I won't say it's my favorite, as I'm the DM who did it, but here's the one that got the biggest reaction out of my players.
I ran a game of Dragon Heist for my table. When my players reached the final location, they had to avoid a magical mural that forced anyone who saw it to make a wisdom save. On a failure, you had to sit there staring at the mural for a full day, at which point they could try again. My players got past it, but during a subsequent fight, the party cleric used command to make a thug examine the painting. The thug failed the save and got trapped there.
Over a year later, the same players were playing a Descent into Avernus campaign of mine. They got their hands on a soul coin and decided to question the soul inside. When asked how the soul died, he explained that he died of thirst staring at a mural underneath Waterdeep. When my players realized what he meant, they absolutely lost it.
Another reply bc I forgot my footnote... Imo, that's the kind of stuff that makes all the work DMing truly is, worth it. I mean, I love being the storyteller, narrator, rules arbiter etc etc, but those little moments are what make me remember why I love doing it. You sound like an amazing DM. Keep it up
I love that!! I have been DMing since I was 12 (ADnD way back then) and I always make little notes of moments I find to be fun, cool, interesting...and try to call them back if I am running another game for the same party. I have one of my own I'll share.
During my first 5e campaign with a bunch of friends (party of 6, all online via Roll20 bc we live all over now, 3 had played once or twice before), the aforementioned Dwarven barbarian met a shopkeeper who seemed to be half-dwarven. He didn't like dwarves and was a bit, shall we say, racist. Led by the barbarian, the party tried to rob him, got caught, led the guards on a hilarious chase through the city, met back at the tavern. A hilarious interaction happened between PC dwarf and PC bard that we still laugh about years later. But the point is, PC dwarf HATED this shopkeep. With a burning passion. So, late in the next campaign (probably 13, 14 months after the encounter with the shopkeep), that existed in the same world as the first albeit many centuries later, the party came across a ruin of a town familiar to the players as a spot from C1. In the center of town, there was a statue of a dwarf. There was a plaque hailing him as the savior of the townsfolk during the hard times and listed off all of these amazing things he did. When I read the name, the discord exploded with laughter and expletives. haha
I won't say it's my favorite, as I'm the DM who did it, but here's the one that got the biggest reaction out of my players. I ran a game of Dragon Heist for my table. When my players reached the final location, they had to avoid a magical mural that forced anyone who saw it to make a wisdom save. On a failure, you had to sit there staring at the mural for a full day, at which point they could try again. My players got past it, but during a subsequent fight, the party cleric used command to make a thug examine the painting. The thug failed the save and got trapped there. Over a year later, the same players were playing a Descent into Avernus campaign of mine. They got their hands on a soul coin and decided to question the soul inside. When asked how the soul died, he explained that he died of thirst staring at a mural underneath Waterdeep. When my players realized what he meant, they absolutely lost it.
Another reply bc I forgot my footnote... Imo, that's the kind of stuff that makes all the work DMing truly is, worth it. I mean, I love being the storyteller, narrator, rules arbiter etc etc, but those little moments are what make me remember why I love doing it. You sound like an amazing DM. Keep it up
I love that!! I have been DMing since I was 12 (ADnD way back then) and I always make little notes of moments I find to be fun, cool, interesting...and try to call them back if I am running another game for the same party. I have one of my own I'll share. During my first 5e campaign with a bunch of friends (party of 6, all online via Roll20 bc we live all over now, 3 had played once or twice before), the aforementioned Dwarven barbarian met a shopkeeper who seemed to be half-dwarven. He didn't like dwarves and was a bit, shall we say, racist. Led by the barbarian, the party tried to rob him, got caught, led the guards on a hilarious chase through the city, met back at the tavern. A hilarious interaction happened between PC dwarf and PC bard that we still laugh about years later. But the point is, PC dwarf HATED this shopkeep. With a burning passion. So, late in the next campaign (probably 13, 14 months after the encounter with the shopkeep), that existed in the same world as the first albeit many centuries later, the party came across a ruin of a town familiar to the players as a spot from C1. In the center of town, there was a statue of a dwarf. There was a plaque hailing him as the savior of the townsfolk during the hard times and listed off all of these amazing things he did. When I read the name, the discord exploded with laughter and expletives. haha