I have a firm belief that all Referees, Game Masters, Storytellers and Dungeon Masters have an innate desire to screw with their players from time to time. Sometimes that desire could be born out of a bad mood or out of an overly jovial and prankster mind set. Other times it is something born from nothing but the spontaneous nature of running a game.
Whatever the reason in the end, Game Masters of all shapes, sizes and names have at least thought about screwing with the players, from cute little pranks, to all out mind blowing moments. So that is my question of the night, what was the biggest prank or joke you ever pulled on your players or was pulled on you?
For me:
Once had the party travel across the game world by a summons from the Arch-Emperor. When they arrived they were tired and near death in so many different ways. They expected a grand mission, instead the Arch-Emperor made them swear to do his laundry.
During my first D&D Next playtest the DM described a perfectly normal room to us players. As we explored it however, ten ancient Kobold mystics appeared from nowhere and TPK’d us. We rolled new characters and in the cross of exploring stumbled into another room where the mystics once again TPK’d us. After several attempts at new characters and growing frustration and name calling the DM had us make some rolls and we discovered that we had dreamt the whole thing, where still our original characters and had never met in “real life”. I think if this hadn’t been over Fantasy Grounds, the DM would have been killed.
