Shaping Your Game Setting to Fit Your Players - The Case of the PC Assassin

My Tuesday game has gone in an unexpected direction. I run an after school D&D program for kids 10-14 years old, and this September one of them came to me with a request. He wanted to play an assassin. His father had all the 1e AD&D books and he had read them over the summer, he was fascinated with the assassin as a class and wanted to play one. That’s fine, but as he is 11 years old, I did pause for a moment. Would his parents be OK with him playing an assassin? Sure, to some extent D&D adventurers kill for gold all the time, so what’s the difference? The difference is that being a paid killer is something I’m sure most of the parents would not be keen to have their kids doing. I contacted the parents and asked them how they felt about it. They had mixed feelings, on the one hand it is "just a game" and the father was sympathetic to his son's request. But on the other hand, they weren't sure if it was appropriate for an 11 year old to play a hired hit man. 

So I suggested a compromise. The setting I use has rival factions, one of those factions is the Black Feather Assassin’s Guild, dedicated to the god of death, Omagh. The other is the temples, specifically the Temple of the god Jannak, another god of death. When I was constructing my pantheon I drew inspiration from real world pantheons, many of which have multiple gods of death. So the idea here is that factions representing different gods of death would be allied against each other, existential rivals in the game of life.

The Temple has been attempting to slowly take over the city using shadow demons that take over people and possess them. The demons are infiltrating the various noble Houses and rising in power and influence. While being possessed by a shadow demon the target’s soul is submerged, and the demon runs their body. Because of this when a demon takes someone over it is often noticeable to those closest to them, so they have stuck to lower level targets who are not as important and well known. 

They are playing the long game of taking over the city. So the priests of Jannak are in on what is happening, but otherwise their work is done in secret. However, the Black Feather Assassin’s Guild serves Omagh, and Omagh works against Jannak. So the guild discovered this plot, and has taken it upon themselves to identify those possessed by shadow demons and to send out their assassins to slay them. This serves the dual purpose of giving tribute to their god (the god of death) but also working against their opponent, the servants of Jannak. When they slay the possessed targets they release their soul to travel to the hereafter, a soul trapped in the demon controlled body.

I like doing this sort of thing, making the “bad” guys potential allies, as it makes the RP more interesting, and makes choices more complex. Now, the PC that plays an assassin is a servant of Omagh, he slays those possessed by shadow demons before they can be forced to do evil in Jannak’s name. This was more palatable to the parents than the PC being a hired assassin who would regularly have to slay innocents, those possessed by demons cannot be saved, only slain so their souls can be released, they can be kept from committing evil under shadow demon command and they can go on to their afterlife, freed. 

The player gets to have his assassin PC, his PC is imbedded in the factional conflict of the game setting, giving me free adventure hooks to hand out and keeping the party involved in the city setting’s machinations. And I don’t get angry emails from parents asking why their kid is a paid assassin slaying innocents for gold. 

Win win.

Now, last week the PC assassin was sent to slay a frog-man named Korlip Fama, he was a giant lizard breeder who was possessed by a shadow demon. The PC failed in his assassination attempt, but Korlip was slain by a city guard by mistake. Afterwards she Assassin’s Guild contacted the PC and told him that one of Korlip’s associates, a frog-man named Deek Carlig, who they believed to be demon-possessed as well, had fled the city when the PC showed up to try and slay Korlip. The guild had a lead on his location and the PC was sent to track him down and see if he would lead them to some of the movement’s leaders. 

So the PC assassin brought along the other two party members, an illusionist and a fighter/thief. They travelled into the marshes to the shantytowns to find Carlig and his associates, a group of frog men, playing dice. The PCs joined their dice game, lost a few rounds, and left. They then followed the frog-men in a boat when they left the shantytowns, using the illusionist’s power to conceal them.

They eventually caught up to Carlig and his men at an abandoned temple in the marshes, where they were meeting with a priest of Jannak to plan their next move. Four of the frog-men, Carlig and the priest, one Risik Thace, were in conversation while four of the other frog-men waited outside to watch for intruders. 

The party illusionist, bold as brass, walked out of the woods towards the frog-men outside of the temple and cast a hypnotism spell, fortunately for him they all failed their saves, so he had a chance to cast a suggestion. 

“What do you tell them?” I asked. 

“I tell them that the party and I are friends, we have worked together in the past and we are here to work with them again.”

It was an interesting ploy. The suggestion meant that the four frog-men all believed that they knew the three party members, they just couldn’t exactly remember where they had met. 

The frog-men asked them to enter the temple so they could speak to Thace. They did enter, and the priest of Jannak was instantly suspicious, who were these people and why were they here? 

The party assassin then decided to go for broke:

“I know these men (pointing to the four frog men who were under the power of the suggestion), and I followed them here to find you. The Black Feather guild slayed my family years ago, I have entered the guild and work for them now to gain their trust, but I want to bring them down. We came here to join with you against the Guild, because we know that the servants of Jannak are aligned against the servants of Omagh. We can spy on the Guild, let you know their plans, and I can help you bring them down. I can’t do it on my own, but I can help you to succeed where I’m bound to fail”

It was a brassy move, the PC was a member of the Guild, and confessing it right up front was a way to gain their trust, I added a +5% to the reaction roll for that. I added an additional 10% for charisma modifier, and another 5% as four of the frog-men vouched for the party as old associates. 

The roll came up high, so he was successful. Risak Thace accepted their proposal, but it wasn’t a slam dunk, so he suggested that one of the party members allow a shadow demon to possess them so they would have some extra power to help against the Guild.

The party illusionist responded by saying that the victims of the shadow-demons were essentially dead, as they only lived until the demon left their bodies, and until then they were puppets. They were willing to help out, but not to die. Then Thace suggested that Deek Carlig, the shadow-demon possessed frog-man, would accompany the party, to act as a liaison between them and the priest (and to keep an eye on what they were doing, Thace was no fool). 

That’s where we broke today. 

Altering the PC assassin’s situation to fit the campaign setting was a good decision, it allowed the player to play the PC he wanted, which at the end of the day is what the game is about, he wanted to be an assassin, and he got to be an assassin. But this way he was happy, his parents were happy, and I was happy, as the PC, and by extension the party, was now all up into the setting, tied to factions, and engaged in the sort of edge of your seat machinations that make for exciting factional play. The Guild is dangerous and above their pay scale, the cult of the shadow-demons is dangerous and above their pay scale too, and now the party is situated between them, playing one against the other, and trying to stay alive.

None of this would have happened if I had said, “No, you can’t do that”, or if I had barred the class from being used out of concern for how the parents would react. There are going to be some things you can’t do in your game, for whatever reason, but with some imagination and the commitment to make the game a shared experience, you can work magic.