Deception within the rules

[Quasqueton]

Since the DM tells players what their character's see, smell, feel, etc., it is perfectly legitimate for a DM to deceive a player based on the character's senses. For instance. . .

Me as DM:

Way back in early B/AD&D, a PC found a cursed -1 longsword. The rules on cursed weapons said that the owner would always use it in battle and would never willingly part with it. [As a "houserule", I would just tell the player what plus a weapon had after he used it a few times in real battle. I would not tell any powers beyond the plus unless they researched/identified it.] So when this PC used the cursed sword a few times in battle, I told the player it was a +4 weapon (amazing for a level ~5 fighter). It was easy for me to just subtract 5 in my head from the to hit roll the player told me he got to determine the "real" result (-1). And saying it was +4 ensured the fighter always used the weapon, and he definitely was not willing to be seperated from it. This deception worked wonderfully, and I don't think the player ever found out the truth for several game sessions.

A falchion specialist NPC faced off against a PC fighter. The NPC had max ranks in intimidate (and skill focus), and successfully used the skill against the PC. I told the player, with sort of a 'DM Voice', "look, this guy can kill you." The inevitable fight broke out between the PC group and the NPC group. Since the PC couldn't avoid fighting the intimidating NPC, the PC used fighting defensively and expertise for several rounds in the hope to survive. When the NPC never got through the PC's high defenses, the PC started fighting straight up and discovered the NPC was not all that hard (close to even actually).

As a player:

A mischeivious gnome "friend" (NPC) gave my character a magic belt of "protection". During a break in the game, the DM told all the other players to have their characters ignore mine unless I directly got their attention. Over the next few hours, I was getting mad that I was practically invisible to everyone. The waitress at the tavern never spoke to me. My suggestions during a planning session (to take on a new adventure) in the tavern were ignored. Etc. But then it dawned on me. I took off the belt and I was no longer overlooked. THAT was a cool magic item, and the DM and players role played the effects beautifully.

Do you have stories about deceiving your players, or being deceived by your DM?

Quasqueton

 

[Henry]

Those are some beautiful examples. I salute your DM skill.

Most of the time I try to remember when describing a monster just how physically intimidating the monster is. Even a small centipede can scare the bejeezus out of a player when it is described as it really is - an insect, longer than your arm, with a head almost as large as your your own, with ENORMOUS mandibles that makes sounds like breaking bones.

I also remember that if you are crawling or lower in position than what you are used to, that everything looks somewhat larger due to perspective. An Elephant is a KING-KONG sized beast up close, because of persepective. A rogue elephant can KILL you, as dead as being run over by a semi (a tractor-trailer truck). A beast as large as an elephant, with forethought of malice to your person, and natural weapons as big as you, are going to be intimidating, and describing the unnatural as such (larger than life) is a good tactic to follow.

Most of my magic cursed items I make too tempting to throw away. I give it a great advantage, but then an equally enormous drawback. Sometimes, it's just fun to watch the players try to decide if an item is worth keeping, even if it hurts them more.

My favorite examples are the cursed everstriking sword and the +5 sword of cowardice from old Dragon Magazines - excellent examples of weapons that are not cursed in the conventional sense, but still cause wonderful moments of indecision.

 

[s/LaSH]

My entire campaign is built around concealing information from the PCs. I never deliberately 'lie', but some things are awfully subtle... like what happened to the mage. Sadly, the biggest secret is revealed only at the end of Part 1, which my website won't cover for another couple of years. And there's no way I'll post it here, but the PCs had been well and truly in the dark.

Um, something more specific... there's the Intellect Axe, which is normally a powerful magic greatclub that the priest uses. But if its personality gets excited, it turns the wielder into a berserk fury, throwing lightning bolts, slashing ogres in half, that sort of thing. Problem is, it then voids the priest's class abilities and he has to go to great lengths to get them back. He still keeps it, but he's wary of the thing.

And there's the current adventure, which they're on because they tried to teleport into an area that had been Screened. They thought they were aiming for a warlord's camp. They found themselves in a camp, all right, but it wasn't the warlord's camp - the warlord doesn't even have a camp, he has a mighty fortress, but they don't know that yet. And they scried him for weeks beforehand... they never noticed that the image was completely false.

Bah, if I said anything else I'd be decieving you, so I'll stop now. Sometimes I hate being so paranoidly secretive.

 

[WayneLigon]

The best bit of deception I ever did was a metagaming thing: I passed a player a Secret Note, which read: 'do a double take at this note, gape in horror at me, them crumple the note quickly and put it in your pocket'. The player was a great actor and did exactly that. Since the PC controlled by him would get flashes of the future and be able to perceive things others could not, the rest of the superhero team was very intimidated going into the major villain's lair....

 

[Taloras]

In the few games ive played, weve had 3 cursed items. 1 would have killed our mage outright(although a DM ruling allowed him to live, he didnt realize the scarab of death was so powerful). The others, one was +3 missile attractor full plate, the DM finally let us know it was missile attractor because he kept forgetting. the cleric that wore it was cool and didnt metagame....we stopped the campaign shortly after it dawned on the PC that something was wierd when a giant's thrown boulder swerved AROUND the first character and hit him. The other, im not sure about, it was a ring of fire resistance, but i kept having to make fort saves (kept rollin high, however, that game didnt last more than 2 sessions past that)

 

[Bagpuss]

Well it is a "scarab of death" not a "scarab of mild chest pain" or "scarab of slight heartburn" what did he expect?

 

[Zander]

In a 2E game I DMed years ago, I had an NPC halfling investigate a side passage while the rest of the party was resting. The halfling came back later saying that he needed a hand to lift a heavy rock that seemed to be blocking the passage further up. One of the fighter PC's volunteered and went off with the halfling...

Some time later, the fighter returned saying that he couldn't manage it by himself. Could another party member lend a hand? So another party member went with the fighter to join the halfling. Then that PC came back saying the fighter and the halfling needed more help and so on. Eventually, the whole party had, one by one, volunteered to help.

When the last party member had volunteered he discovered the rest of the party bound and gagged at the end of the side passage, quite far from where the party had been resting. Before he could react (in the surprise round) he was attacked by a doppleganger!

What had happened was that when the halfling NPC had gone off by himself, he had been knocked out by the doppleganger, and it was the monster, not the halfling, who had gone back asking for a volunteer. The fighter PC went off with the doppleganger and was attacked in turn. After the fighter was defeated, I asked the fighter's player to secretly play the doppleganger. The doppleganger went through the whole party in this way, being passed from player to player as the monster defeated their character. When the last player realised what had happened and that he had been 'out of the loop' we laughed so hard we cried. I think that was the best gaming moment I've had in 20 years of DMing. All credit to my players for having played the doppleganger so well.

 

[RodneyThompson]

I've played a similar trick on my players in a Star Wars adventure I recently ran.

The main bad guy they had been chasing for the entire campaign was a Clawdite, the shapeshifting race of the female bounty hunter in Episode II. However, the party didn't know this. The guy kept escaping every time he was captured, and each time the guards would have no memory of seeing the guy escape -- leading the party to believe that he was a Force user, nor a changeling.

Last weekend we ran the finale of the first part of the campaign, and I had to use a little character perception theater to pull off the revelation that he was a shapeshifter. Near the end of the session, the party split up into three groups to explore a secret underground cloning facility. One of the players discovered a clone of the female noble in a tank, and went to go find the other player to show her the clone. Well, I then switched over to the group that the noblewoman was in, and it went something like this:

Me (GM): OK, Lady Hoth, you're exploring the third hallway when Davin comes running up to you.
Player 1 (Davin): Lady Hoth, I found something I think you need to see.
Player 2 (Lady Hoth): What is it?
Player 1: Well, I'm not sure, but it appears to be a clone...of you!
Player 2: Alright, let's go.
Player 1: I lead her to where I found the clone of her growing in the tank.
Me: OK, so you guys turn around and start heading toward the cloning tank when all of a sudden a blaster bolt whizzes by Lady Hoth's ear. You turn around and see Davin holding a blaster pistol, leveled at your chest.
Player 1: Wait, I didn't shoot at her.
Me: Yes, you did.
Player 2: OK, I draw my blaster pistol and shoot back.
>snip combat between Player 1 and Player 2, wherein Player 1 is shot and killed<
Me: Alright, you burn down your long-time companion Davin, who lies in a smoking pile on the floor. At about this moment, when you begin mourning his betrayal, who should come trotting around the corner but Davin Mereel himself! You look back to the Davin you just killed in time to see him shifting back to his natural form: that of a Clawdite shapeshifter!

It was a lot of fun, especially since the player of Lady Hoth thought that the player of Davin was actually betraying the party. It's all in PC perceptions.

 

[Taloras]

Well it is a "scarab of death" not a "scarab of mild chest pain" or "scarab of slight heartburn" what did he expect?

We were 6th level. It was in an old module (Baltran's Beacon, or something like that, cant remember the exact name). The wizard picked it up. He couldnt have made the DC 25 saving throw with a 20. So the DM let the rogue(me), who was checking for traps on books throw a dagger to stop it with a successful reflex save. Still hurt the wiz, but he survived. The DM hadnt noticed that the scarab was in the module at first, then when he looked it up.....we figured the character was dead.