Again, DM's only, especially for players in my city!
For those that have Tales from the Yawning Portal, or another version of The Lost Shrine of Tamoachan, here is what I'm going to do.
I'm going to give the player this letter in an unsealed envelope, along with 22d6.
On the envelope it'll say "Grab a pen, your character sheet, this letter and these dice and leave the room."
We're trying a mashup of D&D and Dramasystem so I'm going to use this version of the letter that has one extra line about "Dramatic Pole" which is a rule from Dramasystem. Never mind that version if you're using "normal" D&D.
Cool, right?
Please feel free to use it in your own campaigns!!
Warning: We usually have plenty PC death, new PCs etc in our campaign. (Or I wouldn't be using The Lost Shrine of Tamoachan at all.)
But I realized that then I would know for sure the outcome and I as DM want to be kept in suspense too! So I figured how many dice would average out to 76. d6 is great because that's the die the monster already uses, + I have a lot of them so I can put 22 in a bag and have it ready for this. I went all dice instead of a static mod to make it even less predictable (yes, 3d6 is more predictable than 1d20, but 3d6 is less predictable than 1d6+7).
Again, they might never ever get to that room and I have to accept that. I don't want to railroad them or quantum them into this experience.
But, if they never ever do, I might put this room in a new dungeon in a new campaign, because I like the idea so much. I have asked my players permission to do that (especially if it's content they never even heard of, in the old sandbox).
Just be aware that you're killing a character without giving them a chance to react and effectively forcing them to just kill the Doppleganger, rather than escape, cast a spell, shout for help etc. if a player has been invested for a good while this would probably peeve them off a great deal. Just my thoughts on face value.
Yeah, if they want to do something else in the situation, like cast some sort of super defensive spell, or super nova spell, or paralyzing spell or similar, I'd be open to it. Maybe I should change the letter to reflect that. That's good advice, thanks The Sword. I've got a lot of things to do in these last days of prep, maybe I can just tell them as they leave "If you want to handle it some other way let me know".
This is more of an offer to them; a "bang" but on the player level instead of on the character level. It's the sort of thing I'd think was awesome and that I think some of the players would really love.
And it's a way to do it without the other players finding out.
We've done similar things in the past in three ways (I guess I really like "possession" as a trope):
1. We dealt with it at the table and the other players pretended to not know
2. I took the player outside and told them what was going on
3. I took over the player's character sheet for a while and the other players pretended to not know.
The option 3 wasn't good, they were really not good at pretending to not know.
I also had an experience a month and a half ago where one player stepped into a teleportation trap, a teleporter that the players didn't realize was a teleporter. I handed the player a note (that I wrote on a post-it then and there) and the note told them where they were now, and described how they could get teleported back, and if they wanted to go back they should say the words "I do it".
They said "I do it" and I described them coming back outside the room the other characters were in. They got very suspicious and thought it was some sort of doppleganger. Then later when I read TLoT… I thought of this.
Oh, sidenote, another way I've handled possession in freeform games (not D&D) was that I just trusted the player completely. It was a 80:s X-Men-inspired super hero game (all serial numbers were very sloppily filed off, like we had "Professor S") and he was a Mystique expy but he also copied the targets mind, personality, goal, agenda, believs, everything. So he copied the BBEG (an Ogun expy from Kitty Pryde & Wolverine miniseries) and from that moment on, his take on the BBEG's plans and goals were canon, because he had the BBEG's brain. One of the first things I had him do was to give the big speech to his minions, which he pulled of gloriously, what a great player that was.
It was just a sidenote.
This sort of thing isn't compatible with how I've chosen to run D&D now. I do have the same sort of trust in the players (hence this offer), but I want the BBEG to have solid plans (which I hadn't then) just I want the dungeons to be committed to paper, not just made up as I feel like it "Oh, I think I feel like a couple of Beholders in the next room" because I enjoy the feeling of tackling the dungeons as if they were solid objects.
Also wanted to reply to this specifically:
if a player has been invested for a good while this would probably peeve them off a great deal.
Yes, losing character sucks and I try to respect the hard feelings that can come of that. We have a lot of character death in our campaigns. Usually when we're a couple of players short. They did CoS on two players. I didn't adjust a thing on the monster side (but I gave the players a couple of extra levels, I bumped them up to level six pretty much right away then slowly more and more as the weeks went on until they had level ten when they took down Strahd). There was a lot of turnover.
For the next campaign we're doing Tales of the Yawning Portal + Corsairs of the Great Sea mashup, I'm aiming for five to seven players.
I would consider getting together with the player outside of the game and explaining the situation to them (and only them). The two of you can run combat between the character and doppelganger to determine the outcome. You've assumed (from what I gather) that the fight was a series of blows and calculating damage. This leaves out options normally available to the PC.
For example what if the character chooses to grapple rather than deal blow for blow? What if they choose to run and hide hoping to gain an advantage on surprise? What if they have a clever trick with a magic item that you have not considered? Is it possible that the other characters could intercede in the fight?
You idea doesn't seem to take these things into account as far as I can see.
Honestly, if my DM did this to me, I would leave the campaign. It's heavy handed, railroading and unfair in my opinion.
Honestly, if my DM did this to me, I would leave the campaign.
That's heartbreaking. And unfair. Why wouldn't they talk to me first before leaving? We've been friends for so long. :(
And I did bring this up with you folks to see what you thought about it.I thought of it almost as finding a treasure. They get to play the doppelganger from then on.
Here's a new version that gives the player the choice completely, and removes the "Secret HP loss" thing. They can still choose the "22 dice" method if they do think it looks like a good way to do it.
(Version for our house ruled game with "Dramatic Pole" is here.)
I'm glad about the "giving them a choice" part but I'm not so sure about removing the HP loss. If trap rooms are defanged it invalidates the party's choices about risk management. But in this particular case it's probably the right call. There are plenty of spells that could've saved the party member.
And I'm very pressed for time; the campaign start is just around the corner and I have a lot to print.
But, thank you for your perspectives, especially the ones who aren't telling me what I want to hear. That pushes me into becoming a better DM and I really appreciate it.
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Don't let us tell you how your players are though! You'll know that better than us! It maybe that they love this kind of thing and are you used to a character or two dying every session.
It's a mix of grizzled OSR players and completely fresh eyes.
There's no one in the group that have gotten used to less deadly campaigns. It's either been all LotFP, ASE, Barrowmaze etc, or "first time trying an RPG".
Wasnt trying to be mean, insulting or unfair so try and not take it that way. Friendship should be maintained above all else in a game or any other activity. Clearly the style of play is not for me. If we knew each other in real life and I had played extensively with you over the coarse of a few years my perspective may have been very different.
Thank you EileenProphetofIstus. Your concerns made me reconsider and rewrite the letter and I hope the new version will make my players happy.