It looks to me like you've already identified that part of the reason for this is due to the lack of experience with D&D (and I assume tabletop RPG in general) of all involved. That's not a bad thing - it's all just experience and levelling up OOC!
One of the most important things for me, as a DM, is to sit down with the players, before the campaign starts and discuss the tone of the campaign - do the players want to play heroic characters? Sneaky assassins? Neutral bounty hunters? Evil power-hungry opportunists? This massively changes the way the adventures and campaign will play out.
That doesn't help you with where you are at now though, but something for next time!
So, it seems fairly clear to me that the characters are evil. You're never going to hook such characters with a heroic adventure narrative.
I suggest the following:
Have a chat with the players - the majority of successful games of D&D are a collaborative effort between friends. It's not all on you as the DM.
Are they aware that their characters are evil? That they are the bad guys? Are they comfortable with that? You may find their perspective on their characters is different to yours.
Does this match what they picked as their background? If not, work through it with them and amend the background and goals to align with how they want to play.
Now talk about the campaign - it sounds like you wanted to run a game for heroic adventurers. Are you ok to run a game for evil, self-centered characters instead? There may be some need for concessions here.
The key to it all though is communication and don't feel that it's all on you to make this work as a game, just because you're the DM. :)
On the flip side of things, both of your players have characters that are in agreement on how to act, which makes things a LOT easier. Imagine if you had one of them as an evil, treasure-hungry bard and the other as a goodly, heroic sorcerer. Now THAT is hard to run a game for!
Since I don't want to start killing his character to make a point, I just curb it with threats of torture in his dungeon or some such, which the player and myself both know are hollow threats since a TPK would be the equivalent of my flipping the table over in frustration.
This is some pretty classic metagaming that sometimes happens in newer players and something you definitely need to talk to the player about. Let them know that, if you guys are going to play D&D, your responsibility as the DM is to have the npcs react in a believable manner, otherwise the gameworld has no consequences to the character actions.
After you've had that discussion, the next time the player says that his Bard wants to react in a way that you know would get him killed, let him know this, "You're aware that this Dragonborn is a powerful Wizard, known for his lack of tolerance - if your character talks to him in that way, he's likely to have him killed." then, if the player insists that his Bard continues to do so, play it out and kill them. I know that it's difficult and I'm going to assume that the players are your friends, but if the player literally takes a specific action that they know will get the character killed, and you don't do it, then you have removed all threat and challenge from the game.
It's equivalent to a player saying their character jumps infront of a speeding train and you rule that it somehow misses them.
I'm not going to lie though, this is a tough situation to deal with and I have seen friends fall out with each other over stuff like this, so be careful and remember the most important thing with any game is to talk to your friends out-of-character and it is the responsibility of everyone at the table to help make the game fun. :)
As a side note, I suggest doing a google search on dealing with murder hobos. ("murder hobo" is a phrase used to refer to players who just try to kill anything in the game that doesn't agree with them).
If he's killing innocents, regularly, over insults, etc. there should be a bounty on his (the character) head. This is classic evil behavior, lawful evil really (I have a code, if you violate it you suffer the consequences). This should generate relatives of the dead miners, business interests from the mine, etc. (as an example) sending out bounty hunters who first try to capture this character and bring him in for a trial. If he constantly kills the bounty hunters and ignores the law of the land, the bounty switches to dead or alive.
I'm a big fan of player agency. This is good (you are letting the character do his actions even when it shuts down your story intent). I'm also a big fan of consequences. If you are acting evil, you get treated evil (by the powers in the world).
So, talk to him and tell him what you just told us - about the way he plays his character differently to what he's telling you he wants to do.
Ask him if he'd like advice during the game on options available and likely outcomes?
The problem with letting them play the way they want to is, currently they're just starting a fight with anything and everything that isn't how they want it and in any RPG, that will just get you killed, if the world is to be even halfway believable. There will always be people tougher than you, same as others will be weaker. Picking fights against opponents who are tougher than you just isn't a survival trait.
Given that you are letting them run in powerful circles, and they are having direct impact (getting things done, their way), perhaps the "used as pawns" path needs to get regular. Game of Thrones type stuff. Differing noble houses, the thieves guild, etc. start reaching out to give them 'work' that's quite wet and dirty (kill my enemy, hide the body, etc.).
This would put them in a high risk environment where any failure leaves them on their own (the nobles won't admit they paid for such a thing), but also let's them grow in influence, play to their style, and builds a story. "I was a con man, on the street, doing what I could to get ahead. Turns out I'm good at the con. People with power noticed. People with power paid me to run my con for their goals. Little did they know, I was running a con on them all the while. Tonight... the thieves guild will be mine."
You may want to write up a party of NPC adventurers who have been following in their wake and righting their wrongs. These guys are in a perfect place to be the villains of someone else's story. Just continually note the collateral damage(or things that can be blamed on them) they're producing and the story may unfold on it's own.
You can hint at it by noting that things seem to get better without explanation. "You remember passing through this village...it was burned to the ground two months ago, but it looks like the people are starting to settle back in. Crops are starting to come back..." If they get suspicious and burn down the village, the heroic NPCs get more motivation.
Eventually, you can give these guys some sort of lair and let the other adventurers raise an army of the wronged for them to face. You can make this an exciting showdown from the perspective of the BBEG instead of the underdog heroes charging in.
Bonus points if each member of that other party is someone they wronged personally. "They ripped my dad's skeleton from his body!"
I don't know whether I'm just underestimating his inexperience with the game, expecting him to pick up on nudges when a kick in the right direction would be better suited.
Still, I've got this whole thieves guild interaction coming up very soon in the story, I might turn this into some induction and tutorial type thing. He gets paired with one of the guild's best confidence tricksters and they go out together and he shows him the ropes, giving him more confidence and experience to do it himself in the normal flow of the game, but this still seems a little too much like leading him by the hand rather than let his character develop organically.
Actually, that might be the perfect solution. I've used mentor characters before in helping either new players or players coming from different systems into unfamiliar ones get adjusted to the game world and rules. It can be very organic, especially if the player's playstyle is differing from what their stated desires are.
Just don't overshadow the players, use the mentor to aid (and occasionally correct) the characters toward their goal.
This isn't necessarily different from the other responses here, but you may find it helpful. I recently started DMing as well, and started a campaign with other new players. We did a couple of one shot sessions to teach them the mechanics, and I noticed the murder hobo tendency developing in some of them. Before we started our real ongoing campaign, I told them that as this was our first game, I wanted to try to run a party that erred on the side of morally good, for the most part. For the inexperienced, it seemed an easier idea since my players wouldn't try to fight any and everything. Fast forward to the first session, and 1 of my four players is taking the murder hobo approach, and tried to pickpocket a visibly armed a dangerous man...WHILE FACING HIM! So I asked him if he was sure he wanted to try, thinking to give him an out, but he said yes. Instead of having the bandit fight him, I instead dragged him over to the bar top and had the bandit attempt to cut off his hand. After this session, I had a talk with the player and asked what was going on, and told him that he wasn't really acting like the character we discussed. He said he would calm down.
However, in the next session, he kept doing similar stuff, screwing with NPCs for no real reason, and so I had him killed in an encounter with the same bandit he had stupidly tried to pickpocket earlier (the bandit hunted the party down and had his gang with him). I didn't make any exceptions and kept the player dead for about 30 minutes while the rest of the party continued. They did find a chapel where the local priest could use reincarnate to bring the character back, but because the party didn't have the money, the priest forced them to join his faction in return for his friend's life.
The player took several things away from this. First, he can actually die in the world, and that his actions definitely have consequences. Two, that being brought back to life has consequences potentially (I used reincarnate, and he very, very luckily rolled to stay the same race). Three, and maybe most importantly, that his actions can get his whole party into trouble. None of the group was happy about having to join up with a temple, but the options were to either let the character stay dead or join. The player begged them to join on his behalf and promised that he would be better from then on out. Having the rest of the party get made at the player does wonders.
Silence is a good one that will cancel out many spells ( knock being one of them) and is only level 2. Have it as a glyph inscribed outside of the cells and don't worry about duration.
Hilarious. Your friend playing the Bard has got to be loving this. If you're feeling outwitted, congrats! You've got good players! Good for you for rolling with it.
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D&D Beyond FoundersHi there Karamica,
first off, welcome to D&D Beyond!
It looks to me like you've already identified that part of the reason for this is due to the lack of experience with D&D (and I assume tabletop RPG in general) of all involved. That's not a bad thing - it's all just experience and levelling up OOC!
One of the most important things for me, as a DM, is to sit down with the players, before the campaign starts and discuss the tone of the campaign - do the players want to play heroic characters? Sneaky assassins? Neutral bounty hunters? Evil power-hungry opportunists? This massively changes the way the adventures and campaign will play out.
That doesn't help you with where you are at now though, but something for next time!
So, it seems fairly clear to me that the characters are evil. You're never going to hook such characters with a heroic adventure narrative.
I suggest the following:
The key to it all though is communication and don't feel that it's all on you to make this work as a game, just because you're the DM. :)
On the flip side of things, both of your players have characters that are in agreement on how to act, which makes things a LOT easier. Imagine if you had one of them as an evil, treasure-hungry bard and the other as a goodly, heroic sorcerer. Now THAT is hard to run a game for!
Pun-loving nerd | Faith Elisabeth Lilley | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
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D&D Beyond FoundersPun-loving nerd | Faith Elisabeth Lilley | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
If he's killing innocents, regularly, over insults, etc. there should be a bounty on his (the character) head. This is classic evil behavior, lawful evil really (I have a code, if you violate it you suffer the consequences). This should generate relatives of the dead miners, business interests from the mine, etc. (as an example) sending out bounty hunters who first try to capture this character and bring him in for a trial. If he constantly kills the bounty hunters and ignores the law of the land, the bounty switches to dead or alive.
I'm a big fan of player agency. This is good (you are letting the character do his actions even when it shuts down your story intent). I'm also a big fan of consequences. If you are acting evil, you get treated evil (by the powers in the world).
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D&D Beyond FoundersSo, talk to him and tell him what you just told us - about the way he plays his character differently to what he's telling you he wants to do.
Ask him if he'd like advice during the game on options available and likely outcomes?
The problem with letting them play the way they want to is, currently they're just starting a fight with anything and everything that isn't how they want it and in any RPG, that will just get you killed, if the world is to be even halfway believable. There will always be people tougher than you, same as others will be weaker. Picking fights against opponents who are tougher than you just isn't a survival trait.
Pun-loving nerd | Faith Elisabeth Lilley | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
Given that you are letting them run in powerful circles, and they are having direct impact (getting things done, their way), perhaps the "used as pawns" path needs to get regular. Game of Thrones type stuff. Differing noble houses, the thieves guild, etc. start reaching out to give them 'work' that's quite wet and dirty (kill my enemy, hide the body, etc.).
This would put them in a high risk environment where any failure leaves them on their own (the nobles won't admit they paid for such a thing), but also let's them grow in influence, play to their style, and builds a story. "I was a con man, on the street, doing what I could to get ahead. Turns out I'm good at the con. People with power noticed. People with power paid me to run my con for their goals. Little did they know, I was running a con on them all the while. Tonight... the thieves guild will be mine."
You may want to write up a party of NPC adventurers who have been following in their wake and righting their wrongs. These guys are in a perfect place to be the villains of someone else's story. Just continually note the collateral damage(or things that can be blamed on them) they're producing and the story may unfold on it's own.
You can hint at it by noting that things seem to get better without explanation. "You remember passing through this village...it was burned to the ground two months ago, but it looks like the people are starting to settle back in. Crops are starting to come back..." If they get suspicious and burn down the village, the heroic NPCs get more motivation.
Eventually, you can give these guys some sort of lair and let the other adventurers raise an army of the wronged for them to face. You can make this an exciting showdown from the perspective of the BBEG instead of the underdog heroes charging in.
Bonus points if each member of that other party is someone they wronged personally. "They ripped my dad's skeleton from his body!"
This isn't necessarily different from the other responses here, but you may find it helpful. I recently started DMing as well, and started a campaign with other new players. We did a couple of one shot sessions to teach them the mechanics, and I noticed the murder hobo tendency developing in some of them. Before we started our real ongoing campaign, I told them that as this was our first game, I wanted to try to run a party that erred on the side of morally good, for the most part. For the inexperienced, it seemed an easier idea since my players wouldn't try to fight any and everything. Fast forward to the first session, and 1 of my four players is taking the murder hobo approach, and tried to pickpocket a visibly armed a dangerous man...WHILE FACING HIM! So I asked him if he was sure he wanted to try, thinking to give him an out, but he said yes. Instead of having the bandit fight him, I instead dragged him over to the bar top and had the bandit attempt to cut off his hand. After this session, I had a talk with the player and asked what was going on, and told him that he wasn't really acting like the character we discussed. He said he would calm down.
However, in the next session, he kept doing similar stuff, screwing with NPCs for no real reason, and so I had him killed in an encounter with the same bandit he had stupidly tried to pickpocket earlier (the bandit hunted the party down and had his gang with him). I didn't make any exceptions and kept the player dead for about 30 minutes while the rest of the party continued. They did find a chapel where the local priest could use reincarnate to bring the character back, but because the party didn't have the money, the priest forced them to join his faction in return for his friend's life.
The player took several things away from this. First, he can actually die in the world, and that his actions definitely have consequences. Two, that being brought back to life has consequences potentially (I used reincarnate, and he very, very luckily rolled to stay the same race). Three, and maybe most importantly, that his actions can get his whole party into trouble. None of the group was happy about having to join up with a temple, but the options were to either let the character stay dead or join. The player begged them to join on his behalf and promised that he would be better from then on out. Having the rest of the party get made at the player does wonders.
Next city: the jail is magically warded. Really should have been in this last case, if you're not running a low magic campaign.
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Silence is a good one that will cancel out many spells ( knock being one of them) and is only level 2. Have it as a glyph inscribed outside of the cells and don't worry about duration.
Hilarious. Your friend playing the Bard has got to be loving this. If you're feeling outwitted, congrats! You've got good players! Good for you for rolling with it.
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