Crazed Substitute DM

[ShadeMoon64]

I was called out of town on business for 4 weeks recently and one of my players asked if it would be alright to run a short "side trek" type adventure for the others while I was gone. I figured, "What the hey!" This particular group has been playing together almost 5 years and most are veteran players.(Three of us go back to the first printing AD&D days)

This was our experimental group of characters all crafted using Savage Species monster classes. We were just completing an extended adventure and were on our way to establish a home base in a nearby city.

Imagine my surprise when I returned to discover the short side trek had resulted in THREE levels of character advancement(from 7 to 10! ), a literal wagon load of gold and magic items far overpowered for the level of the group, and "random encounters" specially equipted to exploit the weaknesses of two members of the party resulting in the primary fighter of the group having his CON reduced to 6 with enough vile damage to make his maximum HP 4 and the arcane caster turned to stone .

I am now faced with several unappealing choices:
1) pretend the whole thing was a dream and reset the characters to their previous levels and gear.
2) try to bring them back in line by throwing out the entire story arc I had planned since they are now able to walk through the encounters without breaking a sweat and writing for the new levels.
3) Abandoning these characters to the sub DM and starting fresh with a new campaign.

I know I should have been more careful in allowing a sub. Any thoughts or suggestions as to where to go now?

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

The "dream" option probably strikes me as the most sensible option. I think the players of the mage and fighter will understand...

 

[Berandor]

That's why you should either
a) conduct side adventures by different DMs with a different group
b) closely monitor what other DMs do to your storyline.

But since the child has fallen into the well (is that even an English saying?), it'd be best to pretend it was all a dream, unless you aren't satisfied with the campaign anyway, in which case you could use it as a reason to start anew.

 

[DonTadow]

I think your first mistake was not going over the side adventure with the player and setting guidelines. One of the players at my game plans on doing a simillar thing later in the summer. At first they were telling me about this adventure they had made up and i jumped in and said they should run it. So we got together and meshed the rules, what could be given and what couldn't be given, what monsters to fight, who she couldn't use, and to make sure that the adventure was only 1 to 2 sessions.

Never let the game get out of your hands.

In any case whereas the dream thing sounds the most plausable it is a plot device that I hate. What I would do is have each of the characters reset their character to the level you were at before this whole shinnagin started (this is after scowling the pc who ran that adventure for making some bonehead choices). Don't explain anything, just tell them its apart of the plot. Within the next three to four adventures (with careful clues put in to build up to it) have the pcs go places and for some reason or another they are blamed for things or evne less conspicuous people swear they've met them before. You continue with your normal campaign with the minor tweaks. Hint that your PCs feel as if they lost something, as if somethings missing. Build this up.

Then have the PC's encounter their dopplegangers. The "other" pcs. All of their ailments have been fixed so that these guys provide a challenge for your pcs. Don't make them enemies per say but confused lost souls. Don't have the "other" pcs kill the pcs though as it will take both party's to figure out what happened. The "other" pcs were still good at heart and had no idea they were fakes. If killed they turn to goo. (or perhaps one has already been killed and turned to goo which is why they sought out the real pcs)

Perhaps a major or minor villian in your campaign used an artifact he obtained to split the beast side from the humane side of your character's then. The beast side becomes delusional doing actions that are very unusual of the pcs.

When the two party's meet everyone sets off to investigate the town where all of these actions occured. The gold and items they obtained are all fake, made of this same gooey substance. When they go to the town the other pcs were in they realize that the other pcs had attacked normal citizens and the pcs were labeled murders, the frame put on them by the current minor/major villian.

I'm not familiar with your current storyline so I tried to be general, but this could work. I like it a bit better than the Bobby in Dallas thing.

 

[Shemeska]

Laugh at it, mock it in your mind, and then ignore any of the events that happened during that side adventure. Blow it off and start your game back up right where you left off. That's my advice.

 

[S'mon]

The "dream" option probably strikes me as the most sensible option. I think the players of the mage and fighter will understand...

I agree - go with (1). And let this be a lesson to you - don't let other GMs run "side quests" within your continuing campaign, it doesn't work. Let them stick to running stuff with different PCs.

 

[S'mon]

Laugh at it, mock it in your mind, and then ignore any of the events that happened during that side adventure. Blow it off and start your game back up right where you left off. That's my advice.

Actualy, this is much better than "it was a dream".

 

[stevelabny]

if one has a 6 con and one is stone there's a better way.

force them to use all thier money and XP to revert those two members back to normal.
this works even better if they dont have access to magic that can fix these problems themselves. (with no arcane caster, and the ability to declare vile damage as differemt, this should fly pretty well)

at your option you can leave the unscathed characters one level higher.

while the "use your vast fortune to fix your new problem and return to the status quo" bit is old and irritating, its a little less irritating than " it was all a dream"

 

[DonTadow]

if one has a 6 con and one is stone there's a better way.

force them to use all thier money and XP to revert those two members back to normal.
this works even better if they dont have access to magic that can fix these problems themselves. (with no arcane caster, and the ability to declare vile damage as differemt, this should fly pretty well)

at your option you can leave the unscathed characters one level higher.

while the "use your vast fortune to fix your new problem and return to the status quo" bit is old and irritating, its a little less irritating than " it was all a dream"

He'd still have to revamp everything for 10th level characters. How they jumped three levels in one night is beyond me

 

[reveal]

Laugh at it, mock it in your mind, and then ignore any of the events that happened during that side adventure. Blow it off and start your game back up right where you left off. That's my advice.

What he said.