Characters responsible for enormous accidental death: can their reputations be saved?

[Piedmon_Sama]

I wrote a 3,500 word version of this post which was so rambly it was virtually unreadable. I'll try to be more concise on this take.

Here's the short version: my players brought something back from the wilderness to the town they were staying in that they didn't understand, and it got a lot of innocent people killed. The fact that they didn't intend to harm anybody doesn't help them much, considering it was purely recklessness on their part that caused the tragedy. Now their names are mud across the land. People scowl and whisper wherever they go, businesses often won't sell to them (and will hike prices if they do) and they are banned on pain of Being Shot Full of Holes from ever returning to the town they nearly destroyed---which is itself really inconvenient because that town is the gateway to the wilderness the players are supposed to be exploring. They went to the Baron and he was very "understanding," even "sympathetic," and knowing that they have virtually nowhere else to turn he's now using them as his personal expendable errand boys, which can't last. They now have better relationships with a local orc tribe and a gang of bandits than they do with the law-abiding people of the Barony.

What do? Accept that my players are evil now and adjust accordingly? Try to come up with some cockamamy way they can redeem themselves? Tell them they borked up and better roll new level 1s? Please provide comments and suggestions. It is an enormously involved comedy of errors that led up to this so I will provide details as asked.

[TheCountAlucard]

Have the Wizard craft hats of disguise for the party.

Each PC crafts a persona that they then commit to. These will be their new identities. Their old identities die conveniently.

[Fey]

You basically described the beginning of the plot of Final Fantasy IV. Let the characters have a bad reputation for awhile...it'll make roleplaying more interesting as they try to convince people of their good intentions, while atoning for their past bad deeds. They'll have to work harder to get people to trust them, which will make quests more interesting. They might visit a new town where their bad reputation precedes them, so they have to work hard to get the people's cooperation. They will have to demonstrate through their actions that their bad rep isn't deserved.

Just run with it. It sounds like a lot of fun.

[Geigan]

I don't think it's a totally broken campaign at this point unless you and your players have lost all investment as a result of this turn of events. You can certainly turn this in whichever manner you want to go, though how you want to approach the tone is up to you.

I mean on one hand there's something to be said for PCs reaping what they sow. But I figure if the campaign is less fun with the town on their asses all the time, it would seem that after you feel they've been properly punished by having to endure everybody taking the piss out of them and having to work for this noble they possibly don't much care for, that you might throw them a bone.

If the comedy of errors that resulted in this was actually funny, then you could have funny get them out just as easily. Adventurers are famous for blundering into a villain's best laid plans. You might want to have them accidentally run into something from the wilds/elsewhere that was planning on destroying or causing even worse harm to the village and have them stop it in a way that will vindicate them (or at least make the town forget about their past recklessness). Plenty of stories take this kind of narrative turn, so it might turn out just fine. The flaw of this is that if it's too silly or contrived it might lighten the tone of the campaign a bit too much, or might just kill player investment if they had no particular investment in getting the town to like them in the first place.

If the party wants to get revenge on the town for threatening them, then I'd say they might make the first move on that front themselves possibly making allies with the orcs and/or bandits to ransack and loot the town. Have whoever helps them take the town over and serve as the new hub/gateway to the rest of the adventure. This would definitely be more of major turn towards the evil side of things, but if the party is just that spiteful over everything it might just be more interesting this way.


Can the adventure not reasonably go on without the town being a safe harbor for the adventurers?

If yes, then probably need to resolve that somehow in a somewhat soon-ish fashion.
If no, then no worries. Just let the PCs ignore the town, take the penalties for not having this safe harbor, and move on.

[Piedmon_Sama]

Have the Wizard craft hats of disguise for the party.

Each PC crafts a persona that they then commit to. These will be their new identities. Their old identities die conveniently.

mMYezz... I like it, but I don't think my players will be willing to abandon their pride for the sake of some ungrateful peasants. They are in no way sympathetic to the views of the people they bereaved and firmly convinced they do not actually stand in the wrong.

Just run with it. It sounds like a lot of fun.

The campaign is in no danger of coming to an end (at least, not now---in the immediate aftermath I seriously considered stepping down).

You might want to have them accidentally run into something from the wilds/elsewhere that was planning on destroying or causing even worse harm to the village and have them stop it in a way that will vindicate them (or at least make the town forget about their past recklessness).

There actually IS an ancient and until-recently somnolent evil now awakening in the forest, plus a few smaller scale threats lurking in the sandbox. These will all eventually arise to menace the Shield Baronies if the players don't intervene (which they're well on their way to not doing.... they spent most of their energies in the last 20 sessions to trying to become vice lords in a cattle town instead of exploring the wilderness). So yeah, eventually it's gonna be Heroics or Die time.

If the party wants to get revenge on the town for threatening them, then I'd say they might make the first move on that front themselves possibly making allies with the orcs and/or bandits to ransack and loot the town. Have whoever helps them take the town over and serve as the new hub/gateway to the rest of the adventure. This would definitely be more of major turn towards the evil side of things, but if the party is just that spiteful over everything it might just be more interesting this way.

I'm alright with things taking that course but...
1) Back when their prospects looked better in the Barony, the party had an encounter with a detachment of the bandits and slew them all. The bandits' leader is not aware who killed his men but it's really a matter of time until he learns it was the party he just had a friendly face-to-face with. Then, well, he won't accept less than blood for blood.
2) The Town is under the protection of the Baron. The Baron is a poopy Baron yes, but he's also a level 10 fighter with an artifact fullblade who rides a griffon so he's not really somebody a rag-tag bunch of bandits and orcs want to take on. In fact, the reason the party met with the orcs is because they were surrenduring to the Baron. The orcs promised him tribute in exchange for rescinding the bounty of 30 gp for every pair of fresh orc ears brought to the Baron's court (for some reason the party ignored this hook, but they thought a handful of Dire Weasel pelts were worth bringing to the Baron.... go figure). The reason the Baron isn't out making the wilderness safer is that he already carved out his own piece of it to rule.

EDIT: actually to be more clear, there is a lot of tension between the townsfolk and the Baron---the people pride themselves on their independence and resent his taxes, while the Baron strongly dislikes the more independent and wealthy among his subjects. In fact the first thing he said when the players came to him with their story was "ah, all that and [the town's wealthiest citizen] didn't die. Too bad." Neverthless the Baron would perform his duty if outsiders attacked the hamlet.

]Can the adventure not reasonably go on without the town being a safe harbor for the adventurers?

It can, it's just.... not convenient. Basically for geographic reasons going south around the stricken hamlet is not feasable. Going north and around takes the party through the rugged Ogreskull Hills, which adds two days of travel and two days of potential wilderness encounters to their trip. That's two more days they have to supply for, two more days of mischance possibly befalling their mounts and beasts of burden, etc. Not fatal, but annoying. It's probable that I'm actually more annoyed by all of this than the players are---after all, they're not in any particular hurry to explore my painstakingly crafted dungeons if there's easier ways to make cash.
Here's a crude map of the setting I threw together so you guys can have some idea of what I'm talking about:

Spoiler

Show

OK see Stormcrown Village is figuratively and literally the center of the Barony and where the Baron's court is located. It's also the only place big enough for the PCs to sell off loot. Grifflet is the hamlet that the PCs almost destroyed. It's on the very edge of the Barony and borders the Eastwylde, which is the wilderness; the nearest part of the Eastwylde is called the Green Corridor because it's between a mesa to the north and a series of cliffs breaking off to the south called The Gullies (so if you looked at the landscape with a bird's eye view the Green Corridor is kind of like a giant stair). There is more Eastwylde on the north side of the plateau but south of the gullies is just flatland country.

Following the disaster at Grifflet, Summerstream has taken the reasonable measure of shutting its doors to outsiders. Mossgather is high up in the hills and so infrequently visited that it doesn't even have an inn, but that's the way by which the PCs have made their last two excursions to the Wylde---taking the serpentine path through the hills, staying the night at Mossgather's meadery and continuing the next day down into the Corridor.

So you see (I hope) why Grifflet being a no-go zone is kind of a pain the keyster.

[Koo Rehtorb]

It's not your responsibility to dictate what happens from now. It's on the players to direct the flow of the game.

If they want to embrace being evil outlaws they can do that. If they want to redeem themselves they can come up with a plan to do that (if they pursue it you can certainly throw things their way that they can work with here). If they want to quit and make new characters they can say they want to do that too.

This isn't your problem.

[thamolas]

It's not your responsibility to dictate what happens from now. It's on the players to direct the flow of the game.

If they want to embrace being evil outlaws they can do that. If they want to redeem themselves they can come up with a plan to do that (if they pursue it you can certainly throw things their way that they can work with here). If they want to quit and make new characters they can say they want to do that too.

This isn't your problem.

Exactly this ^^

Rick's dark past is one of the things that makes Rick & Morty so interesting and makes Rick a deeper character. The players should relish the opportunity to sink their teeth into such fun potential arcs! Especially if characters disagree and conflict when the desirable aspects of redemption and outlawry collide during game play. Sounds like a pretty ideal situation.

[Geigan]

mMYezz... I like it, but I don't think my players will be willing to abandon their pride for the sake of some ungrateful peasants. They are in no way sympathetic to the views of the people they bereaved and firmly convinced they do not actually stand in the wrong.

snip...

There actually IS an ancient and until-recently somnolent evil now awakening in the forest, plus a few smaller scale threats lurking in the sandbox. These will all eventually arise to menace the Shield Baronies if the players don't intervene (which they're well on their way to not doing.... they spent most of their energies in the last 20 sessions to trying to become vice lords in a cattle town instead of exploring the wilderness). So yeah, eventually it's gonna be Heroics or Die time.

It can, it's just.... not convenient.

snip...

So you see (I hope) why Grifflet being a no-go zone is kind of a pain the keyster.

It sounds like this isn't that big a problem in practice, beyond creating slightly more recurring challenge for the PCs to deal with that is kind of annoying. I think the PCs can live with it, but if they aren't sympathetic to the town in anyway to begin with, there's no real reason for them to care about saving it when **** goes down. Might want to work on that if you want them to actually care at some juncture, but it sounds like they stand with the baron to some degree here?

If so you can probably nudge the plot forward by having the baron throw a line to them to go investigate some disturbance in the actual wilderness to get the ball rolling. Take that hook from there and have them run into some of those minor threats you're talking about and you can probably string it along from there to wherever it is you want them to get a chance to explore.

If nothing else you can have the setup of them potentially having to protect the ungrateful town, which could be loads of fun.

All that said though, if the players are creating their own fun then might as well let them go that route. You're the only one who decides how fast things in the world need to progress, so don't stress if they're taking it easy for now. If you decide things aren't moving along or it seems like the party is getting bored you can always hook them back in another direction.

I'm alright with things taking that course but...
1) Back when their prospects looked better in the Barony, the party had an encounter with a detachment of the bandits and slew them all. The bandits' leader is not aware who killed his men but it's really a matter of time until he learns it was the party he just had a friendly face-to-face with. Then, well, he won't accept less than blood for blood.
2) The Town is under the protection of the Baron. The Baron is a poopy Baron yes, but he's also a level 10 fighter with an artifact fullblade who rides a griffon so he's not really somebody a rag-tag bunch of bandits and orcs want to take on. In fact, the reason the party met with the orcs is because they were surrenduring to the Baron. The orcs promised him tribute in exchange for rescinding the bounty of 30 gp for every pair of fresh orc ears brought to the Baron's court (for some reason the party ignored this hook, but they thought a handful of Dire Weasel pelts were worth bringing to the Baron.... go figure). The reason the Baron isn't out making the wilderness safer is that he already carved out his own piece of it to rule.

I mean obstacles are obstacles, but it's the group's choice if that's where they want to go. Might want to consider if they'd actually reasonably ally with some of those threats creeping out of the Green Corridor down the road.

EDIT: actually to be more clear, there is a lot of tension between the townsfolk and the Baron---the people pride themselves on their independence and resent his taxes, while the Baron strongly dislikes the more independent and wealthy among his subjects. In fact the first thing he said when the players came to him with their story was "ah, all that and [the town's wealthiest citizen] didn't die. Too bad." Neverthless the Baron would perform his duty if outsiders attacked the hamlet.

I'm actually curious who the players sympathize more with at the moment, because depending you might want to re-orient the campaign around whoever they like more to keep things interesting. Basically give them more reasons to care about what happens to the characters in this world. I think you might find them becoming more invested in doing things for or in relation to them more readily if they find reasons to like them as people or at least find them particularly interesting.

[Piedmon_Sama]

I think the PCs like the Baron (who's named Otgar Greatsword) because he's basically this totally selfish rogue, and they "get" that. One of them actually said "this guy is cool, he's basically us." Otgar was once an adventurer, who carved a 24x24 mile domain out of the Eastwylde against the Orcs and Faeries and was created a Baron by the King 15 years ago. He's essentially been something between a guardian of the marketplace and robber-in-chief ever since. I don't think the PCs even remember this but there's been an ugly rumor ever since he founded Stormcrown that he made sure he was the only survivor out of his band of adventuring companions. Literally everyone remarks on his mercurial and untrustworthy nature but thus far he's been a generous patron to the PCs: he dubbed the Paladin a knight and gave the PCs a fief of 4 acres of sourgrass and a half-collapsed barn on the village's western edge (the PCs need to make the fief profitable within the year and kick some moolah up to Greatsword, or they lose it). Basically the players know they're only as useful to Otgar as the latest thing they've done for him, but in that sense they know where they stand. Plus I basically play him as Kevin Nash so I think they enjoy that.

I mean, if they want to play nothing but legbreakers for Otgar that's cool, and there's actually enough material for a whole campaign just in that, probably. (For example: Otgar's bailiff in the village is connected to a gang of Wererats from the big city who have a grudge against the PCs. He's reporting their whereabouts to the Rats' assassins.) But like in a month you're gonna have orcs and ghouls swarming out of the Eastwylde and the players are gonna be like "whaaaaaaat"

[Geigan]

See that's great. You can work that angle. Plus, if you're really hurting for ways to hook them into the wilderness I'd reiterate that if you can give the Baron a reason to care, then a reason for the PCs to care naturally follows. Some disturbance or hint that something in the forest is coming or there's just general trouble or the locals won't shut up about something going on in that direction and the Baron is tired of listening to it. Have him ask the PCs to go check it out and bam there you go. If the chore is particularly onerous tell them he'll give them some decent capital/resources to pimp their land out if they solve whatever's bothering him.

Just remember that if the PCs are having fun, and don't necessarily have a reason to go engage with the things you were planning on, then it might be fine to just let em **** around. Not to say you can't have the plot you were planning, but just use your own judgment on what'll make things most interesting. If the game is fun you're doing your job just fine.

[Crisis21]

One thing to keep in mind is that you don't need to have everyone forgive the PCs... just enough of them. They may redeem themselves in the eyes of most, but there could always be a few holdouts who refuse to forget or forgive.

[Beneath]

You could put more adventures in the mountains. Maybe they stumble across something connected to one of the awakening evils or something. If they're fine with not being able to go in that village and your main problem is that that village is the way from the market to all your painstakingly-crafted dungeons (except for the mountain way, which is more inconvenient and so makes them less likely to deal with it), then the solution is to bring the adventure closer to them.

Once the evils start awakening they can try to fix their reputations then. Or ruin them further.

[Piedmon_Sama]

I may have made the dungeons my players explored a little too tough…. back in session 3 when they were level 1 they went to this mysterious landmark (the entrance to the first dungeon I wanted them to go to). The landmark was a three-sided obelisk with alcoves in which stood three ancient bronze Doomguards (robot mooks from DMGII 3rd ed, CR2). To make it a little spookier I decided that the sorcerer-druids who crafted the bronze guardians 2,000 years ago had put a powerful enchantment on them that made their bronze plates invulnerable to nonmagical damage. Thus no matter how hard the PCs smacked the robutz, they would seem unharmed. However, they were intended by the dungeon creator only as a test of prowess and courage: once 22 hp of damage was done (enough to destroy a standard Doomguard) they would deactivate and remain still until the PCs left. In fact the PCs deactivated one, then the alchemist dropped a grenade through a slit in its helmet and destroyed it anyway. However they were sufficiently freaked out that when Doomguard nos. 2 and 3 dropped out of their alcoves ready to rumble, the PCs ran away and never returned to the obelisk. That dungeon remained undone and the PCs are level 4, high enough that it would scarcely be worth their time. The obelisk is actually the nearest of four obelisk-marked dungeons which have to be done in sequence to unlock a 5th-level dungeon holding the tomb of an ancient Druidical warrior-king. This early misadventure set a pattern that has repeated through the campaign: I come up with some homebrew wackiness I think is super cool and then it scares off my players and they just never do the adventure. Trying to combine an OSR/Do-It-Yourself OD&D aesthetic with Pathfinder, where everything’s supposed to be explained and outlined in some book or another, has proven very difficult in this way. My players’ thought process is clearly, why go into Piedmon’s dungeons and probably get killed by his homebrewed nonsense when we can befriend the powerful and make money in the Shield Baronies?

What they don’t realize (or are maybe beginning to realize) is even though the campaign is fundamentally an old school sandbox of wilderness and dungeons, there is sort of a plot taking shape in the background. Basically there is a league or loose detente of badguys pursuing their own agendas out in the wilderness. This is because I’m a sucker for the whole League of Evil trope--I love the idea of a bunch of distinctive villains with their own personalities putting their egos aside juuust enough to form a shaky alliance---think the Injustice Gang or the Gun-Ho Guns. There’s also the matter of rival adventuring parties--the PCs are far from the only ones looking to plunder the Eastwylde. My initial idea was to present the PCs with lots of options but not leave the world static---like, they didn’t do the obelisk, so now some other party is doing it. Unfortunately this competitive atmosphere means my players never merely let time pass. An hour wasted is an hour they may get scooped, so time is passing incredibly slowly in the campaign---we’ve played 27 sessions over a year and more and the time passed in the gameworld is May 20 to June 12. That’s what, 23 days? So the setting has scarcely had time to change much--I initially projected my villains’ schemes unfolding over the course of months, so I don’t know what I need to do to get my players to say “okay, we spend a few weeks clearing the ground on our fief and training” but I’d like them to take a more laid-back approach like that without losing the whole competitive aspect?

[hymer]

You could consider talking to the players and finding out what they would prefer. Are they up for a campaign of redeeming themselves? Would they like to play an evil group? How about starting with new PCs?

Maybe you'll find out some things to help you navigate from such a conversation.

[ATHATH]

Does the town have a dominant religion? Making nice with a well-respected god (who can tell his followers that the PCs are "alright") might help a lot.

[Piedmon_Sama]

You could put more adventures in the mountains. Maybe they stumble across something connected to one of the awakening evils or something. If they're fine with not being able to go in that village and your main problem is that that village is the way from the market to all your painstakingly-crafted dungeons (except for the mountain way, which is more inconvenient and so makes them less likely to deal with it), then the solution is to bring the adventure closer to them.

Once the evils start awakening they can try to fix their reputations then. Or ruin them further.

This is something I really need to do. My first batch of dungeons/adventure-hooks largely went ignored. I need some fresh ones a little more conveniently located. Of course, I could recycle the hard stuff (like maps!) that my players never saw so my unused Elven Temple ruin becomes an ancient Giant's Mausoleum in the hills but eggghhhh the pedant in me will know I cheated.

[hymer]

This is something I really need to do. My first batch of dungeons/adventure-hooks largely went ignored. I need some fresh ones a little more conveniently located. Of course, I could recycle the hard stuff (like maps!) that my players never saw so my unused Elven Temple ruin becomes an ancient Giant's Mausoleum in the hills but eggghhhh the pedant in me will know I cheated.

Then let me stand up and applaud your inner pedant! Well done! A DM must have pride in their work! Which is basically me patting myself on the shoulder for doing and feeling the same thing.

Finding other reasons to visit those adventure sites might be less hard on the conscience.

[Rynjin]

Why does everybody everywhere know what they did? I understand in the actual town it happened, and maybe the next couple of towns over...but everywhere? Why? Who spread that news, complete with pictures and a full list of names?

If I were them I'd be trying to track down the guy who actively sabotaged their rep, because he has to have some ulterior motive.

[Piedmon_Sama]

It's not "everybody everywhere." It's "everybody in the Barony of Stormcrown" which is about 24 miles (a days' horseride) across. Even then it took about two days for word to spread across the Barony. Also it's really not hard to recognize the PCs--they've got a cavalier riding a War Bull with a dead leprechaun impaled on his lance, and a Paladin in a white cape with a melted golden eagle insignia on the breastplate. Those are the kind of details that would get picked up on in any retelling. Also peoples' understanding isn't perfect---the Paladin is the one who basically catches all the flak (they're being called "the Poison Paladin Gang" even) even though it was the Slayer who actually did the reckless thing that got almost 80 people killed. But Slayer's just some chick in a hood, the Paladin's the leader and the recognizable one so he's treated like the primary culprit.

[Beneath]

Slow down their rivals' pace if you want them to slow their own, I'd say.

Maybe a rival adventuring party comes back from a dungeon laden with treasure and one of their porters or torchbearers or other miscellaneous henchmen gets drunk and starts blabbing about how they saw an even bigger treasure but couldn't figure out how to get to it (across a chasm, through a barred portcullis, blocked by a wall of force, or maybe permanently invisible stone blocks, or something. or there was a sealed door leading to what they have every reason to think is a treasure vault that they can't open), and if they investigate their rivals are spending a couple weeks researching before making another attempt, giving them a window to scoop them.

Or they could decide that instead of adventuring they'll set up shop and try to skim off the top of other people's adventuring gold. That works too; that's how the people who really got rich off historical gold rushes did it.

[GPS]

Have the Wizard craft hats of disguise for the party.

Each PC crafts a persona that they then commit to. These will be their new identities. Their old identities die conveniently.

I love this one. It's pretty much foolproof, as if your players are ever discovered they can just kill the unhatter.

[Mastikator]

Can't they just leave the Barony and try their luck someplace else?

[Lo'Tek]

What they don’t realize ... X is actually Y ...

I can relate to that. Been there so often: there is this story i planned and my players are just missing the plot hooks, and do something else. Wanting to tell a story is an important part of beeing a DM, but a public, search engine indexed forum is not the right place to tell ;-) More so as it is also irrelevant for your original question.
I fully understand your need to get the story out there. Be strong little DM, the time will come.

But like in a month ...

I ran this type of story and one player complained that it feels to him like i am running my story and they are just pawns on a bigger board. Be careful.

The bad guys plan should not happen on the 7th of July. It should unfold after the heroes know that there is a team evil, might reasonably be able to guess that there is a plan and should be able to understand that their job is to act against it. Otherwise the heroes are not the protagonists. They are extras in the villains story.

Then again some might enjoy an apocalyptic scenario and cleaning the mess up is a heroic deed. It also solves their "damaged the village" problem, because the village is now completly gone. To be honest your groups "we ignore the dungeon" mentality sounds a bit like ending the apocalypse, instead of preventing it, may even be the better quest for them. Just dont blame them for the apocalypse, too. If what they knew was enough, they will already do that themself.

Going north and around [...] adds two days of travel

So they are shot if they get close? With what? Automatic laser guided missle turrets? Sniper nests? Just dont walk in the middle of town. If they pass along the outskirts, they may get close enough so a farmer making hay can see them. (Anyone here has an image showing a person at different distances?) At half a mile you can barely see that there is a group with horses. Could be them, could be someone else. Sure he might run and gather an angry mob. But do those farmers really want to engage? Are they willing to get close enough to have a chance to hit with bows? How long does it take to get an armed mob and where is the group then? Those farmers are annoying if the group gets into "throw rocks and shout obscenities" range but i find it hard to belief their threats extend to six miles south of the village. And the north is even easier, because hills block line of sight. How far do the farms even extend in those directions?
Taking a two day trip around means "the villagers will not even know they went by". But that was not the point. The threat was about "entering the village".

Either way the problem is not that your players can not use this route. It is that they do not want to, because it will make them feel bad and they have no real reason.
And that is the problem: They have no good reason to take an inconvenient route to explore the east (fast). And if fast is not a problem, two days are not a problem.

two days of potential wilderness encounters

Just how high is the monster density in this region?
There must be something very scary in the east if the dangerous predators move west in these numbers. Another good rumor. Isn't there anyone stupid heroic enough to go and have a look? Hey Baron do something about this!

I could recycle the hard stuff (like maps!)

Why not create a new batch of the easy stuff, like hooks? So the group is in the city once again and hey a bard is performing. One of the songs is about an elven priestess and her tragic love story and it just features, as a side note, a reason to search the temple ruins.

After all, why run into a death trap if all you have to go on is "death traps may have loot" with a chance of "or not" and a downside of "which we may not need"

unlock [...] the tomb of an ancient [...]

So the price for beating four dungeons is another dungeon? I would pass on that, too. Please tell me that tomb at least holds the great artifact of asskicking, not a legendary dmpc deus ex machina. Add other adventure groups also going for the quest and see above comment about "pawns on a bigger board". The heroes should solve the big problem, not solve a small problem and get told that somehow solves the big problem without further need for them. I know i assume the worst here, but i am seeing some red flags in your short writeup of the campaign. Sry.

why go into Piedmon’s dungeons and probably get killed

Yeah, why? To find a 2000 year old book that explains why there are dungeons? That is a stupid price!
I know by now i am just ranting, but srsly, why go into the dungeon?


But back to the original question

What do?

Nuthin.
Unless it was very clear they should not have brought it back ("they didn't understand" <- it radiates strong magic, pure evil, and there is a countdown on it, which part did you not understand?) the setup sounds a bit unfair to me.
But it happened and now THEY have to deal with it. Not you. Don't just handwave it.
There are ways to clear their name. For example, if they ask him for it, the Baron could sent someone to the other villages to tell the people that he, as an authority, had looked into it and decided they are not to blame, because it was not their fault, but instead the fault of someone he dislikes, and they simply were tricked into carrying the bomb. Their reputation will still be bad, but not horrible and they can now get access to the village in the south. Where some Gnoll raiders just attacked and took people as slaves.
"Yeah i heard they are responsible for X but the Baron said its a bit more complicated, they said it was an accident and are very sorry, and they did free my wife, so... no hard feelings i guess?"

[SecretlyaFish]

You gave a level 10 baron who surveys a 24x24 mile area in some random place a full on artifact sword? So, not like a +3 Vorpal Longsword or something like that (don't want him to suck after all, he's only rich and rides a griffon), he needed a full on artifact? The area he surveys literally 1 days horseride in any direction? That's where you want your PC's to stay? Maybe the Paladin would have reason to stay and try to atone but if it seems actually impossible to do so, why not just leave? Confining oneself to a tiny part of the world where everyone hates them seems the height of stupidity. It would cost gold etc to find new identities and for wizards spells to be placed, which would eventually be discovered, and lying is not going to be in the Paladins to do list either. It would cost near nothing to leave.

I'd leave and try their luck in a new kingdom/province or whatever your game world consists of. As the DM you are in part responsible for this predicament you are in as well. You've made everything significantly more difficult for them, and maybe its realistic in your setting but its still a game and games are meant to be fun. TANGENT - I read a post recently about a DM having to kick out a player out of his group. They were in a adventure guild and the leader barbarian (the player that got kicked out) wasn't asking for a reward for their finished quests and instead was just given the next task, not being offered by whoever gave them the quest either (the DM). Complete non issue, one of the other PC's could have spoken up and said "Uh hey I'm not the leader but what about our reward we completed the finished task". At the same time the DM's action and apparent idiotic logic that the same person giving them all these quests would keep giving them new ones, not asking if the previous one had been completed... Well, there also falls that responsibility on the DM in making things needlessly more difficult than it needs to be.

I like to play in the forgotten realms setting, 24x24 mile area is a freaking tiny. If I don't like what's happening in that area of the world, I find another one. Simple and easy. You as the DM need to give them more solutions or tell them to leave to find a new place where people don't hate them. Unless you'd like all your hard work for this session/adventure to come to an end. Being stubborn to the point of possibly ending a whole campaign isn't the right way to go about this.

[War_lord]

So, to recap the first time they went near a dungeon, they got attacked by three monsters they couldn't effectively fight. The second time, they weren't even in a dungeon, and they found a thing that later killed 80 people and got the blame pinned on them? And you're wondering why they're happy to sod the whole dungeon crawl thing and just be thugs-for-hire?

Every time they tried to do typical heroic fantasy stuff, they got punished. So they've obviously concluded that this must be a Sword & Sorcery setting. Perhaps the best thing to do, is throw out what you planned, and give them more of what they're actually enjoying.

[NecroDancer]

Cast plane-shift and start a new life as goat herders on their perfered outer plane.

[GPS]

Cast plane-shift and start a new life as goat herders on their perfered outer plane.

It's the only 100% solution

[Nightcanon]

Your original post notes "accept that my players are evil now, and adjust accordingly" as an option (perhaps even the first option), but doesn't indicate that they are evil. Yes, they have garnered themselves a bad reputation, and might be seen by some as evil if it is thought they intentionally unleashed disaster, but that doesn't make them evil. They might get a mob of relatives of the deceased throwing rocks at them and denouncing them as murderers, but being personae non grata doesn't make them evil, either. It's entirely possible for the PCs to act in a Good (or Neutral) way in response to this situation.

[Beneath]

So, to recap the first time they went near a dungeon, they got attacked by three monsters they couldn't effectively fight. The second time, they weren't even in a dungeon, and they found a thing that later killed 80 people and got the blame pinned on them? And you're wondering why they're happy to sod the whole dungeon crawl thing and just be thugs-for-hire?

Every time they tried to do typical heroic fantasy stuff, they got punished. So they've obviously concluded that this must be a Sword & Sorcery setting. Perhaps the best thing to do, is throw out what you planned, and give them more of what they're actually enjoying.

+1

If you want to lure them into dungeons, the perceived difficulty should be lower, and the reward should be higher (high enough to justify doing something a lot more difficult and dangerous than being the baron's goons). You set them against a fight against three invulnerable CR 2 creatures at level 1 before they even got into the dungeon (a single CR 2 construct being plenty for a boss fight for a level 1 party); I think even if the other two doomguards hadn't shown up and scared them off, they likely wouldn't have had the per-day resources to go through.

Homebrew wackiness should probably start off lower CR than their level, if they're used to things they can know the stats of and don't have prior warning. If they've learned in advance what something's notable powers are, then they're better equipped to handle it even if it's a boss fight.

One idea I might offer is to try to make a dungeon with only conventional monsters that are weaker than them, with a connection to the big bads that they can find out about and significantly more treasure than they can get in the barony in a similar amount of time. Stick it in the mountains and make sure they know about it.

On a more meta level, figure out what you want them to do and incentivize it by making it the best way to get treasure and EXP (both in terms of "there's the most here" and also "the stuff you need to do for it is attainable" and also not telling them off for doing it instead of other things). Do you want them to sit around and tend their manse? Then that's where the money is (or maybe it is once they've invested well in it), and they don't hear about adventuring parties taking treasure they could have gotten while they do. Do you want them to go out and crawl dungeons? Indulge your monty haul DM side, at least for a little, and handwave anything about how an untended manse would fall into disrepair (4 acres isn't enough to support a steward, most likely).

[Piedmon_Sama]

Wew, ton of in-depth stuff to reply to here! It's kind of hard to respond to all of it without writing a short novel, so what I'll do is clarify the events of Eastwylde Sessions 18-19 and give an (I hope) objective account.

-Okay so the thing that happened was the players found another homebrew item I made up and brought it back to Grifflet. What they brought back was twelve barrels of MYSTERIOUS LIQUID, which the Druid and Alchemist were able to tell contained a mix of druidic and arcane magic (indicating the Faeries of the Eastwylde created this stuff, which I'm pretty sure I told the party). They took it to the rector of the shrine at Grifflet, a fifth-level expert I created to act as a sort of general-purpose sage for the party's assistance. Unfortunately they never pay this guy anything, so he's not inclined to give up much specifics. But he basically tells them: "you shouldn't take things out of the Fairy's domain but since you did, take this to a wizard in Stormcrown, get it identified and don't mess with it until you know exactly what it does IMO."

-Instead, the Paladin shoves a tap into one of the barrels and pours out a cup of sweet-smelling golden mead. He drinks it. I facepalm. The mead was one of three different drinks the fairies brewed (four of each kind among the barrels) and definitely the worst. Basically each drink had one effect if you drank it in Fairyland (presumably as a guest of the Fairies) and a different effect if you drank it outside. Here's what the mead does if you drink it outside the Fairies' domain (trigger warning, sex body horror) -

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Upon drinking the mead, the imbiber sprouts flowers stemming from their face, collar and shoulders and becomes heavily intoxicated and amorous. They gain 1d6 Cha for 1d4 hours; nobody thinks flowers growing from the person's face is weird (no weirder than you would mark it if you were effected by Charm Person). Once the imbiber lays with someone, the unfortunate partner is implanted with six seeds (or three in case of a small character) which grow overnight and burst from the person's body (virtually always fatal, for obvious reasons), grown into gremlin-sized ambulatory floral monsters.

Here's my drawing of the petalbeasts, as I've dubbed them -

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So as it happened, the night of the party's return there was a party being held at Grifflet's inn, the Silver Dragon. This was because due to various other violent incidents all caused by my players over the last two weeks (gameworld-time), Otgar had sent some mercenary troops in to guard the town who arrived that night, and also because the cavalier killed a Manticore on his way back from the forest and everybody agreed that was worth celebrating. So the Paladin starts flirting it up with a daughter of one of the three squires whose manors border the town, and easily impresses her with his aromatic charm and general swagger. Her brother tries to intervene and gets intimidated off. She suggests they grab a coach back to her manor a few miles south and they do so. At this point I'm thinking this will be a minor tragedy, also this was the Sunday night the Steelers spanked the Chiefs super hard on TV so I was a little distracted.

-The Slayer (to be clear the party at this point is: Druid, Slayer, Paladin, Cavalier, Alchemist) then carts the barrel of mead uphill to the inn, takes it to the party and starts selling drinks for a goldpiece. I was in pieces giggling as my campaign fell to pieces in front of me and on TV Andy Reid's butt got kicked up and down the gridiron. But **** it, you know? I rolled to see how many sales the Slayer made: 15, and the Druid bought a drink also. The Slayer also slipped it into the drink of one of the party's hirelings who she had a problem with (because the hireling's sister, not the hireling herself, sharped Slayer at cards, which IC the Slayer didn't know but in her player's words "I'm a sore loser anyway.")

So we have 16 x 6 + 3 = 99 monsters on the loose. Cue a miniature apocalypse of bloodshed and screaming just before dawn the next morning as bakers' dozens of the Petalbeasts burst out of quiescent sleepers and tear apart their lover, at the inn and in various homesteads across Grifflet. To explain a little more, Grifflet is basically arranged along a road North to South, with small dales northwards where sheep herds graze and grassy fields for cattle along the middle. Although the two hamlets are six miles apart there really isn't a strict place where Grifflet ends and Summerstream starts--you just have more small farms strung along the road, until you reach Grifflet's mainstreet or Summerstream's marketplace. I scribbled out a map of the area (just so I'd know where the various farms, rental lodges, tithe-barns &c. dotting the country were) but it's too huge to scan so here's a poopy photo of a small part of it -

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The Paladin managed to save the Squire's daughter with some healing and slew his half-dozen magical progeny while the Druidess ran away. "I hope you always treasure that 15 gp, Jim" I says u__U

So next session, the party collects itself and repairs to the inn, where they're joined by the soldiers and several NPC adventurers who are completely confused as to what's going on. Once the inn is secured, they agree to sweep the area in different groups to try and hunt down all the beasts. Basically I'm checked out for this whole session because I'm plotting out the petalbeast pack movements, trying to gauge the destruction; that's okay because the World Series was on and like three of my players were more occupied with that anyway (seriously baseball, WTF). I had the PCs roll essentially to determine how fast they got to various farms, how many petalbeasts they cornered, how many they killed, but I didn't bother doing full combats for each because that'd be nuts.

Eventually I came up with these numbers: 74 people were killed in the district of Grifflet proper (at the shrine, inn, and various free farmers' steads) and something like six at the Manors/tenant-districts (where armed men were more readily on hand FWIW); of the 19 freesteader families around Grifflet four were wiped out and fifteen lost at least one family member. Of the petalbeasts about twenty escaped in a random direction.

Next session opens at 10 PM that day, sunset. The town's survivors are gathered in the great hall of the shrine plus the troops and adventurers. The dead (which tragically includes the Shrine's sexton, the guy who actually knew how to embalm bodies...) are wrapped in gory sheets and stacked like cordwood in the shrine's yard.

Things get ugly, fast. Between the innkeeper and rector's testimony, a clear picture of the preceding night's events begins to emerge. The Paladin is shocked, shocked that these people whose dead friends are now moldering about 100' away are so upset with him and his friends. The word "ingrates" gets tossed. The Cavalier's player repeatedly notes that it really makes no sense for them not to throw the Slayer under the bus, but "PvP" (defined as "screwing another PC in any way") is kind of unofficially verboten in our group for reasons that go back long before I began my campaign. The PCs put up a united front, insist they did nothing wrong, and actually the rector should be punished for criminal negligence since his 90 year-old ass didn't stop them (....)

To try and keep this from running much longer I'll just say the innkeeper already had his own reasons for disliking the PCs and had been plotting to turn the townsfolk against them for a while (he's just a lvl 3 commoner with age penalties btw). Now of course he had the perfect opportunity and used the Paladin's rebuke as a spur to rally the gathered townsfolk into a united front. The PCs were told the foundations they had laid for their distillery would be torn up and they would be forbidden from returning to Grifflet, and that they had to depart that very night. The authorities gathered (the soldiers as well as Otgar's bailiff) agreed the PCs should leave at least to avoid a fracasse. Which was where we left off that session.

So, obvs that was a while back. Four months actually. The campaign is not in any danger of ending now (next sesh is in 4 days and will be no. 27) but I feel like it's been rudderless since session 19. My players may not actually share that feeling. They've been enjoying acting as Otgar's emissaries to the Orcs and also enjoying the newly acquired fear and trepidation that follows their steps. THE WORST IS BEHIND US.

I'm just not totally sure where to go with this? Again, time moves so slowly in-game that while this happened IRL back in November, in game time it's been five days. The dust has not settled. I don't want Grifflet to dominate the game but so long as they're in the Shield Baronies I don't want the players to just get off scot-free either? It's a lot to grapple with, especially because this campaign has so many factions and so many moving parts.