"Is It Okay To Lie To Your Players?" Topic

Suppose you are the GM and you set up a game scenario based on an actual battle where one side was under attack but expected reinforcements which never arrived. Is it okay to tell the defending side that they will receive reinforcements in the course of the game and then later tell them "Sorry, I was lying. No reinforcements are coming. Your mission is now to retreat off the table with as few losses as possible". Is that ethical?

Would term it more misdirection, but sure.

Don't tell them you're lying. Just tell them reinforcements were needed in another sector.

Yes. It could be a design element to challenge the owning player to adjust on his feet, as an "Oh, Sheit!", moment. I am sure this sort of thing really did happen: perhaps the reinforcements were delayed, attacked, diverted, stalled, etc. An unexpected enemy unit arrived without a proper invitation (I do so hate party-crashing uninvited guests -- especially when I have a delicious slaughter planned for my enemy's troops!): bridge was blown up before the reinforcements could cross it; an enemy sniper has them pinned down; an enemy Unit arrived unexpectedly, and is engaging in combat with your reinforcement's troops; perhaps an air raid has wiped out your reinforcement along the road to your present location…

I would give the Player an in-game reason as to why their reinforcements did not arrive, or at least I would suggest a plausible, in-game reason why they never showed up. Cheers!

I would add hints that they may be delayed. Build it up until you let them know they are one their own. Market Garden is the example that comes to mind.

I wouldn't characterise it as lying, but there are various ways to handle this sort of thing in a game. For one game I actually gave each side different rules (1967 AiW) and it took a while for the Egyptians to notice that the Israelis were moving much faster than them…

Part of a scenario – a good thing – Fog of War – and a lot of what was stated above

Also can either be used to have unexpected troops show up as well

In a skirmish game – having a third party can also put some interesting decisions before players

It's ethical since you are not lying.

You are providing an appropriate friction of war element for the scenario.

Once battle has begun, anything is possible. Fog of war. Your dilemma is you are confusing providing realism with ethics. Two different things. Pretty much as said above. Actual lying to your gamers would be to tell them you are providing pizza and drinks and then not providing them.

If your group regularly plays Diplomacy or Junta, then they'll be primed for such shenanigans.
Or have them roll a D20 and shake your head sadly. "Sorry. No reinforcements for you!"
Just have something ready in a box or tray to show them, and snatch it away with an evil chuckle.

"You are expecting reïnforcements around turn 4"

"Headquarters has promised reïnforcements are on the way."

No lies detected.

"You are expecting reïnforcements around turn 4."

"Headquarters has promised reïnforcements are on the way."

"Ney should be here at any moment."

No lies detected.

I give my players a disclaimer.

I will give you the scenario and victory conditions that you as the commander believe to be true at the start of the game.

That may or may not reflect the reality on the ground depending on the accuracy of his intel or other circumstances.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

Create "official messages" to hand to the player, appropriate in style and source to the period/genre.
For some players, that will immediately be a clue that they'd better not rely on reinforcements. For others, shocked when no reinforcements appear, that will at least move the "blame" to the fictional source of the messages, and not you as referee.

(Hey, I'm a DM. Anything I might say might be completely false…)

Yeah. As noted, for some scenarios you have to. The whole thing hinges on someone having a mistaken idea of conditions. But if you want to keep a group, make it clear at the start of the series that this may happen sometimes, and don't leave the same players holding the dirty end of the stick all or even most of the time.

You really don't want to create a feels bad or gotcha moment.

If you have a history of games like this then fine. If not, it's just another stupid home made scenario that was a waste of time.

There is a game master I play with who is known for lying in setup. He loves scenarios where you are given orders and then discover they are completely wrong, or have a set of victory conditions that turn out to be bs. The events he holds are so good that you get over it, and once you are prepared that this will happen, you learn to question everything.

Still ticks me off a lot of times when we play.

I generally give both sides their Order of Battle which shows where and how many reinforcement's they received. What I don't tell them is the other sides reinforcement schedule.

I don't think changing the objectives halfway through is a bad thing either, I just wouldn't do it too often.

miniMo – Best reply to the OP! :)

Also, if you do that too often, your players expect it often, which mitigates the surprise. You should only misdirect about HQ intent for support on a regular basis if you are playing WWII Italians, Nazis "supporting" Italians, or any Sovs.

You can mix it up with "conditional" reinforcements, that is reenforcements that arrive with a constraint on player action. A couple of examples:

They show up at the end of a turn, and you must activate them last on the next turn.
– Uh, yeah … we burned all our gas getting here. We need d3 turns before we can move out.
– We were late because our vehicles are broken. You need to pull 1 or 2 units back to carry us to the fight.
– Med cleared us. We're pretty much over the plague. Where do you want us? Up front in the middle of all the other troops?
– We were delayed getting an intel brief. We have a +2 roll against enemy units X, Y, and Z.

I am a big fan of using a deck of playing cards for events like that. It's pretty low overhead and easy to control probabilities, and even change them "on the fly", either with good math skills or pre-planning (three ref sheets – one for the desired design, one for an "easier" one and one for a "hard" one).

A game is defined by being outside of the real world. So ethic questionable is only, if you bring in the real world. Things like: You didnt get reinforcement, because i dont like you; your reinforcement is late, because last time you made my reinforcement late. Lies in the game world are not ethically wrong, like killing toysoldiers in a game is not ethically wrong.

A game is supposed to be fun. If something turns out to be fun for everyone that would tend to suggest that it's okay. But if someone is expecting and planning on reinforcements and then they don't come, that's going to feel like you arbitrarily handed the game to their opponent. How is that fun? As stated, the answer is no, not because misleading people is wrong but because you will be ruining the game for one player.

Now if there was bad news for the other player, too, that *might* work, but you're essentially changing the scenario (forces and objectives) mid game, which is more likely to be annoying than exciting.

So without more context I'm going to say that misleading players can be okay, but simply taking away forces from one side is not okay.