What is the best game you've ever run?

Cthulhu_Wakes

Cthulhu_Wakes

Black Sun in a White World
Well? What is the best plot and game you've ever run? My current game, that I've been posting about here is my crowning achievment. Anyone else have a game they absolutely loved to run or play in that just makes you go "awesome," when you look back on it?
 
As a player, I really look back fondly on the 12-hour-per-day week-long D&D game/endurance trial I was part of about 9 years ago.


As a Storyteller, I've had a bunch of really satisfying games, most of them in Earthdawn. I was able to run a continuous game nearly every week for about 3 years. A few of the characters and players changed along the way, but the core characters stayed the same all the way through.


I really like a long running story, where the characters develop a rich in-game history, complex relationships with NPCs, and with one another, and a lot of personal growth.


While I feel that is all very possible in Exalted, I haven't yet acheived it. It seems that real world commitments, or lack of interest on the part of the players I have to work with eventually means the plot-death of pretty much all my Exalted games within a few months. I think it was easier to get a decent sized group of hard-core, committed gamers when we were younger.


-S
 
Agreed, we had a very, very long running Earthdawn I came into at it's twilight. It was seven years running. We all still tell stories from that game, we can mention one event and go off on stories of the characters, it's history, epic battles we fought against Thera and everything. Truly wonderful.


I have already gotten two long running Exalted games. One I ran for almost six months, for about 30 eight hour sessions. Long running with a few characters from old games and such, I had about fifteen players in that one. Talk about EPIC. A lot of fun. My current game I've been running for a month and well...you can see all the ridiculous detail I put into the extended summary.


But I believe I look most fondly upon my Exalted games and that I've actually kept them going for such a long time. Hell one session for the six month game was 27 hours straight. That was an experience I'll never forget as a GM.
 
You're an Earthdawn player too? memesis obviously is as well. I smell a new poll topic. :twisted:


-S
 
My current game is at about the 2 year 9 month mark.  I've already signed on the current players, plus a couple more, for the sequel game.  It's all been good, even if I haven't yet reached the heights I want to.
 
Stillborn said:
You're an Earthdawn player too? memesis obviously is as well. I smell a new poll topic. :twisted:
-S
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Why yes ^_^ I love Earthdawn, though the past few games I've been in weren't good at all. Makes me yearn for the epic game again, but it ended about six months ago, finally laid to rest after the war with Thera, in victory for our side ^_^


And memesis, could you give a few details about your game? Possibly in a PM if you wish or on here ^^
 
While I retain a sentimental attachment to a Vampire game I ran a few years ago, and a Changeling game in Boston that was a hell of a lot of fun... I'm running the best game of my life right now.  The best plot I've ever written, the best players, the best characters, hands down.
 
My Miami WoD campaign was one of the best.  Ran four years straight, and took a group of Magi fresh to Miami, and built themselves a Chantry, made alliances with the Technocracy, Garou, the local Bastet overlord of Doom and his very prolific children, made ties with the local Changelings, revitalized Opa Locka, got into a scuffle with demons on the Julia Tuttle Causeway, witnessed a Rokea uprising against the Technocracy, and managed to see the rise of one of their greatest rivals and sometime ally in the Technocracy leave for the Deep Umbra.  


It was a game with multiple casts, wound up playing not only Magi, but also Garou, Changing Breeds, Mortals, and even a rival Construct of Technocrats.  It even had a Cross Time Train Caper which the demon battle over the Julia Tuttle was but the first salvo, and included visits to Barsoom, Lilliputian Asgard, several Davis and Clairmont inspired cross time worlds, battles with cross time squid gods, and a trip into the future where they got to see how their efforts in Miami paid off in 2099.  


The game focused on the building of communities and how responsible Magi could be--and we even included a side romp into the whole House Helekar debacle and the Cosanguity of Eternal Joy.  It was a huge game, with at least four revloving casts and I still love all the characters--and can't bring myself to write about any of their exploits, because the whole thing was so much in the hands of just amazingly good players that I don't want to co-opt or steal any of their thunder, because it was such a special and amazing game.


One entire session was devoted to saving a Dauntain and bringing her back, and they did this without a single dice roll.  Another arc included the player's Technocrats trying, and succeeding in one case, of assassinating their Mage characters, and the reverse end, their Magi hunting down the Technocrats who killed their Chantry member, and exacting their revenge on the duo responsible.  Just great players who totally committed to the characters, and the story.  Especially the story.  


The plot was fair simple: raise up and protect a project in Opa Locka.  And from there, it just grew by leaps and bounds. In part, because I had such great players.  If it weren't for them, I wouldn't have been tempted to go as convoluted or deep--arcs interlocked so that hints from the first session were revealed in the very last.  It took four years to unveil it all, and watch Ben Johnon--the Technocrat that they found themselves dealing with--to reveal his ultimate plan, and show his true colors as an ancient Ngoma Priest from Great Zimbabwe who found his way into the Chakravanti, and from there into the Orders of Reason, and from there into the New World Order, and reveal his battle with the Dark Angel Aphastazu, a truly fun and horrible demon, who never once actually directly opposed the PCs, just put them into situations that put them into great peril.  Never once did they actually draw weapons against him, or trade spells, but had to fight him in their community, to build it up to preven his temptations from getting the better of their people.  


Even their Cross Time Caper was all tied in with the battle with Aphastazu, still one of my favorite villains, and possibly a player in my next Exalted game even, he was so good a villain.
 
I'd love to play a game of Mage. Never really cared for it because the people I played with were....well, arrogant pricks who raped the game and confused the GM into believeing what they were doing was alright. *sigh* But maybe one day I'll get a good game of Mage.
 
Mage is a game where you really need good players.  Vampire you can do OK with mediocre players, so long as you've got a strong story.  Same for Werewolf.  But Mage and Adventure you really need good players, because there is so much of a participatory give and take with the mechanics.  You can kind of skate by with Aeon or Aberrant, and Hunter or Demon as well, but Mage is so much about the metaphysics and responsibility that you need good players to really get those themes across.


You can do a high kicking Akashic game, and that's fine, but I think a more interesting approach is more along the lines of the Barry Hughhart's Bridge of Birds.  So many great opportunities for reallly neat arcs that none of the other games are really suited for.  Mage is one of the best games to get Mortal crossovers too--Vampire tends to mulch them fast, as does Werewolf and Wraith is hard for a crossover.  And Changeling...oh, I love the idea, but I've never had players that were all that interested...
 
I understand the need for good players, trust me, I've read a few of the Mage books and understand that from reading them. But it's so hard to find those good players. The guys I play with aren't really big Mage fans. One of them is, but he does it for the sheer power he can weild. But his arrogance in real life knows no bounds so it carries over to his characters, hence why I'd never run Mage for him.
 
Mage can get you into trouble if you happen to be studying philosophy at the time you're going through a serious RPG-binge... I found myself halfway through a discussion on reality before I realised I had been citing information from Mage as if it were a genuine scientific resource...


... then again, much of the stuff they use in Mage is derived from real-world theories/religions/whatever, which is what sucks you in so completely.
 
I played in a game so good I'd never nominate something I ran myself up against it, since I still pretty much suck as a GM. I'm trying though.


I played this game after having role-played for over a decade and, after a few sessions in this game, realized that I'd wasted those ten years entirely.
 
Wow, that is an impressive looking game wordman. Any more comers? What's a good game you've played or run? Any system!
 
Ah! I just remembered my absolute hands down favorite Exalted game, I was playing a Siderial in the Hundred Kingdoms. My friend Jake was an Eclipse, we were after this mercenary company that took over several towns and was allied with the Realm. Great interaction, history, events and enemies. Sadly my Siderial was killed by a moron who came in later in the game as an Abyssal and killed him for no reason. *sigh* Aside from that, best game I ever played of Exalted.
 
My favorite Exalted game was a spinoff of an epic Solars game.


 The Solars campaign was a well-run take-over-the-world campaign that lasted the better part of three years; the party allied with a faction of Deathlords, first against the returned Empress, then against First and Forsaken Lion. Unfortunately, the Silver Pact opted to try to summon Kukla the Destroyer against Lion, and got smashed for their pains--Kukla ended up trashing Lookshy, and was about to start on the Realm when the Defense Grid activated, driving it away. The party managed to bind Kukla with the aid of Luna, then had a showdown with their erstwhile allies, culminating in them being witness to the Unconquered Sun blowing away Walker in Darkness--after they cut their way through his Abyssals. The party then went to the Blessed Isle to reclaim the Imperial Manse, and the campaign ended shortly after they took down Kejak.


 During the campaign, the Twilight acquired a Mountain Folk henchman--an Enlightened Worker skipping out on MF society to go see the world, while the Dawn--a Dynast of House Ledaal who fled the Realm--encountered his niece, a Terrestrial outcaste never acknowledged by House Ledaal (her father was a bit of a maverick).


 After the Solars reclaimed the Realm, the two ended up heading below the Halls of the Mountain Folk, in search of adventure and forgotten things. They found that, and more--the culmination was their encounter with servants of Autochthon's former favorites, fleeing just before Autochthon destroyed them for attempting to control Him.
 
The group I used to play with had a serious problem with commiting themselves to long term games. All the players wanted one, but when someone would sit down and try to get commitment, it would fall apart in a few weeks.


That said there are only 2 games that lasted fairly long that I'm proud to have been part of. I'm not really a ST in the group, so neither are my stories. I was just a player.


The first one is a Werewolf game that lasted 8hrs twice a week for roughly 8 months. If anyone has read the werewolf splat book Rage across the Heavens we played a variant off the Red star mod. (I think I haven't read the book, and never want to) The game we played started in Reno, to which our characters were believed to be born under the Red Star, so we were cursed and not very trusted. We took residency in a caren located in the Sierra foothills, and were later though responcible for it's fall to the wyrm. Even though we were framed we were being chased by some shadow lord philodoxes who wanted our heads, so we had to do a deep umbra quest to clear ourselves. The original 5 characters had to be there for the game sadly, and though we all loved it RL stepped in the way and we ended it just before we were to find the pure metis. (SUCK)


The other was an exalted game played for about 6 months at random times for a random length of time. It was when the three of us (ST and two players) were all roommates, and bored so we put together a game with this new Exalted system and played whenever we were together and bored.


In the exalted game we were set roughly a week after the empress' dissapearance hit the threshold. It was two dawn castes against the world, and after surviving the initial blow of exaltation we went around creation. First we found the other player's manse in a valcano in Gem. Then we traveled east to escape the wyld hunt that was growing just to chase us. We took sanctuary in Nexus for a while, centered ourselves and met some of the niftiest allies I have ever seen in exalted. These new allies helped ship us north. In Whitewall we found my character's hidden manse, under water. We were then forced by our mutual limit breaking to stay there for 3 whole days. (I had heart of tears, he had dilberate cruelty) After being locked in a manse together while our limit was breaking we went and liberated a few northern towns of barbarians. from there we were getting mighty sick of the wyld hunt following us, so we went and collected our warstriders and stormed the realm. We got in because we had collected enough allies that for some weird reason we marched right to the isle, someg how got past their defenses and were able to seige a manse (I think the imperial, or just the one in the mountain) with only 2 warstriders and a horde of converted babrbarians. Either way the game came down to my character's compassion of 5 getting in the way, and my partner's lack of compassion killing the one person standing in my way. (alright, but I wasn't at fault. The one person standing in our way was my lover up until I exalted...) So my partner killed him and we won... The after effects being my character ran away and later, after dealing with her actions attoned by becoming a maton of solars (living in Yushan currently in a hidden manse) and the other guy allied up with the Silver Prince to take down the island.


Oh how I miss being able to play games with significant plot, and world changing effects.


There was also a lunar game that involved lasted a very long time with 2 seperate ST's, but I didn't enjoy it as much. It was just a bunch of lunars, helping the water dragon guy... fakaru get back his wife. And while we were off doing that the Alcemicals deside to come and take over our homelands. Our mentor Ten Stripes called us home and pleaded with us to help. We tried, and failed. It came down to the duel and when Ten Stripes lost and was killed, when that mostly metal butt-head wanted to kill the rest of us we refused him and drove just him away. He later came back for parlay, and then it turned into another game completely. Mostly political intrugue between Alemicals and Gem, we were caught in between because one among our group was named the new Ten Stripes (some honarary title) and had to be involved. The game sucked for that time because lunars don't do politics unless it's them attacking it. My character became more useful, but there were others who sat on the side-lines asking every game session "Can I kill him, yet?" But one of my favorite lines came from that game.. I think I'll go add it to the long line of quotes now.
 
I haven't palyed in many games, but when I used to play 2nd edition D&D, I used to enjoy it but ti was nothing special, mainly just hack and slash aspect.  It wasn't until I got into Exalted when I found other aspects to role-playing games.  


So far, I've been the storyteller in four Exalted stories.  The first (and longest running) was a Solar story that has taken the players from Nexus to Lookshy, back to Great Forks, down to Thorns (and a meet with Mask of Winters), south to Chiaroscuro, further south to the Thousand and now on a mission into the west for the Celestial Censor (whose name eludes me; you know, the Dragon from the main book).  That ran for 1 and a half years, palying about twice a month for all day sessions.  When looked back upon my players call it the Epic, but it was never intended that way.  To be fair, I simply made most of it up on the spot, inexperienced as I was (and still am, I suppose), but everyone enjoyed it even if I did occassionaly want to scream.  The story is still in existence but we haven't palyed for months now, but one day we shall once more. The last episode ended with the Solars arriving at a port under attack by a Realm Legion with a couple of Warstriders in the mix.


My second story, well, didn't start off as mine.  A player wanted a go at ST'ing so I could create a character but after a short story, he didn't want to continue so I took over for the second half.  It was a Solar game, but more streamlined with an intentional story and overall quite linear.


Talking with my players, I let them decide what Exalt they would like to try next, with one wanting DB's and another wanting Abyssals. In the end, they all agreed on Lunars and I based it in the south.  I'd just got my copy of House of the Bull God and was inspired by it.  It died off when a player left for pastures new.


My current story (which started with the creation of characters in July 2005) has included two new players and once again we went back to Solars.  Set in the north in a region of my own creation I felt comfortable and confident enough to start the charcters as heroic mortals and let them Exalt in game.  This is so that the newbies would get a feel for the game without worrying about Charms and for my vets to try something new.  To be fair, this is the best game that I have run, and every player is enjoting it.  Learning from my mistakes, I have now found a way to ST that doesn't cause a headache but still allows for the unexpected to occur.


~FC.
 
StarHawk said:
(I had heart of tears, he had dilberate cruelty)
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:shock:


I think that's probably the most unfortunate possible combination of Virtue flaws. Fantastic.


-S
 
Worst being my two friends, one had Deliberate Cruelty and the other Berserk Anger...needless to say the Twilight didn't make it.
 
As a player, the game which I enjoyed the most was an L5R game that lasted about a year. The story was linear, the GM railroaded us wherever we went and the NPCs were all nigh unkillable, untouchable gods. Nevertheless, the character I played was my favourite of all time and to be fair, we did bring a lot of good IC stories away from that game.


As a GM the best game I ran (the only game I ran to a degree. I've started many games however, most of them fall apart after a few sessions) was also L5R and lasted for several months. It featured one unforgettable PC and we came away from it with several highly memorable stories. The greatest thing about the game was an NPC, Mirumoto Kenzo. He was a scrub, brought in as a plot device for one session, and ended up becoming the party's nemesis for the rest of the game. He ended up being my triumph of NPCery. Completely mundane, with no master plan. He was just a prick in the wrong place at the wrong time.


The Exalted game I'm in at the moment is shaping up to be pretty damn good. It's been running since mid-summer 2005 but I only joined in december. It's going great. Good mix of characters, regular attendance


and a good gm. We have yet to move into the scale of anything epic or worldshattering, but my fingers are crossed.
 
Battousai said:
Good mix of characters, regular attendance
and a good gm. We have yet to move into the scale of anything epic or worldshattering, but my fingers are crossed.
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Wow, he must be a really good GM. Oh yes, I can see him now, dashingly handsome man that he is. Yes indeed.


And Miromoto Kenzo, was and still is my Arch-Nemesis. I will be the death of him, if it is the last thing I do. To arms men! He fears us!


That was a great game.
 
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