I am planning a set piece that involves some NPCs deceiving my players. The short version is that my players will meet some simple farmers trying to bring their crops to market, only to find that they’re actually smugglers in a Hatfields and McCoy’s type feud, which the party then gets messily swept up into. I generally don’t trick my players; I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it but I imagine some tables would take to it more than others. Do you trick your players? Are there some tricks you find acceptable and others that are unacceptable? For me, I have no qualm getting my players swept up into the seedy underworld of drug or artifacts smuggling, but I don’t think I would run a plotline on human trafficking. That I think would be difficult in an unpleasant way for everyone involved.
Oh god … Years and years ago, we played every weekend in college. We had this one DM who’s campaign ran for … I dunno, at least a couple years. Anyway, we found this wand, lightweight metal, red with white swirls on the side and some strange lettering. We used a spell to read the lettering, which said “Bottled at the Coca-Cola Company Bottling Plant, Philadelphia, PA”. We had no idea what that meant, though.
None of the spells available at the time helped identifying what the wand did, so we went through our standard tests to figure out what it was. Nothing we tried worked. We were like, well, it doesn’t weigh much and maybe it’s important or we’ll find out what it does later on.
So, we carry this damned rod around for a fucking year and a half. Every so often we remember it and try again, but the only information we ever get “Coca-cola Bottling Plant”. The campaign finally ends (our DM was graduating) and we go over the campaign and one of the questions we ask is, wtf was that rod? And he says, “Oh, it was a rod of resurrection.” And we’re like, wtf? And he laughs and says, yeah, 'cause this.
Damn near lynched him.