When PCs fail.

[billd91]

OK, so the BBEG wanted the artifact for his master. Is it possible for the PCs to intercept the BBEG before he gets to his master? What does it mean if the BBEG's master gets the artifact? Can they recover it from the BBEG's master? Sounds like another epic quest potentially in the offing...

 

[Oryan77]

OK, so the BBEG wanted the artifact for his master. Is it possible for the PCs to intercept the BBEG before he gets to his master? What does it mean if the BBEG's master gets the artifact? Can they recover it from the BBEG's master? Sounds like another epic quest potentially in the offing...

I have only had 1 day to give it some thought, but I'm thinking they are just SoL.
*Spoiler alert for the Dead Gods adventure*



I won't bore everyone with the details, but the "master" is Orcus and he obtained the artifact (Wand of Orcus) as soon as the BBEG picked it up. I just didn't see any other way around that due to the flow of events.

This not only caused Orcus to regain his deity status, but he also now has complete control over a spell that can kill the gods. As far as dealing with Orcus goes, the PCs seem SoL.

For flavor, they'll now witness what allowing Orcus to return has done. Of course my first thought is to start having Cultists of Orcus popping up and the PCs can start dealing with them.

If anything, this failure will provide the game with a lot of interesting events. Probably more than what would have happened if they succeeded (so that's kinda cool). I'd like to somehow incorporate these new events into the adventures I have already been preparing that had nothing to do with Orcus (since I assumed they were going to succeed). I want this outcome to effect them in some way rather than it being something that happens in the background and is maybe heard about in passing. I'd like them to feel like their actions had a negative effect around the planes.

If anyone feels like throwing around some ideas, here are the scenarios I had planned to run before knowing the outcome to this adventure (can I somehow mix in some "Orcus" related events within these scenarios?)

1. A PC is given the chance to become a Dragonborn if the group successfully infiltrates a Yuan-ti fortress and kills a Green Dragon that has a lair below.

2. I'm reading Against the Giants and will be running it. Not sure yet what the hook will be, but maybe something that revolves around the Wood Elf Ranger PC.

3. The Wood Elf Ranger has a broken Orcusword and is trying to find the remaining pieces. I have a series of short adventures planned for this that is similar to the Rod of Seven Parts adventure.

 

[Hand of Evil]

It happens - now play on...

1) Continue the game allowing the players to see the world they helped to create. This can give you a chance to turn your world upside down and do some maintenance.

2) Talk to your players - get some feed back and let them know some of your thoughts.

3) Jump the Shark - take them back to a prior point in your gam and have them replay the events to see IF they change anything.

 

[S'mon]

Epic Fail can be cool.

I thought this would be about a TPK and/or a global apocalypse, in which case you could run a follow-on campaign set amid the ruins, with the old PCs' legendary failure a cornerstone of the new game. There's tons of precedent for this, eg Lord of the Rings is full of it, think Isildur and his anticlimactic demise. Or in the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant Kevin Landwaster's Epic Fail against Lord Foul is part of the backstory.

But in your case it sounds like the PCs have merely screwed up in this adventure, they go on, and so does the world. No big deal, just continue the campaign, making sure the impact of their failure is substantial. Maybe they'll be more careful next time.

 

[S'mon]

In your case they let Orcus, Abyss lord of undeath, regain all the tools he needed to regain and exceed his full power.
At this point you have two choices:
1) Let the bad guys win. This will be very, very, very bad for the people of the setting but that's the bad part of being the characters upon whom the fate of the world rests. Sometimes you suck it up and the world is hosed.

This would definitely be my approach. I wouldn't flush the campaign setting down the toilet - Orcus is not Tharizduun - but there would be serious consequences. Eg Necromantic armies of deadites raised up by now-far-more-powerful Orcus-revering Necromancers would be a good start. Desperate battles against the Deadite hordes.

Check out Frank Frazetta's Death Dealer: Shadows of Mirahan for inspiration - the 4e module from Goodman Games based on the comic is pretty cool.

It may be that initially most of the Really Bad Stuff occurs well away from the PC's current location. If there's some country in your campaign you never use and find kinda 'meh', there's a good candidate for the first place overrun by the Legions of Death.

 

[S'mon]

This not only caused Orcus to regain his deity status, but he also now has complete control over a spell that can kill the gods.

Whatever the adventure says, I wouldn't GM it that Orcus can just wave his wand and All the Gods Die. That's above Overgod level, never mind the Greater Power type level I expect is the most Orcus has at this point.

Rather, run it that Orcus is now a Ma Yuan* figure, the Incarnation of Primal Chaos with the ability to potentially permanently kill any deity he fights. Maybe he does fight and destroy one or two of the less interesting gods in your setting, with suitable ramifications, until the other gods learn to avoid him and pay him proper respect as a newly ascended Greater Power.

He probably still isn't going to storm Valhalla since he's not powerful enough to defeat an entire pantheon at one go, and he fears imprisonment if not destruction.

*Or Dahok in the Hercules/Xena TV show.

 

[I'm A Banana]

1. A PC is given the chance to become a Dragonborn if the group successfully infiltrates a Yuan-ti fortress and kills a Green Dragon that has a lair below.

One of the first gods killed is the Yuan-ti deity Zehir. When the party infiltrates the fortress, they find it in chaos as cultists are overthrown from their position of power as their deity goes silent, making the warrior caste or the psion caste a more powerful faction. The party can take advantage of the chaos to kill the Green Dragon, but can also learn from the green dragon that there are mortals who can rise to fill a god's place (which is the Green Dragon's plan).

2. I'm reading Against the Giants and will be running it. Not sure yet what the hook will be, but maybe something that revolves around the Wood Elf Ranger PC.

Not sure abuot the plot of Against the Giants begins, but think about ways you can work either a dead deity or a new necromancer-priest into the mix, as the cults of Orcus become ascendant.

3. The Wood Elf Ranger has a broken Orcusword and is trying to find the remaining pieces. I have a series of short adventures planned for this that is similar to the Rod of Seven Parts adventure.

Possibly, this could give your party the out it might need for slaying a god (or at least removing his Last Word ability). The Orcusword's shattered pieces lay strewn across the planes because this particular sword was shattered when a minion of Orcus (perhaps the King of Ghouls?) used it in a rebellion. If it can be re-forged and wielded by a familiar hand (perhaps the PC's must recruit the undead to rise up against their master!), it can sever the new god's most potent divine powers, giving the party an opportunity to slay Orcus.

 

[billd91]

If anything, this failure will provide the game with a lot of interesting events. Probably more than what would have happened if they succeeded (so that's kinda cool). I'd like to somehow incorporate these new events into the adventures I have already been preparing that had nothing to do with Orcus (since I assumed they were going to succeed). I want this outcome to effect them in some way rather than it being something that happens in the background and is maybe heard about in passing. I'd like them to feel like their actions had a negative effect around the planes.

Sounds good to me. The only real trick is your players' attitudes. Are they discouraged and want to end the campaign on a low note? Or do they feel responsible enough to clean up after themselves? But that's something only you can judge...

If you wanted to encourage them to keep on and clean up after themselves, start dropping hints about what they can do - prophesies and such - that foreshadow other stuff the campaign might lead into. Right now, they might be feeling a little adrift given the events that have occurred. Best to get them moving on in a positive direction quickly.

 

[haakon1]

Failed PC's = The Other Guys

I'll paraphrase (i believe) Raven Crowking here: If you don't want the world to get destroyed, don't have the PCs try to save it.

Ya know . . . this makes me think that it might be amusing to pull out the idea that some shinier, higher level party solved the issue where the PC's failed.

I'm thinking of the current movie "The Other Guys", where the non-PC party of supercops is Samuel L. Jackson plus the Rock, while PC's Will Farrell and Marky-Mark are stuck doing their paperwork.

Not much fun, but it lets you move on with the campaign world, without giving your PC's a "free win". If the PC's are forever infamous as the losers who almost destroyed the world until the cool party cleaned up their mess, that might make for a memorable rest of the campaign!

PS. Simon mentioned "deadites". That made me think "Army of Darkness". Two places to go with that -- the cooler party who saves the day is Ash. Or the whole campaign comes down to a battle like the Deadites trying to storm the last bastion of civilization, and the PC's get to be like Ash.

 

[haakon1]

This not only caused Orcus to regain his deity status, but he also now has complete control over a spell that can kill the gods.

In my campaign, Orcus could TRY to kill all the other gods, but it wouldn't actually work, for reasons not to be found in any rulebook. The sound effect would be the Millennium Falcon launching into hyperspace . . . and then not! Whoomp-whoomp-whoomp-whoomp . . . fail.

Instead, the ACTUAL theology of the campaign -- not the stuff Orcus thought was the real story, a la the pages of Dieties & Demigods -- would be briefly glimpsed.

Bwahahahaha! For my Gygaxian theology is a mere skin on the hidden Tolkienesque nature of my universe, of which mortals cannot handle said Truth.