101 fun things to do to your players on April Fools! [Archive] - Wizards Community

101 fun things to do to your players on April Fools! [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
kntshade
03-22-05, 12:52 PM Well looks like my next session will be on April Fools day. What kind of tricks could I pull on my players? Have any of you pulled any in the past?

I want something memorable. And really I don’t even have any ideas of where to start.

So someone help me out here, lets get another list going!
psionichamster
03-22-05, 01:08 PM go to AAA...get unrestricted movie tickets to see "sin city"

when they get there, hand out a ticket to each person, then say, "showtime's in xyz amount of time, let's roll!"

if you want to keep it DnD related, have em get to the theatre in character, with you playing "devil's advocate" (ie, countering their IC play with NPC chars...)

ok, i admit, i just wanna see it

namaste,
the hamster
sandgriffin
03-22-05, 01:37 PM use loaded dice or put glue on thier chair, or even better...

this is a bit extream but who knows, it might be good for a laugh, dress up in a costume of some DnD critter before the game starts and jump at one of your players from a closet, like a barbarian with an ax or somthing, not the best idea, but hey its somthing
JKnight
03-22-05, 01:55 PM Question: are you looking to do this to them "in game", or "out of game"?

That little tiddy bit of info would help to focus some ideas.

JK
kntshade
03-22-05, 02:09 PM Okay, yeah, I should have clarified. This is stuff I was looking to do in game.

Here are some ideas I've heard about in the past:

1. Pass your character sheet one person to the left, you are still your character, but your mind just got switched into someone elses body, and you have their powers and abilities.

2. Have something really horrible happen to everyone, that eventually results in a TPK. Have it all be a dream. (Run before you are lynched after this is discovered).
PenderGrass
03-22-05, 02:14 PM If you are like my group, you spend a lot of time sifting through game-related, and not-so-game-related emails. 'Ware to the person that is so unfortunate that he does not check his email once a day at the minimum, for the monster of emails grows and grows - sometimes with the sole purpose of filling the unfortunate basta*d's email box with nothing more than SPAM!

Once, I had a low level group of PCs be chased by an unseen monster, smashing trees down, so frightfully presented that not one of them wanted to see it - they ran! and ran! and ran!

Eventually it caught up to them.

It was a giant rampaging can of SPAM!

I laughed so damn hard.

:dragon:

****
Alynn
03-22-05, 03:18 PM TPK, then have them wake up from the dream all JR didn't die style

(Knotts Landing, if you didn't get the reference, they killed off a popular character, it went a few episodes, then when they realized their mistake they brought him back by making the whole thing a "dream sequence")
Ekranoplan
03-22-05, 03:41 PM Okay, yeah, I should have clarified. This is stuff I was looking to do in game.

Here are some ideas I've heard about in the past:

1. Pass your character sheet one person to the left, you are still your character, but your mind just got switched into someone elses body, and you have their powers and abilities.

2. Have something really horrible happen to everyone, that eventually results in a TPK. Have it all be a dream. (Run before you are lynched after this is discovered).

HAHA, that one with switching the character sheet is most triumphant.

Every time a caster casts a spell, or someone drinks a potion, roll up a random magical effect from the Net Libram of Random Magical Effects. There is a link to it in my signature. The ensueing ruckus will engulf all within a 10 light year radius.

Excelsior!
MortalPlague
03-22-05, 04:18 PM I once kicked off an adventure by having everyone pass their character sheets to the left.

It didn't work though. The players complained, so I let them have their characters back. :P
Lord Dracos
03-22-05, 07:34 PM Have any of you seen that {b} great{/b] episode of the Twilight Zone? The one about the bridge. A man from Northern US, right near the border, is caught spying and the episode begins with him about to be hung from a bridge. He breaks free and swims, runs, and evades bullets and finally gets across the border. A second before he jumps into his wifes arms, he opens his eyes, finds himself on the bridge still, and is hung.

Just thought it might be inspiration.

:evillaugh
PlutoniumKnight
03-22-05, 10:26 PM Once one of my friends was DMing and i was playing a paranoid rogue. He knew french and a (whatever dinner was in french) appeared in my room. I spent 5 minutes being catious before i ate it, it thought it was some odd monster sleeping.
Gnome_Dragon_Disciple
03-23-05, 12:18 AM Have any of you seen that {b} great{/b] episode of the Twilight Zone? The one about the bridge. A man from Northern US, right near the border, is caught spying and the episode begins with him about to be hung from a bridge. He breaks free and swims, runs, and evades bullets and finally gets across the border. A second before he jumps into his wifes arms, he opens his eyes, finds himself on the bridge still, and is hung.

Just thought it might be inspiration.

:evillaugh

I don't think that's an episode of The Twilight Zone. I watched that in English 301 in high school, and it bore no trappings of The Twilight Zone... no trademark themesong, creepy narraration, or closing morals sound bite... Although it WAS based off of a short story, much like a lot of what's shown on The Twilight Zone.
bastetie
03-23-05, 12:29 AM Actually I hate to be picky, I really do.
It was not JR that they killed, but his brother Bobby, played by Patrick Duffy. After the ratings dropped so much, the whole season he was dead, they brought him back for the first episode of the next season, with his wife walking into him showering and saying "I just had the worst dream"

And I'm only 26 so I wasn't alive the first time it aired :)
Raven's Aprentice
03-23-05, 12:53 AM I am thinking Monty Pithon Parodies (even though I have never seen the movies myself everybody knows the one person who talks of nothing else)

killing the party by a rabit or equally cute and harmless (normally harmless) animal hamsters, small dogs, are all good ideas

party runs into apparently human warrior who doesn't stop fighting even though said warrior has already lost all his limbs.

other slightly more oliginal ideas might be death by pop music or pop musicans (brittney spears, Christian Agulara and Kylie Minogue all come to mind as well as Lindsay Lohan Hillary Duff and Ashley Simpson) think like "omfg that music is soooo horible my ears are bleading" save or die with an imposibly high DC (no offense is ment to mentioned musicans to be honest I listen to/like at least one song from each of them and of course you could use other musicans)

you could trick the male players into sleeping with evil or diseased females see above with the pop stars for even more ideas with this hehehe.

you could have the party transported into the real world (or some varation of) where their characters must master some game in order to survie think Yugioh for story ideas but the game could of course be different "you must learn to play the great Dance Dance Revolution or we will kill you all"
cambric
03-23-05, 09:38 AM Actually I hate to be picky, I really do.
It was not JR that they killed, but his brother Bobby, played by Patrick Duffy. After the ratings dropped so much, the whole season he was dead, they brought him back for the first episode of the next season, with his wife walking into him showering and saying "I just had the worst dream"

And I'm only 26 so I wasn't alive the first time it aired :)

You're not being picky...It was "Dallas"...and I WAS alive when it aired. :pbbbtt: (And I remember how CHEATED we felt...a WHOLE FREAK'N SEASON GONE!) :ghosted:

Actually, I'm planning on my session that way...it's on April Fools day!! YES!! :evillaugh

I've "teased" them for weeks now that they are going to face a black dragon, one of the players has the miniature and made a comment that he would love to see it used... :plotting: SO: I'm going to start them off where we last ended, then a HUGE BLACK DRAGON will descend upon them...after a TPK...I will then tell them APRIL FOOLS!! :rofl:

Now, they will be facing the dragon, but not for several levels...so, when it next appears, I'm sure they'll look at me oddly, wondering if it is real...and I'll just say, "This is NOT April 1st boys and girls...roll for initative". :dancin:

Cam
Infusco von Kempelen
03-23-05, 10:05 AM A good time to start the Parody Campaign, in the style of the Order of the Stick and Munchkin. The better you Metagame, the higher the rewards, and good jokes give XP bonusses. Can't wait for the players to run into the druid and his water elemental, Fluid.
psionichamster
03-23-05, 11:49 AM the aforementioned "stream of consciousness" shortstory/movie was called "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"

it was written well before the Twilight Zone, and was one of the earliest "stream of consciousness" pieces written and published

/english lecture

just thought that should get out there...it's worth watching! :D

you could always throw "dawn of the dead" at them for 4-1...waves after waves after waves of zombies, if they slow down/get caught, they're dead...if they keep moving, stay light, and only fight to clear a path through the house/city/morgue/cemetary/whatever other creepy place you can think up...they'll make it

if they don't make it, make sure its a TPK, at the end of the night, say "APRIL'S FOOLS" and let them know their characters aren't zombie chow...if they somehow make it through, Resident Evil style, give em a chainsaw/flamethrower/shotgun style magic weapon, the title "Undead Asskicker" and perhaps think about a "favored enemy: zombie"

of course, the point is for them NOT to survive, but it's always possible

namaste,
the hamster
snowlynx
03-23-05, 12:16 PM This has given me an idea for a plot I can actually use- one of the characters is a con artist. I think I might set them up for a scam themselves- some great sword held by a vampire or something in some nearby tomb, except that the sword is either cursed or just a regular sword, and there is no vampire- just a group of adventurers playing brigand and tryng to set up the group to make some quick cash. hrm....
Callista
03-23-05, 01:09 PM Illusionists. Especially gnomish ones.

I did this to my players...

Have the NPC illusionist (whom the PCs haven't met, who simply wants to prank them) create an elaborate illusion of a red dragon (or other such stereotypically horriffic creature) rampaging about, coming STRAIGHT FOR THE PCs!

Naturally, when it "breathes fire" (and you say, "Hmm... I'm gonna need more dice"), and the PCs are about to wet themselves, they feel... absolutely nothing.

And the gnome comes out of hiding, laughing his head off.

Be sure to duck the storm of d20s coming towards you.
Abulafia
03-23-05, 01:20 PM Stick a one-shot adventure into your campaign whereby the players encounter some pranster-type NPC. Maybe there is a powerful magic item locked away in a classic Greyhawk-style castle, but inside everything is puzzle rooms, lame jokes, sprite-type monsters, and some sort of BBPG (Big Bad Prankster Guy). This way, you can do all of the silly stuff being bandied about here (illusions of dragons, whatever), AND your players get the pleasure of killing an annoying prankster.

Everybody wins.
ShadowDragon8685
03-23-05, 01:39 PM Work out the D20 D&D stats for their favorite anime/cartoon characters. Give 'em all the character sheets, and tell 'em to have a ball. Works best with bright characters from pretty much any light-hearted Anime with Megumi voicing.
DorsetDas
03-23-05, 03:00 PM We did a good one to a player in our star wars adventure actually it was a living force and we were ahead of ourselevs. Our mate went to t he loo and when he came back we went on a repulsor lift over a river. The power cut out we plumitted to the river. He stayed in and managed to get it working etc... We on the other hand were flondering in the water and my soldier had sunk. My swimming saves and meant i was dying. Martin we are dying! The jedi was afloat ish but couldn't get out, our swimming gungan, who should die was. And Martin was buggered! We all screaming for help, each of us at him. He could not think what to do. Eventually he went to help the jedi. He had to do a strength check to pull him out. He got high but not as high as he thought. The DM says you could use a lightside point or if he wanted a lot more help and use a darkside point and get even more help. After failing to save us using his force point light he went and did use a dark side and failed. I was told I died and then so was the gungan, then he tried in vain to save the jedi who was suffering from the cold in the water and weighted robes he slowly was fading away. Another dark side point was no help and he to faded away.
Our mate looked upset said sorry to everyone we looked unhappy and I said. "Thats what would have happened if I hadn't made my skill check to find the trap on the lift! but I did so got you!!!!"
He was not happy! but it funny so maybe get some of your party invovled in a trick on the rest. They can ham it up lots!!!!

Good luck!
MasterRookie
03-23-05, 03:40 PM 4 ish. DM: your character is struck by lightning
Player: I want a saving throw
DM: okay
Player: ha I survived
DM: a you get struck by lightning again
Player: WHAT!
DM: APRIL FOOLS, you get hit by a meteor instead

5 ish. Cast Ghost sound so the most sophisticated party member sounds like he's farting

6 ish. Create some manner of illusionary clothing and switch it with the one a hot princess is about to put on for a big royal occasion.

7 ish. tap someone very far away on the oposite sholder with a ten foot pole.

8 ish. cast programed image of some insult or measage about a person that follows the person around with an arrow pointing to them.
Moron> :mad:
:mad: <he's a bad lay
Weasle> :mad:

9 ish. put explosive runes in a wizard's spell book

10 ish. Cast invisibility on everything in the kings treasure trove.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
kntshade 03-22-05, 12:52 PM	Well looks like my next session will be on April Fools day. What kind of tricks could I pull on my players? Have any of you pulled any in the past? I want something memorable. And really I don’t even have any ideas of where to start. So someone help me out here, lets get another list going!
psionichamster 03-22-05, 01:08 PM	go to AAA...get unrestricted movie tickets to see "sin city" when they get there, hand out a ticket to each person, then say, "showtime's in xyz amount of time, let's roll!" if you want to keep it DnD related, have em get to the theatre in character, with you playing "devil's advocate" (ie, countering their IC play with NPC chars...) ok, i admit, i just wanna see it namaste, the hamster
sandgriffin 03-22-05, 01:37 PM	use loaded dice or put glue on thier chair, or even better... this is a bit extream but who knows, it might be good for a laugh, dress up in a costume of some DnD critter before the game starts and jump at one of your players from a closet, like a barbarian with an ax or somthing, not the best idea, but hey its somthing
JKnight 03-22-05, 01:55 PM	Question: are you looking to do this to them "in game", or "out of game"? That little tiddy bit of info would help to focus some ideas. JK
kntshade 03-22-05, 02:09 PM	Okay, yeah, I should have clarified. This is stuff I was looking to do in game. Here are some ideas I've heard about in the past: 1. Pass your character sheet one person to the left, you are still your character, but your mind just got switched into someone elses body, and you have their powers and abilities. 2. Have something really horrible happen to everyone, that eventually results in a TPK. Have it all be a dream. (Run before you are lynched after this is discovered).
PenderGrass 03-22-05, 02:14 PM	If you are like my group, you spend a lot of time sifting through game-related, and not-so-game-related emails. 'Ware to the person that is so unfortunate that he does not check his email once a day at the minimum, for the monster of emails grows and grows - sometimes with the sole purpose of filling the unfortunate bastad's email box with nothing more than SPAM! Once, I had a low level group of PCs be chased by an unseen monster, smashing trees down, so frightfully presented that not one of them wanted to see it - they ran! and ran! and ran! Eventually it caught up to them. It was a giant rampaging can of SPAM! I laughed so damn hard. :dragon: ***
Alynn 03-22-05, 03:18 PM	TPK, then have them wake up from the dream all JR didn't die style (Knotts Landing, if you didn't get the reference, they killed off a popular character, it went a few episodes, then when they realized their mistake they brought him back by making the whole thing a "dream sequence")
Ekranoplan 03-22-05, 03:41 PM	Okay, yeah, I should have clarified. This is stuff I was looking to do in game. Here are some ideas I've heard about in the past: 1. Pass your character sheet one person to the left, you are still your character, but your mind just got switched into someone elses body, and you have their powers and abilities. 2. Have something really horrible happen to everyone, that eventually results in a TPK. Have it all be a dream. (Run before you are lynched after this is discovered). HAHA, that one with switching the character sheet is most triumphant. Every time a caster casts a spell, or someone drinks a potion, roll up a random magical effect from the Net Libram of Random Magical Effects. There is a link to it in my signature. The ensueing ruckus will engulf all within a 10 light year radius. Excelsior!
MortalPlague 03-22-05, 04:18 PM	I once kicked off an adventure by having everyone pass their character sheets to the left. It didn't work though. The players complained, so I let them have their characters back. :P
Lord Dracos 03-22-05, 07:34 PM	Have any of you seen that {b} great{/b] episode of the Twilight Zone? The one about the bridge. A man from Northern US, right near the border, is caught spying and the episode begins with him about to be hung from a bridge. He breaks free and swims, runs, and evades bullets and finally gets across the border. A second before he jumps into his wifes arms, he opens his eyes, finds himself on the bridge still, and is hung. Just thought it might be inspiration. :evillaugh
PlutoniumKnight 03-22-05, 10:26 PM	Once one of my friends was DMing and i was playing a paranoid rogue. He knew french and a (whatever dinner was in french) appeared in my room. I spent 5 minutes being catious before i ate it, it thought it was some odd monster sleeping.
Gnome_Dragon_Disciple 03-23-05, 12:18 AM	Have any of you seen that {b} great{/b] episode of the Twilight Zone? The one about the bridge. A man from Northern US, right near the border, is caught spying and the episode begins with him about to be hung from a bridge. He breaks free and swims, runs, and evades bullets and finally gets across the border. A second before he jumps into his wifes arms, he opens his eyes, finds himself on the bridge still, and is hung. Just thought it might be inspiration. :evillaugh I don't think that's an episode of The Twilight Zone. I watched that in English 301 in high school, and it bore no trappings of The Twilight Zone... no trademark themesong, creepy narraration, or closing morals sound bite... Although it WAS based off of a short story, much like a lot of what's shown on The Twilight Zone.
bastetie 03-23-05, 12:29 AM	Actually I hate to be picky, I really do. It was not JR that they killed, but his brother Bobby, played by Patrick Duffy. After the ratings dropped so much, the whole season he was dead, they brought him back for the first episode of the next season, with his wife walking into him showering and saying "I just had the worst dream" And I'm only 26 so I wasn't alive the first time it aired :)
Raven's Aprentice 03-23-05, 12:53 AM	I am thinking Monty Pithon Parodies (even though I have never seen the movies myself everybody knows the one person who talks of nothing else) killing the party by a rabit or equally cute and harmless (normally harmless) animal hamsters, small dogs, are all good ideas party runs into apparently human warrior who doesn't stop fighting even though said warrior has already lost all his limbs. other slightly more oliginal ideas might be death by pop music or pop musicans (brittney spears, Christian Agulara and Kylie Minogue all come to mind as well as Lindsay Lohan Hillary Duff and Ashley Simpson) think like "omfg that music is soooo horible my ears are bleading" save or die with an imposibly high DC (no offense is ment to mentioned musicans to be honest I listen to/like at least one song from each of them and of course you could use other musicans) you could trick the male players into sleeping with evil or diseased females see above with the pop stars for even more ideas with this hehehe. you could have the party transported into the real world (or some varation of) where their characters must master some game in order to survie think Yugioh for story ideas but the game could of course be different "you must learn to play the great Dance Dance Revolution or we will kill you all"
cambric 03-23-05, 09:38 AM	Actually I hate to be picky, I really do. It was not JR that they killed, but his brother Bobby, played by Patrick Duffy. After the ratings dropped so much, the whole season he was dead, they brought him back for the first episode of the next season, with his wife walking into him showering and saying "I just had the worst dream" And I'm only 26 so I wasn't alive the first time it aired :) You're not being picky...It was "Dallas"...and I WAS alive when it aired. :pbbbtt: (And I remember how CHEATED we felt...a WHOLE FREAK'N SEASON GONE!) :ghosted: Actually, I'm planning on my session that way...it's on April Fools day!! YES!! :evillaugh I've "teased" them for weeks now that they are going to face a black dragon, one of the players has the miniature and made a comment that he would love to see it used... :plotting: SO: I'm going to start them off where we last ended, then a HUGE BLACK DRAGON will descend upon them...after a TPK...I will then tell them APRIL FOOLS!! :rofl: Now, they will be facing the dragon, but not for several levels...so, when it next appears, I'm sure they'll look at me oddly, wondering if it is real...and I'll just say, "This is NOT April 1st boys and girls...roll for initative". :dancin: Cam
Infusco von Kempelen 03-23-05, 10:05 AM	A good time to start the Parody Campaign, in the style of the Order of the Stick and Munchkin. The better you Metagame, the higher the rewards, and good jokes give XP bonusses. Can't wait for the players to run into the druid and his water elemental, Fluid.
psionichamster 03-23-05, 11:49 AM	the aforementioned "stream of consciousness" shortstory/movie was called "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" it was written well before the Twilight Zone, and was one of the earliest "stream of consciousness" pieces written and published /english lecture just thought that should get out there...it's worth watching! :D you could always throw "dawn of the dead" at them for 4-1...waves after waves after waves of zombies, if they slow down/get caught, they're dead...if they keep moving, stay light, and only fight to clear a path through the house/city/morgue/cemetary/whatever other creepy place you can think up...they'll make it if they don't make it, make sure its a TPK, at the end of the night, say "APRIL'S FOOLS" and let them know their characters aren't zombie chow...if they somehow make it through, Resident Evil style, give em a chainsaw/flamethrower/shotgun style magic weapon, the title "Undead Asskicker" and perhaps think about a "favored enemy: zombie" of course, the point is for them NOT to survive, but it's always possible namaste, the hamster
snowlynx 03-23-05, 12:16 PM	This has given me an idea for a plot I can actually use- one of the characters is a con artist. I think I might set them up for a scam themselves- some great sword held by a vampire or something in some nearby tomb, except that the sword is either cursed or just a regular sword, and there is no vampire- just a group of adventurers playing brigand and tryng to set up the group to make some quick cash. hrm....
Callista 03-23-05, 01:09 PM	Illusionists. Especially gnomish ones. I did this to my players... Have the NPC illusionist (whom the PCs haven't met, who simply wants to prank them) create an elaborate illusion of a red dragon (or other such stereotypically horriffic creature) rampaging about, coming STRAIGHT FOR THE PCs! Naturally, when it "breathes fire" (and you say, "Hmm... I'm gonna need more dice"), and the PCs are about to wet themselves, they feel... absolutely nothing. And the gnome comes out of hiding, laughing his head off. Be sure to duck the storm of d20s coming towards you.
Abulafia 03-23-05, 01:20 PM	Stick a one-shot adventure into your campaign whereby the players encounter some pranster-type NPC. Maybe there is a powerful magic item locked away in a classic Greyhawk-style castle, but inside everything is puzzle rooms, lame jokes, sprite-type monsters, and some sort of BBPG (Big Bad Prankster Guy). This way, you can do all of the silly stuff being bandied about here (illusions of dragons, whatever), AND your players get the pleasure of killing an annoying prankster. Everybody wins.
ShadowDragon8685 03-23-05, 01:39 PM	Work out the D20 D&D stats for their favorite anime/cartoon characters. Give 'em all the character sheets, and tell 'em to have a ball. Works best with bright characters from pretty much any light-hearted Anime with Megumi voicing.
DorsetDas 03-23-05, 03:00 PM	We did a good one to a player in our star wars adventure actually it was a living force and we were ahead of ourselevs. Our mate went to t he loo and when he came back we went on a repulsor lift over a river. The power cut out we plumitted to the river. He stayed in and managed to get it working etc... We on the other hand were flondering in the water and my soldier had sunk. My swimming saves and meant i was dying. Martin we are dying! The jedi was afloat ish but couldn't get out, our swimming gungan, who should die was. And Martin was buggered! We all screaming for help, each of us at him. He could not think what to do. Eventually he went to help the jedi. He had to do a strength check to pull him out. He got high but not as high as he thought. The DM says you could use a lightside point or if he wanted a lot more help and use a darkside point and get even more help. After failing to save us using his force point light he went and did use a dark side and failed. I was told I died and then so was the gungan, then he tried in vain to save the jedi who was suffering from the cold in the water and weighted robes he slowly was fading away. Another dark side point was no help and he to faded away. Our mate looked upset said sorry to everyone we looked unhappy and I said. "Thats what would have happened if I hadn't made my skill check to find the trap on the lift! but I did so got you!!!!" He was not happy! but it funny so maybe get some of your party invovled in a trick on the rest. They can ham it up lots!!!! Good luck!
MasterRookie 03-23-05, 03:40 PM	4 ish. DM: your character is struck by lightning Player: I want a saving throw DM: okay Player: ha I survived DM: a you get struck by lightning again Player: WHAT! DM: APRIL FOOLS, you get hit by a meteor instead 5 ish. Cast Ghost sound so the most sophisticated party member sounds like he's farting 6 ish. Create some manner of illusionary clothing and switch it with the one a hot princess is about to put on for a big royal occasion. 7 ish. tap someone very far away on the oposite sholder with a ten foot pole. 8 ish. cast programed image of some insult or measage about a person that follows the person around with an arrow pointing to them. Moron> :mad: :mad: <he's a bad lay Weasle> :mad: 9 ish. put explosive runes in a wizard's spell book 10 ish. Cast invisibility on everything in the kings treasure trove.