I Was Betrayed!
- Thread starter Greg Tito
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Very interesting, to say the least. Such a deep, meaningful experience to be had in role-play. Truly, it is an amazing thing.
We had a similar story in one of my campaigns recently. The party had a Deva Psion, Galad, whom we'd all humorously called Chaotic Rude because even though he was good, he was a jerk. He'd walked the line between evil and good for a while, and finally he and several other players caused a mutiny on a ship and scared the captain into leaving. That night, in a dream, he was told he'd reincarnate as a Rakshasa if he died... and he accepted! He fled the party to the city, grabbed some supplies, and the returned, telling them he'd repent and save himself from that fate. Later, he turned around, locked them in a building, and tried to kill them! He failed, but it was a good lay of character, he seemed to just be being good because of his party members, and when given the chance to be evil, took it. It was a cool end to our campaign.
And I myself have felt sad and angry while playing games, I won't spoil it, but I failed to do something at the end of Mass Effect 2. I was infuriated and attacked with rage until the end. It was... intense.
And I myself have felt sad and angry while playing games, I won't spoil it, but I failed to do something at the end of Mass Effect 2. I was infuriated and attacked with rage until the end. It was... intense.
I'm glad we wound up undoing that particular decision - the last thing I wanted was for an interesting RP theme to end the game. I still think it would have been a blast to become a vampire cleric, but there's still plenty of opportunity for it to happen by chance.
It was awesome setting up an RP betrayal - the GM (Archon) was in on it from the beginning, and helped me keep it a secret until just the right moment. After all, you can't really betray anyone if they know you're going to do it.
To anyone that wants to try it: I'd recommend PC betrayal only as an end-game scenario.
-Balbus
It was awesome setting up an RP betrayal - the GM (Archon) was in on it from the beginning, and helped me keep it a secret until just the right moment. After all, you can't really betray anyone if they know you're going to do it.
To anyone that wants to try it: I'd recommend PC betrayal only as an end-game scenario.
-Balbus
I remember a Dark Ages Call of Cthulhu session from a year back. It was the scenario that came with the core rules for Dark Ages called "The Tomb". The party was formed of about eight people, a few monks and their escort to border German stronghold neighboring Hungary. The monks were there to convert the local pagan populace to the ways of Christianity and as they were arriving a series of brutal murders began taking place.
Infighting was constant within the group: one of the characters, a rope merchant, got thrown out of a window for being overly arrogant to the mercenaries (also PCs). He then proceeded to turn the other characters in to the local Lord for helping the Magyars ( this ended with the merchant getting thrown in the dungeon for lying - the local lord saw rather quickly through his weak lies ). This proceeded in launching a whole tangential plot line where the merchant met a heretic in the dungeon (he was an apprentice mage with minor magical capabilities) They both escaped the dungeon to form a weird master servant relationship along the way.
Anyway, turns out the murderer was a parasitic alien lifeform that could possess any human to carry out it's commands and was cleaning up several tracks it had left in the area(among which a power dimensional/mind altering artifact) while securing human specimens for experimentation. The parasite eventually found it's way into one of the PCs.
The rest was history, the guy playing the infected character played brutally to the very end, he tricked the other characters at every turn, convinced the mercenaries to KILL the priests and the monks, gave them a sanity crushing tour through the entire alien base and finally lured them into a concave pit like room where he unleashed the stone plunging all the PCs into a horror scape that almost utterly destroyed all of them.
The mage character having managed to secure a copy of the Al Azif manged to merge himself into the dreamlands and escape, one of the mercenaries was devoured by Nyarlahotep's avatar while one last heroic fighter ( youngest of the group, a 16 year old) managed to escape the hell scape and confront the possessed Dark Lord. The catch? The two were inseparable friends from childhood, blood brothers. He didn't realize the betrayal at first, no until the dark lord removed his cowl and revealed a dead rotting face with rotting, glowing eyes. He fought bravely but the Dark Lord emerged victorious killing his former friend with the very staff he had given him as a gift.
Everyone in the room was completely speechless at this point. Me, I just thought I had done a good job as the keeper. The ending was utterly Lovecraftian.
Infighting was constant within the group: one of the characters, a rope merchant, got thrown out of a window for being overly arrogant to the mercenaries (also PCs). He then proceeded to turn the other characters in to the local Lord for helping the Magyars ( this ended with the merchant getting thrown in the dungeon for lying - the local lord saw rather quickly through his weak lies ). This proceeded in launching a whole tangential plot line where the merchant met a heretic in the dungeon (he was an apprentice mage with minor magical capabilities) They both escaped the dungeon to form a weird master servant relationship along the way.
Anyway, turns out the murderer was a parasitic alien lifeform that could possess any human to carry out it's commands and was cleaning up several tracks it had left in the area(among which a power dimensional/mind altering artifact) while securing human specimens for experimentation. The parasite eventually found it's way into one of the PCs.
The rest was history, the guy playing the infected character played brutally to the very end, he tricked the other characters at every turn, convinced the mercenaries to KILL the priests and the monks, gave them a sanity crushing tour through the entire alien base and finally lured them into a concave pit like room where he unleashed the stone plunging all the PCs into a horror scape that almost utterly destroyed all of them.
The mage character having managed to secure a copy of the Al Azif manged to merge himself into the dreamlands and escape, one of the mercenaries was devoured by Nyarlahotep's avatar while one last heroic fighter ( youngest of the group, a 16 year old) managed to escape the hell scape and confront the possessed Dark Lord. The catch? The two were inseparable friends from childhood, blood brothers. He didn't realize the betrayal at first, no until the dark lord removed his cowl and revealed a dead rotting face with rotting, glowing eyes. He fought bravely but the Dark Lord emerged victorious killing his former friend with the very staff he had given him as a gift.
Everyone in the room was completely speechless at this point. Me, I just thought I had done a good job as the keeper. The ending was utterly Lovecraftian.
This can also be very bad... and very good.
In my groups longest running campaign, a Post Apocalyptic Western, my character, a notorious outlaw with a massive bounty on his head, was betrayed by two other members of the party during the big heist that served as the primary set piece of the adventure. I managed to escape the betrayal and get my comeuppance and in retrospect it was a brilliant way to wrap that "episode" of the campaign but at the time I, the one who was betrayed, was pissed and I mean PISSED. I argued, yelled, stormed out, flat out refused to continue you name it and it essentially "ended" that leg of the game even through the GM had intended for it to go a bit further.
In my groups longest running campaign, a Post Apocalyptic Western, my character, a notorious outlaw with a massive bounty on his head, was betrayed by two other members of the party during the big heist that served as the primary set piece of the adventure. I managed to escape the betrayal and get my comeuppance and in retrospect it was a brilliant way to wrap that "episode" of the campaign but at the time I, the one who was betrayed, was pissed and I mean PISSED. I argued, yelled, stormed out, flat out refused to continue you name it and it essentially "ended" that leg of the game even through the GM had intended for it to go a bit further.
This is why I love Cybersphere, Its an awesome Moo I play. Its a dystopian future based loosely on Shadowrunner rules. Its all online so we can all interact, the world is persistant and player killing is permitted 
Its a Nice RP outlet, my character a decker is currently caught playing both sides of a feud between a biker gang and a merc outfit passing information between both.
Its a Nice RP outlet, my character a decker is currently caught playing both sides of a feud between a biker gang and a merc outfit passing information between both.
me, my friends and brother are going to be playing D&D for the first time in about a week and I hope that we have experience as emotional as those. although I think I'm going to be a dragonborn fighter that interrogates people splinter-cell style e.g. smashes there head into the wall, so I think I would be the one who ends up betraying the whole group when I can gain power from it but even though I normally to play someone who grabs for power and is a bit of a psycho I do have honour which can confuse people. If I have kidnapped someone and wanted lets say 1,000 gold pieces so they are returned no harm I will keep to that and if I bond with someone I will protect them with my life so whether my group gets backstapped by me is up to how they treat me. if they are just people that I teamed up with not to die I will kill them at a moments notice, if they are someone that saved my life I will die for them. In other words whether I will chop of your head for decoration or not is all up to how I see you. I just realise I went a bit of topic there but what I was also trying to say with that is that my decisions will be based of in game experiences so I think they will properly end up being emotional.
Wow, as I was reading that, I never saw that coming. Clever, I love players that roleplay their characters well and open worlds too where your choices count and shape events. I've been considering playing DnD lately too, maybe I'll give it another try.
I actually had the same thing happen in a game I ran, with different results. It was literally the final adventure before the game's climax, everyone was level 20, and about four things were ready to end the world as the characters knew it. The players had to decide what plan they would use to save it, unaware that most of them had secretly allied with one or more factions for just that purpose. No problem so far, except one of those factions included the god of lycanthropes. He was just about to being his plan, which would save the world but put him and his lawful evil followers in charge, when the players tried to stop him. And just before the fight, one of the characters, who had been bitten by a werewolf twelve levels ago and had been working with the god of lycanthropes for a while now, was called upon to switch sides.
It didn't end up in the exact same way. For one, the player is a very easy-going type, so it wasn't so much him role-playing a coward as it was him happily biting at the plot hook I gave him. And in the end, the betraying character lived while the god's avatar was put down, ending that plot. Because the character was supposedly acting with the best intentions (even the bad guys wanted to save the world after all,) and because it just felt "right" to end the game with the original characters, the party even forgave the character, uniting the party for the final battle. Still, it surprised the hell out of the rest of the group at the time!
It didn't end up in the exact same way. For one, the player is a very easy-going type, so it wasn't so much him role-playing a coward as it was him happily biting at the plot hook I gave him. And in the end, the betraying character lived while the god's avatar was put down, ending that plot. Because the character was supposedly acting with the best intentions (even the bad guys wanted to save the world after all,) and because it just felt "right" to end the game with the original characters, the party even forgave the character, uniting the party for the final battle. Still, it surprised the hell out of the rest of the group at the time!
