How to Proceed From Here

[Draco_Lord]

So I am just finding myself at a point in my campaign where the start of my next session feels like it should be entirely player based. As in, the actions of the players, where they choose to go, and what they want to do is completely up to them. Which is making trying to prepare for that interesting, and I'd like some advice. Either on how to prepare for this. Or if people have ideas for where I should try and lead the PCs, events to happen, I won't say no to those either.

Anyways, what has happened. So, the party is a weird mix of people, from a Paladin and Warpriest of Iomedae, along with a goblin barbarian (Who is now Chaotic Good because they earned it), a drunken rogue, and an evil white haired witch. They recently lost the slayer after he nobly sacrificed himself to save the party. The party originally came together, besides the Paladin and Warpriest, for petty revenge against a necromancer who was kidnapping people for reasons. They had a couple adventures, became friends, saved the major town from the Necromancers invasions attempts (Only losing about a 1/6 of the city to the damage). Met the King and his adviser Fredrick. The Witch found their father who they want to murder. The saved the town from a couple of demons summoned by the Warpriest's Antipaladin ex-friend, who they want to capture. And the found that the city had a large Undetectable Alignment spell cast on it.

The last sessions involved them getting caught in a trap set by the Necromancer (Who isn't dead because he is a lich) and the Antipaladin. They were put in a dungeon, escaped, and where then taunted at by the Necromancer that while they were busy failing at puzzles (He is a ****) that he had gotten something important, and held up the box. Also he has a Balor demon as a friend, summoned by the Slayer in his backstory when he was trying to be a wizard. The Party did the smart thing, after a point, and ran away. They also grabbed the box. They would escape through the portal, with the slayer tackling the wizard to keep him from casting any spells to stop them from going through. The party delivered the box to the King and Frederick. Turns out the Necromancer lied, the box wasn't stolen, but rather a magical device set to go off in the presence of Frederick, destroying all the Undetectable Alignment Spells, and revealing the very evil nature of Frederick, the King, the City in general, and the White Haired Witch. After Frederick kicked them from the castle, not killing them only because they had done a good service for the kingdom, and it would have been some bad PR. (The Goblin had convinced the Party to spend their earned loot on rebuilding the city when they found out the King was focusing on the Noble part of the city first, leaving the rest to suffer in the cold.) They decided to leave the city and regroup. The White Haired Witch has a thing for the Paladin, and so the Paladin had a conversation with them about not being evil, and how they couldn't be friends if the witch continued being evil. The Witch went into the forest to think things over, and also summon monsters to then destroy to take out their anger on (Party because they missed the chance to kill their father). While the rest of the party drank their way to bed.

And that is where I was left. So... I don't know what they will do now. The original intent was for there to be Rebellion going on at the moment, but due to some events happening before I though the PCs would find them things had to be moved around. Leaving me with them standing there, unsure where they will go.

Things the Party doesn't know
-Frederick is a Pit Fiend (They just know he is evil)
-The Necromancer, well more the Balor, has been influencing people to rebel against the King and Nobles, twice now trying to incite riots, and once succeeding.
-The Balor, named Demmen, has an alternate ego as a humanoid. He was supposed to be the one in charge of the Rebellion, kind of what the PCs to end up working for an evil outsider, and then have to choose what to do, help one, kill them all, etc. Not sure that can be done the same way any more.

[Geddy2112]

First off, I applaud your party for working so well together- a paladin AND a warpriest of Iomedae working with an evil witch and not smiting them into next week, nor the witch being stupidly evil for the lulz against them. Good job team.

And that said, they all have motive to go back into the city-with the exception of the drunken rogue, everyone in the party has unfinished business in the city.

Followers of the Inheritor dream of slaying evil fiends that enslave and control, and bringing back the holy rule of law of humanoids and good aligned outsiders. There is a necromancer, a Balor, an evil adviser, an antipaladin(personal against the warpriest), and a Civil war-those 2 should be champing at the bit to go save the day longswords drawn.

The goblin has shifted to CG from CN by your tone, so he has learned to care about life and people. There is also probably corruption with evil advisers and a civil war. A good scrap, a chance to stick it to the man, and save the village is going to draw CG like moths to the flame.

The witch is all personal-they have somebody in the city that needs to die, and if they are really hellbent on revenge they will kill anybody in the way. Being a witch, they are smart enough to realize they can't just walk into a civil war where there are dark mages and demons at play and expect to live. If nothing else, they should stick around and stay with the party to get to their dad and off them. The dad might even be evil, making it all the easier. The witch and the LG twins can probably agree that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and that there are much bigger fish to fry than fight each other.

The drunken rogue will follow the party and whoever is providing the leadership, so no problems there.

So what does this all mean? It means the party probably wants to go back into the city. After their last little incident there is a lull in the rebellion, and the king and Fredrick should be trying to gain control while the Necromancer and Balor regroup. The PC's might take either side, or become their own side, but I expect them to go back, find and root out the bad apples. Plan for a couple of city encounters(social, combats)-they city guard and King's alliance might be suspicious or hostile to them, the rebels may be as well. Expect a lot of social information gathering, etc.

The other option is that they try to get help somewhere else- a random forest encounter and some base ideas about the nearby kingdoms is gonna be handy in the back pocket. I don't see them going on any other major course of action.

[Draco_Lord]

-snip-

Yeah, the party is surprisingly co-operative given the reputation PCs can get, but honestly everyone wanted to do something together, and since we know each other well it wasn't hard. The Witch did a good job keeping it secret until now, so this is the first real conflict.

Thanks for all the advise, I hadn't really thought about just setting up encounters, usually I know what the party is planning on doing, and plan that out, but making just things for them to run into seems like a good idea, especially if I can make it more flexible on how it works.