Deception as an adventure (Edition doesnt matter)

[Yeturs]

I have been playing a lot of The Resistance (Link to Tabletop playing the game (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_QRczGzXqw&list=PL4F80C7D2DC8D9B6C)) with my friends lately, and that got me thinking, I should roll some deceptive gameplay into a dungeon style adventure.

Okay, so the dungeon has a lot of traps and junk. In the first room, there will be a sneak attack and one player will get stolen away as a hostage while the lights are out. When the lights come back on, however, they find a note on the floor and one of their members replaced by a doppleganger type creature. They do not know what member, of course. The note reads like this.

"We have taken one of your company. That one is replaced by a placeholder in the interim. Reach the center of this dungeon and get your party member back, or his blood is forfeit to what dark powers may be hidden within."

i will then hand out shuffled cards. Three read "You are normal. You are exactly as you were born."

One will read "You are a doppleganger. Your character will not be harmed, no matter what. Stop the party from reaching the center, and you will be rewarded." The person who gets this card still plays the game, just as if he were himself, but he knows he gets a reward for foiling the other players.

Then, the dungeon proceeds as normal, under a time limit. If the party reaches the center in time, the cultish ritual is interrupted, they will see who got stolen (and therefore who the dopplegager was) and they will have a fight and probably get some cool magic loot, unavailable if they were too late.

However, if the doppleganger player succeeds in delaying the party, his blood is infused with the dark demonic power or whatever and he gets a selfish bonus, like maybe fast healing 2 until he has at least half hp. I dunno, something only he really benefits from.

What do you guys think? I think this could either be REALLY fun or a total trainwreck. Any suggestions for unique and cool prizes? Or, any ideas for how i can change the structure to make it more fun?

[mattie_p]

I have been playing a lot of The Resistance (Link to Tabletop playing the game (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_QRczGzXqw&list=PL4F80C7D2DC8D9B6C)) with my friends lately, and that got me thinking, I should roll some deceptive gameplay into a dungeon style adventure.

Okay, so the dungeon has a lot of traps and junk. In the first room, there will be a sneak attack and one player will get stolen away as a hostage while the lights are out. When the lights come back on, however, they find a note on the floor and one of their members replaced by a doppleganger type creature. They do not know what member, of course. The note reads like this.

"We have taken one of your company. That one is replaced by a placeholder in the interim. Reach the center of this dungeon and get your party member back, or his blood is forfeit to what dark powers may be hidden within."

i will then hand out shuffled cards. Three read "You are normal. You are exactly as you were born."

One will read "You are a doppleganger. Your character will not be harmed, no matter what. Stop the party from reaching the center, and you will be rewarded." The person who gets this card still plays the game, just as if he were himself, but he knows he gets a reward for foiling the other players.

Then, the dungeon proceeds as normal, under a time limit. If the party reaches the center in time, the cultish ritual is interrupted, they will see who got stolen (and therefore who the dopplegager was) and they will have a fight and probably get some cool magic loot, unavailable if they were too late.

However, if the doppleganger player succeeds in delaying the party, his blood is infused with the dark demonic power or whatever and he gets a selfish bonus, like maybe fast healing 2 until he has at least half hp. I dunno, something only he really benefits from.

What do you guys think? I think this could either be REALLY fun or a total trainwreck. Any suggestions for unique and cool prizes? Or, any ideas for how i can change the structure to make it more fun?

My idea won't work under many circumstances. However, what if there was no time limit, just they had to get there. Give each of the players a card. However, all of them say "You are the doppleganger." This only works for a one-shot game, as it will be pretty cut-throat. All of them collectively have the goal of getting there, but their individual plots might be very interesting to deal with.

[Enguebert]

Well, there is the problem that the guy who plays the doppleganger doesn't want to succeed :
if he succeed, his teammates will not be able to rescue his character

If you want to have fun, have the same start, but all cards says "You are normal. You are exactly as you were born." (then get the cards back so they can't show them "by accident" to other players"

So basically, all players will continue to play his characters, but they will distrust each others
Lot of fun when a player propose a plan and others see a flawn in it and thinks he is a traitor :smallsmile:

[Squirrel_Dude]

There are some weird motivations with that note (we will tell you our plan, and promise to stop it if you reach us?), but overall I think that this is a clever idea for an adventure and would be fun.

[Jacque]

I think the Age of Worms storyline has an adventure where one of the characters are switched out with a doppelganger.

You might want to have a say in who gets switched out. If its the healer then he can easily win the "competition" and the same goes for the wizard.

I agree with Squirrel_Dude that it seems unrealistic that the cultist would warn the characters that they have a doppelganger in their midst. Why not just kill them or scare them off? Why tell them that the ritual is performed in the center?

An alternative idea would be to let the characters know that the cultists is a cult of doppelgangers or they usually hire doppelganger assassins or whatever, and then let the characters figure out themselves that one of the party members is acting strangely. Perhaps let two party members be replaced with doppelgangers without even having the doppelgangers know that there's two of them.