Making my players feel guilty for committing genocide

[PurpleSocks]

I'm currently running the Kingmaker pathfinder adventure path for a group of 4 players with a mixture of good and neutral alignments. We're in book 2 of the AP and I'm running the troll menace as a rival kingdom that is trying to form a coalition of the indigenous monstrous humanoids to protect their way of life against the colonialist nation building efforts of the PC's (credit for that idea goes here http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2ljy6?My-Changes-to-RRR-Hargulkas-Monster-Kingdom).

Last session I introduced the rival kingdom when they went to visit an allied tribe of kobolds that they had befriended in the previous book. The PCs went with the intention to ask the kobolds for access to the silver in the mine that they live in, in return for basically nothing. When they realised that there was a delegation of trolls that wanted the kobolds to join them in a war of cultural identity against the humanoids things got dark very quickly.

I should add that the PCs have up until this point has a very good relationship with the kobolds, even converting them to the worship of Cayden Cailean. The kobolds aided the party in defeating the bandit king earlier, and have been treated with nothing but respect by the kobolds.

Chief Mikmek assured the PC's that they had no interest in joining any kind of coalition against their friends (the PC's nearby budding kingdom), and expressed a desire to simply remain independent and in control of their own lands.

My brilliant gloriously good players said their respective good-byes, blessed some hatchlings, and returned to their settlement to immediately discuss pre-emptive strikes against the kobolds. Talks of forcefully removing them from their ancestral lands were discussed by the LG Paladin and supported by the NG Cleric, while the CN barbarian made the case that exterminating the kobolds was the only way to access the mine. They yelled the discussion for now, but everyone agreed that sooner or later the kobolds would have to be dealt with.

Now, this isn't available question as to whether my party can do this or when, (they have the means and the opportunity) but I when they do this, I want to impress upon them the magnitude of this evil act in as memorable a way as I possibly can.

So I'm looking for little details and ideas that I can use to make my players feel as guilty as possible for wiping out a tribe of peaceful allied indigenous people who's only sin is to live on land that my PCs want, and be a traditionally evil race.

And yes when this happens the Paladin will immediately break their oath, and no I don't feel the need to tell my Paladin that genocide generally isn't considered acceptable by Knights of their order.

[zlefin]

while the players really should realize that, people are idiots sometimes, and best not to surprise them. I'd tell the players beforehand about it OOC, but of course group preferences vary for how you handle things.

Has some NPC in the kingdom tried mentioning to the players that what they're planning sounds kinda evil? at the very least someone should so it's not a total surprise.

I've always felt that the effects of a phylactery of faithfulness should just be a free thing available to clerics/paladins.

i'm pretty sure the cleric would lose the support of his deity over this as well (he's the one worshipping cayden callean, right?)

[Inevitability]

Being betrayed by those you consider friends is pretty traumatic. Perhaps it'd be enough for a few kobolds to rise as ghosts?

Don't even make the ghosts murderous, just have them be confused and disappointed.

[Celestia]

Make sure to tell the players beforehand, OOC if necessary, that what they are doing is Evil with a capital 'E'. If they go through with it anyways, change their alignments. The paladin and cleric will, of course, both fall for this.

I also like the ghost idea, too. They can have their silver, but they'll have to haul it out of a haunted mine.

[Vizzerdrix]

Make sure that some of the kobolds escape and make it next to impossable to form any new alliances. Breaking a treaty is serious business, and new people to a land would be watched closely.

[Mr Adventurer]

I agree with first of all telling them up front OOC.

The point about how this makes their 'budding nation' look is a good one as well. Apart from how easy it would be for some kobolds to survive and spread the message: the troll delegation could learn of it on a repeat visit. Since the relationship was friendly, probably members of their own nation would talk of it; even if they do so positively, such propaganda will be seen through by others, especially canny rulers and courtiers in other nations.

[Fizban]

And yes when this happens the Paladin will immediately break their oath, and no I don't feel the need to tell my Paladin that genocide generally isn't considered acceptable by Knights of their order.
Normally it's bad form to make a Paladin fall without giving them some warning, but the steepness of this example is pretty justified. There's plenty of room for "monsters are Evil" and Iron Age games, but they've explicitly treated these people as People, which means they've lost all deniability.

Personally I don't see them feeling guilty no matter what you do, not with how they're acting already, so I wouldn't bother trying to make them. Let the Paladin and Cleric's immediate loss of class features do the job for you- say right about when they strike the first blow of the operation, in combat but before they're irrevocably commited. Then when they inevitably complain you can pound it into their thick skulls. If there's detail it can go there, maybe a nice vision or other message straight from their gods.

Having them lose their powers at the start of the op rather than the end is basically the warning- instead of trying to guilt trip them with baby orphaned kobolds that they obviously don't care about after the fact, they have time to break off the attack and think about what they were doing. Then drag them through the muck while they seek atonement from a cleric that actually knows how to do their job (in-character lecture?), giving out the usual "do a quest while you still have no magic" requirement.

'Cause isn't that the whole point of the fall? You want memorable, there isn't much as memorable as the DM actually calling you out for your behavior and stripping your divinity mid-combat. People who actually think about it beforehand wouldn't consider it as such- but these guys obviously haven't thought about it.

[noob]

I think the intent of committing a genocide would be enough to change alignment without needing to commit it(since it is evil to want to kill people).
So you can tell them that if they keep wanting to do a genocide they will change alignment even before doing it.

[Blackhawk748]

I think the intent of committing a genocide would be enough to change alignment without needing to commit it(since it is evil to want to kill people).
So you can tell them that if they keep wanting to do a genocide they will change alignment even before doing it.

You can desire it all you want, you need to actually do it to change alignment, but theres an idea here. Before they actually commit the act, as in when they are prepping, they start getting a bad feeling. This is their gods not being subtle.

[Nifft]

My suggestion would be to ensure that when the PCs return to their PC-race town, they see a delegation of Trolls going through, on their way to speak with the local authorities.

Why?

This is what civilized states do: they allow delegations to talk.

This might help quell the feeling of betrayal at the fact that the Kobolds did the same thing.

[PaucaTerrorem]

I don't think a warning is needed at all. Murdering those you have treated as friends is obviously Evil. I'm morally grey myself and I know this. Do it the second they attack. Or wait until one of them tries to cast/smite and tell them it doesn't work.

[Guizonde]

if i may, you want to make your players feel guilt? good luck. i've only managed that a couple of times, buuuuut then again they did toss an anti-tank mine into a nursery. the guilt lasted about 45 minutes irl. as for why they tossed a 50lb explosive charge into a nursery? partly thoroughness, partly misreading a map.

maybe it's my friends are sociopaths, but they'll always find the most tenuous justification for their actions. so i'd say first skirmish make all the divine characters fall so as to give them one last chance to back out. if they go ahead with this, start preparing a new scenario asap. from what i understand from this party, this counts as at least registering as .5 on the henderson scale.

... are you sure they aren't aware ooc of the ramifications of their actions?

[Berenger]

So I'm looking for little details and ideas that I can use to make my players feel as guilty as possible for wiping out a tribe of peaceful allied indigenous people who's only sin is to live on land that my PCs want, and be a traditionally evil race.

Fervent, vocal support from human supremacists and unsavory mercenaries proclaiming their willingness to "share in the fun" for coin. Praise from the wrong kind of people can be quite insulting and disconcerting.

[noob]

Or it could make the players believe the gm is an human supremacist.
So watch out for the weird things that happens in player brains.

[Holya]

No kingdom start up is in its actions good aligned.. Honestly the paranoia makes this a messy situation to lock down alignment wise. Since their entire reasoning for wanting to kill them all is because a delegation from a clear threat was there and the kobolds actually humored them and listened. Right now? This is more chaotic neutral. ****ed up yeah.. But opportunistic and removing a threat before it can happen. You could argue that this is sliding into Lawful stupid or Good stupid in that your being so good you actually go evil. Some good neutral god examples exist where purging entire races is well within your alignment just because of the god.

I mean realistically.. Name me a any historical faction that actually felt bad about committing a genocide and considered themselves evil? So really it boils down to how you compare to your players interrupt the alignment system. Does justification matter? Or is it killing is bad and always bad?

But yeah.. Your in no way going to make them feel bad and if you throw half the party into falling then your game will probably end. So you might want to set up a new campaign since more often then not those that 'fall' will find a way to scrap their character.. That or then you end up getting a blackguard.

[Piedmon_Sama]

With respect OP, what you're doing seems passive-aggressive. You clearly don't want your players to massacre the kobolds, but you seem to have decided on a compromise that will please no one---letting them do it, but then punishing them afterwards.

Do you not want to run a campaign of murderous puppy-stomping *******s? Then just say that. Say "guys, I'm not interested in running a game where you murder a bunch of defenseless civilians. Seriously, do something else." If you need to give them some "in-universe justification," (although I think you don't have to---if you don't want to run a campaign for evil characters that should be enough) say to the Cleric and Paladin "look, as far as you know the Kobolds have acted in complete good faith towards you. Betraying them, especially for your own enrichment, goes against everything your god(s) stand for and you would both lose your powers immediately."

Like, a lot of the time there's this gap between what you think should be obvious player knowledge and what your players actually know. As a general GMing tip, if something relating to your campaign setting should be common knowledge, tell your players. If massacring the Kobolds would be flagrantly and directly in violation of Cayden Calean's teachings then your PCs should know that and you should tell/remind them freely. Odds are your players think that it is always okay to murder or manipulate "monsters" however you can---in some campaign settings that may be true, but if it's not in yours then don't make your players find out the hard way, is my advice.

[noob]

You can push your players toward the more practical solution to cram all the kobolds in a hypnotize conversion factory to convert them in lawful followers ready to die for the players.

[Bronk]

You can desire it all you want, you need to actually do it to change alignment, but theres an idea here. Before they actually commit the act, as in when they are prepping, they start getting a bad feeling. This is their gods not being subtle.

I agree with this... You should be foreshadowing the heck out of this being an evil act.

Usually, these games are PCs against monsters. They seem to be thinking 'Well, time to clear out the kobolds', so you need to really drive home that these kobolds have been successfully brought into the fold of the forces of good and can't be considered monsters anymore.

[GrayDeath]

With respect OP, what you're doing seems passive-aggressive. You clearly don't want your players to massacre the kobolds, but you seem to have decided on a compromise that will please no one---letting them do it, but then punishing them afterwards.

Do you not want to run a campaign of murderous puppy-stomping *******s? Then just say that. Say "guys, I'm not interested in running a game where you murder a bunch of defenseless civilians. Seriously, do something else." If you need to give them some "in-universe justification," (although I think you don't have to---if you don't want to run a campaign for evil characters that should be enough) say to the Cleric and Paladin "look, as far as you know the Kobolds have acted in complete good faith towards you. Betraying them, especially for your own enrichment, goes against everything your god(s) stand for and you would both lose your powers immediately."

Like, a lot of the time there's this gap between what you think should be obvious player knowledge and what your players actually know. As a general GMing tip, if something relating to your campaign setting should be common knowledge, tell your players. If massacring the Kobolds would be flagrantly and directly in violation of Cayden Calean's teachings then your PCs should know that and you should tell/remind them freely. Odds are your players think that it is always okay to murder or manipulate "monsters" however you can---in some campaign settings that may be true, but if it's not in yours then don't make your players find out the hard way, is my advice.

THis. Talk to them. Not always is it clear to the players what should be clear to the characters.
If they still want to do it, well


Fervent, vocal support from human supremacists and unsavory mercenaries proclaiming their willingness to "share in the fun" for coin. Praise from the wrong kind of people can be quite insulting and disconcerting.

should show them where their kingdom is going.
If they like that, and you have no problem running it like that, thats OK as well.

I for one would not want to play Kingmaker like that....

[Vaern]

And yes when this happens the Paladin will immediately break their oath, and no I don't feel the need to tell my Paladin that genocide generally isn't considered acceptable by Knights of their order.
I don't know if it's in the Pathfinder monster manual, but 3.5 has a variety of Inevitable that specifically hunts down oath-breakers, and if they fails you can follow it up with the Inevitable who hunts those who escape punishment. Making the paladin and the cleric Fall and then smacking them in the face with the physical embodiment of cosmic punishment should do the job.

Besides that, I'm with letting civilian kobolds escape to spread word to nearby kingdoms. Kobolds breed like rabbits and their settlements tend to suffer from terrible overcrowding. They're small, which makes it easy for them to hide. They're naturally skittish and expert trapsmiths - even if they mainly live in caves or the mine, the place will be littered with secret passages and back doors to escape from an ambush. No matter how thoroughly they plan their assault, it's going to be like trying to attack an ant colony with a fly swatter. There will be survivors, and a lot of them. Word of their betrayal of a people they called friends will spread like wildfire to nearby kingdoms.

[noob]

Unless they start using hypnosis on kobolds isolated to make them fanatic followers of their cause one by one until all of them absolutely want to do everything to help the players.
The plus is that they need to kill nobody.
Hypnosis is a very powerful level 1 spell and I think that it is the main reason why it is sad to ban enchantment: you get a spell better than hypnosis only at level 17.

[Nifft]

The more I think about it, the more it seems like a straight-forward declaration to the players would be the best route.

Something like...

"Hey guys. They're not betraying you. They're just receiving a diplomatic envoy, like any civilized nation would. Your own kingdom is also receiving a diplomatic party from the Trolls. Don't jump to conclusions."

[denthor]

Now I see this as a chaotic act not an evil one. Here is a law abiding society that they want to wipe out completely. Oh wait they are already converted to a CG deity. So the paladin can kill them under the no back sliding clause.

So yes evil act...for the cleric killing his own flock. He goes to EVIL in front of his own deity. No spells for him.

The paladin can fall killing good without them attacking first.

Sneaky kobold's can surrender as a group they neither paladin nor cleric can attack surrendered creatures.

[Peat]

Every table is different to feel free to ignore me but this really sounds like something to be sorted with an OOC conversation before it goes down.

There's a good chance - without knowing their personalities and therefore speaking in generalities - that they'll be too angry and defensive about you springing this on them to feel guilt or take on board lessons.

That said - if you really want to make them feel guilty - then I'd look at incorporating some small reminder into every session. The sort of reminder they can't fix or stamp on. I'm not sure what type of reminder would work but guilt takes time to work. I'm tempted to say tie it into the Paladin's atonement but if its mechanical, they might just see it as the price of doing business.

Incidentally, again if I wanted to hit them hard, I'd make a condition of the Paladin's return to grace - no silver. Collapse the mine. But at this point, with my group, I know I'd be heading to a rapid and angry dissolution of campaign.

Which is why this would be an OOC conversation before anything happens for me.

But if your group is different, good luck.

[Bucky]

"We'd like your cleric to spend a few days teaching our cute little yearling kobolds about ethics."

Last time I was involved in a Kingmaker campaign, the party killed a family of kobolds, so I later made sure they ended up on the wrong end of a grief-mad kobold druid.

[Zanos]

Not genocide, "just" a massacre. Manifest destiny!


The more I think about it, the more it seems like a straight-forward declaration to the players would be the best route.

Something like...

"Hey guys. They're not betraying you. They're just receiving a diplomatic envoy, like any civilized nation would. Your own kingdom is also receiving a diplomatic party from the Trolls. Don't jump to conclusions."

Yeah, this is setting and DM dependent. There are settings I've played in where accepting a diplomatic envoy was more than enough evidence.

Maybe some kind of knowledge check to determine if this is normal political dealings, OP.

[lord_khaine]

The more I think about it, the more it seems like a straight-forward declaration to the players would be the best route.

Something like...

"Hey guys. They're not betraying you. They're just receiving a diplomatic envoy, like any civilized nation would. Your own kingdom is also receiving a diplomatic party from the Trolls. Don't jump to conclusions."

This does sound like the most viable solution.

[Avigor]

I should add that the PCs have up until this point has a very good relationship with the kobolds, even converting them to the worship of Cayden Cailean. The kobolds aided the party in defeating the bandit king earlier, and have been treated with nothing but respect by the kobolds.

Chief Mikmek assured the PC's that they had no interest in joining any kind of coalition against their friends (the PC's nearby budding kingdom), and expressed a desire to simply remain independent and in control of their own lands.

Their deity is involved, thanks to converting the kobolds. Preemptive warning dreams are definitely in order; if they go through with it, their god should bring down the hammer, hard. The possibility of a slaughter causing the mine to become haunted, causing the now no-longer divinely-powered PC's to essentially lose access to the mine completely should also be brought up; it shouldn't be hard for them to have an epiphany from a behind-the-screen Knowledge check as well.

Granted, just talking to them OOC can also do it, it basically boils down to your personal preference - OOC or IC, take your pick.

[ATHATH]

"Are you sure?"


My suggestion would be to ensure that when the PCs return to their PC-race town, they see a delegation of Trolls going through, on their way to speak with the local authorities.

Why?

This is what civilized states do: they allow delegations to talk.

This might help quell the feeling of betrayal at the fact that the Kobolds did the same thing.

Fervent, vocal support from human supremacists and unsavory mercenaries proclaiming their willingness to "share in the fun" for coin. Praise from the wrong kind of people can be quite insulting and disconcerting.

The more I think about it, the more it seems like a straight-forward declaration to the players would be the best route.

Something like...

"Hey guys. They're not betraying you. They're just receiving a diplomatic envoy, like any civilized nation would. Your own kingdom is also receiving a diplomatic party from the Trolls. Don't jump to conclusions."

Being betrayed by those you consider friends is pretty traumatic. Perhaps it'd be enough for a few kobolds to rise as ghosts?

Don't even make the ghosts murderous, just have them be confused and disappointed.

Make sure that some of the kobolds escape and make it next to impossable to form any new alliances. Breaking a treaty is serious business, and new people to a land would be watched closely.

You can desire it all you want, you need to actually do it to change alignment, but theres an idea here. Before they actually commit the act, as in when they are prepping, they start getting a bad feeling. This is their gods not being subtle.

Their deity is involved, thanks to converting the kobolds. Preemptive warning dreams are definitely in order; if they go through with it, their god should bring down the hammer, hard. The possibility of a slaughter causing the mine to become haunted, causing the now no-longer divinely-powered PC's to essentially lose access to the mine completely should also be brought up; it shouldn't be hard for them to have an epiphany from a behind-the-screen Knowledge check as well.

Granted, just talking to them OOC can also do it, it basically boils down to your personal preference - OOC or IC, take your pick.
+1 to all of these.

[The_Iron_Lord]

Well that's certainly an interesting thread title...

I agree with what most of the posters have been saying; if you as a group normally talk about the game OOC, then tell them (especially the cleric, paladin, etc... also note that a druid with no moral (G/E) alignment who's lawful or chaotic already would also fall 'cause druids have to have a neutral component) that "According to the teachings of your god/your order, massacring my followers/good-aligned peaceful folk is freakin' evil". If your group prefers to do everything in character, then make sure you give dream warnings from the cleric's god, etc...If either the cleric or the paladin has a phylactery of faithfulness, subtly (or explicitly) encourage them to check it, and have it give the equivalent of "If you do this you will both nigh-irrevocably lose your powers in the worst way possible" type of warning.
And if they go through with it anyway, then make them lose their powers at the worst possible time. Have some kobolds escape to spread the word of your PCs' backstabbing, treacherous ways. If the PCs survive, make their quest for atonement (If they want to have one) be as difficult as it possibly can be.

[ayvango]

All you need is sufficient casus belly. Find a noble that are infamous among cobolds for slavery, man hunting or other dubious deeds, charm it to walk unprotected to cobolds. Wait until they kill him and you could send them the Ultimatum. That is my best strategy to play Civilization games. Made a provocation and punish the enemy severely. So you could conquer all the world without starting any war. And those nations that start wars should experience doom of ultimate nemesis.