Everything is a Lie.

[AstralFire]

So let's say you had the idea that everything your PCs wrote on their character sheets are actually lies and the players (and characters) simply don't realize it. Each one of them was mentally reprogrammed.

How would you ask people to prepare their sheets for such a game? This is a pure hypothetical born of another topic, but I'd want them to be aware that their entire worlds could change (so it doesn't qualify as straight DM jerk move) without actually tipping my hand. How would the subject best be broached?

[Feralventas]

Maybe talk to them about the idea of being handed a character to explore and learn about, and give gradual clues through game-play or mis-matches on the sheet instead? Gives them a blank slate to work from and examine instead of having them craft a toy to play with only to yank it from them and hand them something different.


Edit to nix the first line which came across as unfairly rude.

[AstralFire]

Maybe talk to them about the idea of being handed a character to explore and learn about, and give gradual clues through game-play or mis-matches on the sheet instead? Gives them a blank slate to work from and examine instead of having them craft a toy to play with only to yank it from them and hand them something different.

Wanting to avoid the latter is exactly why I made this topic. That's the problem with major twists, you're twisting someone else's creation.

So basically, write up character backgrounds for them, give them a choice of a few, and say, "this is accurate insofar as the character believes. You can customize further and play whatever class you choose, as long as it fits this frame."

[One Step Two]

I did something similar in an old game, mind you it was sci-fi based, but it had a decent effect. The characters were themselves, but I pulled "The Matrix" on them, not quite so far as the movies itself, but the idea was simple, the characters were playing themselves, but their motivations for playing were different.

Essentially, the whole "adventure" was a Virtual training mission for the BBEG, where the characters had no idea they were hooked into a machine. Essentially, they were tricked into fighting in a war with the BBEG before he was evil, becoming friends with him to learn about him and his motivations before they fought him. They still got to keep their development/exp but the story being shifted so Dramatically was a shock, where in-game one of the characters simply gave up, because they didn't want to fight someone who they had become friends with.

Basicly, it's a long way of saying: The characters are themselves with different motivations. For a Fantasy Setting, tell them to write a backstory where something major changed their lives and made them wanted to become an adventurer, maybe an alignment restraint.

So, ask them all to be Evil, and name a pivitol moment where they fell, and how it came about. Then the truth is revealed that they used to be Champions of Good before they got Mindraped into becoming champions of evil, their history is still them same, but the lie is where they fell, and it was part of the spell.

Something along those lines, the "Why" of who they are now has changed due to outside sources, and it makes them wonder, am I better as who I am now or who I was then?

[unseenmage]

I had an idea sort of like this once. Basically run the PCs through a Legend of Zelda level of simplicity world. They defeat the four elemental beasts, save the princess, confront the evil wizard.

Then nothing. The world freezes up. Days pass and they're heroics aren't needed. The ruins in the center of the kingdom are the only place they havn't been, that the people react strangely to.

The explore and find a portal. A portal to the Prime Material Plane.
Congrats PCs you were all in a dream. Part of someone else's dream even. And none of your are native to the Prime Material. You're all creatures of the Dreamrealm. Good luck.

[rexx1888]

that sounds like a cool game id enjoy if i was a player, so theres half your battle. Find the right sort of players for that game and you're half way there.

The other thing i would do is prep them by saying the games a mystery, giving them some very specific things to build around like "you are guards in the kings guard" or "one of you is a rogue, a wizard etc" but make sure you prep them for a horror game. The prep for a horror game is a little different than for a straight dnd game in that you explain sometimes things will happen that the pc's just cant control, and the players need to roll with that. Once players have that kind of expectation they roll with things a bit easier. Plus, theyll then start your campaign looking for the clues but maybe still missing them, and you wont have actually tipped them off on what you are specifically planning to do.

[unseenmage]

that sounds like a cool game id enjoy if i was a player, so theres half your battle. Find the right sort of players for that game and you're half way there.

The other thing i would do is prep them by saying the games a mystery, giving them some very specific things to build around like "you are guards in the kings guard" or "one of you is a rogue, a wizard etc" but make sure you prep them for a horror game. The prep for a horror game is a little different than for a straight dnd game in that you explain sometimes things will happen that the pc's just cant control, and the players need to roll with that. Once players have that kind of expectation they roll with things a bit easier. Plus, theyll then start your campaign looking for the clues but maybe still missing them, and you wont have actually tipped them off on what you are specifically planning to do.

That is very good advice, thank you. I will strive to remember it. Honestly.

[Slipperychicken]

sometimes things will happen that the pc's just cant control

Isn't that the way things are in D&D too? Unless you're talking about the GM narrating something like "rocks fall, your arm is broken. Take a -5 to hit with your pistol".

[rexx1888]

Isn't that the way things are in D&D too? Unless you're talking about the GM narrating something like "rocks fall, your arm is broken. Take a -5 to hit with your pistol".

The difference is that generally, PC's expect the possibility to react to things, and will accept bad things when they fail. Except they expect that the opportunity to succeed is there. As in, when you try to cave the roof in on them, they get to roll dice to try and get out alive, and if they fail then they expect to die. If you just drop the roof on them and no one gets a chance to even act, then they get pissed*.

However, when you prime players for a horror story, you are explicitly telling them that things will happen, that must happen, in order to progress the story, and sometimes they wont get a choice in the matter. On the other side of that, they will generally expect that they will be alive after those things happen in order to react to the consequences of such things. Its a small difference, but it makes everyone a lot less stressed, and in this instance it means that when the dm pulls his twist that some of the players may suspect and others will just be taken by surprise and they look momentarily pissed, theyll probably then just accept it as part an parcel of the game(which they wouldnt if he just went an smashed all their shiny toys with his twist an they were completely oblivious to any form of risk).

*the caveat here being they wont be as pissed as long as they can see what happened and think they had a chance to act and missed it, such as there was a fork in the tunnel before the cave in, and they saw some guy behind them set off some dynamite as the cave in occurs, but even that's a bit clumsy.

[Bullet06320]

i recall one campaign from probly 25 years ago, the dm gave us all blank character sheets, said these are your characters, lets start playing
HUH? WAT?
DM: u all have amnesia, wat do u do?
we rolled for everything we did if we could do it and our success at doing it
and added things on our character sheet as we played depending on wat we did
it was humorous, one guy could only remember he spoke minataur at first
I think it only went one session

[zilonox]

A friend of mine was in a fantasy campaign that was similar to what One Step Two described, only slightly reversed. They started at 1st level and worked their way up to like 7th level or so. Every so often, the DM would ask for each of them to make a random d20 roll with out asking for modifiers or offering an explanation. They would also occasionally have a shared and recurring dream about being someplace dark, but the details were always very fuzzy and hardly anything other than a feeling of helplessness would persist upon waking up. Then, at the end of one of their sessions, they were told they should bring 20th level versions of their characters with them next time.

At the next game, it was revealed that their 20th level selves had been captured by the BBEG and had been drugged and placed in stasis so that he could sift through (and even implant) memories/experiences - looking both for what they knew of him and his plans and any information about the macguffin he had (and intended to use to bring about the end of the world) that the party might have picked up that could aid him further. The random d20 rolls were some sort of awareness check the DM had been tracking the results of and the recurring dream was actually a quick flash of their real situation. Once the accumulated awareness (my friend was never given the specifics) was high enough, the characters woke up, freed themselves and had an epic battle with the BBEG.

None of the players were warned beforehand that this was going to happen, and it was explained after that not all that happened in the 1st - 7th levels necessarily really happened. My friend felt it was a great campaign and the loved the end-game twist. So, depending on how it's handled (and also on how you think your players will react), you may not even have to let them know.

[Slipperychicken]

The difference is that generally, PC's expect the possibility to react to things, and will accept bad things when they fail. Except they expect that the opportunity to succeed is there. As in, when you try to cave the roof in on them, they get to roll dice to try and get out alive, and if they fail then they expect to die. If you just drop the roof on them and no one gets a chance to even act, then they get pissed*.

However, when you prime players for a horror story, you are explicitly telling them that things will happen, that must happen, in order to progress the story, and sometimes they wont get a choice in the matter. On the other side of that, they will generally expect that they will be alive after those things happen in order to react to the consequences of such things. Its a small difference, but it makes everyone a lot less stressed, and in this instance it means that when the dm pulls his twist that some of the players may suspect and others will just be taken by surprise and they look momentarily pissed, theyll probably then just accept it as part an parcel of the game(which they wouldnt if he just went an smashed all their shiny toys with his twist an they were completely oblivious to any form of risk).

*the caveat here being they wont be as pissed as long as they can see what happened and think they had a chance to act and missed it, such as there was a fork in the tunnel before the cave in, and they saw some guy behind them set off some dynamite as the cave in occurs, but even that's a bit clumsy.

So you're saying that horror games are an excuse for the GM to rob players of agency and fiat them to death with falling rocks.

[AstralFire]

So you're saying that horror games are an excuse for the GM to rob players of agency and fiat them to death with falling rocks.

Wow. Accusatory.

It's not robbing if it's consented to. I tend not to be a fan of horror games, but some are, and that's for a reason.

[Slipperychicken]

It's not robbing if it's consented to.

So I can mug people without being arrested as long as the victim says "yes"? Sweet!

But yeah, that's a good point. If the players enjoy their PCs being fiated to death, then more power to them.

[AstralFire]

So I can mug people without being arrested as long as the victim says "yes"? Sweet!

But yeah, that's a good point. If the players enjoy their PCs being fiated to death, then more power to them.

Taking money from a consenting person is usually considered to be an acceptable activity, yes. I don't see the point of your hostility.

[Coidzor]

Tell them they're playing premades and you're making the characters but you want their feedback about what they want to play.

Nothing quite as rage-inducing as finding out that one's gnome wizard that one had tweaked to fit one's tastes perfectly is actually an elf rogue, after all.

In fact, I'd recommend against crapping all over their race and build loadouts alltogether even if you do build the characters yourself. Less is more when it comes to that kind of change, unless it really is a clear change for the better in the player's mind.


I had an idea sort of like this once. Basically run the PCs through a Legend of Zelda level of simplicity world. They defeat the four elemental beasts, save the princess, confront the evil wizard.

Then nothing. The world freezes up. Days pass and they're heroics aren't needed. The ruins in the center of the kingdom are the only place they havn't been, that the people react strangely to.

The explore and find a portal. A portal to the Prime Material Plane.
Congrats PCs you were all in a dream. Part of someone else's dream even. And none of your are native to the Prime Material. You're all creatures of the Dreamrealm. Good luck.

Well there's an interesting idea.

[AstralFire]

Tell them they're playing premades and you're making the characters but you want their feedback about what they want to play.

Nothing quite as rage-inducing as finding out that one's gnome wizard that one had tweaked to fit one's tastes perfectly is actually an elf rogue, after all.

In fact, I'd recommend against crapping all over their race and build choices alltogether even if you do build the characters yourself.

The scenario as I was envisioning it is something like this:

The party was a group of five who led an army to pretty much sweep over the land. They were close friends who operated well together, but ruthless in accomplishing their goals, executing total war against everyone in their way. After conquering the continent, however, one of the members betrayed the other four, reprogramming them mentally.

As a last gift of friendship, he had memories and new lives constructed for them, so that they could live peacefully in one of the cities they'd built. He didn't want the party to suffer, he just wanted to rule everything by himself. He tried to have their personalities tweaked just enough to remove their propensity for adventure.

But something manages to bring it out, and over the course of the campaign, whenever being affected by mind magic, a little bit falls away from the facade.

[00dlez]

I would write down "blue pill" and refuse to let the DM alter my sheet

[Slipperychicken]

I would write down "blue pill" and refuse to let the DM alter my sheet

Overpowered NPCs = Agents.
GM = The Architect.
Gameworld = The Matrix.
Begin Session = Jacking in.
End Session = Jacking out.

[Brookshw]

Sounds fun, kinda a different twist on the "amnesia" character. Good background explanation as to "why", could easily lead to the players getting pretty emotionally immersed and pissed at the BBEG as they learn things. As has been said it's probably best form to discuss it pre-campaign and let the players know that you have something up your sleeve that will effect their character's backstory dramatically. If that's all you say you shouldn't be tipping your hand too much. From my experiences players will usually be okay with it if it's not completely out of the blue and they don't get an opportunity to buy in.

As to the mechanical question of sheet prep that's a bit trickier. Though it's not related to your intentions I figure I'll throw it out there in case it sparks some thoughts. I was kicking around a few ideas with some of my players the other day regarding potential campaign concepts and one we all rather liked was the idea of the players being in some form of computer and sessions being them popping up into different games, maybe one an adventure, one a shooter, one grand theft auto, tetris, mario, etc etc. Not sure how we'd execute it. But on the topic of how to handle the mechanics of character creation I was considering that everyone would design a character with their set stats and maybe a few "core" feats/skills for their character that would remain in each game and a few floater feats/skills that they could freely assign each game they entered.

Good luck, sounds fun! Please post whatever you come up with if you figure something out, I might want to steal it :smallbiggrin:

[Zanos]

The scenario as I was envisioning it is something like this:

The party was a group of five who led an army to pretty much sweep over the land. They were close friends who operated well together, but ruthless in accomplishing their goals, executing total war against everyone in their way. After conquering the continent, however, one of the members betrayed the other four, reprogramming them mentally.

As a last gift of friendship, he had memories and new lives constructed for them, so that they could live peacefully in one of the cities they'd built. He didn't want the party to suffer, he just wanted to rule everything by himself. He tried to have their personalities tweaked just enough to remove their propensity for adventure.

But something manages to bring it out, and over the course of the campaign, whenever being affected by mind magic, a little bit falls away from the facade.
That's actually fairly cool. As a member of the party I'd want to murder the hell out of that guy since I think messing with someones mind is the worst possible thing you can do since you're literally robbing them of their self.

As for preparing sheets, have them write normal backgrounds about their characters. Don't have their "past selves" be entirely different people. Keep their personalities and class and such intact, but their characters memories of their past is fallacious. You could make the alteration in memory rather small even, and just have the portion of them going to war be erased. That way even if someone is married or has an involved backstory, everything that happened in their backstory could still be true, but the events as they remember were modified. As a generic example, a PC could have a back-story of them clearing out an orc encampment, which did actually happen. They just don't remember the part where there were four other folks with them who had bigger goals.

[AstralFire]

Oh, I wasn't intending for the mechanics to be a lie, except that the PCs were higher level than they start out playing. That would explain PC Rapid Power Growth - they're literally just remembering things that they already knew how to do once before.

I do like the idea of it being subtly off-base though. Some of the people from their past would have been altered (possibly reprogrammed themselves? Or an actor or two?) to make sure that things couldn't be clued off to them too early.

[One Step Two]

Oh, I wasn't intending for the mechanics to be a lie, except that the PCs were higher level than they start out playing. That would explain PC Rapid Power Growth - they're literally just remembering things that they already knew how to do once before.

I do like the idea of it being subtly off-base though. Some of the people from their past would have been altered (possibly reprogrammed themselves? Or an actor or two?) to make sure that things couldn't be clued off to them too early.

This is the point whjere it comes to the players. If they include Significant Others in their story, such as a wife, or a sister, then it really reveals the BBEG's insidiousness, as they have gone to the lengths of memory wiping them too. Alternatively, you pull a Total Recall, where an NPC they are friends with are a plant to keep the party in check, or keep tabs on them at the very least.

Oh, if you want to up the ante, if any of them owns a bar or some other business, you can spin on it a little that one of their semi-regular patrons is the BBEG, while still evil, likes seeing his friends living their lives happily.