D&D 5E Changing the Theme of a Campaign

Voi_D_ragon · Dec 11, 2017

Tormyr said:
This can be solved in game by having the effects of the ongoing story impact the group wherever they go. It can also be solved out of game by having that session 0 now and coming to an agreement as to where everyone wants the story to go.

Apologies ahead of time if I missed the point. I do that some times in these kinds of threads.

Yeah, that's probably what I'm going to do next session. I just never considered doing a session 0 after session 1 (well, session 5, but you get it). Thanks for that

Voi_D_ragon · Dec 11, 2017

Oofta said:
I remember reading articles from authors who used to play D&D. They were asked if they still play and if they DM, with the implication that since they write novels they must be great DMs. They responded that no, they can no longer DM because the player characters in the story didn't do what the author wanted them to do. Being a DM is all about collaborative story telling, as a DM you define the world and the NPCs in that world but you don't define the story.

At the same time, D&D is best when everyone is having fun including the DM, so make sure you are enjoying the game as well. In some cases, especially with people new to D&D one person with a strong personality can come to dominate the game. That's neither good nor bad, just be aware that others at the table may base their character not on what they want but on peer pressure. So my one word of caution is that you make sure everyone (including yourself) is having fun, not just the guy playing the rogue. Personally I ban evil characters from my game, but that's my personal preference and the preference of my wife who for some reason still puts up with me as a DM.

When I DM I always set certain thing in motion. Hints of a massive orcish invasion that the PCs ignore? Well, there may come a time when the orcs invade because nobody raised the alarm. Of course if the group decides that it's a great opportunity for them to do more looting because everybody is busy fighting orcs, but what happens when the town is overrun? Do they just flee to the next city? Even if you don't do anything like that, after a while the party could really piss off some powerful people, on both sides of the law. There's a reason people don't generally steal from the mafia ... who are they going to sell their ill-gotten gains to?

So adjust your story but try to keep in mind what else is going on in the world and come up with logical consequences. There's a reason PCs historically rob/stole/liberated items from ancient tombs; the dead don't generally secretly run half the city the PCs reside in.

This reminds me of this

DemoMonkey · Dec 11, 2017

Thing is, their enemies are Lovecraft-inspired, so they care little for wealth, lands, etc.

Ah, but even horrible tentacled monstrosities need cultists. And whose to say those cultists aren't wealthy aristocrats, with tons of gold to steal?

And tons of resources to bring the fight to the player characters if they are stolen from...

hawkeyefan · Dec 11, 2017

Plutancatty said:
Thing is, their enemies are Lovecraft-inspired, so they care little for wealth, lands, etc. Also, the rogue already did get the group into trouble and then failed to uphold the bargain that had been made to atone for his crimes and got himself killed. His new character is essentially the same as the old one was.
The church (what with the lands they are in being under a theocracy) then hired them to deal with some problems, which they did, and now as soon as they returned to civilized lands they started parading around pretending they work for the church in order to rip people off. I don't think the church will send them on other useful quests when they find out.

Thanks for clarifying. When I mentioned lands and wealth, I meant as motivation for the PCs rather than for the "bad guys". Approach things as if the PCs are mercenaries, and that different factions may want to hire them for different reasons.

Maybe at one point, a cult of the Old Ones (or whatever equivalent you're using) hires the PCs to steal an artifact. And the PCs succeed, and turn it over, not knowing that it's the key to the cult's dark plans. Maybe then the church or some other organization reaches out to the PCs to get them to correct the situation, offering a reward in addition.

Whatever the case, I think you can continue with your themes, but you will have to change things up a bit. Keep pushing things to see at what point the PCs finally decide to "do the right thing". Maybe the theme can be "at one point do the selfish decide to behave selflessly?" It may be interesting to see how far it needs to go.

But, as was pointed out, maybe a conversation with the players to see how they want to proceed is in order. Maybe they won't like going that route, even thought it's the one they are kind of dictating.

Voi_D_ragon · Dec 11, 2017

DemoMonkey said:
Thing is, their enemies are Lovecraft-inspired, so they care little for wealth, lands, etc.

Ah, but even horrible tentacled monstrosities need cultists. And whose to say those cultists aren't wealthy aristocrats, with tons of gold to steal?

And tons of resources to bring the fight to the player characters if they are stolen from...

True, but for now they're still in the stage that the horrors are entering the world and will start gathering support-if they lose interest, they'll never get to the point that the BBEGs have an established power/follower base for themselves. Basically of the four "horsemen of the apocalypse" so to speak, they have only encountered the avatar of one, which got away and summoned his true form into the world before disappearing (to help the other three get in).
And before even going to were they're going to accidentally release the second one, they start sidetracking everything. And if they never tamper with them, the evils won't truly manifest, since one of the ideas of the campaign was that uncovering hidden/forgotten knowledge was risky (and so going into dungeons to find loot releases terrible monsters you then have to deal with further down the road). But none of that can happen if they don't uncover the knowledge.
Plus, the feel of a Lovecraft campaign and a mafia campaign is just too different for me to reconcile them.
I also didn't have the campaign world fully mapped out, so if I take a break and write down some things better it might be a good thing.

Oofta · Dec 11, 2017

Plutancatty said:
Thing is, their enemies are Lovecraft-inspired, so they care little for wealth, lands, etc. Also, the rogue already did get the group into trouble and then failed to uphold the bargain that had been made to atone for his crimes and got himself killed. His new character is essentially the same as the old one was.
The church (what with the lands they are in being under a theocracy) then hired them to deal with some problems, which they did, and now as soon as they returned to civilized lands they started parading around pretending they work for the church in order to rip people off. I don't think the church will send them on other useful quests when they find out.

The question is, why isn't the church stopping them? They should be hiring another group of mercenaries to take them out, or putting a price on their heads. Why would they be able to use the "we're with the church" line more than a few times before the people know they're full of it?

I've always made it clear that nobody is above the law of the land. The PCs may feel like they can ignore the laws and rules where they live, but what about all the NPCs they have to deal with? Put a high enough price on someone's head and somebody's bound to report them.

Voi_D_ragon · Dec 11, 2017

Oofta said:
The question is, why isn't the church stopping them? They should be hiring another group of mercenaries to take them out, or putting a price on their heads. Why would they be able to use the "we're with the church" line more than a few times before the people know they're full of it?

I've always made it clear that nobody is above the law of the land. The PCs may feel like they can ignore the laws and rules where they live, but what about all the NPCs they have to deal with? Put a high enough price on someone's head and somebody's bound to report them.

The shenanigan they pulled was at the very end of last session, so the hammer has yet to be pulled back to strike, let alone fall down. But that being said, the Inquisition (which they've interacted with before and was what enlisted them and executed the rogue) is currently occupied with an investigation that would eventually, if the PCs kept working with them uncover another "horseman" (actually Performer, it makes sense in the context), and the army is currently occupied in a new campaign against enemies on the border. So they can, at least for a few days, go without anyone finding out about what they did. Which brings me to ask when they will face retribution if they go into the wilds or even travel to another village. Or (heaven forbid) they decide to leave their current domain.

Oofta · Dec 11, 2017

Plutancatty said:
The shenanigan they pulled was at the very end of last session, so the hammer has yet to be pulled back to strike, let alone fall down. But that being said, the Inquisition (which they've interacted with before and was what enlisted them and executed the rogue) is currently occupied with an investigation that would eventually, if the PCs kept working with them uncover another "horseman" (actually Performer, it makes sense in the context), and the army is currently occupied in a new campaign against enemies on the border. So they can, at least for a few days, go without anyone finding out about what they did. Which brings me to ask when they will face retribution if they go into the wilds or even travel to another village. Or (heaven forbid) they decide to leave their current domain.

Which all goes back to how you want to deal with it. You have basically three options.

You can just deal with it from a meta-game perspective. Sit the players down and explain what kind of campaign you want to run and ask them (politely) to play along. This isn't a bad thing, especially for a new group, they are new to the game. I have a strict no-evil rule for my games and make it clear I don't allow chaotic-evil with chaotic-neutral listed on the character sheet. Not every DM/campaign is going to work for every group.

You can stop the behavior from a story-telling point of view. They learn that ripping people off in the name of the church is a really bad idea. If they ignore the hints, they get a warning. If they ignore the warning, the inquisition comes after them. Whether you play all of that out or deal with some of it off screen is up to you. A variation of this is let them be murder-hobos but then make it clear that the big bad is going to stop them from having their fun.

Or just change the campaign if you can come up with ideas that you will have time to develop and have fun running.

Voi_D_ragon · Dec 11, 2017

Oofta said:
Which all goes back to how you want to deal with it. You have basically three options.

You can just deal with it from a meta-game perspective. Sit the players down and explain what kind of campaign you want to run and ask them (politely) to play along. This isn't a bad thing, especially for a new group, they are new to the game. I have a strict no-evil rule for my games and make it clear I don't allow chaotic-evil with chaotic-neutral listed on the character sheet. Not every DM/campaign is going to work for every group.

You can stop the behavior from a story-telling point of view. They learn that ripping people off in the name of the church is a really bad idea. If they ignore the hints, they get a warning. If they ignore the warning, the inquisition comes after them. Whether you play all of that out or deal with some of it off screen is up to you. A variation of this is let them be murder-hobos but then make it clear that the big bad is going to stop them from having their fun.

Or just change the campaign if you can come up with ideas that you will have time to develop and have fun running.

I was going to do something in between: sit them down and have a talk about the direction the campaign was supposed to go (vaguely), were they want it to go, and were it is going to go if they continue down their current path. Then adjust according to their answers.
I've made it abundantly clear, I think, that opposing the church does not end well (their first PC death was caused by exactly this, after all). If they choose to not change the campaign but continue down that way, I can't say I won't feel a little satisfaction as they get obliterated, even though that might sound unfair.