javapadawan

My husband and I were on our way home from our Friday night game session, DMed by a friend of ours, and we were discussing the battle we'd just finished with a mature shadow dragon. It had been a tough fight, but not one that I would count among those edge-of-the-seat, we're-all-gonna-die-here moments, the way I feel a fight with a dragon should be.

As we're talking, he says to me, "Ya know, I would have loved to see you run that battle. People would have died."

I can't even begin to describe how pleased I was at that statement, and I think I'd count it as the best compliment I've gotten as a DM (and a wife) thus far.

So, to stay on topic here, anyone else have a favorite DM compliment to share?

Aristotle

I've got a handful (I've been running games for quite some time)...

1.) I've had people (I run a mostly male table) get choked up when a long-term NPC died. This happened a few times, and while no words were said I took it as a compliment.

2.) I had a new player join my group while I was running White Wolf's WoD. As he sat down to make up his character one of my veteran players turned to him and said "go ahead and mark down the 'Hunted' and 'Dark Secret' flaws". When the new player looked at the veteran player and asked why, the veteran player looked over at me and replied "everyone gets those for free in this game". Heh, I'll take that one as a compliment too!

Shallown

I had a player once who changed jobs a lot but was mostly a waiter who I asked. "What you gonna do when you get a new job and can't play on sundays" His answer. "I don't take any job that I don't get Sunday off. Gotta Game"

I liked that. Also To have a player cry becuase of something you are describing and to really feel as sad/hurt as the character or a little of that hurt is also A compliment I have had.

later

Joshua Dyal

OK, that's a fine compliment as a DM, but as a wife? You should get on your husband's case more!

Psion

I used to make the players rate each other on the game on little slips of paper as an XP awards, and put any comments they had about the game.

After a particularly devious night of GMing, I was given to smirk inwardly when several slips had the same comment:

"You Bastard!"

javapadawan

Heh, well, I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a very good wife, traditionally speaking, so I'll take what I can get.

Henry

I've had very few outright "you're a good DM" compliements, but various things told me over time that I enjoyed hearing.

#1: I once had an old NPC show up near one of the PC's , and the player had genuinely reacted as if he'd seen an old friend - asking about business acquaintences, asking about life and family, etc. and looked actually pleased at the encounter.

#2: I've run a Star wars game that was so successful another player spun off another Star Wars game from it.

#3: I ran a 2nd edition D&D campaign successfully for two years contiguously, and had several players who ONLY played when I was running it.

Tewligan

IYKWHMAITYD

Rel

That's the one.

Campbell

Players:" You've been reading Pirate Cat's story hour again, haven't you?"

BardStephenFox

I run a game on Friday nights with a bunch of late teens. I know three of them have entered relationships, but none of them has dropped out of the game. I find it a little odd that they want to sit around playing DnD on a Friday night instead of spending time with their girlfriends then.

Does that count?

Emperor Valerian

The best compliment I've gotten has to be one of the following:
1) All three of my players screaming, "you bastard!" at the same time
2) A player telling me, "It feels like I'm in a novel... I can't wait till the next session so I can see the next chapter!"
3) Another DM (who DMs a game I play in) saying I was evil... in the good way of course

Joshua Dyal

Now you're talking. When you have spin-offs, you know you've made it. Hopefully they were better than that Joannie and Chachi spin-off, though...

diaglo

yeah, the best form of flattery is imitation.

even poorly done.

die_kluge

How funny. My players fought a shadow Dragon Saturday night.

No deaths, though. They were fairly concerned, however. And I did manage to do over 120 points of damage to the fighter with a rather nasty trap outside the dragon's lair.

Ylis

I had a wallflower player in my group at one time. He played with us over a year, and he still didn't break out of his shell. Then, one day, I decided I'd make up a campaign setting of my own and eventually run it. Well, I played around a bit and came up with a good setting. I ran it and lo and behold! My wallflower player got so much enjoyment out of it that he came out of his shell! That was a major compliment to me, as nothing had worked up until that point and it was the first campaign setting I made up (and it was one of the first games I ran). Of course, we haven't been able to shut him up since....

Gundark

I read my wife this post and she was thinking that compliments must come sparsely in your house . But then again she does game with me, just not as much as it sounds like you do.

javapadawan

Oops... I guess I should amend that statement a bit then, since I don't want to make it sound like my hubby never says nice things... quite the contrary. But the compliment in question was just so offhanded and unexpected that it took me completely by surprise.

Galeros

I was once called Hitler. I do not think that is a good thing though.

EricNoah

It's great when you get a "thanks for the game" at the game itself. But a couple of times, players went out of their way to call me later on and thank me. In one case, after perhaps the most dramatic session of any in my 25 years of DMing, more than one player called or e-mailed to say they were still reliving the final encounter hours or days after it was over. I have to say I was too -- they all knocked it out of the park that night.

Crothian

The best I get is the occasional "I'm looking forward to next gaming session."

Treebore

Those kind of compliments seem to floor my wife the best as well. Fortunately I do it fairly often, I would guess.

Driddle

"You don't smell that bad."

die_kluge

The only real compliment I need is when I can see that everyone is actively involved in what is going, they are attentive, paying attention, and providing feedback and ideas on the problem at hand.

That's when I know it's good.