Why False Hydras never work. #dnd #shorts #comedy

As a DM, I actually don't mind if my players know that they are running a false hydra arc. As long as they don't meta game too hard, it actually gives me the opportunity to try and be more creative in the way that I present it.

This is why i recommend the players are affected differently by a false hydra

Their memories of dead npcs should not be erased, play into that and provide and interesting explanation as to why their memories are not effected

The real reason false hyrda dont work is, unless you meta game, most character will just move on from the town.

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Plot twist: Mind flayer colony with modify memory

This is why you have to wrap a false hydra in multiple layers of mystery. I’m doing a murder mystery arc where everyone is snowed in and stuck in the inn with people mysteriously disappearing all over town so that way the signs of a partially derelict area don’t seem abnormal. The murderer ends up being the deaf son of the noble family that used to rule the surrounding lands and collected rare monsters before some got out. He’s killing people to save them from being forgotten. That’s when players notice weird signs around town like a lack of blood stains from other murders and almost no law enforcement, pots left on stoves to boil over until the house catches fire because no one ever returned to tend them or know they needed tending to to begin with.

The problem with the False Hydra is that everyone knows what a False Hydra is and how it generally works, and knowing what it is ruins the way it works in the game. It's a cool concept that really only works on players who don't know what it is.

Heres a plot twist for you.

False Hydra AND its actually controlled by a mind flayer.

Eat your brain out, Shamy!

The false hydra works as long as players like the one stating its a false Hydra dont do what she is doing. Thats meta goading if you know keep quiet.

Its all in how you do it

Time to do a reverse false hydra. Those things from that Rick and morty episode where you meet a quirky character that played a minor part in your backstory and another and another and then your players have to tearfully kill their old sword master and the traveling story teller who would visit their village and the old flame ex-girlfriend who wanted to try again and Goobee the goblin bard.

It’s not stupid, it’s fun!

Imma be honest. The false hydra is a creepypasta. Its not content. It sounds really boring and dull to actually play and is just gaslighty.

This is why, for false hydras, you just straight-up gaslight the players
"Bartender? What are you talking about? The city doesn't even have a bar"

There are ways to make it work

You should always run it where the npc are forgetting what is happening

I'll forever hate players like her… When a metaplayer ruins the fun, it's just infuriating

This is why I hate meta gamers, its supposed to be a horror piece. It doesn't really work when you've read the monster manual and act as if you're character somehow has

I actually used a false hydra against my players a few years back. The only one who had ever heard of them was also my co-author who helped me write my setting who was, incidentally, the one who told me about false hydra’s.
They NEVER learned what it was, and were convinced it was something else alltogether, a demon lord that they summoned an avatar of. The demon lord, lacking a biological brain (a requirement is how I was running it) was immune and would in the end join forces with and start teleporting the false hydra around.
In the end, 2/3 of the contintnts coastline were depopulated before the players previous characters put a stop to it.
Even better, onf of the players was playing a modified version of a warforged, and was also immune to the false hydra (made it much more interrsting). He was convinced it was a cult, and that the heads of the false hydra were the tongues of the demon lord of worms from the Tome of Beast by Kobold Press.
To this day, they don’t know what a false hydra is!
Edit:
I forgot that I also cranked up the false hydra’s telepathic powers, allowing it to read and control minds much earlier and more intensely than normally possible. It figured out the players were very powerful (level 20) very quickly, and immediatle began to try and frame events as though there really was a cult. One confusing point for the players was they would use magic to break people free of the “cult’s” influence only for them to be memory addled basket cases. Also, the war forged had picked up telepathy (another story) and was able to sense the telepathic presence in of the false hydra in the minds of those it was actively puppeting.

This is why my known bbeg is trying to steal people's memories

Bruh, everything is open to read online. To make ANYTHING work you just have to make sure to no invite buzzkills such as the axe-earring one

That's why you only play out the events AFTER the Hydra messed with your memories. By the time they realize the time skips it's already to late.

If you wanna see a good very small campaign with a false hydra I can highly recommended Dragonfinder gaming. Josh did a few episodes as a prelude for his Pathfinder Curse of Strahd Patreon campaign. In general I think he is a really awesome dm so highly recommend him in general he and his friends where my gate way into dnd

Yeah, I think I was only able to run it for three different groups before it became popular enough where people have heard of it. They all loved it though! Which as I understand it, is not the typical experience.

THE DEMONDICE SHIRT IS SO GREAT

"He's doing a False Hydra" nah, its fey magic, now get ready for even weirder things.

This is clearly some gay shit I would be into if I understood any of it

Don’t try to influence their memories. You influence the world’s memories instead. “You don’t remember a bartender” doesn’t have the same effect as “What bartender? The bar’s been closed for years now.”

the way to do it to just act like you never interacted with them as a bar tender. like above game act as if you don't recall a bartender npc. it'll still fall apart but it'll be better

Is that a DDK shirt?

I'm still stuck on why it's called a false hydra. Sure, I could look it up, but I want to stew in my corner. The hydra is a multi-headed beast that doesn't die from head loss. A "false" hydra would be the same beast with one head that dies from head loss. Where does "messes with people's memory" come from?

Made a oneshot for Halloween, didn't actually get to the hydra itself because we had no time and the characters walked out of town like "fuck nope" after various already spooky stuff, but the best part probably was the face of my best friend, who was the most experienced player between the players, and when he understood what it was but didn't say anythin cause he's a champ his face was absolutely priceless 😂

Definitely got to be more sly than that.

If you can't (or you're not going to be subtle about it), drop it into a fight that seems to be going too easy for the party, then have an enemy cast silence and hit them with the "Now free from it's song... You See It"

False hydras work best in reverse. Give them more information they never actually had.

I did a false hydra, (probably incorrectly)but it wasn’t a villain, it was a chance encounter.

The group went to sleep and found an extra tent in their camp when they wake up from a nights rest. It has blood splattered inside of it, as well as a bag and a journal with drawings of some of the stuff they did and a few brief notes, including a letter to their parents.

The implication being that it got someone who was their friend and they just don’t remember that friend anymore.

I think y'all mean it's the White Whale from RE:Zero.

just play it as you (as a DM) don't remember the guy they forgot and say let's forget about it he was never there

Luckily, my players are idiots who REFUSE to put ANY kind of research into the game, so if I get a chance to put a false hydra into the game I’m 86% sure they’re going to be like “hey can we go back to that person” me: “that person doesn’t exist” them “yes they do, you’re so dumb, take better notes, this is like the fourth person you’ve said doesn’t exist” and then they’ll probably all die because they just will not figure it out

Love the Shirt.

OMG, that was funny-cute!

They can work. You just have to be clever about it :)

Is that a demondice shirt?

best way to play off a false hydra is pretending it's a MISTAKE in YOUR memory as the dm and not the players. "wait what bartender....OH THAT ONE, okay so my bad there shouldn't be a bartender here....whoops"
THAT'S HOW YOU DO A FALSE HYDRA. you do that repeatedly and they slowly put together something is VERY wrong here.

Modify memory, the party losing a fight and getting put in a false reality that messes with their minds (not my idea but I won’t name which 3rd party, homebrew, wotc product might have it) poorly worded wish by an NPC they know, deity or other great power trying to hide/protect someone or something….

Having a player metagaming in front of the new one, acting like the false hydra os nothing also doesn't help

Disappointing actually. She could of leaned into it and made the other guy's experience really great instead of ruining it for him.

Do it like Stargate did. They had this town with a giant computer that tried to preserve the population but the systems, including life support, was failing, so the computer kept killing and erasing people to save energy.

False Hydras work well with people who don't take notes and rely on DM recaps to remember where they were in the story.