In recent issues of The Dragon we moderators have had to listen to
the cute tricks of various D&D players who were apparently successful.
This is all fine, but I think that it’s about time that we moderators share
some of our good tricks with one another. Determined to right this
wrong (if this is published, that is) I have decided to divulge some of my
dark moderating secrets to all of you deprived moderators out there.

One of my favorite devices is the pit. However, my players, after
having several promising players impaled at the bottom of one, got
together and brainstormed on a solution to the problem. Their solution:
tie everyone together in mountain climber fashion so that when a player
fell into a pit he would be saved by a safety line. My countermove: I
decided to have a weight (1 ton) drop from above the pit when it was
sprung, which would carry the player and all his confederates into the
pit, crushing or impaling (take your pick) them all.

But never underestimate the player! They again brainstormed on a
solution and came up with another award winning idea: since my traps
were sprung by weights they would take a small cart with them, loaded
with lead, which they would push in front of them. They also would
bring several pairs of wheels and a carpenter, so they could continually
reuse the same cart. My countermove: I decided that when a player
reached a trap it would not only activate but would also activate several
other previously-unactivated traps that would lie along the player’s approach
paths. Not only did this prevent the players from using their cart
idea, it also deterred them from ever trying to weasel around my pits
again!

Another of my favorite devices is making things appear to be something
that they really aren’t. One good example of this is the Gelatinious
Cube. In my initial dungeon the players were treated to several encounters
with them and thereafter stayed away from any large meetings with
the cubes. Knowing this, one of the evil magicians made several large
jello molds and made about 10 large cubes of jello in his main treasure
room. When my players blunderd into this room one day they asked
what they saw-to which I replied that they saw 10 large jello-like cubes.
Needless to say, the magician’s treasure room is still unsacked!

Another method which I find works to good advantage is the reward
method: for every adventure in which a player survives and goes
up a level, he is allowed to start an additional character. The player is
allowed to take as many of his characters on an adventure, but regardless
of how many he takes, he can only gain 1 additional character (to a
maximum of 15 characters, which is seldom reached). This means that
a player will not have to start out at the bottom, but also prompts the
player to be careful with his charactors-too many dead characters and
the player will be starting out at Level 1.

And for one last note I would like to talk about the poison-freak
players who always have a liberal supply of poison on hand to do the
job. To combat this I have two solutions: 1) every time that a player uses
poison he has a chance of nicking himself and the more effective his
poison is the worse effects it has on him-obviously (this keeps down the
effectiveness of the poison and also limits its use to the really dangerous
monsters). 2) I also have many mansters which have been engaged by
the players before, received light wounds, and have built up a tolerance
to the poison(s). The players, never expecting this (sometimes players
can be dumb), go right on stabbing with their puny daggers and swords
while the monsters chew them right up.

Here’s wishing the players -8 on their next saving throw.