Traitorous and Untrustworthy NPCs

[DRD1812]

My favorite NPCs are the dubiously trustworthy variety. The latest example in my own group comes from Strange Aeons. The division in the party over whether or not to team up with a creepy little interplanar horror was a thing of beauty, creating all kinds of interesting drama.

Strange Aeons spoilers:

The group's druid wound up adopting Ginny Two-tails as an apprentice. They won her loyalty by giving all of her former boss's magic items to her. Ginny got druid levels by the end, but it could have gone very differently if they'd been more stingy with the treasure.

So what about the rest of you guys? Have you ever had a division in the party between "let's adopt 'em" and "let's kill 'em?" Did it create good drama, or just pointless infighting?

(Comic for illustrative purposes.)

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

The most drama we've seen was over a perfectly innocent bystander.

One of the party had picked up a cursed dagger that turned him undead over a period of time. We didn't find out until it was too late so we were stuck with an undead buddy. The DM said there was no change to his mental state, and once the dagger was removed, he seemed fine in spite of his lack of vital signs and his once fervent faith in Pelor was tossed out the window like a bucket of slop. This character had previously become a landed lord in an area and was keen on his subjects not finding out he was undead. The king had been informed and after a long discussion with high level clerics it was decided to give the undead PC a chance to prove his worth.

Inevitably, one did guy found out while the party and a couple of low-ranking soldiers were out on a mission. Suddenly the undead and half the party got to talking about how to keep the soldier from talking, and the discussion went quickly from discounting simply talking to the guy (because he might let it slip later), to secret imprisonment in some empty cave, to outright murder. No character sheet said 'Evil', and a few even said 'Good'. My character and one other argued that imprisonment and possible murder for something he didn't do was plain evil, and we wondered how the others could justify this in any way.

After a long and loud argument around the table and a longer, louder one in character, my PC grabbed the guy in question, flew off with him, set him free and warned the rest of the domain about their lord. The whole affair ended with the undead PC being executed, two PCs (the nice ones) leaving the group and the other two being exiled, and we royally f++&ed up the DM's plans for the game now that we weren't in the area he had spent a lot of time designing for us to adventure in.

We all agreed it was the coolest bit of roleplaying that group had ever done.

[DRD1812]

Bjørn Røyrvik wrote:

The most drama we've seen was over a perfectly innocent bystander.

Just had a good one over the weekend. Weirdly, it stretched the definition of "innocent bystander."

The party were pulling petrified bodies out of a wall. A medusa cult had mortared hundreds of them together to build their temple, and the party were slowly but surely using "break enchantment" to rescue the lot.

Eventually, the paladin's detect evil goes off in a big way. They'd uncovered a witch who'd been frozen for the better part of a century. But as she'd committed no crime, they couldn't figure out what to do with her.

At the moment, she's set up in town as a fortune teller, and I (as the GM) cannot wait to start up with the "careful what you wish for" magic shop schtick.

[mardaddy]

Oh, gawd... the Shattered Star AP, first book. The PC's were convinced a named ("Zargathy?" I believe) unstated NPC was behind serious nefarious deeds.

To the point of kidnapping him from a crowded, carnival-type setting and spiriting him away for questioning, "at an undisclosed location."

It got roleplayed out to the point where they realized their error and handed him a bunch of gold and taught him magic (a single cantrip) to buy off his not calling the guard on them.

I leveraged that into him eventually becoming a full-on wizard for later side-shenanigans in the AP as recurring thorn in their side.

The AP had him as relatively cooperative so long as the PC's meet ome of his needs, he became untrustworthy and traitorous due to their suspicions and actions...

[Darklone]

DRD1812 wrote:

So what about the rest of you guys? Have you ever had a division in the party between "let's adopt 'em" and "let's kill 'em?" Did it create good drama, or just pointless infighting?

(Comic for illustrative purposes.)

Always. The players either love a newly encountered NPC or hate him. Often without any reason. They love to discuss how to dispose of any NPC ... Sometimes I have a hard time to protect the storyrelated ones at least for some time.

Yes, alignment changes from bad to worse occur. Often.

[Marcovic]

I'm running a Reign of Winter campaign.

After killing the first "boss", the leader of a band of bandits, they found a caged fey in his stuff. At this point of the campaign, winter-touched feys are pretty much supposed to be the origin af all the trouble in the region.

The fey is swearing and insulting them all the time of the discussion to know if they will free it or kill it.

after a couple of minutes of arguing, the ranger simply kicked the cage in the fireplace. Problem solved.

In the end, it didn't really have much impact in the campaign. It offered a good occasion for the players to define a bit more their character and know the other characters of their group, though.

[Tacticslion]

thread wrote:

Traitorous and Untrustworthy NPCs

Heh. XD