Oh, dear do I love a good Doppelgänger-based encounter. They’re purpose-built for infiltrating the factions of both friendlies and foes alike with their complex, duplicitous schemes.
Using them cleverly can be immensely rewarding when one can orchestrate that tricky but ever-so satisfying “big reveal.” I’m not necessarily talking about your silly Scooby-Doo unmasking (“Old Man Potter was just a Doppelgänger all along!”), more the fruition of careful plotting and positioning spanning an entire campaign (or at least several sessions). They make consummate nemeses and the perfect recurring foils.
I have some Players that have developed a deep-seated animosity towards Doppelgängers, and for good reason. They were a perennial foe in one of my longer running campaigns, and it didn’t hurt that I’d engineered some rather duplicitous situations to help me home in on their full potential.
To feed and foster the inherent Paranoia of being “Pod Personed,” after introducing them and their concepts, I took each player aside periodically before games to ask them if they’d like to volunteer to play a Doppelgänger for a session.
I recommend assuring them that their actual character would remain safe and eventually return, maybe even dangling some additional Experience for a session well-played. Emphasize the importance of keeping their choice and the conversation secret from the other players for maximum effect.
I suppose one could select and brief a willing confederate if one has any players that are up to the task (sometimes a little light PvP can be fun after all and the best kinds of party sabotage are self-inflicted), but it’s far more devious to just mention that you’ll mull any volunteering over and provide your answer with a pre-arranged note-passing in-game. Then proceed to play the session with private notes-a-flying to all participants (taker and non-taker players) alike. I’ll leave it as an exercise for the more devilish DM whether one actually ends up needing to select a Doppelgänger from any “takers” to have the desired effect.😊
As far as Encounter Activities go, you could just as easily roll on the table of the Humanoid they’re impersonating to get an idea of what they’re doing “right now.” This table might be more useful to inspire in terms of plotting out their underlying insidious plans and over-arching villainous machinations.
Very nice table ! I'll let it inspire my "dune" campaign in what the "face dancers" are doing !
ReplyDeleteAnd i learned of the "iframe" tag thanks to this table !
Praised be your technical knowledge !