How to prevent the PC's from succeeding without seeming cheap

[ferratus]

This was some really good advice, so I think I've got some outlines.

First, I'll turn to my resident Xanatos, the formorian giant Onagar Granitebones who is the patron of my Warlock player. The party doesn't trust him, but they have gotten used to doing his bidding because he rewards them well. They also know that he is intelligent, greedy and sadistic. I had already planned to have Onagar make a secret alliance with the Lich Queen Vlaakith for the purposes of getting a share of loot and slaves in the war, so this stretches my use of him.

I'll get Onagar to tell the PC's that a powerful weapon exists in a stronghold belonging to Vlaakith, an apocolypse stone. Time is of the essence, because this abyssal shard will unleash a storm of elemental chaos which will shatter the world and dissolve it back into elemental chaos. The only way to destroy it will be to toss into the super-caldera, which is a gate to the elemental chaos. There the crystalized power of the elemental chaos will dissolve harmlessly into the infinite energy of the plane from which it came, like a sugarcube in water.

The volcano-gate will be guarded by devil-worshipping fire giants (I already have a module in Dragon for that!) that given the Githyanki's fondness for infernal pacts and infernal servants would seem to be in league with the Githyanki. They aren't, they are just loyal to Mephistopholes, who is opposing the plans of Asmodeus out of spite.

The PC's defeat the giants and drop the apocolypse stone into the volcano gate, causing first a massive earthquake, and then a massive eruption, and then causes new fault lines to radiate out from it, turning one continent-spanning techtonic plate into several.

The Githyanki incursion will take the opportunity to strike with renewed vigour, while the nations struggle to survive the fimbrulwinter and find food. The PC's will be both instrumental in helping to fight off the Githyanki offensive and choosing various parts of the campaign world to save. They will also have a bone to pick with Onagar, who played them for patsies and is currently looting their home city (his reward from the lich queen).

Meanwhile, the Lich Queen waits for the polar ice caps to grow and reveal the lost city beneath the ocean waves. There a living god king was murdered by his most trusted and powerful servant Asmodeus. She will enter his tomb to retrieve the key to unlocking his power.

Now, this assumes that the PC's will throw the apocolypse stone into the volcano, so I'll resort to a bit of a cheat. The apocolypse stone is only one way to trigger the caldera. A fire titan will lair beneath surface of the volcano's magma, and will be angered if the players attempt to remove the apocolypse stone from its resting place. When they defeat him, the death throes of the titan's body will serve as the catalyst for the eruption of the volcano. The apocolypse stone will be revealed to be a very expensive and powerful magical item but was never really dangerous at all. That will be their reward for getting it right.

 

[Kingreaper]

Sorry, man, but you'd never get me on board with a no-win scenario. And if I was told after the fact that I couldn't succeed, that would cause me to seriously consider leaving the table or asking someone else to DM. Lack of meaningful choices is not fun. Players are not sock puppets and you're moving dangerously close to treating them as such, in my opinion.

If you absolutely, positively have to go with this scenario, use alternate worlds. If the players disrupt the ritual here, it has a catastrophic effect on Earth 2. If they don't disrupt it, Earth 2 is fine, but Earth 1 is messed up. Saving the world but feeling guilty about it might be better.

It doesn't have to be no win, if it's done right.

If they save their home base, when it would otherwise be destroyed; that's a win.

If they make it so the ritual remakes the world, but the lich's people cannot return to conquer; that's a win.

If they make it so that the Lich must sacrifice himself for the ritual to reach completion; that's a win.

Just because it's not an all-win, doesn't mean it's no-win.

But it's very important to make sure that some things can be won, and that these are things the players care about.


Definitely avoid the Xanatos Gambit. "Good job breaking it hero" is one of the worst endings. And it's very frustrating and railroady, unless done really well.


EDIT: I see you have a Xanatos in place. I also see that you're planning on using quantum railroading.
I like quantum railroading for things like minor encounters, getting new quests etc. but when it's the fate of the world at stake?
"You thought destroying the gem was a good idea; you destroyed the world"
"You decided to steal the gem; you destroyed the world"
What if they don't take the gem? Is it going to be:
"You didn't destroy that gem; the world has been destroyed"?
Because if not, the only way they can avoid being dupes, and counterproductive, is to ruin your story.

 

[ferratus]

Sorry, man, but you'd never get me on board with a no-win scenario. And if I was told after the fact that I couldn't succeed, that would cause me to seriously consider leaving the table or asking someone else to DM. Lack of meaningful choices is not fun. Players are not sock puppets and you're moving dangerously close to treating them as such, in my opinion.

Well, I guess the real way to win is to not follow the quest hook and continue the war. The Lich Queen has to send her own forces to retrieve the artifact, and that allows the PC's to destroy the main floating city-citadel floating above the world and permanently halt the invasion. The resulting cataclysm will then be viewed as a revenge strike, salting the earth as it were so the victors cannot enjoy their victory.

But I get what you are saying here. I don't want to railroad the PC's, hence the purpose of this thread. But if I blow up the world after this campaign, I feel I'm just spitting on their accomplishments anyway by making them irrelevant (the world doesn't stay saved). Nor do I want to start from scratch with a new campaign world to make it more to my liking, because I like the history, cultures, and cosmology I've developed for this world thus far. This way they are up against a no-win scenario in the short term, but they can mitigate the damage and have their final revenge against the perpetrator.

If you absolutely, positively have to go with this scenario, use alternate worlds. If the players disrupt the ritual here, it has a catastrophic effect on Earth 2. If they don't disrupt it, Earth 2 is fine, but Earth 1 is messed up. Saving the world but feeling guilty about it might be better.

See this, and the suggestions of multiple sites to do the same ritual, seems to make the players feel more helpless than what I'm doing. The players will pretty much know that they could not save both worlds or prevent all sites, so it just seems like an irrelevant victory. However, choosing the best of 3 bad options I think is a legitimate way to receive some sense of victory while allowing for villain success.

 

[ferratus]

Because if not, the only way they can avoid being dupes, and counterproductive, is to ruin your story.

Well I figure the three options will be:

a) You saw through Onagar's deception and defeated the Lich Queen, but it was a heavy cost to ignore the artifact.

b) You realized the deception at the last minute, so you get a nifty artifact, but you fell for the the Lich Queen's backup plan.

c) You were saps and followed Onagar's instructions to the letter, so you made a real mess of things.

 

[Kingreaper]

You think that the PCs destroying the world is more of a win than the PCs saving a part of the world?

 

[Vorput]

Building on what other have said, just decide now that the cataclysm is going to happen. You're allowed to do that- you're the DM and it makes a good story.

But make the PCs feel like they've saved something. Go with the 7 seals thing, or something similar. The players know from the outset they have to shut down these seven seals in a set amount of time- they also know it'll be next to impossible. But they try anyway and manage to close 3, or 4, or even 5- the resulting cataclysm is just then just presented as less than it was going to be.

It's still what you were planning it to be- everything you said in your original post still happens (and will happen either way), but you milk the angle of what could have happened. The PCs comfort themselves by saying 'at least we closed 4 seals'. If they hadn't closed those 4, the entire world would have been completely destroyed- even though things were bad, at least life goes on- albeit differently.

They're heralded as heroes not because they stopped it from happening completely, but because they managed to lessen its effects.

 

[ferratus]

You think that the PCs destroying the world is more of a win than the PCs saving a part of the world?

No, I don't think that's what I said. The world being blown up is pretty much a forgone conclusion, because the Lich Queen has pretty much crafted a no-win scenerio.

However, their best chance for saving a large part of the world is to continue the war, rather than listening to the treacherous Onagar and going chasing after the artifact.

 

[Bumbles]

So how do I make the villain's success an organic part of the adventure, rather than a frustrating railroad event that is forced upon the PC's?

Pull an Ozymandias.

Do it? Dan, I'm not a Republic serial villain. Do you seriously think I'd explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome? I did it thirty-five minutes ago.

If you really want, give them one last chance to drop a bomb on the bad guy.

 

[jbear]

To add to the 'playing on player expentancy' comments above, I had a situation with a ritual in my present game.

The PC's were trying to stop a Drider creation ritual. It was a skill challenge during a battle. All the enemies were young Drow children (Reskinned minions). The altar was a fairly elaborate puzzle that prevented the PC's easy access to the top of the altar where they could free the Drow woman who was to be transformed.

Little did the PC's know that the Boss and all the tough hench men had been deliberately distracted and called away by the same mysterious forces who had caused their group's involvement in the first place. The children were actually stopping the ritual until the boss returned. As each child fell beneath their swords the dark cloud swirling above the chained woman became more real and more spiderlike.

Wrongly, they believed time was running out and redoubled their efforts to slay the children in order to stop the ritual. As the last child died they unwittingly unchained the summoning ritual that they had hoped to stop, which they quickly realised as the woman began to scream in excruciating agony.

The puzzle hadn't been completely unravled at that stage and as the woman began to die screaming above them beyond their reach, a very enjoyable and exciting tension was created and it became a real race against the clock despite their victory.

I didn't have any world shattering plot lines hinged on the ritual succeeding and in the end the PC's were able to free the Drow and flee. But them unchaining it could be enough and then the disastrous effects are instantaneous.

I did however give clues to what was going on as they got closer and closer to putting their foot in it. They payed no heed... your PC's might be a bit more switched on than mine (all very new to RPG that seem to blunder into every trap time after time).

Maybe they can't stop the ritual but they can achieve success by taking something from the bad guy that will give tham a distinct advantage in the future or disrupting it in some way, lets say, creating a stitch in time that buys them a few years to foil his plot before the ritual ever takes place.

I guess situations like this are why I prefer to have things lightly sketched out in my head based on the variety of ways that I imagine things might feasibly go. Until I know for sure where things have gone I don't fill things out. That way I haven't invested hours and hours on a story line that never was.

As one of these lightly sketched out options, build in some way the PC's can be successful (without necessarily destroying the villain, and maybe only delaying the inevitable... unless they complete some other heroic adventure in the mean time) into the encounter/story. And I guess, be prepared if the PC's come up with a different way of being successful that you weren't prepared for just in case... the villain can always have an escape route prepared even for the most improbable event of something getting in the way (turning insubstantial or teleporting away to fight another day)...

 

[Qwillion]

There are a large# of good suggestions here, the best being to make it a Xanatos Gambit, and using the player's ability to overcome all obstacles to be what causes everything to go wrong.

I have done this myself and had it work out quite well.

If you don't think you can dupe you player honestly than give them a bad vs worse option. The idea being that you have two potential outcomes World wide destruction Vs. Utter Annialation. The players can still have a victory and you still get the dramatic change to your game world.