Good DM Pranks

[Totally Guy]

Things I'd love to do if I were the DM.

Introduce a town with hyperinflation such that the currency the PCs have loses value each stop until deciding the currency has collapsed or the PCs try to adopt a primary bartering system.

I'd introduce a magic sword in a stone that when pulled out mysteriously says the hero's name on it. That would be the magical property, the sword displays the weilder's name. It would take them forever to figure out that it's not destiny or even a plot point.

I'd introduce monsters by completely different names. Yes, you see a little monster man, you recognise it as an Urpney.

Then once that's going on I pull the Gazebo trick. You look through the keyhole to find that your view is blocked by a plated escutcheon (http://www.hardwaredirectuk.co.uk/dooraccessorieshtm/esctcheonshtm/esctcheonshtm3.htm) on the other side!

And that's why I don't DM.

[Hal]

Just giving them minor magical trinkets can be amusing in and of itself. They will assume, because you specially made it and gave it to them, that it holds some secret to solving a puzzle in the future. You'll then be surprised by how long they hold on to it, and the creative uses they will try to find for it.

Also good, I printed out a road sign that cautions rock slides in the area. Anytime my guys are getting too silly or off track, I just hold it up. It tends to bring things back on track :smallbiggrin:

[sikyon]

Introduce a town with hyperinflation such that the currency the PCs have loses value each stop until deciding the currency has collapsed or the PCs try to adopt a primary bartering system.

Doesn't work with a precious metal-backed system. But interesting idea still.

[Meat Shield]

Glug, that magic sword one is just EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVVVVVVVIIIIIILLLLLLL! I'm so gonna use that! :smallbiggrin:

[FireFox]

Randomly give one player a voice in their head that sgguests bad ways to do things. "Trust me, there's no waythat door can be trapped, go through it."

[SoD]

One thing I saw on the boards: have them involved in a murder case:

They stay at a tavern overnight (where else would they sleep?) somewhere in the wilderness, while they sleep, a guy sent to assassinate another guy screws it up...the magic dagger ends up (after a struggle) in the fireplace. The screams after the attempted assassination wake the players, who, of course, go down and kill the attempted assassinator. They hear that his magic dagger, after getting thrown in the fire, did something strange, and, a quick glance out the window, shows: they can't see the wilderness, but there's some strange glowing aura surrounding the place, out to a hundred feet or so. It is slowly shrinking, this should be obvious after a few minutes. Have an NPC go out, and touch it, the guy instantly disapears, with a loud BANG! No trace of him. The players can't escape, in ANY way, watch them getting more and more desperate, until, finally, they find out the hard way: touching the shrinking aura makes a loud BANG, and you appear, unharmed, on the other side. When the aura shrinks to nothingness, it leaves no trace.

[MorkaisChosen]

I'm planning chasing a caster/rogue through some sewers. Cue the following:

"You see some writing scrawled on the wall."

If they read it?

"It, says, "I prepared explosive runes this morning." Reflex saves!"

Also, Mimics.

[FlyMolo]

I'm planning chasing a caster/rogue through some sewers. Cue the following:

"You see some writing scrawled on the wall."

If they read it?

"It, says, "I prepared explosive runes this morning." Reflex saves!"

Also, Mimics.

Remind me of that article about the most silly DnD monsters. The fake beholder that explodes, the walls, floor, and ceiling that are all monsters.

And aboleths. They rule for pranks. Will saves for touching anything!

[skeeter_dan]

That "magic sword" idea is brilliant and absolutely mean. I love it.


Just giving them minor magical trinkets can be amusing in and of itself. They will assume, because you specially made it and gave it to them, that it holds some secret to solving a puzzle in the future. You'll then be surprised by how long they hold on to it, and the creative uses they will try to find for it.
I have the opposite problem in my campaigns...my players can't wait to get rid of plot-centric items for some cold, hard cash...

[valadil]

I introduced my thieves guild game by having a recruiter for the guild meet with each PC and then arrange a meeting for the whole group to bring the players together. The recruiter showed up 30 minutes late after I let the group sit there staring awkwardly at each other.

In that same game the wizard's familiar got in a romance plot with an enemy's familiar.

One of the group's allies was drowned and then pickled in a vat of horse piss (yes, I ripped off Locke Lamora for that one). Another ally was stuff full of hard candy, suspended from the ceiling, and beaten by a svirfneblin with a stick. Who knew that deep gnomes liked pinatas?

I had a wizard PC who was a very subservient apprentice. His master kept him on a leash and harness. The master rode along on a floating disk as the PC dragged him.

My grandest GM prank however took place in my first game. I had a problem. I wanted a small group since I was a new GM, but the players were adamant we had a 5th player. One of the players wanted to be insane and opted for manic depression. I opted to make him schizophrenic too (since it had always bothered me that characters in RPGs knew they were insane and could easily dismiss or run with the insanity as desired. I wanted to run a schizophrenic character where even the player didn't know he was schizophrenic).

So I invented another player. I called him Jason. He was a friend from college who would be joining the game. His character was friends with the schizo character. On the first day of game I pretended to get a phone call from Jason and learned that his car broke down and he wouldn't be able to make it. He was never able to replace the car all summer, but I told the PCs that I was running his half of game separately as he was an entity in the world too. The insane character was to communicate with his friend by letter (the game world had an intricate postal system) so they could keep up to date on separate plots. In actuality, Jason's PC lived inside the other one's head (think Tyler Durden) and acted in his sleep. The players knew something was up the whole time, but didn't figure it out until the very last session.

So not only did I make a PC schizophrenic without the PC figuring it out, I also lied to the players and told them they had a 5th person playing and they bought it.

[Meat Shield]

Valadil, if you ever run a PbP game, I expect to be notified.

[DraPrime]

I once had every NPC run screaming whenever they saw the paladin. It took him forever to figure out that it was because he had a really ugly bug on his face. But to get that information, he captured, and tortured a peasant into telling him what was wrong. Since he was torturing, he lost his paladinhood. And that my good people, is how you make a paladin fall by putting a bug on his face.

[nargbop]

Lots and LOTS of fun with cursed items. Or, heck, items that are not cursed but merely very problematic. The latter is more fun, as the PCs can't get rid of the problems but sometimes make clever things out of them. EXAMPLES!
The Sword of Great Justice - +5 everdancing greatsword. Make it available obnoxiously early to your party, say, level 10. The sword is sentient but does not communicate until it notices unlawful activity (according to the laws of the place where and when it was made) and starts screaming "For Great Justice!" and leaps to attack whoever did it. Little old lady gets attacked in your eyesight? Screaming righteousness! Underpaid the sales tax on that chicken dinner? Screaming righteousness! The sword side-slaps the perpetrator , doing nonlethal damage until she is pummelled to unconsciousness or she admits her guilt.
The Book that Lies - an intelligent evil item that rewrites itself according to the situation. It gives divination information. It seems downright helpful until there's a cusp, some important event that might kill you or ruin your reputation. The information presented to different characters ("I pass Grunkthor the book so he can read it too") might be subtly different so that parties with imperfect communication work against eachother. The Book that Lies is great heap fun.

[Dr Bwaa]

These are great. Somewhere else on here someone mentioned a Wand of Create Wands (or as I've titled it in my head, the Recursive Wand). I gave one to my players last session and they've put it/them to a tremendous amount of use already (instant bonfire! Everburning Torch (sort of)!).

In the same vein (probably from the same place), this exchange:
PC: I'm rolling Search to see if the door is trapped... 29
DM: You don't find the trap.
PC: ...
DM: The trap both exists and does not exist until you open the door! :smallbiggrin:

[valadil]

Valadil, if you ever run a PbP game, I expect to be notified.

Can do, although I have to admit I don't see myself doing this in the foreseeable future. Maybe once my ajax based battlemap is complete.

[Meat Shield]

Can do, although I have to admit I don't see myself doing this in the foreseeable future. Maybe once my ajax based battlemap is complete.

Anytime (Battlemap sounds interesting too). All I know is those hooks were made of win. Need to get that in my home game, my poor players....

[Rowan Intheback]

I had my players make listen checks when role playing around the campfire. I told them they heard a large group of creatures approaching that they could guess would arrive in three rounds. When the deer arrived and quickly ran away the players realized that they were jumpy and had wasted all their good buffs for the day. When the beholder and his purple worm minions showed up an hour later that all nearly died.

In the same campaign I had the players staying in an Inn called "The Zeitgeist." They did not realize until the last session that the inn along with the rest of the city block was a Zeitgeist from Cityscape.

[Hal]

Cursed items only work well if there's no cleric to cast "Remove Curse" or you rule that the curse can't be undone that way.

I let my players into an abandoned mages' tower where there was a very obvious trap covered in cursed objects. Knowing the cleric had Remove Curse prepared, the fighter said, "What the heck?" and just grabbed all of them. Subsequently, he was "gifted" with a -2 sword that he couldn't help but draw, a helmet which turned his armor neon pink (glowing, too), an amulet of gender bending, a ring which turned all of his speech into gibberish, and another ring which made him 4x as hungry.

Granted, he went through 3 days worth of rations before the cleric removed that last ring, and one of the NPCs started hitting on him, but otherwise it felt like wasted effort.

[TheCountAlucard]

In one cave the PCs entered, they encountered a sword in a stone. What they didn't know is that the sword was sovereign glued in place in the rock, with a permanent Magic Mouth on the sword itself. Anytime someone attempted to move it, it was programmed to say, "Only the True King may pull this sword from this stone." When the first tried and failed to pull it free, they were certain that it was a plot device, and everyone tried to take 20 to pull the sword free. After that failed, the Dread Necromancer summoned a few Ogre Zombies to bash it free by sundering the stone. Sadly, even the ogres couldn't fully break it down, so when they left the dungeon, they were carrying a sword encased in a thirty-pound lump of rock, and it was constantly reminding them that they were not the True King.

[HoopyFrood]

I heard of a campaign in which there was an NPC named "Sir Robin". Sir Robin was a hero of the people, a vanquisher of great evils or so it was said.
When the PCs defeated a major villain, weren't they surprised when the feat was immediately attributed to Sir Robin!
Everything good and visible that they did always wound up in one of the tales of Sir Robin, but of course, if they killed him, they would become the murderers of Sir Robin, hated and marked by the entire populace!

[Lord Tataraus]

I heard of a campaign in which there was an NPC named "Sir Robin". Sir Robin was a hero of the people, a vanquisher of great evils or so it was said.
When the PCs defeated a major villain, weren't they surprised when the feat was immediately attributed to Sir Robin!
Everything good and visible that they did always wound up in one of the tales of Sir Robin, but of course, if they killed him, they would become the murderers of Sir Robin, hated and marked by the entire populace!

That...is...amazing! *swiped*

[Chronos]

I had my players make listen checks when role playing around the campfire. I told them they heard a large group of creatures approaching that they could guess would arrive in three rounds. When the deer arrived and quickly ran away the players realized that they were jumpy and had wasted all their good buffs for the day. When the beholder and his purple worm minions showed up an hour later that all nearly died.Not quite the same thing, and not quite a prank, but I started an adventure as DM, with the players sitting around a campfire:

"You hear a sound like someone running through the woods towards your clearing."
"About how far away is it?"
"Right now? A couple hundred feet."
"OK, I'll wait until it gets close enough to the fire to see."
...
"It sounds like it's about 50 feet away now."
"How far does the light from the fire reach?"
"About 60 feet."

Turns out that the Plot Hook running towards them was a kid from an elven encampment off in the woods which had gotten ambushed by the villains. He only escaped because his older sister had cast Invisibility on him and told him to run. He saw that there was an elf in the party and decided to trust them, but he didn't know how to dismiss the invisibility spell.

[chevalier]

Anthing that plays upon the player's paranoia, and/or belief that anything different or unusal has to be significant is AWESOME and a great way to frustrate them...in a good way, of course :)

I once had a floating, glowing blue orb in a large alcove in a dungeon, for not particulary reason, other than being a red herring. I didn't stat it out, but I made it immovable and industructible; in other words, it did nothing but float there and glow, and you couldn't break it or move it or do anything to it (but stand on it.) The players spent an hour of real time hitting it/casting it/attempting open or disable device on it, etc, and expended the following resources:

1 remove curse spell
1 knock spell
1 potion of bull's strength
1 +1 longsword (keep hitting something against an indestructible object, and yeah, I'll roll to see if your favorite sword breaks.)

To this day, when the players see something unusual--a random dead body or unusual item or what have you--they ask "is C. just trying to blue-ball us again?"

[Dragoon]

My first session with a new group, I had warned them that some of the random encounters maybe over their heads. A flight of Copper Dragons were migrating (later plot point) overhead. So I start describing the dragon, and before I tell the color, every single player says to the effect, "I roll a hide check." I stopped the description and watched one player freak out from roll 1. I finish my description with the copper dragons pass-by, ignoring you. It worked especially well since I had hinted that I needed the large dragon mini for the session.

[senrath]

My first session with a new group, I had warned them that some of the random encounters maybe over their heads. A flight of Copper Dragons were migrating (later plot point) overhead. So I start describing the dragon, and before I tell the color, every single player says to the effect, "I roll a hide check." I stopped the description and watched one player freak out from roll 1. I finish my description with the copper dragons pass-by, ignoring you. It worked especially well since I had hinted that I needed the large dragon mini for the session.

Was the whole "over their heads" and "migrating overhead" an intentional joke, or was that an accident. Either way it made that much funnier :P

[Thufir]

Randomly give one player a voice in their head that sgguests bad ways to do things. "Trust me, there's no waythat door can be trapped, go through it."

We had that a couple of times, except in our case the voice in their head was a friend who was watching the session, because at the time they were working on our D&D nights. It was very amusing both times.

[Dragoon]

Was the whole "over their heads" and "migrating overhead" an intentional joke, or was that an accident. Either way it made that much funnier :P

Lucky accident.

[Terraoblivion]

Just a quick comment, Sikyon. Systems backed by precious metal can also experience hyperinflation, it merely takes a large influx of said precious metal. One of the major causes of the breakdown of the Spanish Empire was the economic crisis brought on by Latin American gold and silver. The real reason that precious metal backed systems rarely experience hyper inflation is that the growth in the supply of precious metals is rarely large enough. However, if enough adventurers run out and kill dragons and haul their treasures away hyperinflation is just what you will get in an isolated economy like those of many D&D worlds.

As such it is not just a valid, but really fun prank to pull on the players when prices start rising. And the best thing is that they have nobody to blame but themselves.

[GoC]

Just a quick comment, Sikyon. Systems backed by precious metal can also experience hyperinflation, it merely takes a large influx of said precious metal. One of the major causes of the breakdown of the Spanish Empire was the economic crisis brought on by Latin American gold and silver. The real reason that precious metal backed systems rarely experience hyper inflation is that the growth in the supply of precious metals is rarely large enough. However, if enough adventurers run out and kill dragons and haul their treasures away hyperinflation is just what you will get in an isolated economy like those of many D&D worlds.

As such it is not just a valid, but really fun prank to pull on the players when prices start rising. And the best thing is that they have nobody to blame but themselves.
In fact make the cause of the influx a wizard who is using Polymorph Any Object to turn his Walls of Iron into gold!
Needless to say every commoner/expert/aristocrat wants him dead but aren't powerful enough to do so. They will attempt to convince the PCs to aid them with anything (including their created gold).

[shadow_archmagi]

For deep cruelty, theres always the Phylactery. I've always wondered if there was a way for non-liches to get a Phylactery, just so I could have a persistant enemy other than an undead spellcaster.

Another great cruelty is very large birds. Up... then down.

But for sheer prankiness, I liked the castle which, after blasting their way in and nearly being eaten by the Hydra, had the feature of disabling its defenses for those who asked nicely.

[ahammer]

Just a quick comment, Sikyon. Systems backed by precious metal can also experience hyperinflation, it merely takes a large influx of said precious metal. One of the major causes of the breakdown of the Spanish Empire was the economic crisis brought on by Latin American gold and silver. The real reason that precious metal backed systems rarely experience hyper inflation is that the growth in the supply of precious metals is rarely large enough. However, if enough adventurers run out and kill dragons and haul their treasures away hyperinflation is just what you will get in an isolated economy like those of many D&D worlds.

As such it is not just a valid, but really fun prank to pull on the players when prices start rising. And the best thing is that they have nobody to blame but themselves.


before I was with the group im with the gm had run a game where one of the npc army we taking all the copper to coat there ships with (not sure why must of thoght it would look cool. )

anyway this lead to gold being a lot more common and copper being being worth alot.

this lead to the pc raiding dragon hords for copper and leaving the gold behind as trash metal becuse it was to heavy for the cost you would get for it.

[Farmer42]

I was running a circus themed campaign last year, where two PCs were bards, another was a Beguiler, then we had a barbarian and a monk/drunken master. They were employees in Montebank Python's Magical Flying Circus (they had a soar whale and everything). The PCs ultimately had to slay an evil wizard and free the mage who had been polymorphed into their pet Armadillo. That was the single most sane and normal aspect of the campaign. The two bards were constantly trying to get action, the beguiler was a hibachi chef/acrobat, the monk tried to stay drunk as often a possible, and the barbarian was a walking target for the other characters.

As you can imagine, weird things happened to the PCs nearly constantly. Montebank (Secretly Olidamarra) would have them do small jobs, and they had "normal" circus jobs as well. Well, one night, while the bards and the beguiler were out cavorting, the barbarian got bored, and decided to wrestle the circus lion. The circus lion who had eaten the lion tamer earlier that same day. He didn't have the proper knowledge skills, so he just knew the lion was bigger, meaner, and slightly more boney than a normal lion should be. So, me as DM didn't want the player pissed, but had already established that said lion was a dire lion. Instead of just mauling him dead (he was lvl 5, and poorly equipped) I only lightly mauled him for the first two rounds. He still didn't want to back out, even though it was apparent that the lion was winning. I ended up pulling a god card, and Monty pulled his butt out of the fire and gave him mop duty for the week.

Meanwhile, in town, the bards kept getting between each other and their goal of getting attention (they were different genders) and the beguiler, a whisper gnome, went home with the chaos gnome of his dreams. Cue the next morning, we have a monk with a hangover, two bards seriously in need of some relief, and a beguiler naked, manacled to the bed in a room with absolutely no cloth in sight. It took the beguiler almost an hour to remember he had knock, then began his desperate naked run back to the ship. Good times.

[Hal]

Meanwhile, in town, the bards kept getting between each other and their goal of getting attention (they were different genders) and the beguiler, a whisper gnome, went home with the chaos gnome of his dreams. Cue the next morning, we have a monk with a hangover, two bards seriously in need of some relief, and a beguiler naked, manacled to the bed in a room with absolutely no cloth in sight. It took the beguiler almost an hour to remember he had knock, then began his desperate naked run back to the ship. Good times.

So why didn't the bards . . . you know . . . inspire a bit of competence in each other?

[TheCountAlucard]

For deep cruelty, theres always the Phylactery...

DM: You find a shiny phylactery...
P1: I smash it!
DM: ...of faithfulness.
P1: Dang!

[Farmer42]

So why didn't the bards . . . you know . . . inspire a bit of competence in each other?

They were competing. The real joke is that every other character managed to find a companion over the course of the campaign, but they just couldn't do it. They were about to once, but the barbarian started a bar fight, and the whole place just turned into a general melee. It was kind of funny, especially since I had actually set it up for them to succeed. Unfortunately, they decided to perform the tale of the barbarian's wrestling match, which made him surly, someone laughed at him, he threw a punch, and it all just degenerated from there. On the plus side, they did pick up a young roadie/apprentice while fleeing the scene.

[FlyMolo]

They were competing. The real joke is that every other character managed to find a companion over the course of the campaign, but they just couldn't do it. They were about to once, but the barbarian started a bar fight, and the whole place just turned into a general melee. It was kind of funny, especially since I had actually set it up for them to succeed. Unfortunately, they decided to perform the tale of the barbarian's wrestling match, which made him surly, someone laughed at him, he threw a punch, and it all just degenerated from there. On the plus side, they did pick up a young roadie/apprentice while fleeing the scene.
This is excellence par excellence.

For pure messing with your players, sending them on a mission to the South Pole(or equivalent) and having them fight fire elementals probably would be funny. Prepping and casting Resist cold, Fireball, etc etc.

[Brauron]

In a friend's game, a side-quest encountered was That Freakin' Bird.

The bird was a black-feathered, flightless creature, similar in shape to a roadrunner, though roughly Emu-sized. It's AC was "Lulz" as was it's HP. It's base speed was five feet faster then the fastest member of the party.

The PCs had to chase it and catch it after it had been let loose, in order to prove their worth to a clan of Lizardfolk so that said Lizardfolk would lead them to a temple that would give them information yada yada yada.

The entire party nearly died at one point or another chasing this bird, which is intelligent enough to silently mock them the entire time. Example: The Ranger/Barbarian tries to leap from the shore to a log the Bird is riding down a river. Fails, lands face first in shallow water right in front of the log the bird is on. As it passes by, the bird gives him a single peck on the forehead, and as the DM described it, "It does no damage, but it's a Critical Hit to your dignity."

Eventually the party figured out that they had to use reverse psychology to lead That Freakin' Bird back to the village.

[Allis]

it seems Freakin' birds are a lot of fun... I once had my party followed by a large, featherless carnivorous bird. It was a wheel of time campaign, and the bird was an exotic animal from the emire over seas. It had escaped his owners, but was now loose in a foreign world, alone and hungry. These birds are vey good in tracking, so it causiously followed the party for a few days before trying to get to the food rations and the hunting game.

So the party spotted bits and parts of the bird for a few days. Rushling of trees, a glimpse of a tail in the bushes, and large, gleaming eyes in the moonlight (being a mostly nocturnal bird, his eyes are huge compared to the rest of him). I made it as ominous as possible, had them throwing spots, listens, the works. Even a few will-saves, int checks. They were quite freaked out. The fighter of the bunch couldn't take it anymore one night and lunged at the enomous eyes one night...

They managed to capture it and keep it as a pet, but it hated the fighter and kept pecking at him whenever he had the chance. It would do as they would ask, exept at the most crucial moments... It was a fun bird.

[Yahzi]

The best prank a DM ever pulled on on us was this: We had to play BlackJack with the devil for some reason - whoever lost would die instantly. So he passed around a deck of cards and had us all shuffle it. Then he took it back, did some more color commentary, and dealt out the hands.

The Devil gets a King and Queen - 20. We're all like, "no way! we're all gonna die! Time to make new characteres!"

Then I look at my hand - Ace/10 - 21! I say to my fellow party members, "Sorry guys... looks like I'll be the only one staying." Meanwhile, they're saying the same thing.

The DM had switched decks for a stacked one. We all got 21's. It was brilliant.

[Dannoth]

Yeah .... I put an innocent town girl in a magic circle in the evil Wizard's summoning room. She begged them to free her ...

They assumed it was a demon (magic circle, skulls, and black candles ... they do that) so they killed her ... and I put them on trial for it :smallbiggrin:

[Moff Chumley]

Three words: Invisible Sky Castle.

[Narmoth]

In last session on my current campaign, the rogue of the group was going to intimidate a hobo into giving some directions.
The hobo was mad, and started to yell blasphemy in stead. The police came and arrested the hobo and pulled the rogue in as vitness. They jailed him to so he wouldn't dissapear for the trial, and the rogue had to escape from the prison, nearly getting killed.

[Saph]

I love the Roadrunner one. I'll have to use that.

My favourite recent one was where the PCs camped near a river and, during the night, heard a monster splashing in the water. The next morning, they looked for a place to cross. The river was only thirty feet across and they could have swum it easily, but after the noises they'd heard that night, they absolutely refused to dip so much as a toe in the water.

Instead, they constructed a bridge.

It took every party member working together, a tall tree, axes, several Grease spells, two hundred feet of rope, an improvised pulley system, thirty minutes of planning, and fifteen minutes worth of arguing about the principles of leverage and friction before the bridge was even half done.

The monster was nocturnal. I'd only described it to spook them. There was nothing in the water. But the players were absolutely convinced that there was an encounter scheduled for the river and the reason that I was making them describe the bridge in such detail was because I wanted them to fight it, and the more problems they ran into, the more determined they became that they were going to 'beat' the encounter by not going through the water. At last, in triumph, they managed to get across the tree.

I didn't say anything. They seemed so pleased with themselves for building the bridge that it would just have felt mean.

- Saph

[RandomNPC]

in my city game the players are trying to bring down the mafia but the only place they ever get good jobs from is the mafia.
(they also don't look to hard for other jobs.)


look these two up on the boards
Vorpal Helmet
Head of Vecna


Best DM joke? 15-20 goblin minions, all standard from the monster manual, then one with a few levels of barbarian or something else with good HD. my party always gets smarmy and just tries to club it, then go "No! why does it have more than six hit points?!"

[RandomNPC]

in my city game the players are trying to bring down the mafia but the only place they ever get good jobs from is the mafia.
(they also don't look to hard for other jobs.)


look these two up on the boards
Vorpal Helmet
Head of Vecna


Best DM joke? 15-20 goblin minions, all standard from the monster manual, then one with a few levels of barbarian or something else with good HD. my party always gets smarmy and just tries to club it, then go "No! why does it have more than six hit points?!"

[Rutee]

Doesn't work with a precious metal-backed system. But interesting idea still.

It should. Historically, more closed off areas of the world with access to precious metals simply didn't value them as much when they had a lot of that precious metal.

Anything that you know induces Paranoia is always fun to take. For instance, "Make an Appraise Check" while buying magical gear, or "Make a Will Save". No matter what the result was, simply smirk triumphantly and carry on as usual.

[Lupy]

Ok, I was talking to a friend about a game he was in. A very cliche game, a princess kidnapped by a dragon, starts in a tavern, blah blah blah. They got to the cave, easily killed the dragon, got the princess and left. That night they all died of awful burns, except the pally, who escaped but fell in a river, hit his head and forgot it all. This sparked another campaign where the pally and the player's new characters had to track down a dragon who had killed a party in their sleep... The pallys character was going nuts wanting to just blurt out what happened.

In SWRPG, I had the characters were in the rebel alliance, and were going to raid an imperial outpost, their NPC friend tells them to bring lot and lots of grenades, and a few extra clips for their carbine rifles. Then another friend tells them to be sure to check their armor, finally their comander makes a speech about how much their sacrafices mean to the alliance. The encounter was just some storm troopers, but the whole time they were on their toes. They're searchin a room to clean it out, and they 'see a shape move', they total unload, all their grenades and thermal detonators, a clip or two, the force adept chucks a table. Then when they're done and let me finish I say, "It appears to be a small white rabbit, perhaps the commanding officer [who escaped] had children." They were so mad, one of them had spent 15000 credits on frag grenades...

[KillianHawkeye]

Yeah .... I put an innocent town girl in a magic circle in the evil Wizard's summoning room. She begged them to free her ...

They assumed it was a demon (magic circle, skulls, and black candles ... they do that) so they killed her ... and I put them on trial for it :smallbiggrin:

That is awesome! I am SO going to have to do that one. :smallbiggrin:

[Talic]

Best prank ever?

As a DM, bring chocolate to the game.

Ex-lax chocolate.

Giggle as players have death match over the 2 available rest rooms.

I wish I could say I've never done this.

[MorkaisChosen]

Prophecy that one of the party's the reincarnation ancient King of Awesome, who gets a cool and awesome magic sphere. Which one is it? The Elf Wardancer (TWF specialist hombrew class), my Grey Elf Wizard (low Charisma, very annoying to everyone else), the Half-Orc Barbarian or the Rogue?

I ended up multiclassing to take one level of Duskblade and then Eldritch Knight so I could use the Spear of Awesome better...

Also, SWRPG game. The characters are going through an ancient Sith temple. My (annoying) Bothan Techie sees a big computer bank and stops to try and hack it (that's what he always did...), then the party's heroic Noble gets split off from the rest and sees some Imperials with a Rebel woman held over a big pit. The Soldier saw a big room full of guns, I think, and the Scoundrel got separated and found a load of stuff to steal and sell, and I can't remember the rest.

I couldn't hack the computer no matter how hard I tried, so I gave up and carried on. The Noble decided there were too many enemies for him to fight, so he gave up. The others kept trying at their stuff, but just couldn't manage.

The next thing we had was an ancient Force adept dude apologising for his security system, and my techie and the Noble were the only ones who didn't have some debuffs for the next several hours...

[random11]

I'd introduce monsters by completely different names. Yes, you see a little monster man, you recognise it as an Urpney.


A good idea I use often.
Nothing like seeing the players waste spells on "evil monsters" like hippos, rhinos, or elephants.

Bonus points to the DM that manages to get the players attack a porcupine.

[JeminiZero]

I'd introduce a magic sword in a stone that when pulled out mysteriously says the hero's name on it. That would be the magical property, the sword displays the weilder's name. It would take them forever to figure out that it's not destiny or even a plot point.


Unless they were highy trap paranoid...

DM: You see a Sword in a Stone
Psion: Wait guys, it may be trapped.
<Psion Summons Astral Construct and gets it to pull out the sword from a safe distance. The Party goes in close when they see nothing happens>
Psion: Hey! There's writing on the sword, it says... Astral Construct? Hmm... I think this sword states the name of its wielder.
Rogue: I imagine that might be useful to find out if <Insert Traitorous NPC> is who he really says he is.

[Zocelot]

"As far as you can tell, there are no traps on this door."
"Your character hasn't seen any bugbears. Yet."
"There doesn't appear to be any monsters hiding in the bushes ahead"

[shadow_archmagi]

Unless they were highy trap paranoid...

DM: You see a Sword in a Stone
Psion: Wait guys, it may be trapped.
<Psion Summons Astral Construct and gets it to pull out the sword from a safe distance. The Party goes in close when they see nothing happens>
Psion: Hey! There's writing on the sword, it says... Astral Construct? Hmm... I think this sword states the name of its wielder.
Rogue: I imagine that might be useful to find out if <Insert Traitorous NPC> is who he really says he is.

At that point, everyone in the campaign would gain a secret identity.

[MorkaisChosen]

Be really, really specific.

"You enter the room. It is tiled in alternate black and white squares, with a black square the first on the left. There are 9 tiles lengthways, and 27 widthways, with one door in the other side of the room. The walls are made from rough stone blocks, about one foot square visible to you, and the walls are 11 blocks high."

The joke? There are no traps in the room at all.

[FMArthur]

My Paranoid Player Trap:

You climb down the ladder, and immediately notice that the floor is made of bricks instead of the stone-carved tunnel previously seen in the dungeon. Spot 20: You notice that there is no space between the bricks, so tightly and perfectly they fit (indicating the level of archetectural skill of its builders).
There is a massive block of stone above a hallway. It's about 10 (width of hallway) by 30 (height) by 20 (length). It is held up by flimsy-looking wooden brackets that look like they could fall apart at any moment under the tremendous weight of the stone block.

My party of two Rogues and a Fighter/Kensai spend 55 minutes in real time (you should know that we're playing at school during a 75-minute lunch period) trying to figure out the trap. Trap searching the wooden brackets and the block reveals little, because it really is all it appears to be. The brackets look like they'll continue to hold after close examination; there is nothing to suggest that walking past will cause it to suddenly drop. They decide that they can help each other over it if it falls, and decide to bring it down before they pass, playing it safe. They shoot crossbow bolts until the brackets collapse, and the block drops down, through the floor and destroys the floor around them, causing them to fall into ridiculously deep pit and get saved only by the fighter stabbing his sword through a wall and the rogues grabbing on (I was feeling generous, given how much of a DMing disaster it would be to have a mean trick like this TPK them after all that time wasted).

[Black Mage]

In one game I was in, we were taking out a giant stronghold...I believe it was frost giants.

We came into a large dining room with a huge table and chairs. On top of the table was what looked like a oversized cooked turkey. One of the characters decided to climb up one of the table legs to get to the turkey in the hopes of a free meal.



The turkey turned out to be a mimic.

Needless to say, hilarity ensued afterwards with the battle against a giant headless cooked turkey.


Last night, my group was playing a game of BESM. A zombie type apocalypse campaign. We met the first "Smart" zombie in Cheyenne mountain. A woman in a control room who seemed to be a tour guide, told us where the other survivors in the complex were. So, we go to find them, leaving behind our tech guy to open the doors for us as we come to them. We rescue everyone, encounter no zombies, and get everyone back outside. She turns to me, since I was the highest ranking person in the group, and says thank you for saving them all, and for bringing her food to her. Luckily, we managed to load the survivors into the Chinook and get the hell out of there while taking only a very painful beating from the super zombie. Then the DM took a beating from us.

[Grug]

I got an idea from The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. Specifically, the quest Paranoia. A paranoid NPC thinks he's being watched by his neighbor, and hires the PC(s) to watch the neighbor's house at 6:00 am. The players go to a stakeout, and are all ready for a big event. The trick is that you keep going on with description, like a cat wanders by, or your neck starts to itch, or the wind whistles a bit... If they don't get the idea yet, by the time the Sun is up they should realize that nothing is happening and the NPC is just being paranoid (of course, in Oblivion, indulging his fantasy gets you extra gold).

[drengnikrafe]

One of my favorites is give them some unlabeled potion at random, and wait for them to drink it (It'll come at some point). When they do, you (The DM) get a wide grin, and say "Roll A Will Save." No matter how they roll, cringe, and hand them a d8, and say "Here, I guess you should roll this to see the effect..."
Then heal them by that much.
That, and get another potion after that, and do the same thing, but give them some random effect based on the d8, with the 1-4 being an awful effect, and 5-8 being awesome. It'll keep them confused for awhile.

[nargbop]

I found a spell called Retributive Image. It's like other high-level illusions, except that disbelieving it causes you serious damage. Whee! This room is dangerous to everyone! Put an illusory floor over a real spiked pit filled with vipers and silence spell. The rogue who goes in missed the save and falls into the pit. The fighter who follows misses the save and falls into the pit. The wizard goes in, says "That's not a floor!" and takes more damage than the previous two as the spell discharges against his brain.

[Eclipse]

Last year, I was running a BESM campaign for a party of four people. Most of the party played adventurers, but they fit the stereotypes of lead hero, magical girl, group mascot, and powerful angsty girl.

First important point, the player of the mascot was playing a blackbird who always caused the party minor inconveniences with no real power to help them out against the enemies they encountered. He determined his role to be comic relief at character creation.

Now, we had gotten to the point in the campaign at which the party was hunting for the four artifacts of awesome power that would allow them to deal with the wizards and dragons who were running roughshod over their world. They found an old musty book referring to these artifacts: a magical sword, a tiara, a staff of elemental control, and bird armor.

The party immediately goes questing after the magical sword, as this is clearly the hero's weapon of power. They fight their way through a dungeon, a boss fight, and get to a sword stuck in a stone. Then they realize that the sword is the size of a needle... perfect for the blackbird. I knew they would expect the sword to be for the hero, so I planned it this way. Worked beautifully.

The rest of the artifacts were designed so anyone could use them, though some would be more useful to some players than others. As for the bird armor, it was actually a suit of winged armor that provided the wearer both good protection and the ability to fly.

[drengnikrafe]

"There doesn't appear to be any monsters hiding in the bushes ahead"

I'm using that one. I can't see it being anything but hilarious. Slightly altered...
DM: Roll a spot check.
Player: *Rolls* I got an 18.
DM: You are... almost positive there is absolutely no monsters of any sort hiding in the tree up ahead, in which you see a scared looking crow. Carry on.
Player: :smalleek:

[Narmoth]

I love the Roadrunner one. I'll have to use that.

My favourite recent one was where the PCs camped near a river and, during the night, heard a monster splashing in the water. The next morning, they looked for a place to cross. The river was only thirty feet across and they could have swum it easily, but after the noises they'd heard that night, they absolutely refused to dip so much as a toe in the water.

Instead, they constructed a bridge.

It took every party member working together, a tall tree, axes, several Grease spells, two hundred feet of rope, an improvised pulley system, thirty minutes of planning, and fifteen minutes worth of arguing about the principles of leverage and friction before the bridge was even half done.

The monster was nocturnal. I'd only described it to spook them. There was nothing in the water. But the players were absolutely convinced that there was an encounter scheduled for the river and the reason that I was making them describe the bridge in such detail was because I wanted them to fight it, and the more problems they ran into, the more determined they became that they were going to 'beat' the encounter by not going through the water. At last, in triumph, they managed to get across the tree.

I didn't say anything. They seemed so pleased with themselves for building the bridge that it would just have felt mean.

- Saph


You should ahve given them xp for building the bridge.

In m previous campaign, I had the rescued lady hit on the paladin and ranger. When neither took advantage of her, she accused them for raping her, and had her father, the baron ruler of the town to put a bounty on their head.

[Wraith_Lord]

Doesn't work with a precious metal-backed system. But interesting idea still.

It could be interesting to have the coinage debased though - transferring it into a hyper0inflation//hyper-debasing situation and suddenly the pure gold or silver coins that the PCs are hanging on to suddenly become far too valuable to spend on mere commodities...

... if it's good enough for 16th Century England, it's good enough for Faerun... :)

[JMobius]

My GM told my yesterday about an amusing one he's used before.

Suppose the PCs are in a temple to talk to someone. The party druid notices something odd about some of the floorboards; they're made of wood at least 500 years older than the rest in the building.

After the pretty much inevitable tearing through the floorboards, the PCs will be rewarded for their efforts with dirt, and a great deal of damages owed to the temple. It appears that the people who built it did not buy all their wood from the same place.

Ouch.

[Accersitus]

A nice one our GM pulled on us, was in a low magic setting.
The party was exploring a ruined temple, and at one place
they found a large pit with something glowing at the bottom.
After a good spot check, the party Elf could identify it as a
helmet with some glowing elven runes for magic and power.
Being quite far into the campaign, the party had learned
some basic facts about magic, (for example that some
old elven communities had been proficient in the art).
The rogue climbed down, while 2 of the 3 others watched the
entrances to the room(there were a lot of roaming monsters,
and they went away far enough to get some time to prepare
if they ran back when they noticed something.) . This became
routine since if we just started searching a room, some quite tough
encounters could walk in on us and get some nasty surprise rounds.
Back to the rogue down in the pit. After reaching the bottom, he
failed the spot check to notice the wall was filled with small areas
where there were small sharp extensions, and the wall arched inward
a bit to make sure the chance for the rope to scrape on these
sharpened points increased. Because of this, the rogue who didn't
have any problem recovering the helmet noticed the pit was filling up
with snakes. Because of the sharpened areas of the wall, the rope
snapped when the rogue tried to climb back up, and he had a lot of
snakes to contend with. By using some quite inventive combinations
of his gear, the rogue managed to escape the pit with the helmet.
(This turned out to be a helm of glowing runes and nothing else).

[Allis]

We were searching through some sewers looking for a secret hide-out of the baddies. The not so smart monk in our party found it, a door-shaped slab of stone in the side of the sewer. He started banging it! The baddies banged back, blasting open the door and fireballing us with two mages who readied. It turned out the baddies were not that bad, but spooked by our doorbanging. As I was unprepared for fireballs, and in a small space so I coulnd't hang back, AND I failed my reflex, I had 1 (yes, ONE) hp left. You can imagine I was not feeling particulary well. I asked mister "evil"who was not that evil but had a mean streak about healing options, seeing we were not leaving for a while. They weren't evil but not really nice or cuddling, and we were there to stay, as "visitors" untill they were sure of our purpose and found a way how to use us. I wanted to feel better, soon, and our cleric was not with us at that moment.

Sure, the leader says, here's a potion, it will make you feel better! The bottle had skulls on it!

That put my character in a dilemma for a while. But I finally drank it, thinking it would be some test. It was, and I was healed, but man, that was NOT funny!

[Rift_Wolf]

One idea I had was a group of bandits hassling merchants along a trading route, who seemed to be working for some horrific monster. When the party find the bandits (A group of tieflings), they keep referring to their boss and his poison, but he isn't seen until the bandits are in trouble. The description goes thus;
'A humanoid shaped creature, roughly six foot in height, stands on top of the bluff. It has an insect-like shell of chitinous plates, in one hand it holds a spear, the other is a pincer from the elbow down. The most alien thing about this creature is its giant head that sits ungainly on its shoulders, two giant mandibles resting on it's chest.'
In players mind? Some evil scorpion demon. In reality? Another tiefling, in scorpion armour.
The last trick is the boss has four bottles on him, each marked by a label saying 'Bull Strength'. In reality? Colossal Scorpion poison. His poison was mentioned....

[Xefas]

The party meets up at the local tavern at the start of the campaign. As they crowd around the bar, negotiating the terms of their adventuring party, they're greeted warmly by the young lady serving as bartender. She gives her name as Jenny, and serves them their drinks.

They leave town the next day, fight some kobolds, get lost in the woods, mauled by wild animals, chased by bandits, and end up on the other side of the country before they have access to another town.

Eager to rest up, they go to the local inn for refreshment and lodging. When they go up to the bar, they're met by their old acquaintance, Jenny, who asks how they've been and what they've been up to, etc.

Several dungeons later...

The party strolls into another town, this time in Halfling territory, pawns their loot, and heads straight for bed. But, what should they see as they enter in the inn? Jenny, the bartender, but this time, she's a Halfling.

In reality, Bartender Jenny is a Succubus who uses her shapeshifting, Greater Teleport at will, and lack of need to eat/sleep to tend bar at every tavern in the entire country simultaneously.

[Samakain]

I remember a spell book that was chocked full of nice expensive high level spells, which had explosive runes every 1d4 pages o.O

I wand of meteor strike, that had the rather problematic after effect of turning the user into a chicken for 5 minutes.

A corridor that had fireballs barreling down it every two minutes, party was darting from doorway to doorway until the barbarian said "F$&# this" stood in the middle of the corridor and we realise we just spent the last 30 minutes dodging illusions, but when everybody was in the corridor and the illusionary fireball passed us by, a real one came from the opposite direction.

And this isn't a prank so much as a "DM's a souless bastard" a tribe of Troll Barbarians, who happened to be red dragons, and whose sorceress leader equiped his favoured troops with acid resistance amulets ><

[SamTheCleric]

Knowing every arcane caster prep Fireball just for this occasion...

Open a door and see a massive room filled with kobolds. The wizard casts fireball... unfortunately the room is an illusion on a wall that is only 5 feet back, so the party gets nuked.

I think I may have actually read that on the Wizards website one day.

[exodus_dragon]

As a DM the group i ran had encountered what i called (homebrewed) A Timeless. Basically its a monster of cr 20 that can hold persons as a free action. And is technically immortal. He dwells in a dungeon of undead and is skeletal himself. Thing is he isnt evil nor good. He sits in this room with books that would put the greatest mages to shame and he just studies them. Well the heroes had herd of a piece they needed to open a gateway was located by this Legendary creature. They approached the creature the Barbarian Wearwolf sees it and says i charge. GOD always jumping box text lol. well he tried but was held in place. so the rest decided oh god he needs hel they all entered the room and were all held. The creature took there weapons and placed them on his desk and went back to reading. he released them from the hold. the players sat there for a minute contiplating what had just happened.the Barbarian again gets a little balsy and decides to get his weapon. the creature allows it. the fighter being smart sheathed it. they finally asked the creature where to find this particular item. the creature opens up a portal and says "in here." so the barbian was like sweet and jumps in the rest of the party were cussing becasue the barbarian lol was always a rush like that. any way they entered a seemingly empty room. it was a 200ft long by 100ft wide by 50 high. the floor, walls and ceiling were in blocks 5foot squares. 25 feet up the wall the squares had were made of pure gems of all sorts. as was the floor. the item they needed was in the opposite end of the room sittin on a pillar. the barbarian said again "I charge it." i was like ok make your movement. he makes it about 20 feet then teleports to a random spot on the room. the rest of the party took it slow. what they didnt realize that every 5 foot square had some kind of trap, ability, trigger. long story short they ended up staying in that room for about 5 hours, and triggered about 30 undead zombies to rise, and 20 skeletons. and every now and then they triggered a heal stone that healed them all. i beleive they all even became poisoned. Once they finally made it out they were like that was the gayest room ever. i told them after the game session that they could have taken it slowly and not triggered anything there was a path they could ahve followed. they were not happy lol after that. but they did think it was pretty challenging.

[Kd7sov]

...ow.

Exodous Dragon, please use capitals, commas, and line breaks. This will make your posts more legible.

[Hal]

Not nearly as humorous as some of the other stories, but my current GM has a tendancy to pick on my characters for having hard to remember, androgenous names. When I had a paladin named "Devon," in combat when my turn came around, he would address me as a new name each time: Debra, Doris, Daisy, etc.

Now that I'm playing a duskblade named "Brennan," he keeps the tradition alive: Brenda, Beatrice, Betty, Bertha, etc.

[Serenity]

Is your DM named Perry Cox, by any chance?

[Hal]

Is your DM named Perry Cox, by any chance?

Ha! You'd think so, but no. Perhaps he is a diehard Scrubs fan.

[Anteros]

Best prank ever?

As a DM, bring chocolate to the game.

Ex-lax chocolate.

Giggle as players have death match over the 2 available rest rooms.

I wish I could say I've never done this.

I would have gone on your floor and then pressed charges.