I was thinking about trying the same thing Kojima did at the end of MGSV to one of my players.Where one of my PCs isn't really who they've been playing all along. They were a separate person and without their consent were forced to take on the role of the person they've been playing so that the real person could take care of some project without distractions. The backstory my player had written up would end up being the memories their character was given to play their part.What do you think about doing this to someone? Do you think it'd be a good twist or could this backfire?
>>47198726
Look at the backlash regarding MGSVs ending and let that be your answer.
>>47198726
They will notice except if they are normies who don't know bout videogames.
We've had someone sort of do this willingly in a game, but I think making it like a secret twist will not go well.
>>47198745
The backlash was mainly about not having a proper ending/not explaining shit about why BB went evil. Only fags who keep bitching about playing raiden in mgs2 cry about The Medic.
>>47198726
>you try this twist, only to be met with eyerolls
>"So, literally Metal Gear Solid V, huh?"
>what do?
>>47198726
do it big boss and venom snake are both my husbando
>>47198726
This is almost 100% guaranteed to piss the player you chose off, unless you worked things out together in advance. Most players (the ones who care about their characters, at least) aren't going to respond well to the GM suddenly forcing a new backstory upon them mid-game.
>>47198726
>They were a separate person and without their consent
Stop right there. Do not ever fuck with someone's character personality/backstory/desired concept without their consent. Holy shit, that should not even be something you need to even apply thought to to figure out it's a shitty thing to do.
>>47198726
Same reason you don't want mind control, and other mechanics that take away control from the player, it usually destroys all their motivation and feelings of investment. Don't do it. It's alright for npcs to be fakes but you can't do that to players without prior notice.
>>47198761
>why BB went evil
Probably because he's been evil since the end of 3 really.
Did these people even play the series?
I think this can work, but you definitely need to be very careful about this. Just make sure it's a player you know well, everybody is different, so if you think THEY think it would be cool, go nuts.
>>47198818
In my opinion, he didn't go evil until he went against his (and The Boss') code and used a soldier as a tool (the Medic). This is the beginning of his descent to villainy, culminating up to the Outer Heaven incident and Zanzibarland, though it can be argued that Venom was the "Big Boss" present at (and killed at) Outer Heaven.
It's quite similar to how a paladin falls in our settings. It's when they lose sight of their code/oath and abandon it, either intentionally or otherwise.
And if you ever wanted to play Big Boss or Venom as a paladin, here you go.
>>47198859
Someone please stat him in 5e as a fighter/rogue and boom, I have my next character.
>>47198818
One thing is going "Rogue" helping a merry band of sandinistas and other thing is using children soldiers as cannon meat as portrayed in MG1. There is a fucking mile between those points.
>>47198908
This. He wasn't evil at the end of MGS3, just jaded and losing sight of his purpose.
God damn MGS3 was the greatest MGS. Soundtrack, environment, theme, story, game mechanics, everything (except the wonky controls, but that got fixed in later editions, so...)
>>47198889
I need this to happen.
>>47198726
I love it when GMs shit on my characters for the sake of shoving their SUPER AWSOME ORIGINAL fanfiction plots on me. No really. I don't play my own characters because I wanted to actually make something based on my own ideas, nope, not at all.
>>47198726
I was playing in a campaign once set on a big island which was cursed - we had no way of getting off the island.
We were 8 sessions in when I had had enough of my level 8 warlock (DnD3.5) - it was a boring class and I felt my character was just 2edgy5me.
So I talked to my DM about it, and he said he'd fix it and that I only had to play one more session (but come with a new character prepared).
So we were on session 9 and we were pretty far into a dungeon, I was getting impatient when we met an NPC, it was an elf ranger with a wolf.. My character!
The DM said that this Elf was hunting a changeling - we didn't know what he was talking about until it dawned upon me that I was the changeling. The DM then handed me my new character and the changeling, my warlock, turned into the dungeon's boss.
It can be done, but you have to be extremely careful.
I do not think I could pull it off, but I have only been a DM for about 2 years or so.
>>47199288
That's literally not the same thing as what OP is talking about. He wants it to be some super cool reveal without the player's consent.
>>47198889
I play him in my current Pathfinder campaign that a friend is running. I really like DD so I made a Rogue/Hunter character that likes to grapple and flank attack a lot.
I have no clue about 5e though, sorry.
>>47199307
Yes, you are correct. I supposed I should have mentioned that this reminded my of this thing.
My point being:
>It can be done, but you have to be extremely careful.
>I do not think I could pull it off, but I have only been a DM for about 2 years or so.
>>47199329
The point is player consent and agency. If you as the DM take that away from the one thing they have control over, then what was their character even worth?
>>47199364
Yes, I completely agree. I do not think it is a very good idea.
I think it can be done, but it must be the correct player and you have to know them very well.
>>47199370
I don't think it can/shouldbe done.
How about shamelessly ripping off the ending of Twin Peaks?
Can it be done without being a massive "fuck you" to the player?
[Game Mastered by Hideo Kojima]
OP, ignore the crybaby snowflakes in this thread going on about "m-muh narrative consent" and "m-muh absolute control over backstory". Your first and only concern as GM should be, will my decision here result in a net positive for the game?
If your player is a huge MGS fanboy who was absolutely on board with MGSV's ending and whose character exhibits some Big Boss parallels, then go for it. If not, remember your first and only concern described above.
>>47198765
Don't do it. It was jarring and stupid in the video game, it will be jarring and stupid in table top. The reason it happened in TTP was that Kojima effectively had to work two timelines in to each other and make it work and still have a viable product to sell to people. Big Boss, as of right now, is worth more to Konami than Solid Snake he can't kill him off. He is the reason we buy Metal Gear games, Solid/Old Snake is dying, unless he is saved.
tl;dr Big Boss is now the main selling point of the franchise now that Solid Snake is almost dead. If he kills Big Boss off now or in the next game the franchise is essentially over. That is why he did it.
Question for the OP would be, why does this need to happen?
>>47200643
Because it happened in a videogame he liked, so now he wants to wedge it into a game where it doesn't belong.
>>47201090
A better twist would be for it to happen above him, that is in a Dark Heresy game the Inquisitor was the one to double-cross them and they've been working for the enemy all along. PLAYED LIKE A DAMN LAS-FIDDLE.
>>47201259
You have to say that last part really poorly though and only correct it in flashback
>>47201259
>every NPC they've ever encountered has been a secret double
>the Great Undertaking the NPCs all fucked off to help with will break the world like an egg
>>47198761
Well raiden was pretty unlikable.
>>47198726
I have one guy in my group that I know for a fact I could pull this on and he would love it, but that's because I've been gaming with him for a long time and know exactly how to fuck with him. It can definitely be done well, but you have to really know your player. It's not the sort of thing you should do to a random person.
Alternatively, tell your group up front that you want to run an experimental game with lots of crazy twists and ask for permission to fuck with their characters really hard. As long as the group knows up front that you're going to be doing crazy stuff to them, it'll be fine (probably).
Another way to do it is to involve your player in creating the person they're a copy of. I played in an Evangelion-ish type game once where my PC was the typical Rei/clone archetype with wiped memories. The cloning process didn't work properly and she started remembering things from her past life which were explored through flashback sequences. The actual person my PC was cloned from wasn't written at all by the GM, and I basically wrote that character myself by playing them during the flashback sequences.
The setting is another thing to keep in mind. In my own example above, you go into the game expecting weird stuff like this to happen and the players are likely going to be on board with it, especially if they straight up choose a concept like playing a clone. On the other hand, if you're playing D&D or something, your player is probably going to get upset when Bob the Fighter turns out to be Venom Snake, because nobody really goes into a D&D game expecting that kind of plot, and subverting expectations isn't always a good thing to do.
>>47201828
This guy sounds legit. A thing to remember too is that Venom Snake/Big Boss was done at the height of the most surveiled time in History (Up to that point) and Big Boss was the most watched figure in the shadowy world of private militaries. If you are playing a fantasy game it is simple to claim to be another as it is all reputation and ability that is needed to prove you are who you say you are, that and heraldry. In a cyberpunky setting it may be more impressive/difficult as biometrics, blood, implants, etc, the whole setting is theme is geared towards cataloging, labeling and numbering humans as an exploitable resource.
>>47201618
Now you are just being nasty.
>>47201618
>>47203888
He was awful and utterly at odds with what a Westerner expects from both a protagonist and a man.
>>47198745
>>47198761
the people who are butthurt about venom not being BB either didn't pay attention to anything in the game or didn't play the game.
they made it so obvious from the start of the game onward
>>47201618
>>47203980
raiden's big problem comes from the fact that he has no consistent character
in MGS2 he was a child soldier try to escape his past and start over which got thrown away to make him gray fox 2.0 in MGS4 which got thrown away in MGR to make him a bipolar murderbot.
>>47198726
So I must have missed something at the end of the game because I didn't get that at all
>>47198908
Actually, Venom himself shows his willingness to use the child soldiers from Africa. Kaz was the one who didn't want him to. There wasn't a lot of focus on it after that.
>>47198859
I could be wrong, but I think Venom Snake was the one that died at Outer Heaven, while the REAL Big Boss was wounded at Zanzibarland.
>>47203980
In MGS2 he was a cipher for the player, a weak-willed wannabe being lead around by vague instructions he doesn't question.
Your problems with Raiden are your problems with yourself.
>>47206212
They should of pushed the more ruthless and dictator-like behaviors of Big Boss/Whoever as that is one of the main things that sticks out in my mind in the old canon.
>>47205300
Did you play the replay of the hospital mission?
>>47207749
No, they aren't. When we play games like Metal Gear Solid, we follow the story, we place ourselves in the role of Snake, of Big Boss, of whoever. When we place ourselves in the role of Raiden, it's empty like you say, because I am not a Special Forces operator.
I'm aware he was little more than a proxy for the player, but that is a terrible idea for a video game with so much going on. It disconnects you from the narrative as you are not a part of it. You are an outsider looking in on the story which is great for certain things, but when you are given the perspective of somebody in the story and he does not know what's going on, that transfers directly to the player and so makes it unpleasant and unpopular.
That and he was effeminate, touched and sexually assaulted by the President, so fucking fair-haired, soft featured. This is why the character has been sharpened up and made overtly masculine to make up for that fact that his appearance and outlook was not welcomed by the West.
>>47207749
> MGS2 was 2deep4u
raiden was only meant to be a player insert to people new to the series and he was more or less meant to develop snake from a third person perspective.
also it doesn't help that raiden was created with focus testing in mind he's basically the video game equivalent of poochi
fun fact he was originally supposed to be like pic related but was changed because people "didn't want to play an old guy like snake"
>>47199317
>tfw making a Halfling BB/Deathstroke mix for a game
>>47208421
Details?
>>47204407
>they made it obvious
That's why people bitched. There wasn't anything clever about this twist to make up for its hamfistedness. It felt rushed and half assed
>>47198726
OP I think that sounds like an awesome idea.
Ignore the special snowflakes.
Remember that the real reason people hated MGSV was because of the lack of boss fights.
>>47209781
>There wasn't anything clever about this twist to make up for its hamfistedness.
>complaining about this in MGS of all things
like i said. people who never played the games are the ones who are butthurt
I had a similar idea a few years ago but using clones. Never had a change to used it but the player could still have the character exactly he wrote it but with the memories transplanted from the original while the original became the BBEG or something.
>>47198726
Bad idea man.
Does the character have anything in their backstory that would allow for this? Gaps of mysterious, missing time? Amnesia? A whole phase of their life that's never been commented on?
And not in the sense that the player never filled it out, in the sense that they deliberately left something blank and mysterious for you to fill in. Also, have you dropped any hints about this being a possibility?
If not, and you don't have your player's consent, then absolutely don't do this.
>>47201259
How much Metal Gear do you put in your 40k? I put about 30%.
>>47210862
>Remember that the real reason people hated MGSV was because of the lack of boss fights.
>peace walker had none & MGS2 had about the same amount as MGSV
that one's a first but i guess it's par for the course since the metal gear fandom has weird set of double standards to begin with.
the REAL reasons was that people had a problem with MGSV was that the game was left unfinished because konami & kojima's falling out keep in mind that there were at least a couple of chapters that were cut as well as the resolution with eli being left unfinished and only survived through a documentary on how the mission was gonna be like
...and i say this as someone who likes MGSV
>>47211277
Peace Walker had boss fights of a kind. Every vehicle/the various Mechs were definitely formatted like Boss fights, even if they didn't have fun eccentric villains philosophizing at you as you shoot them.
But I agree, most of the hate MGSV gets is because it isn't really finished. I loved it, but there's a whole chunk of the story missing.
I'm pretty much neutral on the BB/Venom thing. I get where Kojima was going with it, but I don't think it was particularly successful in the way that some other famous vidya twists have been.
>>47211385
I'm fine with BB/venom since he was a better attempt at a player insert than what most theories think raiden was
the funny part is that give it a couple of years and we'll probably have the same people who consider MGS2 this misunderstood masterpiece say the same things about MGSV
>>47198726
>the end of MGSV
>MGSV
>end
