D&D 5E As a DM, do I kill the entire party at the end? Im torn?

[Saeviomagy]

Diety arrives and sings the "heart in a box" song?

 

[Sunseeker]

I've had GMs use "Last week on D&D..." pre-session recaps (like non-episodic television shows often have) to good effect. This not only allowed them to refresh their players' memories of what happened in the previous session and what direction the session was heading but it allowed them to highlight story elements that were missed or glossed over. If the session recap notes that the burned body at the funeral was amiss it could encourage the players to re investigate it.

Another technique is to have the players do the pre-session recap. This way you get insight into what the players took from the previous session. If they gloss over the burned body during their recap and it's pivotal for your campaign, you know you have to give them additional clues and/or more obvious clues.

These pre-session recaps might not help in this situation since the game is so close to its end. But if used throughout the campaign they may have cut the issue off at the pass.

I typically do both: first I recap what is relevant to me (this also helps me remember as well), the DM. Typically, this includes the "big stuff" that the players have done or were going to do or chose not to do, and occasionally some smaller stuff that made a large impact on the game, even if irrelevant to the story, since I don't want my players to feel like the small stuff doesn't matter to me.

Then I ask them if there is anything I left out (typically I leave out a few things on purpose as a litmus test to see what they remember) and then they point out something I may have "missed" in my recap, or some other things they felt were important, but I may not have realized they felt were that important.

It's also kinda fun, because I get to be "silly narrator" and pretend I'm giving the into to the latest episode of Lost or DBZ....which is probably what our games generally appear to be a mashup of.

 

[akr71]

Three thoughts -
1) If the BBE's only vulnerability is the heart, you would think she would want the thing the makes it mortal nearby where she can keep an eye on it. Not around her neck mind you, but somewhere. I would put it in a well guarded, trapped area of the castle. I doubt the players will look on it as cheating and you can fill them in afterwards.

2) You said that in the first encounter, the BBE 'played' with the party before 'escaping.' Maybe she leads them on a bit of a chase for her own amusement - she believes herself invulnerable after all. Give the BBE a device that a portal that she jumps through - it stays open long enough for the party to follow. A labyrinth kind of idea. In the chase they pass the heart (see #1).

3) If you want to kill them, kill them. You say that you've given them enough chances, so carry on with the story. As a DM, I don't like to put my players in unwinnable situations. I don't always go easy on them, but if the odds are overwhelmingly stacked against them, I want them to have an idea before they engage.

 

[BMaC]

Don't kill them! Have some other bad result that they may perhaps be able to work out of it.

 

[akr71]

Oh ya, #4) You said the campaign needs to end. So end it. Whether it is with the characters' deaths, the BBE's death, the BBE's banishment (even temporarily) or the character's imprisonment - they're all endings. Just because a resolution isn't neat and tidy doesn't mean it isn't a resolution.

 

[Gradine]

There's been a ton of good (and not-so-good) advice in this thread, and where along that spectrum each individual piece of advice falls depends entirely on your preferences as a DM and your players' preferences as players. The suggestion that their play preferences might not be as in-line with yours (your comments on their lack of note-taking and your reticence to drag the campaign out to a more satisfying conclusion) is worth ruminating on, if nothing else.

There's been several references to The Alexandrian's excellent "Three Clue Rule", which is certainly great advice for your next campaign but kind of past the point of helping this one (my own advice, with its minor thread necro-ing, might be as well). What I didn't really see mention of (though I'll admit I started skimming at points) was a reference to the Angry DM's Schrodinger's Gun rule, which states that nothing in the game world is true if the PC's have not encountered it.

This rule is basically the permission you need, if you don't want to TPK your party, to move the object central to your BBG's ultimate demise to a place your party will actually be able to access it before taking out the BBG (at which point you can use the "Three Clue Rule" to point your party in that direction first). It doesn't even matter all that much if you think your BBG would never be so stupid as to keep the one thing that prevents his destruction so close to himself, because presumably your BBG has minions and presumably they are not all nearly as smart as your BBG and one of them could have very easily chosen to have moved it to a "safer location" on the assumption that there's no way any group of heroes could ever get that close to your BBG (if you don't think your BBG would make that dumb a decision themselves, of course).

 

[Queer Venger]

Kill them all, God will know his own.

 

[jaffab]

Op back again - so next week is the week it happens. The party have made their way up the tower where the BigBad is at the top - they are one floor from the top, ready to head up. And here is what I have decided...

I am going to late fate decide (cowards way out), but also give them a chance. The rules of the game were simple - Discover who the big bad (done), discover they had created their horcrux (taken out their heart) (done), discover where the heart was (missed), destroy the heart (missed), confront and kill the big bad (on Monday).

So what would happen when the heart is not destroyed? Making the BigBad invincible is too set in stone. But they did miss the obvious (and all their comments tell me they were close, but the one who got close was generally hushed up by somebody who 'wanted to go shopping'), so it has to be tough. So heres how the fates will play it out....

The battle will start, and every time its the big bad has a turn, they will heal - their wounds would close up, blood wound sink back into their body, burns would disappear (and they will heal for 3d8+4). So getout #1 is that they can destroy the bigbad if they can really damage it. Getout #2 is they recognise what is happening.... and just run away.

I am also going to put a teleport mirror in the room - it kind of makes sense the bigbad would have a method of getting to their sect HQ where the heart is stored - so if they want, their get out is to teleport to the sect HQ and kill the heart. I will make it obvious when they enter the top of the tower that this mirror has no reflection but a special shimmery quality to it. Knowing my (hack, slash, ask questions later/never) group, they will probably ignore it.

But, also, at the start of every round, I will roll a D20 - on the 2nd roll of a 20 (this will be a long battle, 1/20 odds is too easy, I want 1 in 40), the inn keeper will appear at the top of the stairs, arrows in his back, bleeding to death, cloth bag soaked in blood in his hand, and inside the bag will be the heart. If they help him, he will gasp "found heart" and die (on his body will be the maps of how he found the heart) - if they destroy the heart, then battle comes to its natural end (they win, or they lose).

And finally - I wont let it be a TPK. If they all start to die, When it gets down to the last 2, the BB will shout 'surrender' and will imprision the remaining 2 in her basement cells (I had already placed an entrance to this in the ground floor of the tower ready for this before they came into the tower... just in case) for the rest of their lives, to work as slaves.

So that's my decision. It all makes sense in terms of story line, and the fates of the dice and the PCs actions will decide how it all plays out. It may be an (almost) TPK, or they may just go hammer and tong and kill the BB or they may run away - I have no idea how this will play out... but I have given them lots of fighting chances.

 

[dave2008]

Op back again - so next week is the week it happens. The party have made their way up the tower where the BigBad is at the top - they are one floor from the top, ready to head up. And here is what I have decided...

I am going to late fate decide (cowards way out), but also give them a chance. The rules of the game were simple - Discover who the big bad (done), discover they had created their horcrux (taken out their heart) (done), discover where the heart was (missed), destroy the heart (missed), confront and kill the big bad (on Monday).

So what would happen when the heart is not destroyed? Making the BigBad invincible is too set in stone. But they did miss the obvious (and all their comments tell me they were close, but the one who got close was generally hushed up by somebody who 'wanted to go shopping'), so it has to be tough. So heres how the fates will play it out....

The battle will start, and every time its the big bad has a turn, they will heal - their wounds would close up, blood wound sink back into their body, burns would disappear (and they will heal for 3d8+4). So getout #1 is that they can destroy the bigbad if they can really damage it. Getout #2 is they recognise what is happening.... and just run away.

I am also going to put a teleport mirror in the room - it kind of makes sense the bigbad would have a method of getting to their sect HQ where the heart is stored - so if they want, their get out is to teleport to the sect HQ and kill the heart. I will make it obvious when they enter the top of the tower that this mirror has no reflection but a special shimmery quality to it. Knowing my (hack, slash, ask questions later/never) group, they will probably ignore it.

But, also, at the start of every round, I will roll a D20 - on the 2nd roll of a 20 (this will be a long battle, 1/20 odds is too easy, I want 1 in 40), the inn keeper will appear at the top of the stairs, arrows in his back, bleeding to death, cloth bag soaked in blood in his hand, and inside the bag will be the heart. If they help him, he will gasp "found heart" and die (on his body will be the maps of how he found the heart) - if they destroy the heart, then battle comes to its natural end (they win, or they lose).

And finally - I wont let it be a TPK. If they all start to die, When it gets down to the last 2, the BB will shout 'surrender' and will imprision the remaining 2 in her basement cells (I had already placed an entrance to this in the ground floor of the tower ready for this before they came into the tower... just in case) for the rest of their lives, to work as slaves.

So that's my decision. It all makes sense in terms of story line, and the fates of the dice and the PCs actions will decide how it all plays out. It may be an (almost) TPK, or they may just go hammer and tong and kill the BB or they may run away - I have no idea how this will play out... but I have given them lots of fighting chances.

Let us know how it goes.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

I am also going to put a teleport mirror in the room - it kind of makes sense the bigbad would have a method of getting to their sect HQ where the heart is stored - so if they want, their get out is to teleport to the sect HQ and kill the heart. I will make it obvious when they enter the top of the tower that this mirror has no reflection but a special shimmery quality to it. Knowing my (hack, slash, ask questions later/never) group, they will probably ignore it.

If you already suspect they'll ignore it but you want it to play a part in the finale, I recommend you really hammer home that it's a teleportation mirror. Either incorporate the three clue rule or flat out tell the knowledgeable PCs it's a teleportation mirror.

And finally - I wont let it be a TPK. If they all start to die, When it gets down to the last 2, the BB will shout 'surrender' and will imprision the remaining 2 in her basement cells (I had already placed an entrance to this in the ground floor of the tower ready for this before they came into the tower... just in case) for the rest of their lives, to work as slaves.

Will the campaign continue and the slaves be given a chance to escape? If not and the campaign will end regardless of the outcome, I wouldn't worry about avoiding a TPK. As a player if half the party is killed and half the party is enslaved, I would have the same emotional reaction as a TPK.

Let us know how it turns out! I'm eager to hear the outcome!