One Thousand Ways to Freak Out Your Players

[333 Dave]

611: The party finds a small campfire in the middle of a dungeon. If they touch it at all, it jumps up into humanoid form and starts dancing. It will follow whoever touched it constantly, jumping around and setting things on fire. It will always dance out of reach if they try to attack it.

612: Same as above, only have the fire be green or some equally un-firelike color.

EDIT: Razzin frazzin posting while I'm typing...

 

[Moe Ronalds]

613) Have a villain invite the players to dinner. Have them not detect any poisons in their goblets, and give them little place cards. Have one of the servants look increasingly nervous, as the villain starts winking at one of the party members of the opposite sex. Tell a party member of the same sex that he has suddenly fallen passionately in love with the villain due to a love potion in his drink. Have the nervous servant smack himself in the face and start sobbing after he realizes what he's done.

 

[gamecat]

614. Replace the hit points system with aim-n-flame blasts at your players.

 

[Eccles]

615. After your PCs have finished fighting off some horrendous nasty from the nth level of the Abyss, have a number of pople in black-lacquered full plate Teleport in, each wielding a wand of seriously empowered hypnotism. They zap each party member and tell them that the creature they just fought was a kobold empowered by a mage acting under the malign influences of the planets. Then they Disintegrate the remains of the monster and all Teleport away.

The players should be looking over their shoulders for signs of the Men in Black Full Plate Armour for weeks to come...

 

[Altin]

Eccles, 615 is so, so evil that I can't believe I didn't think of it myself. However, if I may offer a variation on the same theme:

616. As 615, except the MIB are all reasonably high-level Bards. Why bards? Because the 4th level spell Modify Memory (p 230 of my PHB) is the D&D answer to the 'flashy thing'. Sure, those guys are not going to be wearing plate but their ability to quite literally erase the PCs memories should come as something of a shock to your player's (especially as most people who don't play Bards often aren't even aware of the spell).

Yours,
Altin

 

[Eccles]

617. Just thought of this one, and it'll only work on players of the most paranoid variety.

A bag of infinite gold. Every time they open it, it's full of gold.

(NB. The fact that it's an open, mobile portal to the Sultan of Calimshan's personal treasury should not be revealed to the players for some time).

Some time later, the trapped, explosive, cursed, or locating coins all start pouring out of the bag, and the innkeeper they paid 2 days ago gets thoroughly nuked by the 3 genies homing in on one specific coin.

Every shop or inn they go to gets totally destroyed... 2 days (or whatever the travelling time for a hasted genie) after they spent the coin there...

[edit] - Number Change

 

[Moe Ronalds]

618) Put a famous high-level bard/aristocrat in your campaign. After your players get to remembering who he is, have him change his name to an unpronouncable symbol.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

619. Randomly generate personality traits for every single person the PC's meet, and then regenerate them if they meet them again.

PS: Love the Halfling mafia idea, by the way.

 

[Zog]

# 620 - Let the low level PCs find a box. A simple carved box, made of bone. Maker's mark on the bottom. Not magical. When they finally get around to selling or appraising it, have the good shopkeeper faint. Then offer to help them auction it off, suggest the starting price should be 'around 4 million gold'.

They can't believe I would simply let they have 4 million gold with no strings. They don't really believe the story of why this box is worth 4 mil (oh, these are collector items, very rare. They have become a status symbol. The very wealthy but not yet respected will pay anything for one.)

And so, they think. And wonder. And worry.

 

[Lela]

614. Replace the hit points system with aim-n-flame blasts at your players.

Just a note, gamecat, this is an exact repeat of #609 (also your's). All those after this should be one number back.

Making the next "WAY TO FREAK OUT OUR PLAYERS" be #620.