Being tricksy: PCs in disguise

[Rixx]

Half the fun of being a tricky character, like a Rogue or Bard, is... well, tricking people. Unfortunately, tricking your fellow party members can be a problem, as it requires secret communication between you and the DM.

For example, I play a Rogue who has a skill focus in Disguise. I used this on the other players once already (they thought my character was a man for a month / three sessions; she isn't). However, I'm not done messing with the rest of them.

I want my character to disguise herself as someone they don't know and interact with one or more of them. Unfortunately, that would mean that I have to let the DM control her. How can I communicate to the DM what my character would do or say in any given situation?

I've considered secret vague hand signals for vague motivation/reactions/responses (Yes, no, positive, negative, etc.), and feeding specific lines to him under the table with m iPod Touch. Only problem with this is if I want to deliver any specific lines or instructions, there's going to be a delay, which might be obvious.

Have you ever pulled anything similar to this? If so, how did you handle it?

[Xyk]

I would suggest if you guys have laptops or cell phones, to text or IM him the words. Texting might be a tad unwieldy though.

[Eldan]

Passing notes is really the most simple and traditional way.

[BRC]

Another method is to talk with your DM beforehand, and describe the way the character would react, their personality, ect, then just have the DM play the disguised character.

[sofawall]

But the other PCs may see that. I like laptops during games, sometimes I wish I had some laptops to pass around, all rules hyperlinked and searchable, but they can't, (for instance) look up monsters and all that, only the DM is allowed.

Technology makes all things better, although unless they were little netbooks or something, they'd take up as much room as the books.

Ninja...

[Roukon]

The question I have is how well does your DM know the players and how they interact with things? If he knows them very well, then I think since he knows what will likely happen, then he can anticipate the questions they might have in advance. Also, since he will be controlling your character, he might be able to tell you some of the information about the encounter, and therefore, the both of you can decide what will happen when "x" happens. It will take a lot of planning, and more than likely, half the planning will never actually come out, but this is another way for it to happen. It's just a lot of work.

I think the best way would be to have you sit next to the DM and pass notes or play "footsie" somehow with pre-arranged signals.

[Rixx]

But the other PCs may see that. I like laptops during games, sometimes I wish I had some laptops to pass around, all rules hyperlinked and searchable, but they can't, (for instance) look up monsters and all that, only the DM is allowed.

Technology makes all things better, although unless they were little netbooks or something, they'd take up as much room as the books.

Ninja...

I do have a little netbook, and our DM does use his laptop constantly. I guess I could just say since my character's sitting out of the current event, I'm just going to look through rules and mess about on the Internet (or work on my character's journal) and make sure they can't see that I'm really feeding him lines.