Sayings that will FREAK OUT your Players as a Dungeon Master
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- čas přidán 1. 12. 2022
- What is the scariest thing YOUR Dungeon Master has ever said to you?
Edited by Notdeadspider ► / @notdeadspider
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#dnd #dungeonsanddragons #dungeonmaster - Zábava
Three words to frighten any player: "Are you sure?"
Immune already.😷
No, it works ONLY if you're NOT trying to frighten them. If you say it with the intent of frightening your players, they will look at you with their honest naive eyes and say "Of course!"
Well, you can certainly try?
@@andreifrolenkov513 true
@@andreifrolenkov513 "Are you sure" is something the DM has to say if *they* are afraid of what's going to happen.
My DM's favourite saying at the end of these discussions:
"It's ok, crying is a free action."
😂 damn!
Im gonna use that now
Nah, any good (read sadistic) GM knows it’s a bonus action.
My players actually gifted me a mug that has literally this quote printed on it. It's my favorite mug now.
@@dragonfreak546 I now know what to get my DM for Christmas. XD
Player: 'I open the door.'
DM: 'So, you touch it?'
Player: *sweats nervously* 'Uh, I mean, I step back 10 feet and cast mage hand to open the door with that.'
DM: 'Oh, okay. The door opens.'
Player: 'And?'
DM: 'And what?'
Player: 'Nothing happens? No trap, no ambush, no surprises?'
DM: 'No, nothing happens...'
Player: *visibly relaxes* 'Oh, okay good.'
DM: '... to the spectral mage hand.'
Player: *screams internally*
"So you touch it?
"So you walk into the room?"
"So you pick it up?"
"So you shake their hand?"
These are huge buzz questions that tell the player they just pushed a big red button lol.
I also "*sweat nervously*" when DM asks me this question. But I take a deep breath and proceed with normal door opening, if I hadn't planned to do it extra carefully before "warning".
"Yes, I touch it."
"Okay. Roll me a dex save, please."
"Shit. *Rolls* It's a 9 :( "
"Alright, so you walk into the room. What do you do next?"
"Wait, what happened?"
"You walked into the room."
"No, but I rolled a 9 on the dex save."
"I know."
"So what happened with that?"
"You don't need to know yet."
(Secretly, the save was unnecessary and nothing actually happened, but the player will be on high alert the entire rest of the dungeon.)
While it's slight metagaming, I do ask "So you open the door?" Mainly to see if they'll try peeking in or not. Usually though I'll just ask how they'll open it. It's good to do so anyway, as I feel like some of them might have died otherwise lol
LOLOLOLOL
Oh man, the "you can certainly try" gives my players the chills every time 🤣🤣
It is so perfectly condescending, like indulging a toddler that says they will become a princess.... Well, I imidietly have matt mercer in my ear
I've said that in a baffled tone far more tha any other tone.
Varies by party. A low-danger game where half the party are complete chaos monkeys will hope for comedy to ensue.
Nah when my dm says that, it is usually means we’re about to do something stupid that he didn’t plan for.
As a DM I try very hard *not* to say this. I think it is railroady. If it is possible I lay out how the attempt would work. If it is not - I feel the character would know and I thus tell the player. In the second scenario I prefer to say "yes if" or adjust the request to something that can otherwise be attempted.
You know the players are terrified if they are considering following the main quest.
When mine are annoying me I’ll just say “can I get a wisdom saving throw from everyone please?” And no matter what they say just pretend to make note of it and go “ok thanks” and just leave it at that
“What’s your passive perception?”
*literally any number*
“You don’t SEEM to notice anything.”
"Roll me a wisdom save"
*literally any number*
"Nothing appears to happen YET"
Or my personal favorite
"What's your passive stealth?"
*literally any number*
*rolls random d20*
"Okay at least THAT doesn't see you"
No. The DM just nods his head and doesn't say anything.
@@nyxislost553 Passive stealth? Either you're stealthing or your not. If you are then you roll. If you aren't, then everything around you is assumed to automatically know where you are.
@@hamsterfromabove8905 I believe that's incorrect, passive skills exist for every skill in 5e, but even if it isn't the case that's how I'd run things in my game unless the players are explicitly doing something that would draw a lot of attention or the enemies are actively looking for them. The rogue can easily get in close and listen to conversations without people noticing the weird guy inching closer, however the barbarian can't do that nearly as well because his footsteps are heavier and stand out more. I use passives for pretty much every skill, the wizard knows certain magical knowledge without needing to role because that's what he has a high arcana for, the bard, unless he says something outlandish or something the NPC might normally be against, has an easier time convincing people to do what they say
@@nyxislost553 The other examples you give are reasonable. Passive stealth makes no sense at all. How are you passively stealthing? Stealthing takes effort. Nobody is just naturally stealthy at all times without focusing on it. No matter how good you are at stealthing, if you aren't actively sneaking you'll be seen instantly.
That's like saying someone that's really good at high jumping has a passive jump effect that causes them to float 1 ft off the ground at all times.
“…so everyone brought spare character sheets tonight, right?”
“So you said you were the one in the front of the group?”
“You know your Invisibility Spell is only good for an hour, right?”
“Okay, since you didn’t check for traps…..”
“Hey, can I double check your character’s family’s names to make sure I spelled them right? Oh, I know they’re back home and not present, I just…..need to know for no reason…..”
“No, of course it’s totally okay you’re dating my ex now. Hah hah, totally okay…..what’s your AC again?”
That last one felt personal lol
Last one seemed a bit too specific and personal...
The family name thing... I just started a new campaign where we're only 2 sessions in, but I was talking about how it's the first time I've made a character with two loving, healthy, happy parents. The DM's response was, "Don't worry, I can fix that." Now I'm just waiting for the session where my guy gets bad news...
@@IceMetalPunk First mistake, having a perfectly healthy family for the DM to -kill- incorporate into the campaign
@@IceMetalPunk Bro... you can't tempt fate like that.
As soon as he said "how many dice do I need for this" I knew it was gonna be Yahtzee
I mean, it could have been Bunco too
@@clarehidalgo Nono, the Yahtzee gag is an old meme on this channel. Was even used in a very similar short to this one:
czcams.com/video/9yf9IN1DGyk/video.html
Yatzy*
@@MoonyFBM I just googled it, its spelled Yahtzee
The lovely part is when you, as a player, notice these things, but can't act on them without metagaming. You're pretty much restricted to wincing and thinking "This is going to hurt."
Who says ttrpgs can't have dramatic irony?
Enhancing dramatic irony is the best use for metagaming.
My DM didn’t particularly like me and set up a trap for my character that I could only escape by meta gaming. I ended up dying.
@@_somerandomguyontheinternet_ That sounds pretty toxic. I hope you find/found a better group.
I honnestly say it just to mess with my players even when nothing happens so they can't tell for sure even going as far as changing tone or making faces. Have to surprise them every once in a while right?
@@Grim_Bud considering that I can't help but evilly grin in combat (up until I crit or send someone into single digit HP) I need to start doing that. Thus they will stop judging my expression 😈
"So let me get this straight..." and "Do you think this is a good idea?" are two surefire ways to make my players nervous. "Are you sure?" only emboldens them
for mine it's "so you proceed with _this_ course of action?"
"Thats not gonna work."
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN ITS NOT GONNA WORK?!"
"I cast-"
"No."
"HOW THE F*CK DO I ARGUE WITH THAT?!"
The DM has learned in moments how to completely shut down his players during arguments
Even better he said "I cast the wish spell to..." before getting cut off with the No
I remember I had this one DM where if the characters try to bullshit their way out of a situation, (like make a deception check against a guard that already knows they're lying) he would have them roll the die and say it fails before it even lands on anything
Sometimes you just gotta put your foot down, I guess
@@spillersoda Best Possible outcome not desired outcome...is a good crux.
"I roll to intimidate the shopkeep in handing over his coin purse."
Rolls...
23
"the shop keep laughs, the guard laughs, the chest across the room laughs, heck even your friends laugh before he takes a deep inhale..."
'No, but good joke'
I love having them roll a check and then saying "YOU are confident you can do it"
ooh, THAT is evil!
Yes lol I had a DM that did that!!!
one of my DM's favorites was "as far as you know...."
"I cast the wish spell"
"No"
"HOW THE F*CK DO I ARGUE WITH THAT?!?"
I laughed way too hard on that 🤣🤣
Best line
Player: I want to see if anyone is following us. *rolls* 15?
DM: You don't see anyone following you.
Players: Oh my god! There must be assassins everywhere!
Every time. They get paranoid for no reason.
Kinda realistic tho, I mean if you're walking down the street at night you can never be *too* sure you aren't being followed by the mafia
For most DMs, a 15 is a success, and there is nothing to worry about. Though, I allsow depends on the situation as well since npcs an also roll higher than you too. My advice. Play a character who has a low wisdom score so that way you don't need to worry about it and just let the spellcasters worry about everything for you.
This is why I will sometimes roll the perception for the players - they should not be acting on the knowledge of the number of the roll, but instead if they actually perceived something or not. In reality if you look for something and don't see it, you assume it is not there. Not that you "rolled bad"
@@RogueAlchemist Not everyone assumes nothing is there. Though I would roleplay it, that there always is this paranoia, even on a natural 20 for a total of 32, the character feels like they are not looking hard enough.
Only played paranoid once for a One-Shot, was fun
" you can always try " always gave me goosebumps as a player....
But when i become DM....
When there's nothing obvious happening much in the game: "roll initiative"
I once made everyone roll initiave just to get their actions in an orderly fashion, and while there WERE enemies in the area and they knew about it, the enemies didn't know about them. So they spent like 3 turns waiting for an ambush that never came
@@juanabreu3619 Oh my god that's so mean, I bet they hate you as a dm now!🤣
@@WilliamRoberts255 after i notices that they were being overly cautious i dropped a hint as subtle as a sack of bricks that no one knew they were inside, everyone laughed and said they were scared for a moment, and we continued
My DM says "You can certainly try" on some of the most mundane stuff just so we don't know when it hits us"
"I hug my mother." "You can certainly try." "GODDAMMIT, IS SHE A SHAPESHIFTER?!"
@@IceMetalPunk FIREBALL
"Nothing happens yet" the last words the DM spoke before the Barbarian stepped into a room and then died thanks to a pressure plate we all failed to notice while observing the room from the outside :P
Ah yes, the Yahtzee Tournament. A legendary gathering
He set up the yahtzee joke, made me drop my guard for a second when I saw he was talking with his mom, and then he hit me with a Sneak Attack by making the joke anyway.
'You most certainly can try."
Is probably the most worrying thing that a DM can say. Too bad I'm bad at looking at ques to figure out if I should or shouldn't do something.
One of my favorite shirt is the Cheshire Cat's smile with D20 for eyes and the caption "The GM is smiling - Abort mission". Really perfect to wear when DMing ^^
I knew the Yahtzee joke was coming and I still laughed 😂
The second I heard something with “how many dice” I knew it was to do with Yahtzee.
I’ve taken inspiration and have also played Yahtzee while the players are discussing plans. Truly does wonders for their trust issues.
That's one reason I wish my group would be at a table and not just online. Can't really do these mean mindgames online, or at least not that nicely.
One of my favorite evil DM moves: party moves through a dark hallway. As they go through blindly, they hear a struggle, and muffled sounds of someone in the party getting hurt. When they leave, pass each party member a note that says "you are not the doppelganger." Watch paranoia ensue.
Also good in case you need to stall for time
Guys, I found Satan.
"I cast Wish!"
"no."
"How am I supposed to argue with that?!"
great interaction.
"I wish to argue with that!"
@@RoninXDarknight "No"
I’m actually gonna be DMing for the first time ever on Saturday. We’re doing a one shot with the Tal’Dorei Reborn sourcebook and I’m really excited. Got a good laugh out of this, thanks man. 😆
Good luck!
- "Are you sure?"
- "So you *do* touch it?"
- ( looks at his DM notes and makes an undefinable face - could be evil, sad, nervous or amused )
- "Err... hmm... yeah sure go for it"
- "You can try"
- ( sudden dice rolls... it's *a lot of dice* )
- "Hm yeah why don't you all give me a [insert scary attribute] saving throw?"
- "What's your AC again?"
- "What are your current hit points?", followed by "you are over 40 HP right?"
- "What's your passive perception? 12? Okay, please continue"
- Party fails a group stealth check: "Okay so you continue sneaking your way through, nobody seems to be alerted"
Keeping your players within an inch of TPK. Thats a job well done.
My favorite thing I have ever seen a DM do is to ask a random person to roll a d20 at the most random of times, write down the result, and do nothing with it until a few sessions later
I'm going to use that
I love asking, "So you touch the thing?" or "So you step into the doorway?" it makes my party go insane.
The yahtzee gag seriously never gets old~
There's another one that's gonna scare the pants off your party:
"I'm gonna need more dice for this"
"Don't worry about that" always get nervous glances from the party
I love DMing cause I've had moments like this on accident, specifically the "How many dice do I need for this". I had to help a new player make a character sheet and they didn't have enough d6 to roll stats. Players thought I was about to drop a storm giant on them or something
I swear the Yahtzee joke always pulls through on skits about scaring DnD players
I think we need a reverse of this. Phrases to scare the DM.
I ask for this random NPC’s name.
What does my character know about the structural weaknesses of this elven tower?
"I want to protect this npc with my life."
@@420StepsFromHell "How support beams did you say there were?"
Literally any time me (fighter), the rogue, and the sorcerer start the "wait what if we.." "bro yes, will that work here?" "I mean, there's only..." He knows whatever is about to happen is going to be dumb as hell and possibly a tpk
"I'm technically not meant to tell you this, but..." is a phrase that I use a lot. For some reason I've earned a reputation as a Master Manipulator among my group, and everyone's always terrified with what I'm going to spring on them. I have no idea how this started, as I'm not one for tricky combats.
"WE CAN'T LEAVE THAT IS RUDE!"
Were.. weren't you planning to kill the guards a second ago?
Look, if you're going to murder people, you should at least be polite about it! Honor!
Player: "I'll go across to the other side of the room."
DM: "Show me exactly what path you take."
Honestly, when he said "if that's your only option" I preemptively froze in terror. My DM has trained me well :')
A interaction in a Star Wars campaign I GMed one time
Player- I'm going to crawl through the vent. 18 on Stealth
Me- **rolls a hand full of dice**
Other players looking at each other- Thats not good
Me- What's everyones AC?
Players- **face in full panic mode**
"you can surely try" is my standard phrase whenever any player wants to try anything, it's fun seeing people stressed 5 times per game even though it's rarely a bad situation. In general it's just not the first thing I expected, but I have reset my standards to rarely suspect anything so that doesn't help them.
Brilliantly done. I love this. Not sure I’ll ever get to this threat level as a DM, but I can dream that one day I will. 🤣
"The room APPEARS to be empty."
Because you are not afraid of being alone in a dark room, you are afraid of NOT being alone in a dark room.
The GM who was momentarily distracted: "Could you repeat that plan to me?"
The players who just spent 15 minutes arguing about how to sneak into a building: *panic*
In 40+ years of being a DM, I don't know how many times I've had to tell a group, "Will you PLEASE stop reading things into what I am telling you."
"Do you touch it?"
"How close you do go?"
"You can certainly try~"
"It *seems* clear."
"You don't find any traps."
"Who's going in front?"
"Who's in the back?"
"What’s your passive perception?"
"What's your AC?"
Everytime the DM smiles or chuckles.
That's why I sometimes use a few phrases in completely safe situations, this way I throw off my players off and they don't know when I actually mean it.
my fav thing to do to scare my players is just randomly roll dice while their exploring, "why did he roll", "is there a trap", "who's gonna ambush us"
I was fully expecting him to be playing Yahtzee on his phone while waiting for his players to decide. I was so close!
Its kinda funny, my old DM would straight up tell us "You will die" before we tried something stupid and even that wasn't as effective at scaring us as "You can certainly try"
One of my favorite is, "huh... alright then. Sure, why not. Give me a... "
Usually results in some profanity and the rest of the party groaning.
Is this a coincidence that he uploaded this and I'm DMing tonight? Yes
Am I going to take this as a sign I should mess with my players? Also yes.
What I get my players with is, "you do what?!" Then smile like when they were fighting a diseased dinosaur and the bloodrager was like "I slash it with my Halberd then I take a bite out of it...."
When you are taking a long rest and the DM says "Everybody roll perception"
I find it hilarious as a dungeon master that this is his normal laugh: 1:10
*Starts silently rolling dice while maintaining eye contact with a player*
It's fun to troll good friends x3
"Put your characters where you want them. Now, which way are they facing again?"
Love that
And:
"There's a shadow overhead. It's getting bigger. Now, Ugarth starts to run away, which isn't something he normally does."
For context, Ugarth is my combat loving orc barbarian, and he is booking it. This encounter was terrifying and could've easily killed our cleric. It's even more terrifying when I know the DM very well, seeing as he is my father, and he is very willing to be evil about this random encounter :')
Another one:
"Well you don't *see* anything."
"...can I roll to hear something?"
"You don't *hear* anything..."
And my personal favorite:
"It appears to be a normal door"
That plot twist! I loved this video so much lol
One of my players sent me this saying 'I ain't saying this is you, but it is you.' I can't help but smile cause I absolutely am... as soon as you exclude the phonecall at the end c:
I’ve made two characters ive been having a lot of fun with dnd and it’s thanks to your videos I thank you and hope you continue to upload great videos
"You certainly can try" is basically a death rattle in my games now. Players learn very slowly sometimes lol
That last part - "Mom" and "Love you" Gave me goosebumps
😱😱
I love how these always end with, "Where'd everyone go?"
Also I'm writing these all down.
When the Gm says "Oh no" that's when you know something truly terrible has happened
I freaking called it, I knew he was on a call with someone.
This last session I updated the world map, and all I said is "I have a surprise for next session"
They shit themselves for 3 days
My fav line to my players is "don't worry about it" when I start building battle map during a roleplay scene
Same. Hahaha. They always freak out.
I think one of the scariest sessions I had was on Anima Beyond Fantasy, when I've critically failed a dice roll (with the max fail intensity since in Anima when you do a critical failure you need to throw the dice again to get the intensity, and I got a 99 on that one, so a REALLY BIG failure) and accidentaly freed a really powerful demon (an elementail iirc, very powerful being in that TTRPG).
The DM was completely dumbfounded (he wasn't expecting to have the demon freed, and even less at full power) by that and he had to ask his twin brother to *redo the demons stats* so that it wouldn't one shot everyone in the team directly while he was improvising the resurrection... The DM and his brother reactions while trying to punish us while not completely eradicating us was scary
It was fun and everyone hated me after that :D
Great video!!
Yesterday, at my game, I just kept saying, "Good choice!" whenever they made a choice. After a few times, they started thinking they were falling right into my trap. (It was actually because I hadn't quite finished the part of the adventure they weren't choosing.)
These flow so well that i sometimes forget it is all one person
When I tell you that I CACKLED at the power word kill joke...
Killer stuff!
I knew it was gonna be something like that. That was great!
"The ghost of the Handmaiden in Death House reaches out to you"
"I'll make a note."
"Several things happen at once."
Me: does a thing.
DM: “so, as you do that thing…
Me: sweating intensifies
@@OneShotQuips10 are you trying to spam/scam people? It looks like you just joined yesterday, have no followers, and you have no relation to OP.
that's right up there with "the door seems safe"
By now my players understand when I say "You can certainly try" or "Are you really sure?" means "DON'T DO IT IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!"
The thing that freaks me out the most is making a saving throw in the middle of nowhere. Or worse, in that exact situation but the DM asks what your AC is, instead of making a saving throw.
The most scary thing though is this: *rolls dice *
"I as a DM have no issues with that course of action, as I have the rules and the tools to manage it... I must remind you though, that actions have consequences" Is my favourite go-to to make players second guess themselves. Good old Telltale's "(name) will remember that".
I love the Psycho driving paranoia music during this. It’s perfect.
"You can certainly try" and "so you touch it?" are my favorite things to say to my players
"Ok, we're safe. We're good."
"I mean, for now, yeah..."
My entire DND group has a fight or flight response to the words "odds or evens" because at the end of our first campaign we had defeated the BBEG but then an ancient god started destroying the school the campaign was set in as revenge on one of our teachers and a bunch of people were dying and we were all asking about our favorite NPCs and our DM would roll a d4 and ask us to pick odds or evens to determine what happened to them. Most of them died. Along with two party members. That was a real fun session.
Okay that twist at the end got me
I mean I still kinda saw it coming but I still chuckled cuz my initial expectation was subverted
goddammit, I laugh at your videos so much that I laugh at the rythm of the outro every time xd
DM: *his just sitting there- menacingly!*
Players: ahhhh!! D8
A few sessions ago, in a game I’m in, we had to be stealthy, and this happened.
Bard: I play Sneaky Snitch on my lute.
DM: *_Are you sure?_*
Bard: NO!!!
This is my new favorite skit by far! XD
I think my favorite is "so this damage is already halved," because of that incredible anxiety you create in the players wondering how bad it will be if they fail.... oh and such failures.... god it gets the blood pumping
‘We can’t leave, that’s rude!’ 😂
1:17 I KNEW there was a Yatzee joke coming !
Great use of the Re-aninator theme!
I have a session tomorrow and I'll be using these
"So, to escape, you are going back downstairs?"
".... well no. Now I'm gonna go through the second story window."
“You can most certainly try” is one of my favorite lines to say as a DM
Any time my party tries to make an important decision I just hit ‘em with the “ are you sure about that”