What's your proudest DM moment?

[TheAlkaizer]

I posted this in TTRPGs General. Moment from any tabletop RPGs are welcome!

So, the question is simple, what's your proudest DM moment?

I often share stories with other DMs I know in person. All DMs are different, so are their players and the games they play. So if can be any of these things or more:

• An NPC that you prepared that your player loved
• An encounter you spent a ton of time working on that became a good story to tell
• A dungeon you designed that ended up working even better than you expected
• A sudden flash of inspiration in response to a player request that lead to an amazing moment
• A collaborative moment with your players where you reached that magic that only TTRPGs manage to it.

-----

Here's mine.

It was years ago, in was in the early days of 4E. I only had three players and I decided to create an NPC that would travel with them (made sense in the story). I really wasn't sure if they would enjoy having him around. But I guess that I just hit the right story when it came to personality, integration in the story and roleplaying because my characters became very fond of him. It was a wonderful group of players that thoroughly enjoyed roleplaying little insignificant moments and I spent more time roleplaying this NPC than all the characters I played while not DMing put together. It became one of my longest campaign. We played a little over sixty sessions, the players got past level 15. And at one time, after more than two years of roleplaying that character, the dice gods adjudicated and he died in a truly epic moment; he got hurt and lost distance to the party as they were dashing out of a crumbling fire giants fortress in a volcano. They tried to go back for him but ultimately couldn't save him. All three of my players were sad and teary-eyed. One of them bawled for a few minutes. We played a bit more. All three sent me texts during the week saying some variation of "I can't believe he's gone", or "Man, I thought about him like every day this week".

Even though I never planned or designed him to become this beloved characters, looking back and seeing the amount of time and effort that was spent on those fictional relationships really makes me proud to have reached a point where it made a story that stayed with us all and moved us. That's always my mark when I'm DMing; try to buildup for something as powerful.

 

[prabe]

My favorite moment is this:

The PCs in the longer-running (and therefore higher-level) campaign I'm DMing had made friends with a wizard who was a retired adventurer. He (and his business partner) had done the party several favors, and over the course of things the party learned his wife had been lost on some planar thing. The party bumped into him a couple times, doing research in the same places and times they were.

When he told them he knew how to get his wife back, and needed their help, the answer was, "Sure, you got it." Before he told them what that help was.

It ended up being a cage match with a mythic death knight, with friends, but though that fight was one of my favorite sessions ever, the yes, no questions asked response to that request for help is ... pretty much what I mean when I say I want heroic PCs.

 

[Sacrosanct]

When I'm DMing new players (especially kids), and they get super excited about how the game is going, and just make stuff up that sounds neat rather than look up rules.

 

[payn]

I was running a Paizo adventure path for a buddy I met at PFS. The home campaign I launched was him, a couple of his buddies, and a couple of mine. I got the modules and read and studied them. I took notes on the players and tried to implement elements of their PCs into the game. I was just dumping tons of energy into it. I asked the players for feedback and they provided very little. Said they were enjoying themselves and I just went with that.

After a few sessions, one of my buddies dropped because the group didnt really share his serious side playstyle. It was moving in a real beer and pretzel direction with plenty of off color jokes. I started losing steam and was thinking about tossing in the towel. Then, at the end of one stressful session the players were all hanging afterwards chatting like we usually do. They went around the room talking about how much they looked forward to the game. How they have stressful jobs and kids and things and that every other Friday this was really great for them. Most importantly, this felt like a real campaign compared to the usual PFS experience they had. Totally recharged my batteries, and while I wish they were a little more into the story, I was happy that I was making that kind of impact at my table.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

It's a hazy memory:

It was after a big em-super-powering event. The PCs were being interviewed by SHIELD. One of the PCs was playing a married guy who's wife had been injured in the event. Once the PC was done with his statement, I had Coulson reach across the table to grab his hand and say "Don't worry: SHIELD is going to make sure people get help."

They player said they were moved by it, and it was pretty good RP on my end considering I normally have problems with how to react in situations like that.

 

[Richards]

I've already detailed one of my proudest DM moments in a separate thread from years ago, so I'll just link to it here:

I Finally Found a Way to Implement the Doppelganger Gambit

Johnathan

 

[aramis erak]

I posted this in TTRPGs General. Moment from any tabletop RPGs are welcome!

So, the question is simple, what's your proudest DM moment?

When the players look at the betrayal by an NPC, and rather than bemoaning it as unfounded, go, "Damn! I should have seen that one coming! All the warning signs were there!"

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

One of my proudest moments was ironically when I wasn't even there. Back in D&D 2e, when I set up an RP scene amongst the players. I had to step away from the table, and when I came back everyone was still talking in character.

More recently, both of my current groups have people with far more artistic talent than I have, and it amazes me to see them bring the game to life. To see people take these moments we've crafted together and turn them into art, that makes me feel proud and humbled.

 

[TheLibrarian]

haha. I made my wife cry.

We were in the final game of a Star Wars campaign that lasted the better part of a decade. We've defeated the bad guy, but are still at the all-hope-is-lost-because-he-kinda-sorta-won-anyway moment. The planet is dying and turning into something akin to the Brethren Moons of Dead Space. She's a force user that's been carrying a force secret with her for the better part of the year. Her character finally understands the secret and she's able to heal the planet by imbuing herself into it. (Kind of like the Elcrys from Terry Brooks The Elfstones of Shannara. I stole from a LOT of sources for this campaign.) I also managed to weave music from Frozen into the scene (because we use music a lot in our games). She got all teary eye, which is not usual for her. It was awesome.

 

[delericho]

I ran a three-year Eberron campaign centred around a number of fairly big mysteries. About two and a half years into it, the players took a shot at outlining what was going on, and got it about 90% right, missing only some things that just hadn't been revealed yet. I've never had a group that paid quite so much attention before.

Or since.