In the next arc of our campaign the players are currently on a quest to gather several powerful artifacts that will lock away a malevolent force for eternity. But in reality this is all a plot of said force to free itself as they will actually be breaking its containment by accomplishing their quests and overall goal.
Is this a good idea to try and trick the party on such a large level? Should i leave bread crumbs for them to figure it all out and then it can become a race against time to stop the underlings from finishing the task or not have anyone let on unless the party arrives at this conclusion on their own? (One has already suspected something)
Has anyone else ran a game with the major plot based on tricking the party and what is the best way to handle it?
It's a fairly common trope for the villain/evil entity, to dupe the innocent and gullible hero into doing something evil. Leaving clues is not necessary, but it can lead to some interesting character/story development if you do. I ran a 2 year (real time) long betrayal arc on my players, I sprinkled clues about the coming betrayal, and when the time came to wrap up the story arc...it was phenomenal. My players were truly shocked, and a couple of them wanted to come over the table and throttle me.
If this is something you feel your table will enjoy, go for it!
I love the trope of tricking your players. My only question is the trick itself. In what way are the players believing they are gathering artifacts to lock a creature up, if the creature is already locked up? In other words, why would they go out of their way to gather these artifacts when the creature they're trying to lock up isn't doing anything (because it's locked up). It would have to be affecting the world even from its locked away location, just to give the illusion that it is out and about wreaking havoc.
Here's another way of doing it, I'm currently running this plot for one of my games:
The benefactor of the group is bent on conquering the continent that the party has arrived at. The party has been told that they are part of an effort to "reclaim their lost kingdom", to rightfully take the throne of this land. The benefactor has given the players the goal of establishing contact with the local towns, villages, and peoples so that negotiations and introductions can be made. For the players this is a political mission and they're doing what they can to peacefully meet with the locals. When they finally get in the good graces of the locals their benefactor shows up. With the use of magic and other devices, which the players are unaware of, their benefactor forces the leaders of these places to bend their knee to him.
The next town that they're going to venture into is going to be inhabited by people who will not trust easily. The benefactor will create propaganda, and convince the players that these people are evil, bad, turning against them. He'll use his power and persuasion to forcibly take over the city, all the while he's simply gathering forces and creating a massive army to throw a coup against the current reign. In the end the party will actually be the bad guys, depending on how you look at it.
In my experience, the group will either accidentally see through the trick without any evidence, or fail to notice the trick despite a lot of evidence.
I think the most effective tricks are when you wait until your party latches onto some idea without any real evidence then you include things that can be interpreted as supporting evidence.
The moment when you reveal the villain's deception will be something special. Like DMThac0 I have run years long campaigns with major plot twists hidden right in the middle of the party the entire time. It's stunning what players will take for granted and intensely gratifying when all the puzzle pieces click into place.
When those secrets were finally revealed are some of the most powerful and lasting memories of the times I've played. The more emotional the twist, the better!
I have a very untrusting party who see conspiracies, deceit and secrets everywhere. It makes it very tough to surprize the group with actually twists and mysteries when they are continually trying to unravel, guess and search the shadows. Now I could just give up and make everything above board...but what's the fun in that. The group obviously enjoys this part of the story so I've put plenty of mysteries and unanswered questions in the campaign. This is frustrating for the group sometimes but they love it when they begin to pull back the curtains and uncover the truth.
I say go for it. If the group discover the plot early then good on them. They will be even more motivated to stop the villain/s from making it happen. I do think its important to drop clues though. It helps with the unveiling and making sense of it all - "That's why he manipulated us because the key was warded against evil! etc
Just make sure you have a plan for if/when your players "uncover the truth" early. Depending on how exactly your story legs fit together, you might need multiple contingency plans to route them back to your intended target wrap-up plot.
I think including clues to the deception is reasonable... once they have already started contributing and things are in motion, after that it comes down to if the party notice and NPCs continue the evil quest, or the party don't notice and continue to help the evil forces on their own. As long as the party have an opportunity to put things right after releasing the evil, or the hints that they are about to destroy the world start getting very obvious then some trickery is fine.
They were told by their patron that the artifacts using to hold him are becoming weakened over time which is slowly buidling said bbeg's power and his lieutenants are beginning to roam the land so they have to recover and move the artifacts to a temple to lock him away in another plane instead of just his spirit in a child's body, where it currently resides alongside the soul of the Paladin who stuck him there.
There is an interesting angle where they aren't sure if they are talking to him or the Paladin whenever they do encounter the child's ghostly apparition and it is quite fun to watch.
I am currently trying to figure out a way to trick my players into making a deal with a devil, by disguising it as a little girl, maybe get them to agree to the deal without fully knowing the terms.
I am currently trying to figure out a way to trick my players into making a deal with a devil, by disguising it as a little girl, maybe get them to agree to the deal without fully knowing the terms.
Imho, if you make a deal with a devil, you always are made fully aware of terms and conditions. E.g.: wealth & power in exchange for your soul, collectable upon death. That's part of their (mostly) lawful evil nature. Devils entice or even manipulate (as in creating circumstances) others into a contract, but the contract will always state what the exchange will include. (not saying the wording can't be tricky.)
The fact that one of your players is already catching on says to me that, whatever you're doing, you're doing it right. You're seeding something in there that's cluing them in. As long as they have a chance to figure it out or defeat this thing if they unleash it, I think you're fine.
The bigger questions for me are, what happens if they figure it out? What if they decide to stop hunting down the remaining items? What if they decide to hunt them down to keep them from falling into the wrong hands? Is there a way to destroy the items? After all, you wouldn't want the campaign to just end suddenly if they realize they're being duped. There has to be a reason to keep going.
Another thought I had was maybe there's a group of good guys who are trying to stop the party from collecting the items. Maybe they think the party is trying to bring back the evil god. Maybe they're not good, but an evil faction whose deity is opposed to this god. Maybe their deity imprisoned the god in the first place. Maybe they are trying to collect the pieces for themselves to destroy or defend them. Maybe they already have a few of the pieces. If that's the case, is there a way to seed some hints through them?
In the next arc of our campaign the players are currently on a quest to gather several powerful artifacts that will lock away a malevolent force for eternity. But in reality this is all a plot of said force to free itself as they will actually be breaking its containment by accomplishing their quests and overall goal.
Is this a good idea to try and trick the party on such a large level? Should i leave bread crumbs for them to figure it all out and then it can become a race against time to stop the underlings from finishing the task or not have anyone let on unless the party arrives at this conclusion on their own? (One has already suspected something)
Has anyone else ran a game with the major plot based on tricking the party and what is the best way to handle it?
Thanks
It's a fairly common trope for the villain/evil entity, to dupe the innocent and gullible hero into doing something evil. Leaving clues is not necessary, but it can lead to some interesting character/story development if you do. I ran a 2 year (real time) long betrayal arc on my players, I sprinkled clues about the coming betrayal, and when the time came to wrap up the story arc...it was phenomenal. My players were truly shocked, and a couple of them wanted to come over the table and throttle me.
If this is something you feel your table will enjoy, go for it!
I love the trope of tricking your players. My only question is the trick itself. In what way are the players believing they are gathering artifacts to lock a creature up, if the creature is already locked up? In other words, why would they go out of their way to gather these artifacts when the creature they're trying to lock up isn't doing anything (because it's locked up). It would have to be affecting the world even from its locked away location, just to give the illusion that it is out and about wreaking havoc.
Does that make sense?
Published Subclasses
Here's another way of doing it, I'm currently running this plot for one of my games:
The benefactor of the group is bent on conquering the continent that the party has arrived at. The party has been told that they are part of an effort to "reclaim their lost kingdom", to rightfully take the throne of this land. The benefactor has given the players the goal of establishing contact with the local towns, villages, and peoples so that negotiations and introductions can be made. For the players this is a political mission and they're doing what they can to peacefully meet with the locals. When they finally get in the good graces of the locals their benefactor shows up. With the use of magic and other devices, which the players are unaware of, their benefactor forces the leaders of these places to bend their knee to him.
The next town that they're going to venture into is going to be inhabited by people who will not trust easily. The benefactor will create propaganda, and convince the players that these people are evil, bad, turning against them. He'll use his power and persuasion to forcibly take over the city, all the while he's simply gathering forces and creating a massive army to throw a coup against the current reign. In the end the party will actually be the bad guys, depending on how you look at it.
In my experience, the group will either accidentally see through the trick without any evidence, or fail to notice the trick despite a lot of evidence.
I think the most effective tricks are when you wait until your party latches onto some idea without any real evidence then you include things that can be interpreted as supporting evidence.
If I could say nothing else, I'd say: do it!
The moment when you reveal the villain's deception will be something special. Like DMThac0 I have run years long campaigns with major plot twists hidden right in the middle of the party the entire time. It's stunning what players will take for granted and intensely gratifying when all the puzzle pieces click into place.
When those secrets were finally revealed are some of the most powerful and lasting memories of the times I've played. The more emotional the twist, the better!
I have a very untrusting party who see conspiracies, deceit and secrets everywhere. It makes it very tough to surprize the group with actually twists and mysteries when they are continually trying to unravel, guess and search the shadows. Now I could just give up and make everything above board...but what's the fun in that. The group obviously enjoys this part of the story so I've put plenty of mysteries and unanswered questions in the campaign. This is frustrating for the group sometimes but they love it when they begin to pull back the curtains and uncover the truth.
I say go for it. If the group discover the plot early then good on them. They will be even more motivated to stop the villain/s from making it happen. I do think its important to drop clues though. It helps with the unveiling and making sense of it all - "That's why he manipulated us because the key was warded against evil! etc
Just make sure you have a plan for if/when your players "uncover the truth" early. Depending on how exactly your story legs fit together, you might need multiple contingency plans to route them back to your intended target wrap-up plot.
I think including clues to the deception is reasonable... once they have already started contributing and things are in motion, after that it comes down to if the party notice and NPCs continue the evil quest, or the party don't notice and continue to help the evil forces on their own. As long as the party have an opportunity to put things right after releasing the evil, or the hints that they are about to destroy the world start getting very obvious then some trickery is fine.
They were told by their patron that the artifacts using to hold him are becoming weakened over time which is slowly buidling said bbeg's power and his lieutenants are beginning to roam the land so they have to recover and move the artifacts to a temple to lock him away in another plane instead of just his spirit in a child's body, where it currently resides alongside the soul of the Paladin who stuck him there.
There is an interesting angle where they aren't sure if they are talking to him or the Paladin whenever they do encounter the child's ghostly apparition and it is quite fun to watch.
I am currently trying to figure out a way to trick my players into making a deal with a devil, by disguising it as a little girl, maybe get them to agree to the deal without fully knowing the terms.
Imho, if you make a deal with a devil, you always are made fully aware of terms and conditions. E.g.: wealth & power in exchange for your soul, collectable upon death. That's part of their (mostly) lawful evil nature. Devils entice or even manipulate (as in creating circumstances) others into a contract, but the contract will always state what the exchange will include. (not saying the wording can't be tricky.)
The fact that one of your players is already catching on says to me that, whatever you're doing, you're doing it right. You're seeding something in there that's cluing them in. As long as they have a chance to figure it out or defeat this thing if they unleash it, I think you're fine.
The bigger questions for me are, what happens if they figure it out? What if they decide to stop hunting down the remaining items? What if they decide to hunt them down to keep them from falling into the wrong hands? Is there a way to destroy the items? After all, you wouldn't want the campaign to just end suddenly if they realize they're being duped. There has to be a reason to keep going.
Another thought I had was maybe there's a group of good guys who are trying to stop the party from collecting the items. Maybe they think the party is trying to bring back the evil god. Maybe they're not good, but an evil faction whose deity is opposed to this god. Maybe their deity imprisoned the god in the first place. Maybe they are trying to collect the pieces for themselves to destroy or defend them. Maybe they already have a few of the pieces. If that's the case, is there a way to seed some hints through them?
I wouldn't say that that's in the realm of DM no-no's.
As long as you have a set up such.