The big problem with twists like these…
If you know they’re coming, it sort of ruins the surprise. If the GM asks if it’s okay to have party betrayal (or if someone else asks and the GM says yes) then you’re constantly on the lookout for it - because why would they ask if it was irrelevant? Of course, nothing says the GM can’t ask an irrelevant question in the same manner they keep irrelevant minis next to their screen, but it’s something that’s usually frowned upon (what amounts to non-consensual PVP), so if it’s known to be ok, you’ll be looking out for it and then the twist won’t stick.
Of course, if you don’t know it’s coming, then it’s never a place your brain will go. You aren’t just going to accuse a character (and thus player) of working against the party because that’s a heavy accusation. It carries a lot of weight behind it since you’re only a few steps down from calling someone a problem player. Players often don’t have a good enough grasp on other players’ characters to notice behavioral shifts, and players often don’t have good enough acting skills to roleplay them correctly.
I’ve yet to hear a story where someone figured this kind of twist out before the reveal, and that doesn’t surprise me at all.
You could privately talk to your GM and say your character wants to cover all of their bases, so just like batman, spends time strategizing about how to defeat the other party members and making preparations in case they betray the group or him. Like a ring of concentration that also has an anti-magic curse activated when the correct word is spoken in its vicinity for the mage, secretly planted on the body of a mob that your character manages to get to before the party loots.
And then, of course, you’re in a position where you could betray the party and surprise even the GM.
Though a counter argument to what you’re saying is that deception games are a thing and the players knowing that there are enemies in the group doesn’t make those games trivial to figure out. A deception RPG could be interesting to play.
I had to play my own evil doppelganger in my DM’s campaign.
My character got kidnapped and got replaced by a copy, which was there to spy on the party (the DM only gave me enough info to work with at the beginning). I was given some powers which my character didn’t have and started to abuse them. The DM specifically allowed for infinite uses of “Detect Thoughts” (lvl 2 spell, which I only had three uses at level 6), which I put to maximum use, on every NPC encounter the party had.
It seemed that none of the other players noticed, so I started putting on more chaos and evil in “chaotic evil doppelganger”. I started having them act in a more sadistic and erratic manner, but still no effect.
I started asking other players (out of the game) what if there were an impostor in the party, but not much response. The only halfway decent response I got is a “who cares, if they’re helping the party, it shouldn’t matter.” I gave up at that point. My character, and the one the doppelganger is a copy of, is the party healer.
I got used to playing him normally (me, the player handling the doppelganger as if it were the original, just with more powers, and a slight personality alteration) until the DM informed me that it’s time to pull off the reveal.
I was caught by surprise, but I knew I had to do my part.
After what was supposed to be the boss battle, the DM gave me the signal and I said “It’s been fun, guys, it really was, but unfortunately…”
The rest of the party was alarmed, and the DM had me fight the party, with monsters coming to my aid. Now, the party’s out of a healer, and had to fight a horde of monsters.
Some of the other player characters (based on their characterization) were reluctant to fight my doppleganger, but I tried my best to goad them into fighting.
My character isn’t the best fighter, but I did an effort. I knew the party’s weakest link (my original character) but also, how the glass cannons worked. So I started directing the monsters to target them first. It was a close fight, but teetering on a TPK. The DM then introduced my original character (controlled by the DM temporarily) who swopped in to save the day.
There were lots of swearing after the DM ended the session that day.
What’s funnier is when everyone already knows you’re playing an evil character, but all their attempts to prove it in-game, even through meta-gaming, fail because the dice are on my side (evil). The best was when the DM just gave me an ability to straight up magically kill 1 person a day with a touch attack and I killed the main quest giver. Just to test it out. I was all alone with him and through my extremely high skills of deception and persuasion–and the paladin’s shitty dice rolls–I convinced the party they died of a heart attack.
Skill issue.
PvP dialogue checks only work on other players if they allow them to, because every player can effectively set the difficulty of the check to “impossible”
This is just how the mechanics are supposed to work, btw. Persuasion checks are rarely supposed to be simple +0 contested rolls. The DM sets the difficulty for NPCs, but only you are supposed to be able to say how difficult it is to persuade your character of something.
Further, even a contested success doesn’t always equal a complete success. If the paladin is willing to buy the heart attack story because there’s no actual evidence otherwise they might still decide to harbor suspicions that make the next check harder, for example.
Uh… What? Your skills are still just a d20+bonuses even against another player. Their sense motive check has to beat my bluff check to catch my lie.
I roll d20, add my whopping 33 bonus to it and that’s the DC the other player’s sense motive has to beat.
Wrong. For one thing, players don’t have to agree to contested persuasion at all, feel free to look that up. Even if they do it’s not just a simple dice contest, otherwise every face character would have free mind control over their entire party.
For example:
Player Elon Musk throws a Nazi salute. He uses his Deception +6 to claim that’s not what it is, rolls a 5 for a total of 11.
Player Not A Moron rolls a 1. This does not matter, because they know what they saw, and further, they remember all that other Nazi shit he’s been saying. They have effectly set their own Deception/Persuasion check DC to 30+, or roll+bonus+30 circumstance bonus.
Player Stupid Fucking Simp rolls a 20. This also does not matter because, as a stupid fucking simp, they already believe everything Elon says and take a -30 circumstantial negative and critical success skill checks are silly homebrew nonsense.
Tl;Dr you’re forgetting that circumstance, including character emotions and affection, affects difficulty of all skill checks. If a player agrees to ignore that that’s on them.
This also, btw, applies to NPCs trying to persuade the party. The DM does not a have a right to tell your character what they believe or disbelieve without magical effects.
If you think about it, beyond the fact of the player being the only one can say what their character is in totality and is biased towards as a result, this is how a system must work to prevent RPG horror stories of incels forcing other players into sexual or abusive situations, eg “ummm I rolled a +29 so your character has to sleep with mine and you have to roleplay it”
Wouldn’t that be metagaming?
I know general game mechanics pretty well to perceive many things a character would not know. I am pretty sure that in the spirit of roleplay i have to adjust to my characters Stats.
In the example it would be Elon rolling their deception against my intelligence/perception, which whatever skill the Dm decides is most relevant. Also because the game Master is always right and has the final say as an actual dictator.
The player abuse and sex stuff just seems like a consent issue. There are probably groups that are into that just like there are many that don’t. A good Dm and play group should communicate beforehand if they allow such things and also respect peoples wish to stop playing if they are uncomfortable.
They can also use the x-card system
It could be, but it doesn’t have to be. It all depends on the characters involved.
The DM can referee in the dispute but they (usually) can’t say your character would or wouldn’t believe something.
A good DM might ask you to in-character justify your bias, for example. They’re also supposed to listen if you say “I don’t trust Count Fuckface on account of him having a history of being a Fuckface and also he’s standing over a cooling corpse with bloody hands.”
If a player is metagaming that’s a separate problem from their character being biased, or having a reasonably justified suspicion or whatever.
Or never, ever being interested in the creepy player’s character because they don’t like their vibes.
In what edition of the rules, for what system, and what page number of that rulebook would I find your version of these rules in?
They are not forced to believe anything; but they also can’t tell a lie was made unless they beat the bluff check with an opposing sense motive.
You might have a point if instead of suggesting the guy I killed had a heart attack, I suggested the paladin killed him and he was made to fully believe that. That’s not how persuasion works, even in PvE.
Every edition since at least 3.0.
In the sections describing how skills work and what circumstances you should allow checks for them, and the sections describing bonuses to those checks, what the role of the DMs and players are, including several very specific references to how character attitudes are very important to the DCs of those checks and the fact that skills only affect those attitudes in the first place and they aren’t mind control.
In other words, the whole fucking thing.
This depends on the table and their own rules honestly. In my DM’s table we go for a contested roll of deception/insight between our players or between NPCs. Now this might not be RAW, but we do it that way and we like it since it creates funny and interesting scenarios.
And for the RPG horror stories bit, I don’t think that if the DM is trying to force something that they’ll just obey the dice blindly if they aren’t in their favour. They’re just gonna turn around and say “oh no, you didn’t pass the DC / my NPC also has +30 to his persuasion, you lose.”
Sure, you can agree to anything.
If you didn’t think it through and thus suffer from skill issues.
And there are of course good stories to tell with it, like in this secret traitor situation, and good players will apply circumstantial bonuses fairly.
Like perhaps that paladin doesn’t WANT to believe their comrade is a murderer.
Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be aware that another player can’t force you into simple contested rolls on the nature of reality that you can’t possibly contest, ever.
Hell, even if they’re right! You can play a completely deluded madman that looks at a windmill, hears an NPC tell him the absolute, objective truth that it is a windmill, and decides it’s a giant instead.
I mean, that’s why in any such contested roll between PCs you should have both parties agree to the roll and just see how the dice land? And if they don’t agree to it, they’re free to roleplay it how they wish to. That’s how we do it at least.
I don’t see why you have to call someone’s preference on how to play a “skill issue” though.
Perhaps I’m wrong, but from their response and seeing this situation happen so often it sure doesn’t seem like the players are aware that all skill checks have inherently circumstantial difficulties.
Simple roll vs roll contests just tend to be the default of players that haven’t read the rules for these circumstances, something about the way the game is set up just doesn’t clue players into that fact.
Maybe it’s just that players simply aren’t primed to accept that they can set their own DC bonus and it’s not even metagaming? It’s basically the only circumstance that they can. It’s probably a good DM habit to get into, come to think. “What’s your character’s willingness to believe this” type prompting.
This happened in my game. I spoke with the player about having his character swapped with another version of him from an alternate universe, and he was down for it. Then it happened in game. None of the players realized it. This went on for years (literal real time years) before he betrayed them. It was delicious.
Of course literal time years. It would be about a decade before an actual ingame year has passed.
Do y’all not handwave down/travel time?
No. At best we get something like 3-4 days of ingame downtime.
Travel time is part of the dungeon.
Having the traitor in the party, has a binary result, it’es either one of the best campaign you’ll play, or a horror story, no middle ground
It’s certainly one way to get the table to listen to you when you tell them for the last goddamn time, you’re not DMing the next campaign…
… Because it’s you, isn’t it.
Ah man did this just spoil The Good Place for me?
iamthetot@sh.itjust.works No. But you should binge season 1 ASAP before people start telling you why it doesn’t.
I’ve seen season 1, but it was a long time ago.
I will say it like this: That is a frame from the show. At some point, Michael and Eleanor stand next to each other and laugh. When you get to this moment, you will not think this meme is a spoiler.
Now go watch it.
Time for a rewatch!
Yes, but what about elevensieth times?
The Good Place is unspoilable, I enjoyed it much more when I knew some of the plot points beforehand.
You havent even watched it yet? What the fork, ash-hole?
No they both just have sinister laughing face. This is actually in response to a clown doing a hijink
No
You’re fine, this image and my own comment aren’t spoilers, 'tis but a silly little meme. The show is great and I hope you’ll enjoy it!
Nah, just a workable screenshot
No. Are you watching it? One of my favorite series of all time.
Got betrayed in a Forgotten Realms game by a guy who’d been playing his own doppleganger for nearly two months.
He scorching ray’d me in the back, then yelled at me for missing all the obvious clues. It hurt twice.
stamets@lemmy.dbzer0.com I was going to do this to my table. We only have 2 PCs currently (my wife and stepson), so I gave them a GMPC guide who was supposed to be the BBEG in disguise.
But they came to love the GMPC, and I can’t do that to them, so now he’s just their pet human.
That’s probably where I’d plan for a later twist where the GMPC was actually the BBEG at one point but got replaced by the current, more ruthless BBEG. There’d be a whole succession of people of varying evilness sharing the same name and title. Kind of like a Dread Pirate Roberts situation.
This is sort of the case with my game. After 4 years, I just revealed to the party that the ‘big bad’ villain is actually my childhood friend and that she may not be as much of a threat as she’s letting on. I don’t actually know who the real villain is.
I remember a one-shot that had a twist like that - followed by the twist of the recently disarmed fighter removing his armored gauntlets, pointing at the traitor, and casting the system’s equivalent of Magic Missile. As he pulled his magic sheet out of his pocket he explained that he’d just been a misleadingly strong and well-armored wizard all along but hadn’t told anyone but the GM.
That was a fun little moment.
Everyone thinks this is me in my game for many totally legit reasons but it’s definitely not. I just enjoy making them think it’s me
