I was a 9th level Dwarven Fighter when I accepted an open challenge from an Orc Samuri Lord to fight to the death in the City areana.  This Orc had an open challenge to anyone to fight in the areana.  He was a Lord of the city and had the land and "castle" for his status.  He made it known that if he was beat in the areana his land and "castle" would go the person to defeat him.  He had had like 20 matches and of course was undefeated.  My Dwarven Fighter "Gimli" had 18 (91) strength and  was feeling especially "heroic" and decided to take the challenge.

So were in the areana the Orc Samuri is wielding two poisonous Scimitars and has 18 (95) strenght we start out hurling racial insults at each other and then I get this idea.  (I do not know the strength of the orc) I get the Orc's attention squarely on me and throw my axe to the side.  I then undo all my armour and let it drop to the ground.  The Orc sees this and throws his scimitars to the ground and undoes his armour.  We walk to the center of the areana and begin the brawl.  Well after about 10 minutes of beating the hell out of each other I  roll a natural 20.  My DM tells me to roll percentile dice.  (I always roll out in the open where eveyone can see)  I roll the dice and both come up "0"  I nearly soiled my shorts.  My DM just sits there (he had been enjoying kicking the sh$t out of me with the Orc) and then says something like "the Orc is out cold."  I snap his neck to the cheers of the areana and take posession of his land and home.  

After the session, my DM, tells me that I was never suppose to win the fight.  Had I not appealed to the Orc's sense of ego by, in-effect, challenging him to hand to hand, there is no way my dwarf could have beaten the Orc.  So the dwarf becomes a Lord of the city.  

Martin

Three years of an ever-growing AD&D 2nd Edition campaign. The characters were helping an extremely powerful kobold mage (yes, kobold) defeat several forces that were attacking the Nucleus of the Spheres under Glantri,from several planes of existence. He made them craft a very powerful artifact which was supposed to deflagrate and exterminate the armies laying siege to Glantri city. What had been called the Apocalypse Pendulum was rung right in the place where the Great School of Magic once stood, and indeed it did explode. While the kobold mage took the characters to safety on a spelljamming ship, they were horrified to the fact that the Pendulum had actually multiplied the energies of the Nucleus, and the whole world burst into a ball of fire.

The great moment was when the kobold mage revealed to them that everything had been planned by him: he was the onw who had invoked the armies; he the one who crafted an artifact to make the Nucleus explode; he the one who had used the characters to work out all that he had devised. Why? Because the guys at the school of magic, many years ago, refused him admittance simply for being a kobold. So he did all this for revenge, and the characters were his tools in destroying their beloved world.

The expressions on the players' faces were well worth three years of planning!

There are almost too many to name.  Being as that I have been almost exclusively a DM for the past 25+ years, I didnt' get any great character moments.  But I always enjoyed when one of my players found an ingenious way out of a tight situation.
   In one such ongoing campaign, the group was in a fortress filled with Githyanki trying to rescue a captive (a member of their party).  Unfortunately the odds were against them, the most powerful members of the party had been scattered across the World of Greyhawk and each had to be rescued in turn by the henchmen and hirelings (part of a long running campaign plotline).  So this motley crew decided to use disguises to infiltrate the fortress, one player acting as the Githyanki with a Polymorph Self spell and the others as his captives.
  The one player who played the Githyanki was part of my original group of gamers, yet had a tendency to come to games drunk and/or stoned as the years went on.  At this point of gaming he did little more than make witty comments and roll the dice, his brain having atrophied to the point where he forgot what magic items he held or what spells he carried (he was a elven thief/mage) and usually the other guys had to tell him what to do.  When he was straight he was a helluva player, when inebriated he could still play but not really contribute. Unfortunately he had the one high level party character who had not been captured by the villains, so he was the ad hoc leader of the party even though he didn't know what he was doing most of the time and merely went along with everyone elses decisions.
   So, the party was trundling along avoiding obstacles in the fortress, this guy playing the part of the fake Githyanki good enough to get past the checkpoints on the way to the prisoners.  Everything had been building towards a big battle at the moment the party was found out, and the players were sweating it knowing the ruse wouldn't last forever and their lower level henchmen might be pounded to blood and paste at any second.
  Finally, they faced an entire war party of Githyanki guards who demanded to know what they were doing and who they were in a restricted area. My plan was to beat them up but not kill them, and then put them in cells with the guy they were to rescue and then have them plan a prison escape.  Suddenly, the drunk/stoned friend started having his character disguised as a Githyanki shout out orders.  He informed me he'd been using his Medallion of ESP (he typically forgot he even carried it most of the time) to read the Githyanki minds and another magic spell that allowed him to speak Githyanki to use the passwords he'd stolen from their mind, all the while using his Polymorph Self spell to turn himself into their commanding officer.  He wanted the war party to bring him the human prisoner NOW, or there would be heads to roll since he was on a tight schedule, having captured the others all by himself for the glory of the Queen mother.  All the other players and myself included were stunned that this guy's brain synapses were actually firing on all cylinders and he masterfully took control of the situation.  I rolled a few dice for show but ruled that they were so cowed at punishment they immediately  brought the captive to the fake Githyanki, and then left after he commanded them to leave him alone with the prisoner. A few deft spells later, they had tricked the Githyanki by using Rope Trick to hide in the extradimensional space and then when the manhunt had begun Mass Invisibility from a scroll to avoid other guards, the player completely taking control of the party as everyone else followed his lead and ceded authority to the guy who usually was nodding off in the corner with a beer in his hand.
     ...and before you know it the entire group had escaped with their prisoner, without having to fight one combat, all on the ability of one stoner whose brain decided to come to life during one crucial encounter.  It's the first time in all  my gaming years that the group actually STARTED APPLAUDING a player after they finally made their escape from the fortress!!!!! Of course it was an isolated incided and lighting never struck again as the player went back to his drunken/stoned ways.  The guys still talk about it in awe to this day.

Mike B.

I can't make up my mind which time was most memorable as a player.  Mine was as a DM.  Of all the times I have played I only DM'ed twice and one of my favorite moments was when I DM'ed Ravenloft with a bunch of overpowered players in college. I know the DM is supposed to remain "neutral" but one rule that I think everyone should follow is Don't piss off the DM.

Before we tackled Ravenloft, we ran White Plume Mountain. The DM at the time was playing a power hungry cavalier and was always pissing off the other players by grabbing all the good stuff when we defeated the baddies. He wouldnt share spoils and I swear was padding his dice rolls so his precious character wouldnt get hurt too much. So instead of following the module rules, he allowed his character to defeat Blackrazor's guardians and thus keep the sword, which again pissed everyone off. It was at this time that I knew I didnt want to play with this group anymore but wanted to make him realize the mistake of keeping the sword. So on to Ravenloft we ventured.

Suffice to say the party made its way through Barovia to the castle and for most of the module didnt find a whole lot of things to stand in their way of defeating Strahd even though I had beefed it up considerably due to the level of their characters. I think most of them were 8-9th level. Since I was DM I lent my character, the magic-user, to another player so I wouldnt be perceived like the other DM who was always finding ways to keep his character from harm. At one point in the castle, the cavalier stated he was going to use a different weapon instead of Blackrazor because he didnt want to use in on any undead and lose a life level. I explained that there was no way his character would know that until it actually happened. So he complained and then pouted about it and had to use the sword until he attacked a wight or something and lost his first life level. At this point he went from 10th to 9th level, was superpissed, and started using a regular +1 sword that another party member gave him.

I decided that I had had enough fooling around and sent Strahd to deal with the party just as they were emerging from a long stairway (K79 on your map). The jerk playing the cavalier decided he didnt want to risk his own neck so he had the guy playing my character put the magic-user at the front of the party because he didnt think I would risk killing off my own character. How wrong he was. The entire party took a massive amount of damage from a well placed fireball which killed off the mage and pissed the other guy off considerably. Strahd went off to plan his next move.

After a bit of healing up, the party made their way to the crypt of Sergei Von Zarovich where they found the Sunsword. Of course, Mr. asshat had to have it. But I had made a little change to the text. Instead of the corpse of Strahd's brother, it was Strahd himself in the coffin. The poor, greedy cavalier lost two more life levels from Strahd's attack (now at 7). Of course he cursed me because "that's not how it is supposed to happen". I told him that I could change it up any way I wanted and to stop crying. Strahd retreated to his crypt at the sight of the Holy Symbol and the Sunsword in the hands of the group. They followed only to be ambushed by a trio of vampire concubines and Strahd. I decided that if this was going to be the last time I DM'ed that I was going to make it a finish to remember. Since I had beefed up the module to accomodate the level of the players, I had also empowered Strahd accordingly. Nothing like a vampire with 18th level magical abilities to ruin your day. Before TSR even released Vecna Lives! I had used the nasty little trick that Vecna/Halmadar used against the Circle of Eight at the beginning of the adventure. Strahd cast Time Stop and began to have his way with the party.

By the time the spell effect had worn off, Strahd and his vampire minions had impaled the cleric with a spear, ripped the eyes from the thief, broke the legs of the ranger, took two life levels from the fighter, and not only did Strahd steal two more life levels (oopsy, now down to 5) from the cavalier, but also took Blackrazor from the scabbard on his back. The entire group was shocked, the player with the cavalier was fuming, and I was snickering with evil glee. The cavalier still had the Sunsword and rushed at Strahd with a maniacal scream. When Strahd parried with Blackrazor an odd thing happened that no one expected. Blackrazor screamed and the Sunsword flashed and sparked with lightning. An eruption of positive and negative energy cancelled out the effects of both swords. The Sunsword exploded and Blackrazor disintegrated. Strahd turned to dust and ash along with his vampire trio. The cavalier took a massive amount of damage and lost his right hand when the sword exploded. The rest of the party was blasted right off their feet but took little damage. I really didnt want any of them to die as a result of the cavalier's greed and stupidity, I just wanted to shock and humble them. It worked too. The guy with the cavalier never played with us again and they all told me how much fun they had playing even though I pretty much scripted the ending of the module.

Sorry this was so long but I wanted to do justice to the story. Remember...never make the DM mad.

Those are the kind of gamers I hate most...they think they're smarter than other players and they seek to have fun at everyone else's expense.

    They don't get invited back.

Mark  

One of my favorite moments was also my first and began my love affair with U1. I was in the 8th grade and I was invited by some high school guys to play in their beginning campaign (big step on the social ladder).
Naturally I show up late to the game (thanks mom) and the group is already entering the house. Now everyone complains that bringing my character in late would disrupt the "flow" of the game... so the DM, noticing my disappointment takes me aside and introduces me to Ned. He gives me some quick instructionsand tells me to cause as much chaos as possible.
So we go back and the DM say's he has a way to bring my "character" into the game... a few moments later I'm being untied The leader of the group a 1st lvl Ranger (he also had a car) must not have watched too many 80's slasher films cause he decides we could cover more territory by pairing off and search the house. I'm lucky enough to get paired with the M-U and when the moment presents itself I end his search. I then inflict 1hp of damage to myself and run back to the group in a panic saying that we were jumped we were able to fight "them" off (I can't remember what I said) but the M-U is hurt bad. Our leader scratches his head and decides he doesn't want to run into a trap so he sends me back with the elven cleric to see if we can bring the M-U back, well we all know where this is going, as the cleric is hunched over checking on the "wounded" body I move in a second time I then inflict another hit point of damage to myself and run back with the same story. Now the 3 others left Ranger, Fighter, Monk (all 1st lvl) begin to get a little suspicious but I stick to my story and they settle down, being new and a 8th grader probably saved Ned.
So now they decide they better head back to Saltmarsh to regroup. The cleric and M-U are replaced and the group travels back to the house. While in the town I've been able to warn the smugglers of the party's return so they are waiting for them when the group finally discover the "secret" of saltmarsh. In the major battle I'm able to secretly wound the M-U a second time and then I attack the cleric in the open... long story short, the party gets beat up again, survivors flee to Saltmarsh (without Ned) and Ekim begins to fear for his 13yr old life
The DM fills in the group on our little plan and the evil stares are replaced by a few laughs and chuckles, then the sounds of the game are replaced by the phrases "you buy I'll fly", "is Porky's on HBO this month", "am I second level now".

killjoy32 wrote:in all the years of DMing - the worst one by far for me are the ones who think they know everything inside and out. i hate that and it spoils the spirit of the game, so against my morals of how i DM, i dispose of them asap and they dont get invited back.

i feel you get far more memorable games from the players who just enjoy the game itself.

Al

I've always found great pleasure in confounding the rules lawyers or type that memorizes all the monsters in the Monster Manual.  My regular players know not to take anything for granted, i.e. the long kobold with the sword standing in the middle of the road ahead could be a 10th level kobold champion, or an illusion, or a monster polymorphed into a kobold, or just a kobold with a sword standing in the road.
     If you ever find yourself getting bored or jaded, arrange a pickup game with a bunch of kids.  They will have fun and so will you, because it's all about discovery and wonder, and a lone Carrior Crawler won't be any different from an ancient Black Dragon to them.  The best times you ever had gaming were when you didn't know it all, and around every corner lurked a new surprise.

Mike B.

killjoy32 wrote:oh i absolutely agree!i had given up D&D ing but took it up again when my eldest daughter wanted to play a game, so i threw a little dungeon together in an hour, rolled up a few characters and she and a few others went into it. the joy i had when they came face to face with some orcs and they shit themselves

i had a right ol blast with that, specially when she shot at the orc leader with a bow and rolled a 20

the glee on her face was priceless

THAT is why i play games.

Al

   That is exactly the glee I felt when I plugged the hobgoblin in the face with my crossbow!    :twisted:

Badmike wrote: The best times you ever had gaming were when you didn't know it all, and around every corner lurked a new surprise.

Mike B.

Amen to that, brother.

Best recent player moment (Today - 1/1/2006) - I got swallowed by a Behir.