DMs - Do you thrive on deception?

[Psion]

Posted this on RPGnet, thought someone might have inputs here:

In a thread on RPGnet about "most powerful moments", I cited a long running story arc in which the players learn that the prophecied queen is really someone that they knew for some time.

Similarly, with the same group, one of the most involving sessions I ran was based around a ruse by a doppleganger that had infiltrated the ranks of the PC's employers, and who had sent the PCs to arrest a sorceress who should by all rights be the PC's ally.

It occurs to me that perhaps I rely a little too much on deception to the state things really are in order to make things interesting. Is anyone else like this? Is this wrong? It seems like if this is the only tool in my toolbox, it would get old real quick, but as of yet, I don't overuse it to the point my players immediately start looking for the secret "trick". What are some other tools you use to keep your games interesting?

Edit: Or, perhaps the response might be, "is there any other way to DM?"

 

[Trevalon Moonleirion]

I thrive on the fresh souls of my players....er...I mean... I like kitttens.

Now that you mention it, I do think I use a fair amout of deception in the game to make it interesting, but I don't know if its a bad thing. I dunno, you'd really have to ask my players if they like it or not.

 

[clark411]

I try to have 1 part deception per 4 parts mystery. A lot of DMs think that decieving NPCS equates to intrigue and suspense, but if there's too much of it- paranoia will set in and players will think everyone is out to get them.. if there's WAY too much, they won't be paranoid in thinking that- and boy that's bad.

I tend to make a lot of my NPCs mysterious, at least in a "he's holding something back" or "we don't know all there is to this fellow and his aims" sort of manner. Sometimes, the aid turns out to be the villain, sometimes the villain turns out to be the best thing the players could use... and they learn this as he's dying on their blades. However, those moments are campaign climaxes... Farmer Bob isn't a demilich. There are normal good priests and wise just rulers. Regents are just that, regents.

 

[Pielorinho]

A minority of my NPCs are deceptive, but the players get to the point where they don't trust anyone pretty quickly. Usually the deceptive NPCs have elaborate and convoluted plots; and when you have two or more deceptive NPCs plotting sometimes together and sometimes against one another, you can rapidly get a tangled web indeed.

Example:
Joan is poor and wants the wealth of Frank, so she hires Liza to cast love spells on Frank to make him fall for Joan, propose to her, and marry her, at which point he'll die a convenient death, leaving her a rich widow. Beth, Frank's daughter, sees some of this happening but doesn't know who's behind it, and becomes paranoid and suspicious of everyone. Greg, a servant, sees a lot more of it, and blackmails Joan. She panics, and sics Liza on Greg, having him murdered. Liza, meanwhile, is in this thing for herself, and won't hesitate to betray her employer if it's to her advantage. And that's where the PCs come in.

As the PCs investigate, everyone mentioned above is going to dissemble. Joan and Liza for obvious reasons. Frank because he doesn't have any clue as to what's happening and believes his love is real. Beth because she doesn't know whether the PCs are behind the whole plot or not, and because she knows a scandal will erupt if any of this becomes public. And poor Greg is dead, and his family doesn't want anyone to know he was a blackmailer.

Nobody's specific plot is terribly complicated, and nobody is going to start off playing the PCs for fools, but it can take them a very long time to get to the bottom of what's happening.

Daniel

 

[Mystery Man]

Posted this on RPGnet, thought someone might have inputs here:

In a thread on RPGnet about "most powerful moments", I cited a long running story arc in which the players learn that the prophecied queen is really someone that they knew for some time.

Similarly, with the same group, one of the most involving sessions I ran was based around a ruse by a doppleganger that had infiltrated the ranks of the PC's employers, and who had sent the PCs to arrest a sorceress who should by all rights be the PC's ally.

It occurs to me that perhaps I rely a little too much on deception to the state things really are in order to make things interesting. Is anyone else like this? Is this wrong? It seems like if this is the only tool in my toolbox, it would get old real quick, but as of yet, I don't overuse it to the point my players immediately start looking for the secret "trick". What are some other tools you use to keep your games interesting?

Edit: Or, perhaps the response might be, "is there any other way to DM?"

It sounds more like your using cool plot twists to me. As long as they at least have even the remotest chance to figure out whats going on by the subtle clues you may have given them (of course this assumes they're paying attention and if not that's their own fault) and not just screwing them over for the sake of doing it.

Take for instance the doppleganger. I would have let them meet the actual NPC and note some of his subtle mannerisms in passing (grasping his fork like a dagger, drinking with his pinky pointing up etc.) even demonstrating them physically rather than by verbal, and then do the opposite with the replacement. It's at this time you really pick up exactly how dense a group of people can be.

 

[Nifft]

Deception, foreshadowing, social engagements, secret plots, mis-information (on both sides, PCs and NPCs alike) and second-guessing the mis-information of others -- these are my tools.

-- N, aspiring Rat Bastard

 

[mythago]

As you say, it can get old real quick if handled improperly. I remember one GM I played with regularly whose adventures were almost *always* having the players befriend or work with group A, only to find out later that group A was completely the opposite of what we thought, generally with very little reason for us to investigate otherwise beyond sheer paranoia. It got to the point where we would have metagame discussions about how we could, in character, refuse to trust or work with NPCs because we knew they were up to something.

Unless your game is openly and completely about, say, court intrigue, you need to give the players room to be other than paranoid. Untrustworthy and deceptive NPCs/plotlines/situations should be unusual, not the norm. There should be ways the players can find out that things are not quite as they seem, if they are paying attention.

I run a Delta Green game, so you can imagine how much I rely on the above tactics.

 

[BSF]

There is a saying: If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Psion, I think you have more than a hammer at your disposal. So, the prophesied queen was a person they had known for a while. That is mystery, not deception.

I suspect that the plot moments you remember the best involve this type of twist. How many organizations to the PC's deal with? How many of those are simply a front to cover something evil and nefarious? Is it really that every story you tell has a deceptive element? Aren't there any straight-forward adventures? To you, these may seem like filler between the stories you enjoy the most, but they may be much more significant to your players.

 

[astralpwka]

I use deception tied in heavily with difficult emotional decisions. The deception usually means the players will make the wrong choice if they don't put thought into dealing with the final encounters of a storyline.

 

[Berandor]

I once killed off a PC and replaced him with a doppelganger without telling the player. Does that count?
Man those were two totally cool sessions!
(I awarded the player the xp he had gained as doppelganger as an addition to his starting xp for the next character, however).

And once, I meta-deceived. When my players met a carefully crafted and important NPC, I scrambled for a name and then seemingly made up all her detailed backstory, so my players dismissed her as spur-of-the-moment NPC and never even thought of her - until she was kidnapped by the deranged killer they were trying to catch

Berandor