Building paranoia and mistrust

[Silus]

So I've been thinking recently of working out a campaign/session in Pathfinder where paranoia and whatnot runs rampant through the party and the session in general without it being crazy obvious that I'm trying to get the party to turn in on itself*. Now, fear I know how to do, but straight up paranoia is something I've not dealt with before, so any tips and/or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

For an example of what I'm talking about, I suggest looking up the anime/manga "Higurashi no Naku Koro ni", of which this idea was inspired from.

*Note I don't really want the party to implode, but rather blend an odd mix of paranoia with things not being as they seem, but in a good way. Like "That girl that's following you carrying an axe isn't out to kill you like you think, but rather she's off to return the axe to a friend who lent it to her the other day" kinda thing.

[Archmage1]

Give them individual, private missions, and inform them that there are spies nearby. if each knows that the others may or may not have opposed plans...

[DontEatRawHagis]

Agreed on the Private missions. The Paranoia game says you should give substantial rewards for completing side-objectives, eg better rewards than you main missions.

You will never get players to think another player is out to get them, without the player saying they are.

My players thought that one of them was a traitor for a split second when an envelope(part of a hallucination) burned in their hands. They believed it was a message from the BBEG to one of the players. In the end they forgot about it.

[Traab]

Do random rolls when the party members do certain things. They arent there for any reason, just roll, make a "hmm" noise, and pretend to write something down. Thats a good way to start paranoia, though itll be aimed at you for the most part. Also, might want to consider recruiting a party member to play along. Pass notes back and forth at ominous times. The party leader says, "Ok, lets go to the noblemans dinner" then the party rogue smirks, and writes a note he passes to the dm, who then nods after reading it. What did he write? Is he planning to steal something without letting the party know? Is he planning to rat them out? To kill someone?

[ReaderAt2046]

Have the characters be from several groups that don't get along very well, and have there be a lot of alcohol to facilitate drunken misunderstandings. (In the RPG I'm playing right now, my character thought another member of the party had admitted to being an agent of the BBEG while drunk.) Also, approach the players privately and see if any of them are amneable to actually playing a traitor-excellent challenge for a high-grade roleplayer!

[Zahhak]

I like having one of the PCs openly admit (metagame) that he is fully planning on turning on the party, and that he isn't the only one planning this. I've done this in a campaign. No one believed me. Until I killed one of the party members, severely injured another, and then escaped while destroying the parties ability to follow me.

They still no longer trust me in-game when something happens and I smirk.

[Kelb_Panthera]

For future advice, please clarify. Do you want the party paranoid that everyone's out to get them, or do you want them to each think the others are plotting against them? Both are doable, but the latter is much harder.

Also, two words; changeling & doppleganger. :smallbiggrin:

[Water_Bear]

The thing I've found is that people expect to be lied to, but they almost never expect to be lied to twice. If you set up a simple lie which when exposed results in a subtler lie, the PCs will swallow that second lie immediately and never think twice about it. This weakness in their thinking will allow you to plant doubt in their minds fairly easily.

So, for example, if you have a shady conman with decent (but not exceptional) Bluff come in and offer the PCs a deal which seems too good to be true the PCs will realize they are being lied to and start to investigate. But when they find papers with the Royal Seal in his pockets saying to get the PCs killed by leading them into an ambush, they will not for one second doubt that the Queen is trying to kill them. In reality, the actual villain has just secured a Party of assassins to eliminate her for the cost of a handful of gold and a Forgery check.

How I would use this:
Have an Evil Wizard kidnap a party-member and replace them with a visually identical copy. Make it painfully obvious that the switch happened out of game; grab the Player in question and RP the kidnapping out in a separate room, give them a new sheet for the duplicate, enforce Bluff v Sense Motive rolls, etc. The PC's will have their party member back by the end of the session.

But when they're in the Evil Lair, something odd happens. There are signs which indicate there were at least two duplicates created, of which the one they found is only the most recent. The kidnapped PC will have overheard talk indicating there is already a mole in the party. Do it right, and the characters will never trust each other again.

(For extra paranoia, make it clear the duplicates have the same abilities and memories as the original, only differentiated by easily-misinterpreted signs like animals not liking them or excessive paranoia. This one means easing up on the obviousness of the duplicate in step one, but avoids metagame reasoning about who the "traitor" is.)

In reality, there was no first duplicate; either it was a prototype or is impersonating some important NPC. The Wizard only recently became aware of the party as they were coming close to uncovering their scheme to replace important NPCs with duplicates, and was trying to gather info on them. Thus you gain a new BBEG, a sense of inter-party distrust, and a setup where any past or future NPC cannot be trusted with one session's worth of work.

[nedz]

Possession is quite fun too.

Just have them find a magic sword (or whatever) in some, apparently, random horde. This sword contains a Fiend of Possession. The Fiend will then start to play with them at some point when they are either off guard, or in the middle of some other combat. He possesses one, does something out of character, and then leaves. Combined with a judicious use of secret notes this can have them wondering just who is going to be possessed next.

[DontEatRawHagis]

He possesses one, does something out of character, and then leaves. Combined with a judicious use of secret notes this can have them wondering just who is going to be possessed next.

Has to be done well, otherwise you get players screaming about their character doing something out of character for them.

[ReaderAt2046]

This (http://ffn.nodwick.com/?p=28). Make sure your players read this.

[Morcleon]

....USODA!

...sorry, couldn't resist. Great series. :smallbiggrin:

Anyway, have everyone around them tell them constantly conflicting information. Don't have anyone tell them the same answer twice. And have the reason for these conflicting answers be that the events are actually changing.

Alternately, you could actually throw them in a fantasy version of Hinamizawa. :smallnipah:

[Joe the Rat]

Ever play Amber? That's a good warm up. Where else is player conflict the first step in character creation?

Do not let the characters have a common backstory. Discourage them sharing any information about their builds. Make sure they all have personal, secret goals.

And don't have them conflict - just have the idea of conflict out there.

Become a master of subversions. The little girl is just taking the axe home to papa. Papa's gonna come for you.
The rabbit on the stump isn't moving. It's a statue. And that's it. The one that's hopping about is an illusion, hiding something far larger...

You're definitely on the right track. Just make sure you don't get into a expectation subversion pattern (first subvert, then play it straight, then double-subvert; repeat). Mix it up. After they get used to things not being quite what they seem, run seven or eight things in a row that are exactly what they seem, and let the Gambler's Fallacy do the work for you.