I had a previous post where one of the players (the dwarf fighter) abandoned the party to abscond with his horse and cart, to prevent a Black Dragon from taking one of their artifacts (also a plot point, I'm fine with the party playing keep away with the item). Aside from the part where the player wanted to argue about the ability of a horse and cart to escape a flying Dragon, the player is going to be hell bent on simple getting further away from the party.
Right now the party is within manageable parameters of one another but the majority of the party will find themselves brought into the Dragon's lair by a whirlpool (its an ability check so there is room for some to have a choice to make) while the dwarf rides hard to escape the Dragon.
Lately the party has been kind of...everyone for themselves, when it comes to their characters not dieing. So right now I am at a dilemma. The dwarf is clearly going to run for the hills, the Dragon will catch him easily enough and that will be its own thing. My basic idea is to have the Dragon either teleport him to the lair or grab him and drop him into the whirlpool. I can also see some of the party members, should they escape the whirlpool, opting to not dive in after everyone else.
So with the case of people willfully abandoning the party, for any number of character based reasons, at what point do I run a split game and at what point do I say enough is enough and if characters wish to abandon the party they will get retired and must roll new members.
I hate to railroad so I try my best to gently nudge without just being like "this is happening no matter what" just to get them back together.
Thoughts on how to handle this? I am fine with having a bit of a split game and am also fine with telling them retire the character or make efforts to do the right thing by the party. Just don't know how to handle the issue without seeming like THAT DM.
Is there any decent, logical reason that the dragon doesn't eat the dwarf? It seems that the party is on its hit-list so splitting up is exactly what favours the dragon and that making them all meet up again is strictly counterproductive. That stresses the stick-together nature of play and follows logic from the information you give. If it needs rubbing in, the dragon can happily do a villainous exposition speech gloating over their lack of teamwork and how their divisions served it so well. (As well as all this, it neatly solves the argument as to whether a horse and cart was a good escape method.)
I'm rationalizing it is a Black Dragon and thus would looooove to get them all in its lair to prolong their suffering and misery as long as possible. As Black Dragons are want to do.
Coupled with the fact he is more after the artifact because the clock is ticking on what the Dragon's are doing. I am not against a quick and vicious murder though, or possibly a beating into unconsciousness for his body to end up in the lair for the party to save.
Players can, will, and do split up for any number of reasons both good and bad. The purpose of their splitting up is not your concern as the DM. This was a hard pill for me to swallow as I'm the kind of DM who tries everything to keep my players alive. As the DM we are there to adjudicate their actions, play the NPC, the villain, the monsters, etc, etc, etc. and it stops there. If the dragon would eat the dwarf, so be it. If the players wander off to save their own hides and leave the rest to the whirlpool, so be it, time to run a split game. Let them make their decisions, let the world react, or not react, to those decisions. That being said, I'm also fond of the 3 strikes rule, first mistake is free, second mistake I'll say/do something to point it out, third time...well you've been warned.
I'm just wondering how far into a split game we go before they aren't even an actual party and it is just two loosely connected games happening at once?
I can see one or two of the players opting to not diving into the Lair after the rest should they make the appropriate save, which granted leaves them with the Dragon. At what point though do I have to be a Daddy DM and point out the whole idea of the game is to work together ya know? It is very much NOT an evil campaign so just throwing each other to the wolves is pretty much betraying their characters to this point.
The saddest part is they very easily could have had the Dragon to the point of heavily considering retreat had they all just worked together lol.
It's a perfect rationalisation - not that as GM you need to justify it to me :) My only issue is that as well as prolonging your party's pain and misery it could be prolonging yours (in dealing with inveterate party-splitting) and the IRL players (since really large distances between split parties will usually leave people missing out while you deal with events they cannot hope to either affect or interact with.)
If that seems too drastic though, perhaps it is and you have a far better grasp than I do. It's not being 'that GM' to point out the logistical difficulties involved - it may shuffle the hard realisation that teamwork is required a bit into the future but it may be that just explaining that split parties are really hard for everyone sorts it out. I know I am pretty lenient and happy to let folks scout, do research in base-camps and perform pincer movements but when the party wants to permanently split that is not reasonably handleable imo.
I'm just wondering how far into a split game we go before they aren't even an actual party and it is just two loosely connected games happening at once?
You don't have to go very far to make it obvious that splitting up is dangerous. They're at the mouth of a dragon's lair, black dragon's tend to have lizardfolk followers, it wouldn't be surprising for the separated group to end up being captured. Overwhelmed by the lizardfolk, they end up being presented to the dragon as a prize...
I guess my direct question is at what point can I just go "Look, I want you guys to have free will, and agency but this is just too much to manage and we are playing a very different game that should be split into two separate groups. So I need you to decide right now if your character is or isn't with the group?"
But I also don't want this ultimatum type deal to be seen as a possible OUT for players that are bored with their character and so try to have their character just 'quit' the party so they can roll anew.
I guess my direct question is at what point can I just go "Look, I want you guys to have free will, and agency but this is just too much to manage and we are playing a very different game that should be split into two separate groups. So I need you to decide right now if your character is or isn't with the group?"
But I also don't want this ultimatum type deal to be seen as a possible OUT for players that are bored with their character and so try to have their character just 'quit' the party so they can roll anew.
Personally I'd treat this current situation as plan B, run it through, get it resolved and watch the players after this. Use the heavy handed, tough love, quasi railroad tactics that are going to be necessary to make your point. Once you move past this and have shown the players that the "every man for himself" attitude is not going to be helpful, even if it means killing a player or three, if they continue to split up and be self-centered, call it and explain yourself.
The dragon could fight the dwarf, win (presumably), but choose to knock it unconscious with the hit that brings it to 0hp. Rationale is it chooses to eat the horse now, and drag the dwarf back to its lair along with the the loot for taunting, torture and eventual consumption. Other characters beside/in whirlpool see dragon flying overhead with limp form of dwarf in its claws, allowing for possible rescue. The dwarf player can now have captive/captor discussion scenes, and plotting to escape from their cage while the rest of the party goes about the lair raid.
If the dwarf gets instakilled in the battle, well so be it.
Well the whirlpool will actually suck the party into the Dragon's lair, Black Dragons being sadistic cruel creatures he has a cavalcade of traps and minions to 'tenderize' the meat before they get to the end of the lair.
Although for the Dragons plot they NEED what is in the cart that the party stole so my basic thinking is going to be party gets sucked into lair, dwarf either dies or gets injured and tossed into lair. The dragon then claims the artifact and takes that off to further the dragon plot BECAUSE inside the lair is his two sons, two young dragons, for the fight at the end of the lair and their hoard because it turns out Daddy was just getting his boys set up. mwahahahaha
One thing I try to do is emphasize the importance of being a party by making the larger encounters difficult enough that if they didn't have their team around them they will be KO'd and probably die. For story wise, I would KO the dwarf and have the dragon carry the cart with horses to acquire the artifact. Have the dragon fly over the party to show the fatality of what he tried in a mocking way. (It would be funny to suddenly hear a horse bree up in the air and notice your cart flying away to a dragons lair.) And if your party doesn't end up noticing the horse on the cart, make it's reigns snap and it falls to it's death right in front of them or on them. Commence the torture of the dwarf and make the rest of the party fight their butts off together to rescue the dwarf and slay the dragon or they all die. So story wise I would pretty much do what RegentCorreon would do.
Don't be afraid to kill your party really. It's nice to give them the freedom and all but make it so that the encounters aren't as easy as it would appear. I try to make it a goal to KO at least 1 or 2 of my party before a major encounter ends. It helps build that much needed and wanted teamwork and it makes them feel more accomplished by just surviving by the skin of their teeth. It's more of a subtle approach to keeping the team together and punish them if they decide to be that "lone wolf" or every man for himself.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Self Righteous Paladin: "That much power corrupts a man."
Random Bard: "Power is just a tool. How you use it doesn't change that fact. It just shows the purest form of your desires."
Idk man that dragon would probably kill those PCs without a second thought. And that's a good lesson in teamwork right there: don't be alone with a dragon.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
So the problem sorted itself out almost immediately within the first 10 minutes.
Only one member of the party, excluding the Dwarf, was able to pass the save to get out of the whirlpool as it began dragging them all into the lair. They cast water walk but just turned it into a giant slide, the lone party member opting to go off deeper into the swamp and try to work his way back to the horses. Black Pudding was awaiting him.
The Dwarf insisted on trying to run from the Dragon but rolled a 1 and 2 on his animal handling checks, so the harness snaps, the cart up ends, and he is forced to head for the shade of a giant plateau rising up out of the grassland to try and get distance as the Dragon lands next to the cart and begins ripping into it. To his credit, as the Dwarf put ALOT of time and gold into building what was now a self contained vault for all of their items, he then said 'Yolo' and threw a grenade at the cart (homebrew fun) which had 3 other grenades in it and blew the cart and most of its nonmagical contents to smithereens as he looked to nearly cripple the Dragons arm, shoulder, and claw. Although the Dragon was able to recover the item and with an angry cast of banishment was able to send the Dwarf into the lair (magic, yay)
Meanwhile the last party member defeated the black pudding and was attempting to stealth his way along the treeline to the horses, but a bad roll and the Dragon spotted him, delivering an insane amount of acid breath damage and wouldn't ya know it, the whole party ends up in the lair.
Eventually they reach the vault where they find a nice, but certainly less than normal, hoard...because this isn't the Adult Dragon's lair, it belongs to his two young sons. Who the party must now fight. They end up killing one, sending the other into a murderous rage but end up forcing him to fly the coop in search of his father and other Dragons for REVENGE.
During the fight the Rogue went down and so the player had my permission to reveal himself as a Doppleganger and then began helping the young dragons as he killed the Warlock (party thought they had rescued him several sessions ago, but they had not. mwhahahaha) So the party finally does away with him and pulls the Warlock out of the lair with as much treasure as they can carry as they ended the day back at the cart rummaging through for anything of value, thankfully finding a ring with 2 charges of teleport in the hoard as they are 4 days ride from any aid that can resurrect the Warlock and help them find the real Rogue to save him again.
General consensus was top 5 session of this campaign. Thank you all for your input!
I had a previous post where one of the players (the dwarf fighter) abandoned the party to abscond with his horse and cart, to prevent a Black Dragon from taking one of their artifacts (also a plot point, I'm fine with the party playing keep away with the item). Aside from the part where the player wanted to argue about the ability of a horse and cart to escape a flying Dragon, the player is going to be hell bent on simple getting further away from the party.
Right now the party is within manageable parameters of one another but the majority of the party will find themselves brought into the Dragon's lair by a whirlpool (its an ability check so there is room for some to have a choice to make) while the dwarf rides hard to escape the Dragon.
Lately the party has been kind of...everyone for themselves, when it comes to their characters not dieing. So right now I am at a dilemma. The dwarf is clearly going to run for the hills, the Dragon will catch him easily enough and that will be its own thing. My basic idea is to have the Dragon either teleport him to the lair or grab him and drop him into the whirlpool. I can also see some of the party members, should they escape the whirlpool, opting to not dive in after everyone else.
So with the case of people willfully abandoning the party, for any number of character based reasons, at what point do I run a split game and at what point do I say enough is enough and if characters wish to abandon the party they will get retired and must roll new members.
I hate to railroad so I try my best to gently nudge without just being like "this is happening no matter what" just to get them back together.
Thoughts on how to handle this? I am fine with having a bit of a split game and am also fine with telling them retire the character or make efforts to do the right thing by the party. Just don't know how to handle the issue without seeming like THAT DM.
Is there any decent, logical reason that the dragon doesn't eat the dwarf? It seems that the party is on its hit-list so splitting up is exactly what favours the dragon and that making them all meet up again is strictly counterproductive. That stresses the stick-together nature of play and follows logic from the information you give. If it needs rubbing in, the dragon can happily do a villainous exposition speech gloating over their lack of teamwork and how their divisions served it so well. (As well as all this, it neatly solves the argument as to whether a horse and cart was a good escape method.)
I'm rationalizing it is a Black Dragon and thus would looooove to get them all in its lair to prolong their suffering and misery as long as possible. As Black Dragons are want to do.
Coupled with the fact he is more after the artifact because the clock is ticking on what the Dragon's are doing. I am not against a quick and vicious murder though, or possibly a beating into unconsciousness for his body to end up in the lair for the party to save.
I'm feeling much the same way.
Players can, will, and do split up for any number of reasons both good and bad. The purpose of their splitting up is not your concern as the DM. This was a hard pill for me to swallow as I'm the kind of DM who tries everything to keep my players alive. As the DM we are there to adjudicate their actions, play the NPC, the villain, the monsters, etc, etc, etc. and it stops there. If the dragon would eat the dwarf, so be it. If the players wander off to save their own hides and leave the rest to the whirlpool, so be it, time to run a split game. Let them make their decisions, let the world react, or not react, to those decisions. That being said, I'm also fond of the 3 strikes rule, first mistake is free, second mistake I'll say/do something to point it out, third time...well you've been warned.
I'm just wondering how far into a split game we go before they aren't even an actual party and it is just two loosely connected games happening at once?
I can see one or two of the players opting to not diving into the Lair after the rest should they make the appropriate save, which granted leaves them with the Dragon. At what point though do I have to be a Daddy DM and point out the whole idea of the game is to work together ya know? It is very much NOT an evil campaign so just throwing each other to the wolves is pretty much betraying their characters to this point.
The saddest part is they very easily could have had the Dragon to the point of heavily considering retreat had they all just worked together lol.
It's a perfect rationalisation - not that as GM you need to justify it to me :) My only issue is that as well as prolonging your party's pain and misery it could be prolonging yours (in dealing with inveterate party-splitting) and the IRL players (since really large distances between split parties will usually leave people missing out while you deal with events they cannot hope to either affect or interact with.)
If that seems too drastic though, perhaps it is and you have a far better grasp than I do. It's not being 'that GM' to point out the logistical difficulties involved - it may shuffle the hard realisation that teamwork is required a bit into the future but it may be that just explaining that split parties are really hard for everyone sorts it out. I know I am pretty lenient and happy to let folks scout, do research in base-camps and perform pincer movements but when the party wants to permanently split that is not reasonably handleable imo.
You don't have to go very far to make it obvious that splitting up is dangerous. They're at the mouth of a dragon's lair, black dragon's tend to have lizardfolk followers, it wouldn't be surprising for the separated group to end up being captured. Overwhelmed by the lizardfolk, they end up being presented to the dragon as a prize...
I guess my direct question is at what point can I just go "Look, I want you guys to have free will, and agency but this is just too much to manage and we are playing a very different game that should be split into two separate groups. So I need you to decide right now if your character is or isn't with the group?"
But I also don't want this ultimatum type deal to be seen as a possible OUT for players that are bored with their character and so try to have their character just 'quit' the party so they can roll anew.
Personally I'd treat this current situation as plan B, run it through, get it resolved and watch the players after this. Use the heavy handed, tough love, quasi railroad tactics that are going to be necessary to make your point. Once you move past this and have shown the players that the "every man for himself" attitude is not going to be helpful, even if it means killing a player or three, if they continue to split up and be self-centered, call it and explain yourself.
The dragon could fight the dwarf, win (presumably), but choose to knock it unconscious with the hit that brings it to 0hp. Rationale is it chooses to eat the horse now, and drag the dwarf back to its lair along with the the loot for taunting, torture and eventual consumption. Other characters beside/in whirlpool see dragon flying overhead with limp form of dwarf in its claws, allowing for possible rescue. The dwarf player can now have captive/captor discussion scenes, and plotting to escape from their cage while the rest of the party goes about the lair raid.
If the dwarf gets instakilled in the battle, well so be it.
Well the whirlpool will actually suck the party into the Dragon's lair, Black Dragons being sadistic cruel creatures he has a cavalcade of traps and minions to 'tenderize' the meat before they get to the end of the lair.
Although for the Dragons plot they NEED what is in the cart that the party stole so my basic thinking is going to be party gets sucked into lair, dwarf either dies or gets injured and tossed into lair. The dragon then claims the artifact and takes that off to further the dragon plot BECAUSE inside the lair is his two sons, two young dragons, for the fight at the end of the lair and their hoard because it turns out Daddy was just getting his boys set up. mwahahahaha
One thing I try to do is emphasize the importance of being a party by making the larger encounters difficult enough that if they didn't have their team around them they will be KO'd and probably die. For story wise, I would KO the dwarf and have the dragon carry the cart with horses to acquire the artifact. Have the dragon fly over the party to show the fatality of what he tried in a mocking way. (It would be funny to suddenly hear a horse bree up in the air and notice your cart flying away to a dragons lair.) And if your party doesn't end up noticing the horse on the cart, make it's reigns snap and it falls to it's death right in front of them or on them. Commence the torture of the dwarf and make the rest of the party fight their butts off together to rescue the dwarf and slay the dragon or they all die. So story wise I would pretty much do what RegentCorreon would do.
Don't be afraid to kill your party really. It's nice to give them the freedom and all but make it so that the encounters aren't as easy as it would appear. I try to make it a goal to KO at least 1 or 2 of my party before a major encounter ends. It helps build that much needed and wanted teamwork and it makes them feel more accomplished by just surviving by the skin of their teeth. It's more of a subtle approach to keeping the team together and punish them if they decide to be that "lone wolf" or every man for himself.
Self Righteous Paladin: "That much power corrupts a man."
Random Bard: "Power is just a tool. How you use it doesn't change that fact. It just shows the purest form of your desires."
Idk man that dragon would probably kill those PCs without a second thought. And that's a good lesson in teamwork right there: don't be alone with a dragon.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
So the problem sorted itself out almost immediately within the first 10 minutes.
Only one member of the party, excluding the Dwarf, was able to pass the save to get out of the whirlpool as it began dragging them all into the lair. They cast water walk but just turned it into a giant slide, the lone party member opting to go off deeper into the swamp and try to work his way back to the horses. Black Pudding was awaiting him.
The Dwarf insisted on trying to run from the Dragon but rolled a 1 and 2 on his animal handling checks, so the harness snaps, the cart up ends, and he is forced to head for the shade of a giant plateau rising up out of the grassland to try and get distance as the Dragon lands next to the cart and begins ripping into it. To his credit, as the Dwarf put ALOT of time and gold into building what was now a self contained vault for all of their items, he then said 'Yolo' and threw a grenade at the cart (homebrew fun) which had 3 other grenades in it and blew the cart and most of its nonmagical contents to smithereens as he looked to nearly cripple the Dragons arm, shoulder, and claw. Although the Dragon was able to recover the item and with an angry cast of banishment was able to send the Dwarf into the lair (magic, yay)
Meanwhile the last party member defeated the black pudding and was attempting to stealth his way along the treeline to the horses, but a bad roll and the Dragon spotted him, delivering an insane amount of acid breath damage and wouldn't ya know it, the whole party ends up in the lair.
Eventually they reach the vault where they find a nice, but certainly less than normal, hoard...because this isn't the Adult Dragon's lair, it belongs to his two young sons. Who the party must now fight. They end up killing one, sending the other into a murderous rage but end up forcing him to fly the coop in search of his father and other Dragons for REVENGE.
During the fight the Rogue went down and so the player had my permission to reveal himself as a Doppleganger and then began helping the young dragons as he killed the Warlock (party thought they had rescued him several sessions ago, but they had not. mwhahahaha) So the party finally does away with him and pulls the Warlock out of the lair with as much treasure as they can carry as they ended the day back at the cart rummaging through for anything of value, thankfully finding a ring with 2 charges of teleport in the hoard as they are 4 days ride from any aid that can resurrect the Warlock and help them find the real Rogue to save him again.
General consensus was top 5 session of this campaign. Thank you all for your input!