Is It Ever Cool to Lie to your Players?

Got a question for more experienced DMs. Is it every cool to flat out lie to your players about the stats of something?

For more context I'm planing on throwing some home brewed cursed stuff into my next campaign and had an idea for a weapon that would trick its wielder into thinking it was far more powerful than it really was. Like, the player has to make some kind of check or saving throw when they find it, and if they fail they're given some absurdly over-powered stats for the weapon they found, when in truth its worse than starting gear. Does anyone have any experience with doing anything like this? Does the check/saving throw followed by absurdly over-the-top stats tend to tip players off, or do they buy in and get frustrated when it turns out to be trash?

Is it ever cool to hide parts of an item or spells stats or effects from players who don't roll well enough to catch the backlash?

Yes. And even if it isn't "cool" you should do it anyway. A fucking barbarian isn't going to pick up a runed, glowing axe deep in a catacomb and immediately know what the fuck it does. The choice to wield it is the choice to accept both positive and negative effects.

Don't baby your players.

Be wary of brewing mistrust from your players. That shit doesn't go away once it sets in. There's a difference between lying and just not telling.

>I want to give someone a cool-looking sword that hits like a wet pool noodle
It would be kind of pointless since they'd use it once and then realize that it's useless/worse than useless

As long as they know it can happen, sure. Suddenly lying about something meta without them knowing it's something you might do, that's pretty dickish.

if they don't roll well enough, that's how it is. could drop some hints, suggest they take it to some wise npc they know, trust, or is well regarded. is the whole team checking it out, and using aid another? that helps a lot

I don't see the point in telling them it's something powerful mechanically when it's...not. that seem to be more a waste of everyone's time imo

I'm a newish gm, so eh, I guarantee nothing

Here is the correct way to deal cursed items
>Make magical items a rarity
>Tailor them to specific players, even give them quests to look for specific ones
>When they get a cursed item, if they fail their appraise or arcana roll then it's obviously the item they looked for
If its just cursed to deal less damage then it's a shitty curse and you should feel bad.
Make more thematic curses, such as the Cursed Belt of Giant Strength, AKA gender swap

Lieing as the GM can be seen as a betrayal of the absolute word you have. Lieing in character is appropriate.
In regards to the sword, if they're a skilled swordsman they might have an understanding of the potential ability of the actual sword itself, i.e. sharpness, durability, condition. I doubt they would be aware of any magical properties of it and you could simply do those behind screen.
Don't fudge the numbers, but withhold them or play the physical description up more than it seems.
>Flames billow from the hilt of the sword down the blade. Swinging such a blade sings through the air of a hunger only fire would know.
Shit like that. Giving them false numbers may make them distrustful of anything you do tell them unless it has been previously established with them. You could also go the route of telling them they would need to test the sword in combat before knowing more about it and simply roll the damage behind screen.

Hmm, good points, well made. If I'm going to do something like this it should come after the players became aware there are cursed items in the setting. Therefore the roll should be enough of a tell to tip them off something's funky about the weapon.

Also good points. I have other cursed items in mind, just thought of making this one an early one since it's not too terribly damning. Maybe tack on an effect to keep it from being just discarded unless they do something and an added check every time they go to draw a weapon that'll make them impulsively draw the bad one.
>>Gender Swap
Knowing my players most of them would be pretty chill about that.

Very good point. Thank you for the advice. Better to without information than to give wrong numbers.

That's dumb and you're a faggot, nevermind that someone will immediately notice something's up when the stats on their character sheet stop lining up with their observed results.

"I want to passive aggressively fuck over my players for my own amusement but I'm too much of a pussy to be open about it"

Including cursed items for no reason has got to be the number 1 that-guy DM red flag


I guarantee you don't play in person but in some faggot discord or pbp format because there's no way you'd try that shit in arms reach

Welp, seems like I triggered something pretty hard. Can you show me on the doll where the bad DM touched you user?

No. If you don't want to keep something secret, then tell them that you want to keep it a secret.

Anyone who's ever GMed at all ever knows that you can never understand what players are going to do with the knowledge that you give them. Trying to coax a certain reaction out of them by giving them false information is going to backfire in some way or another, and likely one that "unfairly" screws them in a way unlike the one you're intending.

>I guarantee you don't play in person but in some faggot discord or pbp format because there's no way you'd try that shit in arms reach
Whoa, settle down there, Mr. Armchair Fighter.

>>>Gender Swap
>Pretty chill
Body horror it up. Make it so that nobody recognizes them. Make it so that they're additionally cursed to be extra attractive in any particular way so that opposite sex NPCs are way overly into them.
That'll make it a right and proper curse

Never lie to your players. You don't need to lie to achieve whatever your desired goal might be, and even though lying can be easier than the other methods of reaching your goal, it is usually the only method of reaching a goal that carries the risk of your players catching you in a lie and being unable to ignore their own knowledge that you lie to them when it matters (basically, if you lie to them ever, they will wonder what you are lying to them about and when you are doing it, and they will second guess everything - if their character suffers some bad consequence, they'll wonder if that was really how the dice landed or if you deliberately fucked them over. And if their character pulls off something awesome, they'll wonder if they really did it, or if you decided to just give it to them and pretend they earned it)

That aside, cursed items are pretty fucking stupid - unless the curse has some reasonably doable way of being overcome for a noteworthy benefit. I.e. "lol, this sword is trash and you have to use it until you jump through the right hoops and can finally see that it is trash and stop using it" is brick fucking stupid, but "the sword appears to be [awesome thing], but will actually perform like a piece of trash until the curse upon it is broken" can be fun, and at the very least gives the player something from finding it other than a feeling of "fuck this stupid shit".

And while you don't actually need to hide any game mechanics from the players, it's not a lie if you don't tell the player things that their character hasn't figured out yet. Just tell them what their character perceives of the weapon (which might or might not mean telling them about the curse, depending on what the rules of the method they are learning about the item says - which with 5th edition D&D is that the character doesn't realize an item is cursed until they use it, but then they immediately realize the item is doing something it isn't supposed to).

I don't give a fuck, but I never lie because it's more fun to me.
If they suss something out, I either answer straight or I just don't answer. Ot's more fun to me to see the rides my players take themselves on.

I'm planning on adapting the SCP Lovecraftian Locket to my setting. It's basically a healing item that can cure anything but its own effects. The worse the damage the longer it takes to heal, but the longer one is exposed to it the greater the odds of mutation become. Mutations start small but get more severe the more the item is used. Basically abusing the item turns the uses into a irrecoverable flesh beast that is neigh on immortal, but ultimately unplayable.

Very good points, well made. I'm going for more of a horror setting, so a bit of paranoia and doubt is part and parcel to the setting, but at the same time I don't want my players doubting me. And the making cursed items that are trash but turn into treasure with some work is a good idea, thank you for that.

>And the making cursed items that are trash but turn into treasure with some work is a good idea, thank you for that.
A piece of trivia I find amusing: This isn't my own idea - it's the way the cursed items were officially handled in the Dungeons & Dragons game (the one released in box sets and later the Rules Cyclopedia, while AD&D was a separate product line and treated cursed items as lumps of shit that the best thing to be done with is finally get rid of them - because the "Advanced" in front of the title was bullshit in almost every way, and TSR cancelled the wrong game line in the mid '90s)

Tell the players, not the characters. If they save the throw there's no reason for them to not use the weapon if they think it's great, maybe only for a couple of encounters until they work out something is awry and have it checked out by an expert.

If they pass up the opportunity to roleplay, don't push the issue, but it will tell you a lot about the group.

These.


If you just give players something negative they won't have an issue throwing it away, try giving it a nice bonus to impress checks or a "I once met a giant who forged a sword of..." style of curse.

Yes.

Lying is encouraged.

Changing the lies in mid stream is what you should never do.

I've actively lied to my players about what an entire campaign would be, so as to avoid them building characters designed to deal with the campaign so it would be an actual challenge. Because If I had told them they'd be facing vampires and special forces operatives, they'd have all somehow had some silver on them, before they'd even met vampires. And several of them would have a weird interest in the occult as a "hobby".

I swapped one of my players with a simulacrum and didn't tell them, they were alone with an evil wizard and his minions and failed the save I rolled. I said he took a potion and then they let him go for some unknown reason. He was suspicious, but the hat of disguise was figured out before they figured out the whole story.

So go ahead and lie away. It makes for fun and interesting situations.

The GM is the player character's senses. He is their eyes, ears, nose, etc. Sometimes your senses are wrong.

However, your idea is kinda shit, isn't really anything more than a "Hah! You failed a save! You gotta deal with shit equipment!" If you insist on using this idea, give some clues that the weapon is not what it seems.

>I've actively lied to my players about what an entire campaign would be, so as to avoid them building characters designed to deal with the campaign so it would be an actual challenge
That's a perfect example of a time when not lying could achieve the same result, so the lie was just adding risk of the players reacting badly to finding out you were lying into the mix.

"The campaign is going to deal with a particular thing, but I don't want the characters to be specialists in dealing with that sort of thing at the start of the campaign, so I'm not going to specify what said thing is." is probably less effort to say than whatever lie you made up about what the campaign would be about - and wouldn't have given your players a reason to feel like you did a bait and switch on them.

Yes, specialy if it's to trick them. I do this, I always ommit obvious stuff from descriptions and shit so I always have the upper hand and can stall them or hider their journey.

I also, when making descriptions, tend to be as vague as possible, for example the other day I killed one PC with a Roc because I told them it was a normal sized eagle flying around them and they ignored it. Well, it looked normal sized from afar kek.

Sounds like you're just an entitled piece of shit.

You dont ever need to tell them anything about the stats of monsters

For weapons, i wouldnt lie but i'd vaguely say its magical and make the check to find out whats going on unbeatable

Having a cursed weapon that pretends to be overpowered is a fun idea. Tell them it does like 2d10 worth of damage but in your notes just remember that it is only doing 10% of that damage rounded up.
I.e. they roll 20 damage, but only deal 2 points of damage. Or they rolled 7 but only deal 1 point of damage.
They will be so confused about why everything they are fighting seems to have huge HP while their friends only seem to be fighting the weaker versions of the monsters. Just remember not to laugh too manically when doing this as you may tip your hand.

You are the GM, a literal god of their world, and they are but your playthings.