DISCLAIMER: This thread is NOT to complain about or spread hatred towards DMs or other people. It's just to share stories, whether fun, frustrating, or just plain silly. I'd appreciate a positive attitude be kept as much as possible. Thank you.
When the players or their characters frustrate a DM to the point of madness, reality itself bends to give the would-be offenders a sound spanking.
There's a character in my Skulls and Shackles campaign named Max that deals ridiculous amounts of damage (and amazingly enough crits at least 3 times a session, which shocks and outrages not JUST the DM, but the rest of us who roll so poorly on a consistent basis, too) and is a bit nutty to boot. He often frustrates and upsets my own character (the captain) with his antics but because he's such a capable fighter he's kept around anyway. On their way back from a non-combat mission, the two struck up a conversation about gods. Turns out, his character thinks that a) the afterlife is a hoax and b) the gods need mortals more than mortals need them, which is why they demand worship.
My character has the [Child of the Temple] trait and ranks in knowledge [religion] so he's a theologian who despises atheism (though he's chalking this up more to ignorance than stubborn rebellion) so he takes it on himself to educate Max. Max continuously snubs the (factually proven) ideas of Abaddon, the Styx, daemons, gods, and the like. He thinks no one knows really what's at the other side of the big black door.
Queue the DM growing so aggravated by the character that he has Charon the Horseman of Death appear to educate Max. At first, it looked like it was a joke, but when I asked if it was real, the DM just said "You know what? **** it. Yeah, it is. Max's trollishness has earned him an audience with Charon".
Charon takes Max and Sakhbet on a one-glance tour of Hell Dante's Inferno style. Turns out, Max's sheer ballsy "temptation of fate" made "The Powers That Be" think it best to humble him. We decided to play along rather than protest. In fact, we wanted to see where it would lead.
While Sakhbet's only barely holding his bladder from collapsing out of sheer terror, Max is, while afraid, still mouthing off a lot. Charon grows more aggravated, considering killing him for his arrogance (which, truth be told, he can't because they're both insubstantial at the moment. Yet.)
It takes my character to plead with him and beg him for the love of all the gods - even Pharasma, whom he hates with religious passion - to shut up and give the proper deference to Charon because he doesn't want to explain to Max's husband (the crew's navigator) that this is how he died: by being unwilling to show respect to someone out of his league. Max shuts up, and Charon, sufficiently satisfied, leaves after dropping their consciousness back to their time-stopped bodies, considering sending daemons at Max if he keeps being as arrogant as he has been.
While Sakhbet wants to never talk about the vision/encounter ever again (though he'll definitely be thinking about it for ages to come), Max makes no such promise. I'll say I don't regret it because it was a pretty damn fun RP.
So that's my DM-Flips-Out story.
Luckily, Pathfinder doesn't have DMs.
Also, flagged for wrong forum.
Sure it does. I'm a DM. It's those poor PFS people that have to make do with GMs, because them's the rules.
I've got stories, but I'll need to see which ones I've already posted in numerous other threads. Don't want to repeat myself.
I don't hold back as a GM - I play the opponents as intelligently and evil as they should be played. This has led to some situations where the players have suffered greatly.
I always explain to my players that not all situations can be resolved by combat, that they will never be the most powerful person(s) in the world (there's always a bigger fish), that table top RPGs are not video games, the world and the GM are not going to protect you if you make a dumb decision, etc. But they don't always heed that advice.
I remember one time there was a lord with guards walking through the street. This lord was very snobish, and demanded everyone move out of his way, otherwise his guards attacked them.
A group of level 1 PCs refused to move out of his way, and they all ended up being killed.
Another time the PCs were in a cabin with what they suspected was the, as one of my players put it, "Werewolf King." One of the players decided to attack him, and he changed forms and killed all of the PCs that joined in the attack.
Another campaign was urban-based where the town was taken over by gangs. The gangs were so powerful that if you crossed them, you were basically dead. The PCs decided to publicly denounce one of the gands to the gang leader and his overwhelming amount of force, and they all got killed.
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A story where I'm the DM.
We've had some Lovecraftian elements in our campaign, not the focus, but on the periphery. So I picked up a module and kind of dropped in nearby in our sandbox. It's a horrific adventure, The Monolith from Beyond Space and Time, it isn't designed to be "pleasant" on the PC's. I hadn't told the PC's where it was yet though.
We've always liked Chaos mages in our games, wild magic events are fun for a lot of our players (I get into them as DM, because they're into them). I grabbed a new chart off of a blog, I showed it to the players, it included:
50 - Caster winks out of existence
The player knew this was on the table. It came up as a result, so it happened. Being generous though, I decided to let him "live". It wouldn't be him exactly, but rather the same character from a parallel universe, just slightly off. His one opportunity for a do over. This is how he was "born":
You're lying on the ground, covered in a mixture of fatty grey goop and blood. Next to you is a humanoid, of a race you've never seen, kind of like a cross between a human and a cat, not like a catfolk, but a human with catlike features and facial structure. He looks like he's praying at some sort of alter, kneeling in front of it with his arms and head on the alter. As you stand up, you notice the back of his skull has shattered, like something just burst out from the back.
Looking around, you're in a clearing. There are seven or eight statues, there about 8 feet tall with a rough, but worn surface. If you squint, they kind of look like owls. You try counting them, but every time you get a result of seven... or eight. You're never sure.
The forest looks extremely dense with thick brambles and no trail leading out of the clearing.
He also encountered another copy of himself, but this one was an amalgamation of all possible versions of himself (which for a chaos mage is a lot of possibilities).
He spent a little time looking things over and made his way out. What he found was a circular valley, of temperate and lush forest. The surrounding area is a desert. When he later asked a local about the valley, all he got was "what valley?"
So, having just survived non-existence and waking up in a clearly freaky place what does the player do? He goes back. But not before recruiting some members of the party to go with him. A rogue and another wizard.
They go into the valley, this time it's much smaller at first (the size is always random, a result of less than 200 ft means you teleport to the other side, though it's maximum size is 92,000,000,000 miles), so they appear on the other side. They try again and this time it's about 25 miles wide.
Some wandering and they find themselves on a 500 ft plateau (mind you, no such plateau is visible from the valley rim). They try backtracking and it's roughly 500ft in diameter (yes it's possible for the plateau to be bigger than the valley). The wizard's jump off, using feather fall. The rogue begins climbing down. The fails her climb check, but since the wizards are moving faster (60ft per round vs her 10ft per round) I rule she's outside their own feather fall range when she starts, so they'll have to time their cast very well, DC 15 Dex check. Both fail to get her with the spell.
I set the Rogue aside for the moment. For the wizards, I describe how a wind is rushing up to meet them, faster and faster as the near the ground.
Me: Do you do anything?
Players: No.
Me: Okay, the wind keeps getting faster and faster, it's getting really strong right now, do you do anything?
Players: No, we just let the feather fall do it's work.
Me: The wind has gotten so strong it should be blowing you around, but the feather fall keeps your decent steady, this doesn't seem normal. You do anything?
Players: No.
Me: Okay, you take 20d6 falling damage. Rogue, you take nothing.
The 7th wizards did not survive. The game takes place in our own homebrew campaign world. Through other events the rogue is now near a drow city on Greyhawk, and is now the carrier of a scout squadron of microscopic beings who travel in ships that ride light. She doesn't know this of course.
Luckily, Pathfinder doesn't have DMs.
Also, flagged for wrong forum.
Nonsense. My PF group has a DM. When I run a PF game, I consider myself a DM.
PFS has GM's.
DISCLAIMER: This thread is NOT to complain about or spread hatred towards DMs or other people. It's just to share stories, whether fun, frustrating, or just plain silly. I'd appreciate a positive attitude be kept as much as possible. Thank you.
When the players or their characters frustrate a DM to the point of madness, reality itself bends to give the would-be offenders a sound spanking.
There's a character in my Skulls and Shackles campaign named Max that deals ridiculous amounts of damage (and amazingly enough crits at least 3 times a session, which shocks and outrages not JUST the DM, but the rest of us who roll so poorly on a consistent basis, too) and is a bit nutty to boot. He often frustrates and upsets my own character (the captain) with his antics but because he's such a capable fighter he's kept around anyway. On their way back from a non-combat mission, the two struck up a conversation about gods. Turns out, his character thinks that a) the afterlife is a hoax and b) the gods need mortals more than mortals need them, which is why they demand worship.
My character has the [Child of the Temple] trait and ranks in knowledge [religion] so he's a theologian who despises atheism (though he's chalking this up more to ignorance than stubborn rebellion) so he takes it on himself to educate Max. Max continuously snubs the (factually proven) ideas of Abaddon, the Styx, daemons, gods, and the like. He thinks no one knows really what's at the other side of the big black door.
Queue the DM growing so aggravated by the character that he has Charon the Horseman of Death appear to educate Max. At first, it looked like it was a joke, but when I asked if it was real, the DM just said "You know what? **** it. Yeah, it is. Max's trollishness has earned him an audience with Charon".
Charon takes Max and Sakhbet on a one-glance tour of Hell Dante's Inferno style. Turns out, Max's sheer ballsy "temptation of fate" made "The Powers That Be" think it best to humble him. We decided to play...
Man, I was rooting against the DM here. The gods are a lie!
Also, I have so many DM's Wrath stories, I'm gonna post to this later. It's gonna be epic, mang.
I think I've told this one before somewhere on the forums, but here goes. Spoilered for length.
In an old Ravenloft game I was running, the players were making their way through Barovia, home of Strahd Von Zarovich, D&D's version of Dracula. At this time, Strahd has been combing the countryside searching for someone, and uses a disguise and assumed alias, portraying a diplomat of the Von Zarovich house.
The players reach one of the larger towns just after nightfall, and go to the local inn to unwind and stay the night. As the party are having a few drinks and discussing their next move, a rather pale looking, well dressed fellow enters the bar. The tavern-goers all get quiet and nervous, as if they all have seen this person before, and have reason to fear him. The pale fellow begins questioning the patrons on the whereabouts of a certain npc, and they nervously answer and squirm uncomfortably.
The players notice the pale fellow, and decide to do something about him. The party cleric approaches him and asks him to leave. The fellow appears to stare down the cleric, orders the cleric to go sit down, and without hesitation, the cleric does so. The party wizard attempt a Spellcraft check to see what just happened, and determines that the pale fellow used some form of dominance to make the cleric leave him alone. Which, considering the cleric has a very high Will save, causes a bit of alarm among the players.
The pale fellow notices the PC's, and goes to leave the tavern. The players follow him outside, trying to get his attention and demanding a confrontation. The pale one ignores them, and keeps walking.
The dwarven grappler of the party, who has a short temper and is prone to brawling at a moments notice, runs up to the fellow and attempts to grapple him. With one hand, the pale fellow resists, picks up the dwarf by his beard, and throws him 10 feet out into the street. The pale one continues a few more steps toward where his horse is bridled, and tries to nonchalantly exit the scene.
At this point, I stop the game and warn the players that they get a distinctly evil, and powerful impression from this guy. With barely any effort, he dominated the party member with the strongest Will, and launched the brawling dwarf with one arm. I inform them that it is apparent that he is simply trying to leave and not make a scene, and that any further provocation could very well result in a very, very powerful encounter with a well-known Ravenloft npc. I had originally intended the pale fellow to be a background character who shuffled out of the scene quickly, but the players got to him before I could get him out of the way. If they chose to attack him, someone in the party would very likely die... I tell them that if the attack this npc, that I would at least reveal his identity to the group. Their curiosity got the better of them.
The party wizard sees the dwarf get thrown, and decides he is having none of this. He lets loose a Lightning Bolt, which strikes the fellow on the horse. Now, the pale fellow has had enough. He attempted to leave the scene several times, but suffering a powerful magic spell is too much. The bolt also destroyed some of the pale man's disguise, revealing pointed ears, black hair, and burning red eyes.
The pale man turns his horse around, curses the wizard, and throws a Quickened Lightning Bolt of his own, followed by a Fireball. The wizard is easily destroyed. The rest of the party step back and bolster themselves. The pale man rides up to the wizard's corpse, tears off the head, draws a sword and spikes the head onto it, and rides off into the night.
I reveal to the party that they had just encountered Strahd Von Zarovich, Darklord of Barovia. It was not the classiest reveal, but I figured for losing a party member over it, the least I could do was tell them who it was.
This was also the wizard-player's last session, as his work schedule in real life was changing and he'd no longer be able to attend. He had got with me earlier in the evening and asked for some kind of send off, or to do something with his character(turn evil and become a necromancer, or something) since he couldn't play anymore. After I revealed that he'd been slain by Strahd Von Zarovich, he was actually very pleased.
I'll admit that even though I had intended the encounter to be passive, and for Strahd to simply slip out of the bar, part of me wanted the party to face him. They'd been on a bad run of throwing their weight around, abusing authority, just becoming a band of thugs in general. It's poor DM'ing to handle things so passive-aggressively like this, but at the time it felt right. The players honestly had a lot of fun, and everything turned out cool. The PC that died was leaving anyway, and he and I are both big story buffs; we're cool with our PC's dying, if it happens in a cool, memorable way. Anything to make the story more interesting. He thanked me for the send-off.
I once killed a player who was stubbornly looting a mostly empty undead ghost ship while it was sinking because I remembered the end of an episode of Mythbusters incorrectly.
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I let the dice fall where they may, which has led to two high-level campaigns ending with a whimper.
Campaign #1: "The Fall."
Campaign #2: "The Deck of Many Things"
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Anymore, I hold back a bit as a DM because we get together so infrequently. I'd rather they keep their same characters through a series of adventures rather than rolling one up every new session. Now back in the early days I ran meat grinder dungeons, but we were playing 2 and 3 times a week, then.
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Oh no, not again.
If you don't want spoilers for the Darkmoon Vale modules, then stop reading now.
Later, the party cleric got "swallowed" by an animated cauldron and nearly killed getting banged around inside it while the rest of the group destroyed it.
After that, my players got really leery of any prominent or unusual objects I described, to the point that they would poke at them from a distance or occasionally throw things at them to make sure they didn't move. At that point they'd gone through all the animated objects, but it was fun to watch them squirm.
Later, long after they'd left the vale and moved on, they entered a ballroom where there was a huge, magnificent chandelier that had fallen into disrepair looming above the room. They barely blinked at the description. So I thought to myself "Hey, this thing would be cool as an animated object..." and Bam! instant surprise round against something that basically functioned as a Huge brass giant squid, with enough reach to get them from where it sat chained to the ceiling. Again, another ass-kicking at the hands of an animated object.
I probably could have saved myself a lot of grief if I'd just kept my mouth shut about inserting it into the adventure on a whim.
If you don't want spoilers for the Darkmoon Vale modules, then stop reading now.
[spoiler ] tags work wonders.
After that, my players got really leery of any prominent or unusual objects I described, to the point that they would poke at them from a distance or occasionally throw things at them to make sure they didn't move. At that point they'd gone through all the animated objects, but it was fun to watch them squirm.
I had a character like this in one of my games, but he was more of the "there might be something hiding in the fountain/fireplace/quarry" types. I described an elaborate fountain in one of the rooms they entered, POW Lightning Bolt. "Why did you do that?!" "There might be an elemental in there!"
That as only really the beginning of his paranoia. This was the same character who had approached a donkey earlier in the campaign and asked it "Aaaaaare yoooooou aaaaaa druuuuiiiid?" (It wasn't.)