Too often on these boards I see posts, and sometimes entire threads, that are unfriendly or sometimes downright hostile to GMs. Horror stories abound in which GMs are portrayed as power-hungry control freaks who, like some malicious gremlin, feed off of the frustration and disappointment of their players.
This thread is here for people to post actual good things about their GMs! What was something your GM did that made you stop and say "awesome!" or particularly captured your imagination? It could be a particularly satisfying plot resolution, or an epic battle, or something like that. Or perhaps the party interacted with an NPC early on in the campaign that made a memorable appearance later on.
To the GM of this campaign, I appreciate you for not strangling me.
Only one reply? How depressing!
Long, long ago one of my first "real" DMs allowed me, ten years younger than most of the rest of the table, to be treated like a real player. I wasn't treated like the kid, I wasn't ignored, and I was allowed to learn how to play and role play. I learned a lot about how to run a game for 4-30 people at a time. how to weave a story that is captivating and how to draw in everyone, regardless of their level of experience or degree of shyness.
Too often on these boards I see posts, and sometimes entire threads, that are unfriendly or sometimes downright hostile to GMs. Horror stories abound in which GMs are portrayed as power-hungry control freaks who, like some malicious gremlin, feed off of the frustration and disappointment of their players.
That's because a lot of people really don't like the authority that comes along with the GM, when they are players. For these people, they'd prefer to eliminate the GM role and simply have that automated. That way they would feel like things were balanced and who does well or poorly revolves around system mastery.
Definitely not my style of play.
As far as the original question, I'm almost always the GM, so my stories are dated. One that I recall was when I was really young. The PCs (think just 2 of us at the time) were called into the mayor's office and asked to investigate some disappearances or some such.
Eventually the town was attacked by different colors of skeleton (plus a lot of regular skeletons). When you killed one of the colored skeletons, a gem of the corresponding color was left behind. I thought that was quite interesting and rewarding (the colored skeletons were really tough).
The best part was the atmosphere the DM made - the skeletons scratching at the house we were hiding out in, there was a real sense of danger and that our characters could be killed at any time.
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One Dm I have is brilliant at "making" civilizations and NPC's. They all have a great back ground. He has a way of describing places that truely makes me feel the ambiance. The other roll plays very well and puts up good fights. I really appreciate the time both of the Dm's put into the dungeon.
I think the reason there aren't more posts is that people feel the need to complain about what's bothering them, if a Dm is doing really well people often think it's normal. (Which it isn't.) They won't come running to the forum "everything is going very well over here, what should I do about it?" :-P
I would like more great Dm stories, I could learn from them.
I give props to my current GM who has pretty much opened the floodgates on EVERYTHING; custom magic items, spell creation, custom races, 3rd party (if we buy the book for him of course), leadership, and any other shenanigans we want. He rolls with everything really well, which is cool. I'm starting to GM, and I will admit I am much more restrained than him.
As an example: our summoner is a bit insane. Quite enjoyed it when they accidentaly put on a cursed item of gender reversal (and still has it on). One day we noticed that accros a giant underground lava field, there were some chests on an island. Protected by a magma dragon. The summoner's eidolon (full kitted for flying) flew in, grabbed a chest, and managed to fly out before being slaughtered. And the GM just went with it. The summoner got a ring of spell turning out of it. Which is great in an all-spellcaster campaign.
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Thank you GMs! I appreciate every moment you spend building fantastical worlds and entertaining your players. It is hard, often unforgiving work, but the end results are some of the most compelling storytelling I've ever participated in.
I'm my groups GM and I appreciate myself! xD
My friend Rez does really great oneshots of CoC now and again, though. Always love those.
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I've had really good fortune with GMs. I thank all of my regular GMs for putting up with me as a player, giving me a chance to play, remembering what I like and occasionally catering to it, and helping me with the rules that I can never seem to remember no matter how many times I play.
Thank you to all of you for being my GMs, and for being my friends.
One of my new players is stepping up to GM and to GM a system I never played. I am pretty thankful for that, I'm usually GMing and it is nice to play, so I don't lose that perspective. Plus it is nice to see other styles, so I can see how to improve mine.
I've been blessed with the favor that I've never really ran into much of the GM horror stories. That being said, I have a lot of respect for GMs; running a game is a lot of work, and while I wouldn't mind running a game, that level of work daunts me when piled onto my normal workload.
I also love it when GMs are really good at tying in all of the player characters into a story. In my current campaign, I missed our last session, and he STILL managed to involve my character in such a way that I have a lot of material to work with when it comes to character development when we run the next game.