I'm playing a game of rogue trader of the break and I really want to make it interesting.

My group knows they have a spy on board their ship, he's working for a rival Rogue Trader who they've been fighting with for a couple months now. I'm going to be paying one of my players to stab his freinds in the back and betray them to their nemisis at a critical moment then have the players face off with him, if he succeeds I'm going to give the player 10 bucks. I'm perfectly willing to kill them if they **** up. They'll never see it coming...

playing a game over the christmas break*

Am I to mean? I want to hear what sort of stuff you've all done to your players to keep them on their feet, as a GM I don't feel I've done my job unless my players are on the verge of tears and fresh ideas to torture my group would be welcome.

Well, in the group that I lead there's no Rogue Trader. So I humbly take his position as NPC, and few characters already know that you don't disapoint your boss. Void Master knows it best since he got hit for 19 Damage from Balesco Pistol in leg for blowing up underground vault full of treasures that was not taken away in time for he decided to play with main console while Explorator was out due to "Shock". I do them realy nasty things on ast sessions while on Lucien's Breath they where in middle of battle (on Winterscale's side) they won it. But next the mining site was hit with Meteor Shower that was steered by rival RT they where rolling for luck (25~35) if they roll above they got hit by 3d5 Impact damage. They have problems with killing on the ship but it is neglected due to having death cult assasins. In the future I will be doing lot of nasty things. So use your imagination.

Imo, a gm is not there to **** up his players. You're there to ensure everyone has a good time (including you). If i were your player i'd say yes to the bribe, then not execute the knife in the back just to show you we're a team.

Seriously: giving them challenges or letting them feel 40k is one thing, actually conspiring to have'm on the verge of tears ... bridge to far imo. Unless of course they all agreed to that kind of play?

Never, ever, ever offer players incentives to stab each other in the back, no matter how good it looks from a storytelling perspective. I've seen this kind of sudden turnabout traitor gambit happen before, and in each instance, the game shuddered to a halt and all the fun drained out of the room. In one instance the campaign had to be reset just to keep the game going, and in another the GM had to explain the last six months of game play, turn the traitor into an NPC, and let the players work their frustrations out on the NPC traitor.

Having a hidden traitor can work, provided the players go into the game with some idea that one among them is working for the other side. What you're planning is likely going to poison the experience of Rogue Trader for your group.

It's bad enough when someone turns traitor at a critical moment and says, "I'm only playing my character." It's an order of magnitude worse when he says, "The GM is paying by $10 to wipe you out."

It entirely depends upon the group. I'd say that probably 90%, if not more, of the players out there are on the same page as the poster before me. On the other side of the coin, there are players like myself (and anyone who has ever played Paranoia!) who live for this sort of devilish intrigue. In a play by post game, I'm playing a Tau Ethereal in charge of the occupying forces of a rebelling planet the PC's have to bring into line. In another, I was a Psyker who turned Sorcerer and orchestrated the sacrifice of two players who refused to soul-bind themselves to Tzeentch and the conversion of the ship to a Chaos-Barge. In yet another, my loyal, militant Trader was betrayed and murdered by a mutinous crew who turned us Pirate and hired my new charatcer as a Kroot mercenary. Over the years my characters have been cut, stabbed, shot, shocked, melted in acid, burned alive, strangled, and gassed by other PCs, and I've done an equal if not greater number of betrayals myself.

Each of those betrayals were with the GM's blessing and the groups all had loads of fun. I've had two players drop out of games I've played in, one as a result of my betrayal and one as a result of another's betrayal, and both were an unfortunate affair but there were no hard feelings and we remained friends afterwards, as did everyone else. What I do NOT recommend is paying someone in real life to do so. That implies the player did not think it was a good idea but did it anyways. If he's willing to betray them for roleplay, so be it, that's the nature of any grim campaign, especially in the 41st millenium.

My last piece of advise for you is to be fair. The deck should not be heavily stacked in the betrayer's favour unless he orchestrates it that way. If he manages to connive and scheme his way to the sort of power he needs to pull it off, awesome, his success is the reward of hard work and good roleplaying. Giving him mechanical benefits, fudging rolls in his favour, or otherwise ensuring his success in ways the players can not fight will turn this into a bad situation very quickly if they did not enter the game with the knowledge that they will be killed.

If you keep records of the game at all, I'd love to see how it all plays out, and if you feel like running games over Skype or Vent or some such, let me knw because I'd love to play in another open-roleplaying game like that. It'd be an excellent time to pull out a Radical of some sort...

Lamo I can see where you guys are coming from but I don't think your seeing what I'm trying to accomplish here.

In any RPG the players always know their going to win, it's a certainty so the end of the story is not why people play these games its the journey that gets them there that makes them epic. The farther they fall is directly proportional to what their going to get. In real life any sort of accomplishment demands sacrifice and my games reflect that. Players are most engaged when their scared and happiest when they survive and crush their adversary. The best liturature and movies always have the protagonist win but at a cost the scourging of the shire in lord of the rigns, neds death in game of thrones and Scouts brothers disfigurement in to kill a mocking bird are examples of why those books stick with us, this is true of role playing as well I think.

I always tell my players "If you do something stupid you will die." or "I really think this would be a better story if one of you dies" I never would actually do that but it makes then really really excited and genuinly worried when they do get into danger and I make sure my players can never geuss whats going to happen next i always give them two false leads for every real clue I give them it makes it alot more exciting.

They will never see this coming, and if they do lose to this guy its realistically just one other set back which they will overcome later, I'll make him an NPC for them to get revenge on.

What I'm most excited for is the reaction this will create, I can't wait to see the look on their faces and the banter thats going to ensue.

BangBangTequila said:

Totally agree with the keep it fair mentality, and I would be interested in a skype game possibly.

I really think I'm the best GM I've ever met, my games are significantly more fun then other people I've played with and I don't use prepackaged material except for the artwork and stats for the enemies. I also offer my players alot of freedom, I've read on these forums about GM's who try to stop their players using cetain items that they have and I think thats just silly, whats the point of having a teleportarium if every enemy you have has some sort of magic teleport proof get away. I adapt to what my players want to do and keep my game play and pacing of my games varried.

I encourage other GM's to try this sort of tough luck kind of game out your players will love it by the end of the adventure and if they complain ask them why they know they can't lose so should'nt be such babies about it.

ieatdeadpeople said:

I run tough luck sandbox games myself. There's a big difference between that and actually bribing one of your own players to stab the rest in the back. A very big difference.

I see where you're coming from, but imo 9/10 it'll turn in to a disaster. Unless everyone knows this is a possibility it'll leave a bad feeling. I've had a GM that did this every single campaign he ran (using his brothers' character turning in to a daemon, ... ). It just isn't fun and it **** near broke up the group when i anticipated it next time round and offed the mother before he could make his move. If you've worked hard and overcame everything thrown at you in a tough luck campaign, then no: it's not fun to not be able to face off with the big bad but rather have to deal with a plot twist like that. Unless you knew about it up front in which case you'd have played your character differently i'd wager. If i sign up for a campaign i'm working on the assumption the players won't stab each other in the back. Turning that axiom upside down needs deliberation imo.

Then again, i doubt you'll change your course so let us know how it turned out ;-)

I was working on a character that would have had divided loyalties, not neccesarily against the group, but definately with an alternative agenda. It could all easily have turned against the PC, with the group out for his head (not neccesarilly), but I was working on putting him into a position where his escape (amid massive collateral damage) was probable. I was planning on dropping a few subtle hints so it wasn't a total suprise or people went 'oh, of course' afterwards. Unfortunately, the campaign imploded (unrelated reasons), so I never got to see how it would have turned out.

I think why characters backstabbing doesn't work out is that its not planned, I'm assuming the players you guys are talking about just decided to be a delinquant for no real reason which is something I've had happen before and I just kill those players. But this will be different because I've been planning it and its been worked into the story.

Also the player doesn't normally play with us so hes not really an integral part of the group anyway. Your comments have made me more concernd though I really thought this would add to the fun of the game and create a memorable scene.

In anycase I'll let you guys know how it goes. Im keeping my fingers crossed.