One Thousand Ways to Freak Out Your Players

[Helspar]

633) "Shut up curse you or I'll run you through! OK that's settled, back in character."

634) Eat all the jellybeans.

635) "The first rule of our game sessions is no one talks about our game sessions..."

 

[Creamsteak]

630. A high-level Celestial mage casting 'Summon Human VII' and yoinking them onto the celestial plane for 14 rounds or until they die.

Once the time ends or they die, they are returned to the Prime with full health and equipment.

631. As 630 above, but every time the summoning mage clearly mutters "See how you damn well like it!"

Absolutely Fantastical!!!111

Hmm...

636) Force the Players to overcome traps for experience, and ONLY traps for experience. Dungeons never contain encounters, or anything remotely tangible to possess any valuable treasure.

637) Same as 636, but after the characters get to 10th level with no treasure and nothing but experience at dodging traps, have then encounter a standard beasty for thier level .

 

[333 Dave]

638: Introduce a "Strip RPing" rule where everytime your character is hit you must remove an article of clothing.

 

[DM with a vengence]

639) Roleplay with sock puppets.
640) Have them kill a monster, then the next day, its mother shows up and complains.

 

[gamecat]

641) Games within games: Disintigrate into clue or monopoly within D&D: "hey Tordek, I'll give you 500 gp and this "Get out of Dungeon free" card for your boardwalk!"

 

[HalfElfSorcerer]

642. For one session - prefferably near April Fool's Day - have magic get very silly. I present the following examples:
a) When the cleric prays for spells, say s/he hears the following: "Hi, you've reached [god]. I'm not here to answer your prayers right now, so please leave a message after the beep. Bye! *beep*"
b) Have the writing in the wizard's spellbook suddenly change into Spanish. If he casts read magic, it turns into pig Latin.
c) Animal companions and familiars all start acting very animal-like. Owls fly off to look for mice, cats go after milk, and toads go up to the Damsel In Distress for the current adventure and claim to be a prince.

 

[Wanderer At Dusk]

643. Refer to the Characters by there Players names in the campaign and refer to the players by there Characters names out of the game

644. Bring the wrong edition rule books and attempt to run a game insisting they are the edition correct

645. Threaten to make the players character histories for them if they don't make one on there own to your specifications (I've had some real fun with that one)

646. Try to describe something very important to the campaign while eating something like a peanut butter sandwich without any beverage and act angered when they don't understand you

647. If one of your players is a monk, paladin or cleric have any money promised to them by a patron be directly donated to there temple or order

648. If one or more of your players are also a DMs be sure to buy supplements they do not have, preferably ones with many monsters or spells

649. Get the epic level handbook, declare your intent to run an epic level campaign at any level the Players wish (the higher the better) then pull the old thanks for making the villans on them handing them blank character sheets and saying new 1st level characters (if you already pulled the thanks for making the villans on them it's not as satisfying sorry i can't remember what number that one was)

 

[333 Dave]

650: Pick a random number. If you want, roll 1d1000 to find out which number it is. Have that number appear over and over with no apparent connection or relevance. Try to avoid the numbers 13, 42, 420, 666, etc.

11 more till 666!

 

[Altin]

650: Pick a random number. If you want, roll 1d1000 to find out which number it is. Have that number appear over and over with no apparent connection or relevance.

651. Variation on the same theme: have the number be counting down so that each time it appears, it is one less than the previous time. Have fun watching the players freak out as it reaches single digits.

Yours,
Altin

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

652. Here's one I used: Gave a (quite greedy) player a moderately powerful, intelligent and very evil magic weapon. He suffered for a few weeks being messed about and trying to get rid of it. After this got a bit boring I offered him the choice of 1) undertaking a difficult quest to destroy it or 2) selling it to a minor nobleman for a few thousand gold. He took option 2. The best bit was him trying to apologise to the rest of the party when this nobleman returned a few months later - a fully corrupted and very unpleasant Blackguard, with a real thing about killing the party. Amused me for a good few sessions.