Gimmicks that you spring on your players.

[Angry Bob]

Gimmicks to make things harder or just more intersting. Post yours here, whether or not you've actually pulled it off. How did your party respond? How do you think your party would respond to other people's suggestions? How well would they actually work(assuming your party)?

Basically, gimmick brainstorm thread.

1. Save the princess! You get to the bandit camp/sewer hideout/abandoned keep only to find the kidnappers butchered and bloody, princess-sized tracks wandering off into the darkness. Turns out whoever hired you forgot to mention her split personality - a Spirit Lion Whirling Frenzy Barbarian 6/Frenzied Berserker 3. Find her and bring her in before she finds something more vicious than brigands to fight.

2. Genocide the nearby kobold cave! The players agree to do so, because they're amoral scumbags. They don't find a whole lot of resistance on their way in. They search the whole place. When they reach the very bottom, they find a modest trove of treasure. On retrieving it, they hear resonating clicking and grinding sounds from the tunnels. They have turned the entire dungeon into a deathtrap. More accurately, the kobolds did that, they just activated everything they put in place.

3. The Tarrasque cometh! Whatever, just kite it. Except you won't, because it's surrounded(though admittedly given a wide berth) by enemy druids and totemists that believe it's the ultimate avatar of nature's wrath. Maybe some clerics of nature too, to 'splode any allips that coincidentally show up when the players do.

I feel like the first one would be totally unexpected, though I can't think of what I could do for the combat-focused players after that, aside from random wilderness encounters.

The third would be my go-to choice for putting Big T more in line with how massively powerful it's supposed to be without homebrewing.

The second one is just vindictive and probably should be used only in an attenuated fashion unless your players are masochists.

[TalonDemonKing]

I've sprung these on my players before.

1) Mage sends out adventures to kill himself after a spell backfired and created his evil twin. Turns out the adventurers have been sent to kill the good twin.

2) Players will lure enemies into simple traps all the time (Run around a corner, get enemies attention, run back around corner where allies are in wait). Have the situation reversed. (Enemies attract PCs attention, make hostile movements, run away when stuff goes south, have them fall into a pit.)

3) Town is 'cursed' with a night that never ends. Adventurers go to check it out; turns out its a vampire haven, and the 'Pleas for help' are just ways to lure in fresh blood

4) Non-Combat encounters: Had a team of a barbarian, a rogue, a paladin, and a wizard put on a play for a local orphanage to gain favor of the people. Nothing says hard like 'Roleplaying and skill checks' to a bunch of combat-oriented players.

[TheCountAlucard]

1) One NPC my D&D party encountered was a ship captain who was secretly a Harvester Devil in disguise. When it turned out, however, that a bad guy was going to threaten the natural order of things on a cosmic scale, he offered to help the party out as best as he could - however, the only thing he could do for them was draw up some Faustian contracts for more power.

2) The old bait-and-switch. The group discovers that the Pelor-worshipping theocracy is going to be attacked by an army of zombies, and the party decides to provide assistance on the battlefield. Both the army and the PCs are stocked up with anti-undead measures, holy water and such, when the illusion veiling the "undead" army is rolled back, revealing them all to be... goblinoids.

[Cerlis]

enter a town that turns into werewolves every single night.After first encounter the players will hear about many people found dead everynight the PCs get attacked, with weapon marks like theirs. Authorities begin the follow the Mysterious stranger ( the players) as suspected murderers, cus no one knows the entire turn is a buncha werewolves

[T.G. Oskar]

Done it twice, and once it was cleverly defused, but I plan on using it again because I want to present shapeshifters at one moment in the current campaign I'm DMing.

The "Trapped Monster" (with extras) -- have a big area full of braziers, specifically a crossroads. Then, put a kobold trapped on one of them bear traps, trying desperately to get out.

Trick is explained below:

Spoiler

Show

The kobold really is a phase, which I've set to transform into several creatures, including a young adult dragon, a chuul, or a girallon. If the characters are too greedy and smack the "kobold", the phase acts as if it were dead. In case they leave after "killing" the phase, or if they're going for the coup de grace, the phase takes its action to transform into a bigger menace. The braziers are animated flying objects, mostly to distract the group by creating flanking attempts.

The defusing happened when one of my players decided to help the kobold instead of kill him; phases being neutral, the "kobold" decided to aid the party in "kobold" form (but after revealing himself as a shapeshifter).

It's a simple and effective trick. Oh, there's also the lone kobold sorcerer who commits seppuku by pointing a Fireball at itself while the party is nearby. That one is golden =)

[Paseo H]

Got this idea from Code Geass...

My PC has a rival, who has a super powerful backer.

Have one of the rival's more friendly go betweens reveal that he has a new special disguse/uniform, complete with helmet and voice distorting mechanism.

When it comes time to confront such a being, it turns out to be the rival's super powerful backer in the disguise, pretending to be the rival.

[Firemage]

Was not for a D&D game, but whatever:

An old man asks the adventurers in a tavern (how original) to free his pet chameleon from an evil wizard who lives in the same city. He probably needs it for a ritual of some sorts. The wizard is out of town, so it should be easy to rekidnap the pet.
Turns out it's the other way round: it's the "evil" wizards pet, and he's the good one. The old man is an evil wizard, who needs the chameleon to create a chameleon-cat-human chimaera as a loyal assassin to gain rulership of the city.
As a double twist the chimaera is mentally twisted once created, so it kills its creator and terrorizes the city on its own.

[FelixG]

Enemies flee, the players give choice, it starts fairly safe as they chase the robbers across the roofs and are jumping ledges and going up levels, very quickly they start to realize they are getting quite high up and those falls are VERY dangerous when one of the enemies falls to his death 7 stories below.

This makes the PCs quite skittish but makes the fight all the more exciting

along the same lines: fighting an enemy who specializes in trips and bull rushes on a slowly rising freight elevator.

[grimbold]

3. The Tarrasque cometh! Whatever, just kite it. Except you won't, because it's surrounded(though admittedly given a wide berth) by enemy druids and totemists that believe it's the ultimate avatar of nature's wrath. Maybe some clerics of nature too, to 'splode any allips that coincidentally show up when the players do.

this does make the tarrasque stronger but even as it is just having the tarrasque appear can be a good one off adventure and is rather gimmicky
i have always felt he was kind of made to be gimmicky

[Gamerlord]

A wizard hires the party to retrieve a magic artifact he must use in a ritual. When the party retrieves it, they realize that the magic artifact was imprisoning a powerful demon lord, and taking it has released him. And the wizard? Was a cultist worshiping the demon lord.

[Knaight]

Concentric Contract Killers: A patron hires a group of known hostile mercenaries to ambush a location, then has someone else hire the PCs to ambush the first group of hostiles. At which point they hire yet another group to ambush the PCs. This gets much more fun once the PCs get involved and start hiring mercenaries of their own.

The Fallen Kingdom: Someone attempts to contact the PCs to help lead an invasion to reclaim their kingdom from a tyrannical reign. Unfortunately, it turns out they are the younger, even more evil brother to the current king involved in a coup disguised to his brother as a trap to the PCs. Bonus points for the actual presence of another, half decent ruler somewhere else.

Magnetized explosives: Does all that armor really seem like such a good idea now?

Rebel Currency: Occasionally, coins have a downside. Such as those bearing the face of a traitor, largely in use with their surviving allies.

The Angry Journalist: A journalist who has some reason to hate the PCs-probably regarding collateral damage from one of their misadventures-acts like a massive fan, and asks to accompany them for a time to document them for legends. What actually comes out is a smear campaign, full of photographs and quotations taken out of context.

Tricksters Signs: These are ideally employed by fey, and come in a variety of forms. Simply put, these are signs that ask for a course of action that is really stupid, but encouraged by modern popular culture. Stuff along the lines of "leap of faith" over a typical pit is standard.

[Galdor Miriel]

I pulled a trick in a game recently.

I had a few riddles at various points that the pcs got into as they wondered through a dungeon after a magic sword. They finally make their way to a room with an undead evil dragon at the end guarding the sword, or what looks like the sword. The dragon, that they knew to be bad news, posed a riddle.

The PCs spent twenty minutes struggling with the riddle and then they got the answer, it was awesome how pleased they were. The dragon said, "Step forward and take the sword, you have successfully solved my riddle." One of the PCs did and then the triggered wall of fire appeared as he stepped through burning him badly and separating him from the rest of the good guys. What followed was an awesome battle were they barely managed to kill the dragon off. The PC who stepped through to take the sword did not make it, and it was a close thing for the rest.

Everyone enjoyed it and I relished the pure evil of turning the real moment of triumph when they solved the riddle into shock.

[WarKitty]

The wizard they've been meeting with turns out to be a rogue/assassin. Imagine their surprise when they figure on ganking the squishy caster, only to have their attacks miss and then get stabbed.

[mucat]

1. Save the princess! You get to the bandit camp/sewer hideout/abandoned keep only to find the kidnappers butchered and bloody, princess-sized tracks wandering off into the darkness. Turns out whoever hired you forgot to mention her split personality - a Spirit Lion Whirling Frenzy Barbarian 6/Frenzied Berserker 3. Find her and bring her in before she finds something more vicious than brigands to fight.

This one is a good twist...except that even if the princess has a violent alternate personality, it's hard to imagine where she picked up nine levels of barbarian-type fighting skills to back up her bad temper.

Perhaps instead of simply having multiple personalities, she is possessed by a demon or evil spirit (which sometimes goes "dormant" and allows her normal personality to reemerge.) This could be because she is a mage or cleric who called up something she couldn't put down, or just a stereotypically insipid royal heir who fell victim to a family curse, or was specifically targeted because the evil entity wanted a politically powerful host.

It could even be that the kidnappers were the good guys, or at least morally grey, trying to bring the possessed woman to a place/person that could cure her, which the royal family opposed for any of a variety of reasons. (They don't believe she's possessed, or they know it but don't want the outside world to find out, or they're in league with the evil entity in the first place...)

If you take this route, one option is to have the PCs skirmish with some of the kidnappers before they catch up with the main group, and at some point realize, "Crap, we were fighting the good guys!")

So now the players, if they choose to continue this job, have to track down the possessed princess. When she finds out she's being followed, and that her pursuers are too formidable to simply slaughter, she can use summoned minions to cover her escape, or attack them directly with hit-and-run tactics. Perhaps the possessing entity is trying to meet up with cultists/allies, which will make things much harder if she reaches them.

If they manage to capture the princess alive, then they have to decide whether to take her home and let the royal family deal with the possession, or take up where the original kidnappers left off and bring her to the place/person that can cure her. (Which they might have learned about from a survivor of the first massacre, or from a journal found there.)

If you then want a final twist, have it turn out that the kidnappers weren't good guys either. They didn't want to cure the princess, but to harness her power for themselves...and the PCs have just conveniently delivered her to their chief.

This last double-cross might be one too many; you don't want the players getting into a Shadowrunesque, "All right, when does our patron turn on us this time" mindset. On the other hand, you could use the multiple-betrayal route here, and then have the big "twist" of their next adventure be that everything is exactly as it seems...

[Grelna the Blue]

I used the following just this past weekend:

The party has spent all its lower levels out in the violent hinterlands fighting monsters and nibbling at the edges of an invasion force of orcs, giantkin, necromancers and undead. They are tired of the constant danger and decide to head north to the cities where it's safer and they can get better paying work.

Soon after arriving in their first major city and after revealing their status as dragonslayers (they killed a young adult green) an attempt was made to recruit the party to deal with some rogues attacking clients and members of a certain trading company. The party declined because the deal smelled iffy, but two of them later saw an attack in progress and drove off the rogues.

It turned out they'd rescued an evil cleric and his cohort (the cleric turned out to be a close cousin of a PC, with a hilariously similar personality twisted to the dark side). When they returned him to safety, it appeared to the trading companty that they'd reconsidered their decision and signed up. Several tempting offers of discounts on item creation were made if they continued to prove their worth.

Soon after, a party member was contacted by the rogues, who offered them a lesser sum "just to walk away," and in the course of discussion it developed that the rogues represented a local group of drug pushers who were upset that this trading company was selling more popular (and much more dangerous) drugs, apparently derived from the lower planes.

Party decides to leave city post-haste and go back to the wilderness where it's safe and [they think] they know what's going on.

[Angry Bob]

{awesomeness}

What I originally had in mind was that the royal family had built the split personality itself as a contingency in case of kidnapping(In that case it would probably be PsyWarrior rather than Barb), with some magic/psionic aid. I couldn't find a way to make it believable, though now that you point it out, it makes more sense to have some reason behind it.

[Dr.Epic]

Gimmicks to make things harder or just more intersting. Post yours here, whether or not you've actually pulled it off. How did your party respond? How do you think your party would respond to other people's suggestions? How well would they actually work(assuming your party)?

Basically, gimmick brainstorm thread.

1. Save the princess! You get to the bandit camp/sewer hideout/abandoned keep only to find the kidnappers butchered and bloody, princess-sized tracks wandering off into the darkness. Turns out whoever hired you forgot to mention her split personality - a Spirit Lion Whirling Frenzy Barbarian 6/Frenzied Berserker 3. Find her and bring her in before she finds something more vicious than brigands to fight.

I feel like the first one would be totally unexpected, though I can't think of what I could do for the combat-focused players after that, aside from random wilderness encounters..

Yeah, if by unexpected you mean impossibly unbelievable:

-How do you capture a frenzied berserker? And if so, how do you let the same frenzied berserker slaughter the captors?

-How does a princess gain levels in barbarian and frenzied berserker? Barbarians represent wild, savage, chaotic, strong people. How does a princess qualify with that?

-Wouldn't it be common knowledge for people to know how wild and dangerous the princess is? Wouldn't she be strictly watched so she doesn't go into a rage and thus make kidnapping her quite difficult?

[Gamerlord]

Yeah, if by unexpected you mean impossibly unbelievable:

-How do you capture a frenzied berserker? And if so, how do you let the same frenzied berserker slaughter the captors?

-How does a princess gain levels in barbarian and frenzied berserker? Barbarians represent wild, savage, chaotic, strong people. How does a princess qualify with that?

-Wouldn't it be common knowledge for people to know how wild and dangerous the princess is? Wouldn't she be strictly watched so she doesn't go into a rage and thus make kidnapping her quite difficult?

Many things in D&D are impossibly unbelievable, that is what makes it so great .

[Angry Bob]

The class levels are just to reflect her mechanical abilities, not her upbringing and lifestyle. Also, notice I cut off her FB levels just before she gets Deathless frenzy. She's still vulnerable to nonlethal damage. An interesting variant for better-controlled parties would be to giver deathless frenzy and just have them survive until the frenzy ends.

Additionally, a princess having a murderously insane evil side need not be public knowledge. In fact, the vizier or whoever assigns you to rescue her may not even know. In fact, the princess might be the only one aware.

[Dr.Epic]

The class levels are just to reflect her mechanical abilities, not her upbringing and lifestyle. Also, notice I cut off her FB levels just before she gets Deathless frenzy. She's still vulnerable to nonlethal damage. An interesting variant for better-controlled parties would be to giver deathless frenzy and just have them survive until the frenzy ends.

Additionally, a princess having a murderously insane evil side need not be public knowledge. In fact, the vizier or whoever assigns you to rescue her may not even know.

But her upbringing would determine her class. How is she getting these levels in not only barbarian but one of the best, most savage barbarian PrC?

And the public may still find out. I think rumors might spread when about how violent this gal is. Not to mention what happens when neighboring diplomats arrive and she goes crazy and tries to kill them? It seems like she should be restrained in some dungeon.

[Urpriest]

But her upbringing would determine her class. How is she getting these levels in not only barbarian but one of the best, most savage barbarian PrC?

And the public may still find out. I think rumors might spread when about how violent this gal is. Not to mention what happens when neighboring diplomats arrive and she goes crazy and tries to kill them? It seems like she should be restrained in some dungeon.

Frenzied Berserkers are only forced to frenzy if they take damage. Since many real-life monarchies were able to hide hemophilia, it shouldn't be that much harder to cover up any instance of her taking meaningful damage, since 1 hp is a lot more damage than the papercut that would reveal someone as hemophiliac.

[Shatteredtower]

Across the hall from each other are two statues with one hand extended to shake. If you grasp the hand of the one on the left, a magic mouth is triggered to say, "Don't...take...stairs." The one on the right says, "Use door," under similar circumstances. Only by grasping both hands at once do you get the real message, "Don't use door, take stairs."

That's the basic version.

[Ytaker]

I pulled a trick in a game recently.

I had a few riddles at various points that the pcs got into as they wondered through a dungeon after a magic sword. They finally make their way to a room with an undead evil dragon at the end guarding the sword, or what looks like the sword. The dragon, that they knew to be bad news, posed a riddle.

The PCs spent twenty minutes struggling with the riddle and then they got the answer, it was awesome how pleased they were. The dragon said, "Step forward and take the sword, you have successfully solved my riddle." One of the PCs did and then the triggered wall of fire appeared as he stepped through burning him badly and separating him from the rest of the good guys. What followed was an awesome battle were they barely managed to kill the dragon off. The PC who stepped through to take the sword did not make it, and it was a close thing for the rest.

Everyone enjoyed it and I relished the pure evil of turning the real moment of triumph when they solved the riddle into shock.

That's... evil.

I love it. I totally get into solving riddles so I'd probably fall for it too.

[Grendus]

I'm notorious in my family for coming up with random rules to challenge the game.

One time, I told everybody to hand their character sheet to the person on their left. Not only was it awesome (five people having a simultaneous "how the heck do you actually play this character" moments), but for the rest of the game the dwarf joked about being 'violated' by the elf.

Another time, I had a giant hole in the ground that kept spawning little grubs until five hatches covering it were closed. It was a lot easier than I hoped (they only had one hit point, I didn't think that five people would cut through the initial 8 grubs so quickly), but it was still fun.

I one time had a game set in a burned down monastery. In one room I had a completely unburned confessional with footsteps in the ash leading up to the priest's side. Opening the priest's side released the angry spirit of one of the priests (they were all burned to death by a baron), while going into the other side and confessing any of the seven deadly sins would result in various special effects. It took them forever to figure it out, made a great puzzle.

I had one room filled with various statues and an obelisk. Each statue held an orb, and the obelisk had five round slots. Once five orbs were loaded into the statue, it started animating the remaining statues at random. It was great, doubly so because if a golem started going down too fast I could animate another one to keep the difficulty where I wanted it. Great for a DM who isn't sure about how to challenge his players appropriately.

[TheCountAlucard]

That's... evil.

I love it. I totally get into solving riddles so I'd probably fall for it too.

Heh, one such trap might be having you answer at all. For instance, the party sees a sphinx in this vast chamber, and when they enter, it asks a riddle, telling them that if they answer incorrectly, they'll be devoured...

What they don't know is that the sphinx is blind, and the only reason it tells the riddle is to get the PCs to give away their position.

[Godskook]

-How do you capture a frenzied berserker?

With a Save or Suck? A simple dominate person would work quite well.

And if so, how do you let the same frenzied berserker slaughter the captors?

1.Captors might not have known she was a FB

2.They underestimated her ability to break through chains

3.Ran out of charges on their wand of calm emotions

-How does a princess gain levels in barbarian and frenzied berserker? Barbarians represent wild, savage, chaotic, strong people. How does a princess qualify with that?

Not everyone is hung up on class fluff, especially when 95% of the mechanics fit *PERFECTLY* with the concept.

-Wouldn't it be common knowledge for people to know how wild and dangerous the princess is?

Given the existence of spells like Zone of Truth and Discern Lies, I'm guessing that secrets like that are a little easier to hide from the general public.

Wouldn't she be strictly watched so she doesn't go into a rage and thus make kidnapping her quite difficult?

One cleric with a few copies of calm emotions prepared(and a back-up wand) would be enough, probably. It'd certainly be enough to get people to relax their guard otherwise.

[Angry Bob]

Yeah, the whole princess-as-FB deal now seems contingent on how willing your players are to suspend disbelief or how deeply(or not) they look into things. Fortunately, my group is the sort that wouldn't question it. Some good ideas for expanding and justifying it, though.

I had another one:

The players have just fought a caryatid column. They enter a room with what looks like three of them. They get ready, only to have the swords, clothes, and statues animate separately and attack, the swords as an animated dancing weapon, the statues as unarmed caryatids, and the clothes as that clothes monster whose name I'm too lazy to look up.

[Skjaldbakka]

One of my favorites.