You beat the bad guys. Hooray, you suck.

[Calthropstu]

So the quest to beat the bad guy using a mining operation as cover has been defeated. You destroyed the mine, killed the pet dragon, took the loot and return triumphant.

But that mining operation was the only thing keeping the town afloat. Now half the people in town are unemployed, there's not enough food to last tbe cominv winter and everyone in town is scared that they won't make it.

How do you deal with the aftermath of your adventure when you have a negative impact on your surroundings? Do you help to fight the wildfire your fireball started? Do you donate money to towns drastically hindered by your rampage on The Big Bad? Do you find homes for the now orphaned children of the bandit gang you slaughtered? Or does none of this come up in your campaigns?

[MeimuHakurei]

Personally, as levels increase, you should put more and more of this into context during adventures - so it's less "can we defeat these guys?" and more "what consequences would taking them down have in the world?".

[Sutr]

A lot of dnd games don't care. Sometimes beer and pretzels games we defeated the bad guys should be enough.

On the other hand lazy ingrates now the town owns the mine they can just start reexcavating the site, but they want to complain about it, maybe they should go raid the goblin towns for food instead.

Now it's a good to fight the wildfire and return the kids to civilization but some d&d players will get tired with this kind of thing without clear expectations before the game begins.

[False God]

I feel like not making some aspect of this clear beforehand is just playing a game of "gotcha!" with my players, and that's not fun for them, and that's not fun for me. Unforseen consequences are always a possibility, but if these things are elements the players need to concern themselves with, I'll make sure that's communicated by the friendly NPCs before the party sets off. I much prefer the players to have made the choice to destroy the mine knowing it will screw over the town, rather than destroying the mine without any context to what that would cause.

Destroying the mine and collapsing the town's economy is a "forseen" consequence. Something unforseen would be more along the lines of "the BBEG was actually keeping a nearby tribe of Orcs from taking over the mind and sacking the town". Or "the BBEG was actually the mine foreman, and without him the people really don't know how to mine properly".

Things that aren't the direct result of the party's action, but may result from the party getting involved.

[Netbrian]

I feel like not making some aspect of this clear beforehand is just playing a game of "gotcha!" with my players, and that's not fun for them, and that's not fun for me. Unforseen consequences are always a possibility, but if these things are elements the players need to concern themselves with, I'll make sure that's communicated by the friendly NPCs before the party sets off. I much prefer the players to have made the choice to destroy the mine knowing it will screw over the town, rather than destroying the mine without any context to what that would cause.

I 100% second this. If the adventure is going to have this kind of ambiguous moral stakes, not making it clear upfront feels obnoxious.

[D+1]

How do you deal with the aftermath of your adventure when you have a negative impact on your surroundings? Do you help to fight the wildfire your fireball started? Do you donate money to towns drastically hindered by your rampage on The Big Bad? Do you find homes for the now orphaned children of the bandit gang you slaughtered? Or does none of this come up in your campaigns?


I feel like not making some aspect of this clear beforehand is just playing a game of "gotcha!" with my players, and that's not fun for them, and that's not fun for me. Unforseen consequences are always a possibility, but if these things are elements the players need to concern themselves with, I'll make sure that's communicated by the friendly NPCs before the party sets off.
Pretty much this. Possible unacceptable negative aftermath of simply dealing with the BB tends to be just the DM playing "gotcha!" PC's are seldom oriented around subtlety, and the bigger the foes the more wildly destructive are the EXPECTED efforts to take them down. If you design an adventure with that change of expectations being intended, that's one thing, but there are LOTS of things in the game that get deliberately overlooked because it's just not as fun to deal with them. The mine was destroyed in taking out the BB and the mine was the sole source of employment keeping the town alive. SO BE IT. If examined closely then the mine is NOT permanently shut down - even if by rights it ought to be. The mine is reopened with minimal work and straight away is back in business and ALL IS WELL. The fireball started a fire in the forest. So, as DM I can decide the fire wasn't utterly destructive just as easily as I can decide that it was. If I decide it WAS utterly destructive and blame the PC's for recklessness that's me, the DM, being something of a jerk.

Now there are an infinite number of possibilities in these kinds of situations. Did the PC's know their actions were going to need to be kept restrained? Did they Unleash Hell without caring about the consequences, or just NOT KNOWING there would be unforseen consequences? Is this a bullstop morality trap that they can't win, or an enjoyable and intriguing challenge to solve that players will embrace? The more effort you put into undermining PC success by looking for and ensuring such buzzkill consequences the less that players are going to enjoy the game. If you want players to have their characters be more cautious and considerate of such consequences then that's one thing - and it needs to be communicated unequivocally to them. If it's just an unforseen opportunity to throw a monkey wrench into the ongoing game then AS DM you need to be mindful of the consequences of YOUR actions.

[Psyren]

Everything False God said, but also, what level are these PCs? Easy solutions become more numerous the more powerful the PCs are, whether it's finding someone who can teach the villagers to revitalize and control the mining operation themselves, discovering a new source of wealth/industry for the people, moving the entire town etc.

[pabelfly]

Depending on player level, the players could donate money to help them buy food - a day's worth of food for one person is just one silver , after all - and they could help provide resources to set up people with other jobs.

[Asmotherion]

So the quest to beat the bad guy using a mining operation as cover has been defeated. You destroyed the mine, killed the pet dragon, took the loot and return triumphant.

But that mining operation was the only thing keeping the town afloat. Now half the people in town are unemployed, there's not enough food to last tbe cominv winter and everyone in town is scared that they won't make it.

How do you deal with the aftermath of your adventure when you have a negative impact on your surroundings? Do you help to fight the wildfire your fireball started? Do you donate money to towns drastically hindered by your rampage on The Big Bad? Do you find homes for the now orphaned children of the bandit gang you slaughtered? Or does none of this come up in your campaigns?

what type of mine? it might prove benefical on the long term to invest in re-establishing the mine and employing the city to mine for you (as a major shareholder).

that is if you're interested in non-gamebreacing D&D ecconomics.

[Andreaz]

So the quest to beat the bad guy using a mining operation as cover has been defeated. You destroyed the mine, killed the pet dragon, took the loot and return triumphant.

But that mining operation was the only thing keeping the town afloat. Now half the people in town are unemployed, there's not enough food to last tbe cominv winter and everyone in town is scared that they won't make it.

How do you deal with the aftermath of your adventure when you have a negative impact on your surroundings? Do you help to fight the wildfire your fireball started? Do you donate money to towns drastically hindered by your rampage on The Big Bad? Do you find homes for the now orphaned children of the bandit gang you slaughtered? Or does none of this come up in your campaigns?

Next time don't destroy the mine. Uproot the baddies and let the people do whatever they want with it. If they fail, their problem, if they just replace a despot with another, their problem. If they prosper, their win.

[Sepultra]

How do you deal with the aftermath of your adventure when you have a negative impact on your surroundings? Do you help to fight the wildfire your fireball started? Do you donate money to towns drastically hindered by your rampage on The Big Bad? Do you find homes for the now orphaned children of the bandit gang you slaughtered? Or does none of this come up in your campaigns?
The biggest issue with this problem is that you need to be fairly isolated or in a low resource setting to really make it challenging. With normal WBL the Party could probably hire a foreman for the mine to direct it, buy the land for the town, or just pay for food for the townspeople for a couple of months without much issue.

In such a situation, I think it's potentially really interesting. It's something I think would make it feel more like you're playing in a world rather than playing through a story - especially if you get to choose who to side with beforehand, knowing the consequences - or at least having the opportunity to discover them.

[AvatarVecna]

Fireballs for everybody. First I broke their spirits, now I break their bodies.

...wait, this was me pushing wannabe villains out of my turf, right?

[Draconi Redfir]

Why not just start up a new mine?

the adventurers can probably help out with clearing out the old one of rubble. might be able to uncover some previously unknown secrets or make the whole place safer.

just make sure the adventurers aren't the only ones doing any work. They caused the problem yes, but the townsfolk have it in their power to fix it as well.

[Quertus]

As a player or GM, I love it when the players have the option of seeing and dealing with the reproductions of their actions. And I decidedly prefer when obvious consequences are obvious, and actions have more than just unintended consequences.

That said,


You destroyed the mine,

How did you destroy the mine? :smallconfused:

Also, more dead villagers = more undead for my army. And more starving orphans = more slaymates. So there is a silver lining, at least.

[Sepultra]

Fireballs for everybody. First I broke their spirits, now I break their bodies.

...wait, this was me pushing wannabe villains out of my turf, right?

Why are you breaking the bodies of your new sla- subjects?

[Jay R]

I’ve never done it yet, but someday I want the PCs to show up right after the catastrophe.

Perhaps they run across a battlefield, where everybody is dead ...

... except one unidentifiable baby.

[Kelb_Panthera]

So the quest to beat the bad guy using a mining operation as cover has been defeated. You destroyed the mine, killed the pet dragon, took the loot and return triumphant.

Yay. XPs and loots.


But that mining operation was the only thing keeping the town afloat. Now half the people in town are unemployed, there's not enough food to last tbe cominv winter and everyone in town is scared that they won't make it.

Well that's not good. However, those two problems are only distantly related. Unless, for some insane reason, they were keeping the town's stored food in the mine instead of a proper granary, they weren't going to have enough food no matter what we did. There's an argument to be made that, had the mine remained active, they could've bought enough food but if that's the case then they're not a super-isolated community.


How do you deal with the aftermath of your adventure when you have a negative impact on your surroundings? Do you help to fight the wildfire your fireball started? Do you donate money to towns drastically hindered by your rampage on The Big Bad? Do you find homes for the now orphaned children of the bandit gang you slaughtered? Or does none of this come up in your campaigns?

Depends on the character.

If I'm playing a more mercenary type, life sucks then it ends. Not my problem.

If I'm more of a hero type, I might try convincing the people that they're going to have to move to the next town/ city as refugees and might even offer to escort them, party permitting.

If I'm an exalted character, I'll definitely do everything in my power to undo any harm we might have done and to protect the people from privation. Class may necessitate that I still escort them as refugees to a new, safer place to spend the winter and I'll make what reparations I can.

If I'm a villain. This is my town now. Make 'em get their butts back to work digging out the mine we just collapsed so we can get to the goodies at the bottom. I'll produce food for them if I have to but I'm okay with them staying right on the edge of starvation as long as they produce results in the mine. I'd sooner pay mercenaries to keep them in line than go out of my way to make life in the town comfortable.

As for other situations than the one presented, the answer is the same. Different characters with different ideas and alignments will handle things differently and party influence is something to be considered as well.

[Thurbane]

So the quest to beat the bad guy using a mining operation as cover has been defeated. You destroyed the mine, killed the pet dragon, took the loot and return triumphant

Not sure if this has been asked already, but was destroying the mine a) part of the quest, b) an unfortunate side-effect, or c) an intentional (and unnecessary) act on the party's part?

My PC recently completed a module where we defeated the BBEG (a crazy bard lycanthrope who was a descendant of the mine's original owners) and cleared the mine of monsters (including an ancient imprisoned vampire) - we then legally purchased the deed to the mine, and appointed a manager to run it on our behalf.

[Katie Boundary]

My bard shall compensate them for their losses by giving them the gift of song

[ezekielraiden]

So the quest to beat the bad guy using a mining operation as cover has been defeated. You destroyed the mine, killed the pet dragon, took the loot and return triumphant.

But that mining operation was the only thing keeping the town afloat. Now half the people in town are unemployed, there's not enough food to last tbe cominv winter and everyone in town is scared that they won't make it.

How do you deal with the aftermath of your adventure when you have a negative impact on your surroundings? Do you help to fight the wildfire your fireball started? Do you donate money to towns drastically hindered by your rampage on The Big Bad? Do you find homes for the now orphaned children of the bandit gang you slaughtered? Or does none of this come up in your campaigns?
If the consequences of my actions--even actions done with the best of intentions, even actions that were necessary--are that innocents will suffer, it is my responsibility to, within the limits of my capabilities and prior commitments, see that suffering mitigated or entirely eliminated. Ideally, consequences like this either never happen or are expected in advance, and I've already got a plan or a process to fix it. But the world is often not ideal and you deal with these things as they arise.

And yes, this means I will happily derail a campaign for three IRL weeks making sure a town can feed itself if we done screwed up. I naturally play Team Dad; "clean up this mess!" is instinctive.

Likewise, for the game I run, there are consequences to these kinds of actions. My players understand quite well that their actions have consequences, and are not at all upset by this knowledge. They know that, while they don't store up "good karma" per se, if they work to make the world a better place than when they dropped by, the world overall will become a better place. And if they leave it worse...well, it will get worse. That's the nature of things. The world needs heroes, and if they're heroic, things get better. In fact, as it stands, we're kinda-sorta dealing with a similar sort of thing. I had expected the party to be more GUNG-HO kick-butt about something, and instead they have been MUCH more cautious (though really that's what I should have expected, they've always been cautious), trying to actively mitigate or even prevent any negative fallout before they do more than dipping their toes. I'll probably have to light a fire under their tails sooner rather than later, show them that they can't stay in a holding pattern forever while they wait for a guarantee of zero negative consequences.

[Katie Boundary]

Here's a question: who owned the mine? If the Big Bad owned it and was merely hiring the townsfolk to work in it, then you are 100% within your rights to do as much damage to the mine, and to the rest of the Big Bad's property, as you deem fit, without regard for any downstream consequences. On the other hand, if the mine was owned by the townsfolk, then you had a moral obligation to cause as little collateral damage as possible, and to reimburse the owner(s) for any damage that you do cause... unless the Big Bad was using the miners as human shields. In that case, the Geneva Conventions (which definitely apply to medieval fantasy settings) specifically state that the Big Bad is responsible for any and all collateral damage. If the Big Bad was hiding in the mine in order to use your unwillingness to cause collateral damage against you, but no miners were in the mine at the time of the fight so all collateral damage was purely structural/financial, then I'm not sure what rules apply. Did the Big Bad have the mine owner's permission to be there? Did you have permission from the owner to evict the Big Bad by any means necessary?


</Lawful Neutral>

[rel]

I don't tend to set up that sort of scenario. In my experience, the PC's need no encouragement to murderhobo and NPC's complaining about adventurers is a pretty big encouragement.

[Mordante]

In the adventures I play and GM I expect the PCs to be well aware of the consequences of their actions. During a previous big city siege, we were defending we spend a lot of time preparing is so that we had food in stock, that the people were safe. We had set up a dimensional portal to a builders place so that they could rebuild the city. We had connections with farms all over the place to provide food after the siege.

We set up a trust fund for the city orphans the list goes on endlessly. We spend about half a year of gaming preparing for the siege. Before that we traveled the world gathering allies.

[Mordante]

I love setting up my party with moral decisions. Sometimes they have to chose between evil and evil.

[Thurbane]

Is the OP coming back to read our replies or answer our questions?

[Evil DM Mark3]

But that mining operation was the only thing keeping the town afloat. Now half the people in town are unemployed, there's not enough food to last tbe cominv winter and everyone in town is scared that they won't make it.So who owns this mine? Mines are large financial undertakings that require substantial upfront investment, in a medievalish setting they are major regions money generators, later on they became private enterprises. In either case someone other than the party and the group has a stake in this.

Whatever they are mining is important to the local economy, if for no other reason than mining is a very unpleasant way to earn money. If the local lord etc wasn't involved in sending the party in there may be some issues, but if they were working for the local authority, who are likely also the ultimate owners of the mine, then no issue. Its not like clearing a collapsed mine is difficult, at least compared to the actual mining operations themselves.

Plus miners are skilled workers, at least in those times and places where they aren't skilled slaves (like I said, its not a pleasant job). Knowing how to take chunks out of a mountain safely while standing under said mountain is not a skill learned overnight.

All in all this isn't a huge crisis, and the real question is, what did you do last time there was a significant collapse (they happen, and not rarely. Not a pleasant or easy way to earn money)?

[Calthropstu]

Is the OP coming back to read our replies or answer our questions?

Yes, I am. And, unsurprisingly, there is an impressively wide array amongst the responses. More responses are welcome of course.

As to who owned the mine, this is entirely hypothetical. I used the mine because I recently replayed baldur's gate and thought back to the drowning of the mine. And then I thought "what happens if that was a town's primary source of income?"

It isn't hard to see a scenario form where the town begins cursing the pcs and viewing them as the source of their coming doom.

[Thurbane]

Yes, I am. And, unsurprisingly, there is an impressively wide array amongst the responses. More responses are welcome of course.

As to who owned the mine, this is entirely hypothetical. I used the mine because I recently replayed baldur's gate and thought back to the drowning of the mine. And then I thought "what happens if that was a town's primary source of income?"

It isn't hard to see a scenario form where the town begins cursing the pcs and viewing them as the source of their coming doom.

Fair enough. :smallsmile:

Then I go back to my questions of motivation:


was destroying the mine a) part of the quest, b) an unfortunate side-effect, or c) an intentional (and unnecessary) act on the party's part?

IMHO, that is the key.

If destroying the mine was required to stop a gate to the Abyss from opening, preventing an evil dragon from ravishing the countryside, or something similar, then the hardship of the townsfolk is an unfortunate, but necessary, consequence. A good party might still feel the need to make some kind of restitution or help set up an alternate source of income for the town.

If destroying the mine was something the party didn't foresee, but happened during a climactic final battle with the BBEG, again, a good party might feel the need to make amends.

If the party are a bunch of CN murderhobos who destroyed the mine on a whim just for funsies, then I doubt anyone will feel a pang of remorse.

[denthor]

Did someone hire the party to get at the person in the mine? A contract?

Did they stumble upon his mine and just take out the bad dude?

Who in the mine was killed? Forman, map maker, structural engineer? Can they be replaced with the existing town folk?

Children in D&D are not the same as children now. 12,13,14 are training stages for adult life. Take a look at the age guides you might be surprised at the young age of human adventures. Remember it could take years of training to reach 1st level. There is your work force for the mine.

How much food is there? Can a ranger be dispatched to get more grain? Mining towns are boom and/or bust anyway. Trade routes to and from the town? 20 miles is typically good travel time with a horse, cart and road. 10 miles by foot is a good walk.

[Gallowglass]

I’ve never done it yet, but someday I want the PCs to show up right after the catastrophe.

Perhaps they run across a battlefield, where everybody is dead ...

... except one unidentifiable baby.

Roll for init baby!

[Karl Aegis]

As a proper Good person, it is my duty to deal with the townsfolk that have been forced into banditry due to my own actions. If I kill enough of them the normal townsfolk will have enough food to survive winter. The more bad things you do the better the situation becomes! Hurrah, Good Alignment!

[Blue Jay]

So the quest to beat the bad guy using a mining operation as cover has been defeated. You destroyed the mine, killed the pet dragon, took the loot and return triumphant.

But that mining operation was the only thing keeping the town afloat. Now half the people in town are unemployed, there's not enough food to last tbe cominv winter and everyone in town is scared that they won't make it.

My knee-jerk reaction was to say something like "Any normal pseudo-medieval village ought to be able to grow its own food, and wouldn't be reliant on something so esoteric as 'employment' for their survival." But, that's making some assumptions about the socioeconomic situation of your game world.

Honestly, I once had a DM who was really good at this sort of thing. If we made a stupid decision, he'd make it have consequences. But then, if the players seemed unhappy about the way he handled it or weren't going to have fun dealing with the consequences, he would just make sure the solution didn't take up too much of our time, so we could get back to what we wanted quickly.

For example, in this mining situation, if nobody wanted to spend time on it, he'd probably let us resolve the situation with a quick Diplomacy check and some token roleplay. Like, if one of us started looking for ways to help the villagers support themselves, he'd make it fairly easy to come up with a good solution. "Oh yeah!" the villagers would say, "We do know how to fish! The neighboring villages would surely want to buy our fish."

[Jay R]

Here's a question: who owned the mine? If the Big Bad owned it and was merely hiring the townsfolk to work in it, then you are 100% within your rights to do as much damage to the mine, and to the rest of the Big Bad's property, as you deem fit, without regard for any downstream consequences. On the other hand, if the mine was owned by the townsfolk, then you had a moral obligation to cause as little collateral damage as possible, and to reimburse the owner(s) for any damage that you do cause... unless the Big Bad was using the miners as human shields. In that case, the Geneva Conventions (which definitely apply to medieval fantasy settings) specifically state that the Big Bad is responsible for any and all collateral damage. If the Big Bad was hiding in the mine in order to use your unwillingness to cause collateral damage against you, but no miners were in the mine at the time of the fight so all collateral damage was purely structural/financial, then I'm not sure what rules apply. Did the Big Bad have the mine owner's permission to be there? Did you have permission from the owner to evict the Big Bad by any means necessary?


</Lawful Neutral>

My friends and I prefer to play heroes. We don't want innocent people to have their lives ruined by our actions, regardless of ownership rights.

[Evil DM Mark3]

As to who owned the mine, this is entirely hypothetical

Ah, well that explains it. Hypothetical situations are always hard to answer and, to my mind, unsatisfying because the devil is in the details and we are often stuck navigating between that devil and the deep blue sea, of, um, bad answers.

Do the party owe the community for upsetting the mine? I have no idea. There is no general principle that says they do, to answer further I really need to know who they are, why they are there, what was in the mine, why it had to die, how the mine collapsed, where the other settlements nearby are, what casualties there were...

[Thurbane]

To quote a very flawed analogy, if the cops crash into your parked car while in a high speed pursuit of a murderer, do they (or their organisation) have an obligation to compensate you for your losses? In most lawful societies, the answer would be "yes".

It would depend on the laws of the land, but I would think in most countries, a legal body would compensate you. In some countries, the compensation might be drawn directly from the seized assets of the murderer once apprehended.

From a moral perspective, rather than legal, I'm sure if any of us found ourselves in the situation of being the damaged car owner, we would certainly hope someone would compensate us, whether it was insurance, a legal body, or other.

The townsfolk would most likely be grateful for the party defeating a BBEG that was potentially a threat to their lives, but would also be hoping that someone would help restore some kind of ability for them to sustain themselves, if the mine was their only, or primary, source of income.

A good and/or lawful party might devote a portion of loot from the adventure to helping fund some kind of sustainable alternative source of income for the town.

[Bartmanhomer]

It's sounds like a case of Stupid Good no matter which side of the alignment goes to. :sigh:

[Duff]

Thanks for this post! Now I want to run a game where the PCs spend the whole campaign cleaning up after the "Heroes" They come home from dealing with a tribe of displaced goblins (Guess who displaced the goblins?) to find their home town in logistical peril due to a collapsed mine. Sometimes they know who they're cleaning up after, sometimes they only find out later. Eventually the players will realise that Every. Single. Problem. they've dealt with was caused by the "heroes" recklessness (or at least their shallow thinking).

[Malroth]

My current character, a LE Housecat Telepath: You don't want to mine any more you want to become fishermen, Here I will rent you some fishing boats and nets (quickly made with psionic fabricate) You will pay me 30% of your catch untill such time as you can afford to purchase the boats from me.

[Tiktakkat]

I ran a story arc within a campaign in which the PCs were up against a bad guy who controlled the economy of the town. In addition, the town itself was rather thoroughly CN-CE, with very few upstanding citizens. And the logging economy was not particularly friendly to the local ecosystem. (All based on a set of published adventures.)
Thus the question of "wrecking the economy" was tempered by "does the town deserve to be saved?"
Indeed at one point, the PCs discussed simply rescuing the dozen or so provably decent people, burning the whole place to the ground, and starting over 5 miles down the road. (This was due to the greater campaign goal of convincing the town to join their kingdom by being heroes and winning the people over.) Even the paladin, who was a very proper paladin, was ready to go along with the plan, and I found myself unable to declare that such an act would cause him to fall.
Fortunately greater standards of heroism won the day, and they focused on just cleaning up the place, no matter how difficult it was or how much the ordinary, oppressed residents did not particularly want the place cleaned up.
As part of that, the PCs made efforts to "figure out" how to deal with the economic disruption. "Fortunately" that was somewhat ameliorated by various evil plots that caused enough destruction that the locals were willing to accept changes.

So in practice, the concept could work, but I expect it would have to be hardwired into the campaign plan by the DM, with plans for the PCs making plans to fix things, and space for the PCs to enact such plans before dragging them off to another part of the setting for further adventures suitable to higher level characters.

[rel]

Thanks for this post! Now I want to run a game where the PCs spend the whole campaign cleaning up after the "Heroes" They come home from dealing with a tribe of displaced goblins (Guess who displaced the goblins?) to find their home town in logistical peril due to a collapsed mine. Sometimes they know who they're cleaning up after, sometimes they only find out later. Eventually the players will realise that Every. Single. Problem. they've dealt with was caused by the "heroes" recklessness (or at least their shallow thinking).

PC1: Why do we just keep cleaning up after those douchenozzles? Shouldn't we confront them?

PC2: You have to understand, those hobo's are really REALLY good at murder. And we don't want them to realise people have a problem, they might adopt a 'no witnesses' policy.

PC3: I've seen the aftermath of that, a whole village killed. Everything was dead, even some of the trees had been stabbed.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Thanks for this post! Now I want to run a game where the PCs spend the whole campaign cleaning up after the "Heroes" They come home from dealing with a tribe of displaced goblins (Guess who displaced the goblins?) to find their home town in logistical peril due to a collapsed mine. Sometimes they know who they're cleaning up after, sometimes they only find out later. Eventually the players will realise that Every. Single. Problem. they've dealt with was caused by the "heroes" recklessness (or at least their shallow thinking).

Isn't that just Rise of the Shield Hero without the frame-job at the start?