Suggestions with balancing mission concept (deception of your friends!)

[Emperor_of_Krieg 0]

I've recently been working on a mission that will involve a little player on player deception, but I'm struggle with a way to balance it that will be fun for everyone in the mission. First a little setting of the scene so everyone gets an Idea what I'm going for.

 

    The island of Stratis is a militarized location for the AFF and also a site of a Biochemical testing facility. An EMP on the island takes out communication with the mainland. Assuming the worst a HAZMAT special operations team is sent in along with a NATO overseer to find out what happened. Unknown to the players at the start of the mission the research division was secretly looking into interdementional rifts and caused a demonic incursion on the island that wiped out most of the inhabitants. (Demons wont appear until later in the mission and be specific encounters, the mission is designed to be more suspenseful than just waves of zombies. I highly recommend leutin09's 'helvan indecent' videos to see the kind of atmosphere i'm going for). A large storm/unknown disturbances are making communication difficult at long ranges with basic radios, meaning the team will have to meet their insertion chopper at a defined location and wont be able to radio the rest of the squadron circling the island.

 

This is the basic setup/story for the mission. The twist however is that the NATO 'overseer' is an agent for the faction preforming the dementional tests. That player will have separate briefing tabs only they can see describing their mission. Their task is also to find out what happened, but to retrieve the results of the testing and leave the team they deployed with stranded on the island.

 

My issue is finding a fun way to balance the experience for both parties. Being the overseer and just trapping the hazmat troops in a room and blowing them up with a charge or shooting everyone in the back would be pretty dam easy, that would be boring and cheap and not lead to the experience I want to deliver. While the overseer is a high rank he is not in charge of the mission, that duty falling to the primary player leading hazmat team 1 (there are 2 teams of 3 + the overseer, obviously a better experience with more people). So while they will be working together, the overseer cant simply order the team to 'wait here' or 'stay put while i steal your vehicles'. But likewise the hazmat leader cannot order the overseer around with authority (mission meant to be role played at least somewhat, going to recommend task force radio in description for best experience). At some point the deception will be revealed and at first i think people will be like 'dude wtf are you doing' they'll catch onto the story component and go with it. I was thinking was that the overseer has a kill-switch to disable one of the jeeps the force starts with and escape in the other to another area where they have more to investigate, leaving the hazmat team with no fast transportation. The difficulty is making so that the hazmat men and overseer have encounters which will be hard to balance and time. I think his jeep should get wrecked/break at some point when he's equally close to a common objective with the hazmat team, forcing an encounter. I was thinking that during the players first encounter with demons over the radio the players hear the extraction heli team getting attacked by 'something' and then cutting to static. After (or during) the demon attack the overseer could abandon them for a secondary objective of his. During this his truck could be ruined, forcing him to move at a similar pace as the hazmat team, both gunning to the extraction site. Upon arrival they would discover the bodies of the team and find the chopper crashed and ruined nearby. Unable to contact the rest of the platoon circling the island, they would try try to reach the radio station to transmit a stronger signal. It either wouldn't work or they would contact the heli squadron (barely) and decide on an extraction point. The overseer, being nearby watching the team from a distance, would reveal himself and tell the team that he discovered the device is going to go off again and release another EMP, which would bring down the extraction choppers and their only way off the island. Despite the obvious mistrust, the overseer would be the only one able to disable the device but isnt able to reach it on his own (maybe its to heavily guarded by demons or something), and also needs to get on the extraction choppers, which are part of the hazmat team, who he has already betrayed at this point. From here there is a tense 'alliance' with the hazmat team keeping a close eye on the overseer. He would have to both work with the team and find a way to leave them at the last possible moment. I think an EMP should bring down the backup helos but one is still usable. The hazmat team should have reason to keep the overseer around (bring back for debrief and questioning) but he is all the while plotting his escape and a way to leave them stranded on the island.

 

I think if executed right this would be a very fun and unique mission to play but I need suggestions to refine my rough idea of what I want to make it flow. I know certain 'scenes' I want to take place but linking them together in a way that makes sense and flows will be tough.

-Initial deployment and looking for clues

-Overseer's initial betrayal and leaving the hazmat team

-overseer/hazmat teams separated with separate tasks (overseer would probably loose vehicle during this)

-both sides converging on extraction site, find helo ruined

-using radio tower to contact rest of helicopter squadron

-overseer comes back in contact with hazmat team, both sides enemies but need to work together

-overseer and hazmat team working together (tense alliance out of necessity)

-heli backup goes down, one salvageable

-attempt to repair?/find?/defend? final helo to escape island with overseer making final play to abandon hazmat troops/hazmat troops attempt to stop

 

If your still with me thanks for reading this far! Open to any ideas of how to make this work/changes to make it better. Let me know any cool ideas you have for this!

[Mr.Wiskers 1]

What if the overseer is able to use zeus as an out of roleplay thing. Lets say he can spawn stuff for just him or set traps for the others.

[johnnyboy 3795]

Interesting idea, but sounds very difficult to implement.  Since once players know the plot, there will be no surprise regarding overseer betrayal.

 

Maybe you can tweak your idea to where the traitor is randomly selected from team at mission start.  The traitor player then receives special instructions, information, and advantages the other players don't get.  Structure the mission that teamwork is required to complete objectives, all the while distrust is constant (think John Carpenter's "The Thing" where nobody trusts each other).  Structure tasks so team members must split up into smaller groups periodically, thus allowing better opportunities for Traitor treachery.

 

The card game resistance is interesting.   Maybe there are some ideas you can get from that.  "Spies" or "Traitors" are randomly selected at beginning, and the others must deduce who they are as game progresses.

 

Just some ideas man....good luck with your project.