WARNING: Light spoilers for Dragon Heist, and also it’s long.
Tl;Dr: I stumbled across a way to emotionally blackmail my players into being emotionally invested into the campaigns plot completely on accident. It was an amazing "a-ha!" moment.
What sort of a-ha moments have you had as a DM that were really momentous. I'm especially interested in ones that are story related and ones that came out of organic RP moments at the table. (although, I'm always interested in fellow DMs evil traps or combat encounters!)
You know those moments where you have that pure evil DM idea. Where mid-session something falls into place but you don’t necessarily realize it till your scheming for the next session? And it’s even better when it’s something purely roleplay related and it’s just kind of evil. (Don’t get me wrong super evil combat mechanics or traps are cool but I’m all in on the storytelling first).
So, I’ve been DMing for 19 years now and I’ve run out of most of the firsts at this point. Start a new online campaign with eight people which is a lot more than I usually run. It’s been really fun balancing everyone’s turn to feel cool. But this first has been an actually gender balanced party with four men and four women. That’s been extra cool. Generally I’ve had one, or occasionally, two women in the party (one or two non-males is really more accurate). That’s also been a cool new dynamic. Thus far having the women has really elevated the roleplay for everyone at the table. It’s not dissimilar to when I’ve had actors as they just sort of drag everyone along for the RP ride. (In a good way as people feel more comfortable and engaged).
With this in mind one of the characters has 9 CHA; one of those physically attractive but awkward Cha 9s. She tries to hit on the barmaid and is your fairly typical awkward about it, and walks off. The other ladies’ characters swoop in to help her. Queue an hour and a bit long “side-quest” that ends up getting the entire party involved. Everyone is rooting for this CHA 9 character. She works up the courage after some pep talk and practicing to ask the barmaid out, and then the party gets her clothes and a haircut. One of the character’s is a local and he helps her pick out a place to go to. Perfect. The entire party is now emotionally invested in this relationship. The best part is as the CHA 9 character is walking to the date she realizes she can’t possibly afford the place their going to; queue the final bit of assistance as one of the character’s is in a serious relationship with a local lord and gives our girl the hook up and set her up on his tab and got them special treatment etc. etc.
My standard system for a skill check like this is to do it in threes at the start of the event to determine the beginning, middle, and end, then flow the RP around how well they roll. They rolled well, date went well, and the barmaid gave her a little kiss on the cheek before leaving for work. It was a lot of fun and I’m honestly looking forward to her telling the entire party (which includes a bugbear, a goblin, and your fairly standard northern barbarian who all got in on this in their own ways) how it went (as we did it at the end of the session privately).
Now, here’s the evil part. I’m running Dragon Heist; all of this is happening in Chapter 2 as they’re repairing their new tavern. The barmaid that our Cha 9 character went out with was Bonnie, the barmaid from The Yawning Portal. I’m running the excellent The Alexandrian version that uses all of the villains. After the game I start prepping next session and I pull up the next set of pages and start reading about Chapter 2 and getting into chapter 3 and they start discussing how there isn’t a lot (any) incentive for the PCs to investigate the explosion that sparks the events of the rest of the campaign.
Then I get to this line: “My recommendation is simple: Kill someone they care about in the explosion.” My players and I have, completly on accident, created the perfect character to drive them headlong into the Great Game by emotionally blackmailing them into desiring justice (or revenge, I'm not picky). Bonnie is, quiet suddenly, not a doppleganger and suddenly much more important to chapter 2. I am going to stretch chapter 2 out a little bit longer so I can really create more opportunities to organically grow this relationship and raise the stakes for all of my players who all dove headlong on this budding love story. And then I’m going to incinerate it in the fires of the villains' ambitions. (Oh, and the other character who’s having the long-term relationship with a noble? That nobles Renaar. Yeah, he’s dead too; just not yet.)
Nice. Yeah, that’s a pretty well established trick of getting the party to unify around a quest, is to kill off someone important to them. But that’s often hard to find if they haven’t set you up so nicely by spending a whole session in RP land investing in this NPC.
Good job using what’s on hand, fitting it with the story as written, and making the adjustments necessary to allow the adventure to tell the players’ stories and not just what was in print before you all started playing. That’s doing D&D right!
My party was clearing the way to the High Hall in Elturel shortly after arriving in Avernus. They reached the front steps of the temple and cleared out the fiends guarding the entrance. They poked their heads inside and could hear all kinds of noise. Deciding they weren't ready, they dipped back into town for a long rest. During this time, I thought "Hey, there's probably other townsfolk that were hiding from the fiends guarding High Hall." Low perception checks from those taking watch didn't see them run towards the temple.
Cut to the party re-entering High Hall to the smell of iron and death, and the sight of blood and bodies. The monk rolled a natural 20 on insight and was able to piece all this together. It was their fault the townsfolk ran in, thinking it was safe.
That was probably my most evil moment!
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Nice. Yeah, that’s a pretty well established trick of getting the party to unify around a quest, is to kill off someone important to them. But that’s often hard to find if they haven’t set you up so nicely by spending a whole session in RP land investing in this NPC.
Good job using what’s on hand, fitting it with the story as written, and making the adjustments necessary to allow the adventure to tell the players’ stories and not just what was in print before you all started playing. That’s doing D&D right!
LIGHT SPOILERS FOR DESCENT INTO AVERNUS
My party was clearing the way to the High Hall in Elturel shortly after arriving in Avernus. They reached the front steps of the temple and cleared out the fiends guarding the entrance. They poked their heads inside and could hear all kinds of noise. Deciding they weren't ready, they dipped back into town for a long rest. During this time, I thought "Hey, there's probably other townsfolk that were hiding from the fiends guarding High Hall." Low perception checks from those taking watch didn't see them run towards the temple.
Cut to the party re-entering High Hall to the smell of iron and death, and the sight of blood and bodies. The monk rolled a natural 20 on insight and was able to piece all this together. It was their fault the townsfolk ran in, thinking it was safe.
That was probably my most evil moment!