101 bad things to happen to good PCs

[Moe Ronalds]

THere is a large explosion, which for all they know may very well have destroyed the world. They however, and anyone else at ground zero, and perhaps others, are not blown to bits. Instead, they find themselves sitting in the middle of a cantina, filled with grotesque and strange creatures. The mages find their spells gone, but they now have a knowledge of some new, foreign entity. The warriors are now more skilled with strange projectile weapons than their swords, and the clerics find themselves holding mystical shafts which expel powerful, constant beams of light which they can fight with like swords. A few tables over, they see a man shoot a strange, green skinned creature, walking away saying "Sorry about the mess"...

Inform them that since they destroyed the highly powerful, and highly evil, artifact, the forces of the universe must shift to remain balanced. How do they shift? The PCs transform in mind and body into largely powerful demon/devil lords. Or, alternatively, since it's only the material plane being thrown out of whack, a portal is openned from the abyss, and demons of varying power begin to spew out like crazy.

The artifact is only a containment unit for a powerful and bizarre evil entity that takes the form of a flame-shrouded doll that can only communicate by singing a certain song. Those it kills take the same form as it, and hover around with it.
(I got the basic idea for this from something I read on RPG.net)

The curse of midas- Everything they touch not only turns to gold, but any living creature they touch retains it's sentience, but they also grow into quite powerful self-serving gold golems that are rather pissed at what they've been turned into.

Different parts of their body begin to age and deage randomly. So while they may have long, whithered white hair, they could have the face of a baby, the arms of an awkward adolsecent, the torso of someone their age, and the legs of a dead man.

Character dies but immediately comes back to life... as the familiar of a beginning wizard.

Attack of the 100 foot PCs- The characters all grow to collossal size, as do their clothes. But their gear doesn't. And think, how hard is it gonna be to find a place to bathe, sleep, and the really scary part- what are they gonna EAT?

Where'd they go?- The opposite of the above, the characters all grow to microscopic proportions. Yeah, they have their magic items at their size, but how the heck do you fight an ameoba?

 

[clark411]

- With the vacuum created by the loss of the evil artifact, other forces move to replace it... so perhaps many less powerful artifacts that were not necessarily good or good on the side of neutral become evil, along with whomever wields them

- If the evil of this artifact is multifaceted (it likes to kill kingdoms AND babies for example) then upon it's destruction, each character present inherits an aspect of that evil and must struggle with it or embrace it (Jon the Just fighter now wishes to overthrow the goodly king and his goodly Justice... Bob Mageguy can't help but desire wringing the neck of every infant he passes).


I personally prefer the second to the first (even in terms of it being personal rather than global)- as it's easier to logic out for the player characters.. beyond that, after finally defeating a great exterior problem, they have to deal with an interior one as well, which does a fantasy version of a real issue- coping with one's choices. Consequences that happen close to an individual usually carry far more weight than those that affect others - except in the eye-rolling "Boom you've destroyed the world hee hee hee" kind of effects.

 

[Kryndal Levik]

- Let the Domain of Dread take them (bringing them into the Ravenloft Campaign setting): The Dark Powers see that their pet artifact was destroyed and so they take ones that are responsible
- The destruction generates a vortex, pulling the characters in and expelling them on another plane.

These two get my vote- especially the Ravenloft one. Great idea, IMO...

 

[Janos Audron]

Give them all an Evil benifit.

- Energy drain slam attack
- Lich touch
- Frightful moan
- Mummy rot on touch
- Poisonous fangs (not really *evil*)

See if they want to use them or make will checks to see if they use them...

When they smash the artifact, a huge Antigenisis effect is created (huge as in, larger max area and faster spread / day). Extra option is to turn them (and everyone else in the Antigenisis effect) into undead, but still have their stats, abilities, alignment and memories.

 

[ArcOfCorinth]

Give them all a divine rank of say...5. They're effectively demigods...but don't know it.

 

[Norfleet]

Malodorous piratical sodomy tends to be amusing.

 

[Eldragon]

-
- Let the Domain of Dread take them (bringing them into the Ravenloft Campaign setting)

The game is already IN the Ravenloft campaign setting. However a domain shift is high on my list of possibilities.

However I like the ideas. Maybe I will just open this thread when the item is destroyed and roll d100.

 

[rounser]

1. Everything the PCs say must come out as rhyme or they lose a hit point for each "line" they say that doesn't rhyme (idea ripped off from Buffy). I can imagine this getting very old or very silly very quickly, so it would probably only be good for a short term curse.

2. PCs bodies become those of eight-year old children (or equivalent for long-lived races). Ability scores are adjusted for age and for going down a size category, and all gear changes size to match (perhaps losing a size) but other abilities remain unchanged. Players will need to roleplay the children appropriately, and they do remember who they once were.

3. All PCs are haunted by terrible nightmares as soon as they fall asleep. Three mutually exclusive approaches suggest themselves on how they might affect play:
a) The nightmares wake them up in a fit of screaming within moments every time, leading to exhaustion due to continual insomnia and possibly eventual death.
b) The nightmares gate their "shadow selves" (with full shadow equipment) off to the Demi-Plane of Shadow, where they live the nightmare as an adventure, encountering twisted shades of characters they know in the prime material. Needless to say, in Nightmare on Elm Street style, death in the shadow plane means death on the prime material.
c) There are messages (adventure hooks) in the nightmares, as if someone is desperately trying to communicate something in riddles or stories, but they keep being twisted, interrupted and tainted by something powerful and evil. Each nightmare can be narrated, and may require a DC roll to discern meaning, or overcome an obstacle.

 

[Caliber]

Or perhaps despite nightmares of a terrible and horrifying nature, they sleep deeply and soundly every night, unable to be awakened by anything short of damage (or not even that if you want to be a real RBDM)

Every morning they wake up rested in body but shattered in mind from the terrible images they've seen at night. (idea vaguely inspired by 8-Bit Theatre )

 

[Kae'Yoss]

The game is already IN the Ravenloft campaign setting. However a domain shift is high on my list of possibilities.

In the Mists already? Well, all that evil power must go somewhere - and the "heroes" are handy. So they become evil. Evil enough that they become Dark Lords and gain their own domain, with the usual benefits and disadvantages.


Another thing: They remain the same, but think they're powerful now. They see each other in their "new" shape, but others don't. This can be a powerful, noble beast like a dragon (imagine a wizard flapping his arms and puffing - thinking he uses his breath weapon and wind buffets the enemy) or demideities (thinking you're DR 5 usually makes you cocksure of yourself).