You guys love having stories and talking about times your players were retarded or how your DM was retarded

You guys love having stories and talking about times your players were retarded or how your DM was retarded.
But what are some stories where you legitimately felt pride in your group and how they outwited or dealt with a situation?
A scenario that shows they actually learned?

instead of doing our regular murder hobo antics we instead accused a war vet who kicked my halfing bards ass and stabed grarr the orc my halfings best friend, of being a pedofile and the town burnt him alive.
> tldr use words to burn enemies

>supers game 1930's
>temporal shenanigans
>time rifts open throughout the city
>players psyched, they get to punch dinosaurs
>rifts get worse and a pre-ice age army marches through
>foot soldiers with hide armor and copper axes
>orichalcum armored warriors riding saber tooth tigers
>a majestic and savage warlord atop a woolly mammoth

After punching dinosaurs I figured the players would attack. Instead they surprised me with a effective display of diplomacy.

>party of murder hobos
>trying to save small city from bandits
>attack the bandits stronghold
>realize we have no plan whatsoever
>improvise
>druid summons a lion
>druid conjures a lightning storm
>party mounts the lion
>burst through the front gates while riding a lion in the middle of a lightning storm
We won the fight too, barely.

Damn, this game sounds like it was a lot of fun

>Be player in a campaign
>We're supposedly heroes, but act more like a dysfunctional gang
>We frequenty fuck up quests, come in conflict with nobility and royalty all the time, our quest givers betray us and there's barely anybody in the world who gives us any sort of respect
>And we give them no respect in return
>It all ends with us saving the world, but the mighty sweep it under a rug and effectively exile us instead of rewarding.
>Get very salty, tell the DM that all his NPCs are complete assholes
>He promises to fix it

>Same DM, next campaign
>We're still a dysfunctional gang, but less so
>Roleplay more, try to act like heroes
>Still do a lot of dumb shit, and NPCs sometimes call us out
>End up saving the world again
>But also royally fuck things up for the king
>He contemplates hanging us for it, but chooses to reward us for saving the world instead
>Well, that's an improvement

>Same DM, next campaign
>We're a group of refugees, looking for a better life
>Rumors of a better life turn out to be a lie, this new place sucks
>It's infested with monsters, bandits, elves and assholes
>Our liege lord is kind of tolerable, but he gets kidnapped a few sessions in
>With nobody to boss us around or force us into quests, we become a proactive force
>Kill the bandits, slay the monsters, establish the trade routes, arm the guard out of our own pockets
>Save our liege lord out of our own initiative and restore him to power
>Lift the curses, heal the sick, solve the crimes, right the wrongs
>Over twenty sessions or so, we singlehandedly make this shitty duchy perhaps the least terrible place in the war-torn kingdom
>Soon people begin raising glasses in our honor
>We are knighted for our feats, even though the party is full of inhumans and women
>Very soon after we are lorded too, end up ruling the place.

>DM apologizes for running grimderp campaigns full of traitorous, ungrateful pricks
>We apologize for playing as murderhobos
>Vicious cycle of shit is broken

It was a pretty incredible game. I was aiming for pre-golden age Justice League. They went for mystery men, and I met them halfway.

The game ended on a cliffhanger. They were about the enter the hollow earth and get ambushed by a group of 4th Reich super clones.

The funniest moment had to be when the telepath read the mind of the NPC from the future and found she was here to kill Hitler. This is way before Adolf became known internationally, so they started collecting telephone directories and warning each Hitler they could find. It broke the national news in game. "Nationwide Rash of Prank Calls Leave Hitlers Puzzled"

Once, a few years back, my party ended up in a situation where they were up in the mountains, and needed the help of a Redwood nymph - who didn't trust them one bit, because they were coming from the direction of a camp full of lumber workers. I like to keep things pretty open-ended, so I was prepared for them to either do her a mini-quest to win her over, to negotiate some sort of peace between her and the loggers, or to try and continue without knowing exactly how to get where they were going (the nymph knew how to access a long-forgotten mineshaft in the area which the party was looking for).

And as I'm sitting behind my screen, wondering which of a, b, or c the party's going to do, one of the players says, "How about a trade? We'll give you a hundred pounds of rich soil."

I think I said something eloquent like "What?" at that point, and she explained that since this giant tree was sitting up in the mountains, on terrain I'd previously described as rocky and rough, surely quality dirt was at a premium, and what nymph wouldn't want to beef up her growing opportunities? That hadn't even occurred to me, but it was clever enough that I wasn't going to argue with it. So they agreed to the hundred pounds of rich soil.

I didn't appreciate quite how clever she was being, though, until she got back to the lumber camp and offered to empty their latrine, free of charge. Nightsoil is still soil, and the tree won't care as long as it's nutrient-rich, right? In the space of just a few hours in-game and maybe ten minutes realtime, the party got information that I thought it would take them an entire session, and were on their way.

I didn't even feel outsmarted; it was just a great example of lateral thinking. Honestly, it was one of the more fun experiences I've had at the gaming table.

I don't think I've ever encountered an uplifting "Characters dump shit on my NPC" story before.

Awesome tale, sir!

This one guy liked playing songs in the table while he was the bard.

In one situation where the party was captured for doing some dumb shit in a castle they are brought before the king, who is known for being harsh, sort of sadistic when it comes to punishing criminals and very proud of it.

Bard asks him if he will release the party if he plays a song that will impress the king.

King allows it.

The dude gets up, picks up his guitar and lays out the most impressive non-metal version of Mötorhead's King of Kings I've ever heard.

I disregard the roll and tell him he succeeded.