Top 10 ways to mess with your players as DM


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mdt wrote:

A) Let the Paladin of Bahamut find a Cursed Ebon Full Plate Armor of Tiamat's Dracolich which looks like Golden Full Plate of Bahamut instead.

B) Take the player aside who always does anything that's chaotic, and have a 6" pixie offer him the answer to their latest puzzle for a 'favor' to be determined in the future. Have the pixie appear in random encounters to mock the players about the favor they owe her for the next year, but never actually call in the favor.

C) Put the team into a position where they have to help defend a village of neutral Orcs (who aren't attacking anyone) from a tribe of blink dogs that won't accept the concept of Nuetral Orcs and are attacking the village unceasingly.

And we STILL hate you for it. :-p


A 1000ft pit just behind a door that is jammed shut and needs to be bull rushed open.


This works best for low level characters.

A "treasure map" that leads to a random place in the wilderness. Where there is absolutely nothing of value.

For added evil, just as they've dug as deep as they're willing (and yes, they will dig) have them find an "oddly shaped" and very large rock. eight, nine hundred pounds or so. Laugh (on the inside) as they expend tremendous effort, innovation, and resources removing the rock from the deep, deep hole and maybe even transporting it across the wilderness, defending it from random encounters, and (if you're lucky) trying to sell it.


Malaclypse wrote:
Themetricsystem wrote:

1. Actual roleplaying

2. Swim checks

3. Encumbrance

4. Believable illusions

5. Random magic item generation for towns and cities

6. Random encounter tables

7. Red Herring plotlines

8. Acrobatics checks

9. Exhaustion

10. Suggestion & Charm spells

Any more you care to add?

There are fun and no-fun ways to mess with your players. Believable illusions, red herrings, exhaustion can be fun, but using suggestion and charm on players is just wrong. Taking away control of their characters away from players upsets them and ruins immersion.

I thought the same thing back when I was a teenager. Then I started asking players about it. It turned out that many of them loved taking a break from the way they normally played their characters, some of them cherished the opportunity to play evil with an excuse, and, as players gained more maturity and experience roleplaying, they tended to love getting charmed more and more.


willrichtor wrote:


This is all bull. Players with this sort of attitude: "DMs shouldn't use charm or dominate. DMs shouldn't use rust monsters. DMs shouldn't pickpocket PCs. These aren't fun they're STUPID! Hold my hand, wipe my butt, don't do anything that could set the party back cause it's not FUN! And you know what else? We're getting close to level up and you know if I don't get a magic item soon I'm going to start getting colicky. You're the DM, you shouldn't have fun, that's for us. Where is our pizza and Mt. Dew? Nachos!?! WTF?" bring down the game faster than ANY amount of charm spells ever will.
Lighten up and try to have fun and don't resent the DM for trying to have fun as well. You might enjoy the twist if you actually got into the role instead of metagaming and getting b*!*-hurt.
willrichtor wrote:

The idea that "no good deed goes unpunished" has much more potential for abuse and ruining everyone's fun than the mechanics you have expressed a problem with. Ambiguous situations should be used sparingly, or like so many Eli Roth movies, they lose their impact and, in turn, their value. Notice I didn't say "you shouldn't do that, it's not fun?"

I just read both of your posts above and i'm wondering if you're purposefully try to misunderstand me. I'm afraid your liberal use of straw men strongly points to trolling. Too bad, because the actual topic is an interesting one.


LilithsThrall wrote:
I thought the same thing back when I was a teenager. Then I started asking players about it. It turned out that many of them loved taking a break from the way they normally played their characters, some of them cherished the opportunity to play evil with an excuse, and, as players gained more maturity and experience roleplaying, they tended to love getting charmed more and more.

But they could just play evil with no excuse without being charmed if they wanted? Playing evil and being charmed are not connected the way you imply. And requiring an excuse for playing the character they want does not seem very mature to me.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Personally one of the most fun experiences my group has had roleplaying was when the party rogue got his memory erased by a pixie. Memory erasure is WAY worse than a simple Charm spell, and dealing with it was the focus of the next several sessions.

But you know what? It was fun for all involved. Best part was the (fairly stereotypical halfing) rogue's initial reaction.

DM: "Okay, this is how this works. You still have all your skills, abilities, all of that. But all your memories of who you are, your name, all that is gone. You don't recognize the party. You are standing in a room full of strangers."

Rogue (without missing a beat): "Do they notice me?!"

I can certainly see how these kind of effects could be misused and become unfun. But from my personal experience, dealing with them has always added to the fun factor, not subtracted from it. Even when the party fighter got turned against us by a rage spell (that's happened twice, actually, both times were nearly TPK) - the fighter's player had fun seeing how effective he was against the rest of us, and we all had fun trying desperately to stay alive. :)

Slightly more on topic, the most "dick" thing our DM has done to us is hard to come up with - so much to choose from. But just recently: We were looking for a legendary artifact and knew exactly what it looked like, so we decided to use Locate Object to pin it down inside the dungeon. When we find it there's what looks to be this whole complex puzzle in front of it. Well, long story short, the puzzle turned out to be a mimic. Evil story short, the ~object itself~ turned out to be another mimic - DM ruled that locate object pinged the mimic because it matched our description and we'd never actually seen the object in question. >.<

Scarab Sages

MaxAstro wrote:
Slightly more on topic, the most "dick" thing our DM has done to us is hard to come up with - so much to choose from. But just recently: We were looking for a legendary artifact and knew exactly what it looked like, so we decided to use Locate Object to pin it down inside the dungeon.

Send them to a decrepit market stall selling cheap knock-off relics for gullible tourists.

"Finger-bones of Saint Liberace! Half price today! Get twenty for the price of ten!"


MaxAstro wrote:
Even when the party fighter got turned against us by a rage spell (that's happened twice, actually, both times were nearly TPK) - the fighter's player had fun seeing how effective he was against the rest of us, and we all had fun trying desperately to stay alive. :)

Rage only works on willing targets.


pres man wrote:
MaxAstro wrote:
Even when the party fighter got turned against us by a rage spell (that's happened twice, actually, both times were nearly TPK) - the fighter's player had fun seeing how effective he was against the rest of us, and we all had fun trying desperately to stay alive. :)
Rage only works on willing targets.

Oh, It reminds me that:

* Monsters and Spellcasters that use customized spells. Spell research is part of the Core rules but Players enter in rage when a NPC do it, even if the spell is useless.

Dark Archive

-Whenever the party is split up and arrive at a specific location at separate times (Think going to the general store or bank) describe the area in drastically different ways.

The Ranger walked into the bar and noticed it was spotless and the seats were wrought iron and there were iron bulkheads on every wall and floor. The Sorcerer shows up there later that day and it looks like an ordinary tavern with worn wooden benches and a stone hearth and smells of burnt potatoes.


- Ask for (fake) Will Saves once in a while as the PCs cross archways, enter forest, touch item etc.

- look behind your screen and laugh

- look behind your screen and say "oh no!" or "no freakin' way!"

- have villains use magic aura on mundane things.


-I like to use terrain that is very difficult, such as sloped slate roofs, where the fighting is loosening the tiles.

-I also like to have repercussions of their interactions with NPC's:
GM: "A pretty but homely girl approaches you at the fireside. She has a small child at her knee, bright blue eyes staring at you with fascination... the woman speaks, 'This is your daughter, her name is Tia. Take care of her,' and leaves."
PLAYER: "What? I mean, n-- what?"
GM: "You slept with that tavern girl about two years of game-time ago. Say hello to your kid!"
(Eventially little Tia took a teeny homebrew level of cleric and rode in her daddy's backpack. It turned out to be a cool combo.)

-Make offensive/battle magic illegal, such as weapon and armor enchantments. Easier on the city guards. Hard on the players.


My most recent 'mess with' was having them (L 1-3's) learn of crypt where it was recommended (from a reliable soruce) that they go and get the stuff from 'previous adventurers' and mostly ignore the other stuff in the crypt. They know is what is guarding and ready to ambush them (Shadow Asps and probably 1-4 shadows). Sure, this seems like a like a lot for a low level party, but there were 'other details' that made it doable.

The 'MESS WITH' part was putting a secret door right at the entrance, next to a heavy door that sat in the floor and was difficult to open due to size/construction. They immediately assumed the door was the entrance, and were hyper paranoid about the Shadows.

This took them to a long hallway with a floor 15' deep, and three 15' pillars every 10' where they could jump from pillar to pillar to get to the door across the room. There were only spikes by the third pillar.
1. The walls were coated like a swimming pool.
2. The floor right before the 15' drop into the room was a slab of completely different stone material
3. The middle column (20' away) radiated magic. (It only looked like it had a flat top, rather it was a trap for players to jump into.)
4. In the ceiling near the entrance there was a chute, like something might be poured out of.
5. The end of the corridor had a extra sturdy door, with a recessed doorhandle that not only radiated magic but also had a blade above it as if to cut off the hand of the person turning the nob.

Yes, clearly this room had all the hallmarks of one or more obvious traps. The PC took a week in game time, deathly afraid of shadows attacking or Shadow Asps ambushing, only to later discover that this hallways was a complete distraction, designed specifically by the crypt builders to take up as much time and energy as possible by an grave robbers.

The look of shock when they, in their frustration, finally decided to start searching for secret doors at the very front of the small dungeon. They had been so distracted with the wealth of details, and the possible threat, they had completeley overlooked their standard OP of searching everything.

Dark Archive

Have some creature steal all of the PC's shoes.

Take note of how often the PC's take note to do the normal everyday living things like eating, bathing, brushing teeth etc. When they lapse have it affect social encounters.


Have an invisible beholder float above the party wizard looking down on him with it's big eye and doing nothing else.

"Sorry your spell failed."


Malaclypse wrote:
LilithsThrall wrote:
I thought the same thing back when I was a teenager. Then I started asking players about it. It turned out that many of them loved taking a break from the way they normally played their characters, some of them cherished the opportunity to play evil with an excuse, and, as players gained more maturity and experience roleplaying, they tended to love getting charmed more and more.

But they could just play evil with no excuse without being charmed if they wanted? Playing evil and being charmed are not connected the way you imply. And requiring an excuse for playing the character they want does not seem very mature to me.

Many tables, if not most, don't allow evil PCs because most players don't know how to play evil without ruining everyone else's fun. Evil in limited doses for short periods of time, however, can be quite liberating.

No, there is no direct connection between charmed and evil (though there can be). I fear you are missin my point. Let's say I created a character who is fiercely loyal to the king against the church. Let's say I've been playing this character for quite a long time and don't want to retire him but sense he's starting to get a little stale. Having him get charmed gives me the chance to mix things up a little bit to hopefully inject a little more life into the character.

Keep in mind that, for a lot of us role-players, if we've been playing a character we love and he's for example, a rabid member of the Christian Right, and we decide we might want to see how he'd play out as a rabid member of the ACLU, it just doesn't feel right to make the change by fiat. There needs to be an incentive. What if, in the long term, we want to keep the character as is? Then it needs to be an incentive we can back out of.


The biggest dick move I've ever been on the receiving end of was a GM who could keeping track of all your spell components.


LilithsThrall wrote:
The biggest dick move I've ever been on the receiving end of was a GM who could keeping track of all your spell components.

Got to do this once when it was fun, and once when it was not.

The fun time you could keep an eye out in places and find new components fairly easily if you just looked.

The not fun time every component was "special" and as such couldn't just be "found out and about" so we were almost never with spell components.


Well, that's for AD&D 2E, when treasure wasn't granted, was rolled randomly and the concept of suggested "Wealth per level" didn't exist.

Our DM always used Monsters with "Treasure: None" in their stat block. Finding a potion of ligth wounds was like "OMG!!! TREASURE!!! CAN'T BE!!!" Furthermore we couldn't use the (few) money we found to buy any magic item.

Scarab Sages

willrichtor wrote:
The idea that "no good deed goes unpunished" has much more potential for abuse and ruining everyone's fun than the mechanics you have expressed a problem with.

Especially if the GM has a hard-on for forcing all paladins or similarly good PCs to fall.

A lot of GMs over the decades have had the belief that any help given to any evil person, for any reason, whether the PCs were even aware of it or not, is grounds for immediate stripping of powers.

Saved the caravan from goblin raiders? One of the travellers was evil! BLAM! You helped Evil! Lose your powers!

Wiped out an evil cult, on the orders of your superiors? Hah! Your superiors are evil! You got rid of their competition! BLAM! Lose your powers!

If the PCs have no in-game reason to question the source of their info, then 95% of the time, their info should be correct.
When it isn't, they should be given the benefit of the doubt if and when they find out they've been lied to.
Maybe the paladin's powers go fuzzy for a day, through a temporary crisis of belief, but then he should pick himself up and go smite the offending traitor, and the resulting victory will feel all the sweeter.


Thread title:
help with advancing a rust monster/rustmonster swarms(players keep out!!!)

the old "MWAHAHAHAHA!!!" also works.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
pres man wrote:
Rage only works on willing targets.

Sorry for my lack of clarity; it was not the spell rage, but rather a monster's spell-like that had enraging effects. In the first case an evil golem thing, and in the second case some kind of evil, incorporeal earth elemental thing.

That second encounter was particularly nasty; the creature trapped us with walls of stone and then caused the (Dwarven) fighter to be overcome with a violent need to possess the party's material wealth. Only thing that saved us was that the obvious target for him was our (non-evil) necromancer's skeleton cohort, who we had carrying a really heavy chest full of money we had found earlier. The skeleton had a completely crazy AC and enough hit points (not to mention being replaceable, being a skeleton and all) that the fighter was kept busy trying to take the chest from him while we subdued him.

Grand Lodge

Every spell should be in the DM's arsenal. Why not have a adventure where a PC is charmed, just as long as the "charm" does not lead to the death of a PC. It is that kind of thing that makes an adventure different. The only problem I see is if the "charm" is over used, like more then once every three years. ;-)

The above goes for any other adventure that forces a change in a players persona, it is all about testing a players skill in role playing. The target has to be a player that you think is going to handle role playing change as a challenge, as opposed to a chore, or some "dice roller', whose sole interest is "when do I go into combat?"

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

Ok, maybe I'm just off topic myself, but I thought 'mess with your players as DM' meant from the narrative POV, not honestly screwing with your players for the fun of it.

Frex: Carbon D Metric's post made no sense to me as a DM. So the bar was completely redesigned in less than a day? Why? Is the bar some zone of chaos? Or was it like this to 'mess with the players' heads'? If it makes no sense in the game world all it does to me is to ruin the feeling of immersion.

Things like Chovesh's post do make sense in game terms and yet achieve the same purpose of driving the players crazy. So do things like mixing up monster stats, charm, dominate, etc.

Two of our favourite stories came from my (now ex-)wife and charm/dominate.
Story 1

Spoiler:
Low level party, her half orc barbarian has been charmed by an imp with a wand of charm person, and she's trying to keep the party from hurting her new friend.

Monk: I'll tumble through her legs and get the imp! (rolls 1 on tumble check)
Barbarian: Well I don't want to hurt my monk friend, so I'll grapple him. (several dice rolls and consulting the grapple rules later)...
DM: Well, your attempt to tumble through wasn't as successful as you hoped, since she caught you by slamming her massive thighs around your head.
Monk: Oh gods, I hope she bathed today.
Barbarian: Bath? What is bath?

Story 2

Spoiler:
Same party, Barbarian has been dominated by evil psionicist.
DM: Well you've got to get past her to get to him.
Ranger: Oh gods, ugh, oh, ick, uh, Ok, I'm taking one for the team I'm going to go kiss her.
(Barbarian rolls the AoO and misses, ranger makes her 'grapple check')
DM (Me): Honey, is Ergo bi?*
Barbarian: Yes, she is.
Me: Ok, I'm going to say that being kissed by one of the two women in the party, that's going to qualify for a will save.
*Ranger's player continues to wince and be very uncomfortable*

The later story became the fodder for much RP afterwards, as the barbarian served the ranger breakfast in bed the next day wearing a cute little apron (nothing else mind you, just the apron) and would later go charging into combat yelling "Aliandra! I'll save you, my love!!!"

*

Spoiler:
It didn't matter either way, either the lover's kiss, or strange lady kissing me would have given her a will save. Heck the ranger was drawing an AoO from a great axe weilding 19 strength barbarian who's player was having a good night except for those two rolls, I have to reward that.


one of the most memorable DM twists i have used was inspired by
Fiery Dragon's Iron Heroes OGL campaign/game rules, being this:

in Iron Heroes magic is unpredictable and dangerous,and very rare, thus magical items, be they potions or swords, carry drawbacks, some minor some devastating, and better yet players will risk the dangers of using when they really need to despite the risk, and think very hard about using them otherwise, and your game doesnt sink under pages of consumeable and use at a whim magic

ie: imagine players diving for that cure serious potion to find it missing cos the party rogue is addicted to them and nicked it last night!!

i highly recommend checking it out, Iron heroes is a more gritty style 3.5 offering with some unique and ingenious ideas worth mining


For players that have memorized the Bestiary/Monster Manual - monsters with non-standard abilities, especially dragons with non-standard breath weapons.

Or, of course, completely new monsters they've never seen before.

Or monsters with unexpected class levels.

Extremely valuable treasure too heavy/bulky to transport. See how far their greed will push them.

Extremely valuable treasure that they can't keep because it is stolen/too hot to fence.

Powerful NPCs who show up wanting their stuff (recovered from bad guys) back.


willrichtor wrote:
Malaclypse wrote:
While this is not exactly messing with the players, it keeps them on their toes. I really like these ambiguous situations where there's never a 'absolute' right choice. All decisions should have both positive and negative effects, in varying proportions, and good choices are good because the (expected) outcome aligns with the party's values and goals.

The idea that "no good deed goes unpunished" has much more potential for abuse and ruining everyone's fun than the mechanics you have expressed a problem with. Ambiguous situations should be used sparingly, or like so many Eli Roth movies, they lose their impact and, in turn, their value. Notice I didn't say "you shouldn't do that, it's not fun?"

Your first post was a little harsh, Will, but I have to agree with the sentiment behind this one. I find that morally ambiguous situations are a lot more fun for the DM than for the players. Most of us deal with morally ambiguous situations every day. When I play a fantasy RPG, I want it to be a lot different from everyday life. I want to be heroic. I want to slay the dragon and rescue the princess, damn it! I don't mind the occasional plot twist that makes the players think twice about their actions, but I find it a drag if everything the players try to do turns against them. It may be more gritty and "realistic" but if I wanted that kind of realism I probably wouldn't be playing this kind of game.

Shadow Lodge

I was just thinking of a couple fun ones I pulled back in the day.

1) The entrance to the room was a small one-person sized elevator. When the elevator was on its way down it immediately cast invisibility and silence on the user. When the character exited the elevator on the next floor down, a magic mirror duplicated that individual as a magical doppelganger. Fun ensued as the character tried to convince the group that they were taking the wrong person with.

2) The reverse-gravity-sand-pit trap. Dig your way out, gravity reverses, you're at the bottom of the pit. Dig your way out, gravity reverses, dig your way out of the pit. Hours of endless enjoyment.

Shadow Lodge

Kilbourne wrote:

-I also like to have repercussions of their interactions with NPC's:
GM: "A pretty but homely girl approaches you at the fireside. She has a small child at her knee, bright blue eyes staring at you with fascination... the woman speaks, 'This is your daughter, her name is Tia. Take care of her,' and leaves."
PLAYER: "What? I mean, n-- what?"
GM: "You slept with that tavern girl about two years of game-time ago. Say hello to your kid!"
(Eventially little Tia took a teeny homebrew level of cleric and rode in her daddy's backpack. It turned out to be a cool combo.)

1)In a related note, the creation of the spell Power Word: Lactate used on a male PC in simular circumstances, especially used on the PC for the first time without warning by a 'concerned' npc wizard, who eventually became a stepmom.

2)A great many things from Firefly, especially bards singing about you're scumiest character and a fixed 'holy' book.


Brian Bachman wrote:

For players that have memorized the Bestiary/Monster Manual - monsters with non-standard abilities, especially dragons with non-standard breath weapons.

Or, of course, completely new monsters they've never seen before.

Extremely valuable treasure too heavy/bulky to transport. See how far their greed will push them.

Or, if you're lazy and mean like me, just change the appearance of a common monster and terror and hilarity ensues. For instance, instead of describing ghouls (which everyone had seen before), I had 'ghouls' attack, describing them as figures in tattered robes with only blackness where their face should be.

They had the same stats as the legions of ghouls the same players (not characters) slaughtered hundreds of before, but looked different. And the party's fighters were terrified of them, thinking they were much worse. There was much running and yelling as the poor wizards ended up in the front row. Heh.

I've done the same thing with Trolls, Wraiths and many other common critters.

As for bulky valuable treasure, the original Temple of Elemental Evil had perhaps the king moment of this:

TOEE:
When the big bad is first encountered, she pretends to be someone else and offers the party pillars of platinum, gold, etc. They're surprisingly easy to lift, but they're actually battering rams that smash down the doors imprisoning (and weakening her). One of my ToEE campaigns ended a bit early and spectacularly when the party fell for that, and had to fight her early and with full strength. There were some lucky spells cast that day (and a wand of a wonder that saved the day).


Brian Bachman wrote:
Your first post was a little harsh, Will

Will is just trolling, because he didn't even respond to what I wrote, just built up some straw-men.

Brian Bachman wrote:
but I have to agree with the sentiment behind this one. I find that morally ambiguous situations are a lot more fun for the DM than for the players.

Why is that? It's boring if the choice is obvious. It's boring if there's a good prince and a bad prince. It's interesting if the player's have to decide if they support (e.g.) the strong prince aligned with Cheliax or maybe a weaker one aligned with Andoram. Is it better for the people to be ruled by the iron fist of Cheliax, but they are safe from war and outside harm, or better for them to have the right to vote, but every neighbor will try to grab a part of the kingdom and civil war is almost certain.

A choice should be a real choice, and also concern the 'what', not only the 'how'.

Brian Bachman wrote:
but I find it a drag if everything the players try to do turns against them. It may be more gritty and "realistic"

Again, the 'everything turns against the players' was only Will's strawman argument, and not what I wrote at all.


Oh,
Here's another one.

Take 1 dumb as dirt Hill Giant.

Give him a Circlet of +4 INT.

Make the two skills it gives be Craft(Trapmaking) and Diplomacy.

Give him the Leadership feat, and two dozen goblin archers as followers.

Have him set up a glen where his den is, and have it booby trapped six ways from sunday, and the goblins are on watch in the trees (6 at a time) with bows and 50 arrows each (with 75% concealment from below).

Mix with PCs and watch the fun (especially if there's a headlong rushing Barbarian in the party!).


The +1 longsword issue was... the worst D&D game I have ever had..

It started. Obviously. With loot. The rogue, we shall call Bob. He was already stealing most of the loot from the party anyhow. Well. The party as a whole found a +1 longsword. We had a knight in the party. 3.5 obviously. It was APPARENT. The longsword would be best in his hands.

The rogue says that this takes 2300+ gold from his future loot. That he owes the party that much gold now. Everyone sorta gave him a stupid look, because we all knew that he had been stealing everything. I made the newbie mistake of having the party discuss it... ONE HOUR LATER! After a ton of in character reasoning.. ANd out of character reasoning.. Such as votes... Duels.. Wrestling matches.. Drinking contests.. All that. They still haven't found a way on what to do with the +1 longsword. At this point, I should of just laid down the law, and told everyone to suck it up.

I was new though. So I didn't. Huge mistake. Since the arguement got worse.. and worse. And another friend. We'll call him Ted... Decided to use exagerrated anger to fix this.

Obviously. This was stupid. As The knight, decided to show his dominance, and lift the table a bit.. Okay.. Whatever.

Ted. Decides to show he was more dominate by lifting the table further. To the point where my laptop... and Bob's laptop got rather broken. Bob demanded the knight pay for... the laptop. And at this point. I stood up, and declared DM dominance. That everyone would take a hour break to cool down, calm themselves, and go piss on a male dog or something so their masculinity was back.. I said they were all pathetic, and made the game of D&D look like a pissing contest.

The +1 longsword? Was taken away. And I made promises that if this ever happened again. There would be character death. Permanent character death, and people leaving the group.

Over a year later?

Bob isn't in our gaming group anymore.


VictorCrackus wrote:


[...]
Over a year later?
Bob isn't in our gaming group anymore.

Man, some people just don't fit in any group of... human persons.

But gaming is serious business!

Time for another way to make your players mad:
Make them travel to the Astral Plane. Make then travel to a Githyanki Fortress. Make them figth a high level Githyanki Anti-Paladin. The Githyanki has got one of those nice Silver Swords that randomly kills Astral Travellers (AD&D 2E edition rules if possible). Figure out the rest.


VictorCrackus wrote:

The +1 longsword issue was... the worst D&D game I have ever had..

It started. Obviously. With loot. The rogue, we shall call Bob. He was already stealing most of the loot from the party anyhow. Well. The party as a whole found a +1 longsword. We had a knight in the party. 3.5 obviously. It was APPARENT. The longsword would be best in his hands.

The rogue says that this takes 2300+ gold from his future loot. That he owes the party that much gold now. Everyone sorta gave him a stupid look, because we all knew that he had been stealing everything. I made the newbie mistake of having the party discuss it... ONE HOUR LATER! After a ton of in character reasoning.. ANd out of character reasoning.. Such as votes... Duels.. Wrestling matches.. Drinking contests.. All that. They still haven't found a way on what to do with the +1 longsword. At this point, I should of just laid down the law, and told everyone to suck it up.

I was new though. So I didn't. Huge mistake. Since the arguement got worse.. and worse. And another friend. We'll call him Ted... Decided to use exagerrated anger to fix this.

Obviously. This was stupid. As The knight, decided to show his dominance, and lift the table a bit.. Okay.. Whatever.

Ted. Decides to show he was more dominate by lifting the table further. To the point where my laptop... and Bob's laptop got rather broken. Bob demanded the knight pay for... the laptop. And at this point. I stood up, and declared DM dominance. That everyone would take a hour break to cool down, calm themselves, and go piss on a male dog or something so their masculinity was back.. I said they were all pathetic, and made the game of D&D look like a pissing contest.

The +1 longsword? Was taken away. And I made promises that if this ever happened again. There would be character death. Permanent character death, and people leaving the group.

Over a year later?

Bob isn't in our gaming group anymore.

Yikes. That's just...scary.


Matthew Morris wrote:
Stuff on what goes on in his games

...

....
.....
WHY DON'T I HANG OUT WITH YOU MORE?!?!?!?


deadreckoner wrote:

one of the most memorable DM twists i have used was inspired by

Fiery Dragon's Iron Heroes OGL campaign/game rules, being this:

in Iron Heroes magic is unpredictable and dangerous,and very rare, thus magical items, be they potions or swords, carry drawbacks, some minor some devastating, and better yet players will risk the dangers of using when they really need to despite the risk, and think very hard about using them otherwise, and your game doesnt sink under pages of consumeable and use at a whim magic

ie: imagine players diving for that cure serious potion to find it missing cos the party rogue is addicted to them and nicked it last night!!

i highly recommend checking it out, Iron heroes is a more gritty style 3.5 offering with some unique and ingenious ideas worth mining

I have elements of that(addictive magic) in my homebrew. Maybe I should give Iron Heroes a look.


I have been known to re-Type, re-description, re-etc. monsters to vex the 'I read all the books...' players. The best was taking a stationary swamp monster with swarms of stirges and converting it to a necromantic cauldron with ghostly flying skulls. The player had the book in hand during the encounter and failed to recognize it. After I showed him what I had done, he became a lot less rigid and I made him the Rules Finder.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32

I tweak, twist and change all sorts of stuff, use statblocks from giant squids as Venus Flytraps and so on... and still my players feel the need to dive in books and tell ME when the spell that hit them should have ended.

Hello? Maybe I'm not using it straight out of the Spell Compendium. Maybe I removed the side effect and tweaked the duration... hang on, who's DM-ing here anyway???

Seriously though - I may need to sacrifice one to re-instill order. Someone alert MADD, quick!


Bwang wrote:
I have been known to re-Type, re-description, re-etc. monsters to vex the 'I read all the books...' players. The best was taking a stationary swamp monster with swarms of stirges and converting it to a necromantic cauldron with ghostly flying skulls. The player had the book in hand during the encounter and failed to recognize it. After I showed him what I had done, he became a lot less rigid and I made him the Rules Finder.

LOL

Funniest thing I ever did was redo the goblins so that they were short and red, and had Regeneration. Only cold damaged them (the blue tribe could only get hurt by fire). The players waded into the red goblins and sliced and diced and smashed and flattened them... then stared in horror as the severed bodies oozed back together and the severed heads bit their toes while the body groped for the head. :)

My players never looked at goblins the same way again. :)


MisterSlanky wrote:
Malaclypse wrote:
There are fun and no-fun ways to mess with your players. Believable illusions, red herrings, exhaustion can be fun, but using suggestion and charm on players is just wrong. Taking away control of their characters away from players upsets them and ruins immersion.

Which is why you should take the player aside, let them know what the charm means their character, and trust that your good "roleplaying" friend can play their own character while charmed/suggested.

You don't have to take away control.

I hate to take these spells out, so I'm inclined to agree with MisterSlanky. I never use these spells in combat, though--only to add to the plot. When the PCs meet the BBEG for the first time, I roll will saves vs. charm and say "She's stunningly beautiful--just your type" or "You get the feeling he's a trustworthy guy." When they finally fight the BBEG, they eventually realize I used charm on them--this allows them to keep playing their character realistically without feeling like they've lost control.


Also, how about an NPC eldritch knight (evil) who pretends to be a paladin?


One word: AMNESIA!

The players do not have a character sheet. The GM has all the sheets.
The only thing they know is that they woke up in a room with no memory of who they are, what they are doing, or how they ended up that way.
The GM does give a description of what everybody looks like. And unbenownst to them, one or two (pick the two with the best sense of humor) are in disguise. <in a fantasy game, one is disguised as wizard but knows not one spell, and another looks like a rougue but is actually a wizard>

They are then hunted for a "dark secret" that none of them can remember, but two or three other factions want.

They have to discover their abilities as they go.

Did this with a star wars game, and a 3.5 D&D game.

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