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I don't know if this belongs here or the off topic. Please move if it needs to be.
What kind of evil, vile and mean things have you done to your players? Anyone ever put the "head of vecna" in a game? Perhaps the "magic box" as from the Oglaf webcomic (warning that is NSFW if you are googling it now).
I had in game once a half green dragon rust monster. It took out the fighter's armor and left with with his skivvies, bastard sword and a shield. He found later on in the caverns of the adventure we were on a set of armor. He ignored the runes and the spikes...even the somewhat demonic head. Each day it leeched from him a small amount of XP and/or HP but granted him cool powers. The real deal was this was a demon that was skinned alive and made into armor by some evil warlock. When it became strong enough it became a "awakened half fiendish animated object" and attacked the party.
Not as cool as some of the stuff I have heard about...but still not bad for a low to middle level game.
I once sent the players into a desert crypt full of, you guessed it, mummies. They fought a few and quickly found out that fire takes these guys down quick.
Then there was a mummy with a keg of black powder in its chest, beneath all those bandages. I hinted that its chest looked oddly deformed, kind of barrel shaped, but noboyd investigated it. The melee types (including the cleric) ran into battle and the mage fired off a produce flame spell.
And blew up the mummy. And everyone in the party except himself. Thankfully he had a big enough bag of holding to scoop up their corpses and get them back to town.
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I personally specialise in evil traps, that are always fiendishly efficient and environmentally friendly. I.e. rolling boulder traps that they run from and straight into a deep pit trap, then the boulder lands on them for extra damage, and when they think the worst is over the smooth walls begin to close in. End result= Crushed PC's, and a totally efficient trap that leaves no trace; the boulder is crushed into dust by the walls, leaving the corridor much as before.
Vault with a single pedestel on top rested a bag of gold coins. Thief check for traps found nothing, checked again, nothing, check again, nothing, stared at Mr. Fishy and ask about that pedstel for an hour. Finally broke and asked a NPC to grab the sack. Claimed that he had disarmed the trap. There wasn't a trap just a angery paranoided player and a grinning DM.
"I said you didn't find any traps, not there were any." Mr. Fishy smiles every time he thinks about that player and the names he called Mr. Fishy.
Scry and fry. While they are resting. Hey there has to be a high level adventuring murderous greedy party who heard of the heroes every other month or year or so.
Scry and fry. While they are resting. Hey there has to be a high level adventuring murderous greedy party who heard of the heroes every other month or year or so.
Only if they leave survivors or spread the tale themselves. It's amazingly easy to stay low key and scry allows save throws... teleporting to a scried location is much more dangerous than it use to be too.
I'm not generally an evil GM in game, though in my current campaign I've had my bouts of evilness at the start.
To save time, my players had me generate their characters for them, so that when the campaign started we could start playing right away. They gave me basic information on what they wanted (a tiefling ninja and elven mage, respectively).
For the tiefling, his fiendish traits include featureless black eyes, very large pointed ears, and a faint smell of skunk musk.
For the mage, she's a tenebri elf, who have a racial trait of blindness (they have blindsight out to 100' depending on conditions, so are not at all useless as adventurers or mages).
In 3.5, i used Mordenkainen's Disjunction on my group. Play ground to a halt whilst each pc rolled 20-40 saving throws.
My worst Evil GM thing is rolling my attacks right in front of my players. They see my natural 20s and fate takes a turn for the worst.
Tough Love.
I often do that :) but then I also will roll really important saves for NPCs when a fight is turning epic and its a deal changer on the one save. It builds some trust too.
Im quite a level GM in the evil stakes but in my opinion in any game there is nothing more evil than a simple deck of many things (old school).
That quite simply is a recipe for a party exploding.
Drac.
My favoutite tricks:
Setting up circumstances where bad behaviour comes back to bite them on the arse. To be fair I like to make sure rewards come back to haunt them as well.
Dropping in something to taunt the party weakness. You should see four sorcerers manage a locked door.
Treasure that is not treasure. The villain has about 120 gold in his safe, but 4000GP worth of art sculptures. -Technically- they can resell the artwork...If they could care about transporting it. the same with elaborate silver daggers, inside beautifully carved rosewood boxes with Ivory Inlay and electrum clasps and resting on a satin pilow. The box could be worth more than the dagger.
Taxes: eventually you have to pay them. walk in the door with a +2 sword, you better be prepaired for the tax man eventually.
Silent rolls: Occasionally I'll have a player roll a dice. I record the result and then look at their character sheet. This is usually pointless. a Variation is the passed note where I pass a note to a player simply reading 'Read this, pass this back and tell no one' but I find it's not as good when you have to rely on a partner.
Batts
Not really something I did to them so much as something they didn't do. I hinted strongly that the source of a threat was in a dwarven watchtower that had been taken over. I provided an NPC who knew something was wrong, but whom the authorities wouldn't listen to (regular reports of all-clear were still coming from the tower). I had spent pretty much all my free time over about three weeks doing the dungeon, figuring out what would be challenging without being a guaranteed TPK. Seeding it with treasure, NPCs, giving it a working command structure and figuring a way that it makes sense that the whole population of the dungeon won't rush the PCs when they open the door (which is no fun). I created what I thought was a good dungeon, with good rewards, that the PCs won't be able to beat just by kicking in the door, but can be successful at if they put a little logistical planning into it.
They took one recon and decided it was too dangerous and they'd skip it and go tell the dwarves that their watchtower was taken over. I'd planned on the tower being the focus for two or three sessions, so I had to improv the trip to the dwarves, and make up a dwarven town on the spot. They were just stopping at that dwarven town for a day or two, and then traveling on to the dwarven capital. But first they went to this town, and although the authorities were satisfied that nothing was wrong, the PCs made some contacts in town and concocted a plan to go in to the tower with these roughly 20 extra NPCs, paladins and rogues (two players made these contacts separately). They also said that if anything unusual happens, they should rush in and not wait for the PCs to come back.
When they came back through that area, I let my passive-aggressive streak get the better of me. Ignore my dungeon, will they?
When they got back to the town from the capital, their contacts were nowhere to be found. A quick gather information check revealed that a bunch of people rushed out of town when something strange happened at the watchtower. The PCs rushed out to the tower to find the paladins and rogues nursing their wounds and praying over their dead outside the tower, and dividing up the very rich treasure of the evil monsters that had been inhabiting the tower. The head NPC paladin had a nice new suit of armor, one of the rogues had a really amazing new shortbow he found in there. And so on, the more that they talked to the NPCs, the more the NPCs casually mentioned their new things they just picked up. Usually, whatever the person they were talking to would have LOVED to get.
One of the players was laughing uproariously through the whole display. HE got it. A couple others were pretty miffed.
I tell you, sometimes I think this game would be great if it weren't for the players.
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First...anyone having trouble viewing this thread. I had to do some browser magic to see it. 2nd...OMG...funny stuff...evil stuff...love it.
I once in Cyberpunk 2020 (and a player adapted it to Spelljammer/Dragonstar) had the players come across a cyberarm missing fingers and it had an AI in it. It was able to speak and offered to allow it's self to be grafted to the Solo in the group and help out if they would be willing to find the rest of it's special custom fingers that is locked in the R&D labs at various offices of a certain spaced based company. Until then normal cyberfingers would be okay. So the Solo has his cyberarm swapped for the talking one. It's helpful in fights and so on. Also there is hinted it has others that the rest of the group can have like it once they get it's fingers.
Then players proceeded with black ops missions to obtain these fingers. With each one the player gets cool powers. Finally at the end of it turns out it's an evil AI and overwrites the Solo's personality and gets the rest of the cyberlimbs grafted on and gets a "dog face" exotic furries mod done to his face. He puts on a hi-tech Egyptian headdress and BOOM! Anubis is born again and on a killing spree!
I eat all the cheetos and M&Ms.
Now that's just Capital-E, Evil!
I ran "House of Cards" from Dungeon magazine 19 (I think) for a group. It's a dungeon crawl where every door is locked with a card from a Deck of Many Things, so basically every card from the deck was drawn once.
That was as evil as it gets.
At the insistence of my players, I roll openly and the dice stand... no fudging.
I roll 20... a lot.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32
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Every so often, when I have time, I use all those books, feat and spells that the players do and rebuild some encounters.
I just totally freaked out a 12th level party with five 7th level tweaked and min-maxed bullywugs. Potions upon potions, skill tricks, one-use items... every one targetting the wizard and backing off, every round...
Hilarious!
Every so often, when I have time, I use all those books, feat and spells that the players do and rebuild some encounters.
I just totally freaked out a 12th level party with five 7th level tweaked and min-maxed bullywugs. Potions upon potions, skill tricks, one-use items... every one targetting the wizard and backing off, every round...
Hilarious!
I do this for my entire campaign. I hardly consider it Evil... more like Fair.
But then, the times I've been lazy and NOT done so, the players tend to one- or two-shot things.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32
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Yeah, I'd love to - and you're right, it is only fair. Usually I just double the number of mooks in a given encounter - that balances 5 players with splatbooks pretty nicely.
I'm studying again as well as working, so properly kicking ass just isn't a regular thing any more. But oh, it is so worth it ;-)
OKAY - evil things? Golems in rooms with Symbols of Sleep on the walls is fun.
Ever heard of the half-fiendish snake trick?
Used to work in 3.5, unlikely to word in Pathfinder (thank the gods!).
Take a constrictor snake. Advance it to 19 HD. Max his Hide skill (and take as many feat that gives bonuses to hide as possible). Give-it the Half-Fiend template.
That should bring your half-fiendish advanced constrictor to CR 10, a legit encounter for a party of six 9th level adventurers (according to L-G guidelines)
Have your half-fiendish advanced constrictor ambush the party. Given his hide check, it should win the surprise round. Have it cast blasphemy on the party during the surprise round. Since the party is at least 10 HD lower than the constrictor's caster level, they all die without a save.
yerk!
Usually I just double the number of mooks in a given encounter - that balances 5 players with splatbooks pretty nicely.
My players mow through mooks so easily that this doesn't work, it just doubles the XP they would gain. Have to actually make the mooks tougher, or replace some of them with actual baddies.
Take a constrictor snake. Advance it to 19 HD. Max his Hide skill (and take as many feat that gives bonuses to hide as possible). Give-it the Half-Fiend template.
That should bring your half-fiendish advanced constrictor to CR 10, a legit encounter for a party of six 9th level adventurers (according to L-G guidelines)
Have your half-fiendish advanced constrictor ambush the party. Given his hide check, it should win the surprise round. Have it cast blasphemy on the party during the surprise round. Since the party is at least 10 HD lower than the constrictor's caster level, they all die without a save.
yerk!
Yeeeeeeaaaah, that's a good example of how templates and non-one-to-one HD-to-CR conversions will screw people over....
My worst Evil GM thing is rolling my attacks right in front of my players. They see my natural 20s and fate takes a turn for the worst.
Tough Love.
I often do that :) but then I also will roll really important saves for NPCs when a fight is turning epic and its a deal changer on the one save. It builds some trust too.
Im quite a level GM in the evil stakes but in my opinion in any game there is nothing more evil than a simple deck of many things (old school).
That quite simply is a recipe for a party exploding.
Drac.
It's true.
Our Savage Tide party recently had three party members draw a card each.
The one PC who didn't draw buried the deck deep underground after that.
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In a high-powered interdimensional game called Ancient/Future where characters are mutated by a virus and set loose to explore the multiverse, I had a player whose character was given vast amounts of necromantic powers. He was still learning to control his powers (ie, power but no skill) when he decided he would summon every spirit within range.
This was in a Gamma World dimension.....
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Okay I got two half black dragon war trolls. Its like a baby tarsque and the the sovereign gluing. 1 million platinum to a floor in ice cave knowing the party pyromancer would try to melt it free with the party in the room he melted it triggered the trap that released a chill metal spell and trapped the party in platinum
hehe; I flushed my pc down the toilet once; it was a dungeon from Dungeon magazine; was great.
once I had an npc throw a player with a spell across the jungle to have them land on a ghost ship; which now chases the pc across the world,
I sent one bad demon after the party and gave the truename of the creature; hehe Herbert, to the least talkative player in the group, a monk; so while the party mage could have easily banished the creature; they had to slog it out; getting trashed in the process instead.
probably others; but my players would have to speak up.
Most evil thing I saw a gm do; we were playing one afternoon and convinced one of our friends to give it a try; he spent hours reading and rolling up his character getting ready; his brother was running the game; our friend joins the game; walks 60 ft into the dungeon and gets killed by a stirge; a small mosquito like bird; character dead not 10 minutes into the game and the gm laughs in his face; so all that time put into making a character wasted; his comment; how the heck can a bird kill me so fast through platemail? well, he decided the game was stupid and has been heckling our playing for 30 years; most evil I have seen any gm do to date.
well, he decided the game was stupid and has been heckling our playing for 30 years; most evil I have seen any gm do to date.
That. Bites.
yeah; 30 years later it still irritates me; lol; not like I hold a grudge hehe
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Most evil thing I saw a gm do; we were playing one afternoon and convinced one of our friends to give it a try; he spent hours reading and rolling up his character getting ready; his brother was running the game; our friend joins the game; walks 60 ft into the dungeon and gets killed by a stirge; a small mosquito like bird; character dead not 10 minutes into the game and the gm laughs in his face; so all that time put into making a character wasted; his comment; how the heck can a bird kill me so fast through platemail? well, he decided the game was stupid and has been heckling our playing for 30 years; most evil I have seen any gm do to date.
This, to me, shows that that GM doesn't really have any respect for the hobby. If someone is genuinely showing interest in the game and will actually take the time to sit down and make a character, then they deserve the kid gloves, at least for a little bit. Stuff like this just drives potential players away.
Like in my group now, one of my players has asked if I would mind his 11 yo daughter playing...I don't mind at all and chances are, I will take it a little easy on her--if I was to roll up a random encounter of a group of trolls and have them lay waste to the kid's character, then chances are she would be much more hesitant about playing again. It's one of those things where yes, there is a double standard when it comes to new vs. seasoned characters.
Well; really the GM was pretty young; think I was 15 so he was probably 13 or 14 at the time. Ah the scars of youth.
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let's see...evil? that's kinda a hard one. As I've posted on other threads:
Gelatenous ooze pit traps: players loved it. Turned into a pet.
Deck of many things: Players drew until they got the wish card so they could all have matching, flying pink pony mounts.
Albino red dragon: Players actually laughed.
Kobold Warren: Players ruled it tough but fair.
Head of Vecna: Players managed to fix this by casting a spell that gave regeneration. If I remember right, the new head attached properly and gave a gaze attack or something. I was just proud they had thought that one through.
It seemed impossible to be actually evil to them, then I stumbled across two things that never seem to fail: Shocker Lizards and the ILG (Innocent Little Girl). if they hear scritching on the walls, they avoid the corridor. no questions asked. stacking electricity damage has almost killed them more then anything else. and as for the little girl...well, she almost inevitably either triggers traps or turns into a demon or...well, i've used her to the point where just showing up scares the hell out of them. You ever try to fulfill a hostage rescue mission when you're outright paranoid about the charge you have to rescue? And when i's a room full of them, all turning to stare simultaneously? Paranoia is fun to watch.
Oh, and in the evil things DMs can do category: I took their bar away. their first characters retired and opened a tavern, so I took their cavern and shoved it into the multiverse. It shows up now and again, but something usually happens that they can't get in and then it disappears. Sometimes I think the only reason they still play is to try and get it back.
and as for the little girl...well, she almost inevitably either triggers traps or turns into a demon or...well, i've used her to the point where just showing up scares the hell out of them. You ever try to fulfill a hostage rescue mission when you're outright paranoid about the charge you have to rescue? And when i's a room full of them, all turning to stare simultaneously? Paranoia is fun to watch.
Out of curiosity, have you run the ghost/dark scion storyline from Heroes of Horror? I know of at least one DM who ran that and ever since, every time a >10-year-old (or racial equivalent) girl shows up his players always immediately drop into high-gear mode.
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Well, I have one unintentionally evil moment, and one awesome moment that all but one of the players consider to evil, but I insist was purely good roleplaying.
The unintentionally evil moment was when they where traveling in a series of caverns that lead up from a tomb to the surface. Well, they got lost and wandered into a section of the caverns that had become part of a certain... unsavory character's lair. Long story short, they ended up in a ten foot wide hallway with a gelatinous cube on either side of the party . Yeah, that was fun for me at least, not so much for them. Making it particularly funny was that since this was 4e, one of the cubes engulfed the paladin who was equipped in plate armor and with a shield, ultimately making it so that it was mathematically impossible for him to break out of the cube. Good times.
The other time was at the end of the same campaign when they were going up against the BBEG, whose about to destroy the world. Now to add some context, one of the PCs had done something kinda stupid in the campaign (Wizard sees an ancient, slightly evil-ish looking magic circle with arcane symbols that are all mentioning great power and great change. What's he do? Steps inside and casts a spell to see what happens.), but ultimately he had been changing into some sort of half-elemental being that is addicted to a highly addictive drug that makes his spells prone to... malfunctioning. Well, by the end of the campaign, in the climatic battle, as they are falling thousands of feet through the air towards the precise point on the face of Faerun that can trigger the appropriate cataclysm, the BBEG makes her speech to the party, though specifically to the PC that is being changed, and he goes "You know what? I like her plans. Sorry guys" and then he proceeds to attack the other party members in order to prevent them from stopping her setting her plans. It did make the encounter more interesting as they no longer had just a blue dragon to fight, as they plummeted to the ground, but they also had an 11th level tiefling wizard to fight as well. For some reason they took to blaming me, the GM, for that; it wasn't like I had figured out the character's motivation and tailored the BBEG's speech specifically to call to that PC and had hoped that he would be convinced. Nope, I didn't do that at all...
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Hmm, unintentionally evil moment.
Had a party where the bard was a little behind the rest of the party. Left a deck of many things out, presorted so the first four cards were all the good cards. I knew he'd give into the temptation and sure enough he picks up the deck and announces he'd draw one card.
He then proceeds to shuffle the deck. Proof that the universe has a sense of irony, he draws the Idiot card.
They later find the BBEG is the 'paladin' they helped earlier on (why is it everyone believes the aasimar when he says he's a paladin?). Well his right hand man is LE, and has pledged to not oppose the BBEG. He arranges a situation where the party saves his life, and is honour bound to help them. He doesn't work with them, but lets them rest up and heal in his headquarters where they find the BBEGs plans. They succeeed in killing the BBEG, only to find the right hand man had plans in motion for when they killed the BBEG. Yes, the heroes helped the LE villian get 'promoted' to BBEG, and form his first small nation state.
Later in the same game, they got involved in intrigue in the BBEG's empire. He was calling a convocation of the 'old Imperial religions' to discuss their role in his new empire. Well technically Orcus was one of the 'old religions' and was invited. The party's priestess of Loviatar gets tapped to represent her church. The party succeeds in stopping the plots of the Orcus priests, gets them thrown out of the convocation, making the entire following of Orcus as enemies. They're congratulating themselves for thwarting both Orcus and the BBEG...
...Only to find out that the BBEG wanted the priests of Orcus disgraced, so he could outlaw the faith from his empire, legally, w/o having a direct hand in their disgrace.
The campaign ended with a (all but one character) TPK, but they HATED that badguy with the heat of a thousand suns.
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My Age of Worms campaign featured, until recently, a recurring Balabar Smenk. He had been "changed" by the Faceless One into a supernatural assassin, constantly hounding and harrowing the party.
He was a rogue/assassin with the Sepulchral Thief template from Cityscape.
In short, even when the party killed him, he came back, again and again and again...
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and as for the little girl...well, she almost inevitably either triggers traps or turns into a demon or...well, i've used her to the point where just showing up scares the hell out of them. You ever try to fulfill a hostage rescue mission when you're outright paranoid about the charge you have to rescue? And when i's a room full of them, all turning to stare simultaneously? Paranoia is fun to watch.Out of curiosity, have you run the ghost/dark scion storyline from Heroes of Horror? I know of at least one DM who ran that and ever since, every time a >10-year-old (or racial equivalent) girl shows up his players always immediately drop into high-gear mode.
No, I haven't, but now I sure as hell want to look it up! If they're allready this paranoid, it would do well to make them even more so!
No, I haven't, but now I sure as hell want to look it up! If they're allready this paranoid, it would do well to make them even more so!and as for the little girl...well, she almost inevitably either triggers traps or turns into a demon or...well, i've used her to the point where just showing up scares the hell out of them. You ever try to fulfill a hostage rescue mission when you're outright paranoid about the charge you have to rescue? And when i's a room full of them, all turning to stare simultaneously? Paranoia is fun to watch.Out of curiosity, have you run the ghost/dark scion storyline from Heroes of Horror? I know of at least one DM who ran that and ever since, every time a >10-year-old (or racial equivalent) girl shows up his players always immediately drop into high-gear mode.
HoH, page 15-19: "Annalee's Baby". Enjoy!
Despite what my players might say, I am not an evil GM. I am a devious one though and I am adept at using comments by the players against them. If I do my job right, by the end of the campaign all of my hints and misdirections are revealed and the players are surprised they did not see it coming.
A good example was my Planescape campaign. A few things that occured to the PCs during the course of the campaign was them facing a demon that spoke as though it had encountered them before, facing off against the mind-controlled father of one of the PCs, being targeted by assassins specifically trained to fight them, later being rescued by the same assassins (now led by the PCs father whose is no longer mind controled), and a few other things I cannot remember. I also worked in one player's background as an orphan.
The climax of the campaign involved a series of time/space jumps that reulted in the PCs facing a horde of demons (in which one escaped), rescuing the PC's father and freeing him from the mind control (the assassins worked for him and had attacked the PCs to leave clues to the BBG's goals), and eventually stopping an incursion from the Far Realm onto the Earth (d20 modern) which resulted in the orphaned PC having to send his infant self to Sigil to prefent him from being a sacrifice.
It was a fun run. I even had the PCs become involved in a number of historical incidents mentioned in the background of previous campaigns (since most of the players had actually participated in those camapigns this worked pretty well).
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Put the Conjurer and Nomad in a zone of forbiddance, for multiple adventures.
For bonus points, make it reasonably designed and STILL enticing to the "can't summon or teleport" crowd.
Possess one of the PC's fairly early on, then lie in wait. Make sure the ridden character gets a few boons and hints/portents from time to time, and have the big reveal be a huge event. Bonus points: possess a family member/cohort instead.
Turn PC's into squirrels/bunnies/etc and have them run a Fellowship Downs adventure, without warning. Similarly: shrink them all, or turn everyone incorporeal for an adventure.
Get rid of gravity, or make it subjective.
Dream Sequences. Always hated em, now I hate em even more.
Dream Sequences. Always hated em, now I hate em even more.
Am I the only person who likes dream sequences if they're not horribly badly done? Heck, my Binder took Dreamtelling for the specific purpose of being able to have cool dream sequences. (Admittedly, she's in a Play-by-post and is an amnesiac Hellbred, and I specifically told the DM "her pre-Scourging history is in your hands".)
But there seems to be a lot of general dislike for the dream sequence concept here. I'm curious why... bad experiences is my main guess.
I once teleported my high-level group in the stomach of the tarrasque. When they managed to escape, they noticed the tarrasque was in a room with a mirror of opposition :-)
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Dream Sequences. Always hated em, now I hate em even more.Am I the only person who likes dream sequences if they're not horribly badly done? Heck, my Binder took Dreamtelling for the specific purpose of being able to have cool dream sequences. (Admittedly, she's in a Play-by-post and is an amnesiac Hellbred, and I specifically told the DM "her pre-Scourging history is in your hands".)
But there seems to be a lot of general dislike for the dream sequence concept here. I'm curious why... bad experiences is my main guess.
I'm guessing it's because it can be an excuse for the DM to throw an abundance of useless imagery at them. see, the dream world (or plane, if you prescribe to that cosmology) can be a ticket for the DM to do whatever they want. rules don't matter anymore. some DMs like that, so they tend to put too much emphasis on the dreams, which can get confusing to the player. i know my players always liked them, but that was because I didn't overuse them (a common problem) and I knew my audience and exactly what was too much.
The key to your question lies in the qualifier "if they're not horribly badly done". this tends to happen to things like dream sequences more often then anything else that i know of, but anything "horribly badly done" is going to accrue distaste.
I once teleported my high-level group in the stomach of the tarrasque. When they managed to escape, they noticed the tarrasque was in a room with a mirror of opposition :-)
I once teleported a terrasque on top of my high-level group...to be fair it was summoned by an equally high-level wizard and most of the group managed to survive.
...Calculating the damage done to a character by a falling terrasque is one of the high points in my DMing career, just fyi. Just above the groan I get now when I say something like "the party is being led by a little girl".
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Dream Sequences. Always hated em, now I hate em even more.Am I the only person who likes dream sequences if they're not horribly badly done? Heck, my Binder took Dreamtelling for the specific purpose of being able to have cool dream sequences. (Admittedly, she's in a Play-by-post and is an amnesiac Hellbred, and I specifically told the DM "her pre-Scourging history is in your hands".)
But there seems to be a lot of general dislike for the dream sequence concept here. I'm curious why... bad experiences is my main guess.
once played with a very experienced DM and several skilled DnD players at the tail end of a nice convention.
One player, however, was rather...challenging...to sit with; he was basically pulling an Obstructive, Defiant card the entire time, which made things annoying. Then, tossed into a dream sequence where the written adventure had "DM, you're gonna have to wing this" for the in-game effects of the dream world.
Combine Tired with Annoyed, throw in a little Frustrated and Overly Creative (playing a High-Cha, Low-Wis Halfling Sorcerer) and you get a recipe for not-fun-dreamtime adventures.
I am sure you could do it well, in fact, I've seen it done well. That one example just sticks in my craw each and every time it comes up.
-t