One Thousand Ways to Freak Out Your Players

[VoodooGroves]

I played in a campaign once where every session was a "save the world from unspeakable horror" kind of deal. Only trouble is, if they stop the bad guy from doing the ritual, they couldn't notice any difference. If the bad guy completed the ritual, they couldn't notice any difference.

Every once in a while I'd assigne random bonuses and penalties. For no good reason, mostly just to be a pest. There was an overall plot (basically, trying to stop this series of rituals) and after the last scheduled session I announced that the next campaign would be set 20 years later dealing with the repurcussions of the completed / stopped rituals.

I had no intention of ever running that campaign, but oddly, folks still talk about it. Now my secret is out...

 

[Leopold]

468. (probably mentioned but one i used last nite) The PC's fall asleep for the evening. Pull each PC when it's their turn to sleep (they have watches) into a seperate room and tell them to bring a D20 and you bring a stack of paper folded up (works best when you have multiple sheets folded in half). Tell them to roll the D20, if they ask what kind of roll, tell them to just roll the dice. When they roll, skim down the paper (my sheets were empty on blank paper), shake your head or nod (pick one and alternate) and then tell the PC that they see each of the other PC's in their sitting around a campfire similar to tonites (if the pc's have a hot camp make it cold, cold make it hot). Repeat to all PC's in turn. In the end the ones when you shook your head started looking around asking questions to each other when they woke up, they were combing the surrounding wood, looking for magical items, casting detect magic, etc. Paranoia....

 

[Helspar]

469) "Not bad, Not bad. You guys should make another level for this wad of Xp, but I'm sort of disappointed. You could have gotten so much more. Let's see... You missed the blind beggar, the shopkeep, the tavern owner, not to mention all the horses you left alive! There was the two serving girls..."

 

[Forrester]

#470) Tell them that the Drow have been working on a mithril/adamantine alloy that only Drow can use . . . I just sent this one out to the party in my campaign. I can hardly wait for their reactions .

 

[Jolly Giant]

Just put my players through a really HUGE dungeon with all the stuff from this thread i could cram into it, ending in anti-climatic teleport to a perfectly safe, familiar location... Boy. did they freak out!

 

[Zappo]

471. Have the players find and activate a mysterious and unidentified artefact. When they activate it, say "Well, well, MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!" and nothing else.

 

[Moe Ronalds]

472. Invent a new breed of dire rat with electrical powers. Name it Pikachu.

 

[Silver Dragon]

Well, here's an interesting one... I recently bought a SB Audigy platinum card. This sucker can do real-time digital signal processing. In english, that means you hook up a headset mic, and suddenly you become the Borg, Darth Vader, or the super villian that's about to massacre the players.

At first they'll ask why you have a headset on, but once they hear the obviously evil voice of their enemy, they might react a bit differently than they would normally. Another cool thing it can do is reverse the gender of your voice. An interesting way to role play the opposite sex

 

[Lela]

Well, here's an interesting one... I recently bought a SB Audigy platinum card. This sucker can do real-time digital signal processing. In english, that means you hook up a headset mic, and suddenly you become the Borg, Darth Vader, or the super villian that's about to massacre the players.

Is this what you're refering too? Or is it this one? Either way, too expensive for me. For now. [insert evil DM laughter]

Another cool thing it can do is reverse the gender of your voice. An interesting way to role play the opposite sex [/B]

This would be awsome. Now, I so want it. Anyone feeling genorious?

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

Ways to freak out your players:

#473: Require that all elven PCs (including ones already in play) be forbidden to harm or kill their own kind (including evil elves), with the additional power that they always recognize their own kind upon contact.

#474: Require that all elves (including ones already in play) photosynthesize, thus having green skin, and thus having to wear as little clothing as possible at all times.

#475: Require that all elves (including ones already in play) be required to eat leaves and insects as a main staple of their diet.

#476: Require that all elves (including ones already in play) be required to eat their opponents alive, except where infeasible (eating a troll, or eating a green slime, would be infeasible.)

#477: Require that all human characters except paladins be of evil alignment, citing historical precedent (remember you're the DM, and so your arguments for historical precedent are the biggest arguments, as it were.)

#478: Require that all dwarves actually be of good alignment (instead of the dour, grim, almost evil stance of many, if not most, dwarves ...)

#479: Make your halfling PCs actually sit and EAT the 10 odd meals a day cited by Pippin in LOTR: FOTR.

#480: Allow a kender PC in your group (works every time.)

#482: Force your players to fight a Chosen of Mystra (also works every time.)

#483: Declare that since you, as a player, had a character of 160th level, you sanction any of their characters attaining 160th level (Note - the older the players, the better.)

#484: Allow evil characters in your group, then disallow any attempts to harm, kill, or steal from others in the group (this one WORKS.)

#485: Disallow evil characters from casting Cure spells of any sort (and disallow good characters from casting Harm spells of any sort also.)

#486: Allow your players the chance to turn into demihuman/grey ooze symbiotic beings, with all the advantages and powers of both.

#487: Run ANY campaign world, then have Defilers from the Dark Sun Setting show up on the scene.

#488: Have your NPCs talk back, as it were, to the party Cavalier (works every time - that doesn't freak out the group, but the Cavalier's response invariably DOES.)

Edena_of_Neith