I am planning a set piece that involves some NPCs deceiving my players. The short version is that my players will meet some simple farmers trying to bring their crops to market, only to find that they’re actually smugglers in a Hatfields and McCoy’s type feud, which the party then gets messily swept up into. I generally don’t trick my players; I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it but I imagine some tables would take to it more than others. Do you trick your players? Are there some tricks you find acceptable and others that are unacceptable? For me, I have no qualm getting my players swept up into the seedy underworld of drug or artifacts smuggling, but I don’t think I would run a plotline on human trafficking. That I think would be difficult in an unpleasant way for everyone involved.
It depends on how inquisitive your players are. I had an NPC trick them into a heist from an orphanage, but they never investigated the building, or questioned how organized everything was, and once they were paid at the end they never questioned anything and moved on
I love the orphanage 😂 I have played a few campaigns where the main conceit is “we’re an adventuring guild, we send you out on missions and if you live you get paid” and I’ve always wanted to run one where the Adventurer’s Guild is literally the mafia that controls a major city, and the players get sent on increasingly shady missions until they cotton on to what’s happening. I love the idea of the penny dropping mid-orphanage robbery.
“Why are there kids here?”
“I thought we were here to clean out a vault”
“Of course there’s a vault. You think they can just leave the money they need to buy food over the winter lying around? These little guttersnipes will steal anything that isn’t nailed down”
“It’s their food money?”
“…are we the bad guys?”
The Group’s motto “We’re paid to do a job. Not ask questions.”
“We’re here to kick ass and chew bubble gum, and in this campaign bubble gum’s not a thing”