D&D 5E DM question: Should I take it all back?

[pming]

Hiya!

If your players were really thinking We should all be dead...honestly..., then I'd also suggest a new campaign. Here's how I'd do it...

DM: "Your new charcters grew up around this area. You remember hearing stories as a child, about how some great adventurers set off to destroy the BBEG who was set to unleash evil upon the world. That group was duped into completeing the ritual themselves, with their lives providing the final ingredients! But! Our Most Holy Light, the Mother of Life, saw this and sent her most powerful servent down to recitify the situation. The Mother of Light breathed her goodness into the fallen heroes, giving them one last chance to redeem their mistake. The Mothers most powerful servant, with the help of the now living heroes, stopped the ritual from it's final stage, and the BBEG fled into the darkness! That is why everyone in The Country of The Mother of Light prays to her ever morning, and why everyone who hates the darkness follows her. Those who don't follow her are not to be trusted, for they have it in them the weakness that the original heroes did. All praise be to The Mother of Light!"

...so, yeah, basically I'd have it so that all that did 'happen', but all the heroics, saving and beating of the BBEG goes to some good (?) deity. The heroes were there, but they were "duped" and only got a second chance becuase of the deity in question. Nobody knows what happened to the heroes after the battle...maybe their resurrection was temporary, maybe not, who knows? Nobody cares, really...all the focus should be on the good deity that saved the land from certain death. Play up the over-zelousness of the 'good clerics and followers'. Maybe turn it into a "corruption from within" type of consipiracy campaign, with many people in power using the power of the "church" to inflict their will on others (much like the darker past of Christianity, like the inquisition type stuff). Maybe the BBEG is behind all this...and it was his plan all along! Or maybe not...maybe he's just taking advantage of it and trying to corrupt from within the "church" himself.

At any rate, use the previous campaigns 'ending' as the base for the new. That way the old campaign isn't seen as a "waste of time", but as "the tragic beginning of these dark times"....and, of course, it's up to the new PC's to stop these new dark times from gaining...

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Psikerlord#]

I think you did make a mistake, and should have TPK'd the party, as you suspect.

By saving the PCs bacon, the players now know you will take it easy on them to keep them alive, which kinda ruins the fun for many players - which is no doubt why some of them have raised it with you directly after the game. It takes the suspense out of the game.

I recommend simply asking everyone if they want to roll up a new game, and explain you got caught up in the heat of the moment with that divine intervention thing/wont happen again/woot new PCs!

 

[Sunseeker]

I wouldn't turn back the hands of time. In my sessions, I am willing to roll back the clock one round. This is due to facepalm-inducing realizations and moments of profound stupidity. But that's the deal, you get ONE ROUND. But I won't turn back the hands of time beyond that. I understand wanting to see things play out, and a TPK isn't that, it's: everyone is dead, restart the game or go play something else.

As for a cost to this wish, it could be her soul for her friends and the spirits have let her stay alive long enough to say goodbye. Perhaps she drew on her spirit-gods power in a way that angered them, so they seek to imprison her soul, it could be a new, grand quest for the party and a new PC to undertake to save the soul of the friend that saved them. Perhaps her use of such power has caused a "disturbance in the force" and is creating unprecedented side-effects in other places that are intricately tied to the power of these spirits. Maybe they just killed a very ancient magical tree somewhere and must now rush to protect its sapling from those who would misuse it for evil.

I don't think you should undo it. What would the result of that be? Everyone is dead? Yeah okay maybe they DONT deserve to be alive, instead of complaining to the DM that they were allowed to live, why don't they put their newfound alive-ness to good use?

 

[Shiroiken]

I generally despise ret-coning my mistakes. I prefer to live and learn from them. I would ask them if they want to continue the campaign or start a new one (possibly dealing with the aftereffects of the old one). Only if they universally want a ret-con would I do so.

 

[77IM]

That "steep price" is story-telling gold.

If I were you, I'd tell the players that you've learned from your mistake and next time you will not hold back. Then I'd mention about the steep price and explain that they didn't really "get off easy" and then I'd laugh maniacally.

(Also, DMing pro-tip: Plan for failure. For example, if your group wipes a lot, have villains who prefer to capture them rather than kill them.)

 

[Saeviomagy]

So... the wish was "I wish that everyone would come back to life"?


That... has some serious potential.

 

[Ancalagon]

So... the wish was "I wish that everyone would come back to life"?


That... has some serious potential.

Oh god yes. So the PC who has to pay a heavy price gets messed up - a new character may be needed - , the PCs deal with the dragon, etc.

*Meanwhile* a villain previously killed by the PC has come back to life. He's been spending time in hell and has learned all sorts of dark secrets and he is bent on revenge. While the PCs are distracted, he re-establishes his power base, launches a new plan etc etc

 

[MechaPilot]

So...tell me this, should I talk to my players and ask them if they want the other outcome? Should I change it all back? Or should I live with my horrible decision?

It sounds like you fell into one of the classic DM traps: trying to squeeze in a neat, Hollywood ending, when the dice are not terribly conducive to telling a story the way a film or work of literature does.

I think Iserith is definitely correct when he says:

You basically can't go wrong by discussing it as a group and coming to an agreement as to how to proceed. So start there. Be prepared for the idea that you'll be starting a new campaign. If you end up continuing, a good price for the powerful spirits to demand is for the PCs to undertake a difficult quest of some kind.

As far as the other issues going forward, making hitting 0 hit points mean something other than potential death may be a solution. Including more challenges that aren't about hit point whittling is another option.

I would like to throw in a third option though: continuing with different characters.

If the group reaches some kind of consensus that the party really should have died and is okay with retconning that, then the group could write up other characters who have to adventure in the aftermath of the first party's failure. I've had to do that myself with a homebrew setting. There was a world-shaking event at the culmination of a campaign, and the party just died (they made some bad decisions, allied with someone who really wasn't to be trusted, and weren't really as prepared as they should have been). So, I had them roll up new characters, and the first adventure was all of them just surviving the aftermath of the first party's failure, with that campaign focusing on reversing the harm that had been done to the world.

I will say that if you go that route, you really need some decorum about how you refer to the old party. In that first aftermath adventure one of the NPCs who knew of the first party's adventures referred to them as the failures who ruined the world. I was testing the waters at the time, and the reaction, which was entirely non-vocal, was terse enough that I had to clean it up by having another NPC tell-off the first one so the players wouldn't think that was the prevailing opinion of their old characters.

 

[Rantilous]

So... the wish was "I wish that everyone would come back to life"?


That... has some serious potential.

WOW, what a wish. Your world is about to have a lot of people popping right back up

Going back to the original dilemma, I like to share a bit of history for you. Me and number of close friends have been playing D&D for a very long time and our DM is simply great. However after number of incidents which closely resembles your encounters, we decided to brand ourselves the F*** UP Company.

Nothing we did, went right. We broke into wrong house, we went to wrong NPC and even managed to destroy and kills things that we did not even suppose to be any near. We forgot vitals clues and trust me when I say, we died. A lot

Our DM was fare and did manage to save our skin number of times, however when the grim reaper called for us, we held no grudge.

Sometime, as players we do stupid things and I thing as a DM you should balance each action against the outcome and if the outcome is death, then your players should understand.

But when you make that decision, stick to it even.

Peace.

Rantilous
Proud member of F*** Up Company

 

[Salamandyr]

Reading this reminds me of something that happened in my game the other night. The players wandered into the kitchen in A2 the Slavers Stockade, already trailing a bunch of hobgoblins they'd already PO'ed.

It was a huge fight, and tense and fun for everybody. And it was one that could easily have gone either way. However, I've got one player who doesn't take frustration particularly well. Knowing this encounter could easily lead to a TPK, I let everyone know that if that happened, that probably wouldn't be the end because the Slavers would want prisoners, and would prefer capture to outright killing.

I was of two minds, because it did take some of the tension out of the fight, but it also let the players, and specifically my easily frustrated one, relax and have more fun with it. They did wind up prevailing, and everybody got a moment of awesome, so it was a good time all around.

I'm usually pretty open about the mechanics and how they interact with the story, because I want the players to understand what's going on, and use their resources effectively.

So TL,DR, if your players would like to re-do it, go ahead. Jump back to a "save point" and let them try it again making the right choices. If they don't want you to fudge, don't fudge; the fact they have a better idea what is going to happen should provide them with the help they need.