still kicking. At this point my halfling thief (now about 18th level) had turned invisible and sneaked around behind for a backstab. I whipped out my special backstabbing dagger, which was enchanted to do double damage when I twisted the hilt. My backstab was at x5 damage. So I was all set to do x10 damage on this guy. And then I rolled a natural 20 - we had the standard house rule of double damage for that. In the end I did something like 400 points of damage on that guy, and you know what the best thing was? He only had 1 hit point left before I hit him.
 

My happier moments have nothing to do with game mechanics.

They have to do with players simply saying "Thanks, I had a great time. I really like this campaign."

Carrot-stick. That's the only thing that makes me happy.

jh
 

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