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View Full Version : Hilarious Ways to mess with your players.



Chess435
2012-07-07, 09:24 PM
This happened about a week ago in the campaign I'm running, and I thought it was epic enough to post here. Spoilered for length.

In the Evil 3.P game I've been Dm'ing for a long time, things have gotten....... interesting, to say the least. The party's Artficer, to celebrate reaching epic, decided to throw the biggest wrench they could come up with into the setting. With some help from another party member, he managed to genetically engineer a mage-killing, monster-mutating supervirus, place the party in temporal stasis on their illusion-cloaked island base, and set a contingency to dispel it in 10 thousand years, just to see what would happen, completely ignoring the fact that another dimension-traveling villain was working on separating the outer planes from the rest of the multiverse. Needless to say, they were all a bit surprised when they woke up on Mirage Island (http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Mirage_Island) ten millenia later, Wynaut and all. :smalltongue:
Gonna be a pain to balance, though......


Anyone else have a similar story?

Morithias
2012-07-07, 09:30 PM
One time there was a player who was a big tomb of battle buff, "manuvers are everything, fighter sucks, etc" type guy.

After reaching around 15th level, he found himself in a farming community and of course bragged he could take on anyone, anywhere, figuring no one would call his bluff.

Shame that Kenshin happened to be taking a short vacation and was relaxing in that community.

Kenshin is a level 30 fighter/weapon master, and although that might not seem very scary at first...she's also the goddess of combat.

The guy got his ass kicked by his patron deity.

And no, this wasn't some "I feel like messing with them" things. I have a record of where every god and important NPC is in general terms on my computer. I literally pulled out a file saying, that yes, Kenshin being on vacation in this town was pre-planned. So this wasn't me being a jerk.

Chess435
2012-07-07, 09:36 PM
*snip*

:biggrin:

This is awesome, and you are awesome, good sir.

Pokonic
2012-07-07, 09:45 PM
Once, the players adopted a cat. Said cat was obsessivly protected by the local fighter, who probably loved it more than his sword.

About five real-life months later, a small town was being assulted by a small army of orcs. The party was pretty battered, and the cat was the only thing that was not utterly screwed over in combat. The party managed to fight off all but twenty or so orcs, and when all seemed lost, a fireball spell was casted.

The cat? A shapeshifted efreet. After wiping the floor with the orcs, it patted the head of the now mortafied fighter and plane shifted away.

Sith_Happens
2012-07-07, 09:49 PM
Kenshin is a level 30 fighter/weapon master, and although that might not seem very scary at first...she's also the goddess of combat.

I assume she uses a merciful katana?:smallwink:

Craft (Cheese)
2012-07-07, 09:52 PM
It doesn't really count if it was her divine ranks doing most of the work...

Xerinous
2012-07-07, 10:07 PM
I find my best "mess with my players" moments come when I least expect them. Little details wind up tripping up my players and they wind up spending a lot of time freaking out over nothing.

I think my best was the "Big Rock In A Clearing" incident. The party was walking through a forest and it was getting dark, so I told them they had reached a clearing. They asked me if there was anything in the clearing.

I hadn't given this much thought, so I replied "uh...Sure, there's a big rock in the middle of the clearing."

We must have spent half an hour on them trying to figure out what was up this rock. I had to eventually tell them flat out that there was nothing special about this rock before I could get them to give up on it.

It was great, they were rolling perception, using detect magic, one player even broke off a piece to look at the inner part of the rock. And it was nothing but a chunk of granite. What's more, it should have been clear from the way I told them about it that it was nothing but an afterthought.

Talakeal
2012-07-07, 10:26 PM
I find my best "mess with my players" moments come when I least expect them. Little details wind up tripping up my players and they wind up spending a lot of time freaking out over nothing.

I think my best was the "Big Rock In A Clearing" incident. The party was walking through a forest and it was getting dark, so I told them they had reached a clearing. They asked me if there was anything in the clearing.

I hadn't given this much thought, so I replied "uh...Sure, there's a big rock in the middle of the clearing."

We must have spent half an hour on them trying to figure out what was up this rock. I had to eventually tell them flat out that there was nothing special about this rock before I could get them to give up on it.

It was great, they were rolling perception, using detect magic, one player even broke off a piece to look at the inner part of the rock. And it was nothing but a chunk of granite. What's more, it should have been clear from the way I told them about it that it was nothing but an afterthought.

Reminds me of the old magic cow strip in knights of the dinner table. The player's figure that the DM wouldn't mention it if it wasn't special, and his attempts at keeping the game moving are seen by the players as attempts to protect the "magic cow" and only make them more interested.

Morithias
2012-07-07, 10:31 PM
I assume she uses a merciful katana?:smallwink:

Merciful no, Katana yes.


It doesn't really count if it was her divine ranks doing most of the work...

Well the real injury to him came more from what she told him. She basically told him that it doesn't matter how powerful or skilled you are being an arrogant jerk, is the type of acting that gets you sent to limbo (the in between of the abyssal prison and rewarding heavens).

They then sat down and she told them a ton about the heavens, and how to better themselves. Ironically he actually learned his lesson about being prideful and became more humble and helpful towards innocents.

Of course in exchange she had him show her some manuvers saying she's been interested in the new fighting styles being developed. She also told them she's thinking of retiring soon and retraining herself, and letting an epic warblade or something take her place.

It was a nice encounter.

Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. Divine Ranks and god powers don't work on the material plane in my setting.

Angry Bob
2012-07-07, 11:30 PM
I had my players find slash fiction of themselves while searching the manor of an npc.

She(the npc) ended up being the final boss. She actually showed up to that fight naked because all of her gear was in the form of quori crystals laced into her bones and she was doing the "where we're going, we won't need pants" act.

This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=197742) thread has a pretty good list of these, too.

Silus
2012-07-07, 11:54 PM
First game I ran, a 3.P horror game centered inside of a Genius Loci (Bwhahahah) had a few of these.

Best one I can think of was that one of the player's characters had a daughter or granddaughter that was really, really sick and he was out adventuring to try and raise money for her to get better. So the party enters this lab with large containment tubes holding semi-human experements. They think it's all weird and whatnot, and are about to leave, when the daughter steps out from behind the biggest container.

"Daddy? Daddy, I'm cold." (If you've seen 1408 you know where this is going)
"Dude, she's not real! It's the house playing tricks on us again!"
"Daddy, don't you love me any more?"
"Of course I do sweetie."

So she trots over to her dad, he hugs her, promising that she's safe now and that he's not gonna let anything happen to her.

Then she dies right in her arms.

Then crumbles to ash.

And I'm trying not to cackle like a madman at the player's expression when this happens.

Shnezz
2012-07-08, 12:14 AM
Man, oh man, have I got a list of these.

Have the level one characters escort a cravan to a town (cliche, I know). The owner then gives them a bank note to take to "The big E.V.I.L. building, in the middle of town." Scares them silly, until they realize it's the "Everyday Villiager's Investment & Loans. E.V.I.L."

Have one character look in the mirror, watch his reflection commit suicide, then don't give him a reflection for the rest of the campign. And then don't explain why. Ever.

Have a character walk up to them on the street, and ask if they can wear the PC's shoes, "just in case."

Name your inn "The Chipper Mudskipper". My players refuse to sleep there, because they assume anything that happy in my setting must be a trap. (Which is wise, since I have an entire plotline set up for the first time they give in and sleep there, but that's beside the point.)

Give them a "Scroll of Locate Hands". They can't resist trying it. Have it announce in a booming voice "On the ends of your arms!" and have that be it.

Give them a massive, bronze key. Make it weigh like 75lbs or something insane. Watch them lug it around forever, because 'It will come in handy eventually!'

Edit: Oh, and a bowl of fresh fruit in the dungeon entrance. Every time.

Craft (Cheese)
2012-07-08, 12:42 AM
I had my players find slash fiction of themselves while searching the manor of an npc.

...It makes me feel SOOOO much better to not be the only one who's done that.

Nepenthe
2012-07-08, 12:56 AM
I can't remember if I've mentioned this here. Oh well, here goes:

My players were forced (for unrelated reasons) to stay at a particular inn in a particular room that had been nailed shut for the last 50 years. The innkeeper made them clean the room before they could sleep in it because, hey, the inn has standards. When the innkeeper came back to inspect the cleaning, she commented about a puddle of water on the floor but said otherwise everything looked ok. This is the conversation that followed:

Player 1: :smallannoyed: Of course I assumed we would mop up the water when we were done.
Me: I also assumed you mopped up the water.
Player 1: :smallmad: Great, the roof must be leaking.
Player 2: :smallconfused: Wait, was it raining?
Me: The ceiling is dry and shows no signs of damage.
Players: :smallconfused: We examine the puddle.
Me: There are tracks in it.
Players: :smalleek:
Me: :smallcool:

newBlazingAngel
2012-07-08, 01:05 AM
It could be worse. How worth it would it be for me to write a 15 chapter erotica involving the players and a willing gnome maiden?

Craft (Cheese)
2012-07-08, 01:10 AM
The innkeeper made them clean the room before they could sleep in it because, hey, the inn has standards.

I take it they weren't there as customers.


It could be worse. How worth it would it be for me to write a 15 chapter erotica involving the players and a willing gnome maiden?

Nah, no way your players will suffer through all of that. A page at most, and make it a point to read it out loud. A more realistic slash fic though would be to take the two burliest male characters and have them go at it.

Axinian
2012-07-08, 01:15 AM
It could be worse. How worth it would it be for me to write a 15 chapter erotica involving the players and a willing gnome maiden?

Scatter the chapters throughout the campaign, with details updated to reflect their exploits. If they find enough of them, they'll eventually be looking for the rest. You will have successfully gotten your players to look for slash fiction of themselves :smallcool:

Frog Dragon
2012-07-08, 01:17 AM
Have a dungeon decorated with statues.

Make one of them a monster that attacks the party with some trigger.

Everything else is just a statue, but visually indistinguishable from the monster.

Chuckle as the players attack inanimate objects.

Pokonic
2012-07-08, 01:34 AM
I take it they weren't there as customers.



Nah, no way your players will suffer through all of that. A page at most, and make it a point to read it out loud. A more realistic slash fic though would be to take the two burliest male characters and have them go at it.

Even better if one is a Paladen, for the "soiled purity" jokes.


Have a dungeon decorated with statues.

Make one of them a monster that attacks the party with some trigger.

Everything else is just a statue, but visually indistinguishable from the monster.

Chuckle as the players attack inanimate objects.

This is wonderful. However, have something at the bottom of the dungeon cause all the statues to turn into stone golems if the party is stupid enough to mess with it.

Sith_Happens
2012-07-08, 05:26 AM
Have a dungeon decorated with statues.

Make one of them a monster that attacks the party with some trigger.

Everything else is just a statue, but visually indistinguishable from the monster.

Chuckle as the players attack inanimate objects.

Doctor Who version:

Have a well-lit dungeon decorated with angel statues.

Make it so that something the players do causes the lights to very briefly go out, after which at least two of the statues are gone.

Start randomly asking for spot checks.

Ranting Fool
2012-07-08, 06:39 AM
Doctor Who version:

Have a well-lit dungeon decorated with angel statues.

Make it so that something the players do causes the lights to very briefly go out, after which at least two of the statues are gone.

Start randomly asking for spot checks.

I did have a gnome "With a strange little red hat" appear magically out of the air with a sweeping brush in one hand and a spanner in the other. Speaking very quickly he chucked the PC's the Spanner and disappeared, then reappeared telling them they should use it on the box then disappeared again. Shortly after the PC's find a large Adamantine Cube in a big old empty room... :smalltongue:


I hadn't given this much thought, so I replied "uh...Sure, there's a big rock in the middle of the clearing."

I have been known to give details that have no relivence to the story at hand but just try and flesh the world out a bit and have the PC's try and figure out why *sigh* "The DM mentioned it so it MUST be vital!"

Glimbur
2012-07-08, 06:48 AM
Have a dungeon decorated with statues.

Make one of them a monster that attacks the party with some trigger.

Everything else is just a statue, but visually indistinguishable from the monster.

Chuckle as the players attack inanimate objects.

I (ok, the DM group I was part of) did something similar to this. Except the statues were all statues of particular white dragon. A white dragon who had a bunch of ranks of bluff and Blood Wind. And Trickery Devotion. So the party spent all this time pumping damage into the fake while the real dragon (taking massive range increment penalties) tore in to them. When they realized their mistake at least one character had been torn to pieces. Then they ran. Most of them got away... that's a different story though.

Jay R
2012-07-08, 09:59 AM
1. In the dungeon, have a bat fly by every once in awhile. (Never introduce a vampire - that would relieve the growing tension.)

2.
DM: The far wall of the room is a brick wall. Make a Spot check. (Players roll.) One of the bricks is slightly darker than the others.
PC: We press that brick.
DM: (Rolls dice. frowns. Opens book or notes. Rolls again. Smiles) Nothing apparent happens.

3. Roll dice. "Does anybody have a frying pan on their character sheet? No? OK, you continue onward."

4. "Does anybody here speak Velociraptor? No? OK, you all here some screeches over the ridge." [Bonus points if there is nothing but a screeching bird over the ridge.]

To be fair, I should point out that I've only actually done the bats to my players.

newBlazingAngel
2012-07-08, 10:05 AM
It could be interesting to put one thing in a room that shouldn't be there or even doesn't fit the time period. Make them completely ordinary, but something they would carry with them 'just in case.'

Jay R
2012-07-08, 01:14 PM
Have an NPC try to do this (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0129.html). The PCs will carry those rocks forever.

TheFallenOne
2012-07-08, 03:02 PM
My players better skip over this post, cause this will come up :smalltongue:


I got some nice 'oh, crap' expressions out of my group once on the way back and forth through a lost dwarven city burried beneath Ravens Bluff.

First, they found a corpse of an ogre with some nasty cuts. They approach to examine it. Upon touch, the corpse suddenly shifts, and thousands of tiny Tomb Spiders swarm out of the wounds, leaving the quickly sacking husk of the ogre behind. They were a little freaked out :smallbiggrin:


On the way back - they were third level, out of spells and severly wounded - they spot a Beholder in a parallel corridor. First 'Uhoh' reactions. One eye of the Beholder turns in their direction - one of them stares at me open-mouthed with impressively big eyes - then the whole beholder turns towards them, a second later he charges forward. They flee in blind panic.
He catches up, and I count down the distance. "50 meters... 40 meters... 30..." I've NEVER seen more panicked reactions from any player. One of them in desperation urged everyone to drop the magical gems they found, somehow thinking the Beholder wants those. Their fasttalking arguments were glorious.
Then I count down to zero, they're out of ideas and on the edge of their seats... And then the Beholder just passes through their bodies, racing onwards and taking a left turn ahead.
At this point we had to pause for some moments until I was done laughing.
Was it a ghost, an illusion, something else? They preferred not to delve deeper into that story.

Gahrer
2012-07-08, 05:37 PM
Have one character look in the mirror, watch his reflection commit suicide, then don't give him a reflection for the rest of the campign. And then don't explain why. Ever.


This. Is. Awesome. Mind if I steal this?

Eldan
2012-07-08, 05:53 PM
Name your inn "The Chipper Mudskipper". My players refuse to sleep there, because they assume anything that happy in my setting must be a trap. (Which is wise, since I have an entire plotline set up for the first time they give in and sleep there, but that's beside the point.)


I once had a tavern called "Mermaids Rock". It was set a major port town was the party's standard tavern. Then, later in the campaign, they visited another city, and found a tavern called "Mermaids Rock". They tought "Hey, what a coincidence!" and went inside. Same barkeeper. Same gamblers. Same drunk passed out in the corner. Everyone tells them it was always here, no one inside had ever met the PCs. They kept finding that tavern in every city they visited. It was always there. It had always been there. No explanation.

It went on long enough that other people kept up taverns by that name when DMing.

Pokonic
2012-07-08, 06:54 PM
1. Have a small child appear, bloody and crying, on the parties path somewhere. Bonus points if she's somewhere thats increadbly harsh, like a icy cave or deep in a cursed forest.

2. Have the party make a few checks at random. Any check is fine. Just enough to make them realy paranoid about the little girl.

3. The little girl is completly normal. Nothing the party can do can prove otherwise. Shows up as LG, no magical effects, ect. According to her, she is lost. She does not know what village she came from.

4. At the next place the party rests, the little girl goes to sleep as well. Again, nothing strange at all besides her apperance.

5. The next day, the little girl is gone. Every party member has several massive bite marks, each showing multible sets of teeth. They do not feel these bites, but they did take damage. Any healing potions they had with them have turned into a blackish ichor that is corrosive to the touch, and any water they had with them has frozen into a black-red ice. They never see the little girl again.

newBlazingAngel
2012-07-08, 06:59 PM
*snip*

Genius! Brilliance of the highest magnitude! Other gentlemanly compliments!

Kaun
2012-07-08, 07:50 PM
I used the egg timer trap room on my players once (ps, this isn't mine but i don't recall where it came from.)

Basically they enter a 15mx3mx3m featureless smooth stone hallway and once they are all in the hallway doors slam down closing them in from both sides.

At exactly halfway down the hallway a panel will open up and a large ornate egg timer will slide out of the wall suspended by a thick copper looking rod of metal attached at its middle, just below the egg timer protruding from the wall is a shinny red button.

Once the egg timer is all the way out of the wall it will perform one half revolution so all the sand is in the top half slowly trickling down into the bottom.

To anyone who is skilled enough to see it the egg timer will give of an intense magical aura, it will seem impervious to any damage the PC's try to inflict upon it and it will all so prevent any magical damage to the hallway and stop any magical travel spells/scrying or communication spells which attempt to target anything outside the hallway or dimension blah blah (basically it traps them inside a magical box.)
The walls and door are made out of smoothly polished stone which is barely scratched by any mundane forms of digging etc the PC's may attempt.

Pressing the button causes the egg timer to perform a half rotation after which the sand continues to flow from the upper half of the egg timer into the lower half.

Once all the sand is in the lower half of the egg timer the doors at either end of the hallway will open up and the egg timer and the button will disappear back into the now seamless wall.

It helps if you have an actual egg timer to use as a prop for this one.

When i used this it bought me about 45mins of DM joy barely being able to choke down my laughter (which is not bad considering the egg timer prop i had was set for about 3 mins). After the PC's escaped the room they called me many bad words and then went outside for a smoke.

They still however laugh about it now, a few years on.

Kelb_Panthera
2012-07-08, 09:30 PM
I just want to say you are all villainous bastards.

Don't ever change. :smallbiggrin:

Craft (Cheese)
2012-07-08, 09:41 PM
I used the egg timer trap room on my players once (ps, this isn't mine but i don't recall where it came from.)

Basically they enter a 15mx3mx3m featureless smooth stone hallway and once they are all in the hallway doors slam down closing them in from both sides.

At exactly halfway down the hallway a panel will open up and a large ornate egg timer will slide out of the wall suspended by a thick copper looking rod of metal attached at its middle, just below the egg timer protruding from the wall is a shinny red button.

Once the egg timer is all the way out of the wall it will perform one half revolution so all the sand is in the top half slowly trickling down into the bottom.

To anyone who is skilled enough to see it the egg timer will give of an intense magical aura, it will seem impervious to any damage the PC's try to inflict upon it and it will all so prevent any magical damage to the hallway and stop any magical travel spells/scrying or communication spells which attempt to target anything outside the hallway or dimension blah blah (basically it traps them inside a magical box.)
The walls and door are made out of smoothly polished stone which is barely scratched by any mundane forms of digging etc the PC's may attempt.

Pressing the button causes the egg timer to perform a half rotation after which the sand continues to flow from the upper half of the egg timer into the lower half.

Once all the sand is in the lower half of the egg timer the doors at either end of the hallway will open up and the egg timer and the button will disappear back into the now seamless wall.

It helps if you have an actual egg timer to use as a prop for this one.

When i used this it bought me about 45mins of DM joy barely being able to choke down my laughter (which is not bad considering the egg timer prop i had was set for about 3 mins). After the PC's escaped the room they called me many bad words and then went outside for a smoke.

They still however laugh about it now, a few years on.

You forgot something though! Whenever they press the button, they get 1d6 points of permanent damage to a random ability score, and/or a permanent negative level. And when the timer starts to get low the room needs to start shaking really violently as if something even worse is about to happen.

Kaun
2012-07-08, 09:52 PM
You forgot something though! Whenever they press the button, they get 1d6 points of permanent damage to a random ability score, and/or a permanent negative level. And when the timer starts to get low the room needs to start shaking really violently as if something even worse is about to happen.

Nah keep it simple, + you don't want to take away the incentive to keep pushing the button.

newBlazingAngel
2012-07-08, 09:53 PM
Maybe a d2 or d3 of minor damage.

Kaun
2012-07-08, 10:03 PM
Maybe a d2 or d3 of minor damage.

Ehh i wouldn't bother personally & they are less likely to continue pushing the button if there is a cost. While the button buys them time to think of a way out they will keep hitting it, until it brakes their will and they decided to except their own fate.

Ultimately the trap is just to mess with their minds and play on their own fears rather then actually trying to kill or hurt them.

Craft (Cheese)
2012-07-08, 10:03 PM
Nah keep it simple, + you don't want to take away the incentive to keep pushing the button.

But it's all the more glorious when they "solve" the trap all the way back at level 1 with 1-3 in each ability score.

Of course your players will probably burn you alive for it, but I assumed that wasn't a factor we were supposed to be worried about with these sorts of things.

newBlazingAngel
2012-07-08, 10:23 PM
That effect is perfect for one shot campaigns.

Just start them epic level, give them one or two difficult and high level fights, drain em, and watch them freak out when you introduce a level adjusted abeloth.

genderlich
2012-07-08, 10:30 PM
I just want y'all to know that I'm definitely using this entire thread in my next campaign.

Amidus Drexel
2012-07-08, 10:52 PM
The best things to mess with players are things that are far less than they appear. Some personal favorites of mine:

--The BBEG is a 1st level commoner with no distinguishing characteristics, and a generic, common name.

--Statues.

--Helpful NPCs. No player of mine has ever trusted any npc they had a reason to trust. (they only trusted the shady ones :smallbiggrin:)

holywhippet
2012-07-08, 11:04 PM
I find my best "mess with my players" moments come when I least expect them. Little details wind up tripping up my players and they wind up spending a lot of time freaking out over nothing.

I think my best was the "Big Rock In A Clearing" incident. The party was walking through a forest and it was getting dark, so I told them they had reached a clearing. They asked me if there was anything in the clearing.

I hadn't given this much thought, so I replied "uh...Sure, there's a big rock in the middle of the clearing."

We must have spent half an hour on them trying to figure out what was up this rock. I had to eventually tell them flat out that there was nothing special about this rock before I could get them to give up on it.

It was great, they were rolling perception, using detect magic, one player even broke off a piece to look at the inner part of the rock. And it was nothing but a chunk of granite. What's more, it should have been clear from the way I told them about it that it was nothing but an afterthought.

I've heard of a similar case. The PCs had to cross a ravine which had a bridge that had been cut down. All the players but one worked out a solution and got across. That player, for some reason, was convinced the ravine was some kind of illusion. He tried disbelieving it, throwing rocks in it etc. Finally he jumped in convinced it was an illusion. It wasn't.

Ksheep
2012-07-08, 11:58 PM
In one campaign I was in, our party encountered several mimics in a single dungeon. Or rather, my character encountered several mimics, and was nearly swallowed whole (I was a gnome). Of all the "chests" we found, none were actually chests.

About halfway through the dungeon, we're walking down a hallway, and we see at the end of it what appears to be a chest. I happen to be near the front, and at this point I'm really jittery, not trusting any chests I see. So naturally, I decide to attack it…*by throwing an animal out of my bag of tricks and telling it to charge. It summoned a rhino, which obliterated the chest, as well as all the contents therein. Naturally, the rest of the party was mad at me for destroying the only treasure we had found so far.

Kymme
2012-07-08, 11:58 PM
In my upcoming campaign, I intend to do a trick i have hinted about before. Before you cry foul, know that I intend to use this trick on the newbies joining the campaign.
In the first dungeon, one of the newbies will find a pipe. The pipe will be a simple ivory one, well made, but with a pentagram carved on the side. I will tell the character that the pipe has no value. If he decides to just throw it away, or something else like that, then they will find it the next moring in their rations. This process will repeat, without ever ending, until the end of the campaign. At the end, when the character asks about the pipe, I will remain silent. Forever.

yougi
2012-07-09, 02:50 AM
I feel bad. The most evil thing I've done is to have a boss set an ambush after the party decided to camp in his soldiers, barracks after they murdered some of them!

In all seriousness, I have this campaign going on where the PCs are going against this cult that has people being mind controlled and getting mutations from a type of green crystals. Long story short, my PCs intercept a shipment from a mine and the rogue takes some small crystal shards and puts them in his coin purse.

Right after they learn of the mind control thing, I make a "ohhh right" face, and give him a piece of paper (which I rarely use, should use them more, they're awesome): "Where do you keep the green crystals you got at the mine."

He makes that "oh ****" face and sends me back "in my coin purse".

Now keep in mind, the other players are all silent, just staring at those papers being scribbled and sent back and forth.

My next one: "Roll a will save. Don't tell anyone why you're rolling, or what kind of roll you're making."

He takes out a d20, rolls it, nobody knows why. Rolls a 1. The guy's fair though. Plays his character as if nothing happened.

Then, the next session, they're still in town, I have a shady-looking man walk by them, growls at everyone, EXCEPT the rogue. They followed him for half of the session.

Ranting Fool
2012-07-09, 04:19 AM
Oh that reminds me, I have a habbit of describing every statue as "Extreamly life-like" which leads the Players to endless want to go off and get a scroll of "Stone to Flesh" just in case :smalltongue: they have come across one guy who was turned to stone but mostly they are just rather good statues :smallbiggrin:

supermonkeyjoe
2012-07-09, 10:45 AM
As soon as someone gets see invisibility or similar endless fun can be had.

Villain turns invisible in a graveyard, you can now see him, and the legions of restless spirits wandering the area, better hope they don't figure out that you can now see them!

You cast see invisibility? You see that phantom fungus, and also that guy you killed back when you were second level. He's been following you ever since, watching everything you've been doing

You cast see invisibility, you can now see the invisible medusa.

Dire Panda
2012-07-09, 11:05 AM
This is how you dish out poetic justice to problem players. C&P'ed from the funny stories topic.

Don't F*ck with the God of Spite

One of the groups I DM'ed for during my undergrad years had a player we'll call "Tony" (not his real name). Tony was a lying scuzzball who fancied himself a ladies' man and played his characters much the same way. This would have been fine had he restricted his lies and petty larceny to the game world, but alas, he owed money to most of the group and small objects tended to go missing around him. He was also an unreliable gamer who (when he showed up at all) would frequently play in an altered state of consciousness. The rest of the group had pretty much decided this guy had to go... and luckily, he gave me the perfect opportunity.

A bit of background: Tony's character had recently used his cheesed-out Bluff and Diplomacy checks to seduce a sweet, naive princess into falling head-over-heels in love with him and eventually marrying him. Being Tony, he exploited his newfound royal connections as far as they'd go, and made it clear that his character only cared about her for the wealth and power. He even gifted her another PC's stolen ancestral amulet to show her family how wealthy he was.

Anyway, after doing a bit of adventuring, the group discovered that the villains responsible for a recent string of grisly murders were a cult dedicated to Cas, God of Spite (Heroes of Horror). After delivering pointy justice to said cult, they were looting the underground temple when Tony had one of his characteristically idiotic ideas:

Tony: "I'm going to take a dump on the altar."
Me: "You realize what you're saying, right? You plan to defecate on the sacred altar of the God of Spite?"
Tony: "Yeah, why not?"

So he desecrates the altar. At the end of the next session, the heroes are riding off towards their next adventure:

Me: "Everyone, it's Spot check time. You might also want to try a Listen check, but the DC is a lot higher."
Group: *rolls terribly*
Me: "Nobody notices the winged shape overhead... at least not until [Tony's character] and his horse are replaced with a mound of steaming dung."
Tony: "I don't get a Reflex save?"
Me: "Nobody in the party put points into Spot. You all have crappy Wisdom. You rolled a 2. You didn't even see the shadow until it was too late. So yeah, a dragon just shat on you from from six hundred feet."
Tony: *frowns* "How much damage then, *******?"
Me: "Well, it weighs several hundred pounds and fell from a great height... " *rolls* "45."
Tony: "I died from dragon ****?!"

While Tony sat there, red-faced and fuming, I calmly continued. The rest of the group attempted to dig his dead character and horse out from under the pile when one of them came across something familiar:

Me: "Alerika, you notice a glint of gold as you dig through the feces. Excavating a little more, your heart skips a beat as you realize it's your ancestral amulet!"
Tony: "THAT WAS MY WIFE?!"
Me: "Some it was, yeah. Don't f*ck with the God of Spite."

Uttering a primal shriek of rage, Tony flipped the table over and stormed out of the room, never to return. The group held it together for about five seconds before bursting into gales of laughter. To this day they say it was the best game I ever ran.

...yeah, I felt a little bad about that in retrospect, but the guy had it coming. If you steal my friend's phone and have the audacity to keep showing up at my gaming table, I will have a dragon fatally poop your wife onto your head, and will earn the nickname Assistant God of Spite.

newBlazingAngel
2012-07-09, 11:10 AM
Seriously, the God of spite. It was really far too easy.

TheFallenOne
2012-07-09, 11:37 AM
I've heard of a similar case. The PCs had to cross a ravine which had a bridge that had been cut down. All the players but one worked out a solution and got across. That player, for some reason, was convinced the ravine was some kind of illusion. He tried disbelieving it, throwing rocks in it etc. Finally he jumped in convinced it was an illusion. It wasn't.

Damn, that would make a fine dungeon trap.
Mind-affecting spell. On failed save, you're convinced something is an illusion.

Of course, you roll the save behind the DM screen after asking the player for his modifier. Then you just lean back and watch hilarity ensue.

North_Ranger
2012-07-09, 11:55 AM
This is how you dish out poetic justice to problem players. C&P'ed from the funny stories topic.

Don't F*ck with the God of Spite

One of the groups I DM'ed for during my undergrad years had a player we'll call "Tony" (not his real name). Tony was a lying scuzzball who fancied himself a ladies' man and played his characters much the same way. This would have been fine had he restricted his lies and petty larceny to the game world, but alas, he owed money to most of the group and small objects tended to go missing around him. He was also an unreliable gamer who (when he showed up at all) would frequently play in an altered state of consciousness. The rest of the group had pretty much decided this guy had to go... and luckily, he gave me the perfect opportunity.

A bit of background: Tony's character had recently used his cheesed-out Bluff and Diplomacy checks to seduce a sweet, naive princess into falling head-over-heels in love with him and eventually marrying him. Being Tony, he exploited his newfound royal connections as far as they'd go, and made it clear that his character only cared about her for the wealth and power. He even gifted her another PC's stolen ancestral amulet to show her family how wealthy he was.

Anyway, after doing a bit of adventuring, the group discovered that the villains responsible for a recent string of grisly murders were a cult dedicated to Cas, God of Spite (Heroes of Horror). After delivering pointy justice to said cult, they were looting the underground temple when Tony had one of his characteristically idiotic ideas:

Tony: "I'm going to take a dump on the altar."
Me: "You realize what you're saying, right? You plan to defecate on the sacred altar of the God of Spite?"
Tony: "Yeah, why not?"

So he desecrates the altar. At the end of the next session, the heroes are riding off towards their next adventure:

Me: "Everyone, it's Spot check time. You might also want to try a Listen check, but the DC is a lot higher."
Group: *rolls terribly*
Me: "Nobody notices the winged shape overhead... at least not until [Tony's character] and his horse are replaced with a mound of steaming dung."
Tony: "I don't get a Reflex save?"
Me: "Nobody in the party put points into Spot. You all have crappy Wisdom. You rolled a 2. You didn't even see the shadow until it was too late. So yeah, a dragon just shat on you from from six hundred feet."
Tony: *frowns* "How much damage then, *******?"
Me: "Well, it weighs several hundred pounds and fell from a great height... " *rolls* "45."
Tony: "I died from dragon ****?!"

While Tony sat there, red-faced and fuming, I calmly continued. The rest of the group attempted to dig his dead character and horse out from under the pile when one of them came across something familiar:

Me: "Alerika, you notice a glint of gold as you dig through the feces. Excavating a little more, your heart skips a beat as you realize it's your ancestral amulet!"
Tony: "THAT WAS MY WIFE?!"
Me: "Some it was, yeah. Don't f*ck with the God of Spite."

Uttering a primal shriek of rage, Tony flipped the table over and stormed out of the room, never to return. The group held it together for about five seconds before bursting into gales of laughter. To this day they say it was the best game I ever ran.

...yeah, I felt a little bad about that in retrospect, but the guy had it coming. If you steal my friend's phone and have the audacity to keep showing up at my gaming table, I will have a dragon fatally poop your wife onto your head, and will earn the nickname Assistant God of Spite.

You, sir, are truly a scholar and a gentleman. Huzzah.

Sudain
2012-07-09, 12:52 PM
Man, oh man, have I got a list of these.

Have the level one characters escort a cravan to a town (cliche, I know). The owner then gives them a bank note to take to "The big E.V.I.L. building, in the middle of town." Scares them silly, until they realize it's the "Everyday Villiager's Investment & Loans. E.V.I.L."

Have one character look in the mirror, watch his reflection commit suicide, then don't give him a reflection for the rest of the campign. And then don't explain why. Ever.

Have a character walk up to them on the street, and ask if they can wear the PC's shoes, "just in case."

Name your inn "The Chipper Mudskipper". My players refuse to sleep there, because they assume anything that happy in my setting must be a trap. (Which is wise, since I have an entire plotline set up for the first time they give in and sleep there, but that's beside the point.)

Give them a "Scroll of Locate Hands". They can't resist trying it. Have it announce in a booming voice "On the ends of your arms!" and have that be it.

Give them a massive, bronze key. Make it weigh like 75lbs or something insane. Watch them lug it around forever, because 'It will come in handy eventually!'

Edit: Oh, and a bowl of fresh fruit in the dungeon entrance. Every time.

I want to play with you... You and I.... our Humor would get along swimmingly. :)

Sneaky Weasel
2012-07-09, 05:09 PM
One thing I like to use is the villain who keeps coming back. Here's an example.

I was running an all monster campaign where the players had to save humanity from an endless swarm of Kythons. Think xenomorphs from Alien, but in D&D. Anyway, they had fought their way into the first nest of the Kythons, and were engaged in a long, intense battle with swarm of the little buggers.

Then, an adult Kython appeared. CR 5 against the 3rd level party, and it used hit and run tactics. It didn't help that they were in the bottom of a shaft, and it effectively added +20 to jump checks. It was instantly assumed that this was the BBEG for this part of the story.

After a long, hard battle, they killed it, although the DMPC Red Dragon who was helping them got its head torn off. They're all at low HP, battered, they've used up most of their spells. Time to head home.

Then the grounds starts to rumble, and a huge sized slaymaster kython appears. It begins grappling two of them and repeatedly biting the rest, dealing huge damage with each attack. In addition, each round it spawned two broodlings(baby kythons) in an adjacent square. Of course, the PCs were so frightened by the big guy that they completely ignored the smaller ones. Big mistake.

They finally killed the slaymaster, with only a few HPs remaining. Luckily one of them has fast healing, but the others are nearly spent. They begin to clean up the broodlings, thinking, yet again, that the encounter is done.

Then one of the broodlings 'undergoes a strange metamorphosis. It grows to a massive size in just a few seconds, it's limbs falling off as it turns serpentine. It is now an exact replica of the kython you just killed'.

You should have seen the looks on their faces. There was silence for a few moments, then one of them said "I hate you".:smallbiggrin:

holywhippet
2012-07-09, 05:17 PM
Here's one my former DM told me he did on a group of players he had. In his game world he had a ghost sorceress who was seeking power and preferred to strike at her enemies indirectly. The party first encountered her when they, and a paladin NPC, managed to thwart her plans. In retaliation she went back to the paladins home town and possessed his wife. When the party returned she attacked and left the paladin with no option but to kill his own wife - however, she vacated the body just as the killing blow fell so his wife would see her husband kill her and thus be unwilling to return via a raise dead spell.

The DM had intended this to be a throw away character as part of a side quest, but the players decided they absolutely had to eliminate her. So they set out to find a way of dealing with her for good. To monitor their progress she arranged for them to acquire a ring which could cast augury on demand. However, since this was 3.0, the identify spell only told them the lowest level of enchantment on the ring. It also had a second enchantment on it, I forget the name, but it meant that any scrying attempt on them would always succeed no matter what spell or item they might use to hide themselves.

As a result, she was always one step ahead of them. If they showed up at dungeon X to obtain McGuffin Y she'd teleport in ahead of them and take it.

Since she could possess people she would occasionally possess party members. Generally the DM would handle this by handing out notes to all PCs with one saying they had been possessed and the rest saying they haven't been possessed. However, he would also sometimes hand out notes to all players with all notes saying that they haven't been possessed - and watch the players go paranoid trying to work out exactly who was now possessed.

The campaign ended with two PCs still alive and in possession of an item that would trap souls. The idea was to wait until someone was possessed, kill them and trap both their soul and that of the ghost. The two players were each convinced that the other was currently possessed and battled it out until one of them was dead. They were wrong, neither was possessed but as soon as there was only one PC standing she possessed them.

Doorhandle
2012-07-09, 10:46 PM
You, sir, are truly a scholar and a gentleman. Huzzah.

Well, I don't think anyone who dishes out vengeance through a half-ton of fecal matter is a gentleman, but it was still commendable regardless.

demigodus
2012-07-10, 02:26 AM
-snip-

Your party doesn't have a watch order with at least one party member awake at all times? They deserve to be murdered in their sleep...

Gnomish Wanderer
2012-07-10, 04:31 AM
Ga'Kaal, the Party Leader of my longest campaign, was a Fighter who loved popularity. He kept a travel journal and got scribes to make copies so he could hand out his exploits, loved to tell stories in bars, that kind of thing.

Well eventually the party ended up on this far continent a few game years into the campaign (it was a VERY long running one) and he started hearing these stories of this demon who was plaguing the lands they had come from. They assumed that during their month-long boat ride somehow a demon had started destroying their homeland.

So the party is deciding whether or not to return home or stay in this continent when the Fighter finds a merchant selling stories of the Demon. He decides to buy the book to see what he's up against.

Very quickly he realizes the Demon's insignia was the same as his, and the stories were just a terrible retelling of his own tales translated to many different languages. Instead of the tale of Ga'kaal meeting the one-eyed prince and restoring him to power, the story version had Grakle the Demon force people to live under the rule of a horrible cyclops.

And it got even better when he learned that the mis-telling was actually set up by the BBEG to discredit him...

DigoDragon
2012-07-10, 07:31 AM
One time the party rescued a prisoner from an orc stronghold and the prisoner was so greatful that he offered his services as a bard to detail the PCs adventure into an epic song. The PCs agreed and took him along on a few more adventurers.

One night at an Inn, the bard vanished on them without warning, but left the completed musical work with the party. The party asked the innkeeper if they saw the bard leave, but the Innkeeper said no such person ever entered with the party. The PCs began retracing their steps, asking various people about the bard, but not one person ever recalled the bard being with the party.
Turns out the bard only existed in the PCs mind as they realized the bard never did interact with anyone except the PCs.

But how to explain the musical epic they have in hand...
:smallbiggrin:

The Random NPC
2012-07-10, 09:07 AM
The bard was a ghost, and he was so grateful for freeing him that he stuck around to finish the epic before passing on.

Jay R
2012-07-10, 09:17 AM
The (low-level) PCs come upon a large battlefield. The wolves and ravens have come to feast on the dead; there appear to be no survivors at all. Yes, OK, they can loot, but the loot is just used weapons and armor.

As they turn to leave, they see, hidden away from the battlefield, a small child, scared and crying, who says, "Have you seen my daddy?"

He has no clothes except a wool blanket, which gives no clues whatsoever.

The child has no name for his father except "Daddy", and can provide no useful information. He is just a difficult problem for them as long as he's with them.

Presumably, they will find some kind of foster-parents.

Several adventures later, when it is impossible to re-find him, they will hear about the kingdom that has plunged into anarchy because the heir to the throne was lost in a great battle.

Kaveman26
2012-07-10, 09:20 AM
I once "correctly" identied a mimic at the end of a hall. We put a hail of arrows into it from range and killed it. I then proceeded to march victorious into the room only to be reminded that Mimic's also can pose as doors and archways. The Door grew a pair of arms and started to pummel me.

Doorhandle
2012-07-11, 01:12 AM
The (low-level) PCs come upon a large battlefield. The wolves and ravens have come to feast on the dead; there appear to be no survivors at all. Yes, OK, they can loot, but the loot is just used weapons and armor.

As they turn to leave, they see, hidden away from the battlefield, a small child, scared and crying, who says, "Have you seen my daddy?"

He has no clothes except a wool blanket, which gives no clues whatsoever.

The child has no name for his father except "Daddy", and can provide no useful information. He is just a difficult problem for them as long as he's with them.

Presumably, they will find some kind of foster-parents.

Several adventures later, when it is impossible to re-find him, they will hear about the kingdom that has plunged into anarchy because the heir to the throne was lost in a great battle.

If You continue that line of thought, make it to that the child they found wasn't actually the son of the king, and that the REAL heir apparent will get veeeeeery angry should they try to put the child on the throne, just to screw with them even more. :smallbiggrin:

2xMachina
2012-07-11, 06:14 AM
If You continue that line of thought, make it to that the child they found wasn't actually the son of the king, and that the REAL heir apparent will get veeeeeery angry should they try to put the child on the throne, just to screw with them even more. :smallbiggrin:

Or heck, the child is the actual heir, but now the heir presumptives (in the throne grab) are pissed off and try to assassinate the child.

DigoDragon
2012-07-11, 07:06 AM
The bard was a ghost, and he was so grateful for freeing him that he stuck around to finish the epic before passing on.

That was the most logical solution the PCs came up with. Another idea that came up later was that the bard was a god of inspiration/musical arts and inspired the PCs to write that epic themselves. They just didn't know it.
Either way. :smallsmile:

Krazzman
2012-07-11, 08:50 AM
I didn't do anything of this although I might will do it in the future. So far ich just messed with some snowholes (mini pit traps).

But in the past we often played with only 3 people. Meaning 2 PCs and the DM.

The good part about this is..the DM in case of the following mishaps would drop the book of vile darkness if slain.

Issue 1:
get the paladin to lay all his weapons in a drawer (in this case it was a long cast away sun goddess talking to the paladin of pelor) then the mummy attacks you.
Throw a illusion of a garbling and brabbling monstrosity at the party, if they fight, let them for 2 or 3 rounds...then they see and hear the mothers and fathers, of the kids they all just slaughtered, calling for help.

Issue 2:
Mirror, your image get killed by someone that you can't see in that mirror. The first 2 days you see your image lying dead on the ground.
Fresh apples or something similar looking fresh are rotting superb fast after the first bite. Letting their second bite be puke worthy. This taste last for the next week.
The next time that player bites into an apple or similar: the gnash some teeth that were in there... human teeth.

Issue 3:
A small elven ivory pipe is bound to appear every day for the rest of your pc life in your backpack.
Your Mirrorimage kills itself.
Pictures in house change places/switch places/move etc.
PC's come over a mountainpass and see a tavern ahead. They loose LoS of it and when they reach it....BAM! Old ruin of a burnt down tavern... the same tavern that they saw... if they search it it seems this tavern burnt down years ago.

Issue 4:
One PC wakes up (or the one on watch or all, either case it's terryfiing) to the cries of a baby. If they look up they see that the moon is filling with red (like pouring a red drink into a ball) the more it is filled the more those cries mature going from baby, child, teen, woman, old woman. The additional thing is the more the pc listens the more he is able to realize that these cries are in pain. Just moments before the moon is filled...everything is over. Back to normal. White full moon, except for that creeping silence.
Next morning they see a few dead birds and other critters.

Issue 5:
Your Players have set up some guards for this night...haven't they? If not poor lads. Let them wake up at random locations in reach(but close to each other), the female players feel "weird" and have some human bitemarks, the male players wake up feeling relieved, stuffed and seem to have similar bitemarks.
If you want to take it to the next level:
all females pc's are pregnant

drack
2012-07-11, 01:40 PM
Lets see, the most evil thing I've done... well two or three times I've made the whole party freeze for a week (pbp) in terror that any movement could be their death... they weren't anywhere special, I just left enough foreboding around (fluff is always fun :smallwink:), and planted the thought that enemies can hide, and told them that villains, not being fools, use tactics. :smalltongue: Yup, I don't even know how I'd choose one instance to site :belkar:

lets see what I can sum up quick though... oh there's a fun one. In a freeform game I made every NPC around this one player die off slowly, and each time they' reach out for help from a new NPC until they were with a daredevil mage NPC who teleported around at random and loved dangerous situations. Finally the player became so paranoid that when they met up with the other players they were eternally suspicious, and at the first sign of trouble he would suddenly stop and squint at them backing away and saying "You're with the crazy old man, aren't you!" even tho[ugh nobody ever knew what he was talking about. admittedly though most of that was just the character becoming paranoid and not the player. :smalltongue:

Axinian
2012-07-11, 02:27 PM
One room of a dungeon is featureless and white, containing only an ordinary moose, which appears to be chewing on walnuts.

Erik Vale
2012-07-11, 05:36 PM
lets see what I can sum up quick though... oh there's a fun one. In a freeform game I made every NPC around this one player die off slowly, and each time they' reach out for help from a new NPC until they were with a daredevil mage NPC who teleported around at random and loved dangerous situations. Finally the player became so paranoid that when they met up with the other players they were eternally suspicious, and at the first sign of trouble he would suddenly stop and squint at them backing away and saying "You're with the crazy old man, aren't you!" even tho[ugh nobody ever knew what he was talking about. admittedly though most of that was just the character becoming paranoid and not the player. :smalltongue:

I knew exactly who he was talking about.... However nether of the other two are posting any more to the looks of things.

drack
2012-07-11, 06:03 PM
yup :smallfrown: I had intended to re-recruit, but if it's dead it's dead ay? :smallsigh: eh maybe I'll re-recruit anyways... what do you think as the final surviving player of that game? :smalltongue:

tigerusthegreat
2012-07-11, 06:53 PM
I had a super powered lvl 25 gestalt group that I allowed just about anything in.

I nearly killed one of them by sheer damage from four assassin vines advanced to CR 24. (they were all immune to grapple by that point, so it was just pure slam damage)

I nearly killed the whole party by having them go to the pocket dimension of Boccob, which was wracked by magic storms that dealt a small amount of random element damage every turn, and stacked a debuff on them that made the elemental damage increase for every time they had been hit by the damage before. Since it was random, they didn't realize the danger of the elemental damage until it started massively overcoming their resistance spells. They fled pretty soon after they took serious damage, but didn't get the McGuffin they came for.

Finally (and this is the best one) I nearly killed the lot of them with a crushing wall trap. They teleported to a dungeon that had an effect they knew of that prevented teleportation and similar effects. They entered a hallway and found a pressure plate. The plate was a reverse trap that disabled the trap they fell into (so anyone who should have been there would just have walked on the plate). They disable the plate, continue on, and trigger a spell that detects living beings by entering the corridor. An epic anti-magic field effect went up, 10ft thick sections of wall fell into place on either end of the corridor, and the walls started coming closed.

One of them started pounding on the walls with non-magic enhanced strength, actually chipping away bits, but only enough to save maybe one of them. They managed to save themselves by shoving some blades and rubble under the wall to slow it, and that bought them the time to break the mechanism somehow.

SowZ
2012-07-11, 07:56 PM
I used the egg timer trap room on my players once (ps, this isn't mine but i don't recall where it came from.)

Basically they enter a 15mx3mx3m featureless smooth stone hallway and once they are all in the hallway doors slam down closing them in from both sides.

At exactly halfway down the hallway a panel will open up and a large ornate egg timer will slide out of the wall suspended by a thick copper looking rod of metal attached at its middle, just below the egg timer protruding from the wall is a shinny red button.

Once the egg timer is all the way out of the wall it will perform one half revolution so all the sand is in the top half slowly trickling down into the bottom.

To anyone who is skilled enough to see it the egg timer will give of an intense magical aura, it will seem impervious to any damage the PC's try to inflict upon it and it will all so prevent any magical damage to the hallway and stop any magical travel spells/scrying or communication spells which attempt to target anything outside the hallway or dimension blah blah (basically it traps them inside a magical box.)
The walls and door are made out of smoothly polished stone which is barely scratched by any mundane forms of digging etc the PC's may attempt.

Pressing the button causes the egg timer to perform a half rotation after which the sand continues to flow from the upper half of the egg timer into the lower half.

Once all the sand is in the lower half of the egg timer the doors at either end of the hallway will open up and the egg timer and the button will disappear back into the now seamless wall.

It helps if you have an actual egg timer to use as a prop for this one.

When i used this it bought me about 45mins of DM joy barely being able to choke down my laughter (which is not bad considering the egg timer prop i had was set for about 3 mins). After the PC's escaped the room they called me many bad words and then went outside for a smoke.

They still however laugh about it now, a few years on.

Tried this with an hourglass with my players. Of course, I forgot these were MY players who insist on doing things to get someone killed every third session. It is turned over twice until someone says, "Hey, guys, I wonder what will happen if it runs out?" "Oy, yeah, me, too! Let's wait." Five minutes and little tension later they are in the next room. "Huh, strange." "Yeah. Ohhh, movement! I shoot it!"

INDYSTAR188
2012-07-11, 08:25 PM
Tried this with an hourglass with my players. Of course, I forgot these were MY players who insist on doing things to get someone killed every third session. It is turned over twice until someone says, "Hey, guys, I wonder what will happen if it runs out?" "Oy, yeah, me, too! Let's wait." Five minutes and little tension later they are in the next room. "Huh, strange." "Yeah. Ohhh, movement! I shoot it!"

This is what happened to me too. After the second time of pressing the button with a party made up of a (4E) Fighter, Paladin, Monk, Bard, and Warlord they said "We're just gonna let the timer go out. We can't get out or stop it in any way..." They were noticeably relieved when the timer ran out (I think they were expecting to be 'forced' into some kind of severe magical trap)..

Alabenson
2012-07-11, 08:55 PM
My personal favorite instance of messing with my players was when I created a series of puzzles for them as part of gaining entrance to a wizarding guild.
The final puzzle took the form of a massive iron door with several apparantly automated bars holding it shut, next to which were roughly a dozen switches. Each time one of the switches was moved, some of the bars would slide in or out of position. The catch: the entire thing was only made to appear as though the bars held the door shut. In reality, the door could be opened at any time simply by pulling on it.

The looks on their faces after spending ten minutes trying random switch combinations was simply priceless.

Erik Vale
2012-07-11, 09:20 PM
yup :smallfrown: I had intended to re-recruit, but if it's dead it's dead ay? :smallsigh: eh maybe I'll re-recruit anyways... what do you think as the final surviving player of that game? :smalltongue:

I enjoyed it and it would be fun to play.
Think I can squeeze into one last game :P.

Cealocanth
2012-07-11, 11:00 PM
I have one for you.

It's mid heroic tier. The party has been fighting what could only be described as a political war between their tiny fishing town, Midnight Shore, and a young black dragon under the name Segura. The party has been running about cleaning up after this dragon as clues of her cunning plot to assemble three evil sources into one army, to destroy the town of Midnight shore as the first step to world domination (Muahaha...). It's down to the final countdown now, the party knows that somewhere Segura has cobbled together her own forces of Raiders (mutants infused with magical radiation, it's a thing about my campaign...), the unending undead hordes of The Green and it's many Mothers, and the Silvershore pirate forces lead by Yenroar Dragonsbane. The players realize that all out warfare is not an option, and that their only hope is to go quest in the Crown of the Ancients for a mystical artifact known as the Spear of the Ancients, for use as a bargaining chip.

They fight their way through the crown and into a dungeon composed of four crumbling towers guarded by stone guardian golems, in each tower finding a strange golden device and touching them. And what do you know, the players are actually folded along dimentional lines, and the resulting encounter is played thinking not in third dimensional combat (which is hard enough as is), but in fourth dimensional combat, where each player is technically fighting four encounters seimultaniously, but is only physically capable of being in one encounter at a time.

Talk about a session to remember.

newBlazingAngel
2012-07-11, 11:16 PM
Dafuq? Still pretty amazing and original. Insane though.

Ksheep
2012-07-11, 11:33 PM
One thing I've been planing on using, from Book of Challenges.

The corridor spirals inward toward a central room. Throughout the corridor are numerous sprung traps (pendulum, saw blades, lightning, pitfalls, etc). At the end, they find a single treasure chest with a corpse lying next to it. The chest has a simple, unsprung poison needle trap. After opening it, they find jewels and gold… and if they remove more than a pound of it (or add more than a pound to it), a pressure pad under it get triggered. This resets all the traps in the corridor, and they have to get out in one piece.

Doorhandle
2012-07-12, 02:32 AM
I have one for you.

It's mid heroic tier. The party has been fighting what could only be described as a political war between their tiny fishing town, Midnight Shore, and a young black dragon under the name Segura. The party has been running about cleaning up after this dragon as clues of her cunning plot to assemble three evil sources into one army, to destroy the town of Midnight shore as the first step to world domination (Muahaha...). It's down to the final countdown now, the party knows that somewhere Segura has cobbled together her own forces of Raiders (mutants infused with magical radiation, it's a thing about my campaign...), the unending undead hordes of The Green and it's many Mothers, and the Silvershore pirate forces lead by Yenroar Dragonsbane. The players realize that all out warfare is not an option, and that their only hope is to go quest in the Crown of the Ancients for a mystical artifact known as the Spear of the Ancients, for use as a bargaining chip.

They fight their way through the crown and into a dungeon composed of four crumbling towers guarded by stone guardian golems, in each tower finding a strange golden device and touching them. And what do you know, the players are actually folded along dimentional lines, and the resulting encounter is played thinking not in third dimensional combat (which is hard enough as is), but in fourth dimensional combat, where each player is technically fighting four encounters seimultaniously, but is only physically capable of being in one encounter at a time.

Talk about a session to remember.

...you have GOT to tell me how that works.

Craft (Cheese)
2012-07-12, 02:54 AM
...you have GOT to tell me how that works.

IIUC, there's four separate fights going on, but you have to keep teleporting back and forth between them. It's not really 4-dimensional gameplay.

Kaww
2012-07-12, 05:49 AM
This is what happened to me too. After the second time of pressing the button with a party made up of a (4E) Fighter, Paladin, Monk, Bard, and Warlord they said "We're just gonna let the timer go out. We can't get out or stop it in any way..." They were noticeably relieved when the timer ran out (I think they were expecting to be 'forced' into some kind of severe magical trap)..

This is why you have six levers instead of the button. There are quite a few combinations and PCs will try all or most of them. Check my sig for some evil things...

Of those not there I did the following:

- I made two PCs blind after they chose to serve the BBEG. Their curse was that they would see the world as it is (and it was horrifying) and they regained their sight 1ft per day. The only problem was that it was true seeing with them seeing a person's future as well. They saw people around them walking bloodied, with severed limbs, etc.

- Those two had side effects: one of them vomited fingers after every meal for the rest of the campaign, the other always pulled out a doll from any backpack/sack/container always the same doll. Sometimes there was more than one, but it was always the same eyeless doll.

- In their world eye symbols began appearing everywhere. At first they didn't notice them. Later they did and they were VERY sorry because of it.

- The PCs led squads of five. They were responsible for them...

- I killed NPCs due to their squad leader's mistakes, even the tiniest ones. One NPC soldier in a squad led by a PC was eaten by what she made using shape stone.

I have so many more, but I'm lazy. Here are two for the end:

- One of the PCs destroyed one of the eyes by casting shatter. His eye exploded and the eye drawn on the ceiling started to bleed real blood.

- The finger vomiting PC found a room full of corpses with their fingers cut off... :smalleek:

Do I need to say that my players hate my guts? :xykon:
__________________________________________________ ______
EDIT:


One thing I've been planing on using, from Book of Challenges.

The corridor spirals inward toward a central room. Throughout the corridor are numerous sprung traps (pendulum, saw blades, lightning, pitfalls, etc). At the end, they find a single treasure chest with a corpse lying next to it. The chest has a simple, unsprung poison needle trap. After opening it, they find jewels and gold… and if they remove more than a pound of it (or add more than a pound to it), a pressure pad under it get triggered. This resets all the traps in the corridor, and they have to get out in one piece.

Ran this. It was fun, but the traps were too easy for my party, so I added some fear based traps for the lulz.

That book has some nice encounters. Also Grimtooth's traps...

Cealocanth
2012-07-12, 09:50 AM
IIUC, there's four separate fights going on, but you have to keep teleporting back and forth between them. It's not really 4-dimensional gameplay.

There's not only the four separate fights, but each fight is given a location in space/time that is relative to the other fights, as if the each encounter lines the inside of a hollowed out box. Each fight contains elements of third dimensional gameplay, such as height or depth below a certain point, but the only way to travel between these fights is to move ana or kata to their relative location inside this hyper-hollow box. I'd say that's about as close to fourth dimensional gameplay I can get without some serious overhaul of the combat rules.

drack
2012-07-12, 09:58 AM
There's not only the four separate fights, but each fight is given a location in space/time that is relative to the other fights, as if the each encounter lines the inside of a hollowed out box. Each fight contains elements of third dimensional gameplay, such as height or depth below a certain point, but the only way to travel between these fights is to move ana or kata to their relative location inside this hyper-hollow box. I'd say that's about as close to fourth dimensional gameplay I can get without some serious overhaul of the combat rules.

Hmm, I'd say if you give them different set time-frames (giving a 4D distance from each other) and tell players that they can only be in each round once then it could be interesting. :smallbiggrin:

Sudain
2012-07-13, 01:05 PM
Doofwad(half dragon villan/mook) was laying seige to a fortified town. Outside there was 8 half spheres of darkness(deeper darkness) about 150 feet off the front gate. The spell was timed so every day one of them would expire and people would get to see what was underneath.

When the first one expired; they saw the missing children of the town crucified, but very much alive and surrounded by about 88 skeletons/zombies(all of the combined forces available packed as tightly as possible) just standing there. Of course the kid starts wailing, which draws the party's attention to the situation. After making sure they were seen, one of the four clerics who set this up renewed the deeper darkness spell.

The party assumed they had to deal with 8 clumps of 88 zombies and skeletons. After talking it over the party gave serious consideration to just leaving the children to die. The monsters. :smallbiggrin:

newBlazingAngel
2012-07-13, 02:04 PM
That's sick...And amazing.

Pokonic
2012-07-13, 05:37 PM
Well, the party was traveling across a former battlefield. Said battle was raged by

1. A elite human squad of about 50 people, all decked out in magical armor that was geared to have a fire theme (Flaming swords, helmets with flames on it, ect.)

2. A single necromancer, who was channeling a massive spell to effictivly create a huge blast of negitive energy that would kill everything there.

3. A native orc tribe (500+) who had no idea what was going on between the humans and the necromancer, but joined in the battle anyway.

4. A 200+ group of dwarves who was about to attack the orcs, and followed them to the site where the humans where trying to break into the necromancers castle.

To make a long story short, the necromancer accedently unleashed the negitive energy early, killing both himself and everything that was gathered around the area he was located. The next night, everything revived as undead and started fighting eachother. The next day, they where re-dead, but the negitive energy healed there wounds.

This happened for the next eighty years, and dead adventurers who came looking for loot where added to the unholy pile that revived each day and looked for treasure that was'nt there. The human group's flaming equiptment caused supernaturaly black fire's that burned eternaly, and the equiptment itself became unholy and inbued with necromantic power (Ect: It caused Vile damage.) The dwarve's and the orc's bodies surround the castle, while the human's lay within the castle proper, eternaly dealing the the necromancer's traps, while the necromancer proper is trapped under a large statue of himself, which happens to be spiked.

Now, think of the PC's reaction to coming to the place around dusk, and have already used up there healing supplies to counteract the ambient effecting of the place. They try to seek shelter from the hoards outside, and meet some Skelies who think that there servents of the necromancer.

They did survive, actualy. One even got a flaming sword. But they still hate me for the fact that the inferno in the center of the castle melted there nonmagical armor.

Morithias
2012-07-13, 05:56 PM
Update! Apparently players did not learn from the last story that there are a lot of superpowered people (seriously it is NOT uncommon to be above level 10 in my setting) running around in my setting.

Play-by-post game, players are in a magical academy. This visitor "Cania" shows up, and the wizard proceeds to blow 3 DC 15 checks. Everyone is in awe of her, and the wizard basically says he doesn't see what is so special about her.

Then the woman, Cania decides to offer him a chance to test himself against her. Keep in mind this wizard is level 3.

So they set up a duel, and the wizard pelts her with every spell his has, and she's still standing (we were using the rules from PHB2 for non-lethal wizard duels). Then she points at him and says three words...

"Maximized Empowered disintegrate"

It was non-lethal, but my god he wasn't getting up anytime soon having taken 360 points of damage.

For those of you who weren't paying attention to my last story, the deities run around the material plane all the time.

Cania is the founder of the hathrans, creator of circle magic, and the goddess of magic. She was coming to the school to check out possible candidates to replace her 100 years or so from now.

Needless to say, I think I need to start warning people about pissing off NPCs in my setting, cause NPCs average level 7-8, all the way up to 30+.

EccentricCircle
2012-07-13, 06:33 PM
So the players are dealing with dopplegangers and possessed people. One week half the group can't make it to the game, luckly they've told me ahead of time for once so I say, "no its not a problem, the game goes on as usual."

The party go to sleep. Those of them with present players wake up to find that those of them without present players are gone.

Then the absentees show up posessed and attack the rest of the party. A fairly epic battle continues with multiple copies of the possessed characters showing up. Any absent PC who's killed turns out to be a doppleganger, rather than posessed. In the end the party burn down the building and escape on a boat, leaving the dopplegangers and their posessed friends behind.

End of session, I swear everyone to secrecy, they are not to tell the others about what happened in the intervening week. Because next week, they will be playing their own character's dopplegangers.

Cut to next week. I tell the absentees that its the morning after the night before, they wake up in a burning building, their boat is gone, their party scattered. The dopplegangers now being played by players undermine every attempt to build a raft and leave. The players start to get confused, but still don't twig that anything's "wrong".

Then half way through the session;
"Right I think its about time we cut to the rest of the party, you've been drifting downstream for most of the morning and the column of smoke from the burning inn is lost to sight, What are you doing?"
As the three players who've been playing their dopplegangers thus far start conversing about what happened and how terrible it is that they had to leave their friends behind the absentees start going "Wait, What?" culminating in some very amusing expressions as realisation dawns.

yougi
2012-07-14, 04:08 PM
- The finger vomiting PC found a room full of corpses with their fingers cut off... :smalleek:


Marry me?

This is quite awesome. Stealing that so much.

MasonDon
2012-07-14, 07:16 PM
I find my best "mess with my players" moments come when I least expect them. Little details wind up tripping up my players and they wind up spending a lot of time freaking out over nothing.

I think my best was the "Big Rock In A Clearing" incident. The party was walking through a forest and it was getting dark, so I told them they had reached a clearing. They asked me if there was anything in the clearing.

I hadn't given this much thought, so I replied "uh...Sure, there's a big rock in the middle of the clearing."

We must have spent half an hour on them trying to figure out what was up this rock. I had to eventually tell them flat out that there was nothing special about this rock before I could get them to give up on it.

It was great, they were rolling perception, using detect magic, one player even broke off a piece to look at the inner part of the rock. And it was nothing but a chunk of granite. What's more, it should have been clear from the way I told them about it that it was nothing but an afterthought.

To be quite honest, we did make the best pun out of that situation. :smalltongue:

Erik Vale
2012-07-14, 08:03 PM
Now that is known as paranoia... Good job with your players.

Krazzman
2012-07-16, 02:56 AM
I have to say I found the look on their faces hilarious. I managed to spook my players with a.... simple cabin.

Or better said I introduced them to my form of Taint. They were going from Rashemen to Thay in order to stop the spreading of a Wendigo and killing it before it grows to strong. Their first encounter were 2 Yetis, which they pretty much nailed. Then on Day two of their travel...they botched some survival rolls to get a resting place that is good against the freezing cold.
Well they are worn out, fatigued and come to this cabin. The Frost Elf Ranger is a bit suspicious as there could be hostile entities (thayans) nearby. The going to be Rageprophet and the witch go in and botch their perception checks to notice the interior. The Ranger saw what seemed to be Pictures of people. They seemed to all look into their direction... and my GF (the ranger) was pretty freaked out at that time...till they tried to put the pictures down. I told them they were built into the wall of this cabin. Now everyone was a bit spooked, the Rage Prophet tried to further take the pictures down, the ranger goes out and the witch tries to put something in front of those pictures. Outside the ranger sees that in fact the "pictures" are windows and tries to spook the witch out from the outside... with no real success since the ghostly picture staring at the witch is far more imminent than the ranger. After a bit of hassle they destroy one window only to see that the "picture" now only shows parts of the eyes... every shard. They ventured on for 2 hours and then they laid themselves to rest...
On day 3 they came to a scene of 2 Decapus (is the plural of this Decapi?) for the records they are bobbleheaded monstrosities with 10 Tentacles... the look on the witchs face was amazing...she mentioned something about Tentacles earlier that evening.

But the good thing is: The Rage Prophet is going to DM again next week so I have time to prepare more shocking things... I'm actually planning on using some stuff with reflections... let's see how they freak out with that.

Zale
2012-07-16, 06:31 AM
One day, have them roll a spot check.

Regardless of what they roll, tell them they see a shadowy figure off in the distance, staring at them.

Then, it vanishes.

Afterwards, every so often, have this figure reappear. Always just out of reach.

Then have nothing happen for awhile, to let your players think it was just some freakish coincidence.

And one day, when one of the characters is isolated from the others, have them roll spot and listen.

They hear a gurgling, choking sound- like something breathing through a clogged tube.

And when they turn around, they see a shadowy figure obscured in a hooded robe, a mere few feet from them. Then have it vanish.

Afterwards, just tell them to roll spot or listen every so often.

And tell them they don't see or hear anything. This time anyway.

:smallsmile:

Reaver225
2012-07-16, 10:12 AM
In general, rolling spot and listen checks work well with messing with your players.

In my case, the players were proceeding up a corridor with a number of rooms in it, each with big pipes and some unimportant cleaning supplies in each. I asked them if they wanted to search each room, and who's going first.

The first two rooms the fighter went first, a bit cautiously, but only finding the cleaning materials and odd noises through the piping, like laughter.

The party never managed to reach the third room, because they all failed the check to spot the Gelatinous Cube that was in the way. They didn't even realise it when I asked them to roll spot the third time until BAM, face full of Cube.

They actually enjoyed that encounter a great deal.

lexcorp026
2012-07-17, 12:47 AM
My 3.5 guys got to munchkin'ing their characters to be these ultimate combat monsters, which was frustrating as they were all really good role-players with 20ish years of experience.

So I wrote a mission where they had to retrieve a relic from the tomb of a very overly paranoid long dead wizard. Built tons upon tons of traps and skill checks and not a single enemy to defeat.


Just off the top of my head, it was something like

Balance beam walk over lava
open gap that needs jumped to grab rope
climb check to scale ledge
Reflex save trap
a room of those bamboo poles where you have to walk at the tops of them
a Puzzle Hallway with a series of intermitantly bursting flames and crushing walls, where positioning and movement are really all that matters
An illusionary entrance requiring a will save
A spiral stairwell with traps to slash ankles
Then ending with a cage closing above them for a water-filling room trap that required underwater lockpicking to release the drain and fall through into the room below them where the relic was contained

...along with explosive runes and contact poison all around it.

Oh, and the whole way along, there were these weird floating kabuki head things that chased them spitting 1d4 damage darts, so they couldn't just stop halfway through to rest or re-mem spells.


Every single objective was a skill or feature that one of them had previously had, but neglected for several levels. By the end of the adventure, suddenly everyone was looking over their skills again and trying to find ways to be more well-rounded.

DeIdeal
2012-07-18, 02:44 PM
To my surprise, I could actually come up with two things that worked pretty well in messing up the players and/or their characters. Both are fairly basic, so nothing super-innovative is to be expected, but as I said, both worked fine.

--------------------------

First one was in the first CoC adventure I ran. It was also the first time playing CoC for everyone in the group, and I think at least some of the players were a bit paranoid and overly cautious about things -- their characters weren't supposed to be, of course.

So, when I introduced a pair of twins, sitting in a train next to their mother, looking at one of the players "in a suspicious, somehow disturbing way" just as the player was leaving his seat, I don't think the players took my word that the "twins appeared perfectly normal and not at all menacing." It didn't help that the twins kept appearing at inconvenient times, like near a murder scene (it wasn't their fault, they lived right by the scene!).

Still, for some reason, not even the players being completely unable to find any evidence whatsoever indicating that the twins had anything to do with the weird stuff that was going on in the town seemed to ease their suspicions! It's not like a GM would ever try to mislead their players, right?

In the end, they obviously had nothing to do with anything, were completely innocent and most of the PCs were fried alive by the Fire Vampires.

--------------------------

The second one was in a Shadowrun adventure. This one doesn't need as much background information. The only thing you need to know is that two of the Runners went into a house of mirrors, while a third (a not-so-intelligent troll, which made this even funnier for me) stayed outside. The mirror house was, as is to be expected, not a regular thing, and one of the Runners inside got stuck in the illusion-thingy that manifested in the house.

The moment I announced to the player who played the troll that the stuck character stepped outside the house of mirrors was priceless. Shapeshifting (well, Mask in SR4) <3

This might've been one of those "You had to be there" moments, or maybe even a "You had to say it" moment, but believe me, I had fun. Especially since the NPC who did that actually wanted nothing but to mess with the Runners' heads. Well, she also wanted to get them to go away if possible, but mainly she did it "for the lulz".

Hopeless
2012-07-18, 02:48 PM
Doctor Who version:

Have a well-lit dungeon decorated with angel statues.

Make it so that something the players do causes the lights to very briefly go out, after which at least two of the statues are gone.

Start randomly asking for spot checks.

You do realise they don't actually have to move from where they are just simply have them notice that some have lowered their hands from where they were originally covering their faces...

Absol197
2012-07-19, 10:38 AM
You do realise they don't actually have to move from where they are just simply have them notice that some have lowered their hands from where they were originally covering their faces...

Why not have the best of both worlds, and do both?

As for a story to share, I did this to my players in a Desert-based campaign I ran:

Two characters, a pirate and a ninja were both trying to find the same lost artifact, for different purposes (yes, I pitted the pirate PC and the Ninja PC against each other :smalltongue: ). It was an enormous (as in, the size of a person's head) ruby called the Heart of Sand. It was an heirloom to a lost empire known as the Sand Shapers, and was essentially the crown jewel of their Emperor.

Throughout the adventure, I seeded clues to this ruby's incredible powers: according to some, it could grant wishes, give the power to resurrect the sand shaper empire, with the wielder at the helm, or even allow someone to ascend to godhood.

Then, some more sinister rumors: they met some people who said they had gone after the gem, and even found it. But everything that they had used to perceive it in any way had been lost in an accident less than a week later: the guy who touched it lost that hand; everyone who had looked at it had lost their eyes. The new rumor was that, with the fall of the Empire, the gem had become cursed, and anyone who perceived the gem would lose whatever they used to do so.

Eventually, they found the Heart of Sand. Knowing the rumors, they were especially careful not to touch it, or even look at it. They wrapped it in layers and layers of blankets and sheets, averted their eyes, etc.

What did this mystical, ultra-powerful MacGuffin do? Absolutely nothing. It was just a big ruby. The curse was merely a coincidence coupled with poor memory :smallbiggrin: .

EDIT: Well, that's not entirely true. It did do something, but that wasn't an intrinsic property to the gem. To get to the treasure room where it was being stored, the characters had to cross a lake of liquid salt on a rickey boat, underneath a storm that causes powerful lightning strikes that are drawn to magic auras. They had to dismiss all their spells and leave their magic items behind to have a hope of making it. The stone was surrounded in an anti-magic field as long as it was in the dungeon - the Emperors of old used it to transport powerful magic items to and from the treasure room. That's it. Once it left the dungeon, that field disappeared for good.

Vknight
2012-07-21, 01:19 PM
When in a tavern if the parties thief tries to leave in the middle of the night
Hand another player a blank note asking for a perception check and telling them to say nothing.
Then hand a note to another player asking for a stealth check to DC of other players perception.
Results?
A) Nothing happens and you go interesting
B) Have the first player wake up to something breathing on him as a horrific visage is looking at him(Ask if he screams)

AgentofHellfire
2012-07-21, 05:00 PM
So basically, one of my players in a chat RP had developed a bit of a reputation for being a bit crazy. For having a bit of a tendency to act like Miko from OoTS.

This reputation was completely undeserved, I can tell you, but I decided to roll with it one session when, as he broke down a barrier to a tomb the party needed to reach, he'd accidentally killed a rat that went down in there.

It wasn't as good as what I'd planned (having him accidentally have killed a small child) but I felt a little bad doing it, so...

Gligarman2
2012-07-28, 11:39 AM
Funny story. I had a dark tower near a village. It was made of black stone. The PC's learned that evil-gnomes lived there, and, upon torturing one, the PCs learned that a sentient skeleton named the King of Death was at the top of the tower.
When they reached the top, I described the King of Death as wearing tattered black robes, having glowing tattoos on his skin, and standing in a pentagram. After a combat, I revealed that they killed the King of Death, giving my real villain the time to burn the village next to the tower.

Inglenook
2012-07-28, 01:37 PM
This raises the question, though: how did the skeleton have tattoos on his skin? :smalltongue:

Water_Bear
2012-07-28, 03:10 PM
My best 'messing with the PCs' thing ever had to be the "Tests of Ability."

Long story short, the PCs had defected from an evil empire to an order of Paladins of Freedom who opposed them as part of a plot to kill a powerful Sorcerer resistance leader. Because they had, you know, been special forces for the evil empire of the setting, the Paladins required them to complete a series of tests to determine their worth. The 'Tests of Ability.'

My players liked to metagame, and (with a few exceptions) were a little dim, so I decided to mess with their expectations. While they didn't know the content of the tests, they were told their names; the Test of Strength, the Test of Speed, the Test of Endurance, the Test of Intelligence, the Test of Wisdom, and the Test of Heart. They immediately began looking at who had the best scores in each ability.

For the Test of Strength they were brought to a waterfall, and told that they had to jump into the mist. They could hear the crashing of water on rocks, and they decided it was time for a pow-wow; determine how to survive, maybe use spells or ropes to get through it alive (the falling damage would have easily killed about half of the party from that height). Except for the meat-headed Flind and the Paladin, who just ran and lept off.

When the other PCs heard their voices calling out it was okay, their guide explained that the Test of Strength tested the strength of their faith; if they would trust the guide with their life. There had never been any danger, as nets just below the mist kept the jumpers safe from harm.

For the Test of Speed, they were placed on a racetrack shaped like a huge Omega and told they needed to beat a mechanical horse to the finish line. This time, they figured it out pretty quickly; rather than running along the track, they could just cut across the grass and beat the much faster opponent there. As their guide explained, it was a test of their Speed of Thought; as CG Paladins, they value effectiveness more than hide-bound tradition and like improvisation in their employees.

For the Test of Endurance, they had to fight a massive swamp full of trolls. As they 'killed' one, it would sink into the swamp until it regenerated it's hp and attacked again. It took them FOREVER to actually take charge and not let the trolls dictate the pace of the battle; gathering the bodies and burning them while fighting off the ones who were still alive.

Like the other tests, this one wasn't just about slogging theough a fight with their Constitution scores. It was about how they endured hardship; if they took charge and fought back, or just played by the accepted rules. To my chagrin the Players still had not figured that out yet. They still thought 6 'Tests of Ability' meant one test per ability score. Ugh.

For the Test of Intelligence, they had to play chess against a Gold Dragon. In a room full of lava. Since convection works in my games, they were taking continuous fire damage (1d6/round) for several minutes. They probably would have died if they didn't have the intelligence to work as a group; using aid other checks to beat the Dragon's much higher int, and healing magic to keep them from roasting before they won. After all, as their guide said, only an unintelligent buffoon would refuse help to complete their mission.

For the Test of Wisdom, they had to move a massive Sphere of Annihilation across a chamber and through a hoop. This one... did not really have a lesson; I BS'd them something about how the wise solve problems, but it was really a chekov's gun. The Sphere of Annihilation was going to be used by the BBEG Sorcerer to trash the place later, and I didn't want it to seem like an ass-pull.

When the final test, the Test of Heart, came up the players started figuring out who had the highest Charisma score. :smallsigh: Still, one of the players had grown a brain and pointed out that none of the previous tests had been about their ability scores, and were supposed to be lateral thinking puzzles. Finally.

The actual Test of Heart consisted of a locked wooden door, which they had to pass through to complete the test. There was also a small child sitting on a stool near it, with a key around his neck. They asked the kid to give them his key, but he said the Paladins had told him not to give it to anyone. This completely stumped them.

After about 15-30 minutes of in character debate, the majority of the party had decided to kill the child and take the key. To pass a test, so they could join an order of paladins. A test called the Test of Heart. :smallfurious:

Luckily, reason prevailed and the Flind asked if the kid could open the lock for them. Seeing no reason why not to, the kid unlocked the door with the key still around his neck. There was literally only one possible way to fail the Test of Heart; by hurting the kid. They could have broken the door, used social skills or RP to convince the kid to help them, picked the lock, even stolen the key secretly or used magic. But you have to have a pure enough heart not to hurt a child. They barely passed. :smallfrown:

This all took place over one 8-10 hour session, and an in-game week, but it was definitely one of the best adventures we'd ever had at that point. I still count it as one of my favorite bits of DMing, and it really helped lighten the mood after the relentless darkness of the campaign up till then.

TL;DR: It takes a party of ten elite adventurers about five days in game, and their players 8 hours out of game, to figure out not to judge a dungeon by it's moniker.

Kelb_Panthera
2012-07-28, 03:30 PM
Water Bear, that is awesome. I'm definitely going to borrow that one in the future.

hymer
2012-07-28, 03:40 PM
I agree with Kelb_Panthera' sentiment, but I'd like to ask permission to borrow before doing so. :)

Ksheep
2012-07-28, 03:45 PM
Definitely going to use that in my campaign, if that's alright with you.

Water_Bear
2012-07-28, 03:49 PM
If I wanted to keep it secret, I wouldn't have posted the story. Go for it.

One suggestion though; work on your poker face or get a large DM screen. It's really hard to watch your PCs talking about improvising mountaineering gear or getting chased around a room by a Sphere of Annihilation without cracking up and inadvertently giving them hints. I had to bite my tongue soo many times.

Also; don't play for 10 straight hours. It gets absolutely brutal after hour six, and your girlfriend will get really angry when you blow her off to keep playing D&D. Then again, I have no regrets. :smallcool:

Kelb_Panthera
2012-07-28, 04:03 PM
I agree with Kelb_Panthera' sentiment, but I'd like to ask permission to borrow before doing so. :)

Bah. Haven't you ever heard that it's easier to get forgiveness than permission. :smallamused:

hymer
2012-07-28, 04:43 PM
Who needs forgiveness?

On topic: I don't usually mess with my players much. I certainly don't do random things just to do random things (like all those proposals made that have no in-game explanation - I go with Tolkien here, that there may be mysteries in the created world, but there should always be an explanation, even if it's hidden), I'd feel like a moron.

One gold piece in the middle of a bare room (placed there by someone who wants the PCs to burn time). Simple and inelegant.

runeghost
2012-07-28, 08:21 PM
I once ran a module (alas, I can't remember the name or publisher) where they had to pass through a dungeon full of horrible, deadly traps as part of a test. The PCs were mid-level, and had no access to resurrection magic while adventuring. In the very first room a PC died horribly, impaled on spikes at the bottom of a pit trap. When they finally got past that room, they found that their dead companion had been somehow resurrected and restored to full health. Another PC died in the next room's puzzle-trap, and again was resurrected once they succeeded in passing through the room. I made sure to describe each death in excruciating, painful detail.

The catch was that the dungeon would only perform a limited number of resurrections. If the PCs remained wary, and stayed in character (nobody likes dying painfully) they were almost certain to make it through without running out of resurrections. If, of the other hand, they started treating it like a video game, dying willingly rather than figuring out the traps, they were almost certain to run out of resurrections halfway through. Leading to the following scene:

"Where's Bob?"
"Back in the last room, with his head cut off."
"He didn't rez?"
"Nope."
Players slowly realize how screwed they are...

Doorhandle
2012-07-28, 09:01 PM
My best 'messing with the PCs' thing ever had to be the "Tests of Ability."

Long story short, the PCs had defected from an evil empire to an order of Paladins of Freedom who opposed them as part of a plot to kill a powerful Sorcerer resistance leader. Because they had, you know, been special forces for the evil empire of the setting, the Paladins required them to complete a series of tests to determine their worth. The 'Tests of Ability.'

My players liked to metagame, and (with a few exceptions) were a little dim, so I decided to mess with their expectations. While they didn't know the content of the tests, they were told their names; the Test of Strength, the Test of Speed, the Test of Endurance, the Test of Intelligence, the Test of Wisdom, and the Test of Heart. They immediately began looking at who had the best scores in each ability.

For the Test of Strength they were brought to a waterfall, and told that they had to jump into the mist. They could hear the crashing of water on rocks, and they decided it was time for a pow-wow; determine how to survive, maybe use spells or ropes to get through it alive (the falling damage would have easily killed about half of the party from that height). Except for the meat-headed Flind and the Paladin, who just ran and lept off.

When the other PCs heard their voices calling out it was okay, their guide explained that the Test of Strength tested the strength of their faith; if they would trust the guide with their life. There had never been any danger, as nets just below the mist kept the jumpers safe from harm.

For the Test of Speed, they were placed on a racetrack shaped like a huge Omega and told they needed to beat a mechanical horse to the finish line. This time, they figured it out pretty quickly; rather than running along the track, they could just cut across the grass and beat the much faster opponent there. As their guide explained, it was a test of their Speed of Thought; as CG Paladins, they value effectiveness more than hide-bound tradition and like improvisation in their employees.

For the Test of Endurance, they had to fight a massive swamp full of trolls. As they 'killed' one, it would sink into the swamp until it regenerated it's hp and attacked again. It took them FOREVER to actually take charge and not let the trolls dictate the pace of the battle; gathering the bodies and burning them while fighting off the ones who were still alive.

Like the other tests, this one wasn't just about slogging theough a fight with their Constitution scores. It was about how they endured hardship; if they took charge and fought back, or just played by the accepted rules. To my chagrin the Players still had not figured that out yet. They still thought 6 'Tests of Ability' meant one test per ability score. Ugh.

For the Test of Intelligence, they had to play chess against a Gold Dragon. In a room full of lava. Since convection works in my games, they were taking continuous fire damage (1d6/round) for several minutes. They probably would have died if they didn't have the intelligence to work as a group; using aid other checks to beat the Dragon's much higher int, and healing magic to keep them from roasting before they won. After all, as their guide said, only an unintelligent buffoon would refuse help to complete their mission.

For the Test of Wisdom, they had to move a massive Sphere of Annihilation across a chamber and through a hoop. This one... did not really have a lesson; I BS'd them something about how the wise solve problems, but it was really a chekov's gun. The Sphere of Annihilation was going to be used by the BBEG Sorcerer to trash the place later, and I didn't want it to seem like an ass-pull.

When the final test, the Test of Heart, came up the players started figuring out who had the highest Charisma score. :smallsigh: Still, one of the players had grown a brain and pointed out that none of the previous tests had been about their ability scores, and were supposed to be lateral thinking puzzles. Finally.

The actual Test of Heart consisted of a locked wooden door, which they had to pass through to complete the test. There was also a small child sitting on a stool near it, with a key around his neck. They asked the kid to give them his key, but he said the Paladins had told him not to give it to anyone. This completely stumped them.

After about 15-30 minutes of in character debate, the majority of the party had decided to kill the child and take the key. To pass a test, so they could join an order of paladins. A test called the Test of Heart. :smallfurious:

Luckily, reason prevailed and the Flind asked if the kid could open the lock for them. Seeing no reason why not to, the kid unlocked the door with the key still around his neck. There was literally only one possible way to fail the Test of Heart; by hurting the kid. They could have broken the door, used social skills or RP to convince the kid to help them, picked the lock, even stolen the key secretly or used magic. But you have to have a pure enough heart not to hurt a child. They barely passed. :smallfrown:

This all took place over one 8-10 hour session, and an in-game week, but it was definitely one of the best adventures we'd ever had at that point. I still count it as one of my favorite bits of DMing, and it really helped lighten the mood after the relentless darkness of the campaign up till then.

TL;DR: It takes a party of ten elite adventurers about five days in game, and their players 8 hours out of game, to figure out not to judge a dungeon by it's moniker.

Cool story bro. Still, experience has taught me you should not overely on the morals of your players.

Razanir
2012-07-28, 10:44 PM
Doctor Who version:

Have a well-lit dungeon decorated with angel statues.

Make it so that something the players do causes the lights to very briefly go out, after which at least two of the statues are gone.

Start randomly asking for spot checks.

I'm using this, if you don't mind. One question though- How do I block darkvision? Half the team has it, including the Whovian in the group.

The Random NPC
2012-07-28, 10:58 PM
I'm using this, if you don't mind. One question though- How do I block darkvision? Half the team has it, including the Whovian in the group.

Either magical darkness, or the feat Darkstalker. I believe the feat is in Champions of Ruin. Or, I suppose, the statues could be just out of darkvision range.

Ksheep
2012-07-28, 11:06 PM
I'm using this, if you don't mind. One question though- How do I block darkvision? Half the team has it, including the Whovian in the group.

Darkvision can't pierce fog, could use that instead of darkness.

Jallorn
2012-07-29, 12:06 AM
I've got one that I'm currently planning. I've got a campaign setting I'm building that's inspired by V:tM, where Vampires run civilization from the shadows. However, I'm going to convince each player individually that they are the only one who knows this, and that there are in game reasons why they can't tell the other players, and also out of game reasons (I want it to be a surprise, but don't want to entirely blind side them). Also, one of the players (she's already agreed to it, in fact it was her idea) is going to secretly serve the Vampires and be aspiring to become one.

Their first BBEG is attracting them because he's a changeling, and they are universally reviled (also because he's actually succeeding at creating a new faction in a setting where the existing factions make it very hard for newcomers in order to improve their chances of "winning".) Of course, what they won't know is that he's also a vampire.

Silus
2012-07-29, 02:17 AM
Let's see, full list of scares/mindscrewy stuff I pulled on my first 3.P game:

1. Two story, sky blue New England style home, complete with large grassy field and a large oak tree in the middle of Carceri (The layer that's all jagged mountains and swamps).
2. The first floor of the house is lit up by gas lamps and there's evidence that someone was recently there.
3. Front door slams shut and perma-locks when party heads upstairs. Efforts to break it down prove futile. Ditto with windows.
4. Located door behind wallpaper on the second floor. Leads to little girl's room.
5. Impossibly long closet in girl's room.
6. Closet lined with big plush stuffed animals that progressively get more dark and grotesque the deeper you go.
7. Tea party set up at the back of the closet. Attendants are a skeleton (Knife in head, angle suggest that second guest killed them) and a patchwork little girl that seems dead. Girl holds a key.
8. Upon taking the key, the lights go out, they hear a pitter patter of feet, a girlish giggle, and the stuffed animals come alive.
9. Upon killing the stuffed animals and leaving the closet, the door slams shut. Upon opening it, a small floor of blood rushes out. Stuffed animals replaced by body parts hanging from meat hooks.
10. Found second door behind wallpaper. Used key to open, leads to an office.
10A. A previously investigated locked bedroom had a woman in white with white hair and pale skin. Upon second examination, keyhole was covered with a red material.
11. Journal located in office details fall into madness of the father ad his wife and daughter die from mysterious illness. Goes on to describe lengths he went to to get them back including but not limited to murder, reading of eldritch tomes and crude necromancy.
11A. Also makes mention of his wife's albino sister taking up residence in the guest room, then succumbing to the same illness his wife and child died from.
12. While reading the journal, a player's summoned creature was murdered, assumingly by the previously mentioned patchwork girl.
13. Upon heading back down stairs, windows and door are bricked up. In addition, large painting of horrific monsters that was in the dining room is now empty and bricked up, leading players to suspect that it was not a painting but rather a window, and they were being watched.
14. Figure found in dining room tied to chair. Figure released, only to be pulled into the walls by a black amoebic...thing.

End Part 1 of "The Mad House" (A 1408 inspired game)

Keep in mind we were playing with the lights turned down, there was like x8 more descriptiveness, and I had the "Fragment" album by Musica Cthulhiana playing on repeat in the background. By the end of the first proper session, i had 3/5 of the players outright refusing to make spot or listen checks due to fear.

The Random NPC
2012-07-29, 04:18 AM
10A. A previously investigated locked bedroom had a woman in white with white hair and pale skin. Upon second examination, keyhole was covered with a red material.

Been reading the creepypastas, haven't you?

Gnomish Wanderer
2012-07-29, 04:36 AM
Let's see, full list of scares/mindscrewy stuff I pulled on my first 3.P game:

1. Two story, sky blue New England style home, complete with large grassy field and a large oak tree in the middle of Carceri (The layer that's all jagged mountains and swamps).
2. The first floor of the house is lit up by gas lamps and there's evidence that someone was recently there.
3. Front door slams shut and perma-locks when party heads upstairs. Efforts to break it down prove futile. Ditto with windows.
4. Located door behind wallpaper on the second floor. Leads to little girl's room.
5. Impossibly long closet in girl's room.
6. Closet lined with big plush stuffed animals that progressively get more dark and grotesque the deeper you go.
7. Tea party set up at the back of the closet. Attendants are a skeleton (Knife in head, angle suggest that second guest killed them) and a patchwork little girl that seems dead. Girl holds a key.
8. Upon taking the key, the lights go out, they hear a pitter patter of feet, a girlish giggle, and the stuffed animals come alive.
9. Upon killing the stuffed animals and leaving the closet, the door slams shut. Upon opening it, a small floor of blood rushes out. Stuffed animals replaced by body parts hanging from meat hooks.
10. Found second door behind wallpaper. Used key to open, leads to an office.
10A. A previously investigated locked bedroom had a woman in white with white hair and pale skin. Upon second examination, keyhole was covered with a red material.
11. Journal located in office details fall into madness of the father ad his wife and daughter die from mysterious illness. Goes on to describe lengths he went to to get them back including but not limited to murder, reading of eldritch tomes and crude necromancy.
11A. Also makes mention of his wife's albino sister taking up residence in the guest room, then succumbing to the same illness his wife and child died from.
12. While reading the journal, a player's summoned creature was murdered, assumingly by the previously mentioned patchwork girl.
13. Upon heading back down stairs, windows and door are bricked up. In addition, large painting of horrific monsters that was in the dining room is now empty and bricked up, leading players to suspect that it was not a painting but rather a window, and they were being watched.
14. Figure found in dining room tied to chair. Figure released, only to be pulled into the walls by a black amoebic...thing.

End Part 1 of "The Mad House" (A 1408 inspired game)

Keep in mind we were playing with the lights turned down, there was like x8 more descriptiveness, and I had the "Fragment" album by Musica Cthulhiana playing on repeat in the background. By the end of the first proper session, i had 3/5 of the players outright refusing to make spot or listen checks due to fear.

This is great. Creepypasta or not, I fully applaud your actions.

newBlazingAngel
2012-07-29, 08:49 AM
Holy crap. You write all that yourself?

Silus
2012-07-29, 12:18 PM
Holy crap. You write all that yourself?

Yup. And that's only like....the 1/3 point. I'll add the rest later tonight. Things get worse.

Also, I was making this up as I went along, so even I didn't really know what was gonna happen next.

Edit: Also, here's an example of the music that was playing. Link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC2T6Uydfz0).


Been reading the creepypastas, haven't you?

Yup. Figured I needed a few brick-scares and they worked rather nicely on short notice.

Jay R
2012-07-29, 07:08 PM
In a dungeon, I like to have a bat or two flutter by occasionally. It should be heard, then seen.

Of course, at dusk, if they are anywhere near the entrance, thousands of bats should come by at once.

As long as this keeps them nervous, fine. When it no longer works, a vampire or two in the form of a bat can really break the monotony.

Ulysses WkAmil
2012-07-29, 09:07 PM
Put my players down a hallway where every perception check pointed towards a dart trap (holes, plates, control panel, ect). Gnome fails his Athletics check, the holes spew poisonous oatmeal out the holes, forcing them to wade through the gooey crap and lockpick their way out. Into an Ogre den.

Kelb_Panthera
2012-07-29, 09:14 PM
Show your righteous do-gooder party a good fiend. Watch their heads 'asplode.' :smallamused:

newBlazingAngel
2012-07-30, 01:28 AM
poisonous oatmeal

You wouldn't happen to be an animorphs fan, would you?

Ulysses WkAmil
2012-07-30, 03:37 AM
You wouldn't happen to be an animorphs fan, would you?

No, sorry, just thought that Drow-Poisoned [insert food to my right] would be a good kicker. Should I be?

The Random NPC
2012-07-30, 03:59 AM
One of the "weapons" used against the invading aliens was oatmeal.

hewhosaysfish
2012-07-30, 06:07 AM
"Where's Bob?"
"Back in the last room, with his head cut off."
"He didn't rez?"
"Nope."
Players slowly realize how screwed they are...

I was once a player in a 3.5e Tomb of Horrors game. The DM felt that expectation of "disposable characters" from earlier editions wouldn't mesh too well with the players' 3.5-inspired expectations - but on the other hand he didn't want to water-down such an iconic dungeon.

Warning: a couple of small ToH spoilers:

The solution was to put in a magical fountain near the entrance which would give free ressurections for as little as 1gp.
We didn't trust it (for obvious reasons) but the party rogue stole all the gold out of it and we pressed on into the dungeon.
When the party wizard got killed by a fireball-trapped altar we decided we had nothing to lose (apart from maybe the wizard, who was in no position to object) so we thought we'd give it a try.
The wizard duly came back to life with no apparent side-effects but we still didn't trust the fountain and decided to catch a few hapless frogs from the nearby swamp to experiment with the parameters of the fountain.
We found that:
1) The fountain would only ressurect creatures that died in the Tomb, explaining why people weren't flocking to this place from across the land.
2) Creatures ressurected by the fountain would dissolve into a puddle of black slime if their payment was later removed from the fountain, meaning that the rogue had killed hundreds (possibly thousands) of people when he tooks all the gold out of the fountain before and that the wizard would have the threat of the same fate looming over him for the rest of his life.

So we had unlimited ressurections for negligible cost but no-one wanted to use them. We did have to use one though, when the rogue fell victim to a green-slime tapestry.

And then once we beat the fake-Acererak at the bottom of the tomb we found a copy of the deal that Acererak had made with friggin' Asmodeus to make that fountain. And the small print did indeed include a software-EULA-style clause stating that my using the magical ressurection fountain you were implicitly acception the terms of use for the magical ressurection fountain... and there were a few T&Cs that our expirementation with frogs hadn't revealed.

Moak
2012-07-30, 06:10 AM
I was DMing a personal "update to 3.5" of the OD&D module B3:"Palace of the Silver Princess"

For who don't know, everyone inside the castle is petrified, and a strange, red glowing magic corrupted everything, and attracted monsters.

They worked well their way up trough the first level, and climbed up, finding the Doppleganger that is impersonating the High Mage of the Palace. It bluffed away well, expecially because no-one dubted him. He decided to go with'em "to help". Noone fizzled when, during a fight, he said some mumbo-jumbo, made his hand dark and clawed and fighted in front line. He said it was an ancient spell and that he doesn't want to use more "explosive" spell not to damage the place.

They enter in a room, with a fireplace in the end of the room. The Maug of the group (who FINALLY ended te HD+LA and was completed) decided to toss an eye inside. It was invested by flames. A Ibrandlin came out of the fireplace and... well, the Maug died.

It was a construct, so, end of the story.

BUT then, a lamp turned on in my mind.

The "High Mage" examinated the rests and said something about a memory stone that allow to rebuild the poor guy. He made all the group (and the 2 infiltred thief..I've said that there were 2 of them? 2 poor damisel in distress?) to transport all the rests to another room. He said that he would stay there until he finished.

In real, cigarette pause. I take the Maug player by a side and said to him the truth: he will play the doppleganger and he will try to kill everyone else at the first good chance.

When we restarted, it arrived the "Maug", only smaller (medium size), saying something about that part of the material was damaged too much, and that "the Good High Mage" had to reshape him smaller. The Mage? Oh, was sleeping to stay better.

They go on.... but are depleted of hp. They decide to go to sleep.

The player look to me, and nod. He was always the one on guard, beeing a construct and not needing to sleep.

I start from a random player, and I said "make a listen check". He fails.
Then one of the NPC. She fails.

The second, pass. And open his eyes. And he see a 2 handed sword fall on his head. Roll away. Wake everyone with a scream. Destroy the Maug...and found a player dead, and one of the thief dead.

Investigation trough the palace... found the petrified body of the archmage.

They hated me soo much. But...they also remember very well that game, and we joke again on it.

From then up to now...they are MORE diffident on the NPC.

newBlazingAngel
2012-07-30, 05:33 PM
One of the "weapons" used against the invading aliens was oatmeal.

The aliens are biologically driven insane by instant maple and ginger oatmeal. No other kind, just the instant maple and ginger. And that's only one of the worse books.

5a Violista
2012-08-02, 01:53 AM
Ooh! I just had an idea that would seriously mess some players up, especially if you're the kind of DM who frequently uses "Creepy cute little girls that always turn out to be the villain or who turn on the party".

It only works, however, after they get so used to it that they automatically assume that ALL little girls are villains.

Once, then, they are sent on a creepy quest or are sent by a local leader down an evil cultist hideout, or something.

There, about halfway through, they meet an injured cute little girl, in the act of hiding (and she failed her hide check).

The players, obviously, will now assume that the cute little girl is the head villain.

After they complete the quest, and return to the village, a desperate woman runs up to them and asks, "Have you guys seen my little daughter? She was lost/captured/mysteriously disappeared a few days ago!"

Cue the adventurers having to return to the eerie crypt/cultist hideout just to find the little girl.

Then, after that, they'll always wonder if the cute little girls really are evil villains in disguise, or if they're actually cute little girls. Et...voila! You can use creepy little girl villains again.

Water_Bear
2012-08-02, 09:53 AM
It only works, however, after they get so used to it that they automatically assume that ALL little girls are villains.

Ugh. My players are so jaded; I had them run into a cute little girl once, and they almost violated causality trying to kill her. Appearently my concept of "adorable" is the same as their concept of "creepy and obviously evil." :smallfrown:

In all fairness, when they had met her in the future she was a villain, but they didn't know that then.

Doorhandle
2012-08-03, 08:01 PM
Ugh. My players are so jaded; I had them run into a cute little girl once, and they almost violated causality trying to kill her. Appearently my concept of "adorable" is the same as their concept of "creepy and obviously evil." :smallfrown:

In all fairness, when they had met her in the future she was a villain, but they didn't know that then.

Did they make her evil?

Water_Bear
2012-08-03, 08:06 PM
Did they make her evil?

Sort of? She had a pro-Evil upbringing, though she was nice at the time, but they a) introduced her to her husband the future BBEG and b) basically abandoned her (a 12 year old girl) in the wilderness of another planet. So definitely not the sole cause, but a huge push in that direction.

Kelb_Panthera
2012-08-03, 08:20 PM
Sort of? She had a pro-Evil upbringing, though she was nice at the time, but they a) introduced her to her husband the future BBEG and b) basically abandoned her (a 12 year old girl) in the wilderness of another planet. So definitely not the sole cause, but a huge push in that direction.

On the rare occasion that it happens, it's nice when the players unwittingly cooperate. :smallamused:

BootStrapTommy
2012-08-03, 08:42 PM
In one campaign, the first quest was a fetch quest into a random cave. In the cave, having found the item, they were accosted by a small stone which demanded to be skipped. One of them did. They were teleported to a Chaotic plane. There the campaign became something between a series of bad jokes and survival horror.

I keep trying to force them to think outside the box, though most of the time they just ran. In the end they meet back up with the stone (now a giant whirlwind dervish monster) who they fought. They got the idea that by killing themselves, they would defeat the monster.

It was not what I had planned, but I went with it, because its just great when the whole party commits seppuku to defeat the BBEG.

Tantaburs
2012-08-05, 12:50 AM
I set random squares all over a room to click when you stepped on them. Every time somebody stepped on them they would here a noise as if stone grinding on itself. The entire room.was covered in a darkness spell so noone could see .anything. They spent alot of time trykng to find all the trapped squares until they just heard a non stop grinding and a clicking noise. they ran across the room as the clicki ng got louder and faster. wheb they finally reached the end of the room they stepped on a square and the room brightened. it was just a square room. all the trapped squares did was activate ghost sounds.

Maugan Ra
2012-08-05, 01:33 AM
I still remember my first Call of Cthulhu game, where I played a smuggler called Johnson who was, perhaps, the most ridiculously amoral individual to walk the planet. He'd survived through the entire campaign this far by putting capitalistic self interest above such things as morality or sanity. Run into a murder cult ritually sacrificing people? Burn their house down from outside, steal their cars. Teammate dabbling in the occult? Fund him and protect him in exchange for a cut of whatever he learned. Ancient lizard-thing manipulating a young naive victim with dosages of a strange otherworldly drug? Strike a deal with it and start your own drugs trade.

He just did not care that he was utterly insignificant in the face of the universe, because he could still make money in the meantime and enjoy himself. By the relevant point, he owned perhaps a quarter of the international smuggling business and was easily a multi-millionaire. Because hey, if strange old men or mysterious figures are going to pay me a lot of money to ship strange artifacts past customs, who am I to say no?

Anyway, eventually, through various shennanigans our group encountered the avatar of Nylarathotep. Who, being the cosmic bastard that he was, declared that he was basically going to ruin the things we cared most for in life, pretty much for giggles. Everyone else is panicking, but Johnson is surprisingly calm - after all, he only cares about money. Did Nylarathotep steal my savings, or collapse my empire? The GM scoffed at this. Please, he said, remember what you're dealing with. Then he reminded us of the in-game date.

It was early 1929, as it turned out. The GM, via Nylarathotep, caused the Great Depression just to screw with me. I have never enjoyed a game quite so much.

Naturally, Johnson eventually decided that screw this, no one robbed him quite like that. So he called on everything he'd ever learned, conducted a great and dark ritual, and bargained for nameless things beyond to turn himself into the preliminary stages of a god-thing. His eventual intended goal was to get a new form of power, and put himself beyond the reach of even the Crawling Chaos' meddlings.

As it turned out, this was exactly what Nylarathotep wanted me to do. He rocks up out of nowhere, reveals that he has actually been the mysterious benefactor behind a few of my better dealings, and enacts a fail safe built into the rituals in order to turn me into his loyal semi-mortal servant. I very nearly doom the entire world before one of my former teammates rallies all my various enemies and has me sealed away in a bottle under Antarctica.

As it turns out, trying to outwit the Crawling Chaos doesn't really work. Fun to try though.

Kelb_Panthera
2012-08-05, 01:42 AM
I still remember my first Call of Cthulhu game, where I played a smuggler called Johnson who was, perhaps, the most ridiculously amoral individual to walk the planet. He'd survived through the entire campaign this far by putting capitalistic self interest above such things as morality or sanity. Run into a murder cult ritually sacrificing people? Burn their house down from outside, steal their cars. Teammate dabbling in the occult? Fund him and protect him in exchange for a cut of whatever he learned. Ancient lizard-thing manipulating a young naive victim with dosages of a strange otherworldly drug? Strike a deal with it and start your own drugs trade.

He just did not care that he was utterly insignificant in the face of the universe, because he could still make money in the meantime and enjoy himself. By the relevant point, he owned perhaps a quarter of the international smuggling business and was easily a multi-millionaire. Because hey, if strange old men or mysterious figures are going to pay me a lot of money to ship strange artifacts past customs, who am I to say no?

Anyway, eventually, through various shennanigans our group encountered the avatar of Nylarathotep. Who, being the cosmic bastard that he was, declared that he was basically going to ruin the things we cared most for in life, pretty much for giggles. Everyone else is panicking, but Johnson is surprisingly calm - after all, he only cares about money. Did Nylarathotep steal my savings, or collapse my empire? The GM scoffed at this. Please, he said, remember what you're dealing with. Then he reminded us of the in-game date.

It was early 1929, as it turned out. The GM, via Nylarathotep, caused the Great Depression just to screw with me. I have never enjoyed a game quite so much.

Naturally, Johnson eventually decided that screw this, no one robbed him quite like that. So he called on everything he'd ever learned, conducted a great and dark ritual, and bargained for nameless things beyond to turn himself into the preliminary stages of a god-thing. His eventual intended goal was to get a new form of power, and put himself beyond the reach of even the Crawling Chaos' meddlings.

As it turned out, this was exactly what Nylarathotep wanted me to do. He rocks up out of nowhere, reveals that he has actually been the mysterious benefactor behind a few of my better dealings, and enacts a fail safe built into the rituals in order to turn me into his loyal semi-mortal servant. I very nearly doom the entire world before one of my former teammates rallies all my various enemies and has me sealed away in a bottle under Antarctica.

As it turns out, trying to outwit the Crawling Chaos doesn't really work. Fun to try though.

I.... have no words....... for the awsome........ *squeak*

Notreallyhere77
2012-08-05, 12:42 PM
There's not only the four separate fights, but each fight is given a location in space/time that is relative to the other fights, as if the each encounter lines the inside of a hollowed out box. Each fight contains elements of third dimensional gameplay, such as height or depth below a certain point, but the only way to travel between these fights is to move ana or kata to their relative location inside this hyper-hollow box. I'd say that's about as close to fourth dimensional gameplay I can get without some serious overhaul of the combat rules.

Did the PCs end up reversing themselves during this process? I understand that's a risk of moving in four-space.

Also, one thing I did to mess with my players:
I had the PCs mistakenly replace a mayor of a small town with a doppelganger. The plan was perfect, and worked without a hitch, which was surprising given my reputation for twisting plots.
So.
The doppelganger had started by making a deal with one of the mayor's staff, who didn't have a name, but we will call him "Fred" to avoid confusion.
The doppelganger provided Fred with daily doses of drugs to put into the mayor's food, which would ake him forgetful and impatient. This seemed odd to those who worked closely with the mayor, seeing him forget the names and faces of old friends, and suspicions were raised, but nothing overt had happened yet. This went on for a couple of weeks. Enter the PCs, with a caravan, who meet the mayor and see him unable to remember the caravan leader, who has been making trade runs through this town for years. They also notice that the mayor wears strong purfume to cover the subtler smell of alcohol (one of the PCs had scent), which was just a convenient quirk of the man.
The doppelganger, recognizing the inn as the most likely place for out-of-towners to be passing through, had Fred tie him up in a room adjacent to the PCs' room. He (the doppelganger) was dressed in clothing owned by the mayor, wearing the same purfume, but a weaker dose to make it appear it had been days since the last application, and stank of not having bathed for a few days. He got the PCs' attention by knocking on the wall after Fred had left discreetly. He also had Nystul's magic aura cast on him to negate detect magic, while Fred had laced some of the mayor's clothing with illusion magic (harmless unnoticable without magical detection). The players were suspicious (again, I was known to be the bait-and-switch, "save the dragon from the princess" kind of DM), but as they used their amateur detective skills, everything seemed to check out. They confronted the "impostor" in his room, and had him taken to prison by security, while the "kidnapped mayor" thanked them and "resumed" his duties. It was not until after the PCs had left the town that I revealed to them what had actually happened in the form of a letter. Apparently, the doppelganger just wanted to embezzle the sales tax money from the town (the town boasted one tourist attraction - the World's Biggest Brothel) and leave. Fred confessed under pressure, and out of spite for not getting his promised cut, but the campaign ended before the PCs could right that wrong.

I wasn't sure how I wanted the situation to play out, but I wanted to see if the scheme would work in a world where doppelganger kidnappings/replacements were a normal problem.

RandomNPC
2012-08-05, 06:51 PM
In my current game My friend found that his master had been wearing a belt of gender changing for years to avoid a flirtatious ogre.

Then they saved a white dragon from a fire breathing princess (Fire mephit royalty, her family's going to be looking for answers as to who killed her fairly soon)

Now they "go against the Norm" by fighting a home brewed critter named Norm.

Here he is, roughly from memory.
Undead, Ooze. He's got a 10ft attack that does 2d8 and applies spores, and a 25 foot spore attack. Spores hit you with the slow spell for 2d6 rounds.
Fast Healing 3. When a square is bordered by 3 squares of full health Norm, Norm spreads into the empty square. The only way to keep Norm from spreading across the world is to seal him in a dungeon with tightly sealed doors, or destroy the corrupted amulet at the middle, by "Fighting the Norm" all the way to the middle, in the basement of a dungeon the party just propped all the doors open in. Hopefully they don't flee without figuring out how to re-close a door.

So yea, my game is full of oddity and strange puns.

Riverdance
2012-08-05, 11:17 PM
*Convince them to get the house special at a tavern by the name of "The Magic Mushroom." It can result in the following.

Quote:"You wake up in the morning. Your fire is not purple, nor does it show any sign of ever having been, your sheets cannot in fact talk to you as you thought, nor can your doorknob, which appears to be covered in a viscous pink sticky liquid. Vaguely you recall attempting to feed it a love potion."

Sith_Happens
2012-08-06, 08:24 AM
[CoC stuff]

Wow, that is one of the most awesome things I've read in a while.

...As for my newest contribution to the thread, please see the second part of this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=13679056&postcount=1118) post.:smallamused:

Ksheep
2012-08-06, 12:15 PM
Thanks to StumbleUpon, I am really tempted to give my players a fetch quest: a young woman has lost her newborn child. They go on a quest to find it, and after succeeding, they start their long trek back to return the child to it's mother. The only problem? The child is this: www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Baby_of_Wonder_(3.5e_Equipment)
(Yes, I know it's D&D wiki, which really shouldn't be trusted for… well, anything. I just thought it would be a fun joke session)

Doorhandle
2012-08-06, 10:21 PM
Thanks to StumbleUpon, I am really tempted to give my players a fetch quest: a young woman has lost her newborn child. They go on a quest to find it, and after succeeding, they start their long trek back to return the child to it's mother. The only problem? The child is this: www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Baby_of_Wonder_(3.5e_Equipment)
(Yes, I know it's D&D wiki, which really shouldn't be trusted for… well, anything. I just thought it would be a fun joke session)


The baby of WHAT?!... oh ho!

What happens when it grows up, though?

Ksheep
2012-08-06, 11:05 PM
The baby of WHAT?!... oh ho!

What happens when it grows up, though?

Oh, it becomes a normal person. Of course, the trick is getting it to the point where it can grow up. Normal adventuring party would probably drown it within a week…

BTW, I fixed the link. Stupid auto-parse dropped the close paren…

newBlazingAngel
2012-08-07, 12:58 AM
So using that...

Silus
2012-08-07, 01:22 AM
Part 2 of "The Mad House" (First part can be found on page 4)

1. PCs enter the basement, which is dominated by those huge wine-casks. The darkness is almost magical, as it seems to try and put out the player's torches and limits any Darkvision.
2. After going down a dirt tunnel dug out from the basement wall, they enter a small room. Two doors, one set of double doors on the left, one on the right with a pair of tables. There's a body on the closest table. It's a human with the flesh on his arms and legs flayed to the bone up to the joints connecting to the torso (shoulders and groin). Lower jaw has been removed, as have the ears, eyes, and nose.
3. Player prods the body, which bolts upright and screams, or screams as well as a jawless person can. They quickly kill the person. This particularly freaks out one of the players, who was a med-tech in the army.
4. Players go through the door on the right, coming into a room full of glass vats filled with greenish liquid. Horrific, misshapen creatures can be seen floating in the liquid.
5. Refer to the first page of this thread for this little gem.
6. Upon leaving the vat room, the party goes through the double doors to discover a large operating theater/morgue. There are several gurneys with covered bodies on them. Examination of the bodies reveals horrific and barbaric mutilations (so much that a Fort save is needed to not become sickened).
7. Upon entering the door at the far end, the PCs enter a F.E.A.R. style hallway (long, blood oozing from the walls, screaming, medical sounds that increase in volume as the players go along, ect.). Upon reaching the door at the far end, the players are flung back out of the hallway and against the far wall. Opening the door again reveals another morgue.
8. Past morgue #2, the players find a huge clockwork door with a large, bloodstained press and several glass cases of dying animals. Examining a case of dying dogs reveals that while it looks like the mother is nursing her puppies, in truth, the puppies are eating their dead mother.
9. After bypassing the clockwork door (by powering it with blood), the PCs enter an impossibly large room of cyclopian architecture with a large floating book in the center. Just so happens to have The Yellow Sign on it (Nobody in the group was familiar with H.P. Lovecraft). Large double doors on the far end.
10. Upon reaching the book, the players were beset by a Wright in doctor's scrubs holding a sickle, along with ~12 Evolved Advanced Shadows. In unnatural darkness.
11. After beating the Shadows (friggin' Aasimar and their Daylight spells...), they enter the large double doors to find what I describe as a "stargate looking device". The at-the-time BBEG was busy flicking through planes. He spots the party (The guy was that nasty combo of Factotum and Ur Priest) and summons a pair of Fiendish Fire Giants, then jumps into the portal.

End Part 2. It only gets worse from here on.

Firewind
2012-08-07, 10:27 AM
I have one that I have used. It's a simple approach compared to the rest but it brought me an entire 4 hour session of pure joy.

I made a dungeon where every single door is trapped.

Why was is significant?

Rogue: I check the door for traps
Me: You don't detect any traps on this side of the door.
Sorc: What about he other side?
Fighter: Doesn't matter, he trapped the last five doors, what are the chances that he's trapped this one too. I open the door.
Rogue: I stand way back over there
Me: Okay everyone but [Rogue] roll reflex.

This wasn't just me being a jerk either. The dungeon was a clearly abandoned tower that a Gnome wizard used to occupy and he trapped everything in there (which got him killed). the PCs had been warned constantly by the NPCs in the nearby town that it was a deathtrap and people who wander into it never come back. They just assumed that it was an evil wizard kidnapping people and decided to get in there.

It got to the point where they are too terrified to touch anything. The tower itself was empty other than the traps and one dead Gnome. The tower HAD treasure in it but because I had planned for the party to visit it later in the campaign (along with good enough Search skills to actually FIND most of the traps since it was intended to be pretty obvious that the traps were all over the place to someone with a level appropriate Search skill since I was doing a Girad's Gate sort of thing), I had wing it and had the dead Gnome's family give some level appropriate treasure as a reward for recovering the Wizard's remains.

Pokonic
2012-08-09, 12:24 AM
Well, I might sound unoriginal here, with all the hospitals and such, but here is another horror house:

Back-story: Giant complex devoted to healing attracted less-than noble people. Eventually remade as a madhouse. Fifty years after it and the community that surrounded it underwent a "mass lockdown", the house still runs itself. People can still come in. No one comes out.

First off, the PC's go inside this lovely place without much thought. They need to find records about a individual, one who was supposedly related to the main plotline. They walk inside the main lobby, and as it turns out it looks quite good for a place that’s supposedly abandoned. This is a setting where magic is vaguely spread out all over the place, so lights that are some how working in a supposedly haunted location did not surprise the players.

The players enter one of the basic sections of the building, and find out that the building is actually in a strange condition. While most of it is spotless, spots on the walls, ceiling, and floor look as if that, yes, this place has been undergoing the same wear and tear as any other abandoned building. Some pretty white spots on a otherwise grimy and water-damaged wall resembled hand prints from a small child. The bones of a strange creature (Like a cat, but "stretched out" as one PC with the right skills figured out) was laying on one of the grimy spots on the floor.

Eventually, after finding that these spots grow in size as the players go deeper into the complex, they find something interesting. To be exact, what is seemingly a human jawbone fused into the wall, in a position that would suggest a person with their chin up was standing there. The bone flawlessly merged into the clean, untouched spot, and attempts to remove it or the clean spot ended without success. Each and every one of the five video cameras the party brought did not work, seeing as they where out of battery somehow.

Eventually, as they go on in a quest for the "center" of the complex, they find that, rather than water-damaged and moldy, the damaged spots are taking on the look of something that was burnt. Some spots where still smoldering, with many having wisps of smoke coming out. One room that was wholly burnt caused the PC's to be forced to make several checks based on endurance to avoid taking in to much smoke. The one PC who failed that test got a nasty little trip in which the unnaturally clean walls were made of bone and the blackened parts red and oozing foul ichor. She snapped out of it eventually.

They soon figure out that this place is bigger than it was outside, and that they should have long since made it to the center of the building. There attempts to find the map's for the floor plan fail, as each one that they find on the exits are burnt and smoking. They also find more body parts fused to the walls, including a rather fleshy arm, several finger bones, a leg, and what was seemingly the backside of a man. Now, most of the building has switched back to a unnatural clean.

As if to make up for the clean earlier, the building is almost entirely ruined in the next few hallways. It's condition now takes on the worst of the former two versions, with whole hallways consisting of warm, blackened tiles and warped wood almost entirely covered in warm, sooty water. The floor nearly falls under them a few times. The only piece of human they see is a single fleshy torso, without arms or legs that was erect in the center of the hallway. The PC's were relucent to go past it, but they eventually did.

Eventually, they manage to find a hallway with actual rooms. The first one they find is almost entirely normal-ish, besides one little thing: all objects are fused to the floor. Carts are somehow immovable, chair legs are few inches inside the floor, ect. All are immovable. Windows, as it turns out, are not immune to the test of time, as they find out as a PC, who was knocking into things attempting to make them move,punchs one and gets a arm full of glass. Looking outside, they find out that they are only up to the second floor on a fifteen floor building.

Eventually, they get to a place that might have been the lunch area. Mostly clean very few spots that seemed dirty. However, one of the PC's got a strongly high spot check, and got this interesting message:

"You find a strange crease in the floor."

Naturally, the PC pokes it, and subsequently opens suddenly to reveal a mouth. That screams.

That’s the point where the floor, walls, and ceiling deformed in horrible ways to show moving, screaming bodies, with arms, legs, and things not native to humanities body starting to flail in every direction. The walls themselves where pulsing from the movement going on inside, and the same aged spots from before quickly spread across every surface like water. To put it bluntly, the entire room was seemingly a horrific melding of deformed metal and flesh, and it hated the PC's. They quickly ran across the room, seeing that the door they came in through had sealed itself and became one with the pulsing room, and managed to take only a little bit of damage.

They quickly found that the building past that was still a pulsing horror, but not nearly as bad as the first room. However, things like chairs and desks became much like the fleshy abomination that they saw before, and they quickly learned that the difference between metal and flesh ended the moment they walked into the building.

After some encounters with some formerly stationary objects, they manage to actually get there way inside where the files where kept and got the files about the guy. Naturally, they wanted the heck out, and they found a exit near the room.

After nearly sliding on the wet stairs (that had a tongue-like consistency), they start to hear the same screaming as the horror room from before, but louder. After a few stretches of perfectly clean whiteness, they find a door that said "EXIT". The screaming only got worse as they got closer to it.

However, the phrase under that stated, in blood-red letters that seemed to be painted in still-wet blood "A MONUMET TO ALL YOUR SINS", misspelling intended. They walk into the room, and what they saw shocked them, which was surprising considering what they had gone through.

The room itself was massive. Rather than having the same "hospital white" scheme as the other parts of the building, this cylinder-shaped room was almost chrome like. Also, it was massive: it was hardly large in width, but the top was unseeable to them. They also figured out why, out of everything they saw, there was not a single head anywhere in the building. Or, for that matter, why the screaming stopped.

The entire room had heads coming out of the walls, with the whole thing jam-packed with heads each flawlessly sealed into the walls. Each one was looking at the PC's, without saying a word. The players, now slightly tired, where horrified, and on the PC's asked "Why".


At this, one of the heads gave a little chuckle. Soon, others began to laugh, and eventually every head was guffawing at the player's question. Soon, droplets of blood rained down from the unseeable ceiling and the entire structure was shaking slightly, a organic motion for something otherwise wholly metal. Without much more talk (Albeit one of the PC's nearly broke down), they walked outside, past the freakish doors.....to daylight. They actually had spent less than a hour in there, besides the fact that night had passed by since they where inside. The clincher was when one of the PC's looked at the building behind them. It was a normal exit, and the door had a message spray-painted on it.


THERE IS NO WHY, TRAVIS, THERE IS NO WHY

One of the players nearly broke down there (the player who asked the question's charecter was named Travis), while two others needed to use the bathroom. I feel...accomplished.
:biggrin:

Doorhandle
2012-08-09, 02:38 AM
THERE IS NO WHY, TRAVIS, THERE IS NO WHY

One of the players nearly broke down there (the player who asked the question's charecter was named Travis), while two others needed to use the bathroom. I feel...accomplished.
:biggrin:


Oh Pokonic, never change. And never become my D.M. :smallbiggrin:

That last thing there wouldn't creep me out: it would just let me know the entire thing was ****ing with me. Then again, I haven't been through the entire gauntlet first...

Ksheep
2012-08-11, 06:56 PM
I've been planing out a village that "plays by the rules". And by that, I don't mean they're lawful, I mean they use RAW rulings for everything.

For instance, the average commoner will have no idea what race any adventurer of higher than level 10 is (knowledge check being 10 + HD of creature to be identified).
Said commoners will also have a 50/50 chance of understanding what is said right in front of them in a quite room, with it being much more difficult if there is distractions or they are more than 10 feet away from the speaker.
They will also have no idea what the sun or moon is, they can't see the mountains down the road, and would be lucky to even see the forest surrounding the town due to untrained spot checks.
The healer will oftentimes drown patients if they start bleeding too much.
Any ranchers starting out can't handle their own animals a quarter of the time, and they will rarely be able to teach their draft animals to do any work at all.
Commoners will not know general goings on in their own town half the time, and will rarely know anything specific about events.

The Random NPC
2012-08-11, 08:45 PM
I've been planing out a village that "plays by the rules". And by that, I don't mean they're lawful, I mean they use RAW rulings for everything.

For instance, the average commoner will have no idea what race any adventurer of higher than level 10 is (knowledge check being 10 + HD of creature to be identified).

It's worse than that, untrained knowledge checks can't reveal any information above DC 10.

Ksheep
2012-08-11, 09:17 PM
It's worse than that, untrained knowledge checks can't reveal any information above DC 10.

Right, forgot about that. However, one would think that farmers would have at least SOME ranks in knowledge (nature), assuming they had the spare skill points. Of course, other tradespeople would have no idea who or what any visitors are.

The Random NPC
2012-08-11, 09:35 PM
Right, forgot about that. However, one would think that farmers would have at least SOME ranks in knowledge (nature), assuming they had the spare skill points. Of course, other tradespeople would have no idea who or what any visitors are.

Knowledge nature wouldn't help with identifying most PC races, but would help with identifying animals, fey, giants, monstrous humanoids, plants, and vermin.

Ksheep
2012-08-11, 09:46 PM
Knowledge nature wouldn't help with identifying most PC races, but would help with identifying animals, fey, giants, monstrous humanoids, plants, and vermin.

… Yes, of course, I meant Knowledge (local). Sorry, I'm away from my books at the moment…

Kelb_Panthera
2012-08-11, 10:32 PM
I've been planing out a village that "plays by the rules". And by that, I don't mean they're lawful, I mean they use RAW rulings for everything.

For instance, the average commoner will have no idea what race any adventurer of higher than level 10 is (knowledge check being 10 + HD of creature to be identified).
Said commoners will also have a 50/50 chance of understanding what is said right in front of them in a quite room, with it being much more difficult if there is distractions or they are more than 10 feet away from the speaker.
They will also have no idea what the sun or moon is, they can't see the mountains down the road, and would be lucky to even see the forest surrounding the town due to untrained spot checks.
The healer will oftentimes drown patients if they start bleeding too much.
Any ranchers starting out can't handle their own animals a quarter of the time, and they will rarely be able to teach their draft animals to do any work at all.
Commoners will not know general goings on in their own town half the time, and will rarely know anything specific about events.

Some of the things I've read in this thread have been funny, while others have been just plain mean.

This however sounds supremely irritating. I don't think I'd get through an in-game day without razing the place to the ground.


......... seriously, not two stones standing atop one another by the time I left the smoldering ruins.

TuggyNE
2012-08-12, 12:27 AM
I've been planing out a village that "plays by the rules". And by that, I don't mean they're lawful, I mean they use RAW rulings for everything.

For instance, the average commoner will have no idea what race any adventurer of higher than level 10 is (knowledge check being 10 + HD of creature to be identified).
Said commoners will also have a 50/50 chance of understanding what is said right in front of them in a quite room, with it being much more difficult if there is distractions or they are more than 10 feet away from the speaker.
They will also have no idea what the sun or moon is, they can't see the mountains down the road, and would be lucky to even see the forest surrounding the town due to untrained spot checks.
The healer will oftentimes drown patients if they start bleeding too much.
Any ranchers starting out can't handle their own animals a quarter of the time, and they will rarely be able to teach their draft animals to do any work at all.
Commoners will not know general goings on in their own town half the time, and will rarely know anything specific about events.

Everyone will make about a gold piece a week from Profession checks. Also, cats will be feared?

Bonus points if you can come up with a name that will be horrible in hindsight once they shake the dust (ashes?) of the town from their feet.

The Random NPC
2012-08-12, 01:20 AM
Everyone will make about a gold piece a week from Profession checks. Also, cats will be feared?

Bonus points if you can come up with a name that will be horrible in hindsight once they shake the dust (ashes?) of the town from their feet.

Closer to a gold a day, but no one will have any ranks in anything but profession. Easiest way to make gold.

BluesEclipse
2012-08-12, 05:53 AM
I've found that having a BBEG applaud the PCs when they kill a minion is always a good way to unnerve them. Especially if you're playing a Pokemon Tabletop Adventures game where combat is almost never lethal.

Pushing a PC to the point of mental breakdown by encouraging him to kill you is quite enjoyable... :smallbiggrin: