I want to include a villain who is undercover as a good guy who goes with the party on a long quest (as part of a player's background arc), and I want to play up the betrayal factor as much as possible. Some ideas on creating emotional ties to an NPC and on balancing foreshadowing without making the twist obvious? Have you ever played in a game where a betrayal was especially memorial?
This is my first time as a GM. My spouse is the only other player (although I have a character too). I'm running a heavily modified Rise of the Runelords campaign. The arc is Resident Evil based- think horror mystery mansion with lots of puzzles and undead/aberrations.
I can think of a few ways of making the villain trustworthy using a few methods:
1) background ties to the character
2)faces danger with the character
3)make it seem as if the villain saves the character's life
IDK I'm not really good at this XD
Step #1 for memorable betrayals. Think LONG ahead what his goals are, and what must be done to obtain those goals. Is he seeking something that was taken from him? Is he trying to single out a single party member? If he is after something, he will do what he can to play to their trust. Meals made by him which AREN'T poisoned (at least at first) is a decent way. Him putting his own assets to good use for the team, while waiting for openings to conduct misdeeds to hinder the party.
"I'm s-sorry! While you were gone, wolves charged at the camp due to the steak I was fixing! They tore through all the meat we had!" Where in actuality summoned a pack to make it look like that, and he doesn't truly have to worry about food since he can summon his own, although the party may not know that.
Another key thing as you mentioned with 3 is to make it seem like he saves the characters life, where truthfully he may just be saving him due to current standard reasoning. "We can't let the ranger die on us in the wilderness, can we?" (thinks to himself "sheesh... seriously, if he dies we might all die from starvation!")
Step #2, the crossingpoint. You always want more positives than negatives when it comes to betrayals. You want the party to find him as an asset, something helpful, and occasionally flunk up, like those nat 1 rolls. It happens... (insert evil GM laugh). However, there's that point where you need to cautiously switch gears. "Nows the time to act!" says the villain. "DANG! I sprained my leg hopping down that ledge... you go on ahead. I'll be right behind ya." Cuts ropes on bridge.
Step #3, the true colors. Even if they decide to kill him right then right there, you want the clues, and everything else to add up eventually. Perhaps you find out more from a colleague of his, or a journal, or from his own mouth if he's a classical monologue villain. Overall, you want everything from the past to match up with the present.
Keep in mind your PCs may realize their ally is up to no good, and that's just something you're gonna have to deal with when they nat 20 their sense motive on him after he does something odd. Further, if he's going about doing things, remember to let your PCs possibly get a perception check to see them sneaking off, or something. Otherwise it's just gonna annoy your PCs and they'll feel like you're deliberately protecting the railroad/NPC.
Also I'd honestly second the post below me.
The Lannisters send their regards.
To Tyrantherus:
Those are great points. Thanks for laying it out in a simple formula like that! I guess the crossing point is what I'm having problems with most. I wanted it to be really dramatic, like that scene in Lion King where Scar lets Mufasa fall off the cliff XD However, I obviously don't want to kill my player! Maybe have the villain leave the player for dead, except the player somehow survives and is now given the choice of going deeper into the death mansion to get revenge or of trying to find his way out of the mansion and lure the bad guy out. Any thoughts?
Keep in mind your PCs may realize their ally is up to no good, and that's just something you're gonna have to deal with when they nat 20 their sense motive on him after he does something odd. Further, if he's going about doing things, remember to let your PCs possibly get a perception check to see them sneaking off, or something. Otherwise it's just gonna annoy your PCs and they'll feel like you're deliberately protecting the railroad/NPC.
Also I'd honestly second the post below me.
Thank you for bringing this up! I completely forgot to plan for my player figuring it out early! It would be cool to reward my player for figuring it out while keeping the early reveal from derailing the quest.
Could you be more specific about why you would go another route entirely? Like I said, my only player is my husband, and I know he enjoys games with stuff like this.