One of my characters now serves a villain, and I'd like some suggestions

[WolfOwl77]

During our last session my players were supposed to chase down and kill a Bandit King (a human noble mixed with the demagogue template)

Well, things got a little hairy right, one of the players didn't show and the "leader" felt it would be ok to soldier on with the same encounters I had planned for a 5 man group. Oops. The other characters fell, one by one, with no help from me, all of them failing their saving throws until they were dead. Leaving the dwarf leader alone with the "boss" and his two tiefling heretics.

Well, I felt bad, and we got to roleplaying the situation a bit to see if there was any way to salvage the situation. What we came up with is that the dwarf, feeling for the loss of his compatriots (his past included him losing an entire crew to an accident) felt compelled to take the "King"'s offer of aid for his friends if he swore fealty to him. So he did.

Now I've got a villain to use again that turned out to be much more memorable than I had planned, and I've got a bunch of characters that can be compelled to do whatever this bad guy wants now...

And I have no idea what to do about it.

 

[fuzzlewump]

First off, welcome to the board!

Secondly, as a general rule, I would suggest scaling back the encounters scaling up if a player doesn't show or a new player shows up. Or running the missing player's character, perhaps as a companion character, if you're devoted to the verisimilitude of monster groups staying static or what have you. That's not what you wanted advice on, but I felt it needed to be said.

Anyway, this situation sounds really cool. I like that the dwarf leader sort of felt that he was reliving his past of losing his crew and trying to make it better 'this time.' Beyond that, I would ask the player what he wants to do. If wants to continue playing the character, work out a scenario where he plans on overthrowing the bandit king, or, the players have to make a difficult decision of fighting off another party (preferably the enemy party is neutral to evil, as they would definitely just side with a good party) trying to kill the bandit king, but the other party manages to kill the bandit lord so everyone is off the hook pretty much.

If the player wants to switch characters, work out a scenario where the dwarf leader's new character and maybe a couple other NPC's rescue the remaining PC's and fight the bandit lord plus the old dwarf PC, or escape.

Just a couple of ideas.

 

[WolfOwl77]

First off, welcome to the board!

Secondly, as a general rule, I would suggest scaling back the encounters scaling up if a player doesn't show or a new player shows up. Or running the missing player's character, perhaps as a companion character, if you're devoted to the verisimilitude of monster groups staying static or what have you. That's not what you wanted advice on, but I felt it needed to be said.

Anyway, this situation sounds really cool. I like that the dwarf leader sort of felt that he was reliving his past of losing his crew and trying to make it better 'this time.' Beyond that, I would ask the player what he wants to do. If wants to continue playing the character, work out a scenario where he plans on overthrowing the bandit king, or, the players have to make a difficult decision of fighting off another party (preferably the enemy party is neutral to evil, as they would definitely just side with a good party) trying to kill the bandit king, but the other party manages to kill the bandit lord so everyone is off the hook pretty much.

If the player wants to switch characters, work out a scenario where the dwarf leader's new character and maybe a couple other NPC's rescue the remaining PC's and fight the bandit lord plus the old dwarf PC, or escape.

Just a couple of ideas.

Thanks for the welcome

And the idea of having them fight off another evil band bent on killing the bandit king. That's one I hadn't thought of, and should provide them with plenty of opportunity to break free of his grip. The dwarf character really is the central character of the group, and he's not going anywhere, so I'm working around having the other character stay with him until the terms of his service are up.

The other tip was something I'd already decided on, but the advice is appreciated. Just seems like every week something comes up, and nobody tells me until the last minute lol. Anyhoo, gonna plan for a 4 character group from now on with a sidebar for the full five.

 

[Solvarn]

Tpk-1

On a TPK-1 my first impulse would be to have everyone make new characters and then convert this dwarf to a second in command NPC for the bandit king, who should definitely make an appearance later.

 

[bargle0]

Oh boy. What an awesome opportunity to jerk the PCs around and make this a powerful role-play experience. I suppose they feel bound to honor their new oaths of fealty to the bandit king. Otherwise, I imagine they'll run off and do whatever they like at the first opportunity.

You should start them off slowly. Fuzzlewump has the right idea -- get the PCs fighting a rival gang on behalf of the bandit king. Maybe even involve some NPCs who can earn the PCs respect and vice versa. Initially, make it easier to honor their commitment to the bandit king then to rebel or flee. Don't send them to burn down the orphanage right off the bat.

Watch some gangster/crime movies to find things for them to do and inspiration for character, plot, setting, and theme elements.

Give them status and NPCs to care about in the bandit king's organization. If the characters are interested in money, have the bandit king offer them magic and treasure. When your bandit king has his claws in them good, then start asking them to do things like shake down local merchants and so forth. Basically, slowly escalate the depravity of the things they're asked to do within the organization until the characters break in a violent and heartbreaking way.

If they all break good, then hit them with the consequences. The ones with status are now mere wandering ronin. The ones with personal ties now have to betray their gangster girlfriend, the young thug they took under their wing, or their criminal mentor. The ones who want gold are now stuck robbing tombs again, instead of living high on the criminal life.

If some break good and some break bad, then maybe the game ends like Reservoir Dogs: everybody dies screaming at each other's hand. Awesome.

If they all break bad, then send the good guys after them.

I don't think you necessarily need to focus on the dwarf who dealt with the devil. I think the PCs will make their own drama out of that.

 

[Sunseeker]

If they are to be compelled, compel them!

The Bandit King now has sway over their very lives, he should tell them so. And in usual villain fashion, force them to do his bidding, or die! If the players choose to die, then kill them. If the players choose to do his bidding until they can backstab him or escape, then have the villain foolishly send them upon an errand that somehow gives them this opportunity. Ya know, like to find the "Gem of Freedom" or the "Manifesto of Free Thought!".

For players who decide to stay dead, or die rather than serve him, you have a lot of choices. If the player refuses to be evil, perhaps have a group of knights show up with perfect iming and the player's new character will be among them. If the player refuses to let their character be evil but is willing to be a new character who's evil, make them one of the Bandit King's minions brought in to keep the now compelled players in line.(who perhaps seeks to escape themself!).

And more.

What it all comes down to is don't railroad them into anything. Make sure they understand that if they choose to die, it doesn't mean they're out of the game. Make sure that if they choose to follow him for a while, this won't be permanent(unless it turns out ot be really cool).

 

[WolfOwl77]

TPK-1

TPK-1 = Total Party Kill minus 1? I'm so used to mmospeak at this point and haven't picked up on all the jargon from pen and paper gamers

Oh boy. What an awesome opportunity to jerk the PCs around and make this a powerful role-play experience. I suppose they feel bound to honor their new oaths of fealty to the bandit king. Otherwise, I imagine they'll run off and do whatever they like at the first opportunity.

That's the concept we're working with, that the other players will feel bound to stay with their leader until some way is found to free him of his oath. Taking some inspiration from Feist's Talwin Hawkins character, serving under the very man he intends to kill until the oath is broken by the Bandit King himself.

What it all comes down to is don't railroad them into anything. Make sure they understand that if they choose to die, it doesn't mean they're out of the game. Make sure that if they choose to follow him for a while, this won't be permanent(unless it turns out ot be really cool).

Railroading is something I am trying to avoid, though I do have a meta-quest sort of laid out for them to complete, but this whole bandit king thing turned into a great surprise and I think I'm going to work into the overall story somehow.

Right now, one of the other characters is running the game this week, I had some other obligations to take care of, but I gave him criteria and boundaries. 1) don't go past level 9 and 2) don't kill the king. I'm going to touch base with them later and see what happened and where they went.

I gotta say, I'm new to the whole D&D experience in general, though I've spent my time behind the DM screen for the Hero Quest games I've run over the years. I'm having a fantastic time of it, and learning the game along with most of my players. And thus far the advice I've been given here has been incredible.

I can't thank you all enough.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Have the bandit king give them innocuous-seeming tasks. "Take this letter to my aunt". "Bring me the shoes that I ordered".

After all: if the bandit king had made the oath, do you think he'd follow it? So why would he trust the dwarf to? He has to feel him out and get him comfortable.

Then once the players are bored of searching the shoes for drugs, and poring over every boring letter looking for secret codes, he starts weaving in the odd non-trivial thing.

Oh, and have him be genuinely helpful. High powered lackeys with real loyalty and a cause for that loyalty are far more effective tools than "some guy who hates me but won't break his oath".

 

[SpydersWebbing]

I think it would be cool to actually make the Bandit King a little more grey than thought previously. Y'know, give him a mother that likes to send him fuzzy hats in the mail, or something like that (granted, without the humor, but still). I think that if you give these people a reason to like the Bandit King anything you do with him will automatically grey things up and allow people to question whether they're really on his side or not.

 

[WolfOwl77]

I'm playing him up as being insane, he thinks he is actually the true king in exile and the king on the throne is an impostor. His goal is to regain the throne, and he's accepted "oaths" from the unsavory characters he's come across, including tiefling heretics and duergar.

I did lol at the "fuzzy hat" comment though

He's also got a warped sense of honor, he won't harm the players now that they serve him, but he overlooks the criminal activity of his band and believes it to be "collecting taxes" or "meting justice"

I think I'm starting to get a few ideas on how to end this scenario in a memorable way. The whole thing is gonna stick in my memory as is