This is it. You and your party finally breached the lair of the primary Antagonist at the end of this campaign. Your final mission is about to reach its conclusion.
As you were clearing the lair, room after room, you were separated from the rest of the group for one reason or another. While you were alone, you found a message that reads: “Rotiart was working with the Antagonist all along. Unless you kill him before you enter the last room, all of you are guaranteed to die. – Friend”.
Rotiart is a character from your party, controlled by another player. You’ve never seen him act suspiciously in any way. He was acting as he usually does – he argued with the party a few times, he watched your back in a fight and so on. If he was going to betray you, why do it now instead of just backstabbing you while you were fighting the enemy?
You don’t know who the mysterious “Friend” is, but throughout the campaign you have received similar messages from him at the crucial times. He was never wrong before. It was only due to his support that you were able to survive in a few dangerous situations and make it thus far.
The rest of the party doesn’t trust this “Friend” and his messages. They believe that he is actually the Antagonist playing games with you, for no real reason other than they just don’t know how else to tie his identity to this campaign. However, it seems against his character to act in such a way. If you hadn’t received his messages before, your party would’ve been wiped out long ago.
From the previous arguments you’ve had with the party about these messages you can guess that they will likely side with Rotiart if you cast your suspicions on him, certainly so if you bring up the message.
You haven’t linked up with the rest of the group yet, but you were about to rejoin them before you found the message. No one else knows about it except for you. You don’t know for certain which room will be the last either.
What would you do?
This is it. You and your party finally breached the lair of the primary Antagonist at the end of this campaign...
I see if the betrayal comes, if it does I don't come back for any more campaigns with this group. DMs who encourage or even allow PvP are massive faggots, and players that go along with it, even more so. The game is about a group of heroes working together, not one edgelord living out his "kill everyone else" fantasies.
Since I don't know the identify of the 'friend' I can not trust this letter. I can't even be sure that it is the same person who helped us before.
So lame, no story, no fun, no RP. Why play a game if your gana be so lame?
The best games I've ever played included a betrayer in the party. What else could be a better challenge to a group? You have the emotional reaction and interal battle, you have the PC and his tricks, you have the Fun and the RP. Your missing out and your a little bitch.
>primary antagonist
Urgh.
This depends on my character of course. My last character was a Paladin who didn't trust any of his life long friends. (The second they saw evil, they went evil). It'd be a heart breaking murder, and if I fall, I fall.
>The only good DnD story is 5 heros walk up to a dragon and slay it followed by loot and booty and FIN.
That's just weak and dosnt require Role play. A good player character that was thought to be your friend, who stuck with you through thick and thin! Stabbing you in back! That is a moment for awesome role play and great player interaction.
Depends on what character. Most of mine would call the others and confront it, taking it seriously and asking Rotiart about it.
That said, my current PC would show him the message then tell Roiart that whatever it says, he's still trusted until the end.
>Hurrdurr I slit everyone's throats and take their loot
>This is fun and dramatic gameplay
Please quit the hobby.
First post best post, unless you're playing a game specifically based around PvP of some kind.
>Doesn't RP.
Your doing it wrong.
You start by fucking up their quest. Then you have the dramatic RPed battle with betral tricks. If your a loser who can't RP that's on you not me.
>HurrDurr I can't RP.
>HurrDurr I roll to attack, HurrDurr tell me when it's my turn, HurrDurr what dose RP stand for in TTRPG?
i have been the betrayer in a curse of stroud setting and that was fun leading em into traps splitting up the party while acting like i do.
The problem came at the end when it was just about over they lost all i was waiting for was the big moment to stab em in the back.
But the dm felt bad with how fucked they were wanted some big fight so made stroud release me from betraying em and i had to join em and fight him
Or you know, you just don't fuck up anyone's quest because it's a cooperative game and you're being a fucking dick by going into the game with the intention of screwing over other players who are expecting teamwork and cooperation like 90% of TTRPGs suggest.
As my paladin would say when confronted with a difficult question, "let us reason together", and then he breaks it down into smaller parts
You have no indication your friend cannot be trusted.
You have no indication your party member cannot be trusted.
However, you have no indication this note is REALLY from your friend.
Thus, you must speak to your party: there is a potential risk to us. This note says that we have a potential traitor in our midst. I do not believe it. We must stand together. But we must also stand vigilant for ambushes. Rotiart, I will stand with you, but I want the group to be on alert. Our enemy may be trying to deceive us, or worse.
Then, I simply keep an eye on Rotiart. If he betrays us, I respond. But I will not take pre-emptive action on assumption. The righteous shall prevail.
>What would you do?
Probably sigh because my DM keeps putting this gay mary sue shit on me.
>Interesting RP opportunity.
>Tfag: I do nothing and leave when something not loot related happens. Fuck RP.
Quit this hobby. Just play Warcraft.
Not that guy, but honestly the whole "slit their throats in their sleep thing" is what most people who "betray" their parties end up doing. It's not interesting, it's not compelling, and it's not fun. It's the equivalent of "rocks fall, you die" except you can't even blame the DM for it. It's fukken gay.
While sudden tone changes and betrayals without warning suck, the archetypal D&D game of a party slaying a bunch of monsters and then fighting a big boss is pretty much the least fun you can have with a tabletop game.
Or you know, make a well written Character with quality characteristics and traits that can be role played? Possibly work with the DM to flip the tables once every few sessions to become the end boss. Or you know cooperate on making an actually good adventure??
Seriously, why play a TTRPG if you can't RP? I guess you can play TTGs like Monopoly or something?
Yes, because it's sooooo interesting to have another player poison us all or collapse the dungeon on top of us or stab us in our sleep. Great story there. Great roleplaying opportunities. 8/10.
In the OP what context leads you to think this is a "slit your throats" betral?
Yea because it's SOOO fun to gear grind without any real interaction so you can beat the "boss" and get more gear.
If you can't RP get out.
>I can only have fun with the game if I'm making it less fun for everyone else.
I can misinterpret the argument too.
Except in this case I'm not.
If the only type of betrayal you can think of is killing the group in your sleep, you're just reinforcing that guys point that you're a shit RPer and/or have a shit GM.
You keep mentioning fun, but your shit's in no way fun.
It's like Homebrew. 99% of the people who do it are shit, but 100% of them think they're the 1% that's not.
Zone of truth
Geas
Detect evil
DnD destroys any moment like this
>Being this thick skulled
>Thinking weak one liners win
A "role play game" is about "role play", you need to role play a good character, if your role play well, it will be fun for everyone. If you role play like a cunt or loot fag or grind fag, it won't be fun.
The betral is pointless and not really the argument, the argument is that you need to Role play well in a TTRPG and not doing good RP is fucking GAY! If the RP happens to include a betral then make it some good RP and you will have a good betral.
Your handicap is not mine. Your inable to role play a character is a personal problem.
Yes yes, we're all aware that DnD is smouldering shit, as is Pathfinder, and most D20 games in general. That's not really the issue being discussed though, nor does OP specify DnD. Yes, we get it, DnD committed horrible crimes against you personally, you don't have to keep mentioning it in every fucking topic ever.
>Insert magic items that negate those effects.
>Be sure to use them prior so they are known items.
Bad/inexsperianced DM found
Maybe, but thats no reason to keep playing the most boring type of game.
It's a choice between digging through mountains of shit in hopes of finding a diamond and digging through mountains of shit just because.
PvP can suck, and it can be good. The situation presented in the OP is a good scenario which might not end in PvP, but will certainly end in tense players and roleplaying, which is ideal for any RPG. Let me give you an example of BAD 'roleplaying' PvP:
I first started playing TTRPG with 4e, and I made a Fey Warlock. There was also a Dark Pact Warlock in the party, who was much more experienced with the mechanics of the game than me in my first time.
We went out to kill a nest of orcs and goblins, and he says that HIS warlock stabs me, unavoidably, to give him bonus damage (A daily skill of the Dark Pact Warlocks called 'Your Glorious Sacrifice', which deals damage to an ally to increase your own spellpower. The ally does not have to be willing, and the damage cannot be mitigated.) While the spell doesn't specify how it is fluffed in this aspect, he stated that his character was specifically slicing me with a blade.
Me, being unexperienced and now a little flustered from receiving my first attack from a player in a game, attacked back on my turn - It was then that I found out that his Warlock's Curse meant that for every cursed enemy that had died this combat (11 so far), he could interrupt me with that many d8 in damage.
So, my first character exploded in a gory ruin because another PC decided to be a dick to the newbie. It sucked. THAT wasn't roleplaying, that was just being a dick.
You probably only ever played your groups home brew or online home brew not made for your settings. My old group would do that, then bitch about home brew.
My old group also couldn't RP. I've had my best fun working with my party to kill our betrayer, and our betrayer had fun trying to skew the quest. The fun is in the role play. Your character can die and you could still of had fun.
In the broadest strokes, I agree with you. As other have pointed out, it's not fun to die with no warning. It's not fun to come out of combat with 2hp left and get stabbed by your healer. It's not fun to go to sleep at the end of a session and have the DM tell you you're dead next session. It's just not. Anyone who argues otherwise is retarded or baiting.
That being said, PvP can be done correctly. Betrayals can be done correctly. They have to be set up in such a way that everyone in the party knows what everyone else's character is after, and has a rough idea of how far they're willing to go for those things, and that the party be put into a situation where one of those things has to give. It gives everyone proper buildup and fair warning about what's about to happen. That makes for good dramatic roleplay. Unfortunately that sort of execution rarely happens in my personal experience, so I can understand the desire to just leave games where it's even allowed as a possibility.
Let me tell a good story (actually this is the lamest betral story I have)! (Shit at telling stories FYI).
Have group of 4 players. 2 clerics of Truth and justice, 1 "good" theif, and 1 assassin. (Assassins have to be Evil.)
Our quest is to safely lead a caravan across a desert, but a sand stromes gets us separated from the caravan, our new quest is to not die, and the only thing in sight is a ruined pyramid.
We deliver into the depths of the pyramid when we find just enough food to survive and a step closer to finding out where we are.
Our caravan leader finds us and starts doing NPC stuff. While the assassin is given his target.
At one point we are about to enter the depth of the pyramid again in search of people we had seen in there. Our assassin decided to stay back.
As Players we knew he was going to betray us, but our PCs waited for him because we wanted that epic moment of "ahhh" folloedd by fingers and staying with tears.
Sadly our assassin took 5 fucking in game minutes to NOT get his kill, the NPC came running at us crying for help as we caught the assassin red fucking handed.
The moment of "ahhh" was replaced by a short combat, interrogation, and execution.
But we RPed it out and everyone had fun.
>The situation presented in the OP is a good scenario.
Fucking how? It's DM fiat saying
>"Hey, go kill another player because I just gave you information confirming they're gonna kill you!"
That is not a good scenario, nor is "tense" or "involve roleplaying" (especially since nobody else in the game even knows about this information).
Even generic "I can save the ones you love" promises from villains make for a better setup than the DM flatout telling you through fiat that someone is an enemy.
Here's one of my examples.
>warhammer
>we're stuck underground with an army of undead
>an orb is keeping them at bay
>lich guy says he'll reward anyone who betrays us
>thief decides to do it, jumps out of the circle and takes potshots at the orb
>I'm a scout and a much better shot than her
>I shoot her, she tries to go for the orb again, wounds the priest (but the orb is still on)
>I shoot her down
>I try to finish her off
>engineer and dwarf dive in front of me and begs me to forgive her
>fuckers
>zombies line up in front of her so there's nothing to do
>we go on with our mission
>somehow succeed
Later the thief rejoined the group while I was playing another character. It was fun when the others returned to the guild to tell of their exploits and trying to not mention the thief in front of my ranger.
Might as well play video games if you don't want RP.
Your problem is that the only outcome you can think of for OPs scenario is "kill them" instead of actually thinking through how a character would react.
This says more about you than it does about OP.
>Being this stupid.
>Implying you need Meta game to RP.
The RP comes with te interaction of PCs. The players will voice out their Characters actions and words to the other players who then will have their Characters react in a way fit to the character.
Stop being shit you handicap!
>Ugh
BBEG
First post is best post again. "Le traitor" plots create Those Guys and encourage existing ones.
You can't create "Those Guys", they're always That Guy long before they even get into your game.
As this topic proves, however, they do a hell of a good job encouraging them. I'd rather play with redditors and normies than all the edgelord murderhobos in this topic who insist letting them ruin the game for everyone else is """fun""".
>Cooperative RP ruins fun.
KYS
>A single dramatic combat makes someone a murder hobo.
KYS
>Hating on people who can do proper RP.
Stop being that guy, I know your blind and don't have any mirrors, but you are in fact, that guy.
>Group doing fun quest.
>Robert last second says he was actually working with the Delanto family and he needs to help the BBEG!
>Everyone starts having fun dramatic character banter.
>You : "God this fucking sucks! I hate you and this group!" Slams table and leaves.
At least that guy saw himself out.
That guy is the guy who bitches while everyone else is role playing fun character interactions that go beyond "can I get loot?" "Is it my turn?""did we level?"
Are you done samefagging and >posting false-equivalence arguments yet?
Kill everybody, even myself
That guy is the guy who has fun telling everyone else their characters are dead while not understanding why nobody comes to next weeks session and started their own game without him.
>>Everyone starts having fun dramatic character banter.
This step doesn't happen because 9.9/10 times there's no banter. That Guy just picks a time to betray everyone when they can't really fight back and it becomes the equivalent of "Rocks fall, everyone dies". pretty much hit the nail on the head.
There are at least 2 possibly 3 other guys shit talking your shite.
>Incapable of thinking of any other way for party betral.
Stop playing RPGs, just play video games, takes no creative skill or imagination.
>I have shit groups that can't RP.
That's a personal problem. I've played across this country with 6 different groups in 4 different states. I've only ever had one group that had an issue with this. And that group sucked as a whole. If all your groups suck, the common factor is you.
There is exactly one person in this thread who thinks killing other players is good roleplay, and it's you.
You can have a fun game without purposefully making it your goal to sabotage the other players. Stop projecting your own utterly baffling failures at basic social interaction as everyone else being "bad at RP" and "videogamers".
>17 people posting in the thread
>"Yeah, well at least 2 of them are on my side!"
So... basically 15 against 2 shitposters. Maybe 14 against 3 shitposters. Wow, compelling arguments.
>killing other players is good roleplay
You're the only one here that thinks betrayal is equivalent to "rocks fall everybody dies" type of death.
You're the one who should stop projecting, not everybody has a shit group who can't roleplay.
>Implying this hard that I said you "have" to betray a party.
In all my games (I have to to be the betrayer) only 1/6 of them if that even have someone betray, and it's never ever done with outright throat slitting. Your inability to RP comes from thinking there is only 1 single way to RP.
>Advocates betrayal
>Can't even spell betrayal
>Repeated misuse of your
Yep checks out.
He's been samefagging and shitposting all thread anyway, it was obvious long before that.
>there are this many PvP retards on Veeky Forums
It's literally one guy, maybe 2. He basically admits it here. "Yeah, out of everyone who posted in this thread, at least two of them are on my side even though we make up 60% of the posts."
I honestly would be surprised if there's even two of them and not just one guy.
You're*
Has to be at least 2, this guy knows what an apostrophe is.
that's a bit narrow minded... In Agone, the entire point of the Perfidy and Darkness mechanics is to sow distrust in the party by tempting individuals with great power if they just do a little favor for them at some point in the future. there's nothing wrong with this kind of story, as long as everyone consents to it, and it can even help bring the party closer together if used in the right way.
just last Wednesday one of my party members who reached the maximum level of Perfidy finally betrayed them just as they were sailing to Bokkor, to face the Mask once and for all. He was a Journist, so decided to cast the spell Thunder and Lightning to sink their ship and kill all the remaining crew. if it weren't for the fact that the Players in a game of Agone are Inspired (people gifted with divine power from the Muses) they would have died too. After that, the PC changed to his new character, a Concordist of Scansion (meaning he could predict the future) who rescued them before they drowned at sea. From there they continued their mission, and are loath to encounter their old friend Cane Cinderborn again, who they know they will have to face before all this is through.
As far as the OP is concerned though, this "Friend" sounds too similar to a ploy the mask might use to gain a new servent. I wouldn't trust them, but just in case, I'd keep a close eye on Rotiart.
Almost the exact same thing happened to my character in that setting. The DM had been pushing my character as the evil one for 5 or more sessions so when the time came I just went with it. It was ok plot wise.
2 is too many.
I dislike intra-party betrayal (I'm fine with NPC betrayal), but I can work with it as long as the betrayer tells us (the other players) beforehand. The players can decide if they want betrayal in their game
If they do? then we can work out a solution and act as if we don't know, and decide "would my character look for this?" when noticing clues
If not? Well, then we have already settled that issue. Betrayal from that person is then a break of contract and punished with blocking or shunning.
I tell my closest friend in the party about it, but take no action. If I attacked Rotiart, the rest of the party would likely attack me back. The best I can do is keep an eye on him.
>primary Antagonist
ugh
Straight up PvP is bad. One player is going to have an advantage that can't be overcome aside from lucky dice. There needs to be another objective than just 'kill each other'.
Maybe they need to drag a player to a sacrificial circle intact, or try and sway the ready of the party to side with them, or they're both crippled in some way, like both spellcasters stuck in an anti-magic zone. Maybe the building is collapsing. Something, anything.
Whatever it is it needs to have stakes, and be more than 5 rounds of full attacks from both sides.
I'll use the game from yesterday as an example. Our sorcerer grabbed a two handed mace that raises undead, and tried to reverse the effect. No dice with that, but the fighter and I managed to finish them off with the necromancers dead.
We go to look at our caster, and he's googling with glee. This mace is awesome! It breaks anything! I'm invincible! You all are so jelly! I'm going to go murder a goat and feed its soul to it!
That last one made us suspicious, and his bleeding eyes didn't help. We tried to wrestle it away from him, but the damn thing have him super strength. I stopped him before he got to the goats, and the fighter disarmed him. Then I realised the martial character had the possessed weapon and his pupils were gone. Non-lethal damage be damned, I set his ass on fire and knocked him out. Then I set the sorcerer on fire when he tried to get it back.
Stabilized, tied them up, and healed them, checked they weren't crazier than normal. We decided to wrap it up, and throw it in the nearby volcano.
They threw in a metal bar stool leg. The mace is hidden in the water barrels in the back of my cart.
Confront Rotiart in front of the party. Let him know he has been a friend for quite some time and that I doubt the legitimacy of this claim, based on the very things mentioned in OP.
This might, after all, just be a trick of one of our enemies who caught on that Friend has helped us.
>Rotiart is Traitor spelled backwards
Y'all stupid.
Yeah, but he's a BACKWARDS traitor, so a double agent
Then why aren't all your characters named Yojllik?
>assassins have to be evil
>I'm a roleplayer
>betral
Whatever you say champ
Ignore the """Friend""" since i know Rotiart for a long time and this anonymous person doesn't even respect me enough to reveal his identity. He cannot be trusted.
And my character is named Evian, what do you want.
When will the massive faggot in this thread learn to spell betrayal?
I kill him without a second thought
worst comes to worst I wasted some ammo
What is even going on in that picture?