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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Az005" data-source="post: 5421934" data-attributes="member: 6667688">Hey folks,I suppose I'm looking for some form of co-miseration, and though these unfortunate events are in the past, I still have some kind of masochistic urge to review them to see how I could have improved matters.Stay a while and listen. Be warned that this exposition contains spoilers to the Red Hand of Doom campaign, and you should read at your own peril:My group consisted of five players, and I had chosen to run the module Red Hand of Doom as my first DM-ing experience in recent years. We had chosen to include the Book of Exalted Deeds and the Magic of Incarnum as additional source books.The party consisted of a wizard (specialist, who chose evocation as his banned school), a monk-paladin, a cleric, a rogue, and a totemist. The cleric and totemist had opted for Vow of Poverty. At the time I probably did not appreciate the potency of the combination.The module went well enough, and I had decided to include some additional optional plot options which would later develop into an Elder Evil type of game situation. This involved a procession of Inevitables which were wandering the world attempting to enforce a particular contract -- and the goodly gods had a vested interest in this being done, though it was so buried in antiquity that the players would need to do a lot of question-asking to unveil the plot.The party continued through the module fairly well finishing the first portion of Drellin's Ferry. However, the party did not find a mandate to head north to the Blackfens. Admittedly, the hook to do so provided by the module is very weak. I formed a backup-plan to have the lord of the major city they were escorting the Drellin refugees to; for him to direct them north. Along the way they encountered a shapeshifting monstrous spider sorcerer, she became a reoccuring villain after they had failed to kill her on the trip.I also wanted to outline how lady Kaal was a political rival to this Lord, Jarmaath, and set her up as a social-enemy. To represent her as a bad influence, I had her cause a stalemate in the city council which prevented allowing the refugees in the city.One of the players, the monk-paladin, took objection to the town guards refusing the refugee caravan entry. Guards indicated they were following orders. A ranking NPC attempted to mediate, and the entire town guard was accused of being non-intelligent, negligent, etc. The monk-paladin suggested that the party's role was completed, that they had delivered the refugees to the city, and if the city was as beligerent enough to refuse them entry then so be it.I asked the monk-paladin whether following orders from the city council was lawful. He replied that it did not matter. I asked whether abandoning the refugees was considered heroic or good. He decided he would storm the city and allow the refugees entry by force. I asked whether that was wise.And so our first disagreement began. As a GM this makes my role difficult, as there is a limit as to how many different routes I can present. This ended in the monk-paladin being frustrated in a dejected mopey way. I explained there was a political problem in Brindol I wanted the party to solve, he indicated storming the city may have been an option, then. The party eventually opted for a sneak entry.I discussed it with them and it was suggested I not second-guess party decisions so much and instead find a way to work with them. Fine. Okay.It was soon revealed that one of the political leaders of Brindol was being mind-influenced by the spider-shapeshifter, Miha. At the time they decided not to directly oppose her.Later on in the city, I decided to introduce another one of these extra-module plot hooks. An inevitable appeared walking out of Kaal's manor. It appeared like a previous NPC, Tune was the name,  but was not giving the obvious body language.Here is where it all started to fall apart. The monk-paladin, not sufficiently convinced it was Tune due to it not acknowledging them. So he decides to trip it. I interpret this as an attack action and it is revealed that this fake-Tune is an inevitable. The contract on its belt is stolen by the rogue, and the party makes its escape.The next morning the party performs an Augury to determine whether destroying the scroll would be a good idea. Woe. Lots and lots of woe. I give enough explanation of the contract translation that the inevitable is trying to prevent the release of some very old bad thing.Soon after, the party finds that the inevitable is now taking on the appearance of one of them, the rogue,  using a Disguise Self. They lure it to the cathedral. It performs several suggestion attempts to force the party member luring it to stop that it might find where they had absconded with its scroll. This fails. It opts to use an enervation ray to drive the point home and increase the success of its next attempt. But cannot complete the action before the lure runs away. Anyway, its lured to the cathedral. It sees that the party wizard has its scroll. It does not respond to communications, and attempts to walk past the rest of the party and take it back(though its intent could not be completely discerned). A long drawn out battle ensues, where I try my best to not end in TPK. In the interest of keeping things moving, I have the creature not use the bulk of its abilities in a horrid underestimation of the party's strength and make it choose very poor tactical options. They have all their resources expended, but kill it. I end the night explaining how they had wrecked the cathedral, and how the divine casters/vow takers, suffered a horrible black out upon killing the inevitable.The next session, I attempted to drive the point home about how they may have done something wrong. The blackout, how the city cleric, Goldenbow was not pleased with their destruction of the cathedral, and how they questioned why the party had killed the inevitable.The monk-paladin took great exception to this. They saw nothing wrong with their actions. I disagreed based on the fact they had stolen its scroll, and initiated combat with it during their first meeting.The monk-paladin contended that:- I am a PC and I should be able to kill "gay constructs" without any qualms- It did not communicate with us- A trip attempt is not assault- It, therefore, responded with disproportionate force and "attacked us first"I disagreed. Due to the nih ridiculous penalties for being prone, I see trip attempts as extreme assaults on the safety of NPCs and PCs. Also, since they stole from it, and since it does not have mortal sensibilities, and since it believed itself far more powerful than the PCs, that it felt no obligation to parle with them.My response was to chastise them in-game, but reward them with loot and XP. Consequences would be levied in the lack of that NPCs contribution to stopping a BBEG lurking in the shadows beyond view.Suffice to say, my session went into thermonuclear melt down. Monk-paladin yelled quite a bit and accused me of being very much unintelligent.Lamentably, it ended with people stomping off cursing.My question to you, dear readers, is what DMing policy could I have employed to provide an enjoyable game for such an individual? Perhaps I just feel the need to talk about this, because I am rather saddened to see something I invested work into crumble -- and for a friend I was on good terms with to now think very much less of me in terms of a GM at the very least.Well. Thats it. I hope you enjoyed my train-wreck story.</blockquote>

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