D&D General With enough planning could Schizophrenia be used to allow A Pc to unknowingly also be The campaigns true and final villain?

[Laurefindel]

Sorry, I didn't mean any harm and I truly believed that Schizophrenia means what I said it means, clearly it doesn't mean what I thought it meant and even though I never intended to upset people its clear that I unintentionally upset at least 1 person and likely more then 1 person, my deepest apologies

You can edit your OP and without removing anything, make a note about that. Update the threat title if you need. Your idea has merits but is now obfuscated by the definition of schizophrenia and dissociative disorder and whether you should include metal conditions and divergence in play.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Obvious issue aside, however much you might want to make shocking swerve, you should ask the player's permission to screw with who their character is.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I did a double swearve once...

in my Multiverse game I had a PC get a vision of himself weilding the ruby rod and the rod of orcus...(he was a necromancer) later when he found out about the multiverse he found out some powerful casters hunted down and killed/absorbed there own alts to get more power... and the next time he had the nightmare vision he had 3 rods of Ocrus...

When the NPC he dreaded for months showed up he said "So your here to kill me?" and the other him said "Did you descend into hell or the abyss to gain evil power?" the PC swore realizing that he had turned down that power up... for the NPC to say "Then I'm here to help. I only kill and take the power of our corrupt forms" and became an ally (a super powerful one)...

the whole campagin even other PCs thought he might turn into a bad guy (the PC not his alt) and felt for sure and were even preping to fight one or both... that swearve to "No, we are the good ones" (good ish) was fun to see,

 

[the Jester]

You're talking about basically taking control of a pc from the player, even if they don't realize it until late in the game. Strongly dislike, would not recommend.

 

[Umbran]

Sorry, I didn't mean any harm and I truly believed that Schizophrenia means what I said it means, clearly it doesn't mean what I thought it meant and even though I never intended to upset people its clear that I unintentionally upset at least 1 person and likely more then 1 person, my deepest apologies

Mod Note:
Good on you for recognizing the issue, and offering an apology. That's more than many would do, and is appreciated.

I think we can chalk this up to an issue of being uninformed on mental health issues. I think it safe to say that some research into mental health would be in order before attempting using it in a game this way. I might recommend specifically reading up on mental health stereotypes and how they are used to portray villains in fiction. It... isn't pretty.

Overall, I'd say you've some work to do before you can really have this conversation. So, I'll close this thread, and maybe we can come back to something related to this topic in the future.