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2. Give unintelligent (or very low intelligence) critters enough Int to have fun with- then have fun with them. Nothing says loving like "traditionally stupid" monsters suddenly using advanced tactics.
-S
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3. Create an encounter within the lair of a typically weak monster race, giving the PCs a false sense of superiority and easy victory (kobolds work really well). Then once they are in the lair, create a "kill" zone that only allows movement single file, with a shelf above for the monsters to attack from. Usually, they will send their toughest player (the fighter) first.
Once the PCs are in the "zone" You have the lair's "champion face off with the fighter PC and challenge him/her. The fighter will accept without hesitation, but little does he know that the "champion" is decked out with heavy armor, two-weapon fighting style, class levels, and magic items meant to increase fighting prowess, strength, and stamina.
I did this with a bunch of kobolds, and the "champion dropped the PC's fighter (a minotaur) in 2 rounds.
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4. A dude in a room in a dungeon; 20x20 feet; in a gimpsuit, barking at them.
They won't know where to begin.
5. Have a peon or minion or mook or henchman have some personality.
We were once fighting a BBEG and his mooks, and one of us was chasing the BBEG while the rest wiped up the mooks. The last mook refused to die. Or fight. He said he wasn't hired to die, so we couldn't kill him. We were flummoxed. We ended up bribing him with a sandwich to get some info on his ex-boss. But very memorable.
6. When the PC's one round the BBEG, congratulate them and seem genuinely pleased at how handily they crushed your carefully crafted monster.
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7. An illusory room full of baby orcs.
When the pc's waste time debating the right or wrong of their fate,....the sneaksy orcs have time to move in for an ambush.....
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8. Tell them you'll allow Player-Versus-Player in this game. If anyone passes notes, you later poison their water, and watch the fun begin...
9. Have a large, chromatic dragon block the only exit/entrance and demand a year(or more) of servitude in exchange for letting them live. The dragon is actually an illusion created.. by a pseudodragon. Works particularly well if one character is one of the 'honorable' types.
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10. Have chromatic dragons use prestidigitation to appear as different colors.
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11. Tell any player interested in playing a paladin, that in your world, paladins are modeled on nazis.
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12. make monsters that look exactly like monsters of WOTC that weren't converted, but make them totally different.
Like a big flying ball full of eyes that saves princesses in need ^^
If your players attack them, and get hunted by a village, you can tell them that this ain't D&D and that they aren't supposed to use player knowledge.
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13. Random, harmless woodland creatures wander into the dungeon behind the party. Play up the clomp of hooves on stone, and as the party buffs itself and sets up its ambush, enter a very lost deer.
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13. Random, harmless woodland creatures wander into the dungeon behind the party. Play up the clomp of hooves on stone, and as the party buffs itself and sets up its ambush, enter a very lost deer.
Then, after the party has breathed a sigh of relief and let their guard down, have the half fiend lost deer attack relentlessly.
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13. Random, harmless woodland creatures wander into the dungeon behind the party. Play up the clomp of hooves on stone, and as the party buffs itself and sets up its ambush, enter a very lost deer.Then, after the party has breathed a sigh of relief and let their guard down, have the half fiend lost deer attack relentlessly.
I actually used this (but the deer was charmed and drawn into the cavern; all the local wildlife had suffered this fate). The party followed the near-catatonic deer through winding tunnels for a bit until it and they were beset upon by a swarm of fast zombie bunnies (earlier victims of the effect in this cavern). The rabbits were modeled on the Monty Python Vorpal Bunny, only there were hundreds of them.
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16. Have the players roll 5 or six d20's, factor in their save bonuses and use them later instead of having them roll when they need to save. Watch the dawning realizations, the looks of terror when they remember what they rolled.
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17. If they split the party, split the RL party. If their characters can't communicate, they can't communicate. I did this in a CoC game when one person ran into the house to investigate and two others ran in to find him after something they couldn't see smashed through a window into the house. Really built up tension despite it being two groups literally just walking around the house - I had them meet up right in front of the door with the creature.
15. Have a herd of deer chase down and feast upon a wolf.
O_o That's... well... brilliant!
18. Look truly shocked when they slay a vampire and tell the paladin that he feels that his god is upset (his god was not against making his feelings known... sometimes quite harshly.)
19. Make them fight gargantuan creatures with reach weapons... and natural attacks. Make them fight in support of one another so that there is literally a kill zone where their reach intersects and there is only a small 10 foot area at the edge of the room where they can move without drawing AoOs.
20. Give centaurs ranks in Tumble.
20. Give centaurs ranks in Tumble.
Oh, that just brings to mind a game I was running. The party was on a ship being boarded by pirates. The PCs were leading a counter-board and had a rickety boarding plank and a swinging rope at their disposal. Only one PC tried the boarding at first and was getting into trouble with the other party members unable to get to him in time. The only person able to get aboard to help...the centaur crewman (centaur crewman on a ship had already made for other greatly amusing role-playing). I still have the image in my mind of the heavily-barded centaur swinging Tarzan style onto the pirate ship into a perfect flanking position, and making his landing.
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24. Have a swarm of bunnies takeout the red dragon from 23.
25. Abruptly tell them they need to use the bathroom.
26. Psionicist Invisible Stalkers (or fiendish bunnies), espcially using Death Urge
27. Have a rust monster with a(n) [insert favorite accent here] dialog with the characters in an attempt to negotiate with them for food (their gear).
Then have said rust monster eaten by the swarm of bunnies that continues to gain XP.
Give them what they want. Repeatedly. Over several sessions. I'm talking the works, here. Piles of loot, easy wins. Their characters are loved and respected (or hated and feared, if that's what they want). The mayor consults with them. The king has them on speed dial. They pay no taxes. Children look up to them. I mean absolutely everything they want, as judged by the GM based on what they say and what you know about them. If they become suspicious, tell them you're trying something new, and smile, sincerely as you can manage, as often as you can.
Their suspicions will grow at an amazing rate. They'll constantly be on their guards. They'll begin to act paranoid, first as players, then as characters. Their characters will test you by behaving badly, very badly. Just let them, and let them get away with it. Now they'll be mystified, and flabbergasted. Now you'll want to do the big reveal, but not yet. It's not quite time. Don't deviate from the plan. The right time is when one of them finally breaks down, and asks you what is going on, and why you're doing this. That's when you reveal.
How much fun was that?
Now you know why being GM is difficult. Now you know why I call you on your whiny BS. NOW you know why the game has to be a challenge, and why the GM is the arbiter of those challenges. Now you know why everyone wants to play and no one wants to GM (for the most part). It's no fun if there's no challenge. Its no fun if all the treasure you want falls out of the sky, is it?
After this delightful variant of "may all your dreams come true", your players will hopefully have a new respect for your job as a GM, and the time and effort you put into it. Not all players need, or deserve, this lesson. And truthfully, its kind of cruel and time wastey. But still, some players DO need it. And it is quite a mindf~~~ for them. So yeah, freaky and confusing.
On a lighter note:
32: Roll randomly and grin.
33: Have 50 Swarms fly over, through and into the characters. When the swarms are gone, all their hair is luscious and so shiny. Doubly fun if you have a dwarf in the party. Oh god, or any sort of beast.
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23. Have the PCs kill a villain Lich. They learn that the phylactery is behind a mirror-wall that must be shattered. They learn that within the mirror-wall is locked the soul of an evil red dragon that will be released if the mirror is broken.
I ran a campaign like that once. The game ended before they got to him, but the lich had actually saved the world from flooding once. (It was an aquatic campaign.) His phylactery was a keystone to a permanent Gate to the Elemental Plane of Water. If they destroyed it, the gate would reopen, finishing the flood of the world.
34: This one was fun. Have a hoard of orcs or hobgoblin, main hobbies are raiding and worshiping a dragon. During one of the services given by the orc shaman, have one of the PCs who speaks Draconic hear the dragon bellow "Go away! Stop marauding in my name!"
Obviously, the only orc that speaks draconic is the shaman (who's really behind the raids), and the dragon for whatever reason can't speak orc.
36. After the death of one or two PCs, have the group's cleric receive a vision from an opposing deity offering him to resurrect the dead PC(s) life in return for his worship. Then have the Player for the dead PC roleplay his character begging for help to escape the torment of the afterlife, and argue as persuasively as possible in favor of the opposing deity.
I've actually RP'd this out (as the dead PC) and it was bloody brilliant.
You don't see and traps...>fishy grin<
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make the BBEG a "little girl" with a seemingly innocent reason for her "evil actions" and no knowledge of the consequences they bring. long lived templated humanoids with annoying weaknesses (such as vampires) make good examples to work with.
You don't see and traps...>fishy grin<
Nashs teeth and glares at little fishy with hunger
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39. Use famous figures from history or literature as NPC's. Then have them act completely differant from what they "should".
I once used "Sherlock Holmes" as the dumbest criminal in the world.
40. Have them be haunted by the ghosts of the innocents they have murdered. (The old woman Gnome who spends all night kniitting is a favorite. The murderer can't sleep for the "Knit two, purl two" constantly being whispered in his ear)
41. Greer
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32: Roll randomly and grin.
QFT
42. Old school: teleporters that send the party somewhere totally naked with no gear, no spell components, nothing. It sounds unfair, but so long as all the PCs are affected it's actually a lot of fun.
43. Effects that stagger the party for lengthy periods of time.
44. Run a murder mystery, and set it up in advance that one of the PCs actually was the murderer. (I did this in a CoC game and blew everyone's mind.)
45. Include a one-shot magic item in a treasure trove that is terribly overpowered. Like a scroll of greater shout or summon monster VII for a 3rd-level party. The players will fret over whether to sell it, or when to use it, the risks of using it, etc.
46. Evil pixies with character levels.
47. Advanced stirges.
48. Counterfeit treasure.
49: Bring up an NPC from a previous campaign that another player ran.
50: Have him run a gift shop in front of the first dungeon the players go into. 30gp Lighters anyone?
51: After the heroes kill the boss of dungeon, have a mysterious cloaked figure hound them.
52: The final boss of the campaign is the gift shop owner from the first dungeon they went to and has been terrorizing them ever since.
53: Have a much higher level group of adventurers encounter the party and treat them like no name NPCs. Bonus points for trying to recruit party members as hirelings/followers.
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53: have a bunch of NPCs that have the same name
54: have NPCs that look the same
55: have NPCs that are possessed, half the time by a good outsider and the other half of the time by an evil one
56: have the village idiot tell them a great plot hook only to turn out to be a dead end
57: nymph vampires
58: int20 ooze
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59. DM in you PJs.
60. At their house.
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61: tell them that your going to try a whole new level of realism in your game, then ask one of the to bring a box of powertools from the shed
62: when ever a die falls off the table shout "unclean!" and place that die with the other dice that are "unclean" when you run out of dice stop the game and tell your players you "need to purify them"
63: have obituaries for every NPC and monster killed, make the players read it after the death of the NPC/monster