Okay storytime...
This isn't D&D, but it's probably my favorite personal gaming story. Ironically, I wasn't the frustrated GM in this particular scenario. I was one of the frustrating characters.
The game was Star Wars RPG, the classic West End Games version. It's otherwise known as D6 Star Wars. It frequently ranks among the favorite roleplaying games ever made for it's great take on an existing franchise, it's insane amount of excellent sourcebooks, and its simple elegant mechanics. Well, it wasn't so elegant after we got a hold of it.
The GM wanted to play through the historic Battle of Hoth. He requested no Jedi characters. Groovy, we all had some ready to play.
Player #1 had Ed the Communications Tech. He was comm engineer. He was human. He had well rounded attributes and skills, not powergamed at all. That's about it. How little did we know what chaos
Player #2 had Zack the Smuggler. Zack was insane in the fun, Bugs Bunny sort of way. He carried a vibro-chainsaw as his favorite weapon. He had painted the inside of his YT-1400 light freighter in a tie-dye color pattern so that if he got boarded, the stormtroopers could not hide from him.
Player #3 had Andy, the Brash Starfighter Pilot. Andy was a little unusual only in that he specialized in flying Y-Wing fighter-bombers instead of the usual X-Wing fighter.
Player #4 was me. I was new to the game and only had made a few characters. I pulled out a Shistavin Wolfman. Think Wookie but human-sized. He was a fighter pilot also. I had based him off of a character in a short story from the book, Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina. Groovy.
So the game begins when our characters are in the cafeteria eating lunch and an alarm goes off. The Imperial are coming. Okay, we go to work. Andy is given command of a squadron of Y-Wings and Ed the comm tech is told to go with them and coordinate. Me (my wolfy self) and Zack the smuggler are told to climb into snow speeders and try to slow down those Imperial Walkers.
We roll dice for a while. The GM is moving switching back and forth between characters in the two teams. Things don't go well, but the GM is expecting us to lose the series of fights anyway. Andy manages to get away with his Y-Wing team. Ed was in the same Y-Wing with Andy, so they both got away. Both I and Zack get shot down. We get left behind in the evacuation.
Fast forward two days later. The base is now occupied by Imperials, and a star destroyer is parked over the planet. I and Zack are exploring an ice cave when we find a large group of rebels who got left behind. There are at least a hundred of us down here. Most of the Imperials have left, but the remainders still outnumber us. We eat and rest, and then we hear a rumor. There is some sort of monster in the caves. I grab a blaster rifle and go hunting. My intention is to stun the wampa and then set it loose inside the imperial-occupied base.
Zack stayed behind to do some strategizing. Keep in mind that our survival is being plotted by the guy with the tie-dye ship.
Meanwhile, Andy and Ed want to return to Hoth. They want to scout and find out if anyone was left behind. It's slight meta-gaming, but it keeps them in the story, and the GM likes it. The rebel admiral approves the mission but only with two Y-Wings. The PCs drop out of hyperspace and immediately are face to face with a vastly superior Imperial Navy. Ed the comm tech gets shot down, caught in a tractor beam, and captured. Andy manages to get away (again). Before Andy leaves, he receives a coded transmission broadcast from the ice cave under the surface.
I did find the wampa, but it was the same wampa which had already been killed by Luke Skywalker. I returned back to the rebel's refugee cave emptyclawed, and everybody is packing to leave. Why? Were we found again? No, Zack tells me that we are going to retake the base from the Imperials despite how they have all of our artillery, two AT-AT walkers, and an Imperial Class Star Destroyer. We have a few thermal detonators, an adequate number of blasters, and a single vibro-chainsaw. Zack has plan.
To be continued...