How to prevent the PC's from succeeding without seeming cheap

[ferratus]

Here is the scenario. I want to retool my campaign setting to be more "points of light" by shattering my human-dominated world in a magical cataclysm. Basically, a powerful lich whose people were dominant in the planet's last ice age wants to trigger a massive epic spell that not only causes a super-caldera to erupt, but shatters the main continent into several pieces. This in turn causes a fimbrulwinter which causes the ocean levels to drop and reveals ancient cities on the ocean floor.

I would like the players to be there for ground zero to fight the fire giant runecasters and get fleeting glimpses of the main villain, but I don't want them to succeed at stopping the ritual. I'm generally fine with the PC's upsetting or defusing my plots, but if they were to succeed I would have to blow up the world later off-screen. My PC's have been in this campaign world for awhile, so I want them to be there for the changes, rather than having to explain everything upfront in the next campaign.

So how do I make the villain's success an organic part of the adventure, rather than a frustrating railroad event that is forced upon the PC's?

 

[Woas]

Couple things come to mind.

First, physical space. Player Characters are very deadly within a 100 yard radius. What with ease of teleportation and other quick movement spells, if the characters are given the ability to just 'waltz' right up to the fire giant in charge of the ritual then they have the ability to bring their full arsenal to bear.

So make sure there is plenty of physical space to separate the characters and target, with plenty of speed bumps.

Second, break the scenario up into tangible objectives, and make enough of them that it is nigh impossible for the characters to deal with them all. Don't put all your plot-eggs in one basket.
Furthermore, write down some levels of severity of the cataclysm based on what objectives are allowed to be completed. The characters can choose what goals they want to tackle, giving them the chance to alter the eventually outcome and you can figure out just how the cataclysm works afterwards.

 

[Kingreaper]

What do you want them to succeed at while they're there?

Maybe there's more than one planned point of eruption. The lich, who they can't hope to stop, is in charge of the main one, but a small group of runecasters is trying to cause one in the PCs home area.
If they stop them, then their families, friends etc. will only have to deal with the fallout of the other eruptions, NOT get blown straight into the sky.

If you make it so that they're making the choice to do the possible and honorable thing (save their home) rather than the impossible, and kinda callous, thing (save much of the rest of the world, but leave their homeland to die) then they have control.

If they choose to try the impossibl, knowing it's impossible? Give them a chance. Even if they succeed at stopping the main eruption, the rest of the plan goes off, and while the world doesn't change quite as much, their homeland is gone.

If they try and stop all 7 (it's a nice number) points of eruption? They're gonna have to get crits every roll. And have the enemies fumble every roll.
If that actually happens, then it, it's epic enough to be worth derailing your planned campaign isn't it?

 

[Khur]

One thing that worked in a campaign I ran is this: Play against normal player/PC expectations and responses.

I had a similar situation where the bad guys were using a ritual bringing back an epic villain from death and a planar prison for his soul. I made the ritualist's death by external forces integral to the ritual. The ritualist's didn't mind dying, because they knew their lord could and would bring them back if he returned.

The PCs burst into the ritual chamber and proceeded to bust heads. The wizard and cleric, who could sense the gathering eldritch energy, began to get the idea that all the killing was a bad idea, but they vocalized their reservations a little too late. When the sorceress running the show finally died, the gate opened and the epic bad guy came through in a weakened state. Rather than destroy the PCs, he mocked them in a fashion by offering each one a boon for helping to release him. Then he retreated to his distant, ruined fortress to gather strength and prepare his forces.

I had all I wanted: the epic villain in the world again, creeped-out players, and a fine bit of foreshadowing. The players didn't feel robbed; they felt like they should have seen it coming and like they could have stopped it had they been more careful. The PCs will eventually face the ritualists they killed again, this time as mighty servants of the evil one.

 

[Asmor]

Sounds like a job for the Xanatos Gambit.

Don't worry about the players stopping the ritual... Make them unwittingly instrumental in its completion!

For example, the lich in disguise, or one of his henchmen, might clue the PCs in to the ritual and that it's being performed with an artifact called the Seed of Flame. After some research, they discover that the seed can only be destroyed using the equally-powerful Baelrime Hammer hidden in the Tomb of the Frost Angel.

They race for the hammer, get it just in the nick of time, jet off to the ritual, and shatter the seed with the hammer. Then they hear some mad cackling, turn around to see the person who'd told them about it in the first place as he drops the illusion and reveals that he was the lich and the hammer was inaccessible to him in the tomb because of the powerful wards against evil and undead.

 

[wedgeski]

Player buy-in.

In other words, tell 'em.

"Guys, I'm setting the stage for the next iteration of the campaign world. Please don't expect to be able to prevent this, but I'd rather do it with your PC's right in the thick of things than off-stage during a campaign intro that will mean little more to you than the paper it's written on.

"However, do not dismay! Your actions during the scheduled apocalypse will directly determine one way or another whether <important location> is destroyed or survives to become a bastion of hope during the dark days ahead (and therefore the future or imminent demise of thousands of lives).

"Who knows what impact your efforts will have on the plans of the villain... or how your heroic actions might draw his future wrath upon you?"

You might be surprised, but only you know your players enough to answer this.

 

[Barastrondo]

So how do I make the villain's success an organic part of the adventure, rather than a frustrating railroad event that is forced upon the PC's?

As others have noted, the best way is to make it hinge somehow on either their choices or a legitimate failure. By "legitimate," mind, I mean that they actually fail where they had a chance to succeed; if they had no chance to succeed, or if their success only delays the failure until a time that they can't do anything about it, then they didn't fail under their own power. Success was denied by a greater power, effectively you. And that's going to feel like a railroad.

I would be wary of the so-called "Xanatos Gambit," myself. If you include something like that, you have to play fair like Khur did and give them a chance to figure out that they're doing the wrong thing. It may be only a tiny clue that doesn't look like a clue here and there, but the players should have a fair shake at figuring out they're being manipulated. Note that I say "fair," not "easy" — it can be tricky, and rigged so that the players have to be cunning and lucky to figure it out.

I don't know if you can properly answer this question if you don't also ask "What do the players like about my campaign as it is right now?" Give them a chance to preserve some of that. Don't end the session when the ritual goes off, let them keep playing as the aftershocks play out and start to change some of the ritual's effects. If they love Country X or Patch of Wilderness Y, let them divert ritual power or throw up counter-rituals to protect those places. Maybe they can save swaths of the land by throwing them temporarily into other planes, creating further adventures to restore them or the like. Let them fight for their favorite things about the campaign as it is — if all their favorite things about it are taken away, after all, it might affect buy-in to the new post-apocalyptic campaign.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Think of it like a skill challenge.

What I mean is, work out a scale of outcomes from "utter disaster" (eg the ritual goes perfectly, nearly everything is destroyed, etc) all the way to "almost victory" (eg the ritual goes ahead but imperfectly, and so areas of the world are saved). Then work out how the PC's can move along the scale.

Possible outcomes include saving their home village/town or possibly even unexpectedly saving the home base of another long term campaign villain (setting up a nice opportunity for said campaign villain to Owe The A Favour).

 

[roguerouge]

Sorry, man, but you'd never get me on board with a no-win scenario. And if I was told after the fact that I couldn't succeed, that would cause me to seriously consider leaving the table or asking someone else to DM. Lack of meaningful choices is not fun. Players are not sock puppets and you're moving dangerously close to treating them as such, in my opinion.

If you absolutely, positively have to go with this scenario, use alternate worlds. If the players disrupt the ritual here, it has a catastrophic effect on Earth 2. If they don't disrupt it, Earth 2 is fine, but Earth 1 is messed up. Saving the world but feeling guilty about it might be better.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I suggest reworking the encounter so that the PCs are:

a) able to positively effect the event
b) able to make choices that have real impact on the event
c) working towards a potential success, not a guaranteed failure.

In this scenario, make it 3 liches, instead of 1. When the PCs arrive on the scene, they find three massive ziggurats arranged in a triangle. Atop each ziggurat is a lich performing an arcane ritual. Guarding each ziggurat are a swarm of various underlings.

From each lich's ritual, a bolt of black lightning stretches off into the distance, in the direction of three different locations (perhaps important cities, PC hometowns, etc.)

Make it clear to the PCs that it will be impossible for them to get to the top of any of the ziggurats if they try and split up (should that enter their minds. If they don't think of it, no need to bring it up.)

So the PCs must choose which ziggurat to ascend first. Make that the bulk of the encounter, with the lich as a defeatable boss.

Shortly after the first lich is down and the PCs are racing to ziggurat #2, blow up the world. But allow whichever portion of the world that was being targetted by the fallen lich to be less-devastated than the other areas.

This gives the PCs an encounter that they can win, real consequences for their choices, while still blowing up the world.