It was a BS scenario for a low-level group. At level 1 your characters are still all gung ho from training and jacked up on self-righteousness with an overwhelming sense of immortality based on their beliefs. They have no experience in how the world works, they see evil they try to smite it. I would have done the exact same thing in your situation. You are all young, dumb, and filled with the holy ass-kicking juice.
A mid-level party would have handled this much better most likely. They would have gauged their opponent's strengths, looked for weaknesses, and planned the destruction of the demon with the cultists. It takes a few party betrayals and some not-so-friendly backstabbing to realize how the world really works. It sounds like an inexperienced DM issue.
Sounds like the DMs fault, if they wanted you to play an enslaved to demons campaign, they should have restricted what you brought to the campaign, not complain about players not cooperating with their railroad.
D&Ds virtue is the freedom to do something unscripted and negotiating the behavior a character might do. This can be taken too far where players choose divisive characters to play, or interpret alignments as stupidity, but ultimately, how players choose to engage a situation should not be railroaded by the DM.
The players should expect to engage the content that the DM has prepared, often times this is preprinted material which is designed to progress certain events and places. But if your not free to engage them in your own creative manner, well your DM doesn't know how to fulfill their roll and you might as well play a video game.
Ultimately, almost no official module would never put you in an obnoxious only follow the railroads, over powered enslavement encounter at level one. I've seen Adult Blue Dragons at level 2, but those encounters come with the freedom to retreat, use terrain to hide, and alternate victory conditions, because players should start a adventure with an overpowered NPC which tells the players not to roleplay.
Discuss running a module with your DM, they aren't ready to make up something.
Even the odds? If your deity could destroy any big demon anywhere at any time, why would there even be demons? Pelor (or whoever) helps those who help themselves, as the saying goes.
For gameplay purposes the gods (and other powerful extraplanar beings) are either prevented or at least severely hindered from traveling to or directly intervening in the Material Plane because that would defeat the point of having mortal heroes to do anything.
For lore purposes this is generally either due to some sort of planar barrier/dimensional inertia or each other, if not both. Whether there's an actual metaphysical barrier of some sort in place or it's just an agreement by way of mutual threats, the really heavy hitters of the multiverse don't directly meddle in the affairs of mortals. If they did directly act then some other gods or archfiends/fey or Great Old Ones or whatever with a conflicting agenda would also "go down/up there" and the resulting deific rumble would devastate the world they're fighting over. Even chaotic entities will be extremely hesitant to attempt such intervention because the lawful ones will unite to quickly neutralize them before they can wreck everybody's stuff. Remember that the souls of dead mortals go to other planes where they in one way or another serve/empower the masters of those planes, which makes the source of those souls the most valuable and precious real estate in the multiverse. To influence this commodity the gods and archfiends/etc only act via proxies (such as fiendish/celestial/fey heralds and avatars and/or clerics, paladins, and warlocks that they empower with fragments of their power); this also helps grant narrative importance to the PCs as such agents or as spoilers against such agents (agents like demon worshipping cultists that have managed to muster enough mojo to summon forth one of their abyssal lord's more powerful servants to the Material Plane like in the OP's campaign). Even the extremely powerful Cleric ability that's literally called Divine Intervention requires a powerful and devoted mortal servant (a cleric of at least tenth level) to act as a conduit or focal point for a deity to briefly exert direct influence on the Prime Material and even then it's at best a one in five chance of success for a max level cleric.
Short version: gods stay in godland because the Prime Material Plane is reserved for mortals. They can guide, influence, and empower those mortals but for the most part that's it. Otherwise there'd be no point, mechanically or narratively, for the players to not be playing as gods themselves.
This is a fictional setting and it is there because the DM chose for it to be there. The DM can, of course, build their own cosmology, but it would be a tough sell to worship good aligned deities if the evil ones are allowed to send Demons down to force innocent people to do their dirty work.
This is pretty much what Christians believed for centuries.
And it's perfectly possible to worship a god without believing that god is omnipotent and can prevent anything they don't like by proverbially snapping their fingers. In fact, the simple observation that the world isn't in perfect harmony should be sufficient evidence to anyone with an ounce of sense that if good gods exist not only must they have an evil counterpart but said counterpart must be comparably strong and be able to work in ways not immediately apparent to the good gods.
Christians did not believe that only the Devil can intervene. They believed both sides could intervene. The whole concept of the Divine Right of Kings is that Kings are either directly holy, directly blessed, or in extreme cases, deities themselves.
But again this is not a question of 'can prevent anything they do not like' but 'can actively counter the other side's direct intervention in the Prime Material.' If the lower planes are able to simply 'send a Demon,' why can't the upper planes simply 'send an Angel?' You are describing a cosmology where mortals are being overtly punished above and the normal natural difficulties of surviving natural threats, nor the subtle threats of temptation.
Where Demons are allowed to simply have temporal power on the Prime Material.
"... the evil ones are allowed to send Demons down to force innocent people to do their dirty work..." is what I said Christians believed. I didn't say anything about the other side.
And it's not a case of "simply" sending anything. Nobody said any side has their unholy/holy agents on tap, ready to be deployed at the push of a button. There's no "Sir, we've detected an active Angel on our Prime radar, permission to scramble Demon squad Delta to intercept?" It takes effort to insert such beings onto the Material Plane.
Now, was it a bad scenario to use for a 1st level encounter? Probably. I've seen set pieces with the PCs in "unwinnable" circumstances used to good effect, but that doesn't appear to have been the idea here. However, being dealt a lousy hand doesn't mean it has to be played stupidly. We don't know the specifics of the task proposed by the demon, for instance. My guess is the PCs weren't meant to actually complete it, the DM merely wanted to force them into starting it and offer them a way to extricate themselves later on. He did so in a hamfisted and unfortunate way, sure. Again though, that's not a reason for the PCs to react in a stupid, suicidal way.
Am I the only one that thinks we're getting way off topic from what the OP was asking about? It wasn't a request for advice or thoughts on rules lawyering or lore lawyering.
1) Citation needed. Particularly regarding some prohibition on sending Angels down to counter the Demons. Or for that matter, any historical sightings of actual demons anywhere in Europe. (In Asian mythology, the closest thing are more temporal so not really the same idea at all).
2) Plenty of stories of Demonic Possession but (a) that is not what is happening in this campaign and (b) if it was, that would be even worse. And still would not prohibit any Angelic responses. This is a demon apparently sent to lead a bunch of cultists, whom apparently are in significant numbers, organized and yet local authorities either know nothing about them or have insufficient forces so sent the party to deal with them.
3) As for what the PC's are supposed to do, well that's the thing, isn't it? This is the opposite of a murderhobo situation. These are clearly 'bad guys' led by an actual demon. And not just does it seem that the party are not expected to fight them but you and others seem to be chastizing them for doing so. Without the DM outright saying so, how do the players know the plan is to agree to help the demon rather than take out the demon somehow and then have the cultists stand down having seen the demon defeated? Why, in such a scenario, are the party expected to know it would be suicide.
4) And again, if the DM does not care about things like character backgrounds or motivations, well.... Those are things the DM should have worked out with the players in advance and written adventures taking them into account. If the DM was insistent on sticking with this plot, they could have insisted on characters who would not balk at such a plot. That is pre-session 0 campaign prep.
1) Citation needed? How about your own assertion that "it would be a tough sell to worship good aligned deities if the evil ones are allowed to send Demons down to force innocent people to do their dirty work"? Or your question why there's no full scale demonic invasion if there are no restrictions? As for historical sightings, those are hardly required for there to be belief. I've met my share of Christians, none of them had ever witnessed anything supernatural or even heard of anyone who did.
2) Was the demon sent, or was it summoned? Or did it find a way onto the Prime itself? I don't know, but all are possible in theory. I'm not sure how the fact that it's there implies that three 1st level PCs should be able to defeat it, is my point.
3) Don't know about chastizing, just saying it seems very foolish. I don't typically expect "what my character would do" to be something very foolish. Why does it seem foolish? Because the PCs are outnumbered 30 to 3 by the cultists alone and they're facing a 20+ ft tall demon. I don't know how the demon intended to ensure the PCs wouldn't doublecross it, so I can't know if the DM intended for that to be a possibility or not. I expect so, but that's nothing but speculation on my part.
4) Yes, absolutely. I've said as much too. But hindsight doesn't change what the situation was.
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This is completely on your DM. Two Paladins and a Cleric to a good deity what were they thinking? If there would have been innocents the demon could have threatened to coerce the party, sure. But now there were three holy warriors that new the odds they would die in service to their deities. Bad DM'ing.
This is completely on your DM. Two Paladins and a Cleric to a good deity what were they thinking? If there would have been innocents the demon could have threatened to coerce the party, sure. But now there were three holy warriors that new the odds they would die in service to their deities. Bad DM'ing.
We don't know enough to cast blame. One of the key thongs is how much the players knew before character creation.
I am in a campaign where the DM was clear that the campaign would start with us as being kidnapped by a Lich and under the influance of a (slightly modified) Geas spell and we would be sent on various missions by him and it would likely be quite a few sessions before we could free ourselves from his service. I did consider playing a cleric and considered what sort of dieties that wcould work with but eventually decided on a (stars) druid.
The campaign started with 4 PCs though the DM did let us know he was looking for a 5th. Just before session 3 a 5th player was found but with not enough time for character creation he listened in on the session and heard us plotting who we could potentially get the Geas removed without getting killed first.
The next session started in the Lich's lair and we were introduced to the new character, a hexblade. He refused to follow the simplest commands of the lich, such as to follow him, dispite being warned both in character and out of character that such an approach would not bode well. His resolve was strengthed when he rolled a natural 20 against dominate person he did however fail the warning spell of bestow curse, eventually after the DM said "are you really sure you want to do that, I hope you have a new character ready" the lich had enough and cast power word kill. The player due to his links with the Raven Queen that is what his character would do (and decided this was the wrong campaign for him as a player)
The above situation was all down to the player he knew the party would have to deal with a lich and while a hexblade might have issues with that their are plenty of ways of either coping with it or having a character for which it is not any more of a problem than for an athiest character. I don't know what he was thinking would happen he effectivly railroaded the DM to kill his character. If he wanted to play a character for more than 30 minutes he should have created a different character. In that instance the DM did nothing wrong.
I think it makes sense that 3 goodies would not want to cooperate with the demon.
I think it makes sense that if the demon is trying to use 3 goodies, the demon (and the cultists) would keep the goodies alive and find a way to force them to comply.
I think the DM should've just improvised and ran with it, there was no need to complain that the player did anything wrong. If there was no session 0, or in session 0 the DM didn't mention anything about the type of campaign it was, then full fault is on the DM. Not for putting the demon there, but for complaining about perfectly logical player & character behaviour.
Generally, if you are in a position where you have to choose between moving the game forward and your character drawing a line in the sand that will result in certain its death and/or derail the game, it’s most always better to choose to move the game forward. “It’s what my character would do” is a wangrod excuse whether you are saying it to other players or to the DM. Cut your DM some slack. Find some way to go along with it (whatever it may be), then talk to them after the game if you have concerns. If you simply cannot abide, still find some way to go along with it (whatever it may be) for the sake of the session, then offer to take up the DM mantle and see for yourself how hard it is to herd the kittens. DM’ing a session or two usually results in a lot more understanding from the players. It doesn’t take long to realize that there’s good reasons why the player to DM ratio is something in the 20 to 1 neighbourhood.
I was going to say 'Yes' based on the title alone, but then I read the thread and I think that you weren't in the wrong. It sounds like the DM had his story and maybe even thought 'Forcing these righteous PCs to make a deal with a fiend is great storytelling that creates character conflict!'. And it could be, but not at level 1. Creating a moral conundrum later in the campaign, when you have a stronger feeling about your character, and have more options, might be interesting. But at level 1, it's just asking you to throw the character away because you'll never be able to play it the way you envisioned.
Generally, if you are in a position where you have to choose between moving the game forward and your character drawing a line in the sand that will result in certain its death and/or derail the game, it’s most always better to choose to move the game forward. “It’s what my character would do” is a wangrod excuse whether you are saying it to other players or to the DM. Cut your DM some slack.
The DM agreed to the party starting with two paladins and a cleric - all of which are likely to have strong beliefs.
It is wrong for the DM to expect them to work with a demon.
The "wangrod" excuse certainly applies in this situation, since it is more a case of "it's what our party would do" - which the DM should have fully planned for.
The DM agreed to the party starting with two paladins and a cleric - all of which are likely to have strong beliefs.
It is wrong for the DM to expect them to work with a demon.
It sure is. Not a clue as whether this particular DM expected that in this particular case though. My guess is he expected the PCs to play along until they got the McGuffin and then try to make a move, or at least until they saw an opportunity. If you have a party of nothing but religious devotees, putting them up against something from the other side of the belief spectrum is really a fairly obvious idea. Not saying the DM executed that idea well (or even that he had that idea after finding out what the players wanted to play) or that the players bear all the blame, not saying the opposite of that either - because we have no idea of how the game was set up, what expectations anyone had or what expectations everyone thought anyone else had.
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Just to add in, if the players hadn't attacked, instead, simply refused, the DM would have had an option to lock them up and let them 'think on it" a bit. That would open the door to an escape plan, executing it and perhaps, some kind of sabotage on the way out. Essentially, an open, clear attack MAY not have been the best go-to, in hindsight. I agree, the DM put the players in a situation that had a LOT more chances of going to shit than moving along in a creative, interesting fashion.
Hopefully this thread will not only help and allow this party some insight and ideas for coping with such situations, but offer DM's some perspective on how a well laid plan (in their mind) might not be such a grand idea.
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
It's not necessarily wrong to want to roleplay your character's chaos-causing flaws, but it's not necessarily right for every table.
This seems multifaceted to me.
The DM wanted the story to go a specific way even though it was very possible that the characters would simply not go with it, expecting the players to simply go with it, which isn't really fair in my opinion. DMs must be flexible to expect the unexpected... to a certain point, though. On that matter...
The character in question was created with a "I don't look before I leap" flaw that, when disruptive, often chafes against other players (which includes the DM), and starting a fight with an overwhelming enemy that will most certainly end in a wipe because "my character is kinda stupid" isn't really fair in my opinion.
The question becomes, "How important is it to let your character be 'kinda stupid' to the point of putting the entire campaign at serious risk, possibly provoking a railroad response from the DM to save the campaign?" If this is a requirement for you that the DM is unwilling to accommodate, you need to seek other options.
There is a stream I watch where one of the characters is the "kinda stupid" hazard to the campaign. The problem is that the character in question is an integral part of a parallel series of skits which affect the campaign world, a kind of inferred plot-armor. Several times, the DM had to work overtime to keep the character from wiping the party or from committing suicide-by-stupidity. I almost believe that the player thinks, due to the character's required status for the channel's money-maker, the party and his character will always be saved by the DM somehow. I do not think that the DM they hired for the campaign was expecting such a disruptive character, but they're all stuck in for that ride, now.
Example: The party was on an airship above the clouds, and the DM noted that there's an Aarakocra "lifeguard" in case anyone falls overboard. The player immediately had his character leap off the ship to test this... and after many rolls (of which half were the DMs which are behind the screen), the character was saved before hitting the ground. (The DM stated that by the height of the ship, there was only one more round for his NPC to save the character.) That kind of character would be unwelcomed at many tables.
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
It still comes back to knowingly creating a hazardous "kinda stupid" character.
The DM is partly in the wrong for being annoyed at the unexpected (as it's part of the DM's job to handle such things on-the-fly, which the DM appears to have done but became annoyed for having to do it), but the player is also responsible for the kind of character the player makes, and "kinda stupid" is a risky character to roleplay without causing disruptions. One should not create "kinda stupid" characters lightly.
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
As a DM, it can be very disappointing when characters take things off track and void the storyline that you've built. If you're not a DM, you have no idea. It is an immense amount of work and when players crap on your storyline and refuse to follow along. It can upset you....
That is, until you learn to become a better DM. The DM is the center of the universe as they say. They can do anything. Strike you dead in the blink of an eye. Or force your hand outright.
The correct thing for the DM to do is play along with what your group is doing all the while presenting you options that can lead anywhere, but always within reach of the existing storyline.
Now, if you are intentionally jerking your DM around just to be a jerk. Be careful what you ask for. You might just get served what you're serving. You should have an open conversation with your DM. He should learn to adapt and not take it personally, but as noted. Jerks will always get served in the end.
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Info, Inflow, Overload. Knowledge Black Hole Imminent!
Our characters are shocked! (We have a paladin of Pelor, a Cleric of Lathander and a Paladin of Bahamut.). The Demon demands, that we retrieve something for him from an ancient crypt, or die. There is no possibility of escape, because the cultists surround the camp, but we also don't want to help a demon. So my character decides that he will attack the demon. He rather wants to die, then help such a creature.
Is your character the Paladin of Pelor? I don't think a Paladin of Bahamut would take that approach, nor a cleric of Lathander. TBH, I think a better approach is the "I attacked and was defeated. In order to rid the world of this evil, I need to bide my time..."
And I would definitely talk to the DM, so you can come together on a way to continue the campaign so everyone has fun.
The DM really should rethink this. Goristro will one-shot 1st level players...
Multiattack. The goristro makes three attacks: two with its fists and one with its hoof.
Fist. Melee Weapon Attack:+13 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 20 (3d8 + 7) bludgeoning damage.
Hoof. Melee Weapon Attack:+13 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 23 (3d10 + 7) bludgeoning damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 21 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone.
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It was a BS scenario for a low-level group. At level 1 your characters are still all gung ho from training and jacked up on self-righteousness with an overwhelming sense of immortality based on their beliefs. They have no experience in how the world works, they see evil they try to smite it. I would have done the exact same thing in your situation. You are all young, dumb, and filled with the holy ass-kicking juice.
A mid-level party would have handled this much better most likely. They would have gauged their opponent's strengths, looked for weaknesses, and planned the destruction of the demon with the cultists. It takes a few party betrayals and some not-so-friendly backstabbing to realize how the world really works. It sounds like an inexperienced DM issue.
Sounds like the DMs fault, if they wanted you to play an enslaved to demons campaign, they should have restricted what you brought to the campaign, not complain about players not cooperating with their railroad.
D&Ds virtue is the freedom to do something unscripted and negotiating the behavior a character might do. This can be taken too far where players choose divisive characters to play, or interpret alignments as stupidity, but ultimately, how players choose to engage a situation should not be railroaded by the DM.
The players should expect to engage the content that the DM has prepared, often times this is preprinted material which is designed to progress certain events and places. But if your not free to engage them in your own creative manner, well your DM doesn't know how to fulfill their roll and you might as well play a video game.
Ultimately, almost no official module would never put you in an obnoxious only follow the railroads, over powered enslavement encounter at level one. I've seen Adult Blue Dragons at level 2, but those encounters come with the freedom to retreat, use terrain to hide, and alternate victory conditions, because players should start a adventure with an overpowered NPC which tells the players not to roleplay.
Discuss running a module with your DM, they aren't ready to make up something.
For gameplay purposes the gods (and other powerful extraplanar beings) are either prevented or at least severely hindered from traveling to or directly intervening in the Material Plane because that would defeat the point of having mortal heroes to do anything.
For lore purposes this is generally either due to some sort of planar barrier/dimensional inertia or each other, if not both. Whether there's an actual metaphysical barrier of some sort in place or it's just an agreement by way of mutual threats, the really heavy hitters of the multiverse don't directly meddle in the affairs of mortals. If they did directly act then some other gods or archfiends/fey or Great Old Ones or whatever with a conflicting agenda would also "go down/up there" and the resulting deific rumble would devastate the world they're fighting over. Even chaotic entities will be extremely hesitant to attempt such intervention because the lawful ones will unite to quickly neutralize them before they can wreck everybody's stuff. Remember that the souls of dead mortals go to other planes where they in one way or another serve/empower the masters of those planes, which makes the source of those souls the most valuable and precious real estate in the multiverse. To influence this commodity the gods and archfiends/etc only act via proxies (such as fiendish/celestial/fey heralds and avatars and/or clerics, paladins, and warlocks that they empower with fragments of their power); this also helps grant narrative importance to the PCs as such agents or as spoilers against such agents (agents like demon worshipping cultists that have managed to muster enough mojo to summon forth one of their abyssal lord's more powerful servants to the Material Plane like in the OP's campaign). Even the extremely powerful Cleric ability that's literally called Divine Intervention requires a powerful and devoted mortal servant (a cleric of at least tenth level) to act as a conduit or focal point for a deity to briefly exert direct influence on the Prime Material and even then it's at best a one in five chance of success for a max level cleric.
Short version: gods stay in godland because the Prime Material Plane is reserved for mortals. They can guide, influence, and empower those mortals but for the most part that's it. Otherwise there'd be no point, mechanically or narratively, for the players to not be playing as gods themselves.
"... the evil ones are allowed to send Demons down to force innocent people to do their dirty work..." is what I said Christians believed. I didn't say anything about the other side.
And it's not a case of "simply" sending anything. Nobody said any side has their unholy/holy agents on tap, ready to be deployed at the push of a button. There's no "Sir, we've detected an active Angel on our Prime radar, permission to scramble Demon squad Delta to intercept?" It takes effort to insert such beings onto the Material Plane.
Now, was it a bad scenario to use for a 1st level encounter? Probably. I've seen set pieces with the PCs in "unwinnable" circumstances used to good effect, but that doesn't appear to have been the idea here. However, being dealt a lousy hand doesn't mean it has to be played stupidly. We don't know the specifics of the task proposed by the demon, for instance. My guess is the PCs weren't meant to actually complete it, the DM merely wanted to force them into starting it and offer them a way to extricate themselves later on. He did so in a hamfisted and unfortunate way, sure. Again though, that's not a reason for the PCs to react in a stupid, suicidal way.
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Am I the only one that thinks we're getting way off topic from what the OP was asking about? It wasn't a request for advice or thoughts on rules lawyering or lore lawyering.
1) Citation needed? How about your own assertion that "it would be a tough sell to worship good aligned deities if the evil ones are allowed to send Demons down to force innocent people to do their dirty work"? Or your question why there's no full scale demonic invasion if there are no restrictions? As for historical sightings, those are hardly required for there to be belief. I've met my share of Christians, none of them had ever witnessed anything supernatural or even heard of anyone who did.
2) Was the demon sent, or was it summoned? Or did it find a way onto the Prime itself? I don't know, but all are possible in theory. I'm not sure how the fact that it's there implies that three 1st level PCs should be able to defeat it, is my point.
3) Don't know about chastizing, just saying it seems very foolish. I don't typically expect "what my character would do" to be something very foolish. Why does it seem foolish? Because the PCs are outnumbered 30 to 3 by the cultists alone and they're facing a 20+ ft tall demon. I don't know how the demon intended to ensure the PCs wouldn't doublecross it, so I can't know if the DM intended for that to be a possibility or not. I expect so, but that's nothing but speculation on my part.
4) Yes, absolutely. I've said as much too. But hindsight doesn't change what the situation was.
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This is completely on your DM. Two Paladins and a Cleric to a good deity what were they thinking? If there would have been innocents the demon could have threatened to coerce the party, sure. But now there were three holy warriors that new the odds they would die in service to their deities. Bad DM'ing.
We don't know enough to cast blame. One of the key thongs is how much the players knew before character creation.
I am in a campaign where the DM was clear that the campaign would start with us as being kidnapped by a Lich and under the influance of a (slightly modified) Geas spell and we would be sent on various missions by him and it would likely be quite a few sessions before we could free ourselves from his service. I did consider playing a cleric and considered what sort of dieties that wcould work with but eventually decided on a (stars) druid.
The campaign started with 4 PCs though the DM did let us know he was looking for a 5th. Just before session 3 a 5th player was found but with not enough time for character creation he listened in on the session and heard us plotting who we could potentially get the Geas removed without getting killed first.
The next session started in the Lich's lair and we were introduced to the new character, a hexblade. He refused to follow the simplest commands of the lich, such as to follow him, dispite being warned both in character and out of character that such an approach would not bode well. His resolve was strengthed when he rolled a natural 20 against dominate person he did however fail the warning spell of bestow curse, eventually after the DM said "are you really sure you want to do that, I hope you have a new character ready" the lich had enough and cast power word kill. The player due to his links with the Raven Queen that is what his character would do (and decided this was the wrong campaign for him as a player)
The above situation was all down to the player he knew the party would have to deal with a lich and while a hexblade might have issues with that their are plenty of ways of either coping with it or having a character for which it is not any more of a problem than for an athiest character. I don't know what he was thinking would happen he effectivly railroaded the DM to kill his character. If he wanted to play a character for more than 30 minutes he should have created a different character. In that instance the DM did nothing wrong.
I haven't read the full thread, but:
I think the DM should've just improvised and ran with it, there was no need to complain that the player did anything wrong. If there was no session 0, or in session 0 the DM didn't mention anything about the type of campaign it was, then full fault is on the DM. Not for putting the demon there, but for complaining about perfectly logical player & character behaviour.
Generally, if you are in a position where you have to choose between moving the game forward and your character drawing a line in the sand that will result in certain its death and/or derail the game, it’s most always better to choose to move the game forward. “It’s what my character would do” is a wangrod excuse whether you are saying it to other players or to the DM. Cut your DM some slack. Find some way to go along with it (whatever it may be), then talk to them after the game if you have concerns. If you simply cannot abide, still find some way to go along with it (whatever it may be) for the sake of the session, then offer to take up the DM mantle and see for yourself how hard it is to herd the kittens. DM’ing a session or two usually results in a lot more understanding from the players. It doesn’t take long to realize that there’s good reasons why the player to DM ratio is something in the 20 to 1 neighbourhood.
I was going to say 'Yes' based on the title alone, but then I read the thread and I think that you weren't in the wrong. It sounds like the DM had his story and maybe even thought 'Forcing these righteous PCs to make a deal with a fiend is great storytelling that creates character conflict!'. And it could be, but not at level 1. Creating a moral conundrum later in the campaign, when you have a stronger feeling about your character, and have more options, might be interesting. But at level 1, it's just asking you to throw the character away because you'll never be able to play it the way you envisioned.
The DM agreed to the party starting with two paladins and a cleric - all of which are likely to have strong beliefs.
It is wrong for the DM to expect them to work with a demon.
The "wangrod" excuse certainly applies in this situation, since it is more a case of "it's what our party would do" - which the DM should have fully planned for.
It could be argued the DM was the "wangrod" in this case by putting the players in this position.
It sure is. Not a clue as whether this particular DM expected that in this particular case though. My guess is he expected the PCs to play along until they got the McGuffin and then try to make a move, or at least until they saw an opportunity. If you have a party of nothing but religious devotees, putting them up against something from the other side of the belief spectrum is really a fairly obvious idea. Not saying the DM executed that idea well (or even that he had that idea after finding out what the players wanted to play) or that the players bear all the blame, not saying the opposite of that either - because we have no idea of how the game was set up, what expectations anyone had or what expectations everyone thought anyone else had.
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Just to add in, if the players hadn't attacked, instead, simply refused, the DM would have had an option to lock them up and let them 'think on it" a bit. That would open the door to an escape plan, executing it and perhaps, some kind of sabotage on the way out. Essentially, an open, clear attack MAY not have been the best go-to, in hindsight. I agree, the DM put the players in a situation that had a LOT more chances of going to shit than moving along in a creative, interesting fashion.
Hopefully this thread will not only help and allow this party some insight and ideas for coping with such situations, but offer DM's some perspective on how a well laid plan (in their mind) might not be such a grand idea.
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
It's not necessarily wrong to want to roleplay your character's chaos-causing flaws, but it's not necessarily right for every table.
This seems multifaceted to me.
The DM wanted the story to go a specific way even though it was very possible that the characters would simply not go with it, expecting the players to simply go with it, which isn't really fair in my opinion. DMs must be flexible to expect the unexpected... to a certain point, though. On that matter...
The character in question was created with a "I don't look before I leap" flaw that, when disruptive, often chafes against other players (which includes the DM), and starting a fight with an overwhelming enemy that will most certainly end in a wipe because "my character is kinda stupid" isn't really fair in my opinion.
The question becomes, "How important is it to let your character be 'kinda stupid' to the point of putting the entire campaign at serious risk, possibly provoking a railroad response from the DM to save the campaign?" If this is a requirement for you that the DM is unwilling to accommodate, you need to seek other options.
There is a stream I watch where one of the characters is the "kinda stupid" hazard to the campaign. The problem is that the character in question is an integral part of a parallel series of skits which affect the campaign world, a kind of inferred plot-armor. Several times, the DM had to work overtime to keep the character from wiping the party or from committing suicide-by-stupidity. I almost believe that the player thinks, due to the character's required status for the channel's money-maker, the party and his character will always be saved by the DM somehow. I do not think that the DM they hired for the campaign was expecting such a disruptive character, but they're all stuck in for that ride, now.
Example: The party was on an airship above the clouds, and the DM noted that there's an Aarakocra "lifeguard" in case anyone falls overboard. The player immediately had his character leap off the ship to test this... and after many rolls (of which half were the DMs which are behind the screen), the character was saved before hitting the ground. (The DM stated that by the height of the ship, there was only one more round for his NPC to save the character.) That kind of character would be unwelcomed at many tables.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
It still comes back to knowingly creating a hazardous "kinda stupid" character.
The DM is partly in the wrong for being annoyed at the unexpected (as it's part of the DM's job to handle such things on-the-fly, which the DM appears to have done but became annoyed for having to do it), but the player is also responsible for the kind of character the player makes, and "kinda stupid" is a risky character to roleplay without causing disruptions. One should not create "kinda stupid" characters lightly.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
As a DM, it can be very disappointing when characters take things off track and void the storyline that you've built. If you're not a DM, you have no idea. It is an immense amount of work and when players crap on your storyline and refuse to follow along. It can upset you....
That is, until you learn to become a better DM. The DM is the center of the universe as they say. They can do anything. Strike you dead in the blink of an eye. Or force your hand outright.
The correct thing for the DM to do is play along with what your group is doing all the while presenting you options that can lead anywhere, but always within reach of the existing storyline.
Now, if you are intentionally jerking your DM around just to be a jerk. Be careful what you ask for. You might just get served what you're serving. You should have an open conversation with your DM. He should learn to adapt and not take it personally, but as noted. Jerks will always get served in the end.
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Is your character the Paladin of Pelor? I don't think a Paladin of Bahamut would take that approach, nor a cleric of Lathander. TBH, I think a better approach is the "I attacked and was defeated. In order to rid the world of this evil, I need to bide my time..."
And I would definitely talk to the DM, so you can come together on a way to continue the campaign so everyone has fun.
The DM really should rethink this. Goristro will one-shot 1st level players...
Multiattack. The goristro makes three attacks: two with its fists and one with its hoof.
Fist. Melee Weapon Attack: +13 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 20 (3d8 + 7) bludgeoning damage.
Hoof. Melee Weapon Attack: +13 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 23 (3d10 + 7) bludgeoning damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 21 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone.