Questionable situation... thoughts?

[DarkCrisis]

Last night while I was DMing *The Witchfire Trilogy* a sitatuin occured that I thought was jumping the gun as did another player... let me explain...

The *apparent* antagonist Alexia confronts the party in a tavern asking for peace and help and the return of a powerful magic item to apparently help the city in its time of need. Now she a budding Necromancer (used only in the goal of bringing her mother back to life due to wrongful death). She has never attacked the party 1st. She always asked to be let alone. The party always attacked 1st. Now I see that they see a Necromancer who just weeks ago invaded the city with Undead to retrieve her mothers corpse but after that was over she destoyed her undead and left with her mother.

Anyways eventually after her apparant death at the hands of the party she shows up asking for a truce and needs their help in protecting the city from the true bad guy (who also had a hand in slaying her mother). Now the NG bard/fighter decides to just attack her after hearing her tale as to hy she invaded with undead and the story behind her mothers wrongful death... but of course they have no reason to believe her... but also as I said she never once attacked them 1st. She has always asked them to leave at which point they would attack..... all this put the party at odds when the Bard did this... I really saw it as jumping the gun.... as she came in peace and requesting peace and aid in the citys defense since it was already overrun with an old evil King and his minions.. I was curious as to your thoughts?

-Crisis

 

[Kweezil]

Three thoughts:

1. It's always nice to have an adversary who does what she does for a good reason.

2. IMHO, PCs always seem to have a way of getting into an 'Us vs. Them' mindset about villains. They just seem to latch onto bits and pieces of information and fill in the blanks themselves.

3. That NG Bard/Fighter doesn't sound so NG. Are any of the rest of the party NG, LG or LN? If so, attacking her when she comes to them effectively under a flag of truce is way out of alignment. Any paladins? Not any more.

 

[DarkCrisis]

No the rest are playing :

TN Druid... he thought the bard jumped the gun and was the most upset by it
LG Psi Warrior who just joined the group so as far as he knows she is just an evil Necro...
LN Monk who also just joined up but also thought it was jumping the gun but also saw why the Bard attacked...

Anyways
i felt it was out of alignment to but the Bard insisted his character would do that because he feels he is defending his home city which she overran with undead... though she did expalin that.. but he flet he was lying...

 

[med stud]

It was certainly jumping the gun, a stupid and very emotional act. By breaking the white flag- thing I think the bard acted Chaotic, and by attacking someone who was reaching out a hand and that could be the salvation for the city he acted Evil. Not enough to bring down his alignment, but he is closer to CN now then before IMO.

 

[EOL]

I know it seems unnessary and it's certainly too late, but if you are going to try something "tricky" like this it's very helpful to foreshadow it. Tell the party about a situation where a general was greatly dishonored by breaking a flag of truce or introduce a NPC who knows the Necromancer and keeps showing up to defend her. I've found that in order to get PC's out of the if it moves kill it mode, you sometimes have to be really heavy handed, in setting the situation up.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Yea thats one thing Ive noticed about D&D and even remarked about it during the situation... it seems that its a very us vs them kinda game... no need to ask questions... if its evil or seems evil... its got to die... how many modules are like that? Its a mind set... no use in peace talks when a weapon works just as well....