D&D 5E I accidentally revealed all of my campaign plans and secrets to a PC.... what now?

[Nevvur]

Yes, it then becomes impossible for Morvek to free himself. Which is why my players would have the choice to kill off all the heirs as a potential solution to the Morvek problem. Not very paragon though. I need to think up some alternative solutions that offer the same amount of security/finality. Any ideas?

It was my interpretation that the demise of a single Quora Tal firstborn descendant would effectively end the threat of Morvek's return. If this is not the case, oops. If it is, it seems unlikely to me someone in the know wouldn't have already done exactly that. The PCs may be paragons, but how many NPCs through the generations since the original Quora Tal have known about Morvek's binding? If the PCs stumbled upon the information, it stands to reason someone else would have, and it seems incredulous to me that not one of them was willing to save the world at the cost of a single life.

That said, it isn't any less contrived than, say, the Fellowship not riding giant eagles, and we all know how popular that story is. Still, I would consider adjusting the conditions that qualify a descendant for sacrifice.

Anyway, I specifically brought up the spell Sequester for a reason. It can preserve the PC's status as morally sound, and there's no standard way to end it prematurely. Of course, as a DM, it's your prerogative to enable Morvek or his agents to find a workaround.

Regardless, it shouldn't be hard to convince a descendant to accept sequestration for at least a short period (say 1 year) to buy the PCs time to deal with Morvek et al. Seeing as how it's in the interest of saving the world, an even longer period shouldn't be a totally unreasonable request for a good natured person. They could also add a clause that ends the sequestration if Morvek is defeated/destroyed.

 

[Garthanos]

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[Imaculata]

I have played a campaign twice with two different groups, except for one player. This meant that this one player knew what was going to happen, because he had played the campaign before. But he was actually excited to play the campaign twice. I came to an agreement with him that he would not act upon knowledge from the previous play-through, and that he would play a different character. I also told him that I might change some things, and that depending on the choices of the party, the story might play out quite differently. And so that's what we did. This player didn't reveal any of the surprises, and deliberately made different decisions, and visited different locations, just to see what he didn't get to see the first time.

 

[CubicsRube]

Op - sorry i havent read all pages on this thread, but id reiterate what some others have said here.

Its the players responsibility as well to contribute to a good story. Part of that is not spoiling any surprises for other players.

Another big part is respecting the work of a dm. You know well how much work it can be to prepare a big campaign like you have. Whether or not your player was doing it on purpose, he's disrespected all your effort by reading through your prep.

I personally dont plan out the whole structure of a campaign. I'm using the dungeon world structure of planning the major players and their motivations and then stayong one session ahead of the players, which allows me to react to their choices. Your method is not at all wrong - it can be very good - but it requires a lot of effort and time!

That being said, you can always change certain facts about the world or just mix it up. Perhaps an npc that was implica ted was actuallyt a plant and is controlled by a mysterious master, or that the information was slander distributed by the real villain, a different npc.

Any how you do it, half the fun ive had is acting through my character and seeing how the story changes and evolves and seeing the same with the other characters. Thats somwthing that will still be fun even if the characters know the plot.