Party Let Down

[Fate Lawson]

So Time Lords are involved huh? Then the answer is simple: REWIND. Next session start everybody out standing right where they were either exactly right at the end of the big combat or exactly one round before Ustran popped in. They remember what happened/will happen, yet here they are BEFORE it is going to happen. Now they get to prepare for his arrival, hopefully preparing just enough to drive him off, but not defeat him. Then the Time Lords can explain to them what happened. They can't/couldn't touch Uvran, but they could rewind time JUST THIS ONCE. Now the PC's know a bigger baddie is out there that wants the crystal, and they must protect it while figuring out how to defeat him.


EDIT: I just envisioned the REWIND scene:

As the party stands stunned, suddenly an time-glass appears floating in the air. Slowly it turns over, Suddenly everyone finds the last X rounds running backwards. Afterwards, when the Time Lords appear. They give them a similar time-glass. They may use it X times/ X period, then it goes away. Benefit: You can set up some tougher Big Encounters, because as long as one person survives, the party can "redo" the ecounter with better knowledge. Drawback: Conservation of Time. For every use sometime/somewhen the party finds themselves suddenly "flung forward" in time by X amount. Thus losing days/weeks/months or even years of time.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I definatly made a big mistake. I planned on ending the session on the high note with the defeat of the Lich. Then looking at the time I thought I could run through the Ustran encounter, but with time running out he did exactly as you described. Which is why even I felt bad at the end.

Outside of the pcs not feeling as if they earned it, are theere any other negatives to the demigod telling them that the crystal he took was an illusion and handing them the real crystal. I could always say that the demigod hid the crystal in a room with a powerful monster or puzzle, but from the mouth of my dedicated player "WE've already done enough for this ::explenative:: thing "

Just hand them the real crystal. It will be an up-point. Additionally, they KNOW that this Ustran is about, and is after the crystal.

IF they don't take precautions to protect the crystal NOW, then you can probably liberate it from them without them being too mad. You gave them a warning, and they ignored it.

That's part of the key - the party should always feel as if it were THEIR fault that things went pear shaped - otherwise they'll blame the DM. And that just leads to bad feelings.

I"m always worried about damage control now. As a DM do you apologize to your players for rushing through an encoutner and taking choice away from them or do you just do immiediate damage control at the beginning of the next adventure?

Immediate damage control. That and the fact that I don't take choice away in the first place, precisely because I know that I hate it being done to me.

 

[tonym]

Because it's soooo easy for a DM to take away anything he wants from the party, he has to make sure it never comes across as "The DM took it." Especially if the theft makes the party seem like a bunch of 1st-level novices who are darn lucky the villain didn't pause to kill them all.

Yeh, if I was one of your players, I'd be bummed, too.

Good luck getting things back on track. I recommend rewarding the party with lots of magical treasure and the crystal-thief's head on a stick ASAP.


Tony M

 

[DonTadow]

So Time Lords are involved huh? Then the answer is simple: REWIND. Next session start everybody out standing right where they were either exactly right at the end of the big combat or exactly one round before Ustran popped in. They remember what happened/will happen, yet here they are BEFORE it is going to happen. Now they get to prepare for his arrival, hopefully preparing just enough to drive him off, but not defeat him. Then the Time Lords can explain to them what happened. They can't/couldn't touch Uvran, but they could rewind time JUST THIS ONCE. Now the PC's know a bigger baddie is out there that wants the crystal, and they must protect it while figuring out how to defeat him.


EDIT: I just envisioned the REWIND scene:

As the party stands stunned, suddenly an time-glass appears floating in the air. Slowly it turns over, Suddenly everyone finds the last X rounds running backwards. Afterwards, when the Time Lords appear. They give them a similar time-glass. They may use it X times/ X period, then it goes away. Benefit: You can set up some tougher Big Encounters, because as long as one person survives, the party can "redo" the ecounter with better knowledge. Drawback: Conservation of Time. For every use sometime/somewhen the party finds themselves suddenly "flung forward" in time by X amount. Thus losing days/weeks/months or even years of time.

I really like this solution and I think I will run with this. That's a great idea. There were additional factors that made the session kinda of disappointing. There were a lot of mindgame illusions in the maze and I believe it really tested the players (Several times the players were made to believe other players were dead). This seems to be pretty good. I might go with the first scene not the second one. Though good it steps on the toes of an adventure in a recent Dragon magazine that I plan on running towards the end of this campaign.

In any case I've made the decision to send out an email apologizing for rushing the adventure. During the next adventure I'll begin session at the beginning of Ustran coming back. IF they defeat Ustran then they get all his goodies. Either way the crystal is safe. Shiva, the demi god, was the crystal all along and the visual crystal was a decoy set in place as a last resort in case of her defeat. Shiva will fill the "flaw in time" and then the timelords will step in and explain things as before. I can settle this at the beginning of the adventure.

 

[the Jester]

Good luck!

The first step to improving your performance as a dm is recognizing when you've made a mistake. I wouldn't go for a 'do-over' without the time lord rewind deal, but in this case the 'rewind' scenario sounds pretty cool!

 

[Glyfair]

I think you pinpointed the biggest issue. By timing things as you did, you broke a cardinal rule - you didn't allow the players to enjoy their hard-earned victory. Once in a rare while this can work, however, done often or at the assumed climax of an adventure, it's very unsatisfying.

At this point, I believe it will be incredibly difficult to correct your error. You might just have to settle for damage control.

The first thing I'd try to do would be to emphasize whatever "payoff" they have for what they've done so far. From the description, I don't see what that is.

It seems the payoff you had planned was that the players would finally know who the arch-villian is and the alliance with the time lords. What about the demi-god? Is there some possible pay-off there?

 

[yennico]

I think you pinpointed the biggest issue. By timing things as you did, you broke a cardinal rule - you didn't allow the players to enjoy their hard-earned victory. Once in a rare while this can work, however, done often or at the assumed climax of an adventure, it's very unsatisfying.

At this point, I believe it will be incredibly difficult to correct your error. You might just have to settle for damage control.

I totally agree with Glyfair.
Go with the idea of the fake crystal. Do not use the Time Lords. If the players hate the evil guy they will hunt him down. If they do not hate him (because he is so dumb that he steals the fake chrystal ), he escapes and (appear as nuissance from time to time always as dumb NPC and they can make an adventure they like.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

It happens, sounds less bad than a few things I've done to parties in my time. (never will forget that no warning disjunction trap ). They'll get over it, just need to do something nice for them right now!

Sounds like they could do with a real pick me up?


I have to say that the fake crystal idea sits better with me... I'd have the demigod turn over the real crystal and tell them that people are after it (pretty obvious) and that they need to protect it.

I'd consider having the demigod give them the location of a cache of 'weapons of the ancients' - I'd make that a relatively easy mini 'monty haul' type of adventure. Chance for them to get some useful replacement gear without too much risk of death!

The focus of the adventure is an item that can supress the crystals aura.

Possibly throw them something that can make them famous - a cache of works of the worlds greatest artist, the long lost crown of kings, or something like that - not necessarily usable, but will earn them respect, fame, favours and perhaps wealth. IME that can be very satisfying for the PCs?


If you go with the time rewind, perhaps allow them some special powers off the back of that experience. IME, X/day special abilities go down well... time related ones would fit:

Some ideas:
Time related spells - Expeditious Retreat, Haste, Slow, Time Stop.
Ability to instantly relocate - rather like teleport, dim door, etc.
Ability to quicken a spell.
Rearranging timelines to get help - suspiciously similar to a Summoning spell?

Just tailor them for each PC.

 

[DonTadow]

Good luck!

The first step to improving your performance as a dm is recognizing when you've made a mistake. I wouldn't go for a 'do-over' without the time lord rewind deal, but in this case the 'rewind' scenario sounds pretty cool!

I think its a great idea, I might run a mini version of it as the "first encounter" with the time lords. When they encounter Ustran again.

I totally agree with Glyfair.
Go with the idea of the fake crystal. Do not use the Time Lords. If the players hate the evil guy they will hunt him down. If they do not hate him (because he is so dumb that he steals the fake chrystal ), he escapes and (appear as nuissance from time to time always as dumb NPC and they can make an adventure they like.

I"m going with the fake crystal just to give the party an immiediate victory and holding off on the time lords thing for a session. The Demi god also will reveal the location of the tome that has the locations of the other 4 crystals. The Demigod may be adequate enough to explain the Ustran thing without me throwing the Time lords thing in just yet. After this adventure I think I'll make the next one combat and story light. I'll have them tie up loose ends in the city and get to know their new surroundings. They'll also probably want to do alot of shopping considering they have a bit of things to sell.

.

 

[cmanos]

I would have been downright pissed off as well and would probably need some major convincing to come back to the game. That is not being an annoying DM. That is being a total prick. You need to let your players have theyr booty now and again, otherwise what reason do they have for coming back. 2 months of battling through all that it looked like they went through is a MAJOR story arc. Not letting them have their reward sucks big donkey dicks.

The quuestion is, are you going to let them have itn in 2 sessions or is this going to be forever outside their grasp? If the latter, you may want to consider changing your DM style or you will rapidly find yourself without players.