Tips on playing a chaotic evil character while keeping alignment and class secret from the rest of the party [duplicate]

Question

I first saw the idea on a different question. Can't remember where exactly it was. It may even have just been a joke but the idea seems interesting, although there's probably a very delicate border between this being tasteful vs annoying.

More specifically, would it be possible to to be a, for example, chaotic evil wizard but have the party convinced that you're a good-aligned bard or other?

Assume the DM knows what you're doing. It's the rest of the party you're trying to fool.

Also note: this idea is not meant for a long-run campaign. It's for a campaign meant to last two or three sessions max.

Another edit: Wizard/Bard is not set in stone. We currently aren't too sure what classes would make this easiest to pull off, but the short nature of the campaign makes us believe that lying about the character's class might be doable.

Answer 1

More specifically, would it be possible to to be a, for example, chaotic evil wizard but have the party convinced that you're a good-aligned bard or other?

Only if you make an elaborate plan together with the DM, and make the whole game revolve about it. With the other players sitting at the same table, if you want to fool them, you basically have to be an actual Good character for the entire session. You'd need to preplan the whole story so that the DM can work in the details of your evil-ness without really communicating with you.

If you suddenly start exchanging notes with the DM or taking him into the next room to discuss something (and this isn't normal in your games, which I'm assuming it isn't based on your question) then everyone will immediately be suspicious and most of the effect will be ruined.

The only real way to pull it off properly is to make it a single session game, with fresh characters, that revolves around the rest of the party finding out you are actually the bad guy. Otherwise you'll run into communication issues with the DM, poor delivery when the party finds out, or (worst of all) it just never coming up.

You'll have to build a story together with the DM, so you both know what's going to happen and how, and you can give the other players enough information to A) figure it out and B) the reveal being a dramatic realisation, and not a "why are you suddenly killing us out of the blue? are you bored with the game or something?" reaction.

Answer 2

Anything is possible in D&D, if the DM says it happens and the players go along with it. So, sure: if your DM thinks this would be fun, and you're confident the other players will think it is fun, you can certainly do it.

But think for a second: will the other players really think this is fun?

Normally when they play a game, they get to the end, fight a villain, and you all triumph together. Are you planning for them to unmask and defeat you at the end of the scenario? Or are you planning to backstab and kill them and run off with the loot?

If the other players are going to have a game where they were expecting to triumph together, but instead your character backstabs and kills them... Do you really think that will be fun for them? Or will they say: "This wasn't fun, I don't want to play in this game any more"?

Or, worse: now that secretly being evil is a thing, what if everyone wants to do it in every adventure? What if it becomes impossible to play a game because everyone is trying to backstab everyone else?

In summary: yes, this is possible! But you probably shouldn't do it.

Answer 3

Short Answer: Yes

Long Answer: It is possible however it is extremely hard to put in practice as the whole thing will blow up the moment anyone casts detect evil or just peeks at your character sheet while you are grabbing snacks. There is also the fact that pretending to be a bard will be extremely difficult whilst being a wizard due to the fact that bards have musical abilities however it is not impossible as you can claim your character is a noble that refuses to play anything that isn't worth a thousand gold. In conclusion you can do it but my advise is to spare yourself from this arduous journey or at the very least pretend to be a good aligned wizard rather than choosing a class with an ability that is near impossible to replicate.

Answer 4

It depends on how familiar the other players are with the system. Disguising an alignment is easy, disguising a class is hard in practice. Given the example above, players might wonder why you never use bardic inspiration, why you carry a spellbook, why you don't use Cutting Words, why you limit your armor and weapons to inferior choices, etc.

There are similar examples with other class combinations: Why does the "barbarian" never rage? Why does the "druid" never Wild Shape?

It's not totally impossible, it just gets harder the more your fellow players know the rules. It sounds like you have a long established game of many characters. I wouldn't place too much faith in their inability to catch on fairly quickly, even over the course of one or two sessions.