TheQuestionMan Posted January 20, 2006 Report Share Posted January 20, 2006 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Posted January 20, 2006 Report Share Posted January 20, 2006 Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" Well, there was the time I showed up to GM and wasn't wearing any pants... Actually, nothing leaps to mind. I'll think about it a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hermit Posted January 20, 2006 Report Share Posted January 20, 2006 Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" I was young and I needed the money! Let us not speak of this again... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuckg Posted January 20, 2006 Report Share Posted January 20, 2006 Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" There have been several instances in Champions where what I thought was going to be a long, dramatic battle ended with a single blow: * "Aegis" campaign -- Team of 350-point heroes vs. Gargantua. I figured this would go about a Turn. One Pushed Haymaker, Called Shot to the groin later... * "UNITY Prime" campaign -- Team of 500-point heroes, set up to fight the Engineer. In a *scrap yard*. So, I am anticipating big robot smash! Team martial artist/leader has a plan... he will disguise himself and sneak in, let one of the sentries see him, and then smash it. This will draw out more robots. He will then either smash the robots, or get captured by them. At this point, either way, the boss villain will appear from the depths of ye secret lair, and the rest of the team (which is lurking outside the scrap yard in a van) can run in and save the day. So, just as he's about to smash the first robot... the team's flying energy blaster goes all hot-headed and charging right over the fence. Dude is made out of living pulson energy, and setting off every sensor from here to there. What's worse, he's easily recognizable as the superhero 'Azure', there not being too many guys made of glowing blue energy flying around. This is as opposed to 'Rand Valor', who was very carefully disguised to *not* be recognizable as the leader of the UNITY superteam. So the Engineer, of course, seeing that UNITY has found her lair, Aborts to Run The Hell Away. While I could have had her stand and fight, I'd have had to run her as being enormously stupid to do so... she has a master plan to execute, sticking around to tackle UNTIL's primary superteam who are (for all she knows) going to be backed up by the entire 82nd Airborne division(*) would be imbecilic. So, she jumps in the escape capsule, launches a couple more decoy capsules, and bugs the heck out for the airport. To cut a long story slightly shorter, it ends up with her on a hijacked cargo 747 and *no* robot minions (had to leaves them all behind), against Rand Valor, Jack Frost, and Monkey Wrench. (Azure had charged in solo earlier, and gotten himself first Entangled and then KO'ed.) She had no minions, granted. (No time to Summon any... Azure had at least done *that* much, he'd kept her too busy to have time to make more of her Insta-Bots.) I was expecting her to last longer than she did, though... ... which was "Rand Valor Pushes his STR to up his attack to 16d6, uses Targeting Hearing to locate exactly where she's standing on the other side of the cockpit door, and kicks her through the door w/o opening it." CON Stunned in one shot". (And, of course, all of my players are firm believers in the 'kick them while they're down' school of combat... once you get CON Stunned, you'd better hope you have enough friends to keep them busy, or else they're going to pound your temporarily limp body straight into DM's Discretion.) Note to self -- when facing people who have 16d6 attack options available, put more PD on the villain, even if it requires boosting her writeup. Or at the very least, when the villain wants to talk to the hero with Targeting Hearing, have her use the PA system or the team radios, *NOT* her voice direct! (*) Her last little escapade of blocking out the sun over five states had put the entire East Coast on DEFCON 3. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CandidGamera Posted January 20, 2006 Report Share Posted January 20, 2006 Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" Hard to say. I've had my share of silliness over the years. In my younger days, I did catch flack for naming a D&D artifact 'the Personalitron'. I think I was confusing the appropriateness of the -tron suffix with the -ikon suffix. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Springald Jack Posted January 20, 2006 Report Share Posted January 20, 2006 Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" Caught without a necessary Eastern European name I named a girl Froiska which is a totally made up name. The real problem was my players caught the source: My can of Frescaâ„¢. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ockham's Spoon Posted January 20, 2006 Report Share Posted January 20, 2006 Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" Let me first say that I am really bad with names, to the point that they are frequently the last thing I come up with and they still suck. Well one gaming session the suck-a-tude was such that gameplay stop for several minutes while player were laughing. I had a realm called Narn (okay not brilliant to start), that had already been established as existing, although the characters had not yet ventured there. There was an evil group of wizards that had a base there. In my notes I had written the name of the group as the Narnians. Just as I was about to reveal the name of the group to the players I thought, Narnians = Narnia = C.S. Lewis, oops! So off the top of my head I called them the Narnells, which my players immediately seized upon as a great name for a 1950's do-*** group, and began an inspired round of singing. Everytime thereafter when the wizards showed up, the players would break into song and laughter. I have to say this villain group never achieved vicious, fear-inspiring evil status I had initially planned. _____________________________________________________ "Uh, Joel, what is Ator sitting on?" - Crow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpira Posted January 21, 2006 Report Share Posted January 21, 2006 Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" LOL The *** is priceless. Rep for you for attempting to innocently putting down a musical reference that the system found to be offensive. Although I think the do is spelled doo. It took me a second to even figure out why the system had even done that. Oh, well I rather get the hiccups every once in a while, than have to deal with it all the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpira Posted January 21, 2006 Report Share Posted January 21, 2006 Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" It seems that I must spread some more around before giving rep to you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lemurion Posted January 21, 2006 Report Share Posted January 21, 2006 Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" Toronto, the Gnome Ranger with his Wardog Sliver Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marketeer Posted January 21, 2006 Report Share Posted January 21, 2006 Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" I was in high school, and GMing RIFTs... (yeah, this is going to be a doozy) So it was roughly sometime between 2 and 4 in the morning. During a space battle, a giant mecha-style robot got blown up. One of its arms, about the size of a suit of power armor, was hurled by the force of the explosion direcly towards the player characters. As an interlude, let me point out that by stats, the arm had a stupid amount of MDC (damage capacity, or BODY in Hero terms--Rifts doesn't have PD-style reduction of damage). So the players start firing everything they've got at it, so as not to be hit by a disembodied arm going well over Mach-2. So I roll damage, not really enough to vaporize the arm (the PCs had used up most of their heavy ordinance blowing up the robot in the first place, so they were using "small" arms fire). The arm keeps coming. So they fire some missiles at the thing. I roll damage, still not enough, arm keeps coming. Eventually, the arm slams into the majority of the PCs, scattering them like bowling pins. Session continues. A little while later, someone points out to me that missiles are, y'know, explosive and should have at the very least knocked the arm off course. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ockham's Spoon Posted January 22, 2006 Report Share Posted January 22, 2006 Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" LOL The *** is priceless. Rep for you for attempting to innocently putting down a musical reference that the system found to be offensive. Although I think the do is spelled doo. It took me a second to even figure out why the system had even done that. Oh, well I rather get the hiccups every once in a while, than have to deal with it all the time. Hmm, I think I have hear the term used as a racial slur, perhaps that is why it got screened. Maybe I should have spelled it doowop instead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebuchet Posted January 22, 2006 Report Share Posted January 22, 2006 Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" In 1982, 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; guaranteed to keep the entire hero team SPAD busy for our entire Friday night game. The game went like this: Godzillicus (or whateverinhellhisnamewas) steps up and roars. Raaargh! Screaming civilians scatter in all directions. Seven foot tall green hero with four arms named Thark draws his 6 foot long Martian sword. Godzillicus roars. Raaargh! Thark swings that damned chopper for 7d6 HKA and hits (Not difficult since Godzillicus had a DCV of about -15). I haven't seen so many boxcars at once since I worked at Southern Pacific Railroad. 45 BODY, X5 Stun Multiplier = 225 Stun. Godzillicus falls down, goes boom. Total elapsed real time in my "all night fight": 6 minutes. We broke out Rail Baron. I didn't try to run Champions again for another year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Posted January 23, 2006 Report Share Posted January 23, 2006 Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" Hmmmm -- both in Champions no less... First time I'm running the game, 3rd edition rules for anyone who wants a time reference... I'd talked the GM into letting me run the session for the fun of it. Me, him, and my (then) wife... In a game where killing people is nearly impossible, I somehow managed to both kill one of the villains (an oops on the part of one of said villain's teammate) and my own PC... More recently... *sigh* I tend to develop scenarios without referring to the players' char sheets. I've discovered I have a bit of a competative streak (and I started out as a wargamer not an RPGer), and if I have the sheets as a reference point, I have a bad habit of setting up the bad guys specifically to deal with the heroes -- leaving the heroes wondering how exactly did they end up stuck in a meat grinder... So I try to generate the story entirely from the bad guy's POV, including a lack of accurate knowledge of whether a hero will show and what he's capable of if it is appropriate to the scene... The scene in question was intended both as a hook to lead to a multi-hero crossover (my game has a lot of heroes who usually act as individuals), and to get some mileage out of the char's PA being built as an OIF w/ Extra Time (only to activate) -- oh, and I acquired this PC from another GM, so the char hasn't really gone through my normal review... DEMON is out to kidnap a specific baby as the sacrifice for a ritual. The PC is present at the time, as the baby is the focus of a social event (PC and all the others in the room are wealthy business types)... Bad guys show up in what should be a massive show of force for a PC w/o pretty much all of his actual powers -- recall, the idea is this is a hook for a bigger story... One of the other rich guys does the cliche'd "you can't just barge in like this" shctick and I roll really well on the RKA he caught in response for his stupidity... I'm thinking I just did a great job of showing how dangerous these guys are, and the player will have to use his brains to minimize damage to everyone else and try to keep track of the target so he and the others can engage is some serious butt kicking later on... Then I do a serious look at the char sheet to try and second guess what will happen next... Psych Lim: protective of women and children... Hmmm, this might get sticky... Enraged: Innocent killed... Uh-oh... If the dice aren't ridiculously nice, this is going to be messy and short... The dice weren't nice... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manic Typist Posted January 23, 2006 Report Share Posted January 23, 2006 Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" What happened next???!!!? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted January 23, 2006 Report Share Posted January 23, 2006 Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" Hmm' date=' I think I have hear the term used as a racial slur, perhaps that is why it got screened. Maybe I should have spelled it doowop instead.[/quote'] Sadly enough it's an acronym for WithOut Papers, used by the gov't to identify illegal immigrants in the early 20th Century. The racial slur didn't get popular for a few years yet. ...I haven't GM'ed in years and I don't embarass easily, so I got nothin' Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Posted January 23, 2006 Report Share Posted January 23, 2006 Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" What happened next???!!!? The char went enraged and charged the nearest group of Bretheren and it's Initiate... Continued to roll poorly for his attack (PC had martial arts and fairly decent for a normal stats)... Char probably could have done halfway decent against up to two Bretheren, or just the Initiate, with only a little luck... Against five Bretheren and an Initiate he was in way over his head (we'll ignore the second group on the other side of the room, they never came into play)... PC was still on his feet after the first phase, if bloody, with only two Bretheren in position to attack, and the Initiate failed his Magic roll... PC remained enraged, and continued to roll poorly to attack... PC was unconscious and badly wounded before the end of the phase, with more villains still in position to attack... ...we stopped at that point... My belief that chars should never take an easily triggered enraged was firmly reinforced, especially not when they can be caught without 90% of their powers through simple circumstance... What was supposed to be a simple plot hook turned into a simple slaughter when the char construct required the char to turn off his brain and act in a suicidally direct manner... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agent 13 Posted January 23, 2006 Report Share Posted January 23, 2006 Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" Sadly enough it's an acronym for WithOut Papers' date=' used by the gov't to identify illegal immigrants in the early 20th Century. The racial slur didn't get popular for a few years yet.[/quote'] Not so much... http://tinyurl.com/d4l7u http://tinyurl.com/7nujs (Tinyurls added because the board kept editing the real URLs.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hooligan x Posted January 23, 2006 Report Share Posted January 23, 2006 Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" My finest flub was when I had a huge demon summoned on 8th street in the Village, The power armor/gadgeteer steps up and asks "Excuse me, are you Rakarnoth?" Apparently I was less subtle in plantng the true name clue than I thought. As an off-the-shelf beastiary demon, Raks had to obey the PC and spent a long time cleaning up the streets of lower east side until the sanitaion union put a stop to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manic Typist Posted January 23, 2006 Report Share Posted January 23, 2006 Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" My belief that chars should never take an easily triggered enraged was firmly reinforced, especially not when they can be caught without 90% of their powers through simple circumstance... What was supposed to be a simple plot hook turned into a simple slaughter when the char construct required the char to turn off his brain and act in a suicidally direct manner... I can see that, but then again.... a disadvantage that isn't a disadvantage.... And it's nice to see that he was consistent with his character concept. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ghost-angel Posted January 23, 2006 Report Share Posted January 23, 2006 Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" Not so much... http://tinyurl.com/d4l7u http://tinyurl.com/7nujs (Tinyurls added because the board kept editing the real URLs.) Learn something new every day. thnx. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Basil Posted January 24, 2006 Report Share Posted January 24, 2006 Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" Sadly enough it's an acronym for WithOut Papers' date=' used by the gov't to identify illegal immigrants in the early 20th Century. The racial slur didn't get popular for a few years yet.[/quote'] Nope. According to the online OED: [Origin uncertain; perh. ad. It. dial. guappo bold, showy, ruffian, f. Sp. guapo bold, dandy, f. L. vappa sour wine, worthless fellow.] The first quote the OED has is from 1912. The Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition says: [it. (Sicilian & Neapolitan dial.) guappo, fr. Sp. guapo bold handsome, a bully, a dandy.] Oh, as for "doowop", the entirety of the etymology in the online OED is [imitative.] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seenar Posted January 24, 2006 Report Share Posted January 24, 2006 Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" The char went enraged and charged the nearest group of Bretheren and it's Initiate... Continued to roll poorly for his attack (PC had martial arts and fairly decent for a normal stats)... Char probably could have done halfway decent against up to two Bretheren, or just the Initiate, with only a little luck... Against five Bretheren and an Initiate he was in way over his head (we'll ignore the second group on the other side of the room, they never came into play)... PC was still on his feet after the first phase, if bloody, with only two Bretheren in position to attack, and the Initiate failed his Magic roll... PC remained enraged, and continued to roll poorly to attack... PC was unconscious and badly wounded before the end of the phase, with more villains still in position to attack... ...we stopped at that point... My belief that chars should never take an easily triggered enraged was firmly reinforced, especially not when they can be caught without 90% of their powers through simple circumstance... What was supposed to be a simple plot hook turned into a simple slaughter when the char construct required the char to turn off his brain and act in a suicidally direct manner... 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
austenandrews Posted January 24, 2006 Report Share Posted January 24, 2006 Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" I've had some embarrassing moments where I'd think up a scene or plot that sounded nifty at the time, but when run, fell to earth with a dull thud. For example, take the PC who ritually duelled a tribal chieftain over a pit of snakes. The idea was to build tension and have the winner rescue the loser from the pit, thus bonding the PCs with the tribe. The later punchline was that sometime afterward, the chieftain would mention that the snakes weren't poisonous. Ha, ha! What a gas! For the players, not so much. Man, that's embarrassing just to remember. For a quintessential Champions moment, here's one danger with running the same group of players for many years. We had developed a nice understanding of one another's genre expectations. For instance, when the villain is giving his opening schpiel, you listen to the whole thing before you attack. I had become so complacent that I had a villain start his monologue, at the end of which was a surefire threat that would keep the PCs from attacking. Trouble was, I had not designed the individual villain to be a match for the PCs at all. I just knew they'd let him talk long enough to deliver his threat and walk out thumbing his nose at them. There was a player in the group with whom I hadn't gamed much. You can guess what happened next. *head smack* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UltraRob Posted January 25, 2006 Report Share Posted January 25, 2006 Re: "Your Most Embaressing Game Mastering Moment" I had a player who talked in a very distinctive manic way, and in a campaign of Heavy Gear (military mecha game, right after it came out so it was over a decade ago) I was playtesting when the PCs reported to their CO I suddenly decided to mimic the player's way of speaking as the NPC's schtick. It took the other players only a few seconds to realize what I was doing, but the player continued to converse with the NPC until they realized who the NPC was based on. Then they got really quiet and quit the campaign very shortly thereafter. I still don't know what came over me to do that to them, and I feel bad to this very day. (Not that I liked the player, but it was just a mean thing to do.) I swore never to mimic a player's mannerisms in a game that they're in again (with another group everyone is fair game ) and haven't done so until this very day. Rob:( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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