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Thread: artfull deception
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2010-09-01, 02:24 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2010
- Location
- United Earth Federation
- Gender
artfull deception
Tell me has your DM ever so artfully deceived you on the true identity of a NPC that you didn't know that you were in trouble till you were stuck firmly in the jaws of danger?
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2010-09-01, 02:48 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2005
- Location
- Somerville, MA
- Gender
Re: artfull deception
No, but I have. Wherein valadil toots his own horn. Long story short, one of the PCs had an imaginary friend. I didn't want it to be obvious, so I told everyone the friend would be another player. Player was never actually able to make it to game, but because he was a PC nobody doubted his existence.
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2010-09-01, 03:52 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2010
Re: artfull deception
I did.
Ravenloft Campaign, 2nd edition. All the group (level 8) battled each other due to the lies and manipulations of a level 1 NPC who accompagnied them on adventure. On the six, only two survived.
Of course, the level 1 NPC became a recurring vilain.
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2010-09-01, 07:33 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2010
- Location
- UK
- Gender
Re: artfull deception
I always though it would be fun to run two games in the same world with different groups who don't know about each other.
They each uncover a plot about a magic artefact of untold power, and another group planning to take it by force, and are led to the artefact by the DM.
Of course, the last session in each group happens simultaneously, as they run into each other in the final dungeon, each utterly convinced that the other party requires the artefact for evil evil deeds. The showdown could be eeepic.Last edited by Capt Spanner; 2010-09-01 at 07:34 PM.
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2010-09-01, 08:25 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2009
- Gender
Re: artfull deception
Actually I was planning on doing something similar to this. My group has gone from a weekly game to a bi-weekly game. I planned on making up for this by running an evil group on the weeks between. Before long each party would discover that their plans had been foiled by this other group. I would never let them know that the enemy was actualy a different group of players. After thinking of them as NPCs for so long, they wouldn't know how to react when one week I have everyone meet at once. Imagine it, you've hated this NPC group of adventurers for so long, thought of how to get them in the end. And now here they are, with players attached. What sort of reaction would that bring?
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2010-09-01, 08:31 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2009
- Gender
Re: artfull deception
In responce to the OP, I haven't actaully Artfully Decived my players in the way you described. I had a perfectly legitiate authority figure (the prince of the kingdom) try to court/seduce the rogue of the party. The paladin and rogue had this slight romance going on, but he hadn't made any moves as of yet. So she fell for the prince. I instantly had the rest of the group, and most of all the paladin, suspicious of him. The prince was stalked, spied upon, had detect good and evil cast upon him, and generally hated by the group... all because he was charming and won the heart of the rogue. When there was a chance to fight the prince in a tournment, the paladin signed up immediately. When it came to the final fight, they had come to terms and no longer were sworn foes. When attempting to use non-leathal damage, the paladin triple nat-20 the prince into a quick decapitation. (in my games, trip 20s is instant death no matter what, even with non-leathal) Due to the terms of the tournment, the soul of the loser in the final rounds was to be soul trapped. Now the party has gone from hating the innocent prince to wanting to save his soul from soul trapping that he agreed on when he signed up for the tournment. I couldn't have planned for this if I tried.
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2010-09-01, 10:37 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2008
- Location
- Within my own Insanity
- Gender
Re: artfull deception
I had this one guy... He was designed to be the next boss. Not the big boss, just a normal one. In any case, I introduced him through means of a tournament. He was fairly evil, but because he entered this tournament every year he played fair. My players (more specifically, the paladin) decided to trust him. So the party traveled hunted him down after he disappeared to a tower, and didn't suspect anything until they were surrounded by high level NPCs on top of a roof.
Sadly, the brute of the party recently learned to throw people, and the fight didn't go quite how I expected.But... but... You can't Wake Up Dead
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A well played paladin is a valuable asset to a party, and a beautiful roleplaying opportunity.
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2010-09-02, 08:47 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2010
- Location
- United Earth Federation
- Gender
Re: artfull deception
An idea i had for my campain is for while the adventures are defending against a raid they see a gold dragon flying over with a white charecter on it. but little do they know that that it a corrupted dragon and an albino Drow.
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2010-09-02, 09:38 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2006
- Location
Re: artfull deception
It didn't land us in big trouble, and not in-game identity concealment, but a DM did successfully trick my group into believing that an NPC was a PC for dramatic purposes.
Midway through a plotline of one of our games - 1930s setting, teenage characters - a new player joined the group. He played with us for the next four sessions, became an important part of the team, and started a romantic subplot with one of the players.
During the fifth session, he was separated from the group and brutally murdered. Which was the plan from the beginning.
As a group, we were royally pissed off and howling for vengeance in-character and deeply chagrined out-of-character: we really should have seen that one coming in a game running the Buffy the Vampire Slayer ruleset.
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2010-09-02, 12:55 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2010
- Location
- Harmondale
- Gender
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2010-09-02, 05:37 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2006
- Location
- Oakdale, PA
- Gender
Re: artfull deception
I actually did do this but the campaign had to end due to schedule conflicts before it got that far. It was actually a Star Wars game where one side was actually evil and the two parties knew about each other and could indirectly screw with the other party if they were creative. For example, the Dark Side knew that the Light Side was going to investigate a nearby planet, so they spread rumors about a holocron being hidden deep within a cavern on [that planet with all the rancors, can't remember the name]. Then they went there and set up all these traps for the party to succumb to. I don't think light side was ever able to make another session so the dungeon never got played, sadly.
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