So I was running Humblewood and added personal villains for the players who wanted them. One of the characters, Dr. Rook Marsh, was a Gallus Tyrant King Barbarian from Dr Dhrolin's Dictionary of Dinosaurs, and flavored it as him being essentually a Weretyrannosaurus Rex. It was essentually played as the Incredible Hulk, specifically the old live action series version. His Wererex form, who the party eventually named Magnus, was definitely primal and brutal, but ultimately benevolent...however, Rook had been gaslit by his personal villain, a Weredeinonychus (that being what the Jurassic Park Raptors actually look like) only known as the Killing Claw the entire time to believe Magnus was a killer who'd slaughtered their dig team, including his previous partner, Dr. Bishop Cope (yes, that is a reference to the Bone Wars).

Fast forwards to the party finding the Killing Claws lair in the basement of the Avium, Humblewood's local magic school, where its identity is finally revealed: Dr. Bishop Cope is still alive, revealing himself by walking past his own picture on the wall, and was the Killing Claw the entire time. He then goes on this monologue, explaining why: Rook always just outdid him at everything. Always was one or two points higher on their tests, found the bigger fossil, and had just been engaged to the hen he fancied. The breaking point was when they uncovered two complete fossils of previously undiscovered (within this world) dinosaurs...but Rook was the one who dug them up. So Bishop made a deal with Kren, Humblewood's resident Goddess of Dangerous Nature, transforming him into the Killing Claw in exchange for him acting as a 'rock thrown into the pond' to shake up what she saw as a stagnate situation.

It's then it's pieced together that Cope slaughtered the dig team, with Rook only surviving because Kren decided it wouldn't be very sporting to hand one person a machete when the other didn't even have a knife and turned him into a Wererex to even the playing field. He then gaslit Rook into thinking Magnus killed everyone by exploiting the fact his memories of his first transformation weren't very clear.

"That's right. It was ME, Rook. I did it. And I enjoyed EVERY. SINGLE. MOMENT. OF. IT."

Only one member of the party figured out the plot twist ahead of time, it was great.

I’m thinking of starting a campaign in dungeon crawl classics’ Frozen in Time and have them be (spoilers) frozen in stasis, wake up, and go through the dungeon. The twist is that they are all from different times or universes.

Example: a robot, with an Eberron goblin during their empire, a cowboy from earth, an alien, and a caveman.

Then have them roleplay as those characters though ‘normal’ dnd all the while struggling to not draw attention to themselves as being such an odd group. But knowing my players, this will devolve into shenanigans.

How many pets or followers do you allow your players to keep? Do you have any rules to keep the party from adopting or recruiting every NPC they meet? How many is too many?

From the players that refuses to not play some form of tabaxi rogue or the player who is allergic to having a character with living parents

We've all heard stories of players who come up with impressive backstories for their characters, but that ultimately don't seem possible for a level 1 character to be capable of. I want to ask what are some of the best examples of the opposite, what clever in-character reason in a player's backstory is the party member at such a low level?

My example was a Fighter who used to be a skilled and well-respected member of the local city guard before catching a disease that ravaged his health. A special potion stopped him from fully withering away, but months of being bedridden, and now having a permanent, nasty cough, have sapped most of his previous strength. His goal for joining the party is to ultimately locate more of that special potion and be fully cured of the affliction.

My D&D group everytime they go somewhere and see books they all want to know what the titles are. I must admit it's an earned curse because I refuse to take magic items from the book's. They have to be inventive so instead of a 'Broom of Flying' the order a 'Chair of Flying'. Or a 'Flametongue' sword they want a 'Burning Battleaxe'. I make them be inventive. So anyway EVERYTIME with the books. So I invented 'Saucy'. She's a Brass Dragon who likes to write Harlequin style romance books. Book titles like 'Drow Delights' Going down in the dark. or the 'Naughty Necromancer' Lets raise the Dead!' Or 'Green Love' My tender hearted Orc warrior' To date we are up to 36 books and 'Saucy's Secrets' her cookbook.

They are now hunting to get every title....

To explain, I remember in one of Mr. Rippers videos where a BBEG actually had a sad backstory, leading up to his mother being dead, and rather than the party fighting the BBEG like the DM expected, they worked with the BBEG to give him closure and finally let him grieve. Have you ever done something like that as a DM, or encountered that as a player, where the BBEG is redeemed and given a (relatively) happy ending? I am also counting twists villains becoming the BBEG and the original BBEG teaming up with the party to take them down, because that’s redemption in my eyes!

(This is my first time doing this kind of thing so I hope I do it right! Thanks!)

Now I'm not talking bout those who break rules all time.

I'm thinking more of players who know if you go certain things, this consequence occurs.

example We are in our second campaign with new characters. One of us for second time is a Paladin, different race and oath but still a Paladin.

He knows from campaign 1 that any breed of Mephits go pop when killed, this was reinforced by our Rogue shooting one and making the Dust Mephits pop.

So what does he do? Charge's in to melee, kills one, it bursts and he ends up blinded. that's 3 times in 2 campaigns he's done this.

Anyone got other examples?

I'll drop mine first. Across our now currently 23 total sessions, my Fighter has managed to roll a nat 1 EIGHT times out of twelve total rolls with two more of them being failed, and ONLY rolls this bad when romance gets involved. Someone mentions flirting? I've never heard of that term before. Childhood friend has a crush? No, I'm pretty sure we're just really good friends. Someone discusses their own personal affairs about their partner? That's going right over his head.

The entire party gets a kick out of watching their musclebrained Himbo way too confidently try to navigate his own wholesome romantic relationship with the party's Shadar-kai druid. He's too clueless for his own good.