The Fried Dice community has had a group (in Singapore) at least since April 24th 2024 (and the twitch community way before that), and I thought I'd answer some stuff a player asked as homework as a homage to our pseudo-two year anniversary.

THE QUESTIONS

No fluffing around - here's a copy paste of what he said:

"So looking back what were the games you ran that:
1. Went completely off the rails
2. Had the best roleplay / character moment
3. Had the luckiest (or unluckiest) rolls
4. Made you the most stressed / panicked
5. Had the most satisfying solution or twist
6. Broke your brain running (can be the chaos, mechanical difficulty etc)

I would add 7. Most morally questionable moment but I think I know the answer?"

QUESTION 1

Games that went completely off the rails

There have been quite a few, but definitely my biggest highlight was (**SPOILERS FOR Dungeon of the Mad Mage**) when the party meets Halaster at the school, it's meant to be intimidating and not like the previous floors - it's dangerous and not in a dungeon crawly way. There are several powerful mages who are studying to be wizards here, and Halaster is the Head Master. The guards take the party to Halaster, where the party is simply supposed to give away something magical, and be sent back to previous floor. A set back, and a frightening confrontation. 

Then the fighter suplexes him. Rolls a NAT 20. That's the shitty drawing I drew.

I've been set off the rails many times, but this was definitely an "oh shit, what happens?" moment for me. Halaster is powerful enough that it didn't do enough damage to hurt him. So we just stood there awkwardly. 

This was after, by the way, the party somehow skipped to level 9, when I had only prepped up to level 8, which was just a few sessions after they skipped to 6 (which I also hadn't prepped before hand). In the span of two or three sessions, I've had to take a 5 to 10 minute break to quickly catch myself up to the current floors. I had read the whole book, but the little details are what I worried about. 

I'd like to honorably mention every Mothership: Dinoplex, Mothership: Do You Fear What I Fear and the Triangle Agency campaign that I'm running. Triangle Agency is just "Derail the Campaign - The Game". No Triangle Agency game has resolved "as expected".

QUESTION 2

Games that had the best roleplay / character moment

A special moment to me was when we recorded the live game in the studio with Raph - it was Raph's last game for the season, so we had to send him off. Earlier before this, I had a spiel as the Rakshasa, and I really enjoyed that role too. One of the few moments that I've teared up in game.

The end of my Drowned of Styx campaign (a greek inspired setting, where the players were undead that had lost their memories, and were escaping Hades), one of the players who had been more villanous and jokey at the start of the campaign had a noble sacrifice to save some of the core NPCs and another PC. He cried as he gave a monologue, and it was definitely swelling up as we hit 50+ sessions. The whole party was shocked that he would sacrifice himself - but it also made sense after a few thoughts since his lover had also died.

These payoffs are intense, and was the culmination of 50+ sessions of drama and story telling. We fell in love with these characters, and it was like watching the end of a movie. 

Every Alice is Missing game - it's all text based, but it gets INTENSE. Emotions are heavy heavy waves.

I also intensely love it when in game puns happen - recently had a character named Viktoria describe her healing as rubbing an ointment on a wound, and another player immediately went VIK'S VAPO RUB. This was a very serious group, mind you, and everybody broke into laughter. We were all on the same wavelengths. Pure joy.

QUESTION 3

The Luckiest and Unluckiest Rolls

I don't remember the exact numbers, but this is a quick answer - all in the same game, we had 13 +/- nat 20s and 12 +/- nat 1s across the board. It was a chaotic day. There were tonnes of rolls that were exactsies on the armor class or damage to kill monsters too. 

I don't remember every single time, but the number of times players have rolled EXACTLY on the armor class or when I've rolled exactly below the spell save DC - those moments FEEL good and definitely fuel the roleplay after.

QUESTION 4

Games that made me the most stressed / panicked

I generally don't panic in games, there's always an SOP to follow. Need a map? Take 10 minutes to rejig the terrain or open up dungeon draft to whip something up. Need NPCs? Think of the last 3 shows I watched, and pull my favorite characters from there. 

Most recently, as mentioned in question 1, having to read levels 6 and 9 in game. I had already read the chapters before, and I knew what was happening, but I couldn't recall details at that moment. Defo panicc.

I also panic in early levels (level 1 to 3) of D&D games when a normal monster crits. Even a 1d6+3 can become 15 damage on a crit - which could easily knock out/kill a wizard.

Most of the panic happens before a game, when I'm running through my checklists to make sure I have my minimum viable game. Sometimes, this causes me to go through the checklist more than once, and sleep late - and my players definitely know my messed up sleep schedule.

I would also say that I used to get stressed for paid and streamed games - it's perfectly normal when you're gonna game for the first time under less than normal circumstances. I still get butterflies sometimes, but it's generally okay!

QUESTION 5

Most satisfying resolution or twist

I think the most satisfying revelations are at the end of campaigns when players go - "wait, wasn't that something from like session 1 or 2???". The long term payoffs are the best.

For Void Boys, it was that Boltimer (the cleric player character) had been a fragment of a God all along. Drowned of Styx most recently would be that Iylla (player character, with a tragic life) was the descendent of the BBEG who was basically the source of all her problems. For the last Eve of Ruin campaign I finished - that the Rogue, Mav, who barely touched the BBEG, takes him down and steals the kill. I'm a huge believer that the stories write themselves, and you simply need to look out for the threads and pull them. 

Recently, at the end of an arc, I had an allied PC turn on a party. In another, the Queen who had hired the party was revealed to have a less than honest past. I love generating twists, and I try to get these to players within their first arc (about 5 +/- sessions).

Eat the Reich is always satisfying at the end. Play it to understand why.

For a campaign that I was handing over to my friend, Kevin, we had him play as a PC for the party on their last session, only to plot twist and have him take over as the GM. It was a bittersweet moment for me, but I eternally believe that I left that party in great hands. I believe they thought so too.

QUESTION 6

Games that broke my brain running them

Triangle Agency was definitely a difficult game to pick up. I eternally believe that I failed to give the game justice the first time I ran it. I am hoping that the current campaign are loving it. One of the players said that they'd wanna play the campaign again so, it must be okay!

Avatar: Legends for some reason - the balance mechanics took me way longer than expected to understand. No other comments here.

Vaesen is also another game that takes a lot of effort to plan - investigative games should not require this much reading to prepare. There has to be a way to MOSH it. (Mothership is amazing for minimal prep, maximum output). 

Eve of Ruin is such a terribly written module. I had to do extra to make it acceptable to run. I had to read, and re-read, and re-jig, and make sure my re-jig fit with the world. Don't run Eve of ruin as written.

QUESTION 7

Games with the most morally questionable moment

I have done a good job of keeping unwanted R-rated stuff from happening. So nothing too traumatizing here!

I've had party kidnap the kidnapee cause they thought they could do better than the quest giver. Another party killed a bunch of sentient mushrooms for money (as players they knew they were sentient, as characters they did not, I think). Sleeping with the bad guys cause we all know players are just freaking horn dogs. Set up a fast food chain, creating capitalism.

Stock markets <.< 

I have a political campaign that's confusingly Game of Thronesey - but imagine the vampires are like the vampires from Interview with a Vampire. They're all screwing their sires. 

FIN

What were your most ______ moments? I'd like to read your stories too. We live in this space where we collectively hallucinate worlds together, and I'm eternally grateful to all my players for letting me hallucinate with y'all. 

Don't forget, who's awesome? You're awesome.