Sometimes, being a great DnD DM is a bit like being the host at a party, making sure everyone gets along and that each stage of the meal arrives on time. Sometimes it means being an encyclopedia of rules, or an impartial judge who can handle all the wild and inventive things your players are trying to do. And sometimes, the only way to be a really good DM is to be a complete and utter bastard.
As any horror movie enjoyer, long distance runner, or recreational masochist will tell you, sometimes it's fun when things aren't fun. DnD and other TTRPGs can be just the same: some players want a game to feel thrilling, nerve-wracking, or emotionally intense, with villains they can really hate and victories that feel utterly earned. Sometimes, the only way to achieve this for your players is by channelling the spirit of a truly evil sumbitch.
I want to draw an important distinction between being an evil shit of a DM, and just being a shit DM. Unless you've found a time machine back to the late seventies and are taking part in one of the original TSR DnD tournaments, the DM and the players aren't trying to beat one another, they're trying to create a fun experience together. It's trivial for a DM to ruin the players' fun - click your fingers and their characters are dead. Big whoop. Giving your players an enjoyably bad time is an art.
Before we set off, I'll refer you back to fellow DM Mollie Russell's excellent article about consent tools in DnD and the kink community. If your players want a cheery and frolicsome game, don't spring an emotional beartrap on them - and just because your players say okay to a mean game, doesn't mean you're off the hook for checking in on them regularly. Make communicating expectations for your game a continual process, not just limited to the pre-session when you're helping players to pick their DnD classes and DnD races that will fit in the campaign setting.
First, you need to establish your objective as a bastard: different campaigns will reward different styles of bastardry. A gritty campaign in an uncaring world requires different dick moves from a dramatic campaign with a truly hateful villain. Having a goal in mind will let you deploy these tactics more effectively.
Now in no particular order, here are my top tips for being an absolute bastard of a DM:
Vary the tone
If you want your players to really hate you (in a good way), you should be a bastard very sparingly. Partly that's because a single-note campaign is very dull, for you as well as for the players.
People can't sustain a state of high tension for a long time: without cathartic moments of joy or levity to release the tension, players will just check out of the game, or become cynical. And if the players don't have hopes, how will you dash them?
Give them something to lose
Whether it's a welcoming village, a cheerful NPC that the party adopts, or even a part of the setting that the players find particularly entertaining, your players need to have something that they care about which isn't their character. They can always roll another character. But when Boblin the Goblin dies, he's dead for good.
Display the instruments of torture
Let the players know what's in store for them. If you have a really nasty villain, introduce them early. If there's a dangerous encounter in store for the players, give them a glimpse of it early on so they can ruminate on how much they don't want to face it. If there's a hideous threat loose in the setting, take it for a test run - preferably on a totally innocent NPC.
There are worse fates than death
Not for the players, of course - they can always make a new hero - but for the NPCs. Yes, the villain could kill the orphans. But what if instead, they transported them into a magical painting? A magical painting that the villain then smears with turpentine, blurring the pigments, smearing the villagers into one another, their faces growing increasingly contorted in horror as their bodies merge… At which point, the villain releases them from the spell…
Hit them from angles they don't expect
DnD assumes that you're going to work through a series of discrete fights, with short breathers, where the challenge comes from matching the offensive and defensive skills of your enemies with your combat resources. A character only dies when they reach zero HP, there's no healing magic left in the party, and they fail three death saves.
But there's another way to kill a character, of almost any level, with almost any kind of monster. Don't let them rest. Characters that don't get a long rest can't prepare spells, can't refresh abilities or hit dice, and start to accumulate Exhaustion levels, which come with their own debuffs. And it only takes a second's disturbance to interrupt a long rest…
This idea is taken from the excellent retro module Deep Carbon Observatory: the party is hunted by a small group of evil adventurers including a necromancer. Once they know where the party is camping, they start enchanting zombies to wander into their camp once every four hours, just to soften them up.
Not only is this a threat that the players are likely not to see coming, it's a great way to mark out a villain as clever, merciless, and aware of the players. And it will remind the players that, no matter how many spell slots they have, they're still completely mortal.
Cultivate an aura of paranoia
It only takes one battle with a mimic for players to start checking every treasure chest; it only takes one pit trap before players will start to be suspicious of every floor tile. Once the players are aware that there are hidden threats their characters may not be aware of, they're going to exist in a state of tension. You can amplify this.
The simplest way to do this is to roll one or more dice behind the DM screen, for absolutely no reason. Flick through your notes. Nod your head, or chuckle softly. Roll another die or two. When the players ask you what that was about, just tell them "You'll find out at some point".
Likewise, when a player makes a perception check, end any description by implying they might have missed something. "Yeah, you rolled pretty well, so as far as you can tell there's nothing in the dark. As far as you can tell."
Hand out notes to the players regularly, with information only their character perceives. This is particularly good once the party has had an encounter with a monster with some kind of mind-control powers. If you don't have anything to tell the players, just pass one a note that says "smile and nod and I'll give you Advantage on your next roll". They'll smile and nod. No-one will trust them.
Give them a way out
If you design a death trap, make sure there is a way around it - and one that a reasonable human could understand, not the bullshit from the original Tomb of Horrors. If the players can think of a way to circumvent your horrors, let them.
This is partly to vary the tone, giving your players emotional highs and stopping them from becoming cynical that the game is completely rigged against them. But it's also a tool for heightening the suffering. If the players can see a way out of the trap, they will scrabble all the harder to get out. And when they do fail, well, it will feel all the crueller for having been so close to escape…
What do you think - do you have your own tips for giving your players an enjoyably horrible experience? Has a DM ever amazed and appalled you with a particular act of bastardry? Should I be sent to the Hague for crimes against NPCs? Let me know in the Wargamer Discord community's DnD channel!
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