Can I play this without murdering the party? Or should I just kill them?

[AmeVulpes]

So, I'll open by saying I made a bit of a whoopsie.

The situation:
The party came across a gold mine. Inside, they met some wyrmlings. Having learned from past experience killing or kidnapping wyrmlings (or so I thought), they decided not to try and slay them. I implied they'd probably lose anyway.
So, they talked through. They got recruited to help murder the wyrmlings' father while their mother is away on mage college business.
They completed the task after bloody battle in the process of obtaining explosives, and setting a "rocks fall, everybody dies" trap for the father.
So, lightly wounded and light on spells, they meet up with the wyrmlings, who essentially tell them that their use has been fulfilled, and to go away. I dropped some hints that this is probably best handled by Diplomacy or Intimidate, or at the very least retreat to heal and rest before initiating this.
They went straight for blood. [Some fighting later...] The party all heavily injured, and one wyrmling dead, they were offered a surrender, to take the agreed-upon items and leave. My quite greedy party went for the whole pot. Two members died, the others survived with just some flesh torn off*.
They left behind a lot of their stuff while looting due to weight limits*.So, mother is well-connected, wealthy, and angry. Unknown to the party, they have 11 days before the mother begins her plotting.
Now, one very minor mitigating factor is that the party is currently traveling through a region that is currently sitting at a nice comfortable -30°F.
The obvious answer for a dragon of this level of Sorcerer spellcasting is a good ol' *Scry'n'Die.
The party lost its strongest members and in their current shape will not survive an encounter with her. Not that they should.
The vengeful mama:
A Very Old red dragon with lots of connections. Not much needs said there.
The remaining party:
Tiefling Warlock 7
Tiefling Battle Dancer 6
Human Druid 6 (deadly hunter variant, horse companion)
An intimidated/diplomancied Nightmare. Neither they nor I know how to use AP cheese in this situation, and I don't see Etherealness as a long-term solution.
Items: A crapton of unidentified crap, some of which is cursed. The party doesn't know what any of it does. They also left all of their tools, ammo, and other gear behind to carry more gold.

I feel like I failed as a DM, to be honest, but we're here now. They knew that this was a bad idea, and the consequence was fairly clearly spelled out. Would I be a fun-ruiner if I murdered them with a dragon? Or is that just the way things are?

I'm also considering having the dragon stalk them and ruin all of their quests:smallyuk:. I'd like some feedback on that option.

And no, killing their family is not an option. Tieflings are twins with terrible parents, Druid is very far removed from the rest of her family and her parents are dead of old age. Maybe it could threaten some serious disaster-scale disruption of nature, but the other two may just ditch the druid in that case (she's the DMPC, so OOC they're not really screwing anyone over that way, I guess).

EDIT: the fatal decision-making was made by the Warlock, who is and has been the party leader.

If anyone can explain to me why this post looks ugly as sin after no less than 7 re-writes, enlighten me please.

[zlefin]

kill the party.

the only real question is whether to be mercifully quick about it,
aim for an epic battle,
or a game of cat and mouse, horror-style where the PCs try to get away alive.

[exelsisxax]

They've planted the seeds of their destruction. It's not your job to rewrite reality so they survive. Let the blades fall.

[Selion]

@AmeVulpes

Nah, IMHO you haven't failed as a DM, the party just decided a risky route and probably they screw themselves.
A strict DM would just kill the party, a good DM would find plot hooks, but if you do this constantly your players will think that they are free to pull the entire world in a mess because they are protected by plot armor. It really depends on your game style, both are legit.
It's fine having players "destined" to greatness and morphing the world around them, railroading the narrative to higher scopes, the same way it's fine having a survival game in a sandbox world.
Decide what you like more and what your players like more, then compromise.

[DeTess]

Depending on your DM style, there's one point where I think you might have done something different better, namely the part where the wyrmlings said 'thanks for doing your job, now kindly leave'. It's quite understandable that getting screwed over by quest giver in this way makes people angry, and I've seen it make entirely reasonable parties go full murder-hobo,e specially when done often. So my question is, was the wyrmlings betrayal very clearly foreshadowed, and was it a completely legitimate option for the PC's to respond with 'no thanks, we'd rather not get screwed over here, we'll look for something else to do.

If the answer to those of these question is a clear yes, then the players made their own bed. Otherwise you as a DM seem to have been deliberately putting them into a no-win situation, which is not fun at all. I've played with a DM that had us screwed over every other mission like that in Shadowrun, and at a certain point we both OC told him that that wasn't fun, and IC gave the guy getting us into trouble a very harsh ultimatum.

[AmeVulpes]

So my question is, was the wyrmlings betrayal very clearly foreshadowed, and was it a completely legitimate option for the PC's to respond with 'no thanks, we'd rather not get screwed over here, we'll look for something else to do.

The betrayal wasn't directly foreshadowed, aside from setting the wyrmlings up as scheming and plotting against things well above them. As for the option to say 'no thanks,' yes. They could very much have walked away at pretty much any point.

The betrayal was an indirect result of their own actions, specifically a bad Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering) check that led them to vastly overkill the lair and its entrances with explosives. The motive was also clearly laid out to them as basis for diplomacy; the wyrmlings simply didn't want adventurers hanging around long enough to excavate everything. Then murder happened, the party acquired stuff through Etherealness spam and strength checks, and they left.

As for repeat occurrences, I can think of only one past ripoff questgiver with one of these players, and that was... months ago, in a different campaign.

[DeTess]

The betrayal wasn't directly foreshadowed, aside from setting the wyrmlings up as scheming and plotting against things well above them. As for the option to say 'no thanks,' yes. They could very much have walked away.

The betrayal was an indirect result of their own actions, specifically a bad Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering) check that led them to vastly overkill the lair and its entrances. The motive was also clearly laid out to them as basis for diplomacy; the wyrmlings simply didn't want adventurers hanging around long enough to excavate everything. Then murder happened, the party acquired stuff through Etherealness spam and strength checks, and they left.

As for repeat occurrences, I can think of only one past ripoff questgiver with one of these players, and that was... months ago, in a different campaign.

It might still be a good idea to have a review with them to make sure the situation looked the same on both sides of the screen, but in this case it does seem like the PC's made their own bed.

[Eldariel]

You sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. See if they can survive. If not, it'll be a death by an extremely powerful being so it's all good; such tend to be rewarding and a good place to start a new campaign, after which you can review the things behind the scenes and let them adjust.

[AmeVulpes]

It might still be a good idea to have a review with them to make sure the situation looked the same on both sides of the screen, but in this case it does seem like the PC's made their own bed.

It's always the worst on both sides in the case of a DM-player misunderstanding. I think I will have a quick talk to brush up and make sure we're on the same page (but keep it low-key, as they're not really supposed to know how screwed they are, assuming we are on the same page. Not that they didn't know the risk, but right now they might be thinking they got away with it. (good thing they aren't Playgrounders))

I also very much appreciate the affirmations. I was under the impression that the community took a very dim view on intentionally killing a party- for any reason.

[Hackulator]

Ok so I am operating under the idea that rezzing the dead party mates is something that would happen in your game. I'm not sure how you're planning to do next session with people dead already, but here's my suggestion.

Run the previously briefly mentioned horror style game. Have the party trekking through the freezing cold in a whiteout blizzard. Have the dragon chase them into this blizzard. Have it make hit and run attacks throughout the game, toying with them and weakening them. Try to sell the feeling of terror and helplessness. Make it clear to them somehow how much a Red Dragon must hate them for it as a fire type to chase them into these conditions. Start killing them, 1 by 1. Start with the Nightmare so they can't use it to escape.

Then, depending on how you decide you want to go with this and if they do anything cool or smart, you have 2 options. Murder them all and start over. Or, leave one alive. Have the dragon tell him/her that she knows he'll get his party brought back, and that's exactly what she wants. Tell them she's going to kill them over and over again and always leave one alive. Tell the remaining member, with a big grin on your face, that next time they will not be the one who gets to live. Now the party has a terrifying enemy who might come after them at any moment. Maybe kill them again at various points in the future, always leaving someone else alive. The day they finally become powerful enough to kill her will be the most epic day of their life.

Also, of course, have her take back all her damn treasure.

[Crake]

I think the real question was: Should their plan to kill the father really have succeeded in the first place? Did they witness the father dying? Most likely he would have had at least one round to cast teleport and gtfo before being crushed by rocks.

If you really want to go with the father being dead, then keep in mind that the mother, seeming like she's a powerful sorceress in her own right, likely would have access to a runestaff of planar binding which she can use to summon a movanic deva to restore her dead husband to life, or simply a scroll of summon monster VII.

Also assuming that said husband didn't have a contingent teleport/revivify in place or something along those lines, after all he would have been an equally powerful sorcerer, capable of ensuring his logevity, right?

That said, if you DO want to say the players managed to kill the father, adventurers of that level of competence could be potentially very useful to the mother dragon, and using geas to basically force the players into indentured servitude could be a good way to a) punish the players heavily, and b) leave them alive in some capacity. To add credibility, say that the mother dragon was intending to murder her husband already, but they robbed her of the glory of the kill, and that's what she's charging them for.

The geas would be something like "Obey my commands to the best understanding of my intent, barring suicidal orders, until you have paid off your debt to me as detailed in this document." the document in question listing their debts (and any interest that may accrue), and the value of their services. Geas would force them to accept, even if the terms are terrible, as long as it is within their capability to actually pay off the debt, the geas will last until they do. Probably add a clause that also dictates that they can't try and betray her in any way either.

[AmeVulpes]

I think the real question was: Should their plan to kill the father really have succeeded in the first place? Did they witness the father dying? Most likely he would have had at least one round to cast teleport and gtfo before being crushed by rocks.

It went unstated, but they murdered him at the edge of his horde. I would have told them if his corpse had not been there, and it would be unreasonable to assume otherwise in my opinion. You raise some good points, and yes, he may be coming back himself (this is part of why I set up the mother as well-connected in the first place).

That said, I do like your suggestions.

Also playing with the idea of Planar Binding the Tieflings and Nightmare. Can't let the Druid escape punishment, though.

[martixy]

An effectively 6th level party killing a dragon old enough to be a father? Is the momma a cougar? Cuz otherwise I don't see a very old dragon mating with anything less than an mature adult/adult. I call shenanigans!

Even if your original plan wasn't like this, you now have an opportunity to correct it.

There's some kind of conspiracy afoot, for sure!

You just have to decide what it is, and why.

That way you can keep your party alive and only injure their pride, by having the puppet master of this whole fiasco gloat over how predictable and greedy adventurers are, and how easily they fell for it, teaching them a lesson in the process, and make something interesting and unexpected happen in the game.

[Torpin]

i dm'ed a very similar situation many many moons ago
first the mother used her spells to resurrect her mate and children, second she tortured the party, 3rd they had to give her all their treasure and lastly i replaced one of the pcs with a doppleganger, then cast cast force cage and trapped the party mid air about a volacno and they had to figure out which was the fake or else they wll fall into the volcano and all die, told the pc playing the doppleganger that if they all die his character got to live and let them try to figure it out

[AmeVulpes]

An effectively 6th level party killing a dragon old enough to be a father? Is the momma a cougar? Cuz otherwise I don't see a very old dragon mating with anything less than an mature adult/adult. I call shenanigans!

There were more of them going in, ECLs 7. And yeah, we're talking Adult. I was going for something that would teeter on the edge of "incredibly difficult" and "impossible" if they had to resort to straight-out combat. I didn't really think about the comparative age of the parents too much to be honest, but I also don't see dragons being particularly picky about things like that, particularly a female in her last egg-laying age category. Though maybe that's more reason to go the other way?


i dm'ed a very similar situation many many moons ago
first the mother used her spells to resurrect her mate and children, second she tortured the party, 3rd they had to give her all their treasure and lastly i replaced one of the pcs with a doppleganger, then cast cast force cage and trapped the party mid air about a volacno and they had to figure out which was the fake or else they wll fall into the volcano and all die, told the pc playing the doppleganger that if they all die his character got to live and let them try to figure it out

I like your style.

I think, after reading this, I'm happy with my options. Not going to kill my players outright unless they do something further to provoke it, but I see much revolving door afterlife and some Planar Bindings in their future. This might actually be pretty fun. Hopefully for them too!

[martixy]

There were more of them going in, ECLs 7. And yeah, we're talking Adult. I was going for something that would teeter on the edge of "incredibly difficult" and "impossible" if they had to resort to straight-out combat. I didn't really think about the comparative age of the parents too much to be honest, but I also don't see dragons being particularly picky about things like that, particularly a female in her last egg-laying age category. Though maybe that's more reason to go the other way?

I figured calling a part of Warlock 7 and battledancer 6 as ECL6 would be generous enough. Anyway, the way you described it actually seems rather fitting as "rocks fall, big bad dragon dies" sounds about the same level of DM BS(read: fiat) as "rocks fall, the party dies". Point is, for my money, that's severely underplaying the dragon.

[AmeVulpes]

Anyway, the way you described it actually seems rather fitting as "rocks fall, big bad dragon dies" sounds about the same level of DM BS(read: fiat) as "rocks fall, the party dies". Point is, for my money, that's severely underplaying the dragon.

Yeah, this is pretty much the mistake and DM failure I referenced in the OP. This was meant as an inconsequential sidequest to get the PCs up to WBL, which is probably a bad use for dragons in the first place. Sometimes I do a bit too much playing by ear, considering how near tonedeaf I am. :smalltongue:

[martixy]

Yeah, this is pretty much the mistake and DM failure I referenced in the OP. This was meant as an inconsequential sidequest to get the PCs up to WBL, which is probably a bad use for dragons in the first place. Sometimes I do a bit too much playing by ear, considering how near tonedeaf I am. :smalltongue:

Hence my suggestion - make it into a conspiracy. Into one of those "the rabbit hole goes deep on this one".

Maybe someone weakened/poisoned the dragon and lured him there, making your PCs the fall guys. Maybe it didn't kill the dragon. Maybe it was a simulacrum/ice assassin. Or illusion. Or a construct. Or the dragon itself staged it. Or an impostor attempting to pose for the dragon for reasons unknown. Or some other unfathomable reason! Go wild! There are a myriad ways to make the situation not as it seems to be!

Why was it there in the first place? Did it actually die? What actually died? Who benefited from it dying?
That's drama 101 here, come on, get creative!

[Darth Ultron]

You did not fail as a DM...stumble, sure, but not ''fail".

In general:

1. Never, ever, ever set up the players to fail. Or to be more basic: Never, ever ''think that with common sense" the players ''will" do one thing or the other. The answer is, simply: they won't(most likely). So just don't do it. Never have the players encounter something that will ''in just a round" or with ''just a roll" or with ''just one bad call or decision" Ruin or End the game.

2.Think outside the Box Now this can be a hard one, but it's worth it. The knee jerk reaction to anything is to do the obvious, as 1+1=2. Always. Like a computer program, or a robot. Just say this is a robot voice: "datum Pcs killed baby dragon/Conclusion mother dragon kills Pcs/End of Line". Ok, now that is exactly what you Don't want to do.

Now sure, some times you can have the ''obvious" thing happen...maybe two out of ten times....oh, but what about the other eight times: anything goes.

Let me try a couple though up in 1.1 seconds:

A)Mom does not care(they killed baby Zort, that weakling fool letting himself be killed by small furries!")
B)Mom ''asks"(haha) for some task/playment from the PCs for the ''hardship"...
C)Mom tells any living wyrmling "they hurt/killed Zort..first one to kill them gets my ''love"(hehe)

See, consequences...but not game ending.

3.Beef up your descriptions- How you describe something really matters.

Try and avoid ''um the baby dragons look like little red dragons" "Um, like red lizards...but dragons".

Try more: Each of the six foot long red scaled lizard-like creatures have the odor of sulfur and pumice surrounding them. Each has along their head and back a brace of swept-back horns and spinal frill defining its silhouette. The claws and teeth of the creatures are long and sharp...and softly glowing with their own internal light, much like a glow from a camp fire. They have beaked snouts that vent smoke at all times, and eyes dance with flame. Tiny flames dance along and down their body and wink out at it's tail.

See, at least some players might take the ''hint" from the second description to lave the creatures alone.

4.Beef up the Mechanics-On the other hand, some players only respond to pure mechanical crunch: go give it to them. Tweak and alter things to make them just right. Maybe even ''adding a whole single CR" to the monster...but often you don't need to go that ''far". A lot of this is mechanics ''beyond the rules" but it is So worth it.

Example: "As the red wyrmlings approch...the tempture in the area climbs up to a hundred degrees in just a second. Your skin, hair and items all get dry..and your character start to sweat in the heat. Breathing in the hot air is a bit uncomfortable, but does not hurt.' (see they have the magic ability to 'control temperature (hotter only) This is where the Dm can roll out the high heat/desert environment rules...maybe have a Pc take some non lethal damage.

Example:"As the red wyrmlings approach..a cloud of tiny sparks...like sparks from a fire fill the air. Damage 2 (save for half)

You might need more ''combative crunch" for some players:

Example:the spell Combust as an always active supernatural ability(combustible objects burst into flames 1d8/other 1d6)

5.Aggressive Negotiations-Have the 'foes' come in strong...not just ''walk over". So they meet in a cave where they can sit like 50 feet above the PCs. Or on the other side of a flaming pit or wall. Or they zap the PCs with something like web or hold person first.

Or, the 'talking dragon babies' are just illusions.

6.Fodder-THIS is why kobolds even exist. Have some KOBOLDS go over to the PCs and say ''good work, you must leave now. Yappy Yap, don't come back". Maybe the PCs will leave...or maybe kill the kobolds, and if so, oh well.....