OK. Perhaps it was my bad. Perhaps I was too permissive. I don’t know. (Warning spoilers on HotDQ)
I have been dming Hoard of Dragon Queen for the past year. We started in September and finished last month. Since HotDQ was a mixed product imo (some chapters great, others terrible) I heavily customized the adventure.
Not only removed some railroading and allowed some sandbox and parallel adventure but also created a full new chapter 5 (since the original was awful imo). Although I created parallel adventures, I tried to stick true to the book in the crucial parts that involved fighting the dragon cult.
However when the characters achieved level 5 , thinks got out of hand. With the feel that their characters were becoming stronger, players started to disrupt game flow, by becoming arrogant in their actions and bordering the evil side (simply because it looked cool).
There were places where stealth and role-play were possible, to bypass enemies but they chose simply to attack everyone because they know that the game rules allowed them to overpower the enemies easily. They even backtracked to rooms with enemies they had skipped before, just to farm Xps and loot.
First I allowed them and simply removed the treasures they hoped to get. I hoped it became a boring task of murdering bullywigs in Castle Neyatar and after they got tired of it, they would move on as soon as they found that there was no treasure. They didn’t. It continued.
Since they though so highly of their characters power, why no teach them a lesson in humility, I thought? Show them that they cannot overcome every single enemy by fighting. So I throw a single cult member into their middle, to see what they did. As expected, they attack him simply because it was alone. Surprise time.
It was the blue dragon from chapter 1 polymorph into a human to play with its prey before it killed them. In that situation, of course I had to create a getaway from them, in the form of allies that help them flee the dragon. I had hoped it would teach them some restrain in addressing the situation because I already knew, it would kill them in the end if they persist in attacking everyone. (I had read the all campaign book)
Again it didn’t work. In the final chapter, they simply attacked the vampire guarding the castle at night and the party was completely wiped.
After that the players approach me and asked me to retcon the last session, since they had invested so much time in playing the campaign (almost a full year) and the felling of failure in the very end of the book was a bad experience and they didn’t want that the play group break apart.
After so much time playing with this guys, I agreed to retcon the session and created a full new chapter 8 for the campaign. It ended with a climatic 2-phase battle between them and Rezmir (and a couple of minions) where in the last phase Tiamat transformed Rezmir in one adult black dragon and Bahamut one of the players in a adult bronze dragon. (temporarily ofc)
Now that it is over, I am preparing Rise of Tiamat to run in Setember. In the meanwhile the players asked me to run some expedition for their characters (they are all level 8) so they can keep playing and have fun. Again I agreed.
Now that I am running Tyranny in Phlan, as soon as they saw the green dragon attacking Valvejo Castle they abandon the refugees and the all plot line and rushed to the castle. All the NPC they found told them not to go and they still ignore them.
In Valvejo Castle I show them a closed gate with 40 guards in the battlements armed with longbows, so they would rethink their actions.
Instead of stopping and thinking what they were doing wrong, they simply walked openly to the walls so they could break or raise the gate. Again I was forced to act and greet them with a volley of arrows to force them back. Even if I had allowed them to enter the castle, they would have been outnumbered and killed by the sheer numbers of their enemies.
After that they backtracked and decided to make a deal the Welcomers to show them a way via dungeons to the castle, so they can face the dragon directly…
Now I am at a crossroad.
I can simply tell them no and that the story is not to kill the dragon and block that way via story or by simply telling them that directly. However I don’t want to block player’s decisions.
OR
I could run the encounter that Is presented at the end of the last expedition in which the players face the green dragon and its minions. Wizards tells that is a optional encounter and a suicide mission but to run it nevertheless if the players choose to.
Now do I has a DM have the right to kill the players, with no retcon possible this time if they choose to attack against all odds the dragon? I know that in the end, they would be upset with dying (AGAIN!) and the feeling of failure. Possibly the game group might even break up for good and I don’t want to feel responsible for it.
However I am getting tired of having to create all the time last minute solutions for the problems that the players create for themselves. I liked them as persons but their actions in the game are too much videogaming and not roleplaying…
Any ideas or opinions are welcome.
Thanks in advance.
As one of my co-workers if fond of saying, "you can't fix stupid!"
Umbacano2 wrote:
Tell your group that you gave them the "do-over" way out of a foolish decision already. If they fight this dragon against all advice and get killed trying, then that is what happened.
New characters always welcome.
The group does not have to split up permanently - have you no other stories to tell together?
I also would tell the players that you've been looking back on your notes and memories, and in the next campaign you will not let arrogant behavior receive the "we must avert our eyes" treatment by the rest of the campaign world. If they want to behave like ISIS does IRL, then everybody else will react accordingly.
My group did Murder in Balders Gate inside HotDQ. We botched the plot badly, and had several nights where we went home unhappy with our performance. In most cases, the next week we played better (ex: stuck to a plan for accomplishing a goal). Your players may need a similar experience. They won't appreciate it now, but they might later.
In my Tiamat campaign, the group is heading for the polar regions, and will meet an assassination squad on the way home. I'm going to tell the players that my play style will change: the primary monsters are going to play smarter and for higher stakes; they aren't going to be one-and-done types. Random encounters might be easy and fun blowouts (they made sushi out of two Giant Octopi with lousy to-hit bonuses) but the Cult members will act like intelligent foes. The white dragon whose lair they are currently seeking is one of the major known NPCs in Faerun, his reputation established over centuries, not some foolish glory-besotted pushover like the previous dragon they fought.
Umbacano2 wrote:
Kill them. I think you've telegraphed things enough.
Oh, and then run them through the tomb of horrors.
I would say the following; it's time to stop coddling them. They're characters, not unstoppable paragons. They're even playing in a campaign that is entire prepared for them to fail. If they fail, it just means your next campaign in that world becomes much more interesting. You did all you could with negative reinforcement and minimal railroading, so now it's time to put on the big boy pants and DM all over their day. I'm not saying to railroad them by the nose, but make them want to follow the bread crumbs. Show them that you're done pulling punches. Make the enemies smarter. Make the PCs work for those experience points. The best way to do it is the simplest. Make every NPC a PC with Nonplayer stats. Make them act like they're thinking, intelligent creatures when they are and have them start using tactics.
Id say, modify your original post a bit to leave out any future spoilers for your players... and then copy paste it and show it to them.
Prefereably with some of the advices from the community here, especially those thinking that they ought to be thaught a lesson.
If they still dont get that you are unhappy with the current situation, well then I think its time for you to earn your second TPK medal
Have you actually talked to the players about what you want to see more of in the game? If so, how did they respond? If you haven't, why haven't you?
In my experience, PCs have a hard time backing down from a fight. Most would rather fight to the death than retreat or surrender, trusting that they’ll be able to power through.
I always say that one person’s fun in gaming ends when it infringes on someone else’s. In this case, it’s the players’ fun infringing on the DM’s fun. It sounds like the players want to kill and loot monsters. On the other hand, the DM wants more nuanced play.
What I would do is start awarding inspiration when they use cunning and strategy. Give them opportunities to role-play, and appropriate rewards for doing so. Also, put challenges in that require strategy and thinking, and cannot be solved by combat. Maybe the dragon challenges them to a game of riddles, or tells them they can have a choice piece of treasure if they can solve a puzzle…or, they can die horribly then and there. Or heck, put the dragon behind a portculis or wall of force, so that they can’t just say the heck with it, and attack.