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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jaffab" data-source="post: 6874412" data-attributes="member: 6792518">All, so people have talked about the clues and were they obvious enough.....   so.....1) The BBEG is the first NPC they meet, pretending to be all nice and stuff (even gifting them equipment) - they meet them in the BBEGs house2) After some adventuring off on side quests, they discover the BBEG house on fire, and a burnt corpse in the BBEGs house - all players say how sad that the BBEG is dead - not knowing at this stage its the BBEG.  There is another house nearbye with the 'town master' also dead.  3) After some more side questing , the BBEG makes an appearance, and 'reveals' themselves to be the nice person they met before, all players are shocked.  They battle, the BBEG escapes4) A story quest which they finding clues which they understand means they need to find and destroy the BBEGs heart to destroy the BBEG5) More side quests, then back into town where the fires have been put out but the corpses are still in the houses (the maps we use clearly show the corpses).  One of the party says "that's the dead town master, so who is that" and one of the PCs actually said "oh that's the person we first met, who now appears to be the big boss"At this point, all other groups have gone "hang on", investigated the corpse, search the BBEGs house, found the body is the wrong sex, and find more clues (to the heart).  But not this group.... so we continue5) More side quests6) So I introduce a 'funeral' (slap them in the face clue) - the town inn keeper drags the dead townmaster to the town cemetery, the PCs watch, and the inn keep asks them to lend a hand with the 'other body'.   They drag it around town, saying (again) how its the body of the big boss.  One of them suggests looking at the BBEG house, but the others say no, not worth it.  I try to push them into searching the house, but they go shopping instead (sigh)7) When I start to panic about missing the big clue, when they next return to town, I make the inn keeper try and get them to reason who the 2nd body was - they agree (again) it was the body of the big bad, but were actually more interested in why the town master died.  After 10 minutes of conversation options, they head off the keep (and the goblin/orc war) which leads us now to the conflict with the BBEGSo my current options and thinking based on others suggestions are:1) Kill them (die die die).  They deserve it.  They are stupid and only started making notes 25% of the way into the campaign2) Use the Inn Keeper (who they have befriended and spent a lot of time with) to find the heart for them and destroy it (dieing in the process)3) Provide a teleport mirror/portal at the base of the castle which will take them to the heart - if they ignore it, then back to #14) Put the heart in the basement of the castle.  Sort of tempted by this, BUT it is letting them off.  they deserve to die, but I don't want to upset anybody in RL5) Kill them all down to the last PC (who can revive 1 or 2 PCs before the others fail the save throws) - with the speech of how they have failed, then goes off to destroy the world.6) Playing it out, and see if they come up with something creative (how would harry kill voldamort when the horcruxes are still all good?).  I imagine it would end in option #1 or #5What I have ruled out is the suggestions of:1) The big bad enslaves them - The story needs to end!  They die, or the BB dies.   An enslavement is a fluffy ending with no real ending2) The big bad appears dead, and comes back later.   Same reason as #1.  Even if I bring the BBE in a new campaign, 3) They can escape and come back later.  Again, the story needs to end.  So same reasonAt the moment, I am torn between options 2 (inn keeper), 3 (teleport), 5 (kill all but one) and 6.</blockquote>

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