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Guest 6801328
Guest
Just played a game of 5E tonight. One of my players runs a Tome Warlock of the elder a Elder God, The Eater of Worlds. The Neutral character was told by a wild crazed beggar npc that he had dreamed the pc would destroy the villages gate in a fiery explosion then mentioned the black flaming tentacles the warlock recognized from his own dreams.
He is unknown as a warlock to the party and for sure they have no clue about his Eater of Worlds tie in. The players all know, it's just their characters have no clue. All night the warlock was working to make that explosion happen while working with the group to save the farmers who has hired the party. He lied, he stole,he went behind other pc's back to arrange things and then played it all off like the bad guys were behind it.
All the while the rest of the party was checking left and right to see if they could in character realize anything was going on. One of the player characters got a pretty big clue and they thought they had him at one point but he in character explained it away with a in character great role playing story and persuasion rolls and the rest of the party bought it hook line and sinker.
So in the end the explosion happened just the way the mad beggar said it was supposed to and the bad guys got the blame and the world moved a fraction closer to it's eventual doom.
Everyone had a blast. They told the player though, his character better not slip up because simply misguided or not the stuff he was doing was pretty messed up. I think the player of the warlock is wrestling picking the patron he did mixed with the goals he has for his character. We will see how it all turns out eventually. Should be interesting if nothing else. Good times.
This is illuminating. Your games don't bear any resemblance to mine, so I'm a little bit out of my wheelhouse here. That said, this does help me understand why your players "use social skills" on other players.
It seems to me the other players want to participate. After all, they could easily keep saying that they think something is fishy with the warlock character, and they want to "use Insight" to see if he's lying, or at least hiding something. Eventually the dice are going to land their way. But they don't, which means they think it's all in good fun.
So...if the other players think that it's fun for their characters to be in the dark, and they're not taking obvious and easy steps to spoil the secret...what role do the dice serve? Couldn't you simply let them narrate whatever they think makes for the best story?