Waterdeep Merch
2017-08-08, 09:27 PM
A united lycanthrope kingdom was suckered into attacking a caravan of humans, including the players, by an allied pseudo-demonic faction that had every intention of sacrificing them in a simple 'check' to let certain members of the caravan know that they were being watched. The players did not know this last part, but as the defenders of said caravan, they were dispatched to wipe out the fortress they'd been striking from.
Their leader, a werebear, admitted to the players that they had been played by their so-called allies. To save his son from any harm, he offered up his life in an honor duel, telling his men that regardless of the results, they were to leave in peace. A barbarian accepted, and the duel got ferocious. One player, an LE halfling warlock that was subtly manipulating the morality of the party out of general sadism, decided to make a big show out of protecting his 'friend' when it looked like they might be losing. The fight escalated rapidly, especially between the members of the party that were sickened by suddenly attacking the other lycans and the ones that decided that, now that it's come to violence, they couldn't let a single one of them leave alive.
In the end, only the son of the werebear leader escaped, eventually leading to trouble later down the road. The repercussions for the party, however, were massive. Because I'd made a strict ruling against PvP but didn't do anything to curtail players screwing each other over through roleplaying, there was a lot of out of game angst. One player decided to roleplay suicide, something I'd rather never repeat. While the game eventually recovered, it was never really the same. I still have trouble getting some of those players into the same game together.
Corran
2017-08-10, 07:19 PM
Very first campaign, back in 3e. All of us new to the game. The DM had us start inside a small room, stone floor and walls, and no doors whatsoever, no weapons or other equipment on us, no memory of how we ended up there or of who every other character apart from our own was (only a vague memory that we were caught and imprisoned there). I still remember how brilliant I thought it was when I heard another player say ''I search to see if there is a hidden door''. And a hidden door there was, and the prison break was on! Along the way we bumped into another inmate, an NPC dude named Le Ford, whom we saved from the clutches of a ..... wurmling, that wanted to eat him. We gave him a weapon, told him to stay at the back (he didnt seem like the fighter type), and tried out best to keep him safe while we were making our way out of the prison. Oh, how innocent (and logical) we were... You see, something was about to happen, that would define the campaign, and to a very great extent the way we played D&D over the years to come (and to be honest, I dont think any of us was completelly ''cured''). After defeating the last kobold guard/trap/etc that standed between us and freedom, we made our way to the prison's yard, only to find a squad of armed humans there. They had just finished killing the few kobolds that were in the prison yard. The NPC, Le Ford, started talking to these armed humans (and I am paraphrazing a bit from memory): ''Ah, my friends, you came late. My new friends (said pointing to our group) saved me''. He approached his men and mounted a horse they had waiting for him. He looked at us from atop his horse, then he turned to his guards. ''Kill them'', he said coldly, and he immediatelly turn his horse the other direction and fled.
Pandemonium ensued at the table. Screaming ''why!!!!?'', ''we saved you'', and several questions and insults for the better half of a whole hour, only for the DM to tell us (and to have to repeat it several times before we stopped all the screaming), that Le Ford was already gone and that he could not even hear us. And there it was. The seed of madness was planted. You see, thinking of it now, after several years, it wasn't about the betrayal, or the injutice, and Tyr forbid, it wasn't because of in-character reasons either. But when 15-year-old's play their flawless and perfect-in-every-way characters, and you have someone trick them, they kind of take it personally. And personally we did take it.
A couple sessions later (we made short work of the guards, and did some fighting on the road), we reached the city of Skuld of Mhullorand. To our surprise, Le Ford (the NPC who had betrayed us back in the prison), was the steward of the city, ruling it in the name of some absent lord. Naturally, we started planning of how we would kill him. Let me put a few things into perspective here. When we reached the city of Skuld, it must have been our 4th or 5th session. The campaign lasted about 3 years, and we played once or twice every week, and even more often during summer break. The DM had planned for a very minor quest in Skuld, and the story was supposed to get us far from there after one or two sessions. He added the detail that Le Ford was the steward of Skuld on the fly, just before we started that session that we entered Skuld. Eh..... once we set foot inside Skuld, and learned that this hated NPC was running the show there, we never leaved town. We played in that damned city for the 3 following years. None of it was pre-planned, and the DM tried on several occasions to tempt us leave the city, but the hatred for that NPC was so fierce, that we wouldnt. Not until we had killed him. And whenever one of us was secondguessing our end goal, or had a shift in priorities, then that character would be brutally murdered by the rest of us. A ''you are either with us, or against us'' kind of situation. Let me put forth some examples. At first the DM tried to tempt us leave the city of Skuld, by having our characters hear of some peculiar and ntriguing events happening in the nearby area. None of us paid any mind. Later, the DM tried to have us leave the city and go on quests, by tempting us with incredible rewards (gold, but mostly incredible magic items). We killed the questgivers and tried to put our new magic items to good use (kill Le Ford!!!). Later on, the DM had thieves steal the ancestral weapon of one of the characters. With magic, we determined where they had taken that weapon (a battleaxe), but it was outside of the city. The player whose character's weapon was stolen, wanted to go get his character's weapon really badly. I tried to convince him to stay with us, and promised that we would get his weapon back once we had killed Le Ford. He wasn't convined. We hanged him. Some time later, the hated NPC informed us that he had put a spell around the city, and if any of us tried to leave the city he would die. I remember us laughing, and saying that we had no intent to leave the city without his head. But one of us, fixated so much in uncovering if such a spell was in effect and on how to unravel it and manage to get out of the city, so the rest of us (including the PC who was hunged due to wanting to leave the city and get his weapon back, and who now played a new character) murdered him as well, probably because due to his shift in priorities, we considered him no longer ''one of us''.... (irrelevant, butat this point I will suggest watching the movie Die Welle).
To bring down Le Ford, we realised that we would need outside help. So we came in contact with a group of revolutionaries, who viewed the rule of Le Ford with distaint. The problem was, that these were NPC's, and thus they were played by the same person that played our nemesis, Le Ford, meaning, by the DM. And boy, were we paranoid. We ended killing them all, deciding that we could trust no one but ourselves, and that we would bring the tyrant down on our own. We tried to accomplish that in many different ways, but despite causing him some minor inconviniences, we couldnt trully get to him. So in our frutration, the collective paranoia that guided us, proposed a solution. Since we could not directly harm Le Ford, we would destroy the city he ruled. And thus started the long era of our war against the city of Skuld (as it was easier to ''kill'' the city than the NPC that ruled it, or so it seemed). We started killing indiscriminantly. Guards, townfolks, merchants, whomever happened on our path and didnt treat us as kings of the universe (and assuming of course we wouldnt suspect him of anything bad, which was a rare thing as by that point, salvaging our sanity was already a lost cause). We pillaged, murdred, blowed up shops, inns and taverns, and commited every sort of atrocity the mind of a teenager with a grudge against the game world (that is full of NPC's that you save and then they betray you) could imagine. Our actions drawed the attention of a powerful devil, who sent some of his minions to treat with us and come to some sort of aggreement, but of course, these were NPC's that were played by the DM, so we murdered them too, and continued with our mindless destruction. But good things dont last forever.
Le Ford had his minions deliver us some letters (a seperate letter for each one of us). In the letter (at least in mine, but I suspect that was the case with the other letters as well), he said that he was amused by our actions, and that was why he hadnt killed us yet, but he had started to grow tired of it, and so he offered great rewards (I was offered a lordship and the position of the commander of his army) to whomever of us would turn to his side and help him kill the rest of us. The DM took us one by one to a seperate room, had us write down our reply while away from the others, and give him the paper. When we had all gone through this process, we sat back at the table, and the DM pulled out the letters and started reading them silently, one by one. He started laughing. We would just look at each other nervously, in silence, and after a while we would all start telling each other that he had told Le Ford to ''f*** off'', in our reply to him. We praised each other when we each took turns detailing the insults we had written back at him, but when the night fell and it was time for our characters to sleep, we each had our character find the safest place they could and secretly inform the DM where our characters were sleeping, all this on our own initiative. I guess all of us had started asking themselves the question, ''which ones of us were not longer one of us?''. You see, when in your very first dnd campaign, you get thrown into a world where the first NPC you meet and that you save, betrays you and tries to have you killed, you start developing the in-game feeling that everyone is out to get you (as evidenced by all that is said up to this point). And at the first sign that your character (which is ''you'', when you are a 15 year old playing dnd for the first time) might be betrayed, again, you throw all rational thinking out of the window, and try to make everything in your power to ensure that this wont happen again. At least, that's why I had my character write back to Le Ford that he agreed with his terms (dan dan dan!!!). Panic is not a good advisor. So out of fear that I was going to be betrayed, I decided to do it first to others, so I wont suffer their betrayals.
Throughout the course of the campaign, our resolve was tested many times, and almost every time a weak link was identified, eradicated, and replaced with a new character, all while the player would learn his lesson and would re-evaluate his priorities. For example, when some of our equipment was stolen, only one of us wanted to get his special weapon back so badly that he would postpone our #1 goal (ie kill Le Ford). And that PC was murdered, and the player came on with another character that was 100% focused on the task of taking Le Ford down. Later on with the supposed spell that would kill us if we exited the city, only one of us was intrigued that much so to focus on investigating this instead of focusing on killing Le Ford, and once again, we took out the weak link and same thing happened, that is he came back with another character that was 100% sold on the main goal. Wills were tested in other ways as well, like when we heard that a merhcant had in his shop a very powerful magic item, but the whole thing shouted trap. And a trap it was, by our favourite NPC, Le Ford. Yet another player, the ost greedy of us, went to rob the shop either way and on his own, despite what everyone else said. And that PC died too. During these 3 years that this campaign lasted, the DM fought a dirty war against us, and almost each time, he would claim, directly or indirectly, the life of one of our PC's. And that time, with the letters, he targeted the most paranoid and suspicious of us, which proved to be me.
Next morning, after our PC's had gathered together once again, one more letter came from Le Ford, telling us that one of us was converted to his side. Was I scared to be found out? Yes. But I was more scared of the traitor. You see, I was certain that Le Ford lied in his last letter, and that there was definitelly at least another traitor, besides me. I mean, there had to be, right? That was the whole reason I decided to become a traitor myself.
The cleric was the first one to speak. He said something along the lines, that he didnt believe there was a traitor among us, and all that was a trick set by Le Ford, in order to divide us. Paranoid as I was at that time, I immediatelly thought that the cleric had to be the second traitor, and I accused him as such. Chaos ensued. We started accusing and shouting at each other, all while our evil DM was laughing his ass off (I still remember the laughs...). At some point when I was accused by the ranger, I remember answering something along the lines ''I am playing a paladin without powers (ie ex-paladin, yep, I had fallen long ago) for so long, and I dont change character, so I can kill Le Ford with this character. And you think I am the traitor?!!! Are you serious?!!!!''. Shouting and bickering turned into in-game fighting, and back to out-of-game shouting and bickering, and so on and so forth. But no PC died in that incident. Instead, we dispersed in the city, and during the following months(!) we would play ''hide and seek'' and ''try to kill each other'' (seriously, it must have been even more than a year, while that situation lasted). Masterplans were divised, alliances were made, even fake quests were constructed when we wanted to draw the cleric out of hiding. And the lying. Oh, so much out of game lying. We were stupid...
I'll spare you from what happened next, but when the campaign ended (with the death of Le Ford!), I asked the DM who was the other traitor, and when he told me ''none'', I couldnt believe it. In fact, I didnt believe it. It was only some years later, when we were playing another campaign, that the DM accidentally found our letters in his papers, and he had us read them. I was so surprised to see that there was no other traitor. Panic, man. Panic is a bad advisor. And the paranoia of being betrayed, phew, it haunted all of us so badly (especially me, as it turned out).
The next campaign we played, was the quest the DM had planned for our first campaign, which we had never ended up playing, as we were too busy chasing the guy who fooled us for the previous 3 years. Turns out that this NPC, Le Ford, was a part of the next campaign too. Our characters met him, and he told them the story of some silly adventurers that had tried to kill him some years back, and how foolish they were in thinking they had succeeded (he had survived through the clone spell, from what we gathered). Our new characters didnt hate him though, instead, they worshiped him. This NPC was everything we wanted our character to be, back at that time. You see, none of us liked being tricked, and the lesson we had learned, was trick or be tricked. This would haunt us in the following campaigns. Many characters died and even some campaigns ended, because of this mentality we had adopted. One time we were trapped in a vampire village, and upon eventually finding the way to get out of there, half of us tried to leave while blocking the exit for the rest of the group, unsuccessfully. Fighting ensued, and when it was all over, only two characters were standing. Upong going through the exit, they came against what was meant to be the boos fight, planned and intended for the whole group.... a purple worm. And thus ended that campaign. And there were numerous other occasions. But you get the point. It was a long time before we could play and enjoy the game like normal people do. And as I said in the beginning, I am not sure we are entirely healed, though we did learn our lesson, finally.
Oh, and about DMPC's. It was a loooooooong time before we accepted a DMPC. We would always kill them sooner or later, even if there was no sign at all of them ever betraying us (and I dont think anything of that sort had happened again, after Le Ford and that prison incident). But I think, that especially when there was no sign of betrayal, we felt the most worried. It took a halforc of enormous strength and with a child's mind and a good heart DMPC, to finally accpept a DMPC in our midst. But as far as I can remember, that was the first and last time we had a DMPC in our group for more than a couple of sessions.
Panic is a bad advisor...
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