What are the best Mindgames or Misdirections you have pulled on your players?

[flappeercraft]

Just as the title says what are your most entertaining or best planned Mindgames or Misdirections you have pulled on the PC's or your DM in game?

[Daefos]

One trick I've always wanted to try but never had the chance was to give the party a strict time limit, so that they can't hang around to just figure it out, and then have an NPC inform them that a party member has been replaced by an exceptionally skilled doppleganger. No, I will not tell them who.

Obviously gets tricky with spellcasters, and clerics in particular are difficult to impersonate, but it's a nice bit of paranoia for them to know that any one of them could actually be an enemy. And naturally, whichever PC was replaced would turn up fine right after the plot's run it's course. No need to be a total jerk about it.

[Echch]

I once made a bet with one of my players that he couldn't taste the difference between different milk-types.
So he let himself get blindfolded and I had him drink the first three types, but replaced the last with orange juice.

Needless to say, the unexpected acidity of the orange juice had him vomit, as he wasn't prepared for it.

[flappeercraft]

I once made a bet with one of my players that he couldn't taste the difference between different milk-types.
So he let himself get blindfolded and I had him drink the first three types, but replaced the last with orange juice.

Needless to say, the unexpected acidity of the orange juice had him vomit, as he wasn't prepared for it.

Not even D&D related but that is just great xD, Im so pulling that off on a friend player or not

[Jowgen]

Had a party of mostly neutral leaning towards Good players, and had an extremely good-aligned charming half-celestial NPC join them for plot reasons. I had made a point of giving this NPC a whole bunch of abilities and quirks that would cause them to suspect something was up (e.g. Negative Energy based attacks), even while he was being the nicest dude ever.

It was fun to watch the party spend every interaction with this NPC being completely torn as to whether they should accept him as a great friend or treat him as a hidden danger.

[Draco_Lord]

I wouldn't call this mindgames, exactly, but it was a fun moment. The party was going up against a pack of barghests, and they had killed all but one, who made a run for it into the woods. The party had a very lawful good paladin and warpriest, a chaotic good slayer, a chaotic going evil oracle, and an evil witch (Low enough levels that they did not ping evil yet). Anyways the barghest wasn't dumb, and used misdirect on a tree. A paladin had been following their aura runs straight into the tree, and straight away decides that the creature shape shifted. This lead to the party coming together, expect for the witch, to burn down this evil tree. Luckily the witch summoned a water elemental to keep the fire under control, or else the whole forest might have gone up with the way they lit it on fire (They had lots of oil for some reason).

[flappeercraft]

What do you guys think about this one, I secretly capture an NPC ally that I control and replace him with a doppelganger who thereafter is killed by another doppleganger in front of the PC's who is mimicing the person replaced to make a replacement for the replacement of the character. Even if it does not work it will be a huge Mind****

[Inevitability]

The players kept 'adopting' random kobolds into their midst: I guess they thought they were cute?

Anyway, guess what shape the recurring villain took in order to infiltrate the party?

[Necroticplague]

"As you open the door, you see a small, cozy room."
*Description of generic master bedroom*
"The only other visible method of ingress, other than the one you're currently using, is a door with three non-locked doorknobs on it."

Then, proceed to try and design the next few rooms while they're busy arguing over the possible significance of the three knobs, or whether the fact I specified 'visible' means of ingress is significant.

[Cirtona Pox]

I once put a character through a twisty maze with intersections comprised almost completely of 45 degree angles.

Every time the PC came to an intersection, there was always a tunnel that came up to connect to it and this is the actual description.

"You see an intersection. You can go straight or take the tunnel that comes up like this \"

One of them actually looped around so that "the way comes up like this \" put him back in the same tunnel he was in before.

He began to just go round and round the same intersection for a good 45 minutes, always encountering the intersection that has "a way comes up like this \". As long as he didn't go left he would have been in it forever.

He eventually went left once and got out 5 minutes later.

Moral of the story is to always carry chalk in a dungeon.

[Crake]

I introduced a propehcy of the prophet, the player, the protector and the deciever. There were 3 players in the setting, but the prophecy was made about them. They spent the whole campaign arguing about which one of them was the deciever, and never actually got to find out (a player had to move so we had to stop playing :smallfrown: ) but what was actually the case (I told them afterward, down the track) was that there was a 4th NPC that played the whole game with them, but, at some point, he got the vecna-blooded template and was completely wiped from their minds.

[Erit]

"As you open the door, you see a small, cozy room."
*Description of generic master bedroom*
"The only other visible method of ingress, other than the one you're currently using, is a door with three non-locked doorknobs on it."

Then, proceed to try and design the next few rooms while they're busy arguing over the possible significance of the three knobs, or whether the fact I specified 'visible' means of ingress is significant.

Friend of mine once generated a dungeon that had a room off to the side, which held nothing but a giant hole. The party spent half an hour poking said hole to try and figure out what significance it held while the DM sat back laughing his ass off behind the screen.

The hole had no purpose. It was just what the generator had put there. One of the players, my then-girlfriend, never let that go.

[CaPtMalHammer]

Two interesting ones...

1) Had a party roll up two characters. 1 good and 1 Evil.. Started with the Evil ones and had them raid a small town. after a month of playing those characters I had them switch to the good ones and had them hunt themselves down and wouldn't allow any meta game information. Was great watching them find all the things they left behind. the loose ends and clues etc. :)

2) Started a group at level 0 Commoners with 1 hit point and sent them to a school, aka Hogwarts style. In this they had classes each session has six possible classes and they had to only pick 2 not knowing what the reward for taking that class was going to be. Was a lot of fun to see them adapt to their odd array of skills and ability points and build characters out of it. Like the Bard with a Wis of 17 and skill focus-seamanship lol

[Yael]

During a Jojo game I had recently, I had the hirer of the players to be the BBEG in the end. Her stand ability [Megalovania] (some sort of construct companion) had the ability to teleport and create shot lasers, but it had to be close to her user, so she feign her own kidnap. The PCs fought to recover her but she was in the end kidnapped. In the end game, she revealed herself to be the true evil mastermind on what was happening.

Bonus points for having Ragnarok, an organization that was trying to stop the BBEG's plans but were portrayed as the evil team by the very own BBEG. My player's won't trust any NPC now :smallbiggrin: