<Spoiler Warning: This post contains spoilers for the "Red Hand of Doom" module>
OK I have been playing through "The Red Hand of Doom" with a newish group of players. I have two players who are pretty new to D&D and two that are fairly experienced. We've played some low level stuff but decided to start a new campaign with PCs at level 5. So they rolled new PCs and off we go...
One of the new PCs is a lawful evil cleric who likes to make zombies out of all the bodies the crew leaves behind. The rest are all lawful neutral or lawful good. I told the players that I'd allow the LE character as long as everybody assumes the party has come to a sort of equilibrium with each other. The good characters are at peace with the evil character and have found a way and a reason to work together, vise versa.
Earlier in the campaign the party tried to enter a town with a couple of zombies in tow. This was the first time they had tried to do something as boneheaded as this so I was going easy on them. They approached the town guards with the zombies, the guards freaked out and called their superior officer, long-story-short the zombie maker released the zombies into the wild instead of dismissing them. I was clear with him what the difference was and even hinted at the consequences of letting the zombies go under their own will. So the party shouldn’t be surprised when the returned to town after various adventures and what-not to find a funeral underway for a small girl and her father who were viciously attacked and partially eaten.
My point with the funeral was simply to hammer home the notion that the stuff the PCs do (good and bad) have consequences. Well, the LG paladin (why is it always these guys) basically ratted out his party member to the local cleric of Pelor. I was going to play it among the local authorities as another hobgoblin attack. But this changes things. The LG player is playing it really heavy handed against the LE player although the two guys are great friends. This isn’t coming from any interpersonal conflict as far as I can tell.
OK so what should I do? The town has enough guards and a cleric and wizard to detain the party if they wanted to. A couple of complicating factors:
1. The town is under threat by an advancing horde of monsters and only has about a week and a half before the horde arrives and wipes the town off the map.
2. The townsfolk are clueless about what’s coming. The PCs are the only ones who know about the horde. Up until this point everyone thinks that there’s maybe a large band of hobgoblins coming down out of the mountains, not a horde of thousands, plus dragons and all sorts of other baddies.
3. If the PCs can’t find a way to weaken and slow the horde the whole region will be under their control in two month’s time.
Here’s what I was kinda thinking I would do. I’d love your ideas and feedback:
1. Throw the entire party in jail and take all their stuff. Let ‘em stew for a while. The players are all pretty hilarious and I’d love to sit back and listen to them try to figure out how to get out of this mess.
2. Time is against the PCs in this scenario. They are going to loose all the time they gained by doing various things to slow the advancing horde and give the town more time.
3. The PCs will be given the opportunity to warn the towns folk about what’s coming and their testimony will be backed up by an NPC familiar to the towns folk.
4. I’d love to work it so that the PCs are left to rot in jail as the horde arrives only to escape as a giant-thrown boulder smashes the jailhouse open. They’d then have to choose to flee or stay and look for their gear & treasure.
Here’s a question, the PCs have a decent amount of magic items and treasure with them. How much, if any, loss should they take in treasure?
OK I have been playing through "The Red Hand of Doom" with a newish group of players. I have two players who are pretty new to D&D and two that are fairly experienced. We've played some low level stuff but decided to start a new campaign with PCs at level 5. So they rolled new PCs and off we go...
One of the new PCs is a lawful evil cleric who likes to make zombies out of all the bodies the crew leaves behind. The rest are all lawful neutral or lawful good. I told the players that I'd allow the LE character as long as everybody assumes the party has come to a sort of equilibrium with each other. The good characters are at peace with the evil character and have found a way and a reason to work together, vise versa.
Earlier in the campaign the party tried to enter a town with a couple of zombies in tow. This was the first time they had tried to do something as boneheaded as this so I was going easy on them. They approached the town guards with the zombies, the guards freaked out and called their superior officer, long-story-short the zombie maker released the zombies into the wild instead of dismissing them. I was clear with him what the difference was and even hinted at the consequences of letting the zombies go under their own will. So the party shouldn’t be surprised when the returned to town after various adventures and what-not to find a funeral underway for a small girl and her father who were viciously attacked and partially eaten.
My point with the funeral was simply to hammer home the notion that the stuff the PCs do (good and bad) have consequences. Well, the LG paladin (why is it always these guys) basically ratted out his party member to the local cleric of Pelor. I was going to play it among the local authorities as another hobgoblin attack. But this changes things. The LG player is playing it really heavy handed against the LE player although the two guys are great friends. This isn’t coming from any interpersonal conflict as far as I can tell.
OK so what should I do? The town has enough guards and a cleric and wizard to detain the party if they wanted to. A couple of complicating factors:
1. The town is under threat by an advancing horde of monsters and only has about a week and a half before the horde arrives and wipes the town off the map.
2. The townsfolk are clueless about what’s coming. The PCs are the only ones who know about the horde. Up until this point everyone thinks that there’s maybe a large band of hobgoblins coming down out of the mountains, not a horde of thousands, plus dragons and all sorts of other baddies.
3. If the PCs can’t find a way to weaken and slow the horde the whole region will be under their control in two month’s time.
Here’s what I was kinda thinking I would do. I’d love your ideas and feedback:
1. Throw the entire party in jail and take all their stuff. Let ‘em stew for a while. The players are all pretty hilarious and I’d love to sit back and listen to them try to figure out how to get out of this mess.
2. Time is against the PCs in this scenario. They are going to loose all the time they gained by doing various things to slow the advancing horde and give the town more time.
3. The PCs will be given the opportunity to warn the towns folk about what’s coming and their testimony will be backed up by an NPC familiar to the towns folk.
4. I’d love to work it so that the PCs are left to rot in jail as the horde arrives only to escape as a giant-thrown boulder smashes the jailhouse open. They’d then have to choose to flee or stay and look for their gear & treasure.
Here’s a question, the PCs have a decent amount of magic items and treasure with them. How much, if any, loss should they take in treasure?