Giving Choices to Players

[DrowPiratRobrts]

I'm curious to hear stories about different choices you've presented to your players in RP that really worked (i.e. they were hard decisions for the players to make). I always like thinking of new situations to present the players with hard choices that carry consequences one way or another. I'm also trying to get better and better at just giving the information they need to make a choice and not saying explicitly, "Do you do A or B?" So let me know! I'll post a couple recent ones below. I think this sort of stuff is helpful to hear from other DMs because it gives us all a chance to experience new ideas and see what has worked and what hasn't.

[DrowPiratRobrts]

Two choices I recently gave to players without explicitly telling them the choices mattered or had consequences.

1) They were pursuing some goblins who kidnapped a local teenage boy who worked at the smithy. It was pouring rain in the middle of the night and the goblins had a good enough head start. As they traveled down the road, which they new could be dangerous already, they encountered a merchant party stuck in the mud and a lady with a bow standing watch called out to them for help. Had they chose to pass the caravan by without helping, they would've caught up to the goblins just as they got to their fort, and the goblins wouldn't have had time to set up an ambush or prepare in any way. Instead, they helped the caravan. They agreed that if they couldn't get them out almost immediately they'd just have to move on. So after the first round of strength checks failed, they tried one more time and succeeded. It was fun because a couple of the girls were in the party and they were standing there saying, "Come on, we have to go!" So everything for them was frantic and rushed and they really started to fell worried that they were waiting around too long and that the kid was in more and more danger. Really, the consequence was just that the goblins all got set up in defensive positions and had time to lock the boy in the tower. The hobgoblin leader had time to cast Disguise Self and appear as the boy for a surprise attack. So the encounter ended up being significantly more difficult for them, though they still barely managed.

2) During the above encounter the con man rogue found a magic flaming sword in the tower. The boy they saved mentioned that it looked like the town constable's sword, which had been stolen a couple of weeks ago. Later in the town some guards mentioned a possible reward for it (though the reward was significantly undervalued because it was such a small town and the constable didn't have the money to give a proper one). So normally the player would've kept it under these circumstances, even though the constable was a great guy and kind of needed it to protect his town. He was playing his character well. But finally, they went to the jail to interrogate some goblins who were captured in the attack on the town the night before. They ran into an NPC in jail and asked what happened to him. I had already decided that he was in jail for stealing the sword because he was coming to talk to the constable when he found the office broken into. Right then the constable walked in and arrested him because the sword was missing. That fact sort of clouded his usually good judgement, so he didn't believe that the guy came to talk to him about some vandalized crops outside the town. Anyway, I made the NPC really likable and funny and the party loved hearing his story and talking to him. So in the end, the level one party had to choose between keeping a high-powered magical item at level one and letting the town security suffer as well as letting an innocent man stay in prison, or giving up said powerful item for far less than it's worth and doing the noble thing. Some of them were pretty clear on what they wanted to do, but the rogue was the perfect character to find the sword because of his moral gray areas. They ultimately said what they each wanted to do but left the decision to him since he was the one who found it, and actually the only one who even searched the room it was in. He decided to give it back after a lot of deliberation, but it was fun to watch everyone understand the gravity of what they were giving up as a party in order to do what they thought was right.

So I love decisions like this because I'm genuinely happy with whatever the party chooses and it's fun to see them work through everything as a team.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm curious to hear stories about different choices you've presented to your players in RP that really worked (i.e. they were hard decisions for the players to make). I always like thinking of new situations to present the players with hard choices that carry consequences one way or another. I'm also trying to get better and better at just giving the information they need to make a choice and not saying explicitly, "Do you do A or B?" So let me know! I'll post a couple recent ones below. I think this sort of stuff is helpful to hear from other DMs because it gives us all a chance to experience new ideas and see what has worked and what hasn't.

Before I get down to specific situations, this is a large part of my style. Set up a fork where every choice is sub-optimal and watch what they do with it and then run with the consequences. My favorites are where they take the third option (that I didn't even present).

Example:
* The party was in a magitech research facility controlled by an amalgamated soul in a "computer". Their mission and goal was to destroy the facility, because it was used for evil research (think Nazi experiments on concentration camp victims, except with souls). The best way to destroy it was to convince the computer to activate the self-destruct. Any other method would leave traces behind. This made sense, because the computer wanted to die (feeling the guilt from participating, even unwillingly, in the experiments). Except part of the computer (some of the souls) wanted to live. And one of the residents (born and raised in the facility as a slave worker) considered the computer his "mother" and wanted to decant that soul into a mechanical body.

The choice was: save the innocent soul and keep the worker happy, but fail to destroy the facility OR destroy the facility at the cost of innocent lives.

They took the third option: research a ritual to disentangle the amalgam, leaving the guilt with the parts staying behind and decanting the "innocent" parts into the new body. Some great rolls and roleplay left the world with a destroyed facility, no innocent lives lost, and three new friendly NPCs (including a mentally-damaged dragon they rescued earlier from that facility).

[Man_Over_Game]

It is rather difficult to differentiate different options sometimes.

Generally, what I do is I'll say something of note about a particular objective ("You're Darkvision helps you notice in the night that smoke is billowing from a tower in the distance"), and usually follow up with an entirely separate objective, sometimes while en route to the original objective ("The party's Ranger passes by a blotch of blood on the side of the trail, leading deep into the forest. It's very fresh, barely cooled by the night air. Some brief tracking shows that it was running away from the tower, and that it was followed by several small followers").

I don't inherently say that there's one objective or another, the players have to come to that conclusion themselves. If they don't recognize that the trail of blood is a possible objective or not worthwhile, then they've already made their decision (by being oblivious enough to think it wasn't worth following).

Other times, it's just a reminder of a particular clue or thought while they're in the middle of something. ("As you approach the King to begin the negotiations for his aid, you remember that someone, allegedly on the King's behalf, assassinated the party's benefactor.")

Usually, I'll announce new information to the entire group, but provide reminders as written notes to specific key players (such as the Wizard/Druid remembering the situation with the King), so that there are other methods of the players receiving this information when it's relevant (such as another player actually writing down notes) if the player I informed chooses not to act on it.

[Lance Tankmen]

first campaign I ever ran, the fighters(EK) background was folk hero, and he had to save his village from a tyrant. But the party disappeared in the fey wilds for 25 years, the tyrant passed and his son had ruled for a bit, even finished the fort that loomed over the village. So now much stronger he still wanted revenge(tyrant killed his father who was also a blacksmith) on the tyrant but settled for the son. The siege on the fort was intense and went from the walls, to towers to court yard then finally the tyrants keep. After an intense fight between the two it was clear the tyrant(warlord stats) wasnt going to be able to quickly kill the fighter, vice verse the fighter swapped to sword&board and wasn't doing enough. The tyrant basically said " let me and my family leave in peace, i swear upon my name ill never bother your village again" The fighter of course declined. The tyrants response was " well we may be in a bit of a stalemate but i can tell your companions are easier prey, you "might" kill me but ill kill them first" to which again the fighter said "i don't care" So he cut down the NPC squire of the fighter (was a low level champion) then cut down the halfling monk, the Gnome wizard had run and the half orc was downed and pulled outta the fight by an ally. The only one left was the Wood elf rogue as the tyrant went for the killing blow the fighter conceded, as that was the party member he was closest to IC, he chose the Wood elf over his revenge, the tyrant was on his last leg too 10 HP. But the fighter was a man of his word as was the tyrant so the fight ended, the fighter only told him to leave the long sword he had , it was made by the fighters father. The final interaction was the tyrant, wife and son fleeing the ruined burning keep, The son of the tyrant was a spitting image of the grandfather (original tyrant) The player was like ****.... well we won so ill take it .



hmmm that's the only tough choice that comes to mind. pick your companions or your revenge.

[DrowPiratRobrts]

They took the third option: research a ritual to disentangle the amalgam, leaving the guilt with the parts staying behind and decanting the "innocent" parts into the new body. Some great rolls and roleplay left the world with a destroyed facility, no innocent lives lost, and three new friendly NPCs (including a mentally-damaged dragon they rescued earlier from that facility).

I also love those infamous 3rd options when the party finds a way to get everything they want and legitimately neutralize most consequences. I'm secretly my party's biggest fan when I DM, so it's cool to see them find work arounds that I never imagined.



hmmm that's the only tough choice that comes to mind. pick your companions or your revenge.

Even if that's the only one you remember, it's a really great one!

[PhoenixPhyre]

I also love those infamous 3rd options when the party finds a way to get everything they want and legitimately neutralize most consequences. I'm secretly my party's biggest fan when I DM, so it's cool to see them find work arounds that I never imagined.


My parties tend to do that a lot. And I live for those moments.

That same party, earlier in the adventure, had to get to the current boss and kill him. Their options were (basically):

a) sneak through, avoiding patrols. Assassinate quietly.
b) fight their way through head on
c) some combination of the two.

Instead, they chose
d) use a shatter spell on what I had thought was just decoration to knock the systems offline, use canned soup to make friends with one side, and then trick the boss's main minion into attacking the boss to weaken him. So kind of a+b+soup!.

Or another group which decided to befriend both sides of a dispute by some careful negotiations and by paying attention to how I described them, gathering allies to liberate a demon-infested ruined city instead of siding with one or the other and having to deal with the unfriendly faction later.

[Beechgnome]

In one planar adventure I was running, a player has a selfish con artist Bard who likes to pretend she is the greatest swords woman on earth and has a half-orc sidekick who helps make her con convincing. So: selfish.

But her other backstory is that she (a half-elf) is searching for her elf dad, who apparently has seeded many an abandoned child in his long life, and she is searching for him so she can kill him. (The player's back up character is also one of these half-elves and also would like to kill him.)

So, long story short, the Bard and her sidekick are in Pandemonium and they've been given coins taken from a slain enemy, which for my purposes gets you a ride on a boat on the river Styx, so they are trying to get on a boat. There are three in the party, and three coins.

Then who do they run into but a third half-sister, a storm sorcerer abandoned by their father after helping him pull off a robbery, and now completely crazy from exposure to the mad winds. She joins them, and as they make their way through howlers and vargouilles to the river, the Bard is slowly stewing, because she knows she has no way to pay her half-sister's way onto the boat. Then they end up in a fight with some fiendish thugs at the docks and one of the thugs - the only one with coins - dies and falls into the river and goes under.

Now she had a choice: jump in to get the coin for her sister, so the sister can help her track down her dad and because, well, you can't leave her in Pandemonium, or, screw her and just get on the boat and make sail for the Abyss.

Despite the serious risk (the River Styx has a nasty Intelligence saving throw when you take a dip) she went in anyway... made the save and for one brief moment, was the hero she claimed to be.

[Laserlight]

In a superhero (Champions) game, my character got ambushed and killed. And then an allied NPC telepath offered that I could come back to life...and she could die in my stead. I did a lot of pacing before I decided to accept that offer.

Usually when I offer my players a choice, it works out as:
Me: "Okay, so you look in the place a god just explicitly told you not to look. An unfathomable alien being offers you power, but it--"
PC: "POWAH!"
Me: "...but it will cost--"
PC: "I wear my hair forward to cover the tentacle that's started growing from the side of my head."
Me: "...Okay, let's run with that."

[Lunali]

2) During the above encounter the con man rogue found a magic flaming sword in the tower. The boy they saved mentioned that it looked like the town constable's sword, which had been stolen a couple of weeks ago. Later in the town some guards mentioned a possible reward for it (though the reward was significantly undervalued because it was such a small town and the constable didn't have the money to give a proper one). So normally the player would've kept it under these circumstances, even though the constable was a great guy and kind of needed it to protect his town. He was playing his character well. But finally, they went to the jail to interrogate some goblins who were captured in the attack on the town the night before. They ran into an NPC in jail and asked what happened to him. I had already decided that he was in jail for stealing the sword because he was coming to talk to the constable when he found the office broken into. Right then the constable walked in and arrested him because the sword was missing. That fact sort of clouded his usually good judgement, so he didn't believe that the guy came to talk to him about some vandalized crops outside the town. Anyway, I made the NPC really likable and funny and the party loved hearing his story and talking to him. So in the end, the level one party had to choose between keeping a high-powered magical item at level one and letting the town security suffer as well as letting an innocent man stay in prison, or giving up said powerful item for far less than it's worth and doing the noble thing. Some of them were pretty clear on what they wanted to do, but the rogue was the perfect character to find the sword because of his moral gray areas. They ultimately said what they each wanted to do but left the decision to him since he was the one who found it, and actually the only one who even searched the room it was in. He decided to give it back after a lot of deliberation, but it was fun to watch everyone understand the gravity of what they were giving up as a party in order to do what they thought was right.

So I love decisions like this because I'm genuinely happy with whatever the party chooses and it's fun to see them work through everything as a team.

A choice between keeping it and returning it certainly, but as for getting the man out I don't buy it.

If you're going to arrest someone for stealing something that they don't have with no evidence that they actually took it. You probably aren't going to let them out because a random group of people discovered where it ended up. If there's anything like due process, the guy will get out regardless, if there isn't, then he's the thief and the constable is grateful for the return of the item that the goblins found wherever the thief hid it.

[Zaharra]

My DM for my last campaign gave my Sorceress a difficult decision right before a major battle: Stay and aid the party in a quest that might very well decide the fate of the world or leave to protect her husband from an army of monsters. I took a look at my companions, gave an apology and teleported away back home and rolled up a new character to join the last arc of the campaign.

She had already given up half of her remaining lifespan to save her husband once, and she just hoped her companions she had traveled with for the prior decade would be able to manage without her spamming fireball.

[Misterwhisper]

Long story somewhat short:

In a campaign I ran, 1000 years ago most of the races of the world were cursed by the one god of the realm for their arrogance of thinking they did not need him anymore because of their magics.
There was a great war against him, which he won and cursed the races that stood against him, (essentially, Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Halflings, lost all racial abilities) and he turned his back on them, drifting into a long sleep. Before he drifted off he created a specific scourge for each race, an evil being of each race that was a paragon of all that is evil of the race and would punish them.

The campaign was a great holy quest as the last remaining descendant of the leaders of each race were banding together to try to redeem the races to the god by gathering the holy relic from each of the leaders that stood against him and killing the evil paragons of each race, because the only way to kill them was for a descendant of the leader of the race, wielding their old weapon could kill the paragons.

However, there was another group, who had bound together to also gather the weapons in order to kill the sleeping god to break the curse and release their power.

The campaign went amazingly and about 3 games from the end the group of PCs looking to redeem the races, faced off against the group that wanted to kill the god.

There were deaths on both sides and as the battle drew to a close, NPCs told the PCs of the real history of the war and how it had happened.

The real reason the other races fought the god was because he was not really the only god, many centuries before he had concocted a ritual to bind and imprison the other gods and bound their chains to his own soul. Each race had its own god, but they were kept from this plane by the one god. The god had won the war but was gravely injured and used the last bit of his power to curse the races, and to turn the 5 kings that stood against him into the paragons to make sure that the people never had the power to hurt him again. The reason that only the group of 5 PCs could kill them is because of their bloodlines that traced back to the 5 Fallen Kings, and because of that they could wield the cursed weapons of the kings and kill them.

So 3 games before the end of the campaign that ran for over a year, and lasted to level 16, every PC changed the direction of the campaign and the great holy redemption quest became the quest to kill the one god.

It was amazing.

[DrowPiratRobrts]

A choice between keeping it and returning it certainly, but as for getting the man out I don't buy it.

If you're going to arrest someone for stealing something that they don't have with no evidence that they actually took it. You probably aren't going to let them out because a random group of people discovered where it ended up. If there's anything like due process, the guy will get out regardless, if there isn't, then he's the thief and the constable is grateful for the return of the item that the goblins found wherever the thief hid it.

Fair enough, but I was abbreviating a lot of exposition as well as the party explaining how impossible it would've been for the man to break in, go hide the sword or even give it to goblins, then come back to the scene later before the constable noticed the break-in.

[strangebloke]

Fun one from last session:

The party is escorting a VIP who has to go to a place and do a thing. This VIP is a useless NPC noble who isn't very good at his job, and lets the party know that he actually doesn't know what thing he's supposed to do at the place is. He's carrying orders with him that only he is allowed to open once he gets there.

He makes it very clear: Anyone else opening this letter is guilty of treason against the queen.

So the party gets attacked by ghosts while taking a shortcut through a haunted forest. They could have chosen a different path, of course, but they didn't. These aren't standard ghosts, they've been juiced up by a blood ritual.

VIP seems a little strange the next day. DC 14 insight to reveal that he's possessed.

If they don't know that he's possessed, he jumps whoever is on watch the night before they get to the town. The VIP isn't as strong as any of the party even individually, but he does get a few good stabs in with his dagger before the party knocks him unconcious.

Now, were this a regular ghost, the man would be dispossessed. But since this is a juiced-up ghost, it stays in him until exorcised. At higher levels, they could just exorcise the ghost and move on, but they're only level 4 and don't have a cleric.

So now they're stuck. Do they open the orders and risk getting in trouble, or leave them closed until they can fix the VIP and get in more trouble?

Additionally, the orders are extremely questionable from an ethical standpoint. Basically the VIP was supposed to coordinate the forced starvation of an enemy empire.

[Unavenger]

I'm writing a mini-adventure path (might end up longer than most APs, actually...) for Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica. It contains a variety of choices:

"Depending on their response, one of five things might happen:"

"The combat can end in at least four different ways:"

"if three or more patrols go missing, they will increase the number in each patrol by one soldier and one fire warrior, then do so again for each further patrol gone missing"

"Of course, the players may not think to try to hide outside the view of the Boros and yet still on the streets. In this case[...]"

"A Rakdos bard sings songs in the centre of the tavern and can be persuaded to distract the Boros; the players could also buy the guards a round of drinks assuming the player in question is well-enough disguised, or try to frame their question as part of normal conversation with the barman. There is also an unoccupied fighting ring which could be used as part of a distraction. If the players cause too much of a scene, Edgar will give them another safe house to go to because he suspects that this one will be compromised soon."

"The players can attempt to fight the squads directly if they wish, but if they do so, the Golgari hideout is burned up in the ensuing fight. They cannot count on the Golgari’s support later."

"There are at least two ways of winning the encounter. One is to activate the cannon, fire it at approaching Boros who are reacting to its activation, and then escape, and the other is actually to fight off all of the Boros in the room."

"Failure to shoot down one or the other means that they will be defeated by the Izzet engineers, but at great cost to themselves: the players cannot rely later on the Izzet. If they don’t shoot down either, the Boros will charge through the Izzet laboratory, and a third patrol will manage to assault the Storm Chamber on the tenth round after the cannon was activated."

"Both of these goals are open-ended ones in practice. Some examples of how the players might attempt them follow:"

"There are three possibilities: one is that the Boros catch the players advertising, one is that they catch them giving out the money, and one is that they don’t catch the players at all. In the first case, the plan is set back. The Boros will attempt to arrest the hierophant and the players will need to act quickly to stop them. In the second case, the plan is disrupted at the last moment. If the players don’t, the hierophant or one of the listeners will grab the alms-coin box and throw the coins about the place, de facto completing the mission but leading to the attempted arrest of the hierophant again. In the third case, the players are speaking to the hierophant at the end of the sermon when a Boros patrol bursts in and tells them that they’re under arrest."

"If the hierophant dies or is arrested, the players need to come up with an alternative way of getting the Boros dealt with"

"If the players climb the side walls, there are entrances to the side which they can enter. Climbing a ladder takes them to the roof – if the players think to go around the back then they can get to the roof via ladder from there too – and from there, there’s a hatch that takes them down to backstage. Going through a side entrance or the main gate gets them to the back of the audience area."

For the last quest, each of the ten guilds has a criterion under which they'll help the players (for example, the Golgari helping if you don't have a fight in their base and the Izzet helping if you stop all the insurgents; even some of the Boros, despite being the campaign antagonists, will help if you refuse to murder one of them in a Rakdos performance), so the final quest can be either very easy or very hard depending on whether the players actually do things like using the Izzet's master weapon responsibly, not getting into a fight with the Azorius and showing up as witnesses when called to, not blowing up the Golgari, not flunking the first performance for the Rakdos, not compromising a Dimir safe house, not murdering a surrendered Boros fighter, and so forth). You also get some items that can only be found with a little effort. Not finished writing it yet, but it should be good when I get to try it out.

[Zanthy1]

In an older campaign I ran the players found themselves on an island shielded by a magic dome that only spellcasters could see. The island was a good size, about a week or so walk from coast to coast with towns, villages, and some small "cities" in addition to a king. The island was perfect, with different climate zones separating the corners, and perfect weather. All the people were happy, almost too happy. The players met a priest of death who said that the dome was created by the king and though he made the island to be perfect, it was still a prison and they would need to destroy the crystal energy source for the dome to get out. They also met the king and they seemed to like him enough, but were very suspicious when he got defensive regarding the dome and stuff. They also discovered underground tunnels, mines, and battlements and a hidden warforged army beneath the mountain where the castle was built.

They had to choose to betray the king and destroy the crystal or live out their days adventuring on this island, seeking alternatives to leaving (if they even wanted to leave). They made the decision to listen to the priest and sneak into the castle, find the power crystal, and destroy it.

Turns out that the priest didn't technically lie to them, the island was created as a prison but only to keep him (he was secretly a very powerful vampire). The King was the warden and by destroying the crystal they allowed the vampire to restore to his full power and kill the king, and then attempt to overthrow the mainland and everything. After they saved the world, the barbarian PC became the new king and married a drow queen for a combination political and sexually charged marriage.

The alternative: Had they decided to leave the crystal side with the King, they would have learned about his duties as warden, hunted down the death priest, and helped the warforged army fight the drow beneath the island (or possibly still tried to settle the disputes with a marriage)

[rahimka]

In the opening of our current campaign, I had planned several important moments with choices for the players:

1) In the tavern they stop at on their way to the dungeon, they run into a cocky Paladin (with a group of hirelings) who brags about his important quest to find an ancient relic in some nearby ruins (which he's yet to locate). The Lore Bard he's hired to help him locate the place is savvy enough to notice the PCs milking this guy for info and realizes they are headed to the same place. So she solicits a bribe from the party to keep the Paladin lost in the hills for a couple extra days. They can either pay her what amounted to basically ALL their leftover starting wealth or risk having to confront the Paladin and his group while trying to explore the dungeon.

Result: They are JUMP at the chance to bribe the Bard with all their money before she can even get around to the extortion part...

2) They've completed the dungeon and return to their Mentor's house with the MacGuffin, an item which can be used under the Full Moon (tonight) to remove the Curse of Lycanthropy from a single subject. The plan was that they use it to help their Barbarian friend's unborn child (due any day). He's an infected werewolf (hasn't embraced it, but learned to live with it) and knows it will be much harder for his kid to get the Curse removed in any other way if it is BORN with curse. But when they get back, the house is in flames. Mysterious assassins have attacked, and their mentor has died fighting them off and getting their friend's baby momma (who has gone into LABOR) out of the burning building. Between contractions, she tells them that their friend is still chained to the wall in the basement of the house in his werewolf form. Will they risk the flames to try to rescue a raging werewolf? Will they use the MacGuffin to make that task safer or honor their friends' wishes to use it immediately on the child before its imminent arrival?

Result: 3 of 5 party members run into the house immediately. One of them realizes he was the one with the MacGuffin and tosses it back out the door to the two still outside, who cure the unborn child immediately. Back inside, the lvl3 Fighter GRAPPLES the werewolf so the Rogue can pick the locks on the wall-chains. They proceed to kite him out of the burning building. As they then try to non-lethally subdue him, the Rogue is bitten and infected with the Curse on literally the last turn before the werewolf is taken down.

3) After they solve the entry-puzzle for that first dungeon and make their way inside, a familiar jerk from their shared childhood backstory shows up, claiming he's there to help and passing some moderate Insight checks. Still very suspicious of him, they don't let him walk behind anybody. After they find the MacGuffin and start the trip back, he makes a point of suggesting that after they USE it to help the unborn werewolf, they (and he) should KEEP it (or sell it) rather than hand it over to the Mentor as was originally planned. When some of the party is rushing into the burning house to save the werewolf in the basement, he is instead stopping to inspect the dead assassin near the door (and spotted by one of the PCs outside pocketing a dagger off the corpse, one which is identical to his own funky looking blade). During the fight to subdue the werewolf, he actually lands the final blow, and despite the entire party shouting (in-character) for a nonlethal takedown, he goes for the kill (and then another hit, leaving their friend only a single Con check from death). How will the party deal with this obvious traitor in their midst? Will they take him down or will they let him escape to become a recurring villain?

Result: They DONT deal with him! The Ranger rushes over and stabilizes/saves the werewolf with healing magic. The party member who saw that the assassin had an identical dagger decides to say NOTHING to the anybody else about (and still hasn't). The PCs call the guy a jerk for not going non-lethal but otherwise ignore it. This guy has become my DMPC and the "token evil teammate", happy to tag along on their quest for the other MacGuffins until they've got them all gathered.

4) At that point, the decision to keep the traitor around as an TEAMMATE threw my expectations far enough off the rails that entire plot threads went in completely new directions starting with the very next significant encounter. It HAD been planned to have the Paladin show up again on the road, demand they hand over the relic they had "stolen", refuse to listen to reason, attack, and then as he's stomping on the party get betrayed by his Bard mid-fight, tipping the scales back in their favor. Thus setting up the BARD as a potential DMPC to join the Party, and the Paladin as a potential recurring antagonist/rival with a grudge against them.

Instead, with the Traitor still around to bolster their numbers and DPS, that fight went far more in the PCs favor and the Paladin and Bard were both subdued. The Bard was thoroughly intimidated, interrogated, and then released, but the Party had less luck getting the Paladin to cooperate. Terrified of what he would do if he got loose (after he opened the fight by nearly one-shotting their squishy Druid with a Critical-hit Smite), they decided they HAD to kill him, so they let their buddy the DMPC do the dirty work of executing the prisoner. Which is leading to whole NEW plot I hadn't planned where they will have to deal with an Inquisitor that comes looking for answers about what happened to him...