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Stolen from an old Dragon Mag. Its just stuck with me for all these years.
64. Have the Pcs travel through a valley. All of a sudden a tribe of orcs/gnolls/ogres whatever charge down one side of the valley walls, weapons drawn, screaming like banshees. Give the pcs a round or 3 to waste resources. When the horde reaches the group, they dont attack, just keep running. One of them turns to a PC and says "what are doing?!? The frogs!!! Run!!!" Then have 200 hungry giant frogs appear at the top of the valley side, hungrily chasing down their prey. (which now includes the group)
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66. Once they start gaining levels enough to matter (5-6?), give them the perfect present of a good adventuring party: A butler. He does the cooking, makes sure their clothes are in good repair, he is good at the Heal skill, he administers the party gold with perfect honesty when they let him, he takes care of the horses outside the dungeon. He has contacts all over the place and can procure any sort of equipment on short notice, he even notes down their deeds in an even and fair chronicle. Throughout it all, portray him as a private person who is perfectly trustworthy, and all he asks in return is food and lodging. If they ask him why he serves them, he says only that he wants to be close to events and heroes that history will remember. If they check his alignment, he shows up as Lawful Neutral. You'll find that the PCs love having him around, and questions will die down. Let him stay with them for a good, long while. Then one day, he betrays them, which was the plan all along. He knows everything there is to know about them, he knows their tactics by heart, he knows who to incapacitate to hurt the party, and of course he sets the ambush up with precisely the right enemies, tailored to each PC's strengths and weaknesses. Once the attack is done, let them be captured, and the butler show up as the top servant of the BBEG. His alignment is due to the fact that he really believes the BBEG's Dastardly Plan (tm) will make the world a better place. Watch the hate fly. =)
The lesson is: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
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67. Roll dice behind screen and laugh hysterically. If the players ask, tell them they'll find out later...
68. Have a band of orcs/goblins/gnolls etc. sneak on the party. Instead of attacking, the monsters put up a party and congratulate the players for their "contribution". Have the monsters offer them wives, trophies or worthless junk.
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32: Roll randomly and grin.
Then look at one player shake your head and say "but not just yet, soon though very soon".
69.
Step 1) Send player A a note saying that every time their character goes to sleep, s/he has nightmares about becoming a wolf and chasing people down and eating them.
Step 2) send notes to other players that the player A is looking tired and dishevelled and somewhat anxious.
Step 3) when the party arrives in a small village, there is a funeral precession with an open coffin, the body is that of a young maid ravaged by some kind of wild beast.
Step 4) have the nightmares increase in while the party us in the village, have the villagers start to suspect the party.
When I did this the character freaked out and ran away and hid in the woods, the others worked out it was the son of the towns blacksmith and once that situation was resolved the party had to find and convince the other player to come back.... The village priest then told the player he was receiving warnings from the gods that a were wolf was about and that next time he should listen as it would have saved lives.
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70. Have the low level party face skeletons - which are actually animated objects and not undead and watch their frustration as the usual trick do not work.
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72: Make a Paladin- player write out his/her beliefs and list of justices to try to uphold, etc. De-power them if they do a bad job.
73: Shift their alignment when they all act like douchebags to everyone in the entire game for no reason.
74: Use the term 'Deck of Many Things'
75: Make them keep track of stuff they are expending.
76: They didnt specify eating or drinking something other than ale at the tavern? Then clearly they didnt. They become fatigued from lck of food, and later in life have to have their liver removed.
77: Put something in the game where "only people with livers may enter" or soemthing equally ridiculous and specific.
70. Have the low level party face skeletons - which are actually animated objects and not undead and watch their frustration as the usual trick do not work.
Love that one. Makes paladins cry.
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I always liked the list in Heroes of Horror, that gave ways to creep your players out. Some ideas similar to these:
79. Have all sources of flame flicker, and small ones almost die, despite there being no breeze.
80. Have a character find an item that, regardless of what they do with it, they keep finding in new places.
81. Random patterns in normal events look like something sinister or traumatic. IE, ice crystals on a window in the shape of a skull.
82. A character finds bits of the last monster he killed in his food.
83. A character wearing heavy armor feels numerous somethings small, damp, and furry crawling around in his armor, but nothing is there when the armor is removed.
84. After a night's rest, one character feels too full to eat breakfast, while the rest of the party (or perhaps NPCs) wake up with bites taken out of nonvital places.
85. Moans of ecstasy come from the cemetery. Further investigation reveals that the noises are from under the graves themselves.
86. The party horses stop eating grass. Instead, they will only eat raw meat. Their personality otherwise doesn't change.
87. Scuttling noises from behind the last character. Turning to look does not reveal the source.
88. The eyes of a portrait move, noticably. There isn't a secret viewhole behind it - the actual painted eyes are moving.
89. A character looking in a mirror sees their reflection violently attacked from behind, and killed horribly, but nothing happens in the real world. However, they have no reflection for several days, and then it reappears looking normal.
90. A character continously hears the sound of buzzing flies and smells rotting flesh, without a source. This isn't so strong as to distract or nauseate him.
91. The party enters a town where everyone is over the age of 50.
92. Give standard NPCs traits that make them all seem villainous.
93. Hide a bag of holding in a pillowcase.
94. Have npc's get pulled into the sewers by a cave fisher.
I always liked the list in Heroes of Horror, that gave ways to creep your players out. Some ideas similar to these:
79. Have all sources of flame flicker, and small ones almost die, despite there being no breeze.
80. Have a character find an item that, regardless of what they do with it, they keep finding in new places.
81. Random patterns in normal events look like something sinister or traumatic. IE, ice crystals on a window in the shape of a skull.
82. A character finds bits of the last monster he killed in his food.
83. A character wearing heavy armor feels numerous somethings small, damp, and furry crawling around in his armor, but nothing is there when the armor is removed.
84. After a night's rest, one character feels too full to eat breakfast, while the rest of the party (or perhaps NPCs) wake up with bites taken out of nonvital places.
85. Moans of ecstasy come from the cemetery. Further investigation reveals that the noises are from under the graves themselves.
86. The party horses stop eating grass. Instead, they will only eat raw meat. Their personality otherwise doesn't change.
87. Scuttling noises from behind the last character. Turning to look does not reveal the source.
88. The eyes of a portrait move, noticably. There isn't a secret viewhole behind it - the actual painted eyes are moving.
89. A character looking in a mirror sees their reflection violently attacked from behind, and killed horribly, but nothing happens in the real world. However, they have no reflection for several days, and then it reappears looking normal.
90. A character continously hears the sound of buzzing flies and smells rotting flesh, without a source. This isn't so strong as to distract or nauseate him.
91. The party enters a town where everyone is over the age of 50.
92. Give standard NPCs traits that make them all seem villainous.
I GOTTA use some of these, dood. Nice.
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95. Setup the players to travel on a merchant vessel in a deep ocean or sea. Have a pirate ship pull close to board the merchant vessel. When the ships are about to collide, still too far to jump safely, have a pirate cleric cast "Greater Command" on the players, asking them to approach. Give the players a 50% chance to be crushed or 50% chance to fall into the water underneath the ships.
Is the old "Taunt" spell from AD&D still around in a new form for Pathfinder? Taunt works better than "Greater Command".
PS Don't let this thread die. It has some very good ideas. I check it daily in hopes of new ideas.
Edit: changed "wizard" to "cleric"
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96. Someone wants to play something weird, give 'em weird consequences. Tiefling? Aasimar? If they fail to define who their Outsider parent is...
"And as he drove on, the rain clouds dragged down the sky after him for, though he did not know it, Rob McKenna was a Rain God. All he knew was that his working days were miserable and he had a succession of lousy holidays. All the clouds knew was that they loved him and wanted to be near him, to cherish him and to water him."
- Douglas Adams, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish
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97. Architecture is funfunfun! Make a long circular hallway in your dungeon, without anything inside it. Make a trapped hallway lead nowhere, and so on. Even better, use Escherian maps, where going up means you emerge from below onto the surface you just climbed from.
98. Put an arch the heroes must pass through in the dungeon. The arch says "Cost to pass - 1 life", and it detects magic, but when one does pass it, nothing happens.
99. Make an old woman curse one of the PCs, and let him make a will save to resist. When the player tells you the number, sigh and shake your head. Of course, the woman is a commoner, and the save meant nothing due to her exceptionally unmagical nature. The really fun part of this is that the players will remember that curse for years and may eventually start using it as the explanation for bad stuff that happens to them.
100. Helpful and friendly animated furniture or clothing. (ala Darcy)
I'm thinking of making a Golem version of the Dancing Lantern spell from the APG. If you make it intelligent you can give it bad habits, like a thirst for oil (or alcohol! flee dwarf! flee!) or a passive-aggressive desire to cleaned and polished.
101. Someone selling a map to a dungeon they've already cleaned out. Bonus points for having rooms on it that the PCs didn't find. Double score for restocking it if the players investigate.
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102. Have one of your best players become a DM plant within the party. First, recruit said player simply by asking for their assistance with the game, but tell them if they agree they’re in all the way (so the surprise is not spoiled). If they say no, tell them nothing and recruit another player. Next, you’ll need an adventure that will last at least a few sessions to insure this agent of yours has time to gain the party’s trust and opportunity to achieve their individual goals. The agent’s goal: to defeat at least two players with separate acts and get away. Defeat means they must successfully deal a setback to the character. Anything under the sun goes to accomplish these goals. This could be literally anything from simply stealing something important to the character, all the way up to and including killing one of the characters—but do discourage this particular outcome. Then let the player/agent bring absolutely any character of their choice at the level you set and when the game starts just enjoy the view once the confusion begins.
I was running a game for 3rd thru 5th level pc’s and ended up with some great roleplay—and this is a large, very experienced group. Many of us date back to 1e, and it allowed me to truly challenge a gifted player to bring his A game.
What happened…My agent (Alpha) considered what to play for some time, he then chose a 5th level changeling posing as a human female rogue experiencing the urges of the person he now posed as. While the party traveled for the first session it was a great inside joke as he dropped subtle hints, even going so far as proposing robbing other hired mercenary groups headed the same way they were along the road—but they just took it as the player joking around and never caught on.
The second session he made his first move. Motivated by these urges one late evening at the inn, she snuck into the sleeping paladin’s room thru the window. The paladin (beta) then awoke manacled to the headboard with the beautiful rogue straddling him and desiring to have him accept her advances. Now keep in mind both Alpha & Beta are both male IRL. Beta is straight laced fellow somewhat uncomfortable with PDA in real life, so this just added to the realism of the moment.
The discombobulated paladin finally rebuffed her advances so she departed, but as the woman scorned left him cuffed to the bed which he then failed to break and spent much of the night in that predicament. Meanwhile (and told to me privately), she went out on the town, back to the temple the party had visited earlier. She then murdered the priest, and here is the kicker, she posed as the paladin and openly walked back to the inn so he would be seen in the vicinity. Score one for the agent, paladin thoroughly framed for the murder. The shock for the party in the morning as the constable came to arrest him was something to see & they completely bought it as merely part of the planned adventure. No suspicion of Alpha whatsoever. Trouble was now I had to come up with the trial, etc, etc for session three!
Trial begins, and the party is trying to mount a defense for their esteemed paladin. While evidence is being presented an item must be retrieved from the inn and one of the players (a female samurai) goes to get it. Alpha volunteers to fetch it with her. When they’re alone upstairs at the inn, he changes into a twin of the samurai and fights her 1 on 1, winning by the barest of margins. Alpha played out this reveal and fight away from other players—so party is still none the wiser. Score number 2 for Alpha.
Alpha then walks back into the courtroom as the samurai, carrying the real samurai. He then dumps her unconscious form unceremoniously in the center of the room and decries her as the murderer. Party is now dumbfounded and confused. Eventually they turn on Alpha and he runs back to the busy town square hotly pursued by most of the party—except one who still thinks Alpha is innocent and who happens to be the first one to catch up. This misled pc then teleports herself and Alpha in a clean getaway. Score number 3 for the agent and no permanent damage to the pcs, except I don’t think those particular characters ever will quite fully trust the one who did the teleporting.
Stolen from an old Dragon Mag. Its just stuck with me for all these years.
64. Have the Pcs travel through a valley. All of a sudden a tribe of orcs/gnolls/ogres whatever charge down one side of the valley walls, weapons drawn, screaming like banshees. Give the pcs a round or 3 to waste resources. When the horde reaches the group, they dont attack, just keep running. One of them turns to a PC and says "what are doing?!? The frogs!!! Run!!!" Then have 200 hungry giant frogs appear at the top of the valley side, hungrily chasing down their prey. (which now includes the group)
I recall that one, it works well with artic tundra bog frogs!
108. Tell them that you are converting to 4.0.
109. Pick a word. Whenever one of your players say it, respond by saying Ni. Don't admit anything.
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111. The favorite local ale is named, "Rustmonster." (There's a brawl about to start so the barkeeper shouts, "Hey! Everyone calm down and I'll get out the Rustmonster.)
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112. Pick a word. Whenever one of your players say it, drop green slime on their characters.
115. Give the BBEG a Dr. Jekle/Mr. Hyde complex. By day he is a priest/cleric and by evening he is a necro who uses the freshly provided bodies of the priest/cleric to grow his army. The PC's choose to work with or hunt whomever they want. The PC has a chimera/shapeshifter base that provides enough difference between to 2 personalities to not be found out while making it impossible for the PC's to accertain from intense perception.
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116. Create a large room in the dungeon, empty except for a large, checkered tile floor, with indecipherable runes written on some of the tiles. If they ask to detect magic or decipher script etc, have them roll for it, consult your notes, and then tell them they don't figure out anything (consider having the floor be enchanted with a prestidigitation effect that keeps it clean and shiny, just so there's a vague aura to detect).
The tiles don't do anything, and the engravings are just gibberish, but the PCs will spend hours trying to figure out what the hell is the deal with this room, and they will loathe to be the first in the party to actually step onto the floor.
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117. Create a sultry woman who is very interested in one of the PCs. After a lengthy courtship, have the PC and the woman find a private place in which the woman starts the inevitable. Push play on your recording of Soft Cell’s – Tainted Love, which was hidden under the table, and describe to the PC that the woman transforms into a succubus. Obviously the door is locked. Let the succubus toy with him. Allow him hope, but never give him a chance. Have the succubus eventually perform the deed and leave the PC alive. This setups up a wonderful roleplaying opportunity down the line as well.
116. Create a large room in the dungeon, empty except for a large, checkered tile floor, with indecipherable runes written on some of the tiles. If they ask to detect magic or decipher script etc, have them roll for it, consult your notes, and then tell them they don't figure out anything (consider having the floor be enchanted with a prestidigitation effect that keeps it clean and shiny, just so there's a vague aura to detect).
The tiles don't do anything, and the engravings are just gibberish, but the PCs will spend hours trying to figure out what the hell is the deal with this room, and they will loathe to be the first in the party to actually step onto the floor.
I LOVE using this one.
117. Recreate the Temple from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. See how long it takes them to figure it out.
In my experience, it either takes too damn long or they realize right away, so I avoid video games.
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117. Recreate the Temple from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. See how long it takes them to figure it out.In my experience, it either takes too damn long or they realize right away, so I avoid video games.
Well, then you need to mix around the monsters a bit! Just because it's a Forest Temple, that doesn't mean they have to fight the four ghosts.
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117. Create a sultry woman who is very interested in one of the PCs. After a lengthy courtship, have the PC and the woman find a private place in which the woman starts the inevitable. Push play on your recording of Soft Cell’s – Tainted Love, which was hidden under the table, and describe to the PC that the woman transforms into a succubus. Obviously the door is locked. Let the succubus toy with him. Allow him hope, but never give him a chance. Have the succubus eventually perform the deed and leave the PC alive. This setups up a wonderful roleplaying opportunity down the line as well.
succubus?! na, green hag! now that one is a winner!
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This only works if they party does not have a monk
Have the party end a day’s travel outside a monastery. They hopefully will ask to stay the night there which they will be allowed for a small fee.
The monks graciously accept them, feed them dinner, and even give them a nice room to sleep. As the party tries to fall asleep, they hear a strange sound; a sound like no other that they have ever heard. The next morning, they ask the monks what the sound was, but they say, "We can't tell you because you're not considered a monk."
The party may leave disappointed but thanks them anyway and they go about their merry way.
Sometime later, the party will end their travel in front of another monastery.
The monks again accept them, feed them, and even give them a nice room to sleep in.
That night, they hear the same strange mesmerizing sound that they had heard earlier.
The next morning, they ask what the sound was, but the monks reply,
"We can't tell you because you're not considered a monk."
The party says, "all right, all right ... I'm dying to know. If the only way I can find out what that sound was is to be considered a monk how do I do it? – I assume most party members will ask how
The monks reply with strange quest like finding how blades of grass there are in a paddock nearby or how much space is in a nearby cave system nearby or something weird & once they have completed this task you will be considered a monk.
The party sets about this task. Sometime later, they return and knock on the door of the monastery. They say, "I have undertaken the quest given and have found what you had asked for. There are 300000 blades of grass or whatever the quest is.
The monks reply, "Congratulations, you are correct, and you are now considered a monk. We shall now show you the way to the sound."
The monks lead the party to a wooden door, where the head monk says, the sound is behind there pointing to the door.
The party reaches for the knob, but the door is locked. They ask, May I have the key? or may pick the lock if they choose (low DC).
The monks give them the key, and the opens the door.
Behind the wooden door is another door made of stone. The party requests the key to the stone door.
The monks give them the key, and the opens it - only to find a door made of steel. They demand another key from the monks, who provide it. Behind that door is another door, this one made of adamantine. And so it went on until the party had gone through doors of varying materials & styles. When the party starts getting frustrated the monks finally say, "This is the key to the last door."
The party is relieved to be at the end. They unlock the door, turn the knob, and behind that door they are astonished to find the source of that strange sound.
It is truly an amazing and unbelievable sight..... just pause here until they ask what it is
Then say “But I can't tell you what it is because you're not considered monks”
I did this to a party & was nearly killed when they realised I had led them on a quest for 3 sessions & it was all a wild goose chase
120: Offer the party a discount magic item.
123: The party finds an intelligent magic item. Unfortunately for the party it is an expendable item, and it doesn't want to die.
(I know the rules say "Only permanent magic items (as opposed to single-use items or those with charges) can be intelligent. (This means that potions, scrolls, and wands, among other items, are never intelligent.)," but when has that stopped a Chaotic Evil DM?)
123: The party finds an intelligent magic item. Unfortunately for the party it is an expendable item, and it doesn't want to die.
Have that sucker scream for help every time they try to use it.
[Random critter in ear shot]
"huh?!? What's that sound?"
124. Make all races except humans allergic to chocolate.
IIR, in PF terms, Elves and Half-Elves suffered Int Drain if they eat it, Dwarves become Nauseated by the smell and Sickened if they eat it, Orcs and Half-Orcs become addicted to it like it was an opiate, and Halflings become permanently deranged if they ate it.
Gnomes have no problem with chocolate, but vanilla is fatal to them.
117. Recreate the Temple from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. See how long it takes them to figure it out.
This only works if your players are Zelda Fans (only one of our group is...the rest of us would never have recognised it...)
We had this happen when one of our GMs tried to run a BESM d20 game set in the Final Fantasy Universe. She and two of the players had played enough of the games to enjoy the references. For the other 5 of us, she was constantly having to explain things that we were supposed to take for granted. (I've played a few, but several of the others had NEVER played a FF game...so when she said Chocobo....a bunch of the plyers just went "Huh!")
Also had this sort of thing happen back in the mid 80s when our Gm decided to run Marvel Super Heroes for a bunch of players who'd never seen many superheroes. We attacked Wolverine and Nightcrawler on sight because they were obviously villains, based on their appearance and powers...
Had a Gm who ran LOTR for 7 players...only two of us had read the series (and to the GM, LOTR/Hobbit was more holy than the Bible). So, when three of the party members got Bilbo drunk and then rolled him for his cool sword, chainmail, coinpurse, and that ring around his neck...the GM literally had a coniption and threatened to leave our group permenantly... (Personally, I would have let the players keep the gear...then add on two NPCs to make it a nine man party...after that, well, there's a bunch of books about what happens to people who try to drop the ring in mount doom...)
Of course, an interesting twist on this can be seen in the Darths and Droids or GM of the Rings webcomics....
In other words, make sure your players have enough common references to get your in jokes. (One of my long-time groups included 8 players whose ages at the time stretched from 14 to 38...one of them has never seen a single Star Wars movie and thinks Monty Python is boring)
But, I DO like basing encounters on situations that everyone is familiar with.
For the record, what is special about the Zelda Temple you mentioned?
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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58: int20 ooze
I did something similar to this in a campaign.
I took a Gelatinous Cube and gave it the fiendish template, which gave it a minimum int score of 3. I then adjusted the stats to the heroic stats, gave it levels in monk, and a feat that let it choose what type of damage its natural attacks did (bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing.)
It was a companion of a drow sorceress who had an amulet of ooze riding and who specialized in rays and ranged spells.
The result was a near TPK.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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69. Randomly throughout the campaign, no matter where the PCs are, have a dog walk up to them, do it's business, then walk off.
That happened to me as a player. It was a sci-fi game and there were these dogs called Zaan-Zans that looked like hairless, bucktooth chiwawas. My character hated them, so the DM had one every session show up and bother my PC. The party medic was known to give them shots of tranquilizers, and we even glued a note to one owned by a general.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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125. Have all monsters attack the same PC first, no matter how difficult that would be.
126. Have a monster swallow or take a bite out of a PC. That same monster, even if it was defeated, is seen licking its lips at least one a session.
127. Have a specific monster attack a PC randomly and in odd places. Make nowhere safe. Bonus points if you recruit the other players privately to RP that they can't see or detect the attacks.
128. Have a few goblins standing on a bridge with weapons. They demand payment to use the bridge. Charge a single copper piece. The bridge happens to be one the PCs must cross constantly, and the goblins keep showing up if payment is made. Bonus if you have the goblins show up on every bridge.
129. Non sequitur dungeons. Every room is drastically different from the rest and do not fit any single theme. For example, have one room an ice cave, another a dwarven drinking hall, and yet another a wooden glen with nymphs.
130: Run the game naked. I have never done this of course but I imagine it would freak out my players.
131: More seriously...say,"Ok lets start the gamr." Than just sit there and stare at the players as if waiting for them to do something. Than sigh and mutter under your breath," So they want to do this the hard way.'
132: Buld up a villian to big porpotions...but just have it all be just empty reputation...and then have the real villian pop up after their buff spells are gone.
134: Create the creation from the movie Relic as a D&D monster...give a vorpal bite attack.