Is this a mean thing to do?

>>43880534
10 stupid points out of 10.

He sounded as if he was on board with it, so sounds like a great idea to me. gave the players a nice shock horror moment

>>43880534
Was there actually a roll to stay awake? Or was that just railroading?

>>43880534
> running 3.5
> Is this a mean thing to do?
Yes.

>>43880653
Will checks to stay awake. I normally don't do it unless the players haven't slept in several days, which they hadn't because of shapeshifter fuckery.

>>43880653
I dont think it would matter, it made an interesting scenario and if the player is cool with it then why not

>>43880585
>>43880722
Actually it sounds like he wasn't. You don't give someone "the stinkeye" when you approve of what they're doing.

>>43880534

If you just allowed the backstab by fiat, with no chance of any reaction from other characters, that's hard railroading. Likewise with the Rogue falling asleep on guard duty.

Even so I wouldn't necessarily object as long as it's in the interests of a good campaign story, and if the Wizard isn't just going to get fucked up and killed with no chance of avoiding it.

That's because I'm a reasonable adult human being and not a squealing Yale-tier entitled little fuck, and I don't go full retard over "muh agency xp" at the slightest opportunity.

There is only one appropriate situation in which OP's scenario would work, and that's if the player involved was in on it.

In movies, BBEG villains have the "You can either fight me, or go save your friend/love interest/ally!" situation all the time, usually with the choice to leave and save the good people resulting in the BBEG having more time to complete his plans or grow more powerful. It's a common theme, and it works well if it's used smartly.

It kinda sounds like OP fumbled through it and did it very ham-handedly.

>>43880534
Did you get the Rogue player to roll checks to maintain his disguise?

>>43880816
Oh, you're right, I must have skimmed over that bit. Apologies

>I'd told the rogue what happened before the big reveal

Since it sounds like they were playing the character the same, yes, it's completely wrong. Because the doppelganger, although having the appropriate appearance, shouldn't be acting entirely appropriately for the character.

Therefore, you made the player use knowledge of their character they shouldn't have, which means things that could have been hints, or in retrospect realized were hints weren't there.

So, yes, you should feel bad. There's nothing wrong with getting a player on board, but making it be something that happened in the past feels cheap, not only because you're taking agency away from the player, but they don't have the knowledge to split the character from the doppelganger. Any time you did something really cool it suddenly wasn't your character any more, cheapening your success. Any real good role-play moments are cheapened because it also wasn't your character, and now you have to backtrack to think about how your character would react to that.

These types of things should always be done in advance, not, "Oh hey, it turns out your character hasn't really been your character for the last few sessions." If I had someone pull that shit on me I would have told them to kill off the original character and have the doppelganger say they'd been dead since murderrape forest, because, quite frankly, it'd be easier to roll up a new character than try and refocus what I thought of the character to account for everything that I thought had happened, that hadn't.

>>43880534
>>le evil plan
>>replace party member without warning or chance for party to find out before key moment
>>doesn't plan ahead
>>needlessly prolongs campaign
shit DM/10

>>43880891
At the start of the next couple days. After that, no one would be suspiscious, so there was no reason to. They get a like +20 to their disguise checks anyways.

>>43880816
>>43880953
He didn't know at first. But I talked with him privately before that session with the BBEG. He understood why I did it. If you inform a player that they are being doppelganged on, they might try to drop hints later on. We rolled out the details after everyone left.

He decided that after all he'd been through he'd like to drop a couple of his rogue levels for some barbarian fury. I told him it was fine, since his characters mind was driven to near insanity.

It all worked out in the end, and now they are gearing up to fight him again. This time, the wizard is last in line.