ITT: GM success stories, in game or out
>usually dm dnd 5e
>finish a campaign
>want to try wfrp2e, but there's 6 people (other then myself) in the group and half of them are incompetent
>decide that 4 players are the ideal number
>write a sales pitch-esque speech meant specifically to appeal to the good players and make the bad players not want to play
>works like a charm
>playing a good system with good players with none of the drama that not including certain people usually entails
>BBEG
How to look like a retard in 3 seconds.
>How to look like a retard in 3 seconds.
Well, you sure showed OP that you're a larger faggot then he.
Are you retarded?
A minor success, but success nonetheless
>Play at LGS
>Have two people who are very, very SJWish active, kind of annoying, but decent players if their political hair-triggers aren't pulled
>Create homebrewed setting, lots of tiny little kingdoms and republics all at each other's throats
>One of said SJW's makes a character that is incredibly racist about people from the next kingdom over, and without any particularly good reason either, he just grew up with a bunch of people who hate those bastards down the road, so views it as natural.
Ugh.
I wrote a CoC one-shot for my fiancée's birthday that gave two of the players nightmares.
> *gives you a high tentacle*
Got a 100% kick-in-the-door party intent on killing anything that even kind of looked at them funny to non-violently rescue a guy slowly turning into a monster, the party even remaining non-violent as he bit giant chunks out of their shoulders and shit
I kind of translated and adopted (totaly stole) the Ghosts of Mars story from Veeky Forums for my regular group. Since I didnt have Gas masks, I gave everyone a flashlight, darkened the room, and told them when they use the flashlights IRL, they use them ingame too. The more they used them, the more increasingly paranoid notes I gave them to read. They quickly stopped using them almost at all, enduring the darkness.
The players then let themselves get scared, and didnt derail the horror feeling of the story, with one of the Players commiting suicide at the end of the story because she was feeling hopeless.
I've never had a group roleplaying that well before, and i dont think this kind of story would have worked with people less skilled at it.
>one of the Players commiting suicide at the end of the story because she was feeling hopeless.
So did you end the session there because she couldn't play any longer, or did someone else agree to play her Character for the moment?
bump
>Mark, can you take Jenny's character for now?
> Nah, just leave her there, my cleaning lady comes tomorrow morning
tell us about it? I'm dying to hear
>Dying to hear about it
I don't want to say too much; I'm hoping to turn it into a book. We are both from Colorado so I set up a one shot where the players are staying in a Stanley Hotel analog, get snowed in, and begin to fall victim to a mysterious illness. There were fungus zombies involved.
>Surprised players by revealing the werewolf they were hunting was an NPC they knew
>Later, player comments that, after thinking about it, it was obvious that NPC was the werewolf
>Ask how he figures
>References bullshit fluff I made up on the spot sessions ago as evidence
>Other players agree
>Get praised for my writing ability
>It's like they don't even know I've been flying by the seat of my pants the whole time
What's with the sudden autism about this term?
>3 seconds
Ugh.
>sudden
it's been a thing for quite a while now. Ignore the shitposters. It's probably one of the shunt trolls of Veeky Forums using no tripcode.
>Be jaded, angry internet hermit living in the middle of nowhere, but tired of online groups and their drama
>Old acquaintance mentions a bunch of internet kiddies who've never played in a fun campaign before
>Turns out they like Fire Emblem too
>Fuck it, draw up a few maps for a short campaign for them, using mechanics straight from the games
>Planning on doing it raw, calculate-it-yourself style
>Suddenly some user makes a thread on Veeky Forums bragging about "roll20 wizardry"
>It's a bunch of macros for his own Fire Emblem campaign, using complicated calculations a novice wouldn't have come up with
>Get in contact with him for more macros, pumped up to make this a GOOD campaign now
>Finally run it, the working macros speed everything up hundredfold
>Players start to get super invested, even doing "support" character interactions like the source material
>A few sessions in, pull the reveal that the legendary dragon-slaying weapons they were looking for were actually giant robots
>Players now infinitely more invested
>Hurriedly make a fuckton more maps and other resources, raising the scale from 'one group on a journey' to 'a continent-spanning war experienced through multiple fronts'
>with giant robots
And that's how a short campaign written to last barely a month ended up consuming the better part of a year, in which I exhausted all the GM experiments I'd always wanted to do like "letting the players play as NPCs" and, my favorite, "having a session where every player plays as a single NPC whom had previously been a literally who, Everybody is John-style"
Permanently burned out as a result though; nothing I run or ever play will ever be the same because these guys were all in perfect harmony with everything I wanted to do
it was surreal
I made sure to thank the macro guy after it finished, but in case he's reading this now, thanks once more
ASOIAFRP
>You look up from where the cart that crushed Lord Manning came from and see a somewhat-old looking woman
>"I call out to her to stop in the name of the king and run towards her" [roll 3d6 Athletics]
>She bolts [roll 5d6 for Athletics for her]
>"Okay..."
>She runs into the busy market place, pushing people out of the way before disappearing into the crowd
>"I'll follow her general direction while searching for her" [perception success]
>You see her go into an alleyway just off the far side of the market
>"I sprint into there as fast as I can"
>You turn the corner and... nothing
>"I'll look for clues as to where she went" [Perception roll]
>[success]
At this point I'm internally beaming
>You look around. Left, nothing. Right, nothing. Down... oh...
>Your father used to tell you stories when you were young about his days as a wandering champion in Essos. He's a drunkard, so often when he tells these stories they're filled with hyperbole and occasionally outright lies. Nevertheless, one story he told you suddenly rushes to your mind.
>He once claimed to have fought and bested a fighter in Braavos who could move inhumanly fast and hit inhumanly hard. This fighter was capable of nothing short of magic. One particular ability your father mentioned was the ability to shapeshift, to become someone entirely different...
At this point, players in the group who knew the series are visibly nervous while those that hadn't watched/read it were wondering why I was going on this tangent
>You came into this alleyway to find someone, but instead, as you look down and see a face with no body, the only thought that can exist in your mind is a name your father said long ago, one he said he'd hoped you never had to hear.
>The Faceless Men
Honestly one of my favourite moments of that campaign
>these guys were all in perfect harmony with everything I wanted to do
Its one of the upsides of novices. They don't know whats standard and don't mind if you deviate from it.
Bittersweet campaign though. Shame about the burnout.
ugh