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)
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)