What about a party that starts off normal but then the Dungeon Master says that one of you is a traitor (He tells that player what he has to do) but no one knows who in the party it is… now that could be for some good role-play!
Hmm, could make it hard to metagame, any odd behavior would be seized upon and analyzed, whether or not it would draw suspicion normally.
I'd be inclined to keep the traitor bit secret save for from the chosen one. Precautions would be made to ensure the betrayal is not taken personally.
For instance, on one occasion, I noted that a particular character was very much a mercenary, and asked if they'd be willing to act as a spy and agent for a third group unrelated to the main conflict. Had him reporting on various opportunities and occaisonally doing a task for them.
Edited: daishain on 17th Apr, 2017 - 6:15pm
I have DMed a game where one of the players turned against the team. They did it in secret and no one in the party knew. He sabotaged a lot of their plans and they thought it was all bad luck until a major battle where one of the bigger guys faced that person and they both left the field together. The party was almost totally killed before they were able to break off and leave. They spent the next three campaigns trying to get to him and take him out for being a traitor. It was quite epic.
KN,
That sounds pretty great. I've never actually been in this situation, at least no to the degree of an actual traitor, and I was thinking how to respond to this when I read your response. Epic indeed. I was thinking the same as Daishain about how this would be hard to Dungeon Master, but it sounds like great fun for the players. Was it tough to Dungeon Master?
No it was not too tough at all. He would tell me via a note what he was doing as he acted like he was helping the party. It made some great role play on both sides. To see him purposely set off a trap onto the party members and then Say of crap I screwed that roll up big time. They never knew that he was doing things to weaken them before a big fight. HE was contacted at times during his watch at night by agents of people they were going against. In twon he met up with other agents to purposely but the others in harms way.
That's an interesting concept. It would definitely foster an environment of paranoia. I think it would be better just for the Dungeon Master and traitor player to know. It would be more natural that way and a great surprise. As Daishain mentioned, if everyone knew up front every little thing would be analyzed. You are on a roll with these topics Hunter!
Edited: Kyrroeth on 17th Apr, 2017 - 7:57pm