How would YOU implement "The Thing" in an Icewind Dale setting?
What monsters would you use/create?
How would you create distrust between players?
How would you set the mood?
What kind of NPC's would you play?
What kind of food/supplies would the PC's have access to and what would they be waiting on (or why would they remain in a closed area around the thing vs just walking away)?
I am both selfish and instinctive. I value growth and community, as long as they favour my own objectives; I enjoy nature, and I particularly enjoy watching parts of nature die. At best, I am resilient and tenacious; at worst, I'm uncontrollable and destructive.
. . . I wouldn't. The PCs would take the role of a single "character" from The Thing, and succeed or fail together. If you do have PCs get infected singly, and want players to be paranoid about each other, you need to have a game plan for what those players should do a) once they know their own PC is infected b) once their infected PC is destroyed by the uninfected ones. The players will also cotton on to the mechanics fairly quickly, and I think it will be difficult to maintain suspense if it's based on PC activity - unless you also spend a lot of time with each player solo, which tends to drag things out for the players who are not active.
That means the NPCs, and "unit of infection" for The Thing would also be larger - groups of individuals/creatures etc. The paranoia would be built up around having NPCs and groups of NPCs that the PCs needed to get things done, and having those NPCs starting to distrust each other and separate. For instance, all of the clerics in the temple might retreat within it, and because of their kindly nature invite in anyone who asks for sanctuary - this is a huge conflict of interests, and it's pretty likely the PCs will leave the temple only to return to find it completely over-run, including the head priest :-)
The infection mechanic would need work, too. In the movie, infection is very easy to get and impossible to combat once it happens. If you make it that brutal in the game, to keep the horror angle going, then players will need backup PCs - infected PCs would be out of the game one way or another very quickly. You'll want the players to know that kind of thing in advance - if they are bringing much-loved longer term characters into this kind of scenario, you shoud come up with a reason why the PCs don't just get infected as easily as the other inhabitants.
Wow, what a good idea. I'm not sure about the new version of The Thing, but the old John Carpenter movies definitely one of my person favorites. Plus Kurt Russell? what a badass!
I think this would be very challenging and may not work out the way you want it to, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't give it a shot.
Slobo has made some great comments, and i cerainly think you'll need a larger pool of people, as just a group of PCs would probalby not work. I don't know what kind of setting you were thinking, ie how large, but a medium sized village or something might be the right number. How you handle PC infection is another issue, as pointed out. Maybe there is a cure? if they do transform, maybe they get more hitpoints and deal more damage once found out, then must be knocked out or trapped somehow.
In past games, I've had some DM's try different things like this, with controlling the player or changing player goals. they normally involve getting the player a slip of paper that tells them thier new goals/motivations. If a PC gets infected, then they will act as themselves, but thier goals are now in alignment with the thing. so how you will let that player know, without the other party members knowing he is infected might be tricky.
What i would do: Much like the thing, i'd have them be in an isolated village, maybe a mountain village that is now isolated due to HEAVY and impossible to travel weather. that way they are stuck. THey find themselves in a village that just unearthed something, when the players get there, it's still frozen. It's an average village with enough supplies to last for a week or more (you can always have one of the things destroy the supplies and sabotage things, just like the movie). THey seek shelter, and most parties will go to the local tavern. They will mess around or do whatever, having conversations with NPCs about the weather, when can they leave, what did they find in the ground, ect...
Maybe the setting needs to be a place where the players have a connection already. like they saved a village a while back and are headed near there, so they stop in, only to be snowed in, ect...
at this point you have to introduce the enemy. it has to escape the ice or whateverit's trapped in, and begin infecting. You can have them watch it hatch, show up to find that it's gone, or by having someone come right out and say it killed someone. THis is where it get's tricky. Your players will need to do some investigating as to where the creature is. how do they know it's changed shape? is the person it killed okay? maybe that's the first tip off. Someone says Dan is dead, but when they ge there, the creature is gone and dan is fine. the players won't know what to think.
What i would do is have an infected player "accidentally" get pushed into fire or something, forcing them to change into the monster - que combat. Post combat, the players need to know the following to make this encounter like The Thing: 1. the creature can shapeshift into people/infect people 2. it's hostile. 3. anyone can be a creature.
you should have some NPC's travel with them and stay with them, at least until the creature is exposed, so they have someone they know isn't infected. do you know what i mean? There needs to be a reason why they don't just kill everyone to be sure. it's the suspense of not knowing who is infected that makes it so gripping. people turning on people, a trusted friend secretly being a creature is what makes them start being paranoid. Maybe have them split up for some reason, that way they don't necessarily trust everyone in their own party. Anytime a player or NPC is left alone, that's an opportunity for the creature to infect/become them.
As far as monsters, i don't have any books in front of me, but find something that has polymorph, or just use something that has a claw attack. Make them deal some heavy damage and i would keep the fire vunerability. Anyone who has seen the movie will know how to handle this situation once they udnerstand you're doing an encounter based on The Thing.
Okay, just thought of some more things i'd do. As far as NPC's they shoudl be infected easily. PC's on the other hand, can't be infected until they are bloodied or something. supplies should be shortened, and players should realize that they can't just take extended rests and short rests all the time to regain hitpoints, as anytime you sleep or rest, that's an opportunity for the creature to infect someone.
the more i think about it, you may want to split hte party up (not knowing how many players you have, i can't give a suggestion). My party consists of six people, so i'd split them up into twos, have them explore 3 different places: supplies, head of the village's house, and where they unearthed the creature. This does two things, the first being splits up the party. the second being good ways of getting information about the creature and informing the PCs how to proceed. Seeing the sabotage they might realize the creature is out to kill them. the head of the village might know of a story or legend about a creature like this. seeing where they unearthed it may point in clues on what it is or how to deal with it.
I might make the change that the Thing doesn't even realize it's not who it appears to be, until it's under some sort of pressure or attack and various organs and appendages are forced to go into fight-or-flight mode, and The Thing watches what it thought was its own body scatter and retreat before its own eyes.
In other words, the PCs might be a Thing and not even know it until it's too late.
Monsters that would seem to be a natural for this sort of game might include modifications of various oozes and vermin. Some things from the monster vault I might consider:
Carrion Crawler Scuttler (Level 5 Skirmisher, p.32): it climbs walls and ceilings; it has a "Tentacles" attack that stuns a victim, and then the Crawler shifts, dragging the victim with it
Doppelganger Sneak (Level 3 Skirmisher, p.61): change shape to look like any Medium Humanoid; I wouldn't necessarily limit a Thing to humanoids for this purpose, though
Dryad Recluse (Level 5 Lurker, p.91): the "Sylvan Charm" ability pulls a character up to 5 squares adjacent, and "charms" (immobilizes) it - reflavor it to a tentacle attack; the "Deceptive Veil" is another shape-shifting ability allowing the monster to look like a Medium Humanoid, though of course a Thing might look like a Medium nauseating latex puppet-monster, too
Dryad Hunter (Level 7 Skirmisher, p.92): similar to a Carrion Crawler Scuttler, with shape-shifting abilities and without climbing
Hobgoblin Warmonger (Level 4 Artillery - Leader, p.158): a ranged attack that can be reflavored as a spray of digestive fluid, along with a "Battle Cry" ability that gives the monster's allies an extra attack (I would re-skin this into something suitably grisly, with an unearthly shriek)
Ochre Jelly (Level 3 Elite Brute, p.220): Flowing Form, and Ooze traits; does acid damage on hit; splits when bloodied
It's an odd collection of monsters, generally between Levels 3 and 7. Change the name and description to something suitably icky, change the size of some of the larger creatures, and make some minor changes to the powers and abilities, and you've got various incarnations of The Thing as seen in Carpenter's film.
That Thing also had a sort of genetic memory of other living things it had absorbed on Earth and on other worlds, and could be seen transforming into weird spidery creatures, plant-like things, tentacly things, dogs, men, and anything in between or beyond. So, there's no reason you couldn't drop just about any monster as-is into the game as one of the shape-shifting forms of the Thing... anything that slithers, oozes, creeps, crawls, walks, or flies would be fair game (as would plants and fungi, for that matter.)
I particularly liked the Ochre Jelly's ability to split when bloodied (that seems like an easy enough ability to transfer to other incarnations of The Thing), the Carrion Crawler out of the box looks and sounds like something out of Carpenter's film but the tentacle attack and dragging its victim away are also perfect, and the Doppelganger seems like a no-brainer!
If any of you have never seen the 1951 film The Thing From Another World, I strongly recommend it. It's an even earlier version of The Thing; not quite as gory and the special effects are of the man-in-a-rubber-suit variety, but it's still a pretty creepy film in its own right. Unlike some other flying-saucer films from the 1950's, I think this film stands up pretty well 60 years after it was made.
Trying to solve out-of-game problems (like cheating, bad attitudes, or poor sportsmanship) with in-game solutions will almost always result in failure, and will probably make matters worse.
Gun Safety Rule #5: Never point the gun at anything you don't intend to destroy. (Never introduce a character, PC, NPC, Villain, or fate of the world into even the possibility of a deadly combat or other dangerous situation, unless you are prepared to destroy it instantly and completely forever.)
Know your group's character sheets, and check them over carefully. You don't want surprises, but, more importantly, they are a gold mine of ideas!
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." It's a problem if the players aren't having fun and it interferes with a DM's ability to run the game effectively; if it's not a problem, 'fixing' at best does little to help, and at worst causes problems that didn't exist before.
"Hulk Smash" characters are a bad match for open-ended exploration in crowds of civilians; get them out of civilization where they can break things and kill monsters in peace.
Success is not necessarily the same thing as killing an opponent. Failure is not necessarily the same thing as dying.
Failure is always an option. And it's a fine option, too, as long as failure is interesting, entertaining, and fun!
"Broken or not, unbalanced or not, if something seems to be preventing the game from being enjoyable, something has to give: either that thing, or other aspects of the game, or your idea of what's enjoyable." - Centauri
I'd get an NPC to tell the PCs that one of them is the Thing, and just to reinforce this, take each player out before the game and tell them that they're not the Thing, but they can't communicate this.
Then, make the NPC who told them that turns out to be the Thing, and none of the PCs were. A little cheap, yes, but if you're keen to sow distrust, that could work.
You could give each player a number and to not tell anyone. If needed, you could roll a die and make one of them a thing, and no one would be able to tell who it is.
The current group size is 3-5 besides me. (I also play a character but I dont contribute much because Im also the DM. I pretty much stay silent.)
My plan was to (In case of PC infection) was to hand papers that they would keep private to everyone without explanation (other than "Keep this private and show no one.") if it says "infected followed by a short description of their new goals and attitude" then they become infected and then begin to subtly try to carry out the things ideals and goals.
The other papers would simply have a few sentences and descriptions of items they find or whatever in order to prevent guesses.
I dont intend to infect any PC's right away but I will at the later parts of the game.
I intend to use alot of these ideas. If anyone runs their own "The Thing" game, then please post and let us know how it went and how you implemented it. I think it would be very interesting to see how some of you went about it.
I am both selfish and instinctive. I value growth and community, as long as they favour my own objectives; I enjoy nature, and I particularly enjoy watching parts of nature die. At best, I am resilient and tenacious; at worst, I'm uncontrollable and destructive.
