What is your most memorable role playing moment?

[Laurel]

Two of our characters had these wishes. They had used them before. The last being to make a huge dragonish/undead ship disappear forever. We thought we saved the city... but no hundreds of smaller boats still appeard. With two more wishes to go, we used another one.
As chated and argued for a few hours all IC and finally as any good character would we called an army of angels down from above to help us out.....
Literally, our direct words, "I wish for an army of angels to help us." pause, "Win!" added one urgently.
Since wishes can be messed with (or must be to even out the ridiculousness of the spell) we actually brought not just angels but demons and the enternal war they wage against each other down to our little area...
Clearly not thinking straight at this point we tried to rectify it, so we called the deck of cards/manythings. Right, better! Only to have one banished to another plane and two imprisoned in another plane, and a few other random ones mostly all not good.
To say the least the third wish was used to try and rectify the quickly worsening situation, so one chacter ended up giving up his soul to a big bad to see time turned back, the wish revoked, and a warning given to us not to go down that path. The DM allowed this since we had so utterly in one night destroyed any hope of anything, and it worked great for the character's development. But one day we may return to that alternate universe and just see how playing out may have worked

But to say the least it was an interesting night and that was just the worst of the blunders. But since then a general cry of 'No!' errupts should anyone dare suggest, if we just had those wishes again.
So for my short life od D&D experiences that is the best RP experience I can offer.....

 

[irdeggman]

Two come to mind:

The first in 1st ed while playing a fighter with 18 (09) str, 17 dex and a 4 Int in the tavern drinking his milk (another whole issue in getting the tavern keeper to give him milk) and eating his "half a cow" - he catches someone trying to pick his pocket. Boom-boom (the PC's name) breaks the thief's hand.

The DM says why did you do that.

Boom-boom replies "What's in the pocket is mine what's outside of the pocket is his."


The other, while playing a mongrelman shaman/wizard a flind PC states with full insult intended "You human" to which my PC replied "I wish."

 

[Evilhalfling]

The party mage is betrothed to a noble family in a society run by mages, he is of poor birth and the family is down on its luck and needs a breadwinner to reestablish the family fortune. His primary qualitfication is cash, and he arranges a lavish party to announce the egagment. Then he goes on a quest and when he returns he uses his entire share of treasure, as well as borrowing from the party, and pledging a favor to upgrade his headband of intellect. (now +6) His first words after putting it on "I have made a tactical error." delivered in deadpan. As he realizes the bills for the wedding and parties will soon come due.

 

[Goblyn]

Not really heroic but...

I think the most heroic thing I can remember is a monk I had ... he was level one ... managed to fall five storiess ... 5d6 damage ... and didn't die. He stabilized at the -9 HP that the fall brought him to so that the other part members were able to save him. My monks have the worst luck. I needed to roll a 4 to have him make that climb check.

Latre on that same monk was trapped in a column full of water and had to solve a series of something like seven riddles to get out without drowning.

He drowned. One round short of the last riddle. The word for that moment was 'Darn'.

 

[Evilhalfling]

The party mage is betrothed to a noble family in a society run by mages, he is of poor birth and the family is down on its luck and needs a breadwinner to reestablish the family fortune. His primary qualitfication is cash, and he arranges a lavish party to announce the egagment. Then he goes on a quest and when he returns he uses his entire share of treasure, as well as borrowing from the party, and pledging a favor to upgrade his headband of intellect. (now +6) His first words after putting it on "I have made a tactical error." delivered in deadpan. As he realizes the bills for the wedding and parties will soon come due.

 

[Dark Dragon]

Two nice stories I remember...

1) The party was imprisoned by dragon cultists during the Time of Troubles. The party wizard was bound to the top of a city wall by dragon cultists, after he has stolen a ring of dragon calling...and used it...(he knew that Balagos the Flying Flame, a red great wyrm, was living somewhere in the region...). Well, Balagos appeared during sunset to bring justice to those who disturbed his slumber. The bound wizard tried to cast a Charm Monster, but the spell misfired and created a bright glowing Wall of Fire. Which attracted Balagos. He made a dive, plowing through the city wall and tearing the wizard into pieces.
The dragon slaughtered the cultists and a green dracolich, but spared the
slaves and the party, for he enjoyed that little fight.
Now it was time for the party druid (who loved dragons) to say thanks. The dragon had some wounds so she said: "If you are in need of help, please let me know, mighty one." Balagos, still in a good mood, answered: "Hm, I may have use for someone to polish all the coins in my hoard. I accept you as my new slave, little human...." Now the party tried to get the druid back, and fighting was not an option...From this event on, the group tried to avoid any meeting with any type of dragon....

2) A very experienced Faerunian party joined a LeShay on a mission to finish the war between two races on a different world. The LeShay owns a space ship (on the border to PL 9 in d20 future), but the party has never seen modern/futuristic stuff. After a few days of space travel, they accepted implants to gain some knowledge about thechnology, weapons and space flight. The two archers and the shifter wanted to train their newly gained skills and left the ship with a smaller, assault-fighter type craft. The party monk wanted to train with ship's heavy, semi-automatic plasma guns. And opened fire on that little fighter flying around. After a harmless hit (the cannons were operating on reduced power), the elf archer turned the assault fighter and fired. And rolled a 20...and confirmed, hitting the active plasma gun. Fortunately, the fighter's cannons were on low-power mode, too. Later: Monk " You were a bit exaggerating with that shot." Elf " No, it was only a payback."

(And this from a ranger/deepwood sniper who has killed a balor with one shot, saving the party from a TPK...)

 

[Nightchilde-2]

It was an AD&D 2e game. Our party had been captured by a group of kobolds (yes, we were low level) and my thief managed to slip his bonds and, somehow, alert the kobolds.

For some reason, these stupidos didn't remove all of our equipment, but they did remove our weapons and armor. I figured I could possibly sneak back in to rescue my allies later, so I hightailed it out of there.

Alone, with no weapons or armor and about 40 kobolds on my tail. All I had on me was an empty backpack, a sack filled with jerky, a light source of some kind (memory is fuzzy on that part) and dried fruits and a bag of marbles. So I ran as fast as my legs could carry me.

I guess the DM REALLY wanted the whole party captured because he decided that around the next bend was....a sheer cliff.

That's when the lightbulb went off in my head. I got as close ot the cliff edge as possible and poured out my marbles. Several Dex checks and the screams of falling kobolds later, and it was me and two kobolds left. The kobolds quickly ran away.

Man, did I get some SWEET XP for that.

Story #2

Same DM, different character. I was playing a 1st-level wizard. We had to find some object..I forget what now. Anyway, we captured a goblin and were questioning him.

My wizard decided to mess with the goblin, so in a deep booming voice said "I am a god. If you lie to us, I will know it!!" One of the party members asked the goblin a question.

Just as the goblin answered, I cast a cantrip to make sparkles appear around the goblin. Just so happened the goblin did lie. But once sparkles appeared around his head, he quickly apologized and told us the truth.

Stupid goblin actually believed my wizard was a god. Good thing, too, because that cantrip was the last spell I had available.

 

[Stormborn]

Most of my really memorable experiances were running, not playing but here are a few as a player:

1st - First night to ever play, my first level half-elf Sorcerer Grayalynn Stormborn beats a dire rat to death with his quarter staff. I was so happy.

1st time an RPG kept me awake - was playing in a CoC game. We activated the magical amulet thing without knowing what it did. The DM tells us we see a bright light, then the room we were in as if we were floating above it, he then takes away our character sheets. He then tells us that only one character, a gangster-going-strait PC, is standing alone next to an empty jar lying on its side in a field full of jars. I sit in quiet agony as the player tries to figure out what to do (as the DM had ordered I not speak since my character wasn't there). Finally he begins tipping over jars, eventually releasing us. We play the next few hours in Dante's version of Hell. To escape we have to buy access to a library where the admitants is a book. What is paper made out of? Human Skin. Turns out we were sent to the dream lands.
in the same game my PC gets another one pregnant (right after that) and gets punched by the other one. We also completly screwed up the plot and wound up in the Belgian Congo, now a synonym for PCs following false clues that take them away from the story.

I will have to think about the ones when I DM'd, which I usually do.

 

[Ramien Meltides]

My most memorable roleplaying moment requires a bit of backstory. Earlier, our party had adventured through the possessed tower of Am’Zagga, a former home to a lawful order of knights that had been invaded and corrupted by demonic beings. While inside the tower, our party could only find one place to rest, a holy shrine guarded by an extremely powerful fiery spirit (I always assumed it to be some form of Genie – clearly not an Efreet, especially since the spirit was friendly). Once we turned over the now-cleansed tower to the order of knights, they said we could name our reward. My character’s immediate response was “For my reward, you can free the Guardian spirit. He has served you well and has earned the right to choose his own destiny.” (Sometimes, I really love playing chaotic good rogue types who cherish personal freedoms!) The knights agreed, and the spirit later visited me and swore that if I ever needed his help, I could break the ring that he gave me (A small ring made up of golden chain links). Since the ring also gave me the ability to cast protection from chaos three times a day, I figured I would never willingly destroy the item. (Being a chaotic person, casting protection from chaos on yourself feels a little…creepy, but the benefits are difficult to ignore!)

At any rate, the campaign progressed, and soon we found ourselves at the Silver Towers of Arva, where we had to activate an ancient magical device in order to open a gate to a dead elven city and restore life to the wasteland. Of course, the BBEG of the campaign setting, the Targolid Empire, had no desire to see old enemies gain power again – a massive force of Ettin Barbarians, Targolid sorcerers (lizardmen-like psions), and Legion Warriors (tainted human Fighters) assembled to stop the party in our tracks. Thus began the Battle of the Silver Towers, a massive combat where most of the party was struggling just to keep the tower’s narrow staircase and roof clear of enemies so that one of us could get the machinery going. At one point, it looked like we were about to be overrun, so my character (same name as my handle here) snapped the ring and called out “Guardian of the Tower! Remember your Vow!” The DM grinned evilly and began to describe some serious law-fiery-spirit wrath as this HUGE flaming critter with a massive fiery sword began to exact bloody vengeance on the Targolid battalion. Eventually, the spirit was overwhelmed, but he took out the majority of the forces arrayed against us before he was destroyed. He considered his life a small price to pay for several blessed months of freedom.

To finish up, the machinery worked and our party escaped through the gate to the dead elven city just as the Targolid’s “final solution” psionic blasts obliterated everything on the Silver Tower. Our party had successfully fought off and defeated an entire Targolid Empire batallion, and we held our heads very high afterwards, thank you very much.

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

How to choose just one?? Man...

My most memorable moments as a player spring from my 1e days. I began DMing in the last days of 1e, and seldom ever got to play again. Anyway... My favorite player memory was playing my anti-paladin, Schwartz the Lawless (this was before the movie "Spaceballs", so the stupid Schwartz jokes didn't apply, thank you very much. I chose Schwartz because it's German for black and I was listening to a lot of WASP at the time and..anyway...).

Schwartz and some of his fellow acolytes of Set had been translocated with their wild west counterparts (Boot Hill rules from the 1e DMG). In this person, he was Clem Whitaker, Scourge of the West, although he had Schwartz's mind and memories. Schwartz was alone in his hotel room, when there's a knock on the door. Opening the door, a trail-dusted bounty hunter shoves a double-barreled 12 gauge under Schwartz's nose and says, "Clem Whitaker. I've been after you for nigh on five years. You're a very popular man. $5,000 dead, $10,000 alive. I'm not a greedy man", and then pulls the trigger.

The look of shock and then the smile on my DM's face told the whole story. The bounty hunter rolled a 1. My DM ruled the gun had jammed. This was the only break Schwartz needed, as he grabbed the gun from the man and beat him to death with the stock. This was the first instance of what we began to refer to as "Schwartz Luck", where at the most fortunate time the dice would fall in my favor and the whole adventure would spin round to bite our foes in the butt.

I have many, many more of these...those were good days.