All the many times that I as DM gave the PCs an encounter, and they found a way around it without fighting. Those are always fun to watch and see what players come up with!
I ran a l20 one shot. The party struggled EXTREMELY against a group of frost giants with regeneration, because they didn't bring any fire. I thought I had overturned the adventur as they struggled to light torches and throw them into the giants eyes a and stuff
Then half an hour later, the extremely min maxed rogue tried to be eaten by the boss on purpose and proceeded to gut it from the inside out in two turns.
Rpg in general the eye opening experience of playing a game that's not dnd for the first time. We played wicked ones and it was so much fun slowly learning the rules. I remember when I understood that there is no spell list and I can just do whatever, in accordance with the dm - that was so liberating and exhilarating
Love the general non-DND RPG epiphany moment, I definitely relate to that. I asked the DND question just cause of this particular mag but I 100% agree with that sentiment. My first non-DND rpg was Call of Cthulhu, and similarly we had the same feeling of "no spells? guess I gotta figure out something else creative...".
I think that dabbling in other ttrpg's has actually improved our DND games. Bringing in new flavours and ways of thinking that don't occur until opening your mind to other systems.
I still love DND but it's certainly an eye-opener to mix it up once in a while.
I played a Kenku monk in a game a few years ago, and we were on a ship crossing the ocean. I was up in the crow’s nest (ha), when we were attacked by a flock of harpies. I jumped onto one of them and wrestled it luchador-style in midair, the entire time feeling thrilled to finally know what it felt like to fly.
This is from my first campaign and I remember it clear as day because it was the first time a nat 20 saved my ass big time.
The party wizard and I were exploring an abandoned building in town and we were attacked by a large rat which I tried not to kill but I bit the wizard and nearly killed him so he used thunder wave and rolled max damage. Unfortunately it was also enough structure damage for the building to collapse and it was loud enough that the entire town came outside to see wtf just happened.
Now our wizard didn’t protect me from this spell so I’m basically deaf and nearly dead. Upon seeing this gathering of villagers I try to cover our ass and shouted “THERE WAS A MIMIC!!”. I rolled a nat 20 for deception and after that we were treated very well by the villagers
One of my first games, I was about to lockpick a super hyped up treasure chest but before I said I was going to try it, one of my other party hit it with an axe with a natural 20. Then I rolled to see if I could catch the expensive looking fancy potion, but rolled a 1 so it shattered on the ground right before I could get to it.
And so started my legacy of comically bad/low rolls.
Probably the most memorable moment was while I was DM'ing and had come up with an encounter that I was really hoping would kill at least one of my PC's.
I collapsed a floor on them and they were soon beset by a devil who was doing quite well against them. I was getting pretty close to downing our Rouge when out of nowhere our monk completely changed the course of the battle.
For context the monk is a naked dwarf who had recently had all his hair singed off in a previous encounter with a juvenile red dragon. On top of all that, he is a drunk who carries a jug of alchemy to continually produce alcohol and refuses to use it for anything else.
So during the battle our monk figures out that since the devil is airborne and he has no long range attacks he is useless right? Not so much for our clever player. They decide to start helicoptering a certain appendage to distract the foe. I thought it was funny so let it go to opposed roles their performance VS my constitution. Well fuck me if I didn't get out rolled every turn.
Because of this I had to sit there and describe the devil being stunned and awed by this swinging pendulum unable to do anything while the rest of the party wailed o ln him.
And now you know why I design stuff to try and get rid of one of their characters. They Deserve it!
So, as a new player in a game of Phandelver, with a group of veteran players... my big ole Barbarian (she was a sweet, lovely thing - she would fall into rages from concern for her friends. ultimate mama bear, but young. little sister bear???) was forced to attack an ally next to her. she was raging, and had a pretty solid weapon options, could dish a decent amount of damage.
I'd just thrown my spear so I had to pull something out. I asked the DM if she'd be able to reasonably choose her weapon. I think we rolled for it (or DM ruled it), and she was.
So she attacked with a net. I caught my ally, their player did a nervous, high pitched laugh (I'll remember that forever, I was so proud), and my Barbarian was able to be subdued.
My group probably thought I was acting like a little kid who figured out how to like, open a jar made for little kids. But idgaf. It felt great. My Barbarian, after that, bought another net. It had pretty much saved a life - what if she needed another???
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