I let the players do the betraying for the most part when it comes to townsfolk and wandering non-hostile encounters in genearl- and let the NPCs get the appropriate revenge for the (generally inevitable) betrayal.  

Last session the rogue thought she was dealing fairly with goblins (after cheating them at dice, natch), but of course it wasn't a dick move when they immediately betrayed the bargain and attacked, because goblins.

I have the npc's betray the players if it makes sense for them to do so but I'm not going to shoehorn it in. My old group started to really invest in their npc allies after the first time they had been betrayed, once they grew to trust one they went the extra mile for them.

My group captured Zark the evil dwarf slaver of Loudwater - and offered him his crossbow back if he'd use it against his fellow slavers. They were very surprised when during the battle with the slavers Zark turned his crossbow on the PCs.

That's generally the level of betrayal IMCs - NPCs will betray where it strains credulity for them *not* to do so. Captured evil dwarf slaver. Captured Chaotic Evil ogre. Captured Mercenary working for the Chaotic Evil cult. All three went back to working for the bad guys when convenient to do so.

I found myself guilty of overusing NPC betrayals, in published adventures and in my own material, so I made the same decision to ease off about a year ago. Still, old habits die hard. My players regard any NPC who asks them to do something as a villain who hasn't revealed himself yet. The only reason they don't kill them outright is because they're curious about what kind of scam is going to be pulled.

I suppose the trick is to condition the players to believe they have more to gain from trusting NPCs than they do from distrusting them.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;846627"NPC betrays PC" is the second most overused trope in gaming.

The problem comes in when any NPC who is more than a simple shopkeeper ALWAYS betrays the PCs.

Verily. It sets a bad example to the players too when over-used. "Dont trust anyone!" Much like the annoying henchman or the DM Pet uberNPC.

I have had NPCs betray the party before and had it done to me as a player. Ive also as a player had the fun of turning a betrayer NPC to MY side! nyah-haa-haa! Used sparingly and with some clues, its all fine.

Quote from: nDervish;846758What's number one?  "You all meet in a tavern"?

"The orcs/wogs/Yan Koryani/Green Slime/zombies/Klingons come over the walls."
(i.e. attack en masse.)

Raymond Chandler's advice as directed by Cecil B. DeMille.

I don't have NPCs betraying PCs. I have conditions under which NPCs would do some actions, and they vary by NPC.
For some NPCs, the condition of betraying a PC is "getting the opportunity and getting something out of it". "Something" might be "the lulz" in some cases.
For other NPCs, the condition is "if blackmailed, but no other reason counts".
Players are well-advised to exercise discretion in whom they choose to trust:).

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;846627"NPC betrays PC" is the second most overused trope in gaming.

The problem comes in when any NPC who is more than a simple shopkeeper ALWAYS betrays the PCs.  I've seen more campaigns than I can remember over the last 40 years where literally every NPC was treacherous.  In cases like that it's no wonder players acquire a "kill first and let the referee sort them out later" point of view.

I was in one game session where it had gotten so bad that the PCs, IN CHARACTER, were sitting at a dinner party discussing when, how, and why the host was going to betray them.

Which, of course, he did.

Was that an Amber-style campaign of intrigue and betrayal, or a game you walked out of;)?

Whoever made the original comment was on to something.  I've seen it myself: players have a visceral and heated reaction to betrayal, and it often changes their POV in any game, with any GM.

I kinda wonder how it's going to turn out in my current group, because one of the players has set up a deal to help out the down-at-heels neighborhood he sometimes hangs out in.  The entrepreneur he dealt with is in fact an infiltration agent for the Evil Bad Guy Empire -- my hand to heaven, he picked her out of my book, I didn't set this up as a plot -- whose task is to stir up as much trouble as she can.  Since the NPC has a public guise as a quasi-socialist who's a darling of the mob, we can predict where this one is going.

NPCs are just people. They have their motivations and they have their agendas. Some of them are noble and heroic and would lay down their life for an ally. Some of them are evil bastards looking for a quick win or a way to take over the universe.

Clever allies don't give things away either. The evil villain doesn't have a long black moustache and cackle evily behind the scenery. They present themselves as the best guy in the world.

So if you live in a world where people are "real" you have to cope with that.

Having played Amber a lot and focused more on cities than dungeons since the early 80s this is just standard to me. NPCs as Real People is the main plank of my DMing style.

In my current gaming group the players just happen to have met mostly trustworthy people. Now they are playing a short high level game with 20th level PCs in an Amber like setting and weirdly trusted all the remaining 9 Lords when they met to discuss what should be done now the king had died. The NPCs were shocked when the PCs trusted them all when it was obvious to all of them that everyone in the room was going to be trying to kill everyone else within about 30 minutes of the meeting ending. Anyway ...

Some of the best betrayals are just the ones that see the NPC executing their plan regardless of the PCs who are far more superfluous than they think.

As for my favourite NPCs they are the ones that seem like they are going to betray you because you think all NPCs betray people but in fact they don't betray you they are merely acting like that because they think you are going to betray them.

Quote from: Ravenswing;846929Whoever made the original comment was on to something.  I've seen it myself: players have a visceral and heated reaction to betrayal, and it often changes their POV in any game, with any GM.

In practice, I've found that players very much end up following the idiom:

"Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me."

In the end, the players end up with a mentality of killing everything in sight for the rest of the campaign, after the first betrayal.  (ie.  The game degenerates into complete hack and slash).


To get around this problem whenever I was DM, on the first day I ask upfront how the players want to deal with the issue of NPC betrayal.  The solution that the players end up agreeing to, is rolling dice to determine whether the "traitor switch" is turned on.

Back in the day, I usually rolled NPCs randomly.  Typically the players agreed to a particular % probability of an NPC being a traitor.  (The actual % varied from group to group, but most of the time it was anywhere from 5% to 25%).

I have rarely seen players so smugly happy when they have successfully foreseen and effectively anticipated the possible betrayal of a not particularly trustworty ally. Effectively outsmarting such a foe is a major triumph for the players, even if the actual accomplishment within the campaign is miniscule.
However, this requires two things: first it is absolute obligatory that the PCs have some ways to find out about this threat and can learn about before the fact (which also means that if they did not anticipate the betrayal, it is their own damn fault) Second, like many many plots and twists, this is an element that works best if it used quite sparsely.

Quote from: ggroy;846935In practice, I've found that players very much end up following the idiom:

"Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me."

In the end, the players end up with a mentality of killing everything in sight for the rest of the campaign, after the first betrayal.  (ie.  The game degenerates into complete hack and slash).

My experience is also that players react badly to betrayal, though not always the same way.

As I diagnose it, the main problem is that GMs often use NPCs in order to convey necessary information - effectively using the NPC partly as a mouthpiece for GM voice. If the players refuse or disbelieve a key NPC, they're often nixing the adventure or possibly screwing themselves over.

I observe a similar thing with players. Once a player creates a traitorous PC, then all their characters after that are treated with suspicion at best.

My solutions:

1) Give the PCs a bunch of key useful information, so they're less reliant on NPCs.
2) As a result, some NPCs try to pull a fast one on PCs that flop because they know more about what is going on.

Once this is the case, it's much easier to break into having PCs distrust NPCs (and distrusting each other).

Quote from: jhkim;846944My experience is also that players react badly to betrayal, though not always the same way.

As I diagnose it, the main problem is that GMs often use NPCs in order to convey necessary information - effectively using the NPC partly as a mouthpiece for GM voice. If the players refuse or disbelieve a key NPC, they're often nixing the adventure or possibly screwing themselves over.

I observe a similar thing with players. Once a player creates a traitorous PC, then all their characters after that are treated with suspicion at best.

My solutions:

1) Give the PCs a bunch of key useful information, so they're less reliant on NPCs.
2) As a result, some NPCs try to pull a fast one on PCs that flop because they know more about what is going on.

Once this is the case, it's much easier to break into having PCs distrust NPCs (and distrusting each other).

I think this is an artifact of the skill system.  Back before skill rolls became ubiquitous, information the players need could be deduced from the environment.  They were given the opportunity to find it, and clever people would.  

Then there were skills for everything.  So if the PCs wanted to find something out, they needed to roll a skill.  So if they rolled low enough in the "find my own ass" skill, it turns out they couldn't find their own ass, even with both hands and a map.  Ever.

Thus DMs started shunting useful information onto NPCs, who would dutifully toddle up and deliver parcels of information.  Because this came from the DM, and was the info delivery vehicle, when it was wrong it was obvious that it was the DM screwing them (because, of course, the players couldn't trust their own common sense, a d20 could be gating them off from their own ass).

Ironically this was a problem that Vampire had in the 90s, since there was a skill for everything and the PCs could horribly fail.  Of course back then we solved it by leaving the PCs miserably in the dark, and then having pointed questions asked about the plot that they were completely missing, but most systems are not set up around an enjoyment of torturing the players.  Also Vampire is a frequently reactive game where trouble comes to you, rather than one where you go looking for it.

Only once. The party was in a port city and approached by a couple claiming their daughter had been taken by  a helmed horror and needed rescuing from his Island. Our heroes took the bait went to the island cleaned house and rescued the "poor child."  The only problem was the child was a powerful Witch Queen who had been banished. When they arrived in the port town she showed her true self. Only had one player get butt hurt over this than again he was always a pain.