Cruel DM stuff
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Henry
Autoexreginated
Piratecat is reputed to be a master of that - in fact, he's not above making little girls cry at the gaming table. 
He might be able to relate the story of the Succubus at the Court Ball, if he gets to see this.
Worst thing I might have ever done to the party that was actually fun, was a Star Wars Saga game I ran a couple years back. I actually tempted one player to turn his Jedi character to the dark side, and though the group had an inkling (he LOVED his force grip), they actually didn't catch on until the very last game session at the turncoat moment.
It added up to a very epic moment, the party being saved by the sacrifice of one player's heroic droid, and a lot of standing up, whooping, and hollering at the game table. They escaped barely alive, and actually losing and on the run, but they had a great time worthy of a Revenge-of-the-Sith-style ending. The worst villain I pitted them against -- was one of them.
He might be able to relate the story of the Succubus at the Court Ball, if he gets to see this.Worst thing I might have ever done to the party that was actually fun, was a Star Wars Saga game I ran a couple years back. I actually tempted one player to turn his Jedi character to the dark side, and though the group had an inkling (he LOVED his force grip), they actually didn't catch on until the very last game session at the turncoat moment.
It added up to a very epic moment, the party being saved by the sacrifice of one player's heroic droid, and a lot of standing up, whooping, and hollering at the game table. They escaped barely alive, and actually losing and on the run, but they had a great time worthy of a Revenge-of-the-Sith-style ending. The worst villain I pitted them against -- was one of them.
pawsplay
Hero
Here, Have a Minor Artifact, Have Fun
Running a 3.5 campaign. The characters were about 6th level, I think, and they were being pursued by a death knight. In the course of their adventures, I let them acquire a magic item I called the crown of eternal majesty. It granted +2 on Cha checks with regard to the undead and the ability to cast command undead 2/day and animate dead 1/week, at caster level 20. So they had the option of either disposing of the crown, or trying to use it. An NPC sorcerer tried to shake them down, resulting in a feud when they tried to prevent him from escaping to warn their enemies. They decided to use the crown... taking control of the death knight, they sent him to slay the sorcerer. Of course, death knights are not known for their concern for collateral damage. He ransacked a thriving village, burned down the inn, and ultimately failed to capture their enemy. Dozens of people died. When he set forth to seek them again, they again were faced with the choice of what do. Although the wizard wanted to use the crown again, the rest of the party vetoed that choice and they decided to go incognito. After facing down a few more theft attempts, the party lost the crown to a succubus, then regained it with the aid of a hag. At that point, they were ready to get rid of the thing by any means available.
Running a 3.5 campaign. The characters were about 6th level, I think, and they were being pursued by a death knight. In the course of their adventures, I let them acquire a magic item I called the crown of eternal majesty. It granted +2 on Cha checks with regard to the undead and the ability to cast command undead 2/day and animate dead 1/week, at caster level 20. So they had the option of either disposing of the crown, or trying to use it. An NPC sorcerer tried to shake them down, resulting in a feud when they tried to prevent him from escaping to warn their enemies. They decided to use the crown... taking control of the death knight, they sent him to slay the sorcerer. Of course, death knights are not known for their concern for collateral damage. He ransacked a thriving village, burned down the inn, and ultimately failed to capture their enemy. Dozens of people died. When he set forth to seek them again, they again were faced with the choice of what do. Although the wizard wanted to use the crown again, the rest of the party vetoed that choice and they decided to go incognito. After facing down a few more theft attempts, the party lost the crown to a succubus, then regained it with the aid of a hag. At that point, they were ready to get rid of the thing by any means available.
Nebulous
Legend
3e campaign. The party has acquired a Deck of Many Things (i tend to include one in every campaign, even 4e soon). Anyway, everyone pulls, but one player manages to pull three suck cards. One of them earns him the hatred of an extraplanar foe. So, time passes, i'm thinking about how i want this to play out, and it is actually compounded by one of the other cards, i forget which one now.
So, a month or so later in real time, the party is walking through the woods when suddenly an Elder Red Dragon with an abysal tempate rears up before them from hiding, waiting for that one guy, calls out the character's name and targets the cleric with fire breath. He's incinerated at once, just blown off the board by a river of flame. A big fight ensues and the players finally vanquish the dragon, but we've always had a little chuckle about that completely unfair sneak attack with practically no hope of survival. He didn't mind. He knew something bad was coming, he just didn't know when or how.
So, a month or so later in real time, the party is walking through the woods when suddenly an Elder Red Dragon with an abysal tempate rears up before them from hiding, waiting for that one guy, calls out the character's name and targets the cleric with fire breath. He's incinerated at once, just blown off the board by a river of flame. A big fight ensues and the players finally vanquish the dragon, but we've always had a little chuckle about that completely unfair sneak attack with practically no hope of survival. He didn't mind. He knew something bad was coming, he just didn't know when or how.
I've done a lot of cruel stuff when running PARANOIA, but that's par for the course.
My favorite: giving the players a remote controlled bomb that had a 50 yard range from the radio control device. Unfortunately, the bomb itself was a tactical nuke, so it took out several miles of Alpha Complex when it exploded. Needless to say, the PCs were not far enough away from the blast to survive.
2nd favorite: The players were working with a training Bot that had a super-happy demeanor. He would feed the players "Choco-Booms" when they treated him nicely. Each time this happened, I gave the player a truffle. And if they didn't eat it immediately, I asked them why and basically harrassed them til they ate it. One player made a very nice comment (coz he wanted chocolate), so I gave him 5 truffles...and demanded he eat them all at once.
It was great...although the player near barfed because the chocolate was so rich. That wouldn't have been good. Luckily that didn't happen, so it worked out well ;-)
My favorite: giving the players a remote controlled bomb that had a 50 yard range from the radio control device. Unfortunately, the bomb itself was a tactical nuke, so it took out several miles of Alpha Complex when it exploded. Needless to say, the PCs were not far enough away from the blast to survive.
2nd favorite: The players were working with a training Bot that had a super-happy demeanor. He would feed the players "Choco-Booms" when they treated him nicely. Each time this happened, I gave the player a truffle. And if they didn't eat it immediately, I asked them why and basically harrassed them til they ate it. One player made a very nice comment (coz he wanted chocolate), so I gave him 5 truffles...and demanded he eat them all at once.
It was great...although the player near barfed because the chocolate was so rich. That wouldn't have been good. Luckily that didn't happen, so it worked out well ;-)
One of my players has an ego, which translates to all of his characters. Well, one day while passing through a village, a homeless boy starts to follow him and imitate his ways. The character takes a shine to this and adopts the boy, teaching him fighting styles, enrolling him in a school, passing down high quality (and expensive) older armor and weapons, bringing him along on adventures but nearly dying trying to keep the boy from getting killed...all good stuff.
I almost felt bad when a year later (real time, about 6 months game time) I revealed the boy as a rakshasa who was the BBEG. He did it as a lark and was shocked at how easily he integrated himself into the group. He would direct his allies and minions on how best to attack the group, their weaknesses, their plans...all the while taking their resources and selling them to help fund his own.
It worked out beautifully, I have to say.
I almost felt bad when a year later (real time, about 6 months game time) I revealed the boy as a rakshasa who was the BBEG. He did it as a lark and was shocked at how easily he integrated himself into the group. He would direct his allies and minions on how best to attack the group, their weaknesses, their plans...all the while taking their resources and selling them to help fund his own.
It worked out beautifully, I have to say.
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
Oh, bravo!
Henry, the scurrilous
http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...ost-rat-bastard-thing-youve-ever-done-dm.html
To summarize:
Back in the days of 2e, before dimensional lock:
The PCs badly offended an erinyes while in the outer planes. They left her alive, so she tracked down where they were from. While they still dallied in Sigil, she went to the PCs' home city, charmed and married the rogue's father, and then started tricking the local peasants into selling her their souls. By the time the adventurers returned home, it was a fait accompli.
The rogue was understandably upset that his father had remarried. But his new step-mother was so sweet to him... call me Mommy, and all that... even as she turned his room into a nursery for her unborn child and spent all of his inheritance.
When the PCs discovered the truth at a grand ball, she sneered at them. She explained that:
(a) she was too tough to kill all at once,
(b) she could teleport without error,
(c) consorting with fiends was a crime punishable by death and the crown seizing all assets, and
(d) she still had contract to a dozen or so innocent souls.
Thus, if they attacked her, she'd reveal herself in public to be a fiend (dooming the PC's father to death and disinheritance), then teleport away with the souls. Same thing if they even told anyone the truth. If they attacked her and DID somehow kill her, the souls she had claimed would be forever doomed. And while the PCs tried to digest this nasty little catch-22, she waved at them prettily, smiled, and swept away to dance with someone else.
It was a fun conundrum.
Ydars
Explorer
I am feeling bad about my last session as DM, not a week ago.
The PCs are all 13th level (but 32 point buy at start and a few too many magic items) and I have just taken over the reins again after playing in this campaign for a year.
So I set up DM Genie (computer prg for 3.5) with this party of 4 Zhentarim who are a sort of capture squad for hire (all 10th level). The Zhents have been hired to capture the party, by one of their past enemies.
First the Zhents pose as worshippers of Kord and get the PCs to fight a Deathshrieker to get some of them level drained (-2 level for bard and -1 for mage).
Then they ambush the wounded characters when they stumbled back into the dwarven refugee caravan that serves as the PCs current home base(they did not heal themselves at all and two were on single figure HP from a previous fight). The Zhents do little damage but do manage to trap the PCs, who only escape by a bit of luck.
Later in the same session, the mage was looking for information, and was told to meet a shadowy figure she didn't know at an underground warehouse. She had still not had her level drain removed (nor had the bard) but for some reason, she and the bard turned up at this rendevous with no armour or protective spells up. I think you can see what is going to happen................pity the PCs didn't.
Unfortunately for the PCs, one of the Zhents is a half-giant fighter who is a sunder specialist and has an adamantine great sword. I built him as a kind of glass cannon but he did not die and lasted far too long...........
4 rounds later, the PC cleric was dead, and also had his belt of giant strength, +1 electrical warhammer and amulet of natural armour sundered and in addition, the bard ended up captured when the rest of the party decided to bail out and teleported away.
The teleport was actually the PCs first sensible decision the whole game session.
Now I have to work out what is going to happen next. I never expected this to happen and thought the Zhents would die after the first fight.
Arrrghhhhh!
The PCs are all 13th level (but 32 point buy at start and a few too many magic items) and I have just taken over the reins again after playing in this campaign for a year.
So I set up DM Genie (computer prg for 3.5) with this party of 4 Zhentarim who are a sort of capture squad for hire (all 10th level). The Zhents have been hired to capture the party, by one of their past enemies.
First the Zhents pose as worshippers of Kord and get the PCs to fight a Deathshrieker to get some of them level drained (-2 level for bard and -1 for mage).
Then they ambush the wounded characters when they stumbled back into the dwarven refugee caravan that serves as the PCs current home base(they did not heal themselves at all and two were on single figure HP from a previous fight). The Zhents do little damage but do manage to trap the PCs, who only escape by a bit of luck.
Later in the same session, the mage was looking for information, and was told to meet a shadowy figure she didn't know at an underground warehouse. She had still not had her level drain removed (nor had the bard) but for some reason, she and the bard turned up at this rendevous with no armour or protective spells up. I think you can see what is going to happen................pity the PCs didn't.
Unfortunately for the PCs, one of the Zhents is a half-giant fighter who is a sunder specialist and has an adamantine great sword. I built him as a kind of glass cannon but he did not die and lasted far too long...........
4 rounds later, the PC cleric was dead, and also had his belt of giant strength, +1 electrical warhammer and amulet of natural armour sundered and in addition, the bard ended up captured when the rest of the party decided to bail out and teleported away.
The teleport was actually the PCs first sensible decision the whole game session.
Now I have to work out what is going to happen next. I never expected this to happen and thought the Zhents would die after the first fight.
Arrrghhhhh!
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