Experiences with players turning on the party.

[Michael7123]

I haven't seen any scenarios posted here about whats happened in games where a player character betrays the rest of his party. I'm dealing with the aftermath of one such betrayal in a session I have tomorrow, I'll post how that turns out when the session ends. But for now, I'd love to hear your stories about being betrayed by a "teammate", or where you were the one to turn on your "friends".

[DM Nate]

Came here expecting tales of players arousing their party.

Left disappointed.

[Zalphon]

I am absolutely opposed to players doing it unless they're leaving the group (e.g. moving). In which case, I've seen it work great as they do something spectacular and then become an NPC-Villain.

[Eisenheim]

It's a little late for advice, unless you want to give us some details on the situation and get suggestions for how to manage it.

That said, the most important thing when dealing with intra-party conflict is that the narrative that leads to it is satisfying for all involved. I had a very enjoyable experience DMing a 4e game where the party eventually came to blows over the fallout of a demonic artifact they looted. Everyone was happy, and the player who turned evil had no problem rolling a new character after their spectacular exit. Part of what made it successful, I think, is that the tension built slowly and in concert with the larger narrative and learning about the world, so there was no-one who felt ambushed or cheated when the showdown came.

Hopefully your player whose character has turned on the others understands that this will likely mean a trip to NPC-dom and a new character.

[Sir Chuckles]

I've had it happen a handful times in my groups.

It has never ended well. At best, it was forgiven, as little harm was done to the characters, but the people involved were still upset with each other. At worst, it was the only time I've had a player send direct insults to me and my players before ceasing all contact with the group entirely. Note that this was a person we'd all known for a decade.

[Milodiah]

Pro tip: always play a few games of Paranoia with the group first, to gauge their ability to react to increasingly ludicrous amounts of backstabbing without getting upset out-of-character.

[Honest Tiefling]

I've had it happen a handful times in my groups.

It has never ended well. At best, it was forgiven, as little harm was done to the characters, but the people involved were still upset with each other. At worst, it was the only time I've had a player send direct insults to me and my players before ceasing all contact with the group entirely. Note that this was a person we'd all known for a decade.

Pretty much this. Its rarely fun for the others. I think a lot of it is because the others have compromised and often reduced their own power/wealth/whatever for the sake of the game and out of character reasons, only to have someone backstab them in the end. I'd pick the games you decide to do this in carefully.

And I hate it in games where the DM has told me he'd prefer good characters and someone just has to worship Cthulhu while I tried to be a team player here.

[Michael7123]

Two days ago, the old party lawful evil rouge was part of the final boss at the end of a small (a bit less than 10 sessions) campaign. Honestly, I had fun with it, and so did everyone else. It was a fair fight, and our side won, but I can imagine this isn't how most betrayals work.

If I had been a part of a multi- year campaign, and got backstabed by a party member, I'd imagine I'd be much more bitter about this. But in my scenario, at least, it worked out well. We're all still friends.

[gom jabbarwocky]

There is only one major case of this that I can say has occurred in a game I've GMed. It was about three years ago, and the thing about it was that it was a slow build, and I guess we all sort of figured it was coming, but the betrayal was still rather jarring. Mostly because the player was a newbie with a very demure personality, so it seemed unlikely that she would go through with it, and murder the other PCs for money. But she played true to her mercenary character to the very end, and was about to kill off the entire rest of the party, one by one, before ending up with a bullet in the back of her head. Very dramatic. A perfect end to the campaign, and a very memorable death.

However, we picked up sequel campaign right afterward. She rolled up a new character and we moved on. The player was pleased to have the opportunity to try a new character with a sense of humor instead of a callous murder machine for a change. I suppose this isn't the typical case of a PC betraying the party, but, upon reflection, it ended up being the most gripping act of one of the best games I've ever run.

[Milodiah]

The best way to deal with it, I'd say, is to preface all new games with a quiet reminder that just because the PCs are all PCs doesn't mean they should automatically trust one another. Obviously you can't just say it when there's a betrayal coming, or you'd be telegraphing that there's a betrayal coming; however, if the players get used to the idea, they'll be both more vigilant and less frustrated when it does happen.

[rgrekejin]

Oh goodness, this has happened a couple times. It usually works out okay, though.

The first time, we failed at properly I.D.ing a Mace of Blood, and our Cleric turned evil, killing the party Wizard and very nearly my Ranger before I knocked him out cold with the flat of my blade. I took the Mace away from him, tied him up and led him back to town. We got the Wizard raised, got some Clerics to do what they do about the Mace, and no one was significantly worse for the wear.

The second time (later that campaign) the Rogue turned out to be evil and was wearing a ring of undetectable alignment. He stabbed us in the back and escaped. This was right at the end of our campaign, and the player was leaving anyway, so nothing serious happened.

In a different campaign, our group turned over an evil magic item to a temple for destruction, and the Ranger decided to steal it back. As a Cleric of that temple, I helped hunt him down and arrest him. We ended up springing him from jail when an oncoming Orcish horde attacked the city, as he'd be more useful to us killing orcs than rotting in prison. That situation remains unresolved in the long term.

[Nobot]

As a GM, I've had players turn on each other. Whenever this happens, I tell them 4 things:

• I am not going to host two separate groups, so if you don't reconcile, someone will have to make a new character. I decide who that is;
• I don't want tears or hurt feelings when characters die;
• When you fight, my word is final on everything, no discussions;
• Getting out your rulebook is a full-round action that provokes an attack of opportunity.

Sometimes, they change their minds. If they don't, they know what the consequences might be.

Good luck!

[The_Werebear]

I hate to say it, but the party turning on each other in one catastrophic cluster was one of the best narrative moments I've ever played through. We had a multi-religious party in a city riven by those exact tensions. Making it worse, there were at least three underground evil cult's in the city, none of which got along either. In the campaign's conclusion, the Demon cult raised a massive undead army to attack the city from within, the two good aligned religious factions refused to work together to fight it (each army attacked the horde without coordinating) and the Devil cultist in our party sold his soul to a horned devil to physically manifest him on the plane to destroy the undead and save the city. One good aligned faction decided that "at least they're trying to save the city" and wanted to ally. The other good faction decided that the devil cultists were evil, anyone who wanted to work with them was evil, and attacked everyone else. This was represented by the party breaking down into fighting each other on the streets while undead and devils swarmed around us, each screaming that the others were traitors who were destroying everything.

It ended with the Devil cult in charge of the city (they fought the undead after they'd been softened up eating the church armies), the shreds of what remained of the government in exile across the straights, one PC in disgraced exile in the far north, one who had had not only his soul but his entire essence and being permanently merged into a Horned Devil, one PTSD'd into near catatonia, one living as a hermit and making silver weapons for the inevitable revenge, and one sailing anywhere else. None of them were ever able to stand even looking at each other again. Oh, and to top it off, all of the PC's had been brothers and sisters.

It was epic and cinematic, once we had a week to cool down and look at it in retrospective. The events were the most fun I ever had in a campaign were the party failed utterly to save anyone. It led into a follow up campaign about fixing the colossal mess we'd made

[Michael7123]

I hate to say it, but the party turning on each other in one catastrophic cluster was one of the best narrative moments I've ever played through. We had a multi-religious party in a city riven by those exact tensions. Making it worse, there were at least three underground evil cult's in the city, none of which got along either. In the campaign's conclusion, the Demon cult raised a massive undead army to attack the city from within, the two good aligned religious factions refused to work together to fight it (each army attacked the horde without coordinating) and the Devil cultist in our party sold his soul to a horned devil to physically manifest him on the plane to destroy the undead and save the city. One good aligned faction decided that "at least they're trying to save the city" and wanted to ally. The other good faction decided that the devil cultists were evil, anyone who wanted to work with them was evil, and attacked everyone else. This was represented by the party breaking down into fighting each other on the streets while undead and devils swarmed around us, each screaming that the others were traitors who were destroying everything.

It ended with the Devil cult in charge of the city (they fought the undead after they'd been softened up eating the church armies), the shreds of what remained of the government in exile across the straights, one PC in disgraced exile in the far north, one who had had not only his soul but his entire essence and being permanently merged into a Horned Devil, one PTSD'd into near catatonia, one living as a hermit and making silver weapons for the inevitable revenge, and one sailing anywhere else. None of them were ever able to stand even looking at each other again. Oh, and to top it off, all of the PC's had been brothers and sisters.

It was epic and cinematic, once we had a week to cool down and look at it in retrospective. The events were the most fun I ever had in a campaign were the party failed utterly to save anyone. It led into a follow up campaign about fixing the colossal mess we'd made

Are your players still on good terms with eachother? If so, I think you did a great job. That sounds like it would have been a blast to play.

[The_Werebear]

It took a week or so to cool down afterwords, but we were all cool about it, even if tensions had been high during the session. The follow up campaign had a rule about "no secret cult affiliations." It was fun, but not a thing we wanted to do every game.