We all know that evil tends to be self-destructive. Sudden by inevitable betrayal goes hand-in-hand with the dark-bad alignment, and villains like nothing better than murdering minions / assassinating superiors. The question I have is how to design encounters around this sort of setup.
Think about all those Shadow of Mordor orcs you've pitted against each other. Gimûb the Infernal hates Skak the Poisoner. Akoth Pain-Lover wants to murder Ûkshak Bone-Ripper. Jôanie loathes Châchi. But how do you make that kind of dynamic accessible to players on the tabletop? How do design antagonist relationships that can be manipulated and triggered?
In other words, what's the best way to signal to players that "turn them against each other" is an option? Have any of you guys pulled it off successfully? Or is this just another case of forcing players to opt for some "correct" solution?
I somehow missed the Shadows of Mordor mention, but recognized the names of the Orc captains... hey, those sound like the guys from that Lord of the Rings game. Lol. That's what I get for graduating first in my class at Derek Zoolander's Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good.
Anyways, how do you have that dynamic happen in-game? Just have all those factions and alignments built into the ranks of your enemy NPC's. Have an active world background where events are happening "off screen" but in real time. The world is fluid, dynamic, and ever-changing.
How do you actually get the players at the table to interact with that? How do you get the party to take interest in anything? Lol. Give them a reason to invest their time in the system by rewarding their investment. Give them a check or roll to make, probably Know:Local, and a mechanical advantage that can be gained by leveraging what they learn.
A high enough result on the check/roll may lead to the knowledge that a minion hates their captain, is even possibly planning a mutiny/assassination/hostile take-over. Maybe the Rogue sneaks in and makes a Bluff/Diplomacy check/roll. Maybe the results are high enough that the minion takes action. Maybe as the party approaches a dungeon, this mutiny takes place in front of them... the minion and those loyal to him/her arrive and start fighting the captain and their guards. And the party just picks off both sides and cleans up who is left at the end. Or whatever.
If your players refuse to invest in the story, then there is very little point in trying to establish background betrayal and deceit mechanics.
Put unit patches on different factions... Gimûb the Infernal's minions wear red skulls, Skak the Poisoner's troops wear blue skulls... maybe the party notices these things with their Perception checks? Maybe they witness some Orcs wearing blue skulls jump a lone Orc wearing a red skull... or whatever.
Showing the party that there are multiple different units/factions, and that there is also dissension amongst the ranks may not be enough. If they take prisoners, you could have said prisoner spill his guts, roll over easy and straight up tell them some of these options. But you don't want to railroad the party into taking these actions. They need to make the choice, and it's best if they come up with the plan to do so on their own.
Recurring bad guys, with as much personality as they have screen time... so the party actually knows the difference between Gimûb the Infernal and Skak the Poisoner. So the party notices changes when these power shifts occur.
Maybe Gimûb the Infernal's minions [wearing red skulls] are brutal killers that never take prisoners or leave survivors, but Skak the Poisoner's troops [wearing blue skulls] like to take prisoners and torture survivors... so the party can choose the lesser of two evils to support in these games of backstabbing trickery.
Or maybe Gimûb the Infernal's minions [wearing red skulls] are mostly cavarly and you want to thin out as much as possible without directly engaging them yourselves, but Skak the Poisoner's troops [wearing blue skulls] are generally lightly-armored and easier for the party to engage... so the party supports Skak the Poisoner's coup attempt in hopes of thinning out Gimûb the Infernal's cavalry.
All of this requires a party willing to give a $#!+ about options outside of "f!ck knocking, kick the door" murderhobo'ing headfirst into all opposition. It takes a certain level of established cooperation between the GM and the players to successfully play intrigue games.
I was going to bring up using enenies known for the infighting... Demons are a perfect example. I was going to use Hags as my example. That way players pretty much expect that power struggle to be present no matter what.
First I'd try to make it quite obvious. Let two sides bicker within sight of the PCs, or one side grumble about their position. Or let the group find diary notes about suspicions or fears concerning the other side. We GMs have this tendency to think something is obvious (because we spend so much time with the story), but often enough for players it isn't.
Second I'd give them a reason to not simply use crush them all:
1) Players love to outsmart their opponents, for example my group had a lot of fun encountering moron goblins and dumb ogres. So let them figure out a way to pit both sides against each other - it can be quite simple, as long as they made up the trick themselves.
2) Many players don't like risks. When two opponents would each make deadly encounters, it becomes way more interesting to make them fight each other.
3) Manipulating them can be entertaining on its own. Maybe an orc underling just wants a boar head to pretend he hunted it down. Maybe the evil vizer enjoys certain spices, but the local merchants are out of stock - so the group can hide some spices in one merchant's warehouse, pretending the (evil) merchant didn't sell it on purpose. In general: Think about the needs and wants of evil NPCs - there is more to them than "I wonna crush teh w0rld". And make it obvious enough.
4) Make sure the players of martial characters see options for them: A Strength check to open or ruin something, a surprising combat maneuver, plain intimidation or a show fight are alternatives to the usual battle encounter. If they don't come up with something, maybe the martial appearance alone already helps: A fellow warrior will show more respect, while a superior might be looking for thugs to hire.
There has to be either mechanical advantage or loot to be gained in ordee for a party to use skill checks instead of attack rolls.
Manipulating enemy troops to attack a hideout in the swamp, but it's really a dragon's lair out of the party's survivable challenge rating. Make it worth it to invest in such a strategy. It might be a take it or leave it opportunity where coming back at a higher level to fight the dragon as just the party may not be possible.
Or whatever. It's hard to get everyone on the same page with such things. Session time is a finite resource that people often times do not want to "waste". I learned this with Kingmaker's kingdom building. Anyways, a lot of this is downtime business. The big dumb Fighter has literally nothing to do while the Rogue sneaks into make Bluff/Diplomacy rolls behind enemy lines. These backstabbing sidequests could be done via email between sessions. Even the cinematic events of enemy troops attacking each other or dragon lairs are cutting into time the party could be rolling attacks.
A lot of times they don't care what color of skulls the different units wear, they assess/group the tactics of all the different units as the tactics of one enemy overall, and players generally enjoy head first murderhobo'ing simply because rolling attack/damage is cause and effect that directly involves them all right meow. Any boredom experienced by anyone at the table is a waste of that person's time. It requires a special type of investment/player to successfully keep everyone involved and engaged during this sort of campaign/strategy.