DnD and the unreliable narrator

There are a lot of literary devices that could be utilized in DnD, as I have discussed before when I spoke about Chekhov's Gun. Perhaps one of the easiest to understand would be the unreliable narrator. It is as simple as it sounds, the narrator of the story cannot be trusted, either he or she does it malevolently, or simply due to a lack of knowledge, either way, the result is much the same. In DnD terms, the closest analogue to a narrator is the DM. The DM fills out the scene, and it relied on completely to do so. Most DMs never even consider the power they have to shape a perception that differs from the in-game reality. As I mentioned above, there are two major types of unreliable narrators, both have an interesting place in the toolbox of the DM. The first type is the unreliable narrator that does not provide false information knowingly. In a literary work, this is a statement about the character that is the narrator. But in DnD, the DM, in and of himself, is not a character, and thus, this type of unreliable narrator, at first, seems out of the hands of the DM. But on further meditation, we realize that this method is not only often used by DMs, it is essential to the function of the game. The DM is the voice behind the eyes of the characters, his descriptions need meet only one criteria, that they are true to what the characters can observe. There is a classic DnD monster, the Mimic, which looks exactly like a treasure chest (usually.) The DM's responsibility when describing this chest is to be unreliable. If the DM tells his or her players that "there is a Mimic in the center of the room," he or she ruins that particular encounter. The DM in this case it required to be unreliable. But that is usually as far as DMs go, when using this method. Very rarely would DMs introduce incidental information that is also false, but this could be a powerful tool. Say, for example, that the players are searching for someone in a city. Most DMs would provide them with two types of information. False information, whereby they say something like, "No one is able to tell you anything." And true information, "You find someone who tells you he likes to drink at the Broken Door Tavern." However, depending on the situation, the DM should feel free to tell the characters knowingly false information. This could be informants who will say anything to provide information of any kind; perhaps because the players are paying, or this could be informants who provide false information to trap or ensnare the players. In a true investigation, the characters would not trust all the information they receive, the players should be therefore required to sift through the information they receive. DMs who hand their players the information they require on a silver platter should consider this. There is also the malevolent narrator. This, in DnD terms, cannot be, exactly, the DM. Again, the DM is not truly a character. But, lets take an example; the characters are going to hunt down a pack of worgs in the woods. Local lore and tradition is that worgs are evil spirits that are sent to punish the wicked. In a typical campaign, this would be false, nothing more than silly superstition, and the MM doesn't support this, either; in it, worgs are presented as nothing more than natural (albeit dangerous) beasts. However, as an unreliable narrator, you would like to mix it up even more. Allow whatever preconceived notions the players bring flourish. They either take the villagers at face value; these worgs are different, or they rely on their out of game experience. Whatever they believe, change it to be the opposite. If the characters start trying to root out wickedness in the village, the worgs are nothing more than beasts, if the characters seek to destroy the worgs, then they face true spirits, seeking to hoist some villages by their own petard. How you achieve that is part of the art of DMing. Perhaps the spirit worgs are actually perverting the local wolf population, possessing a new wolf each time they are destroyed. The characters, assuming these worgs are simply beasts, would eventually be worn down, as each night, the worgs seem to renew themselves, until they are given their prey, or exorcised somehow. As a DM, you should not be trusted entirely, when one thinks about DnD, the game relies on this tension, to a greater, or lesser degree. Good DMs use this tension to set up new and unique adventures.