The following is a post from r/DMAcademy. I really enjoyed this story and hope to do something similar someday. With recent turmoil on Reddit, I’m posting it here for posterity (or as long as substack lasts, anyway). Enjoy!
Buckle up, because I'm telling the story behind this one.
So I've seen a lot of "How do I get my players to X?" and asked my fair share as well. Decided it was time to throw my own tactics out there. Long story short, the most motivated my players have ever been was when I was being an annoying jackass across several sessions. Also, I'm risking outing myself but I don't really care.
So, the story. In the past I've written pretty traditional/conventional quests and bad guys with my own personal flavour. The players always have fun and so do I. Win win right? Yes but no. I'd always had this thought in the back of my mind where I wanted the players to WANT to do the things. I knew I could make a villain who kills men, rapes women, enslaves children, and scorches the earth everywhere he goes and my players would hunt him down. I also knew though that they'd only do it because it's "the right thing to do" or to quote one of my more veteran players, "because their plot hook radar is going off." To make this read easier, I will be DM, she will be MP for main player, and others will be PLAYER # as necessary.
One session the party found themselves in an abandoned house outside of a town. While exploring, they found a hidden basement. They deduced it was the workshop of a skilled mage from years back. One of the more curious party members picked up and examined some kind of magical tool. So I told her to roll a Wisdom save.
MP: "You're asking a Cleric to roll Wisdom? Alright, 17."
DM: "Ok."
MP: "What happens?"
DM "Nothing."
What happened was that she had a unique version of Scrying cast on her. The original wizard whose stuff they were rooting through was incredibly paranoid and cast this spell on most of his equipment. The table joked that she'd gotten herself cursed for a bit and then we moved on. Later on in that session I hit her with it again.
DM: "Hey roll me a Wisdom save?"
MP: "What for? My character is just eating lunch."
PLAYER 1: "Oh shit is this that thing from in that old house?"
MP: "Why would it be? We left all the stuff behind."
DM: "Roll a Wisdom save."
MP: "Fuck, 12."
DM: "Ok."
MP: "Nothing happens?"
DM: "Nothing you notice."
The original caster of the spell is long since dead at this point. However, to set up a future big bad I made this spell carry on through his lineage. Since the spell wasn't cast normally and was bound to the caster, it carried on down and was now bound to a distant nephew. I made him need to roll very high at first since Scrying is fairly dependent on your familiarity with the target and he had literally none at this point. However, I was making him have fleeting visions as if the Scry was more like a TV channel that got really shitty reception. I left it alone for the rest of that session, but it was the first thing that player rolled for the week after.
DM: "Roll a Wisdom save."
MP: "What? Seriously, we're starting with this? My character is just getting out of bed."
DM: "Yup, roll a Wisdom save."
MP: "15."
DM: "Ok, nothing happens."
MP: "Nothing ever happens, are you just doing this to be a jackass or did I actually get something on me?"
PLAYER 2: "Maybe you just keep beating the DC."
MP: "Well I rolled a 12 last time so it can't be higher than that."
For these first few rolls I'd decided that my villain would need to beat her saves by at least 5. He actually beat her 15 here. From this point forward, I had the villain do some asking around behind the scenes and he learned a bit about the party from some tavern stories. Now he only needed to beat the save. I waited until they were in combat for the next one.
DM: "Roll a Wisdom save."
MP: "Why? We're fighting hobgoblins, and I haven't even been hit yet!"
DM: "Who said this was from a hobgoblin? Roll a Wisdom save."
MP: "Oh, it's the thing where nothing ever happens. Fine. Shit.........6"
PLAYER 1: "Can you even roll that low on Wisdom?"
MP: "2 plus 4. I mean, it sucks that you're doing this right now but at least we get to know what the hell is happening."
DM: "Nothing happens."
MP: "Ok now I know you're just being a dick. If this were a real roll I would have failed it and something would have happened."
DM: "Have I ever told you what the save DC is?"
MP: "No, but 6 isn't enough to save anything."
PLAYER 1: "It beats a 5"
MP: "Yea, but no spell has a save DC of 5, or even under 10 for that matter!"
I kept that up for a while, across three more sessions which was over a month IRL. Regardless of what she rolled, whether she beat the save or not, I always said told her that nothing happens. Pretty quickly it became a joke in our group outside of DnD as well.
Then I decided to dial it up and start hitting the whole party with these shenanigans. I put myself in this villain's shoes and wondered what he'd do if he was plagued by these visions of other people. I got the idea that he might think he can get rid of the visions by creating likenesses of the people he sees. So he gets some statues commissioned, which come out incredibly accurate because of the details he's able to provide. Then, I had the bonded Scrying spell get transferred to the statues, as in ALL of them. I also made it so that the Scry would be cast anytime someone touched one of these statues.
DM: "PLAYER 3, roll a Wisdom save."
PLAYER 3: "You mean MP right? That's her joke."
DM: "Nope, I meant you."
PLAYER 3: "Why? My dude's still sleeping. Wait, is something happening to me? Guys you need to get back to my room!"
DM: "They don't need to do anything. You need to roll a Wisdom save though."
PLAYER 3: "Is it at disadvantage because I'm asleep?"
DM: "Nope."
PLAYER 3: "8."
DM: "Nothing happens."
PLAYER 3: "Oh god! I have nothing happens! She gave me the magical Rona guys!"
From then on no one was safe. Anyone at any time was susceptible to being forced to make random Wisdom saves. For the next two sessions everyone rolled at least one each. Then, the party found themselves in the company of a powerful mage who immediately called them out. She specifically asked about their strange aura.
PLAYER 2: "What aura? MP cast Bless on us a while back but that's it."
They expressed their confusion in character and the mage asked if she could perform a ritual to identify the strange magic. The party allowed it. I threw a few meaningless dice, nothing that came up mattered to me unless the mage rolled really well, in which case I'd let her know the school of magic. She told the party she couldn't identify it. Whatever it was, it was ancient and that they'd been bound to something. She also told them is was less like a bond and more of a tether, and that there was an almost direct line to whatever it was.
MP: "Wait........is she talking about nothing happens? Have you been setting up this one thing for two months now?"
DM: "Maybe, by the way. Roll a Wisdom save."
MP: "14, and don't say it."
DM: "Something happens."
EVERYONE: "What the fuck?"
PLAYER 2: "Oh shit! This wizard chick must have done something!"
DM: "Well she's doing something now."
I told the party that the mage got instantly freaked out. She then told the party that something, or someone was watching them."
MP: "Watching as in Scrying?"
DM: "It's not like any Scry she's ever seen, but that's what she thinks too."
What happened over the next few sessions was some of my favourite tabletop I've ever DM'd. The party learned what direction the tether went and immediately followed it. They passed through towns and camps where I littered side quests and things to do, as well as the occasional bit of plot. Every time they stopped to talk to anyone or do anything, they asked themselves if they thought it was more important that heading straight for nothing happens. They marched themselves across a country, had several near deaths, and fell for tons of false leads. All the while, nothing happens kept happening. They tried to find patterns in who was rolling the saves, when they were rolling them, and how often they were rolling them. It was great, and even though it was driving them crazy I felt their energy and their drive to solve whatever the hell this was.
Eventually they found it. The nephew of the ancient mage who's workshop they'd bumbled into over four real time months earlier.
So I had this guy screw the party over in his own way and now they are HUNGRY for the next time they run into him and I can't wait.
EDIT: Holy actual fuck! This is my most commented on and upvoted post! Thanks for the awards and kind words all of you. Normally I like to reply to every comment I can, but I don't have that kind of time.
To everyone who claimed I was/am stringing my players along, you're right. I won't argue that I was using out of character interactions to motivate in character decisions. Going forward I will absolutely be using lines like "You feel a chill, and the hairs on your neck stand on end" when these kinds of saves are made.
There is also a small piece missing where the players asked how long this tether had been on them. It was definitely a bit meta-gamey but I felt like it was a reasonable question anyway and had the mage tell them it had been a while. I said something like "It's completely surrounding you, all of you. Watching everything at all times. No spell I know of can do something like that overnight." That put in canon roughly how long they'd been dealing with nothing happens.
And lastly, to anyone calling the players out for trying to figure out what save they're making and/or why they're making it, I don't really care. We're a group of longtime friends and there's a lot of that kind of out of character banter at our table. No one ever expects me to tell them any information that I don't want or need to, and I just don't. They rarely ignored or avoided other hooks and never rushed or phoned in their efforts in attempt to get back on nothing happens trail. They played their characters well, including this fear of what this person had been watching, how long they'd been watching, and why they'd been watching in the first place.