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Tips/thoughts on having a PC be a traitor? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/dm_academy

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I'm going to be starting a pretty short campaign here soon. I've mostly got the plot figured out, and when I was helping a player with character creation they asked if there was a good patron for their Warlock character. My initial thought was, "well the BBEG would be interesting."

The players are just exploring a ruined castle/island that's been twisted and it's inhabitants warped due to exposure to a great old one- they're trying to solve the problem and make the place habitable again.

The warlock's patron is the BBEG, an eldritch god trying to force his way onto their plane. He's currently held out of the plane by a magical seal that can't be broken by him or any of his servants. So the Warlock player needs to- subtly- get the party all the way to the seal and manipulate them into breaking it. I did this specifically to avoid him murder hoboing his party members. They have different goals, but they still need each other.

If this goes badly, I figure the worst case scenario is that he gets slapped by the other 5 party members. So I've asked him to have at least an idea for a second character.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

For a short one shot campaign, sure, because in those, players are invested in the story more than the characters.

For anything that is going to involve character development and growth, it would spoil the whole campaign for me.

[–] scrion 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I, on the other hand, would love it. In a longer running campaign in particular, there would always be a chance of redemption, if one would be into that kind of thing.

I would fully support one of my teammates going all in on the fun of betrayal. What I consider more of a problem would be the practical issues, i. e. how do you integrate the player into additional sessions after the betrayal becomes public - the paths of the betrayer and the party might heavily diverge in both intent and, e. g. location, it could be hard running both strands simultaneously.

So yeah, a short, one off campaign might be a better fit.