D&D 4E Doctor Who's "the Silence" as a D&D 4e monster?

[Havrik Stoneskimmer]

I don't know how many people here watch Doctor Who, but the current series features a monster called "the Silence" with an interesting gimmick. When you look away from them, you forget entirely that you saw them. They are also able to control people through post-hypnotic suggestion in commands given during the interval you can't remember. Last night I had a crazy dream that I had adapted them into a D&D monster. Of course now I can't remember what I did, but I thought it'd be interesting to throw some ideas around.

How could this mechanic work? Obviously, you could do a lot with it in a narrative RP context, but I wonder how you could do something interesting during combat.

You forget that you saw them if you aren't looking at them, so perhaps they are automatically hidden to anyone who doesn't have line of sight. I would maybe even make it so they are hidden to anyone they have combat advantage against, to account for the idea of someone looking away from them even when nearby.

Not sure how to handle the post-hypnotic suggestion angle, given that this would be a longer-scale thing than a combat. Although maybe you could do something similar to other domination powers where a monster forces a PC to attack his or her ally.

What do you folks think? I'm just brainstorming for cool ideas here that maybe I can adapt into a creepy monster for my game.

 

[DragoonLance]

Been thinking about this myself since watching that episode. My initial thought was to create some variation on mind-flayers with combat related abilities like the gnome's fade away. They would make great epic level baddies, especially when the party realized they have been watched and manipulated their entire lives...

 

[Kinneus]

Well, I've never watched Doctor Who. But after a quick google, hmm... yeah. The Silence would make fairly interesting D&D enemies, I suppose. I think your mechanics are pretty close, although I'm not sure about CA acting as the trigger to making them 'hidden'. It seems like it'd work in most situations... flank, stun, daze... but I still feel like I'm missing some bizarre situation where a character granting CA can't be narratively re-interpreted as him "looking away for a moment" and forgetting The Silent.

Not having line of sight to them causing them to become 'hidden' seems pretty perfect, though. That alone might work... especially if you give them a move that allows for phasing? The Silence knows it's in trouble, so it just phases through a wall, waits for the party to 'forget' about it, then re-launches the attack? Could make for an interesting encounter.

As for its powers, well, according to the fan wiki article I read, The Silent can sort of blast people with energy, which should be easy enough to replicate. Give them a nice, big blast and a ranged attack and they should be set. With their hypnotic suggestion thing, yeah, dominate seems to work pretty good. If that seems too powerful (and it might be, with nearly-perpetual 'hidden' status a real possibility) instead make it a slide and 'target makes a melee basic attack against an adjacent creature' dealy, like many early Wizard enchantment powers.

A random idea: allow free Insight checks for the characters to remember, perhaps, that "something isn't right." Maybe those who succeed on their Insight checks don't grant The Silence CA from it being 'hidden?' Or maybe get a bonus to defenses? I don't know... it just seems like Insight should be useful against them, somehow.

 

[Arlough]

That must be in one of the episodes with the 11th Doctor. I haven't seen any of those yet, as I don't have BBC America and so I have to wait until they are on DVD.

But, speaking of great Doctor monsters, here are another two that we should work on the mechanics for.

The Weeping Angels from the episode Blink <S03E10>(still my favorite) - Quantum creatures, when they are observed they become stone (supposedly invulnerable) even if the one observing them is one of their own or themselves. When not observed, they can move phenomenally fast. If they manage to get you, they cast you backwards in time and feed off of all the potential in this timeline you will now never experience.

The Vashta Nerada from the episodes Silence in the Library <S04E08> and The Forest of the Dead <S04E08> - Living Shadows that hunt in forests by attaching themselves to you and then devouring you.

Both would be damn scary monsters in D&D.

 

[aco175]

It would make for a cool monster, I just don't know how many of my players would follow along. Not that they are bad roleplayers, it is just hen a figure is on the board they all know where it is and inherently move their character to flank it, even though it was on the other side of the wall and stuff.

I like the super mind flayer idea, I was thinking along the same lines before I read the post. The party could need a item or god blessing before being able to see them, or remember they can see them. It would be cool to go to the King's court and be the only ones to see one behind the throne wispering to the King.

 

[eamon]

I think they'd work better as a plot hook than a monster. After all, the PC's can't remember them, but the player's can; that'll be tricky, and not really all that immersive as a monster. When you look away, you can't remember what just happened - you didn't look away since there was nothing to look away from, mmmkay? Though funny, I don't see that working well for a longer time.

However, as a plot hook...

Noticing food missing in your baggage, the camp layout altered, yourself in other clothes, sudden changes in daylight, minor injuries that appear out of nowhere and eventually perhaps notes written in your own handwriting - that would be spooky. That way, both PC's and players would remember the same thing - namely nothing - and they'd need to think of a way of preventing the effect, or fighting back, or whatever.

 

[Havrik Stoneskimmer]

I think they'd work better as a plot hook than a monster. After all, the PC's can't remember them, but the player's can; that'll be tricky, and not really all that immersive as a monster. When you look away, you can't remember what just happened - you didn't look away since there was nothing to look away from, mmmkay? Though funny, I don't see that working well for a longer time.

I agree, it certainly works better when you can keep the mystery on your side of the screen. In combat it would really require players who are willing and actively involved in playing along. Still, I think it's an interesting thought experiment to work out a mechanic that would be interesting in play.

 

[Nytmare]

Eamon wrote almost exactly what I was going to say. I think that they should exist completely in the narrative until the PCs get some kind of macguffin that stops the monsters from being forgotten.

 

[Kannon]

However, as a plot hook...

Noticing food missing in your baggage, the camp layout altered, yourself in other clothes, sudden changes in daylight, minor injuries that appear out of nowhere and eventually perhaps notes written in your own handwriting - that would be spooky. That way, both PC's and players would remember the same thing - namely nothing - and they'd need to think of a way of preventing the effect, or fighting back, or whatever.

That's genius. The Silence like that, as agents of the Lords of Dust in an Eberron game would be awesomely paranoia inducing. That really makes me want to write an Eberron adventure using that hook.

Depending on the players, you could also get a lot of mileage out of running a scene where after finding an ally that went to ground, everyone blacks out, then their ally is toast, and leave it up to their imagination if they did it post-hypnotic or were just blanked out while the baddie fried the ally.

Or you could have it be entirely more subtle across an entire tier, or hell, campaign, and towards the end, start revealing just how much and well they've been played. (Triple points if you pull this off in a sandbox game without the players noticing until the end.)

Edit: And, if you really wanted to be a bastard, or play Friend Computer, you could screw with the players via notes. Mess with the descriptions of events, basic objects, slight differences in perception check results. It's easier to do over a virtual tabletop with whispers, but being told something is blue, when everyone else is talking about it being red rattles some players. For maximum fun, keep everyone wondering who is really right, or change such minor and inconsequential things that everyone wonders what's really going on. (You have to be consistent, or they'll think you just screwed up.)

It's remarkably effective when you use it to invert the stock "Spellbound villagers" plot hook. Leaving the players either completely in the dark and confused, or it slowly dawning on them that something is _very_ wrong.