Over the years of DMing I have come up with a few ways to keep the players guessing and involved in the game. Some of my tactics have become well known in my groups and the players are constantly on edge of what might happen next. I wanted to share some of the things I have used over the years that I feel made my games more interesting and memorable.
Chucking Dice
As the title of my blog implies chuck some dice. This is some advice that can be found in different role playing game rule books and it works so well. The PCs will be plundering some ruins, or navigating a sunken temple and I will grab a handful of dice and let 'em roll behind my DM screen. These dice serve no purpose other than reminding my players that at any point and time something could jump from the shadows and get them. Now I don't over do this to the point that my players never expect anything when I roll the dice, just once and awhile here and there to keep them guessing.
Finding Stuff
My players know that I love to hide things around in where ever they are adventuring to the point that they will search every nook and cranny to find something. One thing that I tend to do is allow them to find meaningless stuff. The way I look at this is the creatures in the dungeon they are in are not going to go out of their way to hide only the things that the players need to advance their quest. Most of these monsters are not smart enough to understand the value of gems, coins and magic items, yet it seems like that is all they keep around. I have had PCs leave with backpacks full of parchments and scrolls that where nothing more than a series of love letters written between two goblins in their language. Now a lot of this useless stuff I tend to make up as we are going along and pre-plan the important items. This leads to another advantage, if the players show real interest in an item I invent on the spot I will sometimes rework it into a plot hook for a later adventure. I cannot count the amount of times I have had campaigns go off in completely unexpected ( yet very entertaining) directions because of something I put in a dungeon that I had considered useless.
Traps Don't Have To Kill
I don't know how many games I have played where every trap is a pit trap, or an arrow trap, or goblins behind murder holes. Sure maiming and killing things with traps is fun, but it can be more fun if they are not dead. Having traps that hinder players can be more entertaining and really breaks up the " saving throw or take damage" that a lot of trap encounters turn into. I have done traps that silence mages, or an animated rope that binds the hands of a player. There are many different things you can do. The way I tend to make them is by taking the different hindering spells from the PHB and triggering them by a device like a pressure plate in the dungeon. This is something that again is gone over in the DMG but in my experience DMs tend to fall into the pit trap so to speak.
Beat Them Down
D&D is not supposed to be easy for the players. Sure you are telling a good story, but name the last action movie you saw where the heroes made it out without a scratch. My regular players know that they are not going to escape whatever adventure they are on with out being beaten. This does not mean that you have to throw countless creatures at them and whittle down their HP to nothing, there are fates worse than death. You can take away weapons and make them work to get them back, kidnap or kill NPCs that they players are close to and of course split up the party. If you go the route of killing off NPCs that the PCs have relationships with do not do it to often. Killing off everyone the PCs meet will cause the players to metagame this and none of the characters will get attached to anyone in the world. Splitting up the party for a session or two is one of my favorite things to do, it can be hard to run both sides of the party but done right the results are worth it. Having half the group watch on helpless as the other half is thrown in a dungeon, tortured and left to their own means to escape can really help build a relationship between the players characters. This can invite very heavy meta-gaming and as the DM you have to ensure that this does not happen. On the topic of taking away weapons and items, much like killing NPCs don't do it all the time or the players will get mad. If you do want to take away a magic item they players have earned make sure you give them a way to get it back. There is nothing worse for a player than to earn something only to have the DM change his mind later and take it back.
Take Notes
My players know when they meet Sir Kendelor that they need to remember his name or when they find the combination of runes needed to get into the magic vault they should write it down. This might be me being a bit of an ass but if I take the time to make up this vault or very important NPC I want my players to remember it. My group knows that "we enter the rune combination we found earlier on the wall into the vault" is not going to work. I started this years ago because I wanted my group to care about the world around them. The first time they did not write it down and they could not get the item they needed to complete their quest without first going to get the information they learned to write it down. Now I will admit at first it really annoyed some of my players but as time has gone on it has just become part of our game. Since it is so ingrained in our games now and the players are constantly calling him Sir Kendelor instead of "What's-his-face" they do grow to actually care about the NPCs populating the world around them.
Stay In Character
I saved the best for last and this is one thing that I am really well known for doing. I don't do it all the time but if there is a lot of metagaming or side conversations going on I will enact this rule. I will also do this to teach new players how to role play, I tend not to do it to them as it can piss people off but only to the players that have been with me awhile. I will treat everything that a player says as being in character, unless they say otherwise. I don't know how many times I have had a character piss off the king by asking " Does he know we accidentally killed his son?" This one can be tricky and you have to feel out your group because you don't want to anger anyone by doing this. I will not treat an entire session like this either but rather for a few minutes as this tends to snap the players back into the game.
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