One Thousand Ways to Freak Out Your Players

[DM with a vengence]

10) Hand each player several character sheets and d6s when they enter.

11) Roll fireball damage one dice at a time.

12) Make continual references to Jeremy and his 'Sultans of Smack'. Say that the bad guy wasn't allowed to be in Sultans of Smack because it was too powerful.

13) Have a bad guy with Genisis and Astral Project, let him hang out on his demi-plane and Astral Project to fight the party. He cannot be killed, except by fighting on his home plane, which is warded to allow only one creature above Fine on it at a time.

14) Randomly say. "Are you sure that's a good idea? Nevermind, you'll cross that bridge when you reach it."

15) "As you enter a large room of the crypts, you see the remaining cultists standing around an alter, chanting in a tounge none of you understand. Everybody make Sanity checks."
Ignore their protests that D&D doesn't have sanity. Smile evilly and say. "This sight requires it." Take out a d100.

 

[Umbran]

At an appropriately tense moment, roll a die, and scowl for a moment. In a solemn tone, ask the player for their character sheet. Hold it up, and rip it in half, slowly.

Doing this when, in fact, nothing has happened to the character may get you lynched

 

[Moe Ronalds]

At an appropriately tense moment, roll a die, and scowl for a moment. In a solemn tone, ask the player for their character sheet. Hold it up, and rip it in half, slowly.

Doing this when, in fact, nothing has happened to the character may get you lynched

You could set it down for a second, and then pull out another sheet (provided you have a DM screen) and rip that in half. Even better if you can get a copy of their sheet beforehand.

16: When the players enter a room, describe a powerful, and angry, looking NPC, then take out Deities and Demigods, and start to flip through
17: If the players have a bag of holding, start to laugh maniacaly (sp?) and roll a die whenever they reach for something.
18: This one only works if your ugly, explain that you have joined a nudist cult and after this session it will be a sin worthy of beheading if you come to a session clothed ever again.
19: Explain that you've discovered christianity, pull out a lighter, and start throwing dirty looks at all of them.
20: Gnomes, lots of mean, angry little gnomes.

 

[Zack2216]

21) if a character, minion, or pet goes ahead of the party to scout whats on the other side of a door, say the door shuts after the said person walks through. If the characters walk through the door, say that when they open it, "you see (insert said person), or whats left of it/him/her."

My dm did that when my party members forced my druid's animal companion through a door. We waited a little bit, opened the door and my DM pulled this one on me. But it turns out that nothing really happened.

 

[333 Dave]

What are we on? 22?

22: Put weird runes all over an untrapped door into an empty room.

 

[Zappo]

23: have them find, very early in the adventure, an item which radiates magic of overwhelming power, cannot be identified except for its magic school, and is only useful at the end of the adventure.

 

[Carnifex]

24) Confront the party with a lone red abishai. As they attack, say, 'Okay, the baatezu archmage casts quickened Haste, then Time Stop.'

25) In a non-combat situation, suddenly ask everyone to roll Initiatives. On the sheet which you write them all down on, write a score for someone called 'Assassin.'

 

[Feliath]

I'd like to point out that there are two #10:s. Therefore I number this:

27) Intentionally make a letter handout which seems like nonsense but which contains a perversely hard and well hidden riddle. Make it in such a way that it's obvious something is up with the thing. Intimate to the players that it's all so very obvious, and laugh evilly.

28) Constantly have the PCs encounter people they've never met but who seem to know them eerily well, then have these people come back.

29) Let the PCs find a baby, under obviously supernatural circumstances, which is about 7 months old, can barely sit on its own, and which from time to time scribbles low-level spells, equivalent to scrolls, in the sand. Bizarrely (yet empirically proven), the PCs will react to this with a combo of "Yay! Magic baby!" and "We must kill the baby. Devil Baby!" Also make it invulnerable. Never let it grow up.

Hmm, I need to think some up that I haven't actually done.

BTW, I've also done #23.

/Feliath - very evil

 

[Feliath]

Ooh! Ooh! Some omre!

Here we go, brand new ones exclusively for this thread.

30) Begin passing one player notes with writing along the lines of "*PC*'s food is poisoned" or "That man is out to kill you all". Let the first two or three be true, but allow for this to be possible as coincidences. The player will believe he has acquired a psionic danger sense. Keep passing notes - "The barmaid is a demon in disguise. You need to kill her". Now let them all be false. Presto: PC suffering from paranoid dementia.

31) Make a d20 table of everyday items. At the start of every session, secretly roll on this table. Now, treat every occurrence of the rolled item this session as Ochre Jelly.

32) Every time one of the characters drinks something, look mildly surprised, and roll a die. Sometimes mutter something like "Again?" or "Won't they ever learn?"

33) Describe how the PCs encounter a short, blue man with a large nose wearing a white hat and white pants. Tell them he is "two apples tall" and has an odd speech impediment.

/Feliath - evil but also tired; most of these suck

 

[mmadsen]

Re: Ooh! Ooh! Some omre!

Describe how the PCs encounter a short, blue man with a large nose wearing a white hat and white pants. Tell them he is "two apples tall" and has an odd speech impediment.

Three apples high. The Smurfs are Belgian (created by Peyo), and the French equivalent of "pint-sized" is..."three apples high".