What's the most rat bastard thing you've ever done as a DM?

[tburdett]

One of my players desperately wanted to run an Inn. Over the course of several adventures his character saved to build the perfect Inn. He even drafted out a full set of plans for the Inn. Once the Inn was built and operating the PC's left to adventure.

While adventuring the PC's learned from a 'trusted' source that one of their enemies had killed off everyone working at the Inn and replaced them with undetectable polymorphic creatures. They also 'learned' that the creatures would revert to their natural form when killed.

The PC's took a break from what they were doing and returned to the Inn. Once there they proceeded to kill everybody, and I mean everybody, who worked at the Inn. From the kindly old man who handled the errand boys, to the errand boys themselves. Oh, they did this in broad daylight as a large number of townspeople watched in horror. Imagine their shock and surprise when the bodies did not revert.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I had a cleric with some real planning.

A nice line of low level fighters in front of him, with a Captain by his side. Just as the party was about to finish off the rest of his guards, he cast flame strike on the injured Cleric, dropping her to -8, and on the following round, cast ethereal jaunt and escaped through the wall.

At which point he met up with the Ogre Mage who the party hadn't finished off earlier.

I'm not sure if randomling has forgiven me for that one yet.

 

[Hypersmurf]

-The Cursed Everstriking sword that a paladin player not only kept, but used exclusively at everything from melee to missile fire, because whenever it missed, it still hit, it just took the difference in hit points off of him.

Ow, the decision - to Full Power Attack or not?

That's nasty

-Hyp.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Re: The most rat smurfy thing I've done, hmmm...

Except when it's a cursed wand that turns the recepient blue ...permanently.

What's your point?

-Hyp.

 

[Virgil Sagecaster]

A sphererical galidiatorial arena (400' dia) that had a raised square platform (100' across) over molten lava. The platform also had a 100' hemisphere of anti-magic that contained two golems in the center of it, which the corners of it was out the hemisphere. So I had the liberty of placing a statue that shot out a 20d6 sonic-delayed blast fireball every 1d4 rnds in each of the corners (to deal with those pesty flying wizards and monks that was dealing with the demons inside the arena). Not exactly being a rat-bastard DM, but it was one hell of an arena!

.....a long battle too, resulting in the death of a PC (oops)

H.O.G.B Haters Of Gnomish Bards

 

[Hypersmurf]

Mine is still in progress - it's a PbEM, so events move slowly.

The PCs all had their own reasons for being out and about in the world, before fate brought them together.

The cleric was walking the earth, like Caine in Kung Fu, doing good while hoping to find a lead on her paladin lover, who had been dragged through an Abyssal portal by fiends a couple of years ago.

The rogue, with Mob connections, was investigating the disappearance of a drug shipment, along with the couriers, somewhere along a route that passed through the area.

For whatever reasons, they and several others got together to investigate the strange goings-on at the old keep.

Along the way, they found one of the rogue's dead couriers, mauled by something big and nasty. (The rogue was keeping his background mission a secret - nobody else knows about the drugs.)

They also met a man who had found the courier first, and appropriated a few of the doses that had ended up scattered when the courier was killed... and who was suffering one of the side effects - he had the disconcerting habit of talking to people who weren't really there...

Now, to the keep. In the first major battle, the PCs won... but the cleric and the archer were both brought negative - the cleric -4 and bleeding, the archer -7 and bleeding.

There was nobody else in the party who could cast any sort of cure spell, and nobody had a decent untrained Heal check.

Someone rummaged through the cleric's pack, and turned up scrolls of Cure Light Wounds, but no potions.

(As it happened, the only person in the party with any cure potions was the unconscious archer, and nobody checked his pack.)

And then I sent a private email to the rogue, reminding him that he had a few doses of this highly addictive drug on him, and that one of its effects was a temporary alchemical bonus to Con... which would provide the cleric with just enough hit points to hit zero, whereupon she could cure herself, and then save the archer's life.

He slipped her a pellet - she came awake, and felt really good, even down on minimal hit points.

Not long after that, her long-lost paladin lover started speaking to her in her head, and telling her he was still stuck in the Abyss - his captors let him watch her as a form of torture, he said, but he had figured out how to use it to speak with her. He was still alive, he knew she was looking for him, he still loved her, he had faith she's rescue him, etc etc.

You know, all the things she most wanted to hear.

The party went to sleep, and got woken up by a midnight attack... by which time the drug had worn off, so the 'paladin' isn't talking in her head any more. But the rogue has just confessed to her in private what he did.

And the roleplaying result was exactly what I hoped the player would run with... the cleric is agonising over whether to ask the rogue for another dose, because she chooses to believe - however implausible - that perhaps the drug puts her into the mental state that the paladin needs her to be in before he can break through the planar barrier to speak with her...

And even if she accepts that it's not real, maybe the illusion of having him near is worth the addiction.

I'm just glad I have a player who can pull it off

-Hyp.

 

[Pbartender]

Hey, since you're a member of that Rat Bastard DM's Club, PirateCat, could you post the definition that they use for rat bastardry? I think I've seen that before somewhere...

Rat bastardry
Pronunciation: 'Rat bas-t&rd-ry
Function: noun
1: A philosophy that asserts that a role-playing game's capacity for providing enjoyment can be greatly increased by weaving a
complex web of psychological challenges, moral or ethical dilemmas, frequent plot twists, and unforeseen consequences to create a
gaming environment with verisimilitude that rises above the mundane with the ultimate aim of creating an atmosphere of awed paranoia
for the players.

In other words... It has nothing to do with killing characters, although sometimes that is a result of rat bastardry. It's all about putting the characters into sticky situations that they never could have envisioned, and doing it with style.



Who do the Rebels side with, for example? An Imperial battle station is undergoing it's final retrofitting, before shipping out to the Outer Rim to demolish some secret Rebel bases.

Do the Rebel agents assist the anti-Imperial terrorists who are hell-bent on sabotaging and destroying the battle station? If so, they are saving countless Rebel operatives who will now have a chance to evacuate and go into hiding. But destroying a battle station would trigger an Imperial crackdown that would doom the billions of innocents in an entire sector to near-enslavement.

Or do they help the Empire by foiling the terrorist plot? This way, the multitides of un-involved locals are left alone to live their blissful, placid lives. However, Rebels all across the Outer Rim, many of whom are friends and aquaintences of the characters, will die under the guns of the battle station before a warning can be spread.

 

[Morpheus]

One of the things my players would say was the most "rat bastardly" was when we started our new IK campaign. The PCs spent about 2 hours making their characters, buying equipment, reading up on the Iron Kingdoms, etc. Within a 1/2 hour, I had them in a fight, jailed and stripped of their equipment. Later, in that same adventure, they returned from a successful foray against some evil cultists to the thieves' guild that had hired them. They sat down to a banquet graciously provided by the Guildmaster. It was poisoned, of course...

 

[smetzger]

Bought RttToEE

 

[sabby]

Rat bastard?

Heh. I try not to be too much of a rat bastard. When I do that, I tend to make people quit my games.

I had one game where one of the party members was either a mom (or soon to be a mom, but definitely wanting to be a mom) in real life and was playing a Cavalier of Heironyous. (God of chivalry in Greyhawk). This was second edition, so things were a little different.

Anyhow, this was ravenloft that they had stumbled into. A particularly benign part of Ravenloft, but still. They stayed the night in what they had thought to be an abandoned house and were woken by the sounds of a baby crying. The house had belonged to the wolfwere that they had just killed and the baby was "food for later" ... the child was a bit emaciated and needed help. Also, the party did not have the resources to really care for the infant, so they decided to go to the bar and see if they could find someone to care for the child.

Everyone in the bar avoided the PCs. This is Ravenloft... they're suspicious of the PCs. When the PCs reveal where the baby is from, the peasants are even more superstitious. The house that they had stayed in, the wolfwere they had killed, etc. The PCs demanded that someone care for the infant, so one burly man steps forward, and agrees to "care" for the child. As they step out, I tell the cavalier that she feels a chill go up her spine and hears the infant cry out.

She runs to the back of the inn to see the infant with his brain bashed in. She killed everyone in the alleyway. I gave her the benefit of "Common Sense" telling her that she'll lose her cavalier status because of this, she says she doesn't care, she wants vengeance.

She gets contacted by dark powers. She starts to hunt down peasants. The paladin in the party decides that he no longer likes his companions. (This is Kartakass, Harkon Lukas had already introduced himself as a rat bastard, but they respect his authority as lord of the realm.) He decides he's going to leave, and since his ship has been damaged, he needs to travel by foot... Into the land of the mind flayers. No need to even roll dice for that one.

Heh. Quick end to a gaming group. We played shadowrun afterwards. My first player kill as a GM, too. (I was always too nice before that.)