Recently my long-time gaming group began a Round Robin style campaign where we each take turns being the DM. We decided the decided that we'll each get to DM one session with a randomly determined order and our respective characters would be treated as NPCs while we DM.
It's my turn this week and we're very early in the campaign. Last week the DM introduced a villain, but we didn't actually get far enough to meet them. All we know is that they're evil. We don't know what they look like or even their race/species.
We ended with the party following a trail to find the villain for an initial confrontation. The party should arrive at the beginning of my session so actually deciding what will happen/who this villain is will fall to me.
I figured this would be a good opportunity to do something dramatic and sneaky. I'd like to make my player character the ultimate villain of the campaign, but keep it secret until the last session. However, I only have control over one session. The next sessions (including the conclusion) will be DMed by other people. Normally I'd talk to the DM privately and tell them my plan in order to surprise the party, but this time the DM(s) consist of the entire party.
This leaves me with several problems/questions:
- Is this a fair thing to do the rest of the group without asking permission?
- How can I make my character strong enough to be a threat to the party without cheating?
- What can I do in my session to set my character up as the villain and minimize the chance of other DMs changing the villain's identity? Obviously I can't prevent this entirely, but suggestions on how I could play this out to reduce the chance of the villain's true identity being discovered would be ideal.
Things that may be important:
- The group focuses more on story than rules. No one is a rules-lawyer and sometimes we make up rules rather than look them up.
- This is set in a VERY LOOSE Star Wars universe. Our knowledge is limited to the 7 official films, the Star Wars Holiday Special and a few KOTOR games. None of us are Star Wars experts and we're kind of making stuff up as we go.
- We have 3 force-sensitive members of the party, but my character is the only Jedi/Sith.
- My character doesn't have to be with the party when the confront the villain this week. The DM has the option to leave their personal character behind to avoid confusion.
- I have complete control of my session. Anything that happens that doesn't violate previously establish facts or rules in our system stands, but that doesn't prevent DMs from accidentally changing something I've kept secret.
- We're using an adapted version of Warrior Rogue and Mage
- We all started at level 1 (in terms of our system this means 1 Talent, 10 attribute points and 3 Skills/Spells). We've leveled up once, but my character is no more powerful than any other at this time. Making my character a powerful Sith lord would require me to retroactively change my stats in secret.
EDIT I've changed some of the wording to reflect an emphasis on making the character the villain with no direct influence on whether they're the final boss. Since someone else will be the DM of the final session I understand I have no control over who the final boss will be or whether we'll even have a final boss.