Okay so I'm asking for input on something that happened in a recent session I ran and for tips on how to better handle it in the future.
In the most recent session of a Homebrew campaign I'm running I felt forced to tell a player no after they tried to poison and kill several NPCs.
A little background, the players were summoned and placed on a quest to help a revolution against an evil king who conquered the entire Continent.
The players have been asked to check out a local quarry and see what's up with the stones coming from there.
On there way they're met by the prince of a local kingdom who was banished for not swearing fealty to the evil king.
I had planned on making his sheet next week but didn't because I had a mountain of work to do for this session first. And I honestly didn't see why I would need his full background and info. Well apparently his god is the enemy of one the players gods, he chose Bane the NPC worships Tyr. Despite the NPC being respectful towards his character his character immediately wants to fight him. I had I wanted to say no when he first said he wanted to use Bane but he kept arguing until I gave in. I later persuade him to seeing how could kill the most enemies on the battlefield the next day.
The NPC asks for and gets their pledge to help him free his people from the quarry where they are working as slaves.
The next day they get inside the quarry and discover that the slaves are being held captive not with magic. But with the threat that anyone who leaves will have their family tortured and sacraficed next.
On PC, the fighter, gets it in his head that he's going to pour some water laced with a special powder he found in it.
He doesn't know everything that the powder does but he knows that it lets you add to your strength a D6 but you have to roll a D4 and take the damage immediately. I thought it would be an interesting way to sup up non-spellcasters.
When I explain to him that the slaves have been worked and abused for almost a week straight and aren't at full strength he repeats his intent to pour the water in their soup. I try to explain to him that it would kill most of them. He still wants to do it. So I have an NPC step up to stop him.
He proceeds to attack the NPC because she stopped him from poisoning them. As this is going on his other party members are moving forward and are arguing with him about killing them all. He says his NPC believes it's better to die than be a slave. But he and another character had already slipped the stuff into one barmaids drink as well as trying to find a well to dump it in.
He then says "So you're just going to railroad me" and then I respond with "Yes when you are doing something that will ruin the campaign for everyone.
Killing the NPCs would have angered the NPC and left them with nowhere to go.
He later claims that this wasn't fair because he should have gotten to kill the slaves. Because his character believes it's better than dying. He also claims he was just trying to work with the group. Despite several of them having issues with his druging and killing them
I point out the agreement and how that would essentially destroy the campaign. He said he wasn't there for the agreement so he shouldn't be held too it.
I think you should have allowed him to poison them.
But warn him that a) this makes his character chaotic evil as far as alignment is concerned and b) if the resulting intra-party conflicts aren't peacefully resolved within at most 2 sessions you reserve the right to turn his PC into an NPC and remove them from the party. PvP is almost always bad for everyone involved.
As for the story: the NPC who would be angered by this leaves and sends other adventurers to take out the evil creatures who comitted such a crime. Turn the NPC from benevolent guide to hostile mastermind so the party can follow his lead by interrogating or searching his minions. Maybe even have the evil king approach them to turn the quest around. Or give the party a chance to prove themselves to the good prince.
I would have left it to the other PCs to deal with it if they object to his actions. I'm also not of the opinion that it's possible to wreck a campaign by PC action; the campaign must adjust. I would have warned all players that if he takes this action it will have severe negative consequences for his PC and the party. If he goes ahead and the other PCs don't stop him, play it out then declare a pause while you work out what happens next. Perhaps the evil king gets word of them putting down a rebellion in the making and tries to hire them to deal with other 'problems'. In the meantime they now have a big target on them from the secret resistance movement. But I run more of a sandbox style campaign than one with a fixed story.
But there is also nothing wrong with you preventing him from taking the action - it's your table and if you felt it was needed to take a heavy hand to prevent a problem for your campaign then it's ok. Really it sounds like you have a problem player who doesn't want to play a hero and sees D&D as a chance to play a jerk. Ask him what he wants out of the game and what your expectations are for PC behavior. If they don't line up then perhaps he needs to find a different game.
I'd talk to the player and perhaps acknowledge that you didn't like to railroad him but in the moment you felt you didn't have any choice. Then have the conversation about what your expectations are of PC behavior and his opinions on that.
No, I don't think you were unfair. I would have tried talking to player and explaining, as you said, you will derail the whole campaign, please don't. If the players don't stop him, then I think there are a few options I'd take.
The poison doesn't work. I may give a reason: Divine intervention, some element of the soup is miraculously the antidote, because it is so dilute they all only take 1 point and only 2 slaves die, but they are the most beloved of the slaves so everyone hate the character. Or, I if I want to try to cull the player, I wouldn't give a reason. "nothing happens, no effect". When he asks and argues why I would answer, "Your character doesn't know, it sure seems like it should have worked."
Another option I only employeed once was, your character is now an NPC, hand him over. Your option for continuing in the campaign is to play a freed slave. Now, I wouldn't pull that with a group at home with friends, but then again I don't think I would need to.
You've put in a lot of work to run the campaign. Sometimes you need a little cooperation. If the players don't like it then collectively you need to figure out what works. It is supposed to be fun.
I think the first mistake was letting him play someone who worships Bane. Not because Of Bane, per se, but because you’re the DM and it’s well within your rights to disallow anything at your table. This is double true since it seems you were found it at character creation.
A lot of players, when they want to worship an evil god, they are looking for an excuse to go murder-hobo. Worshipping an evil god lets them say, that’s what my character would do, or some other nonsense. Seems like this player is already gearing up for that.
Better to nip it in the bud. Tell them their options are, be a follower of Bane who can work well with others, change gods, or change characters.
Did you at all set it up so that rescuing the slaves seemed an impossible task? Because otherwise im having some trouble following your player's logic of "oh no they're trapped, better kill them!" Like that's a hard last last last resort and it sounds like he didn't try anything else. It's entirely possible he's just wangrodding "what his character would do" without thinking the actual situation through or considering other people's fun at the table.
The character who worships Bane and the one who wanted to poison the slaves are two different characters.
I meant to make that distinction but forgot. The interaction between Bane worshiper and Tyr Worshiper was something everyone was privy to. So I figured after I did that everyone would know how important this relationship was because I was fighting tooth and nail not to have them fight. But I think if it comes down to it I'm just going to let the Bane worshiper who's now level five fight the Tyr Worshiper who's a combo level 6 rogue and level 7 paladin.
I think the first mistake was allowing an evil character into what sounds like a mostly good or neutral party. Bane is lawful evil. The character sounds like they are playing towards chaotic evil. They want to kill the NPC they meet because they follow an opposing god. Is the character stupid? I would have allowed the character to attack the NPC and created stats for the NPC and his guard that would make it trivial for them to kill the character. If the character still insisted on attacking, roll initiative and wait for the NPC to mourn the loss of the character. The player can start a new character if they want.
This is the type of thing that needs to be addressed in a session 0 - what kind of campaign and characters do folks want to play? Do they WANT to have evil PCs and the possibility of PVP and inter-player conflict? If they want evil PCs without the risk of PVP then they need to create backstories and reasons for their characters to be traveling together, adventuring together and making decisions as a group.
The character in this case, doesn't get to decide on their own to try to possibly kill all the slaves. The group decides together. The other characters can stop the character. However, if the other PLAYERS do not want to stop the PLAYER because they don't want to irritate him or are concerned with his real life reaction with their characters choosing to stop his character from taking actions their characters don't approve of ... that is a different situation that you need to resolve out of game.
Anyway, in my opinion, if you are railroading here to try to mitigate the chaotic evil/murder hobo play style the one player seems to be adopting then I don't see a problem. Discuss with the player and the rest of the group and figure out what is going on and decide what sort of campaign they all want to play before it wrecks the campaign. On the other hand, if you are railroading to preserve a specific plot line you have in mind then don't do it. Just change up the plot, add consequences for the player actions and let the game continue. DMs have an idea of what might happen but if the players decide to take the side of the evil king and then eventually turn on him when he decides they have outlived their usefulness ... that's fine ... might not be the plot line you thought they would play but the players choose what they want to do this way.
The PC who worships Bane isn't the poisoner. That's part of the reason I'm posting here. The other players had already advanced to a different room. So they would have had to metagame to realize what he was doing.
Usually I'd realign it. But the whole idea of this campaign is that's it's a conspiracy type. They're trying to discover what's going on with the kingdom. The evil king has basically had mages and dark wizards formulate a way to use the roads as glyph's. Those glyph's are fueled and powered by monsters the group will have to fight.
The end is where the group (level 19/20) and the entire rebellion forces will have to take on the king who is trying to summon Tiamat because she's promised him god hood.
I know Tiamat alone is a high level encounter for a group of five level 19 or 20. So I planned on having the NPC groups band together to fight her and the King's army.
But them making an enemy of the Prince would have ruled him and his allies out. Meaning they would have lost half of their support. This would have meant they'd spend months playing a campaign with no way to win.
I tried to talk to the player afterwards but his reasons kept changing. First his PC would have done it because slavery is worse than death, but o point out that they'd have been freed when they killed the enemies. Then he was doing it to try and help the group, several group members argued with him about this. He also said that he thought they could take a D4 of damage because they were resting and drinking soup and water. When he first asked I took the time to redescribe them as emaciated and weak and sleep deprived. Which was code for not at full health. He still insisted on doing it. Even when other members of the party pointed out that they'd be freed after they killed all the enemies. He still insisted on it.
When I spoke to him later he said it would have been better if I'd just said the soup or water diluted it. I stated that next time I would do that instead. He then got mad about me saying that and insinuated that that would still be railroading.
So I honestly don't know what to do besides tell him to change his alignment or change his character.
That's the thing. All they had to do was get the key off a soldier they already killed to let them go. Then they all would have left. Which is what another player did shortly after I averted the poisoning.
I think the issue is the player knows there's a downside to the drug but doesn't want to take it himself to find out. So he keeps trying to poison people to find out what happens.
I'd just engineer a lower risk situation for him to do it in so he can satisfy his curiosity. Maybe he gets drawn into a drinking contest with an NPC who's kind of a dick and let him put the powder in his drink while he's not looking. Something will happen, hijinks ensue, the player can stop throwing the powder at every problem, all good.
Sounds like a pretty annoying player. In the future, you can as others suggested, just not have it work in the prince, what do you know, he passed his saving throw.
There is some railroading going on though, in that you are effectively requiring the party to ally with this prince. Rule of thumb, if there’s only one way to succeed at something, you are railroading. They party should have other options, other factions they can ally with, or a way to whittle down enemy forces so they can do it without allies, or probably a dozen other solutions I’m not thinking of. And the prince shouldn’t have this plot armor you’re giving him where he’s the only one who can Help them. If he dies, there should be someone else who can step into his shoes and lead his faction.
I'd let him do it and then have him deal with the consequences. You said it derailed your campaign. How? From the perspective of your evil king, it sounds like he has one less thing to worry about. How will his plans proceed without interference. Are any of the slaves children? Will the PC be labeled a child killer? I think most of a time PCs get out of control is because the DM forgets to give consequence to their actions. Remember you are not plotting a story. You are presenting the players with situations from which they build their own story. D&D isn't a video game, so your NPCs shouldn't be sitting around waiting for the players. If the players can't stop the NPC, on well he succeeds. Have them deal with the world that is the results of their actions.
The PC who worships Bane isn't the poisoner. That's part of the reason I'm posting here. The other players had already advanced to a different room. So they would have had to metagame to realize what he was doing.
Usually I'd realign it. But the whole idea of this campaign is that's it's a conspiracy type. They're trying to discover what's going on with the kingdom. The evil king has basically had mages and dark wizards formulate a way to use the roads as glyph's. Those glyph's are fueled and powered by monsters the group will have to fight.
The end is where the group (level 19/20) and the entire rebellion forces will have to take on the king who is trying to summon Tiamat because she's promised him god hood.
I know Tiamat alone is a high level encounter for a group of five level 19 or 20. So I planned on having the NPC groups band together to fight her and the King's army.
But them making an enemy of the Prince would have ruled him and his allies out. Meaning they would have lost half of their support. This would have meant they'd spend months playing a campaign with no way to win.
I tried to talk to the player afterwards but his reasons kept changing. First his PC would have done it because slavery is worse than death, but o point out that they'd have been freed when they killed the enemies. Then he was doing it to try and help the group, several group members argued with him about this. He also said that he thought they could take a D4 of damage because they were resting and drinking soup and water. When he first asked I took the time to redescribe them as emaciated and weak and sleep deprived. Which was code for not at full health. He still insisted on doing it. Even when other members of the party pointed out that they'd be freed after they killed all the enemies. He still insisted on it.
When I spoke to him later he said it would have been better if I'd just said the soup or water diluted it. I stated that next time I would do that instead. He then got mad about me saying that and insinuated that that would still be railroading.
So I honestly don't know what to do besides tell him to change his alignment or change his character.
I think your description here is also part of the problem. You have already decided exactly how the campaign will end. What forces will be involved and what role the characters will fill. However, you are still at the beginning of the campaign. You comment that the players can't afford to irritate the NPC prince since it will mean that they will lose the final battle however, many weeks, months or years of campaigning away that might be. THIS is a problem since players will ALWAYS go off script even if they aren't trying to.
In the current situation, you have some players acting a bit evil, perhaps that is in character and perhaps it isn't. However, you, the DM have to remember that the characters have no idea of the plot line and they should not. They make their decision as they go along. However, in the paragraph above you have already decided that the final encounter will be Tiamat and the evil king in a giant battle against the prince, the PCs and any allies. You have also decided that if they offend the prince at this early stage then the prince won't help them against Tiamat and the king. All I can say to that is WHAT?! ... a prince who wants to free their people will be unwilling to work with someone else opposing the evil king and a dragon god just because they took chances with someone else's lives however many months/years ago? Think about it ... is it more important to free the kingdom with whatever allies you can find or to snub someone who might help for some admittedly negative actions taken some time in the past? Your position that the prince would refuse to work with the PCs and doom his people really makes no sense from the NPCs perspective assuming that their goal is to help their people and free them from the evil king. He may not be happy with his allies but he would work with them. However, the real issue is that you have decided what one small action now will mean for an over arching plot which the PCs have no idea exists.
DMing requires flexibility and adaptability. Adjust the plot to character actions and impose reasonable consequences. In the present case, the characters could have poisoned the slaves, a few might die (or you could decide the poison was so diluted that they were all just knocked unconscious - you are the DM, just make whatever you decide sound reasonable and logical). Perhaps the characters then realize it was the wrong decision because the prince decides not to give them whatever reward he had in mind for helping free the slaves. The prince and his guards should easily be high enough level to wipe the party or teach them a lesson if, for some reason, they really decide to attack him. If the plot develops this way then maybe the characters have to do some missions for the prince to regain his trust or prove that they might be worthwhile allies.
Basically, no matter what the players do, the DM adapts - the story may turn out to be something completely different from what you imagine at the beginning. Keep in mind that the only one aware of this imaginary storyline is yourself. The actual storyline is developing in front of your between the players and the interactions with the world that you present to them.
Finally, in this specific case, it sounds like at least one of your players has a character that is being played in a way that is not compatible with the group .. or perhaps even with their stated character and background. This is worth resolving with the player and perhaps a bit of railroading if the behavior is off the wall for your campaign. However, the DM needs to remember that they are in charge of the plot, they are the only one who has any idea what the plot might be and the DM can adjust everything at any time if needed in response to the character's actions. If the DM goes into the game with an idea that MUST happen then the DM will have to railroad the characters on a regular basis or award plot armor or do any number of things that take away the player ability to make decisions .. and it may not be that much fun in the long run.
I'd say the wrongness is dependent on how married you are to the campaign's final outcome. I'm still a newborn DM (my 1st "birthdays is in April), but since the game is supposed to be collaborative storytelling, I think you should roll with the punches your players throw at you. That means adjusting your story beats for when they do something stupid/evil. At the same time, in the real world, everything has consequences. Maybe don't kill the PC, but mass murder tends to make a person wanted by the authorities and be shunned by friends and allies.
On the other hand, if you are a rookie like me, it takes time and practice to work up to being able to adjust on the fly. Even in running the published module my group is doing, they very nearly went into the unmapped Underdark tunnels, and I had to come up with some really good reasons why they shouldn't do it. I could have put a portcullis further down the tunnel, or a cave-in, or looped the tunnel back around into another chamber on the map. Instead, I just gave them "you get a vague sense of unease and chill at the prospect of wandering down the tunnel" and hoped for the best. They chose to turn back. It was a bit piece of railroading because I didn't yet have an idea of how to play it out, and fortunately they went with it.
I think it's both. The players are being kinda bad, but you're also being too heavy-handed and worrying about your preset plot too much.
Sure, sometimes you can't adjust on the fly - specifically, when it's a published module and the players are doing something so far off the rails you can't figure out how you'll play the rest of it. In that case, out of character you can say "hey, sorry guys, but we're running XYZ and that module really doesn't account for you doing this, can you please not." And I'd expect the players to generally follow published modules and be reasonable and not try to break them.
But in homebrew, there really isn't that constraint. The world evolves with what the players do.
1) In the first case, I do think the player is being ridiculous. In a sane campaign, a character doesn't just randomly fight a lord because they worship different gods. The fact that the player is doing this is kind of a bad thing.
But. On the other hand. The player really has no reason to want to be friends with this particular lord either. And no, "I planned for the endgame fight to include this guy" is not a reason the player knows or cares about.
That's the kind of thing that I'd discuss out of character, with an emphasis on the character's alignment and the immediate effects - "look, if you do this, know that you're basically acting chaotic evil, and I'll require you to change your alignment to that. And, well, you guys are going to be outlaws around here, and in the short term the campaign's gonna be about you guys on the run from the law until you get out of this particular kingdom. So I'll ask if the other players are ok with you doing this, or whether in-character this would break up the party and make us just start a new campaign where we're all playing together."
But DON'T make it about the effects of this action on the eventual final battle with Tiamat. The fact that you're worried about the final battle here means, to me, that you ARE being too railroady. The final battle is not set in stone. Maybe if they piss of THIS lord, they'll get support from his rival instead! Or if they kill him, they'll get support from his successor who takes over his lands! (You haven't made up a rival or successor for him yet? Well, you can! Plenty of sessions left!). Or maybe they separately take out the king and prevent him from summoning Tiamat in the first place, and that battle doesn't happen at all!
Or maybe they figure out what's going on, and they're all evil at that point so they ally with the damn king, help him put down the rebellion, and then do quests for him to try to help him summon Tiamat. (Who may turn on them after being summoned, and they will fight her with their ally the evil king's army...)
The effect of the action on the final battle - which may or may not ever take place, and may or may not happen the way you thought it would - isn't really the problem with the player fighting the lord.
2) Same with the second bit, really. The problem with the guy poisoning the slaves isn't that it would derail the campaign. The campaign is there to be driven in weird directions! If you try to justify the railroading with "Well, it'll prevent the plot down the line from happening the way it's supposed to" - then YES you're being too railroady!
The issue is with the fact that it would in-character make the guy chaotic evil and probably break up the party, since the characters would be so different in alignment that they would not be able to work together (and the PLAYERS are so far apart in how they want this campaign to go that they can't all play together.) If that really is the issue. NOT the fact that this would piss off some NPC whose opinion the players really don't care about, but you do because you want them to end up allied later.
(Also, why hasn't the player found out what the drug does at this point? You said he's already slipped it to a barmaid - why hasn't that answered his questions? Are you trying to deliberately make sure he CAN'T find out what it does except by the PC taking it themselves, and thus blocking every avenue for him to find out by trying it out on someone else?)
Those are good points but some of them don't apply.
This prince is in exile. His father is still acting as king and the entire continent has been conquered by the evil king. This all happened nearly a decade ago so they are essentially playing rebels and outlaws already.
As for the thing about the potion, he's worried about there being another downside to it. And there is. If a spellcaster takes it they can't cast spells for 1D4 hours for every hit. But he hasn't given it to any spellcasters. He just keeps trying to dose normal people with it. All that happens is they get angry and lose a 1D4 health point.
I told them they could roll to tinker with it in their downtime between events. He just didn't roll well enough to know it.
He currently knows if you take it you roll 1D6 and add it to your current strength modifier and add 1D6 of damage to all your melee attacks then you roll 1D4 and lose that many hit points. He's a fighter so it really wouldn't affect him that much.
Those are good points but some of them don't apply.
This prince is in exile. His father is still acting as king and the entire continent has been conquered by the evil king. This all happened nearly a decade ago so they are essentially playing rebels and outlaws already.
As for the thing about the potion, he's worried about there being another downside to it. And there is. If a spellcaster takes it they can't cast spells for 1D4 hours for every hit. But he hasn't given it to any spellcasters. He just keeps trying to dose normal people with it. All that happens is they get angry and lose a 1D4 health point.
I told them they could roll to tinker with it in their downtime between events. He just didn't roll well enough to know it.
He currently knows if you take it you roll 1D6 and add it to your current strength modifier and add 1D6 of damage to all your melee attacks then you roll 1D4 and lose that many hit points. He's a fighter so it really wouldn't affect him that much.
But he keeps trying to poison people.
Is it a potion or a poison? The main reason I am asking is that potions don't typically have unlimited doses. You uncork the vial, swallow it and the effect happens. Typically, consuming part of a potion does nothing. They are magical after all. However, something designated as a poison could potentially have an effect if diluted. How does the player have enough of the substance to try feeding it to lots of people? Is he making more of it on his own? Do they have the recipe? Do they have a crate or hundreds of vials of it?
I guess I am just not seeing the issue. If it is a potion then they swallow it and it is gone, they don't have any left to feed to others. If the container has three uses then after those are gone it is finished. Did you give them a container with a very large number of doses of this potion?
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Now on your story ...
"This prince is in exile. His father is still acting as king and the entire continent has been conquered by the evil king. This all happened nearly a decade ago so they are essentially playing rebels and outlaws already."
Do the players know all of this? Did the prince explain it? If the players don't know the story then it doesn't exist and you are free to change anything you like as long as it remains consistent with what the players do know. Either way, if the prince has been in exile and fighting for 10 years, he is probably desperate for allies against the evil king even if they are rough around the edges. So, honestly, I can't see any actions the players could take damaging whatever story you want to tell. If the players attack the prince, he'll just laugh and/or ridicule the characters' incompetence, especially the Bane worshipper. The prince has been fighting for 10 years, you want him to participate in a level 20 battle at the end of the campaign, the prince is probably already close to level 20.
Anyway, the only thing the characters can do that will significantly affect how this plays out is if they decide to work for the evil king. Even then, once they get powerful enough and the evil king decides it is time to be rid of them. The character's won't have much choice but to look for allies against the king resulting in the same end story no matter which side the characters' choose to start with.
I'd let him do it and then have him deal with the consequences. You said it derailed your campaign. How? From the perspective of your evil king, it sounds like he has one less thing to worry about. How will his plans proceed without interference. Are any of the slaves children? Will the PC be labeled a child killer? I think most of a time PCs get out of control is because the DM forgets to give consequence to their actions. Remember you are not plotting a story. You are presenting the players with situations from which they build their own story. D&D isn't a video game, so your NPCs shouldn't be sitting around waiting for the players. If the players can't stop the NPC, on well he succeeds. Have them deal with the world that is the results of their actions.
Agree 100% to this. Let them attempt but have them roll for it, set your check high or one of the slaves sees them put the liquid in their food and they tell the others not to eat it. You could make an ingredient in the food act as a counter measure to the potion and nulifys the effects, or it gets too dilluted in the food that it doesn't work or only give a tiny amount bonus and no damage. There are all sorts of ways to play it off so you as the DM get the results you wanted (him not killing them) but yet letting your player play his character how he wants and making them happy in game.
Okay so I'm asking for input on something that happened in a recent session I ran and for tips on how to better handle it in the future.
In the most recent session of a Homebrew campaign I'm running I felt forced to tell a player no after they tried to poison and kill several NPCs.
A little background, the players were summoned and placed on a quest to help a revolution against an evil king who conquered the entire Continent.
The players have been asked to check out a local quarry and see what's up with the stones coming from there.
On there way they're met by the prince of a local kingdom who was banished for not swearing fealty to the evil king.
I had planned on making his sheet next week but didn't because I had a mountain of work to do for this session first. And I honestly didn't see why I would need his full background and info. Well apparently his god is the enemy of one the players gods, he chose Bane the NPC worships Tyr. Despite the NPC being respectful towards his character his character immediately wants to fight him. I had I wanted to say no when he first said he wanted to use Bane but he kept arguing until I gave in. I later persuade him to seeing how could kill the most enemies on the battlefield the next day.
The NPC asks for and gets their pledge to help him free his people from the quarry where they are working as slaves.
The next day they get inside the quarry and discover that the slaves are being held captive not with magic. But with the threat that anyone who leaves will have their family tortured and sacraficed next.
On PC, the fighter, gets it in his head that he's going to pour some water laced with a special powder he found in it.
He doesn't know everything that the powder does but he knows that it lets you add to your strength a D6 but you have to roll a D4 and take the damage immediately. I thought it would be an interesting way to sup up non-spellcasters.
When I explain to him that the slaves have been worked and abused for almost a week straight and aren't at full strength he repeats his intent to pour the water in their soup. I try to explain to him that it would kill most of them. He still wants to do it. So I have an NPC step up to stop him.
He proceeds to attack the NPC because she stopped him from poisoning them. As this is going on his other party members are moving forward and are arguing with him about killing them all. He says his NPC believes it's better to die than be a slave. But he and another character had already slipped the stuff into one barmaids drink as well as trying to find a well to dump it in.
He then says "So you're just going to railroad me" and then I respond with "Yes when you are doing something that will ruin the campaign for everyone.
Killing the NPCs would have angered the NPC and left them with nowhere to go.
He later claims that this wasn't fair because he should have gotten to kill the slaves. Because his character believes it's better than dying. He also claims he was just trying to work with the group. Despite several of them having issues with his druging and killing them
I point out the agreement and how that would essentially destroy the campaign. He said he wasn't there for the agreement so he shouldn't be held too it.
Was I unfair for railroading?
I think you should have allowed him to poison them.
But warn him that a) this makes his character chaotic evil as far as alignment is concerned and b) if the resulting intra-party conflicts aren't peacefully resolved within at most 2 sessions you reserve the right to turn his PC into an NPC and remove them from the party. PvP is almost always bad for everyone involved.
As for the story: the NPC who would be angered by this leaves and sends other adventurers to take out the evil creatures who comitted such a crime. Turn the NPC from benevolent guide to hostile mastermind so the party can follow his lead by interrogating or searching his minions. Maybe even have the evil king approach them to turn the quest around. Or give the party a chance to prove themselves to the good prince.
I would have left it to the other PCs to deal with it if they object to his actions. I'm also not of the opinion that it's possible to wreck a campaign by PC action; the campaign must adjust. I would have warned all players that if he takes this action it will have severe negative consequences for his PC and the party. If he goes ahead and the other PCs don't stop him, play it out then declare a pause while you work out what happens next. Perhaps the evil king gets word of them putting down a rebellion in the making and tries to hire them to deal with other 'problems'. In the meantime they now have a big target on them from the secret resistance movement. But I run more of a sandbox style campaign than one with a fixed story.
But there is also nothing wrong with you preventing him from taking the action - it's your table and if you felt it was needed to take a heavy hand to prevent a problem for your campaign then it's ok. Really it sounds like you have a problem player who doesn't want to play a hero and sees D&D as a chance to play a jerk. Ask him what he wants out of the game and what your expectations are for PC behavior. If they don't line up then perhaps he needs to find a different game.
I'd talk to the player and perhaps acknowledge that you didn't like to railroad him but in the moment you felt you didn't have any choice. Then have the conversation about what your expectations are of PC behavior and his opinions on that.
No, I don't think you were unfair. I would have tried talking to player and explaining, as you said, you will derail the whole campaign, please don't. If the players don't stop him, then I think there are a few options I'd take.
The poison doesn't work. I may give a reason: Divine intervention, some element of the soup is miraculously the antidote, because it is so dilute they all only take 1 point and only 2 slaves die, but they are the most beloved of the slaves so everyone hate the character. Or, I if I want to try to cull the player, I wouldn't give a reason. "nothing happens, no effect". When he asks and argues why I would answer, "Your character doesn't know, it sure seems like it should have worked."
Another option I only employeed once was, your character is now an NPC, hand him over. Your option for continuing in the campaign is to play a freed slave. Now, I wouldn't pull that with a group at home with friends, but then again I don't think I would need to.
You've put in a lot of work to run the campaign. Sometimes you need a little cooperation. If the players don't like it then collectively you need to figure out what works. It is supposed to be fun.
my 2 cents
Everyone is the main character of their story
I think the first mistake was letting him play someone who worships Bane. Not because Of Bane, per se, but because you’re the DM and it’s well within your rights to disallow anything at your table. This is double true since it seems you were found it at character creation.
A lot of players, when they want to worship an evil god, they are looking for an excuse to go murder-hobo. Worshipping an evil god lets them say, that’s what my character would do, or some other nonsense. Seems like this player is already gearing up for that.
Better to nip it in the bud. Tell them their options are, be a follower of Bane who can work well with others, change gods, or change characters.
Did you at all set it up so that rescuing the slaves seemed an impossible task? Because otherwise im having some trouble following your player's logic of "oh no they're trapped, better kill them!" Like that's a hard last last last resort and it sounds like he didn't try anything else. It's entirely possible he's just wangrodding "what his character would do" without thinking the actual situation through or considering other people's fun at the table.
I would say that the mistake was allowing someone to worship Bane in a campaign clearly intended to have a heroic flow.
If I managed to get into that situation, I would do one of three things:
Quick note:
The character who worships Bane and the one who wanted to poison the slaves are two different characters.
I meant to make that distinction but forgot. The interaction between Bane worshiper and Tyr Worshiper was something everyone was privy to. So I figured after I did that everyone would know how important this relationship was because I was fighting tooth and nail not to have them fight. But I think if it comes down to it I'm just going to let the Bane worshiper who's now level five fight the Tyr Worshiper who's a combo level 6 rogue and level 7 paladin.
I think the first mistake was allowing an evil character into what sounds like a mostly good or neutral party. Bane is lawful evil. The character sounds like they are playing towards chaotic evil. They want to kill the NPC they meet because they follow an opposing god. Is the character stupid? I would have allowed the character to attack the NPC and created stats for the NPC and his guard that would make it trivial for them to kill the character. If the character still insisted on attacking, roll initiative and wait for the NPC to mourn the loss of the character. The player can start a new character if they want.
This is the type of thing that needs to be addressed in a session 0 - what kind of campaign and characters do folks want to play? Do they WANT to have evil PCs and the possibility of PVP and inter-player conflict? If they want evil PCs without the risk of PVP then they need to create backstories and reasons for their characters to be traveling together, adventuring together and making decisions as a group.
The character in this case, doesn't get to decide on their own to try to possibly kill all the slaves. The group decides together. The other characters can stop the character. However, if the other PLAYERS do not want to stop the PLAYER because they don't want to irritate him or are concerned with his real life reaction with their characters choosing to stop his character from taking actions their characters don't approve of ... that is a different situation that you need to resolve out of game.
Anyway, in my opinion, if you are railroading here to try to mitigate the chaotic evil/murder hobo play style the one player seems to be adopting then I don't see a problem. Discuss with the player and the rest of the group and figure out what is going on and decide what sort of campaign they all want to play before it wrecks the campaign. On the other hand, if you are railroading to preserve a specific plot line you have in mind then don't do it. Just change up the plot, add consequences for the player actions and let the game continue. DMs have an idea of what might happen but if the players decide to take the side of the evil king and then eventually turn on him when he decides they have outlived their usefulness ... that's fine ... might not be the plot line you thought they would play but the players choose what they want to do this way.
The PC who worships Bane isn't the poisoner. That's part of the reason I'm posting here. The other players had already advanced to a different room. So they would have had to metagame to realize what he was doing.
Usually I'd realign it. But the whole idea of this campaign is that's it's a conspiracy type. They're trying to discover what's going on with the kingdom. The evil king has basically had mages and dark wizards formulate a way to use the roads as glyph's. Those glyph's are fueled and powered by monsters the group will have to fight.
The end is where the group (level 19/20) and the entire rebellion forces will have to take on the king who is trying to summon Tiamat because she's promised him god hood.
I know Tiamat alone is a high level encounter for a group of five level 19 or 20. So I planned on having the NPC groups band together to fight her and the King's army.
But them making an enemy of the Prince would have ruled him and his allies out. Meaning they would have lost half of their support. This would have meant they'd spend months playing a campaign with no way to win.
I tried to talk to the player afterwards but his reasons kept changing. First his PC would have done it because slavery is worse than death, but o point out that they'd have been freed when they killed the enemies. Then he was doing it to try and help the group, several group members argued with him about this. He also said that he thought they could take a D4 of damage because they were resting and drinking soup and water. When he first asked I took the time to redescribe them as emaciated and weak and sleep deprived. Which was code for not at full health. He still insisted on doing it. Even when other members of the party pointed out that they'd be freed after they killed all the enemies. He still insisted on it.
When I spoke to him later he said it would have been better if I'd just said the soup or water diluted it. I stated that next time I would do that instead. He then got mad about me saying that and insinuated that that would still be railroading.
So I honestly don't know what to do besides tell him to change his alignment or change his character.
That's the thing. All they had to do was get the key off a soldier they already killed to let them go. Then they all would have left. Which is what another player did shortly after I averted the poisoning.
I think the issue is the player knows there's a downside to the drug but doesn't want to take it himself to find out. So he keeps trying to poison people to find out what happens.
I'd just engineer a lower risk situation for him to do it in so he can satisfy his curiosity. Maybe he gets drawn into a drinking contest with an NPC who's kind of a dick and let him put the powder in his drink while he's not looking. Something will happen, hijinks ensue, the player can stop throwing the powder at every problem, all good.
Sounds like a pretty annoying player. In the future, you can as others suggested, just not have it work in the prince, what do you know, he passed his saving throw.
There is some railroading going on though, in that you are effectively requiring the party to ally with this prince. Rule of thumb, if there’s only one way to succeed at something, you are railroading. They party should have other options, other factions they can ally with, or a way to whittle down enemy forces so they can do it without allies, or probably a dozen other solutions I’m not thinking of. And the prince shouldn’t have this plot armor you’re giving him where he’s the only one who can Help them. If he dies, there should be someone else who can step into his shoes and lead his faction.
I'd let him do it and then have him deal with the consequences. You said it derailed your campaign. How? From the perspective of your evil king, it sounds like he has one less thing to worry about. How will his plans proceed without interference. Are any of the slaves children? Will the PC be labeled a child killer? I think most of a time PCs get out of control is because the DM forgets to give consequence to their actions. Remember you are not plotting a story. You are presenting the players with situations from which they build their own story. D&D isn't a video game, so your NPCs shouldn't be sitting around waiting for the players. If the players can't stop the NPC, on well he succeeds. Have them deal with the world that is the results of their actions.
I think your description here is also part of the problem. You have already decided exactly how the campaign will end. What forces will be involved and what role the characters will fill. However, you are still at the beginning of the campaign. You comment that the players can't afford to irritate the NPC prince since it will mean that they will lose the final battle however, many weeks, months or years of campaigning away that might be. THIS is a problem since players will ALWAYS go off script even if they aren't trying to.
In the current situation, you have some players acting a bit evil, perhaps that is in character and perhaps it isn't. However, you, the DM have to remember that the characters have no idea of the plot line and they should not. They make their decision as they go along. However, in the paragraph above you have already decided that the final encounter will be Tiamat and the evil king in a giant battle against the prince, the PCs and any allies. You have also decided that if they offend the prince at this early stage then the prince won't help them against Tiamat and the king. All I can say to that is WHAT?! ... a prince who wants to free their people will be unwilling to work with someone else opposing the evil king and a dragon god just because they took chances with someone else's lives however many months/years ago? Think about it ... is it more important to free the kingdom with whatever allies you can find or to snub someone who might help for some admittedly negative actions taken some time in the past? Your position that the prince would refuse to work with the PCs and doom his people really makes no sense from the NPCs perspective assuming that their goal is to help their people and free them from the evil king. He may not be happy with his allies but he would work with them. However, the real issue is that you have decided what one small action now will mean for an over arching plot which the PCs have no idea exists.
DMing requires flexibility and adaptability. Adjust the plot to character actions and impose reasonable consequences. In the present case, the characters could have poisoned the slaves, a few might die (or you could decide the poison was so diluted that they were all just knocked unconscious - you are the DM, just make whatever you decide sound reasonable and logical). Perhaps the characters then realize it was the wrong decision because the prince decides not to give them whatever reward he had in mind for helping free the slaves. The prince and his guards should easily be high enough level to wipe the party or teach them a lesson if, for some reason, they really decide to attack him. If the plot develops this way then maybe the characters have to do some missions for the prince to regain his trust or prove that they might be worthwhile allies.
Basically, no matter what the players do, the DM adapts - the story may turn out to be something completely different from what you imagine at the beginning. Keep in mind that the only one aware of this imaginary storyline is yourself. The actual storyline is developing in front of your between the players and the interactions with the world that you present to them.
Finally, in this specific case, it sounds like at least one of your players has a character that is being played in a way that is not compatible with the group .. or perhaps even with their stated character and background. This is worth resolving with the player and perhaps a bit of railroading if the behavior is off the wall for your campaign. However, the DM needs to remember that they are in charge of the plot, they are the only one who has any idea what the plot might be and the DM can adjust everything at any time if needed in response to the character's actions. If the DM goes into the game with an idea that MUST happen then the DM will have to railroad the characters on a regular basis or award plot armor or do any number of things that take away the player ability to make decisions .. and it may not be that much fun in the long run.
I'd say the wrongness is dependent on how married you are to the campaign's final outcome. I'm still a newborn DM (my 1st "birthdays is in April), but since the game is supposed to be collaborative storytelling, I think you should roll with the punches your players throw at you. That means adjusting your story beats for when they do something stupid/evil. At the same time, in the real world, everything has consequences. Maybe don't kill the PC, but mass murder tends to make a person wanted by the authorities and be shunned by friends and allies.
On the other hand, if you are a rookie like me, it takes time and practice to work up to being able to adjust on the fly. Even in running the published module my group is doing, they very nearly went into the unmapped Underdark tunnels, and I had to come up with some really good reasons why they shouldn't do it. I could have put a portcullis further down the tunnel, or a cave-in, or looped the tunnel back around into another chamber on the map. Instead, I just gave them "you get a vague sense of unease and chill at the prospect of wandering down the tunnel" and hoped for the best. They chose to turn back. It was a bit piece of railroading because I didn't yet have an idea of how to play it out, and fortunately they went with it.
Carrion
I think it's both. The players are being kinda bad, but you're also being too heavy-handed and worrying about your preset plot too much.
Sure, sometimes you can't adjust on the fly - specifically, when it's a published module and the players are doing something so far off the rails you can't figure out how you'll play the rest of it. In that case, out of character you can say "hey, sorry guys, but we're running XYZ and that module really doesn't account for you doing this, can you please not." And I'd expect the players to generally follow published modules and be reasonable and not try to break them.
But in homebrew, there really isn't that constraint. The world evolves with what the players do.
1) In the first case, I do think the player is being ridiculous. In a sane campaign, a character doesn't just randomly fight a lord because they worship different gods. The fact that the player is doing this is kind of a bad thing.
But. On the other hand. The player really has no reason to want to be friends with this particular lord either. And no, "I planned for the endgame fight to include this guy" is not a reason the player knows or cares about.
That's the kind of thing that I'd discuss out of character, with an emphasis on the character's alignment and the immediate effects - "look, if you do this, know that you're basically acting chaotic evil, and I'll require you to change your alignment to that. And, well, you guys are going to be outlaws around here, and in the short term the campaign's gonna be about you guys on the run from the law until you get out of this particular kingdom. So I'll ask if the other players are ok with you doing this, or whether in-character this would break up the party and make us just start a new campaign where we're all playing together."
But DON'T make it about the effects of this action on the eventual final battle with Tiamat. The fact that you're worried about the final battle here means, to me, that you ARE being too railroady. The final battle is not set in stone. Maybe if they piss of THIS lord, they'll get support from his rival instead! Or if they kill him, they'll get support from his successor who takes over his lands! (You haven't made up a rival or successor for him yet? Well, you can! Plenty of sessions left!). Or maybe they separately take out the king and prevent him from summoning Tiamat in the first place, and that battle doesn't happen at all!
Or maybe they figure out what's going on, and they're all evil at that point so they ally with the damn king, help him put down the rebellion, and then do quests for him to try to help him summon Tiamat. (Who may turn on them after being summoned, and they will fight her with their ally the evil king's army...)
The effect of the action on the final battle - which may or may not ever take place, and may or may not happen the way you thought it would - isn't really the problem with the player fighting the lord.
2) Same with the second bit, really. The problem with the guy poisoning the slaves isn't that it would derail the campaign. The campaign is there to be driven in weird directions! If you try to justify the railroading with "Well, it'll prevent the plot down the line from happening the way it's supposed to" - then YES you're being too railroady!
The issue is with the fact that it would in-character make the guy chaotic evil and probably break up the party, since the characters would be so different in alignment that they would not be able to work together (and the PLAYERS are so far apart in how they want this campaign to go that they can't all play together.) If that really is the issue. NOT the fact that this would piss off some NPC whose opinion the players really don't care about, but you do because you want them to end up allied later.
(Also, why hasn't the player found out what the drug does at this point? You said he's already slipped it to a barmaid - why hasn't that answered his questions? Are you trying to deliberately make sure he CAN'T find out what it does except by the PC taking it themselves, and thus blocking every avenue for him to find out by trying it out on someone else?)
Those are good points but some of them don't apply.
This prince is in exile. His father is still acting as king and the entire continent has been conquered by the evil king. This all happened nearly a decade ago so they are essentially playing rebels and outlaws already.
As for the thing about the potion, he's worried about there being another downside to it. And there is. If a spellcaster takes it they can't cast spells for 1D4 hours for every hit. But he hasn't given it to any spellcasters. He just keeps trying to dose normal people with it. All that happens is they get angry and lose a 1D4 health point.
I told them they could roll to tinker with it in their downtime between events. He just didn't roll well enough to know it.
He currently knows if you take it you roll 1D6 and add it to your current strength modifier and add 1D6 of damage to all your melee attacks then you roll 1D4 and lose that many hit points. He's a fighter so it really wouldn't affect him that much.
But he keeps trying to poison people.
Is it a potion or a poison? The main reason I am asking is that potions don't typically have unlimited doses. You uncork the vial, swallow it and the effect happens. Typically, consuming part of a potion does nothing. They are magical after all. However, something designated as a poison could potentially have an effect if diluted. How does the player have enough of the substance to try feeding it to lots of people? Is he making more of it on his own? Do they have the recipe? Do they have a crate or hundreds of vials of it?
I guess I am just not seeing the issue. If it is a potion then they swallow it and it is gone, they don't have any left to feed to others. If the container has three uses then after those are gone it is finished. Did you give them a container with a very large number of doses of this potion?
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Now on your story ...
"This prince is in exile. His father is still acting as king and the entire continent has been conquered by the evil king. This all happened nearly a decade ago so they are essentially playing rebels and outlaws already."
Do the players know all of this? Did the prince explain it? If the players don't know the story then it doesn't exist and you are free to change anything you like as long as it remains consistent with what the players do know. Either way, if the prince has been in exile and fighting for 10 years, he is probably desperate for allies against the evil king even if they are rough around the edges. So, honestly, I can't see any actions the players could take damaging whatever story you want to tell. If the players attack the prince, he'll just laugh and/or ridicule the characters' incompetence, especially the Bane worshipper. The prince has been fighting for 10 years, you want him to participate in a level 20 battle at the end of the campaign, the prince is probably already close to level 20.
Anyway, the only thing the characters can do that will significantly affect how this plays out is if they decide to work for the evil king. Even then, once they get powerful enough and the evil king decides it is time to be rid of them. The character's won't have much choice but to look for allies against the king resulting in the same end story no matter which side the characters' choose to start with.
Agree 100% to this. Let them attempt but have them roll for it, set your check high or one of the slaves sees them put the liquid in their food and they tell the others not to eat it. You could make an ingredient in the food act as a counter measure to the potion and nulifys the effects, or it gets too dilluted in the food that it doesn't work or only give a tiny amount bonus and no damage. There are all sorts of ways to play it off so you as the DM get the results you wanted (him not killing them) but yet letting your player play his character how he wants and making them happy in game.