D&D 5E Out of the Abyss Finale BBEG Variant - my players want to control the Demonlords!

[Klaudius Rex]

...hey, its cool with me!

So, im DMing Out of the Abyss, and after over two years of very cool storyline, the game is coming to an end. They did it!

The party just set off Vizeran DeVir's spell inside Menzoberranzan, and the Demonlords will be forced to appear together in one place. The theory behind this whole spell was to create a spell powerful enough to summon all the Demonlords to one spot together, have them destroy each other (battle royale style!), and the last surviving Demonlord who is weakened after all that will face off against the players.

In the book, the default Demonlord who is "supposed to win" is Demogorgon, but there is a variant in the game that allows the players to be assigned on the of the Demonlords and allow them to role-play and do battle as one of the Demonlords! This is cool to be because allows to take a break from their characters momentarily, and allows them to decide who the surviving Demonlord will be.

My question to you guys is....how should i handle this? Meaning, how should i assign which players gets which Demonlord. Should i allow them to freely choose which one they get? Should it be a roll? Should i allow them to draw Demonlord names out of a hat? What would you do? I want this process to be fair, a bit random, but with some measure of control. (?Uh!, yeah!) I dont know guys, what do you think??!

 

[wedgeski]

This is exactly what I'm doing too...except the players don't know it yet! We've been establishing connections between the PC's and the demon lords during the course of the game, and I hope (although I can't be sure) that these connections will give the players enough of a stake in the fight that they'll be excited to get their hands demonic.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I haven’t gotten to the end of Out of the Abyss, but my vote would be to have people roll or pick out of a hat, to prevent people from squabbling over who gets to play Demogorgon.

I’ll be curious to hear how the battle goes; I’m not sure whether to go with the battle royale approach or set outcome. I’ve still got some months before we get there to decide. If I go with the set outcome, I have a concern that some of the group will try to join in the battle, which could go very badly for their PCs. Letting them play the demon lords would probably prevent that.

While facing off against Demogorgon would be cool, I do also like the randomness of putting the end boss selection in the hands of the players and dice.