Thought you guys would appreciate a sneak peek! This will be out in pdf in a couple weeks--and in old style (Greyhawk-sized booklet) softcover this fall, when it mails out with Sword of Air. Its a really fun GM tool I made up over the past few decades!
Welcome to Bill Webb’s Book of Dirty Tricks. This fun little tome is a GM utility for use during regular play when either too many good things happen to the players due to luck or just whenever the GM feels they need a little push to remind them that success is fleeting. Over the years I have seen many movies, read many books, and played a great deal of this game. While I usually don’t steal tricks verbatim from these sources (I like to assume my victims have seen and read the same things I have), I do like to take them as general ideas and modify them to achieve the same effect.
Dirty tricks are intended to create great players. That is and should be the only reason a GM springs such things on them. It also has the effect of creating a great game, where even mundane tasks cannot be taken for granted, and boredom is rare.
Be aware: Lots of spoilers from the classic adventure modules are in here because I use them as examples. No discussion of tricks and traps would be complete without mentioning Gary Gygax’s Tomb of Horrors1, for example. If you haven’t played through Tomb of Horrors yet, put this book down, get a group together, and play through that module before you keep reading.
This book consists of portable encounter and campaign modification ideas that can be used with, or at least tailored to, virtually any level party. There are several different angles to each set of dirty tricks depending on how the GM wants to use them. These tricks are by no means an end all to end all, nor do they represent a complete listing. This author looks forward to hearing from you with your ideas for more dirty tricks. Each category is described below:
Bill Webb’s House Rules
This is a series of house rules that have been used in the Lost Lands for more than 35 years. If applied, these rules significantly decrease the power level of play and make the game much more difficult. We (and the author in particular) pride ourselves on a tough but fair game. Players who survive in my adventures have bragging rights few can match. Players who survive and thrive in my campaign itself are truly men (and yes, Jillian, women) of steel.
Several optional rules have been used for years in my actual campaign. Keep in mind these rules are not for everyone, as my home game is much grittier low fantasy than many other campaigns. Likewise, these rules fit well with OD&D2, but perhaps not as well with modern game systems such as 3.53 and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game4, in some cases. The real key here is that advancement in my campaign is slow. Characters and monsters, even high level ones, are vulnerable and can be killed. Players in my game who have reached 6th- or 7th-level are proud of their accomplishment. Several areas for which I have house rules and that have been in place in my Lost Lands campaign for 3-1/2 decades, are:
• Experience Points
• Attributes and Bonuses
• Table Dice Rolls
• Damage Rolls and The Value of Magic Weapons
• Hit Points vs. Rolls to Hit
• Travel and Getting Lost
• Food and Water
• Surprise, Initiative and Melee Order, and Spellcasting in Combat
• Hit Points, Death and Dying
• Doing Things Rather than Rolling Dice
Each GM must assess for himself how implementing these rules could affect his campaign. They are not for everyone, but those of you who want the challenge and feel of my home campaign may wish to give these a try and see how well they fit you.
The Players Got Too Much Treasure
This series of tricks is designed to “take away” some of the players’ ill-gotten gains based on circumstances outside of the main game. These can be used for several reasons. First, if the players simply got a little too lucky and gathered a few too many gold pieces last adventure,
the GM may need to take back some of that loot without appearing capricious. Second, the dirty tricks can be used to provide impetus for the players to “get going already.” Nothing spurs a group of greedy players out the door more than financial hardship. Last, it offers a sense of realism. I mean, really, who among us has not gotten a bonus at work, just to have the car break down or that tuition payment be due all in the same week? The GM giveth, and the GM taketh away … that is just the reality of the game. Specific tricks in this category include:
• Tax Collector
• Framed!
• Wilderness Bandits
• A Friend in Need
• Holy War!
• Disaster in Home Town
• Here is your new Castle (aka The Money Pit)!
Situational Advantage (Environment)
These tricks can be used to make what would otherwise be a simple encounter deadly. By creating a difficult environmental factor, the GM can give his monsters a significantly better chance to win in combat vs. the big bad player characters. After all, one must protect his low-level monsters from those nasty players! Alternatively, these tricks can be used to make the players use their other abilities to overcome a challenge. Be careful with this though: Falling off the slippery bridge into the chasm is a lousy way to lose a character. Players need to be able to tell stories of epic character death to appreciate play. Now, if you caused a player character to fall off the rope and into a pool of gray ooze because a goblin was hurling beehives at him from the cave entrance above, or if the evil wizard tossed a vial of oil of slipperiness onto the castle wall, causing the players to plummet into the 500 foot chasm below — that is worthy of a story. Specific tricks in this category include:
• Slippery Conditions
• Bad Air
• Stinky the Skunk
• Slow Movement (mud and rubble)
• Death from Above!
Time Wasters
This series of tricks should be used sparingly. However, they are incredibly useful in those circumstances when the players are geared to automatically succeed at something, or in those cases when you as a GM have become too predictable. They also provide an opportunity to use those random encounter tables that all GMs love. Specific situations where this GM has used some of these include the “all-elf party” where secret door detection became laughable (also known as “the reason Bill hates elves”), as well as one instance where I found that my players started casting defensive spells every time my flavor text got heavy. Specific tricks in the category include:
• Fake Secret Door
• False Adventure Lead
• Magic Key (does nothing)
• Unobtainium
• Extra Heavy Flavor Text
• Monkeys Typing Shakespeare
• Buttons and Levers
Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
These tricks are used to remove the predictability of what seems a safe or easy situation. Just because it’s a goblin does not mean it has fewer than 8 hp and that your fighters get multiple attacks against it. Certainly we all have used those cursed items out of the rulebooks as well, although they always seemed a little unfair (you put it on and die, no save). Everyone has used the “hot chick is a vampire” version of this, and there are many, many more. I will give you a few examples of situational wolves that you may or may not have seen before. Specific tricks included here are:
• Cursed Items
• Kobolds with Toys
• Super Bunny
• Symbiotic Monsters
• The Unkillable Monster
• Beauty is Only Skin Deep
Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing
More fun for the GM and less dangerous for the players are the sheep that appear to be wolves. It always brings back memories of The Wizard of Oz5 for me. It’s a blast to have the players waste spells and magic items to completely obliterate that 1 hp bad guy. Sometimes it’s dangerous to do so (remember your first gas spore?), but most of the time it’s just paranoia followed by massive overkill. These tricks are particularly effective when used deep in a dungeon, right after a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing encounter, or in another way where the players are expecting the worst. It’s quite entertaining to see if you can get the 10th-level party to negotiate a truce with the 1 HD goblin because he “scares the hell out of them.”
• Kobold with a Glowing Stick (aka the “Wiz”)
• Stuffed Dragon
• Scary Looking Things
• Illusions
Trickery
These tricks are just that … tricks. They are good ways to hide treasure and to create general chaos for adventurers. Sprinkled in occasionally, these types of tricks are good for keeping player
characters on their toes, and also good for making them approach different things more carefully.
• Hidden Compartment within a Hidden Compartment
• Trap on a Trap
• Time Limited Magic Item
• The Melting Lock
• Tesseracts and Teleportals
• I Can Get In and You Can’t!
• I Got It, Now What?
Greed is Bad!
Often, players get greedy. They simply are not satisfied with some random boon or thing that they have found, and seek to exploit it. I am often reminded of the Once-ler from Dr. Suess’ “The Lorax”6 when I am motivated to use tricks like these. Having found a “good thing,” the players may try to get “too much of a good thing.” This, of course, must be punished.
• Collapsing Treasure Room
• The Apple Tree
• Magic Pools and Potions (is one enough and two too many?)
• Hiding in Plain Sight
