THE THING

I'm looking to run a halloween session similar to The Thing where one of the players is secretly the monster.

What are the best ways to get my players to appear to be working against each other and build paranoia?

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Tell the monster player to do a secret signal when he wants to pass you a note. When he does, ask from all your players to write a note each.
Alternatively, you can also ask them to write notes every now and then regardless to keep them off balance.
Obviously the non-monster players will probably have nothing to write; that's OK. The point is to keep them guessing.
There, paranoia assured.

Give them all some accidentals scratches, nicks, cuts, dents, bruises, hangnails, etc. that later will appear like they struggled or fought someone/something, or their skin isn't quite right. They'll deny that anything serious happened, but will anyone believe them?

Have a bunch of notes prepared with stuff like "Look at [player] then look at me and nod." written on them and mix them in with cards that have actual advice. Whenever you would pass a real card out to one player, pass fake ones to everybody else.

Ravenloft's Doppelgangers are pretty terrifying in an old 1e D&D kind of way.

One player is designated the Doppelganger, or maybe there are other Doppelgangers out there. All you have to do to become a Doppelganger is to alone in a room with a Doppelganger, and you're turned into one unknowingly, it's taken for granted that they alone are more than enough to get the drop on a single PC. PCs are not informed of their transformation, just noted down as to when and where they were converted and by whom, and can continue on as if nothing has happened.

PCs are revealed as Doppelgangers when the last has been converted, revealing who was converted in order and by who.

As a DM, you just need to set up that there's Doppelgangers around, establish their mechanics in a vague but defined sense (they can take people over and you'll never know the difference), and ensure paranoia by establishing that you can become a Doppelganger unknowingly.

This might be more if you're fighting The Silence, where conflict just sort of happens arbitrarily and you don't get all the answers because you keep forgetting as soon as you look away. Something like that would have to be done on the wing really hard. See: the Martian Horror Campaign copypasta.

What about scenarios where the players have a group objective and personal objectives that conflict with the rest. I'm looking to get them to try and pull the group in different directions?

Also any rpg books or boardgames that do this that I can look at for more ideas and tips?

Can you read spanish?

A little, why?

It might be interesting to have the campaign set on a lunar colony or the International Space Station.
The players might have to blow up the station/colony to save Earth if they cannot kill it before it assimilates them.
Perhaps the government gives the players a small sample of The Thing for them to experiment with and an infected rat escapes?

Tell them one of them is the monster, and this player will be working against them, but don't actually tell the monster player they are the monster until towards the end.

>Tell them one of them is the monster, and this player will be working against them, but don't actually tell the monster player they are the monster until towards the end.

This is the best advice.

that or no one is actually the monster, but set things up that this implies it anyways.

Players will be far more creative at stabbing each other in the back than you could ever be.

Also, don't get too crazy with notes, especially not mass notes where everyone gets one except in rare circumstances.

If a player is getting blank notes too much, he'll potentially figure out that most are a bluff, and that in reality it's just there to mess with him.

Really want to give them a witch-hunt? Have players get separated one after the other and write them a few notes only when theyre alone. Keep notes when theyre together at a minimum, aside from critical things like "You notice blood on Stan's sleeve." This leaves the player with the decision to call the other out. Maybe he is the thing, but by calling him out you just tip him off that you're onto him. Maybe he isn't, and it really is a coincidence. Maybe the thing is planting evidence on someone else.

Making the players doubt what you tell them, and have it be something that seems important every time, is very important. No blank notes or bullshit like 'wink at me', only things that could be interpreted as a real note. Only actual clues, only actual observations.

How aware of the threat do you want them to be? You could pull a bait-and-switch. Start the game with them thinking it's something like a psychopath on the loose that they have to track down, or that they have to escape a malfunctioning spaceship, and then slowly pull on the fuckery.

>Martian Horror Campaign Copypasta

Why can't I find this? Pls sauce

Come, my child. I have such wonders to show you...

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Play Paranoia. Everyone's a Communist Mutant Traitor that belongs to a different secret society that have conflicting goals. Not counting the "mission" from Friend Computer.

I did that once in Dark Heresy. Trap the group an area with the monster. Introduce the concept of the monster being able to take over and impersonate people. Force them to split up and put them on a timer. Whenever your group splits up, take them to another room and do stuff without the rest of the group being present. Also bring NPCs into the mix.

Also see pic related

Have everyone locked in a confined space. Maybe not just a single room, but make sure they know that going outside is not an option. I'd suggest an oil rig in the middle of the ocean or an arctic research base like in the Thing

Have them all prepare their characters ahead of time and make sure they build a relationship with one another. I'm not saying everyone should be buddy buddy, and they shouldn't, but if they have a vague sense of each other's background that will lead to more conflict later between them as they try to decide who is the monster

I would recommend giving them a minor mission to accomplish first before introducing the monster. Maybe by completing this mission they lead to the monster's inception, maybe the monster just comes out of random, that's all up to you

Next focus on what exactly the monster is. Is this thing trying to blend in like The Thing or does it stalk it's prey like a Xenomorph or is it killing for sport like the Predator? Whatever you do, I think you will be fine. Just be sure to give an objective that matches it's traits. You don't want a loud bloodthirsty killing machine that sulks in the corner waiting for its prey, and you don't want a silent and meticulous hunter who jumps out of hiding every five seconds

Last thing: Never tell the group that one of them is the monster. Let them come to that idea on their own. But more importantly, make sure none of them is the actual monster. Use the monster as a catalyst to get the story moving. The real conflict should be the mistrust felt between players

Good advice, it certainly avoids the problem that if the player is a bad liar then they give it away at the start, but it might get very prototype if one player finds out that they were actually The Thing the whole time when they would have been trying hard to 'win' the scenario for the humans.

Highly recommend the battlestar galatica board game if you want to get ideas for a 'the thing' style game. BSG handles the mechanic fairly elegantly.

So everyone draws a card at the beginning and mid game, looks at it quickly, looks at everyone else looking at their card, then puts it down and never touches it again except to reveal themselves?

Thats how an antagonist is selected yes, which is fairly easy. It's the sabatoge part. See the game is about survival, and you only have a limited amount of each resource that had to last you until the end of the game or lose. Issues can occur on the ship that will threaten your groups resources and players can donate cards facedown to help overcome these challenges. The catch is that any antags can donate the wrong card type which has a negative effect on the challenges outcome. You have to be smart though as if you have say a food shortage challenge that requires political cards and you donate a fuckerton of pilot cards to sabatoge the challenge, when the cards are revealed the group will clue in that a pilot may be an antag. id strongly recommend watching an overview video of the game as it goes much deeper the that.

Give everyone a secret.

One is working for an energy company, one is ordered to bring samples of alien life, one works for China and must steal some data, while another has a drug problem.

And of course one is the Thing, who has two secrets. One from his human host and the other being he's an alien.

So everyone is passing you secret notes and it becomes normal.

That's the beauty of it, everything every player does becomes suspicious, a ruse, or "damage control." By not telling which player is the monster, but making everyone think that player HAS been told, the players supply all the intrigue themselves.

I like the formula for Alien or Ice Station Zebra much better. The traitor/s have actual motivation and conflict instead of just an infection, that comes later.

and don't forget to sometime ask for note even if no one asked

I like that a lot. Might even use it as a basis of an upcoming scenario.

Even better, I would give each of the players a card at the beginning "randomly" drawn from some kind of pool and tell them that one of them could have some kind of secret agenda. Perhaps none of them, no more than 2 players at most. Of course in reality all of them got a secret mission and think that the other players got blank cards. All of them will communicate via notes occasionally without suspicion "to not give anything away in case someone is not who he seems"

>I would give each of the players a card at the beginning "randomly" drawn from some kind of pool and tell them that one of them could have some kind of secret agenda. Perhaps none of them, no more than 2 players at most. Of course in reality all of them got a secret mission and think that the other players got blank cards.
see
>Dread con game recap.pdf

...

Ah, good old Hour of the Knife

Bumple

A little too late but...

Tell everyone you are running a one shot based on The Thing, when the game begins hand everyone a slip of paper and say that one person will be designated as the traitor

make sure all the papers read "you are not the traitor: