D&D with teenagers : Into the abyss

[Dezea]

Hey guys,

I'm a librarian, and I got into the habit at work to host some roleplaying for the local kids, ranging from 11 to 16 years old, twice a month on the saturday morning. I had the craziest gaming session ever last saturday, probably of my whole life, and I need to share it. Warning : It involve adorable kids turning into coldhearted monster in game. Also, I'm french, my english is bound to be lacking sometimes ! :)

Things started really small, with 5 kids, and I do have now something 20 kids orbiting around, with different level of involvement, but all of them are loving it.

To makes things easier for me, knowing that I would have to deal with lots of player, I wanted something that could be really sandboxy, in order for groups of player forming spontaneously to tackle the objectives they want. After some hesitation, I went for the beginning of Ironfang Invasion, a Pathfinder AP, kept the beginning wich is an army of hobgobelin sacking a town and having everyone fleeing into the nearby woods.

Since then, lots of team have formed. I have some player that enjoy skirmish against the hobgobelin, some that want to explore the forest, some that enjoy building a new city in the woods, and even some that just enjoy some roleplaying with the refugees. It's been a year now, and most of them are between lvl 3 and 5, and I expect this to keep going until a "Big finale" where i'll invite some other DM I know for a big 20 player attack on the city with four simultaneous table.

Enough for the overall picture, let's get to the horror story. I'm with a group of teens, mostly 15-16 years old, that never played together before, but decided to ally themselve for a dungeon run - A tomb another group discovered in the forest. I know those player likes the fighting part of D&D, so that's fine, and I design a small 5 room dungeon with some traps. They ask some question about it, and a refugee mention that this place is a very ancient tomb of a giantslayer, and it's known to be trapped.

Now, the composition of the groupe is a paladin, a ranger, an oracle and a barbarian. Not that great on the trap side of things. They brainstorm with each other to try and find a way to still explore the trap, when the barbarian get an incredible idea : Let's just take some of the refugee, and have them go in front of us in the dungeon and open the door.

Everyone agree that this is an incredible idea - I give a pointed look to the paladin player. She misinterpret it and a discussion goes like this :

Paladin : "Well, let's pick some refugee that noone care about, we wouldn't want to accidently kill some refugee that some other player care about".
Ranger : "And we should pick some that doesn't provide much, so we don't get important artisan killed".

After a quick agreement, here goes my incredible savior of the city, accompagnied by the old, the sick and the childrens. Yeah, really. They went with a quick lies that went something like "We found another water spot, and we'd like to settle it and need help".

Wanting to give them a shot, I roleplay a very old lady in the group, that thanks them so much for saving them for the hobgobelin, telling them how much she spoke about them to her grandchildren, and being overall an adorable old lady. One of them, the Barbarian, looks a bit uneasy, but the rest of the group take it in stride, apparently relieved that the refugees does not understand what is happening.

They lose an old man to an owlbear on the way - The forest is full of monsters - but still arrive to the tomb, the villager shaken by the lost but happy to be alive and, still, trusting.

They then start explaining that they will venture into the tomb, and that one of the villager as to go in front and open all the door.

Who would have guessed : They refuse. The player looks each other a bit surprise that this clever mastermind plan seems to be not working as well as expected. The refugee start yelling and beggins for their lifes, and the ranger came with another Masterplan : offering the refugee the chance to vote for who's gonna be in front.

I give another very, very, very pointed look at the paladin - I probably should add that I had the talk with her before, about what a paladin is. She knows.

She once again does not really get it tho, because sensing that I'm apparently disaproving, she says something along the line of "This is kinda unfair, they will only pick the one they like the less, we should make this random".

Barbarian add : "Yeah, or, we could pick ourselve the one that looks in the better shape, so he might even survive the traps".

Group realize that this is probably the greatest idea ever. They start asking me for pointed details on who's the most in shape. The refugee, terrified, start huddling together.

I answer them that they choose to pick the sick, the kids and the elderly, so finding the one is "Good shape" is not something easy.

Paladin must have an epiphany, and goes : We should have them fight together, and the winner goes for it.

This idea doesn't go far however, since the refugees just decide to take their chance and face the monster in the forest instead of their "savior".

Groups start looking really annoyed at the Paladin, acting kinda like it's her fault for saying this out loud that everyone fled.

They argue for a bit, and finally decide that since the paladin ****ed up, she will be the one going in front. She reluctantly agree.

She open the door to the tomb. The 2D6 shocking grasp trap deals 4 damage to her 56 hp lvl 5 paladin. They look at each other with the face of kids realizing that they probably did an awful, awful mistake. She try to heal herself with a lay of hand, and looks quite shocked when I tell her she doesn't feel her power anymore.

End of the session. Fun fact : the players, even the paladin, once "Outside" of the game, seemed to slowly realized how wrong everything was, and I even had a quite interresting talk about consequences. They wanted to try to help the paladin redeem themselves next session, and I plan on having them try and save all of the refugees before they get eaten by something.

[King of Nowhere]

weeell...
i normally wouldn't allow a paladin to redeem after something like that. but they are kids

[Vahnavoi]

A bunch of teenagers playing a game in a fairly self-centered amoral manner is perfectly normal, as is them only learning what they did wrong after-the-fact. The fact that you had an interesting discussion about this with them and that they are displaying some degree of remorse is a sign that the moral fiction of your game worked & they actually learned a lesson out of it. Congratulations.

[Quertus]

That’s… wow. I mean, kudos to the group for choosing to sacrifice the old and the sick and non-producers (and for thinking of the other players), but that level of awareness is not something I’d expect of a Paladin. Still, it’s great that you could teach them the important lesson that one can commit horrors when they’re not careful.

[Cikomyr2]

That’s… wow. I mean, kudos to the group for choosing to sacrifice the old and the sick and non-producers (and for thinking of the other players), but that level of awareness is not something I’d expect of a Paladin. Still, it’s great that you could teach them the important lesson that one can commit horrors when they’re not careful.

I guess they understand utilitarianism?

I mean, you could make up an LE deity who embraces this very morality of "the ends justify the means for the Greater Good".

All jokes aside, seems you did a banger job.

[Slipjig]

This sounds like a truly incredible campaign arrangement. Please let us know how the finale goes.

[KorvinStarmast]

weeell...
i normally wouldn't allow a paladin to redeem after something like that. but they are kids

That's a pretty poor DM approach, but maybe in 3.5e/PF it's "the rule" and DM's don't consider redemption a valid path forward?

[Brookshw]

Not unexpected from a group of teen/tweens. I've run for, generally, the same group of people long enough it's turned into a generational game, with a player's 11 and 16 year olds now playing with us. They definitely have some morally questionable decisions which the adult players quickly reign in. Sounds like you handled it well.