An interesting topic one of my players brought up: How to go about if someone wants to play a traitor?

I didn't manage to make it work in a good way, not without the risk of hurting the other players. So I'm gonna do some experimentation and see how it turns out: I'm gonna drop a warning in their lap and see them suspect each other. Their superior is gonna say "We have reason to believe there's a traitor among us. Just keep your eyes open". And at a later point in the campain an NPC is going to betray the group.

Do you think it is possible to incorporate any traitor-elements in the game? Have you let any of your players perform any acts of betrayal against the rest of the group?

Depends on what you're playing. If you're playing a short term adventure that's centered around the mystery of who the traitor is that could be really fun, but that has to be the central theme of the game, and it has to be a short term game that can end when the traitor is found or succeeds in their mission. That said, a "Who's the traitor" social deduction game tends to work a hell of a lot better with a double blind card game like "Secret Hitler" that is set up from the start to obscure what exactly people did and cast doubts on everyone so that there is a real mystery and deduction involved. In a roleplaying game when someone starts passing notes to the GM etc. it's kind of a giveaway, so it might be very tricky to set up a scenario like that where the reveal is satisfying.

If you're playing a long term campaign on the other hand I think it's just going to piss everyone off, because hiding things from the Empire tends to be instrumental to all of the party's major accomplishments in F&D, and that all comes crashing down if a player character betrays them. The fundamental limitation of a GM is that if you leave the party you simply can't play anymore because the GM can't just start telling a whole second story, so players just have an unspoken agreement that you don't try to remove anyone's character from the game, and you don't act in such a way that would make it necessary to remove characters from the game either. Breaking that understanding is going to make people feel powerless to defend themselves from betrayal while also keeping everyone engaged and the story moving forward. Nobody wants to be that player who's bringing the whole table to a screeching halt by refusing to have another player character along on the adventure, even if it makes perfect sense in the story not to trust that person.

It's funny, our table just got through a Vampire the Masquerade game, before jumping back into our running SWRPG, and we're constantly having to remind ourselves and each other; "No more scheming against each other! We're all friends now."

Anyway, we haven't had such a game in SWRPG yet, but I've played in lots of other campaigns where there was, what I will call here "PvP", and that's not to say necessarily combat, just PCs not always working towards the same goals.

Ya gotta be pretty deliberate in how you implement something like this. IMO, it's a bad idea to have PvP with regards to the "overall campaign arc" - ya gotta have at least one overarching goal where they HAVE to work together for PvP to work as a "thing" in your campaign. If you make it the main campaign arc, you're just ensuring an early death of your campaign, IME. The PvP must be in "side stories". Not only does this allow the game to continue to advance, but it also makes the PvP that does occur more interesting, cuz they can't be all out against the others. In SWRPG, it would probably make the most sense for the PvP to be linked to things like Obligation/Duty, in F&D Morality doesn't work as well cuz someone willing to do DS stuff stands out pretty quickly. So you'll have to bring in maybe Motivations or just straight up background stories.

In general, it's not a great idea, IMO. It takes mature and disciplined players, and IME results in more distraction than actual good rp.

A game like Vampire lends itself much better to setting up a limited conflict between players that doesn't result in the party imploding. For example, if you're all working for the prince of a city an ambitious character can try to curry favor by making the other characters look bad, or throw someone under the bus to weasel their way out of punishment if something goes wrong. That's an interesting way for player characters to betray each other without destroying the whole game.

That sort of arrangement is IMO the core of competitive roleplaying. For example if you played a campaign where the player characters are all students of a Sith lord (before the rule of two), and they are in constant competition to be chosen by the master to learn his ultimate technique, but still have to work together by his command you'd have a pretty solid setup for a game where the players constantly try to get a leg up over one another while still playing adventures. It can work, it just needs a setup where some force greater than the players both compels them to work together and compete with each other.

It's possible, but both the GM and the player need to proceed very cautiously.

Unless the game itself has a strong backstabbing theme from the outset, such as your typical Vampire campaign or "stale beer" themed spy game or even an Evil PC D&D game, having one of the PCs suddenly turn traitor on the group is going to catch the other players by surprise, and could very well lead to some very hurt feelings at the very real betrayal of trust.

The player of the traitor had also do their best to minimize the degree of hurt feelings of the other players at the betrayal, especially if there was nothing in how the character acted to indicate that they'd pull such a stunt in the first place.

Honestly, in my experience it's never been worth it to have a player-character turn traitor on the rest of the group, especially if it was out of the blue. It might make for a memorable story, but those memories may not be good ones. And I've seen this sort of thing result in the player of the traitor PC being unwelcome in the group or in the game itself dissolving as the other players decide they want nothing more to do with the GM that permitted the betrayal of their trust.

You have to know your group. And you have to trust the traitor player to be really mature about it - their focus should be on making a good story and considering the other PCs at the table.

It also depends on the nature of the betrayal. Is he going to kill another PC or severely harm them or strip them (permanently or long-term) of something that's important to another PC? That can cause bad blood at the table.

Also, I'd recommend having a story arch in mind for it: where is it going? Is the PC traitor under duress (hostage family)? A double agent? An ISB agent who actually has come to side with the Rebellion? Having the end game in mind will help things from going off the rails. Just springing "Yeah, my PC is really just a loyal ISB agent" doesn't make for an interesting story that draws in the other PCs.

As a story, it could work - and generate some intense role playing, but you need to proceed with caution. Also, it helps if it's an open secret.

A couple of campaigns ago, I was playing a core world princess on the run thanks to not wanting to get wrapped up in an arranged marriage with a neighboring planet. She was also a imperial loyalist through and through, and the general idea was that her story would be that as she adapts to life outside of her little ivory tower, she learns that the Empire wasn't very nice. However before she got to that point of revelation, she was approached by an ISB agent who asked if she would feed information to them about the folks in the underworld, about the alliance, and anything she thought could be of use to them. And so, with a measure of discretion wherever she could, she would dime out bad guys and rebel agents.

She also 100% bought into the Imperial propaganda about Jedi being bad guys. She didnt like people who could mess with your mind or choke you from across the room - which made it awkward when one of the other team turned out to be a Jedi.

All the players knew about what was going on, so nobody was pissed that she was working at cross purposes with the team. The characters on the other hand? Well, it didnt make the game unplayable, but it did make for some tense sessions until everyone came to grips with the fact that she was generally a good person caught in a bad situation (The Empire started in with the thinly veiled threads to her homeworld if she wasn't more forthcoming with information).

Sadly the game imploded (for other reasons) before we could play out that story to it's conclusion - but it was fun for the 6 months or so we played. However there was no way that I was going to play that character on the downlow, keeping the other players in the dark. That would have been a bad idea - and we're all pretty mature and married to the idea of Story Uber Alles. A less mature group? Yeah - really, really bad idea.

Luckely my group of players are close friends and I'd like to think that I know them well enough. This is my first campain and its been running for about a year, it's been difficult to meet up because of work and studies.

The main goal of the campain is to defeat a criminal organisation that is waging war against the rebels and the empire. The players are the leaders of a secret, delicate alliance of both imperials and rebels working together to defeat the organisation. In their next adventure they are going to meet up with some sort of force shaman, that is going to tell them about their future and reveal that "their alliance is going to fall because of a traitor". Later the criminal organisation will find their headquarters and shatter the rebel-empire alliance, leaving the players to fight the organisation themselves. Much later it will be revealed that it was an NPC who revealed the location of the HQ and was the traitor all along.

So hopefully the characters will simply suspect eachother for a while until the reveal. It feels like a low-risk story element.

I like the idea. It sounds like you have it well thought out and I think it will work.

Just as long as this traitor is an NPC, you should be good to go, long term.

Typically betrayals work best as an end of the campaign kind of moment. And I would only go that route if the group as a whole is capable of handling it. If there will be hurt feelings between the players over it it is best to steer clear of betrayals.

As a back up plan, if a player wants to run a traitor, tell him/her that if things start to go horribly wrong for the gaming group, his/her PC is going to become an NPC. Warn them of this fail safe from the beginning. Then have fun knowing if the traitor gets revealed and it starts to disrupt the group too much, you've got a great rival NPC that the players will be all invested in to hate.

I had a player leave a D&D group years ago. It was explained that he left to join a different mercenary group. A year of real time later, he turned up as an officer in an enemy's army (Zhentarim for Forgotten Realms fans). The players really hated him and it made the on-going conflict against the Zhentarim more fun. Later, during a pivotal battle of armies at a bridge, the ex-PC was seen leading the cavalry of their foes. When the battle was about to be lost, the ex-friend turned his cavalry upon the Zhentarim saving the day. It was a cliché, but still a great moment for the group.

In star wars I find it only really works when the player is a double agent.

Let him pass notes to the GM, meet with imperial contacts and have suspicious contact with other spys in the rebellion. Maybe even sabotage a few of the players missions.

As long as the end goal is to harm the empire as a double agent. When the rest of the party finally get the proof they need they get a special mission using the information the spy has uncovered.

21 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

It's possible, but both the GM and the player need to proceed very cautiously.

Unless the game itself has a strong backstabbing theme from the outset, such as your typical Vampire campaign or "stale beer" themed spy game or even an Evil PC D&D game, having one of the PCs suddenly turn traitor on the group is going to catch the other players by surprise, and could very well lead to some very hurt feelings at the very real betrayal of trust.

The player of the traitor had also do their best to minimize the degree of hurt feelings of the other players at the betrayal, especially if there was nothing in how the character acted to indicate that they'd pull such a stunt in the first place.

Honestly, in my experience it's never been worth it to have a player-character turn traitor on the rest of the group, especially if it was out of the blue. It might make for a memorable story, but those memories may not be good ones. And I've seen this sort of thing result in the player of the traitor PC being unwelcome in the group or in the game itself dissolving as the other players decide they want nothing more to do with the GM that permitted the betrayal of their trust.

I got a snort at the Vampire comment Ugh, those games. If it's not devolving into a leather clad blood orgy, it's a backstabbing relay race for the gold medal.

But yeah, based on how my players react, and hold grudges from previous campaigns, it's a risk to do the traitor story, and have a PC be the traitor. For one, some players are just more cunning and devious than other players. And what started out as a fun idea, where the traitor is eventually exposed, and brought to justice, turns into a complete betrayal, and destruction of the team, because the other players are just not that smart. I hate to say it that bluntly, but it's just true.

There is another game by White Wolf, called Wraith. Part of the game mechanics, is everyone plays another players "Wraith", or their dark shadow. The evil voice in their head that urges them to be destructive. And they have independent agency in the game, allowing the player of your Wraith, to seriously mess up what you are trying to do. And at my table of friends, there were two guys, that made this almost impossible to play. One player, because he was just such a devious bastard, having him as your Wraith basically meant you were hosed. And the other guy, because he was just so oblivious to that type of thinking, if he was your Wraith, then it was a cakewalk for you. Because he was just simply not good at thinking like that.

So, again, with a traitor plot, you have to tapdance around the ability of the player, and the rest of the group. Actively introduce a level of real deception on the part of the players, because you know some people are just going to flat out ask "Who is the traitor? Is it you?!" Forcing the player to either lie to his friend IRL, or give away the plot secret. This can cause serious friction.

Not to mention, this can cause friction later, in games with no ties to this traitor story. Because now, some players will always suspect the other player is being duplicitous, even when there is no reason to think so. You could be playing Honesty: The Quest for Ultimate Truthiness of Truth, where the entire point of the game is to be as honest as possible, and some players would STILL give the ex-traitor player the stink eye, suspecting them at every turn. I've seen it. It's insane, and illogical, but gamers are a freaky weird bunch, and don't always act logically.

One thing that a friend of mine did for this kind of story, that seemed to work ok, was he implemented a "3page" background system. The actual number of pages for the data is irrelevant, the 3 is just indicating levels. But, level 1 sheet, is public information, that everyone would know. Your career, basic stats, equipment, etc. Your typical character sheet. Level 2, was stuff that only the PLAYER knows about their own character. Personal background traumas, secret agendas, etc. This information can end up being Level 1 stuff, if things are shared or exposed, but at start, you are the only one who knows. Level 3, is stuff even the PLAYER and character don't know about themself. Like how someone might secretly be a Cylon or something, or perhaps that you have a 4th Directive if you are Robocop, etc.

He used this for his traitor game, and it seemed to work ok, at least from what he said. I wasn't part of the group at that time, but one of the players talked positively about it.

I think you might need to establish it up front, that there will be a traitor, but that none of them will know who at first. Perhaps, have it be random if you can manage it. So even the players don't know before hand. And stress the importance of not taking stuff to personally. That being a traitor in the game, doesn't reflect on real life. This seems like an obvious, and silly point to make, but it's important when you are talking about gamers.

This is a fun topic for me since or group has multiple people with secret allegiances. The main ones of course being the agents of the empire. We generally let things play out as long as it makes sense given the characters story and we use the Facebook messenger and talk to the dm when we see him in the student center (university) and talk out what we are attempting. Generally we don't have to worry about metagaming and anything we really don't want out is handled in private chats. Our first night saw one of us try to take the pilot seat from a b1 droid that was programmed to pilot the ship we commandeered by shooting it while it was taking off. It survived and made it into space while he smuggler incapacitated him in a brawl. When he was subdued we threw him in prison and decided he was a danger and must die. While we where discussing this he turned his comlink into a distress beacon that summoned who would be or main antagonist in the empire but by that point he had been spread across a hyper lane after we dealt with another character who focuses on maintaining a group of droid in a standoff.

The main point is can you make an interesting story from it since he party just need ms to begrudgedly work together. We have three murderous monsters with a former inquisitor, a former Jedi in hiding who has a body count that Vader would be proud of, and a super tactical droid with dreams of extinction of all seintent organics(me)