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.
Oh hell yeah! NPCs trick my players all the time. Commanders, strangers, witnesses, priests, anybody might have an ulterior motive or secret agenda.
Best advice I have is just trust. Player characters don’t need to trust every non-player character but the human players at the table absolutely have to know they can trust you the human GM.
When my NPCs pull some shady stuff, like the reveal last session that leader of the crusade has been plotting to betray the PC crusaders for the entire campaign, that reveal always comes with a huge smile from me. “Yeah y’all, this dude is terrible! But now your characters are on to him and I can’t wait to see how they take him down!”
I’m not pulling one over on my players, I’m inviting them to a party I’ve been planning for ages and now we all get to find out what happens next.