The Fake Out

In this edition of 3D Thursday, DM Ben wants to share how he keeps the party on their toes so that combat doesn’t dominate the campaign. If we make everything a sword fight then the group just becomes a raging band of hooligans that instantly starts smashing as soon as a new encounter ensues. And that can be rough for a DM to manage.

We’ve got an excellent example to illustrate our point. Let’s start with this “Pumpkins Bit” that we printed and painted up from Cast n Play’s Essential Interiors Vol II Stores set. This particular piece of harvest-y scatter terrain is going to be our nerves wracker.

First, some background. The party accepted a mission from a local farmer to harvest some pumpkin seeds from “some pumpkins that ain’t pumpkins” so that he can build his own vegetable soldiers to protect his crops. Ol’ Huckle Riverstone is, of course, referring to some pretty mean pumpkin mimics.

What DM Ben wants to avoid though is having any future encounter with pumpkins turn into a stomping party. Even better, he wants to put down some non-threatening gourd scatter terrain on future game boards and watch their minds race. A great Dungeon Master keeps his party on their toes. Predictability can be such a story buzz kill.

So we grabbed this fun Pumpkins Bit from Cast n Play and this other veggie crate from (we think) Hayland Terrain to use as “danger decoys” as it were. With the melon gnashers defeated, the group is now going to travel deeper into the forest to rescue some kiddos from a crazy old lady. And it doesn’t take a genius to realize that it’s probably this same old lady who whipped up these mimics in the first place to guard her turf.

Now we want to keep the group guessing as they march toward the witch’s cabin! Are there even more evil pumpkins about? Hey, did that large boulder just move?! I don’t trust those vines! That sorta stuff. Let the paranoia games begin, right? However, the group can’t get spooked if everything that comes next starts attacking them. The DM has to be selective and find his or her moments in order to create the right level of tension.

So DM Ben might start by simply dropping a farm field down and asking the players to establish a marching order. From there, he would say something like, “As you press on, some freshly towed fields come into view. A quick glance at your map tells you to proceed straight ahead.”

He would continue the tense narrative like so, “It’s eerily quiet. Up ahead in the next field, you see some crates, boxes, and sacks of what appear to be remnants of the recent harvest.”

This is where some DnD 5e skill checks could be rolled for things like:

• Investigation: can I make out any footprints in the muddy dirt?
• Perception: what’s on the horizon?
• Nature: what was growing here?
• Survival: can we forage anything from these crates and bags?

And you can bet the group will be a little on edge while doing any of those actions. This is where the DM can slip in a few mission clues like on a high DC, a child’s possession is found in the dirt or a milder DC points to some footprints going north. Or, even better, this scatter terrain can really just be nothing more than a little calm before the storm.

Just remember to pick your spots…sometimes setting the mood and overarching scene is all you need to do.