ITT: Things Players Say That Warm Your Heart

>Talking to one of my players
>Asking for opinion on the first page to a short story
>"Waaaait a minute, is this about [minor NPC she met once]"?

It feels good to know that my players care enough about the world that they can remember random bits like that.
Any of y'all got stories of bro-tier players making you feel appreciated?

Bump.
I am saddened that so many of your cold, dead GM hearts remain unwarmed.

>This is only your 4th time as a DM?! But you're so good at this!

>add minor details in your setting
>all based on the PCs backstories
>they just ignore everything
>they don't remember anything named ever

We are more saddened, user.

>tfw this is my final game and my players are just doing their absolute total best and remember so much and we all know inside it'll never be like this again

>when you can make a player cry from drama in game. Bonus points if it doesn't require you killing an NPC.

Well I didn't actually mean to post Loss, but I'll roll with it.

>TFW a character addresses his friend in common instead of orcish, demonstrating the rift in their friendship and making him realize how far he'd fallen due to the demon he's consorting with
>TFW he rejects the demon fully later that day
Sometimes, the players make YOU cry. :,)

>the sound of my heart exploding into a billion pieces when a character playing a criminal thug plant in a small town ends up regretting a murder so much it eventually propels them to adopt a kid they had met and known since the first session years ago, and years further on they are now the Holiest Knight In The World

I have players who never miss a session unless it's work, always ask questions and coordinate, roleplay their characters well and keep it all in character. That's enough for me.

>Group is thinking about recording our sessions and making a podcast
>"Obviously user is going to GM"
>Everyone unanimously agrees without me having to say anything

It made me feel appreciated.

One time our party captured a moderately important and information-heavy bad guy npc and our chaotic neutral wizard and paladin, who disagreed on almost everything and really played up their grudges, decided to work together and pull a good cop/bad cop interrogation on him complete with magical beatings and some pretty golden mindfucking and did it really well and afterwards they became best friends for the rest of the campaign.

I think the only time i managed that was with one of my players who's character had a "father that never showed affection to him". He found his dad dairy, and found out that due to a bullet his father took during the war, and that he survived caused for his father to be unable to show emotions. And the dairy was full of his father's character regret that he never could show his son how happy and proud he was of him. My player cried real tears and some at the table had wet eyes.

them just unanimously agreeing that they want you to DM means that they like how you do it better than any of them do it, and the fact it was decided so quickly means they think of you as much more than a second or third string DM that they go to when they dont have anyone else
They think you're great user, even if they dont say it

Also made me smile. I love a gradual redemption arc.

At this point, I would be pleasantly surprised if my players remembered an NPCs name, rather than just making things up to call them like "yo mr. king guy"

I'm not done smiling yet! Anybody get any more?

My players seem to manage to remember just about every reoccurring NPC, and always react appropriately, be it joy to see a friend again, or getting LIVID when they realize it's an asshole they met before.

One of them ended up redeeming a villain, and re-united said villain with their familiar, whole table said it was goddamn adorable.

They care so much about the world I made, it feels great since this is my first time GM'ing too.

>Player from the first campaign I ever ran keeps talking up how fun it was to our new group (we're the only ones left from our original group)
>Gets the other players in the group to want to play in a campaign that I run
>Plays it up like I was the best GM ever and brings up parts that he loves
>Campaign in question (3.5 btw) had a DMPC quest giver that was a lvl 30 epic Demigod wizard with 20 legendary magic items and 2 artifacts (players were lvl 10)
>also had a dungeon that was entirely coated in an anti-magic field (one player was caster, another was half-caster)
>and full of golems (which had damage reduction from things that were not magic)
>and traps (there was no rogue)
>also had a part where the players found a room in a cave with loot that had a combined worth of literally hundreds of thousands of gold
>they passed it up so that they could finish their business killing the monsters of the cave and grab it on the way out so that it wouldn't weigh them down
>I had it cave in after an explosion in the fight with the monsters
>also had a part where I forgot how much horses cost so I had the guy sell them for what turned out to be a 1200% mark up
>ended up killing the horses off-screen two sessions later

I've profusely apologized for everything listed and more (except the horses being overpriced, but that's because everyone involved thought it sounded way too high, yet everyone was too lazy to look up how much horses actually cost in the PHB so no one questioned it until someone bought a sack 4 months later and saw the real price), and told everyone in the new group about this shit as well. Somehow the motherfucker has managed to still get people interested in me running a game for them. I honestly don't know whether to be flattered or to get the guy a CAT scan. It's like if someone uncovered Sonic the Hedgehog fanfiction written by a 13yo, but wanted the guy to write a book because his imagery was impeccable.

that feel when never happened unless accompanied by intense rage

I love it when players react emotionally to NPCs they haven't seen in a while. Makes it feel like they view them as old friends.

I suppose some players are more easily pleased than others...

This thread has just made me realise that I've never been pleasantly surprised by my group.

My players are... fine. They're functional. They're nice. They're not too autistic.

But they've never done anything 'good'. They show a bit of investment. They do some IC roleplay, but its usually pretty uninspired along the lines of 'Yo stephenus, shall we camp here? Yes.'

I'm not sure if they quite notice how much time I have to put into this shit for them.

I don't know, maybe I'm just getting some GM fatigue or something. I feel like I'm being unfair, but hey.

>first session of a new campaign
>one player has been kinda out of it the whole time
>he's on his laptop in between turns, paying enough attention to get by but clearly not as invested as the rest of the players
>near the end he gets a big smile, turns his laptop around, and shows us what he'd been working on.
>he'd made a group portrait of the whole party

this made me tear up

Got a copy we can see? I'm pretty jealous

Stories like this heals my internal wounds.

>my final game
How so?

I, too, would like to know.

Also, post pics.

Fuck man

All I want is some enthusiasm

Stoners are useless

Nigga please.

I once made three players AND THE GM cry because of my amazing performance.

Story

>I didn't even realize a session could be good without combat.

>Players bought me new dice after I lost them from losing the old backpack they were in.

Didn't even have to ask them.

>be me
>running a DnD 3.5 campaign
>players are my 3 younger brothers
>ages 19, 14, and 12
>dispite me not being that good of a DM they always are begging for more and more time to play
>have to deal with their disappointed faces when ever I have to cancel a session because I have to leave town for work.

I had my EOTE group tell me after an adventure my twist was better than the "I am your father" from Empire and they love that twist.

The feels man

Welp, Lemme check for it once I get off work. I've got it somewhere.

You can't just say that, on this thread, and then not provide details

Oh man, that's a good one to hear, especially depending on the type of player.

>Playing single session beer and pretzel oneshot
>Good fun is had all round, quest ends and game wraps up nicely
>players want to spend another 30 minutes just finishing RP with NPCs
I tell you that level of earnest investment really tickles my pickle more than anything else

>NPC whom the PCs have multiple dialogue scenes with
>before and after, they IC talk shit about him behind his back, paying attention to his character

Too many feels to hold
My childhood is weeping tears of joy for you, user

>You receive your reward!
>OK but can we interact with the setting for a while longer
This thread is making motivating me to prepare my next D&D session.

>Running a JoJo game.
>Make this whole over the top elaborate setting of a fictional city run by stand-powered gangs.
>Spend way too much time on it, basically write up every single major adversary for the entire campaign.
>Finally get character creation started, and I figure the players probably aren't going to read any of it. I'll just have to work hard to get them invested in the story.
>Mfw every single character they make not only has actual backstory bits taken from my setting, but also accidentally set their characters up to meet ALL of the major villains in their daily life.

Some days being a foreverGM is worth it.

>In all previous games, my players just turned into psychotic murder hobos at the drop of a hat, pillaging every village they encountered. They were obviously Chaotic Evil, and they never planned anything, literally just attacking whatever they saw with zero provocation.
>So I thought Black Crusade would work well for this playstyle, and am currently running that.
>All of a sudden, they're fucking Sun Tzu, spending 40 minutes at a time planning out strategies and tactics for taking down the encounter they're in front of.
>Shit like suppressing fire, mobile cover, rolling carts full of explosives into enemy positions, distraction flanking attacks by allied NPCs via the Command skill, heavy use of specialty grenades like Hallucinogenics to cripple enemy combat capabilities, and hacking into local systems to rig the environment in their favor like turning out lights, locking doors, even cutting life support, all to get every advantage they could.
>I couldn't fucking believe it
>The best was at the end of Broken Chains, during the boss fight when they needed to take over a prison ship from the Inquisition's control. They had the now-feral prisoners and the ship's Murder Servitors as allies.
>They needed to storm the bridge, but it was heavily defended by Inquisitorial storm troopers with barricades, power blades, and hotshot lasguns.
>So, they had waves of the ferals charge the Inquisition troopers, but with vests loaded with Hallucinogenic Grenades. The grenades went off, and everybody on that bridge, except the top Throne Agent himself, was stoned out of his mind. The remaining ferals and Murder Servitors cut down the helpless troopers while the PCs gang-raped the Throne Agent to death in a curb-stomp fight.

It brought a tear to my eye to see these idiots actually THINK their way through problems. They still do it given the chance, and I fucking love them for it.

Here it is

Can I have your players pls

Clearly they just needed an interesting enough challenge. I'm glad you found a system that allows everyone to enjoy the game to the fullest.

I don't know if this is way worse or way better than what I expected.

>DnD and quality time with your younger bros

Das it mane

Thanks for not telling shit

Sounds beautiful, what system do you played before?

yeah no, is not me, much as he would like to be.
here it is.

>Thanks for running for us!
y-you too

OH THANK GOD
I DON'T HAVE TO PRETEND TO LIKE THAT SHITSTAIN ANYMORE
That's pretty neat. Do you know if he used some online character making gadget?

something called heromachine

Meanwhile, my players forget everything.

Just remember that some people have a hard time expressing praise. Even appreciation.

"That one heartwarming village where everyone was just friendly and helped us out without us asking was the single most terrified I've ever been in a game you've run."

"Why?"

"Your NPCs... they... always have a reason for doing everything I guess? Like they always have a goal or something. And these guys weren't being dicks, didn't know who we were or what we were capable of, and they still just gave us free food and a place to stay. Terrifying."

>Second layer of complexity: He was kind of right, in that they were specifically a nice village of nice people because they were a model society unknowingly protected from all the bullshit and asshattery elsewhere in the world by a clan of assassins operating under the cover of travelling salespeople who just killed anyone who was going to start trouble before they got there, and traded resources between settlements in order to equalise availablity and prevent anyone from deciding to go fight anyone else for their shit

>Create NPC local librarian for one session
>Promptly stop using her after a while
>End up needing a filler story at one point, so I put her on, with a quest about helping her recover some overdue books
>Show her character more in-depth
>Part of the reward for helping her in the quest is teach the an illiterate PC how to read
>Next day the Librarian appears with a face full of happiness and a massive backpack
>She sets up a one-shot campaign, with the characters of other games as the protagonist
>Whenever a roll happened she would encourage the uneducated PC to try and make it trough
>She would pass him pieces of paper for him to read out loud as clues so that he gets better at reading
>She would RP the characters by taking Puppets and giving them weird voices to keep things interesting
>She made the models herself from wood, and lit candles around the table for better atmosphere
>RP the librarian with such an uncorruptible Joy at teaching, and with a comepletely earnest intent at having everyone have fun
>One character liked her enough that she starts donating to the library
>She refuses because she doesn't feel like she deserved it (Despite easily filling the role of teacher of the year)
>Is responded with the same Genuine joy in the Character face

got my eyes watery desu, specially since that same player had been skipping a bunch of sessions due to circumstances, and I started to suspect he stopped enjoying the game

I don't even want praise. That shit makes me feel awkward too. They just don't seem to be invested. Or creative. They don't remember NPCs, or what happened last session, or even who they're currently fighting half the time.

I'm fully aware this might be my fault. Maybe I'm just shit. It just feels like there's such a disconnect between how much effort I put into the game vs how much they put in.

Nothin personnel kid...

>That player who can basically cry at will and immediately stop it if people start thinking he's upset

It made for some interesting games, it sounded so real

I've only DM'd once, here's what happened
>my brother (timid irl) created this arrogant outspoken badass hero
>okaycool.jpg
>first town
>there's a celebration and all the townfolk are there, inviting the party to join
>the men are strong and healthy, the women are beautiful and smiling, and the kids are running around being goofballs
>notice the look on my brother's face
>uncomfortable.gif
>Bro: "We're tired, we'll sleep here on the outskirts of town."
>NPC: "Uhh... what? With all the noise and festivities keeping you up? We have food and all sorts..."
>Bro: "Nah, just let us sleep here, we're setting up camp."
>Various NPC's literally come over to them and interrupt their camping just to try to implore them to come socialize
>nope.png
>Fucking hell, he's such an introvert and so meek IRL that he doesn't even feel comfortable interacting with fictional characters being performed by his own younger brother for the sake of furthering the fucking plot

Us brothers are all christians and I think he mistook the party and women for some kind of wild fuck-orgy that he was suddenly going to have to indulge in......????????

I literally just wanted to test out playing a tabletop RPG, this was the starting town...

Boot that faggot from your game

Before, we were playing Apocalypse World followed by Dungeon World. I've always been interested in tabletop RPGs, but they always seemed very complicated, so I used those two rules-light systems to ease my friends (my current players) into the hobby, and then scaled up to Black Crusade a few weeks ago.

You know that tabletop is a gateway to satanism right

we're all satanists here

When they laugh or act emotionally invested in a scene that's focusing on one of the other PCs.

Makes me feel like they actually care about what's going on, and don't just get distracted.

>"Hey DM, I know it's 3 in the morning but this session was a blast. Thanks for not cutting it off."

Makes it all worth it.

Good thing I keep a journal of little things.

Don't pressure people to do something they don't want to. If he's interested in the game, ask what exactly he wants out of it. If you're introducing him to it you'll have to guess, but try some exploration, out-of-combat stuff like climbing, passing traps etc., and of course combat.

>Me: I know it's late, but would you guys mind finishing this bit up?
>Players: DUH.

Bumping

One of my players texted me that they were doodling pictures of their player character and other characters in the party, and that for the first time since they were a kid, they were absorbed in drawing and completely having fun doing it, without a care in the world.

Felt good to make something that inspires passion and joy like that.

If only I could reduce someone to child-like joy.
I love this thread, anons.

I am not letting this thread die so easily.

>Be player
>Take extensive notes, know that shit might go down
>listen to DM, ask clarification on details

>Be DM
>Players don't write down or remember shit
>Have to constantly remind them of plot essential details and names of NPCs that have done nothing but help them and I've tried to make memorable

>Players get a lot of information about the plot from a villain's journal
>A lot of details fall into place
>One player practically screams with excitement when he sees the puzzle come together
He's such a dork, but in the best way

>Different campaign, in space
>Party's pilot NPC that had carried them from the main ship down planetside for numerous missions ends up severely injured and staying in the sick bay
>Entire party, out of nowhere during a session, has their characters drop everything to give her flowers and get-well-soons