There is a list of epic scenes that I want make happen in any campaign. One of these is classic moment when the smug bad guy boss slowly realizes that you’ve let him defeat your trap because you’ve actually ensnared him in a bigger, tighter trap. This is a typical climax in any heist or action-spy show. The payout comes because the audience generally has the same information as the villain and sees the second trap as it’s revealed to the bad guy. In a single moment, you go from “all is lost” to the realization that the protagonists have outsmarted the bad guys and were in control all along. The special sauce in this scene is that the protagonists were able to anticipate the villains’ reactions, had additional information unknown to the audience, and pulled off impossible stunts, cons, and feats of technology. These elements are what make this trope incredibly difficult to pull off satisfactorily in D&D.
So, how can you create the satisfaction of outsmarting the villain for your players?
First off you need an adventure hook where the goal is to the defeat the villain and not just kill him in some kind of boss battle (although you could still make that work). As an example I’m going to use “the party needs to discredit the King’s brother before he can kill the King and take over the kingdom.” The first step is then giving the players enough information to form a first plan. This information can be divulged through skill challenge, series of combats, or just regular role-playing. For example:
- The players go to an inn and are greeted warmly by the staff and patrons. Through some passive insight/streetwise they learn that it’s common knowledge that the PCs are friendly with the King and the regular people respect them for it. This justifies and encounter with the Evil Prince’s troops.
- Outside of town the party is accosted by some thugs in the Prince’s employ. On one of the bodies they find a bill of sale for some weapons and delivery location. This is not enough evidence to implicate the Prince, but enough to continue investigating.
- At the delivery location, the party discovers a secret army gearing up to take the castle by force, any day now. This is the immediate threat to be neutralized, but the party still has to gather evidence to expose the prince. The King might stop the army, but he won’t immediately believe his brother was behind the plot.
The next step is the most rewarding part for me, and hopefully interesting to your players too. The players now have to come with some crazy scheme to get that evidence. Each set of players will settle on something different, but what the situation is is not really important. As a GM, we’ll craft the rest of the adventure around whatever they come up with. This first plan is the “plot” that we want to villain to uncover and think he has defeated.
In my continuing example, the party has decided to capture a medium-ranked officer and “convince” him to turn on the Prince and testify before the King. This is the first, outer plan. Since we want to introduce the twist, the players have to be enticed to come up with the layered plan. In the movies, the protagonists “just know” that the initial plan will be defeated, but in a role-playing game the players only know what you tell them. But it’s no fun to tell them outright, so you’ll have to let them “learn” it.
Going back to my example, the captured captain mentions that the Prince will think something is amiss and might escalate the plans if the captain doesn’t present himself at dinner. He promises to sneak away in the morning and meet with the King in secret at the inn (going straight the castle would be too risky). The PCs let him go, but some Insight reveals uncertainty about his trustworthiness… after all, he was quick to betray his master. When the characters go to check the encampment, they see increased activity and more guards. The players have been betrayed! Now it’s time for the second plan.
At this point the players know that their trap has been foiled, but also know that the bad guys don’t know they know. They then can use their first plan as bait for a new plan. This is the secret plan that doesn’t get revealed to the movie audience until after the climax, but by playing this out the players get to be the “masterminds.” In the example, the players have learned that the Prince likes to rub victory in the face of his enemies personally, and they suspect that he will come to the inn personally to oversee the capture of the PCs. The party decides to tell king about the plot and promise that the Prince will corroborate the characters story, if he comes to the inn. The King will hide in the back and has loyal troops hide out nearby and be under-cover patrons of the inn. Since the innkeeper is friendly to the King and party, he will play along with it. The next morning the Prince comes with his thugs, accosts the PCs, and admits to his plots in a gloating monologue. That’s when the King reveals himself and arrests his brother.
This may seem a little simplistic, but in my experience even the simplest adventure plan gets complicated and twisted when wrung through the players. It’s important that their second plan have a chance of succeeding, even if it isn’t realistic for your world. Failures shouldn’t mean that the Prince has discovered the second plan and decided not to come, but rather make it harder (e.g. he brings more guards, or has prepared some evidence of his innocence that the players have to think fast to defeat). It’s a little unrealistic that the Prince would be that gullible, but the DM has the advantage of knowing the players’ plans and could make villain that is unbeatable, which would be no fun–the point of this scenario is to give the players the chance to “out smart” the bad guy. Only you will know how close they were to ruin.
When dealing with potentially complicated plans that involve anticipating NPCs, it’s best to assume that what ever the players come up with is a feasible plan (assuming the players are trying to come up with a good plan). It’s pretty hard to role-play someone smarter than yourself, so we should treat what the players say as an approximation of their character’s actions (just like when making a speech or playing music). You can set the DCs accordingly with how likely the plan is to succeed, and instead of focusing on the specifics of the plans, role-play out the consequences of those actions instead.
One final idea going back to the second paragraph: you can make the bait and trap be combat encounters instead of role-playones. For example let’s say the party is hunting a red dragon and wants the loot in his lair. In this case party has some basic information about the lair, but also know that the red dragon has found out that the PCs are coming and will be prepared for them. For example, the dragon has hired some minions and bought some lightning wands to foil the fire-resistance that the PCs will surely bring. Depending on how a good a job the players have done finding out the dragon’s preparations, they could bribe the minions to let them by and if they know about the lightning wands, they can bring some lightning resistance too!
Terrific post!
To be honest, players being multi-layered masterminds isn’t that dramatic in practice. The reason these “plans within plans” are exciting in movies and TV is that the audience doesn’t know the details of the plan, and only finds out about it in a big, dramatic reveal at its fruition. There’s zero drama if the audience knows there’s a plan in play and gets to watch every detail, especially since many of the details won’t actually be very interesting (in a movie some of the events would be a five-second flashback, but in-game the players might need several hours to slog through it).
There’s also the fact that the DM probably knows the details of the plan, so his bad guys are only going to walk into the trap if he arbitrarily allows it. The players aren’t actually outsmarting anyone, the DM’s just deciding to let them have their way.
So, yeah. I really don’t think this would be as interesting as you think.
Perhaps the way to make this work is by letting one player do all the dirty work, assigning tasks to each party member, and then collecting the results. The DM can then measure the results against the villain’s requirements for success. This takes a particularly astute player, and is highly situational, though.
I really like you ideas, but I agree with Captain Spud that it probably won’t be as cool for the players as you hope. If I wanted to achieve the “Oh, wow, the protagonists had a brilliant double-layered plan” ending, I think the way to go might be to have a secret meeting (in reality) with one of the players, where you agree upon a secret backup plan. Then, when the plan that everyone knows about has failed, you make something unexpected happen (like the King appearing out of nowhere). At this point, the secret-meeting-player reveals his brilliant backup plan, which blows the minds of the other players.
I guess I wasn’t all that clear about my idea. My goal was not to recreate the big reveal moment (which is the best part in a movie) but instead to create a satisfactory moment when the enemy realizes he isn’t as clever as he originally thought and the players have out-smarted him. It’s subtle, but this one puts the players in control and gives them a sense of accomplishment. I do agree that it would be tricky to pull off.
@Dave and @The Opportunist, your suggestions are great but I’d personally stay away from creating a “special player” situation. Mostly because that never turns out to be me, and I generally get annoyed at my fellow player when they pull out surprise like that, especially when it puts more spotlight on them.