One Thousand Ways to Freak Out Your Players

[Lady Starhawk]

I interrupt this thread for this unimportant comment:

Cross:
Looks like someone either read or ran through the first level of Castle Greyhawk I have played (and DM'd) some levels, weird stuff in there, major freak out player stuff in there definately an expect the unexpected adventure, freaked us out pretty good as players.

(Uniducks, minature giants <hill guy, storm guy, cloud guy etc. the size of normal people>, miniotaurs <small minotaurs>, gummy-werebears, and dough golems to name just a few that stick out in my mind)

Those were better days with my old gaming group <sigh>.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled thread
Lady Starhawk

 

[lupis3000]

409

409: tell all your players that every thing you do in the game you have to do in real life!!!

 

[Cross]

Lela: Exactly what you'd expect. Duck, with a horn on it's head. It apparently talks. It disturbed the hell out of me. 8)

Lady Starhawk: Well, we WERE probably running through a converted Castle Greyhawk...until we fought a troll. And then, got real smart, and tried to TORCH the unconscious troll. In a wooden room. Which promptly caught on fire. As did the vast majority of the rest of the place. We're now sitting outside the castle, looking at each other with REALLY dumb expressions on our faces. The uniducks were displeased, to say the least.

*sigh* Stupid burning wood....8)

-Cross

 

[FireLance]

Can't remember if this was done already, but...

PCs hate losing items, especially magic items.

410. Have them repeatedly attacked by rust monsters.

411. Hit them with Mordenkainen's Disjunction traps.

412. Have them encounter a group of fighters whose favourite tactic is to attack their weapons and armour.

 

[Magic Rub]

413. Implement a new rule that banishes dice & modifiers. In their place all will now have to - paper, rock, scissors for every "roll", using your now useless skill points for re-trying.

 

[Clear Dragon]

414. hmm uniduck = one duck...
throw the following item into your campaign

Introducing the One Duck,

One Duck to rule them all, One Duck to find them,
One Duck to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

The One Duck is an artifact, when first identified seems to be a duck of invisibility. Its true power is the ability to scry on and command all the ducks in the world.

Your party can choose to destroy it by burning it in the nest/pond from whence it came or they can try to use its power (though ultimately this will lead to ruin) by slipping it on someones finger.

 

[MutantHamster]

415) Make the final encounter of your adventure "Maliko, Opossum of Doom", a tiny animl with a cr of 56

 

[Sodalis]

416) have a wise wizard be the last stop to retrieve information about an artifact. He is old and enjoys spelling bees- so if you can spell all three words that he says, he will give you the information: and you must follow the instructions exactly:

wiz: "spell 'neighbor'"
player "N E I G H B O R"
wiz: "receipt"
player: "R E C E I P T"
wiz: scream out "WRONG!!!"
the player wil then proceed to respell receipt. the third word was actually "wrong"

edit: damn you for beatin me to it

 

[Voadam]

417) Leave a scroll lying around that just says "Hastur, Hastur, Hastur"

Works best if picked up by a PC who knows nothing about Chthulhu, but other members of the party do.

418) Anytime a named fiend, evil god, or cthulhu mythos being is named, roll dice, and assign a chance for the being to respond to their name being called with a spell(ability), sending a minion, or showing up on the spot.

This worked great when the renegade drow in my party started saying "Lolth! Lolth Loth!" as a blasphemous curse of frustration and a Yochlol showed up.

 

[edbonny]

Forgetful when wet...

Get your PCs on the frozen Styx River on the 5th layer of Hell (or Baator).
Then throw a bunch of styx devils at them.
Now have the devils cast fireballs (melts the ice which makes ice floes which separates party which causes panic)...

Those evil l'il devils really want to get your PCs wet and "forgetful." Try some of these tasty tactics on your hapless adventurers. Make sure the devils are smiling and smirking through entire encounter.
a) devil swims over to PC standing on an ice floe and playfully splashes river water on PC.
b) devil flies upward smashing through the ice that PC is standing on, hopefully knocking PC into river or at least making her ice floe that much smaller.
c) devil flies into PC attempting to bull rush PC off ice floe and into river.
d) devil grabs a hold of ice floe (with PC on it) and rocks floe up and down in the water.

Keep those devils smiling. As for your PCs stricken with forgetfulness, there's always an archdevil nearby willing to restore their minds... for a price. Of course, the archdevil probably arranged for the PCs to be attacked there in the first place but such is life in the Hells.