How to start a secret invasion-thing
I saw a bit of John Carpenter’s The Thing last night. My favorite parts of the movie are the tensions that build up around people not knowing if their companions are impostors or not. I thought (because I’m a geek) about how to accomplish this in a RPG. It would be tricky.
My best suggestion (which wouldn’t work with certain players) would be to wait until one of the PCs died or one of the players was interested in switching characters (and arrange a death scene). When the character dies, have it revealed to have been an impostor (perhaps its appearance shifts to that of a doppleganger/skrull/weird-protoplasmic-thing/whatever). Make sure the player acts surprised.
Suddenly, the other players don’t even know if they are impostors…
As a player, were I to see that my response would be:
“Get me an incinerator and some copper wire!”
So stealing this. I'm trying to get a 4E D&D game started – we're all new to the system and we'll probably be wanting to try a lot of new things, so this will be a great way to mess with my players when they ask for their character to be killed off…
Ah “The Thing”. One of my all-time favorite movies. I think I have it on DVD in my movie collection.
My favorite line from the movie: “I know you gentlemen have been through alot, but when you find the time, I’d rather not spend the rest of this winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH!”
Secret invasions are fun! I ran one in a D&D campaign a few years back, using shape-shifters who could drain the memories of their target and use them to emulate their victim.
I didn't want to turn a character into a shape-shifter, so I infiltrated their support base instead. The local militia and mage's guild were both targeted. One of the group members eventually did get brain-drained, it led to an entire adventure chasing down the shape-shifter to get his memories back.