So I was running Lost Mines of Phandelver and I ran into somewhat of an issue where my half-orc barbarian player decided to convince the orcs of wyvern tor to attack Phandalin. At first, the plan was simple go into the cave while the elf druid and human monk waited outside hidden and issue a test of might challenge claiming orc heritage to gain some trust. Then he would get the orcs to attack the rebrands to help reduce or clear out the hideout for him killing orcs and redbrands in the process. The whole thing seemed pretty good so I said yeah you can try might work everyone agreed and off he went. Long story short he walked up to the guard asked for a meeting issued the challenge the orcs laughed and said they would give him one and put him in 1 v 1 fight with the ogre which he managed to win but, spared the orge's life. Impressed and with some good roleplaying the orcs let him join he then proceeded to tell them about phandalin and it's weak to no defenses the leader agreed and said it would be an easy grab.
Here is where the train came off the rails rather than suggest the redbrand hideout he pushed to have them take the whole town, burn it down and enslave the survivors to sell for resources and coin. At this point in I was trying to find a way to defuse it but the orc leader is written to be sort of a savage raider rather than the scout he should be. Some small town with little fight sounds too good for a bunch pent up rage-filled orcs to pass by so the leader agreed and sent the half-orc ahead to scout and meet him again with the warband outside of town. The barbarian then links back up with the party who heard the entire thing go down out of character. In character, he relays the plan to them and they strongly reject. At this point, an in-character argument broke out but the half-orc stuck to his guns about killing the townsfolk. I stopped the game just before the druid and monk rolled to hit on him. we had a table talk and the half-orc player still believes he is playing his character correctly and changing the plan is taking away his freedom. His background is a bandit but he told me he was a bandit that never took an innocent life on the job, even stood up to the redbrands in town to help some young boys getting robbed.
We all called it a night after some back and forth but no real solution, at this point I don't know what to do. Any advice on how to deal with this I don't want this to devolve into pvp but it was pretty tough getting the other two not to kill him right then and there.
Yeah, this is one of those situations where one player decides its cool to do their own thing, but the rest of the party was never in it. In this case, you need to have a discussion about whether this type of action broadly is cool to have in your group, and if not, to give the half orc player a choice of what to do. If the player strongly insists that the half orc would continue to on the current course of action, I would suggest taking the character, making it your npc, and have the player roll up a new character. Or doing so after the half-orc if/when drops to 0. Really, this is the kind of discussion that needs to happen beforehand in a session 0, setting up informal rules of the party like "no betrayals" and "no PvP". My personal take is that the character who on one hand stopped bandits because of not taking innocent life then insists on taking innocent life by raiding a town is not playing the character consistently.
Have a detachment of the crown's guards come through the town on patrol just as the orc's attack. The orcs get slaughtered. Half-orc has to flee or be strung up as a bandit.
If you need an explanation for the coincidental arrival ... either the orc band was observed moving out and someone reported it or maybe the monk in the party ran off and reported the impending attack to the authorities.
An alternative to the guards: a couple of the townsfolk could be retired high level adventurers. Even two or three would likely make short work of an orc raiding party (fireballs for the win?). They don't really like getting involved with local criminal activity since it doesn't affect them much ... but a band of orcs sacking the town is something different.
Of course, the half-orc wouldn't know anything about any of these events happening at the same time or the background of every single inhabitant of Phandalin. However, if Phandalin was REALLY such an easy target wouldn't the orcs have over run it years ago? So there has to be some reason why they have decided not to up until now.
Finally, if you want the town to be destroyed, you can certainly have massive bounties issued for the orc band and everyone who aids them after the fact. Then have parties of adventurers hunt down the orcs and their sympathizers. Seeing a few orcs beheaded and their heads put on pikes might tend to discourage the half-orc from such anti-social behaviour (though a detachment of the guards slaughtering the orcs before they can destroy the town might be equally good ...). Basically, any action taken has consequences. The half-orc is a low level character, his expected survival time while being hunted is small. Make sure that he realizes this ... if he doesn't have a good reason to turn to banditry and sack Phandalin .. perhaps he should reconsider.
Good replies I have considered the high level adventurer thing a single lvl 7 wizard could stop the entire thing. My issue at this point is not finding a way to stop the orcs but how to repair the party trust issues that are now forming. I think im going to skip playing next saturday and just have everyone sit down and discuss this as a group. If he is dead set on this course maybe have him bring a back up char to the table.
I would suggest taking a quick read through Part 2 of the adventure. This section details some of the important NPCs who are currently in town and their backgrounds. As others have touched on earlier, these NPCs include a member of the "Order of the Gauntlet", "Member of the Zhentarim", "Cleric of Tymora & Harper agent", and member of the "Lords' Alliance".
You can rest assured that anyone of skill dwelling within Phandalin certainly know each other and have conversed about their experiences and history. As soon as screams and cries break out of an attack, able bodied fold, much less these NPCs that have seen battle, will take up arms and work to repel the intruders. Obviously, they'll make quick work of low level/unskilled assailants.
Daran is a member of the Order of the Gauntlet, a devout and vigilant group that seeks to protect others from the depredations of evildoers. The order is always vigilant, ready to smite evil, enforce justice, and enact retribution against any who try to subjugate or harm others. Though he is no longer active in the order, he keeps an eye on happenings around Phandalin.
The guildmaster is an ambitious and calculating human woman named Halia Thornton. [...] She is also an agent of the Zhentarim, a powerful organization that seeks to exert secret control over the North through wealth and influence.
The shrine is in the care of a scholarly acolyte named Sister Garaele. [...] Sister Garaele is a member of the Harpers, a scattered network of adventurers and spies who advocate equality and covertly oppose the abuse of power. The Harpers gather information throughout the land to thwart tyrants and any leader, government, or group that grows too strong. They aid the weak, the poor, and the oppressed. Sister Garaele regularly reports to her superiors on events in and around Phandalin.
This rundown tap house is a dirty, dangerous watering hole at the end of Phandalin’s main street. It is frequented by Redbrand thugs and operated by a surly female dwarf named Grista.
Sildar Hallwinter establishes himself at the townmaster’s hall. As an agent of the Lords’ Alliance, his goal is to bring law and order to Phandalin.
Plenty of folk in town who can certainly put up a fight without having to introduce a single out-of-script NPC. If your half-orc is determined to raid - I would second the notion of having a second character sheet at the ready.
As for party trust, these are in-game characters that are interacting. Sounds like some interesting RP which they'll have to develop on their own. ; )
Having NPC's in town that can find is one thing. When reading those descriptions I think half of them wouldn't fight since they're secretive. Suddenly showing expert fighting abilities would blow their cover. There needs to be a stronger motivation for them to pick up arms then a raid of some orcs. So you'd end up with Daran and Hallwinter with maybe Grista with her thugs depending if they see a profitable angle.
This is a tricky situation – because it will effectively end the campaign, or significantly alter it one way or another – and someone isn't going to be happy with the outcome if it continues along its current course. Conversely, if you step in, you're at risk of alienating your Half Orc player who simply feels like they're truly playing their character.
The narrative isn't a bad one – I applaud allowing your players the creative freedom to try unconventional solutions. But when you open up the bag of unlimited freedom, you are going to struggle to backtrack on that agency. Letting your Half-Orc player become the leader of the Wyvern Tor Orcs, but then not letting them attack Phandalin – which is the Orcs original plan – seems like pulling the rug.
But of course, D&D is a team experience. In my experience, it always tends to fall apart when a player knowingly betrays the party – and this should be made clear. If your player decides to lead his band of Orcs against Phandalin, that'll probably be the last thing he does with that character. I'd explain that even if he survives and escapes, you can't run two campaigns - so if he loses, he'll need to roll a new character.
But of course, if he wins, your other players lose – and it'll be very hard to get the campaign back on track, with everyone dead or enslaved. Perhaps a creative way around this, is just before any battle against Phandalin, the Orcs betray your Half-Orc character as a 'filthy half-breed' – ...but you're at risk of railroading with that sort of action.
My instinct would be to explain the stakes. Make it very clear that while you really appreciate the player's creativity in taking command of the Orcs, he really needs to consider whether his character would actually betray his party members and Phandalin. I'd divulge more information than I normally would to help; such as insight knowledge that a raid against Phandalin would be foolish, and likely result in their deaths.
If there's no resolution, I'd take it to an out-of-character chat, and simply lay it on the line. You don't have to hide your concerns from the players when it directly concerns them. There's nothing wrong in telling your player that you're worried this course of action will end the campaign one way or another, because you simply can't run two campaigns. D&D is a team game, if they feel their player isn't on the team (and can't keep their betrayal secret), then they're going to have to roll a new character.
It sounds harsh, but I think it's more harsh to allow your player their freedom now, but at the expense of the entire campaign – and everyone elses fun– later.
In my view the Half-Orc Player has basicly written his character out of the story as a player character. Meaning he should now be a DM controlled sideplot Villain that will work against the players. The now former Half-Orc Player will have to roll up a new character.
Lost Mines of Phandelver is designed as a "Good-Aligned" adventure. If all your players turned "evil" at the same time you could change the adventure to fit this (kill everyone and take the mine for yourself), but this does not seems like the case as most of your players are still staying on the "good" side.
Now if your Half-Orc player is a new player to D&D, he should have one final chance to let his character change his mind. I would advice talking to the player before next session and give this warning. If the player isnt new to D&D he should be able to accept the fact that his characters intensions does not anymore fill the allignment scope for this campaign.
Im not saying that the orc player has done something "wrong", but player choices like betraying your group does have consequences. This is just one of the things that make D&D Roleplay amazingly fun, surprising and different to play from Computer games etc.. :)
Thanks for all the replies everyone it has given some more to think about. The player in question is new to d&d but a veteran of Vampire the Masquerade. This is also my first time running a d&d game and a module at that all of my experience comes from VtM. In that game system player betrayal is not that uncommon really as vampires strive to better themselves. When I had it occur it was usually a grand plot and I would split tables accordingly as player swore different loyalties. But D&D is not vampire before we played I told him d&d is more of group game and party adventure.
The druid is a completely brand new rpg player and the monk has only played d&d. If he wants to push it I think character death is in the right here but first I want to give him a chance. Tell him he might be playing d&d abit too aggressively and that he needs to consider the fun of everyone at the table as well. When we played vampire I made it clear every time that player betrayal is a thing before we played. In this instance I instead announced d&d is a team game and you need to work together to overcome the adventures.
I have a rule in my campaign where NOBODY TRUSTS ANY OF THE OTHER PLAYERS, that you can start a fight with another player if both are willing and fully understanding that they have the chance to lose the fight, and that they probably have to have a real good explanation for it to the paladin. So the barbarian never hurt someone while robbing, I feel like that wouldn't mix in with what I understood he wanted to do to the towns folk. So I would probably say that there his character is going against old morals, not saying he can't do it, but reminding his character, making his character feel a burn inside. Maybe the other orcs also heard the fight break out, and are suddenly realizing he was playing them by the nose the whole time and attack all party members. Or maybe they are thrown into a prison ish situation and have to work together in order to escape.
I would probably also speak with each player about their side of the story. But I would strongly remind the barbarian that (at least from what I've understood) he is turning toward an evil side and the other players are against that. So he's freedom might be the cause of his death. Because if the other two players have to sacrifice their freedom in order for his character which is going against both his own morals of old and the other party members morals then I can understand why they would attack him. Sometimes PC fight, sure. But I keep reminding my players of that PC fight rule. You both have a chance at losing a character. Yeah sure the barbarian might win but the other players might leave the table or not want to play an evil character. Forcing him to either leave the table or make a new non evil character. The barbarian has to understand that he has put himself in a very dangerous position.
And of course if this doesn't help or you can't reason with the players and they can't agree, you can always ask a player to hand you the monster manual or make them wait a bit while you look up a monster in the book. When you've found it, roll some dice and ask for their AC. After which you tell them that the wall suddenly burst and breaks in a cloud of dust and an ancient blue dragon attacks and rolls a 34 to hit against one and a natural 20 against the two others.
Thanks for all the replies everyone it has given some more to think about. The player in question is new to d&d but a veteran of Vampire the Masquerade. This is also my first time running a d&d game and a module at that all of my experience comes from VtM. In that game system player betrayal is not that uncommon really as vampires strive to better themselves. When I had it occur it was usually a grand plot and I would split tables accordingly as player swore different loyalties. But D&D is not vampire before we played I told him d&d is more of group game and party adventure.
The druid is a completely brand new rpg player and the monk has only played d&d. If he wants to push it I think character death is in the right here but first I want to give him a chance. Tell him he might be playing d&d abit too aggressively and that he needs to consider the fun of everyone at the table as well. When we played vampire I made it clear every time that player betrayal is a thing before we played. In this instance I instead announced d&d is a team game and you need to work together to overcome the adventures.
Yeah there is a BIG difference between those two games. First of, if this is your first time DMing you should tell the players that they are to work together else it's gonna blow up. Once again, I have a campaign where no one trusts each other so I always have to keep them in check, making sure that they aren't killing each other. D&D is mostly about helping each other in your own ways and sometimes you can allow for a more or less evil player to enter. But it would be best if you had a normal party, not a party that is backstabbed by each other slowly. That you can do when you have some more experience. I had a starting rule in my campaign with the untrusting ones that you could not become chaotic evil or neutral evil or lawful evil. Simply because that it was all newer players at the table and the first thing that would happen to them is that another one is plotting against them and then they would never trust him in game because they have a hard time with what you know in game and out of game (so do it) so at first the evil(est) you could get was chaotic neutral.
Maybe you could run a 1-shot or a small scale campaign at say, level 6? A single or maybe a few games. The players can get to know their class, they could figure out the mechanics of the game. And you could train a little, and each of you can show each other what kind of DM/player you are. Sometimes it also helps to use higher powers to link them together. My rogue grapped the eye of Vecna while the sorcerer grapped the hand of Vecna. And Vecna is very interested in having an entrance into the world again, as unknown to my players he was banished many years ago. So while he isn't a full scale and out right "GOD" he is a powerful entity of "god-like" power. And he now has a small window into the world through the hand and eye. So he is going to speak with them in a vision and link them together, because the rogue keeps (jokingly) being angry at the sorcerer for in a 1-shot killing his bird familiar. So Vecna is gonna put a spell that if say the rogue shoots the sorcerer with his crossbow he takes the damage instead. This is both a story element and the DM forcing them to stop trying to kill each other and do something else! xD
Or. Like I said before. A powerful ancient blue dragon can always help with starting a new campaign! ^^
According to the description of the town, there are 40 to 50 buildings , so I would assume a population of around 100 people, the orcs at tavern tor only number around 7 orcs and a ogre. Not sure the odds are in the orcs favor. Also consider the redbrands would fight for the town, I doubt the orcs would be a big threat.
Even with the random encounter orcs added to their numbers I agree they are not too terrible. But my player was charismatic and orcs are not really stated out as all that bright. Still if they snuck in and attacked at night and started lighting homes on fire I bet they could do some good damage before being routed. After talking with my player he agreed to not side with the orcs he is now going to try and sneak them into the redbrand hideout killing the sentry lookouts before hand then betray the survivors to take all the redbrand loot. The rest of the players seem ok with this and the game will continue on.
…you need to have a discussion about whether this type of action broadly is cool to have in your group…
QFT. The usual assumption of RPGs is that the player characters are the heroes of the story. If one of the players is breaking this then it's time to make sure everyone at the table (including the GM!) is OK.
If the answer is "yes" then go for it.
If the answer is "no" then the player of the barbarian needs to modify their actions or retire that character and create a new one that is going to work for everyone at the table.
Advice for those of you thinking of starting a game: situations like this are what Session 0 is for.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
So I was running Lost Mines of Phandelver and I ran into somewhat of an issue where my half-orc barbarian player decided to convince the orcs of wyvern tor to attack Phandalin. At first, the plan was simple go into the cave while the elf druid and human monk waited outside hidden and issue a test of might challenge claiming orc heritage to gain some trust. Then he would get the orcs to attack the rebrands to help reduce or clear out the hideout for him killing orcs and redbrands in the process. The whole thing seemed pretty good so I said yeah you can try might work everyone agreed and off he went. Long story short he walked up to the guard asked for a meeting issued the challenge the orcs laughed and said they would give him one and put him in 1 v 1 fight with the ogre which he managed to win but, spared the orge's life. Impressed and with some good roleplaying the orcs let him join he then proceeded to tell them about phandalin and it's weak to no defenses the leader agreed and said it would be an easy grab.
Here is where the train came off the rails rather than suggest the redbrand hideout he pushed to have them take the whole town, burn it down and enslave the survivors to sell for resources and coin. At this point in I was trying to find a way to defuse it but the orc leader is written to be sort of a savage raider rather than the scout he should be. Some small town with little fight sounds too good for a bunch pent up rage-filled orcs to pass by so the leader agreed and sent the half-orc ahead to scout and meet him again with the warband outside of town. The barbarian then links back up with the party who heard the entire thing go down out of character. In character, he relays the plan to them and they strongly reject. At this point, an in-character argument broke out but the half-orc stuck to his guns about killing the townsfolk. I stopped the game just before the druid and monk rolled to hit on him. we had a table talk and the half-orc player still believes he is playing his character correctly and changing the plan is taking away his freedom. His background is a bandit but he told me he was a bandit that never took an innocent life on the job, even stood up to the redbrands in town to help some young boys getting robbed.
We all called it a night after some back and forth but no real solution, at this point I don't know what to do. Any advice on how to deal with this I don't want this to devolve into pvp but it was pretty tough getting the other two not to kill him right then and there.
Yeah, this is one of those situations where one player decides its cool to do their own thing, but the rest of the party was never in it. In this case, you need to have a discussion about whether this type of action broadly is cool to have in your group, and if not, to give the half orc player a choice of what to do. If the player strongly insists that the half orc would continue to on the current course of action, I would suggest taking the character, making it your npc, and have the player roll up a new character. Or doing so after the half-orc if/when drops to 0. Really, this is the kind of discussion that needs to happen beforehand in a session 0, setting up informal rules of the party like "no betrayals" and "no PvP". My personal take is that the character who on one hand stopped bandits because of not taking innocent life then insists on taking innocent life by raiding a town is not playing the character consistently.
Have a detachment of the crown's guards come through the town on patrol just as the orc's attack. The orcs get slaughtered. Half-orc has to flee or be strung up as a bandit.
If you need an explanation for the coincidental arrival ... either the orc band was observed moving out and someone reported it or maybe the monk in the party ran off and reported the impending attack to the authorities.
An alternative to the guards: a couple of the townsfolk could be retired high level adventurers. Even two or three would likely make short work of an orc raiding party (fireballs for the win?). They don't really like getting involved with local criminal activity since it doesn't affect them much ... but a band of orcs sacking the town is something different.
Of course, the half-orc wouldn't know anything about any of these events happening at the same time or the background of every single inhabitant of Phandalin. However, if Phandalin was REALLY such an easy target wouldn't the orcs have over run it years ago? So there has to be some reason why they have decided not to up until now.
Finally, if you want the town to be destroyed, you can certainly have massive bounties issued for the orc band and everyone who aids them after the fact. Then have parties of adventurers hunt down the orcs and their sympathizers. Seeing a few orcs beheaded and their heads put on pikes might tend to discourage the half-orc from such anti-social behaviour (though a detachment of the guards slaughtering the orcs before they can destroy the town might be equally good ...). Basically, any action taken has consequences. The half-orc is a low level character, his expected survival time while being hunted is small. Make sure that he realizes this ... if he doesn't have a good reason to turn to banditry and sack Phandalin .. perhaps he should reconsider.
Good replies I have considered the high level adventurer thing a single lvl 7 wizard could stop the entire thing. My issue at this point is not finding a way to stop the orcs but how to repair the party trust issues that are now forming. I think im going to skip playing next saturday and just have everyone sit down and discuss this as a group. If he is dead set on this course maybe have him bring a back up char to the table.
I would suggest taking a quick read through Part 2 of the adventure. This section details some of the important NPCs who are currently in town and their backgrounds. As others have touched on earlier, these NPCs include a member of the "Order of the Gauntlet", "Member of the Zhentarim", "Cleric of Tymora & Harper agent", and member of the "Lords' Alliance".
You can rest assured that anyone of skill dwelling within Phandalin certainly know each other and have conversed about their experiences and history. As soon as screams and cries break out of an attack, able bodied fold, much less these NPCs that have seen battle, will take up arms and work to repel the intruders. Obviously, they'll make quick work of low level/unskilled assailants.
Plenty of folk in town who can certainly put up a fight without having to introduce a single out-of-script NPC. If your half-orc is determined to raid - I would second the notion of having a second character sheet at the ready.
As for party trust, these are in-game characters that are interacting. Sounds like some interesting RP which they'll have to develop on their own. ; )
[ Site Rules & Guidelines ] --- [ Homebrew Rules & Guidelines ]
Send me a message with any questions or concerns
Having NPC's in town that can find is one thing. When reading those descriptions I think half of them wouldn't fight since they're secretive. Suddenly showing expert fighting abilities would blow their cover. There needs to be a stronger motivation for them to pick up arms then a raid of some orcs. So you'd end up with Daran and Hallwinter with maybe Grista with her thugs depending if they see a profitable angle.
This is a tricky situation – because it will effectively end the campaign, or significantly alter it one way or another – and someone isn't going to be happy with the outcome if it continues along its current course. Conversely, if you step in, you're at risk of alienating your Half Orc player who simply feels like they're truly playing their character.
The narrative isn't a bad one – I applaud allowing your players the creative freedom to try unconventional solutions. But when you open up the bag of unlimited freedom, you are going to struggle to backtrack on that agency. Letting your Half-Orc player become the leader of the Wyvern Tor Orcs, but then not letting them attack Phandalin – which is the Orcs original plan – seems like pulling the rug.
But of course, D&D is a team experience. In my experience, it always tends to fall apart when a player knowingly betrays the party – and this should be made clear. If your player decides to lead his band of Orcs against Phandalin, that'll probably be the last thing he does with that character. I'd explain that even if he survives and escapes, you can't run two campaigns - so if he loses, he'll need to roll a new character.
But of course, if he wins, your other players lose – and it'll be very hard to get the campaign back on track, with everyone dead or enslaved. Perhaps a creative way around this, is just before any battle against Phandalin, the Orcs betray your Half-Orc character as a 'filthy half-breed' – ...but you're at risk of railroading with that sort of action.
My instinct would be to explain the stakes. Make it very clear that while you really appreciate the player's creativity in taking command of the Orcs, he really needs to consider whether his character would actually betray his party members and Phandalin. I'd divulge more information than I normally would to help; such as insight knowledge that a raid against Phandalin would be foolish, and likely result in their deaths.
If there's no resolution, I'd take it to an out-of-character chat, and simply lay it on the line. You don't have to hide your concerns from the players when it directly concerns them. There's nothing wrong in telling your player that you're worried this course of action will end the campaign one way or another, because you simply can't run two campaigns. D&D is a team game, if they feel their player isn't on the team (and can't keep their betrayal secret), then they're going to have to roll a new character.
It sounds harsh, but I think it's more harsh to allow your player their freedom now, but at the expense of the entire campaign – and everyone elses fun– later.
Pretty good replies on this post.
In my view the Half-Orc Player has basicly written his character out of the story as a player character. Meaning he should now be a DM controlled sideplot Villain that will work against the players. The now former Half-Orc Player will have to roll up a new character.
Lost Mines of Phandelver is designed as a "Good-Aligned" adventure. If all your players turned "evil" at the same time you could change the adventure to fit this (kill everyone and take the mine for yourself), but this does not seems like the case as most of your players are still staying on the "good" side.
Now if your Half-Orc player is a new player to D&D, he should have one final chance to let his character change his mind. I would advice talking to the player before next session and give this warning. If the player isnt new to D&D he should be able to accept the fact that his characters intensions does not anymore fill the allignment scope for this campaign.
Im not saying that the orc player has done something "wrong", but player choices like betraying your group does have consequences. This is just one of the things that make D&D Roleplay amazingly fun, surprising and different to play from Computer games etc.. :)
Thanks for all the replies everyone it has given some more to think about. The player in question is new to d&d but a veteran of Vampire the Masquerade. This is also my first time running a d&d game and a module at that all of my experience comes from VtM. In that game system player betrayal is not that uncommon really as vampires strive to better themselves. When I had it occur it was usually a grand plot and I would split tables accordingly as player swore different loyalties. But D&D is not vampire before we played I told him d&d is more of group game and party adventure.
The druid is a completely brand new rpg player and the monk has only played d&d. If he wants to push it I think character death is in the right here but first I want to give him a chance. Tell him he might be playing d&d abit too aggressively and that he needs to consider the fun of everyone at the table as well. When we played vampire I made it clear every time that player betrayal is a thing before we played. In this instance I instead announced d&d is a team game and you need to work together to overcome the adventures.
I have a rule in my campaign where NOBODY TRUSTS ANY OF THE OTHER PLAYERS, that you can start a fight with another player if both are willing and fully understanding that they have the chance to lose the fight, and that they probably have to have a real good explanation for it to the paladin. So the barbarian never hurt someone while robbing, I feel like that wouldn't mix in with what I understood he wanted to do to the towns folk. So I would probably say that there his character is going against old morals, not saying he can't do it, but reminding his character, making his character feel a burn inside. Maybe the other orcs also heard the fight break out, and are suddenly realizing he was playing them by the nose the whole time and attack all party members. Or maybe they are thrown into a prison ish situation and have to work together in order to escape.
I would probably also speak with each player about their side of the story. But I would strongly remind the barbarian that (at least from what I've understood) he is turning toward an evil side and the other players are against that. So he's freedom might be the cause of his death. Because if the other two players have to sacrifice their freedom in order for his character which is going against both his own morals of old and the other party members morals then I can understand why they would attack him. Sometimes PC fight, sure. But I keep reminding my players of that PC fight rule. You both have a chance at losing a character. Yeah sure the barbarian might win but the other players might leave the table or not want to play an evil character. Forcing him to either leave the table or make a new non evil character. The barbarian has to understand that he has put himself in a very dangerous position.
And of course if this doesn't help or you can't reason with the players and they can't agree, you can always ask a player to hand you the monster manual or make them wait a bit while you look up a monster in the book. When you've found it, roll some dice and ask for their AC. After which you tell them that the wall suddenly burst and breaks in a cloud of dust and an ancient blue dragon attacks and rolls a 34 to hit against one and a natural 20 against the two others.
Hope this helps! Let is know how it goes! ^^
Yeah there is a BIG difference between those two games. First of, if this is your first time DMing you should tell the players that they are to work together else it's gonna blow up.
Once again, I have a campaign where no one trusts each other so I always have to keep them in check, making sure that they aren't killing each other. D&D is mostly about helping each other in your own ways and sometimes you can allow for a more or less evil player to enter. But it would be best if you had a normal party, not a party that is backstabbed by each other slowly. That you can do when you have some more experience. I had a starting rule in my campaign with the untrusting ones that you could not become chaotic evil or neutral evil or lawful evil. Simply because that it was all newer players at the table and the first thing that would happen to them is that another one is plotting against them and then they would never trust him in game because they have a hard time with what you know in game and out of game (so do it) so at first the evil(est) you could get was chaotic neutral.
Maybe you could run a 1-shot or a small scale campaign at say, level 6? A single or maybe a few games. The players can get to know their class, they could figure out the mechanics of the game. And you could train a little, and each of you can show each other what kind of DM/player you are. Sometimes it also helps to use higher powers to link them together.
My rogue grapped the eye of Vecna while the sorcerer grapped the hand of Vecna. And Vecna is very interested in having an entrance into the world again, as unknown to my players he was banished many years ago. So while he isn't a full scale and out right "GOD" he is a powerful entity of "god-like" power. And he now has a small window into the world through the hand and eye. So he is going to speak with them in a vision and link them together, because the rogue keeps (jokingly) being angry at the sorcerer for in a 1-shot killing his bird familiar.
So Vecna is gonna put a spell that if say the rogue shoots the sorcerer with his crossbow he takes the damage instead. This is both a story element and the DM forcing them to stop trying to kill each other and do something else! xD
Or. Like I said before.
A powerful ancient blue dragon can always help with starting a new campaign! ^^
Hope this helped ^^
According to the description of the town, there are 40 to 50 buildings , so I would assume a population of around 100 people, the orcs at tavern tor only number around 7 orcs and a ogre. Not sure the odds are in the orcs favor. Also consider the redbrands would fight for the town, I doubt the orcs would be a big threat.
Even with the random encounter orcs added to their numbers I agree they are not too terrible. But my player was charismatic and orcs are not really stated out as all that bright. Still if they snuck in and attacked at night and started lighting homes on fire I bet they could do some good damage before being routed. After talking with my player he agreed to not side with the orcs he is now going to try and sneak them into the redbrand hideout killing the sentry lookouts before hand then betray the survivors to take all the redbrand loot. The rest of the players seem ok with this and the game will continue on.
QFT. The usual assumption of RPGs is that the player characters are the heroes of the story. If one of the players is breaking this then it's time to make sure everyone at the table (including the GM!) is OK.
If the answer is "yes" then go for it.
If the answer is "no" then the player of the barbarian needs to modify their actions or retire that character and create a new one that is going to work for everyone at the table.
Advice for those of you thinking of starting a game: situations like this are what Session 0 is for.