The First Three Sins

Continuing the account of how I tried to tempt players, characters, and NPCs on the last two Nights of the Devil ... the tale of Night the First.

1. Wrath.
The concept: Three erinyes, each armed with seven magic arrows of Wrath (Mind save or charge out to attack them), circle and shoot at the party. They at first used their illusion to masquerade as tempting ex-lovers of the penitent Diarmuid, but this was not done to excite his Lust, but his Wrath - right now he was feeling nothing but rage at the evil fay who had charmed him for year on year and drained over half his hit points.
The execution: As it turned out, the magic of the arrows did not exactly overwhelm the characters; only a couple of party members got hit once they got behind cover, and these were easily enough restrained. But the players! One of them got really, really mad at the whole situation - just taking incoming fire, not going to do a thing about it, not knowing if the DM had just set up a certain slow death situation! After cooler heads decided to stick it out some more, the erinyes ran out of arrows, fired a final salvo of the party's own shot arrows, and departed.
The verdict: Worked great as a player temptation. Magic arrows almost not necessary.

2. Avarice.
The concept: Seven bearded devils with magic sacks throw treasure at the party trying to get them to pick it up. For each one who succumbs to avarice, a devil may enter the magic circle and attack.
The execution: In practice this temptation was pretty obvious, so I had to step it up with numerous waves of treasure. Soon enough, the devils were throwing crowns that tried to land on people's heads, and snaky gold chains that dragged away pieces of equipment if they hit you. The last trick was for the bags to call out a large portion of coins from each character's purse. Now that hit them where they live! The self-same player who had succumbed to wrath now made to stomp on a fleeing gold piece, and thereby admitted one devil into the circle. The party defeated it in more or less short order, and the "temptation" paid off as that devil's sack, containing his stolen gold, got left behind ...
The verdict: Another great way to get under the skin of the players ... they're used to steering clear of treasure that looks to good to be true, but their materialism really shows when you start to take their stuff. I made all the treasure fake, but in hindsight it should have been real.

3. Envy.
The concept: Sixteen threads of ghostly, whispering letters, two for each person in the circle, come snaking in. If they get in your ear and you fail a save, they whisper envious words and make you attack another party member you have cause to envy.
The execution: Magic and silver weapons could fray and disperse the threads, but soon enough a large number of them were in threat range. A henchman and the dwarf succumbed. Cold holy water in the face allowed a repeat save, and the henchman rallied, but the dwarf did not, and he rushed and pummeled the lower-level fighter PC to whom the holy knights had given the devil-slaying sword, that cheesy noob! The brawling rules got a workout as the two ended up in the defensive ditch they'd dug.
The verdict: The actual challenge was not the toughest, but not knowing what the threads were and seeing them come from all sides made for a frightening experience, as did the possibility of turning the party against itself. I only later thought that maybe the players could be induced to feel envy if the threads redistributed experience points from one character to the other ... but how this feeling would lead to the characters committing the sin, exactly, remains to be seen.

I was also prepared for player skill to help break the threads - anyone who tried to think of ways their character was great, all right and really okay would resist them without a save. Maybe because the encounter played out as a combat rather than psychological challenge, this didn't occur to anyone.

Next: the final night and its four sins.

The Devil's Acre: Temptation

How do you represent spiritual temptation in an adventure game?

Well, you could play Pendragon RPG, a system that explicitly rates each character's vulnerability to different character flaws and passions. A Pendragon knight beset by an unearthly vision of lust would roll a 20-sided die, check his character sheet, and either succeed or succumb. In service of a more picaresque story, a Dying Earth RPG character might be overcome by a persuasive flourish and be compelled sit down at the gambling table with a known master swindler.

Temptation is part of those games' moral mechanics. It's not part of most other games, though. You may have alignment, or resistance to mental influence, but nothing stops the characters from making choices like perfect Puritanical optimizers, every day of the week. Except maybe under "carousing for experience" rules, which kind of proves the point.

As I threw wave after wave of diabolical tempters at the party on the last two nights of their ordeal, defending the praying penitent in the Devil's Acre, a number of options arose:

1. Have the tempters target the NPC penitent; the PCs have to stop them from getting into range and distracting the penitent, and the tempters will fight to get close. If the blockade fails, then being an NPC, the penitent has to make some kind of save or check against the temptation.

Um, yeah, just like that.

2. Have the tempters target the PCs, trying to pull them away from the penitent or claim them as prizes in their own right. "You succumb to lust unless you save" doesn't seem quite right, but magical temptation does lie with in the rules of the traditional adventure game, as a spell-like effect. And, what do you know, quite a few devils as written come with charm and suggestion effects.

3. Note the past behavior of the PCs and their allies, and use this to direct the efforts and outcome of strategy #2. It's not a matter of rolling a die, but of having raided a merchant ship for its treasure four sessions ago, so Avarice already has its claws in you. This makes the most sense if sin pays in your campaign, at least temporarily; for example, if spending gold on carousing nets you more experience points than donating it safely to a church does.

4. Target the players. I need to explain this some.

In the past here, I've argued for drawing on the concerns and tendencies of the players themselves to stand in for such traits in their characters as alignment and morale. Obviously, this won't always work. Some of these theological sins refer to the satiation of bodily needs: lust and gluttony in particular. All right, there were some pretty delicious chocolate and banana cakes on the table at our session, and I could have worked them in somehow ... but yeah, and then lust, no, yeah, forget it.

Other of the theological sins, however, serve the needs of the ego, the little character we all build for ourselves. I don't care if you don't play D&D. You are still walking around with a "character sheet" in your head, with some idea of your skills and abilities, where you fit in the hierarchy of things (level) and what road you walk in life is (class). It's part of the undying psychological appeal of role-playing - to create a character on paper more free, more disciplined, more interesting, more dramatic, than the one in your skin. But when you role-play, the two egos become one, as you defend the interests and dignity of your character.

With these other sins, to attack the character is to attack the player, whose ego is the character's ego. Wrath? Touch upon the player's need to avenge harm done. Avarice? Throw loot at the player - or better yet, threaten to take it away. Envy? Make the player feel unfairly disadvantaged; take away some experience points and give it to the next guy. Pride? It's what makes them go "Let me tell you about my character..." Work with it.

All right. In the actual Devil's Acre session, some of these ploys worked better than other. Next post: a play-by-play of the seven-round knockout the Band of Iron dealt the Prince of Darkness.