PC sacrifice encounter

[meltinbradley]

Hey everyone,

have another encounter that's giving me some problems.

I'm working on an encounter where a PC has a chance to sacrifice his life for the good of the party.

background:
The character is a vampire. Several years ago (real time) this player wanted to redeem his character and I gave him the chance to do it. They traveled years in outer space to find a legendary wizard of their world who was trapped in space. They found the wizard but by saving him the second part of the trap sent them all to the dream world. They were stuck in the dream world for a time and finally found an exit which was guarded by the "dream master." The NPC Wizard explained that to leave the dream plane via the portal it would require someone to stay behind to close the gate. No one wanted to do it, soooo the NPC wizard did it and the years and time they spent finding this wizard was basically a waste of time. If the vampire sacrificed himself he would have died, but would have came back with a whole new build and no longer a vampire for his sacrifice. He didn't take the bait.

The campaign eventually ended levels later and they failed the end part of the campaign. Most of the pc's died or turned mad. The vampire was captured by a immortal red dragon for 230ish years.

fast forward to TODAY (real time)
So i started a new campaign(3 years later in real time and 230ish years later in game time) Two of my old players play with me once again(the vamp and another player, both who know what happened in the dream world) and I have two new players. The PC who wasn't the vampire decided that saving this wizard from the dream world is essential for this campaign (this came from left field, i totally forgot about all that, but as a DM you got to be quick and adapt to new situations. They have no idea if he even lives as its been 230 years later game time) So the party agrees, and they save the vampire. (the pc who plays the vampire has another character, but i asked if he would want to play his vamp again, he said yes. I didn't tell him this was temporary, but as he has his other character I did tell him that he will go back to that character.)

Now they are in the dream world. I'm going to give him a chance again to redeem himself, but i'm not going to let him become human and have a new build, he lost that chance. But I will allow his character to sacrifice himself and die and stay dead and have a quiet, restful afterlife for his sacrifice.

He doesn't know I have this planned, and I usually don't tell PCs what i'm doing. I listen to their back stories and what they want and i give them chances, if they miss out, well that's to bad.....

The issue is, my current encounter is similar to the old encounter and part of me is like "well he cant it up this time as its almost the same." But the other part of me is, "damn! again! really? Cant I come up with something else?"

Here's the current idea I have:
They are being chased by beings never before encountered and they turn their dream into a nightmare. One of the lords of these beings that they encountered once before finally appears and talks to them explaining that they have become quite irksome and that she is going to take the PCs after she defeats them to her partner to be tortured and finally sacrificed. She amuses them for a while, maybe she even answers some questions they might have (as shes vastly more powerful and arrogant and doesn't care) Then she'll create a portal that can take them away. She will toy with them and will say that if they can defeat her they can leave, but not only that, they can try to escape while doing battle with her. (I doubt the PCs have any chance of defeating her at this particular time.) So their best bet is to figure out ways to keep her busy and escape. This will probably lead to 2 or 3 pcs dying (which i don't really want to happen.) So today I was thinking of her also adding something like "Or one of you can come with me now. I have enjoyed hunting you and we feed upon your fear....blah blah blah. I am not worried about you, and this game of cat and mouse will continue for a time. You die when I say so! blah blah blah" I thought of this because I doubt the PC vampire will get the hint unless i just spell it out. The good news is the other player knows of this and might nudge him "here is your chance to redeem yourself! You failed before, now we need you more then ever." Or something.

The vamp PC is playing another character, i'm not really interested in his sacrifice bringing this vamp back into the game. I want closure with him. As a matter of fact, if the he doesn't sacrifice himself the other PC will probably kill him as she is good and is only traveling with the vampire because he wanted to redeem himself (she feels that he can do that during their journey to the dream world) and because he also went to the dream plane 230ish years before (so he has knowledge of the dream world, he was there. She died before the dream plane sacrificing herself by breaking a staff of power (or is it magi) killing herself and the winter wight they were fighting, but I did bring her back and gave her a nice build). And if she doesn't, i will probably kill him because frankly its time for him to go.

Any way, I don't think its a horrible idea, but I'm open to suggestions. Hope it makes sense.
Thanks.
MB

 

[Sunseeker]

You started with

I'm working on an encounter where a PC has a chance to sacrifice his life for the good of the party.

which sounded cool and I was totally for it.

What you ended with however...was not that. What you ended with was "Bob has this character. I don't like Bob playing this character. I want to kill Bob's character." Which is so unbelievably not kosher that I am lacking words to sufficiently express it.

Your post can be boiled down to:

I want Bob to want to sacrifice his character.
If he doesn't, I want Joe to kill him.
If he doesn't, I'll just GM-god-mode and kill him myself.

Skip to the end, kill his character and don't bog us down with whatever shenanigans you want to use to make yourself feel okay about it or make us support you. Just do it. And then ask yourself why you play a game wherein you present people with choices but make the decisions for them.

 

[Stormonu]

Here's the current idea I have:
They are being chased by beings never before encountered and they turn their dream into a nightmare. One of the lords of these beings that they encountered once before finally appears and talks to them explaining that they have become quite irksome and that she is going to take the PCs after she defeats them to her partner to be tortured and finally sacrificed. She amuses them for a while, maybe she even answers some questions they might have (as shes vastly more powerful and arrogant and doesn't care) Then she'll create a portal that can take them away. She will toy with them and will say that if they can defeat her they can leave, but not only that, they can try to escape while doing battle with her. (I doubt the PCs have any chance of defeating her at this particular time.) So their best bet is to figure out ways to keep her busy and escape. This will probably lead to 2 or 3 pcs dying (which i don't really want to happen.) So today I was thinking of her also adding something like "Or one of you can come with me now. I have enjoyed hunting you and we feed upon your fear....blah blah blah. I am not worried about you, and this game of cat and mouse will continue for a time. You die when I say so! blah blah blah" I thought of this because I doubt the PC vampire will get the hint unless i just spell it out. The good news is the other player knows of this and might nudge him "here is your chance to redeem yourself! You failed before, now we need you more then ever." Or something.

The vamp PC is playing another character, i'm not really interested in his sacrifice bringing this vamp back into the game. I want closure with him. As a matter of fact, if the he doesn't sacrifice himself the other PC will probably kill him as she is good and is only traveling with the vampire because he wanted to redeem himself (she feels that he can do that during their journey to the dream world) and because he also went to the dream plane 230ish years before (so he has knowledge of the dream world, he was there. She died before the dream plane sacrificing herself by breaking a staff of power (or is it magi) killing herself and the winter wight they were fighting, but I did bring her back and gave her a nice build). And if she doesn't, i will probably kill him because frankly its time for him to go.

Any way, I don't think its a horrible idea, but I'm open to suggestions. Hope it makes sense.
Thanks.
MB

1) You must make the Vamp player character believe it his idea to sacrifice the character. Taking by force (which this scenario seems to do) will likely only end in tears. Don't force the player into the choice, but make it seem like a really viable option.

2) Prep the player to make the sacrifice. Provide clues (at least 3 is good) that death is coming for that character.

3) Provide a "win" via the sacrifice. The above simple prevents additional bad things from happening. If you provide a "reward" of sorts, the offer to sacrifice the character becomes sweeter, and the option for a deal is much more likely.

...Taking a shot at rescoring what you have above:

As the party progresses through the Dream World, they become aware of a menacing presence that seems to haunt their dreams. It takes the form of a seductive mistress, pale of skin dressed in red silk. While the other PCs suffer nightmares of being hunted by the red temptress, the vampire character dreams of hunting dream beasts, while egged on by the red temptress. When they awaken, the PCs find themselves in battle with the beasts from their dreams. They seem to shy away from the vampire, avoiding attacking him in preference to hunting the other PCs. Meanwhile other dead bodies the group find, mauled by the dream beasts, seem to take on the visage of dead PCs in the vampire PCs eyes. In the final stages of the dream, the vampire character comes to realize the dream beasts he is hunting is the other PCs.

And that is when the red temptress draws them fully into her nightmare realm. The party must find a way out of her torturous abode, and the ever-twisting realm seems hell-bent on keeping the party trapped - doors flooded with sunlight open back into the dungeon's twisted and dark depths, food and water is poison to the PCs and they can only survive on the blood of their fallen enemies. Whenever the characters reach for the light of escape, the red temptress casts them back into the black oblivion.

When the PCs finally make their last, crazed bolt for freedom, it brings them to the throne room of the red temptress. She cackles in glee at the blood-soaked PCs, decrying she will turn them all "into him" - blood-crazed vampires like the PC vampire. And in the endless twists of her nightmare castle, she will never let the PCs escape - until they join her. She offers the PC vampire a place by her side - he's already been "turned" after all, and he can join her in the eternal night she has created. So long as her darkness reigns, the PC vampire can live forever.

Of course, the trick to win against the red temptress is to bring light to the throne room. Tearing down the heavy drapes, knocking holes in the very walls and whatnot will cause brilliant light to pore into the room. But there are plenty of shadows for her to hide in. She has to be brought into the full glare of the light. And that means destroying every shadow for her - and the PC vampire - to hide in, for she can regenerate from even the tiniest shadow. Victory most likely means the PC vampire's death in a bath of pure light, but it ensures the Red Temptress's own demise.

Bonus points if you can convince the PC vampire to hold her in his embrace in the light as the two of them melt into nothing.

 

[meltinbradley]

Shidaku-
Sorry it came out like that. But I don't kill characters because I don't like them as much as it may have sounded like that.

The PCs took a turn and decided to get help from old PC's and that's fine. Its all in game. The other PC that had a character with the vampire never liked the vampire and only adventured with the vampire because of his desire to redeem himself which he never did. This PC vampire use to dominate PC's in the party among other things so, I took him aside and said "the other players aren't happy with you...etc." He originally wanted to go after the vampire lord template. I told him that if he tries for that, I doubt the PCs are going to be cool with that. I told him if he wants to pursue that, that's fine but have you ever thought about redemption. He liked the idea and went with it. I made it worth his while and agreed to many things he wanted if he could achieve it.
now, back to now:
They decided to bring him back for two reasons:
1.) for information about the dream world
2.) to achieve redemption (the other PC who adventured with him wants him to full fill that goal and return to the light)
I am going to give him that chance again, a chance he missed SEVERAL times 3 years ago.
I don't care if i'm a strict DM, but if you go after redemption several times and fail every time because you're acting a fool i'm not going to give you what you want after making numerous mistakes. The best he gets is a restful death. Im not going to give him what I promised him if hes failed multiple times.

Its totally legit that if the vampire continues to play against the party which he will probably do, that the other PC will kill him and get the others to help him. That has nothing to do with me, or the other PC wanting him dead, it has to do with his actions. I doubt any of you have ever played with a player like this and if you have you probably would kick him out within a month. He loves playing though, and I know that other DMs and players would not play with him, so I keep him in the game and prep other PCs about him before they join our game because he pisses off people all the time. If he doesnt have me, he wont be able to game. Ive managed to play with my current group for over a year and its working better than I thought. Im happy that even though hes difficult to play with we have managed to work things out because he loves to play.

I have no intention of killing him unless he does something stupid or willingly dies for whatever reason. If he survives the encounter then the vampire is loose upon the world. Regardless of what happens, hes going to play his current PC after the dream world which is a mage. I could totally use him as a NPC or just have him put the character away for another time. This PC is NOT a team player. I dont need to kill him because he will kill himself by betraying the PC's as usual, or by betraying an NPC as usual. He's constantly making new characters because of this. This is a opportunity for him to have ONE character out of 20 that the PCs can look back and say something positive about this players character.

Shidaku, Im sorry the information i presented makes you feel that way about me. I would love for you to check out our group and see if you still feel the same way after playing with us. I would also be curious if you and your players could deal with this PC in YOUR group for a month and see if your DM would kill him for not liking him. Playing with the PC has mellowed me out immensely, and believe me, I want to kill his character everyday, but he wants to play, and as i said before, i dont kill PC's and always allow choices. Im open ended.

Stormonu- now to your ideas, its funny, because the PCs are marked so they are constantly having dreams and being attacked. The vampire who has been out of the campaign for 3 years in real life and over 200 in game is not branded, so he doesnt get attacked. So thats all ready happening, but your twist is nice. I really like what you brought! I am going to make some changes so it makes sense for what im working with, but the general idea is real good. Thank you!

MB

 

[Unwise]

I understand that you really want closure of the story, however as a biproduct of that it does indeed come across as if killing the PC is the ends not the means. You must be careful it is clear to the player that that is not the case. I am not one of these GMs that asks consent of the players to kill their PCs or anything, I have horrible stuff happen to the PCs all the time. I just think you need to be careful with any railroad that ends in a PC death.

On the other hand, why does he need to die and be redeemed? Why can't he stuff it up again? Final redemption makes a good story, but so does somebody losing the last tiny bit of their humanity/sanity and becoming the monster they have always feared (e.g. Darth Vader, many Marvel villians).

You could play up that the PC feels that the gods have given them one more shot, or that the PC, within themselves feel that there is only a tiny bit of humanity left, a tiny spark that is easily snuffed. If the player dodges the bait for redemption, you can also have the character leave the party by becoming a true monster, he now looks like a hammer movie Nosferatu and is incapable of any human emotion, he is just an empty husk that needs to feed. As such he is no longer someone that the party could/would travel with. After all, he no longer has any feelings of affection for them and no moral compass stopping him eating them.

 

[meltinbradley]

Unwise,
I guess I write really bad. I was trying to explain this situation and people took it the wrong way.
We have a campaign now with 4 players. Two of those players were in my old campaign 3 years ago. That old campaign ended in failure. The PCs didnt care about the campaign and just did whatever they wanted. As a result they all either died, went mad, or were locked up. We have 2 humans, a griffon and a kobold in my current campaign. In the old campaign the Kobold PC played a vampire. The griffon was in the old campaign and was the only survivor of the old campaign. So hes playing the same griffon in the new campaign. For some reason, the griffon PC wanted to go back to the dream world because he thinks finding this wizard they left long ago will have some weight now. Sooo, he and the rest of the party decided to rescue the vampire from his cage. (I, nor the Kobold PC who played the vampire PC from before expected this.) I took the kobold PC aside and said, "how would you like to play your vamp again? Now understand, whatever happens this is a new campaign and you will return to your kobold." He understood and even rebuilt his vampire because he lost his sheet as its been 3 years since we played with that group.
Then i post my message and im this DM who makes choices for the PCs....
anyway......The griffon PC said in game "now, he can do what he orginially intended to do." The vampire was not a good guy even when he was trying to play a good guy. The griffon is exalted and because the situation is dire is going against what he believes in to rescue the vampire for information and to fullfill what he intended. She will probably not allow the vampire to leave the dream world and try to stop him if things dont go the way they want to. Nothing to do with me or another PC forcing another PC to do something.

I sent an email to the vamp PC yesterday and said "I didnt expect you guys to do this whole dream world thing and i didnt expect your vampire to be released into the world again. I doubt you did too. What are your plans with him?"
He agreed with me and said "im going to sacrifice myself to return the mage."
Well, the mage may or may not be alive. Regardless of whether the vampire dies because "im going to make decisions for the PC's", he sacrifices himself, or he surives, the vampire is leaving the game. The PC has a Kobold hes playing now. I also doubt the griffon and the other characters would even want to travel with the vampire after this is all said and done.
Im saying here that if he does sacrifice himself he gets a restful death because for 5 years Ive had to hold this players hand because he has no idea of what hes doing. Look at it like this, regardless of what alignment he says his character is, he plays chaotic evil all the time even if he plays a lawful good paladin and will try to justify any action he does. Im tired of baby sitting him and giving him 1000000 chances. Im not going to do that anymore. As I said before, I am open to play with anyone and really try to work things out to get people who really want to play to play. I doubt this person would last a month in any other group. Im teaching him tough love now, because if i continue to hold his hand he will take advantage of any situation.

anyway....with all that said, he agreed without me even bringing it up that he will attempt to sacrifice his character. Whether that happens, only time will tell. Regardless of whatever happens, his playing his character for the current campaign which is a kobold when they leave the dream world.

In terms of him going evil. I totally expect that, and i have all ready made plans for that. I let PC's do whatever they want they just have to deal with the consequences of their actions.

So, thanks again for all the help, I have everything pretty much set up.
MB

 

[Unwise]

That sounds great. I love it when PCs and DMs are on the same page about where they want the story to go.

I don't think we thought you were looking to erode the PCs choice, I just meant that it is also really important to not just give the player choice, but be seen to give them choice. I just meant that it could have seemed as if the death was the ends not the means, not that it was. It sounds like you have nailed it though, giving players opportunities for closure is awesome.

I have run games before where my players felt that they were breaking the game if they did X instead of Y. I was perfectly prepared for them to do either, but they did not feel that way. Thus I made an open campaign feel railroaded. I had given them choice, but had not appeared to do so. On the flip side, I have got good at not giving them choice at all, but making them feel as if they have had some. My players tend to get paralyzed by indecision and are not as pro-active as I would like, so that technique is often useful.

 

[meltinbradley]

Unwise:
Yes, it did work out good, but as I said, this person can pull anything out at anytime. Ill just take his word and try to predict every scenario I can. The vampire is done. However, if he survives and he wants to use him for another campaign, sure. I'm down for that. But he all ready lost a few characters in this campaign and just started this Kobold character a little over a month ago and he wants to play the Kobold.
My problem is I make things difficult. For example, currently, they rescued a Oracle and got a bunch of information, various forks to pick. Its good, right? a bunch of choices to choose from. But they don't know how to find these places. (I don't think I was that bad.) I only closed off their means of traveling out of world via planar travel and various gates. Which is why one of them thought way back and decided to go to the Dream world. But they also found out that through the dream world they can travel to other planes and worlds.
I just tend to make things really hard. I think its easy to figure out, but i made it up so I'm biased. One of my players was talking to me about that. I've been dming for so long that I just got good and coming up with things on the fly and freestyling and creating loose campaigns.
But, because I'm open to things, I've got a broken campaign. My PC's are irritating as hell. I definetely learned my lesson about allowing anything. On the other hand, I always wanted to throw out a bunch of monsters from the epic level hand book which now look like realistic options as opposed to when I first got the epic handbook and thought, "how can a party of PC's defeat any of these creatures?" My party consists of 16th level characters and their eating up monsters with challenge rating 20, 21, 22.....I did create a encounter with challenge rating 9 through 11 when they were 15 and ate them up but that was an encounter i took several hours to produce. I'm more into story then fighting, so its so much easier for me to throw higher CL monsters then spend hours making sick encounters with lower CR's. I just don't have the time.
But I always wanted to do a prismatic dragon encounter and i finally will be able too. Obviously not right now, but maybe when there 25th or so.
Next campaign i make im cutting out all 3rd party, etc....no more. Ive found so many ways to break characters that its not even fun anymore.

I made this campaign work because I created a bunch of new monsters from another place that are governed by different laws so their very hard to hurt and kill. Sort of a "call of the cthulhu" type thing where they realize that fighting these things is super difficult and its just better to run. However when they fight any D&D monster they just tear it up unless I spend hours creating unique monster encounters.

This wont work again, so next campaign im just cutting all 3rd party out or maybe play a different system.

 

[Unwise]

@meltinbradley

That is really interesting as I play 4e and have the same issue regarding power levels. I guess some things are the same regardless of editions. As I just posted in another thread my level 14 PCs just chewed through a level 21 solo Balor in a few rounds, then waltzed through a unique dragon in the next room almost without breaking stride. At least in 4e I don't feel that any classes are really broken and I am happy not banning stuff. It feels more like a systemic issue with the maths more than individual broken things.

 

[scott2978]

I've found it incredibly difficult to make a Player want to sacrifice their PC for any reason, no matter what's at stake, and I've had games where the players would eagerly sacrifice themselves for each other. I think the best way to get there is to make the stakes something very personal to the PC. A player who will allow an entire civilization of strangers die may throw himself on a hand grenade to save their NPC sister. Another trick you can use is to NOT make it "certain death" but merely "highly probable death". Plus, you can soften the blow by allowing the PC to have a "death scene" where they get to monologue right before their lights go out. "Take... my sword... to my cousin... Hellwrathe... in Smallton. Swear it!" could be the lead-in for a new PC and a hand-me-down favorite item doesn't hurt either.

I guess first though you need to consider why you want a death in the first place. Speaking about this idea of PC self-sacrifice in general, not just this one circumstance that might already have it's reasons. A good reason might be because a player is tired of their PC and wants to go out with a bang, or something similar. In my mind, the worst possible thing is if the GM decides a PC self sacrifice would be cool. This sort of thing must ALWAYS be a Player decision. If you want your players to sacrifice their cherished PC, you need to give them the kind of story and environment where they will really want to do it for SOME reason, and every PC might have different reasons. Then find out through role play what that is, and start laying the groundwork.