DM help- Teaching players a lesson

[kengar]

OK. here's the situation:

Party discovered the hideout of a kidnapping ring (several peasants were snatched and the party went after the bad guys). They fought the baddies and cleared the place out but no sign of hostages. In the last room they fought in, they discovered a magic portal. Party decides to hoof it back to town (2 days each way) and rest up/buy new gear with the loot, etc. before tackling the portal. I already chided them slightly for walking away from potentially saving the peasants, but here's the second problem: there is a timetable of events going on beyond the portal. If the party delays too long, they would miss the "window" to deal with things and BAD Things can happen. End of the world-type things.

Now, I don't want to just trash the whole adventure by saying "You blew it!" and blowing up the planet, but this is a recurring problem with these players. They are often quite timid when it comes to pressing on when they are down a few spell slots or HP and they have the chance to walk away with some cash. I would like to teach them a lesson here about being heroes, but I don't want to just smack them down or railroad them.

I should also mention that the party is 8th level and this group was originally designed as more of a one-off for this module as opposed to an ongoing campaign (though there's no reason why the characters couldn't continue to be played). I play with this group regularly, though and part of me would really like to take this opportunity to give them an object lesson about being too cautious/calculating.

Any ideas on this? Thanks.

 

[boxstop7]

Just a thought...

Have the portal closed when they return. See if they scratch their heads at all. Assuming they simply return to town again seeking further adventure, confront them with strange goings-on. One of the players perhaps has horrible dreams. One of them perhaps gets possessed at night and has no memory of what he/she had done the night before. Townsfolk are suddenly acting very peculiar. Beef up the BBEG (assuming there was one in the first place) and make him/her WAY more powerful than he/she would have been had they just gone through the portal. If any of them are good-aligned (and alignment means anything in your campaign), make them roll semi-daily will saves to avoid attacks of conscience. Make them search all over town for some way to re-open the portal. And when they do, make sure they see a horriffic scene, just to add drama to the fact that it wouldn't have been this bad had they acted immediately and had not been selfish. I would scale this based on how "damaged" the party was at the time they left. If they were only down a few HP and a few spells, I'd make it more severe. If half of the PCs had lost more than half of their HP, and the MUs were almost spent, I wouldn't be as harsh (as a rest would have been more justified). Take steps to demonstrate that their greed (running with the loot to buy more gear before tackling the problem) had DIRE consequences. Hope that at least gives you something to consider.

~Box

 

[Enkhidu]

The best thing to do, if you really want to make this an object lesson, is keep all of the baddies current plans - if the heroes aren't there to stop them, they might end up succeeding in their "end of the world" plot.

But, assuming that you want to keep eveyone having fun, all you have to do is change the "end of the world" plot the bad guys have, and make it a "make the world more to our liking" plot. Instead of ending the world, maybe they open portals to the Abyss, and demons come pouring out. Or maybe the flood a large portion of the world. Anything short of actually destroying the world could work here - just make sure that the party, and more importantly lots of important NPCs, know that the PCs could have stopped this before it happened, and didn't because they were cowardly.

A few dozen bards singing about the group's yellow streak might do the trick, and spur a good "clear our names" plot hook.

 

[Ciaran]

kengar,

Do your players/PCs know that their enemies are on a timetable to bring about the end of the world? If not, then their behavior becomes much more reasonable. Yeah, there are hostages' lives at stake, but they don't do the hostages much good if they go in unprepared and get killed in the process.

If you want them to be less timid, let them know the consequences of timidity in character beforehand. That way they have no one to blame but themselves, and they're more likely to get the message you intended, rather than a message you didn't intend (like, "We would have succeeded if we weren't so foolhardy... next time, we should be even more cautious!) Or, if you must spring an object lesson on them, have it be something a little bit smaller than the end of the world.

- Eric

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

The portal is still there.

They step through.

Bad guys are waiting for them, right at the "portal point" with one of the hostages.

Bad guys sneer, thank the party for giving them time to make plans and prepare spells, kill hostage, laugh at ineptness of party, dispel portal, and teleport away.

 

[Painfully]

Remember that the players are there to have fun, not become a punching bag for your bad guys (okay, maybe a little of both). Putting the PCs into a no-win situation should be rare, and they need to have a way out of it that gains them some insight on how they might succeed next time (if there is a next time). If you make it too tough, you run the risk of the players just saying, "the heck with it," and having their PCs turn around and seek adventure in another direction.

If you can't keep the difficulty of the adventure/campaign on par with the party members' abilities, then you might be seen as an unfair DM.

Bringing end-of-the-world type bad stuff just because the heroes, "missed the bus," er, I mean portal, is rather strong medicine. The PCs need to be able to overcome or avoid whatever plans you have set for them. How they do it should be left to them, but the DM should do his best to tease the players into his fine web of plots, and not poke them with a stick to make sure they, "follow the path."

Were the villain's plans known to the party when the kidnappers escaped through the portal?

Do the villain's often torture or kill their hostages? And did the PCs know this when they watched the kidnappers escape?

Do any of the PCs have a vested interest in saving a particular hostage? How about including a family relative or fiance or even familiar as one of the hostages? Make it personal!

I would say the DM needs to play up to the emotions of the PCs a little more. If your players don't want to take risks, then they don't get to save the world, or whatever. Let them move on to their next challenge.

 

[Painfully]

Would it hurt to give them some sort of insight as to the coming apocolypse (or whatever your plot is). A little effort at foreshadowing might come in handy as a DM. In fact, it should be essential if this is going to lead to end-of-the-world type stuff.

Giving a party cleric or mage visions in their dreams might be one way of getting the message across. Give them visions of what is to come if they stray too far from their mission (they do know what their mission is, right?).

 

[kengar]

Remember that the players are there to have fun, not become a punching bag for your bad guys (okay, maybe a little of both). Putting the PCs into a no-win situation should be rare, and they need to have a way out of it that gains them some insight on how they might succeed next time (if there is a next time). If you make it too tough, you run the risk of the players just saying, "the heck with it," and having their PCs turn around and seek adventure in another direction.

Yeah, I've thought about this and I definitely want ot avoid the whole "Boom! Yer dead!" situation. On the flip side, the party knew that folks had been disappearing in the area and that this one villian was probably behind it. The odd thing about it was there have been no ransom demands, etc. (the party knew about that too). What I've already given them grief over is the "Oh, well. Those peasants are probably already dead. (verbatim) Let's head back to town an come back later." stance they took.

If you can't keep the difficulty of the adventure/campaign on par with the party members' abilities, then you might be seen as an unfair DM.

I agree and I'm not trying to be defensive, but I will mention that they picked up a clue or two and have totally ignored it (evil wizard's journal/notes). I've even dropped a hint to one player that they "haven't dealt with everything they found."

Were the villain's plans known to the party when the kidnappers escaped through the portal?

Do the villain's often torture or kill their hostages? And did the PCs know this when they watched the kidnappers escape?

Do any of the PCs have a vested interest in saving a particular hostage? How about including a family relative or fiance or even familiar as one of the hostages? Make it personal!

see above

I may try the whole "You arrive to find another group of adventurers stumbling out of the portal saying 'Whew! That was brutal! We sure showed those guys, though! Now let's go sell the loot!' "
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Then have the portal explode flinging them into an alternate dimension where their magic items don't work right.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

 

[Shadow64]

Have another group of heros show up in town with the kidnapped folks that your group was going after. Have one or two of the victims dead, two or three really messed up (like bones have been taken out, eyes missing, scarred up for life, something really nasty) and two or three that are unharmed but still shaken because of what they have seen.

The new "heros" tell a tale that although they were hurt they pushed on. They arrived a little to late because of all the evil minions they had to slay, but at the very least the plot was stopped. Now, they can always say that the BBEG escaped before they were able to kill him (don't the BBEG's almost always do this?) so they are going to go after him.

The world-ending-plot is stopped, the BBEG is still out there and now your group has to see what happened because they didn't push on (the townsfolk could also get a little hostile towards the group too, if they know the group came back to rest and buy stuff instead of helping out the kiddnapped townspeople). If the town is of a decent size the other set of heros could get a sizable cash reward (maybe two times what the party got for selling there stuff), or perhaps something more - your choice.

Just my 2cp.

 

[Mort]

I never liked the “teach a lesson” approach it seems vindictive.
Instead, remember: consequences, consequences, consequences.
Have the players suffer the realistic side effects of their decisions.
For example if their late to the rescue because of party apathy, have some of the hostages be casualties. As above, have the villains thank the party and make a grand exit.
I also like the alternate hero idea, PC’s hate being upstages by NPC’s and generally I frown on it, but here it seems an appropriate consequence.
Of course, the above assumes that this kind of thing would be fun for the players. If not, don’t spring it on them until they get bored of the no consequences approach (fun is always paramount).