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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cor Azer" data-source="post: 25364" data-attributes="member: 870">My usual trick is to not explain what abilities they're using (doesn't work well with common spells like fireball, but even pulling up an entropic shield and just saying the guy chants, then is surrounded by a chaotic swirl of energy keeps players on their toes), and I use standard magic items in non-standard forms.My players are pretty well versed in D&D lore, so it's hard to get the drop on them sometimes. Throwing the unknown at them is usually best.As for making the looming villain scared of them, this works even better, since they may hear of his abilities through the grapevine, but without first hand knowledge, don't necessarily get accurate descriptions.Now, while I've been able to get players worried plenty of times, it's usually happened through a metagaming sense. Only twice do I think I got a genuine emotional response from any of my players over a villain - the first was way back in second edition, the first time I ever pulled the henchman-turn-traitor on the party (This was actually the only time I was ever able to get a certain player to roleplay his character - Man, how he hated Erlith... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />) The second time was just recently in my PbeM game where the paladin discovered his younger sister was turned into a vampire and he had to kill her (The player told me he loved the story and said it really helped him to get into his character.)Sorry, I'm rambling again. (Man, this is a bad morning for me to keep a straight chain of thought...) I don't know if any of that helps you.</blockquote>

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