Is this a good idea? (this is a Blargney free zone!)

[Wik]

Blargney Free, so that one of my players doesn't actually get to learn about the plot point coming up. And in fact, most of this text here is just so that he doesn't actually learn anything accidentally from mouse-over text.

Anyways, my feywild campaign is coming to a close, and the PCs get to the conclusion next session. Now that it's coming up, I'm wondering if maybe my resolution is a bad idea.

See, the problem is, the resolution of this campaign, in a way, doesn't involve the PCs at all. They'll be witnesses to a great event, and not actually take part - they do get to take part in the aftermath, but the event itself should not involve them.

Here, in short, is the situation:

The drow queen and the eladrin king have, through feywild law, been forced to marry and jointly rule the kingdom. While neither side likes the other (I should add that neither is inherently good or evil; the PCs have sided with the drow, for example, over the eladrin), both sides believe in working together for the greater good.

However, assassinations do happen, so the law of the feywild is that should the king or queen die, the other no longer has any legal power.

The king has been acting very weird lately, using necromantic magic to keep himself alive. He's kind of gone a bit crazy, but the PCs are hesitant to take him out - it could cause a lot of chaos, and turn him into something of a martyr. But everyone knows he can't stay king forever - he's a bad ruler, and the populace knows it.

So, the drow queen, an ally of the PCs, has the following plan: Gather favour amongst the populace (done), and then hold a large assembly of the public. She will advocate a new government system that is perhaps a bit more stable, and then sing the praises of her (adopted) daughter. Then she'll acknowledge that her husband is a dink, and kill herself - thus eliminating his power base.

Amazingly, none of my players see this coming.

So, here's the problem. The PCs will be there. They have been asked by the queen not to intervene, though they don't know what they'll be interrupting. Mostly, the players will watch this crazy event take place, and then get a chance to influence events immediately after.

My question: Is it a good idea to have, essentially, a DM NPC deliver a mid-sized speech while the PCs watch on, and then do one quick and dramatic action that the PCs are best off not interupting or taking part in? The PCs will be able to take actions afterward, but what can I do to make this a bit more dramatic and awesome for the players, so they're not just sitting there?

Is this a good resolution to a year-long plot point? The suicide of a queen?

 

[Nagol]

It depends strongly on the group and the level of narrative control the DM tries to wield.

What do you plan to do if the PCs notice and attempt to interfere? What do you plan to do if the PCs attempt to mitigate and keep her alive? Is the suicide attempt automatically successful and istantaneous?

It would work in my group with the caveat that the PCs could intervene if they decided to do so and the situation would play out organically.

If it be a spectacular failure for my group if I tried to take narrative control away from the players and narrate the death even if the Pcs could take actions after the cut scene. Other groups would be more open to it.

 

[TarionzCousin]

I would bet that the PC's would try to keep the queen alive, or resurrect her. I would recommend having the queen talk to the PC's beforehand and convince them that this is what needs to be done.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

Overall I think it sounds like a fine way to wrap up this chapter of your campaign. Personally as a player I would love being caught off guard and shocked by the queen's actions and would eagerly anticipate learning what her actions would have on the future. (But in movies and books I love surprise reveals.)

If you did want to get the players involved more and you think they would want to stop her, you could have them learn about her plans right before her speech. If I did that I would intersperse her speech throughout their desperate race to stop her before it's done like a voiceover in a movie chase scene. If they did want to try to stop her I'd give them an honest chance but I would come up with a shocking followup if they succeed.

If one option is a tense race to save her but when they fail, she kills herself, and chaos erupts, you don't want the other option to be a tense race to save her, she lives, and have the scene end with no fanfare. The building tension of the race to save her should end in an equally powerful crescendo whether they save her or not.

 

[kitsune9]

I don't think this is an issue so long as they are not realizing that this is the culmination of the campaign that they don't have a part in.

A better approach is that they feel that they managed to push matters toward this conclusion in that while though they may be surprised by the outcome, upon reflection, they will realize that their actions helped bring it about. A challenge for the DM indeed.

Another approach is to make the narrative fairly quick. Allow the PC's to handle as much of the action you can possibly give them only for the very very last moment to switch to a narrative that they have no control over and then turn things back over to them to pick up the pieces.

 

[korjik]

If I were to figure it out beforehand, and wasnt allowed a good faith attempt to stop it, I would get really annoyed.

Assuming I like the queen, otherwise I might not care.

Have you thought of going Dark Knight on them and having the characters kill her? Heck, I might go all the way and kill her then frame the characters as agents of the king, just to make sure his powerbase is gone.

On the other hand, is it imperitave that the campaign be wrapped up in such a sudden and final manner? Could the players find a way to resolve things on their own?

 

[Wik]

If I were to figure it out beforehand, and wasnt allowed a good faith attempt to stop it, I would get really annoyed.

Assuming I like the queen, otherwise I might not care.

Have you thought of going Dark Knight on them and having the characters kill her? Heck, I might go all the way and kill her then frame the characters as agents of the king, just to make sure his powerbase is gone.

On the other hand, is it imperitave that the campaign be wrapped up in such a sudden and final manner? Could the players find a way to resolve things on their own?

While the PCs could conceivably be the agents of change and kill her, it's not something they would do, or feel comfortable doing. One PC is trying to become a political power in the feywild, and another has just recently been made a drow princess (as in, last session).

***

On the side, the PCs have spoken to the queen a few times, and she has got them to promise non-involvement in "What I've been planning; you have to trust me that, while it may seem drastic, is the only solution out of this quagmire". She actually had Blargney's PC (who is typically the most proactive in these things) promise that, during "the event", he would do his best to protect Guineadh, the queen's adopted daughter.

***

The way I see it all going is thus:

There is a large party. The PCs can interact, and do as they please. They have a few encounters with the king, as well as a few of his spies. There is some political setup. The King then delivers his speech, about how he is the rightful king, blah blah blah. The public boos. And then the Queen delivers hers, and gets her knife ready. Her daughter tries to stop it. So do the king's men. And then the PCs can decide - do they stop the daughter from interfering? And then there's a dead queen, and the king tries to illegally seize power.

What do you plan to do if the PCs notice and attempt to interfere? What do you plan to do if the PCs attempt to mitigate and keep her alive? Is the suicide attempt automatically successful and istantaneous?

The PCs can always attempt to interfere, and I will actually give them the option to do so. I don't think they will, because Mariselle's death unfortunately benefits everybody but the king (this includes one of the PCs). If they do interfere, they will lose their couatl patron (who has previously told them to remain inactive in this event). However, they could try to inact some PC magic and see what happens.

 

[Rel]

I think this sounds like a wicked cool campaign resolution. If the queen fears that the PC's might be able to stop her suicide or if she knows them to be capable of resurrecting her then she should probably take steps to safeguard her death from those possibilities.

The one that comes most readily to mind on the non-interference is for her to lie to them, sending them far enough away to insure that they can't stop her. Although I also think that it would be best if they could still see it go down for dramatic effect (if a queen makes an impassioned speech in the forest and there are no PC's around to hear it then does it make a dramatic impact? ). So maybe she tells them that she thinks there might be assassins in the crowd who could try and kill her husband and wants them circulating through it to keep an eye on things.

If the PC's can resurrect her but she either doesn't know it or can't stop them then it might be cool for her to awaken from the resurrection angry at the PC's for screwing up her plan. Then she can swear them to secrecy (for the good of the kingdom) and have them escort her secretly into exile. That seems dramatic and cool to me too.