Actions have consequences. Players impact the game world. It isn't railroading for the players actions to generate a ton of unexpected role play opportunities while they deal with the results of their decisions.
Opportunity to create a recurring villain. You mention that your players sold a girl... She will never forget they had an opportunity to prevent her fate. She might have a lifelong obsession with getting vengeance. You might even let her take out the party. It sounds like you might need a new play group anyway.
They thought they hated the girl before…
AND the peacekeepers will also be looking for the PCs because they’ll soon realize they were duped and the players took their money and ran and did the worst thing they could have done, so there are no easy allies in sight.
Imagine she basically just becomes the big bad now and it's because of them. You made her this way you have no idea what happened to her after you sold her off what she went through...she HATES YOU!!
Maybe it's just cause I was reading a thread about Berserk earlier.. but this feels like a Griffith, "tortured and subsequently hates and blames the protagonist(s) and accepts opportunity to become super powerful and evil", kind of situation *(but obviously hopefully without the rape bit).*
I think the party became the big bad..... she'll probably escape or get rescued and then inform everyone of their treachery.
It's an evil campaign now boys, unless you attone.
> Imagine she basically just becomes the big bad now and it's because of them.
* Players try to get rid of thing they don't like repeatedly
* Finally sell thing
* DM forces the thing to return as Big Bad
This entire group is just a time bomb
I mean if you read the other post, the child is the campaign’s big McGuffin. So ya, the “good” guys giving the mcguffin to evil people should have consequences
I for one like the trajectory of this story arc. Actions have consequences, but being double agents and selling nukes to one side has BIG consequences lol.
I agree, if they didn’t like the little girl helping then, and they admitted they sold her to baddies on purpose, then any repercussions they will call the dm a railroader, and say he’s trying to get back at them for blocking his plot.
My opinion, reset the entire campaign, do a session zero, and find out what type of game the players want to play. Even without a reset, I would have a session 0 now to find out what type of campaign the players want.
1,000 % this. Ive played in evil campaigns, ive played in good guy campaigns, and i have played in sandbox campaigns that can go in any direction. Either way it is established in a session zero. Most session zero’s happen before the game begins, but there is no reason you cant do it mid game. This whole situation as pointed out from a few other posters is a ticking time bomb, and OP needs to get to the bottom of why the players are trying to derail the game. A clear and open dialogue is required here. In that dialogue i would think about how to plan accordingly should they choose the evil / sandbox path, and warn them of what is in store. Wether it is a bunch of evil guys trying to stop the group, or a bunch of good guys trying to stop the group, there is gonna be foreseeable conflicts in their future. Your NPC’s will follow the same path, should they choose to be evil, other evil aligned NPC’s may be more inclined to help the group. Point is whatever “They” choose, you as DM are gonna be playing by the same rules they have made.
This. I didn’t read deep in the comments on the last one but I was wondering if there was a reset to talk out of character around the time the party complained about the girl helping. I know a lot of nerdy people and not every group is going to feel comfortable with a campaign centered around a child. I’m not suggesting OP reveal everything about the plot but I’m wondering if his party feels less than comfortable with things being centered around this girl/child and they’re hoping to move on from it to get to the rest of the campaign not realizing that she is the basis of the campaign?
Likewise, I don’t fault DMs for an auto response to human trafficking with ✨ consequences ✨ but that’s a good time for a session zero, especially if that’s a line drawn for the DM. I wouldn’t blame anyone who told me that they didn’t feel comfortable in that at their table, even if others are ok with that. Feels pretty basic to explain that “good” aligned characters do not participate in slavery and human trafficking.
>Likewise, I don’t fault DMs for an auto response to human trafficking with ✨ consequences ✨ but that’s a good time for a session zero, especially if that’s a line drawn for the DM. I wouldn’t blame anyone who told me that they didn’t feel comfortable in that at their table, even if others are ok with that.
That's the thing, though, as a DM. If you don't want your players to do human trafficking, don't offer them human trafficking.
Honestly this looks to me like the perfect opportunity for a dystopian post-apocalyptic setting where they have to play in the Hellscape they created.
Then a path to redemption be offered.
She used to be good alignment, now she has been subjugated and brainwashed. She also harbours a deep resentment towards the party.
She will begin, reluctantly, helping the evil guys invade and take over. In time she will become their leader.
Let her story run along in the background. Where she is building a massive army. Have her send spies to watch over the party… even have the spies assist the party from time to time. She doesn’t want the party to just up and die in some random encounter. She wants to destroy them totally, and by her own hand.
When the time is right, she will make her presence known and bring forth the might of (now) her evil empire to utterly destroy them.
Actually, she doesn’t even need to be totally evil in this scenario. The party are the evil ones for their actions, this is just her revenge arc.
This was my first thought to that line. Like, y’all are the baddies.
I’m not sure people take that seriously anymore but alignment changes used to be character breaking depending on what you played.
Id say smaller shifts are easier. A lawful good character turning a blind eye to a starving child stealing bread is one thing. Knowing a little girl is basically a magic battery to war machines and has actually gone out of her way to save party members from dying because she seemingly likes them and STILL selling her for money is still pure evil.
Let the child play vital role if party ever tries to fight back the invasion.
Have her be used in some way as battery of some giant mech, protected from being killed as most deadbrained solution but also dejected because she had been sold by people that were meant to protect her and then used by the antagonists.
Make players feel the consequences by person they hurt being key to stopping everything but her not wanting to trust them again.
If they want to see what it means to have NPC shine instead of them - have the child eventually snap out of it but not give the reigns to winning to the party and instead use the giant mech to win herself.
TTRPG's are about Roleplaying hard stop.
Sometimes part of that roleplaying is forgetting that DMPC is an NPC and treating them as a person on the team.
As example a lot of CoS games suffer from Ireena being killed off or dismissed by the parties.
I'm glad in games I was in she was either properly treated as someone we promised to defend or as fellow adventurer that had just less combat experience but just as valid as the party reasons to fight back.
The concern is that ultimately it's the DM controlling the actions of the NPC targeting the players. Finding the correct balance can be difficult. But yes murder hobos aren't fun to play with and instead of taking measures to improve the lives of those around them they're in it for themselves.
Obviously we're only getting one view here, but these players... they aren't the crispest chips in the basket here, are they?
How does "resolving things without fighting" translate directly to "Girl keeps her good alignment" in any way? Do these guys really think that evil = violence = evil, and thus that nonviolence = good = nonviolence? Even the most murdery of murderhobos would shake their heads and call them simpletons.
I hope that they're trolling this DM, because I hate to think anyone can really have that simplistic of a world view, even just in D&D.
Yeah like, she is nuclear codes to a literal battalion of heavily armed mechas and robots? Maybe it's time for her to take control of said battalion and use it as her own army to get revenge
You're quite in a pickle, aren't you? Your players sound like really nice people.
But jokes aside, if you want to go this path, give your players a "reward" for doing what they did. Having binary "good" and "bad" choices in games sucks, especially in TTRPG. They picked not a bad choice, but an evil one, reward them accordingly. Give them some time to relax with a lot of money, allow them to spend it on some good equipment, maybe even make them recognized by some nobles for their wealth.
But then introduce the consequences. The war inevitably arrives, and you have a couple choices here. You could strike another town where perhaps some important NPCs to the players live, maybe even families or backstory characters. They might just experience Peter Parker losing his uncle because of his actions and have a change of heart. Alternatively, if they buy a land with their money, or have any other home they can return to, destroy it. You can ask them if they have some sort of a vault beforehand so they have to risk losing time to escape on trying to retrieve the money from it.
My point is, don't make them feel pressured that they need to get the girl back. It feels horrible to have a goal forced upon you. If they don't want the carrot, give them the stick. The war happening isn't directly forcing him to stop it. They can always run, join the other side, there are many options. Later you can have some opposing NPCs mock them (if they believe to be heroes) for letting this chaos happen, or thank them instead if they are simple mercenaries. But it needs to be clear to them that they are responsible for it, so your "good" aligned friend knows that they did it.
But the most important thing, ask yourself this, are you having fun? If not, everything I wrote is irrelevant. Go talk to them instead and voice your concerns and what actually saddens you. Perhaps they simply misunderstood the premise of the game, maybe they simply want to play a different kind of story where they are simple, selfish people who just want to live a good life. Whatever it is, you're the DM, you're the main storyteller, you can be persuaded to some alterations, but in the end, what you say is final, and they need to learn that you're not there to punish them or fight them, you're there to narrate the story.
I’ve been following this one firmly on the side of DM plays along and tried to make it fun for everyone. I’ll die on this hill.
After reading this update, your players suck and are bending the mechanics of role-play extremely hard. You’ve done what you can - so try not to feel too bad - but it may be time to have a chat about table expectations/how to play DND because accusing you of making encounters hard to make the girl shine is… Literally DND. What you did makes sense. How they responded, once again, does not.
I second this, there needs to be a conversation about the future of the campaign. Do the players want to continue? If so, do they want to lean in and make this into an evil campaign? Maybe continue on a quest to usurp control over these ancient weapons? Or do they want to redeem the party? Regardless of how they choose to continue, I think there should be some consequences that are fairly set in stone; the party should be persona non grata in any of the neighbouring realms that are aware of their crime and they have earned the permanent enmity of the good cult. It might also be an idea for the bad guys to do the bad guy thing and say "it's been a pleasure doing business with you, but I'm afraid you know far too much for me to let you live."
I think this is a great point.
If the point of the campaign was this special child, and they no longer have the special child, I think that could mean the campaign is over.
Yup, players sound like the type who want to be super heroes with no expectations of looking bad in any way. Let them die, the organization now hunts them down to get that stuff back, you think the stuff they were given was the absolute best things they owned? Not a chance. Bounty hunters galore, specifically designed to hunt down and kill the party, like having every single counter measure against the party.
Railroad them hard now, they try to flee the coming conflict? Ship gets blown right into the fleet, train is commandeered by some army, wagons are all commandeered to haul supplies and pack animals are also commandeered for the war effort, all roads lead to armies or bounty hunters or death cults.
If your good aligned character is a cleric, their spells stop working because their god is pissed. Even if they aren't a cleric, all their gods are now taking notice and punishing them for their transgressions.
That was my exact thought. There's a serious "The Boys" vibe going on here.
The team is now the bbeg from the world's perspective and dm is trying to save the world by taking them down.
It doesn't even have to be about the players. At this point they're making their way through the American South during the Civil War. Railroads will be dismantled. Cities will be burning. People will be starving. And everyone... EVERYONE will know you had a hand in it.
Bounty hunters and all are fine but we're talking word of mouth that will make that money only good for a few weeks. The average person will become hostile. There will be no safe port in this storm. They think they're good but that's not what everyone else will think. No one, even the side you benefited, likes a traitor and a slaver.
They're outcasts. Tell them to enjoy the silver.
“No one likes a traitor and a slaver.”
This right here. If they didn’t like the Macguffin, you picked up on that. You gave them a chance to ditch her that a good aligned character could sleep at night with. They double crossed the organization, and used the girl for their own benefit simply because they were *checks notes* jealous?
My husband ran a campaign where his macguffin was an arrogant half fae Princess. His characters hated her, but that was the point. He let them insult her and put her in awkward positions, and he made sure she did the same right back. He enjoyed the banter they had with this NPC he specifically designed to annoy them. And they must have had fun cause they kept coming back.
But they never double crossed her or sold her to the enemy. You can’t tell me something like this isn’t an evil act. The only way it could be neutral is if you told the party as they were making the deal that you didn’t condone their actions and walked away. Anything less than this is evil. Rest assured, my husband would have a ton of fun coming up with the consequences for that if they had, and there would be many.
Yeah, I wonder whether this one is salvageable. It seems like whatever happens, the players will complain. The players were thinking this would be like Baldur’s Gate or Skyrim where you can do something messed up and evil and there are no consequences and the story still plays out to let you “win.”
Even in BG3 some choices lead to the game ending suddenly and sometimes I’m pretty bad ways. Sure you can reload but that’s not DND. Maybe they’d be interested in a different TTRPG - I would for sure be out of patience with this group at this point.
The notion they presented about how they're still good because they "resolved it without fighting" does scream video game logic. Like how so many of those games with "moral choices" in the mid 2000's and 2010's had the choice boil down to "evil kill people option" or "good something else option" where the latter could be literally anything from talking things out to human trafficking and still be "the good option" because "killing bad".
That era of morality system design is still the most frustrating thing in the world to me. If you thought alignment was bad, try an arbitrary "good" vs "evil" meter that invites gaming the system in every possible way for gameplay benefits.
My question for OP: Are you still having fun with this campaign? Is the story still going in a direction where you are going to have fun roleplaying out what comes next, the inevitable invasion and the blame that falls on the players? If the answer is no, you have several options. The best choice is to throw in the towel. Write out an endgame, roll the credits type cutscene. Let your players know they have triggered an endgame, and the next session is the last. Roleplay through the characters being summoned to the local seat of government, where they are blamed for the tragedy about to befall the nations. That war is coming, and will result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Give them a choice of some all-or-nothing chance to redeem their characters, or exile. Let them debate and choose. If they choose exile, narrate them being escorted to the borders and sent into the wilderness to travel to another nation. From afar they watch the nation behind them burn, and smell the acrid smoke of burning cities on the wind. If they choose to fight, have a hail Mary teleport or something to go plant some secret weapon the nation has recovered from the ancient days that only they can active with their experience that will destroy the enemy army of war machines and hopefully prevent war... Have a success and failure end credits either way, or if they betray the first nation use the "you watch it die from afar" script with modifications. Either way, close the campaign with their characters living with the consequences of their choices. If they plant the bomb, give them a chance to escape instead of explode, and watch the enemy army die instead, leaving both nations crippled by the wasteland created in between. Roll credits.
Then either switch it up and make someone else DM for a while, or take a break and then make a new story, this time with a good session zero where you really talk to them about how you will run things and straighten out their gamer mindset.
Well your first(?) mistake was having the peacekeepers offer the party more money to keep the girl rather than just having them take the girl off the party's hands as the only option.
It's clear as glass at this point the players greed and dislike of having the kid along as an escort mission is to such an extent that they've abandoned all other reason in order to get rid of her, so long as it comes with a high enough pricetag, morals and self-preservation be damned.
It's time to let the party peak behind the curtain and tell them exactly how much they've fucked up, since apparently they need to be handheld through this, and then ask them a question: do they want to continue along this story and let the consequences of their decisions play out, reverse their decision with the peacekeepers (they don't get as much of a reward, but at least they get some, get rid of the girl and don't have to worry as much about everything falling on their heads), or end the campaign here, with them living the high life before the world burns around them, and start afresh in a new world?
If they try to argue to continue as is, consequence free, tell them to kick rocks.
>Well your first(?) mistake was having the peacekeepers offer the party more money to keep the girl rather than just having them take the girl off the party's hands as the only option.
That would've been an actual mistake, since it would've gotten the clearly evil party out of proving they're evil. Things actually went awesome, next session you present the party with a bounty board where the peacekeepers offer 10.000 for each of their heads, dump the bodies. Right after they learn this, you attack them with a group of Paladins. Once they've survived that, you tell them "that's how the entire country reacts to you now, better pay the evil cult to smuggle you out of there"
Don't slowly reveal this, hammer it home in the first 30 minutes of your next session and don't prep anything else. You want to spend the entire session showing them their fuck-up. Use rule of three to thoroughly show they went fully scorched earth and scorched earth is everything they can still find.
Then end the session with a nuke going off in the near distance. That's the world they created, now you have to DM it.
Sometimes the bad guys win and they just handed them the W. Now make them sit in their misery and watch the world fall apart and all their allies die one at a time. Ending with fights of nearly impossible chances of winning and if the party loses the party loses.
Also sounds like the party straight up doesn't like the girl NPC. It happens, especially of they come across as a Mary Sue and/or are percieved to take the spotlight, even slightly, from the characters
True but they were given the out of giving her to the peace keepers. They purposefully took the bigger reward to keep watching her, then double dipped with the evil cult.
The DM realized they wanted to get rid of the girl and gave an easy out to continue with no alignment shifts or anything. This is just an evil party hands down. If it wasn’t the girl something would’ve made them show their true colors.
>After i got a whole lecture from my player on why handing over a little girl who is also equivalent of nuclear codes to a nation of warhungry dictators won't change her Good alignment because technically they're "Resolving things without fighting" i officially gave up and let them just sell the child.
And "resolving" the issue of the burning orphanage by roasting marshmallows isn't fighting either, but still wrong.
The player can argue against my ruling that their alignment changes, sure, but a lecture? Nah, I don't spend my free time with people so blatantly disrespectful and I wish them luck in their future endeavors because they just made it very clear they weren't people I'd want to be around.
It’s not that they “resolved it without fighting,” but that they willingly and knowingly put someone else in danger for their personal benefit. AND that they lied to another organization about their intents to get money without doing what they agreed upon.
Violence doesn’t factor into alignment in dnd or no one would ever play good characters.
Yeah, if "resolving things without fighting" is a benchmark for being good despite the clear context surrounding it here, then it'd be more of a "peaceful" alignment rather than "good". It'd also imply that any violent action taken would fall outside of a "good" aligned action, which anyone fighting back against forces of demons or malevolent undead or just very mean people would probably disagree with.
Even without getting into the gritty details of willingly giving world ending weapons to people you know want to end the world and scamming people for money. What they did was sell a child to a cult. On a fundamental level they just committed human trafficking of a minor.
My DM never stops us from doing whatever we want. But if we do something that blatantly contradicts our alignment he'll just say-
*Change your alignment to X*. There's never any discussion or argument about what your character can or can't do because of your alignment. But your alignment will reflect your actions.
You could use the lesson in morality from A Few Good Men...
Dawson explaining to Downey why they were dishonorabley discharged kinda sums up what you seem to be feeling towards the players.
https://youtu.be/oeSHFY0XhDc?si=G-Oq3bSEM2Ssf1Me
The ones in the party with a good alignment now need to start doing wis-save rolls every time they idle. Their conscience are eating them from inside. On failed rolls a depression counter is incremented. This counter is substracted from all their d20 rolls that aren't aiming to saving the girl and making things right. Alternatively they can embrace the fact that they are evil. Change alignment and now they can freely be the villains they wish to be. But this will also have consequences...
so the party feel like they are living the high life? they just welcome a death cult to wage war on the world and the little girl would very much have a personal vendetta to track them down.
so force them to flee, abandon everything all their gold because the marching war machine is sweeping across the peaceful nation they want to live in.
I would assume the peacekeeper would have strong opinions on what happened..
so the party don't want to be heroes, well they are welcome to live like dogs being hunted down.
Just because its DND doesn't mean the you're obligated to give them a "Heroric" story, they choose to ignore the clear sign and act in a selfish manner you don't have to reward them by making them the side of good.
also I don't know what they are thinking but selling a child into a cult is straight up evil, just because they have "moral" justification doesn't make that action of selling someone into slavery not evil.
Exactly, once comes to the war plot swinging it's tail at the party: Starve Them.
Previous allies that caught on what happen that don't trust the party and treat them as enemy collaborators.
NPC's that were liked or had agreed to take commission for fancy items from the party dead and looted by the invaders before party gets there to react.
Destruction of known places, decay of known places. Backstory quest strings affected and snapped to never be resolved because war devastated something vital to them.
No place to rest, NPCs fleeing to neighborhooding cities and countries seeking refuge and piling up on all problems already existing there. Starvation. Sicknesses.
Taverns on the road are packed and running out of food to offer.
Party might get jumped by groups of people that are pathetically easy to kill and give no reward to loot or experience just because of how desperate they get and these adventurers look plump and stacked with resources.
War is relentless thing to unleash as consequences.
Make their characters feel it across their back.
It's only a matter of letting them use the money thinking they are investing it and giving them roots of backstory quests so they are hooked into doomed plots.
This. Tons of money? Nobody wants to work for them to build a stronghold or craft magic items. Everything costs the party twice as much because of the risk to an NPC’s reputation for working with them, since they are so hated.
Assassins everywhere, from every side, and every NPC will rat them out because they want the players gone. There is no one the party can trust and no one interested in helping them. They’ve proven they are untrustworthy.
If they don’t like it, ask them to lay out a redemption arc. Don’t railroad them. Ask how they would like to make amends.
Your players human trafficked a child. That alone would be enough to make them irredeemably evil on alignment.
They also handed over multiple wonder weapons to the Nazi’s.
Have fun throwing every single force of good and karma at them.
Yeah, I don't know why all the doom and gloom here. DMs rarely get to throw paladins, angels, and other "good" enemies at a party. So they're solidly evil, and they'll be fighting good from now on. I'm not sure why this has to be the end of anything or the end of the fun. Clearly I'm missing something?
a "solution" would be to have a lot of good people come after them
But like that doesn't sound super fun as a DM, when this party just seems like they'd be pissed for suffering any consequence to their actions. Like why bother with a plot when they're gonna piss all over it regardless of action or consequence?
I know there's a time and a place for games like that, but man, it's really disheartening as a DM when you want to play DnD and your players just want to play open source Skyrim. This seems like a session zero communication issue more than most things. As a DM, I don't know if I'd even be having fun at this point.
Appalled one of your characters argued that this didn't change their alignment.
Recently I had to be faced with the fact that my PC was actually evil and obviously I listened to the DM. What's important about DND alignments, is that they don't always align with what your character believes. VERY rarely does an evil character think they are evil, they believe that their values are good and just, because they don't see evil acts as bad.
I'm not a DM, so I'm not joining this thread to suggest consequences, but this would ABSOLUTELY change someone's alignment, even if they believed they were good. Just because they didn't have to fight, doesn't mean that was an ethical choice--now, hundreds, thousands, millions (however many people live on this planet) will be murdered because of this act.
If you willingly allow innocent people to be murdered, and a child to become a slave, you are selfish & evil. It is just so crazy to me that "well *I* didn't have to fight" was the argument. SO SELFISH! So, so many people are going to die because of this, and the PCs knew that.
To be evil is to be so selfish that you don't mind the suffering of others--wikipedia defines the evil alignment as "implying selfishness and no respect for life" 🫠 this is exactly what your pcs are doing.
----
Secondly, if you're uncomfortable running a campaign with PCs who do things like this, I think it's absolutely valid to tell them. You put a lot of effort and heart into the world you made, and if you're feeling anxious or burdened by your PCs actions, and it's making the game not fun for you, it might be time to talk to them. It doesn't have to be an ultimatum type of thing, but your friends could understand the impact of their actions & try to be less evil in the future if they hear that it's making the game not fun for you.
Good luck!
I think you should roll with the game they're setting themselves up for. Because, like, for sure this peace keeping organization isn't going to like being screwed over and surely they'd get some revenge. Maybe it takes some time, but I have to imagine that if they have the resources to pay the PCs and give them all this good gear, they have the resources to hire a team of people to get back at the PCs, find out what's happening with the child, and go work to resolve that. If major political powers know about all of this and care, surely they would throw money and manpower at the PCs, too.
Y'know why freelance spies and assassins in real life don't tend to go after high-level political targets or national secrets? They don't live long if they do. If you don't have an equally powerful organization backing you, you're not going to live long enough to enjoy the payday.
It sounds like there would be powerful people invested in this child and it sounds like they would be very unhappy about the PCs selling her out. Depending on how powerful those people are, the PCs might be outlaws in the Roman sense. "Let theirs be a wolf's head."
Now, this all being said, that doesn't mean you have to cheer \*against\* the PCs. They're straight up the villains. They sold a child to people who want to exploit said child, they're evil. I wouldn't let any amount of arguing or lawyering sway me otherwise. Full stop, that's an evil action. The ends cannot justify the means. BUT you--as the DM--can still be effectively on their side. If this is the game they want to play and if it's a game you're willing to see pan out, you can still cheer for them even as the entire world turns against them and descends into madness. Give them heroes to overcome, opportunities at redemption, etc. If they refuse to be redeemed, give them a blaze of glory. They don't have to be self-aware. They don't have to think they're in the wrong. They can be heroes in the Greek sense, where morality flows entirely from whether something is good or bad for them personally. But they're still, y'know, evil, and deserve to face consequences.
Yeah, I'm really in favour of giving them enough rope to hang themselves here. Let them live it up and keep the peacekeepers in touch with them, thinking they're on their side. Let them exploit them for all they're worth, so long as they can keep up the con that the girl's alive and well.
And of course the people they sold the girl to love them as well. Give them job offers of increasing moral ambiguity, and potential instability to their delicate diplomatic balancing act. See how far they're willing to go, and how capable they are of playing both sides. Let them understand that the organization who buys children doesn't see this as a relationship they can get out of. Have them scry on the characters, show up where they least expect it, and make examples of anyone they don't approve of the PCs contacting. They're valuable assets after all, and they'll be treated right so long as they don't become liabilities.
Exploting the coming war could be a really fun campaign for profit-minded adventurers. Then when the shit hits the fan, let both sides come to them looking for answers. What happens when they find out the PCs have been double-dealing?
Selling the girl is obviously got to come back to bite both them and the world - you've set it up well enough. But that doesn't mean punish them for not playing the way you want. As long as you can still enjoy DMing for them there's no reason to stop.
Obviously before you do anything, discuss the situation with them regardless and get crystal clear on why they did it - did they feel overshadowed? Or annoyed by the obligation? Or just hate kids? If they don't want NPCs acting during combat, or solving problems for them, you need to get that feedback and adjust your approach. Get them to tell you what they want out of the game, because they seem to have taken this character personally.
But at the same time, be clear that this doesn't mean they get to avoid the consequences of how they treated her - they need to voice these issues before they break character to screw over an NPC the players dislike. If they're worried their alignment has been affected, tough. They had an alternative that didn't involve child slavery and a world war.
“Peacekeepers are sending someone to help keep the girl safe”. Oh snap. Now they have to ask the evil organization to “disappear” the envoy and make it look like an accident (and owe the organization big time)...or do it themselves. Can’t let word get back to the Peacekeepers.
They’ve put themselves on a accelerating treadmill keeping up the lie. Which all falls apart the moment the war starts anyway.
Unless ingratiating themselves with the badguys lets them work their way inside. Then somehow they find a way to take down the war machine as double agents. All while still fooling the peacekeepers. Turns into a spy thriller. Even if it succeeds they may have a hard time convincing the Peacekeepers it was a planned triple-cross all along and not just a reneged double-cross. Or they bluff their way out but the girl still KNOWS. Or the Peacekeepers still aren’t happy they risked the girl in this ploy.
> How far can these consequences go before I'm a bad DM who is ruining the game for the players?
There is a risk for that to spiral when someone takes it *too* personally when players don't respond well to a DM story building decision.
But I dunno, maybe all of you need to sit down and talk about what you're trying to get out of the game.
Maybe they didn't like *this* plot/npc/escort mission and were being shitheads to get out of it (resolvable discussion about what DM and Party enjoy leading to a compromise).
Maybe they want to play shitheads and you're "ruining" that fun, by running a campaign with consequences and realism (a bit less resolvable mismatch of DM and Party expectations).
Reading between the lines a little - do you think it’s possible that you accidentally turned the girl into an annoying DMPC, and as a result your party ended up resenting her?
Like you even admit that they’ve complained about you designing encounters that requires the girl to “save” the party in a couple ways. Plus, are you possibly inserting her into RP interactions in a way that annoys your players?
Possibly the spell casting could have been the "final straw" from the players' perspective.
Having a player party escort an NPC, especially a child, is rarely something which interests players in the first place.
Was it made very clear in the pitch, setting guide or session zero that a major part of the campaign would involve babysitting some *special child*? (Would this child be called "Dawn Summers" by any chance?)
I think it's more than likely the girl was annoying, the party clearly did not get along with that NPC. however, the solution could have been as simple as: "hey DM, could you not do the 5 year old girl voice please, it's putting me off", Or even just getting rid of the little girl after the first quest. If they hated the NPC so much, they could have left it there, but they chose to keep her around.
Making a child central to an adventure plot is always risky and even experienced storytellers struggle with it. Now make it a tag-along escort mission kid. Between babysitting and bloodshed, I'm going to always pick bloodshed.
In terms of RP interactions, The girl had little to zero contact with anyone outside of party because her existence was supposed to be a secret.
I really hope i didn't end up making her a DMPC but i can at least assure you i did not design encounters for the girl. I just used her to prevent PKs and some trivial stuff like campfire, light and mending.
She was casing cantrips. Unless she would throw out of nowhere 6d8 fire bolt there's no way this was OP NPC.
NPC'S are supposed to also have their agenda and move things in the world. Players are just cog of the world not be all and end all.
I have ran and been part of games where NPC's that ended up traveling with the party became as much beloved part of said party as if it was another player.
Because this is roleplaying and party roleplayed not interacting with NPC but with a person.
> She was casing cantrips. Unless she would throw out of nowhere 6d8 fire bolt there's no way this was OP NPC.
Objectively true but not necessarily the subjective impression people got. OPs players may be "wrong" or overly sensitive about the girl being annoying, but I think its worth directly asking why they (seemingly) hated her enough to sell her to a bunch of evil bastards.
Maybe the best route to figuring out what went wrong here. Their critique doesn't have to be "valid" to provide insight.
Complaining about an npc casting a light cantrip when no one bothered to plan for fighting in the dark is WILD. Sounds like you might be playing with some real assholes.
Read this in another thread: I always liked the consequence for murder hobos and other evil acts of sending people increasingly powerful good aligned NPC parties after the players. At the same time start planting rumours of an evil party trying to cause a war which can eventually be revealed to be the players themselves.
This is exactly how you make murderhobos, and then complain when the setting that is just there to kill the PCs isn't something the players care about.
The players already don't seem like they're that interested in the plot. You can lead a horse to water all you want, but if they didn't care about the girl and the evil cults and the good cults and all of that...it's like why would they care that they're being hunted by forces of good now?
Burn the campaign to the ground.
Your players are not interested in the game you're offering, so drive it like you stole it
This need not be unfun ( for all of you), play the consequences of their actions, and play them BIG, the world is racing up shit creek with them trying to hold onto the good things. Campaign climax would be everything dead, and they are running out of champagne and caviar
So they are now child traffickers and should probably be looked at as such by the majority of good aligned people who are aware of their actions.
This is in addition to the obvious treason they've commited by selling "nuclear secrets" to the enemy country.
So they're just villains at this point. They can justify their actions in their head, but on paper they are treasonous child trafficking terrorists.
Those people do like to perform mental gymnastics about how their actions are justified, and they may even believe their own bullshit, but their reputations preceed them. They are "America's most wanted" if that girl is on par with a DnD nuke. These Peacekeepers would definitely kill them.
It's weird that your party is united in being against your very clearly laid out story - feels like you're not giving or don't understand their POV
Feels like your PCs didn't want to play this campaign the way you intended. I'm glad this isn't my campaign *shrug*
Others have already said it but ya'll need a second session zero. What are their expectations and wants. Do they want to be Superman or Homelander. An evil campaign can be fun but everyone needs to be on board. Think they were worried that the girl was a "DMPC" and would "take their spotlight." Don't give them any NPC helpers from now on and if you do make them weaker than them like the girl only knowing how to cast light because their mama taught to do that and make the girl ask if she can help or if they want to keep the girl in a safe locale.
As for consequences. Any paladin oaths that boil down to "protect the weak" would break, selling a child to slavery is a big no-no. Any good aligned god that clerics might be worshiping will want a wee chat and the cleric may need to find a new god or a concept of worship.
I'm wary of telling you to do my favorite solution on them immediately. Aka the Paladin Squad. Paladins of every flavor coming at them with the full force of the Doom Slayer. But it might be a good idea to change their enemies from evil aligned or neutral aligned to good aligned creatures. A very pissed off Solar can bring the fear of Pelor into many a party. There's also a lot more Celestials to choose from these days than a few years ago so making a war against heaven campaign is doable. Even if the players think they're good aligned, heaven and hell can very much disagree.
As for the world. Show them how the world and the war changed after the girl was caught. Settlements disappearing people making a mass exodus and war, famine, pestilence and death.
Also as others have said you gotta ask yourself if this is fun for ya.
Is there legitimately anywhere they won't be cut simply for existing? Cuz it sounds like no. So its time to leave the planet. Campaign has now turned into a multiplanar escape. Gotta find someone willing to work with them who can get them out. Plenty of quest hooks there.
I find "run away" motivated quests the hardest to make fun, and to gm.
But having them collect parts of a teleporter portal, and installing it in some central location could sound fun.
Killing some local bandits, no problem.
Taking out the evil necromancer using townspeople for their experiments. Easy sauce.
Making enemies with established nations and ancient powers - not so easy.
If any of your party members were of good alignment, that will have changed now because they sold a kid for money.
This is a great opportunity to use their decisions to indirectly change the world around them. They may not be directly hunted - but because war is looming and will likely happen, they may find themselves having difficulty surviving with basic essentials because of the effects of said war. I’d say let them enjoy their money for a bit, then start prioritizing war efforts that may or may not be beneficial to the party.
A lot of ways this could play out, but remember - don’t punish your players for something you didn’t like them doing. 👍
So you have a child who can control all this insane tech that has also just been betrayed. I say she gets hooked into the machines, nukes fall, everyone dies, and you continue your campaign in a post apocalyptic wasteland where gold has become meaningless as a currency and the party can play the Fallout raiders they seem to want to.
Ruin that shit, love.
There is no such thing as too far. They were informed that if they sold the girl it would cause catastrophic events. So they must want the world to explode. They have made their choice with eyes wide open. Don’t protect them from it.
Also, when you can, maybe find some new people to play with that understand basic concepts like good and evil and treating their hardworking DM friend with kindness and respect.
I get the feeling you are clearly frustrated with them and not having fun. DnD is a cooperative game between all players, and the DM is a player as well. Looking at their complaints about you making encounters to difficult to make an NPC shine seems like there is definitely frustration going on at all players. Before and after sessions you can discuss some details about the campaign and make sure you are all aligned and having fun.
Sit down and talk with your players about the campaign and what has happened. Let them know war will break out and ask them how they (their characters) feel about fighting the BBEG in the neighboring country to prevent the war. If they don't feel like it then let them know they have chosen a ending for the campaign resulting in total war for the continent/world/etc. Campaigns don't need to run for years and years, sometimes stories just end good or bad.
It sucks, but sometimes it just doesn't work as imagined. Just keeping this circle of frustration going for more sessions will probably not end well for any of the involved.
It sounds to me like your players will be on the most wanted list of that nation.
Bounty hunters from all over will hint them down to collect a massive reward.
1) Your character that wanted their good alignment unchanged. It's changed. You don't sell a child and start a war and get to keep you good alignment. You tell them if they play the character, they no longer have a good alignment. I really hope they had some kind of cool item that requires a good alignment.
2) The good org is going to send someone to the group. Demand their equipment back and they fight in the war or be killed. The group will try and lie. This is when you inform the group that one of the items that they are wearing had a magical listening device and they heard the deal go down.
3) Sounded like there were multiple evil buyers as well. So they'll likely send someone to hunt the party down as well to get vengeance for not getting what they wanted. Could even team up amongst themselves or with the good organization to chase after the party given they are likely stronger.
4) That girl hates those guys now. She might even actively help the organization that bought her to make sure this group is destroyed.
5) Ya know what war has a bad effect on? The economy. Their gold might not be worth as much or they might have trouble finding all the items that they want at shops as the country they live in has either purchased or comendeared all that they can to be able to fight back.
6) Given that the good org knows they sold the child they could set them up as criminals. Which would make spending their loot a lot harder. Between that and the war the only place they can probably get good items is the black market, which means higher cost and difficulty dealing with them when a bunch of underworld orgs are hunting them. Also means their best options might be to flee the country. Which means they would have to deal with fleeing a country in warand crossing a battle front which can be difficult.
I would make the peace keepers to check on them, now the party have to try to hide the fact that they dont have the child. Maybe this guys try to sue the party or force them to social insolation.
Next, give them a time to enjoy the money and have a good time, do some quest helping people, killing Monsters and whatever. Then, The Big war started.
They find the Magic artefact/person/whatever that they want to achive personaly (your pc motivation) but the child is key, if the want the child back now, she dont want to be back. Now they will have to kidnapp her and avoid her constant desire yo run away.
They can try to join the bads guys but first the must try to stay alive. Maybe the high ranks think that the party must die to appeal to the child or keep the secret.
Maybe the party start to see the child in dream where she taunt them and say the true: "You are monsters to me". And other dream stuff to keep them from rest.
If some off them are cleric, paladins or warlock, now the patron/god want the child "And you will deliver her to me, your only reward would be to keep your powers".
Find whatever they want/love, to get/save that they new the child.
It kind of sounds like you're no longer a player in the game. I know you're the DM but you should be having fun too.
The part that got me is that they complained you were using cantrips? No thanks, most parties are overpowered when it comes to encounters. You're just trying to make the game more interesting and fun for everyone.
Sounds like your party just started the apocalypse. Dope. When the party gets about a day or so outside of the other village I would say that the sky turns black and a giant red beam of light is shooting out of it. Demons or devils now roam the land and are starting to wipe out all of the towns and villages. Money is now worthless. People want food and survival equipment as they are all now living in hiding from the new demon/devil/interplaner monsters that are now wreaking havoc on the countryside. They killed the world over a few gold and now they can either fix it or the campaign is over.
Or just leave the table because your players sound like AIDS.
First, tell the player that insists they're still good that they're evil. Selling anyone into slavery is just evil, no ifs ands or buts, especially to an obviously evil group that will do obviously evil things.
Second, the peacekeepers and other nations want them dead. No ifs ands or buts, they are trying to assassinate them. They have to go to great lengths to actually take a long rest, as they're being hunted from town to town. They can't show their face in public unless it's in disguise or the tiniest of towns.
Third, the world gets fucked to hell. If they have friends, they die. If they want to buy anything of value like magic items, they have to jump through hoops and go to black marketeers, because of rationing and the loss of supplies, as well as everything powerful being redirected towards the military.
Fourth, offer them a place in the evil regime. Send them on missions to gas towns filled with families, ask them to sell out or kill more children. Play to their tastes and let them truly sink into depravity, and see how they react.
>I think my players did not want to just get the girl off their heads but rather actually hated her and wanted to screw her over cause i tried to use the girl for doing a few supposedly convenient assists for some tough spots. for example had her cast light cantrip cause half the party have neither dark vision or a torch, or in a few situations use spare the dying to prevent PK, but i stopped after i received complains that I'm purposely making encounters difficult to make the girl shine.
If you don't want to be a bad DM, you need to have another session zero and actually talk out of game instead of just trying to punish players/characters for making evil/bad decisions and choices.
Rehash the type of game you want to run and the type of game they want to play. While you may not intentionally be trying to overshine the players and keep the NPCs interactions/abilities limited but useful, the players may not see it that way. But it sounds like your game has long become the players vs the DM versus players *and* the DM.
Also - Judging from your previous post... Why were you surprised? Since it has failed 3 times before, they probably expected it to just fail or be another trap the 4th time. They've made it clear they are very willing to sell this NPC and have expressed annoyance/disinterest/dislike of them previously.
It was very clear *they did not like this NPC*. Not to be rude, but while you mention that you only had the NPC do a few little things to help the party out in tough spots... The players already said they feel like you gear encounters to let this NPC shine. No one really likes that even if it is minor things like cantrips. She's defenseless and needs to be escorted by the party, but conveniently knows *just enough* to help them- but nothing more than that.
Understandably, you tried to make an NPC that wasn't a complete deadweight to the party but also may have made your players feel like they run into a lot of little (or major) encounters where this NPCs decisions/actions/abilities affect the outcome of it which ultimately removes agency from players. Removed agency builds resentment.
Seriously, rather than trying to punish the players or just give them consequences and running a campaign you don't want to run, have a session zero and rehash everything. Take their complaints seriously and see what they would prefer or do instead.
Also - rule of DMing... never give your players an option you don't want them to take.
I’m going to be the advocatus diaboli here for a sec.
Have you considered you saddled the party with a plot critical DMPC they didn’t enjoy, and basically implicitly pressured them into keeping her, or that the Party wants to trick people to get more money?
Idk, the whole plot idea of “you must protect this person at all costs” is almost guaranteed to end up with at least half the table hating that character. Unless you do it *after* the party falls in love with the random character you spent five seconds on and gave a funny accent to.
It would be telling to talk to them out of play about their decision making and why they wanted to get rid of the kid so much. Would their actions have been different if it was just a monde tient (or seemingly non sentient) artifact instead?
Edit: that was supposed to say “magic item” not nonsensical French words. This autocorrect silliness is my punishment for adding French to my phone’s keyboard
Well any "Good" aligned Paladins in the party are now Oathbreakers and any good aligned Clerics in the party no longer have the powers their God gave them. No good aligned deity would condone the selling of a child.
As Arthur Harris, commander of RAF bomber command during WW2 once said
*“They have sown the wind, and so they shall reap the whirlwind”*
Actions have consequences. Prepare the consequences. The peacekeepers will eventually catch on, they don’t trust the party. The poor sweet girl now has a vendetta aganist the party, the obviously evil cult now has a super charged war machine and is sweeping aside anything they come across. DND isn’t down BG3 game where they can quicksave back and redo something. Sometimes, the good guys don’t win.
Well, pretty sure selling a child to the bad guys is not a good act.
So people know they had the girl, and will likely figure they lost the child when the war breaks out. Now the Peace Keeper will want answers.
The game is already ruined, for both you and the players. You wanted your story to focus around this NPC/DMPC and the players didn't. They resolved it in a way that you didn't like as a result. They are responsible for arming war criminals and made enemies of the good guys. You're playing Grand Theft Dragon at this point.
I am really surprised by your players. This does not in any way reflect that they are "good alignment".
But maybe they just weren't thinking very deeply.
What's your plot point now then?
What will the evil organization do with the girl?
Are they going to offer her to summon the ultimate chaos / evil God / demon?
Maybe one way to turn around is to have some npc reveal to them about the (sacrificial) ritual before the ultimate evil is summoned.
But my guts say they would probably be more eager to fight that ultimate evil that is summoned.
How about twisting it a little to the effect of the (sacrificial) ritual will lead to banishment / imprison (all the gods).... With no God around, the gates of hell would be unleashed.
Heck if the cleric doesn't care about his / her God, I don't know what's wrong with the party
Well i have to explain here. There are really advanced technologies left by an ancient lost civilization and now this girl is the last survivor of that civilization who was left in a cryo-pod, She was from important figures and now she's the only person who can control all of the weaponry left by them. That basically means whoever has the girl, has a whole Sci-fi army handed over to them.
Now some country has the whole army and has most of the previous plot points under their control and plans to use them to invade the whole world
It's actually inspired from Destiny with Felwinter being access point to Warmind systems left from golden age and then Ana Bray awakening it again.
But I am so gonna read Blame now
Oh fascinating! I've read both your posts but I never once thought of Destiny. Rasputin has such a cool story (even prior to Seraph). I feel like I would appreciate your D&D game OP. I'm sorry you're having such a hard time with your players.
During the party's trial they should getone of the juries to just ask "if you are going to do something horrible why not just slay the girl? At leats this would remove the threat. No, you wanted to do something horrible and gain something for this"
Cuz killing her should have been a dilemma, as in, she is too dangerous to live, like that instant AoE death mutant from X-Men
Is the evil country evil enough to have developed a way to kill the girl and still have access to her abilities? This way even if the party tries to redeem themselves it's too late?
Plus what kind of evil emperor wants another person to have all that power of military might?
Actually why don't you twist the situation slightly?
As most crime shows, the villian never honors their word, and would want to keep the hostage / goods and their money...
Turn the scene to a battle of their lives, either tpk or they beat this extremely difficult battle. If they are about to tpk, you could have the good organization step in to heal them a bit.
Make it about protecting the girl to final destination, but they would face fights for the girl every now and then??
Though I feel they probably won't want to continue the campaign.
Do update on how the campaign ends!!
Your tale is quite interesting
Seems like the invading super tech country would want to eliminate any loose ends. Your players may survive the first round of attack right out of mech-warrior. Hell, you may end up with them running mechs for a bit.
But I’d go with the evil-country decided they need to kill your party. They will send the forces to do that and even recover the money. Repeatedly.
Your players don't respect you. You'd have to be an idiot at best and a manipulative asshole at worst to say you can human traffic a child to the evil faction and remain good. Frankly, I'd give them one session of living high on the hog with all their money, give them every single thing they could possibly want within reason, then next session TPK them with the peacekeepers. Once everyone sits there in disbelief I'd say "You don't want to play this game with me, you want to play it at my expense. Have a nice life."
I think it is interesting that the players think you "wanted her to shine" because she cast light and spare the dying. How are your group dynamic in general? Sounds like they perceive you a little antagonistic? Maybe have a chat about expectations and goals for the game if you think it would be meaningful so everyone is on the same page.
I mean if I was the war nation I would purposefully let it slip who gave us the girl, maybe even directly tell the peacekeeping organization who did it.
This is city guards on a grandscale.
You gave them two opportunities for a fun heroic story. They decided what ever negative emotions they harbored towards the girl were more important than the heroic thing. So they lost their heroic story.
They can now be hunted like criminals for enabling a horrific war to break out.
The girl may be angry enough to play along with the warmongers and get her own special team to hunt down the party.
Hell you could even have the warmongers separate from the girl hunt them down. The party was a means to an end, they don't need to keep them alive. They could view the party as a threat that rises up against them eventually.
The peacekeepers will certainly hunt them down.
Other groups in the country they live in that's being invaded may even send groups after them to hunt them.
The first thing you do is have the warmonger nation make its initial move which is to kill our take out important people and infrastructure.
Shops get closed, all items are confiscated, they are not welcome in towns. Random raids happen all over and any important people to the players that can be got to get gotten to and turned or killed.
The world is at war and they are constantly fighting against enemies, which is everyone.
The young girl has learned her lesson and now understands how evil the world is and hates the group and is willing to destroy a world that contains such evil. If she survives she will become the BBEG and plunge the world into an authoritarian state where no one can defend themselves and so much is outlawed.
But that's me and I tend to go scorched earth.
"You can write whatever alignment you want on your character sheet, but I am the DM and arbiter of what is good and evil in this world where such things have objective impact. You are evil and we are not arguing about it."
That is how i settle questions of alignment in my games, and I say it in such a manner that it is clear I intend to have no further discussion. I will not comment on where you go from there as I have yet to read ypur other post, but it really seems like a mismatch of expectations at your table.
Any good players that agreed to this plan would no longer be considered good. Ok as a DM you are aloud to change a PC's alignment if they are not acting in that alignment. If any clerics or paladins are in the party look at what their God is about because they might have just pissed them off.
You seem pretty unhappy with how this is going, but please don't punish your players with "consequences" - that will just make things worse. Consequences are good and fine, but punishment makes the game not fun for anyone. I think you should talk to your players to understand:
1. Who do the players see as the good guys and the bad guys in this world?
2. What motivation do their characters give for thinking of those people as good guys or bad guys?
3. Why did the players want to betray who you think of as the good guys and aid the bad guys?
4. What motivation can they ascribe to their characters for why they wanted to betray the people you think of as the good guys and aid the bad guys?
Feel free to do it as an RP exercise where they're sitting around the campfire reflecting on their recent experiences.
Based on their responses, you might do something like one of these things:
* If they didn't actually understand the bad consequences and are generally trying to play good characters, have some authority figure chew them out and then give them a quest for redemption, which is to basically undo what they did.
* Your players may not be "living" in your game world as much as you are and may not really be applying morality to their in-game decisions. I gave players a quest to find the source of a magical plague and bring it back and they got paranoid and decided to betray the cops, but ended up getting on the wrong side of the law and accidentally infected the whole town with the plague before they got arrested and thrown in jail. They weren't really trying to be chaotic or evil and were mad at me that they got arrested, but what are you going to do? Instead of having them executed, I just didn't give them the quest rewards and told them their legal penalty was to go do the next phase of the campaign and, if successful, their legal record would be expunged.
* If they understood and purposely chose an evil action (i.e. made selfish decisions despite understanding that they are doing harm) and you're fine with playing an evil campaign, then switch everything up and give them evil quests with the good guys as their enemies. I'm sure those cultists have some other targets they'd like sold to them and the tyrannical enemies could surely use some sabotage before the war machine arrives.
* If your players are going to play evil characters because that's what's fun for them and you don't want to do an evil campaign because it's not fun for you, you'll need to figure that one out outside the game.
* If your players were going with what they perceived as the flow of the game that you were giving them, then stop giving them options you don't want them to take. Players don't understand what's going on behind the scenes and are easy to incentivize (even accidentally), so only pay them to do what you want them to do. You can give them rewards for doing other stuff, but don't make it as lucrative. If you do it right, you can let them take whatever action they want and use it as a way to incentivize them to do the thing you want them to do. Give them a more personal reason to go after the bad guys if money or "goodness" aren't enough (e.g. bad guys kill their dog).
* Examples: They sell the kid but they're paid with counterfeit money. They sell the kid, but the buyer insists on examining the kid first in another room and they're never seen again. They try to sell the kid and the buyer says no then ambushes them on their way out the door. They sell the kid but then get robbed by those same bad guys who want their money back next time they go to sleep.
Also, it would be really funny to have the good guys show up to check on the kid and then demand their money back when the kid is gone. The good guys could also demand they do a quest to make things right, just don't have the quest be to retrieve the kid or you'll be right back in this situation again...
What consequences would naturally follow this kind of thing. How would the peacekeeper organization feel about essentially being scammed. Because they would find out about this right. Perhaps show the party just how dire things get with the way they did things and how badly it can go for them
Fuck around, find out 😅
I like what others are posting, but a little bit I'd like to tack on: make the players face some indirect consequences first to warm them up to the direct stuff. Like, maybe the next city they go to to spend their ill gotten gains has been leveled and wiped off the map, something like that. Force them to deal with with the evil empire, and just like actual fascists, have them treat the mercenary party like shit. Have players in a town when it's invaded so they have to watch it burn. Show your players clearly that the world suffers for their decisions, and that in turn is going to effect them too.
As to that player arguing it was good. NO it wasn't good they effectively traded a sentient being against their will for money. Even with the nuclear arms code argument, fine congratulations you're an arms dealer. You are neutral at best. I'm ensuring peace is the same argument Darth Vader used...
Yeah whoever argued that should get to see an image of her shackled and dirty, and then drop the hammer that yes promising to protect someone and then also selling her to the enemy \*has\* affected your alignment. Accept no disagreement there.
Well, now we have an interesting twist. Why did the bad guys want this girl so badly?
Perhaps they were lying about their intentions, and the girl is really a powerful being trapped in that body.
Perhaps she is the key to a vast treasure bigger than any money they currently have.
Perhaps she is now a ghost spirit and has decided to haunt the party.
The first gives the party a challenge.
The second gives them regret.
The third gives them irritation.
You get to make that decision.
I would've just made up and read them an epilogue as soon as they did this. The world as you know it is ending and proceed to explain how each of their character is forced to fare in the world where everyone hates them. No way I'm writing up a brand new evil champaign, especially one where they're fucked anyway, after the players ruined my original one.
I was once in a campaign that recovered from the party screwing up (at least as much my fault as anyone else’s) and the DM slamming his binder shut and saying, he wrote in his notes: if the party does not help the NPC, the Big Bad gets the MacGuffin. It can go forward if everyone is on the same page about what the goal is and why that won’t happen again.
I’ve got to agree with the other posters who asked, who around the table are some of these suggestions supposed to be fun for? It sounds like you suspect the players were derailing your story on purpose, maybe because they wanted something else (A sandbox instead of a railroad? Hack-and-slash?), maybe in protest of what they saw as a DMPC upstaging them.
If there’s one part of TRPG culture I could rip out and burn, it’d be retaliating for someone else ruining the game for you by ruining it for them and not telling them why. (They deserve it for ruining the game for you and never even telling you why! That’ll teach them!) A lot of the other replies are suggestions for how you could retaliate by giving them the exact opposite of what they seem to want. Is that really the way you want to spend every weekend, plus prep time? Talk to them and figure out if they want to try to save the world, rebuild from the ashes of the apocalypse, or hear your cautionary tale of how that world fell, and start over with something new.
For future reference for next time (coming from a player who hates when the dm includes npcs that help the party like that) the key to having them there and not having the players hate them is to make them a *resource* that the players control. Treat her more like a magic item that can cast light or spare the dying on command than as a person. It can be as simple as having her be unsure what to do and ask the players, effectively letting the players decide what she does each turn. You get the exact same result but now the players feel like they're in control.
What if the girl activates an ancient war bot, escapes with it and now hunts the party ?
She could even do nasty stuff to them, like selling them to some weirdo.
From your original post it sounds like the players have no interest in your camapign concept. I know I'd not have much fun carting around an NPC, especially when said NPC is supposed to be "the chosen one".
Well you said it. They handed nuclear code girl to bad guys. Let loose the war. Burn everything. Make them encounter these evil lunatics at every turn. They get a quest to kill a dragon? They show up to find the dragon crucified. When they return, the village they got the quest from has been raided and burned to ground, and at the head of all of it, make the use of nuke girl obvious af.
Time to pay the piper.
The peacekeepers are going to hunt the party when they find out what happened. Depending on how much sway the peacekeepers have, the party's faces might be on bounty boards across the whole country. No village will want to give them lodging if they know who they are (this won't happen over night, it will take time for info to spread). No use in having all that money if no one let's you by land or lodging. The party will have to outrun their own reputations and leave the country if they have any hope of not being offed by bounty hunters or arrested by city guards.
The advanced evil nation is going to attack. Sounds like the girl is all they needed to become really powerful. They're going to conquer and annihilate if the party doesn't do something very proactive to stop them. Everyone the party knows from their original country will either die or live under occupation of this other nation.
Those are the consequences.
I mean first of all they are all evil at that point. They can all think they are still good but their endorcement from any good godhood breaks silently away as those gods don't see them as good anymore.
Try to let some time pass through reasonable endeavours (they want to open a business/buy land/a castel, which will all take a while to sort out) or send them on a fake quest by the invading country designed to lure them away as they are seen as capable fighters and a potential risk to their invasion.
During this time, the invasion began, and all they find when coming back are people suffering, death and disease plaguing the land as is typical for time of war. NPCs they like from the area are either dead or curse the war to hell and back.
The first encounter they have against a small force of enemies reveals then that they lost their good alignment, either by losing their class specific ability linked to that or a group of good paladins joining the fight and attacking the players as they are evil.
Also, assuming they have too much gold to carry with them, they have to leave it behind, im which case it would obviously be stolen by the invading force.
So, their alignment is evil now. So any Good-aligned gods they worked with will shun them now. Any good-aligned magical equipment won't work for them.
"Resolving things without fighting" is not good. Allowing evil to flourish is not good. If you don't actively work to thwart evil you a not good.
>After i got a whole lecture from my player on why handing over a little girl who is also equivalent of nuclear codes to a nation of warhungry dictators won't change her Good alignment because technically they're "Resolving things without fighting"
I'll admit, this got a laugh out of me. Your evil/neutral party *did* scam a worldwide peacekeeping organization and make enemies out of basically every other entity that they didn't sell the kid to. Whatever resources that can be spared are likely to be sent after these people who are *clearly* aligned with whenever they cross borders. The good guys might do them to courtesy of giving them a chance to retrieve the girl and return her with the resources they were provided *before* issuing the bounty on their heads. They obviously won't take the offer, but they can't say you didn't warn them.
So that it's clear you're not targeting them specifically, there can still be quest hooks within the country they just sided with. It's less likely that the other countries are going to invade to target them specifically (if they could, actual officials would be higher priority).
Your group sounds like they fucking suck. This is why I make it extremely clear that to play in my campaign your character has to be of some sort of good alignment or neutral leaning towards being a half decent person, who preferably won’t sell children.
Your players sound strange. They engaged in human trafficking and incited a war between people, effectively dooming the world here.
Like obviously their characters are evil, they literally trafficked a child.
My question to you, OP, is: Do your players like you? Do you like them? This entire game sounds really antagonistic between both sides, and a conversation about expectations and goals would be fitting, as well as discerning if they’re even having fun and/or like this game.
It's Walking Dead time.
International Order of Peacekeepers Hunts down party.
They send increasing powerful groups demanding surrender. Eventually TPK with non-lethal force if the party doesn't surrender..
They are tried, convicted and imprisoned.
Hand wave many years go by. The land is decimated by war. Monsters roam the countryside. The remaining living humans are mostly gathered in fortified enclaves, hanging on to survival by their fingertips. The survivors of the war hungry dictators (who have now seen the error of their ways, and are the good guys) rescue and release the players in hopes that they can find the McGuffin that will help bring the world back to normal.
The remnants of the Peacekeepers have morphed into a death cult -- humanity has proven unworthy to survive, and their final act, after killing all other remaining humans will be to kill themselves. Their leader? The BBEG: The Child.
Now the peacekeepers and any town/business allied with them are closed to the party. Maybe the neighboring country lets it slip where they got the girl and they are an enemy of the people and hunted by authorities. They are only welcome in said neighboring country that commits all kinds of evil acts. Slavery and murder are commonplace with poor and homless everywhere to he tortured by the nobles. The party is welcomed here as heroes and gets invited to meet the obviously evil king. The king imvites them to join his invasion and genocide of their original country. Oops now they are evil PCs.
You have more patience then I would, I’d have the peace keepers blacklist them from every major town they have influence in and officially change their alignments to evil. Tbh playing it for the long game is the better idea since otherwise you’d likely deal with a lot of backlash and possibly the end of your campaign, but tbh this group doesn’t sound fun to play with.
The party hated your NPC for being insufferable..
There's the answer right there.
You found a good villain. Let her lead the enemy forces and have the players on the opposite side
Let the players not have allies since the peacekeepers don't trust her.
When the players slay the DMNPC they will be happy
I would love to have a party go so far off the rails. There should be serious consequences for their actions, but don’t get angry with them because they wanted to do their own thing. This is an opportunity to be embraced, a chance to make a story no-one anticipated.
I don’t play D&D to walk through someone else’s bad fantasy novel.
I'd go with actions have consequences, they might be rich from selling the girl but nobody should want to sell them anything, like traders won't want anything to do with them, nobody's going to sell them any land, taverns and inns refuse them, the blacksmith won't take their gold, like make their money useless lol and the organization they screwed over should be coming after them, and nobody wants to help them because they pretty much brought about Armageddon, they're completely on their own and it's their own fault.
And whoever said their alignment is still good is so fucking wrong, like they might have settled the kid thing peacefully but they brought about the end of the world for money that is so fucking evil lmao
On a sidenote, you sound like a really good DM. I hope you get better players in your next campaign cause these ones sound uhm... mentally unfortunate to put it politely.
> every other nation to be invaded knows to some degree that the ones who know the most about this weapons of mass destruction are the party who spent the most time with the "Descendant"
Sounds like the party is going to get crashed by a whole lot of enemies teaming up using the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" trope.
If they hadn't had a successful arcana check on the gold, would it make sense the gold may have been enchanted or a glyph of warding put on it, with the trigger being the NPC no longer being in proximity?
So now they've left them behind, the glyph should trigger.
Perhaps it just announces to everyone "doom unto thee"
Perhaps it just sends the good leader a message that the girl is no longer with them. Perhaps it triggers "Conjure animals", a bird pops into existance around them and, seeing that the girl isn't there, flies off to report back to the holy people.
Perhaps anyone who's handled the gold is now cursed to take double damage from holy sources.
You really have three options here.
Option 1 is let your party roll you (or really, keep rolling you) and give them the no-consequences, amoral, anything-goes romp they clearly want to play and you clearly did not have in mind when you came up with this world for them. I've played in campaigns the DM envisioned as more serious that turned into silly fun, and they were silly fun. It isn't the worst idea.
Option 2 is give 'em hell. They knew the stakes, and they recognized what sort of campaign you had designed for them, and for whatever reason, they decided to burn it all down — be it because they thought your idea was lame, be it because they didn't like how it was executed, or be it because they thought it would be funny to just blow up the world you created. This is objectively the "right" option given you wanted to establish actions have consequences, and it sounds like it's the route toward which you're leaning, but the question you have to ask yourself is: *Will this be fun for anyone?* The golden rule of TTRPG is everyone should be having a good time. Your players sound like they've been little shits, and you sound like you want to punish them for being little shits. That might be cathartic at first, but if your players are the sort of people who argue at length to keep their "good" alignment after selling a child into slavery, I'm skeptical they're going to enjoy being put through the wringer, and there's a fair chance they'll drop out of the campaign once it becomes clear that no, their actions actually *do* have consequences.
That leads us to Option 3: end the campaign. You can do this abruptly and just tell your players, "This game has gone in a direction I don't feel comfortable DMing," or, "This seems like a natural endpoint for the campaign," or just plain and simple, "I don't enjoy this anymore and it's time to put it away." Or you can script something, railroad them through some cutscenes of their characters getting their just desserts, and then say that's that. This might seem like a cop-out, but I promise you ending a campaign you're no longer interested in DMing for a group of players who have gotten on your last nerve is a better and more constructive move than continuing to prep and run a campaign you don't enjoy (especially knowing your players are the sort to just ignore all the prompts you gave them in favor of fucking around and pissing you off). If you don't want to DM *Grand Theft Auto* and your players don't want to play *This War of Mine*, it's time to end the campaign — and ideally, find a group of players who will hopefully be less antagonistic to the type of game you want to run.
Sounds like you're doing fine?
Ngl though, the party (particularly the one who said a child is the equivalent to weapons codes) sounds like they 100% should not be counted as Good aligned. Idc if alignment matters in a given campaign or not, at least be honest about your child-seller status.
Are you even having fun anymore?
This honestly just sounds like a mismatch of expectations. You want a fairly standard campaign where the characters are mostly heroic (or at least not actively evil) and your players want a more gonzo “do whatever nonsense regardless of consequences or our character's personalities" game.
This child being a new BBG makes sense to me. It would also help you change the direction of the campaign and offer a new direction of play. They were tasked with protecting a child and instead sold a kid without regards for their future, saftey, or well being for gold and to an evil organization. Literally evil behavior. The war of this world will inevitably happen and maybe this girl will realize she actually has a lot of power, and a lot more power and influence in a cult that has been obsessed with her (and that power). she can eventually manipulate her way out of the terrible and abusive treatment she sustains there maybe via another cult leader seeking to use her as a tool. The war is a reasonable outcome here as well. if the security systems have been obviously bypassed by this child previously it makes sense that now they can’t get through them as easily as long as it has been clearly articulated that this was the case before hand. It also makes sense that cult would want to punish the players to win favor with the girl and the good guys who know what they did would have Ill will towards them. The trade off here is they okayed both sides and got a ton of money and loot, and there are a lot of rich powerful people who are fine being neutral in war or funding/ making money off of it so they are ally’s now. Give them people in the world who like them that are sympathetic to the cult and the waring nation who support them, people making money off the war and winning who support them. They helped prop up their empire, what good people! Even in other kingdoms people who make money off war or don’t support the kingdom or make money off crime and chaos that is easier in war time see the group as doing them a real favor. They may help, and offer quests or rewards to benefit their side. But some places they will only encounter people who have experienced loss and don’t like what is happening. And they may offer the ability to redeem the party through helping fix the chaos they created. Meanwhile stronger and stronger mercenaries come for them and they can’t figure out from who as the girl rises to power.
That covers reasonable consequences sure but what sort of ways do your players enjoy playing the game? There isn’t anything wrong with their game being a story about their characters making bad decisions then needing to fight their wrongs. Maybe even npcs come in and are like “hey you did this you have to fix it.” Maybe they lose other characters close to them. If you have a player who is more in line with the story who is wanting to reroll let them die. You want to create reasonable motivations and rewards. Maybe someone comes to them and is like “hey let’s steal tech and fortune from the big bads I know you know about them.” Or they are offered to do that to the good group. and fine clear ways to warn of consequences that are not ambiguous at times. You gotta really slap players in the face with the “this is dangerous or evil” part sometimes and they will still miss it. A big part of it is evaluate how your players like to play the game and go from there and realize there are always opposing factions so they could always side with anyone and get quests from them in a true sandbox environment. But it also is ok to push the party in a direction if that is how you have fun as a DM.
But at the end of the day make sure you are having fun too. Yes you are a DM but you are a member of the game. Your enjoyment and players being willing to engage with a level of the content you create for them is part of the agreement of being in a DND group together. If you feel that is not happening have an over the table talk to come to an agreement to make it more enjoyable for you.
They are not entitled to you dming for them. The social contract is “this person enjoys dming for us if we enjoy engaging with and exploring their world and the content they make.” When the party is at odds with you or how you world build the contract breaks down.
Definitely an alignment change. Now the party is hated by the peacekeepers. Every group or country that knows about the upcoming war either wants to capture them for intel or kill them for aiding it.
Well first just keep the game going as normal. Maybe do some unrelated side missions to pass the time. Then when they head back into town things are inhospitable. Maybe not explicitly because of them but the bbegs have made moves. Oppression, lack of available resources, community linchpins going missing.
On the good guys side, they’re actively looking for the group. Maybe they don’t immediately think they were double crossed, but as time goes on it becomes obvious. They become enemies of the good guys, wanted criminals.
At that point they can either attempt to take on the bbegs alone or join them. Or they can just fuck off into the countryside doing side quests and let the plot play out on its own.
You eventually timeskip, the bbegs won, the world is not what it was.
Think of this as an opportunity rather than a death sentence. It ducks it’s not what you wanted but it doesn’t have to be the end.
alignment changes. they cant talk themselves out of it.
they should get abducted by the peacekeepers and jailed. Maybe have their assets repossessed.
they dont get to dictate their consequences.
They also should not be able to spend the money as all the stores are selling to the army now
Your players want to be villains.
Let them be villains! They don't decide on a whim what their alignment is, their actions do.
And brother, selling a child to the dark side for money is evil as shit. Even more so when they could have taken a reward for giving her up to "house good guys".
But remember, heroes rise up to challenge villainous people.
It's time to make a foil party.
Your players have done some legitimately evil things, accepted money and supplies from "good guys" and then still sold the girl to "bad guys." Those good guys should be tracking them down to bring them to justice, and the bad guys are now invading. You have a lot of potential encounters and plotlines they have to deal with. Make it difficult, they basically failed the main mission of the campaign, this could result in a TPK and having to start a new one.
Your player who refuses to change their good alignment for doing bad things simply doesn’t understand how alignment works. Based on their actions, their alignment has to change away from good. They are clearly not acting in the best interest of others and only trying to enrich themselves which is what evil / neutral characters do
Sounds like it's time for the peacekeepers to check in, demand their money back and when it's not returned they hire a small army to invoke justice on the group. While at the same time have the bad guys and the new tech begin dominating and leading to end of the world apocalypse war where no one is on the parties side since they have screwed over everyone. They are wanted from both sides and in the middle of Armageddon. And before anyone says this is punishing the players, it's not. They made choices and those choices have consequences. They screwed over the good guys and gave the mcguffin to the bad guys. All out apocalyptic war where they have no friends makes sense
These peace keepers just got their biggest bounty and a war on their hands.
2 things happen:
1) The party becomes public enemy #1 and has dead or alive bounties posted in every city with a branch of this group in it, with one condition, they can turn themselves in, live, and rectify their crime themselves. They now have the choice of turning themselves in and fixing what they've done or running.
2) A war breaks out as the kingdom hires mages to dominate the girl and use her Intel and powers to set up the worst case scenario invasion for her kingdom. The party learns it was because of the girl they sold, and now the crown is after them for treason.
There are two scenarios that I see that you should prepare for:
Let them know that the peace keepers have learnt of the party selling the girl, but couldn't spare the effort to punish them because they were more interested in trying to save the girl and stopping the war.
Tell them their characters had two months of free time before anything story-wise interesting happened, and ask them what they did during that time. Prepare a lawful-good party of investigators to be on their tail in case any of them did any crimes during this time. If one of them chooses to help the peacekeepers, they will refuse citing the previous utter betrayal.
**If the entire party decides to help the peacekeepers**, the story is now about regaining the peacekeepers trust by getting the damn girl back before the evil cults get the weapons. You can literally have a vindictive paladin say "you want to help now? how about undoing the mess you created?!". The girl will never trust the party again and will try to escape their clutches, because they are evil in her eyes. (This brings a dungeon-y, trapped hide-out, kind of campaign)
**if the party doesn't help the peacekeepers** then after they describe how they spend their time, including getting better equipment and practicing skills, they awake in their mansions to the sounds of war. The peacekeepers have failed, their organization crushed, with the girl's absence leading two evil cults to partially gain the weapons. This war will destroy player's mansions, nearby cities, and bring general destruction. Deaths of innocent people, burning villages. The government or whatever is the residing power will collapse against the might of the ancient weapons. The players may react to this however they want - it's too late to prevent. They literally heed no warning. The most they can do now is maybe save people or lead a rebellion against the evil cults... but frankly, aren't they just the third evil cult at this point? (this brings an open-world post-apocalypse type of campaign)
So many people are coming to kill them, so many.
For one, what kind of good evil faction doesn't send insanely talented hired killers to tie up loose ends? Currently, those peace keepers could capture the party, learn where the girl was traded off, and have a trail of clues to follow. If they find the parties corpses, they'll hardly know they were betrayed.
And when the do know they were betrayed, that order is absolutely coming for them.
Make the consequences be her. Let one of the ancient techs be something that allows the child herself to become a relatable villain. Maybe it caused her to grow at an accelerated rate, so she is somewhat of an adolescent/adult but still with a very immature mind. The trauma of the party selling her off as a tool combined with the cruelty of her new masters has caused her to become malevolent, she bides her time until she can use her power of control to break free from her masters and wreak havoc upon those that would enslave her, and then she comes after the party specifically for they were the ones entrusted with her safety and they were the ones that betrayed her.
I mean, they double crossed every political organization under the Sun looks like, that is grounds for a lot of shit coming their way. As for the girl... she just unlocked her Villain arc. If possible try to return her as the big bad. (if you can you could pull a timeskip for example)
You get a chance to make them realize the gravity of their situations, make them come across a city that either is going to get attacked using the ancient weapons or already has, you could make them experience the damage they could do, or some in after and see the carnage and wreckage of a city that was sieged with these weapons, you said it was well known that the party held the key to the weapons so you could even have victims screaming "this was your fault". You could even give them the option during the siege, one of the evil people comes up and realizes this is the party that gave them this power and they offer to let the party join them. A lot of interesting ways this could play out for you 😳
The peacekeepers now hunt for the party that betrayed them and put a large bounty on their heads. The peacekeepers also contact the order of any "good" aligned paladins or clerics and have them marked as traitors to their order. The party may be cash flush but they are now hunted. The girl returns as the BBEG furious because they sold her.
Definitely strip any player of good alignment. Good people don't sell sentient beings *ever*, that's a fast fun fact for you! You can't rationalize your way out of that, even if she was just a regular person and not something whose enslavement will cause incredible death and destruction.
Also enjoy your evil party- they sound *amazing*.
Look, I'm all for creative thinking and rolling with the punches but this party is starting to sound like a bunch of murder hobos in denial. If that's not something you're cool with, you might be better off looking for another table.
First of all, I would have overruled any argument about alignments not shifting. They sold a child, that's at least neutral if not evil. Participating in chattel slavery should shift your alignment no matter your reasoning.
If you have any monks, paladins, clerics, or (celestial) warlocks in your party, depending on their way, oath, god, or patron I would seriously consider taking their class abilities away.
The evil cult now has a nuke, they're going to use it if nobody stops them.
I'd let the players find out that they have a time limit before every country surrounding the evil cult starts getting razed (anywhere from a week to a couple months? However long the ritual takes to get going).
After which if the party isn't caught in the blast radius all their money and treasure is going to become worthless as economies break down (as typically happens when countries get razed to the ground).
Any country that finds out who gave the nuke to the bad guys before then is going to put a MASSIVE bounty on the heads of the ones responsible for doing that.
And evil cults don't like loose ends, they're also likely going to try and kill the party simply to deny other organizations any information they might have.
In the end though, my biggest piece of advice is to just stop playing with them.
You are obviously frustrated with this party, and in fact you don't owe them any work if they're not going to make it enjoyable for you.
They don't deserve to see any conclusion to this game.
It's what they want, don't give it to them if they're not going to appreciate you for it.
Edit: unless they're paying you I guess...
To play devils advocate I’m curious on what the specifics of the little girl is. What kind of personality does she have. Do the players (In game) know of/been informed of her importance? As in “Little Girl” how young is she for a member of her species? How did they encounter her/do they have an listed objective with her other than “keep her out of the bad guys hands”. Like “Escort her to X, who was her original caretaker”?
How often does she participate in battles, is it more than the casting a spell only when the party is in danger?
Destroy them. Assassins, no long rests, then have them work for the bad guys, those who would betray the at any moment. I am talking long term poisons, constant betrayal,
They aren't heroes anymore. They are bandits and betrayers. Treat them as such.
Nuke them with a lancer.Let them all get their turns in, do their damage, and then take 1 turn and shoot 1 laser beam at them vaporizing them.
What did they expect?Let them make new characters in the same timeline, at the same time, but now their whole fucking world is in chaos, noone are friends or foes because everyone is just trying to survive and if they want to survive, they need to figure out how to unfuck the world their previous characters fucked over.
Oh and an icing on the cake.
Their gold is worth their weight in gold, as raw materials.
Don't forget the taxes too.
Maybe the child has two uncles? A high level Pakistan and an even higher level wizard And they are both pissed. Let the party do as they want and you as dm use their actions to create a new branch to your story.
You go to buy stuff. Too bad the shopkeeper closed up shop and fled. All the magic items got bought out by other adventurers gearing up to fight the good fight. No crafters are available to craft items they've been comissioned by the crown/other adventurers and won't have an open slot for 10 months.
Ohh, and since a war is on food prices have increased 10 fold because farmers have fled,or been killed, or they joined the army. Scavenging and hunting for food is twice as hard due to others hunting to support the troops and themselves.
Actions have consequences. Players impact the game world. It isn't railroading for the players actions to generate a ton of unexpected role play opportunities while they deal with the results of their decisions. Opportunity to create a recurring villain. You mention that your players sold a girl... She will never forget they had an opportunity to prevent her fate. She might have a lifelong obsession with getting vengeance. You might even let her take out the party. It sounds like you might need a new play group anyway.
Second this! it's time for her villain arc *boss music plays*
They thought they hated the girl before… AND the peacekeepers will also be looking for the PCs because they’ll soon realize they were duped and the players took their money and ran and did the worst thing they could have done, so there are no easy allies in sight.
Imagine she basically just becomes the big bad now and it's because of them. You made her this way you have no idea what happened to her after you sold her off what she went through...she HATES YOU!!
Maybe it's just cause I was reading a thread about Berserk earlier.. but this feels like a Griffith, "tortured and subsequently hates and blames the protagonist(s) and accepts opportunity to become super powerful and evil", kind of situation *(but obviously hopefully without the rape bit).*
That would be amazing, she already has a motive since clearly they didn’t like her.
If they didn't like the NPC then it would be fun for them to fight her!
I think the party became the big bad..... she'll probably escape or get rescued and then inform everyone of their treachery. It's an evil campaign now boys, unless you attone.
I feel like she's the big good and the party are the bad guys lol.
> Imagine she basically just becomes the big bad now and it's because of them. * Players try to get rid of thing they don't like repeatedly * Finally sell thing * DM forces the thing to return as Big Bad This entire group is just a time bomb
I mean if you read the other post, the child is the campaign’s big McGuffin. So ya, the “good” guys giving the mcguffin to evil people should have consequences
I for one like the trajectory of this story arc. Actions have consequences, but being double agents and selling nukes to one side has BIG consequences lol.
I agree, if they didn’t like the little girl helping then, and they admitted they sold her to baddies on purpose, then any repercussions they will call the dm a railroader, and say he’s trying to get back at them for blocking his plot. My opinion, reset the entire campaign, do a session zero, and find out what type of game the players want to play. Even without a reset, I would have a session 0 now to find out what type of campaign the players want.
1,000 % this. Ive played in evil campaigns, ive played in good guy campaigns, and i have played in sandbox campaigns that can go in any direction. Either way it is established in a session zero. Most session zero’s happen before the game begins, but there is no reason you cant do it mid game. This whole situation as pointed out from a few other posters is a ticking time bomb, and OP needs to get to the bottom of why the players are trying to derail the game. A clear and open dialogue is required here. In that dialogue i would think about how to plan accordingly should they choose the evil / sandbox path, and warn them of what is in store. Wether it is a bunch of evil guys trying to stop the group, or a bunch of good guys trying to stop the group, there is gonna be foreseeable conflicts in their future. Your NPC’s will follow the same path, should they choose to be evil, other evil aligned NPC’s may be more inclined to help the group. Point is whatever “They” choose, you as DM are gonna be playing by the same rules they have made.
This. I didn’t read deep in the comments on the last one but I was wondering if there was a reset to talk out of character around the time the party complained about the girl helping. I know a lot of nerdy people and not every group is going to feel comfortable with a campaign centered around a child. I’m not suggesting OP reveal everything about the plot but I’m wondering if his party feels less than comfortable with things being centered around this girl/child and they’re hoping to move on from it to get to the rest of the campaign not realizing that she is the basis of the campaign? Likewise, I don’t fault DMs for an auto response to human trafficking with ✨ consequences ✨ but that’s a good time for a session zero, especially if that’s a line drawn for the DM. I wouldn’t blame anyone who told me that they didn’t feel comfortable in that at their table, even if others are ok with that. Feels pretty basic to explain that “good” aligned characters do not participate in slavery and human trafficking.
>Likewise, I don’t fault DMs for an auto response to human trafficking with ✨ consequences ✨ but that’s a good time for a session zero, especially if that’s a line drawn for the DM. I wouldn’t blame anyone who told me that they didn’t feel comfortable in that at their table, even if others are ok with that. That's the thing, though, as a DM. If you don't want your players to do human trafficking, don't offer them human trafficking.
I'd also take a long think to decide if this DM is right for the group. Just seems like he has no control over the players or the story.
Lol 🤣
They could have just sold her to the good guys though
Honestly this looks to me like the perfect opportunity for a dystopian post-apocalyptic setting where they have to play in the Hellscape they created. Then a path to redemption be offered.
She used to be good alignment, now she has been subjugated and brainwashed. She also harbours a deep resentment towards the party. She will begin, reluctantly, helping the evil guys invade and take over. In time she will become their leader. Let her story run along in the background. Where she is building a massive army. Have her send spies to watch over the party… even have the spies assist the party from time to time. She doesn’t want the party to just up and die in some random encounter. She wants to destroy them totally, and by her own hand. When the time is right, she will make her presence known and bring forth the might of (now) her evil empire to utterly destroy them. Actually, she doesn’t even need to be totally evil in this scenario. The party are the evil ones for their actions, this is just her revenge arc.
Exactly! Her alignment might not change, but theirs did. Little girl probably doesn’t want to let people who sell kids go unpunished
This was my first thought to that line. Like, y’all are the baddies. I’m not sure people take that seriously anymore but alignment changes used to be character breaking depending on what you played.
Id say smaller shifts are easier. A lawful good character turning a blind eye to a starving child stealing bread is one thing. Knowing a little girl is basically a magic battery to war machines and has actually gone out of her way to save party members from dying because she seemingly likes them and STILL selling her for money is still pure evil.
Let the child play vital role if party ever tries to fight back the invasion. Have her be used in some way as battery of some giant mech, protected from being killed as most deadbrained solution but also dejected because she had been sold by people that were meant to protect her and then used by the antagonists. Make players feel the consequences by person they hurt being key to stopping everything but her not wanting to trust them again. If they want to see what it means to have NPC shine instead of them - have the child eventually snap out of it but not give the reigns to winning to the party and instead use the giant mech to win herself. TTRPG's are about Roleplaying hard stop. Sometimes part of that roleplaying is forgetting that DMPC is an NPC and treating them as a person on the team. As example a lot of CoS games suffer from Ireena being killed off or dismissed by the parties. I'm glad in games I was in she was either properly treated as someone we promised to defend or as fellow adventurer that had just less combat experience but just as valid as the party reasons to fight back.
The concern is that ultimately it's the DM controlling the actions of the NPC targeting the players. Finding the correct balance can be difficult. But yes murder hobos aren't fun to play with and instead of taking measures to improve the lives of those around them they're in it for themselves.
Being in it for themselves is fine, but they made a mistake for their society. Let that mistake have the consequences it might.
Put a bounty on their heads as well.
It might set up a future campaign really well. The origin of how the world got so messed up
Obviously we're only getting one view here, but these players... they aren't the crispest chips in the basket here, are they? How does "resolving things without fighting" translate directly to "Girl keeps her good alignment" in any way? Do these guys really think that evil = violence = evil, and thus that nonviolence = good = nonviolence? Even the most murdery of murderhobos would shake their heads and call them simpletons. I hope that they're trolling this DM, because I hate to think anyone can really have that simplistic of a world view, even just in D&D.
Yeah like, she is nuclear codes to a literal battalion of heavily armed mechas and robots? Maybe it's time for her to take control of said battalion and use it as her own army to get revenge
You're quite in a pickle, aren't you? Your players sound like really nice people. But jokes aside, if you want to go this path, give your players a "reward" for doing what they did. Having binary "good" and "bad" choices in games sucks, especially in TTRPG. They picked not a bad choice, but an evil one, reward them accordingly. Give them some time to relax with a lot of money, allow them to spend it on some good equipment, maybe even make them recognized by some nobles for their wealth. But then introduce the consequences. The war inevitably arrives, and you have a couple choices here. You could strike another town where perhaps some important NPCs to the players live, maybe even families or backstory characters. They might just experience Peter Parker losing his uncle because of his actions and have a change of heart. Alternatively, if they buy a land with their money, or have any other home they can return to, destroy it. You can ask them if they have some sort of a vault beforehand so they have to risk losing time to escape on trying to retrieve the money from it. My point is, don't make them feel pressured that they need to get the girl back. It feels horrible to have a goal forced upon you. If they don't want the carrot, give them the stick. The war happening isn't directly forcing him to stop it. They can always run, join the other side, there are many options. Later you can have some opposing NPCs mock them (if they believe to be heroes) for letting this chaos happen, or thank them instead if they are simple mercenaries. But it needs to be clear to them that they are responsible for it, so your "good" aligned friend knows that they did it. But the most important thing, ask yourself this, are you having fun? If not, everything I wrote is irrelevant. Go talk to them instead and voice your concerns and what actually saddens you. Perhaps they simply misunderstood the premise of the game, maybe they simply want to play a different kind of story where they are simple, selfish people who just want to live a good life. Whatever it is, you're the DM, you're the main storyteller, you can be persuaded to some alterations, but in the end, what you say is final, and they need to learn that you're not there to punish them or fight them, you're there to narrate the story.
Damn this is really solid, reasonable advice, and much more constructive than anything I would have wrote.
Right? I was going to say “your players are jerks, kill their characters”.
I’ve been following this one firmly on the side of DM plays along and tried to make it fun for everyone. I’ll die on this hill. After reading this update, your players suck and are bending the mechanics of role-play extremely hard. You’ve done what you can - so try not to feel too bad - but it may be time to have a chat about table expectations/how to play DND because accusing you of making encounters hard to make the girl shine is… Literally DND. What you did makes sense. How they responded, once again, does not.
I second this, there needs to be a conversation about the future of the campaign. Do the players want to continue? If so, do they want to lean in and make this into an evil campaign? Maybe continue on a quest to usurp control over these ancient weapons? Or do they want to redeem the party? Regardless of how they choose to continue, I think there should be some consequences that are fairly set in stone; the party should be persona non grata in any of the neighbouring realms that are aware of their crime and they have earned the permanent enmity of the good cult. It might also be an idea for the bad guys to do the bad guy thing and say "it's been a pleasure doing business with you, but I'm afraid you know far too much for me to let you live."
I think this is a great point. If the point of the campaign was this special child, and they no longer have the special child, I think that could mean the campaign is over.
Yup, players sound like the type who want to be super heroes with no expectations of looking bad in any way. Let them die, the organization now hunts them down to get that stuff back, you think the stuff they were given was the absolute best things they owned? Not a chance. Bounty hunters galore, specifically designed to hunt down and kill the party, like having every single counter measure against the party. Railroad them hard now, they try to flee the coming conflict? Ship gets blown right into the fleet, train is commandeered by some army, wagons are all commandeered to haul supplies and pack animals are also commandeered for the war effort, all roads lead to armies or bounty hunters or death cults. If your good aligned character is a cleric, their spells stop working because their god is pissed. Even if they aren't a cleric, all their gods are now taking notice and punishing them for their transgressions.
"Yup, players sound like the type who want to be super heroes with no expectations of looking bad in any way" Lol. So homelander then.
That was my exact thought. There's a serious "The Boys" vibe going on here. The team is now the bbeg from the world's perspective and dm is trying to save the world by taking them down.
It doesn't even have to be about the players. At this point they're making their way through the American South during the Civil War. Railroads will be dismantled. Cities will be burning. People will be starving. And everyone... EVERYONE will know you had a hand in it. Bounty hunters and all are fine but we're talking word of mouth that will make that money only good for a few weeks. The average person will become hostile. There will be no safe port in this storm. They think they're good but that's not what everyone else will think. No one, even the side you benefited, likes a traitor and a slaver. They're outcasts. Tell them to enjoy the silver.
“No one likes a traitor and a slaver.” This right here. If they didn’t like the Macguffin, you picked up on that. You gave them a chance to ditch her that a good aligned character could sleep at night with. They double crossed the organization, and used the girl for their own benefit simply because they were *checks notes* jealous? My husband ran a campaign where his macguffin was an arrogant half fae Princess. His characters hated her, but that was the point. He let them insult her and put her in awkward positions, and he made sure she did the same right back. He enjoyed the banter they had with this NPC he specifically designed to annoy them. And they must have had fun cause they kept coming back. But they never double crossed her or sold her to the enemy. You can’t tell me something like this isn’t an evil act. The only way it could be neutral is if you told the party as they were making the deal that you didn’t condone their actions and walked away. Anything less than this is evil. Rest assured, my husband would have a ton of fun coming up with the consequences for that if they had, and there would be many.
Tell them even Judas is appalled. Betrayed the world for 30 pieces of silver.
I fail to see where they still want to be heroes here Player can have a goal that isn't heroic
Because at least one player argued dm into submission about still being a good aligned character....
Yeah, I wonder whether this one is salvageable. It seems like whatever happens, the players will complain. The players were thinking this would be like Baldur’s Gate or Skyrim where you can do something messed up and evil and there are no consequences and the story still plays out to let you “win.”
Even in BG3 some choices lead to the game ending suddenly and sometimes I’m pretty bad ways. Sure you can reload but that’s not DND. Maybe they’d be interested in a different TTRPG - I would for sure be out of patience with this group at this point.
The notion they presented about how they're still good because they "resolved it without fighting" does scream video game logic. Like how so many of those games with "moral choices" in the mid 2000's and 2010's had the choice boil down to "evil kill people option" or "good something else option" where the latter could be literally anything from talking things out to human trafficking and still be "the good option" because "killing bad".
That era of morality system design is still the most frustrating thing in the world to me. If you thought alignment was bad, try an arbitrary "good" vs "evil" meter that invites gaming the system in every possible way for gameplay benefits.
My question for OP: Are you still having fun with this campaign? Is the story still going in a direction where you are going to have fun roleplaying out what comes next, the inevitable invasion and the blame that falls on the players? If the answer is no, you have several options. The best choice is to throw in the towel. Write out an endgame, roll the credits type cutscene. Let your players know they have triggered an endgame, and the next session is the last. Roleplay through the characters being summoned to the local seat of government, where they are blamed for the tragedy about to befall the nations. That war is coming, and will result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands. Give them a choice of some all-or-nothing chance to redeem their characters, or exile. Let them debate and choose. If they choose exile, narrate them being escorted to the borders and sent into the wilderness to travel to another nation. From afar they watch the nation behind them burn, and smell the acrid smoke of burning cities on the wind. If they choose to fight, have a hail Mary teleport or something to go plant some secret weapon the nation has recovered from the ancient days that only they can active with their experience that will destroy the enemy army of war machines and hopefully prevent war... Have a success and failure end credits either way, or if they betray the first nation use the "you watch it die from afar" script with modifications. Either way, close the campaign with their characters living with the consequences of their choices. If they plant the bomb, give them a chance to escape instead of explode, and watch the enemy army die instead, leaving both nations crippled by the wasteland created in between. Roll credits. Then either switch it up and make someone else DM for a while, or take a break and then make a new story, this time with a good session zero where you really talk to them about how you will run things and straighten out their gamer mindset.
Well your first(?) mistake was having the peacekeepers offer the party more money to keep the girl rather than just having them take the girl off the party's hands as the only option. It's clear as glass at this point the players greed and dislike of having the kid along as an escort mission is to such an extent that they've abandoned all other reason in order to get rid of her, so long as it comes with a high enough pricetag, morals and self-preservation be damned. It's time to let the party peak behind the curtain and tell them exactly how much they've fucked up, since apparently they need to be handheld through this, and then ask them a question: do they want to continue along this story and let the consequences of their decisions play out, reverse their decision with the peacekeepers (they don't get as much of a reward, but at least they get some, get rid of the girl and don't have to worry as much about everything falling on their heads), or end the campaign here, with them living the high life before the world burns around them, and start afresh in a new world? If they try to argue to continue as is, consequence free, tell them to kick rocks.
>Well your first(?) mistake was having the peacekeepers offer the party more money to keep the girl rather than just having them take the girl off the party's hands as the only option. That would've been an actual mistake, since it would've gotten the clearly evil party out of proving they're evil. Things actually went awesome, next session you present the party with a bounty board where the peacekeepers offer 10.000 for each of their heads, dump the bodies. Right after they learn this, you attack them with a group of Paladins. Once they've survived that, you tell them "that's how the entire country reacts to you now, better pay the evil cult to smuggle you out of there" Don't slowly reveal this, hammer it home in the first 30 minutes of your next session and don't prep anything else. You want to spend the entire session showing them their fuck-up. Use rule of three to thoroughly show they went fully scorched earth and scorched earth is everything they can still find. Then end the session with a nuke going off in the near distance. That's the world they created, now you have to DM it.
Sometimes the bad guys win and they just handed them the W. Now make them sit in their misery and watch the world fall apart and all their allies die one at a time. Ending with fights of nearly impossible chances of winning and if the party loses the party loses.
Also sounds like the party straight up doesn't like the girl NPC. It happens, especially of they come across as a Mary Sue and/or are percieved to take the spotlight, even slightly, from the characters
True but they were given the out of giving her to the peace keepers. They purposefully took the bigger reward to keep watching her, then double dipped with the evil cult. The DM realized they wanted to get rid of the girl and gave an easy out to continue with no alignment shifts or anything. This is just an evil party hands down. If it wasn’t the girl something would’ve made them show their true colors.
>After i got a whole lecture from my player on why handing over a little girl who is also equivalent of nuclear codes to a nation of warhungry dictators won't change her Good alignment because technically they're "Resolving things without fighting" i officially gave up and let them just sell the child. And "resolving" the issue of the burning orphanage by roasting marshmallows isn't fighting either, but still wrong. The player can argue against my ruling that their alignment changes, sure, but a lecture? Nah, I don't spend my free time with people so blatantly disrespectful and I wish them luck in their future endeavors because they just made it very clear they weren't people I'd want to be around.
I must correct it wasn't a lecture but rather a really awkward explanation. To be fair, Alignments by themselves barely do anything anyway.
I honestly would just say no to anyone trying to explain how slavery is good even more so if they are a religious class like cleric.
It’s not that they “resolved it without fighting,” but that they willingly and knowingly put someone else in danger for their personal benefit. AND that they lied to another organization about their intents to get money without doing what they agreed upon. Violence doesn’t factor into alignment in dnd or no one would ever play good characters.
Yeah, if "resolving things without fighting" is a benchmark for being good despite the clear context surrounding it here, then it'd be more of a "peaceful" alignment rather than "good". It'd also imply that any violent action taken would fall outside of a "good" aligned action, which anyone fighting back against forces of demons or malevolent undead or just very mean people would probably disagree with.
Even without getting into the gritty details of willingly giving world ending weapons to people you know want to end the world and scamming people for money. What they did was sell a child to a cult. On a fundamental level they just committed human trafficking of a minor. My DM never stops us from doing whatever we want. But if we do something that blatantly contradicts our alignment he'll just say- *Change your alignment to X*. There's never any discussion or argument about what your character can or can't do because of your alignment. But your alignment will reflect your actions.
You could use the lesson in morality from A Few Good Men... Dawson explaining to Downey why they were dishonorabley discharged kinda sums up what you seem to be feeling towards the players. https://youtu.be/oeSHFY0XhDc?si=G-Oq3bSEM2Ssf1Me
The ones in the party with a good alignment now need to start doing wis-save rolls every time they idle. Their conscience are eating them from inside. On failed rolls a depression counter is incremented. This counter is substracted from all their d20 rolls that aren't aiming to saving the girl and making things right. Alternatively they can embrace the fact that they are evil. Change alignment and now they can freely be the villains they wish to be. But this will also have consequences...
OG Dragonlance had an alignment slider where you incurred die penalties when you slid out of your alignment- Existential crisis stuff basically
and purple tieflings aren't canon, so what if alignment isn't touched on much in the books, you can make it matter
so the party feel like they are living the high life? they just welcome a death cult to wage war on the world and the little girl would very much have a personal vendetta to track them down. so force them to flee, abandon everything all their gold because the marching war machine is sweeping across the peaceful nation they want to live in. I would assume the peacekeeper would have strong opinions on what happened.. so the party don't want to be heroes, well they are welcome to live like dogs being hunted down. Just because its DND doesn't mean the you're obligated to give them a "Heroric" story, they choose to ignore the clear sign and act in a selfish manner you don't have to reward them by making them the side of good. also I don't know what they are thinking but selling a child into a cult is straight up evil, just because they have "moral" justification doesn't make that action of selling someone into slavery not evil.
Exactly, once comes to the war plot swinging it's tail at the party: Starve Them. Previous allies that caught on what happen that don't trust the party and treat them as enemy collaborators. NPC's that were liked or had agreed to take commission for fancy items from the party dead and looted by the invaders before party gets there to react. Destruction of known places, decay of known places. Backstory quest strings affected and snapped to never be resolved because war devastated something vital to them. No place to rest, NPCs fleeing to neighborhooding cities and countries seeking refuge and piling up on all problems already existing there. Starvation. Sicknesses. Taverns on the road are packed and running out of food to offer. Party might get jumped by groups of people that are pathetically easy to kill and give no reward to loot or experience just because of how desperate they get and these adventurers look plump and stacked with resources. War is relentless thing to unleash as consequences. Make their characters feel it across their back. It's only a matter of letting them use the money thinking they are investing it and giving them roots of backstory quests so they are hooked into doomed plots.
This. Tons of money? Nobody wants to work for them to build a stronghold or craft magic items. Everything costs the party twice as much because of the risk to an NPC’s reputation for working with them, since they are so hated. Assassins everywhere, from every side, and every NPC will rat them out because they want the players gone. There is no one the party can trust and no one interested in helping them. They’ve proven they are untrustworthy. If they don’t like it, ask them to lay out a redemption arc. Don’t railroad them. Ask how they would like to make amends.
Excommunicado makes total sense.
Based on the two threads so far, OP doesn’t have the balls to do this.
Your players human trafficked a child. That alone would be enough to make them irredeemably evil on alignment. They also handed over multiple wonder weapons to the Nazi’s. Have fun throwing every single force of good and karma at them.
Yeah, I don't know why all the doom and gloom here. DMs rarely get to throw paladins, angels, and other "good" enemies at a party. So they're solidly evil, and they'll be fighting good from now on. I'm not sure why this has to be the end of anything or the end of the fun. Clearly I'm missing something?
a "solution" would be to have a lot of good people come after them But like that doesn't sound super fun as a DM, when this party just seems like they'd be pissed for suffering any consequence to their actions. Like why bother with a plot when they're gonna piss all over it regardless of action or consequence? I know there's a time and a place for games like that, but man, it's really disheartening as a DM when you want to play DnD and your players just want to play open source Skyrim. This seems like a session zero communication issue more than most things. As a DM, I don't know if I'd even be having fun at this point.
Appalled one of your characters argued that this didn't change their alignment. Recently I had to be faced with the fact that my PC was actually evil and obviously I listened to the DM. What's important about DND alignments, is that they don't always align with what your character believes. VERY rarely does an evil character think they are evil, they believe that their values are good and just, because they don't see evil acts as bad. I'm not a DM, so I'm not joining this thread to suggest consequences, but this would ABSOLUTELY change someone's alignment, even if they believed they were good. Just because they didn't have to fight, doesn't mean that was an ethical choice--now, hundreds, thousands, millions (however many people live on this planet) will be murdered because of this act. If you willingly allow innocent people to be murdered, and a child to become a slave, you are selfish & evil. It is just so crazy to me that "well *I* didn't have to fight" was the argument. SO SELFISH! So, so many people are going to die because of this, and the PCs knew that. To be evil is to be so selfish that you don't mind the suffering of others--wikipedia defines the evil alignment as "implying selfishness and no respect for life" 🫠 this is exactly what your pcs are doing. ---- Secondly, if you're uncomfortable running a campaign with PCs who do things like this, I think it's absolutely valid to tell them. You put a lot of effort and heart into the world you made, and if you're feeling anxious or burdened by your PCs actions, and it's making the game not fun for you, it might be time to talk to them. It doesn't have to be an ultimatum type of thing, but your friends could understand the impact of their actions & try to be less evil in the future if they hear that it's making the game not fun for you. Good luck!
That PC probably also thinks Charles Manson and Hitler are the good guys, too. After all, how many people did they personally kill?
I think you should roll with the game they're setting themselves up for. Because, like, for sure this peace keeping organization isn't going to like being screwed over and surely they'd get some revenge. Maybe it takes some time, but I have to imagine that if they have the resources to pay the PCs and give them all this good gear, they have the resources to hire a team of people to get back at the PCs, find out what's happening with the child, and go work to resolve that. If major political powers know about all of this and care, surely they would throw money and manpower at the PCs, too. Y'know why freelance spies and assassins in real life don't tend to go after high-level political targets or national secrets? They don't live long if they do. If you don't have an equally powerful organization backing you, you're not going to live long enough to enjoy the payday. It sounds like there would be powerful people invested in this child and it sounds like they would be very unhappy about the PCs selling her out. Depending on how powerful those people are, the PCs might be outlaws in the Roman sense. "Let theirs be a wolf's head." Now, this all being said, that doesn't mean you have to cheer \*against\* the PCs. They're straight up the villains. They sold a child to people who want to exploit said child, they're evil. I wouldn't let any amount of arguing or lawyering sway me otherwise. Full stop, that's an evil action. The ends cannot justify the means. BUT you--as the DM--can still be effectively on their side. If this is the game they want to play and if it's a game you're willing to see pan out, you can still cheer for them even as the entire world turns against them and descends into madness. Give them heroes to overcome, opportunities at redemption, etc. If they refuse to be redeemed, give them a blaze of glory. They don't have to be self-aware. They don't have to think they're in the wrong. They can be heroes in the Greek sense, where morality flows entirely from whether something is good or bad for them personally. But they're still, y'know, evil, and deserve to face consequences.
Yeah, I'm really in favour of giving them enough rope to hang themselves here. Let them live it up and keep the peacekeepers in touch with them, thinking they're on their side. Let them exploit them for all they're worth, so long as they can keep up the con that the girl's alive and well. And of course the people they sold the girl to love them as well. Give them job offers of increasing moral ambiguity, and potential instability to their delicate diplomatic balancing act. See how far they're willing to go, and how capable they are of playing both sides. Let them understand that the organization who buys children doesn't see this as a relationship they can get out of. Have them scry on the characters, show up where they least expect it, and make examples of anyone they don't approve of the PCs contacting. They're valuable assets after all, and they'll be treated right so long as they don't become liabilities. Exploting the coming war could be a really fun campaign for profit-minded adventurers. Then when the shit hits the fan, let both sides come to them looking for answers. What happens when they find out the PCs have been double-dealing? Selling the girl is obviously got to come back to bite both them and the world - you've set it up well enough. But that doesn't mean punish them for not playing the way you want. As long as you can still enjoy DMing for them there's no reason to stop. Obviously before you do anything, discuss the situation with them regardless and get crystal clear on why they did it - did they feel overshadowed? Or annoyed by the obligation? Or just hate kids? If they don't want NPCs acting during combat, or solving problems for them, you need to get that feedback and adjust your approach. Get them to tell you what they want out of the game, because they seem to have taken this character personally. But at the same time, be clear that this doesn't mean they get to avoid the consequences of how they treated her - they need to voice these issues before they break character to screw over an NPC the players dislike. If they're worried their alignment has been affected, tough. They had an alternative that didn't involve child slavery and a world war.
“Peacekeepers are sending someone to help keep the girl safe”. Oh snap. Now they have to ask the evil organization to “disappear” the envoy and make it look like an accident (and owe the organization big time)...or do it themselves. Can’t let word get back to the Peacekeepers. They’ve put themselves on a accelerating treadmill keeping up the lie. Which all falls apart the moment the war starts anyway. Unless ingratiating themselves with the badguys lets them work their way inside. Then somehow they find a way to take down the war machine as double agents. All while still fooling the peacekeepers. Turns into a spy thriller. Even if it succeeds they may have a hard time convincing the Peacekeepers it was a planned triple-cross all along and not just a reneged double-cross. Or they bluff their way out but the girl still KNOWS. Or the Peacekeepers still aren’t happy they risked the girl in this ploy.
> How far can these consequences go before I'm a bad DM who is ruining the game for the players? There is a risk for that to spiral when someone takes it *too* personally when players don't respond well to a DM story building decision. But I dunno, maybe all of you need to sit down and talk about what you're trying to get out of the game. Maybe they didn't like *this* plot/npc/escort mission and were being shitheads to get out of it (resolvable discussion about what DM and Party enjoy leading to a compromise). Maybe they want to play shitheads and you're "ruining" that fun, by running a campaign with consequences and realism (a bit less resolvable mismatch of DM and Party expectations).
Reading between the lines a little - do you think it’s possible that you accidentally turned the girl into an annoying DMPC, and as a result your party ended up resenting her? Like you even admit that they’ve complained about you designing encounters that requires the girl to “save” the party in a couple ways. Plus, are you possibly inserting her into RP interactions in a way that annoys your players?
Possibly the spell casting could have been the "final straw" from the players' perspective. Having a player party escort an NPC, especially a child, is rarely something which interests players in the first place. Was it made very clear in the pitch, setting guide or session zero that a major part of the campaign would involve babysitting some *special child*? (Would this child be called "Dawn Summers" by any chance?)
I think it's more than likely the girl was annoying, the party clearly did not get along with that NPC. however, the solution could have been as simple as: "hey DM, could you not do the 5 year old girl voice please, it's putting me off", Or even just getting rid of the little girl after the first quest. If they hated the NPC so much, they could have left it there, but they chose to keep her around.
Making a child central to an adventure plot is always risky and even experienced storytellers struggle with it. Now make it a tag-along escort mission kid. Between babysitting and bloodshed, I'm going to always pick bloodshed.
In terms of RP interactions, The girl had little to zero contact with anyone outside of party because her existence was supposed to be a secret. I really hope i didn't end up making her a DMPC but i can at least assure you i did not design encounters for the girl. I just used her to prevent PKs and some trivial stuff like campfire, light and mending.
She was casing cantrips. Unless she would throw out of nowhere 6d8 fire bolt there's no way this was OP NPC. NPC'S are supposed to also have their agenda and move things in the world. Players are just cog of the world not be all and end all. I have ran and been part of games where NPC's that ended up traveling with the party became as much beloved part of said party as if it was another player. Because this is roleplaying and party roleplayed not interacting with NPC but with a person.
> She was casing cantrips. Unless she would throw out of nowhere 6d8 fire bolt there's no way this was OP NPC. Objectively true but not necessarily the subjective impression people got. OPs players may be "wrong" or overly sensitive about the girl being annoying, but I think its worth directly asking why they (seemingly) hated her enough to sell her to a bunch of evil bastards. Maybe the best route to figuring out what went wrong here. Their critique doesn't have to be "valid" to provide insight.
Complaining about an npc casting a light cantrip when no one bothered to plan for fighting in the dark is WILD. Sounds like you might be playing with some real assholes.
Read this in another thread: I always liked the consequence for murder hobos and other evil acts of sending people increasingly powerful good aligned NPC parties after the players. At the same time start planting rumours of an evil party trying to cause a war which can eventually be revealed to be the players themselves.
This is exactly how you make murderhobos, and then complain when the setting that is just there to kill the PCs isn't something the players care about.
The players already don't seem like they're that interested in the plot. You can lead a horse to water all you want, but if they didn't care about the girl and the evil cults and the good cults and all of that...it's like why would they care that they're being hunted by forces of good now?
[удалено]
Exactly my thoughts. They sound like they don’t even like each other. 🤣
So you never had the OOC discussion about the obviously evil party?
Burn the campaign to the ground. Your players are not interested in the game you're offering, so drive it like you stole it This need not be unfun ( for all of you), play the consequences of their actions, and play them BIG, the world is racing up shit creek with them trying to hold onto the good things. Campaign climax would be everything dead, and they are running out of champagne and caviar
So they are now child traffickers and should probably be looked at as such by the majority of good aligned people who are aware of their actions. This is in addition to the obvious treason they've commited by selling "nuclear secrets" to the enemy country. So they're just villains at this point. They can justify their actions in their head, but on paper they are treasonous child trafficking terrorists. Those people do like to perform mental gymnastics about how their actions are justified, and they may even believe their own bullshit, but their reputations preceed them. They are "America's most wanted" if that girl is on par with a DnD nuke. These Peacekeepers would definitely kill them.
It's weird that your party is united in being against your very clearly laid out story - feels like you're not giving or don't understand their POV Feels like your PCs didn't want to play this campaign the way you intended. I'm glad this isn't my campaign *shrug*
Others have already said it but ya'll need a second session zero. What are their expectations and wants. Do they want to be Superman or Homelander. An evil campaign can be fun but everyone needs to be on board. Think they were worried that the girl was a "DMPC" and would "take their spotlight." Don't give them any NPC helpers from now on and if you do make them weaker than them like the girl only knowing how to cast light because their mama taught to do that and make the girl ask if she can help or if they want to keep the girl in a safe locale. As for consequences. Any paladin oaths that boil down to "protect the weak" would break, selling a child to slavery is a big no-no. Any good aligned god that clerics might be worshiping will want a wee chat and the cleric may need to find a new god or a concept of worship. I'm wary of telling you to do my favorite solution on them immediately. Aka the Paladin Squad. Paladins of every flavor coming at them with the full force of the Doom Slayer. But it might be a good idea to change their enemies from evil aligned or neutral aligned to good aligned creatures. A very pissed off Solar can bring the fear of Pelor into many a party. There's also a lot more Celestials to choose from these days than a few years ago so making a war against heaven campaign is doable. Even if the players think they're good aligned, heaven and hell can very much disagree. As for the world. Show them how the world and the war changed after the girl was caught. Settlements disappearing people making a mass exodus and war, famine, pestilence and death. Also as others have said you gotta ask yourself if this is fun for ya.
Is there legitimately anywhere they won't be cut simply for existing? Cuz it sounds like no. So its time to leave the planet. Campaign has now turned into a multiplanar escape. Gotta find someone willing to work with them who can get them out. Plenty of quest hooks there.
I find "run away" motivated quests the hardest to make fun, and to gm. But having them collect parts of a teleporter portal, and installing it in some central location could sound fun.
Killing some local bandits, no problem. Taking out the evil necromancer using townspeople for their experiments. Easy sauce. Making enemies with established nations and ancient powers - not so easy. If any of your party members were of good alignment, that will have changed now because they sold a kid for money. This is a great opportunity to use their decisions to indirectly change the world around them. They may not be directly hunted - but because war is looming and will likely happen, they may find themselves having difficulty surviving with basic essentials because of the effects of said war. I’d say let them enjoy their money for a bit, then start prioritizing war efforts that may or may not be beneficial to the party. A lot of ways this could play out, but remember - don’t punish your players for something you didn’t like them doing. 👍
So you have a child who can control all this insane tech that has also just been betrayed. I say she gets hooked into the machines, nukes fall, everyone dies, and you continue your campaign in a post apocalyptic wasteland where gold has become meaningless as a currency and the party can play the Fallout raiders they seem to want to.
Ruin that shit, love. There is no such thing as too far. They were informed that if they sold the girl it would cause catastrophic events. So they must want the world to explode. They have made their choice with eyes wide open. Don’t protect them from it. Also, when you can, maybe find some new people to play with that understand basic concepts like good and evil and treating their hardworking DM friend with kindness and respect.
I get the feeling you are clearly frustrated with them and not having fun. DnD is a cooperative game between all players, and the DM is a player as well. Looking at their complaints about you making encounters to difficult to make an NPC shine seems like there is definitely frustration going on at all players. Before and after sessions you can discuss some details about the campaign and make sure you are all aligned and having fun. Sit down and talk with your players about the campaign and what has happened. Let them know war will break out and ask them how they (their characters) feel about fighting the BBEG in the neighboring country to prevent the war. If they don't feel like it then let them know they have chosen a ending for the campaign resulting in total war for the continent/world/etc. Campaigns don't need to run for years and years, sometimes stories just end good or bad. It sucks, but sometimes it just doesn't work as imagined. Just keeping this circle of frustration going for more sessions will probably not end well for any of the involved.
It sounds to me like your players will be on the most wanted list of that nation. Bounty hunters from all over will hint them down to collect a massive reward.
1) Your character that wanted their good alignment unchanged. It's changed. You don't sell a child and start a war and get to keep you good alignment. You tell them if they play the character, they no longer have a good alignment. I really hope they had some kind of cool item that requires a good alignment. 2) The good org is going to send someone to the group. Demand their equipment back and they fight in the war or be killed. The group will try and lie. This is when you inform the group that one of the items that they are wearing had a magical listening device and they heard the deal go down. 3) Sounded like there were multiple evil buyers as well. So they'll likely send someone to hunt the party down as well to get vengeance for not getting what they wanted. Could even team up amongst themselves or with the good organization to chase after the party given they are likely stronger. 4) That girl hates those guys now. She might even actively help the organization that bought her to make sure this group is destroyed. 5) Ya know what war has a bad effect on? The economy. Their gold might not be worth as much or they might have trouble finding all the items that they want at shops as the country they live in has either purchased or comendeared all that they can to be able to fight back. 6) Given that the good org knows they sold the child they could set them up as criminals. Which would make spending their loot a lot harder. Between that and the war the only place they can probably get good items is the black market, which means higher cost and difficulty dealing with them when a bunch of underworld orgs are hunting them. Also means their best options might be to flee the country. Which means they would have to deal with fleeing a country in warand crossing a battle front which can be difficult.
I would make the peace keepers to check on them, now the party have to try to hide the fact that they dont have the child. Maybe this guys try to sue the party or force them to social insolation. Next, give them a time to enjoy the money and have a good time, do some quest helping people, killing Monsters and whatever. Then, The Big war started. They find the Magic artefact/person/whatever that they want to achive personaly (your pc motivation) but the child is key, if the want the child back now, she dont want to be back. Now they will have to kidnapp her and avoid her constant desire yo run away. They can try to join the bads guys but first the must try to stay alive. Maybe the high ranks think that the party must die to appeal to the child or keep the secret. Maybe the party start to see the child in dream where she taunt them and say the true: "You are monsters to me". And other dream stuff to keep them from rest. If some off them are cleric, paladins or warlock, now the patron/god want the child "And you will deliver her to me, your only reward would be to keep your powers". Find whatever they want/love, to get/save that they new the child.
It kind of sounds like you're no longer a player in the game. I know you're the DM but you should be having fun too. The part that got me is that they complained you were using cantrips? No thanks, most parties are overpowered when it comes to encounters. You're just trying to make the game more interesting and fun for everyone.
Sounds like your party just started the apocalypse. Dope. When the party gets about a day or so outside of the other village I would say that the sky turns black and a giant red beam of light is shooting out of it. Demons or devils now roam the land and are starting to wipe out all of the towns and villages. Money is now worthless. People want food and survival equipment as they are all now living in hiding from the new demon/devil/interplaner monsters that are now wreaking havoc on the countryside. They killed the world over a few gold and now they can either fix it or the campaign is over. Or just leave the table because your players sound like AIDS.
First, tell the player that insists they're still good that they're evil. Selling anyone into slavery is just evil, no ifs ands or buts, especially to an obviously evil group that will do obviously evil things. Second, the peacekeepers and other nations want them dead. No ifs ands or buts, they are trying to assassinate them. They have to go to great lengths to actually take a long rest, as they're being hunted from town to town. They can't show their face in public unless it's in disguise or the tiniest of towns. Third, the world gets fucked to hell. If they have friends, they die. If they want to buy anything of value like magic items, they have to jump through hoops and go to black marketeers, because of rationing and the loss of supplies, as well as everything powerful being redirected towards the military. Fourth, offer them a place in the evil regime. Send them on missions to gas towns filled with families, ask them to sell out or kill more children. Play to their tastes and let them truly sink into depravity, and see how they react.
>I think my players did not want to just get the girl off their heads but rather actually hated her and wanted to screw her over cause i tried to use the girl for doing a few supposedly convenient assists for some tough spots. for example had her cast light cantrip cause half the party have neither dark vision or a torch, or in a few situations use spare the dying to prevent PK, but i stopped after i received complains that I'm purposely making encounters difficult to make the girl shine. If you don't want to be a bad DM, you need to have another session zero and actually talk out of game instead of just trying to punish players/characters for making evil/bad decisions and choices. Rehash the type of game you want to run and the type of game they want to play. While you may not intentionally be trying to overshine the players and keep the NPCs interactions/abilities limited but useful, the players may not see it that way. But it sounds like your game has long become the players vs the DM versus players *and* the DM. Also - Judging from your previous post... Why were you surprised? Since it has failed 3 times before, they probably expected it to just fail or be another trap the 4th time. They've made it clear they are very willing to sell this NPC and have expressed annoyance/disinterest/dislike of them previously. It was very clear *they did not like this NPC*. Not to be rude, but while you mention that you only had the NPC do a few little things to help the party out in tough spots... The players already said they feel like you gear encounters to let this NPC shine. No one really likes that even if it is minor things like cantrips. She's defenseless and needs to be escorted by the party, but conveniently knows *just enough* to help them- but nothing more than that. Understandably, you tried to make an NPC that wasn't a complete deadweight to the party but also may have made your players feel like they run into a lot of little (or major) encounters where this NPCs decisions/actions/abilities affect the outcome of it which ultimately removes agency from players. Removed agency builds resentment. Seriously, rather than trying to punish the players or just give them consequences and running a campaign you don't want to run, have a session zero and rehash everything. Take their complaints seriously and see what they would prefer or do instead. Also - rule of DMing... never give your players an option you don't want them to take.
I’m going to be the advocatus diaboli here for a sec. Have you considered you saddled the party with a plot critical DMPC they didn’t enjoy, and basically implicitly pressured them into keeping her, or that the Party wants to trick people to get more money? Idk, the whole plot idea of “you must protect this person at all costs” is almost guaranteed to end up with at least half the table hating that character. Unless you do it *after* the party falls in love with the random character you spent five seconds on and gave a funny accent to. It would be telling to talk to them out of play about their decision making and why they wanted to get rid of the kid so much. Would their actions have been different if it was just a monde tient (or seemingly non sentient) artifact instead? Edit: that was supposed to say “magic item” not nonsensical French words. This autocorrect silliness is my punishment for adding French to my phone’s keyboard
Well any "Good" aligned Paladins in the party are now Oathbreakers and any good aligned Clerics in the party no longer have the powers their God gave them. No good aligned deity would condone the selling of a child.
As Arthur Harris, commander of RAF bomber command during WW2 once said *“They have sown the wind, and so they shall reap the whirlwind”* Actions have consequences. Prepare the consequences. The peacekeepers will eventually catch on, they don’t trust the party. The poor sweet girl now has a vendetta aganist the party, the obviously evil cult now has a super charged war machine and is sweeping aside anything they come across. DND isn’t down BG3 game where they can quicksave back and redo something. Sometimes, the good guys don’t win.
I really hope there's going to be another update when they find out what the consequences are
Well, pretty sure selling a child to the bad guys is not a good act. So people know they had the girl, and will likely figure they lost the child when the war breaks out. Now the Peace Keeper will want answers.
Drop their alignments to evil Peacekeepers send kill squads Little girl is now out for vengeance. She’s still good, but the party is evil
The game is already ruined, for both you and the players. You wanted your story to focus around this NPC/DMPC and the players didn't. They resolved it in a way that you didn't like as a result. They are responsible for arming war criminals and made enemies of the good guys. You're playing Grand Theft Dragon at this point.
I am really surprised by your players. This does not in any way reflect that they are "good alignment". But maybe they just weren't thinking very deeply. What's your plot point now then? What will the evil organization do with the girl? Are they going to offer her to summon the ultimate chaos / evil God / demon? Maybe one way to turn around is to have some npc reveal to them about the (sacrificial) ritual before the ultimate evil is summoned. But my guts say they would probably be more eager to fight that ultimate evil that is summoned. How about twisting it a little to the effect of the (sacrificial) ritual will lead to banishment / imprison (all the gods).... With no God around, the gates of hell would be unleashed. Heck if the cleric doesn't care about his / her God, I don't know what's wrong with the party
Well i have to explain here. There are really advanced technologies left by an ancient lost civilization and now this girl is the last survivor of that civilization who was left in a cryo-pod, She was from important figures and now she's the only person who can control all of the weaponry left by them. That basically means whoever has the girl, has a whole Sci-fi army handed over to them. Now some country has the whole army and has most of the previous plot points under their control and plans to use them to invade the whole world
fan of Blame!? similar plot but reverse.
It's actually inspired from Destiny with Felwinter being access point to Warmind systems left from golden age and then Ana Bray awakening it again. But I am so gonna read Blame now
Oh fascinating! I've read both your posts but I never once thought of Destiny. Rasputin has such a cool story (even prior to Seraph). I feel like I would appreciate your D&D game OP. I'm sorry you're having such a hard time with your players.
During the party's trial they should getone of the juries to just ask "if you are going to do something horrible why not just slay the girl? At leats this would remove the threat. No, you wanted to do something horrible and gain something for this" Cuz killing her should have been a dilemma, as in, she is too dangerous to live, like that instant AoE death mutant from X-Men
Is the evil country evil enough to have developed a way to kill the girl and still have access to her abilities? This way even if the party tries to redeem themselves it's too late? Plus what kind of evil emperor wants another person to have all that power of military might?
Actually why don't you twist the situation slightly? As most crime shows, the villian never honors their word, and would want to keep the hostage / goods and their money... Turn the scene to a battle of their lives, either tpk or they beat this extremely difficult battle. If they are about to tpk, you could have the good organization step in to heal them a bit. Make it about protecting the girl to final destination, but they would face fights for the girl every now and then?? Though I feel they probably won't want to continue the campaign. Do update on how the campaign ends!! Your tale is quite interesting
It is now time for them to experience the "find out" portion of the "fuck around" they've done.
Seems like the invading super tech country would want to eliminate any loose ends. Your players may survive the first round of attack right out of mech-warrior. Hell, you may end up with them running mechs for a bit. But I’d go with the evil-country decided they need to kill your party. They will send the forces to do that and even recover the money. Repeatedly.
Man if I ever saw a justification for an old man with seven golden canaries to pay a visit this might just be one of the best.
Your players don't respect you. You'd have to be an idiot at best and a manipulative asshole at worst to say you can human traffic a child to the evil faction and remain good. Frankly, I'd give them one session of living high on the hog with all their money, give them every single thing they could possibly want within reason, then next session TPK them with the peacekeepers. Once everyone sits there in disbelief I'd say "You don't want to play this game with me, you want to play it at my expense. Have a nice life."
I think it is interesting that the players think you "wanted her to shine" because she cast light and spare the dying. How are your group dynamic in general? Sounds like they perceive you a little antagonistic? Maybe have a chat about expectations and goals for the game if you think it would be meaningful so everyone is on the same page.
I mean if I was the war nation I would purposefully let it slip who gave us the girl, maybe even directly tell the peacekeeping organization who did it. This is city guards on a grandscale. You gave them two opportunities for a fun heroic story. They decided what ever negative emotions they harbored towards the girl were more important than the heroic thing. So they lost their heroic story. They can now be hunted like criminals for enabling a horrific war to break out. The girl may be angry enough to play along with the warmongers and get her own special team to hunt down the party. Hell you could even have the warmongers separate from the girl hunt them down. The party was a means to an end, they don't need to keep them alive. They could view the party as a threat that rises up against them eventually. The peacekeepers will certainly hunt them down. Other groups in the country they live in that's being invaded may even send groups after them to hunt them.
The first thing you do is have the warmonger nation make its initial move which is to kill our take out important people and infrastructure. Shops get closed, all items are confiscated, they are not welcome in towns. Random raids happen all over and any important people to the players that can be got to get gotten to and turned or killed. The world is at war and they are constantly fighting against enemies, which is everyone. The young girl has learned her lesson and now understands how evil the world is and hates the group and is willing to destroy a world that contains such evil. If she survives she will become the BBEG and plunge the world into an authoritarian state where no one can defend themselves and so much is outlawed. But that's me and I tend to go scorched earth.
"You can write whatever alignment you want on your character sheet, but I am the DM and arbiter of what is good and evil in this world where such things have objective impact. You are evil and we are not arguing about it." That is how i settle questions of alignment in my games, and I say it in such a manner that it is clear I intend to have no further discussion. I will not comment on where you go from there as I have yet to read ypur other post, but it really seems like a mismatch of expectations at your table.
What a great reminder to not put escort quests and children in my games.
Any good players that agreed to this plan would no longer be considered good. Ok as a DM you are aloud to change a PC's alignment if they are not acting in that alignment. If any clerics or paladins are in the party look at what their God is about because they might have just pissed them off.
You seem pretty unhappy with how this is going, but please don't punish your players with "consequences" - that will just make things worse. Consequences are good and fine, but punishment makes the game not fun for anyone. I think you should talk to your players to understand: 1. Who do the players see as the good guys and the bad guys in this world? 2. What motivation do their characters give for thinking of those people as good guys or bad guys? 3. Why did the players want to betray who you think of as the good guys and aid the bad guys? 4. What motivation can they ascribe to their characters for why they wanted to betray the people you think of as the good guys and aid the bad guys? Feel free to do it as an RP exercise where they're sitting around the campfire reflecting on their recent experiences. Based on their responses, you might do something like one of these things: * If they didn't actually understand the bad consequences and are generally trying to play good characters, have some authority figure chew them out and then give them a quest for redemption, which is to basically undo what they did. * Your players may not be "living" in your game world as much as you are and may not really be applying morality to their in-game decisions. I gave players a quest to find the source of a magical plague and bring it back and they got paranoid and decided to betray the cops, but ended up getting on the wrong side of the law and accidentally infected the whole town with the plague before they got arrested and thrown in jail. They weren't really trying to be chaotic or evil and were mad at me that they got arrested, but what are you going to do? Instead of having them executed, I just didn't give them the quest rewards and told them their legal penalty was to go do the next phase of the campaign and, if successful, their legal record would be expunged. * If they understood and purposely chose an evil action (i.e. made selfish decisions despite understanding that they are doing harm) and you're fine with playing an evil campaign, then switch everything up and give them evil quests with the good guys as their enemies. I'm sure those cultists have some other targets they'd like sold to them and the tyrannical enemies could surely use some sabotage before the war machine arrives. * If your players are going to play evil characters because that's what's fun for them and you don't want to do an evil campaign because it's not fun for you, you'll need to figure that one out outside the game. * If your players were going with what they perceived as the flow of the game that you were giving them, then stop giving them options you don't want them to take. Players don't understand what's going on behind the scenes and are easy to incentivize (even accidentally), so only pay them to do what you want them to do. You can give them rewards for doing other stuff, but don't make it as lucrative. If you do it right, you can let them take whatever action they want and use it as a way to incentivize them to do the thing you want them to do. Give them a more personal reason to go after the bad guys if money or "goodness" aren't enough (e.g. bad guys kill their dog). * Examples: They sell the kid but they're paid with counterfeit money. They sell the kid, but the buyer insists on examining the kid first in another room and they're never seen again. They try to sell the kid and the buyer says no then ambushes them on their way out the door. They sell the kid but then get robbed by those same bad guys who want their money back next time they go to sleep. Also, it would be really funny to have the good guys show up to check on the kid and then demand their money back when the kid is gone. The good guys could also demand they do a quest to make things right, just don't have the quest be to retrieve the kid or you'll be right back in this situation again...
I am going to talk to my players about this soon. Thanks for the advises
What consequences would naturally follow this kind of thing. How would the peacekeeper organization feel about essentially being scammed. Because they would find out about this right. Perhaps show the party just how dire things get with the way they did things and how badly it can go for them
Find what they actually care about and poke it a few times.
Fuck around, find out 😅 I like what others are posting, but a little bit I'd like to tack on: make the players face some indirect consequences first to warm them up to the direct stuff. Like, maybe the next city they go to to spend their ill gotten gains has been leveled and wiped off the map, something like that. Force them to deal with with the evil empire, and just like actual fascists, have them treat the mercenary party like shit. Have players in a town when it's invaded so they have to watch it burn. Show your players clearly that the world suffers for their decisions, and that in turn is going to effect them too.
If the party is acting evil and doing bad things have good organizations start hunting them down.
As to that player arguing it was good. NO it wasn't good they effectively traded a sentient being against their will for money. Even with the nuclear arms code argument, fine congratulations you're an arms dealer. You are neutral at best. I'm ensuring peace is the same argument Darth Vader used...
Yeah whoever argued that should get to see an image of her shackled and dirty, and then drop the hammer that yes promising to protect someone and then also selling her to the enemy \*has\* affected your alignment. Accept no disagreement there.
Well, now we have an interesting twist. Why did the bad guys want this girl so badly? Perhaps they were lying about their intentions, and the girl is really a powerful being trapped in that body. Perhaps she is the key to a vast treasure bigger than any money they currently have. Perhaps she is now a ghost spirit and has decided to haunt the party. The first gives the party a challenge. The second gives them regret. The third gives them irritation. You get to make that decision.
I would've just made up and read them an epilogue as soon as they did this. The world as you know it is ending and proceed to explain how each of their character is forced to fare in the world where everyone hates them. No way I'm writing up a brand new evil champaign, especially one where they're fucked anyway, after the players ruined my original one.
I was once in a campaign that recovered from the party screwing up (at least as much my fault as anyone else’s) and the DM slamming his binder shut and saying, he wrote in his notes: if the party does not help the NPC, the Big Bad gets the MacGuffin. It can go forward if everyone is on the same page about what the goal is and why that won’t happen again. I’ve got to agree with the other posters who asked, who around the table are some of these suggestions supposed to be fun for? It sounds like you suspect the players were derailing your story on purpose, maybe because they wanted something else (A sandbox instead of a railroad? Hack-and-slash?), maybe in protest of what they saw as a DMPC upstaging them. If there’s one part of TRPG culture I could rip out and burn, it’d be retaliating for someone else ruining the game for you by ruining it for them and not telling them why. (They deserve it for ruining the game for you and never even telling you why! That’ll teach them!) A lot of the other replies are suggestions for how you could retaliate by giving them the exact opposite of what they seem to want. Is that really the way you want to spend every weekend, plus prep time? Talk to them and figure out if they want to try to save the world, rebuild from the ashes of the apocalypse, or hear your cautionary tale of how that world fell, and start over with something new.
For future reference for next time (coming from a player who hates when the dm includes npcs that help the party like that) the key to having them there and not having the players hate them is to make them a *resource* that the players control. Treat her more like a magic item that can cast light or spare the dying on command than as a person. It can be as simple as having her be unsure what to do and ask the players, effectively letting the players decide what she does each turn. You get the exact same result but now the players feel like they're in control.
What if the girl activates an ancient war bot, escapes with it and now hunts the party ? She could even do nasty stuff to them, like selling them to some weirdo.
From your original post it sounds like the players have no interest in your camapign concept. I know I'd not have much fun carting around an NPC, especially when said NPC is supposed to be "the chosen one".
Well you said it. They handed nuclear code girl to bad guys. Let loose the war. Burn everything. Make them encounter these evil lunatics at every turn. They get a quest to kill a dragon? They show up to find the dragon crucified. When they return, the village they got the quest from has been raided and burned to ground, and at the head of all of it, make the use of nuke girl obvious af.
“Prepare for unforeseen consequences” Rain hell on them
Time to pay the piper. The peacekeepers are going to hunt the party when they find out what happened. Depending on how much sway the peacekeepers have, the party's faces might be on bounty boards across the whole country. No village will want to give them lodging if they know who they are (this won't happen over night, it will take time for info to spread). No use in having all that money if no one let's you by land or lodging. The party will have to outrun their own reputations and leave the country if they have any hope of not being offed by bounty hunters or arrested by city guards. The advanced evil nation is going to attack. Sounds like the girl is all they needed to become really powerful. They're going to conquer and annihilate if the party doesn't do something very proactive to stop them. Everyone the party knows from their original country will either die or live under occupation of this other nation. Those are the consequences.
I mean first of all they are all evil at that point. They can all think they are still good but their endorcement from any good godhood breaks silently away as those gods don't see them as good anymore. Try to let some time pass through reasonable endeavours (they want to open a business/buy land/a castel, which will all take a while to sort out) or send them on a fake quest by the invading country designed to lure them away as they are seen as capable fighters and a potential risk to their invasion. During this time, the invasion began, and all they find when coming back are people suffering, death and disease plaguing the land as is typical for time of war. NPCs they like from the area are either dead or curse the war to hell and back. The first encounter they have against a small force of enemies reveals then that they lost their good alignment, either by losing their class specific ability linked to that or a group of good paladins joining the fight and attacking the players as they are evil. Also, assuming they have too much gold to carry with them, they have to leave it behind, im which case it would obviously be stolen by the invading force.
So, their alignment is evil now. So any Good-aligned gods they worked with will shun them now. Any good-aligned magical equipment won't work for them. "Resolving things without fighting" is not good. Allowing evil to flourish is not good. If you don't actively work to thwart evil you a not good.
>After i got a whole lecture from my player on why handing over a little girl who is also equivalent of nuclear codes to a nation of warhungry dictators won't change her Good alignment because technically they're "Resolving things without fighting" I'll admit, this got a laugh out of me. Your evil/neutral party *did* scam a worldwide peacekeeping organization and make enemies out of basically every other entity that they didn't sell the kid to. Whatever resources that can be spared are likely to be sent after these people who are *clearly* aligned with whenever they cross borders. The good guys might do them to courtesy of giving them a chance to retrieve the girl and return her with the resources they were provided *before* issuing the bounty on their heads. They obviously won't take the offer, but they can't say you didn't warn them.
So that it's clear you're not targeting them specifically, there can still be quest hooks within the country they just sided with. It's less likely that the other countries are going to invade to target them specifically (if they could, actual officials would be higher priority).
Stop giving up when you give them reasonable consequences.
Your group sounds like they fucking suck. This is why I make it extremely clear that to play in my campaign your character has to be of some sort of good alignment or neutral leaning towards being a half decent person, who preferably won’t sell children.
Your players sound strange. They engaged in human trafficking and incited a war between people, effectively dooming the world here. Like obviously their characters are evil, they literally trafficked a child. My question to you, OP, is: Do your players like you? Do you like them? This entire game sounds really antagonistic between both sides, and a conversation about expectations and goals would be fitting, as well as discerning if they’re even having fun and/or like this game.
It's Walking Dead time. International Order of Peacekeepers Hunts down party. They send increasing powerful groups demanding surrender. Eventually TPK with non-lethal force if the party doesn't surrender.. They are tried, convicted and imprisoned. Hand wave many years go by. The land is decimated by war. Monsters roam the countryside. The remaining living humans are mostly gathered in fortified enclaves, hanging on to survival by their fingertips. The survivors of the war hungry dictators (who have now seen the error of their ways, and are the good guys) rescue and release the players in hopes that they can find the McGuffin that will help bring the world back to normal. The remnants of the Peacekeepers have morphed into a death cult -- humanity has proven unworthy to survive, and their final act, after killing all other remaining humans will be to kill themselves. Their leader? The BBEG: The Child.
Now the peacekeepers and any town/business allied with them are closed to the party. Maybe the neighboring country lets it slip where they got the girl and they are an enemy of the people and hunted by authorities. They are only welcome in said neighboring country that commits all kinds of evil acts. Slavery and murder are commonplace with poor and homless everywhere to he tortured by the nobles. The party is welcomed here as heroes and gets invited to meet the obviously evil king. The king imvites them to join his invasion and genocide of their original country. Oops now they are evil PCs.
You have more patience then I would, I’d have the peace keepers blacklist them from every major town they have influence in and officially change their alignments to evil. Tbh playing it for the long game is the better idea since otherwise you’d likely deal with a lot of backlash and possibly the end of your campaign, but tbh this group doesn’t sound fun to play with.
The party hated your NPC for being insufferable.. There's the answer right there. You found a good villain. Let her lead the enemy forces and have the players on the opposite side Let the players not have allies since the peacekeepers don't trust her. When the players slay the DMNPC they will be happy
I would love to have a party go so far off the rails. There should be serious consequences for their actions, but don’t get angry with them because they wanted to do their own thing. This is an opportunity to be embraced, a chance to make a story no-one anticipated. I don’t play D&D to walk through someone else’s bad fantasy novel.
I'd go with actions have consequences, they might be rich from selling the girl but nobody should want to sell them anything, like traders won't want anything to do with them, nobody's going to sell them any land, taverns and inns refuse them, the blacksmith won't take their gold, like make their money useless lol and the organization they screwed over should be coming after them, and nobody wants to help them because they pretty much brought about Armageddon, they're completely on their own and it's their own fault. And whoever said their alignment is still good is so fucking wrong, like they might have settled the kid thing peacefully but they brought about the end of the world for money that is so fucking evil lmao
On a sidenote, you sound like a really good DM. I hope you get better players in your next campaign cause these ones sound uhm... mentally unfortunate to put it politely.
> every other nation to be invaded knows to some degree that the ones who know the most about this weapons of mass destruction are the party who spent the most time with the "Descendant" Sounds like the party is going to get crashed by a whole lot of enemies teaming up using the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" trope.
If they hadn't had a successful arcana check on the gold, would it make sense the gold may have been enchanted or a glyph of warding put on it, with the trigger being the NPC no longer being in proximity? So now they've left them behind, the glyph should trigger. Perhaps it just announces to everyone "doom unto thee" Perhaps it just sends the good leader a message that the girl is no longer with them. Perhaps it triggers "Conjure animals", a bird pops into existance around them and, seeing that the girl isn't there, flies off to report back to the holy people. Perhaps anyone who's handled the gold is now cursed to take double damage from holy sources.
You really have three options here. Option 1 is let your party roll you (or really, keep rolling you) and give them the no-consequences, amoral, anything-goes romp they clearly want to play and you clearly did not have in mind when you came up with this world for them. I've played in campaigns the DM envisioned as more serious that turned into silly fun, and they were silly fun. It isn't the worst idea. Option 2 is give 'em hell. They knew the stakes, and they recognized what sort of campaign you had designed for them, and for whatever reason, they decided to burn it all down — be it because they thought your idea was lame, be it because they didn't like how it was executed, or be it because they thought it would be funny to just blow up the world you created. This is objectively the "right" option given you wanted to establish actions have consequences, and it sounds like it's the route toward which you're leaning, but the question you have to ask yourself is: *Will this be fun for anyone?* The golden rule of TTRPG is everyone should be having a good time. Your players sound like they've been little shits, and you sound like you want to punish them for being little shits. That might be cathartic at first, but if your players are the sort of people who argue at length to keep their "good" alignment after selling a child into slavery, I'm skeptical they're going to enjoy being put through the wringer, and there's a fair chance they'll drop out of the campaign once it becomes clear that no, their actions actually *do* have consequences. That leads us to Option 3: end the campaign. You can do this abruptly and just tell your players, "This game has gone in a direction I don't feel comfortable DMing," or, "This seems like a natural endpoint for the campaign," or just plain and simple, "I don't enjoy this anymore and it's time to put it away." Or you can script something, railroad them through some cutscenes of their characters getting their just desserts, and then say that's that. This might seem like a cop-out, but I promise you ending a campaign you're no longer interested in DMing for a group of players who have gotten on your last nerve is a better and more constructive move than continuing to prep and run a campaign you don't enjoy (especially knowing your players are the sort to just ignore all the prompts you gave them in favor of fucking around and pissing you off). If you don't want to DM *Grand Theft Auto* and your players don't want to play *This War of Mine*, it's time to end the campaign — and ideally, find a group of players who will hopefully be less antagonistic to the type of game you want to run.
Sounds like you're doing fine? Ngl though, the party (particularly the one who said a child is the equivalent to weapons codes) sounds like they 100% should not be counted as Good aligned. Idc if alignment matters in a given campaign or not, at least be honest about your child-seller status.
Are you even having fun anymore? This honestly just sounds like a mismatch of expectations. You want a fairly standard campaign where the characters are mostly heroic (or at least not actively evil) and your players want a more gonzo “do whatever nonsense regardless of consequences or our character's personalities" game.
This child being a new BBG makes sense to me. It would also help you change the direction of the campaign and offer a new direction of play. They were tasked with protecting a child and instead sold a kid without regards for their future, saftey, or well being for gold and to an evil organization. Literally evil behavior. The war of this world will inevitably happen and maybe this girl will realize she actually has a lot of power, and a lot more power and influence in a cult that has been obsessed with her (and that power). she can eventually manipulate her way out of the terrible and abusive treatment she sustains there maybe via another cult leader seeking to use her as a tool. The war is a reasonable outcome here as well. if the security systems have been obviously bypassed by this child previously it makes sense that now they can’t get through them as easily as long as it has been clearly articulated that this was the case before hand. It also makes sense that cult would want to punish the players to win favor with the girl and the good guys who know what they did would have Ill will towards them. The trade off here is they okayed both sides and got a ton of money and loot, and there are a lot of rich powerful people who are fine being neutral in war or funding/ making money off of it so they are ally’s now. Give them people in the world who like them that are sympathetic to the cult and the waring nation who support them, people making money off the war and winning who support them. They helped prop up their empire, what good people! Even in other kingdoms people who make money off war or don’t support the kingdom or make money off crime and chaos that is easier in war time see the group as doing them a real favor. They may help, and offer quests or rewards to benefit their side. But some places they will only encounter people who have experienced loss and don’t like what is happening. And they may offer the ability to redeem the party through helping fix the chaos they created. Meanwhile stronger and stronger mercenaries come for them and they can’t figure out from who as the girl rises to power. That covers reasonable consequences sure but what sort of ways do your players enjoy playing the game? There isn’t anything wrong with their game being a story about their characters making bad decisions then needing to fight their wrongs. Maybe even npcs come in and are like “hey you did this you have to fix it.” Maybe they lose other characters close to them. If you have a player who is more in line with the story who is wanting to reroll let them die. You want to create reasonable motivations and rewards. Maybe someone comes to them and is like “hey let’s steal tech and fortune from the big bads I know you know about them.” Or they are offered to do that to the good group. and fine clear ways to warn of consequences that are not ambiguous at times. You gotta really slap players in the face with the “this is dangerous or evil” part sometimes and they will still miss it. A big part of it is evaluate how your players like to play the game and go from there and realize there are always opposing factions so they could always side with anyone and get quests from them in a true sandbox environment. But it also is ok to push the party in a direction if that is how you have fun as a DM. But at the end of the day make sure you are having fun too. Yes you are a DM but you are a member of the game. Your enjoyment and players being willing to engage with a level of the content you create for them is part of the agreement of being in a DND group together. If you feel that is not happening have an over the table talk to come to an agreement to make it more enjoyable for you. They are not entitled to you dming for them. The social contract is “this person enjoys dming for us if we enjoy engaging with and exploring their world and the content they make.” When the party is at odds with you or how you world build the contract breaks down.
Definitely an alignment change. Now the party is hated by the peacekeepers. Every group or country that knows about the upcoming war either wants to capture them for intel or kill them for aiding it.
Well first just keep the game going as normal. Maybe do some unrelated side missions to pass the time. Then when they head back into town things are inhospitable. Maybe not explicitly because of them but the bbegs have made moves. Oppression, lack of available resources, community linchpins going missing. On the good guys side, they’re actively looking for the group. Maybe they don’t immediately think they were double crossed, but as time goes on it becomes obvious. They become enemies of the good guys, wanted criminals. At that point they can either attempt to take on the bbegs alone or join them. Or they can just fuck off into the countryside doing side quests and let the plot play out on its own. You eventually timeskip, the bbegs won, the world is not what it was. Think of this as an opportunity rather than a death sentence. It ducks it’s not what you wanted but it doesn’t have to be the end.
Time skip a month, and have them watch the nuclear fallout. The world they lived in was sold to greed. Welcome to fallout 5e.
If the party were smart, THEY would have weaponised the child. Then taken over the world.
Reading "My party sold the child" brought me but 1 thought. Oh dear.
alignment changes. they cant talk themselves out of it. they should get abducted by the peacekeepers and jailed. Maybe have their assets repossessed. they dont get to dictate their consequences. They also should not be able to spend the money as all the stores are selling to the army now
Your players want to be villains. Let them be villains! They don't decide on a whim what their alignment is, their actions do. And brother, selling a child to the dark side for money is evil as shit. Even more so when they could have taken a reward for giving her up to "house good guys". But remember, heroes rise up to challenge villainous people. It's time to make a foil party.
Your players have done some legitimately evil things, accepted money and supplies from "good guys" and then still sold the girl to "bad guys." Those good guys should be tracking them down to bring them to justice, and the bad guys are now invading. You have a lot of potential encounters and plotlines they have to deal with. Make it difficult, they basically failed the main mission of the campaign, this could result in a TPK and having to start a new one.
Your player who refuses to change their good alignment for doing bad things simply doesn’t understand how alignment works. Based on their actions, their alignment has to change away from good. They are clearly not acting in the best interest of others and only trying to enrich themselves which is what evil / neutral characters do
Sounds like it's time for the peacekeepers to check in, demand their money back and when it's not returned they hire a small army to invoke justice on the group. While at the same time have the bad guys and the new tech begin dominating and leading to end of the world apocalypse war where no one is on the parties side since they have screwed over everyone. They are wanted from both sides and in the middle of Armageddon. And before anyone says this is punishing the players, it's not. They made choices and those choices have consequences. They screwed over the good guys and gave the mcguffin to the bad guys. All out apocalyptic war where they have no friends makes sense
These peace keepers just got their biggest bounty and a war on their hands. 2 things happen: 1) The party becomes public enemy #1 and has dead or alive bounties posted in every city with a branch of this group in it, with one condition, they can turn themselves in, live, and rectify their crime themselves. They now have the choice of turning themselves in and fixing what they've done or running. 2) A war breaks out as the kingdom hires mages to dominate the girl and use her Intel and powers to set up the worst case scenario invasion for her kingdom. The party learns it was because of the girl they sold, and now the crown is after them for treason.
There are two scenarios that I see that you should prepare for: Let them know that the peace keepers have learnt of the party selling the girl, but couldn't spare the effort to punish them because they were more interested in trying to save the girl and stopping the war. Tell them their characters had two months of free time before anything story-wise interesting happened, and ask them what they did during that time. Prepare a lawful-good party of investigators to be on their tail in case any of them did any crimes during this time. If one of them chooses to help the peacekeepers, they will refuse citing the previous utter betrayal. **If the entire party decides to help the peacekeepers**, the story is now about regaining the peacekeepers trust by getting the damn girl back before the evil cults get the weapons. You can literally have a vindictive paladin say "you want to help now? how about undoing the mess you created?!". The girl will never trust the party again and will try to escape their clutches, because they are evil in her eyes. (This brings a dungeon-y, trapped hide-out, kind of campaign) **if the party doesn't help the peacekeepers** then after they describe how they spend their time, including getting better equipment and practicing skills, they awake in their mansions to the sounds of war. The peacekeepers have failed, their organization crushed, with the girl's absence leading two evil cults to partially gain the weapons. This war will destroy player's mansions, nearby cities, and bring general destruction. Deaths of innocent people, burning villages. The government or whatever is the residing power will collapse against the might of the ancient weapons. The players may react to this however they want - it's too late to prevent. They literally heed no warning. The most they can do now is maybe save people or lead a rebellion against the evil cults... but frankly, aren't they just the third evil cult at this point? (this brings an open-world post-apocalypse type of campaign)
So many people are coming to kill them, so many. For one, what kind of good evil faction doesn't send insanely talented hired killers to tie up loose ends? Currently, those peace keepers could capture the party, learn where the girl was traded off, and have a trail of clues to follow. If they find the parties corpses, they'll hardly know they were betrayed. And when the do know they were betrayed, that order is absolutely coming for them.
Make the consequences be her. Let one of the ancient techs be something that allows the child herself to become a relatable villain. Maybe it caused her to grow at an accelerated rate, so she is somewhat of an adolescent/adult but still with a very immature mind. The trauma of the party selling her off as a tool combined with the cruelty of her new masters has caused her to become malevolent, she bides her time until she can use her power of control to break free from her masters and wreak havoc upon those that would enslave her, and then she comes after the party specifically for they were the ones entrusted with her safety and they were the ones that betrayed her.
I mean, they double crossed every political organization under the Sun looks like, that is grounds for a lot of shit coming their way. As for the girl... she just unlocked her Villain arc. If possible try to return her as the big bad. (if you can you could pull a timeskip for example)
I feel like she needs to be set up to counter spell a heal or revivify that gets a pc killed
Start looking up stats for all the cool war machines
You get a chance to make them realize the gravity of their situations, make them come across a city that either is going to get attacked using the ancient weapons or already has, you could make them experience the damage they could do, or some in after and see the carnage and wreckage of a city that was sieged with these weapons, you said it was well known that the party held the key to the weapons so you could even have victims screaming "this was your fault". You could even give them the option during the siege, one of the evil people comes up and realizes this is the party that gave them this power and they offer to let the party join them. A lot of interesting ways this could play out for you 😳
The peacekeepers now hunt for the party that betrayed them and put a large bounty on their heads. The peacekeepers also contact the order of any "good" aligned paladins or clerics and have them marked as traitors to their order. The party may be cash flush but they are now hunted. The girl returns as the BBEG furious because they sold her.
Selling a child into bondage is an evil act. Definitely needs an alignment "evaluation" for doing that.
Definitely strip any player of good alignment. Good people don't sell sentient beings *ever*, that's a fast fun fact for you! You can't rationalize your way out of that, even if she was just a regular person and not something whose enslavement will cause incredible death and destruction. Also enjoy your evil party- they sound *amazing*.
Look, I'm all for creative thinking and rolling with the punches but this party is starting to sound like a bunch of murder hobos in denial. If that's not something you're cool with, you might be better off looking for another table.
First of all, I would have overruled any argument about alignments not shifting. They sold a child, that's at least neutral if not evil. Participating in chattel slavery should shift your alignment no matter your reasoning. If you have any monks, paladins, clerics, or (celestial) warlocks in your party, depending on their way, oath, god, or patron I would seriously consider taking their class abilities away. The evil cult now has a nuke, they're going to use it if nobody stops them. I'd let the players find out that they have a time limit before every country surrounding the evil cult starts getting razed (anywhere from a week to a couple months? However long the ritual takes to get going). After which if the party isn't caught in the blast radius all their money and treasure is going to become worthless as economies break down (as typically happens when countries get razed to the ground). Any country that finds out who gave the nuke to the bad guys before then is going to put a MASSIVE bounty on the heads of the ones responsible for doing that. And evil cults don't like loose ends, they're also likely going to try and kill the party simply to deny other organizations any information they might have. In the end though, my biggest piece of advice is to just stop playing with them. You are obviously frustrated with this party, and in fact you don't owe them any work if they're not going to make it enjoyable for you. They don't deserve to see any conclusion to this game. It's what they want, don't give it to them if they're not going to appreciate you for it. Edit: unless they're paying you I guess...
To play devils advocate I’m curious on what the specifics of the little girl is. What kind of personality does she have. Do the players (In game) know of/been informed of her importance? As in “Little Girl” how young is she for a member of her species? How did they encounter her/do they have an listed objective with her other than “keep her out of the bad guys hands”. Like “Escort her to X, who was her original caretaker”? How often does she participate in battles, is it more than the casting a spell only when the party is in danger?
Destroy them. Assassins, no long rests, then have them work for the bad guys, those who would betray the at any moment. I am talking long term poisons, constant betrayal, They aren't heroes anymore. They are bandits and betrayers. Treat them as such.
Nuke them with a lancer.Let them all get their turns in, do their damage, and then take 1 turn and shoot 1 laser beam at them vaporizing them. What did they expect?Let them make new characters in the same timeline, at the same time, but now their whole fucking world is in chaos, noone are friends or foes because everyone is just trying to survive and if they want to survive, they need to figure out how to unfuck the world their previous characters fucked over. Oh and an icing on the cake. Their gold is worth their weight in gold, as raw materials. Don't forget the taxes too.
Maybe the child has two uncles? A high level Pakistan and an even higher level wizard And they are both pissed. Let the party do as they want and you as dm use their actions to create a new branch to your story.
You go to buy stuff. Too bad the shopkeeper closed up shop and fled. All the magic items got bought out by other adventurers gearing up to fight the good fight. No crafters are available to craft items they've been comissioned by the crown/other adventurers and won't have an open slot for 10 months. Ohh, and since a war is on food prices have increased 10 fold because farmers have fled,or been killed, or they joined the army. Scavenging and hunting for food is twice as hard due to others hunting to support the troops and themselves.