Adversarial RBDMs

[takasi]

I saw another thread that I wanted to read, but its tone was inappropriate and it was quickly closed. Here's an alternate thread that's hopefully lighter in tone and a fun read by all.

One of the meanest things I've probably done as a DM is luring the players into a false sense of security and then using it against them. In one campaign they met a group of monsters in a dungeon and decided to parlay with them. The monsters said 'Sure, let's take you to our leader.' The party received a grand tour of the dungeon, and as they delved deeper the entourage of monsters grew around them. Finally the party was overwhelmingly outnumbered, but (out of character) the players felt they were in a safe zone and had made a truce with the monsters. There was quite a bit of shock and awe when I called out 'Roll for Initiative'...

So what do you think of the old 'rat bastard DM'? The most common response I see is 'never get into an arms race with the DM...he'll always win'. I think the adversarial tone goes beyond whether a party survives from session to session. Some tables have a underlying tone of judgement: DMs judge the moral and intellectual actions (beyond rules adjudication) of players and players judge the fairness of the DM. In my example above I let my judgement of the players ('how foolish of them to fall for this') influence how I resolved the outcome.

What's the most outrageous example of adversarial play between players and DMs you've seen? Any classic Knights of the Dinner Table stuff?

 

[Crothian]

My players are way to trusting. It has caused problems because in some games I've run as a DM I will lie to them because what their characters know to be true really isn't. But they trust that what I tell them is fact.

Once they were told that Nerull was captured in Tarturus and they felt through plot points they needed to free him. When they got there and it was damned hard, they found he was not only not captured but they had been tricked and now they were captured. They had to begrundgingly make a deal with the devil to gain their freedom, but Nerull had what he wanted from them. It reached a dynamic conclusion many months later with the death of a city and everything that was living in it. The players still bitch about that at times.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Not particularly adversarial in my games, though when NPCs that should be easy kills seriously threaten the party, I get a bit smug. I'm considering next game asking for spot checks and then telling those that make it the following:

Player(s): What do I see?
Me: A gaze attack.

More because I'd find it funny than to be a RBDM, though.