From the funny, to the maddening, from putting the rules lawyer in his place to have a bout of the Killer DMs, what's the best trick, double-cross, or grade-A screwing you ever slapped down on your players? (or they slapped down on themselves?).

I've had some very gullible groups over the years, so there's a bunch of these I could recount.  Some favorites:

Group found a small, very hot cavern with a pool of lava which was the lair of an efreeti.  He had used illusions to make it look like a much larger cavern with many lava pools and dozens of fire elementals.  The group got to talking with him and somehow he convinced them that the real pool of lava was an illusion and if they all jumped into it they would each get a Wish.  One by one they jumped in and died.

Had a group of Rakshasha send a note to the group to meet in a remote location on a matter of great importance.  When they got there, the monsters were in the forms of 5 of the highest level, most important NPCs in the campaign world.  They then told the group that there is a great magical curse that is contaigious and their magic items had to be purified.  They asked the party to put them in a pile so they could all be purified together.  They explained that they couldn't be purified while still worn because the spell was dangerous to living things.  So the group took off their armor, rings, etc and made a big pile of powerful magic items, except for one guy who kept a +1 dagger or something hidden.  Anyway, the Rakshasha started the purification spell, which of course were attack spells aimed at the party.  The group spent half the combat grabbing items, and one dwarf even struggled to put various bits of armor on in the midst of it.  The group was pretty high level, and the monsters eventually started to lose, so one of the Rakshasha who was farther away set off a fireball on the pile (destroying many items) and made his escape.

Nobody tried to use True Seeing type spells or even disbelieve in either of those situations.:confused:

I was running a Call of Cthulhu d20 game, and I'd made the campaign's chief villains the insects from shaggai (or Shan) - at least, a variant of them without weird guns.  The party was working for an X-Files-type organization, based in Chicago, and ended up heading off to Arizona on an assignment.  When they got there, they found out in slow bits that their boss (Ann) and their home base had been infiltrated while they were gone.

So, since my players were students, we broke for the summer.  The next year, I started with a grand old one-shot, and got several extra players to hop in, all with pre-made characters.  One guy knew exactly what was up and was the archetypal really-a-bad-guy PC.

Everyone else's background said they (1) had some memory problems because they'd been dealing with an enemy who could control minds, (2) knew they could trust Maximilian (the aforementioned Evil PC), and (3) knew their mission was to free their "friends" who were being held in this office building.

They fell for it hook, line, and sinker.  They went to their mission with gusto, shooting zombies and the occasional guy in military-style dress.  They avoided a strange creature that had been released on accident, and eventually the survivors got to the room where their "friends" were being held.

My players freaked out when they realized that the name-tag "Ann" was on the door and that they'd just been shooting the good guys and freeing the bad guys.  It was by far the most satisfying one-shot I've ever run.

-O

Quote from: Zachary The FirstFrom the funny, to the maddening, from putting the rules lawyer in his place to have a bout of the Killer DMs, what's the best trick, double-cross, or grade-A screwing you ever slapped down on your players? (or they slapped down on themselves?).

I didn't have anything to do with it but I think this story is kinda hard to top and never gets old.

My only real bout as a killer GM involved a friend who was playing a Vampire in a Warhammer FRP (1ed) game that I ran years go who though that Sam Kinnison's homosexual necrophiliacs was so hilarious that he just... would... not... stop... repeating... parts of it.  So he's playing an undead, sleeping in a Chaos corrupted town, and I keep hearing this joke about homosexual necrophliacs over and over again so I finally gave his character a very close encounter with a party of them.

Needless to say, the joke stopped.

'The best trick the DM ever pulled was convincing the players he didn't exist...'

I tend not to trick my players if I can help it. Sudden reversals and reveals are fine, but actively cultivating a false understanding of the nature of the setting or game tends to go against my sense of fair play, especially if it results in screwing with their carefully laid plans or characters development.

Best trick I ever pulled was introducing myself as a villain in V&V. They didn't know until they pulled the mask off.

Quote from: SpazmodeusI've had some very gullible groups over the years, so there's a bunch of these I could recount.  Some favorites:

Group found a small, very hot cavern with a pool of lava which was the lair of an efreeti.  He had used illusions to make it look like a much larger cavern with many lava pools and dozens of fire elementals.  The group got to talking with him and somehow he convinced them that the real pool of lava was an illusion and if they all jumped into it they would each get a Wish.  One by one they jumped in and died.

Had a group of Rakshasha send a note to the group to meet in a remote location on a matter of great importance.  When they got there, the monsters were in the forms of 5 of the highest level, most important NPCs in the campaign world.  They then told the group that there is a great magical curse that is contaigious and their magic items had to be purified.  They asked the party to put them in a pile so they could all be purified together.  They explained that they couldn't be purified while still worn because the spell was dangerous to living things.  So the group took off their armor, rings, etc and made a big pile of powerful magic items, except for one guy who kept a +1 dagger or something hidden.  Anyway, the Rakshasha started the purification spell, which of course were attack spells aimed at the party.  The group spent half the combat grabbing items, and one dwarf even struggled to put various bits of armor on in the midst of it.  The group was pretty high level, and the monsters eventually started to lose, so one of the Rakshasha who was farther away set off a fireball on the pile (destroying many items) and made his escape.

Nobody tried to use True Seeing type spells or even disbelieve in either of those situations.:confused:

The True Seeing I'll give you, but as a DM if any of my players say "I attempt to disbelieve" they get a harsh stare, as that whole mechanic makes absolutely no sense.  If there's an illusion happening, all players get (secret) rolls to figure it out.

I also don't "trick" my players, but I enjoy "setting up" tricks, which is much like placing traps in the dungeon (the players might spring the trap or they might disarm it- the key is to make the outcome interesting either way).

There was one time in a recent Dark Ages: Vampire game, where the really set off what I like to call a massive chain-reaction of "traps", which I had been setting up (through foreshadowing, to give them a fair chance of actually doing something about them) for like a dozen of sessions before.

One of the PCs (a Malkavian) had an incorporeal mentor (actually an elder in topor), which protected her for some reason (she took the 'Guardian Angel' merit). Trying to find out more about her benefactor, she actually managed to piece together the information, that he was her grandsire and tracked down one member of her clan, who allegedly was there during the embrace of her sire. She finds him, but he is terrified of her, so he uses her Dominate ability to calm him somewhat and get him to talk. At that point her incorporal "friend" actually takes over the body of this clan member and is now with her, in the flesh (he is somehow weakened by this, however and needs to rest).
The group made some Giovanni enemies and one of them later sends a vengeful ghost after them, who takes possession of the Lasombra and starts messing with her perceptions. The Malkavian uses her Dominate abilities to "exorcise" the ghost.
Even later, her mentor is deteriorating (the flesh of his new body rotting away). He tells her, that this body isn't "pure" enough to contain his essence. He takes her with him, to face a rival cult (the other characters also come into contact with this cult through various means) convincing (i.e. tricking) her into investigating it alone. She is in over her head in this, but the player realizes this too late so her character ends up having her spirit ripped out of her body!
When the Lasombra finds out about this, she turns to this ancient vampire to reverse the process (not knowing he risked her well-being) although they know his help is not going to be cheap.
What he asks of her, however, makes her jaw drop "A hundred years of your unlife". A debate if 'giving away existence' has any meaning for an (technically) immortal being ensues, but in the end the Lasombra agrees and the Malkavian is restored to (un)life. The Elder tells them he will collect his price some time in the future.
Now they know (dealing with a Malkavian) that he is going to do something nasty to the Lasombra, but as he is an Elder he is untouchable at the moment.
So they engage in scheming and plotting, collect information (from the Malkavian PC- who still adores her mentor and doesn't know what is going to happen) and other sources. They find out that:
a) The Elder is weakened (as pointed out above), so they might actually have a chance of taking him down.
a) the Elder has a fair share of enemies- all of which might shield the PCs from the possible repercussions murdering an Elder would normally have in the Vampire setting.
So they stage the set-up (all behind the back of the Malkavian, who is still blissfully unaware of what is actually going on) and do the dirty deed...
...only to find, that after giving the last blow to the old bastard he takes over the body of the Lasombra PC and gets away.
The "pact" he made with the Lasombra was a contingency measure as he was facing some of his enemies on their turf and couldn't be sure they would take him down (that the deed was done by the PCs themselves was just sweet irony). The use of Dominate on the Lasombra PC by the Malkavian was what provided him with "a way into" her mind (just like it did for his first body- that was why he protected her, as she was the last of his descendants capable of doing just that) and the ritual done during the pacting cemented that hold.
Now he is off in a vastly more powerful (though female, but who cares- he is beyond gender-identity already ) body and might just be up to something (aren't Elders always up to something?), all thanks to the PCs!

It's a good time to be a Storyteller.

My favorite time of players screwing themselves. Was a Torg game I ran. If I remember correctly it was the premade adventure that came with the core books. The players were underwater in 40's style diving suits. They were investigating a pirate ship wreck that a vortex was spinning out of. The players were armed with all kinds of werid science weapons. Torpeado pistols and spear guns. They reach the deck of the ship. Theres a staircase down. I tell them that at the bottom of the stairs is a pirate skeleton armed with a cutlass looking up at you. My buddy Kev says "I bum rush'em!" My response as GM was. Ok, the skeleton raises his sword puncturing your suit as you rush him. Take such and such damage and your suit is filling with water. The bewildered look on Kevs face. Priceless.

I don't trick my players - my NPCs do tho.

- Ed C.

I don't count it as a trick, but in VtM I had a group of players who took Obfuscate 2 (invisibility, more or less) and would walk up to people (enemies and other people who had pissed them off), put a gun to their heads and pull the trigger or use a sword to chop off the heads of other vampires.  It was one of those gray area rulesthat was within the bounds of common sense, but I think took away from the spirit of the game.  The players thought it was funny, even though I repeatedly told them how cheesy they were being.  

I remember how mad they got when I did the same thing to them, because of course, none of them had Auspex (which allows you to see those using Obfuscate).  A few vampires came seeking revenge for the death of their allies--one of the characters got his head chopped off, one got staked and buried in a cemetery, and the last one got staked, had his limbs chopped off and put on trains going in different directions.  

More of a taste of your own medicine than a trick, but it really toned down the senseless slaughter.  A little.  

Pete