Am I a cruel DM?

[Ambrus]

Here's what's happened in my campaign:

For the last 35+ sessions, the party has been embroiled in a quest to recover the McGuffin artifact. They've successfully played through the Banewarrens adventure (at the end of which I placed the artifact). Naturally there are other factions outside the party who want the McGuffin for their own ends. One, the branch of a LG church has been generally supporting the party in hopes that it'll be returned to heaven (from where it supposedly came). Another is a group of heretical demon-worshippers bent on corruption and conquest. Yet another is a seemingly neutral group of gnome and dwarf psions trying to fulfil an ancient prophecy.

On the way out of the dungeon, the party successfully repelled an ambush by the demon-worshipping faction. They then met up with some of the psion gnomes in the dungeon with whom they'd developed an alliance of sorts (though both groups originally started on the wrong foot when they first met, resulting in some gnome deaths). The party decided to trust the gnomes because they wanted their help getting the McGuffin out of the city above secretly (it can't be teleported or plane shifted). The gnomes had a ship waiting at the docks for just this purpose. Unfortunately, the city docks were all under crown surveillance because the kingdom is gearing up for a war and is weary of all the cargo and people arriving or departing the city.

Finally, the gnomes convinced the party that the only way to safely get on the ship and out of the city was to have all the party members (along with the McGuffin) placed into wooden crates and carried onto the ship. Later, after the party agrees to this plan, gets itself crated up (all in separate crates) and carried around by workmen, the party begins to suspect something is up. After half a day, they bust out of their crates only to realise that they are in a warehouse, still in the city, with their equipment but that the ship, gnomes and McGuffin are all long gone.

The funny thing is that I didn't really plan what happened (I honestly don't put much thought into what the NPCs are going to do ahead of time). There are just so many factions who were after the artifact, and I'd been playing each group with the idea in mind that any one of them, including the party, may eventually end up with it. I didn't know where the party was going to go with the artifact, who they would trust and how they'd plan to leave the city. I didn't imagine that the opportunity to separate the party from the artifact would have presented itself so easily to the NPCs involved. The party has become one of the most powerful, unpredictable and dangerous factions involved in this race. One of the other factions simply couldn't ignore this opportunity to separate them from it when it presented itself.

Overall, the tone at the end of the game was mostly melancholy, though a few of the players are, understandably, quite upset. They've been fighting to recover this artifact for well over a year of gaming. Now, only a few games after finally finding it, it is taken away from them. Some players find it a lame plot development. Was I unwise in handling the situation the way I did? Am I just mean?

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

Unless your gnome/dwarf faction has no brains, you played them well. I won't say "correctly" because they could have been 'nice' and not taken the artifact. But they certainly played fairly, in that they didn't kill the party.

I understand your players being upset. I'd be upset, too, if I was stupid enough to trust some other faction after the same artifact.

I don't think you were unwise or mean. You just played your NPCs intelligently. Huzzah!

 

[The Amazing Dingo]

With what you've told us, I don't think it was mean. I think the PCs overtrusted a group whom they might not have known enough about. Truthfully, it was pretty foolish to seperate themselves thusly from the artifact and leave the artifact in the hands of others.

On the other hand, did you somehow mislead the PCs through bending the rules, even if just a little? Did a Divination spell or such reveal something incorrectly? I'm going to take it you were truthful and upfront with all of this.

In the end, I think it is the PCs fault. They shouldn't take allies for granted and never take anyone at face value. At least, thats my philosophy of gaming, even when I'm in games where the DM is pretty straightforward and truthful. Heck, Zone of Truth is a first level spell for this very reason. After playing for that long, they surely had other means - both magical and mundane - to discover if these gnomes might double cross them.

End Result: Players' fault.

 

[rumblehed]

cruel DM

I can understand how upset the players would be after having gamed for the past year to acquire the artifact. They might cool down after a while, however, and see the opportunity to recover the item from the gnomes as the beginning of a new adventure. The problem with using an artifact for which the characters are constantly questing is that anything else you've got planned in a campaign can take a back seat. Our group calls it the All-Powerful-Artifact-of-Scenario-Bypass. Also, if the PC's continuously acquire and then lose the artifact, they will also lose trust in the campaign.

 

[Dagger75]

I always find it funny a group of players would rather fight the kingsguard and start a war because they won't be allowed to see the king armed yet will hand over something of great significant (not to them though) to anybody that asks.

With what you said, the party attacked or was attacked by this faction once before. I find it hard to believe they never discussed what they were going to do with the artifact.

 

[Argent Silvermage]

I't only a few more games like that and you'll be up there with the great Rat-bastard DMs like Piratecat and Wizardru. Congradulations!

Actually any party who has gone through so much to get the item was just stupid to be so trusting. No your fault. (but still well done.)

 

[Sejs]

The party has become one of the most powerful, unpredictable and dangerous factions involved in this race.

Something doesn't quite sit right with me - the short psion faction (which, for some reason, my brain wants to call a conflict with which "the Low-down Showdown"...) didn't they think that hey.. these guys are quite powerful, dangerous, and unpredictible. Let's make them really angry with us!

Sure, getting the artifact is great, but their methods seems really, really short sighted. The party flat out -knows- who betrayed them. I don't know, it just kinda seems like a scapegoat would be more in order or something. *shrug*

 

[Len]

Sure, getting the artifact is great, but their methods seems really, really short sighted. The party flat out -knows- who betrayed them. I don't know, it just kinda seems like a scapegoat would be more in order or something. *shrug*

But at least the party knows whose butts to kick to get it back, which should make them feel better.

Also, if the PC's continuously acquire and then lose the artifact, they will also lose trust in the campaign.

I don't know what you mean by that, unless you mean that the players should trust that they'll never lose!

It seems perfectly fair to me. The artifact really is a "McGuffin" if they don't know what they want it for. The next quest will involve some item or other, why shouldn't it be the same one.

Something similar happened in our campaign recently. After we recovered the McGuffin, it turned out to be a decoy (and a very dangerous one at that), so we had to turn around, go back and finish the quest. When we figured that out we just sighed and rolled our eyes. All in a day's work for a DM.

 

[tonym]

...The funny thing is that I didn't really plan what happened (I honestly don't put much thought into what the NPCs are going to do ahead of time)...(

Well, that's the thing that would bug me as a Player. If you, as a DM, knew from the get-go that the gnomes would screw-over the party, that's fine--because then there'd a good chance that one of your Players would've picked up on their trecherous nature via roleplaying. But if for months you roleplayed them as truly trustworthy NPCs who 'liked' the PCs, because you knew them to be trustworthy NPCs who liked the PCs--but then, when the party finally relied on that trust in a big way, you suddenly decide they were secretly treacherous and have always been trecherous, then that is a bit lame. Because there would've been NO WAY for your Players to pick-up-on the gnomes' trecherous nature via roleplaying during all those previous sessions.

I'm with your Players on this one.

Tony M

 

[Gilwen]

I think you played that well. It's not your fault and if you players are grumpy then they should direct it at themselves. Let's see...we have the object we have been questing over and we'll just agree to box it and everyone in different boxes....well they would not (at least less likely) have been robbed if they had assigned someone to be with the item. No way would I have left that thing out of my sight.

Gil