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Originally Posted by jennaboo4u
That sort of stuff happens all the time with our group too. But, I think it's easier for a DM that's new to be over organized than under.
We turned a simple trap into an hour of strategizing and thought when it was meant to take 15 minutes. As players we tend to over think things sometimes. I sometimes think the DM is just out to get us so we have to REALLY think about things, when in reality, I should just roll with it at times.
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One of my favourites has always been to have a lure so obvious that it HAS to be a trap, everyone spends hours casting x-ray vision spells, using lock-picks, turning into a fog, smashing it with a club, making an NPC open it or whatever, only to find it's an empty box with no trap - then as they're walking down a flight of stairs, the wood splinters and they get their foot stuck in a hole just as a pissed off bear wakes up.
Or walk through a forest and have a storm whip up, branches fall all about the party, but it's NOT anything sinister.
I love setting people up and then not delivering - and then when they start to relax, drop a rock on them.
I used to get pissed off that the PLAYERS had all read the monster books, when the CHARACTERS we supposed to be barely educated farm boys, novice priests, or apprentice mages.
Picture the scene...
DM: You hear a noise that sounds a bit damp, and a vaguely human figure looms out of the darkness about 10' away. It's wearing rags, carrying a staff but no obvious weapons, and has half an octopus for a head.
PLAYER: It's a mind flayer - the correct way to fight it is to..... (waffle waffle)...
In "reality" what should have happened was:
DM: You hear a noise that sounds a bit damp, and a vaguely human figure looms out of the darkness about 10' away. It's wearing rags, carrying a staff but no obvious weapons, and has half an octopus for a head.
CHARACTER: Fuck - it's an octopus headed weirdo - I knew I should never have left the bloody farm - I'm shitting myself, but I'll ask what he wants - you never know it might be friendly...
So I used to chuck out all of the guidebooks, make up my own creatures - I crossed bugbears and orks to create bugborks, or sent the party into a nest of vampire caterpillars. My favourite was a sentient puddle that was woken up by the party and did nothing other than make mournful moaning noises, but it took ages for them to realise it was crap and useless...
The role play element (the players shouldn't use stuff that the characters don't know) is hard, and getting all militant ("make a fear save against the octopus headed creature") only slows things down.
No matter how many ors you've fought, a lion that's been tarred and feathered and then set on fire is scary and dangerous (this was done in one game I was a player in).
