"So what tricks do you pull on your opponents" Topic

So how creative are you with tricks for your gaming buddies?
Are they amused or stunned?

imgur.com/gallery/R8LDga4

Repeated trick players will be shown the door.

Rolling 6s.

I love to set up in a defensive posture and then about turn 5 or 6 attack !!

I have a plan

Usually my plan assumes bad dice on my part.

My plan is the same as Saber6. Poor dice rolling.

When it appears you are going to lose; go ‘all in' on the long shot.

Never tricks, but I have written scenarios filled with information and warnings….and if they don't pay attention, those warnings become harsh lessons.
If I tell you about a dust cloud to your left, scout it. If I warn you about thick woods, scout them. I always provide the appropriate troops for such actions, use them!

I yell "look out" while pointing behind my opponent, then when he ducks, I move some minis around.* Does that count?

*I don't really do that.

Cavcrazy, maybe your friends like the element of surprise, just in an inappropriate way. Danger Will Robinson, danger!

That may be, but all I'm saying is if you say you read history and we are gaming Brandywine, you should have some idea that there may well be Hessians showing up on your flank!

Lots, but I always catch my tricks. Hard to fool yourself

I have been known to get more units out of their trays than I am going to use, and then put them away after deployment.

That worked great, you should have seen my opponents face when I put the Varagian Guard back in their tray.

But Washington didn't know that he was playing the famous "Battle of Brandywine".
Why should the player have the knowledge that Washington didn't?
That's why the GM should deviate from the more famous battles by altering the OOB or the map.
If he wants to duplicate an actual battle, let it be an obscure one, or derived from a campaign.
I actually think it's bad if the players are aware of what actually happened.

East front game. One of the German players said I should have told him
T-34s move so fast.

Repeated trick players will be shown the door.

I've already seen it thanks, very nice, is that oak?

Although its not easy, I try and look like I know what I'm doing. Opponents occasionally think that stupid move I made must have something going that they aren't aware of. Can sometimes work – once. After that, if not before they know for certain its just another stupid move.

+1, OFM

"If we built this large, wooden badger …"

I was in a campaign once and was running a small squadron of gunboats that got into a night fight with a powerful cruiser force. Their cruisers were covering an invasion force.

My hopeless task was to frustrate the landing.

In turn 1 I tell the ref I want to launch 2 red colored rockets. He says fine.

We fight the battle and I get slaughtered. Once done I say to the ref, now I figure we sort out the minelayers.

"Minelayers!?" Says the cruiser guy. "Yeah," says I, "why do you think I need I fired the rockets."

Invasion cancelled.

I guess you're not talking about providing 10 inch long one foot rulers for your opponents?

I don't play tricks on opponents, but as a referee I put things into the orders for each side that it would be really good to notice, probably much like Cavcrazy.

I've been playing a deep subversive long-game through multiple successive losses to lull my opponents into a false sense of security.

I actually think it's bad if the players are aware of what actually happened.

Nah. We play Puebla every year. Oxi Day most years. And lots of other ones. They're all fun. For both sides.

The French are going to lose Puebla. Do we know more?

Maybe Lorencez didn't know exactly when he was going to run out of artillery ammo, but he also shouldn't have been expecting it to last all day.

We do know that the Mexican people aren't going to turn on their own Army (not all that unlikely, just didn't happen) the way the French intel said they would (and had done in the past).

Even though fated to lose, SOM had one of the best advances by the French we have seen in many refights of this classic. By our count, he won.

Many, many years ago we played a post apocalyptic game with modern micro armor. Being young and poor I used WWII Japanese and German vehicles with wire glued to the turrets to represent TOW missiles. Each player would enter the board at different locations, scout for supplies, equipment, ammo, etc. We might have 10 people playing in one game.

The game was designed so that anything goes. Anything except cheating on dice rolls, moving too far, etc. In one game I had a Japanese float/bi-plane. Every time I moved it I would strategically place a Dr. Pepper can to block my opponent's view of the plane. When it was time for it to make it's run I just moved the can and in it went! Over 30 years later people still bring that game up. :-)

I GMd an ACW meeting engagement at our FLGS years ago. On a lark the scenario was set around a small town. The victory conditions called for each side to seize and hold the church at their end of town. They could have marched in, seized their church, and stopped. Both sides would have won.

Of course both sides surged into the town and fought all afternoon trying to secure it. The town itself was without value. There weren't even any shoes.

Since I usually game with the same bunch I tend to play to the other chaps style, which I guess is not a trick but is handy – for instance, one chap tends to hold back reserves all game long while another's standard tactical approach is a flat out charge – period, full stop, so I do take shameless advantage of this

"If we built this large, wooden badger …"

We don't need no stinking Badger!!!!

+1 Redcurrant

I wait for them to get into a rule discussion with someone on my side and then remove their chairs.

I set the clocks ahead so my opponents leave for home while I'm winning…

@ OFM.It is true that Washington wasn't "playing" the battle of Brandywine, but he had a terrible habit of leaving his flanks exposed and unscouted. He was outflanked at Long Island as well as White Plains, both battles taking place before he was outflanked at Brandywine. It seems he made that mistake quite a bit. I used the Brandywine battle as an example. My group games historical battles without actually naming them, and discuss the battle after. only then do we reveal what the battle we gamed was based on.

@ cavcrazy = That's a great example of the difference between making the "right" (a "good"?) decision and making one that works. Or doesn't.

Are there examples of battles where Washington didn't scout his flanks, left them exposed, but didn't have someone try to outflank him?

I had a set of the old Battlefront Soviet dice. The ones where a one is the National symbol rather than the six. But by accident when I rolled them I though that the ones were actually sixes.

I haven't used them since but that must have been the reason why they were so cheap.

I think that Washington's leadership and fearlessness is what made him great. He was certainly a "Fight from the front" kind of guy. Princeton he was fearless, I believe he had something like 11 bullet holes in his clothing !
He fought 17 battles, won 6, lost seven, and the other four were slugfests where he saved his army from destruction by escaping, which are not tactical victories.
I think a flanking tactic was used against Washington so often because he didn't have the numbers his foe did.
I think Nathaniel Greene was more effective a commander because he knew he couldn't stand and fight the British toe to toe, he outran them and pulled them away from lines of communication and supplies.

Back to the original topic, The American Revolution is a great period where you can have an amazing game when you work with hidden troops and the unexpected surprise or two.

Years ago I would wait for one of the guys I gamed with to get half drunk, then attack. Not really a trick but an addled opponent helps the attack succeed .

Years ago when playing Napoleonics I staged a unit of Ral Partha Zulus in a bunch of lichen scrub. Went several hours before he noticed.

It's classified …

Loudly pass gas, blame it on the dog, by the time everyone realizes that there is no dog, you have cleverly rearranged the forces to your advantage.

Not showering for days before the game.

This will have no effect at D&D and other RPG's.

Many years ago in San Jose at a game convention, I took part in a role-playing type game put on by a group from the Naval War Game Center (or something like that). They normally put it on for the Pentagon, State Department, and politicians. We had about 60 players and the countries were the US, N.Korea, USSR, and Iran. The US had players taking a position as the President, Congressman, Senators, journalists, etc. Each "player" was given what activities he had to perform to get points. There were no miniatures, maps, or tactical battles. We were supposed to avoid hostilities. I guess it would qualify as a high-level political LARP.

I ended up being in command of the USAF. Each country/group went to a room in a big ballroom and started their planning. I met with the Joint Chief of Staff which didn't take long. Most of the activity was around the President and it was evident he was in over his head.

I was getting bored and decided to do some "spying" so I nonchalantly walked into the room the Iranians had and went up to one of the umpires and started asking questions and making small talk while taking notes on the Iranian leaders plans and goals were for the game. For about 10 minutes I wrote down the details of the WMD plans, economic planning/selling oil, terrorism, etc while the umpire just smiled. Finally, one of the Iranians shouted out, "Hey, that guy does not belong here". Now with my cover blown I smiled and left. They should have captured and tortured me.

So with all of this information, I report back to the JCS who says I should tell the President. So I go to the President and he's busy giving "press conferences", meeting with politicians and getting interviewed. I finally interrupted him by grabbing him by the shoulder and telling him what I found out. He said he was too busy right now to do anything. Pretty realistic I'd say.

I got the most points for raising the DefCon status to DefCon 2 and it was not easy getting the President to go along with it. It was a very intense and chaotic exercise and I had a terrible migraine headache for the rest of the day that made me nauseous.

At another convention, we were playing the ACW Battle of Fort Fischer and I was on the Union side. My son who was 13 at the time had the contingent of Marines that were going to make a beach assault in their rear.

When the Marines landed they took casualties and failed a morale check and were going to have to fall back. Dana Lombardy was the game designer and GM so I went over to him pretending to be outraged and got in his face. He's about 5'5" tall and I'm 6'2" and 260 pounds. I politely lamblasted him in front of everyone (no cursing or personal attacks mind you) about how unhistoric the Marines failing a beach assault was and I challenged him to give me one example. He finally agreed with me and the Marines stayed. They then flanked a defensive position and took down the forts flag, something totally unexpected.

The Confederates had a large and unexpected relief force marching towards us for a flanking attack and seeing the flag go down they hesitated and stopped. This gave us a chance to redeploy and get ready for them. They had to march down a road so another player and I set up an L-shaped ambush to meet them. After the ambush and the Union troops (mine) taking their main defensive position, they decided to concede a victory to us.

Wolfhag