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Friday, February 24, 2012

GM-Ordained Betrayal

I've been thinking about mind-control effects, possession, doppelgangers, or other situations where one member of the adventuring party is either forced to betray the party or is actually a monster/villain who is masquerading as a trusted colleague. The standard solution is note passing or taking the player aside in secret, which I find annoying. Is there another way?

I think the approach I outlined in I Meant To Do That would work here. Don't tell anyone anything; let them play their characters exactly as they would in any other circumstance. However, any time the player of the co-opted character makes a suggestion or takes an action not suggested by other party members, roll a d6, adjusting the roll for the intelligence of the controlling magic-user or spirit, or of the monster impersonating the PC: on 5+, the player's actions were really part of the villain's plans. For example, if the player says "I think we should go this direction," on a 5+ the villain knows this is the location of an ambush arranged by its allies

Improvise appropriate details whenever the roll is a success so that bad stuff tends to happen. Add new monsters or traps, for example. If there is a trap, include the intelligence modifier on the roll to avoid the trap; the villain might still get caught (or pretend to get caught) in a trap, but has an advantage of knowledge. In fact, if you normally let players make their own saves against traps (as I do,) you can tell a player of a co-opted PC who failed the roll by a small amount "... but for some reason you were able to escape." Let the players fret over why that character was special. Doppelganger? Or was the PC blessed by a cleric?

3 comments:

  1. I like this. It's a really cool way of dealing with these sorts of situations.

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  2. I think I might still use the old enlist-the-player trick when their character has been *completely* taken over by someone or something.

    But I think I'll probably use your idea when a character is merely under the influence of someone or something. That way, even the player of that character isn't sure what's going on, just like their character isn't.

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  3. This is a really interesting idea. I wonder how the potential reveal would work though. It seems possible that the players might never discover the betrayal (especially if it was something like possession or mind-control rather than actual replacement by a doppelganger).

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