One Thousand Ways to Freak Out Your Players

[FireLance]

432. After an extremely difficult battle with an adult red dragon, a loud voice booms out "Who killed my familiar?"

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

(apologies if this has been done, but I've come into this thread somewhat late!)

433. When the PC's have rolled up their new characters, have spent hours coming up with clever backgrounds, unique combinations of prestige classes and feats, spell lists, items, personality quirks and extended manners of expression...take them all in, shuffle them, and deal them out randomly. Tell everyone that they have to play the character like the person that rolled it up.

 

[Lela]

(apologies if this has been done, but I've come into this thread somewhat late!)

433. When the PC's have rolled up their new characters, have spent hours coming up with clever backgrounds, unique combinations of prestige classes and feats, spell lists, items, personality quirks and extended manners of expression...take them all in, shuffle them, and deal them out randomly. Tell everyone that they have to play the character like the person that rolled it up.

That WOULD be a challange. Of course, after you do this, duck and run. As if a Litch Mime where chasing you.

434. Tell the players that you want to try DMing an evil campaign. Tell them to use any monster/class/PrC/feat/etc. they find in the offical books and to create the best evil PC they can. Tell them the good guys are going to be after them and that the good guys always win. When they've spent hours getting all of it together and hand-crafted them to perfection, take the sheets and thank them for creating the campaign's villians. Then have them roll up first level characters using the core books.

 

[Zappo]

435. (for modern/sci-fi games) Have one of them receive a spam e-mail titled "Armageddon Survival Kit" which states "Now You Can Immediately Discover, and begin learning, the simple plan how to guarantee your freedom, safety and immortality; if you follow it faithfully, without deviation. No other plan will work! You won't survive these "End Times"* without this!", and asks 50$ for a kit to survive the End of the World. Includes a list of sites with the proof that the apocalypse is starting.

This has actually happened to me five minutes ago. It didn't freak me out (actually, it sorta cheered me up), but I reckon it could work in the right campaign.

 

[Lela]

435. (for modern/sci-fi games) Have one of them receive a spam e-mail titled "Armageddon Survival Kit" which states "Now You Can Immediately Discover, and begin learning, the simple plan how to guarantee your freedom, safety and immortality; if you follow it faithfully, without deviation. No other plan will work! You won't survive these "End Times"* without this!", and asks 50$ for a kit to survive the End of the World. Includes a list of sites with the proof that the apocalypse is starting.

This has actually happened to me five minutes ago. It didn't freak me out (actually, it sorta cheered me up), but I reckon it could work in the right campaign.

Give us a site! Give us a site!

 

[Deedlit]

436:Have the BBEG be an evil wizard for a while. Never let his familiar be seen. Then, when they meet face-to-face, have him lose after a long hard battle, and kill off at least one PC in the process. The next day, they hear reports of a raven having paid a cleric of a very greedy deity, and the wizard has been raised from the dead.
437:As 436, but you let the familiar be seen, it must be a high level game and he is a lich(But didn't use any of his powers) who was perpertually using alter self to appear to be living.

 

[HalfElfSorcerer]

438. Have the characters enter a city where one street is populated by a large yellow bird, various strange puppet-like monsters, something that looks vaguely like a furry brown elephant, a hord of preschoolers, and a very interracial group of human adults.

 

[Zappo]

Give us a site! Give us a site!

I'll give you the full text:

*****************************************
A R M A G E D D O N

S U R V I V A L - K I T
*****************************************

Now You Can Immediately Discover, and begin learning, the simple plan how to guarantee your freedom, safety and immortality; if you follow it faithfully, without deviation.

No other plan will work!

You won't survive these "End Times"* without this! So you can forget the rest.

* http://members.lycos.co.uk/jahtruth/signs.htm
or
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Atrium/2012/signs.htm
or
http://100777.com/jah/signs.htm

Unique & Authoritative Information Library and Straight-forward Daily-Tuition comes complete on ONE convenient CD.

Send US$50 (outside of Europe) for your personal pocket-sized Survival-Kit on CD (inside Europe 50 Euros).

Please specify whether for PC, or Mac.

This is a one-time payment with no hidden extras.

Please follow the links just below the address* to instantly and securely order electronically, via Paypal.

Or make cheque/money order payable to JAH, or send cash as the easiest method and send payment to:-

JAH,
P.O. Box 561,
The Way Home - 6205,
Gibraltar
(via London).

* http://members.lycos.co.uk/jahtruth/ask.htm
or
http://100777.com/jah/ask.htm
or
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Atrium/2012/ask.htm
or
http://www.hostultra.com/~jah/ask.htm
or
http://snow.prohosting.com/jahmp/ask.htm
or
http://jahmp.netfirms.com/ask.htm

The Armageddon Survival-Plan - "The Way home or face The Fire" - is also available separately, in print, as a Book, from the same source, for US $20 (outside of Europe), or GBP £10 (inside Europe)

http://members.lycos.co.uk/jahtruth/wayad.htm
or
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Atrium/2012/wayad.htm
or
http://100777.com/jah/wayad.htm

**********************************************




If the world is ending, I wonder what does he do with the money?

 

[Privateer]

A note for the poster looking for the explaination of what "Hastur Hastur Hastur" means: Hastur is in the Cthulu (forgive me if I misspell anything) mythos, and by speaking his name three times there is a chance that he can manifest in front of you.
Buh bye, player!
And now, back to your regulary schedualed player freaking-out and horrible spelling on my part.

 

[Delemental]

Back to the list...

439. Contrive to have one of the characters separated from the rest of the group, even if it's just for a moment or two. As the game progresses, ask the entire party to make random Will saves... except for that one player. Have that player find all the secret doors and hidden chambers, regardless of what they roll on Spot or Search checks. When traps go off, the character is always in a position to take minimal or no damage (just happened to be behind the pillar when the fireball went off, the fighter was between them and the crossbow, etc).