Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercule" data-source="post: 7085179" data-attributes="member: 5100">I've done something like this, in the past. What I did was to just deal with each player, as they came in. So, just describe the room (box text). When the first person comes into the room, tell them that an old lady comes out from behind a bookshelf and greets them (or whatever). As long as they're the only one who engages, let it go. As soon as another player interacts with the scene, in some way (say, picks up a book), narrate the entity's reaction with a brief description ("The scholarly young man turns his attention from Bob to you and says, 'Please be careful, those are old and fragile.'"). You can do the same sort of thing, even if only one PC is interacting with it, too.The first time or two, the players will probably assume they missed the description of someone else being in the room, or you made a mistake. Maybe one of them will even say, "I ask the little girl XXX," and you can say, "There's no little girl, just a talking cat." It'll be a bit confusing, which is the point, but they'll eventually either catch on or ask direct questions of you (as GM), at which point you can be explicit about what each of them sees.This works well because it simulates the assumptions each character would make about the others seeing the same thing and/or consistent perceptions, while giving clues that things are not all as they seem. One would think it'd be as subtle as a sledgehammer, but my experience is that players never pick up on things as quickly as you'd expect.Now, the above assumes you want to have some subtlety. If you really want it to be more freaky than mysterious, then just narrate it plainly and tell each of them that they see something different and that the appearance changes every so often. Also, if your players are the sort to be upset that you're "messing with them" then skip the effect altogether and just pick a form for Knowledge to appear as. Maybe it changes on each visit, but is set while being observed -- which might actually be appropriate for Knowledge, which tends to have assumptions reinforced during focused study and deviations only revealed when you step back or change your approach.</blockquote>

Verification