Sneakiest tricks/ plots?

[Dr_BadLogic]

Hey guys!

I'm a new member here, and soon (ish) to be running Amber for the first time.  I have my main plot vaguely outlined in my head (featuring the disappearance of King Random and two factions in the Courts of Chaos), set after the Patternfall War and ignoring the Merlin series...  But in order to keep the tone of the Amber series, I sometimes worry that my plot will not have enough twists and turns, and general sneakiness from the main players.

To help inspire me, I was wondering:  What was the sneakiest thing you, or someone you know, pulled off in a game?  Or indeed - sneaky things that you tried, but didn't get to work?

[RPGPundit]

Are you asking as a GM, what's the sneakiest thing a GM can do?
Or about sneaky stuff players have done?

If the latter, I don't know how helpful that will be; besides being terribly sneaky, Amber players tend to be very original too...

RPGPundit

[Dr_BadLogic]

Either is fine.  I'm not looking to be told what to do, or to mimic what others have done.  I'm just interested in what others have done, and different approaches others take.

For example, as a GM, I'm quite good at characters who appear to be overly villanous, naive, etc, and are revealed to be drastically different - whether they've been putting on an act, or because the players have only seen said characters in a specific context.

I've asked my players to give me some brief details about backgrounds, and people important to them, etc.  One of my players created an npc who is in love with his character, although said character is oblivious.  I'm planning to develop her as a scion of the Courts of Chaos, and have her parentage involved in the faction that wishes to destroy Amber, in order to create mixed loyalties (or just the perception thereof) down the line.

I'm also contemplating including a pair of brothers who kidnapped Random for the faction that simply wants Chaos and Amber balanced.  But they may have sympathies for Amber, and a sense of being able to get something out of simply releasing Random.

So I have an idea for a number of the players in the intrigue, what they want, and what they might settle for.  But I'd like to stretch myself as a GM and learn from others who think in a different way to myself.  I think largely in terms of giving false impressions and jumping on opportunities.  Others might have stories that I could learn from.

[Ivanhoe]

I was very proud of my players during a double-sneakiness encounter :

(we play during war against chaos) A new player, son of Bleys, was to meet other players after having conquered a chaosian shadow. For various reasons, he chose not to meet them as an Amberite but to masquerade as a Chaosian and to send a diplomatic mission to discuss with the players. He knew of a chaos lord named 'Hack' and knew he was far away, so he pretended to be this guy. But he knew how risky it was to meet Amberites. So he chose a very-loyal-ready-to-die soldier of his army that had good acting skills and let him pretend to be Hack, while the player himself would pose as an advisor.

He met a PC Amberite in a somehow neutral ground. They both had two guard and an advisor. Heh, the Amberite's advisor was also a PC in disguise. The fake Amberite managed to get out of the place as a messenger while he let his actor get angry with the PCs. Unknowingly from Bley's son, the other players had a trump to the true Hack. They had planned on trying to capture him so one was to attack him physically while the other was to attack him psychically through the trump. What was bound to happen happened : they summoned the true Hack, not understanding what this mess was about and they are still unsure of what happened :-)

As a GM I had a lot of fun inventing the stories that are told in Amber's taverns about the players. All of them are grounded in truth, but they also often bear some fiction about them.

But generally, as a GM, I do not feel it necessary to add sneakiness, my players are skillful enough in that field. The receipt to achieve this is classical : give a player a hammer and another player a nail. PCs should have objectives that are slightly different but complementary. And secrets. Lots of useful secrets.