Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

[nexus]

First

 

My Players STAY OUT!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm planning to introduce Black Harlequin into my Dark Champions campagin. He will be making his big debut on April 1st with a series of cruel (maiming, injury, some lethality) "practical jokes" pulled on seemingly random citizens of Hudson City. But, at the moment, I'm drawing a blank and I could use some suggestions. The setting allows for some advanced technology but nothing overtly supertech.

[Karmakaze]

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

 

Well, there's the classic exploding whoopee cushion and the joy-buzzer doorknob (with too much voltage)...

 

There's the Can-O-Snakes, except the snakes don't stop expanding...

 

He could overpaint a zebra crossing with glue and leave people trapped in front of oncoming traffic. Or paint car windows with "invisible ink" that turns opaque at 45 mph.

 

He could cut out the bottom of an elevator and replace the floor with a hologram (or a tissue cutout).

[ThothAmon]

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

 

How dark do you want this?

 

A motorway (freeway) pile up caused by the a number of vehicles behaving like dodgems. Post-crash investigation reveals they were rigged for remote control.

 

A number of fire hydrants are doctored to pump gasoline from nearby petrol stations instead of water. Set light to a few buildings and watch the results when the fire crews arrive to put out the flames.

 

Set up fake road works / redirection signs in time to snarl up the rush-hour traffic (or mess with the traffic light control systems and deliver cute messages a la 'LA Story'). Cue city-wide chaos and numerous outbreaks of commuter violence.

 

Create a bomb-and-hostage situation in a local high school. Blackmail the Mayor and the city via telephone. Have the bomb go off, spraying confetti all over the bomb disposal team.

 

Spike the supplies of cakes / muffins / brownies for a number of fast food joints whilst the stuff is in the distribution warehouse. Arrange for it to be delivered out to the eateries in time for April Fools' Day. See literally hundreds of people going nuts on a sweet lil combo of sugar rush, LSD and skunk cannabis.

 

Do a vehicular on a famous celebrity - a handsome / glam news anchor person would be ideal. Have them rushed to hospital by fast-arriving ambulance (a plant). Whilst they are out, do a little facial reconstruction, breast augmentation, hair replacement or similar. Dope them up to the eyeballs and then release them back into their natural environment with a TV crew nice and handy.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

 

I hate that I think like this sometimes, but hey. You want dismemberment April Fool's jokes? Hrm. I love the Fire Hydrant thing, btw. Repped for that one.

 

The local hospital's surgery ward's normal laser is replaced by a high wattage monstrosity. The X-Ray lab has been tampered with and the gamma radiation is causing instant burning, and no one can figure out how to dial it back down. All the local ambulance's are rigged so that they brakes fail as soon as the lights & sirens go on. The local fire trucks have already had their water replaced with Gasoline (there are water trucks, that would be... horrific).

 

All of the lights during Rush Hour go green. And stay green. Crunch. Enter ambulance with failed brakes and the Fire Truck with Gasoline to put it out (why have one when you can have all three?)

 

Subliminal radio messages which turn people into psychotic killers for exactly 401 seconds. (4/01 being April First).

[Matt Frisbee]

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

 

I've always liked the Tick episode where an "ant" villain of some type started trying to fry humans with a giant magnifying glass -- that was kind of funny.

 

There's always a variation on the old Pokemon show causing epileptic seizures -- but instead it drives children into homicidal fits.

 

Somewhat less lethal (but still sadistic) is to have clown car drive-bys with cream pies loaded with acidic cream, halucenogenic whipped topping or just loaded with napalm.

 

If there is a cherry blossum festival in your campaign city, you can start having explosions around the trees terrifying tourists. (Cherry bombs, of course, though the author of the Xanth series thought of that one first.)

 

Any kind of flower festival could be infested with killer bees, of course.

 

Suicide hotline calls could be redirected to euthenaisa advocacy groups or simply put on hold.

 

Just a few ideas, though most aren't very funny, I guess.

 

Matt "Still-trying" Frisbee

[McCoy]

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

 

A number of fire hydrants are doctored to pump gasoline from nearby petrol stations instead of water. Set light to a few buildings and watch the results when the fire crews arrive to put out the flames.

"Shouldn't a fire truck spray water?"

 

"That would be a water truck."

 

I like it.

 

Only thing I can suggest is see Jackass 2, and rent Jackass. You'll get some inspirations.

[Basil]

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

 

All the dangerous animals are released from the zoo.

 

Some elevators have their cables cut not quite all the way through, and the safety "stoppers" are disabled.

 

Gas pumps jiggered so they charge normal-looking prices, except it's per ounce, no per gallon. (or per milliliter if that's more appropriate)

 

Beamed microwave heating of ammo supplies in stores, cop stations, whatever, (This is a little "advanced tech" as well as doubtfully possible in the real world. Should be OK in a campaign, though. )

[McCoy]

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

 

This may be more mystical, and adult, than you want to go, it just occured to me and struck me as funny.

 

A high ranking politician, the mayor, police commissoner, or otherwise the highest ranking male NPC the PC's have as a contact, or more than one of the above, wake up in the morning with what appears to be a sock puppet superglued to their genetalia. It appears to be harmless, they make an appointment with ther doctor to see about removing the puppet after their scheduled press confrence (canceling the press confrence will be suspicious enough that they will probably be followed to the doctor's office). But during the press confrence, it "wakes up," and starts saying, loudly, what the NPC is actually thinking. Especally commenting on passing strangers the NPC finds attractive.

[Karmakaze]

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

 

Given that lots of April Fool's jokes are psychouts, you could have some key people called and told "I have your child/spouse/dnpc and I will do something terrible if you don't blow up city hall/rob a bank/mug the next person who walks by...."

 

Then, of course, if they go ahead and do it, they find out that it was a total bluff -- April Fools!

[Cancer]

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

 

• Empty all the saltshakers and replace their contents with milled white alum (or something more lethal)
  
• Free samples of Ex-lax chip brownies (or something more lethal)
  
• Have large numbers of people walk around with the Red Dwarf-style block letter "H" stuck -- or branded! -- to their foreheads
  
• (Literally) exploding toilets, with lethal fragmentation effect
  
• Stink bombs in public places ... but the stink is rather harmful stuff
  
• "Whipped cream" pie attacks where the pie is loaded with a strong corrosive
  
• Flaming poo doorbell bombs where there's a mini-mine in with the poo in the bag that explodes when it's stepped on
  
• The street exhaust vent that most times just does the Marilyn Monroe skirt thing, but one time in four or five it blows hard enough to throw the person 30' in the air, from which they fall uncontrollably
  
• Squirting flower bouttonieres which squirt something lethal
  
• Trucks full of Keystone Kops guys, but the trucks' only purpose is to cause accidents and run people off the roads
  

[Sundog]

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

 

A politician does a "meet and greet" visit to main street. Does all the usual, shakes everybody's hands, kisses the babies, hands out cards.

 

About ten minutes later, people start dropping like flies - his gloved hands and his cards were coated in a fast-acting toxin...

[Mr. Negative]

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

 

I'm planning to introduce Black Harlequin into my Dark Champions campagin. He will be making his big debut on April 1st with a series of cruel (maiming' date=' injury, some lethality) "practical jokes" pulled on seemingly random citizens of Hudson City. But, at the moment, I'm drawing a blank and I could use some suggestions. The setting allows for some advanced technology but nothing overtly supertech.[/quote']

 

Within the limitations of advanced technology and cruel:

 

False obituary notices (could be the PCs, could be people he's planning on killing, could be red herrings)

 

Trigger local earthquake/tsunami sensors (thus causing a panic without actually having one).

 

Take over the emergency alert system and broadcast a false message (evacuation of industrial areas due to chemical leaks, etc).

 

Broadcast an Amber Alert (kidnapped child) for one or more children who are safely in the custody of one parent (leading that parent to be hunted as a kidnapper).

 

"Stage" a hostage crisis or school shooting, so that an innocent and harmless dupe is shot by the SWAT team responding.

 

Set off a fire alarm in a large building, wait until evacuated, and then attack the evacuees with flamethrowers.

 

Free flu shot clinic which gives you shots with active, powerful flu strain (and don't you know that kids and the elderly get those shots first).

 

Highway signs switched to divert traffic into roads, bridges, and tunnels under construction.

 

Hijack a bus full of schoolchildren, then secretly off-load the children before destroying the bus in a highly visible fashion. After the devastating shock of losing children, taunt parent with ransom demands for actually live children.

 

Location A contains terrorist sect and plausible impending terrorist plot, leading authorities to strike this location with extreme prejudice. Location B contains vulnerable members of society in need of rescue (say a gas leak at a nursing home), leading emergency services to respond rapidly to rescue. Swap contents of location A and B, leading authorities to use smoke bombs and live rounds on elderly, and rush into terrorist nest with EMTs and gurneys.

 

Replace the paintballs at a local paintball course with powerful drugs/toxins that take effect on skin contact (delayed onset time recommended). Toxins causing homicidal rages/paranoid delusions are preferred.

 

 

 

A lot of the previously posted suggestions are interesting, disruptive, and cruel ideas, appropriate for any sadistic and weird villian, but don't have the 'gotcha' moment which is appropriate, to me, for any April Fool's prank. Essentially, April Fool's jokes fool the victim into thinking one thing is happening when another is actually occurring. Thus, releasing dangerous zoo animals isn't really an April Fool's joke. Substituting rabid animals for the tame, healthy ones at a petting zoo is.

[KA.]

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

 

I think the best idea would be a real April Fool-type joke.

Have the Black Harlequin send a message to the heroes that he is going to commit a crime before midnight on April 1st.

Then have him send them running all over the city trying to foil crimes that he doesn't really commit.

For example:

Black Harlequin is seen outside a chemical warehouse.

He doesn't actually do anything there, he is just seen.

By the time the heroes get there he is gone, by the time they check over the scene to see what he did, he has had time to move to the next locale.

He could be seen outside the Mayor's daughter's preschool.

He could be seen outside a large bank.

He could be seen outside a commercial bakery that makes buns for all the city's fast food restaurants.

Etc.

Make sure that there is something a little off at each scene.

(One of the Security Guards at the chemical warehouse is a recent parolee.

There is a Teacher at the preschool with past convictions for drugs.

Etc.)

Enough so that if the heroes spend some time digging they will find something, but nothing they can really do much about.

(If they are zealous enough to turn any of the 'criminals' they catch in to the Police, or to report them to the authorities, make a note of it for the punchline.)

Just before midnight they finally catch up with Black Harlequin.

Set up the situation so that they can't just tackle him, use some (fake) hostages if necessary.

Just at the stroke of midnight have him pull out a large party popper.

Before the heroes can react, he pulls the string and confetti pops out all over the street.

As the heroes stand there in shock, the Harlequin delivers the punchline.

"Well, there it is, I have committed my crime!

Littering!

If any of you would care to take me in . . .?

No?

Well, it isn't really much of a crime, is it?

Nothing compared to what you did, ruining several innocent lives.

(Only use this line if they reported some of the 'shady characters' or caused anyone to lose their job.)

 

I didn't do any of the horrible, nasty, things you thought I was going to do.

 

But I will, sooner or later!

 

Oh, and one more thing . . ."

 

At this point the 'hostages' stand up, shed their phony bonds, and say:

"April Fool!"

 

KA.

[mikesama]

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

 

Take some of the old classic, silly trick items and make them really Random/Lethal.

 

SNapping gum packs that take off fingers.

 

Trick Cigartettes with micro misiles (a la james bond) in them.

 

Hot gum that contains Phosphorus/thermite.

 

Congealing pies that suficate the peson that gets hit by them, or stangles them in eaten.

[redknight]

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

 

My first reaction is for Harlequin to poke fun at accepted reality. He's nutz so making others question the world and their place in it would be a kick for him. Institutions, social conventions, and civility are the foundations for society so they will be turned on their heads.

Religion: A very respectable leader of the religious community declares a campaign to "revitalize the church". Think Buddy Jesus from the movie Dogma but with a darker twist. The brainwashed clergyman is convinced that he has received a new revelation from above and his town needs to be prepared to be ground zero of Armageddon (that happens April 1st of course!). The guy is such a good speaker he riles up half the city and the other half reacts with a violent backlash. It’s not the second coming but it might as well be...

Class: Disrupt the stock exchange (or banks of the city for something more local) so that the rich loose their shirts and the poor are forgiven their debts from loss of records. This could also be accomplished by H. printing "Fun Money" that looks normal until 12:01 AM April First. Suddenly all the people with lots of money on hand are broke.

Education: Students are sold illicit "smart pills" that makes them into (1) mindless goons, that will follow the directions of anyone wearing bells on their head; (2) ultra-smart people that are incapable of doing anything practical while they contemplate the big questions; (3) cultists that wear makeup and costumes similar to Harlequin. (The last is a great way to spread confusion when the heroes start looking for him.)

Society: All the rich people in therapy are simultaneously advised check in to a particular sanitarium. They are coerced with drugs, hypnotism, etc. to comply. Simultaneously, everyone in the local Home of the Criminally Insane are released and told who they "really are" -- all those rich people that just disappeared. Maybe while the crazies were locked up they were treated to some free plastic surgery and psychotherapy to help them assume their roles more thoroughly.

Age: the quiet communities of retirement homes are given something that peps them up (like in the movie Cocoon). Meanwhile, all the students of local schools are given downers in their school lunches and become apathetic and lethargic.

Morality: people get punished for their guilty pleasures. Basically, rip the synopsis from the movie Seven. A "lady's man" gets gang raped by militant women, a preacher is exposed for excessive (fill in your own sin), a peacenik killed in self defense when he goes on a violent rampage, etc. Irony.

Reality: The water is doped and make things look...odd. At the very least, when the April 1st release of this drug hits the city it will cause a lot of accidents and general mayhem as people try to cope with hallucinations (ala Batman: the Beginning).

Preservation: People are given a death-trap choice of doing something against their nature or dying. (ala Fight Club, Liar Liar, and a million other plots). A small bomb implanted in skulls of a doctor’s family will detonate unless all of his patients die on April 1st, etc.

I hope some of this helps.

[Rage]

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

 

Ok, so he's got this flower in his lapel right? And he shows it to a woman and squirts it on her, but it's not water... It's ink! So, she's all pissed off at him and is going yell at him... but she looks down and he's caused her to have a miscarriage.

 

Yeah, that's pretty sadistic, and rather sick.

 

I'm not a good person.

[KA.]

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

 

Ok, so he's got this flower in his lapel right? And he shows it to a woman and squirts it on her, but it's not water... It's ink! So, she's all pissed off at him and is going yell at him... but she looks down and he's caused her to have a miscarriage.

 

Yeah, that's pretty sadistic, and rather sick.

 

I'm not a good person.

 

Rage,

You have just caused me to think of the most offensive character concept it has been my misfortune to dream up.

Stillborn Man : The Miscarriage of Justice

If anyone finds this as offensive as I do, feel free to delete this post.

 

KA.

[Drhoz]

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

 

Damn, someone thought of the flaming poo land-mine first.

 

How about a bucket over a doorway? Full of acid?

[Drhoz]

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

 

or something inspired by the most elaborate practical joke i heard about -

 

victim wakes up from drugged sleep, in his own room. A recording is playing happily informing him that he has a few minutes to escape before the bomb or whatnot goes off... but his door has been plastered and painted over, and a fake door built over the wall a few feet along...

[Drhoz]

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

 

Plant the front lawn with hundreds of plastic flamingos. Cyborg Death Flamingos.

[Drhoz]

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

 

electric joy buzzers at the Cardiac Surgery Ward...

[Drhoz]

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

 

Fake Golf balls filled with Hi-Ex and shrapnel...

[Drhoz]

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

 

ice cubes with real tse-tse flies...

[Drhoz]

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

 

bomb complete with deactivation code. In invisible ink.

[Drhoz]

Re: Help needed: Sadistic "April Fool's" Jokes

 

Rage,

You have just caused me to think of the most offensive character concept it has been my misfortune to dream up.

Stillborn Man : The Miscarriage of Justice

If anyone finds this as offensive as I do, feel free to delete this post.

 

KA.

 

*laughs til it hurts* Yes, I too have a twisted brain (and the CAT scans to prove it )