[hal]

Last and final nasty trap I'll share in this thread...

Once upon a time, player character #1 referenced in the previous thread, was in the process of being hunted by his arch enemy. Player character #1 had it all. A reputation as a fierce warrior/mage, married to a beautiful woman, and father to a precious daughter. He also had strength batteries that only he could use - otherwise anyone who tried to steal it would experience a magical attack capable of killing them. If however, the Strength Battery was given over freely - the person taking it could then use it.

So, the Hunter who finally captured Player character #1, kidnaps player character #1 and keeps him artificially wounded and weak so he can't cast spells or fight. When the player wouldn't permit the NPC to steal his prized strength battery, the Evil one went ahead and kidnapped Player Character #1's wife and daughter. Promising dire things would happen to the wife if PC#1 didn't give up his magic item, PC#1 still refused to give in. So, the evil one did those unmentionable things to the wife (using zombies I might add) to where the wife knew that the husband could have given in - but refused to. Making matters worse, then the Evil one got ready to harm the poor innocent little one, PC#1 finally relented and gave in to the Evil one's wishes. That is when the Evil one then cast a spell on the wife, had her draw her knife into the bowl with viscous fluid in it, and drag it across the daughter's skin - cutting into flesh. Within moments, the poor girl begin to suffer massive seizures and eventually gasped her last. Then the Mother drew the blade across her own skin and she too convulsed and expired. Angry as all heck, PC#1 swore he'd get revenge upon the evil one. Not content with his vileness - the Evil one clapped his hands as if casting a spell, and through an open doorway, replicas of the Wife and daughter came to the new dead wife and daughter, and began to dance obscenely over the corpses. With a howl of anger and frustration, believing that the dancing ones were illusions, he tried to disbelieve in the ugly creations of the evil one.

That is when the evil one said "My dear boy, try that little mental exercise on the ones lying on the floor." When the player did that, and the dead two ones on the floor disappeared, the Evil one said "What kind of monster do you think I am? Really!"

The moral of that story? Never take the straight obvious approach when you can. In a horror campaign? I once had a ghost possess a player character, then start up the car while he was possessed - and aim his vehicle towards unsuspecting children in broad daylight. Needless to say, when the player character wrested control of his character's body back from the ghost, he was unable to use the defense "The Ghost made me do it" when brought up on charges of reckless endangerment. Those players feared ghosts VERY much after that!

So - play games with them, and have FUN doing it. One GM took perverse pleasure in outsmarting me when he allowed my character to eavesdrop on a conversation of people I thought were going to attack my group of player characters. So, I took the news back to the players, and we planned a pre-emptive attack, little realizing that the poor guys had NO intentions of attacking our characters, and that I had been HAD. ;)