One Thousand Ways to Freak Out Your Players

[The Furious Puffin]

393)

Plonk a copy of Starcraft, Call of Cthulhu (The orginal Choasium release), Star Wars, the PHB, Mekton and Cyberpunk 2020 on the desk and annouce you are going to run a cross over game today, but you just have to finalise the game system.

Then pull out a large folder stuffed with looseleaf handwritten notes with no page numbers

 

[Kargin el Tomath]

394. Let them easily kill a diety or two. then award XP. After they level up their characters, inform them that it was all just a dream sequence and no actual experience was given.

395.Introduced a crazed Epic Level Wizard to the game, who casts a spell to where no one on the planet can die. The PC's will constantly encounter people begging to be killed because of pains and old age. As soon as they kill just one WHAM! Alignment changes for everyone (no one tried to stop the killing)!!

396. Afflict them all with arthritis. Every time they go to use a weapon or cast a spell have the arthritis kick in!

397. Give out Belts of Femininity ALL the time.

398. Watch them squirm when they are accused of killing hundreds of babies in an orphange fire that was caused by the dragon they just battled near a large village.

399.Tell them to read this list and inform them that you plann on using all of these suggestions (I did and my players haven't been the same since!)

And on that note I will be generous enough to award #400 to the next person......

 

[Alaska Roberts]

400. The big one - Fill a campaign world with creatures that can't be crit'd, have insane Damage Redution, Spell Resitance and Saves ( I like constructs personally), take all their magic weapons, rip there bag of holding, burn the flying carpet, cancel out all spells and remove all contact with their gods. That should hold them for a night or 2.......

Alaska

 

[Psychotic Jim]

397. Give out Belts of Femininity ALL the time.

Have you ever read Knights of the Dinner Table. Don't use this one too often or the players will learn to take advantage of the situation .

401. Make the characters encounter some wise, all-knowing sphinx who can give them knowledge (or whatever) if they can answer all of its riddles. Make up a whole bunch of riddles whose answers are all philosophical and enlightening and make the riddles meaningful. Then, as the last riddle, have the sphinx ask the PCs, "I am a small, dark, stinky place where people dump their refuse. A crescent moon identifies me from the outside. What am I?"
Answer: An outhouse.

 

[Altin]

In response to 401): LOL! Oh yes, this would be priceless. Only problem is you'd have to work out the serious riddles so this isn't an easy one to plug in.

Meanwhile, since I'm posting:

402) This one only works for a party which travels around a fair bit. Someone about mentioned that every town has a Red Dragon Inn, meaning that every town has your average stereotypical tavern.

But imagine if every town did have a Red Dragon Inn or, more to the point the Red Dragon Inn. Same place, same barkeeper, same barmaids, same mysterious old guy in the corner, same menu - everything! The owner and everyone else don't recognise the PCs (unless they've been in this particular inn before) and claims ignorance of any other Red Dragon Inns. The Inn stays the same regardless of cultural setting and turns up in the wierdest places (in dormant volcanoes, on other planes of existance, in dungeons, ect.). For maximum effect, have the campaign start in one of these taverns.

Enjoy.

Yours,
Altin

 

[Psychotic Jim]

This would be especially freaky if you did this in Ravenloft.
"Oh my god, we're being stalked by a tavern.

 

[Cross]

This happened to us in one of our campaigns. Weirded us out for days.

403) Have the PC's encounter normal sized human looking creatures with oddly colored skin. These are actually Giant children. Have them make constant references to Mommy and Daddy, and how they'll be back real soon now. Works best for level 2-3 characters.

404) Uniducks. Flocks of uniducks. Wandering around in the dungeon. Eating seeds and stuff. When threatened, they quack mildly. It almost gave our wizard apoplexy trying to figure out what they were.

-Cross

 

[Helspar]

405) You want the twenty-sider? YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TWENTY-SIDER!

406) Coach your players' die rolling, convince them that, yes, with some practice, they can get better results.

 

[Lela]

What's a Uniduck?

 

[lupis3000]

407

407: tell your players that monsters use the D&DA rules to hit so monsters have to roll under your AC to hit hehe