What's your favorite trick to pull on players?

Showing up for the session 2 hours late.

>>54041324
I love to introduce new players to faeries

>>54041324

An allied NPC turns out to be traitor. It's always the ally they like the best.

That is my favorite cestree ever

>>54041324
BBEG turns out to be the Big Awesome Good Guy, and the people he's working against are the actual bad guys.

>>54041324

The princess has a dick and a crush on the manliest PC.

>>54041402
>BBEG

Fweh.

>>54041324
Asking them if they dare enter my magical realm.

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>>54041397
You might be a pedophile.

making them think I actually prepared half the encounters, when i'm really just improving about 2/3rds of the session.

>>54041624
This. I prepare pretty maps, and occasionally a setpiece description or speech. Everything else is improvised.

>>54041765
>>54041765
>being this screechingly autistic

Literally end your very existence this instant.

>>54041624
This. I've got bullet points for the bigger encounters/plot hooks, but everything else is either asspulls or reacting to their insane ideas.

>>54041324

Equip NPCs who would normally be heavily armored with DEX builds and leather armor. Have them claim to be doing so because of concerns over Heat Metal and Rust Monsters. Provide players with the opportunity to purchase leather armor.

Never actually use Heat Metal or Rust Monsters.

(This is even more fun because one of the settings I run is built around a war between two different types of magic users and Heat Metal actually does figure very prominently.)

>>54041784
Don't respond anon, he's quoting my post, but responding only encourages the autism.

Don't feed the trolls and the trolls will look for food elsewhere.

>>54042111
At this point, the people who still bother to use BBEG are more like trolls, because they have plenty of non-TV-tropes ways of saying "villain", but they prefer to sound like toddlers just to get their "ughs".

Asking everyone what their Perception/Constitution/Willpower scores are, rolling dice behind the screen, then continuing on as if nothing happened.

This is also a great way to tell who's a metagamer.

>>54041784

This >>54042111

Don't respond, just report and move on.

Making them think I'm a competent GM.

>>54042174

A lot of people still use it to mean "hidden mastermind behind the evil conspiracy that is responsible for all the fuckery."

Useful enough in that context, still, but I wouldn't run that every game.

>>54042312
> "hidden mastermind behind the evil conspiracy that is responsible for all the fuckery."

That's a really long and drawn out way of saying "the villain". And, with people using it far more broadly than your personal definition, it really doesn't even work as serviceable jargon.
It's just a dumb phrase that's about as amusing as referring to yourself as a spork penguin. People can't help but cringe and otherwise show disgust.

>>54042475

It's really not. You can have multiple villains, even multiple secret masterminds, but theres only going to be one ultimate secret mastermind.

And if we stopped using a phrase just because morons used it incorrectly on /tg/, we'd have run out of English by now.

And finally, stop talking about "people" when what you really mean is your spergy ass and lack of impulse control. Nobody makes you do anything.

>>54041945
>>54041624
Good DMing.

>>54042685
You really need to quit acting like it's just one guy in the entire word who doesn't like your phrase.

Also, there's plenty of times when people discuss "multiple BBEGs", and even the tv tropes article doesn't follow your personal definition. I don't really get why you go to such lengths to defend "Big Bad Evil Guy," when it's just something meant to sound silly. But, that's enough derailing this thread, BBEG-defender.

>>54041324
fart on the pizza

>>54042935
>You really need to quit acting like it's just one guy in the entire word who doesn't like your phrase.
And you need to quit acting like there's only one person who uses the phrase.

>BBEG as a phrase predates TVTropes and everything else on that shitty site.
>The phrase has been used on /tg/ since it's creation.
>As another anon said, if we stopped using every word or phrase because they were used by idiots we'd be unable to communicate.

I'm sorry that when some says BBEG it hurts your feefees, but the world isn't going to change because you or a small group throw a tantrum.

>Also, there's plenty of times when people discuss "multiple BBEGs", and even the tv tropes article doesn't follow your personal definition.
Saddly, some people are retarded. I mean just look at >>54042475

>I don't really get why you go to such lengths to defend "Big Bad Evil Guy," when it's just something meant to sound silly.
Remember, this whole thing started because >>54041484
and >>54041765
were so triggered by>>54041402
that they couldn't not post to show their discontent.

>But, that's enough derailing this thread
Agreed.

>>54042174
Ughers are in the wrong.
BBEG is an older term than Internet and the ughers can ugh as hard as they want, it will not somehow retroactively become tv tropes.

>>54041324
I can't really do it anymore because rolling for stats has fallen out of style and I don't play D&D anymore, and it's also something you can only really pull once because players will get wise to it and design around it, but my favourite is this:

After players have mostly finished their characters, specifically rolled stats, what I liked to do was tell them to raise their lowest ability score to an 18. It would result in parties like this:
>elf rogue with 18 constitution
>halfling wizard with 18 strength
>half-orc fighter with 18 intelligence
>human barbarian with 18 charisma
And so on. It was fun, back in the day, but there's not really much opportunity to do it these days.

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>>54041324

>>54043644
I don't get it, is the filename referring to the fact that coffee is totally anachronistic in a medieval setting?

>>54043134
Now How many times have I seen this post ?

>>54043749
It really isn't. Coffee was a staple in Persia.

>>54043644
Is it the potato? I bet it's the potato.

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>>54043939
Couldn't tell ya, I've been off of /tg/ for over a year and just recently came back about a week ago to talk Exalted 3e and realized how much I missed the place.

This BBEG sperg-out is new to me, but if several others are saying the same things I am then maybe that should help illustrate that complaining about a term that predates the internet is fucking stupid.

>>54043749
>>54044032
I think the idea is generally things that wouldn't exist in a setting based on medieval Europe. I checked the archive to see the replies to this post and that's the gist of it.

>>54043963
The typical cliche fantasy setting (aka "the tavern") are usually defaulted to early to mid medieval europe, and coffee and tea were unheard of there.

>>54044046
There's just one guy who turbo-spergs out, and other people will make "Ugh" posts at BBEG just because it's a hip meme now, similar to people pretending to be Barneyfag.

>>54044089

>tea
>europe
>unheard of

U wut MATE

>>54044182
That's right, I said it (at least it is in a medieval setting, tea didn't pop up in europe until the 17th century)

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>>54044182
Tea was a Modern development for Europe.

>>54042174
BBEG is fucking old, anon. "Ugh" in response is so new it can't even crawl

>>54044046
Don't worry about it. It's a single anon, or a small group, dedicated to this specific brand of trolling. Unsurprisingly, anons keep rising to the bait. I wouldn't be surprised if they took turns on opposing sides just to try agitating anons into taking sides.

tl;dr It's just low quality trolling. Ignore it.

>>54041340
Hey shadow

>>54044098
>Barneyfag
I'm gonna guess this was a guy you avatarfagged as Barney from How I Met Your Mother.

He do anything especially insufferable, or was he more of a Jim Profit?

>>54044355
Barneyfag is the guy who posts cropped MLP images and replies to his own post calling people who like MLP "Barneyfags." He has the same set of images and reads the same script every time making him really predictable.
He doesn't appear on /tg/ that often and you can only find a handful of posts in his style but he does it a ton on boards with high traffic like /v/.
https://boards.fireden.net/v/search/text/die%20you%20degenerate%20barneyfag/

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>>54043644
What I noticed first was the young man in an "animated" conversation with an older woman in heavy armor.

>>54043332
>>54042174
Its not even proper tvtropes, they use just BigBad rather than acronym of four.

>>54043644
>>54044919
Doubled use of "animated" in one scene description is what got me.

>>54044447

there's a discord group that does it these days

>>54041369
Literally just pulled this on them; best part was they didn't see it coming.

>>54043749
It's just a bunch of /tg/ autism triggers. Studded leather, woman fighter, overuse of adjectives, brown people in not!Europe, sword slung across the back and unsheathed, potatoes and coffee in not!medieval-Europe, etc. Not really sure what the significance of the foreigner's clothing is.

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>>54044447
Nice lie faggot

>>54044967
>the best part was that I didn't foreshadow it at all
Sasuga.

>>54041324
Convincing them I don't exist.

>>54041324
Playing with their meta-knowledge

my players are savvy as fuck, and although they aren't munchkins, break the immersion or do metagame they have grown to expect some things due to experience

Therefor, I usually trick them thinking someone is more powerful or dangerous than it actually is, examples include:
--A chained giant zombie dog. The party would have attacked it and probably beat it in a straight fight had it not been named "fluffy"
--The party was extremely careful around an NPC that was a mere lv1 peasant (although with int and wis above average) merely because he was dressed like a wizard
--A lot of faction leaders. It makes sense that the leader of werewolves is a killing machine, but they have assumed that the leader of the giants is also a combat beast when he actually is a extremely cunning politician and tactician with no actual combat abilities
--The DMPC, exist because one player chose the "ally" background, way weaker than any of them, but just because its controlled by me it was more than enough to scare the fuck out of the party when it turned against them in a session


TL;DR: when the players are too clever

>>54045863
Unless the player signed up for just that heel-turn, I'd avoid turning allies bought with class abilities against players.

>>54046024
the ally turned against the party because the player that bought it did

Im a big fan of the roll in secret then maliciously grin at the players

Works pretty well in a lot of horror settings

>>54044089
So were full plate and rapiers, and no one complains about those being in D&D.

invite them to my house for a session but kill them instead

>>54046164
thats a bit harsh dont u think

>>54046164
>"it's just banter you pussy"

>>54041427
Excellent

>>54046164
Killing them before the session? Bet you didn't even have anything prepped. Bad GM detected.

>>54046164
Well done, anon.

Heck, I've been saying for a while that poison is the cure for mage players, but most gm anons are too pussified to follow my advice.

>>54044313
It's probably just a handful of people who are serious about the BBEG shit. I (and I suspect most of the other anons) Ughpost for the fun of it but we don't actually care.

>>54043332
People have been complaining about "Big Bad Evil Guy" for years. The early complaints seemed to be mostly about the concept itself, with many people disagreeing that a plot needed a character as a central antagonist.

Now, it seems that some of the complaints are about the language. "Big Bad Evil Guy" was coined to sound corny, and is more of an in-joke than a designation like "Central Antagonist." It's also grown to be somewhat vague, with some people using it as the central antagonist, others using it as the final antagonist, and still others using it as simply any antagonist, which can get confusing when trying to communicate about one of these specific ideas.

As far as the shitstorm, I think that comes in part because it takes very little effort to say "BBEG sounds dumb", which is enough to trigger some people who use that phrase. These people then go to say things like "you need to respect this acronym, it's /tg/'s acronym, every true fa/tg/uy uses BBEG exclusively," and that gets even people who had no real interest in the matter upset, because it starts to sound like there's people who are actually actively trying to push BBEG.

BBEG is a meme, and like most memes it doesn't have much of a shelf life. The old joke has faded, and now it seems like people are just finding it weird for people to be so fervent in holding onto it.

>>54046714
Stale and cold.

In the HERO System, a very good Mental Illusions result can cause the target to live as much time as the caster wants. I've used it to trick a PC into revealing the local Mage's hangout, so the Bad Guys can get in and steal artifacts (in this case, the Tapestry of Arachne). Didn't tell the PC he was under a spell, just acted like it was a normal part of the game. Too much fun. In another case, this power was leveraged by the Chinese to train troops for months, allowing them to produce highly skilled soldiers overnight.

>>54043134
The whole thing could have stopped by you just ignoring the replies to BBEG, so don't try to act blameless.

The whole thing started because one guy chose to use BBEG. Don't get ahead of yourself, because that's the start. The two replies to that phrase were people free to respond to that person's choice of phrase, just like you were free to derail this thread because people not liking your phrase hurt your fee-fees so much.

Trying to say otherwise is hoping to pretend that a lot of people don't like the phrase.

That's why this thing has escalated the way it has. The BBEG-defenders spend ten times more effort trying to pretend it's a small group (originally they even tried to say it was only one guy, despite all the evidence otherwise), or that it's all trolls, and that no one could possibly dislike their pet phrase, regardless of how many people explain to them why they dislike it.

What's so hard to see? It's an awkward, overly long phrase that's neither clever nor particularly useful, and adds a layer of pointless obfuscation. It's potentially one of the worst examples of needless and self-serving jargon, but that's all really minor to the fact that it sounds stupid.

Regardless of what you do to try to defend the phrase, nothing will stop it from sounding stupid to people. That's why more and more people feel the need to express their dislike for the phrase every time you rally to its defense by pretending no one could ever take issue with "big bad evil guy."

>>54046714
>>54046878
Imagine being so autistic you find yourself unable to post without falseflagging

>>54046896
>imagine replying to copypasta

you also don't know what falseflagging means

>>54041397
I like that the artist went through the extra trouble with giving her a proper smug loli face.
>>54041536
Pregstree is good as well.

>>54045347
Cotton (from America), soft leather (probably Chromium-tanned, invented in the 1800s), and a back-sheathed short sword (you sheathe on the side of your body).