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Mendicant
2017-03-04, 12:51 AM
Who was the best GM you ever had? Roleplaying abounds with horror stories of bad DMs, but what about the good ones? What made them good? Any awesome/funny/clever encounters to share? Good houserules? Heroic interpersonal interventions?

Kami2awa
2017-03-05, 01:37 AM
I think the best I've encountered was a GM who ran PF/3.5e in a very engaging campaign. They had a huge group (up to 8 players) to deal with over a campaign that ran for about a year, and yet managed to bring up every PCs backstory and make it relevant to the game. They also ran an entire world as a sandbox where we could go anywhere we liked, and still meet interesting things.

A quirk of the world was that there were very few (non-planetouched) humans, which gave it a very different feel to the Standard Fantasy World (SFW?) without making it too gonzo. Their various NPCs were quirky and individual with well defined character "voice".

Ultra4Life
2017-03-05, 11:11 AM
The GM of a local Rogue Trader game I was in. Nothing particularly special, just knew the rules, ran the game fairly, understood the setting, and was moderately open to player input. May not sound like much, but every other GM I've had has been terrible to the point I'm considering giving up the hobby.

Anonymouswizard
2017-03-05, 11:54 AM
The G of my current Mutants & Masterminds game (the fourth I've been in with him, the previous three were Unknown Armies, his own homebrew setting and system, and GURPS 'Warhammer 400ish years on'). Knows the rules, provides an interesting plot, and tries to limit his railroading. The only problem is I rarely feel like the characters are truly in danger until the final session (the games are still enjoyable, but after the near-TPK in the second session of Unknown Armies we might have started actually expecting combat in his 'combat heavy' games).

Rodimal
2017-03-05, 12:13 PM
I married her.

Pex
2017-03-05, 01:15 PM
I have two which stand out, both are great in their own way. The first was in college back in my 2E days. While I was relatively new to D&D, he let me experiment with unusual character ideas. My favorite was as an undead. The idea was since Evil likes to corrupt the innocent, Good fights back through redemption. This character was a saint. However, I suppose what truly elevated him to my favorite was how he stuck by me. In the worst DM thread I mentioned the guy who was upset my cleric would cast spells that were not Cure Light Wounds, yelled at me about it, and stopped being my friend because of it. We were players in this DM's game. This DM disregarded his ranting. He was quite happy with how I was playing the game, and I was still welcomed to play despite him being suitemates with the ranter.

The second DM stands out not so much for his style but for length of time of playing. I was in that group for 12 years of blissful 3E. Real life circumstances eventually caused the group to disband, but it was an epic game. We had three generations of campaign in the same world. What I miss most about him is his smile. When I figure out what he's up to. When I vocalize the mini-plot he had set up that can even help the party, he gives this smile that tells me I got it so right and he's glad I figured it out.

Cluedrew
2017-03-05, 04:20 PM
I haven't had any terrible GMs, but it I had to pick one I would have to go with Apocalypse (actual nickname). Why? Ability to take the craziest things the party does and roll with it. We have had some extreme parties over the years and it always seems to work out. And the character's background always seems to come up in the story. Oh, and system mastery: It is usually one of their homebrew systems so that is almost a given.

Pugwampy
2017-03-06, 05:30 AM
My favorite DM was also my first DM . Ironically his favorite DM is the person whom i consider the worst DM which i wrote of in the other thread .

Fave DM,s most interesting house rule was everyone including wizards can wear a helmet +1 peepot helm or -1 spot and - 1 listen +2 AC full face helm .
He also enjoyed trying to merge Neverwinter nights game rules with 3.5 particularly that parry skill or Missile Storm spell.

His monsters were tokens and his battlegrid was a wipe away felt tip pen on a 1 by 1.5 m graph board . Our table was an old table tennis table .

He was very very generous with magic goodies for example in our 4th or 5th session we all went into a vault of gods or some such and were allowed to choose +5 weapons . My non fighter buddies were whooping with glee .
My Half Orc barbarian also got to wield a +8 Katana of golem and earth elemental slaying . Going mad with magic goodies raining from heaven was his campaigns best aspect but it also eventually killed the game . He could handle that pressure .

He most enjoyed spending his DM prep time writing awesome stories which he read before or during our sessions . That was his DM thing his happy place. His dungeons or monster encounters were for the most part pretty average . We never did more than a 4 room dungeon . We also did forest and siege encounters and group fights . For him dungeon bumming were a minor part of the game .

His main idea was to have a pirate campaign but we only started that close to the end of his 22 session game . We had no real home base . Every two or three sessions we end up in another town or location . We bought a house and stayed in it for one session then we were forced teleported to the otherside of the world . We were subtly railroaded but nobody really cared .

His best session in my opinion was a city under siege by by i think 500 barbarians made up of low level Half orcs / dwarves and humans who just flung themselves against the walls
Our Big Bang was a high level cleric ? He kept track of each and everyone one of those Barbarians or at least he convinced us he was doing so . Most were fed into blade barrier spell . I was on cloud nine that day .

His later campaigns were only modules but they were really never as good as his original one.

He inspired me to play encounters beyond just dungeon crawling , The best encounter is a castle siege
He taught me fumble rules are cool .
Giving players a house is awesome loot.