Party Let Down

[cmanos]

Another solution would be to have Ustran get away, then have Shiva get up as well and explain to the party that she is a powerful demigod, of course she saw the invisibility spell of Ustran. The crystal he stole was a replica. She then tells them shows them the real crysal.

that is REALLY contrived

 

[DonTadow]

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.

The party was not without the total "booty". They initially started searching the tombs to find a large amount of diamond ore, a rare metal used to protect ships from the acidic waters of the oceans. They also wanted to stop the Yuan-ti attacks on the city. Up until three weeks ago, they didn't know that the Yuan-ti were attacking the city to divert attention away from the Yuan-ti's plans to capture the crystal (the Yuan-ti were working with the drow lich).

In the adventure previous to this one, they destroyed the Yuan-ti high priest and received enough of the diamond ore for several fleet of ships. They also received 50k in treasure and items.

Once they found out though that there was a crystal involved, only three of the party members were adamant about finding the crystal whereas the other two party members were satisfied killing the Yuan-ti leader, as they had joined the party after previous encouters with the drow Lich and only wanted the Yuan-ti attacks to stop. The first three knew that the crystals were important as they already had one in their posession.

I had hoped that the previous "booty" and them receiving the items they had originally ventured into the tomb for two months ago would have been enough. That's why I was surprised by the let down. The party members had an extreme high last week defeating the Yuan-ti Anthanem and recieviing a temples worth of treasure and only three of them really knew (in game) the importance of the crystal. That was why I didn't expect this would be such a major let down in the context of things as they received a hell of a lot of loot and the original rare item they were seeking.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Where I would have an issue with everything that happened in your group is the fact that the party was blindsided by you. Had you given the party hints that someone was trying to get the crystal, hints that this "bit player" was trying to get some revenge on the party and allwoed the party to be preapred I probably would not have been too annoyed by this. Also, of course I would expect that somehow the party would be able to prevent the crystal from being stolen. You can plan such that your guy would have been almost guaranteed to succeed, but not make it 100% inevitable.

Anyway, now that the damage is done, I would talk to your players as a group, out of game, about what happened. I think you have lost a lot of trust from your group and you will be hard-pressed to get it back. If you are not careful, the damage control may well end up making things worse as they may end up feeling that they have zero control over the game. Talk to the players, admit your screw-up, explain a bit about where you were going, and find out what they would prefer; a "rewind," playing on with the hope of recovering the crystal (and an assurance that this time you won't contrive some way of preventing them from succeeding), or some other option (including dropping this plotline completely).

 

[billd91]

I'm guessing part of the reason for the let down wasn't because they wanted the crystal as treasure, but because they reached the object of the quest...
and had it stolen away from them in an instant.

I suspect you'd have gotten the same kind of reaction even if the object of the quest was something much more mundane than an artifact.

Lesson to be learned:
Even if you plan on taking away a hard-won gain in the end, make sure you give the PCs a chance to bask in the glow of their accomplishments and to think that they've succeeded in the quest. I've seen other discussions on this board about people having similar problems and one thing that keeps coming to mind is the frenetic sounding paces of some games. The PCs are going from one fire to the next, or in this case, going from one long adventure to another without really feeling they've met any goals. Without the chance to revel in what you've done, it all seems like such a chore.

 

[DonTadow]

I'm guessing part of the reason for the let down wasn't because they wanted the crystal as treasure, but because they reached the object of the quest...
and had it stolen away from them in an instant.

I suspect you'd have gotten the same kind of reaction even if the object of the quest was something much more mundane than an artifact.

Lesson to be learned:
Even if you plan on taking away a hard-won gain in the end, make sure you give the PCs a chance to bask in the glow of their accomplishments and to think that they've succeeded in the quest. I've seen other discussions on this board about people having similar problems and one thing that keeps coming to mind is the frenetic sounding paces of some games. The PCs are going from one fire to the next, or in this case, going from one long adventure to another without really feeling they've met any goals. Without the chance to revel in what you've done, it all seems like such a chore.

That's great advice. That's why i'm holding off the time lords thing. They have alot of new treasure and giving them a bit of downtime may be better than putting some story on them. I'l safe with having Shiva explain what she knows but providing the warning to the party to be careful of the crystals (they did almost have the crystal they alerady posesse nearly stolen from this same individual before).

The next session should be pretty light as everyone gets there affairs in order.