Thought this might be a good thread to have current, did not see one in the first few pages. And I know I am not original on this.
So, how do you as DM's mess with your players minds? To what ends do you go to keep them looking at every quivering branch as they travel down the wandering path through the dark and misty wood?
I have two main things I will do to keep them on their toes. The first is to lull them into a false sense of security. "You come upon a rustic looking cabin by the side of the road. It is dark within and the vegetation has grown up over the sides of the cabin so as to mostly obscure the wood from view. What do you do?" And they might find a chest with a little coin in it. Let them have a couple and try to keep the description tonally the same when there are bad times awaiting. Sometimes they stroll on in with their guard down. Sometimes they prepare to do so and then throw the DM a sideways glance. They have caught me grinning only once.
Second, feed them a good serving of paranoia. I will look to one of the players and say "Make me a Perception check." They roll. They call out "12." I reply "Good to know." And then I continue. For what sinister reason did they need to make the check? What might they have seen had it been a Nat20? Um, nothing really, the response would still have been "Good to know."
What do you guys do to mess with your friends?
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Thank you. ChrisW
Ones are righteous. And one day, we just might believe it.
I don't actually try and mess with my Players minds - at least not much.
I think the closest I'll do is start rolling random dice, when the Players start getting analysis paralysis. That's usually not meant to put the Players on alert, even then - it's usually just me fidgeting - but it sure does focus them :D
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I had one player who was desperate to find out who killed his father. He searched for every clue, every piece of information...then some of the people he started to question started giving him conflicting dates - years different to what he believed. It really played with his mind and made him second guess everything he thought was true. He now suspects someone or something has altered his memories. To see the look of utter confusion on his face before he figured out his memory had been tampered with was priceless.
The players are now also slow to trust NPCs. In the past a trusted ally turned out to be the main villain. They are now suspicious of all allies and NPCs alike. Initially I thought this would prove a problem but what its done, is made the group very intent and careful. They are on high alert which makes it more difficult for me to dupe them but makes them thoroughly invested in the encounters and campaign as a whole. Now NPCs need to earn their trust but regardless, the betrayal certainly played with their mind.
If it's a tense moment during a story, after I or they have made a role, I say "Interesting," or "Ah," and pause for a little while. It gives good dramatic effect but I'm careful not to overdo it otherwise the game would take forever!
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Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1!
My regular way of messing with the party is to tell them clues to nothing in the description of a room, or a fellow they meet or something like that. Like this ...
The guard you killed is wearing leather armor over a blue tunic and leather breaches. He is wearing a normal leather belt that holds the scabbard of his dagger and a well made leather pouch. The buckle is silver with a silver finger closing mechanism like a modern belt. The scabbard has a silver tip and a silver band around the top ring where the dagger would enter the scabbard. The pouch is about the size of a man's fist with a floppy cover. The cover is held in place by a leather thong and a bone fixed on the end. On the cover is a low relief carving of the sun. On the pouch beneath is a low relief carving of the moon. He dropped his dagger as he died but he is still holding onto his axe. You can't find a sheath for the axe.
All these detailed notes can make someone think there is a point to all this, but it might be a bunch of nothing. They may start saying "I roll a history check on the carvings in the leather pouch." or some such pursuit. They may start tearing up the whole room to find a sheath for the axe, but it may just not be there. They might start wondering why all the metal bits were all silver; vampires, lycanthropes?
These are all good so far. Not to use them personally and I never go out of my way to mess with them, the contrary is true. But I do have my occasional bad boy moments. Keep them coming. I enjoy reading the tricks.
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Thank you. ChrisW
Ones are righteous. And one day, we just might believe it.
I find that more often then not the players will mess with their own minds. I just sit back and watch it unfold and use it in a lot of cases. Its fun when a player has an idea as to what is going on in the game that is not even close to whats going on. I often will take that info and work with it in some way. Like when an NPC that always offers help of some sort is suddenly being looked at by the party/player as a potential issue. I might go ahead and use this and have it so the helpful NPC is actually up to something no good. Fun stuff. Its amazing how many ideas the players will come up with that you can use for or against them.
I find that more often then not the players will mess with their own minds. I just sit back and watch it unfold and use it in a lot of cases. Its fun when a player has an idea as to what is going on in the game that is not even close to whats going on. I often will take that info and work with it in some way. Like when an NPC that always offers help of some sort is suddenly being looked at by the party/player as a potential issue. I might go ahead and use this and have it so the helpful NPC is actually up to something no good. Fun stuff. Its amazing how many ideas the players will come up with that you can use for or against them.
This 200%. Not only do Players mess with their own heads, but they come up with possible ideas for what's going on that are really creative, that I then can shameless steal :D
The trick there is to not get caught - check out that Player idea 20 ways to make sure it doesn't cause any continuity issues, change it a bit so-as not to be too obvious and run with it.
Recently I had a main villain who was a member of dragon worshiping cult, who was trying to recover an artifact which allowed him to polymorph into a young Dragon form once a day. The Party got sidetracked on other events and never even twigged as to what that villain was trying to do - so he recovered the artifact with no issues. Later, after some interactions with the Party, some Player made an offhand remark, "I wonder if he could be a Dragon ...". DM thinks to himself, " hmmm... he is now!" ... :D
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I'm in the same camp as Vedexent and Broken DM, I don't mess with my players.
The first thing I do is make sure I understand what is going on in the world. Having a strong understanding gives you the ability to have the world react to the players' actions as well as have it move along unimpeded by the players. When the players start to do noteworthy deeds, saving the dragon from the princess or poisoning the well of a corrupt city for example, word of these deeds spread and people begin to treat them differently. If the players are inattentive and set fire to a large swath of land during a fight, when they return to that area, they'll find the burned out husk from the fire. NPCs will make assumptions and guess what happened, rumors will begin to spread. Now the party may hear about the evil villains that killed the city of Downtrodden, they may catch campfire stories about the legendary group that rescues dragons, or they may hear about the manhunt for the group responsible for destroying a beloved forest. It messes with players, but it's by their own doing.
NPCs that have their own personalities, rather than generic quest givers and information dumps, will give the players pause as they try to understand why they act, say, and do different things. It's wonderful when players talk to people and they are forthcoming, helpful, and willing to give them anything they want. However, in the real world, people have their own lives to lead and tend to prioritize their desires and the desires of those closest to them. People we meet range from extrovert to introvert, arrogant to humble, selfish to selfless, and this should show in your NPCs. Talking to a town guard, sure you can hand-wave the questions, give the answers that you feel the players require, but wouldn't it be fun if the guard was dismissive and more interested in just ending his shift to go grab a pint? A town which has a strong distaste for Dragonborn, when the party shows up they're turned away from almost every location but aren't given a reason why. A blacksmith who sends the party out to grab some rare metals, he gives the players a slightly shady story about why he needs it, but when the party returns with the metal they learn he's just embarrassed about not being able to adventure himself.
The players are going to make hundreds of assumptions through out a game, you don't have to work very hard to make things messy for them. If you maintain the same attention to detail for the simple and important situations, the players will have to figure things out. If you make your stories adjust by the players' actions, the players will have to adapt. If you treat each npc as having their own personalities, even minor differences, the players will begin to treat them like real people and make assumptions. The more the players have to put themselves into the situation, the more you put them in their character's shoes, the more they'll do the work for you. If you make it contrived and pointed to mess with the players, the more you'll teach them to not trust rather than treat each scene as having unique situations and actors.
I'm also in the camp that lets the players create most of their own mind games; I generally stay away from metagame trickery like phantom dice roles and comments--not because I don't recognize their value when well executed, but because I have the worst poker face. It's just not my style.
I do facilitate their theorycrafting by shrouding the world in mysterious and conflicting accounts delivered by fallible witnesses, secondhand stories, and outright lying scoundrels. Then I amplify the players' various theories by having particularly enthusiastic and suggestible NPCs affirm their ideas.
When it all falls into place, and they realize just how far afield they've wandered from the truth, their reactions are priceless!
I'm also in the camp that lets the players create most of their own mind games; I generally stay away from metagame trickery like phantom dice roles and comments--not because I don't recognize their value when well executed, but because I have the worst poker face. It's just not my style.
I do facilitate their theorycrafting by shrouding the world in mysterious and conflicting accounts delivered by fallible witnesses, secondhand stories, and outright lying scoundrels. Then I amplify the players' various theories by having particularly enthusiastic and suggestible NPCs affirm their ideas.
When it all falls into place, and they realize just how far afield they've wandered from the truth, their reactions are priceless!
I do like this approach, as well. I think sometime there's a tendency for us to think of information gathering in cut and dried terms: I ask them, and they told me, and I made a 20 on my Insight roll? That's gotta be the truth.
Player's and DMs alike have to keep in mind: people might tell you the truth - but only as they know it, or based on what they believe ( besides, if you use NPC deception rolls against passive Player Insight ,variant rule, the Players don't know anything the Character doesn't believe :D ).
I watch Player theories go off the rails fast enough even when have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth - as they start to plug holes in their information with assumptions that take them way off into left field.
Sometimes those wild-ass-guesses turn out to be accurate, not because they were right, but because the DM stole their idea and ran with it :D
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I like to screw with tone and subvert expectations. Players think they're just fighting Orcs... well they're also friends with a huge freaking Ogre. Think they're fighting mercenaries... then change tone to undead. Party spends time stealthily entering a church? They should have watched the cemetery out back.
My players were following behind an npc who was tracking a villain. She found him at a ruined church then double backed for backup when two bugbears known to be the villains bodyguards approached. The party found her on the road and she brought them back. The party successfully snuck in the back windows, stealthing successfully the whole time. Four doors leading to windowless rooms... one with a cot and writing supplies indicating the villain's former presence here. The second... nothing. The third... a prayer room. The fourth... storage and a door to the basement. The basement is large the party are in a completely dark room other than glimpses of light from cracks in the floorboards above. They can't even see the far wall. They sneak in and find a single ghoul feasting on one of the villains lackeys. They kill it quickly but not before it can let out a scream. Observing the victim was not killed by the ghoul but hung. They return upstairs to find a single ghoul with its ear to the floorboards. And after a surprise round, a shitload of ghouls surround the entire church. It was a trap by the villain the whole time and I completely subverted the expectation and was able to disturb them by unexpectedly and dramatically changing tone to horror. Can't do it all the time... but a handy trick to keep them on their toes.
I watch Player theories go off the rails fast enough even when have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth - as they start to plug holes in their information with assumptions that take them way off into left field.
Sometimes those wild-ass-guesses turn out to be accurate, not because they were right, but because the DM stole their idea and ran with it :D
Sorry for being slow on the reply; been a busy weekend!
I'm right there with you, Vedexent. I have on occasion taken an idea suggested by a player; they're especially good at catastrophizing and coming up with the worst possible way a situation might develop.
I just smile at them and say, "Now wouldn't that be something!"
I'm in the camp of seeing my players mostly mind-**** themselves.
The trick for me is how to dangle something enticing enough before them that they'll overcome their paranoia and take a risk.
Tomb of Annihilation Spoilers Ahead
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The heroes go to kill Nanny Pu'pu, on Eku's orders. One of the characters discovers that Nanny Pu'pu is conducting a ritual to return one of the character's long lost love who had been banished to an outer plane. Nanny Pu'pu tells the players that Eku will surely betray them and that if they kill Nanny Pu'pu, the long lost love will be gone forever in alternate and hellish plane. The players decided to kill Nanny Pu'pu anyway, but failed. Eku has sent them back to try again, but not before the lost love makes one more appeal for saving Nanny Pu'pu... we'll see what happens in our next session.
If they manage to stay with Eku after this set of encounters, then I have another Eku tension moment planned out ahead: Two of the characters in the party are brothers that in their background were mercenaries, and were betrayed by their mercenary captain, which is why they fled to Chult. That treacherous captain becomes a Flaming Fist patrol leader that they will encounter in the jungle, and most likely want to fight. Eku, refuses to fight against or support the party against their nemesis and mortal enemy because she is lawful good and won't cross the Flaming Fist. Now the party has to decide whether to continue with Eku. In fact, if they want to continue with her, they will have to persuade her to stay with them.
Players are not being tricked in either of these cases, but the choices they make will have profound consequences on where their adventure goes next, and their relationship with Eku who has been instrumental in getting them to this point.
So for me I have such a bad poker face that I use it to my advantage lol. Basically instead of keeping a straight face I try to keep my happy-my-content-is-being-played smile and you-messed-up smile similar so they cant ever base what's happening on my reactions. The second session I had with my newest group I had them at a fair (I wanted a different way to introduce the players to each other. 10 years of starting in a tavern got boring for me, especially when my dm would constantly get bored, murder our characters, and start a new world every few months). At the fair, my players since they were new wanted to question everyone including the people working at the fair, thing is, nothing bad was happening. Like the consul of the the city was having a party for his sons birthday and his son wanted it to be a costume party. So, some people dressed as adventures (wearing dark cloaks over there clothes just like my players) and they were rushing to the party. One had the birthday cake but my players rolled bad with perception and only noticed, dark robed men rushing past them. They tripped two of the guys, ruining the cake and the other guy just stops and asks them what their problem was. It was then they realized they'll need to think more than just always starting a fight as not everyone will be out to get them.
Another thing that could have you're players messed with for a few sessions or more depending on how hard you tweak the rules is to have a false hydra. I had a ten hour session with a snack and dinner break (not included into the time) with a false hydra. It was supposed to be hard but since my players wanted to keep playing until they figured out what was happening I actually gave them a hint that led them to be able to detect the hydra. Honestly that hydra was supposed to keep them busy for longer and they were meant to have the time between sessions to think but they really like the game and I was too new a dm to tell them we needed to stop and wait for next week. But be warned, you'll need to be able to keep up that kind of mystery and confusion after the hydra is gone because it's such a good boss that it's hard to compare to other sessions.
Its pretty easy, don't cheese the monsters, play them as they are written. When you are rolling for random encounters, if they roll a monster of a much higher CR level, unleash him. Players need to learn when to run and when to fight.
I am so onboard with allowing the players to mess with their own minds and often, provide me the next steps of the story. Recently the group I DM for stopped at a homestead just off the main path. I dropped it there simply to allow them a spot to rest up before what will likely be a series of fairly dangerous encounters. Well, they befriended the residents, got involved and connected with them, to the point that, an hour away from the home, headed back ON track, they reversed and went back to investigate a "nothing" event I threw at them. Now they plan to return and check on this family on the way back, UGH. So, one of them has frequent weird assumptions of what might be going on and tends to talk about them to both players and, at times, me, to explain the rationale behind some strange thing he does. Well, within these random ideas, the solution to the homestead came to me.
I find it very fun to introduce NPC's, events, rumors and more that I pick up from the players just talking and theorizing about some things. I enjoy the excitement I see when something THEY came up with is unveiled and they go "AHA! We knew we were right!" while I know, prior to them feeding the idea, it didn't even exist. That level of cooperative storytelling is perhaps the biggest joy I get from DMing.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
My players don't like me anymore so i did that rustic cabin scene right but after they got ambushed after finding a single gold coin in a chest they come Apon a similar cabin a mile away and they found the coin but left before anything happen so the next day they find out that an old man found it and is now RICH has hell then a week later they find a cabin similar to the last one they find one coin and after being paranoid for ever they all fall asleep and fight a trickster demon and wake up to them sleeping in the first cabin and that week of two of work never happen
As has been said, my players are good at messing with their own head. We usually run intrigue heavy campaigns, and they have endless capacity to overcomplicate and overthink stuff.
But what I usually do, no matter what campaign and theme, is create 5-10 session periods of time pressure for the players. Lots of stuff need to be done quickly and they don't have time for it all, and need to make choices that has consequences. And I admit I enjoy the players anguish when they have to decide what tasks to leave undone, and their fear of the consequences, often with hard moral dilemmas.
Maybe that style ain't for every table, but we enjoy it :-)
Today I'm going to have my 4 players kill a giant burrowing snake that will not hurt them in the slightest and then make them feel bad about killing it because they will find out ut was the mother of a single child
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Thought this might be a good thread to have current, did not see one in the first few pages. And I know I am not original on this.
So, how do you as DM's mess with your players minds? To what ends do you go to keep them looking at every quivering branch as they travel down the wandering path through the dark and misty wood?
I have two main things I will do to keep them on their toes. The first is to lull them into a false sense of security. "You come upon a rustic looking cabin by the side of the road. It is dark within and the vegetation has grown up over the sides of the cabin so as to mostly obscure the wood from view. What do you do?" And they might find a chest with a little coin in it. Let them have a couple and try to keep the description tonally the same when there are bad times awaiting. Sometimes they stroll on in with their guard down. Sometimes they prepare to do so and then throw the DM a sideways glance. They have caught me grinning only once.
Second, feed them a good serving of paranoia. I will look to one of the players and say "Make me a Perception check." They roll. They call out "12." I reply "Good to know." And then I continue. For what sinister reason did they need to make the check? What might they have seen had it been a Nat20? Um, nothing really, the response would still have been "Good to know."
What do you guys do to mess with your friends?
Thank you.
ChrisW
Ones are righteous. And one day, we just might believe it.
I don't actually try and mess with my Players minds - at least not much.
I think the closest I'll do is start rolling random dice, when the Players start getting analysis paralysis. That's usually not meant to put the Players on alert, even then - it's usually just me fidgeting - but it sure does focus them :D
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I had one player who was desperate to find out who killed his father. He searched for every clue, every piece of information...then some of the people he started to question started giving him conflicting dates - years different to what he believed. It really played with his mind and made him second guess everything he thought was true. He now suspects someone or something has altered his memories. To see the look of utter confusion on his face before he figured out his memory had been tampered with was priceless.
The players are now also slow to trust NPCs. In the past a trusted ally turned out to be the main villain. They are now suspicious of all allies and NPCs alike. Initially I thought this would prove a problem but what its done, is made the group very intent and careful. They are on high alert which makes it more difficult for me to dupe them but makes them thoroughly invested in the encounters and campaign as a whole. Now NPCs need to earn their trust but regardless, the betrayal certainly played with their mind.
If it's a tense moment during a story, after I or they have made a role, I say "Interesting," or "Ah," and pause for a little while. It gives good dramatic effect but I'm careful not to overdo it otherwise the game would take forever!
Sir, the possibility of successfully navigating an asteroid field is approximately 3,720 to 1!
Never tell me the DC.
My regular way of messing with the party is to tell them clues to nothing in the description of a room, or a fellow they meet or something like that. Like this ...
The guard you killed is wearing leather armor over a blue tunic and leather breaches. He is wearing a normal leather belt that holds the scabbard of his dagger and a well made leather pouch. The buckle is silver with a silver finger closing mechanism like a modern belt. The scabbard has a silver tip and a silver band around the top ring where the dagger would enter the scabbard. The pouch is about the size of a man's fist with a floppy cover. The cover is held in place by a leather thong and a bone fixed on the end. On the cover is a low relief carving of the sun. On the pouch beneath is a low relief carving of the moon. He dropped his dagger as he died but he is still holding onto his axe. You can't find a sheath for the axe.
All these detailed notes can make someone think there is a point to all this, but it might be a bunch of nothing. They may start saying "I roll a history check on the carvings in the leather pouch." or some such pursuit. They may start tearing up the whole room to find a sheath for the axe, but it may just not be there. They might start wondering why all the metal bits were all silver; vampires, lycanthropes?
These are all good so far. Not to use them personally and I never go out of my way to mess with them, the contrary is true. But I do have my occasional bad boy moments. Keep them coming. I enjoy reading the tricks.
Thank you.
ChrisW
Ones are righteous. And one day, we just might believe it.
I find that more often then not the players will mess with their own minds. I just sit back and watch it unfold and use it in a lot of cases. Its fun when a player has an idea as to what is going on in the game that is not even close to whats going on. I often will take that info and work with it in some way. Like when an NPC that always offers help of some sort is suddenly being looked at by the party/player as a potential issue. I might go ahead and use this and have it so the helpful NPC is actually up to something no good. Fun stuff. Its amazing how many ideas the players will come up with that you can use for or against them.
This 200%. Not only do Players mess with their own heads, but they come up with possible ideas for what's going on that are really creative, that I then can shameless steal :D
The trick there is to not get caught - check out that Player idea 20 ways to make sure it doesn't cause any continuity issues, change it a bit so-as not to be too obvious and run with it.
Recently I had a main villain who was a member of dragon worshiping cult, who was trying to recover an artifact which allowed him to polymorph into a young Dragon form once a day. The Party got sidetracked on other events and never even twigged as to what that villain was trying to do - so he recovered the artifact with no issues. Later, after some interactions with the Party, some Player made an offhand remark, "I wonder if he could be a Dragon ...". DM thinks to himself, " hmmm... he is now!" ... :D
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I'm in the same camp as Vedexent and Broken DM, I don't mess with my players.
The first thing I do is make sure I understand what is going on in the world. Having a strong understanding gives you the ability to have the world react to the players' actions as well as have it move along unimpeded by the players. When the players start to do noteworthy deeds, saving the dragon from the princess or poisoning the well of a corrupt city for example, word of these deeds spread and people begin to treat them differently. If the players are inattentive and set fire to a large swath of land during a fight, when they return to that area, they'll find the burned out husk from the fire. NPCs will make assumptions and guess what happened, rumors will begin to spread. Now the party may hear about the evil villains that killed the city of Downtrodden, they may catch campfire stories about the legendary group that rescues dragons, or they may hear about the manhunt for the group responsible for destroying a beloved forest. It messes with players, but it's by their own doing.
NPCs that have their own personalities, rather than generic quest givers and information dumps, will give the players pause as they try to understand why they act, say, and do different things. It's wonderful when players talk to people and they are forthcoming, helpful, and willing to give them anything they want. However, in the real world, people have their own lives to lead and tend to prioritize their desires and the desires of those closest to them. People we meet range from extrovert to introvert, arrogant to humble, selfish to selfless, and this should show in your NPCs. Talking to a town guard, sure you can hand-wave the questions, give the answers that you feel the players require, but wouldn't it be fun if the guard was dismissive and more interested in just ending his shift to go grab a pint? A town which has a strong distaste for Dragonborn, when the party shows up they're turned away from almost every location but aren't given a reason why. A blacksmith who sends the party out to grab some rare metals, he gives the players a slightly shady story about why he needs it, but when the party returns with the metal they learn he's just embarrassed about not being able to adventure himself.
The players are going to make hundreds of assumptions through out a game, you don't have to work very hard to make things messy for them. If you maintain the same attention to detail for the simple and important situations, the players will have to figure things out. If you make your stories adjust by the players' actions, the players will have to adapt. If you treat each npc as having their own personalities, even minor differences, the players will begin to treat them like real people and make assumptions. The more the players have to put themselves into the situation, the more you put them in their character's shoes, the more they'll do the work for you. If you make it contrived and pointed to mess with the players, the more you'll teach them to not trust rather than treat each scene as having unique situations and actors.
I'm also in the camp that lets the players create most of their own mind games; I generally stay away from metagame trickery like phantom dice roles and comments--not because I don't recognize their value when well executed, but because I have the worst poker face. It's just not my style.
I do facilitate their theorycrafting by shrouding the world in mysterious and conflicting accounts delivered by fallible witnesses, secondhand stories, and outright lying scoundrels. Then I amplify the players' various theories by having particularly enthusiastic and suggestible NPCs affirm their ideas.
When it all falls into place, and they realize just how far afield they've wandered from the truth, their reactions are priceless!
I do like this approach, as well. I think sometime there's a tendency for us to think of information gathering in cut and dried terms: I ask them, and they told me, and I made a 20 on my Insight roll? That's gotta be the truth.
Player's and DMs alike have to keep in mind: people might tell you the truth - but only as they know it, or based on what they believe ( besides, if you use NPC deception rolls against passive Player Insight ,variant rule, the Players don't know anything the Character doesn't believe :D ).
I watch Player theories go off the rails fast enough even when have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth - as they start to plug holes in their information with assumptions that take them way off into left field.
Sometimes those wild-ass-guesses turn out to be accurate, not because they were right, but because the DM stole their idea and ran with it :D
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
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I like to screw with tone and subvert expectations. Players think they're just fighting Orcs... well they're also friends with a huge freaking Ogre. Think they're fighting mercenaries... then change tone to undead. Party spends time stealthily entering a church? They should have watched the cemetery out back.
My players were following behind an npc who was tracking a villain. She found him at a ruined church then double backed for backup when two bugbears known to be the villains bodyguards approached. The party found her on the road and she brought them back. The party successfully snuck in the back windows, stealthing successfully the whole time. Four doors leading to windowless rooms... one with a cot and writing supplies indicating the villain's former presence here. The second... nothing. The third... a prayer room. The fourth... storage and a door to the basement. The basement is large the party are in a completely dark room other than glimpses of light from cracks in the floorboards above. They can't even see the far wall. They sneak in and find a single ghoul feasting on one of the villains lackeys. They kill it quickly but not before it can let out a scream. Observing the victim was not killed by the ghoul but hung. They return upstairs to find a single ghoul with its ear to the floorboards. And after a surprise round, a shitload of ghouls surround the entire church. It was a trap by the villain the whole time and I completely subverted the expectation and was able to disturb them by unexpectedly and dramatically changing tone to horror. Can't do it all the time... but a handy trick to keep them on their toes.
Sorry for being slow on the reply; been a busy weekend!
I'm right there with you, Vedexent. I have on occasion taken an idea suggested by a player; they're especially good at catastrophizing and coming up with the worst possible way a situation might develop.
I just smile at them and say, "Now wouldn't that be something!"
I'm in the camp of seeing my players mostly mind-**** themselves.
The trick for me is how to dangle something enticing enough before them that they'll overcome their paranoia and take a risk.
Tomb of Annihilation Spoilers Ahead
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The heroes go to kill Nanny Pu'pu, on Eku's orders. One of the characters discovers that Nanny Pu'pu is conducting a ritual to return one of the character's long lost love who had been banished to an outer plane. Nanny Pu'pu tells the players that Eku will surely betray them and that if they kill Nanny Pu'pu, the long lost love will be gone forever in alternate and hellish plane. The players decided to kill Nanny Pu'pu anyway, but failed. Eku has sent them back to try again, but not before the lost love makes one more appeal for saving Nanny Pu'pu... we'll see what happens in our next session.
If they manage to stay with Eku after this set of encounters, then I have another Eku tension moment planned out ahead: Two of the characters in the party are brothers that in their background were mercenaries, and were betrayed by their mercenary captain, which is why they fled to Chult. That treacherous captain becomes a Flaming Fist patrol leader that they will encounter in the jungle, and most likely want to fight. Eku, refuses to fight against or support the party against their nemesis and mortal enemy because she is lawful good and won't cross the Flaming Fist. Now the party has to decide whether to continue with Eku. In fact, if they want to continue with her, they will have to persuade her to stay with them.
Players are not being tricked in either of these cases, but the choices they make will have profound consequences on where their adventure goes next, and their relationship with Eku who has been instrumental in getting them to this point.
So for me I have such a bad poker face that I use it to my advantage lol. Basically instead of keeping a straight face I try to keep my happy-my-content-is-being-played smile and you-messed-up smile similar so they cant ever base what's happening on my reactions. The second session I had with my newest group I had them at a fair (I wanted a different way to introduce the players to each other. 10 years of starting in a tavern got boring for me, especially when my dm would constantly get bored, murder our characters, and start a new world every few months). At the fair, my players since they were new wanted to question everyone including the people working at the fair, thing is, nothing bad was happening. Like the consul of the the city was having a party for his sons birthday and his son wanted it to be a costume party. So, some people dressed as adventures (wearing dark cloaks over there clothes just like my players) and they were rushing to the party. One had the birthday cake but my players rolled bad with perception and only noticed, dark robed men rushing past them. They tripped two of the guys, ruining the cake and the other guy just stops and asks them what their problem was. It was then they realized they'll need to think more than just always starting a fight as not everyone will be out to get them.
Another thing that could have you're players messed with for a few sessions or more depending on how hard you tweak the rules is to have a false hydra. I had a ten hour session with a snack and dinner break (not included into the time) with a false hydra. It was supposed to be hard but since my players wanted to keep playing until they figured out what was happening I actually gave them a hint that led them to be able to detect the hydra. Honestly that hydra was supposed to keep them busy for longer and they were meant to have the time between sessions to think but they really like the game and I was too new a dm to tell them we needed to stop and wait for next week. But be warned, you'll need to be able to keep up that kind of mystery and confusion after the hydra is gone because it's such a good boss that it's hard to compare to other sessions.
Its pretty easy, don't cheese the monsters, play them as they are written. When you are rolling for random encounters, if they roll a monster of a much higher CR level, unleash him. Players need to learn when to run and when to fight.
I am so onboard with allowing the players to mess with their own minds and often, provide me the next steps of the story. Recently the group I DM for stopped at a homestead just off the main path. I dropped it there simply to allow them a spot to rest up before what will likely be a series of fairly dangerous encounters. Well, they befriended the residents, got involved and connected with them, to the point that, an hour away from the home, headed back ON track, they reversed and went back to investigate a "nothing" event I threw at them. Now they plan to return and check on this family on the way back, UGH. So, one of them has frequent weird assumptions of what might be going on and tends to talk about them to both players and, at times, me, to explain the rationale behind some strange thing he does. Well, within these random ideas, the solution to the homestead came to me.
I find it very fun to introduce NPC's, events, rumors and more that I pick up from the players just talking and theorizing about some things. I enjoy the excitement I see when something THEY came up with is unveiled and they go "AHA! We knew we were right!" while I know, prior to them feeding the idea, it didn't even exist. That level of cooperative storytelling is perhaps the biggest joy I get from DMing.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
My players don't like me anymore so i did that rustic cabin scene right
but after they got ambushed after finding a single gold coin in a chest they come Apon a similar cabin a mile away and they found the coin but left before anything happen so the next day they find out that an old man found it and is now RICH has hell then a week later they find a cabin similar to the last one they find one coin and after being paranoid for ever they all fall asleep and fight a trickster demon and wake up to them sleeping in the first cabin and that week of two of work never happen
As has been said, my players are good at messing with their own head. We usually run intrigue heavy campaigns, and they have endless capacity to overcomplicate and overthink stuff.
But what I usually do, no matter what campaign and theme, is create 5-10 session periods of time pressure for the players. Lots of stuff need to be done quickly and they don't have time for it all, and need to make choices that has consequences. And I admit I enjoy the players anguish when they have to decide what tasks to leave undone, and their fear of the consequences, often with hard moral dilemmas.
Maybe that style ain't for every table, but we enjoy it :-)
Today I'm going to have my 4 players kill a giant burrowing snake that will not hurt them in the slightest and then make them feel bad about killing it because they will find out ut was the mother of a single child