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

[arwink]

His name is Kelpreth. He's very pale, he's very alien, he comes from another plane, and he's got ties to a multidimensional trading cartel that uses a noticably evil tiefling as a messenger boy.

And at the same time, Kelpreth's ever so helpful, always there with the right thing and the right time, and willing to procure nearly anything they ask for a very reasonable price.

No-one is under any illusion that trading with Kelpreth is a good idea, but they keep doing it and keep waiting patiently for it all to go wrong.

Temptation without punishment is a wonderful, wonderful thing

 

[s/LaSH]

Ooh. That would be telling, and by now you should all know I keep Magnificent Secrets. My entire campaign is based around pulling the rug out from under everybody.

The worst thing I can reveal is when the party found a magic greataxe. Well, and a warhammer - the heads were at 90 degrees to each other. The thing was, this weapon was intelligent and very powerful. And insane. It sought to dominate its wielder to shed blood - any blood.

The priest took it.

We've had some interesting moments with that. Like this one elven priest against a battle unit of ogres (and again, reading my comic tells you I don't mean smelly big guys, I mean something that makes Space marines look small and timid). It took over. He had some serious penance to do after that. (Crown to crotch blow. Very messily impressive.)

I don't know why he keeps it. There have been some other cool moments with it, though...

No, the true RBness comes from doing things to characters that they never expected. The paladin... well, he was just doomed (in the very best way). Someone else found something rather personal in a villain's stronghold... something that really shouldn't have been there. And then there was the truth about Guen. But that is a story for another time...

 

[Mark]

Total Party STDs...

 

[Ashrum the Black]

Most recently? That would have to be the return of thier "partner". Qual'Pachim is a half dragon (black) elf that was the champion of a long dead, corrupted elven king. Long story short the characters released him from his imprisonment and teamed up with him to restore the elven homeland.

The deal was that he helped them find the device they needed to restore the heart of the elven realm and defeat the gaurdian, and they'd get him out of the demi plane he was stuck in. He helped and when it was time for the PC's to lety him go the party paladin calmly told Qual that he was free to go, but his sword that radiates very strongly as evil was not part of the deal.

Qual was furious and the Pal'y was certain that this would goad him into attacking and then he and the party could slaughter Qual. Qual though turned around and challenged the paladin to one on one maortal combat to decide the righteousness of this affair. Seeing as the paladin was still badly hurt from the fight with the bbeg and qual only had a few scratches, Qual got to leave with his sword.

Fast forward several months and the PC's are frantically trying to leave a city one step in front a the arrival of the kings gaurd. The king they're convinced is evil incarnate and that they're trying to dispose of. Unfortunatly for them the dallied a little to long and made a little to much of a spectacle of themselves in the city.

Who should turn out to be the leader of the kings forces, Qual. He clamly tells the player that they've been most remiss in not returning to the capitol as per imperial decree. But the king is forgiving and undestands the affairs of hero's of the realm can be most demanding. They are free to ga about thier affairs. But they friends and asscoiates have ignored the imperial decree calling on citizans to report if they have seen the party. They are therefore all under arrest until the punishment can bew administered. A public flogging of ten lashes. For each infraction, oh and there are six of you in the group. My my. How ... painful.

He then continues to smile as he tells them that he also understands how busy the PC's are with affiars of state and righting wrongs. So he has taken the liberty of dispatching 200 of his best men to "gaurd" the PC's estates and set up a garrison post a few days march from there. As the Kings new lord of the northern armies this is well within his power, and as a former "comerade" he is only to happy.

The PC's are still trying to dig out of this one and figure out what the heck is going on. At different points the PC's had to restrain the paladin, the fighter, and the monk from charging in. They HATE Qual with a passion, and they've never even fought him in actual combat. In the words of Qual'Pachim, "How delcious."

 

[Bagpuss]

Used had an NPC Zombie Powder on a character in a modern adventure, all the other characters think the person is dead, but they are just paralyzed and infact able to hear everything.

I took the player outside and explained the situtation and told them to play along, go back in and start writing up a new character. The rest of the players were saddened by the loss, but the medics arrrived took the body away to the city morge. There he was put in a cooler before the autospy.

Luckly for the player the rest of the party figured out what had happened and arrived just as the coroner was about to start the Y-incision.

 

[Celtavian]

Re

The two meanest things I've ever done as a DM?...hmm.

The first is probably when I was running Ravenloft. Strahd created an illusion of himself and attacked the party. They unloaded on the illusion. I played it up that he was being destroyed. Then when they went to check the dead illusionary Strahd, he attacked. It would have been a TPK, but I was merciful. I count this as bad because the players were well and truly duped. They were mad as hell afterwards that they fell for it.

The second was when I had a polymorphed Ogre mage infiltrate the party. The polymorphed Ogre mage ended up having an affair with one of the female PC's. Suffice it to say the look on the players face when they found out it was an Ogre mage they were sleeping with was precious. That player didn't trust men for a while.

Those are the best times, when you can truly dupe the players into doing something they normally wouldn't do. That really makes you feel good as a DM, especially when the actual people playing the game themselves don't even realize it until after the truth is revealed.

 

[Shallown]

In recent history the worst thing i did was a few years ago I ran my homebrew game/system and one of the main characters had returneds home to see his family after being at "Wizard" college and doing some adventuring. So his fellow adventurers where staying at his home. He was a merchant's son and hsi mother ran the business his father having died years before from an accident. So he was going around catching up with his friends and such when after a night of drinking one of them dissappeared so the Advneturing character just had to go looking for him. To make a long story short the friend was killed by wererats and after many sessions of the characters going into the sewer and getting kicked around, including one character being infected and the "College" helping to cure him they discovered wererats had beena problem before and the government had very strict means of dealing with them IE everyone who ran into one was put to death to prevent spreading of disease. The wererats approached the main character and said "Listen leave us alone or we will ruin you and all you hold dear" But being adventurers they headed right back in. So when they came out the Mother was gone and the house left untouched. A few days go by and Mom turns up infected as a wererat. And soon the city guard shows up. Now we have a chase through the city characters once respected hiding in shanties by the port looking for a way out. They leave town ona ship hiding the infected mother becuase the crew would toss them over if they knew. Was a tense time as the College educated wizard got a taste of life on the lam and persuing the only suspected cure at one of the ancient ruins on and island 1000 miles from hom. Of course once there on a jungle island the mother escaped due to the ruins radically increasing the power of her disease. Was lots of fun and a twist in the game that had nothing to do with the plot but I rolled with it and had fun. got cussed at a lot but that's okay.

 

[Ashrum the Black]

Remembered another one. Same campaign, the characters had recovered the necromantic artifact they had been sent to find by the cities Cardinal. During the recovery of the artifact, one of their beloved NPC's sacrificed himself so the group could flee the evil machine priest. Artifact and decapitated corpse in tow they fled back to the city.

Once there, they found the city had been captured during their absense by an evil dwarf at the head of an army. So they slunk into the outskirts of town and laid low in the monstary there. While they were there, they took the evil artifact out of the portable hole to show everybody that they had indeed suceeded in recovering it.

They forgot that one of the artifacts powers was to spontaneously reanimate the dead around it. So when they go to check on the NPC's body later in the on, it was missing. They tracked his corpse until he walked into a rather large river and disappeared.

The howls of rage from the PC's were wonderful as the truth of what THEY had done to their "friend" dawned on them. I loved it, because I really didn't have to do anything. They did it all themselves without realising that they were doing it until after the fact. They spent the better part of the next four adventures doing side missions to try and find the errant body of their friend.

Just a few sessions ago they finally recovered his body and soul, and brought him back. Now he's dealing with the after math of being undead for the better part of the last year. The guilt the PC's feel is truely wonderful!

 

[el-remmen]

Hey All!

Don't forget everyone's favorite Rat Bastard Boards!

 

[d12]

Bought RttToEE

Ran party through RttToEE. Yep, this one made me a better/meaner/leaner DM and now my players accept high body counts and nasty tricks as all part of the fun. At one point, a ten-year D&D veteran said, "I've never been more freaked out by anything in a D&D game."

Good times, good times. Thanks MC.