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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pielorinho" data-source="post: 993438" data-attributes="member: 259">When I sit down at the table to run a game, I have a pretty good idea what I'm going to be doing.  It's the surprises that make it worthwhile for me.Two sessions ago, the characters were investigating a massacre up at a monastery.  I'd planted two superstitious guards up at the site of the monastery to drive the PCs off and give them clues; but midway through the conversation with the superstitious guards, I realized they weren't superstitious at all.  The monastery really *was* haunted by the ghosts of the massacre, and the ghosts would be perpetually reliving their final battle, and would draw the PCs into the battle, giving them important clues in the process.  I excused myself from the table, wrote up stats, and prepared quickly for a creepy scene.  So that's the first kind of surprise:  when I as the DM come up with something I wasn't expecting at all.The battle played out well (in the next session).  The shadowdancer's player came late, so a different player handled her PC in the beginning, and tried to have the shadowdancer's shadow attack the ghosts of the shimmering monks of the moon goddess.  I explained that the shadow's strength-draining attack was probably ineffective against undead, and that as an incorporeal creature the shadow couldn't grapple (house rules), so that player had the shadow back off.But when the shadowdancer's normal player showed up, she thought about the situation and realized that the monks' shimmering was probably related to their worship of the moon goddess, that they were glowing with moonlight.  So, ignoring the rules, she decided her shadow would slip up onto one of the monks and shroud it in darkness, blocking it from the light of the moon.I was caught completely unawares by this tactic, but it was very cool.  Not only did I decide that it worked; it also temporarily freed the ghost from reliving the final battle and enabled the shadow to exchange a few brief lines with the monk before it collapsed into true death.So that's the second kind of surprise:  when the players do something unexpected and cinematic.Those are my favorite DMing moments.Daniel</blockquote>

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