Funny ways to troll your players for suspense

[Immabozo]

I was running a game a while back and my players were trying to raise money and were looking for side quests. They got into the local thieves guild and an assassins group in the thieves guild. They went for the highest cost quests they could.

Their quest was to "replace" the merchant with the one the thieves guild had groomed. Well, little did they know, a group of dopplegangers were moving themselves into positions of power all across the world.

My players planned their attack carefully. When they got close, I had them roll initiative. When it came "the opponent"'s turn, nothing happened. Then when the got close enough "Everybody roll Will saves!" one rolled a one "Hey! I just needed one fail."

them: "so what happens?"
me: "nothing."

then one of my player got up and said ok, I've had enough for tonight, I'll see you next weekend" and the night was over.

without trying, I built up too much suspense for that particular player that night, hahahaha, it was glorious.

[lsfreak]

If you need a roll, your party usually knows something's up. The solution to this is to make random rolls, ask for rolls, or ask what a player's modifiers are throughout a session. It pulls double-duty of raising suspense and masking when it is that you're actually rolling for something.

I ran a campaign where the big bad was supposed to be slowly taking over to the point the PCs slowly realized anyone, be it random guard, shopkeeper or close ally, could have been dominated, Diplomanced or tricked into being an enemy. But as it turned out, it's really hard to do that well when your players steadfastly refuse any emotional attachment with anyone in the world... including, more or less, their own characters.

[Deathkeeper]

I remember someone here talking about using a sort of Sanity system in a DnD game but had them pull bricks from a Jenga tower instead of having a SAN score upon failed saves and told them making it fall would have terrible consequences.
Of course, when it did fall waaay into the sequence, they freaked out, asked what happens, and he just whispered nothing, I lied.

[The Fury]

Most spells that go "Kaboom" are of the Evocation school. There's one notable exception, at least in Pathfinder: the spell Continual Flame does not go "Kaboom" and is Evocation.
So now you can have a scenario where players are freaked out about a hallway full of what they're certain are Fireball traps. It's really just the automatic lighting.

[Alienist]

If you need a roll, your party usually knows something's up. The solution to this is to make random rolls, ask for rolls, or ask what a player's modifiers are throughout a session. It pulls double-duty of raising suspense and masking when it is that you're actually rolling for something.

I ran a campaign where the big bad was supposed to be slowly taking over to the point the PCs slowly realized anyone, be it random guard, shopkeeper or close ally, could have been dominated, Diplomanced or tricked into being an enemy. But as it turned out, it's really hard to do that well when your players steadfastly refuse any emotional attachment with anyone in the world... including, more or less, their own characters.

Classic DM mistake. As DM it's absolutely not your job to tell the players who they care about.

When they do start caring about NPCs it's usually not the ones you would have thought of either.

[Alienist]

Most spells that go "Kaboom" are of the Evocation school. There's one notable exception, at least in Pathfinder: the spell Continual Flame does not go "Kaboom" and is Evocation.
So now you can have a scenario where players are freaked out about a hallway full of what they're certain are Fireball traps. It's really just the automatic lighting.

Nice. Make whoever casts detect magic paranoid. Heh. This works in 3.5 too. :D

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/continualFlame.htm

[Lightlawbliss]

right before the fight say: "oh, I need to roll the loot" followed by behind the screen rolls and a few comments about the rolls (not necessarily accurate comments). All this on a fight you KNOW they will run from or not get to loot.

[Medic!]

I remember someone here talking about using a sort of Sanity system in a DnD game but had them pull bricks from a Jenga tower instead of having a SAN score upon failed saves and told them making it fall would have terrible consequences.
Of course, when it did fall waaay into the sequence, they freaked out, asked what happens, and he just whispered nothing, I lied.

Just had to say...I love this....I love this idea so much I wanna play spin the bottle with it, take it into a closet, and put my high school class ring on its idea-finger <3

[lsfreak]

Classic DM mistake. As DM it's absolutely not your job to tell the players who they care about.

When they do start caring about NPCs it's usually not the ones you would have thought of either.

I knew I couldn't make them care about certain ones. I was hoping there'd at least be a few they liked. But over the course of the campaign, of the 200 or so NPC's they interacted with on any level above sticking a sword in, there wasn't one they reacted with, hey, I kinda like this guy. It ended up being half a step up from MMO-style quest grinding, with just enough fluffy stuff to keep me from going crazy.
/offtopic

[Azoth]

Not my greatest troll moment, but a good one. I have a habit of playing music during big fights, and my party has learned to guage the difficulty by what is playing. I noticed this, so before they opened a door I asked for a pause so I could set up the music. Cue me playing One Winged Angel (Sephiroth's Theme for those who don't know).

My party started instantly buffing to the gills because of some "ominous feeling" IC, and going over item inventory, making up a battle plan and the whole 9.

They bust open the door and find an empty store room with food and generic supplies. When they all turned at me with a look of F*** THE WHAT!!!!????!!!! I just shrugged and said that I had had the song stuck in my head all day and was hoping that listening to it would get it out of my head.

[Pink]

I remember someone here talking about using a sort of Sanity system in a DnD game but had them pull bricks from a Jenga tower instead of having a SAN score upon failed saves and told them making it fall would have terrible consequences.
Of course, when it did fall waaay into the sequence, they freaked out, asked what happens, and he just whispered nothing, I lied.

Thirding this. I am so going to steal this idea and do something with it.

[nedz]

Most spells that go "Kaboom" are of the Evocation school. There's one notable exception, at least in Pathfinder: the spell Continual Flame does not go "Kaboom" and is Evocation.
So now you can have a scenario where players are freaked out about a hallway full of what they're certain are Fireball traps. It's really just the automatic lighting.

Naah, the first two are Continual Flame; after that Fireball.:smallbiggrin:

[Dlkpi]

I like to occasionally ask my players random questions about their equipment ("Hey, you guys are all wearing shoes, right?"), give them vague instructions ("Oh, by the way... let me know next time you touch another member of the party") and occasionally chuckle softly to myself while making concealed rolls, or staring at a player, grinning, and saying something like "oh my, that's interesting". Of course, what makes it work is occasionally it actually means something (the guy who I asked about touching people didn't notice a trap and got contact poison on his gloves).

[EyethatBinds]

My favorite trick is one I can't use in my games anymore. Have a metal plate with a hand print or indent laid into it near any door in a dungeon. Have the words "Only the pure of heart may pass" engraved on the plate above the hand print.

Make this a shocking grasp trap and watch hilarity ensue as the party tries to figure out who is the most pure in the group.

I normally also leave the door unlocked so once everyone has tried and fried, they push on the door to have it swing wide.

[Yael]

Illusions... Go Illusions~~