How to Use Villain Alliances and Betrayals
Evil smiles. Heroes compromise. The game turns.
Originally intended to introduce the drow priestess of Lloth, this article will show you how to convince your players to bargain with the darkness—and how to make them regret it. You’ll learn how to build trust with villains, twist alliances into tension, and make betrayal sting without feeling unfair.
In the article’s three parts, you’ll see how to balance choice and consequence, build a believable temporary alliance, and time the perfect betrayal. From poisoned gifts to false advice and secret leaks, these tactics turn predictable villains into unforgettable stories.
Part 1: Making Choices Matter
In my first drow article, I explained how to set up a betrayal that the players might fall for. As promised back then, this article will talk about when the players are dealing with someone they know to be evil: how to get them to possibly trust the villain, and how to take advantage of their mistake. Before we can talk about that, however, we need to discuss choices and consequences.
In most respects, computer games would seem to have tabletop games beat—greater graphics, polished dialogue, big stories. One place where D&D and other TTRPGs have them beat is the freedom to make any choice and to have that choice matter.
Providing Multiple Meaningful Choices
There are many ways to give players meaningful choices—enough for an article of their own—but one of the best is to offer two (or occasionally more) flawed options and make them choose the best, or least bad.
To do this properly, all the options must be roughly equal. Each should have clear strengths and weaknesses, or the right choice will be obvious and the decision won’t feel like a real choice.
Dealing with Bad Choices
The problem is finding the right consequences. Sometimes you can give them a choice of magic items, or let a poor choice prevent them from obtaining one, but most consequences will affect their overall chances of success in the adventure.
If the scenario is a very short one—five or six sessions at most—you can get away with a total loss. But in a longer campaign, a defeat after so much shared investment can be frustrating for both DM and players.
The solution is to create more options than you think you’ll need. If they came to the Underdark seeking a magic item to defeat the villain and their decisions made that impossible, establish rumors of a different artifact elsewhere—or a powerful being who might help, or some other way forward.
A single bad decision shouldn’t doom their attempt to win the area. Perhaps their mistake strengthened the drow, but that doesn’t make the drow unbeatable. Maybe they can find a way to correct the balance; there are many possibilities.
Only when their efforts to correct earlier failures also fail—again and again—should the point finally come when victory no longer feels realistic, and they have to try to win the campaign by achieving victory in a completly different way.
Part 2: Making an Alliance with Evil Tempting to Players
For an alliance—and later betrayal—to work, the priestess needs a goal that isn’t completely incompatible with the players’ and a clear reason to need them—something she wants them to give her or do for her. You must also define her side of the alliance: what she gains from it and why she’d agree.
Even if she’s secretly serving the main villain, she still needs a convincing cover story for what she’s supposedly after, and she must maintain it consistently. When she parts ways and returns several sessions later, she should be able to point to what she’s accomplished toward that supposed goal.
That said, it’s far easier if her real objective genuinely differs from the main villain’s. She can still betray the players later—to seize their treasure, to make her main plan easier, or simply to keep the glory for herself.
Portraying the Villain
You have to choose your approach to portraying the villain carefully. As a general rule, she shouldn’t deny the evil acts she committed in the past—that would make her seem dishonest—but she also shouldn’t commit blatant evil in front of the players or make them feel responsible for it. For instance, if they leave someone behind and she kills that person, they’ll feel complicit.
If the players feel guilty for enabling harm, or for standing by while she inflicts it, they’re unlikely to keep working with her.
Two Bad Choices
After doing this, all you really need is what I already discussed above. A reason for them to need her help, perhaps strong enough to counterbalance the danger of doing so. They won’t always choose the treaty, of course, but if you do it right the other option and its consequences will be no less exciting.
Bonus Tip: An ideal setup is for the players to approach her. If they come seeking assistance, they’ll grill her less and accept higher prices, and she won’t seem unreasonable in her demands.
Player Agency
Do not force the alliance or punish refusal so heavily that players feel coerced. Forcing them into a mistake is the worst kind of railroading; they won’t forgive it, and any “clever” payoff will fall flat.
Part 3: How to Spring the Betrayal
Prelude: Choosing the Right Moment
The villain will likely only get one good chance to betray the party. Even if some of the ideas below are subtle enough for the priestess to claim she didn’t mean to betray them, once trust in her is damaged, it’s unlikely to be rebuilt. Choose the timing of the betrayal carefully.
In my first drow article, I gave several reasons why a traitor doesn’t simply stab the party in their sleep. With a priestess, the answer is simpler: she’s often not with them, and her goal isn’t just their defeat.
Even if she’s working with the main enemy, she’ll want the players to collect treasure she can later take from them. She may even want the threat they pose to the main villain to grow, so that the credit she earns for stopping them will be greater.
If she isn’t working with the main enemy, she won’t betray them until she’s already gotten most of what she wanted. She might betray them earlier to catch them off guard—or pretend she still needs their help so that they’ll believe they’re still necessary.
Forms of Betrayal
You probably don’t want the betrayal to happen through a direct attack. If the players win too easily, it will cheapen the betrayal, and if they lose, it becomes difficult to avoid a total party kill—or at least several deaths.
One reliable method is to have the priestess walk away while the party is trapped or cornered by a powerful monster. You can heighten the moment by having her cast a cruel spell as she leaves, or take something valuable with her—an item, or even an NPC hostage.
When the players are cooperating with a known villain, especially one infamous for lying and backstabbing, they’ll be constantly on guard. Their decision isn’t simply whether to work with her, but whether they can predict the betrayal before it comes. This is why betraying them while they think she still needs them works so well.
Betrayal in Abstentia
Another good tactic is to make the betrayal come when they believe she can’t betray them—when they think she isn’t in a position to pull it off. Below are some betrayals that don’t even require the priestess to be present.
The Poisoned Gift: The priestess gives them a magic item as a gift but plants a flaw in it that will harm them at the worst moment—or lets her spy on them. You can even give the gift early, then build trust through later help, knowing that the seeds of their downfall are already planted.
False Advice: The priestess gives them guidance about a dungeon. The first few pieces of advice are true, but the last one leaves them trapped in a situation they can’t easily escape.
True Advice: If they’re unwilling to believe her, she can anticipate that and use reverse psychology—giving good advice that will create a moral dilemma later. It should relate to a choice they’d find difficult even without her involvement.
Misleading Advice: Sometimes all that’s needed is one convincing but false clue, leading them to chase a non-existent item instead of the real one. This works especially well if she can arrange evidence to back up her story.
A Non-Aggression Pact: If they refuse any alliance, offer a treaty of non-interference. Not only will she subtly break it, but she’ll also word it to make something they need hard—not impossible—to reach. Hard delays them while preserving hope that they can still win, and gives her a head start.
Betrayal of Their Secrets: All she needs is one thing they’ve been warned to keep secret. She can tip off the villain where to trap them; and if they trust her enough to ask for help, they’ll reveal that secret themselves—giving her a master advantage to sell to their enemies.
Extra: Managing the Alliance (Before Betrayal)
Even without the fact that it allows for a better betrayal, an alliance with a high-level villain will usually involve brief meetings — trading information, favors, and aid — rather than traveling together for long stretches. Having an NPC accompany the party too long is generally a poor idea: it becomes repetitive, and the NPC starts to feel intrusive.
In addition, there are three other reasons this approach works better especially :
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Combat control: Having a powerful ally means the players no longer fully control their side of the battle. A strong villain-ally can easily outshine them. If you do want a full combat alliance, see Adult Bronze Dragon for ways to make it happen.
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Authority fatigue: The NPC’s advice soon becomes tiresome, especially since the DM already holds hidden knowledge. A high-level villain is used to giving orders, and it will feel strange if she defers to the players.
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Recurring choices: Multiple short meetings mean multiple decisions about whether to work with her again. Each interaction adds tension and demonstrates both the risks and rewards of cooperation — letting you explore consequences without locking the players into one path.
Zone of Truth
The last thing we haven’t covered is the thing that often makes D&D betrayal plans seem impossible, the spell called Zone of Truth. I can get past that as well. However, given the size of the subject, it’s going to have to be an article of its own. See you later, and thanks for reading.
For more Negotiation Articles. See also General D&D Advice.
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