Are, or have you ever been a cruel GM? Do you feel remorse and want to reform? Do you continue to do it an love it? Feel like listening in on tales of shenanigans perpetrated on unsuspected players? If so, this is the thread for you!
just to clarify, when I say cruel, I mean deliberately thwarting, teasing, killing off or otherwise abusing your players. Exploring the motives behind these unkind acts are part of the fun. Maybe the players refused to be railroaded, maybe they easily defeated the BBEG that you worked so hard on, maybe they were just plain annoying.
I will start with a personal anecdote to get the ball rolling:
I was GMing a solo adventure for a mid-level paladin, who was in the habit of charging recklessly at everything to the point where the group had to save her bacon on numerous occasions. She got lots of grief for her last, fatal charge (hence the solo adventure to make up the level lost to raising (3.5). In any case, she had just spent every last cp on a shiny suit of mithral full plate and it was her pride and joy. I had made a mini-adventure that required her to boldly step through a mysterious portal while chasing some goblins. perfect railroad right? wrong - maybe it was having played tomb of horrors, maybe it was having finally learned some caution, but she wouldn't go! she just waited and waited outside the portal. It was ridiculous, she even decided to camp there. That prompted a reminder that she would be fatigued if she slept in her armor, so she took it off and carefully bundled it up beside her.
here is where the cruelty comes in. I was so frustrated with this stalemate that I improvised a goblin rogue to sneak in and grab her armor and bring it through the portal, and I fudged the rolls to have her wake up just in time to see it. THAT got her going. she ran at top speed through the portal only to find herself facing a goblin horde in her pajamas...which I might add, was an encounter designed to make her feel great about her neigh-impervious armor (the gobbos would only hit on a 20).
Before you think I am a complete jerk, I did leave her her greatsword, she did survive the encounter (barely), and she got her armor back.
ahh, the memories... I still chuckle when I think of that, and feel just a bit guilty and how much I enjoyed the power trip.
At first I laughed, knowing they would all miss. Then the DM informed me of a rather unfortunate event: my shield was actually a cursed +3 shield of arrow attraction. Every bolt hit, some crit, and I was propelled back into the dungeon to land at the feet of my party members fully loaded with crossbow bolts. I was a little mad, but it was well played and fun.
LOL
beautiful! that is some quality DM cruelty there. a completely unavoidable deathtrap which takes a player down several notches to the amusement of all (or most). makes a great story, thanks for sharing.
any idea why the DM had it in for your character?
it also introduces the perfect DM cruelty device: cursed items!
having started gaming with AD&D I have to say that I miss those. they still exist, but just don't seem to get as much play anymore.
-wistful sigh-
"..and in the corner you see..oh, wait that's invisible". I add that there's sound from down the hall and gave the indication that a bunch of monsters could be coming.
SNIP...
Of course, there was no such thing, but his character's scrambling and searching brings the monsters down on him, he's overwhelmed, out numbered, and quickly dead.
Sorry to say that I couldn't help but laugh at him.
well played! I bet he was a bit irritated...
thanks for bringing up metagaming! I completely forgot that pet peeve.I love to include red herrings like extra dramatic description of perfectly innocuous items. unfortunately that one tends to backfire as many minutes and hours are lost pretending to do search checks and so on.
forgive me, mr. gygax, for i have sinned.
after a year in a monty haul game with little challenge, i got a turn to dm, and boy was my game different. :-) not only was it dark, deadly, and filled with cursed items, but the worst part was that it wasn't fun. only now do i realize what a jerk i was.
boy did i learn from that experience.
i got a turn to dm, and boy was my game different. :-) not only was it dark, deadly, and filled with cursed items, but the worst part was that it wasn't fun.
yep, that sounds familiar. I did the same thing, I was bored as a player in a monty haul, then as a DM made things virtually impossible for the players to compensate. the constant frustration really turned them off.
i think the key here is the humorous effect, which requires an element of surprise AND players who can handle it or at least deserve it.
EDIT: In other words, you should be laughing with the players, not at them!
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So all I have to add to this conversation is a quote from one of my favorite GMs:
"The goal of a GM is not to kill the players. The goal is to get the players to kill eachother, and get the last one to commit suicide."
He pulled this off once, not sure on the details of how.
Old 1st Ed campaign.
After many levels the party Druid finally found a magic Scimitar. He was overjoyed.
Next adventure "Operation Ogre" Druid gets hit by a critter (forget its name now) scimitar fails its save and turns to rust. This is followed by a toys out of the pram moment which was so comical that we still laugh about it 25 years later.
So all I have to add to this conversation is a quote from one of my favorite GMs:
"The goal of a GM is not to kill the players. The goal is to get the players to kill eachother, and get the last one to commit suicide."
He pulled this off once, not sure on the details of how.
now THAT's a motto. I am curious about how...
head of vecna, maybe?
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Another of my favorites - though I wasn't the GM - was when the GM had the King tell us we'd get 1 copper for every undead we killed.
So, we figured out a way to kill just a truly insane number of undead.
So, the GM realized he'd made a mistake because now his PCs had too much money. So, the king said he was going to tax us.I kid you not. A forty year old man who was playing at our table got up from the table and left it -crying- because his imaginary character had to pay imaginary taxes on imaginary gold.
I still think back on it and shudder.
It was then that I realized, there really are two kinds of people who play the game. The kind this guy represents and the rest of us.
Weren't these last five sentences in another post a few days ago?
Old 1st Ed campaign.
After many levels the party Druid finally found a magic Scimitar. He was overjoyed.
Next adventure "Operation Ogre" Druid gets hit by a critter (forget its name now) scimitar fails its save and turns to rust. This is followed by a toys out of the pram moment which was so comical that we still laugh about it 25 years later.
haha, that reminds me of losing a too-good to be true item as a player in AD&D. the backstory was that our DM made an impregnable safe full of incredibly powerful magic items to tease us. He even left a potion of xray vision next to it, so that we knew what was in there. the smug look on his face when he read the descriptions was just too much. The problem was he forgot that the magic user had a scroll of disintegrate which she used to great effect. I can still see the shocked and panicked look on his face when we looked at the spell effect in the PH and he realized we were getting the loot. My fighter got a longsword of speed which rather suspiciously got vaporized by a rhemoraz the next campaign. he actually couldn't help shouting with glee when I failed the save as that sword just decimated all opposition.
good times
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While recently judging some Slot 0's for Gamicon (coming up this weekend for any of you Iowans) I slightly exaggerated the size of a monster in tier (Huge-->Gargantuan) and had all of my experienced judges sweating a bit. One of them was even getting exasperated at what he felt was a losing situation for their level. He eventually downed the monster as the only surviving member of the party and no one died, but I still took sick delight.
Part if it was payback for them making me sweat during games...
Fantasy Hero campaign
PCs uncover a small camp of goblins. Most of the party decides it is best to just skirt around them. The dwarf decides to attack. The PCs easily handle the goblins. Then, as most of the party are about to move on, the dwarf decides he needs to loot all of the goblins. Now, it has been made pretty obvious the goblins had absolutely nothing of value. Even their weapons were of poor quality.
So I let the dwarf find a ruby on one of the goblins, which, he promptly hides from the rest of the party. Later, when he has a chance to inspect it more closely, it is nothing more than a glass bauble, but the dwarf is now female. There is laughter and mumbling. I had every intention of letting the effect wear off after a day. However, the party stumbles across another group of goblins. Dwarf attacks. Party kills the goblins. Dwarf loots…again.
I tell him he finds a ruby on one of the goblins and he takes it.
Bauble of Sex Change is now a permanent affect.
Towards the end of a particularly long campaign (years of play), the characters were in the mid-teen level range and one was playing a homebrew ninja who caught up to a rival ninja (based on the big stone-skin demon from Ninja Scrolls) in an arena event. The opponent was designed to be a challenge for the whole group (6-man party), but the PC ninja felt honor bound to try and fight him himself.
One round of full attacks and the PC ninja was nearly dead. If not for the quick actions of the cleric in the group he would have been paste. The player thought I was picking on him when I had the BBEG keep going after him. It was all the rest of the party could do to keep him from getting smoked hehe. That was fun.
WEll, my current campaign has the players runnin around as warriors and heroes risen from the halls of valhalla to stop/fight Ragnarok. I had each character write up their lifestory and give it to me. Essentially time had progressed about 500 years since their deaths.
One of my players had written in a dughter whom he had "marked" on accident with his necromantic abilities leaving a long hand shaped scar on her face. LAter he was killed by his own men who were terrified of his necromantic abilities and the fact that he ate peoples souls.
Cue Ragnarok.
500 years later, a christianity stand in has mostly taken over the world and are opposed by an evil cult of mostly dark elves (svartgald not drow) who still worship the goddess Hel. The characters decided to find this cult to see if they couldn't get some clues to find a pair of godlike wolves who were prophecised to devour the sun and the moon to plunge the world in darkness.
Eventually they come across a group of dark elves who agree to take them to their leader. As they reach the underground root and mushroom city I describe the obsidian black onyx tower their leader has built since she took over their culture by murdering all the nobles single handedly and converting the populace to worship of Hel. As they enter the fortress they see tapestries and portraits of their leader. As I start to describe what she looks like the necromancers player turns white and suggests quietly that perhaps this was a bad idea and they should leave.
Turns out his duaghter ahd spent the past 500 years attempting to contact and ressurect her betrayed father from Helheim (where he wasn't) and swore herself, mind, body, and soul to Hel in exchange for the pwoer to take vengeance on those who have ravaged her people and those who betrayed her father. Thus she became a Lich whose phylactery was tied to a god. Considering all she suffered and endured in the last 500 years she was rather upset that not only had her father not gone to helheim as she was told by both a god and the men who betrayed him, but had risen again to actively oppose her current goals.
The jury is still out on what happens next.
Lets see... what evil thing have i done sticks out the most... well didnt kill the player BUT sure did leave him red faced! back in my 2e days one of my players was a Drow Fighter(no not a drizzit copy he's never even to this day heard/read of drizzit) and during his career he had many magic items! but always wanted a girdle of giant strength! so when he finished a huge epic fight he found one! a girdle lie in treasure pile(i forget what it was he killed!) and he immediately PUT it on! and was quickly suprised by his new breasts and lack of bulge! he never did find a cure before we switched to 3e and restarted and to this day... he never lets me forget how i mutilated his favorite character! sometimes being evil is more then killing a player...are worse things to lose then your life!
Aurn (Alender Falls King, Cleric,Presitge Paladin, Ordained Champion) was with the party when they decided to enter a temple of a long forgotten goddess (an adventure i had designed about 2 weeks pirior to the player joining), the party find these chambers which have pretty simple encounters in them and lead them to a stair case down. At the bottom of the staircase was a gaint scorpion, the players didn't think much of it and charged the beast. Aurn sadly was wearing +2 adamantium full plate armor with a +1 adamantium battleaxe, the scorpion was a rust monster hybrid and quickly destoryed Aurn's equipment. After the fight he tosses on a chain shirt and the party continues, they all hear whispers 'get out' and refuse, and as Aurn begins casting a spell he notices that nothing works, in fact all casters are unable to cast any spells at all, for they have encurred the goddess wrath. Aurn was so dramatized from the event that he never re entered the temple, and when he got his new set of armor put the blueshine quality on it as an 'insurance policy'
Ah the wonders of cursed items.
I have one item, more of an artifact though, which I am particularly proud of.
It began with one of my players, a paladin, setting out to find his recently lost paladin bloodbrother, and by extension get the party together and start adventuring. After a while and some fighting, his clues led to an underground chamber in his church. There he found a room with glowing religious symbols all over the walls, floor and ceiling (holy wards) and in the middle he found a key.
Upon touching it he suddenly hear a voice. But not any voice, it's the voice of his god speaking to him. Telling him that he must take the key to Neverwinter and that he will find his brother there.
So of course he rushes the party towards his newfound goal. And after som chance encounters and stuff they decide to rest in a house (I don't remember the circumstances around it or when, long time ago) and by now it has been weeks and more since they set out and at some point the party decides upon an action which sets of the curse which have been needling its way into the paladin for all those weeks and the paladin again hears the voice of his deity, which tells him that they are blasphemers and heathens. So the paladin goes melee on the party, who quickly deduct that the key is in fact cursed. So they gang up on him and take it away from him by force, successfully.
However, the nature of the curse is still unknown to them and the rogue, who took it immediately suffers from the curse (the cursed character has to make will saves at random interwalls, each fail adds a cumulative penalty, the paladin carried it for weeks and was at minus -28 or something) and has to make a will save with half the penaly of his party member, he failed. So now when I describe what the rogue hears the party can, although meta, figure out how it works. A character holding the key, who fails his save, is immediately placed under the keys power and the key reads the mind of the character and lures him with his hearts desire (paladin; voice of god, rogue; infinte wealth). This goal is of course false and the key will only lead the character into disaster. What's more, the effect of the curse is not weakened by not possessing the item, so any character who has been cursed and had it removed physically suffers the same penalty to his save when he touches it again.
What was so great about this whole thing was how the players dealt with the problem. After the rogue took the key the paladin threw himself at the rogue, and after a bit of tussling the rogue ended up inside a locked room with the paladin (who by now had the key again). The rogue, afraid of the crazy paladin, didn't sleep.
The next day, the party decided to deal with the problem and after some fighting, managed to hold the paladin still by melding a wooden door over him. Anmd proceed to hack on his hand with their weapons. the paladin dropped the key, but his hand was half chopped off and was hanging limp from his wrist (this would be fixed later with a heal spell) Then AFTER the fact the group realized they could just have cast 'remove curse' or some other more harmless spell. But the situation was just too frantic for them to ralize that in time.
The paladin roleplayed this greatly, really getting into the character and it really made for a memorable side-adventure. Especially since the whole situation arose more from the players than from me, I merely told the cursed player(s) what they were hearing/feeling. Not how to act on it.
I haven't stated this object up properly, or given it a name, but maybe I should. If so I would definitely call it "Key to Your Dreams" or "Key of Dreams".
I have in my current group a new cursed item. An amulet which grants undead skeleton wearers spell-like abilities. If the wearer is not an undead skeleton, the amulet will slowly turn the character CE and then into an undead. So the party rogue is risking becoming undead, and is eager to get it off (it causes pain hourly when not worn, and more when it's far away 1d6 extra per 500meters).0
I go by a rule of thumb when dealing with cursed items. A curse should be a curse. It's not supposed to be something you can just live with.
I remember one of my earlier adventures. The group I was running had two players, so I had made a background NPC to fill in the party. He was a Ranger, basically the switch hitter before it was cool. The other party members were a sorcerer trying to base his spells on earth spells (There are like two) and a gnome wizard, all 3rd level. During this adventure, the group was asked to retrieve a treasure hidden in an unearthed mining area. They came upon a door after an encounter with some low level monsters, and the label on the door was a very easy puzzle that said "Treasure Ahead". They walked down the hallway, careful of the stalactites and stalagmites on the walls, and saw a large pile of gold. Thinking it was a trap, they had the ranger fire his bow at the coins. Nothing. They threw fire at the coins. Nothing. Finally, they walked up to grab the coins, and the floor slammed into one of them.
Now, I knew the players would think that the pile of coins was just a trick by some kind of mimic. That's why the mimic had removed the bricks in the floor below the gold and was assuming the shape of the floor.
My ranger NPC died to it, and the sorcerer would have too, had the gnome not used some of his wine like a splash weapon to get him off. The ranger got slammed into the spikes and killed.
Their "tank" defeated, the casters barely beat the mimic and had to use almost all the gold getting the poor ranger brought back from the dead.
From someone else's game:
There was a drow city where it was illegal to talk (Vocally) in public. The DM did this because the Drow have Drow sign language. The punishment was cutting out your tongue. I recall both casters in the party balling up their sheets almost simultaneously.
I was the resident DM for my group and had been taking some flak, because I never tossed in "goofy" stuff. The Players had just entered a new dungeon and hit the first 4 way intersection. I checked for wandering monsters and was hit with inspiration... a lone duck waddled and quacked through the intersection across their path. I figured, "Now that is goofy." The player who had complained the most intensely about wanting me to throw in goofy, drew his sword and killed the duck. I was dumbstruck and as I recovered, irritated.
Well complaint boy, took the opportunity to take charge of the party and promptly and unerringly led them to the nastiest thing in the dungeon (5 or 6 hill giants), discovering the secret door that allowed them to bypass the rest of the dungeon. To make matters worse, I rolled several criticals for the giants, delivering a one to complaint boy, taking him out first.
Needless to say the players were irritated with me and claimed that I was retaliating for the duck. I pointed out that complaint boy wanted goofy and I had delivered; further I could not be held responsible if they followed him into the worst thing in the dungeon.
The next time a duck waddled by quacking, they spent an hour trying to woo it for its divine blessing...
You don't know cruelty....
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We had a DM once who ran an introductory game Friday nights at the local college. New players came in at 1st level.
So we've been playing awhile, I think me and the rest were 3rd to 5th level. A new girl comes in and rolls a druid.
First night, random encounter is rolled on her watch. It's a troll.
She raises the alarm and charges the troll, swinging her scimitar.
DM rolls for the troll, claw claw rend, and druid is literally ripped in half, brought to -20.
She never came back.
Needless to say the players were irritated with me and claimed that I was retaliating for the duck. I pointed out that complaint boy wanted goofy and I had delivered; further I could not be held responsible if they followed him into the worst thing in the dungeon.
well, if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, then it's...
uhhmm, dm cruelty?
anybody remember "nilbogs"? an old monster that was exactly like a goblin in all respects, except absolutely nothing could hurt it *except* healing it. sheesh, talk about a monster custom-made for $%&ing with players...that and mimics, trappers, cloakers, rust monsters, oh right. never mind.
anyhoo, I decided to make a puzzle that was similar to that for a 1st level party, but even more frustrating. it was an undead-construct type thing that looked like a wall of bones. it completely blocked progress into the dungeon and they knew they needed to get past it, but had no clue how to do it. if they tried to hit it, it hit them back for the same amount of damage that they did to it, damaging spells were reflected and it was immune to every thing else except cure spells. they tried and tried to get past it. they were desperate enough to try digging around it, but it just grew to fill the holes. The best part is that the paladin (same as the OP, only earlier) really got creative in coming up with ways to damage it. she ran through her entire arsenal of arms, and undaunted by all of her wounds (and lots of really obvious hints from me about what was going on), started improvising with materials at hand (it took place in a mine), which started with her pelting it with rocks and culminated in her pushing a mining cart at top speed to ram the thing. At this point, I and the other players were just plain curious to see how this would all turn out. I had to scratch my head to figure out how much damage that would do. to her.
In the end, I figured that it would be enough subdual damage to keep her out of trouble for a good long time. I think that was pretty nice of me, actually.
DM rolls for the troll, claw claw rend, and druid is literally ripped in half, brought to -20.She never came back.
that will teach her to play the game for the first time!
poor thing.
it probably broke a nail on that tree hugging druid...
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Are, or have you ever been a cruel GM? Do you feel remorse and want to reform? Do you continue to do it an love it? Feel like listening in on tales of shenanigans perpetrated on unsuspected players? If so, this is the thread for you!
Eighth floor or so of a spire-tower dungeon (the ones that develop in height rather than underground, you know) on a mountain peak.
PCs find the classic blocked door. The big stupid fighter (TM) does his usual thing: takes a run and shoulders the door open.Unfortunately for him the door just opens to the outside and the fighter falls down for a long long distance. Rumor has it that he took many rounds before he landed really painfully. For sure it took some time to collect and roll all the d6 needed for the damage and sum them up.
The other PCs never recovered his sorry corpse.
Man I keep thinking of stuff to write here...
One important thing I stick to when GM'ing is consequences. Best example is an adventure I ran in 4e last year. The PC's travel to the elven capitol, where a large celebration is taking place, and seemingly all the elves in the world is in attendance, celebrating and bartering.
The PC's uncover the plans for a plot, a coup of some sort, but the specifics are unclear (one in the party is the royal heir btw) and the objetive of the adventure is to unravel the plot and top it.
The players would get clues that lead to different locations, meaning that they have to make important choices, and when they take one option, time still goes on in the rest of the world. I.e. the evil scheme is still underway if they unknowingly make the wrong choice.
So my players did make the right choices most of the time, but bonked on the second last choice and went of in a completely wrong direction which set them back gravely.
They still had time to stop it, but much less so because of that last choice, so they hurry back to the capitol and are greeted with a horrible sight. The elves, houses and stoneladen roads seem to meld together, slowly and painfully, in individual splotches of goo here and there.
What was going on was a largescale ritual from the BBEG to literally turn every elf present in the capitol (in essence every elf in the world, except those who didn't attend the celebration) into mindless warforged, which was what was going on when they arrived. They could reverse the ritual in time if they got to the ritual site and got past the fight in time. But alas, the fight took too long, and when the last die had been cast, every elf caught in the spell had been turned into a warforged.
So they succeeded in beating the BBEG, but ultimately failed to save the elves and from then on only 10% or less of the elves remained in that world.
I once had a group roll up a party of characters and spent two game sessions delving deep into their personal motives and stories. The were all powergaming pretty hard, and coming up with very elaborate motivations and goals. They loved those characters. At the end of the 2nd session I had the authority come down on them (they were playing resistance fighters). The players were used to games where adventurers pretty much get away with anything due to a combination of better classes, better equipment, money, luck and plot aura. The law showed up, the characters fought, and all died horribly.
The group was stunned. The next session they rolled out new characters in the same setting, more resistance fighters, linked to the original party (friends, family, ect) coming to investigate the deaths of the others and to find out how much of the operation had been compromised. The first encounter was against the first group of characters, risen as nasty undead by the evil powers in charge.
That first party became seriously awful recurring villains. No matter how many times the party killed them, I kept coming up with new ways to bring them back and working those awesome backstories into the arc. In the end, the body count of that first original group was up to 7 additional character deaths.
I loved watching the knife twist every time one of them fell to one of the characters they had loved so much.
anybody remember "nilbogs"? an old monster that was exactly like a goblin in all respects, except absolutely nothing could hurt it *except* healing it. sheesh, talk about a monster custom-made for $%&ing with players...that and mimics, trappers, cloakers, rust monsters, oh right. never mind.
My favorite was the gold bug.
For those that are too young or just don't remember, a gold bug looked exactly like a gold coin. But it ate gold.
And a nasty poison tipped stinger!
Dungeon did a nice scenario around a Nilbog.Throat Leech...
Ear Seekers...
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I once had a group roll up a party of characters and spent two game sessions delving deep into their personal motives and stories. The were all powergaming pretty hard, and coming up with very elaborate motivations and goals. They loved those characters. At the end of the 2nd session I had the authority come down on them (they were playing resistance fighters). The players were used to games where adventurers pretty much get away with anything due to a combination of better classes, better equipment, money, luck and plot aura. The law showed up, the characters fought, and all died horribly.
The group was stunned. The next session they rolled out new characters in the same setting, more resistance fighters, linked to the original party (friends, family, ect) coming to investigate the deaths of the others and to find out how much of the operation had been compromised. The first encounter was against the first group of characters, risen as nasty undead by the evil powers in charge.
That first party became seriously awful recurring villains. No matter how many times the party killed them, I kept coming up with new ways to bring them back and working those awesome backstories into the arc. In the end, the body count of that first original group was up to 7 additional character deaths.
I loved watching the knife twist every time one of them fell to one of the characters they had loved so much.
If that isn't a way to deterr powergaming, I don't know what is!
a gold bug looked exactly like a gold coin. But it ate gold.
And a nasty poison tipped stinger!
and made grown men cry?
If that isn't a way to deterr powergaming, I don't know what is!
absolutely, congrats on that gem, Doomed Hero...
the convoluted backstories that explain 5 PrCs and 3 base classes are always a treat. I think it would be refreshing to have them start with something like: "In Churl the Knave's quest for mechanical advantage over other players and the DM, he decided to start with a level of Rogue for the skill points" instead of being an orphan and growing up on the mean streets, or whathaveyou.So they succeeded in beating the BBEG, but ultimately failed to save the elves and from then on only 10% or less of the elves remained in that world.
was this cruelty or kindness? did the dead elves leave their loot? geez, the mind boggles at the accumulated wealth of 90% of the world's elves being hand delivered to a party. ;-)
aside from that did anybody in the game actually like elves? I guess it is a bit worse than killing off all the gnomes, for example.Unfortunately for him the door just opens to the outside and the fighter falls down for a long long distance. Rumor has it that he took many rounds before he landed really painfully.
oh Wiley Coyote, when will you ever learn?
thanks for the laugh...
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Bringing back characters as undead villains... yes, I think I can do that...
Anyway, I made a "Screw the PCs" game to run because I was spending the night at a friends house to continue gaming that weekend. It all starts with the two-person party(a red dragon bloodline sorcerer and a fighter) waking up one morning to a great commotion in the town. It seems two small children had dissappeared two days ago, and the mother is far past worried sick. The last place the children were seen was the edge of a forest rumored to be haunted. Search parties had been going in during the day and at night, but the night crew always ended up being to weirded out by the 'ghosts.' When the PCs join the search, they pick the night crew and find out the 'ghosts' are really pixies that sleep during the day and play at night. They found this out after a few rounds of combat, which ended when the pixies used sleep arrows. One the fighter is asleep(pixie arrows ftw!) and the sorcerer realizes he can't when, he manages to calm them down enough to explain why they are in the forest. The pixies say they haven't seen any kids in the forest, but will look, and tells the sorcerer to meet them here the next night. Then the pixies shoot them with memory loss arrows(the sorc still remembers they are supposed to meet someone).
The next night, the meeting takes place, and the party is lead to a hole in the ground by a dead tree. At the edge of the hole is a child's spinning top. The fighter ties a rope to the dead tree, only to discover the rope isn't long enough to reach the bottom. So he jumps down the rest of the way, and bounces safely on the squishy moss growing at the bottom, and the sorcerer follows(taking 1 point of damage because the moss is no longer so squishy). They are now in a tunnel, with one end collapsed behind them. The other way takes them down a path that splits up into 3 different tunnels. They manage to pick the right one, and find a door that leads to a library. The search the room, find some old books(One of which was open on a table), and some strange marks in the dust. They are about to leave with them when they hear a voice in their minds telling them to put the books back or they won't be allowed to leave. They hadn't spotted the psuedodragon hiding on the top of a bookshelf, watching them. They agree, put the books back, and ask if any children have been seen down here. They have not. So the PCs leave, and manage to return to town just in time for what looks like a celebration of some sort.
Oh joy! The children have returned... from grandmother's house, where they went without telling anyone, up the mountain.
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If that isn't a way to deterr powergaming, I don't know what is!absolutely, congrats on that gem, Doomed Hero...
the convoluted backstories that explain 5 PrCs and 3 base classes are always a treat. I think it would be refreshing to have them start with something like: "In Churl the Knave's quest for mechanical advantage over other players and the DM, he decided to start with a level of Rogue for the skill points" instead of being an orphan and growing up on the mean streets, or whathaveyou.
I think i might use that for my next character lol!
So they succeeded in beating the BBEG, but ultimately failed to save the elves and from then on only 10% or less of the elves remained in that world.was this cruelty or kindness? did the dead elves leave their loot? geez, the mind boggles at the accumulated wealth of 90% of the world's elves being hand delivered to a party. ;-)
aside from that did anybody in the game actually like elves? I guess it is a bit worse than killing off all the gnomes, for example.
This would have been even better had there been elves in the party that the remaining party members had to slay after they turned crazy warforged.
After informing the PCs that they would be fighting against a necromancer with plans of lichdom they rolled up characters accordingly...
I remember a Paladin and a cleric, as well as others who spent lots of coin on Holy Water.
After hacking there way through 3 dungeon levels of undead, ranging from Skeletons and Zombies to more exotic less identifiable kinds.
Eventually they get to the grand chambers and can hear the chanting just beyond. They have almost prevailed! There is but a single guard on the door, and spotting bone peaking through holes in the clothing they attack with a holy vigor only to find that their holy water is useless, and the darn thing refuses to be turned!
They eventually destroy it, but have completely worn themselves down to the point the boss killed them all.
I figured a Necromancer shouldn't be so stupid to defend himself with only one type of magic.
Where to start......There has been so many moments of evil on my part in the years I have been a DM.
I turned a paladin player into a statue of gold, and later had it stolen from the other players by a Lich that wanted an "Oscar".
I turned an annoying sexist male bard into a female to give him a taste of his own medicine.
One of my players got eaten by zombies.
I had my players awaken a demon that was way above there level, just to see if they would be stupid enough to attack him, the paladin did and got ripped a shreds, the other players ran screaming.
I had a female character kidnapped by drow slavers, during the 3 days she was held until the other players could save her, the drow amused them self s by carving the drow word for slave on her chest, rubbing ash in the wound and then healing it. That left a nice big scare, and a pissed of player.
I had a monk type character named Griff turned inside out with a nasty artifact, he was renamed Griff stroganoff after that.
One of my poor players got knocked out in a fight against a nasty Orcus cleric, the round after the cleric kicked his unconscious body into a blade barrier.
There are many many more I just cant think of them right now.
But I make no excuse for being a evil DM, the world is a dangerous place, and the things you are trying to kill for what ever reason, really don't want to die, and that is where I come in.
But to be honest I rarely if ever arbitrarily just kill characters, more often then not my players dig there own graves without any assistances from me.
One of my players got eaten by zombies.You truly are an evil GM.
To actually make things worse, he was fully conscious when he got eaten, a few rounds before the feast started he failed a save against a Hold Person.
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On the topic of Cursed Items:
I had a rogue come across a skeleton in a dungeon which had a black ring on one of it's hands. Upon pocketing the ring (so the party wouldn't see it) the skeleton crumbled into dust.
Said rogue decided to try it out immediately and was shocked when the ring started to talk to him! The ring introduced itself and informed the character that it would heal him and would cast necromantic spells for him in return for the pain the PC would inflict upon others.
The ring then warned the rogue never to remove it. "It would be a bad thing to do."
Slowly over the next few sessions the rogue, who was having a ball with his new ring, was noticed by the other players as not having much appetite and becoming unhealthily thin and pale. When the other characters finally made the connection to the new ring they tried to talk him in to removing it. He refused, of course, so they jumped him in the hopes of saving him from himself. The rogue fought for all he was worth and the other players eventually had to cut the finger off to separate the two.
The party leaped back in shocked horror as the rogue crumbled into dust... all of his HP had been converted into charges.