To prevent inter-party conflict as the DM

[Thajocoth]

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So I'm DMing a game... And the 3 core players (who show up every session) pretty much decide what goes on. The other players show up every 1-2 months for a session each. The core 3 are:

Lawful Good (Leaning Neutral Good) Half-Elf Valorous Bard with insane Diplomacy and very good Bluff. He never deals lethal damage and prefers to talk his way through situations.

True Neutral (Leaning Neutral Evil) Tiefling Assault Swordmage. He's an atheist and generally out for himself.

Chaotic Neutral Minotaur Rageblood Barbarian. He's driven by two things: Heavy drinking, and hitting things with his axe. There are limits on what he'll hit with his axe though. While often a wildcard, it's usually when the other players are overthinking something simple that he charges in, and it's always been beneficial to the party for him to do so.

Situation: The party is hired by the city guard and investigating the central base of operations of an underground mafia run by a black dragon. They fight their way down, through duergar, undead, traps, and solving a puzzle... They reach a black dragon (son of the mob's boss.)

The dragon explains that they were expecting the party and that they're willing to hire the party, paying them better than the city guard does, to take positions that the party opened up. They also explain 2 scenarios:

Scenario 1: The mob fails to take over the city. By the command of him or his mother, or the lack of any commands at all, a few thousand people, all members of this mob launch a chaotic strike against various key locations throughout the city. All the murder, theft and whatnot would be on the player's conscience.

Scenario 2: The players help the mob take over the city by cleaner, more direct means, and as lords of the city wind up making most of the rules which may follow their own morality. He and his mother only want to rule the city as a form of wealth, really, and to increase their hoard.

The Barbarian's instinct was to just charge in (which would've saved everyone a lot of trouble), but the Bard and Swordmage both talked him down for conflicting reasons.

To tempt them, the dragon gives them 2000gp (the sum of the treasure parcels the party is supposed to get for the battles throughout the dungeon on their way there.) The Barbarian and Swordmage accept. The Bard bluffs to accept. The dragon puts the money on the Bard's Tenser's Floating Disk. They receive a mission to gather an artifact of power from the mountains to the north.

The Bard intends to bring this bribe to either the adviser to the city's king or the captain of the guard, both of whom they've received missions from before. He also intends to tell them everything.

Meanwhile, the Swordmage has switched sides. The Barbarian would go either way, really, but would be vehemently against giving away the gold.

Now, I'm ok with running an evil campaign, so long as no one's good. I also don't want evil characters in a good party and have said as much at character creation. They're roleplaying VERY well, but I think it's heading for a point where the Swordmage and Bard will wind up dueling to the death. Possibly while the Bard's asleep...

Short version:
After a convincing evil speech and a bribe, half the party joined the evil group, and the other half bluffed the bad guys into thinking they did. The one receiving the bribe plans on giving it to the good quest-giver instead of splitting it with the party, and telling the good quest-giver everything that's happened. I'm pretty sure somebody in the group will be dying in their sleep if I don't figure out how to fix this.

[Katana_Geldar]

You could explain your dilemma how you''re not sure where to go with this and ask them to solve it in-character without fighting. Tell them there can be only one solution to this and they need to work it out.

Or, you could introduce a third factor that satisfies both sides.

[Milskidasith]

How is a bard lawful? Not that it matters; alignment restrictions are dumb, just curious if you noticed and houseruled, or if there was a storyline reason.

As for the situation... you might want to explain to the bard that his X wisdom shows that giving up the money is A: not good for his friendship and B: going to get a massive number of people killed. Emphasize this! Even as the PCs, fighting several thousand people (assuming they aren't above, like, 15th level or so) is not going to work; the city is going to fall no matter what, so they would be both more good and more practical to just let the "bad guys" win. At best, make terms with them that the city is ruled fairly.

[Kylarra]

How is a bard lawful? Not that it matters; alignment restrictions are dumb, just curious if you noticed and houseruled, or if there was a storyline reason.

4e doesn't have alignment restrictions.

[Milskidasith]

4e doesn't have alignment restrictions.

This isn't 4e; 4e doesn't have Chaotic Neutral, and Neutral Evil is just Evil.

[Katana_Geldar]

It sounds like 4E, as 4E has the Swordmage and the Valourous Bard. I think he's homebrewed in the alignment system or using it here to describe what he unalign characters are like.

[Mando Knight]

Or, you could introduce a third factor that satisfies both sides.

Or a third factor that if left unchecked would spell DOOM for the party. Like a greased-wall pit underneath a floating pile of coins. Or a mindflayer invasion. Or something like that.

[Temet Nosce]

Have the players indicated dissatisfaction with the intra party strife? If not, just let them settle it IC, they may enjoy this kind of thing. If they are dissatisfied with it then provide an IC "out", basically a way to satisfy the LG morally and the other two materially.

Also, if you didn't want to deal with this situation why would you have created it in the first place?

[Kylarra]

This isn't 4e; 4e doesn't have Chaotic Neutral, and Neutral Evil is just Evil.

Other than alignment, the description of the classes is pure 4e, so I could equivalently say, it isn't 3.X, 3.X doesn't have <classes>.

[valadil]

Have the players indicated dissatisfaction with the intra party strife?

Word. I think you should take the players aside or send them a big group email explaining that this situation has come up and asking if they're okay with it. Most players/groups have a strong opinion on how they feel about this kind of conflict. If they're okay with it, let it happen. If they're not okay with it, maybe they can help you figure out a way to get them working together without having to break character.

[Milskidasith]

Ah; I had read Swordmage as Swordsage, and assumed the Valorious bard was a variant I hadn't heard of.

Still, I think the reasonable solution is to make the bard recognize he is, in fact, indirectly killing thousands of people and losing money in the process when he could gain money and be part of the new rule of the city, allowing him to still do good.

[Thajocoth]

Situation resolved - The Swordmage forgot part of his side of the negotiation. He won't work with undead. This means the party will either undermine the mob together, or kill the dragon right now. (Which leaves his mother at large, so the chaos wouldn't happen yet, as she's still pursuing more direct plans to the throne.)

Also, the Bard has decided that not keeping the money would be too risky and it would be better for his ruse to keep it.

As long as the party is working together, I can go in any direction.

EDIT: 4e, yes, with houseruled alignments. For this though, I figured system didn't matter. The party's new to ANY D&D but they're great roleplayers.