D&D 5E Twist. Just DM enjoyment or OK for Players?

[Ralif Redhammer]

I think it would be perfectly acceptable and fun, but yeah, what counts is how your players feel about such twists and betrayals. Two things I’d take into consideration are 1 – what if they decide they don’t want Lord Notavampire as a patron and want to go their separate ways early on and 2 – what if they figure the plot out too early?

And of course, once the jig is properly up, there should be an opportunity for the PCs to rain down some righteous retribution on Malvor Pride.

 

[robus]

The potential problem is you can do this twist effectively once. And then the players stop trusting quest givers. And it becomes that much harder to get the party to adventure and follow the story.

Sure, but the same can be said about any trick the DM pulls. Once bitten, twice shy. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't bite the players now and then

 

[DEFCON 1]

The better twist: some vampire hunter comes around and tells your players that Malvor Pride is a Vampire Lord, doles out a bunch of circumstantial evidence that seems to line up with the accusation.

But really, he's just got a weird name. The vampire hunter is wrong and in danger of killing just a regular dude.

Will the players believe the accusation? Will they investigate their friend and patron? Can they stop the Hunter from killing an innocent man?

Could be good!


-Brad

I personally think THIS is the much more interesting "twist" you could do. The "twist" is that the patron doesn't in fact want to betray the party! He actually just wants them to do stuff for him! THAT'S much more surprising than any other overdone "secretly a bad guy" trope. Especially if you add in what Bawylie mentions above, with other people thinking he's a secret bad guy. And in fact... the name you came up with is fantastic for that. The party or some NPC will probably solve the anagram at some point and then think "Ah ha! He's a vampire!", and the guy would be all like "Dude that's just my name. It's just a coincidence! And besides... even if I *was* secretly a vampire lord, why in the hell would I NAME MYSELF THAT?!? What kind of lame-ass secret-keeper does that kind of thing?!?"

It's exactly the same reversal of overdone trope that always inspires me to create PCs that have two living parents and a handful of siblings... all of whom are happy together. "What?!? A character who hasn't seen their parents murdered right in front of their eyes as a child, or abandoned in the woods when they were a baby?!? What kind of backstory is that?!? Is that kind of thing even possible?!?"

 

[Istbor]

Dr. Acula agrees. Why would a Vampire be foolish enough to name themselves in such a way!

 

[steenan]

There are two important things about twists to be taken into account.


One of them is foreshadowing. Events that seem meaningful but their full meaning in unclear until the twist is revealed - and then everything falls into place. Foreshadowing ensures that the twist does not come out of the blue. When it happens, players think "Why haven't we realized it earlier? It should be obvious from the facts we knew!".

And maybe they do realize it earlier. In this case, the GM should accept it, without trying to change things behind the scenes and take the well deserved success from players. A twist well foreshadowed is like a good detective story - fun whether the reader deduces the solution or not (getting the "I should have noticed that" moment).


The other aspect is how the twist fits the social contract and metagame conventions of the campaign. For example, in most games I run, the story is strongly player-driven. When I create NPCs for players to encounter, I make no assumptions on whether players will like them or not, if players will trust them and what will come of their interactions. And players know about it. NPCs have their beliefs and motivations and it's not that rare that a genuinely moral person is opposed to PCs for some reason.

But in a quest-driven game, there is a metagame convention that quests are accepted. If players become distrusting and refuse to accept quests (or haggle too much on rewards, or demand explanations why the patron does not handle the matter themselves, or ...), the game grinds to halt. The group, for metagame reasons (fun play) ignores this kind of concerns and skips to the quest itself. So if a patron betrays the party, it's not only an NPC abusing PCs' trust. It's also the GM abusing the social contract.

 

[Gwarok]

Well, it sounds like you're already a bit into the campaign but as mentioned, the quest giver turned bad guy is likely to be figured out pretty quick. I'd keep him as a Vampire Lord, but make him not evil. Or at least, not insane murder everyone "just cuz" evil. Make the twist that he's bent toward eliminating rivals to sorta keep the peace. In my campaign I have a secret society of good guys working behind the scenes, one of whom is a vampire. I based him heavily off of the vampire "Silas" from the novel Graveyard Book. Is he the living dead with a thirsty for the blood of the living? Sure, but he doesn't have to be all bad

Good luck, sounds like fertile ground for some good times with your friends.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I want to run by you folks an idea and get some feedback as to whether it’s good enough for the players or just me selfishly enjoying myself.

After an initial beginning adventure, The PC’s are approached by a man named Malvor Pride, who offers to become their benefactor in the fight against darkness etc. etc. He has a sob story: Mum, Dad and Sister all killed, and he has inherited a large estate. He pays well and sends them on quests until they either start to become suspicious, find out things about him or he springs something upon them. Malvor Pride is the best anagram name I can come up with from Vampire Lord.

They have been working for him and his dastardly schemes all along. Doing his dirty work and levelling up and gaining power. I also quite like the idea that townsfolk might start to become nervous of the party because of who their benefactor is.

I am conscious that this story-type is enjoyable for me, but am I right in the fact that the players make the story, and I serve the story? I would rather they worked it out through clues and suspicions over time then me just spring it upon them. That seems like the players would feel good about working it out. But would this story type be poor form DM-wise, or acceptable? I am struggling to work it out in my head.

Opinions, tips and anecdotes all most welcome, cheers.

I think they will figure it out far more quickly than you think. The first thing I thought when I saw the name "Malvor Pride" was, "Oh, that looks like a clue." I didn't spend long enough on it to resolve it to "Vampire Lord" but if I were a player in your campaign who spent five minutes on it to plug it into the Internet (http://www.wordplays.com/anagram-solver/) I'd get a bunch of unpleasant results including "impaled" and "vampired". Probably wouldn't take more than a few minutes after that to notice Vampire Lord.

Probably the next step is to either run away screaming, or try to sneak into his coffin room and impale him while he's asleep. Either way, it doesn't sound like a long-term plot arc.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Setting up an NPC who later betrays the party or is not what he seems is fine. If you do it sparingly. You'll know when you've done it too much when the players start acting crazy-suspicious of every NPC.

You could try reconstructing this trope by doing something to defuse the party's suspicions. Off the top of my head:

(1) The quest-giver has obvious vices and clear motivations for the things he asks from the PCs. "Retrieve this ancient artifact for me because I could sell it for fifty THOUSAND gp and build a new house! I'll pay you five hundred gp for it!" (Really he wants to keep it and use it to become a lich.)

(2) The party feels that the quest-giver is in their debt due to past favors. "I hate to ask for more help after all you've done for me, but I really have no one else to turn to--my brother Rychter hasn't been seen for three days, and I'm so worried about him. Do you think you could track him down in that old mine?" (Really she's a Delilah, being paid by a bandit captain to send the players off alone where they can be waylaid.) Be careful with this one--this kind of betrayal has the potential to enrage players in real life.

(3) The party believes that the "quest" is a secret, which they are voluntarily choosing to pursue. E.g. a stolen treasure map from the evil count's desk. The PCs may have stolen it themselves or purchased it from some kind of low-life squealer. (In reality the squealer was working for the count to plant the map on the PCs, and maybe steal a lock of hair or two for scrying purposes.)

 

[transtemporal]

I am conscious that this story-type is enjoyable for me, but am I right in the fact that the players make the story, and I serve the story? I would rather they worked it out through clues and suspicions over time then me just spring it upon them. That seems like the players would feel good about working it out. But would this story type be poor form DM-wise, or acceptable? I am struggling to work it out in my head.

Sounds cool. I would consider this indulgent if you cheesed it so either: the PCs can't ever find out he's a vampire lord because you start making ever more elaborate excuses to protect your favourite NPC, or the PCs find out but can't kill him because he has "indestructible shields" or other cheesey device so you can protect your favourite NPC.

The villain has to get found out and get whats coming to him at some stage, otherwise it's kind of a dick move.

 

[MoonSong]

Seriously, all can I think of is Rick and Morty....

Less seriously I plan on doing something similar but with a twist, nobody suspects the bar wench, nobody...