So I have finally convinced my gaming group to try EotE. As long time players of D&D and more recently Pathfinder, this was no easy feat. In order to entice one member of the group I offered to let him play an undercover assassin for COMPNOR. I stressed to him no PvP and secrecy about his mission is paramount. (Basically he is with the group at the behest of a powerful force user that foresaw him working with this group to accomplish some great task down the road). I feel like I can use this to my advantage in lots of different ways, but not having a ton of EotE experience I am curious to hear what others think.

So, bad idea or no?

There's nothing about the game system itself that would prevent it, sounds like a possibly fun story. If the players are all new to the system though, I wouldn't start the first session with character creation. One run through the Beginner game will sell it to them quite nicely I would think...I have yet to see anyone post that their players were convinced *not* to play after running it...more like the opposite. After that they'll also have an idea what works for their character concept, and the choices will be more meaningful. Also, the Beginner game will expose them to the importance of all those skills that other games (d20 especially) seem to de-emphasize. At least once decent social skill and some Cool and/or Vigilance are often overlooked by players transferring from other systems.

Good luck!

I guess that depends on the rest of the group.

How are the players, not the characters, going to react when it is revealed? Is it going to cause inter-personal strife? Or are the players willing to enjoy the in-game complications and ramifications?

Even if the character gets stuffed out an airlock, as long as the players are okay then everything will be fine. If one of the players will get his nose out of joint (including the COMPNOR assassin pushed out the airlock) then I would avoid the situation.

We actually played through the beginner game, but without creating characters my players didn't get the "buy-in" I had hoped they would. My hope is that by creating interesting backgrounds for all the PCs will keep them involved this time, I guess now I just need to find a rebel sympathizer to throw in the mix and see what happens next.

My only concern - and mind you, I'm kind of in the same boat (my Core World Princess is a Imperial loyalist who sends reports of rebellious activity to the ISB) - is that how the rest of the party will react if The Secret becomes public. Will it kill your game stone dead as the crew break up? "I wont work with scum like him!" as they storm off their separate ways.

If the players are mature enough, to find some kind of middle ground to keep the gaming going, this probably wouldn't be a problem. Or if the Agent has a dramatic heel-face turn, there might be bad blood over the past, but if the players are willing to let things slide, you might be in the clear too. But if the guns come out once The Secret is revealed, you might have an issue.

I guess it comes down to how you read your table. If you think your players can handle it, go for it! It's a great wrinkle!

I don't see it as a bad thing at all. One issue I see is if their character is left hanging in the breeze. I had an excellent concept for a character that everyone loved, but the GM couldn't figure out what to do with the character. In a world full of ancient secrets and forbidden lore from ages ago, the GM couldn't figure out what to do with the character? Um...yeah....

Just toss in some focus to that player feels his background and concept is being used. It gets to be kind of boring if the player is playing an assassin and the only action they see is a debate on what's better chocolate or vanilla and his tools aren't used.

My only concern - and mind you, I'm kind of in the same boat (my Core World Princess is a Imperial loyalist who sends reports of rebellious activity to the ISB) - is that how the rest of the party will react if The Secret becomes public. Will it kill your game stone dead as the crew break up? "I wont work with scum like him!" as they storm off their separate ways.

If the players are mature enough, to find some kind of middle ground to keep the gaming going, this probably wouldn't be a problem. Or if the Agent has a dramatic heel-face turn, there might be bad blood over the past, but if the players are willing to let things slide, you might be in the clear too. But if the guns come out once The Secret is revealed, you might have an issue.

I guess it comes down to how you read your table. If you think your players can handle it, go for it! It's a great wrinkle!

The characters shouldn't be the fear. Characters can come and go as the story dictates, but nobody wants a player to get really angry over a game. Bad for friendship.

Eh, fair point. I guess I kind of assumed that if the players could find middle ground for the sake of the game, they would also be mature enough not to flip the table and storm off in real life. But yes - Real Life Friends > The Game. If it'll cause trouble away from the table, don't do it.

Eh, fair point. I guess I kind of assumed that if the players could find middle ground for the sake of the game, they would also be mature enough not to flip the table and storm off in real life. But yes - Real Life Friends > The Game. If it'll cause trouble away from the table, don't do it.

If I told you how many times I have heard the phrase "Pink Frosting" as a joke at my table...sigh.

Hmm...without knowing WHY this player would not play the game unless he could be an undercover assassin in a group of (I assume) Rebels I can't say much more important than "tread lightly".

He's playing an assassin amongst his opponents, a fox in a henhouse so to speak.

You stressed no player killing, which blunts him on that front, and that's a good rule to have...

But he's also decicded to play a duplicitous character, deceivng those he works closely with on a day to day basis - I'd say you would be within reality to make sure he's constantly under stress/strain at the possibility of being discovered. Lower his strain by 1 often, possibly more if he's really having to cover his tracks and cover lies with lies.

if there are Force sensitives around - you should feel free to have them toss him odd looks or stress him out eve more when they are around.

Fake him out occasionally, make sure he has reason to wonder if people are catching on from time to time.

Make it fun for him without devoting too much time to 'note passing' or everyone else will definitely get suspicious.

Let him know before sessions that's he's stressed because he thinks he may have slipped up a detail the other day, or he's not 100% sure his last transmission was wiped completely from the auto-backup databanks.

He's surrounded by opponents everyday, maybe some of their philosophy will start rubbing off on him?

Maybe he'll start to question his mission?

Maybe the Force User is actually assuming that he'll turn?

If this player is a good roleplayer, he'll let his experience change his character, make him more jaded, more sympathetic, toss his world view into the blender, etc.

However, if he just wants to screw with the other players because it'll be fun - then...erg - it may not end prettily.

I've had a scenario like this work out without hurt feelings/annoyance/real life feeling of betrayal. Once.

In thirty years of gaming I've been in many scenarios where a player has tried to be the turncoat; if the turncoat's actions lead to player injury or death or even significant loss the hurt appeared.

Some groups can get past it and say - wow your character lied to us for that long, well played!

Some just grumbled that it was a mean plot device and that the GM was being a grade 'A' jerk for conspiring against them with his pet.

One group disbanded because they felt they couldn't trust the GM any longer (they were hardcore and honestly a bit overwrought all the time anyway)

The successful group was in the old Top Secret game.

It had the player playing his character like DiCaprio/Damon in the Departed or Donnie Brasco - recruited to turn on his group by an outside group - always stressed, became addicted to painkillers to dull the days, he had him break down once or twice in a gunfight against his new allies...the bad guys of the story arc.

He realized eventually that he could never be accepted in the bad guys organization after all the things he'd done and that he'd become completely disillusioned with their cause after seeing their world view put into practice.

One session he walked up to the cell leader and handed him his gun and asked him to take him out back and kill him before the others got there.

They talked, the truth came out - the group roleplayed the discussion/his fate out over a few hours of real world time discussion and they spared him.

I'll spare you all the remainder of the details but one of the players said he'd never felt so into a role as when he found out his teammate in the game was actually working against them, and came to care about them all - was so ashamed that he'd rather die in an alley than see their faces fall at his betrayal. He had his player standing there fuming the whole time, fingering his gun...during the whole reveal.

it was great gaming but it took a lot of roleplaying and player maturity to deal with it so well.

(and it was a spy game, so - yeah)

Good Luck!

We actually played through the beginner game, but without creating characters my players didn't get the "buy-in" I had hoped they would. My hope is that by creating interesting backgrounds for all the PCs will keep them involved this time, I guess now I just need to find a rebel sympathizer to throw in the mix and see what happens next.

Sounds like you're actively seeking PvP conflict, otherwise I'm not sure why another player needs to be a rebel sympathizer. Does your group do this kind of thing regularly? If so, they should know what to expect. If not, unless you have a much larger campaign/story-arc in mind, I can't see it working that well. The players whose characters don't have special secrets might feel left out or shafted.

This actually got me thinking and I think I am going to see about giving each of the PCs a secret to keep or share as they see fit. I enjoy this type of thing as a player myself. As a group we have kind of an unwritten policy about PvP in that we don't do it, my hope is the game can be journey of redemption for the assassin, or a descent into darkness for the other PCs (although with the ideas floating around in my mind right now, maybe just a story of life in the grey area that is the Edge). Thanks for the input all, it's given me lots to think about.

"It's a trap!"

To be honest, this guy already sounds like he just wants to sabotage the game. I promise you, he has no interest in playing the game. He's only making these demands so that he can troll the other players, and basically ruin the party whenever he feels like it. Avoid this guy and his BS.

So, here's the deal. You're the DM. You're running a game in a different system than you and your friends have played for the past 15 years. You're doing this because.... it's something different. Never mind if it's good or not. Variety is the spice of life, and playing different systems is part of the fun of the hobby in the first place. If they can't even reconcile trying out the game for the sole purpose of just to try something else for a change of pace, then you already have some lame friends - sorry to say.

What's worse, this guy wants to make some wild demands as if he has some sort of power in the situation? Nope - not on my watch. Tell him to try it stock and play normal.... or he can just not play. In which case it's his loss. Other people are willing to try it out, and at the end of the day... he'll be the one left out. I promise you that once you guys get out of the D&D dogma mindset of the D20 rules, which might take a few sessions (that's what it took with my group), you guys will be talking about it like it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. And hopefully after that... then he'll want to play legit.

It sounds like the group has lots of experience with roleplaying games, but it's really up to your read on the table. If you're not sure about whether the COMPNOR agent will work, have everyone talk about it. You might not have to name specifically who the agent would be, but you could. Hopefully they've had enough practice to not metagame, but only you can determine that.

If you don't want to out the secret entirely, just ask them if they want it to be a game where one or more players have dark secrets.

But ask yourself, "will the players get more enjoyment out of the big reveal if they didn't see it coming than they would get from knowing all along (but playing characters that don't), and will it risk the players' (not the characters') experience".

I'm wrapping up a Black Crusade game where, despite various scheming machinations, we keep all the big stuff above-board. That is, the players know, but their characters don't. Most of them aren't great at it, but I've been explicit about PvP only at climactic events and only for a specific purpose. Just last session one player sacrificed another's soul to a Bloodletter in exchange for the completion of a ritual, and everyone loved it.

But he's also decicded to play a duplicitous character, deceivng those he works closely with on a day to day basis - I'd say you would be within reality to make sure he's constantly under stress/strain at the possibility of being discovered. Lower his strain by 1 often, possibly more if he's really having to cover his tracks and cover lies with lies.

This is nothing more than punishing a concept for the sake of not liking the concept. In virtually every Edge game I've been involved with, characters keep things secret from each other. Personal goals, vendettas, shames, Force sensitivity. I think it's a BS notion to say "if you're keeping major secrets from the other players, you will take lots of Strain, often." That's ridiculous. Force him to take a particular Obligation to COMPNOR, if anything, and roll with that if/when it comes up, but if you don't like the concept just disallow it, don't mechanically punish it arbitrarily.

But he's also decicded to play a duplicitous character, deceivng those he works closely with on a day to day basis - I'd say you would be within reality to make sure he's constantly under stress/strain at the possibility of being discovered. Lower his strain by 1 often, possibly more if he's really having to cover his tracks and cover lies with lies.

This is nothing more than punishing a concept for the sake of not liking the concept. In virtually every Edge game I've been involved with, characters keep things secret from each other. Personal goals, vendettas, shames, Force sensitivity. I think it's a BS notion to say "if you're keeping major secrets from the other players, you will take lots of Strain, often." That's ridiculous. Force him to take a particular Obligation to COMPNOR, if anything, and roll with that if/when it comes up, but if you don't like the concept just disallow it, don't mechanically punish it arbitrarily.

Incorrect assumption.

I like the concept from a GM point of view - it gives them room to grow, room to casue them to think on their actions and adds some flavor to the game. The GM's job is not to punish but to help create and grow a story with the characters as the stars.

Our characters are stressed all the time, that's what Strain is for - it's a fluid derived stat. Temporarily lowering due to these mechanics does not preclude him re-raising it through actions in every scene - triggering his obligation does that for a WHOLE session, possibly by lowering it up to four points if the GM rolls doubles.

Finding ways to use this stat in the story is part of the GM's job.

I'd say from your reaction that you may have had some doozy GM's that liked to punish the players rather than use game functions to challenge the characters?

As you say, arbitrary mechanical punishment isn't fun. I would suggest the GM DISCUSS this with the affected player well before starting a session with this added possibility of stress.

This character is doing a great deal more than hiding shame, vendettas, Force Sensitivity or goals. This character is living two lives at once. He WANTS to play this character, remember.

How far they want to take it is up to them.

The GM could let him just be a double agent and leave it at that. I find that to be fine for a simple game where the roleplaying will be at a basic level.

My suggestions are for a group that wants the challenge of trying to pull this off in a more memorable way.

We actually played through the beginner game, but without creating characters my players didn't get the "buy-in" I had hoped they would. My hope is that by creating interesting backgrounds for all the PCs will keep them involved this time, I guess now I just need to find a rebel sympathizer to throw in the mix and see what happens next.

Yeah, I had a similar issue when I ran the Beginner Box for some friends. Had a much better response from the second group as I allowed them to make their own PCs using the EotE Beta rulebook.

As for your idea, FringGrip hit the nail on the head, as a lot is going to hinge on how the other players react when (not if, when ) the truth comes out about this one PC actually being an Imperial spy. You may have told this one specific player that PvP was strictly forbidden, but the rest of the players may not share this sentiment.

Having been on both sides of the "PC has a secret background," I've come to find that it's generally not worth the hassle, as it can lead to players feeling slighted and/or betrayed, particularly if the "secret background" has the PC quite possibly working against the long-term goals of the rest of the group.

If you've got a good enough group of players that can keep player knowledge separate from character knowledge, then bring them into the loop about this particular PC while making the "no PvP malarky will be tolerated" mandate perfectly clear. It could also lead to the other players finding ways to have their characters notice "little things" about this one PC that don't quite add up.

As an example, in a Skype game, I was playing a teenage Force-Sensitive street rat. The characters at the start of the game had no clue that my PC was Force-sensitive, but all the players knew, and knew that what little training in the Force the character did have was more interesting than the character himself knew. Being a teenager, the character did "little things" that would be considered odd and gave hints that he wasn't just a street rat, such as using the Force to make a credit chip dance across his fingers, or having preternaturally keen awareness of danger, or picking up on little details about a person that he otherwise shouldn't be aware of. At least two of the characters in the game, if not having figured it out are pretty sure that my character is a Force-user; sadly one of them had to leave the group, and one of the newer characters knows for a fact that my PC is a Force-user, just as I know the same about his PC being a Force-user. This way, with the players in the know, there won't be any "why didn't you trust us?" business or similar hurt feelings between the players. Between the characters is another story, but Valin's got an ability to elicit sympathy (at least if the party's reaction to learning why there's an Imperial bounty on the kid's head is anything to go by).

I'd say from your reaction that you may have had some doozy GM's that liked to punish the players rather than use game functions to challenge the characters?

As you say, arbitrary mechanical punishment isn't fun. I would suggest the GM DISCUSS this with the affected player well before starting a session with this added possibility of stress.

This character is doing a great deal more than hiding shame, vendettas, Force Sensitivity or goals. This character is living two lives at once. He WANTS to play this character, remember.

I have had that experience recently, yes. And I agree that it should be discussed in advance.

I've been in parties for various games where one player's secret was known OOC and where it wasn't, and always unknown IC. It wasn't a big issue when it wasn't known to the other players even but I don't think it ever involved potential double-cross; I more think it was kept private to prevent spoilers or undue metagaming.

I mainly don't see a need to make a mechanical drawback. And I don't think shame, vendettas, etc are "mere." Force-Sensitivity, to be honest, is much more dangerous than being a COMPNOR agent (and just as an aside, I can't see the double agent as a very COMPNOR-y thing to do…more ISB or I.I. I view COMPNOR more like the Hitler Youth - too publicly fanatic to be quite so undercover about things). Being a double-agent on a day-to-day basis isn't necessarily any more stressful than some of these other things. I just prefer that to come out through role-play or on a roll of the dice. All the players don't necessarily need to OOC know the details of everyones' Obligation, either.