"Your Most Embarassing Game Mastering Moment"

[Tom]

Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment"

 

Of course, being a slave to the roll of the dice did not help matter much either.

 

I killed a PC by accident because I forget he has 0 resistant Def. I mean killed, too, as in X2 his body in one blow.

 

I swore then to never kill a PC by accident because the dice tell me he is dead.

I'm more than willing to 'fudge' the dice from time to time -- my problem is an unwillingness to ignore a 20pt Disad just because it actually puts the character at risk...

 

(believe me, I could have killed the char in the first phase if I hadn't been pulling the attacks...)

[Ghost Archer]

Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment"

 

A VERY long time ago, when the Wild Hunt was young, as is his way, the Master of Balance decided to send part of the team on an off-world adventure aka BUG HUNT. Think Starship Troopers and you're pretty close (this was BEFORE the movie, dammit!).

A newly minted superhero by the name of Sparkler, no relation, got caught up in the draft.

Enter our heroes onto this new world via dragon power and being a partly EVIL dragon, into a creek bed that had carved its way into the soil some 15 feet. Not my idea of a great entry point but the dragon figured they would be out of sight (and what does a dragon know about sneaking around?). They were...but couldn't see anything much either.

Sparkler to the rescue!

Our doomed hero vaults into the air, spreads his magnificent wings, (think fireworks) and soars into the sky...where he is promptly strafed by a recon bug wielding a machinegun...NATO rounds, FMJ, on autofire...

 

The embarrassing part? When I helped to build the character I neglected...resistant defenses...Sparker brand Swiss cheese.

 

Shortest lived character EVER!

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment"

 

Since I didn't contribute to this thread originally, I'll add to its necromancy.

 

The first was when I was running an adventure based off one of the Repairman Jack books. The book, and my adventure, included a character who had been molested as a child by her father... and the father's name turned out to be exactly the same as that of a friend of one of my players. Completely unintentional, but I felt horrible.

 

The second embarassing moment is lighter, and continues to be a source of humor in our game. I ran an adventure arc in Champions that culminated in VIPER attacking the local PRIMUS base. While all the troops were down around ground level, the Nest Leader was directing things from quite a ways up in a dirigible. Of course, the heroes managed to protect the base, then made their way up to the airship to cut off the head of the snake. After they captured the airship, they asked to see its writeup. That's when one of the players pointed out that the dirigible had a max speed that was a sizable fraction of Mach speed. Even now, it's not unheard of for a player to say, "We need to get across the country in a hurry? No problem, we'll break out the blimp..."

[BlueCloud2k2]

Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment"

 

In 1982' date=' my very first time I ever ran a Champions game (Although I had been playing Champs for only about five months, I'd been GMing D&D and other games for over three years). I built a 25" tall Godzilla knockoff with 50 PD and 150 Stun.[/quote']

 

Yeah.. I pulled the exact same rabbit out of my hat... Players were up against Telios and Monstersaurus and the the two Bricks in the party (Twins) did a coordinated attack that Sent it so far into the Negative Stuns I ruled they put it into a coma... And this was on the first Phase 12 of combat *sigh*

[pinecone]

Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment"

 

Greetings Herophiles, I realize that Players have "Embaressing Moments", but what about Game Masters.

 

For me it was the last Champions of Vancouver: Episode 19 - "Of Leads and Best Laid Plans". Pheonix, the Silver Crown of the Crowns of Krim ambushes Archangel Gabriel, but the GM neglected to remember that Pheonix is Vulnerable to Holy Attacks. When he is struck by "The Wrath of God" (Ego Attack). Hmmm.... let us see now. No Mental Defences and a Vulnerability to Holy Attacks.

 

Let us say it was a very short fight.

 

So, What was "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment"

 

Cheers

 

QM

 

P.S.: "Most Embarassing Champions Moment"

http://herogame.dans.cust.servlets.net/forums/showthread.php?t=471

 

P.S.S.:Champions of Vancouver: Episode 19 - "Of Leads and Best Laid Plans"

http://herogame.dans.cust.servlets.net/forums/showpost.php?p=943001&postcount=59

 

Early on in my Gm career I rebuilt a Solar powered villian to use a Multi...and put E-atk, Force feild and flight in there...yep he could only use two at a time...He entered combat riding in the back of a pickup....

[hfergus]

Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment"

 

I can' remember any embarasssing incidents right now, but I'll ask my players this weekend. I'm sure they will remember.

 

However, I remember my big "What the ^&%$* do I do now?" moment.

 

I've posted this before but... I set up the intro scene dsecribing various items in the room. I have been known to put things in that: A) are mere grace notes. They have no purpose other than provide color or "just because". are red herrings. I was quite good at figuring out what my players would fixate on. C) are real clues.

 

I finished the description. The players said "We destroy the clock." I was stunned. The whole scenario fell apart due to this. I started over with a different "maguffin" but still.....

[JmOz]

Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment"

 

I once forgot that a Brick with 45 inches of leaping, 60 Str could do a obscene amount of damage with a move through vs a character with -6 DCV (Giant Sized monster)

[wick]

Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment"

 

In my DnD 3.0 game from a few years back we had been playing every week for about a year with mostly the same players. I kept tempting the players with evil power in various ways to cause moral dilemas and tension in the group. The 3 elves who were all related in game started to slide towards Evil and then suddenly embraced it. I just went along with it to see where it would go.

 

The good players got with me out of game and formulated a strategy for taking out the Evil half. In their defence the bad members where growing more powerful and less discretionary in their behaviour. It ended with the good half of the party seperately ambushing the members of the Evil half for their own good.

 

This lead to the players of the evil side feeling betrayed and it was a few weeks before they would talk to me again. And after that I let someone else DM.

 

In retrospect I should have intervened well before it got to the point where it wrecked the game. Maybe take away their characters just for a little while and later bring them back under the players control after causing many problems in the world that the party would then have to go out and fix and that the players would be shocked at the logical extension of their own characters actions.

[Nolgroth]

Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment"

 

My most embarrassing moment is when I had a "wise and crafty" NPC villain suddenly devolve into a bunch of ghetto trash talk in the middle of a sentence. Or maybe it was the Robotech game where I forgot basic physics and had a warping ship "drag" a couple of the veritechs along with it. I got away with that one by MSU'ing that the residual energy from the fold engine created an intense magnetic field. The players both knew I screwed up and were impressed that I was able to come up with something on the fly that made at least a bit of sense. So I have to go with #1.

[Balabanto]

Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment"

 

My most embarrassing game mastering moment? Wow. I forgot once in the Forgotten Realms that Alustriel was a HUMAN. No. Really. I had to backpedal. It half-rewrote a background. Humiliating.

 

We all do dumb things. But my favorite that wasn't mine was when Mephron (Who sometimes posts here) was running a cyberpunk game. There was a basset hound that was really a rocket launcher. (No kidding. Welcome to Cyberpunk.) The problem was that I deliberately declared picking up the rocket launcher and carrying onto the boat that we were travelling. So eventually, the rocket launcher gets used. And I'm cracking up, but I'm like...Uh...dude...how did I not know or get a test for this?

 

Mephron: Ooops. I have no explanation for this.

 

We were all laughing so hard it didn't matter, but dang, I wanted a perception test of some sort.

[Tigereye]

Re: "Your Most Embarassing Game Mastering Moment"

 

GM'ing Star Trek: The RPG (I'm dating myself with this one.) Big group of PCs representing an entire task force of ships charged with ending a war between the Federation and Romulans.

 

Most of the PCs have been captured and replaced by android duplicates. (Remember the TOS episode, "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" Same device.) I wanted to showcase a PC whose player hadn't done much gaming lately, who was one of the few PCs who was not replaced by a android clone. The android duplicates take over the ships and prepare to either blow them up or hand them over to the Romulans. The remaining PCs had minutes to figure out what happened, stop the android duplicates, and rescue the real PCs. I told the players (also playing their android doppelgangers) that they could leave subtle clues in the way they played their characters that they were Not What They Appeared To Be.

 

The original player was a good guy, and a pretty bright fellow. He'd probably have figured it out in fifteen minutes. Unfortunately, he had to leave early.

 

I magnified the problem by having to substitute another PC (the only one left) whose player was as bright as a burned-out refrigerator light. To protect his identity, we will call him "Bobbert".

 

Twenty minutes into the scenario, Bobbert had not figured out -

--that the Fleet Captain planning to surrender the task force when there was still a good chance to outfight or at least outrun the hated Roms,

--the head of the destroyer flotilla loving on the Klingons and the chance to become a willing slave of theirs,

--and everybody else dropping hints that their characters weren't themselves -

- and the scenario was starting to come apart at the seams.

 

I dropped a note to pass around, informing the players "This isn't working. You can be less subtle." Bobbert saw this note being passed around and suspected nothing.

 

The note came back with the additional note below it: "LESS?!"

 

About forty minutes in, a member of the gaming club, who wasn't in the game, walked into the proceedings. Utter pandemonium was raging. A player known for his calm demeanor was in the hallway outside the room beating his head on a wall. Peculiar notes were being scribbled on the chalkboard. Players were literally hugging each other from frustration.

 

Three minutes later, the member (remember, he's never been in the campaign) mouthed to me and pointed: "They're all robots?"

I nodded yes.

The reply, pointing this thumb to Bobbert: "And he's not?"

Again I shook my head affirmatively.

He shook his head and facepalmed in disbelief.

 

It was the closest the Romulans ever came to winning the war. Short of "Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies", I cannot imagine a more terrible, ignominious way for the PCs to go down. Bobbert was worse than useless in the session - I had made a terrible error in judgment. The players were on the verge of a collective nervous breakdown.

 

In the end, I had the players play NPCs on their own ships, and ran the original player's PC as an NPC, to seize control of their own ships before it ended in tragedy. Fifty-two minutes later, the androids had been stopped. The characters who had been taken prisoner managed to seize a shuttlecraft and escaped. Bobbert left the club maybe a year later, but some of the more veteran players still refer to it as "THE Fifty-Two Minutes", even though it happened more than twenty years ago.

 

I'm still embarrassed by it. Although I've had even more stupid players in my games, I swore I would never let one take control of a game by their inertia or idiotic decision-making. So far, it hasn't. Thank Bog.

[Gnaskar]

Re: "Your Most Embarassing Game Mastering Moment"

 

I've actually been fairly lucky on the Embarrassing Mistakes as a GM. Or I've never attempted anything as advanced as some of the things mentioned here. My most embarrassing moment is actually embarrassing mostly because it made everyone in the room greatly uncomfortable.

 

Some basic background: I live in Norway, and more specifically, the city in Norway where the army made it's last real stand against the Nazis. Mostly because there isn't that much further north to protect (and there was even less back then). Needless to say, the Nazis didn't take too kindly to this final act of defiance and the city still bares the scars from it. Which, of course, means that players thoroughly enjoy fixing the time line when they discover that the Nazis won World War 2.

 

In fact, they liked it really much, and it's referred to as the best part of the campaign thus far. That wasn't the cause of my concern. The cause of my concern was that one of my players is a German student living in Norway. There's still some bad blood between Norway and Germany (on the Norway side, at least) and pulling it all into the light in front of young man who had had no part in it, and who's parents had had no part in it seemed to be in bad taste.

 

As it happened, he took the whole thing in his stride and I needn't have bothered worrying about. (Ok, that's the second false start. I'll cut to the point.) In fact, his first comment when I described the two thousand Stormtroopers lined up in front of the White House was "Minions!" And it all went down hill from there. Granted, for his character (an American scientist with very lose morals) this was a sensible in character reply. Even so, having a player with a very real and obvious German accent fitting perfectly into a Nazi control USA, and setting himself up for a political career within the Nazi Party, while the other players were doing history research and stealing time machines meant that all the Norwegians present were shifting nervously in their seats, trying to decide whether they were overreacting or he was out of line.

 

By the half time break several people were visibly shaking and the tension in the air could probably have been cut with a knife, with several players running from the room the moment the break was called. I wasn't doing too good myself, despite priding myself on being in control of my emotions.

 

I wish I could say I consciously thought out a solution that would make the character eager to change the time line and give the other players a way to vent their emotions without acknowledging the elephant in the room, but I didn't. It just naturally came together due to his character's character traits, a random phrase on an NPC's character sheet (which the players latched onto and became more and more certain it held the solution to the plot the more I tried to make it clear it was a red herring) and the seeds to the meta-plot I had carefully planted. In sort he ended up blowing up Mexico while attempting to make hell freeze over.

 

These days, the players remember it as when he blew up Mexico, rather than the other stuff, and his defensive cry that it was in an alternate time line falls on deaf ears. In fact its become the sort of stock conversation that happens about once a week. The players have a clear, in character season, for distrusting the character, and his blowing stuff up has become a running gag. All's well that ends well, but it will still be a long time before I'll GM Nazis in a room with both Germans and people from the lands formerly occupied by them. Which is a pity, because it rules out a trio of planned plots.

[Tech]

Re: "Your Most Embarassing Game Mastering Moment"

 

It wasn't mine but my friend GM'ed an episode. I don't remember all of it since it's been so long but two heroes found a mermaid, and were committed to protecting her from the government Silver Avenger jerk. GM is pleased that the characters are doing this so he continues.

 

Villain shows up, wants mermaid, heroes defend her, bad guy defeated. Not so bad, right? That's when we said we'll take you to the ocean to set you free...

 

... and over twenty years later, we still remember this part it was SO bad.

 

The heroes let the mermaid go, only to find out a 10 story talking version of the Creature from the Black Lagoon shows up - supposedly her protector and says...

"I'm glad you set her free. If you hadn't, I would've had to do something about it. And if any of those bloodsuckers show up... POW, right in the kisser!"

 

It was accompanied by a Jackie Gleason swing of the arm, 'Pow, right to the moon'. To this day, everytime we think of this line, I think of the Creature of the Black Lagoon with Jackie Gleason's personality!

 

Still laughing about it!

[Tech]

Re: "Your Most Embarassing Game Mastering Moment"

 

Let's see, when my brother GM'd, he spent two weeks working on a intricate and wonderful plot for the episode. We all got together and everyone is anticipating this great adventure when he discovers he left all his villains at home. He had to play the villains all from memory.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: "Your Most Embarassing Game Mastering Moment"

 

Convention game at ConQuest Oregon 2009. Fantasy Hero 6th Edition. I introduced the villain that one of the PCs had had dealings with in the past, and her player attacked at first sight and rolled really well, utterly incinerating the guy before he could play any part in the adventure, and forcing me to improvise to keep him alive. I felt like I was cheating.

[csyphrett]

Re: "Your Most Embarassing Game Mastering Moment"

 

I just discovered that my other computer's drive won't boot up and I have lost my players' characters sheets

CES

[mattingly]

Re: "Your Most Embarassing Game Mastering Moment"

 

The time I showed up at 6:45 for a 6:00 convention game I was running, because I thought it started at 7:00...

[teh bunneh]

Re: "Your Most Embarassing Game Mastering Moment"

 

Years ago, back in my college days, we gamed at the local student center. The Student Center was huge, more of a conference center than just a regular old student union, and they always had outside groups putting on major tradeshows or conventions there.

 

One Saturday, my girlfriend (now wife) announced that she was going to be running a Western Hero game next week. We all made characters and then, on the appointed day, showed up at the Student Center. Every single one of us, without talking to each other or planning ahead of time, came dressed as our cowboy characters. There we all are, in our dusters and serapes, our Stetsons and boots, and we're thinking it's pretty cool.

 

Until we realized who else was using the Student Center that day: The American Indian Nations were having their annual Powwow that day.

 

An entire convention hall filled with fifteen hundred Native Americans in beads and feathers and traditional garb, and all fired up with the spirits of their ancestors, and the six of us walk in dressed like cowboys.

 

We thought we were going to be murdered, right then and there.

 

We quickly found our room, locked the door from the inside, covered up the window with papers so no one outside could look in, and we didn't come out until the wee hours, when everyone else had gone home for the night.

 

True story.

[LA Singletary]

Re: "Your Most Embarassing Game Mastering Moment"

 

I had a similar experience back in college. Mid 90s and I had bought a shirt that had the Confederate Battle standard on it with the words "You wear your X and I'll wear mine" (This passed for a "witty rebuttal" to all the Malcolm X shirts that became very popular at that time). So I knew better than to wear this shirt in public. I knew that the meaning that the "Stars & Bars" held for me were vastly different than the meaning it held for the general populace. As it happened I woke up late one morning and had to get to school to take an exam. I had been lazy and I had not done laundry and had nothing that smelled remotely fresh except for that T-shirt.

I put it on with a pullover and zipped the pullover up. I get to school I take the exam. It is February and it is starting to get chilly and so our campus was aggressively turning up the heat. I get done and head to the student Union where I shed my pullover. My friends look at my shirt and comment. But it was one friend who said to me "I cannot believe you had the guts to wear that today."

 

I asked him what he meant by today...

 

Turned out that it was Martin Luther King day. I opted to head home early that day and never again repeated that mistake.

[Arc Esu]

Re: "Your Most Embarassing Game Mastering Moment"

 

In high school I was running a 2nd ed D&D game on the floor of my bedroom (we didn't have any good-sized tables back then). The PCs seem to be doing unusually well in the adventure, but I figured it was just luck. However, when I was awarding them some gems as treasure, one PC immediately piped up with the gold piece value of one of the gems, even though they hadn't appraised it yet. I was stunned at his lucky guess until it hit me; I had set myself up in front of my floor-length mirror. The PCs could look in the mirror and see behind my DM screen, and had been doing so all night! I immediately relocated, but I didn't end up punishing them in-game, although maybe I should have!

[Lonewalker]

Re: "Your Most Embarassing Game Mastering Moment"

 

Some years back, I was starting up a GURPS IOU campaign. The players had already created their characters the previous week and I had been scheming a fairly extensive storyline. However, on the day of the first session, I had dozed off for a nap in the afternoon and overslept, waking up a half hour or so after the game was supposed to start when one of the players called me. I threw all my game stuff into a bag and raced off to the student center where we were meeting. I arrived more than an hour late....only to discover that the players had started the game without me! Their characters were all college students so they had decided to roleplay the PCs all moving into the same rental house together. They were having so much fun getting to know each other, deciding who got which room, and figuring out the logistics of chores and rent payments...that when I finally got my notes organized and was ready to start, I was told to the effect of: "I know you have an adventure planned...but we'll be with you in a little bit."

 

I think I ended up giving just an overview of the introduction to the adventure in the last 45 minutes that we played. In fact, there were a couple of "plot points" that the players had come up with during the moving-in scene that they insisted on finishing up the next session before the adventure got into full swing.

 

It was a sharp blow to my GMing Ego. No longer do I assume I'm the most influential person at the gaming table, even when I'm behind the screen.

 

Lonewalker

[hfergus]

Re: "Your Most Embarassing Game Mastering Moment"

 

I don't think I ever had players spend all their time on what I had planned. Roleplaying other things and/or doing things in my scenario I had not planned occurred all the time. I love it.