Brainstorming: Consequences for helping (instead of killing) the bad guy

[JonathanPDX]

I run a Pathfinder group for players who are fairly inexperienced (they are also clients I work with professionally) and we've been together for a year; this is their first time role playing. I've been trying to teach the importance of making wise decisions and considering the consequences of their actions. I've made the choices a bit murkier as they gained experience, until we reached an odd situation in our last session and I'm looking for some creative ways to resolve it.

The party is level 4: Monk, Ranger (archer), Druid, and Rogue.

The situation, in a nutshell: The party was stranded on an island with no way back home. There is a tribe of friendly fisherman who have some mysterious but limited magical abilities, and they ask the party to go into the caves to find the bad guy who stole their magic item, which, when returned, will give them the power to teleport the whole party back to the main land where they can continue on their previous quest. Yes, I know it's cliche. :)

The party explores the caves, finds the magic item, and is confronted by the villain who tells them the fisherman are actually bad guys and she stole the item to stop their reign of terror. She offers the party an alternative to fighting: Give me the item and I'll teleport you home myself, OR let me "adjust" the item and you can go back to town, tell them I'm dead, and hand it over. It will "incapacitate" the villagers so you can loot all their stuff, then you can come back to me and I'll send you home.

So of course they vote to go with the "free loot" option and return the freshly-cursed item to the village. As things go south a couple characters have a crisis of conscious but it's too late and they find themselves surrounded by very dead villagers thanks to the cursed item. As we left the session they were debating whether or not to go back and kill her to make up for their mistake. I think they've talked themselves in to the revenge route.

Now here's my dilemma:
I offered them two ways off the island: the villagers or the villain. If they kill both, how the heck do they get home? Giving them an easy out, like a convenient teleport scroll, removes all the consequence of killing a bunch of people and making a clearly evil choice. But being stranded on an island forever doesn't move the campaign forward either; I want to get them back to a civilized setting and away from dungeon crawling soon.

If they do confront the villain she could open a dimension door right next to them, giving an obvious choice to fight or go home, but if they fight, then what? I don't want to railroad my players but I don't want to teach them that dumb choices have no consequences, either.

Any ideas on how to resolve this situation if they decide to fight the villain?
Or how to get them off the island if they kill her?
Even if they escape this situation and go back home, how would the repercussions of their decision(s) impact them later on? Maybe one villager survives and hunts them down later?

Any ideas or suggestions would be welcome. Thanks!
-JonathanPDX

[key777]

I'm not the most experienced role player but maybe you could altar the plot a bit and unbeknownst to your party the massacre of this village was part of some conjuration spell from the bad guy. Kind of sounds hokey but you can definitely play with the idea of there being far more repercussions for killing these villagers. Another example maybe those villagers were keeping some sort of danger at bay and without them the whole island is a ticking time bomb.

[Bonzai]

I would go one of a couple directions depending on their choices.

Option 1, they kill the bad guy. They find that he has a small ship that can make the voyage. It won't be easy, and getting back should be a harrowing side quest in and of its self. Once they do get back andput on a couple levels, they will find themselves hunted by a well known hero who is looking to bring them to justice for the murder of his family.

Option B, they take the deal, get back to the mainland, and nothing seems to happen. They put it behind them, and start to establish their own reputations. Then the villain shows up and threatens to blackmail them if they don't help him with another "job".

[Dagroth]

If my group ran into this kind of situation, they would take revenge on the person who killed the villagers... even if it means they're stuck.

So, after defeating the villain, the spirit of the village Priest appears and says something to the effect of: "you were tricked by evil, but you overcame it. Carry this lesson forward in your lives." The spirit then opens a doorway which takes the PCs to the mainland where they see... an small army of black cloaked warriors setting siege to a small fortified town.

There's no way to tell who the bad guys are at first glance. Was the town built by Orcs? If it was, whose to say they're Evil? After all, if there can be settlements of good Drow, why not good Orcs? Are the black-clad warriors Evil? Perhaps they are required by their God not to show their faces when they engage in battle. Perhaps they're a group like the Shadowbane Inquisitors of Pelor?

Throw a new situation that makes them pause and consider their options. Do they want to reveal themselves to the black warriors? Have them arriving near sundown... do they want to try sneaking into town?

[Fizban]

Build a raft, return home months or years later where things have advanced in your absence, forever regret the folly of acting rashly. Lesson learned, previous plot is transformed dramatically based on the PCs actions.