Your biggest screw-up as a DM?

[ForceUser]

I hate forgetting that a monster has DR, SR, or an encounter-altering special feature. I do it all the time.

 

[reddist]

I had a bad one that ruined a whole campaign. They were after a white dragon and his cronies... the party had worked for weeks tracking the dragon's lair down, isolating his pet wizards and half-dragon offspring and neutralizing them, forcing the dragon back into its last-ditch hide-out.

I had scheduled the entirety of our normal 5-6 hour gaming period for stalking through the dragon's lair, the great climactic battle, and the requisite party back at the pub (these guys liked to role-play the end-of-adventure parties, swilling booze with the locals).

They marched right up to the dragon and managed to get a harm spell off. The cleric DID make is SR check, and he was hasted, so he bashed the dragon with his mace and killed it in one round (3.0, obviously). I was totally dumbfounded. I had not even *considered* a hasted cleric with the harm spell and a mace. Talk about anti-climactic. And just plain STOOPID on my part.

They congradulated themselves on out-witting the DM, went to back to the pub at the edge of the frozen wastes, and we role-played the party for the rest of the night. I had to play NPC barmaids who were SO impressed with their bravery and courage.


-Reddist

 

[DralonXitz]

Oh man, Ive had a few, but I have two Equal screw ups. First was in a SWRPG Campaign, where they infiltrated a hangar and were observing a shuttlecraft.
Me: "All of the sudden, Duo walks up, lightning raging through his hand, sparkling through his chrome DL44 Blaster Pistol as he walks slowly at the Ship"
Player: "Hey DM, we got all of our guns taken away at that Prison twenty minutes ago... You said they were incinerated in a large furnace"

Two was same campaign, our players went into space for the first time and took on a Hunter in Ship Combat, I thought they could take him but our pilot kept rolling 1s and 3s, died, so I had to go back and say he blacked out and the Hunter vanished. Terrible, but they screamed at me for hours for their deaths. SO I pitied them.

 

[Herpes Cineplex]

I was totally dumbfounded. I had not even *considered* a hasted cleric with the harm spell and a mace. Talk about anti-climactic. And just plain STOOPID on my part.

They congratulated themselves on out-witting the DM, went to back to the pub at the edge of the frozen wastes, and we role-played the party for the rest of the night. I had to play NPC barmaids who were SO impressed with their bravery and courage.

Oh, I like your players. Not only did they catch a mistake and exploit it perfectly, but they knew the best way to celebrate it and make you eat your liver for the rest of the session.

I wouldn't say that ruined a whole campaign at all; it just sidestepped the big climactic fight you were counting on, which is a bummer for you but has absolutely nothing to do with how memorable or fun the entire campaign is for the players. I'd imagine that quite a few of them have fond memories of the time they kicked that white dragon's butt before it had time to blink, and how all the NPCs they met were properly impressed by it all.

So by all means, feel a little bit of regret that you didn't get to romp over them with the full powers of a white dragon, but don't think for a second you ruined everything by doing it. Did they have fun? Will they remember this game as one of the good ones? Those are the only two really important questions, and since it looks like the answer to both is "yes," you're a success. That should offset whatever angst you feel over not whipping them soundly with a dragon.

Besides, NEXT time you won't forget to allow for Harm+Haste when planning the big fight, and they'll be impressed that you got wise to that trick.

--
and they may regret forcing you to play adoring barmaids all night
ryan

 

[demiurge1138]

Yeah, my entire epic campaign was, essentially, one big mistake. It was supposed to be a suspensful, wierd Call of Cthulhu meets Forgotten Realms adventure.

Mistake 1: Since the party was epic level, the idea was that they'd eventually figure everything out, maybe going a little mad in the process, and kill Cthulhu.

Mistake 2: This is the Forgotten Realms. Why haven't all the other epic NPCs done something about this?

Mistake 3: Letting them do interesting subplots when they were supposed to be on a deadline when the big C was supposed to wake up. Then losing track of the time.

Needliess to say, that campaign folded.

Demiurge out.

 

[Simplicity]

Dumbest mistake I've ever done:

A new campaign is starting, and the characters get to know various NPCs in their town. The town's one major problem: a masked bandit captain who is assassinating prominant people. The first time the party sees the mysterious
masked bandit in dark, baggy clothes with a dark mask on, and I have to go and say:

"And then she..."

Basically, the whole plot hinged on the fact that the players were assuming the bandit was male. Once the pronoun flub came out, it became dreadfully obvious who the bandit captain was....

 

[Ao the Overkitty]

Biggest mistake as a DM: my first campaign.

Second biggest mistake: my last campaign.

Okay, suppossedly I'm being too hard on myself, so here is a good little story.

This was in a 3e game. The group is exploring a temple of Loki. Very little made sense within, including the hydra that was too big to get out of the room it was in. He had originally been a lernean hydra, but I changed my notes during the game cause I thought it might be too tough for the party. So, when the group finds the room and sees the hydra, the rogue says, "I'm not going in there! I'll just plug it with arrows from out here." The group all thought this was a great idea and followed her lead. Poor hydra never had a chance.

I do regularly forget things like SR, special abilities, Dodge, and the like. I have taken to using variations of Bold, Italics, Underlining, and repeating something at the top of the page. If it is important to the creature/character, they get all four.

 

[Pants]

Here's my worst screwup... due more to a lack of communication:

1) I have really extensive backstory planned out for a campaign... an epic (before there was such a book) campaign, involving the deaths of gods, a sympathetic badguy gone horribly insane, dastardly plots to topple kingdoms, and good old fashioned genocide. Really probably the best story I've probably ever done.
Therein lie the problem. The campaign was initially more suited for a novel than a game as most of the story was hinged around me leading the poor players by the noses. I began to realize this a tad too late and sought to rectify the problem as quickly as possible. However, in the end, the solution was worse than the 'problem' itself...

2) TPK time. I ended the campaign in a battle that the PC's could not win. Not only was this a horrible case of railroading, I forgot to do one thing before I enacted this plan.

3) I forgot to ask the PC's if they were having any fun. Sure I assumed that the PC's weren't due to the fact that they often seemed bored, but I never bothered to actually ask. In the end, the players were more angry because their characters were pitted in a fight that they could neither avoid nor win.

 

[Li Shenron]

A large locale filled with conjured fog and the illusion of a dragon dive-charging against the characters. The fog concealed the wall enough so that the large room could seem to be an open place. Characters started shooting arrows and bolts at the dragon, when the illusion was later discovered they protested that I haven't told them about the noise of arrows cracking against the room's walls, which they surely should have heard. I came up with some excuse on the fly, that the sound was hampered by the fog...

All of a sudden I was overwhelmed with rage about my ignorance in physics, how the fog should have actually amplified the sound, how I was unfit as DM, how I was making up things on the fly, how I was stupid and they should have known beforehands, etc...

 

[I'm A Banana]

Mistake 1: Since the party was epic level, the idea was that they'd eventually figure everything out, maybe going a little mad in the process, and kill Cthulhu.

Mistake 2: This is the Forgotten Realms. Why haven't all the other epic NPCs done something about this?

Mistake 3: Letting them do interesting subplots when they were supposed to be on a deadline when the big C was supposed to wake up. Then losing track of the time.

As someone who's run a FR/CoC crossover (albeit not at epic levels), here's my notes:

On Mistake 1: Not a bad plan, but I tend to like the feeling that they can't do jack a bit better...Cthulhu is gonna come get ya...all you can do is hope that not EVERYONE goes mad...you have to pass under his notice, not up in his face (especially tough for people used to bashing evil about the face a bit...this ain't no FR organization that exists mostly to get it's butts kicked, heh.). It works especially well for epic levels -- they have to use their powers just to ensure that the local farmhands don't get lost within their own pscyhes, nevermind beating Cthulhu...where's the fun in winning if the world is ash behind you?

On Mistake 2: My answer was that they're all somewhat magical/blessed by the Gods. When the Gods are all killed right in front of the believers and magic starts driving you insane whenever you use it, well, Elminster can't walk around his house without becoming a gibbering ball of goop....

On Mistake 3: What, time's supposed to make sense to them? Hehehe, these are Elder Gods, they're supposed to be unpredictable. You expected the Convergance to happen Sunday? TOO BAD, it happens Saturday while you're on the can!

Needless to say, I really really enjoyed making the Realms gibber with madness, and the PC's took great joy in seeing a beloved campaign world torn asunder by another. They're thinking of returning, sooner or later....won't that be fun?! We're thinking of using d20 Modern rules for extra deadliness and no magic, but a bit more archetypal than 'investigators.' Then it's just a matter of seeing how long Cthulhu lies dreaming...(mwahahaha!)