Best Game You Ever Played?

[Farcaster]

Thinking back over the years, have you ever had one of those gaming sessions where you walk away thinking, Wow! That was the most incredible game ever! One of those nights that everything clicked, where the whole game was spot on with action or roleplaying so intense, it simply cannot or has yet to be topped in any game you have played since? Perhaps it has you talking about it even to this day. Got one in mind? Now, tell me, what was it about that game that you think made it so amazing—the epitome of your roleplaying experience?

I'd love to hear your stories.

[mathogre]

I haven't been playing long, less than two years. Total sessions played is low, and time spent gaming probably is less than time spent creating characters and learing the game.

It was in July of this year, my second time with my current group...

...I'm a female elf monk. We were in this cave, we'd just gone down this fairly steep and slippery tunnel, and came to a sort of T. Water flowed beyond us in a stream flowing perpendicular to us (following the top of the T). Some of the guys explored the right side of the T, and I took one of the other guys and explored the left side. It was dark, save the lights we carried. We probably went 60 to 100 feet away from the tunnel we'd descended. We could barely see the others. We couldn't see much on the other side, some dark cave-like spots, but even with what we had for light it wasn't enough to tell what was over there. We heard nothing other than the rush of water below.

We returned to the bottom of the tunnel. There was a wood and rope bridge across the stream. There was another monk with us. He and another member of our party started cautiously across the bridge, and that's when the trouble began. Thank the gods I had the presence of mind to tie ropes to the stagmites along the tunnel we'd descended. We were outnumbered but fought with ferocity. We held our own. Many of them gave their lives, while we took only modest damage. We escaped, obviously, otherwise I'd not be able to tell my story...

... While perhaps mundane in many ways, the game was fun and exciting. I consider myself fortunate. With just a little suggestion and description of the setting, I'm no longer with a bunch of people around a table. I'm in a cave, the forest, a village, a battle field. I'm that large human male blacksmith paladin with the cheetah. I'm the svelte, reserved female elf monk, striving to be one with the universe and aiming for perfection of being a deadly killing machine. I'm the petite mother hen female gnome cleric, playful and mischevious one moment and the magic artiste the next, healing the members of my party.

[ronpyatt]

When the scene is captured and you just can't stop role playing it out. The players and the GM dynamically volley back and forth in a rhythm that is so fluid you get lost in the few hours you have left to play. Loosing ones self in the moment and discovering there at the end that everyone just passed a threshold beyond reality. Time passes so quickly that it ends abruptly and everyone is snapped back to reality. This happens to me every so often. That's what keeps me coming back for more.

A favorite of mine that crops up within my group is a session with a jailed low level demon with low Int, who happened to love the taste of fairies (one of the PCs, in fact). Upon the demon's tongue a gland that resembled a diamond (sparkly) would entice even the most wary fairy. That session was spent dealing with the lure, as the demon so wanted to taste the PC. Another party member was a high level demon, to which the low level demon pleaded. The demon would cry out, "come here little fairy. I've got a sparkly for ya." At some point the PC demon grabbed the tongue and yanked it several times, beating the lower demons head against the bars, and causing the demon much pain and confusion at being rebuffed, saying, "iths nah fair" in its now speech impaired tongue numbed lisp.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

I've only played the game like 9 times, but my second session of D&D still blows anything away. Literally.

I guess there's a rush when you first start, but this was more. I was playing a gnome illusionist in a Sharn campaign, party of a detective company investigating the disappearance of a student from Morgrave University. We had a nighttime appointment with a professor to question, but when we got there he was dead. Next to his body was a tiny gnome doll. It started ticking. By now you can guess what was about the happen, but I was playing in-character. I picked up the doll. I just barely managed to get some sense and throw it away before it exploded. I couldn't stop humming the Mission Impossible theme from then on.

That campaign was full of good stuff. There was the runaway flying broom I grabbed onto which kept running with me on it. There was the whole bar full of warforged which raised or lowered their hands simultaneously in response to my inquiries about if anyone knew the person I was looking for until I figured out they were thinking of the same person. There was the filling out of forms at the university to get information on a student (yes, this had laughs in it). And there was the running joke about the leopard-skin tangas (look it up). That whole thing lasted 5 games before the DM moved away, but that's kept me coming back ever since.

[halfpintgamer1976]

I've been playing for about 3 years now. I've played in 4 campaigns and numerous one-shots at cons. The current campaign takes the cake.

In this campaign, which has been running for about 2.5 years, I've retired 2 characters, one of which had leveled to 15th before she went evil and had to be retired. She entered a tomb filled with magical items and, without understanding what to do with it all (she was a fighter), essentially destroyed magic in the campaign world by nonchallantly flipping switches on some object that destroyed the tomb.

She survived, but later recovered memories of her involvement with a dark lord and tried to take out the party before leaving them to die in a forest fire which she had set.

This campaign has inspired me to DM my own game!

[Dorquemada]

In college, my roommate ran the Transylvania Chronicles for Vampire: The Dark Ages. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Chronicles, they are a series of books, each with three open-ended acts, that take a group of starting characters through eight-hundred years of history. Our Storyteller saw fit to add other historical events, from both human and vampire history, which gave the chronicle that much more depth. Those not familiar with the mythology of Vampire: the Masquerade, probably won't understand a word I'm saying, and for that I apologize.

One episode was dedicated to the Convention of Thorns, wherein the rebels of the Anarch Revolt laid down their arms and reentered the service of their elders. What made this session so special was that the PCs, by this point all powerful elders in their own right, fell on different sides of the issue at hand. The session had no combat but the roleplaying experience of negotiating back room deals behind the other players' backs was something that I'll always remember.

[Ed Zachary]

Probably the best long term campaign that I was ever in was vampire/Dark Ages. We had six to eight regular players (mostly couples), and up to 13 players at one time.

We started in Constantinople, and it took a year of weekly playing for the city to be destroyed by the Venetians. After that we went into the Transylvania by Night series of books, which the opening was pushed back ten years. We followed the books, but included most every historic event that happened. Most of us were well read in history, so this is what we wanted.

I played a Lasombra who signed the Camarilla Charter, and later rejected the Sabbat. I followed the Path of Power and the Inner Voice, as Humanity sucked.

As I posted elsewhere, we roleplayed a 9/11 type attack on the Sears Tower in Chicago a year and a half before it happened.

[Ed Zachary]

D&D (2.0), our evil group was on the run (as usual), so we ran into this magical "Dead Zone" that was about 100 miles in diameter. There was rumored to be tremendous treasure in the middle, if we could find it. What we found was a five mile diameter city in the center where magic still worked. It was filled with trapped enchanted creatures that were barred from entering the anti-magic area, and had split up into various changing factions over the centuries. We and the group chasing us chose different sides, and we each made or way. We couldn't leave either, because there were too many threats in the anti-magic area that could easily defeat a character stripped of magic.

As could be expected the brutality of the fighting intensified with our arrival, and most of the natives were killed. Our side lost the war, so we changed sides at the end and killed our leader. We eventually escaped when our minions tunneled into the city from the outside.

[Ed Zachary]

One episode was dedicated to the Convention of Thorns, wherein the rebels of the Anarch Revolt laid down their arms and reentered the service of their elders. What made this session so special was that the PCs, by this point all powerful elders in their own right, fell on different sides of the issue at hand. The session had no combat but the roleplaying experience of negotiating back room deals behind the other players' backs was something that I'll always remember.

I remember that scene. I have about 100 pages of chronicles from the entire Transylvania series. As I sent my childer to take part in that massacre, this is the speech I gave at the Convention, and comments afterward.

Many of our childer have taken the gift that we have so graciously given them, then tried to destroy us to satisfy their lust for power. I say no compromise, show them the sunrise! The traitors of Clans Lasombra and Tzimisce must pay for their unholy acts! As for Clan Assamite and their unholy acts of diablerie, they must conform to the rule of law or perish. In their quest to diableriuze God, the Cappadocians have signed their own death warrant. But the Giovanni are the Devil. I admire and respect the seven prominent Cainites who have been chosen to serve as Justicars for this great society. Long live the Camarilla!

I could hardly contain my laughter at my ridiculous comments, and how much I sounded just like Hardestadt. But I was surprised at how many Cainites congratulated me on my great speech. Next, Rafael, the pretty boy Toreador pleaded with us to maintain the Masquerade that allowed the elders to exist in secret. That fool just invited the Anarchs to destroy the Masquerade as a tactic in their struggle.