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View Full Version : If Frustration was Oil I'd Have Struck Rich [long; Pathfinder; dumbness]



Piedmon_Sama
2017-05-02, 02:53 PM
So, last thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?519641-Characters-responsible-for-enormous-accidental-death-can-their-reputations-be-saved) which off the top of my head I can't remember if I've done one or two sessions since making, since which there have been two sessions, one good for the PCs and one returning things to the precipice of disaster, we established -

1. My players obviously don't want to be traditional fantasy heroes; they want to rise to power in the semi-established frontier town area rather than do traditional D&D stuff out in the wilderness.

2. They have made this difficult for themselves by first being nuisances and then accidentally causing a horrific mass death in the frontier hamlet of Grifflet. Their reputations within the central frontier Barony are now coal black and they are feared and mistrusted by the commons.

3. They were nonetheless rising upwards thanks to the patronage of this Baron they'd glommed onto, acting as his messengers/gofers. One PC was given a commission in a mercenary company working for the Baron which gave him ties to other Noble Houses in the region; another actually agreed to marry into a local backwater squire's household, which would at least have given him firm roots in the area.

4. This was all (or nearly all) dashed last session when a representative of the Thieves' Guild in the nearest large city over showed up and demanded a meeting with the party's two leaders. The major issue was that following the Tragedy at Grifflet, when the party was surrounded by what nearly became an angry mob of bereaved villagers, the Paladin protested that he and his alone were not responsible, but that a bunch of NPC adventurers who'd joined them in their delve had an equal hand in unleashing the magic that killed 80 citizens of the town (this is just straight up not true BTW). Thus the unfortunate NPC adventurers were brigaded into sharing the PCs' blame. Whatever, but one of those adventurers belongs to a powerful and wealthy Thieves' Guild in the next town over. And inevitably when he returned to his hometown, the Thief "made complaint" (as the Guild calls it).

https://i.imgur.com/vx5vMuM.jpg
Everything you need to know about my friend's Paladin is contained in this drawing.

So the way the Thieves' Guild works is this: when you're in, if you have a problem, they take care of it. That's their guarantee to all their members. So this particular Thief explained to the Bosses that he had been the victim of a false accusation which disrupted his adventuring activities in the wilderness, harming his fortune and reputation. Naturally, they promised him restitution would be given.

So a messenger was sent to the PCs out in the frontier town. He said that the Guild was not open to negotiating terms, rather they had already worked out what the PCs needed to do to save their lives (this was somewhat of a bluff, the PCs probably could have wheedled some concessions)---the Paladin needed to pay 100 gp and cover the Court Fees (another 20 gp) and swear in a House of the Saints that he had committed calumny against [the wronged Thief adventurer]. So yeah, 120 gp and a mea culpa "and you never have to hear from us again," the herald put it.

https://i.imgur.com/tuJHylD.jpg
The Guild's Herald. See, he got a drawing, which is how the players know this is an important scene!

So the Paladin said that being asked to give his oath on behalf of a thief was wrong and that furthermore the NPC adventurers indeed shared blame in the regrettable incident because they didn't stop him from blowing up the town [????], that under no circumstances would he ever do it and, before the herald could say anything, got up and walked away from the meeting. (I said to the Paladin's player "...do you like, just walk away ranting?" and he said "yeah, I get up from the table and walk out of the tavern finger in the air still filibustering" basically.)

The Cavalier quickly tries to cover for his idiot friend saying basically "he's a little crazy, sorry I can't deliver on the oath thing but I'll pay all the money you want." The herald was in nowise pleased and said "you understand this is about more than money---if your friend disrespects us like this it becomes a Matter of Honor."

What "Matter of Honor" Means

Basically any large-scale criminal enterprise is only held together by its reputation and the loyalty of its members. Cliches about thieves and honor aside, the Guild has to be as good as its word, as close to 100% of the time as can be, or it becomes not worth the rental price of the Guild Hall. Because as is understood by the common use of the word 'guild' (don't faff at me about historical accuracy pz) it's basically a regulatory body for the Black Market, which means just like any bank every transaction is underwritten by trust. So the Guild literally cannot just turn around and be like "sorry they were uncooperative and it'd be really inconvenient for us to deal with some mid-levels out on the frontier," even if its leaders were the kind of men who didn't care about personal honor (and they very much are). They take the "mess with one of us mess with all of us" thing very seriously.

So like, at this point I'm kinda done thinking of ways to WORK THINGS OUT and RE-RAIL THE CAMPAIGN. What's going to happen is since a gang of adventurers is very much a hard target, the Guild will do like any smart business and delegate/outsource to a proven contractor they have a solid relationship with---the Assassins' Guild. The Assassins are a prestige class meaning everyone who gets to call themselves an Assassin is at least level seven; they are serious dudes and they don't take contracts for less than 8,000 gp (travel expenses alone will make this job 10,000, push it up to 12,000 due to the dangers of taking on a group of adventurers. That's an insane amount of money for the life of some jerk in the middle of nowhere, but like, there is no other answer to direct effrontery. When someone just straight up directly calls you out your hands are kinda tied).

That's still stupid. You can't go to war every time some nobody talks trash.

Very true. But at this point the PCs are not nobody. They're locally notorious not just for the Grifflet incident but as the Baron's new hatchet-men; the Cavalier has a reputation as a powerful knight for his slaying of a manticore, they've won several pitched battles on the Barony's highways etc. if the Paladin just blows a raspberry in the Guild's face and gets away with it, it would very well add to the legend of "the Poison Paladin." The Guild's city is "only" 46 miles from the frontier, so while it's not exactly their backyard word could still get back and pollute their local standing (the difference between a Thieves' Guild and a Gang is the Illusion of Respectability. Being treated like churls/villeins/varlets by some newfangled squire's son really craps on that).

You could still think of some reason it doesn't have to come to this

Yeah but I don't want to. I'm done protecting my players from themselves. No more safety rails. That's entirely the gosh dang problem with safety rails---once the players realize you have them, they start pushing against them. My players are that type. They don't want to be "spared the worst," they want a world that reacts naturalistically to their prodding. Seriously I think the Paladin's player knows exactly what he's doing---like the guy playing the character's no dummy, he's been doing this since the 80's. I don't think he will break down and cry when/if his character gets eviscerated Gangland-Style but we'll see.

Okay Jerk, get back to the story

Right so later that day the Baron, Otgar, calls the Paladin up to his keep. He proceeds to slap the heck out of Msr. Newly-Dubbed The Paladin, then exiles him from the Barony of Stormcrown. Because Otgar isn't exactly the world's best baron but even he draws the line at you starting a war in his "very expensive, very flammable" town.

The Paladin accepts his fate, rides in and tells his expectant Father-in-Law the Squire of Greenfield that he can no longer ally himself the gentry of Stormcrown and must leave the Barony. The Squire is like "you were looking like a bad bet anyway TBH." I'm personally steamed because THE WEDDING PICTURE I drew is now NON-CANONICAL

The Wedding Picture:
https://i.imgur.com/QmQMnDd.jpg
Paladin is the one on the left, obviously

A few days later the Herald returns to Stormcrown and informs the Cavalier not to worry, everything's worked out---both Otgar and the Cavalier's patron the Mercenary Captain will be going in together on a payment to the Thieves' Guild. The herald is much friendlier this time. In reality, the Assassins' Guild has already taken the contract on the Paladin. The Guild will be taking the money and murdering the Paladin and then kindly inform the PCs to never come to their city or cross them ever again and to take this as a lesson.

But the twists don't end there. So last session I instituted this new rule: it takes you four weeks of training to level up, but you can take a week off the time for each one of these things you have: 1) a GP sacrifice of 150 gp x level to be attained (roleplayed however you want--as tithes, sacrifice, whatever); 2) benefit of an institution (a Shrine/Abbey for clerics, an Arcane Library for wizards, a Military Company for martial types etc.); 3) A higher-leveled character of your class or a class close enough to your own to mentor you.

My main goal with this new rule was to slow the pace of the campaign down because in-game the characters had climbed up five levels in about two months which is insane, from an in-world perspective/my perspective. So the Cavalier immediately assumed his mercenary captain patron had nothing better to do than tutor him which is like, okay guy, but whatever. The Paladin, Slayer and Bloodrager all rolled percentile die to see if a suitable trainer was in the area.

Paladin and Slayer both rolled in the upper 90s so they got exactly what they needed---a 9th level (just shy of name-level), retired member of their own character class who really literally has nothing better to do than train up some talented youngster. Thus, though exiled from the Barony of Stormcrown, the Paladin spent the next two weeks in the Barony of New Bastion (which is actually run by a retired Paladin!) being trained by this mentor. When the Paladin explained his problem with the Thieves' Guild, the old Paladin guy was like (I am paraphrasing, I did say this in the manner of a kindly old Paladin-turned-Rancher) "man you are really dumb. Your honor isn't worth putting people in needless danger over. If you wanna be this dumb you should just charge the Thieves' Guild headquarters and die as quickly as possible while getting as few people around you killed as possible. I didn't live through nine levels by being precious over my every uttered word." I'm not sure if I'm getting too heavy-handed or we're Really Roleplaying Now.

Meanwhile, Slayer and Bloodrager are going south. Bloodrager rolled in the 60s so he didn't get exactly what he needed... but he did get the Baron of Surgarde himself (whose adopted goblin son was one of the NPC Adventurers the Paladin threw mud on---and the Cavalier has been tripping over himself for the last 7-8 sessions trying to make up for that).

https://i.imgur.com/Eeo2mCx.jpg
Adopted Goblin Son is on the right. He's a Factotum!

https://i.imgur.com/3NrP19Q.jpg
The Baron of Surgarde. This is actually a prep-sketch for a big elaborate sextych of all the Shield Barons I'll probably never finish.

Surgarde's Baron is a Sorcerer [Gold Dragon bloodline] 9/Fighter 4 who loves adventure, and adventurers and is happy to host the Bloodrager for two weeks of training. This doesn't exactly make the Baron a new patron, but whatever. Bloodrager sucks up good and hard and acts interested in all the Baron's stories so that gets him a lot of credit even though the Goblin is like "why can't I get rid of you jerkssss"

In fact the Baron of Surgarde loves adventure and adventurers so much he has a building in his town called The Adventurers' Lodge which is part living history museum and part shrine, with a staff of old, retired (and mostly crippled) adventurers. It just so happens that one of these "fossils" is a level 9 Slayer whose only serious impediment other than age is a crippling love of cream ale, and so is easily bribed by the Slayer PC for two weeks of mentorship.

Following this period of training the party reconvenes in New Bastion, which is where we ended last session.

So I'm thinking next session I just try this opening gambit: "[Cavalier], you receive a note from Captain Skeletor* telling you he has received a sign from the Assassins; that your friend the Paladin is as good as dead and you need to leave him and clear out immediately."

*Sir Jon Skeletor, son of the Baron Skeletor, Captain of the Trueswords Free Company, the Cavalier's current employer.
https://i.imgur.com/ZnxDhlv.jpg
Jon Skeletor. I know I know, not really a skeleton, I'm so lame.

I kind of don't expect my players to give up on their buddy without a fight, obviously. So I have to into some depth about the mentor the Paladin picked up.

https://i.imgur.com/RkFDqyT.jpg
The Mentor the Paladin Picked Up

So he's Sir Hogarthe Crowne, formerly the leader of an adventuring troupe called The Band of Oxbridge, of which two others now live with him in pastoral New Bastion.

https://i.imgur.com/AyFM0fE.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/c1unPs1.jpg
The Other Two Guys. All three drawings still unfinished, obviously.

The other two guys are "Black" Angus Gilraven, a 9th-level Fighter, now a tavern-owner, and Sir Hengest "Henk" Macaroy, a 9th-level Cavalier now an orchard farmer. All these guys are basically good-types; the Paladin's mentor is not gonna let him get murdered even if he is a jackass, so assuming the Cavalier tells everybody they got Assassins coming (there's no reason he wouldn't, right?) Hogarthe immediately offers to put his trainee up in his hacienda, vowing that no one will take his life without a fight, and calls up his two old buddies to join in. So the Party gets a trio of 9th level old guys---with age penalties and obesity in Henk's case I reckon they're down to CR 6-7ish but they can still fight.

Now if the PCs basically get what I'm going for and want to go along with it---I mean, when you're forewarned that some Bad Men have been hired to gun you down and you basically Make A Stand in some tavern or farmhouse, right---then the interesting question will be whether or not the Slayer's mentor comes along to the fight. Because Old Paladin, Old Fighter and Old Cavalier are pretty much just immobile, over-the-hill tanks they're actually going to be almost worthless in a fight against a bunch of dedicated ninja-snipers who are determined to kill one person in particular. OTOH Jon Broque, the old Slayer, despite being a drunk and no longer strong enough to properly fire his composite bow, has a Perception of +15, so if he joins their stand suddenly the PCs have a real chance of not getting just headshotted through a window before Inits even get rolled (I use Called Shots IMC btw, makes the prospect of a bunch of Rogues coming for you a lot scarier. This is basically what Jon Skeletor told Cavalier last session: "these people aren't going to challenge you in the open like jackasses. If the Assassins come for you they'll come in the night, in enough numbers to make it a sure thing, slit your throat in your sleep or put a bullet in your brain from a hundred yards. They never fight fair and they never fail.")

Back up a step. This whole Band of Oxbridge thing seems totally arbitrary. Why not give the PCs more useful allies?

Right. So when Paladin and Slayer first made their Mentor Search Rolls (Bloodslayer wasn't there that session so didn't make his roll til the start of the next one), they both got 95+ so I gave them someone who (IMO) would be an ideal mentor---good-aligned, not much better to do, just short of name-level (e.g lvl 9). New Bastion is the Barony with a 14th level Paladin in charge (he's venerable and long retired) so I thought it made sense for an old LG adventurer to settle there. I had already come up with the idea of the Adventurer's Lodge in Surgarde so I thought that was a logical place for an old Slayer in his sunset years to be. However I didn't really have any idea what other leveled NPCs would live in those Baronies.

So when I got home that night I broke out my 3.5 DMG and rolled for it based on the size of either Barony's major population center. Using Pathfinder classes so I had to invent a little but I tried to keep it similar to their closest equivalents among the core classes. So in the case of New Bastion, I had a 9th level Paladin to start with and the other two level 9s I got were a Fighter and Cavalier; so I decided they were all a retired band of adventurers who'd settled down in the same neighborhood.

Now by those rulesguidelines, every high-level NPC generates double the number of NPCs half a level lower---so a level 9 Paladin = two level 4 Paladins = four level 2 Paladins = 8 level 1 Paladins. True enough. And so there are 42 persons with levels in Fighter, Cavalier or Paladin living in the Barony of New Bastion. However the DMG does not say those characters must all be related (although the Power Center section kinda implies it). So just because two 4th level Paladins are staying in NB atm doesn't mean they're related to Hogarthe or that he can/is willing to call upon them. So far I have decided that Hengest has a daughter who's a 4th-level Cavalier, but while he personally is willing to come and if necessary die fighting by Hogarthe one last time he would never drag his (engaged) daughter into it.

https://i.imgur.com/SNvFgJ7.jpg
Henk's daughter. Debatable if worth finishing.

Move along to the Assassins already

Right. So, I looked at the Pathfinder Assassin PrC and it's dumb, I'll be using the 3.5 one with the spells. The Assassins are sending a Kill Team to the Shield Baronies led by a 12th level journeyman---Ftr [Two-Weapon Warrior] 6/Rogue 1/Assassin 5. He is backed up by two Initiates (Ftr 3/Rog 4/Ass 1), with a Rogue [crossbow sniper] lvl 5 as Overwatch and a gaggle of Rutterkin/Waghalters as chaff/distraction.

No, that's not fair. I wasn't kidding about the Assassins always sending more than they think they need to do the job. It's how they get their reputation. The PCs will need to act fast because the Kill Team's arrived in New Bastion today.

Your beloved Western genre aside, you realize there's no chance they essentially agree to hang out in some dude's ranch-house and wait for the Assassins to come to them, right?

Yeah. Probably won't happen. But I need to do something so I'm going to map Hogarthe's house, stat up the Band of Oxbridge and see what my players choose to do instead.

But...?

Even if this big battle happens the way I'm envisioning, like, who cares? I dunno I'm just tired of dealing with the fallout of my PCs being jerks over and over and over.... this campaign was about Magic And Wonders Underground and Saving the Kingdom of the Fairies(!) when I wrote it up and it's turned into a game of Mafia meets Deadwood (I always crap on poor Deadwood... I've never even watched it).

I mean, this needs to happen. They yanked the bull's chain, they gotta get the horns. My players would be actively disappointed if I didn't. They're practically daring me. It's just, even if I massacre the party I won't feel good. It's just like, I made all this stuff---in a weird way it's like my players are going in the wrong direction: the whole thing with this campaign is they're supposed to explore the eastern wilderness and forge their own path but they keep getting more and more enmeshed in things back west. And now they gotta die.

Well, maybe the next generation of PCs will be more interested in my Fairies. o ___ o

Geddy2112
2017-05-02, 03:25 PM
Sounds like you and the party were on the wrong page from the get go. Also, instead of a swift attempt to reconsile the differences, it became you vs the party and now it is irreparable. You have already had the push and push back of them in your setting, and now they are openly and brazenly taking actions that will end in a TPK.

They want the campaign to end, and so do you. You can send the assassins, you can roll out combat after combat till they TPK. At this point, you could also declare "rocks falls everyone dies" or some other "well you are all dead now what do we want to do for game night?" However, if you are really good and the players are on board, reboot or continue in the world post all of this actions. How will these actions influence and change what all else is in the world.

The next time, be ready for the party to want to stay back in the west instead of heading east. Save the east for the next game and roll with what they want. Trying to force the plot will only result in this. That said, if you don't want to DM deadwood meets mafia you don't have to. Make somebody else DM, or find another group.

Piedmon_Sama
2017-05-02, 03:25 PM
Let's address the elephant in the room. This is all your doing. All your doing. You brought the Thieves' Guild back into the game just when the players were starting to get resettled. You knew that if the PCs didn't play it right they could end up at loggerheads with the setting yet again, and yet again the game would grind to a halt and drift away from the stuff you Actually Want to Run.

You could have just chosen to overlook what they had done. It's not like your players would ever even know.

Yeah but that'd be cheating. It would be as much of cheating as if I grabbed a map from some dungeon I wrote up they hadn't been to yet and used it as the floorplan for a dungeon they got to when I wasn't expecting. That's Illusionist horse pucky and I have no truck with it.

The fact that the game is a sandbox, a true sandbox, ties my hands in this regard. I couldn't just ignore the Thieves' Guild for the sake of getting what I want---so I had them come to the players with essentially the mildest, best offer I could imagine them giving, and of course Paladin immediately escalated it to the point of ridiculousness. This is the point, in an Old School Game, where the Player Character dies. Period. Or rather, I do my level best to kill him---and who knows, I could fail. It would be far from the first time my players totally surprise me and run roughshod out of some situation I thought for sure was going to be the end of them.

Okay but let's get at the heart of this. You're upset because they're not doing the adventure you wanted, they've created some other adventure where they're up against the Thieves and Assassins.

That's basically... right, yeah.

Face facts Piedmon, they're not resisting your "real" adventures because they're bad dumb players. They're telling you what kind of game they want---this stuff with gangsters and shootouts and ambushes is the game to them. But you're trying to push them onto this High Fantasy Narnia stuff which probably is nowhere near as interesting as you think it is.

Ow.

It's because your Fairy setting stuff is lame as hell and everybody secretly feels awkward when you do the voices of the Fairy Queens.

Ow. :smallfrown:

Geddy2112
2017-05-02, 03:45 PM
Woah.

I don't think you should Schrodinger's railroad or pull punches or change the way things are going in the active world of the game. The players threw a pebble in the water, and the ripples spread throughout the pond. Once set in motion, things will happen even if they don't do anything. If they do things that result in their death, they die. If they make people mad and end up with assassins tailing them, the assassins tail them and try to kill them.

You say you wanted your players to go east on some other adventure, but you have an incredibly complex world for them to explore in the west. You created all that stuff too, and clearly, they ate it up. You created this and gave them all of this sandbox to explore, yet you wanted them to play in one half and they chose another? You clearly want that kind of game too if you have half of your sandbox dedicated to it...

I highly doubt it is because they think faeries are lame or that your high fantasy half of the world is stupid. You created a gritty wild west on the other half of the world and the party started there. Most adventurers start adventuring because their hometown is a bunch of dirt farmers and nothing interesting ever happens there. However, they started out in a totally awesome place rife with adventure. If you wanted them to leave, why were there so many plot hooks in the starting world?

Piedmon_Sama
2017-05-02, 04:21 PM
Thanks. I think my players would want me to stay the course too----if they put themselves in a situation where the odds are against them, it's on them to beat the odds.

The frontier part of the sandbox was def. nowhere near as fleshed out as it's become when I started---I wasn't even clear on how many Shield Baronies there were (there's six) or who the movers and shakers were in the nearest big city (now I know it's three Archmages, three Master Thieves, and a Viscount who lives suspended in a bubble of frozen time after a Mages' assassination attempt). Noble houses, powerful landed adventurers and mercenary armies have sprang into existence because they needed to be there---because it'd be no good if I just folded my arms and said "okay, according to the dice there's a 12th level Cavalier in this county but I'm not naming him or giving him any hobbies because YOU'RE NOT DOING WHAT I WANT"; I mean I try to come up with cool stuff no matter what, while staying consistent and logical.

There is, however, a tone issue.

Basically all our games kinda turn into this gritty noire stuff as the PCs get involved in amoral double-dealing and things pile up until an assassination attempt gets made on somebody, and low-level commoners get caught in the crossfire. I've played with this group for nearly a decade but only run a game this last year. Maybe it is true that all sandboxes inevitably slide into this kind of amoral picaresque narrative. I know my players can sense I'm not happy when their PCs do bad stuff to NPCs that can't fight back; they're trying to not play a non-evil party for like the first time basically ever so I know I need to cut them some slack. They're not totally horrible either--I'd say they've overall managed to hang in the zone of amorally neutral, one regrettable mass homicidal negligence aside. It's just that, y'know, we've been here before. Many times, in a sense.

Koo Rehtorb
2017-05-02, 04:35 PM
Are you having fun or not?

Piedmon_Sama
2017-05-02, 04:41 PM
Yes, I'm having fun. The there's-real-stakes-don't-screw-up vomit-tasting kinda fun I'd get back when I played football but yes, fun.

But is it enough fun? Couldn't I make it even more fun if I make them do it rightam able to present what I consider my fresher and more original content

aberratio ictus
2017-05-02, 05:33 PM
Okay but let's get at the heart of this. You're upset because they're not doing the adventure you wanted, they've created some other adventure where they're up against the Thieves and Assassins.

That's basically... right, yeah.

Face facts Piedmon, they're not resisting your "real" adventures because they're bad dumb players. They're telling you what kind of game they want---this stuff with gangsters and shootouts and ambushes is the game to them. But you're trying to push them onto this High Fantasy Narnia stuff which probably is nowhere near as interesting as you think it is.

Ow.

It's because your Fairy setting stuff is lame as hell and everybody secretly feels awkward when you do the voices of the Fairy Queens.

Ow. :smallfrown:

To be perfectly honest, this... might be very close to the truth.

How did you pitch the game to your players? Do they even know the Fairy setting exists?

Piedmon_Sama
2017-05-02, 07:47 PM
The pitch was "it's like Kingmaker but not dumb because I'm making it." But yeah very similarly the idea is okay, you're on a frontier, there's this wilderness that's just beginning to be explored and the authorities have said if you can clear out an area and create your own stronghold you'll become NOBLES so that's kinda your characters' goal---unless you just want to get rich, that's cool too.

I didn't say anything about Fey being a major factor in the campaign at the outset but they've clearly realized that's what they're dealing with. We're up to Session 29(?) now so they have a pretty good idea of exactly what's in the wilderness close by. There's orcs, bandits, and fairies as three different power bases that they know of. They seemed interested in building an alliance between the Barony of Stormcrown and the Orcs and resolving hostilities with the Bandits but that's probably(?) fallen though.

The sense that I've gotten is dealing with NPCs as emissaries and playing politics makes Cavalier and Paladin happy (although Paladin wants to have things his way a lot more). The rest of the party are more interested in traditional D&D stuff but comparatively passive. Cavalier has literally suggested "once [we] establish a business and start making money we can contract people to adventure for us." They REALLY want to build some kind of business---they tried a distillery, that fell through, then developing a Shrine to the Cavalier's patron saint in Stormcrown, that looks pretty iffy, and Cavalier is also thinking a ranch where he can put his War Bull (...) out to stud. You get a sense of who does a lot of the talking at the table.

Paladin was really excited about building something on this four-acre lot that the Baron had given him, before he got ran out on a rail yet again. Player was thumbing through the Stronghold Builder's Guide looking for material costs and everything.

Like, my VISION of what the campaign was, was they'd go into this wilderness, raid some dungeons, bring phat lewts back to Baronies, go back to dungeons, etc. until they have a base to establish a stronghold. Instead they're just trying to build the stronghold in the Baron's backyard and it's sorta like guys... you're pushing this cart uphill and the horse is back that way. When I keep saying "they keep butting up against the setting" what I mean is the NPCs aren't stupid right, they're not gonna let some freebooters set up a backyard still on their turf, never pay taxes and generally bully and intimidate people around town.

But like you said all that ended up doing was making the town just as challenging as the wilderness and probably more interesting to my players.

Koo Rehtorb
2017-05-02, 08:26 PM
Why are you using Pathfinder for this? It doesn't seem like the ruleset is well suited to politics and strongholds.

Piedmon_Sama
2017-05-02, 08:39 PM
This group has always played Pathfinder (or some version of d20). Other than occasional forays into CoC (which I missed then being at college) I don't know that our group has ever done elsewise.

I mean the players who were the most pro-Pathfinder have actually left the group after chafing against my DMing style. I half think the guys still there would be all for it if I said "guys we're converting this bad boy to OD&D break out your erasers" but it's kind of a wash now.

Kane0
2017-05-02, 10:20 PM
Hey haven't read the other threads sorry.

Have you read Kaveman's excellent NecroRanchers (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?325177-Cattle-Driving-Necromancers-Bizarre-Campaign-Journal) campaign? From what I can tell he had a similar problem.
He just rolled with it and we have that fantastic story to read for it. It's sad when the party isn't interested in your hooks or plot but they are invested, its better than a case of the Hendersons. If theyre happy to forge their own adventure see if you can accomodate and have some fun with them.

Edit: And make sure to write it down! I for one would enjoy reading of their escapades complete with art.

GungHo
2017-05-04, 09:54 AM
Like, my VISION of what the campaign was, was they'd go into this wilderness, raid some dungeons, bring phat lewts back to Baronies, go back to dungeons, etc. until they have a base to establish a stronghold. Instead they're just trying to build the stronghold in the Baron's backyard and it's sorta like guys... you're pushing this cart uphill and the horse is back that way. When I keep saying "they keep butting up against the setting" what I mean is the NPCs aren't stupid right, they're not gonna let some freebooters set up a backyard still on their turf, never pay taxes and generally bully and intimidate people around town.
Yeah, you guys need to get on the same page(s). They don't care about your vision. You also introduced a thieves guild to try to bring them back in line (which is as unsubtle a move as I can think of) without thinking "hey, there's a Paladin here", and now you're wanting to double down with "nothing stops this train" when these guys weren't on the train to begin with. Hell, they never even got near any tracks and can't even hear the goddamn whistle even though you're pulling the cord like a madman.

Segev
2017-05-04, 03:28 PM
Given their interest in building, and their power, and their service to various powers who now are embarrassed by them but may not want to be seen just throwing them overboard, you could encourage them to go out to where your dungeons are and building their stronghold out there by actively having the various powers pulling for them (and pulling to get rid of them) grant them land in the unclaimed wastes. Land that just so happens to be where the stuff you want them doing is happening, or exists.

Let them hire some hirelings, guards, drovers, and camp followers and put together enough food for an expedition to "claim their land." They have to scout it out to find a good spot to build, and resources with which to build. They're exiled to a specific place, essentially, but with a carrot of "it's yours to do with as you will, as far as the Shield Baronies are concerned." The fact that it might be occupied by people who disagree with their ownership is...well, their problem.

The Aboleth
2017-05-04, 04:49 PM
A member of a Thieves Guild tries to strong arm a Paladin into a solution that the Guild wants...and you're surprised the Paladin didn't agree to it?

I've read this thread and the previous ones, and from my perspective it seems that you are frustrated with having to constantly shift or readjust your plans for the campaign based on the players' actions. That understandable to a point, but that's also a huge part of being a DM. If you're unwilling or unable to adapt certain elements of your vision around the players' actions, that's not on the players --that's on you. Trying to force them to take other actions will almost certainly backfire and paint you in a bad light.

My suggestion is to allow the players a chance to negotiate with the Theives Guild for a more mutually beneficial option. The Guild is a business of sorts, after all, and while they have an obligation to the member the party had wronged they also have to keep the overall Guild's interests in mind, as well. Maybe the Guild has a competing business the party could be "contracted" to "take care of"--in doing so, the party could take control of said business and donate a portion of their profits to the Guild so they can compensate the wronged member. This would serve the purpose of strengthening both the Guild's overall position and alleviating their member's complaints while also giving the party a new business to run/foothold in the Barony.

RazorChain
2017-05-04, 08:34 PM
I find it funny that the Thieves Guild is willing to put up so much money to see the Paladin dead. Any organization that vows to take care of all your problems is bound to be ridiculously powerful or bound to fall apart.


I run a lot of games with organized crime in it, in fact one of my favorite villains is the kingpin or the mastermind. In this case I would have buried the Paladins already bad rep via propaganda which is much cheaper than an assassin. Some bards spinning yarn about him being a liar and an oathbreaker.

If that fails, take him to court; the Thieves Guild bosses know someone who knows someone powerful that has leverage. That powerful person takes the complaint of the wronged adventurers (NPC's) and demands of the Paladin to swear before his church or patron deity that what he has told is the truth about the matter.

Lastly if all this fails then the thieves guild will just do what they always do, petty revenge and make money. Set the party up and rob them blind, burn down their ranch, con them etch

That guy they paid to build their ranch, shrine, shop, fortress etc.....well if they are wondering why work hasn't started it's because he was from the thieves guild and has pocketed their money.

Piedmon_Sama
2017-05-04, 10:26 PM
Thank you for reading and your thoughtful replies. I've been hard at work cuz the next game is this Sunday, statting up more and more NPCs and mapping/fleshing out the Barony of New Bastion and making a big old tactical-scale map of Hogarth Crowne's manorhouse as the possible scene of a big battle.

I was really frustrated when I started the thread and needed some place to vent. I am still not sure how I'll handle things next session---I'll probably just wing it and see what happens.

Here's the thing: when the Thieves' Guild was introduced as a thing in the campaign like ~10ish sessions ago I didn't have a concrete idea of what level their highest level dudes were, how much money they would have on hand vs total assets vs what their various criminal enterprises make in a year. Other than "they are powerful," "they are rich" and "the highest level rogue in the Big City is probably level 15ish or smth IDK"

As I was statting up every possible ally within the Barony of New Bastion that the PCs could conceivably drag into this fight, as well as the magicked-to-the-gills Assassins' Squad, and for good measure getting some preliminary notes together on who the highest level Thieves back at the Thieves' Guild are, it occurred to me that I don't want to do have this big dragged-out showdown, and I don't want to just keep the headsman's axe away from the PCs yet again because they have discovered if they make it a pain in his ass Piedmon will give them infinity passes. Like I am still fairly inclined to tell Paladin "one morning you don't wake up, your headless body has been strung up naked from the Shrine steeple. I didn't bother to stat up the 13th level guy who did this. I don't feel like dragging this out just because Pathfinder says I'm supposed to."

(It's probably good to get this out somewhere other than the table but yes, I do talk to my players before and after every session. Paladin's player and I actually spoke at length about how we should cut down on "the political stuff" and "get back to adventuring" like before the very session where he blew the Thieves' Guild off. I still have this gut feeling he is trying to get his Dumb-Joke-Based-on-a-RL-Political-Figure Paladin killed b/c he thinks it will move the campaign forward but IDK).

But, okay, all that aside, I'm not going to drop a squad or even just one high-level Assassin on the party. As I statted up NPCs I came to realize that the party have ensconced themselves in a place where the authorities are actually Lawful Good. Unlike Stormcrown this means that no matter how much of a jackass the Paladin is, the Baron and his powerful men aren't going to let him be murdered, period. Likewise, the Assassins ain't dumb; while my reasoning for why the Thieves would pay a ridonculous amount of money to kill this dude still stand, they only apply so long as the contract is a virtual done deal. Once you have a 14th level Paladin Baron in the mix it becomes too iffy. After all, the reason the Assassins have that reputation of never failing is they don't take chances.

Like RazorChain says there's about a million ways the Thieves' Guild can get at this dude without making it a huge investment or total war. Short-term they are just going to have to eat the reputation loss (plus the couple thousand it cost just to get the Assassins to go down there, survey the situation and say "nah, we're not doing this.") But that'll have to be.

Like I said since I'm chucking the plan I've had for the last week and a half I'm going to just enter next session with no real plan and see what they want to do. And then have a dire walrus ambush them.

Piedmon_Sama
2017-05-04, 10:39 PM
Given their interest in building, and their power, and their service to various powers who now are embarrassed by them but may not want to be seen just throwing them overboard, you could encourage them to go out to where your dungeons are and building their stronghold out there by actively having the various powers pulling for them (and pulling to get rid of them) grant them land in the unclaimed wastes. Land that just so happens to be where the stuff you want them doing is happening, or exists.

Let them hire some hirelings, guards, drovers, and camp followers and put together enough food for an expedition to "claim their land." They have to scout it out to find a good spot to build, and resources with which to build. They're exiled to a specific place, essentially, but with a carrot of "it's yours to do with as you will, as far as the Shield Baronies are concerned." The fact that it might be occupied by people who disagree with their ownership is...well, their problem.

This is my favorite idea btw thank you for suggesting it. To be TOTALLY TRUE TO SETTING CANON only the King can parcel away the wastelands but I'm tempted to ignore it or just say "ah yeah the Barons got the King's go-ahead they uh... they sent a raven. That's a thing now."

The Aboleth
2017-05-05, 01:06 AM
This is my favorite idea btw thank you for suggesting it. To be TOTALLY TRUE TO SETTING CANON only the King can parcel away the wastelands but I'm tempted to ignore it or just say "ah yeah the Barons got the King's go-ahead they uh... they sent a raven. That's a thing now."

Yeah, I see no reason why the King can't grant the Barons authority to parcel out land on his behalf. This is essentially how land was doled out in colonial times in the US, so there's even a real-world precedent you can pull from if you so choose.

Has the Paladin's player actually told you he's trying to get his character killed? Or is this just an assumption on your part based on the character's erratic behavior? If he really just wants to roll a new character then maybe you should consider coming up with a plausible reason why the Paladin suddenly has to leave the party for awhile ("for awhile" being for the length of the campaign) and then bringing in the new character. He's a Paladin--maybe his god/church/order has called him away on some special mission that demands he leave immediately. Lucky for the party, Mr. New Character has just arrived in the Barony and is looking for work! I imagine you'll want to run things more organically than that, but you get the idea.

Segev
2017-05-05, 09:38 AM
This is my favorite idea btw thank you for suggesting it. To be TOTALLY TRUE TO SETTING CANON only the King can parcel away the wastelands but I'm tempted to ignore it or just say "ah yeah the Barons got the King's go-ahead they uh... they sent a raven. That's a thing now."That's definitely one way to do it. As The Aboleth indicates, below, it could also be something the King's already done in general (maybe a council of the Barons has to agree to elevate a new Baronet/Landed Knight, or maybe the Barons each have territory they are "allowed" to claim, as long as they can agree on which Baron gets to assign to a Knight).


Yeah, I see no reason why the King can't grant the Barons authority to parcel out land on his behalf. This is essentially how land was doled out in colonial times in the US, so there's even a real-world precedent you can pull from if you so choose.

Has the Paladin's player actually told you he's trying to get his character killed? Or is this just an assumption on your part based on the character's erratic behavior? If he really just wants to roll a new character then maybe you should consider coming up with a plausible reason why the Paladin suddenly has to leave the party for awhile ("for awhile" being for the length of the campaign) and then bringing in the new character. He's a Paladin--maybe his god/church/order has called him away on some special mission that demands he leave immediately. Lucky for the party, Mr. New Character has just arrived in the Barony and is looking for work! I imagine you'll want to run things more organically than that, but you get the idea.

The Paladin or the Cavalier seem natural "Landed Knights" to elevate. The Paladin would be ideal because he seems the focus of the "we want you GONE" problem. And, as the ruling Knight, he wouldn't be able to abandon his holding to come back here, obviously.

If you don't want to give the Shield Barons this power legitimately, you could have it be something that they do with the notion that it's better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. The LG Paladin Baron might not be for it, but one or more of the others might think of it anyway. Maybe they tell the LG Paladin Baron that it's just an exile, and they tell the party that they're totally giving them land, honest.

If the party goes out and dies, they're out of the Shield Baron's hair. If they go out and succeed, they're still out of the immediate way, and the Shield Barons can treat them like vassals as long as it's useful, and disavow all knowledge of their treasonous activities if it becomes a further embarrassment. By the time the party has established a successful and strong outpost or colony, the Shield Barons can present it as tamed land to the King, who probably will be happy for the expansion to his Kingdom as long as they play their politics well.

Whether the party finds out about the duplicity, and whether the party pursues elevation to Barony as well (rather than accepting that they're vassals as Landed Knights to one or more Shield Barons) is up to them and where they focus their activities.

But (and I know you probably already see this) they'll need to be focusing efforts on immediate, local problems while building up, and that will give you a chance to expose them to the sandbox toys you particularly want to play with. If they focus too much on distant things "back home," they won't have the wealth and clout to do much and they'll have problems get out of hand in their new lands. You can use immediacy of problems to keep them focused, unless they want to abandon this "reward."

Piedmon_Sama
2017-05-05, 04:26 PM
I feel like I should ask before I rush ahead and do it; since it's hard (for me anyway) to talk about the campaign without going into novella-length tangents about the setting would anyone be interested in a thread just talking about MY MEGA AWESOME DEE AND DEE HOMEBREW CAMPAIGN

The Aboleth
2017-05-05, 10:12 PM
Sure, I'd be happy to read it and offer any advice I can.

ATHATH
2017-05-05, 11:11 PM
How willing are the assassins to go out into the wilderness?

Hm... Thought here: What if, as the party gets a decent ways into the forest, they encounter an ambush. Or, well, it would have been an ambush, had all of the assassins that had been setting it up not been brutally killed and looted by [insert local power that you want your PCs to be afraid of]. Basically, use the assassins as targets for the Worf Effect.

Presumably, the assassins would have waited until the PCs entered the forest/lawless territory in order to avoid the forces of the Shield Barons, which, as you mentioned before, would probably begrudgingly defend the PCs if they were attacked.

Narkis
2017-05-06, 03:38 AM
So, I've read both threads and I have a question: the paladin, following a horrific accident caused entirely by him and his friends, insteaf of accepting responsibility and trying to make amends proceeded to knowingly lie and put the blame on a bunch of innocents. Why the hell did he not fall right there and then?

GPS
2017-05-06, 12:05 PM
So, I've read both threads and I have a question: the paladin, following a horrific accident caused entirely by him and his friends, insteaf of accepting responsibility and trying to make amends proceeded to knowingly lie and put the blame on a bunch of innocents. Why the hell did he not fall right there and then?
I'm confused, didn't the the paladin take full responsibility even though it wasn't just his fault?

The Aboleth
2017-05-06, 01:34 PM
So, I've read both threads and I have a question: the paladin, following a horrific accident caused entirely by him and his friends, insteaf of accepting responsibility and trying to make amends proceeded to knowingly lie and put the blame on a bunch of innocents. Why the hell did he not fall right there and then?

Lying isn't -- or at least, shouldn't be -- grounds for Falling. It's not a nice thing to do, but if every Paladin would Fall for lying there would probably be no Paladins.

Also, the way I read the OP is that the Paladin at least took partial responsibility for the accidental deaths of the townsfolk. Full responsibility would have been better, but it's not like the Paladin was whistling non-chalantly and saying, "Who, me? I have no idea what you're talking about!"

Piedmon_Sama
2017-05-06, 02:21 PM
So, I've read both threads and I have a question: the paladin, following a horrific accident caused entirely by him and his friends, insteaf of accepting responsibility and trying to make amends proceeded to knowingly lie and put the blame on a bunch of innocents. Why the hell did he not fall right there and then?

I just don't play with alignment on. Like, that's it. I told the Paladin's player back at the start of the campaign: do whatever, I'm not gonna make you lose your powers, alignment isn't really a thing in my games. So he seems to have taken it as a challenge to play the biggest jackass he possibly can.

like, lemme be clear: the player knows he's playing a completely delusional psychopath. The guy is an Antipaladin and just doesn't know it.
And look, I'm not upset that my friends are playing an evil party. I'm a little disappointed; like I wanted them to become heroes and save my lame Magical Forest setting and spread good feelings but if they want to just be the town mafia, okay that's the game we'll play.

Like if I had alignment on this dude would have fallen back in like session five for not turning on his fellow party members.

That said:


I'm confused, didn't the the paladin take full responsibility even though it wasn't just his fault?

He stepped up to defend the Slayer, who is the one who is really at fault in this case of massive Homicidal Negligence. That wasn't like a Captain Kirk "I am responsible for the actions of my crew!" moment though. The Paladin is the party face (not a very good one but then again there wasn't much way to wheedle out of the situation) and he was just 'doing his job' in that sense.



Also, the way I read the OP is that the Paladin at least took partial responsibility for the accidental deaths of the townsfolk. Full responsibility would have been better, but it's not like the Paladin was whistling non-chalantly and saying, "Who, me? I have no idea what you're talking about!"

Haha oh my goodness, no. Like my players ain't dummies, they know what negligent homicide is. The Paladin knew he had no real defense so he just tried getting mad back and was like "how DARE you people get mad at US when we helped you clean up this MESS? We've been PROTECTING you ingrates this whole time* and anyway..." [proceeds to try and spread blame as much as possible, first as evasion then just out of spite]

*earlier they had taken an oath to be protectors of the town basically just to keep a mercenary company from moving onto their 'turf' and trust me they never made a move towards actually protecting the town from anything.

Like lemme be clear: OOC the player knows he's playing a delusional psychopath. IC the Paladin thinks he has literally never done a wrong thing and is essentially an Antipaladin and doesn't know it. The character may not have started that way but pretty early on when it became clear the party was bent on dirty deeds he took it there in order to avoid IC conflict.

Kalmageddon
2017-05-06, 05:44 PM
As a fellow GM I understand your frustration, however reading about this campaign made me appreciate the amount of effort you've put in it and the proactiveness of your players.
That said, how many players are involved? It sounds like this campaign orbits entirely around the Paladin and the Cavalier, do the other players participate or do they just get dragged along?

Narkis
2017-05-06, 06:40 PM
I just don't play with alignment on. Like, that's it. I told the Paladin's player back at the start of the campaign: do whatever, I'm not gonna make you lose your powers, alignment isn't really a thing in my games. So he seems to have taken it as a challenge to play the biggest jackass he possibly can.

like, lemme be clear: the player knows he's playing a completely delusional psychopath. The guy is an Antipaladin and just doesn't know it.
And look, I'm not upset that my friends are playing an evil party. I'm a little disappointed; like I wanted them to become heroes and save my lame Magical Forest setting and spread good feelings but if they want to just be the town mafia, okay that's the game we'll play.

Like if I had alignment on this dude would have fallen back in like session five for not turning on his fellow party members.

Well, that's the root of your problem. At least half of your players never even intended to play the good guys, and you guys probably should've hashed that out at session 0. At least you're now on the same page, though from what you've told us I'm still not sure if all your players are fine with this, or if the psycopaths have just grabbed the reigns and highjacked the whole thing. Major kudos for being willing to roll with the punches by the way, it's hard to see a lovingly crafted campaign burned to the ground like that. Just don't forget that the game needs to be fun for you as well, and that OOC problems, like say the direction of a campaign, need to be resolved OOC.

That said, my honest opinion is that Psycho Paladin needs to die, or be retired. Even if the campaign is to continue with an evil party. Funnily enough, he's made a too accurate "completely delusional psychopath". And if he gets away again, he will take the next opportunity available to throw a spanner in the works, and there will be a third thread about your frustrations with this campaign.

Piedmon_Sama
2017-05-16, 02:48 PM
Update: turns out I was pretty much right about Paladin wanting to crash/kamikaze his character. When I opted not to just have a high-level assassin kill him, rather than walk into the two(!) more level-appropriate assassination attempts I had prepared he instead retired the character. So Paladin is Archeologist (it's a bard archetype) now. I think this is him trying to meet me halfway since A) I haven't made it secret I'm annoyed the party hasn't done any dungeoncrawling in literally 10 sessions; B) dungeoncrawling is obviously kinda what Archeologists are all about.

So yeah, all's well that end's well although I'm a little disappointed I didn't get to actually annihilate that character :u

Segev
2017-05-17, 12:48 PM
So yeah, all's well that end's well although I'm a little disappointed I didn't get to actually annihilate that character :u

Consider making him the big bad or the dragon or a third-party villain for your faerie kingdom plot, by having his self-righteous justifications lead him to leading a pogrom against all that the players come to love and cherish? Then you can let the PCs destroy the character.

noob
2017-05-17, 01:58 PM
How would you justify that paladin survival?
For surviving he would need a dozen evil deus ex machina per day if that paladin keeps this behaviour.

Piedmon_Sama
2017-05-17, 07:26 PM
Consider making him the big bad or the dragon or a third-party villain for your faerie kingdom plot, by having his self-righteous justifications lead him to leading a pogrom against all that the players come to love and cherish? Then you can let the PCs destroy the character.

It's actually really funny you suggest this because that's actually---basically---the direction I was pushing the character in before the player dropped him. Like, if he really wants to play this fanatical douche I'm like, okay.

But to really explain this I have to go back like seven or eight sessions to shortly after The Big Tragedy in the village, when this liquor they brought back ended up accidentally killing 80 people. So Paladin goes to sleep and I tell him he's having this dream: in the dream he's climbing a snowy mountain, bare-handed, pushing his frozen fingers into crevices and dragging his armored bulk painfully up this mountain face. Somehow he knows this is the mountain of St. Crom the Uncaring, the once-pagan god who became his family's patron saint [the player wanted Crom---like from Conan---to be his patron deity at the start of the campaign]

so he gets up over this bluff and onto a cliff/ledge projecting from the peak and this is what he sees:

https://i.imgur.com/L4EXAu4.jpg

so he sees this cave at the end of the promontory and standing before it in the dusky light peaking through the clouds is a specter in blue of St. Crom, and on the other side a specter in dusk not of Anakin Skywalker (which my players immediately called that figure) but St. Justin, the Patron Saint of Paladins (or possibly Rangers, it's a matter of historical dispute). He begins trudging through the snow drifts towards the cave and the two figures transform, St. Justin into a fluted white column and St. Crom into a pillar of beaten iron, as the sky overhead deepens into a roof the columns are supporting at the back of a great courthouse where Paladin finds himself in the defendant's seat. Filling the galleries to either side of this courtroom are his parents and family, people he's known, some of the freaky plant monsters created by the Fairy Mead, a leprechaun the party fought, some now-dead brigands they fought, party allies, his grammar teacher, his parents' gardener, the girl he had a crush on in school, etc.

This is the judge:

https://i.imgur.com/AgyNzwL.jpg

(yes I make my drawings on taped-together waste paper from other drawings.... also Mr. Angel is like 18" tall all these drawings are too big to scan so I had to take terrible-looking photos egh) also yeah that guy does have like a little cosmos over his head is what that's supposed to be. If you're curious he's supposed to be a Justicator, 3.5MMIII pp 85.

so beside Paladin as counsel for the defense is this seven foot tall woman with flaming wings:

https://i.imgur.com/aSZUB7b.jpg
(although I drew her standing you have to picture her just sitting at this table with her blazing wings folded up; she's supposed to be a Justice Archon 3.5MMIV pp 80.

and actually already standing by the witness bench all smug and Perry Mason-y is this dude, the prosecutor:

https://i.imgur.com/bLD7A44.jpg

Yes that guy's name is ARNOLD FRIEND ESQ., REVEREND DOCTOR OF LAW. Unlike my friends I suspect you guys will get the joke that I totally ripped off that Joyce Carol Oates story. I didn't have a specific creature type in mind for him though I suppose he is an Incubus or for Pathfinder maybe a Contract Devil.

So Paladin's reaction to all this is basically "I sit there smiling getting smugger and smugger" and I'm like "your character has a real persecution complex this is satisfying huh?" and he's like "oh yeah." Anyway---what I did was as Arnold Friend (I had prepared notes and everything!) I rehearsed every single bad thing the Paladin or his associates had done over the course of the campaign, simultaneously making sure to twist everything they actually hadn't done or done from good intentions in the worst possible light. Actually what I did was I had all of the other player characters appear as witnesses and deposed them in-character, letting each player play his character within the Paladin's dream (so this wasn't just like everybody watching me talk for an hour). Actually I made this one really cool drawing of Arnold Friend by the witness booth and cut it out, then made a bunch of drawings of the player characters and other witnesses seated and slid them in behind the cutout as each one was deposed. I was super proud of that but I gave the drawings away to my friends and left the cutout at Paladin's house and I think his wife threw it away? (Also some of the witnesses were people who died directly or indirectly because of the PCs' actions, so I actually drew a few portraits of their moldering corpses and had Arnold Friend question them as they sat dead in the dock, pretending he could hear them. Good touch, me.)

Anyway the upshot of this whole dream scenario was essentially to see if Paladin would show any remorse for at least failing in his oath to protect the town (which he only even gave to keep some other guy from getting the job of Protector, on the vague notion the party had at the time of taking over this town sometime in the future); even if he wouldn't admit he was guilty of recklessness and negligence a little roleplayed remorse would have saved him. The whole thing was basically me going "you really sure you wanna go down this road my dude" and he was like "hells of yes." I had the Justice Archon give a really sloppy defense on his behalf like "obviously sometimes in the War on Evil, innocent people must suffer, but look, Paladins just slay evil it's not their job to like, get all sad about stuff" (I wasn't exactly that ineloquent even roleplaying a bumbling defense) and Paladin was like "yeah what she said"

So because in this campaign Paladins can't fall, the idea is that each one has some kind of divine purpose---even the horrible ones. So after the dream I decided this overzealous Justice Archon was actually trying to nudge the Paladin towards some purpose, and that purpose was actually recovering this magic item I had made up (an Item of Legacy in fact) and put in one of the dungeons out in the Wylde--you know, those things I keep trying to push my players into going into that they don't wanna go into.....

so Paladin keeps having these dreams about this pair of golden bracers that sort of form out of fire over his arms and fill him with this sense of purpose and power. And it's like, Justice Archon (who I formally introduced during the trial as "One of the Nameless Legion of Flaming Swords Among the Hosts" or we can just call her Nameless) keeps egging him on like SEIZE YOUR DESTINY, IT AWAITS YOU NEARBY. Basically feeding into this Paladin's egomaniac sense of destiny, since Paladin's player made it clear he just wants to play this dude as totally shut off to reality.

Finally (the very session he retires the character---even as I was plotting to kill this Paladin I kept the dream subplot running because who doesn't like a good anticlimax right?) he has this dream that he's alone in his parents' study at night when this flickering fire shines through the window and then a pillar of fire bursts into existence in the room, and he hears Nameless all pissed going WHY DO YOU SIT IDLE WHILE THE ENEMIES OF THE FAITH MULTIPLY IN DARKNESS? BRING THE FLAME OF RIGHTEOUSNESS TO THE WILDS. And Paladin's player is like "dude you've been telling me this entire campaign that setting a forest fire would be super dangerous and blahblahblah and now you're telling me to set a forest fire?" and I'm all "sure, whatever, just do it, murder all the fairies and burn down the forest, be all the villain you can be."

Did I mention that at one point when the party was in the wilderness a troupe of pixies came and told the Paladin that a prophecy had foretold a destined hero would come to liberate them from evil, as foretold by their precious ancient scroll---which piece of parchment they handed to him, only for it to unfurl showing A Crudely Scrawled Dickbutt? So you see, totally called for, all the little blighters need to be massacred.

All of this is as much to say that even as an NPC (actually moreso as an NPC) the Paladin basically is a setting-wide villain, who will burn down the entire forest to search for these bracers and just for petty revenge against its inhabitants. It's perfect how this worked out.

e: Oh yeah, drawing of that last dream ofc. -
https://i.imgur.com/nVgpnUi.jpg