Two Dozen Nasty DM Tricks

[Raven Crowking]

When the next rogue had his favourite awesome greatsword taken out of his hands by some sort of magic trap halfway down an unmarked corridor with no means of retrieving it, (even though he saw it slowly floating away help by an invisible force hand) that was not cool, and the player, citing other reasons, did not come back the next week, or until we started a new game. I do not blame him.

I'm not overly familiar with the module. Are you sure that there was no means of retrieving it?

I would consider things like "You didn't check your new bag of holding to see if it had rust monsters in it because you didn't say you did" to be somewhat similar.

It boggles my mind. I have a hard time imagining a player, anywhere, ever, finding a bag and not first asking "Is there anything in it?"


RC

 

[merelycompetent]

I would consider things like "You didn't check your new bag of holding to see if it had rust monsters in it because you didn't say you did" to be somewhat similar.

But... if you don't find the rust monsters, how are you going to get the 50,000gp diamond out of the metal ball in the circular tilting rolling doom room?

More seriously, I agree. If the trap/trick relies on the DM playing nit-picky word games, then it won't be much fun. A general, "I check the item over, inside and out. Do I find anything unusual?" should reveal the rust monster(s). After the first experience with contact poison, the search should change to: "I put on my thick leather gloves and have a Neutralize Poison scroll/potion/spellcaster handy. I carefully check the item over inside and out. Do I find anything unusual? Is there any strange residue on my gloves?" A cooperative DM may even prompt with a, "Do you want to put some gloves on first to protect your hands?", for new players.

I must get some sleep now. Good gaming!

 

[Celebrim]

After the first experience with contact poison, the search should change to: "I put on my thick leather gloves and have a Neutralize Poison scroll/potion/spellcaster handy. I carefully check the item over inside and out. Do I find anything unusual? Is there any strange residue on my gloves?"

"So you are saying that this poison is in fact colorless, odorless, non-drying, non-evaporating, and doesn't loose potency with age....Great, this stuff could come in handy! I carefully collect as much of the stuff as possible and store it in this empty potion vial."

 

[Reynard]

"So you are saying that this poison is in fact colorless, odorless, non-drying, non-evaporating, and doesn't loose potency with age....Great, this stuff could come in handy! I carefully collect as much of the stuff as possible and store it in this empty potion vial."

Well, that's the other side of this style of play that's so much fun and rewarding, but fails to get mentioned between all the evil-hand-rubbing and my-DM-hurt-me whining: players start to pull tricks on the DM. They write out their door opening SOPs. They use tricks and traps against the enemies and NPCs. They turn everything into treasure. This is fun. It immersed everyoine in the game if not the world and although it can be frustrating, it's a good kind of frustration, like trying really hard to get through that one level of Mario.

The thing about RBDMing is that the whole point is not to smash down the players, but to up the ante, to raise the stakes to where even a simple cash grab dungeon crawl is tense and exciting and *fun*.

 

[OchreJelly]

I think if there's any common ground in this thread, it's that we all like exploding zombies

But seriously no discussion on evil DM tricks is complete without without the screw-job interpretation of the Wish spell.

True old-school gamer story (not my own but I'm passing it along): Players were fighting a bunch of flying skulls, sort of like lesser demi-liches. Things were going badly so one player decides to use a Wish: "I wish there were no skulls in this room."

You can probably see where this is going...

 

[grickherder]

I think if there's any common ground in this thread, it's that we all like exploding zombies

Even though this thread is about pulling nasty surprises on players, I think exploding zombies is best done by giving some clues first.

"As the zombies shamble towards you, their flesh swells, pulsates and shakes, like there's internal pressure pushing from the inside out."

The players know something just isn't right and won't exactly be surprised when they explode, but it's fun to have to figure out how to deal with something extra.

 

[Reynard]

I think if there's any common ground in this thread, it's that we all like exploding zombies

But seriously no discussion on evil DM tricks is complete without without the screw-job interpretation of the Wish spell.

True old-school gamer story (not my own but I'm passing it along): Players were fighting a bunch of flying skulls, sort of like lesser demi-liches. Things were going badly so one player decides to use a Wish: "I wish there were no skulls in this room."

You can probably see where this is going...

This may seem odd, but I am not a fan of the "twisted wish". Oh, I've used it on occassion, but only when a trickster type was the one offering up the wish, so the players knew that it was going to get twisted. As much as I love challenging the players' perceptions and assumptions, I do not like meanly screwing them, which is what wish-twisting is, IMO.

 

[OchreJelly]

I'm not a fan of the twisted wish either. I was passing along a story told by another player that always amused me, but if anything can be considered an evil DM trick it's the heavy-handed Wish interpretation.

The funny thing is I have used the twisted Wish because I thought that's how it was supposed to be played. The players also assumed their Wish was going to be twisted. It's really a testament of the gaming culture of the 80's and how young I was at the time.

 

[Rechan]

but only when a trickster type was the one offering up the wish

Aye. If an ifrit is offering you a wish, or any other entity, look out. But if you're getting your wish from the Wish Spell, or from a Ring of Three wishes, you shouldn't be getting screwed.

 

[roguerouge]

This depends on whether "trap finding mechanics" are the sole determiner of whether a trap is found. I am of the school of thought that you'd no sooner allow a player to declare "I search for traps in the room" and make a roll than you would allow a player to say "I convince the duke to give us men-at-arms and a charter" and make a roll. Both of these situations require more imput from the players to get an effective output from the DM. Of course, YMMV.

My mileage does. Respectfully, here's why: when I played in a 2e campaign, I was the party's rogue. And my DM has a skill that I just don't have: the ability to visualize objects and environments in three dimensions and examine them. I'd find a trap. He'd describe it and ask how I was going to disarm it before I could make the roll. He might as well have required me to speak a sentence in Polish for all that I could do that. I didn't resent him for the requirement. I understood what he was doing. So, my basic schtick was to find the trap then announce to the party that a trap was there and have my PC walk to the back ranks of the group for protection. It was their job to figure out how to disarm it. That was good for our particular group as it fostered group problem-solving.

But you can see how close it gets to being frustrating and disastrous, can't you?

Now imagine that you have a player who is not good at human interactions for various reasons. Perhaps English is his second language. Perhaps he's got a documented emotional disability. Perhaps he stutters. Perhaps he's simply not charismatic. (These are all real examples from my DMing kids and adults.) Are you seriously going to tell that player that he can't succeed in game because he can't do certain things as a person?

I won't. I bet that you wouldn't.

Are you going to tell him that he can't pretend to be a charismatic hero in your game? You better, because if he wants to play that you're setting him up for humiliating failure.

I'll let him play it. I bet that you would.

That's why in my games you role play out the social skill checks to the best of your ability, in first person or in third person, as you choose. Then, based on your performance, you get a small bonus or penalty to the roll, based on those decisions. But you can pretend to be whomever you want and your character succeeds or fails based on how you build him and what decisions you make for him. It's not based on whether you stutter or whether you have superior visualization capabilities.