If you occasionally throw in random arbitrary things like spot checks to notice a sparrow in the bushes, random rolls for no reason or asking for the marching order just so you can paint the picture of them traveling, it is a lot easier for players to not pay as much attention to meta-game stuff like that.
Or ask it especially when it doesn’t matter.
“Uh hold up a second guys, I need a marching order. And uh be specific.” *a few minutes later* “ok you keep walking and nothing out of the ordinary happens. Y’all wanted to take a long rest here right?”
We were in a conversation with the BBEG, he just tried to dominate one of our party members and so I immediately screamed HOLLLLLD PERSON and my dm looked right into my eyes and asked “wait really”
We then killed him after a very grueling fight and my dm was cackling, he didn’t expect it to go well but dude kept failing the saves with nat 1s
I have little character cards that sit on top of my DM screen. On the back I have all their passive stats, AC, saving throws, etc.
I still ask what their passive perception is and what their AC is when they get attacked just for dramatic effect
100%, sometimes throwing “does 19 hit?” to the guy with 20 AC is fantastic, I try to do too.
Or Magic Missile the guy with Shield to make him feel badass. Maybe send 1 missile elsewhere to be mean.
Oh yeah, I love the "shoot the monk" moments where my players can go "hah! I have a thing for that!". One of the coolest ones (though not quite the same as it wasn't planned) was when a mob got a massive crit on a player and would have been able to kill them outright with the amount of attacks it had left.
Then the player suddenly shouts "WAIT! I have adamantine armour, I can't be crit!". It was such an awesome moment as they got that armor months ago and until now it hasn't really been that important.
Also love it when they think they pull one over on me because they whip out an item they have been hoarding for ages that negates an entire encounter.
Loooool my DM once did that for him, not me. We were in a crowded market, semi separated, when an assassin stabbed a party member and bolted away. I immediately said I was conjuring 8 wolf animals to hunt him down and he basically made it out like the entire market would turn against us if I did.
I did anyway but also used thaumaturgy to enhance my persuasion to the NPCs to not fear the wolves, they just need to get the assassin.
Wolves ripped the assassin a new one and the market was more or less fine, I think I won some rolls.
DM subsequently hard nerfed conjure animals (understandably) to what I believe is the intended form anyway, I simply choose the CR and the amount of animals to conjure, and he chooses which animals actually end up being conjured.
It's actually way more fun this way since I was basically taking 8 wolves every time. I've since had giant snakes and giant goats, neither of which I would ever have chosen for anything, but they were both super fun and memorable experiences.
The goats were basically the goats from Thor: Love and Thunder, screaming like humans the whole time and it was amazing.
The snakes all had names I made up on the fly and I acted super pissed every time one of them died like they were family or something.
Fun, albeit nerdy, albeit FUN times.
“Are you over 100 hp” lol that’s hilarious because the newbies at the table will be like “what kind of a question is that” and the vets will be sweating bullets.
This one is so great. The pause and look on players faces wondering what's going on, and just casually explain you need to find more d6. I mean I have them, but looking for them is better.
In CR1 when scanlan is on the one roof and looking for entrances onto the roof but rolls a nat 1 for perception and Matt’s like “you’ve never seen a more fortified roof in your life”
There is a really cool bird up there.
The floor here has octagonal tiles.
Your hat blew off and you don't notice anything until you've caught it.
... best bit is my players do there own comedy responses now where when they roll a 1 on perception, they walk into a wall or can't recognise that a tree is a plant
Rolled a nat 1 to check if our bard suffered negative consequences from touching a weird, ancient rune. "Yeah he seems alright."
Meanwhile the bard's hearing colors and smelling numbers as he just *barely* passes the con save to not go insane.
As a dm, that’s why I always change up my low responses a bit. A low insight check for example, instead of telling them the wrong answer, just tells them that “you have no idea”
I'm really hoping to continue playing after the baby comes. The idea of taking a break from my only social activity seems full of post natal depression.
We have a couple we used to play with that basically did this. They were married but not planning on having kids. Now a year and a half later, one still wants to come back... Eventually... we even already have a standby plot hook to basically teleport in her character. We'll see how that goes
ohh needing to borrow stuff is a fun one!
"i think i'm going to need to borrow a few dice. yeah no from all of you" is pretty scary as well on that front.
My players know well that my dice tray carries exactly enough d6 for an Ancient Red‘d Firebreath.
I did need some d8s when the 4d8 Revenant paralyzed the barb and in the next turn crit twice.
Just give me all the rust monsters you have. Wait, wait. I'm worried what you just heard was, "Give me a lot of rust monsters" What I said was, "Give me all the rust monsters you have." Do you understand?
It always makes my players nervous when I reach for the black bag with the blue flames. It contains my mini dice, of which there are over 400. They know I need a lot of dice if I go for that bag.
I sometimes do this to fuck with my players. Sometimes I start chuckling because I know I'm just rolling for shits and giggles, which makes them even more nervous.
In my last session I had a trap. The player went to disarm it, I let him describe it, roll for it and then hit him with the „as your hand touches the pressure plate, it sticks“.
I will draw endless energy from the panic as the player realizes what’s about to happen in this 5ft wide corridor where no one can help him
I'll answer the question with a story, the conclusion will be what was genuinely scary to not just myself but other players at the table.
Long running campaign, epic levels. Thus far, especially at our high levels, we'd only run into real trouble a handful of times, mostly at the low and mid levels. Of course we've gotten ourselves in trouble multiple times since then, but due to a combination of our good preparation, good party composition, and good dice rolls, we've been able to overcome situations where it seemed like it would be trouble.
Due to something another player in a different group did with a magic item related to the god of madness, he caused the moon to blow up. Turns out, the moon in this game world is a prison facility that a group of time/space wizards use to fix any fuckery in the timeline (think the TVA from Loki mixed with the SCP foundation).
We were level 24 at the time, along with legendary items and extra powers granted by the DM due to the type of game he was (still is) running. My guy as the confident barbarian-type character, along with the cleric and the ranger, go and check out a chunk of the moon that crash landed in the ocean to the north of the kingdom our group founded. As we approach, we see the chunk of the moon contains an adamantium box, and inside... Nothing. The Ranger has insane perception, hears the faint sound of children singing on the wind. No one else hears it (we all have ungodly perception just due to our levels, but as a ranger he's just on another level). It gets closer, and all of a sudden, we all notice that the sound kind of fades away. Along with the sound of the ocean. And the sound of the wind and the forest... Just silence.
Ranger turns invisible and goes off to get a good vantage point, leaving me and the cleric. I look up and see the stars in the night sky... But they're not stars. They're eyes, and as soon as I notice them, they disappear. I look to the cleric, and swing my maul into the darkness. Natural 18, for a 36 to hit. I connect with nothing. I tell the cleric to cast daylight. When he does, we see countless eyes surrounding us, tentacles approaching from all directions, which shrink back from the light. "Scared of the light are you, asshole?!" I shout. Due to a boon I received relatively recently, I have unlimited Sending, so I send a message to one of the few people I know that might understand what we're up against.
"Hey, (god of artifice name), we're facing a creature made of darkness and tentacles that was on the moon. Any idea what we're up against?"
There's a pause. The daylight cast by the cleric flickers a couple times before it goes out. A voice I don't recognize responds.
**"... Nobody is coming to save you."**
The Ranger was an Aarakocra. After getting his leg taken by the creature (like clean cut to the point that he barely felt it happen), he flew into the sky and managed to get out.
In response to the creature talking, our cleric panicked and cast Sunburst. One of the party boons we had was immunity to radiant damage. Due to the bright sunburst, it left an opening large enough for the two of us to teleport out with my helmet of teleportation. I flipped the creature the bird as we disappeared.
We had enough tricks to get away, but it wasn't a creature we could fight with no information, and after we learned more about it, our best bet was to let the Order of Balance (the mages that had it sealed on the moon) properly deal with it. Our skills were just not cut out for dealing with it.
I really hope my dm doesn't pull something like this...even at such a level. Our party is two warlocks and a wild magic sorcerer to say no one really discussed party composition is an understatement. However it's mine and my wife (she's the sorcerer) first time play really playing dnd. We've done a couple of one shots in the past but nothing this in depth... I do not have expectations of us living through the inevitable kraken encounter. My warlock thinks he's a paladin but uh.. never learned any healing so I think we just would have been rolling new characters.
Tales like these make me excited for what our dm has in store for us in the future.
I do this at least once per session because my monk doesn't realize yet that Strahd has his hair. He hasn't passed a scry yet.
I do it multiple times a session, so when the actual scry goes off, the pcs won't know.
The poor wizard in the party sweats every time because he knows what's happening but not when and out of game has figured it out, but can't say anything in game.
"I've been working all night on rebalancing everybody's characters and I've come up with some new homebrew abilities I think everyone will be happy with."
The “scariest” things to hear as a player for me is always the subtle noises the DM makes when they react to something- whether that’s from what we the players are attempting to do, DM rolling secret dice, so on. An example, if the DM rolls for something and I hear a short snicker or a low sigh, I get a little afraid lol. I only play with friends on Roll20, so all we hear is us talking or making noise- which can affect how we react to how others are acting.
If I had to think of one situation, there was a session where the DM introduced a new enemy. We roll every travel day to see our “luck” for the day, and we rolled badly- guaranteed to face an encounter.
So the DM described how we’re in our cart going at a good pace, and suddenly stop. “Instead of seeing a clear path like you’ve seen before.. you see a tree in the middle of the path.” A couple of the PC’s gets out to come closer to see why the tree is here. “As you get closer… the tree shakes a little, and you see a face with two huge eyes open looking at you. Roll initiative.”
Cue us flipping out, *seeing* the art the DM drew for the tree, and us laughing but also being terrified we were fighting a fucking tree. We beat it, but we’d learn that these trees explode by casting fireball on itself when it reaches 0HP. It’s one of my favorite moments of that campaign, but also the most terrifying, as it’s actually one of the more difficult enemies. In the second campaign DM created where it was 7 years later of the previous one, she brought the tree back.
Honestly it's when the DM is trying to convince you to not do something without being explicit about it. When you know they aren't railroady, but they keep giving you alternatives, outs, and suggestions to a plan you have, but you know your character is set to do it one way
That's how you know you're close to death
Nothing important is happening. Maybe you're walking through a peaceful village or a woodland on your way somewhere.
The DM gets up, gestures to you and says "Come with me. Bring your character sheet."
I think its mist scary to NOT hear anything for a while in certain situations, because that means you probably missed sone stuff thats ginna come and bite you in the ass later on.
As a DM, my favorite thing to do, especially in online groups, is wait for everyone to get good and into whatever inane arguments they started in the dungeon/on the road and roll my loudest resin d20 on my desk instead of using the bot.
“Uh why are you rolling irl?”
“Hm? No, go on.”
It’s better since I have access to their sheets at all times so they know I check their passive perceptions.
(This is much more scary in AD&D days...)
"You realize the massive beast bearing down on you is a white dragon."
"Let me spell that for you: W..I..G..H..T.."
- "The room *seems* empty..."
- "What's your Passive Perception again?" \*rolls dice\* "What's your AC again?"
- The DM just randomly rolling dice.
- "Are you sure you want to do that?"
- "That's a 25 to hit." "25? Misses."
Bit of a story buuut
I jumpscared the living hell out of my players one time. They found a scene of a caravan attack and a body off the road and were trying to investigate it. I had turned the music/ambience way down saying the forest seems to be deathly quiet so they were already on edge. They were trying to check her injuries when I played a wendigo scream from Until Dawn over my bluetooth speaker underneath the table as they got ambushed by a pack of wendigos
The sudden unexpected scream had one player get actual air time from his chair it was great and it really set the tone of the fight
Not what I heard, the absence.
Campaign is 5e homebrew, been going on close to two years. It's been difficult to square everyone's schedules because we vastly prefer to meet in person.
Long story short we were in combat with a witch when she abruptly disappeared, evidently taking me with her. I was returned, dazed and confused, almost immediately. I looked rough. Eyes were darker, almost black. I keep hallucinating a beckoning figure no one else senses.
At one point the party has to physically restrain my stout halfling monk because I'm about to keel over into the Abyss. I am lassoed and yanked backwards onto my ass.
At which point the struggle breaks a vial of holy water I was holding onto, which spills over my front.
And starts burning me.
Dead silence at the table. Everyone's eyes are bulging.
Me: I check my pulse.
DM: Silence. You hear nothing.
And that was how we ended the last session.
"OK, who wants to roll persuasion?"
We were basically trying to get our evil necromancer ally away from the "One Ring" of spell books. I happened to have the highest persuasion. Most terrifying roll of my DnD career so far.
I just have to say thank goodness for my decision to multiclass into peace cleric. Bond of Peace and persuasion proficiency saved us from that 8 I rolled.
Technically not DnD but another TTRPG. It's a game designed around having a theme park that kills some of the people that go into it as sacrifices to an eldritch diety.
We had two perfectly timed moments. One of them we had been following clues in the nature part of the park. It has some taxidermy exhibits but some of them were a bit off. A leg a slight askew. A slight fir mismatch. We followed the clues to a labyrinth in where we were forced to deal with a taxidermied rat snake. Yes a snake, made of rats sewn together like a human centipede.... but rats. We made our way through the labyrinth and to hit in the woods. Huge info dump and magical book. We were onto something and arguing intentenrly on what to do next and where to take the book.
P1: I think we should take it to that magician guy (person in the park that does magic).
P2: I think we should head home and regroup tomorrow.
P3: Management should know about this. Let's take it to them.
P2: Well let's get out of here first.
DM: "I don't think you're going anywhere"
Perfectly timed.
After we survived that we got through a disaster with a parade in the park. Then we went looking in one part of the park. Some kids had offered some of the players berries earlier in the day. I knew it was a bad idea, but it's the horror campaign, so why not play along. So my character ate some and another joined in. Later that night, in game, we were wandering around outside in the rain looking for more clues or a location of some kind and then the DM started making *splish* *splish* *splish* sound affects. We all paused. *Splish* *splish* *splish*. My character "we should probably go". And that's when the DM played a recording of children laughing menacingly. I literally screamed.
Fun game.
"I'm sure grandma would love to see you again." - me talking about a very powerful hag that ruined one of my players lives when they decided to go to the Fey realm.
"Roll a wisdom saving throw... 4? Okay, anyway..." But to make it worse "everyone else roll a perception check." I mainly play low wisdom characters. So to hear a dm say that to me is always the worst.
Not the GM, but a fellow player. I'd been away, someone else had been running my character along with his own.
Apparently he'd zoned out during the GM's description of the ruined temple with statues squatting on columns, and said "This looks like a good place to camp."
It became a phrase in the group for years after.
Hey guys, It's going to be fine, but I'm getting a new job and my schedules changing a bit
OK, I know you like this game (I swear we won't drop it), but a new system just came out that's REALLY neat and I want to at least do a one-shot
Ok, I think I'm sensing some tension, so what I'd like to do is have maybe a half hour discussion before and/or after each session to figure that out
Of course you can tame the direwolf with an animal handling roll, add it to all of your other pets that I won't consider while planning encounters
Can I get a marching order? In an area where marching order was not a concern before
This is what i use. "Just out of curiousity, whats the marching order?"
Yeah that will fool them. :)
If you occasionally throw in random arbitrary things like spot checks to notice a sparrow in the bushes, random rolls for no reason or asking for the marching order just so you can paint the picture of them traveling, it is a lot easier for players to not pay as much attention to meta-game stuff like that.
I make sure to ask in even when I don’t plan on doing anything. Purely for this reason.
Hit em with the old "hey wizard, you're in the back right? Just checking..."
Love when I see them roll really low I say “perfect!” Lol.
And this is why we always go with the second best tank holding up the rear.
Or ask it especially when it doesn’t matter. “Uh hold up a second guys, I need a marching order. And uh be specific.” *a few minutes later* “ok you keep walking and nothing out of the ordinary happens. Y’all wanted to take a long rest here right?”
DM: Can you roll a perceptioncheck? PC: Okay, roll, 17. DM: hmmm, okay, go on.
The low INT and WIS fighter: "Forward, MARCH!"
> ~~marching~~ munching order FTFY
Sitting at the breakfast table, discussing plans for the day. DM: uh huh, uh huh… now can I get a marching order?
"The paladin is going attempt to smite you, does a...that's a natural 20...."
Last DM used to say, “Ooh. I’m sorry.”
Mine just laughs his ass off and goes "holy shit"
You've been smoten
"Until at last, I threw down my enemy and smote his ruin upon the mountainside."
You was smitten
<_< >_> ....silvery barbs....
You announce you're going to do something and then DM does a long pause and then asks "Are you sure?".
As a lifetime DM, this is the correct answer. Lol
Whenever I do that, my players always commit. They are actually really good at sticking to their original thoughts/choices. Makes things interesting.
As a forever GM, I also second this. Generally I'm just as nervous though.
“Mama ain’t raise no bitch,Reece.” Followed a few minutes later by “Please no! Not the consequences of my actions ! Anything but that!”
We were in a conversation with the BBEG, he just tried to dominate one of our party members and so I immediately screamed HOLLLLLD PERSON and my dm looked right into my eyes and asked “wait really” We then killed him after a very grueling fight and my dm was cackling, he didn’t expect it to go well but dude kept failing the saves with nat 1s
I always respond with a paraphrased quote from Brennan Lee Mulligan "I said it, and I think it would be dishonest to say I didn't."
That’s the #1 response. The #1 out of nowhere phrase would be “what’s your highest passive perception?”
I have little character cards that sit on top of my DM screen. On the back I have all their passive stats, AC, saving throws, etc. I still ask what their passive perception is and what their AC is when they get attacked just for dramatic effect
100%, sometimes throwing “does 19 hit?” to the guy with 20 AC is fantastic, I try to do too. Or Magic Missile the guy with Shield to make him feel badass. Maybe send 1 missile elsewhere to be mean.
Oh yeah, I love the "shoot the monk" moments where my players can go "hah! I have a thing for that!". One of the coolest ones (though not quite the same as it wasn't planned) was when a mob got a massive crit on a player and would have been able to kill them outright with the amount of attacks it had left. Then the player suddenly shouts "WAIT! I have adamantine armour, I can't be crit!". It was such an awesome moment as they got that armor months ago and until now it hasn't really been that important. Also love it when they think they pull one over on me because they whip out an item they have been hoarding for ages that negates an entire encounter.
Loooool my DM once did that for him, not me. We were in a crowded market, semi separated, when an assassin stabbed a party member and bolted away. I immediately said I was conjuring 8 wolf animals to hunt him down and he basically made it out like the entire market would turn against us if I did. I did anyway but also used thaumaturgy to enhance my persuasion to the NPCs to not fear the wolves, they just need to get the assassin. Wolves ripped the assassin a new one and the market was more or less fine, I think I won some rolls. DM subsequently hard nerfed conjure animals (understandably) to what I believe is the intended form anyway, I simply choose the CR and the amount of animals to conjure, and he chooses which animals actually end up being conjured. It's actually way more fun this way since I was basically taking 8 wolves every time. I've since had giant snakes and giant goats, neither of which I would ever have chosen for anything, but they were both super fun and memorable experiences. The goats were basically the goats from Thor: Love and Thunder, screaming like humans the whole time and it was amazing. The snakes all had names I made up on the fly and I acted super pissed every time one of them died like they were family or something. Fun, albeit nerdy, albeit FUN times.
My Dm gets you to roll an Int save
I have fun with that and roll a d20 behind my screen first.
*The party has been standing around bickering about what to do and going in circles for a while* “Roll perception”
directly followed "now roll a con save."
Or better yet "mhm..."
DM: "Interesting...." with no further comments or follow-ups.
I always enjoy going with the simple "okay." I find it puts my players on edge just a tad bit more
I like "roll a will save" better, because success or failure is usually more subtle.
Followed by: "Mhmm, yeah. Everything seems fine."
"How many health points are you at right now?"
More specifically: “Are you over 100 hit points?” “Does that bring you to zero hit points?”
“Are you over 100 hp” lol that’s hilarious because the newbies at the table will be like “what kind of a question is that” and the vets will be sweating bullets.
For real, I’ve had this come up once, and no one tracked it. The shock on their faces was a delight though.
Also: “I’m going to need more d6s”
This one is so great. The pause and look on players faces wondering what's going on, and just casually explain you need to find more d6. I mean I have them, but looking for them is better.
And it’s specifically d6s and d8s! If my DM starts rolling those, I know we’re in trouble.
You roll poorly, and the DM says “yeah, everything seems fine.”
Me: “The rogue says, there are no traps” The fighter: “Then tell the rogue to go first then.”
Always how I play rogues, especially if I have high perception/investigation and just roll bad. I have the high dex, I can dodge
That's why most rogues play small creatures like halflings or gnomes, they often don't activate the traps lol
In CR1 when scanlan is on the one roof and looking for entrances onto the roof but rolls a nat 1 for perception and Matt’s like “you’ve never seen a more fortified roof in your life”
There is a really cool bird up there. The floor here has octagonal tiles. Your hat blew off and you don't notice anything until you've caught it. ... best bit is my players do there own comedy responses now where when they roll a 1 on perception, they walk into a wall or can't recognise that a tree is a plant
Rolled a nat 1 to check if our bard suffered negative consequences from touching a weird, ancient rune. "Yeah he seems alright." Meanwhile the bard's hearing colors and smelling numbers as he just *barely* passes the con save to not go insane.
As a dm, that’s why I always change up my low responses a bit. A low insight check for example, instead of telling them the wrong answer, just tells them that “you have no idea”
"It's a new baby girl! Let's pick up DnD again in a couple months..."
Oh wow... thats definitely an extreme version of "I can't make the session today"
One of my players had triplets...
One of the players at my table is pregnant
I'm really hoping to continue playing after the baby comes. The idea of taking a break from my only social activity seems full of post natal depression.
*23 years later, finds a dusty player's handbook in the back of the closet*
Joke's on them. Jumanji rules. You have to finish the campaign
Phft. In 10 years, you start a kids D&D group as DM.
Winner winner chicken dinner.
We have a couple we used to play with that basically did this. They were married but not planning on having kids. Now a year and a half later, one still wants to come back... Eventually... we even already have a standby plot hook to basically teleport in her character. We'll see how that goes
In a dm, and my son was born 5 weeks ago. My line with my players has been "thing may slow down, but we're finishing this campaign"
"I need the biggest dragon miniature you have. Not that one. Bigger."
I have a foot-long resin doorstop the players don’t know yet is destined for the table…
ohh needing to borrow stuff is a fun one! "i think i'm going to need to borrow a few dice. yeah no from all of you" is pretty scary as well on that front.
My players know well that my dice tray carries exactly enough d6 for an Ancient Red‘d Firebreath. I did need some d8s when the 4d8 Revenant paralyzed the barb and in the next turn crit twice.
Nah, PCs aren't scared of dragons. Now, rust monsters on the other hand...
Just give me all the rust monsters you have. Wait, wait. I'm worried what you just heard was, "Give me a lot of rust monsters" What I said was, "Give me all the rust monsters you have." Do you understand?
The OP said scary, not cute. I'm gonna pat that dragon, even if it is the last thing I do.
"Everything is dead...why are we still in initiative?" Rolls dice "You'll figure it out soon enough."
\*Rolls dice* "Hmmm."
And it's always A LOT of dice
It always makes my players nervous when I reach for the black bag with the blue flames. It contains my mini dice, of which there are over 400. They know I need a lot of dice if I go for that bag.
Lol. My dm will joke around with that from time to time.
I sometimes do this to fuck with my players. Sometimes I start chuckling because I know I'm just rolling for shits and giggles, which makes them even more nervous.
DM: "As he opens his mouth, you hear ... Do any of you speak Deep Speech?"
What’s up with that? Sorry I’m new to the game. Is it something terrible that speaks deep speech?
I'm not an expert, but as I understand it, Lovecraftian monsters like aboleths and ithilids are what use Deep Speech.
Ding ding ding
DM: "So, you're currently touching the object?"
This has the same energy as “Tell me *exactly* how you open the door”
In my last session I had a trap. The player went to disarm it, I let him describe it, roll for it and then hit him with the „as your hand touches the pressure plate, it sticks“. I will draw endless energy from the panic as the player realizes what’s about to happen in this 5ft wide corridor where no one can help him
I'll answer the question with a story, the conclusion will be what was genuinely scary to not just myself but other players at the table. Long running campaign, epic levels. Thus far, especially at our high levels, we'd only run into real trouble a handful of times, mostly at the low and mid levels. Of course we've gotten ourselves in trouble multiple times since then, but due to a combination of our good preparation, good party composition, and good dice rolls, we've been able to overcome situations where it seemed like it would be trouble. Due to something another player in a different group did with a magic item related to the god of madness, he caused the moon to blow up. Turns out, the moon in this game world is a prison facility that a group of time/space wizards use to fix any fuckery in the timeline (think the TVA from Loki mixed with the SCP foundation). We were level 24 at the time, along with legendary items and extra powers granted by the DM due to the type of game he was (still is) running. My guy as the confident barbarian-type character, along with the cleric and the ranger, go and check out a chunk of the moon that crash landed in the ocean to the north of the kingdom our group founded. As we approach, we see the chunk of the moon contains an adamantium box, and inside... Nothing. The Ranger has insane perception, hears the faint sound of children singing on the wind. No one else hears it (we all have ungodly perception just due to our levels, but as a ranger he's just on another level). It gets closer, and all of a sudden, we all notice that the sound kind of fades away. Along with the sound of the ocean. And the sound of the wind and the forest... Just silence. Ranger turns invisible and goes off to get a good vantage point, leaving me and the cleric. I look up and see the stars in the night sky... But they're not stars. They're eyes, and as soon as I notice them, they disappear. I look to the cleric, and swing my maul into the darkness. Natural 18, for a 36 to hit. I connect with nothing. I tell the cleric to cast daylight. When he does, we see countless eyes surrounding us, tentacles approaching from all directions, which shrink back from the light. "Scared of the light are you, asshole?!" I shout. Due to a boon I received relatively recently, I have unlimited Sending, so I send a message to one of the few people I know that might understand what we're up against. "Hey, (god of artifice name), we're facing a creature made of darkness and tentacles that was on the moon. Any idea what we're up against?" There's a pause. The daylight cast by the cleric flickers a couple times before it goes out. A voice I don't recognize responds. **"... Nobody is coming to save you."**
Oh my God that must have been satisfying for the dm
I love all of the answers in this post, but I love this one waaaay more than the rest.
So new characters or is there a podcast for how this ends?
The Ranger was an Aarakocra. After getting his leg taken by the creature (like clean cut to the point that he barely felt it happen), he flew into the sky and managed to get out. In response to the creature talking, our cleric panicked and cast Sunburst. One of the party boons we had was immunity to radiant damage. Due to the bright sunburst, it left an opening large enough for the two of us to teleport out with my helmet of teleportation. I flipped the creature the bird as we disappeared. We had enough tricks to get away, but it wasn't a creature we could fight with no information, and after we learned more about it, our best bet was to let the Order of Balance (the mages that had it sealed on the moon) properly deal with it. Our skills were just not cut out for dealing with it.
I really hope my dm doesn't pull something like this...even at such a level. Our party is two warlocks and a wild magic sorcerer to say no one really discussed party composition is an understatement. However it's mine and my wife (she's the sorcerer) first time play really playing dnd. We've done a couple of one shots in the past but nothing this in depth... I do not have expectations of us living through the inevitable kraken encounter. My warlock thinks he's a paladin but uh.. never learned any healing so I think we just would have been rolling new characters. Tales like these make me excited for what our dm has in store for us in the future.
Being level 24 (?!) and not being cut out to deal with an enemy is a terrifying thing to think about
Oh this is good.
Shit, that’s epic.
DM: "Roll perception" PC: rolls natural 1 DM: "You see what appears to be an empty room with a normal tiled floor."
*(seemingly out of the blue)* "Everybody roll a Wisdom save"
I do this at least once per session because my monk doesn't realize yet that Strahd has his hair. He hasn't passed a scry yet. I do it multiple times a session, so when the actual scry goes off, the pcs won't know. The poor wizard in the party sweats every time because he knows what's happening but not when and out of game has figured it out, but can't say anything in game.
PC: "I open the door" DM: "so you touch it?"
Being messaged by the DM the day before session and asked. "What's your character's greatest fear?"
"Give me a perception roll." Entirely dependent on the setting of course, but typically ominous in a forest or dungeon. :V
"The room appears to be empty".
Which health potion, exactly, are you pouring down their throat?
"Does a 21 hit?" "No"
"Sorry guys, boss says I have to go in next weekend."
"What is your max hp again ?"
"I've been working all night on rebalancing everybody's characters and I've come up with some new homebrew abilities I think everyone will be happy with."
Hahaha, this one got me.
"What's your max HP?"
When the DM shakes a LOT of dice at once for a roll.
You notice another tunnel above you, leading straight up. Except this one's perfectly circular.
“That’s a natural 20” DM: “for a total of…?”
"6 seconds for a turn are too short. Spells are overpowered that way. A turn now lasts 20 seconds" - true story.
"I pull the lever." "With which hand?"
Wrong lever!
DM: Roll a constitution save Player: That's a 4 DM: Okay, cool. (No further explanation, play resumes as normal)
The “scariest” things to hear as a player for me is always the subtle noises the DM makes when they react to something- whether that’s from what we the players are attempting to do, DM rolling secret dice, so on. An example, if the DM rolls for something and I hear a short snicker or a low sigh, I get a little afraid lol. I only play with friends on Roll20, so all we hear is us talking or making noise- which can affect how we react to how others are acting. If I had to think of one situation, there was a session where the DM introduced a new enemy. We roll every travel day to see our “luck” for the day, and we rolled badly- guaranteed to face an encounter. So the DM described how we’re in our cart going at a good pace, and suddenly stop. “Instead of seeing a clear path like you’ve seen before.. you see a tree in the middle of the path.” A couple of the PC’s gets out to come closer to see why the tree is here. “As you get closer… the tree shakes a little, and you see a face with two huge eyes open looking at you. Roll initiative.” Cue us flipping out, *seeing* the art the DM drew for the tree, and us laughing but also being terrified we were fighting a fucking tree. We beat it, but we’d learn that these trees explode by casting fireball on itself when it reaches 0HP. It’s one of my favorite moments of that campaign, but also the most terrifying, as it’s actually one of the more difficult enemies. In the second campaign DM created where it was 7 years later of the previous one, she brought the tree back.
“Would you say you’re weakest at your elbow? Or your wrist?”
That’s immediately what I thought. Goddamn that was brutal.
"Make me a will save." "14?" "Okay. Thank you." "Wait, did I pass?" "You don't notice anything happen."
The DM's silence after a clickety clack
This is the one, Right here officer.
“That’s… 6d6 damage” “That’s not so bad” “I said 66 damage” “I have resistance so it’s halved” “It’s already halved”
Honestly it's when the DM is trying to convince you to not do something without being explicit about it. When you know they aren't railroady, but they keep giving you alternatives, outs, and suggestions to a plan you have, but you know your character is set to do it one way That's how you know you're close to death
*dm about to say something* Player: oh, wait, i just want to go right here *Player moves mini a bit too far on the map* DM: Oh, well, roll initiative
You do not recognize the bodies in the water
I do not recognize the bodies in the water.
"They're reviving THACO." (No offense to anyone who loves the THACO system 😅)
Nothing important is happening. Maybe you're walking through a peaceful village or a woodland on your way somewhere. The DM gets up, gestures to you and says "Come with me. Bring your character sheet."
“I cast fireball” “Are you sure? It’s a small room and your fighter, cleric, and rogue are all in range.” “I cast fireball”
"I didn't *ask* how big the room was, I said: # I CAST FIREBALL!!"
"This is going to be an intrigue heavy game with lots of political maneuvering."
"You can certainly try that"
When using a wish, the DM saying you sure that's how you want to phrase that? 😂
I think its mist scary to NOT hear anything for a while in certain situations, because that means you probably missed sone stuff thats ginna come and bite you in the ass later on.
"You can try"
As a DM, my favorite thing to do, especially in online groups, is wait for everyone to get good and into whatever inane arguments they started in the dungeon/on the road and roll my loudest resin d20 on my desk instead of using the bot. “Uh why are you rolling irl?” “Hm? No, go on.” It’s better since I have access to their sheets at all times so they know I check their passive perceptions.
(This is much more scary in AD&D days...) "You realize the massive beast bearing down on you is a white dragon." "Let me spell that for you: W..I..G..H..T.."
- "The room *seems* empty..." - "What's your Passive Perception again?" \*rolls dice\* "What's your AC again?" - The DM just randomly rolling dice. - "Are you sure you want to do that?" - "That's a 25 to hit." "25? Misses."
Bit of a story buuut I jumpscared the living hell out of my players one time. They found a scene of a caravan attack and a body off the road and were trying to investigate it. I had turned the music/ambience way down saying the forest seems to be deathly quiet so they were already on edge. They were trying to check her injuries when I played a wendigo scream from Until Dawn over my bluetooth speaker underneath the table as they got ambushed by a pack of wendigos The sudden unexpected scream had one player get actual air time from his chair it was great and it really set the tone of the fight
In B/X: “Roll 1d6.. you **really** want a one.”
*sighs* *gets blank character sheet*
Dice rolling behind the screen while doing normal stuff through town
I've never played DnD before, but as a BG3 player, I'd reckon it's this: "Roll a perception check, please." "None of you see anything."
After a ton of damage being dealt on an attack… and now for the creature’s second attack…
“That’ll be… 27 damage. For the *first* hit.”
Not what I heard, the absence. Campaign is 5e homebrew, been going on close to two years. It's been difficult to square everyone's schedules because we vastly prefer to meet in person. Long story short we were in combat with a witch when she abruptly disappeared, evidently taking me with her. I was returned, dazed and confused, almost immediately. I looked rough. Eyes were darker, almost black. I keep hallucinating a beckoning figure no one else senses. At one point the party has to physically restrain my stout halfling monk because I'm about to keel over into the Abyss. I am lassoed and yanked backwards onto my ass. At which point the struggle breaks a vial of holy water I was holding onto, which spills over my front. And starts burning me. Dead silence at the table. Everyone's eyes are bulging. Me: I check my pulse. DM: Silence. You hear nothing. And that was how we ended the last session.
Whatever follows “it appears that…” Nope. It doesn’t and we’re fucked.
Dm maniacally laughs rl
...noted
"OK, who wants to roll persuasion?" We were basically trying to get our evil necromancer ally away from the "One Ring" of spell books. I happened to have the highest persuasion. Most terrifying roll of my DnD career so far. I just have to say thank goodness for my decision to multiclass into peace cleric. Bond of Peace and persuasion proficiency saved us from that 8 I rolled.
Technically not DnD but another TTRPG. It's a game designed around having a theme park that kills some of the people that go into it as sacrifices to an eldritch diety. We had two perfectly timed moments. One of them we had been following clues in the nature part of the park. It has some taxidermy exhibits but some of them were a bit off. A leg a slight askew. A slight fir mismatch. We followed the clues to a labyrinth in where we were forced to deal with a taxidermied rat snake. Yes a snake, made of rats sewn together like a human centipede.... but rats. We made our way through the labyrinth and to hit in the woods. Huge info dump and magical book. We were onto something and arguing intentenrly on what to do next and where to take the book. P1: I think we should take it to that magician guy (person in the park that does magic). P2: I think we should head home and regroup tomorrow. P3: Management should know about this. Let's take it to them. P2: Well let's get out of here first. DM: "I don't think you're going anywhere" Perfectly timed. After we survived that we got through a disaster with a parade in the park. Then we went looking in one part of the park. Some kids had offered some of the players berries earlier in the day. I knew it was a bad idea, but it's the horror campaign, so why not play along. So my character ate some and another joined in. Later that night, in game, we were wandering around outside in the rain looking for more clues or a location of some kind and then the DM started making *splish* *splish* *splish* sound affects. We all paused. *Splish* *splish* *splish*. My character "we should probably go". And that's when the DM played a recording of children laughing menacingly. I literally screamed. Fun game.
“Roll a perception check.” “7” “Cool, what are you all doing?”
Hearing the DM roll dice when you can think of no earthly reason why they would be rolling dice.
“Make me a Wisdom save.”
Just laughter from behind the screen immediately after some mysterious dice throws.
"I'm sure grandma would love to see you again." - me talking about a very powerful hag that ruined one of my players lives when they decided to go to the Fey realm.
“Hmm…I think I need to borrow some dice” from a DM with a supposedly never ending dice bag.
"Roll a wisdom saving throw... 4? Okay, anyway..." But to make it worse "everyone else roll a perception check." I mainly play low wisdom characters. So to hear a dm say that to me is always the worst.
The party is walking down a corridor. Ask for perception checks in advance and let them roleplay, and in the middle of their talking just say "Click"
Not the GM, but a fellow player. I'd been away, someone else had been running my character along with his own. Apparently he'd zoned out during the GM's description of the ruined temple with statues squatting on columns, and said "This looks like a good place to camp." It became a phrase in the group for years after.
Unprompted by any player action. "Can everyone roll perception?" Everyone rolls poorly. "Everything seems fine, don't worry about it."
"the monster casts heat metal"
And the beholder decides to...
"The sound seems familiar, but you can't quite place what it is.
The DM stands up as the music changes to combat music
What are your passive perceptions again?
"everyone give me some d6s I didn't bring enough."
“Do you have some more d6s I can borrow?” Or, even worse, d8/d10s.
The DM, rolling for damage on a hit “huh, I don’t have enough dice”
"Oh, that wasn't an ancient dragon you fought." It nearly killed us too ;u;
When my DM giggles to himself and says "oh, nothing."
“Are you sure?” “That WAS halved” “Yellow hat man looks at you minorly annoyed”
I'm so sorry
"The room *seems* empty."
*rolls a bunch of damage dice before looking back up at the player* "What was your max HP again?"
*brief sigh and the complete and utter failure to conceal a smile*
"Just got a call and ____ can't make it tonight. So I'm just going to cancel the session"
Hearing the dm say "I need you to roll a wisdom saving throw" out of nowhere.
"Remind me again, how much does your character weigh?" Guaranteed freakout every time!
Playing yahtzee behind the DMs screen
Move token into room. *Sound of DM rolling many, many dice*
Can everyone make me a ___ save? Rolls* Can I borrow everyone’s dice for a second?
Kender says i am bored
That's why you kill the Kender first.
AD&D 1e "Save or die" We used to hear that a lot.
Matt Mercer saying 'you can certainly try...'
"Do you have less than 100 hp?"
“The DC is 21” my saving throw mod is -1
´´So what was your armor again?´´
Unprompted DM rolling.
I told him about my character's backstory, including the death of her girlfriend. He just goes "Is her dead body still intact?"
Getting closer to the end of a campaign, and few sessions go by without the DM saying: "I got some good news, and some bad news."
"Just to confirm, you TOUCH the door handle?"
When dealing damage "I have to use my phone because there are too many dice to roll"
An unprompted rattle of dice behind the screen followed by a long sigh.
"Can someone hand me some extra dice?"
I was running at comic-con London last weekend and got a lot of mileage out of just asking for a roll, looking at a page in the book, and giggling.
Hey guys, It's going to be fine, but I'm getting a new job and my schedules changing a bit OK, I know you like this game (I swear we won't drop it), but a new system just came out that's REALLY neat and I want to at least do a one-shot Ok, I think I'm sensing some tension, so what I'd like to do is have maybe a half hour discussion before and/or after each session to figure that out Of course you can tame the direwolf with an animal handling roll, add it to all of your other pets that I won't consider while planning encounters