Your biggest screw-up as a DM?

[Rafael Ceurdepyr]

OK, confession time! What's the worst you've ever screwed up in running a game?

Cuz I screwed up big time and I want to feel better about it.

Mine was this weekend in a d20M one-shot adventure. Basically the group of three PCs went into a forest ranger's cabin (won't go into details about why). They'd already heard on the radio that there were two escaped convicts on the loose in the area (although they found one dead, being eaten by ghouls), and I wanted them to think the other one was doing nasty things to the ranger. In fact, the ranger was the baddie. A major clue to throw them off was the convict's bright orange jumpsuit draped over the chair in the front room of the cabin.

I FORGOT TO MENTION IT until they went down to the basement after hearing a scream. I opened my mouth to say "Tied to a chair is a man in his underwear..." and realized I'd forgotten the jumpsuit.

&*%$. I forgot other stuff too, but to me, that was the worst. Their whole reason for suspicion was right there.

Sigh.

What's your worst?

 

[Sejs]

Shadowrun: Never, ever run a published adventure with the big plot twist clearly encapsulated in the friggin' title of the book.


"So, is this the part where we get Double Crossed?"

"So, have we been Double Crossed yet?"

"Man, that Double Cross sure is taking its sweet time to show up. Oh, maybe this is it now."

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Biggest mistake: there apparently is such a thing as too much vodka during a game.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

I was running an adventure once, a little city-based investigative piece. The kind of thing where details are important. I made the unfortunate mistake of having several of the important NPC's have similar sounding names -- I must not have been feeling terribly creative, or something. Anyway, I kept screwing up and mixing up the names. Had the party totally confused, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why they were being so dense and missing clues that were right in front of their face.

Finally one of them realized what I was doing and pointed it out. Ended up scrapping the whole thing and playing 'Circus Maximus' the rest of the night and pretending the adventure was just a dream...

 

[derelictjay]

Shadowrun: Never, ever run a published adventure with the big plot twist clearly encapsulated in the friggin' title of the book.
QUOTE]

I'll one up you on this on, never run a published adventure with the big bad nasty on the front.

DM: You open the door
Player: Is it the Marilith yet
...Later...
DM: You see a spot on the wall
Player: Defensive positions, its the marilith

 

[barsoomcore]

Aw man, I wouldn't even know where to start. My DMing career has pretty much been me scrambling to cover for massive screw-ups. I've had to invent not only entire NPCs but entire NATIONS on the spot, just to explain some complete bonehead maneuver of mine.

This is where observant (and talkative) players can come in handy.

PC: "Huh, last time we were here didn't Blacksmith Fred get killed by a bunch of hobgoblins? Why's he suddenly alive again?"

Me: (to myself) "Crap! I totally forgot about that! I'm such a moron!"

Me: (to the party) 'Why, indeed?" (settling back with a knowing look and waiting for them to "figure out" what happened)

 

[WayneLigon]

I've lost count on how many times I've screwed up a plot because I've left out something.

The biggest rules screwup I ever did was:

Building a villain using the Damage Reduction rules for Champions and not reading about when to apply them. DR is applied after the damage is done, not before. I was doing it before. The way it normally works is that you take damage, apply armor to it, then reduce amount taken by the DR %. I was reducing all their damage by 75%, then applying it to the armor. Basically, it makes a villain truly invulnerable. And since I only ever built one guy with that power, it took me like four years to see the mistake.

 

[Treebore]

I never made mistakes big enough to remember for more than a week or two. Except for agreeing to let certain people join our gaming group even though my instincts were screaming not to. I do not ignore my instincts any longer.

 

[Piratecat]

I once had a fantastic trap involving a beholder and a very big pit. The magicuser should have fallen from top to bottom in the space of one round... actually, in the space of a few seconds. For some we-were-playing-at-2-am reason I let him get about three rounds of actions off before he hit bottom, and the trap was completely emasculated as a result.

I felt pretty dumb about it when I looked up actual falling rates.

 

[jerichothebard]

Unicorn Poop.