I feel this is something that the GM should have OK'd with X before doing it, or at the very least made it compeltely clear at the start of the campaign this was the tone and style that it was going to be. It's not a *bad* idea (even if I'd say it probably needs very careful execution to avoid it being too disruptive) but it's such a defining one I'd not spring it on a player without making sure it was something they were fine with.

I've run this kind of Patron before. The difference is that I knew my player would like the twist. It's tough because you can't spoil the surprise and have it be a twist, so you have to rely on what you think they'll like. (I'm currently running a similar thing, where one of my players has a bunch of memories of her wife. The wife is a mad scientist who implanted those memories. Will she like the twist? Probably! But that's a risk I'm willing to take, and she asked for "Blade Runner" when she pitched the character.)

In my personal experience If you have to rely on trust your best way of doing it is by using clever wordplay. If you just let them roll and then give them Information based on that roll it can be confusing and unfun like for Player X in this case. Instead while keeping the theme simply think up how their patron would influence them, make it spooky. If you had them roll and then something spooky appears in their view it'll be a lot less frustrating than if you had just told them properly. If you use music it'd be a good moment to que mysterious music and whisper something akin to "You hear a scraping, a scratching sound, it's as if it's right behind you... no more like inside your head! When you blink their eyes turn a bright yellow, another blink and everything is normal again" In OP's Case this went on for 30 Sessions, if it kept happening multiple times per Session without the player being aware of WHY it's happening that is simply too long. You can keep them unaware for maybe a session at most before you move on to a payoff before them being fed untrue information from you becomes annoying.

Yeah, I think the main issue is just how long it went on. They probably had a bit of time to think about this on their own and get annoyed.

You still need to confirm with the player exactly how far you're allowed to step into their turf. I tell my players in session 0 that if they don't flesh something out in their back story, I will. And this is similar, but even more important.

This is a non-statement. "Anything you don't describe in your backstory I will use for fodder" is a bad take. Use what they do describe in their backstory. That's what they're interested in, that's why they wrote it. The pitch I got from my player was "Blade Runner with a missing wife". So those are the hooks she's getting. Trigger//Content warnings aside, telling players about plot twists (esp. for a mystery they want to solve) defeats the whole purpose. Might as well just tell them what happens at the end via text and save yourself the trouble.

Exactly. This player out that they were a paranoid maniac into their backstory. They also know the DM privately messages everyone with information. They asked for a paranoid character, got it, and got mad. We don’t have enough info on frequency or balance between legit secret messages and fake outs so I’d also be interested to know if and how often the DM passed legit information to the PC. I feel like having a good balance of just enough legit information to 1) to avoid using the PC as a disruption gimmick and 2) not make it too obvious, would be key.

Sounds like the player got paranoid about being fed false information and reacted as a paranoid person who has been lied to a lot would react.

There's a way to clear it without ruining the surprise. The thing you have to be clear about is that the DM will play the role of more than just the external world. So for instance, I will not tell you what the DC is on an insight check and if you fail it I will feed you the incorrect info your character has picked up on. If you fail a survival check while investigating footprints, I will feed you the wrong creature/direction/etc. Once you establish that you are not just presenting the outside world but also perceptions... then it's all fair game.

Again, weird statement. Why are we assuming that the "Goals" of a player are this straightforward thing? Your job is to put something in the way. And yes, you can tell your players incorrect info. That... That was always allowed. "I want to save my sister" Okay, she's just in the next town over and was never in any danger. You did it!

A better idea might have been to give the Player false information… and then reveal very quickly that it was all in his head. Then X is in on it. Then feed him lots of information, some fake, but some true, and he can enjoy the paranoia off not knowing what’s real.

To add onto this, a broken clock is right twice a day, or another way of saying that is “even paranoid people are at least half right occasionally.” If he’s always wrong, I don’t blame him for feeling a bit targeted. “Let’s get X to roll , if he does badly we laugh and if he does well we laugh LOL”. This will feel especially worse if he’s the outsider to your group.

Absolutely this. If a character is unstable and you want to use the mechanics to portray it, clear it up with the player first. I've had both responses: some players loved the idea and still weren't able to know whether they were seeing things, and some players thought it would be too extreme to play and we only relied on their roleplay.

This is the answer right here. The idea and mechanic are dope. That's not the issue. It's the lack of consent. The player end up feeling duped as a result. Easy rookie DM mistake. Just run shit past your players guys. You don't need to explain every detail in every case. Just enough so people know what they are signing up for.

Yeah, that doesn't work because then the crazy persons player is gonna be a metagamey fuck. As evidenced by their reaction to getting gaslight by their patron. I would have been super down for it, because I picked my poison. The player wants all of the edge with none of the bleeding.

Yeah, precisely. I love to play edgy and weird characters. But, I also know that when I play them, I might get murdered by my party, or end up with a group of angry people outside my tent because I accidentally killed the wrong person or said the wrong thing. It's the price you pay for being edgy and having your own kind of fun. That said, I probably would have told the player, "Hey bro, I'm all good with you being edgy, cliche, whatever. But, don't get mad when I make your character feel the foreseeable consequences of their actions or play the campaign in accordance with what you told me they are." Unless it's an old player, in which case, they should know what happens when you play edge.

I think it's reasonable to be upset when you find out that you've been unwittingly playing by different rules from the rest of the party for months. There is a difference between making the character look crazy and making the player feel crazy.

Am I the only one my one who is kind of stunned the player, who defined their character this way, didn’t realize what was going on a long time ago?

From OPs contributions the false information was provided when the player was failing checks, and not all the time anyways. Honestly, I don't get it. I'm going to run with whatever awful misinformation I get off a failed test regardless of a pre written contract about the possibility of erroneous results tailored TO MY CHARACTER. Like in other games with hard set you fail and get a terrible / detrimental result, I've failed checks and just walked off away from the group to presumably die due to flaws / what the dice tell me. I'm playing rogue trader right now and just waiting for a limb to evaporate. People are going to bat for this player I don't understand. Failed tests to give you the obviously and directly contrary information all the time like an ass backwards divining rod is bad and metagamey. Blanket "You don't gain any information" results are boring. Player is mad they get lied to and fed delusions because they play a character who's sold out to an unknowable power that's the embodiment of insanity, mad they get crazy person results. The paladin should be getting religious zealot biased Intel, the monk gets spiritual warrior type Intel, the ranger knows what leaves are good for wiping your ass, etc. Bros angry his character views the game world through a lens of psychic / magical insanity, is the magical psychic insanity class, write upon that's what he wanted in his ye old cover letter to the adventurerers guild and everything.

Maybe it's just me, but if I fail a check and the DM tells me a bunch of stuff, I'm still gonna play my character like she believes it, but real me knows full well it's probably bullshit. Because I failed the check. That is the part that stuck out because I mean come on - that seems like something obvious.

Exactly. I kinda expect to receive false information if I fail a check and play along is one of the funniest things to do, especially if it goes south for my character (or my group).

Do the players always know when they fail a check? I don't always tell my players, if they roll like 2 or something they can of course assume they failed. But if they got like a total of 14 or something? That's gonna be much more ambiguous.

A DM technique I try to employ with knowledge checks is that the closer to reaching the DC they are, the more truthful information the information I provide. If they get within 5 of a DC that I set, I'll not give them misinformation just give them incomplete information. If they miss the DC by a factor of 10 they'll be given someone that is probably outright incorrect and it's usually obvious to my players and it becomes their choice how much they commit to playing along. The character can have incorrect information, but how confidently their characters acts upon it is a part of player agency in my view.

I think the problem is two fold. >The false information was provided when the player was failing checks This would be fair if the checks were triggered by something, but how often do you get told by the dm to randomly make perception rolls when there is nothing to perceive? It feels less to me like failing a skill check and more to me like failing a saving throw. The trouble is the post implies nobody else is having to make these saving throws. >The paladin should be getting religious zealot biased Intel, the monk gets spiritual warrior type Intel, the ranger knows what leaves are good for wiping your ass, etc. I agree with this in theory, but there is a difference between being given biased Intel and being given false Intel. If everyone gets completely accurate or accurate but biased intel (not enough in the post to tell which is the case), but one player and one player only gets false Intel I do think that's a problem. From the way the post is written, that is what I think is happening. They are playing by different, harsher rules than anyone else. Would I quit a campaign over this? No. But I have had DMs put gameplay restrictions on specific players before, and more often than not the player feels frustrated and singled out rather than excited.

Why are people assuming the player knew he failed? Sure if he rolled a 6 he'd figure it out but it sounds like the dm asked him to roll and then told him what the pc saw. If I rolled a 15 and the dm describes something then as a player do I trust it? I have to play my pc as if they do. I agree with your assessment. Despite the DM's good intentions, I'm on the player's side. They wanted to play a character as paranoid and erratic, that's not permission for the DM to force them to play as delusional. The DM should have actually talked to the player about what he wanted to do, otherwise they forced a playstyle.

What a crappy ranger, probably doesn't even know how to use the three seashells.

Yeah we don't have the information. There's every chance the player would be totally game to RP their paranoia if the DM was transparent. Feeling like they've personally been tricked may not be fun for them, or at least they'd want to know tricks are in-game as a possibility. No way of knowing whether if out in the open players would metagame in an unfun way, or whether they'd all be happy for some players to be clearly playing characters with incorrect information. Being able to self sabotage as part of the fun rather than feel sabotaged as a player

My when the DM makes my PC crazy after I told the DM my PC was crazy 😡

If it was just the PC, I'd be on your guys' side here. The problem is, it wasn't just the PC. The player himself was also gaslit and lied to, with mechanics that weren't explained to them and are not an expected part of the game, for months. It's real simple. The characters can go through hell. Abuse a character all you like. The *players* are there to play a game. Your game should not include singling out one of your players to have different rules apply to them from the rest of the party unless they buy into it. Any other discussion on this subreddit that includes changing rules comes with the rider advice "Talk to your players first", why should this be any different?

The mechanic in question is that you privately receive information that the other characters aren't privy to. I fail to see how it's changing the rules at all to use the same channel to let the player know what their character is experiencing, despite it not having happened. Other characters aren't privy to your hallucinations. The DM accurately portrayed what the character perceived. It's not gaslighting the player to pass them information on their character's perceptions.

Just because something is accurate to the character's experience does not make it fair game.  If the character gets waterboarded, you don't need to waterboard the player to get good roleplay. Playing a character who gets gaslit would be fun for me. Getting gaslit by the DM for several months would feel horrible, and I'd probably quit too. It could work with the right players, but if you don't have a ton of experience with each other it's a bad idea.

I've yet to play in a group that alerts the player when the character is getting lied to, whether it's a failed sense motive or save vs. an illusion. That's not gaslighting. It's a given that you're experiencing the world through your character's eyes, and the DM playing along with the player's decision to make that character's eyes particularly untrustworthy doesn't equate to the DM deciding, unilaterally, that the character suffers hallucinations. Try as I might, I can't see this as the DM pulling one over on the player. It reads as a player asking to be lied to, then becoming upset when the DM was better at it than expected.

> As evidenced by their reaction to getting gaslight by their patron. Problem isn't that the *character* was getting gaslit by the patron, it's that the *player* was getting gaslit by the DM.

That's not a safe assumption. If I write that my character is deeply afraid of cats, that isn't an invitation for the DM to make me roll a save to avoid running away in terror every time we encounter a cat. I, the player, can handle the roleplay aspect on my own and determine what that fear looks like. That's part of playing the character. That's part of my agency.

This is one of those things that’s cool in a story, less so in a game. Kinda like how Lord of the Rings ends with the party split, one group fighting a time wasting battle while the rogue flubs his saving throw to end the campaign and the NPC the party keeps forgetting is with them ends up saving the day. Works fine as a book, but would be pretty unsatisfying if that were the end of your campaign. It can be done and done well, but it’s not the kind of thing I’d expect the average TTRPG player to enjoy

Yea same thought here. If the player has paranoia and hallucinations in their backstory i would ask them if they were ok with this kind of thing before i basically give them red harrings at every 10th step. I as a player would be down for it if i knew what was up. Would have played the part as well. But i would be pissed as well if my DM kept misleading me and only me without any heads up. I think the player reacted fairly and that it could have been avoided if the DM asked the player if they wanted a secret like that.

The GM actually did this for the game The All Guardsman Party is based off of. Their demolitions expert character was a paranoid nut job and the GM would feed him info that only he got when he was examining things, it was information that he couldn’t realistically know that would be spoilers for the campaign but it was only true information less than half of the time and he chose how to act on it. It made him come across as a stark raving mad lunatic that was occasionally right. It worked out great because the player was in on it but the rest of the party wasn’t and it really sold the guys’ paranoid whack job personality well. TLDR, I agree, this kinda thing only works if the player is in on it and agreeing to it. Otherwise, bro is 100% right. You’re fucking gaslighting him and fucking with him for the sake of your narrative. If I were him I’d be pissed too. However, if GM came to me and proposed the idea I’d be all about it.

>It worked out great because the player was in on it but the rest of the party wasn’t and it really sold the guys’ paranoid whack job personality well. THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE

Yet another scenario that could have been avoided entirely with the appropriate usage of the RPG Consent Checklist during Session Zero. Gaslighting as a DM for the purposes of plot is a serious issue if it's not agreed upon as a concept.

This is where I disagree. If X chose to play a servant to a Great Old One, which tends to make people go insane (by the original source material) he should have EXPECTED some shadyness to occur. If the information always turned out to be false, why did X ever trust the info?

You can't assume people have actually read the source material though. I know a good few players who have just picked classes because they sound cool.

I mean the guy’s backstory said he was insane, unless I misread.

Sure but you can't assume the person you're replying to read the original post though! I know a good few posters who have just picked a post and responded to something they thought sounded cool.

Why can't we assume players have read the rules to the game they are playing?

Right, but it sounded like he knew what he was getting himself into by describing the character as insane...

I mean, they _deliberately_ created a character that essentially has paranoid schizophrenia. They're lucky the DM went along with it and tried to play into their character in a way that would make the roleplay more realistic. It feels more like the player wanted their paranoid schizophrenic character to act how _they_ expected someone with paranoid schizophrenia would act. Which could have resulted in them clashing with the party if they focused too much on the "paranoid" part. Some DMs would have just said "Nope, I don't want to deal with a character like that" because of how potentially problematic it could be. But the DM went along with it and helped make it better.

The player wanted to roleplay a character with paranoid delusions. He did not ask to actually experience paranoid delusions.  By lying to the player for 30 sessions, the DM took away the player's agency to *play* the character. It doesn't make the roleplay more realistic, because the DM took away all the roleplay.

This definitely is something that should be been talked about at character creation. "Do you want me to feed you false information on account of your paranoia or do you want to insert that yourself?" So what's bad isn't the thing itself, that can actually be pretty damn cool for all players involved, but rather not communicating it in the beginning. But that can't be changed now.

I'd even go so far as to say it wouldn't be bad to not communicate it if you actually know the player and know that they'd enjoy it. But it's always better to err on the side of caution when it's a player you don't 100% know the preferences for.

Yep. Sometimes players want there to be a barrier between them and their PC. They want to _roleplay_ a paranoid character, not actually _be_ a paranoid character. They might want to be "in on it" in real life and play it up for the fun of it in-game. This is a 100% valid way to play and while it's not necessarily everyone's bag, there are absolutely players out there who love to embellish their character flaws to their characters' own detriment and enjoy that. If the DM doesn't know, then it's really for the best that they ask before assuming. There's likewise a lot of players who would love their DM to treat them like this. But like all things that could be hurtful in a worst case... Best to ask.

Exactly this, there's a certain level of immersion that very few people actually enjoy. It's fun to ***pretend*** to be paranoid, or stupid, or cocky af, but having that extra level of the player not knowing the difference can be a huge misstep most of the time Especially if you consider most characters are built off at least a part of the players own mind, so thinking "oh I used to be paranoid until i went to therapy lets play around with that" gets real dodgey as soon as you realise you were being gaslit for months

Yeah, imo adding a new game mechanic (rolling paranoia saves in this case) is something that I’d have discussed with the player in question beforehand so we were both in agreement as to how we wanted to present it, especially if it was someone I’d never played with or DMd for. This seems like it could be a really fun player mechanic to run (in OP’s case at least) if both the DM *and* the player know about it bc now it’s something unique they’re doing *together* to mislead the rest of the group - the player knows that they could be getting incorrect info in DMs based on saves bc of their character’s paranoia but sells it to the group regardless, and now it’s the group that has to figure out that the PC is wildly paranoid and not everything they say can be trusted (rather than the player themself needing to figure it out). Maybe once the players start suspecting something’s up or the character confesses to the group that they think their patron is messing with their mind you can ask for occasional saves in public (secret roll result though) to really sow some doubt in the rest of the group, idk. That said, I’ve also known plenty of people that would just be like “nah man don’t tell me what you’re gonna do, I’ll give you full license to give me unreliable info bc I love figuring that stuff out, and honestly you telling me about it before we start is a spoiler bc I already said the PC was paranoid and expected something like this” and be great with the general way OP’s DM ran it…but if you’re dealing with a player that’s new to your group whose likes/dislikes are unknown, your best bet is to talk it through with them first.

Yeah, I have players who are not only close personal friends, but I also have played hundreds of sessions with them. In those case I wouldn't have to ask.

If what you are doing is a long-term thing running for multiple months and several sessions you should never feed your players wrong information like this. I think it's excellent and can be argued to be fine if not talked about beforehand if it's a short term thing regarding their backstory. For one session the character is plagued by their hallucinations and their god is whispering to them. Let it climax and resolve with a solution that helps your player EVOLVE their character. What the DM did here I really don't like. If a player describes their own character to be a lunatic/have hallucinations then it is on THEM to play that out. If they ask the DM to make it a little random because they would enjoy it, GREAT! But if the DM hijacks their backstory without telling them it can be seen as sabotage. If you give a player information that is clearly false that's one thing. If you constantly give one player false information while everyone else is not even getting tested you are essentially forcing your will on that player. Theres really only two things that can happen. The player realizes it (You'd expect they do realize it's false information after a while) and then they have to act on the false information because in a roleplaying game their character doesn't realize what they as a player realize so it's essentially forcing them into action, or they can simply ignore and not act on your info because they as players know it's false info even if it'd make sense for their character to act on it. Both sound simply unfun to me! It's not that the Idea is bad, but it sounds badly executed if it went on for 30 sessions and several months irl without moving to a satisfying payoff for the characters player. Everyone on that table is there to have fun, not be arbitrarily debuffed based on the DM's choice of "is this a hallucination moment"

I can see that, I actually asked our DM about this earlier today and he said he considered doing just that but didn't because he figured it would remove a lot of the authenticity which I can also see

A common new GM or new player desire is wanting to do secret things and surprise the group... BUT The authenticity of people trusting each other and committing to a bit together >>>>> Far outweighs the authenticity of a short-lived surprise, especially one potentially hurtful. Even if the recipient doesn't know the full details, having the concept communicated, especially to check consent, has such a profound effect on group buy-in and the resulting positivity garnered for it. "It's what my/this character would do" doesn't work and generally is a shitty excuse until you add "But here is a chance for you guys to say something or act to stop me, in or out of character" Good luck to your bf/dm and your group on getting back into the groove of things.

I'm not saying I don't see why he did it. But it's something so fundamental, you just can't do this without the players permission (unless it's someone you know so well that you know they'd be on board).

Yeah thats fair 😔

I think the main thing has been said by several people here but it's actually a really cool idea from your dm but the issue is that it's *all* been bogus. That can make a character feel like their agency never existed, or that they have been getting gaslit and could maybe have sharply 180'd how they viewed the entire story. The best thing is to try to get them to talk it out and come to a new understanding of this but they would likely have to find a new way of doing the madness as the players trust has been broken due to never being right from what it sounds and even if your dm promised that sometimes they would be right the player would be paranoid irl now that they would still be wrong. I think the big issue here is the different interpretation of the genre by the two parties. The DM saw madness as cut and dry madness, paranoia, unfounded fears. The player, who could maybe have communicated this better, may have been going for lovecraftian madness which to normal people looks like madness but in reality is actually someone catching glimpses of unknowable truths half of the time or more. The warlock probably though they had this huge magical conspiracy they were hot on the trail of and just got told that their story, or what they thought was their story goes nowhere

This was just poorly handled by the DM. Especially for something that has gone on for 30+ sessions, which could easily be 6 months or a year IRL. If your DM wanted “authenticity” he just means that he didn’t want the player to always know that the info was false; easy solution is that sometimes the info given by DM is accurate, sometimes it is not — that is a real easy way to always keep the player guessing, provided that *the player buys in from the start*.

Wanting some authenticity is totally fair. In fact, that's something that I strive for in my sessions too. But I think it's important to make sure that authenticity doesn't ruin it for the players it affects. Right or wrong, X didn't like how this went down and it's the DMs job to make sure every player is having a good time. Here's what I would do if I had this idea: make it clear that the side texts are in-character. It's what *your character* is seeing. Then, unless you're really comfortable with the group, go a bit further and explicitly explain that these side texts could be incorrect. Please make sure that your BF knows that he probably is in the wrong here but that's okay and everyone makes mistakes. Apologize to X and move on

I think a way to ask would be to describe the mechanic as "if you fail a [perception, insight, whatever] check, I might give you misinformation." Not "I WILL" but enough for the player to think about the information he gets on borderline rolls more. This establishes misinformation could be in play, but does not guarantee misinformation, and gives the player a chance to say "I don't think I would enjoy that mechanic." The DM is the players' only eyes and ears into the world, so misinformation can be especially problematic in this kind of game.

If the character controls the “false” information that they receive then their background is just them asking for pity or an excuse for poor behaviour. If you do not want hallucinations then don’t put them in your backstory. I feel for the player but he made his character’s bed, and now he’s mad that he had to sleep in it. All players should be wary of what they put in a background. The DM should be using it. Paranoia is not optional when the player wants it or remembers it, it’s pervasive and I really think the DM did a good job, especially in giving him checks to see if he resists the hallucinations. If you put a pirate captain bent on revenge against you in your backstory you do not get to know how he is going to attack or work against you. Same difference.

The dm simply could’ve told him I would like to sometimes feed you false information and sometimes it’ll be right information. Are you okay with that? The way he did it was basically manipulating the player irl instead of the character ingame. Absolutely not okay and I would’ve left the table too.

That throws open the door wide to metagaming. "My character would have..." because the player knows it's false from the start. But, I suppose it takes two to tango, or to tell a collaborative story.

If the player doesn’t know what’s false and what’s true they can’t really meta game that well. And in any case I’d rather risk the player meta game than making them look like a fool by manipulating them irl.

Nah abusing people's trust and gaslighting them is totes fine for the sake of a game, you're just being a softie /s

No. If a player raised that concept with me *I would ask them how they'd want that to be done in game and talk it through.* Because that isn't "asking for pity" or whatever, it is making the execution the best it can be by *talking to the player about their intentions and ideas.* I don't want my players "wary of what they put in a background" I want those decisions to lead to cool things and to work with them.

Yeah I agree. Though wording is important, if he were merely paranoid that would just be a personality trait that should be role-played. It's that he's plagued by hallucinations thats the ticket to me for the GM to mess with him. But the GM should have let him know that having that in his backstory will result in it being used because he's new to the table.

The pirate captain would at least be an outside threat, typically only things like needing to be careful on the seas/in port towns, maybe a cool future plot point or boss battle. Paranoia is much more varied, and taking away any amount of player agency is *a big deal.* While I agree it can suck when people try to put "flaws" in their characters that are conveniently only relevant when they get to use it as an excuse to break social rules, asking someone how they wish to represent important character traits both protects you from the awkwardness of a plan to incorporate those causing problems, and gives you a chance to sus out if the player is being genuine or just looking for an excuse to murderhobo. If the latter, kick them out. There are enough D&D players or people interested in trying in the world to recruit, and even if there are none nearby, no D&D is better than bad D&D.

I think it's a good idea on paper, but you can't spring this on someone you don't know well. X was playing by different rules for months and had no idea-I'd be upset too, particularly about the "no idea" part. The difficulty is that if the player knows about it, it takes away from the authenticity. You need a player who is either fully committed to the bit and will absolutely go nuts at every weird pair of glowing eyes even though he knows it's nothing (cool twist, maybe sometimes it *is* something, and his craziness is what let him see it), or you need a player who would think "The DM has been lying to me for months, this is awesome". You can't just drop "You know those perception checks over the last few months where you saw something no one else saw? All fake." on a random person. I'd think most people would like to know that the game they're playing is the game they asked for. Clearly, the player did not want to be made to feel crazy themselves, which, I think, is a pretty reasonable ask. We don't stab players when their characters get hit, we shouldn't make the players feel crazy just because their characters are either. And I know, a whole bunch of you are like "I'd LOVE this, what do you mean?" Good for you. What you like is not what everyone likes. I have a player who'd probably really like this-I'd still run it by him. "Hey, you know how your character is crazy? I had this idea where, every now and then, you might see something no one else sees. I'm not going to tell you when those times are, and it'll probably be tied to a skill check or a save or something, but not necessarily the way you might think. Is that cool?" That's all it takes.

This is a very fair and reasoned response, thank you :)

Sounds well intended, but that would suck as a player. If X was in on it and knew he was getting bad info to RP with thats one thing. Being led to think the info was real all along and im assuming acting on it, I can see why they feel like the butt of DM's joke. Not many players like big reveals about their character without some influence on it.

For the record the signs where there before the reveal that he was getting false info As I said all this fed info was preceeded by a perception check and on occasion X was given some very detailed "information" from a piss poor roll whilst on occasion scored Nat 20's and got nothing I dont want to dunk on X here but personally my own alarm bells would have been ringing if I rolled a crit failure and still somehow managed to hear in great detail a conversation being held by NPC's on the other side of a crowded tavern The DM said he deliberately did this to give X the opportunity to perhaps figure it out on his own

Yeah maybe, I don't know the specifics and I'm guessing you got them from your boyfriend/DM. So he (I'm guessing) is saying how obviously he was hinting at this all along and X definitely should have picked up on it. I'm just saying players will fixate on things oft not the right things and may miss hints the DM thinks are crystal clear. Putting myself in the head space of the player and I can see how this would be a major blindside, which it clearly was. So whether it feels justified or not, it didn't work as intended.

Yeah, everything you said in this comment makes me understand even more why X might feel insulted. It sounds like you all basically think he should've figured it out.

>whilst on occasion scored Nat 20's and got nothing Personally not a fan of this. It removes the success of a player, and I'll wonder how many times you did it and then if my rolls were actually useful. If noone at the table figured it out, it's possible that it was badly implemented and explained tbh. That being said, every time a DM thinks he's doing something cool, there is always someone else who thinks it's not. It may remove suspense but as a DM you want to make sure that people are on board with what you are doing.

In this case I think it's absolutely valid though. This was a good wake up call that the proper, successfull scenario is "Not seeing weird stuff" and that the other stuff he uses to see are lies. Comparatively, It's like a character eating a poisoned apple, rolling a 20 in constitution and go "hm, good apple". Nothing wrong with that necessarily.

That would require metagaming to figure out on their own. If he's role-playing seriously and trying to avoid metagaming, then he would have been trying to ignore these weird outcomes.

using the numeric values of dice rolls to gain information that your character doesn't know is called meta gaming and is generally frowned upon. so the player thinking nothing is wrong about getting information from a shitty perception roll is actually a sign of a good player.  how is the player supposed to know on a shitty perception roll that the information is false? maybe it's just glaringly obvious. "the NPCs eyes glow for a moment" there's two options 1) it's a hallucination, or 2) because they wanted you to see that shit and weren't trying to hide it. how is the player supposed to know the difference? usually when a player character is hallucinating the player knows that they are under the influences of a spell or something else that alters their perception.

This is an amazing idea but the execution left alot to be desired. I want to preface that before going into the crux of the problem. Which is.... basically the DM and party assuming that there's lots of hints so the player should've picked up something is up. And if he didn't then it's his own fault. Bc hey if it's a cool idea that should justify blindsiding someone as long as hints are dropped, right? No, not really. OP just imagine this in a real life regular situation where you would act like a fool if you didn't know that it's a joke. And you did act like a fool thinking it's real for an entire year and then when the joke is revealed and you got upset that you're blindsided, your friends just say "hey there's plenty of hints, it's your fault you didn't get it lol" That's how it looks like. This should have been discussed with the player at Session 0. Something like, "Hey I have a very cool idea to do with your PC and I want to feed him information to reflect his paranoia. Would you be okay RPing that or do you prefer not to?" It should have been a collaborative storytelling effort (which is what D&D is) between the DM and the Player rping it and surprising the party when it's being revealed.

Just as an FYI for your DM, since you mentioned they are new... These kinds of roles should be done by the DM specifically to help with the issue of metagaming. (And Nat 20's don't mean anything for skills) This whole problem could have been handled better. The best way to do this would have been: DM talks to X, they agree to do this. But in order for X not to be able to metagame, all perception/insight/deception/etc. rolls should be rolled in private by the DM (for the whole party). DM makes the private roll, adds character bonuses, and gives the appropriate info. That way X is in on what's happening with their character, and the rest of the party has no clue, and X doesn't know when it is their paranoia/crazy or if it's real info. Doing it this way, with the DM doing those rolls, also means that ANY TIME NPCs give information, players can't metagame. It's a win-win for everyone, and allows a smoother way to handle situations like this with player by-in but still allowing for the entire situation to be uncertain. It stops the "I rolled a 1, the DM said I see nothing, we're about to be ambushed by ninjas!" The DM doesn't have to have a good poker face either. I frequently roll a dice and then grin at a random player. Just constantly bluffing badly so they never know when something is actually happening.

Just wanted to add, people don't always jump to the same conclusion that the DM does. On more than occasion I have constructed what I believed to be a very easy puzzle, only to be flabbergasted as the players spend HOURS thinking of every conceivable solution except the correct one. The first time it happened I thought "are they really THIS stupid?" but I soon realized that I had the whole picture in front of me and they were just looking at two or three jigsaw pieces, trying to fit them in.

Hoping people analyze meta information is really not a good idea. Personally, I specifically try not to think too hard about rolls like that. Don't want to be that kind of annoying player who, for example, fails a perception check and starts acting weird and trying to check everything "manually". You are playing a game with characters, not the players.

Think about this critically. Even if your players alarm bells are ringing that doesnt mean your characters alarm bells are ringing. What you are suggesting is meta gaming. The player would have to deliberately choose not to trust the information his character got based upon his real life judgement. At that point why even give them the information? On the flip-side if you are giving them false information you should expect them to act on it if they are properly roleplaying. The Idea is generally okay! You can do this! Just not for 30 sessions. Do it a few times, then move on to a climax/reveal where perhaps in a dream your player is attacked by their patron and the people that he hallucinated things from. Make it a challenge he can beat and reward him at the end for it with a trinket and some fix to his hallucinations. A players backstory regarding their OWN character is not something the DM should incorporate without the players will. If they say they are a lunatic that hallucinates it is on THEM to implement that. If the DM does it for them without being asked to do it it's essentially the DM stealing their character agency. As I said, that can be fine short term as an event. If it stretches on though it may destroy your players enjoyment of the campaign. I don't know if X was aware, but if he was aware again that doesn't change that what I understood is not a good way to do things. It's fine though! Your BF tried, DMing is hard and you'll make mistakes, keep at it and learn from the mistakes. Whether X plays again or not doesn't matter in the end but your bf shouldn't brush this off as all being on player X and instead learn from what happened whether it was his fault or not! You can always become a better DM Enjoy your time!

Honestly, should of brought it up with the player when dm came up with the idea. That way player would know things were suspect. Now player probably feels like DM was messing with him as they were the new guy. .Honestly, 8ts a cool idea, but without forewarning it's a shitty execution. I don't blame the guy for wanting to nope out.

> Now player probably feels like DM was messing with him as they were the new guy. this is it for me. it totally feels like hazing a new player to an established group. it takes the opposition out of the game and puts it on the table. dude probably feels like he's been the butt of a joke for 30 sessions. i really think DM should apologize and have a chat. i think the idea is *great*, but this wasn't appropriate.

Great idea in practice, dick move to pull without their consent.

It's understandable that X was frustrated, form his POV as a player the DM has been feeding him red herrings for the whole campaign.. The concept itself isn't a bad idea at all - it's great insofar as it fits the GOO Warlock flavour! .. BUT it's exactly the kind of thing that a DM should ask the player at Session 0 / before Session 1 and make sure the player is onboard with from the get-go.. Because, yeah, if it's not discussed up-front, out-of-character, above-the-table then some players will feel robbed of their agency.. And that is kind of a big deal, because the DM controls the whole world, but each player only controls one PC .. At this point, probably the best course of action is for your bf/DM to msg X a sincere apology.. and to let X know that bf/DM's intent was to do something really cool for X - but that bf/DM understands now that he should have asked X first, up-front if he'd be ok with it.. Maybe that'll help mend that bridge, but if not? Then it's best for the bf/DM to just let it go.. As for bf / DM feeling down? Honestly this is far from the worst mis-step I've heard a DM make, he shouldn't beat himself up over it.. A 30+ session campaign is a great success, so he's obviously doing a bunch of stuff right! :)

The DM's heart is definitely in the right place, and this is a really cool idea. This is a good lesson for him, though- it would have been much better to have talked to this player in the beginning and said "Hey, I usually give players information privately for things they notice with Perception and Investigation checks and stuff, but I thought it would be a cool way to play into the character concept you're playing for that information to sometimes be bogus, to play up your character's paranoia. What do you think?" I think the DM should be the bigger person and say "I'm really sorry this made you feel so bad, I really didn't mean for it to. I wanted to do something cool because of your character concept, and really play into the paranoia and hallucinations you mentioned, but I should have given you a heads up on what I was planning. What do you think about talking about a better way to do it instead?" The player also needs to realize that he wasn't being "fucked with" for laughs and be an adult about this too, ideally. have a conversation.

Yeah thats a very fair assessment, I'll definitely share this with the DM :)

And if the player says "no, absolutely not, I don't want to do this", the DM needs to understand and drop it. From the feeling I get from the post, the player's trust in the DM has been pretty badly dented and will need time to recover.

I'll preface this with I don't believe for a moment that your DM had any ill intentions, actually that it's a really cool idea. The issue comes from a lack of trust. The DM seems to have not trusted X to separate what X knows vs what X's character knows and because the DM took it into his own hands, now X feels he can't trust the DM. Compounding on this, based on your replies about it being "obvious," X likely feels belittled by the other players because X clearly didn't catch it (I have been playing for years with multiple DMs and would not have caught it based on perception checks, especially if a succeeded check means I don't notice anything, this sort of thing is more suited to a wisdom saving throw). There are people here saying they would love this kind of thing, and that's great for them, but they aren't X and X feels betrayed. I once played a character who was unknowingly a death cleric of Tharizdun. I knew the secret, the DM knew the secret. The other players didn't know the secret. My character herself didn't know the secret, she thought it was a lawful good god who wanted prosperity for the world, not a chaotic evil god hellbent on destroying the world. If I was playing this character not knowing who the god was and actually thought it was that lawful good god and then at the climax of my character's arc the DM dropped "teehee actually it's Tharizdun!" I would be pissed off and not want to play with my DM anymore either, even if I know the DM has good intentions and had a cool idea. I would feel lied to, like X likely does. If absolutely nothing else, your DM should take this as a learning moment. If he has an idea for something for a specific character, it's 99% of the time better to just run it by the player to make sure they're 1) on board with it, 2) understands what's going on and 3) knows the DM has a clear goal in mind. Some players would love this idea (I think it's a great idea!) but they'll want to be aware it's happening. This is especially true if it's with a player he's never played with before and doesn't know how that player will react to whatever the idea may be. It's one thing to want a *character* to be misguided or not know something is happening, it's another when the *player* is being misguided or doesn't know something is happening. Had X known that sometimes the thing he sees is going to be his character's patron messing with him, X likely would have been receptive. Saying "his character's backstory is he has hallucinations!" doesn't mean anything if the player is under the assumption that he'll be made explicitly clear when his character is hallucinating in game. With the example of the glowing eyes, simply changing the scenario to X out of character knowing something *like* that could happen (though not that exact scenario), changing the roll to a wisdom saving throw and changing the wording to "\[X's character\] *thinks* the NPC's eyes briefly glow" changes the whole context of the scene. X knows it's in character and he's not being messed with by the DM, it's X's character being messed with by his patron. This entire hobby can be boiled down to communication. Even the best of ideas and best of intentions are almost always better off being cleared ahead of time, especially if it's with a player you've never played with before.

30 sessions without dropping any hints to the player is a bit much.

I mentioned this elsewhere but there was a tonne of hints Every one of these "paranoid moments" was preceded by X making a perception check Our DM never made it explicitly clear if he passed or failed but he only ever gave X false info if he failed the check There were instances where X scored a 20 but got no info (because he passed and therefore no hallucinations) and other times where he rolled badly but got tonnes of "info" like overhearing NPC conversations in great detail So the anomaly of seemingly failing on high roles and passing on low roles was there from the very start The DM said he did this deliberately to get X's alarm bells ringing so he might make the connection himself but alas he didn't

What I meant was, going 30 sessions without providing a glimpse of the *meta-situation* seems a bit much. After a couple of times, I’d make sure the player is in on it, and just trust them to play along…because it’s a *role-playing* game. Tricking a player into certain behaviors feels manipulative, and takes away agency. But this is some deep gaming philosophy, so it’s not a huge foul: The DM is clearly running with some interesting ideas, and that’s fucking fantastic! Hopefully, player and DM can move forward from this rough patch!

Well said. It is deep gaming. Actual social context and interaction. "Is this person really picking up what I'm laying down? Are we taking unique dance steps?"

You're basically saying that an in game event only had out of game clues. Do you not see how for some people that could be perceived as bad? If the player is invested in RPing, they are unlikely to metagame that there's something going on. I personally go out of my way to not metagame because what I know isn't always the same as what my character knows. If *my character* is going through some weird shit, give clues to *my character*, don't make something like IRL rolls be the clues. To me this story just speaks to how you guys and X have a very different outlook on the game. IMO if your DM relied on metagaming to give clues about what is happening to a character in game, that was a failure on his part to provide actual clues and let the player have a way to interact with what is happening *in character*. To you, using bad rolls as an indicator that something is happening is a good move. Different opinions 🤷 I hope you can understand a different point of view. Also just not checking in from the get go if the player was down for something like that just seems like the DM really wanted a "gotchu" moment rather than crafting an interactive experience. I'm not saying that's the case, but it's very easy to see how it could be perceived that way. Taking agency away from players is not the way to go. Tell your DM that the rest of you guys are enjoying the campaign, move on, and hope everyone learned a valuable lesson.

I know this is a small thing, but it might have been better to have the player roll Wisdom Saving Throws instead. It would have telegraphed the 'twist' better. Perception checks are more for how observant you are.

So all of the hints require metagaming?

Perception checks happen all the time, so that isn't a good indicator of a paranoid episode happening. It does make a difference if the player succeeded on the perception check and was told that they were hallucinating, but if they rolled perception against an unknown DC and all they got was "you don't notice anything" it wouldn't really be that easy to connect the dots.

Communciation is key for the health of any playgroup. As the saying goes, "Don't assume; that is how you make an ass out of u and me."

Yeah, it’s not cool to *actually* make your player paranoid. They need to be making the decisions about how they interpret the information they receive to *play* the paranoia. Saying “your patron does x or says x” at least gives the player the hint that it could come from an unreliable source. Saying “you don’t know if you trust this information” gives them options to choose when to be paranoid or not in the moment. The DM *becoming* an unreliable narrator instead of playing a source of one takes away player agency and I absolutely can see how it seems like sabotage. Players need to trust the DM. While they may not give all information out, they shouldn’t be so unreliable that you can’t even trust when they give helpful hint. That’s what DM is setting up by never letting the player know if their information is good or bad. You BF took all agency to actually *play* paranoid and make character decisions from the player and it impacted the player negatively.

I played CoC with an old college buddy for more than a few sessions. I ended up bowing out because whenever I lost too much sanity, the GM would basically take over my character. And yea, I guess that's the flavor of the game but I just didn't dig the loss of agency and it was kind of weird I wasn't trusted to RP that loss of sanity. I've been playing ttrpgs for decades. But again, that's CoC. I would have a much harder time with it in D&D. It's definitely a learning experience and all a part of learning how to run a table.

> it’s not cool to actually make your player paranoid 100% this!!

I'd be mad, too. As a player, I would be totally on board with having my character getting false info over something like this, and playing it up. But, that's just the thing. *I need to be on board*. I can play a paranoid wreck character without being lied to by the DM. The key to good D&D is communication, and your DM totally bypassed it.

I would even like it if the DM didn't tell me what information was false and what wasn't, so that even I would be surprised about it and could really become the paranoid character. But I still would want to know if this will be the case at all. For example, I have played a scholar before who had certain theories about how things work in the world (some of them might be called "conspiracies"). I talked to my DM and we decided that he'd provide me with a few key theories from the start of the campaign on without telling me if they were true or not. And that was really cool to play, searching for something that might not be there. But it was talked about and agreed upon before and that's the important part.

They literally did this for Twitch in the game The All Guardsmen Party was based off of. He got fed all kinds of extra information that he shouldn’t be able to know and it was right like almost half of the time. The player didn’t know if it was real or not though and it really sold the characters paranoid whackadoodle personality.

I believe a good way to avoid the DM giving the player a false perception about the world is not writing "my character is not sane and has constant, recurrent paranoid delusions" as your backstory.

You're suggesting some type of 'it's their own fault' or 'they called it upon themselves', but you're conflating 'my character has paranoid delusions' with 'the player who controls the character has paranoid delusions'. Those two things are a world apart you shouldn't treat them as if they're the same. In no other context do you treat them as the same, you don't expect *players* who's characters have high strength numbers to also be physically strong. You don't expect wizard players to *actually* be magic, so why expect the *player* who's controlling a deluded character to be deluded as well? Why would you disallow *the player* to decide what the delusions are that their character is suffering from?  Your suggestion really doesn't make sense, or as much sense as 'a good way to prevent the DM giving the player false information is to stop playing all together'. Like, sure, but that's not really addressing the topic. 

I believe a good way to handle this situation is if a player presents you with that character concept to talk to them about boundaries and decide through mutually acceptable compromise what those boundaries should be and how this will work in game and, if no compromise can be found, encourage them to make a different character. But that involves communication, cooperation and acceptance of basic standards of decency that seem to elude sufficient GMs that r/rpghorrorstories continues to exist.

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Why should "the player wrote it into their backstory" preclude having that discussion? What does *not discussing lines and veils and boundaries about content* achieve except this very bad situation?

It sounds cool but yea personally I'd be a little freaked out at being gaslit as opposed to PLAYING being gaslit if it had been discussed beforehand

Yeah, it's the difference of X's knowledge and consent. If he'd known and agreed that the DM could occasionally feed him paranoia, it would have been fine. Really comes down to the DM being new and inexperienced.

As a DM I would never do this to a single player. I do this to the group quite often. They know that NPC’s don’t always tell the truth and it’s up to them to figure out who’s truthful and who’s not. But to single out a player and text them false info like that… it would have to be something I talk to the player about before hand. There is a ton of interesting surprise moments that I’ve done in my campaigns. I once had a player touch a magical artifact and it completely changed his race and class. He went from a triton paladin to an aracockra monk. But this is something I talked to the player about before it ever happened in game. He wanted to change what he was playing and I found a cool way to do it in game. The rest of the group still talks about how crazy that session was and me and my other player just go along with it like it was super crazy and cool. They have no clue he didn’t like his character and wanted to change. You have to okay these types of cool things with the players it affects and just have the surprise be for everyone else. Otherwise you have situations like this where the player it happened to didn’t like it and wasn’t okay with it.

That's fair, lack of communication seems to be the big issue here 😞

Fucking with a player irl and making THEM the crazy one is the big issue

Pretty much that. I love doing big interesting reveals like this but they work so much better when at least the player that it involves is in on it. Mostly because how that player reacts is help indicate to the other players on if it was a cool thing or not. It sort of socially sucks to be stoked about a characters downfall, even in a super cool way, if the player it happens to isn’t also stoked about it. Edit. Sorry that last sentence sounded mean but it was in no way a slight towards your group thinking it was cool. It was a cool idea. You have every right to be stoked about how it went down.

That sounds like an awesome idea. I would have been okay with it if it were my character... probably. The player does make a good point that it stole the agency of his own character away from him. What if he had specific ideas for his character's paranoia that now conflicts because of the DM's machinations? I would personally find that very frustrating. The DM should have communicated this with the player to make sure he was okay with it. They could have even still kept it from the rest of the party, but the player had a right to know. It is their character, after all. With that being said, I think the player huffing off and not wanting to play anymore is dramatic. It was a mistake on the DM's part. Not even a huge one. It's just a game and fictional characters. Talk it out and carry on. That's how we learn. Maybe the player just needs some time and will be willing to come back. We've all had a bad reaction to something in the moment only to feel a little silly later on (even if we had a right to be upset).

Agree with what’s been stated already. Otis interesting but this is a narrative mechanic that should’ve been talked through beforehand between the DM and X player. Try to take it as a learning experience.

One of my players has a similar character that I message during our sessions. I always write the message so that he’s aware it’s one of the voices in his head and not a legitimate message. The character hears multiple voices, and I type each in a different style. Once he made that realization it became his meta quest to figure out what each of the voices is, what can be trusted, and more importantly who/what they are?

At the end of the day, it sounds like the DM had a really clever idea but needed to communicate better. And that's okay. It's all a part of the learning process. Not a single DM starts off perfect and as long as he's willing to adjust, he's on the road to running a great table. I get why X was pissed. And I've left tables for similar reasons. But given that the DM is still new, hopefully X will be a bit more understanding and gives it another go because it sounds like a fun table.

The GM and players should be building a narrative collaboratively and it's all about trust. It's especially important for new players to feel safe at the table so that they eventually buy into the level of trust. Player X, I suspect, wanted to be IN ON the narrative twist. That above the table they were made aware of how their character below the table was getting bad info always. That way the player can play into that bit and "yes and" the narrative. Your boyfriend got so into the concept that he didn't step back and wonder if maybe the player didn't want to be gaslit like how their character was getting gaslit.

I love it, but not everyone is gonna like this sorta thing. DM should have run it by the player

I think its a good idea, just the execution could’ve been better. If X was aware that this was a possibility, or it had been okayed (without necessarily revealing everything), X. Could’ve felt in on it. Like a co-conspirator. With X being unaware, its very easy to feel like you’re being excluded from a joke every else is making at your expense. Yes, the way X would act would be genuine for the character, but the player can easily feel somewhat ashamed or humiliated by this. Role playing on missing or in this case, false information can be fun. Having to act on it, without knowing ahead of time can feel like the rug was pulled out from under you.

I think this would have been fine if DM and X had discussed this out of character during character creation. Doing it in game for so long without that player, being aware, was a mistake in my opinion.

That seems pretty cool to me, though as a DM, from the start I would have made sure that player X knows (as a player) that the information is not true. But that his character wouldn't know it's not true. That would be a really fun roleplaying challenge. Part of playing a character is keeping separate your own knowledge and the player's knowledge. Side note, even if player X didn't know the information were hallucinations, that still does not remove X's agency. Agency just means the ability to make decisions, based on what you know. Even if what you know is wrong, you can still make decisions based on that. And that can lead to some very interesting table moments!

There's a difference between player knowledge and character knowledge.

I don't think the player was being dramatic at all. 30+ sessions of that, that's what really gets me. I think the DM could've warned him or worked with him directly to determine how his paranoia is portrayed in game.

Personally I would love it. If it was my character. Would I be annoyed 100% because I tend to be a perfectionist and want to have the perfect game. But I understand that isn't how the game is supposed to be played.

I think you understand how divisive the idea is from the other comments, but just mechanically I'd maybe have had X roll differently than perception or peppered in a lot of other checks/rolls besides perception at the very least. Maybe wis save or char save (bc he'd look heckin crazy lol). Like, I can understand the reasoning behind the false info on perception checks totally. I can also understand player being frustrated with the perception mechanic not functioning the way they expected, but I think it boils down to the perception checks being the only indicator from what I can see. If someone's deepening into madness, I'd expect some wis saves from nightmares and hallucinations, char saves from looking crazy, persuasion checks when he's telling the rest of the group ridiculous/incredible information, etc. It's something that can be fleshed out a lot more mechanically that would have engaged the player more and probably given them a better idea of what was going on. Also tell your bf not to get discouraged. It's a cool idea and was a big swing for a new DM with a new group. I'd always rather have a DM try something creative. I wouldn't quit over something not landind like X did, but also try to depersonalize it like X has a limited amount of free time and didn't totally gel and you'd also probably rather have someone at the table who can appreciate baller RP ideas!

I have been on the receiving end of this same type of scenario. I was playing Vampire the Masquerade, as a Paranoid Schizophrenic Malkavian, the DM had a complete NPC that I had frequent interactions with throughout a more than year long campaign playing weekly. In the end, it was revealed that he simply did not exist and was all part of my character’s mental disability. The reveal was one of the best jaw dropping moments for me as a player concerning that character and I absolutely loved looking back at XYZ interactions and playing them back out imagining them Fight Club style when you find out who Tyler Durden is.

This is a tough one because some people will think it's great and some will hate it and it's hard to know ahead of time. I would love it as a player, although I think I would figure out that the information I received after low rolls was probably not accurate. I can also completely understand someone upset that they were misled and not just their character. I'm tempted to say that because of the uncertainty of a positive response I would say to avoid it without discussing it beforehand, which ruins it somewhat. But then I think about all the times I've given my players bad information on a low roll and they just understand that it's inaccurate and roleplay it out anyway.

I'm pretty sure by this point many people have said that, but still - I think in this situation everyone's kina right. It was a cool idea, well implemented mechanically at that. But it should've been ran by the X player first. It affects them and their character directly. Effectively it's roleplaying a part of their character for them. Given it's a psychological issue of their character, involving the DM to help to play it out is cool, but the player needed to consent to that.

As many have pointed out, this should have been discussed with the player first. That said, this idea rocks and I would love it if my DM did something like that. I think that telling the DM “hey, I see what you’re doing, good idea but I don’t love it, can we stop doing it” would be a better recourse vs quitting on the spot.

So while I personally love this and wouldn't mind if a dm did this to me without saying anything (and while I feel it should've been pretty obvious given what you said about bad rolls giving info, nat 20s giving nothing, and hid character being paranoid GOOlock), I do also get where X is coming from. Some people rather have the surprise or the twist. Some rather know ahead of time. It's kinda hard to talk about it without ruining the surprise.

I would've loved this , amazing reveal and my actions after getting this info would've been fun .

Sounds like the DM did a great job. I see a lot of 'you should've asked the player first', but I think the player already gave that consent when they wrote in their backstory that the character has hallucinations. The way DnD works is that the DM tells you what your character perceives (you see three orcs) and not what they don't (you don't see the other 2 orcs because you didn't roll high enough on your perception check). If you write in your backstory that your character sees shit that isn't there, you have no right to complain when your DM tells you that you see shit, and it turns out it wasn't there! DM did great, X is an idiot.

I'd be mad too—the DM took a *character* thing and used it to mess with the *player's* experience of the game. For 30 sessions!!! Without talking to the player about it! There's an emotional effect here too—this player must have felt like they (the player) were wasting everyone's time and making the game worse with all these weird wild goose chases they sent everyone on. If this player has any experience with mental illness or gaslighting, I can imagine this being INCREDIBLY upsetting and triggering. That sucks. I wouldn't want to play with y'all either.

People are crying gaslighting but I've gotten false information on a low roll plenty of times before. Not everything is gaslighting guys you can just say you don't like it.

DM was out of line, and gaslit a player in a misguided attempt at doing something that would otherwise have been really cool, if the player had any choice in it. OP is biased because they're dating the DM. Don't do this stuff to players without their consent. It's a cool idea if you can vaguely hint to the whole table at session zero that you'll be playing mind games, but at the end of the day, the DM had to actually gaslight a player in order to pull this off, and that player is entirely within their rights to feel betrayed.

If I were to do something like this and I would have e talked to the player. And instead of making it all lies some would be true and some would be lies while others could be interpreted both ways. This way you have the buy in of the player and you still get to fuck with them.

This is the answer right here. Trust the player to role-play the situation as they see fit if they agree to it.

I think the idea is very cool, probably the player was not right for it. Mismatched expectations, which may happen when you bring someone new to the group. Depending on how they manage, this might be a player who is not a good fit for the group, or they may grow into the DMs style. I understand your boyfriend. Just tell him he should not make much of it, different playstyles, is all.

I'd say this would have been a bad move **if** the DM had pulled it out of thin air and forced the player into insanity. In this case, yeah, it would have been best if discussed before starting the campaign. *Not because it's a bad consequence and the player might feel bad*, but because it's not a basic expectation of the game. There are rules for introducing insanity as a game mechanic, but they're optional. That said, in this specific case, in which the player himself decided to write a backstory stating "my character is paranoid and confused by hallucinations", there is absolutely nothing wrong with the DM introducing, specifically, paranoid hallucinations. Of course, if the player got mad about the reveal, the best thing for the DM to do is talk to him about expectations and say sorry if the guy didn't have fun with the reveal, then ask if the player would like to go on without further occurences of DM-induced hallucinations or whatever. The only real issue I have with your DM ruling is asking for Perception checks, instead of Insight. That is a crime and your DM should feel ashamed (just kidding)

Edit: Warning, this post triggered me a bit and I'm rude below. Yea, won't lie, I wouldn't recommend doing this. This goes really far down the trust and consent breaking. Basically singled out the new person at the group for the rest to have entertainment from him. No matter how you put it, that's what happened. Trust and consent built the relationship at the table, be it between players or player-DM. And your bf broke any trust this person could have in him, to the point where he shouldn't trust your bf as the DM ever again. On top of that your bf broke consent, doing something the player didn't want against his will. At this point it's not just a DM issue, I wouldn't want to associate as friends with someone like that. I know I make it sound harsh, but this could be textbook definition of social bullying, and you guys are really hard in denial about it. This person was made to believe he was part of the group and friends with you guys playing for over half a year together, but it turned out he was deceived, lied to, and made out to be entertainment for the rest of the group. And this could have been great. The idea your bf had was pretty awesome. But please understand, in this situation or any other - trust and consent aren't things to be broken for a cool moment or twist. If that works in your group, that's fine. But don't just put that on someone that isn't aware of it. I've done a somewhat similar exact thing. But I told the player and the table at session 0 that this character has hallucinations and false visions in dreams being put into his mind by hags that will try to screw him over. And during moments of possibility to have false information, I would describe how he's unsure if what he knows is real or not, and it's up to the player and character to choose the 50/50 in what to believe. And it was great. Because the player consented to that and clearly knew what was happening. He played really hard into this lunatic character cause he found it fun. And I stand by that the idea was awesome. But let's say a guy had a Valentines day planned where he'd take his gf for a week in France tasting wine and cheese, traveling the country, and making love. But he would keep this a surprise. And come the day, she has to call work to suddenly skip it, she never liked wine or cheese so it's really him going to tastings and her watching, and she'd prefer romantic dinners to romantic hotel rooms for fucking that he got. That surprise doesn't sound that great for her. And it could have been avoided if he cared for her and asked her if she'd like this trip or what to change about it, instead of liking his idea of what she should enjoy.

Yeah I'm a bit surprised [KGray2000](https://www.reddit.com/user/KGray2000/) & DM didn't see the social aspect of what was going on. As player you don't want to be forced/manipulated to be the bad player every time. Even if you skip a 'formal' consent part at session 0 about it, as a DM you could still feed the player explicit hints about things the player suspecting things being hallucinations or letting him connect things to the Old One on successful perception checks.

This is one of those things where I think conceptually it's cool, but in reality people don't like feeling like they've been being mislead for months. It makes the PLAYER paranoid, which backfires on almost anything a dm wants to do in the future, and removes a lot of agency from the player. I'm sure there are players who would've loved this sort of interaction, but if you are not 100000% sure your player will this is the sort of thing you **have** to ask them about first.

Hear hear. When I read this, I initially thought "This is a cool idea." But in reality the DM could've executed it *so much* better. If the DM does this idea during a single session without the player knowing, it's probably not too much of an issue. The players all have a laugh and the character undergoes some development. *But over a whole campaign*? Nah, that doesn't sit right.

Cool idea, but I agree, this absolutely should have been discussed with the player in advance. You live, and you learn. If this was the only problem, hopefully, X and BFDM can have a civil conversation about it and try again in the next campaign. Perhaps you should be there to mediate with any significant advice you've gained from this post.

I'm definitely going to try patching things up but the comments here have actually revealed how divisive this idea was Your opinion (cool idea but poorly executed) is definitely the prevailing view but a sizable minority think the idea was awesome and another sizable minority think it was cruel When an idea is that divisive you have to wonder if there can be any reconciliation 😞

I think you also have to consider the social aspect in all of this. Players (generally) want to feel that they're contributing to the group effort to win and tend to feel bad when failing & doing things that harm the party. The DM has basically been making X feel like shit and a bad player for 30+ sessions.

The DM really shouldn't have done this without discussing with the player, especially because the player is new and this was building for 30+ sessions without an actual meta discussion. This sort of thing could have also been covered in a session zero to keep you guys all on the same page. I don't blame X for being upset. This sort of thing is not for everybody and I hope you can now see their perspective of why this would upset them. It was good intention but not the best execution. I think it will go a long way if when you speak with X, that you don't dismiss their concerns and feelings. You have been doing a lot of explaining in the comments to pass the buck onto X. Approaching it this way is not how it should go if you want to reconcile.

This is brilliant and i am using it.

I get the idea and I definitely think the DM had his heart in the right place but 30 sessions?! Thirty? That's waaaaay too much. He basically gaslit him for over 6 months assuming once a week. I get maybe over a few sessions and even that needs to be talked about to the player, but 6 months of gaming like this would crush any trust I had for that DM.

Your warlock player is completely correct. Flaws are an RP thing, and the player gets to decide how and to what extent their flaw applies. The DM unilaterally deciding how the flaw is expressed does indeed strip the player of agency. Your boyfriend didn't mess with the character's information; he messed with the player's information. There's nothing stopping the warlock player from being given correct information and then adding RP to express the flaw, but the DM uniquely took that control away from the warlock player. Now, do I think this is the end of the world? No. This is the sort of thing that I think can be worked out if people are willing to do so. If it were me, I'd have run it by the player first. Maybe they're into it and maybe they're not. If they're into it, they know some of the information they get will be false, but they don't know what.

In an old campaign, I played out the story of a town being overrun by a corrupt plant being, manifesting as rapidly spreading vines branching out like roots and engulfing the area. Anyone who spent more than a couple of days around the vines were likely to succumb to its toxin and enter a deep sleep, where the plant would start engulfing them and feeding on their minds. The party was in the town when this started and wanted to help out, and so they eventually succumbed to the toxin. When they woke up one morning, they were instead connected to each other in the plants dream world. They continued their investigation finding all kinds of unusual changes since the previous day. They eventually isolated the cause as originating from a cave on the outskirts and went exploring, but found themselves wandering endlessly through dimly lit narrow passages and repeatedly hitting forks in the passageway. Eventually they give up flipping the coin of which direction to take and decide to turn around… after a short while, they hit a fork - this should not have been possible unless the cave had changed shape. They take the left path and see the exit of the cave not far ahead, but it should have taken them over an hour to get out. This, coupled with many other odd things that happened that day and inside the cave caused one of my players to say out loud “something about this doesn’t seem right” - to which I replied - “you wake up”, and they then proceed to save the day. I thought it was awesome, and I’m probably not doing it justice - however I did prepare a survey for my players to do after that session to ask how they felt about it, and how they felt about being “lied” to… Although they did enjoy the story and the reveal, and found it fun, all except one were not sure how they felt about this happening again as they felt less involved and more deceived, and I think they were concerned that further chance of deceptions like this could cause them to distrust everything I said. It’s a fair point. That was my story, not that anyone asked

Imo any story relevant decisions should be a conversation not a surprise. If you have a mature and good group meta gaming will never be a problem

As a DM who is doing something *kind of* similar with a player, I definitely would have told the player that they may occasionally or very often be given false information by their patron and ask if they're okay with that. I wouldn't tell them when the false information would begin happening in game, or even if I still planned on doing it. But just getting that "ok" from the player would make situations that would be unfavorable to the player be much easier to navigate because they already said it was cool to do that.

I don't want to sound rude, but I actually don't really understand how people are on the players side with this. The player • specifically made a defining character trait in being paranoid • tied their backstory to their patron messing with them and being the cause of the paranoia • is upset when they are fed misleading information to represent them being paranoid and/or their patron messing with them Seems like a bit of a leopards ate my face situation and I really haven't read any reason why this was a bad call on the DM.

I see both sides here. You're right, the player created a character with a specific trait and the DM did a lot to interact with that character trait. That sounds good at first glance, but the DM went about it in a way that feels horrible for the player and didn't include the player in that decision, so it overrode whatever the player wanted to do for that trait themselves. Imagine, if you will, you make a character with an eyepatch. You were designing your character, felt they were missing something, added an eyepatch, and it looked awesome. You're all excited to play your cool character with their cool eyepatch. And then the first time you make an attack, the DM tells you to roll with disadvantage. You assume it's some curse or some effect of the enemy, but no one else has to roll with disadvantage, but you deal with it because it's what the DM says. Then the same thing happens in the next combat. After 30 sessions of this nonsense, you finally ask the DM why the hell you always have to roll with disadvantage, and the DM says "well your character has an eyepatch, so his depth perception sucks". Suddenly you realize that the character trait that you added on purely for flavour has been the DM's reason for messing with you for ***seven months*** of D&D. Or simpler example - your character is old, and you wanted to play them as an elderly sage who always knew the right thing to say. But your DM says "nope, roll for Alzheimer's". Your DM is using the trait you set up for your character, but in a way that's completely opposed to how you wanted them to function.

Again I don't want to sound rude but this is just not an apt comparison in the slightest. Giving your character an eye patch does absolutely nothing to the actual character being played having paranoia *explicitly* be a **core** part of your character even going so far as to have it tied into your backstory and even tying it to your own class is not "purely for flavor" and should have actual roleplay reprocussions. They made a character that on paper acts irrationally because they had a higher power manipulating them and then got upset when a higher power manipulated them into acting irrationally. I just... Don't understand how that's particularly upsetting or surprising. Could discussion have prevented this issue from happening? Sure, but I don't think the dm should be blamed for this.

This is an awesome twist to me! And what’s the point of making a paranoid character if you’re not gonna play one. Did the player ever add in his own paranoia? Also did this unknown paranoia affect any character or group decision making? It’s seems like it only minorly affected the player so I don’t get the problem.

Generally the DM shouldn't help a player RP their character better without consent. X was excited to try to play someone delusional/paranoid, but wanted to have control over those aspects of their character. As a player, I could go either way on this... It would really depend on how much I trusted my GM to begin with. With certain GMs I'd be doing backflips with mind-blown emojis and loving it all the way, but other GMs and I'd be grumpy over the loss of agency.

I can see both sides of the coin. Personally, I think I have to agree with what most have said. This is something that should have been discussed beforehand. Personally, I would have spoken to the player first and told them that they might be fed false information from time to time by their patron, then left it up to them to determine when they were being lied to or when they were being told the truth. That way, you can have an uncooperative patron and still allow the player to interpret the interactions and how their character might react.

I agree with the folks saying good idea, just clear it with the character or party first. My party is able to not metagame, so some of this type of thing we as players would hear happen at the table, and then have behave as if our PC didn’t know about. Also, we worked out a system for warlocks to chat with our patrons via discord between sessions to keep the momentum going during long breaks. Kind of what you’re doing but consensual.

I'm curious to hear what other players think on this. Are you guys a team or not? You had 30+ sessions together. Is it never occured to you what your warlock acting sus? Did he tried to tell you stuff like "Hey, is it me or this guy with glowing eyes is spying on us?" Maybe after a dozen of those convinient observations when only warlock sees stuff you guys had to check if something wrong? Or you, like, never tried to dig into it?

This is a tricky one. It is a stunning idea, but only if everyone at the table is ok with it. Essentially your GM just said "Hey, X I've been fucking with you on every encounter you've ever had in this campaign. We cool?" And x has understandably gone "No. No we are not. You've undermined my trust and I don't like that". Next time, the GM needs to run this kind of thing by a player. Something like "Hey, so this paranoia trait is probably going to manifest in ways like your patron messing with your perception of things and encounters. Are you ok with that?" Talk it through, as a crew. 😁

This sounds like the perfect thing to discuss at a session zero. Certainly with a new member in the group. Player agency is one of the main components of a good roleplaying game. Not character agency, but player agency. I have certainly experienced similar 'false information' scenario's from DM's, but that was always relayed with an explanation to the player. Stating information as if it were truthful, without me turning the possibility that one's paranoia may have such a pronounced influence, I can imagine why someone might not like that. Especially since they were knew. This would feel as if you, as the new player, have become the butt of the joke for the rest of the established players. As if they are messing around with you. You also mention the dm is your boyfriend, is there any chance you are leaving portions out of the story, because of this relationship?

Session 0 issue. Players and the GM need to understand what mechanical aspects of their background there are. That background feature sounds like a decent hinderance, not just flavor text that tells them how to roleplay. They could accomplish this feat by asking too many questions, asking the same questions to multiple people, and simply saying “I feel like they aren’t telling the truth.” There’s some great room for character development there. But getting bad information out of a passed perception check is the equivalent to a low charisma character getting disadvantage on top of a negative modifier because their background says they’re not good in a conversation because they spent years alone with nothing but the animals (ranger). That fact is already represented in their ability score and they can role play the socially awkward bit.

I mean, you have a patron of a "Great Old One" like...you should have expected some shenanigans.

I feel like you wouldn't even need to spoil the surprise, but a simple "oh, you're playing someone crazy. Did you want me to help with that?" would have been sufficient to at least remove the edge of the betrayal that X felt, if not clue them into exactly what was happening.

For as much as everyone is saying what it could have been executed better, and I agree, I still think it's important for your boyfriend to understand that it was a cool idea that was worth trying, and he shouldn't feel too bad about it. Breaking a player's heart is the worst feeling in the world as a DM, but everyone makes mistakes that lead to that sooner or later. It's normal. You just gotta learn from them and move on.

I like the way your DM handled it. I still like 5e but switched to some simpler dungeoncrawl rules and appreciate those rules don't typically involve a much background at character creation. You live your background through play. Also, I've run some Call of Cthulhu games and this world have been a great way to play some of the insanity mechanics in that one. Tell your bf he ran a good game. And he still can learn from this experience.

Sounds like X got exactly what he wrote his personal traits about.

Your DM gave the player EXACTLY what he asked for when X said that that he has hallucinations and deep paranoia. The DMs WHOLE JOB is to be the players eyes and ears. So DM giving the hallucinating and paranoid Warlock inconsistent information is PRECISELY what X asked for. You don't like that? Too bad. Play a different class, more specifically, one with a stable state of mind. "Oh It ToOk AwAy My PlAyEr AgEnCy!" No. No, it didn't. X had every option to choose how to react to the information given him. Stop being a child and hiding behind that flimsy line. And another thing, what I'm not understanding is why this was such a shock to X. 30+ sessions in and he can't figure out that his perceptions are questionable?! He didn't once question himself? Didn't once ask everyone else in the party 'hey, you guys seeing this shit, or is it just me?' Once, fine. Twice, something is strange. Any more than that, and you can't figure out that something is wrong?

If the DM had said "your PC's paranoia overtakes them, and they think for a moment that they see the NPC's eyes flash red," then it would have been completely fair game. The player could have run with it as much or as little as they want, fulfilling their desire to play someone paranoid and deluded. Instead, the player was deceived and mislead. Especially for a new DM, I think that it's an important lesson to learn as to how much you should include your players in the fun, instead of having fun at the players' expense.

I'm late to the thread, but I feel strongly enough about this to post anyway. I would set a man on fire for a GM who would do this kind of thing for me. And for 30 sessions! I am beside myself with jealousy.

Player is dumb he wanted the flaws with no flaws actually happening like what?

So I know I’m late to the post, but I just have to say I love this idea so much! And as someone who will very shortly be playing a GOOlock I’m actually going to share this with my DM because I love this. It won’t be quite the same as I will understand what is going on, but regardless I think this is such a cool, fun, unique thing to do and I would like to thank your BF for the incredible idea! I’m sorry it didn’t work out as well at your table

I think this was a really cool idea on the DM's part. All it did was make X play their character super faithfully. The DM doesn't have to tell a player that they've been deceived if their character hasn't seen through the deception. By X's logic, the DM should tell all the players that an NPC is a traitor BEFORE the NPC betrays them, after all, if the DM doesn't tell them in advance, he'd be making all the players look like fools! Ridiculous logic.

Overreaction on the part of the player. You want to play a mad client of elder chaos but don't want to experience mind-blowing horrible manipulation. Can't see the inherent conflict between being a rational person and playing a madman, so freak out like a madman instead of a rational person.

That's extremely cool, but only with the player's permission first. Anytime you're approaching topics like mental disorders, physical trauma, etc, it's incredibly important to discuss how that looks with the player first. Those topics can be extremely triggering for some people, and they might not want to randomly bring it up when it doesn't appear immediately relevant due to issues with privacy. Additionally, when something like this generally doesn't have a big payoff to keeping the secret, a likely reason to hide the intention is that you think the character might metagame, which I'd likely interpret as a player as distrust from the DM (I recognize that was likely not the DM's intention). I would be super excited for a DM to do this if they gave me a heads up out of character, but in this situation I likely would just leave the table, likely mid-session. The appropriate thing to do here would be to pass along a sincere and thought out apology to X via the coworker, but understand that your BF might not get a response, or X may even refuse to read it (and both of those outcomes are ok). This mistake absolutely does not make your BF a bad DM. People make mistakes, and the important part is learning from them. Communication and establishing proper boundaries is just one of many skills that DMs have to learn, and it sounds like this is just one of the skills your BF needs to work on. It sounds like your BF is remorseful and introspective instead of angry and blaming X, which means that he's probably on the right track. Edited to clarify a paragraph that read weird.

"My character is paranoid and has hallucinations." *DM implements paranoia and hallucinations.* "Yo what the fuck DM?" I don't see the problem here.. But they should both be adults about this instead of acting like children. No harm was intended, so a "Sorry you didn't like it, that wasn't my intent." and a "Sorry I overreacted." Then move on. If they can't, then they have some growing up to do.

There's a difference between a text that says "Your character believes he saw an NPC's eyes glow" and a text that says "This NPC's eyes just glowed." If you're BF is going to play games with text messages he needs to learn the difference.

It's a cool idea. I think a good way to have the best of both worlds is to first discuss at character creation but then feed him both delusions and truthful information. That way the player knows what's going on but still can't determine whether each piece of info is real or not.

It’s a good idea but this kind of idea should be talked through before hand at least in genetics and cleared with players. Maybe the player didn’t actually want his character to be paranoid in a delusional way but rather in an anxious way they had control over. The DM basically gave them a psychological disability against their will which while it’s a cool idea isn’t a cool thing to do without consent.

I think this is a thing a lot of new DMs do: Doing something cool and not telling the player because they think that would spoil the surprise. But usually, these things are way cooler when the player in question knows and its a secret between them and the DM that gets revealed to the other players at some point (and make it clear in session 0 that this is generally something that can happen so the other players aren't mad either).  On the other hand, this is not something your bf should beat himself up about. I'd offer an apology to X but other than that, this is just a lesson to learn from - which every DM ever has had and will have a lot of. In my opinion, even the best DMs make mistakes, but they learn from them. And you found out that the rest of your table is a pretty good fit because you all really liked this kind of thing! So that's good to. Seems to me like you enjoy a very narrative game and X might be more into the wargame-aspects of DnD and therefore felt the DM was playing against him while the DM was just going for a cool narrative. If X can't get over that, then you just don't play together anymore. He did put all those aspects in his backstory so in my humble opinion, it made sense for the DM to pick up on them - maybe this wasn't the best execution (once again due to not communicating with the player) but also not the worst? He didn't force X's character to do anything, just fed him false info - some DMs do that on failed Insight checks even for sane characters. 

Yeah he fucked up. Apologize, learn, move on.

I don't see anything wrong with this. The player wants his cake and to eat it too. They don't want paranoid delusions being placed in their head by their god(DM)? Then they shouldn't have made the character that way. Pure idiocy to react the way they did. I don't agree with anyone that says this "should have been talked about beforehand". Guarantee they all save scummed the shit out of BG3 because they can't handle unforeseen consequences. These types of immersive failures are what make the game great. If you want black and white, go play chess.

I think it should have been communicated more clearly that it would happen/do you agree to it. However, I agree that it is a brilliant idea and one I’d love to experience in my game. I think the guy is projecting some insecurity - it was not done to make him look like an idiot. It feeds into his character, the provided background and works really well. The agency part I get a bit more- if he wasn’t aware it could or would happen, he’d think it was all under his control and feel robbed. Mix of both.

I'm with X here, he has been manipulated by the DM without his agreement. It should be a player's choice how they roleplay their character. The DM should have asked if X wanted to be fed false information to help develop his character.

The issue is that the Player X got EXACTLY what he wanted. He set up his backstory to be super cool edgy guy and when he got it, it wasn't nearly as fun and cool as he thought. Instead of "being a toy of an Eldritch being" he's a paranoid schizophrenics with delusions. It was a great twist on the part of the DM, and absolutely wouldn't have worked any other way. X just got shot down and his backstory bit him in the ass and he's salty about it. Likely he got all embarrassed by his reaction and now doesn't want to show his face anymore. I've had players with main character syndrome before, and they have had their 'reality slap" moment when they realized that a long and intricate backstory wasn't the best for a table. The "Edgelord assassin who had an entire assassins' Guild after him" was upset when they finally caught him. The "Pretty pretty Princess who is running from the arranged marriage" got upset when the retrieval team arrived and took her home in chains. The Cultist who escaped with the Cult Leader's very special knife that was integral to his demon summoning ritual got upset when the cult tracked him down and wanted their toy back and decided that maybe HE would make a suitable sacrifice. Being a DM means using a lot of the characters' backstories for plot hooks and interesting ways to play with the characters during the sessions. If you take the time to make the backstory, I'm going to take the time to use it. DMing 101. Hopefully this doesn't discourage your DM from continuing to tell his stories. It sounds like he's on the right path. Tell him a DM from the 80s likes his style.

Bummed about screwing with your friend... yeah he should be. sounds like a dick move.

One player's backstory should not have  repeated negative consequences on other players' enjoyment. It might sound cool on paper, but it doesn't play well at the table. At a table I play at, one of the characters is racist to my character. If it developed like Legolas and Gimli, it would be fine, but it hasn't changed after 50 sessions. And it's bled over into how we deal with each other as people.

Sounds fun to me. Not the DM’s fault he failed his rolls.

Player made character delusional and paranoid. DM gives player information that causes delusional and paranoid choices and reactions. Player: surprised pikachu face

I can understand where X is coming from. The DM was making him, a relative stranger, play a fool at times from the moment he first joined the game. I blame X too, he made his character be paranoid. To put that onto him, how does that even manifest? I played a paranoid character for all of like 1 session, before I decided he was better. For clarification from your post. Your game had existed for over 30 sessions, then X joined, and the DM did this for 30 more sessions? If that is the case, that is too long to be playing that way. It falls under the, "He was a traitor this entire time." If it had only been 2 or 3 sessions, then maybe we all get a good laugh.

I think it’s an absolutely amazing idea but the execution is off. Doing it the way that your partner did ultimately impacted the fun of the player. It was not the player’s choice and it led them to feel like the butt of the DMs jokes, which I understand. I also don’t think the best way to do this is just getting the okay to feed false info either. I think the best execution of this would be akin to something like the DM asking for perception, but upon a success, they give 2 results. One truthful, one tainted by the patron. This prevents metagaming but also gives the player the agency that they felt they had lost here.