Do your NPCs ever sucker the PCs?

I was in an IFGS game this weekend and watched some NPCs totally flummox a group of characters.

Set up: The land was being invaded by the Avendarians, lawful good 'bad guys' with advanced technology (flintlocks) and an artifact that shut down the magic of anybody who wasn't on their side (Characters and items needed to be 'tuned' in a brief ritual to work.) Prince Kallenbach (a good guy) was trying to fend off the invaders and had sent out a desperate call for PCs to show up and save the day. So in the afternoon of the first day almost all the PCs have left the Princes encampment to go and reboot their magic. A group of Avendarian raiders enter the camp (the wall was breached in an earlier siege the PCs barely fended off) and whack the few remaining guards, PC and NPC alike. Kallenbach is holed up in his tent with a few advisors and civillians. The raiders bust open the lock and enter the tent. While they were doing so one of the Princes advisors says 'trust me'. As soon as the raiders open the door, the advisor kill daggers (a thieves ability that paralyzes the victem) the one remaining defender, pulls an avendarian pistol from under his cloak and points it at the Prince saying "You're now my prisoner." The Prince, shocked, calls him a traitor. The Raiders just take this in stride, bind the Prince and have one of their guards and the advisor escort him out. Of course as soon as they are out the door he kill daggers the raider, the Prince breaks his bonds* and they casually stroll out of the camp and go to hide somewhere safe.

It occured to me that a GM could never get away with this in DnD, because one person just can't really act out multiple people responding to the same event. The PCs would never fall for it, because they're only looking at one guy. Also they get to interupt time, to stop and think about things. In live action people can just get swept up in the flow. Or does this sort of thing work in your games?

*Prince Kallenbach is a non-combatant because his hands are crippled by a god level curse. However he is still an epic level Knight and in IFGS that means he has Knights Strength IV and can break bonds any time he feels like it. People are always forgetting this.

PS: For those paying attention, yes the Raiders were NPCs too, but since there is little functional difference between an PC and an NPC when they are both played by live humans and there is no DM around, I ignored it for my example.

My NPCs often sucker my PCs, but it is rarely involving an event or series of events as complicated as yours.

However, I would definitely say that the PCs sucker my NPCs (read: me) much, MUCH more often. And their set-ups are frequently pretty elaborate.

And, really, I wouldn't have it any other way. It makes for a great game.

With my particular group, no, my NPCs never sucker the PC's. Well, that's not true, but it's very very rare. In fact, as a general rule, my NPCs won't tell untruths. It just helps make things that much easier in this set of games. So they have been suckered before, but it's about finding an additional cost that wasn't previously suspected.

ThoughtBubble said:

In fact, as a general rule, my NPCs won't tell untruths.

Click to expand...

What a horribly bad idea. Are you running a children's game?


PCs should be suckered on a regular basis. That's what skills like Sense Motive are for.

Power (political or otherwise) is often about manipulating others.

Yes, my NPC's do this so oten, and so successfully that I've given up lying IC.
If I really want to sucker the PC's I just have the NPC's tell them the complete unadulterated truth.
Seriously. Nothing rattles my players more than an honest NPC.

My current campaign plot is based on a suckering of PCs by an NPC. A dwarven merchant hired the PCs to retrieve a shipment of dragonshards that had been stolen by an orc tribe in the Shadow Marches. The dwarf insisted on coming along. After the tribe had been vanquished, and the dwarf and the PCs had cornered the tribe's druid in a cave near the tribe's village, the dwarf suddenly smashed a sigil on the cave wall... releasing a daelkyr (big bad outsider associated with aberrations and mutations/corruptions). Now the PCs are looking for a way to entrap the fiend again.

With some regularity. Which is to say, not every NPC is a con man, but the PCs should definitely be asking for some Sense Motive checks, just to be "sure".

As a PC I have been suckered once or twice.

The most memorable is when the group fought to free a demon that was supposedly trying to return to his home plane and wsa being held captive but that didn't wind up being the case. I expected that it would return, but then the DM killed us all in a Drow Bloodbath. Those spiders they raise have 15' reach or something. That was bad.

-Shay

We got suckered once. And we learned. I also play LARP (as PC) and we sucker all the other players all the time. Players are MUCH more naive in LARP than on table. One might say we're pretty convincing (high bluff ranks ?). We destroyed a chruch for 3 seasons by writing a fake book about that god and planting it in-game. We never told tham anything. They just read tha spread the rumor no one ever bother to counter verify until 3 years (3 years of real time but actually 6 36 hours sessions) after.

My last game session, a black dragon used polymorph to assume the form of a brass dragon to get the assistance of the players in slaying a rival green dragon. The mage never bothered with a detect magic to identify the dragon's defenses and no one tried any alignment detections. They would have failed but a failed detect good is not a good sign from a metallic dragon. They trusted the bard's sense motive implicitly, never thinking that a dragon would have an immense bluff skill.

The net result was the green mauled everyone but was driven off, casting a dispel on the black on her way out. The party then tussled with the black who also escaped. They managed to get some rest before the green dragon ambushed the party and demanded they bring her the head of the black dragon and she's keeping the nearby villagers and a PC's cohort as "guests" until they do.

So yeah, my NPCs deceive the players all the time. It's good for them, builds character.