DM's Delema: To kill or not to kill

[smilinggm]

Who made the Uber-Golem? Why was this thing locked up any way. To me it looks like that your villians trapped and locked up this beast the best way that they could. Do your shadowmen have another enemy that your hero's do not know about. Did the realease of the Uber-Golem alert this enemy and they are now sending a team to investigate. And at this point the enemy of my enemy is my ally. Now you have a plot twist and a new direction to explore.

 

[Percivellian]

Here's one possible solution that is potentially cool and uses all the elements you've drummed up, as well as making good on PC decisions. Just throwing it out there for consideration.

The Inquisition is, obviously, pissed. Thirty dead brothers! "We have to find those no good murdering PCs"... scry on them. At this opportune moment, the Inquisition witnesses the conversation between the Elf PC and the demon queen. Not only do they hear her admit to the murder/frame job, but they see the elf take the moral high ground, or, if by some chance he does agree to her conditions, they observe that, and admire the sacrifice he is making for his friends.

Run the combat, and run it tough, but not impossible (tweak as necessary). There are two scenarios: PCs fight alone, or PCs fight with the Queen's turncoat forces. The former means the Elf chose the moral high ground, and the latter means he sacrificed himself to give his party the advantage. Either way, see if the PCs can win the combat under their own power. If they do, great. Alternatively, if it's looking grim, have the Inquisition show up (probably frightening the PCs, as they figure the Inquisition is out for their blood) and help the PCs. Their motive? The PCs are being framed, manipulated, and hunted by no shortage of evil forces... they should help. It could make for a good moment though, in any scenario:

1. The PCs win a tough fight against all. The Inquisition shows up, scaring the pants off them (another huge combat!? Ahh!), only to divulge that they were coming to help them, but they're so fricken cool, they obviously didn't need help, and would they please come to the funerals of the dead brothers?

2. The PCs win a tough fight with the help of the Queen's forces. The Elf, sadly, now has to go live with the demon-Queen. The Inquisition shows up, initially scaring the pants off them, but helps the PCs destroy the Queen and her forces. No Consorthood for the Elf. Yay.

3. The PCs are losing a tough fight. The Inquisition shows up, making them think they're even more doomed than they were before. But, like all the other scenarios, they help them to destroy all the evil folks because the PCs are obviously trying to do the right thing.

I hope I've understood all your background enough. Let us know how it turns out.

~Percy.

 

[Cartigan Mrryl]

Alright, here's what I think:
Personally, usually I'd say to KILL the PC's, to teach both You and the Players that D&D isn't all about "Good wins vs. evil" often times, evil wins. But that doesn't work for this.

What you need to do is make them fight another group of Shadowmen, maybe 1 or 2, raise their CR's, and use ALL their special abilities, practice DMing the 2 Shadowmen so that they kick the crap out of all of the players. Anyways, after you have that fight you should have queenie show up again in all her Sidhe glory and, as the group lay about VERY battered, have her offer again. (If you want to cheapen it and kind of FORCE him to do it... have her mention something about, "Your friends will die if you don't do this," yadda yadda yadda.) But yeah, if you want him to KEEP his player, have her assassinated by the Shadowman Boss for double-crossing her, voila!

But I also would like to draw attention back to HeapThaumatergist's points... they're all good and should be read by all GM/DM's.

 

[genshou]

Here's one possible solution that is potentially cool and uses all the elements you've drummed up, as well as making good on PC decisions. Just throwing it out there for consideration.

The Inquisition is, obviously, pissed. Thirty dead brothers! "We have to find those no good murdering PCs"... scry on them. At this opportune moment, the Inquisition witnesses the conversation between the Elf PC and the demon queen. Not only do they hear her admit to the murder/frame job, but they see the elf take the moral high ground, or, if by some chance he does agree to her conditions, they observe that, and admire the sacrifice he is making for his friends.

Run the combat, and run it tough, but not impossible (tweak as necessary). There are two scenarios: PCs fight alone, or PCs fight with the Queen's turncoat forces. The former means the Elf chose the moral high ground, and the latter means he sacrificed himself to give his party the advantage. Either way, see if the PCs can win the combat under their own power. If they do, great. Alternatively, if it's looking grim, have the Inquisition show up (probably frightening the PCs, as they figure the Inquisition is out for their blood) and help the PCs. Their motive? The PCs are being framed, manipulated, and hunted by no shortage of evil forces... they should help. It could make for a good moment though, in any scenario:

1. The PCs win a tough fight against all. The Inquisition shows up, scaring the pants off them (another huge combat!? Ahh!), only to divulge that they were coming to help them, but they're so fricken cool, they obviously didn't need help, and would they please come to the funerals of the dead brothers?

2. The PCs win a tough fight with the help of the Queen's forces. The Elf, sadly, now has to go live with the demon-Queen. The Inquisition shows up, initially scaring the pants off them, but helps the PCs destroy the Queen and her forces. No Consorthood for the Elf. Yay.

3. The PCs are losing a tough fight. The Inquisition shows up, making them think they're even more doomed than they were before. But, like all the other scenarios, they help them to destroy all the evil folks because the PCs are obviously trying to do the right thing.

I hope I've understood all your background enough. Let us know how it turns out.

~Percy.

Listen to Percivellian you should. This is the best plan I've seen so far. Well-thought-out, covers all the bases, and it works consistently with what has already happened. Not only THAT, but the ranger player isn't utterly screwed no matter what they do.

 

[Hjorimir]

My general philosophy as a DM is to always let the game play itself out and if the PCs die that is okay. Yes, it sucks to lose the campaign to a TPK (and it takes a lot of skill with a nice helping of luck sometimes to keep the game dangerous while at the same time avoiding the TPK), but if your players ever come to the realization that you won't drop the hammer when they mess things up it will take the fire out of the drama.

Not knowing if the PCs will win or lose is one of the most important aspects to a good RPG in my book.

 

[genshou]

My general philosophy as a DM is to always let the game play itself out and if the PCs die that is okay. Yes, it sucks to lose the campaign to a TPK (and it takes a lot of skill with a nice helping of luck sometimes to keep the game dangerous while at the same time avoiding the TPK), but if your players ever come to the realization that you won't drop the hammer when they mess things up it will take the fire out of the drama.

Not knowing if the PCs will win or lose is one of the most important aspects to a good RPG in my book.

Yeah, but it's the DM who got the players we're talking about into that situation in the first place, by making a mistake or two in a few places. So, it's the DM's responsibility to fix things, not to take the easy way out and just use a TPK.

D&D is NOT a game of players vs. DM. It's a game of cooperation. If you as the DM screw up, then you have to put your pride aside and fix things without just taking the easy way out. If asdel simply lets the PCs die without offering a decent recourse, then that's a sign of totalitarianism, not good GMing.

I said it before and I'll say it again. For smoothing out all the problems with this situation, Percivellian has offered the best solution yet, IMHO.

 

[sniffles]

I'm with Heapthaumaturgist here. I have a GM who tends to do things similar to what you describe, and we all end up being frustrated because his "obvious" resolution isn't obvious to us, and we don't like being put in "rock vs. hard place" situations like your moral dilemma. One of my fellow players spent a month or more running a secondary character because the GM's "obvious" resolution to his main character's problem wasn't obvious to any of the players.

It's certainly challenging to sometimes have to work with the bad guys, but I don't think making party survival dependent on that is a good way to go if you want to keep your players happy, let alone keep your campaign running. I know I'd be feeling very frustrated if I were the player who's been given the moral choice to make. My recommendation would be to find some other "out" for the party aside from betraying their convictions or death. Just try to avoid making it a deus ex machina moment.

Always remember, when setting up situations:
1. You can't always predict what the players will do.
2. You can *never* predict what the dice will do.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Reading Percivellian's thoughts, can you find an MP3 or other recording of war or hunting horns? You know the type I'm talking about.

If the PCs end up engaging the shadowmen, play it every couple of rounds, slightly louder. Finally, blast it and have the Inquisition cavalry take the field in support of the PCs.

 

[Percivellian]

Reading Percivellian's thoughts, can you find an MP3 or other recording of war or hunting horns? You know the type I'm talking about.

If the PCs end up engaging the shadowmen, play it every couple of rounds, slightly louder. Finally, blast it and have the Inquisition cavalry take the field in support of the PCs.

Supercool idea. Such a soundfile could also be very useful in other campaigns. Man, I want one!

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Kill them all. Ao will know his own.