Deception: The encounter is not what it appears to be. A common form of deception is one type of encounter masquerading as another. For example, the player characters are traveling along a road and meet an old peddler who evades their questions and tries to sell them her goods. The encounter appears to be an interaction until bad guys spring out of the woods and attack. Surprise!

An encounter that includes a disguised or delayed danger falls into this category. The peddler from the previous example might lie to the PCs, complicating future matters if the PCs fall for the ruse. The peddler might be a villain or monster. Perhaps the impostor is biding her time until she can attack the party, or perhaps she simply wants to get close to the party so she can learn something about them.

Another form of deception is the misdirection or red herring; the player characters discover an apparent clue that leads to a false conclusion or throws them off the scent. For example, in Poe’s classic story, The Murders at Rue Morgue, a witness reports that the criminal spoke German. In fact, the criminal, being an ape, didn’t speak at all. The hero of the story eventually detected the red herring by noting that every witness thought the criminal was speaking a different language, but players in a heroic fantasy game might be completely fooled.

Deceptions don’t often work unless the DM uses a variety of encounters. For example, if a campaign doesn’t use many interaction encounters, the sample deceptions described here are probably not going to work because the player characters tend to be suspicious. Parties accustomed to fighting everything they meet would probably attack the peddler at the outset and expose the deception or make it irrelevant.

Deceptions also tend to fail when they are overused. Players who are constantly on the lookout for deceptions not only detect them more readily, but their distrust makes it harder to pick up legitimate clues and hints during the game. Frustration sets in quickly if the players conclude that every NPC is a liar and every clue is a red herring.

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