For my first Multiverser game, I agonized over my choice of worlds. Not having any world books yet and wanting to get started without having to design my own world from scratch, I found myself pretty much limited to what I could come up with from books, movies, and TV. For two of my players, I had no trouble finding fictional universes they’d enjoy, but the third was a challenge. She’s very discriminating in her literary tastes, and a lot of the books she likes, I haven’t read.



Finally, I hit on an idea that I thought was perfect. She adores Harry Potter, so I set her up at Hogwarts, giving her the opportunity to become a student there. At first, she was having fun getting her wand and other equipment and meeting Harry, Ron, and Hermione, but gradually she began posting less and less frequently. While the other players were zipping through weeks of game time, she passed about a day. Then, suddenly, her character decided to play with Fluffy, the three-headed dog, and verse herself out. She let me know that she was getting bored and felt hemmed into a plot that she already knew.



So, for the next world, I took the opposite route. Where Hogwarts had been friendly, comfortable, and full of cool things for her to learn and acquire, Post-Sympathetic Man was a dangerous place, where people would shoot you as soon as look at you if they could get something out of it. I’ve also added in plenty of angst for her character by having her meet twisted, alternate versions of her friends. Her circle of friends is a group of assassins, and her boyfriend is a moody, obnoxious thug.



The result? She went from posting once every week or two to almost every day, and she seems to be having a ball. From this experience, I’ve learned that there’s a world of difference between being nice to players and being nice to player characters. I should know it from my own experience as well, since one of the most entertaining experiences I’ve had in a game was the time my paladin discovered that her sister was a prostitute.



Sometimes, the nicest thing you can do for your players is to torture their characters a little bit. A lot of players, especially players who are more into role-playing than roll-playing, enjoy playing out their characters’ reactions to unpleasant circumstances. Those problems also keep players from feeling like everything is being handed to them without their having to work for it.



There is, however, such a thing as taking challenge too far. One GM I had took it to a nasty extreme, plotting campaigns for a bunch of new D&D players that went way over our heads. He was used to gaming with veterans, and we just weren’t ready for the complex strategies and subterfuge that he created. The problem in this campaign, however, wasn’t just the difficulty of the tasks set before us. As far as I was concerned, the real issue was his obvious frustration with our incompetence. He was always annoyed by our mistakes and made no effort to hide it. I would often walk away from the game feeling like a complete and utter moron. Also, despite the fact that he ran several games for our group, he never seemed to catch onto what we could and couldn’t handle. He also never realized that many of us were more interested in creating interesting characters and playing them realistically than we were in solving complex problems or fighting challenging battles. The fact that our party consisted of a minotaur fighter, a pixie, a cross-dressing dwarf, and a stripper-turned-bard should attest to the fact that we were not the serious gamers he was hoping to play with.



So, when you set out to create a suicidally tricky challenge for your players, there are a couple things to keep in mind. First, like I said in my last article, know your group and adjust the challenge accordingly. This mostly means knowing their experience as roleplayers, but it also helps to have some familiarity with their areas of expertise and interest in the real world. For example, someone who reads every Tom Clancy novel when it comes out is going to have plenty of ideas about the strategy of, say, sneaking into a building and disarming a nuclear bomb. That same player might be lost in a campaign involving political intrigues between the human and elven kingdoms. Giving players something that’s difficult but is in line with what they know can allow them to feel that they stand a chance. You can also ramp up the challenge more in those areas where you know they can handle it.



The second thing is to draw a firm line between being mean to the players and being mean to the characters. My old D&D GM never got that distinction down, and his sarcastic comments about our ineptitude got old pretty fast. If you give players an insane challenge, let them know that you know it’s hard and that you’re trying to make them struggle. Implying that the game should be easy for anyone with half a brain isn’t going to win you any prizes. Also, even when they fail, point out that all is not lost and that they performed admirably when the odds were stacked against them. All right, you’re all bleeding, the paladin lost her sword arm, and the invading army of orcs kidnapped your cleric, but at least you held the attackers off long enough for the villagers to get to safety.



Another way to be kind to the players while being cruel to the characters is to do horrible things to them that don’t involve putting their characters in danger, at least not the physical kind. Make life difficult, but not out and out dangerous. Emotional perils, especially those that stem from a character’s back story, are a good way to do this. My player wasn’t in any danger when she found out what kind of people her college buddies were, but it was an eye-opening shock. Her character actually went through a minor nervous breakdown, but the player appeared to love every minute of it.



Especially in a large gaming group, drawing out elements of a character’s back story lets that player get a piece of the spotlight, even if it’s done in a way that deeply upsets their character. I’ve always been a little frustrated in campaigns where I spent ages working out a great history for my character, but it never came up in game.



Another thing to keep in mind is that the rewards need to match the challenges. Campaigns where you have everything handed to you are just as bad as those where you face overwhelming odds and get nothing. If you want to toss some insane challenges at your players, give them a huge reward to motivate them. Again, tie it in with what you know about the player and the character. For one character, a shiny new weapon might be the best reward, while another character would do anything to settle a grudge with a longstanding enemy (but wouldn’t object if a shiny new weapon was part of the bargain). When the going gets tough, remind your players what it is they’re fighting for.



It also helps to break up the challenge with periods of rest and relaxation for the characters. This can come as part of the reward, or it can be a transition between two quests, but it’s nice to give the characters some down time. This can be a good place to introduce some humor to kill the tension, especially inside jokes related to your group. Bits of humor interspersed through the challenging bits are good too, and, while it is sometimes the GM’s job to crack down on wanton silliness that holds up the game, you should let your players kid around. This is especially appropriate when it’s done in character. In another campaign I played in, the party had just dealt with a Bohrs the Bloody, a half-orc bandit who’d been menacing the town. We rode back to town as heroes and, of course, sold his stuff. Imagine our surprise when we’re all hanging out in a bar, and a giant half-orc comes over to our table. He bears a striking resemblance to Bohrs and is wearing some rather familiar-looking armor.



“Hello, ladies,” he says. “Apparently we have a friend in common. You’ve met Bohrs the Bloody, yes? I’m his brother.” At the moment when our characters are all contemplating making out our wills, our half-elven ranger pipes up, “Oh, we’ll be seeing you again? Great. So we’re going to get to sell the armor twice?” This was a great stress reliever for all of us.



My last bit of advice for throwing curveballs to your players is to pay close attention to their reactions. When the character’s miserable, the player might be having a blast, but when the players seem bored or frustrated, it may be time to lighten up on them before you drive them completely nuts. If you pay attention and get to know your group, you can figure out what kinds of challenges are best for them, and you can be an evil GM and have them loving every minute of it.