How to make the DM sweat

[BobVosh]

Since there is so much love for the solo-man's side of the screen, how about player fun towards the DM. What makes your DM just wonder...scared. Things that if you just told the whole thing at once they would be like "sure, no problem." Or similar.

My brother was DMing a group when this happened. A player, when told they are walking through farmland close to the town, decides to ask if there are any sheep around. Mike (as the dm shall now be known) says yes, hesitantly. The player walks up to the sheep, and slits its throat. A shepard, understandly upset, walks up. The player gives over 2 gold, or similiar, and the shepard walks away. The player decides to take the intestines. Perserves em, best he can. One he gets to town, he starts gathering information on where he can buy threads and needles. Mike is starting to wonder where all this is going, and points out the general store type place. Buys a sharp needle, thread, and proceeds to roll a D20. Mike askes why, and turns out all the player wanted to do was make a "dwarven defender," as I have seen it called on this site.

[The Minx]

Assuming we are not talking about the prestige class: what is a "dwarven defender" and why should the DM care about one?

[BobVosh]

Assuming we are not talking about the prestige class: what is a "dwarven defender" and why should the DM care about one?

Condom. Anyway, it was the way he got to the point that made the DM worry. If you have DMed before you will get to the point where players doing strange things out of the blue is reason to worry.

Also that post is partially done because a silly guest thinks that because I am behind the front desk means I should do stuff.

and alas again.

[The Minx]

Condom. Anyway, it was the way he got to the point that made the DM worry. If you have DMed before you will get to the point where players doing strange things out of the blue is reason to worry.

Also that post is partially done because a silly guest thinks that because I am behind the front desk means I should do stuff.

and alas again.

I began suspecting that after I made the post. Only this would not be something to make the DM sweat, but rather to make her roll her eyes.

When I am DM and people start doing random silliness, I either break the game for snacks or send in the "random" troll encounter.

[DigoDragon]

Forgotten Realms campaign-- We were in a lawless town where the thieves guild was holding an 'olympic style' contest for money. Our party rogue entered the contest, but the rest of us were trying to hunt down a Red Wizard that tried TPKing the party earlier with Warforged fighters.

We tracked the evil wizard to a temple to an evil goddess (name escapes me at the moment), but with only 5 of us and a refuge of a temple on the wizard's side we weren't about to storm in and get killed.

So I came up with a plan-- I gathered information about the thieves guild and the leaders who are running the contest. The GM wasn't sure what I was up to when I was bribing the leaders to edit the map for next major event in the contest. Then he looked up what the next event he had planned out: "Snatch-n-Grab".

Now he's catching on to my plan and can't think of a way to save the baddie.

The event was to find a specific person in town, capture him, and bring him to the guild. I had the judges change the victim to the red Wizard in the temple. Two hours later the entire thieves guild stormed the temple, captured the wizard, and brought him into the guild where our party was waiting to collect.

I got bonus XP for that plan.

[JeminiZero]

I would humbly like to point out that the easiest way to make your DM sweat, is to have him over at your house during a hot summer, when the air conditioning is broken.

We now return to our regular broadcasts

[Charity]

Mess with his thermostat?

[BloodyAngel]

In my case, it usually just involves showing up... but then, my usual DM is my boyfriend... so....

[Tacoma]

Typically it involves innocuous rulings that he knows will end up being referred to as precedents for something much grander later. I think I've written about exploitation of Fire Trap and Glyph of Warding elsewhere in this subforum. Both relied upon commonsense rulings and specific DM use of the spells previously.

For example, I like going into town and asking if X is there. Do they have a granary? A mill? Do they have a town guard barracks? Where is it? Is there just the one inn and the one tavern?

I like asking if the price in the book for a nonmagical piece of equipment is actually what it costs. DM picks up the book, reads the item description, peers at me suspiciously. Reads the description again. Asks what I want the item for. "Oh just adventuring equipment" I say as innocently as possible. Sometimes he leaves the price alone. Sometimes he jacks it up. Sometimes the item isn't available.

But the heart of magic is misdirection. All the clever yet fruitless schemes hide the larger ones. All the passed notes, the furtive cease to conversation when he comes back from the bathroom. It's there to at once put him in a state of readiness and complacency. It gets him used to saying "yes" more and more.

And then I have Repulsion permanently on all my clothes and nobody can physically touch me anymore.

EDIT: One time I had just hit 14th level Magic-User. I bought the spell Simulacrum among others. We killed a super bad BBEG who had no equipment but awesome personal powers (see, then we don't get his equipment, right?). Over the next DM-suggested three month lull I built an army of him. They had no more than 70% of his powers each, of course, but even that exceeded any individual party member. I used my army to protect my fortress lab outside of town so the DM didn't mind much. But I got a godly base defense for nothing but time.

(Jalartan's Miraculum allayed the use of spell components)

[SurlySeraph]

When making your character, ask him if you are allowed to take completely innocuous things. "I can take a level of Rogue, right? Just one level, in addition to my Wizard levels? It doesn't have to be the first level."
Even better, ask him to confirm that your understanding of how various feats and class abilities with very clear descriptions work. It's best to ask about several things that have no relation to each other at one time. "Combat Reflexes only lets you attack each opponent who provokes an attack of opportunity once, right? And Great Fortitude just gives you +2 to Fortitude saves, and DOESN'T scale. No, I'm not asking if you can make it scale, I want to make sure it doesn't. Okay then."
Finally, when he's convinced that you're trying to create some kind of epically broken cheesemonster, give him your character sheet. Have it look, in every respect, as completely typical of the characters you play as possible. It'll make him paranoid all over again!

[brant167]

Play a Slaad psion and start thralling random people in the city, incudding high ranking officals.

[Doomsy]

Occasionally roll your own dice in the middle of his villain monologues, during tense negotiations with heavy plot NPCs, when the king is asking you do a favor, or when you're in a room alone with the princess and nobody can hear her scream, despite the fact you're playing a paladin. Without being asked. It works especially well if you have special initiative dice or attack dice. Try to look innocent and say they slipped. Or that you misheard something.

[Mercenary Pen]

Ask if you can take 1 on a d20 roll.

[Flickerdart]

Ask if you can take 1 on a d20 roll.

You CAN. You're allowed to auto-fail any check. So, that doesn't really work, although I suppose it WOULD make them wonder.

Roll up a Kobold Paladin with Knowledge: The Planes, and then never make that roll. Every time you request a Knowledge check, he will cringe.

[Grail]

I'm notorious for dropping my dice or misplacing them (we play on lounges), and I can get a little distressed if my favourite dice (known as my "Dice of Death") goes missing. My wife especially has a fondness for hiding it when we play which can make me sweat more than a little.

Of course, since last night, I may not be as upset in future, after I found a suitable replacement. The dice I had been grooming as "The Apprentice Dice of Death" was upgraded to "Dice of Destruction" after I rolled around 10 natural 20's in one single combat engagement with a handful of Hobgoblins and Lizardmen.

[The Minx]

As DM, you can always simply make the opposition arbitrarily more powerful even if you have screwed up and not "caught on".

On the character generation angle: a DM who gives the player a blank check with regards to what kind of combination of character may be made by answering such questions needs to step down, or break out the Epic monsters.

On rolling of dice during monologues: player rolls do not count unless they actually say what they are doing before they roll. Otherwise, they are just arbitrarily doodling with their dice. If you don't buy that, think about it this way: draw five cards from a deck, and it makes no sense that you can say whether you were drawing a poker hand or playing some other game after the fact. Since the DM controls the passage of time (including when so and so's turns are taken) it's not like it matters anyway.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Frankly, any DM who cannot handle anything the player's do, including the stuff mentioned here is not much of a DM.

[Hydro Globus]

... my favourite dice (known as my "Dice of Death")

Wait... the worst of those is the die of death, right?

[Grail]

No, it's singular, but called "The Dice of Death" it is just that awesome.

[Caeldrim]

I play chaotic characters a little 'differently'.

When I (as a player) am tempted to do something in character, but can't decide whether or not it's reasonable for the character to do it, i make a quick 'self imposed will save'. I pick a DC based on gut feeling of 'how tempting' it is, and roll against it without even talking to the DM.

since the save is entirely in my character's head, and doesn't determine anything that i couldn't do if i just decided to, there's no reason for any DM to object.

I find it brings the character to life 'in his own right' a little.

doesn't really make DM's sweat but it's a lot of fun.