Paranoid Adventurers Thread

[Jaxter Gronaldi]

This thread is for things for things that cause people to become paranoid adventurers, as well as how to trap a base, really anything to do with paranoid adventuring.credit to JAL_1138 for insp

[Jaxter Gronaldi]

No one? Not even advice on trapping my spellbook? 😕

[nickl_2000]

Tip 1: Always make someone else read the message from the bad guy, while you are at least 30 ft away, just in case he "prepared explosive ruins today"

[Easy_Lee]

When in a dark cave, use mage hand to carry a torch 30 feet ahead of the party. That's usually enough warning.

[KorvinStarmast]

Make sure someone is carrying a ten foot pole. Use the pole to poke things you are not sure of.
Trade in that 50' of rope for 50' of silk rope. (The reduction in encumbrance is fine, but it's a matter of style).

[Tanarii]

I assume we're talking about things the DM can do to make players paranoid, not paranoid things players have their PCs do?

Classic recommendations, none of which are actually good things :smallwink:
Roll dice behind a screen, chuckle evilly.
Vague descriptions followed by no save traps.
Use cloakers or mimics.

Some things that almost always seem to trigger paranoia in grognards.
A single gold piece in the middle of an otherwise empty room.
A rabbit sitting on a log. Any rabbit really.
Caves with stalactites but no stalagmites.
A small child*. In a dungeon.
Dark holes just big enough to crawl into, especially in a statue mouth.
Statues in general.
Murky mirror portals.
Nobles with Eastern European accents at an evening ball.
Sentient swords.
Clearly magical belts.

(*ever since MiB I'm tempted to have it carrying physics and calculus textbooks.)

[Jaxter Gronaldi]

Dm things to cause paranoia and paranoid things people have their pcs do are both welcome

[Aett_Thorn]

"You enter a room. It is clearly empty except for a large wooden chest on the other side from you. The door closes behind you." - Have the chest be completely normal, and the players can just open the door whenever they want. But they will spend ten minutes trying to figure out what they should do.

"You cross through the doorway, to find an extemely long hallway. There are torches along the wall, some lit, some not. At the far end, you can just make out another door." - They will go nuts trying to figure out why some of the torches are out.

"You chase the goblin through multiple rooms. Suddenly, in front of you, you see it turn to face you." - Maybe it's just a dead end and he has nowhere else to go. Maybe he found some friends. The players won't know which!

[Hrugner]

"Are you sure?"
"Roll an intelligence check."
"You detect a scrying sensor."
Introduce an illusionist as the main antagonist and use excessive dopplegangers.
Curse every item with typically benign curses.
Don't make every possible encounter beatable so the players are less certain of victory.

[N810]

Mimics...
everything is firkin mimics... :smalleek:

[Waterdeep Merch]

Rule of three. Trap two things, like chests. Don't trap the third.

Rule of three. Don't trap two things, like chests. Trap the third.

Over-description. Describe everything in a room. Menacingly. Then make one of the things you barely described, like the light source, jump out and attack.

Cruel and unusual punishment. Use poisons, diseases, traps, and monsters that have creepy, terrible effects. Gorgons are great for RAW starters. Start moving up to bone breaking, then flesh melting, then soul sucking. Attach a player to a corpse with sovereign glue. Have a floor flip and leave them in pitch black water rapids. Get real creative with your torture.

Unwinnable fights. Try to include one in every dungeon, especially huge or gargantuan-sized things. Let the players know it's there, preferably because of the sound it makes. Now have it move around the dungeon.

Liars abound. No one is what they seem, everyone has a secret. Doppelgangers and succubi are good for beginners. Once you've gotten your fill of that crutch, start giving dark pasts or ulterior motives to every single NPC. Except for the most obvious ones- they're perfectly innocent. Make sure that their deaths lead to tragedy.

Unknowable. Don't explain the real motives of your villains. Give some clues and foreshadowing, sure, but never give enough to actually figure out everything that's happening. Grandiose reveals only occur after the players unwittingly play into their hands. EVERY villain's gambit begins and ends with getting the players to do their dirty work. Don't let the lich destroy the town with an army of undead- get the players to do it, then let them see the horrors they've unleashed. Make sure to pay them for their services over the screams of their victims.

Traitors. Convince specific players in private to act as double agents. Weaponize their backstory, or have NPC's offer them rewards for doing seemingly innocent things. Palm this, convince the party to go there, negotiate with this creature. Make it sound reasonable. Then let whatever it was lead to a dangerous trap for the entire party. Perhaps giving that scroll of remove curse to the orphan with a lycanthrope brother wasn't such a good idea after it turned out the orphan was interested in recruiting new werewolf family members.

Kill players. Don't flinch. Let them have an appropriate chance to get out of your death trap of the week, of course. But if they fail, you will pull no punches and you will take no prisoners. Rogue players should die about every 2-3 sessions on average. Everyone involved should believe that you could kill them at any moment. Because you will.

[N810]

^ ... about a 50% chance you are my DM ... :roy:

[Arvin Natsuko]

Wow, all of what Waterdeep Merch said.

This is gold.

I'm DMing right now, and I already use some of your advices, but thanks for the rest.

[JAL_1138]

Water.

Acquatic monsters are nasty, doubly so if they can grapple well. Wayer can also be poisoned, diseased, or acidic, in case anyone decides they want a drink. Wet gear may be ruined—spellbooks, spell components, and wooden musical instruments don't like water. Rations can get ruined. It's not in the rulebooks, but historically, wet bowstrings don't work well. Thrown weapons are difficult to use, but some can work okay. In older editions, slashing and bludgeoning weapons weren't usable in water. Certain spells may be ineffective, or may have a bigger risk of friendly fire. Verbal components are hard to pronounce underwater. Transparent enemies, water elementals, and water weirds can hide in it. Strong currents or being heavily laden with gear could risk drowning, or at least loss of said gear. Boats and rafts can sink or capsize. Cold water can induce hypothermia. Fire is a nightmare on a seagoing ship. Oil fires spread on water. There are so many ways water can wreck your s#%^, it's often safer to literally take a trip to the Nine Hells than to go near it.

WATER = BAD.

[Hypersmith]

As a DM, my party couldn't believe the worst thing that happened to them at the festival was almost getting pickpocketed.

To be fair behind the scenes the BBEG caught up with them again, and is about to ambush them before they enter the next city, but they don't know that.

[Dudewithknives]

When they meet a new NPC, even if it is just random Mook "A", tell them "one sec let me pull up his character sheet."

Randomly ask then what their bonus is to some save and roll a die and smile and tell them "Ok"

Ask then specifically what they did like it meant something. Ex, "ok, so you shook the guard's LEFT hand... cool."

Have a messenger with a bad cough deliver them a message from some authority figure.

Or my personal favorite, an entire Brothel full of doppelgangers.

[mephnick]

Water.
Rule #1 of adventuring: Never get on the boat.

[Laserlight]

When I want my players to be scared, I give them monsters which aren't in the manual. An old man with a little girl's voice + resistance to most damage types + regeneration + spider climb. A picture of a Nekron Wraith, with no explanation other than "You see this rise out of the ship's hold; it's glowing green." That was only a CR8 monster but they never even attacked it once, just Banished it and fled in panic.

[Xrposiedon]

1) Fake Trap that triggers a real trap. Make the fake trap easy to see, the real trap hard to see. They disarm the fake trap, it triggers the real trap.

2) A DM of mine a while back, made a pitfall fake trap like the one above. The rogue fell in.

---Things of note
-The trap was a 20 foot pitfall trap with permanent darkness and silence spells cast at the bottom of it
-The trap had 1 inch of acid at the bottom, which slowly desolved the boots he was wearing, the feet he had, the knees he once had, etc....over the course of the next hour +. It did 1 point of poison damage / 5 minutes of real time....he died

Our party left the rogue to die for fear of how far down the trap would go, and we couldn't hear any screams past the initial 10 or so feet.

All we had to do was go down to investigate, but we were all too scared...so we left him, thinking maybe we could find him somewhere else in the dungeon.

3) Shapeshifting monsters into NPC's who steer you the wrong way, get you into a compromising situation, and then attempt to murder a PC. Rakshasa is a great example of this....or hags etc.

4) Provide a choice of questing they could go on. Some of which they are probably capable of completing, and some of which they have no business taking part in. Prior to this, let them know that some of these things you are asking of them may be much more dire than they could ever expect....

5) Provide INCREDIBLE clues for things that are REALLY BAD.
Something like a button that says "DONT PUSH THIS BUTTON OR YOU WILL DIE" .....of course that makes anyone paranoid.

6) Take a bit from the movie "Labyrinth" ....2 doors that talk to them. 1 door always lies, one door always tells the truth" ...have them try and figure out which door to go through...if you dont know that scene, just youtube it, its pretty cool.

[Tanarii]

When I want my players to be scared, I give them monsters which aren't in the manual. An old man with a little girl's voice + resistance to most damage types + regeneration + spider climb. A picture of a Nekron Wraith, with no explanation other than "You see this rise out of the ship's hold; it's glowing green." That was only a CR8 monster but they never even attacked it once, just Banished it and fled in panic.
Yup. Nothing scares people quite like the uncertainty of the unknown. I mean, if it's in the manual and they know it's bejond their CR and you flat out tell them they're going to lose, and half of parties will retreat in good order. The other half will attack anyway. But give them something they have no clue about and you'll see actual panic. :smallamused:

Edit : this is what makes reskinning so effective.

[CountWolfgang]

Give them a powerful magic item. Then tell them the aura is too strong to conceal. They will go nuts all week thinking next game you'll send people after them. I had this happen to me and it wasn't even the dm's doing.

[Idkwhatmyscreen]

Misdirection is nice


Roll for a random encounter and tell them they can hear something coming and it will be there in X

It is getting closer

It is getting closer

You can hear it Foul Roar (Graaaarar)

It breaks though the tree line only to get trashed by a random dragon that then lands and starts looking around, roll a stealth check:smallsmile:

[lperkins2]

Misdirection is nice


Roll for a random encounter and tell them they can hear something coming and it will be there in X

It is getting closer

It is getting closer

You can hear it Foul Roar (Graaaarar)

It breaks though the tree line only to get trashed by a random dragon that then lands and starts looking around, roll a stealth check:smallsmile:

Or a random dragon that grabs it and flies away.

My favourite was always the trapdoor pit trap with a gelatinous cube inside, when the trapdoor opens, it also opens one in the ceiling, dropping a second gelatinous cube in on top of the first. Only challenge rating 2, but it is quite likely to kill anyone unaided. The character can make his escape check, but assuming he passes, it enters the second cube. If he manages his escape check again, the only places he can go is down, or up. If he goes up, and the party has dropped a rope down to him, he can get away. Without a rope, he'll just fall back into the cube.

[Demonslayer666]

...
A rabbit sitting on a log.
...

HAHAHA!

That's awesome.

[Tanarii]

HAHAHA!

That's awesome.
I've always wondered if this player paranoia stems more from the wolf-in-sheep-clothing monster, or Monty Python. But it's very real in players around or about my age. :smallamused:

[Aett_Thorn]

I've always wondered if this player paranoia stems more from the wolf-in-sheep-clothing monster, or Monty Python. But it's very real in players around or about my age. :smallamused:

So what you're saying is that this rabbit on a log should be surrounded by bones of long-dead humanoids?