One Thousand Ways to Freak Out Your Players

[Khorod]

142. The Manual of the Planes and Deities and Demigods open next to you, ask the players under what conditions the 'PC's don't make morale checks' rule should be dropped.

143. Whenever facing a building, object, etc, with nothing unusual about it, if the players insist on making spot/search checks, describe its mundane features in detail and at length. Smile briefly at some point during the description.

144. Intimate to the players that you REALLY like massive wizard duels, then have a guy dressed in robes who looks a little like the campaign's evil archmage come up and tap the party's wizard on the shoulder. The guy should be at best a stage magician, but maybe the robe is magical to throw off detect magics...

145. Laugh evilly for a couple minutes whenever the players make a wish, but always make the wish be exactly what they intended. Works best if coincidence supports the evil laughter.

 

[gamecat]

146: Make Irritating product references: Potions of Fly appear in blue-and-silver flasks with red minotaur shillohuettes on them. When drank, the imbiber feels compelled to shout "Red Bull gives you WIIINGS!!"

 

[Deedlit]

147.Have the PCs find a mages academy, with many powerful archmages. During a discussion with the PCs, each of them gives a PC the middle finger. Then, ask the PCs to roll fortitude saves
148.(I got this one from record of lodoss war, but I might have forgot some details)Have a great battle brew in a volcano for a powerful artifact, which the PCs have been questing after. The BBEG wants the artifact as well, and aligns with the PCs to slay the dragon. Then, while they battle the BBEG, have the artifact fall into the volcano, and the BBEG jumps in as well, his dreams ruined. A few adventures later, have the BBEG return, with blue skin, only he is not evil, and never was(Though he appeared to be) but give him other motives to work against the party.

 

[The Sigil]

Even better...

135. Make all your NPC's speak in some sort of moronic code, never saying anything usefull.

Example:
PARTY: Where is the church?
NPC: It is where it should be, but not where it could have been
PARTY: Okay, forget you. You there! Where is the Church?
2nd NPC: It is next to the big tree, behind the other big tree...

149.) Similar to the above but more annoying... villagers always refer to things that happened 10 years ago and assume that the PCs are locals and know what they are talking about. "You want to get to the church? Okay, go down the road then turn right where the oak tree used to be and then turn left at the barn that used to be owned by Farmer Brown - no, wait, the barn that used to be owned by the OTHER Farmer Brown, my bad."

150.) Better even than the above... have the villagers always refer to things that are going to happen 10 years in the future... "You want to get to the church? Okay, go down the road and turn right at the oak tree that's going to be hit by lightning in a storm next week. After that, turn left at the Barn where Farmer Brown is going to have his affair and then murder his lover to cover it up. No, the other Farmer Brown (my bad) - his lover is going to be Farmer Brown's daughter. Oh, and duck 32 steps after you turn or in the ambush an orc arrow is going to catch you in the face." Everybody knows the future in this town... and nobody thinks it's weird.

151.) This one works best when the PCs are dungeoncrawling, particularly in caverns... have prepared a #10 can or a bongo or something and play little drumming patterns on it now and again. Mumble, "drums, drums in the deep..."

152.) Have the PCs surrounded by goblins but don't feel like killing them yet? Have the PCs fight against unending hordes and just when they realize their situation is hopeless, have the goblins shriek and run away (think about the appearance of the Balrog in LotR the Movie).

153.) Odd environments with yucky stuff can do it. It's amazing how many PCs won't go near the area of the dungeon that's covered in 2 feet of water with slightly glowing blue algae on top of the water.

154.) When the PCs kill a monster, have a contingency polymorph then alter self spell on it to polymorph it into a likeness of the PC (remember Luke killing Darth Vader in the tree on Dagobah).

155.) Or it polymorphs into the likeness of a PC's mother/father/ significant other.

--The Sigil

 

[The Sigil]

More...

156.) Have the PCs hear of a bard singing about the Head of Vecna.

157.) A mysterious voice says, "Mer" while they are dungeoncrawling.

158.) Stick the PCs in mist in a dungeon. Works even better if the mist is animate.

--The Sigil

 

[Moe Ronalds]

159. End the climax of your campaign, while the PCs, and the big baddie both about to kill eachother, the winner being left to the flip of a coin, with the phrase- And you wake up, realizing, it was all a dream...

 

[333 Dave]

159. End the climax of your campaign, while the PCs, and the big baddie both about to kill eachother, the winner being left to the flip of a coin, with the phrase- And you wake up, realizing, it was all a dream...

Its ways to freak out the PCs, not get lynched!!!


160. All identification they're carrying becomes blank. This works better in CoC or something where there actually is identification. The player only noticed that one of his business cards was blank, but they're all compleatly white....

 

[RingXero]

161: Pile up a stack of Grimtooth books on top of the table where the players can see them, announce you have been doing some reading lately.....

 

[alsih2o]

162 n.pc.'s based on bill cosby, circa the pudding commercials

163. n.p.c.s based on harry potter

 

[River]

72. Monsters with class levels.

Trolls who start casting Resist Fire and Resist acid are particularly fun!