How to handle secret mind reading?

[Isonaroc]

I've been kicking around an idea for a while, but have been trying to find a way to implement it without grinding the game to a halt. The idea is that one of the players aquires a decent magical item that is secretly a NE intelligent item. It's keeping it's sentience a secret, but subtly trying to influence the character. The way it primarily does this is by allowing him to read the surface thoughts of his allies (similar to the 3rd round effect of "detect thoughts," but only of creatures the item wishes) and eventually slipping in lies. The point is to eventually make the character paranoid that his friends are plotting against him. The big problem is how to run this. I can't very well ask everyone what they're thinking at every impasse; it would bog down the game and tip everyone off that someone is reading their minds, and I don't want to think for their characters either. If it were a group of super-awesome role players I could probably just play it openly(ish), but unfortunately who I have at my disposal isn't that. I'm afraid this idea may end up in the bin of "cool but impractical ideas."

I'd appreciate any input.

[Kayerloth]

If I follow you the player (and the group as a whole) is unaware the item is intelligent and thinks the thoughts he receives is because the item gives his character the ability to read minds (more or less at will ... which ought to raise red flags). When, in fact, the item does the mind reading then passes along whatever it thinks will benefit itself the most. Correct?

[Simon Legrande]

Yeah, this is definitely one of those times where you'd wish for players who would go along without trying to metagame.

It may be a little clunky, but every now and then pass a note to a player who is doing something important just asking them to write down their thought process. Modify the not somewhat, then hand it to the mind reading character. If you want to throw people off, keep the notes from time to time so people don't catch on as fast.

Tough to roleplay, tougher to work mechanically.

[Ascalaphus]

This is tricky. What you could do is listen to the players' OOC chatter, and use that as an indication for what the other PCs may be thinking about. One of the dangers is that the player says something OOC that wouldn't jive with the PC IC - for example the paladin's player saying OOC what he'd like to do to those annoying peace protesters outside the temple; the paladin would never think such horrible things. But he is probably thinking about them, so it does give you a list of topics.

You can also make some assumptions what people will be thinking about. If there's something Y the party knows about X, and they're talking about X but not mentioning Y, someone may think about Y; give it a % chance for the item to read someone thinking about Y. No player explicitly said he was thinking about Y, but the odds are there, so with a good check the item learns about Y.