Some of my most cherished moments in Pendragon were comments such as these:

"We're really just thugs, aren't we?"

"Blah blah peasants."
"Poor bastards...."

Those were moments when we looked at each other and understood something. Gray on gray is how I like it.

I ran a CoC game a year or so back where folks were trying to convince them that their organization was more or less a front for a church of Nyarlathotep.

It actually wasn't true, though they believed it up until the TPK at the very end.

In my Arcana Evolved game, the party is/was working for a dragon who's been slowly changing from "Naive Explorer" to "Benevolent Dictator" to - now - "Idealistic Good-Natured Unwitting Tool of Evil."  It's been a slow progression, and a lot of it is more or less the players' fault.

-O

Quote from: flyingmiceAnother intereresting change would be to pull a double switch, where the PCs come into the situation thinking they are the good guys, they see and hear and experience things that make them doubt their mission, then find that evidence was carefully engineered, and they really were the good guys.

-clash

This is actually where I was planning on going with one of my NWN module ideas.

The player(s) are elite guard in the service of the Obsidian Empire, commissioned to keep order in the empire at all costs.  They start off being commisioned to squash a rebellion in the outlying regions.  Through their interactions with the rebellion they start to see just how oppressive the Empire is, that maybe they're the bad guys here.  But as things continue to develop they discover that the Empire is sort of a lesser evil at the least, having meen mandated by the Gods to maintain order, to keep back the spread of Chaos that is always nipping at the borders of the Empire.  They wind up questioning whether the Empire still has the Divine Mandate, and there's a lot of questions about freedom vs order, and what one will give up to maintain security.

In the end, neither the Empire or the rebels come up smelling like roses.  THe Empire IS corrupt and oppressive, but the rebels are in their own way basically unwitting pawns of the forces of Chaos (possibly even direct pawns).  

I really need to finish the story, but I put it on hold because a friend was pressuring me more to do something multiplay friendly, so I wound up starting on a zombie apocalypse mod instead.

I can't believe that no one has brought up the "Black Company" novels during this thread. I haven't read any of them but the first, but it contained the bait n' switch you're talking about: the characters signed on for a mission without realizing that their boss was that world's equivalent of The Devil.

Does the Black Company RPG run with this assumption?

I think the idea of the players being the bad guys is a very difficult one to pull off. Simply because you would have to play with their preconceptions.

e.g. if you ran a Star Wars campaign with the players as stormtroopers, now that would be cool, and the players would really get into the role of kicking imperial citizens around. So who is the bad guy and who isnt.

I mean I would draw the line at playing Nazis during a WW2 campaign simply because I would question both the player's and GM's reasons for doing so. But isnt that the real dichotomy of a villain, in so much as that he genuinely believes he is doing good or at the very least doing a bad deed to accomplish a greater good.

I like this plot twist, with the caveat that I take care that there are sympathetic figures that will get hurt if the PCs decide to side with the bad guys, and/or they find out the bad guys intend to "gack" them after all is said or done.

Having this plot twist unveiled and then having the PCs decide to stay the course would piss me off beyond all belief.

Quote from: J ArcaneIn the end, neither the Empire or the rebels come up smelling like roses.  THe Empire IS corrupt and oppressive, but the rebels are in their own way basically unwitting pawns of the forces of Chaos (possibly even direct pawns).  

Yeah, J - that's exactly what I was talking about. Maybe no one has clean hands here, but at least on your side it's just good old human dirt, not unclean ichor - and maybe you can do something about that dirt when you get a chance...

-clash

Quote from: Caesar SlaadHaving this plot twist unveiled and then having the PCs decide to stay the course would piss me off beyond all belief.

Hear hear!

DAMN YOU FREE WILL!!!