DM: Okay... sure: you *do* find a convenient rustic marketplace in this giant city. I don't think it will hurt the module if I add that detail.
FS: Thank you.
PP: But you didn't go too far away from us, right? We still need to use our diplomancy on that NPC!
FS: No worries. I'll be within earshot.
DM: Actually, your previous interactions with Gizmo kinda did the work. He definitely seems a lot more friendly than before.
RT: Gorgeous. I keep subtly asking him about that vault that he's guarding.
PP: I say to him: "You must be so brave to guard it all alone, with nopony to help you!"
Gizmo: Well... I am not really guarding it alone... There's this other guy with the keys, you see...
RT: Oh? Do tell.
FS: He's revealing his "secrets" suspiciously quickly...
PP: The DM's ominously browsing his notes... Wait no, he's just browsing them. Nothing ominous about it. Nevermind!
Gizmo: Yeah... I may not be that imposing, but my friend and co-worker is making up for the two of us in the Intimidation area. He is really scary. His name is...
DM: <shuffle>
DM: ...uh-oh...
PP: What? What happened?
DM: Remember that bug monster from earlier?
PP: The one that Rarity killed and threw into the river along with all his stuff?
DM: Yeah...
RT: He was Gizmo's friend?
DM: ...y-yeah...
RT: But Gizmo was a witness! Why didn't he say anything when we killed his friend right in front of him?
DM: TOTALLY my fault. I should have read this module in advance and actually *learned* which NPCs are important and know one another...
PP: You didn't even read the module before the game?? Hahaha, this is *priceless*!
DM: I... thought I'd be able to learn it on the fly?
Look, I was really busy this past week…
Guest Author's Note: "Yeah... something similar totally happened to me, as a DM, about a decade ago.
The Sunless Citadel module, I think. I ended up declaring that It Was All A Dream and let the players keep the XP they earned during that game.
Story Time! Tell us about the time your DM was comically unprepared."
Newbiespud's Note: After the last update, a few more of you lovely people contacted me about submitting more guest comics! I think I'll get the sabbatical I sorely need after all, and you all will get some interesting pages to read. Though I still might go through with the idea I had in mind… We'll see!
Notice: Guest comic submissions are open! Guidelines here. Deadline: February 20th.
I don't remember if I mentioned the one GM I had that kept all his adventure notes on a napkin. I think the only way he could be less prepared is if he was eating a meatball sub during the game. :P
One time my DM tried to run a high-level one-shot he'd written himself, but he spent a third of the session setting it up and even though he had all the monsters chosen ahead of time he hadn't bothered to copy their stats form the Monster Manual into a convenient place so the start of each fight was really slow. Plus, he hadn't figured out a good way to work in the main villain of the one-shot so he ended up being a random guard he had to come up with a name for on the fly.
Attacker: roll to hit with weapon-X
Defender: roll to parry with weapon/shield-Y
A vs D
success:success parry weapon/shield takes damage
success:fail defender takes damage
fail:success attacker weapon takes damage
fail:fail no effect
If a weapon takes damage, reduce its points
succes:fail condition -> roll damage amount, roll damage location; defender subtract armor at location from damage, excess goes through to affect overall hit points, and location hit points
Oh, and if a fail condition is really bad, roll fumble effects.
It was comedically satisfying. He locked them in a warehouse with some iron golems as he made his escape, but one single well-placed attack from the fighter as he was fleeing made him take so much fall damage that, by the time the monk caught up with him, he basically died in 0 hits.
I also ran The Sunless Citadel in the early 2000s. However, I did read it before I ran it. ;-) My players were so taken with Meepo the kobold that he actually joined the party and earned the nickname "Deadeye" because he was wicked good with his crossbow.
He had a "pet" baby white dragon that he lost. The players were suppose to find the dragon and return it to Meepo. Which my players did.
After the module was over, though, I had a silver dragon, an NPC from my own home brew campaign that I inserted this module into, charge on of the PCs to steal the baby dragon back so he could return it to the wild.
I ran the 5E remake of the Sunless Citadel and my players also had Meepo join the party. Though it was only after he died pathetically and became the Avatar of Failure. In a later adventure, one of our players had his dwarf cleric use a magic item to teleport to a giant encampment that we'd fled from before, just to see how trapped it was. Roughly fifty Glyphs of Warding later, he somehow rolled a Divine Intervention and got Meepo sitting on his shoulder for his poor life choices (but also Word of Recalled back, then we took an airship and went the long way).
I'm always comically unprepared. But I run games for kids at the library; they don't mind or notice. My rules are so basic that I can start with an elevator pitch ("The Guard captain announces that he needs volunteers to fight monsters in the sewer") and just go at it.
I can only think of one instance... DM used an online resource to make us a quick dungeon to delve through for experience. Apparently, the scripts thought four specters and a mummy with levels of monk and high dex was suitable for a level 12 party... Improved Evasion was a thing it had, and... I just remember we were all hiding away from line-of-sight as much as we could. ... We stopped using online auto-generated stuff after that, and I never trusted any again
Guest Author's Note: "Yeah... something similar totally happened to me, as a DM, about a decade ago.
The Sunless Citadel module, I think. I ended up declaring that It Was All A Dream and let the players keep the XP they earned during that game.
Story Time! Tell us about the time your DM was comically unprepared."
Newbiespud's Note: After the last update, a few more of you lovely people contacted me about submitting more guest comics! I think I'll get the sabbatical I sorely need after all, and you all will get some interesting pages to read. Though I still might go through with the idea I had in mind… We'll see!