What is the most unconventional hostile encounter you've designed?

false hydra is reddit

>>96102402
As much as I hate describing things as reddit, it really is. If I think it's a false hydra I call a vote to skip it because it's only amusing the first time you hear about it.

>>96102392 (OP)
It's hard to say what you mean, since the Internet and cynicism means that almost anything you can think of, someone's tried, subverted, deconstructed, reconstructed, etc.

So I'm going to take your question at face value and not worry that someone's gonna say that acksually XYZ was featured on his favorite D&D blog...

It was a Shadowrun game. The team had been hired to extract someone from q corp, and as always it was implied that the target's extraction may or may not have been entirely voluntary and desired.

The target was initially very enthusiastic and seemed to be waiting for the team, but it quickly became clear that she was waiting for a different extraction team. Confusion ensued, the target became uncooperative and was restrained, the other team arrived, shenanigans occurred.

It was only after the corporate security arrived that it turned out that the other team was there to do the exact same thing, liberating the target to the exact same place.

See, the PCs had been hired by the local government to extract an important researcher who had a change of heart about corp citizenship. Meanwhile, the target had reached out to a local church group to help them escape. The two extraction teams had the exact same goal and the PCs finally fucking managed to figure that out and team up despite the players' best attempts at dense idiocy.

It was a lot of fun!

>>96102402
>>96102446
>made by someone posting on G+ for a G+ audience with G+ tropes
>"it's reddit"
You need to go back.

>>96102392 (OP)
Sucking my friends' cocks without being gay

>>96102446
I genuinely don't think it would work for 99% of groups because you need metaknowledge of it to defeat it and if you don't have said metaknowledge you'll probably butt your head against a wall as everyone dies

>>96105234
Reddit is a perjorative directed at things people think are clever and/or witty but it's actually trash. For example, Rick & Morty is reddit, Futurama is not because Futurama is actually clever.

>>96102402
False Hydra is niche RPG blog shit, not reddit. FFS. Reddit is shit, but trying to use the name of yon rival forum website as a generic insult is cringe.

>>96102392 (OP)
False Hydra is an overhyped shitty monster.

>>96102392 (OP)
sauce on that miniature? False Hydra didn't really lead me to the source or I missed it.

>>96109582
>For example, Rick & Morty is reddit, Futurama is not because Futurama is actually clever.
This is how far we've fallen as a society, where plebs on ego trips justify their tastes by claiming that Futurama is clever. You don't even know how stupid that makes you look.

>>96109979
Originally but I hate browse d&d subreddits and the false hydra pops up every other day
It's a cool monster but it requires a lot of things to line up for it to be very engaging or effective

>>96110422
Here you go found it pretty quick anon.

>>96102392 (OP)
>>96112748
Credit where credit’s due, it’s a stupid concept, but at least this would keep the party from making TOO many OoT references.

>>96112733
>browse d&d subreddits
Just go back and stop lying to us and yourself.

The first time I ran a D&D one shot I made pregens based on the scooby do characters and had their wagon break in front of a maybe haunted maybe bandit ridden fort.
One dude got really mad about taking away player agency by breaking their wagon without a roll, one of those rants where they get themselves more and more heated as they go. I waited a few minutes and asked if he got it all out of his system and we could move on. He was the regular DM, we were almost 30.

That's the most hostile encounter he ever made. One of them at least.

>>96102392 (OP)
Apropos of meme hydra, the concept of a mind wiping Tzimisce antagonist who disappears people would be a pretty fun mystery for a bunch of down-on-their-luck vamps to stumble upon or be voluntold to fix

>>96102392 (OP)
>Group has been going through a dungeon and gathering keys for the main chamber that holds the treasure they came for
>It's a big hexagonal room half filled with water. The treasure is on a floating platform in the middle, with floating crystals orbiting it
>When they enter, a series of bridges made of solid light appear from the crystals. They cycle through three colors, yellow, red, and green.
>If you touch the bridge when it's red, you take a shitload of damage as it fries you like a bug zapper
>If you touch the bridge when it's yellow, you have your speed cut in half and you fall straight through the bridge into the water below, where you'll probably get attacked by sharks or octopi or both
>Nothing happens if it's green but you can walk across it
>Halfway across any of the bridges, glowing knights made of light emerge from the crystals and start hitting you or shooting lasers at you
>If you get to the main platform and aren't carrying all of the keys that you used to get in, a giant made of light appears to kick your ass

It was a simple encounter that really pushed the players. The wizard thought he was hot shit with a Fly spell but after getting shot twice he just plummeted into the water and got mulched by a shark

>>96112136
Sorry I can't hear you over the episode which hinged on a mathematical theorem the writers came up with.

>>96113393
>lasers
>color changing bridges
>lol sharks in the moat
It's a tabletop RPG, not a video game. DMs like you who add stupid ripoffs of puzzle from cartoon babyshit games they played as a kid and still play as an adult because they are too immature to engage with adult media, need to stop DMing, and probably stop playing RPGs entirely.

>>96114094
Faggot

>>96114094
Don't look up puzzles from 2e

>>96114094
Challenging your players with challenges that are still viable to engage with within the rules of the game you're playing is valid.

>>96102392 (OP)
A Lv 14 Fae that will only leave after being satisfied with the dinner they had promised "Party was 8"
Basically the combat was keeping him and his monsters at bay while another rolled to make food

>>96110353
Its good the first time if you never heard of it and the DM handles it well

>>96113397
And proved.

>>96112136
>>tastes by claiming that Futurama is clever.
>he doesn't like futurama
it's a great show even if the later seasons were a bit too gex for me.

>>96102392 (OP)
A monster a called the Rapier Roper.
Just a big beefed up roper with a rapier in each tentical.
Had to pick up and draw all of its rapiers over time giving a window for the party to stop it from crushing them through action economy.
It could disarm and repost spells.
And wore a cool cursed hat that would trun the wearer into a roper over time.

>>96113397
>>96115494
>futurama writers proved a very specific and fairly minor problem in combinatorics

I'm not going to say that this isn't a little cool, but it's really not that impressive. Anyone who majored in math and got decent grades would have been able to do the same if they put their mind to it. You can prove all kinds of stuff, it's just that in a few hundred years of modern math, no one ever asked how many extra people are required to swap everyone's mind back.

>>96105234
I feel you, but you gotta realize most people on the board aren't old enough to remember G+.

A fight against a rival guild when we both had our eyes on a treasure in a baron's art gallery. We had to fight each other while staying out of sight of patrolling guards.

>>96115373
Nothing in the rules forbids you from having the players suck you off for XP but it's still a bad idea.

>>96115358
I don't give a fuck if 2e did it. 2e ruined the game and turned it into storyslop

>>96120394
>I don't give a fuck if 2e did it. 2e ruined the game and turned it into storyslop
So the game's been bad since 1989.

I guess you must be a major retard for playing for the last 36 years despite hating it.

>>96117501
>no one ever asked how many extra people are required to swap everyone's mind back.

Sucks to suck, I guess.

>>96117501
>Anyone could have done it if they wanted!
Uovo di Colombo

>>96117501
I get you. Personally, I feel like I shouldn't like the science jokes as much as I do because most of it is fairly surface level, but it's rarely pretentious enough to be obnoxious and usually gets a sensible chuckle out of me.

>>96120394
>storyslop
this meme is never going to happen anon, there is literally no point in playing a TTRPG that has no narrative. It's literally just a clunkier way of doing the things you do in any other fantasy videogame - killing things, collecting loot, being gay like you are, etc. - without the need for actual imagination. This has never been a real issue you're just a spiritual women who needs to invigilate Right thing and Wrong thing based on "vibes" without regard for reality and you're terrified that roleplaying is perceived as "critical role tourist" by the faggots on this board as if how they perceive you matters. It is never going to stop being about stories.