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View Full Version : [DM Problem] Off the rails and out of the adventure.



Mystral
2012-11-30, 05:20 PM
Hello, dear Playgrounders. I come to you seeking for advice at running a game. If anyone of my gamers comes in here, please leave now (You would know me by my forum nick).

To give you a bit of context, we are playing a game of TDE (The dark eye), the group is rather low in level and (it seems to me) are a bit to reliant on the DM holding their hands trough the campaign. They are composed of a priest of the earth godess, a thief/mage, a priest of the god of war and a wind mage. The earth priest has a young wolf as an "animal companion", but all in all, rather magic-centric.

In their first adventure, they successfully retrieved a stolen relict from a strange cave and brought it back. For their next quest, they got assigned to investigate some off the path town where a priest vanished after he was sent there to collect the curch tithe. They arrived (they travel with a wandering circus) and didn't really find out a lot, but participated in a local festivity and then went to bed. At night, they realised one of their circus companions (a player character whose player had dropped out of the game for interpersonal reasons) had been kidnapped. They beat back an ambush by some of the cultists of the town, took one as prisoner and made him talk with some alchemical concotion that (in other words, they drugged him). They found out that the cult was in the middle of sacrificing the circus companion, and got the place too. The thief/mage turned into a bird and flew there, seeing the cultists sacrificial place, the companion strapped to the altar, the mayor of the town (secret cult leader) praying and walking around the altar with a spear. She flew back to the others.

Here, everything went horribly wrong. She told her companions that the priest had already performed the deed and there was no hope of rescuing the circus companion. So, they decided to skip town and go call in the inquision. Needless to say, I didn't expect that. They left the town and holed up at the circus. There, the mage/rogue (who had expended all her mana while flying around as a bird half the day) went to bed, while the earth priest and wolf took up guard stations, the wind mage went to his tent to summon an air elemental to wreak havoc on the town. The war priestess went back into the town to go scout alone (in light plate mail) and perhaps try to rescue her.

There, we called it a break, partially because it was time, partially because I was at a loss at how to continue. As I told the players that they just had wandered out of the adventure by not attempting to rescue, they were suprised to say the least. I was told that if I had wanted them to rescue the companion, I should have put here in a cage and not on the altar, and that they did not think they could succeed, anyway. Two of them (Mage/Rogue and Earthpriest) told me to just retconn everything until the sacrificial scene and put circuscompanion in a cage so they would have gone rescue her. Windmage made it clear to me the next day that this would be a complete dealbreaker for him, as he would see such a development as forced from the side of the DM.

I have to agree, by the way, and will NOT retcon everything. But, I'd still like them to continue the adventure, if possible all of them together, and succeed, too. I just can't think of a way to do this. Could anyone offer some bright ideas or advice? I would be very gratefull.

(By the way, we are playing the module "Feast in Ravenmoor" from pathfinder. (With a few changes) Yes, it's from another gaming system, but it worked out just fine, just needed the inspiration)

Water_Bear
2012-11-30, 05:49 PM
It seems like you made a mistake; there was no reason to tip your hand that they went off the rails.

There's no reason the adventure couldn't continue with the PCs discovering some clue on their friend's mutilated corpse, and with a nice in-character guilt trip to boot once they realize they could have saved them. Now your PCs have two new motivations, guilt and revenge, contacts in the Inquisition, and you have a reason for the circus to kick them out. Without a circus to tie them down, a "friendly" Inquisitor breathing down their neck to keep them on track, and an actual reason to oppose the cult they should have no issues finishing the adventure.

Also, if you can try to ween the players off of relying on you. Don't give them advice that their characters wouldn't have thought of, and require "Common Sense" rolls for it. Make NPCs have their own motives which clash slightly with the PCs, so trusting them too much is going to burn them. Take obvious pleasure in the PCs misfortune and exhort them to be more creative. Anything short of actually breaking the rules to get them on their own feet.

hymer
2012-11-30, 05:53 PM
My immediate advice would be to accept that they failed and try and patch up your campaign from there (maybe they could go in to take revenge rather than save anyone and find some clues as to where you want them to go next). But it seems you don't want to do that.
Maybe, then, come up with some cunningly plausible excuse why they haven't killed their sacrifice yet, and have that reason come to the attention of the PCs - say, the scout before she gets into trouble.
Have them overhear, maybe, some of the bad guys complaining that the spirits were unwilling to take the sacrifice, and explain to someone that the whole business has been postponed three days.
Kinda heavy-handed, but it seems your players would be ok with that.

Good luck, regardless.

Edit:
Take obvious pleasure in the PCs misfortune

I'd be careful with that. Not all players react well to this.

Mystral
2012-11-30, 05:55 PM
Oh, I forgot to mention a thing or two.

First, the inquisition is looking for the warpriestess. The rest of the party doesn't know that, of course. It's a rather complicated matter involving the warpriestess stabbing her own sister in the eye while escaping an asylum.

Second, the cult knows that the players know. If they even let them get away, they are most likely to cover their tracks well enough that the inqusition won't find out about this. If they can even convince the inquisition to look into this, as they brought absolutely zero proof of their accusations with them.

I always try to give my players plenty of rope to hang themselves with, by the way.

They will end the ceremony (which doesn't involve the killing of the sacrifice, btw) at dusk. Which is several hours away in gametime.

nedz
2012-11-30, 05:57 PM
As I told the players that they just had wandered out of the adventure by not attempting to rescue, they were surprised to say the least.
I think that this was a mistake also. You have to let them make their own mistakes and take the consequences. Players will routinely do this sort of thing, and then surprise you by resolving the issues in some unexpected manner; but you have to give them the space to do that.

A better approach might have been to have the cult spread to another village, already perhaps, which they may encounter in the future. This creates a growing menace rather than just a bad town. It should be quite easy to drive this forward with some rumours to that effect, and some red herrings too.

doc neon
2012-12-01, 01:01 AM
In my opinion, one of the most exciting things about roleplaying games is the possibility for improvisation. I always explain to new players that that's why we're not just playing a video game together.

There are a few other ways you could have taken the situation. Would the Inquisition have asked the PCs to join them, since the PCs know the town better? Maybe the Inquisition would have another quest for them, or they would be captured by the cult while escaping, and have to fight their way out?

The beauty of all of these options is that (at least, if I'm inferring correctly about the module's content) you can just reuse the content that you didn't use. All of the three options above would have allowed a fight scene around an altar, with the same enemies and evil monologuing. If the session hadn't ended there, you could have posted some cult guards around the town to fight the PCs as they escaped, and used the stats of the enemies from the altar fight.

You probably shouldn't railroad players into doing things. Some suggest presenting an, "illusion of choice," but I dislike this as well. Whenever my players stop doing what I planned for, I try to roll with it. I use a laptop at the table, and I keep bookmarks to random NPC generators, as well as a few stat blocks for generic characters of different levels.

This is all my opinion, of course, but it seems to work for my players. I don't know your players, or your system, so it may not work for you, but I'm just throwing in my two cents.

Mystral
2012-12-01, 04:52 AM
I was going to go with the "fight their way out" way, but then they split up and any attack by the cult would have wiped the party most likely.

Normally, I love improvisation and hate railroading. Normally, I don't prepare a lot for gaming sessions, as my players tend to go off the rails anyway. But this time, I used a pregenerated adventure because of lack of time on my part to think of something myself. (Something I'm loath to do, but it was either that or no game at all)

I think I'll see what they do next session. I'll let the Warpriest see that the "sacrifice" is still going on, maybe she'll make the others join her in a rescue attempt. If they really do flee, I'll think of something else, it will be weeks of Gametime before they reach the "inquisition", anyway. (most likely, the Inquisition will check the village, but find nothing and the ball will be back in the partys court.)

I'm kinda looking forward to their faces when they get back to the village all decked out for avenging their comrade and find her alive, well and married to the cult leader :D. (And pregnant, depending on how long they take to get there)

Thrawn4
2012-12-01, 08:30 AM
I would probably just carry on - if every adventure is guaranteed to end well, there is no tension. But if you would like to use the rest of your adventure (which I can emphasize with), you could just let them find out that the actual ritual requires a long preparation, e. g. by letting the players find a description of the ritual stating that the victim has to be anointed in the first night if one wishes to sacrifice it in the second.