This past Saturday night in my group’s Stargate campaign, I made my best roll ever in 20 years of gaming.
I rolled my character’s two attacks simultaneously, and when they both came up 20s I was in shock. I went on to confirm both crits, and had the pleasure of doing 54 points of damage — in d20 Modern, with my fists.
This roll made me think of something odd, though: When I’m GMing, I don’t really get excited about my rolls. Usually if I roll spectacularly well, it means a PC is going down — and that’s a tough thing to get excited about.
Have you noticed this when you GM? And what was your most amazing roll ever (on either side of the screen)?
(My thanks to Sam for the phonecam pic — I’m so glad you thought to take a picture!)
I do notice that sometimes I feel bad when I roll very well against the players, and a bit relieved when I roll poorly. It really depends on how the player’s luck is going that night. If their dice just aren’t hot that night and every roll is a fumble for them I feel sympathetic for them. Consistently bad rolls can make a night of gaming very frustrating for a player. On nights when their dice are hot I have no guilt over that roll of 100 on d% or a natural 20.
My best roll ever? While playing D&D 2nd Edition many years ago I rolled a natural 20, followed by a natural 20, followed by a natural 100 using the GM’s critical hit system of choice.
The campaign was a globe trotting “find the pieces of the great artifact” adventure, we were in the “Orient” of the GM’s gameworld. I was playing a half elf ranger with a long bow, and the party was in a sort galdiatorial combat of honor for some reason that I forget.
My character had to fight some kind of cat person ninja thing that kept on leaping at me. Again, I forget the details like the exact names but I remember the roll. The table of course went crazy with that second 20 and ballistic with the 100!
The GM had custom critical hit tables, and I had just rolled the best result possible – “Player’s Choice”. I looked at the minis and chose that my character’s arrow passed through the heart of my opponent as it was leaping and continued on to hit the enemy mage who was levitating above the field with his back to my PC. The GM allowed it – my opponent was killed instantly and the evil mage injured severely (not to mention his humdinger of a bad ass spell that he was attemtping to cast was lost).
Those rolls really screwed the GMs plans, because it was early in the combat but gave our side such an advantage that we easily won the whole thing. He was cool about it though and made the shot a legend in that land so that my character would be remembered forever. It was a great night to be a gamer!
And all of my rolls have pretty much sucked since then. 🙂
This weekend, during our playtesting session, my players encountered a small advance group of soldiers from a kingdom they have “history” with. Rather than heeding their advance warning & avoiding the foes, they decided to set a trap… Unfortunately, the party’s heavy-hitter ran straight into the soldiers and was clobbered immediately.
Nat20 on the attack, Nat20 on the confirmation… and the player failed a Fort Save to withstand the blow… He immediately fell, dying. Fortunately a small companion was able to heal him before death, but it was close!
I hadn’t thought of the experience either. For years I did noting but GM. When one GMs, there are enough tools available that one can win no matter what – if winning means that a particular encounter is resolved in the manner of the GM’s choice.
Players, however, have two ways to win. They can make good choices (in character design or in story decisions) or they make those sweet rolls. While pulling off plan without a hitch is certainly satisfying, it’s got nothing on pulling a critical out of nowhere.
The most amazing roll I’ve ever seen happened when I was running Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil for 3E D&D. The party was fleeing a bebilith. The halfling rogue discovered a secret door just in time and pointed out the hidden chamber to the party – which happened to be the home of an enemy of theirs, an assassin. They failed to recognize the small sigil he’d inscribed near the door.
They entered with the bebelith right behind them. The assassin, concealed in the shadows, studied the party. He decided to target Brutal Axe, the half-ogre barbarian frenzied berserker, who was barricading the door against the demon spider.
The man with with a +26 Fortitude save.
After three rounds, he’d studied long enough to make his Death Attack with his poisoned blade. He struck true, dealing 54 points of damage with the critical, sneak attack, and enchantments.
The situation called for three Fortitude saves: against poison, against the Death Attack, and against Massive Damage.
DC 15 each.
Adam, the player of Brutal Axe, said simply, “Whatever!” and rolled three d20s at once. A photo had to be taken.
Each has turned up as a one.
I’ve definitely remembered incredible rolls as a GM. Two that are especially memorable were in Cold Iron which has an open ended resolution system (based on the normal distribution).
One was during a campaign on an ice world. The PCs had an ice ship, and encountered an ice ship manned by trolls. The trolls ship had a ballista. The ballista shot at a PC, and I rolled a pretty good crit. The result was the PC took something like 6x his hit points from the shot (I believe this was the incident that led to my “head chop” rule that specified that a hit for 3x your hit points just flat killed you – in Cold Iron, there is no resssurection, however, if you are healed by special healing in time you can be healed back from “near death”).
The other incident was when I was doing a solo run with one player. Her character was accompanied by an NPC party member who was small and weak, and not many hit points, who rarely dealt much damage. They were exploring this cave, and spotted a dragon who didn’t notice them. They retreated and buffed up (Cold Iron’s magic is heavily geared towards buffing up) and charged into the room. The PC stood back to provide caster support while the NPC charged the dragon. I rolled an incredible open ended attack roll, and the dragon was felled in one shot. By a 90 pound weaking.
Another attack sequence that was very memorable was in an SF campaign using modified Traveller rules. I had my own ship design and combat system, with the ship treated as a bunch of compartments. A good hit was scored on a fuel compartment, which exploded and required rolls to check adjacent compartments. After some 20 minutes of rolling collateral damage, the ship’s entire fuel store and most of it’s engine compartments, and a few more compartments had exploded. Mechanically it was incredibly clunky, but I still have this image of this ship slowly crumbling to the ground as explosions wrack the ship.
I’ve certainly had other GM rolls that left us all in shock.
Frank
Domain name: $10/year
Web hosting: ~$10-20/month
Blogging software: Free
Getting to brag to thousands of people about your awesome roll last night: Priceless.
I’m with you– as a GM I fear the 20s I roll, and how they’ll derail the player’s plans, if not outright kill them. As a player, they’re to be cheered– especially when a good roll makes up for some massive oversight that would have spoiled your plans otherwise…
I had a great roll the other night, though it’s not as impressive as some of the stories here:
An NPC illusionist was mopping up our party after his goons softened us nicely. He had just dropped half our group with an illusionary fireball (no disbelief), and my bard PC ran to his fallen comrades to try to pull them out of the “flames.” As he did, the illusionist let go with a Phantasmal Killer. For those unfamiliar with the D&D spell, you basically have to make two saving throws or die.
My mid-level bard’s saving bonuses for the two categories involved just sucked, so I was already thinking about a replacement PC. The DM sighed in relief and everyone else cheered when I got that 20. 🙂 (Made up for all the 1s and 2s I was getting on “social skill” rolls earlier.)
Later he told me he had been struggling with that spell the whole week prior, realizing that two bad rolls would equal a PC death. In the end he decided that he had to stick with it to be true to the NPC’s abilities. …and now we know he doesn’t fool around when it comes to overpowering bad guys.
I selectively choose whether or not to use crits as a GM. If it is in a place where it would add dramatic action to the game, then yeah I’ll use it. To make the roll truly effective though, you have to play it up as the GM. “Hey, he rolled a crit, you take extra damage” does nothing for the game. Doing “The great troll swings his massive battleaxe, scarred and pitted from the armors it has broken under its fearsome might, and it smashes into your exposed side drawing blood and muscle through the gaping wound it rips” brings out the roll a little more.
I tend to reverse that though as well, when players roll crits, I have them describe what happens as if they were the GM. The only draw back is with newbie players. Most players know they don’t get to say this guy or girldies unless I tell them the enemy dies. Some will think a critical means they can make him or her die. On a side note, I’ve had players reluctant to kill a female orc when I introduced her as an enemy. Does chivalry stretch across species lines? When the player critted on her, he didn’t want to explain how bad the crit was, just says “Ok, I kill her, it.”
The incredible series of rolls I remember came from one of my first GMing experiences. I had been playing for no more than a year, and with little exposure to the culture, had come up with my own thoughts. I tended to pick monsters by their pictures at the time, and I decided that a drow ambush would be awesome.
Awesome it was. 15 Drow stepped out from behind the curtains. 14 consecutive 1’s later, all but one of them were dead–young GM at the time, remember, and critical fumbles were relatively deadly–and the last one was so humiliated that he (yes, he!) dropped his sword and ran.
The intervening dozen years or so have yet to see me use another drow in combat.
Without a doubt, my best roll as a player was a series of three natural 20s (and then a hit to confirm the triple crit) with a flaming burst greataxe to kill a purple worm IN ONE HIT that was destroying the party. What truly makes it the best roll ever was that before the attack, my character got hit by the worm and WON the grapple check to avoid getting swallowed whole.
steev; oh, is that what happened to those guys? the rest of us wondered where they’d gone. 🙂
“Have you noticed this when you GM?”
Yes, that usually happens when you have to be an omnipotent GM.
Currently I play Clinton R. Nixon’s Donjon with my group which has very strict rules the GM has to follow. So you really have to work to make up a challenge for the PCs. For next Sunday I made up some new tactics and I’m looking forward to try to get some PCs killed.
Fergon the Fearless, cliche-ridden barbarian of the Cold Wastes, lost his village, his parents, and part of his life to the Red Wizards of Thay. He swore to seek vengeance should the opportunity ever present itself.
Years later, Fergon and his companions must win a gladitorial tournament deep in the Underdark to gain audience with the local ruler. The party is successful, fighting other opponents one-on-one, when cloaked man steps up to the arena, probably a caster. Fergon shrugs and nods at Kaolin, a monk of no small grappling skills. Kaolin steps up and readies himself for the combat, when the cloak is thrown off, revealing the tattooed and bald body of a Red Wizard.
Wordlessly, Fergon stands and shoves the monk aside. The bell rings, and the wizard gets a spell off first. Fergon shrugs off (with a natural 17) the maniacal laughter that threatens him, and charges in a raging frenzy, throwing all of his strength into one mighty blow (full power attack) while screaming his father’s name.
Fergon’s greataxe Legbiter plows into (nat 20 + nat 17 again) the Red Wizard, slicing effortlessly through the mage’s outstretched hand, splitting his forearm, powering through his torso and spine, and even taking the fingertips off his other hand (I believe it was around 70 damage to the poor wizard’s 40-odd hit points). There was a shocked pause at the sheer violence of that blow, then the audience went wild.
It was a good roll and all that, but the really awesome part for me was the way it fit into the story.
…regarding the actual question – “Have you noticed this (anxiety about crits) when you GM?”
Yes, but I let it go. One of my jobs as GM is to apply stress to the characters. One of those stresses is the possibility of character death. The last entry in my House Rules doc:
Finally: I will not set out to kill the party. However, they will be playing with sharp objects and powerful energies. During their adventures, Darwin and Death be there to ensure the quality of the gene pool and punish them for mistakes. On the plus side, Death is not what it used to be, and a Raise Dead spell can be had for zero down, low monthly payments, and a binding contract (signed in blood) for future quests, along with tax, title, and license…
I definitely see the duality. Phenomenal success for the GM (who plays the role of the antagonist) inevitably means problems for the players. Given that dice-rolling is involved at all, there’s no avoiding occassionally crit-killing a PC. You can fudge, of course, and the GM screen is a great tool for that, but I for one feel that takes the thrill of danger out of the game. Even the most powerful characters could possibly be killed by a weakling who rolls well, which keeps everyone from becoming complacent. Thus, under most circumstances, I let the dice fall where they may.
As for interesting dice-rolling stories, my brother’s has to top my experience. In a single round of combat, he rolled two separate attacks for the same monster. Each came up 20 (threat for a crit), rerolled to another 20 (confirmed crit; threat for instant kill), and finally a hit (confirmed instant kill). The players even insisted that he switch out dice in the middle, but he kept tossing 20’s. This, of course, led to the instant deaths of two PCs in the same round without the need for damage dice even being rolled. Needless to say, my brother was apologetic and the players were flabergasted. Chance is a funny thing sometimes.
I think what made the roll memberable was the situation, with the fellow PC in a dire confrontation, about to be clobbered to death, and your stepping in to assist him in a dramatic fashion.
All in all it had many memorable moments, including the die rolling. 🙂
I can’t even recall any spectacular GM rolls I’ve made. Mostly, I remember all the terrible rolls I make as a player. As I mentioned in a previous comment, I got to play INDIANA JONES in the Temple of Doom adventure for his TSR RPG, and Indy succumbed to the poison.
The best roll *I* ever made as a player — certainly the most critical — came back in the 1st Edition days, playing G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief. The big fight with Nosnra and his entourage is a killer. My wizard spider climbed to the ceiling and summoned an earth elemental. A few rounds later, he took some damage, and lost control of the elemental.
By this point, everyone else — party and monsters alike — was down. I only had a handful of hit points, and no spells. My only prayer: a dagger of throwing, which does double damage if thrown. This is not an easy attack for a wizard, and obviously, if I miss, that’s it.
But I rolled a 20. With the critical hit system our DM used, I did just enough damage to finish it and end the battle.
Mind you, in G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King, I witnessed the most devastating attack I’ve EVER seen. My brother’s rogue, equipped with boots of striding & springing and a sword +2, giant slayer(+3 and x2 damage to giants), backstabbed (x4) a fire giant — and landed a critical hit for x3 damage.
Our group just rolled 1 die and multiplied the result, modifiers and all. Needless to say, my brother rolled a 12.
([([12+3]x2) x4] x3) meant 360 points of damage to a creature with maybe 50 hit points.
That same rogue was responsible for setting off 20 20d6 fireballs in I9 Day of Al’Akbar, but we didn’t bother rolling that damage. Pity…
In a 3.5 fantasy d20 game, original setting, I had the party go up against a pair of Kytons with class levels in exotic weapon master and master of chains … which put them above 20 HD, which allowed me to give them epic feats. I give them Overwhelming Critical and Devastating Critical, just for fun 😀 However, I manage to whack a party member with a natural 19 on the attack roll (improved critical, spiked chain), and a natural 18 to confirm the crit (with all of its modifiers to the attack roll). Bang, zoom, dead. Oh yeah, and the target was under the effects of what was essentially a perpetual blink spell.
There have been a lot of great rolls (and awful ones) for me as a player over the years. The most recent one involved A Savage Steampunk game run by Gospog. It was my wife’s first gaming session ever and she was faced with fighting with us against a bunch of dinosaurs. She had drawn a joker card for initiative (always a good thing in Savage Worlds) and then hit the target. She rolled her damage and then the dice kept exploding (roll a six and you get to roll again and add everything up). When all was said and done she had turned a Tyrannosaurus into hamburger with one shot. We were all cheering around the table as none of us could believe it. She laughed and said, “I guess that’s good, huh?”
As a GM I really can’t peg a memorable roll… Just lots of amazing players and their characters…
Regards,
Walt
A funny 1st Ed D&D story: One of my friends was rolling up his character, relatively new to RPGs. He got an 18 ST and went for the percentile, and started cursing up and down. We focused our attention on him, and he’s bitching because the two ten sided dice both came up “0”…
As a GM, I recently had good character planning and great rolls add together to wipe out two plot NPCs at the same time. During the combat, a catman ninja-type was getting his rear kicked, and he’s supposed to be one of the best swordsmen in the region. After a devastating attack roll, he had to make three consecutive saves, and I was extremely happy to throw three great rolls. Unfortunately, I boasted that he was unstoppable, and he was felled the next round…
Shouting something like “I’m invinceable!” in D&D is the equivalent of a Texan saying, “Hey y’all, watch this!”
(Ian) Domain name: $10/year
Web hosting: ~$10-20/month
Blogging software: Free
Getting to brag to thousands of people about your awesome roll last night: Priceless.
I don’t laugh out loud at comments that often, but this one got me — I’m glad I wasn’t drinking anything!
(Frank Filz) I’ve certainly had other GM rolls that left us all in shock.
I hadn’t thought about this question from the perspective of the whole group — in other words, in terms of GM rolls that the whole table took notice of.
Looking back, I can think of a few — but somehow, they’re still a lot less memorable than amazing PC rolls.
In thinking about this topic some more, I remembered three anecdotes from back when I first started gaming. My best friend growing up was the most amazing die roller I’ve ever seen.
His very first roll as a gamer was his AD&D 2e fighter’s Strength — and he rolled an 18 on 3d6, and then 100 on percentiles.
When I bought a d100 (the Zocchihedron, not 2d10), he gave it a test roll…and got 100.
In our solo Shadowrun campaign, I once gave him a ridiculously high DC for a climbing check. In SR (1st Edition, at least), 6s explode, allowing you to roll again. He was only rolling 1d6, but he manage to get six 6s in a row, and blew the DC out of the water.
I don’t remember making great rolls, but I do remember the shockers.
During a Call of Cthulhu game, one of my players rolled five consecutive 00s (critical fumbles) in combat. He got away relatively unscathed—I just felt so sorry for him. The dice gods hated this guy.
On a similar note, the last time I went to a con (a couple of years now), I failed to roll anything over a 7 on a d20 roll for three days of d20 events—and I changed dice often. Several times, I had consistent runs of 1s and 2s.
Now, I heap affection on my dice every chance I get. #%o)
There are several times on both sides of the table where incredible rolls created fun scenarios. In D&D 3.5 we tend to use the instant kill variant. This was so that if a player rolled a natural 20 followed by a natural 20 to confirm the crit, they could then roll to confirm instant kill…(break AC is all that is required.) This has happened 4 times in campaigns I was involved in since the inception of 3.0. Two of these moments are quite noteworthy–I will tell the first:
1. In this scenario I was the DM and the players were marauding their way through a dungeon on a quest to destroy a powerful artifact. I don’t recall the specifics but the players kept doing things without thinking them through and I figured it was about time to jar them to their senses.
So, I selected the creature for the purposeful DM punishment–A greater Barghest (with pumped up HD) that was going to be part of a trap to teach the PCs to be more careful. But, as the Barghest jumped out to tangle with the party the Ranger/Arcane Archer of the group got one shot off…Nat20(through the eyeball), Nat20(through the brain), Nat20(out the other side)…needless to say I don’t think the PCs learned the lesson I had meant to teach them. :p
In Rollmaster, you’re rolling two d10 as an open-ended d100. Rolling 96-100 is open-up, and (sometimes) 01-05 is open-down.
So a level 15 Nightblade, (think magic-user crossed with assassin) is playing in a fairly high magic game. He’s got a Presence of 103 due to a nice starting roll, several background picks, a lucky stat gain, and expenditure of an exorbitant amount of treasure on a +1. Along with his x3 PP multiplier, he’s normally rolling in spell points. (I think it approached 100, but I can’t remember exactly how many it was.)
There’s a second level spell ‘Leaving’, which is basically a very short range teleport that can’t cross barriers. He wanted to blip behind some guys that had covering fire on an open area. But somehow the previous (insane) firefight had dropped him down to exactly one PP.
Trying to cast a spell for which you don’t have the points switches what the penalties are for fumbling. A lot. There were some other considerations that the haze of memory has fuzzed, but the final result was a _negative_ 329 result on the Ritual Magic Spell Failure table.
Thats _way_ off the bottom of that table. The lowest result is paraphrased from memory: Hole ripped in space time continuum. Everyone within 10 miles is just gone. Intervention of minor deity required to save the plane. Major deity to repair.
Because of one flipping point.
I don’t overcast spells anymore 😀